Infringement 'Detrimental To the Public Health, Safety'

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has declared that copyright infringement 'substantially interferes with the interest of the public in the quality of life and community peace, lawful commerce in the county, property values, and is detrimental to the public health, safety, and welfare of the county's citizens, its businesses and its visitors.' You might laugh, but that means they can close up a property for up to one year for violations of the anti-infringement ordinance [PDF] and the owner can be fined $1,000 for each infringing work produced on site. Not to mention the penalties in the PRO-IP Act, which just sailed through the House."

Comments

So what's it gonna take...

[MichaelCrawford]

... to make copyright reform a central issue in the US elections?

I imagine all but a few of the candidates are squarely in the camp of the MPAA/RIAA if they are aware of copyright issues at all.

But more Americans use filesharing than will vote in the election - or at least I know that more shared files in 2003, when I found the figures, than voted for George Bush in 2000.

Re:So what's it gonna take...

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time you download a file, a child gets AIDS

Re:So what's it gonna take...

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure?

(perfect setup for the response)

Re:So what's it gonna take...

[dave1791]

Relax. This is the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Their constituency pretty much consists of Hollywood.

The real issue that we face is that IP issues are simply boring to the average voter. Most people don't own patents and don't feel that copyright law affects them in any way. They are much more interested in what J. Wright blabbers on about than about issues that have an effect on the economy; such as IP laws.

(And yes, I think voters are morons. disclaimer - I've lived in Germany for a few years and have developed the same opinion of the average German voter. It seems that people are just stupid.)

Your best bet is an advertising campaign to raise awareness of the issues. Until that happens, we are in the wilderness dude.

Re:So what's it gonna take...

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize that in the USA the President is a powerless git that's unable to legislate? He can only approve stuff from Congress or veto it, and even if he vetoes it, Congress still gets a chance to pass it anyway.

All that "I promise lower taxes, more money, better education, this and that" are all LIES. I don't care if the President is Jesus Christ himself, unless he has Congress to propose legislation he can't approve it.

Now, if you really want to blame this on somebody, I hear your congressmen takes letters. Mine does, but he ignores them.

Re:So what's it gonna take...

[Admiral Ag]

We don't have the money to compete with them. But I don't think it matters. I'm guessing that most politicians who take money from organizations like the MPAA understand that trying to stop people from sharing files over the internet is like trying to stop them watching porn, except a lot harder.

It's been evident for a long time that it can't be stopped. Any attempt to lock stuff down that people don't like immediately produces workarounds. I'd argue the opposite: I think the public interest is served by the availability of information. Whether or not people have to engage in one to one market transactions to fund its creation is a secondary issue. No matter how many times the contrary is repeated, information is not property in the same way that a car is. Making the rules for it the same ignores this obvious fact.

My guess is that a lot of politicians welcome the money because they know that they'll never be able to do anything about it, so they'll stay cool with the public. Look at how many politicians take money from anti-abortion groups in full knowledge that they can rant and rave about abortion, but the law is unlikely to change.

Re:So what's it gonna take...

[RiotingPacifist]

(And yes, I think voters are morons. disclaimer - I've lived in Germany for a few years and have developed the same opinion of the average German voter. It seems that people are just stupid.) A quick guide to any country
america: most popular tv news network: FOX
uk: most popular news paper The sun
just look up thier most popular news network/paper and you'll realise how fscked you are.
The problem is that idiots are very easy for big corporations to guide, and while they cant agree on everything, they sure as hell like copyright & IP.

Re:So what's it gonna take...

[Tuoqui]

Like some dumb legislator said... If intellectual property is property then there should be property tax on it.

Re:So what's it gonna take...

[Blue Stone]

>FOX represents the extreme right while NBC, CBS, and CNN represent the right.

There, fixed that for you. :)

Re:So what's it gonna take...

[MrMr]

I hear your congressmen takes letters. Mine does, but he ignores them.

Because you sign them with 'Anonymous Coward'?

sorry.

Re:So what's it gonna take...

[umghhh]

the two have nothing to do with each other. In reality socialism is not even in opposition to capitalism - it deals with different aspects of living in a society. There is nothing stopping people using market forces to provide social services like health systems for instance. Market participants may benefit and people could too. The principle is social but the tools are free market (as far as free market can go) and the whole thing may be decided in a democratic way so the contradiction does not really exist.
Interestingly people call on democracy also when they do not understand what it really means. People can democratically decide to do things that result in human rights violation and destruction of whole countries e.g. Saarland has decided once to join third Reich in such a way (plebiscite on 13 Jan 1935) although people knew there is an politically and racially oppressive regime at power (I am sure there are many other examples) so democracy is not the only thing that we need to live well.

Re:So what's it gonna take...

[Alex Belits]

"To live well", most of societies, and especially American one, need better educated people. What requires better public education system. That happens to be expensive, requires a lot of work, provides no bread and pretty lousy circuses.

There is no way, enough ignorant people will admit their deficiency and support implementation of such such education system in a democratic way.
There is no way, in a republic, politicians will support public education because it is not a popular position among ignorant people.
There is no way, in Capitalist economy businesses will support public education, because it will decrease their control over consumers.

The only way to do it, is for smart people to manipulate powerful elite and its decadent culture into forcing education onto the masses. When the next generation of people will get an idea WTF they are doing and talking about, maybe they will find a use for democracy, socialism, market, or whatever other things that are now touted to be important for the welfare of mankind. But until then, long live oppression.

Seriously, long live oppression, the only way to get rid of oppression.

Re:So what's it gonna take...

[Brown]

... or to someone from most of the rest of the world. Not that that really matters, as the citizens of the US have every right to whatever they believe. But it's interesting that the US political centre-ground would be seen as rather to the right in europe, which is itself probably slightly to the right of the world average (take India, where the communist party is a major power, or China).

Re:So what's it gonna take...

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is the current IP laws do cost lives - thousands die from treatable diseases every day for no reason other than protecting the profits of drugs companies. For a copyright example, many third world countries cannot develop while the necessary infrastucture and knowledge cannot be freely distributed (software and books).

If you want a full review, check out http://www.iprcommission.org/home.html

People, such as the grandparent, need to stop simply associating copyright infringement with downloading movies for free and see the real damage IP laws and regulations do to millions of lives throughout the world.

Re:So what's it gonna take...

[Rob the Bold]

when there is no one going to sleep hungry, when there is no one sleeping in the streets and no ones constitutional rights (and i mean all of them, not just the ones that two certain big parties find noble while shitting on the others) are being threatened can you even BEGIN to think that your so-called right to download ac-dc albums is worth electing an official over.

But today there are people going to sleep hungry, and sleeping in the streets, and constitutional rights are being trampled. One could argue that our politicians and governments do too much to protect IP, and not enough to address these very real problems -- that by electing officials that agree that too much is spent on enforcing copyright and not enough on social ills is we could attempt to set that balance right.

Slashdot discussions may have become too politicized for some of us, but this topic is not a good example of that, since it is about politics and government. I think your comment's (Anonymous) parent got modded flamebait because it started with: "are you fucking kidding me? i tell you what assfuck". Sometimes a reader will stop right there without considering the remainder of one's well-thought-out argument.

Re:So what's it gonna take...

[monxrtr]

People are starving solely *because* of intellectual property. Monsanto wishes to develop seeds that kill off natural food crops, and only grow with their intellectual property fertilizer, and only grow for one season. It's like charging people for breathing air, resulting in caused poverty as labor is required to produce something where to fore there was no labor previously required for the same output. Governments and Corporations like Monsanto wish to become a middleman between nature and mankind, enslaving by eliminating competition through the Law. This is enabled purely through government enforce copyright and patent.

If the argument that incentives for the production of music wouldn't exist without imaginary property interference were true (which they aren't), then musicians would find it more profitable to become farmers, increasing the supply of food, decreasing the price of food, and leading to less starving people.

The government ethanol subsidies are a perfect example of interference in the free market that mimics the effect of copyright and patent. Shortages of other productions result in higher prices for other things. People devote scarce resources to producing things the free and voluntary actions of consumers and producers show are less worthwhile production activities as evidenced by economic supply and demand.

So we have a flood of people trying to make a living as artists, producing crap, copying the hell out of each other's ideas anyway, and sitting on their asses collecting government interference subsidized welfare.

The broken window fallacy applies perfectly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window

This always happens

[Anonymous Coward]

All governments become more aristocratic over time. They serve the needs of a smaller and smaller elite few, to the detriment of the greater and greater majority.

Then the people rebel, and the cycle starts over again.

Re:This always happens

[nihongomanabu]

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson

Re:This always happens

[WaltBusterkeys]

All governments become more aristocratic over time. They serve the needs of a smaller and smaller elite few, to the detriment of the greater and greater majority. So the United States was serving a smaller group when women got the vote? When minorities got the vote? And when poll taxes were eliminated?

While your statement makes for a nice soundbite, it's vastly far from true. There are plenty of countries, including the US, that have extended political power to formerly disenfranchised groups.

Re:This always happens

[Leuf]

The constitution is supposed to allow us to fix the government without it coming to that, but it doesn't seem to be working. So what changes do we need to make to the constitution to make it work? Not that the congress will allow us a convention to fix it.

We have a president who doesn't care what the constitution says at all. We have 2 out of 3 presidential candidates who voted to cede the decision to declare war from the congress to the president. How that isn't even an issue still boggles my mind. Even if you thought going into Iraq was a good idea you shouldn't have voted for that bill. But I digress. We're likely going to hand over the presidency to someone who has already proven they can't uphold the constitution.

Re:This always happens

[WaltBusterkeys]

He claimed that governments ONLY got more elitist. Of course there are some policies that appear to benefit a small group; it doesn't take a genius to see that. But that's a far cry from saying that government ONLY exists to serve a small group and ONLY gets more interested in that group.

Claiming that government just serves some arbitrary elite makes for great teenage "down with the man!" soundbites, but it doesn't account for the fact that there are movements in both directions. Nor does it account for the fact that a lot of it is a matter of perception: It's easy to view a silent majority that you disagree with as a special interest; it's vastly easier than admitting that democracy works both ways.

Re:This always happens

[mrchaotica]

So the United States was serving a smaller group when women got the vote? When minorities got the vote? And when poll taxes were eliminated?

Yes, actually, for several reasons:

• Making the system more "democratic" pleases the proles, both from the warm fuzzies they get by feeling as if they have a voice, and by enabling to vote themselves bread and circuses.
• It leads the proles to disregard the elite's authoritarian schemes (E.g., "How can they be power-hungry autocrats when they just gave us sufferage?"). What the proles don't realize is that voting doesn't matter when the elite chooses who gets on the ballot. Voting is an illusion of choice.
• It dumbs down the political process so that leaders can maintain power via emotional appeal instead of rational debate. That's good for the elite because it means they don't have to defend themselves against outsiders with good ideas.

Of course, the issue (at least in the case of the U.S) isn't that simple. You also have to consider the effects of the gradual failing of federalism, etc.

Re:This always happens

[WaltBusterkeys]

I'm sorry, but there was a time in US history when only white men who owned more than 40 acres of land could vote. It is utterly unrealistic to claim that nothing good has come of expanding the vote to include people of every race, gender, and income group.

Re:This always happens

[Trogre]

Voting is an illusion of choice.

Couldn't agree more. I've been saying that for years, though not quite as elegantly.

I believe that in this society, the only effective way to vote is with ones wallet.

Vote wisely.

Re:This always happens

[Blue Stone]

It's a great leap forward.

Back then, only landed white men got the vote for a government that served the interests of those landed white men.

Then it all changed: women and minorities also got to vote for a government that served the interests of the landed white men.

Viva la Revolucion!

That's funny

[Anonymous Coward]

I was just about to say that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors 'substantially interferes with the interest of the public in the quality of life and community peace, lawful commerce in the county, property values, and is detrimental to the public health, safety, and welfare of the county's citizens, its businesses and its visitors.'

The blade cuts both ways

[statusbar]

How many companies who currently violate the GPL and LGPL can these new laws be used against?

--jeffk++

Re:The blade cuts both ways

[Anonymous Coward]

"How many companies who currently violate the GPL and LGPL can these new laws be used against?"

Exactly Zero.

Free Software doesn't pay politicians under the table, nor send Paris Hilton to your
weekend get-togethers. RMS is a poor substitute.

What they don't tell you...

[Puffy Director Pants]

is that copyright infringement cures cancer. And the common cold. And male pattern baldness. Also, it can be used to make any car run on water. Clearly, it's a cover-up.

Copywrong

[billcopc]

Copyright infrigement is only detrimental to the health and safety of those who abuse copyright in the first place. The common people do not suffer when their neighbor burns a DVD. The local economy is not negatively affected by the "lost sale", because the money not spent on copyrighted materials is more likely to be spent locally on other goods or services, instead of being funneled to out-of-state gluttons.

As much as I want artists to be fairly compensated, I strongly disagree with the application of copyright law. Litigation never solved anything in this world, it only creates more hatred for one another. It goes against the very purpose of law by promoting and supporting inequality, which is directly detrimental to the health and safety of everyone.

Maybe Not

[value_added]

I think this is meant to address "real" piracy, and not some guy in his basement downloading torrents.

From the ordinance (note the use of the terms "improperly labelled" and "sell"):

The revisions would expand the definition of nuisance property to also properties that are used to manufacture and sell recordings and audiovisual works are improperly labeled, as prohibited by California Penal Code Section 653w.

The revisions would expand the definition of nuisance property to also include properties that are used to manufacture and sell recordings and audiovisual works that are improperly labeled, as prohibited by California Penal Code Section 653w.

Then again, maybe my reading of it is incorrect. That's not to say laws don't have a funny way of being interpreted and reinterpreted, or used opportunistically by law enforcement. Worst case scenario? Instead of having your car impounded when you find yourself driving down Sunset Boulevard late one Saturday evening looking for blackjack and hookers and meeting up with an undercover officer, you get your car impounded for what's playing on your iPod.

You only think it's about entertainment.

[Erris]

That's what's so insidious about the current copyright reign of terror. It's not about AC/DC, it's about freedom of press and without that you and I will never learn of those other serious abuses you are talking about. Real families have already been thrown out of their homes and stripped of their life savings on the flimsiest of evidence about sharing RIAA crap that both of us can agree is trivial. If it's so trivial, why submit to such massive punishment? Don't be fooled, though, this is all about control of public knowledge, opinion and culture. It includes control of entertainment but it's also about domestic spying and neutralization of political opposition such as yourself.

Vote != power

[mosb1000]

Just because someone can vote doesn't mean the government serves them.