Posted on 06/11/2008 4:15:32 PM PDT by LibWhacker
This is one of the most frightening things I've learned in a long time. Over in the US, a bill has passed the House of Representatives and is heading to Congress – with a huge amount of support.
The PRO-IP bill, H.R.4279, significantly increases the state's power to detect and prosecute IP infringement, carrying with it a whole host of new law enforcement positions and capabilities. It establishes an IP Czar, someone with the job of overseeing zealous action on behalf of copyright and trademark owners, and includes such powers as the ability to seize equipment if it contains just one file thought to infringe.
Importing and exporting infringing material will attract harsh penalties, and there's a $30,000 per-track fine on music (so that's half a million dollars for an album), The list goes on, and I thoroughly recommend you go out and Google to educate yourself on the many quite overwhelming powers the US government wants to give itself in its apparent determination to put file sharing on a par with drug dealing, gangsterism and other great crimes against society.
Thank goodness we're not in America? That hardly helps. Among the many provisions is the establishment of "five additional Intellectual Property Law Enforcement Coordinators in foreign countries to protect the intellectual property rights of U.S. citizens [...] increase DOJ training and assistance to foreign governments to combat counterfeiting and piracy of intellectual property." -- and if you think their job is just to lead the rest of the world in the way of American righteousness, think again.
Transferring a file between the US and the UK, however you do it, will most certainly count as importing or exporting: that will include BitTorrent, web hosting, FTP, Usenet and all those popular ways of moving stuff around the Internet without worrying about who's doing it or where they are. Even if you're scrupulous in avoiding the obvious areas of naughtiness, I doubt very much you know how much of the stuff you've browsed today was hosted in the US, let alone how legal or illegal it strictly was. And if you're a torrent fan, well, good luck to you.
As a UK citizen, you no longer have any effective defence against a US demand for deportation. Under the Extradition Act 2003 the US can apply for a UK citizen to be extradited without having to present any evidence to face charges of a crime committed in the US – for which the UK citizen need not have been actually present.
For an example of how this works, take a look at the case of Brian Howes and Kerry Ann Shanks, who have had seven months detention in the UK and are now facing deportation to Arizona and potential 100 year sentences. They ran an Internet chemical supplies company selling, among other things, iodine and red phosphorus – which is perfectly legal in the UK but not in the US, where they're controlled as precursors to methamphetamine production. Quite a lot of these chemicals found their way into quite a lot of meth labs in the US meaning, say the Americans, that Howes and Shanks knowingly supplied the substances.
They haven't been charged with anything in the UK, but the only defence they have against the extradition is to show that it didn't follow the right procedures. There's no test of evidence, and should they be deported they'll have no access to legal aid.
It can certainly be argued that it's wrong to supply drug factories with chemicals on an industrial scale. In that case, the normal rule of law should apply: make it illegal in this country and test the cases in UK courts.
It's far harder to argue that IP infringement – still basically a civil matter, frequently of debatable harm in most cases – should put UK citizens in peril of a foreign judiciary with no effective safeguards whatsoever.
But this could happen. It could happen to you or me – are you in total compliance with all your copyright material? I know I'm not: I actually read EULAs.
See you in the state pen.
We should do away with laws against murder too since some have been wrongly convicted! /SARCASM
As poster zeugma noted: "The previous decision [tape recording] happened before they had purchased the best legislature that money can buy."
Ordinary citizens don't have the extraordinary access to Con-gress that the RIAA and its masters do, so don't EVEN try that argument on me.
BTW - you seem very concerned about private property ownership, yet I don't see you on the front lines of restoring the rights of ordinary citizens to actually own real estate without a bunch of government thugs hanging around, demanding protection money twice a year under threat of confiscation of said private property.
Wassup wit dat, G?
So remember, MissouriConservative - if you try to mainline your CDs, you'll cut the crap out of your arm. Snort them, you'll have to clean the snot off them before you play them again.
And if you try to drop a CD, don't say you weren't warned...
This is your brain! This is your brain on portable digital media!
How so? Intellectual property is still property, whether you have any of your own any or not. If you don't, and it doesn't sound like you do, why do you think you should get it for free from others?
Ordinary citizens don't have the extraordinary access to Con-gress that the RIAA and its masters do
Who are the supposed masters of the RIAA? They nor the RIAA should have a right to privately owning property? And since people are stealing from them, who else should they be complaining to?
you seem very concerned about private property ownership, yet I don't see you on the front lines of restoring the rights of ordinary citizens to actually own real estate without a bunch of government thugs hanging around, demanding protection money twice a year under threat of confiscation of said private property.
Of course I agree with private property ownership, if you want to ping me to other threads go right ahead. But why don't you believe in protecting private property in the case of music? You want some that someone else has, but feel you should get it for free? Why?
Crimenently! I just KNEW that the nuns weren't giving us the straight dope on the Commandments! Every time I told them it was the Eleven Commandments, I got the ruler across the knuckles and 100 sentences on the blackboard:
THERE IS NO COMMANDMENT THAT SAYS "THOU SHALT NOT COPY THY NEIGHBOR'S DIGITAL MEDIA"
They said that there was no way Moses could have had a Commodore...
So you think you're not stealing when you copy something for free that someone else is trying to sell?
Are you ELIZA?
I just have an issue with corruption in Con-gress. The same Drill-Nothing cons who are standing around acting all surprised that gasoline is $4.00 and diesel is $5.00 (while they're shoving the taxes from the Evil Oil Companies into their Congressional slush funds as fast as they can) took money from Big Music to tailor the intellectual property laws to Big Music's specs.
Heck, Big Music probably wrote the laws and faxed them to Con-gress. As I said before, ordinary citizens can't dictate terms like Congress' bribers can.
Of course I agree with private property ownership, if you want to ping me to other threads go right ahead. But why don't you believe in protecting private property in the case of music?
The Founders were quite clear on the difference between private property and intellectual property, so leave off with the snowstorm, cause you're not snowing me.
Stealing, indeed! **snort**
Do they pay you to troll these threads on FR, or do you do it for love of the game?
Nope, just trying to figure out why people think attacking me will excuse their desire to trample on other people’s property rights.
Both are protected, why do you wish to deny that right to music owners?
I guess I'm one big criminal.
I think that equating a violation of intellectual property rights with murder is a bit over the top.
OK, it's WAY over the top. Lighten up, Francis.
Why do you think people think attacking you will excuse their desire to trample on other people’s property rights?
Attacking me won't help their desire, but since they can't beat the law they figure they'll beat on me instead. Someone should tell them it doesn't work that way, not only are they losing the argument here on ethical and legal grounds, they might still get busted for huge bucks if they get caught illegally copying music. Their problem, not mine, I'm just trying to explain reality.
The cons in the Gress only address "rights" for the money it will bring them. If you don't understand that yet, you need to examine the available information more carefully.
So your conclusion is, no property rights should exist, ever? Sounds like it.
As I pointed out, the government has pretty much stolen our most important property rights.
The good news is that like the rest of our Natural Rights, they still exist despite CON-gress' best efforts.
You keep saying this over and over, but why should this give YOU the right to trample on other people's property rights? Either you belive in private property ownership or you don't, and as it stands you don't seem to believe in them except in certain cases.
recording off the radio is not exactly high fidelity reproduction. A digital copy is.
Gee, for a conservative forum, we don't have a lot of property-rights advoctes on board.
Furthermore, I'm talking about private property; you're talking about intellectual property.
I guess that your masters at the RIAA told you to keep hammering the false point that intellectual property is the same thing as real property.
It ain't. Try as I might, the ol' exact digital copy of my house just isn't materializing...
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