Trash illegal downloaders' PCs

Illegally download copyright music from the Internet once, or even twice, and you get a warning. Do it a third time, and your computer gets destroyed.

That's the suggestion made by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at a Tuesday hearing on copyright abuse, reflecting a growing frustration in Congress over failure of the technology and entertainment industries to protect copyrights in a digital age.

The surprise statement by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, that he favors developing technology to remotely destroy computers used for illegal downloads represents a dramatic escalation in the increasingly contentious rhetoric over pirated music.

Protected by anti-hack laws

During a discussion of methods to frustrate computer users who illegally exchange music and movie files over the Internet, Hatch asked technology executives about ways to damage computers involved in such file trading. Legal experts have said any such attack would violate federal anti-hacking laws.

"No one is interested in destroying anyone's computer," replied Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds technology to deliberately download pirated material very slowly so other users can't.

"I'm interested," Hatch interrupted. He said damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights."

The senator, a composer who earned $18,000 last year in song-writing royalties, acknowledged Congress would have to enact an exemption for copyright owners from liability for damaging computers. He endorsed technology that would twice warn a computer user about illegal online behavior, "then destroy their computer."

"If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that," Hatch said. "If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize" the seriousness of their actions.

Urging action

Some legal experts suggested Hatch's provocative remarks were more likely intended to compel technology and music executives to work faster toward ways to protect copyrights online than to signal forthcoming legislation.

"It's just the frustration of those who are looking at enforcing laws that are proving very hard to enforce," said Orin Kerr, a George Washington University law professor and former Justice Department cybercrimes prosecutor.

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the committee's senior Democrat, later said the problem is serious but called Hatch's suggestion too drastic.

"The rights of copyright holders need to be protected, but some Draconian remedies that have been suggested would create more problems than they would solve," Leahy said in a statement. "We need to work together to find the right answers, and this is not one of them."

Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Virginia, urged Hatch to reconsider. Because Hatch is Judiciary chairman, "we all take those views very seriously," he said. But Kerr said Congress was unlikely to approve any bill to enable such remote computer destruction by copyright owners "because innocent users might be wrongly targeted."

Escalating the fight

A spokesman for the Recording Industry Association of America, Jonathan Lamy, said Hatch was "apparently making a metaphorical point that if peer-to-peer networks don't take reasonable steps to prevent massive copyright infringement on the systems they create, Congress may be forced to consider stronger measures." The RIAA represents the major music labels.

The entertainment industry has gradually escalated its fight against Internet file-traders, targeting the most egregious pirates with civil lawsuits. The RIAA recently won a federal court decision making it significantly easier to identify and track consumers -- even those hiding behind aliases -- using popular Internet file-sharing software.

Source: AP, Washington

 

Heh!,

But as reported by Wired

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,59305,00.html

Hatch's WebSite would have been wiped if this were a law.

 

Such as their approach to SPAM,

"Well, as long as the senders have an email to allow the recipient to be REMOVED then its all right! Sure, THAT's reasonable!"

 

SO BASICLY BLAZE SEND MP 3 3 times a small 20 KB FILE TO ALL AND SPREAD IT LIKE A WORM OR MAJOR SPAMING THEN THAT GIVE ME THE RIGHT TO DESTROY ALL COMPUTER BY LEGAL LAW MAWHAAAAAAAAA


I shall rule you all with my iron monkey fist

 

whoa i just read that algain and i read it for what it really is.

To all you newbs heres the newb translation lol

Translation for any one who ever has dowenloaded music movie clips mp3 or pictures jpg's gif' anything that is copyright protected you also fall under this rule.

kiss you pc a** good by

this is very real and this is cause certin congress men that you have elected are geting payd off by the music and movie industry.

the technoligy to destroy your computers in this way is very possiable but no one had the ball$ to use it befor.

and hollywood has enough money to buy them all off.

this is for any one that dowenloads stuff off the net to people useing winmx to any kind of dowenload utlity or shareing application.

i sugest you all start calling some congress people now the last few shi*y laws has past cause every one was just to lazy or the fact that they have kept it a secret to the day they pass the new law.

however this law is so @#%$ that it leaked out and every one is up in arms spread the word

the more people know the more surely it will be shut dowen

see thats how you translate lol

when reading it at first you get the imprestion it just smoke

but so was the p2p hacking law and millinume copright law and now look at them they are very much real laws

now i predict this one will pass inless some one stops the madness lol

 

whoa hey i notice some of my swear words made it threw what gives?

usealy the bord just edits my postings so i never really had to clean up my posts.

this sucks now i have to go back and re edit my foul language im use to being lazy with wilders editing of my colorful language lol

oh well now i have to edit my owen stuff brb

 

there we go now you can use you imagination of bad words i use wondering if some one acidently hit the off switch on wilders censorship auto protection

i bet you it was that lowwater mark guy he looks like a shifty charcter i warn paul about that guy lol

always being a rebel

 

you overheated the de-Blaze-i-lator !

 

LMAO I HAVENT LAUHED THIS HARD IN A LONG TIME

THX GUYS ITS ALWAYS GREAT TO LAUGH