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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.
With such disproportiate laws, particularly of seizure, innocent US citizens are now wide open to black-mail.
A determined enemy only has to have a few minutes access to your computer, download a few songs and then report you.
I'd like to point out that Ben Franklin said we should have a revolution every few years just so we could weed out these helpful sort of Congress/Senate criminals legislating to line their pockets.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Why is it specifically in favour of 'Big' media companies? What is it that prevents this also helping out small media companies, and even individuals who create copyrighted works?
It seems that anti-copyright campaigners would much rather portray every copyright owner as being like Madonna, prince or Metallica, rich and arrogant, rather than the reality, which is that the vast majority of copyright holders by number are very small or one-man companies.
if you are an average-wage magazine column writer, copyright law helps protect you from being ripped off. If you are an author, musician or other content creator, the copyright law also helps protect you. the fact that the law also protects some big clueless, evil bastards that none of us like does not mean we should throw out the law. Laws against violence also protect politicians and business people that we hate, that doesn't mean the whole idea of those laws is bad too.
Copyright law needs to be clarified and reformed. But it also needs to be enforced. Writing to your elected representative is the correct way to achieve sensible laws. Breaking the law so you can watch spiderman 3 for free proves their point, not yours.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
If you are a member of the trade union, the ip cops will come and shove it up yours, as being a separate sovereign nation wont mean diddly.
Man this is scary. Just the very idea of federal government running around to arrest people on a CIVIL issue where the burden of proof is ( basically ) reversed is frightening and completely contray to the constitution. WTF ?!?!
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Pffft. Lots of luck with government enforcement, especially when just about everyone is doing it. Don't they get it?
Besides, I'll bet the federal courts strike this law down as being unconstitutional.
My blog
Lets' see.....
There's no money for fixing schools. My property taxes have gone way up due to the fact the Current Administration is cutting school aid nationwide. Lucky for my kids we are in a rich area so the parents can still pay.
We are pissing away cubic dollars in Iraq on a scheme to keep Iraqi oil off the market, protect OPEC, and keep prices high.
But, we can set up an entire law enforcement apparatus to protect the richest industry on the planet ? Oops, almost forgot, that industry also owns the media outlets (thank you FCC for allowing mass ownership of media) which the wankers rely upon to be re elected.
Corporate America has gotten just about every Christmas Present it wanted under the Bush Administration. The Bankruptcy Bill was the first shot. Next, continue to subsidize Oil and Gas companies. Make sure that all worker protections, or public protection, is de-fanged, or given to the person who used to lobby against it. Flat top mountains in West Virginia. Allow utilities to continue to build 1950's era generation plants.
Meanwhile, block stem cell research, push "abstinence", and raise the prices of contraception for poor women while making abortion less available.
Bush was honest, once, when he stood before a gathering of huge corporate benefactors, and said "Some call you the elite...I call you my base".
Next up....roadside execution for speeding.
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.
How does having a work protected by the government for years after the creator has passed on benefit anyone other than a corporation that is feeding off the works of others? if you are an average-wage magazine column writer, copyright law helps protect you from being ripped off. If you are an author, musician or other content creator, the copyright law also helps protect you. the fact that the law also protects some big clueless, evil bastards that none of us like does not mean we should throw out the law. Only a few nuts are suggesting we should totally repeal or ignore the copyright laws. Writing to your elected representative is the correct way to achieve sensible laws. Yes, and we need a lot of letters to counteract the bags of $$ that 'Big' media companies are providing to said elected representatives. Copyright laws may protect the little guy but the little guy is not the one that is demanding that the government get involved in stepped up enforcement.
Why is it specifically in favour of 'Big' media companies?
Because big media companies get to write it.
What is it that prevents this also helping out small media companies, and even individuals who create copyrighted works?
As one of those people, I can tell you that it does not help me.
Copyright law needs to be clarified and reformed.
Copyright should not be clarified and reformed, it should be taken back to its original design: about 20 years protection, required explicit registration, and no protection on content that has DRM applied to it. That's what copyright is.
The bullshit that passes as "coypright law" today is legalized extortion.
It's called elasticity. When the price rises above a negligible amount, a lot of people will no longer consume this particular good. As for the "costs" you mention: A) people are already paying for bandwidth - it doesn't cost them anything extra to download a movie as opposed to letting their connection sit idle; B) burn it to media? who does that?; C) we're posting on /. - clearly our time isn't that valuable :-)
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Uuuuh, right Wally.
So, let's see, some multibillionaire shitbag in Hollywood wants the US .gov to send agents overseas to persecute people in other countries for dealing with objects according to their own local laws and customs.
And this isn't imperialist fascism?
JH Kunstler noted that when local architecture of the commons is reduced to cartoon houses in the burbs and megamalls, you no longer have places worth caring about. Who ever wept at the demolition of a WalMart? Ad when you get enough places in one country that are not worth caring about, you end up with a nation not worth defending.
There's another kind of architecture, and its the architecture of the mind, and it's called "Media". And when enough of it is such crap that no one cares about it, and it is seen as more of a utility than a creation, then it ceases to be a culture worth defending.
With preposterous laws like this, the USA is working very hard at becoming a nation no longer worth defending. People will simply "Walk Away" from this catastrophe of a country, or, as William S Burroughs put it:
"(Thank you America) for being the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams."
RS
If you have ANY SENSE at all, you will get out of the USA as soon as possible. The second wave of mortgage failures will come in March. Once the USA sinks, things will get tough, and legislation like the above will become commonplace, even under a Democratic Administration.
Run. Now. And when you get out, you will see what the rest of the world sees: Those people are fucking crazy.
HW
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Currently we have seen that the costs for sharing only a handful of MP3s can be as much as a quarter million dollars or more after legal fees. How does anyone think that increasing fines to a half million and including jail time will be any more of a deterrent? Financial ruin was already nearly guaranteed if one was caught, if that isn't enough to scare the thousands (millions?) of file sharers then it is unlikely this will. We might also see a blow-back effect similar to when penalties for violent crimes are raised to maximum levels. e.g. if one gets life in prison for rape or murder then it induces some rapists to kill their victims since the sentence is the same and killing the victim might make it less likely to be caught. The parallel would be if you're going to be financially wiped out and sent to prison for sharing ONE song, why not simply share hundreds? You're screwed either way.
Also this brings copyright infringement from a civil tort to a criminal charge. Change of venue to courts already overburdened by America's various other "War on $CONCEPT". And why should this be a criminal offense? The system was already out of balance in favor of the copyright holder, this law would make it egregiously so. If Congress is willing to reduce copyright limits to *reasonable* lengths then maybe it would make sense, but as it stands now almost nothing created in my parent's lifetime will become public domain for me before I die. Copyright is supposed to offer limited protection in return for the work passing to public domain. If it essentially never enters public domain then why should it be protected by criminal penalties? It's like shooting someone for shoplifting, completely out of scope with both the crime and the supposed bargain between the public and copyright holders.
Also in regards to some posts saying that this law protects all equally and is not skewed in favor of large corporations, I must disagree. Large corporations could afford a judgment against them brought successfully by an individual, it would not go so well the other way around. The inherent imbalance between the resources (financial, legal and manpower) of a corporation and an individual pretty much guarantee an individual will be forced to cut a deal or risk their livelihood and freedom while a corporation could stall for years and even if convicted would be able to recover almost instantly.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
Not satisfied with pitiful potential penalties of $150,000
The reason they are not satisfied has nothing to do with a perception of how extreme the punishments should be. The reason they are not satisfied is very simple:
It's not working.
The complete collection of laws, technologies, and enforcement agencies that presently exist are failing to stop the widespread practice of copyright infringement. Given that the industry controllers are stuck in the past, they are doing the only thing they know how to do: pass even more laws, make even more enforcement agencies, and make the punishments even worse.
As much as we would like to see the dinosaurs roll over and die...they don't want to. They will struggle for life, and have no qualms about causing as much waste, suffering and injustice as they can in the process.
To the RIAA/MPAA: The new world is here. You can't bring the past back. Your attempts at forcing your values on to your clients cannot succeed. All you are doing is harming yourselves and everyone else. You will continue to experience nothing but failure until you embrace the world and harmonize with the technologies that exist and the ways in which your clients want to use them. That is all.