If you thought the U.S. Government goes too far criminalizing its citizens now, just wait until this bomb drops. I highly recommend reading that article as it could effect every person in the United State's lives if this bill gets enacted. I'll try to break down the important parts to you here. The Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006 will criminalize copyright infringement in a way that will make the sentence for selling pot to school children look like a slap on the wrist. (And need I remind you that selling pot gets you a longer jail sentence than many different types of violent crimes including involuntary manslaughter.) The act will create a special FBI unit dedicated to investigating copyright infringement crimes. They will be able to wiretap your phones, monitor your computer use, and based on this information, will be able to throw you in jail and seize anything they deem as having been used in the infringement. You might be thinking at this point "No big deal, I don't download music." We're not just talking about music here. This will cover EVERY kind of copyright infringement. If you copy part of an article without proper permission, share a copyrighted picture on the internet (e-mail forwards anyone?), download most kinds of digital media, burn a CD for a friend, copy a song from a CD you purchased to your iPod, or any number of other things these jackasses come up with that you do that they think hurts their bottom line. Here is the real kicker... you don't even have to have successfully copied anything. Just attempting to copy or share something will qualify you for up to 10 years in jail! Another part of this law would criminalize owning or selling any devices or software that can be used to circumvent copy protection. Still don't think this concerns you? Do you own a TiVo, VCR, tape recorder, computer, ink and paper, camera, scanner, copy machine, typewriter, CD/DVD burner, mini-disk recorder, one of millions of different software titles, or any other device that has the capability to copy media or convert it from one form to another? Well soon you will be a criminal for it thanks to this bill (if passed). Since the current government likes to use scare tactics to get us to agree to things, there has already been a correlation between copyright infringement and terrorism. Quoted from the news.com article:
That's right kids, you're downloading terrorism! What kind of idiots do they think we are?! I thought the whole copyright issue was getting out of hand without any legal changes. The RIAA has been suing people that don't even have computers, dead people, children, and college students already. To my knowledge there hasn't been anyone actually through the court system with this either. They have just been scaring the crap out of people and getting them to settle out of court beforehand. Why not just show up at people's houses with a few large guys and a baseball bat and start breaking knees already? Now I've never been one of those huge anti-corporate hippy types that gets angry at Starbucks for trying to make money, but this is the most infuriating thing I have ever heard of. How much money in bribes did it take for various organizations like the MPAA and RIAA to get a congressman to even look at this garbage? There is no way you can convince me that they are thinking about protecting the people of their country while taking this bill into consideration. This law will make criminals out of most people in this country. How are they going to find enough jail cells for all of us? In all seriousness this is the kind of thing that is worth a 10,000,000 person march on Washington. This is the kind of thing that is more riot-worthy than any sporting event or religious outrage. They are trying to take away EVERY FREEDOM WE HAVE! I'm going to do a little research on who to write to, e-mail, fax, and call repeatedly about this and post it here later because this is definitely worth some action. Articles about this:
Here is a related article dealing with how the current DMCA laws are already hurting us:
|
|||
sheer stupidity
I guess instead of saving for retirement we should all start stashing away bail money, right??
"The only constant in this world is change" --George Carlin
>_<
anunnaki.. come take me away!
;)
Sitchin?
Wow, I thought I was the only one who read about that. Very cool. :-)
-sp5k
"Art is not decoration, embellishment; rather it is work of enlightenment. Art, in other words, is a technique for acquiring liberty."
Bruce Lee, Tao of Jeet Kune Do
.
I found finestkind's comment on one of our StumbleUpon pages. Apparently posting a comment on this site takes too much effort. Anyways, here is her statement about this rant:
Well, now, I read the link, and it says just copyrighted material if the value is over $1,000. Do you really think Big Brother is going to send my ass to Leavenworth because I re-posted this? I doubt it. They're just trying to find ways to keep a big, brotherly eye on us and using copyright infringement to do it.
I have two problems with an opinion like this one. First off if you read that part of the article more carefully that is what the CURRENT law is. All that small point says is that it boosts penalties for an act already in place. Here is the actual text from the news.com article:
Boosts criminal penalties for copyright infringement originally created by the No Electronic Theft Act of 1997 from five years to 10 years (and 10 years to 20 years for subsequent offenses). The NET Act targets noncommercial piracy including posting copyrighted photos, videos or news articles on a Web site if the value exceeds $1,000.
My second problem lies in the fact that this person is obviously complacent in the fact that the government wants more control to spy on us. That in itself is sickening to me. They got more than enough power to do that with the patriot act, they do NOT need any more reasons to harass their own citizens. The government is supposed to protect us from corporations, not the other way around. And nowhere in a bill like this can you rationalize that they are just looking out for our rights!
Copy THIS! *double deuce*
Few things scare me as much as all this trash about "intellectual property" ownership. Things like patents, DRM protections and the RIAA in general are seriously stifling both our growth as an intelligent culture and some of the basic rights we are given.
The Music Industry is mostly justified in trying to protect their music; in a couple of clicks today, you can instantly get studio-quality sound from any of your favorite artists. This definitely beats the quality my friends and I used to get, using cassette tapes to record songs off the radio. But then, sharing music wasn't about trying to rip off the artists or the industry; it was for the love of the music that we would copy our favorite songs. The need to share something beautiful and meaningful with those around you.
The difference now is... there is no difference. People trade and share music just the same as they did well before music downloading and CD burning, and to the same end. The difference is that some corporate suit was made aware of the underground music scene because ANY blundering idiot with an internet connection can get online and be appalled at SOMETHING.
So to protect their "intellectual property" the RIAA decided to enforce DRM protection schemes on as many CDs as they possibly could. Now, for the true pirates, no amount of encryption or obfuscating can possibly block them from getting what they want. And as long as you can get the CD to play music, there's no way anyone can prevent copying the music on that CD, just because analog never fails.
The problem now is... those CDs aren't playing music anymore. People who buy legitimate music now have to jump through hoops trying to get their music to play! And if this law passes, all it will be doing is screwing the paying customers even more. A friend of mine who had recently bought a CD found that she was unable to put the music from it onto her iPod. So she immediately turned to that ever-reliable music downloading scene and got herself a working copy. Does anyone else see something wrong with this? The fact that to get a working product, buying it straight from the manufacturer is the WORST thing to do.
The true evil here isn't the music artists, the ones who just want to make a living off making music. It's the corporate sponsors behind them, trying to leech every penny off the customers so they can get rich. And when corporations like the RIAA find out that they could possibly make even MORE money... they go absolutely crazy in trying to get it. Joke sites like http://mafiaa.org/ are funny now, because they hit so close to home. The RIAA and MPAA are huge corporations who almost quite literally go door-to-door threatening people and breaking kneecaps.
The scariest thing about all this is that the government that should be protecting it's people is instead protecting the corporations from all of us "evil citizens." Whatever happened to those anti-trust laws that prevented businesses from forming a monopoly to bully people? What about taking things that seem unfair to the justice department and having them ruled unconstitutional? The same thing happened long ago with VCRs; the movie industry panicked about people being able to copy movies and TV shows, and tried to get them banned. The debate went all the way to the Supreme Court, where they ruled that VCRs and BetaMax were entirely legitimate devices, given they are used only for personal use.
As long as the US government eventually realizes that they're supposed to protect the citizens and not the corporations, I believe this will all resolve itself over time. This ugly, corrupted system surprisingly hasn't failed us yet in the 200-some-odd years of working, and as long as it keeps working the way it's supposed to, I can safely ignore my government and get on with my life.
Keep fighting the system. -Midas