Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

On the edge of politics again, at least related to technology though, either way another "so sue me" if you dont like it.

I am sure everyone has heard of the new plan by Democrats John Conyers (Mich.) and Howard Berman (Calif.) to make file swapping a felony.

What a beautiful plan it is. Have they lowered the amount of dollars to make "felony" mean stealing one song so felony is now like 1 buck? Ummm, nope. They have arbitrarily decided that if you have a copyrighted file on your computer that was obtained from a P2P network its worth $2500 bucks. How do they get 2500 bucks you wail? The bill "assumes each copyrighted work put on a P2P network was copied at least 10 times for a retail value of $2,500". A great example of the "out of my ass" logic that Democrats like to employ (see that, a Democrat bash, they do occur, I dont like them either, credit where due in each case).

Now regardless of the P2P issues with whether its good or bad for the industries it affects and the FACT that having a copyrighted anything without permission (or purchase) is indeed illegal its still total bunk to "assume" anything in a LAW and make something thats worth 3 bucks at the outside based on the price of it in a store worth 2500 just to make it a felony (not to mention where the hell does 250 for each "work" come from, at 2500/10 they are saying each work without being shared anywhere is worth 250 bucks?!?).

Now I am going to make a prediction. I am great at that you know (although them coming true is another matter). IF this silly stupid law passes it wont hold up for crap in court based on the constitutionality of "cruel and unusual" punishment and a host of other crap. It always amazes me when supposed educated legislators pass laws that are obviously not going to hold water. You want to make file swapping a felony? Well then equate that one song is worth 1 buck because the CD cost 10 and it has ten tracks, and make felony dollar limits oen dollar, dont go trying to skate around it and come up with some silliness to avoid reality.

The only real crime here is that these clowns are congresspeople.

For more see the linked Internet.com article.   New Bill Seeks Prison Time for File Swappers