About a year ago or more, I had occasion to talk with an FBI agent about a company that has, allegedly :), scammed thousands, if not millions of people, out of their hard earned money in a credit card / purchase card scam. The investigation he was conducting, was very time consuming and involved interviewing a LOT of people. I asked him how many people the Bureau had working on the case, and he said that it was just him alone, because with all the "terrorism" concerns, the agency didn't have that many people to work a lot of the cases like they should. This case involved average people allegedly (many were older individuals, some were blind, disabled people) scammed out of a lot of money.

Now, when we read about agents working on copyright infringement cases like this, it brings to mind some obvious questions.

I. Has the "Terrorst" threat diminished so much?
The President in his State of the Union speech, talked about the terrorism threat
as a continuing, serious menace. He even got into talking telling athletes not to take steroids (I understand that when he talked about the Patriot act, the TV camera panned to show a Patriots football team player). The news would say, no, we still are under this "terrorist threat".

II. Is copyright infringement now such a threat to the public at large,
that we need to dedicate valuable and scarce federal bureau of investigation
agents to hunting down and arresting people?

This one baffles me. There are definitely crimes that we need to worry about
that affect thousands or millions of citizens, either by way of putting their
lives or health at risk, or which rob them of their savings. These matters DO
warrant concern by the FBI, and public policy SHOULD support investigation and
prosecution of these things.

Corporate heads who, through wrongful acts, these people need to be investigated
and arrested and tried. Corporate structures that have, through their accounting
procedures, have (allegedly) fraudulently ripped off poor old people who depend on their savings or stocks to live on, these situations need to be handled.

There are lots of situations around the country that do deserve FBI action and resources, but COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT? How many people are in the hospital or dying as a result of "Copyright Infringement"? How many people have lost all of their financial resources because of "Copyright Infringement"?

III. What is the message that is being given out by making "Copyright Infringement"
of copyrighted material of Big companies, such a priority?

I made the distinction that the FBI is acting on behalf of companies with a lot of money, because, I can guarantee you that, even though I am a registered copyright owner of various copyrights, the FBI would not be committing these kind of resources on my behalf (or George's or Leflaw's) for any allegations by us that someone may have violated our copyright by making unauthorized copies.

What the message seems to this writer to be is, "Don't mess with Big Media...signed, the Government". It appears that the government is acting as the enforcement arm of Big Media, and since you and I pay the freight for this, it seems that this is a questionable use of limited law enforcement resources, especially, since the effects of some guy, getting a movie screener, certainly do not seem to have much impact on the public at large.

IV. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS USE OF GOVERNMENT RESOURCES?
We keep being told that our government is SUPPOSED to be responsive to our needs and concerns. Are we, as a nation, so damaged by "copyright infringement"?
There needs to be some sort of national accounting by our senators and representatives, on why there is such an unhealthy concern, preoccupation, and even, obsession, with a matter with such limited harm to the public at large, focused on at the expense of more pressing issues, with greater import.

This headlong, madness about copyright infringement being extremely high on our national law enforcement agenda, smacks of the kinds of globalist agenda promoted by poeple such as the MIT professor Lester Thurow, and not, as a reflection of a true mandate from the public.

This madness needs to stop!

[My opinion alone, and not necessarily the reflection of this site's opinion or stand on this issue]
~Code

Code I agree with you 100%. It's sickening that big business can weild so much power and influence. It's worse than the days of the big trust's in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that Teddy Roosevelt had to break up. Boy could we use him today.

BTW code I emailed you about a picture I need for my project. just curious if you have it

Just another day at the races for the FBI. They are controlled by politicians who make them do what they want.

Some history on this, when Herbert Hoover was head of the FBI he had a campaign against communists while ignoring the mafia. Why? because the mafia had pictures of him in womens clothes and having sex with his male partner. In the 50s that was a no-no.
I expect to get worse before it gets better.

usual 100% agreeing...

Makes one yearn for the good old days of sailing the seas looking for plunder.

comp..will check in a bit...affairs of daily living pressing on me today...

You've nailed that one, Code. I have several responses.

(1) Software companies are rushed to market. Putting out a product before debug. This kind of prototype should not charge the users until the errors are worked out. That's bad enough, but when the community good guys find backdoor security holes, they bring it to the attention fo the company and get arrested for violating the DMCA!! Whereas reverse engineering is protected by law. That's how innovation marches forward. The corporations should not be allowed to use tax dolars to hire the FBI for priavte police work.

(2) The FBI is still a disaster. They have an old saying, "Real men don't type." I won't dwell on the information coming out about Deputy Dawg missing the prior warnings about 9/11 attacks. It is impossible to convert the old J. Edgar Hoover system of filing cards to a nation-wide computer database. If you seek Freedom of Information facts on the JFK assassination, you would have to know that Hoover filed it in the "Vietnam file." True story folks.

The FBI spent its time surveilling the sex lives Groucho Marx, the McGuire sisters, Joe Dimaggio, Frank Sinatra, and Esthes Kefhauer, all for purposes of blackmailing politicians.

(3) In that light, Gigi Sohn and Rep. Rick Boucher have sent strong letters questioning the "educational efforts for FBI agents" that Lamar Smith has included in his ACCOPS Act. Educate what exactly? Do you just haul away someone's computers and keep them? How would you tell legitimate files from otherwise??

(4) Another provision calls for empowering Border Patrols and Coast Guard to confiscate materials. As Public Knowledge.org proclaims, different nations have different copyright regulations. And who would want a Texas Ranger in Lubbock Texas confiscating your DVD player.

For christ's sakes, the Budget Omnibus Bill will implode anyway, even without adding these tax burdens for Kopyright Kops. One has to ask, how does a regional FBI Mormon director respond when an alarm goes out proclaiming "Big bust going down in the Little Red Kindergarden. Rally your dogs and men, be there with guns drawn." Don't they have better things to do? (Like go to doughnut shops?)

Its kinda stupid really, but the fbi has been going after people committing commercial copyright infringement on this scale for some time.
The nature of this screener guy's crimes is far different than that of say, you or me downloading a song for sampling, remixing, or the innocuous purpose of personal use.
unlike us, this guy WAS COMPETING WITH THE INDUSTRIES BY MASS PRODUCING PHYSICAL PRODUCTS and i dont think he paid for all that equipment if he werent selling the movies for a net profit somewhere.
Fair use guidelines are clear against profiting at a holder's expense by mass producing his works. This is quite different from the sharing that i defend and quite frankly i think the guy had it comming.

what is going on, as anyone who has taken any form of econ or business will know, is the contract between the public and the copyright industry is incomplete, and we have hit a gap.. that is why this site exists.
both sides are now rushing to get the gap filled, each in THEIR favor. sooner or later there will be a moderate solution, but the tugging will continue for some time.

Speaking of copyright BS (or at least MPAA bs, which this does not involve)

I just installed a DVD drive for someone and cannot play her only DVD on it because I do not have a "Region One" DVD player. This player is a "Region 6." Would somebody like to enlighten me before I flip out?

I apologize for being off topic.

The Regions basically are country codes
so that you can't buy a DVD in one country and play it in a DVD player in a country with a different country code

http://www.dvdadept.com/DVD_Regions.asp
DVD regions are defined as:
Region 1 - 1: U.S., Canada, U.S. Territories
Region 2 - Japan, Europe, South Africa, and Middle East (including Egypt)
Region 3 - Southeast Asia and East Asia (including Hong Kong)
Region 4 - Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean
Region 5 - 5: Eastern Europe (Former Soviet Union), Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia
Region 6 - Peoples Republic of China
Region 7 - Reserved
Region 8 - Special international venues (airplanes, cruise ships, etc.)

http://www.laserrot.com/info/lrinfo/dvdmap.html

http://www.dvdregionmaster.com/

http://www.codefreedvd.com/dvd_dvdregionlockingexplained.htm

Thanks code. Unfortunately I either don't know how to use RegionMaster (doesn't seem hard), or else the player is permantly "Region Zero" because that's what is checked and grayed out. Thanks for educating me, however.

Well, I got it's marked region one now. Still no luck. F the mpaa.

DMCA has also locked up zillions of photographs, many of a historical nature from about 1922 on...I'm sure this has been mentioned here before, but this copyright thing has gone crazy, just to serve big companies. Bill Gates is drooling over his Corbis enterprise in order to make even more money.

I'll say it again...copyrights are to protect rightful owners from others PROFITTING (sorry, no italics)...not from merely using, listening etc. If you are making money off of someone else's work, you should pay. "Fair use" seems to be out the window...

Truly pathetic, great article Code. Has anyone else noticed that most politicians nowadays completely refrain from using lines such as "for the people" and "by the people"? Perhaps its just me........

suikiogiaz,

Everybody except arnold. He said it =)

Great article Code. & thanks for your help earlier.

no problem..TheSherminator...an older player may be hardwired not to play anything out of region 1 and you may just be stuck....sorry

RingdemBells rings the bell!

Shmoo

** . . . when Herbert Hoover was head of the FBI . . . ** -- surfside6

Er . . . Herbert Hoover was President at the time of the infamous stock market crash of '29, and the Great Depression which followed led to his being voted out of office in 1932. (And during that period, the recording industry almost got wiped out entirely -- and there was no Internet or Napster of iTunes or whatever back then. But if there were an RIAA back then, they would likely have strongly lobbied to outlaw portable record cutters on a scale similar to their war against the radio industry in that whole timeframe.) The FBI director in question was J. Edgar Hoover who served from 1924 to his death in 1972 (he passed away not long after "phonorecords" started carrying the "circle P" symbol).