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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.'"
... our jobs!
...at least he's not a Republican!
American Third Position
Finally, a real choice!
... I'm just asking:
What would we expect from any President? Pick anyone from the last batch, or even the next batch, of candidates. Do you think any one of them wouldn't back big business in this situation?
"Rampant" piracy? I suppose that's why they've pulled not just record profits pretty much every year but also almost always had a record breaking increase over the previous year's record breaking profits as well.
Their piracy figures, when they aren't just plain made up, are them saying "We expected this much of an increase over last year's profits and we actually got this slightly lower amount so since we didn't overshoot our initial prediction by 500% that 500% must have been lost due to piracy."
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Next up: The Texas schoolboard mandates that textbooks 'de-emphasise' the RECORDED HISTORICAL FACT that Hollywood was founded on industrialised copyright infringement.
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
Those up high have understood that the USA's commercial future is not in manufacturing (they left that to China or Germany). If it's not physical goods, then what else is America selling abroad? IP, that's what. That's where the USA's commercial future lies, and that's what it'll have to defend at all costs, trampling their people's and other nation's right to defend that.
It's that or become insolvent. (look up the USA's trade balance over the last few 20 years. Think it'll improve? Think again.)
Misleading titles? Inflammatory blurbs? Keep in mind that Slashdot is a tabloid.
I know that Obama is more tech-savvy than any President prior and is trying to do everything he can to boost the current US economy, but those of us who are knowledgeable and have a strong opinion on this should contact the White House as well as your Senators and Congresspeople to let them know why we should not be supporting ACTA.
White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact
Senators: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Congresspeople: https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml
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.
"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."
Wait, MPAA/RIAA? Since when do they deal with fake iPods? I hate them as much as the next guy, but I can't find a word in the article relating to copyrights that wasn't inserted by the author.
Obama's speech (as quoted by TFA) seems to relate only to patents and perhaps branded goods, even if ACTA extends to both. It would be interesting to know if this is indicative of an official focus with regard to ACTA.
In any reasonably free society, copying of digital content is impossible to prevent. In non-free societies, it does not matter as those in power can take the money of anybody anyways. So, trying to prevent copying of digital content is just a sure path to failure. Incidentially, protecting outdated business models holds a society back and is bad for eveybody.
Well, I guess it does not matter that much for the rest of the world, the US-centric century is certainly over, as its economic power is vanishing rapidly.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
despite i have been a staunch supporter of him and quarreled with my conservative american friends for close to a year since his candidacy to his election and even beyond.
really, from this point on, i dont think i will be hypocritical to defend him in any regard. there are things that can be overlooked and forgiven, noone is perfect. but ransoming rights and liberties of the thought process to private individuals is nothing less than feudalism at its best. and someone who can justify this to himself cannot be defended in anything else.
Read radical news here
We're going to aggressively protect our intellectual property,
I can't wait until the US launches a pre-emptive military strike against <insert media vilified nation here> for a grave and gathering threat of...copyright infringement!
I find the Citation Needed Police annoying at times, but can you substantiate that claim?
The teachers will crack any minute, purple monkey dishwasher.
'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.'
TRANSLATION:
"Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and the creativity of the American Lawyer. As our education system collapses and laziness and ignorance steadily increase until the Constitution is entirely without meaning and it becomes impossible for our society to function without coercion -- we expect lawyers to bring home enough cash to sustain not just their coke habits but also our military... with a small amount of funds possibly left over for health care (but don't bet on it). We won't have the money in this century to bully anyone with our military capabilities, so we're counting on our lawyers to win the important battles."
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
Dear Mr. President and members of Congress and Senate,
Please, stop listening to the corporate un-citizens. I say un-citizens because all they care about is lining their pockets with money. Not to say that most Americans wouldn't love to line their pockets with money as well, but only Corporate citizens (which aren't even real citizens as they can't be called to fight for their country, aren't held accountable for their actions unless someone with more money than them can fight them) have the money to pay for you to listen to their needs. The luncheons, the corporate sponsored getaways, the private flights and perks are all their way of buying you, you the representatives of us, not corporations.
If you really want to protect the creators of ideas and artistic endevours, you must do away with tyranical organazitions like the RIAA and MPAA which prosecute little children as well as dead or dying citizens for a percieved (never proven) loss of a few pennies, all the while wholesale stealing from the very creators they cry woefully to protect.
I'm going to copy en masse an e-mail sent to me - please read it, please consider it, and please, when you are done, think about pushing corporate citizenship back where it belongs, to non citizenship - without rights, without needs to protect as you would the individuals who actually do the creating of everything you wish to protect.
Pretty interesting if one reads all the way to the end. Follow this by reading "Confessions of An Economic Hit Man", by John Perkins. We had a surplus in 2000 and no way does the banking industry and those who rule it want to see that again, even if it takes two wars.
EVERY U.S. CITIZEN NEEDS TO READ THIS AND THINK ABOUT WHAT THIS JOURNALIST HAS SCRIPTED IN THIS MESSAGE. READ IT AND THEN REALLY THINK ABOUT OUR CURRENT POLITICAL DEBACLE.
Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years.
545 PEOPLE
By Charlie Reese
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.
You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason.. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits.. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
You mean, we should start to stock ARM netbooks?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
While I'm no particular fan of the MPAA, the RIAA or the ACTA, it deserves to be pointed out that the article is substantially misleading and inaccurate. Firstly, the speech to which they refer, in the section about IP protection, talks exclusively about protecting the licensing of technology and make no mention what so ever of the MPAA, the RIAA or music of video piracy. While these organisations happen to also support the ACTA, it is grossly misleading to say that the speech comes out in support of either of them. Secondly, the article says that "the European Parliament has already shot the ACTA agreement down". This is completely incorrect. The European Parliament have demanded that the European Commission make public the nature of its discussions in the ACTA negotiations, and the EU Privacy Commissioner has expressed concern that the treaty might be incompatible with existing EU law, but the parliament have not passed any resolutions regarding the content of the treaty itself (not least because it's secret, so they don't know what it says).
The process through which the ACTA has be created is highly suspect but it does its opponents no service if those who campaign against it can't present an accurate case.
If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
this is precisely capitalism, and precisely what you term as 'free market'.
in any environment in which you allow groups or individuals to become more powerful than others, eventually those who get to the top first subdue or eliminate others and a power hierarchy gets established. this is how precisely feudalism came to being in the first place.
this is the nature of social dynamics, and it will never change. unless there are rules and laws preventing anyone from becoming more powerful than others, there will always be a pyramid of power in the long run.
wealth is power.
put in layman's terms, your 'free market' can exist and be free only in the early times. like in the initial times of united states. later, when some groups get more wealth than others, they will get to the top and establish a hierarchy. so, this is the EXACT thing you should have expected to happen - groups who set up the pyramid first, ensuring that pyramid continues to be, and they stay on top of it.
enjoy your 'free' market capitalism. its much more hard to combat than aristocracy.
Read radical news here
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.
We sure know how to pick 'em.
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
He made some un-controversial statements about protecting U.S industry from commercial copying: "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 don't think anyone would mind that, and that is what a legitimate anti-counterfeiting treaty would prevent.
Alas, the commentator leaps out from beneath his bridge and shouts "the RIAA wants that too, and they're evil, so Obama is evil". That's then picked up by a page headed "Obama Care - Stop Him", and retitled "Obama Sides with RIAA, MPAA; Backs ACTA" and referenced here as "Obama Backs MPAA, RIAA, and ACTA".
Do you begin to see a pattern here? This is a classic "guilt by association" scam, in which you say "X", and are promptly tarred and feathered by a commentator who says "but the <insert your choice of evil group here> is in favor of X, therfore you're a member/supporter/fellow-traveler of <evil group>.
One should attack Mr. Obama for what he said, not for something Mr. Sandoval said on his behalf...
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
The so-called Coffee Party is actually just another astroturf wing of the Obama campaign machine.
When it gets down to it -- talking trade balances here -- once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here -- once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel -- once the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity -- y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else:
That's true as far as it goes, but take it another step. If those fat cats can't make their money in America any more, they move to other countries where they can. That means our best and brightest (and often luckiest) will not BE in America any more. Now their success doesn't help America -at all-.
Those laws, as much as we hate them, keep those fat cats from taking their fat loot elsewhere.
Are they too much right now? Absolutely. Should they be abolished? Hell no.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
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
Meanwhile, those indie artists who actually WANT free distribution get screwed by the general assumption that all songs/movies are controlled by the RIAA/MPAA.
If an artist ever had a contract with a big label, that label will try to control their songs, permanently. It's happened before, and it will happen again. It doesn't matter what the details of the contract were. Somebody's going to make a poor design choice (possibly but deniably with intent), and say "For all these billion songs we published, start sending DMCA notices to Youtube users," and their automated system will do it. It doesn't matter that since that original (non-exclusive) contract, the song is now freely available. If they get caught, they say "Oops, sorry!" and pay no fine, and make no effort to prevent it from happening again. If they don't get caught, then it's another person who might pay them a $2000 settlement for music they don't own.
It's not even likely that tougher laws will prevent the recording labels from trampling your rights anyway. According to OSNews, each label has a list of songs they used without permission, such as for compilation albums and such. They say they're making an effort to track down the artists on that list, and that's good enough for them. They can claim that with such a huge number of songs to deal with, and so many contracts, such things fall through the cracks. They'll get sympathy from courts, and go on their merry way.
The system, especially when designed by big groups, screws over normal people.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
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.
To quote Peter Schiff : 'If we're becoming so much more productive where are the goods we're producing and why can't I see it in the balance of trade ? If we're so productive where are the exports ?"
If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
IP is going to be the foundation of any future economy.
IP is just various monopoly rights. See the former Soviet union on how well monopolies work. Monopolies are antithetical to an effective economy and thus will not be a foundation, but a burden.
it'll be up to our inventions and our software and our innovation in exporting ideas
Please. IP is mainly good for extracting resources out of an economy, it has nothing to do with 'exporting'. Implementing IP laws is a net loss for any economy, and most of the time (certainly in the case of the US), the monopoly rights will be held by foreign corporations.
The only way forward is to make western economies competitive again. Repealing at the very least copyright and patents would be a good start towards reestablishing a highly competitive free market and lowering the burden on western labour (thus reducing their price).
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.
I'd have guessed that greater than 95% of the products I purchase and use on a regular basis are manufactured outside of the U.S. Would you mind providing more information as to what sectors are producing 'at an all-time high'? I'm not trolling or even necessarily disagreeing with you, but there appears to be a distinct disconnect here.
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.
Not just IP laws. The fact that a lot of industrial manufacturing is capital intensive combined with the relatively small segment of social networks that access to capital flows in. Or, as Marx might have said, most workers don't own the means of production under a capitalist system. Go back in time and reduce patent and copyright protections circa 1910 or even 1810 (where the benefits were more limited) and story of how the gains in the system play out for labor is pretty much going to be the same.
It's not that copyright and patent laws don't represent another barrier to entry: they sometimes do. But most of the time, they pretty much protect industrial competitors from other would-be industrial competitors.
We software geeks tend to see things a bit differently because for the last 20-30 years, we're one of the few groups lucky enough to be in an industry where we do more or less own the means of production (got a computer? And a compiler? Or interpreter for a capable language? Congratulations! You have production capacity!) because it's relatively affordable. So our barriers to entry are less about capital and more about other things like product awareness, network effects... and cost of compliance with the law, including copyright & patent law.
Maybe this will become more important in the future if it turns out that more industrial capacity becomes available for ownership down at the household level, and that's reason enough to make sure copyright and patent law are a balance bargain rather than a giveaway to lawyers and other people whose sense of entitlement is so great that they really, genuinely view ideas as genuine property, and so I think fighting against ACTA and its ilk are worthwhile... but let's not kid ourselves, copyrights and patents haven't really been the main tool of abuse in the relationship between capital and labor.
Tweet, tweet.
In theory, yes.
But the cost of fighting any of these mega-corps is so immense that, in effect, unless you're fighting somebody near your own weight class (in terms of available resources) you will lose, and likely never even get to see the verdict. Look at what Monsanto's done to agriculture in the last decade. If you don't pay to plant Monsanto's seed, they sue you into bankruptcy where you have to sell the farm to a Monsanto friend. It is defacto illegal to harvest seed from crops now, because though there is no law against it the people who used to make a living running the seed-collecting machines were sued for contributory infringement against Monsanto's genetic patents. It just costs too much for a person to defend against that. Especially since most corperations structure themselves in such a way that they don't own anything and use cashflow for everything, and the laws are written to that effect. Farmers have little cashflow and millions of dollars in assets (land, property) and therefore repeatedly get destroyed if they don't lay down and give a large cut of profits to Monsanto.
Your argument about the RIAA stealing an indie band's music and selling it on their own is crap. The laws that protect the RIAA don't cover that, and the indie bands can't afford the cost to use a DMCA-approved content protection system to trigger DMCA violations. Having music IP laws that allow for statuatory payments per performance and such is fine, but the erosion of fair use (though, historically, fair use as a legal concept has re-emerged more recently than not, and is being beat back down) is soley the RIAA powed by friends in Washington DC.
Other IPs vary, but more often than not it's the Monsantos that the laws are written for to protect, not the individual inventor.
I am become
I thought cartels were generally considered illegal. By supporting these entities he is essentially supporting the notion of legal cartels. I think the USA is going to become more and more isolated in its point of views.
I had great hope for some real change when Obama came in, but he standing shows that there isn't really much separating the Democrats and the Republicans. For me, it really goes to show the whole notion of democracy in the states is more about changing the logo of the party in charge, rather than anything else. Which ever party is in charge, it is still the corporations which hold them by the balls. What it will take to institute a government which is by the people for the people, rather than by the people for the corporations.
I have nothing against copyright, rather I disagree with copyrights going beyond a reasonable amount of time.
One question I do have, is what will the reaction of the open source community be in 70 years when the first copyrights of Linux become public domain? This is not a indication of support for long copyrights, but trying to understand the reaction of the community when the shoe is on the other foot.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
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.
you have to read well.
EU passed a resolution that banned any form of 3strikes anywhere in europe. Held the regulations and rules it put out before over anything proposed in acta. this means no isp liability of policing their networks for private parties' copyrights. it mandates that cutting an individual's internet access cannot happen unless through a court. it demanded full disclosure of the acta text to all members of the parliament, as mandated by eu laws. eu laws also mandate that parliament share anything with eu public, so anything that is disclosed to eu parliament has to be disclosed to entire european public.
european commission has to abide by it. there is no other route that they can take. commission already said that they are going to push the other acta negotiating parties for full disclosure. if they dont, commission wont be able to stay on the table any more, for they are not allowed to negotiate and sign anything before eu parliament knows it.
and if the text is disclosed, that means shit will hit the fan.
so yea, eu parliament seems to really have shot acta down. and probably not only for europe, for entire world.
Read radical news here
ACTA will only work when every (first world) country is implementing it, but the EU-Parliament is already against it, because the discussion on ACTA and all documents are kept undisclosed. You could say: Who cares what this parliament is thinking? Well Obama should care, because if the parliament is not involved and the documents are not public, then the EU will not implement ACTA which means almost 500 mio people will not be threatened by ACTA. Third world countries will not adopt to ACTA either when the EU is not doing so.
Even though, some information leaked and it looks like that ACTA would not be legal in Germany as the constitutions defines certain rights. For example the state is not allowed to transfer information on Internet-traffic to private organizations without reasonable suspicion and a letter from a judge. Also the three-strikes-law-idea is against the rules in the EU, and obviously it is against the French constitution. And I am absolutely sure if they would try it in Germany it will fail too. As cutting you of from the Internet violates your right to be informed. And this right is very important in a democracy. It is definitely not an allowed sanction by any European constitution or agreement. So ACTA may be a dead horse and Obama is riding it. It would be better when he would tell all these US-Americans that general health care is good and that securing the existential basis of any person in a country is a necessary thing.
Do something about it and join the Coffee Party [coffeepartyusa.com]?
I love your solution to disagreeing with behavior by the Obama Administration: Join an organization started by members of Obama's Presidential campaign. You are worried about the tea party being taken over by special interests, so you suggest joining an organization that is basically just a subsidiary of the Democratic Party (which you seem to believe, likely correctly, is run by special interests).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
For every Vespasian, there's a Nero AND a Caligula.
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.
I wish that was the case, but unfortunately, it's not. With a few discrete exceptions (Motorola and TI still provide a lot of the digital processing chips, for example), most of it is made overseas as well. This certainly includes the user interface processors, memory, A/D conversion, and most of the "glue" chips, which are made by NEC, Hitachi, Samsung, et. al.
Don't take my word for it, open up that box and look at the chips for yourself.
Not that I agree with draconian IP laws, and I'm no fan of the RIAA/MPAA, either. And I certainly believe that software patents go beyond dumb and descend into insanity.
There's a world of difference between protecting genuine innovation, and just granting "unlimited gouge rights" to the first guy who races to the Patent Office with something obvious (think: One Click Shopping, "Look And Feel" with a "Help" button to the right, etc., etc.).
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
Sounds better in the media then ' we bilked you people out of lots of money last year.. and we want more this year"
---- Booth was a patriot ----
So in fact draconian intellectual property laws are antithetical to prosperity.
Isn't any draconian law antithetical to prosperity?
I think the interesting question in this case is where the line is between "draconian" and "impotent". You'd think there would be a huge area in between, but we don't seem to be able to find it: a few people are getting penalised absurdly for relatively minor infractions, while millions of people continue to break the law at the expense of legal rightsholders and get away with it.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Anybody who expects the democrats to be on the right side of the issue on patent and copyright issues is fooling themselves. I wish it weren't so, but progressives haven't yet figured out that maximal patent and copyright is a really bad thing. OTOH, the Republicans aren't any better. So at least until one or the other party gets a clue, this isn't an issue upon which we can really base our voting choices. If you care, the place to work this out is in the primary races--run against the incumbent yourself, and make copyright/patent balance your issue. You won't win, but you might raise some consciousnesses.
I don't know what specifically the GP was referring to, but if you check out this graph, you will see that US exports aren't really as bad as you would think listening to some of the scaremongers. Most of the exports are industrial items, not cheap consumer goods that you purchase and use on a regular basis, which is why you feel a disconnect. But as you can see, anyone who says, "America doesn't manufacture anything" is making it up and hasn't actually looked at the numbers.
Qxe4
Not to raise a "tu quoque" argument here, but of course the Tea Party is precisely the same thing, just a part of a different political machine (the same one that brought Sarah Palin into the limelight).
Which brings me to Rule #1 of understanding any political organization: follow the money.
I am officially gone from
Sides with the RIAA.
Wants DNA collected with all arrests.
Shuts Down Federal ACORN Probe into Corruption & Voter Registration Fraud.
Kills further moon projects.
Raise gas prices to $7.00 a gallon to "protect the environment".
He is either evil or stupid.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
So at least until one or the other party gets a clue, this isn't an issue upon which we can really base our voting choices.
Still, it's funny looking back on Slashdot comments from 2008 and realizing how Obama's supporters had bamboozled themselves into thinking he was going to be "different" about this issue...
"There has grown in the minds of certain groups in this country the idea
that just because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the
public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged
with guaranteeing such a profit in the future, even in the face of changing
circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is
supported by neither statute or common law. Neither corporations or
individuals have the right to come into court and ask that the clock
of history be stopped, or turned back."
- Heinlein, Life Line, 1939
No sig today...
Question: Now that all the manufacturing jobs are all but a memory, what exactly are you going to do with those millions of out of work Americans who don't have the creative ability to "make IP" huh? There are literally millions of them, can't speak for the rest of the country but the south is quickly becoming nothing but dead towns with boarded up homes.
You gonna pay them to sit at home and consume IP? No money for IP working at Mickey D, hell most places you'll be lucky to keep a roof over your head. So what are you gonna do with them? Kinda pointless to try educating them, as we have seen in the tech sector they'll ship the white collar jobs off shore just as quick. So what exactly do you do with these teaming masses in your magical IP economy, which stuff all the money in a few pockets at the top, while the rest can go get fucked?
Better think quick, as all these oath takers and other bunches gathering guns ain't doing it because they are happy little campers you know. All it is gonna take is another Stalin or Hitler, that is a good speaker and can rally the masses to say "see those rich bastards? Why the hell should we be living like dirt while those blood sucking leeches live like kings? let's just kill those pigs and take it back!" to have everything in your IP economy turn into a shit storm. Don't forget multinational corporations have NO loyalty to you, this country, or anyone but themselves.
You got millions out of work, millions of poor, pissed off individuals, many of whom have pretty much become completely disgusted by the greed and corporation kissing like we see in TFA. Frankly I don't think it would take much to light the powderkeg ATM. Wish it wasn't so, but that is what happens when your leaders develop a "let them eat cake" mentality. And we saw how well it turned out for the last ones that had that attitude, didn't we? Don't think it can't happen again, because when you are bankrupt, with no job and no hope, and your life is nothing but shit, what have you got to lose?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
This is completely misleading. These numbers include goods produced by nominally American corporations even if all the work is done by employees based outside of the US. This particular scam has been debunked multiple times by the business press.
BTW, the US GDP numbers also include goods produced outside the USA by non-American labor.
If you strip out the work/products made by non-US employees of US corporations, you'll see that both the US GDP and exports have been in steep decline for the past decade.
Magnus.