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Congress Creates Copyright Cops
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Not satisfied with pitiful potential penalties of $150,000 for infringing upon a $0.99 song, Congress is proposing new copyright cops in the "'PRO IP' Act of 2007, specifically the creation of the Office of the United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative (USIPER). They also feel that the authorities need the authority to seize any computers used for infringement and to send copyright cops abroad to help other countries enforce US laws. MPAA boss Dan Glickman praised the bill saying that, 'films left costs foreign and domestic distributors, retailers and others $18 billion a year,' though Ars points out that it allegedly costs the studios only $6 billion."
I feel quite justified in saying you can take your laws and shove them up your arse.
*ahem* sorry, but the summary just forced me to say that.
liqbase
The music owns you.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Hah! I fart in your general direction!
As a Canadian, I know that there's no way that they would be let in the country. We are not like that other country with its corrupt politicians that pass laws like the DMCA.
Oh wait a sec...
Copyright cops eh? Sounds like they'd just trawl the net, connect to trackers and get a whole load of IP's.
Getting paid to surf the web and download copyrighted material? Every slashdotters dream!
You can't really write a congressman, but you could, as superwiz noted above write to the NATO supreme commander and ask him to get NATO to nuke (at least) Wash DC or the whole U.S. off the map. Pretty sure that'd help.
What I don't get about this whole mess is the governments complete and utter trust in the industry's claims. Either they don't want to know, or they don't care (and I am speaking to both US and Canadian). The industry will have some study done, or simple just say "we lost 18 billion" due to piracy, and it is believed. Even though it is fairly easy to check, and they have been caught lying about it so many times in the past. Tell me in what other industry this would happen?
Here is my idea of how it goes down:
RIAA: WAAA WAAA WAAA! We lose money!
Gov: Whats wrong?
RIAA: Evil piracy make us lose money!
Gov: OH NOES! How much did you lose?
RIAA: 89 Kajillion Bakillion dollars!
Gov: You know that isn't a real number.
RIAA: 18 Billion dollars (evil pinky to corner of mouth)!
Gov: NO NOES! Lets make crazy laws!
RIAA: YEA!