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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."
Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty" ? Oh wait, that went out the door back in the 50s with McCarthyism.
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
Do they give the Nobel Prize for attempted chemistry?
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
Heres the open secrets link to his finances:
s p?CID=N00003689&Cycle=2002
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/allindus.a
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Read the title again: "Bill Would Criminalize Attempted IP Infringement".
That wouldn't be "Gates", would it?
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.
I call "dibs" on IP 127.0.0.1
Any IP infringers out there...be warned...that's MY IP you're infringing upon
Keep in mind this bill is not passed into law (yet ??). So there is still time to try to stop it!
Ya I know, online petition is not the best way. Write to your representatives if you can.
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.
IP was ours first! INTERNET PROTOCOL. Get your own! Intellectual Property my ass.
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
506. Criminal offenses
(a) Criminal Infringement. - Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either -
(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, - OR -
(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000
Copyright Law of the United States of America
ILLINOIS MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO POSTING '24' TELEVISION SHOW ON INTERNET PRIOR TO FIRST BROADCAST ON FOX
A Chicago man pleaded guilty today to a felony charge for posting the first four episodes of this season's "24" on the Internet before they were originally aired on the Fox television network earlier this year.
Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section [July 2, 2007], The No Electronic Theft ("NET") Act [February 18, 1998]
From the bill:
This paragraph is more disturbing to me - language like that can be used to rope in just about anyone.
Friends don't help friends install M$ 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
Hi,
Please follow the EFF link in the article to send a letter opposing the bill to your senators and members of congress. It's very important that this law not be allowed. Thanks.
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
This lead to my belief that copyright should be strictly limited (in the piece I link to in the grandparent, I conclude that the original term of fourteen years would be best), and further the decision to place my music under Creative Commons.
Unfortunately, the academic world I grew up believing in no longer really exists; Universities patent their professors' inventions, and University researches do contract work for private industry under non-disclosure. It's a damn shame.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
...and the standard of proof would be any politician holding or running for office.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
This will work well for many companies who favour stealing and ruining peoples lives in the name of profits and just doing my job. As usual the US government will not take a balanced view on the subject and do what their corporate masters tell them to.
For more info see today's other posting about a corrupt US official
On the other hand..
If I am wrong and I does apply to the GPL for companies this quote says..Does that mean a judge could dole out damages for each separate source code files. Say someone is infringing the Linux copyright could a judge charge them per source.c file?
...people could now be charged with criminal copyright infringement even if such infringement has not actually taken place.Reading that made me want to vomit. That's how I learned the link needed to be corrected: "Intellectual Property Enhanced Criminal enforcement ACt". Somehow, it just seems fitting to call it the IPECAC bill. Besides, what did you expectorant?
<groan>
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
According to the codified portions of Chabot's donations on OpenSecrets, he actually did not receive much money directly from the TV/Movies/Music industry. According to Chabot's 2006 Industry Breakdown it was his 19th greatest contributor, giving $31,000.
However, a mischievous explanation of his manipulation can be found by looking to his revolving door(*). Chabot's recently departed Counsel, Etheridge Berkley, was named Vice President and Counsel of the NMPA (Nat'l Music Publishers Assoc'n) in March of 2005.
For more, see Berkley's revolving door profile and the NMPA press release of Berkley's appointment[pdf] ("I know that the U.S. music publishing industry will find her to be a terrific champion on their behalf").
(*) - "Revolving Door" in this context refers to those who go back-and-forth between working on K Street (lobbying) and Capital Hill (congressional committees). For more, see Time Magazine's The Lobbying Game: Why the Revolving Door Won't Close .
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. "
... I assume this bill will only apply to people and not companies as it says..
criminalize some forms of "attempted infringement."
Say for example a company steals some GPL work they won't see any Jail time and/or penalties but a person who steals the companies work will get the full force of this bill. Not that the two are related but its the best analogy I could think of.
You are mistaken. A person is not shielded from criminal prosecution because they acted as an employee rather than an individual.
You can't own information.
While that may be true, copyright is not about *owning* information, it is about *organizing* information. Otherwise, someone would have already copyrighted the alphabet and we'd all be SOL.
Remember the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition? This is one of my Rules of Information:
"The organization of information is worth money." [I was thinking of computer programming at the time, but the concept is clearly extensible.]
[Caveat: some forms of information -- certain kinds of lists -- are *not* copyrightable: for example, the White Pages.]
People seem to think that they have a right to make money off of their ideas. And that is just absurd.
People do not make money "off of their ideas". They make money from the *implementations* of their ideas; this is, in fact, the basis of the patent system. And, no, it is not absurd, although it may seem that way to someone with no ideas.
Well, I agree with you there. But if their idea is good and its implementation is adequate, people are going to *want to* give them money to possess the implementation, and, unless they are complete fups, they *can* be profitable. It's called the free market system".
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.