US Senate Committee Passes PROTECT IP Act

angry tapir writes "A US Senate committee has unanimously approved a controversial bill that would allow the US Department of Justice to seek court orders requiring search engines and Internet service providers to stop sending traffic to websites accused of infringing copyright."

Comments

Instead of complaints, we need answers

[countertrolling]

1) How do we route around this damage?

2) How do we protect our natural rights from a majority that votes them away?

Let's stop focusing on the distractions of greed and corruption and the psychopaths in positions of power and get to finding real solutions to render all of that irrelevant.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[beringreenbear]

The Rules say that the only thing you can do is to ceaselessly lobby your Senator and get your friends, relatives, and that weird guy who asks you for change for a dollar every time you go into Dunkin' Donuts to do the same.

See my comment below, as the damage has been halted by the same person that halted a similar bill last year, a Senator from Oregon. The only way to stop this is the raise money to buy off enough Senators to keep the bill stopped.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[lxs]

Bye bye Google, hello search engines based outside of the US.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[The Moof]

1) How do we route around this damage?

The same way we always have: proxies, tor, etc.

2) How do we protect our natural rights from a majority that votes them away?

That's the multimillion dollar question. Quite literally, since you need a huge amount of money to either lobby your representatives, or run against them. Otherwise, they just send you a nice boilerplate response letter to any of your inquiries, concerns, and so on.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[MoonBuggy]

1) How do we route around this damage?

Although it's been some time since I last looked at the project, Freenet still seems like a good bet.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[ThePangolino]

YaCy

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[somersault]

Well, search engines would need a list of sites known for copyright violation. So if you really wanted to go to one of those sites, just check the list. It would have to be public for all search engines to be able to comply. If only the large search engines are allowed access to the list, you can use lesser known search engines that still include those sites.

I don't mind so much them trying to block sites that intentionally infringe copyright, but the "accused of copyright infringement" bit is what worries me. It's like being wrongly put onto a spam blacklist - act first, ask questions later.. or possibly never.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[somersault]

Guess I missed the "internet service providers" bit. For that, you use something like TOR or some other encrypted proxy.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear google's chinese arm is pretty anti-censorship.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Fibe-Piper]

2) How do we protect our natural rights from a majority that votes them away?

That's the multimillion dollar question. Quite literally, since you need a huge amount of money to either lobby your representatives, or run against them. Otherwise, they just send you a nice boilerplate response letter to any of your inquiries, concerns, and so on.

So why didn't Google "make it rain"? It's not like they don't have resources to start a massive lobbying campaign of their own?

Maybe they were just too late to the ball?

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[countertrolling]

That will do nothing to protect you from DPI and other offensive behavior by your service provider.. We have yet do devise a truly P2P internet, free of the corporate wire(less). To me, this would be the utmost priority. From there we can communicate our ideas about how to protect other essential freedoms, like the right to exist without having to declare ourselves any authority, to move about freely, etc. Even the right to produce our own food is coming under threat.. We are very close to being under a true Stalin like collectivism in order to protect commercial interests. And it will produce the same results... Maybe killing people off is the real intention.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[kokojie]

you forgot the /s tag, the google Chinese arm had a message in the bottom of their page when you search censored material. "Some search results maybe censored due to local laws and regulations"

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[kokojie]

they are too busy paying their employees 6 figures and messing around with unprofitable projects to care

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[MoonBuggy]

That will do nothing to protect you from DPI and other offensive behavior by your service provider.

Forgive my potential ignorance, but I thought that was exactly what Freenet was designed to do?

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[The Moof]

Perhaps Google has some vested interest in this that we don't know about. Perhaps Google fears being investigated by the government if they started actively fighting a "piracy prevention" bill. Perhaps Google just doesn't care (they didn't with the whole "China" censorship thing a few years back).

Google is a company first and foremost, and their own interests will always be the first priority. If opposing this would've been damaging to their business, they'll keep quiet.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[countertrolling]

Well, I hope you can find a way to economically connect to an off shore service service provider at the same time.. Otherwise you will simply be redirected back to Google.us

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[thej1nx]

I wonder. Will it be illegal to start a group like Anonymous, near election time?

I mean declaring that we have had enough of this government and that come election, ALL of the group members vote for the specific list of guys(and against certain guys). The lobbyists have subverted the democracy anyways, so why not jump aboard? Get everyone, their grandma, cousins and who not to jump in. I mean mob flash events do work, don't they? So if we basically decided to collaborate over punishing certain guys at election time, it should automatically teach them a lesson. If you agreed to vote as per the dictates of the group(since you agreed with the principle behind it) it just might make a difference?

Or at the very least, a group that starts counter-propaganda during election to ensure that those who sold-out never get elected again. Would that actually work? Just wondering.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Lennie]

http://www.fixcongressfirst.org/

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[countertrolling]

It won't.. It will get to the point that if the ISP can't decipher your packets, they will simply be dropped.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Anonymous Coward]

> 1) How do we route around this damage?

Stop "consuming" the "content" that these media companies produce.

You can do it. Be strong. You don't actually need to watch the latest episode of House. Stop downloading it, stop consuming it. Try making something for a change, even if its just a blog of photos that you took.

You'll also then discover that 250GB monthly caps are incredibly large.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[jank1887]

such a group would be a blip on the radar compared to the general mass of voters voting the same way they always do.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[zeroshade]

You'll also then discover that 250GB monthly caps are incredibly large.

Not if you use Netflix. And before you continue with "Stop consuming the content" in reference to Netflix. The point of supporting Netflix is supporting their model of freedom and all you can watch, legally. Services that the media companies should have provided long ago.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[betterunixthanunix]

Use a proxy server? Use Tor?

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[PopeRatzo]

2) How do we protect our natural rights from a majority that votes them away?

We do it economically. How many times yesterday did you give your money to the corporations that are behind this assault on our freedom? (Hint: it's a much bigger number than you think.)

We can absolutely "route around this damage" but it means changing our consumption habits, and reviewing the things which we consider "cool, must have, must see".

When you buy music at iTunes (or anywhere but directly from the musician), when you pay to see a movie made by a major studio (even streaming it on an ad-supported page or Netflix, or television), when you buy products from any company that "partners" with the content providers who are behind the industry groups that pressure lawmakers into making this type of law, you are basically paying for their efforts to take away the things that mean the most to you.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[happy*nix]

Only question 1 relevant, unless by "majority" you meant "most money".
Even the Pope has spoken out against this kind of thing, as on effort to oppress poorer people.

Than being said, the solution is to label this kind of actions for what it is, stand with the Pope ( I'm NOT Catholic ), get other religious leaders to understand and see is as an effort to oppress and control people. This discussion needs to be taken to religious groups, because that's where the majority of people begin to think about and discuss moral issues.

There no use trying to convince the intellectuals, they already understand the dangers and have been speaking out against them. They have also been largely ignored for decades.

I know this goes against the general slashdot-geek philosophy but this is class warfare and war makes strange bedfellows.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[c0mpliant]

Depends on the user in fairness about the 250GB cap. The amount of legitimate HD sources on the internet now means that you can easily only consume legal downloads of non mega media structures and still go over your data cap. A few years ago I may have agreed with you. Not to mention the likes of digital distribution of software, I usually buy at least 3 or 4 big games on steam a month alone which push me over the 30 - 40 GB mark

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Kjella]

Well, if it's just DNS then make another - when Denmark blocked it jesperbay.org and if they'd tried a game of whack-a-mole just use a URL redirection service to the IP. Want to take down bit.ly? Or perhaps starting to /dev/null traffic going to those IPs? This is like firing a pellet gun and declaring war on a fleet of battleships, good luck with that.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[MoonBuggy]

get other religious leaders to understand and see is as an effort to oppress and control people

"Hi Pot, have you met my friend Kettle?"

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[drinkypoo]

So why didn't Google "make it rain"? It's not like they don't have resources to start a massive lobbying campaign of their own?

There are lots of possibilities. Shall we play this game?

1. Google wants this legislation.
2. Google doesn't want this legislation, but knew it was a fait accompli and elected not to waste time fighting it.
3. Google believes this legislation will prove to be unworkable, and that it will crash and burn, leading to a backlash which they can use.
4. Google has some other goal it considers to be more important, and lobbying against PROTECT IP would compromise it.

5. 1. any more credible options?

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Anonymous Coward]

Or vote Libertarian.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[f8l_0e]

Perhaps it's time for someone to develop a p2p spidering/indexing system. Maybe use geolocation to determine which nodes index which ip ranges?

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Anonymous Coward]

you mean www.google.ca ?

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Alex Belits]

Then all VPNs will break. Therefore no telecommuting. The increase of gasoline consumption would be enough to mess up economy.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Score Whore]

Exactly which "natural rights" are you referring to here? Your right to get the product of someone's labor and investment without paying or something else?

If it's the "natural right" I mentioned, I'd be interested to know how many millions of dollars of your own money you've spent producing content to be given away.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[countertrolling]

I can assure you I give very little, but that's all irrelevant when I consider that we all constitute maybe two percent of the economy that doesn't even amount to a tick bite.. At this point going underground is the only way, but we are still tethered to their wire.. We are sitting ducks...This is the first thing that must be dealt with (Well, actually the first thing is to be aware that we are dealing with psychopathic authority. Forget about applying 'pressure' to that).. And then fill the system with noise to avoid raising suspicion by our absence (ie: 'what are you trying to hide?').. Comparatively speaking, the rest will be cake (but but but the cake is a lie!)

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[houstonbofh]

Because this legislation will not hurt Google. It makes no difference to them, and they other fights to win. It just makes a difference to us... You know... We The People.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Anonymous Coward]

I hold a copyright to a digitally published novel. It costs all of $5.50 MSRP (3rd party websites discount it) and people steal it through bittorrent sites. Constantly. How much of a tool do you have to be to steal something worth less than $5 US, that was created by a single human being, not a soulless corporation?

How are you going to protect my natural right to be paid for my work?

Stop and think, just for a minute, about the individual people (like little old me, supporting a disabled veteran on less than 30K a year in the US) that are hurt by the "greed and corruption" of the "psychopaths in positions of power"--you know, the ones at keyboards, with upload permissions.

I'm not an anonymous coward, I'm every novelist in print.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[countertrolling]

The crazy man in the pinstripe suit will not be swayed by such arguments.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[cavreader]

If a site is blacklisted for copyright violations does that not imply that the copyrighted information is available from the source that copyrighted the information in the first place? That would not really be censorship would it? Or is it that just the thought of not having full and unfettered access to someones copyrighted works the real problem?

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to be working for them. They're not exactly a small, unsuccessful company.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[soupforare]

Clearly the actions of a "Lone Wolf," that needs to be investigated.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Anonymous Coward]

Soooo... then it would be the end of SSL, and therefore HTTPS, and therefore pretty much all e-commerce? I highly doubt any ISP will flip off what now accounts for a very significant part of the global economy. If they drop packets they can't decipher, they kill all Internet business going through them. Won't happen for several very obvious reasons.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[somersault]

There is no requirement to make anything you create public. You still technically have copyright on it even if nobody else knows it exists.

does that not imply that the copyrighted information is available from the source that copyrighted the information in the first place

There are cases such as old computer games that are still in copyright, but no longer on sale, where it's not possible to get the originals without breaking copyright. And again, nobody has to register for copyright anything, it's implicitly granted when you create a work. It's not like a patent.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Nadaka]

Voting libertarian is not the answer. The libertarian party is only an experiment by the owning class to use the desire for freedom to disenfranchise the masses for personal gain. Government needs a certain amount of strength to protect people from economic predation and the return to a class based society where most people are virtual or actual slaves.

There are no parties that actually represent the people and seek to empower their freedom. We need a party that believes in personal liberty but also promotes policy to the benefit of the people instead of corporate entities that serve as the proxies of power for the elite ruling class. Democrats fail. Libertarians fail. Republicans OMG WTF fail. Greens fail just as hard as republicans, but in a different direction.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[brm]

For this particular case, DemandProgress.org had an online petition you could sign. I don't know how effective that is, but it's probably better than nothing and is easier than getting out of your chair.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Anonymous Coward]

1) use non-US based search engines

2) Vote

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[b0bby]

Most ebook torrents that I've seen contain hundreds of books; people may well be "stealing" your book but it's likely that a) they wouldn't have bought it, even for $.99, and b) they'll probably never read it. I'm sure it's annoying for you, but it's just the way it is. And if your book is one of the few that's in demand enough that people are downloading it deliberately, then hopefully a fair number are also buying it. I remember having this discussion about mp3s 10+ years ago with a friend who is a professional musician - I was of the opinion that he needed to go with the new reality, because the cat was out of the bag. I think it's the same with publishing.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Anonymous Coward]

The Rules say that the only thing you can do is to ceaselessly lobby your Senator and get your friends, relatives, and that weird guy who asks you for change for a dollar every time you go into Dunkin' Donuts to do the same.

Not that I'm advocating we go to this extreme over a matter such as this, but fairly certain The Rules allow for quite a bit more than mere lobbying.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Boona]

Government needs a certain amount of strength to protect people from economic predation and the return to a class based society where most people are virtual or actual slaves.

And the more power you give them to "protect you" to power it gives their banking/corporate friends. The left seems to think that we need more laws to protect us from economic predation which is of course created by the state through issued monopolies (patents, copyright), subsidies, unfair regulation etc. The right thinks we need protection from terrorists which is again created by the state by what's referred to by the CIA as blowback for meddling in the middle east (massive bombing campaigns, invasions, backing dictators). Advocates for both sides are asking the us government to take away our liberties to protect ourselves which only serves banking/corporate friends.

The libertarian stance is that government officials are fucking stupid and destructive (whether intentionally or unintentionally), let's give them least possible power and manage our own affairs.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[countertrolling]

Soooo... then it would be the end of SSL, and therefore HTTPS, and therefore pretty much all e-commerce?

Not at all.. You will just need to prove to your service provider that you are officially authorized to use encryption.. and violation of said rules will carry a very harsh penalty. Just look at how places like Burma do it. And don't think for a second that the average voter would be against such a scheme. The public relations department already has that covered

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Creepy]

Exactly my first thought. The US government still thinks they can control a worldwide resource with local law, and that just isn't going to happen. What they need to do is create an international body to legislate such action and then enforce it internet wide. If that means the body votes to ban, say, porn, so be it - we would have to obey the rules just like everyone else. I imagine the US would feel this impedes on their freedom, but it is the only way to enforce this kind of legislation.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[hduff]

Then all VPNs will break. Therefore no telecommuting. The increase of gasoline consumption would be enough to mess up economy.

Who cares if the country collapses? The Intellectual Property will be safe and secure, earning its owners untold (holds pinky finger to mouth) millions.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Anonymous Coward]

Fork the internet. Or if that's too extreme, stop relying on single services. All of the classical internet services and protocols are meant to be distributed and decentralized. HTTP, SFTP, SSH, XMPP, IRC, POP, SMTP, IMAP. Avoid centralized services like hotmail, google anything, twitter, facebook. These create a single point of censorship. Buy a plug server (e.g. SheevaPlug) and run something useful on it. They are cheap ($99) and consume 5 watts. I run a caching DNS server on mine so I talk directly to the roots, not my ISP.

Beyond the technical side, raise awareness. I had an idea for a "Fourth Amendment Warning Sticker" featuring a giant eye and a warning that this device/establishment/whatever can be used to invade your privacy, then a list of privacies that may be invaded. Though I doubt any retailer would let me put these on cell phones, for instance. The EFF is a good group, but they do not raise enough awareness with high profile saber rattling. Don't sell this in the media as a way of protecting intellectual property. Sell it as a fundamental curbing of your freedoms and say it is a slippery slope before political views are censored and whistleblowers are gagged all at the behest of corporations. Make people care about these issues. Too often I hear "Well I am sure it is important, I just don't understand how it impacts me/why I should care."

Write your law-makers. Vote early and vote often. Freedom isn't granted by the government. And when the government steps out of bounds, we must remind them to observe our freedoms.

This is what we must do.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Lord Juan]

1) use non-US based search engines

I'm actually wondering which search engines are operating outside the US (and ad-networks, and payment processors). Can anybody list some?

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Anonymous Coward]

I would assume that the black helicopters that just started hovering over your location have given you your answer...

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Rene S. Hollan]

I am libertarian and have thought about this at length.

The issue is not that the government's powers be limited to some arbitrary set.

The currently ARE limited by a nation's constitution, to some degree or other, even if not to the degree libertarians might like. Of course, some nation's constitutions are better in this regard than others, and the U.S. ranks up there, in the liberty department.

ON PAPER

A constitution is useless if the people are too weak to assert the rights it reserves for them.

To that end, the power of governments must be limited (no, not by a written document, but rather by people fighting it, or willing and able to) so that it can enforce judgments against small groups of "troublemakers" but be effectively opposed by the people if large masses oppose it. And, by large masses, I do not mean a majority of the population: I mean a group small enough that kindred spirits can effectively unite, but large enough that groups based on individual dis-empowerment as opposed to empowerment (and so requiring a control and enforcement structure that effectively imposes an overhead on their operation) are not likely to easily reach the necessary size.

Further, the realization has to be made that the lawful punishments for those who abuse power should be proportionate to the degree of power wielded: A corporate accountant caught stealing $100,000 should suffer perhaps the need to make restitution and the expenses of his prosecution. But, it would not be unreasonable for an elected official stealing pubic funds to the same degree to be put to death.

Election of public officials should require a majority vote.

Removal of public officials should require only the support of a small number of constituents to support it for some reasonable length of time -- what proportion and for how long being tunable parameters. But, here's the rub: if the numbers are raised, and the individual elected does not step down, a legal mandate for the removal of said official by deadly force is established.

That's the kind of stuff constitutions need: when it is the law of the land to kill a person in a position of political power (and, by extension, anyone who tries to prevent you from doing so).

Is this somehow barbaric? Taking lives for crimes that are not capital offenses? I don't think so, after all, all the targeted individual has to do is yield power granted by the electorate in the first place, to avoid the penalty.

The bottom line is that governments should be powerful enough to enforce the wishes of the people, but not one bit more.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[geminidomino]

I'm not an anonymous coward, I'm every novelist in print.

Hardly. Most "novelists in print" have publishers taking care of the whole ebook thing for them (if they do at all), and said publishers seem to be trying to make the form factor as undesirable as possible with stupid DRM and pricing ebooks at or, in some cases, even *above* the price of the new hardcover.

The cost of the reader hardware is coming down, but that's the sort of thing (aside from a general decrease in reading for pleasure, but that's anecdotal and may just be the asshats I'm forced to deal with) still keeping ebooks from going mainstream the way mp3 players did when Apple started throwing their weight around with iTunes. (Yes, Apple sucks, but a good chunk of the credit for taking "MP3" from being some kind of undecipherable geek code word to something my mother knows, goes to them.)

Unfortunately, Amazon and BN don't seem to be so inclined to do the same, which surprises the hell out of me, honestly. They benefit from the reader sales, too (though, of the two, Amazon's is the scummier), but then hamstring themselves by not only pushing back, but letting Apple screw them over at the same time.

It boggles the mind.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would we say goodbye to Google? They do have servers hosted in most countries, and I'm sure the results from their search engine aren't going to change too much in countries where the political landscape isn't as corrupted towards media companies as it is in the USA. Money runs this place. We need to get used to hosting EVERYTHING outside of the country. We can also get around the inane tax code here and when congresspeople ask why we prefer to leave our business outside the borders of the USA, we'll tell them why. I won't be surprised if one of these days a new tax comes out called the "assumed media consumption tax" that works like a secondary income tax, designed to let the media companies reach right into your bank account and take the money they rightfully deserve because "we know you're watching our stuff!"

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[GameboyRMH]

1. Create a "pirate search engine," hosted outside the US and create/use an alternate DNS system.

2. Move away from the offending jurisdiction to a more desirable one.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[theshowmecanuck]

The sarcasm was thick in that one. Nice troll... but I can't resist.

Sure, a herd of cats will be able to organize and fund the votes for any given cause (after all that is all lobbyists do... pay off the senators and representatives either in money, paid advertising, influence, gifts, or all of the above). Libertarian: the ultimate "I want to do it my way" person. And you can't herd cats. Libertarians want things to change to their way, but by definition they will never be able to achieve that because in a democracy you have to rally enough people to your cause in order to get sufficient votes to pass your legislation. And with the 'pay as you go' vote system in Washington, if you can't work together to raise the funds and lobby, you are through before you start. Not exactly an individualist friendly atmosphere.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Anonymous Coward]

So why didn't Google "make it rain"? It's not like they don't have resources to start a massive lobbying campaign of their own?

If they spent too much money lobbying against it, their shareholders could sue them arguing that such spending was not in the company's best interest.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Why would we say goodbye to Google? They do have servers hosted in most countries,

Because they're a US corporation. As such they have to obey the legal limits of BOTH the US and the country where they're operating a server.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[GameboyRMH]

Doesn't google.ca already censor some pirate sites? I remember I was trying to find a crack site a while ago (Yet Another False Windows Deactivation), I couldn't remember the URL but I remembered the name of the site and searched for it. It was nowhere to be found, but there was some warning about "results omitted due to claims by copyright holders" or something like that.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[GameboyRMH]

they are too busy paying their employees 6 figures

Those dirty commie bastards! How dare they not put all their money into CXO pay!

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[GameboyRMH]

Exactly. A law will just be passed requiring all VPNs to use key escrow or run in plaintext. In France, key escrow is already required for > 40 bit encryption (does anything use that little these days?)

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[prikkebeen]

Are you serious? That fucking pedophile loving pope is all about to oppress and control people, especially when they are poor. It's the foundation of every stupid religion. USA Congress is full of this kind of bastards and it dont stops there. It's a worldwide problem.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[GameboyRMH]

You make it so complicated. All CAs will simply be required to hand over keys when requested. And using a self-signed cert will be illegal.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[GameboyRMH]

Very interesting...

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[GameboyRMH]

A commenter further up pointed out http://yacy.net/

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Anonymous Coward]

Ooooh, a petition, scaaaary! That'll change something when electing a guy with CHANGE in his campaign slogan did nothing!

At this point, any plan that doesn't involve slaughtering the oligarchs is about as effective as doing jumping jacks in your basement. If you don't want to resort to a violent revolt that's OK, but don't kid yourself.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Unfortunately, Amazon and BN don't seem to be so inclined to [repeat Apple's low-priced e-music store success with books], which surprises the hell out of me, honestly. They benefit from the reader sales, too (though, of the two, Amazon's is the scummier), but then hamstring themselves by not only pushing back, but letting Apple screw them over at the same time.

It boggles the mind.

There is SO much money to be made in computer-driven enterprises that executives can make HORRIBLY wrong decisions, repeatedly, and still avoid bankruptcy or dismissal for years. Sometimes they even make lots of money despite such decisions (though enormously less than they might if they weren't so dunderheaded).

(Now you know why PHBs are so common as to be stereotypical.)

Nevertheless, the bulk of the startups and a good fraction of the old-school companies trying to transition to the networked era still manage to blow it. Eventually they go belly-up (or petition the government to replace their shrinking market share).

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Rene S. Hollan]

Let's try some numbers.

Say you have one individual elected to "rule" over nine others, for a total of ten. It should be enough for 2/3ds, rounded up, to 7 to remove him, with deadly force, in about the time it takes for them to do it, say an hour.

So, if seven out of nine people can agree to remove the one that rules over them, they can do so, legitimately with whatever force it takes. And, surely, seven can take on three (the elected, and those who oppose the seven).

Suppose that for every order in magnitude increase in the governed, you halve the fraction necessary for removal:

1 ruling over 9 others requires 7 to remove: 70% agreeing for one hour

1 ruling over 99 others requires 35 to remove: 35% for two hours

1 ruling over 999 requires 175 to remove: 17.5% for four hours

1 ruling over 9,999 requires 875 to remove: 8.75% for 8 hours

1 ruling over 99,999 requires 4375 to remove: 4.375% for 16 hours

1 ruling over 999,999 requires 21875 to remove: 2.1875% for 32 hours (1-1/3 days)

1 ruling over 9,999,999 requires 109375 to remove: 1.09375% for 2-2/3 days

1 ruling over 99,999,999 requires 546875 to remove: 0.546875% for 5-1/3 days

Here, we start with a 70% figure, and as the governed population grows by a factor of ten, the number disgruntled grows by a factor of five, and the time for them to have to agree doubles. Those numbers can, of course, be tweaked.

Should it be reasonable for some 1/2% of the population of the U.S. to have the power, if they stand united for a bit over a week, to remove any member of the federal executive, judicial, or legislative branch? (Between orders of magnitude here I'm scaling linearly at the low end.) I dunno, maybe the numbers are too small. It would also require the government to be sufficiently weak, that a rag-tag army of a million and a half of her citizens could overthrow the government. (Though, getting a million and a half to occupy Washington DC for a week peacefully would be powerful politically in its own right).

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[GameboyRMH]

I don't know any off the top of my head, but there's a big market for them now!

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[aztrailerpunk]

Freenet, ironically blocked by work.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[X0563511]

Yea... I don't think that will fly.

The "common" can go ahead and vote that in, but anyone with an ounce of aptitude will say "no" and nothing will get done. Watch the new economy grind to a screeching halt over it.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[X0563511]

The issue is the 'accused' part - all you have to do is cry out "copyright violation" and supposedly the plug gets yanked. Note that actually having been in violation is not in play...

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[GameboyRMH]

Forking the Internet is the answer. The new Internet should be community-run, decentralized, actively resist censorship, selfishness and sabotage (karma system similar to what Bittorrent has), minimize the requirement for centralized authorities, and make any centralized authorities that are absolutely necessary (such as in the case of DNS) democratic online communities.

It can start with wireless mesh networks (look at HSMM-MESH) using TOR over corporate lines and progress from there until the entire infrastructure is managed by the community, except for some corporate lines operating undersea and satellite links, over which only encrypted and onion-routed traffic flows. And it should only require changes in network equipment. This is all technically possible today.

Here's a post I made with some details last year:

http://search.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1634334&cid=32019410

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Rene S. Hollan]

Of course, if it is too easy to "off" an elected official, you'll have a nation in constant turmoil, with a government that is too weak. Conversely, if it is too hard, you have a strong government, that can too easily oppress the governed. The question arises, "Should there be a feedback mechanism to control such things?"

For example, once an elected official is convinced to go, it should be a bit harder to be able to raise the numbers to convince the next one to go. And, what if force is required? Should it get easier or harder to get the next one? Or stay the same? I'd be tempted to have it stay the same: the only way a government could avoid a forceful purge would be for members to start stepping down voluntarily.

Furthermore, in order for a government to be likely to be overthrown in extremis, it must be kept small enough, in numbers of electeds, appointeds, and employed, to make that a likely outcome if the required numbers oppose it. At the very least, the total size of government should be less than or equal to the numbers required to bring it down. If a mandated attempt fails, then the size of government must be reduced (though, how would you effect this, if you could not overthrow the existing one?), or the numbers required for a mandate must increase (which is the practical reality of losing a war because the other side is stronger).

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Grishnakh]

The ammo box option only works if you have enough popular support. Otherwise, instead of a "freedom fighter", you're a "terrorist".

Look at the founding of the USA. Those people were basically terrorists. However, they had plenty of popular support for their cause (liberation from England), so they were able to achieve it, though they experienced significant losses in battle with the English troops and Hessian mercenaries.

A small number of disgruntled people with guns isn't sufficient to take down a government, because the government has plenty of guns and troops of its own.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Nadaka]

Libertarians advocate the removal of ALL regulation. Not just monopolies, copyrights and "unfair" regulation. Regulation is the only thing that brought the robber barons of the 19th and early 20th century down and made it possible for people to trust that they were not being poisoned on a regular basis to shave a few pennies off of production costs. Pure capitalism can only work if everyone is completely informed and not coerced, the problem is that in pure capitalism it pays better to be deceptive and use force.

Better regulation (not necessarily more or less regulation) is required to avoid or at least reduce serfdom at the hands of the owner class in a capitalistic society. The alternatives are a command economy or serfdom. I for one do not like either of those alternatives. Regulated capitalism is the best and possibly only way to ensure a reasonably full measure of personal liberty.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Doctor_Jest]

Libertarians believe that the government derives its power FROM the consent of the governed. Corporations are not governed. The PEOPLE are. Libertarians believe in a Constitutionally sound federal government with the powers that are not SPECIFICALLY enumerated to it falling to the States and the People. Corporations != people. The Libertarian party is the only party that seeks to actually enforce the Constitution. Personal liberty is paramount because that is what was paramount to the Founders.

I think you're confusing Libertarian with Fiscal Conservative. They are the "owning class."

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, I'm not saying it would be easy (or even right in this case (but nor am I saying it'd be wrong)). Only that the option does exist.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[aztracker1]

Just vote for the guy with the (L) next to their name...

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[geekoid]

Google is fighting it. Take 2 seconds to pull your head out of your ass and look around.
Also, Yahoo!, Ebay, American Express, and Paypal are aginst it.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Nadaka]

I am not confusing them. I just believe that libertarians are pawns being groomed to aid in the path back to serfdom. You are seeking personal liberty by dismantling the social structures that limit the ability of the extremely wealthy from taking your liberty for profit.

We do need a strong central government (one that is also strongly constitutionally limited). The government needs to be BETTER, not larger or smaller. I agree with many libertarian ideals, but the agenda should not be to dismantle the government. We need to take our freedoms back, but the agenda of the libertarian movement trades one master and infringement of liberty for another.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Anonymous Coward]

...unless a major browser (mozilla, opera, chromium, etc) suddenly decides to ship with a Tor-button available by default. Not that I expect it to happen, but it would make things interesting.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Jonner]

There's no need to route around damage that hasn't happened yet. The solution is to make sure this bill does not become a law. It hasn't passed either chamber of Congress yet.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Anonymous Coward]

It's what I do. i usually vote for the guy with (L) next to their name. The only time I didn't was for the Governor race in GA. I really felt he would have been the the better choice, but felt even more strongly to try to make the candidate I hate lose but going with the stronger choice for a possible win.

But I agree. We REALLY REALLY need to get rid of the two party system by getting more parties or even better, making parties a thing of the past and people actually have to vote on the person's track record. Does that individual represent your interests.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[marcosdumay]

I guess it would be illegal to start a group like Anonymous at any time, not just near election time.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[npsimons]

any more credible options?

I know nobody likes to admit this may be a possibility these days, but maybe Google is, you know, trying to do no evil. Maybe they are trying to win through honesty and technical superiority instead of backroom deals.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[hairyfeet]

Develop a decentralized P2P app for BT links? The way this is supposed to "work" is by blocking websites with P2P links (but of course as any government power I'm sure they'll abuse the shit out of it to say try to kill wikileaks and other whistleblowers) by the thought that if you can't get the link you can't get the torrent.

So the way to go around it, at least with regards to torrents, is to simply use a decentralized P2P app to distribute torrent links. A specialized P2P app designed to give you JUST torrent files, complete with user ratings, would kill this from blocking torrents dead, since you wouldn't need TPB or any other torrent site to find torrents. As for getting rid of whistleblower sites the only answer I have to that would be something like Freenet, but the catch with that is so far nobody has tried their "plausible deniability" theory in court and considering a CP charge can net you 60 year that is a hell of a risk to take on an untested legal theory.

Now please ignore if the situation has changed since I last looked at it, but last I checked you still needed websites for torrent links. By going decentralized P2P tp spread said links that would make blocking sites such as TPB useless, since you wouldn't need them to get the links. Frankly I wouldn't be surprised if their next move would be to force search engines like Google to remove ALL torrent links that haven't been given to some committee for approval first.

Of course in the end I have a feeling we'll just have a "great firewall of corporatist Amerika" and we'll have to take lessons from our Chinese friends on how to run a VPN and risk being labeled a "terrorist/pedo" or whatever bogeyman word they use for it this week. Because heaven forbid we don't help entrenched multinationals by using tax dollars to prop up their failing business models and help them keep complete control on what the population hears and sees. God forbid they should have to come up with new business models for a new era, heavens no! If these corrupt bastards would have been in office at the turn of the 20th century we'd all be paying a "buggy tax" on our cars and labeling buggy whip manufacturers as "too big to fail".

As for protecting our rights, what rights would those be? We don't even have the right to a fair trial anymore as Obama declared, in a case of having even bigger brass balls than Bush, that he has the right to perform assassinations on Americans, even on American soil and if you don't even have the right to life under the "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" clause of the constitution, how can you possibly have ANY rights at all? After all, how can giving the corps the right to have you thrown in prison for sharing some shitty Hollywood movie even compare to just having you shot? Welcome to Amerika, where the only freedoms are reserved for the top 1%ers.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[aztracker1]

Piracy, black market goods, and other less than legal means are now and have always been a part of a free market. Most people would rather buy legitimately, but the black market and other underground means are what drives competition, when other sources of competition are blockaded (in this case via patents and copyright).

Just because I am unwilling to pay a given price, doesn't mean I am unwilling to pay anything. It also doesn't mean that the pricing is fair given a lack of a free market of competition. The only balance to that is black market sources.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Kjella]

And yet it seems the 2nd amendment nuts aren't nearly as concerned with the 1st amendment, NRA over EFF any day. What they don't understand that it won't matter if you have guns if you don't know when or why to grab them. Tienmen..what? Liu Xio..who? And if the founders had lived in 2011 and seen the mass surveillance I think they would have moved the 4th up to 2nd, because if the government control your every move, your every communication, everything you search for or read online then nobody would get coordinated to rebel. Lone dissenters are always easily neutralized.

The Patriot Act just passed another 4 year extension even though Osama is dead and the US has seen no terror of any significance in years. Face it, the "war" never ends and sooner or later they'll just pass this as permanent legislation, all governments are like a sponge sucking up power never relinquishing it. Another disturbing trend I've noticed is that more and more news sites now move to Facebook discussions, pretty soon the "public voice" will not include anyone without a Facebook account. Like boiling a frog we are softly being gagged, so thin most don't even realize it.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Repossessed]

Dammit.

I have a carefully cultivated hatred of ebay/paypal here, and you're ruining it.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[rtb61]

In this case IPv6 with tens of thousands of addresses with open peer to peer backup domain name service for limited protocol types. Blocking IPv6 addresses a data base nightmare, review, updating, cancelling, just so many addresses to deal with.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[shutdown -p now]

How do we route around this damage?

Don't use any online services hosted in US (but be sure to check the laws of their location). Use encryption for all access to such overseas services.

Use foreign hosting for any information that could be potentially blocked. To access foreign blocked sites, use Tor, proxies etc.

How do we protect our natural rights from a majority that votes them away?

You can't. It doesn't matter what you write in the Constitution or anywhere else - those really are just "pieces of paper", and the only thing that gives them teeth is popular support. Consequently, if the majority believes that you should be denied certain right, you will be denied that right regardless of anything else. The only way to change this is to do a coup d'etat establish a dictatorship which would cater to the interests of your minority.

A more realistic way to deal with this problem is to move to another country where you are the majority (or where, at least, your interests align more closely with that of the majority).

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Raenex]

Is this somehow barbaric? Taking lives for crimes that are not capital offenses?

Yes, yes it is. Maybe you'd like some committee similarly deciding your fate for even proposing this idea? Would that feel barbaric and unjust to you?

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Grishnakh]

Eurasia has always been at war with Eastasia.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[unr3a1]

That is the last thing they "need to do". Our government is supposed to protect us and our liberties even from international "law".

We would have to obey? That is the mentality of a defeatist. Our Constitution does not allow for an international body to have the power to govern the United States. Nor should it.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Anonymous Coward]

Bye bye Google, hello search engines based outside of the US.

Of course not (wo)man. Google is wellcome in Europe.

Spaghetti Monster bless America.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[PopeRatzo]

t that's all irrelevant when I consider that we all constitute maybe two percent of the economy that doesn't even amount to a tick bite..

Where do the big media corporations behind the RIAA and MPAA get their money if not from consumers? They're not government contractors. There product is not a necessity like energy. We can all live without putting money in their pockets. As far as I know, they have no other source of income.

Of course, it will take a lot of consumers to stop buying before they feel it, but if each of us explains it to ten people, or 100 people, and they each tell others...

They have declared a class war against us. It's not going to be something that will be won in a week. We have to change our habits.

At this point going underground is the only way

Yes, but it's a different kind of underground. It's the kind of underground in which we can still live rich, productive, public lives. We have the tools we need.

The only thing is we have to be prepared for losing the Internet as we know it due to the attacks on Net Neutrality. Without a big shift in direction and strong protection of the neutrality of bandwidth, the Internet will become cable television. Five years from now, the idea that anybody can put up a blog and have the world see it will be over. Things like Wikipedia, Wikileaks, etc will be history. We have to ramp up work on ad hoc networks and find other methods of communicating and getting the things that we're now getting from the Internet.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[countertrolling]

Not sure yet, but I think I like you... Haven't detected any spam yet, so let's see how it goes..

TNX.. I'll be looking forward to more profundities and other deep thoughts

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[tirefire]

You are seeking personal liberty by dismantling the social structures that limit the ability of the extremely wealthy from taking your liberty for profit ... The government needs to be BETTER, not larger or smaller. ... I agree with many libertarian ideals, but the agenda should not be to dismantle the government.

I feel that's a glib description of what Libertarians and libertarian-leaning people have in mind. Don't attack labels or even people - attack specific ideas. You say you agree with many libertarian ideals, so we probably have more in common than we know.

Going back to the "robber-baron" topic discussed by you and the AC... today's "robber-baron" is the multinational conglomerate corporation. PepsiCo... Apple... WalMart... Berkshire Hathaway... basically any Fortune megacorp. Which system of government do you feel would be easier for the megacorps to influence at the cost of the American people's liberty? A single government entity with jurisdiction over all the land, or 50 smaller entities concerned only with their own land? A corporation that wants to engage in regulatory capture wants a government with a pyramid-shaped corporate structure to match its own. Forcing a national corporation to comply with a different set of regulations for every state in which it operates places a huge tax on it that it cannot simply lobby away. Okay, so maybe it can, but the lobbying would be about 50 times more complicated, and it would likely still have to fragment its supply chain and business offices to comply with state-by-state differences with respect to things like banned materials. Decentralized government favors smaller, localized corporations more effectively and permanently than any decree from some bureaucrat's office in DC. I think this is approximately how many people arrive independently at the conclusion that smaller, locally-limited government leads to better overall government with near certainty.

You mentioned that we don't need more or less regulation, just *better* regulation, and I agree with you, but how do we achieve better regulation with a strong centralized government? Be ensuring that "only the right people" are placed in charge of the inevitably massive social machinery? And what do you do when a malicious person eventually gets control of the levers of power? Raise a stir among the 300+ million people who have the authority to reign him/her in? What are the chances that the electorate will even find out about it amidst the million-and-one other things the monolithic government is doing? Our federal government long ago exceeded any kind of human scale, it is not managed by people as originally intended but by institutions like the Aspen Institute, massive corporations, and its own bureaucracies. To take one example, there is no one human being who knows the entire US Tax Code. Does raising money for a government really need to be *that* complicated? Rule by institutions is poisonous to personal liberty; it shifts control of decision-making away from individuals and towards conference rooms full of career politicians and K Street lobbyists who all used to be drinking buddies at Yale and Harvard.

Today, a national government (and a matching national corporate culture nuking and paving regional tastes and values... "I'm lovin' it") has us thinking of ourselves as "Americans" concerned with national matters, and not just "Iowans" or "Californians" concerned with our own matters. Evolution takes place faster in small populations. With centralization, we are all but surrendering ourselves to an indefinite status quo of homogeneity. With a strong centralized government, if you're in the 49% minority on an issue that's important to you, your *only option* is to get hundreds of millions of like-minded people behind you. Good luck. Sure, you can always move to another country, but world superpowers have a way of imposing their laws on other countries. With a decentralized governm

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Anonymous Coward]

Check this out (you may have heard something along these lines in grade school):

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[jonfr]

As an writer my self. I am going to regard torrent copies of my future books as free ads. I don't have the money to pay for ads at all. So I have to get publishing from something for my future unwritten ebooks.

Too strong copyright is going to work against those it is ment to protect. I as a writer am never going to support that.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Anonymous Coward]

How is a search engine linking to legally infringing materials/products different
than a DNS server linking to legally infringing materials/products?

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[GameboyRMH]

That search engine can be hosted in a safe jurisdiction (if one exists) or could be a freenet-hosted project made accessible to the rest of the web through a special proxy, and pointed to with an alternate DNS system.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Grishnakh]

Yes, of course it does, but I'm saying that it's a bad idea. You'll just end up getting yourself killed and no positive change will result (in fact, negative change may result instead).

The only way I'd support a 2nd-Amendment solution is if there were a Million Man March on Washington, with all million of them being armed. Knowing the way Americans are these days, I believe the chances of that happening are virtually nil. Instead, we'll continue to sit around and complain about the government, and blame all the problems on "the Republicans" or "the Democrats" (depending on which "side" one is on), even though the two parties are working hand-in-hand to screw over the average American, while making a big show out of blaming the other side.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Score Whore]

Or you could not buy the product. Every price is reached by two parties agreeing, not by one party deciding and the other being coerced to pay.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Rene S. Hollan]

Except, I am not a public official.

Further, a public official can simply step down to avoid the punishment.

Finally, capital punishment is quite normal for acts of treason. I think elected officials not respecting the wishes of the electorate qualifies.

It should take many to elect, few to remove.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Raenex]

Except, I am not a public official.

You're human and so are public officials.

Further, a public official can simply step down to avoid the punishment.

And you can simply not do drugs, engage in illegal sex acts, or make political statements that cause social upheaval to avoid being killed.

Finally, capital punishment is quite normal for acts of treason. I think elected officials not respecting the wishes of the electorate qualifies.

That's crap reasoning. Treason is narrowly defined and for a good reason. Maybe the electorate doesn't like your line of thought, and considers it treasonous.

It should take many to elect, few to remove.

That doesn't make any sense and makes a mockery of the democratic process.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Rene S. Hollan]

I, unlike public officials, do not [b]govern[/b] or are in the service of those who [b]govern[/b] others. Those who govern should be at the mercy of those governed.

From the Constitution of the United States: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."

I would argue that a violation of the U.S.Constitution, as found by a jury of the electorate, described by me above, IS levying war against her.

But, as we are discussing an appropriate constitution for a nation of free people, the actual text of any existing one is of interest only in an academic sense.

My introduction of the notion of treason was only to illustrate that there exists precedence in the law of the U.S. for crimes that do not involve the taking of lives carrying the death penalty. I think that punishment be reserved for the corrupt elected.

A mockery of the democratic process?

Of course! All war is illegal from the point of view of the attacked. Therefore a civilized society requires a constitution which spells out clearly, and distinctly, when it is legal to overthrow the government.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Santzes]

Bye bye US, hello outside of the US?

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Anonymous Coward]

Leaving and abandoning the US isa workable solution to a lot of otherwise intractable man-made problems,including this one and software patents. America has become a plaything for billionaires, fundamentally hostile to innovation and in fact change itself and thanks to SCOTUS's Citizens United decision,it's only going to get worse.

The solution is to simply not sell into the US market and not do business withUS companies or use their services. Increasingly people are selecting their nations of affinity like they choose their neighborhood or the state they live in. Geek exodus may or may not change things in the US internally but it certainly rewards progressive nations and there's a message in that which the world, if not theUS won't miss.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[EdgeCreeper]

60 years?!!!!! Seriously?

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Raenex]

I, unlike public officials, do not [b]govern[/b] or are in the service of those who [b]govern[/b] others. Those who govern should be at the mercy of those governed.

I'm sorry, just because somebody is in office they lose all their basic dignity as a human? And what you are doing right now is attempting to govern the governors, which turns you into a governor.

I would argue that a violation of the U.S.Constitution, as found by a jury of the electorate, described by me above, IS levying war against her.

It's a weak argument and a completely stretched reading. There's a reason they use the word "only" in there. They don't want everybody being accused of being treasonous in political fashion.

My introduction of the notion of treason was only to illustrate that there exists precedence in the law of the U.S. for crimes that do not involve the taking of lives carrying the death penalty.

This is the problem with your stretched reasoning. War involves killing.

Of course! All war is illegal from the point of view of the attacked. Therefore a civilized society requires a constitution which spells out clearly, and distinctly, when it is legal to overthrow the government.

That's the point of having the right to vote spelled out in the constitution. You can legally throw the bums out of office without any bloodshed. When they prevent you from voting, then you have a case for overthrow.

Otherwise, you are just another petty tyrant that you claim to be fighting against.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[countertrolling]

Where do the big media corporations behind the RIAA and MPAA get their money if not from consumers?

Most of their income is from speculation in the stock market (they make just as much money when we buy toilet paper, kitchen cleaners, and food) and commodities, usually currency trading.. And many companies like Sony, Samsung, etc. have big investments in heavy industry. And their other customers are actually the distributors of retail goods, not the end user. Walmart and Best Buy tell them what to make and what we want, we don't.. That is why their products usually suck so bad, with their DRM and 'features' that nobody wants.. You take the whole package, or you pound sand.. Like with cable TV.. And besides, 'we' are nothing but zombies who will buy what we are told to buy, same rules apply in politics. And zombies aren't interested in facts...Education will not work. Only conditioning/indoctrination will... That is an evolutionary issue.. We just aren't that advanced that the 'rational' brain can overrule blind instinct..

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[countertrolling]

So then, both are exactly the same.. pretty much a matter of scale, nothing more.. aside from the 'enumerated' part, of course. Natural law is what enables me to write and enforce 'actual' law.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[randyleepublic]

Easy! Read my sig and take it from there. That's the beauty of Social Credit - it fixes the problems without needing to apportion blame for them.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[PopeRatzo]

Most of their income

Are you sure it's "most"? Clearly they are involved in trading commodities and currency and they are definitely hedging, but it would surprise me if Sony and other big media outfits got most of their money that way, because if they did, they wouldn't need to go through the motions of producing media.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Tenebrousedge]

You have a 'natural right' to be paid for your work? How interesting. One imagines this right must also be granted in perpetuity, or else it's not much of a natural right, is it? Is there any sort of bar to this, can I lift pencils and call it work and expect to be paid forever? I can write stories or music (and do) if you insist; maybe you can explain why it's just artists and writers that get on this gravy train. To be quite honest, it doesn't sound terribly like capitalism, but I'm sure we can get slashdot to rally around this idea--it applies to code, too? Or just natural language writing? Do androids have this natural right? Do marketing droids? Ad writers, if it's an especially good ad?

Maybe you'd be surprised as to what the rest of the world thinks of as a 'natural right'. As far as I know, in America and most other parts of the world, all you have is the right to try to get paid for your work. We'll even throw you a few bones, like a limited form of exclusivity on new things you make, and a regulatory and social environment that tries to (in theory) prevent existing business interests from crushing the new guys. At the moment, the rest of us feel that those bones have been enlarged overmuch.

Also, we created this high speed way to replicate information globally. Since the marginal cost of copying has become zero, trying to charge for individual copies of information (as if there's scarcity) has become a fool's game. Unless you make it prohibitively expensive in terms of either time and money, people will copy whatever they like. Despite the efforts of many motivated corporations, there is no technical means to ensure that content will not be pirated. To quote Schneier, "trying to make digital files uncopyable is like trying to make water not wet." The best efforts have lasted only a few years, while copyright law extends for decades. The chances of any content remaining relevant for the duration of the copyright placed upon it are as close to zero as can be imagined, and the pace of change still appears to be accelerating.

If you don't like any of this, you are in the wrong profession. If you can't compete in this market, don't make excuses, find a different way to make money. Don't be too upset though; haven't you heard that almost no one can make a living as a writer? Just accept that that means you. By all means keep writing, of course; it's a skill like any other. Blogging might even make you more money: look at Doctorow and that Julie&Julia woman.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[Rene S. Hollan]

I am no such thing as a tyrant. Remember, it would require sufficient numbers for a sufficient length of time to get the constitutional mandate to demand stepping down, or death.

I suppose such a group could be organized by an individual leading to the charge of "tyrant".

But, what could such a tyrant do? Nothing more than veto the status quo.

We have seen that recourse to the vote every few years, or recall procedures which only lead to an impotent vote, don't work to curb abuse of power in government. Those who govern should do so in constant fear of the electorate.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[countertrolling]

Well, i guess you got me, because I can't differentiate 'actual' law from natural law. I wouldn't know how to articulate it any more accurately than 'might makes right'. I'm under the impression that I'm being asked to find some kind of morality when there is no such thing. All the eloquent rhetoric behind the laws of man, written by business people to protect their own interests, while they live under a completely different set of rules, mean nothing to me. It just a bunch of gibberish.

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[countertrolling]

Think of it as a form of fencing stolen property, money laundering, what have you. Plus they operate the propaganda machine to distract our attention. Who else do you know of that can bring in 300 mil over a single weekend and claim they made no profit to avoid paying the people who actually did the footwork? A broken dog's leg isn't nearly so crooked..

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[countertrolling]

You'll need guns to make people drink your Kool-Aid.

All the world's governments do exactly that... That's how it works... Oh, wait, you think we're under the influence of a bunch of philosophers and 'morality'? Well, my friend, all that philosophy and morality is enforced by heavy weaponry, and people submit because they don't want to get shot.. They want to protect their own little fiefdoms, at home, work, wherever.. Life is actually pretty simple that way. And do try to remember what gave birth to the great and wonderful American lifestyle, and every single freedom (and totalitarian) movement that has ever existed since man crawled out of the primordial soup, when you want to lecture me about anything... Or you can stay on autopilot.. whatever works for you.. I'm very open to those kind of things.. But kool-aid doesn't agree with me.. I prefer tang.. hope you get my drift :-)

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[countertrolling]

..there is some logic and intelligence behind the current system...

Ohh murrderr!... That's hilarious! And If you actually believe that, so are you! Even the shallowest knowledge of the nature of psychopathy would illustrate the absurdity of your faith in the 'system'. Hint: Your leaders are craaaazy... That's all there is.. there is nothing more unreasonable, illogical, and unintelligent than 'mankind' in its eternal battle against nature

...subtly sophisticated plan for mankind...

?? Oh my god! You're killing me here.. I gotta go...

Re:Instead of complaints, we need answers

[countertrolling]

I need to add that, what you call 'logic and intelligence', is really what a normal, sane, thinking person recognizes as deceit and manipulation.. It is deceit and manipulation that has your zombie population convinced that your wars and laws are just and that your politicians and bankers are honest, that the only way to motivate people is to starve them, that we really need hundred year copyright.. Your leaders are clever, not reasonable. I'm not telling you the way 'should be'. I'm telling you the way they are. Nature will always break through the facade that clouds your view of the world.. if you really want to see.. But you really don't want to see. You don't want to see the dead bodies your 'logical' and 'intelligent' system piles into the mass graves.. The nice,sanitary description of the wars with all your toy soldiers in their nicely pressed uniforms is a perfect case in point. It's propaganda second to none. You'd demand that they return home NOW if you would see what they do. I'm not sure you would feel the same way if you knew what your prisons look like on the inside, knowing that almost a million people are in there for unauthorized possession of a 'controlled substance', but there they are.. That's your 'logic and intelligence' for you.. and you want to tell me what's 'idiotic and naive'... more hilarity, if not for the real tragedy that your 'logical' and 'intelligent' system rains down upon us all... You just don't see it from so high on your horse. It doesn't exist to you. Your view of the world is through the eyes of genghis khan, always looking forward to new conquests, completely unaware of the trail of tears you leave behind... I feel very lucky to be merely 'pretty dumb'.. In fact now, I consider it a matter of pride.. I can accept the evil of my existence

Peace!

Hope and Change

[just_another_sean]

Yep passed unanimously and good ol' Barry woke up up nice and early in France to sign it. So much for change and I'm pretty much at the point of giving up on hope.

Re:Hope and Change

[just_another_sean]

Ah, wrong ACT, wrong article, going to get coffee, sorry to interrupt...

Re:Hope and Change

[Noughmad]

Don't worry, you weren't that much off the mark. Hope and Change should stop this madness as well.

Fear Not, Citizens of The Free World!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Unlike the Nefarious 'Great Firewall of China', a hated symbol of communist repression, the "PROTECT-IP" act will be entirely in English, and promises to be a tool of crony-capitalist repression!

Re:Fear Not, Citizens of The Free World!

[elrous0]

Apples and Oranges. In China the government decides who gets blocked. In the U.S., the government AND the corporations will decide.

So see, that's a lot better...right?

Re:Fear Not, Citizens of The Free World!

[pipatron]

Well, in China, the government owns the corporations. In the US it's the other way around.

Re:Fear Not, Citizens of The Free World!

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike the Nefarious 'Great Firewall of China', a hated symbol of communist repression, the "PROTECT-IP" act will be entirely in English, and promises to be a tool of crony-capitalist repression!

Where do you think we did the beta testing?

USSR/DDR 1960s-1990s: Alpha test. Surveillance states implemented with pen, paper, and typewriter tend to collapse under the weight of their own bureacracies. Can't have a functioning economy if 30% of your population is spending all its time informing on each other.
PRC 1990s-present: Beta test. Proof of concept for basic automated surveillance/censorship and the Great Firewall was a good test market for Cisco, Yahoo, and dozens of new Chinese Internet companies that use their gear. Works pretty good as long as the people know their place and get shiny toys.
USA 2001-present: Full implementation. Surveillance is more effective than censorship: rather than telling the citizen they can't see XYZ, possibly altering their behavior, just quietly log the fact that they are looking at XYZ, and file the fact away for profiling. You can't get an accurate profile if people get blocked; they'll alter their behavior to hide from the blocks. Instead, just add it to all the data you've already got from seeing their Facebook referrer-ID and cookies every time the little "f" icon shows up on a web page.

That said, as much as we like to bitch about it, it's still freer (and the toys are shinier) than they are in the beta test site of China.

Re:Fear Not, Citizens of The Free World!

[Lord Juan]

Is there really a different at this point in history? Considering how many industry insiders pass to occupy positions in the government, and after that go back to continue working for the industry in a higher position or as bribeist, sorry, lobbyist, I'd say the line that separates both has become very blurry.

Re:Fear Not, Citizens of The Free World!

[geminidomino]

It's depressing. IF the US Government seems hell-bent on on keeping to the Shadowrun timeline and making us all "corporate citizens" by 2050.... where the hell is the cool stuff? Like goblinization?

Oh wait. Alabama. Ok. Check.

I want my datajack!

Re:Fear Not, Citizens of The Free World!

[theshowmecanuck]

In a couple of years the U.S. will no longer be the world's largest economy. In a few years after that, it might not even be second or third. There are six billion people on the planet and only 330 million in America. Up to now the only reason America dominated was because they are the largest economy. In a few decades there will be 9 billion people on the planet and America will not be the dominant economy. The rest of the world doesn't have the stupid IP laws that America does. America will fall behind even further and those like England that follow their model will also fall. Jobs are moving back to the U.S. from overseas is not just because of inflation in China and India and shipping expenses due to fuel costs. It is because they are producing more of their own products from their own companies which they are selling internally and around the world in competition to the U.S. They don't want to make stuff for American companies when they can be keeping the profits in their own countries to be spent on improving things there (and no, not always altruistically, but from personal greed too... people making more money want more toys and a higher standard of living). America's own brand of corruption (it's everywhere) is helping the country onto the path of an ever decreasing circle. People who don't like it either have to work together to buy legislators who are willing to do something about it... or live with it or shut up. Yer either with me or agin me!!!

Re:Fear Not, Citizens of The Free World!

[Anonymous Coward]

what about Soviet Russia?

Re:Fear Not, Citizens of The Free World!

[theshowmecanuck]

A patriotic American modder, modded me down. Do you think I am the first person to say these things? Or are you just afraid of the truth about the path America has chosen for itself. All the U.S. needs to do is get its head out of its ass and stop making stupid fucking IP laws that stifle innovation rather than promote it. Stifle innovation in favour of corporate profits, share of which are increasingly held by fewer and richer people. Deal with it.

Rubber stamp

[markdavis]

Well, at least it requires a COURT ORDER, instead of just letting some department do whatever the hell they want.

But it still sounds ripe for abuse, and confusion, and possibly being expensive to implement and maintain.

Re:Rubber stamp

[scharkalvin]

It should require MORE than a court order. It should require a conviction in the traffic of copyrighted material in violation of the copyright act before a site can be black listed. Being accused of such should NOT be enough.

Re:Rubber stamp

[Jawnn]

Well, at least it requires a COURT ORDER, instead of just letting some department do whatever the hell they want.

But it still sounds ripe for abuse, and confusion, and possibly being expensive to implement and maintain.

"Requires a court order" You're funny.

Re:Rubber stamp

[AngryDeuce]

Well, at least it requires a COURT ORDER, instead of just letting some department do whatever the hell they want.

Care to guess what the ratio of requested to granted is on those "court orders"? 100%. Well, guess we can finally add the Judicial Branch to the Executive and Legislative to the "bought off" list...sad.

Re:Rubber stamp

[elrous0]

The corporations will just find a sympathetic (i.e. bribed) federal judge, and all their subsequent block requests will go to him--which he'll rubber stamp without even reading.

Re:Rubber stamp

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be a court ordered injunction. Much like a restraining order, it prohibits a party or parties from engaging in certain acts, it is not a determination of criminality per se. No criminal act need have been committed in order to get an injunction, nor one even alleged - let alone proven. If the injunction is violated, the party or parties may then have criminal charges brought against them, even if the act in and of itself is not criminal in nature.

Re:Rubber stamp

[Anonymous Coward]

Court Order == Mandate From Government. "Expensive to implement/maintain" == "We're going to be paying ourselves lots out of our huge budget for many years". Is anyone really uncomfortable with how the brotherhood is deciding these days? How can we get face-to-face with these people and tell them how to do their jobs correctly?

Re:Rubber stamp

[Anonymous Coward]

Right now there are certain circumstances where they are not following due process per the Fourth Amendment... Do you think that they will be stopped by a paltry Court Order?

Re:Rubber stamp

[zeroshade]

Doesn't matter, you can argue against a restraining order and contest it, there is notification. In this case the DOJ can just get their court order without the knowledge of the person running the site and they have, effectively, no recourse.

Re:Rubber stamp

[Defenestrar]

Exactly, otherwise you've set aside the entire premises of "innocent until proven guilty."

Although there do have to be provisions to prevent harm while the decision is made by the courts (the whole idea behind setting bail or denying bail). The courts have decided that in the event that you'll do a runner or whack off another person, they can keep you in jail ("presumed innocent" of course...) until the jury hears the case out.

In the case of IP on the 'net: if you've got a new artist who's just had something start selling but is really on the brink of feeding her family - the length of a court case could force her out of the creation business and back to the supermarket checkout business. On the other hand, if a website has some legit (but borderline not-quite-infringing) business, with the way traffic and trends are set on the internet a blackout during a court case could equally tank that business.

In theory, this is where the court order will come in with an IP case. My preference is that the Judge would issue a decision based at least on part of the survivability of an artist vs a host (such that an order to suspend will occur more often in small content rather than big content cases). There should also be an automatic time-out on the suspension if legal actions do not proceed (e.g. you can't simply accuse someone of being a communist, or a witch, or an IP infringer and then leave town leaving the burden of setting the bonfire alight with the public (because defense is the burden of the right holder)). In cases of obvious infringement I'm sure the judge will make the obvious decision.

What gets interesting is the question of jurisdiction. But I'll let someone else take a stab at that one.

Re:Rubber stamp

[Ungrounded Lightning]

It would be a court ordered injunction. Much like a restraining order, it prohibits a party or parties from engaging in certain acts, it is not a determination of criminality per se. No criminal act need have been committed in order to get an injunction, nor one even alleged - let alone proven.

And in the case of such injunctions brought pursuant to a civil case, the party requesting one must indemnify they parties damaged by the injunction if they don't later successfully show the enjoined act was improper. For instance: If distribution of a work for profit is enjoined and it later turns out that the distributor had, or had licensed, the distribution rights, the party asking for the injunction must pay to replace the lost profit and other damages to the distributor.

Is that the case with THIS abomination?

Re:Rubber stamp

[Anonymous Coward]

whack off another person

That would be terrible!!

BTW: I think you mean "whack another person" :P

Re:Rubber stamp

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like wiretapping, right? You know, where you need a court order to get a wiretap. Otherwise its illegal... oh wait!

Re:Rubber stamp

[Anonymous Coward]

the party asking for the injunction must pay to replace the lost profit and other damages to the distributor.

Correct. Kind of. It is and would be true but for the exemption of "The United States, its officers, and its agencies", who are not required to do so.

Re:Rubber stamp

[Anonymous Coward]

It does matter and you do NOT have to give notice.

The court may issue a temporary restraining order without written or oral notice to the adverse party or its attorney only if:

(A) specific facts in an affidavit or a verified complaint clearly show that immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or damage will result to the movant before the adverse party can be heard in opposition; and

(B) the movant's attorney certifies in writing any efforts made to give notice and the reasons why it should not be required.

The recourse in this case would be a motion to dissolve.

On 2 days' notice to the party who obtained the order without notice — or on shorter notice set by the court — the adverse party may appear and move to dissolve or modify the order. The court must then hear and decide the motion as promptly as justice requires.

In other words, if you find out there is an injunction against you for which you have not been noticed - you can file a motion to dissolve. Then there is a hearing (the party who obtained the order MUST be given 2 days notice - or less if set by the court).

If the motion to dissolve is denied, one still has more recourse. The adverse party can then appeal to a higher court to lift the injunction.

However, all of this would be on your own dime, and you would not be remunerated for lost profit and other damages resulting of such an injunction as The United States, its officers, and its agencies are exempt from "security".

There is justice in there somewhere, the question is (as with everything else): Can you afford it?

Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[beringreenbear]

The damage has been halted for now. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon put a hold on the bill, meaning that the Senate leadership is on notice that he will filibusterer it if the bill moves to full debate and vote.

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[lennier1]

A politician who acts based on common sense???

I get the feeling this 2012 armageddon stuff isn't completely bogus after all.

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[Dyinobal]

He'll wait till he gets enough concessions from the opposition on other topics and then endorse a more broadly powered act.

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[CriminalNerd]

Sadly, it'll probably just get paperclipped with a budget-related bill to bypass the filibuster like they did with the Patriot Act extensions.

It'd be nice if the rest of the Senate decides that it's actually a terrible bill and vote to kill it.

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[datapharmer]

I wouldn't bet on it. He is one of the only decent senator's we've got in the U.S.

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[Lunix Nutcase]

A politician who acts based on common sense???

Hahahahaha. Good joke. Wyden supports something similar to what this bill does just in a more limited scope. If you thought he did this because he was against the whole idea you are sadly mistaken.

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[elrous0]

Wow, a Congressman doing the right thing. Have a good look kids, you're seeing something rarer than Haley's Comet.

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[L4t3r4lu5]

Where can I donate to this guy's... Whatever I can donate to to support this guy?

I'm not even American. I still want to give this man money and support.

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[countertrolling]

Strictly a PR move for the folks back home. He's fully aware that this is only a speed bump, not tire spikes.. It's the same game Kucinich played over the health care law. Someone will read him the riot act, and he will back down..

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[SeeSp0tRun]

Which is why I would like to introduce a bill with no provisions, which would make it illegal to piggyback bills.
They are what they are, take it or leave it.
No?
Next subject.

If anyone needs me, I'll be hanging out in my own utopia.

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[drinkypoo]

No?

No. But you're right that it's probably a necessity if we're going to unfuck this country.

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[Jason Levine]

When is Ron Wyden up for reelection? I can't vote for him (I'm on the opposite coast) but we should let Slashdotters in Oregon know when they should vote to keep this guy in.

Also, who voted *FOR* this bill and when are they up for reelection so we can vote them out?

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[happy*nix]

It wouldn't hurt to go to his web-site and thank him.

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[Jason Levine]

I'd love to see this happen. It would force real compromise and talks. You couldn't buy votes with promises to send some $$$ to the senator/representative's district via a rider. (Thus, less pork.) You also couldn't try to torpedo a bill by adding an unreasonable rider that you know nobody would vote for. Instead, you would need to craft a bill that enough people would vote for. You would need to work *WITH* the minority and the excesses of each party could be counter-balanced.

If we can't do this, I'd at least like to see the President have the ability to line item veto things. So he could approve Very-Important-Spending-Bill without approving Rider-That-Restricts-Freedom-Of-Speech. To provide counterbalance, the vetoed riders could be individually voted on by Congress to override the line item veto. (Of course, if the rider has that much support, it should be its own bill, not a rider.)

Of course, none of this will ever happen because it would actually reduce Congress' power. No longer would they be able to funnel money to their districts by holding their votes for ransom and no longer would they be able to just stick any old text to a bill and have it pass because the bill *HAD* to be approved.

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[jdfox]

Wyden has also publicly criticized what he calls the US government's secret interpretation of the "Patriot Act".

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[Dr. Eggman]

S.968 via Thomas

Sponsor: Sen Leahy, Patrick J. [VT]

Co-Sponsors:
Sen Alexander, Lamar [TN]
Sen Blumenthal, Richard [CT]
Sen Blunt, Roy [MO]
Sen Coons, Christopher A. [DE]
Sen Feinstein, Dianne [CA]
Sen Franken, Al [MN] (Say it ain't so, Franky!)
Sen Gillibrand, Kirsten E. [NY]
Sen Graham, Lindsey [SC]
Sen Grassley, Chuck [IA]
Sen Hatch, Orrin G. [UT]
Sen Klobuchar, Amy [MN]
Sen Kohl, Herb [WI]
Sen Rubio, Marco [FL]
Sen Schumer, Charles E. [NY]
Sen Whitehouse, Sheldon [RI]

However, the vote was merely to put it on the Senate calendar. I don't believe there's records for how that proceeded in the Judiciary Committee. If your interested in the individuals currently on this Committee and how it functions, I suggest this wikipedia article.

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

This just emphasizing what should have been apparent to begin with: this wasn't passed into law. And as noted above, it's not even been introduced for discussion as law. It was likely passed in committee so that the committee members can tell their corporate interests that they did what they were paid to do. All of which means - the above action notwithstanding - you need to get off your proverbial ass and write your senators to tell them where you stand on this. If you don't even make the attempt, IMO you forfeit the right to complain about it.

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Which is why I would like to introduce a bill with no provisions, which would make it illegal to piggyback bills. They are what they are, take it or leave it. No? Next subject.

If anyone needs me, I'll be hanging out in my own utopia.

Interesting historical fact: Section 9 of the Confederate States Constitutionincluded exactly such a provision:

Every law or resolution having the force of law, shall relate to but one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title.

Personally, I'd also like to see something requiring that each new law or regulation passed for a period of 12 years require that two laws be repealed. That would perhaps clear out some of the old cruft...

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

The first thing you must realize is that you're not donating to him. You're donating to his CAMPAIGN. See how that works? That way we don't have to admit that it's bribery.

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[butalearner]

A politician who acts based on common sense???

Hahahahaha. Good joke. Wyden supports something similar to what this bill does just in a more limited scope. If you thought he did this because he was against the whole idea you are sadly mistaken.

Typically I'm as cynical as anybody else when it comes to politicians, but after voting against bailouts, COICA and now this, Wyden seems like one of the few non-corporate-owned Congressmen left. Though he does support drastically reducing the corporate tax rate, he doesn't bow to their every wish like most of his colleagues. Hopefully he's beaten his prostate cancer and sticks with us for a while.

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[GameboyRMH]

Tire spikes? You think too small. We need that wall of spikes that rises out of the ground and causes the car to impale itself with its own momentum like in the new Death Race.

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad I voted for him.

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[countertrolling]

It's very easy for them to take a 'controversial' stand when they have no real influence on how the vote will turn out.. Learned that little lesson with Kucinich... they pretend to take the opposing side when they know full well the thing will pass with the remaining votes.. If this and the patriot cat depended on their vote, they would be all for it, which preaching against it.. It's a very common ploy to play both sides.. Too bad people still fall for this old gag.. The party will replace these guys right quick if they don't play ball

Re:Bill Stuck In Senate Plumbing

[countertrolling]

Means nothing.. He ended up voting to renew it.. but let's all continue to ignore that little tidbit

Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[elrous0]

I've said for a long time that a U.S. great firewall was coming. I'm frankly just surprised it took so long. Sadly, this will now begin a big chase game of "change our IP" "IP blocked, change it again" for all the torrent/controversial sites that the government doesn't like. No more typing "wikileaks.org" into our browsers' URL field. Now we have to find a (hopefully) updated IP address from some site that will probably itself be blocked shortly after it starts offering a list.

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[lennier1]

There's a reason why we have addons like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mafiaafire-redirector/ to automate that process.

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[cob666]

Or, it's back to ftp and gopher. I also wonder how this would impact something like newsgroups.

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[Anonymous Coward]

The spammers have already solved this problem with something called "fast flux DNS".

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[johanw]

This may also explain why Google and Mozilla plan on removing the browser URL field. It prevents more people from being able to go anywhere where the mighty Google or it's countries junta doesn's point us to.

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[elrous0]

Considering the government has essentially turned over control of this to the corporations (they're the ones who get the right to petition for removal), it wouldn't surprise me if Sony runs to a judge and demands that they block mozilla.org.

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[elrous0]

Shit, now I have to remember how to use all those damned Archie characters again for searching. Anyone remember which one was for searching gopher?

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[elrous0]

The government is already working on a "flux capacitor" to stop this.

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[forand]

Interesting? Really? The changes to Chrome's UI do remove the URL bar but do not remove the URL field. When the user highlights the tab they see the URL field, when they don't they get more screen real estate for content. By and large this is a great UI design change. I don't need to see the huge URL telling me Nth directory the site I am visiting stores their HTML in (look at Slashdot do you type in the link to this story?). But good on you for making it sound like some nefarious plan between Google and oppressive regimes to not let people browse to non approved sites, don't let reality stand in your way.

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[Jaysyn]

Aren't they just replacing the URL bar with another bar that handles URLs & other things besides URLs. Also, they are both open source so if it's a problem, they will get forked & life will go on.

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[thijsh]

You are right to be surprised... Even though the US just recently voiced their opinion on the great firewall and middle eastern nations filtering the Internet as 'serious restriction of freedom'. But the fact that the US condemns something just means that it's bad if someone else is doing it, let's look at some history of things the US condemns:

- Torture and other severe human rights violations
- Not adhering to international rules of armed conflict
- Attacking other nations without declaration of war
- Killing unarmed civilians
- Cooperating with terrorists
- Restricting people's freedom to move
- Spying on your own citizens
- Religious nutjobs screaming for blood in government
- Military missions on friendly sovereign soil
- Restricting freedom of speech
- Filtering the Internet

As you can see by the US own standards *they* are 'the bad guys'... these were real condemnations made by the US (and sometimes reason to invade countries and prosecute people). I have literally seen news broadcasts where the US condemns another state for restricting the Internet and freedom and in another newsitem in the same broadcast I see the announcement of these new laws restricting the Internet in the US... talk about a double standard!

Oh land of the free, how deep you have fallen...

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[f8l_0e]

Does your ISP still include access to newsgroups? AT&T and Comcast haven't included NNTP service for at least two years.

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[lennier1]

Easy. Just adapt this addon for Chrome, wait until they try to do the same to Google and don't forget to keep plenty of popcorn within reach.

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[Anonymous Coward]

When I read that they where removing the url bar I was dumfounded. I was like .. they are taking the single most useful part of the browser away from me. I use the url bar more than I use the back button and bookmarks combined. :/

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[Conspiracy_Of_Doves]

Shouldn't even require a fork, just a plugin.

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[unr3a1]

Remember though, every step towards less freedom needs to be exactly that. A step. Obviously they aren't going to take away the URL bar completely right from the start. It starts with a "UI change" until Google, or some other company looks at data and sees that no one really uses the URL bar anymore and then they choose to disable it by default. So in order to have it, you have to go into settings and enable it. Then after a few years (possibly less) they look at the data again, and determine that they can eliminate the option completely because less than 1% of computer users actually use it.

There is a reason the saying "Out of sight, out of mind" exists. Now, I am not trying to say that I think that Google or Mozilla is eliminating the URL bar for the specific purpose of getting people to forget about it or any kind of conspiracy theories like that. I am sure they are doing it because it will improve the overall look of the browser. But I do feel it will come with a level of unfavorable results in our options or level of control of where and how we browse the Internet in the future.

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

You see this is something that Google *wants* to have to deal with? If this ever becomes law, it would add massive headache and costs for them.

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[Jaysyn]

Right on.

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[esocid]

Who modded this troll insightful?

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[GameboyRMH]

Better to use the fork with security fixes:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fireice/

And this is just a band-aid fix. You need to redirect more than just your browser.

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[lennier1]

It's just the first step. Stuff on a deeper level (similar to PeerBlock) or even encrypted tunneling are bound to become mainstream if they keep up crap like this.

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[GameboyRMH]

I thought PeerBlock and encrypted tunneling were already commonly used for torrents?

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the gov just blocks the mozilla addons site (or just Mozilla/Firefox alltogether).

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[Anonymous Coward]

> (look at Slashdot do you type in the link to this story?)

No, but I copy/pasted it out of a mush client and into the url bar when someone in on my friend list made me aware of the story. Is that close enough?

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[Anonymous Coward]

"More real estate"?! Is screen real estate at such a premium that we need to jump through hoops to see the address of the site we're browsing? My screen is larger than ever before, and web browsers have been around since the days of 15" screens; but now it's suddenly a move to save every precious pixel...

Re:Goodbye thepiratebay.org

[strikethree]

Meh. If you do not frequently see the URL, how are you supposed to REMEMBER it. Sure, the OPs dystopian future may be a bit around the bend, but these stupid UI changes that REMOVE information and the ability to change things is going in EXACTLY the wrong direction.

You want changes to the UI, fine. I am all for experimentation.

STOP TAKING THE ABILITY TO KNOW AND CHANGE THINGS FROM ME.

That is all.

NOT the PATRIOT act

[gti_guy]

Reading helps.... the PROTECT IP act is *NOT* the PATRIOT act. Two different things entirely.

Re:NOT the PATRIOT act

[countertrolling]

Not really.. Both are grievous offenses against our rights, just in different areas. Resistance to both, and all the others that are on the books are equally important. The idea is to fight infringement by the authorities and make them ineffective.

Re:NOT the PATRIOT act

[Jawnn]

Reading helps.... the PROTECT IP act is *NOT* the PATRIOT act. Two different things entirely.

I beg to differ. From the standpoint of personal liberty and privacy, not so much.

Guilty without trial

[commodore64_love]

The sites merely have to be ACCUSED of being copyright infringers. Remember when Homeland Security yanked thousands of websites off the net, including several that were merely personal blogs or news sites?

This is no good. We have courts for a reason - to protect the citizenry from overzealous leaders assuming guilt and enacting punishment against innocent persons.

Re:Guilty without trial

[Anonymous Coward]

It is an injunction, not a determination of guilt (verdict). It is not a punishment, per se.

No incarceration, no damages awarded, etc..

Were it between two corporations, or two people, or between a corporation and a person - such an order would carry with it "security". Meaning that if/when the motion to dissolve is granted and/or the order lifted on appeal, the adverse party (the one the order was wrongly issued against) would be entitled to lost profits and/or damages resulting from said order to be paid by the party who obtained the order (the movant).

HOWEVER, since the MAFIAA is doing this THROUGH the federal government, "security" (FRCP 65c) does not apply as The United States, its officers, and its agencies just so happen to be exempt. ;)

the internet and the govt

[Anonymous Coward]

The internet was better off before the legal and judicial systems were even aware of it.

The boffins at DARPA came up with it, and for decades, all was well - from the 70's up until the mid 90's at least. It succeeded beyond anyone's wildest dreams *because* no one was in control of it. It was an anarchy. If you don't want to see something, don't look, and if you do, then do.

It will die in practice because of people who, for one reason or another, think they have the right to tell other people what they can and cannot do.

Re:the internet and the govt

[Anonymous Coward]

The internet was better off before the legal and judicial systems were even aware of it.

The internet was better off before the corporations were even aware of it.

FTFY.
--
codk

Re:the internet and the govt

[ubermiester]

Nonsense. You can do whatever you like in a public place as long as you don't break the law. A street vendor can sell DVDs as long as they have the right to do so. But if they decide that they are going to sell DVDs they cam-corded at the multiplex, they are breaking the law. (the "copyright" is a constitutional construct that is defined in the law).

On the web it's the same thing. You can sell digital content if you have the right to, but if you distribute that content without the right to do so, you are breaking the law.

The only reason people complain about this enforcement on the web is because they got used to a world without it and don't want their free lunch taken away.

There will always be mistakes and even abuse in the enforcement of any law, but that is not a reason to eliminate enforcement altogether.

Re:the internet and the govt

[russotto]

The internet was better off before the legal and judicial systems were even aware of it.

The internet was better off before the corporations were even aware of it.

Corporations were aware of the internet for decades before this problems arose.

Re:the internet and the govt

[cpghost]

You must be very young. The ARPANET was invented by people working for BBN, Rand Corporation, etc... and one of the three first nodes was at SDC, a corporation (the other two at Berkeley and MIT).

Relax, the bill is on HOLD thanks to Senator Wyden

[gti_guy]

check out http://broadbandbreakfast.com/2011/05/senate-committee-passes-protect-ip-act-but-wyden-issues-quick-halt/

Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

...how fake law names can be "PATRIOT ACT" & "PROTECT IP".

Re:Funny

[lennier1]

Sponsored by the Ministry of Truth (tm).

Re:Funny

[Alex Belits]

IP is protected.
At the bottom of the stairs.

(Lowtax is an idiot, but inspiring this was the greatest achievement of his whole life)

Upgrade network infrastructure

[Gannimo]

Well, this calls for decentralized DNS and some tor like network overlay...

Re:Upgrade network infrastructure

[Anonymous Coward]

With DNSSEC authenticating the content of a DNS record, we can do reliable decentralized DNS since the server doesn't have to be necessary a "trusted" machine.

Re:Upgrade network infrastructure

[countertrolling]

That is probably a good start, but how does it protect you from the actions of your service provider who will, in the name of 'god', be spying on your every move? We need real P2P and to prevent what we say and do from being used against us.. My question is, how do we achieve that? Preferably in a peaceful manner, but ultimately, any way we can, if that's what it takes.

So where does this leave us?

[Anonymous Coward]

This will sail past congress and the president, leaving the internet effectively censored at the whim of an increasingly corrupt -and scarily theocratic- government.

I think Prince was right -for the wrong reasons- the freedom and promise of the internet IS over, as is it's usefulness.

Good night, sweet prince
Internet: 1993-2011 R.I.P.

Re:So where does this leave us?

[Randle_Revar]

>Internet: 1993-
Nope. The phrase you are looking for is "world wide web", and even that is actually a few years older than Mosaic

Re:So where does this leave us?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think they're going to stop with the world wide web, you're an idiot. This effects torrents, ftp, usenet [is that still around?], irc --EVERYTHING.

DNS and doman name snatches/blockages affect all protocols, don't you know that?

Prohibition

[KillaGouge]

Does the government not remember how well prohibition went? Have they not learned that by making something illegal they are only going to push more people to to figure out ways around it.

Re:Prohibition

[denis-The-menace]

It worked so well for drugs they decided to try it on personal freedom that you now get groped and you can't say shit.

This goes after online communications.

Soon they will be tapping every phone and steaming open every letter and parcel.

Re:Prohibition

[Gideon Wells]

This isn't quite equatable to prohibition. Prohibition outlawed alcohol for consumption based on an ideological battle that left no legal alternatives for acquiring alcoholic drinks.

This is a move to censor and remove access to certain websites based on an ideological battle that attempts to crack down and censoring activities already perceived, or already are, by the law makers as being illegal.

This is not prohibition. Its increased enforcement of existing policy and law mixed with openings for potential abuse, a frightening precedent setting event thrown in a toboggan on a slippery slope.

Re:Prohibition

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think anyone in their right mind would expect this to actually work.

It is simply a way of saying to campaign contributors/lobbies "We are doing something about it".

This type of thing will go on until the large content cartels find a way to transition their business/distribution models while preserving their established stranglehold on the market and ultimately on consumers (and their wallets).

Re:Prohibition

[BlastfireRS]

At the rate things are headed, they certainly won't have to steam open any letters; you'll receive them clearly opened, with an official government seal marked "Approved." That is, if you receive it at all.

Re:Prohibition

[drinkypoo]

Does the government not remember how well prohibition went?

Went? We still have loads of it. And it's working exactly as designed... it keeps those privatized prisons for profit stuffed.

Re:Prohibition

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you haven't tried to buy pot recently have you?

Damn POS government will actually ignore crime so they can chase potheads around where I live, it isn't that they don't know about it, quit the contrary, they are counting on it. They like the ability to hold something over your head.

Re:Prohibition

[Ihmhi]

In the video game Mirror's Edge, the player character (and her comrades) are "runners" - private couriers who use Sneakernet (i.e. moving data in portable data storage on foot) to transport things from A to B because the networks are monitored by a totalitarian government. The lines are all bugged, so the only safe way to get info from A to B is on foot.

Perhaps it's high time to start up an interstate courier business...

Re:Prohibition

[drinkypoo]

...and we will come full-circle to using UUCP again. If the couriers are hot it gives a whole new meaning to bang paths.

Re:Prohibition

[Anonymous Coward]

They can't even keep drugs out of prisons, for crying out loud! Censoring search engine results is ridiculous.

On the other hand, this will be helpful in discouraging the spread of dissenting political views.

Re:Prohibition

[Ihmhi]

Well, at least the courier in Mirror's Edge is pretty hot.

Possible missuse

[currently_awake]

So if I hack the republicans website to host copyrighted material then the entire republican party gets banned from the internet?

Re:Possible missuse

[steelfood]

Oh the irony if a major political party's web servers were used to host a torrent tracker without their knowledge.

That'd be unlikely though, as someone would easily notice the sudden spike in traffic a tracker brings.

Re:Possible missuse

[Anonymous Coward]

So if I hack the republicans website to host copyrighted material then the entire republican party gets banned from the internet?

your IP address has been logged. please wait for the men in black.

Re:Possible missuse

[Craboe]

You do realise this came out of a dumbocrat controled committee not a repugant one don't ya.

Re:Possible missuse

[Anonymous Coward]

We'll see after this democrat-proposed bill gets passed by a democrat-controlled congress and signed by a democratic president, then enforced by appointees of said democratic president.

But hey, don't let the facts get in the way of a good old /. republican bash.

Re:Possible missuse

[aztrailerpunk]

why stop there. We could shut down both parties and push our own agenda.

Welcome to United States of Iran, guys!

[Anonymous Coward]

It is both depressing and ironic how the same things that happened 10-12 years ago in Iran, are happening in US right now! Now we all need a communication software which is not dependant on (state sponsored) telcos. You know, somthing like freenet, but it should also work!

Lolusa

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd think your government would at least have the common courtesy to give you a reach-around when reaming the country in the ass so hard that your teeth chatter.

But nooo....

Which version?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which version of IP does this protect? IPv4 or IPv6 ?

Only accused???

[Grand Facade]

What happened to innocent til proven guilty?

Who will be doing the accusing?

No I did not read the article, but this is a fair reaction to the OP

Re:Only accused???

[Jason Levine]

What happened to innocent til proven guilty?

It still exists. Only "proven guilty" has now been redefined as "accused of copyright infringement." Just a small, minor change. Nothing to get worked up over, consumers... I mean citizens.

Who will be doing the accusing?

Only the most important people in this country: The Entertainment Industry*

* Pending the passage of the Entertainment Industry Is Better Than Everyone Else bill which the RIAA/MPAA is going to introduce into Congress later this year via some "concerned" (read: heavily lobbied) congressfolk.

Re:Only accused???

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be a court ordered injunction. Much like a restraining order, it prohibits a party or parties from engaging in certain acts, it is not a determination of criminality per se. No criminal act need have been committed in order to get an injunction, nor one even alleged - let alone proven. If the injunction is violated, the party or parties may then have criminal charges brought against them, even if the act in and of itself is not criminal in nature.

Possible routes of redress.
If notice is given, a hearing is held, the adverse party has an opportunity to convince a judge that the motion should be denied.
If no notice is given, a hearing will be held. The party who obtained the order must proceed with the motion; if the movant does not, the court must dissolve the order.

On 2 days' notice to the party who obtained the order without notice — or on shorter notice set by the court — the adverse party may appear and move to dissolve or modify the order. The court must then hear and decide the motion as promptly as justice requires.

There is also redress in that once an injunction has been issued, you can of course appeal to the court to have said injunction lifted.

Re:Only accused???

[Anonymous Coward]

Who will be doing the accusing?

The corporations. The people who can afford to hire teams to troll the internet 24/7 to "protect" their IP.

Note how there is nary a peep from independent artists or content developers. The people demanding this kind of legislation are all huge corporations.

I hope anonymous steps up!

[DarkOx]

Hopefully anonymous will DDOS these senators re-election sites off the web!

Ridiculous

[Anonymous Coward]

I sense a Streisand effect in the making here...

How long will it be before we see bumper stickers and tshirts with open DNS ip addresses on them?

Not to mention the explosion in Eastern European based search engines?

Our elected officials are so freaking stupid...

Official answer: thoughtcrime

[Errol backfiring]

Under DMCA, freenet and tor are probably "circumvention devices". So you are guilty of wanting free speech.

Re:Official answer: thoughtcrime

[hduff]

Under DMCA, freenet and tor are probably "circumvention devices". So you are guilty of wanting free speech.

"Free Speech" is the new COMMUNISM!

Download it!

Re:Official answer: thoughtcrime

[maztuhblastah]

Under DMCA, freenet and tor are probably "circumvention devices". So you are guilty of wanting free speech.

Wonderful exaggeration there. Really chilling stuff.

Unfortunately, it's in clear disagreement with reality. I take it you haven't read the actual law. If so, please cite exactly where you think freenet and tor run afoul, and why it applies to them and not any software with any form of encrypted communication.

Re:Official answer: thoughtcrime

[cpghost]

If you want to defend freedom, you may have to willfully break laws that take freedom away, even if it means that you or your relatives and friends will be shot or locked behind bars. What did Jefferson say about it? "A little rebellion every now and then is a good thing." And remember: a rebellion is always illegal by the legal standards in place, but still highly necessary to preserve or restore freedom. And our digital rebellion is using programs like Freenet et al., even after their use will have been criminalized.

^^^^^^^ This!

[imric]

Indirect actions that do not materially affect these guys' quest for power will be ignored.

Re:^^^^^^^ This!

[steelfood]

As if DDoSing their websites would have any effect on their election. Put up a bunch of attack ads on TV and you have something. Buy some ads in meatspace, and people will notice. Make phone calls. Pass out signs and bumper stickers. These things will make people notice. The loss of a website would affect only a small percentage of voters, and even so, it certainly wouldn't make those affected switch their vote in any way. After all, there are so many other avenues of "information" out there about their favorite candidate.

Not that the opponent your attacks would be indirectly promoting would be any better. Unless you could provide a good alternative, even if you had the money to plaster the populace with campaign ads everywhere, you'd still be fucked in the end, just by the other candidate instead. But by that time, you'd have the money and resources to run your own campaign, which is probably what you should've done in the first place.

Not a problem

[troll -1]

The bill would create a list of blocked Internet sites, added Ed Black, president and CEO of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a tech trade group.

. Users who want content will find a way around this. There's already a firefox add-on to circumvent Department of Homeland Security seized domains like torrent-finder.com. Thanks to Streisand effect of government domain seizures I found some great torrent sites I never before knew existed.

Re:Not a problem

[erroneus]

Uh... they are talking about more than DNS blocking. They are talking about blocking entire areas of the internet. Great news for Cisco, bad news for just about everyone else including people who aren't the slightest bit interested in having access to ThePirateBay.org.

The Invisible Internet Project is running

[Burz]

http://www.geti2p.net/

I've been using it for over a year and it works very well. It has email, web sites, bittorrent, and emule among other things (they are working on bitcoin too). Your public key is the same as your address, and routing is highly decentralized (everyone internally routes for the network by default) so even blocking people by IP or their key address is not really possible.

New name for the USA?

[Errol backfiring]

Commercial Crony-Capitalist Pact

I agree, but...

[itchythebear]

Is decentralized DNS enough? Im pretty sure your ISP can block traffic to any IP address they want to, much like I can configure my router to not allow any outbound or inbound traffic to any specified IP address. I could be wrong about this, but it's something I always wondered about...

Re:I agree, but...

[cpghost]

Working at a major NOC here... Yes, it is possible to null-route or redirect almost any address block, and this can be done with lists automatically provided by the government in near real time. However, all hope is not lost: as long as we netizens can upload anything at all (and TCP pretty much requires this back channel), we'll end up redirecting traffic as in tor, freenet, etc. And as soon as this traffic is disguised as "legitimate" HTTP(S), it can't be stopped. The next step by the mafiaa-controlled government could only be a whitelist of approved sites, but if we're so far down the road, the Internet would be dead already.

like at work

[queBurro]

is this IP blocking (like at work but done by my ISP?) or is this the website not showing up in my "Bing" results?

Re:like at work

[Ultra64]

Yes

Accused?

[Soluzar]

I'm not surprised, although I am dismayed to see that the operative word here seems to be 'accused'. Not 'proven', or 'demonstrated', or anything like that, no sir. Even if I accept that copyright infringement is a terrible thing and must be stopped at all costs, this seems to potentially reach far beyond that goal while ignoring the fact that a lot of filesharing already takes place 'off the grid' as far as search engines are concerned. The Powers That Be will now now be able to shut down websites just by accusing them. I weep for our lost liberty. The internet is in danger of turning into an Orwellian nightmare if TPTB get their way.

Search engine over HTTPS without logs of any kind

[thijsh]

Search engine over HTTPS without logs of any kind (like Duckduckgo). This way they can't prove the search engine sent the user to the "worst of the worst" site... You still need alternate DNS and/or proxy/VPN to get to the site, but at least sites can still be found with search engines.

What surprises me here is that they want to block the "worst of the worst" and they haven't even mentioned the tired old kiddie porn angle... that is certainly worse than anything! The only way they could surprise me more is by being so honest as naming the future targets: all sites opposing corporations in any way and all sites that spread generic 'anti-american' messages (a.k.a. terrorists). Wikileaks will be one of the first of the sites we know that will be blocked like this... all such sites after that will not even be known to anyone when they are blocked, not listed in searches and not mentioned in media.

Doubleplus goodmove Minitrue!!!

What about pages that link to pages that link to..

[01101010001010001010]

What if CNN had a single link to a page with some content alleged to be pirated IP, would Google block all access to CNN? If I spot someone has infringed my copyright by quoting more than the legally-allowed fair use amounts of something I wrote, can I just get them dumped off Google? Cool! Where's the site that lists the sites that Google isn't allowed to link to? Can Google link to that site? I wish the US Govt the best of luck with this whole 'legislate your way out of a changing market' thing. Interesting experiment (unless you happen to be in the US, of course). P

For once I'd like to see lobbyists...

[SeeSp0tRun]

This would definitely hurt the traffic of Google, Bing, and Yahoo to name a few.
Being based off of advertisements, I would think that Google would most definitely lobby against this, and quite heavily.

I'm not one for corporate lobbyists, but then again, 99/100 times it is something to screw over Joe Consumer. This may be the 1/100...

Protecting IP is like protecting Oil

[erroneus]

Here is what we have seen of the oil industry. We have seen the oil industry defended, protected, supported and subsidized in every way imaginable (including militarily) by the US government. We have known for a very long time that world oil supplies are not limitless and that the demand for it is still rising and the price of it is also ratcheting upwards. Although the efforts for alternatives to oil and other fossil fuels are only now seemingly becoming more aggressive (I'm not yet convinced that there is any effort that I would call a serious commitment on the part of the government) it is generally agreed that it is long over due and most would even say it is too late in coming as many actions have resulted in directly or indirectly suppressing any competing technologies to the use of fossil fuels for energy.

But the US recognizes that in a fairly short time [* in relative terms], the oil business will be dead. But how is this like intellectual property?

The US's shift in production economy has been shifting from agriculture to manufacturing to services and now to intellectual property. The US was a leader in each of these things in their day and over time, all of these have been reduced, minimalized and concentrated in ways that make these activities profitable for only a small group of companies and individuals where many of these things are actually sent over-seas. Intellectual property is just about the last thing the US has to export and in order to maintain its profitability, we have to ensure that all other world players honor our IP by adopting laws and policies which support the US desire to remain dominant.

Over the years, we have witnessed all sorts of measures and activities pushed by the US such as the DMCA, copyright police proposals, pressuring [bullying] other countries into creating draconian law [which doesn't yet exist here in the US because it would be amazingly unpopular] and even influencing other nations into violating their own laws and procedures to satisfy the agenda of the IP business interests here in the U.S. (You know, like the illegal seizure and take down of the piratebay.)

I expect to see much worse in the near future INCLUDING military action. Sure, it's hard to justify military action for copying music, music and more, but it's not hard to imagine... you know "funding terrorism," "being run by terrorists," or even "harboring known terrorists" as cause for sending in a SEAL team or something like that. But what is "wrong" with this?

Turns out that media wants to be free and increasingly, we are seeing independent artists and groups pushing their way to the front lines of popularity thanks to emerging technologies and media. This is resulting in "old media" and other IP industry struggling for ways to compete and they are resorting to bribing... err, I mean, influencing government into defending, protecting, supporting and subsidizing their business models in every way imaginable. In the end, it is easy to see how and why "old media" and other IP industry are going away and their their days are numbered. But since the rest of the US has essentially been sold out, it is the second to the last massive resource the US has going for it.

Yes, I said "second to the last." What's that last? In case you didn't guess, it's PEOPLE. Already we have seen massive privatization of the prison industry. It's not widely spoken of or even cared about because "criminals are bad people" and we don't care about them right? In these privatized prisons, there are massive labor and services being performed by prisoners at wages below "minimum wage" and under conditions which rival the sweatshops of the 18th and 19th century. And with the massive criminalization of just about everything imaginable, it's easy to see what's coming and for whom it comes... the non-citizens, ex-citizens and non-voting-felons of the US... a class of people which is accelerating and growing in ways that are simply being ignored by the media and others at the moment.

I kn

Re:Protecting IP is like protecting Oil

[inKubus]

That's a pretty negative comment. I forsee a future of peace on earth where we all have what we need thanks to Robots.

Re:Protecting IP is like protecting Oil

[Terwin]

IP licensing revenue is estimated between $100B and $200B annually
http://dcipattorney.com/2010/12/the-us173-4b-global-intellectual-property-marketplace/

US Manufacturing was _Measured_ at just under 1.7T in 2009
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41349653/ns/business-us_business/t/despite-chinas-might-us-factories-maintain-edge/

Sure IP is important, but by no means the last thing the US has to export.

IP just shows up disproportionately in the news because it is a sizable revenue stream based on an artificial scarcity that is rapidly evaporating, so if they spend 80% of their revenue on laws to slow that evaporation, that is still profitable for the owners.(or at least their lawyers)

Re:Protecting IP is like protecting Oil

[unr3a1]

That was the most brilliantly written synopsis of the IP situation in the U.S. My hat is off to you.

Proxys

[bobjr94]

Many kids even know about proxy servers and how they get around school firewalls and filters. With overseas isp's, browser add-ons and proxys this bill will do nothing, it is just the beginning of a govt regulated internet. It won't be long before every web site has to be licensed and pay taxes and fees.

+Insightful

[handy_vandal]

Ouch. I'm afraid you are right on target -- "circumvention devices".

"Guilty of wanting free speech," indeed. Nice phrase, I'll keep it handy.

Re:+Insightful

[X0563511]

The DMCA does not apply to this.

Re:+Insightful

[countertrolling]

RICO isn't supposed to apply to a guy caught with a roach in his ashtray, but somehow Sheriff Lobo will end up with a free new Suburban in his driveway at the end of his shift...

DMCA will apply to whatever the government says it applies, and if you make too much stink about it, you will end up being charged with resisting arrest, or creating a disturbance.

It applies to patents and DRM too

[AmElder]

It's not just about copyright. Sites whose only function (or just about) is related to trademark violations or is about helping people get around DRM would be targeted by this law too, if it passes. Look at the definitions section (Sec. 2, par. 7.a.ii and ii).

Re:Relax, the bill is on HOLD thanks to Senator Wy

[houstonbofh]

No, do not relax. Get him support. Ask your Senator why you have more support in Oregon than at home?

Constitution and Amendments

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if they start blocking Journalist.*** or some journalist news of the day sites, I'd say they will have a problem.
Rightfully, a court order issued without a conviction tips jurisprudence on its head, and is an affront to justice.

I'd like to see say a site called allamericanfreepress.com with links to torrents set up, with a few saucy articles on election candidates. Yes shut it down, then have the court explain why the constitution is not applicable anymore.

Who cares? Let them try.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is pointless legislation. If it passes, I will just change my DNS servers when I want to visit banned sites. It'll take less than a minute to create 2 registry files that I can click whenever I want to switch between my local DNS and a foreign DNS. I also feel confident this is unnecessary -- there already is a firefox extension that resolves IP addresses for seized domains,legislation will make these extensions mainstream.

Hooray Fascism!

[SCHecklerX]

I love living in a country where corporations write our laws.

Re:Search engine over HTTPS without logs of any ki

[hduff]

What surprises me here is that they want to block the "worst of the worst" and they haven't even mentioned the tired old kiddie porn angle... that is certainly worse than anything!

They aren't making money from kiddie porn, so it doesn't count.

Evil, yes.
Profit center, no.

Please move along, citizen.

Not rocket science

[Anonymous Coward]

people who, for one reason or another, think they have the right to tell other people what they can and cannot do

They don't think they have that "right"; they KNOW they have that "right". How do they know? Because the power already exists. Where political power exists (specifically referring to the special "right" to employ coercion as a business model), political power will be leveraged exactly as designed -- for the benefit of those in power, way up on the top of the power pyramid -- not for the benefit of the common man.

("Right" is put in quotes because it doesn't refer to natural human rights, but rather the ability to wield power over others.)

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Accused? or Convicted?

[Combatso]

I can accuse anyone of anything,..

Boycotts don't trump court decisions.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

We do it economically. How many times yesterday did you give your money to the corporations that are behind this assault on our freedom?

It takes a lot of boycotting to counter court decisions that impose HALF BILLION DOLLAR transfers of wealth from companies that have deep enough pockets to pay to the "agents of the poor injured artists".

Re:Boycotts don't trump court decisions.

[PopeRatzo]

It takes a lot of boycotting to counter court decisions that impose HALF BILLION DOLLAR transfers of wealth from companies that have deep enough pockets

Where do you think the money in those "deep pockets" comes from? How much money will they be able to transfer if we don't give them any to begin with.

Considering the salaries the people behind this power grab pay themselves, I don't think their "war chests" will last too long if we just stop giving them our money.

We should make no mistake: they are the enemy. We have to cut off their revenue stream. It's class warfare on a massive scale, and we have to use all the weapons at our disposal.

Re:Boycotts don't trump court decisions.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Where do you think the money in those "deep pockets" comes from? How much money will they be able to transfer if we don't give them any to begin with.

You're not going to give money to Lime Wire? Or other torent software providesr? Or torrent indexing sites? Or to other people that the RIAA or MPAA sue? You're not going to use Google or Bing or other web crawling sites, or click on their ads? (I could go on...)

I think you misunderstood my posting. Let me rephrase:

As long as the likes of RIAA can SUE OTHER PEOPLE and WIN BIG JUDGEMENTS or BIG OUT OF COURT SETTLEMENTS, they and their member companies DON'T NEED TO SELL RECORDS AT ALL.

Boycott them down to ZERO SALES INCOME and it won't do squat. (It will just give them bigger sales drops to use when crying to congress and the courts about how the awful internet has enabled awful pirates who are ruinging their business and SOMETHING MUST BE DONE!)

Lone Senator blocks Protect IP act shortly after..

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.tgdaily.com/business-and-law-features/56217-lone-senator-blocks-protect-ip-act

Litmus Test

[WillgasM]

I propose an easy way for senators to decide whether they should back a bill: When legislation is applauded by the MPAA and supported by ISPs, it's probably a STUPID FUCKING IDEA! When the corrupt are cheering you on in your actions, it's probably time to start moving in the opposite direction.

Re:Litmus Test

[captjc]

When the corrupt are cheering you on in your actions, it's probably time to start moving in the opposite direction.

Wait, are you under the assumption that senators aren't corrupt?

Re:Search engine over HTTPS without logs of any ki

[toriver]

Depends on how you view movies like "Pretty Baby" and "Kids".

DMCA does not apply to this

[handy_vandal]

+Informative, thx.

The best parts

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

The best parts of the bill seem to be subsections d and e of the bill. (IANAL and encourage correction or confirmation of my interpretation) :

• No matter what harm is caused in pursuing action under this legislation, the companies and individuals initiating the action are completely immune from suit. So damages cannot be recovered (possibly even if it's later proven that the original action was erroneous.)
• Section e: Unlike DMCA, there is no defense permitted prior to compliance. The site first must be taken offline, then and only then can the owner/registrar/operator file to modify/suspend/vacate the order. No provision is made for the timeliness of any related follow up, so it could get stuck in the court system for as long as any other request.

We can all sit and complain about it here, or we can contact the offices of our senators; and try to spread the word for others to do the same. (No, e-petitions don't count and form letters seem rarely to be effective. Take five minutes and at least compose an original email.) If you want this to get some more mainstream coverage that's in your power too - you will find that "letters to the editor" of your local newspaper still has a surprisingly high readership.

Re:The best parts

[Anonymous Coward]

That makes the bill seem ripe for abuse. in this case, one of the best defenses might be an aggressive offense. if the law truly and completely shields the people who filed the complaint from retaliation, then there is nothing stopping someone from filing take-down complaints against the websites of the MPAA, RIAA, member companies, and the senators who voted from this. IANAL and am not advocating this, merely pointing out a possible tactic that some malicious group (anon maybe) might use this for. After all, we've already seen similar abuses of Facebook's takedown process (see ArsTechnica for an example)

Hell, companies might try to use this to take their competitors websites down.

Re:Make your own shit. Stop copying others.

[VanessaE]

By allowing the accused to be thrown off the 'net? Note I didn't say tried and convicted. Due process or do nothing.

You forgot one

[geekoid]

Googe did. They have been opposed to this the whole way.

People don't want to believe that because it goes against their incorrect belief that corporation can buy any legislatation they want.

Had that been true, this would never have been passed.

"Several large corporations such as Google, Yahoo!, Ebay, American Express and Paypal have all opposed the bill. At an earlier hearing on the act, Google opposed the act saying that it will have very negative ramifications.'

http://broadbandbreakfast.com/2011/05/senate-committee-passes-protect-ip-act-but-wyden-issues-quick-halt/

http://www.ghacks.net/2011/05/19/google-stands-against-protect-ip/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20063963-261.html

Re:You forgot one

[petsounds]

Oh, no. It's a correct belief. It's just that corporate interests with better lobbyists (RIAA, MPAA, et al) won the day here.

Pass By Reference

[achlorophyl]

On my website, I often look at the Webalyzer site stats -- and the "referrers" section is kind of interesting... Right now there are about 300 sites that (apparently) link to my own site. Now, the stats are password protected, but what if I were to copy/paste them into my index/landing-page? What if I by doing this, am publishing a list with some potentially nefarious/evil URL's, and in a sense, poisoning my site? If I reference a site, am I guilty of what they're guilty of? Google's site admin guidelines recommend only a "reasonable" number of links on your index page... Is 400 reasonable? More specifically, I think this proposed legislation is nugatory, and I agree with those of you who think someone must indeed be _convicted_ of a crime before it is just/fair to de-allow their site's existence. Additionally, we are at a strange cusp of world history, with the internet. Artists no longer have to pander to audiences/publishers. If you want to write something, the world will have a chance to see. In a way, this is the first time anything significant has become possible in terms of the aesthetics/politics nexus. You can actually write the truth! Now, I agree -- going after "pirates" really probably means going after "thought crime" and "questionable strangeness"/"odd philosophies"... You've seen what the gov is capable of. Just read Zinn's "People's History of the US"... Too much to contemplate, too much to bear... We have to take a step back. The world is degenerate, with permanent revolution... The survival of the biosphere is at stake... This world could last _thousands_, _millions of more years! And we're tarring and feathering it! I mention this, because web publishers / information architects deserve / need to have a fairly _large amount of personal power, if anything _radical is going to change about the world... Reproducing copyrighted material will be a modality of this power. It is necessary.... http://251frankjazz.com/political_philosophy_nozick.htm is a poly phil paper I wrote at University of Pittsburgh... I got a D+ on it... That about says it all!

And in further news... public votes to

[rcpitt]

stop sending money to politicians accused of being stupid - tax revolt in "free" world follows political revolt in Arab countries

In Communist China,

[Anonymous Coward]

...Government owns corporations, In USA, Corporations own YOU!

Wyden's been a on a roll lately

[Radical Moderate]

Trying to speed-bump the PATRIOT renewal and now this. Makes me glad I voted for him.

Re:Wyden's been a on a roll lately

[countertrolling]

pffft.. I might be impressed if he planted some land mines to actually kill the thing... This is nothing but a carny act..

Re:Search engine over HTTPS without logs of any ki

[Anonymous Coward]

Duckduckgo is not really an answer to this issue though, because 1) they largely get their data from other search engines and 2) they are still likely to comply with laws, even if they have plausible deniability.

So if slavery is outlawed....

[Radical Moderate]

only outlaws will be slaves? Damn, I hate it when Slashdot memes are right!

Re:Enough of this tired myth of the Robber Barons

[Nadaka]

And? Your article is not relevant. Your article is about subsidy, not regulation. I am a capitalist, not a communist. I advocate regulation, not subsidy.

Re:Search engine over HTTPS without logs of any ki

[dcollins]

"the tired old kiddie porn angle... that is certainly worse than anything!"

You've kind of drunk the Kool-Aid. Here is basically my reaction when you say that:

http://xkcd.com/883/

We don't necessarily need a plan. We are the plan.

[Kamiza Ikioi]

Fear not, the Hivemind will provide for all our needs. Quite simply, the first order of business will be a subdomain mirroring service:

Courts block "takendown.com", dnscache.com will point takendown.com.dnscache.com to the correct record it has cached.

When dnscache.com is taken offline, host files will be distributed containing dnscache.com and other major cache providers by hand. Mirrors will launch by the millions, including on smartphones.

Twitter will start going wild with "takendown.com 123.45.67.89 dnscache.com 123.54.76.98 #protectip #beiber #gaga".

And within 72-96 hours, a few smart hackers will have already constructed an Alpha version of a Decentralized DNS network for quick cache deployment of blocked domains. It will not supplant DNS, but rather, only cover blocked sites so as not to be traffic intensive.

Universities around the world will start running the D-DNS network. Some, unnamed anonymous group, can't remember it's name, will probably retaliate against the prosecutor, court, government, and registar responsible.

The Hivemind responds quickly, and usually, effectively.

We don't necessarily need a plan. We are the plan.

Re:Enough of this tired myth of the Robber Barons

[Anonymous Coward]

First, subsidies are regulation, too, albeit indirect. Government takes money from some people and gives it to some other people.

Second, antitrust is as much regulation as it gets. Looks like you haven't even skimmed the article.

Presumed innocence?

[e3m4n]

What ever happened to presumed innocence? Shouldn't they have to be found guilty rather than just accused? Shouldn't there be some serious goddamn teeth in the bill for those that accuse as a means of manipulation and are later found out to be incorrect allegations they must surrender their company holdings to the accused?

Re:Presumed innocence?

[Repossessed]

Hey, this is an improvement. At least they agree a court order is necessary now.

Free science fiction novels

[AnotherScratchMonkey]

Eric Flint explains why Baen Books gives away free electronic versions of some of its books.

Re:Enough of this tired myth of the Robber Barons

[Nadaka]

I more than just skimmed the article. Anti-trust is mentioned once, 90% of the way through the article, in one tiny paragraph about Rockefeller, that was also about him not seeking a subsidy. The article is entirely about subsidy, not anti trust or any regulation intended to protect people from harm. So yeh. That article really isn't relevant at all to what I am saying.

Unanimously approved

[Anonymous Coward]

The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the bill, according to the article. Committee members include Patrick Leahy (Chairman), Diane Feinstein, Chuck Schumer, Al Franken, Orrin Hatch, Lindsey Graham, and John Cornyn. How did that bunch all come to the same conclusion?

Re:Unanimously approved

[Repossessed]

Well, in Orrin Hatch's case he receives ~40,000$ a year in 'royalties' from the music industry.

Re:Enough of this tired myth of the Robber Barons

[Anonymous Coward]

You're funny. First you try to completely evade the point about subsidies being a type of regulation. Then, in spite of what you said before, you do admit that the article mentions antitrust, but then try to weasel out by saying that it's mentioned in "one tiny paragraph" - as if the other three or four paragraphs devoted to Rockefeller are unrelated to this very topic. Finally, you decide to lie that said paragraph is "also about him not seeking a subsidy", despite it saying nothing to that effect and not even containing the word "subsidy".

OK, have a nice day then. Makes zero sense to continue without a basic honesty in discussion on your part.

If you RTA you'd see that it was a Democrat

[Anonymous Coward]

that's the lead sponsor of the bill. "The legislation will allow the DOJ to target the "worst of the worst" foreign websites dedicated to digital piracy or selling counterfeit goods, said Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and lead sponsor of the bill. Intellectual property theft is "unacceptable," Leahy, chairman of the committee, said in a statement. " so don't go drawing party lines blindly. Both Democrat and Republicans are the same thing today.

Fight back with pagerank

[Anonymous Coward]

Google should respond by "adjusting" each senator's ranking during the next campaign. See how they like them apples when a search for "Harry Reid" returns the person he's running against and every hit piece/negative press he's ever received (shouldn't be hard). As soon as incumbents start losing seats on both sides of the isle, they'll wake up and stop f'ing with the internet.

Re:Enough of this tired myth of the Robber Barons

[Nadaka]

Subsidies are not relevant. They are only "indirect regulation" in so far as regulation is anything the government does that impacts a business. And it is painfully obvious that the regulation I am referring to is not of the indirect subsidy variety.

No, you are the one not reading the article. That paragraph mentions anti-trust as a consequence of him falling out of favor despite never seeking subsidy and earning his wealth the hard way.. That was it's whole purpose. There is no critique at all, anywhere in there about anti-trust or any form of actual direct regulation.Only for the subsidy and resulting rent seeking among failed business men.

There is no sense in continuing because you are wrong. Your article is not relevant.

An improvement!

[Repossessed]

At least they'll need a freaking court order with this bill.

Re:Search engine over HTTPS without logs of any ki

[countertrolling]

...Duckduckgo...

"Results by Bing"... Oops! I don't think so...

troubling statistic

[Anonymous Coward]

it keeps those privatized prisons for profit stuffed.

All one has to do to confirm this is look to Arizona. They have the Grand Canyon for God's sake, and tourism is 2nd behind prisons as a growth industry.

They will work around it

[helios17]

The RNC will just insert tags in the html - SARAH PALIN NUDE....

Hello OneSwarm...

[Anonymous Coward]

...google for it before it gets blocked.