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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Sigil" data-source="post: 1015082" data-attributes="member: 2013">The difference is:The way this law is worded, it does not just mean "putting an MP3 on Kazaa."  If you upload a file onto a network - even, for example, a LAN in your own home that never touches the internet, you can get nailed under this law... even if you never distribute it.  You cannot have a LAN where you "share" your CD drive in computer A and play the CD off computer B's speakers in the next room.  That is normally "Fair Use" - but this law would criminalize that.Furthermore, now you can get in trouble "because you have the capacity to possibly have done something" whereas before "you must have actually done it.ADDED VIA EDIT:Under the old law, my putting a file in a spot where someone else could downloaded was NOT illegal.  If nobody ever downloads it, I have never distributed the file... and therefore am not in violation of someone else's copyright.  Someone has to actually download it (and thus, I have to distribute it) before I have done something illegal.Now the new law wants to make putting that file in a spot where someone could possibly download it illegal... even if nobody ever downloads it.  That is where the difference lies.  I can be prosecuted as though I had distributed it, even if I never actually did distribute it (because nobody ever downloaded it). Granted, I'm not saying it's a good idea to make it available, but there is a big difference in what is legal and illegal under the "old" and "new" contemplations.  It assumes guilt - because I "could have" distributed it, I must be punished as though I actually did... even if I *didn't.*  THAT's why I'm not keen on this particular law.END EDITIt's like making me legally liable for having two VCRs hooked up and having a copyrighted tape in *one* of them.  Before, I had to actually copy the tape before I could be punished.  Now they want to punish me as though I had copied the tape (i.e., the fine is the same in this bill for "being able to" as "actually doing it" was before) - because I *could* have copied the tape, even if I never actually had.They're presuming guilt... and that's what is disturbing.It's kind of like passing a law that fines all people who place live ammunition into a handgun as though they had committed murder because they have the tools in place to do so... even if they have never actually shot anyone.--The Sigil</blockquote>

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