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Justice Department Promises Stronger Copyright Punishments
An anonymous reader writes "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has stated that the Justice department will be getting even harder on copyright infringement, targeting repeat offenders. The new 'Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007' is headed for Congress promising to 'hit criminals in their wallets' hoping to ensure that any 'ill-gotten gains' are forfeited.
Alberto Gonzalez will forget he ever said this in a month.
No corruption to be seen here in the DOJ. Move along.
Holy fuck, this is how far he's fallen? He'll be going after the pr0n mavens next! Oh wait ...
========================================
Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
that the scale of problems facing our nation is so trivial that federal law enforcement can afford to waste their time^W^W^Wgive this matter the attention it deserves ...
illum oportet crescere me autem minui
That's all well and dandy for those pirates who actually make money off of piracy- but that's a small percentage of the pirates out there. The grand majority are either making use of what used to be considered fair use: Mix CDs and tapes for friends, backups of media purchased legally, copies for educational use, etc. If you're going to crack down on piracy and hit them in the wallets so to speak, what do you do when the wallet is empty and has never had any cash in it?
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Because if the $100,000 maximum fine per infringement isn't a strong enough deterrent, maybe $200,000 will do the trick, right?
In other news, the State of Texas will now kill you *twice* if the crime is *really* serious.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
"promising to 'hit criminals in their wallets' hoping to ensure that any 'ill-gotten gains' are forfeited."
Perhaps I am mistaken, but aren't most copyright infringers/violaters people doing it for their own personal gains. While there are some people who sell copyrighted stuff they don't own, I suspect 99% of the violations are from kids who share/download music that they weren't authorized by the copyright holder to do so.
Ninjas don't carry tic tacs
This just means more RIAA/MPAA asshattery. I'm sure the lawyers are collectively rubbing their hands together in glee.
-PxB
If you're referring to the Attorney General, I agree 100%
Yes, make the punishment harder, so they have a harder punishment than rapists, pedophiles, and murders? -rolleyes-
Corruption at the Justice Department. The laws are to protect the citizens. The citizens do not want strong copyright punishments. That is what the big media corporations want.
They're still up to their bullshit. There are copyright laws, there are patent laws, there are trademark laws. There is no such thing as an Intellectual Property law. That's a big blanket that the megacorps want to pull over our eyes in order to gain more power. Taken individually, copyright, patent, and trademark laws have acceptable checks and balances built into them (Except the ones that have been stroked by Mickey Mouse). But what they're after is a true Intellectual Property law that has no balancing of Megacorp vs. Common Good. They want it to be all Theirs, and no Ours.
Be careful, whenever some politician blabbers on about "Intellectual Property", it really means they are in bed with the Megacorps and want to muddy the issue in order to set some bastardized legal precedent on the sheep-like public who won't notice a thing until the water boils.
FTA:
"said he would "hit criminals in their wallets" by boosting restitution and ensuring all ill-gotten gains are forfeited, as well as any property used to commit the crimes."
So, what if no one's profiting off of the infringement?
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
It is pretty much proven that he is responsible for firing several government lawyers because they pissed off Republican politicians. That is bordering on criminal. He could be impeached. He could be thrown in jail.
He has George Bush's backing but so did Rummy and then Boom he was gone.
This is the second part of the badness that comes from criminalizing copyright infringement. (The first thing was the shift of the cost of prosecution from the copyright holders to the taxpayers.)
Now that copyright infringement is criminal, politicians, attorneys and law enforcement can all cry for even more money, to be "tough on crime". Plus, since I'd guess most everyone over age ten in the US has infringed someone's copyright (downloaded something, photocopied without permission, duped a video tape, etc), it becomes yet another crime you can be charged with if someone in power decides you need to be arrested.
What we really need is copyright reform.
Soooo that means teh average person copying a movie that they have already gone to see, or a piece of software they cant afford anyway and just want to play with, wont get a fine at all since they didnt make any profit.
Cool. That is the way it should be.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
America was founded on piracy of intellectual property, after all, starting with textiles, and extending to many engineering marvels.
I for one miss the days of a single 17 year patent life, and a copyright that ended after 21 years.
And I say that as a published (paid) writer.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
In the grand scheme of things, chasing down KIDS who share mp3's just doesn't seem as important as establishing Federal guidelines for voting machines.
Justice department to crack down even harder on murders
There are already ample penalties for copyright infringement and ways to shut them down. In fact, it makes no different for the guilty party if he is fined for $100M or $1B, since he will not be able to pay it off anyway. In the meantime, United States has a ridiculously high murder rate compared to other developed countries. Do any politicians up for election in 2008 care to address that? Like you know, stop sales of guns to mentally ill?
Check CNN - Bush is out stumping *against* greenhouse gas emissions. His oil-based corporate masters are having to take a back seat to Bush finding some kind of bandwagon that has public support that he can ride the coattails of. The same for Gonzales - they need every shred of positive press they can get right now.
j 1.htm), and three US soldiers captured and most likely being tortured/killed, BushCo is pulling out the stops.
With stories about how all those e-mails Gozales said didn't exist being leaked by insiders (http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/070510n
Hell, George might even roll Cheney over and sacrifice Rove for the Plame leak the way things are going.
The republicans running in the primary must really be proud.
This is the guy who (amongst other things), OK'd torture and thumbed his nose at the Geneva conventions on behalf his masters and you people get all upset about his copyright stance? Talk about a moral abyss.
Apparently, there is talking of requiring 90-95% of all computer users to run Microsoft Windows as punishment.
Some settling may occur during posting.
Absolutely!
If you get caught smoking pot or drinking under age.
Then sex with a minor (even if you're one too): 17 yr old sex with 15 yr old - 10 years
And downloading a song. Why you should die! Put to death! Because the law is the law and laws are just and true! Why, all of the lobbyists in Washington just want what's best for us and so do our legislators.
And if it's illegal then that means it's EVIL and must be banned because our politicians are infallible! It's inconceivable that they would even make a mistake and violate our liberties. Why, if you disagree with the law, you're unAmerican and HATE freedom!
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
And when that fails, you can vote with your feet.
After all, if Congress isn't working for you, why are you working for them?
I recently read an article on the New Yorker discussing how the United States strong-arms other countries into adopting our own stringent Intellectual Property laws. It just goes to show the continued stance of our government in this area of policy, a stance that is not going to change any time soon. ::sigh::
Instead of grandstanding to curry favor with a few movie and recording industry executives, so that he'll have a place to work after he resigns, Gonzales ought to read Against Intellectual Monopoly, by economists Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine. And then he should resign.
Doesn't Gonzalez realize that this sort of corporate pandering won't happen now that we have Democrats in charge of congress?
Do you have ESP?
I've always been a supporter of two-term presidents (and their staffs):
One term in office.
One term in jail.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
In exchange for governmental protection of your monopoly for a period of time, you will release the material to society as a whole.
That way people can FREELY build upon your work and society, as a whole, can further benefit.
Holding those accountable who lie to Congress during sworn testimony about subversion of the Justice Department for political gain... or chasing after a kid that downloaded some mp3 files by (cough, wheeze) Metallica.
Thats a loaded statement to not include any data pertaining to the actual statement itself. Last I checked percentage of convictions has little to do with the impact of the crime itself. Shouldn't one be looking at those convictions and wonder why 43% of cases turn out
with NO conviction? That seems like a pretty high percentage of total cases.
Wouldn't a more useful action be to find out why almost half of all cases do not result in conviction and see if reform can reduce the load on your courts? This entire piece seems to just be an advertisement stating "This message brought to you by: Your friendly neighborhood vexatious litigator.
Ice Cream has no bones.
Your government believes that intellectual property is important, and for the most part, they're exactly on the money. Part of America's progress as a world power (if not hegemony) is its exports in information.
Imagine, if you will, that you are leading America in an age where manufacturing has become either trivial and moved offshore, or incredibly complex with the use of robotics and other such things developing nations are not yet good at. What would you do? Intellectual property, even if you don't agree with the term, is important; and although we primarily see lawmakers' views on the issue extending to DRM, audio, and video piracy, I don't think that's their only consideration.
America's cultural exports are powerful and at least worth protecting in some way. But it's more than that. It's about maintaining a leading role in research, development, technology, infrastructure, information technology, and a host of other things. And even though I think the US could use a hell of a lot better implementation to achieve these ideals (especially in regards to the next generation and their schooling), I have to agree that IP infringement is an important issue, and a complex issue.
What is is all that is. Isn't that obvious?
Of the three things listed - only one has ever been considered (under the law) to be fair use. To wit: making backup copies. (C'mon, handing out mix tapes? That's distribution - that's distribution, which is about as blatant as copyright infringement comes.)
The majority does not want stronger copyright protections in this country. They want stronger copyright protection of American copyrights abroad, yes--and they do want artists to get paid for good work. They want there to be an incentive for financial backers to produce major projects, yes. But they don't want the backers to get outrageous returns by suing everyone's pants off. Only the nudists want that.
for these Thugs.
Vigiliantingly yours,
Philboyd Studge
YES! Finally, someone with a clear view on the situation! Bush and Co are out for our interests!!
Four more years! Four more years! Wait, what do you mean its illegal for bush to be president again?
What!? No Im not evil, I didn't even realize...stop it! Dont take me to Jail, I didn't do anything wrong! What the hell is that fommmmMMmHHMM!
MMMhhhmmmm MMmmHHhhhMMm Hmmmm!
Wrong again. This citizen wants strong copyright punishments - because he believes in copyright law and intellectual property. Many Slashdoters don't want such protection because they (mistakenly) assume their percieved (I.E. self assumed and created out of thin air) rights trump everyone elses rights.
in one corner, well-moneyed corporate interests with lawmakers and enforcers in their pockets
in the other corner, legions of poor, borderless, highly motivated, technically astute, and media loving teenagers who couldn't give one rats ass about the bloated overreaching joke that copyright law in this country has become, because it is way beyond speaking to them in the language of right and wrong
copyright law is WAY beyond protecting the artist's rights when you can't play "happy birthday" on a piano without the need to pay someone/ get permission, and mickey mouse will NEVER be in the public domain. the idea is to strike a balance between the common good and the rights of the artist. but moneyed middle men have stuck a big fat finger on that scale, and it's permanently imbalanced. in other words, copyright law is broken, corrupt, insoluble, dead
poor teenagers versus corporate interests. it's not even a blink of an eye who will obviously win: the teenagers
the future of ip law in the usa is china: lip service played to the idea at official levels, some high profile demonstration busts that don't change a thing, and rampant complete ignorance of and ignoring of ip law on the street
copyright is dead. corporations killed it by not playing fair and only looking for some more $ at the expense of our common cultural riches. you can't measure common cultural riches on the corporate ledger, so it never got a fair reckoning in the boardroom. the result: complete disconnect between law and reality
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
it was a smart move, to buy that law, dear MAFIAA
THAT will REALLY get people to buy more CDs again...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
The #2 man in the DOJ, Paul McNulty, just submitted his resignation to Gonzales.
Here are a couple of links. Gonzales is losing support all over the place. There are lots of reasons to impeach him.t _pe/fired_prosecutors_resignation;_ylt=Ar4oJH7Anyl 79457otQRniyyFz4D??????
http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/94
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070514/ap_on_go_ca_s
Does this mean that the RIAA will quit going after college students who are downloading music for their own use? Does this mean that the RIAA will start going after people who frequent every train and bus stop I see selling home-made compilations of music and movies that are sold on plain jane spindle discs (CD's and DVD's)?
2 cents,
Queen B.
HDGary secures my bank
> 'hit criminals in their wallets' ...with an electric shock machine.
I think there's nothing wrong with getting tough on illegally using IP as long as it is extended to include my personal information. I should be able to sue Exxon-Mobil when they "file share" my data with Chase Manhattan or Citigroup. My life is my performance art and all description of it is my copyright. Let's ask the AG what he plans to do about TJX illegally sharing the data of thousands of their customers on the internet.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Nope no corruption here... Not until you see Copyright violators getting more jail time than murderers and rapists... oh wait I think they already do (well the rapists atleast).
09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
+2 Troll is Slashdot's way of saying groupthink is confused
If anyone here has been to a courtroom, you will quickly understand that justice doesn't exist. It's the Department of Law, and the laws of men are bought and sold on an open market by the highest bidder.
So keep prosecuting people for understanding information. One day soon that sword will swing towards your head. But before that happens, you might want to accept a few more resignations for legally felonious acts against your fellow man. Btw, the DOJ is hiring Sysadmin's if anyone is interested. I'm not, so have at it.
Anyway, I'm sure Alberto would like to distract us from the matter at hand. I trust that we will not be distracted and will keep asking the same questions until he gives us a satisfactory answer.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
As much economic damage as I'm sure this is causing by stopping American teenagers from downloading usually mediocre quality copies of movies (although Spidey 3 seemed to be doing just fine), personally I would think the country would benefit more by creating more aggressive policies for dealing with countries that blatantly disregard U.S. patent and copyright law, as our trade deficit with countries like China is caused in part by the fact that many of the U.S.'s most exportable goods (i.e. software, movies, music) are much easier to steal than the boatloads of cheap clothes and electronics that come from China. We should be at minimum putting a blanket tariff on all goods coming from such countries to adjust for their massive theft. For some more creative ideas, see my post on a previous topic. Honestly, how the Chinese government's Disney World knock-off isn't a bigger concern for our country, I don't know. When a foreign government is thumbing their nose at our copyrights, that's got to be more important than some teenagers downloading movies in their basement.
Ultimately, the words "criminals" and "taxpayers" are interchangeable here.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
So what about DJ's and the mixtapes they make. Some are made up of songs given to the DJ by the artist. Uhmm "shared" with the DJ? Very few artists own their masters, so if someone like Gwen Stefani gives a song to a radio station DJ, she needs to be prosecuted as well. She does not own the copyright and therefore illegally distributed it. Musicians make far more than anyone downloading, so maybe the RIAA should prosecute the artists who are the true leaks of the work of art they fear is being illegally "shared".
Boy, that will help me sleep better at night.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
...if, as I infer from the summary, DoJ is mostly going to concern itself with criminal copyright infringement for monetary gain.
Now: I am a *serious free-culture advocate (founder of Artists for File Sharing) and here's why I support the merciless crushing of those durn pirates: they are helping to keep people addicted to the feces that comes out of the "content industry". If they could be shut down -- which, alas, they prolly can't -- people would more frequently start looking into the free culture alternatives.
It's basically the same reason I want all "pirating" of Windows to stop.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Wouldn't it be nice if life worked like that?
The Romans had the concept of a vote after the death of an emperor: "God or Tyrant?"
I propose a similar vote(as a plebiscite) after a President leaves office: "Hero or Criminal?"
Obviously, if "Criminal" is chosen, the former President should be sent to jail.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
The article is awfully vague. Does anybody have any additional information or links?
This space left intentionally blank.
American politics: Don't download that pr0n movie illegally! Go rape that girl instead! You'll suffer less for it...
My thoughts and sentiments, exactly.
It does seem like corruption is becoming more transparently obvious these days.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Worry not my friend
When election time approaches a "certain" situation is to occur that will render the ability to vote to be postponed due to the situation's imminent potential.
Thus President Bush will be come the defacto "King of America" by default - just as he became president by default.
Once the delay of the elections is instituted then future elections will never again be a part of American way of life.
Wait for it.
I hereby claim copyright on my life and all its contents, and demand protection from the corporations who would copy any component of it, right down to my ISP's search history logs, which are a product of my own intellectual efforts.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Bush's iPod full of pirated music?
How much does he have to pay?
I'm really not sure where all the moral outrage is coming from because this is the consequence of an ownership society where privatization is blindly assumed to be, not just good, but the best thing.
This kind of posturing and eventual law enforcement activity where they'll perp-walk someone for some kind of copyright violation will get votes and most importantly raise campaign contributions.
I suspect more than a few slashdotters think that "the private sector does a better job at most things than the government.." The private sector is maximizing their revenues by enforcing its ownership rights and NOW it's a problem?
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
...you're pretty damn pathetic.
This isn't popular to say on Slashdot now that the abolish-copyright stance has become part of the "groupthink gospel", but I am fed up with largely a particular demographic whining about copyright law and its enforcement. Sure, complain about its excesses, but when in practice it most of the time amounts to complaining about being caught downloading the latest Spiderman movie from your dorm room, all I have to say is: grow up, put up, or shut up.
While copyright infringement is not theft, your average media consumer has as much excuse for knowingly downloading a song or movie in violation of copyright law as he or she does for taking a candybar from the supermarket without paying for it: none at all.
And there is similarly no excuse for not being willing to accept the consequences of those actions, They know it is illegal, yet still do it. Maybe they style themselves as practicing civil disobedience? Then deal with the consequences of those actions. The more out of line the punishment, the more they should relish it, because that is how civil disobedience makes its case. But they don't, because they aren't. It's completely transparent.
Everything from the demographic, to the logic, to the motives, to the actions of these people screams one thing, and it is blatantly obvious to the rest of society: casual copyright infringing consumers want content but are not willing to pay for it. Take just for example that there are now many (perhaps too many) services out there offering legally downloadable music, DRM-FREE, for reasonable prices (reasonable to anyone working hard to earn a living).
Not to mention, abolishing copyright would practically impose significantly upon the rest of society. Prices of movies in theatres would be several times what they are now. Consumers wouldn't be able to buy their favorite movies on DVD. Studios would need to keep them running in theatres as long as possible. Entering a theatre would be more security intensive than boarding an airplane. You would probably have to sign a contract when entering. And yes, mainstream content is mainstream in large part because a great many people like it. These same people think that your svelt black metal and electronica-subgenre is crap. It isn't a conspiracy and no one is a "sheep" for listening to music that makes them happy. Grow up.
You and the artists you like are free to produce as much public domain or copyleft content as you wish. No one is stopping you. No. No, they are not.
Thank you.
Sure am glad I am moving to Sweden.
Great! That means that he's giving the pr0n industry more dollars (as this is probably the most pirated data out there)!
That is all.
The Feds first obtained the power for asset seizures because they were going after some really evil drug lords. The American people went along with this because it was true, the Feds were definitely going after some really evil (as in kill the entire family as an example) bastards.
Then the Feds asked for more power, because they needed to get the supply chain, and grabbing a few Ferraris and yachts of really rich cocaine suppliers would help. The American people went along with this, too.
Then the Feds just assumed they had the power to grab the assets of the dealers. The American people didn't really think anything of this. After all, these drug dealers were bad people and besides, they were shooting up parts of the city in turf wars, so let the Feds grab the drug dealer BMWs with the really ugly custom wheels.
Then the Feds began seizing the assets of the drug users. Most Americans were under the impression the drug users were strung out heroine and crack junkies, so didn't give a shit. Only now Mr and Mrs Average American are learning otherwise, because their teenage son got pulled over in mom's car, and he had a joint on him, and the police are keeping the car.
I predicted this would happen at the very first stage. I was right. Even if the Feds swear up and down on a stack of bibles that they're only going to use this power on the big time commercial piracy operations, I won't believe them. Maybe today they mean it, but what about next tomorrow?
Fuck the government. They will ALWAYS abuse even the smallest amount of power. That's why we have to have the tightest possible controls on them as possible. If making it hard for them to abuse their job has the side affect of making it hard for them to do their job, so what. My rights and freedom are THAT FUCKING IMPORTANT.
-- Will program for bandwidth
I didn't actually say that I agreed with the US and their approach to intellectual property. For the most part, I don't, and I especially dislike the way it appears your Congress panders to large media companies and their enforcement arms. If you or I truly believe that China is the new US, and the US is the new Europe, then we can agree that Europe's strategy is grandly flawed and destined for a second-place finish.
On the other hand, intellectual property is important. Even you must agree with that. The Free Software Foundation believes it: witness the GPL, which boils down to just a different way to protect that property.
Mostly, we need to ask what we are protecting this property from, and whether that strategy will ultimately be successful.
What is is all that is. Isn't that obvious?
Years ago, I used pirated music to cultivate a sense of aesthetic taste, which I used to impress girls. One of them became my girlfriend, which boosted my confidence. With my confident outlook, I was able to land a good job with a consulting firm. Hence, I am able to earn much more money because I pirated some music off on Napster. I hope they don't come for me.
"Justice Department Promises Stronger Copyright Punishments"
Current copyright terms are already punishment enough... to everyone.
Arlington, VA -- Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld announced today that the Department of Homeland Security will allocate 4.5 billion dollars over the course of the next eight months to construct brand new ninja training facilities in four separate major metropolitan areas.
"These are not just any ninjas," commented the Attorney General concerning the controversial decision. "These are *music* ninjas... and *software* ninjas. We'll be training all kinds of Copyright Ninjas"
When asked to clarify the term "Music Ninja", Rumsfeld confirmed Wednesday that an authoritive discussion of a poll on respected media source Slashdot concluded that the diametric opposite of a Pirate is a Ninja.
"The only way to stop the increase of Copyright Pirates is to contract more Copyright Ninjas. If we cannot train enough Copyright Ninjas currently within the United States, we will simply issue more H1 Visas to bring them over from their native homeland." reassured an unidentified White House source. The source was hesitant to reveal which country was the "native homeland" of Copyright Ninjas.
"Intellectual Piracy is preventing the widespread of adoption of things like High-Definition DVDs and digital subscriber broadcasts. Copyright Ninjas will work to encourage the adoption of these new technologies, starting by politely silencing anyone who repeats the hex number, '09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0'. Anyone who so much as even prints '09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0' in a newspaper or blog will be gently murdered as a friendly reminder that it is a violation of the DMCA to do so." The aide has not been available for further comment.
Music Piracy has quickly risen to the No. 1 violent crime in only the past two years, surpassing even Rape, Homicide, and Gay Sex Between Two Consenting Adults combined.
Solomon
"Twice half-assed makes an ass whole." --Solomon K. Chang
I'm not for copyright infringement - my means of making a living ultimately relies on the existence of copyright. However, compare the maximum penalty for making an unlicensed copy of Spiderman 3 vs the maximum penalty for speeding.
If we are going to have statutory penalties for copyright infringement, let's make them 2 or 3 times the retail value of the item copied, not $1000's per song/movie.
Or here's an even better suggestion: introduce compulsory licensing, as is already done in some areas.
If I write a song, Sony can get one of their artists to record it without obtaining my explicit permission, and I would get paid pennies per copy produced. But somehow it's a crime if I make copies of that recording without obtaining explicit permission from Sony.
Maybe we should file annual returns declaring which songs/movies we copied during the year and pay $0.50 per song, and $4 per movie.
Adelle.
The Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007
Today the Department submitted to Congress the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007 that would enhance the Department_s ability to prosecute crimes and protect the intellectual property rights of citizens and industries. Among its many provisions, the Act includes measures that would:
* Increase the maximum penalty for counterfeiting offenses from 10 years to 20 years imprisonment where the defendant knowingly or recklessly causes or attempts to cause serious bodily injury, and increase the maximum penalty to life imprisonment where the defendant knowingly or recklessly causes or attempts to cause death;
* Provide stronger penalties for repeat-offenders of the copyright laws;
* Implement broad forfeiture reforms to ensure the ability to forfeit property derived from or used in the commission of criminal intellectual property offenses;
* Strengthen restitution provisions for certain intellectual property crimes (e.g., criminal copyright and DMCA offenses);
* Ensure that the exportation and transhipment of copyright-infringing goods is a crime, just as the exportation of counterfeit goods is now criminal.
Does that last part mean that even importing region-free DVD players would be criminalized?
While copyright infringement is not theft, your average media consumer has as much excuse for knowingly downloading a song or movie in violation of copyright law as he or she does for taking a candybar from the supermarket without paying for it: none at all.
Actually they have the best of all possible "excuses". Acquiring and sharing knowledge and culture is as natural for humans to do as walking and talking.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Good point: Globally this may be the straw that breaks the back of the USA .... I am confident that ... others will eventually tell the USA, EU, UN, WorldBank ...
... such an ....
corporatist government strangle hold on IPR, patents
China, Russia, India
and the International Court to go fuck themselves with their dead-battery dildo.
But,it ain't like the USA has been able to figure anything out 12 months or 12
years out. Clueless courts, diplomacy, domestic policy, government
incompetent slime-ball pitiful gang of politicians have not been collected together
in one government since the Mao-China's "Cultural Revolution", Stalin's Purges,
Hitler's Perfect Aryan Religion
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
casual copyright infringing consumers want content but are not willing to pay for it.
Literally? Because anyone with a DVD collection, which is all of us, is willing to pay. So I guess it's a question of how much and for what.
there are now many (perhaps too many) services out there offering legally downloadable music, DRM-FREE, for reasonable prices
Since when? I've never seen a website sell FLAC or WAV files, have you?
And if they did, they would have to be hella cheap to justify the lack of a preview you would get from going to the store. Can you imagine downloading ten albums at ten bucks a pop and finding out that half of them suck? I'd be PISSED.
Free mp3 previews would solve that problem. And conveniently enough for the studios, mp3's don't pose a piracy problem. The low quality of mp3 relegates it to a broadcast format, and the license terms on a broadcast is everyone.
After all, when was the last time you knew someone who collected all their music by taping FM radio? That's so scrubby. If people are actually out there "collecting" mp3's, I'll laugh.
In conclusion, free mp3's would get people to download FLACs, but you still have to burn your own CDs, and there's no artwork that comes with it (u got a 4-color laser? I don't) so in the end, the studios would have to charge less.
That's probably why none of the studios have tried to sell music on the internet so far.
Looking at the way things are going with the IP "theft" cases, how much longer until these once "civil" cases move beyond simple prison sentences and fines into handing out death sentences as a means of controlling such activity? It certainly wouldn't be impossible to draft such punishment as necessary under our already ill-defined policies for homeland security.
All they would need to do, is figure out a way to link it to terrorism (like we did for the war on drugs), and suddenly you're potentially facing charges of treason against the United States.
Just wait until we fry some poor sap who only made the mistake of selling too much pot. (Which I expect will happen in the next couple years...) Will large-scale pirates be voiding their bowels at the thought of their own execution being witnessed by members of the RIAA/MPAA? (Especially since they can already tamper with a crime scene unopposed during a raid and are also able to dance around the RICO Act while they hold your future hostage, without any solid evidence that you've committed a crime at all...)
People have been joking about leaving the country to escape the madness for some time. However, the novelty has faded over time.
Just remember to find a non-extraditing nation...
8==8 Bones 8==8
As a proper flunky in the Bush administration, A Gonzales is following the defining goal, No Corporation Left Behind established by his fearless leader. By taking on the task and expense of enforcing copy write, corporate balance sheets will look better and Bush core constituents, our corporate overlords, will pocket a larger bonus at the end of each quarter. No longer will corporations pay lawyers to file copy write cases, our taxes will fund this corporate benefit. After all, if it's good for business, it's good for America right?
"Illegally using Internet Protocol"?
Oh, you meant "intellectual property". This term tends to confuse the issue; one should instead use "copyright", "patent", "trademark", or "trade secret" as appropriate. In this case, the law considers your personal information a trade secret between you and the business, subject to non-disclosure agreements called "privacy policies". I haven't read the bill, but from the summaries I have read, the bill appears to cover copyrights, not trade secrets.
"These crimes, as we all know, also have a direct impact on our economy, costing victims millions of dollars and, if left unchecked, diminishing entrepreneurship," Gonzales said in announcing the bill. He was actually referring to the daily activities of the Bush administration which he is a part of!
might as well make another huge swath of them criminals.
Honestly, it seems like they think of ways to make folks criminals and disenfranchise them.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
>>Most people don't confuse copyright infringement (copying an album off a friend/taping a song or tv show off the tv/photocopying a map when they're going to visit someone/using a 'pirate' copy of a program at home) with physically stealing someone's wallet/purse etc, nor do they tend of think of it as morally wrong.
>>
You know, I used to think that exact thing. I still hope you are correct. However, in the past two weeks, I have talked to two unrelated lay-individuals who *do indeed* feel that copyright infringement is exactly the same as physical theft, and equally morally repugnant. I could not convince them otherwise, not with historical, rational,or emotive argument. The notion of a natural law "right" to "intellectual property" in perpetuity seems to be creeping into the general populace and it scares the ever-loving crap out of me.
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
If I write a song, Sony can get one of their artists to record it without obtaining my explicit permission, and I would get paid pennies per copy produced.
If Sony can legally appropriate your work, why would they pay you anything, even pennies?
That seems odd. You must have signed a contract with them in the past and forgotten.
As the govt sees it, if you download using P2P you are also sharing with thousands of other people, and this is the logic they will use to come after people with this law. Ironic considering what a crook Gonzales is...
Ask Me About... The 80's!
If they are going to give harsher punishments for copyright infringement, then I'm just going to make it harder to get caught.
A better mousetrap doesn't result in better results: It results in better mice.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
The Athenian democrats had the idea of voting on this while people were still alive -- "ostracism", that is. Only it wasn't so much about deciding who was and was not a criminal, but rather about deciding who was too dangerous to have around, whether because they were too influential, too wealthy, or whatever.
However, they did also have mandatory examinations of public officials upon leaving office, a process called euthynia. Accounts were inspected by randomly selected committees; any citizen could bring an accusation against the official in a public court; embezzlement or corruption would lead to a fine ten times the amount received; incompetence was let off with a fine merely equal to the amount involved.
I rather like the idea.
Human societies are built on top of sharing knowledge. The more we share, the more we progress.
But then came this idea that people can invent things out of thin air, and should be recompensed for their efforts.
But the people that came first with the compensation idea were not so idiotic as to think that invetiveness deserved ethernal gratitude, after all no invention comes out of thin air, unless standing in the shoulders of giants makes the air an inventor breathes some how more rarified.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
i hate people like you, you whip out your press pass, shove people out of the way, make your way to the stage, take your photos, then copyright it. i bet you've never given anything away in your life, profit is your only motivation. you don't care about this country, or you'd be doing something about the electronic voting machines.
now before you ask, yes i have given things away.
as a songwriter
as a musician
as a video producer
as a tv show producer
as a programmer
as a photographer
physical pain, and time protesting
back in the late 70's i looked into copyright, and found it was such a pain in the ass and so complicated that i wanted nothing to do with it at all. i found other promoters that would say use the poor man's copyright, mail the item to yourself, it then has a stamped date, and it's unsealed. i knew back then that this was going to be horrible world, and that it is just a matter of time before it all comes to a head. it's a bit more than just lop-sided, it ruins real people's lives.
your just trying to rip people off
if seen it before, whole websites destroyed. because of "copyright" photos.
fuck those photographers.
this has nothing to do with labels. labels actually give content away
it has all to do with greed, the riaa, and corruption in government.
i just enlighten people
i give my content away free.
before electronics, music was to bring joy. whole families would get together and jam
You didn't fucking pay grand-pa for playing slide guitar leads!
unless your some giant ass mega rockstar, you do not need copyright
and that's questionable too!
do the right thing buy the CD, the DVD, but don't fucking spoon-feed the masses with lobbyist's propaganda and shit laws that keep fucking the small guy. hell they are the ones that need the music so that don't fucking go completely nuts and start a civil war.
the justice department is fucking corrupt.
i'll give you one guess why that happened.
your too slow, electronic voting machines.
the corporate mainstream media not helping fix this
there will be no justice until that is fixed.
there will be no leadership until that is fixed
there will be no future until that is fixed
there will be no end to the war profiteering
solution to energy, health, borders, security, food safety, drugs, nothing.
satan laughing spreads his wings. satan is the bush administration. if you sit quietly and contemplate. you can feel it.
wanna know another secret.
there is no satan.
there is only the christian idea of satan
but not everybody in this world is a fucking christian.
ask kevin tillman
you don't have to be christian to be patriotic, to care about others, to help people, to volunteer, to be nice. oh but you won't find any threads where you can post that. not unless the threads are dominated by the bush administrations cyber information war.
i don't like bush, and i didn't like clinton either. i don't like the two parties. but that ain't going to get fixed now is it with the shit we get from electronic voting machines. well they've finally cost us hell on earth. there is no hell in the afterlife, that's another christian myth. but this administration can create, by man's hand, hell on fucking earth.
i am sick of the fucking lies.
time is short now.
wake up!
is the legal theory they use to deprive citizens of their property.
You see, they aren't going after you. They are going after your property. Did you know prosecutors can, in effect, bring charges against an inanimate object? They can. And guess what -- the object doesn't enjoy rights like habeas corpus.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
i am in China, it's so funny when you are in China and reading stuff like this..lol
I'm pretty sure he didn't have to get Senate approval to quit his job.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Correct me if I am wrong but the attorney General's duty is to enforce and prosecute the law, not to propose, debate, and legislate it. I wasn't for impeaching this guy before, but now I say off with his head. This law would have far far too many unintended consequences. You think its bad with all the drug abusers who get locked up in prison, I imagine the Copyright issue will be an even further strain on our prison system if this law were to be passed. Call your congressman and tell them to just say NO!
Not to mention, abolishing copyright would practically impose significantly upon the rest of society. Prices of movies in theatres would be several times what they are now. Consumers wouldn't be able to buy their favorite movies on DVD. Studios would need to keep them running in theatres as long as possible. Entering a theatre would be more security intensive than boarding an airplane. You would probably have to sign a contract when entering.
Really? What copyright-free country have you been to that you can make claims like this? For all you know, a copyright-free country might end up more like China, where movies are $2 for a DVD, if that. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I want to live in China; but the truth is, you don't know what the reality would be, because you've never lived it.
I know I wouldn't accept any of the above-mentioned shit. I should point out, though, that studios already keep movies running as long as they make a profit (i.e., as long as possible). And contracts? Don't give the wankers any ideas. Before long, we'll probably end up seeing "click-thru" agreements on the back of our movie tickets anyway. I can see it now: "Purchasing this ticket means you agree not to say anything negative about our movie or we'll bust your ass for copyright infringement."
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
Imagine if copyrights and patents never expired. If Caxton had a good lawyer 500 years ago and nobody else could get involved with any form of printing without paying his family money. If any time a child was innoculated the nurse had to pay a penny to Jenner's family or company. My fear would be a tiny elite getting richer and richer by every generation, a hereditary oligarchy. Not good.
Here's my UK perspective: until recently we had hereditary peers in the House of Lords. This meant that laws passed in the UK were decided on by an unelected, unselected group of people who made the decisions about national law that affected us all. These people (the peers of the House of Lords) were not there because they were popular, or had any special skills. They made our laws because one of their ancestors did something that impressed the King or Queen at the time: could have been 900 years ago. Maybe said ancestor hit somebody with an axe in front of the King and the King thought that was cool or funny or bloody lucky and gave him a lordship as a result. Maybe said ancestor bailed out the King's gambling debts and got a nice little estate as thanks. Said ancestor became a peer of the realm as a result and decided on the laws of the time. And his children would make the laws for ever after. So until recently, ten years ago or so, you could have a peer who was a complete fool, his father was a fool, his grandfather was a complete idiot and his great grandfather couldn't be trusted to make a better decision than your average sh*t-shovelling farm hand. No matter. If one of their ancestors had been made a hereditary peer, hundreds of years ago, just one clever bloke amongst a whole family of idiots, then all the generations for ever after would make the decisions that controlled our land. The rest of us had no say, couldn't get rid of them, had to accept their decisions. That's how the feudal lords and ladies system worked. I say this system was terrible. In the 1990s in the UK laws were decided in some cases by people who had no special talents beyond having a single ancestor who had done something significant hundreds of years before.
So the proposal that if I come up with a good idea, and corner the market in a product, or a method (or hell, a natural resource - look up Basmati Rice - grown in India for thousands of years but apparently some Texan company claimed the patent on this foodstuff! http://www.biotech-info.net/basmati_patent.html) - and that forever after everybody has to pay my children and their offspring for the right to engage with that aspect of the world - no I think that's a really bad idea. Unless you like the idea of minority hereditary elites.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
The issue isn't that they were fired. The issue is that they were fired for nakedly partisan reasons--willingness to ignore cases against the Republican party and try to drum up scandal around Democrats, for instance--and that pretty much defines corruption. If he'd fired eight random attorneys, it would lead to some head-scratching. That's not what happened.
Besides, if no malfeasance occurred, why can't Alberto remember a damned thing?
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
You've certainly convinced me, sir, with your rapier rhetoric. O, I am slain!
Please try to read the news before sharing your opinion. The fired prosecutors were investigating Republican malfeasance in a number of places. Firing people in order to shield your own party from investigation is corruption.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Other than troll, jesus.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
M. Gregory Thomas(tm), Network Redundancy Administrator;
Mundt Administration of Network Redundancy:
Adventures in Legal Land Video on the Drug Fraud.
The crime, known by the body of the crime, or corpus dilecti; is loss, harm, or injury; Proof, direct or circumstantial, that specific loss or injury occurred and that someone's criminality is cause.
example cases (he talks too fast for me to write).
State v. Wilson
corpus dilecti
"...two elements that a certain result has been produced, and that someone is criminally responsible for the act."
People v Swift
corpus dilecti
"involves two elements, injury that is penaly prescribed and unlawfulness in some person's conduct causing the injury.
...
corpus dilecti
embraces occurrence of loss or injury, and criminal causation thereof.
Commonwealth v. Realand
corpus dilecti
"the two elements of corpus dilecti, are that loss or injury has occurred and that loss or injury occurred through criminal agency."
There are more, but he's too quick and I don't have time. Must go work some chattel.
without prejudice
I've had some surprisingly pleasant interactions with the police. When my car got stolen, for instance, the cop kept an eye out for it and found it out in the local ghetto. While we were waiting for the tow truck (the thieves had abandoned it with a flat tire), the following scene played out: A drunkish fellow walks by, and the cop banters with him. The guy moves off. My significant other says that the drunkish fellow seemed like a nice guy. The cop says that he was in jail for killing someone, and really isn't a nice guy at all. But a good cop knows everyone in his area. That hadn't occurred to me before, and it's the sort of thing which is never shiny or makes headlines, but is the difference between an effective and an ineffective police force.
There's also the local guy with Parkinson's who smokes a ton of pot (apparently it helps with the shakes), and the cops leave him alone because they really don't want to throw an infirm guy in his sixties in jail for toking up.
Of course, it's bettable that the cops wouldn't have been so helpful if I hadn't been white, and that is a significant problem. And the behavior of the NYPD at the Republican National Convention in '04 was absolutely shameful; people should have been fired for that, and publically. But these are problems that are solved with greater accountability and transparency.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Forfeiture Endangers American Rights (F. E. A. R.) has plenty of horrifying evidence (with illustrative anecdotes!) as to the fact that forfeiture is a bad, bad, bad idea.
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
You might want to start cutting back on the bran early...
It seems they are now trying to make it so that you don't even have to commit the crime to be charged for it.
8==8 Bones 8==8
Back then, they also did a cute lil practice called crucifixion. I wouldn't mind bringing it back to use on politicians that get outta line...
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.