Copy That Floppy, Lose Your Computer 766
Over the weekend we posted a story about a new copyright bill that creates a new govt. agency in charge of copyright enforcement. Kevin Way writes "In particular, the bill grants this new agency the right to seize any computer or network hardware used to "facilitate" a copyright crime and auction it off. You would not need to be found guilty at trial to face this penalty. You may want to read a justification of it, and criticism presented by Declan McCullagh and Public Knowledge." Lots of good followup there on a really crazy development.
Re:So? (Score:2, Insightful)
A new AGENCY?! (Score:5, Insightful)
So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
Based on other laws coming out in the USA (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So? (Score:4, Insightful)
Although the US courts have blasted him and congress again and again over that, he keeps going at it.
Re:Shot down for all the wrong reasons... (Score:5, Insightful)
"I predict that many Republicans will oppose this bill, ... but, becuase the industry that they would be tasked to protect is one that generally opposses them."
You forget the one thing that all politicians value most: The almighty dollar. Once the lobbyists start handing out "campaign donations" you will see every idiot believing in the wisdom of the RIAA/MPAA.
Of course my right to backup copies will be ignored because I do not even have the money to get my representative to blink. I only get lip service from him every two years near election time.
Re:Welp, that's it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Absolutely. Now - did that happen around the time of the civil war, or around the time of WWII?
Selective enforcement? (Score:2, Insightful)
You write something the NeoCons/Republicans don't like, they invoke this; You may not be guilty of any "Illegal" copies, but the computers are still gone. This is the modern version of Nazi Germany's book burnings.
Re:A new AGENCY?! (Score:5, Insightful)
But the politicians are those who enact laws, and although they are in theory elected by the people, such elections are only possible thanks to the big money corporations give them. So, yes, those politicians have their priorities very straight: helping those that give them the money they need to keep their jobs.
Re:A new AGENCY?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Take a look at the industry sectors. Agriculture? Heaps more imports than exports. Industry? Which? Production is outsourced to China. Service? Great, but you can only export a service when someone comes to you and consumes it, and leisure travel to the US isn't really too appealing with the rather xenophobic approach since 9/11.
So what's left is content and patents. News, entertainment, rights. To create an entire agency to protect what's left of the US commerce is quite logic.
Republicans passed the Bono Act and the DMCA (Score:5, Insightful)
Hate your boss? Hate your company? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that how I should imagine this?
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just the next chapter.
Littering (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, Americans (Score:3, Insightful)
I recall saying this years ago when this question first arose and people kept on using the old "but it's not worth the price" argument to justify their theft. Are people so naive that they really think that this is a downhill battle?
If it's not worth paying for than it's not worth owning. For the most part it's piracy from the "but it's not worth the price" crowd that has allowed things to sink to this new low. The industry is convinced that these are lost sales, and some of them are. If you honestly believe it's not worth the price it's better to truely stick it to the industry by not bothering with the product at all regardless of how low the price goes.
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
With everybody's computer taken and sold, there is now going to be a booming market in new computers, all preloaded with Vista. What a windfall this shall be for the computer manufacturers and Microsoft.
How do you prove you've never downloaded anything off the internet? You can't. Doesn't matter if you have legal copies of the CDs you've ripped down to MP3 and stored on your computer, even if you have the reciepts for them, how do you prove you didn't just download them instead of ripping them from CD?
And the theory that absence of evidence doesn't mean absense of crime is rather disturbing to me.
Re:funny how... (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, is it just my perception or has the number of stuff that was made a law only to be killed by the courts as unconstitutional skyrocketed? I really wonder, why that is.
Don't know if there's a trend, but it does happen a lot. I believe reason is for election grandstanding. Come the following election, some Congressman can say he's tough on X while his opponent's soft, where X=[crime, guns, drugs, violent games, porn, sex offenders, copyright, gay rights, etc]. This works well for both campaign ads as well as soliciting contributions from companies who take an interest in these matters. It doesn't matter if the courts kill the law; the poor guy still tried and it's not his fault those Commies on the bench ruined everything. Or so he says.
Similarly, that's also where you'll see the 417-3 votes, where somebody will sponsor a bill against killing kittens, with a line item here or there including funding for pork projects. Nobody can vote against your amendment without voting for killing kittens. And the three people who do vote against it will have fun come re-election time, when the opponent saturates TV with commercials that state how much the guy enjoys killing kittens.
Re:This is great! (Score:5, Insightful)
could you imagine what a world it would be if the MPAA and RIAA and other special interest groups couldn't get online? Not saying there aren't groups like this in other countries, but they're not nearly as vocal or as damaging.
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
At least they had a warrant (such that it was...) when they stole the drug dealers' property. Now they don't even need that to grab your stuff.
scared yet?
Re:How is this wrong? Let me count the ways... (Score:2, Insightful)
Trouble is, in so many cases, the people having their assets seized are actually guilty
(usually drug possession or tax evasion), and giving up property can yield better results
than trying to defend oneself from a position of guilt.
Re:Welp, that's it. (Score:2, Insightful)
Being able to suggest unpopular, possibly unpleasant, and even downright moronic ideas isn't a flaw of the US. It's a strength. It's all about freedom of speech.
Re:So? (Score:3, Insightful)
It may not be long. When you increase the criminal penalties on a black market item, it actually increases the violence because it drives away the more casual dealers and attracts the more hardcore criminals who are more willing to take risks.
Re:Shot down for all the wrong reasons... (Score:4, Insightful)
Government isn't innately evil, its the concentration of power that is. If all you do is get rid of a government institution to institute a corporate monopoly in its place, then you haven't solved much of anything. That's why its so important to oppose things like longer copyrights, and longer patents. Both tend to create monopolies when what we want is competition in the private sector to actually work. In an era where the barriers to entry are steep enough, it stands to reason that you don't need to reduce incentives even more for someone else to compete.
If Republicans were so big into private competition, then what is so wrong about legislation that ensures that companies do exactly that?
Re:Makes sense on some levels (Score:4, Insightful)
All of this while using a network connection that's three blocks away from me.
The law also says that they can auction off the items immediately, rather than waiting to prove that to violated copyright. You know those honeypots that people set up? Yeah, the ones that only have the titles of material and just junk data? Those computers would be seized and auctioned off too.
This law also doesn't discriminate between illegal and legal filesharing. You terrorist sumbitches that keep sharing Ubuntu via BitTorrent are going to be REALLY surprised one morning.
No, this isn't a deterrent. This is legislation, drafted by a conglomerate of corporations, attempting to address something that is slowly becoming a cultural phenomenon.
Similar to drug seizure laws (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the same crap as the drug seizure laws. Everyone thought--great, take the houses, cars, property of the drug dealers. However, what's ended up happening is people are having their cars seized [heraldtribune.com] because a friend had a small amount of pot. Worse yet people are having large amounts of cash seized [dui.com] with the attitude that you must prove yourself innocent. It doesn't matter that no drugs were found or any evidence of drug dealing, just the fact that you're carrying a large amount of cash [256.com] is considered a crime. And good luck getting it back!
Friends, our freedoms are being eroded away while we stand by. According to the Supreme Court, municipalities can grab your land under imminent domain to sell to Wal-Mart or someone building condos. Police can seize your cash for no reason other than you're carrying it and now they want the right to seize you computers on the claim that you might have illegally downloaded something. It's got to stop or this really will be a police state.
Re:Bad URL (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:funny how... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
The 4th amendment to the US constitution, that authority that describes the limits of federal law, emphasis mine:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I'm having a lot of trouble reading this in any way at all that can justify trial- and conviction-free seizure and disposal of a citizen's property.
Re:This may be your last chance... (Score:5, Insightful)
And where would you go that isn't any worse?
Is that your solution to life's problems? Run away from them?
Re:How is this wrong? Let me count the ways... (Score:3, Insightful)
Why people are so addicted to this crazy bastard is quite beyond me. He speaks rubbish. Libertarianism is a fantasy. The closest I know of to a Libertarian state was the US until the Civil War, built largely on Maddison's and Jefferson's ideal state, but the idea of a minimalistic Federal government proved incapable of properly dealing with the economic disparity between the Northern and Southern states and its most obvious effect; slavery.
Abraham Lincoln killed American Libertarianism, and needed to to preserve the Union.
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Bingo. When a kid buys pot,he has to basically seek it through underground channels. The same channels that also traffic Meth, Crack, Heroine, etc. When you start going to various dealers you quickly realize that you're knee deep in the drug underworld, and you can ask for pretty much any drug you want and you will get it.
If you just had to flash an ID showing you're 18 or 21 or whatever to the guy behind the counter, you'd be all set. I would prefer that gas stations and grocery stores not sell marijuana. but perhaps Head shops could apply for a license the same way as a restaurant applies for a liquor license, and can be turned down under the same criteria. If the state, county or township doesn't want it there, then they can ban it. And let adjacent regions pull in the tax revenue instead. This is how alcohol sales works right now, where dry counties lose sales as people just pick up their beer at stores over the border.
Re:How is this wrong? Let me count the ways... (Score:2, Insightful)
In fact the consequence of libertarianism is that you are pretty much owned by the corporations.
Trendy (aka Naive and shortsighted) political positions such as libertarianism are not the answer.
We've lived libertarianism before, it's why we have a lot of the laws on the books we have (like 40 hour work week, no child labor, consumer product safety rules, etc).
Re:funny how... (Score:4, Insightful)
http://action.downsizedc.org/wyc.php?cid=83 [downsizedc.org]
Re:Don't let the door hit you on the way out. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Similar to drug seizure laws (Score:2, Insightful)
Actually, it's got to stop, or this will remain a police state.
Re:This is great! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The fucking drug cops did this (Score:1, Insightful)
I know this has kind of been OT but this is what the government does to people that they feel has wronged it. I hope I am wrong but cant you see that the MPAA and RIAA would like something similar to happen to copyright violators? They are using the same model as the DEA used for drug offenders. I agree that this whole thing depends on the budget given to the agency......and I think the chances of it getting enough budget to be effective is pretty small.
Re:So, this would mean.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Similar to drug seizure laws (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:A new AGENCY?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Mmm, no. Tricking _other_ countries into recognizing intellectual monopoly rights generates more revenue. Implementing more monopoly rights yourself merely makes your country less competetive, and strengthens the rights of _other countries_ to exact revenue from _you_.
"So what's left is content and patents."
Yeah, well, guess who's gonna own the monopoly rights of that content and those patents? Lets just say that the growing economies arent so dim they havent realized they too can get monopoly rights in the US.
Realize this: Intellectual 'property' is, and always has been, a covert distributed taxation scheme.
Saying enforcing IP 'protects jobs' is no different than saying 'raising and enforcing taxes protects jobs'. Give someone the right to exact taxes from some part of the economy and there's no limit to how large expenses they can create and how many workers they can employ. That does not equal competetive and efficient free market economy.
Re:How is this wrong? Let me count the ways... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Some folks would disagree. (Score:2, Insightful)
Lots of words, both good and evil ring true throughout the ages, because people will them to do so. The tangibility of phrases like this, on the other hand is only obtained through action, and the consequent good or evil which is brought to bear through them. Lincoln's and King's words have been infinitely more effective in establishing a positive change. Even some of Hitlers' one liners sound great and good, but the big picture sure is another thing--and the only way you can measure a man is to look at the big picture.
I don't care if emancipating all of his slaves would have boiled down to poverty for himself, he didn't care enough about the problem to do, well, much of anything but spout hot air. I continually fail to see how this man is regarded as man of the people, and when people spout his insubstantial words like they were trumpeted by some great ancient benefactor, it puts a little smirk on my face and another line in my forehead.
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
So that leaves me with a dilemma. I know I bought and paid for the thing. I've got the stupid CD. But I couldn't find a key online which would work for this particular copy (as with all Microsoft products, there are umpteen million variations, and a key from one variant won't work with any others). So I downloaded a torrent of the same Office version (but obviously a slightly different edition of it).
Technically, I broke the law. I could be thrown in jail and have all of my stuff confiscated for my horrible, evil copyright infringement. But... did I actually do anything wrong? I submit that I did not. When the law makes "not doing anything wrong" not only illegal, but assigns extremely harsh penalties which could destroy my life, we as a nation have collectively lost our minds. I could have stolen a physical copy from a store and faced much less serious penalties, and THAT crime actually would have harmed the store owner. My "crime" harmed no one and was not even unethical (in my opinion), and I risk jail time, massive fines, and confiscation of all my stuff. Thanks, politicians!
(In good humor, honest!) (Score:5, Insightful)
I see you're no Einstein.
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So? (Score:3, Insightful)
But all that aside, even if it did happen, I'm rather failing to see exactly how this was a violation of Habeas Corpus, which is a law that protects you against being detained without due process.
Re:How is this wrong? Let me count the ways... (Score:4, Insightful)
You are painting a false dichotomy here. The choice isn't between idealistic libertarianism and extreme corporatism. The choice is between a world where the government becomes increasing controlling and dictatorial and a world where individuals are free to make there own choices.
Many of the abuses of the industrial revolution that you cite were the result of corporations buying off corrupt politicians to get what they wanted. It took a massive uprising of individuals to transform both corporate and governmental policies. The government was as complicit in the abuses as the corporations.
In a truly libertarian society, the government would not have the power to act in the best interests of the corporations as they do today. It is even possible that many large corps would not even be able to exist in that environment. The reality is that our current political system heavily favor those with the $$$ to buy what they want, including legislation. Idealistic libertarianism would not be the perfect solution, but a good dose of libertarian common sense injected into our currently corrupt system would help tip the scales in favor of the Average Joe.
Re:So, this would mean.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Proposals of laws that violate the Constitution without amending it appropriately first, however, would.
And yes, there are subtleties involved, that's why I said "prima facie violates the constitution", ie, blatantly obvious. For more subtle issues perhaps the Supreme Court would have to be the final arbiter for that, too.
I've no problem whatsoever with someone who crafts a bogus law just to garner votes - election grandstanding - being summarily banned from ever holding office again. It's disgusting behaviour, and we shouldn't tolerate it.
Re:funny how... (Score:2, Insightful)
"Senator X says he's tough on Issue Y. He points to his support of Bill Z.
But Bill Z resulted in laws struck down by the courts as unconstitutional. So did Bills A, B, and C, also supported by Senator X.
Is the problem that Senator X's opponant doesn't care enough about Issue Y? Or that Senator X doesn't care enough about the rights he's sworn to protect?
Vote Senator X's opponent."
Re:Some folks would disagree. (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a mistake to judge past civilizations and societies by modern standards of right and wrong. This is one of the first lessons of anthropology. Past societies have done any number of things (slavery, wars of conquest, gladiatorial combat, human sacrifice, forced religious conversion and/or religious persecution) that would be considered abhorrent by modern standards. Does that mean that we can't embrace the progress that those societies brought in the arts, sciences, etc, etc?
So it's Jefferson's supposed hypocrisy that bothers you? Even though his actions were perfectly in line with societal norm at the time? Even though he supported efforts towards the reduction of slavery?
I fail to see in what context you can use the term "fat white man" and not expect it to stir racist sentiment. It serves no legitimate purpose other then an appeal to emotion and hatred. And I stand by my statement -- if I made a similar comment about somebody like Martin Luther King [wikipedia.org] (maybe something like "nigger plagiarist [wikipedia.org]" or "nigger womanizer") I would likely find myself called out as a racist and modded into oblivion.
Re:Get the message now? (Score:3, Insightful)
The **AA considers ANY copying, even copying that has time and again been considered FAIR USE, to be "theft." Much like the BSA and SPA don't consider possession of simply a "certificate of authenticity" to be proof of a valid license (you have to have reciepts for all those!), even if you obtained the music legally (via eMusic or a service like Rhapsody, or ripped from a CD) how much do you want to bet that the RIAA would go after you if you had a CD AND a MP3 of a song?
Re:How is this wrong? Let me count the ways... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ron Paul runs on a platform of states rights and openly says it is so the states can remove those rights currently protected by the Federal government. There is nothing in the earth or the stars that proclaims a state government would be any more sane with guaranteeing our freedoms than a federal government. In fact if you go into the South you'll find state's rights as an excuse for racism as much as anything else, if you go to the bible belt you'll find state's rights as an excuse to teach creationism Christianity using public funds while ignoring the scientific aspects of evolution that would be just as if not more important to a growing mind. Ron Paul doesn't want to limit the government to protect the citizen he wants to limit it to restrict the citizen.
Ron Paul runs on a platform of strict-constitutionalism but he supports amendments to tear down the Full Faith and Credit clause (src: http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul207.html [lewrockwell.com]). He wants to limit the ability of the supreme court to protect separation of church and state, the right to an abortion, the right for people to have sex with whomever they wish (be it man and women out of wedlock, or woman and woman, or a married couple getting a little freaky) and even the right to marry. (src: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.300.IH:; [loc.gov])
Ron Paul wants to return the legislating of environmental policies to states, but fails to recognize that pollution in one state can cause serious or worse implications in other states.
Ron Paul wants to remove the IRS, but seems to have no firm plan on how to make up lost funds. In some places he has said he won't replace it with anything, in some places he claims to use what amounts to a regressive tax policy to replace it meaning people who make less end up paying more percentage-wise (this is in direct contradiction to reforms suggested by billionaire Warren Buffet).
Again in his currency policy he is unclear, he wants to return us to a system similar to the gold standard and even endorsing multiple currencies. He seems not to recognize the strength of having one clear currency and the fact hat our economy has been for the most part more resilient because we stopped using the gold standard.
There are a number of other issues with his platform, but I'll end on a conciliatory note with the parent. If all RP does is stop the drug war we will be better off, because if he does even 1/10th of the other things we will not be better off.
Re:This may be your last chance... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:How is this wrong? Let me count the ways... (Score:3, Insightful)
You are quite free to "home-school" your children on the farm where they all have chores to do all day long. Yet for some reason most people choose not to. I think you could completely repeal child labor laws and see no measurable increased incidence of actual child labor.
By the way, I have never lived libertarianism and neither has any living American. I'd like to give it a try.