Posted on 04/24/2006 7:51:04 AM PDT by FewsOrange
For the last few years, a coalition of technology companies, academics and computer programmers has been trying to persuade Congress to scale back the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Now Congress is preparing to do precisely the opposite. A proposed copyright law seen by CNET News.com would expand the DMCA's restrictions on software that can bypass copy protections and grant federal police more wiretapping and enforcement powers.
The draft legislation, created by the Bush administration and backed by Rep. Lamar Smith, already enjoys the support of large copyright holders such as the Recording Industry Association of America. Smith is the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees intellectual-property law.
Smith's press secretary, Terry Shawn, said Friday that the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006 is expected to "be introduced in the near future."
"The bill as a whole does a lot of good things," said Keith Kupferschmid, vice president for intellectual property and enforcement at the Software and Information Industry Association in Washington, D.C. "It gives the (Justice Department) the ability to do things to combat IP crime that they now can't presently do."
During a speech in November, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales endorsed the idea and said at the time that he would send Congress draft legislation. Such changes are necessary because new technology is "encouraging large-scale criminal enterprises to get involved in intellectual-property theft," Gonzales said, adding that proceeds from the illicit businesses are used, "quite frankly, to fund terrorism activities."
The 24-page bill is a far-reaching medley of different proposals cobbled together. One would, for instance, create a new federal crime of just trying to commit copyright infringement. Such willful attempts at piracy, even if they fail, could be punished by up to 10 years in prison...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.com ...
Good luck getting a straight answer from him.
That's your response? Geez. No, the Sony BMG rootkit did not allow even a few legal copies to be made without installation of illegal & potentially dangerous spyware, installed without knowledge or consent. The discovery of which was a violation of the DMCA you're saying doesn't provide enough penalty for pirates...and people who actually care to find out if illegal spyware has been installed without consent on their computer.
Anyone who downloaded Sony BMG's patches is also in violation of the DMCA. All this is okay with you, though, since permitting the spyware allowed users to make a few legal copies?
You're quite a piece of work.
lol...you don't know the half of it.
Oh so it must have been an OK rootkit then?
BTW I would be careful from installing from SONY a foreign entity that is a known source of root kits... AKA a foreign hacker site
Yeah, really.
I was responding to your claim the Sony rootkit didn't allow for "legal" copies, such as a backup. From what I understand, it did.
Of course not. But that doesn't excuse misrepresentations of what it did. Or what could happen to anyone who removed it.
Rootkits Benefit from Open Source - InfoWorld, April 24, 2006
http://news.yahoo.com/s/infoworld/20060424/tc_infoworld/77521_1
In the list of replies to the Sysinternals blog post on the Sony BMG rootkit, there are folks who claim that both discovering as well as removing the rootkit are DMCA violations. One claims that this was clearly stated by a management figure within Sony BMG, and there is a name. I can provide a linky if you must see it. You can decide...well, you've probably made up your mind as to the credibility of such a source to begin with.
It's a matter of circumventing copy protection. Looking for & detecting the rootkit, let alone removing it, is exactly that.
That's a violation of the DMCA as I understand it. You understand differently? Show me the section of the DMCA that says it's okay to circumvent copy protection, and I'll give ya a Twinkie.
Wow, message board replies, terrifying. Yet millions removed it, and not a single one has been prosecuted, anywhere?
Gee, so, the law is good because no one enforces it? Are you sure that will continue if the political party in power happens to change?
You guys mentioned the Sony rootkit, but haven't shown anyone actually being prosecuted. Nor will anyone ever be.
Open Source is what's fueling Rootkits. And those like FU do a LOT more damage than anything Sony did.
Not without installing illegal and potentially dangerous spyware without knowledge or consent. Why is this so difficult? Try reading it again. One could not make a legal copy on their computer without installing illegal and potentially dangerous spyware without knowledge or consent.
Could not make a legal copy on one's computer. Got it? Yet?
Why is it you're so bent on defending this illegal spyware?
Why is it you think it's a good thing that detecting & removing such illegal spyware should be criminalized more than it is already?
This is a case where lack of prosecutions doesn't impress me. Using that law for that purpose would've likely put a software company & perhaps even Sony BMG out of business, which is why there were no prosecutions. Sony BMG allowed their customers to violate the law.
Does that make them complicit in a crime?
I like the idea that I'm not breaking the law, since I don't do anything that would or could be considered breaking the law, to my knowledge. But had I ripped one of these CDs, I would have had to break the law in order to remove illegal & potentially dangerous spyware from my computer.
I shouldn't have to break the law to do that, yet that's exactly what was done, regardless of whether or not anyone was prosecuted for it. That's bad law. You think making it worse is somehow a good idea.
That's difficult to understand no matter how much you label people defenders of piracy in your ridiculous & seemingly increasingly desperate attempt to endorse this legislation.
Amazing that he excuses it because no one was arrested for removing it. Of course, he wants us to totally ignore the fact that someone put software on people's computers that makes them lawbreakers when they try to remove it. Arrests or not, that's inexcusable, but here he is defending it with limp-wristed excuses like "Well, it let you make a few copies", etc.
Not only that, for a guy who constantly rails against others for supposedly supporting the UN, he doesn't seem to mind so much that the DMCA is basically crafted by the UN itself. Truth is, he's a tool, and everyone here knows it.
This statement is false too. You could make a copy, if you did so before you agreed to Sony's prompt to install their software. You had to agree to that, remember? And even then you could have made legal copies.
But had I ripped one of these CDs, I would have had to break the law in order to remove illegal & potentially dangerous spyware from my computer.
Again, this is wrong. Even with the "evil" Sony rootkit, you could have "ripped" copies.
And this new law will replace it. Did the U/N work on this new law? Or are they too busy pushing open source now with their new agency dedicated to that? Richard Stallman is who's on the latest U.N. speaker lists, not Jack Valenti who someone else brought up.
And the fact it let you copy does not excuse the fact your backing a law that would make the detection and removal of this root kit illegal and punishable by prison time..
I don't think detection and removal of rootkits will ever be illegal, but you're welcome to live in that fantasy world if you like.
What you call a root kit SONY calls copy protection...
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