House passes bill that will let the RIAA take away your home for downloading music

[PeaceNikki]

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/09/house-passes-bill-th.html

I was just alerted that the House of Reps has passed HR 4279, with the lovely name, PRO-IP (Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008). Like the doublespeak PATRIOT Act and Peacekeeper missiles, PRO-IP puts local law enforcement in a position to demand the forfeiture in criminal proceedings of stuff used to violate copyright. Which means that instead of the RIAA simply trying to collect fines, they can also incite local authorities to collect all the computers and related gear that was used to pirate.

This isn't a judgment on my part as to whether piracy is good or bad (I think copyright deserves to be protected through reasonable methods), but I am always horrified when civil enforcement morphs into criminal enforcement. Conservatives and liberals should be up in arms alike that local prosecutors and/or police could intervene as they desire in essentially a private affair arranged by the RIAA, and permanently seize thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in private property in addition to any civil penalties.

If this bill is passed in its present form by the Senate and signed, that means there's no more pro forma RIAA lawsuit payoffs, because if you wind up settling with the RIAA, you could still lose all your stuff in addition to any fee you paid them.

This is particularly irksome in light of the MSN Music shutdown, about which the EFF has written a strong and powerful letter. It is increasingly likely a normal person could have purchased music legally from an online site, burned it to an ordinary audio CD, and in the right set of circumstances be branded a pirate because the original "granting" authority no longer exists to prove that the consumer was a legitimate purchasers.

The more the law is constructed to sweep in folks who are absolutely observant of it, the more we need broader protections.


Wow.

[babylonsister]

1. Wow is right. Rec'd for more eyes. nt

[PeaceNikki]

2. More here

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071213-house-committee-hears-the-cons-of-the-pro-ip-act.html

"Unslakable lust for more"
Google's senior copyright counsel, William Patry, wasn't at the hearing, but he had a far less charitable take on the legislation. Calling it the most "outrageously gluttonous IP bill ever introduced in the US," Patry made clear that he was appalled by the "unslakable lust for more and more rights, longer terms of protection, draconian criminal provisions, and civil damages that bear no resemblance to the damages suffered."

One might expect that coming from a Google lawyer (the blog is written in his private capacity), since the company is a voracious consumer of copyrighted work, but Patry has himself served in the Copyright Office and has written perhaps the definitive seven-volume tome on the subject of US copyright law. Instead, he says, he is "pro-IP in this most important of senses. But an excessive amount of something that is beneficial in measured doses can become fatal in overdoses, and copyright is already at fatal strength."

The PRO-IP Act, with its attempt to increase statutory damages and increase forfeiture penalties for equipment used for copyright infringement, clearly moves in a way that Patry dislikes. Fortunately, when it comes to criminal matters, Justice remains steadfastly unconcerned with prosecuting minor infringement cases, as Mandelker again made clear in response to a question.

Still, with even harsher laws on the books, there's always a chance that the penalties won't hit only those who import ripped-off car alarms, but a huge array of ordinary Americans. Where penalties are needed, they should fit the crime. Ruining someone's financial life over the equivalent of a box of CDs or DVDs hardly seems to meet that standard.

[flashl]

3. K&R

[SammyWinstonJack]

4. Priorities and all that jazz!

:eyes: So I guess Impeachment is still off the table, eh Pelosi? :argh:

[flvegan]

5. Conyers sponsored it, too. Roll call of shame inside.

(note: Kucinich voted against it.)

http://www.opencongress.org/roll_call/show/4627

House dems voted largely for it. Oh, the shock.

[Asgaya Dihi]

11. Same thing I noticed

This type of thing is why I don't expect major changes with the next election, just a step in the right direction at best. This punitive, corporate oriented, and aggressive tendency runs through both parties and even too many of our supposed good ones too often jump on a bad bill. Or in this case actually wrote the thing.

We don't just need a different party in power, we need a whole new perspective and way of thinking. One that doesn't involve so much top down control or punitive methods of control, often at the expense of both the people and progress.

[bbgrunt]

26. a truly shamful vote.

[depakid]

32. David Wu voted for it- but then again there NO ISSUE or constituent he wouldn't sell out

Which is yet another reason why he will never again get my vote.

[PeaceNikki]

34. It was a ridiculous 410-11 vote. Six were (R)

Boucher
Doolittle
Duncan
Flake
Kucinich
Lofgren, Zoe
Moore (WI) (yay, Gwen!!!)
Paul
Poe
Westmoreland
Young (AK)

[Withywindle]

35. Yay, Boucher!

My hometown rep. One of the only few in the House who actually UNDERSTANDS the Internet.

[PeaceNikki]

6. With CURRENT laws, $4.5 billion in potential damages per year - for ONE person

without ever a single act of infringement through P2P file sharing.

This is amazing...

http://www.turnergreen.com/publications/Tehranian_Infringement_Nation.pdf

To illustrate the unwitting infringement that has become quotidian for the average American, take an ordinary day in the life of a hypothetical law professor named John. For the purposes of this Gedankenexperiment, we assume the worstcase scenario of full enforcement of rights by copyright holders and an uncharitable, though perfectly plausible, reading of existing case law and the fair use doctrine. Fair use is, after all, notoriously fickle and the defense offers little exante refuge to users of copyrighted works.

In the morning, John checks his email, and, in so doing, begins to tally up the liability. Following common practice, he has set his mail browser to automatically reproduce the text to which he is responding in any email he drafts. Each unauthorized reproduction of someone else’s copyrighted text their email represents a separate act of brazen infringement, as does each instance of email forwarding.Within an hour, the twenty reply and forward emails sent by John have exposed him to $3 million in statutory damages.

After spending some time catching up on the latest news, John attends his Constitutional Law class, where he distributes copies of three just-published Internet articles presenting analyses of a Supreme Court decision handed down only hours ago. Unfortunately, despite his concern for his students’ edification, John has just engaged in the unauthorized reproduction of three literary works in violation of the Copyright Act.

...

By the end of the day, John has infringed the copyrights of twenty emails, three legal articles, an architectural rendering, a poem, five photographs, an animated character, a musical composition, a painting, and fifty notes and drawings. All told, he has committed at least eighty-three acts of infringement and faces liability in the amount of $12.45 million (to say nothing of potential criminal charges). There is nothing particularly extraordinary about John’s activities. Yet if copyright holders were inclined to enforce their rights to the maximum extent allowed by law, barring last minute salvation from the notoriously ambiguous fair use defense, he would be liable for a mind-boggling $4.544 billion in potential damages each year. And, surprisingly, he has not even committed a single act of infringement through P2P file sharing. Such an outcome flies in the face of our basic sense of justice. Indeed, one must either irrationally conclude that John is a criminal infringer a veritable grand larcenist or blithely surmise that copyright law must not mean what it appears to say. Something is clearly amiss. Moreover, the troublesome gap between copyright law and norms has grown only wider in recent years.

[Richard Steele]

7. Another step toward complete CorporateFascism. GRRRecommended.

[Thothmes]

16. Evidetly abetted by our House of Representatives.

[and-justice-for-all]

8. RIAA are thugs....

A large numbers of musicians have been asked if they had ever received a check from the RIAA and not surprising not only did they NEVER get a check from the RIAA but some have never even heard of them.

this bill, like congress, is an atrocity. They will pass a bill to criminalize harmless music sharing, but can not seem to find the fortitude to impeach a murdering asshole! WTF?

[PeaceNikki]

9. Congress keeps giving these thugs weapons with which to beat people down

It's beyond comprehension.

[iamthebandfanman]

10. dirty bastards n/t

[MikeNearMcChord]

12. There are those who are disgusted by asste forfieture

in drug cases, I think the first house taken because of downloading Hannah Montana and I think you may see a revolt.

[Hart2008]

20. asset forfieture is not based on the common law, but admiralty law.

Houses are not ships!

Admiralty law should never trump the common law!

[Hidey]

13. Thank goodness..

I'm soooo glad someone finally did something about all this horrible, terrible downloading.

I mean, what with the two wars, the food riots, energy prices, government profiling & spying measures, the economy in the tank and all those people left to torture, I was worried they wouldn't get a bill passed this year.

I know I'll sure sleep better knowing there's no illegal downloading happening in my neighborhood!

/sarc

[PeaceNikki]

14. Nicely put!

:thumbsup:

[Initech]

15. Fucking assholes. They can go to hell.

[superkia]

17. I think this has more to do with cutting off peoples ways of...

communicating to others when the shit hits the fan than it does about corporate interests. Why wouldn't they just try to shut down the file sharing sites instead of wasting money to send people out to take our computers, you know, the last way we have of getting out real information about our country and a huge way for many of us to communicate when the shit does hit the fan. This is what they do instead of wasting time on impeachment, find new ways to spend our tax dollars on things that help them control us even more.

With all the laws passed lately, the erosion of the constitution and the signing statements form bushy, you have to assume that something is coming that is going to upset the general public, at least thats how I see it. It seems like everything they do is guided towards ways to control us or label us homegrown terra suspects?


Its been 11 years since I bought this album and yet the lyrics to this song still fit, how sad is it that we have only allowed things to get worse?

Well, it's just another song,Talkin' about how you let them take your rights
Another redundant verse about how you refused to fight & lost
What cost? your cause has got no champion,How could you hope to win? by just complaining
Now it's raining on you parade,Decisions made could cost you dearly
Not just your money but your freedom,Are you wealthy improper choices could be deadly
They took your so-called rights,You didn't even fight

Well, here's your motherfuckin' wake up call & there just ain't no way around it
Caught you asleep once again & we ain't havin' it,Got freedumb for you to do just what they tell you
You missed that train of thought,You refuse to be taught a lesson
Now this is what i'm guessing,You'll be held accountable
The things you didn't want to know,You're stressin'
Now with your mind they keep messin',They took your so-called rights, you didn't even fight

While you were busy fuckin' sleepin',You know your government was creepin'
Somebody left the door unlocked while you were asleep
Your life was bought & sold, yes, to the highest bidder
Left you in sitcom hell,So convinced you're doing well
You sit back synapses are attacked,American gladiators are the only thing they're given' back
You're dying & in your mind, while they keep lying,
They took your so-called rights,You didn't even fight

Now that we've given you this message you've got a mess
But you can salvage, continue to grow & soon you'll know that little things in life can make a difference
You don't got to be some politician,Take back those given rights
Stand up & join the fight.

[dixiegrrrrl]

22. Historical note....

Back in the pre-electric times,in Europe, esp. Poland, the then current rulers would take people's grinding stones, making the people dependent on government bakers for their bread.
Penalty for possessing a mill stone was death.

Later there were death penalties in Europe for owning radios, during WWII.

Yeah, I can forsee penalties for owning computers.
Or at least for puter content becoming as bland as tv drek is now.
Content controlled by "them"...

laws against owning anything not produced by "them"...

seeds....already laws forbidding native seeds in some WTO controlled countries, including Iraq.

dna...Rumsfield says we don't own our dna.

food...well, that's becoming pretty obvious isn't it?
More and more food scarcity, irradiated, franken foods.

It is illegal to buy raw cows milk in many states.

water....laws against using your own water in some countries now.

hell, in China there are penalties for having children.


Good news...I may be dead before it plays out.
Bad news....I have adult children who have more future to suffer thru.
Good news...they refuse to have children.

Gooder news...some days I am less pessimistic.

Not today tho.

[NuttyFluffers]

18. Et tu, Barbara Lee? then fall my future new record purchases...

back to buying used and trading with friends and family... RIAA, i'll make sure you won't see a penny from me ever again, legally.

[PeaceNikki]

19. It's estimated that this Bill would cost the taxpayers $435 million over the 2009-2013 period.

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/91xx/doc9197/hr4279.pdf

BASIS OF ESTIMATE
For this estimate CBO assumes that the bill would be enacted by the beginning of fiscal year 2009.

Spending Subject to Appropriation
CBO estimates that implementing the bill would cost $435 million over the 2009-2013 period, subject to the appropriation of the necessary amounts. Those amounts would be used to enhance activities to enforce intellectual property rights by the Executive Office of the President, PTO, and DOJ.




Yeah, we as taxpayers should spend $435 million to help the RIAA and MPAA enforce draconian criminal provisions and civil damages that bear no resemblance to the damages suffered.

[Hart2008]

21. K & R n/t

[AzDar]

23. K & R...

:kick:

[killbotfactory]

24. Boycott the RIAA

http://www.riaaradar.com/

[bbgrunt]

25. What are they thinking? Oh, I guess they are

just as intent on controlling the masses as the fascist republican pigs.

[Fountain79]

27. Not to say that I agree with the bill

but is anyone here arguing that the RIAA or artists in general don't have the right to go after people who download music?

[JackRiddler]

28. Download music?

Is that illegal too?

[divineorder]

29. Even if you think downloading music should be punished

These draconian laws are insane. But our copyright laws are also insane. The original term for copyright was 14 years, plenty of time to get the maximum amount of profit from something. Later 28. I think it should have stayed there. The idea was that eventually ideas would go into the public domain where anyone could use them freely without fear. Now life plus 75 years. Even if I agreed to it, why 75 years? Why not 10 years, enough to pay for the heirs? If we had such draconian terms long ago, there would have been far fewer songs and far fewer raw materials for artists to work with. Not to mention all of the stuff that would have sat on shelves unused and unnoticed.

The recording industry is desperate. It's had layoffs and downsizing as millions listen to anything other than the usual pop stuff. So it hopes that horrifying examples would scare people back into the music buying mode again with them having the power to determine public tastes.

[PeaceNikki]

30. They already CAN and DO. This bill will just make the penalties worse.

In addition, this bill will add an entirely new "arm" to the DoJ with the SOLE purpose of prosecuting/investigating copyright law.

PRO IP Act is just another in a long line of "one-way ratchet" proposals that amplifies copyright without protecting innovators or technology users. One provision, entitled "Computation of Statutory Damages in Copyright Cases," seems aimed at allowing the music industry to threaten even higher statutory damages in its campaign to sue filesharers. Copyright law currently allows the RIAA to seek statutory damages per album, while the new law would allow them to seek damages per song. Under the new limits proposed by the PRO IP Act, someone who downloads each individual track from Guns N' Roses' 12-track Appetite for Destruction album could face a maximum statutory penalty of $360,000; as opposed to the current limit of $30,000 for the album.

Beyond its effects on file sharing litigation, the bill would create a new, taxpayer-funded federal bureaucracy focused on policing intellectual property domestically and overseas, including:

• a United States Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative, appointed by the President,
  
• an Intellectual Property Enforcement Division in the Department of Justice, and
  
• additional intellectual property attachés to staff U.S. embassies.
  

These new federal bureaucrats would essentially have one responsibility -- protecting the business interests of the biggest names in movies, music, and software. All of these industries are profitable, many of the corporations are foreign, and yet they want the American taxpayer to pick up the tab. Surely, Americans would rather see their tax dollars spent helping businesses and individuals who don't have ample means to help themselves.

Perspective: The maximum fine for a doctor that amputates the wrong leg in an operation is $250,000, the maximum fine for each and every song you download illegally is $150,000.

[PeaceNikki]

31. Also, did you read this part of the OP:

This is particularly irksome in light of the MSN Music shutdown, about which the EFF has written a strong and powerful letter. It is increasingly likely a normal person could have purchased music legally from an online site, burned it to an ordinary audio CD, and in the right set of circumstances be branded a pirate because the original "granting" authority no longer exists to prove that the consumer was a legitimate purchasers

Even "legal" copies look like pirates. It's ridiculos. In addition, the fucking RIAA is NOT handing these "damages" over to the artists, they are stuffing their fat-ass pockets.

[Smith_3]

33. Well, theoretically this bill is useless, since means of anonymous file transfer exist. nt

[high density]

36. Time to encrypt our hard drives

Good luck prosecuting anything if there's no physical evidence beyond logs of an IP address. The 5th amendment should protect people from being forced to give up their encryption keys.

[PeaceNikki]

37. Amazing stories of RIAA's already mafia-like tactics,

And Congress has agreed to stand beside them, use hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars and hold down the individuals while the "poor oppressed" movie and music industries bash us in the fucking teeth?

http://qism.blogspot.com/2006/10/riaa-bullying-worse-than-i-thought.html

<snip>
Though each case was different in detail, the bottom line in each was exactly the same: huge demands for “damages” that the RIAA claimed it was entitled to. If you added up the claims, these four lawsuits were asking courts in the United States to award the plaintiffs close to $100 billion—six times the total profit of the film industry in 2001.

...

Jesse's family was outraged at these claims. They wanted to fight. But Jesse's uncle worked to educate the family about the nature of the American legal system. Jesse could fight the RIAA. He might even win. But the cost of fighting a lawsuit like this, Jesse was told, would be at least $250,000. If he won, he would not recover that money. If he won, he would have a piece of paper saying he had won, and a piece of paper saying he and his family were bankrupt.

So Jesse faced a mafia-like choice: $250,000 and a chance at winning, or $12,000 and a settlement.

The recording industry insists this is a matter of law and morality.

Let's put the law aside for a moment and think about the morality. Where is the morality in a lawsuit like this? What is the virtue in scapegoatism? The RIAA is an extraordinarily powerful lobby. The president of the RIAA is reported to make more than $1 million a year. Artists, on the other hand, are not well paid. The average recording artist makes $45,900. There are plenty of ways for the RIAA to affect and direct policy. So where is the morality in taking money from a student for running a search engine?

[PeaceNikki]

38. Kick in case some weekday people haven't seen this.

[hunter]

39. What a great business plan...attack your very best potential customers.

This industry is fighting like a cornered animal.

I already do my best to stay out of the way and not touch any music or software that might get me in trouble.

It's really no big deal, since 95% of protected stuff is total crap anyways, and I can live without the rest quite comfortably.

I've already got the legal CD's of my coming of age music, and occasionally I'll find some more current musical gem I've missed in the used CD bins. But all my software these days is open source, and my favorite music is by artists who encourage their fans to share it for free or through venues in which most of the money goes directly to the artist -- often the artist's own web pages.

We've reached the place where the high quality production and distribution of music and software doesn't require the backing of large corporations, and we are very close to this level of technology with motion pictures.

Eventually people are going to start to wonder what institutions like the RIAA actually do other than harass people, and they are going to shy away from anything that stinks of these sorts of protection.

I don't have to support contributors to the RIAA or the Business Software Alliance when I've got places like these to hang out:

http://www.ubuntu.com

http://www.magnatune.com

http://www.archive.org

All of it thanks to organizations like the EFF that protect my right to refuse media controlled by big corporations.