If feds can bust Megaupload, why bother with anti-piracy bills?

Written on by V2A, Filed under
Business, Culture, Ethics, Government, Law, Media, Politics, Technology, World News
 18


It was almost as if the thrums of digital artillery could be felt across millions of keyboards.

As some of the internet’s biggest power players, including Google and Wikipedia, protested two fast-tracked anti-piracy bills going through Congress, the US Justice Department launched an attack on one of the web’s biggest alleged scofflaws, Megaupload, and, in a counterattack, the hacker group Anonymous temporarily blacked out DOJ’s website.

Techno-pundits and mainstream observers quickly connected the dots between anti-piracy protests and the Megaupload arrests, notching the dustup as potentially the biggest salvo yet in the multi-billion dollar internet copyright wars pitting, in essence, Hollywood and its Washington lobbyists against internet free speech and its hacker protectors.

“This week has been the week of copyright warfare, but the decision to nuke the king copyright violator so spectacularly only goes to show how little the feds need bigger bombs,” writes Sam Biddle on the tech-scene site Gizmodo.

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  • Looking4Sanity

    Now THAT is a valid question! As I have been saying my entire life…we don't need any new laws. We just need to enforce the ones we already have! I can't wait for that fat scumbag "Dotcom" to be extradited to the US! His luck has finally run out.

    • Michael

      Very elementary – more and more control. Take a look at Germany from 1933 till 1938 and you will see the US history of today.

    • Frankcastle1958

      How is it.. WE, are busting people in NEW ZEALAND??? Think about it….

  • MR2

    Under SOPA, you could get 5 years for uploading a Michael Jackson song, one year more than the doctor that killed him.

    The music industry shot itself in the foot when it went after it's own customers. Never a good move. Now they (along with others) are trying to use fascist, erm.. excuse me, "legal" means to go after people. The sad thing is, this isn't going to end up for uploading some idiotic song or film. It's going to be used for uploading something the government didn't want you to. These sort of laws always start out "beneficial" until we see them in use.

    It's unfortunately not just the music and film industries. The numbers used to quote losses due to piracy for software companies are typically bogus as well. While I agree piracy is a problem and ethically wrong, it's not right to fudge the numbers. Typically they use a weak math model to estimate the number of times a given software package is pirated. (They have to do this because they simply don't -know- nor can find out how many times something is stolen.) From there, they take every single estimated piracy act and claim the individual would have bought the software/content (at full price) had it not been so easily pirated. The end results are hugely inflated losses due to piracy. Though, those same numbers can be used to "cheat" Uncle Sam from stealing more money so it's not all bad in the end – from their point of view.

    • Looking4Sanity

      "The music industry shot itself in the foot when it went after it's own customers."

      Thieves are not "customers". Your premise is fatally flawed.

      • Frankcastle1958

        If you copy, a music CD you bought.. YOU are now a "PIRATE"… he is right….

  • Lois MacLaren

    In her autobiography, Dale Evans Rogers tells about an incident which occurred to her when she was just becoming involved with show business. Dale had written a song which all of her family and friends enjoyed and many of them thought the song had commercial potential. They persuaded Dale to contact a local song publisher and see if he would publish her song. Dale made an appointment and went in to see the song publisher, and sang her song for him. The song publisher assured Dale that she DID show promise and might, one day, become an accomplished song writer and singer. However, he ALSO assured Dale that this particular song did not really have any commercial potential. Dale went home disappointed, but determined to keep on trying. A few days later, Dale was appalled when she heard her song, with only a few words changed, being sung on the radio! Dale's friends and family, who had heard the original song when Dale first composed it, heard the song as well. The song publisher whom Dale had contacted turned out to be a shady character who had stolen her song and left Dale holding the bag! Unfortunately for all of us, the Entertainment "industry" has been controlled by people like the shady song publisher whom Dale Evans Rogers met during her early venture into show "business" – and those shady characters have controlled the Entertainment "industry" for decades now. So, perhaps the "pirates" are stealing someone else's intellectual property. However, by the same token, it could ALSO be true that the Entertainment Industry giants who are making such a fuss likewise stole someone else's "intellectual property" to begin with – in just the same way that the shady song producer stole the first original song of Dale Evans Rogers. (Today, that song would probably be worth a LOT more if it still carried the name of Dale Evans Rogers as the original songwriter!) In my personal opinion, a bunch of crooks are asking the whole world to protect them from some OTHER crooks! In the meantime, the REAL victim in this entire mess is the right to freedom of speech which every American is guaranteed by the Constitution! This particular law is too vague to be helpful and too broad to be anything other than dangerous beyond imagination!

  • guest

    Well said Lois.

  • teddy

    There would be no pirates if there was no market for the material. The idea of steeling intellectual property has been around a long time. We have even had politicians who have plagiarized and stolen ideas. There would be far less of it if people would stop and think about it before they buy anything that has been stolen. It is not hard to figure out that if it is cheep or free, it has been stolen.

  • SEAN MURRY

    They can take down any site that is against obummer.

  • JBinGB

    This,I thnk is just to protect rich hollyweird liberals. Very bad law

  • ProundPatriotToo

    The bottom line, is that SOPA is just another power grab via Obama, from the play book of Saul Alinsky, Marxist take over.
    I am not sure if we can find the full bill (on the internet), outlining every detail in this power grab of freedom of speech; but I can guarantee you that the devil is in the details. Obama said a year ago, that he felt that there was TOO MUCH information on the internet and that he didn't think that the public should be exposed to too much info and that he didn't like negative things about him, his family, the Muslims, Blacks, etc. So, for the people out there that still have their rose colored glasses on, it's about censorship PERIOD.

    Yes, people have to be careful while on the internet uploading/downloading etc., buying over the phone, through the mail, etc., but it's up to all ADULTS to watch and protect their back side and wallet, NOT the government. And yes, we already have laws established for these very reasons. All you have to do is use these laws and enforce them. Just like our immigration laws. They are perfect and have been in place for a long time, it does work, but politicians have used immigration problems for their own political gain, and that is why our laws are NOT working. They are not enforced and they are not used. The left have used the race card ever since ML King was shot and the rights of this country have been kick into the toilet ever since. Obama says he doesn't like too much information on the internet, will I am sick and tired of the race card played on our Constitution. Put that in your Muslim pipe and smoke it, BO. I don't like you destroying my country and the Constitution. Take your Muslim paws off of my freedoms.

  • Carson City

    ANYTIME you let the government get involved in anything you're asking for BIG trouble. There are copyright laws in already in effect world wide. Enforcement them and but out of some bureaucrat dipstick making decisions on winners and losers. Krap, they can't even pick "green" winners. And, you're going to let Obuttho have the kill button. Me thinks the end of personal opinion on the Internet is burning in the toaster. The Internet has been the ONLY thing the government can't seize yet…but they're sure working hard on it. Next up, email stamps.

  • A PATRIOT

    Come on Folks, Get the picture. Copyrights are already strongly protected and the (DMCA) Digital Millennium Copyright Act which passed in October of 1998 is the existing law already in place.

    SOPA and PIPA HAVE 'TAKEOVER' WRITTEN ALL OVER THEM.

  • http://www.survivingurbancrisis.com/ Silas Longshot

    This was yet another ploy by govt to get total control of the 'net, particularly any dissenting opinions or websites critisizing the prez or any other elitist who doesn't like the uncontrolled content (read truth vs spin) of the 'net. As people above have said, copyright laws abound in the USA, enforcement of those existing laws was NOT the intent of this bill. Sheer control, that's all.

    Click the name, prepare now.

  • Gringo Infidel

    Hey, maybe they can put cameras on the copy machines at University libraries and catch all those copyright infringements that students violate every day too.

    Big money is behind this 'crack down.'

    Question: What are you Feds going to do when the targeted site is hosted in country hostile to the U.S.? (e.g. Russia, China, Belarus, or fill in the blank).

    Answer: NOTHING

  • Hed indaclowdz

    Now that the internet is clean again and piracy is abolished i guess they can lower the cost of movie tickets. It was $30.00 to take my family of four, to the matinee show no less, to the movies a few weeks ago. This was only to get in the door and does not include popcorn etc. Thank God in heaven that our federal masters have rid the internet of pirates so the honest hardworking people in the movie industry can lower ticket prices to a reasonable level.

    • Frankcastle1958

      Don't hold your breath….

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