Hollywood hacking

Damn.. I was just about to post a thread on this too. :p
Here's a link to the full story.

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The draft bill doesn't specify what techniques, such as viruses, worms, denial-of-service attacks, or domain name hijacking, would be permissible.

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- WTF were they on when they thought of this idea? Allowing certain orginazions to legally f*uck your box up. Great.. If some one downloads and shares MP3s, they can be attacked. Argh! And how do they think P2P networks and users will respond to viruses, worms, DOS attacks, and domain name hijacking? This new law will do more damage than good. What if a virus or worm got out of hand? What if P2P networks and users decided to fight back useing the same techniques. It would be a mess. One word comes to mind: DIGITAL LOCKDOWN

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Coble and Berman have jointly written a second draft bill that could sharply limit Americans' rights relating to copying music, taping TV shows, or transferring files through the Internet.

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Wonderful.. More laws to sharply limit Americans' rights. Instead of limiting our rights they should be enforceing and improving the ones we have.

This will probably piss a lot of people off, but oh well, its gotta be said...

<rant>
Ok, I personally can't stand the RIAA or the MPAA, and would like to see them both shut down, but I just want to know one thing. Why is it that when people find a way to break the law, they bitch if someone wants to stop them? Trading MP3 files is one thiing, but it has gotten way out of hand. Like kakhisrule said, you can download starwars (even episode 2) if you know where to look. Thats just stupid. You want to do it right, go to a record store and steal it. If you don't have the balls to walk in to the store and take it, then you shouldn't be allowed to hid behind your computer and take it.

Movies and cd's are overpriced and a few people are getting rich off it. So instead of paying for it, you want to break the law.... So you want to fight one bad thing with another bad thing. Two wrongs don't make a right. Like tedob1 said, during the US patriot act, the RIAA wanted something put into the law giving them permission to hack home PC's. Enough people stood up and complained that it wasn't put into the law. They did it the right way. There is a right way and a wrong way to accomplish anything, and its time people stoped whining that someone wants to stop them from doing it the wrong way. Insted of complaining, find a way to use that energy productively, and either get movie sharing legalized, or get the studios to lower their prices.

</end rant>

Our 10 ammendments are getting changed or being able to go around so quickly now a days. This is not good for the government. And to souleman:

Yes there is a right way, and that is with highly paid lawyers which the average joe hacker can't afford, and would have trouble raising.

Otherwise souleman, you have good points.

ArmyOfOne> A boycott doesn't require highly priced lawers, and would be very effective. If you were able to get people to stop buying music and movies for a while. That doesn't mean dl them instead, that means just pretend that they don't exist. Stop listening to the radio, don't turn on the tv, etc. You really want to hit em, get people to stop going to clubs that play new music. Only go on retro 80s night or something. They have the money for your high priced lawers, and will not be to happy when everyone abandons them because they play new mucic. Only watch/listen what you already own. That would have a MAJOR impact on both the MPAA and RIAA.

Oh wait, that would mean that people would have to listen/watch the same old stuff for a month or two... How could they handle it. You average joe hacker can spend 30 hours coding a project without blinking, but spending all that time listening to music they already heard...we know better then that. And to listen to something different, you would actually have to go to a friends house and borrow their cd or video or someting. My god, you mean ...go outside and talk to people... face to face even.....ahhhhhhhhh.

Soulman, I would like to commend you on your post. Great points with some morality to it as well. People, if these industries weren't around to produce, and make money off of, the movies and music we watch, you would have nothing to steal from them. Legally, ethically and morally, that's all you are doing is stealing from them. As soulman said, you might as well go into a store and steal the dvd or vhs off the shelf. I see nothing wrong with these industries trying to protect their investments. Cinema and Music industries don't invest 10's to 100's of millions of dollars in a project simply to see all their efforts pirated by the 14 yr old kid sitting behind his computer. Verging on a seperate subject, one of the biggest reasons our economy is taking a plummet is because noone wants to go out and contribute to it. We would all rather sit behind a computer and steal the goods 10 dolars at a time instead of going out and paying the 7 dollars for a movie. The extent that these industries are asking to go to protect their investments are a little extreme, I agree. However, anything short of locking up a couple million people for copyright infringement and piracy, what can these industries do? Everyone is always concerned about their "certain inalienable rights" as pointed out by the Bill of Rights. Someone is always looking for a way to say their civil liberties are being compromised. What about the rights of a corporation to make money off of the investments they make? What about the actor's or performer's rights to get paid for their services? At some point, people need to realize that there are things that are inately wrong. Stealing and cheating are two of those. Why should it be allowed to go on simply to protect the civil liberties of the the person commiting the crime. If you aren't stealing from these companies, you won't be at risk of being hacked. Even if you are hacked by them, what are they deleting? Their product which you have illegally. You steal something from a store and are caught with it, you have to give it back. There's no civil liberties infringement involved there. But since it's done from a computer, noone knows how to handle it. If you do the right thing, the right thing will be done to you.

Okay, I'll bite.

And now for your enjoyment, roswell1329 plays Devil's Advocate:

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Even if you are hacked by them, what are they deleting? Their product which you have illegally. You steal something from a store and are caught with it, you have to give it back. There's no civil liberties infringement involved there.

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I'm afraid I'll have to disagree there. In this country, even criminals have civil liberties, and the example Troy11277 gave in the above quote is not quite an accurate depiction of what is being debated. These organizations are proposing methods that can cause hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars of permanent damage to individual systems. It would be state approved vigilantism! Their actions are beginning to rival that of a common street thug. It would be much more precise to offer the following analogy:

What the MPAA and RIAA are attempting to legallize is the state-sponsored severe beating/limb breaking of a shoplifter taking a stick of gum.

I understand that MP3 trading is an epidemic that the MPAA and RIAA claims is causing extreme hits to their profit margin (something I'd rather not go into), but lashing out with crippling retaliation is hardly the solution.

I'd also like to go into a rant of my own about today's corporate view on intellectual property, but that's another post altogether.

Sufficed to say, I agree with the points of souleman and Troy11277 that the MPAA and RIAA are entitled to protect what they are selling, but this proposed legislation seems to be more like a knee-jerk reaction that could have devastating consequences.

Perhaps the future of cyberspace will simply be an exorbitant charge for admission that covers all these silly incidentals like pirated media and software. :brickwall

Troy11277. what you say is true, but that’s not the issue, really. The politicians who are promoting these new laws are saying that the internet will not become a safe place to do business until its safe for the movie makers to stream media and charge for each stream. This mp3 thing is a smoke screen, sales of cds have gone up because of filesharing, at least judging by what happened with m&m (I can’t remember how he spells his name). If this is not a good example, well the point is, that’s its arguable, there NO evidence that its affected sales either way.

So now movie industry will do to theaters, what airlines have done to travel agents, cut them out completely, keeping all the profits for themselves and passing savings on to no one. You may argue and say, well that’s progress. This progress comes at a cost to me, I will no longer be able to make copies of my cds or software to use while storing the originals in a safe place. Its become the law that any device cannot duplicate any copy writen material. This goes for VCRs as well, over riding earlier laws which allowed recording to view at another time.

This is all done, just so the entertainment industry can make MORE money.

We the taxpayers must now provide, at our expense, a police force for these gavones. Does anybody think that the internet would not survive without the movie industry. If they cant adapt to this new environment, they don’t belong in it. We should not have to change everything. just so they can fit in.

Large corporation are eliminating jobs and giving us the bull **** that their creating new jobs this way. New jobs yes, but not for us. Their jobbing it out to slave labor in south east asia, not because our wages are too high and its hurting their business, but their profits will be higher still if they do. And the political parties, still in power, help them every step of the way and could care less about our well being.

Its time for a major change in our political system.

Get todays (7/24/02) spin on Hollywood hacking at http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1106-945976.html

The record industry is annoyed that sales are going down, so they try to find any excuse they can to explain this, eg that file-sharing is stopping sales. Maybe if they stopped making wave after wave of annoying bands which all sound the same, and stop paying people so much money, then sales would improve.
Also from what has happened in the past, annoying people on the net is a bad thing, they usually team up and get revenge eg DDOS a server, or take over a network

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Programmers trying to come up with, say, the next great version of the Linux operating system may find their development efforts put them at risk of civil and criminal penalties. Indeed, their sons and daughters in grade school computer classes may face similar risks if the broadest of the changes now being proposed -- a ban on software, hardware, and any other digital-transmission technology that does not incorporate copyright protection -- becomes law.

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http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=13651