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."

Comments

Foreign copyright infringement?

[SpiderClan]

I only scanned the article, but I don't understand how US pseudo-cops seizing US computers and servers is going to stop foreign copyright infringement. Unless these are somehow international cops, but I doubt that.

Re:Foreign copyright infringement?

[Hyppy]

It's about as foreign as the NSA's recent wiretapping, I'm sure.

Re:Foreign copyright infringement?

[n dot l]

Why should *my* tax dollars be used to boost the profits of *any* corporation?

Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, the **AA's. If anything, they seem to be getting better at propping the big companies up before they collapse. And to answer your question, it's because your government values said corporations more than it values you or your tax dollars. And they value the companies more because a fancy dinner party and sponsorship for the party convention is worth much more than the votes of the small part of the population that both understands and cares about what's going on.

Your tax money at work

[Opportunist]

So, in a nutshell, you now pay for the RIAA to prop up their outdated and failed business model. Well, not really, you pay for people who do it for the RIAA. I kinda fail to see the public interest. Because that's what tax money should be spent on.

When I want to wage a war against my neighbor because I think he might do something illegal (ya know, he's one of those $minorty_group, and we all know they $stereotype), the public doesn't care, as they should. I can't go to the police station and demand that they install some surveillance cams and send a car by his house every couple minutes. Actually, I might have a suit for harrassment on my ass for doing so myself.

Can someone explain why the RIAA is entitled to harrassing people, now not only with their own witchhunters but by people that YOU pay for?

Re:Your tax money at work

[easyTree]

I kinda fail to see the public interest. Because that's what tax money should be spent on.

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!

Re:Your tax money at work

[ShieldW0lf]

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.

Re:Your tax money at work

[nitehawk214]

What economic system do you prefer to capitalism?

Compared to what we have in the US? I would rather have capitalism.

Re:Your tax money at work

[Artifakt]

Why do you even ask the question? The RIAA, etc, aren't Capitalists - they are using the law to create and extend an artificial monopoly, not relying upon the free market. The poster you are attacking is pointing out that they are not Capitalists, that they will try to spin this as just being how good little Capitalists act, but it will be a lie, and so your post shows you generally fall for the lie and start a squabble with people who actually understand the situation. The RIAA wins because that squabbling undermines the people who would organize against the recording industry's version of State Socialism.

Re:Your tax money at work

[Lostlander]

This isn't capitalism this is corporate welfare. Which is basically a form of command economy called socialism. I'm tired of the government bailing out these large corporations they should be able to die just like smaller corporations. People might be out of jobs for a month or two but they will get jobs in the companies that replace the giant corporation. Assuming the function of the giant corporation is still valid.

Re:Your tax money at work

[houghi]

You start with the idea that money is the goal. For centuries and even now music made by musicians had music as a final goal, not money.

In the past economies have blossomed without the need of copyright.

Also you seem to think that the copyright is there to protect the business. It isn't. It is there to protect the right to copy. Solving the issue is not by not copying things anymore, but by making it legal to do so.

In general: if the majority does something that is illegal, then it is not the people that are wrong, it is the law that is wrong.

Re:Your tax money at work

[Stevecrox]

I think your missing a huge point in their business model. SONY BMG, Universal, etc.. are companies that traditionally trumped up the high recording/production costs in making films/movies. They would spend the required millions to put people on stage they would then contractually and physically have the ability to limit supply and so artificially increase the value of their product.

The problem is that technology has changed where you needed a $1 million dollar recording studio twenty years ago we can now use a $2000 PC and importantly you get the same quality of music out of it. The advent of the internet means it is now relatively cheap to get your message out. I believe Sandi Thom showed just how easy it was to gain a large audience through the internet. On top of this technology has made copying intellectual property very cheap (it costs around 10p to copy a DVD.)

Their business model isnâ(TM)t making things and selling them (such a description covers every single business model I can think of.) Their business model is being a middle man in the access to music. They were able to control the supply of music to the masses and in doing so make money from it. Technology has meant they have lost the ability to control that, rather than update their business model and try adding value to their product they continually attack their customer base and work to devalue their business model (paper cd cases, drm, etc..)

Re:Your tax money at work

[SmokeyTheBalrog]

No one is saying to do away with Capitalism. They are saying to reduce Corporatism.

Where large corporations put up large artificial barriers to anyone wishing to compete with them or even modify their products to fit one's lifestyle . Or where they get to enact laws that are clearly in their interest and ignore those that are not.

Re:Your tax money at work

[Opportunist]

The business model isn't outdated because it relies on laws to be profitable. As you point out, many businesses do that. "Selling" music isn't outdated. What's outdated is the model of distribution. Who needs a studio to record or distribute his music? I don't.

The refusal, of artists and customrs alike, of big studios and their business model comes from years of feeling ripped off. We have a global market but I can't buy CDs from US bands that aren't distributed in Europe, and neither can I buy US shows on DVD when they appear on DVD in the US. Because of artificial boundaries and territory protection. When the CD emerged, we were told the CDs are hellish expensive because it's a new technology and they will become cheaper when the sales pick up, we gotta wait 'til records disappear and CDs become the medium of choice. Well, records disappeared, CDs became the only medium and they got more expensive.

Instead we got some insane protection mechanisms that broke any standard in the (red) book and the silver discs (they are NOT CDs, I don't want to get sued by Phillips for using their trademarked name "compact disc" for these abominations) didn't play in some players. Could we return those faulty discs? No, we were told to get a new player. If we weren't accused of attempted copyright infringment by returning the disc after allegedly copying it.

Sales plummeted. If you ask me, quite logically so. I don't buy something when I can neither be sure that it works nor be able to return the item if it doesn't. Well, "plummet" is maybe the wrong term. Despite a global decline in economy and many companies in the red, the music industry still went on strong in the black, yet they cried about dwindling sales and of course those pesky pirates are to blame. Not a copy protection that alienates users and cranking out shovelware music nobody wanted to listen to.

Certainly, people copied songs. Some copied entire libraries and looking back at the years around the 2000, it was out of hands. But why did it come to that? It's not like people are hard wired to take stuff without paying. If anything, we've been told from birth that taking anything requires you to buy it. People also usually have moral problems with stealing. So maybe you can explain why they didn't when they copied music?

Today, though, we have two fronts colliding. And neither side is willing to give an inch or only a fraction thereof. A customer is treated like a criminal, while the studios are seen as big, greedy, law-buying monoliths that don't give a rat's ass about their customers. Neither side would willingly offer the other even so much as a glass of water if they should be drowning.

The problem is, though, you can't force anyone to buy. If you want me to buy something, you have to offer me something I want. I don't want music on silver discs that don't play in my hardware. I don't want music on my computer that plays only on this machine and only as long as you allow me to. I don't want DVDs where I can't ignore the ads. I don't want BluRay discs that "fuse" with my player and don't allow me to play them in a different one. I don't want to wait to see a movie that has already been available for months in some other country and could easily be sold here.

That's what I meant when I said outdated. You cannot enforce something against your customers. Your customer sees that it is possible to offer him music without restriction, to offer him movies that give him the movie only and not some unskippable ads and that plays wherever he wants, and he gets it as soon as it is out. Of course people will start looking for ways to get rid of those limitations and they will find them. That they don't have to pay money for it is maybe an added bonus, but usually not the deciding factor.

If you want to survive "legally", without resorting to actually waging a war against your customers, which will hurt you in the long run more than them, you have to offer what your customer wants. Only then he will buy.

Re:Your tax money at work

[damasterwc]

You probably mean that would rather have a "fair market economy" where everybody plays by the rules. You need a strong government to enforce rules because the big boys don't play fair. The end result of pure capitalism is the same as communism and fascism. You get one big monopoly merged with the government.

Re:More flaimbait posts.

[gstoddart]

Hey, look, yet another biased ignorant post submitted by "I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property" and posted by kdawson.

Dude, did you read TFA? Because, if the way ars describes it is accurate, the whole law is pretty much inflammatory.

It's downright scary!! The federal government will now pursue civil matters on behalf of private entities, with the inclusion for collateral damage of seizure of entire server farms. So, if you host with someone, and one of their customers infringes, you could lose all of your stuff with little or no recourse.

This is a very scary precedent, and it seems to blur some historical distinctions between federal agencies and private interests.

Cheers

As a result the following information is illegal..

[Lumpy]

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.

Senate Judiciary Committee Members

[Attila Dimedici]

Anybody else notice that one of the members on this committee is Joe Biden, Senator from Delaware and VP nominee of the Democratic Party.

Re:Senate Judiciary Committee Members

[danzona]

The Judiciary Committee voted to pass the bill 14-4 Thursday; voting "no" were Senators John Kyl of Arizona, Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Sam Brownback of Kansas, and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, all Republicans. Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, was absent for the vote.

Re:Seizures?

[clam666]

It's just another in a long line of laws that America has created where seizing private property is the response.

Before you just, you know, paid a fine, went to jail, and recovered property was returned to the owners when some crime was committed. Now the myriad of crimes have punishments that cover:

1. Any property that "may" have been used in the crime.
2. Any property that may have been purchased due to the crime unless you can magically prove that THESE dollar bills bought that but THOSE dollar bills didn't.
3. Any other property, which the government can legally seize, and you have to spend years fighting to get it back.

I doubt this is the America that people envisioned hundreds of years ago, but what really disturbs me is that I don't think this was the kind of America when I was a kid. It is actually really bothering me these days.

The amount of growing government power to just seize anyone and everything for any amount of time with massive legal hassles to get it or you out of seizure is insane. The concept of government punishment is growing far beyond the crime (share 1000 mp3s with your friends for crap music you would never have bought in the first place) to destroying and shattering peoples live forever.

The laws are being created to circumvent the judicial system. It used to be that the police could be ignored in many cases, because arresting someone really means very little, it was the prosecution that mattered. You might spend a bit of time in jail pre-trial, but prosecution was something you could avoid with the right lawyers.

Realizing this, the laws are being set up now, so the punishment isn't just some "jail time", now you have to spend years recovering even your basic possessions for the laws which now are designed to benefit the agencies itself. Whether prosecuted or not, getting your property back is a very very difficult task.

I just don't see it getting better, but getting worse. Mix laws where people and property can be taken without recourse with the wrong executive body governing the application of those laws and there will be some real problems coming.

But hey, at least I know that when I write some music and sign a song I'll have royalty protection for my music label and I'll get my 5 cents on the dollar.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Seizures?

[mandelbr0t]

Agreed, it's back to the Inquisition in many ways. While your public trial may ultimately vindicate you, the amount of grief it's possible to inflict just by laying charges has become substantial. The legal system is supposed to prevent its use as a tool of persecution, but it is used as just that more and more often. Just another example of the two-tiered justice system I criticized in my journal.