Congress Declares War on File Leakers

An anonymous reader submits "Bush is expected to sign a law that essentially makes it a crime punishable by up to three years in jail for a user to put a single 'copy of a film, software program or music file in a shared folder and should have known the copyrighted work had not been commercially released.' Whichever side you're on in the copyright debate, you have to agree this legislation is draconian and excessive, to say the least."

Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[TripMaster Monkey]

Just when we think it can't get any worse, we see this sort of crap:

From the article:

File-swappers who distribute a single copy of a prerelease movie on the Internet can be imprisoned for up to three years.

Nice. Our President lies to us about weapons of mass destruction and drags us into an unjust war that has cost thousands of Americn lives, but I'm the felon.

And look how they got this thing passed...it rode in on the coattails of this:

Also from the article:

The bill's supporters in Congress won passage of the prison terms by gluing them to an unrelated proposal to legalize technologies that delete offensive content from a film. That proposal was designed to address a lawsuit that Hollywood studios and the Directors Guild of America filed against ClearPlay over a DVD player that filtered violent and nude scenes. (ClearPlay had gained influential allies among family groups such as the Parents Television Council and Focus on the Family.)

Honestly, why are we stealing this crap anymore? Especially as the three most popular movies currently are Hitch, The Pacifer, and Be Cool (thanks to www.the-numbers.com)? Why do we waste our time and endanger our freedom?

Well, I say, it's time to stop. Not just stop pirating mainstream movies, but stop watching them altogether. There's plenty of content to be found out there on the Web (AtomFilms [atomfilms.com] and INetFilm [inetfilm.com] come to mind).

Show the RIAA that we are not sheep. Show them that we don't need to see the latest Keanu Reeves travesty. Show them we're tired of their shit. Don't see their movies. Don't pirate their movies. Don't have anything to do with their movies. If enough of us shake off the yoke, it will make a difference.

Can't wait to see...

[daveschroeder]

...how the countless "shared folders" containing "prerelase copyrighted works" on untold numbers of compromised Windows boxes on university campuses will be handled...

We get semi-automated C&D orders from content owners routinely as it is; will they now begin to insist on the involvement of university police or other agencies?

Yeah, there are computer security issues to work out, but on a fundamentally open public research campus with tens of thousands of computers, not all of them will be perfectly protected.

I'm on the wrong side of /. groupthink

[Neil Blender]

And I don't think this is draconian at all.

So if I leave my door open ...

[Monoman]

So if I leave my door open and someone steals "a film, software program or music" then is it the same?

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

And we're modding up a guy that doesn't know the difference between the RIAA and the MPAA, why exactly?

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice. Our President lies to us about weapons of mass destruction and drags us into an unjust war that has cost thousands of Americn lives, but I'm the felon.

Yeah, pretty much. You don't get to go crazy-go-nuts just because you think someone else is a liar and a warmonger.

I think you're a tool, so it's ok for me to duplicate your house keys. Right?

All In the Family

[kevcol]

"Family Entertainment and Copyright Act."

Just write a bill, put 'family' in the title, and it's sure to pass.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[jim_v2000]

"Show the RIAA that we are not sheep. Show them that we don't need to see the latest Keanu Reeves travesty. Show them we're tired of their shit. Don't see their movies. Don't pirate their movies. Don't have anything to do with their movies. If enough of us shake off the yoke, it will make a difference"

I don't know, but how about showing them we're not thieves and stop "sharing" music/movies/software or anything else that we don't have the rights to.

Of course, we have enough laws that should deal with this already without needing a new one, but oh well. Personally I believe that this is a case of only the lawless need fear the law.

Slashdot bias

[LostCluster]

Whichever side you're on in the copyright debate, you have to agree this legislation is draconian and excessive, to say the least."

I'll disagree. You have no right to leak an unrelased movie to the Internet. If you've doing that, you are comitting a crime. This law is just upping the penalties for a crime that's being comitted far too often.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[Soporific]

Rapists can get less time than this...

~S

Please don't tell me you're shocked...

[Ransak]

With $ [opensecrets.org] like this running our Whitehouse, Senate, etc. no one should be suprised. This is purchased legislation much like what is done in some third world countries. Freedom isn't free - it requires a large donation.

Re:Draconian?

[TheFlyingGoat]

Additionally, keep in mind it's a 3 year maximum penalty. As most crimes go, prosecutors will often push for the maximum and then accept far less in a plea bargain.

A good example is possession of a concealed weapon. In Wisconsin it's illegal to do so, but a man recently used a concealed weapon to protect himself from some guys trying to rob him. Although he was breaking the law, the district attorney didn't even press charges. Based on the law he COULD have gotten prison time, but it was never even considered.

The maximum penalty for any law exists for the most extreme violators of that particular law. Just like the death penalty, it's not applied to every situation, just the extreme cases.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[lgw]

Bush-bashing aside, you make a good point. If you absolutely *have* to have a copy of that DVD (or CD), buy it used. If you can't stand to live without it, that's a valid option. Otherwise, why even pirate this crap?

How many people feel that George Lucas raped their childood memories, yet will line up to hand him money?

Of course, if this trend continues, there will be less jail time for shooting an MPAA executive in the face than for leaking a screener, and the fall-out from *that* should be entertaining.

Phenomenal!!!!

[cOdEgUru]

Am glad that 14 year old pimple faced - living in the basement - testosterone pumped teenagers are finally owning up to their evil rebellion against the all encompassing entity which is the Movie Industry. Because they clearly have struck a significant blow AND crippled the dying movie industry by rapidly proliferating Gigabytes of digital movie files costing the Producers millions in revenue that they otherwise would have gotten for the spectacular blockbuster family entertainment movies that they consistently bring to the Silver screen. And I sure dont shed a tear for my evil brethren who run the risk of starving every Movie Industry bigwig's ivy league sons and daughters, with blatant disregard for their needs to live better than us souls.

Whats even more Phenomenal is the ability of Family and Faith based groups who rightly believe that they have a god given right to eliminate filth from the minds of us and to drive our youth to the purest form of abstinence and away from depravity. And their inability to comprehend the meaning of an "Off" switch.

Heres a thought. If buying a DVD does not necessarily provide me with the fair use rights to strip out its content and modify/store it to my needs, how does that provide Clearplay with the right to filter out what they deem filthy?

And did anyone notice the name of the Bill - Family Entertainment and Copyright. with names like that, who would want to not pass it.. Save the KIDS!!

And then MPAA had to go out and sneak this one in, like both parties are always notorious for. Sneak something in which would not have stood alone in its own right. Sneak it in and drive it in before we have a chance to respond..

The whole damn K Street is the first one that needs to be cleansed.

Re:Draconian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Great. Someone sneaks out Star Wars episode III and spoils all the secrets, they get 3 years of prison time along side the pedophiles, murderers, drug pushers, drug users, con artists (wait, scratch that... so far CEOs seem to be escaping prison terms unless someone wants to make an example of you), many of whom will have a shorter "first-offence" prison term.

Clearly in the grand scheme of things 3 years og good ol' pound-me-in-the-ass prison sounds like the perfect punishment for letting everyone know that The Revenge of the Sith sucked ass and saving them from throwing away their money.

Re:Draconian

[barthrh2]

How do you get to "one" ticket? Take Mac OSX as an example: How many 1000's of copies were downloaded? As a downloader, the cost of the crime is $8. But as the poster, the cost is far, far, more than that.

The term is a "maximum" not an absolute. You need something sufficiently severe to nail repeat offenders. The current approach of just saying that "If you do that, we will be angry. Very, very angry" is simply not effective in deterring this crime.

Re:To avert a flamewar...

[DurendalMac]

The RIAA/MPAA doesn't give a damn what the political parties are, and neither do the politicians. They'll buy out anyone in Washington that can be bought (ie, everyone). This crap is always co-sponsored by Dems and Repubs. Aint bipartisianship grand?

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

Wait. We're "stealing" this crap? You dismiss the **AA's techniques, actions and beliefs, but use their terminology? No one is stealing anything, contrary to popular belief.

I'm sorry, but the stuff on AtomFilms and so on are not on the par of quality movies like Merchant of Venice. Sure, there's a ton of crap released by Hollywood annually, and people ignore that anyway, because it is crap. But online movie content is no replacement for a good movie.

The fact remains that many people would go to the cinemas if they weren't that pricey and anally-retentive about food and so on. And don't get me started on cell phones.

In any case, if we were sheep, we wouldn't be "stealing".

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[jim_v2000]

Rapists can get less time than this...

Then maybe rapists should get more time.

Tips for File Sharing

[rastin]

Make sure you fraudulently embezzle millions of dollars prior to sharing that song/movie/prog, that way you can pay for court costs. Also embezzling millions doesn't carry nearly the same penalty as file sharing so the courts may over look it in an effort to get a conviction on the Big Crime!

Trafficking in Stolen Goods

[Mr. Ghost]

If they knowingly attempt to distribute a film or other media that has not yet been released then they are knowingly trafficking in stolen goods.

I do not see the problem with this. The person attempting to share this does not have fair use rights on the product as they do not have the right to be in possession of the product in the first place.

If the product has already been released then this would be an inappropriate and draconian law as fair use right and all would then come into play.

The paper clip!

[mindaktiviti]

"The bill's supporters in Congress won passage of the prison terms by gluing them to an unrelated proposal to legalize technologies that delete offensive content from a film."

Someone should pass a bill that makes this sort of act illegal. That Simpsons episode where they go to Washington comes to mind. Behold the paper clip!

Great...

[Greyfox]

How about making it a crime punishable by prison for a company to collect or disclose information that could be used to steal a person's identity. Or for a company that fails to take adequate steps to protect that information if they do collect it?

Re:So if I leave my door open ...

[angle_slam]

There is a difference between "leaving your door open" which results in someone stealing your copy of Half Life 2 and putting a CD duplicator in your room and allowing everyone in the world the ability to go into your room and copy it.

Re:Draconian

[spav]

Yes...we must put the fileswappers and spammers in jail for eternity, but we can let out the sex offenders and murderers out early because of jail overcrowding. Considering two highly publicized killings happened by registered sex offenders in Florida recently, I think putting more people in jail for stupid stuff like this is a great idea!

Re:Draconian?

[Vellmont]

Why? The damages are greater to the copywrite holder.


Three years minimum in jail worse? The most popular and largest money making films have been leaked before the theatrical release. Are you really trying to tell me that it had any real effect on these films financially? If anything it probbably only increased the hype. Three years in jail minimum to me would be more akin to costing a film company millions of dollars.

Even that dumb kid who released a variant of the Blaster worm only got 18 months. Are you really saying that releasing a crappy quality rip of a movie before its released to theatres does more damage than a major internet worm?

Re:Draconian

[Bandit0013]

Spam actively hogs a very large % of the world's available bandwidth. That bandwidth does not come free to providers. Toss in the countless hours businesses spend fighting spam and filtering it out and you have a crapload of money wasted because of spammers.

So yes, I think 25 years for prolific spammers is just fine given the amount of potential damage they cause.

As for 3 years being draconian? Not hardly. Pre-releasing a cut of a film means cutting into the box office sales. It's not the theft of "one $8.00 movie ticket", it is the theft of a movie ticket for every person that downloads the film and decides not to go see it after all. If I recall, felony theft is over $1000, so only 125 people need to download the film and not go see the movie in the theater and suddenly it's the equivalent of knocking over a gas station.

Re:Draconian

[Blitzenn]

The article state 'a single copy' The penalties apply if one copy is shared once. That's how it is written. There is no scale on the penalties, it's up to the judge, and we read everyday how that turns out once one of them gets their underwear in a wad. Sure you can exceed that, but in your example you will stand trial for 1000 counts of the same crime. Yes, the bill is written that way. So you could potentially spend 3000 years in jail under your scenario. Think about it.

Re:Draconian?

[garcia]

I'm sorry but I really feel that Congress should be spending time protecting flesh and blood people rather than paper created "persons".

Plenty of flesh and blood people are getting fucked over by many other issues and losing a lot more money than if a company loses some possible revenue from a movie released ahead of time.

When my insurance rates go down and my prescription medicines no longer cost as much as they do then I feel Congress is free to explore some other avenues.

I pay their salary too.

What about the money??

[John Seminal]

Bush is expected to sign a law that essentially makes it a crime punishable by up to three years in jail for a user to put a single 'copy of a film, software program or music file in a shared folder and should have known the copyrighted work had not been commercially released

I see 2 major problems with this law.

• It costs over $20,000 a year to keep someone in jail. That is over $60,000 for three years of jail time, that is alot of money for Mr. Taxpayer.
• Did Congress pass this law because it is a reasonable law, or did Congress pass this law because of lobbyists and to repay those who contributed to their campaign?

But this law is not going after someone just sharing. It seems to be going after those who share a movie, before it is released to the theaters.

Still, I wonder if this law is excessive. I would not be as troubled if I did not believe this law was passed for lobbyists, not for the public benifit. The only way to stop laws like this is for massive capmaign finance reform. Until then, groups like the RIAA will own members of Congress.

To play devil's advocate...

[jfengel]

I'm not convinced that it's excessive.

Comparison to other laws and punishments is not helpful. The legal system isn't coherent and just because a punishment is out of line with other punishments doesn't make this one excessive; it could just as easily be that some others are too lenient. You can easily find other even more egregious examples, especially in the case of drug laws. (Some terribly high percentage of prisoners is in for simple marijuana possession if urban legend is to be believed.)

Part of the reason is that punishment serves many different purposes: rehabilitation, restitution, vengeance, deterrence. Any punishment is a mixture, depending on what they want to accomplish. Deterrence is particularly strong in this case: they're going to able to track down very few offenders, so they "amortize" the punitive aspect to try to scare others off.

There's also the notion that the punishment should fit the damage done. Arguably, the damage done by sharing movies and CDs is very high. If 1% of the people who downloaded a movie would have bought it, that can easily be 10,000 people. If the studio nets ten bucks on each sale, that's $100,000 in damage. (I don't care if you wish to call the crime "infringement" or "theft" or "piracy"; I'm trying to figure out economic losses. And unless you have some hard numbers for your argument that the studios are benefitting from your free advertising, please start a different thread.)

Such a crime would be "grand theft" if it were theft, and three years is not an unusual punishment for the crime of grand theft. As I said, it may not be classified as theft, but it's a case where damage is arguably done, and done to the tune of a whole bunch of money.

As the title suggests, I'm just playing devil's advoctate here. The criminals at Enron will get only slightly more jail time for the far greater, far more concrete damage they did. Compared to that tracking down file sharers is an immense waste of time, money, and jail space. I'm just not a fan of the common Slashdot "if it's not nailed down it's mine, and if I can break the copy protection it's not nailed down" argument, and we'll see how many of those respond before I get modded to negative infinity.

Infringement

[Travelsonic]

Stop stealing movies, loser.

What has been stolen? I though a copy was made.

Can you prove what you just said?

[FunWithHeadlines]

"Why? The damages are greater to the copywrite [sic] holder."

What supporting evidence do you have to make such a statement? What makes you think that the number of people who see the unreleased film and decide to not go to the theater is greater than the number of people who look to download the unreleased film because they cannot wait to see it in the theater -- and then they do go to the theater to see it on the big screen?

Um...

[davmoo]

Whichever side you're on in the copyright debate, you have to agree this legislation is draconian and excessive, to say the least.

No I don't have to agree with you. And in fact, I don't.

Now, could we have a little more reporting of the news, and a lot less fucking editorialization? If I want a slant on things, I'd watch network news.

Talk about class warfare

[Xabraxas]

This just shows how powerful corporations have become. Somehow the governemnt can justify throwing a file sharer in jail for three years because they might have cut into some corporations profits while crooked CEOs who steal millions and destroy the life and livelihood of thousands walk free or with a slap on the wrist. Every day the class divisions are becoming more apparent in this country.

Re:Draconian?

[Phexro]

Alternately, you could argue that since the work isn't available for sale at all, you aren't costing them a dime.

This could also completely stifle online trading of bootlegs (I'm referring to fan-made live concert recordings). Since most of these are never released (if they're recorded in the first place), almost any bootleg would be a "prerelease." The label could theoretically sue someone for distributing a bootleg, seize the copy (and rights to it) in lieu of that $250,000 fine, and sell the work at a profit while the fan sits in jail.

Or consider this: If I download a TV show which is only broadcast overseas (or broadcast overseas before broadcast locally) with BitTorrent, I'm also guilty according to this law. Even though the show would be broadcast for free if/when it does come to my area.

Yes, this seems draconian and excessive to me.

Prereleases are the free market at work- if there's demand, a supply will appear. The movie studios and record labels work up a huge public demand for their works, then act all surprised when an illicit supply appears.

See your future now! Only 15 cents!

[Anonymous Coward]

"draconian and excessive"

If people had actually read "Mein Kampf" they would have seen the future Germany; it was all there. But it was just so damn boring nobody paid attention.

Think about that the next time you hear our President or the likes of Mr. Delay or Mr. Kennedy drone on in flag-waving political doublespeak.

fact: sometimes the law is stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

for example, the other day I was riding my bicycle downtown while listening to music with my headphones on, which is illegal to do.

mind you, i didn't have the volume turned all the way to 11, and i could hear perfectly well the sound of a car coming up behind me. cuz as everyone knows, car traffic is pretty loud.

but i did get a "stern warning" from a police officer.

he didn't care too much about my arguments that deaf people can still ride a bike, or that people in cars with a N gigawatts stereo system will hear even less, or that not wearing headphones wont stop a careless driver from smashing me to bits.

the law is the law is the law.

*rolls eyes backwards*

Re:Draconian?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well it is a bit draconian, but any punishment past a slap on the wrist and a Don't Do That Again would muster the Draconian stance by Slashdot standards.

6 months in jail? I could see that. 3 years? Thats a bit long. Its more than what is legally necessary and obviously put in their by big media (some of whom help me pay my bills, so I'm not going to slam them too much...most of the execs I've talked with really do think this is a horrible problem and don't understand the nature of this).

I know I have a copy of the latest Fionna Apple CD that Sony / Epic refuses to put out. Maybe the means that I got it would fall into the distribution standards of the law. But beyond that, I really don't have anything that was pre-released that wasn't given to me by the content owner...and if I were to release any of the stuff my friends have given me, I'd expect them to want to see me locked away as well.

One of the legitimate prereleases I have gotten over the last few years had been recorded for some time and was awaiting the outcome of a bidding war before it could be released. That release ended up with a Grammy nod and sold pretty well. If I would have released it in the year I had it until it came out, I could have killed its chances of being nominated (simply because the rules kinda woulda excluded it if it were available the previous year even via illegal download and thus sales would have been hurt because of the lack of attention in the awards area -- ya always see a bump in sales after these are announced).

So is it draconian? A bit. But its not draconian to note that anyone that distributes content that they have no permission to do so should do some time. Intellectual properties are not figments of our immagination, but constructs of todays realities. Just because you can copy byte by byte and have a perfect reproduction does not invalidate the ideal that the original creation cost time and money by its creator with the expectation that it might be beneficial down the road.

---

I had written more, but fuck it...this is slashdot and my arguements would be better done with a wall as there might actually be someone on the other side that understands this debate past Information Wunts To Be Fuuhreeee...you fuckers make NRA supporters look to be common citizens.

Re:Question

[Lapsed Catholic]

I can't wait for CD prices to go down once this bill passes and piracy is stamped out. The corporate world is dying to pass savings on to us, but they just need a little help from the legislature.

Now that Bush has signed the bankruptcy bill, [washingtonpost.com] people abusing bankruptcy won't be costing me $400 personally and once that $400 savings is passed on to me from my credit card issuer I'm going to go out and buy a ton of CDs. And no, I'm not going to share them with you! Heh heh heh. Jesus himself said it's easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than it is for a copyright infringer to get into heaven.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[tonyr60]

And so will file leakers, if the law is signed off as is. The 3 years is a MAX. This forum sounds like it expects it to be applied 100% of the time, which is clearly stupid...

Oh, sorry, forgot where I was...

The Original Impetus

[Mr.Progressive]

An earlier version was drafted in response to footage of "Star Wars: Episode II," "Tomb Raider" and "The Hulk," reportedly surfacing on peer-to-peer networks before their theatrical release. A few months earlier, the major studios had halted their normal practice of sending DVD "screeners" to Academy Award judges.

Heh. Funny how the bill was originally created in reponse to the premature distribution of three of the suckiest movies of all time. I'm sure seeing those movies beforehand allowed lots of folks to avoid wasting money on a theatre ticket (or DVD rental).

Win some, Lose some

[AnalogDiehard]

The Family Entertainment and Copyright act also legalized the tools and the practice of removing offensive scenes from DVDs, scoring a victory for services like ClearPlay and for family/religious organizations. Expect to see tools like ClearPlay embedded in DVD players in the future.

The act doesn't criminalize the act of filesharing, it criminalizes the act of uploading copyrighted media before it is released. Big difference. I believe in P2P but pirating a movie/CD days before it is released is crossing the line.

Anime, unreleased foreign items?

[MykeBNY]

I wonder what effect this legislation will have on things like anime, where a company may secure commercial rights to distribute something in the United States, but then choose not to. From what I understand, fan-made subtitles of recordings are still in a gray area, where potential consumers *want* to buy the product, but cannot, and so share it amongst themselves at no profit instead. Many fansub groups even refuse to work on films and TV shows that are commercially available in English.

Not only anime, but any other type of product not released in the US by choice.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Our President lies to us about weapons of mass destruction
>...if you believe that, then you must also realize that John Kerry, John Edwards, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Hillary(sic) Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Dick Gephardt, and many other liberals all lied about weapons of mass destruction too.

No, they were lied to, just like the rest of the world.

You should be proud of "Non-Stick" Bush, whose motto is: Ain't no buck never even gonna stop in the same dang building as my desk.

Doesn't the existing law work well enough?

[riptide_dot]

From the article:

If signed into law, as expected, the bill would significantly lower the bar for online copyright prosecutions. Current law sanctions criminal penalties of up to three years in prison for "the reproduction or distribution of 10 or more copies or phonorecords of one or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of $2,500 or more."

Isn't it enough for the xxAA to be able to use an argument similar to "it caused us more than $2,500 in damages" in order to levy the heavier penalties on people they want to prosecute? I wouldn't think that $2,500 in damages would be all that hard to prove for a leaked pre-release film or CD...

It seems to me that all this bill does is lower the bar on what is considered a felony for distribution (which was formerly 10 copies or $2,500 in worth).

So this just makes it WAY easier for the xxAA industries to go after people, as their burden of proof is just about nonexistant. All they have to prove to prosecute someone successfully now is that the media in question was in fact "pre-release". They don't even have to prove that is was actually ever downloaded...

Re:Well, shit.

[Keamos]

Holy shit, as being from Connecticut, I love you for mentioning this. It's complete and utter bullshit that Rowland can get away with raceteering, but if I were to go do it, I'd likely get the maximum (twenty years). It's bullshit, and I wouldn't doubt 95% of people from Connecticut would agree.

Re:Draconian?

[kin_korn_karn]

BTW, if you are convicted of a Felony, you forfit your right to vote. Gee, how fitting.

Makes it really easy to get rid of voting by making everyone a felon. Like voting matters, anyway.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[Martin Blank]

In California, shoplifting of anything under $400 value is a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of at least $50 but no more than $1000, six months in county jail, or both.

In addition, a merchant may be entitled to compensatory damages if the merchandise is not returned in sellable condition, plus compensatory damages of up to $500.

California Penal Code, Sections 490, 490.1, and 490.5 [ca.gov]

However, if someone stole enough copies to pass out to random people on the street, the theft could rise into grand theft, which is a felony, and is punishable by a minimum of one year in county jail, or longer term in state prison.

Re:What is "commercial release"

[dougmc]

In your analogy, sharing a screen-capped Futurama ep. should be legal,

No. It's illegal already, and would remain illegal. It just shouldn't be subject to the new enhanced penalties.

since it was released to the public for consumption. A pre-release RIP of that shows DVD would be a violation. It's not that hard once you remove an overly emotional response and think about it, dude.

The jobs of judges and juries is not to think about it, dude -- their job is to enforce the law as written. What matters is exactly how the law is written here, if it does become law. (Which it sounds like it will.)

No, I'm not a lawyer. I haven't read the legislation either. However, there is certainly room for the grandparent post's concern to be valid.

Going back to Futurama. Suppose Fox (or whomever owns it now) decided that they would put Futurama out for download six months after it was shown on TV. (The Sci-Fi network did put Battlestar Galactica's first episode online, after all. It's not a total stretch.) But somebody watched it on TV, and saved it to their computer, and put that on the Internet. If the product is `Futurama for download', then the person just made it available before release. It really depends on exactly how the law is written.

Another possiblity would be if they took Futurama episodes and saved them to their computer, and then made .iso files for burning to DVD, and put those online. If they did this before the DVD was available with those episodes, it's possible they could get nailed with this new law -- again, it depends on exactly how the law is written.

And laws aren't always used to go after the people that the laws were originally written to go after. It would be extremely naive to assume that this law was somehow different.

And to the Mods about to assign this post to the Troll-bin - Karma be damned.

I don't think your post was a troll. A bit shortsighted, perhaps, but not a troll.

I've almost had it with this place.

Have you considered that maybe the problem isn't with this place, but with your expectations of this place? This place attracts a certain sort of people, and often people of a certain type think similarly. I realize that you're trying to be insulting with your `groupthink mode', but in reality the moderation was probably done by a few people who honestly felt that the post was a troll (could just be one person too) rather than people who `shared a brain'.

Re:Draconian? (MOD PARENT UP)

[trurl7]

You bring up an *excellent* point. The release abroad and bittorrent...are you, perchance, referring to fansubbed anime?

Whichever case, I think you may be right. It makes sense on the technical side (released before the official release). This could possibly spell the end of fansubs.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

No - without government intervention, there is no protection of intellectual property in the first place.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[kirun]

Yes, but you have to compare three years to the seriousness of the offence, and sentences for other offences.

Do people who steal actual property which causes a real, measurable loss, and real upset to the victims get significantly higher sentences?

Re:Draconian?

[ajs]

"I'm sorry but I really feel that Congress should be spending time protecting flesh and blood people rather than paper created "persons"."

I respectfully disagree. Congress should be spending its time boning up on new weapons, threats to the world, trade issues, technologies, and generally just learning what's going on around them.

There is a sense that I've gotten from a great deal of feedback like yours in the last 5-10 years, that Congress should be doing different things, but can you imagine how much better off as a nation we (sorry, intl. readers) would be if congress would just do fewer, more informed things?

Typical straw man...

[Spy der Mann]

(not that) Innocent guy gets convicted, while mass-murderer-or-worse gets free.

Yeah, so? That doesn't speak in favor of the guy who shares files. It speaks against the people who allowed the mass-murderer-or-worse to get free.

If you consider that the penalties for file sharing are unfair, SAY SO, but don't compare with the evil guy etc etc.
If you consider that it is your right to share files because you're protesting against the RIAA monopoly who's feeding on our taxes, then say so.

But don't mix things, please. Just as there have been rapists and murderers fred, there have been those who are convicted.

One thing has NOTHING TO DO with the other.

Oh Canada!

[DarthVain]

Well I guess its a good thing that more and more movies are being made/shot in Canada these days. w00t! Let the bit torrents begin!

Seriously how is this stupid US law going to translate in the real world.

Lets say for example that some movie is made in Canada, by a US Producer. Lets also say that they send a copy to an animation server farm down in New Zealand (I think Peter Jackson has such a facility down there).

If the movie is leaked from Canada onto the web, is the law enforceable?

If the movie is leaked from New Zealand onto the web, is the law enforcable?

In either case probably not. In which case the law really only exists for two purposes. One is to stop people in the US, from doing leaks. Two is to keep the Movie industry centeralized in the US market.

Lets face it all this is, is a way that the US can promote their industry without having to compete. Usual scare tatics. How much money do you think these corporations REALLY lose due to this leakage. How much PR do they get from it (unless their movie sucks balls I suppose)...

Anyway it seems I have entered into the tinfoil hat territory, and they are probably watching so I am out of here!

DarthVain

Re:I see "draconian" a lot in the comments

[BarryNorton]

I see folks calling this proposal "draconian." It sounds to me, and I did NOT RTFA as of this post, that a max. 3 year sentence is not so much OVERKILL and DRACONIAN as it is a DETERRANT to those who might think about violating the law.

Much like, I believe, the death penalty is a deterrent in your country - no murders and hence no executions... right?

Re:Draconian?

[stlhawkeye]

When my insurance rates go down and my prescription medicines no longer cost as much as they do then I feel Congress is free to explore some other avenues.

You don't have a right to cheap insurance and drugs. However, private property rights are well-established. I don't like crap laws like this either, but your comparison is naive.

Somebody's rights are clearly being violated when people download software, music, and movies illegally.

Your rights are not being violated because your insurance and drugs are expensive.

There are plenty of rights violations of individuals going on, so your point about the little guy getting bashed over the head while laws are being enacted to protect big business stands, but your examples are poor, and I wanted to make a distinction between protecting rights and stuff costing too much.

Submitter assumes too much

[helix400]

You have to agree this legislation is draconian and excessive, to say the least."

No I don't agree with you.

Re:Infringement

[Travelsonic]

Sneak into a theater, you are stealing admission.

No, you are trsspassing.

Make an illegal copy of something you don't own, you are stealing the content.

No, you are COPYING ILLEGALLY. The crime is copyright infringement. http://slashdot.org/~Travelsonic/journal/ read this, and my viewpoint may become clearer, but when you copy something, that is what it is, copying. You don't call murder rape, do you?

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[HappyDrgn]

Future generations will revile us for it.

Because they can't distribute that new boyband CD? It's one thing to make a copy of a CD for your MP3 player... it's another to bootleg a copyrighted work and distribute it over your high-speed campus internet connection.

I'm not so sure this is draconian

[indros13]

This law specifically addresses issues such as company employees putting beta programs or films on the net prior to their commercial release. Sharing it was already wrong and the potential damage is substantially more than the cost of a movie ticket, since there is no commercial alternative.

It's one thing to make your l33t protest about poor commercial models by pirating music and movies. It's another thing to pirate something before the company even has a chance to provide a commercial alternative.

I'm no fan of Bush, ridiculously long copyrights, or the commercially available music and movie distribution system, but I think the punishment here actually fits the crime.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[rpresser]

Attention cerebrectomized poster: I'd rather just continue to download the free content meant exactly what it said: he'd rather stick with content that is free, unencumbered by copyright. Despite your scorn, such content does exist.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[MBGMorden]

By the same token though Libertarianism would not condone Government intervention to PREVENT copyright enforcement either. As a matter of fact if the government didn't approve of copyright and declared it null and void, the RIAA and MPAA couldn't do squat about people sharing media.

Property rights vs Copyright

[Pfhorrest]

United States law recognizes no universal right to limit the distribution of information. (Rights like "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness", or those enumerated in the Bill of Rights; though it's important to note that when the constitution was framed, many opposed specifically enumerating any rights in the Bill of Rights because it was considered that everybody naturally had the right to do ANYTHING unless specifically disallowed, and enumerating them could lead people to limit themselves to JUST those rights).

Despite its poor name, "copyright" laws grant a limited exclusive PRIVILEGE to copy information. In other words, they are restricting the natural way of things in hopes of achieving some greater good. (Anyone can copy anything, naturally, as per the assumed right to do whatever you like unless otherwise limited; copyright law is the limit, not the right).

Infringing on copyright law is *not theft*. You have not deprived the original owner of any property, and thus have violated no property rights. You have infringed on a law, sure, but that law is not based on any universal right.

Given that, you're right that there's no right to cheap drugs or insurance either. Which just puts these two issues on the same footing: trying to regulate a naturally unregulated system in order to achieve some greater good. No natural rights violations are being violated in either case.

I believe the GP poster was merely expressing his disdain that things are being regulated in favor of the corporations, instead of in favor of the people.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Somewhat wrong. It is the XXAAs that are using the government to further their special interests. They are hijacking the laws and the courts in order to enforce their prejudices on the people. Their action couldn't be further from what Libertarianism means.

Re:Not Excessive, Not Harsh

[a whoabot]

Sounds like the corporations at hand just got smart and outsourced their legal work to the Department of Justice. Now taxpayers pay the millions in lawyers' fees instead.

Punishing copyright infringers works just fine with civil suits. The content industry just found another way to take money from your pocket and put it in their's.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[MBGMorden]

They'd also no longer receive any royalties on his works themselves. Once the copywright was expired ANYONE could publish the book. We could have free PDF's of it available on every file swapping system on the planet. And that is the way it should be. After a short time the media should pass back on to the public. Novels like the Wizard of OZ, Dracula, etc. have all become public domain now. As they should be. By now long after the death of Tolkein and Herbert classics such as Lord of the Rings and Dune are still copyrighted. This is unfair.

Adapted from Dune:
"This is the bond of knowledge. We know the rites. A man's flesh is his own; the knowledge belongs to the tribe."

Not draconian

[Anonymous Coward]

Whichever side you're on in the copyright debate, you have to agree this legislation is draconian and excessive, to say the least

Actually, no. Firstly, anyone who does this is a real dick. Who do you think you are to release a movie ahead of the people who actually worked on it? I have no sympathy. Secondly, the government has to send a message that you can't just do this kind of thing and get away with it. There has to be a cost to breaking the law. You're taking a project worth hundreds of millions of dollars and pissing about with it. That's not right. Three years in jail versus one hundred million dollars is actually pretty lenient.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

The purpose of copyright was to ensure the creator was compensated for his work, not the family, the neighbors and everyone else.

Re:Draconian?

[barawn]

However, private property rights are well-established. I don't like crap laws like this either, but your comparison is naive.

Actually, it's quite apt. It's not private property rights we're talking about here. It's copyright. Copyright exists for a reason in the constitution.

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries

So the Constitution says "yes, Congress is allowed to give authors exclusivity to their original works for a limited time, and allow them to control who has access to it, to promote the progress of science and useful arts."

How, precisely, is it "promoting the progress of science and useful arts" to have copyright extended indefinitely? Note also that it says "authors" - not "decendants of authors" or "corporations of which the author is affiliated."

The Constitution spells out very clearly that the reason for copyright is to promote science and the arts.

Do I have a right to copyrighted works? Yes, once protecting them has stopped advancing arts and science, they should no longer fall under Congress's ability to legislate. And if someone can explain to me how protecting "Steamboat Willie" advances the arts, I'd love to hear it. It advances Disney's economic interests, but it surely diminishes the artistic community as a whole to have everything slowly fall under perpetual copyright.

So yes, too much protection is being given to pieces of paper - copyrighted works. They're supposed to fall into the public domain. I have a right to use those works once they've stopped "promoting the Progress of Science and useful Arts", and that right is being slowly eroded.

The medicine argument would be even more apt if we were talking about patents, but we're not, so I won't go there.

Re:Draconian?

[dark_requiem]

We're ignoring the big issue here. Namely, copyright infringment should be a civil matter with all the financial penalties that implies. By enacting these silly laws, we are criminalizing what should be a civil matter, i.e. the financial damages resulting from the infringement.

I do agree with a previous poster that we should do away with copyright laws, but for different reasons entirely. The individuals or groups that currently hold copyrights should be responsible for enforcing their intellectual property privately (for example, licensing agreements, terms of use, etc., all of which it could enforce via civil court or private arbitration), rather than fostering a rampant and parasitical bureaucracy. If you put a license agreement on the media you distribute, and the purchaser then violates that agreement, they are liable for resulting damages. It's just another example of another unnecessary function being performed by the state at the expense of the liberty of the victims (taxpayers).

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[account_deleted]

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You are a bloody fool

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it *is* a deterrent. They have murders, but how many more casual murders would there be if the punishment for the crime was not potentially so severe? Yes, there's honest debate over whether captial punishment is really any more effective than just life without parole, but that's another can of worms.

The US has a good number of murders because they have a lot of unfortunately have a lot of riff-raff with self-destructive cultures that lead to a lack of respect for human life. Punishment potential loses its deterrence value with people self-mongrelized to the point where they don;t really care if they get put away for life or executed.

Another problem is that even if a death sentence is handed down, it takes decades of appeals to actually carry out the sentence.

In other words, your staement was a childish, ignorant oversimplification of the situation, and you really should just shut the hell up before you embarass yourself any further.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[Metapsyborg]

Protection of intellectual property is not something that the government created for the benefit of corporations, it was created for the benefit of the artist that created the work. Allowing corporations freedom to do what they want (the "free market" that is so central to libertarianism) is what created a system where corporations can be considered entities in favorable cases, but not living entities in unfavorable cases (how many "corporations" are put in prison?). Thus, these corporations (record labels) can own a copyright on something (that they didn't even create). This leads to the natural occurance of the corporation (a for-profit "entity") trying to prolong its hold on the material (thereby creating more profit).

Free market is what allowed/will allow corporations the power to do what they want, including spewing tons of pollution into the environment (which would only increase with de-regulation), enforcing censorship (walmart), utilizing sweatshops, and abusing a protection put in place for individual people's property rights (copyright).

What's happening to America?

[payndz]

The US used to be (generally) respected and aspired to by people in other countries. Now, it's more often mocked and feared (in a disbelieving, "these people are fucking batshit crazy!" way), often at the same time. I don't see that as an improvement.

And the saying goes that what happens in the US now will happen in Britain five years later. Boy, 2010 is going to fucking suck.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[nkuzmik]

Personally I believe that this is a case of only the lawless need fear the law.

And what about the clueless? I can name five Windows users who couldn't tell you if they had anything in a shared folder or not under threat of torture, and I can do that buy reading the first five names in my PDA!

I would have hoped that the failure of mandatory minimums for crack possesion have shown us that mandatory minimums aren't the solution.

My big concern is that there are many people with legitamite reasons for having a copy of something, but are technolgical quakers being punished by this law.

And while it's on my mind, does the text of the bill have a clear definition of "shared?" Or are people going to prosecuted for not taking sufficient steps to secure their system?

UK penalties

[Colin Smith]

Up to 10 years in prison for copyright infringment but only 2 years in prison for interfering with the democratic process.

That says it right there. Copyright is far more important than democracy.

3 years "not so bad"

[trurl7]

To all of you who are writing things along the lines of "it's just 3 years, doesn't seem so bad, considering the heinous crime", something to tell you:

unless you've personally done 3 years, or, in fact, any time, kindly STFU. I have not served any time, so I can not speak from experience on how bad it is. All I know are witness accounts.

After 3 years in jail, your life is over. Period. You are permanently unemployable (no one wants to hire an ex-con). You are facing a choice of flipping burgers for the rest of your life, or becoming a hard-core criminal. You can never vote again (as an ex-felon, anyone with >1 jail time). Your psyche will be permanently altered, and most likely destroyed. You will be abused by whoever happens to be bored. If you resist, you will get beaten and then abused. And by abused I mean serially raped anally and orally. All of your conceptions of decency, honesty, and goodwill of all men will get crushed. Your personality may potentially survive somewhat intact if 1) you are phenomenally, exceptionally strong inside, and 2) you don't turn into a raving maniac as a self-defense mechanism. The chances of surviving as something close to your former self - almost 0. You will leave prison a burned-out husk, a grey shadow of your former self. Don't let the kindly, heartwarming prison movies fool you. You will turn into the most dreaded image of yourself, a living, breathing zombie that's totally dead inside. That's the good case. The bad case is you'll become a hardened criminal with no regard for human life, and will spend the rest of your pathetic existence taking advantage of normal people as a means of psychological revenge.

I base my comments on descriptions of prison life both in the US and the former USSR, as written by inmates who have survived.

So, this debate is essentially the following: is sharing a movie worth destroying a person's life? It is contended that their actions result in financial loss for some company. The exact amount, or even the fact of loss is *highly* questionable, and is disputed. Is the action of sharing a movie sufficiently grave that we see it fit to strip the offender of their humanity as punishment? What this law contends is that someone who infringes on a copyright has rejected the social contract to the same extent as, say, a rapist, a child molesterer or a murderer. 3 or 10 isn't relevant, guys. The person's just as dead either way. Longer sentences are a means of 1) isolation, or 2) giving the inmate more of a chance to become a hardened criminal. So the question stands: is the loss of corporate profit a grave enough offence to remove someone's humanity?

The answer is left as an exercise for the reader.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[|/|/|||]

The contract negotiated between the author and the filmmaker doesn't expire just because the copyright does. In order to get the rights to make a movie of the material while it's still copyrighted, the film studio might agree to pay royalties to the author's estate forever - in which case they don't benefit from the author's death. I guess they might kill off the author so they can adapt a screenplay and make a movie after the copyright expires, but you just can't make laws to prevent conspiracies that are that involved. It's silly.

All that said, I'm not sure that "5 years after author's death" is the best choice. Just because you create a creative work doesn't guarantee you profits for life. You want income, you need to keep producing. How about 20 years from the date of publication? I think that's pretty generous.

Re:Slashdot bias

[salemnic]

Have to disagree with you here. It is not illegal to do so (until this bill is law), it is only actionable. Before now, no jail time, only a lawsuit. After now, jail time.

s

soon as I stop clicking on spam

[downsize]

is when I'll stop handing over my money to entertainment corporations and giving up my constitutional rights to the corporation

it is quite obviously that we will never stop the likes of RIAA and MPAA greasing up the government when 95% of the people we know devote 1/3 of their income to these corporations - not too mention clueless (perhaps do not care) about their rights, as long as they can wait out in front of a shitty, piss-stenched, soda-sticky, overpriced movie theater listening to their latest $20, 10 song, commercialized-so-now-its-their-favorite music group cd.

pre-released sig coming soon on soundtrack and DVD (while you get 5 years + $500,000 fine):
if you clicked/viewed this you can be sentenced up to 3 years in prison since you are on windows and all hard drives are IPC shared, and it was downloaded to your shared temp internet folder

pre-released sig (2 years or $1,000,000 bond):
going to the movies? I'll bring my 4 cell phones

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[prophasi]

Libertarianism isn't about the "non-intervention" of government -- it's about a minimal government that, like any other government, should intervene in any activity that countermands its laws.

"That means that the government doesn't interfere with what companies want to do"

False. In the case of ANY libertarian ideal, contract law is a central tenet and must be enforced. The amazing thing is that, in the absence of overbearing bureaucracy, people tend to self-organize rather well and write (and sign) good contracts. A sale of stock in a corporation has an accompanying contract (dividends, transfer rights, board membership, etc.); if you're buying stock, look for one that requires the company's board to fully disclose its quarterly numbers. And its officers' stock holdings. And so on. If you don't do that, guess what -- take some personal responsibility and think about learning how to invest in a company before buying stock.

And what if the company publishes faulty numbers anyway? The "libertarian ideal" doesn't protect against that, does it? Surprise -- the company just violated contract with its shareholders (even ignoring tax fraud and other extra-contractual crimes). No law, however overbearing in terms, can keep someone from circumventing it. We're only talking about Enron because they got caught and punished. Is it because of libertarian ideals that your house got broken into? The causes of things like that are criminals, not principles. When you drive off a cliff, it's because you turned at the wrong time, not because the government left the guardrail off.

"The idea that we should be ruled by the dollar is, quite frankly, rather extreme and un-human."

This is your take on the free market, but frankly -- cultural development *around* capitalism aside -- you're dead wrong about it. It's about free and voluntary exchange, period. It works also on a pure barter system, no dollars necessary. It just so happens that free-market principles have also led to unprecedented growth in wealth, standards of living, lifespans, health, comfort, and scientific development, but feel free to argue against those if you find them, too, to be un-human and extreme.

-Prophasi

property crimes

[dumpsterdiver]

Maybe it's important to notice a general trend in society: the growing emphasis on prosecution of property crimes, ie theft, vandalism, etc. The fact that sentences for all property offenses are growing more than any other type is alarming, and is happening not just in the "crime" of file-trading. Doesn't this reflect a broader trend towards corporate control of governments?

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[Golias]

First of all, stop capitalizing "libertarianism" when speaking of my political philosophy. I am a libertarian, not a member of the Libertarian Party.

Secondly, perhaps you should do a little more reading on "what libertarianism truly means" before you start lecturing me on it, because you clearly only half-understand most of the principles.

Thirdly, I never said anything which advocates your ad absurdum scenarios. Stop knocking down straw men and acting like you've proven anything.

Re:Unintended consequences of a stupid bill

[NekkidBob]

You created that home movie, therefore you own the copyright to that movie, therefore you have the "right" to "copy" that movie, distribute, whatever, because you own that movie. The only person that could sue you, is you, since you own that movie.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[packeteer]

Protection of intellectual property is not something that the government created for the benefit of corporations, it was created for the benefit of the artist that created the work.

No way buddy. Copyright's were invented for people who benefit by artists and inventors and by "people who benefit" I mean regular people. The system is in place to reward artists and inventors just enough to make it worth it for them to do what they do. The point of the system is to create innovation, NOT to make artists rich off their work although our economic system theoretically should do that so its win-win for average people and artists.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[kirun]

Sentencing isn't just about deterrence, it's about protecting the public, and about reform... ideally, you let them out when they won't re-offend.

The public would gain protection from a burglar when they are in jail. They wouldn't gain protection from a copyright infringer being in jail. And would jail be the most effective way of stopping copyright infringers re-offending? I don't think so.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[zoloto]

I'm going to rain on your parade. Corporations/businesses exzisted LONG before government. Especially this one. The government doesn't grant us anything. WE GRANT THE GOVERNMENT ITS RIGHTS. PERIOD! Didn't you ever take an American History/Civics class?

Good lord, what are the schools teaching kids these days?!

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[radar2k2]

> "Intellectual property" only exists because the government
> allows it.

Private property only exists in the presence of a government that recognizes it. Without the coercive nature of the government there is no such thing as ownership, only possession.

Corporations are psychopaths?

[TooManyNames]

Really? I thought that corporations were just around in order to have limited liability. That is the basic extent of how they're considered a person.

Basically, unlike proprietorships or partnerships in which liability of the firm is distributed to its owners, a corporation has its own legal identity separate from the people who own shares of its stock; if a corporation suffers losses, it has to pay debts, not its owners. By doing this, stockholder liability is only limited to what they've invested in the firm (not their entire fortune) whereas proprietorships and partnerships can potentially have unlimited liabilities (someone makes a big mistake) meaning that entire fortunes can be collected to pay debts.

The catch is that corporations, existing as a legal identity are taxed whereas proprietorships and partnerships are not... This means that owners are taxed on corporate income in addition to the corporation being taxed on the same income (or double taxation).

So this is the extent to which a corporation is considered a person... it's purely financial. So how exactly does a purely financial construct resemble a psychopath? I mean, if you're embracing an abstraction of that degree, why not extend the argument to basically anything centered around a theoretical basis? I'm curious, what would be the psychological evaluation of the /. copyright opposition crowd (considering that it seems to oppose the RIAA/MPAA, but supports copyright enforcement concerning GNU efforts)?

Go ahead and call me a capitalist, republican, conservative, bible-thumping pig as that seems to be the common response here (to opposing opinions of open minds of course).

Note: I did not make any statements in the hopes of diminishing open source efforts (as I would be quite the hypocrite considering I made this post using Linux and Mozilla). I just get tired of the whole faceless corporations are evil and that's that argument. Corporations have problems (such as the issue of corporate governance) but absurd comparisons to psychopaths have got to go.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[Metapsyborg]

My bad, what you say is true. However, you're basically talking semantics: whether copyright's for the benefit of "the people" or the artist is essentially the same thing, because under this (copyright) thought process the people would not benefit if the artist didn't and the artist wouldn't benefit if the people didn't. Meaning, there wouldn't be [as much] art/invention without the artist making money (no motivation), and the artist wouldn't make money if the people didn't benefit from the product (who'd buy something useless).

Disclaimer: Yes, I know some people would argue that "the people" don't benefit from Britany Spears.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[ZB Mowrey]

Ok, so instead of using the date of creation, you use the date of first sale. In the case of self-published or corporately-created works (think movie industry), it would be the first time you sell a copy to anyone other than yourself.

In the case of contracted works (think music industry, publishing industry), it would be the date on the contract, where the creator is making his first sale, by selling some rights to the work to another entity.

Tracking both types of dates should prove relatively simple, and in those cases where specific dates are lost, let the date be set as January 1, in the year it was released.*

You could easily use this metric to handle things like "...term of no more than 20 years, or 5 years beyond the author's death, whichever shall occur first."

*Because if they lose the paperwork, they should lose part of a year. Say they produced a work in December of 1980...but can't prove the date of first sale. The copyright would expire on January 1, 2000 (a term of 19 years, and a few extra days). This provides incentive for creators at all levels to keep their records in order.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[KoshClassic]

And what about the clueless? I can name five Windows users who couldn't tell you if they had anything in a shared folder or not under threat of torture, and I can do that buy reading the first five names in my PDA!

Mod parent up, please.

This is a really good point, the law only says you're guilty if you knew / should have known the content was not yet released - it doesn't say your guilty only if you knew / should have known you put the file some place that meets the definition of 'shared folder' (IMHO, a potentially legitimate defense for a lot of people out there who probably barely know how to use a mouse and only own a computer because they want to "use the Internet" like everyone else is).

Of course, having the illegal content is wrong to begin with, either if its been released yet or not, but I'd hate to see an over-the-top penalty applied to some poor soul who might not be so computer literate and ended up unintentionally re-sharing the file when they didn't intend to.

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[kz45]

Nice. Our President lies to us about weapons of mass destruction and drags us into an unjust war that has cost thousands of Americn lives, but I'm the felon.

can you please stop spitting out this hashed over liberal bullshit. I think I was sick of hearing this after michael moore said it....about 300 times.

I don't agree with this law being passed either..but one has nothing to do with the other.

I actually wished a kerry would have won. Then I could see how fucked up the U.S would be with a democrat in office (and point out that fact).

Well, I say, it's time to stop. Not just stop pirating mainstream movies, but stop watching them altogether. There's plenty of content to be found out there on the Web (AtomFilms and INetFilm come to mind)

easier said than done. The average person likes mainstream movies and music. I think the polished look of a studio produced film easily beat out any film at atomfilms or inetfilm. To me, most low budget films remind me of a soap opera or a porno.

Show the RIAA that we are not sheep. Show them that we don't need to see the latest Keanu Reeves travesty. Show them we're tired of their shit. Don't see their movies. Don't pirate their movies. Don't have anything to do with their movies. If enough of us shake off the yoke, it will make a difference

if the RIAA was gone, artists would soon be against p2p, mostly because they would be relying on CD sales for their revenue.

it really makes you think: if pop artists and popular music are so shitty and worthless, why are they pirated the most??

There is only one thing to do

[Tsiangkun]

We must fight this by playing their own game. If anyone knows a congress-person's kid who uses p2p to share copywritten files, the time has come to turn them in. Only when the government class has their own going away for three years per offense will they understand how pathetic this legislation is.

Re:Yeah!

[Lapsed Catholic]

Many people don't understand how the judiciary works, and the latest round of talking points certainly aren't helping. They're 180 degrees away from the truth.

The federal court is charged by Article III of the Constitution to bear the sole responsibility of interpreting the Constitution. It does this by establishing precedent in case law. The matter has been considered settled since 1803.

Now you (meaning, whoever it is you're parroting) are trying to change it, for what looks like a naked power grab with some nice-sounding crap about how judges should be accountable to the people (a nice way to describe mob rule). But we weren't told before the election that Bush wanted to eliminate one of the branches of government. All we heard was some coded remarks about the Dred Scott decision. Hell, we didn't hear about Social Security phase-out, either, and even though SS phaseout is failing in the legislature (since the public hates it) there are judges in the lineup prepared to declare Social Security unconstitutional since the Constitution says nothing about it. "Legislating from the bench" indeed!

If you are arguing that we should get rid of something that has been working pretty well for two centuries, the onus is on you to explain what you're going to replace it with, and why it's going to be better than the Consitution as it exists today.

Re:Corporations are psychopaths?

[lambadomy]

Here is an interesting article about how corporations became 'Persons' [uuworld.org]

Perhaps you won't agree with some of the conclusions the author has drawn, but the basic point that corporations have a lot more rights/powers than what is needed to allow for limited liability is pretty obvious. And comparing them to psychopaths really isn't absurd. They are treated, legally, as another person like you and me, but they don't act like normal people. Perhaps you don't want to say they act like psychopaths, but I'd like to hear a better description of why they act how they do, and and explanation why their behavior would be ok for a person with the same rights.

Re:Draconian?

[icejai]

I agree, and you have a very good point.

However, I don't think this kind of thing would happen if someone were prosecuted under this law.

I dunno, the general public are under this presumption that "computer pirates" are "out to steal everything they can" using technology. Spam, trojans, viruses, "hackers", "movie pirates" are all the general public really knows about computer users who are guilty of the real-world equivalent as petty-theft.

If anyone is tried under this law, it will be some 19 year-old the entertainment industry will make an example of. They will put him in jail, take his keyboard and hoist it on a 5m-long pike outside corporate head office.

Look at those college kids who got nailed by those John Doe lawsuits. The industry probably lost millions pursuing them, but they did it anyway just to make a point.

Only difference now is that instead of students paying a fine/settlement, the U.S. is going to put their own university and college students into prisons. Again, just to prove a point... and all for the sake of entertainment.

God bless the United States of America indeed.

They're gonna need all the help they can get.

Re:Corporations are psychopaths?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I think the argument goes something like this:

First off, you have to think of the corporation as an entity. In reality it is a collection of individual people with different values serving many different roles but generally trying to accomplish the same thing. For the purposes of this discussion, though, we think of a corporation as a single entity owned by the stockholders.

As an individual, you make many decisions every day. Most of their decisions are mundane. Some of them, though, have ethical and moral dilemmas. In your average day you may decide whether to obey the speed limit or use turn signals. You decide whether to say something if you get too much change. You decide whether to download a song that you haven't paid for. These things all give you the option to gain from doing something "wrong" with very little personal risk. Maybe you have some bigger dilemmas, like you just ran over an old lady, but nobody saw it happen. You have to make choices between what you want and what is best for "society" (since most moral and ethical issues are about allowing large groups of people to live together).

Now, corporations make decisions every day, the same as any person. They also get to make many decisions about whether to hurt others to help themselves. Many times the risk/reward for them is much clearer in physical terms. They pay $X for over-pollution at a certain level, or they can pay $Y to upgrade their facility to pollute less. There is still the moral dilemma about whether to harm the environment and everyone in it, but at least the dollar amounts are known.

Now here's where the difference comes in. There is a certain sentiment that says that a corporation has a responsibility to produce maximum return for its shareholders. If they don't, the shareholders can sue the company and collect. That means if an employee falls down a mineshaft and the rescue effort would cost more than the settlement to the next of kin, the company is NOT ALLOWED to do the "right thing". The shareholders are assumed to have no morals (some probably don't), so the company has to think only in terms of dollar values. That is where it becomes a psychopath, it doesn't care about society, only itself (= shareholders).

Now, personally, I think that "maximum value" is a suitable vague term that the corporation has a lot of leeway. They can say that they are thinking of long-term value instead of short-term. They are thinking of public opinion or lost resources or future clean-up charges, and justify pretty much any action well enough to win a lawsuit. Then again, juries often like to take money for faceless corporations to make the individual on the stand happy.

That leaves one more thing wrong with a corporation. It is a level of indirection. People don't have to get their own hands dirty (or bloody) if they can act through their corporate structure. It is far easier to do something wrong if you don't have to see it happen. The corporation allows you to point at someone else and say "it's not my fault". Because no one person is doing the "bad" thing, no one person cares too much about it, and when nobody cares about it, the corporation doesn't care about it.

So, does that qualify as a coherent argument?

Re:Free Thinkers Declare War on the RIAA

[FreakWent]

"The point of penalties for crime is deterrence"

No, that's a happy side effect. The primary purpose is to repair the broken individual -- fix the problem -- and return to society.

Check your Plato.

If it were only deterrence then we'd just jump everything to 35 years flat and be done with it, wouldn't we? No? So there must be other factors involved then....

Re:Libertarians

[drsmithy]

Why do libertarians support private property law and oppose intellectual property law?

Probably because physical property laws have a grounding in nature (there's only a finite amount of stuff and if you've got a big enough stick, you can protect your pile of stuff - property law is merely an extension of that principle, with the government holding the stick on your behalf).

"Intellectual property" laws are a wholly conceptual legal construct that have no basis or equivalent in nature.

Re:Talk about class warfare

[iminplaya]

This just shows how powerful corporations have become.

Care to share just how those corps got their power? If you're going to say the gov't, then I'll just have to ask you just how the gov't got its power. Hint, look in the mirror. Look next door, next city, next county, next state.

Some thoughts

[bezuwork's friend]

Well, the submission quotes the law as saying "copy". Title 17, which governs copyright also uses the term copy. But in court, copying even part of a copyrighted work violates the right to copy that the copyright owner has. So I imagine a court will use this same reading of copy in the new legislation.

Thus, I guess your idea won't work

When I first began to study copyright, I had a similar idea to your's - have a P2P network where each person shared maybe a fraction of a second of a song. Everyone would download all the different parts and assemble them in their home. My rationale was that if the samples were small enough, each individual act of sharing/copying would not be an infringement. And how short a sample is needed to avoid infringement for copying it? Very small. IIRC, a series of 3 notes was held protectable in a Whitney Houston song - it all depends on whether enough creativity is evident in the sample. But, my idea doesn't work as when enough parts would be assembled, then an infringing copy would exist that you created.

My new idea for copying without violating the copyright laws? Have American Indians do it. Once you got the copy, on whatever media they used, would you be violating copyright law? No, you didn't make the copy, you aren't distributing the copy, you're not importing it, you're not publically displaying or performing it, and you're not creating any derivative work - thus you are ok (for direct infringement).

This works because currently, American Indian tribes (AIT) are exempt from the copyright law (I have case cites for this somewhere). But you can bet your ass that if AITs started blatently violating copyright, that immunity would be lifted pretty fast.

The way to do it, I guess, would be for the AITs to copy things and source them. It would be like a black market, but it wouldn't be as the AIT is not subject to the copyright laws.

Or so goes my reasoning.

Seriously,

[__int64]

What the Fuck!? "The Family Entertainment and Copyright act?" This is absolutely ridiculous. I don't believe this shit; if this isn't total and unequivocal proof that our government is completely and permanently fragged I don't know what is. It's about time for a violent revolution, starting with a complete absterge of Washington. Well I'm starting a clock; either 5 years till the information age re-revolution, or 20 years till our downfall (governmental collapse into an Orwellian police state run by corporate America). But unfortunately based on the current trend of shitty laws, paid-for politicians, and the nullified MTV populous, I think were more headed towards option two. The entire infrastructure for this is largely already in place; it just needs to be 'switched on' without anyone noticing...Hence the 20 years. Hopefully I'm wrong and history will repeat itself (similar suppression attempts failed with the printing press, radio, player piano, ect) and they won't be able to put the freedom-of-information gene back into the bottle. But as I said, the tools to suppress this are now in place, and were living inside an unprecedented veil of seemingly benign misrepresentation and oppression; the safeguards to keep this from happening might have already been 'switched off'. If our government is as fatally wounded as suspected, then this time bureaucracy and reliance on the system's ability to self heal will be fatal. We need to do a cold reset, purge everything. But "The Family and Entertainment and Copyright Act," seriously - that's proof enough, sounds like it came straight from the Ministry of Love. And one obligatory - Fuck Bush.