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Bill that would allow MPAA and RIAA to hack your PC

23 July 2002 14:52 by Petteri "dRD" Pyyny | 4 comments

News.com has an article of a upcoming bill that would make it legal for copyright holders to hack individual users' computers if they share illegal material through the Net.

If passed, the bill would make copyright holders, such as MPAA and RIAA, immune to all state and federal legal actions if they disable, block or otherwise impair a publicly accessible peer-to-peer network. If an individual user's computer was damaged because of the copyright holder's action, he/she would have to request a specific permission from the U.S. attorney general before filing a lawsuit against copyright holders. And to make matters worse, this suit could be filed only if the monetary value of the damaged hardware would exceed $250.

"I think it's wildly overreaching," Jessica Litman, a professor at Wayne State University, said. "Copyright owners are in essence asking Congress to say that peer-to-peer file trading is such a scourge, is so bad, that stopping it is more important than enforcing any other laws that federal or state governments may have passed on computer security, privacy, fraud and so forth."

Scary, scary stuff... More from News.com article

Permalink to this article

12-year-old's mom settles with RIAA, P2P association pays the bill (10 September 2003)

$1M donation to help challenge copyright laws (5 September 2002)

Consumer groups snap RIAA (1 September 2002)

RIAA drops the case against backbone ISPs (22 August 2002)

RIAA puts legal pressure on Verizon (21 August 2002)

ISP bans RIAA from accessing its network (20 August 2002)

CEA: "DMCA is a very flawed law" (2 August 2002)

RIAA site disabled by DoS attack (30 July 2002)

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Discuss this article!
Pio2001 (Moderator) 24 July 2002 13:02
Well, Problems are not only in France (I think about the forum webmasters sued for flame wars). I feel better :D Pio2001 [ + quote]
indie665 (Inactive) 25 July 2002 0:32
the only real terrorists is the government. if this bill is passed, I say the "terrorists" have won. Tromadance, tromadance, tromadance. [ + quote]
mystic (Member) 25 July 2002 8:49
it seems that a bill like this would have the politictions between the people who voted them in and big biz who wants to make a buck (but not pay any tax on it) . I'd side with the masses (job security)... but truly if you go see a bad movie you dont get your money back why dont they credit our accounts when the movie or cd bites...? We the people should demand that they pay us not to use the p2p or if I send anything to someone will I have to incrypet it ? and is my email next......Oh this sounds like the begining of "Big Brother" (food for thought) [ + quote]
ES-#1 (Inactive) 29 July 2002 22:46
Preventing this is simple. Use an Anti-virus program and update it frequently. Use a personal firewall program and update it frequently. If they go the virus or worm route , some computers will have to be affected in order for the virus or worm to be discovered allowing for a vaccine created to destroy it. I suspect they'll use the hacking method. Either way they're destined to end up in deep, deep s**t. The fact that they have to resort to this means that they are very desperate. [ + quote]