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Jail Time For P2P Developers?
Kjella writes "A Califorian bill introduced last week would, if passed, expose file-swapping software developers to fines of up to $2,500 per charge, or a year in jail, if they don't take 'reasonable care' to prevent their software from being used to commit crime. C|Net has the story, as well as a link to the actual bill. By the overly broad definition of P2P software, almost any piece of internet software could be liable. This browser is certainly able to download and upload files ('Save as ...' and upload forms). Are Microsoft, Opera and Mozilla.org taking 'reasonable care' to prevent me from exchanging anything illegal? Of course, I never go there, but a friend of my uncle's third cousin's brother told me warez download sites work just fine ..."
They ought to just declare HTTP, FTP, UDP, TCP, and IP illegal. After all, they're used for almost 100% of digital piracy. It would really save the imbeciles that draft laws these days a lot of time and effort if they just took that logical step. It's not like it would be any significant change from what they're doing now anyway since they obviously have no clue how the technology they're drafting against works.
In fact, let's just declare the intarweb illegal and impose fines for anyone who uses it. Then, we can begin our slow, painful descent into obscurity and technological darkness. It'll be great when we finally get so anti-progress that we're back to accusing people of being witches and burning them in the town square again.
Here's a better idea. People could stop voting for candidates who's agenda starts and stops with business interests. They could start voting for people who are actually interested in representing the, well, people. They could stop pretending there's really any such things as a "red" or "blue" state candidate. They could realize that it's time we purged the whole system and got some new blood in - people who actually care about the country and want to see it succeed.
I'm not holding my breath. Holding your government responsible for being.. well... responsible... is hard work, and a lot of Americans don't seem to like that. Just maintain the status quo, even though the status quo isn't really what you think it is anymore.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Does this imply that reasonable steps should be taken by gun manufactures to prevents guns from being used for crimes?
Oh I'm sorry that's unconstitutional...
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
So does this mean we can hold gun makers, people who build cars and knives to the same level of responsiblity? Lets do a little math: Gun Deaths last year approx 16k = $40,000,000 Traffic Deaths last year 43k = $107,500,000 I am just counting deaths, sounds like we could balance the budget if we include anything that might cause a crime also.
Sometimes I wish computers were less friendly.
Imagine if Salman Rushdie had been held liable for all the bad things that other people did after he published The Satanic Verses.
Chip H.
So you can combat this better. The next hundred years is going to be a fight for technology, a fight to keep it open, and a fight of companies against "evil commie programmers", since they can't adapt to the new technolgoy
Apparently no one in any sort of power position has the slightest idea what they are talking about. Do we blame gun makers for gun deaths? No, they are tools.
Guns and Ammo manufacturers
Car manufacturers
The scientists that developed the atom bomb
The Heads and Board of all government agencies
Your mom
Trees that produce solid branches that _could_ be used as clubs.
etc.
Sometimes the people that create laws need to get their heads checked, I swear.
Machine9dotNet
actually trying to stymie computer science research for itself? Horrible precidents and views are being taught in this country about preperation, preservation, achieveing goals. Not just for compsci, but nearly everything. Suit.. jailtime.. masked freedoms.. Argh I'm so frustrated with the direction this country is heading (and values/ideals it's teaching to the newer generations of tinkerers) that I can't form a coherent post.
This country is starting to blow.
NoFX's Idiots Are Taking Over is the new themesong for the USA.
If they are going to punish a developer for the actions of people using whatever he developed, why don't they go punishing guns factories for all the actions of people using guns ?
Sometimes I feel so lucky, so lucky that I'm not from USA and that I don't live there (and those times are more and more often as time goes by).
Pupeno
I'm sure they realize that people are producing content out there and distributing it via P2P. Do you think it's lost on them that eliminating P2P also eliminates some of their competition?
I take it this idiot senator believes all the world's coders live in the US, right? And that Russians and Poles and Brits and Aussies are all too backward to write P2P code..?
Justin.
Bored with idiot yank politicians from GWB to AS and on.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
It works that way quite well in any industry where there isn't a monopoly.
technologically informed ./ers mock at this new expression of hired corporate legislation, it slowly becomes the law of the land.
... Average American...
Another milestone, another passive moment in the life of the pathetic, gullible, ignorant, socially and politically inept creature called...
Sad, sad, sad, sad...
Yam, yam, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade
That is not the right interpretation. It means, Johnny Pirate who shares his Jimi Hendrix MP3s for free, NOT Jimi's Ghost (or whoever owns copyright) doing so.
Sometimes seventeen/Syllables aren't enough to/Express a complete
Even more troubling is that Philip Morris would be allowed to sell a product that proves to be harmfull in all cases but P2P developpers should be fined for making a product that can be harmfull if not employed lawfully? Well not that im surprised, but this shows to be nothing but another proof that laws aren't there to protect people but money... God Bless America!
Just a guess, I only know a tiny bit about US politics, but has the representative who proposed this bill ever recieved money (for his campaign or whatever) off the RCAA or MPAA?
Based on previous bills, I bet its very likely.
If so, its nice to see democracy working as it does: Bills like this that only a small percentage of the population want but have wealthy people/companies backers want get passed while Bills say to do with the enviroment which nearly everyone want except a few wealthy people/companies, fail miserably.
Yay for corporate democracy.
I think my vision of the US (and the vision of a lot of my fellow Europeans) had changed since 2001. What we thought it was a country involved in freedom is going towards a country dominated by (bad) laws and politics.
This law is one of the craziest things I've ever seen. You're getting your freedoms totally destroyed.
Please change things before it's too late
Does it mean the end of Freenet as we know it? Because its developers did take more than 'reasonable care' to prevent their software from being controlled in any way, which of course includes having a true free speech medium, but also a platform for any kind of crime, like illegal pornography. Is it possible to stop illegal pornography and copyright infringement, but allow free speech, privacy and anonymity for people living in oppressive regimes? That is something that needs to be done quickly. Freenet is more than just yet another P2P network. We cannot let it fail.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
Microsoft's first defense would be that Microsoft does not live in California. Their second defense would be that it wasn't they that provided the illegal software, it was Dell and IBM and HPaq. Microsoft knew not what they were doing with it...
By this standard we should hold gun makers responsible if they don't exercise "reasonable care" to ensure the gun won't be used to kill an innocent person. Give me a break!
This should help get the software industry out of California. The backers of the bill are already moving jobs out of California to India and China.
Any start-up contemplating P2P will not try California. Other start-ups will have to wonder if their new paradigm busting technology will share the same fate and they too will by-pass California.
Imagine what would have happened to Silicon Valley if Fairchild had had this kind of political clot.
If passed and signed into law, it could expose file-swapping software developers to fines of up to $2,500 per charge, or a year in jail, if they don't take "reasonable care" in preventing the use of their software to swap copyrighted music or movies--or child pornography.
How is one to ensure that he is using "reasonable care" in order to comply with the statute? You can't. It's impossible to know what they mean by "reasonable care".
It seems pretty obvious that the people writing the bill don't know even know what they mean by reasonable care.
If noone can figure out what it is that a statute makes illegal, then it violates Due Process and is unconstitutional.
I feel sorry for Americans though. I do feel as though you have your backs against the wall when it comes to elections. You are crying out for a coordinated mass lobbying for a 3rd. party candidate - only way to remove the boolean (unary!?) system you use now. You need allot more parties, you actually need complete reform ,maybe via a revolution or something.
Don't feel sorry for us. Most of us deserve the hell we're in.
Anyway, I think we need another revolution, peaceful or not. I truly think we are degenerating into the police state that we always bitched about in the Soviet Union. Our basic freedoms are intact, but the fringe freedoms are being eroded slowly but surely.
Emigration sounds really good right about now.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Just tweak the software to change a couple of bytes in the header during transfer. :-) It's not an identical copy, your honor! You could even use their ignorance of technology to your advantage - bring in the MD5 digests of the two files in court: "Just look at the huge differences between these two unique file identifiers. Coincidence? I think not!" ;-)
I have a better idea, why don't you write to the government and tell them your thoughts about this whole bill. Also, Machine9 made a point about applying the following laws into the bill.
Thank you for your astute post -- I'm glad you took the time to point that out. Many people simply don't do enough research before they post.
However, you wrote:
"The big problem I have with this is that there's no easy way for someone writing, say, a 15-line python P2P system, to take that "reasonable care" to restrict copyrighted traffic."
This is a bit like saying "gun safety laws mean that there's no easy way for a guy developing a bazooka in his back yard with a can of propane, a pipe and a tennis ball can add a trigger lock." Yes, regulating the P2P industry would make P2P apps harder to write -- and that's the point. The point of gun safety laws is to keep those backyard-built pipe bazookas off the market, while allowing the sale of products in which care has been exercised in the design (engineering trigger locks and other safety precautions) to be sold.
Similarly, P2P regulation would be an attempt to keep that 15-line Python program off the market, while giving protection to the developer who puts reasonable effort into preventing their application for being used for unauthorized purposes.
"That might be a good comment to make to the legislators (if anyone actually thinks this will go anywhere). Describe the futility of the bill, the impossibility of checking an individual file, and how the only even remotely feasible technical mechanism is a central file/hash listing maintained by the content creators."
Companies that have developed viable screening/filtering/fingerprinting systems have already given demonstrations to legislators. While they are breakable (as is everything), this is what the legislators probably have in mind when they use phrases like "reasonable care."
"(not that I even agree the software authors or distributors should be shouldered with the blame of their users' actions...)"
I don't think so, either. The good thing about this bill is that if P2P vendors take reasonable care in the development phase -- hooking in some filtering technology, for example -- then they won't be.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
I don't see car manufacturers taking any measures for making sure that there products are not used for such things as get away cars and a weapon to run people over with...