US entertainment industry to Congress: make it legal for us to deploy rootkits

Additionally, can consumers claim DMCA violations?

Suppose I don't have any Hollywood stuff on my PC, am I then immune from the poison-ware? Can you easily recover costs if you are falsely accused? People must remain unaffected unless they are successfully sued or convicted, in a court with proper procedures and evidence.

> The Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property > With U.S. companies suffering losses and American workers losing jobs

Jobs. Translation: this is a PR piece.

> The Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and law enforcement agencies should have the legal authority to use threat-based deterrence systems that operate at network speed against unauthorized intrusions into national security and critical infrastructure networks

Huh? This includes national security now? Are they deliberately blurring the lines between pirating and national security? Why I think so.

> Informed deliberations over whether corporations and individuals should be legally able to conduct threat-based deterrence operations against network intrusion, without doing undue harm to an attacker or to innocent third parties, ought to be undertaken.

They want to legalize Sony's rootkit, but they want to do it right. Rootkits in the wild cannot be tamed, don't even go there.

> if counterattacks against hackers were legal, there are many techniques that companies could employ that would cause severe damage to the capability of those conducting IP theft.

You do something that the system thinks is pirating and your computer blows up. What could go wrong.

> ...The Commission is not ready to endorse this recommendation because of the larger questions of collateral damage caused by computer attacks

Ahh I see, they're reasonable after all! IOW, they want to make their rootkit legalization idea sound sane.

> Recommend to Congress and the administration that U.S. funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) program budget in whole or in part be withheld

At this point I want to punch someone in the face.

I can't read anymore.

This is our fault though. We have these companies that sell us digital recordings of media we want at a price they've chosen. We found a way to circumvent the buying process and get it free. This is simply not okay. We can debate how fair artists get treated, the price of media, and whether or not distributing copyrighted materials online is technically stealing all day long but in the end any rational person sees this is wrong.

So while we infringe on the copyright holders rights for years any time they try to take steps to curb this behavior (which is on a scale way larger than other types of black markets and impossible to ignore) we act shocked and appalled as if we've dont nothing to instigate it. Each time they fail to curb piracy they come back with an even more deplorable plan to stop it. In the end we're all losing, both the media companies and the consumers.

I still can't understand why anyone would think piracy is okay. I've done it myself but I know its wrong. Using reasons like region availability, pricing, and the usual copyright complaints to justify it dont make sense. They're usually all excuses for the person with "I should be able to get this on my terms because, uhh, freedom" syndrome.

Sometimes the complaints are legitimate but still don't excuse piracy. We've created this problem ourselves and the only way to stop it is to vote with our wallets. Piracy does not count as voting with your wallet. To vote with your wallet you have to be willing to live without the thing you desire or go to a competitor until the seller starts giving the consumer what they want. A black market is not a competitor and it undermines the goal of getting media companies to start making it convenient to buy their product at a reasonable price. Piracy just shows them we want what they've got but don't want to pay. The only way to compete with piracy is to shut it down which is impossible and leads us to crazy proposals like the one discussed here. But lets say HBO and Shotime both aired Game of Thrones. If HBO sucks at distribution and pricing consumers go to Shotime instead. HBO sees this and can't shut down Shotime so the solution is to get better at pleasing consumers.

My point is that you can't compete with a black market and this constant arms race to implement and circumvent anti-piracy measures will lead to a stalemate where we all lose. If we quit both pirating media and buying it, that would start leading to changes in a positive direction (for those of us who aren't just pirating to be cheap at least).

*Side note: unfortunately, getting media online has the potential to become VERY convenient but can never be as convenient as piracy as it'll always require a payment step but is that really so awful?