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Congress Declares War on File Leakers
An anonymous reader submits "Bush is expected to sign a law that essentially makes it a crime punishable by up to three years in jail for a user to put a single 'copy of a film, software program or music file in a shared folder and should have known the copyrighted work had not been commercially released.' Whichever side you're on in the copyright debate, you have to agree this legislation is draconian and excessive, to say the least."
Just when we think it can't get any worse, we see this sort of crap:
From the article:
Nice. Our President lies to us about weapons of mass destruction and drags us into an unjust war that has cost thousands of Americn lives, but I'm the felon.
And look how they got this thing passed...it rode in on the coattails of this:
Also from the article:
Honestly, why are we stealing this crap anymore? Especially as the three most popular movies currently are Hitch, The Pacifer, and Be Cool (thanks to www.the-numbers.com)? Why do we waste our time and endanger our freedom?
Well, I say, it's time to stop. Not just stop pirating mainstream movies, but stop watching them altogether. There's plenty of content to be found out there on the Web (AtomFilms and INetFilm come to mind).
Show the RIAA that we are not sheep. Show them that we don't need to see the latest Keanu Reeves travesty. Show them we're tired of their shit. Don't see their movies. Don't pirate their movies. Don't have anything to do with their movies. If enough of us shake off the yoke, it will make a difference.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Why? The damages are greater to the copywrite holder.
Yes, I believe copywrite law is being abused (by both the (c) holder AND the (c) violator) -- however, this doesn't appear to me to be an abuse...
...how the countless "shared folders" containing "prerelase copyrighted works" on untold numbers of compromised Windows boxes on university campuses will be handled...
We get semi-automated C&D orders from content owners routinely as it is; will they now begin to insist on the involvement of university police or other agencies?
Yeah, there are computer security issues to work out, but on a fundamentally open public research campus with tens of thousands of computers, not all of them will be perfectly protected.
And I don't think this is draconian at all.
Loading salad at a restaurant before paying is a crime.
But Selling children for sex isn't.
I feel so glad that Bush is the President of US in this Post 9/11 world.
Iran captures three CIA agents
Enjoyed my fun little christmas hoax - help me do it for real! ;-)
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
released. I think a case can be made that leaking pre-release movies, for instance, can cut into box-office sales. I can see a similar, though weaker, argument for music.
The punishment does indeed seem draconian, in any event.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
... to limit this to commercial works. I'd hate to go to jail for sharing GPL'd software. Oh wait a minute, I'm in Europe.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
...please note that Dianne Feinstein, a prominent Democrat, is a co-sponsor.
The Army reading list
There are always clients such as MUTE.
That's it, I'm going to go shoplift, commit massive fraud against individuals, and torture cute things in full view of the public, because none of that is nearly as bad as filesharing. After all, it only hurts people, not corporations.
John Rowland defrauded the state of Connecticut, and will be serving a measly single fucking year for it. Pimply-faced teenagers will spend more time being rectally plundered by delinquents named "Li'l Dawg" than our esteemed public servant will for racketeering, conspiract, et al.
ARGH!
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Once again, Microsoft saves the day. This legislation is nullified by simply sharing all folders. Thankfully, Microsoft has already done this for us.
\\127.0.0.1\c$
Nope... somebody mod me offtopic :-)
Sig erased via substitution of an identical one.
So if I leave my door open and someone steals "a film, software program or music" then is it the same?
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
My god, I hope sooner or later people wake up to what is happening in this country. We have absolutely lost any semblence of 'punishment fits the crime'. How can 3 years in jail be justified by sharing a single copy of a pre-release movie. Granted it's theft, but theft of one $8.00 movie ticket at the most. Even if it is stealing (which I do consider it), three years in jail is just stupidly over-reactionary and overtly excessive. Of course a possible 25 year prison sentence for spamming is right up there too. Sure I hate spam and it pee's me off, but 25 years in jail? Then lump the loss of due process with the DMCA and you start to see a middle ages picture being drawn here. Isn't this what the founding fathers of our country came here to escape?
Since Congress has gotten all the way down to working on this crap, that certainly must mean that they have fixed all the OTHER things that were more urgent. It is truly a great day!
Right? Anyone?
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
I download music. I download movies. I also buy music and movies.
Having said that, I agree with this law. Why? Because it is specifically targetting the ones who ARE depriving the studios and artists of revenue. Releasing something that hasn't hit the streets yet SHOULD be illegal. I can only hope that they do not use this as a stepping stone to get all copyright infringement turned into a criminal act, instead of the current civil status.
Feed the need: Digitaladdiction.net
I have played in bands for years and my friends have to. Most of them are very techy and post things to share for opinions with other people involved in the process of creating the files that are to be released. Things such as checking mixes or guitar sounds or whathaveyou. Is there any clarification as to what defines the poster and their relation to the work?
Reality is nothing but a collective hunch.
"copy of a film, software program or music file in a shared folder and should have known the copyrighted work had not been commercially released.'"
Reading this makes my head hurt. Hello, editors?
Family Entertainment and Copyright Act (Legislation) sounds like a loda of crap to me...
So you're saying that not only should we stop stealing movies, but we should stop WATCHING the movies that we've stolen, too!
I don't think that would bother them much.
[S.167.RH]
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
"Family Entertainment and Copyright Act."
Just write a bill, put 'family' in the title, and it's sure to pass.
Does this mean that anyone who distributes of a fansub of an unreleased work (i.e. unlisenced anime) is eligible for three years of federal "pound-me-in-the-ass" prison?
Remember we're talking about millions of damage (whether slashbots like it or not). Try burning down a dozen houses and see if you get away with less.
The problem here is that if they get this ball rolling, what's to stop it from becoming about any file in any format?? What about all my free uncopyrighted music, are they going to arrest me and then say, "Woops, sorry."???
We need to stop this.
Ubuntu, the way linux should be.
Try Ubuntu FREE! --
Don't worry. Some judge pushing a 'radical agenda' will surely defy the will of congress and strike this law down.
Unfortunately, I am guessing that it will be hard to find grounds to make this law unconstitutional.
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
Whichever side you're on in the copyright debate, you have to agree this legislation is draconian and excessive, to say the least."
I'll disagree. You have no right to leak an unrelased movie to the Internet. If you've doing that, you are comitting a crime. This law is just upping the penalties for a crime that's being comitted far too often.
The problem I have is that sharing a TV show after air date, but before a DVD is issued, could be covered in the same way. Should sharing the latest episode of Survivor lead to three years in jail? I think not.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I thought RIAA was loosing money due to file sharers. How can they afford PACs and lawyers?
In God we trust, all others require data.
With $ like this running our Whitehouse, Senate, etc. no one should be suprised. This is purchased legislation much like what is done in some third world countries. Freedom isn't free - it requires a large donation.
"Powers. I have them."
Among other people, this bears on someone distributing incriminating internal documents -- whether memos from a crooked business or the "secret scriptures" of the Cult of Scientology.
Mind the Gap
are you kidding me congress?
anyone who has even one copy of a film, software program or music file in a shared folder and should have known the copyrighted work had not been commercially released....Penalties would apply regardless of whether any downloading took place.
unbelievable...someone please explain how this isn't the case and this is just a sensationalist story
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
Am glad that 14 year old pimple faced - living in the basement - testosterone pumped teenagers are finally owning up to their evil rebellion against the all encompassing entity which is the Movie Industry. Because they clearly have struck a significant blow AND crippled the dying movie industry by rapidly proliferating Gigabytes of digital movie files costing the Producers millions in revenue that they otherwise would have gotten for the spectacular blockbuster family entertainment movies that they consistently bring to the Silver screen. And I sure dont shed a tear for my evil brethren who run the risk of starving every Movie Industry bigwig's ivy league sons and daughters, with blatant disregard for their needs to live better than us souls.
Whats even more Phenomenal is the ability of Family and Faith based groups who rightly believe that they have a god given right to eliminate filth from the minds of us and to drive our youth to the purest form of abstinence and away from depravity. And their inability to comprehend the meaning of an "Off" switch.
Heres a thought. If buying a DVD does not necessarily provide me with the fair use rights to strip out its content and modify/store it to my needs, how does that provide Clearplay with the right to filter out what they deem filthy?
And did anyone notice the name of the Bill - Family Entertainment and Copyright. with names like that, who would want to not pass it.. Save the KIDS!!
And then MPAA had to go out and sneak this one in, like both parties are always notorious for. Sneak something in which would not have stood alone in its own right. Sneak it in and drive it in before we have a chance to respond..
The whole damn K Street is the first one that needs to be cleansed.
Rapid Nirvana
Yes you heard it here first, Alqueda will now put unreleased movies into shared folders of suicide bomber computers. When the RIAA comes to get them pooof!!!
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Just how enforcable is this? and Aren't there other thefts that are a bit more worthy of a Federal law enforcement division?
Does this apply to sharing things that have been released in the UK (e.g., Doctor Who or Battlestar Galactica), but not in the USA?
Aww crap, and I was sooo looking forward to catching "Monster In Law" before it hits theaters. http://www.monsterinlaw.com/
Don't do as the Bush Crime Family does, just do what they say.
And don't ask questions, or think freely, or speak out. Just shut up and sit down.
The word is "copyright" ... "copy" "right" ... the "right" to "copy" ...
ugh. where do people get "copywrite" from anyway???
This law works on two levels. Its primary backing, of course, is Hollywood, and they have a decent case that file leaking -- especially review DVDs loaned under nondisclosure -- can undermine their business model. Okay, I get it, though the penalties do look awfully harsh.
But this also appears to apply to anyone who "leaks" information that the owner doesn't really want out there, ever. Without a deadline on the "release" date, material can be embargoed forever. That's how Big Brother can put information into a Memory Hole, and put anyone who lets it out into Room 101. It accompanies the DMCA stream that makes information Go Away Permanently when its DRM is made unreadable: If it's on a short-lived medium (some DVDs and CDs) and can't be copied, or uses a DRM that is time-limited, then once it goes, it goes, and trying to keep the information alive becomes a Crime Against The State. These secondary agendas are not obvious to the mainstream press, but the Fatherland Security Police apparatus is well aware of how these laws can be used against political opponents.
from the article.
"I am pleased that the House has passed this bill, which takes us forward in the fight to prevent the most egregious form of piracy--the illegal copying and unauthorized distribution of 'prereleased' works," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, said after the vote.
Is the only quote attributed to a member of congress. However she is not named as the author of the rider. Does anyone have any information on who authored the amendement to the bill?
I tried for 5 years to come up with a clever sig...only to realize that I am not clever.
Make sure you fraudulently embezzle millions of dollars prior to sharing that song/movie/prog, that way you can pay for court costs. Also embezzling millions doesn't carry nearly the same penalty as file sharing so the courts may over look it in an effort to get a conviction on the Big Crime!
Movie sharing will just move.
If they knowingly attempt to distribute a film or other media that has not yet been released then they are knowingly trafficking in stolen goods.
I do not see the problem with this. The person attempting to share this does not have fair use rights on the product as they do not have the right to be in possession of the product in the first place.
If the product has already been released then this would be an inappropriate and draconian law as fair use right and all would then come into play.
So, what are the stats for how much it costs the govenment to keep a person for a year? Let's be conservative and say $25,000 USD. Now lets multiply that by the number of people who have put an mp3 up for download. How much will it cost the government to fully institute this plan?
"The bill's supporters in Congress won passage of the prison terms by gluing them to an unrelated proposal to legalize technologies that delete offensive content from a film."
Someone should pass a bill that makes this sort of act illegal. That Simpsons episode where they go to Washington comes to mind. Behold the paper clip!
Man, am I glad that I'm using Linux.
How about making it a crime punishable by prison for a company to collect or disclose information that could be used to steal a person's identity. Or for a company that fails to take adequate steps to protect that information if they do collect it?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
In another news...
You can still murder someone and then walk away in 2-4 years.
"Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
So does this mean that - for a change - the record companies themselves are on the receiving end?? (Linked article claims that major record companies are actively 'leaking' new singles onto popular blogs to get positive reviews.)
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
Has anyone read the article and seen the name of this thing?
the Family Entertainment Copyright Act Legislation
With luck, we'll end up with an enforcement branch being created and the Supreme Court refusing to get involved under the ground, "We feel that, ultimately, copyright control in this country is a F.E.C.A.L. matter."
They do know it's the 20th, no the 1st, right?
written by powerful people to keep their pockets full of money. If that law is in place now, I think all the jails will be filled in a couple of weeks and most of the cases will be with people under 18. This is great America keep it up!
Kenneth Lay stole US$7 trillion from Enron and he gets off scott free WITH the money while the employees have all lose their pensions. But the poor guy who shares a file ends in jail.
Dyncorp sells children for sex in the Balcans, but thanks to their friend Rumsfeld, they get off scott free. But the guy in Colorado who loads a plate of salad at a salad bar at a Chuck E. Cheese gets beaten up by the police.
These are facts.
Iran captures three CIA agents
for those illegal MP3s! He should have known!
there's no excuse for piracy!
Starsucks
Industries wanted it to be a 'true crime', not just a 'civil issue'.
Now they can just use our tax dollars to attack people that aren't really doing anything wrong anyway.
Put more people in jail too.. Raise taxes to support that too..
What is next, credit companies buying a law to virtually eliminate chapter 7 bankruptcy protection?
Its long since time for the next revolution. The grand experiment has failed, it no longer supports or represents the PEOPLE. It now only supports 'big business'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'm not especially in favor of criminalizing copyright violations, but a maximum 3-year sentence doesn't seem excessive to me, considering the loss of revenue attributable to the illegal copying and distribution of a major media product. Theft or embezzlement of an equivalent sum would likely merit a longer sentence.
Before the "what's yours is mine" folks jump up and down shouting there's no way to determine how much, if any, money is lost due to leaked products, let em say you can't prove no money is lost. Certainly, the objective of the exercise is to get something for free, so one can logically claim a relationship between downloads and lost revenue.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
...authors or artists who leak their own material ahead of time to build hype? If they have signed a contract with a record company, would they not then be subject to these pentalties for leaking their own stuff?
Just like the armed services talk about sophisticated weapons as force multipliers, you really have to consider the effects which leaking pre-release movies can have. Granted, it's a bigger effect if the movie really sucks, since everyone can determine for himself, but...
Granted it's theft, but theft of one $8.00 movie ticket at the most.
Not at all. They're trying to stop the filesharing at the source with this. Keep people from leaking the movie in the first place. To go with your analogy, it's like stealing the ticket machine and giving it to a guy at Kinkos who can make reasonable facsimiles to get everyone in town into the movie.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Fuck you - how about you don't attempt to emulate America to begin with.
Not to mention the illegality of the actions of individuals who take camcorders/digital cameras into theatres. This should obviously be punishable by something more than a fine.
THe problem with the way we deal with crime in America is that we have to work with a deterrent-based system. Right now, the threat of litigation from the R-I-double-Assholes, let alone any of the other myriad organizations that feel that adding "Association of America" lends credibility to their cause, isn't nearly enough of a deterrent for the average computer-savvy college student sitting in a dorm room downloading the latest hits from {insert pop flavor of the moment here}. So, the solution is either to make the current deterrent more prevalent (more litigation, yay!), or to create a harsher deterrent. Since obviously someone in power realized that we shouldn't enhance the litigation-happy society we currently enjoy, they opted for an approach that is actually going to do some good.
I guess this would extend to beta releases as well. Possession of a copy of Tiger would now carry a similar penalty as possession of a schedule IV drug.
W
-------------------
This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I'm not saying that leaking is good, infact I was very pissed when Halo 2 was leaked, but the government is treading on water that it should never have even tocuhed.
Ever since the summer of 2000, the US government has been dabbling in the internet, regulating, enforcing, making laws. Some of them are need though, like the Spam law. But some laws simply infuriate me. The DMCA is one of those. Some of the things in the bill are needed, but they limit the internet. The whole point of the original ARPAnet was to have a non-centered freeflowing means of communication. Shouldn't some of the things that the governemnt is regulating not be regulated?
It was recently proposed for a proprietary internet protocol that was fully logged and monitored at all times. If the Senate wants it, Cisco and Microsoft can make it happen. But that means a total invasion of personal privacy.
The steps are highly intelligant government is taking are complete BS in my opion, and the internet should be regulated at the ABSOLUTE lowest level.
I am glad the Bush adminstration is cracking down on people who share CIA files containing information on undercover agents. To danger an agent and an operation working in a foreign land for political retribution is just wrong.
Oh movie files???
Crap.
Hi!
; ;
I just got this pre-release program of the next version of hello world. Don't share!!
#include
main()
{
printf("hello ")
printf("world\n")
}
Essentially the same idea to me, however people seem to agree it's common sense to lock their doors and forget to do so with files that represent an investment upon someones part. Strangely though in my rural community nobody locks their doors and and theft rates are lower then in the cities. Either way what is interesting to note is my government has never felt it necessary to legislate the locking of doors.
The rock, the vulture, and the chain
I'm against file sharing and am LOVING this.. of course I'm also for G.W. :) WOOHOO GO G.W.!
1) send homemade porn video to movie studio
2) wait a day or two for them to share it with friends
3) sue movie studio under new law
4) PROFIT!!!!
hmm... and of course, since I'm posting this on slashdot:
0) find attractive girl willing to appear in homemade porn video
So when can I get cash for turning in my IRC "friends"? I don't really know them and would gladly cough up some information for a few thousand dollars.
Would I feel guilty? No. I'd feel.... rich.
Backwards Thinking: I would LOVE for someone - you know, one of those people who have a lot of free time and desire to do lots of in-depth research - were to write down ALL the things someone CAN do and get less jail time than they would with this new proposal. I'm not talking about OJ Simpson and the people with high priced lawyers, I'm talking the letter of the law. Can someone do a hit and run on a pedestrian, be caught on video tape, but plead guilty and only serve 2 years time if the person only got a broken leg? What seriously heinous acts can be committed? Forward Thinking: This is GREAT! Remember the movie BLOW - not that I'm going to provide any links to it or nothing for fear they may THINK I own an illegal copy and hunt me down. Johnny Depp goes in for charges of marijuana grow-op'ing and comes out with a bachelors degree in cocaine smuggling. Just THINK of the possibilities where all the 15 year old script kiddies get tossed in jail for 3 years for sharing their music and movies. They'll come out knowing how to get free phone calls for life, how to properly encrypt their communications, and hax0r the internet like The Rat in that terribly realistic movie The Core. Go on George, sign that bill! Just make sure my legal system north of the 49th parallel has a spine to stand up to your judicial stupidocrity. And while I don't believe stupidocrity is a word, I'm sure someone (aka The Monkey Presidential Puppet) will bastardize the english language enough sooner or later to say it live on CNN.
The very fact that admin shares fo C$ etc are created by default pretty much will leave you in violation of what this sounded like in the /. blurb should they find content on your drive.
I see 2 major problems with this law.
But this law is not going after someone just sharing. It seems to be going after those who share a movie, before it is released to the theaters.
Still, I wonder if this law is excessive. I would not be as troubled if I did not believe this law was passed for lobbyists, not for the public benifit. The only way to stop laws like this is for massive capmaign finance reform. Until then, groups like the RIAA will own members of Congress.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
I'm not convinced that it's excessive.
Comparison to other laws and punishments is not helpful. The legal system isn't coherent and just because a punishment is out of line with other punishments doesn't make this one excessive; it could just as easily be that some others are too lenient. You can easily find other even more egregious examples, especially in the case of drug laws. (Some terribly high percentage of prisoners is in for simple marijuana possession if urban legend is to be believed.)
Part of the reason is that punishment serves many different purposes: rehabilitation, restitution, vengeance, deterrence. Any punishment is a mixture, depending on what they want to accomplish. Deterrence is particularly strong in this case: they're going to able to track down very few offenders, so they "amortize" the punitive aspect to try to scare others off.
There's also the notion that the punishment should fit the damage done. Arguably, the damage done by sharing movies and CDs is very high. If 1% of the people who downloaded a movie would have bought it, that can easily be 10,000 people. If the studio nets ten bucks on each sale, that's $100,000 in damage. (I don't care if you wish to call the crime "infringement" or "theft" or "piracy"; I'm trying to figure out economic losses. And unless you have some hard numbers for your argument that the studios are benefitting from your free advertising, please start a different thread.)
Such a crime would be "grand theft" if it were theft, and three years is not an unusual punishment for the crime of grand theft. As I said, it may not be classified as theft, but it's a case where damage is arguably done, and done to the tune of a whole bunch of money.
As the title suggests, I'm just playing devil's advoctate here. The criminals at Enron will get only slightly more jail time for the far greater, far more concrete damage they did. Compared to that tracking down file sharers is an immense waste of time, money, and jail space. I'm just not a fan of the common Slashdot "if it's not nailed down it's mine, and if I can break the copy protection it's not nailed down" argument, and we'll see how many of those respond before I get modded to negative infinity.
OK, since every photo or letter automatically gains copyright protection for the creator...does that mean that posting photos of family and friends is a violation if you did not create them?
Seems to be the case.
"the actual bill - the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act"
Just out of curiosity if that becomes law, would it then be the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act Law or FECAL?
Who thinks up these names...
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
What supporting evidence do you have to make such a statement? What makes you think that the number of people who see the unreleased film and decide to not go to the theater is greater than the number of people who look to download the unreleased film because they cannot wait to see it in the theater -- and then they do go to the theater to see it on the big screen?
FTA:
"The bill's supporters in Congress won passage of the prison terms by gluing them to an unrelated proposal to legalize technologies that delete offensive content from a film. That proposal was designed to address a lawsuit that Hollywood studios and the Directors Guild of America filed against ClearPlay over a DVD player that filtered violent and nude scenes."
I hate riders like this.
Hey! Someone just got hold of my laptop in a coffee shop, while I was in the bathroom, and posted the above program to the net. I was going to distribute it next month. It still isn't ready for the public.
Please remove any copy you have from any public server, or you will be prosecuted!
You have been warned!
There are 4 versions of this bill; the link above is to the version "Reported In House". I'm not sure if this is the one that was passed by the house.
For links to all 4 versions, see http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:S.167:
I love this quote from the article:
As if copyright infringement was not a crime before. Mitch, there was no hole - the penalties just weren't as stiff as you wanted before.for possibly allowing someone to see a movie before the studios intended.
What the hell does this have to do with groupthink? It's not about whether copying is wrong or right (it's wrong). This has to do with excessive penalties!
I don't agree with the groupthing that says jay walking is okay; it's illegal and for a good reason. Therefore, the law I propose that calls for mandatory life sentences for jay walking isn't draconian.
The enemies of Democracy are
http://www.house.gov/writerep/
Write your representative. I'm pretty sure they don't read slashdot, and need to know how the people feel on these matters.
and everyone knows that we don't have laws here.
copyright © 2005 Flamsmsmark the ravings of a melancholly i
Maybe there will be clarifications in the final form, but I think the most egregious thing about it is that even if no infringement takes place, you're still liable.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
All I need to do is to get that dead-man timer script debugged... ;-)
--Mike--
if you don't want to spend three years in prison, don't distribute unreleased copyrighted material.
Whichever side you're on in the copyright debate, you have to agree this legislation is draconian and excessive, to say the least.
No I don't have to agree with you. And in fact, I don't.
Now, could we have a little more reporting of the news, and a lot less fucking editorialization? If I want a slant on things, I'd watch network news.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
This just shows how powerful corporations have become. Somehow the governemnt can justify throwing a file sharer in jail for three years because they might have cut into some corporations profits while crooked CEOs who steal millions and destroy the life and livelihood of thousands walk free or with a slap on the wrist. Every day the class divisions are becoming more apparent in this country.
Time makes more converts than reason
I'll I can say is : 420 Lewis !!!
Patriotically yours,
Kilgore Trout, CIO
I agree that it seems like you could possibly define a show as "commercially released" when it aired.
However (and this is especially true of broadcast shows) no-one paid asnything to actually watch it, so I could easily see a TV station claiming that any sharing was before the "commerical release" of the DVD, which is big business now for TV shows.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Democrat, Republican..what the fuck is the difference anymore other then issues on morality.
Both parties pander to industry and contributions.
Fuck em both
Life is not for the lazy.
They have also declared war on the poor.
I downloaded Battlestar Galactica before it was commercially available in the US. One problem with these types of laws is that since I think they are BS. I then tend to think of all laws as BS. Fuck the law, it isn't for me, it's for corporations to use to screw me. That is an attitude I know hold that I didn't grow up with, but it is an attitude my child will probably grow up with.
"draconian and excessive"
If people had actually read "Mein Kampf" they would have seen the future Germany; it was all there. But it was just so damn boring nobody paid attention.
Think about that the next time you hear our President or the likes of Mr. Delay or Mr. Kennedy drone on in flag-waving political doublespeak.
You wouldn't think so if you invested $100 million into making a film.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
for example, the other day I was riding my bicycle downtown while listening to music with my headphones on, which is illegal to do.
mind you, i didn't have the volume turned all the way to 11, and i could hear perfectly well the sound of a car coming up behind me. cuz as everyone knows, car traffic is pretty loud.
but i did get a "stern warning" from a police officer.
he didn't care too much about my arguments that deaf people can still ride a bike, or that people in cars with a N gigawatts stereo system will hear even less, or that not wearing headphones wont stop a careless driver from smashing me to bits.
the law is the law is the law.
*rolls eyes backwards*
See subject. Vote Democrat they don't take corporate handouts.
That means that if a movie is distributed before it is released in the theaters, it doesn't fall under this statute.
IOW, you can put Episode 3 online any time between now and the movie is released and not fall under the statute. Only after the movie is released AND before it is released on DVD, does the law apply.
Lawmakers are out of touch, or maybe just in touch with lobbyists. It's amazing that people that squander away millions in fraud cases will most likely get less time than someone that does this.
we need more software like this:
h aven.net
http://freenet.sourceforge.net
http://tor.free
No, fuck you. What's with the no emulation stance?
Set up a file share called "PRIVATE", give it (whoops) too few permission restrictions ("guests" can read) or a honeypot-esque weak login/password, let slip to a few people (in private) that you have "a few movies" in there, then put in some semi-sensitive work in there for good measure. Story: You needed a way to share your work files from home to work, but you didn't realize that you had allowed "Everyone" in.
What could they accuse you of? "Leaving your door unlocked accidentally", essentially? I'd love to see the lawyers have a field day with that one.
Only two years left until I graduate college (hopefully), and then I can leave this country and never return.
Taiwan looks like an especially good place to live, considering its lack of diplomatic relations with the US.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
The bill's supporters in Congress won passage of the prison terms by gluing them to an unrelated proposal to legalize technologies that delete offensive content from a film
:P
GOD DAMNIT! That is so sneaky and under the rug. Do you know how much horrible crap gets passed this way? Lots! This is just another example. (Note: too lazy to look up previous examples but I have heard about it numerous times). WHAT THE FUCK is wrong with the god damn congress? The only way they can get this underhanded bullshit passed is to hide it in a bill that seems to be totally unrelated. And we all know how many congressman fully read every bill that they vote on... *COUGH* NOT MANY *COUGH*...
Fuck that... it pisses me off pretty much more than anything. How many of them would have voted for these prison terms, had they known thta was actually what they were voting for? This should seriously be illegal, to do something like that. Those mother fuckers
As to how I feel about the actual bill is totally unrelated to this crap. I do think it's too harsh by a longshot, but I do understand the need to really crack down on pre-release leaks, because I think that those could actually affect the revenue of a movie to some degree. But they have to pull this horse crap to get it passed. Assholes.
Joseph?
How to bring the RIAA down in 3 (mostly illegal) steps
1. Produce a home movie and copyright it (think something dirty) and schedule a release date in the future for the movie.
2. (harder bit, think social engineering) create a shared folder on a server in the office of the RIAA and locate a copy of the movie there
3. Present to local prosecutor an anonymous letter stating that a "fan" of your work found this on a computer at the RIAA and thought you should know about it.
Although ungodly illegal it would probably have some merit in a court of law. In the discovery phase alone your likly to find enough immages/movies (porn) to find something else illegal.
The RIAA is left with 2 choices fight the law that allowed the search in the first place or suck the charges
I mean this really isn't strong enough punishment. It doesn't return any value to those damaged (the media companies). I mean come on, what we really need is a large scale public spectacle where these offenders can battle it out man to man.
The entertainment industry can recoup their losses by promoting this gladitorial combat!
If the government wants to act draconian and have the population ignore it they really need to keep us fed, inebriated and entertained.
Bring on the bread and circuses!
Sometimes my arms bend back.
With their "under cover" operations that lead to the arrest and conviction of "sceenies/sceeners", Did they not learn that this isn't how things (copyrighted works) make it to the internet? Maybe a few episodes of welcometothescene.com would put things into perspective for them. Just another Meaningless law in a seee FUD.
Quote from http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c109:4:./tem p/~c109WwlD4f:e1284::
Any person who, without the authorization of the copyright owner, knowingly uses or attempts to use an audiovisual recording device to transmit or make a copy of a motion picture or other audiovisual work protected under title 17, or any part thereof, from a performance of such work in a motion picture exhibition facility, shall--
`(1) be imprisoned for not more than 3 years, fined under this title, or both; or
`(2) if the offense is a second or subsequent offense, be imprisoned for no more than 6 years, fined under this title, or both.
Is it just me, or this bill is not only about file leaking?
w sowietskie rusje Film oglada ciebie!
Sorry for the infomercial. But seriously, just wait till the son or daughter of a politition gets nailed by the RIAA and has a felonly slapped on them. Unless however, the said politition manages to worm there way out of it.
I really REALLY hope a politition that voted for this get's busted for this activity and slapped with a felony charge.
Life is not for the lazy.
Heh. Funny how the bill was originally created in reponse to the premature distribution of three of the suckiest movies of all time. I'm sure seeing those movies beforehand allowed lots of folks to avoid wasting money on a theatre ticket (or DVD rental).
Okay, so a philosopher, a philologist, and a philatelist walk into a bar...
The act doesn't criminalize the act of filesharing, it criminalizes the act of uploading copyrighted media before it is released. Big difference. I believe in P2P but pirating a movie/CD days before it is released is crossing the line.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Um, this is the people asking for help again piracy. What do you think companies are made of here in America? Americans maybe? The punishment doesn't fit the crime, but I do believe that there should be punishment for releasing something that someone gave to you and wants it kept confidencial, as in not releasing it onto the internet for everyone to get for free. Time and money went into the movie, music, or software. Shouldn't they have a chance to get the money they deserve for their labors.
By the way, "for the people by the people", that is or government, not our businesses.
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I wonder what effect this legislation will have on things like anime, where a company may secure commercial rights to distribute something in the United States, but then choose not to. From what I understand, fan-made subtitles of recordings are still in a gray area, where potential consumers *want* to buy the product, but cannot, and so share it amongst themselves at no profit instead. Many fansub groups even refuse to work on films and TV shows that are commercially available in English.
Not only anime, but any other type of product not released in the US by choice.
Mute is kind of slow.
Freenet is really slow.
Blubster has spyware and worms.
Didnt Bush have an ipod full of music according to a recent article. His aid claims he filled it up at the itunes store. Which means A) Its just illegal copies according to this law and he should go to jail B) He actually did pay for it which probably means we the taxpayers paid for it. Either way let him be the first imprisioned under this law.
I see folks calling this proposal "draconian." It sounds to me, and I did NOT RTFA as of this post, that a max. 3 year sentence is not so much OVERKILL and DRACONIAN as it is a DETERRANT to those who might think about violating the law.
Granted, it's a little nuts, but think about it -- some kid starts seeing a PSA on TV and reading online hearing about other kids getting threatened with 3 years max. for violating the law? Shit -- if I were a parent, I'd think "family" in terms of this law, 'cause spending money to defend my kid for something he probably shouldn't have been doing in the first place affects my fucking "family" financially.
Personally, it sounds like a horseshit law in the works, but most of the ones coming from DC these days are horseshit. However, as a deterrant, 3 years for, say, my kid violating the law is plenty effective.
IronChefMorimoto
Do you actually believe this?
Do you believe that Senator "Disney" Hollings was not a Democrat? Do you think congressman Howard Berman, who's district represents Hollywood is a Republican?
President Clinton signed the DMCA into law.
You really have your head in the sand.
From the article:
If signed into law, as expected, the bill would significantly lower the bar for online copyright prosecutions. Current law sanctions criminal penalties of up to three years in prison for "the reproduction or distribution of 10 or more copies or phonorecords of one or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of $2,500 or more."
Isn't it enough for the xxAA to be able to use an argument similar to "it caused us more than $2,500 in damages" in order to levy the heavier penalties on people they want to prosecute? I wouldn't think that $2,500 in damages would be all that hard to prove for a leaked pre-release film or CD...
It seems to me that all this bill does is lower the bar on what is considered a felony for distribution (which was formerly 10 copies or $2,500 in worth).
So this just makes it WAY easier for the xxAA industries to go after people, as their burden of proof is just about nonexistant. All they have to prove to prosecute someone successfully now is that the media in question was in fact "pre-release". They don't even have to prove that is was actually ever downloaded...
I was in the park the other day wondering why frisbees get bigger and bigger the closer they get - and then it hit me.
i think the problem is a lot larger scale than the administration thinks it is. with so many americans in the penal system already, how will the courts and prisons possibly handle an influx of violators?
forty-two
Write 1000 times: "It's called copyright. There is nothing like a 'copywrite'."
"Shouldn't they have a chance to get the money they deserve for their labors."
yes, its called release or STFU.
"By the way, "for the people by the people", that is or government, not our businesses."
Who the hell do you think recognized corporations as legal entities?
To be criminally liable, it has to be reasonable that you'd be aware the copyrighted content was not released yet. The admins of a webserver probably don't meet that standard; they're unlikely to be aware there's copyrighted material there at all if they're not reviewing all of the content.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
So I guess it is just all a FECAL matter.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
The article points out that you can be placed in jail for releasing a copy of a movie, music, or software and knew it had not been commercially released.
In other words this bill only applies to things that arn't released on DVD yet, for instance. Or a game thats released before its placed on the shelf (ie: DOOM 3).
This still doesn't cover the point that people are sharing already copyrighted and released material (movies/games/music a couple years old).
Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
Mr. Ghost:
You are also making the dangerous assumption that the person would see the movie in a theatre in the first place. I can think of at least two other times this is false. Do not bash me, I understand the context of this sentence.The difference with the storew analogy is with movies it circulates with money the companies could possibly make, and whether or not they reach their goal or not, whereas the store already has the money that was stolen. Copyright infringement is illegal yes, but calling it anything other thatn what it is is also wrong, IMO (THIS IS SUBJECTIVE!)
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
So do multiple files aggregate then? Say there were multiple offenses. Would one then receive life imprisonment for a massive amount of file transfers?
Axe murderer: What are you in for?
File swapper: I shared a master copy of Britney Spear's newest cd before it was released.
Axe murderer: The Villainy!
You bring up an *excellent* point. The release abroad and bittorrent...are you, perchance, referring to fansubbed anime?
Whichever case, I think you may be right. It makes sense on the technical side (released before the official release). This could possibly spell the end of fansubs.
Can't wait to see you there!
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
"Film, Software, or Music program" .txt file and upload scot free!
Cool... just rename it into a
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
This bill was introduced by the notorious pirate Hatch. It seems to read like a preliminary to a more restrictive law. IANAL, but it seems to me that it would actually be hard to convict a casual file sharer.
An excert:
(a) Prohibited Acts- Section 506(a) of title 17, United States Code, is amended to read as follows:
`(a) Criminal Infringement-
`(1) IN GENERAL- Any person who willfully infringes a copyright shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, if the infringement was committed--
`(A) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain;
`(B) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000; or
`(C) by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution.
`(2) EVIDENCE- For purposes of this subsection, evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement of a copyright.
`(3) DEFINITION- In this subsection, the term `work being prepared for commercial distribution' means--
`(A) a computer program, a musical work, a motion picture or other audiovisual work, or a sound recording, if, at the time of unauthorized distribution--
`(i) the copyright owner has a reasonable expectation of commercial distribution; and
`(ii) the copies or phonorecords of the work have not been commercially distributed; or
`(B) a motion picture, if, at the time of unauthorized distribution, the motion picture--
`(i) has been made available for viewing in a motion picture exhibition facility; and
`(ii) has not been made available in copies for sale to the general public in the United States in a format intended to permit viewing outside a motion picture exhibition facility.'.
I would hope that the legislation is less broad than the description in both the summary and the FA.
If I put my home movies (or songs) in a shared folder, but never commercially release it, am I in violation?
-- Andyvan
... makes it a crime punishable by up to three years in jail for a user to put a single 'copy of a film, software program or music file in a shared folder and should have known the copyrighted work had not been commercially released.
A literal reading of this would say that some music files that I and a few friends made and put online are going to become illegal. Consider:
1) The files are copyrighted by default (by us).
2) We haven't released these files commercially.
3) The files are online, on my web site.
Are they really making it illegal for people to put their own files online without first releasing them commercially?
This sounds like they're basically outlawing the act of giving things out for free. You can only sell things; you can't give your own things away as a present.
I suppose this wouldn't be surprising, coming from the Bush administration.
I've also put a number of small scripts online, for the benefit of anyone who might find them useful. They're too small to sell. They must be copyrighted since in the US, everything is copyrighted by default. So it sounds like those giving out those little scripts is soon to be an illegal act.
I wonder what the chances are that the courts would toss this law?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Is file sharing morally correct? If you feel that they are robbing the people with excessive and monopolistic practics, yes. If you feel that they deserve your pound of flesh, then some sort of fine should be imposed.
Don't these people realize how *expensive* it is to imprison people for such a minor illegality? This is up with jaywalking!
Got to love our government at work.
No! It's a *SIG*. Keep the Special Interest Groups away! (Con joke!)
Too lazy to search for the quote but basically "It only takes one."
Due to the fact that many zombie machines can be manipulated to publish copyrighted content, to say the least, why not make a war on people who design weak operating systems knowing that they can be exploited with evil purposes?
In other words: How do you know the files in my shared folder weren't put there by hackers who exploited yet another vulnerability in Microsoft Windows? (remember the case of the planted warez in Sweden?)
Since when do they have rights to prevent Seattle bands from freely sharing music recorded by themselves. Every day we become more and more like Russia.
And not in a good way, either.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The MPAA and RIAA feel that file sharing is bad and it is causing them to lose money. I find it hard to beleive that money that never would have been received could be lost.
I have not purchased a CD or been to see a movie in at least 10 years. I have a wife and three kids and to take them to the show will cost me at least 75 to 80 dollars.
The Industries are claiming losses that are bogus. I still do not go to movies and I sure as hell do not buy CD's so that I can hear the one song I like. I use iTunes and I rent DVD's.
The occasional downloader of a movie of extremely poor quality cannot be detrimental to the industry. Box offices are taking in more money now than they ever have...how can downloading a pre-release movie be harmful.
These are just my thoughts. Greed is a dangerous thing and the MPAA and RIAA need to realize that.
when you put a DVD in, it says that the government provides SEVERE penalties for copying the disc.
If that wasnt enough to make you go buy a gun and shoot every government official dead, you dont deserve democracy.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
How is any court going to be able to enforce such a law?
With a shared folder, how would a prosecutor prove beyond a reasonable doubt that THIS person shared the file?
How can they prove it wasn't someone else walking by the PC, or a malicious new virus that downloads remote DMCA illegal files and then places them in the user's folders to incriminate them?
(Hence this post's title.)
There's not much forensic evidence in an operating system when it comes to proving beyond any reasonable doubt to convict someone in such cases.
Anyone could operate a mouse & keyboard if the user weren't looking.
What a BS law.
Lets hope iTunes never sets it's folder as shared on install. AHHH!
and stick a music CD in the tray so you can listen to it outside.
The radicals that proposed this bill would have you sent to prison for 3 years.
Enough!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
regarding family entertainment. It legalized the ability of third parties to edit movies to cut out the "obscene" parts and then make it available to the public. Its *very* big business in Utah, since they're more or less all bible-thumping Mormons.
The Doormat
If you're not outraged, then you're not paying attention.
How many children or grandchildren of Congressmen and Congresswomen are already in violation of this new law?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Existing copyright law covers this. That's a violation of the exclusive right of the owner to distribute the music, and if you are caught uploading (distributing) material that does not belong to you, and your upload is not for "home use" (and thus covered under the "Home Use" clause of the Fair Use Doctrine), then you are in violation.
Specifically, United States Code, Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 106, Subheading (3). This is already illegal and it has been for ages.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
I got an idea, instead of just titling a subject "Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA" why don't you gather and actually protest. Write your congressmen and get something done about it? Everyone hates the RIAA, I hope they all get AIDS personally. I've been writting my congressman for months about this very topic. Where are the rest of the intelligent people out there?
(not that) Innocent guy gets convicted, while mass-murderer-or-worse gets free.
Yeah, so? That doesn't speak in favor of the guy who shares files. It speaks against the people who allowed the mass-murderer-or-worse to get free.
If you consider that the penalties for file sharing are unfair, SAY SO, but don't compare with the evil guy etc etc.
If you consider that it is your right to share files because you're protesting against the RIAA monopoly who's feeding on our taxes, then say so.
But don't mix things, please. Just as there have been rapists and murderers fred, there have been those who are convicted.
One thing has NOTHING TO DO with the other.
Check out the statues online. There is no federal copyright on pre-1973 music, and what few state laws exist only apply to commercial selling of sound recordings you don't own the master too.
All pre-1973 music can be legally shared. This is a fitting way to get back at the RIAA for pushing the laws unjustly, by using the laws. Check out the copyright information at the copyright office and the justice department for a list of state laws to do with IP.
Well I guess its a good thing that more and more movies are being made/shot in Canada these days. w00t! Let the bit torrents begin!
Seriously how is this stupid US law going to translate in the real world.
Lets say for example that some movie is made in Canada, by a US Producer. Lets also say that they send a copy to an animation server farm down in New Zealand (I think Peter Jackson has such a facility down there).
If the movie is leaked from Canada onto the web, is the law enforceable?
If the movie is leaked from New Zealand onto the web, is the law enforcable?
In either case probably not. In which case the law really only exists for two purposes. One is to stop people in the US, from doing leaks. Two is to keep the Movie industry centeralized in the US market.
Lets face it all this is, is a way that the US can promote their industry without having to compete. Usual scare tatics. How much money do you think these corporations REALLY lose due to this leakage. How much PR do they get from it (unless their movie sucks balls I suppose)...
Anyway it seems I have entered into the tinfoil hat territory, and they are probably watching so I am out of here!
DarthVain
Wow! How can I buy legislation for my cause?
Reviews need to be written too though.
I've downloaded _plenty_ of software that's never been commercially released - it's freeware, PD, GPL etc etc etc.
I've downloaded music that's never been commercially released. The authors decided to distribute it for free.
I've downloaded films that have never been commercially released. Flash animations by amateurs playing mostly, but I can't see how you can argue that Honda's 'cog' advert was ever commercially released as they never sold the thing.
Is the legislation really _that_ badly worded?
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
...so sayeth the idiots who put "family" on every stupid bill that abuses our rights and the even bigger idiots who buy them.
I say the same about pre-releasing. We're saving kids from being exposed to crap without warning. Now you can see in advance the dreadful crud that you would have had to shell out several dollars to suffer with otherwise.
You know, at least with BDSM, you KNOW it's supposed to hurt AND cost. Movies make you pay on the pretext that you'll ENJOY yourself, but evidently they're now redefining pleasure for everyone. Let's see... once small is beautiful Linux is bloating, X is bloating with tinsel-crap further, Microsoft is admitting they sell beta and charge you for it... We're pretty much at the point where all the liars openly say, "yeah, we're full of sh*t, and you've known it for years, and now we're admitting it because there's no longer anything you can do about it.
I weep for the future. We have met the enemy and it is us and we don't seem to care. "It's the end of the world as we've known it, and I feel fine."
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
"Bush is expected to sign a law that essentially makes it a crime punishable by up to three years in jail" Hmmmmmm, a 3 year break you say....
Of course, it is a tragedy that Bush simply doesn't have the intellect to even understand anything he is signing therefore that should render any new laws null and void.
But you know in the end everyone will vote with their feet. If America and Europe just end up creating more and more silly laws with disproportionate and badly judged punishments that only help giant corporations, then smaller businesses and enterprising individuals will just up and leave and do business elsewhere.
Since 9/11 the government/banks/corporation superstate has delivered hard doctrine on to a gullible sheep like public who don't want to face up to the realities of what is happening.
But you can only take it so far before people will wake up
The majority of this country doesn't have the money to buy every cd to see if they like one or two songs. These bills are being passed by people that get every cd they want for passing legislation like this. If the corporations are tired of losing money on cds and movies, maybe they should lower the damn price since a blank CD costs them around 30 cents and a blank DVD costs around 60 cents.
I have personally taken a role in not ever buying another DVD or CD simply because they do stuf like this. If you tell a kid not to eat a piece of candy, they're going to eat twice as many pieces. This country is going to crap very quickly, thanks to the two-party system.
If carrots got you drunk, rabbits would be fucked up. - Comedian Mitch Hedberg R.I.P. 03/30/68-2/24/05
...and just steal it from the stores where they're just sitting in the back waiting to be put on shelves.
On a serious note.. this is the 2nd time today I've had to write my rep's at the casa blanca. It's a wonder why we don't see more stories like this and not "my iMac BEOWULF cluster is alive!!!"
Get paid to code OSS
You have to agree this legislation is draconian and excessive, to say the least."
No I don't agree with you.
assume we are downloading it. They will use the decrease in sales for even more restrictive laws.
Slashdot is full of fucking morons.
Prerelease people!!!
1.)What the fuck are u doing with a copy of a movie before it out.
2.)Why the fuck are u sharing it?
Have fun getting ass-slammed by Tyrone because your a fucking idiot and you are getting what you deserve.
what if i label my multimedia directory "not_shared" and then just make a symlink for it named "Shared"
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Well...this will probabaly make more people paranoid about the police comming and confiscating their systems for evidence. I don't share files over the net, but if I did I'd probably use a Mac enable Filevault. It's not perfect, but probably would keep them from using stuff in my home directory against me.
(Ignoring the other comments to make my point) We are technically and officially a representative republic. What the US is practically or effectively may be someting else altogether.
There are several definitions of democracy - look in any dictionary. The one we're definitely NOT is majority rule. There's another definition that more closely fits an elected government where everyone has a voice, but to call the US a democracy confuses the issues.
Tag lost or not installed.
No, I was to Doctor Who, which is broadcast in the UK 6 days before it hits CBC. To my knowledge, no over-the-air network in the US has picked up the show, so it's only available if you have CBC with your cable package.
Also, Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis are (were) shown in the UK several months ahead of the US.
But you're right, it could kill fansubs as well.
Freely allowing access to copywrite material to any internet user is not fair use. If I spent $40 million on a movie, and people were downloading it for free rather than paying for it at the movie, then I would be upset too.
The penalty is UP to 3 years. It doesn't mean a first time offender sharing 1 mp3 would get 3 years. Put a little faith into the judicial system.
Dracula? Thief!
I want the opposite. Let's call it FilthPlay and it should remove any portion of a movie that isn't full of sex/nudity/violence.
Would executives of companies who "share" their customers' private data through negligence also qualify for the maximum three year jail sentence introduced by this law? In many cases, I would consider protection of private data more important than protection of copyrighted material.
It's one thing to make your l33t protest about poor commercial models by pirating music and movies. It's another thing to pirate something before the company even has a chance to provide a commercial alternative.
I'm no fan of Bush, ridiculously long copyrights, or the commercially available music and movie distribution system, but I think the punishment here actually fits the crime.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
There are two parts of the bill. The second part, which hasn't been discussed here, may actually help reinforce and maybe expand the right of fair use. (In fact, the draconian punishments may just have been a sop to mute objections by the media companies). Title II is called "Exemption from Infringement for skipping audio or video content in motion pictures." It's a response to a lawsuit filed by several movie studios and directors, who were trying to shut down companies that make available "family-friendly" versions of Hollywood movies. (I wrote about the case in my former life as a legal reporter.) Some of the family-friendly companies distribute software that tells your computer when to skip past the naughty bits (usually with some kind of menu so that the end-user can specify no-nudity, no-violence, etc. Other companies actually buy the videos or DVDs in bulk, copy them onto blanks in edited form (but only one copy for every original), and then destroy the originals. An interesting question -- how does this interact with the DRMA? Don't these companies (the second type) have to break the encryption to make their edited copies?
"yes, its called release or STFU."
So, your answer to this is to release something, like Apple is going to release Tiger soon, so they are printing disks and shipping them out to stores, but it got put up on the web on torrent sites, and your answer to that is to STFU. You will go far in the business world.
"Who the hell do you think recognized corporations as legal entities?"
Your point??? Now say if I had something and was about to release it, but someone posted it up on the web. I should have the legel backing to get restitution for having my hard work infringed apon by someone else who doesn't have the right to give said stuff out.
Do you even have a job you f*cking free loader. Have you ever worked on something great then had it taken away and given out for free like what happens to software and movie companies. If not, then you STFU, and don't complain that they are taking away your free stuff that you know is illegal to get for free to begin with.
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I attempted to paste the text of the bill into a comment so readers would have quick access, but Slashdot wouldn't let me post it because it failed to pass a "lameness filter". Wow, Slashdot's filters are good!
I'm an avid downloader of television shows. I could tape them on my VCR, but the quality is much better if downloaded.
Over the past few months, I've wondered about the legality of this, since it's analogous to taping the show and watching it later (assuming I fast forward through commercials).
This article mentions film, music, and software. Three things I won't download. But I'm just not sure about TV. I'm only downloading shows available on my local cable channels, not stuff on HBO, Showtime, etc, which I do not pay for. What's the word on this?
Made it illegal for medical doctors and researchers to discuss the use of medications for "off label" use. Many medical doctors will prescribe non over the counter antihistamines to their patients as a sleep aid. If MAPA had passed these MDs could've been jailed for this. Researchers often look at approved prescription medications to see if they can help people in other ways. A few years ago there was talk about some NSAIDs (Non Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs) might be useful in the treatment of Alzheimer's Disease. Researchers would have faced prison sentences for the act of discussing this in an email sent over the Internet.
The discussion of any device that could be used as drug paraphernalia would be illegal. Many US citizens that have their roots from the Middle East still use a hookah for smoking tobacco. Uttering the statement "please don't use a hookah for smoking marijuana" could land them in prison.
Hatch and Feinstein are both evil control freaks. To me to proves the system is broken with both the Democrats and Republicans. They both suck.
Also see: Wired News: Reefer Madness Hits Congress
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
Stick to stealing cars...It's more profitable and there is less of a jail term :)
"Reviews need to be written too though."
Then have the reviewers sign an NDA. It works, there is already law in place. The fact is, they want public protection for private matters above and beyond what public protection would already afford. Besides, "reviews" is hardly a case for putting someone in the slammer for 3 years.
I see that I have been labeled a troll in this thread. Oh well, that's not so bad in this case because there is no room for moderates when it comes to this issue. There are bullies and there are those who stand up against the bullies.
This is only a MS Windows problem. My Linux box doesn't have folders.
Oh well, what the hell...
United States law recognizes no universal right to limit the distribution of information. (Rights like "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", or those enumerated in the Bill of Rights; though it's important to note that when the constitution was framed, many opposed specifically enumerating any rights in the Bill of Rights because it was considered that everybody naturally had the right to do ANYTHING unless specifically disallowed, and enumerating them could lead people to limit themselves to JUST those rights).
Despite its poor name, "copyright" laws grant a limited exclusive PRIVILEGE to copy information. In other words, they are restricting the natural way of things in hopes of achieving some greater good. (Anyone can copy anything, naturally, as per the assumed right to do whatever you like unless otherwise limited; copyright law is the limit, not the right).
Infringing on copyright law is *not theft*. You have not deprived the original owner of any property, and thus have violated no property rights. You have infringed on a law, sure, but that law is not based on any universal right.
Given that, you're right that there's no right to cheap drugs or insurance either. Which just puts these two issues on the same footing: trying to regulate a naturally unregulated system in order to achieve some greater good. No natural rights violations are being violated in either case.
I believe the GP poster was merely expressing his disdain that things are being regulated in favor of the corporations, instead of in favor of the people.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
From the article, The bill's supporters in Congress won passage of the prison terms by gluing them to an unrelated proposal to legalize technologies that delete offensive content from a film. That proposal was designed to address a lawsuit that Hollywood studios and the Directors Guild of America filed against ClearPlay over a DVD player that filtered violent and nude scenes. (ClearPlay had gained influential allies among family groups such as the Parents Television Council and Focus on the Family.)
So, it's OK to filter content on DVDs if it's 'naughty', but it isn't OK to filter content such as fast forwarding the copyright notice, various intros, or skip adverts on TiVo?
Why?
The name of the bill is the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act. So that means if you get caught with downloaded movies, you're being tried on FECAl matters.
I'm not good in groups. It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent. - Q
Official Lyrics of O Canada!
O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!
From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
http://www.ualberta.ca/~bleeck/canada/
what if its something that has been released somewhere else? if i want to watch fansubs of anime that haven't been picked up for US distribution, or obscure british comedies that aren't in american theaters yet, or even kung fu movies that probably won't come here, either.... if i view those, or share them, will i still go to jail for 3 years? just because its not out here does not mean it is unreleased.
disclaimer: no, i didn't read the whole article, nor did i look for the congress proposal. IANAL, nor do i pretend to understand legal-ese.
Yup, hate it too.
Waiting for the day when a bill is passed that makes it illegal for anyone other than the Executive to sign or vote on a bill.
Moo, I mean er, Baa.
They Live, We Sleep
Among them, Feinstein and Leahy.
Couple of well-known right-wing Republicans there.
Oh, wait...
How about if I don't make a single copy of a file available? How about if I place a chunk of data that matches a certain offset within a file with a certain MD5 value? And what if I surround it with random junk? Then someone else can puzzle together a number of such blocks from various places and create their own illegal copy - if they like.
What is the sound of one hand clapping?
cat
"Do you even have a job you f*cking free loader. Have you ever worked on something great then had it taken away and given out for free like what happens to software and movie companies. If not, then you STFU, and don't complain that they are taking away your free stuff that you know is illegal to get for free to begin with."
Don't call me a freeloader you twat. I not only work on great things at a great job where I am greatly appreciateed, thank-you very much. I additionaly donate my time to others so they can benefit from my efforts.
I never *ever* said that those who produce should not be rewarded for their efforts or that people should expect things to be free. Don't put words into my mouth, you shill. I said that there are already enough laws in place to protect the asshat corporations -- no one needs more.
Maybe more people will want to get away from proprietary software if they actually have to pay for it.
Will the directors of google and MSN Search be thrown into jail for 3 years when i find copies of a program I have released but has a license stating 'NOT FOR COMMERCIAL DISTRIBUTION' in their caches?
These people are running a business and are serving up my program form their 'fileshare' when it is clearly not supposed to be for commercial distribution.
I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Whichever side you're on in the copyright debate, you have to agree this legislation is draconian and excessive, to say the least
Actually, no. Firstly, anyone who does this is a real dick. Who do you think you are to release a movie ahead of the people who actually worked on it? I have no sympathy. Secondly, the government has to send a message that you can't just do this kind of thing and get away with it. There has to be a cost to breaking the law. You're taking a project worth hundreds of millions of dollars and pissing about with it. That's not right. Three years in jail versus one hundred million dollars is actually pretty lenient.
The last I heard, pirating is illegal. If you are not happy about the maximum jail terms, then don't pirate. I do not understand what the issue is.
Where Macs Belong in the Living Room
This post has not yet been commercially released. Slashdot.org will now be sent to jail. We're sorry for the inconvienience.
Movies and Music releases on the GPL. Thatll fix it.
=)
"God of Rock, thank you for this chance to kick ass. "
put music files on my shared directory, so i can access this from any one of my computers at home - i must go to jail? Screw you bush.
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
I call for a war on wars. We are prosecuting far too many wars on the citizens of this country and the world. I call for the peaceful coexistence with drugs, poverty, illiteracy, spyware, cancer, AIDS, Iraq, and terror.
As an alternative, I propose that we redirect our energy into mercilessly punishing people who victimize other people, and let the rest slide.
We should have a war on terrorists, gangsters, and crooks.
-Peter
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
Given that Voinovich has "questions", I'm guessing that Bolton won't get confirmed. That's the way it usually works. After someone becomes radioactive, the poli-s step away. Nobody wants to back a loser...
This is a hell of alot better than the anticircumvention laws. Personally I'd prefer they
sell/give me content free of DRM and hold me responsible for what I do with.
It has probably been mentioned already somewhere amongst the hundreds of comments to this, but I will pose itjust in case. What does this legislation cover that is not already covered by both pre-existing copyright law and the Computer Fraud/Abuse Act? Sounds more like anoher welfare check for RIAA/MPAA.
Anonymous Cowards generally receive no replies because you're a coward and I'm a bitch
The poly-s need lots of $$$ to run their campaigns and so the word you are probably looking for is sugardaddies (not constituents)...
"So, unless everybody wants to agree to my kooky libertarian ideal of abolishing copyright entirely (and we all know that such a thing will never happen), then we need a big hammer to enforce the law as it exists."
Why do libertarians support private property law and oppose intellectual property law?
Both are equally draconian.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
One has to wonder if the law defines any of the following:
What exactly does shared mean? Windows creates a (password protected) administrative share called \\1.2.3.4\C$ when File Sharing is installed. Does that mean I cannot put the file anywhere on my hard drive (even if I have a legitimate right to the file)? What if someone guesses my password?
What happens the user doesn't know the folder is shared? What happens if malware installs a backdoor sharing my hard drive?
What happens if someone shares the folder after the file is already in it? Does the person who placed the file or the person who shared the folder take the fall?
I bet this law has many holes.
Alternately, you could argue that since the work isn't available for sale at all, you aren't costing them a dime.
Doesn't matter. Copyright is the right to distribute. Commercialization is something completely separate. In other words, it doesn't matter if I'm going to give it away for free, or for profit, or even at all, if I hold the copyright of a work, you have no right to distribute the work whatsoever unless you have my permission.
Who said Freedom was Fair?
Troll on slashdot, you are stealing my bandwidth.
What exactly did you mean by "exporting" to other countries? Do you mean Luxembourg or Costa Rica are somehow obligated to shape their IP laws based on what the US does or doesn't do? Or are you implying that the US somehow forces these things on poor unsuspecting nations?
The US has a good number of murders because they have a lot of unfortunately have a lot of riff-raff with self-destructive cultures that lead to a lack of respect for human life. Punishment potential loses its deterrence value with people self-mongrelized to the point where they don;t really care if they get put away for life or executed.
Another problem is that even if a death sentence is handed down, it takes decades of appeals to actually carry out the sentence.
In other words, your staement was a childish, ignorant oversimplification of the situation, and you really should just shut the hell up before you embarass yourself any further.
That's fine and dandy, but what is the damage to society? The criminal law is a tool to punish those who harm society, whereas civil law exists to protect society's members from harm, or rather to give them a redress for it.
I do not think that it is the place of the criminal law to punish copyright violators. The individual (be it Joe Smith or Sony Pictures) is already entitled to sue for civil damages, so saying that the damages are greater means that they can already, without this new law, sue for those increased damages.
Moreover, if actual damages aren't a sufficient economic deterrent to keep people from violating copyrights in this manner, the appropriate response is to award punitive damages, not to throw the guy in prison.
That said, the story itself is pretty biased if it thinks that no side of the copyright debate thinks that this is not draconian or excessive. Clearly, a majority of Congress, which is a major player in the copyright debate, believes that this is necessary and proper.
...is that thing _still_ around?
Here's a link to the PDF version of the bill. Happy printing!
The last thing we want is a judiciary accountable to the people! I mean, what do they think, that this government is formed by the consent of the governed? What kind of crazy idea is that? Why can't we be more like Iran where the unlected judges are the sole arbiters of government, and they control everything over there?
And the last thing we need is for judges to enforce the laws and constitution as it was written. I mean, why should we be bound by an agreement we made in the past? We should just be able to change the terms of the agreement whenever we feel like it, without the permission of the other parties, right?
Because, you know, why would we want to spend all that effort to change the constitution the way it was meant to be changed? It's just absurd man.
The radical sect of Islam would either see you dead or "reverted" to Islam.
The more they push this, the more viable this will become. And after that they will loose all control on this subject. Sad...
http://freenet.sourceforge.net/ for those interested...
And the saying goes that what happens in the US now will happen in Britain five years later. Boy, 2010 is going to fucking suck.
You must think in Russian.
... in future majority of criminals aren't thought criminals, but digital information criminals.
"Or are you implying that the US somehow forces these things on poor unsuspecting nations?"
Pretty much but the attempt is usually to make it sound more innocuous than that. Further, while it affects countries like Costa Rica, it also affects much larger economies like Canada and Australia. But I'm not going to spell it out -- it is well discussed elsewhere. The US is a net exporter of demostic policies through various international organizations and bodies.
Yet, my outrage should be tempered: it is not the US, per se, but the multi-national corporations and the minions they own who do their bidding that deserve my scorn. Really, I'm just disheartened. Historically, *only* and I mean *only* the US could have stood up against represive forces like this. For a good portion of my life I really believed that America fought the good fight. Now, it feels like there is no one left to do it.
They dont care a bit about the actualy material. All they care about is the right to bambard you with advertisments while your watching said material. Atleast concerning tv.
Bush is now looking for WMD's in KazzaLand
If Practice Makes Perfect, And No One is Perfect, Why Practice?
Don't forget battlestar galactica (shown in the UK almost 6 months before the USA) and a whole host of programs that will never make it like ReGenesis, show in Canada last year.
"Whichever side you're on in the copyright debate, you have to agree this legislation is draconian and excessive, to say the least."
I'm a RIAA StormTrooper. I don't think the legislation is draconian or excessive at all. In fact, I was trying to bribe my poliwhore to get the death penalty in the bill for this grave offense, but he started babbling some nonsense about punishment fitting the crime. I think I'll go with another poliwhore next time.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050420-4828 .html
Comcast has decided to ally up with the RIAA.
Um, those words were from the submission, not the "editors" (I use the word loosely). You can tell because when the "editors" add text, it's not italicised.
Case in point, Fiona Apple finished an album almost 2 years ago that Sony has decided not to release because of its lack of radio singles. http://http//www.freefiona.com/
In the last month or so, the entire album as been posted as MP3 in various sites. If this album wasn't intentionally released by Sony as a marketing gimmick, then someone involved with the artist did release it. This album should not be buried. Would Sony invoke this law and end up chilling artist's creativity? Why must the major media companies only offer Bowdlerized, homogenized, non-threatening material. I don't want the FCC, MPAA, RIAA tell me what I can or cannot listen too!
I was inappropriately blunt, wasn't I? I do that a lot - Chloe
Up to 10 years in prison for copyright infringment but only 2 years in prison for interfering with the democratic process.
That says it right there. Copyright is far more important than democracy.
Deleted
To all of you who are writing things along the lines of "it's just 3 years, doesn't seem so bad, considering the heinous crime", something to tell you:
unless you've personally done 3 years, or, in fact, any time, kindly STFU. I have not served any time, so I can not speak from experience on how bad it is. All I know are witness accounts.
After 3 years in jail, your life is over. Period. You are permanently unemployable (no one wants to hire an ex-con). You are facing a choice of flipping burgers for the rest of your life, or becoming a hard-core criminal. You can never vote again (as an ex-felon, anyone with >1 jail time). Your psyche will be permanently altered, and most likely destroyed. You will be abused by whoever happens to be bored. If you resist, you will get beaten and then abused. And by abused I mean serially raped anally and orally. All of your conceptions of decency, honesty, and goodwill of all men will get crushed. Your personality may potentially survive somewhat intact if 1) you are phenomenally, exceptionally strong inside, and 2) you don't turn into a raving maniac as a self-defense mechanism. The chances of surviving as something close to your former self - almost 0. You will leave prison a burned-out husk, a grey shadow of your former self. Don't let the kindly, heartwarming prison movies fool you. You will turn into the most dreaded image of yourself, a living, breathing zombie that's totally dead inside. That's the good case. The bad case is you'll become a hardened criminal with no regard for human life, and will spend the rest of your pathetic existence taking advantage of normal people as a means of psychological revenge.
I base my comments on descriptions of prison life both in the US and the former USSR, as written by inmates who have survived.
So, this debate is essentially the following: is sharing a movie worth destroying a person's life? It is contended that their actions result in financial loss for some company. The exact amount, or even the fact of loss is *highly* questionable, and is disputed. Is the action of sharing a movie sufficiently grave that we see it fit to strip the offender of their humanity as punishment? What this law contends is that someone who infringes on a copyright has rejected the social contract to the same extent as, say, a rapist, a child molesterer or a murderer. 3 or 10 isn't relevant, guys. The person's just as dead either way. Longer sentences are a means of 1) isolation, or 2) giving the inmate more of a chance to become a hardened criminal. So the question stands: is the loss of corporate profit a grave enough offence to remove someone's humanity?
The answer is left as an exercise for the reader.
You missed the point. Is the host of that forum responsible if a user uploads said files?
Will they punish corps (today's example: Ameritrade) - who make my personal information available to hackers in contradiction to their own privacy policies?
Lexis Nexus? Verity? ad infinitum. . .
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
If I remember correctly, you don't need cable to get CBC in any of the more populated areas of Canada; you can get it through antenna.
He could be if he knows it's there, knows it is there illegally, and makes no effort to get rid of it. If I have a party and people show up and start doing drugs and I see it and do nothing, and the party gets busted, I'm on the hook whether I did anything or not. If I kick those people off my property and they sneak around to my back yard and do it, and get caught, I'm in a far better position to defend myself as being innocent of any wrongdoing, or of being a party thereto.
Sort of like how the bar that doesn't cut off drunks is liable if the guy kills somebody.
Usually that kind of liability only comes about because the person most directly responsibility can't afford to cover the cost of the damages. When Joe Q Drunk creams a nun in his I-ROC Z28 and isn't insured, the nun's medical bills are still there needing to be paid, so they're going after the guy who owns the bar. His insurance might cover it.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
One more reason to hate him..
Fascist
So if I post a pre-release copy of Duke Nukem Forever on my web server I could go to jail?
Pffft.
Um... I would think that a good 3/4s of what's downloaded off of P2P in the form of music and video has been in general release already.
So, they "try" and criminalize the pre-releasers. Wow. Good luck finding them on IRC and usenet.
This'll equate into about as many arrests/scares as pot dealers are subject to.
So, roll up a doobie. You guys are safe.
Traditional crimes like robbery is obviously less of a crime than distributing copyrighted material without permission. When you copy without permission it's like raping an entire industry, right? right?
I can only imagine that putting some 19 year old virgin in prison for 3 years would be, in some ways, worse than a death sentence.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I think it is really time for an internet war to happen...the internet was built by people for people. No one should control the internet. What about all the 'musicians' making millions of dollars and then a person who downloads one song can go to jail for 3 years. I say F**K You to the RIAA.
'nuff said.
To say this is draconian is an understatement. I think the problem the general public is having with the *IAA is that in the back of their mind they accept that sharing music, or video IS WRONG. Usually you get this halfwit retorts like "but i buy their material later" and that stance makes them right, what we probably need is that the general masses tell them back NO! YOU ARE WRONG! SHARING IS FINE! so they can go fsck themselves. Sure, when their business dies we will have not many movies and music for a while until the people that actually make the art start releasing them in a way they make money, we are hoping the *IAA finds a legal way to harness the new technologies and ideosyncracies of this new world, and the result is the same as when you try to teach your grandpa how to program a vcr. It's not in their interest to make things move forward, they are confortable where they are and this kind of legislation is all you can expect from this mofos.
-M
Check your local laws to see how much time you'd serve for assaulting a stranger on the street. I'm willing to bet it's not three years. In that light, does it make sense to assign that kind of sentence to copyright violators?
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
For one, I don't believe that anyone should ever face jail time if they haven't directly profited from a copyright infraction. So, placing a file in a shared folder where someone else might be able to download gains that user nothing. If they aren't charging for it, aren't re-distributing it in some fashion to make money, then the most they should ever have to face is a fine. And that needs to be proportionate to the crime.
Secondly, how do we stop this? Even if every American sat up and took notice and said, "Well, screw them, I am not going to any more movies, and I am not buying anymore CD's", then sales would fall, and the lecherous MPAA and RIAA would use that as an excuse to make penalities and laws worse. "Look, our sales are way down because of all the file-sharing."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought there was a difference between "stealing" and copywrite "infringement". Infringement is a form of "trespassing" on someones' right or privilege (i.e. not theft).
infringement
This whole notion of labeling 'copying' of a file as "stealing" or "pirated" is false.
For instance, say you have a really nice death star and I gather some rebels to take it for myself - that's stealing. You no longer have said death star, but I do. Now, if I illegally aquire plans for your really nice death star and perhaps make my own (or probe its weaknesses), that's infringement. You still have your death star. I have not "taken" anything from you.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
you take something and make a copy and put it in a place where you know that other people will take a copy, it's theft. Sorry but the penalty is not that different to what would be handed out to an art thief or con man.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
"Were I a King of the US..."
You must be British.
now if can just get the Delay or Bush children to post copyrighted work on "shared" servers this law would quickly melt into nothing and the problem would be solved.
Other examples of a free market at work:
Illegal drugs, of every sort. Be they coke, LSD, pot, etc, as well as Codiene, and over the counter, controlled substances.
Pimping drinks for teenagers, supplying minors with alchohol, etc.
Prostitution is a market based business as well.
While we're at it, how about traffic in other stolen goods. Actual physical items. There's a market for stolen paintings, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's a good thing.
Perhaps we need to stop trying to prevent counterfiet currency, while we're at it. There's certainly a market in bills. Of course if we counterfeit enough of them, there won't be a market anymore.
Hmm. Perhaps the fact that there's a possible market for something, doesn't immediately validate the sales of it, as being a good thing, eh?
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
Have you seen the quality of these "leaked" movies? Most of the time I agree that the person deserves to be thrown in jail because I can't read Chinese subtitles in these movies and it really bothers me.
I don't even live in the US, but just to be safe, I think I'll chmod my entire file system 700.
Or, better yet, chmod 733 everything! You can write and execute, but you can't know what anything is! Buhahaha, it's a fool proof plan.
Dollar Highway Financial News
One has to remember that, essentially, this is industrial espionage (especially with relation to the software part).
is when I'll stop handing over my money to entertainment corporations and giving up my constitutional rights to the corporation
it is quite obviously that we will never stop the likes of RIAA and MPAA greasing up the government when 95% of the people we know devote 1/3 of their income to these corporations - not too mention clueless (perhaps do not care) about their rights, as long as they can wait out in front of a shitty, piss-stenched, soda-sticky, overpriced movie theater listening to their latest $20, 10 song, commercialized-so-now-its-their-favorite music group cd.
pre-released sig coming soon on soundtrack and DVD (while you get 5 years + $500,000 fine):
if you clicked/viewed this you can be sentenced up to 3 years in prison since you are on windows and all hard drives are IPC shared, and it was downloaded to your shared temp internet folder
pre-released sig (2 years or $1,000,000 bond):
going to the movies? I'll bring my 4 cell phones
do you have shinyfeet?
S.167
Title: A bill to provide for the protection of intellectual property rights, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Sen Hatch, Orrin G. [UT] (introduced 1/25/2005) Cosponsors (4)
Related Bills: H.R.357
Latest Major Action: 4/19/2005 Passed/agreed to in House. Status: On motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill Agreed to by voice vote.
House Reports: 109-33 Part 1
Text of Bill
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
It proves one point, the government consider the rights of corporations to make money for money sake is more important than people in general.
I am disgusted from this society.
Tomorrow is another day...
Maybe it's important to notice a general trend in society: the growing emphasis on prosecution of property crimes, ie theft, vandalism, etc. The fact that sentences for all property offenses are growing more than any other type is alarming, and is happening not just in the "crime" of file-trading. Doesn't this reflect a broader trend towards corporate control of governments?
Haven't read all the comments so apologies if this is a repitition. If I went to a record store and stole a few albums and then took them home and made pressings of them and left the pressings in a box outside my house, which of you would NOT call that theft? Similarly, if I went to an art supply store and stole one of every brush and paint type in the shop and made them available, would this not be called shoplifting? Why then is it somehow OK because it's done electronically? I personally think that 99.9% of everything released by Hollywood and the various record companies is utter drivel. This is in no way justifies stealing it. Stealing is stealing is stealing.
Compare copyright:22,600, copywrite:220 and copywright:47. Looks like only a small percentage of /. users are getting it wrong. Note by the way that these figures are better than they look. Google is finding web pages with at least one occurrence of the misspelled versions. So the actual relative frequency of the misspelled words must actually be quite low. Somehow I don't actually believe it...
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Bush is expected to sign ...
Did you tell Bush to do that?
Who told Bush to do that?
Is your government under your control or isn't it?
Well, if you read your Constitution, you know exactly what you should be doing about it.
Whichever side you're on in the copyright debate, you have to agree this legislation is draconian and excessive, to say the least." - I am on my side. I haven't downloaded anyone's copyrighted material that is not legally offered to be downloaded by the copyright holder for a long long time now.
I think 3 years is not much at all. I would prefer to see it be closer to 8-12 years. Honestly.
You can't handle the truth.
Since they are the copyright holders, they are not violating their own copyright to release it in *any* way they see fit. Including leaking it to blogs.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
Well, usually they have all sorts of accountants figuring out tax loopholes, or like Halliburton and Andersen Consulting, they incorporate in places like Bermuda. Meanwhile, Halliburton makes out pretty well with a fat defense budget from tax dollars.
However it is true that corporations pass on higher costs to customers, for example higher gas prices will surely impact places like Wal-Mart, which rely on cheap distribution systems, i.e. it is amazingly cheap to move goods from China to Paducah.
It wasn't mentioned by the article poster, but there is another important part of this law. The Act makes it clear that using technology to edit your own copies of media is legal; so the companies selling services to edit your VHS tapes and codes for your DVD player to self-edit movies are in the clear now.
Hollywood didn't get everything they wanted with this bill, thank goodness.
The crime that's punished is against the person leaking/distributing the file. That's not 10,000 people. That's the person that started sharing it.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
Yes, I did RTFA. And no, IANAL. But what I have to say is about how the whole problem got started in the first place.
Once upon a time there was no Internet or computers. To sell copies of a work of art, you needed money, manufacturing resources, distribution resources, etc. To buy copies of a work of art, you needed someone else to sell it to you who had these resources.
To protect humble artists from having someone else selling (key word: SELLING) copies of their work, artists were granted copyright protection by law. These laws made sense. I create the work, I own it. I sign an agreement with a distributor, they sell the works, we both make money. Joe Blow buys a copy, makes his own copies, SELLS them, and this takes away from the money I could have made by selling the copies. He is wronging me, therefore the law is on my side to right the wrong.
But times have changed, and the laws have not.
Nowadays all you need is a computer and an Internet connection to distribute copies of a work of art to the whole world. But where are the Joe Blows? They may exist, but they are rare. Most people are giving away copies for free, they are not making copies and selling them, and they are not wronging that humble artist (because they are not making any money at it).
This is where the big corporations step in and make things worse. They don't want you to get Album X for free on Napster, they want you to pay $15 for the album at the store. They want you to believe that file sharing is taking away their money. I still haven't seen convincing proof of this claim.
I know from my own experience with Napster, I downloaded albums I would NEVER have bought at the store. So who lost money? No one. If anything, I used Napster to find really good albums, then I went out and bought them! So sometimes, Napster actually helped the corporations make more money. Too bad they shut it down before they could realize this.
Unfortunately, Pandora's Box has been unleashed. There will always be file sharing, no matter how many laws they pass or how many people they put in jail. (Viva la Internet!) I predict this situation will soon follow the pattern of the war on drugs. They make the laws tougher and tougher, and our jails simply get more and more crowded.
Obviously, I would support copyright law reform. But as long as the corporations who have the money and do the lobbying can't see that they're shooting themselves in the foot, this reform will not happen. I would suggest they EMBRACE file-sharing, find a way to make it work in their favor.
Until then, WE are the PEOPLE. WE elect the Congressmen, therefore WE can solve this problem. Only when our voices become loud enough will our Congressmen listen to US instead of the corporations!
Every newer windows box out there has 'hidden' admin shares i.e. C$ D$ etc.. I guess the MPAA and RIAA won't be using windows at all any more.
well, at that's what the RIAA believes
I think the kicker is the civil liability, though -
"Violators can also be held civilly liable for actual damages, lost profits, or statutory damages up to $150,000 per infringement, as well as attorney's fees and costs."
I know people at work that share their 400+ album CD collections (ripped to mp3) for coworkers to listen to on the honor system that you won't steal them - since you could steal them and people probably do, the RIAA could push for $60 million (+250000) in liability on those people if they could justify it.
Why is it when it comes to hate crime legislation and gun control, Republicans say we should "enforce the laws on the books, we don't need new ones" and yet when it comes to distributing pre-release copyrighted material, we suddenly need a new law to make it more illegal?
I think they are being too easy on us I say harder laws, I say they should be allowed to search our computers for illegal content and if Found we go to jail for many years, this would stop piracy. America needs this!
Yes, there are some things the guy I voted for twice is doing wrong. Nobody's perfect, I suppose.
I meen now how the hell am I going to share say a compilation CD or go: hey wow I purchased x y z, I love it to pieces and don't want it to go poof?
Someone posted here re: tolkien, the general didly is that he didn't like people steeling his work he spent a LONG time on but if they must then at least spread if for free and give him credit for writing it. I'm fairly sure the tolkiens could have said long long ago: no to project gutenberg
Yes, except that airing something is "commericial release" since it's filled with "commercials", i.e. people who are PAYING the broadcast company a lot of money to air the program...
But the commercials are (generally) unrelated to the content. They air in other contexts as well - what commercial owners pay for is the likleyhood that a certain demographic will be watching when the commercial airs. The broadcast station selects a show they hope will appeal to more advertisers and thus can charge more for, but that is wholly different than a "commercial release" whcih implies charging for general availability. The commercial guys are not paying for the program - they are paying for airtime, period. The station pays for the show ahead of time out of a pool of money, the commercials just go to grow that pool. That is what I am saying, the connection to treat that is very slight, and easily waved away by good lawyers who want to sue soem poor student sharing a TV program and facing a few years in jail.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Someone should pass a bill that makes this sort of act illegal. That Simpsons episode where they go to Washington comes to mind. Behold the paper clip!
In fact, there is a Libertarian group trying to eliminate this shady practice and also force politicians to actually READ the laws they pass. Check it out here: Downsize DC
I think, therefore I doh.
I'm proud to be a Canadian
If I copyrighted my personal information could companies be sent to jail for having it stolen from their servers?
"This is not to say that media piracy is moral or correct, but we're talking about 13-year-olds downloading the latest Usher song, not hardened criminals." ...after they are convicted felons, when they do get out of jail, many of them will lose the right to vote to change the law that has abused them. It is quite brilliant.
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
Axe murderer: What are you in for?
File swapper: I shared a master copy of Britney Spear's newest cd before it was released.
Axe murderer: The Villainy! Bend over.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
IANAL
First thing I noticed was that once a movie has hit DVD in the US, the law no longer applies. (Section 3, Sub-section B, part ii). In addition, the idea of a reasonable expectation of commercial distribution is a very vague clause. I wish the clause were more specific, IE. a test that must be passed by the copyright holder: For example, that there is a distributor lined up, or a demonstration of good faith negotiations with a distributor to release the works in question.
The next major thing to jump out at me, Sections A and B of part 1 appear to apply to ALL copyright violations. Anyone who has up an 'abandoned warez' site had best be aware of the implications of the new law if the copyright holder (or the corporation who controls the copyright) decides to test Section 1, Sub-section B.
Anyone have any differing views on how the law may be Interpreted?
-Mark
"The bass, the rock, the mic, the treble. I like my coffee black, just like my metal" - Mindless Self Indulgence
put a single 'copy of a film, software program or music file in a ...in a shared folder...
With the current proliferation of wireless Access Points, I'm thinking of investing in the prison construction business ... man we're heading for a boom!
"Son? Son, there's guys here from the, uh, RAAA or something they want to have a 'talk' with you - did you put that movie you're watching in the TV room into your computer's shared folder?"
Has anyone considered whistle blowers and the press here. A company could potentially have a whistle blower or a reporter charged under this since anything written is automatically under a copyright and the company almost surely did not want the potential document released.
---- aut viam inveniam aut faciam
If you refer to it this way, I expect you to start talking about your Fair Use Privileges in future posts.
I don't tend to talk about "Fair Use Rights" in general because I consider any use of 'intellectual property' to be fair use by right; any limitation on it is deviation from the natural way of things, albeit supposedly toward noble ends. So any use if fair use and it doesn't deserve its own term.
That said, if I were to talk about "fair use" as a limited subset of uses, I would still call them rights, because the fair use laws are limitations on OTHER limitations of natural rights; a double negative makes a positive, a limitation on limitation on right just leave you with your rights again.
You can violate somebody's property rights without stealing property. For example, by damaging it, defacing it, or otherwise compromising its value to the owner of that property.
I'll agree with that aside from the latter part. If compromising something's value without directly doing something TO that something (like defacing or stealing it) was theft, then anything which harm's anyone's bottom line would be theft. No competition allowed, no negative reviews, nothing; it might compromise the value of the company's stock, and that would violate the shareholders' property laws, by your logic.
You'll have to define universal right before I can really interpret what you mean by this statement.
The universal or natural rights, as I would state them, fall into two categories: the first is interpersonal right, which include "security" and "expression". That is, you have the right to do anything you like (expression), so long as you're not directly doing something TO someone that they dislike (security). Each of these has a corresponding responsibility, of course: to respect the same rights in others, not to limit their personal expression or violate their personal security.
Then there are the basic economic rights to "posession" and "environment" - that is to say, the right to possession of resources (actual, material property), with corresponding responsibility not to deprive someone of them or damage them; and the right to use any freely available resources (like air and water), with the corresponding responsibility not to deprive any one of these resources or to depreciate them.
Again, I'm stumbling over your use of the term right. I think you're adopted a conveniently naive definition. If you think "life" is a right, then you must be in favor of abolishing abortion, no? If you think "the pursuit of happiness" is a right, then at what point does one man's happiness end and another begins? I'm not happy unless I can download my movies for free. The owners of the copyrights on those movies aren't happy unless they get material compensation for my copy. Who wins? This is why we have laws, and the law says that the copyright owner's right here wins.
Amongst "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness", I'd say that "life" covers what I'm calling "security" above, "liberty" covers both security and expression (freedoms "of" and freedoms "from"), and "the pursuit of happiness" covers what I call "expression" above. Elsewhere (I don't recall where) is mentioned "life, liberty, and property", which covers also what I call "possession". Environmental laws generally don't seem covered by the constitution.
To answer your question, "at what point does one man's happiness end and another begins", see my above paragraph on interpersonal rights: your right to expression ends when it violates my right to security. So by those interpersonal laws, if copyright is to be viewed as a law regarding personal expression (freedom of speech and the like), then how is distributing a copy of some information (a form of expression) directly violating anyone's security? Or preventing them from distributing (expressing) the information themselves?
Or, if you look at it as an economic issue, how is making a copy of something defacing the origin
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
"the creation or provision of technology that enables such editing, is designed and marketed for such use, creates no fixed copy of the altered version, and makes no changes, deletions or additions to commercial advertisements or promotional announcements that would otherwise be performed or displayed."
Why should corporations have the rights of people? They don't behave the way we expect people to behave, and they aren't accountable to society the way people are expected to be accountable. They aren't capable of moral action (only an individual can have *moral* values) and they are entirely self-serving.
In fact, this documentary shows that they fit the clinical definition of a psychopath to a T.
So you're 0/2. ...he's an ornithopter?
paintball
The *AA's profit margins are already damn high; if every slashdotter boycotted (In the sense pf having nothing to do with commercial media), and each one of them got two friends to join, they'd still be making money. A bit less, yes, but they'd have control, which is the real issue here.
You folks who still watch movies after all this legislation are like a pack of beaten wives. Why should you even bother going out of your way to feed The Racket? "Because you love them!"
Grow a pair, eat a sammich, and don't give The Racket your piece of mindshare.
Just to note, the evil portion is Title I of the act with the title, "`Artists' Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2005' or the `ART Act'." An unfortunate use of the plural possessive "Artists'" that makes it look like they're putting scare-quotes around "Artists" suggesting a wink that artists aren't the ones that are going to benefit from this. And somehow they managed to lose the P.
Title II, the "Family Movie Act of 2005", is the good portion, but I'd rather this not be signed with Title I attached. I'd rather see a favorable judgement than this. It is more a settlement between the parties where the rest of society is enjoined from fair use.
What's going to happen when the first person with artificial eyes, ears, and memory augmentation enters a movie theater? Not only will such a person be imprisoned, but have those very eyes, ears, and memory banks forfeited and destroyed.
I don't know enough about the affected laws to know whether: Title III A National Film Preservation Act of 2005 Title III B National Film Preservation Foundation Reauthorization Act of 2005, or Title IV Preservation of Orphan Works Act are good or evil alterations to those laws. Do any of them provide for the preservation of works only shown in theaters, such as the first special editions of the Star Wars Trilogy (IV-VI)? Because anyone daring to preserve such works now is going to risk heavy penalties while their creators enjoy a perpetual copyright. (Oh, right: evil Title I's Section 102 (c) lets government agents be authorized to tape in theaters and thus get immunity to this act, though more likely it is so that they can still tape theatergoers who engage in illegal activities in theaters while the movie is playing, typically sexual and/or drug related.)
It would also seem this law is open enough to hand down the movie prerelease penalties to people who attempt to offer television show episodes for download that have not been released on fixed media.
Also the layman's "put... in a shared folder" is actually codified as "by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public". Which could make (wired) LAN-sharing not subject to the greater penalties. Not that there aren't lesser penalties to be handed.
(Notice that "accessible" is the only criteria, not "intended to be accessible". If your wireless encryption isn't up to snuff, you're still on the hook. Consider all the ways the government can legally and secretly trespass.)
IANAL. I am also not being paranoid, only exhaustive.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Since software under the GPL has not yet been released comercially, is sharing it illegal under this act?
bash-2.04$
bash-2.04$yes "Don't you hate dialup connections?"| write USERNAME
You only feel it's excessive because you have this disgusting sense of entitlement, like, oh there is a movie online for free, great, I should therefore be allowed to watch it. And while I can understand that position, because if it's available, you WILL take it, and you will feel like you have the right to BECAUSE you were freely allowed to do so. BUT, if you worked for months on some software, or movie, and then had it ruined and spoiled within a week or even 2 weeks (spoiled launch of oasis album which was released early) then I think you would feel differently. If you worked for months on some project, something that you felt would get you a raise and a nice promotion, and at the last moment, somebody stole it, ripped it off after seeing it, and took YOUR raise and YOUR promotion, how would you feel? Angry? But then, you're doing the same thing to others with no regard for how they feel. How about less hypocrisy?
Support EFF and Downhill Battle. They are fighting for our rights every day.
Test 1 2 3 4
Well..guess what.
Sounds like you were anal'd pretty good. Share some stories!
Give me a list of all the protected files so I can search my all machines for them.
Rick B.
Basically, unlike proprietorships or partnerships in which liability of the firm is distributed to its owners, a corporation has its own legal identity separate from the people who own shares of its stock; if a corporation suffers losses, it has to pay debts, not its owners. By doing this, stockholder liability is only limited to what they've invested in the firm (not their entire fortune) whereas proprietorships and partnerships can potentially have unlimited liabilities (someone makes a big mistake) meaning that entire fortunes can be collected to pay debts.
The catch is that corporations, existing as a legal identity are taxed whereas proprietorships and partnerships are not... This means that owners are taxed on corporate income in addition to the corporation being taxed on the same income (or double taxation).
So this is the extent to which a corporation is considered a person... it's purely financial. So how exactly does a purely financial construct resemble a psychopath? I mean, if you're embracing an abstraction of that degree, why not extend the argument to basically anything centered around a theoretical basis? I'm curious, what would be the psychological evaluation of the /. copyright opposition crowd (considering that it seems to oppose the RIAA/MPAA, but supports copyright enforcement concerning GNU efforts)?
Go ahead and call me a capitalist, republican, conservative, bible-thumping pig as that seems to be the common response here (to opposing opinions of open minds of course).
Note: I did not make any statements in the hopes of diminishing open source efforts (as I would be quite the hypocrite considering I made this post using Linux and Mozilla). I just get tired of the whole faceless corporations are evil and that's that argument. Corporations have problems (such as the issue of corporate governance) but absurd comparisons to psychopaths have got to go.
"Is not a sentence" is not a sentence. Well damn.
I think the only solution left for the recording/movie industry is: to make it illegal to own any medium except vynil records. Make us go to mass recording burning events, burn everything, casettes, CD's, computers, all of it. Then hand us a turntable. I mean the Vynil medium was the most fool proof method. Oh wait, wasn't the main reason CD's were pushed in the 80's was because the sales of vynil were going south? .. hmm ;)
of this bill which legalizes technology for removing content which I find offensive, such as commercials and those violent FBI warnings.
She's from California. It doesn't matter what party she says she's from -- if it's about the MPAA she'll vote like a Republican.
Here is a free clue-by-four:
If you want people to agree with you, do not tell them what they must think.
You must think so-and-so is likely to have the exact opposite of what you want.
Perhaps you would like to reverse a number of Supreme Court decisions directly dealing with proportionality of punishment. We are clearly deviating from those decisions with consequences such as this bill puts forth.
If people are so worked up about Ms Plame, I'm curious why people are constantly blaming Mr. Rove (not that there's anything wrong with blaming someone you don't like for something that they may or may not have done) and keeping quiet about Mr. Novak (who probably knows who really did it). I'm amazed that he's getting a free pass on this (on the rhetorical front)...
Or maybe it's because nobody really cares about Ms. Palme, and they really just hate the current establishment.
To use a very poor decision matrix analogy. Think (seriously) about how you feel in the following circumstances.
1. Ms. Palame was killed volunteering in a habitat for humanity building project.
2. Mr. Gates was killed volunteering in a habitat for humanity building project.
3. Ms. Palame was killed working for Haliburton.
4. Mr. Gates was killed working for Haliburton.
In case #1, do you hold a grudge against Habitat, do you not care in #2 because normally Habitat does good work. In case #3 and #4 do you always hate Haliburton?
I suspect many people have more negative emotions (e.g., hate) more than they have empathy. Personally, I find these type of decision matrices very enlightening.
Just say you had a trojan on your computer and someone hacked in and stole it. It worked for the pedophiles and it will work for you!
Click here or here.
It advances Disney's economic interests, but it surely diminishes the artistic community as a whole to have everything slowly fall under perpetual copyright.
Anyone who hasn't, should read Spider Robinson's short story, "Melancholy Elephants." While perhaps a bit over the top, it has some good things to say about perpetual copyrights.
Whichever side you're on in the copyright debate, you have to agree this legislation is draconian and excessive, to say the least.
Obviously not, as Congress passed the bill.
Remember when you couldn't go to jail for copyright infringement unless you were profiting off the copyright infringement? Hard to believe the law has changed so much in only 8 years. Thanks a lot Bill Clinton, you opened up the floodgates.
Why wouldn't the dems have a my-o-pic view?
They have big ticket folks like barbara "babs" strisand and alec "I'm gonna leave the country" baldwin, steven speilberg, and rob reiner bankrolling you, what do you expect?
If I remember my history correctly, the vast majority of the people came to America to escape from societies that were persecuting them for not agreeing with their beliefs and laws (you must remember the church was the law in those days). They tried to create a system of government that had a system in place for not allowing those influences to effect justice in this country. What they didn't seem to forsee is that that type of system would eventually attack itself from within. With our media system being driven by profits, minority factions get a louder voice in the crowd of issues simply because make more sensational news (i.e more eyes on that channel, hence more advert revenue). Our lawmakers feel cornered on the issue, because of all of the media attention, and try to show that they aren't ignoring issues that must concern most of the public, because most of the public is following the news story(s). Anyways, we end up with a set of laws being proposed and passed that satisfy the demands of that loud factional minority. The justice system has to uphold them or strike them down according to wether they fit in the constitutional framework. It's tough to argue that this law does not fit that framework.
Now with all of the common sense stuff said, certainly your statement is correct, but when the laws don't represent the desires of the majority and their prosecutions are upheld by the justice system, then to whom do those laws serve? Isn't that contrary to and a method of circumventing the intent of the established framework of the founding fathers?
Ya know, the scariest thing about this is that Bush and friends are pushing laws like this and they clearly aren't what the people want. Why is our government bending over for the big businesses?
The government used to watch over us, now it just watches us.
But what about the people in the congress and senate that 'overwhelmingly' approved this? Is there a website that has a list of how each person voted on the matter so we can hold them acountable at election time? That is how the system should work, but it doesn't, because hardly anybody has any idea what the hell their representatives are doing. Everybody just picks whichever bastard seems to be the best during election time. There is of course no actual knowledge or data involved in this decision, just one person that seems to be a little less awful than the other. According to the comercials, at least.
...
We must fight this by playing their own game. If anyone knows a congress-person's kid who uses p2p to share copywritten files, the time has come to turn them in. Only when the government class has their own going away for three years per offense will they understand how pathetic this legislation is.
just one word - FREENET
take a look at freenet at http://freenet.sourceforge.net/
So I go back on IRC and trade with people directly. Changes nothing.
Macmillian a few years back were distributing Mandrake CDS as they were allowed to do via the GPL, but they were doing so without Mandrakesoft's permission.
If the distribution in question was subject to the GNU General Public License, then Macmillan was distributing the programs with the authors' express permission in the form of the GPL.
And all I can do is vote against [Sen. Feinstein (D-CA)]... presumably for the Republican, if I'm to make a difference.
To make more of a difference, join the Libertarian Party of California and become active in getting the message of smaller government out to voters.
Looking at Florida's conviction rates (because they were the first state Google found stats for), the average sentence for grand theft ($1000 or more) is almost 3 years. Assuming $20 a DVD, stealing 50 DVDs would count as grand theft, right? These guys leak to way more than 50 people, so they're probably actually getting off light with only 3 years.
Of course I'm equating a DivX with a DVD, but for a lot of people they are a suitable replacement.
I have freedom of speech. I can say, type, send, etc. all the 1's and 0's I want!
You might be surprised to discover that there is already support for a boycott against RIAA and MPAA among "inside-the-box thinkers". Many of the fundamentalist Christians I grew up with refused to have a television in their home. The movie theatres had to close early on Sunday because there wasn't enough business to keep them open. Ever see the Simpsons episode where Ned Flanders blanked out every TV channel except the weather channel? I know people who do that today.
Believe it or not, Focus on the Family's position (favoring in-movie censor control) is actually a watered-down moderate one in an attempt to foster unity. Most of the fundamentalists I know judge it to be a personal rather than political matter, and go much farther in cutting ties with secular media. How far? To some of us, any Bible that is not the 1611 King James Bible is considered secular media propaganda. Think about that for a while.
The real fundamentalists aren't running the nation, we wouldn't even want to. No, hypocrites are running the nation.
It wasn't good. As a strategy, it stunk because, of course, it was completely unusable. Nuking a third-world country in bed with the Soviets because they attacked another third-world country in be with ourselves was just not doable.
This law is the file-sharing war's equivalent of Massive Retaliation. How many college sophomores are actually going to be jailed because they uploaded an unreleased movie to the internet? Not many, I would think.
The geniuses who passed this law have shot themselves in the foot again.
The majority has decided that we have too much freedom, and they won't be happy until the entire other 49% is behind bars, making their cheap tennies and VCRs. Think it can't get worse? "You aint seen nothin' yet!". Your IP laws(among others) are despicable, and have only brought out the worse in all of you with your damn hysteria over property. And all this are just tiny baby steps to what's really coming at you. I can only wish that you will live long enough to see the results of the choices you have made.
What?
Has congress been eating too many Freedom Fries again?
Instead of declaring illegal things illegal, why not do some housekeeping, fix up what we do have, work on what we actually don't, etc.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
What if I'm running Windows and my computer gets highjacked by some 13 year old in Russia who then uses my computer to distribute the film around? (Or whatever, you all get the idea.)
Oh, and no offense to 13 year old Russians, it was just an example.
Is for this law, and the punishment within to instantly be applied to *EVERY SINGLE FILE SHARER* at the moment. Hey, what the hell. Apply it to anyone who's ever broken this law.
Consequently, entire states will be converted into prisons, politicians children will wind up in prison, one in every ten or so people will "just up and vanish" to prison.
This way, true justice will be held, and the admiring public will show their overwhelming support for the correctness, fairness, and justness of the bill.
(Admit it, you know you'd like to examine prison just for one day.)
"Corporations/businesses exzisted LONG before government."
If you define "business" as "bartering, then you're right.
But corporations are a relatively recent invention as compared to government. Many people today point to the Dutch East India company as the first modern limited liability company. If I remember my 9th grade history correctly, it was set up to allow multiple investors the ability to pool risk and reward, since ocean voyages were very costly.
If we go further back I think the first real corporation was in the 14th century, but I don't remember the name or the purpose.
Some people even say there were corporations of a sort in ancient rome. Wouldn't surprise me; Rome was very advanced.
But to say that corporations are older than governments is not supported by any history that I know.
I don't think there is anything special about considering a corporation a person; I personally think its wrong; its simply a financial tool, there's nothing morally that says a bunch of guys who pool risk has the same rights as a person.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
Did EFF mount a campanign against this?
no no no..... people shop at walmart.
pay attention:
there is a SIGNIFICANT portion of the population for who PRICE is the ONLY consideration.
not QUALITY, not RELIABILITY, nor REPUTATION but PRICE.
in your libertarian society, with no restriction- there will always be a market for the asshole to sell to.
I like libertarian ideas too, but I think you are flat out wrong.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Larry Niven once posited that laws would become more and more draconian over time until even a certain multiple of traffic offenses carried with it the death penalty. The reason? An increasingly aging population would lack for fresh young replacement organs, and this would be a good way to collect them while at the same time imposing iron control on the rest of the population.
Seems to me that both the law and the application of it are moving to expand criminal penalties and to make those penalties harsher. What used to be civil infractions are becoming felonies. Only in this case it isn't an attempt to control the distribution of our organs, but of our labor, our ideas, and perhaps our very thoughts....
I'm not sure which possible future I find more reprehensible.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
...you have to agree this legislation is draconian and excessive...
Why? because is supposed we have the right to abuse others work? Because you think you have the right to share what isn't yours? Because you think the others right are less than yours? Because you want to pirate all the time?
Stop complaining and purchase your own dvd, music cd and software and stop sharing it. People like you and people like slashdot editors, that all the time publish articles in PRO of pirating practices are a shame for the IT world (timothy in this case).
A legislation like this isn't draconian nor excessive. Draconian and excessive are your thoughts about your right to pirate whatever you want.
"How many people feel that George Lucas raped their childood memories, yet will line up to hand him money?"
And how many of you idiots weren't even born when the first episode was released. Probably the same people who claim the first one was really number 4.
Its just a stupid freaking movie. I was in 12th grade when it came out, and it was a fun movie, but it wasn't a life changing event.
No. The lifechanging event was the OTHER big movie that summer. The Deep. You watch the first 1/2 hour and tell me you don't feel more manly...
Once something is put in a fixed medium, it is by default copyrighted.
You're welcome!
Neil,
Why is it the FBI's job to ensure that corporations maximize profits on copyrighted material?
Seriously, if you answer that question thoughtfully, then I'll explain why this is excessive.
So what impact does this have on the anime fansubbing community? It was a legelly grey area to begin with...
How many times is this gag going to be moderated funny? My attention span is short but not that short!
That might have been the red herring of the year. Congrats. Got a good response too.
As a liberal, I think Feinstein (and Boxer) suck. Both of California's Senators are corporate shills, particularly regarding the enterntainment industry.
"Theres nothing we can do, it's paperclipped"
Slow Down, Cowboy! It's been 60 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment.
Like this? I just replaced every " " with " ".
S 167 RH
Union Calendar No. 16
109th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 167
[Report No. 109-33, Part I]
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
February 2, 2005
Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committee on House Administration, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
April 12, 2005
Reported from the Committee on the Judiciary
April 12, 2005
Committee on House Administration discharged; committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union and ordered to be printed
AN ACT
To provide for the protection of intellectual property rights, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005'.
TITLE I--ARTISTS' RIGHTS AND THEFT PREVENTION
SEC. 101. SHORT TITLE.
This title may be cited as the `Artists' Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2005' or the `ART Act'.
SEC. 102. CRIMINAL PENALTIES FOR UNAUTHORIZED RECORDING OF MOTION PICTURES IN A MOTION PICTURE EXHIBITION FACILITY.
(a) In General- Chapter 113 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding after section 2319A the following new section:
`Sec. 2319B. Unauthorized recording of Motion pictures in a Motion picture exhibition facility
`(a) Offense- Any person who, without the authorization of the copyright owner, knowingly uses or attempts to use an audiovisual recording device to transmit or make a copy of a motion picture or other audiovisual work protected under title 17, or any part thereof, from a performance of such work in a motion picture exhibition facility, shall--
`(1) be imprisoned for not more than 3 years, fined under this title, or both; or
`(2) if the offense is a second or subsequent offense, be imprisoned for no more than 6 years, fined under this title, or both.
The possession by a person of an audiovisual recording device in a motion picture exhibition facility may be considered as evidence in any proceeding to determine whether that person committed an offense under this subsection, but shall not, by itself, be sufficient to support a conviction of that person for such offense.
`(b) Forfeiture and Destruction- When a person is convicted of a violation of subsection (a), the court in its judgment of conviction shall, in addition to any penalty provided, order the forfeiture and destruction or other disposition of all unauthorized copies of motion pictures or other audiovisual works protected under title 17, or parts thereof, and any audiovisual recording devices or other equipment used in connection with the offense.
`(c) Authorized Activities- This section does not prevent any lawfully authorized investigative, protective, or intelligence activity by an officer, agent, or employee of the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State, or by a person acting under a contract with the United States, a State, or a political subdivision of a State.
`(d) Immunity for Theaters- With reasonable cause, the owner or lessee of a motion picture exhibition facility where a motion picture or other audiovisual work is being exhibited, the authorized agent or employee of such owner or lessee, the licensor of the motion picture or other audiovisual work being exhibited, or the agent or employee of such licensor--
`(1) may detain, in a reasonable manner and for a reasonable time, any person suspected of a violation of this section with respect to that motion picture or audiovisual work for the purpose of questioning or summoning a law enforcement officer; an
This guy at 127.0.0.1 has some really great pr0n on there too! Just amazing!
"(1) IN GENERAL- Any person who willfully infringes a copyright shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18, if the infringement was committed--
'(A) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain;
'(B) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000; or
`(C) by the distribution of a work being prepared for commercial distribution, by making it available on a computer network accessible to members of the public, if such person knew or should have known that the work was intended for commercial distribution."
Subsection C is what the original news article was refering to, but they completely failed to note the legal implications of B.
If your mp3 directory has more than 100 songs (figuring $10 retail for each) and you copy it, for any reason (say into RAM so it can be played, a CD for backup, new harddrive for upgrade, etc), even just once you will have broken this law in that you have reproduced, by electronic means, 1, or possibly more, copies in a 180 day time period that have a total retail value greater than $1000.
--Yopes
Ok, so let me get this straight...
Step 1: I write a little 10-line program in JavaScript.
Step 2: In the source code, I include: my copyright; my declaration that the program has tremendous potential commerial value; and my (true) declaration that it hasn't been commercially released yet.
Step 3: Somebody tries to get a list of files on my Internet-connected computer. Due to a Microsoft security problem that I am unaware of, he finds my JavaScript program, makes an unauthorized copy of it, and publishes it on a P2P network.
And that act will now be considered a CRIME?
The objective here is to have a chilling effect on Internet communcations by the suppression of filesharing. Which is scarier to most people - the "3 years and a fine" part (which has never stopped people in the past) or the "may potentially be sharing" part, which has been left intentionally vague for this purpose?
As a side-effect, did anyone bother to notice that this will stifle dissenting opinions, by the very nature that you may or may not be arrested for media that "could be copyrighted", and therefore, subject you to anal probes of the non-UFO kind? Are you willing to take the chance, to put up an MP3 recording of a dissenting opinion and hope that you're not arrested, hauled off, and found innocent later, all because "it's an MP3! S/he's pirate scum! Arrest that person now!"? Hell, given the powers of PATRIOT and it's spawn, PATRIOT II, you could be considered a terrorist...which means no lawyer, indefinite detainment, torture as needed, no public notification of your detainment, etc.
Seriously, this is all about power and control of language. Orwell was right...by narrowing the discourse of discussion, one can effectively limit or stop altogether any dissenting opinion from being heard. I fully expect that arguements to the contrary will use similar tactics, i.e. I don't believe that it exists, therefore, it doesn't, despite evidence to the contrary (a popular method with the "right", and the "left" is fast learning this as well). I'm suprised as to how many people have no clue as to what happened in Germany in the mid-1930's, and how a certain despot came to power...people that I talk to (carefully, of course) seem to think that:
It can't happen here. This is the US, and by virtue alone of it being the US, it is an impossibility.
Rebuttal: this is a form of blind patriotism. It's fairly obvious to anyone of mediocre intelligence that there is no logic or proof to support this statement.
It can't happen here. This happens only in bad places, and this is a good place, so it's not possible.
Rebuttal: this is a variant of the above, but along a different line, one of social indoctrination. You've been told this from an early age, for most of your younger life, and were told to believe it or else you would fail your schooling...you'll be branded socially as "stupid", "class fool", "outcast"...but what does schooling/peer pressure have to do with this, if not for the sole purpose of ensuring a conforming view?
It can't happen here. There are laws and constitutional rights to protect people from this kind of treatment.
Rebuttal: most of those laws and rights now have very large loopholes, courtesy of the US PATRIOT act. Go read up. BTW, I fully expect the elimination of 3 of our constitutional rights within the next 10 years through carefully planned and worded ammendments...we repealed prohibition because of "popular demand", so what's to stop our congresscritters from doing the same when there's a horrible horrible terrorist attack of some sort, contrieved for the sole purpose of panicing the public and herding...er, guidin
Surely this opens them up to all kinds of tricks. Say for example you made an mp3 of you singing for 60 minutes while hitting a bucket with a rake. Call it music. Then stick it in your shared folder with a name like Star_Wars_Revenge_of_Sith_Part_1.avi. To know whats in the file, they have to download it, which would mean that they are, by their own logic at least, making your pre-release musical 'artwork' available for sharing. If they don't, they are just going to waste lots of money on lawsuits they can only lose.
\\127.0.0.1\IPC$
You know, like when Hatch's site was found to have incorporated copyrighted code without license?
I mean, god people, isn't there an exception for well-intentioned congressmen? (well-intentioned -> translation -> bought and paid for by corporations) Somehow, I expect there will be when it happens.
And a company asked a bunch of employees to create the program, and owns the program by contract.
;)
And it is undeterminable who/what supplied the exact parameters/seed value that created the work.
Does it become public domain? Or can the computer+program now pay for its own power and sustenance by its works of art? Or perhaps even its freedom...
Normally that makes sense. But the fact that both Congress and the President have their noses so TIGHTLY wedged between the ass cheeks of corporate america, anything is possible.
This is a little off topic, but consider the new bankruptcy laws that Bush signed today, that will dramatically alter the terms under which one can file. Why? Because the poor, poor, consumer credit whores who extend credit to anyone who can sign their name, are tired of being stiffed.
A closing comment I heard on the news tonight was HILARIOUS...the credit companies feel that this new law will make credit more affordable to a wider audience. Do they think anyone is really dumb enough to believe that consumer credit rates will decrease because of this new law? Well, Congress bought it...but I mean normal people.
What happens if some worm spreads to computers with zero or guessable passwords pand carries copies of the "work" with it?
On a windows machine, the entire drives are effectively publicly shared folders if the administrator password is trivial.
There were a number of worms proving that people do use trivial admin passwords.
I commend your courage and will seek to emulate you immediately. If only I could destroy the noisy one at the deli counter in the supermarket... it's my personal hatred right now.
Thus, I guess your idea won't work
When I first began to study copyright, I had a similar idea to your's - have a P2P network where each person shared maybe a fraction of a second of a song. Everyone would download all the different parts and assemble them in their home. My rationale was that if the samples were small enough, each individual act of sharing/copying would not be an infringement. And how short a sample is needed to avoid infringement for copying it? Very small. IIRC, a series of 3 notes was held protectable in a Whitney Houston song - it all depends on whether enough creativity is evident in the sample. But, my idea doesn't work as when enough parts would be assembled, then an infringing copy would exist that you created.
My new idea for copying without violating the copyright laws? Have American Indians do it. Once you got the copy, on whatever media they used, would you be violating copyright law? No, you didn't make the copy, you aren't distributing the copy, you're not importing it, you're not publically displaying or performing it, and you're not creating any derivative work - thus you are ok (for direct infringement).
This works because currently, American Indian tribes (AIT) are exempt from the copyright law (I have case cites for this somewhere). But you can bet your ass that if AITs started blatently violating copyright, that immunity would be lifted pretty fast.
The way to do it, I guess, would be for the AITs to copy things and source them. It would be like a black market, but it wouldn't be as the AIT is not subject to the copyright laws.
Or so goes my reasoning.
Vote - whom? Both sides are bought, and minority parties realistically won't make it, at least not in a reasonable timeframe. :( And if they would, they'd be bought too.
The best democracy money can buy...
Basicly this is saying a coporation can steal a GPL'ed work and sell it as their own because the original creator didn't intend to sell it. That means no protection and GPL is invalid.
But I support this kind of legislation. Releasing secret/private information is the only thing which might be called information theft.
(But once it's out in the open, how can you blame someone for obtaining it?)
...and minority parties realistically won't make it...
:-). You just have to be better at convincing your neighbors than the other guy. If all of you are just going to rely on spoon-fed info, there's not a lot that can be said to you. I'm extremely cynical about the whole situation also, but for me, it's easy to see where the real problem is. I'm not a believer in majority rule, but if you are, and you not using it to your best ability, what other conclusion can you draw that doesn't lead to the other believers(voters)? At this point, you're working with a ballot that effectively says, "approve" and "disapprove". Guess what? 99% of the voters said they approve. So, tell me again. Just whose fault is that?
Especially if you don't vote for them. You are allowed to vote for unbought politicians, I believe. The only thing stopping you is your will to do so. Editorially speaking, of course
What?
Excuse me, but that's the alleged use of P2P.
I'm not a reporter or lawyer, slashdot isn't a court of law, bla bla bla. Pirating is the commonly known use of P2P, and practically its only known use.
The reality is the only people doing metrics on P2P usage are paid by the anti-file-sharing forces, and thus highly suspect as to methodology, interviewing techniques, resolution
Feel free to do your own metrics and publish them. I would be fascinated and shocked to hear that as much as five percent of P2P traffic is among unsigned artists and indie labels who make their own material avaiable on P2P and that piracy accounted for less than 95 percent.
From the first day I heard about (the original) Napster (circa 1999-2000) it was patently obvious that its sole purpose was for 'sharing' files (using your own machine as a server) that you couldn't put on a commercial server because the person renting you server space would, as soon as they found out about the files, delete them due to copyright infringement.
The creators of Grokster removed themselves another step from the content by making the file lists as well as the files themselves shared P2P rather than on a common server. This is clearly less efficient than having a file list on a common server/database, but is more resistant to having one or several of the 'servers' (P2P clients) going down (due to legal action against the server owner(s)).
(for example, if I make a song entitled "Smells Like Teen Spirit" that's a blues song about my encounters with a teen frog in Japan, RIAA will count that as a pirated Nirvana ripoff, but it's not. [sorry about dropping your emphasis in quoting]
Your example "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is a unique title and does nothing for your argument. If you had used a commonly reused title such as "The Power of Love" or "Crazy" you might have had a good point.
Piracy is not justified by the fact that the RIAA are dickheads.
Tag lost or not installed.
What's the penalty for the intentional publication of the names of undercover agents as the "23" administration seems to do so often? I guess the Times or the Post isn't considered a shared publication!
I sincerely hope this next phrase is a misrepresented summary of the bill on C|net's part: "should have known the copyrighted work had not been commercially released."
So it's illegal to share something that you think is copyrighted and not COMMERCIALLY released? How about when you know it's copyrighted and released, but just not COMMERCIALLY? If someone releases a movie in a fashion similar to how, say, Apache releases a web server, this bill had better dman well not get in the way of sharing it.
But, I think it is more likely that the bill is just mis-phrased by the C|net article. I sincerely hope so.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Why? Because, in cases like these, there is going to be somebody, some Senator's son or daughter, etc., who the government knows is really bad publicity. Well, tough. All or none, pal.
Come to think of it, there are many laws which wouldn't survive the light of day with equal and aggressive enforcement.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
If you want to screw up the politics of this law, just start copying and put on peer networks only copies of stuff copied surepticiously from the bible channel and other evangelical sites.
Only until the holiest of the holy are going to jail with the rest of us, will you begin to impact on the great inquistion that the Bush administration has commenced. Politics of castigation is the order of the day. Long live the inquistion.
Surely, you must know that in a previous life Karl Rove was one of the bishops who sent Gallileo into house arrest.
May God have mercy on the souls of those who bear false witness, even though its unlikely that he will,
Hey buddy leave the upstanding rapists out of this... Who hasn't wanted to screw a chick who didn't want to be screwed.
So, therefore anyone that supports it is a COMMUNIST.
Then I'm in the clear, right... ?
Walmart can be in the "asshole" category for hiring illegal immigrants or treating their employees poorly. However, I believe both of those practices would be discouraged by abolishing minimum wage laws, allowing free immigration, and reducing taxes to allow fair competition for the labor market.
Back to my last post, though: does walmart engage in any kind of copyright infringement or "intellectual property rights" violations? I didn't say boycotts are the solution to what Walmart does, but rather to copying. It's not necessary to completely eliminate the ass-market, because there are enough people who are willing to support original creators that we don't need laws to protect them. Every such law always gets used by the power-hungry (ie, SCO) to take from those who don't care as much about power.
Some authors even make money selling books that they themselves allow people to download for free! We don't need to make more people buy from good authors. If someone's product is not selling, it's probably because it sucks, not because it's copied. Which some would say is the situation with the MPAA and RIAA.
I think their problem is with people all along the chain leaking, and if they want to prevent leaks they'd have to find out which theaters are leaking and stop selling to them. But that, of course, is not as profitable/cost effective as using the government to punish/scare people into submission - which is only possible when government gets out of control.
The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: A Free Market Odyssey
I can't wait to see the first member of the legislation going to jail for filesharing.
It is the RIAA/MPAA goons that should be getting tortured in Guantanamo, not the Al Qaeda. And do the same for the treasonous politicians who do the bidding of the MPAA/RIAA.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Not bad news, really... ss long as millions of Americans do file sharing.
I would like to see the courts and jailhouses clogged with millions "criminals". This would most certainly cripple the American economy, the same way as arms race crippled the USSR and led to the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Hold on... this would have worse effect on America than 9/11.
Are you guys sure that the president, who signs this proposed law is not under the influence of international terrorism? What politician would want to unleash such a disaster?
Or do they want to pass a law, which can not be enforced? That can't be true, either. No elected politician can be as stupid.
Just find instances of politicians campaign websites copying javascript "media" from other sites without permission, and make a big scandal out of it.
To nitpick you a little bit:
... shall be the supreme Law of the Land;". Certainly seems to be a code of laws to me.
Odd, because it seems to claim that it is.
Clause 2: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
To paraphrase for you: "This Constitution
Your paraphrase is unfair, or disingenuous, whichever. "This Constitution [and some other laws [US Code] and treaties] shall be the supreme Law of the Land." It doesn't say 'or' some other laws and treaties.
Either way, Berne and Geneva treaties since the 70s have affected our copyright law, and as the section you quote mentions, are to be respected --in addition to the Constitution-- as the law of the land.
Nothing personal. I agree that the acts passed to comply with these treaties (extended terms of life or more, copyright by default) have damaged the public domain in a way that is at odds with the desire to 'promote Science and the Useful Arts."
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
If I gave you a chance to win a lottery of one in five, would you take it? I would... those are great odds. And that's the conservative figure. One in five men sent to prison gets raped. One In Five, and that's the Nice estimate.
You can read all about it: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/prison/report1.ht
For more fun: http://www.counterpunch.org/mariner08012003.html with the money quote:
So - the concensus from gaurds who work in prisons is that "it's not rare to get raped in prison." Have a great time!
(Sorry about the subject line, I know it's a bit too pithy.)
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
What the Fuck!? "The Family Entertainment and Copyright act?" This is absolutely ridiculous. I don't believe this shit; if this isn't total and unequivocal proof that our government is completely and permanently fragged I don't know what is. It's about time for a violent revolution, starting with a complete absterge of Washington. Well I'm starting a clock; either 5 years till the information age re-revolution, or 20 years till our downfall (governmental collapse into an Orwellian police state run by corporate America). But unfortunately based on the current trend of shitty laws, paid-for politicians, and the nullified MTV populous, I think were more headed towards option two. The entire infrastructure for this is largely already in place; it just needs to be 'switched on' without anyone noticing...Hence the 20 years. Hopefully I'm wrong and history will repeat itself (similar suppression attempts failed with the printing press, radio, player piano, ect) and they won't be able to put the freedom-of-information gene back into the bottle. But as I said, the tools to suppress this are now in place, and were living inside an unprecedented veil of seemingly benign misrepresentation and oppression; the safeguards to keep this from happening might have already been 'switched off'. If our government is as fatally wounded as suspected, then this time bureaucracy and reliance on the system's ability to self heal will be fatal. We need to do a cold reset, purge everything. But "The Family and Entertainment and Copyright Act," seriously - that's proof enough, sounds like it came straight from the Ministry of Love. And one obligatory - Fuck Bush.
if they are remakes? why do we need another charlie and the chocolate factory!
no- walmart was referred to only to evidence that the significant percentage I'm talking about in my rebuttal exists.
where it relates to your post, is you think the 'asshole' won't be able to continue sales with a bad rep- I say rep don't matter, price does...
(loosly inferring that walmart has a bad reputation, and cheap prices- as your hypothetical 'non-infringing infringer')
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
As far as the policy set for by John Ashcroft as to how crimes are to be prosecuted, that may be true. However, that has not any bearing on how the Judical system must react to a conviction of the crime. Prosecution and penalties for the conviction are actually two very seperate phases of a criminal trial and are purposefully kept distinct under the law.
The Penalty phase of each criminal trial is driven by another set of requirements that the Supreme court has ruled on a number of times regarding how it is to be treated. The standing rule of law in this country is proportionality of punishment to the crime. See this summation of those decisions for factual reference. They are quite frankly explicitly barred from arbitrarily imposimg the maximum sentence. Now we all read in the papers where that is not the case in lower court rulings, but what we generally do not hear is that where those extreme penalties are rendered and appealed, they are most often corrected to reflect the proportionality requirement. Granted, the appeals only happen in cases where the convicted individual has resources to pursue an appeal and hence the problem lies in the fact that the lower courts are ignoring the proportionality requirement and justice is left undone for those who do not have the economic resources to pursue an appellate correction. That is where the real issue lies and where a second crime is actually occuring.
When a crime is easy to commit and difficult to prosecute, the penalties must be made exponentially more severe for deterrence to work. Copyright infringement falls into this category.
As such, it is surprising that copyright infringement doesn't carry the death penalty (yet).
How long does he have until we send an intern to orally stimulate him ? 9/11's aftermath was bad enough, now we have to put up with this tech hostility ? Even the goddamned bikers have more foresight than this.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Lets put a tax on copyrighted works to pay for the enforcement of this (sic) policy.
If the RIAA want to act like jerks, let them pay for it. After Joe Sixpack sees prices go up because of the tax, maybe he'll seek out other alternatives.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
Actually in a Libertarian system, corporations would not exist. It does espous the Laissez-faire economic system, between individuals (not trusts, not corporations). It espouses responsibility. You can't evade responsibility and liability for your actions by hiding behind a corporation. If you conduct your business to cause harm, YOU will be responsible. YOU will be liable. Your company will NOT be treated as the guilty party. You WILL be.
Having corporations run everything is much closer to Communism than Libertarianism.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
You: I have no doubt that such things go on in prisons in the US and around the world. But I really wonder on the frequency of them. From your post, it seems like you think these sorts of things happen to everyone who goes to prison for a certain period of time or more.
Me: Wow... are you trying to be willfully ignorant? Information about the prevalance of prison rape is pretty wide spread.
You: I never said it wasn't. Are you trying to willfully misinterpret what I said?
I guess that's fair. I took "I really wonder" to be an admission of ignorance. Of course, in a non-real-time conversation, you never have to reply ignorantly, so I took it to be willful. I hope this clears up my misinterpretation.
And while I agree that this is a number that I wouldn't want to take a chance on, 21% is hardly a certainty, which the original poster seemed to claim.
Maybe the OP's use of the second person was for rhetorical effect, and not for statistical purposes (see bold text where you make this inference). That aside, I'm not really interested in the semantic arguments. Twenty percent may sound like a small number but I would think the gravity would affect one's perception. Sure, if there was a 20% chance of rain you might go out without an umbrella, but if there was a 20% chance of getting shot then you might not go out at all. "So what, I might get rained on" is very different from "I might get raped." I'm glad to hear you wouldn't want to take the chance. Personally, I wouldn't want to take a chance on anything that wasn't "rare", because again, 1 in 5 is pretty fucking likely.
(Again, 20% being the conservative estimate given the reluctance of all parties --victims, gaurds, administrators, perps-- to admit to this criminal activity, or criminal negligence. I'm not trying to bait you.)
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
It's the same reason we still throw away recyclable waste. We'll take the path of least resistance when the danger is minimal (or perceived to be).
It's so much easier to pirate media when you say 'f*** you' to anyone or any company that cries foul. Drop the ol' morality, sell your conscience on eBay, and enjoy a life of luxury from the comfort of your own easy chair. No lines, no commercials, no fees.
So says Captain Sarcasmo.
USA Comp Users VS Goverment -- is all i have to say ....
I posted this comment to piss this guy off. Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment Comment
Copyright was created for the good of the general public. It rewards authors only to modify their behavior. Authors don't have natural rights and are not owed jack shit.
The original poster clearly wasn't referring to that kind of anime.