Bill Would Put Internet Song Swappers in Jail

[umcwb]

http://au.news.yahoo.com/030717/11/kvue.html


"Internet users who allow others to copy songs from their hard drives could face prison time under legislation introduced by two Democratic lawmakers on Wednesday.
The bill is the strongest attempt yet to deter the widespread online song copying that recording companies say has led to a decline in CD sales.

Sponsored by Michigan Rep. John Conyers and California Rep. Howard Berman, the bill would make it easier to slap criminal charges on Internet users who copy music, movies and other copyrighted files over "peer-to-peer" networks."

[AP]

1. What's the profit margin on a single song? $.50

I can't believe any legislature would be willing to criminalize such a petty offense to the degree that you could be incarcerated.

The burden needs to be on the recording industry to come up with technological and business solutions to this problem. It's ridiculous that they want state governments to spend thousands of dollars to jail someone who, individually, cut into their profits so slightly.

[LynneSin]

2. Sure, we have all these empty jails - add more folks

:eyes:

You know, the United States has the most overcrowded jail systems - a higher percentage than other nations like ours.

And our jail systems are NOT redeeming criminals but creating even more hardened criminals, especially those that are in jail for such non-violent criminals as casual drug users and should we be putting these Song Swappers in there. And you know those song swappers with cash flow will never see 5 minutes in a jail.

This is a sad bill.

[saigon68]

5. 30% of young black males

Between the ages of 19 to 27 are either

1. In Prison

2. In Jail

3. On Parole

4. On Probation

What a waste.

Thanks Conyers-- this will scare the white suburbanites--NOT

[LynneSin]

11. You know what will scare them even more...

When these "song stealers" get out of jail.

Our jail systems are so screwed up that the most harmless criminal will come out worse off than before they went in there. Having a felon record and being eliminated from most decent jobs, these people will learn how to be worst criminals doing worst crimes than before.

[saigon68]

3. GOOD USE FOR SCARCE RESOURCES

Morons--how about spending some money on schools.

I wonder if you get more time for having download music (ie GANGSTER RAP) that extolls the virtues of Drugs and violence?

[jmm]

4. I wish they'd go after Enron executives this harshly.

I could waste the whole day listing issues lawmakers should be addressing instead of this.

Any attempt to sue or jail downloaders comes across as so ridiculous that nobody I know takes the threat seriously.

[umcwb]

10. Well,

Enron shareholders don't give near enough money for Congress to care about their losses, do they? These guys know what side their bread is buttered on. Disgusting....

[bowens43]

6. What are these idiots thinking?

I would expect this kind of crap from the republicans but not the dems.

[leQ]

8. EGGSactly

what the hell is up with democrats advocating felony charges while the repugs ignore the issue. i knew we were in bizarro world, but this really defies logic. wait, they're not democrats. they're DINOs.

and did you notice how they calculated their 'losses'?

The Conyers-Berman bill would operate under the assumption that each copyrighted work made available through a computer network was copied by others at least 10 times for a total retail value of $2,500.

that's absurd. if i had 10 people getting the same song off my box, i'd feel really speshal.

'sides, the only songs i grab off kazaa are ones that aren't available in the stores. i'd like to see them make the case that they're losing money with me.

[LeighAnn]

7. Sick of paying for music I don't want to listen to

I was working in a Mexican restaurant one day when a man came in who looked like an FBI agent, and he demanded that the restaurant owner give him $700. Without blinking an eye, my boss nervously wrote out a check and sent the humorless fellow on his way. I thought it might be the IRS. No, my boss said, it's ASCAP.

Apparently, in order for a restaurant owner to have a jukebox in his establishment, the restaurant owner must pay "Royalty Fees" to ASCAP, and then what happens to the money is anyone's guess.

ASCAP collects money from businesses that use music in the course of their day. Radio stations, department stores, bowling alleys, health clubs, hotels, anywhere you hear background music in a public place somebody is paying a hefty sum to ASCAP to be able to play that music, then passing it on to us, the consumers.

These greedy music industry bastards remind me of the old story where the baker tries to sue the poor man for standing outside his bakery smelling the bread; he felt he should get some compensation for the smell. The judge takes the poor man's last two coins, throws them on the ground and says to the baker, "I award you the sound of this man's money for the smell of your bread" or something to that effect.

[AP]

9. I fail to see the problem here. If musicians, producers, and

distributors didn't get paid, there wouldn't be an incentive to make music.

I think the people who are greedy are the people who want something for nothing.

How much did the owner make off the juke box? How much would he make if there were no financial incentive to make the music played on the juke box?

[RC]

14. Compaired to what ASCAP gets,

musicians, producers, and distributors barely get anything.

[Atlant]

12. I'll take the unpopular stance.

> Bill Would Put Internet Song Swappers in Jail

For the eggregious cases, that's exactly where they belong.

Fundamentally, there is very little difference between the person who
steals an 18-wheeler full of the latest hit CDs and gives or trades
them away and the person who converts those same CDs to MP3 files and
gives or trades them away (except that 18-wheeler probably only
contains half a million CDs whereas the file swapper may have "stolen"
the equivalent of millions of CDs by the time they're down "sharing"
music on the Internet).

Both of these folks are crooks, and the wholesale theft of stealing
the copyrighted work of others and both ought to be punished.

I realize a lot of you don't see yourselves as the equivalent of
the truck-jacker because you're only downloading a few CDs for your
personal use. You're right; you probably don't deserve jail, but
you're still a crook, albeit a penny-ante one. Your crime is more
the equivalent of shoplifting a few CDs from the local music store
(although the loss is a bit less since nobody paid the 50 cents
or so per CD for the plastic that you didn't physically steal).

And whether or not the RIAA is "ripping you off" in some way doesn't
absolve YOUR crime. If you feel put out, go after the RIAA. Or
boycott CDs. But their crime doesn't excuse your crime.

Atlant

(Full disclosure: I make my living selling digital bits that ship
on CDs so I take all this "Copyright" stuff very seriously.)

[n0_data]

13. Really the point is

The Recording Industry should be using its own money to defend its copyright, not public tax dollars and government man-hours.

The RIAA's inability/refusal to produce a viable, legal alternative to Kazza-like networks is why they're losing money -- that and the absolute generic shit it pushes as music these days. They have only themselves to blame.

Edit: And I'm sure the tanking economy has nothing to do with their sagging profits. I guess crazy ass people would rather put food on the table than buy the next Britney Spears CD...freaks /sarcasm

[umcwb]

15. Locking-dupe

Please continue here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=18310&mesg_id=18310&page=


Thanks,
UMCWB
DU LBN Moderator


P.S. Man, I am so embarrassed :dunce:

[Born_a_Democrat]

16. Strom Thurmond was a Democrat

Look, to those of you saying that you can't believe it's Democrats introducing this bill I just counter with "Strom was a Democrat at one time". These guys will sooner or later find out they need to come out of the Democratic Closet and declare themselves Republicans (or Homosexuals) in either case, this bill is gay!


The advent of file sharing is a response of Capitalism and the free market. How you say? Well, if you buy bread at a corner bakery for 10 dollars a loaf and all of a sudden a bakery two blocks over sells the same bread for 1 dollar, who are you going to buy from?

For years...NO! FOR DECADES the music industry (using it's monopoly) has robbed, dispossesed, stripped and otherwise fleeced not only consumers but it's employees (artists themselves) by charging consumers thousands of times the cost of producing the music and then turning around and only giving the artist a marginal even trivial percentage of those proceeds.

It was only natural that when a substantially cheaper alternative came along the public would jump on it ferociously.

When I go to the pharmacy and see that a Generic brand is .78 cents cheaper for the same amount of pills than a bottle of Tylenol, I will buy the Tylenol even though they contain the same medicine JUST BECAUSE I have trusted the brand all my life and it is not worth taking a chance over such a small amount. HOWEVER, if Tylenol were 10 dollars more expensive for the same amount as a generic I would definitely take the Generic.

The file sharing piracy problem is a direct consequence of the Recording Industry's years of constant lashing of consumers and never offering to reduce prices even as their costs have reduced SIGNIFICANTLY (a blank CD today costs a fraction of what it did even for the RIAA when they were first introduced).

Now that they have become the victims of their own policies they hide behind laws enacted by money they themselves have thrown at politicians. I think the tens of billions of dollars they have lost is but a fraction of the compensation they owe the people who put them there. And even as the courts grapple with the current situation the RIAA finds itself in and rules in their favor there are people out there finding ways to circumvent the current system much in the same was that the creators of mp3s did when they did.

This is but a cycle. The RIAA is now on top but if they don't change their policies the will find themselves on the bottom again. And next time the file sharers will be more prepared to deal with legal challenges since they have now seen what the RIAA is capable of doing in order to protect their mafia.