Jail Time For P2P Developers?

Posted by timothy on Wednesday January 19, 2005 @02:41AM from the revenge-of-the-idiots dept.

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 ..."

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Re:What about Independents?!?! by finkployd · 2005-01-19 03:10 · Score: 5, Interesting

Hollywood bought and paid for the property rights to film-making

The true irony of course is that Hollywood exists only because the filmmakers who first set up shop there did so to be as far away from Thomas Edison as possible. Since Edison owned the intellectual property (patents) on making motion pictures and they wanted to produce movies illegaly without paying him royalties.

So what better group to become the strongest proponants for strict property rights?

Finkployd