TheAgitator.com
The Copyright Wars
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008John Cole has the details on a scary new bill from Rep. John Conyers that would “allow the Feds to seize hardware that has even one file coming from ‘dubious origins,’ e.g. downloaded from P2P. If passed into law, the bill would establish an Intellectual Property Enforcement Division within the office of the Deputy Attorney General.” The bill has already passed the House.
Meanwhile, in Canada:
The federal government is secretly negotiating an agreement to revamp international copyright laws which could make the information on Canadian iPods, laptop computers or other personal electronic devices illegal and greatly increase the difficulty of travelling with such devices.
The deal could also impose strict regulations on Internet service providers, forcing those companies to hand over customer information without a court order.
Great, just what we need, another agency within an agency. The Alphabets keep getting bigger and bigger. Feeling safer? On another note, David Olofson has been ordered to prison! Misscariage of Justice!
All your PCs are belong to us.
This is actually extremely scary and really shows the ignorance of elected officials when it comes to technology. P2P programs are a way someone can commit a crime, it doesn’t mean that they alone are a criminal program? That’s like saying “we should be wary of people who drive cars because cars are used for drive by shootings!”
Did anyone actually read Conyers’ bill? There’s not a single mention of P2P or file-sharing anywhere to be found in it. This bill is an attempt address counterfeit goods, trademark infringement, etc. While there may be the possibility for law enforcement to abuse it, it’s clearly NOT intended as a mechanism for agents of the state to seize your shit because you have a bootlegged .mp3 on your computer.
Now if you’re in the habit of producing knock-off DVD’s and such, and using labels identical to the ones you find on legit copies… this bill should worry you.
Yeah, Scott’s right. I mean, we know that the federal asset forfeiture laws have only been used to take the ill-gotten wealth from big-time drug dealers. It’s never a problem to give the government more powers, because experience has shown that they’ll use those powers exactly as intended.
The Canadian law being mentioned is ACTA, and the quote from the original article is slightly misleading–but only slightly.
ACTA is an international agreement (in which the USA is also a potential participant) which grants much broader authority for border guards to search electronic devices.
I haven’t read the actual text of the treaty yet (nobody has provided a link to it, and I haven’t had the time to go searching for it), but from what I’ve gathered, it doesn’t criminalize anything new, but rather specifies that border guards can now look for “illegal copies of IP” the same way that they can look for “more than the legal amount of cheese” when you cross the border into their country.
From everything I know about it, I do not support–nor even condone–the powers this treaty grants. I find it to be a blatant and egregious violation of the 4th Amendment when applied to US citizens and US borders, a large and powerful foothold for abuse, and an insult to the populace at large. But I find it much more appropriate to hate a law (or treaty) for what it *actually* is, rather than what people *think* it is.
A search of the bill for the phrase “dubious origins” came up empty. Can someone clarify where that quote came from?
Is it in the current Code section the bill amends, or is someone engaging in a bit of hyperbole?
Michael, forgive me for reading the bill and noticing a complete absence of the words “file sharing” or “P2P”. Your magical powers of sarcasm have straightened me right out.
how would they determine the copies are illegal? I make copies of my DVDs to take with me when I travel, so if my DVD case (or whole laptop) gets stolen, I don’t lose all my original media.
Where does something like this leave me?
At the same time as Congress is cracking down on individuals for using copyrighted work, they are planning to open the floodgates allowing free commercial use of individuals’ copyrighted material in the form of the Orphan Works Bill of 2008. The porn industry has a phrase that describes that brand of activity. It’s called dou.ble penetration. Of course, when the porn industry does it, it’s consensual. When Congress does it, its involuntary (which under any other circumstances is referred to as gang rape). Nonetheless, the former is vilified as the latter is glorified. It’s the American way.
Close your eyes and think of all the groups of people who have been systematically persecuted at some point in history. Ok, now to that list add independent individuals They would be defined as anyone not protected by a lobbying group wealthy enough to buy protection from their elected representatives (at all levels of government).
Not a day goes by without government proving unequivocally that they are just another incarnation of organized crime. My ambivalence toward the “civic responsibility” of voting is largely due to the fact that its only real function these days is to help support the facade of legitimacy that those sociopathic parasites hide behind. And personally, even if you could convince me it’s true, I wouldn’t give a damn that they’re all a bunch of really nice guys with the best of intentions.
re: David Olofson
What actually happened is that the 7th Circuit denied his motion to stay out of prison while his conviction is on appeal. He likely won’t be in custody until late in the summer due to backlog.
I guess from reading the bill, it seems we did overreact, but the fact we all believed it right away tells you something. We’ve seen the RIAA and MPAA lobbying for crazy laws for years now … we just assumed that the lobbying finally worked.
Dave, I just read up on that Orphan Act.
There is nothing our government does that is not an ebarassment to all things decent and ethical anymore.
to quote Douglas Adams our legislators are “a bunch of mindless jerks who’ll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes”
//At the same time as Congress is cracking down on individuals for using copyrighted work, they are planning to open the floodgates allowing free commercial use of individuals’ copyrighted material in the form of the Orphan Works Bill of 2008.//
I’ve not seen the specifics of the proposal, but something needs to be done to counteract some of the silliness of the 1976 Copyright Act.
Prior to 1976, if I found a picture that I wanted to use for my web page (for example), I could look for a copyright notice. I could then immediately tell:
-1- If the work was less than 28 years old, it was still under copyright.
-2- If the work was more than 56 years old, it was public domain.
-3- If the work was between 28 and 56 years old, I could check for a renewal record at the Copyright office. If none existed, I could know the work was public domain.
The 1976 copyright act changed all that. Assuming no changes to copyright law, suppose someone in the year 2130 finds a picture bearing the notice “Copyright 1978 John Smith”; despite its obscurity (he can’t find any reference in any machine-readable database) he thinks it would make a great background for his web page. Is there any practical means by which he could ascertain the work’s copyright status?
Please note that I’m being generous in assuming the work even has a copyright notice (not required under the 1976 Act). The person who sees the picture in 2150 would be able to tell that it was 152 years old. But public domain? Probably so, but perhaps not. If John Smith created the work when he was 18, and lived to be 101, that would mean the 70-year clock would have started ticking in 2061. The work would thus still be covered under copyright until 2131.
To be sure, it would be unlikely that the John Smith who created the work in 1978 would still have been around in 2061, but how would one find out?
The 20th century is over. 20th century thinking is not. Laws like this only serve to hurt selected unlucky individual people and do nothing to combat piracy. File-sharing technology is way past anything that any agent of force can effectively control.
Do what you want, folks. This is like cavemen fighting shock and awe. The rotters stand no chance. Some people will get hurt needless by these laws, but stastically, we have been 100% free for a few years now. They can’t turn back the clock.
Tangentially apropos:
Meanwhile, those wonderful full-body, let’s-see-you-naked scanners are going into airports.
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080610/ts_alt_afp/ustransportaviationsecurity_080610211153)
Ok, so we have to pay through the nose for our tickets and pay for our baggage, and we’re only allowed one carry-on but we can’t have anything in it, and we’re going to be asked to virtually strip before having to sit in uncomfortable, bored silence for the journey, during which we can pay $5 for mini coke and sorry we don’t have any pretzels.
That’s it. I’m just never going to fly again. I spent the first 20 years of my life criss-crossing the oceans several times a year, perfectly safe, comfortable (except for the smoke), entertained, and in the presence of pleasant staff. Remember coming back to the US and the Immigration officer would say, “Welcome home”? Remember applauding the pilot for a smooth landing?
We’re *thisclose* to being told we have to strip naked and lie on a gurney before they sedate us all on the plane.
I agree with Omar; The reality is that the vast majority of us don’t have to worry about this bill affecting us, but this is an unfortunate occurrence because it exhibits how counterproductive many government actions can be. The truth is this bill will not do anything to significantly combat piracy while it does hurt civil liberties. A simple cost-benefit analysis makes one realize that this is a step in the wrong direction.
Bronwyn, do you ever suspect that maybe your reaction is intended? That perhaps the powers-that-be would be happier if we didn’t move about freely, and in fact became little more than prisoners in our own homes?
Something is happening with regard to this, and we have not yet connected all the dots. I monitor the local news here in my home state of Connecticut, and I can point to two instances in the last year where someone was arrested (one was for risk of injury to a minor that happened as a result of a baby ingesting gardening chemicals, another for possession of allegedly illegal firearms), and in both cases the police confiscated computers in the houses. For some strange reason, when discussing this with my friends/relatives/colleagues, I was the only one who found this disturbing. Much like the PATRIOT Act that was directed at terrorism but allows Big Brother to look at your checking account records, this legislation is simply going to pave the way for increased asset forfeiture and destruction of your right to privacy.
Supercat’s right. The orphan works bill is a good thing. We need more ways to use our cultural heritage. Just because something benefits a powerful force (think the Betamax case) doesn’t mean it harm society.
Bronwyn said: “We’re *this close* to being told we have to strip naked and lie on a gurney before they sedate us all on the plane.”
After the last flight I took (Houston to Phoenix), that would definitely be an improvement. I’m a big guy, 250lbs, 6’2″ tall, and I was sandwiched into the middle seat of the last row. There was a guy bigger than me on my left, and some poor petite woman in the window seat. I felt sorry for her and tried my best not to encroach on her space, but it’s nearly impossible with those teeny tiny seats.
Now, I find myself dreading a company-paid trip to Europe, because I don’t think I can sit in an airplane for 14 hours.
I won’t even go into the security aspects. That’s been covered enough by others.
I think the US domestic air travel industry is headed for a major crash. I don’t know if that’s good or bad yet.
What I find truly amazing is all those who commented (to the orginal link, that is) who clearly voted for Democrats in recent elections, and now go through contortions to somehow rationalize that there’s ‘no difference’ between Democrats and Republicans, so they can feel better about it when they vote Democrat again this November.
What this country needs is on-line voting, and for those rationalizers to have their PC’s seized……just kidding.
It doesn’t work with iPods(yet) but I highly suggest that if you travel with a personal laptop you use some sort of on-the-fly file encryption scheme like TrueCrypt or BestCrypt that allows for “hidden containers”. You can also encrypt your entire system but to me that seems a bit onerous for the average user.
Using TrueCrypt is stupid simple, you set up a file with any extension you like of a fixed size. You then activate the encryption on that file so it acts as a “mountable” secure harddisk (you specify the drive letter). You put all of your sensitive data inside the mounted container. When you are done, or the power turns off, the container “dismounts”. Someone investigating your computer may be able to determine that a portion of it has been encrypted and they will most likely find the (de)encryption software but without the proper password they won’t be able to unscramble the data.
Here is the real beauty though, “hidden containers”. When you encrypt a “mountable container” you specify the size from the get go. Then, all of the available space is encrypted so that someone snooping at the file can’t tell if it’s empty, full, or in between. So, what you do is create a second container within the first. Put your real “sensitive” information in the second container and some misleading but not “sensitive” data in the first container, each with it’s own password. If you are coerced(legally or otherwise) into revealing your encrypted data, you only have to reveal the misleading portion of the container and those doing the coercing cannot prove that there is or is not a second container. They have to take your word that the data you are revealing is the only data in the container.
Usual caveats and disclaimers apply and I am not directly linking there but TrueCrypt is opensource and released under GNU. It also works with Win9x, WinNT/XP, Linux and MacOSX. If you don’t feel comfortable with opensource, BestCrypt is a proprietary closed source, pay for use system but it only works with Win9x and WinNT/XP. I am sure there are others out there if you look. Just make sure that whatever you choose supports hidden containers.
There is no legitimate reason why customs should be searching the contents of anyone’s laptop. The legitimate functions of customs should be to stop smuggling and to stop dangerous items or people into the country. No one is using a laptop to smuggle illegal copies of music or whatever into the country, they just have it on there because thats where they keep their music. Anything can be sent electronically into the country without any border check at all. If anyone bothered to think about sneaking an illegal copy of something, or some kiddie porn into the country, they would just delete it from their disk and email it or something. So searches of people’s computers at the border are not stopping any illegal activity related to the proper functions of customs, they are simply fishing expeditions to find people who are up to some skulduggery at home where they would be protected from such searches (in theory).
Kwix,
I’m skeptical about TrueCrypt. Not because I don’t think it works, but because the fact that it’s impossible to mathematically prove the existence of the hidden container isn’t worth much.
The kind of nightmare police state that would grab your laptop and search it, find an encrypted volume, and demand that you turn over the password is not going to let you walk simply because they can’t, technically, prove that there’s more data there. They would infer that there is a hidden container because (1) you’re using TrueCrypt, and (2) you gave them the password when they asked. Now you’re going to be sent off to Gitmo until you give them the password to the hidden container. You claim there is no hidden container? Sucks to be you, then.
The only defense in a police state is to avoid drawing attention to yourself. Using TrueCrypt announces that you have something interesting.
Mark Z.
I disagree but only to a point.
The US Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) has made a (legally enforced) habit of searching all incoming electronics without warrant for “suspicious” files. So far the courts have not ruled on the use of encryption and whether or not you must provide passwords when asked. If (when) the SCOTUS rules that we must warrantlessly provide the keys to locked drawers, electronic or otherwise I still intend on having a “hidden compartment” that only I know about. So, to that end, in a total police state where “interesting” things land you in Gitmo, you would be correct but we are not there yet. When we do get there, secrecy will be your only means of flying below the radar.
Until this country falls to such a state of disrepair, having an encrypted file may mean you have something to hide, but unlike an unencrypted folder named MP3s or MyPhotos, the CBP cannot legally peruse it without a warrant. If nothing else, I want there to be a damn paper trail, and the effort expended on it, when some government bureaucrat wants to snoop through my stuff.
OK, so *now* we’re at the point of where they don’t even say “please” before asking for our papers.
John Conyers, I’m disappointed in you.
//The kind of nightmare police state that would grab your laptop and search it, find an encrypted volume, and demand that you turn over the password is not going to let you walk simply because they can’t, technically, prove that there’s more data there. They would infer that there is a hidden container because (1) you’re using TrueCrypt, and (2) you gave them the password when they asked. Now you’re going to be sent off to Gitmo until you give them the password to the hidden container. You claim there is no hidden container? Sucks to be you, then.//
Hard drive space is pretty cheap. It could easily become routine to have a number of what seem to be encrypted areas, an arbitrary number of which could contain real data or random junk. Given that many people have quite a few gigs of hard drive space unused, someone could easily have ten one-gig “encrypted” partitions, three of which have data. Or maybe four have data. Or maybe only two.