More Mistakes Discovered In DHS's Domain Seizures
techdirt.com
techdirt.com
I guess at least they didn't kill anyone like a no-knock warrant on the wrong house for the wrong reason. Still, it's the general attitude that really should wake up people who have blind faith.
This would create far more change than the prosecution of some low level bureaucrats, as RICO statues would allow the prosecution of the executives rather than lower level employees, as well as piercing the corporate veil to go after the record company execs rather than just RIAA execs.
The nice thing is that RICO allows for a civil claim where the evidentiary standards would be greatly relaxed, also a civil claim could not be quashed by reason of 'public interest'.
I sincerely hope that the affected parties do sue the government successfully.
It still leaves the problem of zero repercussions for the officials involved.
Now, if the officials themselves could be personally sued...
I would really like to see immunity removed from government officials. The ostensible rationale for immunity is that you don't want government officials afraid that they'll be sued if the exercise discretion. But I that's exactly what you do want. If an official's actions can have a huge impact on people's lives, that official should feel that he'd better be right in his acts or that there will be repercussions for him personally -- just like in the private sector.
We don't allow officials to be sued for official actions for many, many reasons, not the least of which is that it would effectively render enforcement impossible.
In multiple cases, the blogger notes that he will not post links to too many tracks from an album, suggesting that the site is not at all focused on getting as much infringing material up as possible, as implied in the affidavit. If that was the goal, why would it specifically refuse to post links to more than just a few songs?
Man in a barber's shop, and a kid walks in. "Hey", says the barber to the man, "see that kid? dumbest kid in the world. Look, I'll show you." and he goes over to the kid and holds out a dollar in one hand and two quarters in the other and asks the kid to choose. The kid takes the quarters and leaves. "See?" says the barber, "what did I tell you? Dumb as a box of rocks that one".
A bit later the man leaves the barber shop and sees the same kid outside an ice cream store, and asks him "why did you take the quarters instead of the dollar?".
"Because", replied the kid licking his icecream, "as soon as I take the dollar, the game is over".
The fact that they refused to post links to all but the permitted songs does actually demonstrate a desire to comply with intellectual property laws.
Note that he says all were pre-release, but only three were copyrighted.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright
"In all countries that are members of the Berne Convention, copyright is automatic and need not be obtained through official registration with any government office. Once an idea has been reduced to tangible form, for example by securing it in a fixed medium (such as a drawing, sheet music, photograph, a videotape, or a computer file), the copyright holder is entitled to enforce his or her exclusive rights. However, while registration isn't needed to exercise copyright, in jurisdictions where the laws provide for registration, it serves as prima facie evidence of a valid copyright."
A lack of publication or registration is only a problem if you're challenging the legitimacy someone else's copyright. And yes, that's considerably harder to do - as well it should be.
Does this mean that it's easy to register the copyright for unregistered work that isn't yours? Yes it does. But actually doing so is insanely stupid, since getting caught means opening yourself up to both a civil lawsuit from the rightful owner, as well as Federal perjury charges. And since you're involving the courts themselves in your fraud, you can expect whichever judge you face to be especially unforgiving.
Unsurprisingly, knowingly falsified copyright registration is not a widespread problem.
On the other hand, I doubt that the downvotes represent the opinions of a huge number of users (as it doesn't show lower than -4). If enough people agree with you, then they'll upvote it to +1 (I would say that it belongs at 0, but that's just me).
That's been standard procedure since at least 1776
How is it that our government agencies continue to limitlessly aggrandize their power & reach with no end in sight and, apparently, no recourse or prevention? Perhaps we need to return to constitutional amendments protecting the People and the states from unfettered power grabs--such as an amendment that expressly prohibits a federal agency of the executive branch from increasing its reach without due congressional process & said increase being legislated and passed by both houses, like any other law.
I'd like to believe it's an idea that liberals, conservatives, independents, and anyone else can actually agree on. But ... we're talking about people here. And politics.
I keep hearing the ICE-is-tasked-with-counterfeiting-so-this-isn't-a-power-grab argument.
Whatever the merits of the general argument, you need to find a different term for you say it isn't. Because it certainly is a power grab by the normal use of the phrase.
We haven't seen mass domain seizures previously and this ability certainly is power. It's been done with dubious legality, dubious constitutionality and just dubiously, so it's effectively a grab.
If the Department of Agriculture started arresting people for using too many pesticides in their home gardens, it would be a power-grab even though the department sure-enough is tasked with regulating agriculture.
This is a significant increase in state power. I hardly oppose any summary which gives any other impression.
Gee. I wonder why.
Writing this off as a government power grab is not seeing the forest through the trees.
That doesn't excuse govt, or folks who think that govt should have such powers.
> Writing this off as a government power grab is not seeing the forest through the trees.
It's not a govt power grab so much as it is yet another abuse of govt power.
And to think that many people think that govt should have more power, apparently on the "if we just give them enough power, they'll start behaving" theory.