Download Music And Get Your Drive Formated
Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2003 8:51 pm
I hope this is not passed, but if it is, I will see a big influx of windows users reverting to Linux, as the open source community comes up with a good linux file sharing app, which there probably is already.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/b...usiness/1961689
Senator's 'extreme' cure for piracy is unconstitutional
By DWIGHT SILVERMAN
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle
A powerful U.S. senator has a dream, and there's a chance that half of all Internet users are in it.
Actually, it's more like a nightmare, and it goes something like this:
You hop online to download some of the new Steely Dan CD, Everything Must Go.
Your reasons may vary, from wanting to hear more of a song you caught on the radio, to sampling the music before you buy, to, yes, maybe even getting the tunes without paying for them.
The last few times you did this, you received pop-up warnings from someone that your computer would be damaged if you continue to download copyright works.
Because it's the Internet, you can't be sure just who's sending those messages, so you ignored them.
You find the song you want, and you start downloading.
Suddenly, an error message appears, but before you can read it, your computer locks up and -- if you're lucky enough to be a Windows user -- you get the Blue Screen of Death.
You try to restart your system, but when it comes to the point where you'd hope to see the Windows startup screen, you are presented with the ominous phrase, "Operating system not found."
Welcome to a scenario envisioned this week by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, during a hearing on copyright issues in Washington.
According to the Associated Press, Hatch -- himself a musician with several albums of inspirational and patriotic music to his credit -- asked witness Randy Saaf about what could damage computers involved in illegally trading music.
Saaf, president of MediaDefender, a company that tries to disrupt file-sharing networks on behalf of copyright holders, replied that "no one is interested in destroying anyone's computer."
"I'm interested," the news service quoted Hatch as responding. Hatch mused that such action "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights."
He went on to describe a technology that would warn users twice about downloading, then "destroy their computer."
"If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that," he said.
"If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize" the seriousness of their actions. Net denizens reacted with astonishment, then fury.
Laurence Simon, an unemployed Houston system administrator, checked the source code on Hatch's official Web site at www.senate.gov/~hatch/ and discovered it was using unlicensed software. Cries of hypocrisy echoed across message boards Netwide.
In the face of outrage, Hatch backpedaled a bit, saying in a news release he was really trying to get the music and technology industries to come up with "moderate remedies" to the file-sharing problem.
But, he added, "I do not favor extreme remedies -- unless no moderate remedies can be found."
Hatch's original statement could be dismissed as that of a crackpot if it were not for one thing: He's the head of the Senate's Judiciary Committee, and thus one of the nation's most powerful lawmakers.
(Not that there aren't any crackpots in Congress, mind you. To quote Mark Twain: "Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.")
What makes it even more ominous is that there actually has been proposed legislation that would exempt copyright holders from the laws banning the destruction of computer data or the machines themselves by hackers. Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., told CNet's News.com that he plans to introduce such a bill soon.
Of course, there are all kinds of problems with this notion, not the least of which is destruction of private property without due process of law. The act of handing copyright holders -- i.e., corporations -- the right to destroy a user's computer connected via a public network would hopefully be quickly struck down as unconstitutional.
The idea is also naive at this point, because there are many more than "a few hundred thousand" users of peer-to-peer networks.
In fact, the NPD Group, a market research firm, earlier this month released a study that indicated half of all those who connected to the Internet in the month of May use file-sharing networks to grab some music, the New York Times reported. That is about 43 million people.
Also consider that the file-sharing software Kazaa is now the most-downloaded application on the Internet, bypassing the instant-messaging program ICQ, which had long been No. 1. As of Thursday morning, it had been snagged more than 238 million times from Download.com.
And that same morning, more than 4.3 million were logged on to Kazaa's network, sharing more than 892 million songs.
The picture is clear: File-sharing is no longer the hobby of a few college kids with dorm-room Ethernet connections and not enough money to buy overpriced CDs. It has become a cultural phenomenon, a socially acceptable practice across all walks of society.
It's been likened to speeding -- an illegal act -- but also one routinely practiced by most drivers and sporadically enforced at best. One critic of Hatch said his solution would be similar to having cars explode if they travel over the posted limit.
Although he's not thought of as a friend of the Internet -- he was a staunch supporter of the wrongheaded and unconstitutional Communications Decency Act -- Hatch generally is not considered to be as stupid as his comment would indicate.
Then again, to offer another quote attributed to Twain: "It is better to sit in silence and appear ignorant than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."
Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:949, old post ID:8208
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/b...usiness/1961689
Senator's 'extreme' cure for piracy is unconstitutional
By DWIGHT SILVERMAN
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle
A powerful U.S. senator has a dream, and there's a chance that half of all Internet users are in it.
Actually, it's more like a nightmare, and it goes something like this:
You hop online to download some of the new Steely Dan CD, Everything Must Go.
Your reasons may vary, from wanting to hear more of a song you caught on the radio, to sampling the music before you buy, to, yes, maybe even getting the tunes without paying for them.
The last few times you did this, you received pop-up warnings from someone that your computer would be damaged if you continue to download copyright works.
Because it's the Internet, you can't be sure just who's sending those messages, so you ignored them.
You find the song you want, and you start downloading.
Suddenly, an error message appears, but before you can read it, your computer locks up and -- if you're lucky enough to be a Windows user -- you get the Blue Screen of Death.
You try to restart your system, but when it comes to the point where you'd hope to see the Windows startup screen, you are presented with the ominous phrase, "Operating system not found."
Welcome to a scenario envisioned this week by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, during a hearing on copyright issues in Washington.
According to the Associated Press, Hatch -- himself a musician with several albums of inspirational and patriotic music to his credit -- asked witness Randy Saaf about what could damage computers involved in illegally trading music.
Saaf, president of MediaDefender, a company that tries to disrupt file-sharing networks on behalf of copyright holders, replied that "no one is interested in destroying anyone's computer."
"I'm interested," the news service quoted Hatch as responding. Hatch mused that such action "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights."
He went on to describe a technology that would warn users twice about downloading, then "destroy their computer."
"If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that," he said.
"If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize" the seriousness of their actions. Net denizens reacted with astonishment, then fury.
Laurence Simon, an unemployed Houston system administrator, checked the source code on Hatch's official Web site at www.senate.gov/~hatch/ and discovered it was using unlicensed software. Cries of hypocrisy echoed across message boards Netwide.
In the face of outrage, Hatch backpedaled a bit, saying in a news release he was really trying to get the music and technology industries to come up with "moderate remedies" to the file-sharing problem.
But, he added, "I do not favor extreme remedies -- unless no moderate remedies can be found."
Hatch's original statement could be dismissed as that of a crackpot if it were not for one thing: He's the head of the Senate's Judiciary Committee, and thus one of the nation's most powerful lawmakers.
(Not that there aren't any crackpots in Congress, mind you. To quote Mark Twain: "Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.")
What makes it even more ominous is that there actually has been proposed legislation that would exempt copyright holders from the laws banning the destruction of computer data or the machines themselves by hackers. Rep. Howard Berman, D-Calif., told CNet's News.com that he plans to introduce such a bill soon.
Of course, there are all kinds of problems with this notion, not the least of which is destruction of private property without due process of law. The act of handing copyright holders -- i.e., corporations -- the right to destroy a user's computer connected via a public network would hopefully be quickly struck down as unconstitutional.
The idea is also naive at this point, because there are many more than "a few hundred thousand" users of peer-to-peer networks.
In fact, the NPD Group, a market research firm, earlier this month released a study that indicated half of all those who connected to the Internet in the month of May use file-sharing networks to grab some music, the New York Times reported. That is about 43 million people.
Also consider that the file-sharing software Kazaa is now the most-downloaded application on the Internet, bypassing the instant-messaging program ICQ, which had long been No. 1. As of Thursday morning, it had been snagged more than 238 million times from Download.com.
And that same morning, more than 4.3 million were logged on to Kazaa's network, sharing more than 892 million songs.
The picture is clear: File-sharing is no longer the hobby of a few college kids with dorm-room Ethernet connections and not enough money to buy overpriced CDs. It has become a cultural phenomenon, a socially acceptable practice across all walks of society.
It's been likened to speeding -- an illegal act -- but also one routinely practiced by most drivers and sporadically enforced at best. One critic of Hatch said his solution would be similar to having cars explode if they travel over the posted limit.
Although he's not thought of as a friend of the Internet -- he was a staunch supporter of the wrongheaded and unconstitutional Communications Decency Act -- Hatch generally is not considered to be as stupid as his comment would indicate.
Then again, to offer another quote attributed to Twain: "It is better to sit in silence and appear ignorant than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."
Archived topic from Iceteks, old topic ID:949, old post ID:8208
</offtopic> 
