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Copyright Office Suggests Changes To Induce Act
An anonymous reader writes "The US Copyright Office has proposed a new version of the Induce act. Under this new version it is apparently more difficult to bring charges against a company for inducement. Stories on the subject can be found at DRMBlog.com and at News.com."
It's a start to change, but there's still a long way to go. The fact that they're still planning on outlawing P2P networks is crazy. I'm not going to bring up all the arguments about what P2P networks are and what could be illegal like has been done so many times before... but, are the people making this laws STUPID?
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Could it be another trick by Orin Hatch?
First have a proposed act that is so ridiculous no one can sanely accept it, then turn around and seem to offer a compromise, and suddenly the masses gobble it all up!
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From TFA: "Last week's meeting was attended by representatives from IBM, Apple, Hewlett-Packard, the Business Software Alliance, the RIAA and the Motion Picture Association of America." How come no one very interested in free speech is attending these meetings? I'd expect maybe the Creative Commons people, or someone similar to attend.
I can understand the regs on p2p software
You can? You understand it? Or you're willing to accept it? Or you just don't care? Because, I neither understand it nor am I willing to accept it. P2P has a myriad of legitimate uses, especially to someone running a *nix system.
See, the problem is that people go "Oh, well, they want to ban X? I don't use X, so that's alright." They don't think about the fact that it's X today, but hey, that just set a precedent for banning Y. Soon you're going "Aww crap, IM just got banned because it includes a file transfer feature. How did this happen?"
While I think the INDUCE act goes WAY to far in criminalizing things, I think something needs to be done about P2P networks that thrive on copyrighted material. There are legitimate uses for P2P (as many torrents show), but when something is used for 99.9% copyright violation, something needs to be done. If I ran a flea market and rented booth, I couldnst claim I didn't have any control over what was being sold. And if 99% of the booths sold illegal merchandise (stolen merchandise, illegal fireworks, drugs, etc) you can guarantee that the flea market would be shut down eventually. Plausible deniablility can and should only go so far.
Could Kazza be used for legitimate uses? Sure it could. But is it? Not a chance in hell. And they do nothing to try and even try to push people toward using it legitimately. P2P shouldn't be outlawed. But if 99% of your network is copyrighted material, and you are told this over and over again, and you do nothing to even pretend to try and correct the problem, then your network should be shut down. Common carrier status only works because most of the traffic is legitimate traffic. When all the traffic is in violation, then common carrier status doesn't help anyone and should be revoked.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
There wouldn't be activist judges overturning laws if there weren't activist Congressmen making them.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
- (A) 13 14 distributing any dissemination technology capable of substantial noninfringing uses knowing that it can be used for infringing purposes, so long as that technology is not designed to be used for infringing purposes;
P2P networks are capable of substantial noninfringing uses (whether or not they experience substantial noninfringing uses).So the question comes down to whether or not a P2P network is designed to be used for infringing purposes -- it seems there is some measure or intent that is required for this to be true, and that seems awfully hard to decide or prove one way or another. But, this is sufficiently ambiguous that it would need to be decided in a very messy court battle. Plus, this clause doesn't place any limitations on the extent of infringing purposes for which the technology must be designed - one could argue that if it allows even a single infringing use, it was designed that way, and therefore it was designed to be used for infringing purposes.
Of course, one could make the same claim about email.
People that sell weapons, tools, and cars better be punished too. I mean, they sold me that car, I had to run down the school children. They sold me the pistol, so I had to shoot someone. They sold me the chainsaw so I had to re-enact a movie that they produced.
Job? I don't have time to get a job! Who will sit around and bitch about being broke and unemployed then?
In part because modern civilization and its economic model is based on technological advance which provides new opportunities for increasing the net output of society. If you stop, block, or slow technology, it's the entire civilization that suffers. Oh I know P2P is probably not a critical advance, but it's in its infancy, and we cannot truly know what it might bring us beyond the current applications. I've thought about how distributed computing and P2P technology could evolve and change the face of computing.
Also, the constitution is about the PEOPLE. It should, beyond any other purpose, serve the people who constitute the nation. Laws should also reflect the needs and wants of the people, and not of small groups and corporations. If the laws are badly implemented or irrelevant in a new society, they should be changed or annulled.
I don't want people who create works or invent, or think up new technologies to have those exploited by others for profit, but non-for-profit and personal use should not be outlawed.
If he explores all forms and substances Straight homeward to their symbol-essences; He shall not die.
Ask for a lot more than you expect to get. Then you can appear reasonable when you compromise down -- even as the resultant compromise exceeds your original, occulted goals.
This is what happens when pragmatism wins out over principle, but no one pays attention to that... same as when it happened with the DMCA, Mickey Mouse Copyright Act, AHRA, etc. Reactionary pragmatists come out in strong support for modifying it to strip some of its teeth away, dismissing campaigning on principle to abolish it as impractical... and the core of the law sits there festering on the books while the progress-minded pragmatists comfortably pat themselves on the back for a job well done.
It is still completely absurd that they can outlaw something that 'induces' someone to be music pirates or what have you. Guns are still legal. Could those induce someone to go on a shooting spree? There are perfectly legal uses for p2p. Congress must realize that destroying something because of bad side effects dispite monumental good uses is totally and utterly inane.
I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting be
[blather]...piracy will continue...[blather]
Talk about NOT getting the point of his post!
This is a war on the Information Commons, not piracy. They want to remove your ability to read a book twice, and similar rights you've always enjoyed. They are trying to lock up the exchange of information.
Please, who gives a damn about the so-called pirates (stupid phrase, anyway).
mefus
In Open Society, GPL Software frees YOU!