Law Professors vs the PROTECT IP Act 212
Freddybear writes "Along with 90 (and still counting) other Internet law and IP law professors, David Post of the Volokh Conspiracy law blog has drafted and signed a letter in opposition to Senator Leahy's 'PROTECT IP Act.' Quoting: 'The Act would allow the government to break the Internet addressing system. It requires Internet service providers, and operators of Internet name servers, to refuse to recognize Internet domains that a court considers "dedicated to infringing activities." But rather than wait until a Web site is actually judged infringing before imposing the equivalent of an Internet death penalty, the Act would allow courts to order any Internet service provider to stop recognizing the site even on a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction issued the same day the complaint is filed. Courts could issue such an order even if the owner of that domain name was never given notice that a case against it had been filed at all.'"
LOL! American Freedom! (Score:5, Funny)
LOL, is this the "American Freedom" I heard so much about as a youth growing up in Hungary during the Cold War?
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. We're as bad as China. Just in different ways. Difference is, here in the US, we're fucking hypocrites about it.
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you're not as bad as China. You still have free political speech, which is the most basic thing - thanks to it, these professors can publish materials explaining just how bad this law is, and campaign for getting it repealed. Whereas in China, no matter what goes wrong, you can't really complain.
This isn't to say that "PROTECT IP" act is not bad - it is - but limitations on political speech are infinitely worse in comparison.
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:5, Insightful)
They can still complain, because we can still read it online. But no one will listen to them, and then one day you cannot read of them anymore, because they get silently censored.
So much for free speak in america.
The internet is just too scary for the people in power. They see their control slipping away, so they will slowly turn it into a consume only medium like TV is.
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the "Freedom of Speech" became freedom to make noise some time ago. There's a lot more noise going on than speech these days, or at least that's what gets the attention of people. Bread and Circuses and Two Minutes' Hate for everybody!
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:2)
The price you pay for being allowed to make whatever noise you want, is that other people can make noise too.
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:2)
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you're not as bad as China. You still have free political speech, which is the most basic thing
Until your political opponents accuse you of infringement on questionable grounds and get your domain blocked.
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:4, Interesting)
And then you sue them for libel and get it unblocked - in the meantime, setting up a website on a different domain to get your point across.
I mean, let's be serious here. There's no comparison between freedom of speech in US and China, which is obvious to anyone who bothers to check the fact. And there's no need for hyperbole and other cheap propaganda tricks when pointing out bad things. Whether it's better or worse than China is completely irrelevant - what you should care about is whether it's good or bad for your own country.
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds great on paper. But now you need to spend thousands of dollars to sue someone for a $5 website that you did in your spare time. And you have to take off from work and the most you'll get out of losing a half-years and getting fired for missing so much work, is your web-site is eventually brought back up after it's no longer useful and can no longer afford the $5/month because you no longer have a job.
yeah... great system. Any other great ideas?
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:2)
Yup all it costs is hookers and blow.
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:3, Insightful)
And then you sue them for libel and get it unblocked
Haven't you heard of being swiftboated? A number of liars got up and lied in order to directly harm John Kerry by calling him a coward who lied to get a medal. You do that close enough to a vote, and the truth doesn't matter. By the time you've sorted out the mess, you've lost. And if you prosecute them after, then you are a sore loser.
Or is it only a bad thing if the Democrats do something but when the Republicans engage in a conspiracy to rob the Democratic office in some hotel or commit fraudulent libel, that's OK because the Democrats deserve it?
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:2)
I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about, to be honest. I'm not an American citizen to begin with, and most certainly not "Republican" or "Democrat" or whatever fancy labels you guys use these days to somehow distinguish your two populist parties. How is it relevant to the topic at hand?
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:4, Insightful)
Being silenced at a crucial point might not be recoverable from; setting up alternate websites would be near pointless if you're being specifically targeted and the blocking takes effect near instantly.
In this instance, believe AC is inferring that a presidential candidate lost his chance to being elected due to being slandered en masse. Any attempting to sue would just end up making matters worse for him, being seen as sour grapes.
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:2)
Or is it only a bad thing if the Democrats do something but when the Republicans engage in a conspiracy to rob the Democratic office in some hotel or commit fraudulent libel, that's OK because the Democrats deserve it?
I'm confused how you get "that's OK" from your example, considering that the President involved (a Republican) faced impeachment and resigned in order to avoid being the second President in the history of this country to be impeached. Whereas, when President Clinton (a Democrat) was impeached for lying under oath while President of the U.S., the response was, "Who cares if he broke his word?". And when President Obama broke the law by attacking Libya for over 90 days without Congressional authorization, the response has so far been, "Who cares?" BTW, this is the same Obama who said, "The president does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:2)
"And then you sue them for libel and get it unblocked - in the meantime, setting up a website on a different domain to get your point across."
But how many viewers do you lose in the domain change? where do you find the time and money for the court case?
For what it's worth I also think it's wrong to treat China as a whole, you have a lot more freedom in terms of political speech in Hong Kong and Taiwan than you do as a resident of Guantanamo bay at least. If however you're in Xinjiang province or Tibet then you'll have a much harder time getting your message out than you will in Beijing or Shanghai where dissent is becoming at least slightly tolerated nowadays.
But for me perhaps the biggest point is that China is becoming more philosophical about the idea of freedom of speech, it wants to go there and the upper echelons of the Chinese administration want to take it there, but they want to do so in a way that wont just lead to collapse of a 1.3bn person nation in the way Egypt/Tunisia fell. Whilst some may believe it'd be nice to see China fall we should remember the Chinese Communist Party has 80 million members- if we have regions trying to break free then there wont be an overwhelming majority support that makes the leadership's position untenable, there'll be massive strife, and it'll spin much of Asia into Chaos (Vietnamese/Russian border disputes will reach boiling point, North Korea will collapse etc.).
Now I don't really like the status quo, but I think there has to be some understanding that a jump to greater freedom in China can't be done overnight- but at least they're becoming appreciative of the concept as a longer term goal. One major drive for this is that affluent and influential Chinese businessmen are coming into ever more contact with Westerners, with China's booming industry links to the outside world are becoming more numerous and ever stronger- in that scenario you can't keep Chinese citizens in the dark forever, and so levelling their freedoms to be the same as that of much of the Western world is in itself important to avoid revolt from the growing and ever more affluent middle class too.
This is the problem with the US- in contrast it seems to have spent the last decade eliminating ever more rights and freedoms, and it seems to be working to continue down that path. If things carry on as is there will likely be a crossing point in the next 50 years where China becomes more free than the US.
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:2)
Which only prevents you from having a website, not from speaking in other ways. In China you'll get arrested or shot if you try to demonstrate.
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:3)
People in the USA also get arrested and shot for demonstrating.
china has nazi like death camps for falun gong (Score:2, Informative)
http://english.falundafamuseum.org/b5/05/02/20/1304.html [falundafamuseum.org]
http://falunhr.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=1495 [falunhr.org]
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:4, Insightful)
I think you don't really get it. The law professors don't give a crap an about music linking sites, they care about political speech sites.
Don't think it affects political speech, please wait 6 months after a complaint is filed, after spending thousands on lawyers and legal fees, to prove in court that you web site did not have infringing music, a paragraph from a book, plagiarised, shared an idea etc. etc and was only about politics and is original work. Oh yes, than rinse and repeat was the case is dropped as the new case is filed. You think for a second that corrupt corporations via insane right wing politics wont seek to pull that crap on every popular web site that challenges their bull shit.
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:2)
No, you're not as bad as China. You still have free political speech, which is the most basic thing - thanks to it, these professors can publish materials explaining just how bad this law is, and campaign for getting it repealed. Whereas in China, no matter what goes wrong, you can't really complain.
This isn't to say that "PROTECT IP" act is not bad - it is - but limitations on political speech are infinitely worse in comparison.
The thing is , they would be able to block a website, for 'infringing activities' . How certain are you , that you are allowed to say whatever you want , without facing persecution.
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:2)
In USA? Quite certain, given the track record so far. For all the insanities of the "war on terror", freedom of speech remains mostly untouched so far.
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:2)
This isn't to say that "PROTECT IP" act is not bad - it is - but limitations on political speech are infinitely worse in comparison.
Infinitely worse? If I understand correctly, PROTECT IP can be abused to make political speech unreachable.
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:2)
"No, you're not as bad as China. You still have free political speech, which is the most basic thing - thanks to it"
You know I can't protest in front of the RNC or any political gathering.. I have to be carted into "free speech zones" that are far away and hidden from view.
It's not as bad as people getting killed for speaking out, but the United States IS taking steps to get there. Why we don't have riots in the streets over this stuff I will never understand. The American people like the oppression I guess.
I also don't understand how cowardly cops will enforce such things. It looks like the transformation of police from "Serve and protect" to the enemy that is there to "oppress and control".
Give it time, I fully expect to be telling stories to my grandkids on how we used to be able to go out at night without a permit, and people were allowed to gather and protest unjust actions without being gassed and killed along with the outlandish notion that we were once allowed to own firearms.
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:2)
Well, does it help?
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:2)
Petition is what you do in absence of a working democracy. It's the equivalent of going up to your lord and saying, "Please, sir, can you find it in your heart to right this wrong?" In a democracy, you complain publicly, or go to court and demand your right.
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:4, Interesting)
However, if we ignore it, it might get quietly slipped through - One might argue that the strategy is to make sure there are so many stupid bills which never get anywhere that the senators(and others) start ignoring them. At which point one might manage to slip through.
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:2)
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:4, Insightful)
Stupid bills that want to become stupid laws, but are defeated, are just reintroduced in the following legislative session, usually as a rider on some other, far more important bill. Or, possibly even worse, the bill is defeated repeatedly, until something like ACTA is signed as a treaty.
Stupid bills never just go away, their authors just get sneaky about pushing the thing through the legislative body in some other fashion.
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:2)
The bill isn't law quite yet. Stupid bills wanting to become stupid laws get introduced all the time and most of them don't go anywhere.
That's just what people were saying when the DMCA was still a bill. The time to speak up is before a law is passed, not after.
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:2)
The DMCA was an international treaty before it was a bill or a law. The entire reason why it went through was because no one paid attention to that detail and allowed congress to ratify the WIPO- WPPT and WTC.
Many other nations signed onto that those treaties too which is why they are all getting DMCA style laws that they need to fend off all the time. If people would realize that it's because of a treaty, then maybe the treaty can be changed and the DMCA can go good bye or become something sane.
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:2)
That's how it looked from a European perspective too - the copyright provisions were sneaked through the European Parliament by being decided by bureaucrats and lobbyists during the ACTA negotiations.
Democracy really doesn't work well in the EU (on the top level I mean; it may work well in individual member countries).
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:5, Informative)
Couple differences: People hating the government here are free to say so.
In China, it means the complainer and their family will "wake up in pieces" since dissidents make great organ donors. The prison factories also need labor too, so the more people incarcerated, the better, and it really doesn't take much to be jailed in China for a long time.
Hate to say it but a lot of American imports here are manufactured in the American prison system. It doesn't take much to get jailed in America for a long time either and the prison industry has good lobbyists.
You are right about being allowed to bitch about the government though.
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:3)
Yes, pretty much. The Soviets lied to you, and so did we. Big surprise.
This particular law is hardly worth protesting, though, as it will be declared unconstitutional as soon as it its the courts. The US Supreme Court has roundly rejected prior restraint, as the saying goes, and that's what this is.
Comment removed (Score:2)
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:2)
The real problem is there's no way to close the negative feedback loop. Our legislators have no incentive not to grandstand by writing blatantly unconstitutional laws. If there were some sort of penalty when they had a law smacked down by the courts, it might make them think twice... but there's not, so no, I don't think much can be done about it. Call it apathy if you want, but nobody asked me how I thought it should work when they were setting up the system....
Re:LOL! American Freedom! (Score:2)
In the end, we all will love Big Brother.... For he knows best.
I'm no longer conerced about it (Score:5, Insightful)
The law will provide great incentive to develop new technologies to work around it.
Re:I'm no longer conerced about it (Score:5, Interesting)
That's all well and good, but at the same time it's going to cause a *huge* hassle for ISPs, a *huge* hassle for content providers, and a *huge* hassle for end users. Sure, the bleeding edge geeks will have workarounds (the simplest being to set up your own name server).
But it's going to make deploying DNSSEC a nightmare, because now we're going to have court orders requiring ISPs to break DNSSEC. Ultimately every customer router box will have to be a DNSSEC resolver, and will have to go to the root to get correct information. Home router vendors have not covered themselves in glory with previous DNS work they've done; there's no reason to expect that they'll do a good job this time either. The bottom line is that if this passes, the result will be:
Re:I'm no longer conerced about it (Score:3)
It is censorship, though. These pages host many things that is definitely legal, and that is blocked as well. Of course, circumventing the block is as easy as pointing your computer or router to a DNS working correctly, but how many people know how to do that?
Re:I'm no longer conerced about it (Score:2)
The stricter the US internet laws are the bigger the chance it will be cut off of the rest of the internet. If the most of the internet users live in freer countries, they will use a different set of DNSSEC resolvers. This means that internet addressing will become fragmented between the US and the free world such that the same address means one thing in the US and another in the free world.
The economic impact on the US, of such a fragmentation, will be considerable. It will be a natural continuation of US economy's decline. As usual the brilliant politicians will blame the situation on pirates and will continue to draft even stricter free-speech (anti-piracy) laws.
I am glad that I do not live in the US, but this situation may change. Unfortunately many countries tend to copy the worst US practices (laws and behaviour), over time. We may end up in the US fragment of the internet and not where the rest of the world is.
Re:I'm no longer conerced about it (Score:2)
a *huge* hassle for end users.
Hassle?
http://www.i2p2.de/ [i2p2.de] No hassle at all.
Re:I'm no longer conerced about it (Score:2)
No need to develop new technologies. Just steer clear of domain registries, registrars and hosting companies in U.S. jurisdictions or any jurisdictions the U.S. coerces into going along with them.
I guess they could still block the IP address. Maybe they could license China's "Great Firewall" but people already found ways around it.
In the end, the only thing this law will accomplish is to drive internet business out of the country.
Re:I'm no longer conerced about it (Score:3, Insightful)
I've never been conerced about it. It's as if I was around in a state of olbivion.
C'mon, it was an obvious typo - don't be a sas about it.
Re:I'm no longer conerced about it (Score:2)
I've never been conerced about it. It's as if I was around in a state of olbivion.
Conerced to be conned and coerced..... describes our system of government quite well. Kudos to you AC
Welcome to the two-tier internet. (Score:3)
Real Internet for those of us who know what we're doing.
Censored internet for the proles.
And we can lord it over them.
Good times to be had by all.
--
BMO
Copyright is Socialism... (Score:5, Interesting)
The PROTECT IP act is a freebie given to Big Content because it is too expensive for them to police the use of their own content. Regardless of what anyone thinks about Copyright, this is a clear example of leveraging government to enforce artificial restrictions on the use of content in favor of the companies that seek to monetize said content.
We have laws already in place for companies to lodge complaints with websites when their content is being used without license. But the content companies complain that it is too hard for them to find unlicensed use of their content. The solution via this act is to take down content on **possible** unlicensed use by the government and by other companies on a simple complaint.
IF the PROTECT IP provided heavy penalties for false or inflated complaints, then okay. But it doesn't.
IF the PROTECT IP provided for possible criminal charges should it be used to violate free speech as opposed to taking down infringing content, then okay. But it doesn't.
IF the PROTECT IP provided fees and taxes on Big Content to cover the public expense of implementing the act, then okay. But it doesn't.
ANY Government granted system of monopolies granted out to privileged parties, where such monopolies do not and in fact cannot exist without Government intervention, this is socialism. It is bad enough that we have copyrights that last over a hundred years, and that we cannot upload birthday videos because a song written in the 1800's is (most would say falsely) under copyright. That we have extend copyright terms without compensation to the public.
But why should the public pick up the bill to enforce copyright?
Make Big Content to pay for it, and make Big Content liable for misuse of it, and throw anyone in jail if they use it to inhibit free speech, then okay.
But that won't fly. Because this is about making money, and Big Content can't make money if they are at risk, or have to pay for the enforcement of their own (supposed) rights.
Re:Copyright is Socialism... (Score:2)
Well done, sir! You have described the situation perfectly.
Unfortunately, you will be eventually modded down mercilessly, for your use of the word "Socialism" as if it were a bad thing.
Re:Copyright is Socialism... (Score:3)
The comment was a troll, but aimed at those that might think this bill promotes capitalism. It does not, but rather copyright is about building artificial markets. Most Americans view socialism as the opposite of capitalism, and so I used the term loosely along those lines.
I understand that economic models are more complex than that, but hey! It was a post written on a whim!
Re:Copyright is Socialism... (Score:2)
Whatever it is, it's definitely not socialism. If the government took from the rich and gave to the poor, it might be. But it's the government taking from the poor (from everybody, really) and giving to the rich (Big Content). That's more like fascism, which is tends to include a very tight coupling between industry and government. Industry works for the government, and government works for the industry. You see a lot of that lately in the US (though it started with the military-industrial complex, obviously).
Re:Copyright is Socialism... (Score:3, Insightful)
I have NO idea, where you Americans get your definition of "socialism" from. FOX "News"?
Because it couldn't be more wrong.
What it actually resembles, is a fascist dictatorship. Which is what the GDR, and other so-called "socialist" states *actually* were.
So PROTIP: Just because those countries called themselves "socialist" or "communist", doesn't mean they were.
Just like if someone called the USA (or many, many other countries) "democratic". You would laugh at him for being so delusional.
It's fascism. The merger of industry and government. Resulting in the law of the jungle. Aka. the "free market".
Why can 300 million people (or 500 in the EU) not crush a few thousand (yes, it's not more, no matter how bit they make themselves look) terrorists? (I mean the MAFIAA aka. "Big Content". They are terrorizing people for their own gains. Which is the actual definition of "terrorism".)
Re:Copyright is Socialism... (Score:4, Informative)
I used the term as a troll. I can be honest and I can admit my faults. I haven't anything against socialism myself. But you have to understand that in the U.S. it is an awful insult to the Republicans among us. And if you look at the implementation of Copyright from a certain perspective, it is clear that this is a Government imposed right for a few being imposed upon the people. In the U.S. we usually call that socialism. It really isn't socialism, but that is what most people walking down the street would call it (when it is described in these terms).
But I haven't any problem with considering copyright as being fascist. I have no problem considering copyright as terrorism.
You know, you write a post and you take an angle and you go with it.
Re:Copyright is Socialism... (Score:3)
Re:Copyright is Socialism... (Score:2)
Okay, you win. This is capitalism assuming we don't give any significant portion of the copyright money to content creators.... And since they don't get more than a few percent of what is collected from copyright, I guess you win.
Re:Copyright is Socialism... (Score:2)
Fascism is a radical, authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists advocate the creation of a totalitarian single-party state that seeks the mass mobilization of a nation through indoctrination, physical education, and family policy including eugenics. [wikipedia.org]
Trolling, or hypocrisy? You be the judge.
Re:Copyright is Socialism... (Score:2)
*except for groups small enough for social pressure to be an effective control mechanism, e.g. families and small collectives.
Re:Copyright is Socialism... (Score:2)
Laws that benefit the (poor) citizens, that is socialism and un-american. Laws that are benefiting the big cooperations that is free market, and as we know, if the big cooperations making tons of moneys that is good for everyone, and as such the American Dream.
Re:Copyright is Socialism... (Score:2)
How is it socialism? In its most simplistic form, socialism takes from the haves and gives to the have-nots. This bill does the exact opposite: it gives more to the big players, and everybody else gets to pay for it.
Re:Copyright is Socialism... (Score:4, Informative)
This law DOES put the enforcement of these laws in the hands of the copyright holder. And I will bet (if it passes) that I will be complaining about how Rich Corporations are abusing this bill by bullying small companies (small copyright holders).
My point is that (without changing any other part of this bill) Big Content should fund the bill if you are going to pass it. If they are not going to pay fees or taxes to cover the cost of implementation, then it is a gift to Big Content.
Re:Copyright is Socialism... (Score:2)
Right. Because the Media, the Lawyers and the Politicians have done **such*** a great job debating and selecting the policies we have now in this country!
Besides, what use is Math and Science when it comes to understanding the world anyway?
Re:Copyright is Socialism... (Score:2)
Okay, not socialism..... But copyright certainly isn't about competition either.
Absolute power yields the obvious (Score:2)
This is just the latest example of what happens when you invest the kind of power that we have in government. Those levers will be used to attain the ends of whoever brings the most money to the table to coopt the people controlling it.
Re:Absolute power yields the obvious (Score:2)
Stop listening and start watching, folks. They are telling you one thing but doing another.
anyone really surpriced? (Score:3)
Re:anyone really surpriced? (Score:2)
>Democrats are married to Hollywood.
Protip: Hollywood is an equal opportunity bribe^W campaign contribution machine.
--
BMO
Re:anyone really surpriced? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:anyone really surpriced? (Score:2)
Reagan comparison wouldn't be a fair comparison for 3 reasons: (1) he was a California politician (he was a governor of California); (2) he was a President too long ago so the Secret Service procedures were probably different; (3) he was a member of the Academy (in fact served as the head of SAG before getting into an elected office). Basically, Reagan was a Hollywood insider. But even a modern Hollywood insider such Thompson received less in Hollywood money than most Democratic candidates did during the primaries.
I am not sure why you would think that there is something special about Bush which made him less likely to receive Hollywood money. He enjoyed higher popularity ratings during the same period of his administration than Obama does now.
Re:anyone really surpriced? (Score:5, Funny)
Democrats are married to Hollywood.
I believe the correct term is "civil union".
Re:anyone really surpriced? (Score:2)
Re:anyone really surpriced? (Score:2)
98 Percent Oppose the bill in Texas (Score:5, Informative)
I know that U.S. Senator John Cornyn doesn't read Slashdot, but hey! it is interesting...
Nation: 90 percent oppose.
Texas: 98 oppose.
https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/s968/report#nation [popvox.com]
Re:98 Percent Oppose the bill in Texas (Score:2)
Re:98 Percent Oppose the bill in Texas (Score:2)
Most likely because the polling site is self selecting for Internet Political Junkies.
Who likes/dislikes the PROTECT IP act? (Score:5, Informative)
ORGS ENDORSING
Graphic Artists Guild
Independent Film & Television Alliance
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
ORGS OPPOSING
American Association of Law Libraries
American Library Association
Association of Research Libraries
Center for Democracy and Technology
Demand Progress
Don't Censor the Net!
Fractured Atlas
Public Knowledge
Reporters Without Borders
https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/112/s968/report#nation [popvox.com]
Re:Who likes/dislikes the PROTECT IP act? (Score:2)
The list wasn't provided with the intention to prove where the good guys and the bad guys stand on this fight. The list comes verbatim from the link provided. There are several notable organizations missing from the list, including the ACLU, EFF, and FSF, among others. I thought that was also interesting.
Re:Who likes/dislikes the PROTECT IP act? (Score:2)
Why does it matter if they are "left-leaning" groups? The other three organizations endorsing the bill could also be described as left-leaning.
I think the more relevant breakdown is that all the groups endorsing the bill are corporate lobby groups and all the groups opposing are not. If a bill only has support from corporate lobby groups that stand to benefit from the change in law, that's a pretty clear indicator that something is wrong.
It doesn't matter (Score:5, Funny)
You can have all the letters you want. You can roll sick kids in wheel chairs in to give speeches. If you didn't pay for the law, you don't get it's benefits. That's the way our new corporatist free enterprise system works.
What do you expect for free?
If you want a law, you hire a lobbyist. They will give you a quote, just like getting your driveway seal coated. You pay. You get what you want.
Who do you think your congressmen and senators are working for anyway? You? Not likely.
Re:It doesn't matter (Score:3)
Dude (or Dudette), let you not forget that unions, who, for exampe, pushed for Obama care and now have promptly petitioned to not be included in the provisions foisted upon everyone else.
Lobbyists are the problem. ALL Lobbyists.
Constitution? (Score:5, Insightful)
First target: Wikileaks (Score:3)
One of the most obvious targets of this kind of "copyright protection", applied to political speech, is Wikileaks. In many cases, the document owners did not consent for those documents to be published, so under the strictest interpretations of copyright law, without the political exceptions applied, they've already had their contribution funds siezed indefinitely by the relevant credit agencies. This would be just another spike in their destruction, much to the pleasure of corporate or government organizations whose secrets are exposed there.
This isn't about IP (Score:2)
This is a wedge in the door, the biggest so far, to allow the government to control the internet. This bill effectively allows government to close down any website they like almost on whim long before they get around to bringing the case to core, if ever. It is a continuance of precedent from the civil forfeiture laws in drug and other cases. Property is held to be guilty until proved innocent and is seized or shut down without any sort of due process.
Don't just snigger sadly in year beer on this one. Fight for all you are worth as if your relatively free internet life depended on it.
Re:"Internet death penalty" (Score:5, Insightful)
How is it going over the top?
You're totally stripping due process out of the equation.
If someone makes a living from their website, and you kill that website, you are basically killing someone.
The metaphor is fair.
Doesn't take a lot of imagination to see that.
Re:"Internet death penalty" (Score:5, Insightful)
Once you establish the precedent, you're on a slippery slope. This has been coming for a long time. A black person driving from Florida carrying a lot of cash is assumed to be a drug runner. Their car and cash are confiscated without a trial and they have to fight to get it back.
A Hispanic person in Arizona must show ID to prove s/he is a citizen, otherwise they're assumed to be illegal.
Now your website and your business can be taken away just on the accusation of violating some copyright somewhere.
Ever read any of Niven's sci-fi? We're just about there. Next step, organ banks.
Re:"Internet death penalty" (Score:2)
That would be great if the Tea Party were really about overseeing the government and ensuring that it acts appropriately. However the tea party is more about napalming the whole forest than doing some pruning, and "government is always bad" is as idiotic a statement as "government is always good". The tea party is letting the Republican party gut every even remotely good thing that government does while doing absolutely nothing at all about anything like this.
Re:"Internet death penalty" (Score:2)
Then why are the teabaggers supporting the continuation of huge gov't subsidies to oil companies? Why are they supporting tax laws that exempt the wealthiest companies and shift the burden onto small business and individuals?
The whole tea party is based on a failed premise that an individual can stand up to a multinational corporation and win. Maybe in a redneck shotgun fantasy; in reality the individual gets milked for every dime they have and thrown away in the end when they can no longer pay.
Re:"Internet death penalty" (Score:5, Informative)
Refusing to route traffic to a site is a death-knell to it no matter how you slice it. The term "death" has many different and perfectly reasonable contexts. Only one of those is biological death.
Re:"Internet death penalty" (Score:2)
Re:"Internet death penalty" (Score:2)
Even as used here, I doubt many will jump to linking it with actual death. It's simply ridiculous to do so. A site without traffic is dead, so cutting it off is clearly a death sentence for the site. The terminology is commonly used to relate non-biological death in many different circumstances. This is nothing new. Sans other sensationalist wording, this is perfectly applicable to the matter at hand.
Re:"Internet death penalty" (Score:2)
I dunno, it seems pretty accurate in the context of a website. You're essentially stopping anyone from viewing it (at least in theory) therefore killing the site's ability to perform its intended function. Its true that the comparison is a bit sensationalist, but in the context of a website, its pretty accurate at the same time.
Re:"Internet death penalty" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"Internet death penalty" (Score:4, Insightful)
The difference is that blacklists are entirely voluntary.
Also...
Spammer spotted.
--
BMO - Lumber Cartel membership # 2501
Re:Comparison (Score:2, Funny)
How fast does an owner of a warehouse get a notice of a police raid with court order targeting one of the clients of the warehouse?
Am I the only one who read "whorehouse."
Re:Comparison (Score:2)
The rest of us can read without issue.
Who keeps modding this crap up? It's not funny; it's childish.
Re:Comparison (Score:2)
Re:routing around the damage (Score:2)
The rest of the world will learn to simply route around the damage zone known as the USA.
But... But... But... Slashdot is hosted in the US!
Re:routing around the damage (Score:2)
But... But... But... Slashdot is hosted in the US!
You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs...
Re:routing around the damage (Score:2)
But... But... But... Slashdot is hosted in the US!
Yes... for now.
Mua ha ha ha ha...
Re:routing around the damage (Score:2)
If only it were true. The US has lobbied, bullied, coerced, cajoled, and convinced most other countries in the world (including third world countries!) to adopt its own Copyright-style laws. I'm afraid that the US, in this case, is more like a environment polluter, spilling and spreading its conception of maximalist, taliban-style copyright elsewhere too. I hope we won't say in a few years: first the US invented the Internet, then the US destroyed it.