Draft of Rep. Berman's bill authorizes anti-P2P hacking

Pete Kruckenberg pete at kruckenberg.com
Thu Jul 25 07:02:23 UTC 2002


The upside to this is that if you are a hacker, you can now
legitimize your activities and legally protect yourself by
spending $30 to incorporate as a record company.

On Wed, 24 Jul 2002, Marshall Eubanks wrote:

> Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2002 12:40:51 -0400
> From: Marshall Eubanks <tme at multicasttech.com>
> To: nanog at merit.edu
> Subject: Draft of Rep. Berman's bill authorizes anti-P2P hacking
> 
> 
> Thought this would be considered on-topic as guess who would have
> to clean up the resulting messes...
> 
> Regards
> Marshall Eubanks
> 
> ----- Forwarded message from Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com> -----
> 
> From: Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com>
> Subject: FC: Draft of Rep. Berman's bill authorizes anti-P2P hacking
> To: politech at politechbot.com
> Date: Tue, 23 Jul 2002 20:29:35 -0400
> X-URL: http://www.mccullagh.org/
> X-URL: Politech is at http://www.politechbot.com/
> 
> 
> 
> http://news.com.com/2100-1023-945923.html?tag=politech
> 
>     Could Hollywood hack your PC?
>     By Declan McCullagh
>     July 23, 2002, 4:45 PM PT
> 
>     WASHINGTON--Congress is about to consider an entertainment
>     industry proposal that would authorize copyright holders to disable
>     PCs used for illicit file trading.
> 
>     A draft bill seen by CNET News.com marks the boldest political effort
>     to date by record labels and movie studios to disrupt peer-to-peer
>     networks that they view as an increasingly dire threat to their bottom
>     line.
> 
>     Sponsored by Reps. Howard Berman, D-Calif., and Howard Coble, R-N.C.,
>     the measure would permit copyright holders to perform nearly unchecked
>     electronic hacking if they have a "reasonable basis" to believe that
>     piracy is taking place. Berman and Coble plan to introduce the 10-page
>     bill this week.
> 
>     The legislation would immunize groups such as the Motion Picture
>     Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of
>     America from all state and federal laws if they disable, block or
>     otherwise impair a "publicly accessible peer-to-peer network."
> 
>     Anyone whose computer was damaged in the process must receive the
>     permission of the U.S. attorney general before filing a lawsuit, and a
>     suit could be filed only if the actual monetary loss was more than
>     $250.
> 
>     According to the draft, the attorney general must be given complete
>     details about the "specific technologies the copyright holder intends
>     to use to impair" the normal operation of the peer-to-peer network.
>     Those details would remain secret and would not be divulged to the
>     public.
> 
>     The draft bill doesn't specify what techniques, such as viruses,
>     worms, denial-of-service attacks, or domain name hijacking, would be
>     permissible. It does say that a copyright-hacker should not delete
>     files, but it limits the right of anyone subject to an intrusion to
>     sue if files are accidentally erased.
> 
>     [...]
> 
> 
> 
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> ----- End forwarded message -----
> 
> 




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