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Copyright Bill could Stifle Innovation
binder520 writes "Wired has an article on how the latest Senate Bill, sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), will hold technology companies liable for supplying devices or software that can be used to illegally copy music, videos, software, etc. It looks like it is time to write to your senators, because the verbiage in the bill is too subjective for any technology company to stand up to the media giants. Say good bye to your VCR, MP3 players, CD/DVD burners, etc."
For the house:
http://clerk.house.gov/members/index.html
For the senate:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/ senators_cfm.cfm>
Let's make a difference!
"My girlfriend's got sodium laureth sulfate hair."
Not entirely. Hatch tried to sneak this through to a vote without a hearing. Opposition forced him to have a hearing, but he wants a revised bill after August. There is a lot going on here. See, INDUCE Act Archives and LawMeme's Index.
You have no idea how right (well, wrong, but factually correct) that idea is.
Read the actual text of the UK decision PS2 modchips.
Sony wanted the judge to rule that flashing the infringing material on the screen is the same as storing infringing material in RAM, which is the same as storing it in ROM, which is the same as illegally copying the game. They said that just showing the game on the screen is the same as illegally copying a game.
Things might not have gone that far if the modchip in question didn't copy the game to RAM in order to play foreign/homebrew/cracked games. The copying to RAM is what the judge ruled was infringing Sony's copyright. Sony thinks that showing it on the screen was enough to be called an illegal copy. The judge seemed happy that he didn't have to rule on that.
IANAL, but I play one on
Nope, not the way it works. Here's how a bill gets passed. This one is about at step 2 1/2.
1. A senator and a member of the house get togather and write a bill.
2. They drop it in their respective drop boxes, and GPO prints it up.
3. Committee representitives say whether they want a hearing on it.
4. Subcommitees tell their committees whether they want a hearing on it.
5. Hearings are held, and each bill is modified.
6. Assuming the bill doesn't die in Committee, and most of them do, it goes to the rules committee for the Senate and the House. A lot of them die this way, too.
7. The rules committee schedules a vote. If they don't, time passes, Congress adjourns, bill dies.
8. Both the House and Senate vote. If one doesn't support the bill, bill dies. These are timed votes, and if you can't get a majority within about 15 minutes (usually) that's it.
9. Assuming all of the above has occured, you get a conference committee of Representitives and Senators who will hammer out a comprimise between the House and Senate versions. If they can't agree, it dies.
10. Then the President can sign or veto. If he vetos, or refuses to act in 10 days (Pocket Veto), the bill dies UNLESS 2/3 of the House and Senate vote to override it. This rarely (in less than 1/10th of vetoes) occurs. If they dont, the bill dies.
All of this has to occur in about 5 1/2 months.
Since when has this country used intellectual elite as a pejorative term?
Database of US Senator's Email Addresses
And here are some tips on how to compose the email.
I already sent mine.
Back in the days of napster, Orin's position was influenced by a top aide, Manus Cooney. Apparently Manus was pretty akamai about copyright, but he eventually left (perhaps lost an internal power-struggle, complete speculation on my part) and went to work as a lobbiest for Napster. I don't know where Manus Cooney is now (probably because I haven't bothered to google the guy) but in his absence, Hatch was quickly drawn to the darkside with a number of unethical enticements like the publication and subsequent mass-"purchases" of one of his own, quite pathetic, musical performances.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Most of the abuses to workers, etc. were corrected not by the goverment but by unions. In fact, the goverment sided with corporations against unions quite often and still do today. One glaring example is the Pullman Strike. Text from probably a book for third graders "The Pullman Strike in 1894, at the Pullman plant near Chicago, the American Railroad Union (not affiliated with the AFL and led by Eugene V. Debs, a leading American socialist) struck the company's manufacturing plant and called for a boycott of the handling of Pullman's sleeping and parlor cars on the nation's railroads. Within a week, 125,000 railroad workers were engaged in a sympathy protest strike. The government swore in 3,400 special deputies; later, at the request of the railroad association, President Cleveland moved in federal troops to break the strike-despite a plea by Gov. Aitgeld of Illinois that their presence was unnecessary. Finally a sweeping federal court injunction forced an end to the sympathy strike, and many railroad workers were blacklisted. The Pullman strikers were essentially starved into submissive defeat. The strike illustrated the increasing tendency of the government to offer moral support and military force to break strikes. The injunction, issued usually and almost automatically by compliant judges on the request of government officials or corporations, became a prime legal weapon against union organizing and action." It's folly to expect the government to act in the interests of "the little guy". The only reason change occured was due to "the little guys" banding together to become a force equal to or greater than the corporations that were raping them. SO, you know, vote and stuff.
You better watch out, there may be dogs about . .