New bill would boost DMCA
p2p news / p2pnet: A new copyright law with entertainment cartel favourite Lamar Smith fronting it would expand the DMCA’s restrictions on software that can bypass copy protections and grant federal police more wiretapping and enforcement powers, says CNET News.
The proposed bill, currently in Congress, "is a far-reaching medley of different proposals cobbled together that would follow on from the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act," says the story.
"The draft legislation, created by the Bush administration and backed by Rep. Lamar Smith, already enjoys the support of large copyright holders such as the Recording Industry Association of America. Smith is the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees intellectual-property law."
CNET says the proposed law:
- Permits wiretaps in investigations of copyright crimes, trade secret theft and economic espionage. It would establish a new copyright unit inside the FBI and budgets $20 million on topics including creating "advanced tools of forensic science to investigate" copyright crimes.
- Amends existing law to permit criminal enforcement of copyright violations even if the work was not registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.
- 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.
- Creates civil asset forfeiture penalties for anything used in copyright piracy. Computers or other equipment seized must be "destroyed" or otherwise disposed of, for instance at a government auction. Criminal asset forfeiture will be done following the rules established by federal drug laws.
- Says copyright holders can impound "records documenting the manufacture, sale or receipt of items involved in" infringements.
The Big Four Organized Music cartel wants server logs, CNET has EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) lawyer Jason Schultz saying.
"They want to know every single person who’s ever downloaded (certain files) – their IP addresses, everything."
Also See:
entertainment cartel favourite – Lamar Smith crows over victory, October 3, 2005
CNET News – Congress readies new digital copyright bill, April 23, 2006
April 24th, 2006 at 4:49 pm
If you are thinking of appropriating any copyrighted material you may want to consider killing someone instead. You will do less prison time.
April 24th, 2006 at 5:38 pm
There’s this huge difference between mass copying DVDs for illegal retail sale and a humble customer making a single copy so they have a backup. But unfortunately this law is a blunt instrument and it will treat the two as the same.
April 24th, 2006 at 9:20 pm
Right………………….
April 25th, 2006 at 12:53 am
Welcome to the future, dumb american sheeple!
You people are too ignorant to keep your gov’t in check. Now the corporations will own everything and everyone, and you will only exist for their benefit.
‘duh how did this happen’ is a fitting montra for gimme gimme american people turned slaves due to their own stupidity and greed.
News flash sheeple, NO GOV’T EVER PROVIDES FREEDOM TO THE CITIZENS. It is the job of vigilent citizens to maintain their own freedom, through whatever means necessary.
Couldn’t see this coming? It’s been coming for a long time, ever since people found it acceptable to lock marijauna users up for decades at a stretch. The frog is only now just coming to a boil.
Here’s a quote for you:
“What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long.”
- Thomas Sowell
April 25th, 2006 at 1:04 am
Killing another slave is really not a problem for the american corporate masters, hence the lesser penalty.
But any activity that isn’t in the interest of the corporate masters is a problem for those who control the herd, therefore a massive penalty is needed in cases in which a crime has been comitted against an almighty corporation.
That’s right slave, your life isn’t worth as much as an MP3 in the eyes of your masters.
Another thing to keep in mind, these insanely long prison terms are necessary to threaten and extort the slaves out of their right to due process. Ever heard of a plea bargain? They use that trick all the time to fuck people out of a trial by jury. Imagine a gun to someones head when they ask him ‘how do you plead?’. IMO a plea bargain offer should be grounds to reduce a sentence upon conviction by jury to that sentence which was offered in exchange for a guilty plea (but that isn’t in the interest of your masters of course.)
Human rights and dignity mean NOTHING to the corporate masters.
April 25th, 2006 at 4:45 am
Wonder if Billie-the-pie was getting tips on how to run a police state from the chinese president?
April 25th, 2006 at 5:54 am
Dont they just get it or not. This will stop nothing, are they really this draft in a county which h—————————–21181902413009
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April 25th, 2006 at 6:03 am
Dont they just get it or not. This will stop nothing, are they really this draft in a county which has a “Article 29″. One day they will push someone over there eage. Hay what have you got to lose you will do less time if you kill someone then for some made up copyright issue. It not an issue of IF but more so of WHEN. Now this copyright starts to look as important that it really is, it has now become worth more then someone life.
All I have to say is
Bang, Bang! Excitve is shot down.
(Which no one should NEVER do)
April 26th, 2006 at 2:16 am
US has lost everything to china, the US should let china take them over, >.>
April 27th, 2006 at 4:41 am
Write to your congressmen. Tell them how bad the new DMCA is gonna be and why it is totally unconstitutional.
We gotta force them to submit with our voice to turn down the bill.
April 27th, 2006 at 6:13 pm
“If you are thinking of appropriating any copyrighted material you may want to consider killing someone instead. You will do less prison time.”
Not so. Appropiation of copyright is a very lucrative thing for music publishers. There are few risks. Appropiation is very common in the music publishing business. To prove my point I will repeat a post I put under another story, File sharers – 10 years in jail.
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Rep. Lamar Smith is a sick person. Too bad for the people he will screw, the Americans.
The more one reads about the Gestapo mentality of legislators in “democratic” America the sicker one gets.
So a kid download a song and he can get years in the slam?
This is a true story:
A music publisher from New York, acting as a typical American music publisher, fraudulently convinced the widow of my father that when a songwriter dies the music belongs to the widow (a legal lie), while propoposing that she, the “owner” assign the rights to my father’s song to them. Thi was 8 years ago. My father wrote over 700 songs and all were stolen through the scam I just described. The widow, when cought, sued my siblings and I, the real owners. She lost and the courts decided we are the rel owners.
In 1999 we went to the FBI to report the theft. They told me they were too busy with terrorism, as the Cole ship had been bombed in those days.
The we went to the loscal police who said that no theft took place.
Then in 2000 we weny to the local Justice Department. They also said no theft took place.
Then I went to the local Ombudsman. They also said no theft took place.
The we sued in the American court. The judge did not even mention the theft in his judgement and gaves us a damage award of just $16,000 even thought the music publisher had collected illegally about $1,000,000 in royalties (present worth). We spent over 70,000 in legal expenses and the publisher now claims they are broke and cannot pay even the absurd $16,000 sentence.
Then we went to the Boston Appeals court. They did not mention any theft in their decisions agains us.
Then we went again to our local Justice Department. After a year they have not completed their second investigation. The first one, 4 years earlier, took about 1/2 hour.
Now, can anyone figure this out? Real theft is tolerated by everyone reponsible for justice but some whacko legislator wants to send kid to jail for doing what has always been done by everyone, sharing and copying music.
Maybe the whacko legislator should study our case, the Venegas music case, to see what has gone wrong with copyright law, totally disregarded by music publishers and judges and law enforcement agencies while kids and their parents and everyone elses are threatenned with severe, maslaughter and property theft level jail sentences.
Rep. Lamar Smith is a sick person. Too bad for the people he will screw, the Americans.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
April 27th, 2006 at 6:21 pm
“Write to your congressmen.”
Do you know what happend to the jews that wrote to Hitler?
Politicians have reached a level where thy no longer represent the people nor listen to them.
A hint, the Amercan constitution was written by slave traders.