[DMCA-Activists] P2P Action

[Ruben I Safir]

The Recording industry of America, and the Motion Picture Industry
is flooding Congress with proposals to combat peer to peer trading
of music and copyrighted material.   They want to end what they call
'casual theft' and to educate you about that is legal and what is 
right.  The proposals they put together will affect your future for
a long time and affect your life in a very personal way.

We agree with industry that theft is wrong, and that young people
need to learn the difference between theft, copyright violation,
fair use, the DMCA, force contracts, intellectual property, DRM 
and copyright abuse.

What is intellectual property?

Intellectual property is bad term which has made it's way into our
legal system which is designed to describe creative works and intentions
of the mind.  In the US, all intellectual property, that is music, recordings,
paintings, books, and writings, are owned by the public.  The people,
according to the Constitution, are the sole owners of all intellectual
properties.  In truth, this is a great insight by our founding fathers.  It's
obvious that as a species, we naturally all have a stake in our shared
culture.  In fact, culture and intellectual property is largely interchangable
words.  Unless an idea is shared, it can not become part of our culture.
Culture is the fabric of our existence.  And our rights to share equally in
our culture is guaranteed to us through several Constitutional guarantees,
including Freedom of the Press, Free Speach, The Right to Security in our
Property, the Freedom of Religion, and so on.  Each of these guarantees asures
us Freedom, the Freedom to participate as equals in our larger society.
Anything that obstructs your Freedom to share in cultural expression is a
hinderance to your equality among men (and women).  All intellectual property
is owned by the people.

What is copyright?

Copyright is a limited restriction on the peoples Freedom over the control of
newly created cultural artifacts, in order to promote the publication of more
works.  Copyright is an 'exclussive' right of the creater of a cultural
artifact to prevent the distribution of replicures of a cultural work.
Copyright is limited by two principles of American Law.  First, Copyright is
restricted by time.  Copyright can only be for a limited time.  Congress can
not create a law of indefinite Copyright under the Constitution.  Natually
enough, if works remain indefinetely under 'exclussive' control of a few, then
an agregation of cutural works are then controlled increasingly by a few major
businesses.  This creates an errosion of Freedom, and eventually enslaves
society as a whole, amking it a share cropper of our own cultural heritiage.

Secondly, copyright is limited by those rights reserved to the people under
the Bill of Rights and other Constitutional Ammendments.  Copyright, for
example, can not be used to invade private property.  You can not use
Copyright to dicriminate against people of color by resticting distribution
to only white people.  You can not use copyright to prohibit freedom of
speach, especially political speach.  All these things limit the
'exclussivity' of copyright.


What is Fair Use?

Fair Use is a legal doctrine grounded in common law, and later outlined in
section 102 of of the copyright act.  It's a legal defense againt accusations
of copyright violations.  While many think of Fair Use as our protection from
Copyright abuses, most legal scholars consider it as a legal defense only.
Copyright holders are not required, for example, to prove in court that a use 
under consideration by the court is not a fair use.  The defense needs to
prove that a use is fair use.

What is the DMCA?

The DMCA stands for the Digital Millinium Copyright Act of 1998.  This law was
designed to give holders of Copyright franchises greater controll of the
distribution of Copyrighted cultural artifacts, and to limit access to these
artifacts in society.  This law is not only universally considered to be
written poorly, but is contriversal because it, in theory and in practice,
encroaches on protections in the Bill of Rights let for the people.  It has
led to the arrest of jailing of innocent people trying to make proper use of
their property.  It also prevents ownership of copies of cultural artifacts in
digital forms, making everyone a share cropper to their own cultural heritage.

What is a Sharecropper?

A sharecropper is a person, normally a recently freed slave or a serf, who owns 
no property, but rents land, tools, and housing in exchange for a portion of 
the produce farmed on the landlords land.  They have no rights to the land,
tools or their home.

What is DRM?

DRM stands for Digital Rights Management.  DRM is theft.  It takes control of
your property, often a computer, but also a DVD player, a MP3 players, a VCR,
or a tape recorder, any digital device used to play media you own, and seizes
control of your property by determining when, where and how use can use it.
The purpose of DRM is to make you a sharecropper to your own media and
property.  It prevents you from watching a DVD accept in a pre-approve place
and time.  It can prevent you from viewing your media more than a specific 
number of times.  It can prevent you from fast forwarding through unwanted
material, to prevent printing, and copying for archival reasons in order 
to share the information which you own.  In addition, DRM can spy on you, 
and report information about you to others, prevent you from using the devices 
or software of your choosing to view the material, and prevent you from 
archiving or using the material for creative processes.

For example, DRM currently prevents you from watching a DVD on anything other
than an approve device or operating system.  You can not watch a DVD with a
DMCA approved DRM on the GNU/Linux operating system, or other new operating 
systems on the market.  Books purchased at universities which must be brought 
on DVD turn themselves off at the end of the year without subcription payments 
to the publisher.  It is legal to sell the books on the DVD second hand to 
another student.  It prevents ownership of purchased computers and media by 
forcing you into a contract after the cash purchase and without a fairly 
negoiated contract.  This is called forced licensing.  Forced licensing
enslaves the purchaser by forcing them into an economic agreement which they
have no control of or say in.

Without 'special' exemptions in the law, DRM prevents the normal exchange of
ideas and information.  For example, lending libraries become illegal, playing
music for a friend on an non-assigned player is illegal, sharing a research
paper with a college is legal, mixing a collection of music for a party is
illegal, sharing a song with a friend is illegal.  With DRM, full control of
where, when, and how you use any book, music or video is the sole discression
of the Copyright Franchise holder.

What is peer to peer trading?

Peer to peer trading is sharing a file with information between two private
individuals.  This is the most fundemental human behavior which defines us as
a species.  Our ability to share, communicate and co-operate is how we develop
our culture and define our existence.  The sharing of privately owned and
publicly owned copies of information is the lynchpin of democratic discourse.
The peer to peer trading of files for non-commercial use is legal in every
sense of the word.  Your protected by the Bill of Rights in this activity.
Your guaranteed security in your property, freedom of speech, freedom of the
press, and against arbitrary search and seizure without a warrant.  These
protections guaranty you the freedom to share music with other individuals for
non-commercial purposes.

For example, recently the House of Representitives took up a bill in the
Intellectual Property sub-committee which proposed that the recording industry
should be allowed to break into your computer and prevent you from sharing
files with others.  During the testimony, Congressman Howard Berman, the
spounsorer of the Bill proclaimed that, "Nobody is suggesting that we end the
sharing of files between individuals.  That would violate 'Fair Use'".
However, the recommendations currently being passed by Congress and proposed
by the Cultural Distribution Companys, such as the record companies, and movie
companies, have already done just this.

The recording industry is spending millions of dollars a year trying to
convince you that it is illegal and immoral to share music and other
information.  You should know they are wrong.  The act of recieving a file
with music, text or video from someone and listening to is is not only legal,
but it is one of the most cherrished rights of mankind.  Our ability to share
information is the foundation of our society and the basis of the civilization
which you are a participant in.



What is Water?  

Water is a natural resource available freely to everyone in a civilized
society, and in fact it's delivery and purity is subsidized by the government.



What is bottled Water?

Water which is put in a bottle, marketed with advertizing, and sold under a 
trade mark.


What is Culture?

Culture is like Water.


What is a Copyrighted Work?

A copyrighted work is like bottled water.  In the US, copyright law says
every new creation is automatically bottled water.



Why is this important to me?

Congress today is trying to pass laws which will end private ownership of all
computers in order to support copyright control.  The recording industry and
movie industry resents you as a free person who uses the culture around you in
a natural way.  There is serious efforts underfoot to give the publishing
industry preemptive rights in the use of any media you buy, may it be a book,
a video, or music.  They want to be the great gatekeeper of American Culture,
dishing it out in small pieces to those who they think fit.

Just in the last few months Congress has accused an entire generation of file
sharing people thieves.  The are trying to impose smart chips which spy on you
into the harware of your digital music equiptment and computers.  They have
proposed laws to allow the record industry to hack into your computer and
invade your  privacy if they think your sharing files of copyreighted works,
without needing to get a warrant from a court.  They are doing everything they
can to prevent you from ripping music, or copying video.  They are trying to
turn the interactive internet into a broadcast stream.  They have made it
legal for students who buy required books for school, to have those books
turned off at the end of the semester.  They want to end your ability to
participate in society through digital means.  They have made this a crime.
They have arrested people for making it possible for owners to read their
books, and for people to watch their movies in their home.

The publishing industry is trying very hard to make you feel you live in
freedom, while simuteanously ending your freedom through digital control.
What is Digital RIghts Management?  It is the means to digitally control your
behavior in cases where they can not get you to agree to in a contract.
Everything created in the last 100 years is under copyright control.  This
means every book report, every letter, and ballet and ever photo in the 20th
and now the 21st century is under copyright today.  By preemptively resticting
access to youur property because of copyright, every normal activity is
resticted by a third party.

It's been said that their is only "Freedom of the Press" for those who own a
press.  Today, we all own a press, and it must remain a Free Press, indivually
owned and under control of the user.  

Congressman Conlly of North Carolia, chairman of the IP sub-committee in the
house, stood up at the end of the hearings on the Berman Bill on pontificated,
"Can some here tell me why all this file sharing is not theft.  This is simple
larsony."  Congressman Conley is worng.  Some arguement can be made that
massive file sharing damages the value of copyrighted works, and therefore,
might be considered Copyright Infringment.  The record companies are afraid,
however, to tell it's public the truth, that in their opinion, you do not own
any records, or recordings.  And that you can not use them freely and
nautrally.  While they tell congress that an entire generation of American's
are thieves and pirated, they refuse to prosecute a single one of them.
Because then everyone would be exposed to the copyright abuses that the law
today has created.  It's your future they have shackled, and you can do
something about it now.


What can I do about this, nobody listens to me?

or 

What can we do about it, why fight it, everyone in Congress is on the take.

While fighting for your rights in the digital age is difficult, it is not
impossible.  New Yorkers for Fair Use, http://fairuse.nylxs.com, has fought
this battle for over a year, and we have had success.  We have fustrated
efforts in the Department of COmmerce to impose DRM by administrative
executive action.  We have succeeded in fighting against laws which would
allow the reocrding industry to hack your computer without a warrant.  We have
raised on Capital Hill the slogan, DRM is THEFT, We are the Stakeholders, but
we have not done enough.  With your help, we can turn the tide on this battle.
We can have the DMCA repealed, we can put the burden of proof of infringment
on the Copyright Holder.  We can make laws which ground the fair use doctrin
properly into the 4th ammendment which guarantees individuals protection in
their property, and we can make sure that nobody is forced into a license for
music and information which they actually own.

Join New Yorkers for Fair Use and register to vote.  Tell Congressman Weiner
that reserve for ourselves the right to trade files, and to share information,
without oversite of Time-Warner, Disney and Fox.  Tell Congressman Weiner that
you will vote on this issue, and they he must protect our rights.  If file
sharing is theft, which it isn't, then so be it.  But do not take control of
our computers and our media.  They are ours.
-- 
__________________________
Brooklyn Linux Solutions
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DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS http://fairuse.nylxs.com

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