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Bill Would Criminalize Attempted IP Infringement

Posted by kdawson on Mon Jul 30, 2007 06:58 PM
from the intellectual-property-precrime dept.
Government United States Politics
ianare writes "H.R. 3155, the Intellectual Property Enhanced Criminal Enforcement Act of 2007, has been introduced in Congress by Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH). In most cases, the bill appears to simply double existing penalties. One big change however, is that people could now be charged with criminal copyright infringement even if such infringement has not actually taken place. Not surprisingly, the EFF has condemned the legislation."
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  • FP? (Score:5, Informative)

    by dosius (230542) <lyricalnanoha@dosius.ath.cx> on Monday July 30 2007, @08:03PM (#20051077) Journal
    Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty" ? Oh wait, that went out the door back in the 50s with McCarthyism.

    -uso.

    • FP? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by westlake (615356)
      Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty" ?

      Why, nothing at all.

      You did know that an attempt to commit a crime is itself a crime? Try forcing a lock the charge will be attempted burglary.

      • Re:FP? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by tomhudson (43916) <hudson@videotQUOTEron.ca minus punct> on Monday July 30 2007, @09:41PM (#20052125) Journal

        "You did know that an attempt to commit a crime is itself a crime? Try forcing a lock the charge will be attempted burglary."

        In other words, you're charged with a different crime - "attempted burglary, not borglary. If you read the article, the charges, penalties, etc., are the same for an attempt as for the actual crime.

        Attempted burglary can include a spur-of-the-moment going up to a closed door and seeing if its locked - the actual damages of an unsuccessful attempt are none, and its certainly not in the same league as successfully attacking the door with a crowbar which you brought along (premeditated) for that express purpose.

        Instead of doubling jail terms for this, why not double them for white collar crime, perjury, and rape? Oh, right ... the perps of white collar crime own the politicians, the politicians and their friends want to be able to continue perjuring themselves, and they're too busy raping over the electorate to give a sh*t.

        • Re:FP? (Score:5, Funny)

          by pyrrhonist (701154) on Tuesday July 31 2007, @12:19AM (#20053395)

          you're charged with a different crime - "attempted burglary, not borglary

          Borglary - the act of assimilating all of someone's stuff into your own collective.

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by plague3106 (71849)
            Well, the reason is that we have a belief that the punishment should fit the crime. If you stole something from me, you've harmed me in some way. If you attempted to steal something, you didn't harm me as much, but you did do something wrong.

            Its the same reason we don't put people to death for stealing a candybar.

    • Re:FP? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by srmalloy (263556) on Monday July 30 2007, @08:53PM (#20051613) Homepage
      But after all, isn't stopping file sharing an integral part of the War On Terror? If we cease our eternal vigilance against these evil people, our American way of life will be destroyed by the flood of shoddy knockoffs of CDs and DVDs. And after all, isn't a little bit of presumed guilt worth knowing that your next purchase of a music CD is, as it should, going straight into the coffers of a legitimate recording studio, rather than to some pirate or -- *gasp* -- the musician.

      --
      And remember, boys and girls -- "We had to destroy your freedom in order to save it."

    • Re:FP? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TheVelvetFlamebait (986083) on Monday July 30 2007, @09:39PM (#20052109) Journal
      That's different. You are still innocent until proven guilty, it's just that now you can be found guilty of intent to pirate. They still have to prove that before they can dish out any punishment.

  • Really now... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo (1000167) on Monday July 30 2007, @08:03PM (#20051079)
    Do they give the Nobel Prize for attempted chemistry?

  • open secrets (Score:4, Informative)

    by ArchieBunker (132337) on Monday July 30 2007, @08:09PM (#20051133) Homepage
    Heres the open secrets link to his finances:

    http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/allindus.as p?CID=N00003689&Cycle=2002 [opensecrets.org]

  • Freudian slip? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Vexler (127353) on Monday July 30 2007, @08:10PM (#20051147) Journal
    Read the title again: "Bill Would Criminalize Attempted IP Infringement".

    That wouldn't be "Gates", would it?

  • Fear (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Joebert (946227) on Monday July 30 2007, @08:11PM (#20051151) Homepage
    Every time I read somthing like this, I'm driven further away from wanting to participate in the exchange of ideas outside of a physical conversation with someone.

    I'm afraid of being locked up & not being able to understand why I'm locked up.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by PCM2 (4486)

        Don't worry. This doesn't have a catchy acronym; it won't get voted in.

        Does nobody read TFA anymore? It's the Intellectual Property Enhanced Criminal enforcement Act of Congress ... IPECAC for short.

  • My IP is 127.0.0.1 so don't infringe on it (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 30 2007, @08:20PM (#20051261)
    I call "dibs" on IP 127.0.0.1
    Any IP infringers out there...be warned...that's MY IP you're infringing upon

  • Not law yet (Score:5, Informative)

    by ianare (1132971) on Monday July 30 2007, @08:20PM (#20051265)
    Keep in mind this bill is not passed into law (yet ??). So there is still time to try to stop it! [eff.org]

    Ya I know, online petition is not the best way. Write to your representatives if you can.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by QCompson (675963)
      Write to your representatives if you can.

      Also, send them lots of money in the form of campaign contributions. They seem to really like that.

    • Re:Not law yet (Score:4, Insightful)

      by CrimsonAvenger (580665) on Monday July 30 2007, @11:14PM (#20053023)

      Keep in mind this bill is not passed into law (yet ??)

      Not only not passed into law, not out of Committee. Barely into Committee, as it happens, since it was submitted just six days ago.

      In other words, completely ignorable. It won't be an issue until next year, most likely, or never, quite possibly.

      There isn't yet a companion Bill in the Senate, so it might as well have been submitted to /. as to the House Judiciary Committee for all that it's going to matter this year. And next year, people will be too busy playing at making the other Party look like the spawn of Satan to bother with it this side of 2009.

  • Methinks the time is ripe to question copyright [questioncopyright.org].

      • Re:I just gave them a link from my copyright piece (Score:4, Insightful)

        by misleb (129952) on Monday July 30 2007, @09:30PM (#20051999)
        You know, I only recently came upon this idea (not original, of course) of questioning copyright during a recent discussion here on slashdot. At first I was just making a logical argument like one might in a formal debate... sort of playing the devil's advocate. And it suddenly stuck me that it was more than a debate exercise. It really made sense. Copyright and patent laws as we know them are fundamentally broken. You can't own information. It is totally absurd. I mean, I still believe in giving credit where credit is due for ideas and ensuring that creators are not plagiarized, because that would be fraud (what copyright should be about), but there is absolutely no moral or logical basis for the ownership of information. People seem to think that they have a right to make money off of their ideas. And that is just absurd. They have the right *try* and make money off of their ideas, but nobody else is obligated to ensure that their business model is profitable. If you decide to make some information public, it is out there. You can't control it.

        -matthew
        • ... where, at one time at least, discoveries were freely shared through publication in peer-reviewed journals. The way of academia was supposed to be that knowledge was free for all.

          This lead to my belief that copyright should be strictly limited (in the piece I link to in the grandparent, I conclude that the original term of fourteen years would be best), and further the decision to place my music [geometricvisions.com] under Creative Commons.

          Unfortunately, the academic world I grew up believing in no longer really exists;

          • Re:I come from the academic tradition... (Score:4, Interesting)

            by kebes (861706) on Monday July 30 2007, @10:16PM (#20052485) Journal

            Unfortunately, the academic world I grew up believing in no longer really exists;
            It still exists. Maybe it's "fighting to survive"... but it is not dead. In fact many academics are carrying-on with the tradition of working towards open sharing of information. For instance a large number of academics are actively pushing for Open Access [wikipedia.org] to all scholarly content. It will no doubt be a long struggle, but progress is already being made, such as preprint archives (e.g. arXiv [arxiv.org]), a growing number of open-access journals (e.g. PLoS [plos.org]), and even some big-name traditional journals are now offering authors the option to pay for their articles to be open-access.

            The new generation of academics have grown up with the internet and are accustomed to easy online access to every journal imaginable. As this generation takes over more academic positions, I think this intellectual freedom will spread. In short, I'm hopeful that academia will undergo a mini-renaissance and re-emphasize its roots of "spreading knowledge."

        • You can't own information.

          While that may be true, copyright is not about *owning* information, it is about *organizing* information. Otherwise, someone would have already copyrighted the alphabet and we'd all be SOL.

          Remember the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition? This is one of my Rules of Information:

          "The organization of information is worth money." [I was thinking of computer programming at the time, but the concept is clearly extensible.]

          [Caveat: some forms of information -- certain kinds of list

  • The article mentions "for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain" and it also mentions it has to have a value over $1000. I'm thinking it is an attempt to clamp down on piraters, the true pirates, the ones that steal and sell other people's copyrighted material.

    However, intent needs to be proven, and the fact that it is "attempting" and not "actually committing" the infringement brings up some problems. How do you prove it exactly?

  • Criminalize wasting tax dollars? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HitekHobo (1132869) on Monday July 30 2007, @08:38PM (#20051475) Homepage
    Between the DMCA, the BSA, the RIAA and the MPAA, we have legislation and watchdog groups to cover every imaginable form of piracy. The courts are already having to deal with lawsuits over pathetic amounts of money to make an example of people. Do we really need to have federal agencies doing the investigation as well and make room in the criminal judicial system as well?

  • "Attempted" Infringement (Score:5, Insightful)

    by hardburn (141468) <hardburn.wumpus-cave@net> on Monday July 30 2007, @08:41PM (#20051503)

    So what evidence do you need of "attempted" infringement? Will having a BitTorrent client on your system be enough? I can easily see a RIAA lawyer taking that stance in court.

  • Check those citatations! (Score:3, Informative)

    by westlake (615356) on Monday July 30 2007, @08:53PM (#20051609)
    The Cornell link has a small but dangerously misleading typographical error:

    506. Criminal offenses

    (a) Criminal Infringement. - Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either -

    (1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, - OR -

    (2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by electronic means, during any 180-day period, of 1 or more copies or phonorecords of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of more than $1,000
    Copyright Law of the United States of America [copyright.gov]

    ILLINOIS MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO POSTING '24' TELEVISION SHOW ON INTERNET PRIOR TO FIRST BROADCAST ON FOX

    A Chicago man pleaded guilty today to a felony charge for posting the first four episodes of this season's "24" on the Internet before they were originally aired on the Fox television network earlier this year.
    Computer Crime & Intellectual Property Section [cybercrime.gov] [July 2, 2007], The No Electronic Theft ("NET") Act [usdoj.gov] [February 18, 1998]

  • From the bill:

    CONSPIRACY- If two or more persons conspire to commit an offense under paragraph (1) and one or more of such persons do any act to effectuate the object of the conspiracy, each shall be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.'.

    This paragraph is more disturbing to me - language like that can be used to rope in just about anyone.

  • Why does it have to be criminal? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by OrangeTide (124937) on Monday July 30 2007, @09:01PM (#20051691) Homepage Journal
    Why can't we just have a copyright system that is handle in civil courts? Why does everything have to be a crime now?

    • Re:Why does it have to be criminal? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by QCompson (675963) on Monday July 30 2007, @09:24PM (#20051933)

      Why can't we just have a copyright system that is handle in civil courts? Why does everything have to be a crime now?
      "There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws." -- Ayn Rand
    • That's a good question, but do be aware that some copyright infringement has been criminal in the US since the late 19th century, so it's not that new.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by OrangeTide (124937)
        Oh sure. We've all seen those FBI warnings on VHS tapes. But I don't understand why it has to be criminal. I suppose I could understand if copyright violators were exploiting small individuals who did not have the resources to pursue every case in civil court. But it doesn't seem that way in reality, as a "little guy" who produces a fair number of copyrighted works a year I really don't have the ear of the FBI to search and find people copying my works without license, I have to do all the detective work my

  • In most cases, the bill appears to simply double existing penalties.
    Good. Because $750 per song was just a slap on the wrist.

  • Please follow EFF Link (Score:4, Informative)

    by PaddyM (45763) on Monday July 30 2007, @09:11PM (#20051803) Homepage
    Hi,
    Please follow the EFF link in the article to send a letter opposing the bill to your senators and members of congress. It's very important that this law not be allowed. Thanks.

  • How about Attempted Political Fraud Act 2007 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by syousef (465911) on Monday July 30 2007, @09:49PM (#20052227) Journal
    ...and the standard of proof would be any politician holding or running for office.

  • Applies only to people (real ones) ? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by LingNoi (1066278) on Monday July 30 2007, @09:54PM (#20052295)
    ... I assume this bill will only apply to people and not companies as it says..

    criminalize some forms of "attempted infringement."
    Say for example a company steals some GPL work they won't see any Jail time and/or penalties but a person who steals the companies work will get the full force of this bill. Not that the two are related but its the best analogy I could think of.

    This will work well for many companies who favour stealing and ruining peoples lives in the name of profits and just doing my job. As usual the US government will not take a balanced view on the subject and do what their corporate masters tell them to.

    For more info see today's other posting about a corrupt US official [slashdot.org]

    On the other hand..

    If I am wrong and I does apply to the GPL for companies this quote says..

    The bill allows "a judge to dole out damages for each separate piece of a derivative work or compilation, rather than treating it as one work," wrote Derek Slater, "for example, copying an entire album could translate into damages for each individual track, even if the copyrights in those tracks aren't separately registered."
    Does that mean a judge could dole out damages for each separate source code files. Say someone is infringing the Linux copyright could a judge charge them per source.c file?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by StikyPad (445176)
      Why stop there? Each variable is a unique piece of IP!
    • ... I assume this bill will only apply to people and not companies as it says..

      criminalize some forms of "attempted infringement."

      Say for example a company steals some GPL work they won't see any Jail time and/or penalties but a person who steals the companies work will get the full force of this bill. Not that the two are related but its the best analogy I could think of.

      You are mistaken. A person is not shielded from criminal prosecution because they acted as an employee rather than an indi

  • Corrected link... (Score:3, Funny)

    by martyb (196687) on Monday July 30 2007, @10:08PM (#20052415)
    FTFS:

    ...people could now be charged with criminal copyright infringement even if such infringement has not actually taken place.

    Reading that made me want to vomit. That's how I learned the link needed to be corrected: "Intellectual Property Enhanced Criminal enforcement ACt" [wikipedia.org]. Somehow, it just seems fitting to call it the IPECAC bill. Besides, what did you expectorant?

    <groan>

  • The US' original concepts going down the drain (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sxpert (139117) on Tuesday July 31 2007, @12:54AM (#20053563)
    It appears that every day the US are inching slowly but surely towards a police state, all this to help a bunch of mafioso keep a stranglehold on the entertainment market
    This last example of a "Law" appears like the first forays into the world of Minority Report [imdb.com] for good. At the same time, it's sort of also going in the direction of Gattaca [imdb.com]

    This is far, far away from the concepts of the "Land of the free" heralded by the forefathers...

  • Time to start writing... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jorgandar (450573) on Tuesday July 31 2007, @02:45AM (#20054217)
    If everyone on slashdot took 5 minutes to write to your local congressman/woman, this would create enough noise for them to notice, it's not OK to be doing this anymore...here is my letter:

    "Dr mr Waxman, I am writing you to urge your opposition to H.R.3155, which is still in committee. Should it go to general debate, it will double penalties for copyright infringement, and introduce new crimes in the process. I'm sick of congress making criminals out of innocent people and wasting our tax money enforcing this. This is being pushed by the RIAA no doubt.

    Copyright issues are a CIVIL case, they are not criminal offenses, and should be dealt with accordingly. I for one am fed up with the congress that looks out only for big businesses. Its time to make laws that are good for the people. This is not one of them. Furthermore, a punishment should fit a the "crime". Copying an mp3 file or a movie is not a big crime. Nobody died. Nobody was hurt. Nothing was stolen (the original is still there). No property was damaged. Lets treat it as it is. Current laws are ridiculously harsh. We need to roll back the power your friends in congress have given the big RIAA machine and give it back to the people. "

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by stony3k (709718)
        Ah! but with software you can have stuff that is trade secret (closed source), copyrighted (if it's a trade secret then what exactly is being copyrighted - the binary form?), patented (the idea is patented and not the code itself) and even trademarked (like Windows).

        So it's not quite so cut and dried.

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