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White House Wants New Copyright Law Crackdown
An anonymous reader writes "The White House is concerned that 'illegal streaming of content' may not be covered by criminal law, saying 'questions have arisen about whether streaming constitutes the distribution of copyrighted works.' To resolve that ambiguity, it wants a new law to 'clarify that infringement by streaming, or by means of other similar new technology, is a felony in appropriate circumstances'""
You have to admit that copyright infringement is a major problem that needs to be handled one way or another. Especially those streaming websites and torrent sites that make money off it. People have always looked badly at selling warez. Well this is the same thing, except it's indirect revenue via ads. It is still, however, making money with warez.
Looks like Obama is paying another installment on the debt he owes to his Hollywood buddies.
Between Democrats in bed with Hollywood and Republicans in bed with big business, wouldn't it be nice to have at least *one* choice in an election who doesn't support draconian DRM, Feds kicking in our doors because little Jimmy downloaded an advance screener of The Dark Knight, and ISP's tracking and archiving our every click on the internet? Would that be too goddamn much to ask?
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Yeah, felony. While spending us into oblivion at a deficit of over $200 billion per month.... Nice priorities dickheads.
1) Someone noticed that something popular is not illegal. ...
2) Lobby to have it made illegal.
3)
4) Profit.
Karma: Excellent. 15 moderator points expire sometime.
You can no longer compete on the world stage in terms of products, don't innovate anything, and have more or less given up on educating your people.
But, the biggest priority of the White House is to ensure that streaming content is a fucking felony???
Enjoy your decline into irrelevance and the dark ages. I used to greatly admire what America stood for.
"The interests that hold the leash of american government" should be used instead of "white house" phrase. We always take it as 'implied', but the more we leave it not expressed, the more the meaning of the reality gets lost in the seeming illusion.
Read radical news here
So if you come up with a way which is not similar or have a tech which isn't new, it's ok? FairyNuff.
The say slavery is over, but Obama is clearly up for sale.
You can have my SIG when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
"There ought to be a law!" -Democratic Party Mantra
I'm sick of him selling-out to these megacorps. Damn Republican. What we need is a Democrat president who is not a puppet of the corporations.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Copyright infringement is supposed to be CIVIL LAW, not CRIMINAL LAW.
If the USA is to continue this trend of criminalizing everything under the sun, then perhaps the next thing we need to criminalize is when elected and appointed government officials violate the US Constitution. Let's make that a felony.
So glad the people who should be focusing on the economy and jobs are instead focusing on more ways to wiretap us and prosecute quasi-theft.
That's what you idiots get for buying into the Obama facade. He's a master at telling you what you want to hear so that you'll be lulled into a contented stupor while he carries out his anti-freedom agenda. I hate MTV voters. Next time do some f-ing research, you clowns. Try voting with your mind instead of your emotions. And before some troll tries to point out that McCain wasn't much better, well, next time try supporting a third-party candidate. The only reason third-parties don't gain any traction is because of your lazy, defeatist attitude.
One of the first new rules to be established will be making it illegal to use Quantum Public Key Encryption.
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
"Streaming" is mostly a clarification of law, much more threatening is the authorization of wiretap, perviously allowed only in "serious" cases and terrorism.
Because streaming music is a crime worse than murdering kittens with a sledgehammer.
I expected someone who would listen to the people instead of the will of large corps. I was wrong.
with free shows paid for by advertising, like TV or radio? Uh, wait a second....
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Nobody has gone to jail for crashing the world economy.
Nobody has gone to jail for authorizing or committing acts of torture.
Nobody has gone to jail for placing unconstitutional wiretaps.
Yet we have room in our prisons for people who share files. It is more clear than ever that the US justice system exists to protect the powerful against the less powerful. There is no justice system, there is an exploitation system.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
1b) Will a large company/group of companies benefit if 1 is illegal?
Anything that can perfectly reproduced instantly, easily and for free has no value. Sorry.
What's odd is the streaming aspect. Is downloading a torrent and then watching it "streaming"?
The Socialist Messiah should worry more about Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Japan, and the US economy and jobless rate. Can't wait until 2012.
I am so glad the Pres and Co. have sorted out the middle east, the world economy and that pesky natural disaster in Japan and have time to focus on enriching their pals in the MAFIAA. Barry you are truly the best benevolent ruler ever.
Vote for the Sony sponsored candidate in 2012!
Are the majority of the American public going to be considered felons?
Ever since DMCA was passed, we've all known that we need to crack down on New Copyright Laws, but nobody would do it. It's reassuring that it's finally on the agenda.
"The say slavery is over, but Obama is clearly up for sale." Not cool. Not only because it is insensitive and overgeneralizing, but because it is factually inaccurate.
1) "wheres my reparations" in this context implies that as a proxy for all African Americans, O'bama is uneducated. He was a professor of Constitutional Law at Chicago. And many other African Americans are also well-educated, or even capable of making the number of their nouns and verbs agree.
2) Slavery implies you are up for sale by others, without your consent. That is the difference between slavery and capitalism. Of course there are ethical concerns around selling your vote, but we've made a choice to legalize that, so long as the money doesn't go directly to you but rather goes to political campaigns. The people still get to vote you out if you're actively evil and someone can convince them of that.
3) Slavery is not over by any means. Legalized slavery in the United States ended as a result of the civil war, but millions of people are enslaves around the world, including tens of thousands of American teens at high risk for being trafficked into slavery. Check out the Polaris Project, or River of Innocents.
Um, if there's no law covering it, how can it be illegal? Isn't everything by default legal until either a law is passed regarding it, or a court case interprets an already existing law to cover it?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/zediva/
There's been an FBI warning on DVD's and VHS for years saying that it is not for public screening, punishable by fines and/or jail time. I fail to see how streaming is different from public screening. I am by no means in support of our government in its attempt to strange the average joe over movies and mp3s, but it is what it is.
I mean... this is just silly. They profoundly "don't get it".
I don't know why people get UPSET over this... the next move is very predictable (and already happening...). Pirates move to distributed and encrypted systems. You CANNOT stop that. By building barriers to stop the "low hanging fruit" pirating techniques, you're motivating people to create systems that YOU CAN'T STOP.
So go ahead and get that low hanging fruit... pirates have already won though. It's just a matter of time.
Note: I am not discussing the morality. I am simply discussing the logical/mathematical/algorithmic truth of the situation.
I wonder how many constituents wrote letters to the President about this serious problem? Of course, none did. We need a separation of Corporations and State, now.
And what do they mean by "streaming"?
Will they go after sites like Orb.com, Slingbox, and PlayOn that stream things not necessarily intended to be streamed or in ways they didn't approve of (even over 3G not just your home network)? Seems content providers are trying to lock down their content too tightly. By doing so they lose the ability to id and track the product, our eyeballs, as we work around them.
With all of the problem that we are facing in the United States, how does this even make it into to the top 100?
(2) by reproduction or distribution (even electronically) of one or more copies of one or more works, which have a total retail value of more than $1000;
So going by point #2, this is basically saying that if a DVD is averaged at say $25 worth.
If someone downloads (or file hosts) 40 DVD downloads, then they are now subject to go to federal prison, lose their right to vote, and their ability to maintain a job in the future.
The White House is a building. It represents the executive branch of the US federal government.
Buildings don't have opinions, so which part of the executive branch is pushing for this?
so that takes care of that.
with big business? What in the hell is Wall Street then? If that is not the top end of big business then I don't know what is. Who is GE, who is Google? They are both in bed with big business. This is President Wall Street, from his cabinet picks to the bills that pass. Oh sure, they have ominous we are going to rein in big business names, but you can be damn sure all those contribute are immediately exempt, like how none of the big unions are subject to the new health care law.
We can't change the Democrats or Republicans so we need to work on the American people. They need to learn that the only way change will occur is if they elect people who don't ascribe to the party line of either the D or R side. Trouble is, far too many are interested in getting everything handed to them while at the same time decrying its cost. The American people need to change before their government will.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
HA! How's that hope and change working out for the mindless droogs that thought everything would be lollipops and unicorn farts?
Yep, ensuring streaming can be a criminal offense sure is high on the priority list! I'm sure Manning won't mind continuing to be tortured by his own government while this important issue is dealt with. Maybe that's why Crowley was fired by Obama for pointing out the torture - he was getting in the way of dealing with streaming!
I hope every US citizen is as ashamed of your government as I am. Its hypocrisy and blatant selling out to corporations is simply despicable.
When will you rise up against this crap?
Just because the particular file only exists on your computer for the use of watching a single time (in a buffer) and then being deleted doesn't mean you haven't committed copyright infringement. Any prosecution with a half-decent argument will get that out in the open with an expert witness first thing.
I'm ashamed to be a Democrat, because the Dems have been pocketing huge amounts of cash from the media lobbyists in exchange for pushing through draconian laws on piracy. Every single Dem that supports these kinds of changes incidentally gets hundreds of thousands of dollars from Sony and the like. They have no morals and no principles.
I'm against piracy. But clearly America is turning into a country where you will spend more time in jail for sharing a movie than murdering a human being. That's insane. Just think about it, you can get in less trouble for robbing a 7/11 and pistol-whipping the cashier than you can for downloading a movie. How does that make sense? Why do these businesses deserve such special, preferential treatment?
And don't get me started on Obama. He was the Republican stealth candidate, as evidenced by his continued war profiteering, taking away our rights and our privacy, torturing Manning as Bush did to Walker, and playing right into the hands of big business. I don't know what the Tea Partiers are so upset about, Bush got his third term. Obama hasn't done anything contrary to what Bush would have done.
It is about time we see the government tackle some of the tough issues.
Government running on continuing resolutions with no budget in sight. Let's sit on our thumb.
Government racking up astronomical deficits. Let's sit on our thumbs.
The serf class streaming content that may be infringing on copyrights? All hands on deck - we have to do something, now!
Our government is useless.
This post comes with a double-your-money-back guarantee!
Any offense taken to this post is at your sole discretion.
I have always liked the idea of streaming copyrighted material as being legal, so that those who know how to save streamed data get rewarded for their skills, and those who do not receive no unprecedented benefits. What it ultimately means is that there are different laws for Geeks and hackers than for the rest of society, to the benefit of the former, as it should be. To be honest, it's kind of surprising there's any debate at all. If the state is going to prevent us from downloading content, then they ought to be preventing us from streaming content. Not that I agree at all with what they are doing. What they don't get is that streaming *IS* a form of downloading, and those who know what they are doing can always save streams. Silly rabbit!
It makes me feel safe and secure knowing that our government is hard at work ensuring the various media corporations can sue the pants off anyone and everyone who infringes upon their copyrighted works in any way shape or form imagined, unimagined or otherwise potentially imagined in the future; all the while a potentially devastating nuclear catastrophe in the Pacific with possibly far-reaching effects grows more likely by the hour.
I hear those fallout proof bunkers are rather expensive, so maybe that's their motivation.
but criminal = jury trial and public defender rights
Since when is Hollywood not big business?
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
When Obama got into office, I didn't mind it for one reason and one reason only. As the first black president in American history, he had something to prove, or so I thought. I figured he would bust his ass and try and make a name for himself and try and prove his worth like the first blacks when they were given their freedom. He didn't look like the little piece of shit niggers we have running around asking for handouts and thinking people should fear them or owe them something cause they are black. He actually looked well educated and like an actual stand up guy, the kind of person the rest of the black community could aspire and look up to instead of idolizing 50 cent and the likes of them.
His actions has set a bad example and made it harder for the next black man to run for office just because the mental picture he has painted in the subconscious of everyone. Now the next time a black guys runs for office, many of the voter base will vote against him just cause the bad impression the last black president left behind.
So to you Obama, you sold out your position, you sold out your race and you sold out the future of your grandchildren, your great grandchildren and basically sold your soul and everything important for a quick buck. What do you expect to happen to your descendants when that money is gone and all they have left is the world you left behind for them?
Do you expect to join the ruling elite out of their gratitude for your contributions to them? Sorry buddy boy, but they don't work like that, you do favors for them, you are in their pocket, you aren't one of them and never will be unless you marry into them. Till you are part of the family, you are resources to be used and nothing more.
And to the people who do idolize 50 cent and got offended,
"Nah nigga I don't know, I don't know who got you
I don't know who stabbed you, I don't know who shot you
I don't know who cut you, I don't know who robbed you
But you think I know cause you know how my squad do"
Anyone who idolizes or allows their children to idolize that is a piss poor excuse for a person and is partly responsible for the fall of the black community. Having anyone listen to and idolizing that is about as healthy as a white boy brought up to music with the lyrics of "The white man marches on"
Edit: Captcha "Hardness"
Page 10 of the actual whitepaper.
I like how "appropriate" is not spelled out.
import system.cool.Sig;
Are Americans even surprised by this stuff anymore?
Welcome to your government of the corporations, by the corporations, for the corporations.
I'm pretty level headed and don't care a lick about politics especially outside of my own Canadian government. But even I'm getting insulted by the US's policies.
"Nobody has gone to jail for crashing the world economy. Nobody has gone to jail for authorizing or committing acts of torture. Nobody has gone to jail for placing unconstitutional wiretaps. Yet we have room in our prisons for people who share files. It is more clear than ever that the US justice system exists to protect the powerful against the less powerful. There is no justice system, there is an exploitation system." - by Hatta (162192) on Wednesday March 16, @11:12AM (#35504146)
Well said, & as the saying goes? "Ain't it the truth"... & worst part is, EVERYONE KNOWS IT, but we can't really DO squat against it (because the whole "electoral college" & b.s. elections are shams (both parties represent who put them there: the CRIMINALLY wealthy, instead of "Joe Public" as its SUPPOSED to, because gov't. is the ONLY thing in the extremely wealthy's way (or, it used to be @ least) to "even up the score"... & we all KNOW who controls 90% of the wealth in the USA)).
(Ron Paul, where are you when we need you? That's the guy that gets MY vote next election, IF he runs, and IF they can finally do the vote, honestly, instead of "fixing" elections!)
APK
P.S.=> The nation & hell, the planet, are in the hands of the BIGGEST CRIMINALS OF ALL TIME (worse than ever)... & "we the people"? We get FUCKED by what's SUPPOSED to PROTECT US, in the "legal" system (he who has the most coins/dead-presidents wins is more like it)??
Please - Give us a break already... apk
> Why? If people create content regardless of copyright infringement, which is the purpose of copyright, I fail to see why it's a major problem that needs to be handled.
Because the United States creates a great deal of IP, as do many countries. The people pirating are not only the people who would not pay for it--so market size decreases, GDP decreases, and trade imbalances increase. The biggest long-term threat to the United States, after Global Warming and possibly after spiraling healthcare and higher education costs, is the trade imbalance. We send more and more money outside the country to buy things. A bigger economy means more money for the few people at the top, but MOST of America is NOT at the top, and sending money out means that capital leaves and goes to buy things, putting other people at the top, leaving us in a worse and worse position (except for a very few) as the gini coefficient increases.
That being said, making copyright law on that basis is arguably unconstitutional. The only reason Congress is empowered to make copyright law is to promote the development of copyrightable works. (The terminology is actually "science and the useful arts, IIRC, but as it was understood two hundred years ago). They also have the power to regulate commerce between the states and with foreign nations, but making copyright law under the Commerce Clause is reading the IP clause entirely out of the Constitution, which should not be legitimate under any reasonable principles of interpretation. But most if not all courts would probably accept it anyway.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
You sir, are absolutely right!
"not convered by criminal law" != "not covered by law"
didn't you hear, everything is illegal. just need to be obedient so they won't use it against you.
holy shit: my captcha is "fascism"
That was before 9/11. Now everything not compulsory is prohibited.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Uh, how is it "illegal streaming" if it's not covered by criminal law?
So now we're going to charge a large demographic of our citizens with felonies and put them on the same level as a terrorist.
I hope the more they attempt to vilify it's own people that we start fighting back soon.
Moving is going to end up being the only choice I fear.
I think it means something that a previous law would have made illegal, except that circumstances unforseen at the time mean it isn't technically covered. An example in a completly different field would be human cloneing in the UK - there was a period when it was completly unregulated, because the Human Fertility and Embryology Act defined an embryo as 'an egg fertilised by a sperm' - at the time of writing, no-one envisioned embryos could be created by any other means. It was amended a few years ago to redefine embryo and close the loophole.
Perhaps as more of this draconian crap filters down to things average people care about it will wake them up to whats going on around them. My biggest concern about this is that its very vague on "streaming" what about things like slingbox, playon or even home media streaming applications like XBMC or Plex? I rip every DVD I buy to put on my own media server, am I now a criminal?
I do sort of wish that there was some way to make all media completely locked down and as draconian as possible just to see how wildly wrong their supposed "losses to piracy" would be. My guess is that sales if anything will actually go down.
A colleague of mine was dissing me for paying a $25 "donation" for a few lines of code. That same colleague regularly boasts about watching first run movies he/she downloads from file sharing sites.
No doubt he/she is one of the whiners posting anti-Obama comments on this subject.
Go figure!!
"Uhhhhh, the prison system is already quite privatized." - by BoberFett (127537) on Wednesday March 16, @12:00PM (#35504806)
You really have just summarized why this is being made into a crime because it is a profitable business to imprison people. For example, have you seen the cost of housing just 1 inmate? The rest is because "you-know-who" own Hollywood, the banks, the presses, the legal system + more like 90% of this nations' wealth, and that group also controls the political system too, with a prime example being the STATE DEPARTMENT as well. Funniest part is, the parallels here are amazing with other phenomenon, such as these are things any conqueror does and seizes control of when taking over a nation.
Read the quote you cited again. He didn't say there was no law covering it. He said there was no *criminal* law covering it. Now go actually read the white paper. The question is whether it is "distribution" or "unauthorized performance". Either way it is copyright infringement (in his estimation, at least), which is illegal. But only distribution is criminally punishable. Unauthorized performance only carries civil punishment.
Halls of Justice Painted Green
Money Talking
Power Wolves Beset Your Door
Hear Them Stalking
Soon You'll Please Their Appetite
They Devour
Hammer of Justice Crushes You
Overpower
Criminal law is subset of laws. You don't get criminal proceedings for jaywalking, for example, but it is illegal. Criminal law is a double-edged sword -- on one hand, accusation is held to a higher standard, on the other, penalties are much stiffer.
Here the important difference is, criminal acts are persecuted by the state, *ON THE EXPENSE OF THE TAXPAYERS*, rather than by the accusing party.
The whole point is to make something that is unlawful, but has to be persecuted on the expense of media companies, to be persecuted on your expense. Yes, yours. Paid by your taxes.
Ya know, the industry is dying, the state has to bail it out, by taking the lawsuits upon itself -_-'
If all this paper did was suggest categorizing streaming as distribution rather than performance, that would be small potatoes. It also recommends:
The article focuses on streaming, but the real meat here is in the use of government funds and police powers for the private benefit of rights-holders.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
The original idea of copyright is a good one: time limited control of my creative works. This allows me to make a living on creative works. As bad as the music business is today, imagine no copyrights. I write a great new song, perform it a few times while I'm working out the kinks, saving up for studio time, etc. Before I know it, a large media conglomerate has used their performance scouts, on-staff musicians, and fully tricked out in-house studios to steal my song and release it nationally... before mine is even done. I have no legal recourse and, even if I do ultimately release my version, it's forever seen as the cover version.. and that big conglomerate makes a huge pile of money on my work, without me getting a dime.
Same thing with any application... I release a great new program that I'd hope will help keep me in the independent software business. It's very well regarded, I get good reviews on the pre-release, I have people lining up to buy it. And then, a week before release, I find that someone's hacked my server, and two days laters, Microsoft release the product under their name. And there's nothing I can do.. my version can still sell... no copyrights means no copyrights, but Microsoft will make millions, I'm lucky if my family members buy my version rather than Microsoft's.
No, the real problem with copyright is the perversion of it. And that's big business buying Congress, nothing less. Disney's one of the worst. A reasonable copyright on a song or software program is maybe in the 10-25 year range.. you can haggle about the specifics, but there's a normal life to any creative product, after which the value to me as the creator is probably small. It's still hard to argue the value to society is greater at any point, simply because society doesn't NEED my work at all. I may, just to put food on the table. But there's definitely a reasonable period of time here. Disney's crazy wealthy, and worried about "Steamboat Willy" being used in porn or something... so every time their copyrights come close to expiration, they send a semi-or-two of cash to Congress, and the copyright laws get amended. That's the real problem.
The other real problem is that there's no good means to log copyright abandonment. If a creative work is no longer valued by the original copyright holder, a good holder will put it in the public domain, re-release under GPL (more on this later), etc. But a bad, disinterested, or dissolved copyright holder won't do this. I had a question put to me last week... a guy has nearly every program for the Amiga computer system on a set of DVDs. What does he do? Well, that's all still under copyright, and other than a few programs released to some kind of FOSS, he can't do anything with that, despite that few if any of the copyright holders are liikely to care. And, thanks to Disney, we don't even know if his grandchildren can release those DVDs. So another big flaw in copyright is the lack of automatic loss. After 10 years or so, a copyright holder should have to re-assert their rights, or have the work put into the public domain. Particularly in the internet age, this puts no significant new burden on the copyright holder. Managing this wouldn't be expensive, and it would lead to a central repository of all copyright data... you could easily check to see if an older work was still under copyright, because those under copyright are listed in the renewal database.
And don't forget, GPL's "copyleft" is actually just another copyright. If there's no copyright law, there's no GPL... it's public domain, like BSD, all the way. I could take any GPLed work, mod it to my heart's content, and not release the source code changes. It's only the power of the copyright laws that enforce that. Many GPL users embrace the GNU philosophy and would release their code anyway, but there are plenty of big companies, building on GPL and FOSS, who do only because they must. And even without copyright, there's no mechanism at all that gets source code out in the world... code developers would simply be much more careful with their code propagation, knowing that any code that got out would be out for good.
'
-Dave Haynie
Madoff went to jail because he stole 70$ BILLION dollars mostly from other rich people and corporations.
If he was simply screwing the plebeians he'd be in Jamaica right now.
They told me that if I voted for McCain in 2008, that we'd have the White House enforcing draconian copyright laws at the behest of the rich fatcats of the RIAA.
Let me say, I'm sorry.
Music piracy doesn't affect you that much, right? What about when 3D printers are everywhere and all the best designs are locked up? This is a fight for the future and most people don't realize they're already losing.
How about a law that sets term limits
How about a law that balances the budget.
How about the truth about 911
How about an investigation into Big Pharma, International banksters, the rubber stamping of patents on GMO plants.
How about a recall.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
HOSTS files work for better speed, & better layered security online... since you ask!
APK
P.S.=> Care to debate it with me? I'd guess not, because I'd blow you away, with facts, as I always do to trolls like yourself, that I am guessing I have quite OBVIOUSLY "gotten the best of" here & elsewhere online, in the past, & everytime... apk
Biden is a known shill for the media cartel. As far back as 2002 Biden held a Foreign Relations Committee hearing in 2002 on “Theft of American Intellectual Property” And Vice President Joe Biden is a co-founder and co-chairman of the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus.
Here is a choice quote from the Vice President Joe Biden to chew on: “When somebody holds you up on the street and takes your wallet, we call it robbery,” Biden said in May 2007. “And when somebody steals your idea and creation, we call it theft, plain and simple.”
Lets face it. Biden is no friend of the people.
Geek says:
What it ultimately means is that there are different laws for Geeks and hackers than for the rest of society, to the benefit of the former, as it should be.
Why does this sound so familiar?
Corporation says:
What it ultimately means is that there are different laws for large corporations than for the rest of society, to the benefit of the former, as it should be.
Ah, there we go. Laws are never for us, they're always for the other guys, right?
How about Fucking Wall Street and Banking Corruption Crackdown???
You know why we're voting you out in 2012? Because of the massive collusion between Washington, Wall Street, and Bankers to fleece and rip off the American People every chance they get.
Those jackasses in Washington worrying about copyright have much bigger things to worry about IMO.
Hope is the currency of fools
Logical next step - unapproved encryption is illegal. The government has already won, the pirates lost and took everybody else with them. Thanks jerks.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
See Subject.
These people aren't here to help us, they're here to control us.
The letters next to their name are an illusion.
You are being tricked.
Wake up.
That's what you idiots get for buying into the Obama facade.
The article states that copyright is generally not a partisan issue. Both relevant U.S. political parties favor expansion of its scope and expansion of enforcement, and a lot of that is due to movie studios' control of TV news. How do you recommend that I convince enough people in my congressional district and my state to vote third party?
Because there are other kinds of law besides criminal law - in this case, copyright law.
"Not cool. Not only because it is insensitive and overgeneralizing, '"
I notice you didn't say it was true.
He isn't so magic anymore. He's basically Bush, but can deliver a better speech.
But he is whoring himself to the man. In fact, he likes it. in fact, he wants to make sure he keeps him job as a house ***** instead of being thrown outside to be a field *****.
That's him, plain and simple. The word "whore" is too kind for this kind of nonsense. Call it like it is, and if Obama doesn't like it, then don't act like it.
You leftist fools left this country in the hands of this moron (not just because of this issue, but because of every issue) because "Hope" and "Change" made you FEEL good.
If more and more of the 'silent majority' - if you will - stays home, then the only result is more bug-fuck crazy fringe candidates being elected by an increasingly influential bug-fuck crazy fringe electorate.
Um, if there's no law covering it, how can it be illegal? Isn't everything by default legal until either a law is passed regarding it, or a court case interprets an already existing law to cover it?
It is covered under civil law (ie. copyright). They want to make it liable under criminal law, so you get to go to jail; as well as paying exorbitant fees.
Really, this is ridiculous....
Musicians...if you want us to give a damn, then you need to reign in this crap.
I can kill someone or I can illegally download a song. I'd probably get a tougher penalty for the song download.
---
This crap has got to stop.
The conservatives long-view goal in destroying unions and giving unchecked power to corporations is to drop the cost of labor through the floor! Enforce unregulated slave wages and we can again compete on an even, mud-hut, dirt floor playing field with the Third World! Genius!
I'm no longer surprised by anything the government does. They barely even try to appear truly legal anymore. And then only when it suits their needs. One of the biggest tricks they have is making you believe there is a difference between democrats and republicans. It makes no difference who is in office. Someone is pulling whoever's strings is in office. To use a analogy, you're looking at the SAME coin, you're just flipping it back and forth. And yes the copyright/patent laws are so far out of control I don't know they could ever be fixed. Broken entirely and insane. And in case no one noticed, nice misdirection. Don't look at the REAL crimes that government is committing everyday and nothing happens to them.
I'm old, not dead. Well that's my 2 cents worth, your mileage may vary. I say what I think, not what you want to hear.
An informative article on Vice President Biden's position and how we got here. http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/joe-bidens-problem-music
You know, I'd have some sympathy if pirates had a "cause" anymore.
Years ago, we said "we're pirating music because they won't let us download it!"
And they made download stores.
Then we said "we're pirating music because they won't sell individual tracks!"
And they let us buy single tracks.
Then we said "we're pirating music because they add DRM!"
And they stopped adding DRM.
Then we said "we're pirating music because 128kbps is crap!"
And they gave us 256kbps+ tracks.
Then we said "we're pirating music because the major labels have a monopoly!"
And now any indie artist can get on iTunes and other major music stores.
And we still pirate.
Because all along, we really just wanted stuff for free.
I'm all for copyright reform, but really: The latest music, movies, and games are not vital liberties, and they take a lot of time and money to make. If someone wanted to give their content away for free, they would have done so. So ask yourself: If a person who made something you want expects compensation, why do you deserve to have it for free?
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Existing mechanisms for "delivering" music/video etc. suck if you are from pick a country> because none of the existing distributors (sic) - aka the vampires that take the money from the original artists are living in anytime after 1960. Why?(as an example) Because my Ukrainian friend couldn't find a legit DVD of TV series from his ethnicity (Russian) in this country even if he performed fellatio on the highest level mafia dude here. You simply *cannot* find Russian television series, or anything else here in Athens, Greece (substitute Athens with any other European capital and you'll find the same).
I guess over in Hicksville USA (which is most of your country) you wouldn't grok that
In the old days, even in the UK you could *find* (if you looked hard enough) recordings by your favorite "group". Right now, good luck finding even CD's.. Something inside me is reminded of the old closed medieval guilds. What is different here? Who is legititimate? Who *really* has rights?
(and if you really wanted a *free* market.....)
Andy
jackass?
Wars without end: Check
Spending us into default: Check
Harsh punishments for minor crimes: Check
Bush sucked. Obama sucks. To be fair, pretty much all politicians are egomaniac control freaks with a certain amount of charisma.
At least it's a bipartisan trait :/
The purpose of criminalizing everyone is so that you can again rule an ostensibly free people.
When everyone is a criminal by largely unenforced laws, then the only real law is "do nothing those in power dislike." Then if you do something that is ostensibly legal, like advocate some variety of social change which disempowers the wealthy, they can shut you down by arresting you for all the normally-unenforced laws.
In order for this to work at all the government officials need to be above the law. If they are not, then every politician would be shut down by his political opponents, and there would be a general chilling effect on governence in general. Obviously, you can't rule if you are frozen, so that would be self-defeating.
How else can we establish the commission of a felony in two-clicks, by a ten-year-old?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
It's covered by civil law. This extends it to be a criminal offense as well as a civil offense.
Would "US Campaign Donors Want New Copyright Crackdown" have made a better headline?
What if 'we' defines a different set of people each time? What if 'we' represents a smaller number of people each time?
I think you're taking specific points and assuming they represent everyone's opinion here, when in reality this site, and every other gathering of more than one person, is made up of individuals. ESPECIALLY a site with lots of readers.
> That's because their statement is based and wholly rooted in fact - unlike yours - which is pure delusion.
I'm glad that the US Constitution is delusional.
> First and foremost, copyright exists to FAIRLY reward creation by means of COMPENSATION.
> Only after the creator has been FAIRLY COMPENSATED
Perhaps you didn't notice that the poster you reply to did not in any way contradict this? He merely said that the wealth of creative works being produced clearly indicates that creators are already being fairly compensated and that it makes no sense to compensate them further, and in fact, it might be overall more effective for society to compensate them less. This is similar to the fact that it is possible to gain more profit overall by charging less money for your product.
> Its literally a retarded notion.
Maybe you yourself should put the brain in gear a bit more before replying next time with flamebait?
Yeah, so the government that implemented the draconian measures is not AT ALL atfalut for said hypothetical situation? Bullshit.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
I may be wrong but isn't broadcast TV streaming? In fact, aren't all TV signals streamed?
Won't this result in making all TV illegal?
Only sometimes. I'd much rather take the criminal penalty for shoplifting a CD than the millions of dollars in civil penalties for file-sharing it.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
They're less at fault than the pirates.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
It seems my excitement over a crackdown on new copyright laws was unfounded...
Yeah, there is a cadre of next generation shill flamebaiters recently. I was going to add that besides Pro MS, Anti Google/Apple, they also seem to be taking the far right wing side of Gov issues.
Then on a quasi related theme, Goatse is back in version 2.0. The copy of choice used to be the French one, now it's the Russian one, except this new troll posts almost readable comments and uses at least four different links.
Very rough guess is that these new guys derail a thread worse than the Frosty Piss posts.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Its control of the content is the reason for piracy, in almost all cases:
The music companies (They) control what we are allowed to pay to download.
They only release single tracks on their propotional whim. I hear a song on the radio, but when I download it, its different because the radio mix is different than the album track available only by single. The single is not a two track issue, its 10 tracks that the record company wanted to charge you 75% of the cost of the full album. If you had a good album with 4 singles isssued to radio, rarely would all 4 comeout as singles. Also white lable tracks are almost never issued as singles.
They added DRM to major label artisted that they expected to see piracy on.
The sound quality is a function of file size when MP3's got started audiophiles like myself pushed for the switch.
The monopoly is ever present, not in the prevalence in Itunes but in the reduction in new music produced for digital formats, not everything is on Itunes and not everything that I want to listen to is produced by a major label.
I have over 2500 CDs and unfortunately the selection in stores has been reduced to a fraction of what is availble, so its hard to order every CD I want by mail. I would gladly pay track for track if they removed controls on marketed content.
...I laugh at Canada a little less.
I miss when this country actually used to stand for something worth defending.
What do I know, I'm just an idiot, right?
When I went to see Avatar on IMAX in 3D, I paid somewhere between $20 and $30. The experience was amazing. Now they expect us to pay ... the same (or more) for the same movie in BluRay format. BluRay might be hi-def for home, but the quality is far below IMAX. And that's just the video. Even with a 7.1 audio sound system at home, your environment pales in comparison to that of a properly configured IMAX theater. I also saw Tron Legacy in 3D at IMAX and again the experience was well worth the price of the ticket (lets ignore plot, etc, issues in both movies.)
At $10 (or less), DVDs and BluRays are, IMHO, "the right price", because they're less than what a ticket to see the same movie are. At that price they're also cheap enough to be bought with almost no thought. At $20 to $30, I think twice and generally come to the conclusion that I should have spent $15 to see it in the cinema instead.
In this case, I've actually bought Avatar on BluRay but I couldn't watch more than 5 minutes of it. It just wasn't the same. The experience was rubbish. Will I buy Tron Legacy? No, because I know that paying more for a lesser experience is not something that I want to do.
Movies are (most of the time) made for the big screen. They're made to be seen in cinemas. They're not made for your TV but yet they expect you to pay more to watch it on your TV. That is wrong.
Maybe they're concerned that by buying 1 disc, I can watch it multiple times, so therefore I should pay more. In practice, that rarely happens. Even stuff that I download and burn to DVD usually gets watched once and the second time? Well, not very often at all... very very few movies fall into that category. Maybe when it comes to buying a BluRay and watching it with all the family (3 or more people), the economics of the "watch at home in lesser quality" start to kick in. But only then. Unfortunately for them, I'm not in that group and I suspect that there aren't a whole lot of slashdotters that are.
So why don't I use Netflix, etc? Because I do not consider the Internet to be a reliable medium. It can drop out at any time and when it does, there goes the download. That's not to say that it does, but it can.
I think what irritates the most is the price. We don't expect them to be free but neither do we expect to be ripped off.
So if you drop Think of the Children and 2 Click Felony into a big shiny casing, will the paradox power a car's engine?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
sending -kids- to prison to increase the prison population and make themselves money.
Google "kids for cash scandal". And kids can't vote either. And even though the judges were found or pled guilty, I don't think they are themselves in prison. I think they are out on appeal. I doubt they have even felt cuffs yet.
> Ignoring for the moment your use of that absurd euphamism ("share")
Antipirates use much more intellectually dishonest terms to describe p2p. "Stealing" and "theft" come to mind, despite that copyright infringement is neither. You yourself are fond of saying "ripping off".
> This is about people who are in the busines of ripping off other people's work so they can draw visitors to their own web sites and generate their own ad revenue without having to invest money in creating the content that brings eyeballs in.
Considering the context of the grandparent's post, it is you who are missing the point. The injustices listed by the grandparent (causing massive economic disruption, torturing people, and unconstitutional wiretaps) are orders of magnitude worse than copyright infringement, even for profit. I have to assume that you know this, and yet you are pushing emotional arguments against copyright infringement as though it were more important than any of the aforementioned issues. This, too, is dishonest... unless you truly believe that copyright protections are of the utmost importance, relatively.
Trick question, with the privatization of our prison system 1b is always true.
Seriously. Anyone curious should just try googling around for what kind of influence the prison lobby has to get some idea of the enormity of the stench.
(shakes head)
The title should read: "Jews Want New Copyright Law Crackdown"...
We can't have our Jewish 'masters' doing manual labour now, can we! We can't have Jews building houses, digging roads, picking crops, working in factories, no sirree! That's what their 'goyim' (cattle) are for. (That's you and me...)
> Pirates love to pirate but if they keep it up, someday they may not have anything worth pirating. The things I mentioned in the previous post are likely consequences of pirates winning.
No, they are examples of the nonsense spread by the antipiracy groups in order to scare people away from the idea of free distribution. You are making the assumption that if the end user does not pay for the content, then creating that content is not possible. I'm typing this comment on an operating system composed entirely of software that I legally downloaded for free; the creators have chosen to give their work away to the world, and I find their software to be of a very high quality. I listen to music that I similarly acquired freely and legally, with the artists' blessings. Hell, even Wikipedia and similar wikis are a perfect counterexample to your points, as the contributors give freely to the sites, which give their content freely to the public via copyleft licenses. You will notice that in none of those cases do I pay a dime to anyone for their work, and yet, for some reason, I still receive software updates, I can still browse for new music, and people still edit Wikipedia.
The old business model of artificial scarcity is not the only way of doing things. In fact, in an environment that does not acknowledge the existence of artificial scarcity (the Internet, where everything can be copied), it's a bad business model.
> Secondly, high criminal penalties probably would stop piracy.
Ridiculous. First, an article was just posted a couple of days ago which completely disproves your point and states that the only really good way to minimize piracy is for content creators and distributors to lower their prices and remove artificial barriers that drive people to piracy (such as 'not available in your region' messages and DRM). Who would have guessed that suing and criminalizing your customers isn't a good business strategy?
Second, why do you support 'high criminal penalties' for something as minor as copyright infringement? Is downloading a song really such a massive offense that you deserve to be subject to 'high criminal penalties'? I hope you realize that you're playing right into the hands of large media corporations by supporting their nonsense. And when all is said and done, they would be happy to throw you in prison along with a huge chunk of the world population. (What, did you think that pirates were anything but your average Joe and Jane?)
Third, what sort of penalties are we talking about here? Naturally, you have a good idea of the legal measures that should be put in place to smash pirates once and for all. Naturally, they will be effective at their stated purpose. Naturally, there will not be any chance of punishing an innocent person. Naturally, these measures will not impose any restrictions on rights that are more important than copyright protection, such as free speech, due process, fair use, and personal privacy rights. Naturally, these measures will not impede technological advancements or innovation. All of this is correct, right? Because I've never seen an antipiracy measure that does all of those. Good luck trying to stop the copying and sharing of certain strings of bits without unjustly interfering with the copying and sharing of any other strings of bits.
> The points I'm trying to make is just because something can be done easily doesn't mean you should do it.
It doesn't matter. Antipirates can rage all they want about the sheer immorality of file sharing, but it cannot be stopped. If people want to pirate, they will. Everyone else needs to adapt to this truth and find ways to live with it, rather than vainly trying to fight it back to the stone age.
You missed Price... Price is still a big cause of piracy... and then you have obnoxious DRM which you claim is dead
I can name at least 2 PC games ive purchased, which i then obtained torrented copies, because it was easier to make the torrents run 'out of the box' than the purchased copies
As for DRM, theyre trying to use it as much as possible, though a few companies are getting the hint, most are pro DRM, and they heavier the better as far as theyre concerned. Then you have incidents like http://www.hardocp.com/news/2011/03/11/ea_forum_ban_prevents_game_access63/ getting a temp ban on a forum, which gets you banned from Single Player
Finally you have companies wanting the First Sale doctrine to be scrapped, as they dont want people buying second hand games/music/software as it hurts their precious business model of 'well make $x of every man woman and child in the world and if we dont, "ITS A LOST SALE TO PIRACY"'
Logical next step - unapproved encryption is illegal.
They already tried that in the 1990s. It didn't work because of the sheer ridiculousness of regulating encryption.
Commenting on Slashdot makes you feel witty, but doesn't accomplish much. Write your reps, vote with your money.
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Sorry, but the original idea of copyright is a bad one: the use of coercion (fines, imprisonment, etc.) to control others' behavior when said behavior causes you no harm. (No, competition with your preferred distribution service is not harm; your ability to employ your own property remains unaffected.) Even granting that you have the best of intentions—and that, for better or worse, copyright privileges certainly do increase the amount of copyrightable works created, as with any subsidy—it remains wrong to use aggression for any purpose.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Pretty soon just disagreeing with the government position will be a felony
That's the one thing I'm pretty sure they won't do. Speaking as a non-American, my observation is that Americans have it pretty much imprinted in their heads that freedom of speech equals freedom. As long as he can criticise the government, the President, the "clowns in Washington", etc, to his heart's content, it will never occur to the average American citizen that he's not free even if, say, the incarceration rate for the USA is the highest in the world by some significant margin.
And there's really no point in curtailing freedom of speech. Establishment-friendly mass media shape discourse very effectively. A person or a hundred thousand complaining their hearts out in the Internet or whatever make no difference at all.
What happened to criminal law being related to protecting people and civil law protecting things?
Guess I've been confused my entire life.
"...And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W's where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers!" ...and streaming infringers.
At least by making it a criminal offense you won't go broke with attorney fees before you're even found guilty. And I also think the standard of proof would also rise to "beyond a reasonable doubt".
Cheers!
Yes, we live in hope...
I correctly undestood that if this goes in effect and be applied non-discrimanatory in USA if somebody smuggle sniper rifle into USA and used on MPAA executives(and repeat that until either caught or out of ammo or MPAA is out of top management),after police asks to surrender - this somebody surrender and confess) she will punished less severly than just uploading before official release?
A 'felony'.
I guess the erosion here of any concept of respect for the individual begins at passing new laws with absurd consequences. It can be a misdemeanor to assault another individual on the street, but they propose that it be a felony to dare infringe upon the potential profit of the faceless would be corporate benefactor of your unwarranted and unlicensed viewing of some 'copywritten' content.
Oh if only that same blade cut both ways. Let it be a 'felony' for any corporate prick who got my personal info that I didn't specifically permit, or who used up my precious time with a phone call I didn't specifically authorize, or who sent me a pound of junk mail that I didn't ask for and won't use.
Perhaps this is just my own agitation, but I feel this is an egregious example of corporatism.
"No good deed goes unpunished"
This is copyright infringement.
I didn't claim that the price mattered, simply that if you shove something in someone's face long enough they are going to want it...and if they can get it free, they will.
That's human nature, and just like socialism doesn't work due to human nature, copyright protections in the digital age don't work due to human nature.
Blar.