Absolutely ridiculous. There is no reason copyrights should be protected more strongly than traditional property rights. If I trespass on someone's land, it's not a felony. If I build a hotel on someone's land, it's still not a felony. The redress for copyright violations should be civil lawsuits, not criminal prosecutions.
You can blame the tech industry for this one. Criminalizing copyright infringement didn't get much traction until Microsoft, Oracle, etc, made a big deal about it in the context of large-scale piracy by the Chinese, etc.
There were criminal penalties for willful, for-profit performances of dramatic and music works in 1897 US copyright law. The 1909 act expanded this to all types of willful, for-profit infringement. I'm reasonably sure neither Microsoft nor Oracle had anything to do with this.
The DMCA was 1998. Wasn't that around the same time that Microsoft was getting hammered by the DOJ?
My impression is that the general consensus has that being about the time that Microsoft learned its lesson about ignoring lobbying. Maybe Oracle had something to do with it, but it seems like Microsoft probably missed that particular ship.
The only real way to get money out of politics is to stop allowing politics to have such a high return on investment. Unfortunately, that ship has probably sailed for good.
Generally, defense of property must be proportional to the harm threatened, and use of deadly force is not authorized: http://www.volokh.com/posts/1176499503.shtml (interesting blog post in the context of "hacking back").
No, actually. Outside of Texas, the exception that proves the rule, you are not allowed to use lethal force to protect property.
As I understand Texas law (which I wouldn't surprise to find judicially nullified someday, like similar Oklahoma law), you are allowed to use lethal force on someone stealing your property after a verbal warning.
Which is in no way analogous to the point you're making. US law very much does not support "self-help" as its called to redress wrongs after the fact.
Weak Castle Doctrine, no duty to retreat in your home, exists in 46 states according to Wikipedia, which sounds about right. E.g. assume you have to retreat from your home in Massachusetts, no matter the current law, case law or circumstances.
Stand Your Ground in 22 states. As in no duty to retreat any place you have a right to be, which prevents second guessing from the calm and comfort of a courtroom. Or as Oliver Wendell Holmes put it in the 1921 US Supreme Court case Brown v. United States, "Detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife."
Because that's what the courts want very badly, at least as of the '80s. Several rounds of the solidly Democratic legislature passing "this time we mean it!" laws and the courts judicially nullifying as much as they could.
In one case I "watched" by reading the Boston Globe as it was tried, a man was sent to prison because he wasn't willing to leave his sleep daughter to the tender mercies of an home invader.
Too many people wonder why Michael Dukakis won only 10 states in 1988; not those of us in the the state who were paying attention to e.g. these judges he elevated to the bench.
In the 80s? It's 2013, man, get with the times and start ripping on Chicago.
In this decade, I'd go to the anecdote from WI last year of the dude who, upon a high school party being broken up by the cops next door, shot a kid hiding from the cops on his porch and wasn't charged.
I'm referring to the '80s because that was when I was residing in Massachusetts, and that was what I could look forward to if I used lethal force in self-defense. Also an automatic 1st degree murder trial, "Let the jury sort it out" was the AG's idea of prosecutorial discretion.
As for the Wisconson case you're referring to, the facts not surprisingly paint a very different picture. Per this news item: http://fox6now.com/2012/05/05/photos-of-bo-morrison-crime-sc... and others, the porch was only technically one, it was fully enclosed and furnished like an interior room, had an appliance (fridge/freezer?) and other indoor style stuff, and critically, from looking at the outside, it appears to be fully a part of the house. I say critically because the outdoor pictures make it very clear this can be legitimately scored as a home invasion, whatever friends and family of the deceased propagandize.
And per this from the shooter's wife, "[she] told investigators she heard her husband say, “What are you doing in my house” twice, then “Stay where you are” twice, and later a single shot was fired."
So only "weak", no duty to retreat (in 46 states) Castle Doctrine comes into play. He was not shot out of the blue or from behind, there was a confrontation, so as long as the couple have proper account of the story and the authorities don't catch them lying the failure to prosecute looks like its solid. Just like the Zimmerman/Martin was before it become a political show trial.
ADDED: Not surprisingly for a state that was until that year solid Blue, Wisconsin as of 2010 didn't have a strong Castle Doctrine, the case law explicitly says "The doctrine is for defensive and not offensive purposes."
When you hear "unbelievable" stories like this, you should be suspicious, they're generally unbelievable because they're flatly not true, except in the sense of Revolutionary Truth, which as techies we shouldn't approve of (our computers do not care about politics, just that 1 + 1 = 010).
Yes, he's in that awkward period between 18 and 21 where he's legally an adult who can't legally do a bunch of adult things, like the relevant posited drinking (according to the more detailed accounts I read he wasn't hiding from the police, the party was broken up by the incensed homeowner of the property where it was happening arriving), but if you're going to call young men who aren't even "teens" "kids", we have no basis for a discussion, we cannot get past your idée fixe that he was automatically an innocent.
Its Occam's razor -- if a house party full of underage drinkers just got busted, and a drunk 20 yo is hiding on your porch, do you personally think this is a flight or fight situation? Think this guy had a bit of an itchy trigger finger? Honest question.
I think he was referencing the events of the 80s because there was such a backlash to it that it led directly to events like you describe. The middle ground is dead.
The backlash from the nation's "soft on crime" policies started much earlier, e.g. see Dirty Harry in 1971 and I gather Death Wish in 1974. Real world traction on reversing them, I think seriously started in the '80s.
But see my other reply in this sub-sub-thread: what middle ground is there between being forced by the law to retreat from your home and being allowed to use lethal force upon a reasonable apprehension of a sufficient threat? Do you really believe in allowing criminals to chase you out of your home, abandoning your loved ones who can't defend themselves?
It's ancient, ancient doctrine; per Wikipedia "The legal concept of the inviolability of the home has been known in Western Civilization since the age of the Roman Republic." When it comes to Western law you can't get older than the Twelve Tables in 450 BC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Tables), in which I assume this was codified.
No, I don't, but I was trying to clarify the statement. A middle ground for this is difficult, because it basically depends upon determining after the fact whether or not you or anyone else in the home was actually threatened (or whether you could reasonably perceive it that way).
Errr, the latter is how these incidents are judged. E.g. the woman who recently ran down a man carrying a sawed off air soft shotgun; especially with the orange tip removed, she could not tell that he wasn't actually threatening in that way. Similarly, a criminal using a fake gun to commit a robbery gets a charge of armed or aggravated robbery.
This is determined after the fact all the time, presumably in the Wisconsin case, and definitely in the Zimmerman/Martin case before it was politicized.
Castle laws pertain to "Your home is your castle", and maybe business. I'm not aware of any that touch on property, they just make it clear you have no duty to retreat from your home (ADDED: true in 46 states according to Wikipedia), and the better ones allow you assume a home invader is a lethal threat, as you can reasonably assume about anyone invading an occupied dwelling. Otherwise proving that could be lethal to you, e.g. challenging the intruder gets a bullet in reply.
Note as usual all this is subject to judicial nullification, in my home state of Missouri as of 2010 the latter part of our crystal clear Castle Doctrine has been nullified through middle level appeals court required jury instructions. Our higher level judicial appointments are not surprisingly done according to the Missouri Plan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_Plan), so the usual suspects control the process, not the people through their elected representatives.
Why not get straight to the point and call every crime a terrorist act? Then we can have the America that Obama really wants...one where he can order anybody's murder or infinite detention at any time for any reason.
The 1980s solution to drug use in the US was simply to lock more people up longer and give local and federal law enforcement more money. This was the same response after September 11th. More laws, more money, more power.
Today we can see the results: "Police" armed with assault rifles patrol streets. Surprise visits at night by men armed with fully automatic firearms and large caliber sniper rifles is not considered abnormal. Most recently we now know all of our communications are monitored, as are our whereabouts past and present.
It would make a good science fiction movie, except the genre would be a documentary.
Yes, hence why Obama is pushing for it to be felony. He/Hollywood wants to discourage and intimidate people at whatever level he/they can get away with so people do not stream and instead go to theatres or stream at websites they are supported by the producers. It is all about the money.
This is the part I'm really confused about. How are people supposed to know which source is authorised for distribution and which isn't? In some countries you can go to BBC iPlayer and just play some movies. In some you can't. In some you can use Hulu, in some you can't.
Basically if I google "watch Xyz online" I will get a long list of results where I'm 2 clicks away from watching Xyz - how am I supposed to know which of those are legal sources? For some movies the top result can be youtube. For others it will be watchseries.{whatever tld they use this month}. Unless everyone makes all their agreements and contracts public, I can't reasonably tell if they are allowed to redistribute.
It is, but tax evasion and fraud are also considered to be a felony which makes this somewhat less outrageous, perhaps.
(Not that I think this should be considered a felony. Quite the contrary, actually.)
tax evasion is an felony because its a crime against the state. All crimes against the state is considered serious by the state.
Fraud is about money, and money is issued by the state. As such, fraud is a crime against the state and thus considered as serious by the state.
If we view copyright as an granted monopoly by the state, then declaring it as a felony would follow a historical pattern. As a property hover, it does not.
Is anyone really surprised? Congress and the President haven't cared about the constitution thus far, why would it be any different now?
Eighth Amendment: Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted
A bit excessive? Throw the streamers in with the murderers and rapist, they'll come out better people.
Is this so freedom loving American big business can use the government they paid for to extradite, render, kidnap and perhaps torture dirty, thieving, terrorist, pedophile, A-Rab foreigners for downloading Breaking Bad?
Regulating SOPA will prove to be more cost prohibitive than actually solving the real problem. The real problem is that people want to be able to get content on demand, and the problem is that media companies are unwilling to adopt new ways of delivering that content. The music industry was plagued by this same thing a decade ago, but allowing the online purchase of content either via subscription or purchase has significantly reduced music piracy. Adopting the same principals for movies and television shows across the board will undoubtably have the same effect. The fact of the matter is that until studios are willing to be more flexible with their means of distribution rather than trying to have full control, then piracy will continue to be a problem.
if enough crimes can be committed by sharing data online then the government would have enough incentive to hold complete control over the internet to prevent such crimes.
these people really want total control over flow of information.
Can it be any clearer that he's going against the will of the people? If you have to keep resurrecting laws that have "died" and trying to sneak them through another way, it stops being democracy. It becomes a battle of who has the most persistent and over-staffed legal team.
This isn't a big surprise. The US really only has a few net-positive exports, and media products are one of the big ones (and military products, is another, iirc)
Indeed. Off the top of my head, agricultural products, civilian airplanes, jet engines and avionics, heavy machinery (Caterpillar), I'd be really surprised to learn we didn't export a lot of farm machinery, high end CPUs....
This guy seems to be trying his damnest to piss away what good will he had at replacing an administration that was derided for pretty much the same actions.
This is the time when politicians pay back their masters, before the next election gears up. This gives time between pissing people off and then having to convince them to vote for more of the same.
Gives a good reason to remove term limits; keeps folks from proposing silly things like this, knowing that they won't be held accountable by the electorate as they can't run after their term is up.
Of course that takes an informed electorate, which...well that's another topic entirely.
Is there anywhere in the article that has a quote from the Obama administration that suggests the title of the article. All I get from reading it was that SOPA had a provision to make streaming a felony and that people fought against it. No where does it give any information about how its resurrection is being attempted.
I haven't even read TFA but I can bet you this: the felons would be those uploading the streams, not those downloading.
How do I know this? Because copyright law targets, and always has targeted, those distributing copyrighted material without license rather than those consuming it. One of the reasons is, as a comment elsewhere makes evident [1], it is not the responsibility of the consumer to know whether goods being purchased have been legally procured.
Where this gets tricky is in Bittorrent swarms, unless you leech, each peer uploads as well as downloads content, making each user a party to the "distribution" of content. This is what enabled those famous P2P lawsuits which resulted in those fines.
People like to think of the RIAA and MPAA as stupid dinosaurs, but as comments here make it clear, they've been undeniably successful in getting people to associate "downloading" with "illegal activity".
>>> Asked by Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) why Justice felt it needed that expanded power, Holder said that sometimes such streaming involves thousands and millions of dollars. He said that Justice wasn't looking to turn streaming from a misdemeanor to a crime, but that in some cases it needed that added power "consistent with the nature of the harm."
At most, the "Obama Administration" (specifically, Eric Holder) feels like some forms of streaming need to be punished more harshly. It seems like pirating a live performance is less punishable than pirating anything else.
