Gonzales proposes new crime: "Attempted" copyright infringement

CNet News Blog ^ | May 15, 2007 | Declan McCullagh

[dayglored]

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...
• Create a new crime of life imprisonment for using pirated software...
• Permit more wiretaps for piracy investigations...
• Allow computers to be seized more readily...
• Increase penalties for violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention regulations...
• Add penalties for "intended" copyright crimes...
• Require Homeland Security to alert the Recording Industry Association of America...

...

[Still Thinking]

Ohh, careful! You’ll get his statist, driving-is-a-privelige, all-laws-MUST-be-right-because they’re-laws, undies in a twist.

[Still Thinking]

Did Bill Gates get elected president while I wasn’t looking?

[jmc813]

Isn’t it about time to step up the “swift boating” on this prick?

[longtermmemmory]

Policeman’s job is easy in a police state.

[x_plus_one]

The Bush administration is throwing its support behind a proposal called the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007,

This is ten times worse than the Nixon administration inventing the EPA and OSHA. Soon we will be required to wear blinders so as not to offend anyone else.

[Still Thinking]

Except that in a police state, police are hated, viewed as enemies rather than protectors, and is as likely to have someone sneak up behind him and slit his throat as he is to be the recipient of a free donut from a grateful citizen.

[x_plus_one]

There’s so much legacy software available that there won’t be enough jails to hold us all. Guess we’ll have to have our FOREHEADS tattooed with numbers or bar codes just to keep it all organized.

[jmc813]

And is anyone else as superficial as me and even further outraged that it is a douche who looks like this...

...advocating all of this crap?

[Still Thinking]

You mean cause he’s Mexican or because he looks like a dork? If you’re objecting to his dorkiness, I’m with you 100%. If cause he’s Mexican, you’re on your own.

[x_plus_one]

Obama and Hitlery are taking bids for services to be rendered when they have defacto plenipotentiary power to penalize everything everywhere.

This story is a trail balloon to see who salites and who gets scared and cries.

[jmc813]

You mean cause he’s Mexican or because he looks like a dork?

Because he looks like a total dork who would have been the type of kid in school to remind the teacher that she didn't assign homework over the weekend. I can care less what the dope's nationality is.

[x_plus_one]

If you criminalize everything and bar code the offenders, only free-range Canadians and Mexicans will have lives worth living.

[knuthom]

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.

How do you "attempt" to infringe on a copyright, without actually infringing on it? Can someone give me an example?

[Lurking Libertarian]

This is breathtaking in its scope and obvious un-Constitutionality.

It may be bad legislation, but I'm not sure how it is unconstitutional, since Congress is explicitly granted the power in the Constitution to establish copyrights.

[Paperdoll]

Another Lawyer’s dream!

[dalight]

IT IS TIME FOR GONZALES TO GO. Its hard to imagine how Bush could push his approval numbers lower but between this and caving to the Man Made Global Warming crowd, I finally have lost confidence. This is a horrible turn of events. We just don’t need anymore division of our base.

[ShadowAce]

How do you "attempt" to infringe on a copyright, without actually infringing on it? Can someone give me an example?

Failing to copy a CD/DVD due to DRM.

[dayglored]

> How do you "attempt" to infringe on a copyright, without actually infringing on it? Can someone give me an example?

Go to BestBuy and buy a stack of blank DVDs.

Don't pretend you didn't intend to use them.... and "we" know that you have some copyrighted DVDs at home, because we wiretapped your phone and internet connection, and heard you discussing the high cost of commercial DVDs...

[Lord_Baltar]

Don’t worry, the ‘bots will be here to defend this. “Had we gone after pirated software, 9/11 wouldn’t have happened”

[dayglored]

ShadowAce’s reply (#157) is correct. Mine was flippant.