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Music Media United States

Senator Seeks Restrictions to Music Laws, Fines 210

Posted by CowboyNeal from the enough-is-enough dept.
Justen writes "Following this article from last month, Senator Norm Coleman (R.-Minn.) has announced that he will seek to limit federal penalties for copyright downloads and seek to restrict the subpoena power essentially granted to the industry through the DMCA. The RIAA responded by calling the current situation an 'epidemic.'" Sadly, there's no quantitative values for proposed reduced measures yet, but given the speed at which government moves it's reassuring to know the issue is this far along already.
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Senator Seeks Restrictions to Music Laws, Fines More

Senator Seeks Restrictions to Music Laws, Fines

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  • That in addition to Rich Boucher in the house, there are some senators with a modicum of common sense.

  • The pieces are moving..... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by TheWart ( 700842 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @11:53AM (#7132564)
    As Gandalf said, "The pieces are moving...", and there is nothing that can stop them.

    It will be interesting to see where all of thsi goes...the RIAA making music sharers into Robin Hoods', one senator (Hatch) saying that mp3 sharing is eqaul to shoplifting, and this guy saying he wants to limit the DMCA.

    Interesting times ahead....

    • But... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Raul654 ( 453029 )
      ...since when has Orrin Hatch been anything but extremist in *any* of his views?
      • ...since when has Orrin Hatch been anything but extremist in *any* of his views?

        Lemme guess: you didn't think the late Paul Wellstone or (the hopefully soon-to-be-late) Ted Kennedy is an extremist?

  • Party... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Davak ( 526912 )
    Awwwhhh... it had to be a Republician to come out with this. I sure wanted to claim this one for our team.

    Makes you wonder if some college kid called his dad in government and said, "You know, Dad, it would kick ass if you would stomp some RIAA ass for us."

    Honestly though, appropriate fines is much, much more likely to be honestly viewed as part of the "solution" to the "problem." The current over-the-top fees are simple scare tactics.

    Honest, appropriate fees are much more likely to protect the copyrig

    • Re:Party... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Stonent1 ( 594886 )
      " Awwwhhh... it had to be a Republician to come out with this. I sure wanted to claim this one for our team."

      And which team might that be?

      • Re:Party... (Score:5, Funny)

        by general_re ( 8883 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @12:12PM (#7132688) Homepage
        And which team might that be?

        My guess is that he's talking about the team that claims Senator Fritz Hollings (D-Disney), and therefore gave you this mess in the first place ;)

        • Re:Party... (Score:3, Informative)

          by tempest303 ( 259600 )

          But Fritz DIDN'T give us this. Mr. Howard Coble, a Republican, sponsored the DMCA. And Sonny Bono, a Republican, enacted the (you'd never guess) Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.

          For further demonstration, observe the sponsors and voting record of the DMCA:

          (source [loc.gov])

          Sponsor: Howard Coble - http://www.house.gov/coble/ - Republican

          Co-sponsors:

          • Howard L. Berman - http://www.house.gov/berman/ - Democrat
          • John Conyers - http://www.house.gov/conyers/ - Democrat
          • Barney Frank - http://www.house.go
          • And Sonny Bono, a Republican, enacted the (you'd never guess) Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act.
            Actually, Sonny Bono was dead when it was enacted. A little bit later in your comment you list among the co-sponsors:
            Mary Bono - http://www.house.gov/bono/ - Republican
            They only named it after him post-humously.
            • True, the "Sonny Bono" act was renamed for him, but I believe the act was introduced by him, and at the very least, strongly backed by him. I wish I could get more solid background on this. As for the DMCA, however, he was a sponsor on it, he just kicked the bucket before it passed.

              Thanks for the fact-check, though. :)

          • Re:Party... (Score:3, Insightful)

            by general_re ( 8883 )
            Actually, my only point was to illustrate the absurdity of pinning blame for the current scheme on any particular "team", or to rely on another "team" to fix it. There are plenty of unclean hands on both sides of the aisle, and the only way to fix it is for people to put pressure on their own individual representatives.
            • Understood completely, and agreed! I was more interested in quelling the tide of people coming up with "SEE?!? Democrats are teh suck!" when it's "SEE?!? Both parties CAN be total fucking bastards!" It was more about myth-debunking than your actual post per se.

              One of my other current favorite myths to debunk is that the ACLU is "owned" by the Democrats. This is obviously bullshit. If the ACLU is good enough for Bob Fucking Barr [foxnews.com], it's good enough for anyone concerned with civil liberties. I'd normally
              • Very true. I'd also point out that, while the Republican party is often perceived as being pro-business, which is mostly a fair assessment, there are also a great many mainstream conservatives who consider Hollywood and the entertainment industry to be a cesspool populated by moral degenerates - which, of course, it is ;) - and therefore have no desire whatsoever to lift so much as a finger to help it.

                Anyway, the long and the short of it is that this is one of those issues that doesn't break down neatly

    • Re:Party... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by errxn ( 108621 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @12:11PM (#7132679) Homepage Journal
      "Our team"? Since when do you decide what "team" the members of the /. community belong to?
      • He could have meant his personal team, but used the royal we. Alternatively, he could have meant the team of politicians-with-a-modicum-of-common-sense, which I would like to think everyone would subscribe to...
      • The truth is that most slashdot readers do belong to his team. Look at any discussion here, it's easy to see the way they sway.
    • Well, Coleman's a Minnesota Republican, which is about as conservative as, say, your typical Louisiana Democrat is liberal. If you see what I mean. Minnesota politics tend to be either leftist or libertarian, or some combination thereof; you don't find too many real right-wingers making it very far there.


      • Also, this ones a former Democrat. Switched to Republican, lost to Jesse before his congressional career.

      • This is exactly correct. Coleman used to a Democrat and helped support the very liberal Paul Wellstone. Currently the other Minnesota senator, Rod Grams, is also a republican, but even fairly liberal people that I know vote for him (one of his main mottos is something like "He works for all of us").

        It's very weird how Coleman has gotten as much power as he has this early in the political career, but at least he seems to be trying to do somewhat "good" things with it (or at least things that are good for Mi

        • Re:Party... (Score:2, Informative)

          by varda222 ( 680204 )
          Actually, MArk Dayton is Minnesota's other senator, and he is a Democrat. Rod Grams is a former Minnesota senator.

      • Well, Coleman's a Minnesota Republican, which is about as conservative as, say, your typical Louisiana Democrat is liberal. If you see what I mean. Minnesota politics tend to be either leftist or libertarian, or some combination thereof; you don't find too many real right-wingers making it very far there.

        You obviously don't understand MN politics. It may have been that way in the past, but it's far from the case today. Besides, Coleman has always been pretty conservative, even when he was a Democrat.

        Amon

    • Appropriate fines have to be related to the risk of getting caught -- and as has been amply demonstrated the risk is minuscule. If an appropriate fine would be $10 per track, if everyone were getting caught, but only one in a million is actually getting caught then you need a fine of $10 million per track in order to give file sharers the same expected loss.
      • Approporiate fines should be the ones that most people can realistically pay without filling for bancrupcy, going homeless or applying for welfare. Also, as the article mentions, ones people can risk fighting rather than being scared into a settlement.

        It's the approporiate laws that should be related to the possibility of enforcement, after some consideration for graveness of the crime, and it's time for some realistic corrections for copyright and some other things like pot or driving speed on a straight,
        • Sure. So what you're really saying is that there is no appropriate level of penalty. Anything that's low enough to actually be a reasonable punishment for those who get caught is far too low to have any deterrent effect, or to provide any kind of compensation to those whose copyrights have been infringed.
      • That's ridiculous. You're assuming a linear valuation function, which is not even remotely close to the case.
    • Awwwhhh... it had to be a Republician to come out with this. I sure wanted to claim this one for our team.

      Flamebate or not, that's about the most retarded undestanding of american politics i've ever seen.

  • giant sucking sound (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    dude's from minnesota.... he's obviously worried about losing all those lucrative file-sharing jobs to canada...

  • Huh (Score:5, Funny)

    by ProfKyne ( 149971 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @11:58AM (#7132593)

    Senator Norm Coleman (R.-Minn.) has announced that he will seek to limit federal penalties for copyright downloads

    I didn't realize there were federal penalties for downloading copyrights.

  • "The RIAA responded by calling the current ... (Score:3, Funny)

    by bsDaemon ( 87307 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @12:00PM (#7132607)
    ...an epidemic." Yes, the Centre for Disease Control should help stem the tide of this subpeona plague.

  • A good thing (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rokka ( 631038 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @12:01PM (#7132619)
    It's nice to see that there is at least one person left who belives that the fines should reflect the crimes commited and not reflect how much the riiia wants to scare people.

  • GOP surprises me on this issue (Score:5, Insightful)

    by astrashe ( 7452 ) * on Saturday October 04, 2003 @12:01PM (#7132621) Journal
    Putting aside what this guy is doing, I've always been a little surprised that the GOP doesn't side with downloaders on the P2P issue. I think that the fact that they don't shows that they have a very real committment to property rights, and that they don't want to compromise that for political expediency. In that sense, I think it's fairly admirable.

    Because on the other hand, Hollywood is one of the main sources of support for the Democrats. The Democrats raise tons of money out there, and movie stars and other prominent Hollywood types are almost all Democratic.

    P2P represents an almost ideal way for the Republicans to extract revenge on Hollywood, to "cut off their air supply." But there's almost no support at all for doing that within the party.

    I know it will rub a lot of people the wrong way to say that it's possible to interpret protecting the property rights of international corporations as a principled position, but I think that's what's going on.

    I sort of wish they wouldn't, though...
    • I think you are confusing Hollywood with the recording industry. Hollywood has been fairly quiet so far and has not sued ordinary people for downloading movies yet.
      • It will come... Hollywood is sitting back and letting the RIAA expiriment with different tactics, because they have a little more time, the problem isn't so severe for them yet. But they're very afraid of what's going to happen.

        I doubt they'll be satisfied to stick with the anti-piracy messages they show before movies now.
        • There is no doubt they are shaking in their boots. However there are two main reasons why they can afford to wait a bit:
          1. Movies are rather difficult to download. Relatively few people have the bandwith.
          2. Movies make most of their money from the theaters. P2P is not a threat to that.
          • And Unlike the $15 pricetag on that latest Kid Biscuit CD, most people don't feel like they've been cheated paying $19 for a DVD where all the content is something that want.

            I woun't say that video piracy will never reach the heights that music piracy has achieved, But I certainly would not expect to see it anytime soon, even if the technology/speeds chatch up. Piracy has always been there, and will always be there. Only when there is an imbalance in the market will you see it run rampant.

            If you give the
    • Ok, I am a Democrat, but this one seems obvious to me. Downloading copyrighted music is a crime. (I don't really care if the prices are unfair- try boycotting). The GOP hates criminals.

      Check the news- Ashcroft just took away a great deal of discretion in sentencing in order to generate greater penalties for criminals.

      No Republican president ever runs without promising to get tough on crime. Dubya smirks when he talks about executing people.

    • Hollywood is one of the main sources of support for the Democrats. The Democrats raise tons of money out there, and movie stars and other prominent Hollywood types are almost all Democratic.

      Movie stars do not equal the MPAA or the RIAA. Those two organizations represent the studios and the record companies. Those businesses are not owned by "the movie stars" but by people who want to make money by selling other people's art.

      If I had to generalize as you are doing, I would say that people who make mone

    • You make a good observation, but Hollywood is an industry. Anyone who knows anything about US two party politics know that when push comes to shove, the GOP sides with businesses. Which isn't to say its a bad thing, at least in my opinion. But others may think so.

      Republicans support, or used to support, an individuals sovereignity as the primary. And that sounds like someone who'd be for setting free music and art from copyright. But Republicans don't think that way. Instead they see art and music as work.

  • Crap (Score:2, Funny)

    by Seraphim_72 ( 622457 )

    It was so easy to hate Normy....now I might actually have to eat some crow with my Republican friends and think about giving him a vote next time ....grrr
    • Who was it who said "the difference between a liberal and a conservative is 20 years?"

      Don't worry, you'll be a republican in short order.
      • Who was it who said "the difference between a liberal and a conservative is 20 years?"

        And about 50 IQ points. I'll let people's personal biases dictate which way to interpret that.

        • And about 50 IQ points. I'll let people's personal biases dictate which way to interpret that.


          Heh. Actually it sort of does work both ways. Both uneducated and very highly educated people tend to be liberals; those in the middle tend to be conservatives.

          • those in the middle tend to be conservatives.

            So maybe we should start defining people's political viewpoints not as "liberal" or "conservative" but as "one-sigma," "two-sigma," etc.

          • Both uneducated and very highly educated people tend to be liberals; those in the middle tend to be conservatives.

            Hmmm. You piqued my curiosity enough to go and look it up, and you're wrong. Looking at NORC's GSS data, there is no statistically significant correlation between education and political self-identification on the liberal-conservative axis, or between education and party affiliation.

      • Consertative : "Liberal who has been mugged"
    • Very true. As a fellow Minnesotan I was surprised when he first came out with some public questions about what the RIAA was up to. I think at the teime he also admitted that he had at some point used file sharing software once or twice too, didn't he?

      I seem to recall that he tried to soft-peddle it though... "I downloaded some songs but I didn't inhale. Honest!"

      Made me (start to) re-evaluate my opinion of the guy too.

      • Re:Crap (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Seraphim_72 ( 622457 )
        Yeah,
        Weird part is I have written all of my congress critters, even left my name with Sen Dayton's people as a volunteer when he was looking at spam legislation, Normy is the only one who ever wrote back. :/

  • Not always slow. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by LinuxInDallas ( 73952 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @12:03PM (#7132632)
    The gov't isn't ALWAYS slow. Look at how quickly they passed legislation for the do-not-call list. If 50 million people sent letters/emails to their congressmen and told them to overturn the DMCA it would be history!

    • Re:Not always slow. (Score:4, Funny)

      by theunforgiv3n ( 713328 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @12:09PM (#7132660)
      Better yet we should have 50 million people send custom mix cds to thier congressmen houses. Just imagine. 50 million cds with Britney spears and Nelly Hits of the hour. We could not only get the DMCA revoked but the bad aritists revoked too
    • Look at how quickly they passed legislation for the do-not-call list.

      I suspect that's more the result of them getting those calls themselves than it was due to citizen input (although I'm sure there was quite a lot of that anyway). The DMCA would be history if lots of members of Congress and their staff and offspring were getting their doors figuratively kicked in by the RIAA and its minions in law enforcement.

  • Only makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)

    by release7 ( 545012 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @12:05PM (#7132638) Homepage Journal
    It seems to me, copyright laws were written with publisher in mind. The high penalties prevent a company like Random House from lifting a work from McGraw Hill and selling and distributing the books. Fining a 15 year-old $100,000 for sharing the latest Limp Bizkit single is just a little out of whack. The "crime" doesn't fit the punishment.

    • Re:Only makes sense (Score:2, Insightful)

      by dirk ( 87083 )
      But with the internet, everyone can be a publisher. While the penalties prevent one publisher from lifting work from another and republishing it, any kid on the internet with Kazaa can reach probably more people that either publishing company can individually. To say that Sony should be fined $100,000 because they stole EMI's music (or whatever example you want), but Billy who actually distibuted as much of the stolen music as Sony shouldn't be charged that much isn't right. I think the fines are too muc

      • Re:Only makes sense (Score:3, Insightful)

        by bmwm3nut ( 556681 )
        I think you are mostly correct. Say sony did steal a song from EMI and distribute it, they should be fined $100K or $150K or whatever the current law it. But if sony "stole" 100 songs from EMI and only distributed one of them, they should still only be fined the $100K or so.

        If billy steals 1000 songs from P2P but distributes none, he should not be fined. But if billy steals 1000 songs from P2P and distributes them, he should be fined for the number of songs he distributes.

        I think the laws were wr

      • Re: Only makes sense (Score:5, Interesting)

        by gidds ( 56397 ) <slashdot.gidds@me@uk> on Saturday October 04, 2003 @01:34PM (#7133078) Homepage
        But with the internet, everyone can be a publisher.

        Exactly! I know it's been said before, but this is the heart of the problem. Everyone can be a publisher. It's the reason why the internet is such a disruptive technology, such a force for change.

        It's also a situation, as you say, that existing precepts, principles, and prejudices simply weren't designed for.

        And it's a situation which challenges the power and the very existence of the large publishing organisations (whether in print, film, music, or whatever). No wonder they're doing all they can to prevent it:

        • using the might of existing laws in totally inappropriate ways,
        • promoting DRM schemes which will prevent individuals and smaller companies from being able to publish works themselves, and
        • subtly spreading the idea that only large corporations can be legitimate publishers, effectively dividing the world into 'corporates' and 'consumers', and keeping the latter in their place.

        Of course, some of these actions have additional effects, e.g. DRM controlling access to the works which do get published. But I suspect that in the long term, it's this preventing-Joe-Public-from-being-a-publisher aspect which will prove to be the important one.

        Technology is breaking down the exclusivity of so many means of creation and publishing - the desktop publishing revolution brought some of the power of the great publishing houses to the individual, and similar advances have brought some of the power of the recording studios, radio networks, photographic workshops, post offices, movie studios, sheet music publishers, news networks, &c. Not all the power, of course - there's no substitute for artistic talent and creativity in any sphere, and these advances tend to promote the spread of mediocre more than outstanding work.

        It's sad to see the hatred and bitterness with which these advances are being treated by existing publishers, because I don't think they're as threatened as they think. People will still want good music, good books, good movies, &c, and there will still be money to be made providing them. It might not be with the exact same business model, or in the same form, but I'm sure sooner or later something will get sorted out. In the end, it's only the publishers of mediocre, worthless material who need fear. Which perhaps explains the current situation rather well...

      • but the reason isn't that people should be fined less than publishing companies.

        Why not?? No matter what your view is on intellectual property, everyone has to agree that there's a world of difference between distributing someone else's creation for profit, and distributing it for free. A publishing company violating current copyright laws would be trying to obtain profit by distributing a work, whereas individuals are simply saying, "Here, do you want to listen to this too?"

        This is clearly different.
    • That'll teach them to listen to Limp Bizkit.

  • gone overboard (Score:2, Insightful)

    by potpie ( 706881 )
    The RIAA is going overboard with their subpoenas... $150000 per song??? They're blaming something for their economic woes (and i've seen the statistics- they don't have many) that can make them more money when they exploit it. It's no different than when they claimed home radio taping was killing music in the 80's. Hmmm... they seemed to have survived that, didn't they?
    • Actually, I thought that was when the RIAA came up, after another group died trying to fight taping. Of course, I'm probably wrong. Please, tell me.

  • Epidemic (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tarnin ( 639523 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @12:09PM (#7132664)
    Intresting wording here. Looks like the RIAA is trying to pull the same stunt as VeriSign, make themselves out to be the underdog here. They have some huge public relations control to do here after suing the 12yr old (ya ya it was the parents but in the news, it was a 12yr old) and that old lady on a mac. Both made local news and gave the RIAA a very black eye to the every day citizen who has had nothing but info from the RIAA camp.

    One thing about the mass suing by the RIAA though, I kind of wish it had more of an impact in the court systems. I was hopeing that they would have tried to sue someone very wealthy who didn't want to settle out of court and bring it up in the public eye and allow the DMCA to finally be challanged all the way though. As of now the RIAA is banking on the fact that the people they are suing will just setting and this will never see the light of day in any court room. Atleast it feels like that from the people that they have been suing. This type of situation is a win win for them. They get money, they set a court presidence, and they frighten people all by just sending out a letter.

    One good thing is that some companies, like verizon, are still making a stand against their requests to fork over users. While they have ordered by the courst to hand over people so far, they are still fighting it and for that we have some hope that this mess of a law may soon be challanged and maybe, just maybe, finally thrown out.
    • The problem is, I imagine that if they accidentally hit someone rich enough to defend themselves, they'd back down.

      They probably know that in a court of law that a judge would give quite measley damages for file sharing (say $100). That's assuming they don't get a jury who decide to just turn over the RIAA.

    • I was hopeing that they would have tried to sue someone very wealthy who didn't want to settle out of court and bring it up in the public eye and allow the DMCA to finally be challanged all the way though.

      That would never happen. You don't think that when they get a list of people from the ISPs that there is a descent amount of filtering going on? Can you imagine what were to happen if a Congress Person's son or the like were to get sued? They deliberatly go after people that don't have enough money to

      • I agree and thats why I originally wrote "Atleast it feels like that from the people that they have been suing." Also, I'll bet you they would just drop the suit if it went to far thus still ensuring that it is never tested.
  • I don't want to think that I'm the only reason for this happening, but I'd like to think I played a small role. I'm from Minnesota and try to follow my elected representatives in Washington. When Senator Coleman joined the senate in January of 2003, I saw that he was appointed as chairman of the Senate Permanent Committee on Investigations. I began to write and call him (quite often at that). I'd imagine that hundreds of others people (both Minnesotan and otherwise) did the same thing. Believe it or no
    • If that's the case, you surely did play some small role. This is a good time to impress on everyone that nothing is more effective than calls or letters (on paper, dammit, not email) from constituents when it comes to influencing the course of Congress. If everyone sat down and wrote the occasional letter to their two senators and their congressman, things would be a lot different - no matter what their ostensible party affiliation is, nothing is more important to a politician than re-election, and if the

  • Don't curse the darkness, Light a candle (Score:4, Informative)

    by Crashmarik ( 635988 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @12:25PM (#7132758)
    Write your own senators and congressperson.

    Heres a link to a pre done letter off the citizens against government waste site

    Write your reps [convio.net]

  • Honestly. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JayBlalock ( 635935 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @12:30PM (#7132775)
    It sounds like this is just a rare case of a Senator these days recognizing that "let a corporation do whatever it wants" is NOT a good idea. The RIAA's campaign started off bad, and keeps getting worse. Anyone with a shred of sense can see that - piracy aside - their business model is quickly becoming unsustainable. Yet they don't seem to recognize this, at least not publically, and their insistance that it's 100% because of piracy suggests they are profoundly out of touch with the real world.

    It also suggests that at this point, they've become so entrenched in this mindset that they probably WOULD happily start suing more and more people, the more their sales start to slide. Which, I personally think represents one of the most profound perversions of our economic principles imaginable. Did anyone else who bought something from Magnatunes in the last week stop to think, gee, I probably just sent another subpoena to some grandmother in NYC? That's virtually how bad the situation has gotten, and a logical conclusion that can be drawn from their quixotic belief that ALL their sales problems are from piracy. It boils down to, "Buy our stuff or we sue you."

    Since the government can't act DIRECTLY to stop them (well, it could, but it won't) the best thing they could do is seek to limit the RIAA's power to weild lawsuits. If you eliminate the chance of them profitting from this (the fines would be less than the lawyers' fees), and make sure no one suddenly wakes up to discover a quarter-million lawsuit in their mailbox, then the RIAA might just be forced to face reality.

    (WHY the RIAA is taking this stance is another issue altogether. I personally think it's a snowball, once they started trying to convince their shareholders that their problems were due to piracy, it took on a life of its own)

  • Speed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cybermage ( 112274 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @12:32PM (#7132791) Homepage Journal
    Sadly, there's no quantitative values for proposed reduced measures yet, but given the speed at which government moves it's reassuring to know the issue is this far along already.

    Well, we've seen Congress demonstrate that they can act quickly if they want to. The Do-Not-Call thing went through in something like 2 days. I'd read someplace that there are more people downloading music than on the do-not-call list (admittedly not all americans,) so quick action is required :)

    Even further off topic, but wasn't it a mistake to demonstrate that they could pass a bill that fast. I'd think the press would have a field day the next time something takes forever.

  • Protection of citizens rights an 'epedemic'? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @12:37PM (#7132814) Homepage Journal
    Its Sad.

    Its too bad the general public doesnt have a clue about what is going on.

    Eventually it will effect them, but by then it will be too late.

    Its not just with the music indstustry, its under attack from all sides.. both private industry and goverment..

    At least we can tell our grandchildren how we used to be free. Assuming that remains permitted speech of course.

  • What's his opinion on circumvention? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Nucleon500 ( 628631 ) <tcfelker@example.com> on Saturday October 04, 2003 @12:50PM (#7132862) Homepage
    Apparently Coleman doesn't like outrageous fines or the complete lack of due process the DMCA lets the RIAA get away with. That's good, but he could go further. What are his opinions on the circumvention clauses, the ones which make DeCSS code illegal to use, possess, or even discuss? And are there any other evil parts of the DMCA I'm overlooking? It would be really cool if Coleman's proposal morphed into some kind of DMCA reform, or even totally neutered it.

  • Perhaps... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Emperor Tiberius ( 673354 )
    Perhaps, the good ol' senator has realized that the average American citizen is not only unable, but often incapable of paying some of the RIAA's "figures." Hell, the court system in this country is one that allows a burglar to break into a home, get injured, and sue the homeowner for hundreds of thousands of dollars, because it was their home.

    Give me a break!

  • The problem is not the law itself (Score:3, Insightful)

    by voss ( 52565 ) on Saturday October 04, 2003 @01:17PM (#7133002)
    The problem is that the law is disproportionate to the losses suffered.

    The founding fathers who designed the Copyright law always intended to punish those who copied for profit more than those who copied for personal use or distribution for friends...yet that distinction was removed. That should be put back.

    There should be a cap on fines for copying that does not involve distribution for profit. IF we cannot have some sort of compulsory licensing ,at least we can have some sanity with the laws we do have.

  • Norm Coleman Story :) (Score:3, Funny)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) * <teamhasnoi AT yahoo DOT com> on Saturday October 04, 2003 @01:34PM (#7133084) Journal
    Back when Norm was mayor of St. Paul I played a private Halloween show in NE Minneapolis for some design company. Norm happened to show up, and walked around pressing the flesh.

    Being that this was a design company, everyone was in costume and very good ones at that. There were some Darth Mauls, some Ghostbuster guys with lighted 'Proton Packs' and of course several 'The Artist formerly Known as Prince'-es, Purple Rain era.

    Norm was walking around and stopped at the refreshment table. I walked up to him, shook his hand and said, "That's the best Norm Coleman costume I've ever seen. Good job."

    His smile faltered for a moment, then he replied, "uh...Thanks.."

    First time I've ever seen a politician run out of stuff to say.

  • The RIAA responded by calling the current situation an 'epidemic.'

    An epidemic? Maybe, in the sense that the VCR was an epidemic.

    One man's epidemic is another's business opportunity. RIAA hates the phrase "new business model," but so what? It is inevitable -- it has to happen.

    RIAA is properly pursuing its rights against individual downloaders -- a far better solution to the problem than seeking ludicrous laws to castrate my computer or shut down legitimate businesses.

    I agree that the statutory damges
  • Wow, this Norm Coleman fellow is completely off his rocker here!
    Anybody who actually thinks that seeking $97.8 billion [slashdot.org] in damages (from someone as dangerous as a college student, no less) is excessive obviously needs a better grasp on reality.

    ... and here I thought Jesse Helms was insane!
  • RIAA revenues in 2001: $13.7 billion RIAA new releases in 2001: about 27,000 Figure 10 songs per release avg $13,700,000,000 / 27,000 / 10 = avg $50,700 revenue per song So the way the law is written right now, a song being pirated just once is worth three times more than it is on the free market.
  • Following this article from last month, Senator Norm Coleman (R.-Minn.) has announced that he will seek to limit federal penalties for copyright downloads and seek to restrict the subpoena power essentially granted to the industry through the DMCA.

    On another note, Gary Coleman has announced the he simlpy seeks attention.

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