Saturday, September 07, 2002

Yet More Dubious Legislation
The latest iteration of this legislative phenomenon—the Peer to Peer Piracy Prevention Act (HR 5211)—comes from Mission Hills, California Democrat Howard Berman. Congressman Berman wants to permit the sabotage of systems belonging to copyright violators, among other fixes for the problem (like the prosecution of individuals who keep the trading going).. Berman claims that 1.8 billion downloads a month are now occurring on P2P networks.

"Copyright owners could, at least conceptually, employ a variety of technological tools to prevent the illegal distribution of copyrighted works over a P2P network," he says. "Using interdiction, decoys, redirection, file-blocking, spoofs, or other technological tools, technology can help prevent P2P piracy."

In other words, let the hackers take over the store!

In the FAQ for this bill there was one interesting question:

Q: Who does H.R. 5211 benefit?

A: H.R. 5211 will help all copyright owners, including songwriters, photographers, musicians, software programmers, needlepoint designers, film producers, journalists, graphic artists, and recording artists. H.R. 5211 restores to these copyright owners the right to decide whether their creations are distributed through P2P networks, and takes that decision out of the hands of pirates. A photographer—not a pirate—should decide whether her photographs are distributed through Gneutella [sic].

Oh, please. This is about music and movies, period. Let's be honest here. Why sugarcoat it by claiming you're protecting photographers and needlepoint designers? The statement that a photographer—not a pirate—should decide whether her photographs are distributed through Gnutella bothers me the most. It's disingenuous. I'm surprised the bill didn't say "we're doing it for the children" or some other rubbish. In an upcoming PC Magazine print column, incidentally, I assert that none of this would happen if the price of a prerecorded disk were $1.40, as it should be. Of those 1.8 billion supposed downloads a month, how many are bootleg photographs? I'm sure a lot of those downloads are porn swaps, and perhaps Danni Ashe is annoyed by pics from her for-pay site being freely traded, but I'm not hearing her squawking like these music folks. And I seriously doubt that she's going to go to the justice department at the drop of a garment to institute some cracking procedure. So let's be honest about all this instead of creating some bogus rationale designed to bamboozle the public. It's about the music and the movies.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,508254,00.asp

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