US to allow internet snooping

When I originally read this I wondered how long before the RIAA wanted access to the information to combat music terrorism.....

theinquirer.net



theinquirer.net



I wonder how long before MS steps in to help enforce it???

"MS Windows has detected an illegal operation, you have wilfully committed a thought crime by attempting and failing to illegally copy a music CD."

MS Justice (related to Dr Watson) has found you guilty and contacted the police with your information, please stay by your computer until law enforcement officers arrive.

MS Justice has already sentenced you to 10 years hard labour for your crime against humanity and the music industry.

Please note that if you had run a multi million dollar company and defrauded the shareholders out of millions you would have got 6 months.

MS Justice is copyrighted under the appropriate laws, Microsoft thank you for your custom and now revoke your licence as you are not allowed to use MS Windows for criminal activity or attempting any such activity.

We hope you think about the struggling artists in one of the many different homes around the world while you do serve your sentence for your crime.

Delivering Justice on behalf the RIAA and MPAA

Its seems that America is just delivering laws for the corporates rather than the people.

"Everyone In The Us Facing Jail Over Illegal Copying Of Music/software"

Hmm...

I'm willing to share a jail cell with Paris Hilton.

Laws were originally created to cater to the wealthy. Without going into a history lesson, property owners were the first to demand laws to protect their property (thousands of years ago). Poor people didn't have anything to protect. (An eye for an eye simply means value for value) Laws protecting the disadvantaged are relatively new.

The interpretation of the article is a bit broad. (Gosh, a journalist sensationalizing a news story...gasp). The entire act is available here:
http://politechbot.com/docs/doj.intellectu...2007.051407.pdf
The proposed bill is only 8 pages long.


So before we start a discussion based on....ummm... creative interpretations of an act, how about we read the act for ourselves and try to understand what it is really proposing:
1) Attempted acts of copyright infringement should be prosecutable. That seems perfectly reasonable. We prosecute for attempted murder, attempted robbery, attempted rape, etc. That is consistent.
2) Wire Taps and surveillance in cases of economic espionage should be permitted. Again, that is reasonable, and is already common in Federal investigations.
3) There is a difference between criminal infringement and inadvertent infringement.
4) Property used in criminal infringement should be forfeited. We already do that to drug dealers.
5) Copyright infringement as an act of economic espionage should be punished more severely. We already have pretty stiff penalties for agents of espionage. This just expands on the definition of what constitutes espionage.

You are not going to go to prison for 10 years for copying a music cd. You will go to prison for ten years if you attempt to make 100,000 copies of a cd.

And a thousand screaming monkeys could come flying out of my bum, but what are the odds? However, if you make counterfeit copies of Windows and sell them as genuine, and it can be proven that it has harmed the nations economy, then maybe you will go to prison for life. It could be worse, acts of espionage during wartime is usually punishable by a bullet... or a noose..... or electricity....

Ah,

only 99,999 copies to go,

and Paris will be mine!

Interesting discussion.. Points made by groovicus are valid ( as almost allways) but...

The principle of misappropiated content is very much in common. As far as I am concerned they should go for the sites enabling sharing. If you look at the larger torrent sites with well over 3 or 4 million working and downloadable files they should be the ones put behind bars. If you do the math on copyright infringement the amounts involved are enormeous.

Admin Note: Off topic comment removed

I was at a flee market in florida about 3 or 4 years ago. I started looking at these guys pc games and dvds. I could tell they were fake.

So we went and talked to a cop right around the corner. He told me that unless he has over 10k worth of stuff they cant even touch him. I went and bought one of his REAL pc games.

Tonight jwinathome was executed for allegedly having a pirated copy of Windows XP on 3 of his home computers....However, the latest update from Microsoft says that Genuine Advantage generated a false positive in jwinathome's case...Mr. Gates personally sends his condolences and a free trial of Office 2007 (to expire after 90 days) to jwinathome's immediate family.

I'm extending my condolences to your immediate family

on their receipt of the Office 2997 trial CDs.

This is going to get crazy, As a music artist myself (not necciserily a big artist) I do believe in having rights to your intilectual property, But I woulnd't want one of my fans to go to jail because I was so greedy(or that the gov't stepped in) to get that extra 10$ to help buy a gold plated hummer that I don't need. Furthermore this shouldn't be regulated by the gov't I can just see things that are going to happen, mainly losing the right to privacy, you can just see the uses for this. First it will be the gov't stepping in to help companies next it will be a gov't worker just checking to what site you have been to, and on and on.
As for microsoft, I consider them a monoply on the OS market and this is just another harsher way to get people to stop using their software, as for this pirated ver. stuff If I get procecuted for using an illegal copy when infact I bought the computer unknowingly that it had an illegal copy, what will I do? Microsoft can afford to buy the biggest and the best lawers.

Don't you already have laws against industrial espionage? Wont adding more just lead to complexity and greater legal expenses for everybody?

I get a bit carried away, but whatever.

"Rafael Leonidas, Idi Amin, Adolf Hitler and their Associates are people no one wants to mess with" (Dure Kmick)
Do you see it? RIAA.
I will not go as far as Dure, however I think he has a good point. None of the persons mentioned above were able to see what's best for people, and I dont think RIAA are either. Of course there has to be a law that protects the copyright owners, but filesharing is a good and not a bad thing. It gives people the oportunity to listen to many songs on an album to see if its something you want to buy, to discover new music, to download an episode of your favourite show in case you missed it on TV, to get even more interested in music, to listen to songs you never would have lisend to if you had to pay for them.
Several surveys show that those who download the most, are the same people who buy most. Why would anyone put the people who spend the most money in jail? It must be possible to find another solution.

Does RIAA play by the book?
RIAA has tried to go after the family to a person who died (but backed of after negative publisity), Are you responsibly for what your family does?
RIAA wants to avoid court and tries to push everyone to pay out to avoid court. Pay 20 000 now or 200 000 when you loose in court. This isnt fair play. Most people cant afford to pay 20 000 and cant risk loosing in court. Even if you've just shared 3 songs they can come after you with such demands.
Copy protection on CD and DVDs: If I've bought a CD and I want to have one copy on my PC,, one in my record collection, one in the car, one at my job, ect ect. Should n't I be allowed to? What if the CD breaks and I wasnt allowed to make a copy?
Sony installed rootkits on PCs.
RIAA tries to kill independent internet radios, and demand license fee for artists that aren't members of RIAA, and dont want such money. If the artists want the money that RIAA collects, they must become RIAA members. Sound more like mafia than a record company.

Why pay for 128 bitrate with DRM? Never done it, will never do it.
The music industry is old and cant renew itself. The initiative from Spiral frog is good but this should have happened 10 years ago, and the big record companies have spent way to much time negotiating instead of providing solutions.

A couple of days ago the US passed a law wich forbids spyware. Spyware = criminal activity. File sharing = not legal. Why does the US pass these laws at the same time? The spyware problem is much more serious and should have been passed a long time before this copyright thing. How much did RIAA pay?

Im frustrated 'cause I think RIAA and MPAA are handling the situation wrong. MPAA has even broken linkware rights, and how can you take them seriosly when they operate in such maners?
File sharing of all kinds of files would have been great for me, insted Im stuck with common creative and other free stuff. I find many great songs there, but I want more. Since I got interested in common creative I've discoverd new artists and Im more interested in music in general. As a resuly I've spent more money on music. What if I could donwload everything I wanted to? More money to the industry.

By the way, if you haven't heard Weird Al's Dont download this song, I suggest you pay him a visit. He's got a couple of good points.

This is crazy, if this happens the government will be making more money plus TAX payers will have to pay more for the criminals to be in jail! Music won't be heard as much I don't think because not everyone is rich. This is really really stupid!

The US passes these laws because elections will be coming up again. Legislators can say they are tough on digital crime, blah, blah, blah. The Internet can not be regulated by any government (in spite of the fact that some countries try awfully hard). It is painless to pass such legislation; it costs very little to pass such legislation. And in the end, it does nothing.

@kimgeni; theft is theft. The only way they can see to stop it is by creating as harsh as possible penalties. Think about it.. if the death penalty was handed out for drunk driving, how do you suppose that would effect the rate of drunk driving? Just because someone spends more money than someone else doesn't mean that they should be immune from prosecution. Don't do the crime unless you can do the time. Period. And if you can't do the time, then you better be smart enough to find your way between the cracks.

Does that mean I cannot make a back-up copy of a cd I purchased? Every cd I buy, that's what I do.
I don't give it to anyone else, it's strictly for me in case something happens to the original cd.
Well, mostly what I do is keep the original in it's case and listen to the copy. I feel that if I paid for a cd I should be able to at least back it up. I'd rather have something happen to the copy instead of the original which usually has 2 or 3 good songs, and the rest not good at all.

No. Read the bill. It is not proposing new law; just expanding the definitions of old ones.

Theft isnt always theft and a crime isnt always a crime. I asume you drive a car groovicus. Do you never drive faster than the speed limit? My guess would be that you (as everyone else) drive faster than the limit everytime you drive, even though its just 5km/h. That's a crime as far as I know. This means that everyone that drives a car should have been punished several times every time they drive. Does this make sence?

The rules for copyright protection cant be harder than for other crimes. The uper limit for rapers in Norway is about 4 years..... If we should have passed the same law as US, the max penalty for breaking copyrights would have been higher than for rapers....

Let's be hounest, the RIAA isnt interested in protectiong the copyrights, they're interested in money. They've got this crazy idea that if they kill all free downloading, everyone would buy much more music. This is NOT correct. I dont think they loose half as much as they say they do because of the pirates. This is easy to prove. The Norwegian "RIAA"'s worst case senario was last year a loss by 2,5 billion USD in Norway. However based on the number of sold records, the loss cant be more than 90 mill USD, maximum. and this is a very, very optimistic number. 40 mill USD is probably more correct. The reason for this statment is that people won't go crazy and storm to the store to buy 10 times as much music as they used to do, just because they cant donwload any more. If you add the fact that donwloading can make you buy more, thge number is even smaller. I dont think RIAA and its sisters and brothers around the world a stupid, I think they know this, but they wount kill their own dream. Instead of telling us how much they think they loose, they tell us how much the downloaded music is worth. In other words, thay're manipulating people.

RIAA wants money, and if the music sales dont increase much if they kill filesharing, are there any reason to comit this murder?
The answer is, on 1 condition, almost yes. If they can provide good solutions. MSN's streaming idea is good, but Spiral Frog's is even better. However the record companies dont't want to cooperate and Spiral Frog can only be used from Canada (6 months later than they planed). If the monthly fee is low and the quality good, I think Spiral Frog can be a success. Unless the RIAA put their big foot on the frog's back and crush it.

Of course I do. But when i get a speeding ticket, you can also assume that I am not going to cry about the ticket. I am not going to suggest that since I spend more money than others that I should get out of it. Nor am I going to think that the police just want money.


People enter into the music business to make money, so I am not sure exactly what point you are trying to make. You protect that which makes you money, That's Business 101.


How do you know? I think the number is closer to 1.8 billion. That's my estimate. (I can pull stats out of thin air too..) But if you figure on a per capita basis using your 'estimate', that boils down to:
40 mill in losses/population of Finland (@4.6 million) = $8.70 per person.
Using that figure, we can extrapolate the following:
$8.70 * 19,306,000 (population of New York)= $167 Million.
$8.70 * 229,000,000 (us population)=$1.992 Billion
And just for fun
$8.70 * 6.7 Billion = $58.29 Billion (world population)

My population figures were from the Census Bureau, and generously rounded down. The actual population of the US is over 300 Million, and does not include illegal immigrants. Either way, that's a healthy chunk of change.



By that logic, it is ok for someone to steal my car, since it might entice them to buy a new one of their own. Or steal my wife, as it may induce them to get one of their own. Or steal my food, because they might decide they like it and buy more. The ends do not justify the means, and theft is theft, no matter how you try to dress it up.

The speed limit.
A year in prison is worse than to pay that speeding ticket.
When it comes to the money problem - perhaps I should explain it differently. RIAA's goal is to get more money, and not to protect the copyrights. If downloading leads to higher sales, and therefore more money, downloading is a good thing. However, it has to be a balance. If too many download and too few buy, there will be a problem. As far as I can see, RIAA is getting more and more agressive trying to get the upper hand and eventualy exterminate the "illegal" part of downloading. I think, and this is just my opinion, no facts, that this without doubt will lead to lower sales of records. The conclution is that RIAA will loose money. There has to be penalties, but they cant be harder than for other crimes.

I said the max penelty for raip was 4 years. This was according to a newspaper, however I 've cheked in the law and is says 10 years. I assume 4 years is the average penalty, even though the newspaper gives the impression that its the maximum. Sorry for giving you wrong info.

Fair enough that they 're interested in money, but dont say its thecopyrights you (= RIAA) care about. I might be stupid, but I think its a big diffrence between these goals: money and copyright protection.


Ok here are the facts. The numbers are from RIAA's Norwegian brother ifpi. Worst case senario 2 649 536 000 USD (1NOK = 0.165596 USD)
Sales last year sinles, albums, Music DVDs, downloading 17 684 000 units
Worth 120 885 080 USD
Price pr unit 6,84 USD

Loss of 2 649 536 000 USD and an avarage price of 6,84. This is 387 359 064 units.

This is almost 22 times as high as the sale in 2006. People wount buy 22 times more music if they cant dowload. In other words its madness to think they loose an amount of money eaqual to the value of the downloaded music. (As mentioned, this is the worst case senario. The best was a loss of 1 324 768 000.
I think my number is more correct when it comes to how much they loose. T
The Norwegian record sales started to sink in 1999, before file sharing became popular, so I think the sales would have decreased anyway. (Increased last year due to the fact that legal downloads were included). There are more oportunities to entertain yourself now if we compare with the mid 90ies. Mobile phones, internett, PCs, xbox, PS3, DVDs, Blu ray, HD DVD and so on. VHS was out there for 25 years. Now it changes faster. We spend more money on phones, games and DVDs, so there aren't that much left. I dont think record sales will set new records in the nearest furure. In other words, I think the record industry is trying to recreate the past results and they think the solution is to kill the "pirates". I disagree, the solutions is to make changes (and to make goog music of course). They must use and not fight the internett.


You are almost right about the car. Its Ok to make a copy of your car, but not to take the car. If someone steals your car, you cant use it. If somone copys your car you can still use it, but the negative is that you cant sell a copy of that exact car to the person who stole it. However that person may be interested to buy your collection of cars. That way you, because he was happy with the car, can seel him a pakage of 12 cars instead of that single one. The same goes for your wife and food, but I dont think its a good idea to sell wifes. I hope you get the idea.

It's bad when Musicians (the people who are supposed to be helped by these laws) figure out that its the Record companies who are doing the real stealing and then stand up for their fans like Korn and Trent Rezor (NIN) did while other acts (Metallica ~ I love you but your screwing your fans still) allow it to happen and back the Record companies and the RIAA.

Trent Reznor on His record compay

And why do people steal music and software. Lets say I buy a CD. Currently most Bands that are out there put out 2-3 good songs and release them as singles the rest of the songs (all 10 lasting a grand total of 30 minutes) are so bad 3 year olds could write better stuff. Then they sell it for $20USD. The time and materials are recovered after the first 1000 cd's are sold (almost). The rest is pure profit. Then add to it that to go see a concert its $50 for nose bleed seats (except for Ozzfest this year which is "Free", still waiting on the catch..).

As for Software lets just say Windows Vista isnt worth the headache much less $100, neither is Office 07 (guessing at a price). Most games that are coming out now are over rated and boring (the same can be said for movies too).


BTW: I love music and Video games ( I own something Like 500 Games and CD's total)

This is another fine example of how our congress and senators and representatives don't understand the technological age. I can't wait until all congress is wiped out and brought in with younger blood from my generation.

The Internet, in and of itself, can be considered "an attempt to reproduce illegal copies of music. Heck, jump drives, CD-Rs, DVD-Rs, anything than can write or read/write media can be considered an attempt at making illegal copies of music or even windows.

As for the Microsoft Windows, why should the user go to jail, especially if bought from a small town computer shop? My father, bought a small cheap computer from (what we thought was a legitimate run business) and when he got him home. I made him do all the windows updates, put anti-spyware and anti-virus software on it. Did a few restarts and by the time it was all ready to roll Windows Genuine popped up saying his version wasn't legitimate. Now should this be the fault of the user? Or the company that provided it?

I don't understand! Why is not stealing so hard for some people to understand,what ever it is?
You can rationalize any thing. ie My friend has two cars and only have one car; I should be able to steal one car to make it even. (BULL)

I don't understand! Why is not stealing so hard for some people to understand,what ever it is?
You can rationalize any thing. ie My friend has two cars and only have one car; I should be able tone car to make it even. (BULL) SORRY for the double post

Hey, Layback Bear has two posts and I only have one!

*steals one of LB's posts*



I feel much better now.

Instead of making you pay such ridiculous fees in fines and severe* so much time for pirating a copy of Windows or music, why not just have the person (or suspect) pay up what they should have in the first place times 2. Or how ever many times that proved were illegally copied. Not this crap the RIAA is pulling about the maximum damages.

When punishing someone why make them pay so much that it is not even proportional to the crime? Remember we are in the technological age now. Crimes today cannot be set to standards of the crimes of the last 2000 years. Pirating an illegal copy of Windows is not as severe as counterfeiting money, espionage (I'm talking about the average Joe in America; not the pirate lords in Asia), spying, drugs, drunk driving, "carrying a concealed weapon," murder, assisted suicide, etc...

The only reason Microsoft, RIAA, and other big companies want the maximum damages is because they want one person they catch responsible for several other illegal copies they didn't personally make. They want to milk all the cash they can. In addidition, the RIAA started off using everyone as examples, now it's the other way around.

We need the punishment to fit the crime, not make the person financially strapped. We aren't foreclosing their house!

Personally, I have stopped buying music, downloading music, anything with Music online (except Last.FM). Heck I refuse to purchase any portable vid/mp3 device just for the fact it's a closed market (except apple is working on opening it up). I just buy CDs, I can rip that to my computer and listen to it on their! Without the stupid restrictions of the RIAA! What are they going to do? I don't share it online, nor do I download it online? But according to the RIAA and not actual laws, I am breaking their "IP rights." How? I legally bought a CD they licensed to me, and under Fair Use Laws I can rightfully make ONE backup copy. Which is the one I use on my computer. Then I loose the CD, it gets scratched then eventually I throw it out, and I'm left with only digital copy on my computer.

If you want to know what i think just look at my signature. p2p forever

As long as pirated material does not cause a firesafe we are fine.

As for me, I'm just more happy that I am a Linux user. Nothing illegal about Ubuntu.