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------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date sent: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 13:20:25 -0400 To: politech@politechbot.com From: Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com> Subject: FC: More on Rep. Berman's bill authorizing anti-P2P hacking Send reply to: declan@well.com
To answer Robin's question below, the bill would transform any copyright holder into a legally-authorized hacker, provided they tip off the DOJ about their hacking techniques. That means if you're trading my copyrighted articles or my copyrighted photographs on peer-to-peer networks, look out! :)
Heck, even Usenet posts, rants to discussion lists, and instant messages are automatically copyrighted. And the definition of peer-to-peer networks is pretty broad.
Excerpt of relevant section:
>"A copyright holder shall not be liable in any criminal or civil >action for disabling, interfering with, blocking, diverting, or >otherwise impairing the unauthorized distribution, display, >performance, or reproduction of his or her copyrighted work on a >publicly accessible peer-to-peer file trading network."
Previous Politech message: http://www.politechbot.com/p-03792.html
-Declan
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Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 20:54:38 +0000 From: robin <robin@roblimo.com> To: declan@well.com Subject: Re: FC: Draft of Rep. Berman's bill authorizes anti-P2P hacking
> A draft bill seen by CNET News.com marks the boldest political > effort to date by record labels and movie studios to disrupt > peer-to-peer networks that they view as an increasingly dire > threat to their bottom line.
I think this is *great* as long as it extends to creators of written words, not just to movie and music people. I create hundreds of thousands of copyrighted words every year, and I think allowing me to hack any P2P user's computer to see if they have violated my copyrights is a great idea.
The first computer I think I'll hack is one belonging to a nefarious character who goes by the name "Declan," who has shared more than a little of my precious creative output over the years with his peers via the infamous "politech" email list, which (as we all know) is populated by anarchists, Democrats, libertarians, Republicans, Linux users, and other unsavory characters.
We copyright holders have had our rights violated by you politech Intellectual Property pirates long enough! It's time for us to FIGHT BACK!!!
- Robin "Roblimo" Miller Editor in Chief, OSDN (Linux.com, Newsforge.com, freshmeat.net, Slashdot.org, DaveCentral.com, and other popular tech Web sites)
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Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 17:40:27 -0700 From: tom poe <tompoe@renonevada.net> Organization: Open Studios To: declan@well.com CC: politech@politechbot.com Subject: Re: FC: Draft of Rep. Berman's bill authorizes anti-P2P hacking
Hi: Could there be anything less expected, especially considering this quote from the BPDG draft of May, 2002? http://www.studioforrecording.org/mt/archive/2002_05.html
Another little gem lies with the following from the BPDG Report:
A proposal was later made by Philips and a small number of consumer electronics companies that, for a limited number of years (intended to capture the reasonable life of legacy DVD players), in-the-clear recordings of Unscreened Content and Marked Content could be made using standard definition DVD recorders. Motion picture companies opposed such a "grandfather" provision, inter alia, because tens of millions of legacy DVD-ROM drives would remain capable of unauthorized redistribution of such content when played back, including over the Internet.
That is scary. These folks have no intention of letting legacy devices hang around. Now, how do you suppose they'll eliminate all those "tens of millions" legacy devices in quick fashion? . . . .
Thanks, Tom Poe Reno, NV
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Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 10:58:24 +1000 From: Nathan Cochrane <ncochrane@theage.fairfax.com.au> Organization: The Age newspaper To: declan@well.com Subject: Re: FC: Draft of Rep. Berman's bill authorizes anti-P2P hacking
If ever the open source desktop movement needed a kick along, this is it. I can see an opening for a Linux-emulator to run on Windows PCs just so people can continue using the P2P networks.
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From: "Geoff Gariepy" <geoff_gariepy@hotmail.com> To: <declan@well.com> References: <20020723202935.A3258@cluebot.com> Subject: Rant: Re: Draft of Rep. Berman's bill authorizes anti-P2P hacking Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 07:58:44 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
I'm 100% in support of this as long as we're allowed the same latitude in hacking them back!
C'mon, now, this is absurd! Who ever heard of a law that grants you immunity when you damage someone else's property because, essentially, 'they had it coming!'
If we want to start legal precedents on 'had it coming' immunities or defenses, I can think of a few better venues in which to start:
o So you run down the squeegee man with your 5,600 pound sport-utility vehicle after he smears the windshield. Your lawyer uses the 'Had it coming!' defense. You get off scot-free. o So you refuse to pay your AOL bill and demand that they continue service anyway because you had four disconnects while downloading your email last month. Your lawyer uses the 'Had it coming!' defense. The judge grants your request that they be forced to continue your service. o So you sell your employer's list of prospective new customers to a competitor after they passed you over for a raise last review. Your lawyer uses the 'Had it coming!' defense. Your employer has to retain your services, and you're not liable to them for damages
My question is: where does this stop?
My other question is: just how stupid are the record companies? Do they really think that they're a match for the collective talents and skills of all the folks on the Internet? It seems like they're universally disliked by everyone they do business with -- their customers, and the recording artists -- because of their abject greed, and refusal to evolve their business model along with the changing times. Remember, kids, the record companies could be SELLING MP3s, just as easily as Napster or Gnutella share them for free. I'd buy 'em! Tell me where a reliable place is to get EXACTLY the music I want, when I want it, legally, reliably, for a fair price, and I'll be a customer for life. But no, they want to get your entire eighteen bucks for a disc that's mostly full of music you don't want, instead of $1.50 for a MP3 of the one good single on it. And then they want to embed stuff in the music that f***s up my PC? Does anybody think it will take longer than 2 weeks for the same hackers they complain about to come up with countermeasures to whatever scheme they cook up? And then I suppose the Digital Milennium Copyright Act will rear its ugly head when we write something to protect ourselves, eh?
--Geoff
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From: "M. Burnett" <mb@xato.net> To: <declan@well.com> Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 10:45:46 -0600
Declan,
Beyond the most obvious privacy, security, ethical, and legal issues involved, I wanted to add a few comments why this bill is wrong:
1. This bill shifts the burden of proof >From what I understand of this draft, it allows for measures to be taken with only a "reasonable basis" of evidence. The burden then shifts to the target to prove, after the fact, that the copyright holder acted improperly. The MPAA and RIAA want a free pass to sidestep our entire legal system. I'm sure there are many industries that would like that privilege, including law enforcement who are investigating actual serious cases such as child abuse and terrorism. Further, even with the burden of proof put on the accuser, we have seen much abuse. Imagine how much worse it would be if that burden was shifted.
2. We are letting the plaintiff decide who is guilty Copyright laws are complex and we have recently seen many court battles and appeals to clarify the issues. Even after a court ruling, many are still in disagreement over the issues. Further, we even have judgements in some states that are not consistent with those in other states. With all this disagreement, how can we possibly just let the MPAA and RIAA decide who is infringing their copyrights?
3. There are too many unseen side-effects and loopholes. Bills such as this that introduce such a dramatic change in our legal system open up all kinds of unforeseen loopholes and unintended side-effects. Who knows how the definitions can be stretched? Who is a copyright holder? Who is violating a copyright? What is a technical means? Does this bill allow for action taken against vicarious and contributory copyright infringers? Further, what kind of precedence does this set for other industries?
4. Berman's analogies are wrong. Berman suggests that this bill will allow measures similar to what cable companies use to disable cable pirates. The problem with that analogy is that the cable companies own the wire and the cable system has no other function but to provide cable services. That is not the case with computer systems and the internet. What if a file-sharing network also provides a means for one to distribute a weekly news publication? Suddenly, the MPAA and RIAA have interfered with the press, something that even Congress cannot legally do.
5. You don't get to do what criminals do. Gene Smith, Berman's spokeswoman said "...this bill just puts into the hands of the copyright owners technologies that are already being used by the pirates." The problem is that you have those kinds of rights in America. Just because a criminal uses a technique against you, it does not justify you using that technique--that's what makes a criminal a criminal. If you use those techniques then you also become a criminal. You don't get to kill murderers. You don't get to hack hackers. You don't get to send suicide bombers to terrorist nations. You don't get to steal from thieves.
6. The benefit isn't worth it. The fact is that their techniques will only have limited effectiveness. It doesn't matter if you shut down the Napsters through legal or technological means, there will still be ten more services that pop up to take its place. Its simply not worth jeopardizing our legal system for something that will not be that effective anyway. Ask the cable companies if their techniques stop really cable piracy. If it really worked, why do they keep having to do it?
It is laughable to even suggest allowing one American industry to bypass our entire legal system and then limit their accountability when they do act improperly. Its preposterous to think that one industry could have rights not even allowed in pursuing legitimate criminals.
Americans are wronged all the time. Businesses are cheated out of profits every day. Our recourse is the legal system. Sometimes it is on our side and sometimes it is not. And while it is inconvenient to use our legal system, it is there to protect us.
Mark Burnett
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