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Google Pushes Back Against US Copyright Treaty
Hugh Pickens writes "Internet companies led by Google joined groups representing Web users to challenge the Bush administration's bid to toughen international enforcement against copyright pirates. The companies said the US courts and Congress are still working out the correct balance between protecting copyrights and the free exchange of information on the Web and a treaty could be counterproductive. 'There's this assumption that what is good for Disney is what's good for America, but that's an oversimplification,' said Jonathan Band, an intellectual property lawyer representing libraries and high-tech companies. 'There's also what's good for Yahoo and Google.' The US, Japan, Canada and other nations said last year that they would begin negotiations on an agreement aimed at cracking down on counterfeiting of such goods as watches and pharmaceuticals, and the piracy of copyrighted materials, such as software and music recordings. A leaked draft of the deal showed that the treaty could force Internet service providers to cooperate with copyright holders."
The proper response to your comment is "so the fuck what?". First world countries also used to work children into the grave. They also didn't have unions, or pensions, or health insurance (private or public), or any number of things.
My suggestion: One Copyright of 25 years, with two renewals of 25 years each. Then its OVER.
Really, the I would only let Natural Persons have renewal rights. Corporations would just have to live with expirations as a price of doing business. Just like replacing old equipment after a few years, you write it off like a depreciation.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
Well, depending on the specific way your state joined the union, and the state and federal laws and the constitution, it could possibly need an amendment to the constitution for it to be legally binding. I think that happened with NAFTA (that it was 'passed' by the Senate and Congress). And that also had some powerful, well established businesses fighting it so the US could retain their protectionist policies for various industries.
For this fight, I would say more it is more lopsided, that there are more 'important' businesses pushing for increased copyright protections and penalties than for there are pushing for less protection. And this is an issue that is unlikely to galvanize the population of any country into action to fight against it. Just look at history. When has IP "protection" ever been reduced? I would say never. From when it was invented a couple of centuries ago, it has only increased, with longer terms, higher penalties, covering a wider variety of "thought".
Look how many things your current administration has done and is still doing, in blatant violation of the law. Hell, I read that somebody in either Congress or the Senate had put forth a proposal to make it illegal for the White house to not retain all their emails. Even though it already is law that they retain all their emails. Will anybody even be charged because of these lost emails? Will anybody be charged with using non-gov't email addresses for gov't business, which is also illegal [which both the current administration and your possible future VP have been doing for a while, and quite openly, like govt_palin@yahoo.com...]?
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Ah, you have now discovered that there is something known as 'separation of powers' within the US Government. The Executive Branch is charge with enforcing laws. If it doesn't like certain laws it doesn't have to enforce them very hard. It also doesn't have to tell Congress about everything it thinks or does. There is no Congressional oversight of the Executive.
A law that requires the President to retain his emails is very likely to be considered unconstitutional should it be taken to the Supreme Court.
There is a long history of this going right back to the admistration of George Washington who refused to turn some documents associated with a treaty negotiation over to the House of Representatives.
"If Germany saved so much by copying British ideas, why didn't they gain an economic advantage and supplant the British as the super power of the time?" The British, French, Dutch, Belgians, Japanese, Russians and US (Hawaii, the Philipines etc) had already baggsied most of the world. The Royal Navy could pretty much landlock (other than the Baltic Sea) the Germans at will, if they so chose. This lead to an arms/battleship/dreadnought race.... So, they tried, and that lead to WW1 and then WW2. Finally they succeeded in surpassing Britain in the 1960s, thanks to said wars.
No, they just inserted the word 'rich' in front of people.
Sure. What do you expect when you elect people who are richer than average and spend their time in richer societal circles.
Politicians have a good deal of self interest just like everyone else. If you elect people who aren't "ordinary" citizens, then you won't get people who represent ordinary citizens. It is as simple as that.
That is why I support randomocracy. Select politicans by random. It is fair and ensures that no societal special interests get any priority.
Of course, there will always be protesters to the idea, claiming that the average citizen is an idiot and that elections stops those from getting elected. However, looking at some of those who actually are elected right now, you can see that that argument doesn't make a lot of sense. Intelligence is currently not a prerequisite for being elected. Charisma, advertising and connections are.
Also, if you really want to ensure some qualifications you can always have those elected perform a competency test before being allowed to serve as a politican.
That's what I see here, and that's what's so dangerous about treaties (it's why we never ratified the Treaty of Versailles):
Treaties are given equal status with the Constitution. Which makes this line:
the US courts and Congress are still working out the correct balance between protecting copyrights and the free exchange of information on the Web and a treaty could be counterproductive.
very interesting.
If a treaty spelled this all out, it'd be like passing an amendment and not even the Supreme Court could do anything.
This is why treaties are usually an uncomfortable topic. Passing a bad treaty is a big fuckup similar to a bad amendment.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
Define "significant". Athenian democracy was fairly close so long as you ignore the historical givens.
And my counter offer would be 10 years, once and no more.
As an alternative: first year is free, second year is $100. Doubling every year thereafter.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Untrue. The Senate has right of confirmation of appointees. Even in the military, officers are confirmed by the Senate. Congress can also regulate Executive agencies such as the FCC, FTC, SEC and other 3 letter agencies. They are Constitutionally mandated to do so as part of the "power of the purse". How long do you think the Executive can do things without funding? It has happend more than a few times when Congress failed to pass the budgets. The only thing keeping the Executive running was continuing resolutions...
It has already been there and the Presidential Records Act has been upheld. This is fallout from administrations such as Nixon's where destruction of documents has caused the downfall of the Executive.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
A bunch of wealthy educated greek men who have more in common than not is not a significant scale.
Realistically, Athenian democracy wasn't a whole heck of a lot different than what we have now, they just had a slightly larger congress, and no one voted for them.
Do they have well funded lobbyists?
That's an idea...maybe the people need a federal office of lobbying for lobbying for the PEOPLE?
The technology is here, let everyone have their vote. Politicians can still get paid for writing laws, but all of America gets to vote for them.