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ASCAP Refuses To Debate Lessig
An anonymous reader writes "Back in June ASCAP oddly declared war on free culture, specifically calling out Creative Commons, EFF and Public Knowledge, making a number of false statements about all three. The war of words continued as the three groups responded politely, pointing out the errors in the statement from ASCAP's Paul Williams. Larry Lessig wrote a blog post where he asked Williams to debate these topics, saying that it might help if they could get away from making false statements. Williams has now publicly declined to debate saying that it's not worth his time, and once again attacking these groups for trying to 'silence' him. It's difficult to see how a request for a public discussion and debate is an attempt to silence, but that's ASCAP's position and they're sticking to it."
SIILEEENCE!!! I keel you.
Boredom is bliss.
To be fair, no debate in the history of the world has ever actually changed the truth of any matter. Arguments and legislation should be based on published literature and statistics, not on who is the better orator.
That being said, I'm sure they're refusing because they know Lessig would kick ass. His position is well thought-out and basically unimpeachable, while theirs is untenable and distasteful.
Stop trying to confuse him with the facts!
"You want to know how to help your kids? Leave them the fuck alone." -George Carlin
First they ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you.
Then you win.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I suspect Lessig wanted the video of the debate available for all to see for free, and Williams wouldn't participate unless each viewer had to pay 3 cents to see it.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
ASCAP is going to become irrelevant as content producers such as authors move to distributing digitally exclusively so that they get more money from the purchase of their works.
Amazon gives authors of e-books 70% of purchase price? When I'm ready to publish I'll pay for software to produce content in a manner that Kindle users will be able to easily read my content and sit back and watch as either the $$$ roll in or the cob-webs collect (depending on if my content is any good). Either way, I'll already have moved on to my next project.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
It's difficult to see how a request for a public discussion and debate is an attempt to silence
Simple.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Sic semper tyrannis ... and pathological liars. (With apologies to both Cato and Brutus for using their noble words to refer to pond scum. :-/)
If you want your life to be different, live it differently.
I thought this was going to read like an angry old man having a good old confused fume about the modern day, but it actually seems like he thinks he's standing up for something here.
To prevent this day from getting worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD TH
Anyone who views an offer of debate as an "attempt to silence"(barring extreme cases like someone with a particularly mockable speech impediment, for which "debate" might well just involve having the crowd laugh at his expense. I'm assuming that you don't become head of ASCAP that way, though. Almost certainly a lawyer or business type who knows how to talk to a boardroom.) must see acting with impunity, and without external input, as their right be default, and thus the idea of someone else having equal footing becomes an attack, not simple justice.
It is rather like the fanatics of various stripes who scream that they are persecuted when they are not allowed to persecute others. Their worldview is warped so far toward themselves as the default, that any attempt to prevent them from harming others is seen as an assault on their rights.
Help! Help! I'm being reppressed!
Every time I see ASCAP I think "Ass cap" and chuckle inside.
They are who they purport to be.
Hee hee. Ass cap.
By choosing not to defend his statements in a debate Williams has shown that even he doesn't think they are worth talking about.
Wait a minute here. Who's trying to silence what? I am pretty sure that ASCAP is trying to silence the whole USA - or at least make it so that we can't perform songs live (like singing "happy birthday" in a restaurant) without paying a large and non-proportional fee (meaining you pay the same fee to sing happy birthday once as you do to have cover bands perform all weekend). I don't think it is Lessig and the EFF, et al trying to silence ASCAP / Williams. It is completely the other way around. Want to do Karaoke? Pay ASCAP. Want to sing happy birthday? Pay ASCAP. Want the radio on in a gym? Pay ASCAP. Again - who is really trying to silence who here?
Aren't those typically "won" by the person who's most aggressive in attacking the opponent over and over again, never answering any questions?
I hope this debate never happens.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
That should read "... ASCAP's position and with their heads firmly planted up their butts, they're sticking to it."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
...Is it doesn't matter if what they say makes sense. They say it over and over, then they pay people in congress to repeat the same nonsense, then get laws passed based on it. It never has to make sense; it just needs people in power to repeat it like it is true on TV then pass and enforce whatever laws they are paid to.
Would you want to debate Larry Lessig? I sure as hell wouldn't regardless of the subject or the positions taken. Williams may not be stupid but Lessig could sure make him look like he is.
They are just chicken.
Professor Lessig would chew them up and spit them out. I saw him debate Jack Valenti and it was clearly an uneven match.
You are right, they have nothing to gain with such a mismatch.
Fight Spammers!
ASCAP can kiss my ass, no debate necessary.
"Williams has now publicly declined to debate saying that it's not worth his time, and once again attacking these groups for trying to 'silence' him."
If he decides not to debate the matter he has chosen to silence himself.
Furthermore, Williams says this (quoted in the article, which has a link to the original on the ASCAP site):
"Our members have every right to give their music away for free if they choose, but they should not be forced to do so."
All those organizations he's talking about say "YES". None of those organizations are advocating what he claims they are. Creative Commons, EFF, and others aren't saying artists should be forced to give away their creations for free. They don't *have* to use Creative Commons or other licenses that also depend on copyright. It's a choice. Under copyright law they can use whatever damn license they please, and given that Creative Commons depends on copyright law, nothing about Creative Commons undermines that.
Naturally the people Williams claims are saying this nonsense are going to loudly, repeatedly, and publicly dispute it. That isn't an attempt to "silence" him, it's an attempt to correct his flagrant misrepresentation, because people tend to get rather upset when false words are put into their mouths.
What's next? He'll claim that other people believe the sky is green, and when they correct him and say "No, it's blue", he'll accuse them of trying to "silence" his opposing view?
So it's like Lessig called Williams out and told him he would like totally bust a cap on his ass, but Williams is like, oh no you don't, snap, you ain't busting no cap on ASCAP's ass.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
I kind of felt like Lessig got beat up a little bit on Bill Moyers Journal when he debated Nick Gillespie on the Citizen's United campaign finance case. Gillespie was skillful enough to make the pro-corporate-money position seem...well...reasonable. And Lessig seemed ill at ease with the whole thing. I don't know if anybody "won" that debate, but Lessig definitely didn't win - which is surprising since he was clearly arguing from the high ground. It was actually a little scary to watch how deftly Gillespie dispatched all Lessig's jousts about corporate money in campaigns. If somebody at ASCAP has skills like Gillespie's, they might not have that much to worry about. More props to Lessig, despite all that, for wanting to keep these debates in a public forum.
Link at: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02052010/profile.html
You should at least give them the chance to speak. Williams is basically a giant troll.
Mr. America walk on by your schools that do not teach Mr. America walk on by the minds that won't be reached
you kill the beast
ascap's existence is due to a flow of cash that is being threatened by technological change
so there is nothing to debate, there is only the relentless march of progress, and those who resist it because their revenue streams are drying up because of technological change are already living in denial
with denial as their logical baseline, "debate" is an exercise in absurdity. there's simply nothing to debate or talk about: ascap's position is logically untenable from the start, yet they continue to hold their position, therefore, logic will not nor ever sway them. force is the only language they know or understand. so they must be forcibly killed off (by this i mean it becomes acceptable to deny them their revenue streams, i'm not talking about real world physical violence: you have to be careful to note your words are only symbolic because there are real lunatics out there)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...isn't usually a problem; in fact it's usually a benefit. Maybe in other countries it is impossible to hate someone who never showed his face, but in the US it actually makes things easier. Whatever your political affiliation, one of the easiest and cheapest ways to disparage a group is to attach the words "big" or "faceless" to it. "Big" government, "faceless" corporations, "big" labor, etc. People don't trust you unless you can show them your face; that why for example BP was so eager to get a spokesman in front of cameras (too bad for them he made a douche of himself, but the point stands.)
The problem with the ASCAP/RIAA et al. is that they simply don't have anyone they can trot out in front of a camera without it looking like a South Park cartoon. "Look, there's Lars now. [...] This month he was looking to have a gold-plated shark tank bar installed right next to his pool, but thanks to people downloading his music for free, he must now wait a few months before he can afford it." Hollywood has spent decades highlighting the rich and glamorous lives that their stars lead, with huge houses, fast cars, and all of that; now they've got to try to work against all their own marketing to tell us that these same artists are starving and they have to put ordinary blue collar workers into debt for the rest of their lives to support them.
When Paul Williams is complaining about being potentially "silenced," he doesn't mean in the sense of being censored, or black-bagged or something. What he means is that Lessig, by offering to debate him and disprove his incoherent ramblings point by point, is preventing him from freely engaging the modern US press.
For anyone who hasn't been paying attention the past fifteen years, there are basically three different, slightly overlapping, journalistic spheres, all of whom I label by their derogatory names:
-The "liberal" media
-The "mainstream" media, and
-The "conservative" media
The "conservative" media consists of everything owned by Rupert Murdoch, a nationwide network of conservative talk radio hosts (Limbaugh, etc), and a few attack websites, like the one that posted that doctored video that got that poor woman fired last week. The "liberal" media consists of MSNBC, a few liberal talk show hosts, and a large network of liberal websites like MoveOn.org.
The liberal media basically exists to demonize and attack everything said by a Republican or by a member of the "conservative" media, and vice versa. Neither one cares about honest debate, or constructive discourse, or anything like that; all they care about is filtering out the facts that their audience doesn't want to hear, and only giving out the information that their audience does want to hear. This is why, for instance, every Republican congressman knew about that one case in Philadelphia where the New Black Panthers were accused of trying to keep a white man from voting through threat of violence, and being let off the hook by the Obama Justice Department, but none of them knew about the Minutemen trying to prevent Latino voters from voting by pointing guns at them, and being let off by the Bush Justice Department. Democrat congressmen, on the other hand, were all familiar with the Minutemen incident, but none at all knew about the New Black Panthers.
Given this climate, it's obvious why Paul Williams would be horrified about an invitation to debate: nobody would know about it! The "liberal" media wouldn't cover it, because it would risk their audience knowing who Paul Williams is, and the "conservative" media wouldn't cover it, because it would risk letting their audience know who Larry Lessig is. That's two-thirds of the press, gone, right off the bat.
Now, you ask, what about the "mainstream" media? Unfortunately, the "mainstream" media has, somehow, decided that journalists can't--or maybe shouldn't--influence the national discussion by injecting pesky things like facts or logic. Their job is to simply report on what the liberal talking heads are saying, then report on what the conservative talking heads are saying, and then try to tie them both into some kind of "narrative". Note how "facts" or "truth" don't come into play here; that's not the point. The mainstream media is "balanced," which to them means it doesn't matter if one side is right and the other side is wrong, or one side is lying and the other side is telling the truth. Their job is to simply report, to tell the story, not to inform anyone.
These are the people who told the story about WMDs in Iraq, and kept the story going until we were embroiled in a two-front war and ignoring the front that had Bin Laden in it. These are the people who told the story about Obama's rise to power, and kept it going until he won in a landslide. These are the people who talked about the health care "debate"--note the lack of any details about what was in the bill--and kept it going until we lost all hope of true reform. And these are the people who are telling the story about how Republicans are resurgent this year, and will keep telling it until they've taken over Congress, passed huge austerity measures, and, just like in 1937 when the Republicans started cutting spending in a big recession, plunge us into a double-dip, which last time we didn't really get out of (WWII was a weird situation all around economically speaking)
Perhaps Mr. Williams is starting to think he really is Swan, the evil record producer he played in Phantom of the Paradise.
A shame really, that he's revealing himself to be such a tool, because I do like his music.
and I'll silence him.
What's this bullshit? I don't fuckin' care! It don't matter to [Larry]! But you're not foolin' me, man. You might fool the fucks in the league office, but you don't fool the [Larry]. This bush league psyche-out stuff. Laughable, man - ha ha! I would have fucked you in the ass Saturday. I fuck you in the ass next Wednesday instead. Wooo! You got a date Wednesday, baby!
Has ASCAP properly paid Apple and Steve Jobs for the Reality Altering Field they are attempting to deploy?
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
in some parts of the world people would take weighty stones laying about and crack his head open, if he had made such baseless accusations about them. he should be glad to be living in a country in which attempting to further private agendas by lies, defamation and bastardry is termed 'lobbying' and considered legal.
Read radical news here
I guess only baseless attacks are worthwhile. Giving a reasonable explanation for your attack isn't worthwhile.
Got it.
What happened to freedom to contract. The alleged lobbying by ASCAP that authors must use their service and not move to a copyleft framework appears to me to be a very socialist movement where some statutory authority can dictate to authors where they can deposite their works. Even though I believe there is only marginal benefit of CC licensing (personal view only) Lawrence is wholly correct. CC and other movements supporting copyleft MUST have the right to exist and promote their positions. Clearly, the market place must decide and authors should not be obligated to deposit their works with any authority. It is the OBLIGATION aspect that I believe is unwarranted and totally against freedom of choice. Finally, I do not from my reading of any of the copyleft organisations see any absolute enforcement of royalty fee arrangements. It is the the choice of the author to decide much like the shareware framework that exists in the software industry.
Adrian McCullagh - Professor of Secure Business Law; Information Security Institute, QUT
See, now THIS is where that was needed!
Added irony if you figure that Gandhi says this :-)
It is customary to write out the full name of an acronym you are using (in the first instance). This is especially when it is likely to be unfamiliar to a large proportion of your audience.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
you debate a motion not a person
Well, that's not being cowardly. It's more being sensible. They're clearly not going to win and they know it, so why fight a losing battle.
When do we ASCAP members get to vote this Paul Williams (Little Enos in Smokey & The Bandit + a Love Boat appearance) out of office? Says he was elected in April of '09, and it's past April '10, so I wonder when the next election will take place. Can't wait!
Emmet Otter must be rolling over in his grave! Does anyone else remember the moral/message from 'Jug Band Christmas'?
It's actually somewhat puzzling why the letter's named targets have gone so easy on ASCAP and Williams.
I mean, you have provably false statements of fact, and it ought to be convincingly clear that they were made with at least recklessness with regard to their falsity. And they are sufficiently bad misstatements of fact that they are quite damaging.
At the very least it is odd not to try to back ASCAP up against a wall to force it to retract and publicly apologize.
In general, I agree. However...
While I can find references in the Liberal Media to what you are talking about here, not even the Liberal Media is saying the guy(s) pointed guns at anyone. Just that he was wearing a gun. Which is legal, if in bad taste at the polls.
In other words, might want to verify your sources a bit better if you don't want to be perceived as just a bit biased here.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Why start the loosing battle to begin with? That's what makes him a coward. He talked shit, and is now running with his tail between his legs. The very definition of Coward.
just wondering, but it seems too appropriate to discard.
"If...you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning" - Catherine Aird
I really liked Paul Williams, too. He was the best engineered Muppet EVER.
-- is that they know Larry would beat them (figuratively, of course) like borrowed red-headed six-fingered step-children.
Unfortunately, the "mainstream" media has, somehow, decided that journalists can't--or maybe shouldn't--influence the national discussion by injecting pesky things like facts or logic.
That's why most people know all about Lindsey Lohan's drug and legal problems, everything about Mel Gibson's marital problems, but have never heard of either Williams or Lessig. That's why people are afraid to fly because the planes crash all the time, and why they're all afraid of the hordes of child molesters lurking around every school and day care center.
Free Martian Whores!