Congress Decides To Criminalize The Average College Student
from the everybody-go-to-jail-now dept
Certainly lots of college kids commit illegal acts while away at university. For some, it's almost part of the purpose of going away to school. However, a new bill moving rapidly through Congress will quickly criminalize many college students and threaten them with five years in jail. According to this report, The House Judiciary Committee has approved (by voice vote) a bill that would make it a criminal act, punishable with up to five years in prison, to share 1,000 or more "copyrighted works." I don't know if that's the actual language of the bill, or just a misstatement by the author of the article. The way the law works these days, almost any content is automatically copyrighted, so if the wording is just "copyrighted works," even those distributing legitimate works (such as Creative Commons backed content or just documents you wrote yourself) would risk going to jail. Chances are they mean unauthorized works, though. Of course, the article also notes that the average college student has 1,100 unauthorized downloads on his or her computer. Assuming most of those students leave a file sharing app open, then that means the average college student may soon be a criminal facing five years in jail. Seems a bit... extreme. As someone in the article notes, this ratcheting up of the punishment does very little to actually deal with the root issue, but the recording industry isn't know for caring about root issues.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Don't do the crime...
Believe it or not, distributing copyrighted works without authorization of the copyright holder IS a crime. Just because "lots of college kids commit illegal acts while away at university" does not make it right. I may not agree with the way the entertainment industry is handling things, but I also don't think that those breaking the law should go unpunished.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Don't do the crime...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Don't do the crime...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Don't do the crime...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"it's death to kill the King's deer,"
William Rufus (1087-1100) is supposed to have increased the severity of penalties for flouting Forest Law - death and mutilation apparently the penalties for interference with the King's deer. Killing a deer was punishable by death. Those that shot at a deer had their hands cut off and blinding was the penalty for disturbing the deer.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: "it's death to kill the King's deer,"
Even Wikipedia knows his Birthday. Ok, I digress...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
One more thing...
Are we actually arguing here that just because the "average college student" violates these copyright laws that they should be changed or not enforced?
Having recently finished undergrad, I would venture to say that MORE college students drink underage than share files. Have our underage drinking laws changed at all just because they're relatively unenforcable and are violated en masse?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
What about criminalizing cliched anti-RIAA preache
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: What about criminalizing cliched anti-RIAA pre
Yup. Lets start with the sons/daughters and grandsons/granddaughters of the Congress and other people who work for the federal government.
Oh, and the soldiers. They have ADMITTED to swapping songs. So lets lock 'em up to.
Right Dorpud?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
RIAA = criminals, parasites and liars
Ask the artist how much the riaa benefits them.... ZERO!
RIAA is a large group of blood sucking corporate parasites.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Sentences should fit the crime
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Sentences should fit the crime
it's NOT theft.
Its copyright infringement.
Whether its really a crime or not, I'll let others debate.
But it is NOT robbery, its NOT piracy, its NOT theft. Lets start calling a spade a spade.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Sentences should fit the crime
And enforcement should start with the staff that runs the government and their childern.
Where is the RIAA suit VS the armed service people in Iraq? http://asoldiersview.com/-they all legal MP3's? Or how about Paul Allen's multi-terabyte MP3 server - is everything on it properly licensed?
If the RIAA doesn't have the balls to go after soldiers or congress staffers, I have no reason to care about their bitching and moaning.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Sentences should fit the crime
If you have permission to share it from thecopyright holder, it is perfectly legal. Period.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]