Posted on 07/03/2004 5:50:20 PM PDT by Vermonter
Hang Onto Your iPods: Here Comes Orrin Hatch
By Larry Katz 07/03/04 8:08 AM PT
The key word here is civil. Unauthorized file sharing is already illegal, but right now the attorney general can only pursue criminal copyright infringement cases, which are much more difficult to prove than civil cases. The proposed PIRATE act would make it far easier to win suits against file sharers. Those convicted could be required to pay thousands of dollars in penalties.
The Feds aren't coming to take away your iPod yet.
But it could happen, according to critics of a piece of pending legislation in the Senate. Not only your iPod is in jeopardy. The Inducing Infringements of Copyright Act introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) could conceivably make using CD burners, MP3 players and even some cell phones illegal.
(Excerpt) Read more at macnewsworld.com ...
I sometimes have this thinking that I have a bit of Larry McReynolds inside myself. In the case of Orrin Hatch, he is a songwriter. I saw a friend at church wearing a Natalie Grant tee-shirt which carried the theme of an Orrin Hatch songon that shirt.
As a songwriter, he's tired of the piracy because it hurts him as a writer. Writers aren't as respected as the singers who sing them because the writers have a hidden role compared to the glory of the performer.
But writers have been victimised more than singers, because their living is affected more by a pirated song than a singer. They don't have the concerts or the records. Their living is based on the royalties they make on a song, and the royalties aren't great for the writers than the singers.
Do you mean someone might be punished for being a thief?
when you put it together with the PIRATE Act and Hatch's "tens of thousands of continuing enforcement actions," you have a Department of Justice putting more resources into protecting record and movie companies from copyright infringers than Americans from Osama bin Laden.
Hatch is always willing to carry the water for Eisner and the Gay Day crowd over at Disney. He is the sort of "conservative" that believes the function of government power is to support and enrich government functionaries and the businesses that bribe them.
As far as this being about "artists" or "writers," if the RIAA member organizations were concerned about them they wouldn't use such rapacious tactics to impoverish them. One standard major-label ploy is to require green new acts to use an "approved" attorney from a list: a list of those lawyers who do most of their business with the label, and who will make sure to represent the label's interests while being de jure attorney for the act. It's unethical, but since when was that anything but a word to attorneys?
Another standard, totally bog-standard encroachment the labels do, is require the writer to give up his publishing to the label's captive publishing firm. That's 50% of your royalty, skimmed right off the top.
And now they show up, saying they are concerned about the poor starving writers. Dude, I can tell the difference between a rain shower and someone ****ing on my leg.
Orrin Hatch -- Ted Kennedy's best friend in the Senate -- I wonder what kind of cha-chingg he's getting for this one?
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
Do we need the Justice Department going after civil law violators? The recording industry has more than enough money to pursue their own cases. "The Recording Industry Association of America has sued 3,429 people, including several 12-year-olds, for file sharing so far."
A thief is a thief!
Orin Hatch and the RIAA all need to be shown the door --- to the pits of hell --- in iraq preferably where their srot of tyranny is more appreciated.
his total supidity adn ignorance of anything other than what he wants ....
Don't give me that crap about he "feels your pain of a vanquished songwriter" HE and his pile of garbage there in utah have even STOLEN COPYWRITED software, removed the copyrwrite and the author's name and used it on the OFFICIAL hatch website!
he did not even have the decency of the common criminal to admit to HIS THEFT when he got caught.
He and his cadre of traitors and criminals only look for one thing .... $$$$$$
Nope. Someone might have the USG land on him with both feet for owning something that might conceivably be used to illegally copy copyrighted material. No matter that there are many legal ways in which one can copy copyrighted material. (For instance, under present law it is perfectly legal for you to rip the audio from a CD you own and install it on an iPod. The labels hate this. They want to sell you Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band again, as they did when you went from vinyl to 8-track tape to cassette to CD. They consider you a thief for only buying the same product four rather than five times. The law, by the way, disagrees).
This isn't about punishing thieves -- which the present law already allows both the Government (criminally) and the victims (civilly) to pursue. This is about (1) making an assumption that anyone that has, say, an MP3 player or CD burner is a thief, and (2) renting the Department of Justice out as cheap muscle for the major labels.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
And there are already laws to deal with him
Good post.
FMCDH(BITS)
I just transfered about a dozen 78's to CD for a friend of mine. While the music might have sounded 'better' by technical standards had I simply bought it on CD, it wouldn't have sounded the same.
Of course, as I've posted before the record companies aren't really afraid that people will copy music and listen to their copies in lieu of buying it; rather, they're worried that artists will realize music can be promoted successfully without involving the RIAA. RIAA's biggest fear is for someone to offer artists an alternative to indentured servitude.
What about making a tape or cd for a friend? Is that copyright infringement?
That's why people who are served with RIAA Abuse of Process summonses should burn down music stores. A just punishment for stealing is one thing, but this Waco type reaction from the RIAA deserves a violent reponse, since the Law seems to be for rent.
Yes, though it's been going on for years; in practice, regardless of what legislators do, most people consider it "fair" use to either -1- make a copy for a friend's temporary use with the intention that the friend will decide to either buy the music if he likes it, or return the copy if he does not; or -2- make a copy for a friend who already has the material but is less-well-equipped to make a copy in the desired format (e.g. friend has an automotive casette deck, but no tape recorder; both you and the friend have the music in question on CD. For you to make him a copy of HIS disk for use in the car would be legal; for you to make him a copy of your CD instead would technically be illegal, but in a 'who cares' sort of way).
You know, because the Recording Industry Association of America owns all the music stores.
Perhaps they could get real jobs?
Utah really needs to send Hatch into retirement. He seems to have gone senile these last few years.
Note to Hatch: Hey $h!†head, there's MURDERERS and TERRORISTS out there. Get you hands out of your pants, wash 'em, and get back to the PEOPLE'S WORK of ensuring life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
The recording industry and their buddies in Congress are years behind current technology and what the consumers actually want to do with their music.
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