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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?
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.
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 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.