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SSSCA Hearings Postponed Under Heavy Opposition
Concerned Citizen writes "Both the EFF and WIAFLW are reporting that the "Senate Commerce Committee's hearings on the
Security Systems Standards and Certification Act
(SSSCA or DMCA-2) which had been originally schedule for today (Oct. 25, 2001) have been postponed due to mounting
opposition, particularly from those in the tech community." Senator Fritz Hollings has yet to reschedule a hearing (it's likely that he won't), and has also indicated that he would consider modifying the bill."
As above, now is the time to write/call/email your senator. If the pressure is kept up they are much more likely to drop the bill permenantly. This could be a very good thing.
..this is the high water mark of dubious copyright legilation and that the tide will now recede.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Not looking that much, while this bill has been buried it does appear that where the USSR wanted the state to control everything the US wants large companies to control everything. The end result is similar with the average Joe or Joeski having zero power and rights.
Keep vigalent for your freedoms, or slowly they will disappear.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
What will be seen is it will be revamped into little more than making clear and more serious crimes under the DCMA. That may pass , that is what is more dangerous, the first is insane in scope and enforcment it would NEVER pass, as is evident by what is happening but a LITE version may, thats what makes it more dangerous than ever it WILL become law, look for this bill renamed .....
Excellent news... looks like a) the big boys (corps) have come in and had a word in their ear, or b) all your letters and lobbying of representatives has worked... I'm with the former :)
Al.
Let's face it. Within a few years the profession of 'programmer' will be protected by law, and any practicing programmer will have to be certified by a recognised educational establishment and/or Microsoft. Programming for fun will be allowed only for personal reasons. Any software intended for commercial use will have to confirm to the appropriate certification act.
If this sounds outlandish, think about how we construct buildings. Why should software developers be treated differently than architects and engineers?
(This is a leading question, but one I think will be asked by parties seeking to regulate the IT domain).
My blog
These guys are not as stupid as we would like to believe they are. It is very VERY likely that the beginning forms of this bill were so restrictive that no one in their right mind would pass it. The second and third phases as it is scaled back and becomes only slightly more palatable are the ones that we really have to look out for. They may end up making "compromises" that are still unacceptable to the public but are the exact effect they were after all along.
Digital is, by definition, imperfect. Analog is the way to go.
with the recent passing of the Anti-Terrorism bill, it's almost suspicious that congress would even think of dropping a bill like this one. Even more suspicious is the fact that it's the CORPORATIONS that are pushing them to drop it!!
Does this seem a little backwards to anyone else?
I think you all you american citizens should write a letter to your local voted congress man and tell him what you think about SSSCA and DCMA and inform them of the implications this laws will bring.
...covered by this, but this raises two questions:
Given that we have lots of interoperabilty between devices now, how would this affect a device that was built with no relation to that law? Either by age or location.
Surely this would essentially "require" other countries to inflict similar laws on their citizens?
I have a suggestion, how about burning the bill.
What piffle.
Has it gotten to the point that every cover sheet to every submitted bill or piece of legislation needs to have the Constitution attached?
Seriously, we have warning/information labels on everything else, why not make it mandatory?
A Constitutional EULA of sorts.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Ok, this SSSCA one might apply but all the other shit below is stupid.
Coming to slashdot to discuss politics is like going to a kindergarten class and discussing the theory of relativity.
I wonder how many hours they had the market drones on that one. You'd think, by the letter, that this was 4 guys, their wives and kids running a newspaper stand.
Oh, it affected us.. for shame, how ever will my kids eat! I just don't know how my pool man will survive on a pay cut!
They denied hacking into your computer, but they did not deny their solution, or explain what exactly the new law did to them.
Remember, these are lawyers, and nice little letters saying they won't hack your computer doesn't mean that they won't put "watchdog" code in your media player.
Again, Open source, compile everything you run, and know thy enemy.
Mike
Why, I thought they thought this was their best shot at outlawing Linux?
with the main difference that in a communist system, you pay taxes to government, which in theory would flow back to the people. in a corporate-run world, taxes go to corporations (=profits), which does not flow back to the public. Obviously, both these scenarios are extremes.. and extremes almost never work.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I want it to bve discussed right here right now.
I want it to become clear that this will require considerable investment from all parties for the benefit of the mdeia corporations.
I want someone to point out that the motion picture industry doesn't pay for films, but the consumer does.
I want the law to be ammended such that they are required to actively support software for alternative operating systems, and also to make sure that access control mechanisms only protect their legal rights, not the rights they would liekto have.
From the SSSCA:
Sec. 104: Adoption of Security System Standards
[Summary: The private sector has 12 months to agree on a standard, or the Secretary of Commerce will step in. Industry groups that can participate: "representatives of interactive digital device manufacturers and representatives of copyright owners." If industry can agree, the secretary will turn their standard into a regulation; if not, normal government processes apply and NTIA takes the lead.
So what happens if the industry agrees on a standard "nothing"?
Does that refer to the thousands of /.ers who've spent the last weeks emailing and faxing their representatives, or to "IBM, Intel, Microsoft and others" though? WIAFLW suggests the latter (unfortunately). Forget the /. lobbying group that people have been proposing - what about a /. charity to donate campaign funds to representatives who promise to vote sensibly... :-)
Finally our so-called representatives get to hear the full story. They should never underestimate the lobbying power of the free-software community. We are like a sleeping tiger. We do not want to cause trouble, but you should learn not to mess with us !!!
Now I have to wait for another bill to pass so I have a legitimate reason (in my parents eyes) to move to Europe.
Everytime you look at porn a devil gets their horns.
If state really would be controlled by government then they won't do so much bullshit. State doesn't care much about it's citizens but corporates care a lot about their shareholder
-- just a geek - trying to change the world
... that maybe the fact that part of the opposition to this bill comes from other big business might have been a factor? It's a mistake to assume that "big business" is one entity all of whom have the same agenda.
There are two factors here:
1. It will cost hardware and software makers to implement it.
2. Even if a small percentage of hardware/OSs are bought by people who use it for "bad things" then, particularly in hardware (where margins are thin), a small percentage makes a big difference to the bottom line.
More like one set of corps winning a victory over another set. Some seem to think that MS should have been in favour of this as it would "outlaw Linux". Not true - it just might outlaw running Linux without the SSSCA code. Anyone with some skills and a sense of adventure would be able to identify and remove the code from Windoze - hardware access aint hard to spot. Maybe a bit more work if you don't have the source, but still practical.
This sig made only from recycled ASCII
They'll just rename it the "USA is Brave and Proud and the Flag it Purty Act of 2001". It will pass in a week.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
Why do we waste our time writing the government? They have proved time and time again that the vast majority of them don't pay attention to their constituents.
Lets switch our lobbying efforts to Microsoft, Disney, Time Warner, etc! Obviously the people in charge are listening to them very closely!
These days, mail has become a problem, at least temporarily. And I assume that congress is still all spammed out in email and fax.
What is left is phone calls, visiting their office in your local district, while dropping off a hand delivered letter, etc. Or visiting their offices in DC if you are making a trip.
This is getting to be a headache.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
The second and third phases as it is scaled back and becomes only slightly more palatable are the ones that we really have to look out for.
Exactly. The coming discussions are the more important ones. Now is the time to step up the pressure. With the outrageous bill seemingly out of the way, it is time to focus on the one that has a chance of passing.
If we start to relax because "well, at least the SSSCA isn't going to pass," we're going to get stuck with something almost as bad.
Write your senator! Keep up the pressure! Defeat the SSSCA and its bastard children!
OK, so who's my senator anyway?
-- If any of the above made sense, I assure it was purely by accident.
Only someone who violates the law "willfully and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain" can be convicted.
So the solution here is not to do it for profit. It seems to me that open sourced freeware would be excluded from this law. This would include DeCSS since it has no commercial advantage nor private financial gain.
Clinton made me a Republican. Bush made me a Libertarian. Trump is making me question reality.
either they'll wait until everyone has forgotten about it, and have the hearing when nobody will know what's going on. or they will try to attach it to some obscure bill for wealthfare or something like that.
I'm a South Carolinian, and I wrote him. He never even sent an acknowledgement. Even though I usually vote democrat, I will not vote for him next time unless he does a complete about face. Maybe he should revise his bill to be like the one in the House, which requires the music industry to license their music to other online services, and doesn't force you to have "devices" in your electronic equipment.
-Shade
Actually, no, that's wrong.
In a "corporate-run" world, taxes still go to the govt, who continues to spend the money inefficiently. Lots and lots of those tax dollars come from those corporations. The money that the corporations make does flow back to the public, through wages, dividends on stocks, charitable giving for PR reasons, and, if the corporation gets successfull enough, they even go to massive infrastructure investments (i.e. communications, transportation and power distribution).
The real difference is: when a corporation gets really big and it is no longer in your best interest to "support" them with your hard earned dollars, you can choose not to. Try that with the government.
The fact is that neither corporations nor govt is inherently evil. They are both made up of people. Hopefully most of those people are driven by enlightened self interest. It's when the balance falls too much toward either "enlightenment" or self interest that things tend to go all to hell.
I can bet you that M$ didn't do this to be a good citizen. If this passed, they would have an ASS load of code to redo to incorperate the new 'standards'. Also, what would happen to them is thair upgraded code failed or some friendly hacker cracked it? Microsoft has had a recored of sh*ty security implmantation.
For us expatriates (but never ex-patriot) living overseas, and therefore without congressional representation, a heartfelt thanks to all who took the time and effort to express your concern to your congressmen or congresswomen.
I am reinstalling pgp now. :-)
Old fashoned, but I'm going to bet that postcards become very popular if they haven't yet.
Not private, but for most issues that I'll make a point of talking to my Congress-critter about, I'll tell others -- nay, varily, I will get drunk and shout about the issue -- so having someone else read the card isn't a big deal.
And I daresay, Europe will pay billions in invisibles to US - just like the large airline insurance hike.
You can't set standards that
a) someone has IP on
a.1) award a monopoly to digital signers.
b) secure dynamic objects/remote executables
c) come up with it in a year - hah. - see java.
d) no point in setting a low standard without QA and QC.
e) a 'good enough' standard that say is acceptable to MS, is probably lower than what folks hope.
f)
Just stick to due care and diligence in software writing, and a penalty for injury that is not excludable, for acts of negligence. Also if NSA's secure linux works, another product will look sick indeed.
hmm.. I dont agree with you on government being inefficient per se. IMO, the main goal of a corporation is to shift as much money as possible towards said corporation. The money has to come from someone(the proverbial "rest"). So rest gets less money, corporation gets more. Oh well.. you're not leaning to any of the extremes, I guess we could still stand in the same room without bashing eachother's head in ;) We both seem to agree that extremism is bad..
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I would like to think that too, but I doubt it. I suspect that this original language was drafted specifically to draw out the opposition that has occured. Now the "compromise" bill, which will contain 87.645% of the provisions of the original, will be rammed through.
sPh
In ancient times, there were hiring freezes directed specifically at IT departments. As a workaround, the non-IT departments would build their own "renegade" IT capability, using non-IT job titles to keep everything under the radar. The concept of using stealth techniques to avoid corporate policy can be applied to hardware, networks, software, and people. Some of these same techniques would be used to work around whatever dumb laws we might be stuck with.
IT is a very cyclical industry. When the job market is lousy, employers can require a Master's degree for an entry-level programmer and make it stick. When the job market is hot, the same employers will pay premium salaries and resort to door-to-door begging in pursuit of college dropouts.
We treat IT people diffently from architects, engineers (or even electricians), because when engineers make mistakes, people die. When IT people make mistakes, they call it Microsoft.
Any attempt to regulate the software development industry will fail because of...
They could try certifying the products instead of the people, but that will fail also. What would they do about the billions of lines of "uncertified" code already out there? Grandfather it? How does anyone know the difference between that code and new, uncertified code?
When Congress talks about regulating the industry, employers who fear higher costs will scream loudly and defeat the legislation. Any initiative that threatens to reduce the supply of cheap programmers or raise the cost of software development will never see the light of day. Not even Sen. Hollings would try a stunt like this.
It's the tech companies that are opposed to this. As I said elsewhere, the tech companies are opposed to this, and the "content" companies support it. It's BSA vs MPAA and RIAA. The people who make software and programming tools could be severely damaged by this bill, the movie/record companies would be helped by it. There's a major battle shaping up here between the two sides. One good thing about the Microsoft antitrust case is that it made the tech industry aware of just how important it was to lobby government.
Best Slashdot Co
#include <stdio.h>
void main(void)
{
for(int i = 0; i < 5 ; i++) printf("\t\t\b\b\b");
}
Heh... Back in the good ol' days (1960s and 1970s), the governments in most Soviet Bloc countries specifically prohibited listening and distribution of popular Western music, as it was seen as a "conductor of imperialist capitalist influence," so you could very well be arrested for listening to the Beatles or the Rolling Stones.
Not only that, there existed certain citizens who took upon themselves the responsibility of spying for anti-government activities, and in fact did report people for such capital offenses as listening to Western music.
Naturally, this situation created an enormous, thriving samizdat production of bootlegs of popular albums of the time, and in 1966 - 1968, during the social phenomenon known as the "new wave," which was initiatied by the Czech intellectuals, the regime relaxed enough to allow even state radio stations to play the evil Western music.
Which lasted until that fateful August 20 of 1968, may it forever remain in out memories, when Soviet tanks rolling in the beautiful city of Prague announced yet another blow to the free human spirit.
But I am sure the RIAA (and the MPAA for that matter) will be pleasantly surprised to learn that the methods they use to maintain their monopoly are so similar to the Soviet ones. Corporations have already demonstrated thay won't hesitate to use force in order to protect their "intellectual property," so how long before they employ their own army (or armies)?
Bush Lies Watch
Specify in law that content providers PAY for *all* R&D costs, implementaion costs (think *billions* of instances), legal fees, etc, etc associated with this lame ass idea, and you'll see it die mighty quick.
Since when is Mickey Mouse entitled to a free ride at the expense of the rest of the world?
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
Wow, no seriously. I thought by the time they start holding "hearings" and such, it's too late to do anything. I guess our goverment isn't completely broken.
You forgot to call me socialist european..
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
The real difference is: when a corporation gets really big and it is no longer in your best interest to "support" them with your hard earned dollars, you can choose not to. Try that with the government.
I think we did try that with the government - in 1776. You'd think with that experience under our belts, we'd be able to keep our government of, by, and for the people on track. Unfortunately, not enough people know or care what's going on in Congress now. If it weren't for the corporate opposition, SSSCA would be on GW's desk before we knew it.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
> I dont agree with you on government being
> inefficient per se.
That is the strangest definition of per se I've ever seen:
Main Entry: per se
Pronunciation: (")p&r-'sA also per-'sA or (")p&r-'sE
Function: adverb
Etymology: Latin
Date: 1572
: except every way possible
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
Please take a moment to learn who your senators and representatives are, figure out how to e-mail them (if you can, otherwise let them know you'd like to), and KEEP IN TOUCH. These people are there to represent YOU. They need to be made aware that issues like this affect you in very negative ways, and many are not technical enough to fully understand the ramifications of certain pieces of legislation. It's up to us to educate them.
I have no doubt in my mind that those of us that did end up writing to congress ended up being most of what this "opposition" was.
The companies WANT you to have the music; the Soviets didn't. The companies just want you to pay for it, as you should.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
Could be a dutch-ism.. english isn't my first language :)
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
(Apologies to MLK).
A Digital Media User's Bill of Rights.
A piece of legislation that lays out the rights consumers have with music, ebooks, movies, whatever, and makes it illegal for media producers to utilize any protection scheme which would prevent users from exercising these rights.
We should have the right to make a backup copy. We should have the right to time-shift programming. We should have the right to transfer from one format to another (eg, CD to MP3) for personal use on different devices. And we should be able to exercise these rights without any loss of quality imposed by copy protection. Obviously, we shouldn't be able to make gillions of copies for total strangers available on the internet, but we should probably have the right to make limited copies for friends and family.
Unfortunately, the chances of passing a piece of legislation that gives consumers rights and restricts corporations is just about nil. But if we could pull it off, we'd have won the battle against DMCA and SSSCA permanently.
Hey kids, there's only 5 days left 'til Yak Shaving Day!
Actually, it was the methodology I was remarking upon; the purported motives are irrelevant, because in both cases it is a struggle for power, masked by propaganda warfare.
I just thought it was remarkable what severe punishments the industry wants to apply towards those who dare to infringe copyright.
Bush Lies Watch
Postponed? Considered modifying? Hell, I'm jazzed! For a long time it just seems that we /.'ers are long on the talk, short on the walk. But this changes everything!
Nice Job guys! Keep up the good work! (whoever the contributers may be...)
What is music when you despise all sound?
"Why should software developers be treated differently than architects and engineers?"
Well, umm... maybe because architect's creations can collapse and kill people, and engineers' creations can explode and kill people, where the newest Adventure clone can... umm... it can crash. Or it might not print out my score properly! OH NO!! THE HORROR!!!
Now if someone's writing software to control an airplane's engine or a dump truck's brakes, then I agree it must have certification. Unfortunately, legislation like what we're seeing will ensure low quality software in these critical systems. No one can reverse-engineer or check up on Microsoft's "DumptruckBrakesXP", so it can be certified and then page fault in traffic. Crunch.
Just some food for thought.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
I posted this open letter to my representatives on the topic of SSSCA, and included anecdotal review of why DMCA shouldn't have been passed.
It includes Scope, Civil, Business, Technical, and Motivational issues against anything that even smells like SSSCA.
[
Copyright is going to have to be overhauled. I suggest a twist on Jessica Litman's idea:
1. Copying for personal use is protected. In ALL FORMS.
2. Copying for commercial purposes is prohibited unless expressly permitted by the copyright holder.
3. If an individual's "personal" copying results in a 1% loss of revenue for the publisher (whoever that may be), then the copier has violated rule #2, and is subject to penalty. The burden of proof is on the publisher, and they HAVE to show that their overall revenues have dropped as a result. Given the way media corporation profits tend to increase, this should be relatively difficult, excepting in cases where someone's REALLY breaking the law (like these overseas firms that'll press a zillion DVD's outside of the right to do so)
Note that this is just a framework, and should be subject to serious tweaking (i.e., the percentage, whether it should be gross revenue or net profit, etc...)
Now if someone's writing software to control an airplane's engine or a dump truck's brakes, then I agree it must have certification.
Any software-controlled part of an aircraft's airframe control systems or powerplant already has to meet stringent FAA certification before it can be used on a certificated production aircraft or retrofitted to any existing certificated aircraft. Certification is not needed for experimental aircraft however.
In light of the terrorist anthrax attacks on our mail system, I doubt that *any* CongressCritters are reading *any* regular postal mail anymore... They rarely read email before this either. Try telephone or perhaps now is the time for FAX machines to make a comeback to popularity.
I don't know where Bobo the Space Chimp got that surreal definition of per se, but here is what my book dictionary says:
per se, by, of, for, or in itself; intrinsically.[ L]
You used it correctly.
The idea of certification is nice, but many times the practice falls far short.
I had a Mechanical Engineering prof in university who had a P.E. He obsessed on studying the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald, and always spent one complete class period per course telling his students what he'd found out about the sinking. This fine P.E. insisted that there is no terminal velocity in water, and that the ship accelerated freely until it hit the rocks 530 feet below traveling at over 80 MPH (over 140 kph)!
Of course, I don't need to mention MSCE, do I?
This doesn't mean that certification is useless, of course, it just means that it doesn't guarantee competence
Just send a fax - ideally from a piece of paper so it has your signature at least, which looks more personal than a mass fax mailing.
per se (adv.) Of, in, or by itself or oneself; intrinsically.
[Latin: per, per + se, itself - per itself]
This matches the use perfectly when read as "I don't agree with you on government being inefficient in itself"
Baah!! There is not a finite amount of money in the country!!! ARGH!!!!
I'd like to beat the shit out of the economics teacher who keeps telling people this.
You didn't hear it in Economics? Well, that's a relief.
Companies don't hoard cash. In fact, hoarding cash is STUPID. The goal of a corporation is to be as profitable as possible, and that meaans they have to do something with all those dollars they have in the bank, where they're only earning a shitty 2% or so.
Like, pay them to more employees as they expand. Or, give them to the R&D dept (Xerox PARC anyone?) so they can come up with cool stuff to sell. Or, reinvest them in the market so they can get a high rate of return, which allows other companies to use the dollars to hire people and make more cool stuff.
Successful companies create wealth. They make more people wealthier than they were. They don't take money out of the system and fill a pool with it so the board can swandive in hundreds. Economics is NOT a zero-sum game.
Whatever happened to JonKatz?
For the life of me, I can't figure out why I don't like the SSSCA. I pirate information without a second thought, because I think all information is inheritly free, not something to be profited off of (info including music, movies, software, just about anything that can be turned into 1s & 0s.) But, setting aside my own reasoning towards it, the SSSCA is a reasonable way to protect against piracy...(how effective it is in the real world however. . .) So, why is this a bad law?
--Roy
However, if everyone is playing a positive-sum game, and one player plays against everyone else in a zero-sum manner, that one player can capture all the wealth in the system and keep it for himself.
In business school, the first semester you take intermediate micro. Then starting with the second semester, they say, "OK, now you know how competition works. Here is how you will undermine competition to capture the entire market for yourself."
I will leave you to fill in the examples.
sPh
Just as an FYI about 50% of both Congress and Senate are members of the American Bar Association, as were the outgoing President and her husband. Separation of powers, my huge hairy arse.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I assume that the reason that they want the industry to take a crack at it first is because RIAA et al has a better idea of just how restrictive they want this crap to be, and can do a much better job than gov't can at taking away your freedom to own media.
But the economy of the US as a whole can't be undermined by a single entity in a zero-sum manner. Even Standard Oil and AT&T were creating wealth even as they were hopping up and down on their competitors and making little squishy noises.
Whatever happened to JonKatz?
I have read many slashdot reader's comments asking how to contact their representatives (and many cynical responses as to why it is okay not to do so), so I will post this to the main message thread.
Go to www.senate.gov and look for your states senators. Call their offices. Tell them that you want to contact your representative and explain why. Ask them what the best way to contact your senator is, they will tell you. Once they do, use that medium to contact your senator.
Get all the information you can. Quote the sources you use to make your point. Make the points that this bill is contrary to the constitution (personally, I used amendment IV). Make it clear that you voted for them to protect your rights and freedoms, not give them away to Disney, et al.
The most important point is to come across as a well informed constituent. Don't write threatening, uninformed letters like some backwater rube.
If enough people put the pressure on, this bill will not pass (and we will be able to destroy laws like the DMCA)..
The time for thinking someone else will take care of it for you is over. Do your part as a member of the technology community. If every person that is against this bill (and others like the DMCA) write their senators, this bill will fail. Also, if every one of us keeps the pressure on our representatives concerning DMCA, it will also fail..
Unless you do something about this, you have no right to complain when your freedoms are stolen. Also, you can't win unless you fight..
Go write!
The companies also want to tell you WHAT music you can listen to. And HOW to listen to it. I don't call that choice.
Knowing the /. crowd this has probably already been posted, so forgive the redundancy, but for any who are unaware there is an anti-SSSCA petition here. It was at about 18,000 signatures when I signed. (wouldn't it be interesting if we could get it slashdotted?)
Make sure you get word to the Senator that because of his willingness to be a mouthpiece for Disney and friends, you will not be voting for him next term, and that you will do your best to actively lobby against him.
Then get a bunch of other people to send the same kind of thing to him.
The companies WANT you to have the music; the Soviets didn't. The companies just want you to pay for it, as you should.
I think a more accurate statement would be "The companies just want you to pay for it, as they want you to pay for it. " The conclusion that anyone who is anti-RIAA/MPAA only wants to get the content for nothing is often incorrect; these organizations are expanding copyright to prohibit uses that were earlier considered fair use, which I find objectionable.
They also like DRM technology because it enables new business models, like having content time limited, such that if you view a movie (that you BOUGHT) and want to see it again in a few months, you have to pay for it again. In essence, DRM lets them move from selling content to licensing it. You don't own the content in this scenario, you only pay for the right to use it, in whatever way the content provider decides (e.g. you can view it only once or twice, or only for a certain amount of time, etc.)
I think content providers know that a) these new models would be a Good Thing from their perspective, but b) most consumers would not like them, given that they make more money for the providers without providing anything extra or better for the consumers. In order to make these new models happen, they will use laws that make it difficult if not impossible to not play by their rules.
Of course, even if this new law (or one like it) passes, it won't be the end of the world (although you'll be able to see it from there.) Just because DRM technology has to be in digital devices, content providers won't have to use it. Some may feel they gain a competitive advantage doing things the old-fashioned way. This will last for as long as it takes the RIAA/MPAA to find a way to make non-DRM content illegal. I don't know if they can do that, but if they are hurt by non-DRM content they will do their best.
FYI, I posted this [slashdot.org] on Tuesday of this week:
Apparently Sen. Hollings was to have a hearing this week on the bill. Well Internet Daily reports that due to all the "general confusion" and some of this opposition, he will delay the hearing and won't introduce until he has "dialog" with affected industries. I have heard from second hand sources that even the BSA (not Boy Scouts) are not keen with this bill. Seems like it could DOA, or even pre arrival. But as always, keep vigilant!
Now that this joke Disney bill is dying a necessary death, it's time to send a message to the bought senators, by voting them out.
Whoever runs against him next election, keep hammering this to the voters. "Fritz cares more about the rights of Florida and California companies than your, his constituents, rights."
The people of S.C. have an obligation to get rid of this kind of shit!
Offtopic.
Not anymore, wasn't his bar revoked after the Monica scandal?
there are no stupid questions, but there are a lot of inquisitive idiots
Currently mail directed to Congress and other parts of the government is being shipped away from DC. They are planning to irradiate the mail before returning it to DC. I understand that quite a bit of it is headed for Ohio. Not sure where else it might be going, or how long the process will take. It's quite possible that it could take weeks for mail to get to DC.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Whichever position he takes on the bill, it'd be really easy to roast him over the coals for how the bill's blatant cluelessness interferes with it, and since much of Alaska's economy depends on oil, that should get his attention.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
This is the oldest trick in the book: propose some heinous piece of legislation that hasn't a hope in hell of passing, get shot down by irate citizens, then craft a "compromise" which is really what you wanted in the first place, plus 10% for chutzpah. That way your whore (read PAC-paid pol) gets to look statesmanlike while your objectives are met.
Meanwhile, no-one (apart from some computer geeks, and who listens to them anyway?) notices the RIAA came close to passing their Data Destruction, er, Copyright Protection Amendment through Congress. The Direct Marketing Association almost got away with a similar shenanigan when they tried piggybacking their pro-spam agenda onto the Anti-Slamming Bill a couple of years ago, after similar successes in state legislatures when they defanged junk email laws via midnight amendments by bought & paid for state pols. It looks like the RIAA took a leaf from their book.
"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance." The good news is computer people tend to stay up later than lobbyists, so we can (and should) be keeping an eye on these guys.
Francois.
There's a big difference between a bridge and a chunk of software. Software can and is tested before use that might harm the public. Bridges are not so easy to test full scale under working conditions.
PE restrictions do not keep "non engineers" from making things and offering their ideas to the public, it just keeps them from charging money for it and pretending they are something that they are not. Stoping that kind of activity would obviously violate the first amendment. Question, "Are you an engineer?". Answer, "No, I am not a Professional Engineer yet." That was easy, but it won't keep me from sharing any mechanical designs I come up with for fun.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I can already hear the drool from the lips of Rational/Clearcase sales reps from a thousand miles away.
Hey Fritz..Fuck you.
Yeah I said it.
And FUCK DISNEY AND MS TOO.
Even if you don't sign the petition, the "Mix, Rip, Burn, Jail" cartoon is worth the visit.
I apologize for how this looks. Apparently:
:P
Your comment violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition. Comment aborted. So the whitespace is ugly below.
Yay, so now we get to see the version of the bill get watered down to the point that it's "tolerable" and then when those partial controls don't stop piracy, we get to see the pressure racheted up.
FrogSoup* Person::make_frog_soup(Stove &stove, Frog *frog)
{
int cooking_time = 0;
FrogSoup *frogsoup;
do
{
frog->placed_into(stove.get_pot());
if (frog->jumps_out())
{
stove.add_temp(-1);
cooking_time = 0;
frog->placed_into(stove.get_pot());
}
else
{
cooking_time++;
stove.add_temp(1);
}
sleep(1);
}
while (cooking_time <2000);
frogsoup = new Frogsoup;
delete frog;
frogsoup->set_broth(stove.get_pot().get_content s());
return frogsoup;
}
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
Vlad - (posting anonymously to preserve my precious karma)
I will hook you up..right after I bitchslap that fag Scott Lockwood.
S - Posting anonymously to protect MY precious karma
care to post the whole thing online someplace?
Nice to see the Spirit of Superficiality is still alive and kicking in America, isn't it? True to form, he has a problem with the name but he can't quite spell the subject. I think this guy is every suit I know...
Sara T.
Since snail mail sent to Washington DC is probably sanitized with a flame thrower these days, I left a message on Sen. Hollings web site. Dunno if anyone reads these things, but it cannot hurt. At least it will not be burnt in fear of anthrax.
A few thousand like that, and even Disney's soft money will not be enough to convince Hollings that this bill is worth the spanking he'll get at the next election.
Mark Twain wrote that buying a senator back then cost about $30,000. Anyone knows the current price? (And I wish I could insert a smiley here.)
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
If you send snail mail in the form of a letter inside an envelope, tape the envelope shut so that this suddenly ever-present white powder cannot be injected in transit. Ensure that you include a valid return address and spell everything correctly (a Herculean task for Internet users these days!).
HAZMAT teams have been running numerous calls each day in many areas of the U.S. to respond to reports of letters in the mail with a white powder seeping from them.
---
slashdot: A failed experiment.
This looks good. Perhaps as Mr. Hollings, (and others) saw our letters of protest pouring in, he figured, hey maybe I'd better not push this thing too hard. Hopefully it will die all together rather than the burning of the constitution that happened with ATA/USA/Patriot.. *bleck* |-P
Of course, you could look at it like I do, and if every copy of a CD really is worth 20$, then all the pirates are really wealth creators, just like corps...
Nicotine free Amish .sig.
They could outlaw non-DRM content (actually devices that can play/record it) by saying allowing non-DRM recording/playback would allow someone to use legacy analog equipment or some similiar workaround (microphone to speaker, or anything of that sort) to record a DRM "protected" (restricted) work in a non-restricted medium. If there is no such thing as a non-restricted medium, then there is no risk of a work not being restricted by DRM.
This would make it illegal to allow consumers to record un-"protected" content - just like Sony mini-disc where even if you own the copyright, recording from the analog inputs creates an SCMS limited disk.
At the very least the work would be labeled with the "infringer"'s key/id (one can imagine a law saying recording devices must be registered with the person's identity recorded - if contraband content labeled with that ID gets out - they arrest and imprison the person associated with that ID) and not-usable by others or at least severely limited - by both technology and legal penalties.
There could also be a new felony created - receipt of unauthorized music - i.e. it would be illegal to posses music with a creator label other than yourself or a "licensed" (by RIAA) music content provider.
This has the added "benefit" the distribution of music in competition with the RIAA would be illegal.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
First of all if you think corporations are efficient it's obvious you have never worked for a big one. Most large corporations I know are horribly inneficient with clueless management.
"The real difference is: when a corporation gets really big and it is no longer in your best interest to "support" them with your hard earned dollars, you can choose not to."
Actually maybe you can't. Most corporations have interests in other corporations. So you want to boycott phillip morris but in order to do that you have to stop buying nabisco products too. Who knows all the products that phillip morris has their hands into? Certainly not your average consumer.
In the end the consumer gets screwed no matter what. All thos charitable contributions, political bribes, dividends etc are all passed on to the consumer. The consumer can't boycott the corporations because the corporation is like the terrorists cells. They are diffuse and spread themselves amongs markets. Look at how many things MS is into? How are you going to boycott MS?
War is necrophilia.
" Baah!! There is not a finite amount of money in the country!!! ARGH!!!!"
Well yes and no.
No there is not a finite amount of money (they can allways print more right?). Also money can flow in and out of the country.
The important thing to remember is that the economy grows at the expense of natural resources. In fact economy is nothing more then taking natural resources and turning them into products and services. Even in a pure service model (I get you groceries you pay me $20) natural resources are consumed (I ate, I drove, I wore clothes, I have a house, I shit, I wipe my butt with paper). While some resources are renewable I can think of no resource that is being used at or below the rate of replenishment.
The so called rising tide argument allways fails to take this simple fact into account. They pretend that money is springing into this universe from some other universe and the economy of the world is growing without consequence. Alas it's not true.
So on a micro scale it's a zero sum. Since I am not allowed to print my own money I have to convince someone else to give it to me and that someone else now has less money. And on a macro scale it's a zero sum because as the economy grows we have less trees, less oil, less land, less fertile soil, less clean water and less clean air worldwide. Logging, mining etc get shifted around some but worldwide it's an inevitable march downhill.
There is no such thing as a free lunch.
War is necrophilia.
He supports the rape of Alaskan wildnerness, as does the entire Alaskan delegation.
It's perfectly possible to do that in democracies: it's called "voting".
For instance, I let you guess what happened to the mayor of my city who was a bit overgenerous in building huge nice public constructions.
And oh yes, I can vote with my dollars against corporations, but then a big part of the cost can be put on me.
For instance I bought a CD-burner, which as I found out, was a model likely to fail after 6 months-1 year of use. Mine failed just after warranty expired. I could choose to no longer buy equipement from this particular manufacturer, but since it is one of the very top manufacturers, it will also mean I buy suboptimal equipement or more expensive one. Voting with my dollars can only mean I buy another brand, when the best choice is this one. In democracy, voting in free.
It's clear a little explanation is in order for the sarcasm-impaired:
...
>> I dont agree with you on government being
>> inefficient per se.
>
> Main Entry: per se
>
> : except every way possible
>
turns into:
I dont agree with you on government being
inefficient except every way possible
Saying "government isn't inefficient, per se" is like saying "oranges aren't orange, per se".
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
By that rationale, a perfect copy of a Rembrandt would be worth as much as the original.
Millions of perfect copies devalue the entire market... that's why RAM prices have steadily and dropped. Were you around when it cost $15 for an individual 256K DRAM chip? now it's +-$25 for 256MB! If RAM was rare and hard to make, it would still be expensive.
Every copy of a CD ought to cost $9 or so. If you flood the market, however, they end up being worth about $0.
How the recording industry is still selling CD's is beyond me.
Whatever happened to JonKatz?
To begin with, this is a complete shift in the discussion, which was: the job of a corp. is to get more money, and the effect of that is that Joe Schmo has less, such that the more money the corps have, the less the people have.
That, of course, is nonsense.
Now, onward: You're right! We take out more oil than we put back. Same thing with the other fossil fuels. The solution to this is, of course, to kill enough people that the tide turns back.
Maybe you have a better solution?
Natural resources fuel the economy, but they do not equal the economy. Your statement that economic growth has consequences is true, but completely off-point. In fact, that statement has absolutely nothing to do with the 'rising tide' argument. The consequence of a growing economy actually proves the argument FOR the 'rising tide'!
Yes, you're right. We're burning through resources at quite a rate. That has little to do with whether our economy grows, though , or whether a growing economy creates wealth for all involved. Look at the computer industry. It has created wealth far in excess of the value of the resources it has consumed. It has contributed to the reduction in use of natural resources while increasing the quality of life for those involved and generating new revenue streams for companies that would never have existed. Imagine if Amazon.com were doing its business only in the physical world. Imagine the electric bills alone! Not to mention the waste in wharehoused, unsold books.
On a micro scale, it's not a zero sum. If you deliver groceries promptly and with skill, I migh trecommend you to others, and because of your demand, you might start charging more for the service. We've just created wealth, i.e. you're using the same resources but getting more money. Maybe if you get popular enough, you might hire me to help! More wealth.
On a macro scale, it basically works the same way. We're not talking about dollar bills. If you were allowed to print your own money, you'd be decreasing your wealth because the dollar would be worth less. It's not a zero sum game because the economy, while dependant on resources, is not equivalent to them. Your argument, while possibly true, is completely off-point.
Whatever happened to JonKatz?
"Now, onward: You're right! We take out more oil than we put back. Same thing with the other fossil fuels. The solution to this is, of course, to kill enough people that the tide turns back. "
Well certainly that's one solution. And in the end it might be the only solution I don't know. Personally I think it won't matter whether we kill the people or the people die out of starvation or whatnot but at the current rate of consumption of natural resources (not just oil but also soil, bacteria etc) you are bound to crash sooner or later.
having said that we can certainly try other things first. We could try shrinking the economy and living simpler. I know no american will ever give up their individually wrapped palstic straws or fritos for the long term survival of the planet but maybe if we educate we could convince some people that they can do without them. We could certainly try to be more efficient in our use of materials and of course we could recycle more aggresively. Maybe it won't put us in a positive balance but it would slow the burn rate.
Now your examples of groceries and amazon are examples of greater efficiencies (more wealth created with fewer natural resources) and certainly we need to foster those kinds of innovations but those books are still made out of paper and those books still have to be shipped in trucks etc. We should take it to the next step and convert them to pure electronic format and deliver them via the internet. We will never get rid of manufacturing and we probably will never get back to sustainability but like I said we need to slow the burn rate. Eventually we will run out of clean air, clean water, oil, trees, plankton, fish, arable soil or something. Already we are losing fauna and flora at an amazing pace it remains to be seen how long the ecosystem can go on before it crashes catastraphicly.
BTW my point is certainly not off-point. My point is exactly this. No discussion of economics is complete without taking the consumption of natural resources into account. Yet I have never ever heard any economist raise these points. They (much like your original post) pretend that money comes into this world from another dimention where there is an infinate amount of it. Everybody can be millionaires whoo hoo!. There is not an infinite amount of it and everybody can't be millionaires. There are not enough natural resources to make everybody a millionaire.
War is necrophilia.
We're consuming bacteria at a faster rate than it's being replenished? Come on, man! Gimme a break here.
Your arguments are really flimsy here... giving up Fritos won't help the planet. Ceasing consumption of non-sustenance food items might help a bit, but you're right in that people won't do something that drastic. I don't think you've thought this through very well. What happens to all the people who work in the junkfood industry, and all the people all over the world that get affected by the ripples of its disappearance? Eventually, you bump a whole group of people down into social welfare of some sort, which is hugely wasteful and probably a worse drain on the environment than if they were still working for Frito-Lay (or Frito Shipping, Inc., or 7-11, or its shareholders, including that 80-yr old retired guy who lives off his Frito shares and gets kicked out of his retirement center, or the broker who recommended them before the industry dried up in a matter of months, or all the people who listened to him, etc.). Do you get the point here? As for the straws, I'd rather that than have the guy who just wiped his nose on his hand give me an unwrapped one; poor example selection.
If we shrink the economy enough, we could be China! Wait, N. Korea hardly uses any resources at all... there's a perfect model.
More efficiency is certainly better, but you can't just do this stuff by fiat. What, should we ban books on paper? Where do you get the money to make sure everyone has an electronic reader? You can't be suggesting that you only get to read if you can afford the proper device... you have to take this stuff out to it's logical end. You have to consider ALL the ramifications, not just the parts that seem to support your opinion.
Actually, you're going to have to shift your focus away from the 'environment' altogether; I'll get to that in a second.
Run out of plankton? You've got to be joking. Plankton makes up (and this is only a slightly informed guess) like half the biomass on the planet, and a great amount of the total photosynthesis that occurs. If we warm up the oceans, we get MORE plankton, not less. More photosynthesis! More oxygen and less carbon dioxide! There's a downside here?
Now, let me skip past eco-catastrophe and come back to that momentarily... I've got to cover the economics thing.
If, as you say, efficiency = using fewer resources to achieve the same or better return, than economists talk all the time about consumption of natural resources. Get some economist to talk about International Paper and you'll hear loads of talk about consumption of resources. Talk to any competent Director of Finance in Arizona or south/west Texas or New Mexico or Southern CA and you'll see that water consumption is high on the list of worries.
No economist would ever suggest that everyone could be a millionaire. That would make a million effectively the same as zero. No one is saying that there is infinite money, either. What I (and most economists) am saying is that more for me does not necessarily (or even very often) equal less for you. This is why resources!=money. $.03 worth of wood pulp might only be worth slightly more if it's made into toilet paper, but it's worth LOTS more if it's made into a share of eBay stock (BTW, currently at about $53). Resources don't equal money, and consumption of resources doesn't equal economy. You can burn through tons of resources and not be worth much at all (think PG&E) or exactly the opposite (think AOL). Money (and wealth) is a human intellectual construct, and consumption of resources is just a factor, like lots and lots of other factors, and is often not applicable and rarely quantifiable.
Now, eco-doom: this planet has already survived a catastrophe humans would be very hard pressed to replicate. There is no danger of the ecosystem disintegrating around us, nor will there ever be unless we decided to nuke the everlasting fuck out of ourselves, and even then it's pretty likely that the planet will straighten out eventually.
What you want to be worried about is if people are going to be able to survive. The fact is, we're just organisms like all the rest. We're incredibly successful at adapting and using our surroundings, which is why we aren't stuck on an island somewhere evolving into marsupials to survive. Everything on the planet consumes resources, and usually they consume more than they put back, just like us. People are certainly capable of consuming so much that there isn't enough left to support the population. This is also exactly like other organisms, except that we fill a LOT of ecological niches and we tend to affect the environment across a much much wider range than your average apex predator. Luckily, even basic environmental systems are extremely complex and frequently possessing of a high redundancy level. Really, though, on an environmental level, we aren't too much different from any other apex predator group, and the results of overusing our resources are therefore rather predictable.
The thing is, we don't like it when masses of humans start kicking off, because we're possessing of a soul and we're humans and all that. So, we innovate like a motherfucker to keep the race expanding. Incidentally, that's exactly like every other race on the planet. We're just much better at it because we seem to keep coming up with kick-ass solutions, and so we don't have to wait on evolution to save what's left of us.
So it's perfectly reasonable to wonder if we're going to expand past our ability to survive, but since we're a lot more like a pride of lions than a hive of bees, we aren't really built to think about 'humanity' on a survival level. It's likely that practically nothing proactive will be done about it on a global scale; we aren't really programmed to care about the pride in Somalia as long as the home range is still bountiful. IMHO, we're going to figure out how to double the lifespan of a human before we start really running out of resources, and THAT is a bigger concern than anything else. Let yourself start projecting what'll happen to the economy if the average worker lives to be 160 and the birthrate stays the same, and you'll REALLY get freaked out.
None of this, however, has much of anything to do with the US economy and whether or not +1 for me is -1 for you (which it's not).
Whatever happened to JonKatz?