Anti-P2P Law Looms over the Horizon 560
Adrian Lopez writes "MIT's Technology Review has a piece by Eric Hellweg about pending legislation known as the Intellectual Property Protection Act. According to Hellweg, IPPA could make it illegal to skip past commercials and could 'criminalize the currently legal act of using the sharing capacity of iTunes, Apple's popular music software program.' More information on IPPA is available at the Public Knowledge website."
International? (Score:5, Insightful)
lots of other victimless crimes to worry about. (Score:4, Insightful)
Senator John McCain stated his opposition to this bill, and specifically cited the anti-commercial skipping feature: "Americans have been recording TV shows and fast-forwarding through commercials for 30 years," he said. "Do we really expect to throw people in jail in 2004 for behavior they've been engaged in for more than a quarter century?"
Your jails are full of fellow citizens that dared to smoke pot. That "crime" has been on the books far, far longer Senator.
mcain is right (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:mcain is right (Score:3, Insightful)
The times, they are a changing, and the cheese is a moving.
In other words, markets are desperately trying to keep today exactly like yesterday.
Cheers,
-- The Dude
Enforcement? (Score:2, Insightful)
WOW (Score:5, Insightful)
We have lost parts of the 2nd, 4th, and 5th amendment. Bush's 2000 win gutted any of 10th that was left.
The police can now search your home and "finincal" records with court oversite with informing you that it even happened and barring all from talking about it.
So why does anyone think that removing Fast Forward button would not be another freedom lost?
I remember reading somewhere... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:mcain is right (Score:2, Insightful)
Just wait until next year.
I really see no difference.
That'll be the arguement they use.
I don't even know if I'm being insightful or funny (I hope funny!).
Re:lots of other victimless crimes to worry about. (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess you could say it's typical of thinking on Slashdot. Never mind.
Re:International? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:lots of other victimless crimes to worry about. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:lots of other victimless crimes to worry about. (Score:5, Insightful)
WOW-Addiction (Score:1, Insightful)
Freedom to be entertained I suppose. So why not send the clearest message that even the courts haven't taken away? You know the right to vote with your money. Does the "can't skip" law affect those who don't own any kind of entertainment? Does the DMCA affect those who refuse to own any entertainment say what they create with their own minds?
The only reason all these laws affect you is because of the American public's addiction to entertainment. Get rid of that addiction and the drug dealer has no sway over you. Continue to use, and pretend it's some kind of right, and you'll be forever playing by the entertainment dealers rules. Dance, consumer, dance.
Re:lots of other victimless crimes to worry about. (Score:2, Insightful)
Your comparison seems flawed. You're comparing making a behavior we've been doing for a long time that may be made illegal to a behavior that has been established as a crime for quite some time (sine hte 20s or 30s I believe)
P2P is a "national security crime"?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoa thar. Time out. Game penalty. Chill.
The sharing of the Anarchist's Cookbook would be a national security issue. IP theft of weapons technology, air defense systems, domestic utility and transportation infrastructuce are national security issues.
But P2P of ENTERTAINMENT is a "national security crime"?!?
That's the most flawed stretch of reasoning I've ever seen. And I don't even engage in P2P.
And if this bill becomes law and my fast forward button is outlawed,
It's a sad day when laws are passed to perpetuate outdated business models.
Re:lots of other victimless crimes to worry about. (Score:3, Insightful)
In all cases, citizens were going about their legal business only to be criminalised practically overnight. This process is not new.
We may very well see TV forced into being more (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully, people will see the insanity of this law and not pass it, which will mean that the distribution methods for scripted shows will either have to evolve or die. I personally hope they evolve into distributing the shows directly to the public via an iTunes like service. That way I no longer have to pay for cable just to see the few shows that I enjoy; I can purchase them directly. The producers of these shows no longer have to be encumbered by the increasingly draconian regulations of the FCC. Just imagine what South Park could do if they weren't worried about being fined.
Well, it is Slashdot... (Score:4, Insightful)
...so I can't expect anybody actually went and read the fucking article. Here's [64.233.167.104] the Gooogle cache for the article at Public Knowledge. Take a minute and read it.
Once again, the intellectual property cartels are lobbying thru legislation that seeks to further limit and erode the rights of consumers. We all seem to be laboring under the idiotic assumption that the current system is "just how things are". Copyright and patent protection comes from the People, and is a social contract. This contract is supposed to benefit both parties-- the creators of intellectual property and the People.
Write your Senator. Vote. Make intellectual property a campaign issue for future elections. Tell other people about how their rights are being taken away and encourage them to do the same.
I'm soooo scared (Score:3, Insightful)
I have to chuckle everytime I see a law or technology attempt to suppress the desires of the people. First we had Napster, then Kazaa, now Bittorrent. The geeks will always win.
Now what worries me is the effects of all this in the interim. The message of freedom being spread throughout the world is spoken by those who consistently attempt to pass laws controlling what we can and can't do.
If you're Exxon, you'll get an exemption for pollution. If you're Joe Blow, you'll get put in jail for fast forwarding through a commercial. What's wrong with this picture?
Re:Fast-Forward is the flamebait of the package. (Score:3, Insightful)
So it's much more clever than you give them credit for.
Re:WOW (Score:5, Insightful)
Pfff! As if there was anything left of the tenth! Lincoln gutted it way back when, and FDR buried whatever was left. The feds usurping states' power was a done deal long ago.
Re:lots of other victimless crimes to worry about. (Score:4, Insightful)
If you break an arm, it should be covered. If you have lung cancer from LA smog, you should be covered. But if you have lung cancer from choosing to smoke, it shouldn't. Society shouldn't prevent you from harming yourself, but it shouldn't pay for fixing you.
Re:Lots of other [...] crimes to worry about. (Score:5, Insightful)
Driving impaired is wrong, whether it's due to drugs, fatigue, or talking on a cellphone. You're not suggesting we ban cell phones entirely just becuase they cause some accidents. Why should pot be any different? Keep in mind that a little benadryl impairs driving more than Cannabis.
Re:Lots of other [...] crimes to worry about. (Score:2, Insightful)
This blaming the tool/object for the actions of humans is completely and totally stupid.
Re:lots of other victimless crimes to worry about. (Score:3, Insightful)
Self as a victim is a lame ideology, only surpassed by doing things for the children.
It's time for the US to get out of the business of regulating private behavior.
Re:lots of other victimless crimes to worry about. (Score:3, Insightful)
Perhaps you need to fully think that over.
Re:Firefox Adblock? (Score:3, Insightful)
Had Enough? (Score:4, Insightful)
A law against murder. Sounds great
A law against burglary. Good idea
A law against smoking pot. Now we are pushing it. If you are going after the DWI aspect of it, sure, otherwise... (Though on a personal morality basis I think it's wrong. I really don't believe I should impose my views in a personal arena like this. Because of course what is to prevent someone else doing the same to me when they are in the majority.)
A law against fast forwarding through commercials. Ok senator, the good people of your state think you need to look for a new line of work
Re:I'm soooo scared (Score:3, Insightful)
What? Stalin's purges? Yeah, we're screwed.
Re:lots of other victimless crimes to worry about. (Score:2, Insightful)
He just said that not watching commercials does hurt someone. What's the big deal? He agreed that the revenue model is outdated, and that this law is silly, he only disagreed with the comparison between victimless crime and this law.
Slashdot has no logic and reason. It only has language made to appear like logic and reason. What it really has become is a counterfeit.Re:lots of other victimless crimes to worry about. (Score:3, Insightful)
It isn't a crime, or did I miss that law?
Ditch the TV. (Score:4, Insightful)
The Internet is far more interesting than television anyway.
Re:Fast-Forward is the flamebait of the package. (Score:1, Insightful)
The recent one, just in today's news, is inserting far-reaching anti-abortion laws into a must-pass spending bill [nytimes.com].
American Dream coming true (Score:2, Insightful)
Fascism at the Gates and 60M people voted for it, cheered their guts out for it, celebrated it!
How much more can the american people take before they say it's too much? Well let the wheel of history roll and stick around.
It is unpatriotic to skip commercials, unpatriotic and criminal to think out of the box, unpatriotic and criminal to criticize the government.
The day is coming that I'll buy a one way ticket out of here!
Sheeesh, why all young democracies have to slide through fascism before they reach maturity?
Write your legislators! (Score:3, Insightful)
Teddy Roosevelt once said: "A vote is like a rifle: its usefulness depends upon the character of the user." So, make your letters well-written, well-reasoned arguments combined with impassioned pleas for your senator or representative to listen to logic, instead of a hate-filled diatribe as to why these bills are the root of all evil and they are just part of the machine dragging us further and further downward. Otherwise, we'll all be bystanders as this entire class of legislation is forced upon us.
Re:Ditch the TV. (Score:4, Insightful)
-Colin [colingregorypalmer.net]
It's looking inevitable now... (Score:4, Insightful)
The inefficiency, corruption, and general incompetence of the American government is at the moment staggering. And it is happening because we the people have let it happen. Say what you will, this government is still absolutely bound to the will of the people because we can vote it out of office come every two years.
The problem is that the American people are becoming apathetic and uncaring. Nixon irretrievably broke the faith of millions in their government. Even if they hear about these bullshit bills, they have no idea what to do and form their opinion soley around what the magic picture box says.
And do you know what the problem is? We're allowed to escape basic education without even being able to recite our nation's founding documents. Twelve, thirteen years of schooling before high school graduation. We were never required to so much as read the Constutition or the Declaration of Independence.
Personally, I think it's an outrage that the founding documents of our nation aren't required reading in every single high school in the nation. Being able to recite the first two articles of the Declaration, the meaning of the first ten amendments, and being able to enumerate in no unspecific terms the powers of all three branches of Government set forth in the Constitution should be a requirement for high school graduation.
And you can make that possible. Obviously, there are certain politicians don't want you to read material that tells you that it's your duty to rebel against an unjust government and that all rights not specifically granted to the Federal government are reserved by the states or the people, but if the people create enough of an outcry and vote out representatives who oppose it, it will happen if only because the remaining representatives will act out of self-preservation. And note that I didn't say ALL politicians. Heck, I've got a copy of the Constitution in front of me that was sent by my representative in the House.
Now stop staring at the screen. Go out there and make a ruckus.
This doesn't really scare me (Score:4, Insightful)
These laws are utterly futile...and they are futile for several reasons. For one thing, they are completely dehumanising...they are counter to human nature and human desire. For another, because they are largely unenforceable, they rely on the laughable expectation that they will be willingly obeyed.
As I've said earlier, we keep getting more and more evidence that we are now genuinely in the Aquarian era, and it ain't going to be how the song from that stupid musical Hair described it. Initially anyway, we are in for a period of truly mammoth conflict. Uranus and Saturn, or to use imagery which people are more familiar with...the elderly vs the young and the new...Science, intellectualism, altruism, and the desire for genuine freedom colliding with tyranny, willful ignorance and stupidity, commercialism and fear...Smith vs Neo.
Unfortunately for Ashcroft, Hatch, Vilenti and the other Smith wannabes of the world however, although they may do some damage in the short term, long term they don't have a prayer of getting anywhere with their ambitions. They're too stupid, too greedy, too fearful, and therefore largely self-defeating. At times I pity them, because if they could learn to change their own mindset and behaviour they also could benefit from the future that the rest of us are busy creating.
If you step in chewing gum, it will cause your shoes to stick to the ground to a minor degree, but not ultimately enough to cause you anything more than inconvenience. Also, despite how tenacious said chewing gum may be in remaining on the soles of your shoes, it can and will be eventually scraped off...and then you continue walking. Humanity is still going to ultimately get where it wants to go...Bush and his friends might try and set up roadblocks, as have other such individuals throughout history...but ultimately all they amount to are potholes.
Re:weird stuff-Stealing should be OK. (Score:1, Insightful)
According to your logic, then, if live in Canada (which I do) where P2P downloading of copyrighted material is completely legal, then I am more morally pure than the American who is doing the same thing, simply because I am not violating a federal, provincial, or local law (according to where I live)?
Re:Real life commercial watching (Score:2, Insightful)
Almost every add has something informational in it. Such as MPG ot safty rating. It's just the truck add of which you were speaking was about the liner.
I would take a ban on commercial skipping if in exchange there was also a ban on network IDs that take up 20% of the screen, and make loud noises over quite talking at key points in the show. If people keep skipping adds we will get big banner adds on TV and it will piss me off far more then commercials, that is not a revenue model I want.
I do have a Tivo at home, and skip the commercials, so it's not as if I like them, it is just that I prefer them to what is slowly inching it;s way into the shows themself.
This bill should be passed. (Score:3, Insightful)
A deplorably large portion of the public is oblivious to what's been happening in the IP wars.
It's about time that something happens to wake them up, to get them to take these issues personally.
I think that passage of this law would have the beneficial effect of causing wide-spread public disregard and contempt of such laws (and their promoters), as happened with the 1920s Prohibition-era attempt to ban alcoholic beverages.
For a quite a while, I've harbored a fantasy of organizing a mass demonstration in Washington, during which the participants stand in front of the Capitol and Justice buildings (and IP lobbyists' offices), collectively engaging in open violation of IP laws which are enforceable only by massive and embarassing government over-reaction --
e.g., playing hand-held PVRs and skipping the commercials, using encrypted WiFi to exchange files bearing names of copyrighted works, etc. --
i.e., massive civil disobedience.
I'm hopeful that this law would also have the effect of opening the eyes of the masses to corporatist corruption of the legislators who support such bills.
Re:Lame Duck Humanity. (Score:2, Insightful)
I grew up watching squirrels and robins get stinkin' drunk off the crabapple tree droppings out back... drunken or stoned deer have nearly suicided on my truck numerous times (mushroom season)... all kinds of examples of drunk and disorderly animal behaviour, from all parts of the globe.
Get over your puritanical impulses. Getting blotto is part of being animal, like most of our behaviour. More, it's part of the fundamental nature of mysticism, and thus at the root of all religions. Revelations was written under the influence of fasting visions, for instance; wherever we inquire into the great mysteries, we employ techniques to help us get closer. Sometimes those techniques involve chemicals.
Then there's Carnival, as an impulse, not an actual festival. We need to party, and if we really want to party well, we need to forget who we are. Being blotto is fun, and like any medicine, when dosage is respected, it's good clean fun with a probable adaptive benefit.
Turning fun and religious stuff into vice means there's despair, opression, and profit involved. Focus on the substance just results in displacement; you're attacking symptoms. Try dealing with the despair and profit end of things, and the rest will settle down.
Will There Be a United States in 2006? (Score:3, Insightful)
My country has so many problems, so many terrible problems that really deserve attention from legislators. Is the fact that some people skip commercials while watching TV one of those problems?
Locked down like this because of the internet? (Score:3, Insightful)
They don't like people having all this access to information.
Now legislation created BECAUSE of the internet is leaking over into real life (can't ff commercials).
Please.
This country is fucked, and so are the people in it.
They expect me to respect copyright laws when they turn around and create this bullshit? Hahaha no. Sorry, doesn't work like that. Stuff like this makes me download even MORE.
Re:American Dream coming true (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a theory! I believe in the United States the citizens are not the humans but the corporations. The humans are the flora and fauna that grows in the society. The real citizens are the corporations. They vote (with their money), they have rights but no obligations, they have access to legislation, they participate in the society, they sent the flora and fauna to die on endless wars while they (the corporations) profit out of it!
Sad...
Re:Trade blocks (Score:1, Insightful)
Simple. China is worse.
My country perpatrates all kinds of Bullshit all over the globe, but we don't execute political prisoners and sell their organs like China does. We don't employ the use of slave labor to produce export goods. We might talk all kinds of shit against and boycott, but we don't incarcerate those with subversive politics.
LK
Re:lots of other victimless crimes to worry about. (Score:2, Insightful)
So far, it's not any kind of crime. Your statement could be taken to mean that if I don't buy a sponser's product, they lose money, therefore I should be forced to buy their product. There is no right to guaranteed profit. If their actual sales don't meet predictions, too bad. There's no crime in that. And just try to prove that I didn't but a product because I skipped their commercial. Though the ??AA might try to tell you different.
Re:I'm just too tough for you. (Score:3, Insightful)
There couldn't possibly be a government that doesn't operate on the principle of force. A voluntary government wouldn't be government -- that would be free enterprise.
Does McDonald's posess the right to initiate force as a means to an end?
Force is the fundamental difference between government and everyone else. Government is the organization which holds the unique "right" to initiate force as a means to an end. Others may use force in self-defense (where it is still legal), but any private individual or group who initiates force is a criminal.
Theft, eh? (Score:1, Insightful)
Violating copyright laws = copyright infringement.
Violating patent laws = patent infringement.
Infringement != Theft.
You steal my car, I'm mad because I can't use it anymore.
You cannot "steal" my music. You can only copy it without my permission.
Re:Real life commercial watching (Score:2, Insightful)
Besides, the only people who are generally positively affected by commercials are the dumbasses, so why don't they just have commercials during things like reality shows or the news? Networks and advertisers wouldn't even notice a difference in profit by doing that.
I rarely watch TV now as ads plague it more than they do Gamespot or IGN. At least I have Adblock for those; I don't have the money or time to build my own PVR and use those fun OSS programs that filter commercials and such for me.
Re:Real life commercial watching (Score:3, Insightful)
You've clearly underestimated the power of repitition.
You've clearly underestimated the power of repitition.
YOU'VE CLEARLY UNDERESTIMATED THE POWER OF REPITITION!
Sure, it may not work on everyone, but it works on a lot of people. It's just like memorization, but they want us to remember that truck, not someone else's.
Re:Real life commercial watching (Score:3, Insightful)
The purpose of advertising is not to cause you to immediately buy a product. Its purpose is to increase your desire for a certain type of product and far more importantly to make it so that when you start looking for that type of product, you think of them first. To do this they need to repeat the ad enough times to get it into your subconscious.
Now personally, I like pretty much every other man on the face of the planet, channel surf during tv commercials, I don't really enjoy watching them, but they are nice to have since they allow me to go check my dinner, go to the bathroom, or in general take a break from the tv.
That said, I'd like to make a quick point about radio broadcasts, and to a lesser extent tv, and say I'd rather listen to one ad every few songs than 15 minutes of back to back ads every hour or so.
Re:Real life commercial watching (Score:3, Insightful)
Repetition is the whole idea. The advertiser wants to pummel your psyche with the same image, repeated over and over, until it registers with your unconscious mind. Years of advertising experience has proven the effectiveness of this technique, even with those of us who think that we are unaffected. So yes, advertisers believe that they are losing money if you screen out repeated ads.
Car and truck ads are the best example of the effectiveness of repetition, because consumers purchase them infrequently. Repeating the brand name reinforces the image in the consumer's mind, so that when he is ready to buy a car or truck, he has already accepted the value of the brand. Advertisers have a LOT of money invested in promoting their brands. Just look at the recent sale of the Altoids and Life Savers brands to Wrigley - they paid 1.5 BILLION dollars for brand names. They are not going to sit quietly while consumers try to wall themselves off from ads.
2. Commercials have zero information quantity. That is to say they are all emotion and no logic. Whats the MPG of that truck? What is its safety ratings? I dunno, all I know is a busty woman is leaning on it on a backdrop of some colorado mountain scene with a flag somewhere on the screen. Or as Dr. Rappielle says "It appeals to the reptilian brain." I'm not a reptile and I like making informed consumer decisions (usually).
You might not be a reptile, but your brain doesn't know that :)
Don't get me wrong. I hate advertising and avoid it whenever possible. It is a $75 billion dollar industry in the U.S. - wouldn't it be great if that money could instead be used to do something worthwhile!