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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."
...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.
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$
Family Entertainment and Copyright Act (Legislation) sounds like a loda of crap to me...
Wait. We're "stealing" this crap? You dismiss the **AA's techniques, actions and beliefs, but use their terminology? No one is stealing anything, contrary to popular belief.
I'm sorry, but the stuff on AtomFilms and so on are not on the par of quality movies like Merchant of Venice. Sure, there's a ton of crap released by Hollywood annually, and people ignore that anyway, because it is crap. But online movie content is no replacement for a good movie.
The fact remains that many people would go to the cinemas if they weren't that pricey and anally-retentive about food and so on. And don't get me started on cell phones.
In any case, if we were sheep, we wouldn't be "stealing".
The bill's acronym is one "L" shy of being perfectly named.
"Apparently so, but suppose you throw a coin enough times. Suppose one day, it lands on its edge."
Not, just next time before you put a copy of a song you made of your CD into your shared folder,think twice, you might want to just go and rape someone (preferably a lawmaker who makes such laws). You'll be a criminal in either case but could get away with less for rape.
Otherwise, why even pirate this crap?
I've never so much as considered attempting to download a movie. The amount of effort that goes into pirating such things when you could just drive to a video store and pay a very reasonable couple of bucks boggles my mind. But honestly, at this point I'm inclined to just start pirating movies in bulk without even ever watching a single one of them, just for the purpose of distributing them to others. The movie industry feels like their customers are insidious little criminals out to destroy them? Well fine. Then I want to actually start acting like one.
They shit on the laws of my country, I start shitting on them. It's the least they deserve.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
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
It seems the bastards cannot legally check my non-shared directories without physically taking my machine away, but they can easily see and record what I share.
Write 1000 times: "It's called copyright. There is nothing like a 'copywrite'."
I've come up with a solution to the problems people have when watching movies: elevators / lifts.
The main problem seems to be noise and no one talks or answers cell phones in elevators. You can bring your own food into elevators, and the sound system should be quite realistic in such a small space. As for the ads, if you were to watch them going up and down elevators instead of during the movie, I'm sure no one would have any problems with it.
Take my word for it. The future of cinema is the elevator.
From the Washington Post:
Note that judges were not required before this to always impose the "maximum possible sentence", but rather one determined by sentencing guidelines. And now, with the SCOTUS ruling, the guidelines are purely advisory.
In addition, federal prosecutors retain prosecutorial discretion. So you're 0/2.
Yes, but you have to compare three years to the seriousness of the offence, and sentences for other offences.
Do people who steal actual property which causes a real, measurable loss, and real upset to the victims get significantly higher sentences?
I'm scared of numbers that can't be written as a fraction. It's an irrational fear.
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!
Free market is what allowed/will allow corporations the power to do what they want, including spewing tons of pollution into the environment (which would only increase with de-regulation), enforcing censorship (walmart), utilizing sweatshops, and abusing a protection put in place for individual people's property rights (copyright).
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