FBI Says It Will Hire No One Who Lies About Illegal Downloading

wabrandsma writes with this excerpt from The State Hornet, the student newspaper at Sacramento State On Monday, Sacramento State's Career Center welcomed the FBI for an informational on its paid internship program where applications are now being accepted. One of the highly discussed topics in the presentation was the list of potential traits that disqualify applicants. This list included failure to register with selective services, illegal drug use including steroids, criminal activity, default on student loans, falsifying information on an application and illegal downloading music, movies and books. FBI employee Steve Dupre explained how the FBI will ask people during interviews how many songs, movies and books they have downloaded because the FBI considers it to be stealing. During the first two phases of interviews, everything is recorded and then turned into a report. This report is then passed along to a polygraph technician to be used during the applicant's exam, which consists of a 55-page questionnaire. If an applicant is caught lying, they can no longer apply for an FBI agent position. (Left un-explored is whether polygraph testing is an effective way to catch lies.)

Comments

Fewer candidates to draw from...

[jsepeta]

Hopefully at some point in time the FBI will realize that their mission shouldn't be to protect corporate rights, but to protect rights for the individual citizens.

Re:Fewer candidates to draw from...

[Anonymous Coward]

The FBI is a federal law enforcement agency. Their mission is to enforce federal law.

Re:Fewer candidates to draw from...

[houstonbofh]

On the plus side, this will eventually make for a smaller FBI. :)

Re:Fewer candidates to draw from...

[sheetsda]

The government is working at this from the other angle. More the rights they eliminate the closer we come to having them 100% protected!

Re:Fewer candidates to draw from...

[sumdumass]

The only problem is that there is no federal law against downloading. There is about copying and distributing which whoever offers it for download would definitely be doing but no law against you downloading it. All the court cases you see about it stem from the illegal distribution.

The article says "illegal" downloading. I wonder how many applicants will answer no because they never shared anything and be disqualified because their sweep of meta data indicated otherwise? I wonder how many will admit to illegally downloading who has not according to the letter of the law? And since it is a government employer, I wonder what the constitutional implications are if they have a trove of data which was meant to catch terrorist that they use in validating your eligibility for employment.

Re:Fewer candidates to draw from...

[penguinoid]

Their first mission is to protect the constitution, from all threats foreign or domestic. This includes the part of the Constitution where copyright is for "a limited time" and for the purpose of "promoting the progress of science and the useful arts". Maybe they should exclude from the hiring pool anyone who owns copyright for an absurd period of time, or who uses copyright or patents to prevent progress?

Re:Fewer candidates to draw from...

[lucm]

The only problem is that there is no federal law against downloading. There is about copying and distributing which whoever offers it for download would definitely be doing but no law against you downloading it.

If you use bittorrent, you are distributing while you download.

Re: Fewer candidates to draw from...

[Anonymous Coward]

Usenet

Re:Fewer candidates to draw from...

[penguinoid]

A million year copyright or patent will not promote any kind of progress.

Re:Fewer candidates to draw from...

[sumdumass]

Of course there is. It's a copyright violation to do so.

Actually, no there is not. There is no provision in law that makes obtaining copyrighted materials illegal if the copyright owner doesn't consent other than copying and distributing. If somehow I missed it, show me.

The difference between uploading and downloading is that there are no statutory damages for downloading, only actual damages for the lost sale. So they could sue you for perhaps $30, but they'd lose money on every case. Uploading is subject to statutory (legally-defined) damages, which are quite a bit larger.

Nope. There is no provision in law about downloading or any activity close to it. If you purchase a DVD from a street merchant and it turns out to be counterfeit, you have broken no copyright law.

Re:Fewer candidates to draw from...

[sumdumass]

You're making a copy by downloading.

Nope, the person offering it for download is making the copy and distributing it. To equate this with older tech, I write a paper in which I plagiarize the entire works of other people. You say you would like a copy of the paper so I leave copies at the door and you pick one up on your way in. You have violated no law even though it is essentially the same as if I offered it electronically and you accessed it.

You're also illegally making a copy of a song by transcribing the lyrics onto a sheet of paper with pen & pencil

No more so than if you were to use a tape record to copy music from the radio or a VCR to copy a movie or TV show.

I once read an account of a Supreme Court justice who was writing an opinion in a famous copyright case. The justice said something to the effect of, "if X was illegal, it would also be illegal to write down a poem I heard over the radio". He was attempting an argumentum ad absurdum. When the other justices informed him that, in fact, it was illegal to do just that, and it wasn't even remotely debatable, it was removed from his opinion before publication.

I would like to know more about this case. I can find no case in which the Supreme Court considered copyright in this was. Perhpas it was in questioning of the sony beta max case which was ultimately decided against the copyright holder. Justices are likely more apt to make an argumentum ad absurdum in case rather than opinion but draw from relevant conclusions within the opinion. But then again, I cannot find the case you are remembering so I do not know.

Under copyright law, people are behaving illegally all... the... time. The only reason the world doesn't end because of all the illegality is because the copyright holder cannot detect it, let alone prove it. If he could, technically the law gives him insane statutory damages. Also, in those cases where the holder can prove it, they often choose not to exercise that right, because if the big corporations (the ones most likely to be able to prove and prosecute such infringement) started suing every random Joe who simply copied something rather than distributed it, Congress would likely quickly change the law.

Well, changing the law is likely part of a concern, but decisions like the Sony Beta Max case would probably bar cases against most copying that didn't involve distribution or public performances. the later is somewhat in doubt too if the performance meets certain criteria as in no expectations of profit or gain from doing it. For instance, you walking down the street singing Lady Gaga tunes or listening to a radio playing it in which others could hear would not be a violation unless someone paid you to do it or you were advertising something and using that to attract attention or similar.

Re:Fewer candidates to draw from...

[Jane Q. Public]

If you use bittorrent, you are distributing while you download.

Depends on whether you mean the client called "bittorrent", or the BitTorrent protocol.

There's nothing in the protocol that says you "have to" upload in order to download. That's something that's built into most of the clients, on the reasoning that if nobody shares, there will be nothing to download.

I disagree: people have shown themselves to be willing to share things regardless of any such rules.

Further, the laws against "piracy", (which is NOT the same as downloading), were intended primarily to punish people who make bulk copies of copyrighted works and sell them for a profit. That's essentially what "copyright piracy" means. It's a legal term. And downloading doesn't qualify. Downloading isn't a "crime" at all. It's just a copyright violation. Piracy, on the other hand, is a crime.

Some of the biggest differences are:

[A] Almost all downloaders are doing it for personal use, not for profit. A reasonable penalty for that would be lost profits to the copyright holder (which is almost always far, far lower than the retail price), so for example copying a DVD might be a total loss of profits to the copyright holder of not more than about 50 cents. PLUS a "statutory penalty", which courts use to discourage such behavior. A rather large fine for creating a "loss of profit" of 50 cents might be 50 dollars... 100 times the actual damage.

[B] A very big problem with that is that studies have been showing for over 15 years now that in the vast majority of cases of downloading, there never would have been a sale (or rental) in the first place. So even 50 cents "damage" to the copyright holder as in [A] is more theoretical than actual. Further, downloaders give the actual product free word-of-mouth advertising, further mitigating any "damage".

It doesn't matter what the FBI "considers" downloading to be. THE LAW says it isn't a crime. And it sure as hell isn't "stealing". They are two very, very distinct areas of the law. When you steal from somebody, you deprive them of the use of the stolen item. When you copy a copyrighted work, you haven't deprived anyone of that work. Any "damage" is purely theoretical and must, logically, be tied to any lost profit from that particular copy.

Statutory damages that were originally intended for bulk, profitable piracy are not appropriate for individual downloaders. At all. That whole mess was nothing but "crony capitalism" at work. And lots of people have suffered a lot, as a result.

Re:Fewer candidates to draw from...

[jklovanc]

It is just an example of how vague the Constitution actually is and how, by quoting specific parts, a lot of opposing views can be seen as Constitutional.

Re:Fewer candidates to draw from...

[cpt kangarooski]

Further, the laws against "piracy", (which is NOT the same as downloading)

There are no laws against "piracy" per se; rather there are laws against copyright infringement, which downloading commonly is.

were intended primarily to punish people who make bulk copies of copyrighted works and sell them for a profit.

The statute doesn't require infringement en masse, nor does it require selling them for a profit. Perhaps you'd like to read it? It's 17 USC 501. It refers to other sections, in particular 17 USC 106, and 101.

That's essentially what "copyright piracy" means. It's a legal term.

No it's not. The correct legal term would be copyright infringement.

And downloading doesn't qualify. Downloading isn't a "crime" at all. It's just a copyright violation.

No, any copyright infringement which meets the prerequisites of 17 USC 506 is a crime. For example, if you willfully download a work in an infringing manner, and that work has a retail value of over $1,000 (easily doable with certain computer programs), that's a criminal infringement.

And it sure as hell isn't "stealing"

This is the first, and perhaps only thing in your post that's correct.

Re:Fewer candidates to draw from...

[cpt kangarooski]

Nope, the person offering it for download is making the copy and distributing it.

A copy is defined in the Copyright Act (17 USC 101) as a material object in which a copy is fixed. A hard drive is a material object, a flash drive is a material object, RAM is a material object. But data coming in over the network is not a material object. The downloader causes that data to be written to some sort of storage medium on his end, thereby making a new copy. The person on the other end of the connection is in trouble too, but it is clear in the statute, and settled in the caselaw, that downloading can be infringing.

No more so than if you were to use a tape record to copy music from the radio or a VCR to copy a movie or TV show.

That's like saying that murdering someone with a gun is no more murder than murdering them with a knife or with poison. All of the things you mention are also infringing, if of copyrighted works and without permission. There may be applicable exceptions, but there just as easily might not be.

decisions like the Sony Beta Max case would probably bar cases against most copying that didn't involve distribution or public performances

It didn't. In fact, if you read the Sony case, you'll see that the Court expected that not all home taping of TV would even be a fair use. All that mattered was that there was enough possibility of VCR recording being legal sometimes that copyright didn't require that the technology be banned altogether.

For instance, you walking down the street singing Lady Gaga tunes or listening to a radio playing it in which others could hear would not be a violation unless someone paid you to do it or you were advertising something and using that to attract attention or similar.

It's a public performance, and would be prima facie infringing.

Re:Fewer candidates to draw from...

[cpt kangarooski]

The FBI considers downloading to be illegal despite any law making it so. Unless downloading has morphed into one of those words like CPU (the actual CPU or as some think, the computer tower itself) with several meanings and I have yet to discover the one in use in this sentence, there should be cause for concern.

Downloading involves making copies, and unauthorizedly making copies of copyrighted works is infringing, unless there's an applicable exception to copyright. This is well-established.

Re:Fewer candidates to draw from...

[jedidiah]

> If you use bittorrent, you are distributing while you download.

You know that and I know that. Welcome to the 1%. Most other people don't realize that. HELL, a lot of church lady types don't even know that pirating stuff is even "immoral" or illegal or anything.

Real life is funny that way.

Re:Fewer candidates to draw from...

[NoKaOi]

The FBI is a federal law enforcement agency. Their mission is to enforce federal law.

Not anymore. They changed it recently. The first part is to protect and defend the United States against terrorist and foresight intelligence threats. The criminal justice part comes second.

So what kind of people are they going to get? Any twenty-something who hasn't illegally downloaded music or movies probably fits into one of the following categories:
1. Computer illiterate.
2. Spoiled brat because their parents kept their iTunes gift card loaded all the way through high school and college.
3. Too poor growing up to have a computer and went straight into the military.
4. Able to defeat a polygraph.

Re:Fewer candidates to draw from...

[K. S. Kyosuke]

But whats relevant is that the action they take is based on whether you lie about it. ... If they said they wouldnt hire you if you lied about wearing white after labor day, I wouldnt blame them. Theyre trusting you with a lot of power, if you have a penchant for lying you shouldnt be hired.

That argument would make sense, provided that they were somewhat more comprehensive about the domains they're checking. Because if you were right, there would be absolutely no liars in the FBI. I somehow doubt that this is the case. If it's not the case, it seems somewhat debatable whether this is about lying. Or even about merely having ever violated any federal law, because they seem to be awfully specific. Arguing that they are actually trying to do anything broader than filter people who download stuff seems disingenuous to me.

Re:Fewer candidates to draw from...

[Maxo-Texas]

It's based on a lie detector test. If they sincerely believe they did nothing wrong, there will be no stress for the lie detectors to pick up.

And likewise, some people who feel really guilty about the issue may show stress.

There will probably be some false positives too.

So the FBI will end up hiring people who don't feel downloading is illegal and those who don't feel stress when lying.

Re:Fewer candidates to draw from...

[cpt kangarooski]

Do those who browse the websites infringe plaintiff's copyright?

The first question, then, is whether those who browse any of the three infringing websites are infringing plaintiff's copyright. Central to this inquiry is whether the persons browsing are merely viewing the Handbook (which is not a copyright infringement), or whether they are making a copy of the Handbook (which is a copyright infringement). See 17 U.S.C. 106.

"Copy" is defined in the Copyright Act as: "material objects . . . in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device." 17 U.S.C. 101. "A work is fixed' . . . when its . . . sufficiently permanent or stable to permit it to be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated for a period of more than transitory duration." Id.

When a person browses a website, and by so doing displays the Handbook, a copy of the Handbook is made in the computer's random access memory (RAM), to permit viewing of the material. And in making a copy, even a temporary one, the person who browsed infringes the copyright. n5 See MAI Systems Corp. v. Peak Computer, Inc., 991 F.2d 511, 518 (9th Cir. 1993) (holding that when material is transferred to a computer's RAM, copying has occurred; in the absence of ownership of the copyright or express permission by licence, such an act constitutes copyright infringement); Marobie-Fl., Inc. v. National Ass'n of Fire Equip. Distrib., 983 F. Supp. 1167, 1179 (N.D. Ill. 1997) (noting that liability for copyright infringement is with the persons who cause the display or distribution of the infringing material onto their computer); see also Nimmer on Copyright 8.08(A)(1) (stating that the infringing act of copying may occur from "loading the copyrighted material . . . into the computer's random access memory (RAM)"). Additionally, a person making a printout or re-posting a copy of the Handbook on another website would infringe plaintiff's copyright.

Footnote n5: Although this seems harsh, the Copyright Act has provided a safeguard for innocent infringers. Where the infringer "was not aware and had no reason to believe that his or her acts constituted an infringement of copyright, the court in its discretion may reduce the award of statutory damages. . . ." 17 U.S.C. 504(c)(2).

Now, since then there has been the Cablevision case, where the 2d Circuit said that a work that was momentarily buffered in RAM (in that case, by a network provider) was not a copy because it lasted for too short a duration. But this is not likely to have much effect for the end user.

Also, your example is wrong. Copyright infringement is a strict liability offense, so the mental state (e.g. intent, knowledge) of the infringer is irrelevant.

A better example would be statutory rape, another strict liability offense. If you have sex with someone who swears they're an adult, who can produce excellent documentary support of that claim, and where you literally could not have undertaken any further reasonable measures to ensure that that person wasn't a minor, but it turns out that they were a minor anyway, you've just committed the crime of statutory rape. It doesn't matter how careful you were, that you didn't intend to have sex with a minor, what you knew, etc. Copyright is the same sort of thing.

Re:Fewer candidates to draw from...

[LordLimecat]

He meant a REPUTABLE citation, preferably by someone with a 4-digit or less UID. Not some "9th circuit" armchair judge.

Polygraph

[thetagger]

The polygraph, along with IQ tests, are a very American forms of superstition.

Re:Polygraph

[Anonymous Coward]

The polygraph, along with IQ tests, are a very American forms of superstition.

Yeah, quite a few hipsters that got less than ideal IQs go out of their way at every opportunity to deride the single most precise intellectual measure known to man.

Re:Polygraph

[Anonymous Coward]

If only it was accurate too.

Re:Polygraph

[Anonymous Coward]

A multimeter which always reads zero is the most precise meter possible. Precision isn't accuracy.

And Abrahamic God is the single most powerful myth known to man. Unique doesn't imply useful.

My IQ is 142, my net earnings are ~$90k/year, my highest qualification is a PhD in mathematics, and you're an idiot.

Re:Polygraph

[Anonymous Coward]

A multimeter which always reads zero is the most precise meter possible. Precision isn't accuracy.

And Abrahamic God is the single most powerful myth known to man. Unique doesn't imply useful.

My IQ is 142, my net earnings are ~$90k/year, my highest qualification is a PhD in mathematics, and you're an idiot.

You deride IQ tests, but hold up your own as a sign of intellect. That does not sound very bright to me. Precision is a quality of instruments, accuracy is the quality of being precise. Accuracy is nothing without precision. A PhD in math would know that. Further, people with PhD's rarely make 90k.

I'll side with Occam's razor and claim you are full of shit.

Re:Polygraph

[Artifakt]

What's an ideal IQ? 200? 500? The scale is open ended at the top, and even a perfect score on different tests equates to a different maximum.

  Plus, I'm pretty sure that your "less than ideal" would apply to some of the most brilliant people in history (James Clerk Maxwell, estimated IQ 115 (note that people who achieved something that applied to practical discipline, such as engineering or medicine, seldom did it nearly as early as precocious musicians and novelists, and so are always estimated lower unless the estimater includes a fudge factor. Mozart gets estimated much higher than Beethoven without that, because he started at 6, not 22. The way the fudge factor is calculated is to simply set both those great musicians to an (apparently arbitrary) 165, and adjust for age of first composition based on that ratio in calculating other historic musicians scores - this makes Wagner among the very elite, and Bach only 'fair to middlin').
          Or try Charles Darwin, and Copernicus, both estimated IQ 160, (The same score, as Dolph Lungren's actual test results). President Bush (41) scored a 98 - his son Bush (43) scored 125. Steven Hawking scored "only" 160, same as the estimated score for Einstein - both are eclipsed by actor James Woods and John Sunnunu (180 actual score each)
          President Carter scored at least 10 points above any other president or presidential candidate of the 20th or early 21st centuries, and of the current crop, Hillary Clinton is 5 points lower than Carter, but still beats everybody else that has shown any interest in running this time by at least anoher 10 points.

So I'm going to take this oportunity to deride the test - look maw, I'm a hipster!

Re:Polygraph

[Anonymous Coward]

The ideal IQ is 100. That's what the world is built for.

Re:Polygraph

[Cassini2]

False positives create selection bias. A polygraph detects people that are *nervous about there lies*. It won't detect the unaware and clueless, because they do not know they did anything wrong. Most people download songs to their iPhone, and assume it is legal. The polygraph not detect people that assume they are innocent. On the other hand, some people lie all of the time. A sociopath will pass the lie-detector test because they don't believe they are lying, and one person in 25 is a sociopath.

These problems have already been encountered in the preemployment screening industry. This is one of the less biased artlicles. To quote:

One recent study found faked answers for one quarter to one half of the applicants.[44] So how can employers who want to use personality or EQ tests in their selection process mitigate against the risk of applicant faking? Counter-measures to faking include the test and retest approach to see if an individual is consistent in their answers, or asking questions that require quick responses.[45] But counter-measures to faking may result in less reliable and valid results since some tools used to detect faking do not work well.[46]

Bluntly, if your goal is to hire people that have done no wrong, then chances are that your hires have either lied to you, or are too clueless to realize their mistakes. Either way, it is really bad for the employer, especially if the employer is the FBI.

Re:Polygraph

[GlenRaphael]

> President Bush (41) scored a 98 [...]

You've been fooled by at least one hoax. Somebody invented a collection of "presidential IQs" in order to claim Democrats are smarter than Republicans. There is no evidence for several of the values you give, including specifically that score of 98. Here's the debunk:

http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/...

FBI has no clue

[Spy Handler]

I suspect this will be quietly dropped in the near future when they see their supply of young recruits dwindle to nothing.

Re:FBI has no clue

[bughunter]

No. It will dwindle to include only young sociopaths who can fool a lie detector.

Re:FBI has no clue

[rahvin112]

You don't need to be a sociopath to beat a "lie detector". They are incredibly easy to "fool", not that there is anything to fool anyway because they aren't worth anything. Their only value is a that people think they do work because of all the propaganda and they convince people to submit to questioning without a lawyer present that they otherwise would never agree to.

They don't allow lie detectors to be used in court for precisely that reason, they are utterly unreliable.

So...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Am I out of consideration if I refer to the polygraph as 'truth dowsing' while it is being administered? How about asking if it can detect witches?

NSA are most egregious downloaders

[101percent]

Guess they can't reach out to the NSA for candidates.

The irony is off the charts

[sideslash]

The FBI and other TLAs are constantly engaged in illegal downloading of the private information of Americans. How ironic that they're so anxious to recruit only people who have never committed the very types of "crimes" they're being hired to do. What, do they find it cheaper to train beginners than to hire someone already experienced in the job? (I wish this post was purely a joke.)

Re:The irony is off the charts

[mike449]

They are looking for people who will do anything their superiors tell them to do. This particular bit is about finding people who don't do stuff the authorities declare illegal. This is all about obedience, not about "not doing illegal stuff".

Re:Ok, but

[sideslash]

Then they won't hire you.

Polygraph

[the eric conspiracy]

I thought polygraphs were most notable for giving a lot of false positives.

That's really not such a bad characteristic for security clearances.

Re:It's Not Unexplored

[Anonymous Coward]

They are used not to detect truth or lies, they are used as a tool of intimidation. It is a high tech corollary to the bright light shone in the face of someone being grilled in the police interrogation room.

Also left unexplored...

[macraig]

... is whether "piracy" is actually stealing much less criminal.

Re:Also left unexplored...

[Payden K. Pringle]

Indeed.

>personal rant

The issue of piracy is complex, and personally, I am a pirate. However, I acknowledge that it is evil, but I consider it the lesser of two evils. And I sincerely believe each action is relative.

To clarify, I'm not going to pirate a $1 song from some indie artist. However, the same may or may not be true from much larger artists with larger libraries. Simply because I realize they are probably going to be rich regardless due to large numbers of people actually buying there stuff. That's what I mean by relative.

And sure, in the absolutist sense both are still wrong. However, I consider it even more wrong to support an industry that is set up to screw over the consumer. And I consider every single digital media generating industry set up that way because they are based on copyright laws that are broken in some way or another.

Sure, piracy has been known to be pretty good advertisement, so it's still supporting if I enable that (I don't), but the sheep are gonna buy the stuff anyway, so I consider that irrelevant both to my situation and to the general issue to begin with.

Personally, I wish the world were perfect, where people created media as a hobby, and (thanks to the Internet) everything was crowd-sourced and thereby, free. The potential would be massive then. Oh well, idealism.

And honestly, I think the sheer number of pirates are a symptom and not the problem (the problem being copyright laws and how we handle media in general). And I alike it to those strange laws that if you did indeed break them, nobody would care because they realize they are stupid. I imagine the number of pirates that get jailed for piracy VS the number that exist & known about by authorities is around 1%. When the precedent says no one cares or even has the potential to do something about it (due to sheer numbers), I too fail to care.

People may disagree. They do that. /personal rant

Re:Ok, but

[Guspaz]

So basically the FBI is only hiring people over the age of 50?

Calling all Luddites

[Anonymous Coward]

In my experience, about 99% of videos on Youtube and images on Google image search have been illegally published without the rights holder's permission, so I guess they have to further restrict their applicants - good luck finding recruits that have never used those - maybe try the Amish?

yes, they people who follow the law/ rules

[raymorris]

> Of course, if all they want are upper middle-class drones who follow every rule that has ever been made, just because it's a rule, then I suppose this is effective.

You can drop the "upper middle class" part, as this is about following the law. Full stop.
The FBI and especially the intelligence services will tell you that they very much try to hire people who follow the law and other rules. In some cases, being sloppy about following the rules can have huge consequences. So they lool for military people and people from certain social groups who culturally tend to follow the rules.

The irony of that is obvious.

As to "just because they are rules" -
Not that we need to debate it, and you'll probably never give up your excuse for taking stuff without paying for it, but my family and coworkers have been greatly harmed by the seachange shift to a culture of most people taking what they want illegally rather than paying the 99 cents to buy it from those of us who create it. The rule that what I create with my own hands os mine to give away, trade, or sell exists for a very good reason. Yes, it does mean that app or song I spent a year working on will cost you a whopping $1, but that's just how it is. (Coming from a guy whose daughter would be MUCH better taken care of if everyone who uses my software regularly had paid a dollar for it. Buying another candy bar is more important than doing the right thing, though. )

Re:yes, they people who follow the law/ rules

[king neckbeard]

Oddly enough, they seem to ignore all the rules about constitutional limits to their powers, except perhaps for telling a lawyer so he can spin a way that it can be argued to not be breaking the law. Failing that, he'll find a way to pin it on somebody unimportant or already in hot water. And then there's just run of the mill corruption, abuse, and incompetence. They seem to select for a particular mindset far more than they select for moral superiority and genuine respect for law.

Re:yes, they people who follow the law/ rules

[craigtollting]

You can say it's 99 cents, but this year alone I've probably downloaded about 1500 songs from a private music torrent site. The majority of them, maybe 60-70%, I delete after listening, because it was listening on a trial basis and I just wasn't into whatever I was checking out.

As a kid, I spent ~$15 per CD on way too many CDs with one good song and 9 shitty ones. Everyone has different justifications for using bittorrent; that's one of mine. I still go to shows, knowing that the artists keep a good chunk of that revenue for themselves, unlike CD and iTunes sales, where all but the Top 5 Acts in the World get almost nothing from that revenue. That's another rationalization on my part, sure, but i'm pretty damn comfortable with it.

And look around - 15+ years after Napster, music is still being made. One could argue that the variety of acts available is bigger than ever. And the only thing different is that today's Madonna's and Metallica's no longer get $100 million record deals; they just make their $100 million touring. I'm okay with that too.

No one has made any convincing argument to me yet as to how downloading is going to kill music and put good musicians in the poorhouse. I'm all ears.

Re:yes, they people who follow the law/ rules

[Vellmont]

. The rule that what I create with my own hands os mine to give away, trade, or sell exists for a very good reason.

And what's that reason? Not everyone agrees about imaginary property Ray. The concept is rather new. You're free to disagree, but the world is changing and as information is so easy to copy fewer and fewer people are seeing things your way. I don't really know anyone that really thinks you're a criminal if you share a TV show with your friend for instance. TV is already valued at approximately $0, since it's been free for so long. You seem to have an attitude that laws and cultural values are set in stone rather than the amorphous and variable concepts that they actually are.

These sorts of laws are cultural ones, and the culture is changing. It's not exactly clear what's going to happen with copy written property, but a good many people don't see it your way. That tends to change laws. 30 years ago it was unimaginable that marijuana and gay marriage would become legal, but the culture changed and now it's inevitable they'll both be legal in all 50 states. Are you prepared if copy write laws are reformed in another 30 years?

Re:yes, they people who follow the law/ rules

[raymorris]

The 1500 you deleted don't matter. The 30 you kept and enjoy on a regular basis are the ones you would have paid for ten years ago, and you're ripping off the artist, the editor, the producer, the guitar tuner, the studio tech, and the studio musicians when you don't throw in your $1 for that song you keep because they brought you joy through their hard work.

When an album was $15, it could be hard to fork over $15 to get mainly one song you wanted, with ten others thrown in. Now that it takes one click to buy a non-DRM mp3 for one measly dollar, you're just being a dick. You're enjoying the song, repeatedly. Toss a friggin dollar in the jar.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:does streaming porn count?

[Noah Haders]

I found one weird trick to stream every GoT episode from bing videos - search for "game of thrones". Seriously. it's so stupid how MS is so viciously focused on licenses and piracy on one hand, but on the other hand in a mad scramble to catch up to youtube will stream all manner of ripped tv shows, movies and pr0n. It's a seriously sketchy place.

Re:Ok, but

[alen]

they will probably hire you. it's like a military security clearance. they don't like it when you lie to them, but they are OK if you admit wrongdoing.

SubjectsInCommentsAreStupid

[lesincompetent]

Default on student loans? Sickening.

Re:Ok, but

[radtea]

Over 50 and straight edged boy scout

I'm over 50 and used to be a boy scout. I don't smoke, drink very moderately, help little old ladies across the street, recently came to the assistance of a young woman who was in a physical altercation with her boyfriend (which turned out to be her attacking him, but I didn't know that 'til I got involved) and just today used my pocket knife (which I carry because I was a boy scout) to help an elderly man deflate a beach ball he and his grandson had been playing with (by prying out the extremely stuck plug, not stabbing it.)

And I illegally downloaded a movie last night (there were extenuating circumstances, but still...)

So I'd say the FBI is going to be restricted to Amish who were too wasted during their rumspringa to download anything.

They may still hire you

[Etherwalk]

Then they won't hire you.

They may hire you if you did something illegal and are honest about it. They will not hire you if you did something illegal and lied about it.

Re:They may still hire you

[TheGratefulNet]

right.

you're only allowed to do illegal things and lie about it AFTER you are hired by the fbi.

does anyone seriously believe that 'law enforcement' is about fighting the good fight and standing up for what is right, anymore?

I have lost 101% confidence in our system's ability to do what's Right(tm). it seems only the stupid or brainwashed would want to work for the government goons.

and of course, goons is basically what they have, now, anyway.

Re:They may still hire you

[Nikker]

Exactly. It's a little convenient that the FBI is spilling the beans when they are about to interview a bunch of interns. They just want to spread the word and turn up the heat on these guys before the big day. I bet a choice few will be sweating buckets behind the desk when the day comes. The chances of them being able to staff more than a hand full of people that have never downloaded a MP3 in the Napster / Bittorrent era is just not going to happen. It's also an advantage of staffing people that know the culture.

But I digress.... Good luck guys!

Re:They may still hire you

[Greyfox]

Yeah. It works like this.

Re:Ok, but

[Anonymous Coward]

I have just reported your admission of copyright infringement to the FBI. Enjoy federal prison.

polygraph?

[MoFoQ]

shoot, thought everyone already knew how to beat them?
(butt "clenching" technique, anyone?)

yes, in the past sometimes, and no

[raymorris]

> Most piracy does not represent lost sales, but sales that never would have happened.

That's true, based on my knowledge of tens of thousands of content producers over the last fifteen years. That is, however, irrelevant to their take home pay. Suppose that 90% of piracy is cases that would not have purchased. The other 10% is people who would have - the producers income stream. What matters is that people who used to buy no longer do, the pirate/steal. People who used to buy one album per year now take twenty albums and pay for none. The 19 you take that you wouldn't have paid for don't matter much. It's the one you would have paid for but no longer do that matters. When is the last time you bought an album, or some porn? Sure, most of the content you consume now you didn't consume in 2000, that just costs bandwidth. But in 2000 you probably paid for one web site or one album. In 2014, you probably didn't pay for any. Instead you used pornhub (mostly stolen content) and unlawfully downloaded music. When most people don't pay for your product, it's hard to make a living.

> In fact I would bet that piracy tends to make money for less well-known producers of content.

I know one case where piracy worked as branding, and the lady who produced the content. I know of thousands where it didn't. Ten years ago, if your marketing was poor but the branding on the product itself was good, piracy could make you money by getting your name out there. These days, 20,000 will pirate it and zero will buy it. Getting your name out doesn't do any good when almost nobody pays for things they want.

Ironic.

[Vellmont]

The FBI doesn't want its agents to lie, or default on student loans (the latter is often simply a matter of economics, not honesty), but yet the Snowden documents reveal that the FBI commits perjury in federal court to hide the true, illegal sources of information they got from the NSA. Described here, http://www.alexaobrien.com/sec... Search for "Parallel Construction"

So they hire second grade material?

[Opportunist]

One of my former bosses said "you can get good people, available people and people with no police record. Pick two"

Time and experience has shown me that "good people" and "people with no police record" has become more and more synonymous as more and more inane laws are being pushed into existence. You don't get "good" in this field if you're learning it from text books. Ponder this for a moment: Malware analysis consists to a rather big portion of looking at decompiled code someone else wrote and quickly identifying specific sections, often involving reverse engineering some kind of encryption or obfuscation. Now where do you think you would almost invariably have to develop that skill set. Little hint: It ain't really a very legal activity.

Most of the "good" security people I know didn't get there by choosing it as a career and studying. They got there because they ... well, wanted to accomplish something.

And if they're good at it, they never got caught doing it...

Re:Ok, but

[Attila Dimedici]

No, you misunderstand. The FBI is only hiring people who can lie on a polygraph test and not get caught...and those few who are not interested enough in music, games, or movies to bother to download them, legally or otherwise,

Re:Ok, but

[ArcadeMan]

Federal Bureau of Ignorants

Re: Ok, but

[ArcadeMan]

The law of munchiesdynamics?

Re:Ok, but

[rwa2]

Just means the FBI will only be hiring people who are good at lying about wrongdoing. Which is probably really more useful and what they want in the long run.

Re:Ok, but

[Patent Lover]

Or people too poor to afford a computer or people too computer illiterate to use a computer. Good luck finding those cyber criminals.

Re:Ok, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Just means the FBI will only be hiring people who are good at lying about wrongdoing. Which is probably really more useful and what they want in the long run.

But it's not what they want. You know what the word is for "guy who can blithely lie his way through a polygraph?" It's "spy."

Polygraphs are pseudoscientific bullshit, but the only people they weed out are the honest ones. I know you're worried about abusive/sociopathic cops, and that's one problem. But if I if I can switch to Fedspeak, for a moment - the risk isn't that the FBI's recruitment policies select for sociopaths, it's that they select for double agents. Moronic ideologue non-threats like AQ/IS and domestic terrorists like the Sovereign Citizen derpers might not make it past this screening, but they're practically begging FSB and PLA to infiltrate them. It's assinine, it's self-destructive, and it doesn't even serve the larger gains of the FBI, just of the bureaucrats who have a vested interest in the revolving door between the IC and polygraph-reliant clearance-processing industry.

Re:Ok, but

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

I am over 50 and an Eagle Scout. I downloaded warez over a Hayes 2400 modem. Most of the Eagle Scouts I know enjoy the Good Herb. I was thinking of a good retirement career. Maybe the FBI would suit.

Re:Ok, but

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the federal standard is "did not inhale".

Re:Ok, but

[rwa2]

eh, even spies are OK, as long as they don't get caught. Or if they do get caught, the FBI isn't blamed for letting them in. It's government. The most important tenet is CYA. It's valuable to have people who can convince others that they've done everything right "by the book" and have done no wrong.

thank you, Netflix and Red Box , $1 mp3

[raymorris]

Thank you for doing the right thing.

I don't like some of the things the MPAA and RIAA have done. I do like Pulp Fiction and I Like Big Butts. The song, not the butts. I want Hollywood to make more big movies with Samuel L Jackson, and I don't want to get ripped off. What to do? I think the Netflix/ Hulu / Amazon Prime model along with the Red Box model can fund big movies and also provide good value to the consumer. So my message to Hollywood is this - of you want my money, you'll have to get it by putting your movies on Netflix or Red Box. That way I get good value and you get money to use to make your next movie. I won't let you rip me off, I will work with you only when you give me good value for my money.

Re: Ok, but

[Anonymous Coward]

The law of "don't talk to cops about anything".

Re: Ok, but

[SternisheFan]

If you tell a police officer you smoked pot last week, whaaaaaat law did you just break?

None yet. If you're in your car, you have now given him "probable cause" to search your vehicle. In some states, if there is one seed, you're under arrest. Never talk to the police.

The Wrong Argument

[Roger W Moore]

My IQ is 54 points higher.... and I am Young Earth Creationist.

This is probably not the point you want to make while arguing that IQ tests are accurate....and the fact that you did make it only compounds the irony.

My personal experience

[Anubis IV]

I applied to the CIA when I was looking at finishing grad school about 4 years back. As with the FBI, one of the things they mentioned was illegal downloading, of which I had done quite a bit while in college. I mean, we're talking hundreds of films, thousands of TV episodes, thousands of audio tracks, both foreign and domestic for all of those, from any number of decades, genres, and budget sizes.

I was upfront with them about it during a pre-screening interview held at my school's campus. I actually brought it up with them and asked if it'd be a problem. They indicated it wouldn't be, and formally invited me to fill out a proper application with them so that they could advance me through the process.

I answered truthfully regarding it on the application and any subsequent questionnaires that I had to fill out. I never got any word back regarding that specifically, but their response was to ask me to fly up to Washington D.C. for a three-day session with them, which I did.

I provided exacting details regarding my illegal downloading to the polygraph examiner at my polygraph session, as well as to anyone else who asked about it. I let them know the quantity, nature of the content, and how recently I had engaged in it. I passed the polygraph with flying colors and was told I didn't even need to come in for the second session they had scheduled since they were confident I told the truth about everything (and I had...in excruciating detail, in fact, just because I knew, being the pedant that I am, that if I left out any little detail, I really would be considering myself to be lying; as an aside, one of the other applicants I was hanging out with lied to them about the recency of his drug use and got caught in his lie).

And how did they respond to all of this? They asked me when it would be convenient to move on to the final stage of the application process (a thorough background check...which I'm confident I would have easily passed), since the folks I'd be working with were excited about bringing me onboard and wanted to keep things moving. Which is to say, the fact that I had downloaded loads of files illegally in the past clearly wasn't a problem. They let me know that it'd need to stop and that it would come up again in the every-five-years polygraph everyone working there submits to, but otherwise, they made it clear to me, both explicitly through their words and implicitly through their deeds that they really didn't have a problem with me having engaged in it at a relatively large scale in the past.

P.S. Just to state what I hope is obvious: an actual polygraph session is NOTHING like what is shown on TV (the room was well-lit, there wasn't an angry detective yelling at me, beads of sweat were not pouring from my brow, and no one was pounding on any desks). I don't want to get into a load of details, but suffice it to say, the environment was heavily controlled to eliminate external stimuli, the questions and their meanings along with the terms and their definitions were all explained in detail to me in advance, I was able to voice any misgivings I had about them to the examiner (in fact, we spent 2.5 hours of the 4 hours doing just that, since my inherent pedantry meant that I had all sorts of ideas like "well, technically I've compromised government systems when I lent a friend my password at our state university" or "I can't rule out the possibility that I unknowingly supported terrorists through a front that they're maintaining", which led to a lot of the questions getting rephrased to be prefixed by "insofar as you know" or "besides what you have disclosed here"), and the questions were all read to me over and over and over again in even, metered tones that were about as un-aggressive as you can imagine.

Re:My personal experience

[Anubis IV]

Oh, and it should go without saying that I do not work there, otherwise I obviously wouldn't be discussing any of this. The job I found as a hold-me-over position until I was done with the CIA application process actually ended up blowing me completely out of the water, so when the CIA asked me to move forward with the application process, I let them know I had found something else and was no longer interested.

And keep in mind that all of this was well before Snowden's revelations.

In fact, for the writing sample I submitted with my application, I was in the middle of a crunch time with my graduate research, so I took 20 minutes and knocked out a quick ethical analysis on the topic of Wikileaks and Bradley Manning, because the two of them were in the news around that time and I figured I may as well publicize my controversial stances early in the process so that we didn't waste each other's time. My stance in the essay was more or less that I didn't believe Manning or Wikileaks had conducted themselves in an ethical manner in their activities related to one another, but that I absolutely supported properly conducted whistleblowing (including some of the earlier stuff Wikileaks had done) and the need for people to step forward when the government inevitably gets out of line, as well as the need for organizations like Wikileaks to enable those people to do so.

Imagine my surprise when a few months later I sat down for an interview with my would-be boss during the three-day session up in D.C., only to discover that not only had they read through my entire essay...not only had they highlighted it and kept it at their desk because they were excited to discuss it with me...not only did they agree with it and think it was incredibly well-reasoned...but I had actually been tagged for the position they were offering me (a position that was quite a bit better than what I had applied for) largely on the basis of that throwaway essay I had penned while pressed for time.

Strange, but true.

Re:My personal experience

[Uberbah]

I didn't believe Manning or Wikileaks had conducted themselves in an ethical manner in their activities related to one another

Was this new job as a professional Tone Troll? When the state has made legal whisteblowing impossible, the only way to reveal government lawbreaking is "illegally". Manning didn't exactly have his own staff to go over documents, but WikiLeaks did, going out of their way to as the USG for help with reactions.

Re:the right to copy

[Vellmont]

I see Ray. Interesting that you can't respond to my argument and have to resort to critiquing a spelling error.

Re:Ok, but

[fibonacci8]

Nutmeg is a gateway spice.

Re:does streaming porn count?

[Zuriel]

What? That's not stupid at all. Microsoft is focused on licenses and piracy when it's their shit and don't care about anyone else's. That's perfectly logical. Same as the musicians you hear about illegally copying graphic art.

It makes them hypocrites, not stupid.

Re:Ok, but

[jafiwam]

Just means the FBI will only be hiring people who are good at lying about wrongdoing. Which is probably really more useful and what they want in the long run.

But it's not what they want. You know what the word is for "guy who can blithely lie his way through a polygraph?" It's "spy."

Polygraphs are pseudoscientific bullshit, but the only people they weed out are the honest ones. I know you're worried about abusive/sociopathic cops, and that's one problem. But if I if I can switch to Fedspeak, for a moment - the risk isn't that the FBI's recruitment policies select for sociopaths, it's that they select for double agents. Moronic ideologue non-threats like AQ/IS and domestic terrorists like the Sovereign Citizen derpers might not make it past this screening, but they're practically begging FSB and PLA to infiltrate them. It's assinine, it's self-destructive, and it doesn't even serve the larger gains of the FBI, just of the bureaucrats who have a vested interest in the revolving door between the IC and polygraph-reliant clearance-processing industry.

Likewise, they are insuring their agents are clueless socially broken idiots who are also sanctimonious twatwaffles about it.

Which makes them neither effective nor able to get the best and brightest. From what I have observed about the next generation of folks entering college about now, they will nave ZERO chance of hiring anybody in that age group. It'll be easy to identify the FBI undercover guy, he'll be the one with the walker and the gray hair.

Re: Ok, but

[BitZtream]

If you're in America and an American citizen, and you say you smoked pot last week, you've most certainly broken the law. You could be arrested instantly. You've just confessed to a crime.

American law doesn't care if you were in another country where its legal to smoke pot when you did it last week, America still considers that to be an offense and you did break they law. We hold you not just to our own laws when you are hear, but also when you are else where, and you are also held to the laws of the country you are visiting.

If you weren't visiting another country, then you've simply broken federal and possibly state and local laws. Pot is illegal across the nation, state laws do not supersede federal law.

He doesn't need to search your car, you just confessed. If he's got a dash cam in his car or on his person, you've got no hope of lying your way out of it afterwords.

What the hell makes you think you've not broken any law? The cop doesn't have to see you do it for you to be breaking the law, its the act of doing it part that matters from a legal perspective. The getting part caught only matters from a getting punished perspective. Getting or not getting punished does not change your guilt in any way.

How the hell is your post insightful?

Re:Ok, but

[CanEHdian]

From: FBI Field Office
To: Anonymous Coward

Thank you for your report. Rest assured, crimes with a Biden Index of 1.0 will be investigated and prosecuted thoroughly.

P.S. we're hiring! Please send us your resume.

Re: Ok, but

[dj245]

Women aren't looking for a yes/no answer when they ask if their clothes are unflattering. They are trying to open a conversation on the subject of their entire look, including what is working, what is not working, and what elements are working together well, or clashing. They are not looking for you to "kill their question" as efficiently as possible. They are trying to invite detailed discussion and analysis.

Re: Ok, but

[pete6677]

Yeah right. They are looking for only one answer, and if you want to stay married long you had better answer correctly.