Obama Administration Announces Massive Piracy Crackdown

[karmakramer]

Welp, you've broke the last straw, give me a new party/government.

 

While they may never be able to truly defeat piracy and drive it from the lurking depths of the internet, copyright protection attack-dog organizations like the RIAA and MPAA have long dreamed of the day when they would no longer have to pay for their own copyright enforcement. Now that dream is on the verge of coming true, thanks to the Obama administration.

 

After countless lobbyist dollars from the music and film industry and a brief "public review", the administration rolled out its vision to fight piracy yesterday afternoon. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden -- whose blunt speech has sometime left him in trouble -- did not mince words.

 

He states, "This is theft, clear and simple. It's smash and grab, no different than a guy walking down Fifth Avenue and smashing the window at Tiffany's and reaching in and grabbing what's in the window."

 

The sound-byte comparing downloads to stealing jewels from New York City's finest jeweler quickly lit up the web. Bob Pisano, interim chief executive officer at the Motion Picture Association of America praised the VP, "It is especially critical that the United States has an effective framework for protecting creative content online and enforcing intellectual property rights in the digital environment."

 

According to the Obama administration, the RIAA, and MPAA, the world economy is pretty much doomed if we don't start prosecuting pirates at home and abroad. Without such a crackdown, businesses will go bankrupt the coalition argues. Biden states, "Piracy hurts, it hurts our economy."

 

Interestingly, the statements seem to fly in the face of a recent Government Accountability Office study released to U.S. Congress earlier this year, which concluded that there is virtually no evidence for the claimed million dollar losses by the entertainment industry. That study suggested that piracy could even benefit the economy.

 

Another noteworthy study from three years back notes that virtually every citizen violates intellectual property laws in some way on a daily basis.

 

The White House press release was full of buzz phrases, but short on details. It did however indicate that the U.S. government may increasingly monitor filesharing networks and BitTorrent sites and assist media groups in their prosecution/threat letter efforts. It speaks of improved "law enforcement efforts at the Federal, state and local level."

 

The biggest effort, though, will be devoted to cracking down on piracy websites in the U.S. and overseas. The administration was short on details of how exactly it would convince piracy-loving nations like China to change their ways, but it did say it would try to do so by "being as public as we possibly can" about infringement.

 

The press release states, "As we shine the spotlight on foreign governments that have rogue actors doing illicit business within their borders, it's the government's responsibility to respond."

 

Such efforts have shown mild success. After lots of threats against the Swedish government by the U.S., the European Union nation finally tried admins with the nation's largest torrent site The Pirate Bay last year and found them guilty. The trial was later exposed to be a perversion of the justice system, with the judge who gave the verdict have multiple ties to copyright protection organizations. The verdict -- $3M USD in damages and a year of hard prison time for the admins -- is currently being appealed.

 

The White House's vision is perhaps a prelude to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which will go before Congress later this year. The bill would make P2P or BitTorrent client development a criminal offense if the distributed software was used for infringement. It also implements an interesting provision called "imminent infringement", which allows the government to charge people who they think might be about to infringe with a civil offense (for example if you searched "torrent daft punk"). This is among the first official "thought crime" provisions to be proposed by the U.S. government. The bill also makes it a criminal offense to bypass DRM.

 

Ultimately, it should be interesting to see how American taxpayers react to President Obama's decision to spend their money on efforts to prosecute them and try to choke out piracy at home and abroad, particularly when the current evidence is inconclusive of its effects. One thing's for sure, though. Top politicians on both sides of the aisle are firmly behind the music and movie industry anti-piracy and money-collection efforts.

 

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=18815

 

So if I search "how to poison someone" I'm fine... but if I search "torrent daft punk" I get a criminal offense.

 

[Guest hahathhat]

yeah, fucking brilliant. all the 20-somethings that gave a shit about politics for once and got me into office, let's piss them off even further.

[Guest Sprigg]

Welp, you've broke the last straw, give me a new party/government.

 

 

It also implements an interesting provision called "imminent infringement", which allows the government to charge people who they think might be about to infringe with a civil offense

 

 

 

Innocent until proven guilty, my ass, eh?

[Guest Great Maker ShaiHulud]

that mothafuckin EDIT: oh no you don't

[Guest hahathhat]

this comes as i read this a day or two ago:

 

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/111965?RS_show_page=0

 

and it made me realize that "moratorium" is full of shit, obama is not much better than bush on this oil stuff, etc.

 

i didn't want to have to hate obama, because all the alternatives are worse... but it's starting to go that way. fucking pisses me off. is there anything i can do?

[Guest analogue wings]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation

[karmakramer]

This is just plain fucked up.

[azatoth]

ahahaha, obama continues to bow down and suck the corporate cock. what a sham he is.

[Guest chunky]

hahaha if anyone thinks china will do what the usa wants

[Guest Scrambled Ears]

this is such bullshit propagated by people with jacuzzis...fuck them...you cannot stop the free flow of information! the singularity is imminent!

[Hautlle]

different sides, same coin, blah blah blah.

[Guest hahathhat]

i found more articles and it seems that they're really talking about china, poisonous ripoff meds, and the like.

 

original article is just alarmist. a bit calmer now.

[Mellow U]

I'll be the first to stand up as a record label with a vocally pro-piracy stance.

 

I'll also be happy that, monetarily, my label operates under the radar of ol' Uncle Sam.

[Guest disparaissant]

its not going to happen. and even if it does happen, what does that mean? oh no, you can be prosecuted for making p2p software. so the people who make them will no longer put their names on them and they'll host them elsewhere. the thought crime thing? yeah. it'll take all of one charge for the ACLU to be all over that. it's blatantly and obviously unconstitutional. it's a bunch of big talk, is all it is. it's amazing someone can talk so loud with a cock so far down their throat...

 

in any case, fuck you obama. it kind of makes me sad that this, of all things, is the last straw for me, but that's where it's at.

[BCM]

music industry will be the architect of it's own demise hopefully...with any luck people will just switch to websites that offer free music - in the case of electronic music - futonic records, envmod, swishcoteque etc...there are plenty of talented artists happy to put music up for download for free. I'm one of em.

[Guest Funktion]

lol they think laws will stop piracy

[Guest ZeroHour]

bahaha 1984 thought crime

[Guest mafted]

Biden was one of the architects of the obviously failed drug laws in this country.. so this doesn't surprise me. I agree with their seemingly anti-extreme-capitalist agenda but it would be nice to balance that with some type of personal liberty. Once FOX became a proponent of marijuana legalization it got me thinking. Socially liberal, fiscally conservative.. wtf party is that? I thought it was libertarianism, but nope.

[Rubin Farr]

piracy in the US will make little difference on the internet, the users are here but the services, especially URL based like rapidshare are all based in foreign territories like EU, Russia, and Asia. bit torrent's days are numbered and have been for years, but the media has that stuck in their head, and most politicians think it's still cutting edge technology. hello 2004.

[Guest mafted]

lol. exactly

[patternoverlap]

A bunch of alarmist nonsense. They won't ever be able to stop piracy. Additionally, if they did do they think that everyone is miraculously going to start buying more CDs and DVDs?

[Guest blicero]

hmmm

 

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/06/ipec-releases-strategic-plan-intellectual-property

[awesomeperson]

Digital downloads are the future, legal or otherwise.

 

The bill would make P2P or BitTorrent client development a criminal offense if the distributed software was used for infringement.

 

I don't see how they could make the software filter like that.

[Guest EDGEY]

[Guest ruiagnelo]

Everything is fine as long as they don't take my precious soulseek.