All: I'll be sending the regular e-clippings out tonight but this is
too amazing not to send out. Anyone for destroying someone's car
after
two speeding tickets?

Mark Oehlert, A Stunned Editor

Found at Declan McCullagh's Politechbot (info following article)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6241-2003Jun17.html

Hatch Takes Aim at Illegal Downloading

By TED BRIDIS
The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 17, 2003; 5:22 PM

[...] "No one is interested in destroying anyone's computer," replied
Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company
that builds technology to disrupt music downloads. One technique
deliberately downloads pirated material very slowly so other users
can't. "I'm interested," [Orrin] Hatch interrupted. He said damaging
someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about
copyrights." The senator acknowledged Congress would have to enact an
exemption for copyright owners from liability for damaging computers.
He endorsed technology that would twice warn a computer user about
illegal online behavior, "then destroy their computer."

"If we can find some way to do this without destroying their
machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that," Hatch said. "If
that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If
you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would
realize" the seriousness of their actions, he said. "There's no
excuse
for anyone violating copyright laws," Hatch said. [...]

---

Sen. Hatch's statement today:
http://www.senate.gov/~hatch/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.
Detail&PressRelease_id=205147

HATCH COMMENTS ON COPYRIGHT ENFORCEMENT

Washington - Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), Chairman of the Senate
Judiciary Committee, today issued the following statement:

"I am very concerned about Internet piracy of personal and
copyrighted materials, and I want to find effective solutions to
these
problems.

"I made my comments at yesterday's hearing because I think that
industry is not doing enough to help us find effective ways to stop
people from using computers to steal copyrighted, personal or
sensitive materials. I do not favor extreme remedies - unless no
moderate remedies can be found. I asked the interested industries to
help us find those moderate remedies."

---

It's conceivable that Hatch is talking about the same kind of
proposal that Rep. Berman introduced last year:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04035.html

It's a complicated bill and worth reading for yourself, but one
section says "a copyright owner shall not be liable in any criminal
or civil action for disabling, interfering with, blocking, diverting,
or otherwise impairing the unauthorized distribution, display,
performance, or reproduction of his or her copyrighted work on a
publicly accessible peer-to-peer file trading network":
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.r.05211:

-Declan

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