Slashdot Mirror

http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearing.cfm?id=1276

(read Gary Shapiro's testimony)

• VoIP must be stopped! It lets people make phone calls without paying someone [other than the broadband provider]!
• Making people pay [a fortune] for commercial television. I remember when people thought it was okay to pay for cable because you got things like HBO, which didn't have commercials. HBO still doesn't have commercials, but it's still an extra $12/mo on your $60 cable bill.
• When did ease-of-use become piracy? I used to make mixtapes for girlfriends. I had the Jerky Boys calls on some umpteenth generation copy of a copy. I don't remember anyone up in arms about this--the Jerky Boys got a movie deal out of that underground phenomenon. Now that I can easily make a share a mix it's illegal?

Whatever the outcome, make sure to check here to see how your representatives will have voted, decide whether that represents you, then donate and vote accordingly.

I already wrote a letter to mine. Do it now.

It's important to point out the absurdity of the wording--the fact that it's too broad and could even be used to target Mead and other paper companies for making tracing paper.

It's heavy handed legislation whose wording leave too much open for interpretation. That alone is enough to have any sane legislator view it as unsound public policy---regardless of the bill's true vs perceived/implied motivations.

Keep it short, but point out how ridiculous it is.

No, no, no. Paul Wellstone (D-MN) was killed in the crash. The senator who voted against the Patriot Act was Russ Feingold (D-WI), who is also the co-sponor of the campaign finance reform bill known as McCain-Feingold.

1) Here is the Washington Post archive on how Clinton is involved in selling missile technology to red China. You will also remember that under Clinton Nuclear secrets got to China. There is so stuff about that there too.

2) Clinton did in fact purjur himself, which is a felony, and that is why he was impeached. It was not about the sex, although that is what he lied about.

3) Here is where you can find the recent Senate SIC report which says Bush didn't do anything wrong, that the CIA is run by lazy people, and that if they got faulty intelligence. It wasn't just the CIA, others (MI6 and others) said the same thing. Bush is not at fault.

The policy of "regieme change" in Iraq was set out by the Clinton Administration. Don;t forget all of the UN resolutions against Iraq. You, sir, should be ashamed of yourself. The facts are not on your side so you claime the president is stupid and things. He is not. Sure Daddy Bush was smarter, sure Reagan was 4x the man as "G-Dub." But democrats are pirates who want to steel from rich people and give to lazy people.

Why?

Why do you expect that large companies, the ones who benefit most from the DMCA, would want their politicians to overturn a bill as beneficial to them as the DMCA?

What we have here is a small service vendor that wanted to repair its clients' products, and a huge company that wanted to overcharge to repair them itself.

The DMCA was CREATED for these large companies. Record companies, computer companies, you name it. It allows them to completely control their products beyond anything the owner wants to do with them, simply by claiming that the owner is "circumventing copyright control mechanisms".

You know what the DMCA really is? It's a way to extend software end user licensing agreements, which say that you don't actually own what you purchase, to physical and other abstract products.

And to get rid of it, you guys in the US need a huge government change that I doubt is going to happen soon, even with the election.

repeal the "patriot" act!

write your rep
Contact your senator
Letters to leaders

Please help get this worthless legislation off the lawbooks. Throwing legal protections out the window may be handy at the moment, but I guarentee that it will bite you or someone you care about in the ass sooner or later. As Ben Franklin said: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Which is amazing considering that the Patriot Act initially passed with only 66 nay's in the House and only a SINGLE nay in the Senate.

The actual text of this bill really isn't that long. For the link impared, this is the formal text of the bill:

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004'.

SEC. 2. INTENTIONAL INDUCEMENT OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT.

Section 501 of title 17, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

(g)(1) In this subsection, the term `intentionally induces' means intentionally aids, abets, induces, or procures, and intent may be shown by acts from which a reasonable person would find intent to induce infringement based upon all relevant information about such acts then reasonably available to the actor, including whether the activity relies on infringement for its commercial viability.

(2) Whoever intentionally induces any violation identified in subsection (a) shall be liable as an infringer.

(3) Nothing in this subsection shall enlarge or diminish the doctrines of vicarious and contributory liability for copyright infringement or require any court to unjustly withhold or impose any secondary liability for copyright infringement.

*******************

With all the knee jerk anti-Republican anti-anything sentiment on /., I am really surprised that nobody actually posted the contents of the bill itself.

The problem with this bill is that it is overly broad and can mean quite a bit to many people, and is so broad that it actually forces judges into interpreting this in whatever manner they really want to. This is especially surprising when Mr. Hatch's own website is railing on the fact that judges are ruling in areas he feels should be regulated by congress. A clue to Senator Hatch: If you don't want judges making arbitrary rulings, don't give them bills like this that allow this sort of broad judgement that makes them to have to create new laws for every arbitrary and silly concept that comes up.

Frankly, this is a poorly written bill, and should be killed for that reason alone.

What, from my reading of the above text can tell, this allows any system that allows bits to be copied in any manner, including chip manufacturers that incorporate the "MOV" opcode in their CPUs, to be potential targets of this legislation. By creating the "MOV" opcode in their CPU designs, they are intentionally creating a device that "intentionally aids, abets, induces, and procures and creates acts a reasonable person would find to induce copyright infringement". We are not talking P2P networks, but going much lower than that here.

Computers are information storage and retrevial devices. They work because they copy data and information all over the place. You can litterally sneeze, press the wrong key, and send a "copy" of any data that is on your computer to anybody in the world that is connected to your PC.

How this would more than likely be read by judges is that stuff like DeCSS would be illegal, because its purpose is to defeat copyright protection. I even think that was the intention of Sen. Hatch in this case. That is also why P2P networks of most sorts would also be declared illegal, although that is starting to get into more grey areas.

Where I wish that legslation would have gone, as has been pointed out elsewhere, is to go after hardcore(??) software pirates. I.E. people who make it their livelyhood to produce copies of copyrighted works without payment to the original authors/companies that make the copyrighted material. I could name many cases that I know of personally where for-profit companies, in some cases even with a business license and chartered corporations, in the USA (not some far-off country that has more liberal copyright laws), have copied computer software with impunity and only bought a single copy when they've sold hundreds of copies out of their store or business.

The key is the act of copyright

Why don't you see if one of your senators is on the committee? Write them and let them know what a bad idea this is. Unfortunantly, many senators will not accept correspondence from someone outside their state, so bear this in mind when you get ready to use your pen.

this link seems to work better
http://judiciary.senate.gov/print_member_statement .cfm?id=623&wit_id=51

Do your part.

Tell Orrin Hatch that A) This law will change nothing (I thought we had legislation to stop spam...), B) He's a US senator, and has no control over the spread of P2P apps oversears, regardless of where they come from, and C) He'd also be opening up a lawsuit vs. many, MANY legit companies. (ICQ to name a prominent one).

While I am a strong supporter of IP rights this bill scares me the most by establishing a blanket effect over P2P development. This bill has the possiblity to be as disruptive as the DMCA.

Everyone should write to Sen. Hatch

In order to make the laying of fiber (or any other cable) profitable, typically companies have to hope for a monopoly service so they can charge whatever is necessary to recoup their costs. But, in an age in which other means of Internet and telephone access exist, that's an impossible requirement. Competition would exist from day one from cable and telephone operators, supplying a service that may be "good enough" for most consumers.

This quagmire of businesses being unable to guarantee the business case exists for producing a modern telecommunications infrastructure will not disappear by itself. Resources need to be devoted, and unless people are prepared to actually act, not just talk about it on Slashdot, nothing will ever get done. Apathy is not an option.

You can help by getting off your rear and writing to your congressman or senator. Tell them that bandwidth is important to you. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done by telephone companies (both mobile and fixed line), cable operators, Craig McCaw, satellite operators, and now broadband-over-airship operators, to create an infrastructure that will provide more plentisome bandwidth to a large group of people, but that if new businesses continue to be unable to justify the huge expense of laying a genuinely large enough pipe to every home to create enough bandwidth to support just about any application, you will be forced to use less and less secure and intelligently designed alternatives. Explain the concerns you have about freedom, openness, and choice, and how the lack of bandwidth harms all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on their policies on bandwidth.

You CAN make a difference. Don't treat voting as a right, treat it as a duty. Remember, it was thanks to ordinary people like YOU that we are now seeing such innovations as SMP in OpenBSD. Keep informed, keep your political representatives informed on how you feel. And, most importantly of all, vote.

Ummm...so was Jack Valenti. He was a cabinet member in LBJ's cabinet. Special assistant to the President, whatever that entails. My Congressman and both of my Senators are thoroughly 0wnz0r3d by the RIAA and MPAA. And they all are Democrats. Dems are usually better about personal freedom issues, but that all falls apart whenever Big Media and their desire for special rights against potential thieves^H^H^Hconsumers enters into the picture.

Ummm...so was Jack Valenti. He was a cabinet member in LBJ's cabinet. Special assistant to the President, whatever that entails. My Congressman and both of my Senators are thoroughly 0wnz0r3d by the RIAA and MPAA. And they all are Democrats. Dems are usually better about personal freedom issues, but that all falls apart whenever Big Media and their desire for special rights against potential thieves^H^H^Hconsumers enters into the picture.

adding violence to any political game... is always a win

You wouldn't be a descendant of Charles Sumner, by any chance?

1) What is it now?
The "five times more likely" is current.

2) Are Bill O'Reilly/Ann Coulter/Rush Limbaugh members of the press? (hint: the answer is technically no - they're pundits and do not report news)
Maybe (depends on how you define press). Press != report news. One definition of press includes: "Commentary or coverage"

3) Were editors/owners counted?
Unsure.

4) Define 'liberal'. If "Not voting for GHWB"==Liberal, then you don't quite know liberal. Far more accurate studies have shown that members of the press are indeed liberal in some human-interest stories, but far more fiscally conservative than the general population when it comes to things like tax cuts, retirement, social security, etc.

The members of the press identified themselves in that study as "liberal", "moderate", or "conservative". And what studies are you sighting? The press, conservative on tax cuts and social security? Come on now...

If that UCLA one is the one I'm thinking of, they're comparing members of the press to members of congress to find out if they lean left/right. Doesn't sound right to me.

How so? Are you saying that congress is in general conservative? I'd say it's pretty damn close to split right down the middle. For every Hatch you have a Boxer.

1) What is it now?
The "five times more likely" is current.

2) Are Bill O'Reilly/Ann Coulter/Rush Limbaugh members of the press? (hint: the answer is technically no - they're pundits and do not report news)
Maybe (depends on how you define press). Press != report news. One definition of press includes: "Commentary or coverage"

3) Were editors/owners counted?
Unsure.

4) Define 'liberal'. If "Not voting for GHWB"==Liberal, then you don't quite know liberal. Far more accurate studies have shown that members of the press are indeed liberal in some human-interest stories, but far more fiscally conservative than the general population when it comes to things like tax cuts, retirement, social security, etc.

The members of the press identified themselves in that study as "liberal", "moderate", or "conservative". And what studies are you sighting? The press, conservative on tax cuts and social security? Come on now...

If that UCLA one is the one I'm thinking of, they're comparing members of the press to members of congress to find out if they lean left/right. Doesn't sound right to me.

How so? Are you saying that congress is in general conservative? I'd say it's pretty damn close to split right down the middle. For every Hatch you have a Boxer.

I'm a little surprised that no one has mentioned that Israel has been offering a "trusted traveler" program since 1996.

Regardless of your politics or religion or whatever, you have to admit that there are few countries that have to deal with terrorism on a more daily basis than Israel.

And it appears that Israel's voluntary program has also been effective on a logistics level. I found this quote via Google, from the page of Sen. Hutchison (R-TX) referencing a report by the General Accounting Office :

At Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport, security waiting time has been reduced from approximately one hour to 20 seconds through the use of biometric identifiers.

The biometric identifiers mentioned are part of the "trusted traveler" program.

As long as any program such as this is not compulsory, I view it as a useful option.

- Neil Wehneman

You've got your facts wrong. And since you didn't see the film, I guess that's OK. Rep. Mark Kennedy of Minnesota is the guy you're speaking of. And he did not 'decline' he in fact said... well, here's the transcript. (EMPHASIS MINE)

Transcript of Interview with Rep. Mark Kennedy.

CONGRESSMAN KENNEDY How are you doing?

MM: I'm trying to get members of congress to get their kids to enlist in the army and go over to Iraq. Is there any way you could help me with that?

CONGRESSMAN KENNEDY: How would I help you?

MM: Pass it out to other members of congress.

CONGRESSMAN KENNEDY: I'd be happy to. Especially those who voted for the war.

CONGRESSMAN KENNEDY: I have a nephew on his way to Afghanistan.

MM: Because there is only one member who has a kid over there in Iraq. This is Corporal Henderson, he is helping me out here.

CONGRESSMAN KENNEDY: How are you, good to see you.

MM: There it is, it's just a basic recruitment thing. Encourage especially those who were in favor of the war to send their kids. I appreciate it.

CONGRESSMAN KENNEDY: Okay, bye.

The thing is, Congressman Kennedy is the one that started to twist what happened, see? Only his image was used in the film, nothing else. No words were put in his mouth and the encounter, as evidenced in the above transcript, is completely cordial. So what exactly does he have to get his panties into a wad about? What, that he did in fact help recruit fellow congresspeople's children to fight in the war as he promised and yet Moore is saying he didn't? That's laughable (that one would assume he would actually go and recruit anyone). Moore's wearing his satirist cap here and simply presenting the absurdity of walking up to people in office and requesting something so surreal. And yet his point is made because we should *all* ask ourselves if Congress might not have been so quick to give Bush what he wanted if more of their own children were in the armed forces. Recall that Joe Biden was seething at John Ashcroft a few weeks ago when he made it plain that the reason we abide by the Geneva Convention and don't torture is because we don't want our own (in this case, Biden's own son) children in the armed forces to be tortured.

Senator Levin also pointed out how Enron had used stock options to avoid paying U.S. taxes while overstating company earnings. For example, Enron had failed to pay U.S. income tax in four out of five years, from 1996 to 2000, despite alleged revenues totaling $1.8 billion. To avoid paying about $625 million in taxes on its $1.8 billion in income, Enron apparently claimed stock option tax deductions totaling almost $600 million. At the same time, Enron never reported this $600 million as an expense on its financial statements. Enron was able to do so, because U.S. accounting rules allow stock option compensation to be kept off a company's books as an expense, even when taken as a business expense deduction on the company's tax return.

Iirc, The entire senate also voted for the patriot act, didn't it?

No, Russ Feingold (Wisconson) voted against it, the only Senator to do so. The final Senate vote count was 98-1 (Mary Landrieu of Louisiana didn't vote because she was in a very tight election race and voting for it would have hurt her chances).

Maybe you should think a bit harder about what it means when some country's parliament unanimously votes for a law that really should have been highly controversial.

It wasn't anywhere near a unanimous vote. In addition to Feingold in the Senate, 66 Representatives voted against it.

And yes, it should have been discussed and debated thoroughly before passage. That irked me considerably.

Iirc, The entire senate also voted for the patriot act, didn't it?

No, Russ Feingold (Wisconson) voted against it, the only Senator to do so. The final Senate vote count was 98-1 (Mary Landrieu of Louisiana didn't vote because she was in a very tight election race and voting for it would have hurt her chances).

Maybe you should think a bit harder about what it means when some country's parliament unanimously votes for a law that really should have been highly controversial.

It wasn't anywhere near a unanimous vote. In addition to Feingold in the Senate, 66 Representatives voted against it.

And yes, it should have been discussed and debated thoroughly before passage. That irked me considerably.

You know, that's pretty interesting...

once again, obligatory links:
support the EFF
write your senator

This lawsuit is creepy, but extremely plausible. After reading so much Grooklaw recently I felt like I was reading a real lawsuit. Time to write our senators this weekend. Find your senators here:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/ senators_cfm.cfm

And the EFF's action item on this, complete with a sample letter, is here.

We should all make a habit of this - I personally don't write these people often enough.

Shall we see what the combined ire of Slashdotters does to the server that hosts Senator Hatch's website?

I don't know what you're going to do, but I just took 10 minutes and wrote Sen. Allen asking him to keep this legislation on "a short leash".

Use the Senate web site to contact them electronically. Postal mail costs a stamp and can be delayed 6 weeks by decontamination procedures.

...are probably not happy about you blaming them for your misunderstanding. This is the simplest, shortest explanation I can find at the moment - the simplest, shortest version that doesn't have pictures to color in and dots to connect anyway...

If a bill proposes to enact certain provisions, but does not explicitly amend existing law on the same subject, then the intended relation between bill and law can be ambiguous. The resolution of these ambiguities may come through juridical or administrative interpretation. In the absence of clear conflict between an existing and a new provision, courts normally presume that the two are intended to be read together, and attempt to give both the fullest effect possible. In that case the provisions in the new law would be interpreted as additional to the previously existing ones. By contrast, an earlier enactment may always be superseded by a later one, so that, if a new enactment is interpreted as conflicting with existing provisions of statute, the new provisions may be held to supersede the earlier ones.

"How Bills Amend Statutes", Congressional Research Service (Library of Congress)

If you want more, I'll get more.

Lieberman? Senator from an ``urban liberal area'' that borders on both of the states you mentioned? You might have heard of him, ran for a national office recently. He's attacked video games, music, and tons of ``offensive'' media.

This report is a bit more optimistic - the glass is half full.

Back in the late eighties and early nineties we actually had a wide range of platforms and real choices when it came to computing. The Amiga was one of those choices, and were it not for some bad business decisions in the early nineties, perhaps it would remain a mainstream, if niche, platform today.

But it's hard for a platform to get noticed today. Just look at Linux. Despite overwhelming support from the PC establishment, it barely exists on more than 2-3% of desktops, with servers - used and operated primarily by geeks who know what they're doing - being the only area it's doing well in. The problem is that PC manufacturers are unwilling to cater for niche markets, and by doing so they're harming themselves and harming innovation. They're harming themselves by not producing something that will attract greater profit margins because it's sufficiently different from the mainstream to compete on somehting other than price, and they're harming innovation because without choices, innovation suffers. Apple has proven, by being the richest computer hardware company in the world, that you can profit in the niche. But it takes a will to get there. Why did Gateway not exploit the Amiga niche while they still had it?

This quagmire of artists, consumers, and PC manufacturers being unable to diversify in the platforms available will not disappear by itself. Resources need to be devoted, and unless people are prepared to actually act, not just talk about it on Slashdot, nothing will ever get done. Apathy is not an option.

You can help by getting off your rear and writing to your congressman or senator. Tell them that a diversity of platforms is important to you. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done by the hiers to the Amiga source and the work by the GNU/Linux community to create an infrastructure that will support true choice in the computing community, but that if PC manufacturers continue to be unable to overthrow their conservatism, instead disappearing into the void that is commodity hardware, you will be forced to use less and less secure and intelligently designed alternatives. Let them know that SMP may make or break whether you can efficiently deploy OpenBSD on your workstations and servers. Explain the concerns you have about freedom, openness, and choice, and how the lack of platform choices harms all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on their policies on platform diversity.

You CAN make a difference. Don't treat voting as a right, treat it as a duty. Keep informed, keep your political representatives informed on how you feel. And, most importantly of all, vote.

I'm hoping we're going in this direction, though. There has been talk recently of passing a law requiring cable and satelite companies to offer individual channels a la carte. I'd love to see this, because I never tune to most of the channels I'm forced to buy from DirecTV in order to get the few I am interested in.

Similarly, as you and others have commented, it would be great to get individual shows without being required to buy the entire channel/network. I don't think it's as bad as you say, however. It would just bring things more in line with the movie industry, where you choose individual movies to watch but aren't forced to buy a subscription to all of Disney's movies just because you want to watch one of them.

I dream of the day I can buy a subscription to a few networks that consistently produce good content (HBO, Discovery, History), grab just a few shows I'm interested in from some other networks (FX, NBC, ABC), and ignore the rest. And all of this would be delivered through my existing internet connection. The money I save due to not having to buy content I'm not interested in can be put towards a faster pipe.

Still, this model has the downside of further contributing to the "winner take all" structure that is becoming more and more prevalent in entertainment and business these days.

How long until you realize you wouldn't want to live in a roman democracy? Majority rules all the time.

If we were in a democracy, we'd still have slavery, all be Protestant catholics, and the luddites probably would have won the industrial age "war". Hell, the "majority" didnt even support the war of independance that formed the USA. But we follow a system of republic representation, where a few people make decisions that represent the majorities, a few that we think have the foresight to counter bad policies and repeal bad laws.

If you feel your representative no longer holds your interests at heart, then by all means, stop voting for them. And if you chose not to vote, then shut your yap, you have no grounds to complain.

Hatch's boy is one of the lawyers for the SCO. No surprise there. Daddy's just trying to make the laws for his baby boy to enforce.

Call your senators (you have two) and tell them to oppose this bill. If you don't know who they are, go here to find out.

I shouldn't say something like that without backing it up.

Here: Content Protection Status Report

Implementation of a "broadcast flag" is listed as Goal One. Goal two is ... wait for it ... "plugging the analog hole".

Of course there are easy technical ways to bypass any such schemes if you can get your hands on uncrippled A/D hardware. Your student or journalist is welcome to take advantage of them if they are willing to risk going to prison.

Deal with the ones we currently have ...

We all know Russia has plenty of weapons that are unaccounted for, (or some that have bad care taking/accounting). So instead of funding all this new bullshit, and this useless war on Iraq, how about we keep funding for arms control like Nunn-Lugar or Start III ?

Sunny Dubey

Huh? I am from Wisconsin. Feingold was the only one who voted against it. Thank God for him.

The record is here.

Wellstone voted Nay... don't you just love misinformation. Conspiracy theorists love that!

Worthless in America. Unless you have CA$H you have no representation. Besides my senator and house rep are stupid fucking republicans (yes I have contacted them, no they don't care).

Senate

House

At least Uncle Tom (JCWatts) is gone.

Dont just post here. Write your reps and congressmen.

House
Senate

We need to show them that this is something that people care about. Sure we dont have Disney dollars, but we can still make some noise.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/06/18/us_senator _would_destroy_mp3/
http://hatch.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Press Releases.Detail&PressRelease_id=1005
http://hatch.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Press Releases.Detail&PressRelease_id=946&Month=11&Year= 2003
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/27/19 27252&mode=thread&tid=103&tid=126&tid=95&tid=9 9
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/26/13 30254&mode=thread&tid=103&tid=141&tid=187&tid=188& tid=99
http://hatch.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Press Releases.Detail&PressRelease_id=947&Month=11&Year= 2003
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/20/004623 7&mode=thread&tid=103&tid=185&tid= 99

etc...

-Derek

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/06/18/us_senator _would_destroy_mp3/
http://hatch.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Press Releases.Detail&PressRelease_id=1005
http://hatch.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Press Releases.Detail&PressRelease_id=946&Month=11&Year= 2003
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/27/19 27252&mode=thread&tid=103&tid=126&tid=95&tid=9 9
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/26/13 30254&mode=thread&tid=103&tid=141&tid=187&tid=188& tid=99
http://hatch.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Press Releases.Detail&PressRelease_id=947&Month=11&Year= 2003
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/20/004623 7&mode=thread&tid=103&tid=185&tid= 99

etc...

-Derek

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/06/18/us_senator _would_destroy_mp3/
http://hatch.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Press Releases.Detail&PressRelease_id=1005
http://hatch.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Press Releases.Detail&PressRelease_id=946&Month=11&Year= 2003
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/27/19 27252&mode=thread&tid=103&tid=126&tid=95&tid=9 9
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/26/13 30254&mode=thread&tid=103&tid=141&tid=187&tid=188& tid=99
http://hatch.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Press Releases.Detail&PressRelease_id=947&Month=11&Year= 2003
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/20/004623 7&mode=thread&tid=103&tid=185&tid= 99

etc...

-Derek

I say this as a liberal.

And who voted those members of Congress into power? We did.

I did no such thing, thank you very much. Instead I voted for the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act. Even in harsh times, some politicians are able to separate good laws from laws that are shoved down our throats; laws that we must pass, lest we be labelled terrorists.

Also, Kucinich is a member of the House of Representatives (from Ohio), and therefore, not a Senator. So if your government teacher keeps telling you this, you should set him or her straight.

I wonder, in some ways, if computing has been harmed by the removal of interpreters. Even when MSDOS came with QBASIC, BASIC programs became very much second class citizens in that environment. The fun and accessability has been removed from programming. Some of it is there in environments like Python under Linux, but even then there's a complexity and obscurity attached. It's not like the VIC 20, with its blinking cursor and "READY." prompt. You have to know the interpreter is there. You have to find it. You then have to go through a range of hurdles to know what it is capable of.

And in some ways, the lack of simplicity of environments like Python is harmful too. Much of the fun of programming was learning how to do amazing things at a relatively low level. Now languages are so complex, and libraries so relied upon, I'd venture to say most programmers do not understand how their programs will run, that something as simple as a change of data structure might make their program run 10,000% faster. Hashing? Sorting? Let the interpreter do it. That stuff's "too hard".

How do you make programming fun as long as we make computers complex? I'm not sure we can. And our computers will become steadily more complex, because increasingly the only people who program will be those with little love of the art. Those who think that a Python library is an adequate substitute for understanding. Just as society has moved to a "condemn, never understand" approach, so has programming moved to a "just get the job done, don't understand the results or the reasons" approach. This is wrong, but it's a vicious circle.

This quagmire of programming become more serious and more unnecessarily complex as the unnecessary complexities drives talented would-be "real" programmers out will not disappear by itself. Resources need to be devoted, and unless people are prepared to actually act, not just talk about it on Slashdot, nothing will ever get done. Apathy is not an option.

You can help by getting off your rear and writing to your congressman or senator. Tell them that programming is important to you. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done by Guido to create a more modern alternative to BASIC that is accessable to even the most Texan village idiot, but that if computers are not made fun again you will be forced to use less and less secure and intelligently designed alternatives. Let them know that SMP may make or break whether you can efficiently deploy OpenBSD on your workstations and servers. Explain the concerns you have about freedom, openness, and choice, and how the lack of a computer that boots into a READY prompt, ready for programming, harms all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on their policies on bringing back home computers.

You CAN make a difference. Don't treat voting as a right, treat it as a duty. Keep informed, keep your political representatives informed on how you feel. And, most importantly of all, vote.

The major issue is one of choice. Given the choice between not paying anything towards the creation of music, and paying something to an organization like the RIAA, clearly most people would rather do the former. If a non-governmental agency is to be put in charge of handing out grants to artists, it must have the ability to compell payment. There are multiple ways this can be achieved, currently we only provide a limited mechanism through copyrights. But if copyrights were to be reformed, we could institute this kind of compulsion while giving people their fair use rights back. This would suit everyone.

As you say, community values must also play a part in the creation of music, we can't allow rappers to advocate murder and receive funds that people have no choice but to pay. I would add to that the use of swearwords, and, for obvious constitutional reasons, bans on religious or speech content. These can always be funded through other means, rather than via compulsory contributions.

The real issue is getting there. Most people have no objections to such a system being instituted as long as they receive something in return, for example the free redistribution of content itself. But unless we can persuade the current content producers to accept such terms, something that cannot be done without also providing the means for them to receive money via the compulsory payment system evisaged above, they will not accept such a radical proposal.

This quagmire of artists and consumers being unable to accept a better environment for the funding of arts unless both are dealt with at the same time will not disappear by itself. Resources need to be devoted, and unless people are prepared to actually act, not just talk about it on Slashdot, nothing will ever get done. Apathy is not an option.

You can help by getting off your rear and writing to your congressman or senator. Tell them that free and open music is important to you. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done by the libertarians to create an infrastructure that will support truly free - as in liberty - music, but that if the chicken and agg problem inherent in a sideways reform of copyright is not resolved, you will be forced to use less and less secure and intelligently designed alternatives. Let them know that SMP may make or break whether you can efficiently deploy OpenBSD on your workstations and servers. Explain the concerns you have about freedom, openness, and choice, and how the lack of a mechanism whereby a private company can compell people to pay money to be ridistirbuted amongst artists harms all three. Tell them you will only accept such a system as long as strict limits are placed upon the type of content that can be funded, owing to the compulsory nature of the contributions. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on their policies on private music funding.

You CAN make a difference. Don't treat voting as a right, treat it as a duty. Keep informed, keep your political representatives informed on how you feel. And, most importantly of all, vote.

See here and here.

- Space Rogue