Sen. Hatch: damaging PCs only way to teach people about copyrights

Crabbyappleton and mendoman both used our news submit to tell us that the chairman of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, Orrin Hatch, has said on Tuesday that he favors
the development of anti-piracy technology that can
damage computers of people who
illegally download music from the Internet. According to the Senator this is the
only way to teach somebody about
copyrights:


The
surprise remarks by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, during a hearing on
copyright abuses represent a dramatic escalation in the frustrating battle
by industry executives and lawmakers in Washington against illegal music
downloads.

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During a discussion on methods to frustrate computer
users who illegally exchange music and movie files over the Internet,
Hatch asked technology executives about ways to damage computers involved
in such file trading. Legal experts have said any such attack would
violate federal anti-hacking laws.


The senator, a composer who earned $18,000 last year
in song writing royalties, 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."

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"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.


Other people, such as Sen. Patrick Leahy, have said that
anti-piracy measurements such as this one, would create more problems than they
would solve. Read the complete article here.

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Source: Yahoo! News

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