I watch movies at home on DVDs from time to time as do many others. Each time I start a disk, there's always a big ugly FBI notice that cannot be skipped or fast-forwarded past, a notice of penalties for copyright infringement. I've read the text many times but until lately they were just words, words I'd merely blip through and not notice their underlying message. Then I read them one more time -
"FBI WARNING - Federal Law provides severe civil and criminal penalties for the unauthorized reproduction, distribution or exhibition of copyrighted motion pictures, videotapes, DVDs or video discs. Criminal copyright infringement is investigated by the FBI and may constitute a felony with a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison and/or a $250,000 fine."Yeah, that's right, making a copy of my $10 copy of Garfield the Movie could subject me to a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison and/or a $250,000 fine. And I am certainly aware of what the RIAA has been doing to people it claims have been illegally sharing music, suing people for 10s of 1000s of dollars simply because the people may have links to certain filenames on their computers or networks.
Compare & contrast the protection given by the Government of the United States to Garfield the Movie versus the protection given to domestic IT & engineering jobs. Send my job to India by in effect making a copy of that job and outsourcing it, what does the FBI do? Prison? Fines?? -heh- Odds are the corporates end up with a tax cut or similar subsidy.
Kinda makes their priorities clear, eh?
