Proposed Crime of the Century: Attempted Copyright Infringement

[DarkN00b]

I thought there might be few peole here who would be interested in this Wired news article (http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2007/05/ippa07).

It would make copying a DVD or sharing mp3s equivalent to selling heroin or crack. House? Seized! Car? Seized! Money? Seized. If this passes, it will be one more nail in the coffin of American freedom.

Wave that flag! http://www.xs4all.nl/~ernstmul/images/msnbonus/flag_american.gif

Bastards.

[Lucifiel]

Yikes! I'm so glad I don't live in the US, man.

That law sounds pretty crazy. After all, if someone cried wolf and that person had a lot of political clout and knew plenty of important officials, wouldn't it be really easy for him to get someone else thrown into jail, then?

Edit: Btw, what anime is your avatar from? ;) It looks really cool! :D

[%hMa@?b<C]

if this ever happens, I am packing up and getting the hell of the United (Fascist) States of America, MA is pretty close to Canada anyway.

[DarkN00b]

Edit: Btw, what anime is your avatar from? ;) It looks really cool! :D

Its Lord Ilpalazzo from Excel Saga - One of the most hilarious (and stupid) animes I have ever seen. He's kind of an idiot.

Honestly though, I think this proposal will fail. The way these things work over here is:

1. Lobbyists pay politicians to propose a new law.
2. Politicians write up a caricature of what the lobbyists want and run it up the pole.
3. It gets voted down (of course) so it goes back to committee for re-write.
4. It returns in slightly weakened form and is voted down again.
5. Repeat steps 3 & 4 until the level of fascism is acceptable to all and the prez is willing to sign it into law.
6. Gradually over time make th law more and more restrictive until it surpasses even the disgusting first proposal. This is usually done be saying it needs to be done "For the children".

Thus the law of diminishing returns kicks in and we have a country going quickly down the crapper.

[%hMa@?b<C]

just though some would get a laugh out of this
http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/042406/inside-the-riaa.gif

[doobit]

We need to write our congressmen and representatives now.

[flowingfire]

GOOD GOD! I thought Bush appointing a War Czar yesterday was bad.

... Yeah, I'm glad Minnesota is close to the Canadian border too. I better get those immigration papers in order before the influx of refugees shows up at their border.

[starcraft.man]

ROFL . I LOVE my Canada, your all welcome to come up here and live with us. We legalized lots of things, we are so relaxed :). Besides, we have insurance against this kind of thing... our politicians are either too stupid to think it up or too high to care :p

[Sunflower1970]

Yesh.

This is the most scary part:

The bill would also criminalize the intent to commit copyright crimes, which the Justice Department claims brings copyright more in line with other criminal laws. Currently, an infringing crime actually has to have taken place in order for prosecutors to bring a case. The new legislation, if passed, would criminalize the mere attempt.

Before you know it if you even think about pirating the feds then would pounce it. Minority Report, here we come.

But, wait. How serious will Congress take this bill? It's from Alberto Gonzales...

[starcraft.man]

But, wait. How serious will Congress take this bill? It's from Alberto Gonzales...

LOL, your right. You can just have senators stall the bill for like 3 months and Alberto won't even remember putting it forward, given his great memory about meetings with them prosecutors :p

[ghostboy]

"The bill would also criminalize the intent to commit copyright crimes"

WOW!

This bill is earily reminiscent of 1984 by George Orwell. Instead of having to prove that someone actually "infringed copyrights" by copying a Metalica CD, they would only have to prove that the accused intended (read: thought about) infringing on a copyright. Thank goodness that the EFF has stepped in and said something. I know that right now it seems like they agree with the bill, but I think that they will actually try to get this killed.

Its funny how quickly we as Americans are willing to have our rights eroded. Now the government listens to our phone calls, reads our mail, and wants to imprison us for "thought-crime"! WTF? It seems to me that we fought a war about this in the 1940's and 1950's.

I for one REFUSE to allow myself to be branded by REAL ID, will continue to OPENLY defy the RIAA, and will ALWAYS fight for what is right.

"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!"
- Emiliano Zapata (http://quotes.prolix.nu/Authors/?Emiliano_Zapata)

[mips]

When will the US Gov. represent the people and not the big corporates. One gets the impression that you are past the point of no return. Pretty soon your PCs will have credit card readers built in so you have to swipe your cc just to turn it on.

[LaRoza]

The proposed bill is very unlikely to ever become an issue in Congress, but if it did, with all the proposed rules, it would not be enforced unless an operation was massive. The USA has laws that are impossible to enforce unless it becomes big enough. The most realistic explanation for this lies in the extreme lack of Law Enforcement officials.

[Sunflower1970]

When will the US Gov. represent the people and not the big corporates. One gets the impression that you are past the point of no return. Pretty soon your PCs will have credit card readers built in so you have to swipe your cc just to turn it on.

...Hopefully things will get better when we have the next election.... :-\"

But somehow it's doubtful

The more I see here, the more I'm unnerved by it. It feels reminiscent this society is turning into one similar in V for Vendetta

[goumples]

Thanks to a new "attempt" provision that wouldn't require the actual commission of a violation, the bill could conceivably be expanded, in an extreme case, to interpret a computer full of music next to a spindle of blank CDs as an act of piracy.

... So my computer full of legit music that I paid for, and my stack of CD-R's I use to make compilation disks to listen to in my car.. is piracy.. wtf mates.

[juxtaposed]

The fascists have struck again. Well, almost.

[WalmartSniperLX]

They're very much into protecting a person's profit. After all if you had to make a living as a musician it is very annoying when people are copying/sharing your music all over the web. Maybe it's not that annoying to the musician because they make most of their raw money playing shows and tours but the producers and record labels aren't liking the idea very well.

Oh well. If things get too tight I might just move out of the US to Europe and live with my cousins. Are they as strict over there with all this copyright junk?

[doobit]

ROFL . I LOVE my Canada, your all welcome to come up here and live with us. We legalized lots of things, we are so relaxed :). Besides, we have insurance against this kind of thing... our politicians are either too stupid to think it up or too high to care :p

We are coming to visit Toronto next week. If we like it, maybe we will stay.

[newbie2]

http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/25285/
:rolleyes:

[Ptero-4]

This is one thing I like from Panamá. My gov is too into our own **** to care about Bush´s copyright crap. I already see the influx of refugees coming to latinoamerica the moment this gets tightenend over there in USA.

[smoker]

looks like a lot of US students 'cheating' on an essay may find themselves in jail, lol :-)

[starcraft.man]

We are coming to visit Toronto next week. If we like it, maybe we will stay.

Hope ya like it, I'm a frenchy though :p Well, sorta anyway... Montreal is a bit more lively than Toronto in my experience, we got lots of festivals here. Ya do need to know some french to live here though. Anyway, its a nice place :).

[mips]

They're very much into protecting a person's profit. After all if you had to make a living as a musician it is very annoying when people are copying/sharing your music all over the web. Maybe it's not that annoying to the musician because they make most of their raw money playing shows and tours but the producers and record labels aren't liking the idea very well.

Oh well. If things get too tight I might just move out of the US to Europe and live with my cousins. Are they as strict over there with all this copyright junk?

It's not about protecting the musicians/individual but helping the big entertainment labels to rip you off. The musicians aren't getting the best deal either.

[starcraft.man]

It's not about protecting the musicians/individual but helping the big entertainment labels to rip you off. The musicians aren't getting the best deal either.

LOL, most of the musicians get such a low percentage of music sales they make their largest money off of the tours. Only the really big bands are guaranteed high volume CD sales and thus decent royalties. It's really laughable when the DRM companies/record labels say their out to protect their clients/bands.

Just look at the Bare Naked Ladies tell ya to go get their music free, they publicly say they get almost nothing for the sales. What a screwed up world >.>.

[Biochem]

Do you really think the biggest sponsor of this law will be the RIAA? I think the jail builder association and the prison guard union are more likely to push it forward. There is way more profit to be made on those front with this law.

[Polygon]

how exactly do they propose to enforce this? there is no possible way that they can catch, try and punish every single person who has ever infringed a copyright.

I highly doubt that this will become an issue. Every so often i hear about bills that sound really bad, but in time they either get vetoed or shot down, or i just never heard about them again.

we live in an important time. The battle between DRM and the ability to distribute whatever the heck you want will be going on for a long time to come, and for some reason i think the winner will not be DRM...

[jinx099]

this kind of stuff is getting out of hand here in America. I'll be looking to move as well if this trend continues. More and more rights are taken away every day, and we NEVER get them back.

[justin whitaker]

America: A Government by the Corporation, for the Corporation, and of the Corporation.

[FuturePilot]

http://www.ptclub.com/images/others/bigbro.jpg

Well it's getting scarily close to that:shock:

[Hygelac]

Things like this make me feel that I should work harder to infringe copyright more often; at the very least I will have to think about it. :rolleyes:
If any of you head north of the border I'll come meet you with a 'Welcome to Canada' sign. :)

[joe.turion64x2]

Microsoft could benefit from this.