Slashdot Mirror
Senate Passes Scaled-Back Copyright Bill
Finalnight writes "The Senate has voted to outlaw several favorite techniques of people who illegally copy and distribute movies, but has dropped other measures that could have led to jail time for Internet song-swappers..."
That only some of these got through than all of them or is it worse that any got through at all.
I call it the "Be glad we only broke your kneecap. We were going break both your arms as well." approach.
(Sponsored by cheeseSource for President 2012)
Glad to see that this part was left out of the final bill, as I'm a little uncomfortable for busting people for just making files available to download- and people not actually downloading. It's kind of like someone who makes lots of books they've purchased available to friends to borrow.
I'm a little worried that this might actually pop back in for the final version of the bill. The bills that passed the House and Senate are different, so negociators will smooth out differences. Sometimes nasty provisions like this can make it in, and everyone can say that they didn't vote for that provision.
People who secretly videotape movies when they are shown in theaters could go to prison for up to three years under the measure, which passed the Senate on Saturday.
Why do we send people to jail that are at most causing loss of revenues for a certain industry? It's not removing the right for people to go see the movie. Why not just fine him for every copy he sent out? $1000/upload sounds like it would be more fit for the crime.
Get paid to code OSS
"This bill strengthens the intellectual-property laws that are vital to the ongoing growth of our economy," Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch said.
Maybe it's the fact that they need to create a new business model. That and not use the political puppets to create legislation that goes against the PEOPLE and for the CORPORATIONS.
Get paid to code OSS
A section that would have made it illegal to edit out commercials was removed.
;-)
I feel like for once, contacting my congressman worked!
...Either that or they have TiVo's themselves
Get paid to code OSS
Secondly is the issue that an ailing industry is trying to legislate itself back to super-profitablilty with special government favoritism. As the joke goes, the horse-and-buggy industry tried the same thing when the model-T came out, but cooler heads prevailed.
Thankfully, the provision that would have made it the Justice Department's job to hunt down and prosecute file traders was dropped; the **AA will have to continue to pay for its own lawyers, just like everyone else.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,65796,00 .html?tw=wn_tophead_7/: "A Kinder, Gentler Copyright Bill?"
This is one of those cases, where the name says it all. What were they thinking?
The official name is: Family Entertainment and Copyright Act
How about if we add the fact that this is legislation:
Family Entertainment and Copyright Act Legislation
(FECAL). Guess that is fairly self-descriptive.
They introduce the bill, put draconian measures into it, and fight to pass draconian measures that would seriously impact the way Americans live their daily lives.
Then an outcry develops, they strip out the draconian measures and leave behind innocuous, small-step leftovers that they were hoping to pass in the first place, to make it look like they were being magnanimous by compromising.
The more they do this, the more they can get bills passed that erode the rights of US citizens and turn the US into a nation of good little worker bees making the elite upper class richer and richer.
I wonder what it'll look like in 15 years, when another five or six of these bills gets passed in succession?
You guys are so fucked.