State Super-DMCA Too True

Sun Mar 30 18:09:56 UTC 2003

Jamie Lawrence wrote:
> 
> Perhaps we'll have to agree to disagree, if you think those where good
> laws.
> 
I don't necessarily think they are good laws. What it comes down to is 
this. A person will do whatever they think they can get away with if the 
punishment is only losing their service. I personally think that ISPs 
should write in penalty costs for breaking TOS and AUP and set them high 
enough to scare people into not breaking them. However, history has 
shown that we instead make it a criminal offense and use that as the way 
to scare people into doing what is right to begin with.

> Extending this to criminalizing devices capable of doing NAT, or port 
> forwarding, or (seemingly, in some cases) encryption, or anonymous 
> remailers, is stupid and wrong.
> 
I do think that the Act was poorly written and have stated such. There 
is too much room for abuse of the Act. They tried to incorporate too 
many things under one umbrella. And ISP should not be grouped with telco 
or even cable. It has it's own sets of problems, and those problems 
should be handled uniquely. Combining legislation has never been a good 
deal.

> If you need to criminalize what you should be enforcing by contract,
> your business has a problem.
> 

People, especially home users, don't fear breach of contract, especially 
if they feel they might get away with it. They do fear the law and going 
to jail; reguardless of if it's enforced heavily or not.

-Jack