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Senate Judiciary Committee Approves Copyright Cops
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved the EIPA (the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008), which would create copyright cops. And these cops would take over the RIAA's War on Sharing by filing civil lawsuits and using civil forfeiture laws to take any and all computers engaged in infringement. Worse, they would even seize computers (such as servers or database farms) that house the data of innocent people, and these people would not have any right to get their data back. At best the 'virtual bystanders' who happened to have data on a computer used for infringement could get a protective order saying that no one should go rummaging through their stuff. Perhaps the only good thing in the bill is that they've excluded DMCA circumvention from the list of grounds for seizure. So while the Senators believe this is needed to combat foreign copyright infringement cartels, it's entirely likely that innocent people will be harmed by this law."
Ahh America, where civil law meets criminal law. You know, I'm sure that my neighbor has built his fence 2 inches over the property line. I wish I could call the cops and have them seize his things and jail him.
America, even if you don't get the difference, please stop exporting your arbitrary laws to the rest of the world. Thank you.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
This is the straw that broke the camel's back. I am going to wait until the copyreich brownshirts raid the very first webhost and seize a whole server farm. We'll see how well this goes over when a few thousand customers sue the US government for illegal seizure.
This is so far from being common sense. I can only wonder what senators have been smoking.
They're using their grammar skills there.
I think you're being a little unfair. Considering the amount of bribe-money that's changed hands, they're entitled to a few laws which serve only them and allow them to ride roughshod over the public interest. Geez. Stop being so selfish!
Requiem for the American Dream
Well, that's scary is that, if this passes, the DoJ becomes the enforcement arm for private industry.
How is it at all rational that the DoJ should be pursuing civil matters on behalf of private companies? I mean, are they going to start being the investigative arm and replace Media Sentry and me the ones to be sending subpoenas to universities and then prosecute them? Why does this industry group get their own publicly funded enforcement agency?
This sounds like a really bad turning point for justice in America. Welcome to the distopian future kiddies!
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
They have the DMCA but we have The Pirate Bay... profits were up, the MPAA had their best two years ever, why couldn't everyone be happy?
Now that the balance is being pushed again, expect a large pushback. I can't wait to see what this is going to do to increase *effective* foreign-server-based piracy.
Because, collectively, you all got blinded by greed and put too much faith in the shell game that is economics. In the name of this shell game, you stood by and allowed your government to transform every piece of common wealth into someone elses private property. Now, they own everything and they run everything in an arbitrary fashion, and they're trying to expand this dominion over the entire globe.
You talk about "paying for" these people, what a joke. You have no choices anymore. Look at the housing market. Years of construction, millions of people paying every month for years, and with the stroke of a pen, money is printed, currency is devalued, public wealth is transferred to ensure all those defaulted loans are covered. The white collar crooks get the loan money repaid by the government and more importantly, by the time the money becomes utterly devalued, they'll own the deeds for half the country.
If you want to understand what's going on around you, I'd suggest you start reading up about the Great Depression.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Firstly, any and all your home computers, if you use bittorrent or download music you need to change your habits. Get a USB hard drive and a live CD to run your computer when you are in EVIL PIRATE MODE. if the live CD you use allows the use of truecrypt on the USB drive, I highly recommend it. If it is found you need plausible deniability. I had hacker friends that hid their USB drive inside a belkin UPS under their desk. nobody questions a UPS with a USB cable out of it, Hiding it in plain sight like that will help deter and distract the invading police during their search.
This way you can hide your usb drive with all the evidence and your regular home PC is pristene and clean with no evidence to condemn you.
Works great, leaves no evidence except that which is on your USB drive. You need to start using habits like the Jews had to use in WWII Germany.. take your drive and hide it well when not in use as you will never know when your home will be raided by the Secret IP police. you need to live a double life, and make sure you have good hiding places for your contraband. also be secret, never brag or tell others about your stash as they may be agents of the IP Police... (Bet you money that in a couple of years they will start a "rat on your parents/neighbors/friends" blitz to encourage people to turn in their neighbors.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Nope. You pay because the RIAA's own attempts to enforce copyright law have stalled, largely because armies of geeks have been trying to find ways of ensuring people can violate copyright without actually enough evidence existing to lead to successful trials.
The RIAA itself doesn't have a business model that's relevant to this discussion (any more than the MPAA, AAA, NRA, or any other organization that plays a representative role has), but if you're referring to the music industry's general model of "selling copies of things people want", I'm not really sure how the model is "outdated" or "failed". Because it requires copyright law to enforce it? And? How many businesses do you think survive without any laws at all to ensure people play fair and don't use the fruits of their labors without paying towards the costs? If your employer suddenly started withholding all your paychecks, and you found that your attempts to enforce the law against your employer were fruitless because he or she knew thousands of loopholes, and you found everyone else was in the same boat, do you think it'd be fair for everyone to turn around and tell you your "Employee business model" is "outdated and failed"?
We could have avoided this. There'd be no reason for "copyright cops" if people bought the content they wanted and were prepared to pay for, and steered clear of content they didn't want to pay for. The fact geeks went over the top to create mechanisms to by-pass paying doesn't mean copyright cops are unneeded. It means a bunch of people acted anti-socially, and now we all have to suffer through higher taxes and a greater risk of being caught in the dragnets.
Thanks a lot Ray Beckerman. Thanks a lot Shawn Fanning. So you sowed, so shall we have to reap.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
A closer analogy would be seizing all businesses in an office building because one of the businesses was engaged in alleged illegal activity. Your guilty because you rent facilities from the same provider as the target of the government action.
Although I have very little sympathy for copyright thievery — regardless of whether it is exactly or almost the same as thievery of tangible goods — the ease, with which the government can seize suspect's property, and the difficulties facing the ex-suspect in getting the property back are a major problem in our legal system.
There are a lot of safeguards for the suspect's person, but the property (including cash) is hardly protected at all. In Giulliany's New York, drunk drivers were supposed to lose their cars even — on a cop's say-so in a "traffic-court" (run by the Executive branch, not Judiciary). In this illiberal Massachusetts town, a kid would lose bicycles, if caught without a helmet. Police don't need to prove anything — they can just take it using the force we give them to fight crimes. Then, in many cases, the victim — already cleared of all (or most) of the originally suspected wrongdoing — has to sue to get the seized stuff back, and there is no telling, neither what it will cost them (in legal fees alone), nor what condition the stuff will be upon return.
The situation is slowly changing, but on the local levels only. A Constitutional amendment, or other sort of "Miranda rights"-like rule is long overdue.
Meanwhile, why should those accused of copyright violations have it any different? Because some of them could just have been by-standers? Well, if you give your bicycle to a kid, who is accused of riding helmet-less by the cop, you are bystander too. Same with loaning your car to a friend, who is then accused of DUI...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
What I find excruciating about this is that the 4 senators who voted against the bill were all Republicans. It just goes to show why, in general, I support third party candidates.
On an unrelated (sort of) note, somebody at my university received a notice that they were engaged in copyright infringement, came to the computer center and asked what they had done -- they didn't even know what it meant to download music or movies. Or so they claimed.
Palm trees and 8
It's time to blow up federal buildings.
Andy Out!
... but let's think about this. Which would you prefer in this situation? Would you rather the RIAA be in charge of investigating and prosecuting file sharers, or would you rather a force at least represented by the government, whom you elect? At least the government is not driven purely by profit.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I wonder if the new copyright cops will get tanks and guns or will be a part of DHS so they can make warrantless house intrusions and take equipment before evidence is destroyed. It's all perfectly logical how they would NEED certain military style hardware and no-knock entry authority to do their job, right? After all, their JOB will absolutely require unannounced home intrusion, just like you'd expect against violent criminals, gang hideouts, and drug labs.
Hell, if these guys show up *without* SWAT style tactics, they might reasonably expect to get shot by homeowners objecting to people busting into their houses to steal their computers.
Knock Knock
Who is it?
Copyright cops. Let us in and we're going to take your stereo, all your CDs, all your computers, and all storage media in the house, both analog and digital. Trust us, we're from the government, and we're coming in whether or not you give us permission since if we wait until you get warrant confirmation, you might have erased all evidence.
*door opens*
Gunfire follows as homeowner defends property from intruders without proof of law enforcement status
The obvious solution is to give the cops a tank and disarm the homeowner...
Where did you find that information?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Many don't even know that what they do is breaking the law. Even more would be really surprised to learn that what they have been doing for ages has become illegal suddenly.
Copyright changed a fair lot in the last decade. What used to be legal and was actually common practice for decades is now a big nono. I'm fairly sure if people did realize, the outcry would be quite noticable. Take someone who uses some tool to break copy protection on a movie or CD to make a copy for a friend, just like he did with video and audio tapes for years. With the difference that he didn't have to break any kind of protection, but he doesn't even notice this either. He just knows that this program can copy the DVD while the other one cannot. So he uses the program that can. Legality? I guess he just thinks that the program simply can't do it for some odd reason, or that he can't figure out how to make it work. That one can, so he uses that one. Period.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This suggestion is going to be modded to oblivion, but...
Remember, any bill must be signed by the President to become law (modulo veto overrides et al.). Hold your nose and write to Bush.
Ask him to veto this law should it come across his desk. Use his own language and prejudices in your favor. Use terms like "Unwarranted government intrusion into business", and "liberal Hollywood elite".
Disclaimer: In the last two elections I voted neither Democrat nor Recpublican.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
So, can I ask, how many revolutions you've actually been a part of, shieldwolf? Seriously, it's easy to sit back and say "I wouldn't stand for that" but the simple fact is, you can only say that if you actually live somewhere that has it better than we here in the USA have.
I spend a lot of my time volunteering and trying to change those around me through education and I still don't get anywhere. I have said, when the time comes, I will resort to true revolution, but honestly, that time hasn't come. We have a system that is clearly broken, but violence isn't going to fix it unless you kill everyone who has ever had any interest in power. You can't just take out one or two people, you have to take out millions. That's simply not realistic if you expect to be considered a "good guy" at the end of it all. Revolutions have a time and place, but the fact is, in the USA, this is not the time. I can see it being the time in the next generation, possibly two, but not now. Things just aren't that bad, generally speaking. People still have jobs (mostly) and can still feed themselves. Despite what it seems like here on slashdot, people don't fear their government, and don't think there's any reason to fear their government. That may be the fact that we are "fat and lazy" or it may be that there truly is no reason to fear, yet. We still have opportunities to change things. Economics is cyclic, so expecting some big revolution based upon a downturn such as we have right now is just unrealistic. It hasn't truly hurt that many people. Yes it has affected most of us, but it hasn't put enough of us in bread lines to cause true panic, and it's not likely to do so.
As for education, it doesn't require going into debt or being "indoctrinated". Your lack of respect for people who can teach you things speaks volumes, though. Yes you may be smarter than they are, but that doesn't make them any less worthy of respect. Sure there are some professors and "educators" who aren't worthy of respect but those truly aren't the norm.
"Growing old is inevitable; growing up is optional."
I believe further that of the remaining population the overwhelming majority have never done any serious research into copyright. These people will largely make up their mind based on what has been 'sold' to them over the years. There has been aggressive marketing from various Copyright Industries (software, music, movies etc) to convince people that without copyright, they will cease to produce, and we will return to a dark age of culture. There is (again, though possibly less clearly) no point in asking any of these people your questions.
Until such time as people have researched every single issue (copyright is just one issue people need to make decisions about) we will always be in a situation where people accept whatever they're told. And since I don't ever foresee a day when we all become experts in every subject we will always be at the whim of those that are strong and have an agenda.
I don't recall the source, but a quote I like on this is something to the affect of "If you're explaining, you're losing" ... and copyright makes "common sense", so it will always be a losing battle for those opposed to it, and an easy battle for those monopolies that abuse us with it.
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
The DMCA was a voice vote. The very idea of a voice vote assures a lack of accountability, which is exactly what politicians want. Accountability is something which is anathema to most Americans.
I think it might work out really well if copyright was reformulated as right-of-sale. I write a book? I get to profit from selling it for some period of time. If someone else wants to sell it, they have to deal with me. If someone else wants to copy it and distribute it for free, well, tough beans for me.
That way, if Apple wants to charge for access to a well organized, high quality library of music, they have to pay the artists, but if they want to give it away to prop up their hardware sales, that is their business.
Under such a system, the artists (and the people sitting in front of them) probably wouldn't get as much money, but their works wouldn't so easily get exploited by people with more money as they would in a total free for all.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
If that was the case they would be propping up the home owners who are the ones with the ridiculous debts, not the loan sharks. The buddies of the kleptocratic oligarchs in the government are quite content if 90% of the "little" people lose their houses and go bankrupt thus causing the very depression we are supposedly being "protected" against, but the corporation?!! Never!!!
Note that bailing out the loan shark does nothing whatsoever for the economy as the home-"owners" will still go under in massive numbers and thus their purchasing power will be reduced to near zero, not to mention all kinds of fun effects on the prices of the piles of sticks and cardboard called "homes" in the US. But it does help billionaire investors, their investment corporations and CEO buddies of the politicos to get out before its too late ... which is the entire objective of the exercise.
No, I did not mean it that way. But Americans in general do look down on socialism, and so I like to point out that what we do IS akin to socialism, but only for the wealthy. I would prefer America had more socialism for the average person, rather than having all our tax dollars go to handouts and tax breaks for the owning class.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Except of course this action does nothing whatsoever for the economy. Spouting such meaningless platitudes is a hallmark of an economic demagogue.
So let me break it down, so that the emptiness of all that rhetoric of yours can be exposed to some daylight.
You have a group of individuals "HO", in the market for some already overpriced piles of sticks which provide them with protection from rain and snow, but come with a host of obligations and costs which make them only moderately economically viable in relation to the typical income of that HO group.
Enter group "IB" who seeks to steal everybody's money. They normally attempt to use moneys of another group "I" who is essentially a multi-billionaire club with a large number of some goofy "wannabes" attached who are allowed to lose all their money in the effort to "belong", to which silly belief they are encouraged by the multi-billionaires who seek to fleece them out of what miserable funds these goofuses still possess. Of course 99% of the assets in that club already belongs to the 1% who are the billionaires and the tens of thousands of idiots (i.e. the remaining 99%) who think themselves to be in the group have the remaining 1% amongst themselves. Which of course does not stop them from thinking themselves as being "I" and braying loudly about it, followed by doing everything in their power to protect the billionaires because they feel themselves always "on the cusp" of becoming such themselves. Any minute now.
The "IB" thieves come up with a giant con: to get the "HO" turkeys to start fighting amongst themselves over "purchasing" the piles of sticks, thus increasing the "value" (snicker) of these worthless things and then to use this "increased" value as a "collateral" for further "loans" to be used to increase the tempo of the "HO" squabble, all the way skimming a percentage of the monetary value of all these "transactions" off the top. They enlist the help of the billionaires to get the thing started.
And it works beautifully: the "HO" squabble causing the "value" of the piles of sticks to skyrocket, that "value" is then used as "collateral" to issue further "loans" and the cycle repeats itself.
Of course at certain point the "HO" idiots run out of their real (as opposed to "invested" in the piles of sticks) money. So they attempt to sell these "valuable" possessions. At which point they discover that if enough of them do so, the whole charade collapses. Which makes a guy named Ponzi laugh out of his grave.
Things start to look grim. The "IB" crooks already got their money (which they've been stashing abroad knowing all the way that the whole thing was a con). The "I" crooks too never stood to lose anything as their real money was only used to get the thing going and constituted a tiny fraction of the "value" of the con at its peak and was long since withdrawn (they of course were also in on the con) and whatever could be managed to be siphoned out was pure gain. The "HO" marks stand to lose everything as the lion share of the "value" of their "assets" is pure fantasy and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
Enter the Knight on the White Horse, the Government of Dunces. The trumpets blare and the pages wave colorful standards. The rescue is here! And so the Knight takes the gold of the "HO" turkeys he collected over the years from them as well as that of many, many others who were previously not involved in this fiasco and gives that to .... the "IB" thieves. Who naturally split the loot with their billionaire "I" partners and roll laughing all the way to their bank in Dubai.
And what is the final tally? The "HO" idiots are still screwed. The value of their "assets" will still fall l