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Infringement 'Detrimental To the Public Health, Safety'
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has declared that copyright infringement 'substantially interferes with the interest of the public in the quality of life and community peace, lawful commerce in the county, property values, and is detrimental to the public health, safety, and welfare of the county's citizens, its businesses and its visitors.' You might laugh, but that means they can close up a property for up to one year for violations of the anti-infringement ordinance [PDF] and the owner can be fined $1,000 for each infringing work produced on site. Not to mention the penalties in the PRO-IP Act, which just sailed through the House."
I imagine all but a few of the candidates are squarely in the camp of the MPAA/RIAA if they are aware of copyright issues at all.
But more Americans use filesharing than will vote in the election - or at least I know that more shared files in 2003, when I found the figures, than voted for George Bush in 2000.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
I was just about to say that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors 'substantially interferes with the interest of the public in the quality of life and community peace, lawful commerce in the county, property values, and is detrimental to the public health, safety, and welfare of the county's citizens, its businesses and its visitors.'
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson
While your statement makes for a nice soundbite, it's vastly far from true. There are plenty of countries, including the US, that have extended political power to formerly disenfranchised groups.
Copyright infrigement is only detrimental to the health and safety of those who abuse copyright in the first place. The common people do not suffer when their neighbor burns a DVD. The local economy is not negatively affected by the "lost sale", because the money not spent on copyrighted materials is more likely to be spent locally on other goods or services, instead of being funneled to out-of-state gluttons.
As much as I want artists to be fairly compensated, I strongly disagree with the application of copyright law. Litigation never solved anything in this world, it only creates more hatred for one another. It goes against the very purpose of law by promoting and supporting inequality, which is directly detrimental to the health and safety of everyone.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
The constitution is supposed to allow us to fix the government without it coming to that, but it doesn't seem to be working. So what changes do we need to make to the constitution to make it work? Not that the congress will allow us a convention to fix it.
We have a president who doesn't care what the constitution says at all. We have 2 out of 3 presidential candidates who voted to cede the decision to declare war from the congress to the president. How that isn't even an issue still boggles my mind. Even if you thought going into Iraq was a good idea you shouldn't have voted for that bill. But I digress. We're likely going to hand over the presidency to someone who has already proven they can't uphold the constitution.
That's what's so insidious about the current copyright reign of terror. It's not about AC/DC, it's about freedom of press and without that you and I will never learn of those other serious abuses you are talking about. Real families have already been thrown out of their homes and stripped of their life savings on the flimsiest of evidence about sharing RIAA crap that both of us can agree is trivial. If it's so trivial, why submit to such massive punishment? Don't be fooled, though, this is all about control of public knowledge, opinion and culture. It includes control of entertainment but it's also about domestic spying and neutralization of political opposition such as yourself.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
He claimed that governments ONLY got more elitist. Of course there are some policies that appear to benefit a small group; it doesn't take a genius to see that. But that's a far cry from saying that government ONLY exists to serve a small group and ONLY gets more interested in that group.
Claiming that government just serves some arbitrary elite makes for great teenage "down with the man!" soundbites, but it doesn't account for the fact that there are movements in both directions. Nor does it account for the fact that a lot of it is a matter of perception: It's easy to view a silent majority that you disagree with as a special interest; it's vastly easier than admitting that democracy works both ways.
I'm sorry, but there was a time in US history when only white men who owned more than 40 acres of land could vote. It is utterly unrealistic to claim that nothing good has come of expanding the vote to include people of every race, gender, and income group.
Voting is an illusion of choice.
Couldn't agree more. I've been saying that for years, though not quite as elegantly.
I believe that in this society, the only effective way to vote is with ones wallet.
Vote wisely.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Just because someone can vote doesn't mean the government serves them.
Back then, only landed white men got the vote for a government that served the interests of those landed white men.
Then it all changed: women and minorities also got to vote for a government that served the interests of the landed white men.
Viva la Revolucion!
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
We need to follow the constitution, to start. Changing it won't help when we just ignore the thing anyway.
Not a sentence!
Intellectual property = information.
It does not matter how much anyone would like it to be a physical property, be it you or me or the RIAA / MPAA. If it can be represented in a digital form, it is information.
The purpose of a computer is to copy and transform information.
The purpose of the Internet is to copy and transform information on a global scale.
Like it or not, the biggest change in civilization the last 20 years have been about moving digital information. Computers does not differ between types of information, they just move (copy) a huge number of ones and zeros from one place to another. The Internet is basically a colossal copyright infringement machine.
I worry a lot about "Intellectual Property". I can understand their worried and justified claims on the content industry, but no matter how you twist and turn this it boils down to "controlling information".
There is no difference between different kinds of information. If intellectual property could be controlled, all information could be controlled. This includes any information any government would declare "illegal".
If anyone could control who copies a Hollywood blockbuster, they could also control who copies other information that makes the government look bad. Like a video of police brutality or any violation of human rights.
Controlling information
I lost my sig.