
More Mistakes Discovered In DHS's Domain Seizures - yanw
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101222/02112912376/more-bigger-mistakes-discovered-homeland-securitys-domain-seizures.shtml
======
ck2
So basically zero repercussions for judges and law enforcement that swear and
sign vastly incorrect orders that do drastic damage. Just like that article
the other day where there are no repercussions for badly behaving prosecutors.

I guess at least they didn't kill anyone like a no-knock warrant on the wrong
house for the wrong reason. Still, it's the general attitude that really
should wake up people who have blind faith.

~~~
fleitz
A better course of action may be prosecution of the RIAA under RICO statutes
as they have caused damage of the property of others for claims which are
false and which they ought to have known were false. They do offer
'protection' from these issues in exchange for 'licensing' fees. And it's
clear that the record company execs have conspired to create such an
organization.

This would create far more change than the prosecution of some low level
bureaucrats, as RICO statues would allow the prosecution of the executives
rather than lower level employees, as well as piercing the corporate veil to
go after the record company execs rather than just RIAA execs.

The nice thing is that RICO allows for a civil claim where the evidentiary
standards would be greatly relaxed, also a civil claim could not be quashed by
reason of 'public interest'.

~~~
redthrowaway
We can only dream. It'd be nice if everyone, corporations, politicians, and
individuals, were held to account equally and were treated equally under the
law. Unfortunately, that's not the world we live in.

------
jodrellblank
Mistaken arguments discovered in mistakes in seizures post.

 _In multiple cases, the blogger notes that he will not post links to too many
tracks from an album, suggesting that the site is not at all focused on
getting as much infringing material up as possible, as implied in the
affidavit. If that was the goal, why would it specifically refuse to post
links to more than just a few songs?_

Man in a barber's shop, and a kid walks in. "Hey", says the barber to the man,
"see that kid? dumbest kid in the world. Look, I'll show you." and he goes
over to the kid and holds out a dollar in one hand and two quarters in the
other and asks the kid to choose. The kid takes the quarters and leaves.
"See?" says the barber, "what did I tell you? Dumb as a box of rocks that
one".

A bit later the man leaves the barber shop and sees the same kid outside an
ice cream store, and asks him "why did you take the quarters instead of the
dollar?".

"Because", replied the kid licking his icecream, "as soon as I take the
dollar, the game is over".

~~~
bbatsell
While your joke is humorous, it's not particularly applicable to this
situation. The affidavit only highlighted four "infringing" songs, and
according to TechDirt, every single one was explicitly provided to the blog by
the record label (or in one case, the unsigned artist) for promotional
purposes.

The fact that they refused to post links to all but the permitted songs _does_
actually demonstrate a desire to comply with intellectual property laws.

------
bhickey

        Note that he says all were pre-release, but only three were copyrighted.
    

Argh! Copyright attaches to a work upon creation, not upon sale, or slapping
(c) on it.

~~~
tedunangst
Unpublished words are not automatically copyrighted. If someone steals your
unpublished work, and publishes it themselves, you will be out of luck unless
you registered the work.

~~~
jbri
Actually, unpublished works are still copyrighted. The issue here is that you
have to show that you created the work if you want to make a copyright claim,
which is difficult if the work is unpublished and not registered.

~~~
alexqgb
Not so. While courts require registration before they'll enforce your rights,
the process itself demands nothing more than an assertion - under penalty of
perjury - that the work in question is yours. And that's all.

A lack of publication or registration is only a problem if you're challenging
the legitimacy someone else's copyright. And yes, that's considerably harder
to do - as well it should be.

Does this mean that it's easy to register the copyright for unregistered work
that isn't yours? Yes it does. But actually doing so is insanely stupid, since
getting caught means opening yourself up to both a civil lawsuit from the
rightful owner, as well as Federal perjury charges. And since you're involving
the courts themselves in your fraud, you can expect whichever judge you face
to be especially unforgiving.

Unsurprisingly, knowingly falsified copyright registration is not a widespread
problem.

------
jdp23
The MPAA and RIAA get DHS to shut down a hip-hop blog under false pretenses --
and DHS botches the job. Is this the greatest country in the world or what?

~~~
jrockway
This just goes to show you why we normally have due process. When you don't
follow the process, you fuck things up badly.

~~~
oiuytuikolikuhy
They did follow due process. An industry body bought off some politicians who
passed a law making attacks on their business model a matter of national
security.

That's been standard procedure since at least 1776

------
bobwaycott
This is just insane to me. At what point is domain seizure increasing or
defending homeland security? I cannot see where these seizures are at all part
of DHS's stated goals when the department was created.

How is it that our government agencies continue to limitlessly aggrandize
their power & reach with no end in sight and, apparently, no recourse or
prevention? Perhaps we need to return to constitutional amendments protecting
the People and the states from unfettered power grabs--such as an amendment
that expressly prohibits a federal agency of the executive branch from
increasing its reach without due congressional process & said increase being
legislated and passed by both houses, like any other law.

I'd like to believe it's an idea that liberals, conservatives, independents,
and anyone else can actually agree on. But ... we're talking about people
here. And politics.

~~~
eli
DHS was created by consolidating several existing agencies. One of them is
ICE, which has traditionally had a role fighting counterfeit goods and
copyright infringement. Yes, it's bad that they suck so badly at their job --
but this isn't a "power grab"

~~~
joe_the_user
Uh,

I keep hearing the ICE-is-tasked-with-counterfeiting-so-this-isn't-a-power-
grab argument.

Whatever the merits of the general argument, you need to find a different term
for you say it isn't. Because it certainly _is_ a power grab by the normal use
of the phrase.

We haven't seen mass domain seizures previously and this ability certainly is
power. It's been done with dubious legality, dubious constitutionality and
just dubiously, so it's effectively a grab.

If the Department of Agriculture started arresting people for using too many
pesticides in their home gardens, it would be a power-grab even though the
department sure-enough is tasked with regulating agriculture.

~~~
regularfry
How about "The ICE is tasked with policing counterfeiting so this isn't
overstepping the bounds of their jurisdiction?" Quibbling over the words
"power grab" seems rather pointless.

~~~
joe_the_user
The summary of an article can matter _a lot_ these days. If someone says
"TL;DR - not a power grab", it may make someone who would otherwise react
against it do nothing.

 _This is a significant increase in state power. I hardly oppose any summary
which gives any other impression._

~~~
puredemo
You meant _heartily._

~~~
joe_the_user
Yes I did ;<

------
rue
Hm, the author seems to use "Occam's Razor" as "most charitable explanation".

~~~
jpknoll
Better put by Hanlon's razor, "Never attribute to malice that which is
adequately explained by stupidity."

