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I know I've said this before, but I really do try not to discuss politics too much on this site. However, it seems like every week there's a new law either being enacted or proposed with the intent of turning you, the consumer of music, into a criminal. The latest: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has proposed the Intellectual Property Protection Act of 2007, which would criminalize all "attempts" at piracy. Among other things, this bill would allow the authorities to seize the assets of anyone attempting piracy, ease the requirements for wiretapping suspected "pirates," and get the Department of Homeland Security involved under certain circumstances. Translation: the money from your taxes that are earmarked to protect you against "terrorists" can now be used to hunt you down for sharing mp3s.
You can read the actual bill (pdf link) if you're so inclined, but to sum it up in one sentence, this bill is intended to lower the standard of proof for accusations of piracy (a scary thought, considering how often the RIAA targets the wrong person in their lawsuits) and open up a rather large percentage of the population to criminal charges. One of the main issues here is the idea that you could be facing criminal charges for an "attempt" at piracy. Ever clicked on a link to a file sharing site? You've just made an attempt to commit piracy. Do you have a receipt for every cd you've purchased? If not, it's going to be tough to defend yourself against a charge under the IPPA. And all it would take is one accusation for the police to have the right to seize your computer or any other assets that may have assisted you in your alleged attempts at copyright violation.
It's not hard to see the fingerprints of the lobbyists for the music industry all over this bill. The record labels that support the RIAA have been operating under the belief that they can somehow terrorize their consumers into once again buying CDs like it's 1997, and what could be more terrifying than a potential trip to prison for buying a mixtape or sharing that 128kbps mp3?
Yet the lobbyists are just a part of the push for the IPPA, and placing all of the blame on them would be letting Gonzales and the rest of the current administration off the hook for yet another violation of the original intent of the Constitution. Here's what the actual Constitution has to say on the issue of intellectual property:
Congress shall have the power to... promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.
US Constitution, art I. sec. 8, cl. 8.
Nowhere does that even hint at the possibility of life imprisonment for a copyright violation, which the IPPA allows for under certain conditions. The Founding Fathers intended for this clause to foster creativity, not fatten the wallets of record label executives and increase the prison population. This bill (along with several other laws the current administration has passed over the past few years) seems like a rather blatant attempt to disenfranchise a significant portion of the population while further empowering the large corporations that have an inordinate amount of influence over the political process in this country. Is a prison term and the loss of your right to vote really the appropriate punishment for downloading an mp3?
All of this isn't to say that I advocate piracy in any form. Quite the opposite, in fact, as I go to great lengths to get approval from the artists of all of the tracks that I put up on this site. Yet that hasn't kept me from receiving baseless legal threats in the past, and I can only imagine what I (and just about everyone who uses the internet in any capacity) might be threatened with should this law be passed. Of course, most bills go through a fair amount of changes before they do get passed, but the IPPA in any form is a bad thing for all of us.
Ok, end of rant. Today's track:
Pharaohe Monch - Body Baby
Yeah, I was one of the bloggers that gave Monch the Bozack on that Top 25 list a couple of weeks ago, but I am looking forward to his upcoming release. I'm not entirely feeling the hook on this one, but Pharaohe's flow is nice as always.
5/15/2007 5:28:29 PM posted by Fresh