Raúl Santos
This is becoming ridiculous… I’m really short on time so I’m going to copy/paste the article from Slashdot and the first two comments:
A Califorian bill introduced last week would, if passed, expose file-swapping software developers to fines of up to $2,500 per charge, or a year in jail, if they don't take 'reasonable care' to prevent their software from being used to commit crime. C|Net has the story, as well as a link to the actual bill. By the overly broad definition of P2P software, almost any piece of internet software could be liable. This browser is certainly able to download and upload files ('Save as ...' and upload forms). Are Microsoft, Opera and Mozilla.org taking 'reasonable care' to prevent me from exchanging anything illegal? Of course, I never go there, but a friend of my uncle's third cousin's brother told me warez download sites work just fine ...
Pretty funny, huh?
Here’s the two comments, which I found quite interesting:
Representatives of the People, Indeed (Score:5, Insightful) by the_mad_poster (640772) Alter Relationship on Wednesday January 19, @02:42PM (#11407697) (Last Journal: Wednesday January 19, @03:25PM)They ought to just declare HTTP, FTP, UDP, TCP, and IP illegal. After all, they’re used for almost 100% of digital piracy. It would really save the imbeciles that draft laws these days a lot of time and effort if they just took that logical step. It’s not like it would be any significant change from what they’re doing now anyway since they obviously have no clue how the technology they’re drafting against works.
In fact, let’s just declare the intarweb illegal and impose fines for anyone who uses it. Then, we can begin our slow, painful descent into obscurity and technological darkness. It’ll be great when we finally get so anti-progress that we’re back to accusing people of being witches and burning them in the town square again.
Here’s a better idea. People could stop voting for candidates who’s agenda starts and stops with business interests. They could start voting for people who are actually interested in representing the, well, people. They could stop pretending there’s really any such things as a “red” or “blue” state candidate. They could realize that it’s time we purged the whole system and got some new blood in - people who actually care about the country and want to see it succeed.
I’m not holding my breath. Holding your government responsible for being.. well… responsible… is hard work, and a lot of Americans don’t seem to like that. Just maintain the status quo, even though the status quo isn’t really what you think it is anymore.
I don’t normally bite, but I might just make an exception for you.
Re:Representatives of the People, Indeed (Score:5, Insightful) by garcia (6573) * Alter Relationship on Wednesday January 19, @02:49PM (#11407786) (http://www.lazylightning.org/)
If passed and signed into law, it could expose file-swapping software developers to fines of up to $2,500 per charge, or a year in jail, if they don’t take “reasonable care” in preventing the use of their software to swap copyrighted music or movies–or child pornography.
The P2P developers need gun lobbyists on their side! Since when was a gun developed that took “reasonable care” in preventing accidental death? The gun should be able to detect human presence and not fire a round! Yeah, it might cost a lot of money and time to develop that feature but we have to make sure that people don’t use it the wrong way!
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has sought to ban illegal downloading on any state computers, including those owned by the state university systems.
Are they talking about State University networks or just their computers? If I am paying tuition and a technology fee to directly support the network I am using it as an ISP and thus the University network should not fall under this… If I am using a University purchased computer connected to that network then I see no problems with it.
“We’re only asking for reasonable controls. We’re not asking for people to create new technology or recreate the wheel."
What’s “reasonable”? When they realize that the swappers will immediately get around ANY filtering that the P2P apps do will they decide that the rudimentary filters aren’t “reasonable”?
Napster banned individual songs from being traded and everyone started encoding entire albums as a single MP3 to throw them off. People hide, encrypt, and subvert tons of different “safety” measures all the time. When are they going to realize that “reasonable” is more difficult than they believe?
Let the MPAA and the RIAA track down and find the individuals serving these materials up and have them find their REAL NAMES, REAL ADDRESSES, and sue them themselves. I have no problem with them doing some real leg work to get the people at the heart of the issue. I do have a problem with allowing them to just be handed these records by ISPs, etc.
Stop paying off the local/federal governments to pass hasty laws to do your dirty work.
Bill