Looks like Congress has declared war on the internet (again)

[kyakki]

SOURCE

Many internet users in the United States have watched with horror as countries like France and Britain have proposed or instituted so-called “three strikes” laws, which cut off internet access to those accused of repeated acts of copyright infringement. Now the U.S. has its own version of this kind of law, and it is arguably much worse: the

Comments

[roseofjuly]

Protecting big business, that's all this is. The encroachment upon individual rights for the sake of profiteering is really scary; our country is supposed to be for the people, but now it's being subdivided for a wealthy few to make money off the rest of our backs.

Instead of forcing companies to find a more viable way to make money in the face of piracy, they simply have turned the onus back on us to make it harder to get the stuff.

And it's not like I'm all gung-ho about copyright infringement - I had my days, but I obtain almost all of my music legally now through iTunes. Partially because my university's network has an agreement with the RIAA (they allow them to crawl your computer and shut down your network access if they find an illegally downloaded file on your computer, even if you downloaded it years ago) and partially because content is just easier to find on Amazon or iTunes.

Shit, pretty soon we WILL be living in the Handmaid's Tale. (I'm reading it now.)

[anolinde]

Partially because my university's network has an agreement with the RIAA (they allow them to crawl your computer and shut down your network access if they find an illegally downloaded file on your computer, even if you downloaded it years ago)

Omg, wtf?!?! What university is this, if you don't mind my asking? Do you know of any other universities that do this?

[rorychan]

My university does this to. @ California State University of Fresno. D: It's a shame really. It's unnecssary.

[anolinde]

That's so scary. D: Now I'm paranoid that they're going to come knocking at my door, considering I may or may not have just downloaded some songs from Mediafire... DDD:

[roseofjuly]

Columbia. What happens is, if you are on the network you will suddenly be redirected to a NETWORK ACCESS DENIED page, explaining that you're in violation of copyright infringement. They'll tell you what files they found. In order to regain access, you have to delete the files from your computer, then take this stupid quiz after reading an information page about not downloading music. Then you have to wait for up to two hours for your access to be restored (although it usually only takes a few minutes). It's happened to me twice (once with some movies, and once with a music file), and I'm just hoping it doesn't happen again because I have a lot of illegally downloaded music from my college days even though I buy all of my music legitimately now.

[anolinde]

Omg, that's ridiculous. Is there any way you can get around that so they can't tell if you've downloaded the files illegally? (i.e. burning the music to a CD, then re-ripping everything?)

[roseofjuly]

I'm not sure because I'm not really electronically savvy like that - I don't know whether there's a signature embedded on the song or what. They don't detect your whole library, either. Almost all of my music library is pirated because I only started legit buying music this year, and they only detected and asked me to remove one song and I haven't had any problems since then. I've been at Columbia for 3 years now, but I've only been living on the main campus (and having my computer constantly connected to the network) for the last 3 months. However, I used to bring it all the time before.

[rayiroth]

Um, so what happens if you downloaded music that isn't covered by copy rights?

[roseofjuly]

I don't think you have problems, then...they only find copyrighted ones. I think.

[maladaptive]

The RIAA has "enforced" the rights of musicians that release under the Creative Commons.

[rayosunny]

First off, love The Handmaid's Tale.

Second of all, I do not feel bad for anyone who gets busted for downloading music in this day and age. It's illegal and you're hurting the artist and probably opening yourself up to malware in the process. I don't believe that makes me some sort of fascist.

Songs cost as cheap as .69 cents in places like Amazon. Spotify is free. So is Pandora, Last.fm, Vevo and other places. It is so easy to get access to music legally.

[fizzy_pepsi]

Since when did artists make the majority of their $ through CD/mp3 sales?

[rayosunny]

A little is more than nothing at all.

[roseofjuly]

That's why I wrote that third paragraph. I don't have sympathy for copyright infringers; like I said, I used to do it too, but I know that it's wrong and I obtain my entertainment legally (though iTunes, Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, Pandora). I also have the resources to purchase music online, though, and pay for the services that provide television and movies. I don't know where in my comment that you thought being against copyright infringement is being some sort of "fascist." (Although I will say I never got malware on my computer from illegally downloading, and I did it for about 10 years - even back when it was relatively new

[rayosunny]

Don't get it twisted, I'm not in support of this law. I think it's a drastic overreach and it's not solution to the piracy problem

[roseofjuly]

If they ASK the ISP to cooperate, that's fine and good, but I'm going to take my business to an ISP who doesn't. Not because I plan to pirate music, but because I don't want people searching through my computer like that - unless I have no choice, like at my university.

But compelling them by law to cooperate is a different matter.