PRO-IP and PIRATE Acts Fused Into New Bill 324
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) have just sponsored a new bill, the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008, which would combine the worst parts of the PRO-IP Act and the PIRATE Act. The basic idea is pretty simple: expand the Federal government to create something like the Department of Homeland Security for IP. The Copyright Czar then polices the internet and clogs the courts with thousands of civil lawsuits against individual infringers so the RIAA doesn't have to. Feel free to contact your representatives with your feelings about this bill. Right now, they believe the bill (PDF) will 'protect jobs.'"
Why do we need this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because not everyone wants fast food doesn't give the fast foot industry the right to in a way punish previously legal activities for the goal of getting more people to eat fast food. In any other industry, a bill like this would be laughed at even by the idiots that are in our congress, but it seems that any trade group with the word America is enough to throw both republicans and democrats into passing a bill. Idiots.
In any other industry... they'd blame the problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
for auto manufacturers, the problem is nafta, not poor quality domestic vehicles.
for food prices, the problem is biofuel, not subsidized farming.
for power generation (and shortfalls), the problem is canada and mexico, not insufficient production.
for job loss, the problem is immigration, not high wages.
for the recession? the problem is terrorism!!!, not the trillions of dollars borrowed and spent on the war, subprime mortgages, and the bush administration's economic policies...
And for piracy? the problem is canada, china, and piracy
I think that if there wasn't so much high priced garbage, people would start paying for their movies and music again. I'm 100% against paying for something (like a cd), finding out it is crap, and being stuck with something I don't want... almost every other industry, I can return unwanted goods. When music/movies are like that, I'll stop pirating.
Re:Why do we need this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:In any other industry... they'd blame the probl (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. I just bought Bioshock and the thing keeps crashing on my computer. I should have pirated it first, but I was trying to be honest and had waited for it to hit an acceptable price point (which it did on steam this weekend). Now I'm being punished for being honest. At least when I get viruses from pirating shit, I know what I'm getting in to.
Now I'm stuck with a couple of gigs of worthless data on my hard drive that I feel like I should keep around in case they patch it. And I'm convinced more than ever that when spore comes out, that shit is coming off the pirate bay. I'm not going to pay for another 60 dollar doorstop.
Its unbelievable ! (Score:5, Insightful)
they WONT listen to you. GET IT (Score:5, Insightful)
you think that by protesting, talking to them, you will have them change their mind ? or by working IN the system, you will be able to compete ? how many stuff you have failed to prevent in the last 10 years by doing that ?
they DONT CARE what you think. they get their votes by doing greasy campaigns that run by donation money from whomever has the cash, and they just do as they or their masters please. thats the gist of it.
you better draw them off, and start thinking what you can do WITHOUT them being on board, because they wont be.
basically your senators have become your enemies.
THEY DONT SERVE YOU
Re:kill (Score:5, Insightful)
No-one in their right mind would elect him to public office.
Fantastically gifted coder he may be, a founder of open source he most certainly is, but another thing he is, is a zealot. That type of person rarely does well in a job where compromise is the order of the day.
Not that its a bad thing he's so single minded. Open source wouldn't have its most important tool chain were it not for him, and the philosophy would have got nowhere but for his bull headedness on the issue.
That said, I'd never vote to put him in public office, never in a million gazillion years.
Re:Please don't contact your reps... (Score:3, Insightful)
4. No relief from foreclosure for your homes and mine, but only to Countrywide and Fannie Mae.
You know, if people wouldn't take out loans they can't afford, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.
Re:Why do we need this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Who's passing a bill? They introduce it, it gets shot down. Repeat. The other two didn't pass, did they? Everybody's happy. [...] Everyone wins!
The dangerous thing about that cycle is that one day the sponsors of this type of legislation will attach it to *must pass* spending or military bill and we're fucked.
Re:kill (Score:5, Insightful)
i wonder when will people start killing these american senators who are doing things that people dont want. in democracy thats treason.
As the great Votaire put it:
"An ideal form of government is democracy, tempered with assassination."
Clever guy.
Re:Why do we need this? (Score:4, Insightful)
Think that's more what they're spazzing about
technical problem (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to me that the solution to censorship is to route around it. How about if we code up some steganography tool to hide encrypted messages, and give them the back-door to a bunch of worthless garbage? (i.e. SSH over Nigerian scam mail.) Perhaps they'll notice that all the geeks are communicating with variations of Nigerian spam emails, but the only way they could stop us would be to solve the SPAM problem. Good luck legislating that away.
Re:Please don't contact your reps... (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, if people wouldn't take out loans they can't afford, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.
You know, that's something you hear ALL OVER the place, and yet an enormous number of people had acted in this way which is so spat-upon by most of the smarty-smart forums I frequent. The thing is, though, that if there is such a large amount of similar sentiment or action, there is probably something worth examining there. I would say it has something to do with incredibly smart (well, that's debatable. let's say "good with words") people who write insanely convoluted contracts that everybody and their cousin just signs off the bat without reading (EULA much?) and it's understood that that's how that's done. Added to that, growing up as many of us probably have in a culture that prizes "credit history" (I understand it's being tied to insurance costs, now) which can ONLY be gotten from debt, then I can sympathize with the consumer in these cases (especially after having finally rid myself of debt, probably 10 years later and thousands upon thousands of dollars in interest, and mine's a pretty light case, there are people dealing with mountains of cascading debt). All our choices, all our own fault. But with SO many people in that situation, it's more interesting to look at "why" than just somehow blame them for being wrong. (see: "public misunderstanding" around the release of KDE4.0)
Re:Amazing... (Score:2, Insightful)
Unbelievable? Bush was elected twice. And if Jeb was on the ticket, he would get elected twice. Nothing is unbelievable anymore.
Re:Protect jobs? - They are right (Score:4, Insightful)
It will "protect 'jobs'". Put that last little word through your Noam Chomsky filter [youtube.com], and it translates:
"protect profits".
but that does not envoke the same emotion in the masses as "Jobs" do.
Which your congress spokesperson might have a hard time trying to disagree with this bill.
Bipartisanship's Not when it is cracked up to be (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to me that the only thing worse than the incessant squabbling between Democrats and Republicans is when they arrive at a consensus on a piece of "important" legislation.
People who are old like me and remember the famous battles between Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan remember when Republicans really were conservative and Democrats really were liberal. Now we just have two parties of triangulating whores selling out to try and grab the middle and flipping sides on every issue at the earliest possible opportunity.
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:5, Insightful)
The truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country.... People shouldn't be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people.
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:5, Insightful)
The rights of artists to their works came way before the rights of others to trample them.
The "rights" of artists to their works came in the last few centuries. The right to share other people's stories came when Ugh first told a story about how he tackled a dinosaur.
I guess this is the sometimes slow process of revisionism taking place, ready to wipe out any memory of all the positive effects of copyrights.
To be fair, the *AA + gov is making it difficult to remember the positive side of copyright.
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:5, Insightful)
the theory goes that if intellectual property can be protected totally, then money will be made in large amounts.
Of course, as intellectual 'property' usually doesn't involve actually making money (unless you're the mint), it's more appropriate to say that protecting intellectual 'property' means more money will be transferred to corporate accounts.
As that money would otherwise have been spent on other things in the economy, it's most likely that the transfer of money into highly wasteful monopolistic corporations result in a net loss of jobs for the economy (not to mention a net loss of wealth for the economy as a whole).
Re:The solution is simple! (Score:5, Insightful)
"If everyone would quite buying the RIAA music, quite pirating it even. Quit buying the damn DVD's, quite going to see the movies, quit pirating movies. ..."
[Newsflash!]
Chairman Mao got it wrong. Religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, "entertainment" is, and like any other opiate it's addictive and addling.
So don't hold out any hope that sheeple will "see the light" and cease ingesting shite music, gawdaful movies, or infotainment any time soon.
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The solution is simple! (Score:1, Insightful)
I guess Brave New World and 1984 are both right...
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:5, Insightful)
How many friends do you have that aren't in or above your social class?
Ok, so you only have friends at or above your social class. Explain your friends then, or do that not count as actual people?
They have friends below their social class, so either their slumming it cause they feel bad about you, or they, like many more americans than you care to admit are different than you, don't see social class as noteworthy.
Re:Its unbelievable ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not just say it... (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean that's what they really want here. At least if they came out openly and said it we'd know where we stand.
And the worst part is that it's unlikely to change until the majority of couch potato people are affected by it.
Which if the-powers-that-be are as clever as they have appeared to be so far will never happen. The last thing they want is people actually _looking_ at what they are doing - especially Joe Public - so they'll do anything to keep them fat and happy.
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, protect jobs. Time to become a copyright lawyer...
Or a Jail Warden..
It's gonna be shitty to be an artist though ..
Re:The U.S. government is thoroughly corrupt. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:5, Insightful)
Way to use a stereotype as an argument. -fail #1
No, we just recognize better than most that "intellectual property" is not property at all. Property exists because of limited resources. I can't magically create a new house/car/yard for my friend just because I have one. Therefore, it can only belong to one party. Knowledge or "intellectual property" can be copied at will. So, trying to restrict it is putting a monopoly where there is none.
Like you...
Chinese curses in office (Score:3, Insightful)
Damn it,
"someone who knows where they stand ... less compromise in politics ..."
That sounds like what we have right now. "Stay the Course" - even when it crushes the country.
"Be careful what you wish for - you just might get it."
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:kill (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:4, Insightful)
No, they don't. What part of "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts" (which is, very clearly and distinctly, not like "to give an entitlement to artists") do you not understand?
The sole legitimate purpose of copyright is to maximize the number of works entering the Public Domain. Nothing more, nothing less!
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:5, Insightful)
This statement perfectly illustrates the problem we have here: the two sides of the debate are arguing from incompatible assumptions. Right there, you just implicitly assumed that this concept of "IP" exists and was valid. However, people like me disagree on that very point! Therefore, everything you say based on that is useless.
The fundamental question we have to answer here is "does authorship of a work create a property right?" John Locke says yes [wikipedia.org]. Thomas Jefferson says no [kuro5hin.org]. But Jefferson wrote the Constitution, so he wins. QED.
Re:Why do we need this? (Score:3, Insightful)
"It would be like introducing a bill that allowed the government to take whatever you owned with no warrant and the ability to sell that at auctions."
Sort of like eminent domain [wikipedia.org]?
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:3, Insightful)
And lots and lots of college students and young people.
Let's destroy the country's future to protect I.P.
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah, and we see how well this has worked with obama. millions donated but he still voted for telco immunity. I wonder what he values more: your campaign contributions or the slush money and support of the telco industry?
I suspect that Obama voted for telco immunity, not because of any campaign contribution coming from AT&T and their ilk, but rather due to the brainwashing that the population has been exposed to in the post 9/11 paranoia. Had Obama voted for the immunity, the conservatives would have been able to paint him as soft on terrorism, in what already appears to be a very close election.
It really pains me to see how the population as a whole is willing to sacrifice the constitutional rights of everyone, for the sake of feeling safe. This is one area that the "Law and Order" types always seem to win the hearts and minds of the majority of the people. For the most part, it seems that for the most part: white, middle class folks (of which I am one) do not see any of the recient injustices coming out of Washington as effecting them, and so they are tolerated, as long it is only them (e.g. someone else) that are victimized by overzealous government.
Sounds to me like it will *create* jobs (Score:3, Insightful)
Lots of 'em - all taxpayer funded.
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:1, Insightful)
"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against-then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, 1957
The only thing that's surprising about bipartisan support for this on the Hill is that there are people who still think there are two parties on the Hill.
Re:Protect jobs? (Score:1, Insightful)
Poor ole' Madison (and a bunch of other people)... no credit for the Constitution.
(For non-Americans, Jefferson was minister to France during the writing of the Constitution and therefore wasn't in Philadephia at the time. Madison, on the other hand, was very influential in the creation of the Constitution. Jefferson did substantially write the Declaration of Independence, but it says nothing about intellectual property)
against the group think (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a little late in the thread for trolling but ...
To read endless posts about 'what's wrong with the entertainment industry is they produce crap' reveals there are very few of you actually in 'the industry' you are talking about. (spare me the 'I've had 4 number one singles yet post anon' thread).
Sticking with the music business. I'm not here to argue that the quality of pop music didn't reach a new low sometime around the Paris Hilton sex tape. Art forms have their eras. If you ask the man in the street about theatrical plays the first guy he mentions died centuries ago. People still write operas (I think) but almost all of the productions are 150+ years old. If you go into a postcard shop chances are the paintings on the cards are from the 19th century. American popular music had a great run, ran out of steam IMHO in the 80s and 90s for various reasons (not file sharing), and has passed into history.
However ... the music business was a great jobs engine and that's finished because of digital media. I'm not saying it was good for the actual artists - mileage may have varied - but the cash hoarded by the power lawyers trickled down, paying for publicists, recording engineers, road crews, magazine ads, guys in warehouses moving t-shirts, CDs, posters, people answering phones for said power lawyers.
What percentage of jobs in support still remain? It's ugly out there. Now I'm sure some of these people make a good living writing OS software, no doubt the rest of them can get jobs in magazine publishing - oh wait, that's gone too. But, you say, it's better for the artists. Well, in the majority of cases, it's certainly not worse. Probably good for the music in the end, too.
Now let me ask: Is Adobe to be railed against because they try, with varying degrees of success, to keep their software from being pirated? Quark? I'm sure once the GIMP is up to speed and the Flash haters have finally sorted out SVG (holding breath) all those coders can get jobs in finance surfing what ever bubble has come along to keep the growth engine going. Or do internet advertising because that's a solid growth market. Or become urban farmers and grow and sell vegetables to pay rent.
My point being: When it comes to digital distribution eliminating jobs, ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
(except I'm posting this on a board full of people with 15+ years of AJAX experience who move effortlessly from job to job having nothing to do with the price of gasoline)
Re:Why do we need this? (Score:1, Insightful)
In a democracy, people are allowed to propose new laws.
Re:Why do we need this? (Score:1, Insightful)
It's call civil forfeiture, and the government uses it to rob you by filing suit against *cough* your property instead of against you. Therefore, you can't defend your property.
DCMA does suck. (Score:3, Insightful)
Overall, it is a horrible idea and may benefit you in the short term, but it hurts us all in the long term.
Stop lying. (Score:4, Insightful)
and allows widespread theft of our #1 economic output.
this is bull.
If you lumped the entire movie and music industry together, google could buy it up with the rounding errors in their revenue calculations.
The truth is that consumer electronics and technology in general dwarf hollywood and IP in the GDP calculations. Think about it for a second. How much do you pay for cellphones, mobile broadband, home broadband, computers, etc vs hollywood trash?
Even in my uncle's household, where they receive more than they could possibly spend, their expenditures on technology outpace intellectual property 4 to 1. And no, he doesn't download anything because he doesn't know how.