There is a huge new set of laws being proposed that could drastically affect the way we use our internet. Piracy has been a huge hit for the movie and music industries, the skyrocketing cost of their products had driven hoards of users to try the “free” way of getting it. The companies refused to lower costs and instead went after the copyright infringers, this failed drastically. Later they decided to go after the mediums in which the illegal goods were smuggled with much greater success, but at a price to the active user. See most industry isn’t run by the creators themselves, many of which solely want to get their creations into the world. The actual baggers of the industries run their lives in numbers and they dont care if you enjoy something, they only care if you pay for it. I wont say I condone piracy nor will I say Im against it, I understand the delicate balance of things between profit and pleasure. But every step that has been taken to fight piracy moves closer and closer to a censored and closed internet. Instead of fighting crimes on the base level they decide to take out entire sections, I cant even count how many times I have heard the P2P networks should be banned. The fact of the matter is that it’s not the sites problem, taking them down would be like bombing all of asia to prevent Chinese mafia from getting loose. If they have the power to shut down sites, why not just shut down the files? Instead they want to limit how you can express yourself on what was supposed to be the last free frontier, at some point somebody has to learn not everything is about money. If you dont want piracy fine, go after the pirates…but leave the mediums in which they work alone, its not always used for criminal acts. I digress tho, that is a topic for another day, for now I’ll try to break down some of the new proposed laws facts(find a full layout after the link):

• streaming copyrighted video will become a felony
• devices/software designed to circumvent rights management systems will become illegal and their users subject to criminal offenses
• wiretap authority would be extended to authorities investigating intellectual property crimes
• An increment penalty system for repeat offenders
• raises minimum sentencing for economic espionage and theft of trade secrets to 15-20 years for first time offenders
• something really confusing about free radio air broadcast

I strongly suggest you read the proposed laws, if for nothing else but to feel disgusted that this is the best we can do to fight piracy. If they had only embraced the turn of tech sooner, this kind of mass piracy wouldn’t have stood a chance.

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16 Mar This entry was written by CatastroFUCK and published on March 16, 2011 at 4:00 PM. It’s filed under WTF and tagged angry, anti-piracy, big brother, hacker, internet censorship, movies, music to my ears, the government owns you, this disgusts me. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.