The fearless leader of the US Department of Justice, Attorney General John Ashcroft has a nickname in the untamed internet wilderness. It's “Asscrack.” It might be juvenile and it might be immature but after reading the report from the Task Force on Intellectual Property, I'm convinced that Mr. Ashcroft has earned his nickname. Apparently, he's working overtime to keep it.
Since fighting terrorism and the ordinary law-abiding citizens that plan it doesn't give the DOJ mandarins quite the same high as it once did, Ashcroft has set the Department on a mission to fight piracy. It's a noble cause. Every day, several terabytes of copyrighted music and movies change hands via peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. Since the overwhelming majority of these people didn't pay, it's stealing. No doubt about it. Anyone that tries to mince words and call it “copyright infringement” is either not creative or never had anything stolen from them. Most likely both.
Is stealing Brittany Spears', “Fsck me, baby, one more time” a crime? It's not a felony, that's for certain. Unfortunately, the task force proposals will make it a felony. Like the Drug War (TM), the War on Piracy will incarcerate people for hurting themselves.
“With the recommendations put forward by the task force, the department is prepared to build the strongest, most aggressive legal assault against intellectual property crime in our nation's history,” Ashcroft said. Among the specific goals of the DOJ:
FBI agents will be moved from fighting crime to infiltrating networks of teenagers with obscure passphrases like “OMFG MNM 1S S000 64Y111!!!11″ Some agents may have to remove parts of their brain to comprehend such communications. I feel their pain. Train prosecutors and police officers to recognize teenage girls as al Qaeda operatives. This is a key proposal. If prosecutors and cops decide to prioritize their efforts into something besides being Hollywood's bitch(i.e., prosecuting real bad guys), the War on Piracy has no chance. And no proposal for bogus laws would be complete without a call for greater cooperation between federal… state… and local authorities… with help from good citizens to make their jobs easier.
Imbued with the awesome powers of Super Obvious Guy, Ashcroft says that the people who benefit most from intellectual property crimes are criminals. Criminals…benefit… from crime. That's deep. Thank God he's always thinking. Ashcroft goes on to state that, “[A)larmingly, [these are] criminal organizations with possible ties to terrorism.”
How?
How? How? How? How? How?
We're not suppose to ask how happy music fans become terrorists. We're just supposed to accept it because “sacrifices must be made” for the open-ended War on Terror. Shoplifters are not typically incarcerated. If caught, they pay a _civil_ penalty that usually ends with “pay for it.” How is this any different?
The more insidious part of this new mission is the ultimate elimination of Fair Use. If the DOJ takes this project to its logical end, Americans will own nothing except a timed license giving them the right to merely use anything in digital form. If your music is on CD today and some super media comes out tomorrow. Ashcroft's proposal will force you to buy everything over again or risk incarceration.
The bottom line is that the entertainment industry cares more about killing Fair Use than which kid steals what song. Hollywood certainly knows that they already have the legal tools to protect their interests and pursue copyright violators. What they don't have is the right to jail or execute their customers. Looks like that will change because now they have a complete dope in John Asscrack to shape their future.
