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Topic: Two evils team up: Bush Administration/RIAA (Read 516 times) |
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ElvenSage
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Think for yourself, question authority.
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Two evils team up: Bush Administration/RIAA
« on: 2003-04-24 09:58:46 » |
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http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,58558,00.html
Urgh! This is horrible! Say good bye to your online privacy!
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billroh@churchofvirus.com
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Re: virus: Two evils team up: Bush Administration/RIAA
« Reply #1 on: 2003-04-24 16:50:39 » |
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So how does this signal an end to online privacy? Looks fine to me, in
fact, looks like the right way to handle it. What's the problem? How
exactly is it evil to force service providers to give up names of
suspected theives? If someone stole something of mine, walked down the
street and gave to a guy having a garage sale, the guy having the sale
does not have the right to keep quiet when the police ask him about it.
It looks to me like people are peddling illegal merchandise and Verizon
is knowingly offering a conduit for it's illegal distribution. Both
should be fined or in jail or both.
ElvenSage wrote:
>http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,58558,00.html
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>Urgh! This is horrible! Say good bye to your online privacy!
>
>----
>This message was posted by ElvenSage to the Virus 2003 board on Church of Virus BBS.
><http://virus.lucifer.com/bbs/index.php?board=54;action=display;threadid=28296>
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Hermit
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Re:Two evils team up: Bush Administration/RIAA
« Reply #2 on: 2003-04-24 18:14:43 » |
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Had Bill Roh read the discussion, and perhaps bothered to follow up at the logical source, the EFF, he might have realized that the immediate threat is one of users being precluded from anonymity due to the use of civil subpoenas to force ISPs to release identifying information, without the person issuing the subpoena having to show probable cause (Notice, "targets the identity of alleged copyright infringers."). As such, the abuse of such legal mechanisms breaches all users' (guilty and not-guilty alike) rights to privacy (and due process) and greatly increases the risk to whistle-blowers (as well as other recognized socially beneficial reasons to preserve anonymity) at the same time as it targets supposed "thieves" and as ElvenSage intimated, should be seen as part and parcel of the same agenda which is introducing the Patriot II act. In this vein, it would be worth reading at least two articles linked from that page, ISPs: Ruling Bad for Subscribers and Futurist Fears End of Innovation.
It seems from the tone of his letter that Bill Roh appears to resent the idea of users employing techniques to regain "fair use" of material which the RIAA (through massive bribes, err donations, to Republicans, and the use of the news media outlets owned by media distribution groups) is attempting to prevent. A good analogy to the current actions of RIAA et al, would have been had the distributors of the day sued Gutenberg for contributory infringement through making printing presses available. Perhaps the claims of "harm" or "theft" would be more believable had the music distribution industry considered how such "fair use" could be used to reward producers (as opposed to distribution arms) in such a way as to meet the constitutional intentions of the copyright act, which the DCMA, related legislation and prosecutions designed to create a "chilling effect" undoubtedly attempt to make irrelevant (if it is not already). After all, the US Constitution (article I, section 8 ) was created specifically "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries" (I see nothing about protecting distribution companies there). It is difficult to imagine how preventing a recent development which offers the ability to distribute materials (including materials having a marginal market) cost-effectively, which makes access to "out-of-print" material possible, and which potentially allows producers to benefit directly from their works by providing access allegedly desired by a vast number of users, in order to maintain the profitable status quo for the extant monopoly, can be called progress. But then, this is not the intention of the music industry or their stooges. Which makes a pertinent statement about those gullible enough to repeat their propaganda in a forum dedicated to rationality.
As it is, while many of the problems that the users of such technology have is legal, the music industry (shortsightedly IMNSHO) is currently attempting to employ a combination of legal and technological responses to attempt to prevent the desired usage. Shortsighted because there are technological solutions on the horizon which threaten to make the current actions (and peer-to-peer networks) irrelevent. Solutions which may make it significantly more difficult for the existing music industry to justify its larcenous profiteering (at the expense of producers and the public). For example, right now, users of "peer-to-peer" technology can be "traced" (through their IP/MAC addresses) and their "transmissions" monitored. The counter to this, which I suspect that visible prosecutions will accelerate, is that users will simply move to Multicast transmissions (where untraceable broadcasts can be made, so preventing exposure (and drastically reducing bandwidth requirements), and to encryption technology, where attempts to decrypt material transmitted would in turn be precluded by the same laws which the industry is currently attempting to use to prevent use on a computers of material purchased by users. A movement to such a technological platform would radically improve privacy, leaving those attempting to control usage (whether to enforce antiquated copyright mechanisms or to prevent the distribution of materials disliked by governments) of the Internet without, to coin a phrase, a packet to sniff upon.
Hermit
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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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