Congress May Outlaw 'Attempted Piracy'

cnet-declan writes "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is asking Congress to make 'attempted' copyright infringement a federal crime. The text of the legislation as well as the official press-release is available online. Rep. Lamar Smith, a key House Republican, said he 'applauds' the idea, and his Democratic counterpart is probably on board too. In addition, the so-called Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007 would create a new crime of life imprisonment for using pirated software in some circumstances, expand the DMCA with civil asset forfeiture, and authorize wiretaps in investigations of Americans who are 'attempting' to infringe copyrights. Does this go too far?"

Comments

Crazy

[Judg3]

If you aren't yet a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, now would be a real good time to start. http://www.eff.org/

"probably?"

[Richard]

"his Democratic counterpart is probably on board too"

Would it be too much to ask that you find out Rep. John Conyer's position - hell, even his name would be an improvement, and perhaps understanding why Rep. Smith is considered "key" (hint: check the committees) - before you start tarring him with the same brush as Rep. Lamar Smith?

-Richard Campbell.

Re:Yes.

[AKAImBatman]

I wouldn't lose any sleep over this bill. It's basically the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006 (text) reincarnated as the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007. Don't you see how much better the new version is? It's got 2007 in the name! Congress, therefore, MUST pass it this time! :-/

As far as I can tell, Congress didn't even care to look at, much less vote on it. The only difference this time is that the Attorney General is attempting to submit the law himself to give it more credibility. (It was previously backed by Rep. Lamar S. Smith (R) of Texas.) My hope is that it will end up in the same dustbin as the last attempt.

Re:Why does the law punish attempts at all?

[mspohr]

My credit card number was stollen (by an employee of a bricks and mortar store) and used to buy a bunch of cheap clothing at JC Penny. The credit card company was suspicious and called me for verification. I told them it wasn't me, etc. They canceled the transaction. I asked if they would prosecute the person who stole my card number and they said they couldn't because there was no 'use' of the number, only an attempt which was not a crime.

Re:thanks for backlash

[cpghost]

No, silly laws like these are just the attempt to patch dikes that have already broken down. You can't retrofit the water into the ocean just by painting a "do not flow in" sign in big threatening letters on the remnants of the broken dike.

The real solution to this is not more repression, it's legalizing copying of copyrighted material, by imposing a music/movie flat tax on the population; or perhaps just on HDD and DVD media. Everyone is sharing files nowadays, and that's not going away. So let's legalize it, and compensate the copyright holders collectively. That's the only decent thing to do. Criminalizing the whole population for something everyone does is so typical of dictatorships, let's not copy their ruthless style of governance anymore.

RTFB before you post on /.

[rylwin]

If you actually read the bill, the only violation of this bill that could lead to life imprisonment is covered in Section 12, which specifically mentions that this sentence may be imposed on someone who "knowingly or recklessly causes or attempts to cause serious bodily injury from conduct in violation of" trafficking counterfeit goods or services.
That seems pretty damn reasonable to me.
But hey...what do I know? I just RTFB.

Re:Why does the law punish attempts at all?

[Keebler71]

We almost do already - take Hate Crimes for instance. In this case you aren't being punished for the action, but for the motivation behind the action. Get into a verbal argument with someone that degenerates into a fight and that's assault and battery. Same situation but with a difference in sexual orientation or race and you could very well find yourself charged with a hate crime. I don't want to be misinterpreted that there is any problem with hate crime legislation - just pointing out that there are already crimes on the book for which a critical component is the thought process/motivation of the perpetrator.