{"id":6983,"date":"2003-07-17T05:50:00","date_gmt":"2003-07-17T10:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2003\/07\/17\/6983\/"},"modified":"2018-08-02T15:43:22","modified_gmt":"2018-08-02T20:43:22","slug":"6983","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2003\/07\/17\/6983\/","title":{"rendered":"Democrat Lawmakers Underestimate Consequences of Music Swapping"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.drudgereport.com\" target=\"new\">Drudge<\/a> links to a <a href=\"http:\/\/au.news.yahoo.com\/030717\/11\/kvue.html\" target=\"new\">story<\/a> about the new bill in Congress that will hang music swappers with a <i>jail term<\/i> for swapping tunes online.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s hard to argue with their math:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\nThe Conyers-Berman bill would operate under the assumption that each copyrighted work made available through a computer network was copied by others at least 10 times for a total retail value of $2,500. That would bump the activity from a misdemeanor to a felony, carrying a sentence of up to five years in jail.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Because songs are obviously worth $250 each.<\/p>\n<p>And our lawmakers have uncovered, in a series of hearings, the <i>real<\/i> consequences of file swapping:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In a series of hearings on Capitol Hill last spring, lawmakers condemned online song swapping and expressed concern the networks could <b>spread computer viruses, create government security risks and allow children access to pornography<\/b>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Good going, fellows, you have determined some of the contemporary bugaboos you can arbitrarily associate with with an issue to score extra Politicopoints.  But I fear you&#8217;ve missed other grim consequences of file swapping:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Peer-to-peer file swapping has been proven to cause cancer in laboratory animals.\n<li>Peer-to-peer music swapping leads to increased manufacture and use of methamphetamine.\n<li>Peer-to-peer music swapping causes obesity because users no longer have to walk around a music store.\n<li>Peer-to-peer music swapping uses negative campaign ads against earnest incumbents.\n<li>Peer-to-peer music swapping contributes to global warming and depletes the ozone layer.\n<li>Software like Kazaa and Napster contributes to traffic accidents and SUV rollovers.<\/ul>\n<p>So undoubtedly, it is important to make this behavior a <b><i>Federal felony<\/i><\/b> so states cannot show some restraint in prosectution.  It&#8217;s very important to take away music swappers&#8217; rights to own firearms and vote, because when they come out five years of hard time for the eleventh download of Metallica&#8217;s &#8220;St. Anger&#8221;, they&#8217;re going to be upset, and we don&#8217;t want them to have any recourse against their legislator.<\/p>\n<p>So it is important to obscure the true impact of music swapping, which is <i>it has limited economic impact on a small industry<\/i> with these &#8220;reasons.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>If this bill fails on its own, remember you can attach it as an amendment to the next Congress Supports Mothers bill.  Because what fool congressperson would vote against Mom?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Drudge links to a story about the new bill in Congress that will hang music swappers with a jail term for swapping tunes online. It&#8217;s hard to argue with their math: The Conyers-Berman bill would operate under the assumption that each copyrighted work made available through a computer network was copied by others at least [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6983"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21363,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6983\/revisions\/21363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}