US Congress wants warnings on P2P software

So the description given would apply to such venerable programs as samba, ssh, find and grep - as these are capable of searching files on a PC and sharing them. Or is the article an oversimplification of what the proposed legislation really says? Seems like it needs to be shot down without further delay.

Not in any bizarro universe could Henry Waxman be mistaken for a Republican.

(That was supposed to read Representative Henry Waxman and has been corrected - ed)

""available for searching and copying to one or more other computers", or allows "the searching of files on the computer on which such program is installed and the copying of any such file to another computer"."

So in other words every single installation of windows known to man that has a network card? Along with every other OS known to man? This is why law makers shouldn't be allowed to try and make laws concerning technology that they don't have a freaking clue about.

Yeah, and that'll work. Just as all the 10 minutes of annoying "Copying this DVD is theft" on all the copied DVDs that I (don't) have worked!

The MAFIAA is out of control.

Amazing how people will so easily drink poison when "colored" like kool-aid. This is just another tool in the arsenal of P2P haters who will use it to prevent people from claiming that they didn't know they were sharing stuff that may be copyrighted.

In it's simplest form, it's an utterly stupid burden where it will notify you at install time that you are installing a file sharing program (which will likely state in the EULA that you agree to pay all copyright sharing fines that you are charged with by installing the program which no one will read either).

In it's most intrusive fashion, it will force you to click yes (you may be willingly sharing a copyrighted file) for every file that the program is sharing each and every time you run the program. Of course, as usual the big corporations have all kinds of special exemptions in the law for their products so that proves that it is not for the benefit of users.

Just another law for corporate "police forces" (since the gov't has no money to enforce it) while our consumer laws sit in a dusty old closet like relics with no will or monetary support given to them to ever make credible enforcement possible.

PS. You know asinine attempts to make special interest laws like these will only cause future problems especially when these laws never provide for expiration unless renewed clauses. The P2P will circumvent it with some unforeseen loophole and the gov't and corps will attempt to sue them into bankruptcy as an enforcement tactic. As a workaround, people will begin willingly running a "P2P Trojan" that won't comply with the law and when the industry tries to sue, people will claim that it's just an anonymous rogue program that is spreading and they don't know how it got there thus making it harder to enforce the idea of illegal copyright infringement and making everyone's computer even less secure.

Pirates know they are committing a crime so just whack them $10K per copy and throw their arse in the slammer for six months or more. They'll get the hint. Warning them that Piracy is a crime is a little redundant.

... to immediately seek out the "NEXT" button on. Nobody is going to read these "warnings" and they might as well just tack it on to the end of the EULAs nobody reads either, to save us all time.

Glad my tax dollars are going towards pointless causes.

Strange comment in the article that says "If the motion is passed in the US, a similar proposition could then be made for the European Union and other jurisdictions."
Not sure what you were thinking when you wrote that, the EU doesn't automatically adopt or even consider bills that are submitted in the US, and if there's similarity in an EU proposition then the passing or failing in the US would also not be of relevance.
Now you might argue that you fear it would come to the EU, but to link the two systems like that is a bit bizarre.

Ok so just a quick check of all the software this will effect based on the wording in the article:

FTP server software
Web hosting software
MSN messenger
Netmeeting
Any form of network support software
P2P sharing programs

Anyone else think this, like DRM, is just gonna be something to annoy people? That said I do think some software should have such warnings but only those programs which aren't blantantly obvious about their purpose to share files with people on other machines.

"the searching of files on the computer on which such program is installed and the copying of any such file to another computer"

Well that pretty much describes, for example, Windows Sharing, FTP and even HTTP if you stretch a bit.

I say vote for printing "You should be using this on your laws instead" on every toilet-paper roll that these monkeys use.

Just use P2P software from overseas to avoid this bullpoop.

They just dont get it.

P2P is actually better than FTP or even Windows file copy. FTP and copy both pull from the original source location of the file which could be on a far reaching net thereby potentially adding congestion on the ISP's back haul networks.

P2P on the other hand will serve me up pieces of the file locally and if there are enough seeders close the data may never leave the last mile net near the houses lets say if the guy down the street from me is seeding the latest copy of Ubuntu.

The US Congress is swallowing a bunch of whargarbl from the RIAA/MPAA on this one.

Henry Waxman is notorious for wanting to save us from ourselves, and legislate something that does not need fixing, so he can go back to his constituents and tell them how much his is doing for them.

He doesn't understand software, or any other concept in the US Constitution for that matter, but he's got LOTS and lots of $$$ rolling in from the lobby groups.