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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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
If half the people on your block got their homes for free, how could you convince somebody to pay you $250k for YOURS?
Why should someone pay you $250k for your house if other people are able to get theirs for free? What's so fantastic about your house that it's worth so much, while other houses are being given away?
You can't give something away free for those who "can't afford it" and charge the ones that can.
The evidence we have suggests that that isn't true. Firstly, piracy exists, and is very widespread. What are some of the most pirated pieces of software in existence today? I'd hazard a guess that Windows and MS Office are in the top 10. And what pieces of software are some of the biggest money-earners in the software market? Windows and Office seem to have done a fantastic job of keeping Microsoft profitable over the years, even while they pour money into unprofitable markets. It's almost as if the people that can afford to pay hundreds of dollars for them are doing so, even though those that can't afford the arbitrary price tag don't.
What about the latest high-profile example: Radiohead's latest album. They explicitly gave it away for free, and made paying anything at all for it optional. Yet somehow they still made a profit from it. This isn't merely people finding an alternative way of acquiring the IP: this is a case of the owner and creator of that IP saying they don't believe it has any inherent value in and of itself; just pay whatever you think it's worth and can afford.
Another angle: I'm a slashdot subscriber and have been for ages, even though I don't really get anything out of it. Sure, no ads on pages, but I could just use adblock for that. But I like /. and I think the price is quite reasonable for what they offer, and I'm happy to support them in my little way. I periodically donate to subsim.com, because I find the forums useful. Neil (who runs it) pays for the hosting and bandwidth and so forth out of his own pocket, and tries to recoup some of the costs from people who can afford to pay for it, while letting everyone else use it for free.
So I really think your matter-of-fact statement "You can't give something away for free to those who can't afford it and charge the ones that can" is patently bogus. Charity organisations do this all the time. The OLPC project is doing this directly with the "buy one give one" programme.
To many, it's almost outrageous to suggest that music should be paid for.
Well, what's so wrong about that? Music is an easily produced and easily distributed commodity. Think about it. When was the last time you paid someone for having a conversation with you? Even if it was a really useful conversation which gave you great insight or clarity? What, you mean you don't pay people you converse with for their creativity and time when they pass on useful thoughts to you? For shame! How can you expect anyone to spend their time and creativity coming up with new original thoughts if you don't pay for every single one you hear?
Perhaps it's time to adjust our thinking, and face the fact that anything digital is a new economic paradigm. We can literally replicate this stuff an infinite number of times at no direct cost to the creator of the content. I have a torrent of Jimmy Eat World's latest album running on my server which I've uploaded 1,672 times over (make that 1,673 times). The cost to JEW of this: $0.00. That's at least 1,600 people who've heard the album because I haven't gotten around to stopping the torrent yet. Seems like a good deal to me.
I think content producers need to accept that not everyone is going to pay for their content, but that's okay, because not everybody has to. It's enough to simply have enough people pay.
In a way, this has been going on since the first days of commercial radio and TV: most people don't run out and buy everything that's advertised during thei