Tennessee Makes it Illegal To Share Your Netflix Password

An anonymous reader writes "State lawmakers in Tennessee have passed a groundbreaking measure that would make it a crime to use a friend's login — even with permission — to listen to songs or watch movies from services such as Netflix or Rhapsody. The bill, which has been signed by the governor, was pushed by recording industry officials to try to stop the loss of billions of dollars to illegal music sharing. They hope other states will follow."

Comments

Have they nothing better to legislate for

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come on, this is just a waste of time in the legal process. Anyone already illegally downloading isn't going to stop anyway. There has to be a better way to involve the downloaders, spend time looking for that, rather than legislate against a lost cause.

Re:Have they nothing better to legislate for

[CharlyFoxtrot]

Besides isn't there already a law against this ? I know in Europe at least on rentals there is always a disclaimer to the effect that only you are allowed to watch it (with your family) but can't use it to share with friends or show in a public setting.

Re:Have they nothing better to legislate for

[Neil_Brown]

I know in Europe at least on rentals there is always a disclaimer to the effect that only you are allowed to watch it (with your family) but can't use it to share with friends or show in a public setting.

In this situation, if a user were to show it to friends, and the contract prohibited it, then the user might be subject to action for breach of contract, or else infringement of copyright. Here, the summary indicates that sharing a password would be a crime, rather than an act giving rise to a civil (contractual or tortious) liability.

Whilst copyright infringement is, in some circumstances, a crime, this legislation would increase those circumstances to an act which is not, in itself, an infringement, but which enables an infringement.

Re:Have they nothing better to legislate for

[HungryHobo]

For Dan Halbert, the road to Tycho began in collegeâ"when Lissa Lenz asked to borrow his computer. Hers had broken down, and unless she could borrow another, she would fail her midterm project. There was no one she dared ask, except Dan.

This put Dan in a dilemma. He had to help herâ"but if he lent her his computer, she might read his books. Aside from the fact that you could go to prison for many years for letting someone else read your books, the very idea shocked him at first. Like everyone, he had been taught since elementary school that sharing books was nasty and wrongâ"something that only pirates would do.

And there wasn't much chance that the SPAâ"the Software Protection Authorityâ"would fail to catch him. In his software class, Dan had learned that each book had a copyright monitor that reported when and where it was read, and by whom, to Central Licensing. (They used this information to catch reading pirates, but also to sell personal interest profiles to retailers.) The next time his computer was networked, Central Licensing would find out. He, as computer owner, would receive the harshest punishmentâ"for not taking pains to prevent the crime.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

Why must stalman be right so much the cynical old sod?

Re:Have they nothing better to legislate for

[hellgate]

The EU Rental Directive gives rights holders a lot more influence over the use of rentals than they have in the US, where the First-sale doctrine makes rental restrictions harder to defend. For now.

Re:Have they nothing better to legislate for

[gomiam]

Sorry, but you are mistaken. You can copy it over and over and give copies to your million friends. That's what the "derecho de reproducción privada" (private reproduction right) allows you to do. You can't get some loudspeakers, a screen and a projector and play the movie for any bystander to watch free of charge: that is considered "comunicación pública" (public communication) and requires permission from the author, interpreters and everybody else with some kind of right over the movie you are projecting. I suggest you read the Ley de Propiedad Intelectual (again?).

Re:Have they nothing better to legislate for

[Asmodae]

As much as I agree, this is a little different. This is for entertainment (Netflix), not knowledge.

Uhm, ok. Try and come up with a definition of entertainment vs knowledge that doesn't have any overlap.

And for your second trick, lets see you lasso the Andromeda Galaxy with this spool of dental floss

Hahahahaahah

[unity100]

america, land of the free. as much as they have money that is. more money, more freedom. less, less freedom. hilarious irony of the land of the free in which freedom is tied to money, and those with the most money can decide how much others can be free.

Re:Hahahahaahah

[Pieroxy]

Freedom has had nothing to do with how America is governed for a while now. The big players are lobbying congress and other parties with truckloads of money. The people - you know, the guys the government is supposed to work for - are lost in the background noise.

But be reassured, America is not the only country acting this way. Most western industrialized countries are at a similar level.

Something is going to go wrong with this, there's no question about it. Exactly how and when is the question.

Re:Hahahahaahah

[ciderbrew]

Sir, please remain where you are. A customer satisfaction response team will be with you shortly.

Re:Hahahahaahah

[roman_mir]

Yes, and that's why the people who are in control of the monetary supply are the ones in ultimate control over the freedoms of the people (or lack thereof). I am talking about the Fed and the Treasury.

Never mind standing armies - those who print money set the policy.

Re:Hahahahaahah

[lennier1]

A customer satisfaction response team will be with you shortly.

Gotta love Sony's customer service.

Re:Hahahahaahah

[roman_mir]

Everything changes - the megas wouldn't exist if government wasn't there, protecting them from any competition, saving them from their resource mis-management, which ultimately collapses them.

2008 MUST have made it clear to you that there is no such thing that cannot be brought down by its own doing (well, actually all of human history must have made it clear to you, see USSR and early last century Germany and the Roman Empire for reference.)

Re:Hahahahaahah

[BlueStrat]

america, land of the free. as much as they have money that is. more money, more freedom. less, less freedom. hilarious irony of the land of the free in which freedom is tied to money, and those with the most money can decide how much others can be free.

This is a problem of human nature, not political ideology or system of government. It has and will occur in any and every government, no matter the society, ideology, or political system. Wealth, in whatever form it may take depending on the type of society/government/political ideology, has always and will always be able to buy privilege and favor.

Private wealth in and of itself is not to be despised, as it is not the problem. The rich vs poor class warfare is simply a propaganda tool to distract and deflect attention from a too large, powerful, and corrupt government and therefor maintain the status quo by keeping people divided and angry.

Humans are corruptible, weak, greedy, and fallible creatures. You can attempt to put in all the government restriction and oversight you want, but corruption will still occur. The larger and more powerful the government, the worse the corruption and the results of that corruption over time. All anyone can really do is keep it to a minimum at best.

As I've stated in previous posts under past topics, the only way to keep government corruption to a reasonable minimum is to make the central government as weak as possible while still fulfilling essential functions. Keep as much governing local as possible/practical so as to distribute power and thus make influencing enough politicians to make a national impact impractical.

As a bonus, and contrary to what many would say would happen with a smaller central government (that corporate/monied interests would more-easily influence/control government), with a less-corrupt government and justice system, corporations/businesses/unions and other wealthy/powerful interests that engage in bad/illegal behavior will actually have a decent chance of having meaningful consequences and penalties applied for their misdeeds.

You certainly can't remedy a corrupt government by giving it more power and wealth. That's how governments become corrupt to begin with. You also can't remedy a corrupt government by removing/redistributing private wealth. That just puts *all* the wealth and *all* the power in the same small set of corrupt government hands that were the problem to begin with. The citizens would then find themselves even more helpless against government/political injustices while living in poverty and having little incentive to be productive.

Many mistake the US Constitution as a purely political/ideological document. It's more than that. It's a distributed-network design. It's designed to distribute and regulate power just as the internet does with data. As with the original internet designs, it was designed to route around "damage" (corruption, etc) and report it to the rest of the network.

Let me take the networking analogy a bit further to describe current conditions/trends in the US.

What has happened in/to the US is management (We the People) have been off on the golf course instead of paying attention, listening to glowing reports from corrupt lackeys, meanwhile groups of rogue BOFHs have been running wild in the data centers and server rooms, doing everything from ripping out entire server racks and selling them from the back door, to installing their own hardware and software, selling company/customer data, running spam servers, etc etc.

They've radically altered the network's design while we were apathetic & distracted for a decade or six. It needs to be returned to a state more closely resembling the original network.

Strat

Re:Hahahahaahah

[PopeRatzo]

it seems to me that the ones who already have money and power in usa, are spreading the plague around to other countries, which again reinforcing the ones with money and power in usa.

If you think greed and tyranny started in 1776, you don't know your history.

Re:Hahahahaahah

[AK Marc]

As I've stated in previous posts under past topics, the only way to keep government corruption to a reasonable minimum is to make the central government as weak as possible while still fulfilling essential functions.

That sounds very libertarian. However, when you look into libertarianism, it pushes power to the rich as well. Rights are tied to land, and the more land you have, essentially more rights you have (well, the same rights, but more places to exercise them).

If you do the libertarian thing and sell off all government land (welcome private toll sidewalks), you are left with people owning all the land. If you don't own land, you don't have the right to travel (you need explicit permission from all others to move) and any other right you want to exercise requires the permission of the person whose land you are standing on. When your rights require the permission of others, then you have no rights. Thus, libertarianism is the push for the abolition of all rights. I've never had a libertarian disagree with any premise or logic in that above, just the conclusion. So please, if there is error, show me. I'd really not like to constantly think that every libertarian is really advocating abolition of all rights for anyone that doesn't own their own land. But so far, that's how it looks and no libertarian has been able to say otherwise.

Re:Hahahahaahah

[TheLink]

And Mega-corporations don't even need to _pretend_ to uphold the precious US constitution. Or have elections every X years.

Speaking of elections, if anyone believes that voters aren't voting in their best interests at the ballot box every few years, they should also believe that voters will have similar/worse problems voting with their wallets every day.

Those who think eliminating or reducing government will magically solve problems are fools. It is not quantity of Government that is the problem. It is QUALITY that matters. As long as people keep trying to solve the wrong problem the real problem will never be solved.

Ultimately the problem is not the quantity of voters, it is the quality of the voters ;).

Re:Hahahahaahah

[rednip]

Freedom has had nothing to do with how America is governed for a while now.

I know for a fact that people have been saying things much like that for more than 200 years, such attitudes would seem to be a part of human nature. Even though more of us are living longer, happier, peaceful lives than ever before in the history of the world (percentage and total numbers), every step of the way there are those that put out a 'hue-and-cry' that it will all be crumbling at any moment. As it's part of our safety instinct, people will always listen for trouble. Evolutionists might argue that one of the primary reasons for communication is warn others about trouble. However, some do so not because it makes an sense, but only because it sounds serious. Talk radio and the cable news channels' best audience are those who keep an ear out for trouble, and I believe create a narrative specifically to encourage such people to continue watching. If the their most loyal audience doesn't hear trouble, they go somewhere they can. This trouble doesn't have to be with the government and society, but it needs to be plausible to the audience, so for a modern society curses and witches would be channel changer (to the channel showing ghost hunter programming).

All of us have this nature, but for some of us this 'hue-and-cry' comes at seemingly odd times or for problems often faced. Most are expressing genuine concern, but some do so simply for the audience, mass media has allowed such people to earn a living at it. Jack Van Impe has been making a living predicting the end of the America/world since the early 50s; Rush Limbaugh, not quite as long.

Re:Hahahahaahah

[roman_mir]

You don't know shit about anything - throwing it back at you.

Those people, listed as 'robber barons', all have enjoyed close ties to government, using their ties to increase their profits, thus gov't was participating in the market economy at the time just as well, only it was participating with much fewer people, as it was a much smaller government.

The rest of your 'comment' is just pure vitriol without as much as a glimpse of intelligence o reason or knowledge. Go, brew your hate somewhere in a dark corner.

Re:Hahahahaahah

[magamiako1]

If you took "government" out of the equation, how exactly would the "free market" have changed things? By all means, please cite examples where the "free market" has helped any major economic power. In addition to this, cite details on where the government legislation hinders competition by preventing small businesses from flourishing. Also state how legislation has helped to create and protect monopolies rather than dissolve them.

Explain the meaning of "natural monopoly" and how it applies to water, electricity, and data services. Explain how the government creates natural monopolies and which policies prevent competition in these areas.

Explain how reducing the power of a federal government would increase competition amongst say, data providers (this is slashdot, right?). List examples where consumers have a choice of comparable data services in individual apartment buildings. Comparable data services are wired vs. wired connections versus wired vs. wireless.

Go!

Re:Hahahahaahah

[magamiako1]

Furthermore:

In the absence of a federalized, representative government, explain how the average citizen/common man would be able to have a say on the direction of their environment. Explain in detail how, for example, you could prevent upstream pollution of rivers and runoff.

Explain in detail where we would get an army to combat a corporation's privately contracted militia (See: Xe/Blackwater).

Re:Hahahahaahah

[mldi]

Freedom has had nothing to do with how America is governed for a while now.

I know for a fact that people have been saying things much like that for more than 200 years, such attitudes would seem to be a part of human nature. Even though more of us are living longer, happier, peaceful lives than ever before in the history of the world (percentage and total numbers), every step of the way there are those that put out a 'hue-and-cry' that it will all be crumbling at any moment.

I have some rats in a cage. They live very long and peaceful lives too.

Limited number of simultaneous connections?

[Neil_Brown]

If this was of concern to Netflix (which, I presume, faces pressure from the studios which license their content to Netflix), I wonder why Netflix would not place a limit on the number of simultaneous connections / streams delivered to any given account, or else the number of simultaneous IP addresses to which a stream is delivered for any given account?

Re:Limited number of simultaneous connections?

[AHuxley]

Think of the joys of a civil forfeiture sale when they raid your home in some US states if laws like this stand.
Anything with a power cable, networking, cd's, blu ray/dvd, computers, displays, lcd, plasma can be removed and sold to raise funds for local law enforcement.

Re:Limited number of simultaneous connections?

[Neil_Brown]

I'm not a Netflix customer, but various people have posted online that you can register 6 devices, but can only stream to one IP at any one time.

If this is indeed the case (I am not a Netflix customer either), then the situation is very much like prohibiting someone from lending a DVD to a friend. In other words, the prohibition is on consecutive, rather than concurrent, watching.

However, part of me wonders if this is the case, since if, by giving my password to five people, I was competing with five others as to whether I could watch something (since the first person to start a stream locks all others out the service until they have finished), I would be rather less inclined to hand out my password, unless I was retreating to an Internet-free environment for a fixed period. Most people, I'd guess, pay for Netflix for the convenience of the service, which would seem to be undermined if one was not able, by virtue of operation of a technical lockout, to watch at any given point.

Re:Limited number of simultaneous connections?

[lennier1]

but can only stream to one IP at any one time

Does that mean you need a second account just to be able to watch something on a mobile device during a train ride while someone else in your family is watching something in your living room???

Re:Limited number of simultaneous connections?

[CrankyFool]

I work for Netflix (but, obviously, this should not be taken to speak for my employer).

This is something that Netflix thinks about, and it's got about as many safeguards in place to prevent it (starting with the fact you can only have six active devices on your account, followed by the fact that your recommendations get less effective the more you share your account with someone with disparate tastes -- as anyone who shares their account with a spouse will tell you).

As noted in the article, this was pushed by the RIAA types, not Netflix. Netflix had nothing to do with it; it's just that it's being used as the most pervasive example of violation of this law because it's the easiest example.

Re:Limited number of simultaneous connections?

[CrankyFool]

Boy howdy, you and I are so entirely on the same page in this regard. There are really two issues there:

1. Having multiple people's tastes poisons Netflix's ability to come up with very good matches for both of them. I know this intimately well -- my wife and I share a profile (it's not a money thing, it's just that we're sharing devices). That means I get to deal with her love for depressing documentaries and she gets to deal with my love for Pixar movies (which she finds to be emotionally manipulative. Don't look at me, look at the lawyer I married);

2. It'd sure be nice if you could sit your kids in front of a Netflix device and not worry about them being recommended Dead Snow because they liked Snow Day;

The first problem is relatively harder to solve; once Netflix solves this in the protocol, the people who build Netflix boxes will need to incorporate these changes into their client. You'll likely first see this in PC and PS3 streaming (because we can update the client whenever we want to), followed by other devices.

The second problem should be easier (though, personally, I fear the inevitable point at which we'll screw up and a non-kids thing leaks into a kid profile accidentally).

And Netflix has said that it's actively working on both of these issues.

As for jobs ... I'm really not hot on publishing my work email address on slashdot -- that way lies madness -- but http://jobs.netflix.com/ is your friend.

Best,
-CF

Really?

[next_ghost]

I'm seriously wondering whether the goal of recording industry is to make money, or if they just want to see how much they can piss their paying customers off.

What? Licenses and TOS agreements not enough?

[erroneus]

Niiice. Civil agreements are not enough any more. Now we need the rule of law to make things into a crime! It's clearly not enough to sue your customers. Now we have to fine and imprison them.

But look on the bright side -- they aren't claiming "it's for the poor starving artists" this go around.

As a non-subscriber of anything, this is how I get entertained. It's like watching one of those reality shows unfold. Sure it's a bit slow, but just when you think the industry has gone too far, people just suck it up and let it happen. How much is too much? How far is too far? I may never see the limit in my life time it seems.

Hey, this might work!

[Anonymous Coward]

How about making it illegal to lend your car to your friends? That will boost car sales which is good for the economy. You don't want to be a terrorist, do you?

And we need more of this too!

[erroneus]

Damn... posting twice... oh well... new comment.

Republican Gov. Bill Haslam told reporters earlier this week that he wasn't familiar with the details of the legislation, but given the large recording industry presence in Nashville, he favors "anything we can do to cut back" on music piracy.

This is simply precious. He is not hiding anything in this case. He doesn't know what he signed. He only knows who is backing it and therefore pushes it right through. To hell with the consequences.

And the music industry? I thought this was for netflix? You know what I would like to see? I'd like to see how much tax the entertainment industry pays in Tennessee. Anyone know how to get that information? Also, is there access to information about that states collection of taxes of online services like these and finally the political contributions in that state?

Getting a picture of the money motivation might show what this is really all about.

But we get it -- Tennessee has whiskey and music... and little else?

Re:And we need more of this too!

[erroneus]

Is this how we define government now? I thought it was to provide fair and equal treatment to all interests, neither giving advantage nor disadvantage to particular parties, groups or individuals. It is stated as such more or less in the US constitution which, according to the outcome of the civil war, trumps state level law.

So no, the point is not merely to support constituents. And "corporations" may be "legally people" but that doesn't make it the truth nor does it make it right or moral. So they are not constituents -- just heavy contributors.

I am nether pro-sharing nor con-sharing. (Is that actually appropriate use of con-? Pros and Cons used a lot... I'm not flicted... I'm con-flicted...hrm) But the fact that they are taking this leap from a violation of terms of service and turning it into a criminal offense..? Holy crap! There is a huge difference between a civil case and a criminal case. One such difference is who pays the plaintiff attorneys. The **AA just got a free ride on the lawyer train and now tax payers get to pay for their own prosecution. Another differences is potentially losing the ability to vote... or yeah, or a lot of money or your freedom, the right to bear arms and a lot more.

"Too much and too far" describes this pretty well.

Re:And we need more of this too!

[CrankyFool]

Said it above -- this isn't for Netflix. It's just that NFLX is being used as an example of people violating this new law.

Nice job, OP

[mike260]

The bill, which has been signed by the governor, was pushed by recording industry officials to try to stop the loss of billions of dollars to illegal music sharing.

Great job letting bogus assertions sneak into the summary masquerading as fact.

Re:Forever alone...

[AHuxley]

In Capitalist West Netflix watches with you.

In other news ..

[roguegramma]

The Houseowners Association of America today announced today their support for a bill that would make it punishable to share your rented home with non-family members.

"This will put a stop to the losses incurred to property owners by people crowding their homes with strangers", a spokesman for the HAA said.

It is widely believed the bill will also boost the property market, thus allowing the mortgage financial markets to recover.

Predicted Long Ago

[ParetoJ]

No one should be surprised by this, it was predicted quite a while back:

"Dan resolved the dilemma by doing something even more unthinkable—he lent her the computer, and **told her his password**. This way, if Lissa read his books, Central Licensing would think he was reading them. It was still a **crime**, but the SPA would not automatically find out about it. They would only find out if Lissa reported him."

The Right to Read
Richard Stallman
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

Now that the precedent is set, its a matter of the government slowly upping the punishments until no one shares any kind of information without first paying for it.

Re:Predicted Long Ago

[king neckbeard]

I really wish that nobody would have taught the evil overlords how to read. They just keep 'stealing' ideas from dystopian authors.

Re:Predicted Long Ago

[Noughmad]

As much as rms's predictions used to sound silly and exaggerated, they have an unfortunate tendency to be correct.

Re:Predicted Long Ago

[roman_mir]

Yeah, it's old news. There is a paradox here with RMS simultaneously being anti-free market capitalism and being pro-government control, while hating the natural expression of power of that pro-government control over the market.

Re:Predicted Long Ago

[king neckbeard]

Stallman is generally a big fan of personal liberties, which are an essential part of free as in freedom markets. I think he may be a proponent of certain industrial regulation, but the multinationals are generally bigger opponents of free market capitalism than he is. You can see that right here, as the conglomerates are pushing a law that is against free market capitalism for those who take the term seriously.

Re:Predicted Long Ago

[roman_mir]

the paradox is not that he is just anti-free market and pro-government control, but that he is that AND that he is also against government skewing the market at the same time, by passing laws that make it illegal to share the passwords, etc.

As to citation - here is my comment from the story on RMS going to Palestine's university and not to Israel's on the same trip and the link in that comment goes to the article, which has all those citations, that I mention in that comment.

Re:Predicted Long Ago

[roman_mir]

I explained in detail what I mean by him being anti-free market and pro-government regulations here.

The paradox is that he simultaneously reconciles his believe that government must be in control over the markets, while at the same time being against government setting rules that favor large corporations, but the underlying reason for both of those things is the same - government involvement into the market and economy and setting the fiscal policy. He genuinely does not understand the economics and how the economy is distorted and resources are mis-allocated by the government regulations, maybe that's how he manages not to see the paradox.

Re:Predicted Long Ago

[Nursie]

All I see there is the standard libertarian fantasy - taking away government necessarily means everything will be just peachy.

It's bullshit now as it ever has been.

Re:Predicted Long Ago

[next_ghost]

Trouble is that RMS's message is meant to ... effectively marginalize the "content creation" market.

Citation needed. Actually, content creators have been marginalized by distributors long time ago. Creative Commons/FOSS licenses are the best way out of this right now.

Re:Predicted Long Ago

[king neckbeard]

Having different views on government involvement in industrial regulations and personal regulations isn't a paradox. You can argue that it's inconsistent, and there are occasional conflicts, but those inconsistencies are quite common. To perform an extreme simplification of US political parties: Democrats want to regulate business and free individuals. Republicans want to free businesses and regulate individuals. You appear to want to free everyone. Stallman would more or less fit in the democrat stance.

Even if you hold that Stallman's position as totally flawed, his position is clearly less destructive to free markets than corporations writing laws like this one, so he is the 'lesser evil', and your whining is misplaced.

Re:Predicted Long Ago

[KingAlanI]

yes, I'm reminded of all those comments about how the powers that be take Nineteen Eighty-Four as an instruction manual.

Re:Predicted Long Ago

[AK Marc]

"Free market capitalism" is inherently unstable. It requires a great amount of regulation to even exist. One *must* be for government regulation (or be insane: see "libertarian") to be for free market capitalism.

I see his comments as being against the free market because of the inherent instability and that if you require so much government involvement to keep it stable, then there are better ways of regulating the market than enforcing free market capitalism. Actually, I think he'd be rather for free market capitalism, if it were to ever occur. It's both one of the best markets ever described, and one that's never been attempted.

Re:Predicted Long Ago

[AK Marc]

Such is the nature of free market capitalism. No one has ever tried it because anyone that looks at it realizes how inherently impossible and self-contradictory it is. It's not unlike making a product called "Free Milk" and selling it for $6 per gallon and getting into an argument about the milk being free, but the convenience and container being worth $7 so you are actually getting a discount Free Milk at the low low price of $6.

Re:Predicted Long Ago

[roman_mir]

The very concept that work must be taxed by the government in the first place - income and corporate and payroll taxes, that's already Marxism.

However you are also incorrect. RMS was referring to the competitive advantage a company gets by moving from a country with more regulations, to a country with fewer regulations, that's his complaint - that companies cause the governments of countries to reduce their regulations, so that those companies would move their business there.

He is complaining that this is a BAD thing, because it drives wages down, and I am saying: he is a Marxist one more time, as his concern is labor without understanding the economics at all, that all costs need to go down due to competition, including labor costs, and if the costs go down due to competition of companies with each other and not due to companies getting favors from government, who protects their monopoly, then this is a net positive gain for the economy and the market.

The market sees cheaper products and services and the country with fewer regulations gets more business and jobs created and generally more jobs means a wealthier economy.

No government in the world can do what these companies do - create actual real jobs and improve the economy and raise the standard of living of people, who now have those jobs and push prices down for consumer goods. Governments can only destroys this movement - reduce economic activity via taxes and regulations, push prices up due to less competition.

You laugh...

[kantos]

... but many places do have laws like that (Boulder, CO has a limit of four unrelated people under one roof), mind you they are intended to prevent people from running brothels... but still

Re:RFID chips implanted in the ass

[slackbheep]

"So let me get this straight Mr. Johnson, you finished up watching Inception in your home in Long Island, then six minutes later began watching it in Texas?"
Outside of obvious examples like these I doubt much will come of this.

Re:If WE THE PEOPLE are in control of our destiny

[Dog-Cow]

I share my account with others in my family, and we can watch multiple streams simultaneously.

Re:Nexfix pass word

[Noughmad]

admin? Everyone knows the password is 1234.

Re:Really! Parasites!

[Noughmad]

True. Once you have enough money, you don't really need it anymore. You go for power/influence/control over others.

Usually this turns into a loop: Money gets you power, and power gets you more money.

Re:'stealing' ideas from dystopian authors.

[TaoPhoenix]

"I really wish that nobody would have taught the evil overlords how to read. They just keep 'stealing' ideas from dystopian authors."

Philip K. Dick's ghost sadly agrees with this.

Pirates don't use netflix

[Internetuser1248]

Maybe this is all part of an EFF conspiracy where they have infiltrated the media corporations and are secretly compelling them to fuck their own customer, that way more and more will stop using their services and learn how to torrent.

Once again, a dying business paradigm

[Anonymous Coward]

Promoting artificial scarcity in lieu of the scarcity inherent in manufacturing physical goods.

Unfortunately this is only going to get worse: http://www.cracked.com/article_18817_5-reasons-future-will-be-ruled-by-b.s..html

Re:Can't wait till they want to apply this to prin

[cayenne8]

It really sounds like they are trying to treat individuals the same as businesses, which long have been sued from companies for sometimes inadvertent uses of entertainment. (like how professional sports cannot be shown in a bar without paying a fee)

It also sounds like big business (or their representatives/lobbyist) have fully started buying state legislatures. I guess easier and cheaper to bribe on the state level?

I know that the govt, especially in this case the state govt isn't listening to their constituency....I mean, I cannot believe if they polled their voters that they'd come up with the idea that this was a good idea to "the people".

Re:'stealing' ideas from dystopian authors.

[Mindcontrolled]

The Black Iron Prison is alive and well, indeed.

Re:What? Licenses and TOS agreements not enough?

[DarkOx]

The reason the industry lobbies want to criminalize this stuff is to shift the burden of enforcement to the tax payer. If its a civil agreement it then its mostly their own responsibility to spot where their rights are being infringed and do something about it, send a take down notice, file a suit, whatever.

If they can criminalize it suddenly state enforcement agencies are burdened with detecting the crime, and state legal agencies are burdened with prosecuting it.

The false dichotomy

[fnj]

That is so fundamentally wrong as to make me reel in dismay to hear it. First of all, there is no fundamental difference between R and D to any noticeable extent. If that has not been proved time and again by comparing the Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, and Obama (and other) regimes, and by comparing the mess when R's controlled BOTH houses of Congress AND the Presidency, to the equal mess when D's controlled BOTH houses of Congress AND the Presidency, then there is no hope for human powers of observation.

Both D's and R's want to regulate everything: businesses and individuals. Both crave power. Both consist of unusually stupid and self-centered dregs of humanity, passing themselves off as the people's champions. They focus cravenly on trying to gratify everyone while pissing off no one. They both are bought and paid for by corrupt and stifling mega corporations, and in return they reward these mega corporations and mercilessly beat down true free enterprise, which flourishes when small businesses and individuals doing business thrive.

True free enterprise has nothing to do with the yolk of rampant Capitalism as we know it. Oddly, both D's and R's are as repelled by the idea of true free enterprise as are Communists, even though they will ridicule Communism and claim they hate it. Paradoxically, they both operate exactly the same as pragmatic Communists - the Chinese system, with government and mega corporations operating in league. Except that they owe no allegiance whatsoever to their own country, which, unlike the Chinese, they are rapidly destroying.

Both D's and R's are drunk with the idea of micro managing society. Both are inwardly repelled and horrified at the idea of personal freedom. Both are attracted to the idea of making all sorts of harmless conduct into victimless crimes, the way moths are attracted to the flame - except they themselves never get burned. Neither R's nor D's ever address real problems in an effective manner because they fear that to do so would cause short term distress to the voters who they see as baying and lowing cattle. They fear this would lead to "their side" hitting the third rail of politics.

They do not lead in any sense. They poll continually, and pass themselves off as those who will appease the greatest number.