Slashdot Mirror
Congressman Hollywood Wants To Make DMCA Tougher
Stormy seas writes "Congressman 'Hollywood' Howard Berman (D-CA) used a House subcommittee hearing today to express his view that the DMCA was in need of a rewrite. In his view, it doesn't go far enough. During his opening remarks for a hearing on the PRO-IP Act, Berman said that the DMCA's Safe Harbor needs further scrutiny and that it might be time to make filtering mandatory. There's more: Berman also 'wants to examine the "effectiveness of takedown notices" under the DMCA, and he'd like to take another look at whether filtering technology has advanced to the point where Congress ought to mandate it in certain situations.'"
And to think, I was happy when the Democrats took control of Congress back in November.
Meet the new schmucks, same as the old schmucks.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
And here everyone thought that the potential Canadian bill was going to be bad. Government-mandated content filtering... Where have I heard that before?
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
His view that the DMCA is in need of a rewrite? Has he been getting letters from his voters / constituents that the DMCA needs to be tougher?
If not, then why is he pushing for greater power?
(In an ideal world, corporations are not constituents. People are)
The scary thing is, is that this is very likely to pass. As many personal freedoms that the DMCA stepped all over it was passed with a 100% vote. Since no one wants to be seen as soft on crime, I predict this one will too. Quite sad actually as some parts of the current contradict the Home Recording Act of 1984(I think that's when it was passed). I hope the ISPs fight this tooth and nail and get it killed on the universal filtering provision and someone points out that the phrasing of what he wants is similar to China's Great Firewall.
[captcha=inputs]
"Chinese Amazons, power armor, laser swords.... things just meant to be." - Shampoo, A Very Scary Bet
So the story is that yet another Congressman is proving himself to be an idiot. If he makes enough noise, he'll probably be indicted in a few years for some sort of unrelated wrongdoing. Welcome to the world of politics. Next time elect a better representative. Or even better, get involved and run for yourself. While I don't always agree with their platform, the representatives that run because they have a solid cause are always more effective and trustworthy than the career politicians.
Of course, honest politicians rarely make headlines...
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I was going to make a flippant remark about how you could implement the new government and call it "Communism", but it occurred to me that a bit of education would be better.
You see, Direct Democracy (rule by consensus of the masses) has been considered many times in history. Unfortunately, no such democracy really got off the ground or survived. There are simply too many competing interests to make it viable. In the few instances where there is a consensus, a Tyranny of the Masses can often create worse conditions for some individuals. Effectively, you have no real justice.
Representational Democracies are intended to blend the best aspects of consensus with the best aspects of a Benevolent Dictator. (An example of such a dictator was Emporor Trajan of the Roman Empire.) By electing someone to represent their views, the majority is able to have their viewpoints expressed but with their competing interests solved at the level of the representative. The representatives then work out their differences and come to an agreement that (if they're doing their job correctly) generally pleases the people they represent.
Of course, what is to stop the representatives from carrying out tyranny against people they do not represent? What is to prevent them from creating unjust conditions for individuals in their attempts to improve the life of the majority of those they represent? Worse yet, what is to prevent an official that the representatives grant power to from using that power to take control? (e.g. The Roman Republic being overthrown to become the Roman Empire.) That's where checks and balances step in.
In modern democracies, these checks tend to take the form of legalistic means or division of power. The U.S. Constitution, for example, grants basic rights which are then upheld by the courts. It is the responsibility of the Supreme Court to ensure that the representatives never override the intent of the basic rights granted by the Constitution. Another example is the control of the military. The direct control of military assets in the U.S. are divided among individual states. Funding for those assets is controlled by Congress. Use of the assets is controlled by the President, but War may not be declared without the approval of Congress.
This division of power ensures that neither the President or Congress can turn the military on their own people. Those in the military report to the President of the United States, but their actual responsibility is to the citizens and the states. (In ancient Rome, the responsibility of the soldiers was to their commander. A mistake that allowed Julius Caesar to seize control.)
What I'm getting at is that the design for modern governments has been well thought through. There are a lot of reasons behind the layout of our governments, and they are (to date) the best balance for free societies that history has been able to produce. Simply throwing away the government in favor of anarchy ignores the thousands of years of history that have lead to the abolishment of empires and dictator rule.
Today's governments can still be improved, but let's make sure we're making those improvements with a full awareness of what our ancestors learned.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
a bill that could boost statutory damages for copyright infringement
I'm pretty sure damages are about steep enough as it is. Something $250,000 per album is the metric I think. Correct if me I'm wrong, that's just what I've seen suits for ip infringement go for (RIAA). I sincerely hope this guy does not get his way. With breaking net neutrality and introducing content filtering on the table I worry for the future of the web.
I got a catholic block.
The DMCA needs a rewrite, direly.
But I fear the agreement ends here.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Theoretically they are somewhat decent forms of rulership. However, as it stands today, practically, the ones with the most money can buy their way into the legislature. And the division of powers and the creation of laws by the rich combined with years and years of bureaucracy have made it so difficult for the poor to which some legislature is against (the rich benefit from stuff like the DMCA because they are the ones that own or can buy the intellectual property these laws protect) that they can't protect themselves against it. Ever noticed how many individuals can get an audience before the supreme court (that's where you go to get federal legislation overturned)? Usually it's an organization with deep pockets and loads of knowledge with people dedicated to that process (like the ACLU, religious groups or companies).
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Filtering the internet will be ready for prime time when ignoramuses like him are filtered from occupying any position of power.
In other words -- never.
Infuriate left and right
I'd love to get a look at this guy's campaign contribution list.
I would like to know your thoughts on the technocratic element in a modern government.
Technology has never been as large an effector in society as it is today. I see modern technology as being able to allow more fine-grained governing while also dealing with the mammoth problems that come from large populations and legal systems.
Technology is becoming more and more a part of the governmental process worldwide, does it make sense that we should require our leaders to have at least some level of technical sophistication to properly utilize and understand this new aspect of government?
Have our ancestors ever faced a question like this? One of dramatic technological impact on government and society?
Read my Very Short "Stories"
Speaking as a former Angeleno... Are there enough geeks in Berman's district to call his office and get him to reconsider? Given the small number of people who vote in congressional elections if he doesn't back down, are there enough geeks in his district to get him punted out of office? Oh damn, it's a presidential election year.
How about not letting any copyrighted stuff at all be transmitted over IP? That would make sure that unauthorized copying isn't done, and would make the internet TONS faster as the tubes are emptied.....
(hopefully everyone can recognize this as satire)
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
Pardon the tinfoil hat, but this is clearly a ruse to force ISPs to put in a Chinese-style, government-controlled way to limit free speech. Even if you don't have any interest in stealing the crap that Hollywood and the record companies spew out, you should be very concerned about this bill. I've sent my representative and both of my senators the letter blow. Feel free to copy and modify it as you like if you'd like to write to congress as well.
Dear <Fill in the blank>,
I understand that the House Judiciary Committee recently introduced the PRO-IP act. I've read that Representative Berman of California has even discussed a congressional mandate of filtering technology. (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071213-time-to-revisit-the-dmca.html)
As a computer programmer, I generate intellectual property and I am all for tough laws to protect my rights. However, as a citizen, I am far more concerned about laws that force companies to raise their prices without benefiting their consumers (which is simply the equivalent of a tax on everyone that's spent on projects benefiting only a very few) and my personal freedoms.
The success of the Internet is entirely due to the ability of telecom providers to do their job: facilitate communication. They are not liable if a telephone or internet connection is used for committing a crime. The actual criminal is. As a consumer, I don't want to pay more for telecommunications because hollywood is too cheap to pursue legal action against pirates. After all, I don't ask the government to pay to put an alarm system on my home or car. Hollywood should bear the expense of protecting their intellectual property and pass that on to their customers so we all pay for the cost of producing movies and music based on how much of it we consume.
Furthermore, I have a much deeper concern about a congressional requirement for filtering technology. It is simply one more step towards a totalitarian state of big government with too much power. In America, we enjoy freedom of speech and press not only because our constitution mandates it, but because the free market has created the technology to facilitate it. Unlike in other countries such as China or North Korea, the government simply can't restrict speech because no one in America would obey such unconstitutional laws or policies. If the government puts in place a system that can limit what information can flow freely over the Internet, we're simply one law or government policy away from destroying the first amendment. Free speech is far to important to the American way of life to wait for the courts to declare such a thing unconstitutional.
Whether the technology is there or not, please vote against any legislation that attempts to mandate that internet service providers and/or telecommunications companies filter the information they are charged with transmitting on behalf of their customers. Such a policy would be devastating to both our economy and our democracy.
Sincerely,
Adam Carheden
Congressman Berman® went on to say that C-SPAN(TM) has been granted an exclusive license to cover Congressional proceedings©, which includes all audio, video, textual transcripts and brainwave emanations©, should any someday occur.
In other© news, C-SPAN(TM) has issued a press release(TM) supporting this as "double-plus good legislation®", and promising to do its part to aggressively defend its intellectual property, including all recordings and the C-SPAN(TM) logo from unauthorized© copying©, citing©, reporting©, blogging®, commenting(TM), or joking on late night TV(TM).
*All copyrights, trademarks, and general hooey are the self-proclaimed properties of fat pompous sons of motherless goats.
The founders were smarter than that. The US Constitution instead assumes that people have these rights (as expressed in the Declaration of Independence), and limits government interference with them. Read the 1st amendment: "Congress shall make no law...", later clarified to mean that no branch of the government at any level can do those things (interfere with speech, religion, the press, gathering).
Do you have ESP?
I whole-heartedly disagree with this.
First, the idea of "tyranny of the masses" is easily programmed out. Look at the other link already provided in this thread. In their FAQ, they explain how "mob rule" is entirely avoided through simple procedure: http://www.metagovernment.org/faq/ That is nothing like rule by the masses; and yet every single person on the planet can participate.
As for the idea that governments have been well thought through; who is it that has been doing the thinking? A couple of leaders, right? How many people framed the U.S. Constitution? Now compare that tiny pool to the pool of everyone on the internet. If you allow everybody in the world to get together and decide how to formulate the government, wouldn't they have better resources to draw upon? That same website cited above proposes a scoring system not terribly unlike SlashDot's, but with numerous layers and with recursive scoring (so a high score from a person who has a low score doesn't count as much as a high score from a person who has a high score). Let a few billion people play with this system for a few years and do you really think it will still be inferior to the status quo?
Now think of what is NOT solved in the status quo, even in an alleged democracy such as the United States.
Here's how the U.S. picks a President. You as a citizen get to pick from a handful of rich, politically-connected people to represent one of two parties. For most citizens, by the time they get to vote in a primary, the candidate is pretty much already chosen for them. Then you get to vote again! Now you can choose from one of only two ('cause let's be realistic) politically connected rich people, and your vote is aggregated into a state's delegation to the congressional congress. You don't even get to pick who your delegate will be. Those delegates then pick one of those two people to rule the entire county with broad authority. You get no further say at all for four years, and that one person is free to do whatever the hell they want, as long as they don't completely piss off a large majority of the rich, politically connected people in Congress who were picked by the same process.
How is that democracy? It has the semblance of democracy. You get to cast a vote, meaningless though it is. But you get no real say in government unless you "know people."
And what's worse, you could be a genius with a wonderful solution to a significant problem... and you get the same quantity of votes as an idiot who doesn't know the first thing about any issue whatsoever. How is that good?
Yes, we have a nice history to developing our form of government, but sometimes we have to make a radical change. That's what the American Revolution was, after all. It is simply time for us to run another update and use modern technologies to implement something much more democratic. And much more effective.
Our representative democracy was designed such that the government feared the people. The failure of representative democracies is often that the government would only pay lip service to the people while it strengthened itself. The failure of our current representative democracy is that of education. Most of the US is uneducated, and know squat about its history, much less the ideal it embodies. And the few who are educated and do know can't be bothered to care.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Of course, what is to stop the representatives from carrying out tyranny against people they do not represent?
I think the biggest problem today (besides corporate sponsorship) with the US government is that the representatives are elected by their constituent states. When a congressman thinks of "his people", he does not think of "Americans", he thinks of all the people back in Timbucktoo, Alabama that need a new hickway, erm Highway to Wockahooey, Alabama so he can get elected again. Meanwhile all his fellow congressmen are doing the same thing porking money back to their home states so they can get re-elected.
At this point I think we would be better drawing names from a hat than rubber-stamping incumbents back into congress over and over.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Fixed it for the Congressman.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Politics is the enemy of technology.
It seems that the priorities of our politicians lie not with expanding the market for new technologies and benefitting the whole of the United States, but rather, with protecting the outdated market models of a few dominant players in the industry. It occurs neither to the politicians nor the industry that there is a lot of money to be made by embracing technology. If you want examples, look at Google. Look at Microsoft.
But instead of the RIAA and MPAA embracing technology, building new markets, and experiencing the stock-increase-frenzy of being the Next Big Thing(TM), they seek to expand copyright law, stifle the market, and strangle the industry. And when their efforts don't produce the increases they seek, what do they do? Blame piracy, of course!
Of course the artists are starving; the record companies don't know how to sell music!
And we're slipping farther along into becoming the technological backwater of the first world. Truly sad, that technology is being vilified for the evil that can be done with it, rather than the good that it already does society.
It must be nice to have a job where you can always blame your poor performance on the actions of others.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
he better clean it up. No one likes a sloppy whore.
They're using their grammar skills there.
When is this asshat up for re-election?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I'd definitely mod this Congressman down.
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat." Lily Tomlin
Wow, I had never heard of that, but it is truly one of the stupidest ideas I've ever heard.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
you frequently scold the technocracy in beijing on limitations on personal freedoms who act in the name of the "harmonization" of society
you frequently scold the theocracy in tehran on limitations on personal freedoms due to the need for a "virtuous" society
you frequently scold the autocracy in moscow in limitations ono personal freedoms due to the pressing need for "strength" in society
well, at least those assholes pretend to be working for the common in man in their evil propaganda
pray tell, when you sublimimated your understanding of what the founding father meant in the founding documents of this country to become a whore of a corporatocracy, did you even blink?
a corporation is an all consuming machine. it will destroy our culture by putting toll booths on every derivative of every utterance possible if they could with their legions of lawyers. in order to make one penny more
but there is more riches in this world than corporate coffers. cultural riches: books, music, movies. our shared cultural inheritance
and you can't even sing happy birthday without owing someone something
fucking h christ, this wrong
i'm not talking to you, mr. whore of the corporatocracy in washington dc, you're already bought and sold, a slave. you're unredeemable, pointless, corrupt. a waste of effort
i'm talking to you, average american in the street: fight back against these corporations, use every technological and socially disruptive means at your disposal. corporations are giant sucking vampires, that will mindlessly encroach more and more on our public domain, and they will not stop until even every single thought you possess has a price tag on it
bring the fucking corporations down, bring them to heel, break them. bring them to respect OUR shared cultural space. they will not do it. their paid whores in washington dc will not do it. only we can do it, the citizens the founding fathers had in mind, which aren't even considered in the decision making halls in washington dc anymore apparently on questions of media and its rightful relationship to our consumption as our shared heritage
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
of all the FUD and bullshit Howard Berman spews. Personally, I'd like to see laws requiring EVERY dollar a senator or representative gets - regardless of the source - accounted for. If they can't account for it with a clear paper trail then they get fined - $250,000 per dollar unaccounted for. Grandma sent you $10 for Christmas but you can't find the card that came with it? I'm sorry Howard, that will be $2.5 million dollars payable to the United States of America to relieve the tax burden on the middle class. If they have to have a personal accountant keep track of all of it, then they pay for it out of their salary AND the salaries of all those serving in the House or Senate are frozen for 6 years - so no pay bumps to cover hiring that personal accountant.
I say we squeeze them so tight they literally crap themselves when they take "campaign contributions" from big business. I say we make the task of keeping track of all that "soft" money and other contributions so onerous that it will be more than it is worth -- for the most part. I say we, the people, take back our country (for those of us who live in the USA) and make the politicians once more SERVE the people and not their own self-interest, pocketbooks, or corporate greed.
I know this will probably never happen, at least not in my lifetime, but it is a nice dream to have.
Here is a parting quote I found interesting many years ago (and still do):
As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master.
Commissioner Pravin Lal
"U.N. Declaration of Rights"
Dream as if you'll live forever.
Live as if you'll die tomorrow.
~Anonymous~
Rumour has it that those expenses are listed under more pedestrian line entries like "Catering" and/or "Fruit and Flowers".
As such, they become tax-deductible expenses!
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
To paraphrase a certain rebel princess:
"The more you tighten your legislation, Berman-Hollylord, the more consumer dollars will slip past your fingers."
See, the more problematic it becomes to use music the way WE want, the less the desire to purchase said music becomes.
Anything is possible given time and money.
You know, users could really help the *AA and government if they would simply set the evil bit on all internet traffic that potentially infringed on someone's copyright...
That would make content filtering a snap!
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
Can someone in the US please go whack this gentleman with a clue stick, or a real stick as applicable.
Someone needs to explain to these people that mucking about with the core infrastructure on the presumption that every single action is likely infringing is just asinine.
Would this same congressman want that all cars have a breathalyzer interlock, because there could be drunk drivers? Or, have us prove that we're not about to commit wire fraud every time we dial the phone? Or, how about ensuring that every time you drive near a school zone you prove that you're not a registered child molester? Because, that's the level of burden he's placing on the industry with these laws.
The problem with these legislated methods of making the ISPs responsible for monitoring everything we do on the basis that some small subset of people are doing something illegal; is, that only that subset of people are doing something illegal. You can't realistically but the burden (and cost) of DRM and content filtering on absolutely everything onto everyone else.
The overwhelming majority of us aren't in the middle of stealing your damned movies or music; don't overburden the entire system (at someone else's expense) as a dragnet. If you think someone is infringing, go ahead, chase them, but we can't force the entire infrastructure of the internet to be built around protecting the interests of a few large companies.
This is trying to get the wishes of these big media companies paid for at taxpayers expense. Though, since apparently the US is pondering adding a copyright enforcement agency, maybe that battle has already been won.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
That's right. Soon you won't be able to fart without someone trying to claim it as an IP infringement.
Oh, the humanity!
The internet detects censorship as damage and routes around it. In this case, any protocol (even ICMP) can be used to tunnel over. I suspect if passed, we'll be seeing a lot more of that kind of end running around.
The only filtering needed is those of the financial type to our politicians, then we see who lobbied for what laws.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
I suspect that the MPAA/RIAA lobbyists regularly tell him that the DMCA needs to be re-written every time they make a contribution to his campaign re-election fund.
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
That is a cogent discussion of the differences between American republicanism and direct democracy, however, it does not (as you imply) apply to all 'modern' democracies. The concept of checks and balances is by no means unique to the American system but it is an idiosyncrasy in the international sphere. Our presidential system (which is really what you are describing) is much less common among modern democracies than is the parliamentary model, which is based not on separation of powers and individual accountability for the executive but rather on fusion of powers and mutual accountability at the head of government level. Observing the British Parliament, and popular perception of it, you will find that the Prime Minister has power virtually unchecked by formal law, leading many in the press to bemoan the free exercise of power by that office. It is also worth noting that the form of separation of powers considered most important by our founding fathers was not the separation between branches of the federal government but the division between the federal government and the states, which was to a great degree a rejection of the British unitary model, in which ALL governments (national, city, and local) have only dependent power upon the will of Parliament. That model, with its attendant rejection of that crucial form of separation of powers, is by far the most common amongst modern democracies.
To address a few other points:
1) The constitution does not grant rights, and the courts cannot uphold them. They are considered 'intrinsic' and are therefore beyond the scope of law to judge. It is the burden of the legislature to prove that its actions do not interfere with the enumerated rights or, very importantly, with the non-enumerated rights guaranteed- but not provided- by the tenth amendment.
2) Separation of powers does not give you certainty that the military will not launch a coup, or that the military will not be used by one branch of government against another. A case in point is the Nullification Crisis of 1832, another would be the 1876 elections in the Southern states.
3) The argument that modern governments (and, by extension, our government) are well thought through is to some degree bolstered by the extraordinary longevity of our constitution, but we must recognize that the elastic clause (article 8, section 18, U.S. Constitution) is not the iron band it once was. The original form of government envisioned by our forefathers is, mercifully , dead. We have since performed massive, but piecemeal, renovations on that framework, and have in doing so created a new form of government which we do not understand very fully. Personally, two quotes come to mind- the first, from the Langoliers, is that "I'm not sure that knowing what that is will save our asses, but I'm damn sure that not knowing will get us killed!", and the second, from Joel on Software, is that "it is easier to write code than to read it", in this case meaning that we had better understand what is changing, and why, if we are to preserve the freedoms we hold dear.
OK, I expect the Representative from Hollywood to demand even more special privileges for Hollywood - that's what they send him there for. And I expect the Reps from the rest of the country to slap him down - that's the other 299 million of us send them there for.
What I'd really like to see would be a Congress enforce the Constitution, which says Congress can infringe our rights to free expression only to promote science and the useful arts by securing for limited time exclusive rights of authors to exploit their own work. Since exclusivity is at its lowest utility to protect motivating return on investment as it ever was, and free dissemination is at its greatest utility, I'd expect that limited time to be the shortest in history, at most its original 14 years, if not eliminated entirely.
But then I guess Hollywood Berman would have nothing to do.
--
make install -not war
As if the DMCA isn't dumb enough.
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
It's worth mentioning that this only applies to the House, and not to all of Congress. Senators serve a 6 year term, with 1/3rd being up for election every 2 years. I'm sure most US slashdotters would know that, but just in case...
Most of the US is uneducated, and know squat about its history, much less the ideal it embodies
As I was always taught that learning history was to prevent mistakes from happening again. I believe in the old adage, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it". The question now is, when?
Mr. Universe: "They can't stop the signal, Mal. They can never stop the signal."
It just goes to show that Tip O'Neil was right - all politics is local!
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
Yes, they have. Black powder, repeating rifles, the steam engine, the radio, interchangeable parts, the assembly line, the affordable and reliable motor car, the airplane, the telegraph, the telephone, cocaine, television, LSD... technology is more than the Internet and public-key cryptography. Many advances that have changed life and civilization have had to be considered by our ancestors.
The governments of the world, if they were not effected by technology, would still be fighting wars using rocks and sticks and would not be taxing or regulating driving a car. Stories like Watergate may have never broken, and Tienamen Square almost certainly not. Our entire economy would be quite different if it wasn't for large sea-traveling things called ships which allow for import and export of goods.
People are running political campaigns online now. The people in Washington are trying to get a grasp on what "digital" means in connection with "copyright". They realize that it doesn't take thousands of dollars or hundreds of hours to make a printing press followed by a substantial effort to make a pamphlet. They also realize it takes just a few moments to get an entire book, movie, or music album copied now. That's why they're trying to adapt. They're clueless about it, and are doing a generally bad job. The next generation of people won't be.
The thing I find most humorous is this is largely the rebellious, rioting, demonstrating, power-fighting generation of the 1960's that is trying to squash the expression and civil disobedience of a younger generation. What's that old saying about maturity, that "Youth is when you blame everything on your parents, while maturity is when you learn everything is the fault of the younger generation." See, the problem is the 60's generation didn't grow up -- they just sold out. They changed what they believe and are still blaming everything on someone other than themselves. Meanwhile, the people who think it's wrong to upload copyrighted content for the whole world but who borrow an MP3 or two here or there are being made villains in the press and before Congress like they're pressing disks and making millions of dollars in some back alley.
... *is* the problem, not only in regards to the DMCA but just about everything else these a-holes try to pull. What a frickin' dunderhead.
In the time it takes to complain about this on /., you could instead let your own Congresscritter know how you feel about the subject. Letters (real, paper snail-mail type) work well. Phone calls and faxes are next best. Email gets the least amount of attention. (Wonder why that is?)
So call 'em. Write 'em. Tell them the same damn thing you'd post here.
They got enough phone calls over immigration that it shut their switchboard down. That got their attention. No reason we couldn't overload their switchboard as well, is there?
Yes, the satire runneth over.
So we need to be running more encryption. IPsec might be the simplest to start with. And web sites can go with HTTPS (HTTP redirects to the HTTPS). Let them dream of filtering that. It will be hard enough (and horrendously expensive) to have ISPs do the filtering on all TCP connections. While limited encryption (e.g. no pre-shared key or PKC to authenticate the peer) would be vulnerable to MitM attacks, it would be many times more expensive for ISPs to deploy that kind of filtering.
Do not construe this to mean I support copyright infringement as I do not. But I sure as hell do not want my non-infringing traffic to be messed with in any way, nor be expected to pay for it in the form of higher ISP costs, just because a bunch of incompetent buffoons, and their stupid congressman, in Hollywood, want to keep a lame and doomed business model going long after its practical end of life.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
It's also the reason that there is such a concerted effort to lock down the Internet and make it into a "superTelevision" where only those who pay get access and the rest of us are passive "consumers".
It means we have them scared and we have a rather small window of opportunity to take some action and remake this society into something a little less ugly.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Actually, Plato discussed this in "The Republic" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_Republic). Basically, he said that societies alternate between the four main forms of government:
timocracy (society of honor), oligarchy (the rich rule), democracy (we all rule) and tyranny (one rules).
Self-interest cause timocracies to degenerate into either oligarchies or tyrannies. Oligarchies degenerate into tyrannies as as oligarchies see the need to co-ordinate and work against a common enemy or as one member outmaneuvers/outpowers the others. Tyrannies change into democracies as people revolt. Democracies change into timocracies, oligarchies, or tyrannies as they either take their freedom for granted and non-democratic behaviours to take hold or abuse it to persecute minorities (the Tyranny of the masses) or decay into decadence and need "someone or some group to fix things".
Platos "solution" to the problem is straight out of a B-movie dystopia, so it's not a solution anyone would like.
The American founding fathers were aware of the fragility of democracies and tries to design enough checks and balances to ensure that things wouldn't tilt too far away from the democractic ideal. But even they realized that it might not last forever, so they put the "right to bare arms" in the constitution to ensure that if things got too bad, a revolution could set things right.
But this is a different world. Puny weapons can't compete against weapons of mass destruction or chemical warfare so this right is pretty pointless and only serves to encourage inter-city violence. Globalization allows the super-powerful to gain influence *outside* the American countrol and use their influence to overpower the US. Politicians get praised for their visible programs (e.g. tax cuts or spending) but people don't see their invisible damage (e.g. increasing the govenment debt and thus putting the US in foreign control) and get blamed with they do the right long term things (e.g. pay the debt even if that means tax hikes and spending cuts to get American finance back in American's hands). Computers increasingly provide for 24 hour survallence. And although the amount of data to process is huge, algorithms are being refined to guess if you're trouble and deal with you. The algorithms don't have to be 100% accurate, just "accurate enough" to narrow down the "potential trouble makers" to a small enough group to be handled. Media consolidation has allowed "the one true message" to be sent to all people through enough apparently different sources that they appear to support each other (so they must be true). And TV is turning the US into an "entertainment society" like "Brave New World" where it doesn't matter if you're a mindless slave, as long as you can get your fix of Jerry Springer or "Reality TV" or Internet Porn.
So things look pretty bleak, but there are some signs of hope. On the plus side, the internet allows the free flow of information that's hard to restrict. Stenography and P2P makes filtering even harder. Non-violent influence also carries a lot more weight than it did back in the Founder's day so non-violent revolutions are possible (e.g. like the "Velvet Revolution" or the failed Soviet Coup attempt the tried to reverse Gorbachev's democratic reforms or Gandhi in India) and those methods are well understood (for now at least).
So I have no idea where things are going, but we're definitely living in interesting times.
California is a democrat stronghold. Anyone with a D generally doesn't get voted out. And this old geezer has been there about 25 years.
There is no form of government that prohibits tyranny. Tyranny of the majority is simply the manifestation of tyranny in a direct democracy. What I haven't seen demonstrated is that tyranny is more probable with direct democracy than other current forms of government.
Your statement demonstrates one of the key problems with representative systems: does the representative represent her constituents, or is the representative supposed to represent all interests (and is just one set of constituents' person involved in those discussions)? In other words, is the representative a proxy for the will of the constituents, or a free agent that is supposed to take the whole nation (or state or county or whatever) into account?
Ummmmm...only the modern equivalent of the "local militia" (National Guard). For all practical purposes, the US Federal Government controls the national military assets. In other words, if Army General A says "shoot" to an active military unit and Governor B says "don't shoot", my money says bullets will fly, because the military will honor the general over the governor, even if the military unit in question is from the governor's state. Similarly, if the US President authorizes a nuclear strike, the governors of the states with the ICBM launchers don't get a vote, AFAIK. The biggest question is what happens with inactive military units...which is why a state of perpetual war (e.g., the current literal manifestation of the War on Terror) is such a scary proposition, no matter what political party is in charge..
That being said, it was well though through in a time when bandwidth was severely limited. A world of near-instantaneous communication among all interested and affected parties was inconceivable at the time of our Founding Fathers. Therefore, while I agree that the historical lessons need to be learned and applied to the modern era, that does not mean we need to be stuck with "politics as usual" just because some new ideas weren't referenced in the Federalist Papers, for example. What I suspect we'll wind up with, at least in the next phase of the evolution of American governance, is closer to direct democracy — there will be enough online expression of opinion and coordinated recall efforts that elected officials will feel greater pressure to follow the will of their constituents. But, that's just me.
The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development
Soon, we will control what you read, see and watch on the interweb. It's for your own good, as we know what's good for you. And keep this up and we will have to filter Slashdot or any other subversive site.
Just take away all our computers, and we only get terminals with all our data stored on our ISP while it actively scans every file we access. If its encrypted using an unauthorized method, just contact the new IP cops and have them arrest the end user.
.. well you get the idea.
If they have any file that even remotely could be in a violation of some IP law somewhere in the world ( wto remember ). arrest the end user
If they search for a forbidden word or subject or try to access forbidden knowledge, arrest them.
If they try to access a file via a forbidden network ( ed2k for example ) arrest them
If they try to think for themselves or speak the truth in opposition
Its still censorship if the government mandates that others do the job for them. I would hope that the citizens of this morons area votes his ass out next election.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The web? I worry about the future of the country.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The two amendment's that spell this out are:
Amendment 9 - Construction of Constitution. Ratified on 12/15/1791.The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People. Ratified on 12/15/1791.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
As for the responsibility of the SCOTUS..
It is the responsibility of the Supreme Court to ensure that the representatives never override the intent of the basic rights granted by the Constitution In the U.S. Constituion there is no spelled out responsibility of the SCOTUS to perform a constitutional review of a law, however there was a very early case (Marbury v. Madison - 1803) in which then chief justice John Marshall claimed the power of judicial review.If voting were limited once again to landowners (or real estate), people who are educated enough to have and keep a home, things would turn around pretty quick for the better.
Not against women voting, or "men of color", but it'd be nice if there were a responsibility requirement.
It's for the spirit of D-M-C-A, it's for the sprit of D-M-C-A-hey!
Orrin Hatch should be decapitated, with his head stuck on the end of a pike as a warning to any other Congressmen that might feel tempted to behave as badly. Congressmen Berman and Hollings' heads should also be on pikes to either side of Mr. Hatch's.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Two friends of mine, married couple, (actually ex-housemates) both work in film/TV. He's an actor, she's a producer/writer/occasional actor.
The two of them are both non-technical people, to say the least. And they both by into the propaganda that OMG those dirty pirates! They're going to take our jobs!
Besides, hollywood movies don't have a piracy problem. TV and music industries do, but the business of making a movie, just counting revenue from ticket sales and nothing else, is safe as a church, because there's no way to pirate "seeing a movie in a theater". The whole industry, from the guys setting up the buffet tables to the CEOs at the top has been in the past, and can be in the future, supported by that revenue stream.
Home video makes it such that it's almost impossible for a major movie to lose money, all funny accounting "forrest gump didn't break even" aside.
And, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that under capitalism, risk and rewards should be proportional. The idea of a risk-free enterprise sounds more like socialism to me, eh?
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
I didn't know Switzerland failed to survive. It the most well known example of direct democracy. You just wrote that paragraph without checking any fact. With two minutes searching on the Internet, you could have come up with this example.
In this column:
http://informationweek.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199903173
Where he suggests that technophobes in congress didn't understand the technology, and they were somehow sold the bogus bill of goods that IP like music/movies/software would somehow be more important than say, the manufacturing sector. Or, as doctorow phrased it, "as if 'police academy' sequels would somehow replace the rust belt in the US economy."
Given that there were powerful interests at work at the time that really really liked the idea of replacing UAW workers with slave labor in China, this was a convenient thing for lots of people to believe.
The plural form of "anecdote" is "anecdotes", not "evidence".
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
Well, if the effectiveness of takedown notices need to be reviewed, then clearly they are a good thing. In fact, they must be so good that they can be applied to other branches of law! Let's introduce the DMCA (Dumbass Millenial Contract Act) that allows people to send people notices informing them of breach of contract!
...
Example:
Guy A: I want to buy this for ten bucks.
Guy B: Okay, sounds good.
*Guy A fiddles around in his wallet for a minute, trying to find the money*
Guy B: On second thought, that doesn't sound so hot. Sorry, no deal.
Guy A: Well then, I'll serve you with a DMCA contract enforcement notice, alerting you that you are in violation of the DMCA and that you are hereby obligated by said DMCA to immediately fulfill your part of the contract and sell me that object for ten bucks.
Guy B:
Guy B: Nope, still not selling.
*Guy A sues for a million bucks, wins, and is awarded another billion in punitive damages*
A master class of pyshcohistorian analysts.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
Perhaps it's time to insist to all political parties in general and the Democrats & Republicans in particular that ,Limb,Economy,Constitutionaly guaranteed freedoms and both gross neglegence and incompetence.
All candidates,state level and federal level pass rigorous intellegence testing and go before an independent panel for common sense evaluation before they can even be considered nominees.
In my worthy opinion the current process falls so far short of what is necessary,we could doubtless file a class action suit against the two prevalent parties for reckless endangerment of Life
Make em think twice about their bullsh*t party agendas and start doing the THANKLESS work they were elected to do without any glamour.
Make it a job no one wants and our country will return to prosperity.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
The design of my first 8-bit, 64KB computer was well thought through, as well, but I don't think even its biggest fan would advocate building a 64-bit quad-core workstation on the same architecture.
The first census here counted 4 million Americans. My state has more than that now. Heck, there are 2 *cities* which *each* have more than that population. The geographic area of the country is several times larger, as well.
Is there any shame in saying "well, maybe it didn't scale up 2 orders of magnitude so well"? If I built something for 20 people, and along came 3000 people, it probably wouldn't work as-is. And I'm OK with that! So throw it out and build something better suited to it. Social structures tend to scale very poorly; imagine one teacher for 20 students, and then for 3000 students.
Sure, direct democracy in the past hasn't lasted. Before 1776, representative democracy hadn't lasted, either. The experiment started by Adams, Washington, Franklin, and the rest has worked remarkably well, for over 10 generations. Bravo. But I don't think anybody would claim that nothing has changed.
Nobody is proposing to "ignore thousands of years of history". (If we were, we might be proposing something that sounds good but failed, like socialism!) We want to learn from it, and build something better. Maybe it's never been done before, but the last time we tried something new in this country, it worked really well. It seems weird to argue in favor of the status quo when it was itself revolutionary in its heyday.
If you want to argue from history, I'd say having rulers thousands of miles away deciding policies for you hasn't worked out, and that's exactly what we have today. To pretend that nothing has changed since 1776, on the other hand, would be to ignore history.
Maybe, or maybe we'd see a sort of tyranny of the landed gentry. What is the definition of a "landowner"? Does one need to live on the land? Does it need to be a certain minimum size? Back when the constitution was drafted, becoming a landowner was a fairly simple process: 1) go to frontier. 2) clear some land, 3) live on it. This was hard enough that it was only available to responsible folk willing to work hard. Now, there isn't a square meter of land that isn't owned by somebody, and given the non-rural nature of modern society, buying cheap land to live on is nigh impossible. Cheap land is available, but not anywhere where employment (and thus cash flow) is. Of course, the franchise could be granted even to those not living on their land, but then you'd have "voting rights" companies spring up, selling people 4 square centimeters of property in Montana for $5.95, thereby making them eligible to vote. The net result would be little better than we have already.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
It's up to us to break free of the corporate backbone that holds us captive. If all this "make your own hardware on your printer" ever comes to fruition, then we can simply build around whatever walls they try to put up. That also leads me to believe that this kind of tech will be highly restricted. Let's try to make that impossible, too, eh? We'll make "Darknet" just as mysterious as dark matter. And don't blame the government for your own failures to vote these kinds of people out of office. The field is wide open. If all you vote for is the person who dazzles you the most, there's not much left to say about you that can be said in front of women and children.
What?
They have the same problem we have in Australia. Is the devil you know better than the devil you don't? Are they the same devil? (The clue is in the title.) There is no real choice, it is just a pretense of a vote to satisfy the mob.
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
...and send him a C&D letter! ;)
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
He's in a "safe district." It always votes Democratic. He was elected with an 80% majority last time around. There has never been a credible challenge to him, whether Democratic, Republican or third party.
I oughta know. I live in his district.
I'd challenge the bastard in the primary but I don't have the money to do it.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
An interesting anagram of "BANACH TARSKI" is "BANACH TARSKI BANACH TARSKI"
People often forget that Anarchy within months breaks down into feudal warlordship. I.E. if you oust a government, another one will rise very, very quickly.
In other words, you can shatter the current system, but you can't shatter the global truth that money leads to power. Generally, a ruling system has to be more built up to separate the two, rather than less.
The ______ Agenda
Just not in the direction he wants.
How much abuse of this law have we seen? Lexmark suing over ink cartridges springs to mind... Suppression of research papers, etc.
You NEED to write your congrescritter and explain that no matter how much you may like him, if he votes for this bill, you WILL vote against him in the next election.
Explain, politely, that this is such a big issue in the world today, that even if you don't like the other candidate, you'll vote for him anyway just to punish the incumbent. Get your friends and relatives to do the same...
The founding fathers believed T-shirts are going to help us bring down tyrannical governments? That does kind of make sense, they've proven very effective as a way of fundraising for political groups, and as a canvas upon which political slogans can be communicated.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Actually, you are mostly wrong. Switzerland is an example of very well-functioning direct democracy. Also you're wrong about its effects on people. You can get more information in the book at http://democracy-international.org/.
that Howard Berman looks a bit like Steve Ballmer (in some pics)
As long as we're dreaming, I prefer Heinlein's notion of a two-year military or civil service requirement. Voters who have to earn the right by working a low-paying, potentially dangerous job for a couple of years would take the right seriously.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
...
It the current system is a failure and t used to be the way you'd prefer it to be, then it should be obvious that that the model you prefer has already failed. After all, we're here now and the system you'd prefer led us here.
I think the problem with the current U.S. governmental systems are not ones of who can vote or who can not vote. Saying "Poor people shouldn't be allowed to vote" is just code for "I'm a Republican asshole". The problem is quite clearly systematic.
Because of gerrymandering 95% of your elected representatives are guaranteed to be elected. This is why your government is run like a plutocracy. It's because only 1 in 20 congress critters are democratically elected, the rest are appointed by wealthy interest groups.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
The crying for assistance from what I call the 'middle-man model' companies is only a symptom of a broader shift: more and more people are looking elsewhere for their music, movies and other entertainment.
What we are seeing is only the tip of the iceberg, and the changes will take place on a logarithmic curve - so it will only get worse for these companies faster.
That being said, what relevance will these middlemen have when the artists are producing and distributing their own works via what I call the 'no-middleman model', and what impact with this have for people in general? I can think of a few things:
1. Middle-men will be marginalized to the point where their sales are only a fraction of the overall market - provided they don't change their business models to adapt.
2. People (traditionally called 'consumers') will get the content they want how they want it, and they will have more options to contribute to the process that looks more like a long term collaborative relationship, rather than a one-time contractual exchange. Consumer, as a useful description will be limited to food and durable goods.
3. Artists will have more options to produce and promote their work. Their business model will not be limited to the traditional sale of a CD, but more and more of their revenue will come from non traditional payments (virtual tip jar, expansion of venues to include online and virtual worlds exposure - exposure way beyond the numbers of people they can reach today on their own).
4. New artists will be able to get more exposure, and will enjoy more of the profit than they would under a traditional corporate model.
So - in this environment DMCA will be virtually irrelevant. If 99% of the art is distributed with an open commons type license, then protection of that other 1% will be largely irrelevant to you if you don't patronize it - given the quality of corporate produced music and movies continues to deteriorate as it has been over the years, that is not a bad assumption. Even if the split looks more like 50%/50% - open commons/proprietary, the artists that choose the proprietary route (e.g. selling CDs, or using a closed distribution model - like iTunes) don't have to opt-in to DMCA driven DRM protections (didn't Steve Jobs get buy-in from his providers that the music on iTunes would not be DRM'd?) - and probably wouldn't want to, given how these attempts to lock down content has failed so many times, and is seen as a boondoggle for many people.
Artists will be able to focus more on the creative side in concert with fans and contractors (cheaper than the blood money the corporations demand for promotions) - providing full featured 'teaser' works, and other ancillary things (websites, and virtual space/world presence - e.g. 'Gorillas' website, and 2nd Life artist storefronts and free events) - which will garner larger audiences (provided they have talent, of course) - and increase their own income as this model becomes more and more mainstream.
If an artist refuses to DRM their work, wants to give away their art for free online, and put up a virtual tip jar for appreciative patrons, I don't see what the DMCA, corporate middlemen or congress can do to stop it.
The train is coming. Time to get off the track.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
There are two simple reasons music on CDs costs so much. There's money in mking a theft-resistant container, shipping it, storing it, having a big brick-and-mortar store (often at mall rent rates) and people to move them. That's a lot of markup. Another is that the record labels want to maximize profits and essentially fix prices with one another.
The whole issue with getting the labels to change their ways is that it's the very infrastructure that made them that is currently destroying them. They keep thinking it's the new technology that's hurting them, but it's their failure to adopt it that's doing so. Moving from technology to technology used to be their strength, after all. They changed from 98 and 78 RPM records to 33 and 45. They moved from 4-track reel-to-reel to 8-track tapes. Eight-tracks went out with the surge in cassette tapes. Vinyl mostly went away with CDs. Yet, for all that, they appear unwilling to move to SuperAudioCD, DVD Audio, or Minidisc. They largely seem unwilling to go to MP3, OGG, or AAC or unhappy about the whole idea. They're attacking fans of their talent pool for just about anything to do with technology.
I'd be fine with them cracking down on heavy sharers of their copyrighted work. To say stupid things like making an MP3 for myself to use from a CD I own is stealing is stupid, wrong-headed, arrogant, and not in line with copyright laws. In fact, any company that has said it's okay to make personal copies for a second device or to make backup copies who has turned around and said it isn't has committed promissory estoppel and cannot enforce any thing of the sort because they can't sue you for doing something they told you was okay. That's even if the law was on their side.
One thing people need to realize is that if you download files with certain P2P software, it places those files by default into the directory you're sharing back out. That changes a minor copyright issue (grabbing files from someone) into a major one (offering copyrighted files to the public). It'd be better to just not make illegal copies of other people's copyrighted work without their permission at all. P2P users who use the technology for legal purposes are getting pretty pissed at leeches who keep the P2P networks on the defensive. But if you think you're just grabbing a song or two here or there and not sharing anything, and that's acceptable to you, then be careful enough where you save the files so that they're not shared back out. Oh, and if you think it's okay to take what's shared but not to share it back out, who do you think you're condoning by copying it from their share?
Displaying religious symbols does not interfere with a person's religion.
Sure it does. It forces me to pay to promote one of the particularly delusional and murderous religions.
The fact that it's in the *courts* of a nation who's primary differentiating principle is that delusional religious nonsense, and ignorant religious hatred have *no place whatsoever* in the laws of a civilized nation, is a direct assault on this nation by the radical extremist nutjobs who despise everything this country stands for.
So, yes, putting some bullshit from the bible (which is lies for fools) in a court room which is intended to provide justice based on reason (the diametric opposite of religion) is absolutely a violation of the constitution. And one that cuts to the very heart of the basis of this nation.
How am I supposed to expect a fair trial in a place with Bible bullshit on the walls. You do know the bible calls for brutally murdering people for a variety of idiotic "crimes", based on whims, right? That's contrary to the purpose of our courts and you should really be able to figure that out for yourself. It is that simple.
Of course, you think your delusional fantasies are real and therefore it's ok to shove them in people's faces in a freaking court of law of all places. If your religion is so delusional and crap, the answer isn't legislating it into places it has no purpose. The answer is the grow up and deal with the fact that like Santa and the Tooth Fairy it was just a pack of lies to scare idiotic children.
Man up, admit you fell for something stupid and move on with your life.
Well, apparently YOU haven't, because you're wrong.
The House of representatives is every two years, the Senate is every six. The senate elections are staggered so 1/3 of the seats are up for election every two years.
RTFC:
The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature.
The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, (chosen by the Legislature thereof,) (The preceding words in parentheses superseded by 17th Amendment, section 1.) for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote.
Immediately after they shall be assembled in Consequence of the first Election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three Classes. The Seats of the Senators of the first Class shall be vacated at the Expiration of the second Year, of the second Class at the Expiration of the fourth Year, and of the third Class at the Expiration of the sixth Year, so that one third may be chosen every second Year; (and if Vacancies happen by Resignation, or otherwise, during the Recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary Appointments until the next Meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such Vacancies.) (The preceding words in parentheses were superseded by the 17th Amendment, section 2.)
I've been called a "Fucking Dick" by better people than you.
Ah, I wish I could give you +1 'Right' and -1 'Shameless Flamebait' at the same time. Nice rant though.
Ah, I wish I could give you +1 'Right' and -1 'Shameless Flamebait' at the same time.
;-)
Yeah
I just get so sick of these people repeating the same nonsense no matter how many times and how hard it's slapped down. They can't be reasoned with on such topics, since you can't be reasoned out of a position reason couldn't have led you to, so at least it makes me feel a little better.
Nice rant though.
Thanks!
the DCMA isn't doing enough to protect the media conglomerates. Keep in mind, we need strong copyright laws because eventually the giants will fall. The internet will destroy the media conglomerates. The RIAA is able now to use technology at its aid, but is it enough? Consider seeqpod (and my related blog entry: http://www.hurox.com/u/simplemind#simplemind.blog ), it lets users search for music by aggregating the vast number of small scale 'pirates'. How can big media fight that?