[free-sklyarov] Long term thoughts [was: Sen. Hatch "commends" DOJ for Sklyarov arrest, IP prosecutions]

Mark K. Bilbo mark at blorch.org
Tue Jul 31 21:24:59 PDT 2001


I see Hatch is just so proud of himself for wrecking constitutional rights he 
could just wet himself.

I can't help but thinking that over the long haul, the best solution is to 
literally pull the rug out from under these scum corporations.

Their great fear is that artists, the creators of "content," will connect 
directly to the public via the 'Net. Who needs the "middleman" leeching off 
your work if you can reach your public without them?

Over the long term, I think the best solution will be creating *open, 
non-proprietary systems that enable artists to deliver "content" directly to 
their audience. Eliminate the leeches that have been sucking the life out of 
both the creator and the public.

I think a strong alliance with artists would be profitable over the long 
haul. The media corporations are going to just keep at it, trying to squeeze 
more out of both the creators and the public. It would be nice to build 
systems in which the corporations could have all kinds of "protections" of 
content... but NO CONTENT.

I think many, many artists are ready to "jump ship." It's begun with some of 
the more powerful ones (like King). But one of the great promises of the 'Net 
would be connecting even the most obscure artists with their hanful of fans.

Ultimately, I think the best defense will be a strong "offense." Cut the 
middle-leeches out entirely.

Mark
I 


On Tuesday 31 July 2001 15:11, Jon O . wrote:
> ----- Forwarded message from Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com> -----
>
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> Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2001 16:20:27 -0400
> To: politech at politechbot.com
> From: Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com>
> Subject: FC: Sen. Hatch "commends" DOJ for Sklyarov arrest, IP prosecutions
> Precedence: bulk
> Reply-To: declan at well.com
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> X-Author: Declan McCullagh is at http://www.mccullagh.org/
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>
> This is an excerpt from transcript of Monday's hearing of the Senate
> Judiciary committee. "Free Sklyarov" activists had hoped that the case
> would be brought up during the confirmation hearings, but I suspect this
> isn't what they had in mind. Robert Mueller, of course, is President Bush's
> pick to be FBI director.
>
> Info on hearing:
> http://judiciary.senate.gov/hr073001f.htm
>
> Politech archive on U.S. v. Sklyarov:
> http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=sklyarov
>
> Politech archive on DMCA:
> http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=dmca
>
> "Congress is more than doubling number of federal copyright cops"
> http://www.politechbot.com/p-02321.html
>
> -Declan
>
> *********
>
>     SEN. HATCH: One of the areas of prosecution for which you are
> particularly known is that of computer and intellectual-property crime. As
> U.S. attorney for the northern district of California, you created a
> section called the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property, or CHIP.
> Recently Attorney General Ashcroft recognized your success in the most
> sincere and flattering way possible by announcing the formation of nine
> additional CHIPs units around the country. And as you know, a subset of
> this area, criminal copyright enforcement, is of key importance to this
> committee. We've devoted considerable energy over the past number of years
> to Internet enforcement in particular.
>
>     In 1997, we enacted the No Electronic Theft, or the NET Act, combining
> criminal penalties for certain non-commercial Internet pirates. In 1998, we
> passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or the DMCA it's called, which
> helps combat trafficking and hacking devices designed to defeat
> technological protections for copyrighted material. We also enacted the
> Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act to speed the
> implementation of the NET Act and to improve on-line theft deterrence
> generally. And we have even earmarked additional funding for DOJ
> specifically for the investigation and prosecution of cyber-crime.
>
>     The committee's work is starting to bear fruit in the form of criminal
> prosecutions of Internet piracy. So far this year, the number of NET Act
> prosecutions appears to be up, and we have just recently seen the first
> criminal
> prosecutions brought under the DMCA. Just this week, the Department of
> Justice announced a series of new prosecutions of Internet crimes.
>
>     I commended the Department of Justice for what I hope is a commitment
> to cyber-crime enforcement, and I hope this becomes a priority for the FBI
> as well.
> Would you please outline for us, if you can, your plan as FBI director on
> protecting the nation's computer infrastructure and intellectual property?
>
>     MR. MUELLER: If I may go back briefly to what I saw when I took over as
> U.S.
> attorney in San Francisco. We had Silicon Valley in my district, and one of
> the great issues was how do you protect -- or how do you not protect, but
> how do you
> combat high-tech crime?
>
>     And the first thing I had to do was determine what do you mean by
> high-tech crime, and I came to the conclusion that it should be broken down
> in four ways: First of all, computer intrusions, denial-of- service
> attacks; secondly, theft of intellectual property, economic espionage;
> third, frauds on the Internet, distribution of child pornography on the
> Internet; and fourthly, the theft of high-tech components such as computer
> chips, hard drives and the like, all of which are critical to the high-tech
> industry.
>
>     We put together a unit in San Francisco and in San Jose because it was
> important to develop the expertise in the United States attorneys, the
> assistant
> United States attorneys, who would be handling these cases. It was
> important that we develop the relationship between the FBI agents, who had
> the expertise to do these cases, the assistant United States attorneys who
> were doing these cases, and the community.
>
>     In addressing high-tech crime, it is critically important that we
> develop the
> relationships with those victims of high-tech crime in the high-tech
> industry. And consequently, we will support -- should I be confirmed as the
> director of the FBI, the FBI will support not only the unit that was set up
> in the northern district of California, but also the other units to be set
> up, announced by the attorney general last week.
>
>     One other point I might make, and this goes to the issue of working
> closely with the state and local authorities. There are too few
> investigators with the skills we need to address this. And one of the
> developments that has been useful
> is what has been known or called a computer forensics lab, which was
> established
> in San Diego with a number of contributing participating agencies, both
> federal and local. And it is that type of combined enterprise that we are
> going to have to adopt if we are to address this new wave of separate
> technological crime in the future.
>
>     SEN. HATCH: Thank you. Mr. Mueller, as you know, the 2002 Winter
> Olympics in
> Salt Lake City, they're going to be the largest planned public safety and
> law enforcement in our country in the foreseeable future. The law
> enforcement community, including the FBI, has been working on the plans and
> preparations for
> several years.
>
> [...]
>
>
>
>
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