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Bill Would Criminalize Attempted IP Infringement
ianare writes "H.R. 3155, the Intellectual Property Enhanced Criminal Enforcement Act of 2007, has been introduced in Congress by Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH). In most cases, the bill appears to simply double existing penalties. One big change however, is that people could now be charged with criminal copyright infringement even if such infringement has not actually taken place. Not surprisingly, the EFF has condemned the legislation."
Every time I read somthing like this, I'm driven further away from wanting to participate in the exchange of ideas outside of a physical conversation with someone.
I'm afraid of being locked up & not being able to understand why I'm locked up.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Why, nothing at all.
You did know that an attempt to commit a crime is itself a crime? Try forcing a lock the charge will be attempted burglary.
Between the DMCA, the BSA, the RIAA and the MPAA, we have legislation and watchdog groups to cover every imaginable form of piracy. The courts are already having to deal with lawsuits over pathetic amounts of money to make an example of people. Do we really need to have federal agencies doing the investigation as well and make room in the criminal judicial system as well?
A couple of 30-somethings embark on the ultimate roadtrip
So what evidence do you need of "attempted" infringement? Will having a BitTorrent client on your system be enough? I can easily see a RIAA lawyer taking that stance in court.
Not a typewriter
But after all, isn't stopping file sharing an integral part of the War On Terror? If we cease our eternal vigilance against these evil people, our American way of life will be destroyed by the flood of shoddy knockoffs of CDs and DVDs. And after all, isn't a little bit of presumed guilt worth knowing that your next purchase of a music CD is, as it should, going straight into the coffers of a legitimate recording studio, rather than to some pirate or -- *gasp* -- the musician.
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And remember, boys and girls -- "We had to destroy your freedom in order to save it."
From the bill:
This paragraph is more disturbing to me - language like that can be used to rope in just about anyone.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Why can't we just have a copyright system that is handle in civil courts? Why does everything have to be a crime now?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Republican. From Ohio, maybe the most corrupt den of Republicans exposed in the past few years.
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make install -not war
Write to your representatives if you can.
Also, send them lots of money in the form of campaign contributions. They seem to really like that.
I'm concerned with what is their justification for doubling prison terms in terms of proportionality of punishment. Let punishment fit the crime, etc.
Are pirates that big of a threat to society that they merit a doubling of imprisonment? I can see how commercial pirates represent much more tangible harm than personal copyright infringement does, as sales take place, though at potentially at a much higher quantity than at the legitimate price. But this just going through the database and multiplying everything by two, which suggests considering these matters was at best done in a haphazard or arbitrary manner.
Is this just a matter of our good friend and his 'constituents' thinking that eye-for-an-eye is not enough and upgrading it to head-for-an-eye, because I can think of a better use of prisons and related resources than for this.
You know, I only recently came upon this idea (not original, of course) of questioning copyright during a recent discussion here on slashdot. At first I was just making a logical argument like one might in a formal debate... sort of playing the devil's advocate. And it suddenly stuck me that it was more than a debate exercise. It really made sense. Copyright and patent laws as we know them are fundamentally broken. You can't own information. It is totally absurd. I mean, I still believe in giving credit where credit is due for ideas and ensuring that creators are not plagiarized, because that would be fraud (what copyright should be about), but there is absolutely no moral or logical basis for the ownership of information. People seem to think that they have a right to make money off of their ideas. And that is just absurd. They have the right *try* and make money off of their ideas, but nobody else is obligated to ensure that their business model is profitable. If you decide to make some information public, it is out there. You can't control it.
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
That's different. You are still innocent until proven guilty, it's just that now you can be found guilty of intent to pirate. They still have to prove that before they can dish out any punishment.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
"You did know that an attempt to commit a crime is itself a crime? Try forcing a lock the charge will be attempted burglary."
In other words, you're charged with a different crime - "attempted burglary, not borglary. If you read the article, the charges, penalties, etc., are the same for an attempt as for the actual crime.
Attempted burglary can include a spur-of-the-moment going up to a closed door and seeing if its locked - the actual damages of an unsuccessful attempt are none, and its certainly not in the same league as successfully attacking the door with a crowbar which you brought along (premeditated) for that express purpose.
Instead of doubling jail terms for this, why not double them for white collar crime, perjury, and rape? Oh, right ... the perps of white collar crime own the politicians, the politicians and their friends want to be able to continue perjuring themselves, and they're too busy raping over the electorate to give a sh*t.
Say someone is infringing the Linux copyright could a judge charge them per source.c file?
Why stop there? Why not charge them per line?
Not a typewriter
Why stop there? Each variable is a unique piece of IP!
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Not only not passed into law, not out of Committee. Barely into Committee, as it happens, since it was submitted just six days ago.
In other words, completely ignorable. It won't be an issue until next year, most likely, or never, quite possibly.
There isn't yet a companion Bill in the Senate, so it might as well have been submitted to /. as to the House Judiciary Committee for all that it's going to matter this year. And next year, people will be too busy playing at making the other Party look like the spawn of Satan to bother with it this side of 2009.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
It appears that every day the US are inching slowly but surely towards a police state, all this to help a bunch of mafioso keep a stranglehold on the entertainment market
This last example of a "Law" appears like the first forays into the world of Minority Report for good. At the same time, it's sort of also going in the direction of Gattaca
This is far, far away from the concepts of the "Land of the free" heralded by the forefathers...
Ah! but with software you can have stuff that is trade secret (closed source), copyrighted (if it's a trade secret then what exactly is being copyrighted - the binary form?), patented (the idea is patented and not the code itself) and even trademarked (like Windows).
So it's not quite so cut and dried.
Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. - Mahatma Gandhi
Here's the rationale for "slow on the uptake" people. When the laws were originally written, the copywright material was valued in then current dollars. With inflation, those copywrights are worth far more than double their original valuation. So now the penalty must be at least double what it was back then. Similarly with the value of human lives being decreased, the payout for having a relative die in war is reduced. Thats how we can afford to keep killing Americans in Iraq. Are you starting to get the picture now? What we value increases in value and what we don't care about decreases in value. Punishment for crimes against things we don't care about decreases and punishment for crimes against things we care about increases. Downloading a copy of somthing and decrypting it carries a far harsher penalty than killing a brown skinned person. It's all about value. What's wrong with you people? Don't you understand simple economics?
If everyone on slashdot took 5 minutes to write to your local congressman/woman, this would create enough noise for them to notice, it's not OK to be doing this anymore...here is my letter:
"Dr mr Waxman, I am writing you to urge your opposition to H.R.3155, which is still in committee. Should it go to general debate, it will double penalties for copyright infringement, and introduce new crimes in the process. I'm sick of congress making criminals out of innocent people and wasting our tax money enforcing this. This is being pushed by the RIAA no doubt.
Copyright issues are a CIVIL case, they are not criminal offenses, and should be dealt with accordingly. I for one am fed up with the congress that looks out only for big businesses. Its time to make laws that are good for the people. This is not one of them. Furthermore, a punishment should fit a the "crime". Copying an mp3 file or a movie is not a big crime. Nobody died. Nobody was hurt. Nothing was stolen (the original is still there). No property was damaged. Lets treat it as it is. Current laws are ridiculously harsh. We need to roll back the power your friends in congress have given the big RIAA machine and give it back to the people. "
Attempted first degree murder is by far a more serious crime than an actually committed second or third degree murder. In most places in the US an attempted first degree murder is still punishable by life inprisonment - but usually with chance for parole in 25. A second or third degree murder conviction usually comes along with a sentence of 10-25 years with parole in 7. It's rare to be convicted of "attempted second degree" or "attempted third degree" murders as those are typically crimes of circumstance or passion - and if you don't actually murder the person - you are generally charged with "assault causing bodily harm", "assault with a deadly weapon", or "simple assault" - not "attempted murder" - the "attempt" charge indicates it was your goal and you had intention and malice and forethought as to the outcome or result - i.e. you wanted the person dead -- thus automatically a first degree offense. On topic to this - attempted IP infringement and committed IP infringement could indeed have the same or very close to the same penalty if it could be shown that your "attempt to IP infringe" had malice and forethought involved just the same. Perhaps there should be some thought put in to a lesser charge of "unintentional IP infringement" - you thought you might be doing something shady - but you weren't doing it with forethought and malice - it was a byproduct of normal activity. The difference being - someone buys a device for the purpose of taking it apart, taking the "brains of it" out and putting them in a device of their own, and sells that device as a competitor to the first device. That's pretty cut and clear IP infringement. Same person the next year is found ordering a transport truck full of the same device and they are delivered to a chop shop where people are pulling the "brains out of it" - but they haven't started putting them in new devices (however the new devices are sitting right there waiting for the brain implant) and haven't sold any yet. That's a pretty clear cut case of attempted IP infringement - again - similarly punishable as the first case. Unintentional IP infringement could be for example selling a digital jukebox or movie device or something like that - and 95% of the music or movies in it are licensed properly and fees paid etc - but somehow 5% was just thrown in without proper due diligence - not exactly malice and forethought - just oversight. That shouldn't fall in the same category as before. Posting anonymously because IAAL - and this is not to be taken as legal advice.
Well, the reason is that we have a belief that the punishment should fit the crime. If you stole something from me, you've harmed me in some way. If you attempted to steal something, you didn't harm me as much, but you did do something wrong.
Its the same reason we don't put people to death for stealing a candybar.