GIThruster wrote:
Scott, SOPA and PIPA specify search engines such as google, not at targets whom could be blocked, but as the blocking agents that would be under the authority to perform as DoJ commands. Big difference.
The same rent seekers that managed to slap us SOPA and PIPA will therefore have enormous power over search engines. Why can't you see? It follows from your very premise, doesn't it?
If these powerful rent seekers still see opportunity, and have the power to levy fines against a free Internet's search engines, they will further skew the environment in their favor, clearly. Then, it'd be a sure bet that the politicians themselves will get on the bandwagon; No one feels the need to control dialog more so than a politician trying to hold on to power.
The bills don't grant the ability to "levy fines". They grant the power to DoJ to instruct American businesses to collude in order to block a business if a judge finds that business in violation. I don't "fail to see" anything. Surely, this is not a good thing unless it remedies a far worse thing.
And really, we see private industry practice similar blocking actions all the time. I think the question is really whether this proposed action will be effective in thwarting piracy and secondarily, in what ways might it be abused. I see almost no probability of abuse, but is the bill effective?
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis
There are just too many factors to bother considering legislation on such bills, in my honest opinion. Not only do you get hit by the tech factor here, but you get hit by legislators who aren't tech or tech industry savvy enough to understand the repercussions. A prime example is how so many co-authors and co-signers backed out once sites and people started to protest. It shows a clear disconnect from the reality of the situation. While I support the right of a person to own their creative work, I don't buy into the industries' rhetoric on how much they lose annually.
Their arguments harken back to the VHS and cassette arguments made in the 80s and early 90s. They fabricated numbers and data to prove their point and then later were found to not have conducted studies at all. Furthermore, I'm less inclined to believe these numbers because these numbers assume a flat base amount will be grossed per movies, cd, software with a complete disregard to actual reception. Let's face it, 19 out of every 20 movies are garbage that are lucky to gross 30 million in their existence, and yet if they don't meet 50 million, it's an assumed 20 million dollar loss to piracy. The numbers are cooked and they've been called on it time and again.
I genuinely feel for the artist in these situations, but they're unfortunately married to a corrupt coalition. Organizations that have been proven to falsify without repercussion. This is the sad state of the creative works industry.
As I've said before and I'll say again, if they don't evolve to a more reasonable business model such as Netflix, iTunes, etc., they'll find themselves left behind or pitted against each other soon enough.
MSimon wrote:
Now explain SWAT raids to collect student loans. I thought SWAT raids were only for hostage situations and dope dealers.
Sure. The SWAT raid you're referring to had nothing to do with a student loan. That was a bogus report. The SWAT team was sent in relation to a criminal investigation.
It's just the shabby nonsense on the web that keeps perpetuating this myth. That, and that people are stupid enough to believe such things without checking--same kinda thing we're seeing here in this thread with all the nonsense and pure fabrication related to these bills.
Thanks for that. But you know. 3AM no knock raids sound an awful lot like what the Nazis used to do (according to the anti-Nazi American Propaganda films that were common fair in my youth - we got our first TV in 1950 when I was 6 - before that I had to hang out at my "rich" friends house to watch TV). In fact by the criteria of those movies America is now a police state. You know the deal - "we are not like THEM" was a celebration of American liberty. And now we are much more like THEM than we used to be. Funny. I got my libertarian values from watching American propaganda films. Too funny.
So I was programed by American Media to consider such things totalitarian - I still do. And you know the cops are beginning to turn against them because drug dealers - afraid of armed robbery - are shooting at anyone who tries to break down their doors. When it was only police doing "dynamic" entries it was much safer.
Prohibition can't last. They never do. About 50 years from the time a drug becomes popular until the end of prohibition. Basically the amount of time needed for a population to get accustomed to the value and pitfalls of a drug. You might want to look up coffee prohibition for some historical background on the process. "Coffee house" once upon a time had a connotation similar to "drug den". And now? Starbucks.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
the notion that "bribery, fraud, and embezzlement of federal student aid funds" is all it takes to get a paramilitary squad to bang down your door at 6 a.m, handcuff you in your boxers, and throw your three pre-teen children into the back seat of a squad car, all in the service of a warrant aimed at someone who no longer lives in your home, is frankly every bit as terrifying.
Unless and until we hear that this "criminal investigation" involves some kind of imminent threat of violence, there will be no margin of excuse for it, only new opportunities for bureaucrats and commentators to demonstrate that they are perfectly content living in and even contributing to a police state.
from your link does not make your case look a whole lot better.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
In this context. I really, really dont like how legislation works in the US right now. Politicians should represent their people, not their donators...
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
Who's the Communist who wrote that?
Red herring. You can't patent, copyright or trademark an idea.
Ideas may not be subject to intellectual property laws (yet), but inventions and creative works share many of the characteristics of ideas, as opposed to traditional forms of property (i.e. real estate and chattel). There's a reason patents and copyrights are supposed to enter the public domain after a limited period of time, according to Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution.
The following quote from Jefferson's letter to Isaac McPherson is about patents rather than copyrights, but I imagine he had the same attitude towards copyrights:
Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody.
Patents and copyrights are not property. They are time-limited monopolies granted to the inventor or author (no mention of heirs in the Constitution) by society as an encouragement for the initial production of the invention or creative work.
Temperature, density, confinement time: pick any two.
Obvious point to make is to note just how many have no idea what the Bill says, and are making knee-jerk reactions to disinformation. People who would not normally offer their opinions in politics nor on subjects they know nothing about, are up in arms about a bill because slick con-artists with a vested interest to continue to thieve on the web, have convinced people this has to do with "censorship" and "corporate greed" and "taking away your rights" and every other darn thing they can. anyone reading this thread ought to have figured out by now, none of this is true. It's got nothing to do with "controlling the web" or any of the other nonsense like what people have been led to believe.
It's got to do with stopping theft of valuable private property. Whether such a bill could actually accomplish such remains to be seen. I have to own Scott's argument sounds pretty convincing and this may not be possible.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis
GIThruster wrote:Obvious point to make is to note just how many have no idea what the Bill says, and are making knee-jerk reactions to disinformation. People who would not normally offer their opinions in politics nor on subjects they know nothing about, are up in arms about a bill because slick con-artists with a vested interest to continue to thieve on the web, have convinced people this has to do with "censorship" and "corporate greed" and "taking away your rights" and every other darn thing they can. anyone reading this thread ought to have figured out by now, none of this is true. It's got nothing to do with "controlling the web" or any of the other nonsense like what people have been led to believe.
It's got to do with stopping theft of valuable private property. Whether such a bill could actually accomplish such remains to be seen. I have to own Scott's argument sounds pretty convincing and this may not be possible.
Thanks for the recognition GIThruster, I appreciate the gesture. The following response is not direct toward you, but is my personal view on the issue regardless of the technical issues.
I've read both bills as well as quoted them in threads. I'm firmly against any bill that attempts to police the internet. It is a bastion of free speech and such powers derived from said bills will inevitably be abused as has been done time and again in our history. That doesn't mean I'm against ownership of creative works, it just means there are other ways to deal with this single issue. In my previous analogy, I don't find it necessary to destroy a family for one of its' members deeds, like-wise I don't see the need for a totalitarian dictatorship of large sections of the internet because one subdomain violated the bill by linking a trademarked logo or copyright lyric from a song. I try to avoid support for laws with broad language that contain varying interpretations left up to mistake prone courts.
While I highly promote marketing model changes, my view point doesn't override the backers' viewpoint. Assuming they aren't willing to change their model now, it would be adventageous for them to adopt a more specific language in the future. Perhaps one that specifies situations and scenarios, or less susceptible to varying interpretations.
As it turns out, I've been asked to sign a petition in Friedrick's name several times this last week. I have no sympathies with him.
Friedrick was working under contract for Marvel when he created the characters and stories that he did. He was paid for his work. The protected items belong to Marvel alone, just as would any invention by someone at NASA belong to NASA or someone working for Lipton Tea, belong to them. People sign away their right to file for ownership in IP as a stipulation of their employment on a regular basis. Marvel paid Friedrick to create characters and stories. They do not belong to him; they belong to Marvel. Friedrick later infringed those IP's and deserves to pay.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis
Of course you would side with big corp.
It is different in Austria at least, where you never loose your rights as a creator. Pretty sure it is like that in most other European countries.
Well the situation was not quite so clear in his case, I suppose. In Europe it is that the copyright belongs to the employer, but the creator does have the right of the creator, which allows him to e.g. create derivative works of this. Things are even more different if you are not actually employed but just a contractor.