Copyright Czars

[owsf2000]

Congrats. The USA now has it's own Copyright Czar for seizing the homes and property of copyright infringers. This will end badly no matter how you look at it. This bill apparently passed the same way the DMCA passed for you guys. It got brought up within a month of a major election and all the politicians pretty much blindly voted in favor of it to avoid having the media tear them apart during the campaign trail. (As it's major media corporations that spoon fed them both bills.)

And of course, the media has almost NO coverage of this important freedom-destroying bill, just like the DMCA.

I can't wait for the inevitable report of someone having their property seized for illegal downloads despite them not having nor ever having had an account with ISP.

Oh sorry. I didn't realize Survivor was on. I'll be quiet.

Comments

[kitten-faust.livejournal.com]

That's not what the IP czar is for. The IP czar is for co-ordinating IP-related issues among different parts of the government. You're talking about the civil enforcement provision which would allow the Department of Justice to litigate on behalf of content owners, which was not part of the version of the bill that was signed by the President.

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

"Still, the final legislation creates new classes of felony criminal copyright infringement, adds civil forfeiture provisions that incorporate by reference parts of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970, and directs the Copyright Czar to lobby foreign governments to adopt stronger IP laws."

Looking over the pdf for the great czar position, I indeed see the references for civil forfeiture. It's there, and it is just as abusable as where it's sourced from (The drug abuse law referenced in the quote)

What it's intended for is irrelevant. It will be abused like all the other corrupt broad sweeping policies/laws enacted during Bush's rein.

[kane-magus.livejournal.com]

I'd like to think that ifwhen Obama wins, he'll man up and try to revert a bunch of the ridiculous shit, generally speaking, that Bush has signed into law (or has simply made defacto pseudo-law through executive orders and whatnot).

Thing is, however, that when it comes to the particular issues of copyright and intellectual property and such, it seems to be Democrats, even more so than Republicans, who tend to bring this shit up and try to strong-arm it through. I'm not saying Obama (with what hopefully will be an incredibly large mandate and the ability to do pretty much whatever he wants otherwise) will definitely go along with this bullshit, but... well, I'm just throwing that out there. Let's just say that I don't foresee any sweeping changes for the better in regards to "digital rights", as far as it concerns huge companies versus the little guy. This is one of the very few issues about which I think that the Democrats, in general and to a larger extent than the Republicans, are pretty retarded.

[owsf2000.livejournal.com]

I'm sure he'll just sign anything his party feeds him through congress personally. He's avoided taking any official stand against the democrat party on these issues already by NOT voting whenever these things came up. That way the things can slide through into law, but he can turn around and say "HEY! ... I didn't vote for that."