Senate Majority Leader Takes On File Sharing

An anonymous reader writes "Colleges are up in arms — and the entertainment industry is ecstatic — over Sen. Harry Reid's plan to crack down on file sharing by students. Floor votes could be imminent." A commenter on the post said, "Unfortunately we are likely to see neither sense nor principle from the Democrats on this issue, as Hollywood is their biggest cash machine."

Comments

Corporate political sponsorship

[The One and Only]

So now it's come to this--the Hollywood Perpetual Copyright Party vs. the Petroleum Industry Party. Except the Petroleum Industry Party also wants perpetual copyrights for Hollywood, both parties want to prop up the farm industry, and for all we know, the Hollywood Perpetual Copyright Party will end up helping out the oil industry as an added bonus (or a bone-us to the common people).

Unsure

[Stevecrox]

I'm from the UK the place with a far less insane record industry but I'm not certain how Universitys think this is unfair. I've just finished a 3 year course at University of Plymouth in order to connect to the network you had to go through a VPN which only allowed HTTP and FTP access. We had a extremely fast network I remember downloading Ubunutu at 1MB/s as well as Myst Online at 1.3MB/s. I could check my email, manage a domain I own and could view every website on the internet without issue including sites like http://www.stage6.com/ , http://www.youtube.com/ and at various times I saw other students looking at xxx sites. I did get HL2: Deathmatch and Myst Online working (intially the later required a blocked port) but bittyrant or limewire didn't work.

I can understand that bittyrant does help spread the load of linux distributions but I don't understand why other university's and colleges can't implement this as well. How does it hurt people? I don't know why people are fighting so hard. The university's policy did not stop me from learning nor did it stop me from playing (if I had lived in halls) it just stopped activities which either used high amounts of bandwidth or could land the univeristy in legal trouble.

Then again with iPods, portable usb drives and the messenger share folders most students could share music/video if they wanted to and I did see people moving to these methods in my final year.

Re:Yeah, so I suppose ...

[Swampash]

Here is a story.

It's the story of a place called Mouseland. Mouseland was a place where all the little mice lived and played, were born and died. And they lived much the same as you and I do.

They even had a Congress. And every four years they had an election. Used to walk to the polls and cast their ballots. Some of them even got a ride to the polls. And got a ride for the next four years afterwards too. Just like you and me. And every time on election day all the little mice used to go to the ballot box and they used to elect a government. A government made up of big, fat, black cats.

Now I'm not saying anything against the cats. They were nice fellows. They conducted their government with dignity. They passed good laws--that is, laws that were good for cats. But the laws that were good for cats weren't very good for mice. One of the laws said that mouseholes had to be big enough so a cat could get his paw in. Another law said that mice could only travel at certain speeds--so that a cat could get his breakfast without too much effort.

All the laws were good laws. For cats. But, oh, they were hard on the mice. And life was getting harder and harder. And when the mice couldn't put up with it any more, they decided something had to be done about it. So they went en masse to the polls. They voted the black cats out. They put in the white cats.

Now the white cats had put up a terrific campaign. They said: "All that Mouseland needs is more vision." They said:"The trouble with Mouseland is those round mouseholes we got. If you put us in we'll establish square mouseholes." And they did. And the square mouseholes were twice as big as the round mouseholes, and now the cat could get both his paws in. And life was tougher than ever.

And when they couldn't take that anymore, they voted the white cats out and put the black ones in again. Then they went back to the white cats. Then to the black cats. They even tried half black cats and half white cats. And they called that coalition. They even got one government made up of cats with spots on them: they were cats that tried to make a noise like a mouse but ate like a cat.

You see, my friends, the trouble wasn't with the colour of the cat. The trouble was that they were cats. And because they were cats, they naturally looked after cats instead of mice.

With apologies to Clare Gillis.

When the Democrats swept into power in Congress I listened to all the liberal commentators talking about how it was Good News and how Things Would Be Different Now and how the Bad Guys were out and the Good Guys were in. And I shook my head and thought of Mouseland.

That thing about Hollywood is strictly horseshit

[Get Behind the Mule]

"Hollywood is the main source of cash for Democrats" is just another legend in the rich and bizarre mythology of conservatism, and as such it is typically puerile and easily refuted.

Opensecrets reports that the top industries donating to the DNC, based on contributions from PACs, Levin money donors, and individuals who self-identify their employer, are:

1. Retired ($7,389,597)

2. Lawyers/Law Firms ($3,250,708)

3. Securities & Investment ($2,301,530)

4. Real Estate ($1,570,877)

5. Education ($1,429,546)

6. Misc Finance ($1,176,402)

7. Business Services ($1,108,889)

8. Health Professionals ($1,044,045)

9. TV/Movies/Music ($1,042,810)

Thus the "industry" making the largest contributions to the DNC are retired individuals, contributing over $7 million to a total of about $37 million. The entertainment industry, which is presumably what the myth-entranced poster meant by "Hollywood", comes in 9th place with just about one measly million.

For the DCCC, which is responsible for elections in the House, it breaks down like this:

1. Candidate Committees ($28,987,184)

2. Retired ($6,473,164)

3. Securities & Investment ($5,237,572)

4. Lawyers/Law Firms ($4,730,490)

5. Real Estate ($2,846,870)

6. TV/Movies/Music ($2,299,387)

So the top contributors to the general DCCC funds are, by far, the individual campaign committees (who of course must get their own contributors). "Hollywood" comes in sixth place with about $2 million out of a total of over $80 million.

For the DSCC, responsible for Senate campaigns, the picture is about exactly the same as for the DCCC:

1. Candidate Committees ($10,312,550)

2. Lawyers/Law Firms ($9,989,631)

3. Securities & Investment ($7,938,319)

4. Retired ($6,967,505)

5. Real Estate ($4,864,610)

6. Misc Finance ($2,585,026)

7. TV/Movies/Music ($2,286,687)

This time, "Hollywood" comes in 7th place, again with about $2 million out of over $80 million.

However we much we may dislike what Harry Reid is doing, the claim about "Hollywood" and the Democrats is load of peanut butter. We need to get these reality-challenged conservative canards out of our public discussion; they certainly have no business of the front page of Slashdot.

Re:that's incrediby retarded

[Mr2001]

What, voting for a third party is somehow going to help? They're just a different color of cat.

The problem is with the system: Duverger's law. We have a two-party system because our voting method pushes us in that direction, and once you're down to two parties, it doesn't really matter who they are. They'll be subject to all the same influences as the Republicans and Democrats are now, because they'll be the only ones in power. An interest group that wants a favor will donate to the majority party; a group that's been slighted by the current government will donate to the opposition. It'll be the same thing we have now, with different letters after the names on TV.

If you really want to do something smart, do two things:

• Figure out which major party you like more (or hate less), join it, and work from within to change it into the kind of party that represents you. This is how you effect change in the short term.
  
• Push for a new voting method. Approval voting, instant runoff, proportional representation... they're all better than what we have now. This is how you effect change in the long term, with an election structure that makes it easy for more than two parties to thrive.