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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."
Pretty soon, it's going to be illegal to even look at or listen to something covered by copyright protection. If you think about it, our brains keep a copy of everything we come into contact with in our memories. With science ever progressing towards Utopia, it won't be long before we are able to access and re-experience memories as if we were right there in the moment we first experienced them. "Just look in this little pen right here and say cheese! *FLASH* You will not remember anything about seeing Men In Black 7. You will be happy and do something special for everyone in your life. Thank you from the MPAA!"
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Note to Utah: Its time for you guys to deal with this guy and kick his ass around the block!
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
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."
No really, every single company that makes anything that proports to "remember" anything what-so-ever "can be used" to "remember" a copy of a copyrighted work.
Every single industry on the planet should be against these measures, including the artists.
Relying on "the governments" or "the courts" to "get around to deciding where the draw the line" on *any* matter (as a founding assumption of proposing the mater in the first place) should be punishable by death.
At first reading this may sound like a Troll, or on overstating the case, but if you follow the bouncing dollar bill, you will see that these "statements of vision disguised as law" are simply vast resivours of entropy trying to suck the life (money, rights, and intellegence) out of our culture.
[I guess I am ranting, but what exactly *will* it take to get the people, any people, to listen?]
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
that nobody is copying his music
http://www.hatchmusic.com/
John Kerry is a Joke!
Read Atlas Shrugged. These laws are not being put in place to be followed. There are there to be selectively enforced.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
He got caught, so he wants everyone else to suffer too.
The mere fact that Wired and the WSJ are both running stories against this bill suggest it has zero chance of ever passing. But it's nice to see a traditional print newspaper warm to some of the issues near and dear to nerd hearts.
Oh, here's the link to the WSJ article, but it probably requires (pay) subscription.
Q: What could be worse than marrying a mormon?
A: Marrying two.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
... just like politicians everywhere else.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
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.
Taken from Wired article: "The bill as it is currently drafted is extremely broad and not entirely clear. It would, at a minimum, undermine the Sony Betamax decision."
Innovation isn't the target, just an acceptable liability. Politicians that submit/subscribe to such legislation are clearly more concerned about protecting the pockets of corporations/industries at the expense of technological innovation or cultural changes that would shift power away from them.
Michalangelo Progr
Before everyone invests a lot of energy posting with the usual "this sucks" and "In Soviet Russia" quote (I bet they will all follow my post now that I said that :) ), those of us that are Americans need to exercise our rights. Often your Congressman/woman and Senator will have "town meetings" when they are in your state. Go to these! Even if there isn't a hot topic at the time (there always is with technology), we, as a Slashdot community, have the oppertunity to provide and gather valuable insight and let our voices be heard. Do you wonder why Medicare, Social Security, etc is always such a hot topic in elections? Well most of the people that I see at these meetings are elderly.
;), to call your Senator AND Congressman. Be polite, address them properly (though you will probably only speak to one of their office staff members), and explain the situation in terms the general public can understand (none of "Well it contains and A to D converter and if you stream an analog signal in then..."). Often you will find your Senator and Congressman/woman to be very rational and understanding of the situation.
There are very few people under the age of 50 there and as a result, our elected officials only get a small piece of the story. Often bad bills make it through because people spend too much time complaining to their friends and not enough time educating the government. Most of the people that I have met in that line of work are not malicous with these bills, they just simply have a skewed view given to them by some lobbyist.
It is up to us, the people, to educate on the potential ramifications of these poorly written bills. We simply cannot assume that Senator X sits in his office and rebuilds his Linux Kernal all day. These men and women work on running this country and not on running their computers (though some of them do have a techie streak in them).
The best advice here is to do what the article says. Everyone set as their first task tommorow afternoon (I belive Senate is in session until mid afternoon tommorow, you can check on senate.gov), before the ADHD kicks in
Good Luck!
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?
Except something like 40% or more of corporations pay little or NO income tax at all. The largest pay the least (good corporate tax lawyers are worth their weight in gold). Little guys, you know, the ones that tend to inovate most get screwed. About four years ago (give or take a year), Microsoft posted huge profits for the year and payed NO income tax at all. So while they LOVE to complain of high tax rates, big companies don't even come close to acually PAYING them.
I did like you said, and looked up on Google how to insert a link.
You start out like this:
and then you add the url. For example, a Google result on Orrin Hatch and bills would be: and then finish the tag with: The you add a nice description: and finally, you add the closing tag: This ends up making a link that looks like this: It doesn't seem all that difficult, and looks like it could add a whole lot to the discussion.I heard that there was even a tool for browsers to help with things like this.
In summary: u g0t pwned.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
Or the bill could be decided by the leadership to be of extreme importance and put on a fast track to go through subcommittee, committee and on the floor in the matter of weeks, if not days. There is no requirement that there are hearings on a bill, and while there may be outcry, members and senators are not in a real fear of losing their job because they did not hold a hearing on a bill (unless there is public outcry).
Or it could be attached as a rider to another bill or to the approps bill. There are many ways that a motivated Congress can quickly pass bills. While this is a general good outline of the process, it is not uniform and many bills have been approved quickly when the leadership (particularly if both parties) wants it. A good example you know about...Patriot Act that was passed within weeks. You don't know about the tons of other examples because they happen without much fanfare.
How are people supposed to create copyrighted works in the first place?
Er... are you suggesting that for a copyright holder to make a copy of their own works, that they can self-infringe? That's as ridiculous as saying that for someone to drive their own car, they have committed grand theft auto (the crime, not the game
No, he's not saying this at all.
Under Induce, manufacturers are forbidden from making devices that could conceivably be used to infringe. Which means that you couldn't burn copies of your own CDs, because CD burners could be used to burn other people's CDs, and would hence be illegal.
This is somewhat reminiscent of the laws in Demolition Man: "Red meat is bad for you; therefore it is illegal".
But a paper and ink will be illegal too under this bill, by definition.
I still remember the times, when in deep communism it was illegal to own a private or non-registered typing machine (or is it typewriter in english?). At more relaxed times later, the same rule was about photo-copiers.
So many blacklisted books were copied hand-written. You can't imagine what a breaktrough in totalitarian regime mind control was made with early 8-bit computers with dot-matrix printers.
It seems, America is suddenly jumping backwards some 60 years of world political culture. What I cannot understand is which economy motives are driving such trend.
There you are, staring at me again.