Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is pressing the U.S. Congress to enact a sweeping intellectual-property bill that would increase criminal penalties for copyright infringement.
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It's going to get to the point where you will spend more time in jail for sharing a song than robbing a bank.
Sad, really sad.
I for one will sleep much better at night knowing that the already over-taxed Homeland Security Department will be *required* to spend resources tracking unauthorized recordings instead of keeping terrorists from crossing our borders.
This is yet another example of lobbying money hard at work for the good of we the...we the...um...people?; through making the economy stronger?; yeah, it's a good thing...
When will the government finally stop being controlled by corporate interests? (hint: when political campaigns are no longer funded by corporate interests) See that happening anytime soon?
I'm one of those who refuses to abide any proprietary software or DRM. Put me in a concentration camp already. Man. Someone's gonna be sure to encrypt his hard drives, keep a steady open wireless hub, and move to Sweden. You want to see fascism in action? This is it.
ethana2@gmail.com
and not know whats going on with the firing of your personel
because of politics? What do you charge him with..., stupidity, or
incompetence for job performance? Gonzales, stop trying to shift
attention away from your poor performance, by trying to make
another obscure law, that takes the heat off you.
"It is a general tenet of the criminal law that those who attempt to commit a crime but do not complete it are as morally culpable as those who succeed in doing so."
How do you define an 'attempt' to commit a crime such as 'infringement'? Wouldn't the prosecutor have to establish the 'goal' or 'purpose' of the crime yet uncommitted? I mean if you walk into a bank with a gun and a note it's fairly straightforward to infer what was going to happen, but "infringement"? How will they determine whose life they are going to tear apart? WHO are they after? Does AG work for the RIAA or something now?
And by the way, MY tax-dollars are going to pay for this? If corporate America wants to farm out it's security enforcement to the government, at least they should pay a fee or something.
We need to get these people out of office now! Anyone who cannot see this has got to be anti-America!
For every CD from a major label that you buy they get a cut of money which they in turn use to sue people or buy politicians to pull this crap.
Stop buying their products and funding them.
Buy music from independent artists or download it online...yes i'm advocating piracy.
I refuse to give any money to the RIAA or any artist that supports them.
I love the part about who now Homeland Security now is going to inform the RIAA of "Attempted" Copyright violations!
The best one is the one where they call for life in prison for using priated software that ends in the death of a person! "Yeah, I used windows and my brother died, so I"m in jail and my new friend Fred says I'm pretty!" HA!
This is just stupid on so many levels...
There is more to life than your PC. Software is everywhere. Did you drive to work this morning? Traffic lights are controlled by software. The fuel air mixture in your car's engine is controlled by software. The brakes on your car for christ's sake have software controls. And actually the brakes in the semi behind you on the highway are controlled by software - what if that software is a pirated copy with serious flaws? What if it fails?
Wake up and look past your DVD collection!!
There is more to life than your PC. Software is everywhere. Did you drive to work this morning? Traffic lights are controlled by software. The fuel air mixture in your car's engine is controlled by software. The brakes on your car for christ's sake have software controls. And actually the brakes in the semi behind you on the highway are controlled by software - what if that software is a pirated copy with serious flaws? What if it fails?
Wake up and look past your DVD collection!!
As if the prison population isn't overflowing already now you want
to lock up maybe 20% of the American population..???
PS - Hey Alberto, ever hear of the term 'cruel and unusual'?
Many of today's prisons are privatized. If the prisons themselves are not privatized, services to those prisons are certainly privatized.
The corporate buddies of Bushco, Inc. are part and parcel of this. Thinking Blackwater here.
Why do we let people run our country who think that government can do no good?
The largest copyright infringers on the planet can't even go to prison. Ever seen a corporation behind bars? Didn't think so.
WOW- this guy has really lost his sense of morality if he is going to push through this big booster for the RIAA.
We need to pass a law that anyone who is convicted of selling legislation for PACs which injures the public's well being or circumvents the bill of rights will do life with no parole.
I wonder if plagiarism will be punishable by death?
no one would write. {for fear of repeating}
What about the VCR?
The same old question about the loaf of bread;
If someone uses pirated software prevent poverty, should that be a crime, maybe teaching the homeless or jobless new work skills but one pirated software. - no good dead goes unpunished.
In society they are the haves and the have nots; The Managers and the Toilet Scrubbers.
What if a medical software company unknowingly violates a copyright, does any one who has every used that software have to go to jail for life imprisonment.
It seems that the purposed law is more interested in protecting corporations right to make money than liberty.
Don't be afraid, that is what your government wants you to feel; when you fear you don't think and you don't question.
I WANT MY RIGHT TO LETTERS AND NUMBERS
THEY'RE HUMAN INVENTIONS AND PUBLIC DOMAIN!
Fear is the mind killer.
- Frank Herbert, Dune
is this like starting your car and getting an attempted speeding ticket before you pull out of your driveway?
how do you find someone guilty of a crime that hasn't been committed.
seriously, defining a true legal nature of "attempting" is a gray area. we aren't talking about a true physical area where attempting is someone at the door of a building prying it open for illegal entry. this is a property rights area that will extend into imagined boundaries of code. and crossing those 1's and 0's without any true act or intentional act of copyright violation, will occur daily.
www.bushisantichrist.com
- I Can't Imagine...
- by Jane in KC May 15, 2007 8:53 AM PDT
- what is going through this person's brain, if anything! I'm a life-long Republican, but this is the stupidest proposal yet. Hopefully it's just more hot air from Washington.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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