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.
What I don’t understand is how the politicians get away with doing whatever the hell the entertainment mafia and assorted monopolists want. Sen Feinstein actually sent me a form letter explaining a bill she cosponsored, which the Copyright Board later used to try to destroy Internet radio. She was “protecting the artists,” postured Feinstein. Not even Feinstein can be THAT stupid, which leaves gross cynicism and corruption as plausible explanations.
What I suspect in the current instance is that torture-loving Gonzales is just throwing this idea “out there” to distract people who love freedom while the real mischief goes on quietly elsewhere, like in the back rooms of paid-for politicians like Feinstein.
A relative once told me that, by Occam’s razor, he has concluded the current Bush administration wants to destroy the U.S.A. while posturing as patriots. When the vice president’s company announced it would scurry to Dubai to avoid post-Bush questioning, he wrote me an “I told you so” note. “They’ve been in the pocket of the oil nations all along,” he crowed.
Now this latest grab by the entertainment mafia and other monopolists to make “intent” into a crime.
Oh well, I guess I’ll just go see what’s on TV tonight. Nothing better to do.
I think we have to get away from this habit of attaching all these bastardizations of our country’s founding principles to the current administration, as if it is only because of the specific people that have gained power through the current system that things are going so badly.
Yes, the current crew in the White House has done more to cripple our country than any that preceded it, but that statement has been true for most of the administrations in recent history as well. And it is a fair bet that the next group will turn out to be even worse, whatever they call themselves.
We have to detach ourselves from the idea that Bush, or Cheney, or Republicans, or any one person or group, are the root of all evil. Otherwise we will be lulled into a false sense of hope for the future. We can’t afford to continue to wait out the terms one despot after another under the assumption that the despot that replaces him will be any better. We have to change the system, not its figurehead.
Not that it is the perfect solution, but it bears taking a look at The Free State Project.
Anyway, this is indeed ridiculous, as are hate crime laws, and tax laws, and the recent “screw internet radio” “law”, etc. etc. What’s sad is that it didn’t even strike me as surprising.
–dhc–
TJGeezer….Yeah, I got the same form letter when I signed an online petition to Finestien about her support of the open internet law last year.
She had the balls to tell me that she looks at all sides of an issue, even after I sent her office a list of her biggest contributors….everyone of them companies in favor of the multi-tiered internet pay scheme.
Boxer is no better. Same contributors. If you want Boxers attention and your not a telcom, you better be a far left feminist, or a Lesbian or Gay thats been insulted by someone.