Re: Clinton signs draconian antipiracy law, from the Netly News

[Ray Arachelian <sunder@brainlink.com>]

On Wed, 17 Dec 1997, Declan McCullagh wrote:

>         Piloted through Congress by the deep pockets of the software,
>    motion picture and recording industries, the law punishes unapproved
>    "reproduction or distribution" of books, magazines, software, music or
>    videos. The painful penalties must bring a smile to the face of
>    software executives: fines of up to $250,000 and five years in federal
>    prison.

Let's see, you record a Bevis and Butthead marathon on MTV one night
because you aren't home and watch it, then let your friend borrow it and
you're in jail.

You have a CD player at home and use a walkwan when walking around, so you
tape your CD's so you can listen to them. Wham! Instant jail time.

So that pretty much puts 75% of those who own a walkman and a stereo
system in jail.

Kids copying articles out of magazines (or industry newsletters) in
libraries or university libraries wind up in jail.  That's about 99% of
anyone going to college (the 1% would be the ones that go for frats and
kegs only and can't read.)

Where does Fair Use fall into this?  Do you have the actual wording of
this law?  So if some dork publisher decides that you can't download their
shareware/freeware after the fact because he doesn't like you, he can say
it wasn't approved?



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.+.^.+.|  Ray Arachelian    |Prying open my 3rd eye.  So good to see |./|\.
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