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U.S. Declares War on Intellectual Property Theft
bblazer writes "Reuters is running a story about a new US effort to stop intellectual property theft. From the article "The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday outlined what it called its most sweeping crackdown on bootleg DVDs, fake designer goods, illegal music downloads and counterfeit drugs." It also goes on to say that media (movies and music) is highly affected, but so are products like batteries, baby food and Viagra."
I don't see anyone but Al-Reuters calling it a 'declaration of war'. The headline alone is going to cause a flame war.
When will the US stop trying to "declare war" on abstract concepts like "terrorism," "drugs" and "intellectual property theft"? (Recent) history has shown that things like this just do not work.
He said the Motion Picture Association of America estimates that 2.6 billion songs, movies and software programs are illegally distributed over the Internet every month.
Because we all know how accurate their numbers are...
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
Is there anything or anyone the US is not actually at war with at the moment?
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
Just in time for the elections. "Hey Hollywood, us government types are doing the job you want us to! How about some more 'donations'!?"
The War on Drugs. Yep that worked.
The War on Terror. Yep that's working: so far two countried fucked up and Iran's next.
So how can we deal with counterfeiting? I know: we'll declare war on it, that always works.
The US Government: the world's leading terror organisation for the last 50 years.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
Seeing how the "war against drugs" and the "war against terror" went I would be quite worried if I was an american.
while (!asleep()) sheep++
Ashcroft said the FBI also would increase the number of agents assigned to investigations, and develop youth information programs to encourage respect for artists' rights.
Who's rights? The IP owner in this case is the record labels and movie companies, no the artists. When's the last time you looked at the copyright label on a CD or DVD?
As if the people behind this move are not rich enough, they want to extract the last drop of milk from us. Don't they understand that they are rich because we are the customers?
And like drugs and terror, you'll never stop it.
/, and in the real world).
And unlike drugs and terror, the politicians will never get the support they need from the masses to continue their latest favor crusade to the big cartels.
The war on terror is working because the majority of McWalmart Americans are convinced that them dirty a-rabs are just tootin' to bring their hoity toity core-anne over here and shove it down our capitalist lovin', god-fearin' country's throat.
The war on drugs worked because well-to-do soccer moms were and are scared that their Harvard-bound princesses will end up giving blowjobs for coke, or that their sons will end up slanging yayo in the hood.
What's going to be the hook for Joe Sixpack to endorse the "War on Piracy?" The fact that CD prices may rise even more? That Regal and AMC might up the price from 8.50 to 9 bucks?
Unlike the terror and drug "wars," the middle class constituents that these piggish fucks in DC need to support their endeavors will not see the importance of "waging war" on something that they do not percieve as a threat. They will not see the justice in their sons and daughters becoming someone's bitch in a maximum security prison for what amounts to petty "theft" (and yes, I know it's not really theft. But we must keep it simple for the simpletons, both on
The 60 million people who file swap "illegally" in this country cannot all be put in prison. If they try, they'll be met with protest and the backlash from the public. Becausse file swapping is such a part of our culture now that all the laws in the world won't make any difference. They've lost, rightly or wrongly.
That's how America operates, isn't it? We don't solve problems, we declare war on them. Problems with poverty? A war on hunger. Don't like narcotics? A war on drugs. Not much reason at all? A war in Iraq. And now, a war on piracy.
Solving problems... hard. Declaring war, good soundbite.
And people wonder why our homicide rate is so high. Every day you get to see the most horrific death scenes on network TV, but god forbid the children might see a breast, it's like they never breast fed? Huh?
Sorry, but it just seems as time goes on we live in a corporate-controlled violent culture, so seeing another "war" on something really doesn't surprise me at all.
Well, our previous wars have been so effective, so maybe this one will be. I'm sure the FBI will have an easy time busting down people's doors for downloading some music they were never going to buy anyway with their newly expanded PATRIOT act powers. After all, stopping those evil MP3 downloaders for your corporate buddies is probably more important than anything else they could be doing.
RIAA estimates that $2.6 billion worth of revenues are lost and the like through file-sharing - so what are they going to do about it?
Most likely spend several times that amount of money a year in "enforcement" and making sure that the "enforcers" have a job for life.
Well if all they are doing is protecting Intellectual Property that rules out most music and DVD since they have little to no intelligence in them.
There is always a catch 22 when dealing with this type of issue. By researching how to make the drug or tool utility music or whatever it maybe it costs money and time. But you make money at the end of the tunnel. The profit margins are always dropped when there are counerfiet/fake clones etc around. BUT if the initial product was cheaper more people could afford the goods and there would be less demand for clone/fake items and the cycle wouldnt be as dramatic.
Sigh... When the US tried to stop the use of alcohol early in the 20th century, did that actually stop the use of alcohol? No! And in addition, there was a lot of crime, because people tend to go to great lengths for what they want.
When the US declared the War On Drugs, did that stop the use of drugs? No! And in addition, there was a lot of crime, because people tend to go to great lengths for what they want.
When the US declares a War on Copyright Infringement (not: theft!), will that stop the infrigement of copyright? No! And there will be a lot of crime, because people tend to go to great lengths for what they want.
Waging a war on something does not solve the issue. Never by itself. An issue can only be solved by looking for the motives that people have for doing things.
Ask yourself: Why do people use alcohol, why do people use drugs, why do people download material from the net? Only when you know people's motives, you can start to change things, because if you don't understand the motives, and just wage a war, you deny people something that they want...
... and there will be a lot of crime because people tend to go to great lengths for something they want.
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Add to that list the War on Poverty.
The War on Drugs. Yep that worked.
If it ended think of all those poor DEA agents having to get proper jobs.
The War on Terror. Yep that's working: so far two countried fucked up and Iran's next.
Unless Iran actually has WMDs, in which case Syria is most likely next in line.
So how can we deal with counterfeiting? I know: we'll declare war on it, that always works.
Except that kind of copyright infringement which a fuss is being made about isn't counterfeting in the first place.
The US Government: the world's leading terror organisation for the last 50 years.
Whilst the US Government may have made the "top 10" since 1954 it may not have been number one for each of those 50 years. The US Government faces stiff competition from Israel, Britain, Russia and France.
Hmmm, you are a good example of what often is wrong with the USA. How about choosing a solution somewhere BETWEEN "waging war" or "let the bad guys run rampant"? You know, not black, not white, but gray.
no, we should let the CIA do all the drug dealing, and only the terrorists that are US funded should be allowed to run rampant.
/sarcasm
That would be the best solution
Are you suggesting that the government stop trying to aprehend and prosecute hard drug users/dealers?
Because the problems prohibition creates are often worst than any problems that the drugs create. The US gave up on alcohol prohibition for this reason.
The War on Terror. Yep that's working: so far two countried fucked up and Iran's next
Hmm. Afghanistan 4 years ago: Taliban run, Alqueda haven, woman oppressed (some not even allowed to leave home).
Afghanistan today: Most of the people are feeling optimistic about their future after decades of war and oppression. First person to vote in the first ever democratic elections was a 19 year old woman.
Hmm...doesn't sound too fucked up to me. Oh wait, the US was responsible for it. Yep, Afghnistan is completley fucked up.
You conniving something!
:)
There are almost no trees on Iceland!
Mod parent funny
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Is the US economically able to not be at war for a prolonged time?
Are you suggesting that the government stop trying to aprehend and prosecute hard drug users/dealers?
.. but, oh no, Americans Love Their Cops, yo ..
Yes, the US government should stop doing this. It should do what its already doing with the Drug Barons of the World and regulate the industry.
I mean, the US is already a nation of drug slaves. I don't mean street-drugs, either, I mean 'legitimate, socially accepted drugs'. 3/4's of the U.S. is high, daily, anyway.
So, get rid of the crime factor, make it legal to smoke pot and stick yourself with heroin, and put those DEA agents to work providing social care programs, not enforcing an untenable Police State.
You already have a nearly Totally Drugged Society, the only difference would be the removal of the Police State factor
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Yes, because everyone knows a half assed effort will always save more lives and bring better stability. I mean, America and Britain should just have negotiated with Germany in the 1940s. Bloody war mongerers.
Long jail sentences for petty crimes reliably indicate emerging dictatorships.
Check older "free" societies vs. older "textbook" dictatorships. Long jail sentences for fringe possession of narcotics and "copies" fit into the scary frame. Petty crimes are responsible for more than 70% of the US prison population.
Persecution for having an opinion dissimilar to the state will be next, they already started. Indymedia was strong enough, but is your average blogger?
Don't be afraid. Voice dissent!
First post! Had to comment on this one. I'd say that the situation in Iraq or Afganistan is quite different from the situation in Europe in 1940s. And USA would have happily sat on their assess during the war if Pearl Harbor wouldn't have happened. Hmm... I remember even that it was Germany who declared war against USA (big mistake, should not have done it and world might be very different place now). I'm not endorsing nazi Germany. Soviets would have crushed them by themselves in the end and taking Europe to the dark ages.
Hervanta, Tampere, Finland.
To declare war is a nice a dandy thing, but winning the war something the US doesn't seem to quite understand. They declared a war on drugs- and by doing that they have one of the worst policies in the world by sending people who "get" high to jail. Good send those people to jail because that helps them, and everyone else. They declared a war on terror- so far we have killed countless civilians in other countries, we have lost many soldiers to the war, and also in the entire process we have lost a lot of privacy rights to that great Patriot Act. Again, our people goto jail for stuff they didn't do. Now, the war on people who can't afford software or movies in theaters- Anyone wonder why they would do this? They raise the price of CDs, so we start to download the music. They raise the prices of going to see a movie, and we start to download the movies. Software is incredibly expensive for some garbage and we start to download that. Well guess what. The Government is going to now arrest more civilians for crap. Instead of reforming drug policy, instead of increasing intelligence in the government for counter-terrorism, instead of support these huge monoplies, we are subjected to jail time, huge fines, and lost of fines. A good analogy would be if the government were to raid a company that is stealing millions of dollars, and to arrest the people in the mail room for the entire company. Thats what the Government is currently doing. Its quite sad, but this is the country we are living in.
I don't know about you, but I can make a distinction between an isolated act of terrorism on US soil but a party as yet unproven, and the mass invasion of countries and genocide that was being undertaken by Germany.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Like if the US cared about woman being oppressed. (If so, they would invade most muslim countries and India and everywhere else women are oppressed).
And why was the Taliban there in the first place?
Oh right. War on communism. Religious fanatics were better than communism, so the U.S. put the Taliban in charge.
-Amalcon
If you've ever met a real cocaine or heroin addict (there is no such thing as a casual cocaine/heroin "user", only "addicts")
This I doubt. I've seen a lot of studies that show cocaine users as being mostly casual (including our prezodent, so the rumours go), with a smaller core of hardcore addicts.
At any rate, the current witchhunt isn't helping anybody. If it were cheapa to get, then at least the addicts could blow their brains out in peace instead of dying in police raids, hanging out in prisons getting cornholed and robbing people for their next fix. Yeah, that's cold, but it makes sense from a least-harm perspective. Maybe you don't need to legalize Cocaine all the way, but it doesn't need to be this illegal - make it a $100 fine for possession and sell it at the pharmacy to addicts with a script for $2/gram. That way I don't have to worry about the DEA serving a warrant on the wrong house.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
that's right, and it's even exporting heroin again. yay for the USA!
Afghanistan today: Most of the people are feeling optimistic about their future after decades of war and oppression. First person to vote in the first ever democratic elections was a 19 year old woman.
Not to be a smartass but how do you know how the people of Afghanistan feel? You watch some news reports, or have you actually gone there and sampled a large enough segment of the population to make up your mind? I know the last suggestion is not pratical, but I've not seen any independent articles giving an Afghan point of view, so if you have some links that you would like to share I would be interested in seeing them.
After all, the market's already shown it's willing to pay ten bucks, right?
Never mind Spamassassin. When's Spammerassassin coming out?
Go read a fucking history book you ball-sacking tool.
Blar.
If you look historically at opiate use (heroin is an opioid, or synthetic opiate), you'll see that it very much mirrored alcohol use in our society: the majority of users were able to consume casually, and a small subset allowed themselves to become addicted.
Incidentally, opiate addiction is far less dangerous than alcohol addiction: there are few, if any long term negative consequences to an opiate addiction (as clearly evidenced by the rampant use of opiates amongst artists in the UK, many of who consumed astoundingly high levels of opiates daily and managed to live healthy, productive lives well into their 70s). Unlike alcohol, opiate withdrawal cannot kill. Unlike alcohol, opiates do not cause extreme liver and brain damage with possible dementia.
I won't speak on drugs like crack and methamphetamines, because I'm not remotely interested in them. I think that they're dangerous, but I support people's right to use them if they so choose. If education is given, people will understand the dangers associated with these drugs, and if they decide to consume them anyways, they're playing with fire. Many people partake in many dangerous and silly activities on a daily basis, but we support their right to do so (e.g. car racing?).
The only drugs that I support to be fully controlled are antibiotics, because antibiotic abuse is the only abuse where it's clear beyond the shadow of a doubt that the long-term damage caused by overconsumption will harm society as a whole instead of just the individual.
It's about proactive action.
The action against Germany in 1939 (and not much was done in 1939 really) came far too late to stop the tide of war.
Prehaps if significant action (involving the US and Europe) had been taken much earlier; say after the occupation of the Reinland in 1936 or the German 'anschluss' (union) with Austria in 1938 things might have been very different. If these two events were not enough to convince anyone of Germanys intensions surly the invasion of Czechoslovakia in March 1939 would have?
It was only after the invasion of Poland (late September 1939) that some action was really taken. A case of too little and too late.
Appeasement rarely works. Words are good, but have to be prepared to back them up.
You have a fascinating statistic, but unless you're talking about some unholy combined count of antidepression medications and caffeine, I have serious doubts as to its accuracy. Do you have any lies^W damned lies^W^W statistics to point me to that you may back up your view?
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
I would divide your statement in two sections. First, you speak about what they did on the inside of their country. Nobody messed with them about that. They could have killed everybody in their country before others cared about them. International disputes are about international issues. In-country atrocities are easily overlooked by other countries. Like the things people from the US say about China, but they never think about messing with them. The US has now a history of using internal issues of other countries, in order to invade them and pillage what's left, and in the meanwhile showing off their power to kill people. And they call it preemptiveness, or deterrance. Smacking someone, or threats are deterrance, actually killing people by the dozen is just plain common murder.
Then you speak about their relationship with the outside, now it sounds like you are talking about the US, nowadays. The only difference with Germany is that the US has now actually more power to kill than every other nation combined, and that is why they don't get the same treatment, because in this story the US are the crazed bastards killing everybody in their way, but there's noone able to stop them.
G Dub has declared war on the UN. We are not friends with the world right now. I for one do not welcome my warmongering overlords. No one has a right to invade another country without going through the UN. We did just that and I can't believe it didn't have further extending repercussions.
I am more worried about North Korea and their very real WMDs than I am of the make-believe boogeyman Bush is conjuring up.
Trust me, with all the oil being found in Russia and Russians being the new rich, it won't be long before we are at war with THEM.
Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia.
Not since Marie-Antoinette played milkmaid has looking simple and honest been so fake and complicated.
>there is no such thing as a casual cocaine/heroin "user", only "addicts"
You're either joking or are painfully naive. A person is no more likely to become addicted to either of the above than they are to alcohol, and less likely than tobacco.
http://www.ccguide.org.uk/addicts.html
>It takes over your life. It creates a dysfunctional circumstance in which the person quickly loses the ability to carry on a normal life, hold a steady job, and maintain a loving relationship with family.
Oh god, you've swallowed the propaganda whole. Poor thing.
-- Give me ambiguity or give me something else!
"Antidepression Medication" is little more than legalized barbituates, dude. All your countrymen getting their 'fixes' for their 'mental health problems' are little more than huge junkies, backed up by their 'Professional Peers', the mental health 'industry'.
Sure, you've got a 'mental health industry' to help you justify your nations monthly fix, but all I'm saying is
Prozac ain't much different than Smack. Both are gonna change your mental state. Why should one be legal and the other not?
(Hint: Big Corporations can't deal with Drug Mafia.. unless they become one - and boy, how they have, how they have
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
Illusions are much more comfortable than truth. Sad but true.
Crap. I used to regularly take cocaine (at the weekends, when going out). I never became addicted. A large number of my friends also casually took cocaine. We were (are) all respectable professionals holding down jobs, having normal relationships with other people and funding our casual drug use without resorting to crime.
On the other hand, I've met a few alcoholics who lost their jobs and families through their addiction.
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