A number of websites have “gone dark” in order to call attention to the SOPA/PIPA bill. It’s been called an Internet strike to protest a measure which allegedly promotes censorshhip. Bill Reader examines both bills and concludes that under the color of protecting intellectual property “the potential for censorship is strong”. It’s like a gun that could be fired. The argument will be that it isn’t going to be turned on the average guy, but that depends on who does the pointing. Reader says, “it could also reasonably be argued this will have little effect on the experience of the average American. It would depend largely on how restrictive the government chose to be.”
“How far will the government push things?” While that answer is not readily forthcoming, the dozen or so pages where the rules are laid out for how service providers, search engines, payment networks, and advertizing services will be required to deal with foreign infringing sites are not encouraging …
What if I do not believe my site is used for illegal activities? Or I believe it could be used for illegal activities, but the probability of it happening is low? Answer: according to this section, I am automatically considered to be stealing. You don’t need to be a lawyer to see an obvious catch-22. This section happens to restrict suits to copyright holders, but it’s a small consolation when crony capitalism is rife: if the government wanted to exploit this power, it certainly could.
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There is a lot of money and power to made by shaping the Internet to favor specific interests. Reader believes that the government is going to force this through one way or the other, either openly or covertly, in one piece or by sections, now or later. There are just too many ‘problems’ — er, opportunities — waiting to be ‘fixed’ — that is, exploited, for the bees to stay away from the honey for any length of time. He writes:
My guess is that legislators are hoping that if one fails the other will get through. A similar process was used to force Obamacare, except that process used two substantially different bills that had passed and then (illegally) used the reconciliation process to combine them. Of course, when it comes to two-bill tactics, the Obama administration wrote the book. Or rather, it wrote two books, in case they needed to throw one book under the bus due to public outcry.
SOPA and PROTECT-IP could still go that route, potentially, since there are differences in the bills. More likely, I suspect that legislators will let one bill fail gracefully and then intentionally confuse the matter until the other bill can slip through under the radar. Legislators have the odd belief that once a bill is passed it disappears.
This is one bill that pits even parts of the Left against a liberal President, probably because they know it is potentially the first act in an internal power struggle.
But one or two day ‘strikes’ aren’t going to do much as a long as the forces which are creating a gargantuan and intrusive state are at loose. The administration may simply wait the ‘Internet strike’ out and try again until they get what they want. An activist government wielding ever-growing tools of central planning has its own dynamic. The rise of favored groups is an essential feature of a highly regulated economy.
The process is often simple. Find a bogeyman — corporations will do — and by “fighting it” get the power to pick winners and losers whether in health care, finance, energy and the Internet. And soon all problems will be ‘fixed’.
The left should have realized that any leadership that is given license to make things ‘fair’ will eventually get around to giving them a dose of the same medicine, until only a tiny circle of power is exempt; and then only at the pleasure of the Leader Maximus. The exact same process that creates a Vanguard creates the Gulag. That is the fearful symmetry.
As Gerald Ford once put it, “a government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.”
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You would think by now that no one would still believe the line “oh we never intend to use it that way.” Any power granted will be used to its fullest, if not by the people in office today than absolutely by the people in power tomorrow. Rather than provide examples that prove the rule, I would invite anyone to find an example where it *didn’t* happen eventually – I can’t think of any.
You would think that by now people would know this.
I also signed the anti SOPA petitions but I am queasy.
If Walmart began fencing stolen goods, at some point it would be shut down, as it facilitates transferring payments from customers to thieves.
It seems some web sites have found a cleaver way to be that online fence, but keep their fingers clean.
Isn’t the solution some sort of open court proceeding? A case is made, lawyers fight it out and a jury hands down the verdict, live or die?
That is how we prevent the laws against all our other crimes from being tools in the hand of tyrants. We hope.
The website, Reddit.com, was at the vanguard in the effort to stop SOPA/PIPA. Reddit’s model is interesting in that it can very quickly draw the attention of many activist users to an issue that might otherwise “slip under the radar”. Of course, now that the user base of Reddit is on high alert to any and all attempts to sneak legislation through, it’s radar net is actively pinging in all directions.
John,
The reasons why you should be against SOPA/PIPA (IMHO) is that it allows for “vigilantee justice” in that IP rights holders can issue takedown notices without due process. The second reason is the DNS redirection provision which is horribly flawed, unworkable (ask anyone in the Internet infrastructure biz) and easily circumvented. It’s like removing a drug dealer’s phone number out of the phonebook and claiming that will solve the drug problem.
There is a need for stronger, international cooperation on combating IP theft and counterfeit goods that should focus on the money. The salvageable parts of SOPA/PIPA have to do with restricting the revenue stream from payment companies and ad revenue. Large scale piracy is a business (servers and bandwidth costs money), and like any business can be combated by starving it of funds.
If Walmart began fencing stolen goods, at some point it would be shut down, as it facilitates transferring payments from customers to thieves.
This goes to the heart of the issue: trust. When an agent loses trust, it becomes difficult to entrust authority that in other circumstances would be quite acceptable to delegate.
The former way to measure trust was by label. Conservatives trusted Republicans and Liberals trusted Democrats. Those labels may now mean less than the used to.
The other way to measure trust is ultimately via a power relationship. If you are absolutely sure of being able to rein in the agent in a crisis, you will let him go far, safe in the knowledge that you can pull him up short. But if you’re not sure that you can pull the agent in after all? Then every grant of additional power makes that more likely.
How much power — or trust — should be given to an agent is a political decision. The last 70 years have seen more and more power handed over to the government. If the relationship is a truly healthy one, the power can be reduced. After all, the ability of grants of power to flow in both directions means that trust is merited.
But if the grant of power can only flow one way then this is a prima facie symptom that something may be wrong.
See also http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=4009 for hacker Eric Raymond’s glee at lefties being hoisted by their own petard.
In California they passed a mandatory seat belt law. It was soft pedaled by telling the public that it would only be enforced when drivers were pulled over for breaking other traffic laws. One year later I was driving my vintage Firebird up the freeway. It didn’t come with shoulder harnesses. The speed limit at the time was 55 mph. A car passed by going between 75 and 80 mph. I saw a CHP speeding up in the background of my rearview mirror. Its lights started flashing. I was pulled over and the officer said that he noticed that I wasn’t wearing seatbelts. I explained that I was wearing a lap belt, standard equipment for the vehicle. He left in a huff. The law is perfect for Gestapo tactics. Wanna pull over a n!gga? Well, well, well… looks like Sambo wasn’t wearing his seat belt. The tax collectors are money grubbing whores looking to settle personal scores. They will violate the public trust. That is what they do.
“…if the government wanted to exploit this power, it certainly could”
They will and they will do so in the most egregious and partisan way, period.
W – “But one or two day ‘strikes’ aren’t going to do much as a long as the forces which are creating a gargantuan and intrusive state are at loose.”
The problem with this strike like so many others is that it does not damage the perpetrators of this bill. Congress could give a fig if Wikipedia is down for a day.
I noticed that the Google graphic had a censureship black bar over it. That might do more than any other message.
Any power granted will be used to its fullest, if not by the people in office today than absolutely by the people in power tomorrow.
No better example exists today than Mr. Obama, who has left FDR in the dust in creating new autocratic powers, useful in forbidding free activity and denying our ancient rights by government fiat. He already don’t need no steenkin’ legislation – just some unaccountable czars, and a pansy Congress which will not defend its own boundaries against his encroachments.
SOPA, of course, just makes current encroachments easier, and blazes the path to new ones.
Am far from expert on SOPA/PIPA specifics.
Does anyone remember when copy centers decided to become “copyright police.” They refused to copy any content from a published book or textbook, because you might – MIGHT – use that information in some unapproved way. Fair Use? Never heard of it, they were just blindly following company policy.
SOPA/PIPA have all the earmarks of presumed guilty until proven innocent, enforced by the ever-objective, always informed, completely unbiased and always restrained government’s finest.
Trust the integrity of the government? Not so much.
I spent my time in the IP mills a few years back, but have since lost track and haven’t read any details on these bills … but I see Wikipedia still has up pages on stopping both acts … on a quick browse, I’m not sure which side I most agree with. Congress has a *horrible* history on most of this, being pushed around one way by Hollywood greedheads, and then the other way by Silicon Valley greedheads, and compromising by taxing the citizens and giving the proceeds to both, passing legislation that they know is unconstitutional and then praying the Supreme Court invalidates it, etc.
OTOH the Internet trade in warez and “file sharing” is a problem, OTOOH it’s not like Hollywood or Silicon Valley (or Redmond) have gone broke, and OTOOOH many of the malefactors are offshore and cannot be touched directly. I understand and agree that both nearterm and longterm solutions *do* call on the infrastructure operators to STOP being neutral carriers and participate in enforcement actions, though this WILL cost them significant operational costs, and DOES involve government in actions that WILL be abused and become bureaucratic nightmares.
But something like this IS going to come in the next ten years, in response to the subject of the last thread, Internet security. We will look back fondly on these days of the open cyberrange, but OTOH we may finally get ahead of the curve on malware, as well as protecting IP.
No doubt the “solution” here is going to be taxpayer money, it always is. Government will allow ISPs to pass on the costs as to consumers, even though the major direct beneficiaries will be big content creators, Hollywood and Silicon Valley. OTOH could also tax those big creators for the services rendered, that at least might temper their fervor for these bills.
Too many hands in the wrong hands are the devil’s idol playthings….
Vishnu
Patents only last 20 years from the date of filing a patent application. There are expensive “tax” payments every 4 years to maintain a patent, or it is dedicated to the public. The Constitution does not require short patent terms and long copyright terms. The extremely long copyright terms have been bought by bribes to congresscritters.
The answer to SOPA is for the public to support\
1. reduction of copyright terms to 20 years.
2. Tax payments every 4 years to maintain a copyright or it is dedicated to the public.
3. expanded “fair use” for copyright material which has become part of our culture.
The congress-bribers need some counter pressure.
I can’t see what exactly Wikipedia’s problem is, but I do understand Google, Amazon, etc, with respect to increased liability and compliance costs. Eugene Kaspersky of anti-virus software fame wrote a nice blog post about the bill.
I wasn’t expecting this but saw that Lamar Smith, a bill sponsor, referenced illicit online drugs, and that’s enough of a clue for me to dismiss his contribution as a corporate perk. Buying prescription drugs from Canada is in a legal gray zone, but many people find it necessary. I just did a quick check and could save 65% a month on one asthma med if I did it. How convenient for lawmakers to avoid taking public stand with drug companies against the US public, and simply have whole other avenues blocked.
Just ahead of “Cyber-Monday” the government seized about 130 domains on the basis they offered pirated content or goods. Without SOPA government already quite obviously already have that power, when “needed”.
Why, then might might certain groups want SOPA? Imagine a political advert on the web, sometime in October 2012. It uses clips of Obama’s own words against him, with striking effectiveness. It is declared “pirated” content and the domain is seized. No more advert until, you know, sometime in November.
The Republicans are idiots to go along with this. But what’s new? Dog. Man. Chomp. Yawn. Y’alls are about to become the Whigs of the 21st Century unless you get your shit together, and fast.
A better solution to the piracy/hacking problem has to be found that putting the burden on the defense. It should be on the offense. Maybe they should pay a bounty on hacking the offenders. Like a bounty. But transferring the liability to the carrier or to the unsuspecting user seems to me a bad strategy that can only be preferred because they can.
Ultimately “bad things” from child pornography to complete ripoffs will proliferate outside the physically policed borders of the web; and they should primarily to be dealt with either by data border controls or by going after the malefactors. In that way existing process for declaring something contraband or illicit can be used, but it is an import-export problem rather than a censorship one. Gradually, a “web of trust” can be built up where such controls can be relaxed. But the management will be by exception rather than by pre-emptive rule.
To the extent that the direct malefactors should bear the brunt, they should. Making the user or carrier of what he or she may not even know he is carrying is a second-best solution.
I don’t know the answer to the problem except to observe that the proposed solution may create more difficulties than it resolves.
One of the more interesting things to occur in recent years is companies digitally scanning or otherwise securing copies (i.e., getting digital copies that others have scanned) of military manuals that are in the public domain and then slapping a copyright on them.
They MAY have a right to be paid for their work in scanning the manual and in any case have a right to sell copies of it in paper form – but claiming you have copyrighted a WWII FW-190 manual in digital format is more than a bit much. And some companies have obtained manuals, scanned them, and then offered them on disk or by download in a PDF format on ebay. And then somebody else takes that material, claims a copyright, and gets ebay to force the other sellers to stop selling it.
I know one website where people put PDF manuals on there for free all the time – despite the fact that some have logos on the front page that show that someone scanned them and is selling them.
I can’t say that I know who is right in all of these cases – or if anyone really is.
Once again, Congress illustrates that there are only so many good ideas for legislation in this world, and that the great majority of them were used up by the early 1900′s.
Since then, legislation has become more and more intrusive and less and less about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” that the founders had envisioned.
Had they foreseen this effect, perhaps they would have put in place a safeguard against such actions — such as raising the bar for passage by 1% per decade, so laws passed 1780-1790 could be passed by 50%+1 vote, and 1790-1800 by 51%+1 vote, and so on. We’d now be at 73%+1 vote, which seems about right.
Well as a side note: The Italian’s are already T-Shirting their fearless cruise ship captain, “Vaca a bordo, CAZZO” taken from leaked radio communications between an Italian Coast Guard Chief and Mr. “I accidentally fell into the life boat.”
So I’m wondering when Rep. Smith and others are going to get T-shirted and does T-shirting and bumper sticking cause more buzz than internet protests?
So lets assume that SOPA and PIPO are not passed and the Feds kick the can down the road a few years until another stealth get control the internet bill for the federal government is put together by institutional Republicans and Democrats behind closed doors. Then an attempt is made to try to shove it down the throats of the sheeple. Who is most likely to veto it:
a. Barry Hussein Obama
b. Mitt Romney
c. Ron Paul
Well Duh!
I heard that those stalwart defenders of the constitution who put these 2 bills together are trying to set up a stealth mandatory DNS registry where the owners of all upper DNS levels would have to register with their SS number or other uniquely identifying data. In this way the Feds would always have someone who they could call a terrorist and lock up indefinitely without trial when something is written that upsets one of our new aristocracy.
Before recording media and, later, electronic transmission permitted mass distribution of audio and video content, entertainment was not necessarily a ticket to wealth for key people involved. Now that digital encoding threatens the generation of wealth for the entertainment industry, the natural response is “protect us and our revenue stream”. So what if it infringes on the liberty of the majority of innocent internet users. There are fortunes at stake here!
“There is a need for stronger, international cooperation on combating IP theft and counterfeit goods”
Evidence please! Any “need” is not by the public but by those seeking an increase in their revenue stream. That is good to a point, that point being when the power of the goobermint to use force creates that increase.
Wretcherd had it right, do you trust thr goobermint? If you do, please re-locate to Cuba or North Korea ASAP. Cuba is nice this time of year but in the workers paradise, they will give you a bowl of rice.
I’m of the “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” school.
IMHO, most of the billion or so WWW users will be harmed by this law. Say 98% or so.
I would say 99% but that is so over used these days.
jb @ 12: you raise some excellent points about fixes to IP abuses that could be bundled in here to offset. I think the problem is that – it’s complex! just what we don’t want Congress in general and *this* Congress in particular, to be negotiating.
I’d be happy if copyright was simply cut back to what it used to be, life of the author or 50 years, whichever comes first, or whatever it was. Yes that puts Casablanca in the public domain, but there it is. And in case its not clear, some further expansion of fair use (like copying purchased digital media) should be expanded.
And basically all patents regarding software should be invalidated (as bogus, not for any overriding social reasons), and a lot of patent precedent in biology should be invalidated, and ALL patent licensing should be public, and, and, …
I’m puzzled by SOPA, PIPO and all those other Italian ladies. I understood that there were existing copyright laws in the U.S. that apply to the internet. Is that true? If it is, what’s the rationale for more laws – apart from the feral hunger of government to control everything?
I’m old enough to remember Gina Lollobrigida. If someone wants to use Italian sounding names for laws, start with her.
I’m saying that these heavy handed attempts at government censorship, added to existing laws, are ridiculous. Unlike ‘La Lollo’ they are deeply menacing. We don’t want them. We don’t need them. Better to be without them.
Tee – “I wasn’t expecting this but saw that Lamar Smith, a bill sponsor, referenced illicit online drugs, and that’s enough of a clue for me to dismiss his contribution as a corporate perk. Buying prescription drugs from Canada is in a legal gray zone, but many people find it necessary. I just did a quick check and could save 65% a month on one asthma med if I did it. How convenient for lawmakers to avoid taking public stand with drug companies against the US public, and simply have whole other avenues blocked.“
I take medicine that prolongs my life. When I was unemployed being able to buy it from Canada saved me. Lawmakers are liars that cannot be trusted. At least not until they are held accountable to the same laws that we the proles are.
cthulhu -”Congress illustrates that there are only so many good ideas for legislation in this world, and that the great majority of them were used up by the early 1900′s.”
We are quickly reaching “peak government”. Somewhere there is a hockey stick graph that show the cost per output from congress has gone asymptotic, eventually requiring legislative fraud to keep the gravy train going. We’d be far safer if congress would go home and only meet to find out what the president is doing and then stop him.
The trouble with many of our laws can be summed up by the infamous statement from Nancy Pelosi: “We Have to Pass the Bill So That You Can Find Out What Is In It.” Who knows what form it will take if any variant is passed? And more importantly, how will it be interpreted? The government, which includes the Courts, seems to have little problem in interpreting the word “black” as meaning “white” when they deem it expedient to do so. And the vaguer the law the easier it is to abuse and misuse.
The greatest threat to the political and politically connected corrupt today is the unrestrained flow of information. This will be a club used to stop that flow.
And once again the Devil is in the details. Considering how easy it is to copyright anything by US law can I copyright my comment here, and then use legal action against anyone who links to the Belmont club? It sounds ridiculous, but who would have thought ten years ago that the EPA could regulate carbon dioxide emissions?
© Copyright 2012 By Tcobb –Use without prior written permission is prohibited.
#20 epignosis – Our thoughts run along the same lines. Somewhere Chesterton wrote that it’s the most difficult thing in the world for people who have succeeded under a certain set of rules to imagine that things could ever be different. For people who’ve made it in publishing or movies or the music industry, “the way things are” are also “the way things should and MUST be”, as though these laws are as eternal as the Mississippi or the Atlantic Ocean.
I remember that early skirmish in this war – the Napster Case. The music industry won that one, but what did they really win? Napster changed the way music is consumed in the world, and getting a judge to rap a gavel couldn’t change it back to the way things were before. The big recording/distribution companies were operating on a set of rules that had served them well, and which dated back to the days of vinyl lps. They thought they would just continue to operate on those same rules when music moved onto cds – hey, they’re round and they spin around, don’t they? Why should anything change? Why should it ever have to change, since the rules had worked so well for those who’d gotten to the top using them? But they couldn’t stop technology from changing the world, and now their market is unrecognizable, in just 10 years. I saw an old Columbo TV episode (on dvd, natch) about a rock star who’d been murdered. The walls of her house were lined with framed gold records from the successful sales of all her albums. When did albums stop ‘going gold’, and did anyone notice? I think I read once that a Michael Jackson album was the last one; people don’t buy “albums” anymore, but the recording companies assumed that we’d keep behaving the same way and making money for them forever.
Maybe we have to think a new way about the creation of art. Maybe it’s just not going to be possible anymore to get rich or make a good living producing books or music. Maybe copyright itself if a past concept, just as at one time it was a modern, up-to-date response to a new technology. It’s hard to get used to the concept, because we’ve built in all sorts of emotional reactions to copyright infringement issues: it’s stealing! But perhaps we think that way because our idea of art as property comes straight from the people who themselves have something to gain by getting us think this way, and not because it’s so very obvious that their ‘ownership’ stretches as far as they say it does.
Remember the story about the poor man with a small roll of bread who approached a vendor grilling sausages at the fair. He held his roll out over the sausages, to flavour them a little with the smoke that was rising. The vendor immediately had him arrested, and charged with stealing. The judge listened patiently to the case and finally ruled in favour of the vendor and awarded him damages: the poor man was ordered to pay the vendor for the smell of his sausages, with the sound of his money.
tc @ 26: © Copyright 2012 By Tcobb –Use without prior written permission is prohibited.
Actually, unless the law changed, everything posted is copyrighted by the author even without the notice.
BTW I claim fair use in copying your notice forbidding copying! Actually, I’m not sure if the copyright notice itself is protected … or if anyone has ever asked (or answered) that question before!
Annoy Mouse@24 – “I take medicine that prolongs my life. When I was unemployed being able to buy it from Canada saved me.”
I have a nephew that suffered from a rare malady that inhibited his growth. There was medication available that ameliorated the problem but at an exorbitant expense that my brother could not afford. My brother wrote to the manufacturer his financial details and the manufacturer made special arrangements to provide the medicine to my nephew at reduced cost.
The problem with the ‘Canadian drugs’ is that Canadian law forces the manufacturers to sell their product at manufacturing costs, eliminating development costs from the price. The manufacturer must recoup the development costs or cease drug development. We in the US pay higher prices as a direct result of Canadian laws.
27. Josh
I don’t think that is correct. Google or Bing “fair use”. IIRC, anything introduced in the public domain as free is NOT covered by copyright. And no, the copyright claim is from the goobermint, which is not allowed to copyright. Or at least it wasn’t back in the day. I’m not a lawyer so it’s illegal for me to sell my opinion.
Meanwhile, Gelareh Bagherzadeh has been gunned down in Houston. If the Iranian government is responsible, that is casus belli.
24. Annoy Mouse – I take medicine that prolongs my life. When I was unemployed being able to buy it from Canada saved me. Lawmakers are liars that cannot be trusted. At least not until they are held accountable to the same laws that we the proles are.
Can’t tell you how I know this, because I’m not a stool pigeon, but apparently organized gangs of senior citizens here charter buses to Canada and stock up. It’s like a group tour package with felonies.
Dr Ma,
Your sausage story reminds me that there are laws that says all of the water that falls from the sky in a certain area belongs to the one with the water rights. What does that mean? It means that putting a bucket in your front yard and collecting rain water is a violation of the law. Our government and the lawfare stooges have gotten that grotesque and we’re worried about despotism in Libya. Yeah right.
Apparently the blackout has caused a lot of desertions and vocal opposition in Congress.
If an Iranian in full military Uniform raped a baby to death in a parking lot in full view of recording cameras, would the current administration do anything?
And how does SOPA affect bloggers and news aggregators who use copyrighted content at will?
I just read an article that said this bill is fight between two Calif Democratic big donors – Hollywood, which wants additional restrictions, and Silicon Valley, which does not.
I wonder if Hollywood really realzies how much the Internet competes with their products without any possible copyright issues?
@31. Tee
“organized gangs of senior citizens here charter buses to Canada and stock up. It’s like a group tour package with felonies.”
In Berlin at the PX, up until the Wende, Americans with a military ID card could book a tour into east Berlin on the military bus with east german D-marks purchased at the western exchange rate. At check point charlie the east german guards would try to harass the tour busses, but they always got through. The Americans would rush out of the bus at Alexanderplatz to try to take advantage of the few wares worth acquiring.
History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
Once again, we reap the wheat of allowing corporations to donate to policical campaigns.
The 1st Amendment should be for individuals, speaking in their own capacity and spending their own money. If the CEO of MGM Studios or Disney wants to contribue to Lamar Smith’s campaign with money from his own paycheck, fine. But not with corporate money – not even if his shareholders say it’s Okay.
I realize this is subject to SCOTUS jurisprudence, so if I were drafting an Amendment to the Constitution on this matter, it would go something like this-
“No individual or entity may donate or lend capital to a candidate seeking political office, or legal entities controlled by such candidate for the purpose of seeking such office, unless such individual is both a human being and a constituent of the office in question.”
Don’t worry Belmont Clubbers, fake conservative Dr. Craig Pirrong of the University of Houston says there’s nothing to worry about. Move on. When an alleged libertarian agrees with Senator Chris Dodd you know something stinks, badly.
I wish some BCers would go over to this blog and give the ‘Streetwise Professor’ a piece of their mind. The only consistency he shows is backing bailouts and hating Russia.
http://streetwiseprofessor.com/?p=5958
© Copyright 2012 by Viktor
Banned from PJM’s The Tatler since Jan. 2012
#22 Josh
Copyright issues aren’t complex at all (I’m an IP attorney…). There is no reason for opyrichr longer than patents in the “fast modern era”. Exclusivity for 20 years is enough monopoly profit. Th term needs to be drastically cut back.
The “entertainment industry” has bought monopolies by bribing congress. These are called “odious monopolies” in the history of government-granted monopolies. People should write their Congresscritters to request cutting back the copyright term to 20 years, add taxes for the monopolies based on revenue, and expansion of fair use.
But one or two day ‘strikes’ aren’t going to do much as a long as the forces which are creating a gargantuan and intrusive state are at loose. The administration may simply wait the ‘Internet strike’ out and try again until they get what they want.
I saw something like this on a smaller scale in San Diego 20 years ago. For some reason, the city council wanted to ban alcohol at beaches and city parks. The first couple of times it brought up the idea, local businesses took a firm stand against it (they liked to have company picnics with beer and wine). But, the proposal just kept coming up, and eventually got through under the radar.
The problem is that politicians who support something like this are given a free pass if they back off. They don’t get fired for trying to pull this, so long as they don’t press the issue to the wall. That’s the thing we need to change.
Once upon a time I did copyright clearance at my University. It was explained to me when I took the job that there were rules and that “Kinko went to jail.” That may not be true but it was a good attention getter. Academics tend to be writers, if usually unable to earn a living solely by those efforts. Academics want reading sets prepared for their students and both placed on Reserve at the library and offered for sale at extremely low prices. They do not expect their students to pay more than a nominal fee for these materials. Academics also expect other people to pay exorbitant fees to copy any page of their own writings. Most writers are cleared through the Copyright Clearance Corporation at about 3¢/page or less. Others decline to participate and expect people to pay 25¢/page or more. They must be genuinely puzzled as to why their phones are not ringing and the world is denying itself the benefits of their wisdom.
Writers and Artists and Inventors deserve protection. Criminals including phishers spammers and bunko artists deserve everything that we can throw at them. There should be some mechanism building on our legal traditions including the Common Carrier and Due Diligence that serve the interests of legitimate service providers and also enable Law Enforcement to pursue criminals. An honest Hotelier is not expected to monitor cameras and microphones concealed in his guests rooms. A dishonest Hotelier cannot defend himself against a charge that he is running a brothel by pointing at a legal cutout and claiming he never noticed the stream of underage girls and old men going in and out of a room.
Christopher Dodd has his fingers in the Fan-Fred mortgage mess, Countrywide, and the recent Frank-Dodd financial reform bill.
Now he is in charge of MPAA, and likely using his connections to influence such as Rep Lamar Smith’s bill.
Do we really want one of the designers of our financial meltdown to have anything to do with regulating the internet?
I don’t.
tom
These bills are just the latest evidence that neither of the major parties respects the Constitution or looks out for the average voter. But it will be entertaining theater from now til November. Will it be Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum? Voting is messy and expensive anyway. Let’s just have Simon Cowell pick the winner.
Reminds me. In 1987 I developed a system for electronic distribution of encrypted software on CDROM, including the means to remunerate the ISV the contracted percentage. We promoted “rights mangement” to our corporate customers, a huge cost savgings (then the only way to show compliance was to store all the cardboard boxes that had the licenses glued on) and better usage reporting.
Our system raised an interesting legal issue with the software developers; i.e., if I make a digital copy of your program, but record onto a new medium only the encrypted version (highly scrambled bits) and permit decryption only by those who’ve paid, is that infringement?
This in light of an exclusive distribution contract with Redmond, who after of 6 mos. of trying, agreed our encryption technique was unbreakable and far more expensive to decipher than prevailing pirating methods.
AFAIK, this issue remains unresolved.
We’ll have to break it down. The move to pass SOPA in the current form in congress, would probably suit certain interested parties, but which specific parties? Moreover, W hints that the back up plan should any opposition emerge before passage, means that the road to passage (has) only become[s] a little more tricky, and so it is set up to look like the bill went south, and that superficially victory could be claimed against a bill that would include state methods to censor, regulate, and eliminate content from IP’s (by the national government) and even eliminate certain IP’s altogether. They will find a way to do it, and have brought out the smokescreen of distraction that serves as cover to achieve what they wanted all along. The thing appears to be dead when it in fact it is very much alive. We think the family farm has been saved when in fact the deed changed hands, or has been [legally] redefined, and now you’re a squatter or an indentured servant (on your own land) to the law of unintended consequences. But are the consequences unintended? Of course not, because it’s about money, power, influence and turf. But money, power, influence and turf are mere trifles when there is none of that to be seen here- after all, they’re just trying to protect us from pirates at our gates.
The red light, warning bells go off whenever the inspecific word ‘fair’ is bandied about. Tair to whom? Equal application of the law is all the application and enforcement of law we ever need. ‘Fair’ when used on this or any other issue means favorable to one interest at the expense of all the rest.
Take the opportunity to abolish copyright and patents entirely.
Ideas are non-rivalrous. If I have it, it doesn’t deprive you of it.
Making it property is a legislative idea, and a new one, goaded by rent-seeking interests.
The full argument Michele Boldrin.