OT: Freedom of expression or the dawn of morality ?

[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by Lord Kodos:
"the Daily Star is a supermarket tabloid where I live; you can also see headlines of three legged people, space aliens, and celebrity infidelity. "

YOU MEAN I CAN HUNT NAKED THREE LEGGED INFIDEL ALIENS?! IM IN!

^__^

No - you can hunt naked three legged celebrity infidel aliens.

[ July 18, 2003, 04:17: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

[Lord Kodos]

This just gets better and better! Dont tell me they are Cyclopsean(sp?) also! ^______^

[narf poit chez BOOM]

and every one of them a descendant of Elvis, to.

[Thermodyne]

Hmm. Looks like the Dems are going to dump on the internet generation.

Quote:
House proposal targets file swappers
By Declan McCullagh, CNET News.com

Peer-to-peer Users who swap copyright files could be in danger of becoming federal felons, under a new proposal backed by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives. Their legislation, introduced Wednesday, would punish an Internet user who shares even a single file without permission from a copyright holder with prison terms of up to five years and fines of up to $250,000.

WRITTEN BY MICHIGAN'S John Conyers, the senior Democrat on the House judiciary committee, the Author, Consumer, and Computer Owner Protection and Security Act (ACCOPS) represents Congress' boldest attempt yet to shutter peer-to-peer networks, which the major record labels and movie studios view as a serious threat.
Currently, under a little-known 1997 law called the No Electronic Theft Act, many P2P Users are technically already violating criminal laws. But if the ACCOPS bill were to succeed, prosecutors would not have to prove that a copyright file was repeatedly downloaded. Conyers' proposal would require them to prove only that the file was publicly accessible.

Other sponsors of ACCOPS are Reps. Howard Berman of California, Adam Schiff of California, Marty Meehan of Massachusetts, Robert Wexler of Florida and Anthony Weiner of New York. No Republican has supported the proposal.

One legal scholar viewed the legislation as an over-the-top measure.

"The business of expanding the criminal law so that making unauthorized personal copies of copyrighted works becomes a criminal violation is overreacting six ways from Tuesday," said Jessica Litman, who teaches copyright law at Wayne State University. "It's exceptional. But that does seem to be what the bill is trying to do."

Litman said that without ACCOPS, copyright infringement currently is "hard to prove because you had to prove that a copy was actually distributed."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group in San Francisco, also criticized the bill. "Jailing people for file sharing is not the answer," said EFF lawyer Fred von Lohmann. "Proponents of this bill are casting aside privacy, innovation and even our personal liberty as collateral damage in their war against file sharing."
end quote:

OK guys (and gals) lets line up and turn yourselvs in now.

[ July 18, 2003, 16:13: Message edited by: Thermodyne ]

[geoschmo]

Originally posted by Thermodyne:
Quote:
House proposal targets file swappers
...

One possible side effect of this I had not considered until I heard it on the radio yesterday is strengtheing these file sharing laws will potentially open up totally innocent people to serious legal penalties. Anyone with any kind of internet access that is not secure, such as a DSL without a good firewall, could be convicted of "file sharing" because software on their machine could be copied even though it's completely without their intent or knowledge.

Scary stuff. It's like being thrown in jail for dealing drugs because someone broke in your house and stole your perscription medication.

Geoschmo

[ July 18, 2003, 16:34: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[sachmo]

http://urbanlegends.about.com/b/a/009351.htm

[Loser]

Originally posted by narf poit chez BOOM:
so, what someone else does is not your business? well, you can, say, try to jump of a bridge all you want, but if i'm there i'm going to try to save you.

take the statement to it's logical conclusion - if what someone else does is not my business, them what that means is that i shouldn't care, at all, about anybody. yes, i know it's a far cry from people's right to a decision, but it's a distinction that needs to be made, firmly.

Gonna hafta argue this one, Hammermaus.

From my years of experience as Patriarch in various houses of young people, I have learned that you cannot save someone that does not want to save their own self. Keeping someone from the accountability that results from their actions only encourages them to take such actions again in the future. You have to let someone deal with the results of the decisions they make. An unaccountable person is powerless, is childish, is almost not a person at all but an animal with remarkable communication skills and personal hygiene (sometimes).

Now there is a scale to this. I am not an Anarchist and I strongly believe in Law (Lawbringer is one of the Four Roles of the Patriarch). There are things people should not be allowed to do, but try to interfere as little as possible, and when you do, make sure it is with great effect. If you're going to save a guy from jumping off a bridge, you'd better make sure he doesn't think it's a good idea in the future. If getting in his head and showing him what the world would be like if he were never born isn't an option, and most of the time it isn't, then maybe beating the snot out of him then and there will create the appropriate association.

Anything you get for free, even protection or salvation, will be regarded as having no worth, this is a tenant of human behavior. This is why 'givers' are so unappreciated in relationships. This is why every religion requires something of its followers to receive the rewards religion offers: sacrifice of possessions (livestock, property, children, money, whatever), discipline of behavior (everything from a vow of silence to "Thou Shalt Not Kill"), and so on. Even the most 'grace focused' of Christian Denominations, who may even believe in 'Security of the Believer' ("Once saved always saved" no matter what you do), need a small offering of will, requiring the supplicant to admit his/her flawed state and inability to apply correction.

Leave people to their own business because you will not always be there to 'solve' their problems.

[ July 18, 2003, 13:17: Message edited by: Loser ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

my view of helping people includes making clear to them the consequences of there actions.

and i don't think beating up a suicidally depressed person is a good thing to do.

i perfer to try to teach people. and i don't think redemption or correction of personal faults comes easy. in fact, i know mine hasn't and i still have a lot of faults.

[Arkcon]

Finally,

web page, Click:

Like we didn't already know.

[Baron Munchausen]

Originally posted by Thermodyne:
Hmm. Looks like the Dems are going to dump on the internet generation.

OK guys (and gals) lets line up and turn yourselvs in now.

Getting ready? They already have, multiple times. The 'Internet Generation' in particular but also every American citizen in general with a computer. The DMCA makes it a crime to own any sort of device that can be used for 'circumvention' of copyright protection. A general purpose computer is already such a device. (But then so is a magic marker, as it turns out... ) The general purpose computer has already effectively been outlawed. It's just a question of when and if they will come to their senses, or enforce the actual meaning of the law they have passed.

This is not new, though. Long before 9/11/2001 there were 'anti-terrorism' laws put on the books that make you legally responsible for any violence committed by anyone who has participated in any 'political event' with you before going off to commit said acts of violence. 1996 I think it was? (I mean, if you hold political views sympathetic to a 'terrorist' cause you must obviously be a terrorist yourself! ) I'd have to look it up in the EFF archives. Congress has been passing stupid laws for generations. There was something called 'Prohibition' in the 1920s. Remember that one?

[ July 26, 2003, 23:37: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]