Lawyer Asks RIAA To Investigate Bush Twins

tanman writes "After reading an article in the Miami Herald that said "[President] Bush's twin daughters gave him a CD they had made for him to listen to while exercising," a Florida lawyer calculated statutory damages of $1.8 million and has sent a letter to the RIAA asking that they 'display the same vigor in prosecuting this matter and protecting the rights of your rights-holders that it has displayed in enforcing those rights against other alleged violators.' From the letter: 'This is a serious violation of copyright. As you know, whichever of your member organizations that are right[s]-holders for the copied musical works may be entitled to statutory damages of $150,000.00 per musical work copied.'" Update: 06/22 18:55 GMT by KD : The lawyer in question has retracted his analysis and now says no laws were broken, probably.

Comments

pwned.

[oxidiser]

'nuff said.

Excellent

[MysteriousPreacher]

It's about time the RIAA took a stand against these music thieves. A colleague at my work who is known for having copied music went on a shooting spree. If the RIAA had dealt with him, I would not have had to step over bodybags on my way to lunch.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

you are right! look at the effect of the Music Piracy has had the same effect int he Whitehouse.
The VB shot a friend in the face with a shotgun, ALL BECAUSE OF MUSIC PIRACY!

(Btw, if you havent watched "lil bush" go torrent a copy. You'll piss yourself over the dick chaney kid.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with you liberals is that you think everybody is equal, and that it should always be that way. Not so. GW Bush and his daughters are rich, because they are good, brave, and courageous. They are literally better people than poor people. They wouldn't be rich otherwise.

Wisdom is the skill of knowing what to overlook. Other rich people, who are similarly better people than poor people, know this skill of wisdom. This explains perfectly why rich people overlook other rich people's crimes. It's because they are WISE, you impoverished ignoramous!

The important thing to remember here is that rich people have NOTHING against poor people. If it weren't for the fact that poor people don't have any money, they could be enjoying the very same privileges that rich people enjoy.

And that's how we conservatives REALLY feel about the subject. Fuck Y'all!

Re:Excellent

[HardCase]

The first comment to the blog entry pretty much torpedoes the whole idea:


You might want to check out section 1008 of the Audio Home Recording Act :

No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.

Sounds to me like that's the "mix tape exception" to copyright law.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, phyiscal copies are ok, as long as they're not for commercial gain?

Re:Excellent

[Score Whore]

Yep. You are exactly right. Except you can't distribute your mix tape under that.

Re:Excellent

[Perseid]

Oh, come now. I know Visual Basic has its detractors but I doubt it's actually tried to kill anyone.

Re:Excellent

[gruntled]

An excellent point. Which is why the RIAA doesn't actually litigate against people for *making copies*, which is protected behavior. Unprotected behavior includes *distributing* those copies. In a general sense, in the United States at least, distributing five or fewer copies of a song is protected by such things as (ta-da!) the Audio Home Recording Act. Massive distribution -- the sort of thing you might be involved in if your P2P client were configured to, say, allow the entire universe of other users to grab a copy of the song stored on your hard drive -- exposes you to legal action. To repeat: to the best of my knowledge, every RIAA action has alleged illegal *distribution*, not illegal *copying.* So while this is amusing, it's not exactly exposing the RIAA as hypocrites, since the act of handing a single copied CD is clearly protected behavior...

Re:Excellent

[forrestt]

Maybe I'm not getting something, but the first part of that quote makes exception for recording devices and media:

manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device (e.g. an iPod with no music on it), digital audio recording medium (e.g. a blank CD), analog recording device (e.g. a tape recorder), analog recording medium (e.g. a blank tape)

None of the above apply because the CD wasn't blank. It contained music, and the distribution of the music is what is infringing.

The last part makes exception for fair use:

use by a consumer ... to make digital music recordings or analog musical recordings

The consumer didn't just make recordings, they distributed said recordings. Distribution is not part of the fair use exception and they are therefore infringing.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

IANAL, but my understanding of it would be that producing the copy is not illegal, distributing that copy to fewer than five people is not illegal, but ripping the data from the original cds (which one would assume was necessary unless they bought DRM-free audio tracks from an online service) IS illegal under the DMCA.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

How dare you call me a liberal. I REALLY BELIEVE those things. Now, apologise to me and let's have a drink together after the Economics Club meeting.

Re:Excellent

[elrous0]

Exactly. The difference between the Bush twins and any old white trash chicks is that the Bush twins are on the stripper poll BY CHOICE.

Maybe if some more white trash chicks would spend some of those dollar bills on Texas oil investments instead of wasting it all on baby formula, they would get ahead too!

Re:Excellent

[BosstonesOwn]

Visual Basic KILLED MY MOTHER ! You insensitive clod !

Re:Excellent

[he-sk]

yeah, except that giving a cd to a friend is not called distribution

(at least not in my part of the woods)

Re:Excellent

[BosstonesOwn]

Dad !

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, a true open-minded unbiased perspective of the far left.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

So I can configure my P2P client to never share the same piece more than 5 times, and I'm completely safe?

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with you liberals is that you think everybody is equal, and that it should always be that way. Not so. GW Bush and his daughters are rich, because they are good, brave, and courageous. They are literally better people than poor people. They wouldn't be rich otherwise.

More to the point, why would anyone expect any action to be taken after the goings-on in Texas? His underage, drunken slut of a daughter suffered no penalty for her behavior, despite the fact that her cynical bastard of a father had personally, as governor, signed the law stipulating punishment for exactly the same behavior by children of less well-connected parents.

The important thing to remember here is that rich people have NOTHING against poor people.

Certainly -- without the vast masses of the poor underclass, how would the rich know exactly how rich they really are?

Re:Excellent

[greyfeld]

The relevant part of the act that you are missing is whether or not they used a device "primarily marketed" for the purpose of copying digital materials and the requisite media to go along with it (e.g. one on which a the royalty tax has been paid). Making copies on these devices appears to be completely legal as long as you are not distributing them and they are for your own personal use. I believe that giving a copy to a family memeber would be considered for personal use in the spirit of the law. If they used a computer CD burner, that would not be legal as the royalty tax is not paid on these. If they used a CD-R, it would be illegal as the tax is not paid on those either.

Re:Excellent

[dgatwood]

Nope. Ripping DVDs is potentially a legal problem because you are circumventing a protection device (albeit one not much better than ROT13). Ripping a CD does not do this, and as such, is legally protected format shifting. There's some debate about ripping DVDs as well, but ripping CDs is open and shut not illegal. What can be illegal is what you do with it afterwards.

BTW, a computer CD burner is probably not protected under the AHRA, AFAIK. It is not a consumer audio recorder. It is a data drive that can be used to obtain audio data, but in and of itself, most new CD burners do not play audio directly, and I'm not aware of any that record audio directly. Audio recording is also not the primary way in which an optical drive is marketed. Thus, it is very unlikely that AHRA will help someone in a computer-related defence.

Re:Excellent

[jstomel]

Woosh! The sound of sarcasm passing completely over your head.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with you liberals is that you think everybody is equal

Actually, the problem with liberals is that they think some people are more equal than others.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny that he was modded flamebait, but he was responding to flamebait that was modded funny.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

almost a perfect analysis of conservative thought there, but you forgot to mention how liberals hate and have no sense of humor. On a side, what ya wanna bet this guy retracted his grievance against the bush twins 'cause he was facing a "terroristic" threat for pointing this special crime out?

Re:Excellent

[peopleAreTheProblem]

Oops your right! Apologies to the guy I justed cussed out.

P.S: What I said about Bush still applies though.

Re:Excellent

[turgid]

Actually, the problem with liberals is that they think some people are more equal than others.

No, you're thinking of Communists.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

You're poor and you're a conservative?

Gee, maybe there really IS something to the theory that rich people are smarter.

Fucking dumbass, wake up and smell the shit they're feeding you. If you don't then I have the *right* to point out that your poverty is YOUR fault because YOU are LAZY. Now get your ASS out of that bed and WORK, you HIPPIE. What are you doing posting to Slashdot during the working day, you lazy faggot.

Remember, it's YOUR political theory that says that YOU are the one to blame if you are POOR. You dusgusting lazy maggot. How can you stand yourself?

Re:Excellent

[dpilot]

So you're claiming to be a real conservative, a Goldwater Conservative - as opposed to a gun-owning, SUV-driving Bush supporter?

My brother holds that my family lives by the Conservative principles we were raised on, but in today's political spectrum that makes us Liberals.
Pay your bills.
Live within your means.
Mind your own business, and your own conduct.
If you make a mistake, admit it, and correct it.

Re:Excellent

[turgid]

You call that "Conservative?"

I call it neutral. It can't be Conservative, there's no malice in it. Where is the denegration of others for being unlike you?

Re:Excellent

[internic]

In a general sense, in the United States at least, distributing five or fewer copies of a song is protected...

Where'd you find that? I didn't notice anything like that in the AHRA, but perhaps you found that somewhere else.

Re:Excellent

[RPMentley]

I think your sarcasm detector is broken.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

And the difference is???

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm the rich guy who posted the original. Apology NOT accepted. I really am a conservative, and I believe everything I wrote, though I wrote it in a humorous way.

Know this: Your name will never be on the Social Register. I know for certain that you DON'T know what that is, so just look it up on Wikipedia, you pedestrian worm.

Remember, it's not snobbery if you really ARE that rich. Vote Bush, y'all!

Re:Excellent

[Hatta]

In a general sense, in the United States at least, distributing five or fewer copies of a song is protected by such things as (ta-da!) the Audio Home Recording Act.

So as long as my Oink ratio is less than 5 I should be ok?

Massive distribution -- the sort of thing you might be involved in if your P2P client were configured to, say, allow the entire universe of other users to grab a copy of the song stored on your hard drive -- exposes you to legal action.

Since when does "commercial" activity have anything to do with volume and not whether money changed hands?

Re:Excellent

[Attila Dimedici]

"The problem with you liberals is that you think everybody is equal, and that it should always be that way. Not so. GW Bush and his daughters are rich, because they are good, brave, and courageous. They are literally better people than poor people. They wouldn't be rich otherwise. Wisdom is the skill of knowing what to overlook. Other rich people, who are similarly better people than poor people, know this skill of wisdom. This explains perfectly why rich people overlook other rich people's crimes. It's because they are WISE, you impoverished ignoramous! The important thing to remember here is that rich people have NOTHING against poor people. If it weren't for the fact that poor people don't have any money, they could be enjoying the very same privileges that rich people enjoy." That looks more like the attitude of liberal Democrats like Al Gore (You should sacrifice to reduce greenhouse gases, while I use more electricity in a month in one of my mansions than you do in a whole year). Or Barbara Streisand (When I said that people should dry their clothes outside rather than with an clothes drier, I didn't mean to include myself). I could go on and on listing high profile Democrats who say that people should do one thing, while they continue to do the exact opposite. Now while it is true that rich Republicans often do the same thing, the major difference is that when Republicans get caught at it, the majority of their supporters usually stop being their supporters.

Re:Excellent

[Mockylock]

Would that be considered distribution, if his own money bought the cd's the mixes were made from?

Re:Excellent

[rajafarian]

The Republican Conservative defense for all the shit they do: Democrats do it, too.

f u

I hope it takes less than my lifetime to clean up after this administration.

Re:Excellent

[sogoodsofarsowhat]

So it appears that if i write a p2p app that only lets say 4 people share my copy then im protect by this act...no what prevents each of those 4 from copying for 4 friends etc.... I mean really this is pretty trivial to code and would propagate quickly. Hmmmm.....loophole?

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG ... STFU you right-winged brown-nosing Bush lover.

Re:Excellent

[turgid]

One is a Liberal, the other a Communist.

There is a larger world than the USA out there.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

"To repeat: to the best of my knowledge, every RIAA action has alleged illegal *distribution*, not illegal *copying.* So while this is amusing, it's not exactly exposing the RIAA as hypocrites, since the act of handing a single copied CD is clearly protected behavior..."

You're right. It probably isn't illegal. Of course, articles like this still make it amusing, because the RIAA and other media interests apparently wish otherwise, and therefore wish that Bush's daughter's gift to him was illegal (i.e. exchanging a "mix CD" with a family member).

The way this could become over-the-top funny would be if the RIAA finally does get their wishes pushed into law, and Bush is the one that signs the bill.

They've got 2 more years. It could happen.

I suppose Bush could sign a presidential pardon if his daughters do it again. :-)

Re:Excellent

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Actually it was illegal for the twins to give that mix tape to someone else. The law only allows you to copy music FOR YOURSELF. So there is a case and it should be prosecuted by the RIAA with the same vim and vigor it does when going after nobodies. Otherwise they are hypocrital assholes like you dumb-fuck right-wingers who believe everything Rush tells them.

You do raise a valid point, though I don't understand why you needed to be an asshat about it. Unless you were the poster of aforementioned nonsense and didn't appreciate being called an 'idiot'? The funny thing is I mentioned nothing at all about politics in my original post, yet you sure did bring it up quickly -- and made some interesting assumptions about me, I noticed.

At any rate, my own point also remains valid -- legal or not, this is not the kind of case that RIAA has been pursuing. Therefore, the lawyer is doing nothing but grandstanding. Therefore, you (or whoever the poster was) remain an idiot for jumping to a false conclusion and using the opportunity to spout left-wing silliness.

Re:Excellent

[Attila Dimedici]

I just named two prominent Democrats who said people should do one thing while they were doing another...and continued to preach the same message without changing their actions after being caught. Can you name two prominent Republicans who have done the same?

Re:Excellent

[Beer_Smurf]

So if I can prove my P2P software will not allow any one file to be downloaded more than 5 times I'm good to go?

Re:Excellent

[MarsDefenseMinister]

It's a shame that your formatting is screwed up, because those are some good points.

Re:Excellent

[ADRA]

There are many CD/DVDRom's with play buttons on the fronts of them. Most if not all of them have analog output ports which 'play' the audio to the sound card. I'd be hard pressed to peg a line between the function and use of PC CD Roms and off the shelf CD players.

Re:Excellent

[enjerth]

Have you noticed that much of the degradation in this thread is coming from people criticizing conservatives? You can't tell that there's a great amount of malice towards conservatives?

And you think these are defining characteristics of conservatives?

The world has gone mad.

Re:Excellent

[poot_rootbeer]

Sounds to me like that's the "mix tape exception" to copyright law.

Would not peer-to-peer file sharing of digital music files fall within the same exception, then? What is "noncommercial use" understood to mean?

Re:Excellent

[ArsonSmith]

Well yea, but then can't we get him for forced child labor for buing the CDs, having the mix tapes made for him? I know there is something wrong here somewhere we have to find it. It's W for crying out loud.

Re:Excellent

[ArsonSmith]

I though "Commercial activities" involved going to the bathroom or getting a snack.

Re:Excellent

[CodeBuster]

since the act of handing a single copied CD is clearly protected behavior...

Well, you wouldn't know that from the propaganda that the MAFIAA prepares as 'educational and factual' instructional materials to be shown in American classrooms right along with the reading, writing, and arithmetic. If further evidence of under-qualified, unmotivated, and undiscerning teachers in our public school system was required then surely this fits the bill. Manipulating politicians (who as adults should know better) is one thing, but presenting false or misleading information to our children in the guise of factual instructional materials is especially contemptible.

Re:Excellent

[misleb]

Rush Limbaugh comes to mind. Although he seems to be submitting to random drug tests, he does maintain that he shouldn't have to go to jail despite using drugs illegally. You might remember that Mr. Limbaugh was very outspoken about sending all illegal drug users to jail. Which is, I might add, odd for someone who supposedly supports "small government" and individual freedom. Imagine how much tax money would be spent if we sent every illegal drug user to jail. It would be like half the population or more depending how recent the drug offense had to be to qualify.

Anyway, it is stupid to make generalizations about the personal integrity of people based on their political views. People re people whether their conservative or liberal.

-matthew

Re:Excellent

[TortiusMaximus]

>>Since when does "commercial" activity have anything to do with volume and not whether money changed hands? It doesn't, and no one suggested that it did. You seem to be implying that the Audio Home Recording Act only prohibits commercial activity, but that's not the case.

Re:Excellent

[Hatta]

The non-commercial use of an audio recording device is specifically exempted from the act.

No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings

That makes it legal to make one (at least) mix tape. Apparently it's illegal to make 1 million mix tapes, even if done for free. At what point does non-commercial activity become commercial?

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

P.S: I am no liberal but, fuck you and your little brain dead conservatives!

And fuck the guy who last calibrated your sarcasm detector. He doesn't know irony from his nuts, which are clearly stored between his ears. Like yours.

Re:Excellent

[cswiger]

Manipulating politicians (who as adults should know better) is one thing, but presenting false or misleading information to our children in the guise of factual instructional materials is especially contemptible.

I certainly agree with you, here. I just have a hard time squaring your concern about this matter with your .sig:

Would it help if I mentioned that I like Fox News and agree with most of what Sean Hannity says?

Maybe we should make sure that children avoid watching Fox? :-)

Re:Excellent

[CodeBuster]

the sig is supposed to be funny (sarcasm), but not enough people are getting the joke so I am thinking about changing it...

Re:Excellent

[r_jensen11]

He said "Conservative," not "Republican." Political parties can change philosophies, political spectrums not so much. Take, for instance, the Democrats and Republicans from the American Civil War era. The Republicans "wanted" to free slaves and promote individuals' rights while the Democrats wanted to hold onto slavery and promote the rights of plantation owners (AKA Big Business.) You don't even have to go back that far. A major shift for Democrats v. Republicans came when FDR became president, as well as JFK v. Nixon.

Re:Excellent

[gruntled]

Correct, except we're not talking about DVDs, which are typically encrypted, we're talking about music CDs, which typically are not. So the DMCA isn't a part of this conversation, nor does the RIAA typically rely on it when suing people.

Re:Excellent

[WasterDave]

Never any mod points when you need them, are there?

Re:Excellent

[gruntled]

The rule is "illegal" distribution isn't actionable -- assuming you're not actually selling the stuff -- unless you negatively impact the market for the original product. I can't give you a citation for this (apologies, it's my day off and I just can't bring myself to do any real work today) but as I recall the threshold at which some courts have entertained arguments that your distribution has negatively affected their market is five distributed copies. It's not hard and fast; it's more like the concept of using excerpts of someone else's written work in your own, which is protected under Fair Use; there's no formally defined threshold at which your use of a portion of copyrighted material crosses the line into unfair use; if somebody thinks you're using too much, they have to take you to court to find out what the judge thinks...

Re:Excellent

[gruntled]

If you give away enough of something that somebody else is trying to sell, you'll either depress the price of their product so significantly that they can't make a profit or eventually make it impossible for them to sell their product at all. At that point you're exposed under copyright law, regardless of the fact that you're not technically selling anything. Negatively impacting a market means you can be successfully sued.

Re:Excellent

[gruntled]

I'm repeating myself here, but someone's "non-commercial" activity has a commercial impact when they give away enough of someone else's product that the free distribution negatively affects sales.

Re:Excellent

[gruntled]

Umm, theoretically, but if that became a standard, I'm guessing they'd just adjust the threshold. However, one of the interesting aspects of this is currently it seems as though you can grab all the music you want without fear of retribution, so long as your client is configured to not let anybody do a download....

Re:Excellent

[dpilot]

I would say that malice toward conservatives is well-matched by malice toward liberals. In fact, it seems to me that with its early threads in Spiro Agnew's "radiclibs" label, reaching more open expression during the Reagan years, turning "liberal" into an Anti-American epithet and insult has reached its peak during the current administration. (Even Clinton was "somewhere to the right of" Nixon.)

Under this kind of treatment it's understandable that liberals would respond in kind. It's not the Christian thing to do, but it's understandable. Of course it's not the Christian thing to do to have made the attacks in the first place.

It's a pendulum, it swings back and forth, with a period measured in decades. I think in the past few years, it slammed the peg and is starting to fall the other way.

Some of us wish it wouldn't oscillate so hard, and bang the end-stops so violently.

Re:Excellent

[Attila Dimedici]

I asked for two, not one. I didn't hear the original quote,did you? in context? (I have a vague recollection of having come across the quote and that it seemed to be more aimed at users of drugs that are illegal than at people who misuse legal drugs, but that is a vague recollection, but that could be an incorrect recollection. He wasn't calling on me to change my behavior). More importantly has he been outspoken about all illegal drug users going to jail since he was caught abusing drugs? Al Gore still claims that greenhouse gases are the greatest threat to humanity and that all Americans must make great sacrifices to reduce them even after being shown to do more to generate greenhouse gases at ONE of his mansions each month than the average American does in a year (even going so far as to justify this behavior). My point was in reply to a poster who said that conservatives say "Do as I say, not as I do." The fact of the matter is that I can name more liberal elites who express this attitude publicly than I can conservative elites.

Re:Excellent

[jack_csk]

> This explains perfectly why rich people overlook other rich people's crimes.
Right, damn the California law enforcement for sending Paris Hilton to jail

Oh, and let's not forget Martha Stewart

Re:Excellent

[mrseth]

I asked for two, not one.

Ok here are a few from the top of my head:

• Newt Gingrich and his wives
• Gingrich signed a book deal with a $4.5 million advance while still Speaker; exactly what he used to stick it to Wright six years earlier.
• The Foley Page scandal
• Ted Haggard
• O'Reilly sex scandal
• Have some pedophiles
• How about cheating?

I didn't hear the original quote,did you? in context? (I have a vague recollection of having come across the quote and that it seemed to be more aimed at users of drugs that are illegal than at people who misuse legal drugs, but that is a vague recollection, but that could be an incorrect recollection.

Big fucking distinction...sheesh! Talk about a fig leaf of an excuse. The fact that he even rails on about "illegal" drugs goes to illustrate that he favors a nanny state. What happened to the "rugged individualist?" He and his kind are afraid of real freedom.

He wasn't calling on me to change my behavior). More importantly has he been outspoken about all illegal drug users going to jail since he was caught abusing drugs?

So even HE realized how hypocritical that would sound. Amazing.

Al Gore still claims that greenhouse gases are the greatest threat to humanity

Actually I think the Theocratic wing of the republican party is the greatest threat to humanity. Look what you folks have wrought upon the world. The ones responsible for this and their supporters should hang their heads in shame...if they had any. Or are they so blind they cannot even see this?

and that all Americans must make great sacrifices

I have not heard that. If you had a brain you'd realize that what Al Gore talks about is not being pig-headed with the Earth's resources. Is that such a fucking terrible idea? Is efficiency not a good thing? But I find that the most critical of Gore have never really bothered to see what he really thinks. They get their info from Mr. Megadittos and his ill informed, mendacious ilk.

to reduce them even after being shown to do more to generate greenhouse gases at ONE of his mansions each month than the average American does in a year (even going so far as to justify this behavior).

See how ill-informed you are? Al Gore pays extra costs per kilowatt hour because he uses green energy. He also runs two fully-staffed offices in his home. Just for giggles, care to guess how much Dick Cheney's electric bill is?

My point was in reply to a poster who said that conservatives say "Do as I say, not as I do." The fact of the matter is that I can name more liberal elites who express this attitude publicly than I can conservative elites.

Even if that is the case, most liberals I know, and I am one, think that consenting adults can do pretty much as they please. Liberals are not the ones moralizing. One more aside: I think liberals govern a fuck of a lot better than you right-tards. Liberals brought us the weekend, the powerlines to the red-state America, they did something about rivers in ohio that were catching on fire, and islands of heavy metals being poured into Lake Erie, they forced corporations to adopt safety standards (actually Nixon created the EPA. He is a liberal now?), and you know what else? Life is just better under Democratic administrations . This has been my experience overall. Furthermore, I have been around the world. I have been around the US. We could learn a lot from Europe, but folks like you cry socialism (but for some reason, you guys tend like the army and NFL, to very socialist-like organizations) and we learn nothing. Life is also better in liberal cities, I know this is subjective, but conservative places tend to be drab, cookie-cutter, conformist, christian communities devoid of cultur

Re:Excellent

[kage.j]

I'd mod you up if I had points, but I don't care that much! mrseth, we definitely could learn a lot from europe!

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

What kind of person would lie to entire country just so he can send thousands to thier death so he can make a profit

When did shrub ever make a profit? He just gets off on things getting killed. Back when he was kid blowing up toads and later when he was governor. I'm surprised nobody's researched labor accident rates on his pre-government projects.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

This response pwnd him so to speak. But why can you Americans never ever debate on policy. You always have throw mud. It's rediculous. There is scum everywhere. Here let me show you how it should go.

"Ej man, I think we should do this and that because it is good for that."

"No dawg, that is a really bad idea because then that and that will happen."

"Well let's ask some people that are scientists then."

"Ok good idea."

See it's not hard...

Re:Excellent

[mrseth]

I tried being nice. It does not work. Yelling and cursing does not work either, but at least it is cathartic.

Re:Excellent

[dgatwood]

Which is precisely what I said... well, minus the RIAA not using it.

Re:Excellent

[dgatwood]

I've never seen one with a record button, though. Therefore, it is not a recording device. That's reserved for CD audio recorders, which universally either A. don't have digital input or B. employ SCMS.

Re:Excellent

[misleb]

I asked for two, not one.

Well excuse me. I was just stating one example that came to mind. I'm sorry I didn't live up to your expectations. If you had read through my entire post you'd notice that I'm not particularly interested in making broad generalizations about personal integrity based on political views.

I didn't hear the original quote,did you? in context? (I have a vague recollection of having come across the quote and that it seemed to be more aimed at users of drugs that are illegal than at people who misuse legal drugs,

What's the difference? Oxycontin (Mr. Limaugh's drug of choice) isn't much different than heroin. They are both very strong opiates. Both have plenty of recreational value and both are very addictive.

but that is a vague recollection, but that could be an incorrect recollection. He wasn't calling on me to change my behavior)

Only because you are (presumably) not a drug user. Am I to understand that because the statement wasn't directed at you, personally, it doesn't count?

More importantly has he been outspoken about all illegal drug users going to jail since he was caught abusing drugs?

Honestly, I don't listen to the nut job. I wouldn't know. I would guess that he makes the (meaningless) distinction between the use illegal drugs vs. abuse of legal drugs.

Al Gore still claims that greenhouse gases are the greatest threat to humanity and that all Americans must make great sacrifices to reduce them even after being shown to do more to generate greenhouse gases at ONE of his mansions each month than the average American does in a year (even going so far as to justify this behavior). My point was in reply to a poster who said that conservatives say "Do as I say, not as I do." The fact of the matter is that I can name more liberal elites who express this attitude publicly than I can conservative elites.

Maybe because you're biased and spend more time/effort looking for liberal hypocrisy?

-matthew

Re:Excellent

[Attila Dimedici]

Yes, but I was able to name two off the top of my head (actually, I could have named two or three more off the top of my head), and you could only name one (which was arguably a different case, but I would have been willing to give it to you for the sake of discussion). My point was that conservatives generally stop listening to people who are demonstrated hypocrites, liberals seem to not care as long as the message is "right".

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

The DCMA doesn't outlaw circumvention, only the sale and distribution of circumvention devices.

Re:Excellent

[misleb]

Yes, but I was able to name two off the top of my head and you could only name one

Well good for you. Am I supposed to be impressed? I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in going tit for tat with you. It is pointless.

(which was arguably a different case, but I would have been willing to give it to you for the sake of discussion).

What discussion? You apparently just want to to have a political pissing contest: "See can name more political hypocrites."

My point was that conservatives generally stop listening to people who are demonstrated hypocrites

You demonstrated no such thing. You certainly didn't establish any generalizations. You merely gave two examples of liberals who are hypocrites after being "found out" (although Al Gore may be a bad example because AFAIK he pays extra for "green" energy and runs offices out of this "mansion."). You didn't give a single example of a conservative who was found to be a hypocrite and then lost influence. How can you possibly suggest that your point was made?

And as for Barbara Streisand... who the hell cares what she says?

-matthew

Re:Excellent

[Attila Dimedici]

A conservative who lost influence...Ted Haggard, Tom Foley (BTW, the Democrats knew about what he was doing for at least 6 months before bringing it out for the elections, and even then they wanted to wait another couple of months). As for Al Gore, he buys his electric from the same electric company as everyone else in Tennessee. He "buys" "carbon offsets". I used quotes on "buys", because he doesn't actually pay anything for them, it is a benefit he receives from the "carbon offset" company he has partial ownership of and works for. Of course that brings into question the whole concept of "carbon offsets". Oh yes, I'm sure those "offices" really need that pool house and pool. You demonstrate my point, Al Gore is rich, the rules don't apply to him. He can just spend more money and all his sins are forgiven.

Re:Excellent

[dgatwood]

You have been misinformed. 1201(a)(1)(A) says:

A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title. The prohibition contained in the preceding sentence shall take effect at the end of the 2-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this chapter.

It's not just distribution of circumvention tools that is illegal. The circumvention itself is illegal without written permission from the copyright holder with only a few very narrow exceptions (e.g. for reverse engineering of computer software to achieve interoperability).

Re:Excellent

[fucksl4shd0t]

They may use the word "distribution" in their filings, but they use "copying" in the PR campaign.

Re:Excellent

[gruntled]

I understand that there's a lot of misinformation out there, with much of it reinforced by those journalists who aren't able to describe the issues properly, but that's why I have these little chats :-).

Re:Excellent

[fucksl4shd0t]

Right, except that there are a number of studies that showed the RIAA labels made more money than they'd ever made before during the height of P2P sharing (Napster). Their first decline in sales, which was 30% decline and blamed on internet file sharing coincidentally accompanied a 30% reduction in produced records. There has been a continuing decline that's been credited with the RIAA tactics in their war, so they're shooting themselves in the foot. (And no, I'm not going to cite, you seem to be quite capable of digging this up yourself, and I'e already cited enough times to be completely bored with it)

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

GW Bush and his daughters are rich, because they are good, brave, and courageous No no no, you've got it all backwards - GW Bush and his daughters are good, brave, and courageous because they are rich. Not the other way around.

Bloody communists.

Government moved fast

[danbert8]

Nothing to see here AND two of the three links are dead... Fastest I've ever seen the US government react.

Re:Government moved fast

[MysteriousPreacher]

Better tell the guys at Gitmo to reserve a room for him.

Re:Government moved fast

[Nato_Uno]

Links should be:

http://thescrivener.blogspot.com/2007/06/copyright -is-dead.html
http://thescrivener.blogspot.com/2007/06/copyright -is-dead-part-2.html

Re:Government moved fast

[Nato_Uno]

Hold on - I think slashdot is b0rking them...

http://the_scrivener.blogspot.com/2007/ 06/copyright-is-dead.html
http://the_scrivener.bl ogspot.com/2007/06/copyright-is-dead-part-2.html

Yep, it is.  There should be an underscore between 'the' and 'scrivener'.  slashdot seems to be filtering that out for some reason, so I'm posting as "code" - you'll have to cut'n'paste links.

Re:Government moved fast

[Gription]

Links are still dead...

Re:Government moved fast

[Joebert]

Your reply is getting borked too, had to remove some spaces from the urls for them to work.

Re:Government moved fast

[kalirion]

Something in slashdot is getting rid of the underscore in the URL name. It should be

the_scrivener.blogspot.com/2007/06/copyright-is-de ad.html
the_scrivener.blogspot.com/2007/06/copyright-is-de ad-part-2.html

(seems it puts an extra space in 'dead' as well....)

Re:Government moved fast

[palewook]

nope those are broken also. submitted the story hours ago with the working links. http://surfdez.blogspot.com/2007/06/first-daughter s-are-pirates.html will get you there. i dont feel like logging in to edit,copy, and paste again.

Re:Government moved fast

[affordableweb]

That was pretty darn fast wasn't it? Kinda spooky no?

Re:Government moved fast

[cdoggyd]

Wrong sucka! http://thescrivener.blogspot.com/2007/06/copyright -is-dead.html http://thescrivener.blogspot.com/2007/06/copyright -is-dead-part-2.html BTW: this is the funniest thing I've ever seen on /.

Re:Government moved fast

[beej]

I don't believe underscore is a valid character in a domain. Interesting that it seems to generally work, though.

Re:Government moved fast

[aardvarkjoe]

From the article:

Let's assume twelve songs, copied from twelve different CDs.

Let's not. How about let's assume twelve songs, legally downloaded from an online music store and burned to a CD. Total damages: $0.

What a stupid article.

Re:Government moved fast

[jimicus]

Technically it isn't - BIND 9 won't let you have host names with underscores in unless you explicitly configure it as such, there's an RFC somewhere (I forget which one) and at least one BSD blocks then in gethostbyname().

Re:Government moved fast

[jamie]

Yeah. We wrote Slash to adhere to RFC 1035:

2.3.1. Preferred name syntax

...

<domain> ::= <subdomain> | " "
<subdomain> ::= <label> | <subdomain> "." <label>
<label> ::= <letter> [ [ <ldh-str> ] <let-dig> ]
<ldh-str> ::= <let-dig-hyp> | <let-dig-hyp> <ldh-str>
<let-dig-hyp> ::= <let-dig> | "-"
<let-dig> ::= <letter> | <digit>
<letter> ::= any one of the 52 alphabetic characters A through Z in upper case and a through z in lower case
<digit> ::= any one of the ten digits 0 through 9

However, pretty much everyone allows underscores in machine names now, so I'm patching Slash to allow it.

Re:Government moved fast

[MoFoQ]

Looks like escaping and URL Encoding the underscore doesn't work either (both as an "" tag and a slashdot "" and it seems to put in extra spaces on its own):
http://the_scrivener.blogspot.com/2007/06/copyrigh t-is-dead.html (<a href="http://the%5Fscrivener.blogspot.com/2007/06/ copyright-is-dead.html>http://the_scrivener.blogsp ot.com/2007/06/copyright-is-dead.html</a>)
http://thescrivener.blogspot.com/2007/06/copyright -is-dead-part-2.html (<url:http://the%5Fscrivener.blogspot.com/2007/06/ copyright-is-dead-part-2.html></url>)

But luckily, tinyurl works: http://tinyurl.com/2cocox and http://tinyurl.com/3ypwrz

Re:Government moved fast

[Wordplay]

Last time I surfed the domain name RFCs for my QA validation, I thought I recalled a relatively recent RFC that expanded domain naming out to any character (except, presumably, the dot separator).

I think it was http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc4343 though it could have been one of the internationalization RFCs

"However, the individual octets of which DNS names consist are not limited to valid ASCII character codes. They are 8-bit bytes, and all values are allowed. Many applications, however, interpret them as ASCII characters."

Before that, underscore was definitely not a valid character in domains.

Re:Government moved fast

[beej]

Damn... Now I feel dated. Maybe this is a holdover from the old days.

Re:Government moved fast

[arivanov]

Underscore is not an allowed character in DNS and used to be commonly used in some of the more primitive phishing setups a while ago. So not surprising it is being filtered. In fact it should.

Re:Government moved fast

[Anonymous Coward]

Underscores in a host name are not strictly valid, and they cause problems for some browsers (IE, for example).

Re:Government moved fast

[aichpvee]

"Legally" downloading a song and burn it to CD is exactly the same "legally" as buying a CD and burning a copy of a song on it. It's the distribution of it that would be illegal, not the burning to CD.

Your ability to understand simple concepts: 0%. Stupid poster.

Re:Government moved fast

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Don't be an idiot. When was the last time the links from a Slashdot article reliably, much less on Hawaiian shirt Friday?

Re:Government moved fast

[Nato_Uno]

Argh! B0rky b0rky b0rk b0rk b0rk...

Re:Government moved fast

[tshak]

I have some URL validating code that has this same issue. This is a historic moment: "Reading /. helps me find bugs in our code". :)

Re:Government moved fast

[adpowers]

It is also historic because he didn't say, "Create a patch and we'd be happy to commit it."

Re:Government moved fast

[LarsG]

You might want to relax the validation code a bit, since people don't always follow the standards. 3com.com, 3M.com, 31337.com, 53.com...

A quick google turned up rfc1912 which says:

      "Allowable characters in a label for a host name are only ASCII
      letters, digits, and the `-' character. Labels may not be all
      numbers, but may have a leading digit (e.g., 3com.com). Labels must
      end and begin only with a letter or digit. See [RFC 1035] and [RFC
      1123]. (Labels were initially restricted in [RFC 1035] to start with
      a letter, and some older hosts still reportedly have problems with
      the relaxation in [RFC 1123].) Note there are some Internet
      hostnames which violate this rule (411.org, 1776.com). The presence
      of underscores in a label is allowed in [RFC 1033], except [RFC 1033]
      is informational only and was not defining a standard."

I'm all for it

[drinkypoo]

As you know, whichever of your member organizations that are right[s]-holders for the copied musical works may be entitled to statutory damages of $150,000.00 per musical work copied.'"

After that, let's go for what's-his-sellout-bitch-ass from Metallica who admitted in an interview in the 90s making a mix take for a friend in the 80s. After the whole "napster bad" incident I lost what little respect I had for them after the black album, and would love to see them burn for their overall hypocrisy.

FIRE BAD!

Re:I'm all for it

[Kokuyo]

Does that mean you don't like them for the Black Album or for everything they produced afterwards?

While I seriously like their music I feel about the same amount of sympathy towards them as you do.

Re:I'm all for it

[Frigga's Ring]

Wow... that's a blast from the past. You magnificent bastard!

Re:I'm all for it

[Knara]

In general, the Black album was considered the last whimper of the original Metallica amongst a not insignificant number of old-school metal fans. While I don't see anything empirically wrong with wanting to cash in, they shouldn't be surprised that they've lost credibility amongst many of their fans who were listening since Kill'em All. Black was kind of a swerve in the musical road for Metallica but had some pretty decent tracks here and there, but everything after that album was less of a musical "evolution" (witness how Testament's music evolved, for example), than a concerted effort on their part with the help of a well-known radio-friendly commercial rock producer to make songs that were more palatable to record execs, radio playlist managers, and people who like their rock "not too heavy".

Re:I'm all for it

[turgid]

After that, let's go for what's-his-sellout-bitch-ass from Metallica who admitted in an interview in the 90s making a mix take for a friend in the 80s.

Now, I think Lars is a monkey as much as the next man, and that his band is a sell-out Country and Western outfit, but to be fair to him, he has made amends for his previous stance on the issue. Mrs. Turgid dragged me along to see the Some Kind of Monster film, and Lars quite clearly is ashamed of and sorry for the Napster thing.

Re:I'm all for it

[Anonymous Coward]

Mrs. Turgid dragged me

This is only the second time I've seen those four words used in that order. I must admit though, the first time was much more arousing.

Re:I'm all for it

[elrous0]

Black album was considered the last whimper of the original Metallica amongst a not insignificant number of old-school metal fans

I'm one of those fans. It's funny how decades are so arbitrary, yet have such a real world impact. It's like Metallica turned into pumpkins at midnight on December 31, 1989.

I'll still never forget listening to the black album for the first time. Songs with meaningless (and hence non-controversial) lyrics, songs cut to radio time, Bob Rock producing, and a BALLAD. Took it back to the store the same day. OF all the bands I thought would NEVER sell-out, Metallica was at the top of the list. This was a band that refused to even make a video throughout most of the 80's.

Re:I'm all for it

[drinkypoo]

Now, I think Lars is a monkey as much as the next man, and that his band is a sell-out Country and Western outfit, but to be fair to him, he has made amends for his previous stance on the issue.

"Fair" would be to get into the eye of the media again, tell us who told them to say that shit, and retract it, since it's obvious hypocrisy.

"Fair" would be to determine their percentage contribution to the RIAA's FUD, and for them to pay that percentage of the awards won by the RIAA against people who should never have been busted. Fair would be for them to pay for every copyright violation they have ever engaged in throughout their entire lives.

When they can undo the suffering they have caused by being the RIAA's hand puppets, THEN I will consider forgiveness.

Or, you know, if they tried.

Re:I'm all for it

[Anonymous Coward]

Good grief, get over yourself.

There's nothing worse than a band that stagnates and produces the same thing over and over. Everyone changes, why can't bands?
You're free to not like the changes, but accusing them of "selling out" is just silly.

Personally, I like the black album, and even parts of Load, but lost interest after that.
But if you really want to see the point at which they changed, then compare the energy of Master of Puppets with the lifeless mechanical regurgitation of ...and Justice For All.
THAT is why they produced the Black album and started changing their style - they got stale.

Re:I'm all for it

[Anonymous Coward]

Well played.
drinkypoo: 1 Lars Ulrich of Metallica: 38734623746374387

They control the Internet!

[PinkPanther]

WTF? Blog pulled already??

[Searching for tinfoil, a wire hanger and some crazy glue (or duct tape)]

Re:They control the Internet!

[Anonymous Coward]

The summary here says that an independent lawyer suggested that the RIAA investigate the Bush twins, not that the RIAA is actually doing it.

Well, it's possible this lawyer doesn't like the RIAA, and wants them to go after the Bush twins for the combination of bad press and rift it will create in the minds of politicians. Some might think, "If they're going to go after the President's daughters, what's going to stop them from going after my kids too?" and withdraw support. That would be too perfect. Unfortunately, the RIAA probably has more brains than to ruffle the feathers of their primary support group, the ones who can actually make their big witch hunt easier.

this is WONDERFUL!

[phrostie]

now the politians can start to see this "Richards" for what they are

Capone and taxes

[SoupGuru]

It would be funny if the House of Bush got taken down by a CD-R and a copyright violation. After all, Al Capone got nabbed on tax fraud.

Re:Capone and taxes

[Serapth]

How dare you compare Bush to Capone!

I mean Capone was a killer criminal, while Bush is...

Oh wait, nevermind.

Re:Capone and taxes

[pjabardo]

And remember, copying a CD is much worse offense than tax fraud!!!

Re:Capone and taxes

[Anonymous Coward]

C'mon... at least Capone was organised...

Re:Capone and taxes

[Anonymous Coward]

RIAA, say hello to Gitmo.

Re:Capone and taxes

[BosstonesOwn]

And Cheney isn't ?

Oh never mind , you though Bush was run...

Re:Capone and taxes

[jedidiah]

C'mon... at least Capone was competent.

He was probably more charasmatic too.

Re:Capone and taxes

[bitRAKE]

Clearly there is bad Bush - wasn't it syphilis that got Capone.

Must be a slow news day...

[Lookin4Trouble]

There is a common practice in law these days called "selective prosecution"...

While it would be amusing to see the Bushie twins dragged through a legal battle and would be a real "Nobody's safe" kinda PR for RIAA Member Companies, I doubt they would take the idea seriously unless those two got the tracks off Kazaa or some such shady means.

Re:Must be a slow news day...

[DM9290]

"There is a common practice in law these days called "selective prosecution"..."

You make it sound like this practice is considered legitimate by the Courts. In fact, if you can show evidence that you are being arbitrarily prosecuted and there isn't a legitimate justification, it is grounds in some courts, to have the entire proceedings Stayed as an 'abuse of process'. You must be harmed to bring a civil action. If you have no problem allowing others to infringe on your copyright, then there is reasonable grounds to believe it isn't really a harm. Under English Common law the Court has the power and responsibility to prevent any abuse of the judicial system. Treating individual offenders differently simply because they are a celebrity or politician or the President's daughter (etc) is such an abuse. In fact, not prosecuting the President's daughter may almost be seen as some kind of a bribe or attempt to improperly influence the Executive Branch.

A plaintiff with limited resources is justified in selectively prosecuting simply because they can't possibly go after everyone at once so have to choose their battles. This is not considered arbitrary, but it is a rational, and necessary evil. But the RIAA can hardly claim they lack the resources to prosecute the President's daughter when they are going after John Doe's, who for all they know, are dead broke.

Now perhaps this selective prosecution takes place behind the scenes where no one is looking. (I think we all know it does). But the courts have no power over what happens outside the court room where there is no evidence. It falls upon witnesses to bring evidence forward.

In this case there is evidence. The president himself has publically stated his daughter is guilty of making and distributing pirate music CD. I think that is actually a criminal offense now, is it not?

Re:Must be a slow news day...

[Anonymous Coward]

I would select to not prosecute the presidents daughters if I wanted to get those bills I have been lobbying for ratified.

Re:Must be a slow news day...

[hotdiggitydawg]

But the RIAA can hardly claim they lack the resources to prosecute the President's daughter when they are going after John Doe's, who for all they know, are dead broke. Is it just me, or is the final word in that sentence superfluous?

Re:Must be a slow news day...

[Anonymous Coward]

"... I doubt they would take the idea seriously unless those two got the tracks off Kazaa or some such shady means."

And, of course, how would the RIAA know one way or the other? Maybe the twins already own the relevant tracks on plain old CD, or maybe they bought them from iTunes, right?

A) Of course, the same could be true for any of the people the RIAA has sued for downloading tracks from p2p sites (maybe they already own the relevant CDs). That did not stop them from suing anyway on the assumption all the tracks were illegally obtained;
B) by some interpretations of copyright, the kids were fine (fair use to make a mix CD from tracks they purchased for their own use), but some RIAA interpretations claim doing that is illegal;
C) Once they handed that CD to someone else (Bush), all pretenses of a legal activity are clearly gone. They have became distributors of illegally copied, copyrighted materials, and face potentially enormous fines unless they happened to have purchased all those tracks specifically for the gift to their Dad.

People get all uppity about warrantless wiretaps, secret prisons, war under false pretenses, and torture, but this is a whole new level. Now Bush is facing COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT charges! He's receiving "stolen" goods from his own children. He may as well put a patch over one eye and start talking like a pirate.

The whole episode is especially bad given that we've all heard how serious copyright infringement is compared to other criminal activities, such as bank robbery. What kind of example are they setting?!

Face it. Neither Bush nor his children should be above the law.

Re:Must be a slow news day...

[Lookin4Trouble]

Mod parent (not the OP, which is me) up - This is a thorough and cohesive explanation of what I was trying to cram into a single sentence in my OP. Thanks DM9290, I lack for words today it seems.

Re:Must be a slow news day...

[WrongMonkey]

IANAL, but isn't 'selective prosecution' is usually an issue in criminal courts, not civil. I can't see how it could possibly apply to civil cases because then you have to sue EVERYONE that causes you harm or else the one time that you did sue it would be thrown out as selective prosecution.

Re:Must be a slow news day...

[Lookin4Trouble]

IANAL, but isn't 'selective prosecution' is usually an issue in criminal courts, not civil. I can't see how it could possibly apply to civil cases because then you have to sue EVERYONE that causes you harm or else the one time that you did sue it would be thrown out as selective prosecution.

But if you can show a certain demographic of those you _could_ sue are getting away with a civil infringement, is this not the very definition of selective litigation?

I submit to you - and perhaps even to an "Ask Slashdot" (yes, I know - people seem to think this is useless at worst and circle-jerking at best) the following:

The member companies of the RIAA and their affiliates are well-known for massive litigation (see cases where discovery is done against Does 1-41, Does 1-36, etc...). When hard evidence comes up that a Record Executive's child escaped litigation by taking a stern talking-to, and the president's daughter gets off without even as much, what kind of example is being set, and should this issue be brought up in further cases (handled by NewYorkCountryLawyer, et. al.)?

Of course, a real submission would have a ton of links (cases v. Doe 1-XX, this story, the record exec's son's story, etc...)

Re:Must be a slow news day...

[DM9290]

"IANAL, but isn't 'selective prosecution' is usually an issue in criminal courts, not civil. I can't see how it could possibly apply to civil cases because then you have to sue EVERYONE that causes you harm or else the one time that you did sue it would be thrown out as selective prosecution."

There are many legitimate reasons someone may need to sue 1 party and not another. In most cases private parties have such a legitimate reason. However since the RIAA goes on massive John Doe campaigns.. it would be hard for them to explain why they allow the Bush's the violate the law.

If the law itself is enforced in an arbitrary and capricious manner, the courts can rule the entire law itself unenforcible. which the RIAA wants to avoid. I am not sure, but I can't see what difference it makes if the plaintiff is the people or a private party.

Justice is not supposed to play favoritism. if it did.. well. lets not go there.

Inflation or greed?

[itlurksbeneath]

1.8 million dollars in damages for a 18 dollar CD? Methinks the lawyers calculators have too many places on the left side of the decimal place.

Re:Inflation or greed?

[southpolesammy]

$1.8M in potential damages
$150k/song

That comes out to 12 songs. Sounds about right (mathematically speaking, that is.....).

Re:Inflation or greed?

[slackmaster2000]

This is a political statement. A sort of motivated joke.

Re:Inflation or greed?

[OrangeTide]

1.8million dollars is apparently how much money the RIAA loses when you pirate a CD. I'm guessing they only catch 1 in 100,000 people, so the one chump has to make up for those 99,999 other people. or at least that seems like how the math is supposed to play out, of course it's insane.

Re:Inflation or greed?

[slashbob22]

No, that's 12 tracks at RIAA's going rate of $150,000. Methinks that RIAA has a decimal place on the left side of their collective IQ.

Re:Inflation or greed?

[MontyApollo]

>>...RIAA's going rate of $150,000

I believe $150K is the statutory damages written into US copyright law for each infringment.

If you don't register a copyright within a limited time period after publishing, then you can't recover statutory damages, just actual damages.

Re:Inflation or greed?

[gbobeck]

1.8 million dollars in damages for a 18 dollar CD? Methinks the lawyers calculators have too many places on the left side of the decimal place.

Actually, this is very reasonable. Solid gold swimming pools filled with imported water from a sacred underground spring cost money after all. Gotta keep the poor defenseless lawyers in mind.

Re:Inflation or greed?

[smchris]

It's the distribution. Think of how many copies her father will make for the secret service agents who have to ride bike with him. And the copies they will make. And then every Republican will want a copy. $1.8 million sounds low. This could really cut into Jenna's allowance.

Re:Inflation or greed?

[slashbob22]

Thanks for the clarification.

Re:Inflation or greed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Eh, potential damage? Shouldn't any procecution based on factually proven damage in a system where the accused is innocent until proven guilty? Or is this just a property of a civil case?

It would be funny to speculate like this: since everyone is a potential killer in proper circumstances, let us punish everyone for a possible future murder today!

Re:Inflation or greed?

[gluechucker]

That being the case, if only everyone could just get start getting caught at once. When they catch 1 in 2 people, you pay double for a CD if you get caught pirating it.... that's a reasonable gamble, free or double price, and they get their money out of it. Who knows, it could be fun.

Re:Inflation or greed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds right compared to tens of millions of dollars for a freaking pair of pants. Why is it that you people can't see through this? Lawyers getting richer, the rest of us getting poorer. Same as always.

Where is TFA

[jeffmeden]

The two blog posts are missing in action, and the first linked story just mentions 'a cd was made for him to exercise to' making no claim that the songs were even copyrighted, or that if they were there was no permission to copy them. Also, when twins do something, who takes the blame for it? Do they have to split the $1.8M fine? So many unanswered questions...

Re:Where is TFA

[Lookin4Trouble]

"making no claim that the songs were even copyrighted(sic)

Somehow I doubt Dubya is listening to Beethoven's 5th in D-Minor.

Re:Where is TFA

[jd142]

Even if he is listening to Beethoven, the individual performance of the piece is copyrighted.

Re:Where is TFA

[Volante3192]

Just because the notes aren't copyrighted, that doesn't mean the specific performance is. I could make a recording of me playing the 5th and distribute it how I see fit. However, if I made an mp3 of the Boston Pops playing the same piece, that still falls under a copyright violation.

Hit that

[Anonymous Coward]

I would totally hit that.

Re:Hit that

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. He's pretty hot, isn't he?

Re:Hit that

[Cheapy]

You take the one on the left. I'll take the one on the right. Be sure to "hit" yours hard.

Re:Hit that

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll probably be getting a visit from the Secret Service now :)

Re:Hit that

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the president of the United States! What's wrong with you!?

Re:Hit that

[cmorriss]

I'd hit that so hard whoever pulled me out would become the king of England.

Re:Hit that

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm saluting the president!

Re:Hit that

[Anonymous Coward]

If these nieces are as stupid as big Bush, I don't know why I didn't study in their school.

Re:Hit that

[Cheapy]

Yea, I realized that. Oh well, everyone should get a full cavity search now and then...

Re:Bush twins

[deadstatue]

its not about hating bush,its that he posseses the illegal music.nuf said.

Re:Bush twins

[Jafafa Hots]

Um... get real. The person is obviously more pissed at the RIAA than anyone, and just trying to point out that there is a privileged class in this country that the RIAA doesn't go after.

Funny but nothing new

[doombringerltx]

This is like a while back President Bush said he had the Beatles on his iPod, when there was no legal way to get them on there. Sure, It's funny, but thats this isn't gonna change anyone's minds and there is no way the RIAA is gonna after him. Policians and celebrities don't have to play by the same rules as you and I, whats new?

Re:Funny but nothing new

[mrscorpio]

No legal way other than buying the CD and ripping an mp3 for yourself, you mean? Because that falls under "fair use" which is still law for a little while longer, last I checked.

Re:Funny but nothing new

[johnny cashed]

I thought it would be legal to make mp3 copies of your purchased Beatles CD for the purpose of putting it on one's ipod. Am I wrong?

Re:Funny but nothing new

[doombringerltx]

I screwed that up. I just double checked it. A while back the RIAA was claiming at one point that ripping CDs isn't fair use. So it should have been "according to the RIAA there was no legal way to get them there."

Re:Funny but nothing new

[OrangeTide]

If it were illegal to rip CDs for personal use then I guess iTunes and WMP would be DMCA violations, having aided you in your evil copyright violation schemes.

Re:Funny but nothing new

[HTH NE1]

This is like a while back President Bush said he had the Beatles on his iPod, when there was no legal way to get them on there. Sure, It's funny, but thats this isn't gonna change anyone's minds and there is no way the RIAA is gonna after him.

And, if the RIAA didn't go after him. then it would be up to Sony and Michael Jackson to do it (who have 50-50 ownership of the Beatles back catalog since ATV merged with Sony).

Then there's that pesky immunity while in office. Maybe after he's out.

Re:Funny but nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

It would still be legal to play the music over an analog output (such as a stereo-out from your CD player) and input that to a recording device (such as your line-in on your computer). Luckily we will almost certainly always retain that right (though the VCR debacle makes even that a dubious assertion.)

Re:Funny but nothing new

[_Hiro_]

Except didn't Jackson sell off his ownership of said to pay for legal fees a few years ago?

Re:Funny but nothing new

[_KiTA_]

This is like a while back President Bush said he had the Beatles on his iPod, when there was no legal way to get them on there. Sure, It's funny, but thats this isn't gonna change anyone's minds and there is no way the RIAA is gonna after him. Policians and celebrities don't have to play by the same rules as you and I, whats new?


You can still rip your own CDs. That's format shifting, and is a protected consumer right, no matter what the RIAA would like to convince us otherwise.

Re:Funny but nothing new

[HTH NE1]

I read rumors, but nothing confirmed. And I think snopes would update their page with that point if true.

Re:Funny but nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

The Beatles? Really?

Damnit, the more I see him as a "regular guy", the more I hate him. He's killed thousands to maintain his lifestyle of constant fun. Fuck him.

Re:Funny but nothing new

[Grishnakh]

Nope, as already pointed out, it's not "fair use" according to the RIAA. And what's "legal" isn't defined by any laws in this wacky country, it's the outcome of a court case. So if you think it's legal, you basically have to challenge the RIAA's lawyers to a court case and win it. Do you have the $$$ for that?

Re:Funny but nothing new

[Mockylock]

You and I wouldn't have to pay 1.8 million dollars, even if we distributed 50,000 songs across the web, or even sold 100 copied CD's.

So... how are they getting treated fair again?

Re:Funny but nothing new

[Anonymous Coward]

He actually meant he had beetles in his iPod. Have you ever been to his ranch? Ick.

Missing data?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

The blog postings seem to be missing, and I can't figure out how he reached a number as low as $1.8 million. If we assume an average of 5 minutes per song, and an 80 minute CDR, that comes to 16 tracks, which at $150,000/track comes to $2.4 million.

Re:Missing data?

[DNeoMatrix]

Who said the CD was full?

Re:Missing data?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Exactly right- which is why I said missing data. The one article we CAN get to only says there was a CD, not how many tracks there were or the length of said tracks. But this is equal opportunity missing information- for the person who wrote the article summary also has no clue how many tracks there are; I'm just stating that $1.8 million seems rather LOWBALL given the other numbers.

Re:Missing data?

[DNeoMatrix]

Yeah, we're missing tons of info on this subject, someone needs to find out where all the links went and what's going on

Re:Bush twins

[cbreaker]

Dumbass. It's got nothing to do with hating President Bush, and everything to do with showing everyone how stupid the RIAA is and how awful they've been to their own customers.

The Bush part is just a bonus.

Re:Bush twins

[Bigby]

It's not about hated their dad. It is about whether the RIAA is selectively enforcing their copyrights; and the Bush twins are high profile collateral damage. I don't know about copyrights, but if you know someone is infringing on your trademark and you do nothing about it, you lose that trademark. The lawyer is letting them know about an infringement of copyright.

I'm all for seeing Jenna and Tonic punished, but..

[T_ConX]

...isn't this what we do ALL THE TIME? Downloading Music?

Or do we just want to see the RIAA back down because they don't want to pick a fight with people who have better legal resources...

Page Not Found

[mytrip]

Oh my. This is hillarious. Get them off to dubai with the haliburton execs to avoid prosecution.

Re:Page not found

[SnowNinja]

Maybe it's time for a name change.. are they really all that secret if they have a website?

Re:Bush twins

[bill_mcgonigle]

Oh, great! Go after kids because you hate their Dad. Sad.

It has nothing to do with their Dad - it has to do with their visibility, due to their dad's station in life. If this were 10 years ago, he'd make the case against Chelsea Clinton.

It's about:

• media attention
• pointing out the absurd damages the RIAA claims
• pointing out that they don't go after those who are likely to be able to defend themselves

This guy's on our side.

I'm curious - if the RIAA decides not to prosecute, does this somehow weaken their future cases or set them up for government sanction? (I know, copyrights aren't trademarks).

Re:Bush twins

[Fujisawa Sensei]

So you're saying that 2 girls who share music and are reported to the RIAA should not be because of their dad?

They've been caught and reported, why shouldn't they be victimized like the rest of us?

Awesome!

[Howitzer86]

This is so awesome! You know politicians typically bend the laws in their favor - Bush is certainly no exception to THAT.

I hope the RIAA attacks him and I hope that this forces Bush to fight the RIAA.

That wouldn't be enough for forgive him for everything he's done, but it could be a start.

Also, I'm getting a "page not found" from the Blogger links. Perhaps he was silenced?

Re:Awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope the RIAA attacks him and I hope that this forces Bush to fight the RIAA.

You can hope all you want, buddy - it ain't going to happen. The Bush's are above the law.

Re:Bush twins

[sricetx]

Copyright and trademark are entirely different things. IANAL but I'm quite certain that at least in the USA you cannot lose copyright by not prosecuting cases of infringement. Trademark on the other hand, can be lost if it isn't "protected".

RIAA vs Bush

[JeanBaptiste]

who in the hell do you pull for in this one?

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[CantStopDancing]

come on, it's like nude-female jello wrestling - you just hope it goes the distance.

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[Anonymous Cowpat]

Bush - he's gone in 2 years anyway, and if he spends those 2 years annihilating the RIAA, that's a win for us.

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[Marc Desrochers]

I'd say Bush. If he fight the RIAA and wins, it sets a precedent. Anyone citing Pres Bush vs RIAA in the future has a pretty good shot in the future, no?

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[darjen]

One could only hope they would both somehow lose.

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[Lurker2288]

I think this falls under the 'Aliens versus Predator' precept. "Whoever wins...we lose."

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

You hope for the typical Samurai scene where the combatants stab each other simultaneously and both perish.

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[Joebert]

Thankyou for ruining Jello wrestling for me.

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you read history? Jar-Jar Binks' gonna call for emergency executive powers. He's not going down until Death Star #2.

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[coren2000]

I'd vote for a nice freshly washed and trim bush.

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[markbt73]

Easy - Tell Bush that the RIAA funds terr'rists.

(but let me move out of Los Angeles first.)

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[nomadic]

come on, it's like nude-female jello wrestling - you just hope it goes the distance.

That's the greatest analogy I've ever heard in my life.

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[Anonymous Coward]

nude-female jello wrestling

That sounds so clinical. How about naked-bitch jello wrestling ?

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[bjorniac]

True, but if the RIAA wins it shafts a President, which is also good...

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[roman_mir]

Someone quickly tell Bush that RIAA is a terrorist organization that has in its possession weapons of mass destruction (copyright to all the boy and girl bands,) and they control access to an important commodity that is sort of like oil. Judging from his past performance it should not take more than one trillion dollars to decimate RIAA and turn it onto itself.

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[GodfatherofSoul]

If you've been following the progress of the current Congressional investigations, he's going to be spending his time dodging and fighting impeachment.

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[Fireflymantis]

And also, quite possibly, the first ever apt analogy ever seen on /. !

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[RealGrouchy]

who in the hell do you pull for in this one? Ummm... Microsoft?

- RG>

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[Danse]

If you've been following the progress of the current Congressional investigations, he's going to be spending his time dodging and fighting impeachment.

Impeachment?! Dream on. We'll never see the day that he gets impeached. The democrats have already shown that they have no spine, and the republicans are too worried about keeping their balance on the fence to actually do anything about the incompetent leadership of the Bush administration.

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[JM78]

Doesn't matter.

Scenario 1: The RIAA attempts to sue the President or his daughters. The power of his political position along with his lawyers completely dismantles the RIAA's claims and creates precedent powerful enough to stall just about any suit of a similar nature against any other American citizen.

Scenario 2: The RIAA doesn't attempt to sue the President or his daughters. The simple act of not doing so creates arguments defendants of an RIAA suit can use claiming discrimination due to their societal, political and/or economic status. The RIAA is selectively choosing to only go after certain citizens because they feel they have a better chance at extortion.

Scenario 3 (which is currently on the table it seems): The RIAA get the lawyer to retract his claims but because it has already been reported to the national press there is defendant argument available which could claim Scenario 2 and has the potential for the defendant to pursue discovery against the lawyer who made the claim originally as well as his source of information regarding the Bush's alleged act making it a potential can-of-worms for the RIAA (if said discovery were to be granted).

Here's to dreaming of a world without the RIAA...

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[Fear the Clam]

Annihilating the RIAA? You bet.

Judging by his past record, I'm sure Bush will do a heck of a job.

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[martin-boundary]

Well, with the prez's executive powers, it's easy to know who wins in this case. Dubbya to RIAA: "Oops, pardon me!"

Re:RIAA vs Bush

[spamrat]

So.., we just wait for the next time At&t gets split up again?

Regular CD or MP3 CD?

[ArcadeNut]

I didn't RTFA, but what if it wasn't a regular CD? What if it was an MP3 CD? Imagine what the "Damages" would be then! If they could cram 1500 songs on a CD, it would be $225,000,000.00 in damages! Seems fair to me....

Re:Regular CD or MP3 CD?

[TrancePhreak]

At .5MB per song, those are some pretty crappy MP3's.

Re:Regular CD or MP3 CD?

[TobyRush]

I didn't RTFA, but what if it wasn't a regular CD? What if it was an MP3 CD?
Uh, this is Dubya we're talking about. He probably had the CD up to his ear before one of his entourage put it in a discman for him.

kdawson lost my pants...

[Anonymous Coward]

...when he should have been editing a trollish article.

I want 45 million for pain & suffering & misspelling & dupes.

Great story!

[cashman73]

If there ever was a slashdot story/thread that would make the RIAA look like the, "good guys," ... yup, them going after President Bush,... that would do it! :-)

Re:Great story!

[Asic Eng]

Actually it's a win-win. If the RIAA sues Bush, and he then fights back - the approval rates of both sides will go up!

Re:Great story!

[Anonymous Coward]

I approve of any story that has the words "bush", "daughters", and "probe" in it at the same time.

Page not found

[lexsco]

Wow !

The http://www.secretservice.gov/ is really quick to protect the President.

Is this the case?

[91degrees]

I'm sure the RIAA doesn't have any major problems with Mix-tapes, and have usually tolerated peopel giving these away. It's indiscriminate sharing of large numbers of files on P2P networks they sue over and the Bush Twins haven't been doing that.

Re:Is this the case?

[edschurr]

I don't think this is even illegal. The RIAA website says "Record companies have never objected to someone making a copy of a CD for their own personal use." They also say you can't copy CDs to people. However, Music United, whom RIAA links to, says "It's also okay to copy music onto special Audio CD-R's, mini-discs, and digital tapes (because royalties have been paid on them)". Neither goes into much detail. But if you paid the royalties presumably you can legally give away a "mix-tape" audio CD-R.

Re:Is this the case?

[palewook]

urm, really? you might want to check into that. riaa has been rather specific about if its illegal, its illegal. wanna guess what copyrighted music on a non-commercial cd is?

Re:Is this the case?

[Anonymous Coward]

urm, really? you might want to check into that. riaa has been rather specific about if its illegal, its illegal. wanna guess what copyrighted music on a non-commercial cd is?

Mix tapes & CDs are usually pretty much legal under the Audio Home Recording Act.

Re:Is this the case?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://politics.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/ 19/0744236

Looks like they have a very major problem with mix tapes.

Re:Is this the case?

[91degrees]

I think they see a difference between large scale distribution and giving a single mix tape.

And in later news

[Bearhouse]

The lawyer in question was found to be 'unreachable', although he did leave a forwarding address....in Cuba.

Re:And in later news

[micromuncher]

Hey, the Americans have a toehold on Cuba - its called Gitmo. And the Cubans have a toehold on the US - its called Miami.

Re:And in later news

[Anonymous Coward]

And the Bush twins have a toe hold on the US.. Camel.

Re:Bush twins

[Anonymous Coward]

Every single fucking discussion, this question comes up and it's been pointed over and over again that copyright does not work this way. Please try to read this site once in a while and you might learn a thing or two.

Re:Bush twins

[Elemenope]

Copyrights don't work the same as trademarks in that they do not require an active defense to continue operating. But from a moral/political point of view, it is wrong/unwise for the **IA to be selective in their pursuits of 'violators' of their clients' copyrighted works, and doubly so in the public eye (as public officials are "role models", and also a generally privileged class).

Made a CD

[42Penguins]

Where in the Herald article does it say they used RIAA-owned music in this CD?
Is it impossible that one or both of them knows a local musician who thought "Oh, cool! The president will hear my music!" and authorized the copy?

Sounds like this guy is trying a wee bit too hard for publicity.

Re:Made a CD

[jellie]

That thought hasn't stopped the RIAA from suing others. Isn't that what their "John Doe" lawsuits and ex parte motions are for? To use the legal system for discovery... If there's the possibility that infringement has occurred, the RIAA will take action - even if the evidence shows the defendents are innocent.

Re:Made a CD

[HTH NE1]

Where in the Herald article does it say they used RIAA-owned music in this CD?

That hasn't stopped them for demanding the collection of royalty payments for unsigned artists being played on podcasts.

Sure thing...

[jseeley]

...and they'll send out the supoena via flying pig...

Re:Sure thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

won't the white house shoot those down?

Re:Wow.

[i.r.id10t]

it was on fark.com earlier... and probably digg, boingboing, etc.

Thecorrect URL is:

[Anonymous Coward]

http://thescrivener.blogspot.com/2007/06/copyright -is-dead.html

Re:Thecorrect URL is:

[Cocoronixx]

The URLs you posted, as well as others in this discussion AND in the summary are all dead. If you go to the guy's main blog page http://thescrivener.blogspot.com/ the article doesn't even show up in his archive. I believe it is safe to say the post has been pulled.

The songs may not be from RIAA artists

[boguslinks]

The attention-whore Florida attorney seems to have made the assumption that the songs were from RIAA labels, and of course here on Slashdot we love to point out that not every song on the face of the earth is under RIAA jurisdiction. The CD may be composed of recordings of the beloved "local bands" I alway hear about. I would verify this if the damn links in the article worked.

Re:The songs may not be from RIAA artists

[sulfur_lad]

The attention-whore Florida attorney

Meh, attention-whore or not, you have to appreciate the comedy behind the intent of the letter, as well as the not-so-subtle socio-political statement. "Dear world, we protect sociopathic businesses over here, sweet!"

What a CRAPPY Gift

[madsheep]

So these are the daughter's of the president and their gift to him is a home made mix CD? Looks like someone forgot about Father's Day and had to think fast! In any event, while most the links are dead, how do we even know what was on the CD? Who said the music on it was actually copyrighted?

Re:What a CRAPPY Gift

[bigbigbison]

On the other hand, their dad is the President. What could you give him that he didn't already have access to?

Re:What a CRAPPY Gift

[spun]

On the other hand, their dad is the President. What could you give him that he didn't already have access to? A conscience? Honor? Integrity? A coupon for some plastic surgery to tone down those big flappy ears?

Re:What a CRAPPY Gift

[93,000]

Picture books. Lots and lots of picture books.

Re:What a CRAPPY Gift

[hardburn]

And according to the article, Laura got him a bunch of ties.

Re:What a CRAPPY Gift

[MarkGriz]

"So these are the daughter's of the president and their gift to him is a home made mix CD?"

They also gave him a Fathers Day coupon:

  "This coupon entitles Dad to one full day without embarrassing drunken photos of his daughter(s)"

Re:What a CRAPPY Gift

[iso-cop]

Who said the music on it was actually copyrighted?

Exactly! And even if the music is copyrighted there is no evidence of illegality. Can't I go to my favorite music service, pay for and download songs, burn them to CD and delete them off of my computer? Can't I buy a bunch of CDs rip the songs I want, compile a mix CD, and pitch the originals in the trash? So long as the artists get paid and credited as the originator...what am I missing here?

Re:What a CRAPPY Gift

[*weasel]

Who said the music on it was actually copyrighted?

Art is covered under copyright the moment it is fixed into a given form. You don't have to register a work for copyright to be in effect. The second it is fixed, copyright is in effect. Ergo, recorded music is always copyrighted.

If the twin(s) didn't have express consent to redistribute from every rightsholder for every track it's (technically) illegal. It's possible they recorded those songs themselves or had express consent, it's just highly unlikely.

And the RIAA never gives their 'targets' the benefit of the doubt. They threaten and sue long before they have any actual evidence.

Re:What a CRAPPY Gift

[Anonymous Coward]

What would have made a good gift? Something not homemade? Something he could have pulled off a retail rack at a mall in three seconds himself?

Re:What a CRAPPY Gift

[*weasel]

You sure can. You don't even have to pitch the original discs.

But you can't give that fix disc to someone else as a gift.
Unless you deprive yourself of the originals, you've made a copy and distributed it.

Re:What a CRAPPY Gift

[zCyl]

"This coupon entitles Dad to one full day without embarrassing drunken photos of his daughter(s)" *

* Blackout dates may apply.

Re:What a CRAPPY Gift

[sircastor]

Part this has to do with rules that come with being in Government. There are limits to the value/cost of an item that you can give someone like the President.

Re:Bush twins

[Elemenope]

I'm curious - if the RIAA decides not to prosecute, does this somehow weaken their future cases or set them up for government sanction? (I know, copyrights aren't trademarks).

Maybe not under the law, but certainly in the public eye. The continued behavior of the **IAs requires legislative support for their preferred notion of how copyrights ought to work; if people get actively pissed off enough (and seeing el presidente and spawn get away with something that they can't is sure to do just that) the legislative support (and the favorable laws that accompany it) may evaporate. Of course, targeting politicans' daughters may make it evaporate as well. Oh well, guess they are screwed. If, you know, the media reported on media matters so that anyone would ever know about what is going on. Which will roughly be never. Hmm. I guess they aren't screwed after all.

Obligatory Simpson Quote

[geantvert]

Ha Ha!

BS argument

[Anonymous Coward]

Name one case the RIAA has prosecuted involving 1 burned CD given to only one person. There is a difference between burning a CD, and sharing a song on a p2p network.

Re:Bush twins

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, mostly because there is 0 evidence against them? A completely random lawyer reported that they committed a crime, so you automatically assume that they're guilty, just because you don't like their dad? How would that lawyer know whether the CD ever actually existed? Or whether the music on it was copyrighted? Or whether they had permission to distribute that copyrighted material?

This has nothing to do with being treated "like the rest of us", because the RIAA has never prosecuted someone for this before. They prosecute people who they can prove illegally distributed music-- not people "reported" by random sources with 0 credibility.

Working link from boingboing

[smalgin]

http://thescrivener.blogspot.com/2007/06/copyright -is-dead.html

2 words....

[jellomizer]

Presidential Pardon

Re:2 words....

[Anonymous Coward]

don't believe the president can pardon you in a civil case.

Re:2 words....

[Frenchman113]

Actually, the president is explicitly forbidden from pardoning himself. If he could, that would mean he'd be able to do anything and everything.

Re:2 words....

[jellomizer]

He can Pardon his daughters.

Re:2 words....

[Frenchman113]

But that would be a huge PR disaster. It would reek of corruption even to other Republicans.

Re:2 words....

[jellomizer]

Not really, because it is a huge fine for a minor "crime". I bet bushes PR can turn that around quite easilly. Then only people who will cry corruption are the people will cry corruption for when he does his job.

Oldie but goodie

[frogstar_robot]

http://www.campchaos.com/blog-archives/old_cartoon s/napster_bad/

I'm confused...

[wooden pickle]

Can't Gonzales just fire this guy for "performance reasons"?

Correct Link

[Anonymous Coward]

Correct Link:

http://thescrivener.blogspot.com/2007/06/copyright -is-dead.html

Site links

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the actual links:

http://the_scrivener.blogspot.com/2007/0 6/copyright-is-dead.html
http://the_scrivener.blo gspot.com/2007/06/copyright-is-dead-part-2.html

The '_' happens to get killed in the URL when posted as HTML or Text... Can't even put %5F to replace it...

Oh noes! Hope they leave them alone!

[Tatisimo]

My brother once recorded a song that might have been copyrighted for my mom on mother's day. If they do sue for this, the song writers might come after him next! And he also sang a song for my father on father's day. And I don't believe he paid preforming rights. He's got it all against him!

Re:Oh noes! Hope they leave them alone!

[Dieppe]

If the song your brother sang was "Happy Birthday To You" he's really screwed!

The really funny thing...

[ajenteks]

Burning a mix CD? For a Father's Day gift? Isn't that the college equivalent to macaroni art!?

Re:The really funny thing...

[zoomshorts]

Actually it is. Right up there with plaster handprint ashtrays.

Re:The really funny thing...

[al_fruitbat]

Actually, it's not a bad gift at all. Assuming it's stuff he likes, and he listens to CDs, then putting the time in to make him a personal CD shows love. What would you give the most powerful man in the world?

Re:The really funny thing...

[ajenteks]

What would you give the most powerful man in the world? Me, personally? A piece of my mind :p

Re:The really funny thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

Assuming it's stuff he likes

Like the screams of the tortured and dying?

Re:The really funny thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

A trip to the Emerald City to see the wizard?

Re:The really funny thing...

[g1zmo]

When I was in college I sure as hell wouldn't have wasted macaroni on some dumb Father's Day gift. That's my dinner!

actually, yes, there is a legal way to do that

[swschrad]

it's called "fair use provision of the copyright act."

if the President owns his original licensed media, and maintains it in his ownership, he has the legal right to make a million copies if he wants for his own personal use, provided he uses only one of them at a time, and gives none away.

so the President has set a high moral standard for all Americans by copying his own music to his own iPod.

now, can YOU claim to have done the same? if not, time's a wastin', there are gigabytes to fill yet. start ripping today!

sure you laugh

[circletimessquare]

but these poor women have had poor parenting. these teenaged girls have had poor parental guidance and roll models. it's easy for YOU who have had parents that imbued you with some intelligence, a sense of decency... would you laugh so hard if YOUR dad was GW Bush? i don't think so

Re:sure you laugh

[Khaed]

psst, the Bush twins are like, 26. That's only "teenage" on a porn site.

Re:sure you laugh

[elrous0]

If my dad was GW Bush, I wouldn't be able to laugh at all. I'd have to take the gun out of my mouth to do that.

Re:sure you laugh

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you mean the intelligence that allows people to know the difference between roll and role?

Re:sure you laugh

[Grishnakh]

Except the Bush twins aren't anywhere near attractive enough to be in porn.

Re:sure you laugh

[Anonymous Coward]

but these poor women have had poor parenting. these teenaged girls have had poor parental guidance and roll models. it's easy for YOU who have had parents that imbued you with some intelligence, a sense of decency... would you laugh so hard if YOUR dad was GW Bush? i don't think so zomg, rofl!!one! Someone mod parent +1 Articulate!

Re:sure you laugh

[Khaed]

I dunno about that. As far as presidential daughters go, they're about as good as it gets. There are also certainly worse looking people making porn. The novelty of "Daughter of the President!" porn alone makes up for anything wrong with their appearances.

Re:sure you laugh

[PixelScuba]

Don't be too sure about that! (Definitely NSFW)

God!

[ericdano]

This has to be the most petty thing I've seen. How many millions of other people would be guilty of this as well?

I know there are people who hate Bush, but really, this is insane.

Re:God!

[pecosdave]

Think deeper!

Not hate Bush, hate RIAA.
It's like handing someone a pizza and telling them to deliver it to someone living in a van in the middle of an auto salvage yard, filled with dobermans and other junkyard dogs.

Re:God!

[Nite_Hawk]

I think perhaps that you've missed the point. Well... Actually, you haven't missed the point. The problem is that if the law is wrong, it should be repealed, rather than applied selectively. If it applies to me, it should apply to the president and his daughters as well. After all, he's one of the few people in this country that actually has influence over it.

Nite_Hawk

Re:God!

[Asic Eng]

It's pretty clearly not about Bush - he's poking fun at the RIAA. The RIAA pushes towards more punishing copyright, so it would be good to show to politicians: "this is the fine your daughter would have to pay if you let the RIAA have their way".

Re:God!

[Jeremi]

This has to be the most petty thing I've seen. How many millions of other people would be guilty of this as well?

Yes, I believe that was the point.

I know there are people who hate Bush, but really, this is insane.

Again, that was the point -- to make it obvious to everyone that the RIAA's legal claims are ridiculous. Not everything is a conspiracy against Bush, you know.

Re:God!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not just about Bush. The attorney wants to kill 2 embryos with one stone.

Re:God!

[rossifer]

Um, I generally dislike Bush, but I think your sensitivity to the subject of Bush criticism has led you to miss the point.

The point of this lawyer's letter is not to demonize Bush or his daughters. It's to show how utterly and completely ridiculous the statutory damages for copyright infringement are, along with the RIAA rhetoric on the subject.

Regards,
Ross

Re:God!

[ericdano]

No, if you read it, it sounds like a political jab.

Plus, the lawyer now has retracted his statement....

Re:God!

[ericdano]

Perhaps a better target would have been a major record label's son/daughter doing these things?

Yeah...

[Nom du Keyboard]

Yeah, like that's going to ever happen.

Maybe they'll be let off, like that record exec's son, with a stern talking to by their daddy. Any other person sued by the RIAA that wants to take that option too?

Burn! Burn!

[Bob-taro]

He turned me into a newt!

Correct links

[mytrip]

http://thescrivener.blogspot.com/2007/06/copyright -is-dead.html

Re:Correct links

[Aladrin]

Yup, still wrong. As noted above by someone else, slashdot is removing the underscore between 'the' and 'scrivener'. Probably because it's technically invalid and shouldn't be there anyhow.

DeviantArt allowed it for a long time as well, and some browsers (firefox was one, at the time) didn't work with those addresses. They don't allow it any more. (DA uses the username as part of the URL.)

Google finds many issues with apps and underscores in URLs: http://www.google.com/search?q=underscore%20in%20u rl

Entertainer exemption

[Anonymous Coward]

This case will never go to court.
The Bush clan is considered as members of the professional entertainers community and such, they are exempt from copyright violation prosecution. This particular legislation is called the "clown clause".

Mirror

[mr_stinky_britches]

In case the site is removed/taken offline again, here is a mirror of the article which will be up for the foreseeable future:
http://mirror.wi-fizzle.com/copyright-is-dead.html

--
wi-fizzle research and development

Home Audio Recording Act?

[WaxParadigm]

It's a non-issue if they used a "Digital Audio Recording Device" and the CD-R was a "Digital Audio Recording Medium." I have such a device and use the slightly-more-expensive "music" CD-Rs when I make CDs for friends/family/myself (i.e. to have copy in car). I am exempt from infringement actions (I can't be prosecuted/sued for copyright infringement) for such activities. If they, like me, acted within the Home Audio Recording Act there is no story here...just FUD.

Re:Home Audio Recording Act?

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to learn a little bit more about the law you refer to. First off, it's called the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) -- not the Home Audio Recording Act, and secondly you are not covered because the device you (most likely) used is not a device covered by the AHRA. Only devices covered by the act are granted protection. CD burners built into computers are not covered because the primary purpose of a PC is not to burn CDs. You have only met the requirement of using the correct recording medium. So the RIAA could definitey prosecute even though you're adhearing to section 1008 (allows for non-commercial use) of the AHRA.

Re:Home Audio Recording Act?

[bbroerman]

Now if we could get a VIDEO version of this...

Re:Home Audio Recording Act?

[revengebomber]

How, exactly, are "data" CD-Rs not a digital audio recording medium? Maybe tapes aren't either -- I sure have a lot of data on them, having owned a few early home computers.

Re:Wow.

[palewook]

nah they just accepted a story without checking the links.

the American consumer

[swschrad]

about time somebody did

Re:Funny but nothing new-Steve Jobs iPhone !!!!!

[Nom du Keyboard]

This is like a while back President Bush said he had the Beatles on his iPod,

And in January, Steve Jobs demoed the iPhone with Beatle's tracks and a cover image. I haven't seen him sharing a cell with Paris Hilton lately.

Divide by zero....

[Anonymous Coward]

humm..

evil RIAA or evil Bush..

If Bush takes out the riaa in the process.. does the enemy of your enemy become your friend?

really.. if for some reason this did make it to court and fair rights were "re-enshrined" does that mean that there would be a bunch of geeks running around who's eyes read "tilt"

coincidently.. todays post brought to you by the captia.. "effigy"

takedown 404 here, too

[swschrad]

the cops on the bus have all got guns
all got guns
all got guns
the cops on the

a4=523-giopajtq234or9qw-

--NO CARRIER

The article isn't missing, the link is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

http://thescrivener.blogspot.com/2007/06/copyright -is-dead.html
http://thescrivener.blogspot.com/2007/06/copyright -is-dead-part-2.html

Re:The article isn't missing, the link is wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

damn it it messed up my links too.

it's not: thescrivener
it is: the_scrivener

slashdots auto-url must remove it for some reason

http://thescrivener.blogspot.com/2007/06/copyright -is-dead.html
http://thescrivener.blogspot.com/2007/06/copyright -is-dead-part-2.html

by the way, fuck you comment delay time.
6 minutes since my last comment should be enough....

Re:Bush twins

[Anonymous Coward]

It was reported by the Associated Press. We can presume, with a great deal of certainty, that they got it from a White House press release. Is that prima facie enough for you?

Perfectly reasonable...

[C10H14N2]

...in a town where the damages from losing a pair of pants are worth $67 million.

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=3119381

The ABC News Law & Justice Unit has calculated that for $67 million Pearson could buy 84,115 new pairs of pants at the $800 value he placed on the missing trousers in court documents. If you stacked those pants up, they would be taller than eight Mount Everests. If you laid them side by side, they would stretch for 48 miles.

Re:Perfectly reasonable...

[Keith_Beef]

Caption under the photo at the start of the article:

How's $54 million for a dry cleaning bill? A Washington, D.C., judge is suing an area dry cleaning business for losing a pair of his trousers. The business owners claim they have his pants, but he's pressing ahead with his suit. (AP Photo )

If I had been the plaintiff in that case, I would have sued for "promise of breeches".

Beef.

Re:The songs may not be from RIAA artists NOT!!!!!

[Nom du Keyboard]

The attention-whore Florida attorney seems to have made the assumption that the songs were from RIAA labels,

Keep in mind that the money-whoring, RIAA affiliated, Sound Exchange collects royalties on all songs broadcast by all artists -- even the ones who don't want royalties collected, and don't want to pay the high fees demanded by Sound Exchange just to get their money back. For a small artist it costs more than you'd recover, but then SE just keeps the money for itself. Talk about ripping off artists!!

Umm, couldn't they just have bought the music?

[Nogeel]

Couldn't they have just used iTunes, Napster or one of the 100 other digital music services to buy it and then burn it to CD? So I would think automatically assuming a burnt cd is pirated now days is kind of dumb.

Good idea! Show them that it works both ways.

[caluml]

I agree! Next up, I'm going to try and join an all women's evening at the gym, and sue for emotional damage and stress when they tell me I can't join.

Re:Bush twins

[morgan_greywolf]

Copyright and trademark are entirely different things. IANAL but I'm quite certain that at least in the USA you cannot lose copyright by not prosecuting cases of infringement. Trademark on the other hand, can be lost if it isn't "protected".

That's right. But you can lose your right to collect statutory and even actual damages in certain cases. There is a certain doctrine of law that says that if you don't do something to mitigate your own damages, then you can't collect because you allowed the abuse to occur. How and when you are unable to collect statutory damages is, of course, something decided in court on a case-by-case basis.

IANAL.

remind me for whom Winston Smith worked ?

[Anonymous Coward]

I see the UK is not the only Orwellian state

Re:remind me for whom Winston Smith worked ?

[Cocoronixx]

Actually, all the URLs are wrong because there should be an underscore after the 'the', but slashdot strips out all the underscores. The story would be that much better if the original articles were taken down though.

Re:Bush twins

[Hijacked Public]

Man, I'm glad that guy showed up to point that out because my entire life up until now didn't get the job done.

Re:The leftist revolution of the sub-humans contin

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux users are filthy and disgusting. I highly doubt the bush twins use linux.

Quality

[Tribbin]

Remember Napster and how companies warned that quality movies and music would come to an end if everybody downloads these off the internet?

I must say that there are still lots of great movies being made. And I think we can't complain about the quality of music either.

Ofcourse the most repetitively played music on television and commercial radio stations are the exception here and ought to be avoided.

Dear RIAA,

[Trailer Trash]

"I forgot to mention in my last letter that this "George Bush" is a single paraplegic grandmother who is raising her own grandkids with her social security checks."

There, *now* they'll be interested in pursuing this one.

Slashdot auto-quote quite appropriate

[ookabooka]

Random quote at the bottom of the page was "Good day to deal with people in high places; particularly lonely stewardesses." I read the first part and thought it fit quite well with this story. . .then the second part equated Bush and his daughters to "lonely stewardesses". . .I have no words.

To Whomever Can Find TFA

[Nom du Keyboard]

Will whomever can find TFA please karma-whore a bit and post it here? All the supposed links and corrected/updated links are failing.

I have found the following links still working at the moment for aspects of this story:

Link.
Link.
Link.
Link.
Link.
Link.

Re:Bush twins

[enjerth]

You didn't even read TFA, did you? It says "Lawyer Asks RIAA To Investigate Bush Twins". Evidence generally does not preclude an investigation.

The lawyer is not reporting a crime. He's reporting suspicious activity which may be a crime, and calling for an investigation.

This has the potential to be a much more viable case to than having nothing more than a file and an IP address, which the RIAA regularly pursues.

Re:Bush twins

[naoursla]

But President Bush has deep pockets. He could actually pay the 1.5 million. That could establish precedent and give weight to future law suites. I bet President Bush starts investing in record companies.

The very first comment is informative

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that I am against deriding the RIAA, but I found this informative. From the first comment under the article:

Hi Mitchell,

You might want to check out section 1008 of the Audio Home Recording Act :

No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.

The senate report on the act specifically cites making copies for family members as non-commercial uses, and thus not an infringement.

Re:Bush twins

[Bob-taro]

So you're saying that 2 girls who share music and are reported to the RIAA should not be because of their dad?

Hmmm, are you saying that everyone else shouldn't have been victimized, but these girls should be because of their dad?

I honestly don't know, has GWB said anything strongly pro-copyright or anti-music sharing? Or are we just painting him with a broad "pro-big-business" brush? Admittedly, I don't have a very strong opinion on the issue - even though I have personal friends who are indie musicians with copyrighted music. It's interesting that musicians themselves seem pretty split on the issue. Some indie bands figure they won't make much money unless they can build an audience, and are willing to give up some sales to do that. OTOH, creating an album does cost money, and more money can usually make for a better final product. The big signed artists probably don't care about copying because they make most of their money off concerts while album profits go mostly to the label.

BUSTED !!!

[unity100]

this is the most fantastic busting incident since that 10yearsomething old boy got busted posting in wow forums by her wow player mom while he was pretending to be asleep.

Jack Thompson?

[ObiWonKanblomi]

The attention-whore Florida attorney...

Hold on... has Jack Thompson moved on from gaming?

with any luck

[Anonymous Coward]

the bush twins should hand him over to the authorities since he received stolen property.

it would be a fine thing to see this guy get disbarred.

Humor ?

[nurb432]

No, its not 'its funny, laugh'. This is rather serious. If the RIAA doesn't put up or shut up then their case will be damaged forever. If they DO put up and sue, it will only help their case in the long run when they come after you and i.

Might be a turning point, at least as far as publicity goes.

good luck

[Anonymous Coward]

Lawyer Asks RIAA To Investigate Bush Twins

good luck with that. more power to you.

Re:Bush twins

[Asic Eng]

It might not be so bad - this could still receive some attention in legal circles, and any lawyer who would have to defend someone against the RIAA could bring this up in court.

Not a copyright violation

[Pedrito]

First of all, the links are screwed up. Good luck finding a good one. If you do find one, you'll see some comments from readers of the blog with regards to the fact that making copies for family members is considered non-infringing. Too bad... I'd certainly like to see the RIAA pressured into going after high profile people that it's not in their interest to pursue.

Ditto

[Alzheimers]

Ditto to the Dixie Chicks' "Not ready to make nice"

Slashdot Poll: What Is Your Solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

1. A little of his own medicine.

2. 30 days with Bubba

3. 60 days with Scooter Libby.

Careful Now

[WED Fan]

Careful now, all of you Slashdotties are going to be grossly guilty of hypocrisy if you don't support the twins right to make a mix CD. Unreasoned Bushy-hate should be no substitute for doing the "right thing". (That is, if you consider making a mix CD the right thing.)

For all you that feel making a mix CD is piracy, by all means, proceed to bash.

In other news:

• The IRS is investigating this lawyer and auditing his returns all the way back to 1973. Apparently, he didn't claim income for his paper route.
• The Florida State Bar association has been directed to open up disbarrment procedures.
• The Justice Department has opened an investigation stemming from a 1973 incident where he let a customer, an 83 year old widow on a cat food diet, on his aforementioned paper route, not pay her paper bill.
• The U.S. Army is charging him as a deserter for not reporting as a draftee in 1973 when he was 11 years old.
• The McCarthy Committee on UnAmerican Activities was recalled to investigate the paper route incidents as a possible indicator of Commie leanings.
• The Audubon Society has been ordered to investigate the lawyer because he keeps a parakeet in a cage.

The Bush Administration has stated that they know of no connection between these and the lawyer's actions regarding the twins.

Re:Careful Now

[cayenne8]

"Careful now, all of you Slashdotties are going to be grossly guilty of hypocrisy if you don't support the twins right to make a mix CD."

Yeah....I mean, while I'm all in favor of making the powers that be face up to what everyone else had to...I've never considered the modern version (CD) of the classic 'mixed tape' to be a criminal offense.

Surely this lawyer has some better ammo than this??

Re:Careful Now

[jedidiah]

This whole spectactle is obviously an argument ad absurdum.

Although this is the guy that heads the appartatus that enforces all of these BS laws. It's not entirely hypocritical of us to expect that he follow his own rules, even if we don't agree with his rules.

He could be the proverbial preacher caught in a cathouse. ...more likely than not, it's all licensed use. (no, not "fair use". "fair use" is copying. "licensed use" is when you bought and paid for and are using what you bought and paid for in any manner of your choosing)

Re:Careful Now

[rstarg]

Why was this modded as funny? I thought it was true.

Re:Careful Now

[Inoyun]

This is a most retarded law that is as difficult to enforce as the speed limit. But after thinking about it...deeply while listening to my ripped copy of my favorite CD, I'd have to say that it is a logical thing to do and actually doesn't really equate to bush hate. Sure it seems odd that someone who received the gift of music would turn in the giver of the gift over a technicality and that the giver happens to be the bush twins but technically a president signs bills into law and there is no better way to force the issue of how retarded the law is than to make sure everyone has to follow it even if it means taking the presidents daughters for 1.8 million dollars. Isn't that like 9 years of paychecks from GWB? Maybe he'll get the picture. I actually hope the RIAA wins but it sucks because my views are diametrically opposed to the story. The RIAA sucks. So by that logic we'd have to kill alot of people to make them obey the speed limit. I mean...its THE LAW.

Re:Careful Now

[*weasel]

Making a mix CD isn't the problem.
The fact that they gifted it to their father is.
(They distributed music to their father that they almost certainly did not have the right to distribute)

Also, it's not a 'support' of anti-piracy laws, it's an apagogical argument:
"if you sue college kids for swapping songs, you should then also sue the daugther of the president for an absurd amount for this obviously harmless activity."

Re:Careful Now

[corbettw]

The McCarthy Committee on UnAmerican Activities

Off topic, but no such committee ever existed. You're conflating two separate organizations, the House Unamerican Activities Committee, and the Army-Archer hearings presided over by Sen. McCarthy.

Sen. McCarthy was never a member of HUAC, as that was a House committee, and he was in the Senate.

Re:Careful Now

[Anonymous Coward]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with making a mix cd. However if the RIAA is gonna go on a crusade of lawsuits against copyright infringing people and this action is the same as what brought the other suits then the twins should be prosecuted just like anyone else. It is the job of the president to lead by example. If they can get away with this then every other infringement lawsuit from the RIAA should be dropped as well.

Re:Careful Now

[Hatta]

Careful now, all of you Slashdotties are going to be grossly guilty of hypocrisy if you don't support the twins right to make a mix CD. Unreasoned Bushy-hate should be no substitute for doing the "right thing". (That is, if you consider making a mix CD the right thing.)

Hardly. It's entirely possible to be against a bad law, yet be for the even application of it. In this case fair application of the law makes it very clear just how bad a law it is.

Re:Careful Now

[Junior J. Junior III]

That's the point of this stunt -- by bringing the issue home to the Bush family, they'll start to look at things from the perspective of the consumer, rather than automatically siding with Big Business as they normally would. Unless *they're* hypocrites (which of course, they are, so I don't know that this will really accomplish anything), this should get them to start thinking that copyright reform is needed and that Fair Use provisions need to be protected and reinforced so that they cannot be taken away.

Re:Careful Now

[colmore]

Indeed, the fastest way for a bad law to be repealed is for it to be fairly applied to politically powerful people.

Imagine if crooked pharmacists and the millions of middle class Americans who abuse pharmaceutical drugs were treated like other "enemies" in the war on drugs.

Re:Careful Now

[ajs]

Careful now, all of you Slashdotties are going to be grossly guilty of hypocrisy if you don't support the twins right to make a mix CD. Unreasoned Bushy-hate [...] Oh for the love of... what are you talking about?!

The lawyer in question is clearly interested in making the PR point that the RIAA won't go up against the daughters of the head of the executive branch because they know that they'd be slitting their own throats. He might even have hoped to establish that the RIAA does not defend their members' copyrights evenly, for use in court.

That said, there's frankly nothing partisan about this, and it bothers me deeply that someone has to rush out and rant about how terrible those [insert party] people are, whenever their pet politician is mentioned.

Re:Careful Now

[socz]

Freedom of speech is a good/bad law.

In some countries, it is not allowed to display one's patriotism by wearing the flag on your ass as underwear and continuing to leave skid marks on it as the years go by.

At the same time, it is good to have those drawers because you are free to do so, if you like.

If the law says, "you can't make mixed cd's because of the law" then i don't comprehend why they should be exempt. The little girl and her disabled mother weren't exempt, and neither are any of us when they decide to come after us "if they believe they have a case against us." So if it's so obvious that the twins broke this law, why not pursue it? I mean, if it's documented and easily provable why not go forth with the full extent of the law?

Re:Careful Now

[Anonymous Coward]

it was a joke, dude.

Re:Careful Now

[SatireWolf]

Honestly, if the RIAA was 'forced' by some magical law to prosecute half a dozen politicians and lawyers for miss-using their intellectual property rights, I'm sure there would be all kinds of legislation to 'fix' this little problem. I think this is the guys point. Get the Bushy twins in suit, then lil'bush warbucks comes in with some water baloons and nullifies some RIAA butt! If he can make up law out of thin air, you sure betcha he can unmake law out of thin air!

Re:Careful Now

[Sj0]

Not hypocritical at all. Everybody knows Bush is a career criminal who just changes laws he's breaking(Illegal Wiretapping: Not illegal if I say "not it"!), so if he gets hit hard by the RIAA, the music industry will be lucky if they get 1800s style copyright after he's done with them.

Re:Careful Now

[vought]

The McCarthy Committee on UnAmerican Activities


I took this to mean that a committee named in honor of McCarthy had just been convened to investigate this matter.

But thanks for the history lesson.

Re:Careful Now

[Weirsbaski]

Careful now, all of you Slashdotties are going to be grossly guilty of hypocrisy if you don't support the twins right to make a mix CD. Unreasoned Bushy-hate should be no substitute for doing the "right thing".

The stink isn't that the BUSHIES made a mix CD. The stink is the selective persecution. It's related to "why do college kids get sued for $thousands, while kids of industry insiders get off with a stern lecture?"

Maybe if presidents, congresscritters, judges were also in the line of fire, the lawmaking/enforcing juggernaut (made of those people) would move slightly toward a reasonable/common sense approach.

Re:Careful Now

[heinousjay]

Oh, bullshit. This is another goddam circlejerk, and the dude even retracted it.

What you guys all just did is jerk off to tittie pics, and then look at the last one in the series and realize it's a tranny. Hope it felt good.

Re:Careful Now

[fredclown]

But if the RIAA does not follow this then they cannot follow other cases. They must protect their copyright in every instance that they can or they forfeit the right to it (copyright law). So, hopefully they won't.

Re:Careful Now

[mabinogi]

That is not even close to true.

You are getting confused with Trademark law, and even there it's not true.
With trademarks the issue is that if a mark has been diluted enough that it is in use as a common word then you can't enforce it any more, so in order to prevent that from happening you need to actively defend it.

But copyright is yours till it expires, no matter what happens.

Re:Careful Now

[Anonymous Coward]

You really should take your meds and try to calm down and not be so quick to take offense. Maybe a drink will help you? But, dude, laugh, its a joke. If you can't, then see a doctor, for god's sake.

Re:Careful Now

[Anonymous Coward]

what a DICK!!! ... Cheney?

GAHHHHHHHH I had to do it

Re:Careful Now

[Anonymous Coward]

Hardly. It's entirely possible to be against a bad law, yet be for the even application of it. In this case fair application of the law makes it very clear just how bad a law it is.

Well, when you put it that way, but that's not what the first 20 or so posts were saying. So, I would argue that it remains a valid criticism.

Re:Careful Now

[dekkerdreyer]

If you sue the Bush Daughters for 2 mil, and they happen to accidentally spill that much out of their purses when they drunkenly trip on a curb, does this add to the legitimacy of the RIAA's claim?

Re:Careful Now

[rufus t firefly]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with making a mix cd. However if the RIAA is gonna go on a crusade of lawsuits against copyright infringing people and this action is the same as what brought the other suits then the twins should be prosecuted just like anyone else. It is the job of the president to lead by example. If they can get away with this then every other infringement lawsuit from the RIAA should be dropped as well.

I know this is like shooting fish in a barrel these days...

But when exactly was this guy concerned with leading by example?

And if he is leading by example, I think I can safely say that we're all *really* screwed.

Re:Careful Now

[Sj0]

I love how reality is flamebait.

Big Brother LOVES YOU!

[skeptically]

[danpsmith]

A newt?

Re:[skeptically]

[gbobeck]

He got better.

Root for Bush

[apharmdq]

It's rather shocking to see that so many people are against Bush/his daughters on this. It doesn't matter what your political viewpoints are here, because this has very little to do with Bush's decisions. It has more to do with the RIAA being their usual selves. (It's perfectly legal to make a mix cd from music you own and give it to a family member for personal use.)

And think about it for a moment. If Bush wins, it helps shake up the RIAA even more, especially since it's a more high-profile case. If the RIAA wins, it gives them firmer ground on taking away people's right to actually enjoy their purchases. But the outcome will have absolutely no effect on whatever issue is the cause for your intense dislike for Bush.

Don't let your emotions cloud your judgement.

Re:Root for Bush

[dgagley]

Actually it does have some to do with Bush's decisions. His corporate policies give rise to situations like this. The lawyer was making a point about the power of the RIAA and the likes have grown too powerful. The pendulum has swung far from the citizen and small business and toward larger corporations and the rich. A correction is coming like it usually does we just dont know when.

Re:Bush twins

[Jimithing DMB]

In order to assert that the RIAA should prosecute the Bush twins you first have to assert that the making of a "mix tape" for a friend/relative is equal to allowing anyone in the world to download songs from your computer.

As far as I can tell, there are various ways to accomplish this leap of logic. One is to think like the people at the RIAA and try to define every act of copying music as if it were piracy. The problem is that I don't even think most of the people at the RIAA would buy that. Sometimes they act as though this is what they want, and it probably is, but I think even they know that the public would never go for this.

Another way to make this leap of logic is to suffer from Bush Derangement Syndrome. In this case you already believe that everything the president does is bad and/or illegal but he "gets away with it" because he is president and congress won't impeach him. Well, news flash, even the now Democrat-controlled congress isn't going to do this for the simple reason that they have nothing to charge him with. But if you suffer from BDS then that is no problem, you can just grossly pervert the common interpretations of laws and voila, Bush can now be charged with something.

If this story actually gets big in the mainstream media and I were the RIAA, I'd issue a press release stating that the RIAA does not wish to prosecute someone for making a mix tape for private use. I might even go one step further and make sure that this idiot Florida lawyer's anti-Bush rhetoric made it to the mainstream news for the sole purpose of then making the press release stating that prosecution will not occur.

Maybe...

[msauve]

"digital audio recording medium," as defined by the act, only refers to _audio_ CD-Rs. These are special recordable CDs made to work in audio CD recorders, which will not record onto standard data CD-Rs (audio CD-Rs will also work in standard computer CD-R drives).

These audio CD-Rs are a bit harder to find, and a bit more expensive than standard data CD-Rs, because you indirectly pay a tax on them to the recording industry (it's collected at the wholesale level).

So, the Bush twins _might_ not be subject to copyright prosecution. OTOH, they do have GW's genes, so they're likely too stupid to know all of that, and probably used data CD-Rs, opening themselves up to prosecution.

Government-approved workout music

[Animats]

They should have used the official U.S. Government Youth Fitness Song. This was composed for and distributed by the President's Council on Youth Fitness during the 1960s, as an official U.S. Government activity. Every school in the United States got a vinyl copy. The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library redistributes this as a Presidential document.

Drop and give me twenty. Now!

If the president does it, it isn't illegal.

[weston]

President Bush said he had the Beatles on his iPod, when there was no legal way to get them on there.

"Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal."

http://www.landmarkcases.org/nixon/nixonview.html

Hold on.

[Elemenope]

I am poor, I do not own a gun, I do not drive an SUV, I do not support Bush and I'm GLAD that Paris Hilton is getting a good taste of the judicial system.

Can you move back to the part where you explain why you are conservative? Particularly re: the part about being poor?

Not a liberal here. Just honestly curious why anyone believes in an ideology whose corporeal manifestations try very hard to deny you are worth the time of day, never mind any more substantial consideration.

Re:Hold on.

[corbettw]

Not a liberal here. Just honestly curious why anyone believes in an ideology whose corporeal manifestations try very hard to deny you are worth the time of day, never mind any more substantial consideration.

You're not a liberal, you just bash conservatives as evil incarnate.

Re:Hold on.

[enjerth]

Personal ownership is a hallmark of conservative capitalism. And I don't believe I am entitled to anything that I did not work for.

Being poor has nothing to do with that, unless you think that I should be eager to grab for what another person has labored for. Which, having not the attitude of a thief, I do not want to take. I am poor, not desperate.

Any part of that you don't understand?

Re:Hold on.

[Elemenope]

Yeah, it's funny how that works. It's almost as if people can't process anything like: "while I don't agree with their competitors, I believe that person/company/ideology/etc. is behaving evilly." Exactly when did criticizing one group automatically mean you were working for the other side?

Conservatives have a tendency toward ethical blindness when it comes to the pracitcal human consequences of certain ideological fixed-points, like for example their belief in the awesome awesomeness of free markets as applied to everything under the sun. Many conservatives have the self-awareness to admit this is a weakness of their ideology, and some even attempt to address it. Damn heretics, I guess.

Liberals, if you want me to criticize those that I often criticize on a daily basis, have an insufficent appreciation for personal self-possession and responsibility, and tend to believe that underwriting centralized, highly inefficient bureaucracies is somehow a good way of providing services in the public interest. See? I can criticize yet another group I don't belong to. I am versatile.

Re:Hold on.

[mjpaci]

Hear! Hear! Thank you for your insightful comment. If I had any mod points I give them to you because you worked for them.

The reason the Democrats have such a hold on the poor and downtrodden in the US is that they offer them money -- enough so they can sort of live and stay poor while at the same time cast the Republicans as the evil group that wants to take away the little money they get from the Government.

Re:Hold on.

[corbettw]

Conservatives have a tendency toward ethical blindness when it comes to the pracitcal human consequences of certain ideological fixed-points

Replace "conservatives" with "people", and then most of your second paragraph becomes redundant. Besides, only a fool would argue that free markets are perfect in the real world, since their "perfection" requires perfect information sharing between parties. That won't even happen. Instead, what most people who believe in free markets say is that they afford the most liberty to and between individuals, and tend to be the most efficient at solving problems. Kind of like Sir Winston's famous quote about democracy, free markets are the worst form of economics ever invented by man; except for all those others that have been tried from time to time.

Re:Hold on.

[Anonymous Coward]

Conservatives have a tendency toward ethical blindness when it comes to the pracitcal human consequences of certain ideological fixed-points, like for example their belief in the awesome awesomeness of free markets as applied to everything under the sun.

Why do you assume that this requires ethical blindness? Ethics are subjective, and it's just possible that the conservatives with whom you disagree have a slightly different belief about what is more or less ethical. For example, non-free market requires, on some scale, the forcible redistribution of wealth. This is also unethical. The question becomes: which is worse?

Your comment appears to have the same ethical blindness which you accuse those who differ with you.

N.B. Stupid captcha. I'm human, but couldn't read it.

Re:Hold on.

[Elemenope]

I am not an ethical relativist. I could care less whether conservatives believe they are ethically wayward when their policies lead to people starving and or dying w/out medical care. It does not change the actual ethical valence of the situation. Ditto the 'redistribution of wealth': also probably objectively unethical. But simply because both options so far are unethical that doesn't mean we can conveniently pretend they aren't. My point in total was that unreflective (that is, most by a great margin) people who identify with a particular ideology tend to gloss over the consequences of their beliefs; what I find even more perplexing is people who cling to beliefs that are likely to be especially detrimental to them, hence the original comment re: conservatism and poverty.

Re:Hold on.

[brotherscrim]

"Hear! Hear! Thank you for your insightful comment. If I had any mod points I give them to you because you worked for them.

The reason the Democrats have such a hold on the poor and downtrodden in the US is that they offer them money -- enough so they can sort of live and stay poor while at the same time cast the Republicans as the evil group that wants to take away the little money they get from the Government."

Gasp! those fiends! Giving money to the poor - what assholes! We should practice tough love, damnit. Those children of that no-good lazy unwed mother will learn NOTHING if we as a society just help feed, clothe and maybe medicate the little freeloader. Down with compassion! BOO! Stupid hippy liberals and their concern for the welfare of those who can't help themselves!

Re:Hold on.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense. There's winning, and there's losing. Second place isn't silver, it's LOSING place. You kill the lion, or the lion eats you. That's how the world works, and that's how we conservatives keep your poor stupid ass in the ranks of rubbish that support us.

Support us or the terrorists are going to nuke you. Sound familiar? You've got to WIN this one, because if you lose, you're dead and radioactive. Worse, the guy who made you dead and radioactive hasn't had a bath, doesn't speak English, and has brown skin! Horrors! Imagine, getting killed by an even BIGGER loser than you are. How embarassing!

Everybody conservative loves a winner. Money is evidence of a winner. Money is evidence of discipline, determination, superiority, and winning. Thus, if you are poor as you say you are, you're a LOSER.

I'm just pointing out what you KNOW is true. LOSER. Now, fuck y'all! and make it snappy.

If you're thinking that independence and personal ownership (responsibility) is the highest moral priority, then you must be thinking of Libertarians. An easy mistake for a poor motherfucker like you to make. We already know you're not very smart because you ain't got no money!

Re:Hold on.

[Mockylock]

You are ambi-political, even. :)

Word up.

Re:Hold on.

[enjerth]

Conservatives have a tendency toward ethical blindness when it comes to the pracitcal human consequences of certain ideological fixed-points, like for example their belief in the awesome awesomeness of free markets as applied to everything under the sun. I assume that, by that, you mean that there is some suggestion on how to improve social conditions by some kind new kind of restrictions of the market. What exactly do you have in mind?

Or are you just shooting your mouth off like so many jerkwads do these days?

Re:Hold on.

[Boronx]

The liberal-conservative labeling in the USA really sucks and has been harmful to our political debate. Typically they're taken for opposing ideologies, and usually used to mean "someone who holds views I think are stupid".

Some ideas are liberal, some are conservative, some are both, some are neither. Any one person usually holds to ideas and rejects ideas of both stripes.

Invading Iraq, for example, is not a liberal idea: liberalism disavows a nation's right to make aggressive war.

It isn't a conservative idea: conservatism eschews getting unnecessarily embroiled in costly occupations, especially in Asia.

I am a liberal. I am a conservative. I am an American, a citizen of a country founded on two incredible ideas. One is liberal, that the government is subordinate to the rights of people. The other is conservative, that the nation should be ruled by law not easily swayed by the mob or the powerful.

Dividing the country into liberals and conservatives weakens and diminishes us.

Re:Hold on.

[notasheep]

Come on Rush, admit that you're the AC posting this garbage!

Just kidding, the AC has posted what is probably the best use of sarcasm I've seen. Bravo, way to show just how myopic the conservatives are!

Re:Hold on.

[Vancorps]

I agree that both sides aren't necessarily ethical, but how do you handle the situation then? Redistributing wealth does sound like a bad thing if I'm a person who has wealth and sounds great to me if I don't.

The problem comes about when you try to correct the inequities since it invariably requires redistributing wealth. The old adage it takes money to make money is as true today as it ever has been. That also means those without money are either finding it impossible to change that or it is substantially more difficult. Think of Youtube, could such a service have been started by someone without any money? It probably would have taken years longer giving time for someone else to capitalize on the idea making the playing field even steeper.

I honestly don't know what a fair an equitable solution would be beyond increased taxation of the rich which is just redistribution of wealth.

Re:Hold on.

[enjerth]

If you're thinking that independence and personal ownership (responsibility) is the highest moral priority, then you must be thinking of Libertarians. Did the definition of conservatism change while I was sleeping, or are you just trying to demonize the political movement of your disfavor?

And what would you know about moral priorities? You want the government to redistribute wealth so you don't have to. If there's one great thing that the taxed redistribution of wealth does really well, it's leaving the citizens without any sense of obligation to do their own part. Big brother has already take the money and the responsibility to do it. Not to mention how much of it was wasted before it got to anybody in need.

Re:Hold on.

[Straif]

Just to clear things up, conservatives have no problem giving money to the poor; in fact every study I've seen on the subject put conservative giving in both time and money well above liberal giving. Conservatives just don't appreciate the government taking their money and throwing more and more of it into historically poorly run welfare systems (and I'm not calling for the abolishment of all social welfare programs, just asking they be better run).

Conservatives believe in personal responsibility and that extends to taking it upon yourself to care for ones neighbor when need be.

For an example of what can happen when all responsibility for taking care of the downtrodden is placed on the government just taken a look at the liberal dreamland of France and the heatwave a few years back. 15,000 deaths because people relied solely on the government to taken care of the elderly and instead of calling up grandma or grandpa and check to see how they were doing they went on their 5 week vacations instead (a small fact Moore just happened to leave out of his glowing portrayal of the French medical system).

Re:Hold on.

[Anonymous Coward]

Woa. I have $1000 a month in bills, and I make $1000 a month. This means that I have to not pay certain bills so that I can buy things like food and gas. I'll tell you right now, every medical bill my daughter has is paid by the great state of Georgia, as is her $200 a month in formula. The problem I have with the welfare/medicade/wic system is that people who don't work, don't contribute to society at all drain from our system. Why can I take from those very same systems and then condemn them? Because I PAY INTO THEM!!! Every check I have 4 taxes taken out, Federal, State, Social Security, and Medicare. I pay into these programs, I am entitled to use them. If you don't pay into it then you don't deserve to use it.

This is the way things need to be:
Step 1: Get a job
Step 2: See that you can't pay your bills
Step 3: Get help
Too many people just jump straight to step 3.

Re:Hold on.

[crgrace]

It isn't a conservative idea: conservatism eschews getting unnecessarily embroiled in costly occupations, especially in Asia.

Especially land wars in central Asia.

Re:Hold on.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is generally considered unethical to let people starve, and also unethical to force them to work. Even if they, or the people they depend on, are lazy.

Re:Hold on.

[Logic and Reason]

And I don't believe I am entitled to anything that I did not work for.

Your life? Your body? Your mind? The air you breathe? Did you work for any of these things?

Re:Hold on.

[gordo3000]

but there is a straight forward(not simple) way of looking at the situation of taxation of the wealthy vs the poor. The question is simply who benefits more from an ordered society. it is invariably the wealthy that demand the status quo be maintained in terms of laws, social structure, etc.

Why are they the ones that want it maintained? obvious, they became rich under such a social construct(look at the RIAA which never actually worried about copyright laws until society moved on). Now why should they be taxed more?

In any system, those that vociferously call for change are the ones being left out(in some way). If you allow the free market to go to its bitter end, you get a massive distribution of wealth towards a few people and the building of an aristocracy. This isn't morally wrong or bad and I'm not arguing that. but those left on the bottom have an unfortunate habit of trying to drive for major social changes. So all wealth redistribution is really meant to maintain the status quo.

Or another question, how much would a person living on Jupiter Island, Florida pay to not have to see homeless people and drug addicts sleeping on the streets in their neighborhood?

Re:Hold on.

[Burning Plastic]

Hopefully it also eschews going up against a Sicilian when death is on the line...

Re:Hold on.

[Anonymous Coward]

Its also unethical to take what isn't yours, and that is exactly what you are doing when you take from a system that you put nothing into.

Re:Hold on.

[TapeCutter]

I call BS on the French bashing, people regardless of their nationality don't suddenly abandon their grandma because the taxpayer is footing the bill for the doctor. Also how do you explain the fact that plenty of frail conservatives die when a severe heatwave hits the US, or are you so perverted by your hatred for anything "non-conservative" that you think all those US deaths were also caused by liberals on holiday?

As someone who lives in a country with universal health care that for 30+yrs has been provided at less than 1/2 the cost of similar care in the US I am compelled to say that you don't have a fucking clue what you are talking about. I have not seen MM's film and judging by your myopic "football team" view of politics I am guessing you have no intention of watching it. So for your edification I will try and simplify MM's plot so that a redneck can understand it.....

In the vast majority of western nations health care is a bipartisan issue, it's about people and the efficient use of available funds neither of which seem to be a priority in the US system regardless of which "footy team" is in power. Wake up and look at the world around you - yes you live in a great nation that has a lot going for it but as far as health care is concerned the US is ideologically stuck in the 50's and it's citizens are paying the price with their lives.

Re:Hold on.

[orcus]

Conservatives just don't appreciate the government taking their money and throwing more and more of it into historically poorly run welfare systems

Such as the current Iraqis "government"?

I don't like them taking my money and throwing it into the cesspool either.

Re:Hold on.

[rtb61]

I think you missed a bit in there. Every living being is entitled to a subsistence life style, when you steal that opportunity from them and enforce that theft by application and threat of violence are you not morally compelled to make restitution for that theft. Birds or animals in the wild, how dare they be born and steal from landholders, every creature upon the face of this planet does those not act as a servant of the righteously and justly entitled should be terminated, preserving all those resources for the righteous and for their slaves/food.

Now lets extend that to human beings, how dare any human be born who thinks they are entitled to walk the land in peace and live upon the natural resources of the land, how dare they think they are entitled to exist, with out, slaving away to provide for and the sate (an impossible task) the greed and lusts of a violent and oppressive minority.

The poor work far harder at far more undesirable occupations than the rich and does so for little renumeration, they live an oppressed restricted lifestyle enforced by the more privileged in society to ensure that the more privileged in society continue to maintain their grossly excessive self serving lifestyles. That better lifestyle is purely based upon them having more, it does not matter how much is available as long as they have substantially more, and of course, preferably you having nothing, suitably desperate in order to ensure your will provide what services they crave, for what ever crumbs they most generously allow you or your family to have.

Re:Hold on.

[Atario]

I don't believe I am entitled to anything that I did not work for.

So you don't use public roads?

Re:Hold on.

[fucksl4shd0t]

Thank you. In the future, when someone asks me if I'm a liberal or a conservative, I will tell them "I am versatile".

Re:Hold on.

[corbettw]

I could care less whether conservatives believe they are ethically wayward when their policies lead to people starving and or dying w/out medical care. It does not change the actual ethical valence of the situation.

It sounds like you're basically saying "the ends justify the means". Think of it this way: in a redistribution of wealth scheme, you have to use force, or at least the threat of force, to take wealth from person A to give to person B. In doing so, you assure that person B won't go to bed hungry, and person's A total wealth is only mildly impacted (let's say he went from having $1M to $999k, and the thousand dollar difference kept person B well fed for several months). That end result might be good, but you can't justify using force against one person just because it materially benefits another. Not unless you're Tony Soprano, and look what happened to him.

Re:Hold on.

[Straif]

Did I even mention I lived in the US because I get that impression from your snide asinine remarks. For the record, and I've mentioned this in many of my other comments so it's not hard to find out, I don't. 100% Canadian, born and bred.

Now on to your comments.

First off, if you did any analysis above the level of Moore you would realize that to compare a 2 week European heat wave in which almost 10 times the number of people died in one particular country than any other neighboring one to a 4 month heat wave that still had far fewer deaths does not help your case. If anything it makes the US look much much better.

As for me being "perverted by your hatred for anything "non-conservative" that you think all those US deaths were also caused by liberals on holiday? ", I wasn't the one who originally put forward that argument, it was the explanation put forward by the French Government, but once again that would have taken you about 15 secs on Google to find so I know it was asking too much.

Secondly, I live in a country with socialized medicine and while Moore does drop by he makes fun of the issues we are facing by showing a scene of him asking people in clinic how long they've been there. Even here (Ottawa) clinic visits can takes as little as 10 minutes but if you want to find an actual family doctor, well good luck since most have been refusing new patients for at least the last 2 years.

And if you need anything that requires something more than a simple walk-in can provide, say an MRI, well, as has been previously mentioned in other comments, it's faster to go to the vet; their wait list is non-existent, whereas for us humans it's significantly more. But to help pass the time away you can visit the Ontario government wait time lookup site and see such fun facts as it only takes 3 months to schedule a breast cancer surgery, of course that's only after the 1-4 month wait time for the MRI to help diagnose the disease (hopefully the first test is good).

I've actually had one of my neighbors have to get both knees replaced because the stress on her one good knee from having to do the work of two while she was waiting for her other knee surgery (she was given a 1 year wait time) was too much. Lucky for her they were willing to schedule them both for the same time so that was nice. My former neighbor's friend wasn't so lucky however, she was diagnosed with cancer and given only a few months to live and to add insult to injury the tests that could have given the doctor a better ability to target her specific cancer couldn't be scheduled until months after the date the doctor told her she would be dead by. But Moore didn't have a camera around to capture her Christmas shopping for her kids and husband in June or making videos for them to play as they were growing up because the earliest the tests that could have possibly given her a chance couldn't be scheduled until January, instead he has the camera follow him into a small clinic in the suburbs to make fun of a very real problem.

And despite your assumptions, I've seen every Michael Moore 'documentary' to date, including Sicko. I'm not basing my views of his movie on knee-jerk reactions but actual first hand knowledge.

For 30 minutes he actually breaks with tradition and puts together a pretty good doc, doing a good job of condemning the many shortfalls of the HMO system, but then he starts to let his bias in and from that point on he returns to his all to familiar extremely one-sided, hide all facts to the contrary style of movie making (his view on the Cuban system is especially telling in this regard). The saddest part is that people like you will see this movie and without doing the slightest bit of outside research accept everything he has to offer as fact. He's a great film maker but like all the other Hollywood fiction, his movies should be taken with a very open mind and a huge grain of salt. U571 is about as historically accurate as a Michael Moore 'documentary'.

Re:Hold on.

[Straif]

Wow, well I guess I know who took out the copy of the Communist manifesto from the library.

Re:Hold on.

[Straif]

Hey, I agree that that whole situation has been pretty poorly run though I'm pretty sure that's as much as we agree on on that front.

I actually think what the US led coalition is trying to accomplish in Iraq is very good, and each poll seems to indicate that the vast majority of the 25 million Iraqis agree, but partly due to poor forward planning and partly due to political infighting, both domestic and foreign, the whole Iraq campaign has repeatedly taken several turns in the wrong direction.

Re:Hold on.

[mjpaci]

Great post, thank you. In today's Wall Street Journal (June 28th, 2007) there's an article on the Op-Eds that parallels your post. The money quote was, "In Canada, dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week. Humans can wait two to three years." One of my former co-workers, a Canadian, was fond of pointing out that, "Canada has the best healthcare system in the world as long as you only have a common cold." It wasn't his line, but he repeated it often.

It could be a legal CD

[icebones]

Who's to say they didn't legally download the music and burn each song onto a CD? The article doesn't state the source of the music, just that they made it and gave it to him.

Re:It could be a legal CD

[Catbeller]

Well, it merits investigation by the RIAA, at any rate. Laws MAY have been broken. So, the twins can get a little letter asking them to pay three grand or so to keep the case out of court, just like the rest of us, and they'll pay the extortion, 'cause of course they can't afford good legal representation or know anyone who can make a call or two explaining why continued good health depends on leaving the girls alone for all of time.

Re:Bush twins

[cpghost]

it is wrong/unwise for the **IA to be selective in their pursuits of 'violators'

It may be wrong from an ethical point of view, but it's definitely not unwise from their business point of view. Biting the hands that feed them (all those "wonderful" copyright laws), now that would be unwise. They've got much more to loose should the politicians start realizing the silliness of their laws and therefore retracting them to some degree, than to gain from the publicity of a high-profile case. Within their own twisted logic, the *AAs/IFPI/... are acting as is expected: thankful and accomodating towards the powers that be, and harshly vindictive towards 10 year olds from needy backgrounds.

warning: horrid mental image ahead.

[Khaed]

I haven't seen him sharing a cell with Paris Hilton lately.

Lately? Does this imply you have seen Steve Jobs sharing a cell with Paris Hilton at some point? Is there a sex tape I don't (want to) know about?

Re:warning: horrid mental image ahead.

[Nom du Keyboard]

Is there a sex tape I don't (want to) know about?

According to the Reality Distortion Field, Paris absolutely loved it!

Bloggers Down

[__aalnoi707]

Interesting to note that the two blogger posts in this story are now gone.

Im going to give you Theorists out there some fuel. Maybe the bush administration had them removed.........

Re:Bush twins

[wirelessbuzzers]

But from a moral/political point of view, it is wrong/unwise for the **IA to be selective in their pursuits of 'violators' of their clients' copyrighted works, and doubly so in the public eye (as public officials are "role models", and also a generally privileged class). Oh, come off it. They're suing people who upload/download thousands of songs over p2p, not people who give mix tapes to their dads.

NO IT HASN'T!!

[BLKMGK]

The URL is there and it is valid. However for some reason the underscore between the and Scrivener is being removed when linked. Here's the second post that has the PNG of his letter. There will be a space in it from the /. software because I'm not making it a link. There should be an underscore between the and scrivener.blogspot.com. The date in the URL is 2002/06 and there are hypens between the words copyright is dead 2. With a little work you CAN get to this guy's pages just fine, most of the links here are being parsed badly and screwed up somehow is all. The underscore in teh domain portion of the name really breaks thing!

*use http colon here*//the*underscore goes here*scrivener.blogspot.com/2007/06/copyright-is-d ead-part-2.html

Mirror Link for Part 2

[mr_stinky_britches]

Part 2 is mirrored as well:

http://mirror.wi-fizzle.com/copyright-is-dead-part -2.html

--
wi-fizzle research and development

Re:Bush twins

[Anonymous Coward]

Double dumbass. It can't have *nothing* to do with Bush and be a bonus too.

Re:Bush twins

[boogahboogah]

Whose propaganda is it that has programmed your brain ?

Limbaugh ?

O'Reilly ?

You obviously haven't read a newspaper in 5 years. Illegal detentions in Gitmo. Wiretapping everybody & anybody without regard to the FISA act. AbuGhraib. Signing statements that ignore or contravene the law the president just signed. I would continue (there's lots more you've missed) but A) I have to get back to work & B)You're already brainwashed so it's a waste of my time.

Can you say 'Preserve protect & defend the constitution of the United States so help me God'?

Re:Bush twins

[frost_knight]

AC writes: They prosecute people who they can prove illegally distributed music-- not people "reported" by random sources with 0 credibility..

Linux.com:
"Once the RIAA has a name, the RIAA brings a case against the individual identified. As Beckerman points out, at this point, the evidence is inconclusive. "At most, they can say that someone who might somehow be associated with that IP address might have made some files available. But they certainly don't know that the defendant did. All they know is that the defendant wrote out a check to the Internet provider."

However, this vagueness does not stop the proceedings. The RIAA's preference, Beckerman says, is "to extort a [cash] settlement." If an individual resists, the RIAA brings a federal suit against him, which few individuals can afford to defend against unless they can find a lawyer willing to work for free or for a nominal fee. "You'll notice that you'll never see a big law firm in that category," he says. "The big law firms are like any big corporation -- they need to make a profit. They would be interested in representing the RIAA, not the poor people who the RIAA are pursuing."

Electra vs Barker
"The defence has made a motion to dismiss, because the case "doesn't specify any acts, dates, or times of copyright infringement as the laws normally require."

UMG vs Lindor
"She's never operated a computer, she's never even turned on a computer. The only connection she has ever had to a computer is that she has on occasion dusted near the parts that she believes are a computer. And yet she is being pursued as an online distributor in peer-to-peer file sharing."

Re:Bush twins

[nurb432]

"It has nothing to do with their Dad"

Are you sure about that? Many people are blinded to the point they cant think rationally anymore. Just like the people that gave Clinton a pass on him being impeached.. 'well,hes just human'..

But regardless of his motives, it will prove interesting if he pushes it and doesnt take some buyout to shut up.

Let he who is without sin....

[Anonymous Coward]

...or in this case *NEVER* EVER in their life EVER made an "illegal" copy of something, whether it be a Cassette tape, LP, EP, CD, DVD, VHS tape, MP3, software, etc., cast the first stone^H^H^H^H^H lawsuit....

Hrm.. the room got really quiet all the sudden...

Re:Let he who is without sin....

[Catbeller]

But, but... all those things like cassettes and LPs and VHS tapes were pre-computer! therefore it doesn't count 'cause they were analog. Right? That is the whole argument about copying CDs.. it's different 'cause they are digital... say it three times while spinning in place...

Too bad he doesn't know the law

[nsayer]

The American Home Recording Act allows people to rip, mix and burn media not protected by a DMCA covered protection mechanism, so long as it remains within the same household. The twins being the President's immediate family would certainly qualify.

Re:Bush twins

[Fujisawa Sensei]

Hmmm, are you saying that everyone else shouldn't have been victimized, but these girls should be because of their dad?

Nope, I'm saying that people should be victimized equally. :-)

I honestly don't know, has GWB said anything strongly pro-copyright or anti-music sharing? Or are we just painting him with a broad "pro-big-business" brush?

I don't care personally what his stance is; he's The President and if he puts a stop to it, for the sake of is daughters or whatever, hopefully others will be able to take advantage of that.

Admittedly, I don't have a very strong opinion on the issue - even though I have personal friends who are indie musicians with copyrighted music. It's interesting that musicians themselves seem pretty split on the issue. Some indie bands figure they won't make much money unless they can build an audience, and are willing to give up some sales to do that. OTOH, creating an album does cost money, and more money can usually make for a better final product. The big signed artists probably don't care about copying because they make most of their money off concerts while album profits go mostly to the label.

Despite what the RIAA and labels say, this has never been about the musicians, its about profit for the record companies.

$1.8 million in damages? I think not.

[cowwoc2001]

There is no way in hell that making a copy of a CD for your dad costs a music label $1.8 million in losses. I don't even care about putative fines, the numbers simply don't add up. Anyone who says otherwise is basically just trying to stick it to Bush. Scapegoating is simply the little brother of racism; it's just being applied on a smaller scale.

Re:$1.8 million in damages? I think not.

[geekoid]

Actually, it does. They can be penalized up to 150,000 dollars per track.
13 tracks isn't an unreasonable number to put on a CD...unless it's Led Zepplin, then its like 4.

Re:$1.8 million in damages? I think not.

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, cos zep has some long songs. [rolling of eyes]

come back when you learn something about music.

Re:$1.8 million in damages? I think not.

[geekoid]

It was a joke, and I was obviously talking about Rock and Roll music. Within that context Zep and some long songs. 8-14 minutes Approx.

I could also have said Pink Floyd, or Wagner. None of which matters for the joke.

Come back when you get your head out of your ass..coward.

Re:$1.8 million in damages? I think not.

[cowwoc2001]

Fair enough but my point is that the fine should be dependent on the distribution level. You should get fined a different value when you made a copy for your dad than when you uploaded 10,000 copies to random people online. The former should not cost you $150,000 per track for obvious reasons :) At most they should be able to fine the girls $20 which is the equivilent cost of one pirated CD.

Re:Bush twins

[MillionthMonkey]

It is about whether the RIAA is selectively enforcing their copyrights;

Well, when the president's daughters do it that means that it is not illegal.

Re:Bush twins

[jeffasselin]

That's not the point. The point is that everything is (or at the least should be) equal before the law, and any transgression of the law should be investigated and pursued. That their father is President of the USA should be irrelevant. The lawyer here calling for investigation is making a point that the RIAA, on the other hand, is mostly pursuing people with little money to defend themselves, and extorting money from them, and that the penalties for copyright infringement are completely disproportional to the offenses.

Re:Bush twins

[Fujisawa Sensei]

You left out that part that a lawyer is not a person with 0 credibility. As I understand it he is an officer of the court, so he has a legal obligation to report this. Also by failing to report it, unless he's they're lawyer and attorney client relation exists he could potentially be disbarred for it. And what's even better if there was an attorney client relation or the girls weren't really distributing copyright material he could get disbarred and Florida would have one less lawyer on their hands. Which I see as a win win situation for the people.

Re:Bush twins

[UnknowingFool]

True, it just happens this was reported on the Bush twins. It would be no different if it was John Kerry's or Al Gore's children. But then again, John Kerry doesn't listen to any music until he's taken a straw poll first to figure which song he should listen to. And since Al Gore invented music, he might be able to show prior art to anything the RIAA sued him for. I kid! I kid!

Not So Fast

[internic]

I was also curious about the comment mentioning the Audio Home Recording Act. It looks like that would still probably not make this mix CD legal (but then IANAL). The text of the relevant portion of the U.S.C. is here. The apparently revelant portion of the statue (Sect 1008) says:

No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.

An analysis from what looks to be a University law journal is available here. From that piece (under the section on the Audio Home Recording Act):

In 1992, Congress passed the Audio Home Recording Act ("AHRA"), an amendment to the federal copyright law. Under the AHRA, all digital recording devices must incorporate a Serial Copy Management System ("SCMS"). This system allows digital recorders to make a first-generation copy of a digitally recorded work, but does not allow a second-generation copy to be made from the first copy... The AHRA also provides for a royalty tax...This tax is paid by the manufacturers of digital media devices...The SCMS and royalty requirements apply only to digital audio recording devices. Because computers are not digital audio recording devices, they are not required to comply with Serial Copy Management System requirement.

So apparently, at least in that author's opinion, PCs don't qualify as digital audio devices (and if you read Sect. 1001 of the statue you'll see that indeed seems to be the case) and hence are not covered on the exemption given by the AHRA. I'm not offering an opinion on the law, because I don't know enough about copyright law (especially case law), but it looks like based on this other source that commentor's assertion that the AHRA protects the mix CD is questionable at best.

Re:Not So Fast

[internic]

Er, I meant to say that it looks like a mix CD would not be covered if it were burned on a computer CD-R drive. It sounds like it could be burned on a dedicated audio CD burner that implements SCMS and everything would be legal. Again, IANAL so I'm by no means certain that's correct.

Re:Not So Fast

[dgatwood]

No, that's not quite right. SCMS is required by any device that qualifies as a consumer audio recording device. However, SCMS is not required for a consumer to use a consumer audio recording device to make copies legally. The device merely must be a consumer audio recording device.

• If you buy a really old consumer DAT prior to when that law was passed, you are still protected in its use even though it predates SCMS. Though one might debate the definition of "consumer" in terms of early DAT hardware, the government failed to establish a definition for it, and the distinction has basically become moot at this point with the erosion of the distinction between consumer and pro gear in the last decade or so. (Technically, it's probably illegal for someone to sell you that old DAT, though!)
• If you built a digital audio device yourself, you might be able to legally make direct digital copies without SCMS. I'm not sure about the legal definition of "product" in this context.

• A digital audio recording device that only accepts analog inputs can be used legally (since SCMS is neither required nor possible for analog transmission).

.

Also, the lawsuit against Diamond (over the Rio music player) significantly expanded the interpretation of that language to include devices for audio that don't pay the tax because they are incapable of making serial copies.

That said, you are correct that the AHRA probably doesn't cover computers because the device's primary purpose is not to make a digital copy of a recording and because it does have the ability to make serial copies without restriction.

Re:Bush twins

[P3NIS_CLEAVER]

Has the RIAA ever litigated a case where a person made a copy of music and gave it to a family member? What does privilege have to do with this?

Civil suits

[Segaholic2]

In cases like this the RIAA files civil lawsuits on behalf of the record labels to seek damages for copyright infringement. The scale of file-sharing exemplified in giving someone a mix CD or whatever probably doesn't fit the definition of "felony copyright infringement."

The association needs some kind of evidence to even begin to file a lawsuit, meaning either logs proving that the twins were sharing copyrighted music from their computers, or maybe the association could steal a copy of President Bush's mix CD to see what's on it.

In any case, under U.S. copyright law, damages sought for copyright infringement in civil suits can range from a minimum $750 up to a maximum $150,000 per copyrighted work.

Re:Bush twins

[Esion Modnar]

It's about public humiliation of the RIAA. Imagine a bully, who prefers picking on the weak, is confronted by a real bruiser who starts blowing his nose on the bully's shirt. The bully now has the unfortunate choice of either pretending ignorance, or responding with violence which will end up with him on the ground, bleeding from both ends. Either option is humiliating for the bully.

It shows to everyone what the bully truly is about: cowardice. All the bully can do is glare at the tormenter.

In the case of the RIAA, they are faced with a lose-lose-lose situation: even if they bring a case, and even if they win it, they lose politically. If they lose the case, they establish a bad precedent for themselves. Public humiliation is the least damaging of their options.

Stripper Poll

[Your Pal Dave]

the Bush twins are on the stripper poll BY CHOICE. Now there's a poll with a Cowboy Neil option which scares me!

Re:Stripper Poll

[Anonymous Coward]

Between the twins, I pick Barbara.

Actually AHRA is irrelevent

[internic]

Having had a minute more to think about it, the AHRA protects companies distributing recording media and consumers making digital copies of copyrited works. If they had legally acquired the music in the first place, making the copy wouldn't really be is the issue, as this would be fair use (though it's still an interesting question of whether it's technically legal). The problem would be that they then distributed the music to someone else, namely their father. As far as I can see, the AHRA doesn't offer any protection for people distibuting copies of music they made (rather than just blank media). So the AHRA is probably completely irrelevant to the crux of the issue here.

Serves me right for posting too quickly I guess. I'd be really interested to see what actual (unbiased) lawyers had to say about the question.

The Lawyer is an IDIOT

[ROMRIX]

There has to be an infringement to investigate first. Fortunately (for the Bushes) there was none.
Read section 1008 of the "AUDIO HOME RECORDING ACT" Here; (pdf file)

" No action may be brought under this title , or under section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture , importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium , an analogue recording device, or an analogue recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analogue musical recordings."

The senate report on the act specifically cites making copies for family members as "non-commercial uses", and thus not an infringement.

My view on this is that the Lawyer was simply blinded by his extreme hatred of all things Bush and/or republican. This goes beyond bias this is pure unadulterated blinding hatred on the part of the lawyer and is propagated by other liberal Democrats that simply cannot get over the fact that George Bush beat Al Gore almost 8 years ago. It has nothing to do with the RIAA or President Bushes daughters. Headline should read; "Lawyer Blinded by Hatred Asks RIAA To Investigate Bush Twins"
Everyone reading this knows this to be true yet I am sure this will be modded down as "flamebait" due to that same ongoing hatred, simply because it reads to favor the Bushes when in truth it only reads as facts.
You be the judge.
Read it again and try to find bias on my part.
Don't confuse fact with bias.

Re:The Lawyer is an IDIOT

[colanut]

It has nothing to do with the RIAA or President Bushes daughters. Headline should read; "Lawyer Blinded by Hatred Asks RIAA To Investigate Bush Twins"

Wrong. Try: "Lawyer Blinded by Hatred [of the RIAA and their screwed up sense of priorities jokingly] Asks RIAA To Investigate Bush Twins". It was a joke on a blog. Get defensive much?

Re:The Lawyer is an IDIOT

[ROMRIX]

It was a joke on a blog. Get defensive much?

What was the punchline again?

Re:The Lawyer is an IDIOT

[colanut]

Let see the joke goes like this. The RIAA sue people for sharing. The RIAA have publicly stated that mix CDs are a grey area they don't approve of and could possibly sue for. A public figure is reported to make a mix CD for another public figure. A lawyer, in the spirit of the RIAA's policies and actions, suggest they go after the public figure. Everyone knows the lawyer is being factious because the act is not really infringing, though the RIAA has been over zealous in pursuing copyright infringement.

Its not really "ha, ha" funny. But it is a fairly common comedy technique to point out the hypocrisy of authoritative institutions. How you managed to read it as a "liberal" attack on the current administration is beyond me. I kept expecting to read something about "Clinton did it too" in your post.

It seems you have an ax to grind with any written word that involves the Bush family.

Pot, Kettle.

[geekoid]

it's "Audio Home Recording Act"
It pertains to DAT and SCMS. It provide protection for the manufactures of devices.

It doesn't say anything anywhere about being allowed to share with anyone in the household.
As far as the public is concerned, it only says distribution without the SCMS is a violation.
Other forms of distribution are covered elsewhere in the copyright code.

Re:Pot, Kettle.

[nsayer]

So sorry, "American" was the name while it was being drafted.

And, actually, it does exempt home copying:

Private, noncommercial copies by consumers using "digital audio recording devices" are explicitly protected by [section] 1008. The Senate report defines noncommercial as "not for direct or indirect commercial advantage," offering examples such as making copies for a family member, or copies for use in a car or portable tape player.

Re:Pot, Kettle.

[geekoid]

Don't forget that the intent of the bill is to protect manufacturers, and applies to recording devices. I bring that up for context.

Section 1001 define what kind of devices the AHRA include.

A CD-R recorder included as part of a personal computer would not be a digital audio recording device under the Act, since the personal computer was not marketed primarily for making copies of music.

If it was recorded with a qualifying device, then the SCMS bit flag must set.

Since a cd-r is not considered a "digital audio recording device" or a "digital audio recording medium" they wouldn't have to pay royalties under this piece of the code
(See RIAA v. Diamond multimedia.), but that also means the AHRA doesn't apply to them at all, other parts of the copyright code would apply.

So at this time it has not been tested at all if section 1008 protection can be applied to Cd's you make on your computer, or anything that is not a "digital audio recording device" as defined by AHRA.
The intent of the protection was for the copying and distributing SCMS supported devices and media.

Re:Pot, Kettle.

[nsayer]

I'll assume for the moment that the Twins didn't specify whether or not they used a standalone CD recorder (which would certainly qualify under the act) or a computer. Presumably you would have to agree both that it is indeed a plausible possibility that that is what they did, and that if section 1008 is as limited as you say it is that it would still at least cover burning copies for personal household use using such a device. That being the case, the troll lawyer and/or RIAA would still have insufficient grounds for action since they have no evidence that the copy was not made legally.

Personally, I think it much more likely that the troll lawyer was ignorant of section 1008 and was just trying, as trolls do, to start a messy debate.

Re:Pot, Kettle.

[Catbeller]

No, he was making a solid point. The wealthy and connected twins publicly "violated the law" by copying music, in spirit if not in technique to other kids who are being sued to bankruptcy, if they are even allowed to file under the new laws. But no one noticed, no one pointed, and sure as hell the FBI and RIAA will never utter a peep. because they are the offspring of the upper untouchable class. I'm sure even the RIAA would blanche at going up against Jim Baker, family lawyer of the Bushes, who damned near single handedly stopped an American presidential election. In Texas, the Bush family is a legend -- you simply do not fuck with them. They will track you down and run you over. Twice. And your dog.

free money

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the reason liberals offer money to the poor is that those at the top are more vulnerable than they think. Welfare is for society, not the poor. We did have this little thing called the great depression that happened before we had welfare. Every time someone loses a job, they no longer contribute to the economy. A little help up from the government helps the economy from spiraling down -- money, no matter where it comes from, gets spent. . .and that my dear conservative friend, keeps other people working. Yes, some people abuse the system, but that is far outweighed by not letting hardworking people on hard times fall thru the cracks. Why is that so hard for you people to understand? Not that you or anyone will read this comment, by an anonymous coward, buried in a dead end thread -- but what the hell.

Re:free money

[dwlovell]

There is a major flaw in your argument. It turns out that conservatives give more of *their own money* to the poor than liberals. It has been shown time and again. The difference is that liberals want to give *other people's money* to the poor so they can buy votes and pretend to be compassionate. If they really cared for the poor, they would give their own personal money, not try to pass laws that redistributes money from everyone else.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/04/11/opinion/ main1489914.shtml
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/20 06/12/10/who_gives/

-David

Re:free money

[tuxgeek]

Your post is pure bullshit... you must work for fox corp or some other republiNazi group. In the REAL world, all conservatives are self-centered gluttons that believe that is morally correct to cheat on their taxes, cheat everyone they do business with, never pay your bills on time, and never pay interest on past due debts you owe other hard working people you do business with. Get a clue, or buy one if you don't have the brains to formulate your own.

Re:free money

[Anonymous Coward]

AC here. You are not arguing the same thing. I have a historical reference to back up my claim. That's the major flaw in your reply. . .I see none in mine. There is a difference between chartable giving and heading off a systemic failure in the economy that I am talking about. Even your conservative examples will stop giving if they lose their job. Besides, you're basing your argument on something I didn't say, which is that conservatives give more than liberals from their pocket. I didn't claim, nor imply, anything of the like. I was explaining the rational behind societal welfare -- and that argument is solid -- regardless of whatever dubious motives you ascribe to it. The reason for welfare is to stop the economy from snowballing out of control every time people lose their jobs. Nice try tho, but you didn't address my point. Take your false logic elsewhere or address the point david.

Re:free money

[dwlovell]

The argument is simple. If enough people give charitably on their own, there is no need for a social welfare program. Conservatives have shown they believe in helping the poor by shelling out their own money. Liberals who try to force a government welfare program on everyone frees them up from donating their own money. I totally agree that we should help out those less fortunate and most of those "fundie-conservatives" have a religious mandate to help out the poor.

Now, I think it is a fair counter-argument you can't trust the common good to give and thus need the government program, but don't make conservatives out to be people who dont understand the economics of helping the less fortunate. My valid logical point was that conversatives believe in this more than liberals because they regularly put their own money on the line.

-David

Re:free money

[Uzuri]

Y'know, that's the first time I've heard that make sense.

It's a matter of point of view, isn't it? Liberals (statistically) see the need for the programs but dont' really like to give themselves, so they think that most people are like them won't give and there needs to be an authority that forces people to give. Conservatives (statistically) also see the need for charity programs but often give their own money so they assume that most people are like them and would give more if not forced to.

Hmm.

Now We Know!

[BlueMikey]

In other news, the Congressional hearings on the Justice Department firings will resume with Attorney General Gonzales being asked about his knowledge of Mixtapegate. In a wild turn of events, President Bush will be implicated as instrumenting the firings of the US Attorneys whom he knew would prosecute his daughters for making mix CDs. Bush will be impeached and, with Cheney taking over the presidency, America will start 5 new wars before the end of term. Of course, Haliburton's stock will skyrocket and, when his term is up, Cheney will take over the title of World's Richest Man. (However, after this scandal, the Democrats will take over the presidency and a greater number of seats in Congress, enacting so many new taxes and welfare programs that the amount of money Cheney has now will be the amount of money Cheney has in the Brave New World.)

Re:Now We Know!

[Catbeller]

Hear the funny thing Cheney said? He said that since his job straddles the Executive (VP) and the Legislative (presides over the Senate), he therefore is not in the Executive branch of the government exclusively and therefore not subject to the oversight of the Executive by congress. I assume that he will soon say the reverse keeps him from being subject to oversight by congress in his capacity in the Senate. Since I doubt he is in the Judicial branch, Cheney is, for all law enforcement purposes, not a member of the US federal government. I assume therefore he is the Grand Vizier to the throne. He doesn't say what he thinks he is, in his secret lair with his secret and continually purged communications systems. Perhaps he is just extragovernmental. Ultra dires. Not subject to international or American laws. Fu Manchu? A man-god, perhaps? Only in a country this stupid and uninformed can a vice president declare himself above his own country's laws -- and the news presents it as a "Democratic partisans vs. The Vice President" argument that one shouldn't take sides on. A silly little tiff; the VP says he can't be investigated. Democrats make a fuss, as usual, news at 11. Can you IMAGINE VP Al Gore saying something like that and getting away with it clean??

It does

[geekoid]

If the are transfering with the SCMS then it is fine, if not then it is a violation ender this code.

In any case, it is still a violation under other copyright statutes.

The Audio Home Recording Act ia primarily about manucatures, brought on by the introduction of the DAT.

It was also there first real shot a DRM. It got watered down, and the RIAA still threatened to sue various manufactures. I don't know if they went through with that or not.

Give unto Caesar...

[east coast]

Easy solution?

The RIAA will settle out of court.

I don't know what the USD/song ratio is in most of the RIAA settlements but my guess is that the president's daughters could turn this into a dead issue by scratching out a check for a few hundred dollars (if it's even that high) and this way no one seems to be partial and no one loses face.

I just find it amazing the number of Slashdotters who normally scream that IP is bullshit are now howling for blood considering the targets.

Oh well, just more hypocrisy.

Re:Give unto Caesar...

[Catbeller]

It would be, if anyone were doing what you're fantasizing they are doing.

Re:Give unto Caesar...

[neminem]

I've said it before, but I'll say it again: the point is not that we want to take down the targets, by supporting the RIAA. The point is, these are high-profile targets, with lots of power, and it'd be a great way to convince those in power, however much we might not like them, to take the RIAA down a few notches. Sadly, I think you're right, that if the RIAA actually thought this was worth their time, they'd simply make it look like they'd gone after them, while actually quickly settling for spare change.

My God...

[Eric Damron]

He published a retraction:

Friday, June 22, 2007
A Retraction

It has come to my attention that noncommercial copying of digital music recordings may not be an infringement under Title 17 of the U.S. Code, "Copyrights." I apologize for any confusion I may have caused or any mistaken impression I may have given."

Re:My God...

[russotto]

The retraction is wrong. The exemption under AHRA only applies if a SCMS-supporting device is used. I don't think those can make mix CDs.

Re:My God...

[Catbeller]

Let me rephrase that retraction:

"People who should know tell me that fucking with the Bush family is much like asking Scientology to sue me and to kiss my ass at the same time. Unrewarding. And I'm also given to understand that unlike the Scientologists, the Bush family is mean. I hereby call myself a fool and pray to Saint Reagan, patron of feckless leaders, that the IRS and Homeland Security aren't having a race to see which will get to ruin my life first. I never really liked flying or foreign travel much anyway. Please don't hurt me.

Re:Bush twins

[Danse]

Has the RIAA ever litigated a case where a person made a copy of music and gave it to a family member? What does privilege have to do with this?

How often do they have people publicly admitting to violating copyright law? A violation is a violation, right? Giving a mix CD to someone is distribution, since that person didn't pay for the rights to the music. So they broke the law. If the law is applied equally, then they should be held accountable just as any other file-sharer, though they'd probably pay a smaller fine in this case.

If the RIAA doesn't think this is a violation, then I'd like to see them come out make a public statement declaring that it is not a violation of copyright law to make mix CDs and give them to others.

Dang! Even the Google cache is dead.

[Torodung]

Free speech my arse. I can't even get a Google cache of what he wrote. It's like navigating the Internet version of some Stalinese scorched earth maneuver.

Anyone have the full text of this thing? He "voluntarily" retracted the entire article, and I'd like to read his rant.

To spuriously quote an old New Hampshire congressman: "I've never seen, heard, nor smelled an issue that was so dangerous it couldn't be talked about."

--
Toro

Re:Bush twins

[east coast]

The person is obviously more pissed at the RIAA than anyone, and just trying to point out that there is a privileged class in this country that the RIAA doesn't go after.

Hmmm.. a couple of people handing over a single CD with a few tracks or the guy with 14000 songs on eMule? Who should I prosecute? Hmm...

It's more likely that the RIAA understands that going after people with a larger number of violations and obviously more intent to distribute illegal copies are a better targets of their expendable cash to fund lawyers over? I dunno, just a thought.

There is a reason that cops on the side of the road don't pull over every car going 2 miles over the speed limit. There is a reason that casual drug users are generally left alone unless they go out of their way to get caught. And there is a reason the RIAA isn't going to bother with every person who admits to copying a single CD. And most of the time this has nothing to do with being "privileged".

Re:Bush twins

[Mockylock]

So.. anyone in the world who is known to have a mix CD (probably 70% of the US) gives RIAA the right to conduct an investigation on them, and sue for 1.8 million dollars in damages?

Everyone?

I don't see them going after rap artists that dub songs from every artist known to man, even when they reproduce it on their albums. They make money off of them.

I don't see them going after movie stars when they see a burnt disc on the seat of their car.

I don't give a shit if it's someone popular or not, even if it IS Bush's daughters... RIAA doesn't have the right to defend their copyright by destroying someone's life.

Some artist can sing about killing people after he got out of jail. Someone steal that CD from a car...listen to it on the street... get inspired enough to kill a couple people.. go to jail and pay LESS than 1.8 million.

Not only that.. but you or I could get high, drive drunk, speed.. GET CAUGHT.. all at the same TIME.. and pay LESS than $1000 in fines over the fucking phone.

Now. Where is the line drawn when protecting a copyright? Especially a song that's broadcast over the air 50,000 times a day.

Found in Yahoo's cache.

[Torodung]

Here's the original, for as long as it stays up.

Yahoo's cache of retracted blog entry.

Re:Found in Yahoo's cache.

[Anonymous Coward]

And here's a copy of the text from Yahoo's cache, for as long as /. stays up!

---

Thursday, June 21, 2007
Copyright is Dead

Anyone who doubts that the copyright regime as we know it is dead should read a short article about President Bush's Father's Day that appeared in the Miami Herald June 18, written by an Associated Press writer. (The article is at http://www.miamiherald.com/692/story/142726.html.)

And here's the money quote:

        [President] Bush's twin daughters, gave him a CD they had made for him to listen to while exercising.

Let me unpack that statement. Let's assume twelve songs, copied from twelve different CDs. We'll assume for the purpose of argument that there's no problem with the original recordings being registered (17 U.S.C. 412 (2006) makes statutory damages unavailable for unregistered works) or not being marked correctly (17 U.S.C. 402 (2006)).

This mix CD isn't a compilation being copied, it's one being created, so the last sentence of 17 U.S.C. 504(c)(1) (2006) doesn't apply--the copyright rights-holder may get damages for each song copied. There's a rebuttable presumption that the infringement was willful (17 U.S.C. 504(c)(3)(A) (2006)), which means that 17 U.S.C. 504(c)(2) (2006) applies: $150,000 statutory damages per infringement.

That's $1,800,000 in statutory damages.

Excuse me while I call the RIAA and complain in the strongest possible terms. (Anyone think they'll care?) Meanwhile, the RIAA continues suing peer-to-peer infringers apace.

Re:Bush twins

[Anonymous Coward]

But President Bush has deep pockets. He could actually pay the 1.5 million. That could establish precedent and give weight to future law suites. I bet President Bush starts investing in record companies.

Um, no it couldn't. If Bush did not defend himself at trial, no decisions would be made on any defense arguments, so no precedent would be set.

Let's turn this around

[Mariner28]

Hypothetical:

Let's say Bush's daughters had some music video DVD's, and they ripped them and put them on Dad's video iPod. That's the same as a mix tape, right?

Not according to proposed legislation making the rounds of Congress right now. A consortium of vendors and content providers is trying to make it illegal to copy any DVD, regardless if it's even a backup copy so your 4-year old won't damage your only copy of Shrek2...

For all you that feel making a mix CD is piracy, by all means, proceed to bash.

For all you that feel making a mix music DVD is piracy, by all means, proceed to bash. The only difference between the two is a bit of misguided legislation called the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. I see a slippery slope here...

Re:Let's turn this around

[therufus]

It seems you're forgetting that circumventing CSS copywrite encryption is illegal. CD's (generally) don't have copy protection mechanisms. You're comparing apples with oranges.

Re:Let's turn this around

[Mariner28]

And what law makes it illegal to circumvent CSS encryption? Why, it's the DMCA (as in copyright, not copywrite). Any CD with copy protection is not a legal CD. Philip's original license under which true music Compact Discs are made does not allow extentions implement copy protection. To legally carry the "CD" logo, you can't put copy protection on it...

Loophole

[Anonymous Coward]

You for got about the loophole the powerful and wealthy have: pay enough money (or threaten) in order to have the law suit retracted. I wonder how much money that lawyer made through this stunt...

Mccarthyism

[TinBromide]

mccarthyism and the early salem witch trials ended when high profile people (read: close to the heart of those doing the prosecutions) were targeted as communists or witches. Hit the president's daughter and senators feel that they might be next and enact laws to save us all.

Re:Mccarthyism

[dbIII]

mccarthyism and the early salem witch trials ended when high profile people

McCarthy was finished when he started going after the military AFTER he had used his influence to get his boyfriend promoted in a military unit. When you have a combination of nepotism by a corrupt mongel know for lashing out at everyone that gets in his way and the gays in the military issue in the 1950s what do you think was going to happen? They opposed him, he named Marshall as a communist in retaliation (as in the the Mashall plan guy and the person who ran the US end of WWII from the top) and it became clear that was just too riduculous to be true.

McCarthy was a good example of what can happen when a power hungry hypocrite willing to ignore more rules than anyone else gets his sights set on the white house and takes over a popular issue - exploiting a climate of fear and manufacturing more things to be afraid of where none existed.

no friggin way

[Anonymous Coward]

If you believe that the powers that be will turn on and annihilate each other you, Sir, are rather naive. - A mixture of threats and big chunks of money will be used to resolve this situation.

Re:Bush twins

[Jimithing DMB]

Why do you suppose I don't read the news simply because I have a different view? I do read the news. I am well aware that combatants captured overseas are held at Gitmo. I am also well aware that wiretaps have occurred where one end of the call is overseas, even if the other end is domestic. I applaud Bush for his use of signing statements. He is the head of the executive branch (i.e. a president), not the head of the legislative branch (i.e. a prime minister). If you think of it like a company, the president is sort of like the chief executive and the congress is sort of like the board. The chief executive does not have to do everything the board asks, although if he doesn't he risks losing the next election. Bush has no more elections to win so the only thing possible is to remove him from office. Short of proving he committed treason (that's what "high crimes" means) he cannot be removed from office.

I might ask what propaganda has programmed your brain? Accusing the president of committing treason is easy to do. Believing it (true or false) as you seem to is also an easy thing to do. Actually proving it is an entirely different matter. I am sure that if there was proof there is nothing the Democrats would want more than to impeach the president in the house and convict him in the senate. But they have not because the fact is they can't prove it and it's all hot air used to win elections.

Calling the kettle black

[deets]

I am glad to see that none of the Bush bashers here on /. have ever made a mix tape/CD and let someone else listen to it. That would be a shame.

Re:Calling the kettle black

[neminem]

That's not the point, though. The point is that we all have made mix tapes. But we don't have the power to say, you're stupid, stop litigating us. The President, however, has that power, which is why it would be great if the RIAA tried to go after his children.

I recall, for instance, how McCarthy went after just about everyone with impunity... but then he tried to go after the military, and got shot down fast.

American politics is one dimensional

[Colin Smith]

There is only left and right, and Americans seem to think along these one dimensional lines.

Oh and the American definition of liberal is fucked up beyond all recognition. Which normally wouldn't bother me but the more retarded among my countrymen are starting to redefine the meaning of liberal in the UK as well.

Re:American politics is one dimensional

[Anonymous Coward]

I will admit though that your mum's puss is 4 dimensional. Especially after I stretched it with my huge cock. I thought her shit was going to come out 5 dimensional. Smile at the nice cameras for me while your busy with your America bashing, fucking limey cocksucker. Your local authorities like it when you smile.

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

That was the most symetrical post I've read in a while!

This would be a good thing!!!

[one2meny]

I wish the RIAA would go forward and try to litigate the President's daughters. All of a sudden the President's attention would be very quickly and precisely to act against any current and future RIAA litigation by basically saying, you're a bullying group with no legal authority don't do this type of thing again or be disbanded. If only...

Stupid Lawyer

[Anonymous Coward]

He must have forgotten that the President can pardon anyone from any crime.

Fair Use

[mapinguari]

No, it's not fair use, probably for several reasons, but particularly because it fails to meet the test regarding amount and substantiality. If you consider each song to be a copyrighted work, then ripping a single song is copying that work in its entirety. "Fair use" is generally restricted to criticism, news reporting, teaching, and parody.

But it is legal under the Audio Home Recording Act which provides an exemption for noncommercial copying.

If you can sit through it, see also the recent Disneyfied explanation.

I don't understand

[Eric Damron]

If a SCMS-supporting device was used (let's say she found one that could make a mix) would it then be legal to give that CD away? I'm not a lawyer so I don't know but something doesn't sound right.

Does it mean if I purchased a SCMS-supporting device and a million music CDs I could burn a million copies of a popular album and give them away to whom ever I wanted? Any lawyers out there want to explain?

And him a firstborn too!

[sgt_doom]

And this guy Bush is supposed to be the firsborn son, un-frigging-believable!!!! (Please refer to later article on IQ and firstborns.)

Please, no! Not to Dubai!

[ElGanzoLoco]

Oh my. This is hillarious. Get them off to dubai with the haliburton execs to avoid prosecution.

Yeah, well, but no thanks, we already have enough rich assholes around here, and don't need any more.

Thanks,
A Dubai resident

Untouchables

[Anonymous Coward]

What a joke!

There allowed to break the law because they rock

[bl8n8r]

The Wild Stallions would be proud..

http://photos4.flickr.com/8715152_56a6a7c0a2_m.jpg

Re:Cupcakes

[Anonymous Coward]

The Republican Conservative defense for all the shit they do: Democrats do it, too.

f u

I hope it takes less than my lifetime to clean up after this administration.

Here let me fix your errant post for you! No need to thank me! :-)

The Blueberry Cookie chocolate for all the twinkies they do: Pancakes do it, too.

fluff me

I hope it bakes tasty than my egg time to wring up after the muffin.

There, I fixed it, no need to thank me. :-) Later!

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Ha ha

[xenn]

Succinct.

Daddy he being mean to me!

[AnalogDiehard]

Bush daughters: Daddy there's a mean lawyer in Florida who is siccing the RIAA on us for sharing a CD!

G.W. Bush: You poor thing. Would you like Daddy to put this lawyer on the no-fly list?

Share ratio

[MarkByers]

> In a general sense, in the United States at least, distributing five or fewer copies of a song is protected by such things as (ta-da!) the Audio Home Recording Act.

This is why I always stop sharing a song when my share ratio reaches 1:1, although maybe 5:1 would be safe too.

Such stupidity!

[Retting]

Pardon my BSG, but who give a frack!

Class, thanks :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

That was good for a laugh. It's probably also fairly close to reality, I don't think that one lone lawyer stands a chance against the Bush family without very heavy backing - there seem to be whole websites dedicated to keeping up with how many laws are "creatively applied" in their (and especially his) case.

And he hasn't demanded an outsourced blowjob, which seems to be a critical factor in the US in getting a president indicted* :-).

(*) Yes I know, it was about lying to Congress, but from that angle it makes even less sense..

It'd be funny to watch them do a Paris Hilton.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd love to see sherriff deputies carting them off for a short jail term...with the waterworks going.

Re:Bush twins

[Jafafa Hots]

I didn't day privilege has anything to do with the RIAA's decisions, I just said that that is what the guy complaining to the RIAA is obviously trying to assert.

Re:Bush twins

[Jafafa Hots]

I agree. *I'm* not trying to assert that the RIAA doesn't go after the privileged (though lets face it, they wouldn't sue the Bush twins, nor Nancy Pelosi's kids, for using limewire) I'm just saying that thats what the guy complaining is clearly trying to assert, rather than just being a Bush-hater as the parent poster suggests.

Nothing wrong?

[Naruki]

In what universe?

If you go by the legal definition, which is the context of this article and the RIAA's entire existence, then you are absolutely... wrong.

"Personal use" does NOT apply to giving away to others.

As I and most other understand, you are thinking in the "wishful", not "legal", contexts. In your mind, such copying should never be a problem.

But that is not the context of this discussion, so your argument is specious.

to not sue a known instance of infringement...

[DragonTHC]

If they don't sue, the RIAA will lose every single case they attempt to bring forth.

The defendants can simply claim they were targeted due to their lack of affluence.

Any judge who isn't an industry whoring shill will dismiss.

Re:The leftist revolution of the sub-humans contin

[fucksl4shd0t]

That doesn't mean they're not filthy and disgusting.

"role" model

[Anonymous Coward]

The word is "role," everyone. Not "roll". The idea of a role model is someone who shows you how to perform a certain role in a social situation. It's modeling behavior, which is the definition of a "role."

How could a president know...

[owidder]

... whether he infringes copyright law? See my small cartoon: http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2007/06 /mr-presidents-e.html Bye, Oliver

Re:Bush twins

[Bob-taro]

That's not the point. The point is that everything is (or at the least should be) equal before the law, and any transgression of the law should be investigated and pursued.

Okay, so RIAA is picking and choosing whom to prosecute. They're a private entity and they can go after whomever they want. Of course they're going to go after the easier targets first. I'm not saying that's "A Good Thing", but what's the alternative -- force them to prosecute everyone?