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Democrat Win May Be Good News For Internet Policy
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Nov 09, 2006 03:50 PM
from the little-from-column-a-little-from-column-b dept.
from the little-from-column-a-little-from-column-b dept.
Null Nihils writes "Following the pivotal U.S. Midterm elections, things look hopeful for a free and open Internet, but the likelihood of progress in terms of copyright and privacy legislation is still uncertain. At any rate, it isn't hard to see a shift in U.S. information technology policy coming over the horizon. Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), strong supporters for Net Neutrality, will most likely take command of Internet policy, but Democrat commitments regarding privacy, data retention, and digital copyright have yet to be made certain. A C|Net article discusses the likely shift in priorities at Capitol Hill. 'If (Democrat Rick) Boucher gets the nod as chairman, a broadcast flag becomes far less likely and changes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention sections become politically feasible ... If Rep. Howard Berman, however, gets the job, the recording industry and motion picture industry will have a staunch ally as subcommittee chairman.'"
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Nothing will change (Score:5, Insightful)
The Internet is best left alone -- and deregulate communications as much as possible to allow for more competition. That will help everyone with lower prices, more competitive levels of service based on what the customer needs (rather than a one-size-fits-all solution), and better service levels due to the reduced cost of meeting regulations and restrictions.
We have just as much to be worried about with the Democrats in power as the Republicans. The Democrats are no friend to the free market, which means we'll see more restrictions on speech (ie, copyright and patent extensions), more restrictions on actions (ie, paying wages equal to the production of the worker) and more restrictions on competition with offshore companies (ie, forced benefits, federalizing of programs that should stay local, and probably higher barriers to entry against entrenched corporations).
The Democrats and the Republicans are two sides of the same face of the coin -- the left side and the right side of authoritarianism or Statism. The opposite side is freedom, something no political party (not even the Greens nor the Libertarians) are about.
If you want freedom, start voting for none of the above [unanimocracy.com] like I do.
Re:Nothing will change (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, please note that many of the new Democrats elected are not from the mold of Joe Lieberman (though we unfortunately failed to replace his ass) but rather were endorsed (and WON on the basis of that endorsement) -- from the netroots. Micro-donations from actual citizens. So their campaign contributors are all a bunch of ordinary folk, and they're not going to be allowed to forget that.
So, -1 for ignorance, and -2 for intentional ignorance. Try again!
It's good for checks and balances (Score:3, Interesting)
So? (Score:3, Insightful)
Side note : I'm not saying ZOMG TERRORISM! I'm saying we're dived into a can of worms and with the current "run away" or "stay forever" political sides in the current war this is dangerous in the big picture.
yes. i went there. (Score:4, Funny)
Coming from the party that invented the internet, this is great news. I bet that when their staff sends them an internet, they get it right away, instead of being all tangled up in the tubes.
Rose Colored Glasses (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Rose Colored Glasses (Score:5, Informative)
Let's hope the Democratic Congress can be the agent for change here.
Leave it alone (Score:4, Insightful)
The FCC is already regulating the situation, and will slap down any provider who improperly abuses their tiering abilities. So leave it the heck alone. Anytime Congress gets involved, we merely end up with the opposite of progress.
Who wrote this headline? Off base I'd say... (Score:5, Informative)
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?ty
"I'm trying to contain my joy," MPAA chairman and CEO Dan Glickman told The Hollywood Reporter.
Look at the fact--Rep. John Conyers take over Judiciary. You can say 'Boucher is great, or Berman is bad' but they are minor players compared to Conyers and the power of the chairmanship (Conyers was the author of the 'analog hole' bill along with a host of other bidding on behalf of the RIAA).
Stop drinking the Kool-aid. This was no better a result than the previous crowd staying in control...
Re:Who wrote this headline? Off base I'd say... (Score:4, Insightful)
Far from true. You rightly point out that the Democrats present us with new challenges, especially those of us who believe in copyright reform (in some respects they may be worse for that issue). But I'm not a one-issue voter. So here are some others:
The last item on the list is probably the most important. If I could choose between the president doing whatever he'd like without oversight and having a broadcast flag on my TV signal, I'll take the broadcast flag and feel lucky for it.
STOP IT!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Now in Both House and Senate Flavors! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's good for checks and balances (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Rose Colored Glasses (Score:5, Informative)
Re: The DMCA (Score:5, Interesting)
The DMCA has a lot of noxious amendments, but it's actually a good law otherwise. Current copyright law just let owners of Intellectual Property (a concept some don't like, but it predates the DMCA) just haul off and sue sue sue everyone in sight as soon as they saw content that was infringing. The DMCA lets content providers at least make a good-faith effort to remove the offending content via the infamous "DMCA takedown" procedure, BUT it lets the accused "infringer" challenge the takedown (a procedure sometimes called a "putback") and demand that the folks demanding the takedown either put up with legal action within 14 days, or shut up, at which time the content goes straight back.
So yeah they can get a "free" 14-day takedown, but the situation prior to that was to skip straight to legal demands that would put the host of the content in immediate danger, which would more often than not result in permanent removal regardless of the merits.
Stuff like the "circumvention devices" nonsense needs for sure to be cut out of the DMCA, and the stacking of the legal system against the little guy is sort of outside its scope. But at least the hosts with the deep(er) pockets aren't being targeted first.
Laws can trickle (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the Internet is pretty US-centric. That's more a matter of audience makeup, which is changing. However, regulation and asshattery by US lawmakers can affect people connecting to and from other countries as well. Not to mention other nations enacting their own laws similar to the way things are being done in the US w/ regards to technology.
As long as... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Wrong, one thing will change! (Score:5, Insightful)
Something will change and that is simply that President Bush will not be able to pass what he wants and neither will congress will get bills past the veto.
This simply means that less legislation will be passed which in turn means less pork and effectiveness of corporate lobbying.
Sure they can still lobby but since congress can't get their bills passed, it will be a moot point.
As they say... The Government that Governs least, governs best!
Still... Isn't it sad, that the only way to have our government work for the people is to have it not work at all?
re: US-Centric (Score:5, Insightful)
I suppose we'd have to take a peek at the number of Slashdot subscribers and their webserver stats to see why the "editors" choose to be "US-Centric".
In addition to that, you have to look at the fact that Slashdot itself is based in the US and has American "editors".
At least the whining stopped (Score:2, Insightful)
Demanding endless recounts in the races they lost narrowly. Whining "count all the votes".And now that it is over and they have lost bla
RE: Here comes all the politicking.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Ted Stevens is no longer chairman of the commerce (Score:5, Informative)
I think we can all be happy about that.
Re: Here comes all the politicking.... (Score:3, Informative)
Why is Slashdot so damn US-centric? Are does anyone else outside the USA really care for the political propaganda crap on Slashdot?
Yeah, just last week I went to slashdot.co.de and complained about how German-central their political coverage was. It was especially true in terms of technology. Even though Germany was the principal founder of the internet, and also still the controlling force for some aspects through its dominance of ICANN, that isn't right. Plus, given Germany's strong global presence, even though they use their political and economic weight to lead or dictate policies across the globe, none of that means they should be talking about politics on a web site based in their country written in their language.
Certainly not on a website devoted to technology, especially one with a subcategory called "Politics" that can be disabled by any viewer who wishes to not see those type of stories.
Re:Here comes all the politicking.... (Score:4, Informative)
The Democrats won? Damn! (Score:2)
Well, at least I can make a couch [fedexfurniture.com] out of some of the extra FedEx boxes.
Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Score:5, Insightful)
The Bad: Well, Hollywood is better friends with the Democrats.
The Ugly? Well, both are pretty beholden to our corporate masters... unless we're willing to get our government to revoke corporate charters (ie, the corp death penalty), we're not going to starting winning that war.
Let's not forget... (Score:2, Insightful)
Som
Re:Who wrote this headline? Off base I'd say... (Score:2)
No Seriously... (Score:2)
Re: So? (Score:2)
If that's the case, I think your sister is more likely to die at the hands of your mum...
That's because (Score:2)
But really, I think I would agree that Democratic politicians have a better grasp of what the "internets" are.
Something I've never understood about the "tubes" (Score:5, Insightful)
No Gore-types, please (Score:2)
Democrats are not necessarily your friends.
I'll believe it when I see it (Score:2)
Sorry, can't agree... (Score:5, Insightful)
What country have you been in for the last 10 years? Maybe you haven't been following what has been happening in the communications and broadcasting industries in the US lately since the loosening of regulations took place? Just to refresh your memory, the result has been the exact opposite of what you describe: there's been rampant consolidation in both industries - the communications industry is down to 2 or 3 major players (AT&T/SBC, Verizon, and maybeSprint), and the broadcast industry is down to a handfull of major players as well (radio for example, is down to 2 companies that own most of the radio stations in the US, Clearchannel and Infinity), with concrete and drastic results against free speech. So how has deregulation in the communications industry helped competition or anything else other than mega-corporations pockets again?
Re: Something I've never understood about the... (Score:4, Informative)
I consider myself very technologically savvy, have been working in IT for 15 years, 10 of those in networking, and I've honestly never understood why people deride the politician that made the "tubes" analogy so much. Isn't the analogy of tubes or pipes fairly accurate to describe the Internet's physical infrastructure? What's so weird about that? Someone please explain it, I honestly want to know. Thanks in advance.
Out of context - the comment seems about as funny as a random line from Monty Python. The speech Senator Stevens gave was a halting, rambling affair that maintained an amazingly consistent level of anger/passion. He made numerous statements that belied a decidedly uninformed perspective on e-mail, e-commerce, and the internet at large.
The now infamous comment; "it's a series of tubes!" came at the end of a diatribe about how the "internet" that his staff had sent him last Friday was, apparently, clogged up with all the movies being offered by commercial operators. The statement was delivered with such gusto, such conviction that you swear the old fella truly believed they were a bunch of literal tubes.
Was it a technically sound statement, in and of itself? Perhaps...but it seems clear from the rest of the speech that it was more Clouseau than Sherlock.
That's comedy.
Re:Nothing will change (Score:3)
Re:Let's not forget... (Score:2)
The really sad thing is those Reagan quotes have been more accurate than ever with regards to the Bush Republicans.
A few PJ O'
Except for one fact (Score:2)
Depends on what you are looking for (Score:4, Informative)
But as far as internet policy concerns, it's hard to say what will change. The Democrats are generally better with small business, as the Republicans tend to favor the big donor moneyed set, so we'll see a bit more promotion of competition and open access to the "tubes" and such. Nasdaq tech companies certainly did much better in the 1990s then they have recently.
But are they going to favor changing copyright law and such? Doubtful. I hope they can roll back patent changes that allowed patenting of business processes and such, we'll see.
Honestly though, with the fucking mess Bush has created with our foreign policy, I doubt there's going to be much time spent on these types of low-priority domestic issues. It's going to be Iraq, Iraq, Iraq, some Afghanistan, and more Iraq for the next two years until we finally pull out of the Bush Folly.
Dont count on it (Score:2)
Re: Ed Markey (Score:2)
Oh right, wise friend of the internet Ed "On Friday I urged the Bush Administration to 'apprehend' and shut down whoever had created a new website that enabled persons without a plane ticket to easily fake a boarding pass" Markey..
Re:Something I've never understood about the "tube (Score:2)
This is why.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kiZ-TqvVdGM&mode=relate d&search= [youtube.com]
Meet The New Boss... (Score:2)
"Who" says we won't get fooled again?
Net neutrality is free and open? (Score:2)
Corrected: Democratic Win May Be Good (Score:3, Informative)
[Democratic] Win May Be Good News For Internet Policy
Posted by Zonk on 2006.11.09 15:50
from the little-from-column-a-little-from-column-b dept.
[ The Internet ] [ Politics ] [ Your Rights Online ]
Null Nihils writes "Following the pivotal U.S. Midterm elections, things look hopeful for a free and open Internet, but the likelihood of progress in terms of copyright and privacy legislation is still uncertain. At any rate, it isn't hard to see a shift in U.S. information technology policy coming over the horizon. Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.), strong supporters for Net Neutrality, will most likely take command of Internet policy, but [Democratic Party] commitments regarding privacy, data retention, and digital copyright have yet to be made certain. A C|Net article discusses the likely shift in priorities at Capitol Hill. 'If (Democrat Rick) Boucher gets the nod as chairman, a broadcast flag becomes far less likely and changes to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention sections become politically feasible
Re: #16788757 (Score:2)
Re:Nothing will change (Score:2, Insightful)
Demo's cont
Democrates and Republicans won in 06, maybe not US (Score:2)
Neither political party appears to comprehend the reality that in a two legged
race one leg always crosses the finish line first and neither lose the race.
Democrats and Republicans
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)