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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.
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.
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.
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?
Lessig was hinting at this last week. We are raising a revolutionary generation (which is probably a good thing in the end because the current generation are a useless lazy bunch who will never affect change).
The more corporations hijack the legal system, and the more absurd the laws become the greater the "corrosive" (in Lessigs words) the effect. The rule of law has ceased to be an instrument to serve the people. That is a pretty fucking serious situation if you think about it. We have a generation of people who were born criminals and have lived all their life so far as criminals while doing nothing wrong (ethically, morally, humanly).
Without fundamental respect for law we have nothing to look forward to but anarchy, civil unrest and violent conflict. So it is up to citizens to stop the corporations before they undermine society. Every useless pice of shit you buy from Wallmart, Disney and Sony is just feeding the beast, stop doing it NOW, you are part of the problem.
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.