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.

[Mr. K]

NOW IF THEY COULD JUST OUTLAW SPAM!!!! (the email not the delicious 'meat' product)

[P-Marlowe]

No more JPG. No more BMP. No more GIF.

Cool. That should speed up my text reception.

[Bella_Bru]

Many of the songs I have downloaded are either no longer in print or I already purchased on vinyl and then again on cassette.

I also have actually gone put and bought the CD of a group when I have dloaded a couple of songs and discovered that I liked them a lot.

[PropheticZero]

Nicely said and stated. The companies that participate in the restriction of free flow and internet information will experience the same kind of shock that S&W got after they shaked hands with Clinton.

I agree that a lot of people will see it this way, but it really isn't. If people remove the annoyance at not getting their way, with free music and programs, these companies are merely trying to keep people from wantonly sharing their products to others for free. Okay big stretch analogy here, but if we had replicators like in StarTrek and we went around all the food buisinesses scanning all the pizza hut pizzas and taco's from taco bell into are replicators and started giveing them to people for free, we would be doing damages to the companies trying to make a buck in our economy. You can't be half communist/half capitalist :). Either people have a right to make money in exchange for products they produce or no one does. With Mp3's its as if people want the world to be communist as far as their "wants" go, but they still want to get payed at the end of the day for "their" work. There's some major hipocrisy going on. I don't want them to stop me from getting the music "I" want either, but I think comparing them to S&W is stretching it a little.

[Bella_Bru]

Hey! You must know my little cousin! :-)

[jayef]

They are the Ellsworth Toohey's of the world.

[BlazingArizona]

The real problem here - and I speak as one who has been in the geek business for 36 years - is that Congress is about to give Hollywood special dispensation to hack into the computers of others, an activity which is a felony in all other contexts. Once we grant the RIAA this right, we have no assurance that they will confine their attention to their own copyrighted material. They could snoop our Quicken files to sell to the IRS, if they felt like it.


Let's roll, hackers - if Hollywood wants war in cyberspace, bring it on!

[P-Marlowe]

Most of the stuff on the internet is poorly recorded or poorly compressed. It really isn't worth the effort to download. I only download stuff that I have purchased in the past and then only for the purpose of picking up chord and lead patterns for practice.

They can shut down all the file transfer stuff they want. No big loss. If you want a high quality MP3, then go to the library and check out the CD. I won't advise you on what you do when you get it home, but a 16 speed CDR can solve all your file sharing woes in a hurry.

[PropheticZero]

Supposed "reasonable prices" is what alot of people use as their excuse to get free money. In a world where Cd's cost 10-20 bucks, and CD-R's cost less than a buck, and a whole CD can be downloaded using a Cable internet connection in under a half hour, its easy to assume their overcharging. And I bet they are, but its their right to charge what they will, its not our right to go rioting if we don't like it. If they where monopolizing and price gouging on food necessary for living it be one thing, but like it or not, music is not necessary for survival. We can make our own, you can share you talent with however you like, but we don't have the right to share others talents with whoever we like without limiations.

Just my opinion

[Jonathon Spectre]

Oh, we're going to "police" the Internet again, eh?

>laughing<

Next up, counting every grain of sand on every world in the universe.

[PropheticZero]

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.

But you can't hop behind the counter at Mc. Donald's and grab a fry because you don't think you should have to buy a whole box when you just want one fry.

[TheOtherOne]

over = of

Whoops, that was a typo!

[College Repub]

Right. I was referring more to the initial distribution system once they hit the USA. The groups that release the software and movies and games and their distribution systems (before it even hits file sharing networks).

[PropheticZero]

Stealing is stealing no matter what fancy philosophy you want to blame it on, no offense. I do it too :) Its just that I don't try to candycoat by saying I'm an activist against immoral corporate execs over charging us. A lot of time and money goes into producing CD's and making computer programs, and to say its not stealing is more of a crime in my mind than doing the act itself. The attempts to relegate this to a victimless crime are incorrect at best.

[PropheticZero]

But then again I might be just as self-serving as everyone else in saying that my crime is not as bad as others :)

[strela]

NOW IF THEY COULD JUST OUTLAW SPAM!!!! (the email not the delicious 'meat' product)

Interesting that you should mention spam in this context. There is a private email blocklist called SPEWS who publishes a list of IPs of known spammers. SPEWS is being used by more and more ISPs who use this list to try to get a handle on those spamhausen who hide behind ISPs with weak Acceptable Use Policies, etc.

Spammers who are negatively affected by SPEWS have tried repeatedly to sue them for tortious interference in a business relationship. But, none have been successful so far. Why? Well, part of the reason is that SPEWS is based in Irkutsk, and its hard to find a process server who wants to fly the Moscow/Minsk red-eye to get there, even for the most dedicated landshark.

The relevance here is that file sharing per se cannot be eliminated completely, as the folks who do it will simply move offshore. And, there are still some corners of the planet where even American landsharks are impotent. Hilary Rosen can jump up and down and kick her dog all she wants, but them's the facts.

[rwfromkansas]

Well true, but in that situation the food comes as a package logically. Also, you actually want all the fries eventually when you are hungry.

I don't want to listen to every song on a dang CD sometimes. Even after listening a couple times (checking out the beginning of the songs I didn't buy the CD for), I still don't have an interest in half the CD. I am wasting half of my purchase and since I am rather thrifty, I don't like the idea of wasting half of my money. Instead of paying 13 bucks for 12 songs, I was paying 13 bucks for 4 songs I really wanted. That is not right. Dividing it up by song, the amount of money that I actually spent that was worth it was $4.32. That means $8.68 is wasted cash I could have spent getting two meals somewhere. Furthermore, it is not logical to package songs together like it is with food. When you buy french fries, you are buying the same product. When you purchase a CD, you are buying a bunch of different little products, sometimes only a couple of which you actually want. You are being forced to buy extra. This does not show good character of the record companies...shoving crap we don't want down our throats.

The only fair solution to keep people from resorting to file swapping???: get to buy only the songs you want.

As for warez, I don't really have any moral justification for that except software is horrendously expensive sometimes and well, I don't want to pay the high price. I don't have any other reasons.

[rwfromkansas]

And my moral reason for the software is more of an attempt to try to justify it than an actual good reason...it isn't a good reason in reality....

But anyway...

[Lazamataz]

By offering you a product of their making, they could maybe get away with [destroying people's computers].

Wrong.

You're gonna end up with a lot of dead record executives and burned buildings.

Companies are not in the business of starting wars. Militaries and civilian rebellious populations are.

You will see a low-grade guerilla war if they start trashing people's machines. Count on it.

[Jim Noble]

naked bribery.

Indict him.