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Q Cubed
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t3h y3ll0w p3ril
Apr 1999
time: 23:29
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from washington post
quote:
Hatch Takes Aim at Illegal Downloading
WASHINGTON - The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday he favors developing new technology to remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download music from the Internet.
The surprise remarks by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, during a hearing on copyright abuses represent a dramatic escalation in the frustrating battle by industry executives and lawmakers in Washington against illegal music downloads.
During a discussion on 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 disrupt music downloads. One technique deliberately downloads 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 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, he said.
"There's no excuse for anyone violating copyright laws," Hatch said.
Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., who has been active in copyright debates in Washington, urged Hatch to reconsider. Boucher described Hatch's role as chairman of the Judiciary Committee as "a very important position, so when Senator Hatch indicates his views with regard to a particular subject, we all take those views very seriously."
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 former Justice Department cybercrimes prosecutor and associate professor at George Washington University law school.
The entertainment industry has gradually escalated its fight against Internet file-traders, targeting the most egregious pirates with civil lawsuits. The Recording Industry Association of America 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.
Kerr predicted it was "extremely unlikely" for Congress to approve a hacking exemption for copyright owners, partly because of risks of collateral damage when innocent users might be wrongly targeted.
"It wouldn't work," Kerr said. "There's no way of limiting the damage."
Last year, Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., ignited a firestorm across the Internet over a proposal to give the entertainment industry new powers to disrupt downloads of pirated music and movies. It would have lifted civil and criminal penalties against entertainment companies for disabling, diverting or blocking the trading of pirated songs and movies on the Internet.
But Berman, ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary panel on the Internet and intellectual property, always has maintained that his proposal wouldn't permit hacker-style attacks by the industry on Internet users. |
surely he doesn't really think this is a good idea?
(note: this should have gone in the first post... but for some reason, poly seems to be running @ss slow and didn't accept that post at all.)
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Sava
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GO GO GO!
Mar 2001
time: 23:29
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quote:
Who's Buying Into Copy Controls?
Entertainment industry bolsters its digital rights testimony with targeted campaign contributions.
Anne Ju, Medill News Service
Tuesday, June 18, 2002
WASHINGTON -- It's no secret that Hollywood fears losing property and profits to online movie pirates just as the music labels were panicked by Napster. But the entertainment industry is also vigorously backing up its call for copy controls with campaign cash to key lawmakers.
Political action committees (PACs) of Motion Picture Association of America members have sent at least $3.4 million to reelection campaigns of Congress members over the past four years, according to Federal Elections Commission data. That same period saw crucial decisions on legislation in which Hollywood companies had a stake, including the passage of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
PACs from AOL Time Warner, Fox, MGM, Sony, Universal, and Viacom contributed to both Republicans and Democrats on Commerce or Judiciary committees in both houses. Both committees are center stage for legislation dealing with issues of intellectual property. The contributions to individual elected officials are in the thousands of dollars, so they account for only a single-digit percentage of the candidate's total receipts. But the amounts are typical of many industry PAC contributions. Also, they are spread widely across the relevant committee members, and lobbyists know they often open a candidate's office door.
Goals Achieved?
Representative Howard Berman tops the recipient list, with $68,000 from those MPAA members' PACs over four years. Berman, whose district includes North Hollywood, was a strong supporter of the contentious DMCA and was the top Democrat on the House subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property when it passed.
"The marketplace is better suited than the government to pick technology winners and losers," Berman said in a statement. "[But] there are times when it's appropriate for the government to step in." Berman supported the use of a particular copy control technology in videocassette recorders in the DMCA, saying it was necessary to protect copyrighted content.
In second place among entertainment industry campaign cash recipients are two Republicans, Representative Billy Tauzin of Louisiana and Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, each with $49,000 from entertainment industry PACs.
Tauzin is known for a controversial piece of legislation that would deregulate the regional Bell telephone companies so they could sell broadband service nationwide. As chair of the House Commerce committee, Tauzin has also supported protecting the intellectual property of Hollywood companies.
Hatch was a leading crusader for the DMCA and chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the Napster hearings. He has shown a commitment to protecting the entertainment industry's copyright.
"I take it as a basic premise that copyright laws must play a role in protecting creative works over the Internet," Hatch said at the July 2000 hearing that drew anti-Napster testimony from Lars Ulrich, the cofounder and drummer of the heavy metal band Metallica.
Senator Conrad Burns, a Montana Republican, and Michigan Democratic Representative John Dingell are close behind Tauzin and Hatch. Burns received $46,500 in contributions from the entertainment industry, and Dingell received $46,162. Both are members of Commerce committees and key players in the digital copyright debate.
In each case, the PAC contributions from the tracked entertainment industry companies amounted to less than 3 percent--and sometimes just 1 percent--of the member's total campaign contributions, according to FEC records.
Consumers Counter
Political action committees play the money game every day. Carefully targeted contributions, augmented by lobbying on the issues, are a key component of the legislation game, industry sources note.
Hollywood's contributions come as no surprise to Norman Ornstein, a campaign finance policy analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
"I'd be stunned if most of the giving didn't go to those members of Congress on the Judiciary and Commerce committees, because they deal with intellectual property," Ornstein says. "Most of this giving is about access. You're going to give to members where that access matters to you."
Consumer and technology advocates say it's an uphill battle to oppose legislation that Hollywood champions. Consumers are difficult to organize and are a silent minority compared with campaign contributions, says Steve Weissman, legislative counsel of Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy organization founded by Ralph Nader.
"The only way consumers can have an impact is if they're organized, intense, and there's a lot of them," Weissman says. "In that case, Congress has to listen to their constituency."
Consumer groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation are trying to mobilize consumers against a bill that would mandate built-in copy controls for DVD and CD players, introduced in March by Sen. Ernest Hollings. The legislation, currently being considered by the Senate Commerce Committee, has come under fire by pro-consumer groups who say it's a direct affront to fair use rights.
Other activists are trying to engage lawmakers in discussions geared toward consumer rights, rather than the interests of large corporations. Public Knowledge, an advocacy group that focuses on intellectual property and technology issues, is fighting the Hollings bill by coordinating libraries, educators, journalists, and scientific researchers to contact Congress members.
"When they start to get hundreds of letters from constituents, they need to listen," says Gigi Sohn, president of Public Knowledge. |
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,101988,00.asp
It's nice to see Hatch is bought... I wonder what else I can find...
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Sava
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GO GO GO!
Mar 2001
time: 23:29
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quote:
Orrin Hatch takes two media hits. Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), whose 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act has greatly weakened the FDA's ability to protect consumers, has been rebuked for suggesting that the FDA has not done enough to protect the public from ephedra's dangers. Calling Hatch's remarks "a dazzling display of hypocrisy," Time senior science writer Leon Jaroff said, "The time has come for drastic revision of DSHEA, the re-empowerment of the FDA and the rejection of cynical proposals by legislators like Orrin Hatch." [Jaroff L. It's time to rethink ephedra regulation. March 5, 2003] Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times noted:
From 1998 to 2001, while Hatch's son Scott worked for a lobbying firm with close ties to his father, supplement industry clients paid the company more than $1.96 million, more than $1 million of it from clients involved with ephedra.
In 2002, Scott Hatch opened his own lobbying firm in partnership with two of his father's close associates. So far, the firm has received at least $30,000 in retainers from the National Nutritional Foods Association and a major manufacturer of ephedra (Twinlab) , both of whom were clients of the previous firm.
During the past decade, Orrin Hatch has received nearly $137,000 in campaign contributions from the supplements industry. [Neubauer C and others. Senator, his son get boosts from makers of ephedra. Los Angeles Times, March 5, 2003]
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oooh, the makers of Ephedra bought Hatch's political clout as well...
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18-06-2003 07:19
ACK!
But who really knows? Maybe he just didn't think through the implications of his idea. 
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