Slashdot Mirror
Stiffer Penalties for Copyright Violations
smallfries writes "US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has proposed much harsher punishments for copyright violations, including jail time. The Intellectual Property Protection Act [PDF Warning] doesn't appear to change the fundamentals of US copyright law but does allow more leeway for the police when investigating suspected crimes, and harsher punishments for those convicted. A response with a link to one site's look at the bill is up on Linux Electrons. Now that attempting the crime has such severe consequences, who will be the first to go to jail for running a p2p client?"
It seems all the important crimes have been stamped out.
And in tomorrow's news...
President Bush is pleased to introduce the Protect Democracy Act which would ensure the death penalty and forfeiture of all assets for singing a song written in the past 500 years without written permission from the copyright holder.
The nation's test case is already in the pipeline, with an entire boy scout troop under indictment for singing The Star Spangled Banner before playing a game of wiffle ball.
It is hoped that these new regulations make the world safe, in our continuing war on terror.
What are you eating? isItVeg?.
Correction: the corporate masters of the artists who write them, and some of the pretty faces and breast implants that jiggle while they sing them, already have more money than they know what to do with.
The actual artists aren't so lucky.
Well I guess this is part of the quest for cheap labor. Pretty much everyone that could be locked up for drugs is, so now it's time to fill the prisons will evil p2p downloaders who will get paid $1 an hour answering phones or making license plates.
Throughout history, this has always been the way. Can't stop people stealing in droves? Make stealing punishable by death. Can't stop people blasphemy? Mak the crime punishable by death!
It is a natural reaction to make the laws tougher when people start to defy the law in droves but I urge people to ignore that reflex because often it is more instructive to look at root causes. Why do people pirate? Because the CDs are overpriced. Your average individual actually prefers the boxed CD to an MP3 but is not prepared to spend £15 on it. If you priced your CDs to reflect this desire then you could reverse the decline in CD sales.
Often, real change does not come from politics but from the sound of a million feet. Politicans still believe that people want the artist to be compensated to the tune of £15 for a crappy manufactured album. The people do not. In the end the people will win; they always do. The question is how much political capital are they willing to spend fighting this change?
The Internet has changed everything. I was working a project for a band a fairly high profile band in the UK who have totally ditched their record label in favour of a web-based approach. I can't blame them! Why get 1% of the CD record sales when I can get 100% and make more money than the labels were are paying?
Another thing, They REFUSED to use DRM. Saying that DRM protects the artist is rubbish. It protects the label's reveune stream, that's all. This band understands the internet. They're saying they want you to copy because it's a bonus to them just to get heard by that one new fan. That one new fan might spend £50 on a ticket to see you at a concert. They may even by the tracks off the site just to support you. It builds loyalty when you trust your fans rather than hold them in contempt.
The future is just getting started and we're about to see the big labels get their wing clipped.
Simon.
As long as the argument keeps getting framed as a battle of pirates cheating honest American companies out of their God-given profits, we will continue to see a push for harsh penalties. But frankly, this creation of a whole new class of criminals is not a world that I want to live in. So how can we convey to people that the bulk of IP violations don't deserve to be criminalized?
* Tape a TV show for a friend
* Play the new White Stripes CD at your office party
* Forward an interesting email rumor
* Make a cool picture you found on the web into your desktop background image
These are all things that people frequently do without any sense of transgression. Are we as a society going to start sending grandmothers, middle school students and so on to jail? Are we prepared to start using web browsers without "save" functions, email programs without "forward" functions, software that reports on us if we're doing anything possibly illegal? The illegalization of non-DRM'ed mpg, avi, txt and mp3 files? Because that is where we're heading unless we put a stop to it.
No - when everyone can be put in jail as and when needed. Criticising the government or protesting a war may remain legal, but they can go through the list and find something else to arrest you for as and when needed.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Where the hell does this end?
About the same point the "donations" do.
More laws lead to more criminals; more criminals need bigger jails, and government employees to build the jails and catch the criminals. Hiring more government workers requires higher taxes and additional bureaucracy to track and collect the money. Meanwhile, Joe Senator gets re-elected because he delivered the legislation specified by his large corporate donors.
And the people in charge get more powerful. Everybody wins!
I totally can't wait for a world government to make this process even more efficient.
One thing that I really hate about conservatives (and I am one) is that we get these insane ideas that jail is the right solution for every problem. But this is just really, really stupid. Should we jail people for speeding? It is, after all, a crime. I'd be more than willing to bet (which, by the way, is also illegal where I live) that more people are killed each year by excessive speed than by excessive downloading.
If you don't want crime to pay, let the government run it.
--Larry
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence
Then our society will be divided into two classes: (1) those in jail, and (2) those who aren't in jail yet.
Fixed that for you.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
Never mind terrorism, the war on drugs, and corporate theft. Let's divert federal resources to go after those pornographers and college kids trading music! They've either got their priorities totally hosed up or they have WAY more people than they need and this is Justice Department busy work.
Ignorance and incompetence rivaled only by those who continue to support a corrupt, ineffective and incompetent administration. Usually justifying their misplaced and hypocritical loyalty by whining that the Democrats aren't any better. Well, it's time to face the facts: The Democrats ARE better. They may not be the ideal but the worst of them could do better than this bunch of corrupt losers.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Gonzales said the new laws are needed because evolving technology is "encouraging large-scale criminal enterprises to get involved in intellectual-property theft." He added that proceeds from copyright piracy is used, "quite frankly, to fund terrorism activities." [Emphasis added]
There you have it folks. The US Attorney General says that this technology is funding terrorism, presumably with zero-dollar bills. I don't know about you, but I'd say 99% of the intellectual property "theft" (his words, not mine) are going on TOTALLY FOR FREE.
In fact, if they did succeed in shutting down these new technologies for the common man, you can bet that would be the only time the criminals started making massive money on this. Gonzales's plans will actually encourage criminal profits and, therefore by his logic, encourage terrorism. Gonzales is actually taking steps to put the money into this for terrorism and crime lords, not the other way around!
So if you ever wanted damning evidence that our AG both doesn't understand the issues, and is in the back pocket of the content corporations (RIAA, etc.), and that he wants to play the "terrorism" card (like they did about Drugs)... there you go.
You're right.
I think we SHOULD still be paying john lennon and many other dead artists royalties despite the fact that when they recorded the songs the copyright limits were much shorter. Because I agree that all artists need to know that they will be compensated 20 or more years -after they are dead- in order to encourage them to write a song, paint a movie, or write a book.
---
Heard the latest? they are now going after royalties on resales of USED books.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Downloading songs is wrong? Sorry, I was under the impression that under copyright law the user also has rights, not just the producer of media. I have a right to go and download a copy of a song I already own, as backup copies for personal use are fine. Also, fine are songs that are given away free by the artists themselves. Not all free downloading of music is wrong, regardless of what RIAA says.
Then our society will be divided into two classes: (1) those in jail, and (2) those who aren't in jail yet.
More accurately:
An added benefit of this structure is that it makes it very easy to move an individual from class (2) to class (1). Plus Wal-Mart will have a whole new market to branch out into, and something to add to their Superstores.
This seems to me scaringly close to reality. Not funny at all...
-- Cheers!
I'll accept any law as long as I get back the following:
1. Every jury is composed of a truly random selection of my peers -- people from my community who know me and can judge if I am a criminal
2. Every jury is notified of their right to jury nullification. They can judge not only the defendant, but the law.
3. Every arrest is preceded by the charge of two witnesses, and the idea of "the People versus" goes away.
4. The penalties for any crimes are tripled for any employee of any government branch.
If the US doesn't want to abide by the Geneva convention then their enemies don't have to either. So the "terrorists" are free to torture as well. Sure they do, but now it's not an outrage because they're just playing by the same rules as the US.
By the way, once they declare war on you, they're not terrorists anymore. Especially not once you declare war on them. "War on terrorism" is an oxymoron. The Geneva convention also covers more than just prisoners of war... it also outlines what you can and can't do to civilians. So if you toss the Geneva conventions the "terrorists" haven't really done anything wrong. They declared war then used a tried and tested (by the US and Britain during WWII) method of attack -- bombing a major population centre.
Since it was November 11th yesterday I think it's a particularly appropriate time to note that people should think for a minute before dismissing as quaint lessons learned the hard way in the worst conflicts in human history.
The central notion of copyright is that the act of making copies was difficult, and therefore served as a kind of chokepoint to control distribution and make sure someone got paid. The justification for legal sanction is more complex, though I like the American version, that encouraging creativity is beneficial for the society.
The copyright premise of difficult copying is totally broken. Staying with BitTorrent as an example, it was trival to distribute thousands of 75 MB copies of OpenOffice 2 in a few days. It could have been millions, and it would have made no difference from the usage perspective. When I got my download, it quickly maxed out my connection. More copies simply make it easier to do so.
Since the foundation has crumbled to sand, it doesn't matter what sort of reinforcements they try to use. Gonzales is just being a typical BushCo idiot and is trying to steer by looking backwards. We need to rethink the entire notion of copyright and how to compensate creativity, not focus on "new" ways to keep a dying publishing industry on life support.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Just so you know, there are maybe 3 people whose attention you've just reached. The rest of us believe in limited and reasonable copyright protection, for a finite, purely innovation-driving amount of time--which, if you notice, is just what the Constitution calls for. Our current system of copyright is nowhere near this.
Honestly, very very few of us would dream of pronouncing that we are 'against copyright.' While it might be easy to respond to some sort of anarchist straw man, please take a little more time and thought to respond to the much more complicated reality. As it is, you're wasting everyone's time.
You realize that up until recently, it was illegal to sell private health insurance in Canada? (The Canadian high court overturned the law making it illegal just a few months ago.)
Are we talking about Canada or the United States?
You realize that the Clinton health-care plan, which thankfully never got past the talking stages, was going to be based on a single-payer plan system modeled after the Canadian system?
The Canadian plan also results in lower healthcare costs and better healthcare, so modeling ours on theirs is probably a good idea. That doesn't mean that we have to outlaw private health insurance along with it! You understand what "modeling" means, do you not?
You realize that one of the most prominent left-leaning advocacy groups is called "Socialist Alternative" and that it calls for the seizure of the 500 biggest American companies and the replacement of their owners and management with committees of citizens?
Prominent by whose definition? You do understand that when one says "left" in the United States, we're talking about leftist relative to the American mainstream, not what would be considered leftist internationally. In the US, the proper term for groups like "socialist alternative" would be "socialist". We aren't talking about socialists here.
You realize that this prominent group calls for making the taking of "excessive profit" a crime, and that their leaders have been running editorials in the nation's opinion pages for years now?
Again, prominent by whose definition?
Name one. Seriously. Name one. I've given you concrete examples. Name one.
The Human Life Amendment. And don't give me any crap about it being intended to merely allow states to criminalize abortion, not force them to. Criminalization of abortion is precisely what they want. See also Operation Rescue/Operation Save America.
Do you know the difference between overturning Roe and criminalizing abortion?
There is a reasonable argument that Roe v. Wade is a bad precedent not on the basis of the abortion debate, but on the merits on which it was argued. With some caveats, I actually buy this argument. That doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of people working towards overturning. Roe v. Wade are not working in favor of reason in law, but because they want to see the criminalization of abortion. There is a war in this country between those who support abortion and those who want to see it become illegal. Roe v. Wade is an icon in that war. Those who oppose Roe v. Wade on principle, but not abortion per se, are simply find themselves on the wrong side of a debate that only has two sides.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...