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PRO-IP and PIRATE Acts Fused Into New Bill
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) have just sponsored a new bill, the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008, which would combine the worst parts of the PRO-IP Act and the PIRATE Act. The basic idea is pretty simple: expand the Federal government to create something like the Department of Homeland Security for IP. The Copyright Czar then polices the internet and clogs the courts with thousands of civil lawsuits against individual infringers so the RIAA doesn't have to. Feel free to contact your representatives with your feelings about this bill. Right now, they believe the bill (PDF) will 'protect jobs.'"
Ermm.....more likely "will protect the stream of political contributions and lobbying money from the RIAA/MPAA/etc."
Czars in America. How did that shit come to be?
Let's hope that everyone starts using high-end ecryption and maybe someone smart'll come up with more methods.. even better than what we got now! Leave the internet alone!! -_-
If they'd had any class at all, they'd have named the new combined bill the "PRO-PIRATE" bill.
Honestly, why do we need this? Everyone talks about how music is dying, and how movies are dying. But a quick search on MySpace or YouTube gives thousands of indie bands and a lot are as good or somewhat better than the ones signed with a record company. There are lots of low-budget films circulating YouTube, now while a lot aren't as good as the ones that take millions to make, a lot are really entertaining, something that a lot of Hollywood films aren't.
Just because not everyone wants fast food doesn't give the fast foot industry the right to in a way punish previously legal activities for the goal of getting more people to eat fast food. In any other industry, a bill like this would be laughed at even by the idiots that are in our congress, but it seems that any trade group with the word America is enough to throw both republicans and democrats into passing a bill. Idiots.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Although I'm not sure throwing intangible goods into the harbour is going to be so effective.
This bill basically gives federal prosecutors the right to bring a civil suit against infringers on behalf of the copyright owner (with proceeds going to the copyright owner), AND leaves the option open for the copyright holder to file his own suit on top of it. Now you can get sued twice for the same thing, with damages doubled up to $2 million per infringement. And best of all, the taxpayers will foot the bill for civil suits by the government.
Unbelievable. Really.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
In any other industry, the core problem would be addressed.
... not hollywood crap, and extremely high prices for garbage.
for auto manufacturers, the problem is nafta, not poor quality domestic vehicles.
for food prices, the problem is biofuel, not subsidized farming.
for power generation (and shortfalls), the problem is canada and mexico, not insufficient production.
for job loss, the problem is immigration, not high wages.
for the recession? the problem is terrorism!!!, not the trillions of dollars borrowed and spent on the war, subprime mortgages, and the bush administration's economic policies...
And for piracy? the problem is canada, china, and piracy
I think that if there wasn't so much high priced garbage, people would start paying for their movies and music again. I'm 100% against paying for something (like a cd), finding out it is crap, and being stuck with something I don't want... almost every other industry, I can return unwanted goods. When music/movies are like that, I'll stop pirating.
These bills should be supported. When the United States has fully implemented the Soviet_Union_For_Corporations, only then will your average suburbian join the revolution.
Exactly. I just bought Bioshock and the thing keeps crashing on my computer. I should have pirated it first, but I was trying to be honest and had waited for it to hit an acceptable price point (which it did on steam this weekend). Now I'm being punished for being honest. At least when I get viruses from pirating shit, I know what I'm getting in to.
Now I'm stuck with a couple of gigs of worthless data on my hard drive that I feel like I should keep around in case they patch it. And I'm convinced more than ever that when spore comes out, that shit is coming off the pirate bay. I'm not going to pay for another 60 dollar doorstop.
The world you experience is only a close approximation of reality.
ploughing billions of dollars of tax payers money into gas guzzling SUV's saved jobs right ? Don't laugh the US divisions of most car makers is now the only ones losing money, for example, if Ford stopped selling cars in the USA it would be making a profit.
how can the ELECTED senators in your country can easily move against the wishes of the people, so blatantly, so fearlessly, so hypocritically ? unbelievable.
Read radical news here
No, what you should have done was run Linux then virtualize a pirated Windows install to run your pirated Bioshock. That way, you are not only a pirate but a communist too!!!
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Department of Homeland Security is a "Department", which comes with a seat on the Cabinet. This looks more like the DEA with its "Drug Czar", which I believe falls into the "Agency" category. No cabinet post.
The property seizure powers also look similar, though not so much the civil litigation stuff.
Dear USA,
Fuck off.
Hugs n kisses,
The rest of us
its a battle between selfishness, self centeredness and will of the people.
you think that by protesting, talking to them, you will have them change their mind ? or by working IN the system, you will be able to compete ? how many stuff you have failed to prevent in the last 10 years by doing that ?
they DONT CARE what you think. they get their votes by doing greasy campaigns that run by donation money from whomever has the cash, and they just do as they or their masters please. thats the gist of it.
you better draw them off, and start thinking what you can do WITHOUT them being on board, because they wont be.
basically your senators have become your enemies.
THEY DONT SERVE YOU
Read radical news here
No-one in their right mind would elect him to public office.
Fantastically gifted coder he may be, a founder of open source he most certainly is, but another thing he is, is a zealot. That type of person rarely does well in a job where compromise is the order of the day.
Not that its a bad thing he's so single minded. Open source wouldn't have its most important tool chain were it not for him, and the philosophy would have got nowhere but for his bull headedness on the issue.
That said, I'd never vote to put him in public office, never in a million gazillion years.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
4. No relief from foreclosure for your homes and mine, but only to Countrywide and Fannie Mae.
You know, if people wouldn't take out loans they can't afford, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.
1. Most senators did not swear to it.
2. Not within the senate's power to decide.
3. Yahoo is now dead. I think the market is handling this fairly well.
4. Foreclosure happens because you took money that you could not pay back. Frankly Fannie should just be allowed to dissolve, but doing that could prolong the crisis.
5. I'm sure that taking oil producers to court would not be a good way to lower gas prices. Thats even assuming RICO was applicable in this case, which it is not.
6. We also don't have magical unicorns pooping candy that cures cancer. Deal.
7. Its stopping itself. You just might not be around to see it.
I disagree with you on many topics, but feel your frustration with the seeming powerlessness we citizens have. Surrender has never provided anything to a people other than defeat. We must continue to struggle or we will just be smothered. Maybe we should write a little letter to our representatives and start it off with, "When, in the course of human events..."
He's 100% right. Are you fucking stupid or something?
i wonder when will people start killing these american senators who are doing things that people dont want. in democracy thats treason.
As the great Votaire put it:
"An ideal form of government is democracy, tempered with assassination."
Clever guy.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
Combine this with FISA, and suddenly the only obstacle left is encryption. We all know what's coming next... The "No encryption for potential terrorists act", the "mandatory back-door act", or the "if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear act".
...so instead of posting about how we're all so insightful for foreseeing it, or just whining about the government (as though our congressman might read Slashdot), let's do what we do best and solve this problem, except this time before it even happens.
It seems to me that the solution to censorship is to route around it. How about if we code up some steganography tool to hide encrypted messages, and give them the back-door to a bunch of worthless garbage? (i.e. SSH over Nigerian scam mail.) Perhaps they'll notice that all the geeks are communicating with variations of Nigerian spam emails, but the only way they could stop us would be to solve the SPAM problem. Good luck legislating that away.
We've rid ourselves of the idiot that was Santorum; let us rid ourselves of Specter at the next opportunity.
Do people arrange heists in online chats or how do you steal using the internet?
You know, if people wouldn't take out loans they can't afford, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.
You know, that's something you hear ALL OVER the place, and yet an enormous number of people had acted in this way which is so spat-upon by most of the smarty-smart forums I frequent. The thing is, though, that if there is such a large amount of similar sentiment or action, there is probably something worth examining there. I would say it has something to do with incredibly smart (well, that's debatable. let's say "good with words") people who write insanely convoluted contracts that everybody and their cousin just signs off the bat without reading (EULA much?) and it's understood that that's how that's done. Added to that, growing up as many of us probably have in a culture that prizes "credit history" (I understand it's being tied to insurance costs, now) which can ONLY be gotten from debt, then I can sympathize with the consumer in these cases (especially after having finally rid myself of debt, probably 10 years later and thousands upon thousands of dollars in interest, and mine's a pretty light case, there are people dealing with mountains of cascading debt). All our choices, all our own fault. But with SO many people in that situation, it's more interesting to look at "why" than just somehow blame them for being wrong. (see: "public misunderstanding" around the release of KDE4.0)
Specter is behind this because he really wants to prevent NFL teams from stealing signals by claiming it is IP theft. The bottom line is New England forfeits their Super Bowl win over Philadelphia and Specter gets more Philly fan votes.
Both music and film industries DO NOT pay their fair share of tax - in fact numbers paid point to outright evasion.
Multilevel distribution agreements across international tax havens ensure uncle Sam only sees chump change.
A better idea is to link prosecution priority to net income /taxes paid. The tinpot police should also investigate the finances of those bankrolling congresscritters.
Want to make it more fun for them? Just encrypt everything all the time. Yeah its a bit more cpu, but it would drive "them" batty.
Even stupid silly stuff should be encrypted. If you only encrypt the important stuff you paint a bullseye on it.
Sure with https they know which site you went to, they can analyze packets to see how many connections (sometimes), total bytes, etc are sent and try to reconstruct which page you went to, but that can also be masked to a limited degree.
The biggest thing is that since the web is probably the largest single source of traffic, there would have to be some CA that could operate free, and really all they do is guarantee the domain and not who is behind it. These same CAs could be used for bittorrent trackers, and its possible to do something for the data itself.
Chat has many options (silc, encryption laid over another network, etc), email too has many options. At the end of the day even voice has encryption capabilities.
Even if everyone used only 40 bit, for *everything* they would still have to pick and choose, of course anyone they picked it would be near instant, but it would force them to pick. Go to something that is more immune from quantum computer attacks and you can have some privacy for years to come.
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9508027
They can have my cutlass when they pry it from my cold dead hand!
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
This battle was being fought long before the internet came along. They could also be using this opportunity to be giving clear guidance on what constitutes fair-use, which is desperately needed, but they clearly do not care about that.
It will "protect 'jobs'". Put that last little word through your Noam Chomsky filter, and it translates:
"protect profits".
but that does not envoke the same emotion in the masses as "Jobs" do.
Which your congress spokesperson might have a hard time trying to disagree with this bill.
Unfortunately, there's no way to run Bioshock in a WM yet :(
It seems to me that the only thing worse than the incessant squabbling between Democrats and Republicans is when they arrive at a consensus on a piece of "important" legislation.
People who are old like me and remember the famous battles between Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan remember when Republicans really were conservative and Democrats really were liberal. Now we just have two parties of triangulating whores selling out to try and grab the middle and flipping sides on every issue at the earliest possible opportunity.
This is my sig.
If everyone would quite buying the RIAA music, quite pirating it even. Quit buying the damn DVD's, quite going to see the movies, quit pirating movies. Show a complete and total drop I'm talking FLATLINE of sales and use for music and movies by the MAFIAA. What will be their argument be for their lost salse then? They would lose money to BUY politicians and would have to go out of business at some point. I hear you saying "boycotts just don't work." Why don't they? Because people have to have the latest RIAA pushed band's CD, they have to go see the lateset greatest MPAA pushed movie. "Hey when is American Idol on?". I haven't bought an RIAA labeld CD in 10 years I gave the RIAA my middle finger a long time ago. Instead of watching a movie I just read a book or play a video game. F@ck the MPAA too! America your deserving all the crap that is comming down on you - because your too damn lazy to do a damn thng about it. But, some of us still give a crap!
Me I wrote my senators and told them they should not vote for this crap. If they do it will show me that they have been bought off by the RIAA/MPAA and that I'll be informing as many of their "constiuants" as I can about their pro-corporate, anti-citizen votes.
The Truth is a Virus!!!
The U.S. government is EXTREMELY corrupt. Passing bills for those who paid the most is only a small part of it. The U.S. government is already fighting a war with Iran. There is talk of "diplomacy", but that is only to stop complaints. The situation is the same as before invading Iraq. There was talk of diplomacy, but the leaders in Iraq knew that the U.S. government would invade, no matter what was said.
The purpose of invading Iran is the same as the purpose of invading Iraq: to restrict the supply of oil even further, so that oil prices will rise even further.
The republican party is prioritizing business interests over consumers any time the have a chance.
And the democrats are all cozy and in bed with the Hollywood elite.
Expect RIAA, Viacom, Hollywood and all other companiers with IP content to consistently get everything they want from Wahington. As a consumer, dont even try to get your hopes up. You will continue to get screwed.
Just as a reminder: After entertainment became a big business with lobbyists around 1920, *no* new copyrighted work have expired. Every 10 years or so, it has been extended by at least 10 years, and is now about two lifetimes.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
So instead we elect people who change whenever someone mentions America? Seriously, we need someone where we know where they stand, and RMS has always stood for software freedom. And what we need is less compromise in politics. RMS is true to what he believes in, and when McCain or Obama gets elected, we will see that everything they told us in the campaign speeches and ads are unfulfilled promises.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
"Just stop using the Internet to steal music."
Tell that to Microsoft and McAfee, who tacitly approved of "piracy" to garner marketshare for their crapware.
This isn't about "theft" or "protecting jobs", it's about dead business models and sh*tty products being protected by clueless politicians for the benefit of greedy, intellectually insufficient imbeciles at the helms of various corporations.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
... and be put on some sort of 'IP watched list' once the department is formed, since if you complain you *have* to be an IP pirate.
No thanks, id rather remain anonymous as possible.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I think I know one person that doesnt have downloaded music and pirated software. He even has a purchased copy of windows. Yeah rare I know...
Odd... I pirated it and it worked perfectly. :)
Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master.
There is a demo available (on Steam no less), you could have tested it on your computer before hand.
There is an answer to this, you know. You don't have to continue to be a slave any more:
http://www.metagovernment.org/wiki/Main_Page
*pssst*
You're allowed to run for office.
Maybe the reason is simpler
Government official that support IP cant find in themselves any intellectual property that anyone but themselves see as valuable!!
Oh for fsk's sake why don't they just openly come out and make it illegal to actually _own_ anything so that we all have to rent things from large corporations.
I mean that's what they really want here. At least if they came out openly and said it we'd know where we stand.
And the worst part is that it's unlikely to change until the majority of couch potato people are affected by it.
Which if the-powers-that-be are as clever as they have appeared to be so far will never happen. The last thing they want is people actually _looking_ at what they are doing - especially Joe Public - so they'll do anything to keep them fat and happy.
"Bah!" - Dogbert
No-one in their right mind would elect him to public office. ...he is, is a zealot. That type of person rarely does well in a job where compromise is the order of the day.
And this is different from GWB how?
Damn it,
"someone who knows where they stand ... less compromise in politics ..."
That sounds like what we have right now. "Stay the Course" - even when it crushes the country.
"Be careful what you wish for - you just might get it."
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
The OP is talking about national politics. Theoretically, one can run for those offices, but one has a statistically insignificant chance of winning without first establishing oneself with a party (or accumulating a huge amount of cash and/or notoriety).
Here is the trick: to establish oneself within a party, all one has to do is completely sell out to the private interests aligned with that party.
So no, the OP does not have a chance of running for office. Zero. Their only chance is if they join the groups against which they currently rant. But at that point, they would no longer be the same person at all.
Bush would veto it, Obama - as a wholly owned subsidiary of the entertainment/comm industry would not.
It's really a matter of which big business you want controlling your life.
Me, I'd prefer the oil men - since oil is at least, you know, a real life thing, and whether they want to or not, they have to deal with real life resource management issues to stay in business.
The Democratic puppet-masters are all made out of fucking imagination and sit around all day contemplating "how can we get more money from people, without providing any material benefit whatsoever"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The bill's new name is now PRO-PIRATE. yeah
Yes.
Yes, so you join a mainstream party. As a party member, you have some say in the direction the party takes. You can still be the same person. As long as you respect that your opinions are different from others and work to persuade people there will be no problems.
Of course, you don't even need to win to make a difference. You just need to be enough of a problem that the mainstream candidates change their policies to nab some of your voters.
RMS would be amazing as he is only interested in software.. he would anhialate the patent and copyright system and then do nothing for the next 4 years. The problem with govenments is that a huge body of people has no other job than make more things illegal and fiddle with regulation, if everyone just chilled and didn't mess with the law apart from when needed or to correct some of the worse mistakes we would be alot better off. How about a new law that for every law you make you must remove one?
An interesting thought: The more technologically inclined a person is, the more likely they are to pirate something. Of the techs and coders that I know, none of them can honestly say they haven't copied *something*. To be completely honest, I don't know a single person who hasn't copied at least one song, or printed at least one copyrighted work, but the techies are more likely to have huge collections of "media of dubious origins". What are they going to do, arrest the entire internet?
Speaking of "the entire internet", if we aren't "rampantly pirating", we aren't keeping up with the global economy. Hate to drag this back out into the light, but China was Public Enemy #1 as recently as a few weeks ago, because of their "rampant piracy". This same story seems so familiar to many of us, because a few years back, the USA's government was freaking out about European countries not paying attention to our IP laws. Evidently, we here in the USA are slow learners. The countries with lax IP laws are proceeding in leaps and bounds, while those crippled by "respect" for IP laws are pedalling in circles. It should be our patriotic duty to commit piracy! Increase the store and flow of information for the greater good, and all that.
With the advance of technology, copyrights are no longer an impediment to creativity; those who want to simply ignore them. This is much bigger than the VHS/Betamax wars of two decades ago. The devices exist, the methods are ubiquitous, end of discussion. Not only can we copy music, movies, television, books, or any other (digital) object with our evil piratical computer devices (don't forget, you can rip mp3s with Windows Media Player!), there is now technology that allows us to copy physical objects, as well. The world is changing, and it's a simple fact of life that during major societal changes, older and less effectual methods become obsolete. The Music And Film Industries of America need to get with the program, and stop paying our government to keep them on life support.
It's an age-old maxim, and it applies just as well here: Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
In the UK, the skilled working class people who were shafted by the Conservatives voted - conservative. Because? They wanted to be seen as middle class, and they thought the middle classes voted Conservative.
As Schiller said, only in German, against stupidity even the Gods struggle in vain.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Leahy is a deeply-conflicted individual. He's a long-time Deadhead who complained when the Vermont legislature considered partial marijuana decriminalization a few months back. So his favorite musicians, who thrived - indeed became one of the ten most profitable touring bands in the world - by allowing fans to trade concert recordings freely, and who thrived on the creative benefits of mind-altering drugs - he acts directly against.
Leahy is also a staunch defender of the Constitution, and resistor of further violations by the government of individual freedoms - except when it comes to matters that go against the interests of his best long-term donor, Michael Eisner of Saxtons River, Vermont (and formerly of Disneyland).
He's my senator, and on the whole I like the guy. But he seriously needs psychological help, and should step down from involvement in these areas until he gets it, and can resolve his contradictions in favor of his love of freedom, art, and the Constitution.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Unfortunately, DirectX programs tend to fail in VM's pretty often if they require high 3D capabilities. Personal experience.
for all of the bureaucrats it will require to oversee its enforcement.
Ahahahahahahahaha!
You know, if people wouldn't take out loans they can't afford, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.
Isn't a loan, by definition, something that one cannot afford?
Jobs and wage levels can decrease for the middle class / poor... but when the upper class wealthy get screwed, then its a problem.
As far as I'm concerned, putting the entire legislative branch of the government at an impasse would be an improvement over the current situation. At least then, they wouldn't be able to make anything worse!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
for job loss, the problem is immigration, not corporate greed
I gave your otherwise on target post a little fix
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Obviously it's defective, so you should just simply return it.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
And Countrywide and Fannie Mae are the ones who allowed those loans without doing due diligence. Therefore, they shouldn't be bailed out either!
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Good point. Some people will stop pirating, but they probably won't stop wanting the music. I see a back in the day business model of selling copied cds. I remember this was popular in college just before burners were mainstream - but some people had access to them at school. Now, it won't be the scarcity of finding the music, but rather the fear of being caught. However, everyone knows some guy that can get stuff like this. So yeah, they might clamp down on internet piracy, but they might build a lucrative sneakernet piracy market.
No comprende? Let me type that a little slower for you...
You don't really believe that, do you?
The people with the actual power have no interest in you, no matter how much you whine. Only if your whining starts to annoy their sponsors (the people they actually work for) do they take notice and do whatever is necessary to placate their sponsors. If that includes shutting you up by some means (giving you a scrap of what you want, ridiculing you, having you meet an "accident," or whatever), then yes, they will do what is necessary to shut you up.
So you can hope that you can be that annoying, and that you can somehow convince the powers that they should placate you with some symbolic token of what you were trying to achieve. But please do not call that democracy.
If you believe the United States has anything to do with democracy, then I have some electronic voting for you to participate in. Honest: when our software does the count, our proprietary algorithm will designate the democratically-chosen candidate. I swear!
Previous attempts (PRO-IP, PIRACY bills) were proposed during a largely republican administration. The republican party gets most of its contributions from the international oil cartel (and a few other non-media-businesses), so they never really cared about those bills.
Now the administration is mostly democrats. It is still under a republican president, of course, but most of the congressmen are democrats. Traditionally, democrats receive their contributions directly from big media companies (Sony, Disney, etc), and as such they are much more likely to be sympathetic to the goals of this bill.
Even if this one gets shot down, I will bet that when Obama is president, the next incarnation of this bill will pass.
So, any bets on how much better this War on Abstraction and/or Category(tm) will go than our others have? My bet is that piracy will end after drugs; but before poverty and terrorism.
RMS would be amazing as he is only interested in software
Actually, that is not true. While he does serve as president of the FSF and spends most of his time on software activism, his personal home page reveals his involvement and activism in many progressive causes.
Lots of 'em - all taxpayer funded.
No sig today...
and the only way to counter this is stop buying ANY films or music. When all their revenue dries up then, and only then will they realise the consumer controls the market not the corporations.
Piracy is not killing either industry, both industry's are doing well but in a world were the only goal is to make more money to increase the share price of the company for it's investors, you can NEVER make enough profit.
There is a demo available (on Steam no less), you could have tested it on your computer before hand.
This would help if it was crashing at the splash screen, as it does for some people. But for others, the crash happens early in the game, but after the part that's represented in the demo.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I do believe you've just echoed the sentiments of A LOT of people, me included.
how is babby formed?
1. NBC's Meet the press progam with Russert in 2006 where Pelosi agreed to look into Impeachment as one of the solutions should she get a 15 seat majority. People believed her and voted her in. What did the bitch do? Disown impeachment and suck upto the president.
If Clinton had a Monica, Bush has a Pelosi.
2. The Senate and House can do anything on a majority basis: Order the marshal to arrest and bring any person [in chains] to the Senate to answer it. It alone has the power to do so.
3. The point here is breach of contract: It was legally contracted by Yahoo and MSN that the music i licensed from them would play on my devices as long as i continued to pay the license fees for it. Same like my payments for my mortgage. What instead MSN and yahoo are saying is, even though i continue to pay, they want me to prevent me from enjoying the music i paid my license fees for. Much like Countrywide refusing to accept payments for my house and then forcing me to vacate the same even though iam not under default. Well, if taken to a court, yahoo and MSN would NOT prevail.
4. Foreclosures happened NOT because i can't pay: But because my interest rate was raised by the bank even though my credit history was perfect and my repayment was on schedule, because, some thousands of idiots defaulted on their payment. All these times banks wanted freedom from regulation. They got it. Now why do they complain and come running to Bush for bailouts?
5. A congressional enquiry and a GAO report on Oil companies is within the power of congress to order. If i can be arrested and convicted and sentenced to 20 years in jail because i stole movies and shared them, why can't oil execs be done the same way?
6. Well Britain has NHS. France has the BEST rated medical system in the world. Hell, even singapore has an excellent, cheap medical system. And US? 48th place.
7. This i agree. It is stopping at a glacial pace. 45 years from now when am not alive, probably it will come to an ultimate end.
The corporatocracy of US is complete. It expanded with Reagan (that bastard), and achieved its full in Bush. Much like Skynet. Neither you, me nor even Obama can do anything.
Look at Obama talking nowadays...
Everyone is corruptible.
Get onto the band wagon before its too late.
Your letter??? Well bush uses a paper which contains the same words you mentioned to wipe his bare brown ass.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
You're right. Although, I would argue that there are benefits to the economy that we wouldn't exactly want to do without.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
This is a perfect example of bad government. The 'rich' love to offload their expenses onto the taxpayers thereby increasing their already obscene profits at our expense.
This is purely a mater of civil action between the **AA and whoever they are trying to bully. However, the courts are starting to see through this whole bad theory that (sharing == piracy ). The logical next step is to have your sock puppets in congress change the law, and put the burden of expense and bad publicity on the US government.
I still do not think that sharing is piracy, or for that matter even morally wrong. I do not buy the argument that sharing deprives anyone of anything. Just because some music or video reaches my senses, I do not think I owe some one money.
If I like a work, I will buy it. If I download something, listen to it, and decided it's crap, then I really do not think I should have to pay anyone.
I think piracy is when you make counterfeit CD's / DVD's and sell them as if they were genuine.
I see nothing wrong with sharing software, music, videos, etc to try them out.
Anyway, this law just codifies this whole mistaken belief, and criminalizes everyone.
If this passes, it is one of those crucial turning points in our countries history that signifies a complete shift to fascism.
I hope it does not make it. I really do.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
So, since we need a good way to demonize this law, I recommend LEPRA as the term we should use to refer to this act.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Or, much better, do it more, a lot more, and make sure everyone does.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
The Joker should have killed him when he had the chance.
Here's my roadmap for politics.
First, there's the republicans, who stand up, and say, "I have a bad idea!"
And then there's democrats who stand up and say "Yeah? And I can make it worse!"
And the only thing worse than these two shits arguing are when they work together!
If you think that you can get a loan for less than the prime rate, you're not paying attention. If you think you can afford something that costs 10 to 15 years worth of your entire income by taking out a loan over 30 years, you're not paying attention either.
End of story.
What this debacle tells me - and what I've seen repeated over and over - is that the average american is financially illiterate and incapable of doing a cost-benefit analysis. I don't know I'm supposed to pay for other people making horrendous mistakes - especially when the mistakes are on the scale of grade-school math.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
And for whom would you vote instead? Do you think the options available to you right now are better than RMS?
One of the few good things about the GWB administration is that they actually are leaders. They aren't beholden to the changing whims of the populace. The problem is that they lie about where they are leading to convince people that they should be the ones in charge and where they are leading the US is damaging the country (though good for them). At least with the GWB administration you (should) know where they stand (for GWB's buddies). With Obama, it is clear you don't (yet). Obama either isn't a real leader or he's a liar. We'll probably find out next year, but I won't be voting for him.
When I said it was like the DHS, I wasn't thinking in terms of it having a cabinet post or being a Department instead of an Agency.
I was thinking of it being a giant boondoggle that unnecessarily expands the Federal government, wastes taxpayer money, and takes away freedom to justify its own existence rather like the TSA. But yeah, the comparison with the War on Drugs is also quite apt, if they're going to be seizing peoples' computers and whatnot.
- I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property
It never ends, when the lobbyists want something they just keep poking and prodding with a new name and a some rephrasing. Eventually it's got enough pretty words that it gets passed, or a plane gets flown into a building or three and then it gets passed.
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
It's a little late in the thread for trolling but ...
To read endless posts about 'what's wrong with the entertainment industry is they produce crap' reveals there are very few of you actually in 'the industry' you are talking about. (spare me the 'I've had 4 number one singles yet post anon' thread).
Sticking with the music business. I'm not here to argue that the quality of pop music didn't reach a new low sometime around the Paris Hilton sex tape. Art forms have their eras. If you ask the man in the street about theatrical plays the first guy he mentions died centuries ago. People still write operas (I think) but almost all of the productions are 150+ years old. If you go into a postcard shop chances are the paintings on the cards are from the 19th century. American popular music had a great run, ran out of steam IMHO in the 80s and 90s for various reasons (not file sharing), and has passed into history.
However ... the music business was a great jobs engine and that's finished because of digital media. I'm not saying it was good for the actual artists - mileage may have varied - but the cash hoarded by the power lawyers trickled down, paying for publicists, recording engineers, road crews, magazine ads, guys in warehouses moving t-shirts, CDs, posters, people answering phones for said power lawyers.
What percentage of jobs in support still remain? It's ugly out there. Now I'm sure some of these people make a good living writing OS software, no doubt the rest of them can get jobs in magazine publishing - oh wait, that's gone too. But, you say, it's better for the artists. Well, in the majority of cases, it's certainly not worse. Probably good for the music in the end, too.
Now let me ask: Is Adobe to be railed against because they try, with varying degrees of success, to keep their software from being pirated? Quark? I'm sure once the GIMP is up to speed and the Flash haters have finally sorted out SVG (holding breath) all those coders can get jobs in finance surfing what ever bubble has come along to keep the growth engine going. Or do internet advertising because that's a solid growth market. Or become urban farmers and grow and sell vegetables to pay rent.
My point being: When it comes to digital distribution eliminating jobs, ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.
(except I'm posting this on a board full of people with 15+ years of AJAX experience who move effortlessly from job to job having nothing to do with the price of gasoline)
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
Abuse the system - by using the law exactly as it is written. We've got to wake up society to what copyright law really means - we're all criminals. I'm not enough of a jerk to do this, but here's what someone ought to do:
Every time someone forwards your emails, or even replies back without deleting your message, they've violated your copyright. Sue for the minimum damages ($750). You want lots of attention, so the more prominent the individual the better - so keep emailing your government representatives.
If you win the cases, that's money in your pocket. If you lose, then you've really won - you've helped create precedent to weaken copyright.
Hopefully, if you become enough of a stinking menace, people will be calling for the end of unregistered copyrights. Which isn't a bad start.
As a side benefit, you can quit your day job and just make money by start chain letters.
You are right about O'Neill and Reagan. Now it's all posturing. And Reagan was none too fond of Arlen Specter:
"One of them, Arlen Spector is holding out--his reason, that MX is vulnerable if put in Minute Man silos." page 305, The Reagan Diaries, Hardcover.
"Yesterday we lost in the Judiciary Committee. Brad Reynolds nomination (by me) to be the No. 3 man at Justice was rejected. They even refused to pass it out to the floor with a no pass recommendation because of their fear the whole Senate would do what they were unwilling to do--approve him. & they couldn't have done what they did without the help of 2 Repubs. Sens. Spector & Matthias. Well there are 2 Sens. I won't have to help campaign." page 339, The Reagan Diaries, Hardcover.
"It seems Specter has announced he's against Bork" page 535, The Reagan Diaries, Hardcover.
"Senator Specter has 2 candidates for Fed. Judgeships--after his performance I'll not reward him for his no vote on Bork." page 537, The Reagan Diaries, Hardcover.
Senator Specter is about as far away from Conservative Republicanism as you can get. His record is so bad that he, a long-sitting established Republican, was challenged by Rick Santorum, who actually believes in the plank he runs on.
If he really was a Republican, he wouldn't have spent so much time trying to undermine the most popular Republican president in at least 50 years, probably 100. He is a fraud, and he has been bought.
The brains of a chicken, coupled with the claws of two eagles, may well hatch the eggs of our destruction.
Don't get me wrong, shady loans are part of the problem as well. The problem is, if people wouldn't take loans they couldn't afford, this would be a non-issue, skeezy loan companies or not. It reminds me of when I live in the South East and pawn shops and pay day loan places could charge up to 40% interest rates. People were OUTRAGED at the rip-off practice, yet every payday, there'd be lines and lines of people getting their 40% loans. Can you blame the industry?
but that does not envoke the same emotion in the masses as "Jobs" do.
Which your congress spokesperson might have a hard time trying to disagree with this bill.
By and large people don't seem to be biting on the "lost jobs" argument against piracy. How long have they been showing those lame anti-piracy ads before movies that claim that piracy costs jobs for the little people on the sets? And how much has that impacted piracy online? Yeah, none at all. People don't seem to buy that line of argument, so I doubt this bill will find great support among the populace.
However, I figure they'll find a way to claim it's to "protect the children" before long, or failing that drag out the "fight terrorists" excuse. Those excuses seem to work better with the public.
I agree with you in many ways. Getting noticed as a small time content creator is hard. I make indie PC games, and my biggest problem is getting people to my site, and trying the demos. Beyond that, its much easier. If I could get the traffic that games made by activision or EA get, I'd be doing well.
BUT
That doesn't mean piracy is not a problem for us. Piracy can be a BIG problem. Ask any software or game or music creator if all web traffic is worth the same for example. I know tons of game devs, and the consensus is that traffic from these sites:
slashdot
digg
boingboing
is virtually worthless. Or even undesirable, because you get bandwidth with no sales, due to the predominance of piracy amongst that crowd. In contrast getting general traffic from google, or from game review sites is WAY more attractive, because that audience is more supportive of IP, and happy to buy the product.
Yes, small content creators need publicity, but they need publicity among people who aren't just going to take the product for free. Frankly, given a choice between 100 hits from gamespot or 5,000 hits from here, I'll take the 100.
I know this will get modded down, but its just the facts. This is why so many slashdot-shown adverts are hardware, rather than software and games and TV shows etc which are massively popular with the /. crowd. Only a fool advertises to people who won't buy, regardless how much they like your product...
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
I don't disagree. I purposely avoided talking about the negligent lenders in my post, as that is another issue altogether.
.
The estimated production budget for the The Dark Knight is $180 million USD.
--- of which very big chunks went straight into a geek's paycheck:
"Where does he get all those wonderful toys?"
Productions on this scale employ - and credit - hundreds of artists and craftsman. Do you see that kind of public recognition of your work?
The opening weekend grossed $158 million USD from 4,366 screens. The Dark Knight: Business and Box Office
One the sidelines, that is a mega-ton of sales in popcorn and cola.
The Batman franchise alone is worth billions.
--- most of which will ultimately come to rest in the big electoral states of California, Florida and New York - or at least make a stop or two there along the way.
This is where the movies are financed, produced and marketed. This is where they build the theme parks.
Who do you think all the kind folks who live in these states are going to vote for in November? The eternal sophomore who wants his free movie fix? Or the Senator talking up clean industries, skilled labor, export dollars?
It's just so many years of that type type of mentality has actually convinced themselves that their self-serving decisions are ACTUALLY good ideas.
they have not convinced themselves to anything. they are basically trying to convince you to conceal what stunt they are pulling. just like it has always been. you are the herd, they are the shepherd. they get paid for what they do, and you just ... well, keep being sheeple.
they are SELF CENTERED and SELF SERVING. sorry i had to yell.
its as such in every country.
Read radical news here
You know, if people wouldn't take out loans they can't afford, we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.
You know, if banks and Wall Street hadn't packaged sub-prime loans into insanely complex investment packages that no one fully understood maybe we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.
There's plenty of blame to go 'round, don't try just blaming folks who wanted a home and took out loans they couldn't afford. So far those folks aren't getting much (if any) help, yet banks and Wall Street, who were equally guilty in this mess, have.
I'm just a simple American, although I can clearly see a few bad ideas when I see them, to help prove the point, I have just two words to say, BOYCOTT!
Just stop buying this shit from the RIAA and the MPAA, I'm in the middle of reading the bill, but from the looks of it I see a passive government takeover. So, I'm going to stop buying this "Intellectual Property" as best I can.
If this kinda stuff gets passed It wont be the U.S. building walls to keep the Mexicans out, It will be Mexico building the wall.
Sorry, DCMA does suck. Just because it helps you a little bit, doesn't mean it is good overall.
Overall, it is a horrible idea and may benefit you in the short term, but it hurts us all in the long term.
No. A loan is receiving a lump sum of money now (sometimes more than you can gather yourself, sometimes just more convenient to get a loan for) and then paying it back (plus interest, of course) over the course of some time frame. Affording it means being able to pay it back by the established time limit (or earlier!) while maintaining financial security otherwise.
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
Whilst reading this comment chain, I had the cynical thought that any job that *requires* "protection" probably lacks (or has lost) any real reason to exist.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
and allows widespread theft of our #1 economic output.
this is bull.
If you lumped the entire movie and music industry together, google could buy it up with the rounding errors in their revenue calculations.
The truth is that consumer electronics and technology in general dwarf hollywood and IP in the GDP calculations. Think about it for a second. How much do you pay for cellphones, mobile broadband, home broadband, computers, etc vs hollywood trash?
Even in my uncle's household, where they receive more than they could possibly spend, their expenditures on technology outpace intellectual property 4 to 1. And no, he doesn't download anything because he doesn't know how.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
I find myself in agreement. That also applies to other organizations such as airlines, banks and big manufacturers of one kind or another. The taxpayer shouldn't be on the hook for bad business decisions made by the private sector. Let those companies fail, and maybe their assets will be picked up by someone that will use them more effectively. I mean, it's not like all those aircraft will simply disappear if an airline goes under.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
It seems to me that the only thing worse than the incessant squabbling between Democrats and Republicans is when they arrive at a consensus on a piece of "important" legislation.
... and there's nothing stupider than when these little pricks work together."
Lewis Black put it well: "Republicans and Democrats, working together
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The republican party is prioritizing business interests over consumers any time the have a chance. And the democrats are all cozy and in bed with the Hollywood elite.
... so what's the difference in principle here? I'm not disagreeing, it's just that both sides seem to have figured out that it's more profitable to screw the public than perform public service.
Okay
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Time to become a weapons or oil investor.
It's not just the RIAA. The corruption is everywhere.
The U.S. government is already fighting a war with Iran. There is talk of "diplomacy", but that is only to stop complaints. The situation is the same as before invading Iraq. There was talk of diplomacy, but the leaders in Iraq knew that the U.S. government would invade, no matter what was said.
The purpose of invading Iran is the same as the purpose of invading Iraq: to restrict the supply of oil even further, so that oil prices will rise even further.
Almost every invention and discovery is based on knowledge and mechanisms built in the past. Like the water and air, corporate America seems hell bent on packaging everything that in actuality is ours for free, and sell it back to us. Until this century though, there was no way to make us buy it. We could just use it and we did. The intention of patenting a device has gone well past it's intended implementation. It's ruined, and we just keep on using it. Why is that?
After the war on drugs and war on terror, how can you people be so naive?
The government doesn't give a shit about us, just like corporatios don't. We are taxpayers to governments and consumers to corporations.
The only organizations which might give a shit about people are churches and non-profits. Stop thinking government exists to serve the people. We exist to serve the governments and corporations. And anyone who thinks otherwise can go to prison
This guy must be fishing for something really charged to go out on, as it's unlikely he'll pursue another term in the Senate due to his age. And even if he does, a lot of the computing public is not going to like him. And, to correct the story, might want to make that "Arlen Specter (D-PA)"
we've got better things to spend our tax dollars on, and congressional time spent like fixing our energy situation,making sure people have jobs and the means to purchase all that is being pirated. And oh yeah, we happen to be at WAR !!! (with terrorist not us uncle sam) And for any new law to work and be efficient we need to restructure and reform patent laws anyway. We have stupid folks sitting around copyrighting and patenting everyday phrases like "OJ" so we can be sued if we use the word "OJ" without their permission?! WTF !!! We don't have a fricking clue as to what priorities are !!! And it's all OUR fault, that's right OURS!!! because we elect these liberal chumps to begin with and we do not keep them in check which is our duty as citizens to do. And we think "they" will use this power to protect us? I got news for you, power follows the path of least resistance and if you don't stand up and speak your mind on this,YOU will be the next target. For example;our name birth date SS# is OUR intellectual property right? but it gets floated around willy nilly by the government and sold to the highest bidder.Me and you can go down to the DMV and "purchase" the names and addresses of everyone in their databases for "marketing " purposes. what kind of law protects us from that abuse of power?NONE!!! I could go on and on about the double standards the government has and how our privacy is invaded and our "pursuit of happiness" is negated,but who I'm really pissed off at is YOU GUYS,those who sit on their collective asses and do nothing about it !!! Be a Man(or woman) and stand up for what is right,make some noise,take the time to call and/or visit your representative and tell them you are not going to take it and you want America back for YOUR enjoyment,not theirs and to quit wasting our time in congress and get their fricking priorities straight!!! And in the famous words of "Forest Gump" That's all I have to say about that !!!
"...Hollywood and all other companiers with IP content..."
Run it by me again, what's exactly the connection between "Hollywood" and "intellectual" ?
"Hollywood is not intellectual".
Common Sense. Modern education. Science, seriously! Not pharmaceuticals either. In America only a drug can cure/prevent/treat a disease. Fortunately... for the rest of the world... the Standard (US) American Diet (SAD), couple with lack of exercise... keeps cancer and disease prevalent, apathy at an all time high.... and....
deny the right to copyright to anyone who calls themselves 'artist' ? After all, the artist needs to create, and wants to be remembered, while the merchant just wants to make a buck. As i see it, most commercial music isnt even worth the bandwith it would cost to download ... i'm a firm believer in the try-before-you-buy ethos like , i guess, most people here, no ?
Free speech was meant to be free for all... how can anyone grow up in a nanny state ?