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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.'"
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]
no band could possibly hope to make any money by giving away its music for free and making it back playing live shows. And having songs broadcast over FM radio without royalties being paid will destroy the music industry.
A book would be impossible to sell without some sort of protection. could you imagine if the #1 best selling book of all time had no sort of copy protection?
imagine if there was free software. not just free to have, but free to use and modify and re-distribute yourself. That would completly destroy the entire software industry. I predict that if there ever was some sort of free operating system that could be an alternative to windows, it would completly eradicate microsoft's entire business in less than a year.
The movie industry would be in far better shape if no one moved out west to escape Edison's patents that prevented them from making movies. Disney would be a stronger company if they had to secure permission to use the Brothers Grim stories that their classics are founded on.
you are right. stealing and sharing ideas can not possibly lead to any sort of good, and it certainly is not profitable in any way shape or form.
-I only code in BASIC.-
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)
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
(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.