Breathtaking audacity: the RIAA tries to get the right to hack your computer

Why would stories about RIAA secret meetings seem plausible to paranoids like us? Because of the psychotic bullshit the recording industry really does try to pull given the faintest opportunity.

In the wake of September 11, the RIAA is trying to score the right to hack your PC in search of MP3s without legal consequence for damage.

According to Wartime Liberty, the proposed rider to the planned anti-terrorist bill goes as follows:

“Section 815(d)(2) [of the Senate antiterrorism legislation] currently amends section 1030(g) (the provision of 1030 which creates a civil cause of action) by adding a sentence at the end providing:

‘No action may be brought under this subsection for the negligent design or manufacture of computer hardware, computer software or firmware.’

We would propose adding a new sentence to the end of this as follows:

‘No action may be brought under this subsection arising out of any impairment of the availability of data, a program, a system or information, resulting from measures taken by an owner of copyright in a work of authorship, or any person authorized by such owner to act on its behalf, that are intended to impede or prevent the infringement of copyright in such work by wire or electronic communication; provided that the use of the work that the owner is intending to impede or prevent is an infringing use.’

OR

‘No action may be brought under this subsection arising out of any impairment of the availability of data, a program, a system or information, resulting from measures taken by an owner of copyright in a work of authorship, or any person authorized by such owner to act on its behalf, that are reasonably intended to impede or prevent the unauthorized transmission of such work by wire or electronic communication of such transmission would infringe the rights of the copyright owner.”

Never mind musicians with MP3s of their own music … or hackers who can record a song, spread it around the net and claim they were just looking for illegal copies.

See also coverage on Slashdot (and a followup).

Note, by the way: the RIAA is still trying to get an amendment of this sort through.

3 thoughts on “Breathtaking audacity: the RIAA tries to get the right to hack your computer

  1. Geez David, I just whacked one of these up! Great minds think alike, etc… Anyway, for those who might think this is another hoax: the journalist reporting for Wired, Declan McCullough, has heavily criticised Cryptome and the Register, who ran the RIAA secret meeting report as gospel.

  2. RIAA planning denial-of-service attacks. DoS attacks count as ‘hacking’ for the purposes of the anti-terrorism bill. Check this from ZDNet:

    “The recording industry is now experimenting with new technology it hopes can smother online song swapping by targeting music traders’ computers directly … The new technological techniques, which would essentially hog a file-traders’ Net connection so that genuine song-seekers couldn’t get in, are expected to be taken up across the copyright holder community.”

    RIAA to fight hackers on own terms … hilarity will surely ensue.

  3. In the works for a while. Dave Winer:

    ‘BTW, Mickey Capp, a retired Warner exec, asked me for advice on how to do this virus, about a year ago. I told him to fuck off. I never believed they’d actually try it. What a loser.’

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