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Using Copyright To Suppress Political Speech
MacDork writes "As most /.'ers know all to well, Copyright is increasingly being used as a means to suppress free speech these days. And the trend has not been lost on our 2004 US Presidential candidates. Both George and John are using copyright law to 'vaporize' information considered embarrassing or harmful to their campaigns. Don't worry about basing your vote on copyright issues though. Like most other domestic issues (gay marriage: no, offshoring: yes), their stance is pretty much identical (i.e. pro Hollywood)."
This brought to you by the Republican party, the political group led by an imbecile cokehead who didn't even have the balls to turn up to his cushy National Guard posting. I have little sympathy for their copyright complaint...
Tubal-Cain smokes the white owl.
and his administration wasn't instrumental in creating the largest federal budget deficit ever seen.
Neither was Bush. He's still only achieved 85% of Reagan's deficit.
This article makes it sound like both candidates are engaging in a campaign of suppression. If you actually follow the links, you find out that there is (as far as i can tell) only one lawsuit per candidate, and that the suits were not filed by the candidates.
I think copyright holders are wrong in both cases, but the candidates aren't necessarily behind it.
If you want to know where a politician stands on an issue, you should ask them and check their record. It's not enough to find one example where they've benefitted from someone else's lawsuit.
Come to think of it, how come these suits are only evidence in one direction? The candidates aren't party to the lawsuits. You could just as easily say that both candidates are against copyright suits because a movie that helps Kerry is being suppressed and so is an ad that helps Bush.
-- . . ramblin' . . .
GW Bush is censoring free speech because NBC won't let Michael Moore use a clip from Meet the Press.
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BZZT! Sorry, but that is incorrect. It is not Micheal Moore, but another Iraqi War documentary maker: Robert Greenwald, who is trying to use the clip.
Source: This editorial from Wired about, not-ironically, big media and copyrights suppressing democracy.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.08/view.htm
It doesn't really matter - they're both unacceptably bad. Although Reagan's deficit was larger as percentage of GDP (GNP, then), eg. 6% in 1983, vs. Bush's 5% of 2004 GDP, -$500B in 2004 brings us to something like $8.5T of debt. And remember that Reagan's debt was also Bush Sr's debt - especially as Bush Sr ran the "deregulation" of the banking system that enabled the $1.5T S&L heist. That was the 1980s, when a trillion dollars was still worth something :).
--
make install -not war
From the good folks at snopes: link.
I trust you won't be repeating such bullshit lines again.___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a facist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country." ~Herman Goering speaking at the Nuremberg trails after WWII
~S
You are think of Hobson's Choice, named after the owner of a livery stable in Cambridge who would let customers choose any horse they wanted as long as it was the one closest to the door. Hobbesian would normally be in reference to the philosopher Thomas Hobbes who is unrelated to this expression.
RTFA. This guy wanted to use a short clip from NBC's Meet The Press in his documentary and offered to pay for a license to use it, just like all the other clips he paid for in his documentary.
NBC said no, not for any copyright related reason, but because it was "not very flattering to the president."
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
You sound like you might be familiar to a Parliamentary election. United states has an electoral college which was quite practical for its time. That way each state by itself could (through the will of it's people) voice its opinion regarding its favorite canditate. It is a compromise between pure democracy and representative democracy, which traditionally is always the case in the US. In a parliamentary democracy, you have the first round--they might be candidates or parties which win either a simple majority (fifty percent plus one) or a plurality (more votes than any other candidate) go to a second round. The second round is used form coalitions to shore up support from the other factions (therefore, theoretically forming a stronger more moderate and compromising legislature) and supporting a Prime Minister who is favored by the majority. In a parlimentary election, the person or party who wins in the first round of elections is not guaranteed to win the Prime Ministry in the second round. Although some countries have resolved this paradox by granting electoral power to the legislative body, and the party that has the most popular votes gets the most seats in the legislative/electoral body and so can chose the P.M of their choice.
In America, it's different. We've evolved into a two party system, which some theorize is more stable because the coalitions don't break apart over crisis and the leadership and government cannot be dissolved by parliament, but only by the electorate (except in extreme cases like criminal wrong doing) With less factions, there is also less chance of paralysis do to infighting (although a hefty part of our government is set up to paralyze the powers) Elections are handled by a general populace election. In EACH STATE not NATIONALLY the canditate must win a plurality of votes (more than any other candidate). If the candidate wins the popular vote IN THAT STATE then he can send his (or the party's) hand picked delegates (the electoral college) to chose him IN THAT STATE as the president. The person wins the most votes from the electoral college (the number go delegates to the e.c from each state is determined by population) wins the election. Therefore, Al Gore might have won more votes, but did not win more states and so lost the election. Very complicated. most Americans have a hard time explaining it to you.
It is also possible that the electoral college can chose some one other than the person who won the plurality of votes in the state. Eg. If Ross Perot ran for Florida but did not win the state, George Bush Sr. Delegates could theoretically vote for Ross Perot anyway: the delegates are not (theoretically) automatons although traditionally they have consistently voted according to the will of the people).
http://cincyboys.blogspot.com/ Everything Cincinnati. Including the word 'Finnih'
From his mailing list when I posted a this direct question:
Q: "...Does anyone know where Mr. Badnarik stands in regards to the issues I mentioned (DMCA, P2P/RIAA, ETC?) I think that in my little circle those would probably be some of the most persuading issues in the campaign, and they are being ignored by the big two."
/. interview
happens, Mike will have come up with some solid positions on those issues.
A: I asked him about "Intellectual Property" last night on the conference call. He admitted that it was an issue he had not worked on much yet, and that he had more studying and thinking to do on it, and reserved the right to change his answer... but he said that one thing he believed was that copyright should be limited to the lifetime of the copyright holder.
He didn't really address patents, DMCA, etc. He did say that he fundamentally agrees with the concept of "IP" though, although he also said that it was "very abstract and hard to define."
Even within the Libertarian Party there is considerable debate about those issues, apparently. Hopefully by the time the
Hope this helps, also Michael Badnarik has been told that he will be interviewed by /. editors in the month of September. He did state in his constitution class that I took that he is a firm supporter of the Government not being allowed to limit technology (he comes from a comp. geek background as weel) like encryption, etc. because they don't deserve to be handed the lock to your "papers" due to the fourth ammendment, I think of all the canditates, he is most in tune with the /. crowd's concerns.
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society - M. Twain
Would be replies, finish reading before reacting.
I was raised Catholic. My two sisters and I regularly argued theology with the parish priest-- mutually educational and broadening. =)
Under the contemporary view of Catholicism on marriage, marriage is a sacrament, an external sign of god's grace. Furthermore (and pay attention), Matrimonium facit consensus, i.e. Marriage is contracted through the mutual, expressed consent. Therein is contained implicitly the doctrine that the persons contracting marriage are themselves the agents or ministers of the sacrament. In other words, any two people who declare themselves married before the community have ipso facto married. However, it has also held that marriage, like other sacrements, must be performed with the approbation (spiritual approval) of the church.
Even when leaving aside questions of non-Christian faiths, not all faiths recognize the Authority of the Patriarch of Rome to give approbation. Furthermore, under the American precepts of the separation of church and state, the government of the United States lacks jurisdiction to establish whether the Patriarch has that authority or not.
Therefore, any union recognized by the state is ipso facto a civil union. Whether it is also a marriage is not a question for the courts of men, but for the court of God-- and ought be presumed valid by the state given the acceptance of any church.
Therefore, I would hold that the government has no business discriminating between ANY "marriage". Mind you, they might conceivably have some business deciding which civil unions to recognize (which is why arbitrary declarations as above may be valid canonically but not civilly without a marriage licesne), but that would be a fairly straightforward civil rights case... which neither the politicians nor the preachers like the taste of.
In short, I'd say that the problem is that the politicians aren't theologians, and that the theologians want to be theocrats. Technically, the only thing politicians can discuss by definition is whether gays (or straights!) can have civil unions, not whether they can get married! Of course, neither the politicians nor theocrats are that precise in their speaking or thinking.... which is Unhelpful in discussing the issues.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.