Posted on 06/17/2003 2:54:06 PM PDT by Jean S
WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday he favors developing new technology to remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download music from the Internet.
The surprise remarks by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, during a hearing on copyright abuses represent a dramatic escalation in the frustrating battle by industry executives and lawmakers in Washington against illegal music downloads.
During a discussion on methods to frustrate computer users who illegally exchange music and movie files over the Internet, Hatch asked technology executives about ways to damage computers involved in such file trading. Legal experts have said any such attack would violate federal anti-hacking laws.
"No one is interested in destroying anyone's computer," replied Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds technology to disrupt music downloads. One technique deliberately downloads pirated material very slowly so other users can't.
"I'm interested," Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights."
The senator acknowledged Congress would have to enact an exemption for copyright owners from liability for damaging computers. He endorsed technology that would twice warn a computer user about illegal online behavior, "then destroy their computer."
"If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that," Hatch said. "If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize" the seriousness of their actions, he said.
"There's no excuse for anyone violating copyright laws," Hatch said.
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., who has been active in copyright debates in Washington, urged Hatch to reconsider. Boucher described Hatch's role as chairman of the Judiciary Committee as "a very important position, so when Senator Hatch indicates his views with regard to a particular subject, we all take those views very seriously."
Some legal experts suggested Hatch's provocative remarks were more likely intended to compel technology and music executives to work faster toward ways to protect copyrights online than to signal forthcoming legislation.
"It's just the frustration of those who are looking at enforcing laws that are proving very hard to enforce," said Orin Kerr, a former Justice Department cybercrimes prosecutor and associate professor at George Washington University law school.
The entertainment industry has gradually escalated its fight against Internet file-traders, targeting the most egregious pirates with civil lawsuits. The Recording Industry Association of America recently won a federal court decision making it significantly easier to identify and track consumers - even those hiding behind aliases - using popular Internet file-sharing software.
Kerr predicted it was "extremely unlikely" for Congress to approve a hacking exemption for copyright owners, partly because of risks of collateral damage when innocent users might be wrongly targeted.
"It wouldn't work," Kerr said. "There's no way of limiting the damage."
Last year, Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., ignited a firestorm across the Internet over a proposal to give the entertainment industry new powers to disrupt downloads of pirated music and movies. It would have lifted civil and criminal penalties against entertainment companies for disabling, diverting or blocking the trading of pirated songs and movies on the Internet.
But Berman, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary panel on the Internet and intellectual property, always has maintained that his proposal wouldn't permit hacker-style attacks by the industry on Internet users.
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On the Net: Sen. Hatch: http://hatch.senate.gov
AP-ES-06-17-03 1716EDT
An example of where a copyright could be construed over such material would be a book where the 5 or 6 pages leading up to "page 68" and the 5 or 6 pages following were an exact reproduction of the original work prepared by a different author.
My copyright might not be very good concerning certain things, but all it has to do is be better than your copyright to prevail.
That's a case where neither party has any sort of claim to the intellectual property rights involved and is asserting a copyright out of spite.
and please do not forget...
the senator from novell is not from utah.
Yeah, and let's just forget about that pesky Due Process stuff. I mean, what's a few Civil Rights Violations among friends, right?
Thanks for the chuckle.
I personally don't think the "aware" people in the entertainment industry are stupid enough to try and destroy home users' computers - they would basically be declaring a war, and they would lose - the hacker-types would take the gloves off, and you would see attacks against the record and film companies the likes of which we have not seen. You would be unifying the hacker-types as well.
Putting that aside, anybody who thinks that the government supports this but would never use this type of technology against its citizens is an idiot pure and simple, or a liberal, which I guess would make them an idiot as well.
Hatch scares the hell out of me sometimes.
Many times in my life I have spent $20 to buy a CD just to get one song. It’s annoying but I can afford it.
Many people in this country are sheep. I'm sure I'm pissing somebody off by saying that, but they are so conditioned by the recording industry to buy music the way the recording industry wants and not the way they want, that they lose site of things.
There is a reason why that $15 or $20 CD has just a few good songs that you like - it's because the rest is filler. They throw it on there to pad the album and make you feel like your somehow getting your money's worth, when they are just feeding you garbage.
Although I haven't tried it yet, Apple did right - $0.99 a song, just the songs you want. Of course the record industry complained and moaned that people would only buy single songs here and there and not ablums. Surprise! Half few million songs they sold in the first week or two were complete albums.
I think of it like this - If I want a hamburber, I should not have to order a dozen other things just to get the hamburger. If I want to see a football game, I am not required to see every football game that season. Apple has it right, and I don't just say that as a Mac fan either. People should be able to buy products the way they want.
Unreal. I suppose I shouldn't expect any better from a group that supports confiscation of property for illegal plant growth.
Which law?
"No person shall be ... deprived of ... property, without due process of law ..."
Amendment V, U.S. Constituition
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