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Re:That's interesting. (Score:4, Insightful) by gnu-generation-one (717590) on Saturday June 26, @07:25AM (#9536174) (http://konspire.sourceforge.net/)

"I don't suppose anyone is going to come up with an argument saying that they are in the theaters with their camcorders excersizing their right to time shift... :)" So theoretically, would this make it worth your while to kill anyone who noticed you using the camcorder, if there was, say, a 60% chance that killing them allowed you to successfully escape? There must be some probability threshold before a "manslaughter-equivalent" jail sentance for videoing makes it worth your while to do bad things if you get caught... How does the person sitting next to you in the cinema feel about this, compared to say, the managing director of the company who invested in the film?

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Bill text (Score:5, Informative) by 0x0d0a (568518) on Saturday June 26, @08:10AM (#9536274) (Last Journal: Thursday June 03, @01:50AM)

You *could* disable your camcorder (cover the lens or whatnot) and proceed to pretend to "film" the movie while watching it. It's quite legal, even if it might drive theater managers nuts. It also makes enforcement of this infeasible, if done widely enough. Here is the bill text [nw.dc.us], which should really have been included in the story. (Actually, IMHO, Slashdot policy should be to require a link to bill text when submitting a story on new legislation.) Avoid funding Bush's re-election! [boycottbush.net]

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Re:Bill text (Score:5, Insightful) by Entropius (188861) on Saturday June 26, @11:41AM (#9537280)

Why? If Congress doesn't read it before voting on it, why should we? *grumble*

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Re:That's interesting. (Score:5, Insightful) by uncoveror (570620) on Saturday June 26, @10:32AM (#9536889) (http://www.uncoveror.com/)

While no one will likely bash this law claiming a right to videotape in theatres, I will say that this law is way too draconian. Three years in prison if it's not for profit, and five if it is when nothing tangible has been taken? Fines would be more appropriate. If they are going to be draconian, why not just sentance camcorder "pirates" to death? What are those senators smoking? The Uncoveror: It's the real news.

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What Country are YOU living in? (Score:5, Insightful) by Mark_MF-WN (678030) on Saturday June 26, @05:10AM (#9535842)

What country are YOU living in? Here in America (by which I mean the USA and Canada), punishment rarely fits the crime. If you steal a billion dollars from investors, you'll be asked to retire and pay a fine. Steal a hundred dollars from a liquour store, and you'll get twenty years in jail. Pirating films isn't white-collar enough to warrant a light sentence. The only crimes that have stiff sentences are the ones that wealthy people don't commit. Lobbying and campaign contributions are just legitmized bribery; Democracy is dead.

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Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:5, Insightful) by EvilCabbage (589836) on Saturday June 26, @05:15AM (#9535866)

I live in that big brown land of Australia. We're a bit behind the times down here. I can't think of any recent examples of a local company using it's financial power to put draconian laws into affect. Give us another six months or so to catch up on that one. Hopefully we'll tear up and burn that Fraud Trade Agreement Bush "offered" us, and we won't have to worry about it any time soon either. playingwithfire.org [playingwithfire.org]

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Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:5, Funny) by Mycroft_VIII (572950) on Saturday June 26, @05:41AM (#9535943) (Last Journal: Monday June 07, @03:13AM)

Well actually it's they tend to only get caught in one (or one related set of) crime(s) then wise up and become a professional crook by running for office. Mycroft

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Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:5, Insightful) by orthogonal (588627) on Saturday June 26, @05:46AM (#9535958) (Last Journal: Friday June 25, @11:38AM)

Ah yes, but most people who steal from liquor stores have committed many other crimes, and are likely to commit a lot more, whereas white collar criminals tend to only commit one crime. Huh, that's funny. I'd have sworn Dennis Koslowski [nydailynews.com] is accused not only of looting his own company, but tax evasion in the millions as well -- and various conspiracies to cover up his alleged crimes. Not to mention the allegations against Ken Lay and the other alleged Enron conspirators : not only are they alleged to have conned their own investors, they are also alleged to have manufactured fake power shortages in order to over-charge California, according to seized tapes: [cbsnews.com] "They're fucking taking all the money back from you guys?" complains an Enron employee on the tapes. "All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?" "Yeah, grandma Millie, man" "Yeah, now she wants her fucking money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her asshole for fucking $250 a megawatt hour." And the tapes appear to link top Enron officials Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling to schemes that fueled the crisis. "Government Affairs has to prove how valuable it is to Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling," says one trader. But even if you were correct in claiming that "white collar criminals tend to only commit one crime", if that single crime nets the criminal millions of dollars, well, those ill-gotten gains will last a lifetime longer than the take from knocking over a liqueur store. I'm sure that if by robbing a liqueur store you could make millions, the hold up men would be happy to retire afterward -- or be driven out of thievery by competition from greedy MBAs. But tell me one thing: why are you so willing to be sympathetic to those who steal the investments of pensioners and pension plans in order to live it up yachting on the Riviera, and so unsympathetic to the poor junkie from the projects who just wants to steal enough to get by for one more miserable day? Why do we allow the wealthy to bend us over and rob us, and then fawn all over them at their parole parties? Why do we beleive that a CEO really "earns" a salary plus benefits in the tens of millions of dollars, while the average worker gets his jib outsourced? Is it because we respect wealth -- earned or stolen -- so much, or just because we respect ourselves so little? Is this still the country that Jefferson and the Adamses risked their "lives, fortunes, and scared honors" for, or some European-style feudalism with the thieving rich taking the place of an idle aristocracy? Comment on All of human history, in a quick "ten years" [slashdot.org]

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Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:5, Insightful) by blane.bramble (133160) on Saturday June 26, @07:30AM (#9536185) (http://www.lyzard.net/vorpalmail/)

Is this still the country that Jefferson and the Adamses risked their "lives, fortunes, and scared honors" for, or some European-style feudalism with the thieving rich taking the place of an idle aristocracy? Seriously, how do you think the European aristocracy came into being? It was rich and wealthy merchants using their money and power to buy themselves rights and more power. America is not a classless society, it just defines its classes differently. Your powerful families are growing just as they did in Europe hundreds of years ago - basically same system, different part of the curve. Give a man a URL he surfs one site. Teach a man to google, he surfs for life.

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Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:5, Interesting) by daniil (775990) on Saturday June 26, @08:53AM (#9536451) (Last Journal: Thursday June 24, @03:47PM)

Seriously, how do you think the European aristocracy came into being? It was rich and wealthy merchants using their money and power to buy themselves rights and more power. This isn't entirely correct. A nobility title came with land (a feud), not with wealth. You could be piss poor and still be an aristocrate, and then again, in the Middle Ages, you could be the richest merchant in the world and still not hold any title. This was, at least in part, because of religion: trading was considered to be usury (for obvioud reasons -- noone would sell goods for the price they bought them), and usury was considered to be a mortal sin. --- Don't be humble. You're not that great. -- Golda Meir

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Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:5, Insightful) by edalytical (671270) on Saturday June 26, @06:07AM (#9536009)

most people who steal from liquor stores have commited many other crimes, and are likely to commit a lot more I thought you could only be punished for crimes you have been charged for and found guilty of having commit. Not for crimes you may have done or are likely to do.

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Re:Name one person. (Score:5, Informative) by general_re (8883) on Saturday June 26, @08:53AM (#9536453)

Name two people who are actually doing REAL prison time for defrauding investors. Why? Typically people who ask for things like that will simply dismiss any names given as not being REAL enough. Here's a list of names - you can decide for yourself if the penalties they faced or face are REAL enough to suit you: Andrew Fastow, Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, Dennis Levine, Martin Seigel, Ben Glisan, Michael Kopper. And many, many more. "Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago." - Bernard Berenson

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Re:You'd get less time... (Score:5, Insightful) by Granos (746051) on Saturday June 26, @05:25AM (#9535898)

... if you beat up a video store clerk and steal some real, actual copies of a film on DVD or VHS. I'm not standing up for the crime, but isn't the punishment supposed to match it? Great analogy, except that you're comparing the ACTUAL time you would probably get for a crime to the MAXIMUM time you could get for another crime. The MAXIMUM punishment for felony aggravated assault and felony robbery would probably be about 30+ years, depending on the state. Why do people on slashdot have such trouble comprehending maximum punishment? Go look at some laws. Most crimes have suprisingly high maximum punishents. Most people don't get the maximum. That's why it's called a maximum punishment, not a standard punishemnt.

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Rome (Score:5, Insightful) by zogger (617870) on Saturday June 26, @08:47AM (#9536427)

It depends on which state. A lot of states now have on the 2nd or 3rd felony conviction you get life. That's one of the reasons they have built so many prisons the past decade or so, and why we have such a high inmate population as a percentage of the entire population Laws and crimes and what gets emphasized are entirely random now. for instance, we have multi millions of illegal immigrants. People who jump the border have committed a felony, yet it is almost universally ignored, they are allowed to live freely almost anyplace inside the US. At best if they find a huge group of them near the border they'll just be shipped back over, they rarely serve any jail time. We also have laws that make hiring an illegal immigrant a federal crime, with a 10,000$ fine per incident, but you never hear much of any arrests in those cases, even though the practice is blatant. There's more, that's just a blatant example. Law enforcement is political, it's not any sort of even or fair, it's whatever the elite class wants that season. They give the orders, their enforcers click heels and jump to it. If they are ordered to ignore certain crimes, they will do so, even if they are aware of them. I am not pro criminal, I just think the laws are terribly skewed and not enforced fairly across the board, and we have a variety of laws on the books now that are just ridiculous and shouldn't even be there. The US has a growth industry of gradually adding to laws that make more of the lower and middle classes "criminals". I think it's planned that way, to make a two class society eventually, technofeudalism. They are also apparently destroying as much of the middle class job structure as they can. Any job they can find that is exportable they will, any job that they can't exported they will import millions of illegals or too many legals to take those jobs. It's so completely obvious I won't even debate it with any debunkers now, the stats and realities are all over. It's been slow but verifiably steady, and the numbers increase yearly. Part of the plan, command and control, the same old dodge the old aristocrats have always pulled down through the ages. As to recording in the cinema? I could care less, I've been boycotting movies for awhile now, and paid for music, I just quit. If a movie is free to copy, I might buy it. I have two here I got that the producer lets people make copies of. Music, again, if it's free over the radio by putting up with ads I occassionaly listen, but besides that, don't buy any-new. Used I will buy, it's just recycled, and the producers don't make another penny on it, but some guy at a yard sale will so I don't care, but even then not too much, a few examples of each a year. I even quit buying from the new but marked down bins, stopped that last year. I think if enough people will stop placing so much importance on "entertainmnerts" of that sort, we'll see more sane pricing and reduce any demand for copying for profit. it's all I can do, tell people to boycott movies and music and professional sports and television fiction. it's gotten so ridiculous expensive it's stupid, and the time wasting aspects of it are lost to the wasters, I think in a lot of cases they don't realise how absuerdly addicted they get to it to the detriment of other more important things our society ignores too much. When you can get several million people in one weekend to go drop tens of millions of dollars all over the country to watch some new movie, with thousands in any random city you pick, and the same city can't get two dozen people to a community meeting to discuss local judicial corruption or the next multi million dollar school budget, etc, well, there's something wrong there in *general terms*. IMO anyway. Rome when it was collapsing had it's bread and circuses to keep the people amused and occupied so they wouldn't pay attention to the rot that was collapsing their society around them.. We have the same thing now but people don't like to think they are droned out barbarians addicted to bread and Read the rest of this comment...

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Re:You'd get less time... (Score:5, Interesting) by EvilCabbage (589836) on Saturday June 26, @05:24AM (#9535893)

"Let me guess--you're one of those people who thinks that corporate executives should get many years in prison rather than fines because of the economic damage their misdeeds cause." There is real, measurable damage when some clown in a business suit robs someone of their retirement fund. They destroy lives. I'm yet to see a poor starving industry executive begging me for money when I buy my groceries because some kid downloaded a copy of "Crossroads". "Well, movie pirates likewise cause millions in economic damage." If I hadn't been able to download a few episodes of The Sopranos, I never would have bought the entire DVD collection. Viewing times just don't suit my work habits unfortunately, and I'm not abou to shell out $100 on something that might just be garbage. But wait, you're talking about those poor unfortunate people like set builders and painters, the hard workers who make their living supporting the movie industry, and I'm hurting them, right? If that's the case, they'd have a big complaint to lodge with those behind Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow. The whole movie filmed without a single set being built, everything CG apart from the main actors. The movie industry is playing catch-up to consumer demands. They either adapt, of their business model dies. Is it really that hard to grasp? playingwithfire.org [playingwithfire.org]

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Re:You'd get less time... (Score:5, Insightful) by freejung (624389) * <freejung@freejunglepictures.com> on Saturday June 26, @05:31AM (#9535917) (http://www.freenaturepictures.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday June 24, @12:44AM)

Well, movie pirates likewise cause millions in economic damage They do. But this law would give you up to three years in prison even if you don't do it for profit. While many people stealing movies for personal use may collectively cause millions in economic damage, individually you have only cost a few bucks. So the punishment should fit the crime, that is, it should only be worth a few bucks, not millions. If somebody pirates a movie for profit and makes millions themselves, I can see this argument holding and requiring a stiff sentence. But for individual pirates stealing for personal use, it's just insane. My new site: Free Nature Pictures [freenaturepictures.com]

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But why on earth should taypayers have to pay for enforcement of these rules?

If preventing camcorders is movie theaters is so important to their business, they should pay for the cost of preventing it. Anything else is a form of subsidy of the music industry. Taypayer money should be spend on protecting the security of people. Subsidies (in any form) are justified only if an industry which is important for providing necessities of life to the population is otherwise likely to suffer significant harm. In this case, there is no justification: The movie industry does not provide any necessities, just luxerious. Also, the movie industry would be quite capable of paying the costs of enforcing the rules they asked for. By paying for enforcement of this rule, Senate intends to rob the poor (taypayers) and giev to the rich (movie industry).

Re:Why should taypayers pay for enforcement? (Score:5, Insightful) by TheFlyingGoat (161967) on Saturday June 26, @05:13AM (#9535855) (http://www.britneyspears.ac/lasers.htm)

I stand corrected in my other post... I guess people will get worked up over this. So what you're saying is that we shouldn't have to pay for law enforcement to stop people from robbing your local McDonalds as well? If something is wrong, it's wrong, and if there's a law made against it, then officers should be in place to uphold that law. Otherwise our laws mean nothing. If you don't like this law, use your vote to show that. I really don't mind the government spending less than a penny per person on this when they're throwing a lot more money around on REALLY stupid projects. Utinam barbari spatioum proprium tuum invadant.

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Re:Why should taypayers pay for enforcement? (Score:4, Informative) by Bios_Hakr (68586) on Saturday June 26, @08:29AM (#9536345) (http://cugy.net/)

Bank robbers endanger the general public. Also, banks hire private security. The cops are only needed if the situation escalates. Murder needs to be prosicuted so that the general public can feel safe and do their jobs. $5M may be a small ammount, but it's still five fucking million dolars! Let's use it to train 2 more cops and have them patrol streets. The movie industry probably pays less tax than you think. I read an analasys of how these things work. Basicly, a company is formed to produce the film. The company leases all the equipment and sets from MGM or Mirimax or Disney. Then the film is made. After the profits start rolling in, the company has to pay MGM for the rentals. The rental prices are set to absorb any real profits. Then the company declares bankruptcy. MGM ends up with all the money by basicly renting the equipment to itself. I'm sure these companies pay tax. But if you and I are taxed at 20% to 30% of our income, big production companies probably pay closer to 5%. Think about that. You lose 1 of every 3 dolars you make so that police can enforce the rights of a company that pays 2 out of every 50 dollars it makes. I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.

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People who secretly videotape movies when they are shown in theaters could go to prison for up to three years under a bill approved unanimously by the U.S. Senate on Friday. ---TFA

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It's a sad day when you realize youre no longer internally proud of your own country.. that it's abandoned its own values and is becoming a de facto police state.

What happened, guys??

Re:"I need to get out of here" (Score:5, Insightful) by Hektor_Troy (262592) on Saturday June 26, @06:53AM (#9536116)

I think it can be traced back to a couple of things: 1) Changing the meaning of "patriot" to someone who is behind his government no matter what. 2) Changing the definition of "democracy" to "the lesser of two evils" 3) Changing the meaning of any political group to be derogatory. 4) Labeling anyone who speaks out against the government to be either a traitor or freedom hating commie bastard (this relates to #1) Of course, I'm just a godless freedom hating commie bastard from Denmark of all places - hell, I'm even a member of the [warning for the faint of heart] Social Democrats AND I'm an atheis, so that absolutely PROVES that I'm a freedom hating godless commie bastard. Oh, and since I don't agree with your governments politics, and can really only stand Colin Powel, I hate America too. Cellar Door

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Someone want to confirm or deny this? Was the PIRATE Act passed "unanimously"?

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Last time I looked 'we' stronly believe in copyright enforcement when / as it applies to GPL or other FOSS licensed material. But when the shoe's on the other foot, suddenly people who go to a fair bit of trouble to steal a copyright work are *victims*? I think not.

Many of the comments here run along the lines of 'ohh look at those really harsh penalties, compare them to (white-collar-crime, violent crime ...).

Kindly observe that this is *federal* legislation (and that are some states have enacted laws). That means that what's prosecuted under this is most likely going to be the 'theatre employee runs a showing off-hours explicitly to do a video rip' instances. *Hence* the stiffer penalties.

The pentalties for copyright theft are already out there, this isn't new - it's addressing a specific instance.

Sure we don't like DMCA, RIAA et al and I heartily agree that there are some 1st class morons in "the Industry" lobbying etc.

However in fact technology is making copyright theft easier and with the bar lowered there are going to be laws passed (DMCA etc) to try to address that.

Deal. And if the best way you can think of 'dealing' is to cry wolf about how people without respect for others property are 'victims' ... well you can expect more of the same kind of legislation.
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD

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Of course a counter argument is that we can play that game as well by paying off senators to help us instead of big business, but I'm sure big business has deeper pockets from which to give. Deep pockets that we as consumers give them. I'm sure there are controls on the size of "donations" but it creates an inherent conflict of interest that, in my opinion, shouldn't be tolerated.

Now label me as a troll and move along.

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Lobbying and campaign contributions are just legitmized bribery; Democracy is dead.

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