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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...
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
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.
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.