Hyperbole? If you read all of the bill’s provisions, you realize that the government would be able to find a way to arrest every American for something whenever they wanted. Casually mention you’d like a copy of that song your friend’s playing from her iPod and BAM: Intent to infringe! You can now be wiretapped at the very least. Prove that you weren’t enticing her to make you an illegal copy. How exactly do you prove you didn’t do something as ambiguous as “intent to infringe,” the present day equivalent to thoughtcrime. Easy to come up with other possibilities a government might use if they don’t like you for some reason.
The one that gets me is life imprisonment for using “or attempting to use” pirated software that causes death. Software makers no longer have to be held responsible if it really was the software’s fault.
Take the hospital example in the article to it’s logical extent. A patient dies. Loved ones (and lawyers), looking for anything, discover the main application was paid for, but there was an unlicensed copy of a $5 utility program on the PC. Watch them claim this was the source of the death since it was illegal to use it unlicensed, PLUS you’re now subject to life in prison for that utility.
Allow this to pass and we hand the government the power to do with us what they will in the guise of helping the poor record and movie companies. Fighting for freedom in other countries seems so hollow when we are losing ours. Just with like Bush’s elimination of habeas corpus and the ability to label anyone an enemy combatant and jail them without charges forever, you can feel the noose of totalitarianism pulling tight in one big tug.
Gonzales proposes new crime: “Attempted” copyright infringement
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, including “attempts” to commit piracy.
“To meet the global challenges of IP crime, our criminal laws must be kept updated,” Gonzales said during a speech before the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington on Monday.
The Bush administration is throwing its support behind a proposal called the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007, which is likely to receive the enthusiastic support of the movie and music industries and would represent the most dramatic rewrite of copyright law since a 2005 measure dealing with pre-release piracy.
* Criminalize “attempting” to infringe copyright. Federal law currently punishes not-for-profit copyright infringement with between 1 and 10 years in prison, but there has to be actual infringement that takes place. The IPPA would eliminate that requirement. (The Justice Department’s summary of the legislation says: “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.”)
* Create a new crime of life imprisonment for using pirated software. Anyone using counterfeit products who “recklessly causes or attempts to cause death” can be imprisoned for life. During a conference call, Justice Department officials gave the example of a hospital using pirated software instead of paying for it.
* Permit more wiretaps for piracy investigations. Wiretaps would be authorized for investigations of Americans who are “attempting” to infringe copyrights.
hrm…
We can place this one next to Kelo vs. New London as another example of our liberties swirling close to the edge of the drain. What is next? Free Speech? Oh, wait, thanks to Political Correctness and the actions of great men like Al Sharpton, it’s going away as well…
People have always said “America, Love it or leave it.”
Lately, I’ve seriously considered leaving.
Thought Crimes – weren’t these already implemented with the passage of hate crimes legislation?
Miserable as this bill sounds, consider:
1. It is being pushed by Gonzales, who isn’t exactly Congress’s poster boy these days. Good thing too!
2. We began having Thought Police the day we enacted “hate crime” legislation.
3. “Anyone using counterfeit products who “recklessly causes or attempts to cause death” can be imprisoned for life”
Well, one can make a fairly good case for a life term without even bringing the words “counterfeit” or “product” into the argument.
4. How exactly do they prove that you “attempted to infringe copyright”? Let’s face it, if the feds want you to disappear badly enough, they don’t need any stinking new legislation. You WILL disappear, one way or the other….Jimmy Hoffa, Ronald Brown, etc.
5. Jerry Fallwell dead at 73! Yippie :)! Praise the Lord!
It makes you wonder where they are going to warehouse all these “criminals”, oh, thats right, thats what the FEMA camps are for. I wonder if they have archery and canoeing, I just love camp. And I do look good in orange.
6. Darn, forgot the links:
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/camps.htm
http://tinyurl.com/2rlvnk
“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” – Benito Mussolini.
Don’t say you weren’t warned…
I’ve already sent a letter to one of my state’s senators stating (in a very nice way) that he’s a moron if he supports this bill.
#5 (referring to 3rd point) –
Does that mean that if I was throw a home-made bowling ball town a steep paved street, and a midget happened to get in the way, and his skull got crushed… I’d go to jail (for life)?
#10 – I guess they would have to prove intent. If you accidentally dropped the fucker that would be one thing. If the midgets were split and you were going for the spare, well that would show intent. If you crushed his skull you are probably lofting the ball. Since this was a home-made ball the finger holes might be too tight.
Lauren (#8),
I have been making that argument for years, in particular while referencing this administration. This country was founded on rights for the individual, not corporations…
#11 –
nobody is condoning thievery, but authorizing wiretaps for copying or dvd as backup or using a dvr is really freaking creepy.
i thought republicans were for making government less strong, and less intrusive into our lives
hhahahahahahaha that’ s just a pack of lies like everything else they say !!!!!
wake up america!
PreCrime!! Wasn’t there a movie about this?
Oh, I am in so much trouble!
#14
These are republicans in name only. The proper term would be recorplicans. You saw it here first.
#11 – lol lofting… I was thinking along the lines of heaving
Here is my big question: Why is this General Gonzales in a position to propose anything. Is this not the same individual who authorizes the dismissal of U.S. attorneys left and right, and then can’t remember ever making the decision? It is interesting that this story should come along so shortly after the Microsoft patent infringment lawsuit fiesta.
Of course, I don’t feel the two are related at all, but as a consumer and an amateur programmer I understand both the desire to obtain cheap or free programs, and feel a revulsion for those who use cracked versions of programs simply to save a buck or two. The measures presented here by General Gonzales seem analogous to asking your doctor for treatment for depression, and he or she immediatly administers a labotomy.
…a $5 utility program on the PC. Watch them claim this was the source of the death since it was illegal to use it unlicensed, PLUS you’re now subject to life in prison for that utility.
Might make for less crap software, and better programming quality all around. Can we argue with that?
Wonder what idiotic story the media will use to bury this one…probably Falwell’s death.
#21 – Hmmm yeah the timing of Falwell’s death IS quite suspicious…
Chuckling evilly to himself, Karl Rove puts away his remote pacemaker-deactivator and Bush-robot controller (which the MSM photo captions always refers to as a “Blackberry”), knowing that he has successfully buried yet another possibly embarassing news story…
What kind of pirated software would cause death?
This is just another example of the continuing erosion of the system…
It’s supposed to be a Justice system, but around 30 years ago, it became a Legal system. The punishment should fit the crime, but that concept has been thoroughly lost due to politics and special interest.
For instance, I don’t like her, but Paris getting 45 days for a suspended license is overkill – cruel and unusual punishment. I’ve been in jail for ONE day, and that was for beating the shit out of some guy when I was drunk. 45 days for blowing off a judge sounds like a personal vendetta to me, not justice.
I can’t wait for 12 yo girls to fail the Californian 3 strikes law and rot in jail for the rest of their lives.
#23 – Vista, you’ll die of boredom.
#23, when the airlines get REAL hard up and desperate, they’ll download pirated warez fly-by-wire software for their Airbusses instead of paying top dollar for the legitimate versions. Then the trojans and worms take over, and look out Sears Tower!
We already have “thought crimes”. They are called “hate” crimes. It means that by someone elses judgement aside from the facts of what was perpetrated, what you were thinking when you committed the crime mitigates the severity of the crime. e.g. Your white grandmother, while taking a walk, is killed by anyone of any race in a mugging for her money. By today’s law, her death is not as egregious as the death of a black grandmother killed by someone of another race mugging that grandmother while calling her ‘nigger’.
The separate category defining ‘hate’ crimes is the bogus invention of racial apologists. ‘Hate’ crimes are another lie. It doesn’t matter what you think; it matters what you do.
Lets have ‘International Don’t buy CDs or DVDs week’
Show ’em who’s boss.
It’s 1 July to 7 July
Not a memorable name, sorry – suggestions?
I think that the issue that I’ve had in the past with this administration, and the problem that many people seem to still suffer from, is a failure of belief. I had a very hard time believing they could really be this far down the rabbit hole, that they could really want to destroy my country, and lay ruin to her most proud traditions and institutions. But it seems that this crowd, born as they were from an era of legislation based upon panic and fear rather than justice and logic, have truly embraced the dark side. They will lay waste to anything that doesn’t suit them, and have thus far managed to ignore or twist virtually every clause and amendment to the constitutions, not to mention some 750 laws for which they stated outright their intent to violate in signing statements. The only silver lining to this crisis is that there is now -some- opposition, -some- oversight. But the primary thing this has uncovered is a great unwillingness to let any light in their dungeons, and a great unwillingness on the part of the media to cover the coverup. Were it not for the internet, and the opposition the voters introduced into the system this last year, our nation would be doomed, destroyed from within and replaced with a horrible tyranny, bent upon the enslavement of not only her own people, but all of mankind.
Pray for our nation, to whomever seems appropriate.
John, I would keep this story at the tope for the while, like a forum sticky, because it seems your audience doesn’t understand how serious this is.