Congress going through with "anti-piracy" law
 

http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6064...4016&subj=news

Great.

Just fuckin' wonderful.

IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU IT'S ABOUT THE TERRORISTS!

Seriously, this is gut-wrenching news to me.

"Permits wiretaps in investigations of copyright crimes, trade secret theft and economic espionage. It would establish a new copyright unit inside the FBI and budgets $20 million on topics including creating "advanced tools of forensic science to investigate" copyright crimes."

Great. Fucking wonderful! Now it's LEGAL for RIAA to arrest 11 year old girls. "We're not invading your privacy! We're looking for PIRATES! Big guys with parrots who say AARRRR!!"

Well, it seems like all them P2P people will be downloading at MEGA HUGE RATES now, trying to get all free stuff they can before this gets off the ground and actually becomes effective.

What I fail to understand is what entitles people to free music, programs, etcetera.

Of course, I think things like wiretapping someone who is illegally downloading music, or putting spyware in products is extreme, but I also think it's reasonable to protect intellectual property using reasonable means, of course.

I don't know where you guys live, but where I do things are real expensive...For example, a PS2 in US is about 200, here it is about 800.

Other things like clothes are cheaper but CDs, Games and almost all sort of eletronics are expensive as hell so we NEED piracy.

But If the government(sp?) wants to end pracy, they don't have to break all fakes CD or beat the sellers(What they do often here) but lower the prices. The reason we buy it, even knowing it may be of low quality is because the damn price. Well that what I think of it...

I've always been in support of piracy because, if you ask me, the people who want to try something can, and the people who support that something can pay the money.

But that's not how it's done. You pay for it and that means you support them, even if you hate the product after you try it.

Take original DOOM; it was freeware, and it had a donation key. And now, years later, id is still in buisness, and they just finished with Doom 3.

A dream, sure, but this sure as hell isn't helping.

That and the stupid wiretapping legality is just fucking wrong.

...This is just wrong on so very, VERY many levels...

...I'm sorry, you lost me there. What the fuck are you talking about?

So you're gonna throw people in the slammer for something they hadn't even yet done? Attempted murder or robbery is one thing. Attempted theft of digital data/information is quite another.

For the love of all that is good and decent, how can they live with theirselves for even trying this shit?!

Welcome to the totalitarian transcendence.
You are being watched
These posts are being read
You guys don't understand, we are already under surveillance, the government is now just making it legal to arrest us. But on the bright side, it will overcrowd the prison system with even more nonviolent offenders, who will subsequently be prey to violent offenders, and therefore hate and fear the governing body that put them in this situation. I can hardly see why pirating some of the schlock that Hollywood is putting out hurts, I kind of want them to go bankrupt. Also, I go see the artist perform, therefore giving them the most money that they get from their record contracts.

This is the beginning of a terrible age where electronic surveillance and wiretapping will become the norm. Watch, this is tied in very closely to the net neutrality issue.

I don't get why they are doing it. Huh, if they really go through with it, my VisualboyAdvance emulator will be illegial. :rolleyes:

I agree that willful attempts to try and get P2P stuff, and failing should be punishable by jail time. I mean, seriously, it's so easy, anyone that stupid should be punished long and hard.

But, besides that, I don't believe I download anything illegal from P2P stuff (unlicensed anime is still legal, right? As well as Abandonware'd games, and the like. So, yah, I'm good. The only reason I use it over regular download is that I don't have to keep a constant internet connection up)

I'd say a deeper issue of the virissimilitude of Copyright is at hand here, but I suppose that could be another thread (even though I think it's the cause of this entire issue). I'll just quote this for my opinion on copyright:

On this subject specifically--I find a dichotomy within myself. On one hand, I think most of this is just reactionary panic from the industry, as it always has done with the introduction of any new medium that breaks its holy inner-circle of raped products. They did it with VCRs. They did it with cable. They always do. The RIAA, I think, without question, is simply arresting progress until it ends its shennanigans.

And I think the copy-left and simply DIY/indie artists that realise the validity and purpose of p2p viral marketing for their music are great, and I still think that many of hte crotchety mainstream bands are missing the point.

But even after all this I feel guilty about certain things. Games need funding. Psychonauts failed even though everyone played it, and I'm not saying it's explicably piracy's fault, but the sales were dismal.

It ticks me off when geeks who blatantly pirate use the "back-up" defense. It's so...brazenly disingenous. That's a mere technical defense, espeically since about 80% of the peope I hear use it (including the old me) actually do pirate. It's a defense for the public, not for any real justification.

On the wiretapping and all that...I'm seriously starting to get worried. At this point, I want some disaffected geeks tos tart their own completely independent pipes and master servers and fund an underground Internet.