Prison terms on tap for ‘prerelease’ pirates:
File-swappers who distribute a single copy of a prerelease movie on the Internet can be imprisoned for up to three years, under a bill that’s slated to become the most dramatic expansion of online piracy penalties in years.The bill, approved by Congress on Tuesday, is written so broadly it could make a federal felon of anyone who has even one copy of a film, software program or music file in a shared folder and should have known the copyrighted work had not been commercially released. Stiff fines of up to $250,000 can also be levied. Penalties would apply regardless of whether any downloading took place.
I am now waiting to hear news of a new DEA being erected, the Download Enforcement Agency.
To be fair, I suppose that because of the digital nature of these files, it would be somewhat difficult to have them planted and re-dated to appear as if they were “stolen” at some prior time in history.
Though this is besides the point. According to the 2003 report from the UK Home Office (similar to the OMB):
More than 8.75 million people are held in penal institutions throughout the world, mostly as pre-trial detainees (remand prisoners) or having been convicted and sentenced. About half of these are in the United States (1.96m), Russia (0.92m) or China (1.43m plus pre-trial detainees and prisoners in ‘administrative detention.’)
The United States has the highest prison population rate in the world, some 686 per 100,000 of the national population, followed by the Cayman Islands (664), Russia (638), Belarus (554), Kazakhstan (522), Turkmenistan (489), Belize (459), Bahamas (447), Suriname (437) and Dominica (420).
If you do the math, that is approximately 1 out of 33 adults that is incarcerated. While libertarian retribution is a controversial topic, I believe these numbers do a good job of illustrating how many otherwise productive resources are used to “punish” the bad guys (it should be noted that the victims of all crimes are again victimized as they now must pay the bill to incarcerate these individuals).
While on this subject of numbers, I stumbled across an interesting article, which while 7 years old, still has some interesting data: Crime and Punishment in America.
The kicker of this entire Congressional issue is that not only is copyright-violation a victim-less crime (i.e., the copyright holder is not deprived of physical property), but a 3-year sentence is the same for sexual assault, falsifying hazardous waste documents, throwing a dog into traffic, fake baby scams, aiding violent robbery, ad nauseam. Are you not glad the punishment fits the crime? One suspects that this will be yet another failed policy.
More on punishment: 1 2 3
More on IP.
Via Slashdot.
{ 10 comments }
Things like this are depressing.. I wish there was some good news on the IP law front.
Recently, a software entertainment company called Electronic Arts (EA among gamers) bought out the NFL license. No longer can any game maker – at least here in the States and other ‘civilized’ countries – make games that star NFL players or themes.
In another event, Sony was successfully sued by a company that claims that it’s Dual Shock 2 controller for the PlayStation 2 ‘rumbles’ in a certain way (no I am not making this up.)
Oh, and I can totally see how file sharing (oops! I mean, ‘stealing’!) is the same as raping a woman, or aiding in a robbery.
…. actually, no, I can’t. Ahh well – I guess I’m just brainwashed from this culty website.
Land of the free, home of the brave, and all that jazz.
When I interviewed for a job at EA about two years ago, I asked them about their policy regarding the IP that new hires might happen to bring to the company. I figured that since I had invented something they would eventually see as a virtual gold mine for not-so-virtual plunder, I should have a clear idea about my own IP protection before I made any commitment to a career change. They didn’t much like my approach.
Their loss, though, because ten years prior I had achieved a kind of synergy with my various disassociated dreams and experiences. Back then I gave text-based teasers to people in newsgroups dedicated to an upcoming game codenamed “Quake;” I also introduced the web’s first metal-backed electronic currency (check out this site for a glimpse of those who have taken possession of the e-specie banner). To this day I understand more about the sunrise industry of immersive online commerce-and-career environments than anyone else on the planet (check out this site for an as yet crude facsimile).
Back to the posted subject: my guess is that soon enough someone will start planting actionable video files onto the hard drives of certain “undesirables,” much as drugs are sometimes planted.
is the anti-IP argument here that if the source got the copy legimately, he/she can distribute it however he/she wants, but if he/she didn’t, he/she could be punished but the downloaders still could not?
another thing that confused me is why such things as copyright aren’t seen as contracts. i mean you for example buy a cd or movie, it says its copyrighted, aren’t you accepting that contract upon purchase? i just don’t see how IP now is different than if it were contractual.
Scott, can I photocopy a book and give it away? Yes. Why am I not prosecuted for that? I am, IF I try to make money from it, if I do it large scale.
In the mean time, a paperback costs $6, why bother?
Ah, but when it costs $.25 to produce a CD, and one costs what? Now it’s worthwhile to put up with a lower quality copy of the music than to pay for the “official” copy. Same with commercial commodity software. No one bothers to pirate shareware or F/OSS software.
Trying to profit from someone else’s work is now and always has been prosecutable. Even *sharing* copyrighted work is prosecutable, but not if you and your friends get together to watch your tape of the Superbowl. The new extremes and “New Media” efforts like the DMCA are all designed merely to protect vested interests in movie and music and software.
They’re also scrambling to try to find ways to control private Internet content, which is why they can plant one movie file on your computer and “discover” it and you’re a felon. It used to be you actally had to hurt someone to reach that level of evilness.
Curt, I don’t see how that addresses my questions.
Scott,
Copy right could be handled as an explicit contract system, but it would look very different then it does now.
By buying a CD I agree to the explicit contract. If I violate the contract they can pursue legal action. BUT they can not pursue those that did not agree to the contract, i.e. those that did not buy the CD.
So all of these lawsuits against downloaders would not exist if copyright was based on explicit contract.
Scott:
Copyright can’t be equated to a contract. Think about those AOL disks that used to come in the mail every day. You got those disks without asking, without paying a consideration to AOL. Yet the software on the disk was still copyrighted. Clearly, copyrights and contracts are not the same thing. Likewise, a book or CD found in the trash is still covered by copyright, even though the finder payed no consideration.
Similarly, a patent isn’t a contract. Suppose I throw away a piece of equipment covered by a patent. An enterprising engineer picks up that piece of equipment from the landfill, tears the equipment apart, and reverse engineers the function of the equipment. The engineer paid no consideration and is therefore not bound by a contract. Yet patent law will still hammer him if tries to sell the reverse-engineered equipment.
So, in general, the IP laws are not contracts between voluntary parties. They are impositions by one party on all other parties.
so if a cd says something to the effect of “if you buy this you agree not to copy, distribute, etc.” i am agreeing to all those things upon purchase, given the contract is clearly stated, correct?
could i then not just make any requirement i want? say if you buy this CD, you agree not to copy, and make a contract with whoever else you lend it to, and so forth.
trying to do everything by contract seems to have high transaction costs, a problem for the market.
Scott I think you’re thinking is a little confused. Most piracy is stopped by means of the market – the same thing you seem to think needs a government hand – not by the State.
Companies can use systems such as online product registration, blacklisting, and software programs to stop people from copying software programs.
This is not perfect, of course, but it’s probably as good as, if not superior, to the State’s solutions for problems; more taxation, more regulations, and less privacy and freedom.
Speaking of high transaction costs, have you ever delved into the world of software programming? Stuff is becoming so expensive that even IBM – a company that some would think would be against it – is trying to reform patent laws. It’s becoming expensive to even do research in some areas. Every time a new patent is passed, costs go up.
don’t make any assumptions about my position.
the reason i brought up transaction costs was that in another blog entry it was suggested a replacement for patents would be for producers to make deals with retailers guaranteeing they wouldn’t sell competitors products. however this would require making a deal with every possible retailer, not only current ones but future ones at all, which would have very high transaction costs.
Comments on this entry are closed.