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PRO-IP and PIRATE Acts Fused Into New Bill
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) have just sponsored a new bill, the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008, which would combine the worst parts of the PRO-IP Act and the PIRATE Act. The basic idea is pretty simple: expand the Federal government to create something like the Department of Homeland Security for IP. The Copyright Czar then polices the internet and clogs the courts with thousands of civil lawsuits against individual infringers so the RIAA doesn't have to. Feel free to contact your representatives with your feelings about this bill. Right now, they believe the bill (PDF) will 'protect jobs.'"
Ermm.....more likely "will protect the stream of political contributions and lobbying money from the RIAA/MPAA/etc."
If they'd had any class at all, they'd have named the new combined bill the "PRO-PIRATE" bill.
Honestly, why do we need this? Everyone talks about how music is dying, and how movies are dying. But a quick search on MySpace or YouTube gives thousands of indie bands and a lot are as good or somewhat better than the ones signed with a record company. There are lots of low-budget films circulating YouTube, now while a lot aren't as good as the ones that take millions to make, a lot are really entertaining, something that a lot of Hollywood films aren't.
Just because not everyone wants fast food doesn't give the fast foot industry the right to in a way punish previously legal activities for the goal of getting more people to eat fast food. In any other industry, a bill like this would be laughed at even by the idiots that are in our congress, but it seems that any trade group with the word America is enough to throw both republicans and democrats into passing a bill. Idiots.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Although I'm not sure throwing intangible goods into the harbour is going to be so effective.
This bill basically gives federal prosecutors the right to bring a civil suit against infringers on behalf of the copyright owner (with proceeds going to the copyright owner), AND leaves the option open for the copyright holder to file his own suit on top of it. Now you can get sued twice for the same thing, with damages doubled up to $2 million per infringement. And best of all, the taxpayers will foot the bill for civil suits by the government.
Unbelievable. Really.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
In any other industry, the core problem would be addressed.
... not hollywood crap, and extremely high prices for garbage.
for auto manufacturers, the problem is nafta, not poor quality domestic vehicles.
for food prices, the problem is biofuel, not subsidized farming.
for power generation (and shortfalls), the problem is canada and mexico, not insufficient production.
for job loss, the problem is immigration, not high wages.
for the recession? the problem is terrorism!!!, not the trillions of dollars borrowed and spent on the war, subprime mortgages, and the bush administration's economic policies...
And for piracy? the problem is canada, china, and piracy
I think that if there wasn't so much high priced garbage, people would start paying for their movies and music again. I'm 100% against paying for something (like a cd), finding out it is crap, and being stuck with something I don't want... almost every other industry, I can return unwanted goods. When music/movies are like that, I'll stop pirating.
Exactly. I just bought Bioshock and the thing keeps crashing on my computer. I should have pirated it first, but I was trying to be honest and had waited for it to hit an acceptable price point (which it did on steam this weekend). Now I'm being punished for being honest. At least when I get viruses from pirating shit, I know what I'm getting in to.
Now I'm stuck with a couple of gigs of worthless data on my hard drive that I feel like I should keep around in case they patch it. And I'm convinced more than ever that when spore comes out, that shit is coming off the pirate bay. I'm not going to pay for another 60 dollar doorstop.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
how can the ELECTED senators in your country can easily move against the wishes of the people, so blatantly, so fearlessly, so hypocritically ? unbelievable.
Read radical news here
Department of Homeland Security is a "Department", which comes with a seat on the Cabinet. This looks more like the DEA with its "Drug Czar", which I believe falls into the "Agency" category. No cabinet post.
The property seizure powers also look similar, though not so much the civil litigation stuff.
its a battle between selfishness, self centeredness and will of the people.
you think that by protesting, talking to them, you will have them change their mind ? or by working IN the system, you will be able to compete ? how many stuff you have failed to prevent in the last 10 years by doing that ?
they DONT CARE what you think. they get their votes by doing greasy campaigns that run by donation money from whomever has the cash, and they just do as they or their masters please. thats the gist of it.
you better draw them off, and start thinking what you can do WITHOUT them being on board, because they wont be.
basically your senators have become your enemies.
THEY DONT SERVE YOU
Read radical news here
No-one in their right mind would elect him to public office.
Fantastically gifted coder he may be, a founder of open source he most certainly is, but another thing he is, is a zealot. That type of person rarely does well in a job where compromise is the order of the day.
Not that its a bad thing he's so single minded. Open source wouldn't have its most important tool chain were it not for him, and the philosophy would have got nowhere but for his bull headedness on the issue.
That said, I'd never vote to put him in public office, never in a million gazillion years.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
i wonder when will people start killing these american senators who are doing things that people dont want. in democracy thats treason.
As the great Votaire put it:
"An ideal form of government is democracy, tempered with assassination."
Clever guy.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
Combine this with FISA, and suddenly the only obstacle left is encryption. We all know what's coming next... The "No encryption for potential terrorists act", the "mandatory back-door act", or the "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear act".
...so instead of posting about how we're all so insightful for foreseeing it, or just whining about the government (as though our congressman might read Slashdot), let's do what we do best and solve this problem, except this time before it even happens.
It seems to me that the solution to censorship is to route around it. How about if we code up some steganography tool to hide encrypted messages, and give them the back-door to a bunch of worthless garbage? (i.e. SSH over Nigerian scam mail.) Perhaps they'll notice that all the geeks are communicating with variations of Nigerian spam emails, but the only way they could stop us would be to solve the SPAM problem. Good luck legislating that away.
You know, if people wouldn't take out loans they can't afford, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.
You know, that's something you hear ALL OVER the place, and yet an enormous number of people had acted in this way which is so spat-upon by most of the smarty-smart forums I frequent. The thing is, though, that if there is such a large amount of similar sentiment or action, there is probably something worth examining there. I would say it has something to do with incredibly smart (well, that's debatable. let's say "good with words") people who write insanely convoluted contracts that everybody and their cousin just signs off the bat without reading (EULA much?) and it's understood that that's how that's done. Added to that, growing up as many of us probably have in a culture that prizes "credit history" (I understand it's being tied to insurance costs, now) which can ONLY be gotten from debt, then I can sympathize with the consumer in these cases (especially after having finally rid myself of debt, probably 10 years later and thousands upon thousands of dollars in interest, and mine's a pretty light case, there are people dealing with mountains of cascading debt). All our choices, all our own fault. But with SO many people in that situation, it's more interesting to look at "why" than just somehow blame them for being wrong. (see: "public misunderstanding" around the release of KDE4.0)
They can have my cutlass when they pry it from my cold dead hand!
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
It will "protect 'jobs'". Put that last little word through your Noam Chomsky filter, and it translates:
"protect profits".
but that does not envoke the same emotion in the masses as "Jobs" do.
Which your congress spokesperson might have a hard time trying to disagree with this bill.
It seems to me that the only thing worse than the incessant squabbling between Democrats and Republicans is when they arrive at a consensus on a piece of "important" legislation.
People who are old like me and remember the famous battles between Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan remember when Republicans really were conservative and Democrats really were liberal. Now we just have two parties of triangulating whores selling out to try and grab the middle and flipping sides on every issue at the earliest possible opportunity.
This is my sig.
If everyone would quite buying the RIAA music, quite pirating it even. Quit buying the damn DVD's, quite going to see the movies, quit pirating movies. Show a complete and total drop I'm talking FLATLINE of sales and use for music and movies by the MAFIAA. What will be their argument be for their lost salse then? They would lose money to BUY politicians and would have to go out of business at some point. I hear you saying "boycotts just don't work." Why don't they? Because people have to have the latest RIAA pushed band's CD, they have to go see the lateset greatest MPAA pushed movie. "Hey when is American Idol on?". I haven't bought an RIAA labeld CD in 10 years I gave the RIAA my middle finger a long time ago. Instead of watching a movie I just read a book or play a video game. F@ck the MPAA too! America your deserving all the crap that is comming down on you - because your too damn lazy to do a damn thng about it. But, some of us still give a crap!
Me I wrote my senators and told them they should not vote for this crap. If they do it will show me that they have been bought off by the RIAA/MPAA and that I'll be informing as many of their "constiuants" as I can about their pro-corporate, anti-citizen votes.
The Truth is a Virus!!!
The republican party is prioritizing business interests over consumers any time the have a chance.
And the democrats are all cozy and in bed with the Hollywood elite.
Expect RIAA, Viacom, Hollywood and all other companiers with IP content to consistently get everything they want from Wahington. As a consumer, dont even try to get your hopes up. You will continue to get screwed.
Just as a reminder: After entertainment became a big business with lobbyists around 1920, *no* new copyrighted work have expired. Every 10 years or so, it has been extended by at least 10 years, and is now about two lifetimes.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Oh for fsk's sake why don't they just openly come out and make it illegal to actually _own_ anything so that we all have to rent things from large corporations.
I mean that's what they really want here. At least if they came out openly and said it we'd know where we stand.
And the worst part is that it's unlikely to change until the majority of couch potato people are affected by it.
Which if the-powers-that-be are as clever as they have appeared to be so far will never happen. The last thing they want is people actually _looking_ at what they are doing - especially Joe Public - so they'll do anything to keep them fat and happy.
"Bah!" - Dogbert
And yet you still put the address of your site in your signature. There seems to be a logical disconnect between that action and what you just said. Please explain ?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
and allows widespread theft of our #1 economic output.
this is bull.
If you lumped the entire movie and music industry together, google could buy it up with the rounding errors in their revenue calculations.
The truth is that consumer electronics and technology in general dwarf hollywood and IP in the GDP calculations. Think about it for a second. How much do you pay for cellphones, mobile broadband, home broadband, computers, etc vs hollywood trash?
Even in my uncle's household, where they receive more than they could possibly spend, their expenditures on technology outpace intellectual property 4 to 1. And no, he doesn't download anything because he doesn't know how.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
You're the creator of Democracy 2 right?
I'm not sure how you feel about this, but this is my personal experience with piracy and your game.
I heard about Democracy, checked out the site, thought it looked pretty cool and headed over to The Pirate Bay were there about a dozen torrents. Soon enough I got over the game and then Democracy 2 came out, which is a A LOT better, and once again headed over to The Pirate Bay to play it. I liked I so much that I decided to buy it. Which I did, yesterday. I figured "Well this is one guy making a really fun and interesting game, he gets all the money and it's only $20! So now I'm enjoying it legally, you've got your money and everyone is happy. Thanks to The Pirate Bay.