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?"
I use BitTorrent so I KNOW I'm safe...
... as a matter of principle, that any time the government wishes to criminalize what was previously a civil offense, it should have to demonstrate an overriding interest in doing so. I mean, this goes way beyond IP law. Basically what they're saying is, "Anything you can get sued for, we can also put you in jail for." They're erasing the line between civil and criminal law. Where the hell does this end?
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
who will be the first to go to jail for running a p2p client?
I hope it will be US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's daughter. THAT would be real fun.
You are under arrest for the copyslaughter of [insert artist name/software title here].
MTSBWY
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?.
The spyware that Sony installs on the computers of music fans does not even seem to be correct in terms of copyright law.
t icle&sid=215.
w topic=38700
It turns out that the rootkit contains pieces of code that are identical to LAME, an open source mp3-encoder, and thereby breach the license
http://dewinter.com/modules.php?name=News&file=ar
Sony rootkit violating GPL?, Seems to include parts of LAME?
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?sho
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.
--Larry
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence
Let's not also forget Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' hardline stance against porn depicting consenting adults as well. This is someone who is clearly the most dangerous man for the job.
And I'm speaking as a moderate conservative. This guy scares the shit outa me.
I had exactly the same thought as the parent post -- the day is fast arriving when even possessing non-redistributable content is too risky.
I can see this being extended to a form of unreasonable search and seizure: Wandering the net, you find yourself on a filesharing site. You nose around a bit, then leave without downloading anything. A week later, the copyright nazis arrive at your door (armed with a warrant) and inform you that since your IP address was seen on a P2P site, you are automatically a suspect. They arrest you, confiscate your computer, and march the lot off to detention. Now it's up to you to prove your innocence.
But... you've got a few ripped MP3s on your computer, from a CD you legally "own" (well, that you licensed from the record label) which in itself goes to show intent to distribute, as does possession of the tools to rip said MP3s.
Now you're in REAL shit.
Oh, and if you're a resident of a country where the DRM laws prohibit even discussing circumvention (frex, Finland if a current bill passes) you can't complain to anyone about this treatment, not even your lawyer.
Yeah, right now this scenario seems an hallucination induced by a too-snug tinfoil hat. But it's certainly the direction things are headed.
And given all that, out of sheer self-preservation it would behoove folk to buy ONLY those materials produced by bands and studios that specifically ALLOW free redistribution of ripped copies. (Or cloned copies if the artist so allows.)
Note that I specified "ripped copies" and "free redistribution", NOT unauthorized hardcopies (ie. counterfeits intended for sale without payment to the artist), and NOT pay-to-download without paying the artists (PTD with micropayments to the artist should naturally be encouraged). Those activities should indeed be prosecuted, as they would be for any other counterfeit goods.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?