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Controversial Section of PRO-IP Act Cut
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Rep. Berman (D-CA) has removed the controversial section 104 from his PRO-IP Act. That section would have multiplied the already excessive statutory damages for infringement in the case of compilations, making the damages for infringing upon the copyrights of a single average CD rise into the millions of dollars. This change came after proponents of the amendment were unable to cite even one case where the statutory damages recovered were insufficient. But don't let the article fool you into thinking that the PRO-IP Act is no longer controversial now that this one section is gone, the act still creates copyright cops who are authorized to seize people's computers."
You could always TrueCrypt encrypt the contents of your drive to guard against seizure efforts without hampering your own use of the system.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
When it comes to complying with a court order to turn over computer files, turning over encrypted computer files is not complying with the order. It's really not that hard.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Passwords, pass phrases and keys are, for better or worse, considered to be protected by the 5th amendment.
Unless law enforcement or the copyright holder can crack the security on it, there is no way that they can compel a person to hand over the files at this point.
How we know is more important than what we know.
http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9834495-38.html
So yes, case law does back it up.
1% of adults, not of the general population. Not that it affect your point.
From my understanding, the PRO-IP Act wants to not only create a whole arm of the government to do the RIAA/MPAA's dirty work, but they want to expand civil asset forfeiture to copyright enforcement as well.
With Civil Asset Forfeiture, your property, NOT YOU, is accused of a crime. Since your property is not a person, it has no rights. Thus you have to prove your property's innocence. It can be a very long, drawn out, and expensive process, and even if you win, you probably still won't get your property back. Civil Asset Forfeiture is currently used to take property in "drug" cases. (Or when the drug enforcement agencies need more money. You see, they are funded by what they take.) If you want something to make your blood boil, just google Civil Asset Forfeiture for all the details. You can read about case after case of abuse of these laws. Basically it boils down to this: You have property, cash, a ranch, a nice car, whatever. The police arrest you on a bogus charge and let you go 24-48 hours later. They keep your property. It just must have been involved with drugs.
Now, they want to take our computers, and expand this system to copyright infringement. My guess is that somewhere between 95% - 99% of computers have at least one copyright infringing file on them. This means that they can be seized. Translation: If this passes, the copyright cops can take any computer, anywhere, anytime. One might not have an infringing video or music file on the system, but what about an email? a screen background? etc. The owner might not face any convictions, or even have charges brought against them, but they sure won't be getting their computer back. This could also be expanded to just about any storage medium -- a usb flash drive, an iPod, a hard drive, a cd, anything. It would be a great way for law enforcement to search electronic media, or computer systems. Instead of searching someone's computer, just accuse it of a copyright violation, and seize it. Then they can search it all they want, and when they're done, sell it off to make a little cash.
Now consider what data even simple, non computer savvy people have on their computers. What does that say about their lives? Could it cost them their job or their livelihood? For example, an author is working on his next book. His computer is seized on some bullshit copyright charge, and he never gets it back. Like many people, he did not back up the system, or the cops took his backups too. No more book.
We all know what a success the War On Drugs has been, so expanding it to the War on Copyright Infringement must be a great idea.
Passkey-as-testimony was covered a couple of parents up; the precedent's been set. This subthread is from QuantumG suggesting that the same protection doesn't apply to civil court.
Re: DNA vs. passkey, the generality seems to be that in security terms, "what-you-are" or "what-you-have" factors are evidence (they can be taken with a warrant) but a "what-you-know" factor is testimony and cannot be forcibly extracted from you (Fifth Amendment).