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Congress Pressures DoJ With PIRATE Part II
Anonymous Pirate writes "Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) have re-introduced the 'PIRATE Act' (pdf) to Congress. According to Ars Technica, the purpose of this act is to get the DoJ to go after individual copyright infringers. It would allow the Department of Justice to bring civil lawsuits instead of criminal ones so that they would be able to prosecute copyright infringers with only a minimal burden of proof, rather than the heavier burden required for criminal prosecution." Took a long time to do a sequel; we first talked about this proposal quite some time ago.
Oh, it looks like someone is tired of losing court cases due to the fact that they don't have ANY proof. It's a good thing they can afford their own senators.
Sounds like a good time to make sure you've donated what you can to the EFF. The big fear, obviously, is that the RIAA will get to define what constitutes infringement, and suddenly you can't rip CD's to your MP3 player anymore.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
Well, this is a bad idea....
Mostly because, well, then we have the government pursuing civil litigation on behalf of corporations. Are we then going to have the copyright holders pay for the cost, or will this be another free federal benefit on behalf of lobbyists?
Moreover, is the DoJ going to do this fairly? Will they contact the copyright holder to make sure that there isn't a license and that there is a desire to go after the person? Moreover, if someone steals my work as an individual, will the DoJ treat it equal with Microsoft, the RIAA, or the MPAA?
If not, then, well, please vote Leahy, etc. out of office.
Linux - because it doesn't leave that Steve Ballmer aftertaste.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
What, we don't have enough crime for the feds to track and work on? Now we gotta make busy work up by letting them do "civil" suits for RIAA? How much to buy a seat in washington today? How about we work on our F#CKIN6 Boards and Drugs and REAL criminal cases, and THEN if we have time at the end of the year worry about "he said/she said" civil cases. This is SAD that our government is so blatently BOUGHT by the corporations today.
I used to consider myself a republican until I realized that BOTH sides are essentually the same and will abuse their power in an instant to take what is not theirs and line their own pockets to keep power. This is getting REAL OLD... I now consider myself a libritarian, but if it keeps going the way it is, I may have to consider myself a revolutionist and start dumping tea. I already gave up Music and movies because of the RIAA and the such... (Along with the fact that their hasn't been anything good to hear/see in a number of years.) I hoped they would get the message but they don't. They just keep shoveling more sh*t into our graves... Anyone for a CD Tea Party? Real Pirates can steal boxes of CD's and we pick a good harbor to dump them into.
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
This sort of dishonest rhetoric is hurting our cause. Ask people in file-sharing communities, and many of them will openly tell you that they stopped buying CDs not because CD releases are crap, but because you can get all that goodness for free online instead of paying money. I regularly frequent two chat rooms on one network for contemporary classical music and this often comes up. Let's start being honest here: we download music because culture should be free in all senses of the word.
I think that this will essentially fall upon deaf ears. It'll go on the books, and be used a couple times -- maybe.
The problem with distributed infringement is that it takes such a large amount of resources to prosecute a single person, with the prospect of retribution (after investigation, court, and accounting costs) of far less than a monetarily positive result. They might be gung-ho at first to set examples, but once they realize that they've already sucked every last dollar out of 95% of all citizens by way of taxes, they will quickly learn that there's no more money at the bottom of the money well (prosecute counterfeit distributors, not their consumers!). Seriously, does congress or the DoJ believe that we have bundles of cash ready to hand over like they do? (Forgive this digression, but that's actually one of the biggest problems in our society. The people with oodles of money make social policy, and they think that everyone else lives like them -- a suburban household income of $200,000 a year or more...but only in a situation like this would this legislation be tabled in the first place)
The end result isn't going to be deterrence. Everyone in the electronic community will do the equivalent of standing around the train wreck staring and gasping "Oh my god, is there no humanity", for five minutes and carry on as normal (downloading and buying $5 DVDs). The counterfeit vendors will continue to pander their crap, and people will continue to buy it. The government will (in the publics eye) be scrambling and grasping for every last possible stranglehold on its citizens they've be aiming for, for the last 7 years.
How can they believe that persecuting their citizens is a good idea?
If we go a little deeper into the problem, you might agree with me that it's sociological in nature and fairly inevitable and inexorable. Can I get a comment from any sociologists?
This is because companies don't want to foot the bill for lawsuits, they'd rather have it funded by taxpayers. Of course, the DOJ eats this up, because then they get to demand more money to hire more people for all the investigations and prosecutions they'd be doing, and claim to be "tough on crime". People wouldn't be able to point out the RIAA's actions, because it would be the government going after them.
I don't like the idea of the government getting involved in civil suits on behalf of a third party. What's next, investigating people for adulterous behavior, and then filing divorce proceedings on the spouse's behalf?
If I have $20 to spend.
And I spend all of it.
Then what is the impact on the world economy for any additional copies of goods I receive?
The fact is that entertainment is overpriced. In reality, entertainment is at the highest supply level it has ever been. It is now impossible to ever catch up with all the entertainment that exists. Why are prices going up then?
Normally when something is in oversupply, the prices go down.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I disagree there. I think people are ready to move on to other media. Try as I might, my CD's won't slide comfortably into my iPod but mp3's fit nicely. As for culture being free what exactly are you saying? Performers should perform for the benefit of mankind? They shouldn't be paid? Or should they be paid by the collective? Hate to break it to you but socialist ideals like this fly in the face of human tendencies. We want to compete and excel based on our performance.
That said, there is an argument for free distribution and pay per performance. This is essentially what The Dead opted into. They didn't care about bootlegs because ultimately it fueled concert revenue which they kept the lion's share of.
It's a statute. If it says the DoJ has standing, then it has standing. Unfortunately, it doesn't have to make sense.
The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein
I just wrote both of my Senators urging them to vote against this if and when it comes time for a senate vote. I urge everyone else to do the same.
The system can't work without feedback from citizens.
It's no wonder that law enforcement agencies are all jumping at the chance to investigate myspace and facebook "criminal activity". It's a lot easier to sit at your desk and surf the web all day instead of being out on the street and arresting people who are actually harming others (violent acts, robbery, rape, etc.).
That is making a rather ridiculous assumption that you have a fundamental *right* to get paid for your house. In fact, what you describe is exactly how the housing market works. If some developer moves into your neighborhood and builds a large number of cheap replicas of your house, your house will get devalued. Legally. You will lose money and be pissed, but then oh well, you gambled assuming that your house would be of value in the future and lost. This is precisely what is happening to the music industry (i'll later make the distinction between the industry as a whole and individual musicians). The industry gambled that their cd's would be of value in the future. However, other industries came along and suddenly undercut the over priced pieces of plastic that large record companies gambled on to retain value. I am a musician and absolutely believe in musicians getting paid. However, most musicians do not make the majority of their money in cd sales (note I said most musicians, not most top 40's musicians). In fact, many musicians see cd sales as primarily a good advertising method, and the records sales usually barely pay for themselves. So, if I can put my music out into the ether, and get the same advertising without having to deal with record execs, why shouldn't I. I don't believe musicians will be hurt by this changing business model, but recording labels that fail to adapt to new business models in the face of technology will.