U.S. Senators Want Justice Department to Target File Swappers

@Thomas

The 60 days of water part.

I am royally sick of seeing these laws put through.. the entire copy write and IP system is fundamentally flawed. It is coming to the point that original art of any medium must either be violently extreme (Manhunt, most "edgey" art works, Saw) or run the risk of being sued to hell and back because there is some resemblance to something that was made once by someone else.

I say scrap the whole thing and put the power back where it belongs, in the hands of the people buying the stuff and creating it.. IP should be protected at most for the life of the creator, if they still own the IP rights.. if they sell them, it should be for a set amount of time, at most 10 years. Media companies like Disney, and organizations like RIAA should not be able to gain government support for their absurd concept of ownership over ideas.

I understand that we need to protect artists, but we do NOT need to protect big business... once an artist has given up ownership of their idea, it is purely about money. People have always taken other's ideas and used them as a basis for new ideas... there are very few truly original stories, most are variations on a theme.

When the first cave man painted on a cave wall about a sun he saw rising, the second cave man said "zomg, carebear noob" and painted him and his mates killing something... while the third cave man may well have claimed the image of killing as something that would turn people into homicidal maniacs, he didnt buy it, and beat up the fourth cave man who decided to paint a picture of /his/ friends killing someone.

Oh definitely.

No need to worry about political scandals, rapists, murder, racketeers, terrorists, drug cartels, failing school systems, failing healthcare systems..

Let's GET THE FILE SWAPPERS!

This is absolutely disgusting. How can those guys say this and keep a straight face?

"Copyright infringement silently drains America’s economy"

Whatever small amount of money filesharing might drain out of the economy is very much insignifcant.

"and undermines the talent, creativity and initiative that are a great source of strength to our nation."

As does the RIAA, yet even more so sometimes. There's also the fact that just because they don't get paid a lot does not mean it undermines them.

I think I see it boiling down to this. We need to punish those who profit from this, IE illegally selling bootleg copies and such,and need to leave alone those who just want to enjoy their media, and not punish everyone.

When it comes down to it, they usually do go after distributors, especially if they are profiting from the work. However, companies like the RIAA like to use scare tactics and make examples out of the casual downloader that may or may not have actually downloaded their song.

As for punishing everyone, they will still do it until they either die off from excessive expenses or from falling profits.
Many companies wonder why consumer confidence is at an all time low for 2 years straight, and then pull crap like this still. They figure that tightening the grip by making draconian punishments will give them a stronger hold over people's wallets, but the tighter they squeeze, the more there'll be that'll slip through their fingers.

@GP - grammar error on last statement:
"We should not..."

"Did we run out of drug kingpins and white collar criminals suddenly?"

Apparently we have, so why not send our excess prosecutors to another nation and meddle in their affairs:

Sec.3 (b) - Not later than 120 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Attorney General shall assign 1 Federal prosecutor to the appropriate office of the Department of Justice located in Hong Kong and 1 Federal prosecutor to such an office located in Budapest, Hungary, to assist in the coordination of the enforcement of intellectual property laws between the United States and foreign nations.

IP theft bad. Bad for industry, bad for retailers, bad for me.

Big company criminals getting away with whatever they want worse. Worse for industry, worse for retailers, worse for me, worse for nation.

I wanna pay for the RIAA's tempter tantrums about as much as I want a hole in the head. What annoys the heck out of me is that they'd rather pitch a decades-long fit then just accept that the nature of their business needs to change. If they spent half as much money on finding and recruiting new talent as they do on suing their own customers. (sigh)

I've been on a retail CD boycott for YEARS because I don't approve of their behavior, nor am I terribly interested in financing their lawyers. I'm not about to deny that piracy is a problem; but I despise the fact that they seem hell bent for leather on claiming that piracy is the ONLY problem.

@Thomas

How so?

Maybe if the RIAA stopped putting all these crappy songs on their CDs, people would buy them. We're not going to buy a $20 CD for only one or two good songs. That's what iTunes and P2P sharing sites are for.

@Myself:

Sorry for the government mixup, I meant the senate/senators. Our system is a bit different up here, we don't have an elected senate.

@JQuilty :

"Very few of them give a shit. We aren’t paying for their campaign."

A lot of people share that opinion, and there are valid reasons why. However, that kind of mentality is counter-productive. If people do not at least try to voice their discontent, it makes you wonder what other issues we are willing to roll over on.

Accepting defeat is only rational when you have lost a battle. Conceding before entering the fight, as Moogle said, gives no meaning to "bitching."

@ Gamedev -- It isn't a counter-productive mindset when they don't even read email/snail mail, nor when they put you on hold for god knows how long on the phone and then simply allow you to record a message.

It's been shown that most people hate the Patriot Act --- but it's still in place. A lot of people think the DMCA is bullshit --- but it's still in place.

I'm not accepting defeat, I'm saying a method is useless.

I can see both sides of the arguement yet refuse to sympathize with the RIAA. After all, a very small amount of the money from CD sales actually GOES to the artist. Most make their money from touring and despite the fact that the artist often funds their own tour, the record company gets a cut from that as well. So when I pay $15 to see a band at a club, part of that goes to the record company despite the fact that they aren't even willing to chip in for gas on the tour. People love to bitch about sponsorship and mass tours but that's the way many smaller bands can afford to tour. So CD sales goes primarily to the people who pressed and financed the creation of the CD and not particularly the artist. So when they talk about music piracy hurting the creative force, no. It hurts the record companies foolish enough to invest $150 million in a single Mariah Carrey CD.

Now, where my sympathy falls apart is right here. When I buy a pair of shoes and they don't fit, I can return them. When I buy a CD player and I don't like the performance, I can return it. When I buy a book and can't get into it within the first 30 pages, back it goes. When I spend $20 on a CD and it's 28 minutes of shit, minus the 6 minute single that was good, too bad. The media industry is doing all they can to claim my money but never make good on the promises of good entertainment. There is no check and balances system to protect the consumer. After all, the music industry has done all they could to remove the old idea of listening stations at record stores. It's a $20 gamble and if it sucks.. too bad. And so I download music to see if the CD is good. If so, I buy without hesitation. If not, I delete it. And since the record industry doesn't offer a reasonable alternative (30 second clips don't cut it), I plan to continue down this path. If they want to raise issue, I own over a thousand CDs and download from iTunes regularly. I'm not a leech, I'm a consumer. And it's about fucking time this industry acknowledges me.

@Awol - What state do you live in?

I think, come next election, that its time for a full congressional purge. Start over from scratch and see if we can actually get people in who care about the people, not their corporate and special intrest masters.

"[DOJ lawsuits] could save the recording industry plenty of money and could also displace some of the “bad guy” stigma that the labels have acquired after suing people like Jammie Thomas."

Hmm, they're going from "we're going to commit illegal acts (forcing ISPs to turn over information) to get our way to making it look semi legal."

How is this going to improve their image exactly?

Adding On: You also need to get them before they declare Martial Law.

I completely agree with you guys on the concept of a purge (especially of those involved in acts such as this). I'm also a big supporter of decentralization. Though both concepts are highly improbable, they are not impossible.

As with any huge change, it requires an even greater following. In the past, revolutions required nearly the entire nation to back them. Before someone shoots this idea down, remember, 1 million+ people marched on DC in the not so distant past. Will power, determination, and togetherness can go a long way.

@BlackIce - Though your comedy is noted, I believe a strong yet peaceful gathering of the masses would work better than a violent coup.

@BlackIce - Good point, but I was not talking about China. I'm talking about The United States of America.

@BlackIce - The war in Iraq and the reasons behind it are totally unrelated subjects and events.

If a mass gathering of people protesting in D.C. were met with extreme force and violence, then the gathering and outrage would grow exponentially. Is it outside the capability of government leaders to take such actions? No. Martial Law could be declared and civilians might have to meet force with force.

The point is that protesters should not start with violence, as violence should be avoided at all costs.

@JQuilty

While they tend not to read mail coming in - that and giving a generic response usually falls to their staff - they do usually have their staff keeping track of the opinions coming in. If they get a lot of their constituents speaking out to them against a specific piece of legislation, they will often take notice.

After all they do wish to get reelected, and ignoring a number of constituents is a good way to lose votes.

@E.ZK

Can you survive 4 years of Hillary as President?