MPAA Boss Admits SOPA and PIPA Are Dead, Not Coming Back 186
concealment points out comments from MPAA CEO Chris Dodd, who has acknowledged that SOPA and PIPA were soundly — and perhaps permanently — defeated. Quoting Ars Technica:
"Dodd sounded chastened, with a tone that was a far cry from the rhetoric the MPAA was putting out in January. 'When SOPA-PIPA blew up, it was a transformative event,' said Dodd. 'There were eight million e-mails [to elected representatives] in two days.' That caused senators to run away from the legislation. 'People were dropping their names as co-sponsors within minutes, not hours,' he said. 'These bills are dead, they're not coming back,' said Dodd. 'And they shouldn't.' He said the MPAA isn't focused on getting similar legislation passed in the future, at the moment. 'I think we're better served by sitting down [with the tech sector and SOPA opponents] and seeing what we agree on.' Still, Dodd did say that some of the reaction to SOPA and PIPA was 'over the top' — specifically, the allegations of censorship, implied by the black bar over Google search logo or the complete shutdown of Wikipedia. 'DNS filtering goes on every day on the Internet,' said Dodd. 'Obviously it needs to be done very carefully. But five million pages were taken off Google last year [for IP violations]. To Google's great credit, it recently changed its algorithm to a point where, when there are enough complaints about a site, it moves that site down on their page — which I applaud.'"
Exactly as they want you to think (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Exactly as they want you to think (Score:5, Insightful)
Its dead until the elections are over, then don't be surprised if it comes back.
Re:Exactly as they want you to think (Score:5, Insightful)
Its dead until the elections are over, then don't be surprised if it comes back.
Only if one party controls the legislative branch and the executive and it can get rubber stamped through.
Otherwise, there was enough negative publicity about the effort that I think either side would jump at the opportunity to claim that they are the true defenders of the internet by blocking bad legislation.
Re:Exactly as they want you to think (Score:5, Insightful)
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I'll repeat a quote I heard in regards to when we get a new President: "Same bullshit; different asshole".
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Yes, but when Democracy of government fails (which it has in the US), then resort to Democracy of capitalism. Your wallet. Vote with it. Starting now.
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I meant to vote out the incumbent lobbyists who effectively "own" the politicians who come and go much more often. These lobbyists have influence because they have money. They have money because of a revenue stream, and that stream comes from people opening wallets to them.
To vote with your wallet is to choose where you spend your money. If you have disposable income, buy your music from ethical places such as Magnatune instead, or donate to a worthwhile charity such as EFF or FSF.
Re:Exactly as they want you to think (Score:5, Interesting)
Its dead until the elections are over, then don't be surprised if it comes back.
Oh so innocent; thinks he's so cynical. This is a thing that big media agrees with small (commercial) media agrees with commercial interests. The arms industry doesn't want you getting your information independently; the consumer industries want you to read their ads; the media doesn't want you to compete with them.
At this very moment the Intellectual property provisions of the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership [wikipedia.org] are being negotiated in secret. This is yet another treaty negotiated by the type of people that brought you the WIPO. Their aim is to basically to make it so that SOPA / PIPA is forced upon all nations without any chance of a democratic debate.
This will not be reported on unless people have actually already succeeded in stopping it. The election doesn't matter since nobody will hear about it even if it is going on.
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Its dead until the elections are over, then don't be surprised if it comes back.
It's dead.
But this article sucks. It only obliquely touches on what Dodd has said is their new plan:
Quietly engage private industry to crack down on copyright infringement.
Their new plan is more or less the same as the old plan, but it will be done in corporate board rooms instead of behind closed doors in Congress.
Arguably, their new strategy is even worse for the public, since we will have almost no ability to influence the conversation at any point.
Google will silently tweak their search results, Faceboo
Re:Exactly as they want you to think (Score:5, Insightful)
But now the film companies have put up so many barriers to my seeing their stuff that piracy is logical. I go to the theater for a 9:15 film arriving say 9:05. For those 10 minutes the theater blasts cell phone and car commercials at me. Then at 9:15 they start showing trailers and around 9:30 the film begins but not really it is advertizements for the various levels of production company and more advertisements for the actors and directors so maybe around 9:32 I am seeing a movie that I payed $13 for nearly 30 minutes earlier. Renting a movie is much the same except that I don't know where to rent movies anymore. But if you do get a blue ray most players won't let you skip past the various warnings and even sometimes the trailers.
Now compare that to pirating a movie. Download time 5-10 minutes, cost almost nothing, restrictions: none. So you set the download, get the download and fast forward to the exact moment the real movie starts.
But the one restriction is that it is slightly hard to do. Most people will have difficulty getting a movie onto their computer, finding the file, sending it to a large TV somehow, and then controlling the movie. And this is where the movie industry has a chance. They could make it really easy for most people to use any box (game consoles, apple TV, roku) like netflix and just get the movie for a reasonable price. If the theater charges me $13 don't think you can either charge me more (for my convenience) or anything even close; I know that if you are distributing it directly to me that you have a huge savings so at $2 per movie I will happily watch a zillion movies; at $9.99 a movie I'll find a better use for my money.
This brings me to another point. In this modern age people are finding better uses for their money so don't blame all your dropping revenues on piracy. A blockbuster video game can make billions, that money is coming out of people's entertainment budget which once went to movies and music.
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Re:Exactly as they want you to think (Score:5, Insightful)
E.g. Make crappy movies I'd never go to in the theatre or purchase on any medium $0.99 and I might decide it's decent popcorn fodder. Blockbuster that's just out? I'd be willing to pay more. But as long as I don't have advertisements etc shoved down my throat before getting to watch the film.
I think any worries about inviting the neighbourhood over or sending the file to someone else (if it's drm free) are just that, worries (with no basis in reality). Make it cheap enough and it's not worth someone's time or hassle to save a few bucks. I have a big TV, good sound system, comfortable seating, I can drink booze if I want to (cheaply at that), better popcorn (imho), I can order any type of food I want.. etc etc. The theatre has no draw to me. Why would I want to sit around with a bunch of strangers that talk and text during the movie?
The market has been ready for direct from studio downloads for almost a decade. The studios just have to get with it.
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But why would they want to sell you a movie for $2 that you can invite the whole neighbourhood over to watch as many times as you like when they currently charge $13 per person for a one-time viewing and then 6 months later charge you $20 for the DRM protected dvd/bluray full of advertisements?
Because cinemas cost money to run, DVDs cost money to distribute....downloads don't cost them anything.
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If you take away the cinemas, you lose the profits from the over priced food.
If you lower the price of your product, you lower the perceived value
If your customers are accustomed to a particular price point, selling below that point will lose you more profit than you'll recover by increased sales.
Re:Exactly as they want you to think (Score:5, Insightful)
Downloads cost them servers and bandwidth. If you take away the cinemas, you lose the profits from the over priced food. If you lower the price of your product, you lower the perceived value If your customers are accustomed to a particular price point, selling below that point will lose you more profit than you'll recover by increased sales.
Mod poster Funny?
"Downloads cost them servers and bandwidth." - meanwhile everyone and their dogs are downloading their movies over bit-torrent at no additional cost to either them or the movie makers.
"If you lower the price of your product, you lower the perceived value" - for the last 10 years untold millions of people have been downloading their films for free. I think they're long past the point of having to worry about the 'perceived value' of their product!
"If your customers are accustomed to a particular price point, selling below that point will lose you more profit than you'll recover by increased sales." - addendum: If your customers are leaving you in droves and you refuse to change your pricing strategy, and instead try your very hardest to piss off the people who you should be trying to woo, then you deserve everything you get.
No sympathy from me.
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Renting a movie is much the same except that I don't know where to rent movies anymore. But if you do get a blue ray most players won't let you skip past the various warnings and even sometimes the trailers.
1. Rent from Red Box [redbox.com]: $1.32/night.
2. Rip it to laptop
3. ???
4. WATCH IT WITH NO RESTRICTIONS!
Re:Exactly as they want you to think (Score:4, Informative)
The biggest problem with a worldwide release of a movie is the big question - what do you allow in?
In the US a pair of tits will get you an R rating instantly - which is fine, if that is the audience you are shooting for. If you want a PG-13 movie for the US audience, you have to cut the tits. Or, in a R movie in the US you can show female pubic hair - except if you want to release the movie in Japan that would instantly have it blocked. There are other rules for EU countries as well.
And then there are the other markets. Have a scene where someone is holding a Bible in a courtroom? Such a movie cannot be distributed in an Islamic country, or at least most of them. Want a movie where the hero is wearing a turban? Good luck
It gets absurd. They thought they could capture this in eight bits with DVD region coding, but that wasn't really sufficient. What it means today is pretty much anything outside the US gets stuck with everything being cut that could possibly be objectionable to anyone, anywhere. Maybe the US version is less chopped but think about a movie made for an adult EU audience - they are going to have to cut it for the US!
The fact that the entertainment industry at all levels has to deal with this is silly and it throws a lot of extra costs into it. I am pretty sure it is filtering into games today as well. Certainly music has had some run-ins with this sort of issue. The problem is there is no worldwide standard and there isn't going to be any time soon - certainly not until someone like SPECTRE takes over the planet and declares themselves to be Dictator for Life.
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In the US a pair of tits will get you an R rating instantly
Unless the movie is directed by James Cameron, and the tits are a spectacular pair, such as Kate Winslet's.
Then you'll get away with PG-13
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I love the Japanese. A little pubic hair and a flash of vagina? No No No No No. You pixelate that shit right now.
A bunch of tentacle monsters hanging little schoolgirls in the air while they are violated in every orifice? Yep. Totally Okay. Let's distribute it everywhere.
Re:Exactly as they want you to think (Score:4, Insightful)
This (piracy beating movie theaters on convenience) is why services like Netflix are so important. Netflix is easier than piracy which tips the scales back into the studios favor. Except the studios see Netflix as a pseudo-pirate robbing them of DVD sales (instead of an ally turning would-be pirates into paying customers). Therefore, they restrict what content Netflix has access to and wind up cutting off their own nose to spite their face. Other services, like Amazon VOD, are good, but more expensive. (The Avengers is $3.99 for a 48 hour rental. For just the price of 2 Amazon VOD movie rentals, you can get a month of Netflix streaming.)
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5-10 minutes? Sheesh, what type of pipe do you have?
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I own and operate a single-screen movie theatre in a small town.
I try to start my show within five minutes of the advertised start time (depending on how many people are still in the lobby getting their popcorn and whatnot), and I play between zero and three trailers before the start of the actual movie.
Mod this up please (Score:2)
Re:single-screen movie theatre in a small town. (Score:3)
And Slashdot wants to know where so we can flashmob you and force you to accept new revenue and boost sales!
Re:Exactly as they want you to think (Score:5, Informative)
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*deep, deep sigh* Look, MPAA, listen. You people were the ones who deluged our pop culture with movies written with shitty stories where the big evil shadowy overlord admits defeat, only to walk into some shadowy back room with other shady people and laugh about how "those fools" have let their guards down and now Plan B will kick in whenever the sequel gets made. You with me here? We've seen this movie a billion times. And you wrote it!
At what point did you expect this plan to work? Are you seriou
True, Dat (Score:2)
Remember TIA ("Total Information Awareness")? That monster rose from the dead and its zombie maw is chomping at the bit [wired.com] to eat everything it can.
I wish the MPAA/RIAA would hurry up and die already. They are little more than brutish fossils, symbolic of a decayed era gratefully forgotten.
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Make you think it's dead, that way when they bring it back under another name, you won't notice.
But some do notice [wikipedia.org]
I'm paranoid (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I'm paranoid (Score:5, Insightful)
OF COURSE they're preparing something identical behind the scenes. They haven't STOPPED being greedy, stupid, shortsighted, corrupt assholes. Chris Dodd and everyone else who would rather screw over the public domain for a very small theoretical increase in profits, THEY are not the ones who are dead and never coming back. It's a damn shame too that they don't all slowly and simultaneously die of hemorrhoids.
Re:I'm paranoid (Score:4, Informative)
The behind-the-scenes "thing" that they're hiding is the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement)
https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp
Read and be informed!!!!!!!!
Re:I'm paranoid (Score:4, Insightful)
SOPA and PIPA were stopped because people found out.. What if this is just misinformation while they prepare something behind the scenes?
If? There is no if [wikipedia.org]
I hate to be that guy, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a bad feeling that something worse is waiting for us down the line...
Re:I hate to be that guy, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a bad feeling that something worse is waiting for us down the line...
Exactly. That something worse will be the persistent steady erosion of rights and the criminalization of activities with extreme penalties. Bit by bit they will get what they want. Their mistake was grabbing at the powers they wanted too fast.
In the U.S. they've won on the constitutionality of statutory damages that bear no relation to actual harm. Essentially that is a private criminalization of a commercial tort.
They're winning on extradition more than they are loosing.
Megaupload is gone. Everyone else is scared.
In Japan, downloading a song is now a criminal act that can get you two years in jail.
And on, and on . . .
So, do they really need SOPA or PIPA?
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I have a bad feeling that something worse is waiting for us down the line...
Maybe this? [wikipedia.org]
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Unintentional honesty (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation: Dammit, what part of "cartel" have my clients forgotten they once understood?
Conspiracies (Score:2)
Electronic Democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
'There were eight million e-mails [to elected representatives] in two days.' That caused senators to run away from the legislation.
So, now we know what to do to prevent or get rid of Dodd-Frank and other pieces of idiotic legislation.
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The same thing we've always done. Use something called "the will of the people." Amazingly, it still works.
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"So, now we know what to do to prevent or get rid of Dodd-Frank and other pieces of idiotic legislation."
What really gets me is that it was totally unnecessary. There was absolutely no need for that last-minute "explosion"... people had been telling their Congresscritters all along what they thought of SOPA and PIPA, they just didn't listen.
It took a BIG, and rather firm, kick in the ass to get them to pay attention. But that's not the way government is supposed to work. We aren't supposed to have to whip them to get them to actually work for us.
Sure we do (Score:2)
When there's a friggin 1,600 lb gorilla in the room with "Citizens United" tattooed on its chest, us little people have to whip that cream HARD and LONG before anything will happen.
Read this in Brando mode (Score:2, Offtopic)
They should be happy. (Score:5, Insightful)
These people are making money hands-over-fist. Billions of dollars flowing into their pockets.
Why do they feel they "need" to do anything about piracy? The vast majority of people will pay for their content. Even I, who used to pirate things like crazy when I was a teenager (due to complete lack of funds) now pay for my stuff since I can afford it.
They should instead find ways to make it easier for customers to buy their media. Look what they did for music; it's DRM free now and so convenient to buy from numerous places, and it all plays on pretty much every device out there. They should do the same thing for video content. Make it so when I pay $10 to download a movie, that it's truly MINE, and I'll gladly buy more movies online.
It's not hard. Yet they are stubborn jackasses and continue with this war of theirs. Reminds me of the equally pointless "war on drugs".
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Reminds me of the equally pointless "war on drugs".
In terms of pointlessness, I'd say it's even worse. They're trying to stop people from copying data, and it's nearly impossible to catch anyone to begin with.
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Nothing is worse than the war on drugs. How many people a year are killed due to the war on piracy? How many people are imprisoned for mere possession of pirated materials?
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I said in terms of pointlessness . I believe the war on drugs is far worse, but at least some of the people behind it have (somewhat), in my opinion, noble intentions. I also believe they're completely wrong, but that's not the point. The only thing at stake with copyright infringement is potential profit. I find that to be an absolutely pathetic reason to push draconian laws.
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Totally agree.
I regularly pirate content - simply as I can't have it on all my devices otherwise.
For example, I reread books I liked after a few years.
Why on earth would I be happy with a cloud solution that probably is not going to be there in the next decade?
Barring the total collapse of western civilisation, I can pretty much say I'll be able to read epub/html/txt.
Re:They should be happy. (Score:5, Informative)
But that is what the RIAA and MPAA really want to prevent. "Piracy" is just a pretext that gets the politicians on their side. Their real goal is to revoke the idea of owning a copy of a book or movie, and "monetize" all digital "content;" that is, lock you in to paying them every time you want to review/view/listen to anything.
Re:They should be happy. (Score:4, Interesting)
Their real goal is to revoke the idea of owning a copy of a book or movie
Their real real goal is to get rid of "The Printing Press, Second Edition," aka the Internet, at least as we know it.
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You sir have certainly hurt a nail's head by hitting it.
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Is it a pointless war on drugs?
While the use of cannabis is mostly harmless, when used responsibly, ignoring what the state will do to you if you are caught in possession. Most others do have pretty negative effects in the long to medium term.
Just about every weekend here. There are reports of single vehicle collisions, generally fatal, in the early hours of saturday and sunday mornings. You can probably read that as someone out of their face on something decided to drive somewhere. They tend to be teens to
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Those single vehicle collisions are probably drunk people.
The war on drugs causes -
1. Money to be funnelled to cartels
2. Devloping countries to be in permanent states of civil war
3. Users' lives to be wrecked for a crime that harms only them
4. Users to die from impurites, unknown substances and unknown strengths
5. Billions of dollars that could go toward actual harm reduction to be spent on militarising the police
6. People with no relation to the drug war to get shot by those police
7. A myriad of other nega
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Cannabis is not "mostly harmless". I watched it drive my ex-wife insane.
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How do you know it was because of cannabis? Not only that, but that's just anecdotal evidence.
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it is a sad waste of life.
I think one problem is that people are too emotional about the issue. Some people don't seem to want to allow any casualties whatsoever and wish to live in some fantasy land where no one ever dies. It's very likely not possible, and that same attitude is what leads us to 'solutions' like the TSA: security theater at the expense of freedom.
There are probably
Key word: probably. That's not a sufficient reason to curtail individual freedom in the name of safety, in my opinion. I see it like this: if they use drugs, that's their
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What exactly do you do with a schoolbus driver that is high? Once it is legal to use but not legal to do some things while high what happens to current job filtering where they disallow drug users completely?
Obviously, what happens is the people that have no sense continue to not use sense. While there are a lot of people that can sensibly use alchohol and drugs, check out the changes in class roster between the first day of freshman classes and the start of the 2nd semester at any large state university.
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> It is all about employers having to scrap drug testing because drugs are suddenly legal to use.
WTF are you going on about? You can be fired for smoking cigarettes, which if you're over 18 is perfectly legal. Your entire post is pretty nonsensical.
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Calling them piracy, and intellectual property are the firsts problems.
Copying and evolving information is in our very nature, in fact, what makes us humans and not weird looking monkeys living in the wild is that we copied, and kept doing so. Civilization, religions, language, cultures, etc, all is copying, and we teach our children to do that since they born.
Digital media and internet just enhanced our ability to copy, is the natural thing for us to do. It can only be improved letting us to evolve t
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Reminds me of the equally pointless "war on drugs".
The purpose of the "war on drugs/personal freedom" is to provide three-letter-agencies with an essentially fool-proof way to launder untold amounts of money for their other, off-the-books ventures, such as black ops and wetwork.
Still stupid, still bad, but far from pointless.
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The vast majority will not pay for content. I don't know anyone who pays for music any longer - they just grab what they want for free.
Why are the media companies making money today? Because they are receiving payments in lucrative markets where promotion has value and they have a huge segment of the population either scared to download or incapable of it because of lack of connectivity. Unfortunately, both groups are pretty much confined to 40+ years of age and in many places it is more like 60+. These
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The vast majority will not pay for content.
I don't know anyone who pays for music any longer - they just grab what they want for free.
Do you know a vast majority of the population, or am I missing something?
Quack (Score:5, Insightful)
To paraphrase a politician (who's name I don't know). "If it quakes like a duck, walks like a duck and looks like a duck, it is a duck."
Censorship is censorship, just because it is done by a corporation doesn't some how magically make it better. The fact that they manipulated Google into doing their censoring for them doesn't somehow make it clean just because the government wasn't the one doing it.
I don't buy that they aren't engaging in censorship just because they don't have the government doing it on their behalf. For the average person, they would be hard pressed to find an alternative that isn't censored.
Re:Quack (Score:4, Funny)
If it quakes like a duck
I've never met a duck who was capable of even playing Quake, much less having an identifiable style!
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I thought it was an aimbot when he got off that perfect thousand yard railgun shot during the triple backflip, and then I heard his victory trashtalk - "Affffflllaaaccckkk!"
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Are duckquakes anything like earthquakes?
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Joe McCarthy. You probably don't want him on your side of the argument.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy [wikipedia.org]
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Not quite [wikipedia.org]:
Indiana poet James Whitcomb Riley (1849–1916) may have coined the phrase when he wrote "when I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck."[1][2] The phrase may also have originated much later with Emil Mazey, secretary-treasurer of the United Auto Workers, at a labor meeting in 1946 accusing a person of being a communist.[3]
The term was later popularized in the United States by Richard Cunningham Patterson Jr., United States ambas
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Tip, if Slashdot is going to improve, the posters need to do a little more work.
"Indiana poet James Whitcomb Riley (1849â"1916) may have coined the phrase when he wrote "when I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck."[1][2]"
Reading between the lines (Score:3)
This is going to require a much less direct approach and a larger bag of money
It's a trick... (Score:2)
Get an axe.
We can only hope (Score:2)
I highly doubt they're dead forever. They WILL be back, and more insidious than ever.
-uso.
Wise man once say... (Score:4, Funny)
Dodd should be happy. (Score:2)
As a magician might do... (Score:2)
can we agree on fair use rights? (Score:2)
like for instance, I have this content here "that I bought," which means "I bought a limited personal use license with a physical copy of the content in one format," and that the copyright acts almost uniformly around the world permit making copies, as many as I want, of the content in alternate formats, as long as I do not lose/sell/toss-to-torrents my original copy and only utilize one copy at a time?
Re:can we agree on fair use rights? (Score:4, Interesting)
Especially in the case of vinyl and metallic tape (including video tape), the physical media degrades with time and use; if (as the industry argument goes) I am purchasing the privilege to view/hear the content, then I should only have to purchase it once. If the material breaks down, or a better format emerges, I should be entitled to a copy in that format. I'll grant a small price to cover manufacturing costs if the item is physical, but if it's 100% digital even a small fee is indefensible if I've previously purchased said media rights, and THAT implies that I would be doing nothing wrong in obtaining a copy from alternate sources once I've paid my "right to consume" fee.
filter goes on every day (Score:2)
I agree completely. For instance China is highly skilled in this. Iran is building a whole independent internet. Perhaps the MPAA would be happier making these their primary hubs of operation, places that are skilled in the art, so to speak. I don't think many in the western world would shed a tear if they chose to so do.
DNS Filtering != Google Takedowns (Score:2, Informative)
" 'DNS filtering goes on every day on the Internet,' said Dodd. 'Obviously it needs to be done very carefully. But five million pages were taken off Google last year [for IP violations]. "
Google takedowns are not the same as DNS filtering. This just shows basic lack of understanding of Internet architecture from those that are in the legislature and how they confuse (intentionally or non-intentionally) far reaching Internet architecture concepts with company control concepts to further their agenda.
http://
They Learned Their Lesson: Avoid Democracy (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, the RIAA/MPAA isn't going to try any more "Stop teh pirates!!!1!" bills anytime soon. They will probably try a few more disguised as cybersecurity legislation, tacking on copyright maximalism onto "think of the children!!!" alarmism. But that's all irrelevant.
The important lesson they learned is this: Accomplish your goals in an arena where there's no pesky democratic process to worry about. Instead, they push ACTA (which still isn't dead), and TPP (which looks to be significantly worse than ACTA). And they label them as "trade agreements" (even though they're obviously treaties), that way they don't have to deal with that pesky Senate that seems to respond better to millions of voters than millions of dollars. Yep, now they can do ALL their business in secret, back-room deals, and skip that entire public review phase.
And then, once the U.S. is signed onto these treaties, Congress gets the easy out: "We have to bring our laws into line with our international agreements!"
dodd (Score:2)
"Okay, we lost but you guys are still wrong and you suck for how you did it" doesn't sound like someone who learned their lesson.
SOPA and PIPA are dead... (Score:3)
Dodd? Seriously? His record speaks for itself (Score:2)
As a Senator this guy was key in screwing up things for us as citizens well beyond his new role with the MPAA. Dodd-Frank and his other forays into trying to bring order where order didn't need to be invested is going to haunt us for years to come. Shit, it would be better if Jack Valenti rose from the dead and ran the MPAA than this idiot. Sorry, this guy is a chode and he wants to screw you over in any way he can. From this. [wikipedia.org]
On January 17, 2012, Dodd released a statement criticizing "the so-called 'Blackout Day' protesting anti-piracy legislation."[26] Referring to the websites participating in the blackout, Dodd said, "It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and use their services. It is also an abuse of power... when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests."[26] In further comments, Dodd threatened to cut off campaign contributions to politicians who did not support PIPA and SOPA, legislation supported by the MPAA.[27]
Disservice? PIPA and SOPA are disservices to consumers everywhere and he shou
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On January 17, 2012, Dodd released a statement criticizing "the so-called 'Blackout Day' protesting anti-piracy legislation."[26] Referring to the websites participating in the blackout, Dodd said, "It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and use their services.
Funny, I never thought these sites owed me their services. I don't recall signing any such contract with them. They do so on a voluntary basis and their willingness to do it is appreciated. I also appreciate their willingness to take a stand on this. I would respect it even if I disagreed with it. It's called honor. It's not something the likes of Dodd would understand because it cannot be deposited in a bank.
Those tactics don't work on people who have emotionally matured past the point of having a
he admits nothing.... (Score:2)
Dodd is a politician, politicians lie, thus Dodd is a liar
I remember doing my part. (Score:2)
Bob Casey wrote back,"No it isn't about free speech."
I wrote back,"Yes, it is about free speech."
Then he sends a form letter out to everyone,"I'm changing my stance on this issue because it is about free speech."
Is there anyway we can retroactively get rid of DMCA? That stuff is being abused now.
"Let's talk" (Score:2)
He said the MPAA isn't focused on getting similar legislation passed in the future, at the moment. 'I think we're better served by sitting down [with the tech sector and SOPA opponents] and seeing what we agree on.'
How reasonable-sounding. It'd be more convincing if you had tried that approach BEFORE you tried to shove this thing through. Given that your initial approach was to big-foot the opposition and you got your asses handed to you, the other side would be justified in looking at your outstretched ha
Truth & Lies (Score:2)
He is saying the truth that they are dead. IMHO, it's a lie to say that groups like MPAA, such as RIAA and similar groups in other countries aren't trying to get similar laws passed as part of treaties and through the UN, etc.
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I ditched google and am currently using startpage. Is there any alternative that doesn't censor or use googles data set? Information likes to be free, and so do I!
You can use Startpage's sister company ixquick.com. It's just like Startpage except it's their own search engine that is not dependent on what Google does.
It's not quite as high-quality but it's been more than good enough every time I've tried it.
Re:StartPage (Score:2)
However Startpage has been yelling at me "you have done a large amount of searches, we are going to block you to prove you're not a bot."
(like 10 a day, mostly going to X sites)
Re: (Score:2)
However Startpage has been yelling at me "you have done a large amount of searches, we are going to block you to prove you're not a bot." (like 10 a day, mostly going to X sites)
I've never personally had Startpage do that. Could it be actually coming from Google?
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