Trash illegal downloaders' PCs

[Thing]

Wednesday, June 18, 2003 Posted: 9:14 AM EDT (1314 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Illegally download copyright music from the Internet once, or even twice, and you get a warning. Do it a third time, and your computer gets destroyed.

That's the suggestion made by the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee at a Tuesday hearing on copyright abuse, reflecting a growing frustration in Congress over failure of the technology and entertainment industries to protect copyrights in a digital age. More...

[Yoni]

Ugh... When will they learn that formulation of computer laws should be done only by people who are experts in both law and computers, not one or zero of the above?! People like Senator Hatch are the reason abominations like DMCA exist and people like CupHead get prosecuted.

[Grok]

How about when the Senators get three parking tickets, their car gets turned into razor blades?

[Arta]

That's got to be one of the stupidest suggestions ever.

[Raven]

Stupid suggestions by stupid people. Don't forget Senator Hatch is around 3,000,000,000 years old.

[iago]

You'd better make those first 2 songs the best songs ever :-)

[Yoni]

HAHA
This is an excellent and incredible follow up story:
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,59305,00.html

It seems that Senator Hatch is a software pirate himself! Will the irony stop here?

[DarkVirus]

Trash our pc's? Heh... This sounds like the upcomming copyright protection encryption Microsoft is trying to incoorperate (with the help of another company, I forget who) at the years end to all media files. Dvd's, Music cds etc... Ummm... When will congress or anyone with half a brain figure out that people are too intelligent (well some not all) too get stuck in that sort of trap. Congress and basically just the government have all these wonderful ideas to stop pirates yet every attempt has failed. They keep comming back with all these empty promises to kill us off but... well I'll just say they arnt doing a very good job. What about private ftp servers? What about level 10 security private sites that dont allow normal user access. (well maybe not 10 but secure at least ) How about the provision of media discs from the same companies bitching about pirating. All these companies bitch and moan about the illegal use of their software and other files, yet they bitch at the consumer. What about the retailers who sell us the technology to do this? Did the industry really expect that when they released cd drives with the capability to rip and burn a dvd, copy media of any kind and even record tv shows onto media discs, that it would be used with legal intentions? I always find it funny that the juggernaut of the software industry Microsoft includes cd burning capabilities in their own Media Player, yet they too are bitching about software piracy. I've always wanted to step up to the plate and smack the CEO's and spokesman of these companies for being basically stupid. In responce to trashing pc's... There could be a number of lawsuits if such technology is produced because what if its leaked and used by un-authorized users? What if there's a bug ( theres always a bug in this sort of shit) that "trashes" the wrong computer? How will the industry track the number of media files downloaded? Include it in a highly safeguarded file with an abnormal name in the system directory?  Probably  O well, thats basically my bitch about the situation, but how can people be so stupid.

[Grok]

It will never pass.  The precedent it would set would be too enormous.  Imagine if the accuser can be judge jury and executioner for every crime, AND have immunity from punishment if they hold an interest in the alleged crime.

Hatch wanted to allow the music producers to destroy the accused downloader's PCs without the due process of law.  He also wanted to protect the producers from liability for destroying the PC.

Imagine the implications.  Any citizen is now a complete justice system and above the law.  What if I think your car's exhaust fumes drifted into my house and made me sick three times?  Watch your Lexus burn baby burn, in your driveway.

Hatch should be considered senile or just a damn fool for proposing such stupidity.  If nothing else it is conflict of interest, as he is a songwriter and should never have been using his office to promote his own agenda.  He was blinded by his own passions, and that makes him apt to make stupid judgments.  The right thing to do would have been to give the proposal to a colleague who has no stake in the fight, and let them come up with a solution.

[Super]

They should also know that they would only get people who know only a few things about PC's the true "pirates"  those of us who build custom machines with exactly what we want on them wouldn't be affected at all and if we were a workaround would be developed quite quickly I'm pretty sure.  Also if they could track whether or not we had it enabled on our system and fine us or something then that would be an invasion of privacy.  If Microsoft or the government try's putting something into or on our systems that could be harmful I just wouldn't upgrade to it cause they can't legally force me to download stuff.