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Copy That Floppy, Lose Your Computer
Over the weekend we posted a story about a new copyright bill that creates a new govt. agency in charge of copyright enforcement. Kevin Way writes "In particular, the bill grants this new agency the right to seize any computer or network hardware used to "facilitate" a copyright crime and auction it off. You would not need to be found guilty at trial to face this penalty. You may want to read a justification of it, and criticism presented by Declan McCullagh and Public Knowledge." Lots of good followup there on a really crazy development.
Excuse me while I gather the virgin sacrifice and assemble the pentagram required to solve your problem
In case you missed the message, Don't Copy That Floppy!
(warning: may cause eye strain and/or brain damage)
Misery loves company. Online misery loves unsuspecting random strangers.
Since the intarweb is used to facilitate copyright infringement, the gov't can seize the entire series of tubes!
An entire new agency in charge of stopping copyright violations. Wonderful. I am SO glad to know our government has its priorities straight.
~Eien no Inori wo Sasagete~ Searching for my Hatsumi...
Here is the EFF Link that should be in the article summary: http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2007/12/pro-ip-act-increase-infringement-penalties-and-drastically-expand-government-enfor
If someone on my schools network downloads an illegal mp3, then the RIAA has the right to confiscate and sell every single router, switch, and hub between the two people... clogging the tubes is bad enough, but taking them away and stealing them?
Live life to the fullest. It's not that life is short, but that you are dead for so long.
Fixed.
Misery loves company. Online misery loves unsuspecting random strangers.
Amendment V
No person...shall...be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
I understand here that "due process of law" is actually being changed to make this legal, but I feel that the following serves to define "due process of law" in a way:
Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Just once I'd like someone to call me 'Sir' without adding 'You're making a scene.'
leave the US while you can. Serious.
:)
Well, let's see what happens in the next elections. If the people lose, you're welcome to establish here below the Bravo
Based on other laws coming out in the USA in the last 8 years this isn't so bad. It just means you should do your copying on the latest most expensive machine in the local shop, report them then pick it up at auction for buttons.
For the past five to ten years, lawmakers have passed an incredible number of laws that the courts had to sort out as unconstitutional. It's almost as if they abandoned sensible work for a "let's try everything and see what works" attitude.
Really, is it just my perception or has the number of stuff that was made a law only to be killed by the courts as unconstitutional skyrocketed? I really wonder, why that is.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
This is absurd. There's no point in even debating that.
I think it's the (RI|MP)AA asking for the moon - that way, when they tone down their demands they won't sound as absurd.
Look at it from this perspective: how much resources do you imagine the FBI is dedicating to copyright infringement given the number of embarrassing gaffes that the entertainment industry is making? The entertainment industry wants a government department with powers similar to the FBI but dedicated purely to copyright enforcement. Such a department could not reasonably refuse to assist in arresting some relatively innocent granny because they have higher priorities.
This make sense to me in some ways. I know people who were caught poaching fish (catching more than their license allowed). They had their fishing rods taken away, as well as their boat, and the truck that they towed the boat, and just about anything else that was even remotely involved in the crime. It may seem a little excessive, but it's quite a deterrent. Getting your computer taken away for sharing copyrighted content seems to be in alignment with most of the other laws I've seen. Now if this is excessive, than maybe all the other consequences for a lot of other laws are also a problem, but that's a different issue.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
"I predict that many Republicans will oppose this bill, ... but, becuase the industry that they would be tasked to protect is one that generally opposses them."
You forget the one thing that all politicians value most: The almighty dollar. Once the lobbyists start handing out "campaign donations" you will see every idiot believing in the wisdom of the RIAA/MPAA.
Of course my right to backup copies will be ignored because I do not even have the money to get my representative to blink. I only get lip service from him every two years near election time.
Looking for a job?
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DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
Nothing new here. Civil forfeiture has been a feature of the War on Drugs for a long time; extending it to the War on Copying is an obvious strategy. The "great" thing about civil forfeiture is that the defendant isn't you, with all of your rights; in a twisted bit of legal sophistry, it's the property itself being sued by the government.
I'm sure it will be just as successful in stopping copying as it was in stopping drug use. (I'm just waiting for the violent black market in bootleg DVDs to develop.)
"History repeats itself: First as tragedy, then as farce." - Marx got that one right at least.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Hm... Lobby, lobbier, lobbiest...
OK, it all checks out... You can go about your business. Move along.
Bow-ties are cool.
Look at civil forfeiture law in the US. The government can sue your property and is given the ability to seize and sell your property based on a mere probable cause that the property was used for criminal purposes.
http://www.isil.org/resources/lit/looting-of-america.html
Are you suggesting that here, in the Land of the Free(TM), that the government would seize and auction off your assets for a copyright "crime" even if you haven't been adjudicated as guilty? Oh, come on.....next you'll try to tell me that they'll seize and auction your car and keep your cash if they even suspect you of having drugs! (Chuckle) Yeah....like that's gonna happen....
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Download some MP3s at work. In comes the MAFIAA, seizes all computers and your company goes down the loo. Whether the company has anything to do with it is irrelevant. Guilty 'til proven innocent. Well, even if proven innocent, the hardware is gone and won't come back.
Is that how I should imagine this?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Now, without a trial and conviction, your computer equipment can be seized by the cops and sold to supplement the donut/hooker/beer petty cash fund. This is just fucking great. I'd love to see this shot down, but I doubt it will.
And I love the "justification". The fact that the US doesn't make anything *real* anymore is not my fault. Ideas are great and all, but when your only product is ideas, and you've outsourced the manufacture of real, durable goods to other places, you will eat your own dog food eventually. I laugh at how they tossed counterfeit meds in there -- nobody will vote that down during an election cycle. "The senator from your state voted *against* protecting seniors from counterfeit medicine on the internet!" Nevermind that they're trying to kill out-of-country medication purchases *anyway*.
Anyone know where I can get a free (or cheap and paid anonymously with cash) shell account overseas where I can SSH in and compile/run TOR? This is getting fucking ridiculous.
Method of processing duck feet
..that the BusyBox developers could have Verizon's servers seized for the GPL violations?
I can't wait.
(Not that I really expect that would ever happen even if this became law. We all know there's one law for the people and another for the corporations (and yet another for the politicians).)
What I'd really like to see is a constitutional amendment (that's what it would take) that automatically bars an official from re-election if he or she proposes, sponsors, or votes for legislation like this which is prima facie unconstitutional (they've violated their oath of office to uphold the constitution).
But I don't expect that to happen either.
-- Alastair
In addition: Amendment IV The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Nobody challenged it when "drug dealers" were deprived of their money and belongings, without due process.
This is just the next chapter.
Bow-ties are cool.
Please tag a story 'typo' when you see this. It'll alert us admins to a problem and it'll get fixed in probably less time than it takes to write a comment about it...
They're not "undercover cops" or "plainclothes policemen". Call a spade a spade - they're God damned Secret Police, no different than the Communist KGB or the Nazi's Secret Police. If "crimes" like drug possession, gambling, and prostitution weren't crimes there would be no reason or excuse to have Secret Police.
So now you have a "crime" that's a civil matter and you forfeit property without compensation or trial. Thank you, "Partnership for a Drug Free America". I hope your God damned children become needle junkies you fucking assholes, because drug laws make their becoming junkiest MORE likely. Marijuana doesn't lead to harder drugs, marijuana LAWS leas potsmokers to harder drugs.
How far does this slippery slope slide? I love my country, I hate its government. Perhaps one day my descendants will again have a representative government, rather than the one party plutocracy it has become.
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Due process is out the window since the War on Drugs. And some folks challenged it, but the difference was, no one "liked" the drug dealers... when Grandma loses her computer to the government... people might start taking the 4th amendment seriously. But I doubt the sheeple will notice. Such is life after soma.
At least they had a warrant (such that it was...) when they stole the drug dealers' property. Now they don't even need that to grab your stuff.
scared yet?
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
Members of the House Judciary Committee
AT&T Unix source code was somehow put in some national security list. Basically if you were caught with a copy of the source without having had paid or part of some University that paid the $60,000 source license, the Secret Service would come with guns drawn and seize every piece of electronics equipment on the premises.
There is little documentation that this had even happened and almost none of the victims ever received there hardware back.
http://www.chriswaltrip.com/sterling/crack2l.html the Chicago Task Force were now convinced that they had discovered an underground gang of UNIX software pirates, who were demonstrably guilty of interstate trafficking in illicitly copied AT&T source code. &
http://www.cs.wustl.edu/cs/cs/archive/CS142_SP96/notes16.html
This finally ended with Steve Jackson Games that managed to sue them for a similar seizure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_Games,_Inc._v._United_States_Secret_Service
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
People at Harvard do illegal file sharing. Now the government can take all their computers! Woohoo! I bet they have nice stuff. They can go there on their way to MIT!
The government is going to have absolutely awesome computers. And the beauty of it, is they can sell them, then go back and impound them later! Sell them again and again and instant $$$ Budgest crisis? Solved! Funding wars against the rest of the world? PAID FOR! Impound and auction, rinse and repeat!
Guilty until proven innocent, shoot first gather facts later, etc. are an extremely dangerous way to conduct law enforcement, though fortunately that can't happen in the United States because the Founding Fathers wrote protections against it in the constitution. Oh wait
This is the same crap as the drug seizure laws. Everyone thought--great, take the houses, cars, property of the drug dealers. However, what's ended up happening is people are having their cars seized because a friend had a small amount of pot. Worse yet people are having large amounts of cash seized with the attitude that you must prove yourself innocent. It doesn't matter that no drugs were found or any evidence of drug dealing, just the fact that you're carrying a large amount of cash is considered a crime. And good luck getting it back!
Friends, our freedoms are being eroded away while we stand by. According to the Supreme Court, municipalities can grab your land under imminent domain to sell to Wal-Mart or someone building condos. Police can seize your cash for no reason other than you're carrying it and now they want the right to seize you computers on the claim that you might have illegally downloaded something. It's got to stop or this really will be a police state.
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
Please actually perform the function of editors and edit the story. It'll save us the time of correcting your mistakes in the comments section.
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/11/13/sonys-rootkit-infrin.html
Close examination of the rootkit that Sony's audio CDs attack their customers' PCs with has revealed that their malicious software is built on code that infringes on copyright. Indications are that Sony has included the LAME music encoder, which is licensed under the Lesser General Public License (LGPL), which requires that those who use it attribute the original software and publish some of the code they write to use the library. Sony has done none of this.
So, based on the proposed bill - how much of Sony would have been auctioned of I wonder...
The 4th amendment to the US constitution, that authority that describes the limits of federal law, emphasis mine:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I'm having a lot of trouble reading this in any way at all that can justify trial- and conviction-free seizure and disposal of a citizen's property.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Marijuana doesn't lead to harder drugs, marijuana LAWS lea[d]s potsmokers to harder drugs.
Bingo. When a kid buys pot,he has to basically seek it through underground channels. The same channels that also traffic Meth, Crack, Heroine, etc. When you start going to various dealers you quickly realize that you're knee deep in the drug underworld, and you can ask for pretty much any drug you want and you will get it.
If you just had to flash an ID showing you're 18 or 21 or whatever to the guy behind the counter, you'd be all set. I would prefer that gas stations and grocery stores not sell marijuana. but perhaps Head shops could apply for a license the same way as a restaurant applies for a liquor license, and can be turned down under the same criteria. If the state, county or township doesn't want it there, then they can ban it. And let adjacent regions pull in the tax revenue instead. This is how alcohol sales works right now, where dry counties lose sales as people just pick up their beer at stores over the border.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Due process is out the window since the War on Drugs.
I'm sure a lot of people have no idea what you're talking about. This started because state police in many states were empowered to seize property, without due process, and *pocket* the proceeds. This created an environment where almost every state cop in the US, where this was implemented, was actually a criminal. Several states, after a decade or more of complaints, finally started to investigate.
It seems it worked like this. Cop sees nice expensive car. Cop pulls over the car. Cop claims you are a drug deal and plants evidence. Cop seizes you car and everything in it. You are arrested. Drug charges were often dropped. You car and all your property within the car is sold at auction. Cop pockets all of the proceeds. Normally out of state cars were the preferred targets, leave you little recourse. And in the end, who wants to champion "drug dealers." States only started to act when it was found that the majority of the "drug dealers" fit a certain profile such as "affluent retirees" passing through the state.
States such as GA, LA, MS, and AL were especially bad. The solution was to tell the police to stop it. They couldn't simply arrest all of the criminal cops because in those four states, as much as 90% of the state police would be behind bars. It was thought that created too much of a risk to public safety to put criminals in jail.
So chances are, if you've been ticketed by a state policeman in these states, you were ticketed by a criminal that has commit more crimes than most any criminal currently convicted, sitting in jail right now.
Also, I ran into the following on-target quote just now on Neatorama, and I hopped right back here to append it:
- Ernest Benn, publicist (1875 - 1954)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
...any computer or network hardware used to "facilitate" a copyright crime and auction it off. So this includes entire ISPs and root DNS servers?Your ad here.
Is the case of Donald Scott the one you're talking about? I've never heard of this and would be interested to know. I bet others would as well.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
Is that your solution to life's problems? Run away from them?
I see you're no Einstein.
Here's my first problem.....the way you're stating this, the majority of cops are cruising around with a trunk full of cocaine just waiting to frame the innocent. Yes, there are cases where evidence has been planted, but in the ones I've heard of there's usually a stonger motive than "I want to confiscate your car". Unless you cite a good source, there's no way I believe it's that rampant.
In what jurisdiction does the cop get the proceeds of auctioned property? I've never heard of this being practiced in the United States. The state gets the proceeds, and depending on where, it could go either directly to the police budget, or the general budget. Again, unless you can cite this, I'm having a hard time believing it.
I would suspect that corruption on that level would attract both federal investigations, and media attention.
I get the feeling that what you've got is some half-remembered anecdotes about evidence auctions, and a general dislike for the police.......
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
Ahhh,
The Ad Hominem.
Ron Paul is a lunatic with damn little understanding of history, economics and politics.
Ron Paul may not be an unequaled sage; there are most likely students of history, economics, and politics who are superior to him.
These people are not, however, in our government. Obama is a toll. Hillary Clinton, though quite bright, fundamentally doesn't understand the long-term strategic mis-steps the U.S. has made in the past 50 years. That being said, both Obama and Clinton have a much better grip on reality that the rest (as in non-Paul) of the Republican slate. McCain, Huckabee, Giulani, and the rest have no clue on basic things like immigration, economics, foreign policy, and religion.
Does Paul say stupid things some times? Yes. However, if you do some research, you'll see that he is far more knowledgable about the issues he speaks about that his contemporaries, and many of the things that he advocates are sane, sound policy decisions.
For example, the DEA, and the drug war, is a ridiculous mess. If the only good thing that came out of a Paul Presidency was the end of the drug war, the U.S. would be a much better place.
The same is true of the IRS, which is also a complete mess. Keep in mind that Paul who advocate a replacement such as a sales tax, which is the sort of mechanism that European economics use (they call it a VAT).
Our government has gone through large scale reformations before, and survived. Recently, even; look at the Department of Homeland security, which has completely reoriented the operations of domestic law enforcement, and the USCIS, which is a newish entity replacing the INS.
I, for one, am willing to trade the possibility of the free market failing in providing economic equality in exchange for strengthening of our civil liberties, the end of the drug war, a return to a more conservative foreign policy, pursuit of a balanced budget and trade, and a complete overhaul of our insane tax system.
Who are you to call me a lunatic, and why are the risks involved in moving to what I believe to be a "better" government any worse than the shitstorm the democrats and republicans are currently driving us towards? The vast majority of the electorate has delved into the issues far less than I have, and the vast majority of the congress, and every _other_ lunatic running for President, is a good deal less informed than Dr. Paul.
Either you are a hopeless optimist, and like the direction this country is going in, or you've become so conservative and a afraid of change that any large-scale reorientation of the government is terrifying to you.
Hell, I'd excuse people like you if you had a candidate who would restore our liberties without pursuing radical economics changes, however, given the current slate of possibilities on both sides of the aisle, no one other than Kucinich and Paul defend civil liberties that way they need to be defended.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell