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Senate Judiciary Committee Approves Copyright Cops

Posted by kdawson on from the keystone-of-the-law dept.

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."

4 of 483 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Your tax money at work by Hyppy · · Score: 0, Troll

    You forgot to throw in the comment about how capitalism is the key to a better society, and that we owe our souls to corporations.

  2. Re:The best government money can buy! by DaveV1.0 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Did you even read the SUMMARY? I quote: "And these cops would take over the RIAA's War on Sharing by filing civil lawsuits"

    What is new about that? Please go look up the civil rights division of the Department of Justice.

    About ten years ago I had a Quake site called the Springfield Fragfest. I researched all the cheats, console commands, and server commands, tested them, and wrote descriptions and explanations; my own words. I believe at the time it was the most plagairized piece of work on the internet. As it stands now, the only authorized copy is at archive.org's wayback machine, but Google says there are still quite a few out there (the first two hits are illegal copies).

    So get to suing or STFU.

    --
    There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
  3. Re:Your tax money at work by TheVelvetFlamebait · · Score: 0, Troll

    So, in a nutshell, you now pay for the RIAA to prop up their outdated and failed business model.

    Why yes, if by "outdated and failed business model", you mean "legally granted rights", and by "RIAA", you mean "artists and copyright holders including but definitely not limited to popular scapegoats like the RIAA and MPAA". Or you could just ignore me and watch more people lose a few of their own "outdated and failed business models" just because they were too cheap to just buy the friggin CD!

    Mods, this isn't a troll, in case you were wondering.

    --
    You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
  4. Re:It's just a committee vote by Reality+Master+201 · · Score: 0, Troll

    You're welcome to disagree, in the same way that you're welcome to argue that the moon is actually composed of a green hued dairy product. Your disagreement, however, lacks foundation in empirical fact, as your moon-cheese assertion would.

    Please note that this statement is not intended to denigrate the supporters of Ron Paul, per se. While I personally think paultards are a bunch of naive twits, that's a comparatively minor sin and not the general thrust of my comment. Rather, what I'm saying is that, in fact, paultards are a very minor force in American politics, at best, and will likely remain so for the remainder of Paul's political career/lifespan.