Congress May Outlaw 'Attempted Piracy'

cnet-declan writes "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is asking Congress to make 'attempted' copyright infringement a federal crime. The text of the legislation as well as the official press-release is available online. Rep. Lamar Smith, a key House Republican, said he 'applauds' the idea, and his Democratic counterpart is probably on board too. In addition, the so-called Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007 would create a new crime of life imprisonment for using pirated software in some circumstances, expand the DMCA with civil asset forfeiture, and authorize wiretaps in investigations of Americans who are 'attempting' to infringe copyrights. Does this go too far?"

Crazy

[Judg3]

If you aren't yet a member of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, now would be a real good time to start. http://www.eff.org/ [eff.org]

Absurd

[Mr_eX9]

I don't understand why Slashdot has to report on every bullshit bill that comes before congress.

Lifetime imprisonment for using software, pirated or not? Gimmie a break. This won't pass.

"probably?"

[Richard]

"his Democratic counterpart is probably on board too"

Would it be too much to ask that you find out Rep. John Conyer's position - hell, even his name would be an improvement, and perhaps understanding why Rep. Smith is considered "key" (hint: check the committees) - before you start tarring him with the same brush as Rep. Lamar Smith?

-Richard Campbell.

RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Increase the maximum penalty for counterfeiting offenses
from 10 years to 20 years imprisonment where the defendant knowingly
or recklessly causes or attempts to cause serious bodily injury, and
increase the maximum penalty to life imprisonment where the defendant
knowingly or recklessly causes or attempts to cause death;

Re:Yes.

[AKAImBatman]

I wouldn't lose any sleep over this bill. It's basically the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006 [wikipedia.org] (text [publicknowledge.org]) reincarnated as the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007. Don't you see how much better the new version is? It's got 2007 in the name! Congress, therefore, MUST pass it this time! :-/

As far as I can tell, Congress didn't even care to look at, much less vote on it. The only difference this time is that the Attorney General is attempting to submit the law himself to give it more credibility. (It was previously backed by Rep. Lamar S. Smith (R) of Texas.) My hope is that it will end up in the same dustbin as the last attempt.

Re:I think it's fair

[jkgamer]

And if the RIAA mistakenly applies an IP address to you, its OK with you for law enforcement to break down your door and seize all of your computer equipment and software without ever charging you for a crime? We do that now when we suspect illegal drugs. Soon US law enforcement will do so because Microsoft 'suspects' that you are using a 'bogus' copy of Windows.

"What are you in for?"
"I downloaded Puff the Magic Dragon MP3 off the internet. Stay away from me mother @#^*@. I'm a bad ass."

Re:Why does the law punish attempts at all?

[mspohr]

My credit card number was stollen (by an employee of a bricks and mortar store) and used to buy a bunch of cheap clothing at JC Penny. The credit card company was suspicious and called me for verification. I told them it wasn't me, etc. They canceled the transaction. I asked if they would prosecute the person who stole my card number and they said they couldn't because there was no 'use' of the number, only an attempt which was not a crime.

Re:Absurd

[Mr_eX9]

No, no I don't. Congress only actually approves a very small portion of the bills that are put before them (like, a few hundred out of tens of thousands.) Source: http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa010899 .htm [about.com]

You start to wonder how any bills ever become laws. Fact of the matter is, not many do. The 105th Congress (1997-98) considered 13,882 pieces of legislation. A total of 354 became Public Laws.

So please take your ignorance somewhere else.

Re:thanks for backlash

[cpghost]

No, silly laws like these are just the attempt to patch dikes that have already broken down. You can't retrofit the water into the ocean just by painting a "do not flow in" sign in big threatening letters on the remnants of the broken dike.

The real solution to this is not more repression, it's legalizing copying of copyrighted material, by imposing a music/movie flat tax on the population; or perhaps just on HDD and DVD media. Everyone is sharing files nowadays, and that's not going away. So let's legalize it, and compensate the copyright holders collectively. That's the only decent thing to do. Criminalizing the whole population for something everyone does is so typical of dictatorships, let's not copy their ruthless style of governance anymore.

Re:Yes.

[Fordiman]

That's one of those 'Who decides' issues, so I'll leave it.

But I like an idea in "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"

The Senate's entire function is to pass laws by ceil(2/3*SenatePopulation)+1 majority. The House's entire function is to repeal laws by floor(1/3*HousePopulation)+1 minority.

See how many bad laws stay on the books then.

Re:Wait, what?

[hottoh]

Since when did Copyright Infringement become an issue for Homeland Security to work directly with a specific corporation?

At the time it came to being. Anything done to harm the economy is in DHS domain. Remember the story from about 3 years ago a shop owner got a visit from DHS people because she was selling knock-off (Disney as I recall) products? As I recall the argument is the knock-off products would fund the bad guys.

The knock-off OJ from Mexico being sold here is a problem if did not realize what you were buying. Sales of fake Tropicana OJ, fake Donald Duck or fake Rolex watches are not going to ruin the US economy. I do not like the idea of DHS pounding on doors to stop sales, but that seems that is where it is.

RTFB before you post on /.

[rylwin]

If you actually read the bill, the only violation of this bill that could lead to life imprisonment is covered in Section 12, which specifically mentions that this sentence may be imposed on someone who "knowingly or recklessly causes or attempts to cause serious bodily injury from conduct in violation of" trafficking counterfeit goods or services.
That seems pretty damn reasonable to me.
But hey...what do I know? I just RTFB.

Re:Why does the law punish attempts at all?

[Keebler71]

We almost do already - take Hate Crimes for instance. In this case you aren't being punished for the action, but for the motivation behind the action. Get into a verbal argument with someone that degenerates into a fight and that's assault and battery. Same situation but with a difference in sexual orientation or race and you could very well find yourself charged with a hate crime. I don't want to be misinterpreted that there is any problem with hate crime legislation - just pointing out that there are already crimes on the book for which a critical component is the thought process/motivation of the perpetrator.

Re:Several reasons Horsesh*t

[devnull17]

It's not like these laws are for you. I doubt you could even see any benefit from them. It's all going to benefit the big cartels. Unfortunately, no one gives a rat's ass about the little guy.

I agree that it sucks when someone uses your work without permission. You have to make a living, after all. But legalizing civil asset forfeiture for "attempted piracy" is not the answer.

Motivation

[Aexia]

is taken into account already. It can be the difference between manslaughter and murder or degrees of murder. Killing a guy to take his money is treated differently than killing a guy because he was banging your wife. Both are crimes but the former will garner a harsher sentence.

I'd also argue that someone who committed a crime because the victim was a member of a certain group is more likely to reoffend than someone who committed a crime over a personal dispute with the victim. If you have a grudge against someone, there's only person. if you have a grudge against an entire race, there's a lot more opportunities for you to lose control again.

Re:Mod parent up: But does the RIAA have Dem suppo

[Anonymous Coward]

"I'm just surprised Gonzales choose copyright to try to change the subject"

Im sure they are getting big money from the struggling recording/software companies to pass this kind of legislation...

Maybe just like they sandbagged the Duke Cunningham scandal in order to protect the White Houses "friends" in the Defense Industry.

San Diego U.S. Attorney Carole Lam was fired while investigating the case, when all those attorneys were let go a few months ago. A California Republican responded in the news by saying something along the lines of "she should have been focused more on border control issues and less on white collar crime".

We are pwned by the $$$ and the IMC...

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/19/carol-lam-whit e-house/ [thinkprogress.org]
http://lippard.blogspot.com/2007/01/cia-and-white- house-block-cunningham.html [blogspot.com]

One word: PROMIS

[TheKnightShift]

The biggest case of software piracy ever was perpetrated by the U.S. Department of Justice, when it illegally appropriated the PROMIS software from Inslaw. The federal government went on to use its pirated versions of PROMIS in everything from federal courts to the CIA.

Even though a number of courts ruled in Inslaw's favor that the Justice Department had stolen the software, to this day Inslaw hasn't been paid anything as compensation for the theft.

That the Justice Department is threatening software pirates with life-terms in prison, when the department itself has been engaged in the greatest single incident of illegally using software, is the epitome of chutzpah.

Here's my blog post about it from earlier today [blogspot.com].