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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.
Upon this passage, it would mean that the government by the people and for the people had turned it's backs on the people.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
So let me get this straight: we can't even get a commitment from this DOJ to enforce to enforce things like the laws against torture or the constitutional authority of congress to conduct oversight into the actions of the executive branch, trust them not to use their power for partisan purposes, or even to hire qualified people who graduated from real law schools, but we're going to let them start filing civil suits on behalf of plaintiffs who (generally) could well afford to file for themselves, and would, if they had a shred of merit?
Great. That's just great.
--MarkusQ
That makes sense, but in a case like this, how could the state even have standing to sue? It's not like they are the copyright holder. With a polluting corporation, the state could argue that the offender is damaging the public commons, and thus demonstrate harm; where is the harm to the state involved in one person making a copy of a book, movie, or song, or in helping another to do so?
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
I KNOW, Radiohead is offering their new album online for as much as you want to pay, but they can afford to.
Bull. Sorry, but that's just completely bass-ackwards. I *am* in an indie band, and these days people can now get a chance to hear our material that never would have before, because of the music cartels' history of locking up radio/TV/CD sales to exclude anyone not owned by them. We've done the same thing as Radiohead has now for a good while. It's been an overall win for us.
We *want* people to copy and share our music! That's free exposure, and the kind of word-of-mouth promotion that can't be bought. We will continue to encourage people to share our music, even if we were to get as famous as U2 or Radiohead or Led Zeppelin.
We sell physical CDs and video DVDs and other merchandise at shows. We state right on the media that it's fine to share, and if they feel what we've created is worth it to them, send a little money our way to help us keep creating. We receive enough to let us keep going.
CD sales aren't the end game, they're a means. They get us fans. They are a promotion tool, nothing more.
Cheers!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Here (Tha'ts Costa Rica) I thought for a long time there were no or few copyright laws... as most rental DVDs seem to be copies, and all the video-game stores in the malls sell pirated games and chipped consoles. It's great as a consumer... but I wondered why. It's not a lawless country, after all.
The real issue appears to be that the authorities simply don't have time to go chasing copyright laws.
If you, as a copyright holder, want to come down here and file some court papers.... you can take peopel to court, and win... but you can't just expect the public authorities to crack down on this for you, unless you come here personally and make a big stink about it.
In other words, if you don't care enough to come here and complain, they really don't care enough to chase people down.
When I lived in Vermont as a kid, he was someone to look up to. He's been a Senator for a very long time, and I believe his judgment on a great number of issues has been without reproach. This, however, appears to be a case where he is out of his league. I also find it disturbing given some information from his Wikipedia entry:
In 2004 Senator Leahy was awarded the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Champion of Freedom Award for efforts in information privacy and open government.So on the one hand he's trying to champion the people's cause. On the other hand:
In March, 2004, Leahy and Orrin Hatch introduced the Pirate Act backed by the RIAA as part of an on-going crusade against Internet file sharing.In July, 2004, Leahy and Orrin Hatch introduced the INDUCE Act aimed at combating copyright infringement.
GetOuttaMySpace - The Anti-Social Network
Radiohead isn't the only artist that is profiting from this either
Indeed, Roger McGuinn has said that the old, outlaw Napster revitalized his career, bringing his music to a whole new generation.
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
One citizen, one vote... however, one corporation, many, many zeros on a vote figure! I am sure that exact monetary value of a vote could be assessed and it wouldn't come out too pricey. In fact, I'm certain that political parties and politicians' "advisers" do operate with that figures when they make their decisions. It is an ugly thought, breaks the rosy picture we have about Democracy, but we should get over the shock and get on with calculations in order to regain the hold of our destiny.
Ad hoc Citizen groups and specific, limited in scope, political initiatives, especially those in favor of common citizens' interests but going against particular interests of corporations, should be able to make independent (from major political parties) pressure funds, "political initiative unions" with sole purpose of lobbying and counter-lobbying.
The rich (i.e. large corporations) get their wealth from the poor(-er then themselves), where most of money lays. It is not a phrase or anecdote: Hypothetic possession of more then half of whole monetary mass in circulation would be a sure sign of loss (sitting on top of claim that can never be satisfied and is therefore void - the rest of the world is bankrupt, your money is worthless paper or meaningless integer number).
That same amount of money, transferred from low density multitude of small "hoards" ("the poor") toward small number of large "hoards" ("the rich") and then from them toward world of politics to be converted into power, could be also used for other purpose, it could be "turned around and pointed backwards", simply take a shorter path and come to destination from other side.
If someone uses money begotten from us to make us pay more by furthering unjust laws made to rip us off some more (common example would be avoiding proper taxation), we should be able to counter that by spending our money on exactly the opposite goal instead. Net effect would be elevation of price of political favors. Equilibrium will shift a little bit toward the people and part of thus gained funds (keeping more money in citizens' wallets) could be "reinvested" to secure the control of public over democratic process.
It is perfectly capitalistic way for masses to limit the power of the plutocrats. No violence, no revolutions, no plunder, just playing the same game as they do, making same moves they do. Organizing masses over common, limited goals is well-known and proven strategy of, e.g. trade unions. It could work in lobbying too.
Money talks, votes babble. As long as people have money, they can have the power too. Just don't try to solve all world's problems at once. First things first, make the system work and keep it safe!
I told this story yesterday but it bears repeating (or at least being linked to), as you no longer have any 4th amendment rights. At least, apparently, I don't. My 4th amendment rights against physical unwarranted search were violated twice last year, once on the day we remember those who died defending the Constitution, and as I said in the linked comment I'm a 55 year old white guy. I can't imagine what it would be like to be a 22 year old black guy.
-mcgrew
PS- Funny, the comment, in reply to someone who mentioned the 4th amendment in a story about the EFF, was modded "offtopic". Seems some corrupt police officers and corrupt legislators have mod points. No matter, I have karma to burn; mod me any damned way you want.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Standing is an artificial object: it is created by law, and needn't correspond with anyone's intuitions about who has the right to complain. While standing exists in a highly limited capacity for non-statutory claims, almost 100% of claims which can be filed in court (criminal or civil) have their issues of standing defined by statute.
If the Legislature passes a law creating standing for the DOJ in civil cases such as this, then standing exists. Of course, like all laws, such a law could be challenged (and depending on the merits, be overturned), but that's all standing is.
"Stumble before you crawl"
It doesn't matter.
Follow the trail. This act is being brought forward by congressmen bought by lobbyists, this time the **AA. They want this bill passed so that the government can end up doing their work for them.
Basically, so they can force the government into paying for their own lawsuits, and complain when they feel not enough people are being "prosecuted".
This seems transparently corrupt to me, but I would imagine they're able to pull the wool over on others because of the catchy name.
Well, at least I'm Canadian.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Let's hope the EFF is prepared to go after one of the "good guys". They've got a relationship with Leahy, and they've lionized him in the past, but now it's time to call in their markers.
There is an argument to be made that rampant infringement DOES hurt our economy and society as a whole. If infringment deterred real artists, etc, all of US (and thus World) Culture would be negatively affected, although we wouldn't ever know what we're missing.
Let's just be real, here.. I'd challenge anyone here to claim that they've NEVER infringed on a copyright. We've all done it. I was a Senior in High School when Napster reached its apex. I've probably downloaded 3-4 thousand songs from P2P networks. I've run unlicensed copies of a dozens of software titles. I've made copies of CDs for friends and mixtapes and things.
I'm a PIRATE..
But, I'm not going to try to justify what I've done--what we've all done--as morally or legally right. It's not. I do think that it's the copyright holders own fault. Music at the quality of what's being produced today is dramatically overpriced. I'm 25 now and a professional with a professionals salary and I pay for everything now (usually iTunes, but some physical media) but I have no qualms about what I did as a HS & College student. Screw'em. They fu*k us so we fu*k them back. End of story. But still, two wrongs don't make a right.
And our beef is not--at least in this particular case--with the Gov't. I absolutely don't think the Government should price-fix IP. Their role is to enforce the laws, period. And copyright law is a good thing. With few exceptions, I don't think many people here have issues with the existence of copyrights. I think we have issues with being price gouged for an inferior product.
So I have to respect what the Gov't is trying to do. If I produce a software title and self-publish it and it gets pirated and I lose 50% of my five-figure sales, that's not some faceless corporation. That's money out of my pocket, and I'm just a normal, middle class software developer. I would really LIKE and even EXPECT the government to do their job and enforce the laws and stop people from stealing from me.
Our beef is with the labels/etc not with copyright law (for most of us, anyway). Don't confuse the two.
Because piracy begets piracy. It devalues things. If half the people on your block got their homes for free, how could you convince somebody to pay you $250k for YOURS?
There is a culture now that is very pervasive amongst those that are in the late 20's on down that music should be free as in beer. To many, it's almost outrageous to suggest that music should be paid for.
You can't give something away free for those who "can't afford it" and charge the ones that can. Pretty soon the ones that can are going to feel swindled and they're going to at least be TEMPTED to think that if it's free for everyone else, it ought to be free for them, too.
Just out of curiosity, are you planning on taking any steps concerning the above? Would love to hear the rest of the story tbh, if there is one.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.