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MPAA Dismisses COICA Free Speech Concerns
An anonymous reader writes "The EFF has gone into detail about why it opposes 'The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act,' or COICA. It has the potential to give the Department of Justice the power to shut down any domestic website, or block any foreign website it so chooses, setting the stage for Internet censorship in the United States. Addressing the free speech concerns, MPAA chief Bob Pisano dismissed the First Amendment issues, saying '...the First Amendment was not intended as a shield for those who steal, irrespective of the means.'"
I would like you to review the text of the 1st Amendment:
Please take note that the first word of the amendment is Congress and is followed by the absolute term "...shall make no law..." This means just what it states.
I also feel it would be helpful for you to review the writ of habeas corpus to better understand the Suspension Clause:
Of course, I already know your rebuttal: Murphy's Golden Rule.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
the power to shut down any domestic, or block and foreign website it so chooses
Editors of /. take a little time reading what gets posted
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
After all, BUSINESS is America's business. And as we all know, if it's possible for a law to be repurposed to protect the profits of a private tyranny, it will happen.
Bob Pissant and his friends need a smack in the head for trying yet another corporatist stunt.
Addressing the free speech concerns, MPAA chief Bob Pisano dismissed the First Amendment issues, saying '...the First Amendment was not intended as a shield for those who steal, irrespective of the means.'"
Well, of course he would say that. The reality is that the First Amendment was not intended to be dismissed so lightly by a cartel composed entirely of bloodsucking leeches.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
And the ??AA is stealing our cultural legacy. They deserve no constitutional or legal protection.
Stop Draconian Restriction Mechanisms whether they are technological or political.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
You can't steal from corporations.
They aren't people.
They can't be drafted.
They can't be executed.
They never serve a day in jail.
Thus, stealing only occurs when you steal from people.
No matter what the Supreme Court says.
P.S.: Revert to the original patents and copyrights in the original Constitution if you want us to respect them.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
... that if their proposed legislation attacks free speech as a consequence of trying to fight piracy, then they haven't engineered said legislation properly. He is right that the first amendment isn't a shield for those who steal and any sane legislation wouldn't change that fact.
Addressing the free speech concerns, MPAA chief Bob Pisano dismissed the First Amendment issues, saying '...the First Amendment was not intended as a shield for those who steal, irrespective of the means.'"
That's how Mr. Pisano "addresses" free speech concerns? By dismissing them? I have news for you, bub ... you aren't speaking for the Founding Fathers when you mouth that garbage. The reality is, the First Amendment was not intended to be dismissed so lightly by what are essentially foreign-owned criminal cartels illegally extending their influence into our Federal Government.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
"I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."
Bob should just say this again, but replace VCR with Internet.
I'm sure glad the MPAA is here to tell me what the Founding Fathers intended!
Well, it is true. The 1st Amendment of the US allows for ... let me look it up...
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances"
Okay, so the part about religion doesn't apply unless there's an esoteric branch of Hinduism that allows for the reincarnation of bits as MP3s.
Freedom of speech...really, when you get right down to it, when you download music, that's a form of censorship. You're taking money away from the MPAA, and that's money they use to bribe congressmen and senators and presidents. How can they redress the Government when they don't have any money?
For freedom of the press, how important is it to be able for the media to access the Internet? You have newspapers and television and radio. Admittedly, half of those are official government propaganda machines and the other half is owned by media conglomerates, but the idea is still there.
Assembly? For online stuff? Come on, it's not like you could use something like twitter to tell the outside world about how things are going in your country.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Pisano is correct in saying "the First Amendment was not intended as a shield for those who steal, irrespective of the means."
He is incorrect in saying that all traffic coming from a site hosting an infringer is the result of stealing, nor is he correct in saying that a conviction for theft is necessary before this law shuts down a site (it requires only a request for a preliminary injunction), nor that the law even restricts its scope to actual theft (it applies if the site is merely to linking to another site that may or may not already be accused of thieving).
At the point where Pisano guarantees that not one innocent person will have their data cut off from the net for even one second, and can prove it with the text of the bill that accomplishes his goals while doing that, then he may claim he's stopping theft without abrogating the First Amendment.
Copyright law was not intended as a shield for those who censor, irrespective of the motive.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
If they rolled back copyright length, they there'd be much less likely hood any site would need to be blocked.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I know grammar/spelling/composition critique is a time-honored /. pastime, but I definitely consider all such posts categorically off-topic. Boring at best, and a premeditated attempt to derail discussion with minutiae at worst.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Dear Supreme Court,
Based upon the willful actions of the MPAA they have stolen my rights away.
I respectfully request that a immediate injunction is placed on their website, lawyers, and letterhead.
I furthermore request that all assets and IP be transferred to me from hence forth to compensate for damages suffered upon my intangible asset of known as rights.
I also request compensatory damages in the amount of 25 trillion dollars be paid to FRAA to be distributed to each of the 310 million American Citizens at a rate of 79,000 per infringement ( based on the tenabaum case of 79k per song infringement awarded. )
Sincerly,
FRAA
Free Rights Association of America
I think what is really needed is legislation that outlaws this sort of attempted perversion of the words "theft" and "stealing".
Once we've put a stop to that perversion, the rest of Big Media's FUD campaigns will abruptly end. Since digital media by its very nature can be replicated endlessly with virtually no material cost, exactly what is being "stolen" here? NOTHING! Sure, packaging has material costs, but the "pirates" (infringers) aren't getting that packaging, are they? The cost of producing the "art" contained in the digital file was incurred ONCE, and the expectation of recouping those expenses is SPECULATIVE; the price of the packaging is a guesstimate, based on a hoped sales volume to result in some net profit. What if simply no one actually buys the package, even in the absence of "piracy"? There would have been no "theft" by this perverted definition, yet they still lose their shirts and don't get the desired profit. There's not a shred of certainty that denying people the ability to copy digital media will guarantee an equivalent increase in actual PACKAGING sales, so that argument is also FUD.
"We're DOOOOOoooooooooooooomed!"
And steal was not intended to describe theft of imaginary things.
What are they stealing? Certainly not the product itself, as they're merely copying that and depriving no one of it. Merely having the product itself, then, is irrelevant.
He must mean "potential profit," then. For one thing, basic logic states that for you to be able to steal something, it must first exist (potential profit doesn't exist). Second of all, if it was possible to steal potential profit, everyone in existence would be 'guilty' of doing so. You 'steal' potential profit merely by choosing not to give someone your money for whatever reason or by interfering with someones flow of profits. This effectively means that not buying a product from a store, for example, means that you 'stole' potential profit from the store. The store would have had more money if you would have given it to them and therefore would have been better off, which means, like a 'pirate' apparently does to artists (going by their logic), you have 'harmed' a legitimate business, and as such, people.
Artificial scarcity is bad. Don't blame the 'pirates' (who aren't taking anything or harming anyone) for a system that has been broken since the beginning, as this is merely putting the blame on someone who has nothing to do with it. You might as well blame everyone in existence. Instead, try to fix this broken system. But we all know that won't happen, as that would interfere with their flow of profits.
Also, they never described how (going by their logic, of course) websites that merely talk positively about 'piracy' (but don't contain any torrents or copyrighted materials) are 'stealing'. Funny, that.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Here is why:
1) The democratic congress is a lame duck congress. They are looking for new jobs. They have nothing to lose, and the senate is still democrat controlled.
2) The democratic party has a long standing unspoken agreement with the entertainment industry. (Much like the GOP has a similar agreement with big oil, and big biz.)
3) The incumbant congress wont pass up on the windfall that this gives them; With one side of their mouth, they would state that they would never propose such legislation, with the other they will happily enforce and use said legislation. Such action has been the de-facto norm for at least 2 decades now.
4) The supreme court will bend over backwards to support this measure, and pull the constitution through a knothole backwards to make it fit, for similar interest reasons.
5) The government in general LIKES the idea of draconian IP protection, BECAUSE it makes an end-run around that nasty first amendment; AND because the US has pretty much NO real tangible goods exports in the world market other than food stuffs (which as the 2nd world rises to prominence, is becoming less and less profitable.), and as such, it sees the handwriting on the wall if it doesnt take drastic measures to keep a firm grip on the reigns of invention and ideas. "IP" and "Patents" are just about the only profitable things left in the US, and they go bye-bye if corporations leave. The corporations use this fact to control the US government. This is what it means by "Too big to fail."-- it means that the government cannot afford to have them go under, because if they did, the government wouldnt have anything to replace the income/bargaining power in the world market with.
Thus, even if this bill is shot down, it will be reintroduced silently as a rider, and passed later.
The ONLY way to make this bill NEVER pass, is if a French Revolution-style mob descended upon Hollywood, while simultaneously, on the other side of the country, another angry mob did the same in DC. The people have no power in this matter; they have delegated it to government, and government is complicit in the crime. You cannot expect to get justice from a corrupt constabulary. That leaves ONLY vigilante-ism.
As the founding fathers demonstrated, the intrinsic power of the people, is the power of the people to revolt. That's the reason for the second amendment, and the reason for much of the rhetoric of Jefferson and Co. in the federalist papers. Voting is a proxy for that power, to channel it into a less destructive force for change in government. However, when voting has been rendered useless, the only recourse left is violence.
So, unless you think you can organize such a revolt, (or even a passive one, ghandi-style,) this bill will pass, the MAFIAA *WILL* get what it wants, and we WILL get bent over the barrel by both them AND our government, and we will be ridden, and ridden, and ridden.
[Note: For those that think that violence never solves anything, Tell me-- what power do you think you as a voter have over a lame-duck congress, which is demonstrating that it doesn't care about your interests? They are going out the door anyway, and your vote does not have the power to put them in jail, or to stop them in any way.]
Welcome to the USA-- Where everyone is equal, but some 'persons' are more equal than others.
We certainly shouldn't blindly trust proposed free speech and privacy regulatory changes.
People will thing it is personal privacy being protected, but we'll see corporations wanting "privacy" as if they were individuals. AT&T is already looking for less transparency.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/11/eff-brief-privacy-protections-corporations
Boy am I tired of refuting these bald faced lies. Forgive me if you've only swallowed them.
If musicians find that they always lose in their speculation that enough people will pay for their art to cover the one-time cost of producing it - due to everyone copying it for $0 and not paying them
That's a complete and utter fallacy that's been disproved time and time again. Studies have shown the "pirates" spend more money on music than non-pirates. A study done by a book publisher to find out how much revenue he was losing to piracy showed that rather than a drop in sales after the books hit the net, there was a sales spike.
Rather than costing the industry money, it's making money for them.
Nobody has ever lost money to noncommercial piracy, but many artists have had to find different carrers because of obscurity. The RIAA artists have radio and want the internet gone because their competetion, indie bands, don't have radio and rely on the internet.
Here's how piracy hurts the RIAA label: Pirate DLs RIAA Band A and Indie Band B. He has a $20 budget for music. Ban A's music is stale, commercial, and uninspired while Ban B's music is fresh, exciting, different, and listenable. Who is Mr Pirate going to spend his music budget on?
Piracy only hurts artists that suck. Quality always sells.
Now stop spreading the MAFIAA's bullshit. You now know better, any more posts from you saying "if you can get it for free you won't buy it" can only be trolling. So please stop it.
Free Martian Whores!