Breaking news, Congress is full of quarter-witted imbeciles and corrupt sychophants. Wait… we knew that already. What is new is that now we have a roster of the members of the House who either have no clue about what's going on or have gone to the dark side (cue Darth Vader-like breathing).

Yesterday the House passed a FISA amendment act which includes a provision shielding telecommunications companies from any liability. In the coverage of the situation by Ars Technica, they were able to quote Nacy Pelosi as being an idiot:

The most extended apologia came from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who urged that the compromise be judged by comparison with the Senate bill, which she characterized as the only realistic alternative (So we can't ask for a good law, only a less bad one? That's a great standard to live to). She outlined several ways in which the current legislation is preferable to the Senate's version. First, the compromise bill reasserts that FISA is the "exclusive means" for conducting electronic surveillance, which would require the president to ignore such language twice in order to launch an extralegal surveillance program, rather than only once, as under traditional FISA rules (So if the President breaks the law, now it would violate two laws instead of just one. The next time someone breaks a law, I wonder if it will result in jail time if it only breaks the law "once"). Second, it preserves prior judicial review of surveillance authorizations, except in "very, very rare" circumstances, such as when the attorney general asserts that waiting for a judge would entail delay (I think that recent history has shown how much we can trust to the "rarity" of the Attorney General approving anything a president might ask. Has she even been awake in the last decade?). Third, it contains specific provisions barring the use of authorizations targeting parties abroad as a pretext for targeting U.S. persons, presumably to be enforced by a board of psychics. Finally, it provides for an internal investigation of the extent of past surveillance, which Congress will act upon with the same legendary zeal for civil liberties it has displayed over the past seven years (Brilliantly summarized. Ars has some great writers.).

So in one day, the House voted to expand powers of the Judicial branch that they didn't need and shield their conspirators from liability against justice.

Don't get me wrong, if I got a letter from the Attorney General of the United states that required my company to do something and my lawyers said to do it, I would have and maybe that's what happened to the telcos. But if there is no accountability for the Attorney General, the President, and the involved Agencies, then the whole things tastes like Congress cooked us up some chili made of poo.

In a recent case, the judge has asked for public comment which the Electronic Frontier Foundation was happy to do.

In brief, the EFF is trying to show the judge that the RIAA can't win judgments against people only by showing that someone had a copyrighted song in a share folder. In other words, just because it was "available" for download, doesn't mean a crime occurred. Second, just because MediaSentry (the company paid by the RIAA to find copyrighted material online) downloads the song from someone doesn't suddenly make the providing person a criminal.

Hear, hear.

Some people have been sent letters to pay up or go to court that have ignored them with no consequences. I'm not actually suggesting that you simply ignore any letter you see, but perhaps be cautious about who is actually sending it, what they're suggesting, and whether or not they can prove it.

Most importantly, if the letter sounds like a scam (threatening things they can't do like taking your house and only giving you a week or two to respond), there's a good chance it is.

The RIAA likes to send people settlement letters whether they've done anything wrong or not which leads many people to pay up just to end the issue (much like traffic tickets which, even if you're right, it's often cheaper to just pay). Now, if someone tries to defend themselves in court, the fee will more than double thus providing stiff motivation to avoid using our own justice system.

Any computer with at least one file "coming from 'dubious origins,' e.g. downloaded from P2P". I don't know about you, but everyone I know has downloaded something at one point or another. As I've said before, there are many situations where downloading even copyrighted material is completely ethical(even if it may not be clearly legal or illegal).

Info on the bill brought to you via Slashdot.

The University of Washington has proven how ineffective the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) bully corporations have been identifying suspected infringers on their copyrighted works.

The paper finds that there is a serious flaw in how these trade groups finger reported file-sharers. It also suggests that some people might be getting improperly accused of sharing copyrighted content, and could even be purposely framed by other users.

An inanimate object could also get the blame. The researchers rigged the software agents to implicate three laserjet printers, which were then accused in takedown letters by the M.P.A.A. of downloading copies of “Iron Man?? and the latest Indiana Jones film.

So they've show that it's possible to frame others for the download of materials. I wonder what that will do to the lawsuits.

(H/T to Schneier's Blog for the link)

Some new game manufacturers are requiring that the game system you play with have an Internet connection so the game can authenticate itself every few days. Most people are pretty adverse to being treated like criminals just to play a game much like they'd resent a screeching corporate harpy who strikes their hands with a ruler every time they do something that the company deems "unworthy".

Well since the company can't afford to train and assign a corporate harpy to each and every player, they instead put restrictive software that calls home and says, "yup, this guy's still ok". Should the software not be able to call home, like a spy under strict orders to lie low, the game will refuse to operate until given an Internet connection by which to phone home to command.

The funny thing about this is that most of their market will happily and quickly buy their games, but when they put in the screws, those same customers will refuse. However, being avid gamers and fans, when presented with the ability and opportunity to download a cracked copy, they are much more likely to do so since they will still want to play the game.

SO… Adding restrictive software to prevent piracy actually causes piracy. Too bad they don't understand that.

Lest one think of torrents and illegal downloads at the same time, it's worth reminding the public that torrents are just a file distribution system and one that has many legitimate uses. For example, one IT department used torrent technology to distribute a set of system patches and upgrades in just four hours. The same patch would have previously taken over 4 days!

A judge just ruled against the RIAA's theory of "making available". What this means is that the RIAA can't pursue a lawsuit solely on the fact that someone has a song available for download, but that someone actually downloaded it from them.

This one ruling could derail future (and past?) RIAA lawsuits and make filesharing a whole lot safer for the masses. Interestingly enough, the judge also helpfully offered the defendant a bunch of other possible defences that they could have used which the judge (presumably) would have ruled in their favor with.

From the, we're so stupid, we don't need competition to put us out of business, department comes a story of a new Western Digital Hard drive that has DRM built in. It's an external hard drive which is advertised as making it easy to store and share your files, as long as those files aren't music or movies.

Don't buy these. If you did buy them, return them.

A fairly clever video maker has created a tutorial on copyright law using, of all things, Disney movie clips. It's humorous and informative which is a good combination

Just be careful because the speed that he switchs between clips might make you convulse.

(H/T to Digg.com for the link)

Here's a little summary of the battle between the RIAA and university students. Looks like things are getting harder and harder for the RIAA meaning as their exploits become more public, less people are willing to bend over and take their abuse.