[TriLUG] (Slightly OT)New Bill in Congress would make file-swapping a felony

Greg Brown gregbrown at mindspring.com
Thu Jul 17 11:55:21 EDT 2003


Not to split hairs here BUT the proposed clearly states that:

"For purposes of section 2319(b) of title 18, the placing of a 
copyrighted work, without the authorization of the copyright owner, on 
a computer network accessible to members of the public who are able to 
copy the work through such assess shall be considered to be 
distribution, during a 180-day period, of at least 10 copies of that 
work with a retail value more than $2500."

By US standards, that is a good law.  It is totally incomprehensible, 
can mean 50 different things depending on how you read it,  and will be 
argued over and over in courts for years to come.

I don't agree with it, however.

But, from what I understand, it would NOT be a felony to purchase a CD, 
make 10,000 copies of it, and pass them out in Grand Central Station.  
That would be just a *normal* copyright violation.  But if I take the 
same CD, DD it into a ISO, and place it on the Internet, then that is a 
felony.  However, perhaps if I place my entire CD collection on my work 
network that is okay, because it is not accessible by members of the 
public - but could be considered *normal copyright violation*.

This is a worthless law.

And yes, copyright violation is a crime.  But Tanner had a good point: 
there are plenty of non-violent offenders in California who are doing 
life for things that aren't even felonies in states of than California 
so why tag felonies on the records of these offenders?  Every job 
application you would ever fill out from that point forward in your 
life you'd have to check 'convicted felon' in that little box.  And 
forget about getting a passport, obtaining one would be nearly 
impossible.  Likewise for owning a gun, if that's your thing.

In this case the punishment truly does not fit the crime.

Yuk.  Write your congressman to throw this fish back.

Greg










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