AfterDawn: News

US government looking for comments on IP enforcement

Last year, in the US, a law known as PRO-IP was signed into law. It mandated the creation of a Justice Department position responsible for the enforcement of intellectual property rights. The second part of that law, requesting comments about IP enforcement issues from the public, is now underway.

Specifically, they are looking for "written submissions from the public identifying the costs to the U.S. economy resulting from infringement of intellectual property rights, both direct and indirect, including any impact on the creation or maintenance of jobs."



Comments should be emailed to the Office of Management & Budget (intellectualproperty@omb.eop.gov) and must be received by March 24.

Comments received by the deadline will be published on a government webpage, so make sure you don't include anything you wouldn't want available to the general public.

PRO-IP (the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008) is a thinly veiled excuse to divert government resources to the entertainment industry's war against P2P file sharing.

The rationale for such a law is based on the flawed premise that file sharing is responsible for billions of dollars suddenly vanishing from the US economy and the loss of nearly a million jobs.

Written by: Rich Fiscus @ 24 Feb 2010 22:12

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• 17 comments

• hikaricor

  I have a few choice words i might have to share.

  24.2.2010 22:29 #1

• windsong

  Now we will have the FBI goons beating down the door with an army of lawyers. They can all go to HELL.

  24.2.2010 22:30 #2

• jony218

  There are more important things to investigate.
  Grandma downloading the latest "frank Sinatra" greatest hits CD, probably is not something the government should be wasting manhours on.

  24.2.2010 23:47 #3

• vontratt

  @hikaricor
  
  What would those words be? Please, speak into the mic. :)
  

  
  

  25.2.2010 00:07 #4

• ivymike

  It sounds like this will be the next war on drugs if you know what I mean. God Damn the entertainment industry for corrupting our gov't.
  
  The US gov't should be looking for Osama Bin Laden and NOT filesharers.
  
  Just like the infamous Drug Wars of the 1980's & 1990's, this could very well be it's replacement.

  25.2.2010 00:37 #5

• bmlshane

  Shades of 1984. Big brother is watching you. (or Big Sister) Saw an interview, performers/ recording artists, were being paid a pittance for each album/single sold, just the volume made them money, so where do the profits go? Maybe this should be investigated.

  25.2.2010 06:06 #6

• patrick_

  besides the cost, shouldn't they investigate the profit as well? Hard-drives, DVDs, DVD-burners, paper, printers, scanners, there lot's of things that sell a lot better because of piracy. It's not like that because of piracy people stop spending, they just spent diferently.

  25.2.2010 09:36 #7

• ZippyDSM

  2010 Special 301 Federal Register Notice (Document ID USTR-2010-0003-0001)
  
  ----
  The right to digital disobedience: Profit must not be extorted from the people by making half of all of us unprocessed criminals.
  ----
  Notes:For the sake of argument I say that distribution=copying so I do not mention distribution much if at all in the comments below.
  Torrents while still mostly seen in the courts as a link to a file and not the file itself IMO should be treated as the file in question as its moot to have the torrent if you cannot gain access to the file, so anything that links to the file in question should be treated as the file in question.
  ----
  Copy right and patents really need reform badly you have so much abuse from corporations with little to no policing, other than letting the courts sort it out in a arbitrary manner, they need to be fined for even taking it to court the court should make money off business disputes because of all the nannying they require. But I digress.
  
  Copy right needs to focus on profit much more than distribution or copy as unlike 100 years ago to copy meant to profit from it in some way. In the modern age copying is a oblivious term these words I type may well be copy righted the pictures on this page I am posting to are copy righted and I infringe upon them when I hit send, its that's easy and thus we need more protections for copy circumvention up to getting into DRM servers and such as of now the DMCA makes transcoding or making a back up of your DVD illicit unless you use a alanlog device like tape or a VCR. Even legitimate software that bought CSS encryption to decode a DVD and put another layer of DRM on it was shot down in court because real could not withstand the might of the media conglomerates.
  
  This means that fair use or digital disobedience rights needs to be expanded one may post anything in public for download or viewing AS LONG AS they do not make a profit or draw money in from the market environment(no ads, no donations, a link to a file is the same as the file no matter how many links, jumps or hops, torrents and such programs that use such obfuscated means of transport still have to hold to the standard of this ideal of make no attempt at gaining money without a license ) from doing so. The cost of shearing that information should come out of pocket by the individual shearing it and that if they grow as large in bandwidth and files as a mid to large digital retail site they become a competitor and must buy licenses to remain legal. With that said hardware and software circumventions that do not violate patents (IE the proper use of designs) or copy righted code(copyrighted frimware,bios,roms,ect) cannot and must never become illicit like they are under the DMCA. Because if they can block "copying" of any kind then talking in public about, posting about or blogging about something will be scrutinized by lawyers and entrepreneurs over where they can make the most money via the courts or the retail market.
  
  The DMCA has taken a lot of our rights away and handed them to the courts to sort out, and its quit frightening yet also so childishly silly. Profit must be protected but not at the cost of making half or more of the populace unprocessed criminals.
  
  Profits need to be protected the best way to do that without making most of the populace criminal is to tax digital storage hardware and the internet much like we tax tape and black recordable discs(CD,DVD,Blu ray,ect).A flat 10% tax on the sale price of these items where 1-3% runs the regulatory/tax board and the rest is divide up to the whatever artist group/lobby whines the most before the board , the smallest groups should get the most money as they are the truly harmed by the whole system and the stagnate monopolistic grip the music industry has on that sector.
  
  With this in place and 200+ year copy rights it’s only fair to allow the public circumvent protection on hardware and software, to post and talk in public, and yes share in the wealth and knowledge of all copyrighted items as long as its shared out of their pocket and it does not even attempt to take in money as taking in money in any fashion needs to be the purview of legal business while the public can be fans and add to the wealth of copy right freely without living in fear of being a criminal.
  In final
  To anyone reading this it is important that you at the very least take away one train of thought and that is focus more on profit not copying/distribution, if it is not making profit(or taking donations to run the service) is not harming anyone. If you follow the money all the big name and lesser known sites take in money unlawfully it does not matter the reason it needs to be stopped you can either pass laws that harm the law abiding , think gun laws and silly rules/laws that are for the sake of appearance and not function or even criminality feel good laws hurt us more than they help us and the DMCA is most a feel good law and copy right and patents is being allowed to degenerate into authoritarianism because no one bothered to keep track of what the big boys are doing.
  
  
  PS:I apologize for my grammar I have learning disabilities that make it difficult for me to understand the proper flow of words.
  
  PSS: Sites like youtube and free blogs or web pages that run off of ad revenue to pay for bandwidth could be allowed some “digital disobedience” the specific page or file in question must either show adds that link to the legal sale or advert for the product being distrusted OR have no adds on any page that links to the file in question this would allow CP owners to mitigate and marginalize the true harm cause to the industry by unlawful profit.
  
  PScrazytown crazy:
  Ok here is a crazy insane thought you can disregard as much as you wish, overhaul Copy right as something that cannot be sold off but rather the creator contracts out to have a profit be made off of for 1,5 and 10 year periods. That always returns the full profit right to the creator or family. This copy right is good for 100 years then falls to the public domain with no way to extend it no matter how rich the opposition gets. Now extend trademarks as so it’s easier for a brand to keep its symbol/whatever (max 10 years with no sale of the item under the brand), this would allow for much more free market competition over whatever people of the day will pay for, the best liked not the one with the most money will win at the end of the day. This with the above “digital disobedience” will keep the system flowing and the neglected CP creators well compensated for their efforts and not allow the middle men to come in and lay waste to whole sectors and genres because they think dcking with one more layer of control(slotting genres, watering down content, preventing other content from getting out because it’s not their caned protected IP) will gain them a fatter bottom line no matter what the real costs are…..as monopolies/empires require alot of money for the mid to top tiers to barely function much less work right…… when all the profit goes to the mid and above…what’s the point of a company to stay in business or pay the top tiers so they can go out of business in style?
  
  Ack rants go the best of me here I do apoglize .
  
  
  Thank you for your time
  ===============================
  ==============================================================
  I redacted my contact info and name. Anyway I suppose this is a diffrent thing...

  25.2.2010 09:42 #8

• patrick_

  Originally posted by ZippyDSM: anything that links to the file in question should be treated as the file in question.
  It doesn't seem reasonable to me that telling someone where to get cocaine is the same as giving it.
  
  Also, profit is just way to vague. If publicity covers cost, it surely isn't profit. If donations cover cost, it's also not profit. Personally I think the point is not if someone makes profit, but if someone has to pay for it. A donation is not a payment unless the person gets something in exchange for the donation.
  I understand that to many people this reasoning is too light, but it would take out most of the insecurity people have right now. It would be clear what's allowed to do, and I think that it won't affect negatively profit more than the current law execution.
  
  Obiously because internet is the mayor distributor, all modern countries must have the same law.

  25.2.2010 10:05 #9

• ZippyDSM

  Quote:Originally posted by ZippyDSM: anything that links to the file in question should be treated as the file in question.
  It doesn't seem reasonable to me that telling someone where to get cocaine is the same as giving it.
  
  Also, profit is just way to vague. If publicity covers cost, it surely isn't profit. If donations cover cost, it's also not profit. Personally I think the point is not if someone makes profit, but if someone has to pay for it. A donation is not a payment unless the person gets something in exchange for the donation.
  I understand that to many people this reasoning is too light, but it would take out most of the insecurity people have right now. It would be clear what's allowed to do, and I think that it won't affect negatively profit more than the current law execution.
  
  Obiously because internet is the mayor distributor, all modern countries must have the same law.It costs society more to police personal vice, allowing HUGE tax dodging black markets(that add to losses) than to allow it, regulate it, tax it and pay for recovery/aftermath at least its more human that allowing black markets to exist so you can "fight" them.... .
  
  I have mused on it and come to the realization donations is the same as profit, either you are business who is competing with the CP/IP owners or you are a fan. The difference must henge upon the movement of money.
  
  One could invent a special taxed non profit for fan sites, 10% of what they generate goes to the same place blank media taxes go. But I think the net is so large and vast that you don't need donations to run a great fan site.
  
  Its important also to note how torrents operate because of their wishy washy status you are going to have to treat them the same as file hosting and mitigate the bad IE illicit profit, if you allow people to gain donations then you allow the lawyers to chase after them nip it in the bud and just cull it off and focus on what is trying to make money for any reason without a license over what is not trying to make money(IE ad rev,donations and direct sale of unlicensed goods).

  25.2.2010 10:24 #10

• patrick_

  so your point is that one person (the webmaster) should be the only "fan" who pays. Everyone else enjoys the same, but without spending anything.
  And... what's a donation? There's only one registered owner of a domain. Does that imply that everyone who's willing to pay part of the hosting cost is making a donation? Or if you colaborate you can donate but if you leech you can't?

  25.2.2010 11:02 #11

• ZippyDSM

  Originally posted by patrick_: so your point is that one person (the webmaster) should be the only "fan" who pays. Everyone else enjoys the same, but without spending anything.
  And... what's a donation? There's only one registered owner of a domain. Does that imply that everyone who's willing to pay part of the hosting cost is making a donation? Or if you colaborate you can donate but if you leech you can't?A person or group can band together to create a fan site so in order to share alot you are going to have to join with friends to from a group to run the site.
  
  Donations are based on a direct or indirect connection to the site, you use the sites name to advertise for it and do a drive/bake sell or link places people can donate to you on the website thats a no no.
  
  If you do a do a drive or bake sale with lose connections to the site that may well be fine s long as what you are hocking is the site and your IP/CP.
  
  Now could you in a roundabout fashion make 2 sites one is the fan site and the other is a oblivious site meant to be use as a donation gate way. That would be illegal unless you can prove that one site has nothing to do with the other and that the other is gains donations under its own power.
  
  This leads me to a if you as a IP/CP creator make your own IP/CP and use it as a site for donations only this would have to be heavily regulated or simply made illicit UNLESS you sell your IP/CP(parodies,thigns you have created,ect) on tee shirts,stickers and other physical goods the money made from these activities can be used for anything you want because IMO its been cleaned enough by displacing money into other things that any possible "harm" has been thoroughly negated. Of course using unlicensed IP/CP for this is bad.
  
  
  Now of course the big question is how do you separate a site that has friends as a group running a site and a site that its members form a group and pay for the site. Well you are going to have to have the limit to be 20 or so people anything more than that and what you have is a pay site thus a business thus in need of licenses.
  
  And yes the minor details I can work out if I can think of them LOL
  
  If you can keep up with my hairy trains of thought I am trying to mitigate most peoples interaction with lawyers.Larger sites will probably be checked on via the courts to ensure the bank records and what not are clean but most others will be safe.

  25.2.2010 11:20 #12

• Jimmer12

  Geeez, our government is just getting way to involved in our lives..

  25.2.2010 18:23 #13

• ZippyDSM

  Originally posted by Jimmer12: Geeez, our government is just getting way to involved in our lives..Ya they really need to simplify this sht and not allow accountants and lawyers dupe them into possible revenue streams....

  25.2.2010 18:46 #14

• Mez

  The government does not work on logic. It works on laws that are politically motivated. They don't care if you are downloading Dixieland Jazz captured from wax cylanders where the publishers went out of business during the great depression. I doubt that even if it was 100 yrs old would they stop.

  26.2.2010 12:35 #15

• wanttono

  Hi All
  Very strong opinions! I have an IDEA! Why don't you guys all send a letter to intellectualproperty@omb.eop.gov AND tell them what you think .. be a part of the solution .. ????? Complaining here is ok but why not be a part of the process ... now! now! now! I don't want to hear any excuses . let's see some action !!!
  
  F
  
  if not there, then pick someone and participate
  and i hope it is well researched, written

  1.3.2010 10:28 #16

• Mez

  wanttono, good point. I have not done so. I have been very active in that way in the past. I had figured this really had too much money behind it to fight this time. I may write in but I suspect that will be discounted. However, with an approval level below 20% law makers are rightly worried. That has been where I have put my effort in the past with success. I carefully craft 5 letters and I send them all to each member of the congress committee with real voter addresses. With 3 I mention that I heard about the bill at a PTA meeting. That tends to strike fear into them. Congress is usually up for reelection when these come out. They don't like to appear in the pockets of greedy corporations more interested in their profits than the education of our children. The point is if I am liable for my kids actions I may have to stop internet service. I demand to have an agency that will come out my house to check if my kids are doing anything wrong. Most parents of HS students are computer clueless. It is unfair to make them liable. The government would need to be liable. That gives them no easy way out except to drop the bill.
  
  If I were to add anything it would be that most of the money goes into education not police work. That will make the bill much more expensive.

  1.3.2010 10:56 #17