The entertainment industry outsources its dirty work to the US Government
In between fighting the war on terror and subpoenaing your library records, the good folks in the Justice Department are focusing on that hardened band of criminals - folks who trade files on the Internet.
From Declan McCullagh's CNET News.com coverage:
The U.S. Justice Department recommended a sweeping transformation of the nation's intellectual-property laws, saying peer-to-peer piracy is a "widespread" problem that can be addressed only through more spending, more FBI agents and more power for prosecutors.
In an extensive report released Tuesday, senior department officials endorsed a pair of controversial copyright bills strongly favored by the entertainment industry that would criminalize "passive sharing" on file-swapping networks and permit lawsuits against companies that sell products that "induce" copyright infringement.
"The department is prepared to build the strongest, most aggressive legal assault against intellectual-property crime in our nation's history," Attorney General John Ashcroft, who created the task force in March, said at a press conference in Los Angeles on Tuesday afternoon.
And the same friendly people in the entertainment industries are now asking for the Supreme Court to overturn the Grokster case - from Fred von Lohmann's absolutely essential article:
The entertainment industry today filed its petition for certiorari asking the Supreme Court to overturn the Ninth Circuit's ruling in MGM v. Grokster.
The brief makes two things clear.
First, the entertainment industry is plainly mounting a frontal attack on the Betamax doctrine, seeking a radical rewrite of secondary liability principles...
Second, the entertainment industry appears to think that it can treat the Supreme Court and Congress interchangeably in pushing for its preferred re-write of copyright law.
Doesn't our government have anything better to do? Shouldn't the entertainment industry spend more of its time working on quality artistic product or actually taking advantage of new distribution mechanisms to bring down prices? This is getting completely out of hand, in my opinion.
In between fighting the war on terror and subpoenaing your library records, the good folks in the Justice Department are focusing on that hardened band of criminals - folks who trade files on the Internet.
From Declan McCullagh's CNET News.com coverage:
The U.S. Justice Department recommended a sweeping transformation of the nation's intellectual-property laws, saying peer-to-peer piracy is a "widespread" problem that can be addressed only through more spending, more FBI agents and more power for prosecutors.
In an extensive report released Tuesday, senior department officials endorsed a pair of controversial copyright bills strongly favored by the entertainment industry that would criminalize "passive sharing" on file-swapping networks and permit lawsuits against companies that sell products that "induce" copyright infringement.
"The department is prepared to build the strongest, most aggressive legal assault against intellectual-property crime in our nation's history," Attorney General John Ashcroft, who created the task force in March, said at a press conference in Los Angeles on Tuesday afternoon.
And the same friendly people in the entertainment industries are now asking for the Supreme Court to overturn the Grokster case - from Fred von Lohmann's absolutely essential article:
The entertainment industry today filed its petition for certiorari asking the Supreme Court to overturn the Ninth Circuit's ruling in MGM v. Grokster.
The brief makes two things clear.
First, the entertainment industry is plainly mounting a frontal attack on the Betamax doctrine, seeking a radical rewrite of secondary liability principles...
Second, the entertainment industry appears to think that it can treat the Supreme Court and Congress interchangeably in pushing for its preferred re-write of copyright law.
Doesn't our government have anything better to do? Shouldn't the entertainment industry spend more of its time working on quality artistic product or actually taking advantage of new distribution mechanisms to bring down prices? This is getting completely out of hand, in my opinion.
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