Hatch Pushes INDUCE Act

An anonymous reader writes "According to CNET the Senate is leaning strongly in favor of the INDUCE Act sponsored by Senator Orrin Hatch. It looks like the RIAA is making significant progress manipulating the marionette strings in Congress. MP3newswire.net states that if such laws were to pass, the record industry would become the new AMTRAK. 'Bloated and inefficient as always, but now a drain on taxpayers wallets and liberty as well'." Infoworld has a story as well. Reader CryptoEngineer writes: "Marybeth Peters, of the US Copyright Office testified recently before the Senate Judiciary committee in support of the INDUCE Act, which has been discussed here before. In summary, she thinks its not strong enough. Among other things, she proposed scrapping the Betamax decision, which makes it legal to timeshift TV shows with a VCR. Analysis here."

Not only a repost, a non-issue.

[c0dedude]

Hatch introduces these radical bills all the time. This one is Pre-committee [loc.gov] [loc.gov]. Nothing to see here folks, move along. Eventually the computer industry will step in and say this is crazy.

Here's the way a bill is normally passed. This one is about at step 2 1/2.
1. A senator and a member of the house get togather and write a bill.
2. They drop it in their respective drop boxes, and GPO prints it up.
3. The rules committee send it to committees for review.
4. Subcommitees tell their committees whether they want a hearing on it.
5. Hearings are held, and each bill is modified.
6. Assuming the bill doesn't die in Committee, and most of them do, it goes to the rules committee for the Senate and the House. A lot of them die this way, too.
7. The rules committee schedules a vote. If they don't, time passes, Congress adjourns, bill dies.
8. Both the House and Senate vote. If one doesn't support the bill, bill dies. These are timed votes, and if you can't get a majority within about 15 minutes (usually) that's it.
9. Assuming all of the above has occured, you get a conference committee of Representitives and Senators who will hammer out a comprimise between the House and Senate versions. If they can't agree, it dies.
10. Then the President can sign or veto. If he vetos, or refuses to act in 10 days (Pocket Veto), the bill dies UNLESS 2/3 of the House and Senate vote to override it. This rarely (in less than 1/10th of vetoes) occurs. If they don't, the bill dies.

All of this has to occur in about 5 1/2 months. I don't think this one will get the fasttrack, and I certainly don't think the House will ever pass it.

Re:VOTE LIBERTARIAN

[maximilln]

I agree in theory, but in practice a vote libertarian is a vote for Bush

And a vote for Kerry won't change anything either. It's a dog and pony (elephant and donkey) show. The only common theme is spending more of _YOUR_ money to add to _THEIR_ profit.

Time to send a message . . .

[harley_frog]

To your Senators [eff.org].

Re:Question

[Armethius]

Cosponsors of the bill include: Bill Frist (majority leader) Tom Daschle (minority leader) Hatch (chairman of the judiciary committee) Leahy (ranking member of the judiciary committee

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

I can tell you that I most certainly will NOT be reelecting Debbie Stabenow [congress.org] this comming election, who is co-sponsoring INDUCE. Take a look at the list of INDUCE's Co-sponsors [loc.gov] to see if there's anyone you're going to help vote out this fall in YOUR state.

Re:This is getting out of control

[svallarian]

Fine.
Do the following.

1. Get of your ass and write your senator / Congressmen

2. Vote the bums out.

Simple.

Steven V>

Re:This is getting out of control

[rabel]

It's called fascism [commondreams.org]

Read up on it! [cursor.org]

Re:Powerful incentives (and interests)

[stripe]

Sponsers/supporters of the Bill

Orrin G. Hatch
Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont
Bill Frist
Tom Daschle
Lindsey Graham
Barbara Boxer

If Ms Boxer is up for relection, I am voting for anyone that has a chance to replace her now.

Re:This is getting out of control

[servognome]

At the end of the 19th century people were also endured far worse working conditions. You think your cubicle is bad? Read "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair, it tells what unregulated companies can do.
Goverment regulation does have its place, but it's the responsibility of the people to keep goverment in check. You have to write your congressperson to give them your input, if they don't listen vote them out.

Re:Stupidity Breeds Freedom

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Americans have been bred and trained to be "asleep" for 8 generations or more. Ever wonder how the unions ever came to be? Lord forbid that they didn't exist, and someone was trying to unionize now... it would be impossible. I wondered, then I realized people 100 years ago were different than you and I. Back then, they had wills. Ours have been erased. Oh well, the unions were co-opted long ago, and are worthless.

This book [johntaylorgatto.com] (online ebook) deals with the situation from a different angle, and much of what he says pertaining to our own discussion is tangential to our own. Don't read it if you are depressed easily.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

http://action.eff.org/action/index.asp?step=2&item =2918 [eff.org]

Form letter, but the EFF will fax or email it for free to your reps. And if you want you can always copy and past and edit and print it off yourself.

Re:VOTE LIBERTARIAN

[DragonMagic]

Germany never attacked us, but Japan did.

And Germany was allied with Japan, and vice versa, which just made Germany an equal enemy.

Don't forget, Japan and Germany had a pact together through World War II. This is why we went to war with Germany.

Re:Beat him over the head with a VOTING BOOTH.

[silentbozo]

You know, there are a lot of Slashdot readers. I'm sure most of us have at least $5 to spare toward killing the INDUCE act, and kicking Orrin Hatch out of office. We should pool our money, take out some Google Adwords ads, targeting keywords such as "Orrin Hatch, VCR, MP3 Player, freedom, etc.", and have them point to a site detailing how Hatch plans on stealing rights from the citizens of the country, in order to give them to corporate interests. This is nothing more than corporate welfare, cloaked in lies.

Next step is to start taking out newspaper ads, and sending in letters to the editor (we've targeted the geeks and the net-savvy with the Google Adwords and the website, now to take it to the rest of the voting populace.) Drop by your local Good Guys, Best Buy, etc. where the salespeople make their commissions by selling you the latest electronic doodads. Let them know that their livelihoods are being imperiled by Hatch, and that they should tell people to buy their DVD recorders, etc. NOW. Nothing like panic buying to help drive up sales, and increase media awareness of an impending deadline to get coverage.

Only now, that you've sounded the alarm among the voting public, gotten money involved (ie, commerce is threatened), and managed to get media attention focused on scaremongering INDUCE for what it is, ONLY THEN do you start putting the heat on the senators and elected representatives. That's how the game is played - if we approach them now, they'll just spin it about how INDUCE is needed to prevent piracy, blah, blah, blah. If we establish that INDUCE will rob Americans of their rights, and condemn our industries to second-class status, and throw thousands out of work, all to provide corporate welfare to Orrin Hatch's campaign contributors, well, and that's what the media is telling the general public, that puts the politicians mightly on the defensive, doesn't it?

Re:Question

[bezuwork's friend]

Just my 2 cents. I was in a class last semester with a few staffers. I made it a point to ask the best way to indicate preferences to representatives or senators. They all said that it doesn't matter - snail mail, email, fax, calling - they just tally it up.

It seems that a detailed letter is not even required. Clearly state your address, so that they know you are someone who can re-elect them, keep each correspondence to one issue, state your preference that your representative/senator support or not support it. Maybe one sentence of your reasons to ensure that and the terms support/not support aren't misread and maybe one that states you intend to follow the voting as you are very interested in the issue.

Unless you have an amazing insight or take on the issue that you can't resist writing about, I would think any other thing you write would be ignored.

Re:VOTE LIBERTARIAN

[imnojezus]

Oh, and there's that little thing where Germany DECLARED WAR on us two days after Pearl Harbor. Oh yeah and that other thing where they took over most of Europe and showed no interest at stopping there. Saddam was annoying...but there's not much proof of him being a threat to anyone but his own people. Some argue that that alone is good enough reason to go to war, and maybe so. But under the circumstances we were under at the time, we were hardly in the position to dive in and save Iraqis from themselves.