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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."
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
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.
I'd rather just continue to download the free content
How succinctly you make your opponents' case for them! It's not free content. That you have found a way to avoid paying for it only means that you're a cheap bastard that doesn't want to pay for entertainment, and are risking some legal action at some point, and feeling comfortable that the odds are in your favor. It doesn't mean the entertainers are asking to be your slaves. It just means you're causing them to be.
Do you actually know anybody that creates and entertains a large audience for a living? Try to persuade them to do it for free, while giving them that finger you're so smug about. Be sure to do it to their faces so you can get the full effect.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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?
"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.
Let's be real and assume the cost of posting one DVD on the Internet is $100,000 in lost sales. That would be only 10,000 people downloading it that might have bought it - ignoring the 10,000,000 other people downloading it that wouldn't have.
See, three years for stealing $100,000 is nothing.
Do you honestly believe that corporations would pay any heed to "morality" given this type of situation? A corporation would not face consequences unless what they did directly threatend the property rights of a citizen.
Perhaps you should take a closer look at what libertarianism truly means before you espouse its virtues. Sure, perhaps copyright wouldn't exist (though there is an argument as to whether what is copyrighted could be considered property, in which cases it would exist under libertarianism. Personal property is holy under such a system). But what do you think would replace copyright? Perhaps, as another poster said, a system where you sign a contract (upon each purchase) that states that, under penalty of a $100,000 fine you will not copy, reproduce, play in a public area, or otherwise diseminate the product. Hmm, in order to make this work, a bunch of corporations (say, record labels) could get together and form another big corporation/representative body. Then, they could establish a monopoly over the area they cover (remember-no government intervention in a free market), thereby forcing all new companies to use The Contract. Wow, this is all starting to sound very familiar.
Extend scenarios like this to the extreme, and you see why a "pure" system, such as pure capitalism or pure communism, will never work.
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Please be careful about what you say. After 9-11,
Dubya spake thus "If you are not with "us", then
you are for the terrorists." With the USA Patriot
Act (I) and all that has followed, this has also
come to mean (1) the political opposition (aka
the "anthrax letters"), the **AA (""pirates" are
terrorists"), etc.
What this country does not need is yet another law -
what this country needs is a regime in power that
respects the US Constitution and Bill of Rights,
and uniformly enforces those laws already on the
books. The current administration "talks the talk"
about the "war on terror", but OBL is stil on the loose;
talks about homeland security, but the borders and seaports
are mostly unguarded; talks about the Social Security "crisis",
but Medicare has been given a prescription "poison pill" and
SS is more greatly threatened by Bush's "Realization" plan;
beats the American people over the head with the drumbeat
of threats of terror, but ships live anthrax and pandemic flu
willy-nilly across the country; talks up a manned mission to Mars,
but cuts NASA funding except for "militarized" robotics.
If Dubya were to go on live TV and report tomorrow's
weather as sunny and warm, I would pack my umbrella.
But you are absolutely right. The way for a disgruntled
public to express their displeasure with the current
state of affairs IS to quit buying movies and
music. Of course, the **AA will claim that their
latest economic losses are due to even more piracy,
and will generate even more draconian counter-measures.
But hell's bells -- I say fsck them all!