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New DMCA bill

archcommus

Diamond Member
Inquirer

THE NEW look Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) seems to be giving the world an unusual moral code.
Details of the upgraded act, which has the blessing of the music and film industry and the Bush administration, are now coming to light. It appears that the DMCA will have a maximum sentence of ten years inside for the crime of software and music piracy. It will also give the FBI the powers to wiretap suspected pirates.

Although sentencing varies in the US, the new law does send a very strange message as to what the government considers 'bad' in the 21st century.

For example assaulting a police officer will get you five years, downloading child porn will get you seven years, assaulting without a weapon will get you ten years and aggravated assault six years.

So in other words if you copy a Disney CD and sell it you will be in the same league as a paedophile who is distributing pictures of sexual attacks on children.

If you copy Craig David's CD you get ten years, but if you punch him in the face and pummel him into a seven day coma you will only get six. You are more likely to get the respect of the prison population with your six year sentence as well.

From the link...

CNET?s Declan McCullough has the scoop on a new bill backed by the Bush Administration and about to be introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) that will greatly expand the digital copyright restrictions in the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act). Moreover, the draft legislation, the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006, will also expand federal police wiretapping and enforcement powers.

McCullough says the bill goes to great lengths to expand the punishable acts of copyright infringement. For example, attempted copyright infringement would become a federal crime punishable by up to ten years in prison.

Even worse, the bill would expand section 1201 of the DMCA that bars trafficking in or distributing software capable of bypassing DRM systems to make it a crime to ?make, import, export, obtain control of, or possess? such software. The legislation would also permit wiretaps in cases involving copyright infringement, boost the jail time for copyright infringement, create a new unit in the FBI for investigating copyright crimes and, most problematic of all, permit copyright holders to impound ?records documenting the manufacture, sale or receipt of items involved in? infringements.

 
Originally posted by: miniMUNCH
Kiss our freedoms goodbye...

im going to smash the face of a senator and only get 7 yrs, but if i copy that spears cd im done for 10yrs. thanks america
 
Since when is "maximum" the same as "minimum"? Someone who gets caught copying a DVD isn't going to get 10 years. Someone who's caught copying hundreds of them to sell in his store most certainly will. I don't like it any more than the next guy, but you guys need a reality check.
 
Preposterous. This is what happens when we have a government. Crap gets thrown on us for the most minimal of things.
 
They need to introduce a new bill called "Total Citizen Oppression". It sounds mean, but at least the title is accurate. The government would probably market it as the "freedom bill" or something like that, and the idiotic majority will support it.
 
Originally posted by: 91TTZ
They need to introduce a new bill called "Total Citizen Oppression". It sounds mean, but at least the title is accurate. The government would probably market it as the "freedom bill" or something like that, and the idiotic majority will support it.
I doubt anyone supports this new bill except for artists/developers and people in Congress.

 
Originally posted by: Nik
Since when is "maximum" the same as "minimum"? Someone who gets caught copying a DVD isn't going to get 10 years. Someone who's caught copying hundreds of them to sell in his store most certainly will. I don't like it any more than the next guy, but you guys need a reality check.

Ahhh, so copying hundreds of CD's, at a retail value of several 10's of thousands of dollars will now get you a sentence that's worse than if you simply commit accounting fraud and embezzle a few 10's of millions of dollars from a company. I see your point, but the penalty is still out of line.

 
Originally posted by: FoBoT
Originally posted by: miniMUNCH
Kiss our freedoms goodbye...

your freedom to pirate stuff?

Well according to the DMCA, now you can't even ahve your best friend send you a copy of that new Ozzy CD they just bought over AIM because they'll throw you in jail for 10 years. So in other words, let's create a business that the employees of it can make 100 times more than the average working american and lets charge people 6 times more than what it actually costs to benefit from this profession. Anyone remember Daniel's post from 411Mania from a few years ago?

edit: http://news.dmusic.com/article/6462
 
All the more reason to hide your money in an offshore account so when they see you're poor as hell, they pass you by...or you could just assault te FBI agents taking your computer and in the process get them to blow up the hard drives. And if they shoot you, you can then sue them for excessive force because you didn't have a weapon.
 
yay for govt backing huge corporations' greed with the freedom of its citizens. this govt is no longer for the people. it's truly and utterly shameful
 
Originally posted by: Nik
Since when is "maximum" the same as "minimum"? Someone who gets caught copying a DVD isn't going to get 10 years. Someone who's caught copying hundreds of them to sell in his store most certainly will. I don't like it any more than the next guy, but you guys need a reality check.

who cares. a child molester still deserves much more than this guy.

if anybody wants anonymous file sharing, check out i2p. you just have to wait a few weeks to download anything at the moment ^.^
 
Originally posted by: archcommus
Originally posted by: 91TTZ
They need to introduce a new bill called "Total Citizen Oppression". It sounds mean, but at least the title is accurate. The government would probably market it as the "freedom bill" or something like that, and the idiotic majority will support it.
I doubt anyone supports this new bill except for artists/developers and people in Congress.

Any artists who support this bill aren't fit to call themselves artists. Art requires an audience.

Now, I don't want to condone Starving Artists' Syndrome. Artists must have a way to feed themselves, and then a modest amount. In modern times, art has been sold as a product; however, I feel that not only is this unhealthy from a cultural point of view, but in the face of almost zero-cost (re-)distribution via digital media, it is an unsustainable state of affairs without aggressive hyperenforcement. Furthermore, I interpret the effective perpetuity of today's copyright as ownership of culture by a single entity, and that is just plain pathological.
 
Originally posted by: FoBoT
Originally posted by: miniMUNCH
Kiss our freedoms goodbye...

your freedom to pirate stuff?

"Even worse, the bill would expand section 1201 of the DMCA that bars trafficking in or distributing software capable of bypassing DRM systems to make it a crime to ?make, import, export, obtain control of, or possess? such software."

Basically you can't record $h!t without breaking a law somewhere. Some DVRs would be illegal. HTPCs would probably be illegal. Heck, my sound card software would probably be illegal because it lets me record streaming audio. Fvk3rs.
 
This is absurd. I'm all for companies being able to protect their IP but DMCA and this new boosting of the DMCA are textbook examples of good ideas gone bad.
 
the part about the FBI being able to wiretap suspected pirates worries me. it seems like the FBI could easily use it as an excuse to search/seize for other purposes.
 
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