DOJ to prosecute file swappers

ZDNet News ^ | August 20, 2002 | Declan McCullagh

[FormerLurker]

The DOJ will probably pattern the new War on Music like the grossly incompetent War of Drugs.

I wonder if that'll include 4 AM incursions by ninjas clad in black sporting MP5 submachineguns?

[InterceptPoint]

It is very very clear from this article that both the Government and the RIAA believe that it is OK to selectively prosecute and imprison people to "send a message" to the sheeple. The law that will be invoked in this case, however, has nothing to say about sending messages and everything to say about going to jail if you trade mp3s over the Internet.

My question for the Members of Congress is this:

ARE YOU WILLING TO IMPRISON ALL VIOLATORS OF THE LAWS YOU PASS?

If the answer is yes, then start building prisons for millions of people and then answer this question:

ARE YOU WILLING TO SEND YOUR TEENAGE SON OR DAUGHTER TO JAIL FOR TRADING MP3S?

If the answer to this is yes, then I want to have a few words with your kids.

If the answer is no to either question then get rid of the law, since you have no intention of enforcing it.

[hobbes1]

But cant you see the nifty Legislation By Bumpersticker slogan Now?

Swap an MP3, Face down an MP5

Complete with the Donato photo, replacing Elian with a Jewel Case.

[an amused spectator]

It's just about music, everybody does it. ;-)

[facedown]

Bump

[Lazamataz]

Nuclear terrorists? Too tough to catch. Plus they speak Farsi.

Cocaine kingpins? Why, then they would stop donating to Congress!

Shifty CEOs? Screw those little-guy investors. They should have known better.

Serial rapists? The women had it coming. Besides, we had one of those as a President already.

14 year old kids sharing a pop song? KILL THEM! TAKE THEIR COMPUTER AND THEIR PARENTS HOUSE! GUN THEM DOWN IN A MIDNIGHT NO-KNOCK RAID!!!

Amerika: The Soviet Union, minus the snappy uniforms.

[Militiaman7]

Why don't they do something good for America like going after the crooked politicians.

[rdb3]

Yawn...

They can try.

[Tennessee_Bob]

I hope you realize that every letter in the post you made is registered and copyrighted.

The Feds have been notified and are on the way.^tm

[tdadams]

Amazing. Twenty nine posts so far and everyone seems to think that stealing is now perfectly justified because either (a) it's just so easy, or (b) the record companies charge too much, or (c) the feds can't tell me what to do.

Give me a break. Stealing is stealing. If mobs of teenagers in the inner city were smashing store windows and grabbing CDs, we'd be all over the cops to bust them. But apparently, for some reason I just can't see, it's OK to download all the music you can through the internet.

Please, I understand your anti-government principles, and I share them on most things. But there's a difference between limited government and anarchy. The government does have some legitimate roles, and enforcing the law against large scale (or any scale) theft is one of them.

[AndrewSmith]

I think you are right. Most of this BS is coming out of screwedupville, Hollywood.

But, it sure makes the Bush administration look heavy handed! YIKES! We don't need more of that! Every time you turn around, the guys and gals that work for Bush/ US are handing down some new heavy handed law. Its got me on edge because I don't see enough people being concerned about it.

I for one will not buy another thing the freaks in Hollywood are pushing. Nope. No more. Thats it. Im very sice have this. Hollywood cant create that many good products, so theyve joined with lawyers to make up for lost revenue.

And, can you imagine how this will kill off the net finally and for good?? All under our presidents watch, I might add.

GW simply needs to call of the dogs before he gets labeled a n authoritarian, or something like that.

[AndrewSmith]

its a great point to make that very unfortunately, the Justice Dept has decided that clinton and clinton didn't do anything worth looking into.......just ignore them and they will go away.

[Winston Smith]

OK answer me this. The record companies and artist lobbied our Congress to allow them (collectivly) to charge all people who purchase CD's the cost of the copy they were immediatly going to create on cassette. So every CD you have purchased so far has already included the cost of another if you copied it or not. If you are old enough to remember LP's they were about $7 a copy at the begginning of the CD changover. Why did a CD which cost as much or less to produce suddenly cost $15. I remember listening to Frank Zappa, Barf Brooks, and a host of other talk about it on CSPAN. Right then I knew that the game was rigged and they were STEALING money from everyone who purchased a CD. So with the congress aiding and abbetting the recording industry they have stolen much more from us then we are stealing from them. Doesn't make it right, but is justice if you believe that "whats fair is fair."

[Soren]

I'm a bit surprised no one is speaking up for property rights. Are people opposed to the concept of copyrights? Just because millions of people are violating copyright law doesn't make it right. What does it teach kids when people turn a blind eye to it, or even laugh at how they are screwing the record companies (ie big business)? Let the record companies charge whatever they want and let free market forces take over. The internet offers artists a potential alternate means of distribution. If the record companies don't add value, I believe the market can adapt over time (in a legal manner).

[templar]

All they need to do is cut the prices of CDs and allow file sharing.

Or allow paid up file downloads from their own sites. I've often wished I could just log onto the recording companies sites and download just the pieces I want for a reasonable price each. Maybe fifty cents a song? I don't know what the economics of it are. What would it cost on a per song basis for them to just download to us and make as much profit as they are now? I think most people would rather pay than pirate if the cost was what they considered reasonable. It seems to work for some software companies anyway.

[FreedomCalls]

Not one more additional person should be hired by the feds to help provide 'homeland security" until every last agent working this "problem" is pulled away and put to work on more pressing matters like thwarting Al Qaeda attacks.

[Terriergal]

"There does have to be some kind of a public message that stealing is stealing is stealing,"

Doesn't it depend on what the definiton of the word "is" is?

[Terriergal]

I got a feeling we may need a whole lot more jails real soon.

Yeah so we can house all those software pirates next to the Joe Camel smokers...

[Terriergal]

I find it humorous that they think they can catch people trading copyrighted material when they can't even catch Child Pornographers... Freenet is going to be really scary considering the Child Porn industry.

[Terriergal]

That's a perfect line! *chuckle*