Ever Use Kazaa, Napster, Or Listen To A Mp3?
<div class="IPBDescription">Under the N.E.T. Act...your a FELON</div> <a href='http://news.com.com/2010-1071-982121.html?tag=fd_nc_1' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/2010-1071-982121.html?tag=fd_nc_1</a>
$250,000 and up to 5 years in jail for ANY type of file sharing. Even if you havent used Napster since it faded away, your still a felon according to this law. The NET Act allows the government to prosecute you for sharing or downloading so much as a single file (<a href='http://www.cybercrime.gov/spataforeplea.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.cybercrime.gov/spataforeplea.htm</a>).
It also allows for a "victim impactment statment"...meaning the RIAA, MPAA, or BSA can be called to dole out their sob story at your trial.
Think it won't happen? Members of the RIAA have been meeting with the Justice Department. And may soon nab that unlucky SOB who was randomly picked to be placed on a pedastal and trumpeted as a criminal and thief.
Im not sure what to do about this beyond the usual "Write Your Congressman" thing. All I know is that every time I download a file, some spokesman for some AA group whines louder. What pisses me off is the hypocracy. While that spokesman is driving back home to his $500,000 mansion im stuggling just to get a decent house and make a living. Excuse the hell out of me for wanting to listen to some music once in a while. Fun is reserved for the rich right?
P.S. Im sick of the Bush bashing whenever a political topic is brought up, so before anyone goes off topic into a little rant, please note Bill Clinton signed this bill. Fight the NET act not the President <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif'><!--endemo-->
$250,000 and up to 5 years in jail for ANY type of file sharing. Even if you havent used Napster since it faded away, your still a felon according to this law. The NET Act allows the government to prosecute you for sharing or downloading so much as a single file (<a href='http://www.cybercrime.gov/spataforeplea.htm' target='_blank'>http://www.cybercrime.gov/spataforeplea.htm</a>).
It also allows for a "victim impactment statment"...meaning the RIAA, MPAA, or BSA can be called to dole out their sob story at your trial.
Think it won't happen? Members of the RIAA have been meeting with the Justice Department. And may soon nab that unlucky SOB who was randomly picked to be placed on a pedastal and trumpeted as a criminal and thief.
Im not sure what to do about this beyond the usual "Write Your Congressman" thing. All I know is that every time I download a file, some spokesman for some AA group whines louder. What pisses me off is the hypocracy. While that spokesman is driving back home to his $500,000 mansion im stuggling just to get a decent house and make a living. Excuse the hell out of me for wanting to listen to some music once in a while. Fun is reserved for the rich right?
P.S. Im sick of the Bush bashing whenever a political topic is brought up, so before anyone goes off topic into a little rant, please note Bill Clinton signed this bill. Fight the NET act not the President <!--emo&:angry:--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif'><!--endemo-->
Comments
I usually get 1-2 tracks off an entire CD. I'm not going to waste my money, heck, if they care that much about 1-2 tracks they might as well get rid of radio.
Im sorry, but when the rich and greedy get up on a stand and complain about piracy and stealing its hard for me to feel sympathy. Lets see them live on a $40,000 a year budget for awhile while working insane overtime just so they can enjoy a movie on the weekends, then I will gladly go to jail.
Hell, I'm no saint and I have a few files here or there (that I may soon be deleting) that I didn't obtain legaly ...
but - when throughout all your downloading didnt you know it was wrong?
Please ..
If your gunna gamble, you better be prepaired to pay ...
but - when throughout all your downloading didnt you know it was wrong?
<!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
actually, i knew it wasn't wrong. These record labels have no right to live off of someones artistic creation. Not only that but they distort it because of their profit motive. Disgustingly parasitic they are. Just because something is illegal doesn't make it wrong. There is no justice in the capitalist justice system.
Anyway, thank's TenSix, for informing us all about the upcoming prosecutions, I will make sure to 'legalize' my activities.
Ultimately, it boils down to an equation of "how much money we can get for doing as little as possible". They see this huge cash cow that's tethered to something as widespread as pirating, so they want to milk it for all it's worth.
The fact that their greed in wanting "as much as possible, as soon as possible" is irrelevant - it'll kill the cow, but they'll be rich <b>now</b>. Future generations will probably end up financially scarred from the actions of today, but those in power today will be able to drive their Porche's and swim laps in their own private olympic-sized pool. Hey, why give a damn about anyone else anyways?
Let's say someone downloads a movie instead of paying $20 for the DVD, so the RIAA/MPAA sue them for hundreds of times more money than they would have received from the DVD sale. "Making an example", they'll call it. BS! It's always "how much money we can get for doing as little as possible". I'm sure that if they could sue <i>everyone</i> who downloaded a movie, they'd do it.
Obviously, I have no love at all for the associations and organizations that are after all us so-called "pirates" (and yes, everyone who has access to the Internet is considered a pirate by these people). I truly believe they have the right to defend their copyrights and be paid <u>accordingly</u>, but they're approaching it completely the wrong way.
The Internet has provided a means of mass-distribution of multimedia for almost no cost to the distributor. These associations and organizations want to stick to their old business model because it's what they know, and because they don't know how to capitalize on the Internet business model.
I agree that this business model is very insecure. It <i>can</i> be controlled, but someone will always try to crack it if it seems beneficial enough to the cracker. The trick is to not make it worth the cracker's while to do so. Sure, you'll still get hobbyists that'll fool around with cracking it, but it won't be nearly as widespread if the CD/DVD prices were <b>much</b> more reasonable in the first place.
They realize they no longer have complete power over a medium. They want money in recompense for their loss of power because they obviously still believe that money equals power.
In this day and age, yes.
Tomorrow? There won't <i>be</i> a tomorrow.
/me burns all his songs that he taped from the radio! you'll never catch me now hahaha!
...
is what would be happening if these people were serious about their music being stolen. why go after the internet when people can tape it off the radio?
Or, if I happen to own the CDs I d/lled songs from, but couldn't get them to play because of the copy protection on them (...), am I criminal, too?
Yes, you'll tell me that the law 'won't be used to prosecute that', but it's friggin capable of doing so. Would you nod to a law banning every kind of sex even if it's mostly geared at child molesters?
Otherwise, not much to complain about from me. I only get CDs if I love them. I have countless songs (at least 50 on a list in a word document) that I wish I had, but won't buy individually. Have I pirated them? no. Why? Lazy.
As for the right and wrong, it depends if you view what is legal and illegal as what is right and wrong.
Point for this case--Slavery was legal in the US for a LONG time, even after it had been banned in most European (I think all, but I flunked AP European history so I don't wanna say that) countries. So was slavery wrong then, or is it wrong now? *shrug* I don't care what your opinion is, just don't force it on me. I have the same attitude towards the RIAA, and anyone else who wishes to regulate something that I find isn't "wrong."
For the record--I don't find piracy wrong directly. Yes it harms more than it helps, but to prevent it is to start constricting the freedom of speech. I find that right the most important right (especially on the Internet), and therefore would only be angry, not vengeful, if someone "stole" my work and distributed it FREELY. If they charge money (like most War3z have to do now), then I'm against it. If it's free for anyone and everyone, it's your call. It shouldn't be done, but it's not wrong. You're "spreading the word to those who will listen"
Gah, now I sound like a pirate, I'll try to stop posting at 1:30 in the morning.
And to throw in a quip against Windows--stealing your partner's work, calling it your own, licensing it, and making BILLIONS of dollars off it is one of the lowest things you could ever do. If it were opensource or Publicly licensed, I wouldn't care less about the man, but he definitely would not be as rich as he is now.
I could of sworn that there was a radio station that was sued for giving away free CDs...
Yup, you read that right. The concept of "prizes" was, or is being brought to court.
Can't seem to find the article, but I'm positive I heard it...
<i>Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the <b>United States of America</b> in Congress assembled,</i><!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Not to be picky but I read through that article, the amendment and quite a few other related articles and there is nothing to say about prosecution outside of the US, this is merely (apparently correct me if im wrong) an American law so the rest of the worlds pirates can breathe safely for the moment.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> A quick check of Kazaa on Friday afternoon showed that there were 4.1 million users online, sharing some 800 million files. The odds of any specific person getting busted are pretty low, but someone's going to be a test case. Got your lawyer ready? <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
as the percentage of Americans making up the worlds population is only 5% that would give us approximately 200,000 americans on kazaa at that time, and out of those 200,000 only a few thousand are "likely to be elligible for prosecution" and even then, out of those few thousand <i> evidence of reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work, by itself, shall not be sufficient to establish willful infringement. </i>
More scaremongering by people like the RIAA who are worried that they'll not be able to afford that second merc this week.
Everyone I know has mp3's. Everyone. My boss at work, my coworkers who don't even know what a computer is, my teachers, my fellow students, my friends, even my parents. Chances are a lot of other people are like this too. I doubt they are going to send everyone in america to jail, and the way lawyers are today if they did start to enforce this then people may get off for discrimination ("why did you not prosecute the other 2,000,000 people doing this") sort of thing...
Really, this is one of those things that everybody does and to put everyone in jail for and have them on trial for would be a waste of time/money/sanity
Its just a scare tatic
(edit: My avatar is copyrighted too, as with alot of them, are we all going to get prosecuted?)
I can just see 30 years from now and realize how right the Sci-fi writers were when they said that one day, our lives would be completely controlled by the government. **** you'll see. Its gonna be like Minority report in the future.
This all makes me want to kill something more.
Omg its not like people can record live music from shows on tv, or the radio, or ...yeah.
The fact that you may not think this is a JUST law is not the point... it *is* the law, and the fact that most of us willingly break it fairly regularly is not any reason to think it should be made legal.
People are perfectly within their rights to come after you on this... just keep those odds in mind. They don't worry me enough to make me do anything differently than I already do.
It's real simple people ... some 50 years ago, there was something called 'Act for the Security of People and Nation' where I live. It basically allowed the government to get rid of all human rights, all limitations to their powers, and all controls against them. But hey, it was the law, right?
[/cheapexample]
Being a history nut, I know what utter crap has been institutionalized from time to time. There is no weaker argument.
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->Not to be picky but I read through that article, the amendment and quite a few other related articles and there is nothing to say about prosecution outside of the US, this is merely (apparently correct me if im wrong) an American law so the rest of the worlds pirates can breathe safely for the moment.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Did you ever plan on visiting the US? Well, after that law's passed, you'd better think twice.
Some russian Computer Science students got arrested in the States for breaking the DCMPA in their homecountry (where they pointed a security leak out).
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->as the percentage of Americans making up the worlds population is only 5%<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The world population hasn't so much to do with the amount of users in the web.
I'm wondering though- if the argument was "I only want 2-3 songs off an album anyway, why shouldn't I just download them?"
If one CD costs around 14$ U.S. and there are usually around 10-14 songs per CD, would any of you FTP users be willing to pay 1$ per song?
For me, the logic is that music companies are trying to sell music not CDs. Maybe I'm out of the loop but have they tried to sell individual tracks?
I suppose this would have a fairly dramatic effect on the music CD production industry, but if the demand is there, where is the supply?
Like I said earlier......
<!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->These associations and organizations want to stick to their old business model because it's what they know, and because they don't know how to capitalize on the Internet business model.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Making stacks of CD's is what they know. They have yet to find a secure and reliable method of distributing music over the Internet in a way they can control, so they plug all kinds of laws to attempt to counter the fact that they have absolutely no control over Internet distribution.
Once they find a way to do this that they agree on, expect to see the "$1 per track downloads" becoming commonplace, and the physical CD's being slowly phased out.
- As joint as the labels are against piracy, they're enemies amongst each other, thus making a joint commercial portal where you could get all kinds of music impossible.
- Most test services were overprized and had only a very thin collection of songs, most of which were not in any way 'big sellers' either way.
- Nothing was really advertized, thus not creating any broad demand.
It's all about the green....
(or red.. or blue.. or whatever color your money happens to be <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif'><!--endemo-->)
If they make this stuff illegal then people will just find more creative ways to fileshare. Plain and simple.
I know! I mean, you would think that people would realize that they are stealing these songs, and that other people pay for them, but no, they just have to keep downloading these songs that are obviously not supposed to be free.