Anti-Copy Bill Slams Coders

[Elektro]

"My vision is very negative there, so I don't know, if you really wanna hear it. My general feeling is, that computers are doing more harm than good... And now look what happened. Pretty soon we'll have numbers tattoed on our forehead... I see computers bringing closer and closer the day of the Big Brother concept, where government can control every aspect of your life, because you're on the computer."

Jay Miner

[Blitter]

It's FUD and that's it.  I'm the devils advocate most of the time, nut this is just plain FUD.

Blitter

[boing]

For the guy who asked what Peter's Principle was (do a web search) it's a phenomenon where people get promoted to their maximum level of incompetence.

 If a guy is good at something, supposedly he's more likely to get promoted (after office politics).  And if he's good in his new position, he'll be promoted on and on.  Till he's put in a position that he does not excel in.  And because he's not good at it, he never get promoted out of there.   So he continues in that role, being inadequate and generally making everything worse, which in turn affects other things  that rely on his job.

 It's a generalized phenomenon that appplies to business, government, media, etc.

BTW if anybody doesn't know, the FLAT model for these forums is the one that seems to work best.  Otherwise you might "miss" postings.

[Quixote]

@Weasel:

...i know that I would never buy all the cd/movies/software that i have downloaded.  i have some stuff i tried once and never touched since (photoshop, ms office amongst others)...

:-? It occurs to me that all too many people have done just as you have, and that this sort of casual reproduction of others' intellectual property, just because the hardware allows you to, is why congress is trying to legislate physics so that newer hardware won't let you do it anymore.  They can't succeed, of course, but they'll keep trying.  And we'll lose more and more freedoms along the way.

:evil: It could be argued that casual pirates have no one to blame for this bill but themselves.  The rest of us, on the other hand, can blame it all on you.

[whabang]

Me have a small memory in the back of my mind, of Sony trying to stop all those copy protected CD's poping up everywhere. Something about that everything with the "Compact Disc - Digital Audio" label on it has to playable on all players. Not just the audio ones...

[Weasel]

People do it because it is free (casual reproduction of others' intellectual property). I like free stuff , dont you?

So if I have made an mp3 of a cd I bought and am telling people 'listen to this , i like this' then i am an evil industry/artist damaging pirate ? Well , I actually dont care about that.Maybe others will like it and maybe too buy the actual cd.

I have a friend that used to download complete albums, burn them to cd-audio and sell them (including the paper bits) but lately he finds it is too much trouble for too little money , because people will now just download it themselves .( a pirate going out of bussines because of piracy :-))
I would rater have the industry devellop a superior media carier (dvd-audio or better, surround sound etc.) and let people download the inferior quality mp3 for free (112/128 kbit stereo)

the goverment will take this stuff if they believe this is good for the economy or people want it , but the record/software industry is lobying very hard with impressive looking reports to support it.

[redrumloa]

"A bill introduced this week by Sen. Fritz Hollings (D-South Carolina) would roil the electronics industry by forcibly embedding copy protection into all digital devices, from MP3 players to cell phones, fax machines, digital cameras and personal computers.

WTF are these people smoking? Personal computers? If I want to make a freeware game for a C= Pet I have to get approval on COPY PROTECTION from the feds? Copy protection on a freeware game for a C=Pet? Up theirs!!

This will never fly. The feds would have to buy and understand every platform ever made. Good luck on them tracking down all of them.

[AmiGod]

Elektro,

Pretty soon we'll have numbers tattoed on our forehead

Or barcodes like in Dark Angel.

AmiGod

[AmiGod]

Red,

Your message brings up a valid question.  You talk about coding for the PET.  Considering WIndows has a 95% hold on the market, and MacOS has the other 5%, I wonder if non-standard computers and operating systems would wind up being banned in the end.

This new law states that all software will have to go through the Government.  If it's impossible to incorporate their copy-protection code into a computer's software, all programmers for this computer and/or software would automatically be in violation of the law.

And I doubt that they'll try to learn every platform and OS out there.

So in the end, only Apple and Microsoft would truly benefit from this law.  Everyone else will either be eradicated, or be forced to work illegally.  The new Underground Railroad. :-)

I'm just glad that Aminet's original site isn't located in the US, and I hope that up here in Canada, we won't be copying this law in any way.

AmiGod

[theTAO]

> Your message brings up a valid question. You talk about coding for
> the PET. Considering WIndows has a 95% hold on the market, and
> MacOS has the other 5%, I wonder if non-standard computers and
> operating systems would wind up being banned in the end.

I was reading about this bill last year, when it was called the SSSCA.  I haven't followed it for a while so I'm not sure what changed, besides the name.

IIRC, there is a cutoff date involved as to the manufacture of the hardware, which would almost certainly render the PET exempt.  That was one of the main arguments against the bill...that if it was passed, people would stop buying new computer hardware, new CD players, DVD-players, etc.  If you think a 9-year-old Amiga 1200 has no more life in it, just wait until this bill passes!

Where this law really crosses the line is with open-source software, which it would almost certainly render illegal.  Since the source code is always available and there's no way to insure that it's always compiled with the copy-protection code intact, I don't see another alternative. :-(

I believe that voting this bill down isn't enough.  Senator Hollings must be run out of office, then tarred-and-feathered (or perhaps the other way around ;-) for his "kindly" actions on behalf of the American people.  Only then do we stand a chance of of preventing another lapdog from taking his place.

Todd

[Elektro]

Yeah but ppl will still say: "But we have nothing to hide!" "You watched too much Star Trek!" "You're paranoid!"

Ppl are fu... dumb.  :evil:

[Rodney]

It seems to me this could go as far as running Javascript in a webpage. Which is of course completly stupid!

BTW - if this does happen, and all operating systems are required to have a form of copy protection, it could makes Amiga Inc licence look the normal. And since everyone has to do it, it would be no disadvantage not to do it on Amiga Incs terms.

Interesting.

[samdu]

Having been born and raised, and currently residing in the great state of South Carolina, I for one am casting my vote against Fritz. He's been in office too long anyway. He AND Strom have got to go. And Governor "Goober" Hodges, too. Man, the politics in this state suck.

-Sam

[System]

This is just choice! I believe a house full of apes could run our gov't better than we can! Next thing you'll know is they will require folks who use sign language to include a copyright statement into their conversation!

[aMIGA_dUDE]

Well lets take this to extream is sillyness.  Next time you lissen to the radio before they start playing a Britney Spears tune something like this, just in case somebody was going to recored it.

"Britney Spears is tradmark of woman how looks like Rag Doll, it has regisation in classes 1,4,5,6,7,21. This is copyrighted by %1 of population who own 99% of world inc.  Voices are copyright by Tone Deaf inc. etc. etc."