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H.R. 4279 Would Establish Federal IP Cops
MrSnivvel writes "H.R. 4279, Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008, is gaining momentum in Congress. It passed the House a few days back. It would allow the Feds to seize hardware that has even one file coming from 'dubious origins,' e.g. downloaded from P2P. If passed into law, the bill would establish an Intellectual Property Enforcement Division within the office of the Deputy Attorney General. Rep. John Conyers says the goal is to 'prioritize intellectual property protection to the highest level of our government.'"
"Specifically, federal civil law would be amended to: (1) provide a safe harbor for copyright registrations that contain inaccurate information so such technical errors would not prevent a judgment for infringement;" Excuse me? So if you lie when registering for copyright, the registration is still valid? Or does this imply that an inaccurate registration would not prevent a judgment for infringement that could have taken place if copyright was not explicitly registered at all (something that would already be the case, unless I am mistaken). The amendments to section 410 do not make it clear exactly how this will be any different.
for fscks sakes, ideas are not property!
if you steal property, the original owner loses something.
if you steal an idea, the original owner loses nothing.
someone, please, get these asswipes out of office. either the ballot box or ammo box will do.
-I only code in BASIC.-
I want people to know how bad copyright really is and the only way to get it through their thick heads is for the law to be enforced to the letter.
Sooner or later the US will wake the fuck up.
How we know is more important than what we know.
destroyed of all things ! I personally think they should explode and kill all the occupants of the premises where said hardware is located. Or maybe geotargetting coupled with a tactical nuke or so, sure the collateral damage would be large, but nothing is too much in protecting that precious IP.
I've often wondered if an intelligence test before a vote would be a good thing and I've decided against that, but such a test administered before being able to take public office would be a very good thing.
MP3 Search Engine
The thicker end of the wedge happens when 'enforcement agent' gets defined more broadly, and the mafiAA get to install some of their own mercenaries to start carrying out raids.
DRM: Terminator crops for your mind!
Why in the world are these clueless talking heads still in office? If I had employees this stupid I'd fire both them and the HR department for letting them in.
Why haven't we, the people of the United State of America, fired these morons? They're not anyone's idiot nephew/niece, are they? Seriously!
A few days ago, news was spreading that the writers strike was causing a recession in California:
http://www.boston.com/ae/celebrity/articles/2008/06/07/writers_strike_causes_california_recession/
California, as a state, has an economy that is larger than many other countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_California
The hollywood economy is a significant contributor to this and thus intellectual property (in the form of movies, tv shows and music) figures prominently. It would probably be fair to say that Silicon Valley would also benefit from this, that is if Microsoft were HQ'd there.
IP is worth a lot of money to the USA. It's not something that can made in other countries - it takes the collective creativity of those engaged in various industries above to make it.
Thus America is doing what it can to protect an industry that is important to it.
What they've failed to demonstrate (IMHO) is that the IP problems they're fighting (P2P networks) make a demonstratable difference to profits.
The leap of understanding that these people don't seem to be able to make is that for many people, if they couldn't download it then they wouldn't buy it.
Sure, but it'll cost you. No representation without compensation.
I know you're being facetious, but selling an inferior drug under the name of the biggest competitor is technically an IP violation (a trademark one). Personally I think it should be a case of fraud and treating it as a trademark issue is simply ridiculous.
We have been teetering on the edge of old style Russian socialism for a while now. Ever since FDR got into office and created the 'new deal' its been a slow progression downhill.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The knock-on effect on the rest of the first world cannot be denied. When the U.S. comes up with a ding-bat solution to IP like this, then we are all doomed together because it will filter down through international treaties and trade agreements.
Freeing up IP is essential for making health, education and the energy market cheaper and more universal. In the last 5 to 10 years, first world governments have been 'pulling up the ladder' in this regard rather than opening up to the people. It's almost as though they are anticipating something.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
Not really capitalism, more protectionism.
America, Home of the Brave.
"The USA is a nation of laws, poorly written and randomly enforced" - Frank Zappa
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Firstly, Russia had communism, not socialism. (Think socialism is to communism what capitalism is to fascism).
But yes, right-wing and left-wing policies meet in the middle when the become extreme.
America, Home of the Brave.
Like most people, you are confusing mercantilism with capitalism. The two are antithetical.
Mercantilism uses government power to the benefit of a few select corporations that influence and/or control governmental representatives.
Capitalism requires all businesses, small, large, and in-between, to survive or fail on their own merits, with no government benefits for any of them.
Gun control: The belief that a woman, raped and strangled with her panties, is morally superior to a dead rapist.
Too bad mass immigration will destroy all that (just like in many other European countries), but it was nice while it lasted.
The problem is that any sufficiently capitalist system short of anarcho-capitalism turns into what you call mercantilism. What happens is that a corporation, through legitimate means or less so, becomes large enough to influence politics. At that point it rigs the game in its favor, or tries to do so, and from there on you have rent-seeking galore.
Anarcho-capitalism just postpones this: a corporation or group thereof becomes large enough to collude (if it's a group) or to become a de facto state (in either case). If the new state is capitalist, see the first point above. Otherwise, it'll probably still be oligarchical.
Technology like this renders matter a mere commodity ; manufacturing services will cease to be valuable, the only thing of value will be the programs it runs.
The prospect of such a device running an open OS, and accepting production templates which are themselves open, must terrify certain entities.
Of course, this mild attack of paranoia presumes that these creatures are actually organized enough to think of this. In actuality, their greed over existing IP is probably enough to explain their behavior, without recourse to long-term planning for a future when you can print your own food/clothes/car/plane/house/computer/pharmaceuticals.
Hmm. If I lived in the States I'd think about going "thin" client. Have all data on a remote server somewhere in Sweden; the local machine is a client with nothing but a barebones OS and an obscene amount of RAM/volatile storage (something on the order of 16-32 GiB). The local machine connects to the server, downloads everything you currently want to work with onto a ramdisk and then does everything from there. Should the police seize the machine they won't find anything but the OS. Use an OS that supports encrypted RAM for additional ease of mind.
Yes, it's ridiculous, but I wouldn't put meningful data on a machine that sits in the USA. The country simply isn't trustworthy enough.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
That's the big wool that's been pulled over everyone's eyes. Nazism isn't a "rightist" party at all. It's extreme-left, very much to the left of every other current political party. Much like islamism is in other parts of the world : not "rightist" at all. Not even "Conservative" in the direct meaning of that word. They want to create legal systems that never have existed, people just believe they did at some point.
I do disagree however with your placement of facism versus socialism. I'd go with :
Capitalism > Socialism > Fascism > Communism
(ranged by freedom)
(I mean here socialism as practiced in most european countries between 1950-2000, if you mean the EU's overwhelming philosophy, then perhaps yes, you're right that it's closer to communism than fascism)
Communism only differs from fascism in theory. The difference is mainly that while fascims has overriding control of every company, communism wants that AND the ownership. (ie fascism demands 99% tax, communism 100%, the difference is at times a bit foggy)
The main difference between socialism and fascism is where the control of the unions lies. Fascism = socialism with 1 singular "super-union", controlled (and supported) by the state. This is something many unions want, except everybody wants to be the people in charge of said super-union. Companies under socialism have leadership that has to contend only with their own workers. The leadership of companies under a fascist state has to contend with the direct interference from the state, overriding their own judgement. In communism the leadership of companies is replaced by bureaucrats.
Another relevant remark is also that while capitalism is undoubtedly more free than socialism there is something to say for worker's participation. In a totally free setting it is questionable just how free a person who was born "poor" really is. He is allowed to do whatever he wants, but he'll be at it alone. The guy that was born rich however can enlist (almost) any amount of help he(/she) wants.
And to be honest, when one looks at BHO's campaign, one thinks he wants more than "just" socialism.
This fact is no different than any other system and is not unique to capitalism. Any amount of power tends towards corruption if there is no control valve. In the USSR where there was to be a single class society, there were two classes; those who were in charge of controlling the distribution of wealth, and everyone else. In those european nations with a socialist slant, the result is somewhat akin to facism, where the tables are turned and government seizes power over big business. The inevitable result of this is really not all that different than business seizing control of government.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Does that mean that every student that downloads a pdf of the assignment because the book is no longer in print now infringes upon this law? I remember from some classes having an excess of about 30 some MB of pdf files that were all reading assignments because the book came out in the 50's and there wasn't that much of a demand for it other than college students and professors so no one makes a profit off printing them. On the same case, does this law mean that we are then going to have to shut down project gutenberg? Who has access to classics free on the internet for the education of the masses to their classics, all of which are copyrighted in their current form last I checked by project gutenberg. Does that mean when I download and copy the plain text file so your average college student can do their homework off line mean that their computer is going to be confiscated each time they catch students doing homework?
Or what about businesses that bought corporate licenses of various software that only came with one user manual that had to make it a pdf for easier distribution (which I would like more than just killing tree's and cluttering my desk)?
US politics is easy...
Look at what laws are passed or introduced, and you can clearly see who paid for them. Laws here are not based on right and just but who was the highest bidder for them.
Just wait, there will be laws making it illegal to skip commercials on the shows or to even leave the room during them.
I'm not joking.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Our politics are simple - the US is a theocracy, and the reigning god is mammon. The golden rule is "he who has the gold, rules". Our temple of worship is called a "bank" and Satan's leash, AKA "the necktie", is to us what the cross is to Christians.
We have the best legislators money can buy.
No rich powerful man ever goes to prison unless a richer, more powerful man wants him there.
The corporations run both major parties and the media, so all US media is in effect state-run.
Our national prayer goes like this:
Our money, who art in the stock market and commodity futures, hallowed be thy name
My kingdom come, my will be done on the entire world.
Give us this day our daily bread, mansions, jewels, fast cars, yachts, and all the trappings of success.
Forgive nobody, as nobody will forgive us.
Lead us not into poverty, but deliver us from taxes
For money is the power and the glory forever.
let's eat.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Which means to grab your P2P files use a live CD and a USB hard drive. Leave your PC in a "clean state" and use a secondary removeable hard drive for your real uses.
The "officers" will never find anything on any of my PC's but a clean computer devoid of anything but innocent stuff.. Bittorrent? what is that? is it contagious?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The real point about the obsessive, anal-retentive, security obsessed, tabloid influenced, illiberal and incompetent New Labour government is that it makes loud noises because it is rapidly losing influence, not because it is establishing a Stalinist state.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
This could probably be triggered with something as simple as one of those dog collar wireless electronic boundary kits. Hard drive crosses the line and fizzle.
We have found that more power remains with the people by choosing democracy over the one-party state
But unfortunately we have become a one party state, as there is precious little difference between the Democrats and the Republicans, both of whom say "how high?" when their corporate campaign donors say "jump".
Corporations don't do as we want, but they do listen when we hit their wallet.
This only works in a national economy, which we no longer have. The corporations are multinational, and have six billion prospective customers. Your purchase is meaningless and there is no way possible to hit them in their wallet. They have no reason to care if you buy or not, there are a lot more suckers where you came from.
For instance, there has been an organized boycott against the RIAA record labels for years. The RIAA doesn't even notice it! Sony rooted millions of computers with trojaned CDs, do they care if I or the other million victims never buy another Sony product again? No, there are six billion other suckers for Sony to sell their rootkit infested computers and TVs and DVD players to.
My purchase, or refusal to purchase, is nothing to them.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Capitalism has never really existed. The closest we ever came to it was the period between the end of the revolutionary war and the establishment of a Federal banking system. Money is the most marketable property in a capitalist society, but today we have money's worth dictated by force.
/. are probably familiar with working long hours. Those 80-weeks you worked during the dot com days are now worth about as much as a 50-hour week, accounting for inflation. Debasing what is supposed to be "the most marketable property" is not capitalist. It is robbery - of your time/value.
People from
What this bill is about is robbing us of property we've already earned. It's the same game, designed to give absolute jurisdiction of ALL property, at any time. It is probably closer to fascism, but with hints of communism, and a socialist "benevolent overseer" aftertaste. Capitalism has never been implemented anywhere in the world in our lifetime.
nothingbettertodo
You're absolutely correct - with *so many* things that are clearly more important for the government to be doing, I can't possibly see how the government can elevate intellectual property enforcement to the highest priority. But, they probably will. The government, is, essentially, a business. The highest priority for any business is to protect their revenue streams. I think people in the government think this way: protecting copyright/patent holders' revenue streams will in turn protect business-, capital gains-, and personal income tax revenue streams, so enforcement will pay for itself, and maybe pay for other programs and services. That might be giving them too much credit, though, as it's quite possible they are just trying to keep the people who pay for their campaigns, vacations, and private suites at stadiums, happy.
If history has taught us anything, though, it's that this made-up legal power of copyright is, actually, very difficult and expensive to enforce. I doubt it can even be made break-even in the long term.
The truth is, the best tool copyright holders have for generating revenue is the goodwill of their patrons. Some people will always rip you off if they can. Some other people have a high personal moral sense, and will always try to compensate artists, programmers, etc for their work. An example of this is the artist who performs in the park, or on the sidewalk, with a hat or something on the ground that people toss change or money into; some people will listen to the music (or watch, if it's a visual performing artist) and enjoy it, but still not pitch any money in, other people will put some money in because they enjoyed it and realize it's important to support the artist if you want to enable that artist to concentrate on their art, and not be force to spend significant amounts of time on other methods of generating income. Most people fall somewhere in the middle, where if they think you are trying to rip them off (e.g. charge way too much for your product), they will rip you off, but if you ask for a reasonable price, they will happily pay it.
I, personally, fall into the second camp - if I enjoy a song, game, movie, book, or whatever, I *want* to pay a *reasonable* amount of money to support that creative effort. I don't even mind that middle men like publishers, record labels, etc make some money, as long as they aren't ripping off the artists (which, unfortunately, is usually the case anyhow) - the middlemen, usually do, after all, add some value in terms of production, promotion, and distribution. If you ask too much money for the product, I will just not buy it, but also not steal it. I don't need your product after all. There's other music, games, movies, books that I can enjoy, and which I find I *can* do business with the copyright holders.
He's a Michigan representative... why is he in such support of a bill that has no use to MI residents.... this obviously helps SoCal more than any other part of the nation. MI economy is in such rambles, that IP is going to help? He's not getting my vote, that do nothing to help his own state blowhard...
Encrypt, encrypt, encrypt.
Encrypt your entire computer disk.
www.truecrypt.org
Encrypted connection to the internet.
www.cotse.com
Use encrypted email.
http://quicksilvermail.net/
(or one of many other email encryption programs, including Thunderbird)
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/
You must move to protect yourself from present day governments that are increasing hostile toward their citizens. They are godless and have deserted their consciences for political and personal gain.
I have written a program that does a hard shutdown of my full disk TrueCrypted computer when anyone clicks or moves the mouse, presses a key, or plugs or unplugs anything into my computer. I have not put it out in public yet because of it being potential used by the bad guys. However, the more intrusive governments become, the more I am tempted to make it public. The above tactics are the only way law abiding citizens are going to be able to stop these government tyrants from trying to build false cases against us. In the end, you and I can prevail if you are willing to. You will not be able to give in to their threats (including the extremely vicious prosecutor practice of heaping multiple charges upon you to try to place you in fear and thus agreeing to confess to a lesser charge to get the others dropped.)
This one is easy. A quick look at John Conyers' political contributions shows the movie/music industry is the second largest political contributor to his campaign. Check out this link: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cycle=2006&cid=N00004029 Who loves the MPAA/RIAA nowadays? Only the sellouts.
(ranged by freedom)
(I mean here socialism as practiced in most european countries between 1950-2000, if you mean the EU's overwhelming philosophy, then perhaps yes, you're right that it's closer to communism than fascism) In many ways the Socialist Europeans are much more free than the average American. Since education is often free to the individual (and you even get a small stipend by the government to go to school) people get to study for the career they really want, rather than being burdened by massive student loans. The state gets paid back through the higher taxes from the greater income, and the individual gets to pursue the career they really want rather than the one that they can afford to pay for (in terms of education).
In terms of medical care the Europeans are also much freer, since they get free medical care. Therefore Europeans are not screwed by getting sick when they can't afford health insurance, have had prior diseases like cancer, or their insurance company decides to screw them somehow.
The much-touted "freedom" of America is more for large corporations and the few people that can write a check for their college tuition. In fact, this article is about large corporations getting their own police force. Do you think this means greater or lesser freedom for the average individual? (Hint: you may soon have federal police knocking on your door for sharing the wrong file) We still haven't even gotten to drug use (legalized in Holland) or sex and nudity (much freer laws in Europe). Sure, they pay alot in taxes, but when you count the cost of health care and education, the tax burden comes out similarly. Americans just get to pay for hugely expensive ($500 billion+) annual defense budgets or hugely expensive ($750 billion+) unnecessary wars or the hugely expensive "War on Drugs" rather than things they actually can use in daily life.
Hitler was no Stalin. He was not out to replace corporate executives with his own cronies, and he most certainly didn't. He knew that those already at the top were in a far better position to make industry thrive and help rebuild the German economy than anyone the NSDAP could come up with. Hitler received a lot of backing from heavy industry (his opponents from within the party were being backed by light industry) before he ever even came into power. The fear on everyone's mind was communism (and the economy to a somewhat lesser extent). The Nazi Party and Hitler were seen as the most viable option to succeed in fighting against it. Labor unions tended to be very Marxist and corporations feared them. Hitler promised industry (and delivered) a regime where they would thrive and where labor unions would not be a threat to their existance.
I see the glass as full with a FoS of 2.
Every time a story like this is posted, we get a lot of well-worded responses about why it's a bad thing, and that's it. We don't have a call for organized action. We don't have a set agenda. We all share in the outrage, but we end up internalizing it and stewing in our own fury. Why don't who have good writing skills and an understanding of law or politics and can actually articulate why this is a Bad Thing actually come up with a generic template letter that fellow Slashdotters can copy and paste to their senator or house representative? Why don't we do something with our outrage? There may be a few out there who actually do this, so why not share your letter with Slashdot and have everyone else do the same? I know EFF.org does this often, but why not do something here at Slashdot?
Pardon my lack of understanding how laws are coded or maybe I missed the section of this bill that the poster found dangerous.
But I can't seem to find the section that describes the below mentioned abilities. What I am trying to NOT do is read a text as true and jump on the bandwagon without first reading the law myself to see if the bill matches the posters impression. Too many people judge too quickly.
" It would allow the Feds to seize hardware that has even one file coming from 'dubious origins,' e.g. downloaded from P2P."
Where does the above impression come from in the bill?
Indeed. That's one of the key differences in practice between fascism and communism. In communism, you shoot the industrialists as part of your takeover (or shortly after). In fascism you shoot them only if they won't play ball.
Isn't this just a big bad scary monster of a bill designed to scare us? That way, it'll get watered down to something that can actually pass and lay the groundwork for the slow, insidious trudge of rights-snatching that has been going on for the last 100 years?
It's like saying "Hey I'm gonna shoot you in the head!" then you stab them in the toe with a needle. It hurts like a bastard, but at least it doesn't kill you. Then they stab you in the thigh. They poke you in the nipple with a hot iron. Then they dip you in lemon juice.
After a while, getting shot in the head sure starts to seem mighty nice.
Thanks, government!
-
I faxed Boxer and Feinstein but they are in the bag on PRO IP act. I am really pissed at my Republican Representative. Less government and laws not more. I am sick to death of Corporations getting away with murder and government getting bigger and more intrusive every day. I say we throw them all out and start over from scratch. I don't know how we organize this but we need a Senate full of non lawyers that don't owe anyone a thing. I know that HR 4279 just cost my Representative my vote and I told them so via a phone call separate from my FAX.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?