New California Law Bans Anonymous Media File Sharing

An anonymous reader writes "It looks like California will soon be requiring emails to share files. The story from SF Gate has a few details as Ahnold goes on his signing spree in Sacramento. 'Aiding the industry that helped him gain worldwide fame, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation Tuesday aimed at discouraging online piracy by requiring anyone disseminating movies or music on the Internet to disclose their e-mail address.' Also he signed a bill to limit the sale of video games."

Comments

Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[ackthpt]

The signing was hailed by the bill's sponsor, the Motion Picture Association of America,

Well, if they sponsor it, it's gotta be good for the Governator and what's good for him is good for California. You got something to say about that, Girly-man?

the Motion Picture Association of America, which says it loses $3.5 billion annually to piracy

Hollywood accounting, ya gotta love it, babe.

Governor and video game star Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a measure aimed at curbing sales of violent video games to children. .. Some of Schwarzenegger's movies were spun off into video games that bear the governor's likeness - although they are not among the most violent under the industry's ratings system.

Sure is helpful to have connections to those who determine what violent is. He might want to consider a ban on showing caskets of returning service personnel from Iraq, as that could upset impressionable television viewers.

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[stratjakt]

Governor and video game star Arnold Schwarzenegger

Video game star? What video game was he in besides T2: Arcade?

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[bofkentucky]

I'm pretty sure there was a "Last Action Hero" game

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[smackjer]

T3: Rise of the Machines. ;)

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

the Motion Picture Association of America, which says it loses $3.5 billion annually to piracy

Hollywood accounting, ya gotta love it, babe.


Yeh, my favorite was that Forest Gump made no profit whatsoever. At least for the purposes of royalties to the original author. Haha.

Wonder what this means for my own anonymous network... we're finally starting to see some geometric growth. Figures, eh?

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[pizzaman100]

He was in a number of pinball games, and we know how violent those are. ;)

TERMINATOR 2

TERMINATOR 3

Last Action Hero

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[Anonymous Coward]

the Motion Picture Association of America, which says it loses $3.5 billion annually to piracy

Hollywood accounting, ya gotta love it, babe.

Ummmm... the folks in Hollywood have not been getting much of my money recently, but it's not because of piracy. It's because they have produced next to nothing that I want to see or hear, regardless of how much I would have to pay for it!

If these people really want to increase their income, they should stop puttering around with piracy issues; that's pocket change in comparison with actually producing movies and music worth buying.

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[MikeBabcock]

Neither did Spiderman ...

Jeez.

Even better is that somehow Christian Fundamentalist types (I'm in that group) somehow manage to side with a pair of industries (MPAA/RIAA members) who have historically been the most rebellious and counter-culture.

Who thinks its ok to produce music that incites violence against the police? The RIAA of course. Who thinks copying music is bad? The same people ... oh wait ... hello, McFly?

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[eliza_effect]

There was also a True Lies game for SNES (and Gameboy, too, now that I think about it).

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[eggz128]

Total Recall

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[good-n-nappy]

No see, it's that he's really good at playing video games. His skills in the Sims Online are legendary. And surely you've heard of his mighty exploits in Zoo Tycoon?

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[I Love this Company!]

Last Action Hero, Predator, Terminator, and Terminator 2: Judgement Day for the NES.

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Actually, both groups are going after all sorts of religions. For instance, they "lobbied" (no idea what word to use here, bribed?) Sunni Islam into declaring it a sin to infringe intellectual property less than a year ago.

Personally I'd find it hilarious, if it wasn't so serious... how far can they go? 200 years after the death of the author, life in prison for breaking a directv card?

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[JavaLord]

He might want to consider a ban on showing caskets of returning service personnel from Iraq, as that could upset impressionable television viewers.

He might want to consier worrying about illegal immigrants crossing his states borders. All of this worry about filesharing or if a child is playing a violent video game while 600,000 illegal immigrants come into the US a year, mostly into California. How hard is it for 10 to 20 terrorists to get in with that group of 600,000?

California and our government needs to get their priorities straight. Don't worry about what Video games kids are playing, that is a parents job. Instead, worry about securing the border, getting citizenship for the hard working Mexicans that want to come here to live the American dream and Kick out the Criminals, Terrorists, and other assorted thugs.

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[Toby_Tyke]

Video game star? What video game was he in besides T2: Arcade?

Virtually every Arnie action movies has a game spun off from it. Red Heat, T1/2, Total Recall, Running Man, Predator, the list goes on. Red Heat was the firts game I bought on disk for my Spectrum +3.

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Yeh, as an article. The sig generally only causes tolerable traffic.

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[IronMagnus]

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[ackthpt]

He might want to consier worrying about illegal immigrants crossing his states borders.

Catching dirt-poor people trying to sneak over the border is one thing. Trying to catch well funded people is another. You're not going to see terrorists trying to sneak in from Mexico, as they're more likely to drive across the border from Canada or sail into a harbor in Florida. The hardest part of catching bad men is when they haven't done anything already to be identified for.

That said, do you enjoy inexpensive lettuce, strawberries, kiwi fruit, cabbage, brussels sprouts, artichokes, melons, garlic, etc.? Someone's got to pick them and I don't see any white-european faces out there in those fields.

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[Slime-dogg]

Sunni Islam into declaring

Didn't that used to be Cat Stevens? Hmm. It was probably a favor that he owed the RIAA.

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[Pantero Blanco]

If you're sweating on a hot day, you probably won't mind someone spraying you with a mist bottle.

If they use a high-pressure hose, however...

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[Pantero Blanco]

Someone quotes that every damn time this issue comes up. There's a difference between legally immigrating to the US and sneaking over the Rio Grande.

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[jp10558]

Your own anonymous network? It must be real good cause all I see is vaporware.

More ontopic, where do we provide this e-mail address? How is one supposed to do this? How many people use 123@abc.net?

And a misdemenor? How are they going to slap you with that? Or find you? Is california now going to spend money on tracking down everyone sharing anything in the state?

For the same reasons it is hard for the RIAA to find the right person to sue, it would be similarily hard to get someone for this misdemeanor.

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[Pantero Blanco]

"I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

Guess what that door is?

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Well, not very bright, and apparently not able to read. Off the shelf VPN software, tardboy. Doesn't even require any specific implementation (though I'd stay away from MS PPTP).

How can this be anonymous then? Routing. You don't send packets to their destination directly, another peer forwards them. You'll only know remote destinations by a 10.x.x.x IP that is meaningless. And if you choose your peers carefully (across an international border), then they can't be forced to snitch on you, useful wiretaps become difficult, search warrants, and all that junk are hindered.

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[shadowbearer]

That particular piece is inscribed on the Statue of Liberty, which is/was the gateway for LEGAL immigrants to come to this country.

I'll agree that in many respects the INS has become too self-serving; BUT there are also good reasons for denying massive amounts of illegal immigrants access to this country without vetting them first. If you don't believe me, go live in Los Angeles for a year or two.

Or ask any of the residents of Austin, MN - and many other towns/cities - just how "beneficial" illegal immigration has been for them. Rising crime rates, foolish restrictions on the local police as to who they can prosecute and who they cannot, overwhelming intrusion into criminal matters by social welfare agencies, etc, etc....

Sorry, but I'm one of those who believes in earning one's place in a new society, not just getting it by politically correct fiat. I daresay most legal immigrants agree - all the ones I've ever met do. Yeah, it's easier to make a living here than it is in Mexico or many other countries - but that doesn't mean that you can come here and shirk the responsibilities that come with citizenship, nor that anyone has a right to be a parasite*, no more than anywhere else.

Sigh.

SB
* I'm not saying that all illegal immigrants are parasites, but altogether too many of them are. I know people and have friends from both worlds, and the ones who come here to MAKE a life are disgusted by the many more who come here to suck off of the public teat.

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[Moofie]

See, there's where I disagree. At least, there SHOULDN'T be a difference.

Want to come to the US to work? Great. Here's a photo ID and a tax ID number. Welcome to America.

I'm sick of the vultures that profiteer from the sweat of others, and I'm sick of the politicians who can't get their act together to make it equitable and safe to work here. It's ridiculous.

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[carrus85]

And this is wise, how? I mean, if the government wants this to be more than just a sit in the books law, then they are going to have to spend money (which california is already in desparate lack) finding these so-called criminals, assuming these people are going to even give their emails. Considering that the RIAA already threatend to sue anyone caught downloading music, you think that people would stop downloading it, but it doesn't seem to stop that many people...

Besides, we need to look at the scope of this law anyway. Does this mean that windows file sharing by the dumb user who happens to have a public IP is going to be illegal? Is it going to be illegal to have your own internet site without supplying your email address in plain view for spammers? Etc.

People just need to face it. Unless the nature of the internet changes, it is damned near impossible to regulate.

"require and email address for people who share files" --- and this is going to deter people from sharing files more than a threat to sue? Seriously, if anyone could implement this, it would be a cakewalk. But, alas, anyone that has half a clue when it comes to networking soon realizes that it is dang near impossible to track down an IP to an exact geographic location, let alone find enough evidence to prove the traffic came from that particular address.

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[guiscard]

Where would you suggest we kick the criminals to?

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[Wah]

INS doesn't exist anymore.

Immigration is now part of the Motherland Security department.

For those that like puns, it's gone from INS to ICE.

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) relocated March 1 from the Department of Justice to the Department of, Homeland Security, and its operations will be handled by three new agencies.

The transition took place in March [2003], when' the Department of Homeland Security took over its functions and responsibilities. The former INS was split into three agencies:

Bureau of. Citizenship and Immigration Services' (www.bcis.gov) .now handles petitions for immigration benefits and naturalization applications.

* Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (www.customs.gov) deals with immigration enforcement and related functions at the borders arid, ports of entry.

* Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (www.bice.immigration.gov) handles the interior enforcement of immigration and customs laws.

So now 'legal' immigrants have to get thoroughly vetted by a larger morass of beaurocrats. This costs money and takes time. The lag in the marketplace creates excess demand, which creates value opportunites, and finally you get this kind of crap every now and again.

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[shadowbearer]

I'd seen a few blurbs about the absorption. The ramifications didn't strike me until now. Thanks... I think.

ICE cold rage. One lousy pun traded for another? :D

Same buru+added+bururagecracy.

It's the old story... they multiply like rabbits, and with about the same distributed IQ. I'm not talking only about immigrants either, it's a parasitic relation now.

But I stand by what I said. At this point in time, uncontrolled immigration is more destructive than constructive. I hate that. I hate saying it. But I can't find anything to convince me that it isn't true.

Fuck. I'm only two generations removed from Ellis Island.

The morass creates jobs in the bea-ucratecy. Government feeds on itself until it self-destructs. Such is that way of nearly every political entity in history. Continuation of specialization in our government leads to ... well, I don't have to elaborate, do I?

Don't have to teach me the concept of the self-feeding destructive feedback loop either, I've been watching it happen for nearly a quarter century.

Sorry if this is blunt, the Scotch/wash is good tonite, it's my Friday night. You kicked a few old stale brain cells into functional status :D

We're pretty well fucked. Once the disease spreads past a few organs than it's much harder to eliminate...

But, hey, cheers... I think :(

SB

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[Monkelectric]

here's the problem with that: Illegal immigrants working in the US are really a business subsidy. Here's how it works: Illegal immigrants come over here, they work for say 4$ an hour (I have no idea what an illegal immigrant actually makes). However -- this isn't enought to live on, pay taxes, and pay medical, etc. They use government services (ever gone to an emergency room in california? its a 24 - 48 hour WAIT if you're not trauma) which cost taxpayers a fortune.

If you don't believe me, a recent study showed that Walmart *COSTS* the state of california 80 million a year in services consumed by walmart employees (welfare, medical care for uninsured, etc). And walmart pays a HELL of a lot better then picking fruit or day labor.

So basically, tax payers are subsidizing the cost of labor for companies which employ illegal aliens...

And the crux of the situation is it sucks all around. The aliens are trying to escape a horrible situation in mexico, but they're making a horrible situation here. Most Californians feel at this point that we've already been *WAY* too generous and its time to look out for ourselves.

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[edittard]

There's a difference between legally immigrating to the US and sneaking over the Rio Grande.

And if there's anyone who knows that, it's Arneeee, who came over on a tempory visa for a body building competition and accidentally forgot to go home.
http://www.zazona.com/ShameH1B/JDNewsArchive/2003/ 2003%2010-01%20Schwarzenegger%20is%20NIV%20Scoffla w.txt

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[Fred_A]

I stopped buying his games after Kindergarden Cop. That game was way to difficult, those kids were really too small to hit.

And it took ages to get the flamethrower, and you had to make a recitation to kill the boss on level 2, and colour pictures without going over the sides. And you had to hold hands when you crossed the street to get ammo at the gun shop.
Anyway it sucked.

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[Fred_A]

McFly... *Spider*man...

Is there something going on there ?

Spiderman, Batman, Superman, why do all those superheroes have jewish names anyway ? ;)

(note to moderators, this is not meant to be *insightful*)

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

I mean no disrespect. However, it's clear just from the fact that there are different sects of Islam, that people can interpret the Quran differently, is it not?

While these muslims may have interpreted it that way on their own, given time or chance, I still wonder if they might have interpreted it differently.

I ask you, as you understand it, is IP infringement theft? Your own religion was renowned throughout the world as the foundation for some of the best science ever, while my own ancestors struggled through the dark ages. Those scientists didn't make the great advances they did by setting up an obtuse form of monopolistic protectionism.

Since IP is nothing more than a government granted monopoly (it's only wrong to copy if the government says so), how can this be anything like theft? Wrong maybe, on the level of not obeying your government (supposing that is a sin for muslims), but certainly not theft?

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[cdrguru]

He might want to consider a ban on showing caskets of people killed on California highways, as this senseless and needless death is over four times (4,138 for 2002).

Do you believe that people killed on California (or any other state) highways are more or less senseless than people killed in Iraq? There will never be any benefit to people killed in these accidents, and the total for all of the US is something like 50,000 a year. Come on, if you want to rally behind some senseless killings, let's solve a problem that we are in control of!

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[Moofie]

That's what I mean: The subsidy needs to stop.

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[Monkelectric]

Then I lectured you for nothing :) thanks for taking it so well ;-)

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[Moofie]

That's the thing about people I agree with. They tend to be right.

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Not even a muslim, #3 seems right to me too. #1 seems problematic... how can it be any sort of binding contract when I have to pay for it before I even know what I'm agreeing to? But once I've seen the "contract", I can't get my money back if I disagree.

Re:Paying Back Favors and Pot Whitwashes Kettle

[kd5ujz]

Is it possible this will fall under the new law outlawing anonymous website registration/fake whois info? http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=inte rnetNews&storyID=6297075

NO.

[Clothist]

Screw this. I am not going to obey this law. Tough. Go ahead and arrest me or fine me or whatever, when I get out/pay fines, I'll go right back to doing what I was going.

Disclosure: I don't live in California.

Re:NO.

[sTalking_Goat]

Screw this. I am not going to obey this law. Tough. Go ahead and arrest me or fine me or whatever, when I get out/pay fines, I'll go right back to doing what I was going.

My sentiments exactly. This law is almost impossible to enforce. Trying to chase down people who break this law will cost the state millions. So what the point? Sounds like Arnold kowtowing to the Industry.

I didn't vote for the man, but I had to admit a while back that he was doing a decent job. Now this...

Re:NO.

[gcaseye6677]

This is what you call feel-good legislation. It makes the RIAA/MPAA lobbying groups feel like they're getting something for their efforts. Any technical person knows the law is meaningless (how hard is it to sign up for an annonymous Hotmail account?) and that it will not affect filesharing at all. But I say let the lobbyists have their petty victory. Maybe it will make them feel like they got something accomplished and they won't try as hard to buy a law that has a truly chilling effect. Wishful thinking, I know.

Re:NO.

[Anonymous Coward]

But hotmail would have your IP address for when you first created the account. Oh duh! You'd use an Internet cafe.

Re:NO.

[k0ft]

This is what you call feel-good legislation. It makes the RIAA/MPAA lobbying groups feel like they're getting something for their efforts. Any technical person knows the law is meaningless (how hard is it to sign up for an annonymous Hotmail account?) and that it will not affect filesharing at all. But I say let the lobbyists have their petty victory. Maybe it will make them feel like they got something accomplished and they won't try as hard to buy a law that has a truly chilling effect.

I'd have more confidence in the intelligence of the RIAA/MPAA than the intelligence of the government. This isnt a feel good situation for the entertainment industry that we should just blow off as irrelevant just because it looks meaningless on the surface.

This in fact has a lot of meaning, it means the industry has yet another foot hold in our legal system. Once a law has made it into the system, it's damn hard to get it out. You watch, in a year, they'll be lobbying that it's not effective enough, and it will be even easier to add new rules to whats already there second time around.

This is a common strategy, you see it all over the place. Take away a little freedom, get people used to it, then take a little more.

And whats especially disturbing are the heavy ties with the entertainment industy that Mr. Schwartznegger has, it's pretty obvious who he's looking out for.

Re:NO.

[Some_Llama]

but you COULD sign up for one of the temporary email addresses, you know the one's that expire after so many hours... how they gonna track that?

Re:NO.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that example@domain.com is going to be in BIG trouble over this one.

Re:NO.

[Anonymous Coward]

Grasshopper, this law wasn't passed to be enforced by itself. Its intent is to add additional criminal punishments to the pirates. Up to now, RIAA/MPAA's only resort was to sue the pirates in a civil court, where the culprit would just lose money. With this law, when RIAA/MPAA choose to target a pirate, they can also add the threat of a criminal record and jail time.

Re:NO.

[Hooded One]

I do live in CA but I don't plan on following it either, if only because I can't figure out for the life of me what exactly I'm "required" to do.

I'm serious here. I read the article, and I really don't have any idea what compliance might entail, say on BitTorrent for example, but really on any P2P network.

Re:NO.

[tomhudson]

From the article:

California file sharers who trade songs or films without providing an e- mail address will be guilty of a misdemeanor

Doesn't say WHO's email address you need to give - so give this one:arnolds@kennedy.org, or abuse@schwarzenegger.com.

There's also this:

Last week he signed an executive order prohibiting state employees from using <b>software designed for file sharing</b>.

Guess that means no more networked windows boxes for california employees, since Windows can share files with a right-click. And no more Outlook, because THAT can share files too, even when you don't want to.

Come to think of it, a ban on file-sharing software pretty much kills all email, all cd-burning programs, etc.

I guess this is why people consider Arnie to be funniest when he's trying to be serious.

Re:NO.

[feed_me_cereal]

I'd think giving them a feeling of accomplishment would only encourage them. "Hey, wow! You *can* buy a law!"

Re:NO.

[visgoth]

Computers may as well be flat out banned then. Any operating system that allows saving of files is "file sharing software". A user could save to a device, and then connect the device to another computer. OMG, filesharing!!!

Re:NO.

[ImaLamer]

(how hard is it to sign up for an annonymous Hotmail account?)

How hard is it to check the logs?

If your e-mail is connected with sharing Terminator then all they have to do is ask Microsoft to tell them who pir8moovies@hotmail.com is. To make Microsoft play along all they have to say is that they've shared Microsoft Office as well.

To make things worse, many people tie their Hotmail (Passport) accounts to their Windows machines.

Try an e-mail like privacy.nu...

Re:NO.

[tomhudson]

... and we've got iPods, etc. And NICs.

Plus, my cell-phone allows me to share files.

Good thing I live in Canuckistan (Ca - na - da :-)

Re:NO.

[hesiod]

> "Hey, wow! You *can* buy a law!"

I think they already knew that: if they can buy laws from the U.S. government, the CA government is easie.r

Re:NO.

[visgoth]

Come to think of it, books, writing implements, and spoken language should be banned as well, as they're forms of data transfer...

I'm also glad I'm a Canuckistanian :)

Re:NO.

[ultranova]

But hotmail would have your IP address for when you first created the account. Oh duh! You'd use an Internet cafe.

Well, unless you use Freenet for file sharing, then anyone who knows that you run a p2p app also knows your IP address.

Besides, if they need to consult Hotmail logs to identify you, then it might prove to be a little difficult to sue you if you don't have an account ;).

Re:NO.

[tomhudson]

"Last week he signed an executive order prohibiting state employees from using software designed for file sharing."

Well, so much for Samba in California government offices, I guess.

... and web servers.

... and browsers...

Re:NO.

[yourmom16]

From the article: California file sharers who trade songs or films without providing an e- mail address will be guilty of a misdemeanor Doesn't say WHO's email address you need to give

Yes, as we all know the courts look at the wording of articles about the law, rather than the law itself, when making a decision.

Re:NO.

[tomhudson]

Yes, as we all know the courts look at the wording of articles about the law, rather than the law itself, when making a decision.

Actually, they can ONLY consider the wording of the law, not any hypothetical intent.

After all, the courts are not mind readers.

This is one thing that continually trips up newbies to the law - they think "Well, it must mean this, because that's the common-sense meaning", whereas interpretation is governed by a strict reading of the actual text, w/o "common-sense meanings", which are ambiguous at best, and could mean different things to different people.

Was he not paying attention?

[UID1000000]

I don't get it? Either he doesn't get it either or he wasn't paying attention while he was signing these bills. ...Anyone think he was busy pumping?

Re:Was he not paying attention?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone read the bills they sign? I haven't seen any sign of that. They have some staffer tell them what it's about. The staffer doesn't want to read the bill either and probably just asked the people who know most about the bill: the special interests who started the whole thing.

Re:Was he not paying attention?

[UID1000000]

Hmm... Yeah this happens at regular businesses too. If I need something signed, IE contracts, etc. the VPs and Presidents typically accept that I've done my job properly. They hardly ever read what I ask them to sign.

Too bad I don't have access to the forms to
assign an increase in pay for myself. ;)

sure, he can have my email address

[Indy1]

its either billg@microsoft.com

or

president@whitehouse.gov (or was it .com ?:) )

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[flyboy974]

Bill, could you please write me back. I would like to talk with you about your quest to rule the world.

Your bud, god@heaven.com

P.S. - There can be only one.

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[Carnildo]

root@localhost

And the best part is, it really works, unlike those fake addresses everyone else is suggesting!

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[DudemanX]

Dad, I always knew that you would sell out one day.

Your Son, jesus@heaven.org

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah, He just got caught up in all that .com excitement and missed the REAL opportunities presented by the War on Terror.

Sincerely,

satan@homeland-security.gov

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[joelanders]

Sorry, but your email address is right next to your username...

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[Alsee]

Actually the law is far worse than that. It does not seem like anyone has yet posted the fact that the actual text of the law requires not only an e-mail address, but requires you to include your TRUE NAME AND ADDRESS. Sigh. Fucking stupid law, pardon the french.

-

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[EodLabs]

Bill, could you please write me back. I would like to talk with you about your quest to rule the world.

<Arnold Voice>
NEGATIVE
</Arnold Voice>

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[DigiShaman]

So would I... We have such unfinished business to attend too.

Your eternal pal, lucifer@hell.com

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[Phillup]

See?

I told you he could not be trusted!

satan@hell.gov

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[tumbaumba]

Your bud, god@heaven.com

.com domain. I can see that even god in it for money.

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[Pig Hogger]

its either billg@microsoft.com
or
president@whitehouse.gov (or was it .com ?:) )

It's http://whitehouse.org/.

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[andrew_dupont]

Actually, the text of the bill says that one must specify either a street address or an e-mail address.

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[kent_eh]

Fine, then everyone can use disposable e-mail addresses.

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[wandernotlost]

Dude, I could be wrong, but I don't think that's French.

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[Megane]

That's because the MPAA is tired of getting stonewalled by ISPs. So now they just want you to to cooperate like a good citizen and tell them how to find you before you even start sharing stuff.

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[flonker]

filename@mailinator.com That way each file gets its very own email address!

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[einhverfr]

How about satan@hell.nl?

I am sure something can be arranged....

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[LostCluster]

Now people just need disposable real names and physical addresses to be set...

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[iamatlas]

zzzzZZZZZZzzzzzZZZZZZzzzz.....

Wha... Hey....what's going on...? zzzzzzz...... cthulhu@hastur_can_bite_me.com

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[SpamKu]

I always use the current president.

It used to be bclinton@whitehouse.gov

now it is either

gwbush@whitehouse.gov
or
dcheney@whitehouse.go v

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[Anonymous Coward]

My favorite is mailinator.

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[shadowbearer]

To: satan@hell.gov
From: billg@MyValhalla.com

You're only pissed off because I hired your lawyers away, you cheap bastard. Whores and servants just can't compete with Swiss bank accounts. Add the A/C and they were mine, muwahahahaha!

-billg

PS: You might consider doing something about the climate down there. Hellfire and brimstone just can't compete with 300 days of rainfall. Sorry.

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[Anonymous Coward]

yep:

(5) "True name and address" means information that accurately
identifies the name of the person who is disseminating the commercial
recording or audiovisual work, along with his or her valid e-mail or
mailing address.

Like I'm telling anyone my true name, then they could summon a demon right up and kill me. Forget that.

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[kent_eh]

Now people just need disposable real names and physical addresses to be set...

Physical address is no problem.
And disposable names just take a bit of creativity. There are still people who call me Frank Sloan!

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[Eudial]

A magic email box! o.O;

I for one welcome our new root@localhost overlords.

Re:sure, he can have my email address

[networkGhettoWhore]

Sir...

Is there any way i could get a better internet connection down here. This dialup is slow as hell.

-Satan
devil@hell.org

Disclose email

[savagedome]

Alright. Go mailinator go!

Re:Disclose email

[ikkonoishi]

Nah. Just use this.

governor_@_governor.ca.gov

(Might be wrong harvested it here)

HA!

[Malicious]

ipiratemusic@hotmail.com
anonymimityismyfriend@hotmail.com
youcantfindme@hotmail.com

Need I continue?

Re:HA!

[Anonymous Coward]

ifartinyourgeneraldirection@hotmail.com? Or is that too long?

Re:HA!

[jrumney]

Yeah, like Microsoft is going to protect your anonimity when the MPAA comes knocking. Try: ipiratemusic@newmail.ru anonymimityismyfriend@satcom.ir youcantfindme@offroader.com.cn

Re:HA!

[Zen Punk]

Erm...what exactly does Microsoft have on me, hotmail or no? It's not as if I have to enter my real name, address, etc. to get an e-mail addy. What, IP? Which one out of the countless IP's I use to log on to Hotmail is my home? Microsoft neither knows nor cares.

Re:HA!

[Tongo]

Shows how long you've been on the internet. I remember when hotmail was not owned/affiliated with Microsoft. Damn, that was back when the web was still fun.

So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Set up a free email account and never check it.

http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-df1a8a3530-9d279 2d bf5-9adf5287fc

Re:So...

[chris_mahan]

But set it up from a computer at a net cafe. or kinko's. Pay cash.

Re:So...

[zx-6e]

http://www.anonymizer.com/ is your friend.

It will never survive.

[Class Act Dynamo]

I am willing to bet it will be struck down as inhibiting legitimate anonymous free speech.

Re:It will never survive.

[strictfoo]

"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"

I love that sig.

Re:It will never survive.

[Izago909]

"I am willing to bet it will be struck down as inhibiting legitimate anonymous free speech."

Since when does freedom of speach extend to the illigal distribution of copywritten movies over the internet? Since that is the only instance when this law can take effect I realy dont see what everyone is so worked up over. Hell, there is even an exception clause for sending movies to your firends and family.

That might be a good rebuttal, except this law does not specifically discriminate between people sharing copyrighted media, and media which can be freely copied (public domain, creative commons, authors consent, etc).

Re:It will never survive.

[Skjellifetti]

The story does not say that the law is restricted to sharing of copyrighted materials only. Suppose someone writes a political paraody song about their boss that they want to diseminate anonymously. This law could make the anonymous sharing of such material a crime. If you have info that the law applies only to copyrighted material, then show us. The story did not have enough info to answer that either way.

Re:It will never survive.

[HiThere]

Actually, for the last several decades the right to anonymous free speech has been acknowledged as a constitutional right. Unfortunately, what is a right is determined by the Supreme Court, and how expensive (and dangerous) it is to get a hearing in the Supreme Court is determined by the lower court system. And the court system is so overcrowded there isn't room for all the good cases. (Even when there was, the Supreme Court would frequently refuse to hear an appeal, because they didn't want to tackle that decision at that point in time.)

Merely being right is no protection.

Re:It will never survive.

[sqlrob]

Moot point, since *all* material is copyrighted.

Re:It will never survive.

[uberdave]

Rights are supposed to be assumed, and only limited when it's in the public interest. You shouldn't have to have a law to *protect* your right to anonymity.

Re:It will never survive.

[EzInKy]

There's no right to anonymous free speech -- one of the important issues regarding free speech is the responsibility for what you say.

According to the Supreme Court there is.

If you can find a law that protects your anonymity as a right, you're really on to something.

Here is Justice Steven's opinion:

"Justice Steven's opinion for the Court note that arguments favoring the ratification of the Constitution advanced in the Federalist Papers were published under fictitious names. Justice Stevens said "quite apart from any threat of persecution, an advocate may believe her ideas will be more persuasive if her readers are unaware of her identity. Anonymity thereby provides a way for a writer who may be personally unpopular to ensure that readers will not prejudge her message simply because they do not like its proponent." Stevens concluded "Under our Constitution, anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent. Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority."

Re:It will never survive.

[Alsee]

Since when does freedom of speach extend to the illigal distribution of copywritten movies over the internet?

Since when does this law have ANYTHING to do with copyright infringment?

And if it did, it would be the stupidest law I've ever heard of. It would have to say you are free to share non-infringing files however you like, but if you are already commiting a FELONY sharing infringing files then we are also going to tack on a petty misdemeanor unless you post your e-mail address. I've seen some stupid laws, but that would be colossally stupid.

No, it sounds like this law is only modestly stupid and requires ANYONE who shares any music or video file to supply an e-mail address. And yes, it quite likely can get struck down on constitutional grounds as it would apply to someone distributing POLITICAL COMMENTARY music and video, such as Jib-Jab's My-Land parody. You do indeed have a highly protected right to ANONYMOUS political speech.

Just because a law is uintended to (indirectly) target copyright infringment does not give it a free pass on the First Amendment when the law infringes the right to anonymous political speech.

Jeez, we already have insane levels of criminality for copyright infringment itself (you can go to prison for 5 years for non-commercial copyright infringment/trade of a single song). What the hell is up with umpteen other laws all making PERFECTLY LEGITIMATE AND NON-INFRINGING ACTIVITIES AND PRODUCTS INTO CRIMES?!?! The DMCA, the AHRA, the broadcast flag, and now this law. All of which also smack down innocent and non-infringing people.

I have a question, do you support the DMCRA and/or BALANCE act? All they do is fix the DMCA by de-criminalizing INNOCENT and NON-INFRINGING use. If you do not support the DMCRA and/or BALANCE act then I ask how you justify the DMCA stating that innocent and non-infringing people are liable to 5 or 10 years in prision?

-

Re:It will never survive.

[jedidiah]

video != copyrighted video
music != copyrighted music

The law is overbroad in assuming that any transmission is going to be an illegal one. The works in question could be your own works or those where the owner has given explicit permission for redistribution.

This law would also prevent the anonymous distribution of audio and video with political content. It would make illegal the multimedia equivalent of the Federalist Papers.

NO, this is not just about music piracy.

Re:It will never survive.

[feed_me_cereal]

Moot point, since *all* material is copyrighted.

no, *stronger* point if all material is copyrighted. Obviously you can distribute something you created freely if you want to. IANAL, but I assume that if it can be distributed freely, the first amaendment garuntees we can do it anonymously.

Re:It will never survive.

[egomaniac]

,i>That might be a good rebuttal, except this law does not specifically discriminate between people sharing copyrighted media, and media which can be freely copied (public domain, creative commons, authors consent, etc).

From the bill: ...imprisonment for a person who is not the copyright owner to knowingly electronically
disseminate a commercial recording or audiovisual work without disclosing his or her true name and address...

Re:It will never survive.

[Izago909]

Define commercial. Would that still cover creative commons (which isn't public domain) and free distribution approved by the copyright holder.

Re:It will never survive.

[muonman]

....Since when does freedom of speach extend to the illigal distribution of copywritten movies over the internet?....

Since the First Amendment listed no exceptions or quilifications. Try reading it! Just because the American Judiciary is too stupid/corrupt to read it
doesn't mean you can't.

Re:It will never survive.

[Em Adespoton]

Look at commercial even further... various agencies have gone after people distributing things on their website for free by arguing commercial gain due to banner ads, paypal donation links, etc. So, if you have one of these on a site where you host FOSS recordings or audiovisual works, that would make those works commercial by the definitions currently in the books, would it not?

Also, another issue I haven't seen discussed yet -- if we're talking about the illegal distribution of works, who, being a felon already, is going to provide accurate information? The only people who would be providing such information would be people who wouldn't need to provide it in the first place.

Maybe California defines commercial as when the copyright owner is a corporation and not the individuals who originally created the work in question.

The other issue here is their incentive for this bill. It seems to me from the wording that this is designed to go after people leaking the preview copies of CDs and DVDs, to stop the kind of fiasco that happened a while back where someone was giving their old copies to an aid who was then making them available on the internet. Coming from that viewpoint, the lawmakers in question probably haven't even considered the other methods and works that will be affected by this bill. If you live in California, it is your responsability to provide case studies of unintended consequences, if you want to get this repealed.

Re:It will never survive.

[Em Adespoton]

Actually, ever since the Sonny Bono act, in the US:
video == copyrighted video
music == copyrighted music

However,
copyrighted != illegal
legal != public domain

You know things are getting bad when even posters on slashdot start to incorporate the lies into their worldview.

Re:It will never survive.

[ChairmanMeow]

You'd probably love this t-shit.

Does it smell like its namesake? In that case, no...

Re:It will never survive.

[wdconinc]

From the bill: "Any person who is not the copyright owner who knowingly electronically disseminates a commercial recording or audiovisual work without disclosing his or her true name and address, and the title of the recording or audiovisual work is punishable by a fine not exceeding two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500), imprisonment in a county jail for a period not exceeding one year, or by both that fine and imprisonment." Conclusion: it only applies to works for which you are not the copyright owner.

Re:It will never survive.

[gcaseye6677]

I think you have indirectly identified the real purpose of RIAA/MPAA lobbying. Their big concern is not the fact that kids are sharing the latest Britney Spears song or downloading the Bourne Supremacy. The means to do this has been around for a long time. The purpose of the industry trade groups is to preserve absolute control, and to make sure it isn't too easy for some independent distributor to become more mainstream and provide a convenient content distribution system. Otherwise, musicians might be less inclined to sell their soul to a record label and independent film producers might represent real competition to Hollywood's steady stream of crap. That is what keeps industry executives awake at night, knowing their empire might crumble due to "disruptive" new technologies.

Re:It will never survive.

[aussie_a]

Conclusion: it only applies to works for which you are not the copyright owner.

My friend Bob is an indi singer. He shows me a song and says "hey, feel free to distribute it wherever you want, I want to get my name out dude." I am forced to provide my e-mail address, name and home address. Sorry, I don't like providing any of that info except when I want too. I think Bob's song is shit so I don't want my home address associated on my website.

This is all a moot point if it isn't commercial. Perhaps at the end of the song he has an advertisement by a company. That's commercial according to the dictionary. He plans to put it on his CD and sell it, that causes the copyrighted work to be commercial.

Notice I haven't mentioned anything illegal. I haven't even mentioned a p2p network. But I'm still affected. (Thankfully I don't like Bob anymore so I'd tell him to fuck off).

Re:It will never survive.

[mrogers]

From the bill: ...imprisonment for a person who is not the copyright owner to knowingly electronically disseminate a commercial recording or audiovisual work without disclosing his or her true name and address...

Wow, it doesn't include an exception for people who have the permission of the copyright owner? That puts ALL WEBSITES AND RADIO STATIONS IN CALIFORNIA in an interesting legal position.

Re:It will never survive.

[maxpublic]

And let's not forget the 9th and 10th amendments. There are just too many idiots these days who think that the only rights a citizen has are those spelled out in the first five amendments, and that the rest somehow 'don't count'.

The Constitution isn't a vehicle for defining rights, but the *limitations of government power*. All those yahoos who think otherwise are encouraged to actually read it sometime, especially if you're going to comment on it.

Max

Re:It will never survive.

[CreatureComfort]

We can't get them to RTFA. what makes you think they'll RTFC?

What's with these laws?

[strictfoo]

I mean, I really really don't it. It's already illegal share movies. Now in order for them to allow me to commit an illegal act I have to share my email address?

What's next: "Before you rob a store you must inform the local police of your intentions"?

Re:What's with these laws?

[whoever57]

I mean, I really really don't it. It's already illegal share movies. Now in order for them to allow me to commit an illegal act I have to share my email address?

According to my understanding, even if you have permission to share the file, you still have to provide an address.

Re:What's with these laws?

[Neil Blender]

Now in order for them to allow me to commit an illegal act I have to share my email address?

What's next: "Before you rob a store you must inform the local police of your intentions"?

Just like it's illegal to not report profits from illegal activities to the IRS. It gives them more ammo to use against you. If they can't prove one thing, they have something else to go after you for.

Re:What's with these laws?

[jdunn14]

What's next? How about, "Before you sell that pot you need to put a tax stamp on it." Love that law, and it's been on the books since 1937. Search for the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. Or even better, here's a link: http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/taxact/mj taxact.htm
Legislators work in mysterious/interesting ways.

Re:What's with these laws?

[GimmeFuel]

Precisely. Stacking charges. This allows the prosecutor's to have 12 charges against you intsead of one. They can then plea bargain down to just one or two charges if you plead guilty. This means prosecutors get their 90%+ conviction records they want if they want to become DA or something, and a lot of innocent people go to jail because they take the plea bargain rather than go through a costly trial at the risk of even longer jail time.

Re:What's with these laws?

[Bastian]

The idea is that if take one act and turn it into several crimes by breaking the act into little pieces and making each of those illegal (in addition to the primary act), you will be able to lock someobody up for a very long time if they are caught committing even a very minor offense. This is supposed to act as a deterrent.

I'm sure even a kindergartener could find several logical flaws and unfounded assumptions inherent in this line of thinking, and anyone old enough to have research skills could also find a huge stack of numbers that also show that this is silly. Still, it is the basis for a large percentage of the USA's legal opus, including some laws that most people seem to really like (hate crimes, for example).

(completely unrelated, I swear)Fun Fact: Did you know the USA has a larger percentage of its population in prison than any other democracy (and most other authorotarian states) in the world?

Re:What's with these laws?

[dslbrian]

According to my understanding, even if you have permission to share the file, you still have to provide an address.

Which is important - because everybody knows email addresses are a great authoritative identity source...

Should be about as effective as having spammers sign their email address.

Re:What's with these laws?

[WindBourne]

Actually, we have similar laws in place. One is the tax on Marijuana. If you grow MaryJane, you have to pay a tax. If you do so, then you are guilty of growing it. If you do not pay it, then you are guilty of TaxEvasion.

I am surprised that somebody does not fight it based on Self Incrimination.

Re:What's with these laws?

[quantaman]

I mean, I really really don't it. It's already illegal share movies.

You mean if I make a movie or tape a song by myself it's illegal for me to share it?
What if the work is under a creative commons license?
Because those are two of the situations this bill will affect.

Re:What's with these laws?

[AuMatar]

There's only one solution to his horror of a law. We must dress up as Indians and throw the pot into Boston Harbor.

Re:What's with these laws?

[chris_mahan]

What you should do is not grow it, pay the tax, have them come arrest you for growing it, and you let your lawyers kill them.

That will teach them.

If they ask you why you paid the Pot Tax, you said you were confused by the wording of the law and you wanted to make sure that you were not breaking the law, so just to be on the safe side, you sent it in.

Then file for a refund.

Re:What's with these laws?

[SkjeggApe]

What's the problem? If anyone downloading my files wants my email, they're free to ask me for it...
Just ahh, eh... email me, and Ill send it right over..

Re:What's with these laws?

[whoever57]

Which is important - because everybody knows email addresses are a great authoritative identity source...

If you read carefully, you will note that I did not write "email address". That's because the law requires both a physical and email address (and a name, of course).

Re:What's with these laws?

[Shimmer]

Not so strange. Remember how they busted Al Capone for failing to pay taxes on his ill-gotten income?

Re:What's with these laws?

[bob beta]

Actually, a lot of guilty people go to jail and it saves taxpayers the cost of a trial.

And in rare instances, somebody innocent goes to jail.

But anyway....

Re:What's with these laws?

[pchan-]

Just like it's illegal to not report profits from illegal activities to the IRS. It gives them more ammo to use against you. If they can't prove one thing, they have something else to go after you for.

actually, the irs has a contingency for this. you can buy "tax stamps" for pre-sales of undisclosed items. you can then sell anything, having already paid the tax on it. i'm not sure how it works out from an accounting perspective (i am no accountant), but you can cover the sales tax, as well as taxes on profits without having to divulge to the irs what it is that you are selling. you could, conceivable, be selling drugs and charging people sales tax on it, as well as giving the government its share of your profits. in reality, this is much more common for grey markets than outright illegal activities.

Re:What's with these laws?

[BrookHarty]

Many innocent plea bargin, its quicker to pay a fine or get probation than sit in jail waiting for court. Its the dirty little game DA's do every day.

And top it off, felony covictions make you a non-citizen, you loose your voting rights.

Why do you think many police departments are buying large amounts of automatic weapons, body armor, crowd control gases, armored vehicals, swat teams expanding. The USA isnt getting more dangerous, so why are all these needed?

Because the SWAT team's are coming after file swappers!

Re:What's with these laws?

[macdaddy]

Well, yeah. That's the point. Have you ever watched any documentary on the mob and organized crime? They didn't bust mob bosses on murder and extortion. They busted them on tax evasion for not paying taxes on the profits from their illegal entreprises (bootlegging, numbers rackets, prostitution, etc..).

Re:What's with these laws?

[jefu]

Or somebody (guilty or innocent) gets suddenly and seriously poor from having to pay for legal costs.

If you think about it, for any person to be accused of a trial, is already a punishment, as they often need to go into serious debt to pay for their lawyers. But of course, this isn't (since it is clearly their choice to hire a lawyer) a violation of the constitution.

Re:What's with these laws?

[AuMatar]

You missed the reference. The Boston Tea Party was due to the Stamp Act, which required you to get tax stamps on a large number of items, including paper and tea.

Re:What's with these laws?

[geekoid]

thats because it was legal in 1937.

Re:What's with these laws?

[mmmmmhotpants]

I don't know if your logic is totally correct.

In order to use/own a gun you have to register and submit to a background check, etc. because a gun has a propensity for being used for illegal and harmful purposes.

In order to use a filesharing system which has then propensity for being used for illegal and harmful purposes you give your email address.

The bottom line, sharing your MP3's is illegal and harms someone out there (financially). This is perceived as a problem (just like murder is a problem) and the officials would like to try to stop it by keeping track of whose sharing just as they want to keep track of whose buying guns. But that doesn't stop you from getting a filesharing program from the back of a van. I'm personally glad that obtaining a gun from a store is not a matter of just paying for it, even if the murder rate is still high.

Re:What's with these laws?

[scotch]

This plan makes sense if you're stoned.

Re:What's with these laws?

[Trejkaz]

So how does this work, anyway? Suppose the file sharing app I'm using doesn't provide a place to put the address? ;-)

Re:What's with these laws?

[DAldredge]

In Texas the people selling the stamp can not tell the LEO's about who they sell to for any reason, not that it would help because about the only people who buy the damn stamp are tax collectors.

Re:What's with these laws?

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

Exactly, just like marijuana tax stamps. What a wonderful bureaucracy we've invented..

Re:What's with these laws?

[goldmeer]

SOMEONE watched Clerks one too many times and started to think that the sign on the cash register was a nifty idea.

If you plan to shoplift, let us know. Thanks

Re:What's with these laws?

[Laur]

So how does this work, anyway? Suppose the file sharing app I'm using doesn't provide a place to put the address? ;-)

I think you've just hit the nail on the head. Such apps are obviously now illegal in California.

Re:What's with these laws?

[Tokerat]

File sharing never killed anyone.

Re:What's with these laws?

[torokun]

No, you numbnut, the idea is to require you to have a friggin license plate, so when you break the law like in a hit and run, they can actually find you.

How incredibly unjust!

(By the way, there are actually copyright laws, and they are actually there for a reason or two.)

Re:What's with these laws?

[bluGill]

More often it is easier to prove you are not paying all your taxes than it is to prove what illegal act you are doing. A few people have paid the tax on their illegal goods, and the government was unable to get them. In fact the IRS cannot tell the FBI/police details about this. You are compelled to proved this information, in effect it is a testimony against yourself and that is not allowed in court. So if you list all your income and say your job is drug dealer they can't get you based on that. (OTOH don't be surprized if the police do start watching your closely)

"ladies and gentelmen of the jury, I have demonstrated that the defendant has spend more money than he claimed to make, and it was not borrowed. Therefore he must have income that he did not report."

Re:What's with these laws?

[Trejkaz]

Maybe if I put this data externally somehow. e.g. BitTorrent doesn't let me put my email address on the file, so I can put it on a web site where I share the torrent. But what about Kazaa and the like? Put my email address on a web site, saying that I'm So-and-So user ID on Kazaa? Asking for hacking, I'd say. Not to mention the spam you're gonna get when every harvester in the world starts picking up these addresses. :-)

Re:What's with these laws?

[mrogers]

No, the bill requires "information that accurately identifies the name of the person who is disseminating the commercial recording or audiovisual work, along with his or her valid e-mail or mailing address."

Re:What's with these laws?

[Bastian]

In the form of an e-mail address?

Maybe the nature of e-mail has changed in the past couple of days. But if it hasn't, then it seems to me that requiring an e-mail address would only be like requiring people to have license plates if there were no laws saying that license plates had to be unique to the vehicle, or even government-issued.

Re:What's with these laws?

[arose]

Go e-books.

Re:What's with these laws?

[torokun]

I agree. It's not effective, but it's what they are trying to do.

I refuse to believe, as the parent averred, that they are simply trying to create more bases upon which they can charge people for their jollies...

My take is that, however imperfect their solution is at this point, they are going in the right direction and trying to do the right thing by focusing on identification. But this is only a first step at any rate... Down the road we'll look back and see this as the first step towards a full legal authentication system.

Re:What's with these laws?

[grahamm]

No, they are still legal as long as only used to share files (such as those which are not commercial or which the copyright owner has given permission for unrestricted sharing) which are exempt from the requirement to give the senders address.

Re:What's with these laws?

[bgackle]

In order to use/own a gun, you have to register and submit to a background check because lobbyists who like this idea pushed it through. Later, this gives them a handy list of people to disarm when they succeed in that too. Registration has been a precurser to confiscation very frequently in history.

So, extend this to file sharing.... we register everyone in preparation for tracking them down and shutting them down later.

Re:What's with these laws?

[ratamacue]

Did you know the USA has a larger percentage of its population in prison than any other democracy (and most other authorotarian states) in the world?

It's only logical. The more laws, the more criminals. The more people in prison for victimless crimes, the more expensive and powerful the government, and the more benefit to those in power.

Re:What's with these laws?

[yourmom16]

File sharing never killed anyone.

<sarcasm>Except the poor artists who die of starvation.</sarcasm>

Re:What's with these laws?

[gargonia]

I believe that in order to sell illegal drugs in some states you have to obtain tax stamps for them. I don't think the purpose of the law is to curb anyone's behavior, it just allows authorities to tack on another charge when they press charges against an individual. It just means more revenue for the State and/or more time for the prosecuted.

Hello Russian Free Email Account

[Proc6]

Time to sign up for an @something.ru or the like.

Hosting biz

[pergamon]

The web hosting biz in CA will be picking up and moving elsewhere.

Internet vs Arnold

[linuxislandsucks]

He will find like othr dimwitted politicians that the Internet was founded onsharing and any law to curtail that will be unenforcible

Disclose my email address?

[stratjakt]

Sure, stratjakt@hotmail.com. Come get me RIAA!

How could they expect to enforce this in other states, let alone other nations?

What's with California? Do they think they're the worlds government or something?

Yet, all the new internet laws seem to be popping up in California. That place is the land of the batshit crazy freaks.

Re:Disclose my email address?

[Swamii]

Yet, all the new internet laws seem to be popping up in California. That place is the land of the batshit crazy freaks.

Conservatives have been saying that for years. Now that a Republican is governor (albeit an economic leftist), liberals are finally beginning to agree.

Re:Disclose my email address?

[aelbric]

This is the biggest thing that ticks me off about the Republicans today. What the hell ever happened to Laissez-faire economics?

Re:Disclose my email address?

[silentbozo]

batshit crazy freaks

You have NO idea. I walked into the local Fry's the other day, and found that pretty much everything in the store had a tag reading "Warning: Handling this product will expose you to lead, a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, [etc]"

Holy crap! Was this Fry's once a firing range, and now contaminated with lead? Was everything they were selling made in some south-of-the-border factory that had a lead smelter under the roof? Were these items Chinese, and painted in lead-based paints?

Actually, it was none of the above. The notices were required because of lead content in the solder used in the cabling.

The legislators here have WAY too much time on their hands. Most of them are career politicians or career wannabees, and want to build up a "track record" of high-profile legislation (ie, crap that does nobody any good if you thought about it, but makes for a great photo op.) For example, this Yee fellow from San Francisco was slapped down multiple times - by his fellow legislators, and kept coming back by hollowing out other people's bills in order to put in his own ridiculous provisions. Then of course, there was the bill that banned .50 cal ammo, which was also rejected on multiple occasions, until some nameless legislators decided to "ghost vote" (ie, vote somebody else's button in addition to their own).

Fraud in an election would get both parties screaming about how people's rights were violated, but evidently it's ok if it's done on a regular basis by elected officials. Crazy doesn't even begin to describe the situation here...

Re:Disclose my email address?

[Izago909]

Republicans have no problem with big, intrusive governemnt as long as it concerns topics that the undereducated masses won't revolt against. I grew up in a small town called Jasper. It's not uncommon to see parents give their young children beer when they say they are thirsty. Many families have a side business which is usually a bar or pub. Everyone there will always vote Republican until the day one stands on a platform of prohibition and gun control. Subtract the beer and bar part, and you have most all of middle America.

Re:Disclose my email address?

[tsm_sf]

You're confusing Republican with Conservative. Not the same critter, not by a long shot.

Re:Disclose my email address?

[thrillseeker]

Fraud in an election would get both parties screaming about how people's rights were violated, but evidently it's ok if it's done on a regular basis by elected officials.

Remember - it's illegal to sell your vote - unless you're a congressman.

Re:Disclose my email address?

[geekoid]

I agree with your point in general, but it takes very little lead to effect a person, espially children.
I read up on lead when they banned leaded fuels, nasty stuff.

Re:Disclose my email address?

[Pig Hogger]

How could they expect to enforce this in other states, let alone other nations?

This will be taken care of, thanks to The Project for the New American Century.

Re:Disclose my email address?

[maxpublic]

Oregonians have always known that Californians are arrogant, crazy freaks. A whole shitload of the fuckers moved into our state in the '80's, proving beyond a doubt that all of our cherished stereotypes about Californians were not only accurate, but in fact understated. Fortunately the discovery that our dreary, rainy winters last about 9 months was good enough to drive many of them away.

One of my fervent hopes is that global warming will make the constant rain a year-round phenomenon, shaking loose the rest like fleas on a freshly-collared dog.

Max

Violation of rights?

[uchi]

Is it just me, or is it a violation of your rights(as an American)? I can think of situations where I could be sharing perfectly legal media, and would not want my email address/identity tied to it. For example, if I produced a documentary about how bad the company I work for is, I should be able to disperse that to those who please. There would most definitely be reprecussions if it was found out who made it, and this bill would just make it all the easier.

Re:Violation of rights?

[geomon]

You have no constitutional right to anonymity.

Really?

You know what slippery slope we're on? The one that'll kill us? The one were everyone constantly get 1 more right and 1 less responsibility.

You have a poor understanding of the Constitution.

The government doesn't hand out rights; we have intrinsic rights as humans and citizens. The Constitution enumerates those rights we (the People) grant to the government , not the other way around.

Re:Violation of rights?

[MikeBabcock]

The bill provides for the "not including to family members ... [blah blah] ... copyright owner ... "

Re:Violation of rights?

[Smallpond]

Close. Actually the states can pass any law they want restricting your rights EXCEPT those that are reserved by the constitution in the Bill of Rights. So unless I missed the article on filesharing, the constitution doesn't have any provisions covering providing email addresses.

Amendment X - Powers of the States and People.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Re:Violation of rights?

[Izago909]

Check the 9th and 10th Amendments in the Bill of Rights. Just because privacy isn't spelled out in the constitution doesn't mean that we don't have a right to it. The founding fathers had a fear that in the time following the ratification, an imperialistic federal government would limit personal freedoms that weren't specifically mentioned in the Bill of Rights. Since they didn't have the ability see into the future and predict evolving social concerns, they left in a clause saying that people have more rights than just the ones they spelled out.

Re:Violation of rights?

[Anonymous Coward]

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

I guess you didn't pay attention in Government class. The people still GRANT the rights to their State governments, as well. "We the people" give them the rights. Neither the State nor the Federal goverments grant us ANYTHING... we grant them everything they have.

Re:Violation of rights?

[Smallpond]

Yeah. That's why amendment X is called the People's Rights amendment and not the State's Rights amendment. Oh wait...

If you fell for that in Gov. class, then I have a motion picture to sell you. Read it again. Its up to the state constitutions how they divvy up rights with the people.

If you look at the California constitution, article I sets forth the rights of the people. Its called DECLARATION OF RIGHTS.

Re:Violation of rights?

[PCM2]

Yeah, and we all voted to put those people in Guantanemo Bay. Just like the people of California voted for this law that takes away their rights. Don't be an idiot.

Re:Violation of rights?

[Phosphor3k]

Seems like you need to keep up with the SCOTUS, friend. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A576 04-2004Jun21.html

Re:Violation of rights?

[tongue]

yeah, actually you do. The right to privacy is implied by the prohibition against unreasonable search and seizure, as well as explicitly granted in most state constitutions or laws. Anonymity is a component of free speech--for empirical evidence of such, take a look at what happens in places like Iran and China.

Re:Violation of rights?

[Quinn_Inuit]

Not entirely accurate. The Tenth limits the power of the Federal Gov't. It's not a "states' rights" amendment. That's a common misreading, though.

Instead, it simply says that any powers not delegated to the FedGov are _not_ up for grabs, but rather explicitly reserved for the states or people. "People" are included, too, and they're not necessarily less important.

Try reading it in connection with the oft-forgotten Ninth: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

How could the people "retain" rights if they didn't have any in the first place? The Constitution tells us what rights we _don't_ have, not what we do.*

*Yes, I know that's not how it's been interpreted, but change starts at home. Everyone should know that (as the Declaration of Independence observes) we have rights because we are humans. With all due respect to the Supreme Court and its interpretation of the Constitution, nothing can change that.

Re:Violation of rights?

[Temsi]

Well, despite that ruling, the SCOTUS is still wrong on that issue. 4 of the 9 judges did not agree with this ruling, and neither do I.

You have a right to be secure in your person or in your house, and that of course includes not giving your name if asked.

I saw the video of that case, and the police was out of line, and the officers involved should be relieved of their duties.

But going back to the original issue, the only thing you can compare this to, would be a law requiring all street vendors to put their real name and address on every counterfit CD/DVD/VHS they sell.

It's a stacking law... it's a ridiculous law passed to make something which is already illegal more illegal... by having you commit multiple crimes instead of one, they can achieve a higher guilty rate, by offering to drop the other charges if you plead guilty to one count.

I think it's ridiculous having a law which requires you to identify yourself when you do something illegal, even if nobody knows you broke the law, and even if nobody cought you. Why not just enforce the laws already on the books?
What's next? A law which requires you to turn yourself in whenever you commit a crime and don't get caught? I mean, based on this, why the hell not? That way theyll have a second charge of "not confessing to a crime" they can then drop if the accused confesses to the real crime. Same logic at work...

This whole thing is just absurd to the nth degree.

Re:Violation of rights?

[KeeperS]

"You know what slippery slope we're on? The one that'll kill us? The one were everyone constantly get 1 more right and 1 less responsibility."

You've got the slippery slope backwards. Day by day, bill by bill, everybody living in the United States is losing rights. Nobody's really asking for more... they just want the ones they rightly had before. I guess that's too much too ask?

That explains why...

[kevman42]

I've seen a lot more files from this user: illbeback@mailinator.com

Information wants to be free

[Anonymous Coward]

as in beer.

Does Californica not realize that the Internet will treat this as damage, and route around it? You can't make your tiny part of the Internet have different rules than the rest of the Internet. It just doesn't work. Unenforceable.

Re:Information wants to be free

[Deliveranc3]

America is the world american law governs the world.

You will be assimilated, resistance is futile. (Seriously look at somalia, nigeria, iraq, much of south America etc.)

This is like outlawing spam

[Three Headed Man]

Spam is more or less illegal. I still get plenty of offers to enlarge my penis every day. How does this help anything?

Re:This is like outlawing spam

[Shnizzzle]

Now you will get spammed to buy gigli on DVD. Finally the MPAA will be able to help me locate quality films.

Let me get this straight...

[mentalflossboy]

So you have to provide an email address if you're "disseminating" movies/music/etc. What purpose does that serve other than to direct the MPAA straight to your door?

Re:Let me get this straight...

[pjt33]

You have to get with the times. It's too much effort to send someone to your door nowadays - far simpler to send you an e-mail threatening legal action. Then if you don't comply, they'll take you to e-court and win an injunction which forces your ISP to serve up snippets from 'Manos' the Hands of Fate instead of the webpages you request.

Don't make it sound so ominous...

[The-Bus]

Governor and video game star Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a measure aimed at curbing sales of violent video games to children. AB 1793, by Assemblyman Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, requires stores to post signs and offer brochures about the industry's game-rating system.

I doubt that even accomplishes anything. But if it does what it is intended to do, inform parents/consumers, more power to them. Parents should be aware when they are buying San Andreas for their kid.

As far as the email is concerned? Ludicrously unenforceable, so I'm not paying attention to it.

Re:Don't make it sound so ominous...

[stratjakt]

I don't know how better informed they could be. The rating system is prominent on the package, and easy to understand, no signs or brochures needed.

I mean, the box for GTA3 has a hooker and a pimp and other thugs on it, has a giant M for mature, under which it says "Realistic Blood and Gore" "Adult situations" and "Foul language", or something close to that.

Who looks at that and thinks "this sounds like a great present for my 4 year old nephew"?

The movie industry survived without special laws. Noone was stupid enough to think that Scarface was a good movie for little kids.

Know what it's about? Get out your tinfoil hat. The video game industry has surpassed the movie industry in sales. It's imperative that the MPAA cut it's hamstrings, or do something to slow it down. More people have played "Chronicles of Riddick" on XBox than have seen the movie.

Not that I'm suggesting that Arnold Shwarzenegger has any ties to the movie industry, or anything like that.

Try to make it more of a pain in the ass to buy video games, just maybe people will spend their entertainment bucks on DVDs instead.

Just a thought.

Re:Don't make it sound so ominous...

[erick99]

My 10 and 14 year old sons can buy any video game they want. They do understand, however, that I will be sitting around for the initial game play and if it is inappropriate for them, they lose it. As a result, they buy what they know they are allowed to buy. If parents are letting their kids buy video games that they would object to, then they need to try harder to be a part of that purchasing decision. I don't think brochures are going go make any more difference than brochures about using condoms. The target audiences are not much into brochure reading.

-erick

ahnold!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

if i caatch you shaaareing fiiles, i will torminate you! raaagaaa!!! raaaaah!

Apple?

[CanSpice]

What email address does Apple get to use? Or Real? Or Microsoft?

Re:Apple?

[jcr]

webmaster at apple.com.

-jcr

Re:Apple?

[rabbar]

Apple is exempted under this exclusion: "To a person who has been licensed either by the copyright owner or a person acting under the authority of the copyright owner to disseminate electronically all or substantially all of a commercial audiovisual work or recording."

You forgot the most important bill

[antifoidulus]

he signed a law that finally made necrophilia a crime in California. Who cares about file sharing...
When the casket is a 'rockin
Don't come a 'knockin

Re: You forgot the most important bill

[youknowmewell]

Just perform an exorcism.

Re: You forgot the most important bill

[vxvxvxvx]

Obligatory Sexylosers comic.

Re: You forgot the most important bill

[OldManAndTheC]

finally made necrophilia a crime

What is the penalty? Is it ... stiff?

Re: You forgot the most important bill

[pommiekiwifruit]

Didn't some female american artist recently marry a (very) dead french guy? There was no ban apparently. I do wonder how he said "I do" though.

Email address? That'll pin em down

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, *no* one will be able to distribute *anything* anonymously if they have to provide an EMAIL address...

After all, an EMAIL address is as solid an ID as a fingerprint!

Signed, arnoldschwarzeneggar245573@hotmail.com

Spoofed Email

[Archangel Michael]

What is to prevent people from using a onetime email address? I have a few domains that have unlimited email addresses, what is to prevent me from "renting" out email address space for one time usage? Signup anonymously.

Puhleeze.

Re:Spoofed Email

[gl4ss]

nothing.

but what makes him think that people who are sharing stuff illegally would bother setting up even a fake email account? or hell, even switch to using a filesharing system that would associate an email address with them..

Re:Spoofed Email

[bob beta]

Give out as many email addresses as you wish to be (partially) responsible for.

Go ahead.

Re:Spoofed Email

[Archangel Michael]

You mean like AOL, Yahoo, MSN ......

Smart move

[Izago909]

So if I want to share files I must sign up for a free hotmail account that I never intend to use? What good is that supposed to do? Sounds like another example of legislating something that looks good on paper, but is completely non-functional in the real world. How might this law be used? "We can't get them on copyright infringement, so we will get them on not publicizing their email address."

Nothing new.

[BitHive]

You've had to provide your e-mail address when connecting to so-called "anonymous" FTP servers for years. What's the big deal?

Oh, wait, you mean nobody actually checks what you put in there? Well, what's the use of that!? Oh...

Enforcable?

[wviperw]

I don't see how this can be enforcable in any practical way. I mean, who is to say that you are giving a valid e-mail address in the first place. And furthermore, even if you do give a valid e-mail address, does that help to connect an internet identity to a indivudal, any more than an IP does?

I'm also worried about the fact that they are trying to limit anonymity. That is one of the staples of the entire concept of the Internet, isn't it?

Re:Enforcable?

[DeputySpade]

I'm also worried about the fact that they are trying to limit anonymity. That is one of the staples of the entire concept of the Internet, isn't it?

Um... No. It isn't. Near as I can tell, the whole anonymity thing is a pretty late comer to the Internet scene. I think it's more reasonable to say that authentication and authorization (the exact opposite of anonymity) is a staple concept.

Logins, passwords, email addresses, the ident protocol... Lots of things exist precisely to avoid anonymous traffic.

PS. Now see here? I'm torn. Do I want to sling an insult at little creeps who think they have a "right" to anonymous file sharing, then post AC for irony, or do I want to keep my post sincere and shoot for the karma? Decisions, decisions, decisions...

How does this change anything?

[Shnizzzle]

Wouldn't it be even harder to get a person's identity from their email address then from just their IP? Now the RIAA would have to contact Yahoo, get all the IPs that were logged with that email address, and then contact all of the connected ISPs. Or is this really just an attempt to spam file sharers?

And in other news...

[Iphtashu Fitz]

Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail, and other web providers announced a huge increase in the number of subscribers in California.

Text of the bill

[the_demiurge]

You can read the text of the filesharing bill (now law) at http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/bill/sen/sb_1501-1550/s b_1506_bill_20040823_enrolled.html

Re:Text of the bill

[hey]

from the bill:

(5) "E-mail address" means a valid e-mail address, or the valid e-mail address of the holder of the account from which the dissemination took place.

So I assume this means you main e-mail address not a bogus one you never use. I know, how can they prove it.

Re:Text of the bill

[MagicM]

Also from the bill (emphasis mine): "for a person who is located in California, who knows that a particular recording or audiovisual work is commercial"

So you're free to share public domain, and even your private home movies with anyone.
Though if you want to sell your home movies (to more than 10 people), you have to give the buyers your e-mail address...

Re:Text of the bill

[DunbarTheInept]

Grrr. Not all the places where the dissmation takes place *are* "accounts" to have an address for. Damn, I hate it when legislators make laws about things they don't understand, and therefore hide impossible premises inside their definitions of terms. I don't have to have an e-mail address associated with a website in order to set up a website, for example.

Re:Text of the bill

[tsm_sf]

Read it, and it only applies if:
1) it's a commercial work, and
2) you don't have permission from the copyright holder

Here's the gist of the bill:
Any person, except a minor, who is located in
California, who, knowing that a particular recording or audiovisual work is commercial, knowingly electronically disseminates all or
substantially all of that commercial recording or audiovisual work to more than 10 other people without disclosing his or her e-mail address and the title of the recording or audiovisual work

So it's just another stick to beat movie traders with. If you live in California just sign up for a Hotmail account at an internet cafe or library, make sure you use that address in your p2p client, and then NEVER CHECK THAT ADDRESS AGAIN.

Re:Text of the bill

[Net_Wakker]

(5) "E-mail address" means a valid e-mail address, or the valid e-mail address of the holder of the account from which the dissemination took place.

well, user@localhost is a valid address. At least where Im sitting.

Re:Text of the bill

[tsm_sf]

And since there is no legal definition of a 'valid' email address, we'll have to use the technical definition.

I'd like to sponsor the following bill: /^(\w¦\-¦\_¦\.)+\@((\w¦\-¦\_)+\.)+[a-zA-Z]{2, }$/

Re:Text of the bill

[Odin's Raven]

You can read the text of the filesharing bill (now law) at...

Too bad ca.gov has to be subjected to the bandwidth demands of a slashdotting - maybe they should set up a torrent for downloading copies of the bill/law? ;-)

Re:Text of the bill

[hey]

Maybe the website is http://www.geocities.com/something. You don't have to own an entire domain to setup a website.

Re:Text of the bill

[DunbarTheInept]

Website != Internet subdomain.

Video games

[lukewarmfusion]

Let parents make the decision about what games their children play.

That's why I think this bill is a good idea. If you let kids walk in and buy the most violent games, their parents may not know what's going on. Those are the parents that make me sick. If you make the parents buy it for their kids, then they're forced to take responsibility for it. We already have too many idiots claiming that video games are making their children violent; instead of parents taking responsibility, they blame the games. This just makes sure that they're involved.

Re:Video games

[gl4ss]

..but wasn't this illeagal before then?

for a kid to buy, lets say, a porno videogame?

Re:Video games

[lessthanjakejohn]

I don't know what the age of these 'children' you are talking about, but when I was 13/14/15 (currently 16) my mom wouldn't let me by those violent games (even the T ones.) Maybe it was because I have a younger brother, but who knows.

I eventually just gave up convincing her to let me have them and when I was 14 or so I rode my bike to a store that didn't care and I could buy all the M games and R movies that I wanted. I was 5'10" - 6' during that time so most of the time even the companies that have policies agaisnt that weren't suspicious. Sometimes tellers would ask me for a drivers license, but I just said I "left it at home, since I have no use for carrying it" and then they asked me my birthday or some bullshit like that...

Re:Video games

[lukewarmfusion]

The point is that making such sales illegal will help make it harder; nobody's being inconvenienced except for the parents (who should be responsible for it in the first place) and the kids (who are not capable of being responsible).

We don't throw a fit when we ban cigarette, alcohol, porn, or weapons sales to minors... kids are not always responsible enough to handle them. In this case, we're not banning the use of them - just the sale.

Define "Sharing Files"

[Anonymous Coward]

I only share packets.

free email

[wikinerd]

Now free/anonymous email services will become much more popular, and perhaps more people will start registering private domains for custom email. Or, most probably, nothing will change and nobody will pay attention to this law. Next story, please?

Step 1) get a gmail account

[Ayanami Rei]

Step 2) laugh and don't use it anyway
Step 3) don't be an ass pirate, leave bittorrent running.
^_^

Re:Step 1) get a gmail account

[Sancho]

That's actually a good question. What if the method for sharing doesn't give the option of publishing an e-mail address? Like BitTorrent?

Re:Step 1) get a gmail account

[penginkun]

No problem. We'll just make it illegal to produce a P2P system that doesn't require a valid email address to start up.

See, all you have to do is make more laws until the problems go away! 8^)

What about my own music or video?

[dmeranda]

This seems like it's making the same old assumptions. That *if* it's music or video, then the copyright *must* be owned by RIAA/MPAA. This is all about control, not copyrights.

If I own the copyright (say because I produced it), or I have the permission of the copyright owner (which may be, gasp, somebody besides the **AA); then WHY in the world can't I do with it what I want? I certainly can give somebody a copy of a book in secrety; or even leave a copy of a newspaper on my chair when I'm done reading it (which is anonymous distribution).

Oh, and what about PUBLIC DOMAIN media files?

See, this whole thing still seems to be the big media industries trying to shut out independent artisits and producers of content. The whole piracy thing is just a smokescreen; the excuse. What they really want is to make it illegal or impossible for anybody besides them to "traffic" in media.

Re:What about my own music or video?

[Smallpond]

You obviously haven't seen the attempts by the newspapers to prevent this illegal sharing of their copyright works to people who are not the original purchaser.

The Boston Globe, for example, has an advanced system for preventing you from giving your newspaper to someone else. They continue every damn article from the front page to some random other section of the paper, which you will never find unless you have the whole paper in its original order. It works way better than an EULA.

Re:What about my own music or video?

[rabbar]

Did you read the law that was signed into law before posting? Of course not, in fine Slashdot tradition. No need to supply your email address if you own the copyright or have the permission of the copyright holder. " (c) Subdivisions (a) and (b) do not apply: (1) To a person who electronically disseminates a commercial recording or audiovisual work to his or her immediate family, or within his or her personal network, defined as a restricted access network controlled by and accessible to only that person or people in his or her immediate household. (2) If the copyright owner, or a person acting under the authority of the copyright owner, of a commercial recording or audiovisual work has explicitly given permission for all or substantially all of that recording or audiovisual work to be freely disseminated electronically by or to anyone without limitation. (3) To a person who has been licensed either by the copyright owner or a person acting under the authority of the copyright owner to disseminate electronically all or substantially all of a commercial audiovisual work or recording. (4) To the licensed electronic dissemination of a commercial audiovisual work or recording by means of a cable television service offered over a cable system or direct to home satellite service as defined in Title 47 of the United States Code. (d) Nothing in this section shall restrict the copyright owner from disseminating his or her own copyrighted material."

Get it right please

[mfh]

FTA: Governor and video game star Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a measure aimed at curbing sales of violent video games to children.

Slashdot: Also he signed a bill to limit the sale of video games.

There seems to be a huge difference between these statements. Can you spot it?

Re:Get it right please

[fireduck]

it's not even that. The 1 sentence blurb should read "Governor signed bill forcing stores to explain ESRB rating".

Re:Get it right please

[mfh]

it's not even that. The 1 sentence blurb should read "Governor signed bill forcing stores to explain ESRB rating".

Exactly.

Re:Get it right please

[OWJones]

FTA: Governor and video game star Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a measure aimed at curbing sales of violent video games to children.

Slashdot: Also he signed a bill to limit the sale of video games.

There seems to be a huge difference between these statements. Can you spot it?

The slashdot one isn't qualified (i.e., "the violent video games to children" bit), but the bill still limits the sale of video games. It limits "violent" games to adults.

Where's the "huge" difference?

-jdm

Slashdot blows things out of proportion again.

[Anonymous Coward]

To quote Timothy of Slashdot, "Also he signed a bill to limit the sale of video games."

To quote the linked article, "AB 1793, by Assemblyman Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, requires stores to post signs and offer brochures about the industry's game-rating system."

No problem!

[Just Some Guy]

My email address? A real one, even? No problem! Get'cher red hot MP3s from your friendly local root@localhost! I might even reply to emails sent to that address, for a particularly appropriately-scoped definition of "localhost".

Re:No problem!

[Lxy]

Get'cher red hot MP3s from your friendly local root@localhost

OK, I just sent you a request for some MP3s. Let me know when you recei... oooh! I have mail, gotta run!

said the pirate to the governator of califoynia:

[circletimessquare]

"i'll be back"

What is the point of this, really?

[ShatteredDream]

If you are sharing content illegally, ie breaking federal copyright laws, then why the hell would be inclined to make it even easier? This is functionally identical to gun registration. How many criminals actually register their guns? If they can't get one off the street, they just get them by stealing from law abiding citizens.

I can appreciate trying to cut back on massive copyright infringement, but this.... this is just bullshit. Whoever at the MPAA/RIAA paid for this should be fired for wasting their employers' money. No one who is breaking the law and "causing them to lose money" is going to follow this law. Well maybe some, the kind that would have probably been caught anyway.

If it be true that California leads the way for our country, then Arnold has ushered in a new wave of stupidity into American politics. Doesn't he have better things to do, that not coincidentally would help these lobby groups' retainers more, like cut down the overall size of the CA state government, streamline its laws, eliminate red tape, cut taxes, cut expenditures and find innovative ways to save money?

Here's a novel idea for the RIAA/MPAA/BSA: instead of wasting your money on bullshit like this, lobby for tax and spending cuts. Get rid of the income tax, when the people aren't taxed at 20-50%, they have discressionary income out their asses and that's when people buy your products.

In other words, stop subsidizing the Republicrats and send the check to Reason and the Libertarian Party.

Re:What is the point of this, really?

[FatBobSmith]

It's less about the individual file sharers and targetted more for lawsuits against the companies hosting and creating file sharing software. The idea being that Kazaa and others will now be forced to require valid e-mail addresses to gain access to the network.

that

[Trepidity]

Is probably not constitutional. You can't stop a willing group of participants from engaging in anonymous conversation with each other.

Re:that

[whoever57]

Maybe it is not constitutional, but check out the actual text for yourself. It looks pretty clear to me that there is no exception for files that you have permission to trade.

Re:that

[BitterOak]

Is probably not constitutional.

It's probably not constitutional whether you have permission to share the file or not. If you are violating copyright by sharing the file, then there is a serious Fifth Amendment issue protecting you from begin compelled to incriminate yourself, by providing your e-mail address, for instance.

If you are not violating copyright by sharing the file (if you have permission from the copyright holder, or are the copyright holder, for instance, or if the file is public domain) then surely there are First Amendment problems in banning certain types of communication without including compelled speech (your e-mail address.)

Either way, I don't see how this law could withstand constitutional scrutiny.

Re:that

[rabbar]

That isn't the actual text of the actual law that Ahnold signed. The actual text says that, among others, the law does not apply: "To a person who has been licensed either by the copyright owner or a person acting under the authority of the copyright owner to disseminate electronically all or substantially all of a commercial audiovisual work or recording."

Re:that

[abb3w]

It is pretty clear that it's based on courtroom proceedings.

Um.... if it was made a separate offense if you did not immediately go to the police and provide them your name, address, and fingerprints after committing a murder, would that be constitutional too? (To anticipate one possible objection: perjury is different. You need not testify, unless granted immunity; you may take the fifth otherwise. If you do, however, you can THEN be prosecuted for lying.)

I am not a lawyer; I just drink with them. Unless you are one, I suggest that neither of us is qualified to offer an expert opinion.

Re:that

[aussie_a]

Got a link for that? Because that makes it from a "sending any copyrighted material not your own" to "illegally sending any copyrighted material."

Re:that

[mrogers]

Which has interesting implications for websites and radio stations in California. :-) When does the law come into effect?

Re:that

[mrogers]

IANAL either, but if you drive drunk to someone's house and shoot them with an illegal firearm, you can be found guilty of drunk driving, murder and owning an illegal firearm. That's why if you're going to drive drunk to someone's house and shoot them, it's always advisable to use a registered gun.

bill to limit the sale of video games

[kenp2002]

Wow too bad that isn't what the article says, only requires store to post about ratings and offer borchures. What's the problem? Sounds like the only ones bitchin are kids that don't want mom and dad to know that that Postal 2 games isn't about delivering mail....... How is that limiting the sale of videogames? I wasn't aware that borchures LIMIT sales? How is this limiting? To be intellectually honest this should have read at least: ..bill to limit the sale of violent video games...

Speaking of mail btw it's mail, not mails. You don't go to you mail box and get your mails. So why do people insist on saying EMAILS. EMAILS IS NOT A WORD ;) Think about it Electronic Mails? It makes no sense! If Emails makes it into a dictionary I'm switching from english to esperanto.

Bye :)

Re:bill to limit the sale of video games

[Romeozulu]

Funny. The English say I'm doing my "Maths". Maybe mails is a legitimate word outside the U.S.

I don't know that if it is or not, but being an international grammar Nazi is dangerous.

Re:bill to limit the sale of video games

[DerPflanz]

You are right about snail mail, but when e-mail is concerned, I think a lot of people use phrases like 'I will send you an e-mail'. In that case the word has become a noun that can be counted (forgive me my lack of linguistic terms) and that way you can make it plural: e-mails. Besides, e-mail isn't just English anymore. It is used in a lot of other languages as well. In Dutch, it is even an official word 'email' (without the hyphen), and is used as any other Dutch word (e.g. you can make it little by adding '-tje' to it: emailtje).

Language lives. Let it live.

Re:bill to limit the sale of video games

[forkboy]

Maths is a contraction of mathematics. Mail is not a contraction of anything. The only correct way, in any dialect of english, to use the word 'mails' is as a verb. I.e. Jim mails his brother a letter every week.

Re:bill to limit the sale of video games

[Graspee_Leemoor]

newsflash, forkboy: language is not static.

Re:bill to limit the sale of video games

[forkboy]

Newflash Graspee: Languages still have structure and rules. Oh, and they also have capital letters. Don't forget the capital letters.

Re:bill to limit the sale of video games

[Graspee_Leemoor]

capital letters are for losers and squares! i defy them in the manner of e.e. cummings or the unix command line!

graspee

Re:bill to limit the sale of video games

[forkboy]

Yeah, because poets and coders are the model of correct uses of English.

You can't get away with bad syntax in command lines or programming, why should the language you use to communicate with real live humans be any different?

Re:bill to limit the sale of video games

[Graspee_Leemoor]

you have mistakes in your own posts too, you know. you should always be very careful when correcting others.

graspee

Stupid law

[Capt'n Hector]

Anything I make (or anything anyone else makes) is automatically copyrighted by the person or organization that made it. Does this mean I can't post to /. without showing my email, because that would be sharing copyrighted media? Is the only legal anonymous transfer one that only is composed of public domain works? Ug... good thing this isn't anywhere near enforcable.

What Next...

[Anonymous Coward]

What next? The lawmakers will require users to have an IP address to share files on the internet.

Re:Liberals = Idiots

[flyboy974]

Us liberals are such idiots thinking that people should be able to do what they want. We just want to let people marry whomever they want, smoke whatever they want, say whatever they want. I'm glad that you have helped me find my way. Sincerely, Music Sharer - god@heaven.com

So???

[El]

So now to distribute movies, you simply have to create a hotmail account, even though you never have to actually log in and check your mail? Just wait 30 days, Microsoft automatically deletes any Cease and Desist letters, and you're home free! I'm not quite clear on what this law accomplishes...

Re:So???

[MikeBabcock]

It makes a senator who's never used the Internet feel happy and safe with his big pay-off from big music.

Re:So???

[HiThere]

Actually, the section that I read never even said that it had to be you own email account. Just that it had to either be a valid email account, or be your own. (And interesting formulation.)

Re:So???

[ZeusAndHades]

There are plenty of places that you can get a completly anonymous email by the illegal use of false information. Hey, you're gonna be illegal about it -- why not keep from getting caught?

Actually, try to read the LAW and not the blurb

[Anonymous Coward]

To quote:

• Any person, except a minor, who is located in
  California, who, knowing that a particular recording or audiovisual
  work is commercial, knowingly electronically disseminates all or
  substantially all of that commercial recording or audiovisual work to
  more than 10 other people without disclosing his or her e-mail
  address, and the title of the recording or audiovisual work is
  punishable by a fine not exceeding two thousand five hundred dollars
  ($2,500), imprisonment in a county jail for a period not exceeding
  one year, or by both that fine and imprisonment.

Basically, it has to be commercial. And I'm sure the law could not be applied if the work was being distributed with permission.

Hell, even I was worried, until I actually read the law itself. But now I'm not so worried. Plus, if you can keep your torrents to less than 10 people, this doesn't apply anyway =P

Re:Actually, try to read the LAW and not the blurb

[pjt33]

I thought the whole point of Bittorrent was that you don't "disseminate all or substantially all" of the file to any one person. *AA behind the times?

That probably won't hold up in court

[i)ave]

Upon challenge, they'll have to show a demonstratable threat to the "common good" (citizenry, not studios) that is caused by anonymous emails used for P2P software registration. That is a big, if inedffective, attempt to reduce the rights of people to privacy and a court will want them to show that (1) anonymous email registration causes more harm than good for citizens of California (2) legit email registration will not cause more harm than good (email harvesting spam-bots come to mind).

Lots of questions

[LS]

* Who is the email provided to?
* How is the email to be provided?
* Is this only for legal files haring? (I would assume so)
* How are email addresses verified?
* If the file sharing app has to provide a way to advertise an email, does this make app incapable of this illegal?
* Are FTP and websites affected by this law?
* What if I don't have an email address?
* What if my address is with Yahoo? Will my information be required to be given to lawyers by Yahoo or whomever my ISP is?
* How did this law get passed?

LS

Re:Lots of questions

[Too Much Noise]

How did the terminator become governor?

Coming from the future, he knew the right key combination for your friendly Diebold vote counter?

Re:Lots of questions

[Anonymous Coward]

* Is this only for legal files haring? (I would assume so)

No. This applies to all forms of haring.

Re:Lots of questions

[sTalking_Goat]

Skynet realized that whole nuke your enemies and destroy the world thing was so 1991. So it decides to do 21st Century style.

Send a Governator back in time to drown the humans in useless legislation. They'll never have time to stop theie military AI from becoming self-aware while they're chasing down 12 year old media terrorists and corpse fuckers.

Re:Lots of questions

[LS]

Imagine, back in your BBSing days, if I told you that Arnold Schwarzenegger would one day be signing a bill as California governor dictating how you could copy files. You would think that I just dropped a hit of acid.

LS

Questions.

[YouHaveSnail]

That's nice, but it leaves a lot of unanswered questions.

Which of my several e-mail addresses must I disclose?

And for how long after the file transfer takes place must the address remain valid?

How often, if ever, am I required to check for messages?

And does the state impose any particular requirements on what kinds of filters I can apply to my incoming mail?

If I record a protest song and choose to distribute it anonymously (perhaps to avoid retribution by the state), am I prohibited from doing that?

Can I write a letter or produce a film and distribute it anonymously? How about if I use a pseudonym?

I'd like to actually read this law. I find it difficult to imagine that such a law could possibly stand up to any sort of scrutiny in the courts.

Re:Questions.

[geekoid]

"If I record a protest song and choose to distribute it anonymously (perhaps to avoid retribution by the state), am I prohibited from doing that?"

that is addressed in the bill. If the author want to distribute it for free, then thats fine. It would be considered non-commercial. You would still keep copyright.
But this is within the context of this law, not other copyright laws.

"I'd like to actually read this law. "

maybe you should do that THEN post your concerns?

Re:Questions.

[YouHaveSnail]

maybe you should do that THEN post your concerns?

Would have been happy to, but didn't see a link to it in the article. Perhaps I should have tracked it down at loc.gov, but was a little pressed for time and figured another slashdotter would eventually post one. My comment that I'd like to read the law was intended to acknowledge that I had not read the law, and doing so would likely answer at least some of the questions I had.

Which one?

[Jaywalk]

I have half a dozen email addresses. Some can be traced to me, some can't. So all I need to do to "comply" with this silly law is to get a Hotmail address (or, better yet, any foreign web-based email address) and paste it on the site. I don't see anything in the article that says the email address needs to be easily tracked.

Another clueless law from the clueless pols.

Re:Which one?

[erick99]

I don't know if Hotmail can somehow associate an email with an ip address so you might want to go through a web proxy to get to Hotmail.

-erick

Have they considered the implications of spam?

[AlphaWolf_HK]

If everybody on peer to peer networks was required to give out their real email address freely, the spammers would be able to go to town with e-mail lists that they would *know* to be real.

Re:Have they considered the implications of spam?

[Galvatron]

Maybe that's the point? Poisoning the well.

A letter to Arnold [ or Ahnold]

[microsopht]

Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation Tuesday aimed at discouraging online piracy by requiring anyone disseminating movies or music on the Internet to disclose their e-mail address.

Dear Arnold, We slashdotters ask that you do some real geeky/interesting thing instead of asking for email addresses.Its so lame.That way slashdotters could have some solid topic to comment about.
Peace.

P.S:TIII was also not techy.It was boring.

Who is you Scientific Advisor BTW?

Games

[ackthpt]

T3, but it's violence for good which is Ok, right?

Here's some Arnold media for you...

[dameron]

From DailyHaiuk.com.

I wonder if this is going to apply to public domain stuff? He's got some video at his website:

Here and here.

This stuff should be public domain by CA law. Also, if I don't give you my email, are those href's up there considered "disseminating"?

-dameron

Free Beer is a bad analogy

[ericspinder]

Information wants to be free, as in beer.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for free beer, but Free Beer generally comes with some catch, like advertisement, pressure to purchase other items, or spending time with someone who you'd rather not. It also generates other issues, for example: (in the U.S.) you are not able to have beer until your 21, Beer is taxed, and the act of consuming Beer produces waste.

The correct term is "Free as in Speach"

Re:Free Beer is a bad analogy

[SonicBurst]

No, the correct term is "Free as in speech". :P

Re:Free Beer is a bad analogy

[angedinoir]

The correct term is "Free as in Speach"

Don't get me wrong I am all for free speech, but free speech generally comes with some catch, like imprisonment, pressure from the law, or spending time listening to someone whom you'd rather not. ...The act of creating free speech produces waste, notably CO2.

Re:Free Beer is a bad analogy

[ericspinder]

Free Speech is the ability to speak without such consequences like imprisonment, or pressure from the law. When those happen you no longer have Free Speech, instead it would be 'restrictive speech'. One doesn't have to listen to another to practice Free Speech themselves. The moderate amount of waste from Free Speech is easily handled by plants, which find CO2 useful, even to the point of being spoken upon all day.

However, the acts needed to obtain or maintain Free Speech are very serious and may included death, disfigurement, and long term imprisonment. The good news is that once Free Speech has been obtained, many people may benefit, and those benefits, with minor maintenance, may last a number of years.

The act needed to obtain Free Beer is often just being at the right time and right place, it is hard to get Free Beer for more than a couple of people and it usually only lasts one day.

Personally, if I had to choose, I'd choose Free Speech over Free Beer.

Text of SB1506

[Anonymous Coward]

History:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery?bill_n umber=sb_1506&sess=CUR&house=S

Senate analysis:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/bill/sen/sb_1501-155 0/sb_1506_cfa_20040820_131207_sen_floor.html

Text of bill (HTML):
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/bill/sen/sb_1501-155 0/sb_1506_bill_20040823_enrolled.html

Video Games

[adamjone]

Also he signed a bill to limit the sale of video games.

Ummm... no, that's not at all what he did. Talk about blowing things out of proportion. Directly from the article:

AB 1793, by Assemblyman Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, requires stores to post signs and offer brochures about the industry's game-rating system.

The bill only requires that video game retailers provide information on the rating system. It in no way inhibits the sale of any game to anyone. In fact, he indicated that he would strike down any bill that included any such ban.

Hello 5th amendment?

[babybird]

What ever happened to a person's constitutionally protected right not to incriminate themselves? I'm pretty sure such a law would be blatantly unconstitutional.

Re:Hello 5th amendment?

[Galvatron]

That's why the law applies to ALL filesharing and not just illegal filesharing. You're not incriminating yourself if you say "I use filesharing programs."

Re:Hello 5th amendment?

[Highrollr]

"...nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" 5th Amendment

This means you can't be forced to testify against yourself in court. Identifying yourself as you break the law has nothing to do with the 5th Amendment. Posting your email address when you share files is more akin to not wearing a mask in a public place.

New Poll Idea

[mblase]

Email address used for file sharing?

* asdf@asdf.com
* schwartzenegger@california.gov
* sit@home.org
* eat@joes.com
* cowboyneal@slashdot.org

Re:New Poll Idea

[gfody]

com.dotat@atdot.com

Re:New Poll Idea

[Telecommando]

heywood@jablome.com

It's a valid email address and yes, I read it from time to time. If Arnold wants to send me some mail at that address there's a chance I'll read it, albeit a slim chance.

Re:New Poll Idea

[OverflowingBitBucket]

I just spent a good minute just trying to pronounce that.

Re:New Poll Idea

[slavemowgli]

bitbucket@ripe.com root@[127.0.0.1]

Re:New Poll Idea

[slavemowgli]

Well, with a linebreak. Damn slashdot for defaulting to html formatting.

Re:New Poll Idea

[Fortyseven]

Holy crap I tried to read that and I swear my eyes went cross. :D

Re:New Poll Idea

[thejaded1]

Although not valid,

blowme@myhouse.com

is what I use when needing a bogus email.

Re:New Poll Idea

[awarlaw]

Bob@hotmail.com

I bet he was proud of that address for about a week.

The best email you can provide

[Man in Spandex]

Sure. they can have my email address. It's the following and if you're lucky, it will fit in the form. It actually exists, the longest email address which you can get here

Here Ahnold, I am not a crook
nixonator@abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefg hijklmn opqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com

Hey, you thief!

[Safety Cap]

root@localhost is mine, as are safety@localhost, sc@me and test@none!!!!!

cyclical

[dAzED1]

if they can prove you did it, then it wasn't anonymous. If they can't, then you can't be found guilty. Who the hell thought up this law?

Email addresses

[Lord_Dweomer]

So all joking aside, which is hard since this is such an asinine thing, who gets these email addresses?

What do you want to bet you're going to have to opt out of receiving "special offers" and crap when you sign up to trade a file.

Boycott

[eyeball]

Boycott would be the answer, but the sad thing is I'm already boycotting commercial software, TV, movie, media, and record industries about 1000 times over for every law they've bribed their way into existence. The only industry left that I can support is the porn industry.

Re:Boycott

[arose]

We need a large mass of people to do this. Large enough to form our own culture. It would be a nice experiment: people from all over the world, speaking different languages -- united by a common culture.

Re:Ahnold?

[jekewa]

Isn't it Armhold Musclehoggen?

Your Tax Dollars At Work

[JenovaSynthesis]

Wow.. yet another piece of crap legislation. When are they going to learn that measures like these will not work?

What is funny/sad/scary is that if the MPAA/RIAA were medical care providers and used these same philosophy in care that they do in their current business, they would have been sued out of existence a long time ago because of all the mal-practice suits they'd lose. They simply try the same thing over and over again.

Re:Liberals = Idiots

[Deanalator]

"His "Signing Spree" is helping the film industry make more money to make better films."

I dont think the film industry needs more money to make better films. For the past 20 years movies coming out of hollywood have been on a steady slope downwards, about 98% of the good movies that have come out in the past few years have not come from LA. If sharing movies over the internet ends up causing the demise of the over bloated film industry, i say good riddance.

God forbid movies go back to being artistic instead of the two hour long commercials that they are now.

Warm welcome!

[suicidedoll]

I welcome all Californians, or any American at that, to come on up to my house in Canada and download all the music they'd like while we share a cold Kokanee beer with a dash of FREEDOM. cheers! - SD

limit video game sales?

[El]

Hardly. Making sure the consumer is given enough information to make informed buying decisions is one of the few really useful purposes of government. This is just an extension of "truth in labelling".

cancer?

[AhabTheArab]

So... if one is using an anonymous file sharing program, how will they who it is? It's anonymous. If they can discover who it is, that is proof that is isn't anonymous, therefore you broke no laws.

It will never stand...

[Eric Damron]

So, if I want to distribute documents critical of the government I must give the government my email address making it possible to track me down and hurt me? I smell a constitutional issue.

RTFB

[kenp2002]

Read the bill:

1.Provides that any person, except a minor, located in California who, knowing that a particular recording or audiovisual work is commercial, knowingly electronically disseminates all or substantially all of that recording or work without disclosing his/her e-mail address and the title of the recording or work, is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $2,500 and up to a year in county jail.

So what's the problem? If it's legit why would you care?

2. Provides that if a minor violates the above provision, he/she shall be punished by a fine not to exceed $250. Any minor who commits a third or subsequent violation is punishable by a fine not to exceed $1,000, imprisonment in the county jail for up to one year, or both the fine and imprisonment.

It still is up to the DA to choose to prosecute. I see no problem.

3. Provides that upon conviction for a violation of this section, in addition to the penalty prescribed, the court shall order the permanent deletion or destruction of any electronic file containing a commercial recording or audiovisual work, the dissemination of which was the basis of the violation. The provisions do not apply to the copyright owner or to a person acting under the authority of the copyright owner.

Duh.

4. Does not apply to a person who electronically disseminates a commercial recording or audiovisual work (a) to his/her immediate family or within a network accessible only to individuals in that person's immediate household, or (b) where the copyright owner has "given permission [for the] work to be freely disseminated electronically by or to anyone without limitation."

So this doesn't apply if the author gives you permission. Big deal AND provides protection for multiple PCs in a house. Sounds good so far.

5. Defines "audiovisual work" as an electronic or physical embodiment of motion pictures, television programs, video or computer games, or other audiovisual presentations that consist of related images that are intrinsically intended to be shown by the use of machines or devices.

Blah Blah definitions here...

6. Defines "commercial recording or audiovisual work" as a recording or audiovisual work that the copyright owner has made or intends to make available for sale, rental, or for performance or exhibition to the public.

This seems reasonable.

7. Provides that a recording or audiovisual work may be commercial regardless of whether the disseminator seeks commercial advantage or private financial gain.

Protects unreleased works. Just because I don't plan on selling that sex video does give you the right to distribute it.

8. Defines electronic dissemination as initiating a transmission of, making available, or otherwise offering, a commercial recording or audiovisual work for distribution on the Internet or other digital network.

Key word INITIATING. A passive distributor (ISP, P2P "middle man", etc.) is protected. Only the active sender is a target.

9. Defines "e-mail address" as a valid e-mail address, or the valid e-mail address of the holder of the account from which the dissemination took place.

Again if it's legit this is simply providing a point of contact so questions can be asked. Doesn't have to be an address with your name. root@provider.com would work just fine.

If you read the bills and quit listening to others you find out these laws are as "far out" as they seem. CBS taught us that just because the news says A doesn't mean A is true. Just because the /. headline says A doesn't mean the content says A.

Re:RTFB

[kenp2002]

I swear the editors have got to put more effort into ensuring that headlines are accurate. Who runs this place these days? CBS?

Re:RTFB

[geekoid]

response to numeber one:
how do you prove someone knows it commercial?

How do the powers that be know it's commercial?

It draws a line between copyright and commercial. So the MPAA can use my works that aren't commercial with no penalty. The members of the MPAA have more then once used material that wasn't theres.

Finally, I should not have to dusclose who I am.

response to two:
Putting people in Jail for possible copyright violation is really ignorant and abusive. It should remain as a civil punishment.

respose for 3:
So if it is determined I violated this law(not copyright law) they will destroy my original media. Which I paid for.

response to 4:
Thats good, but it applies only to the violation of THIS law, not to copyright infringment.

response to 6:
How can we be responsible for knowing the authors intentions?

response to 8:

If you intiate OR make available OR otherwise offer. You vilate this law.

I love that they say "Internet or other digital network" would just digital network be fine?

response to 9:
"Again if it's legit this is simply providing a point of contact so questions can be asked."
I should not have to make myself available for questioning.
I am now legally beholden to check my email regularly. Which will be fun soince I will ahve to syphon through toms of SPAM, since my email address will be easily available to anybody.

on another note, you said:
"If it's legit why would you care?"
Are you real advocating have to prove your innosence?

Re:RTFB

[ljavelin]

I often distribute my own commercial work over the Internet.

Why do I have to distribute my email address? More spam?

Furthermore, what is a "valid email address"? My anonymous email address that's basically just a sinkhole? Sounds pointless. Or my valid email address that returns a "failed" message unless the From address is on my whitelist?

Nice in concept, but poorly executed due to a true lack of expertise and thought. It should have been reviewed by experts before it was signed into law.

Re:RTFB

[DaveJay]

>8. Defines electronic dissemination as initiating a transmission of, making available, or otherwise offering, a commercial recording or audiovisual work for distribution on the Internet or other digital network.
>
>Key word INITIATING. A passive distributor (ISP, P2P "middle man", etc.) is protected. Only the active sender is a target.

Actually, I suspect a passive distributor would be "making available" or "otherwise offering" the material, wouldn't they?

Re:RTFB

[Jameth]

Freedom of speech is encroached upon when anonymity is encroached upon (think whistleblower).

Plenty of commercial media is also controversial/politicol/important media. Consider this. I am whistle-blowing against my company, and I do this by sending someone an image/audio recording of something at the office. They will likely (and possibly accurately) claim it is commercial.

Re:RTFB

[jaeson]

If you read the bills and quit listening to others you find out these laws are as "far out" as they seem.

I totally agree. These laws are totally far out man.

Re:RTFB

[bmetzler]

Killian's secretary already told the press that fake or not, the content of those documents is truth.

And Killian's family has said that she was lying. So who are you going to believe? The left, who hates Bush and would forge documents to say what they want using an lt dead some 20 years and then get a little old lady to corroborate them, or a family who knew him well? Somehow, with what I know so far, I'm going with the family over a story that had cooked up this farce to prove their vindictive point.

Come on, if the story was viable, as you say, without the memos, then why did they forge the memos to begin with?

-Brent

Re:RTFB

[$uperjay]

This law, if enforced, would violate the Constitutionally-recognized right to refrain from incriminating oneself by tacking on an additional penalty to those who do not confess to copyright infringements. This is A Bad Thing.

Re:RTFB

[TRACK-YOUR-POSITION]

Provides that any person, except a minor, located in California who, knowing that a particular recording or audiovisual work is commercial, knowingly electronically disseminates all or substantially all of that recording or work without disclosing his/her e-mail address and the title of the recording or work, is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $2,500 and up to a year in county jail.

This is the only problem I have with this bill--it seems really draconian. I mean, speeding on the highway actually endangers people's lives, but I'm not going to spend a year in jail for my first offense, am I?

Then again, it's more reasonable than getting sent to jail for the rest of your life for shoplifting three times--which I'm told they also do in California.

Re:RTFB

[jjoyce]

I trust the person that worked with him -- she would know more about that sort of thing, having typed up his notes for him.

I don't claim that CBS forged anything, nor has anyone proven that they are forgeries.

Of course the left wants to drag the guy down. To have blown off his duty and then told everyone otherwise is a pretty big lie when he is drawing attention to his service as part of his campaign and working so hard to tarnish his competitor.

Re:RTFB

[bmetzler]

I don't claim that CBS forged anything, nor has anyone proven that they are forgeries.

ARE YOU BLIND?!? Dan Rather spoke up on national television and said that the memos were not verified as authentic as they made them out to be. The gig is over. Lawyers are being hired. This is no joke.

-Brent

Re:RTFB

[liquidsin]

So yeah, then. It's clear that this bill makes it even more illegal to distribute unauthorized copies of copyrighted material. Like this will even deter anyone who's already doing it. "Shit, I have to include my email address? But then I'd get caught! Oh well, I'll just make one up." Good job. Up next for Ahnie, it's now illegal to do blow off a hooker's tits while driving drunk. Thanks for clearing that one up, Governator.

Re:RTFB

[jjoyce]

I repeat, no one has proven that they are forgeries. Your post does nothing to further the claim that they aren't real. Besides, the case against Bush doesn't hinge on those documents. There is plenty of evidence that he blew off his duty. Those documents only highlight his preferential treatment, which is pretty much universally accepted as fact anyway.

I do understand that CBS screwed up by not digging deep enough, but that does not mean that Bush should get a free pass for being a hypocrite.

I wish the right wing weren't so selective about where it applies its rigor and fact-checking; then we wouldn't be out fighting wars that have no justification.

We noticed, but there's a good question.

[Fallen Andy]

How come necrophilia was ever *legal* in California?

Re:We noticed, but there's a good question.

[antifoidulus]

Default status my dear friend, in the good ol' US of A, as long as a law against it is not on the books, you can go at it as you please. And, if it does become law, you cannot be arrested for doing it before it became law.
Go look up the laws in your state, good times, good times.

Re:We noticed, but there's a good question.

[csteinle]

Beacuse nobody ever specifically banned it?

There's a possible apocryphal tale that when the crime of buggery (which was used as the legal term) was introduced in Victorian Britain, Queen Victoria vetoed a similar law banning lesbian sexual acts as she refused to believe they were possible.

Re:We noticed, but there's a good question.

[dze]

Queen Victoria vetoed a similar law banning lesbian sexual acts as she refused to believe they were possible.

I believe they are impossible too. I demand that you show me the evidence!

Re:We noticed, but there's a good question.

[CaptainCarrot]

Well, the reputation of her era aside, it's pretty clear that the Old Queen really liked her man and probably couldn't imagine that a woman could ever prefer another woman. I mean, how many kids did they have?

Bear in mind that most of this activity took place when she looked like this and none at all when she looked like this.

Anyway, I'm sure she found the idea of male homosexuality to be far more plausible than female.

Re:We noticed, but there's a good question.

[GuyFawkes]

Ah yes, Queen Victoria, affectionately known as "The Snow Queen"

(druggies will get this)

for the rest of you she was a heavy user of ether John Snow, opiates and cannabis, cannabis incidentally was legal in britain until 1929...

http://www.skunk.co.uk/skunk/overview/history.as p

Re:We noticed, but there's a good question.

[MyHair]

Okay, I have a photo of QEII and Margaret Thatcher around here somewhere....

Re:We noticed, but there's a good question.

[RsG]

>Okay, I have a photo of QEII and Margaret Thatcher around here somewhere....

That is the worst mental image anyone has given me in a long time. I demand you stick to the necrophilia! :-)

Re:We noticed, but there's a good question.

[csteinle]

How on earth did I get modded funny on this?

Simple

[Zooka]

This is a technology issue, and he's a politician.
He just doesn't get it.
Nor does his staff / advisors.
This rule is seldom untrue.

FoS

[ackthpt]

I am willing to bet it will be struck down as inhibiting legitimate anonymous free speech.

The sad thing is paying the governor and legislatures salaries while they craft this trash then pass it, then have the EFF or some schmuck spend to fight it and burn all that time. Remember these things next election, which is right around the corner (legislature).

What next, screening of Intrastate email by the RIAA and MPAA? I can't send a personal mp3 or mpeg to a friend without signing it?

Dear Mr. Ackthpt,

We have discovered the following copyrighted materials originating from your ISP:
PROUD MURRAY
FORTUNATE SUN
WHO'LL STOP THE REIGN

Cease and desist or we'll get really mean and nasty and mess up your life so fast it'll make your head spin!

Your friends at the RIAA

Re:FoS

[shadowbearer]

I for one will welcome our P2P distributed wireless network underlords... no matter how many hops it takes. :D

SB

over 10 people

[flyboy974]

Does this mean I need to patch my eMule so that I stop sharing my files after 9 users? Now, I don't KNOWINGLY share all of a file with one person. Generally I might share just one hash of a song. So if I design patch my software to only give out a portion of one son, I'll be ok.

This bill would provide that it is a crime, punishable by a fine
not exceeding $2,500, imprisonment in a county jail for a period not
exceeding one year, or by both that fine and imprisonment for a
person who is located in California, who knows that a particular
recording or audiovisual work is commercial, to knowingly
electronically disseminate all or substantially all of that
commercial recording or audiovisual work to more than 10 other people
without disclosing his or her e-mail address, and the title of the
recording or audiovisual work.

Oh wait, I don't live in California. HAHAHAHA!!!

Brilliant!

[Theatetus]

So if I make music or a movie and wish to distribute it anonymously, I can't? (At least, I don't see anything in the article limiting the restriction to sharing of copyrighted material with limited redistribution licenses.)

Once again, RIAA/MPAA are trying to make new laws to legislate their outdated, un-needed roles as media distributers and make it harder on those of us who produce and distribute media independently. Somewhat more chillingly, this also would prevent people distributing their political protest songs or movies from doing so anonymously: and I think everyone can at least agree that's a problem.

Illegaler?

[FullCircle]

So now sharing content without permission is realy, really, more illegaller than it was before.

Do they really think that people who are already breaking a few laws care about this legislation?

AND to share my own home movies or an indie film that I produce, requires me to submit to a thorough spamming and possible MPAA scrutiny.

Great, thanks for that Arnie.

Re:Illegaler?

[bmetzler]

Do they really think that people who are already breaking a few laws care about this legislation?

It's the same issue with gun control. That's why Republican's didn't renew the Assault Weapons ban. Do you really think that people breaking the law care about what the law says about buying guns, or sharing files?

-Brent

Article is WRONG, Name, Address NOT Email required

[Andy_R]

What the bill actually requires people to reveal is their "true name and address, and the title of the recording or audiovisual work. "

If anyone wished to make an example of a California resident flagrantly breaching this law, might I suggest Apple Computer of 1, Infinite loop, who are failing to reveal the title of everything in the iTunes shop that is maked 'untitled'. At $2,500 per violation, they should get a multi million dollar fine. (disclaimer - I'm outside the US and therefore can't get into the US iTunes store to check this)

mailinator.net

[at_slashdot]

My address is joe@mailinator.com

I'd be curious to know more about. . .

[Fantastic Lad]

the other 89 bills he signed into law yesterday.

I noticed that the article highlighted a couple of rather reasonable-sounding ones, and presented them in a positive light. Hmm.

I wonder about the other 80 or so bills which are now law. Does anybody know?

Basically, after cutting a deal with Enron before his election, I think it is highly unlikely that Arnold is a man with anybody's interests other than his own at heart. --And all in the wake of the CA energy scandal, (which the capitalists defended from the get-go; Nice job guys! Enron is the logical end result of greed-based policy. Did you learn anything?)

If Bush hasn't been crowned "Dictator For Life" by 2008, then I'll be pretty spooked about Arnold taking the throne.

-FL

Re:I'd be curious to know more about. . .

[bmetzler]

And all in the wake of the CA energy scandal,

Wait a minute. I thought Governor Davis was responsible for the energy scandal. Did the Democrats cast him out to the Republicans after he was recalled? My, My, Democrats will do anything to push their troubles on those "capitalistic" Republicans, won't they?

-Brent

Interesting minor point in article

[TiggertheMad]

But he has made no secret of his opposition to the online sharing of copyrighted material. Last week he signed an executive order prohibiting state employees from using software designed for file sharing.

Hmmm, I would love to see how that one is worded. Since the internet only really works based off file sharing, That ban ought to include most windows OSes, most Linux Distros, software such as Mozilla, Netscape Navigator, IE, IIS, Apache and even stupid junk like MSN Messenger, ICQ, and a few MILLION other programs.

(standard rant about stupid politicians)

OK, now that that is out of the way, here is a way to make an example of Ah-nuld's silly legislation: Look up the exact wording of the legislation. Chances are they tried to describe the programs rather than explicitly name them. Then sue the state because state agency X,Y, and Z are using software that falls under the law. After a few rounds of write ups in the 'oddly enough' section of Reuters and court filings, the law will get voted off the books. (I'm sorry mr Swartzheneckher, but the DMV is ENTIRELY shut down by your law. The voters aren't too happy, either...)

Re:Interesting minor point in article

[shogun]

But he has made no secret of his opposition to the online sharing of copyrighted material. Last week he signed an executive order prohibiting state employees from using software designed for file sharing.

According to this article it appears that:

While the order prohibited the use of state resources to illegally download copyrighted material, it specifically allowed for legitimate uses of the controversial software -- in moderation.

So not quite so evil as it sounds..

Two Words...

[Richard Whittaker]

Unenforcable.

My Email Address

[GAMMAH_DJ]

root@127.0.0.1

Re:My Email Address

[TheGratefulNet]

actually, correct syntax is: root@[127.0.0.1]

Re:My Email Address

[GAMMAH_DJ]

Actually troll, what? How is that incorrect? When echo test | mail root@127.0.0.1, the message is correctlry received. I love how you fucking people on/. gotta nerly 1up one another fuck yuou

Re:My Email Address

[TheGratefulNet]

you just showed that some program takes invalid syntax and does what you consider the right thing. big deal, lots of programs try to do the right thing when they get the wrong input. while its admirable for a program, its still advisable for the user to know the CORRECT input. not all programs will take the localhost in dotted quad and treat it as an IP literal. the brackets tell the mailer that it really is a dotted quad and not some series of ascii chars that should be DNS'd.

at any rate, argue with profanity all you want - you're still wrong. I told you what the right syntax is - if you disagree, go change the RFC.

Re:My Email Address

[GAMMAH_DJ]

OMG DUDE The point was that youre such a freaking fucking NERD go have sex with the rfc cunt

Re:My Email Address

[TheGratefulNet]

a slashdotter calling another 'nerd'?

nah. can't be. say it isn't so!

Homer: When will you people learn? In America we stopped using corporal punishment and things have never been better. The streets are safe, old people strut confidently trough the darkest alleys and the weak and nerdy are admired for their computer programming abilities. So, like us, let your children run wild and free, for as the Bible tells us, "Let your children run wild and free."

-amen

Re:My Email Address

[GAMMAH_DJ]

FAIL

Great law.

[siskbc]

I doubt that even accomplishes anything. But if it does what it is intended to do, inform parents/consumers, more power to them. Parents should be aware when they are buying San Andreas for their kid.

Probably won't, but it certainly gets rid of the damned excuses of "I didn't know that game was violent!" or the like.

Now we (or the EFF) can say: "The game was clearly marked as being for adults, and if that was confusing for you, the store you bought the game at had a sign to explain this to you. So if you're too lazy to take an active role in parenting your own damned kids, don't expect us to do it for you."

In other words, it solves the supposed problem without trouncing our civil liberties. And if it doesn't solve the problem, the people who complain have no one to blame but themselves.

Re:Great law.

[zangdesign]

And if it doesn't solve the problem, the people who complain have no one to blame but themselves.

Do you really, in your heart of hearts, believe that will stop them from complaining? Some of them, perhaps, but most of them just want to return to some happy, fuzzy place that never existed.

Re:Great law.

[Some_Llama]

"So if you're too lazy to take an active role in parenting your own damned kids, don't expect us to do it for you."

But the problem is noone ever says this, whether it is a company OR public official.

This is why movies restrict viewers, games and music have big labels and now signs and pamphlets, and people can't curse on TV.

Modern day parents are happy enough to have sex and bring children into the world because it helps to boost their ego or social image or for whatever actual reason, but when it comes down to actually raising the child they couldn't be bothered, then they piss and moan when something in the world makes their life harder (because their kid saw it on TV or emulates a game that they played).

Ill make you a deal.. i'll raise my children and protect them from what I deem is harmful, you unfilter my world and stop telling me what is right and wrong.

Re:Great law.

[maxpublic]

Actually, most of them want to be absolved form decision-making and responsibility altogether. Don't believe me? Teach in public schools for a couple of years and watch as the despair slowly poisons your soul.

The 'parents' of today often don't want to do any parenting at all. If their kid does something unacceptable, they'll blame everyone but themselves for how their little brat was brought up. Seems to be that the psychological maturity of most boomers arrested around the age of 14 and there they remain.

I suspect many of these people would breathe a private sight of relief if America became a dictatorship. With power over the government stripped from them, they'd always have a convenient punching bag to blame all of their personal failures on.

Max

Re:Great law.

[siskbc]

Do you really, in your heart of hearts, believe that will stop them from complaining? Some of them, perhaps, but most of them just want to return to some happy, fuzzy place that never existed.

You're quite right. Put more clearly - I don't care if the soccer moms/religious nuts complain, as long as no one in the media listens (so I don't have to hear it) and no one in govermnent listens (so I don't have to deal with it). I think a comeback like "What, didn't you read the sign?" goes a long way to that end.

my email

[Misanthropy]

for anyone who wants to download movies and music from me:
my email address is fuarnie@hotmail.com

that is all

Re:TBH most of this sounds reasonable

[Bender_]

.. so much for open speech.

/* sarcasm I just hope it works as well...

[GojiraDeMonstah]

...as requiring a government-issued ID to travel on an airplane to combat terrorism. No terrorist has ever had a government-issued ID, and email accounts are a 100% reliable way to pin-point someone by geographic location. sarcasm */

hmm

[ralphus]

Is there another law requiring anyone who uses the internet in california to have an email address?

Newspaper on seat?

[HPNpilot]

You can't necessarily leave your newspaper on the seat when you're done. At least not if the newspaper companies have a say.

Metro-North railroad (the commuter lines into NYC) now consider leaving a paper on your seat as "littering" and are talking about fines and revocation of the monthly passes of violators. When you get to Grand Central station there are specially designed bins to throw your used paper into. They are locked and were supplied by the New York Times so you cannot reach in and get a used paper. And if you somehow do, the transit police are instructed to treat it as theft and arrest you.

Of course you can *hand* the paper to someone, they don't seem to have that one covered (yet).

Re:Newspaper on seat?

[shadowbearer]

That's the Metro-North Janitor's Lobby at work :D

God Forbid that they actually have to pick up anything! Might violate their work contract, daresay.

(don't live out there, but have a friend who commutes and has had a lot to say about the M-N "maintenance" :)

Of course you can *hand* the paper to someone, they don't seem to have that one covered (yet).

No doubt they'll find some way to make that illegal someday...

SB

Re:Newspaper on seat?

[Glorat]

Just for interest, here in London, we get a *free* newspaper called the Metro that anyone can pick up from on most London underground and mainline stations. Obviously being free, there are no qualms whatsoever about leaving the paper for someone else (give or take fire safety)

Re:Newspaper on seat?

[liquidsin]

No they won't. Unless, of course, they start trying to make even more fundamental changes to copyright law. But since the RIAA hasn't had any luck on this front with used CD sales, I doubt the newspapers will either.

Re:Newspaper on seat?

[shadowbearer]

*nod* We can hope so.... me, I wonder what'll happen in a few generations when our miserable excuses for schools have produced the sheep they wanted :(*

SB

Where do I put my email in...

[Chordonblue]

...BITTORRENT? Sorry, I didn't think the protocol needed one. Who's going to enforce this change? Is BT even covered? Also, does this cover USENET?

Interesting but ultimately stupid law.

Knoppix includes LEGAL "media files"

[Xtifr]

Who said this bill has anything to do with *illegal* distribution? Knoppix includes several media files that come under free licenses (which makes them commercial, and therefore subject to this law, unlike, say, Grateful Dead concert recordings, which are also freely distributable, but only non-commercially). In one fell swoop, the distribution of Knoppix in California would seem to have been made illegal (unless you include your email address with each copy, which is clearly an unreasonable burden).

Lots of flame over nothing

[Thunderstruck]

Section 1(a) and 1(c) of the text of the bill except anyone who distributes to 10 or fewer people, or who already owns or is licensed to distribute the matierial.

It also only applies if the matieral is commercial in nature.

Interestingly, its possible for a person diseminating illegally not to have an email address at all... what do they do then? Remember BBS Systems?

Nothing is Anonymous

[nurb432]

Remember hotmail can ( and does ) track the IP address used to setup and access the email account.

IP tracks back to your ISP, which ( again, its been shown due to the RIAA suits ) can be tracked back to the user..

More over then that, if they can prove you were trying to hide, it could be considered evasion of the law.. So you get hit with 2 crimes.. Yippe!

Between this, and outright banning of 50 cal firearms, the man is an idiot and should be tossed out of office..

Thankfully i dont live in california, well actually i refuse too, due to their twisted concept of the constitution..

Re:Nothing is Anonymous

[gcaseye6677]

Your IP address is already traceable when using most filesharing services, I believe. If not, then adding an email address is hardly going to make a difference. First, there would have to be a way to verify that the email is correct, or a user would just enter blow@me.com. Assuming it can be verified, a free email account can be set up from a different IP address (school, public terminal, work, proxy) and there goes the tracking capability. The RIAA chief is going to be awfully disappointed when he finds out how the internet really works.

Re:Nothing is Anonymous

[glitch23]

Thankfully i dont live in california, well actually i refuse too, due to their twisted concept of the constitution..

and due to their twisted concept of heterosexuality and gender.

Re:Nothing is Anonymous

[rock_climbing_guy]

But don't you remember,

Your computer is currently broadcasting an IP address. With this address, the RIA^h^h^h^h^h^h^hsomeone could begin attacking your computer!

Re:Nothing is Anonymous

[Nept]

weren't .50 cal firearms banned before arnold came to office? I'm trying to think about the last time the LA Times had a 2 page editorial in about the evils of a S&W 500 series.

Either way, it sucks. Gotta move to FL or something.

Re:Nothing is Anonymous

[sgant]

After this past month of hurricanes down there, I think I'll cross Florida off my "gotta move there" list.

Re:Nothing is Anonymous

[Crayon Kid]

Remember hotmail can ( and does ) track the IP address used to setup and access the email account. IP tracks back to your ISP, which ( again, its been shown due to the RIAA suits ) can be tracked back to the user..

Firefox + SwitchProxy.

Re:Nothing is Anonymous

[edittard]

Worse than that - my clock might be wrong!

Let's take this further

[rabbar]

New laws need to be enacted that criminalize: 1) Robbing a bank without leaving a copy of your driver's license 2) Burglarizing a home without first obtaining a Burglarly License from the State of California 3) Removing your fingerprints from the scene of a crime 4) Failure to confess

Here's the Definition of "Valid E-mail address"

[wernst]

From the Text of the law:

" (5) "E-mail address" means a valid e-mail address, or the valid e-mail address of the holder of the account from which the dissemination took place."

Now the term "valid" has got me thinking. As has been mentioned, "root@localhost" is certainly valid. There must also be some "see-no-evil" outfit willing to supply you with a VALID email address, but would be uncooperative to any US authority attempting to determine actual real-life identity from it.

So, if YOU know of such an outfit, let us know, so we can remain within the boundaries of the law! ;-0

Obsolete Law

[WiseWeasel]

That law is no longer applicable thanks to the 1976 "Controlled Substances Act", or something of the sort. Now it's just plain illegal, even if states were to issue tax stamps (as Arizona used to do).

Re:Obsolete Law

[gl4ss]

no shit sherlock.

that was the whole point.

except in this case they're making the equivalent of that tax stamp law _after_ already making the whole thing illeagal..

Re:Obsolete Law

[Pig Hogger]

"I like systems, their application excepted." George Sand (translated from French)"J'aime les systemes, leur application.

<nitpick>This would be: J'aime beaucoup les systèmes, le cas d'application excepté .</nitpick>

Re:Obsolete Law

[shadowbearer]

It may no longer be "applicable"; but it has been, and AFAIK is still, used against many marijuana offenders, often in cases where the other evidence against them (like in distribution cases) is shaky. It's just another way to bring charges.

There are articles on the NORML website and others, if you look.

SB

Re:Obsolete Law

[WiseWeasel]

Nice, thanks for the exact quote and link. I've tried finding it before, but never could. I'll leave the translation the same though, as it pretty much says the same thing... damn character limit.

Re:Lots of questions, Some Answers

[duce gezr]

After reading the article, head over to http://info.sen.ca.gov/pub/bill/sen/sb_1501-1550/s b_1506_bill_20040823_enrolled.html

Here's a nice quote from the bill:

who knows that a particular recording or audiovisual work is commercial, to knowingly electronically disseminate all or substantially all of that commercial recording or audiovisual work to more than 10 other people without disclosing his or her e-mail address, and the title of the recording or audiovisual work

Back to the questions...
Is this only for legal files sharing?

Actually, its for commercial audio/visual recordings only. That seems to mean a work with an audio or visual component to it. Plain text works are not included.

IANAL, but it also implies that the work is copyrighted, and that someone has a commercial interest in the work

c (2) If the copyright owner, or a person acting under the authority of the copyright owner, of a commercial recording or audiovisual work has explicitly given permission for all or substantially all of that recording or audiovisual work to be freely disseminated electronically by or to anyone without limitation.

there you go - if you are the copyright owner, the law does not apply.

If the file sharing app has to provide a way to advertise an email, does this make app incapable of this illegal?

I can't think of a file sharing program that doesn't also let you share (in some way) text files. Even if they aren't found by a search, you'd still be sharing that information for someone who looks for it appropriately.

Are FTP and websites affected by this law?

Yes.

That's all I can help with...

More legal email address to use

[Dark Coder]

actually, the following are legal email addresses:

root@localhost
Administrator@localhost
webmaster@your-hostname-without-a-TLD

The law is so vague that it didn't specify what a valid e-mail address is. Should have reference something like

RFC 831 - Simple Mail Transport Protocol

or more importantly, what the email syntax SHOULD BE

RFC 822 - Standard for the format of ARPA Internet text messages

This bill will get thrown out of court easily but only AFTER the EFF expends additional money due to our overpaid legislators' technologically-clueless ineptitudes.

Get with the program, EFF lobbyists.

Re:More legal email address to use

[WWWWolf]

The law is so vague that it didn't specify what a valid e-mail address is.

Oh, cool. Does it say that the e-mail address has to be for a network that is routable to via SMTP?

Hmm. UUCP and X.400 addresses on rise...

What about your own music?

[42forty-two42]

Does this law ban putting your own music up on a webpage with some free-redistribution licence?

Mod up parent

[cft_128]

Just what I was thinking.

Windows Samba Shares

[benk0027]

Wouldn't this law apply to all users who use Windows or anything with open shares as well, considering that is "file sharing"?

offtopic: ok to buy needles now

[Meniconi,Nando]

Talking about the "signing spree", I do believe is going to be legal now to purchase needles and syringes in CA without a prescription. Hopefully the spreading rate of HIV and hepatites will be affected a bit by this.

Re:Article is WRONG, Name, Address NOT Email requi

[rabbar]

Try reading the law that was actually enacted

Stupid /.er

[geekoid]

It applies to commercial distribution, not copyright as a whole.

Re:Stupid /.er

[Anonymous Coward]

Define commercial.

I can sell a work that is in the public domain, is it now commercial?

Cause More Crime

[Deliveranc3]

This will cause more crime than it will prevent

When whois info on the spyware makers get's out hooo boy time for a lynching!

You guys are missing the point

[SeattleGameboy]

The bill is not just to further punish currently outlawed activity, it is to criminalize what is a civil offense.

If you trade on-line and get caught, all you are going to lose is money (could be alot, but still just money), unless you are a large scale illegal distributor (with clear monetary gains).

This law make is possible now to JAIL people who are sharing on-line!!! That is not just bad, it is friggin' CRAZY!!!

I can't believe naive Californians are going to take it up in the a@# like this...

Address included?

[cbr2702]

From the bill:

(5) "True name and address" means information that accurately identifies the name of the person who is disseminating the commercial recording or audiovisual work, along with his or her valid e-mail or mailing address.

So it looks like you may choose either an email or a mailing address.

Just try routing around california...

[Jim McCoy]

Does Californica not realize that the Internet will treat this as damage, and route around it?

Considering the fact that until recently the majority of packets on the internet either originated or terminated in California, I sincerly invite you to try routing around CA.

The benefit of running the state that contains Silicon Valley (and the tech centers in LA and San Diego) is that you get to exert a significant impact on the internet, whether the rest of the internet likes it or not.

Re:Just try routing around california...

[Thomas Shaddack]

Considering the fact that until recently the majority of packets on the internet either originated or terminated in California, I sincerly invite you to try routing around CA.

Encrypt the data. Doesn't help in all settings, but often greatly alleviates the situation. Even a simple unauthenticated SSL can protect against passive prying eyes of the Echelon class.

Exactly.

[pseudochaotic]

Exactly. Too many people have connected "download" and "music" with "piracy". This sounds like it would also apply to legitimate files that people are sharing, which the government has no reason to regulate.

Utter bollocks

[ectoraige]

If your email address is with a non-US entity, the DoJ can go swivel.

Therefore, if anybody wanst a prestigous yourname@the.prosecutor.has.herpes.and.a.leaky.ass .helgrim.com email address, provided free here in Ireland, contact me through my site.

I'd love to see a video from the courtroom as the charges are read...

Re:Utter bollocks

[bmetzler]

If your email address is with a non-US entity, the DoJ can go swivel.

I'm failing to see how a non-US email TLD will allow you to break the law in a manner that you can't be charged with. Doesn't make sense at all.

-Brent

I tried to visit the website...

[noidentity]

...but it said I had to give my e-mail address so that it could anonymously share the article's html file with me.

Ex Post Facto

[Myrmidon]

I don't see how this can be enforcable in any practical way.

That's because you're thinking of this labeling requirement as a way to find the people who are sharing files. But that's backwards.

Here's how it used to work:

1. The RIAA finds a music sharer's IP address.
2. The RIAA pays a lawyer to sue the sharer.
3. The sharer settles the lawsuit for an amount of money (which may or may not be enough to pay the costs of steps 1 and 2).
4. Hopefully, the sharer will be afraid, and will tell all her friends never to use Kazaa again. (RIAA: yay!)
5. Most likely, the sharer hates the RIAA and will also tell her friends to buy directly from independent artists (RIAA: oops)
6. ???
7. Profit!

Here's how it works now:

1. The RIAA finds a music sharer's IP address.
2. The RIAA tips off the California cops, who send an official-looking form letter to the sharer with a stern warning: you didn't label those shared files with a proper email address! So now you're a criminal! Reform your evil ways, or Arnold will "be back" for YOU!
3. Now, the sharer might be smart enough to realize that attaching an anonymous Hotmail address to her shared files won't make them any more traceable then they were already. And she might understand that copyright violations are not criminal acts, so California can't prosecute them.
   But she probably won't. She will probably see a stern official letter from a California cop, freak out, and tell all her friends never to use Kazaa again. (RIAA: yay!)
4. Most likely, the sharer hates California and will also tell her friends that Arnold Schwarzenegger is a dickweed. (RIAA: who cares? Politicians are cheap and disposable!)
5. Since our music sharer has never heard of the RIAA and has no idea that they are behind all of this, she may well buy some $27 CDs next Christmas.
6. Profit!

Nobody has to be prosecuted for this law to help the RIAA. (And that's a good thing, because California doesn't have the money to keep their current prison system running, let alone prosecute file sharers.) The law doesn't even have to be constitutional to help the RIAA. Indeed, if I were the RIAA, I would pray that this never gets tested in court - if it gets thrown out, as it likely will, then its threat value becomes worthless.

Better yet...

[pseudochaotic]

It only affects media files, right? Hello, uuencode.

Ummm..you are spreading false info

[nurb432]

It is NOT illegal to share movies and music..

Its illegal to share media files that are prohibited from distribution by their ( copyright ) license holders.

Not all media files have this restriction. Many license holders DO permit free re-distribution of their ( copyrighted ) files.

You are just spreading the same set of lies the industries push to confuse people. Perhaps unintentionally, perhaps not. Only you can answer that question.

Great Firewall of California

[macdaddy]

Me thinks it's time for that bastard of a state we call California to firewall itself off from the rest of us. If not them then maybe we should do it for them.

I love this bit:

[geekoid]

"But he has made no secret of his opposition to the online sharing of copyrighted material. Last week he signed an executive order prohibiting state employees from using software designed for file sharing."

so no ftp/http/telnet/VPN/VNC/copy...going to play hell on having a state website

Link to Senate Bill 1506

[base_chakra]

SB 1506

While this bill is mad and deserves serious criticism, read it before debating it. A lot of the concerns voiced about this piece of legislation are nullified by the bill's actual stipulations. By the same token, if Schwarzenegger passed this thing without further revision, then it's actually even more restrictive in some ways than the articles indicate. Unfortuantely, the press releases just aren't detailed enough; and, personally, I don't know where to find more substantive information.

What's the trick?

[mollymoo]

I'm not inclined to take this law at face value. Distribution of copyright materials against the wishes of the copyright owner is already illegal. Tracing the IP address of a file sharer is probably easier than tracing an email address. I doubt the addition of a misdemeanour to the existing charges is the point.

I think it's a trick to make it easier for the **AA to, for example, subpoena ISPs for people's real names and addresses. Any California lawyers here know if this legislation will indeed make bringing cases for copyright infrigement easier for the **AA?

IANAL.

Exceptions..

[joeblakethesnake]

There are exceptions....

This bill would provide that these provisions would not apply to a
person who electronically disseminates a commercial recording to his
or her immediate family or within his or her personal network, as
defined, to a situation in which the copyright owner has explicitly
given permission for or licensed the recording or audiovisual work to
be freely disseminated, electronically disseminated, or disseminated
by means of a cable television service.

RTFB

[originalhack]

If you RTFB, it is clear the the work must be commercial and you must not have a license to distribute it, otherwise this does not apply.

excerpt....

SECTION 1. Section 653aa is added to the Penal Code, to read:
653aa. (a) Any person, except a minor, who is located in
California, who, knowing that a particular recording or audiovisual
work is commercial, knowingly electronically disseminates all or
substantially all of that commercial recording or audiovisual work to
more than 10 other people without disclosing his or her e-mail
address, and the title of the recording or audiovisual work is
punishable by a fine not exceeding two thousand five hundred dollars
($2,500), imprisonment in a county jail for a period not exceeding
one year, or by both that fine and imprisonment.
(b) Any minor who violates subdivision (a) is punishable by a fine
not exceeding two hundred fifty dollars ($250). Any minor who
commits a third or subsequent violation of subdivision (a) is
punishable by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000),
imprisonment in a county jail for a period not to exceed one year, or
by both that imprisonment and fine.
(c) Subdivisions (a) and (b) do not apply:
(1) To a person who electronically disseminates a commercial
recording or audiovisual work to his or her immediate family, or
within his or her personal network, defined as a restricted access
network controlled by and accessible to only that person or people in
his or her immediate household.
(2) If the copyright owner, or a person acting under the authority
of the copyright owner, of a commercial recording or audiovisual
work has explicitly given permission for all or substantially all of
that recording or audiovisual work to be freely disseminated
electronically by or to anyone without limitation.
(3) To a person who has been licensed either by the copyright
owner or a person acting under the authority of the copyright owner
to disseminate electronically all or substantially all of a
commercial audiovisual work or recording.

Heading off Freenet at the pass.

[JInterest]

Maybe it will make them feel like they got something accomplished and they won't try as hard to buy a law that has a truly chilling effect. Wishful thinking, I know.

Actually, I think the purpose in having this law is more subtle than you may realize. This is directly aimed at networks that are DESIGNED to permit anonymous, non-traceable filesharing, which is the next coming thing.

Bad laws are bad laws, because of their potential consequences, and because we don't need them cluttering up our already vast legal codes

Re:Heading off Freenet at the pass.

[einhverfr]

Actually, I think the purpose in having this law is more subtle than you may realize. This is directly aimed at networks that are DESIGNED to permit anonymous, non-traceable filesharing, which is the next coming thing.

First-- what happens if a whole network anonymously shares an email account? "With access to our network you get read-only access to this email account which is provided in order to satisfy the requirements of this law"

Re:Heading off Freenet at the pass.

[einhverfr]

What if that email address is located, say, in Iran? I don't think such subpoenas would be easy to obtain....

Re:Heading off Freenet at the pass.

[Master of Transhuman]

P2P email account?

Hosted over the whole P2P network?

Nobody said it has to work, it just has to have an "email address", right?

GPL restrictions?

[jackbird]

Does the law make it illegal to distribute GPLed packages containing media files from servers in CA? After all, it's a restriction on redistribution, sort of...

Yeah whatever

[sholde4]

I'm sure they're going to bother tracking you down to fine you for not posting your email. It would be just as easy for them to track you down and fine you for sharing the files in the first place.

Great! Another "possession" law, selective use

[kindbud]

If they have caught you sharing copyrighted materials, they don't need your email address to track you down - they already found you. So the only way they can enforce this law is after they have caught you by some means other than tracking down your email address. This is like "possession" laws. The prosecutor will charge you with this new crime only in conjunction with other charges. In other words, this lets the prosecutor pile up more and more charges against you, in the hope that if the jury kicks out the main charges, at least they can stick you with this one.

This is just how possession charges are used. The prosecutor might charge a defendant with murder, drug trafficking,conspiracy (there's another "crime" like this one) and possession, hoping that if the jury acquits on the murder and trafficking charges, they can still send you to jail for possession or conspiracy.

It's totally bogus for discouraging piracy.

look at me, breakin the law

[kLaNk]

Yeah, thats right, no email address here AND I am sharing a song.

Using klank3 encoding here is a pirated copy of a randomly selected Britney Spears song:

.

The encoding is ingenious actually. I simply remove all the crap from the final stream, and use an ASCII code 46 sentinel for the end of the stream. My encoding scheme is one of the few methods that actually improves the sound quality.

that's why I voted for Gary Coleman

[infonography]

Star power is hiding a bunch of dirty laundry. He let Enron off the hook, after that his job was done and everything else was cake.

hello

[Trepidity]

I recently participated in a beta test of some of your email-tracking software. I forwarded it to ten of my friends, as requested, but have not as of yet received a check for the compensation that was promised for my participation. Is there something else I need to do to claim the money?

Re: Feel-good legislation?

[Alwin Henseler]

This is what you call feel-good legislation.

Hmmm. I'd say laws should: a) be enforced (otherwise there's no point in creating them), b) therefore be enforceable, and c) not conflict with more fundamental laws.

My guess is a law like the above a) won't be enforced, b) won't be enforceable if tried, and c) might conflict with fundamental privacy legislation.

That makes it a lousy law, and thus for purely technical reasons alone, shouldn't be in the books in the first place.

isnt this like

[Suppafly]

Isn't this like requiring people to report illegal drug income on their taxes?

This is why it was banned

[ravenspear]

Because nobody ever specifically banned it?

Actually it was probably because of people like this that have a fetish for banging cadavers.

Re:This is why it was banned

[wikdwarlock]

How many /.ers read that personal ad, thought the girl sounded just fine, and only then saw the text on the left talking about "sexually penetrating a dead body"?

How does a woman penetrate a dead body? Either she's a man, or she likes to mix dead bodies w/ sex toys.

Wait, why am I analyzing this situation? Bleh! Time to go wash my brain out w/ gasoline.

Correct me if I'm wrong....

[mark-t]

... but doesn't this bill mean that it is completely legal to use a single copy of, for example, Microsoft Windows on every PC within a single household?

Re:Correct me if I'm wrong....

[msebast]

This law dosen't make anything leagal that was previously illegal.

This law just adds additional penalties under specific circumstances related to p2p networks and "commercial" works that you dont't have permission to share.

(IANAL, blablabla)

Too Fucking Stupid to Govern!

[webzombie]

I can not believe someone, especially in California, didn't point out to the Governator just how FUCKIN stupid this law really is!

canadians_can_share@iam.ca!

Sharing from outside California?

[syousef]

What if someone shares a file outside of California, or even the US. Are they going to be subject to extradition if the file is available to someone within California?

This bill is completely illogical.

[mark-t]

It says it requires your email address and physical address and phone number if you are going to share files.

However, it also says that you are *NOT* obligated to provide these details if you either owned the material you are sharing or otherwise have permission from the coypright holder to be distributing the content.

But if you don't have permission from the copyright holder to distribute the content, then distribution is copyright violation anyways. So this bill is basically saying "If you're going to break the law, you have to tell us who you are and where you live so that we can find you". This is about the stupidest thing I think I may have ever seen.

Re:This bill is completely illogical.

[acceleriter]

It's something else to add to the list of charges if you're caught. Even if the copyright holder isn't interested in pursuing a criminal prosecution, a bought and paid-for district attorney can use this statute against you and the label/studio endures no bad publicity (a la Adobe).

Ants p2p Anonymous Filesharing

[microbrewer]

Here is a proxy chaining p2p that uses ID hashes instead of IP to transfer data it also has point to point and end to end encryption .IPs are used for bootstaping from IRC and seting strategic routing points on the network .So they will have to make a law that first bans you from even being on a p2p network and also a law that bans you from proxying data so it would mean they would have to ban every ISP also under those type of laws. So put this in your Pipe and smoke it Govorner Arnie Ants P2P Features * Open Source Java implementation (GNU-GPL license). * Multiple sources download. * Torrent download from partial files. * Automatic resume and sources research over the net. * Search by hash, string and structured query. * Embedded support for etherogeneus data types (not only arrays of bytes...). * Completely Object-Oriented routing protocol. * Point to Point secured comunication: DH(512)-AES(128) * EndPoint to EndPoint secured comunication: DH(512)-AES(128) * Automatic serverless peer dicovery procedure. * IRC based peer discovery system. * IRC embeded chat system. * Full text search of indexed documents (pdf, html, txt, doc etc) -> QUERY REFERENCE. * Distributed/Decentralized Search engine * HTTP tunneling.

Re:Ants p2p Anonymous Filesharing

[microbrewer]

http://www.myjavaserver.com/~gwren/home.jsp?page=c ustom&xmlName=ants

What will this accomplish?

[dtfinch]

It's already illegal to distribute copyrighted media without permission from the copyright owners. People won't violate one law yet be sure to comply to the law that helps them get caught.

So now, if I want to distribute media which I own the copyright to or have explicit permission to redistribute, I must also give out an email address?

Does it apply to leeches?

[ohsoot]

So. If I disable filesharing and only download files, then I suppose I am not required to give out my email address since I'm only downloading and not sharing. Right?

Freenet's immune

[shostiru]

How, exactly, are they going to catch people on Freenet? Assuming they have the key for a given file -- if they don't, they can't even find it -- there's no way to determine who posted it, and no way to determine what a given node has in its local cache? It would be like finding a note on a public bulletin board, with no attribution, no fingerprints, and no way of tracking it.

Oh, even if they could identify who posted a file, they can't remove it anyway.

Re:Freenet's immune

[mrogers]

The Freenet protocol doesn't include a way for nodes to exchange email addresses, so if it's illegal to share files without offering your email address, it's illegal to run a Freenet node.

Californian Freenetters have a choice: they can either fork the protocol, or run their nodes illegally. Freenet makes no attempt to hide the fact that you're running a node - IP addresses circulate through the network and are used to improve the efficiency of routing - so the police can run a "honeypot" node (in Nevada) and compile a list of Freenet IPs that belong to Californian ISPs. Connect to each node in turn and if it lets you download files, arrest the owner.

Freenet is far from immune.

Re:Freenet's immune

[ultranova]

Californian Freenetters have a choice: they can either fork the protocol, or run their nodes illegally.

Or they can politely ask that the protocol is changed to include exchanging e-mail addresses during connection. That should satisfy the requirements of the law and keep Freenet from being terminated.

The fourth and probably best choice would be to leave California to it's fate and make sure you're elsewhere.

so the police can run a "honeypot" node (in Nevada) and compile a list of Freenet IPs that belong to Californian ISPs

And they do this with your tax money. Talk about adding insult to injury :).

Girlie Legislation Man

[Mulletproof]

"Aiding the industry that helped him gain worldwide fame, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation Tuesday aimed at discouraging online piracy by requiring anyone disseminating movies or music on the Internet to disclose their e-mail address.' Also he signed a bill to limit the sale of video games."

Sooooo... Let me get this strait: He's passing a law requiring people already engaged in a quasi-illegle activity to display an e-mail address? Who's fertile mind did this spring from!? Really now, I know bogus email addresses are a bit hard to come by these days, but... No, the submitter of this story has it all wrong. Arnold isn't aiding ANYBODY with this legistlation, let alone the music industry, because anybody with an OUNCE of common sense is going to realize it will be as effective as the proverbial submarine with a screen door. I mean, technically the email address is mine ...Not that it has accurate registration information, let alone the fact that I signed up and access it through an anonymous proxy server. OR the fact that I'm in Utah distributing movies. I mean, how weak is that?

About as weak as limiting the sale of videogames. Now WTF is THAT all about? At least he managed to strike down a motion that would ban the word "Redskins" from school sports teams and such. It's the small victories, y'know?

Re:Girlie Legislation Man

[Zareste]

Gyahahaha. "Hey, let's vote a mindless nutcase into office because he's a movie star!"

Serves them right.

And if you want to find a chain of logic to this (or even less, to debunk it), don't bother. He's just another puppet serving as a bitch to large-business. You could spend a lifetime or two commenting on all the Nazi-ish bills politicians love to sign; in fact, go for it; watch what happens. The most they'll do is shrug and laugh.

"Aahh-nold finds these puuuny civil-ian opinions funny! Ha ha! Give me yor e-mail ahddress, filthy aahnt! ....Ooooh crahp, da RIAA is coming over. Aahh-nold needs to put on anal luuube..."

When we are all criminals...

[Anonymous Coward]

When the reach of law becomes so broad that society contains more criminals than upstanding citizens, the very legitimacy of government should be questioned.

Waitaminute

[aussie_a]

it doesn't say "true name and address" in a form accessible to other people. So therefore you can encrypt your name and address :)

its not just the constitutional issues here....

[Lexomatic]

but what about the legality of identifying someone using an email address? A signature is a legally accepted way of stating acceptance of exchange of something (such as contracts). So how can a law demand you provide your name and email be upheld unless the email is considered an appropriate form of digital signature. So I spoof my IP address, use someone elses name and email and then what? My email address is NOT a valid identification of myself in ANY internet transaction. It only identifies someone who has access to an email account of some sort. I agree, this may be some sort of salami tactic for getting in a law for later ammendment, but the mistake was using bad meat the salami in the first place.

Not illegal after all

[angedinoir]

Nothing in there says that you can't use programs that anonymously share files, so long as you're not sharing files.

If the programs are truly anonymous, then how are they going to catch you anyways?

Continuing to beat the horse to death since 1984.

International law

[DaveCBio]

So, are they going to try to enforce this outside of California borders?

Legislation's cheaper than education

[mrogers]

The RIAA knows that P2P users can be identified by their IP addresses. But it's difficult to explain to the public that they have no anonymity when using P2P software without also revealing that they have no anonymity when browsing for porn, which would upset a lot of people and make the government look like Big Brother. Much better to leave people's beliefs unchanged and instead pass a law that makes most existing P2P software illegal, splits the P2P development community into "collaborators" and "illegals", and paves the way for legislation requiring email addresses to be traceable.

Suggestion, albeit IANAL,

[einhverfr]

Not sure about the fifth ammendment ramifications. It seems that the counter argument is that this is simply requiring people who presumably have permission to identify themselves so that they can better go after those who do not have permission.

Now, the first ammendment aspect may be more interesting. I propose that we all create political speaches as media files and in them explicitly state that we only give permission for them to be distributed, publically exhibited, etc. anonymously, and that no one is allowed to *both* distribute the content and comply with this law. Then we should send them around P2P networks with catchy titles like "California Dreaming--- RIAA Dream On" etc. Note only the copyright holder would have permission to email them to political figures, or we could make an exception for that in the license :-)

Such speech would have clear political value and would not contain the unprotected practical elements which cause problems for DeCSS cases. In the end one might have a case regarding whether one can legally curtail political discourse using such laws. Also if such laws cannot curtail political discourse, then they might not be able to curtail other things as well.

As an aside, we could also set the text ofthe law to music and then forbid anyone to distribute it in such a way that complies with the law :-)

Timing is Everything

[not_hylas( )]

Outfoxed

http://www.archive.org/movies/details-db.php?col le ction=election_2004&collectionid=outfoxed_intervie ws

How long till apathy kills your choice?
It's all ready killed common sense.

VOTE

I'd always use ...

[debrain]

piracy@microsoft.com; it'd take years before they figured out the boilerplate about what was going on.

Hollywood: "You've pirated a movie."
Microsoft: "Thank you for reporting this piracy. We will prosecute violators to the full extent of the law." .. and so on and so forth.

Re:No, Freenet's just waiting for the 1st court ca

[imroy]

Freenet inserts splitfiles with 50% redundant error-correcting (FEC) data. So if IllegalFile.avi is split into 1000 data blocks then an additional 500 "check blocks" will be inserted as well. All 1500 blocks have CHK keys listed in the splitfile. So to "prove" that someone probably downloaded a file, you just need to find 1000 of those 1500 blocks in the users' datastore.

Complicating the legal question is that recent Freenet builds (in the last month or two) now effectively make all nodes non-transient. Connections between nodes are now also "bi-directional". So whereas before your transient node only stored content you downloaded, it is now being sent content (and requests for content) from the non-transient nodes that it connects to. The only difference from a permanent node is that they don't announce themselves. I think the idea is to offload some of the storage from the non-transient nodes as well as distribute the data more. I've often found when I leave my node on for several days that a splifile will start downloading and a few (or a lot!) of the blocks are already in my datastore.

In the end I think it depends on the laws in your part of the world. Even if the authorites can find all/most of a file (warez/movie/music/CP/etc) in your freenet datastore, is that enough to convict? i.e does that qualify as "posession"? Or do they have to show (within reasonable doubt) that you purposefully requested that content? Has the EFF or someone compiled information about this sort of thing?

Democrats and Republicans. . .

[Fantastic Lad]

I learned a long time ago not to bother with either label. Regardless of which song the band happens to be playing, the parade is still marching toward the same destination. Snowball fights between the two camps are just a distraction. A waste of energy and awareness. A great big, dumb trap which so many people fall into. Willingly!

But I must say. . , that website link on your post, (Democrats for Bush) was pretty astonishing!

Anybody who doesn't recognize that Bush is a psychopath is either stupid, or is deliberately avoiding reading anything outside the prescribed jingoistic dogma. (Which is also pretty stupid.) Or, of course, such a person could also be evil, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

You might also be joking, but I've run into enough people who have bought the line to know that this is unlikely. What a world, eh!

I could provide you with a lot very illuminating material if I thought you wanted to be illuminated, but I don't get that impression.

It seems likely at this point that those who are still living with blinders on are doing so deliberately. Reality is a much more complicated and depressing place than the fiction, after all. (Or so some find; for me the whole show is entirely fascinating to watch unfold. --Though, I do recognize that my attitude is an unusual one. Global destruction and mass-misery can be very upsetting, and I do sympathize with those who are horrified by the prospect of the ends of their various worlds.) Regardless though, studied ignorance despite the calming effect, has ZERO use in the long run. Protection only comes from knowledge.

-FL

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The Vulcan Science Director . . .

[WinterpegCanuck]

. . . has concluded that time travel is impossible and that lead causes cancer and birth defects. We have also been unable to find a cure for baldness in the future, even though we can cure the blind.

That is all.

You don’t get it

[Pan T. Hose]

I mean, I really really don't it. It's already illegal share movies. Now in order for them to allow me to commit an illegal act I have to share my email address?

What this bill does is effectively adding one year of jail time. Is it stupid? Yes. Is it pointless? No.

All expenses paid for $208/month? Sweet! ;-)

[MacDork]

County Jail? Room and board + three square meals a day AND I don't have to work for a year? Throw the book at me baby! Meetcha at the public library Andy Taylor!

What do you think?

[phaetonic]

If I use a SOCKS or HTTP proxy in another state/country, would this bill still be a hiderance?

where the hell did this come from?

[dtandersen]

i voted for arnold. NEVER AGAIN!

It's a damned good thing...

[maxpublic]

...that California is just one of fifty states, and that I don't live there. It was crazy enough when Arnie got elected governor (I was rooting for the porn star, but alas - I didn't get to vote), but you nutbags pass idiotic laws like they were going out of style.

I think I'm going to try to get the Oregon-California Border Fortification and Immigration Denial bill presented to my state legislature again....

Max

Ah yes, the battle of the century

[Gubbe]

Mailinator vs. Governator

he *IS* a sim, goddamn it

[RMH101]

they work him by remote control from an orbiting disney spacestation, do you know NOTHING?

agreed, BUT

[RMH101]

it also give the state more powers. get busted for anything involving a computer? mail people who are on a state watch-list? when you get busted they'll check out your online activity and discover you once downloaded a film illegally and can you for that, as well. it's part of a creeping movement towards potentially criminalising everyone. you're not going to arrest everyone but you could arrest anyone.

WAIT JUST ONE SECOND

[RMH101]

Florida as legal .50cal firearms and spammers? What a happy coincidence!

Prison Population

[pommiekiwifruit]

The USA also has the largest absolute number of prisoners (~2 million) in the world, compared to Chinas ~1.5m or so. Well it helps to keep the unemployment figures down I guess.

Not that stupid - it is a legal trick

[dk90406]

And if it did, it would be the stupidest law I've ever heard of. It would have to say you are free to share non-infringing files however you like, but if you are already commiting a FELONY sharing infringing files then we are also going to tack on a petty misdemeanor unless you post your e-mail address. I've seen some stupid laws, but that would be colossally stupid.

As far as I understand, copyright infringement is braking civilian law. It is not breaking criminal law. By introducing this bill, copyright suddenly becomes criminal.

One obvious implication is that the government gets to sue and trial you, as opposed to the copyright holders. And, more importantly for the RIAA, the goverment gets to pay for the trials as well.

Please excuse any incorrect terms in this post - my knowledge to the US legal system is limited, being from Denmark. But I do read groklaw ;-)

Re:Not that stupid - it is a legal trick

[Alsee]

As far as I understand, copyright infringement is braking civilian law. It is not breaking criminal law.

Under US law that was true for most of history, up until 1909 when serious cases of commercial infringment were made criminal as well. Then, in 1997, our fscking legislators passed the NET act which redefined the term "financial gain". With this redefinition virtually any non-commercial infringment is now technically a felony punishable by up to five years in prison. Not only is virtually everyone who has every used P2P is technicaly a felon (maybe 20% of the population), but once you factor in audio cassettes and everything else, something like half the population would be in prison if the NET act were fully enforced.

Sigh. For the last several years all of our copyright laws have literally been written by laywers empolyed by our publishing industry.

-

Re:Not that stupid - it is a legal trick

[dk90406]

Sigh. For the last several years all of our copyright laws have literally been written by laywers empolyed by our publishing industry.

I have been following (unavoidable, if you read newsstories on the net) US copyright and patent legislation for some years now.
At first I thought it was funny, to see the pathetic attempts from industry groups and lobbying organisations, of trying to gain money and control through dobious proposals.

Now I am just hoping reason will prevail over monetary interests. Then I got concerned when the proposals became law, wondering why you accepted it (I later realized how hard some of you were trying to fight it).

Now I am becoming scared, seeing that the same stupid laws are beeing lobbied here in the EU. Even the "rational" ("" to avoid a boring discussion about our government) Dansih government don't seem to realize the potential danger.

Now I am just hoping that reason will prevail over monetary interests.

Re:Not that stupid - it is a legal trick

[Alsee]

the same stupid laws are beeing lobbied here in the EU

I may have some bad news for you. Are you aware that the EU has already taken the next step and in fact PASSED the EU Copyright Directive? The only saving grace is that there has been an overwhelming level of non-compliance or half-hearted compliance by member nations. I beliove your country has indeed implemented some form of the EUCD.

-

Objective News

[smblion]

I'm glad the poster is objective, otherwise we might get hit by bias reporting.. oh wait.. we did.

The video game 'limit' is aimed at keeping kids from buying games rated MA-17. If you have a problem with that perhaps you would suggest that children be admitted to NC-17 rated movies as well?

Re:Objective News

[Some_Llama]

how about my kids can go to any movie I deem appropriate?

As it is right now there is nothing stopping me from renting a R or NC-17 movie and showing it to my kids... same with buying video games for my children... why then should I be stopped from enjoying a movie at a theater with my children when i deem it ok for my kids to see just because of how other people have rated it?

Re:Objective News

[smblion]

Nothing is stopping you at all, and that argument is completely irrelevant in this situation, since the controversy is over kids buying the games, not parents buying the games for their kids.

Re:Objective News

[Some_Llama]

yah but how long until it is a crime to let your kids play games that are deemed "inappropriate"?

The orignial verse of the bill was to not allow kids to purchase any game that is of a certain rating (M and above) so if this passed and I bought the game and gave it to my kids would I be guilty of a crime?

Re:Objective News

[smblion]

No.. you shouldn't need to be told that.

Wrong wrong wrong

[Sanity]

Freenet inserts splitfiles with 50% redundant error-correcting (FEC) data. So if IllegalFile.avi is split into 1000 data blocks then an additional 500 "check blocks" will be inserted as well. All 1500 blocks have CHK keys listed in the splitfile. So to "prove" that someone probably downloaded a file, you just need to find 1000 of those 1500 blocks in the users' datastore.

Firstly, this is factually incorrect. You assume that Freenet always caches the data it downloads, but actually the probably of caching the data decreases the further away from the source of the data you get, so the initial requestor is unlikely to cache it at all.

But this is a moot point anyway. If the RIAA gets to take your hard disk and dissect it, then it is much more likely that they will find the file you downloaded, they don't even have to look at whats in your datastore. In other words, by the time you have got to this stage, you are already screwed (unless you are smart enough to use an encrypted partition).

What matters is what the RIAA can tell about your activities remotely, and the answer to that, in Freenet's case, is "nothing useful".

Re:Wrong wrong wrong

[imroy]

You assume that Freenet always caches the data it downloads

That hadn't occured to me, but it makes sense. Freenet already employs other methods to keep the information anonymous and untraceable. e.g it waits a random amount of time before passing along a request. This makes it much more difficult to trace requests from one node to another. It only makes sense then that a node may also randomly decide *not* to store a key in its own datastore.

puppyterminator@gov.ca.us

[The Other White Meat]

How's that for an email address?

Stupidity...

[fatgeekuk]

So,

It WAS illegal to fileshare copyrighted content without consent

Now it is illegal to fileshare copyrighted content without consent if you don't include your email...

I do not understand, is it NOW LEGAL to fileshare copyrighted content without consent if you DO include your email address?

Exactly how has this .....

ahhh, the light dawneth... previously, filesharing copyrighted material without consent was a civil matter, not it is a legal/criminal matter...

So, the content owners have managed to foist the cost of enforcement off onto the go-varmint.

Your tax dollars at work! (not mine, I don't live in the good old US of A)

OT: 50cal

[nurb432]

I cant answer for Calif, ( the way the story read it implied they were not ) but they arent restricted in my area.... ( midwest )

And if you don't adhere to the law

[Coppit]

And if you don't adhere to the law by providing contact information, they'll email you.... um... arrest you when you finally tell them who you are.

Actually

[liquidsin]

Snippet from the bill in question:

(c) Subdivisions (a) and (b) do not apply: (those are the sections relating to you including your email address)
(1) To a person who electronically disseminates a commercial recording or audiovisual work to his or her immediate family, or within his or her personal network, defined as a restricted access network controlled by and accessible to only that person or people in his or her immediate household.
(2) If the copyright owner, or a person acting under the authority of the copyright owner, of a commercial recording or audiovisual work has explicitly given permission for all or substantially all of that recording or audiovisual work to be freely disseminated electronically by or to anyone without limitation.
(3) To a person who has been licensed either by the copyright owner or a person acting under the authority of the copyright owner to disseminate electronically all or substantially all of a commercial audiovisual work or recording.

I'm all for smiting bad legislation, but let's read the wording of the law first, m'kay?

Sounds like the "Evil bit" idea

[denis-The-menace]

Evil bit idea:
The measures include an "evil bit" that can be set an unset according to wether the packet is evil or not."

Arnold's bill:
The measures include your "email address" according to wether the file being shared is evil or not." http://slashdot.org/articles/03/04/01/133217.shtml

Right vs. Privilege

[abb3w]

This is much akin to having a driver's license and speeding.

A good analogy! Except... driving is NOT a right; it is a privilege. Use of a car (as opposed to passage on foot, or being driven by a licensed individual) is not considered a right. Free speech is a right. And, "Cutting through the acronyms and argot that littered the hearing testimony, the Internet may fairly be regarded as a never-ending worldwide conversation. The Government may not, through the CDA, interrupt that conversation. As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the Internet deserves the highest protection from governmental intrusion. " (Judge Dalzell in ACLU v Reno, 1996; upheld before the Supreme Court on appeal in Reno v ACLU, 96-511.)

We have an explicitly assured right to freedom of speech by the first amendment. ("If you can keep it" --Ben Franklin. Shut up, Ben....) Slightly different.

So...

[Silverlancer]

If I want to rob a store, I have to leave a note on the desk with my name and phone number? *insert rolling eyes here*

Is a stream the same thing as a file?

[FlippyTheSkillsaw]

Obviously, I didn't read the article start to finish, however, the wording appears to be a little dumb.

For that matter, is a song always considered a file? If so, is the radio considered a file transfer device? What about the new satellite radio style devices which probably do transfer the data in a compressed form?

I'm going to throw a quote here, because I think I see the big problem with this bill:

> California file sharers who trade songs or films
> without providing an e- mail address will be
> guilty of a misdemeanor, under the
> first-in-the-nation measure that could make it
> easier for law enforcement to track down people
> who illegally download copyrighted material.

This means that it would become the government's problem to track down file sharers rather than a private problem. This means that anyone living in California (and probably any other state they buy) will be paying the government to allocate resources to finding and stopping these hooligans who share media without providing an email address. This could be a very bad bill.

The MPAA/RIAA could find offending IPs and forward those along to the authorities. They were never interested in the money they could get from lawsuits--they just want to be the only way to get media, so they can keep the prices too high. A misdermeanor is, according to wikipedia.org, a low crime comparable to petty theft. They don't want to sue kids, they want them to stop sharing files. Send the police to their house and tell their parents--soon they will be grounded if they share music.

Isn't the main obstacle here for the law to work

[Some_Llama]

that this is a California law and most of the P2P programs are developed by persons who don't reside in California so then not subject to California's laws and regs?

How can California force a german company to comply in regards to a freeware program distributed on the internet? How can california enforce that when i download this program (I live in CA)and install it I just don't choose to give an email?

Re:Lots of questions, Some Answers

[Some_Llama]

"Plain text works are not included. "

so if I rename my .mp3 to .txt and then share it.. will this be enforcable under the law since by defenition i am sharing a text file?

Re:Email address? That'll pin em down

[valintin]

I could provide my gmail and password and then anything that's mailed to it will be availble. p2pmail.

Read the right version of the new law...

[Tom in Boston]

Hi All,

Just FYI, there are many links above to the "introduced" version of the bill from February, but it changed a lot before it was "chaptered" September 21st.

http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/bill/sen/sb_1501-155 0/sb_1506_bill_20040921_chaptered.html

It no longer mentions physical addresses or phone numbers. It doesn't apply to sharing within your "immediate family" or "immediate household." And it is VERY clear on exceptions, like when you own the copyright, or when you have permission to share.

Not that I like this bill, and not that it really holds any water at all... It's definitely abuse.