# Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007



## Andrew Green (May 15, 2007)

Gonzales and the Bush Administration are pushing some updates here, which are to be honest... unsettling, and make me glad I stick to open source software, here are some of the "Highlights":


> *Criminalize "attempting" to infringe copyright.*
> 
> * *Create a new crime of life imprisonment for using pirated software.* Anyone using counterfeit products who "recklessly causes or attempts to cause death" can be imprisoned for life. During a conference call, Justice Department officials gave the example of a hospital using pirated software instead of paying for it.
> 
> ...



Of course the anti-circumvention law makes it illegal to play legally purchased DVD's on a linux computer, but I'm not American 

Still, I think that the way things are going business are going to stop wanting to take the risk of using anything that isn't Free.  Can you prove you own licenses too all your software?  

I also think that if I was American I would have some pretty strong objections to money collected for anti-terrorism being used to alert the RIAA that someone bought a fake Britney Spears CD from China. (Although perhaps pop music is a form of terrorism?)


----------



## Ping898 (May 15, 2007)

What scares me most is the wiretaps for privacy investigations...I hope this gets voted down, but I am not counting on it....And Why the hell if we are so concerned about terrorism and fighting some dang was over it, is the DHS telling the dang RIAA about copyright "violations"
Does any here not think that the RIAA has some senators in their pocket?....


----------



## Bob Hubbard (May 15, 2007)

Well, where do you think all that money they are extorting from kids and grandmothers is going? To the musicians?

ROFLMFAO!!!!!


----------



## tellner (May 15, 2007)

Ben Franklin refused to patent any of his inventions saying "As I have benefitted from the work of others, so may others benefit from mine." There was more to it than he may have realized, although being Benjamin Franklin - polymath genius and Father of his Country - that wouldn't be a safe bet. _[Note: You say I don't know my history and that George Washington was the Father of his Country? You don't know your Ben Franklin :boing2:]

_In music, in literature, in the sciences, technology, the plastic and performing arts, hell *every single field* of human endeavor things draw from, are inspired by and borrow from what has gone before. Rock has its roots in the Blues which was in turn influenced by Black funeral music, African rhythms, Piedmont folk music, old English tunes and so on. There are only twelve plots, according to Aristotle, and nobody uses more than three or four of them. I won't even get into things based in the physical world as opposed to the purer domain of imagination.

The intolerable reinforcement of the patent and "intellectual property" laws has made innovation difficult, expensive, dangerous and fraught with lawsuits. The DMCA and other such bills have language that doesn't just grant a right to develop and try to profit from the products of the mind. They attempt to guarantee particular levels of profit for certain business models by giving out huge land grants, as it were, to those with the money to hire legions of silk-stockinged corporate law firms. 

The public domain has been subjected to Enclosure Acts. Fair use is almost dead. And Copyright and Patent have been extended to eternity by the Supremes (led in the decision by Anthony *spit* Scalia, that smug shadow-faced political thug).

Back when this country's fundamental law was codified the government was given the power to



> To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;



What we have now is the parcelling out of the entire contents of the human mind to the large and wealthy. Genes, created by Nature through evolution or by the Creator through Divine intervention (your choice) can be declared "intellectual property". Use the wrong color in advertising and you will be sued. Mickey Mouse is eternally the property of Disney. With almost all scientific research now proprietary, bought, paid for and covered as trade secrets the free interchange of information and ideas is slowing dangerously according to AAAS, UCS, Sigma Xi and just about every other professional society. 

In short, the law has been perverted to be solely the tool of increased power and wealth for the already powerful, connected and wealthy. It now runs squarely against the intent of those who framed it and to the detriment of those who pay for it.


----------



## kidswarrior (May 17, 2007)

tellner said:


> In short, the law has been perverted to be solely the tool of increased power and wealth for the already powerful, connected and wealthy. It now runs squarely against the intent of those who framed it and to the detriment of those who pay for it.



Sad, isn't it? What's sadder for me is that my indignation is being worn down by the avalanche of ineptitude, moral breaches, and outright atrocities that the said powerful, connected and wealthy seek to pass off as normal.


----------



## tellner (May 17, 2007)

Some terrorist said:
			
		

> If we do not have a revolution every fifty years, G-d help us


 
147 and counting...


----------

