Banning P2P apps that "induce" children to steal

[Midnight Son]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=77&e=1&u=/mc/20040706/tc_mc/billtargetsfirmsthatinducecopyrightviolations

New legislation recently introduced by a group of powerful U.S. senators would allow artists and entertainment companies to sue creators of products, such as peer-to-peer (P-to-P) software, that "induce" copyright violations.

Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Orrin Hatch, clearly targeting P-to-P vendors, claimed his bill focuses on companies that profit by encouraging children and teenagers to infringe copyrights. "It is illegal and immoral to induce or encourage children to commit crimes," Hatch, a Utah Republican, said in a statement. "Tragically, some corporations now seem to think that they can legally profit by inducing children to steal. Some think they can legally lure children into breaking the law with false promises of 'free music.'"

Earth to Uranus: quit talking out of me! Inducing children to steal! Oh boohoohoo. This is just heart-rending!

[Tim Partlett]

Won't somebody please think of the children?

Let's also ban music, as it obviously induces children to steal it.

[extarbags]

You know, I was so preoccupied with Bush that I hadn't really been following good old Hatch until this year, when he seems to have gotten more energetic. It's like he's making up for lost time.

[Bob Cherub]

I agree this bill is 100% stupid.

But I find it funny you single out nasty EVIILLL Republican Hatch when the bill has serious Democratic backing as well. Selective quoting again? Surprise! You should be a journalist at Fox News, Midnight Son! Fair and balanced!

The bill has powerful backers. Among the bill's co-sponsors are Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat and Judiciary Committee ranking Democrat Patrick Leahy from Vermont.

[Nick Walter]

I agree this bill is 100% stupid.

But I find it funny you single out nasty EVIILLL Republican Hatch when the bill has serious Democratic backing as well. Selective quoting again? Surprise! You should be a journalist at Fox News, Midnight Son! Fair and balanced!

The bill has powerful backers. Among the bill's co-sponsors are Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a Tennessee Republican, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat and Judiciary Committee ranking Democrat Patrick Leahy from Vermont.

Bringing republican/democratic partisan baggage into this topic is pointless and unrelated. It's really more of a case of congresscritters serving their corporate masters.

[Andrew Mayer]

Bringing republican/democratic partisan baggage into this topic is pointless and unrelated. It's really more of a case of congresscritters serving their corporate masters.

I'll second that. In her spare time my Senator, Barbera Boxer(D), loves jumping onto the MPAA/RIAA bandwagon every time it rolls around.

And according to one letter she sent me the solution to diminishing oil reserves is opening up the taps....

[Creole Ned]

Here's some questions for Cherub:

Which poster specifically mentioned Hatch in his comments?

a) Midnight Son
b) extarbags

Which poster linked a story that happened to include a quote from Hatch, a story that states in the quote cited that it was a group of senators, not just Hatch, who supported this bill?

a) Midnight Son
b) extarbags

Which poster immediately tried turning this thread into a pointless round of partisan bickering?

a) Bob Cherub

I hope you score well on this quiz. Good luck!

[Midnight Son]

I stand before you, vindicated! (Ned, you're hired.) :lol:

[Bob Cherub]

Wow, okay, you guys have fun in your delusional world.

GG.

[Anaxagoras]

Wow, okay, you guys have fun in your delusional world.


Will do. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

[Kitsune]

I will admit I'm not researching this bill in order to discuss it, and just taking the original article for what it says, but two questions:

The bill doesn't set up new criminal or civil penalties for those who "induce" copyright violations, but it creates a new class of people who can be sued or prosecuted for copyright infringement -- those who a "reasonable person" would believe "intentionally aids, abets, induces or procures" copyright violations. The "reasonable person" standard is a broadening of the standard that usually applies to contributory or vicarious copyright infringement, said Public Knowledge, an advocacy group focused on copyright law.

Maybe I shouldn't consider myself a reasonable person, and perhaps reading the actual legalese clarifies something I'm not picking up, but couldn't this apply to programs like Yahoo! Messenger, AIM and (I don't know whether it does too) MSN? All these programs let you transfer files to other users, I sent a link to my sister about three weeks ago through one that let her access clearly copyrighted material. I've never tried but I believe you can also search for people on these networks via their interests, right? So all you'd have to do is search for people who have similar interests and set up a network of people you know and can trade movies, music and such with, if they've got it. Now clearly that isn't as EASY as something like Kazaa. But I've traded MP3s with these programs tons of times. I believe any reasonable person, especially any young person knows you can and may possibly have used them to download to get stuff easily to download to an ipod, cellphone or what have you.

So by the wording, if this targets stuff like Kazaa and Winny, it would also have to target the extreme popularity of IM programs and what they allow you to do, except THESE are owned by huge corporations or wealthy, popular companies like Yahoo, AOL/Time Warner and Microsoft.

Or is it just how you advertise the product? If you say, "Trade thousands of music files!" you can be prosecuted? Maybe, but according to this,

"Legitimate uses of peer-to-peer are upheld, while those who intentionally lure consumers into breaking the law are held to account. Under this legislation, the path to legitimacy remains clear: Respect the law and block the exchange of works the copyright owner has not authorized."

So, second question. Huh? How does it do that? I'm confuzzled. Seems like its just an excuse to aim at the Kazaa/eMule-type of program and those alone, but then it goes on to say any program that does not actively block copyrighted works. Yeah, except you'd have to have that program updated nearly every time you start it to do that, wouldn't you? Or maybe I'm just out of it and every single kind of possible copyright violation is already marked (not bloody likely) with something that will make it obvious to the program. I'm sure simply putting copy protection on a DVD or whatever is not going to prevent the freaking cam version in the theater from being traded over the net. And NO company can spot every single copyright violation available, you'd probably have to have a separate division just to search for copyrights and do that. And you couldn't simply analyze users trading files, since that wouldn't be very kosher privacy-wise. (I'm not sure if the programs already do this, I'm sure some have spyware, but in any event making that public sure wouldn't make them popular.)

So basically, in the first case, all a program would need to do is disguise itself as a chat program (not very hard, most of them already have it as a secondary function) in order to be legitimate, and in the second, perhaps make a token effort to ban some copyrighted material (I seem to remember Napster tried it for certain songs, but I don't trust my memory) in order to be legit. And in neither case, do you stop anything. Its like arguing that software that allows you access FTPs like Bulletproof is solely for piracy. Its so loony.

Even if I supported something like this, who do they think they are kidding? Am I misunderstanding something fundamental US law here? :? Its like going after a useful technology like BitTorrent because its used to access a lot of copyrighted content.

-Kitsune

[Nick Walter]

Wow, okay, you guys have fun in your delusional world.

GG.

Are you off your meds?

[quatoria]

I agree this bill is 100% stupid.

But I find it funny you single out nasty EVIILLL Republican Hatch when the bill has serious Democratic backing as well. Selective quoting again? Surprise! You should be a journalist at Fox News, Midnight Son! Fair and balanced!


Why, Bob. Does that mean you agree that Fox News is nothing but a partisan shill? I never knew you had it in you, big guy. I'm close to tears right now!

edited to fix a name slipup - man, what a weird typo. Thanks, anaxagoras.

[Anaxagoras]

I agree this bill is 100% stupid.

But I find it funny you single out nasty EVIILLL Republican Hatch when the bill has serious Democratic backing as well. Selective quoting again? Surprise! You should be a journalist at Fox News, Midnight Son! Fair and balanced!


Why, Bill. Does that mean you agree that Fox News is nothing but a partisan shill? I never knew you had it in you, big guy. I'm close to tears right now!

Bill?

[beecubed]

I will admit I'm not researching this bill in order to discuss it, and just taking the original article for what it says, but two questions:

The bill doesn't set up new criminal or civil penalties for those who "induce" copyright violations, but it creates a new class of people who can be sued or prosecuted for copyright infringement -- those who a "reasonable person" would believe "intentionally aids, abets, induces or procures" copyright violations. The "reasonable person" standard is a broadening of the standard that usually applies to contributory or vicarious copyright infringement, said Public Knowledge, an advocacy group focused on copyright law.

Maybe I shouldn't consider myself a reasonable person, and perhaps reading the actual legalese clarifies something I'm not picking up, but couldn't this apply to programs like Yahoo! Messenger, AIM and (I don't know whether it does too) MSN?
-Kitsune

when this originally popped up, ELF had a writeup about how it could apply to the apple ipod. so, yes, i think it is reasonable to assume that it could apply to much more than P2P networks.

[shift6]

when this originally popped up, ELF had a writeup about how it could apply to the apple ipod. so, yes, i think it is reasonable to assume that it could apply to much more than P2P networks.
That Utah senator cunt can have my iPod when he pries it from my cold, dead fingers. :evil: :evil: :evil:

[Midnight Son]

Won't somebody think of the muthafuckin' chilluns, goddammit?

[cyborg]

I'm thinking about smacking one, but I can't make their skin redden.

[Tim Partlett]

I don't think anyone outside the UK is going to get that one, cyborg ;).

[cyborg]

I know :lol:

[Nick Walter]

I'm thinking about smacking one, but I can't make their skin redden.

Can you translate that from English into American?

[cyborg]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3868561.stm

You see, these are the serious issues real governments discuss!

[Jakub]

The sooner people remember that children are evil, lazy maggots, the sooner we can stop politics "for the children".

[Midnight Son]

Another phrase to describe children 2 years and under: "Biological Tyrants."