Category: News and Views
Yup, so record labels and the music industry have nothign better to do. Instead of promoting the good music and artists, they decide that it's time to be the music police. That an the "take over the world" machine. From http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1743
Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee gave the green light to S. 3325, the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Act of 2008. We need you to show them
the red light, NOW! This intellectual property enforcement bill lets the DOJ enforce civil copyright claims and lets the government do the MPAA and RIAA’s
intellectual property rights enforcement work for them—at tax payers’ expense.
By allowing the federal government to sue infringers in civil court, the DOJ would be asking a court for monetary damages on behalf of content owners. In
a civil suit brought by the government, the defendant loses many of the protections he possesses in a criminal action—including his right to free legal
representation. What’s more, the government’s legal burden of proof is lower: the government only needs to prove infringement with a “preponderance of
the evidence,” meaning that it’s more likely than not that infringement occurred, as opposed to the usual criminal standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Does the content industry need this help from the Department of Justice? Absolutely not! In the last five years, the RIAA filed or threatened more than
30,000 suits against alleged infringers. If the Enforcement bill passes, not only will the number of such suits increase—they’ll also be paid for with
your tax dollars.
Now, the bill’s backers are pushing to have it pass the Senate
as early as today via a streamlined procedure, without the full Senate voting on the measure. Tell members of the Senate Judiciary Committee that
you don’t want your tax dollars spent on DOJ’s civil enforcement of copyright, and to put a hold on the bill.
So what do you think of this? Making back ups of your data would be terribly questioned, copyright is not to respect somenoe's work anymore, and .. if you let htis happen of course we're oging to be charged more and we're going to be the toys for the kiddies. What do you htink? I actually did call and spoke my mind out. These people probably download and upload more than we think they would. Shame shame shame. INstead of focusing their atention on the legal stupidity, why can't they focus these efforts in promoting better music? This is one of the sides of the united states (more like secluded states) of America. They come and bomb you, then they don't tell anyone about it and then at the hospital you get a letter 3 months later along with a basket of fruits saying "I'm sorry".
WTF are some people thinking, grr.
that's what you get for electing a republican president. we have the same kind of idiotic govt over here, though ours is called the labour party. they enact stupid laws, or if they don't get their laws through first time, they use the parliment act, similar to the USA fast track system, to get the law passed. fucking idiots both. tell me, what was the streamlining of an act meant to be used for originally? ergent legeslation for the good of the country? i think it might have been intentended as so, as was the parliment act of 1911, this act was for ergent legeslation to protect the country, and our bloody labour govt used it to push through their bill on fox hunting. bloody stupid use of the act in my bview.
well, it looks like some crytical thinking is applied to this and more. not only did courts on some countries rejected the MPAA's and RIAA's statements (or pathetic cries) to make people stop the use of copyright infringement, but the department of justice agrees that this type of repercussion is a terrible idea. Most courts and the department of justice have also said that such kind of action should not involve lawsuits to this extent. The most important thing to note is that the RIAA thinks it can come and put people into jail without presenting evidence. You are guilty until proven innocent. I just can't stress that enough. I am not sure how they can get away with all of this, and think; All the statutory damages (when you get charged 20 thousand or something higher) for having like 10 songs is quite ridiculous. A court too has ruled that such amounts are being exaggerated greatly and they should really get out their calculators and stop using their heads to calculate things. most imoprtantly is too the analysis of file hsaring and revenues to artists. Have all these lawsuits and retarded deals helping anything? The answer is a resounding HELL NO. instead because of all the bad press RIAA and others are getting, file sharing has been increasing, if not doubling from the mentioned 5 years ago. Thanks to bit torrent and the like, it has even expanding even more. However, I haven't seen any of the record labels (which are the ones affected) or the artists themselves being hurt or gain any o the money that the infringer had to pay. It is hurting themselves and the people. It is ridiculous. Well, guess what. We can still rip cds, burn them, copy them, set up our own servers or even use file sharing service sites like sendspace to share whatever we like. So, again, this is proving that the brilliant method is not quite working, and there should be a redesign on how people would stop copyright infringement (if that is what you want to call it). Of course, a better example of infringement is when you take a song of another artists, perform it, record it yourself and then sell it under your own name. now, that, would be copyright infringement. Some people seem to forget to read the laws that they created. It seems like the RIAA is acting very much like a few contries... sniffing into the business which doesn't really belong to its control. If sommeone would infringe copyright with a video, then hollywood or some other company must take responsibility and do whatever needs to be done to stop that. If music is infringed, then the record label, not the riaa or mpaa have to step in. This is like making the empolyers do the work of the employees.