Dog.Beckament.net

Now that judge Kimba Wood has ruled that the popular filesharing software Limewire infringes on copyright, the recording industry lawyers have asked US courts to order LimeWire owner Mark Gorton to pay $1,500,000,000,000 (that’s 1.5 Trillion) for 200,000,000 alleged downloads of the Limewire software as reported by the P2PNet news site (go there and read it, it’s quite informative).

A quick Google search of US GDP shows the US Gross Domestic Product (in current US dollars and not adjusted for inflation) in 2008 as 14.6 Trillion dollars. So Limewire has cost the recording industry 10% of the 2008 US GDP…??!?!? Has the industry even made that much in it’s entire existence?

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According to a recent Wired article; Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles are seeking 6 months in prison for a man who pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of uploading pre-release Guns N’ Roses songs.

I know it is making available and not downloading, but I always thought that copyright violations were (and should be) a civil issue (I mean it’s not technically stealing since the victim has not lost the original copy, although I am not making the case that it is acceptable). I suppose I feel that the punishment should fit the crime (in this case punitive damages and not jail time). After all it is merely copying data (the article calls it a misdemeanor) and not equivalent to a violent crime. I really hope that article got it wrong and they don’t really mean prison.

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ARS Technica reports the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008 (s3325) got approval from the Senate Judiciary Committee by 14-4 vote. If passed into law this empowers the Justice Department of the USofA to litigate civil suits (and seize property) on behalf of IP owners (corporate interests).

ARS Technica reports “Critics have blasted this provision as a gift of free, taxpayer-funded legal services to content owners”.

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Watch the videos and read the article, I am really too busy to summarize this one, but if you live in the USofA it is important. This has to do with vote swapping on modern voting systems.

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Ok, I was going to vote for Barack Obama, he seemed like the ‘big-time’ candidate that had more of my interests at heart. Then he voted for the recent FISA Amendments Act of 2008 that grants telecoms immunity for helping the government break the law. This floored me… A law that protects lawbreakers. This just didn’t make sense… FISA already had rules in place for spying on Americans (FISA established a secret court a long time ago…), the government has been ignoring them for some time now. Now he wants to grant immunity from prosecution for companies (telecoms) that broke the law. He made some statements after voting trying to explain why he voted the way he did, but they are meaningless; the vote counts, not the words.

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