Howard Berman is a left wing wacko kissing the asses of his Hollywood buddies. It is extremely dangerous that a person of his ilk is on any committee that has anything to do with the Internet. He will happily screw the 'common' man to protect his rich buddies. The house should defeat this idiotic legisilation. In fact, it really shouldn't get out of committee.

Sharing of copyrighted files when not authorised to do so is illegal. It always has been - that's what "copyright" means, the right to control copies. The bad thing about this is that the companies involved will be able to hack your computer to stop it, which is going quite a bit too far.

Reaper -
You are correct about copyright violations being illegal. However, because such violations are already illegal means that there is no need to make any new laws to deal with it.

Personally, I'd rather have the existing laws enforced without having to resort to additional unnecessary and wasteful legislation.

Excessive and redundant laws have no effect but to engender disrespect for the law as a whole.

Somebody explain to me how they plan to "hack into people's computers" exactly? Aren't firewalls made specifically to prevent that sort of things?

Aleatoric-
That's basically what is happening. "...and would indemnify copyright holders from taking whatever actions they chose to prevent the sharing of those files"

The scope of the legislation is not to make file sharing illegal, rather, to grant copyright holders, being a non-government/non-law enforcement organization, the right to enforce those laws.

In layman's terms - vigilante justice.

Not cool. Not cool at all.

Also...

I think Greg Sanders called it about Berman. He probably has a Hollywood lobby sending him memos saying, "You're not quite socialist enough for us. Step it up or lose your seat."

If the Internet/Intellectual property subcommittee doesn't shoot this down, then the house floor will. Then, there's not enough hardcore leftists in the senate to really push this kind of legislation system through conference committee.

It'll die.

Congress is about to adjourn for the year, also. When that happens, the Bill will get buried, and have to be reintroduced during the next session of Congress next year. I'm doubting that it will get reintroduced.

What does it have to do with the left wing? Actually, if you ask me, it sounds more like a fascist (extreme right) type of enforcement.
Left wing = SOCIAList = for the people
Right wing = CAPITAList = protect money (companies)

Now, giving the power to private companies that are losing money to hunt you down and hack into people's private computer, does it sound like trying to protech the people or trying to protect the money?

What bothers me about this is that sometime they are going to cross over the line( And what is the betting it won't be long? ).

What i mean if going through other peoples computrs is not bad enough if they have file sharing programs.

One day they are going to go and look through just anyones drive.. and it will happen. they might say "oh no we won't" but you can bet it will happen.

Look around my computer I'll take them to european court.. I am not under U.S law and they are not immune here!

I see no problem with copyright holders being able to protect there rights. If they own a copyright and someone infringes (steals) on that copyright then that someone deserves punishment, but

Aleatoric is right when he said that we dont need more paperwork, its already there we need to enforce it. If you dont believe me read it for yourself.

Paxx's comments scare me. Its this kind of thinking that is going to destroy our way of like. Right wing - protect the money. The right wing is more 'for the people' that the so called socialist left wing. The left wing want more government involvment in all aspects of life. Lets make new laws for everything, yeh let let the government control us. Just amazing.

Entilza - Some say they've already crossed the line, with the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act).

You may not have a problem with copyright holders protecting their rights, but I DO. It is not the copyright holder's business to protect their rights - it is the business of law enforcement. The RIAA and their constituents are not law enforcement. They are a civilian organization of corporations. They do not have the right to enforce laws. Period.

....and they better not get it.

What Veero said.

I think filesharing should be left alone. No one should be able to tell private citizens what they can share between themselves.If i have something to share with a friend, Who's to tell me if I can share it or not. Its the Goverment trying to get their hands into the "Pot"

vast amounts of "media" are being controlled by comercial interests. the common person does not have access to a great majority of this media because of the price we must pay for this copyrighted media. i for one can not afford to pay for all the media i wish to enjoy. for example: there is a vast amount of music media from the past that i have never ben able to enjoy because i cannot afford to purchase ALL the CDs that those tracts are available on. hence i like a majority of us will never have the opportunity to enjoy some of the very best of our culture without file shareing. copyrights should be limited in time like for say 10 years. after 10 years all media should become public domain. the commercial intrersts that control our culture through its media make enough money.