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Obama Backs MPAA, RIAA, and ACTA
boarder8925 writes "In a move sure to surprise no one, Obama has come out on the side of the MPAA/RIAA and has backed the ACTA: 'We're going to aggressively protect our intellectual property,' Obama said in his speech, 'Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and creativity of the American people [...] It is essential to our prosperity and it will only become more so in this century. But it's only a competitive advantage if our companies know that someone else can't just steal that idea and duplicate it with cheaper inputs and labor.'"
I fail to see how Democrats and Republicans differ on the matter. Both support large government at the expense of your rights.
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
The fact that this got rated "Insightful" is a woeful commentary on the state of rational debate and analysis in the geek world. I thought we were supposed, as a group, to be smart. Apparently not.
In fact, manufacturing in the U.S. is doing very well. Productivity is at an all-time high, and the amount we are producing has not been in decline, as is commonly believed. Of course production is down right now because we're in a recession, but as a percentage of our economy, manufacturing production is pretty stable. What's down is manufacturing jobs, and that's because productivity is up. The better you are at doing something, the less work you have to do to do it.
In a perfect world, more production per unit of labor would mean that we would all have to work less to achieve the same level of prosperity. Unfortunately, that's not the case in the U.S. because our current intellectual property laws allow a relatively few people to take the lion's share of the benefit from the production being done. Rather than this new-found prosperity being spread across the whole population, it reaches only a relatively few peoples' pockets, and of course those people get quite rich.
So in fact draconian intellectual property laws are antithetical to prosperity. Obama's thesis here isn't just irrelevant to the average worker's prosperity. It's antithetical to the average worker's prosperity.
An IP Based Society is great for every other nation on earth, for in 20 to 30 years all the world has to do to destroy America is simply start ignoring her laws.
Do we then start sending troops into nation X for downloading Disney movies? How about when they all decide to stop paying royalties?
- Dan.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
Ummm.... I see you ignore the fact that major portions of our manufacturing capability have been moved offshore. When was the last time you bought a TV made in the US? When was the last time you bought a major household appliance that was manufactured entirely in the US? How about a car? How long has it been since the majority of steel used in the US was made here?
"while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." de Tocqueville
It is really not a defense of these policies to note that we are moving to an economy where copyrights and patents are our chief export; it is just a description of the broader problem that nobody wants to manufacture their goods in America anymore. The solution is not to try to push other countries to accept our versions of copyright and patent law, it is to bring those manufacturing jobs back to the United States. Sadly, the major parties seem to have no interest in the seemingly obvious solution...
Palm trees and 8
Yes, but more likely than not many of the key parts (with the most valuable IP) - the processor/SoC, digital tuners, etc, are made by a US company. The "interesting" software in new Internet-connected TVs (Netflix, VUDU, Cinemanow, Pandora, Youtube) is all made by US companies. And not coincidentally, all of those companies focus on distribution of the higher-margin content that the RIAA and MPAA are trying to protect.
The economic (and military) successes of the United States have almost always been based on technological innovation and entrepreneurship - and those innovations DO need to be protected.
The MPAA/RIAA's methods of "enforcing" their IP are despicable. But without any protection, one of the current major assets of the US - media and entertainment - will be in serious jeopardy. Let's put it this way - if Chinese citizens actually paid for even a small fraction more of the American software, movies, and music they consume, the trade deficit picture would be significantly different. That is what Obama is talking about, not picking on homemakers who shared a few mp3s online. Hopefully the MPAA & RIAA can get a damn clue and start focusing on the real threat to their business - rampant, organized, professional international piracy.
For every Vespasian, there's a Nero AND a Caligula.
an ex-ussr european here. do the two parties in usa _actually_ differ ?
one seems to be a communist part no. 1, and it is pushing for more milk to workers in dangerous conditions.
second one is a communist party no. 2 and advocates increasing the wine dosage for those who donate blood.
and they are identical in every other way.
Rich
They have different mascots and each has their own set of fans whose primary distinguishing characteristic is hating the other side's fans.