House Bill Could Shut Down File Sharing

Extremetech ^ | July 25, 2002 | By: Mark Hachman

[vannrox]

A California Democrat introduced a bill Thursday that would make sharing of copyrighted files illegal, and would indemnify copyright holders from taking whatever actions they chose to prevent the sharing of those files.

The effect, if approved by Congress and signed into law, would be to virtually outlaw file-sharing as is commonly known. The bill was authored by and introduced by Rep. Howard L. Berman, a California Democrat representing the 26th Congressional District, which includes North Hollywood. Berman is the ranking member of the Congressional Committee on the Judiciary's subcommittee on courts, the Internet, and intellectual property.

[MoJo2001]

Indeed! The majority of the movie releases put on the Internet comes from Asia.

[MoJo2001]

To be honest, if you put them online through a peer to peer sharing site such as Morpheus, WinMx, Limewire, or BearShare..then they can go after you. However, I would like the to know if they can go on everyone's computer.

This bill will be shot down as Unconstitutional! If they allow pornography on the damn internet, they'd be hard pressed to get this passing.

[PropheticZero]

That's how I read it, too. So if I own a CD, rip a song off of it onto my machine and convert it to an MP3 (which I do all the time), they can come snooping my hard drive and delete it. They have no way of knowing if I have paid for the music or not.

No. Ripping songs off your own CD's for your computer is not the problem, its ripping songs of your CD's then putting them in a public folder so that others who have not purchased the CD's can get to them. There's no constitutional right to piracy, and heck I even do it, but I'm not gonna rage against the goverment and enterntainment industries for trying to stop me. This is basically the same as if in your neighborhood everyone had a cardboard box outside their home where they kept putting copies of every piece of media they have. You can walk up and down your street and grab whatever you want and others can come to your box and grab what they want. I wouldn't blame them if the media industries sent people posing to be your neighbors to walk right up onto your property and grab anything that was made by them, if it happened to be that you had legally purchased a copy, it really doesn't matter because your making copies of their material available for others. I would perfer, that this task was relegated to a govermental entity with better outlined rules and regulations but in a capitalistic society theres not reason for having bad feelings for them trying.

That its would be annoying there is no doubt. But thats merely from the need to spend your money on CD's that you want instead of just grabbing them, or for the really lazy people with plent of money, merely having to go out to get it.

The main point is that you have all the freedom in the world to have whatever you want to have on your computer in the privacy of your own home, but when you open a door out to the world and let anyone in you want and set up a media barter system, then its not the privacy of your own home. Again, there's no inherent God given right to steal from people providing you a service. But I like alot of people on this thread say, "bring it on." This whole battle over free music/programs and copyright protection only serves to build up our technology as those with the copyrights seek to protect them and those that want the media free seek to break the protection. I'd personally rather spend my energy on maintaining our rights that are God given being stomped on by big government. So I won't fight either way, I'll just enjoy the benefits until I either have some spare money every month, or the laws are set such that I'm inclined to not download anything for my own protection.

[ALinArleta]

Semper911. I read an article in the Daily News. Sony does not want to go in to your computer and delete a file. They want to put a virus on there CD's so if you try to copy it on your computer it destroyes your computer. They already have tried it and they are being sued. How much did they give to Berman for campane donations? Betchah they gave a lot.

[Lazamataz]

If they try to hack peoples computers, they will be -- literally -- destroyed.

Go ahead. Piss off the bright 13 year old who has too much time and a lot of anger.

[SamBees]

This is paranoid hollywood causing problems. BOY, if this passes, BOYCOTTS will take place around the country that will affect many companies. HEAVY HANDED reactions against file traders will just unify them in anger, and will anger many average citizens who see the Internet becoming the new playground of spies, and Big Government.

HOLD ON TO YOUR VCR's! DON'T TAPE ANY TV SHOWS!!! The next thing you know, someone may park a tank in your front yard!!!

[Lazamataz]

Sony does not want to go in to your computer and delete a file. They want to put a virus on there CD's so if you try to copy it on your computer it destroyes your computer.

So they want permission to destroy peoples property.

Watch, as about a million people end up destroying theirs.

[rwfromkansas]

Screw you, Berman. This bill hopefully will die in committee.

[Lazamataz]

This is paranoid hollywood causing problems. BOY, if this passes, BOYCOTTS will take place around the country that will affect many companies. HEAVY HANDED reactions against file traders will just unify them in anger, and will anger many average citizens who see the Internet becoming the new playground of spies, and Big Government.

Granting permission to a company to destroy private property guarentees there will be some 'adjusted' CEOs and some 'stressed' company property.

If you catch my meaning.

[Lazamataz]

Screw you, Berman. This bill hopefully will die in committee.

Note: The person proposing this bill: Democrat. California.

Go figure.

[Lazamataz]

I have a good idea. Any RIAA company CEO that puts forth a policy that trashes my computer and the files contained in it will get to eat his meals through a straw for a few months. Since, of course, I'd be deprived of legal recourse, my vengeance would be a little more personal.

Are they underestimating the American populace? They will need to guard every single record company and distributers like Sony with f***ing tanks.

24/7.

Not to mention the hacker-kiddies who will be hacking back.

[Lazamataz]

How about if they charged reasonable prices for playing a song or seeing a movie on the internet? REASONABLE charges. I'd be game for that.

[PropheticZero]

There's more to getting onto your computer than most people think. If you set up a shared folder using KaZaA or another peer to peer software then its relatively easy for them to see what you have "in that shared folder." The only way for them to get through would be for KaZaA or similar programs to build something in, or for their to be a flaw discovered in the code that these companies could take advantage of.

There are also weaknesses in the operating systems themselves that someone could take advantage of. This would consitute "hacking" if you didn't have a public folder open, or if they used other ports that weren't opened for the purpose of peer-2-peer, i would assume, as you haven't given them permission to see files that aren't shared. You can get patches for these weaknesses, but they find new ones all the time. Kind of the way I see it, the more rigged your operating system is for internet/networking the more weaknesses there will be, there are more ways of getting onto your computer with Windows 2000 then on say Win98. Correct me if I'm wrong.

The third way would be to sneak a program onto your computer, without your knowledge which would open up your computer from the inside out, or simply send them a complete directory listing of your harddrive using your internet connection so that they can do follow up. This would also be legally considered hacking, unless they buried it deep in the User Agreement. How often do you read through the entire User Argreement ? :)

Other than those 3 general categories I'm not sure how anyone would be able to get onto your computer. 2 are illegal and 1 doesn't offer much in the way of access to other parts of your computer. However this one easy method might pave the way to "legally" use these other 2 methods if this legistlation goes through.

Well thats how I see that matter, but I'm not a lawyer, or a politician, media exec, or elite hacker, so they might have other opinions.

[TommyDale]

How do they think they will get past firewalls? Some people send "bullets" or "time bombs" back to people who try to hack.

To the spies reading this, I am referring to electronic methods of sending viruses and/or worms, thus the quote marks. Please do not fly over my house with your helicopters.

[PropheticZero]

By offering you a product of their making, they could maybe get away with this. Though there's the problem of offering a product that everyone knows is bad for you, in this case bad for your computer. But they might be able to slip this one buy if they put an Audio CD out that would crap out your computer while it was in. If it was understood that it would do this, and that you had to agree to this limitation to buy their product. One problem I see though is with the production of Mp3 playing Car Stereos and the trend towards more complex stereos the line between stereos and computer is blurring and the may start having problems with their CD's not working on a car stereo. Its kind of like Drano, if you drink it its bad for you, but if you use it to unclog drains it works right, they put adequate warning labels on and they avoid frivoulus law suits by people who drank it. Sony isn't bound by any law to produce a product to the exacting standards of everyone, so they could put out a CD that doens't work on computers, but there also bound by the higher laws of supply and demand. Those consumers that don't agree with the limitations will go elsewhere. Bands will find out that they're not selling and more elsewhere.

[rwfromkansas]

I don't file share music, but I do occasionally download a warez program (it gets really annoying trying to get through all the dang porn pop-ups before you can actually download the game or software program though).

I am not going to pay 50 bucks for a program that is worth more like 10 when I can get it for free. If there is a CD that has a song I like, but there is only one song on it I like, I won't pay 13 bucks for an entire CD. It has never come to that, but I would go download an mp3 in the future if it does.

[terilyn]

2001 - 2002 donor data
HOWARD L. BERMAN (D-CA)
Top Contributors

1 Walt Disney Co $31,000
2 AOL Time Warner $28,050
3 Vivendi Universal $27,591
4 Viacom Inc $13,000
5 News Corp $11,750
6 American Fedn of St/Cnty/Munic Employees $10,000
6 DreamWorks SKG $10,000
6 William Morris Agency $10,000
9 Gang, Tyre et al $7,000
9 Sony Corp of America $7,000
11 Ziffren, Brittenham et al $6,500
12 Phillips & Cohen $6,100
13 American Federation of Teachers $5,000
13 Americans for Free International Trade $5,000
13 Assn of Trial Lawyers of America $5,000
13 Carpenters & Joiners Union $5,000
13 Directors Guild of America $5,000
13 Irell & Manella $5,000
13 National Assn of Realtors $5,000
13 National Cable Television Assn $5,000
13 Service Employees International Union $5,000

2000 donor data
HOWARD L. BERMAN (D-CA)
Top Contributors

1 Vivendi Universal $22,000
2 Time Warner $14,500
3 Walt Disney Co $13,000
4 National Assn of Realtors $10,000
4 Viacom Inc $10,000
4 Assn of Trial Lawyers of America $10,000
7 Sony Corp of America $9,000
8 Carpenters & Joiners Union $7,000
9 William Morris Agency $6,500
10 National Assn of Broadcasters $5,998
11 Operating Engineers Union $5,000
11 National Cable Television Assn $5,000
11 United Food & Commercial Workers Union $5,000
11 Teamsters Union $5,000
11 Service Employees International Union $5,000
11 Southern Wine & Spirits $5,000
11 Broadcast Music Inc $5,000
11 Directors Guild of America $5,000
11 Americans for Free International Trade $5,000
11 American Medical Assn $5,000
11 American Federation of Teachers $5,000
11 AT&T $5,000
11 ASCAP $5,000
11 Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers $5,000
11 American Fedn of St/Cnty/Munic Employees $5,000
11 Edison International $5,000

2002 Industry Data
HOWARD L. BERMAN (D-CA)
The top industries supporting Howard L. Berman are:

1 TV/Movies/Music $186,891
2 Lawyers/Law Firms $97,100
3 Pro-Israel $30,100
4 Real Estate $29,000
5 Public Sector Unions $22,000
6 Retired $21,050
7 Misc Unions $16,500
8 Human Rights $14,000
9 Lobbyists $12,750
10 Building Trade Unions $11,000
10 Automotive $11,000
12 Securities & Investment $9,550
13 Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $8,297
14 Misc Business $8,000
14 Misc Manufacturing & Distributing $8,000
14 Food Processing & Sales $8,000
14 Telecom Services & Equipment $8,000
18 Business Services $7,750
19 Transportation Unions $7,500
20 Computer Equipment & Services $7,250

2000 Industry Data
HOWARD L. BERMAN (D-CA)
Top Industries

The top industries supporting Howard L. Berman are:
1 TV/Movies/Music $148,048
2 Lawyers/Law Firms $108,502
3 Real Estate $42,150
4 Pro-Israel $39,900
5 Beer, Wine & Liquor $39,450
6 Public Sector Unions $22,500
7 Misc Unions $20,700
8 Business Services $20,500
9 Securities & Investment $19,650
10 Building Trade Unions $19,200
11 Lobbyists $18,500
12 Retired $14,650
13 Health Professionals $13,750
14 Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $13,500
15 Human Rights $13,350
16 Misc Manufacturing & Distributing $12,000
17 Industrial Unions $11,500
18 Transportation Unions $10,500
19 Computer Equipment & Services $9,500
19 Automotive $9,500

[PropheticZero]

And if you want to stop it, YOU have to file suit. In other words, you're guilty until proven innocent. WILDLY unconstitutional.

Your right, this is where it inevetiably breaks down. Regardless of right or wrong in file sharing, this is the same "Vigilante Justice" people rail against when people defend themselves against would be attackers. Or people they think have committed a crime.

[TheOtherOne]

Just leave me Hotline

This type over legislation must be stopped.