From slashdot: An anonymous reader writes "Representative Lamar Smith is sponsoring the Intellectual Property Protection Act. The new bill is designed to give the Justice Department 'tools to combat IP crime' which which are used to 'quite frankly, fund terrorism activities,' according to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Among the provisions is lowering the standards for 'willful copyright violation' and increasing the corresponding prison term to 10 years." More information is also available at publicknowledge.org.

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Congress readies new digital copyright bill

By Declan McCullagh
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: April 23, 2006, 6:00 AM PDT

For the last few years, a coalition of technology companies, academics and computer programmers has been trying to persuade Congress to scale back the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Now Congress is preparing to do precisely the opposite. A proposed copyright law seen by CNET News.com would expand the DMCA's restrictions on software that can bypass copy protections and grant federal police more wiretapping and enforcement powers.

The draft legislation, created by the Bush administration and backed by Rep. Lamar Smith, already enjoys the support of large copyright holders such as the Recording Industry Association of America. Smith is the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives subcommittee that oversees intellectual-property law.

Smith's press secretary, Terry Shawn, said Friday that the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006 is expected to "be introduced in the near future."

"The bill as a whole does a lot of good things," said Keith Kupferschmid, vice president for intellectual property and enforcement at the Software and Information Industry Association in Washington, D.C. "It gives the (Justice Department) the ability to do things to combat IP crime that they now can't presently do."

During a speech in November, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales endorsed the idea and said at the time that he would send Congress draft legislation. Such changes are necessary because new technology is "encouraging large-scale criminal enterprises to get involved in intellectual-property theft," Gonzales said, adding that proceeds from the illicit businesses are used, "quite frankly, to fund terrorism activities."

The 24-page bill is a far-reaching medley of different proposals cobbled together. One would, for instance, create a new federal crime of just trying to commit copyright infringement. Such willful attempts at piracy, even if they fail, could be punished by up to 10 years in prison.

It also represents a political setback for critics of expanding copyright law, who have been backing federal legislation that veers in the opposite direction and permits bypassing copy protection for "fair use" purposes. That bill--introduced in 2002 by Rep. Rick Boucher, a Virginia Democrat--has been bottled up in a subcommittee ever since.

A DMCA dispute
But one of the more controversial sections may be the changes to the DMCA. Under current law, Section 1201 of the law generally prohibits distributing or trafficking in any software or hardware that can be used to bypass copy-protection devices. (That section already has been used against a Princeton computer science professor, Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov and a toner cartridge remanufacturer.)

Smith's measure would expand those civil and criminal restrictions. Instead of merely targeting distribution, the new language says nobody may "make, import, export, obtain control of, or possess" such anticircumvention tools if they may be redistributed to someone else.

"It's one degree more likely that mere communication about the means of accomplishing a hack would be subject to penalties," said Peter Jaszi, who teaches copyright law at American University and is critical of attempts to expand it.

Even the current wording of the DMCA has alarmed security researchers. Ed Felten, the Princeton professor, told the Copyright Office last month that he and a colleague were the first to uncover the so-called "rootkit" on some Sony BMG Music Entertainment CDs--but delayed publishing their findings for fear of being sued under the DMCA. A report prepared by critics of the DMCA says it quashes free speech and chokes innovation.

The SIIA's Kupferschmid, though, downplayed concerns about the expansion of the DMCA. "We really see this provision as far as any changes to the DMCA go as merely a housekeeping provision, not really a substantive change whatsoever," he said. "They're really to just make the definition of trafficking consistent throughout the DMCA and other provisions within copyright law uniform."

The SIIA's board of directors includes Symantec, Sun Microsystems, Oracle, Intuit and Red Hat.

Jessica Litman, who teaches copyright law at Wayne State University, views the DMCA expansion as more than just a minor change. "If Sony had decided to stand on its rights and either McAfee or Norton Antivirus had tried to remove the rootkit from my hard drive, we'd all be violating this expanded definition," Litman said.

The proposed law scheduled to be introduced by Rep. Smith also does the following:

• Permits wiretaps in investigations of copyright crimes, trade secret theft and economic espionage. It would establish a new copyright unit inside the FBI and budgets $20 million on topics including creating "advanced tools of forensic science to investigate" copyright crimes.

• Amends existing law to permit criminal enforcement of copyright violations even if the work was not registered with the U.S. Copyright Office.

• Boosts criminal penalties for copyright infringement originally created by the No Electronic Theft Act of 1997 from five years to 10 years (and 10 years to 20 years for subsequent offenses). The NET Act targets noncommercial piracy including posting copyrighted photos, videos or news articles on a Web site if the value exceeds $1,000.

• Creates civil asset forfeiture penalties for anything used in copyright piracy. Computers or other equipment seized must be "destroyed" or otherwise disposed of, for instance at a government auction. Criminal asset forfeiture will be done following the rules established by federal drug laws.

• Says copyright holders can impound "records documenting the manufacture, sale or receipt of items involved in" infringements.

Jason Schultz, a staff attorney at the digital-rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says the recording industry would be delighted to have the right to impound records. In a piracy lawsuit, "they want server logs," Schultz said. "They want to know every single person who's ever downloaded (certain files)--their IP addresses, everything."

CNET News.com's Anne Broache contributed to this report.

I think I'll have to change my name to CopyrightLawSucksEvenMore if this legislation passes. What a bunch a horse shit! (I was going to say manure, but I didn't want to complment this legislation in any way).

yikes...

WTF (Understatement of the century)

Guys, for anyone who doesn't think that the U.S. isn't really becoming a police state, just read this article again. This isn't fucking tinfoil hat shit.

1st thing that comes to mind when I see this shit is this: Remember the INDUCE ACT that we helped put the hell down.

THERE IS NO BETTER REASON TO LITERALLY BOYCOTT, AND ONLY TRANSFER INDIE MUSIC THAT IS ALLOWED BY THE ARTIST.

Regardless, this bill must NEVER pass in any way shape or form, WHERE IS HR. 107? WHERE is Rep Baucher?

I'll let some other people speak for me on this, because I just kind of woke up, and am enjoying a few cups of coffee, I don't need to get stressed out this early in the day.

"We need to work on real issues like $3-$4 gas and gettimg Adolph Bush out of office we need to recall that bastard."

"We don't have to take this lying down. Why do you think the government is so hell bent on spying on us all and taking away all our rights? We all know why the shadowy figures behind bush push this legislation at him to be pushed at congress, it's to milk us for every last dime they can get from us and put us in jail if we fail to cough up enough. But the reason they want to spy on us, and subjegate us, and constantly lie to us is because we really do have the power to overthrow them and change our government for the better. Yes, we could do it violently I'm sure, but a much more efficient way would be to simply vote them out! Teddy Roosevelt started his own political party around the turn of the century because big business had become so powerful and oppressive that it was destroying our democracy and degrading the quality of life of a large number of americans. They were selling watered down axle grease (which was white) to people and calling it milk, and noone was there to stop them. People got fed up and they changed things for the better, by ignoring the republicans and the democrats and following teddy and his "bull moose" party. Let there be no doubt that we are in a similar situation today, and if we vote in democrats instead of republicans we are only playing along with the game of the powerful and falling right back into the same old trap. Their policies are actually very similar in the end, they only seem different on the surface. What we need to do is stop voting for democrats or republicans because they tell us it's the only way, but to think for ourselves and vote our conscience. I personally think the green party is a good choice, and if we vote in independent candidates or candidates which are not beholden to the democrat or republican money machines, then their power will be broken! We can do it, we just have to believe it and then follow through with it. If we couldn't do it, then they would have no reason to fear us, to spy on us, or to take away our rights."

http://news.com.com/5208-1028-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=16286&messageID=139473&start=-1

I will say something tho:

If and when this shit gets to the Senate floor, EVERYONE, and I mean EVERYONE needs to call in and protest, and get everyone you know to protest this SHIT, and make sure it gets on every website on the internet that you can get it posted on, this needs to be killed, it needs the awareness of the Sony DRM rootkit AND EVEN MORESO, who the fuck do these bastards think they are?

Here we go again. Everyone remember the FASCIST Intellectual Property Hitler STyle legislation that steamrolled through congress in 2004 and nearly passed. The induce, the Intellectual Property Protection Act, the PIRATE act, the PDEA which were all Fascist Intellectual Property Media Cartel created legislation in 2003 and 2004. In 2004, those nasty pieces of FASCIST legislation snuck far through congress and neraly passed!! Thanks god they didn't.

Now, the HEARTLESS, FASCIST RIAA/MPAA Media Cartels are at it again in 2006. This nasty legislation is all propsoed and hasn't made it anywhere through congress yet. It is time to act now and ensure such draconian legislation doens't make it anywhere through congress!!!

And to TrueAudio. Your last paragraph is exactly correct. This news needs to get on every website on the Internet so the word is out to oppose such FASCIST measures. It needs to happen now before this legislation makes it anywhere through congress.

WAKE UP EVERYONE!! We must stand up and ensure such FASCIST legislation doesn't make it anywhere through congress before it gets too far and devestatinginly passes!!! I am totally serious. SPread the word now to ensure that such legislation won't pass!!!

Anyone surprised that one of Smiths' top corporate donors is the Movie/Recording industry?

http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/indus.asp?CID=N00001811&cycle=2006

Scumbag.

Of course I am not surpirsed. What's interesting to note is that they are ot #1 on that list. I would think that they would be #1 on the list. Instead, they are #6, which is below the #4 COmputers and Internet.

Either way, Lamar Smith is a HEARTLESS, FASCIST, ASSHOLE!!!

Remember the article "Music industry to surrender to Apple"

Hmm maybe we should all write to Steve Jobs and try to convince him to "make them surrender" their idea about the DMCA (to the power of 50). Someone like that has the money to actually wage a war against the MAFIAA (Music and Film Industry Association of America) in congress, I'd love to see it.

More realistically however, the only person I can think of off that has the financial power to directly go to bat for freedom from DRM, TCPA, and criminalazation of just owning a computer basically, is Mark Cuban, seriously. Mark Cuban is the ONLY Billionaire that I know of that is ANTI-DRM. If you recall, he helped fight the Induce Act (IIRC).

Btw, many have said (and in fact probably were in fact correct) that the real reason why INDUCE didn't pass, was because enough heavyweight tech companies fought against it in Washington, (which is really sad if you think about it, basically it means that average Joe's bitching didn't really do anything, which is totally contradictory to "Government by the people, for the People, and of the People").

"Mavs owner Mark Cuban receives numerous fan e-mails each day, and to recognize fans for giving him their thoughts and questions, the club has created an "e-mail of the day" so everyone can read the questions and responses.

To send an e-mail, click Mark Cuban E-mail

If you prefer that we contact you by phone, please include your telephone number."

mark.cuban@dallasmavs.com

http://www.nba.com/mavericks/mailbox/email_mark.html

Everyone could also write to Gary Shapiro, CEO of the CEA (Consumer Electronics Association), besides your state reps and so forth (thats common sense anymore).

They can't put this country in a fucking box, after all, they will have to live in their own shit world themselves that they create (which is the part that really makes no sense to me, even if they are the ones in power--I wonder how they brainwash thier own kids?)

Now for a religious viewpoint:

I think that in many cases, the best thing one might do to help this country, is to pray for it, not figuratively, literally. I'ts not normally something I'd bring to the forefront on a website such as this that is not religious oriented in any way. But these are serious times, and I look at it this way.

Our Foundings Fathers were biblie believing Christians, who founded and framed the constitution on the infallability and perfect judgement of God's laws, the laws that frame everything in existance, from Physics, to Biochemistry, to Quantum Mechanics, to Free will and the ability to choose evil or good.

I believe that this country has had its success from the fact that it was built upon truth, and divine inspiriation and guidance. I do not believe that corruption can PERSISTENTLY prevail indefinitely, because it is built in to be destined to fail. It reaps what it sows, one way or another. While God make care absolutely nothing about man made things like copyright, and man made laws, and man made technology and so forth, I do NOT believe that he intends for us to be STRIPPED of the freedoms that are part of the INALIEABLE RIGHTS that are the result of bible believing men who helped create the very country BASED on their beliefs which you have enjoyed your entire life. I will close with one last thing:

"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing."
-Edmund Burke

I know everyone loves their favorite, possible 2008 Presidential Candidate:


Rank 1
TV/Movies/Music:
Clinton, Hillary Rodham (D-NY)
Senate
$422,970

Rank3
Computers/Internet:
Clinton, Hillary Rodham (D-NY)
Senate
$126,677

Lawyers/Law Firms:
Rank 1
Clinton, Hillary Rodham (D-NY)
Senate
$1,800,406

Why don't we just have the death penalty for those who commit copyright infringement?

Seriously, with the ways things are going, you could possibly commit serious drug offenses or (god forbid) murder, and you would get a much lighter sentence.

Of course, the RIAA and its drones have also been the ones labeling illegal music downloaders as "economic terrorists" who are a threat to the economy and society...

"the new language says nobody may "make, import, export, obtain control of, or possess" such anticircumvention tools if they may be redistributed to someone else."

1st Constitutional Amendment violation right there, that would mean that SOURCE CODE, i.e. TEXT of Anti-DRM tools becomes a federal offense to send or even POSSESS.

Sorry FREE SPEECH prevails, and most Americans would fight to the death literally to preserve this freedom, when it gets to the point that in fact it "is in your face" real.

"the new language says nobody may "make, import, export, obtain control of, or possess" such anticircumvention tools if they may be redistributed to someone else."

1st Constitutional Amendment violation right there, that would mean that SOURCE CODE, i.e. TEXT of Anti-DRM tools becomes a federal offense to send or even POSSESS.

Sorry FREE SPEECH prevails, and most Americans would fight to the death literally to preserve this freedom, when it gets to the point that in fact it "is in your face" real.

oopps double post

So they are only make this defective law worse. _____ them.

Not only worse, but potentially a heck of a lot worse with new FASCIST like laws with it.

I think we will be ok as long as no new bad laws are passed. Having new good laws passed is a good thing, but it would be better to avoid having bad laws passed at this time.

Remember, it is easier to resits new laws from being passed than to change existing law. That is why it is so important to prevent such FASCIST legislation like this from going through.

IPac: Fight the Hollywood Cartels' Newest Bill

Many of you have seen or heard about the new amendment to the DMCA
being sent to Congress by the Dep. of Justice. We've gotten a copy of the
proposed bill and it's worse than we could have imagined.

This is a concerted effort to escalate Hollywood's war on America by
creating a generation of criminals and sending them off to jail. That's
right: the "Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2006" (IPPA, link to
bill below) would double the authorized prison terms for existing
copyright infringement, create a host of new offenses, and establish a
division within the FBI to hunt down infringers. The Members of Congress in
the pockets of the Hollywood cartels want to divert $20 million a year
and FBI agents from fighting real criminals.

Now is the time to fight back and prevent this from passing. This is
the epitome of bad policy, and it's a direct result of the Hollywood
Cartel's influence in Congress.

You can join the fight by calling your Congress member or your Senator
(links to contact info below). Tell them that you will not vote for
their reelection if they do not publicly denounce this bill. Please take
notes on your conversation -- including the name of the staffer you
talked to -- and post them in the comments section of this post:

http://ipaction.org/blog/2006/04/bill-hollywood-cartels-dont-want-you_24.html

IPac will be making this an issue in the 2006 elections, and we need
your help to do it. Please consider donating or volunteering.

Links:

Donate to IPac:
https://ipaction.org/contribute.html

Call your Senators:
http://senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Call your Rep:
http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml

Volunteer with IPac:
http://ipaction.org/blog/2006/04/want-to-volunteer-for-ipac.html

Read the entire bill here:
http://ipaction.org/media/Draft_DOJ_IP_bill.pdf

Read an article summarizing its provisions here:
http://news.com.com/2100-1028_3-6064016.html?part=rss&tag=6064016&subj=news

"I do NOT believe that He intends for us to be STRIPPED of the freedoms that are part of the INALIEABLE RIGHTS that are the result of Bible believing men who helped create the very country, BASED on their beliefs, which you have enjoyed your entire life."

Bible prophecy predicts an oppressive world government,
which can only occur if national sovereignty is lost or relinquished.

Yes, but that oppressive world government will only come as a result of The Rapture.

But what's to stop those desiring an oppressive world government from manufacturing The Rapture?

"Bible prophecy predicts an oppressive world government,
which can only occur if national sovereignty is lost or relinquished."

True

"Yes, but that oppressive world government will only come as a result of The Rapture."

True also

"But what's to stop those desiring an oppressive world government from manufacturing The Rapture?"

Unknown if that is possible. I know all this, but one has to wonder, if it can be "delayed" on the one hand, on the other hand, I figured that the reality of this stuff truly becoming implemented would only be after the Rapture, when the Anti Christ will be the leader of the one world government, and deceive the nations, appearing to do miracles, having great power, and also posing as the counterfeit saviour/Lamb of God.

The more I think of it, the Beast, as described in the bible, I think may in fact be referring to a *system*, and not necessarily a physical/corporeal sentient being, but it might be that too somehow, who knows.

It's going to be interesting to see the looks on people's faces in grocery stores and retail stores someday when the employees there are going to ask me to use their thumb/hand scan ID/auto bank draw payment system, and I tell them, "No thanks, I don't use the Beast system", to see the look on their face.

If I'm alive when it gets to the point where you will be put to death for refusing to use the system, well, it's not really something I wish to witness in my lifetime to be honest, if I have to die for refusing to accept the Devil, then let eternity begin, and may they find the truth before its too late for them.

By the way --to change the subject
Everyone always refers to 1984 right? Remember this? (1987)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Headroom

"In the end, the series all-too-accurately predicted its own demise. With story lines about TV ratings monitored on a second-by-second basis, and the absolute power of the corporate dollar to control what information does and doesn't get expressed to the people through the media of television, the series was evidently a little too far ahead of its time."

Your television had to be plugged in 24 hours a day 7 days a week, and had to be on, failure to comply with this resulted in death.

"Another shovelful of dirt in the face of liberty's corpse.

The Durants once wrote: "Democracies are but hectic interludes [before dictatorship]."

As we hurtle, head-long, towards dictatorship few seem to even notice.

Woody Allen once said, "Nothing works and nobody cares."

The slow death of freedom, before our passive, apathetic eyes is a fact.

A fact only confirmed by tyranny such as this.

The saddest thing is, we're actually smiling as they fit us for the fetters.

That which a million Americans have died for is slowly evaporating in the strangulation of the bureaucrats and an out-of-control, despotic judiciary.

Our children will not even know the truncated, facade of liberty that we did. The last people to truly know freedom we in the US call "the Greatest Generation." They are in their late 70s and 80s now. 18,000 WWII vets a day die. At least they'll be spared the site of the Dictator whenever he or she actually emerges from the shadows and proclaims his or her right to rule."

-Unknown

Lamar Smith is an idiot and an a$$hole.
I am ashamed he is from my homestate.

The proposals are laughable if the idiots sponsoring them were not dead serious about trying to force them through Congress.

Good quotes TrueAudio...

To paraphrase another quote, all that needs to happen for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing...unless lots of good people do something....the evil that is the RIAA and their lackey, monkey boy Lamar Smith, will win.

Welcome back CodeWarrior. Glad to see you again.

And you are so right. Good people cannot just stand around and do nothing. People must be aware and stand up for their rights and ensure such FASCIST style legislation doesn't make it anywhere through congress!

Everyone of you good politicans in congress and good people wake up!! Pay attention. Be aware of everything happening in congress to ensure this bill doesn't make it anywhere!! Remember the lessons learned from 2004.

STOP such bills from making it anywhere through congress in the first place.

"the new language says nobody may 'make, import, export, obtain control of, or possess' such anticircumvention tools if they may be redistributed to someone else."

This is absurdly general. What is an "anticircumvention tool"? Could it be a computer? A VCR or DVD player with analog outputs? All of these can be used to circumvent DRM and infringe copyright. Who writes these things? I think the strategy of the RIAA/MPAA is just to get draconian laws such as this introduced. It may not pass, or the language may be altered (by legal experts) before it actually gets introduced, but little by little, the RIAA/MPAA hope to chip away at fair use rights, get content locked down, and scare the bejesuz out of anyone who might want to share content. This is a war that will drag on and on for years and I just don't see any resolution. The only hope is that the empowerment of artists by the digital/internet revolution will marginalize the RIAA (and MPAA), so that they lose influence. Also, we need to get younger, more technically-savvy politicians elected.

Code, I believe Lamar is up for re-election in Nov. Get the word out.

I particularly dislike the provision about asset forfeiture. The forfeiture laws in drug cases already allow for your property to be stolen without due process. If you later win your case, too bad your stuff's gone. That's the angle to fight this on: the private harm is MUCH greater than any public good.

So... this bill has not even been introduced yet, much less passed in either chamber of Congress. It's still the legal version of vaporware. Probably a ruse to attract more campaign contributions.

Folks, if the Democrats take control of the Senate, Lamar Smith looses his chair on the IP commitee. (A good reason to vote Democrat for any Senate seats this November.)

That's it; vote the neocon Senators out.

George, you might be right on target with that perspective.