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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?"
Does this go too far?
Yes, this goes too far.
I promise vehement grass roots activism to defeat any elected official, Republican, Democrat, or Independent, who gets anywhere near voting for this. Full stop.
This will not sneak by in the dead of night. We are watching. You are either against this violent insanity, or you are against the voters.
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Attempted Murder?
Yet murderers and rapist get out in less than 5-10. WTF is wrong with our society.
Once life imprisonment for piracy is passed, the only safe software to use will be Free/Open Source.
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!
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/
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
Attempted copyright infringement? When we can't get our elected officials charged with real, already committed and documented crimes? What is going on in this country!?!
The smartest man in the whole, wide world really don't know that much. - Mose Allison
RTFA
And exactly how is someone going to cause death while committing criminal copyright infringement?
My blog
FTA: Require Homeland Security to alert the Recording Industry Association of America.
Sure that is what everyone intended the anti-terrorism money to go to.
All considerations about copyright infringement aside (legal, illegal, etc), this just makes my blood boil:
" Require Homeland Security to alert the Recording Industry Association of America. That would happen when compact discs with "unauthorized fixations of the sounds or sounds and images of a live musical performance" are attempted to be imported. Neither the Motion Picture Association of America nor the Business Software Alliance (nor any other copyright holder such as photographers, playwrights, or news organizations, for that matter) would qualify for this kind of special treatment."
Since when did Copyright Infringement become an issue for Homeland Security to work directly with a specific corporation?
Why give only the RIAA this treatment? Do they notify Tropicana when off-brand OJ is smuggled in from Mexico?
"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.
-Richard
You give Congress too much credit.
If this is to pass, what immoral act would next be prosecuted? Being gay? Being obese? Being lazy?
This is clearly an admission by those who support it that they are UNABLE to enforce current laws, and even that they are trying to enforce laws that are thought to be bad laws by enough people that they can't possibly get 100% compliance.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
I don't know ... distributing Gigli and Battlefield Earth might be a start.
If this law passes, I see the following.
(mp/ri)aa will flood the various file sharing networks with dummy files, aka 'master_of_puppets.mp3' that are actualy null files of a certain size.
Random user tries to download file from *aa over the network.
*aa records IP address of user
*aa submits IP information to DoJ
Random user goes to jail for attempted piracy and *aa also files a civil suit.
PROFIT!
An attempt doesn't mean that the act was unsuccessful, it simply means that it was tried. Success or failure are not part of the word (although legally, failure is usually implied).
And as one person said, attempted crimes are often persecuted, with murder as a clear example. Robbery is another.
I'd laugh if I saw this plea in court:
"Yeah I tried to rob the store, but the cop stopped me! Let me go free, I didn't actually do that"
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
Need I remind you the DMCA itself started out as one of those "bullshit bills"...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Not even 250 years ago, the founders of this country willingly committed treason and went to war over laws such as this. Life imprisonment sounds a lot worse than taxation without representation to me. The general population of the United States are not served by this law. We are not being represented. Now, we can't even get the offenders voted out of office. Never mind trying to incite a revolution.
The only good politician is tortured and dead.
Except that Microsoft and other companies are trying to create the presumption that any and all open source software violates someone's copyrights or patents.
Microsoft is almost certainly already lobbying for laws that will place strong legal burdens and liabilities on open source software, with the intent of making it impossible for any serious business to run open source software.
This is going to sound like a screed, but now you figured it out. The implications of the last 6 years of legislative and executive action are damn obvious to academic economists (like me). The "ownership society" the Decider spoke so much about in 1999 and 2000 leads directly to this. Not long ago, Republicans would be very angry and resentful that the government would try and allow monopolies on our collective culture. Now, all politicians are content that well over half this country will be at the mercy of the "Owners." Being an "Owner" won't be easy though, because many, many employers are making employees sign away all rights to inventions, patents, and copyrights devised while at the company (we don't know how enforcable this is now, but will be within 50 years at the current pace). Any worker will never be able to own their own work, and will never be able to enter the "Ownership" class easily.
We will enter feudalism all over again, but this time over access to information. Instead of paying a 60% title to your lord, or paying 35% in tax, you'll be paying 1000s of micropayments to let you do things like sing "Happy Birthday" at your child's birthday, or to load that CD into your computer. Your right to know if there is melamine in your flour will just be more commoditized information, and well beyond your ability to afford. You'll have to buy all your human and property rights back from the barons that own them, if you have the cash.
Democrats stopped being "liberal" about 70 years ago. About 30 years ago, Republicans stopped being "conservative." We are left with two right-wing Authoritarian parties. As disclosure here, I voted for Bush in 2000, thinking he'd be less authoritarian than Al "My wife invented the Tipper Sticker" Gore and Joe "We need to censor video games" Lieberman. I may have been wrong.
See what it has become - something that is exploitable to the extent that people can propose LIFETIME imprisonment.
if anything, any concept or practice comes to this point, it becomes evident that it is wrong and harmful.
lets see what intellectual property has become :
nth generation inheritors still living lavishly on a single book their ancestors had produced 100 years ago, without giving anything to society.
big publishers enjoying a practical monopoly of the creative market, sign on promising talents, and thereby force (or try to force) entire population of earth to go through them to reach mankind's fruits of creativity.
same big publishers are utilizing connections and bribing statesmen so that their monopoly wont be broken, but furthered, in the expense of modern democratic rights and values.
A scoundrel's collection of lawyers, posing as RIAA, extorting and intimidating people arbitrarily, without even feeling the need to provide valid proof before accusing someone and demanding surrender.
combined, all these have reached a point that the intellectual property exploit parties are now insolently demanding that their hold on society be ratified and furthered with LIFETIME imprisonment. get a load of that. This is no less than INDENTURED servitude of 17th century. make one mistake, sign one paper and you are goner.
this is not what free countries of the earth were founded for. in every country every citizen has the right to take up arms against a state that compromises the principles of democracy and unjust. United states was founded in this fashion, and has open statements to that effect.
It is evident that intellectual property concept has to be revised fundamentally, to prevent such abuses and insolence. its current state is a one that it has started actually hampering free trade, freedom of choice, competition and civil rights.
Read radical news here
The GP didn't equate piracy with murder. He merely demonstrated that an 'attempt' can often be, and often is, something we should consider criminal.
Most likely, the truth is that it's just too expensive for them to prosecute little things like that, particularly when there were no actual damages that your credit card company was trying to recoup (which would be necessary anyway for a civil suit).
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I don't know why Congress doesn't just stop fucking around and ban thoughtcrime.
Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
Randall, old Buddy!
Maybe you haven't been paying attention to the news, but nobody in Congress has any interest in listening to what Bush is promoting, and certainly not what Gonzales is selling.
I'm just surprised Gonzales choose copyright to try to change the subject. I'd have thought he'd be promoting a bill to protect children from porn, or something like that. Maybe he's afraid of pulling a Mark Foley?
But how do you define "attempted" piracy? Is downloading a honeypotted torrent the only thing? Or is just logging into the Pirate Bay or ISO Hunt enough?
Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
Ineptitude, or possibly a short attention span?
Mutant Freaks of Nature: "Frighteningly Addictive"
Sideshow Bob: Attempted murder, now honestly, what is that? Do they give a Nobel Prize for attempted chemistry?
What would you call manganese dioxide with a shotgun?
A salt with a deadly weapon!!!
...so yeah, about not quitting my day job?
This pattern is getting old.
1) Introduce bill with ridiculous provisions
2) Public upset over ridiculous provisions
3) Remove ridiculous provisions
4) Pass the rest of the bill, which by itself would still be ridiculous, but now everyone's happy that they "fought The Man" and won.
5) Slowly expand power and scope of existing bill until you can do really silly things with it.
Enjoy getting your computers confiscated by The Man (sorry, "Civil Asset Forfeiture") just because you have Shareaza installed. Also enjoy having Homeland Security (a government agency) notify the RIAA (a private company) when you come back home with a bootleg tape of that concert you went to. Don't forget to smile when you get sentenced to many years in prison and many tens of thousands of dollars in fines because you downloaded MP3's of an out-of-circulation album. I'm sure you all have the tens of thousands of dollars required to fight all that in court and win, right? And you can do without our assets or money or liberty while you're fighting it...
How does that line go again? "... with liberty and justice for all* "
* liberty and justice sold separately
When ya'll get sick of this crap, Canada and Mexico are both just a few hours drive away.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
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.
Ummm, manganese dioxide is a metal oxide, not a salt. Salts are ionic.
A metal oxide with a deadly weapon still sounds pretty scary, though.
Civil asset forfeiture is certainly effective, but the last thing we need to do is expand the prison industry. Look at what this has done for the "war on drugs" since Reagan signed it into law in the mid 80's - prison population has quadrupled, but drugs are just as easy to get now as they were then.
Copyright and patent violations should not be criminal penalties, period.
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.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
And hate crimes are bullshit, too. If I beat the shit out of someone, it doesn't matter if they're white, black, aquamarine, it doesn't matter; I'd say some form of "hate" was involved. If a white man beats up a black person, that's a hate crime, but if a black person beats up a white man, that's a rap video. Very hypocritical.
Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
If at first you don't succeed, redefine success!
>>when even rape and murder often aren't given life sentences?
Nail, meet head.
There is a perfect example of what's fucked up in the US.
Rape? Murder? You'll be out in a few years. Armed Robbery? Still be out in a few years.
Punch somebody in the nose while distributing Warez0rs? You're going to Rape Me in The Ass Prison for Life!
I've got a better analogy.
This is slashdot, it's not like the readers aren't familiar with the issue at hand.
Software copyright infringement is like........software copyright infringement.
I think that should encompass all the idiosyncratic details related to the issue at hand without blurring the issue. An imperfect analogy here only serves to derail the topic by bringing to light all the flaws in the analogy rather than the original point of discussion. An analogy is only useful when the issue isn't clear. This is slashdot and it's crystal clear. Points should stand upon their own merit rather than a reference to an imperfect analogy.