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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."
Let's be honest here, P2P will continue. Legally or illegally. The only difference is that if it becomes "illegal", only illegal content will be distributed via P2P and distributors of Linux and other legal distribution of software and content suffers. Currently, a lot of distributions benefit from being able to use their users' connection for distribution, taking pressure from their own lines. If P2P is "outlawed" (or not outright outlawed, but disallowed by universities and ISPs), people wanting to share illegal content will find a way around this filtering (because, well, whatever the ISP could do against you is peanuts against being sued by the mafiaa), while people who now spread Linux distributions will not risk breaking the law just to keep spreading their legally spreadable software.
What do you want to do to avoid it? Log the IP addresses of people using it? People will start onion routing their packets, using also existing onion routers so you can't tell that an IP you got is actually a culprit. Also people will start using "private" trackers and networks more than they already do. To avoid packet identification through mandatory logging at ISPs, packets will get wrapped in other headers (HTTP offers itself due to being the perfect "noise" to duck into).
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You want some copyrighted lyrics? How about this, from The Who:
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
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).
In Repressive Burma, it's not just your connection that dies. slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=314547&cid=20819199
Not shocked in the least. This is merely another showing of the American political arrangement favors not the citizen, but the biggest donor.
Raise your hand if you thought your congressman would listen to you.
Who would you listen to: a very small donor at best, or the group who bankrolled your campaign(especially the "care about the people" PR)?
Why is this shocking news? Hell as a former die hard repub, I've lost pretty much all faith in the nation and it's future
His relationship with powerful lobbyists makes him (or any other Democrat congressman) no better than the ones in the other side. They are all puppets, hold in the hands of the same puppeteer. Naive are the ones that thing that party allegiance is guarantee of anything at all.
The politic system is rotten, third party can't win (even if they had more support, there are so many hurdles for an independent candidate to overcome), majors parties are in fact one, people are cattle and vote based on frivolous fads and superstitions instead of on important issues and past actions.
The "manifest destiny" ended up being a self defeating prophecy, U.S. people got so used to the idea that U.S. fate is to lead the world that forgot to care about their own house and get a decent leadership for themselves.
But I think the biggest points in the bill are the following. From the Article:
"Provide evidence" to the Education Department that they have "developed a plan for implementing a technology-based deterrent to prevent the illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property."
How can any viable and self-respecting college network do anything like this without crippling their network and expending an obscene amount of money and man-hours. Congress constantly proves themselves to be less that tech-savvy, and this extremely tall order is just more proof. And, more importantly, the last thing I need is another tuition increase to pay for it.
And secondly:
The measure would also require the education secretary to annually identify the 25 colleges and universities that have in the previous year received the most notices of copyright violations using institutional technology networks.
I think the
But, I don't really think it matters all that much, something like this is going to go into law eventually, I'm afraid.
"To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today." -Isaac Asimov
http://www.opensecrets.org/softmoney/softtop.asp?t xtCycle=2002&txtSort=amnt
It's always a long day... 86400 doesn't fit into a short.
Sorry, not biting. Given the number of bills and amendments that do not pass, I think this narrowly escapes being described as FUD.
Experience teaches only the teachable. -AH
Call me cynical, but if a politician shows sense, they won't get enough of the conservative vote to ever get elected. And if they show principle, well, they're probably so lacking in even common sense to ever get liberal vote. So why should we expect either in any measurable form?
That trolling asside, from TFA:
Roads also facilitate theft. Roads also have police to patrol and set up roadblocks if necessary, that sort of thing. But funds are appropriated for such services. If one is to mandate that measures be taken to prevent intellectual property theft, one should provide a plan for funding of such an endeavor. It's not a universities fault that students steal any more than it is a construction worker's fault of someone later uses a road to facilitate a crime because the road happens to go past a bank.
At least, that's the way I see it.
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.
If you can't bring your party up to where people could vote for them with a clean conscience, you can at least bring the other party down and pretend that they're at the same level. Responses, if any, will be along the lines of "yeah, because Democrats are such angels, perfect in every way, and they always do what the people want" which is not what I said. I have long said that Dems and Repubs are about the same when it comes to pork spending, subservience to lobbyists, and general corruption (including legal but unethical stuff), but Repubs are essentially The Torture Party as far as I'm concerned. You don't have to impress me much to beat out The Torture Party.
If the Dems just run as the "We Think Habeus Corpus is Important" party, that's good enough for me, even with the usual complement of pork spending and knee-jerk overreaction that we always expect from congress. I wish Dems were better, but this equivocation where going after filesharers proves that the Dems are just as bad as the Republicans is a bit ridiculous. If torture, habeus corpus, and warrantless surveillance aren't part of the discussion about which party is better, at least right now, then we aren't really having a discussion.
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."
...you think that's bad? you should see some of the crap I've posted as comments here...
'This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it' - Eeyore
"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.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
The ISPs should switch off the internet for a day. That'll learn 'em.
You imply that if the current system were gone, there would be nothing to replace it. I disagree. Something will replace it (for humans have always told stories). In fact, I think that whatever replaces it will actually be much better.
Technology now allows anyone with minimal finance to create their own movies or music. What will happen, when the current colossus tumbles, is that you will experience more and better movies and music than you ever dreamed possible. Certainly, at the beginning there will be less big budget action spectaculars, but honestly, is that a bad thing?
With the current gate keepers gone and the internet there to do the distribution, a much brighter and vibrant world awaits. We should do all we can to hasten the demise of the media industry.
.there is enough of everything for everyone.
prepare all our DOS and civil disobedience techniques.
Colleges require information to flow as freely as possible, so they depend on a fair amount of corner-cutting. No one really waits to get approval or check the copyright position before downloading something from the Wiki, for instance. If they were forced to, a college could not function.
So we need to spam the most righteous Bible Colleges with spurious DMCA takedown notices, and claim obscure copyright privileges over any communication we have with them.
Perhaps we could find encrypted streams passing between government buildings, and 'fake whistle-blow' to the RIAA that films are being passed on these links. Send copyrighted data to prominent supporters of the bill without the copyright message, and then get their systems turned over....
The possibilities are endless!!
While that's strictly true (i.e. it's not the main source), it's certainly one of their main contributors, and far more so than the Republicans. You should do some comparisons between Republican vs. Democrat to understand the Hollywood/Democratic link. (All figures from the websites you linked to).
For example, the contribution of the TV/Movies/Music industry to the Democratic Party is considerably higher than the Republican Party ($6,045,582 vs. $2,434,205), and while the RNC and the DNC are very similar in contributions ($949,844 for the former vs. $1,042,810 for the latter), the NRCC doesn't even register TV/Movies/Music as being a big contributor. The NRSC comes in with a measly $627,684.
Main contributor, no, but certainly one of them, and certainly more pro-Democrat than Republican.
The whole thing reminds me of Bill Hicks' comment: "I'll show you politics in America. Here it is, right here. 'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.' 'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.' 'Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding out both puppets!'"
'If Christ had tweeted the sermon on the mount, it might have lasted until nightfall.' - John Perry Barlow
Isn't that just the normal form of democracy in a capitalist nation?
Not quite. During most of the XX century, more often than not, Washington managed to strike a balance between business interests and the interests of society as a whole - think of the cries of corporate outrage when recordable cassettes and VCRs came out, how it supposedly signaled the end of the world as we now it, etc, and how Washington stood its' ground, deeming the technology legal for public consumption.
However, since the advent of the internet, something snapped. Panicking, ignorant fossils (democrats and republicans alike) who think in terms of dump trucks and series of tubes and don't even know how to bookmark a page in their browsers, have now allowed a few major corporate players to determine, one insidious step at a time, how the internet should work and what constitutes fair use and theft, in the exact opposite direction of what used to be the norm.
A corporate iron grip on western culture is almost complete, on paper, on an unprecedented scale. And now, the do-nothing, good-for-nothing distinguished congressman from Nevada is giving us a glimpse of just who owns everything - those who own him. I am convinced that he is completely ignorant on american legal history of intellectual property and ownership.
Lil' Thindime, lilting a lacrimose lament, krashes the kwaint konfines of Kokonino Kounty
forget what party gutted habeus corpus, thinks torture is OK,
Didn't the Democrats put 200,000 Japanese citizens in concentration camps during World War II?
Run MK-ULTRA, and numerous CIA / FBI abuses during the Cold War?
Allow J Edgar Hoover's FBI to amass data on US Citizens for almost 40 years?
Run illegal wiretaps throughout every Presidency since Truman?
The whole notion of Democrats having of moral superiority when it comes to civil rights has no historical basis in fact.
Our best hope would have been to have conservatives acting like conservatives, gutting the government rather than expanding it.
This is my sig.
I look up the CD on the pirate bay and sure enough it's there and being seeded.
So from my simple experience (I listen to little music and rarely use mp3s) the copyright holder (warner music) really is an evil scumbag and the filesharers are good by doing me a favor by making available to me music that I bought myself. I also have lost respect for this artist for whoring himself out to that label.
The music industry is crying elephant tears about how CD sales are going through the floor. Maybe it's because they are selling a crap product that people don't want to buy (I'm taking the CD back as defective tomorrow). I hope that the freemarket puts them out of business. This would not be a loss.
So much as downloading movies are concerned, the vast majority of the population 99% do not do it. So that's not much of an argument. In any event, what's going to kill hollywood is people not turning off cellphones in theaters.
But in reality, you and I know that you are astroturfing here anyway.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
You were getting close, but then you said:
Sorry, but the "Hollywood" cash contribution to Democrats is just too small to warrant the phrase "one of the main". It consistently comes in at something like 2.5%.
All right, this is indeed a true statement, and point well taken. While a couple of million bucks will not necessarily make or break the Democrats, it's certainly nothing for Harry Reid to sneeze at. And the fact that Democrats get a lot more from the entertainment industry than Republicans do is certainly at least part of the politics at play here.
There's also the fact that the entertainment industry has a lot of public influence unrelated to the size of their cash donations, for obvious reasons. If good relations with "Hollywood" will get positive publicity for Democrats that comes "for free", well hey, no wonder they like it.
But I suspect that this issue is not well understood if we overestimate the influence of "Hollywood" on the Democratic leadership; certainly if we let false assertions about the "biggest cash machine" go unanswered. I think there's also the fact that the entire political class in Washington, Democrats and Republicans, is firmly entrenched in the belief that file sharing is criminal and immoral, and damaging to the economy.
Always keep a sapphire in your mind
I disagree. I think there's a whole grey area between interested enough to copy it, and interested enough to pay money for it. The grey area spans the economic value range of 0 to the price of the article. There are many reasons not to be interested enough to pay money for it (e.g. when it means having no money left for food) and interested enough to try. The target market is the people that have the money and are willing to spend that money on the product. Here, the pirates (arr) are not willing to spend their money on the product and thus fall outside of the target market. Apparently, the value they associate with the product does not warrant their spending.
(by the by, the tone of your article makes it sound as if you've got problems with me, personally. Well, I buy my stuff, but that doesn't mean that I disagree with the Pirates (arr.) on all of their points. I think there is a reason for the existence of this "market", and as with many markets, it cannot be force away. Thus an alternative is to be found)
B.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
Last year when I was at college I had a room mate that downloaded 24/7. He got kicked off the Ethernet connection and just continued to use the wireless to download(he had a laptop). I know many people who would steal there room mates connection when something like that happened while there not home. Its impossible to guard against this and the university's policy said that it is your responsibility on what happened to that port. Many people would do it behind there room mates back or just ignore them when they told them to stop. My neighbor even requested a room mate change because of this but the university said it wasn't a significant reason and denied him. But still what happens if the RIAA/MPAA sues some poor kid who has never downloaded and who's room mate was just using the port? They have two options, get flooded with legal fees and maybe if there lucky successfully sue the RIAA/MPAA for legal fees or pay the fine for something they didn't do. If there going to crack down on this there going to have 2 have locks with Ethernet ports. They have no way of knowing whois computer was on that port. And if your going to ask just look up the MAC you can spoof a MAC if you are downloading to someone elses and poof it wasn't you stealing the port, who was it?
In the world market, America's greatest asset is intellectual property, sadly. You don't see Germans and Japanese beating down our doors to buy Ford trucks. We are a nation of consumers, and we don't particularly make good products. But our books, music, movies, and software seem to be pretty popular around the world. Protecting the integrity of IP is pretty important.
Stealing IP is against the law, and the law is very clear on the matter. When I was younger, I pirated games and music all the time, but as I've gotten older, I really can't justify it simply by stating I don't have the money to legally purchase it. With that defense, do I have the right to go steal a car?
You argue that creating a copy means nothing was actually taken, but both in stealing a movie, and stealing a car involve the producer of said product to lose money. So they are similar. And when you copy a movie, or a song, or software, you enable that to be copied and distributed by even more people. You have repeat the crime. In a P2P network, everyone is doing their part to help the others copy and distribute the illegal goods.
From a legal standpoint, simply stealing is one thing, but distributing is yet another.
If that is what you opt to do, then so be it. Most everyone on the planet breaks laws. We speed, or jay-walk, or litter, or whatever. Piracy seems to be fairly common as well.
But don't try to pretend that there isn't anything wrong with it.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
And which party is pushing the free speech-sodomizing "fairness doctrine", allowing the government to dictate what private broadcasters can say about politics? Just come off it. Democrats voted for the Iraq war. If you don't like the war, don't fucking pretend that your pet congresscritters had nothing to do with it. There is no lesser of the two evils.
Reid is getting plenty of money from "Hollywood", as is the rest of the Democratic Party. And this policy is clearly bought and paid for by the content industry.
But is Hollywood "Democrats' biggest cash machine"? No. It's not the biggest source of money to the Democratic Party. I'd like to see some evidence to back up that Republican talking point, before it's promoted on the Slashdot front page.
And are Democrats really the "Hollywood Party"? Schwarzenegger, governor of California, is a Republican - and all Hollywood. Fred Thompson, a favorite of Republicans to run for president next year, is a Republican, a popular TV actor, and all Hollywood. Ronald Reagan, patron saint of the Republican Party, was nothing but Hollywood, after his career as B actor, culminating in roles as California governor, then US president. And of course Hollywood, the ultimate corporate media cash machine, prefers the Republican Party, which represents precisely Hollywood's values: corporate media, rich people, marketing appearance over substance, popularity contests determining power, the lot.
Hollywood is America. Both the Democratic and Republican parties are America. Pretending only Democrats are Hollywood, while Republicans are their real blockbusters, is not really "the American Way". It's the Republican Way. But it's just a made up story, projected on screens across America and the world.
--
make install -not war
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:
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
My argument was merely that copying is not stealing. I do not advocate either, unless it be legal (to copy, that is). That aside, I would like to offer some more reply to your post.
Protecting IP is quite important I'd say. They're trying to push it here as well. However, whilst protecting you IP, you can still make it easy for a broad market to purchase rights to listen, read or watch such IP. For example, they could provide in several different formats, each with their own price (i.e. hardcovers and paperbacks). Where it goes wrong is that they try to squeeze as much money out of it as they can, which means that for Joe Consumer, the price of what he wants is always slightly above that which he's willing to pay for it. Most consumers still pay for it, hence the position of the pricepoint. It goes wrong when J. C. can only buy one version, the super-duper high-def quadrovox DVD, most probably because the other formats do not provide as much revenue. J. C. can either buy from his (assumed) limited budget, or download.
Note that there is no third option here, which is that J.C. pays what he's willing to pay (plus perhaps a little bit extra), and accepts some loss in quality (there has to be a tradeoff somewhere). So with those two options available, the flourishing downlaod "market" tells us that many go for option two. There needs to be a store with a slider, in which J. C. can set the quality he wants for the price he's willing to pay, confident in the knowledge that the RIAA won't come knocking on his door.
Now as for my stealing vs. copying argument, it is clear that the producer (in your case) stands to lose. However, it is not as if people came up to the producer and took money out of his pocket. In effect, copying is an indirect method for preventing sales. No one loses a valuable product, but the product itself loses in value. It is similar to many things when viewed in that way. People putting spoilers of harry P. on the web might be devaluating a product. A smear campaign might be devaluating. Commercials might be devaluating some competitors products. Would you, then, call that stealing too?
In my opinion, we should call stealing stealing and copying copying. The implications of both are clear, but there is simply no reason to confuddle the two. Would you not agree?
B.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
I'm so happy that our government is being so easily influenced to spend precious time on something with such a big influence on our national security, our society and the people of the United States of America.
Well done!!
/end sarcasm
... It boggles my mind that someone could not be aware of Hollywood's significant backing of Democratic Candidates... But since you aren't, here is a nice primer story to get you going
? id=3381169&page=1
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Decision2008/story
In 2004 Presidential election 70% of the "Tinseltown" donations went to Democratic candidates.
--------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
Or how about term limitations on Congress and Senators and elimnination of life time tenure for judicial officials?
The constitution defines the states as owning the election process for its officials. It seems to me then that each state has the right to decide on term limits for their representatives (Congresspeople and Senators work for the state). So if enough people in a given state vote to limit terms for their reps they should be able to.
The founders of the country envisioned a part-time federal government made up of citizen statesmen that would server for a short time then go home to their jobs/farms/etc. If the politicians were term limited then they wouldn't always be chasing the re-election dollar.
And why should judges get life time appointments? Why not give them say 10 year appointments at any one level. If they can't get an appointment to the next level then they go back to private life.
The problem isn't with the lawyers. It's with the political parties.
When was the last time you saw the Republicans or the Democrats actually do something that helped the common man instead of the corporations that pay for them to get back in office?
Look, it's common sense really. Imagine, for a moment, that you are a Congress-Person. You get a nice paycheck and your name on TV. Your mom is so proud. Now it's crunch time: you actually have to pass a law. You can go two ways on this. You can go one way, and make a couple of your constituents happy, or, you can go the other way and make (insert big-name corporation here) happy. If you pass a law that helps out the individual voters, you might get an extra 10,000 votes next time around, if you're lucky. But, if you make the corporation happy, you will get plenty of money to pay for a campaign that will give you those 10,000 votes, but you can now target those votes in the area/state that will make the most difference to you getting elected. Keep in mind that your competition is going to be getting money from the corps and will be targeting the important states. Now, your choice boils down to this: Do you vote to make people in general like you (by doing what is in their best intrest), or do you vote to make the people in the important areas like you (by targeting them with your campaign)?
And just to keep the system working, anyone who decides to 'do the right thing' and help out the people, doesn't get elected next term. I just love American Politics.
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
once upon a time, there was a concept called selfishness. along came a reptile like ayn rand, dressed this concept up in the trappings of philosophy, and rechristened the concept libertarianism. well actually, she favored the term objectivism, and was antagonistic to libertarians as ignorant people: rand was quite antagonistic to libertarians:
so she thought of libertarians as ignorants, and she was right about that. but no matter,
her "objectivism" is still utter intellectual crap. libertarianism is nothing but a code word for selfishness, dressed up in political signals and philosphical portents. but if you dress up a cheap whore in a fine dress, she's still a cheap whore. so it is with libertarians and anyone who spouts that nonsense. her "objectivism" has been completely coopted by the ignorant libertarians even ayn rand detested. she deserves them as her cult followers nonetheless, because whatever she called her thinking, trying to separate herself in vain from the kind of retards her pap appealed to, her thinking was still lame
libertarianism appeals to certain classes of individuals:
1. libertarianism appeals to earnest but naive college students with too many philosophy books under their belt, but without any real life experience, who build castles in the sky in their minds about how the world should or would or could work if people just started behaving in ways people have never behaved in any culture or time period since the dawn of mankind
2. it also appeals to rural folk, who don't understand how they fit into the larger world, and firmly believe themselves to be islands completely owing nothing to anyone else. what they are of course is coccooned within a larger country and system upon which the relative peace and quiet of their worlds depend. but it is hard to see that from the hinterlands until madness marches across the countryside, which it does, unfortunately, in societies that have abandoned the simple common human responsibility we have to take care of each other
3. and it appeals to 40 something selfish assholes behind on their alimony payments, corrupt and personally bankrupt about any give and take in their lives. nothing more needs to be said of such people. we understand them, and we understand why libertarianism appeals to them on a deep level
i put it this way: human nature is both altruistic and selfish. any political philosophy you present to the world has to address both sides of this coin, or you have built a political philosophy which is a nonstarter in the real world, because it doesn't jive with the nature of the humans you are attempting to impose it on
we all understand why communism doesn't work: it depends upon altruism, and doesn't address human selfishness. in a communist system, selfishness still exists, in the human beings in the system, but unaddressed by the system imposed upon them, and so selfishness eats communism apart from the inside
if you will, if a whole co
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That's an entirely different statistic. The question is not what percentage of "Tinseltown" donations went to Democrats, it is what percentage of Democrats donations came from "Tinseltown".
I think you missed his point. He's not claiming that Hollywood doesn't favor Democrats over Republicans. It's the statement "Hollywood is their biggest cash machine" that rings false. According to opensecrets.org's listing of contributions by industry, the sector that they call "TV/Movies/Music" gave the Dems about $14M in 2006 and $22M in 2004. It's true that they only gave Republicans $8M and $10M in those same years, however, here are the contributions to Democrats for other sectors in those same years:
Construction
2006 $16M (more than TV/Movies/Music)
2004 $20M (less)
Finance/Insurance/Real Estate
2006 $110M
2004 $140M
Health
2006 $36M
2004 $48M
Lawyers/Lobbyists
2006 $96M
2004 $150M
Misc. Business
2006 $57M
2004 $85M
Labor
2006 $57M
2004 $53M
Ideology/Single-Issue Money
2006 $98M
2004 $110M
So, according to these numbers, the Democrats have several bigger "cash machines" than Hollywood, even if you include the music industry in there. Your mind may stop being boggled now.
I'm just sayin'.
Didn't Michelle Malkin write a book about how the concentration camps were a good thing? By golly, yes she did. Title is "In Defense of Internment".
So one of the annointed few who is allowed to speak on behalf of the Republican party is running around the airwaves defending the japanese internment... Whereas the Democrats apologize for it whenever it's brought up.
It's examples like this which lead people to the conclusion that the Democratic party is the one with moral superiority.
It's one thing for abuse to occur, but it's quite another to defend abuse.
So you tell me to pick one of the two parties, get inside, and change it to what I want? The problem is that we have only two parties in which to place all the people in this nation. We need more options, as no party seems to represent even most of a person's beliefs. People can't find a reflection of themselves in either R or D so they vote for the least offensive party.
That's fucked up. We need more choices.
Blar.
1) I never said the European system was better. I don't believe it is. "Glowingly?" I was being pretty dispassionate about the differences in our systems, I thought.
2) I believe everyone has the right to be represented in their government; even (and especially, given their minority status) the fringe lefties and right-wingers. The founding fathers felt the same way.
3) You said:I disagree. I believe the real strength of our federalist limited-democratic republic is that the whims of the majority do not and can not drown out the voices and rights of the minority, no matter their political persuasion. It's precisely why the founding fathers didn't create a pure democracy (tyranny of the majority).
What, voting for a third party is somehow going to help? They're just a different color of cat.
Speaking of which. If you care enough about politics.... Register Republican and vote Ron Paul in the republican primary.
He's the only politician that isn't a cat. He's voted no on everything from the Patriot Act, to the Iraq war, and from little things like giving government grants.
Now to be fair, he may not be the world's most brightest when it comes to technology, but many feel for the sure fact that he believes that the federal government should not interfere with economics beyond the letter of the constitution and the fact he wants to get rid of the department of education and get it into the hands of the local governments again would make this issue a moot point.
If you don't know who Ron Paul is... Look him up on Youtube. He was on the Daily Show.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Just because I point out the flaws in the current system, doesn't mean I don't try to do anything to change it. I vote for those I see as the lesser of the two evils, and encourage my friends and family to do the same. I write letters to my congress-people whenever a vote about something I care about comes up.
If you know of anything else I can do to help bring about change I would be more than glad to hear it. But accusing me of helping to create a fascist state is not constructive, nor is it going to change the fact that this country's political system is broken; very, very, broken.
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
So Republicans are easily influenced? I guess this explains why despite enormous pressure from Hollywood and many other corporations/groups with large amounts of money, President Bush remains steadfast in support of the war? And also, despite pressure from the aforementioned, the Republicans recently filibustered an attempt to set a deadline for the war. I'm not saying that sometimes they aren't influenced (as someone else said, it's part of being a politician). Just that despite all this pressure and influences, they're staying steady with the war and won't relent. They're doing what they believe is best for the country, as is evidenced by their nonwillingness to back off when pressured like this.
Website coming soon.
Make this issue the college age election issue. Register to vote at your college district and make all politicians aware of your feelings, organize other students on this issue and vote based on this issue. Local elected officials will need to address any group of citizens of numbers 10 or more. Local officials will cry to state and federal officials this will get Reid's attention he is a party leader. Do it this year, get the freshman to do it. Next year is congressional reelection do it again. If you succeed in rattling a few lower elected officials their political consultants will be all over you trying to save their members in Congress their jobs.
History says college students will not become politically active like this and the likely outcome... More slashdot posts, more parties, more bitching at politicians. The politicians KNOW you will not act they can take the money and use your college administrations against you and your tuition.
NO ACTION == NO FILE SHARING.
Do something, anything really.
Slashdot is simply out of date. From the Chronicle of Higher Education's Today's News (for subscribers): Facing widespread outrage from college officials, a prominent senator withdrew legislative language on Monday that would have required some institutions to buy technological tools to curtail illegal file sharing on their campuses....
Isn't the whole point of a library to provide access to media for students interested in various topics who wouldn't be able to afford purchasing their own copies?
Some school needs to get innovative and start up their own online media library which takes advantage of the super fast connections most campuses have and stream the media. They've tried partnering with commercial vendors but that doesn't seem to work as well as they'd hoped.
The music industry and movie industry and whomever else should be giving students access to as much music as they want.... they're only there for 4-5 years on average and after they graduate they are going to want to have the same type of access... but will have jobs and bank accounts to pay for it. Right now all they are doing is training them on how to use P2P and avoid getting caught.
Maybe they should limit internet access bandwidth to web and email ports but provide campusNet access to media servers with very fast connections. Make it really easy for students to access the legal stuff... then they'll only have to deal with the small minority who want to download *alternative* content. Even better, you could let students manage the content and create Channels. Let them create proposals for various formats and apply for budgets to buy the media for distribution to the rest of the campus. This would make the students appreciate the economics and would give them ownership which they will then defend against *pirates*.
Add to this and license Facebook servers and let students hook up their profiles with various channels, etc and build their cultural profile and talk about the latest whatever.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Are you disputing the fact that a system can become broken?
What you have said so far is that anyone who refuses to work with the system is helping it to break, and if you think the system is broken, there is no reason to try to work with it.
So what should someone who believes the system is broken do? I can't do nothing because that makes me a fascist, and I can't work within the system for to try and improve it because that makes me a hypocrite. The only options left, that I can see, are working outside the system by manipulating the vote, or a second revolution, which I am hesitant to initiate until all other options have been tried.
Is there another option I've missed? Or are you just argueing to argue now?
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
Listen, both the Democrats and Republicans are bought and paid for by special interest groups. You are only kidding yourself if you think otherwise.
As a graduate of Edinburgh, the clear difference from the US is that transatlantic bandwidth is expensive. The university doesn't want you pulling terabytes from the state because it's damn expensive. I am under the impression that most US universities are so ingrained in the internet backbone that they have excess bandwidth and don't have to protect it.
:(
I found edinburgh didn't care too much about what you did so long as you stayed on JaNET, where they had 20Gb/s of bandwidth. You'd frequently find that your 100mbit ethernet connection or hard drive were the bottleneck on how fast you could share files. Of course most students were busy trying to run Napster or kazaa and leeching files across the atlantic
It is a sad truth but one we're all aware of. Money talks. Our laws are no longer based on those "unalienable rights" listed in our beloved constitution. It is instead based on the 'Golden Rule' which states "He who has the gold makes the rules." Senator Reid is not the first to be bought by Hollywood and he won't be the last. There's too much money to be made through litigation for the RIAA so they're willing to invest quite a bit to pull whatever governmental strings they can find a price tag on.
I'll stop here lest this turn into a 3 page rant that no one reads.
-asleep
In the article they mention schools giving away free or cheap media downloads.
I go to Penn State. Well, this is good and all - our school used to give away free Napster downloads and now have moved to Ruckus. Well guess what? Every May, after finals, Napster disables your access to your downloads. You can't even stream anymore after the school year ends. And now that they've terminated their contract with Napster, the downloads do nothing at all. Not only that, but good luck getting those downloads to work in anything but Windows Media Player! My MP3s work on anything, including the reason most of it is digitized - to run on my XBox set-top box running XBMC.
So, at least Penn State isn't giving away free or discounted music downloads, they're giving free music rentals. Sorry, but getting a cable modem and using BitTorrent is, and probably always will be more convenient. Sorry, RIAA, you're still fucked.
So let me get this straight. The savior party that promised to end the war in Iraq, fix the clusterfuck that is healthcare, stop the overreaching civil-rights grab at the hands of the Republicans are now so *busy* doing all those things that they have time to worry about protecting the mafIAA?
All I've seen come out of the Hill recently has been meaningless resolutions, pointless infighting and a lot of hot air.
I'm all in favor of recalling every fucking one of them and putting a big dent in the problem by passing a term-limit bill on ALL elected and appointed government officials. I mean, fuck it. If they weren't so worried about having a career in politics, they would focus more on doing the right thing for the good of the people. And the bad ones would probably get out of the game forever.
The goddamned democrats these days are every bit as worthless as the republicans.
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Attacking filesharing is nearly as bad as attacking drunken parties and springbreak. Trying to directly attack these things could help turn young people out to vote next election. All we really need is a core of people to stir the flames under those who are paying less attention to events.
Already, the Internet, open source, blogs, and file sharing carry a strong echo of the flower power generation. Their movement may have died down but some of their root concepts have sprung forward in time to shake the foundations of old school business, politics, and press. Technology is no longer just for geeks - trying to squash these technologies is the perfect way to anger and motivate young people for whom these technologies have become an essential part of life. Could a political movement based on personal freedoms take hold again among the young?
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.