California Senator Pretends That Laws Can Stop File Sharing
from the good-luck-with-that-plan dept
You knew it couldn't be that long until politicians looked at the file sharing issue as a nail for their particular legislative hammer. California Senator Diane Feinstein has apparently been convinced by those in the entertainment industry who have donated quite a bit of money to her campaign. She's saying that there's been "rise in peer to peers" since the Grokster decision. First of all, it's not clear what a "rise in peer to peers" means. But, assuming she means that more people are using file sharing since the Grokster decision, it would be interesting to see where she got that data -- especially since most of the stories keep talking about how these file sharing companies have been running scared since the decision. However, her opinion is that she needs to put forth legislation to outlaw these "peer to peers." Considering what appears to be a weak grasp of what the actual issue is, it seems like any such legislation will be quite problematic. Even more importantly, at what point do people realize that "outlawing" these things won't stop them at all? In fact, the Grokster decision (and the Napster one before it) is simply driving users towards more underground systems already. Instead of coming up with silly laws to protect a particular constituent, why aren't politicians encouraging those industries to innovate and come up with new business models that involve giving people what they clearly want? Update: Also worth reading: eDonkey's President's remarks to the committee concerning what they should do about file sharing.
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Stay Open
September 28th 2035
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Our prisons are over filled with Pot Smokers and File Sharers. There is no way of bringing this number down. The more things are made illegal, the more prisons built. Makes this reporter and others wonder how they can keep adding new law after law and never take any laws OFF the books.
The people not in prison owe their entire lives to settlemets and judgements. And not just new offenders; families of File Sharers passed are working to pay off their dead relatives' debts.
Its a sad sad state of affairs. Made only worse today when the Supreme Court reached a verdict in the Patrick vs. Gore case which now makes it illegal, in addition to photographing people without their knowledge, for any individual to give CONSENT to be photographed nude. Bye Bye Ms Hefner.
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Re: Stay Open
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Re: Stay Open
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Before Popular "File Sharing"
You can pay all the lip service you want but we have been "File Trading" since the days of BBS!
Before any peer to peer networks! It will always continue.
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No Subject Given
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Feinstein & Technology
Her VCR is still flashing "12:00...12:00...12:00..."
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Another nail for their hammer is right
This is certainly her pattern with gun control legislation: push through something that has little to do with the real problem (e.g., "Assault Weapon Ban"), and then use its "failure" as "proof" that even more needs to be done.
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