Too bad, they can't do anything to people living outside of US. hehe...I still can do what I like. ;)

We have ways of finding you ;) :D

Actualy , Yes I did , Yorick. The tickets were about $5 more expensive through ticketmaster than they were at the door. On top of that it wasnt a very good show either. Having seen the headliner a few times before, I can definately say that it was not their best preformance.

Besides , it isnt so much the file shareing I object to , its the mandatory police ware they want to put into my machine. If I want to send you all of my MP3's so you can get a feel for the music I like and maybe get turned on to some new bands I should be able to do it without the police comeing and locking me away. They shouldnt put a cyber cop into all of the computers sold in the U.S. Also , if they are worried about music piracy then make MP3 players and MP3 to WAV converting programs illegal. After all what good is 10 gigs of music if you cant listen to it anywhere but on a computer??

Also it would outlaw any OS that didnt comply with the policeware programming. So, in the event the law gets passed if Linux and Unix refuse to incorporate it into their code useing thoes OS will become illegal as well!! How grim would the computerworld be if the ONLY OS we could use was Windows??

Yes if I copy your artwork and sell, distribute or publicly display it without your permission thats a civil penalty.
Massed produced items like CDs, Books, Games, ect are protected by piracy laws that do carry criminal penalties as well.

File sharing litigation so far has targeted the providers of the service, not the individuals actually sharing the copyrighted material. The service proveders broke no criminal law because they never touched the merchandise nor charged for it.

From what I get of Hunter's post is that this new law would make it criminal to file-share and that intrusive measures would be implemented in order to enforce it upon individuals.

Taken from link:

Or maybe thats just the limit for ciivil penalties? I dunno. [img]smile.gif[/img]

What concerns me is the spyware aspect that's cleverly danced around.

ooooo...I'm sooooo scared. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

Interesting points all around. I think the key is balance. Copyright protection and priacy laws are vital. People's ability to profit off of their creative work helps, in the aggregate, produce more creative work.

But the technology behind pirating and copyright infringement should not be targetted, nor should the state simply setup blanket piracy filters that, based on some set of generalized criteria seek and destory any potentially piratical material.

The former issue is akin to Federally-mandating low-flow toilets, the latter is akin to posting a DEA agent on every street corner (or a DEA camera on every street corner) to watch for "suspicious" activity.

The former is the instrument of the reactionary state, the latter the instrument of the totalitarian state. We should support neither.

We should also, voiceciferously condemn piracy.

I too like to try music before I buy it. For Example: I downloaded a Steve Vai song that Id never heard before and after hearing it I liked it so much I went out and bought the cd a week later. My being able to download that song acually put money in Vai's pocket. If it werent for me being able to listen to it first.... those are dollars he wouldnt have right now. Same goes for Some Joe Satriani AND Metallica. I listened then bought.

Heres a hypothetical for you all to consider. If I bought a Metallica CD and it was stolen, whoever stole it hadnt legally purchased it. I did. So I am forced to go onto the internet and download music that I had legally purchased. Im not even talking about burning it onto a cd. Im simply talking about having it on my hard drive. Thats illegal?

The US government is getting to be the Big Brother so many of us have feared for so long. They are now becoming notorious for overturning its own decisions to meet its own purposes. They are losing site of what they used to see as Right and Proper and now see nothing but $$$$$ signs.

Sony Betamax case of 1984: the US Supreme court determined that it is not illegal to copy ANY media for PERSONAL USE. You can Copy Copyrighted Material as long as [bold]you do not make any profit from it[/bold]

I can copy the Matrix or Star Wars as many times as I want as long as I dont:
A:) SELL IT or RENT IT
B:) CHARGE ADMISSION TO VIEW IT

Sony got shot down big time in this case and this is what basicly drove the nail into the coffin of the Sony Betamax video cassette player.

People believed that they should be able to make a copy of a tape they had legally purchased in order to have a backup copy of the original.

In reality this law will not work. Somebody will have a hack for this "policeware" within hours of its release. How would they prosecute 100,000,000 TAXPAYING Americans???

Its laughably unrealistic. And what of someone from a foreign country sending an American an MP3 file??? How are they going to police the entire world??? If you think terrorism is bad now... wait until the terrorists get ahold of this and addd it to their fanatical Anti-US sentiment propaganda machines. More fuel for the fire.

Not Good. Not Smart. Not gonna work.

I understand the problem with piracy. IF someone is caught selling bootleg copies of copyrighted material they should be justly punished.

In the other cases where its just Person A sending a song to Person B... what would the fine be??? $14.95??? :D Roughly the cost of the cd?? :D :D

Look over your shoulder... NO DONT LOOK.

Big Brother is watching you.

;)

For your information..
Europe has copywright laws as well, and here you can go to jail for it if you are unlucky and someone bigger then you want to state an example..

One of the big reasons for this push hasn't been about music.It's been about the use of peer to peer file shareing being used as the new way to spread child pornography.At least according to a news program I watched tonight,If this is the case I don't care who gets mad.If it protects even one child from abuse it's worth it IMO.

They also showed a group in england located near scotland yard that is comprised of hackers whose whole purpose was to hack websites in search of copywrighted material and delete it.

[ 06-26-2002, 03:38 AM: Message edited by: sageridder ]