Slashdot Mirror
H.R. 4279 Would Establish Federal IP Cops
MrSnivvel writes "H.R. 4279, Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008, is gaining momentum in Congress. It passed the House a few days back. It would allow the Feds to seize hardware that has even one file coming from 'dubious origins,' e.g. downloaded from P2P. If passed into law, the bill would establish an Intellectual Property Enforcement Division within the office of the Deputy Attorney General. Rep. John Conyers says the goal is to 'prioritize intellectual property protection to the highest level of our government.'"
I cannot pretend to understand US politics... but I guess if something can sum up capatalism it's this story's summary.
now we know what the next war will be about...
Delta-Mike November Bravo Tango
hehehehehe,
I'm so glad I live in the UK! Oh wait....
"I want this country to realize that we stand on the edge of oblivion! I want every man, woman and child to understand how close we are to chaos! I want everyone to remember why they need us!"
So if a computer has anything they got from p2p, then the cops can confiscate their computers? So if, say, a cop doesn't like someone's politics, ethnicity, race, sexuality or gender and that cop knows the person plays WoW, they can confiscate the person's computer with no possible recourse for the victim? Sure a charge won't come from it, but they get to make life annoying for that person.
"Specifically, federal civil law would be amended to: (1) provide a safe harbor for copyright registrations that contain inaccurate information so such technical errors would not prevent a judgment for infringement;" Excuse me? So if you lie when registering for copyright, the registration is still valid? Or does this imply that an inaccurate registration would not prevent a judgment for infringement that could have taken place if copyright was not explicitly registered at all (something that would already be the case, unless I am mistaken). The amendments to section 410 do not make it clear exactly how this will be any different.
Was P2P specifically mentioned, or was this example added by the submitter?
for fscks sakes, ideas are not property!
if you steal property, the original owner loses something.
if you steal an idea, the original owner loses nothing.
someone, please, get these asswipes out of office. either the ballot box or ammo box will do.
-I only code in BASIC.-
It is true. IP is the most important issue facing us in America. We have solved all of our problems. The oil crisis is solved, healthcare rates are affordable and healthcare service is impeccable. Its so nice to see that we really do not need alternative energy and that our economy is providing everyone a comfortable life style where only a single parent can work while the other parent raises the children. Education is more solid than ever. We are raising a nation of math wizards capable of programming in asm on the spot. Our government is finally loyal to the American citizen and corruption has been eradicated.
NOW.. we can finally tackle the issue of downloading music and movies illegally, and impose death on those that do.
I'm proud to be an American today. So proud.
from http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2003/06/59305
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) suggested Tuesday that people who download copyright materials from the Internet should have their computers automatically destroyed.
But Hatch himself is using unlicensed software on his official website, which presumably would qualify his computer to be smoked by the system he proposes.
The senator's site makes extensive use of a JavaScript menu system developed by Milonic Solutions, a software company based in the United Kingdom. The copyright-protected code has not been licensed for use on Hatch's website.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
How do you verify that a file is or is not pirated, exactly? And whatever happened to 'innocent until proven guilty'?
For that matter, do those reps think that this will make law enforcement give one whit about people stealing albums? They already have enough to deal with in terms of real crime, and they're going to utterly ignore this anyway.
I want people to know how bad copyright really is and the only way to get it through their thick heads is for the law to be enforced to the letter.
Sooner or later the US will wake the fuck up.
How we know is more important than what we know.
destroyed of all things ! I personally think they should explode and kill all the occupants of the premises where said hardware is located. Or maybe geotargetting coupled with a tactical nuke or so, sure the collateral damage would be large, but nothing is too much in protecting that precious IP.
I've often wondered if an intelligence test before a vote would be a good thing and I've decided against that, but such a test administered before being able to take public office would be a very good thing.
MP3 Search Engine
There's no reason to seize property without evidence of a crime and a warrant. Copyright infringement is a civil matter -- but downloaders aren't even necessarily distributing.
Good to see elected officials once again bowing to the wishes of the trabant factories.
Clearly America isn't a democracy, a republic, or any of those other pretty labels any more.
I move for the new designation of "Corporate Plutocracy".
Can I get a second for the motion?
but that would leave the BSA people jobless.
how crewl and and uncaring is that
It's interesting that all the moonbats screaming POLICE STATE!!! over in the Kucinich thread are all missing from this one. Consider that the bill is sponsored by a Democrat, and has passed a Democrat majority House.
If there's any law I've seen recently that qualifies as police state, this is one.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo.
WHY has this become so entrenched with the upper echelons of the US Government? WHAT has this got to do with Congress, and indeed the Government in general? It's a legal issue, but not something that needs further governing by bogus departments created by the corrupt hands of the Bush era. It's sickening.
ilovegeorgebush
Why in the world are these clueless talking heads still in office? If I had employees this stupid I'd fire both them and the HR department for letting them in.
Why haven't we, the people of the United State of America, fired these morons? They're not anyone's idiot nephew/niece, are they? Seriously!
Even if it weren't a heinous offense against decency, this bill must die for having another goddamn ridiculous acronym!
Civil asset forfeiture laws are the antithesis of capitalism. They are a means by which the state can seize any property it wants simply by finding some nebulous connection to a crime. Did you know that YOU don't even have to be the one accused of the crime? They can do all sorts of fun things like seize your car if your friend borrowed it, while you thought he was going to the store to buy a case of beer, and he really used to it to drive to a drug user's house to sell drugs. This sort of thing is entirely Fascist in its economics (you did know that Fascism is a collectivist economic system as well as a political one, right?)
A few days ago, news was spreading that the writers strike was causing a recession in California:
http://www.boston.com/ae/celebrity/articles/2008/06/07/writers_strike_causes_california_recession/
California, as a state, has an economy that is larger than many other countries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_California
The hollywood economy is a significant contributor to this and thus intellectual property (in the form of movies, tv shows and music) figures prominently. It would probably be fair to say that Silicon Valley would also benefit from this, that is if Microsoft were HQ'd there.
IP is worth a lot of money to the USA. It's not something that can made in other countries - it takes the collective creativity of those engaged in various industries above to make it.
Thus America is doing what it can to protect an industry that is important to it.
What they've failed to demonstrate (IMHO) is that the IP problems they're fighting (P2P networks) make a demonstratable difference to profits.
The leap of understanding that these people don't seem to be able to make is that for many people, if they couldn't download it then they wouldn't buy it.
You forgot: you've also won the wars on terror and drugs.
Everybody get in here! Your senators know that every person who actually writes represents thousands of voters.
Only a lawyer could follow the logic that was used to uphold them. The judges, aka lawyers with power to determine the law's enforcement, ruled that since YOU aren't the one being accused (your property is) YOU have no due process right except to claim your property IFF you can prove that the property really wasn't used in the crime that the government is alleging. Doesn't matter if someone else hijacked your property to do it!
Any normal human being can look at the logic of civil asset forfeiture laws and realize that it is literally a legitimization of armed robbery by the government.
So does this mean when my neighbor has their radio up too loud I can alert the authorities and have their equipment removed?
"What if I got hit by lightning while walking with an umbrella? Ban umbrellas! Fight the menace of lightning!" Doctorow
In the US the database of law as it applies in practice - the rulings whether a law is valid or not; whether a law can be applied to a particular circumstance - is itself a work protected under copyright.
I can think of no better argument against copyright than it prevents citizens from knowing what the law is.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
If IP is ideas, which are thoughts.... this would make them thought police?
This is not the funny you're looking for.
Don't get me started on Hatch. I am so tired of him as our elected official. The guy's been there for over 30 year, and that instantly puts him on my hate list because of how much I am against the principle of "Career-politicians." But he's never going to leave, because we just love our incumbents here. The guy doesn't even live in our state! He has a house in Virginia, and only comes to Utah to raise funds for re-election. What an asshole. /rant
"Thank you for using Stop-n-Drop, America's favorite suicide booth since 2008"
H.R. 4279: Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008
It was sponsored by Rep. John Conyers [D-MI]. He's a both Democrat and an outspoken critic of Bush so he must be right. Protect us from terrorists and drug lords. Think of the children.
PROIP? How much time do they waste coming up with cute little acronyms like this?
"prioritize intellectual property protection to the highest level of our government"
Yep, we have our priorities right. With all the famine, high energy prices, wars, natural disasters, etc, we know that IP rights must be the highest priority, to keep that money flowing into congress. Getting that pocket lined is more important then feeding people.
Kick them all out, they are no longer serving the citizens as they are mandated to do by the constitution. Its a breech of contract of their oath of office.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
this gives me a good idea what don't the second these fucking morons pass this law people turn right around and charge the ones that passed it with the crime its self so they can see how stupid it is to attempt to police the internet. this will just cause encryption to even more wide spread.
Really what it boils down too is the cops will get take your computer so you no gets to internet for weeks. annoying and not well though out.
people that don't know jack shit about the internet don't deserve to pass laws about it.
Already have the power, why do they need more? Are they ignorant? Just have the artists put Creative Commons License Tags of the works of art, and then use the DMCA, where if anyone tampers with the CC License Tag, that it is a violation of the DMCA. And isn't a violation of the DMCA then a felony? AND worse, could be a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act as well. Then, have ISP filters that monitor the art, report to the artist, warn the user if excessive use, etc.
If folks are then sending files encrypted, then what? The only law would be that you can not encrypt other's works of art, without their permission or be again, inviolation of the DMCA and maybe the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act?
The Problem with the IP cops, is that this creates a whole new expensive government entity... for what?
I know you're being facetious, but selling an inferior drug under the name of the biggest competitor is technically an IP violation (a trademark one). Personally I think it should be a case of fraud and treating it as a trademark issue is simply ridiculous.
So to take over the white house we just have to get someone stupid enough to download one file? How much does a used Whitehouse go for these days? I hear its Haliburton $3 Trillion..
Fred Grott(aka shareme) http://mobilebytes.wordpress.com
The knock-on effect on the rest of the first world cannot be denied. When the U.S. comes up with a ding-bat solution to IP like this, then we are all doomed together because it will filter down through international treaties and trade agreements.
Freeing up IP is essential for making health, education and the energy market cheaper and more universal. In the last 5 to 10 years, first world governments have been 'pulling up the ladder' in this regard rather than opening up to the people. It's almost as though they are anticipating something.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
I have never been so proud of being an EU citizen. We fine big companies, we support open standards and we can live without fear from being arrested because of some rhianna songs our kids might have downloaded. How stupid is that? You once were a country that emerged from a revolution. Embrace your past and make sure your leaders know you're not happy. God Bless the EU.
Nice try, but all work produced by the government is public domain. The only way your point is valid is if a private corporation produced this law and didn't put it into the public domain.
From now on, I'm leasing my hardware.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
At least until its decide that just running something like that is grounds for persecution and assumed guilt.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
And on the badge - Don Quixote attacking the windmills.
To start rigging my case with an explosive booby trap, oh wait lethals traps are illegal.
So what ARE my options then, because hell if I am going to stop downloading things on P2P.
Move to Norway :-)
1) Oil-crisis ? What crisis ? We export shitload of oil and are steeenking rich as a result.
2) Healthcare costs money ? Guess so, never saw a bill (see 1) (universal healthcare)
3) Energy ? We get 95% of our electric power from hydroelectric already, planning to be completely carbon-neutral as a country in a decade or two.
4) Comfortable lifestyle ? Flipping burgers earns you $12/hour or thereabouts here, and unemployment is like 2% perhaps, so got that pretty much covered. (the main unemployed are -unemployabe- more than unemployed; if you are incapable of showing up at work, the problem ain't with the economy: it's with you!)
Did I mention we've got hot girls yet ?
Is this not a blatant transgression of the 4th Amendment?? Back to the dark days of the writs of assistance..
Copyright infringement as a criminal act - that's just wrong. And scary. Too long has this corporate fellatio been going on..
And as an additional WTF: Britney Spears/Justin Timberlake/Beyonce/Dude, Where's My Car?/Gigli are the USA's most important economic engines? Or at least, the engine's constituents??Goddamn. Just, goddamn.
p.s: TFA's dated May 6th. Isn't this coming a tad late on[Slashdot Comments We Liked]
"The USA is a nation of laws, poorly written and randomly enforced" - Frank Zappa
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
[sarcasm]
Your project management skills are outstanding. If only I had realised that I should assign every person to the same task rather than getting them to work on several tasks in parallel. If I put two people on a task and it takes 50% of the time then putting one hundred people must take 1% of the time!
[/sarcasm]
I am afraid to use my card to buy a song for 90 cents. Not that I do not want to pay.
But I will not resume walking to the shops to by disks. It's like asking me to start riding a horse.
It's gone, over. Forget about it. Move on. No more CDs. Turn the page.
I would love to know what the term "Dubious Sources" means in the original article. My definition of course, would be the MPAA, RIAA, and what the hell, anyone I don't like.
Does that mean, if I get an **AA nastygram, I can then enforce the law back on the fucktards that originally sent to me? Someone really needs to throw the screws at these shitheads.
Thank god I live in the EU.
Well this may be considered flame bate, but there are ways to fix them, and give it to the man at the same time. We all hate hatch the disney mouthpiece for hire.
Firstly, try a Linux distro, for example, try Opensuse 10.3,(http://en.opensuse.org/Welcome_to_openSUSE.org) it just works. People sometimes have a bad image of Linux. My parents recently converted to it (well I did it for them) and they have no issues at all. Codecs etc available online legitimately . Paying for an opensuse package. Not heard of anyone paying for software if they didn't want to, as in, no law against passing it round, i.e. libre (free) software.
It's free to use and free to mess around with. True software freedom, as it was meant to be.
Secondly, we all like music. Try jamendo.com for some really good music of all styles and tastes. It's legal and free to download, and IF, *IF* you like an album or a song, you can pay the artist direct from the site. You are not compelled to pay for any of it. I believe you can even share it around, encouraged even. Put that on a p2p net and wait (and pray) that they pick on you. You would laugh them outta court.
Thirdly, vote with your dollars. If you don't like it, don't go paying for stuff that puts money in the enemies pocket. There used to be a site run by 2600.com that told you which companies owned which so you could check to see where your $$ were going.
http://www.writeitfor.us - Writing IT for the IT generation.
Or IPED. Funny fact: in my country (Portugal), the secret police of the repressive regime of Salazar was called PIDE.
The question is: who doesn't have something on their computer that infringes copyright in some manner? It's not just the P2P crowd -- they might well share some of their booty with others, maybe even providing tracks on a CD-R to friends who have slow connections, or not enough savvy to use or desire to risk torrents. If you've ripped tracks from someone else's CD, technically you're violating a copyright. (Hell, the RIAA thinks that ripping your own CDs is infringement). How many people have software of dubious origin on their machines, either by design or ignorance? (All those grey market Windows and Photoshop CDs that are ubiquitous on eBay, for example.) For that matter, what about the mass of infringing material on YouTube? Download a clip from last night's American Idol before Fox has it pulled, and now your computer is ours....mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha. Even more damning is that there is hardly a website in existence that doesn't have SOMETHING on it -- a graphic, photo, quote, musical background -- that is, by the strictest standard of the law, an infringement of someone's copyright. Just viewing the website puts those items in your cache -- voila, you are now guilty...please hand over the computer quietly and there won't be any trouble.
Maybe this is a plot to help balance the budget. Instead of spending money on computers for all the federal agencies, they just seize as many as they need from all us hardened criminals.
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
The story for your link is 5 years old. Apparently Hatch's people have since licensed the menu system. View source from Hatch's home page:
...
Milonic DHTML Website Navigation Menu
License Details:
Type: Professional
Number: 188909
But I'm an American, everyone from Europe will throw rocks at me if I come over :(
the transformation will be complete. Just think how easy getting warrants will be now. It shouldn't take long for dead tree publishers and $manufacturing_interests to gain "equal protection".
Thanks Retards.
Too bad mass immigration will destroy all that (just like in many other European countries), but it was nice while it lasted.
>In the same paragraph:
>>and (4) increase penalties for IP violations that endanger public health and safety.
Wouldn't be more reasonable to have some law that have penalties in general for something that endager public health and safety? Regardless of if it involves some IP violation or not! Or shall it be more OK to endager public health and safety as long as you do it with an original than with an illegal copy? This seems to not be related to IP at all (regardless of what you include in IP).
I know you're joking, but figuring out how to handle IP is very important to this country. More and more, we're stopping the production of physical objects, so our economy is becoming increasingly based on intangible ones. I do think that a lot of the current enforcement crosses the line, but if there wasn't any at all, there would definitely be consequences on the US economy.
People get the Government they deserve.
(Please note, the quote does not say "a person gets").
You need to be involved. Check your Congressman's vote:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/vote.xpd?vote=h2008-300
Write him if you don't like it (or if you did). I'm proud to say Ron Paul of TX voted Nay.
While you can earn $12 per hour for flippin' burgers you also pay a whole lot more for everything in Norway.
;)
:-p]
To give an example, a burger "menu" (soda, burger, fries) is usually 12-18 USD depending on the size. Compare -that- to the US price of said menu. You might be surprised at the difference.
On oil price:
People cry out about the cost of gasoline on a regular basis here. It affects a lot of people.
On health care:
Dental is not free. I was born with a defect that means I lacked two molars and have to have titanium screws put in. This will cost me about 6800 USD -after- the state pays about half. I get suppport, but it is not nearly "free".
You do pay a small fee for medical support up to a certain limit (1744 NOK, 350 usd). After that you do not pay these fees.
While you have some good points, it is not quite accurate or fully informed
[insert shiny sig
Where do I sign up? I am an American who would like to join your great nation.
Does anybody plan on DOING ANYTHING about this?
Call your senator and tell them not to lose your vote by passing this crap.
Sure, enhancing the penalties for such behavior is a bad idea. But this is unlikely to make a huge difference. Even though the bill purports to direct the Department of Justice to bring enforcement actions against small-time infringers ... so does current law. And one of the few things Congress cannot do is tell the Executive how and where to prosecute crimes. That's a purely executive power, and I'm betting that no administration is going to have much to do with this.
Why? Well, in general, cause it's kinda stupid. More specifically, the Department of Justice doesn't think this kind of thing is sexy. It's much more fun to go after corrupt politicians (Gov. Spitzer, anyone?), terrorists, financial criminals (Enron types, etc.), Columbian drug lords (Russians too), and interstate child prostitution rings (there really are such things, and the feds don't like 'em)--the few types of crime that regularly receive significant federal attention these days--than after IP infringement. How many IP cases can you think of that have been brought by the government since the DMCA was enacted? Very few, and those were directed at large-scale counterfeiting operations, the kind that manufacture the bogus DVDs you buy on street corners. I've no problem shutting them down, and I don't think many others would either. But enforcement actions against private citizens? Yeah, none.
So Congress can take a tough stance if it wants to. It still has to get the Executive to cooperate, and I just don't see that happening.
It's interesting that when a Republican introduces a piece of brain-damaged legislation like this, that fact is plastered all over the story. When it's a Democrat, things get very generic. "Look at what the government is doing!"-type comments.
I wonder where this is coming from as there aren't a lot of IP-based industries in Michigan. Conyers must be doing someone a favor.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Yeah, but you fucking speak Norwegian.
Find a file that in any software / operating system that was not properly "licensed" and then go and clean house. Not to much time before the government will have to build the only software available as any complex system has borrowed from another at some time. Then the overlords can "protect" you from the evils of "bad" information sources.
I'll be finishing College in about 7 months. Look for a man with a suitcase.
Glad to see your Democrat buddies in Congress are looking out for you.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Shall we quibble about the meaning of "is"? I believe a President was once impeached for just that.
It is the duty of the State to make available to the citizen what the law is. It is the option of the citizen to remain ignorant at his own peril because ignorance is not protection under the law. It is the duty of the citizen to push but not break the boundaries of the law. Some would argue it's the duty of the citizen to break the law when the law is wrong .
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I think he left out the war on drugs and terror because he's listing actual problems, not fabricated ones.
Name...That...Autocomplete!
Shouldn't they be prioritizing protecting the constitution (which forbids unreasonable search and seizure) to the "highest level of our government"
Sunwalker Dezco for Warchief in 2016
Don't make us all start pining for the fjords.
Progress is made by shared invention. Once upon a time invention sharing was universal but progress was slow. Then we had copyrights and patents and the intent of these was to encourage investment in invention by granting a temporary monopoly on it. That worked for a while. Economic interests have spoiled this by extending the monopoly into eternity and twisting the word invention to absurdity. These days people are choosing to share their invention from the beginning or not at all.
It may be time to end the zenlike "temporary yet eternal" monopolies granted under copyright and patent.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
that's okay Since none of them play baseball or football, they will most likely miss.
Soccer does fuck all for throwing skills.
welcome the time when I'll be thrown in jail for downloading music and movies. After that I don't have to worry about skyrocketing gas prices, food prices, unemployment, house payments, keeping a job, I'll just sit in my cell and read a book. Well until they draft the prisoners and send them to fight Iran anyways. Ah the US we sure are on a roll lately ;) Good thing our politicians will be kept rich from media and oil companies though.
This is how you get rid of your worst enemy:
.torrent files
... Send some joke powerpoint file as "PirateBoy" orsomething along those lines.
:)
1) Get couple
2) Email them to your enemy
3) Report to Feds
4) Profit???
or better yet, of "dubious origins"
Wonder do they anything to protect ISPs, say you could ru ndown an ISP by ordering a bunch of servers putting some "dubious origins" material into the servers, and report to feds, there competition gone.
Didnt RTFA obviously
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
BTW, your statement applies to the federal government only. The IP nature of information produced by states, counties and municipalities varies. And so it is that the law is protected from the prying eyes of the citizen.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
All companies love to get those government contracts....big bucks for little effort. What if all the independent software companies amend their EULA to something like "you can use the license in this software except of you are employed by, agent of, or otherwise affiliated with the Federal Government of the United States of America. For those so excluded, you may not under any circumstances utilize any of the propriertary Intellectual Property, functions, or abilities made present by this software package or any such package that may infringe upon the Intellectual Property of the holder of this right. The software author reserves the right, and you automatically agree to said right, to unilateral, random, binding audits of any possibly affected computer equipment. Should you ddisagree with this amended EULA, you must uninstall and cease use of all software that is covered under this new agreement." Oh, how quickly their crap would come to a halt. But with our government, they'd probably just declare it "critical need under auspices of national security" and bypass the laws entirely. Bastards.
terrorism and drug abuse are the result of a much bigger issue: IP. we need to fight the root cause!
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
The senator's site makes extensive use of a JavaScript menu system developed by Milonic Solutions, a software company based in the United Kingdom. The copyright-protected code has not been licensed for use on Hatch's website.
How do you know this? I used this menu system many years ago, it cost about $45 to get a license. There was nothing special to do, just download and use. No license file or special licensed version code. You use the one that was in the download sections.
Where are they going to store all those computers they seize? By my estimates, anyone who has used a web browser and gotton a popup ad have received files from dubious origin.
[...]
Did I mention we've got hot girls yet ? But you don't have lions and tigers. Only in Kenya...
I hope you enjoy all that when the war for the north pole starts.
sign me in :) do you have special uniforms and free cookies ?
Yes, but the burger itself will be $12. I went shopping with my friend and couldn't believe how much it costs to eat. The good side is that people don't overeat as much and as a result, the girls are much hotter than the U.S.
Ya know, after 7+ years of watching the Republican party screw us (in the U.S.), it feels good to say, "Why are those damn Democrats screwing this country up?".
This whole liking the Democrats thing was getting old.
Technology like this renders matter a mere commodity ; manufacturing services will cease to be valuable, the only thing of value will be the programs it runs.
The prospect of such a device running an open OS, and accepting production templates which are themselves open, must terrify certain entities.
Of course, this mild attack of paranoia presumes that these creatures are actually organized enough to think of this. In actuality, their greed over existing IP is probably enough to explain their behavior, without recourse to long-term planning for a future when you can print your own food/clothes/car/plane/house/computer/pharmaceuticals.
In the UK we've got no defence against US extradition requests, so if the Feds decide that a Brit P2Per has been 'importing or exporting copyright materials' they can haul them across the pond without so much as a jot of testable evidence. Now that's frightening.
I think that wars on abstract concepts are very much a problem...
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Does anyone know who voted for this bill so I know not to vote for that person? I do not care if the other guy is caught fucking a pig at a tittie bar, he has my vote because this is fucked up.
I smoked pot once. But I DID NOT inhale. Will you hire me?
If you're being paid $12/hour to flip burgers, how much does the burger cost?
You see, there is the exchange rate (how much of one currency can buy another currency) and then there is the value rate (how much one currency can buy real goods). In my experience the two are often not the same. For example the USD to GBP exchange rate is around 2:1 right now but a 5 USD hamburger still costs 5 GBP over there for a value rate around 1:1. Go figure.
(The exchange vs value rate thing got to be really annoying one day when I was visiting England and I bought a 15 GBP stake. It was a terrible stake; dry and no flavor. Then I realize I had just paid the equivalent of 30 USD for the worst stake in my life. (For our non-USA friends, average stakes cost 10-15 USD and a 30 USD stake should be gourmet class.))
No but Cricket does .... ..and so does Rugby (American "Football" without the padding, or a break every 5 minutes)
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Think I'll plant some thermite bombs in my computer so if it is illegally removed from my house it will explode into flames as soon as the fools try to mess with it.
3) Energy ? We get 95% of our electric power from hydroelectric already, planning to be completely carbon-neutral as a country in a decade or two. You can't really consider yourself carbon-neutral if your economy depends on exporting oil. Other than that, sounds like you have it together, congratulations.
The government is going to prosecute people for violating the rights of people who hold material that is dangerious to the public health?
I don't really have any idea what the idea behind this portion is. I don't think it would be porn, if it is dangerious to the public health(child porn for instance) it would already be illegal.
I could see this being used to criminally prosecute the wikileaks folks, I guess. I'm having a hard time seeing how this would be used for something other than evil.
If this bill does become law, I will start actively looking for a mitigation strategy; I'd be dead in the water if my computers were taken as would many of us.
One approach is to have daily off-site backups. This is a good as a normal strategy, but by no means practical for everybody. I'm sitting on 1.3T of stuff and hosting or backing that up off-site is not practical for me. It lets me recover, but what if I do happen to have a cracked copy of winzip from 5 years ago that I forgot to delete? I'm screwed.
Another is to go completely remote ala VNC or something similar. Your computers just login to the system(s) you need. If the Feds breakdown the door, they just take your terminal. There is no evidence of any wrong doing. You just need to keep the connection info to your remote systems protected via TrueCrypt or some other tech.
A variant of this is to have the systems on-site but physically hidden. If WiFi is not fast enough, running Ethernet over the home wiring or running an actual cable may work. Extra points for using a garage door opener to power the system on and off.
The issue is not that I have tons of Copyrighted material (or CP or whatever) on my systems that I shouldn't have. It's that they can take my systems if they just _think_ I do. A false positive from Media Sentry would really hurt someone. It sucks that I have to think like a criminal in order to keep my constitutionally protected rights.
Another problem is what do they do if the 'illegal' material appears to be coming from a corporate mainframe? Tag it and throw it in the back of a truck?
They are clearly unconstitutional by any standard...
I've read Slashdot for the last 5 years, and now I start posting... Go figure
Hot girl? ::packs::
Man, you've been reading Good News for too long.
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
Seriously, I'm tired of hearing "Lesser Evil", "Throwing your vote away" etc.
At this point it doesn't matter in the slightest which party gets in, things will continue much the same way with minor differences in soundbite.
You can "throw your vote away" because a republican or democrat will get in, and it doesn't matter which. the more people that do this, the more those scared of "wasting their vote" will realise it's not a waste at all, and that all it takes is for more people to realise what's going on.
I hate to be the one to tell you this, but what you wanted to buy was a steak. I imagine a steak would have tasted much better than a stake. Since most stakes are made out of wood it would explain the dryness and lack of flavor.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
maybe I wasn't as clear as I should have been. My fault.
I feel that abstract concepts like drugs and terror ruining society are not real problems, hence why I referred to them as fabricated. Waging "war" on these abstract concepts is indeed a problem, so I think we agree.
Name...That...Autocomplete!
Wait since when is copyright infringement a criminal act?
I say we nuke every PC from orbit. Only way to be sure.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
We export shitload of oil and are steeenking rich as a result.
But that's not sustainable. What are you going to do when you run out of oil? Socialism is great when you have that kind of income - I would love to live in Norway (except that your immigration policies make it harder for me to come to your country than for a Mexican to come to mine) but I think we need to be honest, you're only able to live that way for a few decades, while the oil lasts.
Don't you know that pirating Javascript is just a slippery slope to more dangerous pirating? Like license number generators?
Reviewing just the first hour of video games.
When is the Fed. Gov. going to 'prioritize PRIVACY protection to the highest level of our government.'?
It is in the constitution or don't they even acknowledge that piece of paper any more?
Does that mean that every student that downloads a pdf of the assignment because the book is no longer in print now infringes upon this law? I remember from some classes having an excess of about 30 some MB of pdf files that were all reading assignments because the book came out in the 50's and there wasn't that much of a demand for it other than college students and professors so no one makes a profit off printing them. On the same case, does this law mean that we are then going to have to shut down project gutenberg? Who has access to classics free on the internet for the education of the masses to their classics, all of which are copyrighted in their current form last I checked by project gutenberg. Does that mean when I download and copy the plain text file so your average college student can do their homework off line mean that their computer is going to be confiscated each time they catch students doing homework?
Or what about businesses that bought corporate licenses of various software that only came with one user manual that had to make it a pdf for easier distribution (which I would like more than just killing tree's and cluttering my desk)?
"I bought a 15 GBP stake. It was a terrible stake; dry and no flavor."
Pointed pieces of wood tend to be that way.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
"Healthcare costs money? Guess so, never saw a bill"
You do see the bill. They've just hidden it in your increased taxes and forced other people to pay for your healthcare costs. You should add:
5) Rights? Nonexistent.
If it gets bad enough deep down inside, we all know we will just go on a killing spree when they take our porn collection away.
/s on the tor network which is not bad AT ALL. Now the police state is cock blocked from associating your traffic with you, unless they were able to monitor your exit node and your machine at the same time (e.g. dont hack your neighbor to use for an exit node, get an overseas machine if you can. If you can't you can use the default Tor network, just dont send anything sensitive over a non-SSL connection). You can use a squid + Privoxy combo to increase Tor speed. Now that your internet chat, email, and tor are anonymous you need to protect against theft\government. This requires having data remote (again better if overseas) syncronized with your local files. If your poor (you should be by now if your in the US) use XDrive or something similar. Finally, we need our hardrives or parts of our hardrive to be encrypted. I reccomend using TrueCrypt then backing up the remote container since TrueCrypt supports plausible deniabilty. That's it, when the feds come knocking, give them your machine, deny it has the plans to assisnate bush, while your machine is gone download your last backup of your encrypted drive, post assassination plan on /. where they can't find me becuase my traffic is so obfuscated and execute assassination plan. See the law isn't that bad...is it ^_^
Here's a tip, get yourself a secured remote machine, preferably in a non-police state, use tor for all your internet browsing and specifify your secured remote machine as the Tor exit node. If you are using a remote server on a t3+ as an exit node, you will average about 80 kb
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
Your ideas intrigue me, and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
American Fascism FTW!
Live Free
Alright, you've convinced me. I'm moving to Norway.
Mind if I crash at your house for 3-5 years while I get myself established?
Ninjas use italics.
Norway is indeed a wonderful country. If there was sunshine during the winter, you'd surely have overpopulation from people moving there.
But you're safe from that, right?
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Better yet; make a point by doing this to your elected official who voted this garbage in. Make sure it's publicized enough that they can't not raid said officials office. Then watch as the infighting starts between opposing parties when they realize how much this could be used to strike at an opposing party member.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
The real point about the obsessive, anal-retentive, security obsessed, tabloid influenced, illiberal and incompetent New Labour government is that it makes loud noises because it is rapidly losing influence, not because it is establishing a Stalinist state.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
How about Internet? Is it fast, cheap, no caps/limits? Lots of English speakers too? How about IT work?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Hmm, sort of like taxes...
1) - 3) Lucky bastards ;-)
;-)
4) Flipping burgers earns you $12/hr which you can spend on a pint of beer for only $24
The girls are hot until they start talking
Sounds good -- if you can get a decent curry in Oslo then I'm up for it. Can you?
You forgot to mention that the "war on drugs" that our legal system has been dealing with so admirably is over, so we have plenty of law enforcement to spare.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
So when will you be creating those free clones of Westlaw and Nexis?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If the government cared even half as much about their own citizens as they do about big corporations interests, we'd be in good shape.
they didnt prioritize war veterans. they didnt prioritize catrina survivors (still). they didnt prioritize healthcare. but see, they are prioritizing 'intellectual' property.
united states is falling behind europe in all respects.
Read radical news here
wow....fuck you guys. This is what the 2nd amendment is for.
Happiness does not come from having much, but from being attached to little.
It's nice that Norway can afford to use hydroelectric energy for their 4m inhabitants due to the money they make in selling oil (irony anyone?)
Welcome to Babylon.
Isn't democracy great.
Gives just enough illusion of control to the people to keep them under control while the big end of town enjoys the spoils.
_
\\/ are accustomed' - First Lensman
Offshore cloud computing is a sure thing if bills like this make the US environment toxic. End-to-end encrypted, the only way the government will know is if they literally look over your shoulder (or park a van outside that can read your monitor's signals).
Funny thing is, we're all headed into the cloud anyway - at least many major businesses are. This will just accelerate the move.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Only at slasdot will you find men who are more terrified of woman than sabertoothed beasts!
Now, for the occasional normal person who doesn't understand the nerd's fear of woman, nerds fear women because we're generally a bit more intelligent than normal men.
Because of that we realise something most men don't: a man or a beast can punch you, hit you, kick you, bite you, claw you, stab you, cut you, shoot you, break your bones - but only a woman can truly hurt you.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Yeah, I'm pretty sure you don't get to say you're being carbon neutral if you're exporting OIL.
---- Watch out for snakes!
Can I make a comment about fascism without invoking Godwin's law? Just this once?
Salut,
Jacques
I can't help but laugh at the people who call Ron Paul a "Loony", when he was one of the only 11 to vote "Nay" on this stupid bill.
found with pirated material and, rather than make her an example to others, all she got was a lecture about how bad it was to do this.
Should've shot the family as an example...
Yah, but you have to eat lutefisk.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
"That giant sucking sound you hear is the sound of all US-based internet hosting business moving offshore".
... is whot bwings os tugevza tsuzay.
Is it really the best use of gov't resources and tax dollars to protect profit margins of industries that fail to innovate and develop new revenue streams? I am all for protecting the property of the content creators but we all know that if it was about that then this would not even be on the table. It is being driven... pushed ... shoved by corporate interests not individual content creators.
I of course have absolutely no factual research to back my statements so someone, someone credible, please prove me wrong.
Coreigh
"Waitress I need two more boat-drinks..."
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/110/house/2/votes/300/
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
nothingbettertodo
You're absolutely correct - with *so many* things that are clearly more important for the government to be doing, I can't possibly see how the government can elevate intellectual property enforcement to the highest priority. But, they probably will. The government, is, essentially, a business. The highest priority for any business is to protect their revenue streams. I think people in the government think this way: protecting copyright/patent holders' revenue streams will in turn protect business-, capital gains-, and personal income tax revenue streams, so enforcement will pay for itself, and maybe pay for other programs and services. That might be giving them too much credit, though, as it's quite possible they are just trying to keep the people who pay for their campaigns, vacations, and private suites at stadiums, happy.
If history has taught us anything, though, it's that this made-up legal power of copyright is, actually, very difficult and expensive to enforce. I doubt it can even be made break-even in the long term.
The truth is, the best tool copyright holders have for generating revenue is the goodwill of their patrons. Some people will always rip you off if they can. Some other people have a high personal moral sense, and will always try to compensate artists, programmers, etc for their work. An example of this is the artist who performs in the park, or on the sidewalk, with a hat or something on the ground that people toss change or money into; some people will listen to the music (or watch, if it's a visual performing artist) and enjoy it, but still not pitch any money in, other people will put some money in because they enjoyed it and realize it's important to support the artist if you want to enable that artist to concentrate on their art, and not be force to spend significant amounts of time on other methods of generating income. Most people fall somewhere in the middle, where if they think you are trying to rip them off (e.g. charge way too much for your product), they will rip you off, but if you ask for a reasonable price, they will happily pay it.
I, personally, fall into the second camp - if I enjoy a song, game, movie, book, or whatever, I *want* to pay a *reasonable* amount of money to support that creative effort. I don't even mind that middle men like publishers, record labels, etc make some money, as long as they aren't ripping off the artists (which, unfortunately, is usually the case anyhow) - the middlemen, usually do, after all, add some value in terms of production, promotion, and distribution. If you ask too much money for the product, I will just not buy it, but also not steal it. I don't need your product after all. There's other music, games, movies, books that I can enjoy, and which I find I *can* do business with the copyright holders.
He's a Michigan representative... why is he in such support of a bill that has no use to MI residents.... this obviously helps SoCal more than any other part of the nation. MI economy is in such rambles, that IP is going to help? He's not getting my vote, that do nothing to help his own state blowhard...
I should add Dennis Kucinich of Ohio voted Nay as well, since I like him too.
That's a nice thought, but there are several barriers to an American moving to Norway:
1) Americans don't speak Norwegian.
2) Norway doesn't want them to move there, and it's really up to Norway to decide.
3) If an American DID move to Norway, the U.S. IRS would continue to tax the crap out of him in ADDITION to his Norway taxes. The only way to escape that is to renounce your U.S. citizenship, which the government would take VERY personally. Good luck ever visiting your relatives or friends. "So you want a visa?"
4) All the Americans you left behind would think you were an asshole for moving to Norway. All the Norwegians would think you were an asshole for cashing in on a share of their loot. You'd never belong anywhere after that.
5) If Norway decided NOT to grant you citizenship, you'd end up "stateless" (see #3). Where would you go then?
No, we Americans are stuck with what we've got.
Sigh.
Encrypt, encrypt, encrypt.
Encrypt your entire computer disk.
www.truecrypt.org
Encrypted connection to the internet.
www.cotse.com
Use encrypted email.
http://quicksilvermail.net/
(or one of many other email encryption programs, including Thunderbird)
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/
You must move to protect yourself from present day governments that are increasing hostile toward their citizens. They are godless and have deserted their consciences for political and personal gain.
I have written a program that does a hard shutdown of my full disk TrueCrypted computer when anyone clicks or moves the mouse, presses a key, or plugs or unplugs anything into my computer. I have not put it out in public yet because of it being potential used by the bad guys. However, the more intrusive governments become, the more I am tempted to make it public. The above tactics are the only way law abiding citizens are going to be able to stop these government tyrants from trying to build false cases against us. In the end, you and I can prevail if you are willing to. You will not be able to give in to their threats (including the extremely vicious prosecutor practice of heaping multiple charges upon you to try to place you in fear and thus agreeing to confess to a lesser charge to get the others dropped.)
5) Sunburn? Well, we only see the sun about 2 months a year, and honestly it's not bright enough to burn an albino.
6) Snow? HELL YES!
Do you have ESP?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
"then we are all doomed together because it will filter down through international treaties and trade agreements."
In progress. It's called ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement).
Progress is made by shared invention. Once upon a time invention sharing was universal but progress was slow.
Because transport and communications were slow, expensive or both. e.g. whilst the Roman army had telecommunication systems the average Roman citizen did not.
Then we had copyrights and patents and the intent of these was to encourage investment in invention by granting a temporary monopoly on it. That worked for a while.
It's actually quite hard to test this, let alone prove this.
Economic interests have spoiled this by extending the monopoly into eternity and twisting the word invention to absurdity.
Even if you can make a case for a certain amount of copyright being positive. That dosn't imply that more copyright equates to better. There are plenty of situations where "too much" is actually worst than "too little". The same chemical can be both an "essential nutrient" and a "deadly poison".
Once you extend copyright beyond half the median human life span it may as well be infinite anyway.
...So, this means that 95% of the worlds IT staff is screwed then, doesn't it? I would like to see the detailed stipulations on what the 'dubious origins' are and who gets to decide on all of this. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a big fan of the (quote-unquote) p2p revolution, but what better way to 'beta test' expensive software that has no trial download option? And honestly, if the government thinks that this will stop piracy, they are sorely mistaken. The only thing this does is punish the end user, rather than the one responsible. This will be like the prohibition... only the underground scene will, most likely, be bigger than any they have seen. I'm all for the rights of IP and anti-piracy laws, but can we aim for the source and not just the users? Also, I think this is a gateway to internet monitoring... good ol' US of A! First the 'World Police', now we want to police the internet to our fullest extent.
did Conyers get in the form of a "campaign contribution", and from whom?
Well, we know the "whom", we just don't know the amount... yet.
Isn't there anything these "congressmen" wouldn't sell for money?
US politics are quite simple, you just follow the money. Add in maybe a little fake religious outrage at dubious social problems to stir up the voters from time to time.
Nothing wrong with capitalism. it's a very good thing. I think most of us have a problem with corporatism which is not anything like capitalism, because it means most of us are not given access to the free market.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
This seems like it would make a great example for illustrating the problems with this new proposal. If people understood they could find themselves a criminal for visiting a Senator's web site, perhaps more reasonable IP laws will come of it.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
from http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2003/06/59305
:)
Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) suggested Tuesday that people who download copyright materials from the Internet should have their computers automatically destroyed.
But Hatch himself is using unlicensed software on his official website, which presumably would qualify his computer to be smoked by the system he proposes.
The article also says that Continental Airlines has also pirated the same software. Also in both cases there appear to have been hacking of the software to try and disguise that this is the fact. The latter strongly implies that those responsible knew that what they were doing was wrong. Something which would typically be expected to increase the liability.
No doubt the usual double standard will prevail of going after people downloading popular entertainment, whilst ignoring large corporations who are making lots of money as a result of infringing copyright.
Politicans being hurt by laws they advocate is all too rare. Which is a great pity since Gordon Brown being locked up for 41 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds might not be a bad thing
Really? 'Cos I'd happily forgo some money if I didn't have to worry about things like the PATRIOT act, PRO-IP act, and other dubious acts that infringe upon my rights.
Frankly, my right to keep my money is far less important to me than my right to not have my government spy on me, take my stuff without any reasonable cause, etc. I guess you're feeling the opposite way, which is fine, but I don't give a damn about money, so maybe that's why I just don't care in comparison.
3) Only for the first year. Stay away long enough and you're set.
:(
4) If they're that close minded, fuck 'em, who needs 'em?
5) Superpwnage
That is extremely good news. It means that making sure that works fall into the public domain after their copyrights expire, is now part of an overall system that has become highest priority. We should expect this Conyers guy to be one of the sponsors of a bill that repeals DMCA's circumvention prohibitions.
Huh? Whaddya mean I don't understand? Isn't that what he implied? ;-)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
destroyed of all things ! I personally think they should explode and kill all the occupants of the premises where said hardware is located. Or maybe geotargetting coupled with a tactical nuke or so, sure the collateral damage would be large, but nothing is too much in protecting that precious IP.
An alternative possibility would be to target anywhere the senator or his computer could possibly be...
I've often wondered if an intelligence test before a vote would be a good thing and I've decided against that, but such a test administered before being able to take public office would be a very good thing.
Would it not be better to administer this before they became a candidate. Probably also with preventing convicted felons standing for office and (especially in the US) a test of patriotism, with automatic deportation if they are more interested in the wellbeing of another country.
I've had these same thoughts since I discovered how far advanced household 3D printing had become. I don't think you're wearing any hats unless it's a thinking cap. I doubt I'll see this in my remaining 20 or 30 years left, but it's certainly coming.
In a world where everyone has a replicator for ordinary objects, what property is there to own? The answer is obviously the software instructions required to produce the object. Suppose I want to build a coffee maker because my last one died. I'll download code to the "printer" and eventually have a new coffee maker. How many different kinds of coffee makers will there be? Will there be brands because people choose to pay the equivalents of Braun and Phillips real money for their supposedly-superior plans? Or will the world generally rely on open-sourced plans? For commodity items like coffee makers, I'd guess open source will be the norm as it is now for an ever-growing list of software commodities.
Obviously some physical objects like land will retain their value in this world. Energy resources might also still be an issue. Then there's foodstuffs. Will people join Capt. Picard at the replicator for a nice cup of "tea, Earl Grey, hot," or will they fear "manufactured" foods the same way genetically-engineered food scares some people now?
This one is easy. A quick look at John Conyers' political contributions shows the movie/music industry is the second largest political contributor to his campaign. Check out this link: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cycle=2006&cid=N00004029 Who loves the MPAA/RIAA nowadays? Only the sellouts.
Wamerocity, you forgot to mention that Hatch has NEVER lived in Utah other than the six months prior to his first election in 1976. He is a complete schmuck in every possible way, but his political profile matches fairly well that of nearly every other politician in Utah.
Because he doesn't live here, he has no accountability to his constituents. He is completely un-influenced by constituent calls, letters etc. unless they substantially agree with him.
Like hell. Even padded this wouldn't be like American Football. It's much more chaotic and fun.
"Little is much when little you need."
This is only a problem in two instances - housing and lack of entrepreneurial scope. More people coming *makes* more jobs than it takes away. You have more service needs, more provision needs, more of everything. The problem is that no one takes initiative to harness that potential, instead attempting to shove these people into niches in society where they are afraid to spend their money in many economic areas. Then people complain that they get jobs and never return the wealth to the economy. Idiots. Better policy: ask them to bring their family with them and restrict monetary exports to an acceptable maximum. Mail scanning is easier than border patrol.
"Little is much when little you need."
Write your senators, please--this is akin to the police closing a library for six months to two years because they found a novel on the floor and they can't positively determine that it's a legal copy.
Only, because of the internet, someone who's never even been to the library can drop it there. Furthermore, it doesn't even have to be there--if a cop says he thinks he saw one, that counts. *and*, because it's computer hardware as well as software, the overall value and lifetime expectancy of the library decreases tremendously over the time it's not usable.
Here's the roll call on the vote.
... but who clicks links on slashdot articles anyway? Here's the wording that scares me the most.
"Any property used, or intended to be used, to commit or facilitate the commission of a violation of subsection..."
It occurs over and over again... and specifically the portion stating "intended to be used". Of course, this makes it easier to knock down in higher courts, but is still extremely unacceptable.
Whatever happened to "by the people, for the people"?
With a 410-11 this is truly bipartisan bullshit.
"'Cos I'd happily forgo some money if I didn't have to worry about things like the PATRIOT act, PRO-IP act, and other dubious acts that infringe upon my rights."
Feel free to donate your money as you see fit. But what about those people who wouldn't "happily forgo some money"? Do they not have a choice?
"my right to keep my money is far less important to me..."
Again, you are talking about your personal preference, but I am talking about something being applied to everyone regardless of their personal preference. Just because your personal preference is aligned with certain laws doesn't mean everyone's is. As far as rights go, they are all important and should be upheld equally. The whole point of the government is to uphold your rights, not to violate them. Unfortunately, in the current US political climate it is far better for candidates to pass laws violating rights. Whether you value one right higher than another does not matter. Once they start violating one, they will violate them all.
And you're conveniently ignoring the rest of my comments. When given a choice between some rights lost from bucket A versus some rights lost from bucket B, then you have to choose which you would prefer. Frankly, I don't give a damn about your bank account, but I do care about my right to be free from government spying and confiscation of physical property.
When given an either/or proposition, you choose the lesser of two evils. In an ideal world, we'd get our cake and eat it to.
I don't know if you've noticed, yet, but we don't happen to live in an ideal world. And so I pick my battles - just because I pick different ones than you pick doesn't mean I'm wrong, it just means I value things differently than you do.
(ranged by freedom)
(I mean here socialism as practiced in most european countries between 1950-2000, if you mean the EU's overwhelming philosophy, then perhaps yes, you're right that it's closer to communism than fascism) In many ways the Socialist Europeans are much more free than the average American. Since education is often free to the individual (and you even get a small stipend by the government to go to school) people get to study for the career they really want, rather than being burdened by massive student loans. The state gets paid back through the higher taxes from the greater income, and the individual gets to pursue the career they really want rather than the one that they can afford to pay for (in terms of education).
In terms of medical care the Europeans are also much freer, since they get free medical care. Therefore Europeans are not screwed by getting sick when they can't afford health insurance, have had prior diseases like cancer, or their insurance company decides to screw them somehow.
The much-touted "freedom" of America is more for large corporations and the few people that can write a check for their college tuition. In fact, this article is about large corporations getting their own police force. Do you think this means greater or lesser freedom for the average individual? (Hint: you may soon have federal police knocking on your door for sharing the wrong file) We still haven't even gotten to drug use (legalized in Holland) or sex and nudity (much freer laws in Europe). Sure, they pay alot in taxes, but when you count the cost of health care and education, the tax burden comes out similarly. Americans just get to pay for hugely expensive ($500 billion+) annual defense budgets or hugely expensive ($750 billion+) unnecessary wars or the hugely expensive "War on Drugs" rather than things they actually can use in daily life.
As long as there is a nice big heaping pile of cash in Washington (aquired from you and I via the IRS), this stuff will continue as corporate entities fight for a piece of the pie.
Unfortunately, it's only going to get worse as it seems an over abundance of people are determined to get Obama's plan of "change," which is a laundry list of new programs that will require more taxation, into office.
And no, I'm not suggesting that McCain or Hillary are the answer. Not voting for RepubliCRATS and getting career politicians out of congress is.
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/members/m000303/votes/
That is highly debatable.
Lots of drugs out there. There are terrorists making laws against their own people but not enforcing laws effectively. I can't remember who said it, but America has to worry about the enemy from with-in.
Governments in many countries (including the USA) are now big enough they control their people like sheep. Voters have their selections made for them, Obama or McCain. Dion or Harper. Modern taxation is now used to control the people, not unlike a feudal aristocracy.
We are not as free as we believe.
I'm not saying you're wrong, but you also need to consider the part that liberals, as nominally represented by the Democratic party, play in this whole scheme too. Democrats/liberals love big government programs. The problem is, big government programs cost money. So you need tax revenue streams. The democrats are all about getting as much tax revenue as possible. You can tax the revenue that corporations make on licensing fees for creative works. You can't tax free copies.
Democrats, in fact, love rich corporations and rich individuals. In a democracy, it's much easier to sell the majority on taxing 'them', instead of taxing 'you'. The democrats try to solve everyone's problems by taxing the rich and taxing corporations, because it's easier to get the majority, who aren't rich, to go along with that. The whole two wolves and a sheep deciding what's for lunch thing. (I know, someone's going to be outraged that I just compared rich, powerful corps and individuals to sheep, and the non-rich individuals as the wolves, but in this case, the analogy applies - the majority making decisions that primarily affect the minority instead of the majority).
Ultimately, all governments do have some responsibility to look out for the overall welfare of the economy and the business environment (that is, the system of laws and taxes which govern business). They *should* try to help the businesses who choose to locate in their borders, pay taxes, and submit to their laws/regulations to thrive, as much as possible. That is because, generally speaking, that is to the benefit of their citizens - it does allow them to generate tax revenues to pay for national defense, public infrastructure, law enforcement, and social programs. However, they should not sacrifice their people to ridiculously totalitarian laws in order to do so. They should also not try to protect or help individual corporations at the expense of all corporations and the people, which sadly is what is happening too often now.
And what are the Norewegian immigration poliies like? Will they take all comers? Do they have quotas? If 350,000 economic refugees dropped in their laps, not speaking the language and looking for jobs what would happen to all those systems as a result? And another half million coming the year after...
I *knew* we'd be saved when the Democrats retook the Congress! Oh, wait...
We agree here. I would love to see Americans rebound back to the top. But the problems are a moral decay.
Case in point, a CEO/VPs who lays people off in droves in a mid-sized company due to their bad decisions. Then cash out their many millions in bonuses. And this is now standard practice. In fact a model of the business. Dog eat dog and loyalty, integrity and honesty amount to little. Reverse this, and America will again rise.
In the mean time, it is dog eat dog. It is now turning where corporations have more votes than do the people. Sad.
Seems mostly aimed at what is discussed in the Fake Trade (http://www.channel4.com/video/the-fake-trade/index.html)
I think we can agree people manufacturing fake heart medicine is a bad thing; and that may have been the selling point.
However, "SEC. 511. LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT GRANTS." does the following:
"(a) Authorization- Section 2 of the Computer Crime Enforcement Act (42 U.S.C. 3713) is amended-- (1) in subsection (b), by inserting after `computer crime' each place it appears the following: `, including infringement of copyrighted works over the Internet';
I sure hope there aren't any congressmen who are violating the terms of CC or GPL. And can you imagine their outrage when their child downloads some songs and they have to forfeit that fancy new laptop? I mean, if enacted this will apply to congressmen, senators, even presidents, right?
Here are some links an asset forfeiture:
http://www.cjcj.org/pdf/civil_asset.pdf (PDF version)
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:57xthSv8mJoJ:www.cjcj.org/pdf/civil_asset.pdf+%22asset+forfeiture+law%22+%22supreme+court%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us (HTML version)
http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-rp061197.html
http://law.gsu.edu/library/index/bibliographies/view?id=64
http://www.aclu.org/crimjustice/searchseizure/10303leg19990802.html
http://www.fear.org/hadaway.html
Also, aside from writing your congressperson and senator, stop supporting the RIAA/MPAA and the like. Stop enabling these people by refusing to watch, listen, pay or even discuss any of their products.
But he's never going to leave, because we just love our incumbents here
That goes for every Senator and every Representative in every state. Once they're been in long enough to get their way with the other congressional sleazebags, they get the pork. No voter with a brain is going to vote out a politician who has more money flowing in from the feds than flowing out.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
You *do* realize that people do more with oil than just burn it, right?
Great for you. The US should ship over a few million illegal mexicans and see how long it lasts.
Maybe you could let in a few million moslems from Angola too.
Then watch it all go down the tubes.
Oh wait NOBODY WANTS TO MOVE THERE.
If your countries are so great,
what is the net emigration between your country and the US?
There is a lot of truth to that. The city I am in was 400,000 when we moved to it some 30 years ago. Now, the area is well over 1.3M...it has lost it's appeal. It isn't necessarily the immigration, it is about too many people in one place and the cultural dilution of that occurs when too many come at once. In North America, we are all 1st, 2nd, 3rd or so generation of immigrants.
At some point we need to stop making our cities bigger, and worry more about sustainability. I suspect many places in Europe are well ahead of us in this regard.
As for government doing everything, what is your tax rates? Be fair about that, I am from Canada and have lived in the US. I know both sides and neither is a panacea.
I think that you would benefit from reading Thomas McCauley's opinion on copyright. It's from 1841, so the language is a bit tough to swallow, but it's well worth the read.
Cynical Idealist
This is why we need a constitutional amendment separating the corps from state like we're supposed to have a separation of church and stat.
--www.CopyrightReform.us
But more importantly, only a woman can make you care.
Cynical Idealist
Every time a story like this is posted, we get a lot of well-worded responses about why it's a bad thing, and that's it. We don't have a call for organized action. We don't have a set agenda. We all share in the outrage, but we end up internalizing it and stewing in our own fury. Why don't who have good writing skills and an understanding of law or politics and can actually articulate why this is a Bad Thing actually come up with a generic template letter that fellow Slashdotters can copy and paste to their senator or house representative? Why don't we do something with our outrage? There may be a few out there who actually do this, so why not share your letter with Slashdot and have everyone else do the same? I know EFF.org does this often, but why not do something here at Slashdot?
Everyone needs to copy and paste this letter to their Senator.
Taking the government to court on this issue might be a good idea, if possible. Arguing on the basis that the federal government is doing almost nothing against spammers and extortionists might be a start. Arguing that the government surely should be concentrating on its other, more serious problems, might be another. Arguing that the fact that, currently, you do not own a permanent license to IP when you pay for it is certainly worth looking at, too.
The RIAA and MPAA have the power to treat you like a criminal whether or not you have actually downloaded unlicensed IP, and, consumers being the lazy bastards that we are, don't generally care until it's our turn on the circumcision block. If enough people actually made their voices heard on this matter, the bill would go away, along with the corrupt bastards who got the wording from the RIAA and MPAA.
I know what the logic behind this bill is: It's that IP is one of the few, if only things, that the USA has left that actually makes any money. The problem is that the senators and congressmen and women behind this bill are almost certainly profiting from the RIAA and MPAA to some extent.
If this were to be passed, and function as it's sponsors envision, here is what would happen:
1. US residents only subjects to this legislation, so tech sales and interest in the US dwindles.
2. The Free World freely distributes and utilizes IP free of charge, making real value = 0, and increasing demand and interest in tech.
3. US loses the tech lead and the free markets=free minds advantages to foreign power.
Using men with guns to create artificial scarcity for a false local economy will result in the end of the United States as we know it.
Pardon my lack of understanding how laws are coded or maybe I missed the section of this bill that the poster found dangerous.
But I can't seem to find the section that describes the below mentioned abilities. What I am trying to NOT do is read a text as true and jump on the bandwagon without first reading the law myself to see if the bill matches the posters impression. Too many people judge too quickly.
" It would allow the Feds to seize hardware that has even one file coming from 'dubious origins,' e.g. downloaded from P2P."
Where does the above impression come from in the bill?
Such an appalling law. If I was in the U.S, I would begin writing to my representative now.
I don't suppose anyone has considered writing Conyers or your representative to illuminate and convey what this bill portends or what it says about his priorities .... eh? Anyone?
These guys *do* respond to outrage if there's enough of it.
Fuck. You.
You forgot that it's fscking cold.
"The severity of Russian laws is neutralized by the random nature, in which they are enforced." .ru
(c)
When can I move in?
Since we know that Windows has misappropriated IP, then about 80% of machines are in danger, just from having an OS that violates copyright.
Sign me up! So how does one with no marketable skills convince your customs agents to let one in on a work visa to flip burgers? What's that you say, they won't? Wait, what, why aren't you letting me in the border? Deportation? Nooo, please I don't want to go back, it sucks there! Nooooooo!
*exit stage left, poor schmuck, and customs agents.*
While it's certainly nice to brag about such things, I'd imagine for the less educated of us, it doesn't really help a lot, unless we've got a religious or legal persecution case we can try and push to get us in, no?
What would be the standard of evidence for having property seized? Knowing congress it's probably woefully low. Also, with so many people pirating files where would they start? Maybe they would start even more wiretaps. Maybe they would just take tips that person X is file sharing and they would just go and seize all their equipment indiscriminately. It isn't hard to frame someone for filesharing or even their printer. But in this case you might not even have to try. Rep. Conyers statement about prioritizing the prosecution of copyright infringement reminds me of the RIAA's preposterous claim that filesharing is as bad as murder and deserves as much if not more resources to fight.
Those darn Republicans, always introducing such backwards, big company pocketed legislation...OH WAIT. The sponsor has a D beside his name!
Good job, Slashdot. If it was a Rep. you'd have gone out of your way to mention it. Your partisanship is intact. Democrats still do no wrong.
The collateral damage to the innocent as a result of draconian IP or drug laws is (to borrow the phrase) a feature, not a bug. If people know that the hand of justice will slap them without a second thought for even being marginally associated with those involved in IP infringement/drug trafficking, etc, thats a powerful incentive to make sure you steer clear of those realms.
Where does the school board find them and why do they keep sending them to ME?
And yet many "serious" mainstream political supporters still laugh at the idea that we need any other political parties or another revolution.
Slavery,Womens vote and a few other amendments aside,consider what we have now and what they had 200 years ago.The Fed supported itself from tariffs on imports,managed to run a post office,protected the borders,but mostly stayed out of "The Peoples" business.There was no Income Tax,no dictatorship by a majority(Democracy)and politicians were to serve the people not themselves.Copyright was 4 years(sounds just about reasonable,doesn't it?)and I'm not sure but I think there were limits on how many terms a Congressman/Senator could actually serve,thus eliminating "Careers"in politics.
I understand there were many undesirable things about our society then,but worldwide,things weren't much better and to point out things considered social faux pas now as a weakness of original political structure is only "look a bird"moot points.
It would be well worth our time to trash the whole thing and begin again with the original blueprint.Imagine how refreshing it would be to live without Big Brother,income taxes,special government police,"programs"(creating the need for taxes by robbing the earners to pay the lazy.Churches can handle charity and is their job anyway.)Imagine actually being free to thrive.Liberty as something other than a buzzword.Politicians as patriotic men of means with an interest in the general welfare instead of the cult of personality monsters like Hillary,Obama,J.McCain waiting to harvest you as their resource.
Trash it all and begin again.
Thoughts?
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Let me guess, you're one of those clueless Daily Mail readers aren't you? Got any facts to backup those allegations? According to Radio4 the rate of immigration in the UK is falling and people from east European countries are going home. Probably found out that England is a shit hole, full of rascist pricks, like you.
No...actually it is not that there are no other public health and safety laws, this law just allows you to lump yet-another-charge on top of an existing 'health and safety' violation if it involves IP. This way they can jack up number of charges so they can put the dirty pirate Grandmas away forever...(where they belong).
Very similar to that of the Drug laws in the 1960's. Except, with one major difference, it criminalizes the whole family. Who do you prosecute, the person who owns the computer or the person who actually did it?
The actual prosecution of IP related issues today by the RIAA is floundering because they 1) Cannot prove who did it; 2) that for many there was no actual loss of profit by the RIAA group.
This is an example of lobbying going to far.
You do realize that this bill passing would mean that people could get thrown in federal prison for visiting Google right?
Judging from the phrase "dubious origins", I don't think they mean the same hardware that we're thinking of.
This is a signature. Bow to me.
Dude, you gotta get a new argument. That one's been shot to hell so many times now.
Can I make a suggestion? Maybe you should read Slashdot more often. Frequently, you will find articles on copyight issues posted for discussion. You should easily find another argument to regurgitate through your empty head. (Hint: avoid the whole "if idea's are property, then they should pay property tax" argument)
Ohhhhhh, Sorry. My bad. I didn't realize you were just trying to whore yourself up a few karma points.
"then you have to choose which you would prefer."
This assumes that you believe that government violation of one right will not lead to government violation of another right. From my experience that would be a bad assumption to make.
"Frankly, I don't give a damn about your bank account, but I do care about my right to be free from government spying and confiscation of physical property."
You do realize that government services that violate your privacy have to be funded, correct? And as long as you give the government a blank check, they can take as much of your income as they like to fund these rights violations. If you curtail the funding by demanding that your property rights be upheld, then they won't be able to maintain those services that violate your privacy. They will have to rollback their functions to the most fundamental: courts and law enforcement to uphold rights.
As for your distinction between a "bank account" and "physical property" - there is no difference. A bank account is simply a representation of your productivity. You spend hours of your day working, in exchange for currency that represents your physical labor. You can then trade that currency for other people's physical labor. Forced taxation is taking away a percentage of your physical labor; rather than working to your own ends, you are working for the government. Check out this article on "Tax Freedom Day" - if starting on January 1st you worked exclusively for the government to pay off your taxes, then "Tax Freedom Day" would be the day of the year when you no longer have to work for the government and will start earning 100% of your income for your labor. Last year, Tax Freedom Day fell on July 11th...
For an intentionally hyperbolic look at how the criminalization of IP rights violations might be extended to extremes, have a go at the very dark cyberpunk dystopia depicted in K.W. Jeter's Noir. It's not the only theme in the novel, but it does at one point visit the bottom of the slippery slope that this bill embarks upon. Honestly, I'm surprised it's not more of a geek cult favorite, since it pokes [rather grim] fun at so many geeky political and social issues.
My /. review of this book is here. It's a bit florid, but that was in imitation of Jeter's style.
I can see the fnords!
The immigrants are first and foremost a drain on the economy, since they require welfare and all kinds of other support and services, without ever contributing anything. Rampant crime and instability don't exactly benefit society either.
This just increases the burden on society.
Did I mention we've got hot girls yet ? But you don't have lions and tigers. Only in Kenya... But they do have the majestic moose. (They migrate over from Sweden.)
Uh, no.
Yes, but you won't accept them. You don't want to know what's going on.
UK != Norway. Not that they're doing any better on the immigration front. Why are you talking about Eastern European immigrants anyway?
How am I racist, and when did I become British?
So in other words, they'll nail you even if you don't have any pirated stuff on your computer, but rather if you happened to have limewire or bittorrent installed it's indicative of automatic guilt. How convenient for them.
It seems to me that Anarcho-capitalism would be *unlikely* to reach the point you speak of (where a corporation or group thereof becomes large enough to collude or become a de-facto state).
The nature of free-market capitalism works to prevent any one company from growing to these extremes. Almost all the cases you could point to in today's reality where companies have grown to anywhere NEAR this size can be traced directly to govt. regulations giving them an unfair advantage during their prime period of growth.
(EG. One could point to, say, AT&T - but they'd be looking at an industry that had govt. monopoly status for decades, while they built their infrastructure of copper wire. Sure, we "broke them up" - but that was more of a gesture than reality, because all the pieces still profited immensely from that infrastructure they built under monopoly status. All they've done now is re-assembled those powerful pieces back into a whole again.)
Without any regulation or govt. intervention, it just doesn't make a lot of logical sense that one and only one company could become SO good at delivering a service or making their product(s) that NOBODY else would even try to compete, and take some of that revenue for themselves!
Such a huge howl of protest, yet the seizure provision changes absolutely nothing. Every computer in the house of a person raided by the FBI for copyright infringement is already seized! They "secure them for evidence."
I'm not speaking from theory. I personally know 6 people who were raided by the FBI for copyright infringement on December 11th, 2001. Every single computer was confiscated. None of them were ever returned. Three of the accused plea bargained and served time in federal prison. Minimum security, granted, but still prison. I forget the exact results of the other cases, but they were similar.
None of you seem to understand that the PRO-IP bill doesn't change a damn thing regarding what you seem to care about most. If they think you're infringing and choose to make a federal case against you, your equipment is GONE. Right now. Without PRO-IP ever being passed.
Damn! I guess I'll put Norway on the list. Already spent a lot of time learning Japanese though, so if Japan doesn't work out, then I guess I'll try Norway. America is okay, but it just ain't like it used to be.
And that is why we need to get the money out of the federal government.
Has no one has pointed out that this happened over a month ago? Or the last line mentioning that no comparable bill has been proposed in the Senate (which is still the case)? Or that the Justice Department has come out to opposing the bill? Yes, I'm pissed off that the House is turning the same stupid (and failed) drug-war tactics to the ip-war; but thankfully, it looks like this is dead in the water.
If these issues are important to you, you can keep better abreast of them at techdirt.com (often seen in a /. article... three days later) or williampatry.blogspot.com (Google's senior copyright lawyer's blog).
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
That's not Europe then, that's what's left of the British Empire.
>they can confiscate the person's computer with no possible recourse for the victim? Sure a charge won't come from it
If they're allowed to examine the computer, what are the odds that they could find something on it that violates some law or other?
you could at least give props the usa for providing your military for you so you don't have to. yes, we are screwed up, but we still provide a lot for your country - you could at least appreciate it.
This was handed into the senate and placed into the judiciary on the 12th of may.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
In the future, a hacker collective called SkyNet will create a robot that travels back in time to kill John Conyers mother before he's even born, invalidating the problem. That robot will likely later become a state governor somewhere too.
Then how come they're all granted limited liability by the government, and recognized as notional persons in government courts?
This really isn't a joke. Almost every one of my fellow graduate students that I have spoken to is dead-set on moving out of the US, and I wouldn't be surprised if a few end up in Norway and it's neighboring countries.
Stand up for your rights.
There's another way to look at this that makes a lot more sense: intellectual property law subsidizes monolithic methods of information distribution. The music, publishing, software, and movie industries are all deeply distorted by this intervention, and widespread information technology is eating into their subsidies. These markets have been so distorted for so long (since 1787, as a matter of fact!) that the massive enterprises which control them have no incentive to come up with new distribution mechanisms that compensate and still guarantee some form of income. They're so big and well-entrenched that they can simply exercise influence with the central government, destroying rather than creating.
Hell, the concept that people deserve economic rent from this artificial form of property is so deep-set that you, an average Joe on the street, accepts it at face value without considering how society can evolve to jettison it, now that it threatens to become overtly harmful. Kevin Carson has a good article on such institutions of social engineering here: http://www.fee.org/Publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=8271 that might get you thinking.
5) Rights? Nonexistent. You pay a health insurance premium and then still get to fight with your company about weather or not they are going to actually cover that operation you had because one of their lawyers thinks they can get away with calling some technique used by the surgeon as 'experimental', even though its been in common use for years.
I pay slightly higher taxes to my government, and get served by a health care system no questions asked, and i never have to worry about if the emergency room visit is covered or not.
Who's got the better deal again?
And despite providing government funded health care my government can publish yearly budget surpluses, while your government is TRILLIONS of dollars in debt and congress is passing new laws to allow you to go further into debt.
Tell me again which system favours the people?
Your government signed the patriot act into permanent law, my government declined to renew its version when it came up for vote.
Who's said good by to their rights?
Thank you for that. I haven't read good work like that in a long time. It's directly on point.
It's almost enough to make me think he had a time machine, so thoroughly did he cover the IP issues of our day. I wonder where men of this quality went. Do we not deserve them any more?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Without any regulation or govt. intervention, it just doesn't make a lot of logical sense that one and only one company could become SO good at delivering a service or making their product(s) that NOBODY else would even try to compete, and take some of that revenue for themselves!
That is contingent upon that free entry is never violated. Consider the extreme case of hydraulic despotism: if a corporation owned all the oil (or water, or something equally valuable), using property rights to exclude others, then it would have an advantageous position from which it could exclude others from entry. Reality won't be that unkind, but the difference is of quantity and not of quality: a closer to-the-earth example would be Standard Oil, which upon learning that a competitor was buying pipelines, forbade that competitor from using its (Standard Oil's) railways or to pass through the land on which those were laid, limiting the competitor's transportation.
In yet other cases, economics of scale may work in favor of the already-established corporation, where it's more efficient to run a single factory producing 2X products than two producing X products. The argument towards ultimate freedom of entry in this case is that monopolies, or more broadly, corporations that enjoy this advantage become lazy enough that the competitors can catch up. Even if that is true (and the larger corporation don't plan long enough ahead and don't have the capital to buy competitors outright), it provides a slackening of the free-entry-competition dynamic, and if the slack is wide enough, the corporation could grow to the extent it attains properties of a state.
Isn't this just a big bad scary monster of a bill designed to scare us? That way, it'll get watered down to something that can actually pass and lay the groundwork for the slow, insidious trudge of rights-snatching that has been going on for the last 100 years?
It's like saying "Hey I'm gonna shoot you in the head!" then you stab them in the toe with a needle. It hurts like a bastard, but at least it doesn't kill you. Then they stab you in the thigh. They poke you in the nipple with a hot iron. Then they dip you in lemon juice.
After a while, getting shot in the head sure starts to seem mighty nice.
Thanks, government!
-
But what was it a stake in?
I spent 2 months in Oslo and here is what I saw:
1) Everyone there cries about how Norway gives all their oil wealth away to other countries.
2) Everyone there complains about how high the taxes are and yet they still have to wait months to get a referral to a hospital.
3) Everyone there complains about how they have to import energy from other countries because Norway doesn't have a sufficient number of power plants.
4) You're right. You can earn $12/hour flipping burgers. However, 1 beer in that same restaurant will cost you $15 (80 NOK) so living it up is out of the question for most.
Oh, and as for the women, sadly, I have to say that it's better not to mention them at all. They're a sturdy bunch.
It was _neither_ fascism nor dictatorship. When they called it the United Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) they named what they got with perfect accuracy.
You are correct that they never had Comunisim, in fact no country on earth has _ever_ had comunisim in government as, among other things, there is no identifiable government, indeed no "state" at all, when you are in a communist state.
It's like that magical point where Libertarianism and Anarchy intersect, a point defined only in terms of irrational numbers.
But back on point, the soviet state was the planned precursor to communism. It was the eternal temporary precursor to that time when people, being pure of thought and absent of motive, would automatically do the shit work because it was the right thing to do, freeing their peers to pursue the higher pursuits of man.
Unfortunately, since there were people involved, and everybody wants to be doing the "higher pursuits" stuff "the peoples revolution" in all its forms, always stalls before the soviets (e.g. the organizing transitional committees) can achieves the perfection which would allow them to declare themselves irrelevant and so disband.
Fascism is instead a dictum of compelled uniform adherence. Named for the bundle of meager twigs that cannot be broken (e.g. the arrows on the great seal of the united states is "a fasc" as there is quite a lot of fascism inherent in our system of representative democracy.
The fact that there was a polit-buro alone disproves Dictatorship, which is by definition the self-appointed-kingship, where all authority and relief comes from the decisions of one individual who rules by strength.
Further, since there is no money or means of exchange, in a communist system there is literally no revenue from any industry to flow anywhere. Each pursuit is considered industry of immeasurable value, and the results of that industry are freely self-distributed as yet more industry in a magical and undepleteable pool of individuals invariably doing the most good for the most people individually and collectively.
Communism has never been implemented anywhere as it can not exist where there is even the slightest whiff of self interest or vice. In short it cannot exist, by definition, where people are involved. Hell, it turns out it doesn't exist in beehives and anthills either.
So your first sentence is correct, but the second and subsequent fail utterly as misinformation or dangerous misinterpretation.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Now all you need is some decent global warming. :)
I'm off to the beach now
thegodmovie.com - watch it
I should have said "soviet socialism". I hoist myself on my on petard there a little, but since the discussion of "soviet socialism" is distinct from genera socialism in many ways, I fell victim to the shorthand of calling it just "soviet" which makes sense in my circles but may not make sense to a more general audience.
For instance "communist china" is a socialist state, but while it is chock full of committees, they are not arranged in the soviet system of committees. But now I mince already over-fine hairs.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
You make it sound remarkably attractive right now.
How do you pronounce an Ø, anyhow?
I have avoided encrypting my hard drive, due to performance; sigh...
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
I faxed Boxer and Feinstein but they are in the bag on PRO IP act. I am really pissed at my Republican Representative. Less government and laws not more. I am sick to death of Corporations getting away with murder and government getting bigger and more intrusive every day. I say we throw them all out and start over from scratch. I don't know how we organize this but we need a Senate full of non lawyers that don't owe anyone a thing. I know that HR 4279 just cost my Representative my vote and I told them so via a phone call separate from my FAX.
If you don't like what I write don't be a CS and mod it down. Refute it.
Yea I can't spell. So what is your point?
No one suspects the spanish inquisition!!
I sympathize with your sentiment, but think about your proposal for a minute. You'd be asking the 535 people who legislate for a nation of 300 million to have a basic knowledge of computers (according to WP, "equivalent [to] 500 hours of hands-on experience") before they vote on any law dealing with computers. What about laws dealing with cars? Or pollution? Or international trade? Or education? Ideally, of course, a lawmaker would have a basic knowledge of every topic on which they'd legislate, but when you're dealing with a state of more than a few thousand people, that's unrealistic. The simple fact is that in a country this size, our lawmakers are going to end up voting on issues they know nothing about. In that case, they need people underneath of them who DO know about the issues who can advise them. And ideally those people would not be lobbyists or special-interest groups.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
The problem is there are 5000 more important issues to our country, before that one. And yes i would rather devote more people to handle those 5000 issues, rather than this 1.
When the U.S. comes up with a ding-bat solution to IP like this, then we are all doomed together because it will filter down through international treaties and trade agreements.
What's wrong with all you non-US people that you keep electing politicians who agree to these idiotic treaties and trade agreements? Don't blame us Americans for those. You had to agree to them. If you were all as smart as you think you are, you'd be letting us Americans make our stupid mistakes alone, instead of happily copying us.
Better policy: ask them to bring their family with them and restrict monetary exports to an acceptable maximum.
Modern immigrants don't want to bring their families with them. They have no interest in becoming part of your country's culture; they just want cold, hard cash. They want to make as much money as possible, send most of it home, and then finally move back home and live better there. The days of immigrants wanting to help their host country and fit in are over.
Restricting monetary exports would certainly make this difficult, but I don't see how you can realistically do that these days. Sending money internationally is pretty trivial now that we have these things called "computers" and the "internet". It's not like the old days when you had to send bars of gold, or paper checks, etc.
Norwegian is better than Spanish, which is what you're going to have to learn if you want to stay in the USA.
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
It's clear that you were being sarcastic but you still missed the point. To handle one issue in lieu of another may be silly but to not address an issue because you have not perfected the solution to another is stupid.
Fair enough, but i think this step to protect IP is fairly drastic. We rarely in this country turn back laws. No one ever wants to the be the politician that says "lets bring back all of the strip clubs to the neighborhood".
I'm not one to think that we'll ever have our answers without having tried and failed... but i'm cautious when it comes to this issue in light that i would rather put our tax dollars towards more personally important issues. The IP problem may be real but it is complex. Fair use is a serious discussion that needs to take place again in this "linked" world. We as a society have changed a bit in terms of how we view and share media and how we perceive fair use. Youtube is a great example. You cant argue against the idea that youtube has benefited our culture in some way. People will take copyrighted news clips and put them up to be informative. They will publically reply to political ads in video form, showing the original political ad. People do have some sort of new idea, or expectation as to what they can and cant do with media, and it tends to lean towards the CAN do, rather than cant. And it frankly makes sense. I'm affraid that we'll criminalize things way to far, and there are just more important issues than this.
I'm not saying this isnt a huge issue... it is and will be, but it will mean nothing if we dont have many other societal problems solved first.
In a sense i'm more inclined to let IP fair use to publically evolve, through applications, social behaviors etc before we really decide what is criminally punishable and what might actually be good for our society.
Yeah, but you eat whales.
Just FYI, I'm going to rip off your post, change it around a bit, then mail it to my Senators (too late for Reps). Don't worry, I won't give you any credit. Please don't report me to the IP cops (oh, the irony).
The fact that you didn't post about the plight of Africans in the 1800's, sir, is your TACIT APPROVAL of slavery.
I wish I still had mod points.
How's this for a crystal ball:
It sure sounds a lot like the present to me :-)
Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law.
The solution is transparency.
Look at it this way: you got a gallon of milk sitting in your fridge. You decide you want some cereal, so you pour the cereal, then you open and pour the milk. In chunks.
Then you throw out the milk and the tainted cereal and get mad because you wanted cereal.
Some genius comes along and says "hey when milk is soured it has more of chemical x, and I can make a milk indicator that lets you know when your milk is sour." Sells it to the milk bottlers and makes a fortune.
Now when you go to have cereal and you see the big red X on the side of the carton, you don't even have to smell it (unless you like the smell of sour milk) and just decide to have eggs (which you run into the same problem until someone invents a similar solution).
Point is, in a free market, in government, in your refrigerator, transparency works. More perfect information leads to more informed decisions.
-HobophobE
Nothing laughs forever.
The Jews have controlled both political parties, controlled the Mass Media, and entertainment industry.
Time for a military dictatorship!
HEIL HITLER!
One could sum this up as a totalitarian regime and cor-pirations and the need for greed.
*shrug* Not in the near future. To the contrary, we're kind of dependant on people wanting to move in and start working, since we've got more jobs needs doing (and money to pay for the doing) than we've got people for the doing. That's going to get worse the next 20-30 years as the huge wave of old people born directly after WW-II leaves the ranks of the working.
It's accurate and fully informed. It was however tongue-in-cheek. I don't actually think that Norway is heaven on earth, or anything even remotely close to that.
What you say about high prices is true. When even unskilled work is decently paid, it follows that the products that these unskilled people make costs more. End-result is you're probably better of (materially anyway) as rich in the USA, whereas if you're middle or lower-class, you'll probably be better of materially in Norway.
It also means that local-labour-intensive stuff (a haircut, a restaurant-meal, a car-repair) is expensive (relatively speaking) whereas easily transportable goods with a more-or-less constant world-price are cheap. (laptop, ps3, freezer, leather-jacket)
That's a natural consequence of decent entry-level wages. If you're upper-class and earn well, offcourse it's cheaper to get a haircut, or a burger, from someone that earns $5/hour rather than from someone who earns 2-3 times that.
For example, if you work for McD (not that I'd recommend it, they're among the poorest employers), you'll need to flip burgers for something like perhaps an hour to be able to afford a standard BigMac menu. I imagine this is similar to the US. Which is logical: for services salary and prices tend to follow eachother.
You're still better off here though. Because while the burger may cost 60 minutes of burgerflipping in both countries, there are also plenty of goods with near-constant global-prices. So if our hypothethical burgerflipper wants say an average laptop, then he'll be able to pay for it in half the time in Norway, compared to USA.
We thougth of that.
What we do is what anyone with a high income now, but less in the future, should do. We SAVE.
In practical terms, we have a fund that invest globally, to be able to pay for future pensions and the like. Currently the value of the fund stands at 2 trillion nok. Which is quite a decent chunk of cash for a nation of less than 5 million inhabitants. It's on the order of $100.000 for every inhabitant in the country.
This compares favourably with the US government having aproximately $35.000 in DEBT for every inhabitant. It also helps that at current prices the fund is growing like insanely crazy. (as in it'll be doubled in 3-4 years at current rates...)
Thank you very much for convincing me to write. I haven't posted to slashdot or (even more rarely) written a congressperson in years! Here's my letter I submitted via that link to my two senators in my state:
Honorable Senator last_name,
Please vote No for H.R. 4279: Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008, if it encourages seizing personal property suspected of infringing copyright.
Here are supporting quotes I find insightful, from http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/11/0213244&threshold=5&mode=nested :
1. " '(B) The forfeiture of property under subparagraph (A), including any seizure and disposition of the property and any related judicial or administrative proceeding, shall be governed by the procedures set forth in section 413 of the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 (21 U.S.C. 853)'
So just like in drug cases, you don't even have to be convicted of a crime - you lose your property based on an accusation. Think of it as a DMCA notice that not only takes down your site, but also has a bunch of jack-booted thugs coming and seizing all your stuff.
Maybe they will pursue a conviction and maybe not. If you want your stuff back, you have to put up a bond equal to the value of the stuff that was taken, sue the federal government, and prove your innocence. Good luck with that."
2. "Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) suggested Tuesday that people who download copyright materials from the Internet should have their computers automatically destroyed.
But Hatch himself is using unlicensed software on his official website, which presumably would qualify his computer to be smoked by the system he proposes."
3. "Shouldn't they be prioritizing protecting the constitution (which forbids unreasonable search and seizure) to the 'highest level of our government' "
Please consider how works could be expired sooner into the public domain. Why "Happy Birthday To You" still deserves to be copyrighted is beyond me.
Thank you,
name, 27 years old, software engineer
address
phone
bill consulted:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h110-4279
We're an ungrateful bunch and don't, infact, "appreciate" many of the US military interventions. We support some of them, like say Afghanistan (and send troops and monetary aid to those), but in general most Norwegians (hell make that "europeans") are of the opinion that the USA is overly agressive military, and should drop atleast half of its international operations.
I -don't- actually think I'm any safer as a result of say the Iraq war or the Gitmo-disaster.
It's the same with taxes: If you're RICH you're better of in the USA. If you're lower or middle class you're better of here.
Taxes are low for people with low income, and they're typically MORE than balanced out by the increased peace-of-mind that tends to come from knowing you and your kids WILL get full healthcare if sick, your children WILL all be able to go to the best schools and colleges (assuming they've got the grades offcourse, but MONEY won't be a barrier), you WILL get a pension to live from when old and so on.
If you're rich, taxes are high, but for middle-class I find them acceptable. My wife and I are fairly average middle-class by Norwegian standards. Gross earnings are aproximately $175K/year. (in sum for us two, not for each of us!) With that we pay 31% taxes. I personally don't find that excessive. Particularily not when you consider that that INCLUDES all stuff like healthcare, unemployment-insurance, pensions, government-sponsored daycare etc.
The plan is to suck up natural gas. Produce electricity from it. Export the electricity to less fortunate countries on the continent that today derive their power from stuff like coal and oil, and thereafter reinject the CO2 from the burning into the same gas-fields that used to hold the natural gas.
A process that, as it happens, has the side-benefit of INCREASING the amount of gas that can be extracted from a field.
It's a bit full. We're 5 people already, in a 3-bedroom house. You can buy the house though if you like, we're planning to move to a somewhat larger one, say one with 4-5 bedrooms.
True. If you're unskilled and not a EU-citizen your odds are relatively poor. You'd basically need to convince one of them aforementioned hot girls to marry you or something.
If you're skilled your odds are better. There are immigration-openings for people with desired educations. Say you're an engineer, a medical doctor or nurse or have atleast a bachelor in some technical education.
English is taugth compulsory from 1st grade, i.e. from age 6. So just about everyone (atleast those under 60) speak english. People will nearly universally understand you.
However, you will not understand -them-. Just because we know english doesn't mean we speak it constantly at home, in social settings or at work. So basically, you won't be happy living in Norway unless you're prepared to take the effort to learn the language. It's not very hard for a native english, afterall we're in the same language-family so many structures are the same and many words are similar enough that when you've heard it explained once you can easily remember it. Still, it does take effort.
Internet is good and fast, but like all services not cheap. Expect to pay from $40/month upwards for a permanent unmetered link. (expressing things in dollars make them sound more expensive than they are though, due to the dollar being low these days, let me put it differently: expect to have to pay from 2-hours-pay upwards for a permanent unmetered link.)
I've actually got the slowest connection offered by my carrier; 10Mbps symetrical. Carried in by single-mode fibre-to-the-basement. Other offered speeds are 25Mbps, 50Mbps or 100Mbps symetrical. Most people are satisfied with 10 though. The link costs me 4 hours of pay a month, but that also includes ip-phone with unlimited free calls inside Norway and basic television. (aprox 30 channels, the voip and tv-over-ip also flows over the fibre)
IT-work is very very good. Lots of open positions. The tricky thing is to get a immigration-allowance if you're not a EU-citizen. (inside of EU you're free to live and work where you want, and norway is part of that though we're not a EU-member)
1) True. If you aren't prepared to learn the language of a new country, don't bother moving there in the first place. Most norwegians speak english, nevertheless learning the language really is a requirement for your longterm happiness.
2) True. Except if you have a qualification we're lacking. Engineer, technical education or medical education of some sorts, say. Or unless you happen to be married to a Norwegian, for example.
3) The IRS only tax you for -1- year after you move abroad. And there are deals such that taxes paid in one country for that year is subtracted in the other. Nevertheless yes, it's an extra hassle the first year to have to file taxes in two countries. After that you file taxes only in the country you live and work in though.
4) I personally wouldn't count people like that among people whose opinion matters to me. (I do know first-hand, I did move to germany for a period of 4-5 years before returning to Norway)
5) Nonsense. First, citizenship is distinct from where you live. You can live in Norway for the rest of your life and yet remain a US citizen. Second, that's no "if". Everyone who has lived in Norway for more than 6 years legally automatically qualify for citizenship, so it's not as if that'll happen anyway. (shorter if you're "more attached" to norway, for example if you live in norway AND are married to a norwegian, the time-limit is 3.5 years)
You're silly. Offcourse people want to live here. Net immigration last year was aproximately 1%. (i.e. if we ignore births/deaths then the population of Norway would've grown by 1% last year due to immigration outnumbering emmigration). This is on-par with other most-popular countries.
Few people move here from the US, logical because as an American you -CANT- go here, unless you've got qualificaitons we're lacking, are marrying a Norwegian or similar circumstances. (the reverse is also true: immigration to usa is restricted for norwegians)
Last year 780 people moved from Norway to USA. 3201 moved from USA to Norway. (have a look yourself at www.ssb.no don't take my word for it !)
These numbers are, as I said, artificially low (in both directions) because of restrictive immigration-policies in both countries. My guess is that both numbers would be 5-10 times as high if immigration was unrestricted. In any case, many more people move USA - Norway compared to the oposite direction.
Uhm, no. That's not it. The hydropower is PROFITABLE. Infact it's INSANELY profitable. I know because I own stock in one of them.
Production-costs for hydroelectric power is something like 1cent/kwh. Current average market-prices here are aproximately 10cent/kwh. You do the math. Or alternatively have a look at this: http://uk.ichart.yahoo.com/z?s=AFK.OL&t=5y&q=l&l=on&z=l&p=s&a=v&p=s
The reason is another. Infact there are 3 reasons:
1) We have a LOT of mountains. (2/3rds of norway is mountain over 3000 feet, hardly anyone lives there)
2) We have a LOT of rainfall in many of these mountains.
3) We aren't a lot of people. 5 million is not much. We do have a lot of power-hungry industry (aluminum-mills for example) but nevertheless our power-needs are moderate for a country this size.
Like I said: We got lucky.
Compared to what ? The coast of Norway has a moderate climate due to the gulf-stream. It is seldom HOT, but it is also seldom COLD. For example, here in Stavanger anything above say 70F counts as a normal summerday, and much above 80 is rare. On the other hand, a typical winter has only a handful of days with below-freezing daytime temperature. Some inland-states in USA have a lot colder winters than that.
"immigrants" isn't a homogenous group, any statement that lumps them all in is likely to shine no light at all on the issue.
In Norway we have two main groups of immigrants. The two groups have pretty close to -nothing- in common.
Group 1, the smallest group, are fugitives, or people who claim to be fugitives. They are often unskilled, sometimes lacking even basic schooling, don't know any language common in Norway, these are indeed a drain. Particularily the first year, sometimes much longer, particularily if the integration fails to work.
Group 2, the largest group, come to Norway -because- they have gotten a job here. They are overwhelmingly from the EU, with a few from North-America thrown in. They come to Norway already-educated, having already had their upbringing and education financed by another nation, here they move right in and start working the day after. These also tend to speak atleast one language common in Norway (though seldom norwegian), most know english or german or a scandinavian language. These are DEFINITELY no drain, quite the oposite infact, we couldn't do without them.
Lumping these two groups into one sack is unlikely to enligthen anyone.
What kind of immigrants are you talking about? Your description certainly has nothing to do with Muslim immigrants, except for the part about not wanting to integrate.
For such a small group they sure keep themselves busy (that was way back in 2001, so I can only imagine what it's like now).
I haven't lumped anything together. It was fairly obvious what kind of immigrants I was referring to.
He thinks he is referring to "Mexkins" or whatever some racial epithet thereof. he would still be dead wrong. Most of the immigrants I know would love to bring their families, but one person that is highly mobile leaves less of an illegal footprint than a whole family of illegals.
He also doesn't think about the fact that with my proposal, we just made them legal, and suddenly very traceable. Nor does he realize that the computers do not send money, nor does the Internet (capital "I" in this case, please). The medium of payment is through an *institution* or institutions that could be held responsible for breach of law. I can still think of about 10 work-a-rounds for what I just proposed, but people aren't smart.
One other thing he fails to realize is that most immigrants when they come to America don't want to go back. If he'd read the proliferation of articles from other countries that decry the problem of citizen/breadwinner loss due to immigration, he'd immediately realize that his characterization is ill-founded.
"Little is much when little you need."
it could be an awesome defense or a beat down from the litigant
Sure. A few people not well-integrated in society causes a lot of problems, muggings, prostitution, assault, drug-dealing. This is news ? It would be a fucking miracle if you could take youngsters from a war-zone, transport them to another country where they don't know the language, don't have the education, where their parents aren't integrated into society, where they'll belong to the underclass, and NOT have them commit more crimes than average young people.
There is no reason to assume statistics have worsened since 2001, so I'm not sure what you "imagine" or on what basis.
People don't rape and murder with impunity because they're "not integrated."
Yes, it is. Very few people know what the situation is in Europe, and by the time everyone knows it'll either be too late or the streets will be covered in blood.
What, so suddenly every Islamic country in the world is a warzone? They don't do what they do because they come from a warzone, they do it because it's part of their culture. The reason why Muslims rape more than other people is because of the attitudes they have towards women and sexuality ("pieces of meat" who can be freely raped if they're uncovered, as one infamous Australian imam so eloquently put it). Also, these youngsters you're referring to are second generation immigrants for the most part. The rest of their criminal behavior can also be explained by culture.
There's a consistent downwards spiral all over Europe, so why would Norway somehow be different? Things are getting worse, not better.
Actually, they do. Most people (integrated or not) do neither. But it's very well documented that the less "connected" you are to society, the less chances you perceive you have, the less able your parents are to guide you, the higher is the chance you'll end up in crime.
There's no "consistent downward spiral" in Norway. Number of reported crimes where aprox the same in 1993 and 2008, for example. Rape -is- indeed up, but it's reported more often now than it was eariler, it's hard to say what the real numbers are. Car-theft is down. Burglary is down. Assault and robbery is aproximately constant. Violence is somewhat up (around 10% in that period).
Overall it's a tossup.
Listen, I don't think we disagree so much; it is undoubtedly true that importing people with a very different culture and often a problematic background will cause problems, and it does. It's just that your doomsday-scenarios are quite exxagerated, atleast for Norway.
Since Muslims have the same kind of behavior in their own societies, this explanation does not work. Also, they deliberately choose not to integrate themselves.
There is still no reason to believe that Norway is going anywhere else except down. Every country that's running this grand multiculturalist social experiment is getting the same results.
So often these posts are quite timely. The law goes open source at Forbes.com saves me the trouble. Apparently I'm not the only one that noticed this. Oddly the story is future dated for some reason.
Next up: claw that geographic information database back from ESRI....
Help stamp out iliturcy.
a tiger? in africa???
It doesn't work with gtk-gnash (64bit), but it will still provide clarity: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/kenya/
was hoping someone would catch the monty python reference and the fact that there are no tigers in africa.. sorry didnt have sounds when viewing the clip