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.
With added 80s music! (Score:5, Funny)
(warning: may cause eye strain and/or brain damage)
Re:With added 80s music! (Score:5, Funny)
"by the time you add up all the people involved in creating an application, you'll end up with 20 or 30 people" - LOL!!
I think the best form of copyright protection would be if any time you entered blank media into a drive you had to listen to that video...
Unfortunately I think the suicide rate may increase drastically too!
This is great! (Score:5, Funny)
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:This is great! (Score:5, Interesting)
A new AGENCY?! (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:A new AGENCY?! (Score:4, Informative)
No, not really. The latest US Department of Agriculture forecast has a $15B net surplus [usda.gov] for agricultural exports over imports for FY 2008.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The US isn't alone in this. It's a game that all countries play...
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.
EFF Link (Score:5, Informative)
So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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: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!
How is this wrong? Let me count the ways... (Score:5, Informative)
Amendment V
No person...shall...be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
I understand here that "due process of law" is actually being changed to make this legal, but I feel that the following serves to define "due process of law" in a way:
Amendment VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
Re:How is this wrong? Let me count the ways... (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.isil.org/resources/lit/looting-of-america.html [isil.org]
Re:How is this wrong? Let me count the ways... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (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 Civi
Re:How is this wrong? Let me count the ways... (Score:5, Informative)
The Ad Hominem [nizkor.org].
Ron Paul is a lunatic with damn little understanding of history, economics and politics.
Ron Paul may not be an unequaled sage; there are most likely students of history, economics, and politics who are superior to him.
These people are not, however, in our government. Obama is a toll. Hillary Clinton, though quite bright, fundamentally doesn't understand the long-term strategic mis-steps the U.S. has made in the past 50 years. That being said, both Obama and Clinton have a much better grip on reality that the rest (as in non-Paul) of the Republican slate. McCain, Huckabee, Giulani, and the rest have no clue on basic things like immigration, economics, foreign policy, and religion.
Does Paul say stupid things some times? Yes. However, if you do some research, you'll see that he is far more knowledgable about the issues he speaks about that his contemporaries, and many of the things that he advocates are sane, sound policy decisions.
For example, the DEA, and the drug war, is a ridiculous mess. If the only good thing that came out of a Paul Presidency was the end of the drug war, the U.S. would be a much better place.
The same is true of the IRS, which is also a complete mess. Keep in mind that Paul who advocate a replacement such as a sales tax [larrydburton.com], which is the sort of mechanism that European economics use (they call it a VAT).
Our government has gone through large scale reformations before, and survived. Recently, even; look at the Department of Homeland security, which has completely reoriented the operations of domestic law enforcement, and the USCIS, which is a newish entity replacing the INS.
I, for one, am willing to trade the possibility of the free market failing in providing economic equality in exchange for strengthening of our civil liberties, the end of the drug war, a return to a more conservative foreign policy, pursuit of a balanced budget and trade, and a complete overhaul of our insane tax system.
Who are you to call me a lunatic, and why are the risks involved in moving to what I believe to be a "better" government any worse than the shitstorm the democrats and republicans are currently driving us towards? The vast majority of the electorate has delved into the issues far less than I have, and the vast majority of the congress, and every _other_ lunatic running for President, is a good deal less informed than Dr. Paul.
Either you are a hopeless optimist, and like the direction this country is going in, or you've become so conservative and a afraid of change that any large-scale reorientation of the government is terrifying to you.
Hell, I'd excuse people like you if you had a candidate who would restore our liberties without pursuing radical economics changes, however, given the current slate of possibilities on both sides of the aisle, no one other than Kucinich and Paul defend civil liberties that way they need to be defended.
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: (Score:3)
I stopped reading at that point, because anything you said after this was based upon false assumptions. I was not creating a dichotomy - i was dealing with cause and effect. The cause is libertarianism, the effect is a power vacuum. That power vacuum is then the cause of the rise of the power of corporations as they fill that power vacuum. IT is true that they are not the only party that
This may be your last chance... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, let's see what happens in the next elections. If the people lose, you're welcome to establish here below the Bravo
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?
(In good humor, honest!) (Score:5, Insightful)
I see you're no Einstein.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If you look up each of those countries on Wikipedia (or any other place), you will find them to be much superior of USA in most ways.
Based on other laws coming out in the USA (Score:5, Insightful)
funny how... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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:funny how... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:funny how... (Score:4, Insightful)
http://action.downsizedc.org/wyc.php?cid=83 [downsizedc.org]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Riders and amendments are another check and balance in our government, the same as the power of the SCOTUS to overturn legislation. They prevent the tyranny of the majority by allowing the minority party (or parties, ha!) to still get something done. It is part of the culture of compromise that Congress should be (and, day-to-day on a majority of issues, grandstanding aside, still is).
Pork is a vital part of the culture of compromise: "I'll let you add this amendment to get funding for X program
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Second, if things did grind to a halt, maybe Congress would relearn how to actually compromise on a bill's terms, until it's something everyone can live with. That, too, protects minorities -- while sneak-riders do the exact opposite.
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If a chunk of legislation did not have sufficient (50%) support on it's own, then presumptively there would be more than 50% support for some n
Why bother with a judicial system? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's the (RI|MP)AA asking for the moon - that way, when they tone down their demands they won't sound as absurd.
Look at it from this perspective: how much resources do you imagine the FBI is dedicating to copyright infringement given the number of embarrassing gaffes that the entertainment industry is making? The entertainment industry wants a government department with powers similar to the FBI but dedicated purely to copyright enforcement. Such a department could not reasonably refuse to assist in arresting some relatively innocent granny because they have higher priorities.
Makes sense on some levels (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Makes sense on some levels (Score:5, Interesting)
This specifically entails skipping the due process involved. Basically, they can write you a spurious ticket and take your hardware...and never give it back, irregardless of whether you're guilty or not.
This crap really has to stop. Someone has to draw a line. No, actually, the whole country needs to draw a line, and demand that everything that has already crossed that line be revoked. Things in the US are starting to cross over into the land of the surreal. Jumped the shark is an understatement, and I KNOW that this is not the kind of thing your average American citizen wants to see happen.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm sorry, but due to its extreme inanity, I have trademarked the non-word "irregardless" and now charge $50,000 per violation. Pay up!
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.
Sony has infringed a copyright - when the auction? (Score:5, Interesting)
Close examination of the rootkit that Sony's audio CDs attack their customers' PCs with has revealed that their malicious software is built on code that infringes on copyright. Indications are that Sony has included the LAME music encoder, which is licensed under the Lesser General Public License (LGPL), which requires that those who use it attribute the original software and publish some of the code they write to use the library. Sony has done none of this.
So, based on the proposed bill - how much of Sony would have been auctioned of I wonder...
Poppycock! Balderdash! (Score:5, Funny)
Are you suggesting that here, in the Land of the Free(TM), that the government would seize and auction off your assets for a copyright "crime" even if you haven't been adjudicated as guilty? Oh, come on.....next you'll try to tell me that they'll seize and auction your car and keep your cash if they even suspect you of having drugs! (Chuckle) Yeah....like that's gonna happen....
Hate your boss? Hate your company? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that how I should imagine this?
Shut down Harvard! (Score:5, Funny)
The government is going to have absolutely awesome computers. And the beauty of it, is they can sell them, then go back and impound them later! Sell them again and again and instant $$$ Budgest crisis? Solved! Funding wars against the rest of the world? PAID FOR! Impound and auction, rinse and repeat!
So, this would mean.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I can't wait.
(Not that I really expect that would ever happen even if this became law. We all know there's one law for the people and another for the corporations (and yet another for the politicians).)
What I'd really like to see is a constitutional amendment (that's what it would take) that automatically bars an official from re-election if he or she proposes, sponsors, or votes for legislation like this which is prima facie unconstitutional (they've violated their oath of office to uphold the constitution).
But I don't expect that to happen either.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
While on the surface this sounds like a great idea, and I'd be all for it, unfortunately there is no way to craft such a law that makes sense. As an example take Prohibition; once it was made law if t
Re: (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 f
Remember AT&T Unix (Score:5, Informative)
AT&T Unix source code was somehow put in some national security list. Basically if you were caught with a copy of the source without having had paid or part of some University that paid the $60,000 source license, the Secret Service would come with guns drawn and seize every piece of electronics equipment on the premises.
There is little documentation that this had even happened and almost none of the victims ever received there hardware back.
http://www.chriswaltrip.com/sterling/crack2l.html [chriswaltrip.com]
http://www.cs.wustl.edu/cs/cs/archive/CS142_SP96/notes16.html [wustl.edu]
This finally ended with Steve Jackson Games that managed to sue them for a similar seizure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_Games,_Inc._v._United_States_Secret_Service [wikipedia.org]
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:So? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A visit from the spelling police (Score:5, Funny)
Hm... Lobby, lobbier, lobbiest...
OK, it all checks out... You can go about your business. Move along.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just the next chapter.
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:So? (Score:5, Informative)
Guilty until proven innocent, shoot first gather facts later, etc. are an extremely dangerous way to conduct law enforcement, though fortunately that can't happen in the United States because the Founding Fathers wrote protections against it in the constitution. Oh wait
Re:So? (Score:5, Informative)
Is the case of Donald Scott [wikipedia.org] the one you're talking about? I've never heard of this and would be interested to know. I bet others would as well.
Re:So? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure a lot of people have no idea what you're talking about. This started because state police in many states were empowered to seize property, without due process, and *pocket* the proceeds. This created an environment where almost every state cop in the US, where this was implemented, was actually a criminal. Several states, after a decade or more of complaints, finally started to investigate.
It seems it worked like this. Cop sees nice expensive car. Cop pulls over the car. Cop claims you are a drug deal and plants evidence. Cop seizes you car and everything in it. You are arrested. Drug charges were often dropped. You car and all your property within the car is sold at auction. Cop pockets all of the proceeds. Normally out of state cars were the preferred targets, leave you little recourse. And in the end, who wants to champion "drug dealers." States only started to act when it was found that the majority of the "drug dealers" fit a certain profile such as "affluent retirees" passing through the state.
States such as GA, LA, MS, and AL were especially bad. The solution was to tell the police to stop it. They couldn't simply arrest all of the criminal cops because in those four states, as much as 90% of the state police would be behind bars. It was thought that created too much of a risk to public safety to put criminals in jail.
So chances are, if you've been ticketed by a state policeman in these states, you were ticketed by a criminal that has commit more crimes than most any criminal currently convicted, sitting in jail right now.
Hang on a second...... (Score:5, Informative)
Here's my first problem.....the way you're stating this, the majority of cops are cruising around with a trunk full of cocaine just waiting to frame the innocent. Yes, there are cases where evidence has been planted, but in the ones I've heard of there's usually a stonger motive than "I want to confiscate your car". Unless you cite a good source, there's no way I believe it's that rampant.
In what jurisdiction does the cop get the proceeds of auctioned property? I've never heard of this being practiced in the United States. The state gets the proceeds, and depending on where, it could go either directly to the police budget, or the general budget. Again, unless you can cite this, I'm having a hard time believing it.
I would suspect that corruption on that level would attract both federal investigations, and media attention.
I get the feeling that what you've got is some half-remembered anecdotes about evidence auctions, and a general dislike for the police.......
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:So? (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, I ran into the following on-target quote just now on Neatorama [neatorama.com], and I hopped right back here to append it:
- Ernest Benn, publicist (1875 - 1954)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If they actually form this proposed Federal Information Property Bureau they've been talking about, I'm seriously going to start looking for a new country to live in. It's been bad enough lately that I've been tossing the idea around, I just haven't found anywhere that I like better yet. Mostly I'm looking for someplace with a good tech sector, good privacy rights, and preferably no censorship of any kind. I used to think Canada might be feasible, but more and more they're looking like a clone of the USA. S
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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I was at an infragard meeting where some LE person asked for feedback about a similar proposal he wanted enacted for child porn. I submitted comments suggesting that it was a terrible idea.
Civil forfeiture laws are a terrible idea. They corrupt law enforcement and people do not get proper due process under this system.
If a judge doesn't want someone to access something that enables a particular type of crime that someone has been doing, th
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I think there should be a special class of judgement that SCOTUS can invoke against legislators, where a law is so obviously a violation of the Constitution, that the legislatures are fined millions of dollars and/or sent to prison for years for intentional violation of citizens' civil liberties. As well, where it's revealed that lobbiests were involved in the drafting of said legislation, they a
Re:So? (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, without a trial and conviction, your computer equipment can be seized by the cops and sold to supplement the donut/hooker/beer petty cash fund. This is just fucking great. I'd love to see this shot down, but I doubt it will.
And I love the "justification". The fact that the US doesn't make anything *real* anymore is not my fault. Ideas are great and all, but when your only product is ideas, and you've outsourced the manufacture of real, durable goods to other places, you will eat your own dog food eventually. I laugh at how they tossed counterfeit meds in there -- nobody will vote that down during an election cycle. "The senator from your state voted *against* protecting seniors from counterfeit medicine on the internet!" Nevermind that they're trying to kill out-of-country medication purchases *anyway*.
Anyone know where I can get a free (or cheap and paid anonymously with cash) shell account overseas where I can SSH in and compile/run TOR? This is getting fucking ridiculous.
Re:So? (Score:5, Interesting)
They're not "undercover cops" or "plainclothes policemen". Call a spade a spade - they're God damned Secret Police, no different than the Communist KGB or the Nazi's Secret Police. If "crimes" like drug possession, gambling, and prostitution weren't crimes there would be no reason or excuse to have Secret Police.
So now you have a "crime" that's a civil matter and you forfeit property without compensation or trial. Thank you, "Partnership for a Drug Free America". I hope your God damned children become needle junkies you fucking assholes, because drug laws make their becoming junkiest MORE likely. Marijuana doesn't lead to harder drugs, marijuana LAWS leas potsmokers to harder drugs.
How far does this slippery slope slide? I love my country, I hate its government. Perhaps one day my descendants will again have a representative government, rather than the one party plutocracy it has become.
-mcgrew
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: (Score:3, Interesting)
"No, man, it's dry. Want some coke?"
Re:So? (Score:4, Interesting)
1) Before your trial, all of your assets are seized.
2) Therefore you can't pay an attorney...so you probably lose if they try you.
3) You can't appeal the verdict without:
a) Paying a rather expensive fee for the appeal, and
b) The appeals court accepting the case
4) If you appeal, you can't appeal based on anything that wasn't raised as an issue in the original trial...where you had a lawyer who was either unpaid or chosen by the govt. (aka public defender).
5) If the appeals court decides against you, you must appeal to the District court. (I think I have this right. Possibly this step is skipped.) All of the caveats WRT the appeals court apply again (if I haven't separated into two what is really one court).
6) Now you can appeal to the Supreme Court. They refuse to hear most cases that are appealed to them. They will generally only agree to hear cases where the decision that they will make is politically acceptable. They are also quite expensive, and all of your assets were impounded before step one.
Because of this, your only hope is if some organization, e.g. the ACLU, decides to get involved very early in the process. This rarely happens. It will essentially never happen if you represent something unpopular, because the organization depends on solicited funds.
Also notice that each of these steps takes multiples of years. You're trying to swim upstream, and all levels of the government offer increased resistence when you do that. If you were trying to plead guilty the case might be decided within months, but since you are opposed to the govt., it will take years to decades even if you are *eventually* successful.
So, no, these laws haven't yet gone to the Supreme Court. I doubt that they've ever gone to an appeals court. Remember that step one is to strip the defendent of the ability to pay for lawyers.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They will generally only agree to hear cases where the decision that they will make is politically acceptable
Uhh, yeah, I was with you up until this point. For better or worse SCOTUS has issued lots of highly unpopular decisions in it's history. Hell, the GP even mentioned a recent one [wikipedia.org].
That which you say is true, but so is what I said. They do make politically unpopular decisions, and they also try to avoid doing so. They're busy, and they must usually be selective about what cases to accept. The current court has been less protective of individual liberties than any court in recent memory. (I'm not sure I agree with some of the decisions of the Warren court, but they *did* at least *try* to be protective of individual liberties. Sometimes, admittedly, with less than stellar success.
Members of the Judiciary Committee (Score:4, Informative)
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Generally speaking, no. You can only sue the (Federal) government when it decides to allow you to sue it, and the exceptions are defined pretty narrowly. While maybe you could argue that doing something blatantly unconstitutional is tortuous, it'd be an uphill battle. (Cf. "Federal Tort Claims Act")
Pretty much the sole remedies afforded to you by the Constitut
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: (Score:3, Informative)
one example would be a man who was handed a £60 fine for littering when he threw a used match stick out of his car window.
Littering (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Littering (Score:5, Interesting)
-nB
Re:Littering (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree that £60 for a single matchstick may seem rather excessive, though this is a type of story that generally grow more outrageous with every retelling (and are often
Re:So? (Score:5, Interesting)
Nothing new here. Civil forfeiture [cornell.edu] has been a feature of the War on Drugs for a long time; extending it to the War on Copying is an obvious strategy. The "great" thing about civil forfeiture is that the defendant isn't you, with all of your rights; in a twisted bit of legal sophistry, it's the property itself being sued by the government.
I'm sure it will be just as successful in stopping copying as it was in stopping drug use. (I'm just waiting for the violent black market in bootleg DVDs to develop.)
"History repeats itself: First as tragedy, then as farce." - Marx got that one right at least.
Re: (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.
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Re:Bad URL (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bad URL (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bad URL (Score:5, Insightful)
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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?
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Republicans passed the Bono Act and the DMCA (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Republicans passed the Bono Act and the DMCA (Score:4, Interesting)
In all likelihood it was because the entertainment industry paid sufficient bribes that the politicians ignored their stated ideology and obeyed their corporate masters. The same as with every other stupidly evil bill.
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Absolutely. Now - did that happen around the time of the civil war, or around the time of WWII?
Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Informative)
So, since that one was 'accepted'...they've naturally progressed to 'lesser' crimes.
Another step in the guilty until proven innocent transformation of our legal system.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
When are you people going to wake up and see that the two party politicking that is so prominent in the media is just another way to keep you obeying? If you really think that Democrats and Republicans are so different it just proves that you've been fooled.
Stay asleep. They like you better that way.
Re: (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