One of the enduring American fantasies is that of the Hollywood discovery. The daydreamer imagines him or herself going about the daily routine when an agitated talent agent swoops in from nowhere screaming, “That face! That face! I’ve got to have you for Scorsese’s next picture!”
Or maybe it’s the record company rep, similarly agitated, bursting from the tiny crowd at the community-center sock hop, waving a contract and promising to make your garage band the next Nirvana.
You may be on the verge of being discovered by Hollywood, but the reality might not match your fantasy. Last week, California Democratic Congressman Howard Berman introduced a bill that would allow film studios and record companies to hack into internet sites if they have reason to suspect people are using those sites to engage in illegal file swapping. Once hacked in, the studios and record companies could tamper with the software to prevent their copyrighted material from being illegally shared.
Mr. Berman’s congressional district includes pieces of Hollywood and Burbank, where many record companies have their headquarters. What’s a liberal Democrat to do? On one hand, civil liberties; on the other, big donors. Civil liberties, big donors… hmmm.
I’m not unsympathetic; I earn some of my mortgage payment from copyrighted intellectual property too. I’m sure there’s a huge black market in Mark Floegel’s Soapbox audio files. (I mean, you are stealing them, aren’t you?)
Copyright violations are against law; offenders should be caught and fined. The questions is: how far should we go to accomplish that end? It’s probably not a wise investment of tax dollars to have the FBI drop the 9/11 investigation to stop the illegal swapping of new Moby tracks. I’ve had two bicycles stolen; the police department did not have an officer available to assign to my case and yet they did not give me permission to rummage through garages at random, looking for my stolen property.
Imagine you’re sitting home and a couple of suits from Westinghouse want to get into your basement to make sure you’ve got the right to use that washing machine. “We understand you’ve been letting the neighbors wash their sweat socks over here, is that true?”
Is that too far-fetched? Maybe not. For several years now, Monsanto – or what’s left of it – has been sending agents into farmers’ fields to check for genetically-engineered crops. If they find them, the farmer had better have a signed contract permitting limited use of Monsanto’s intellectual property. If the spores of those genetically-engineered crops blew in from a neighbor’s field – as spores are likely to do – Monsanto goes ahead and sues anyway. It’s the farmer’s problem, not the corporation’s.
Getting back to file sharing, under Berman’s law, a studio or record company would be able to sabotage software for illegal file sharing and report it to the authorities only after the fact. In the grand tradition of the Hollywood western, Sheriff Berman is assembling a cyber-posse to string up the record rustlers. If Hollywood gets it way on this, imagine the kind of access to your computer Microsoft will want.
Congress and the Bush administration are currently engaged in momentous debate. Attorney General John Ashcroft would trade away our civil liberties in the name of homeland security. I thought Mr. Ashcroft’s arrogance was appalling, but he holds no candle to Howard Berman, who would trade the Fourth Amendment for an opportunity to brown-nose fat cats in an election year.
(This commentary is the intellectual property of Mark Floegel and cannot be reproduced, in whole or in part without the express written consent of Mark Floegel, WebActive, RealNetworks and Major League Baseball. Void where prohibited. Thank you.)
Hacking for Hollywood
One of the enduring American fantasies is that of the Hollywood discovery. The daydreamer imagines him or herself going about the daily routine when an agitated talent agent swoops in from nowhere screaming, “That face! That face! I’ve got to have you for Scorsese’s next picture!”
Or maybe it’s the record company rep, similarly agitated, bursting from the tiny crowd at the community-center sock hop, waving a contract and promising to make your garage band the next Nirvana.
You may be on the verge of being discovered by Hollywood, but the reality might not match your fantasy. Last week, California Democratic Congressman Howard Berman introduced a bill that would allow film studios and record companies to hack into internet sites if they have reason to suspect people are using those sites to engage in illegal file swapping. Once hacked in, the studios and record companies could tamper with the software to prevent their copyrighted material from being illegally shared.
Mr. Berman’s congressional district includes pieces of Hollywood and Burbank, where many record companies have their headquarters. What’s a liberal Democrat to do? On one hand, civil liberties; on the other, big donors. Civil liberties, big donors… hmmm.
I’m not unsympathetic; I earn some of my mortgage payment from copyrighted intellectual property too. I’m sure there’s a huge black market in Mark Floegel’s Soapbox audio files. (I mean, you are stealing them, aren’t you?)
Copyright violations are against law; offenders should be caught and fined. The questions is: how far should we go to accomplish that end? It’s probably not a wise investment of tax dollars to have the FBI drop the 9/11 investigation to stop the illegal swapping of new Moby tracks. I’ve had two bicycles stolen; the police department did not have an officer available to assign to my case and yet they did not give me permission to rummage through garages at random, looking for my stolen property.
Imagine you’re sitting home and a couple of suits from Westinghouse want to get into your basement to make sure you’ve got the right to use that washing machine. “We understand you’ve been letting the neighbors wash their sweat socks over here, is that true?”
Is that too far-fetched? Maybe not. For several years now, Monsanto – or what’s left of it – has been sending agents into farmers’ fields to check for genetically-engineered crops. If they find them, the farmer had better have a signed contract permitting limited use of Monsanto’s intellectual property. If the spores of those genetically-engineered crops blew in from a neighbor’s field – as spores are likely to do – Monsanto goes ahead and sues anyway. It’s the farmer’s problem, not the corporation’s.
Getting back to file sharing, under Berman’s law, a studio or record company would be able to sabotage software for illegal file sharing and report it to the authorities only after the fact. In the grand tradition of the Hollywood western, Sheriff Berman is assembling a cyber-posse to string up the record rustlers. If Hollywood gets it way on this, imagine the kind of access to your computer Microsoft will want.
Congress and the Bush administration are currently engaged in momentous debate. Attorney General John Ashcroft would trade away our civil liberties in the name of homeland security. I thought Mr. Ashcroft’s arrogance was appalling, but he holds no candle to Howard Berman, who would trade the Fourth Amendment for an opportunity to brown-nose fat cats in an election year.
(This commentary is the intellectual property of Mark Floegel and cannot be reproduced, in whole or in part without the express written consent of Mark Floegel, WebActive, RealNetworks and Major League Baseball. Void where prohibited. Thank you.)