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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.
Enjoyed my fun little christmas hoax - help me do it for real! ;-)
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
...please note that Dianne Feinstein, a prominent Democrat, is a co-sponsor.
The Army reading list
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$
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?
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.
Family Entertainment and Copyright Act (Legislation) sounds like a loda of crap to me...
[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.
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! --
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.
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."
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
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.
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!
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.
"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?
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?
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
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
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d109:SN001 67:@@@P
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.
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.
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
"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.
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*
I can't wait for CD prices to go down once this bill passes and piracy is stamped out. The corporate world is dying to pass savings on to us, but they just need a little help from the legislature.
Now that Bush has signed the bankruptcy bill, people abusing bankruptcy won't be costing me $400 personally and once that $400 savings is passed on to me from my credit card issuer I'm going to go out and buy a ton of CDs. And no, I'm not going to share them with you! Heh heh heh. Jesus himself said it's easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than it is for a copyright infringer to get into heaven.
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
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.
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
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.
Write 1000 times: "It's called copyright. There is nothing like a 'copywrite'."
No, I'm not a lawyer. I haven't read the legislation either. However, there is certainly room for the grandparent post's concern to be valid.
Going back to Futurama. Suppose Fox (or whomever owns it now) decided that they would put Futurama out for download six months after it was shown on TV. (The Sci-Fi network did put Battlestar Galactica's first episode online, after all. It's not a total stretch.) But somebody watched it on TV, and saved it to their computer, and put that on the Internet. If the product is `Futurama for download', then the person just made it available before release. It really depends on exactly how the law is written.
Another possiblity would be if they took Futurama episodes and saved them to their computer, and then made .iso files for burning to DVD, and put those online. If they did this before the DVD was available with those episodes, it's possible they could get nailed with this new law -- again, it depends on exactly how the law is written.
And laws aren't always used to go after the people that the laws were originally written to go after. It would be extremely naive to assume that this law was somehow different.
I don't think your post was a troll. A bit shortsighted, perhaps, but not a troll. Have you considered that maybe the problem isn't with this place, but with your expectations of this place? This place attracts a certain sort of people, and often people of a certain type think similarly. I realize that you're trying to be insulting with your `groupthink mode', but in reality the moderation was probably done by a few people who honestly felt that the post was a troll (could just be one person too) rather than people who `shared a brain'.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.
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.'.
... 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.
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?)
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.
(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.
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
You have to agree this legislation is draconian and excessive, to say the least."
No I don't agree with you.
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.
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!
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."
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
Sounds like the corporations at hand just got smart and outsourced their legal work to the Department of Justice. Now taxpayers pay the millions in lawyers' fees instead.
Punishing copyright infringers works just fine with civil suits. The content industry just found another way to take money from your pocket and put it in their's.
Among them, Feinstein and Leahy.
Couple of well-known right-wing Republicans there.
Oh, wait...
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
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?
...is that thing _still_ around?
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.
"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.
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.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
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
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Many people don't understand how the judiciary works, and the latest round of talking points certainly aren't helping. They're 180 degrees away from the truth.
The federal court is charged by Article III of the Constitution to bear the sole responsibility of interpreting the Constitution. It does this by establishing precedent in case law. The matter has been considered settled since 1803.
Now you (meaning, whoever it is you're parroting) are trying to change it, for what looks like a naked power grab with some nice-sounding crap about how judges should be accountable to the people (a nice way to describe mob rule). But we weren't told before the election that Bush wanted to eliminate one of the branches of government. All we heard was some coded remarks about the Dred Scott decision. Hell, we didn't hear about Social Security phase-out, either, and even though SS phaseout is failing in the legislature (since the public hates it) there are judges in the lineup prepared to declare Social Security unconstitutional since the Constitution says nothing about it. "Legislating from the bench" indeed!
If you are arguing that we should get rid of something that has been working pretty well for two centuries, the onus is on you to explain what you're going to replace it with, and why it's going to be better than the Consitution as it exists today.
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
Probably because physical property laws have a grounding in nature (there's only a finite amount of stuff and if you've got a big enough stick, you can protect your pile of stuff - property law is merely an extension of that principle, with the government holding the stick on your behalf).
"Intellectual property" laws are a wholly conceptual legal construct that have no basis or equivalent in nature.
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
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.
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.