The lot of you should get your panties un-wadded. Even if this bill passes through both houses and manages to get the Presidential signature, it'll never survive judicial review.

And 1Renegade, the only thing your frenzied post was missing was coffee stains to better demonstrate your passion and Marxism.

That this kind of twisted thinking even sees the light of day, let alone is put up as a bill to be voted on, distresses me.

Company A attacks and shreds Company B's computers and network. "We thought they were using an illegal copy of X."
What evidence do you have? "It was on those computers we destroyed." How convienant.

And before you think this is just smoke look who is backing this bastard. "Reps. John Conyers of Michigan, the top Democrat on the full Judiciary committee, Lamar Smith, R-Texas, the chairman of a crime subcommittee, and Robert Wexler, D-Fla." some pretty big heavy hitters. BTW, since when are Demecrats so worried about giant corperations getting hurt? I thought Republicans were the only ones supposed to have friends in the board rooms. Hypocrits. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. This is the media that is getting hurt. Can't have those nice left leaning people hurt.

The best way to attack this kind of proposal is to take the time to write to your member of congress and express your concerns. Since I'm not in the U.S., there's little point in me doing it, but to those of you that are - your member of congress is there to serve and represent you, if you don't make your views known, then you can't expect anything to be done about it. Failing that, there's always the option of dissent. Equal retribution for each machine taken down by MPAA/RIAA hired hackers

AJC

Keep in mind that the Constitution and its amendments only limit the actions of the Government and its agencies. They do no apply to private organizations/corporations. If Congress passes a law that entitles RIAA members to pursue their property when it has been illegally obtained, it won't be unconstitutional unless it involves government agencies.

(For example, the agents of bail bondsmen, a.k.a. bounty hunters, are not limited by the same constitutional prohibitions as police. They can search and seize without a warrant.)

"Legally", the RIAA members are only "pursuing" their property which has been illegally obtained. Their legal copyright may be held to supercede an individual's right to privacy if that individual has already broken the law by illegally obtaining copyrighted materials.

But simply because something is "legal" does not make it either right or just. Write your senator and representative. Send them snail mail and explain your position. (Real letters count, e-mail doesn't.)

If the RIAA really wants to know why sales are down, they should look at the quality of their products. I've bought probably 2 CDs in the last year. Why? Because there's so much CRAP being sold and it isn't worth 15 bucks to find that out. I've gone to listening to Henry Mancini and Harry Belafonte (etc.) albums from the 60s. And I wasn't even alive when they were recorded.

Eventually, if this passes, another organization or person will sue to obtain the same rights as the RIAA. Imagine if those people who are claiming a patent on the JPEG format get those rights and are allowed to go through peoples' computers and delete any JPEG files that they find.

Better yet, let's say that I PERSONALLY manage to sue and get that power and I PERSONALLY have a copyrighted shareware program called "David Bishop's Great Utility.exe" that I think people are pirating (after all, everyone pays for all the shareware on their PC, right). I PERSONALLY send in my letter saying that I am going to release a worm onto a P2P network that will search everyone's PC for the program and if it can't find a valid reg code it will delete the program from the user's PC. But, I am a poor or sloppy programmer. My worm has a bug in it that instead of deleting just "David Bishop's Great Utility.exe" it deletes all files that start with D (d*.*). Sucks for you. Now, let's take it one step further. Hundreds of thousands of people get every file that starts with D deleted from their system by my worm. Thousands go through the process and sue me for damages over $250 (it would probably end up as a class action). When it's all said and done, I can't possibly pay the millions in damages so I declare PERSONAL bankrupcy. Again, sucks for you.

The possibilities are endless.

Dave

Raise a hand, those who would spend more money on entertainment if Sony was allowed to hack P2P networks.

Let's keep this simple.

A really powerful group wants to be immune from punishment when they commit a certain crime. They would not ask unless they plan to commit this crime.

Yes, the peer 2 peer networks are yet another way one can commit copyright violations. But to "disable, block or otherwise impair a publicly accessible network" is a far more serious crime.

I just cannot belive the US. justice dept. will allow such immunity. Especially when they realize this can and will be used by corporation S against corporation M whenever S and M have rival products. S&M already have packs of lawyers fighting eachother all year over codelines, patented functionality and breaches in licences. Systematized piracy.

I am more afraid they will come to a compromise, not quite as serious... But still cutting in on the individual privacy.
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voltball
[slightly paranoid engergysphere]
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Alternatively - when this law is passed, everyone with access to a linux box run this for a while:

ping -f riaa.org



AJC