P2P jail bill moves forward | The Register:

“HR.4077, the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act, has been approved by the United States’ House Judiciary Committee.

The bill specifies up to five years’ jail for anyone making over a thousand copyrighted works available for download. That’s if the infringer is profiting from the action: ordinary P2P users would face up to three years simply for making their collections available.”

If these kinds of laws get enacted, I’m going to start doing very bad things. And I’m not talking about file-sharing. Because I don’t even see that as being bad. In fact, I see it as intelligent and economical. And I think it’s skull-fuckingly retarded that companies are trying to legislate against change in order for them to protect business models which no longer work or make any kind of sense at all. Fuck these people.

Wait, maybe things actually aren’t so bad after all…

The same court that once helped shutdown Napster delivered a punishing blow today to the record labels, confirming an earlier decision that P2P networks are legal. The court then went one step further to say it’s unwise to alter copyright law in a way that could stifle innovation just to suit well-established players in a market, given the ways in which technology often changes the market for the better in the long run.

Oh wait no, things are not only bad, but worse than I thought:

The US DoJ (Department of Justice) today launched an assault on P2P file traders, using search warrants to investigate five homes and the offices of one ISP (Internet Service Provider). This is the first time the DoJ has applied such drastic measures against file swappers, and the move comes just one week after a California court reaffirmed that decentralized P2P networks are legal.

Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the raids during a press conference, saying individuals in Texas, New York and Wisconsin were all under investigation. These actions come as part of the ironically named Operation Digital Gridlock and target the trade of music, movies, games and other software over P2P networks. The government has long sided with the entertainment industry in its crusade to shut down P2P networks even though the most comprehensive study to date from Harvard has said the networks have almost no effect on entertainment sales.

“When online thieves illegally distribute copyrighted programs and products, they put the livelihoods of millions of hard-working Americans at risk and damage our economy,” Ashcroft said. “The Department of Justice is committed to enforcing intellectual property laws, and we will pursue those who steal copyrighted materials even when they try to hide behind the false anonymity of peer-to-peer networks.”

Ah, good old John Asscroft.