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Draft Alternative To SOPA Released

Posted by samzenpus on from the try-this-flavor dept.

angry tapir writes "Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, and Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican, have released a draft version of the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade (OPEN) Act and posted a copy at KeeptheWebOpen.com. The act is intended to be an alternative to the Stop Online Piracy Act."

13 of 170 comments (clear)

  1. TL;DR by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'll find out how I should feel about it in a few comments

  2. Don't want by Dyinobal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't want an alternative, to SOPA, or ProtectIP. I don't want any new legislation and regulations and useless laws to keep an outmoded business model alive.

    1. Re:Don't want by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't want a bill that goes off the concept of being extreme, then "compromise" on a "reasonable" bill. Our existing copyright, patent, and other IP laws have worked well for centuries before the DMCA and other rubbish.

      What worked for the framers of the Constitution should work for us now. End of story.

    2. Re:Don't want by The+Raven · · Score: 5, Insightful

      While I personally disagree with most of the changes to IP that have happened over the past couple decades, this is a shortsighted view. The constitution is good, but imperfect; we cannot hold it as some holy document, unchanging, the word of our holy fathers who art in heaven, blah blah.

      Most people, when they say 'Damnit, we should stop adding to the constitution!' really mean 'Damn, our government is huge and unwieldy, and I think it should be a lot smaller.' They just use 'follow the constitution' as a rallying cry to head toward what they really want (typically tighter fiscal policy and less government intrusion... ie, libertarianism). Please don't be 'most people'. The framers of the Constitution of the United States were unable to appreciate all the changes that progress has brought us, and there will be many changes that existing laws, even ones properly based on a constitutionally sound underpinning, do not handle well.

      'Follow the Constition' is not the end of the story; it was the beginning.

      --
      "I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
    3. Re:Don't want by Fned · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Our existing copyright, patent, and other IP laws have worked well for centuries before the DMCA and other rubbish.

      What worked for the framers of the Constitution should work for us now. End of story.

      To be fair, there's been a fundamental change in information technology of a sort never before seen in all of history since then.

      The old laws aren't good enough anymore. Copyright, in particular, is in need of a serious overhaul.

      What the authors of SOPA don't get, though, is that no law can make things go back to the way they were, unless that law breaks all the computers. New laws will have to accept the inarguable truth that, for many mediums, copies aren't worth anything anymore, that some other measure of worth is needed in order to encourage creative business models.

    4. Re:Don't want by Runaway1956 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Then, I hope that you've been writing to the White House, as well as the house and senate. I have been, for years now. Both George Bush and Barack Obama have heard from me, repeatedly on the subject of internet freedom. All of my representatives, as well as a number of representatives that aren't my own.

      This, and all similar acts, treaties, regulations, or whatever name it might go by, need to be shot down. I'm steaming over ACTA - a piece of shit born in secrecy, and jammed up all our orifices, despite any and all objections.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    5. Re:Don't want by Runaway1956 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "have worked well for centuries before the DMCA and other rubbish."

      The beginnings of the current crisis predates the DMCA by about - ohhhh - 30 years, I'd say. Things started going out of kilter when the copyright laws started to be extended. And, let's blame Walt Disney and his company for much of that. In fact, I'll go further back, and say that things started to become unbalanced around 1950.

      Since you point to the DMCA specifically, I would say that things started to accelerate downhill around the time that Microsoft stated that "This software is licensed, not sold." Without googling, it seems that at one point in time, one could actually "buy" a copy of MS Windows. Then with the next update to Windows, you could no longer "buy" it, you could only rent it, so long as you agreed to that stupid EULA, and understood that Microsoft owns everything on your PC - if not the physical PC itself.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    6. Re:Don't want by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      For some of us, "follow the US Constitution" means exactly that what it says. It doesn't mean it can't change. It means, "The US Constitution is the supreme law of the land and we cannot in good conscience call ourselves a country of the rule of law if we can't even make token efforts to follow the supreme law of the land."

      I firmly believe that the people that worked so hard to craft such an amazing document realized that it was supposed to be a living document. They realized that times were always changing and the Constitution needed to change with it. That's why they proposed and adopted (and used 3 times for a total of 12 amendments during Thomas Jefferson's lifetime) Article V. Using that little tidbit they saw fit to include, we can make whatever changes we want so long as each state has the same number of Senators.

      To tout the idea that the framers were unable to appreciate what the world would be like today is to truly underestimate the likes of Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison and their peers. While they may not have seen the likes of personal computers or the Internet or movies, they certainly saw the need to adapt and change. And here's a hint: the tool they envisioned to adapt and change was not the Supreme Court deciding that the meaning and intention of words written more than 200 years ago has somehow changed over time.

      While I'm not answering the meat of your post, you started to drift in the "living document" direction near the end.

      note: Not the same AC as above.

    7. Re:Don't want by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The authors of SOPA do very much get that. This is why their law is a first step towards breaking all the computers.

    8. Re:Don't want by Requiem18th · · Score: 5, Interesting

      What he means is that things have changed such that rulings from 1800 are not *necessarily* good for today. The fact that the rulings of 1700 ARE better than what we have today is not so much because the Statute of Anne was perfect as much as because the Mickey Mouse Protection Act is insane.

      To wit, authors of 1709 were turning a profit on books with only 14 years of protection. This at a time when few people could read, distribution was expensive, printing was expensive and "piracy" (in the form of book sharing) was running rampant.

      And enforcement only implicated regulating publishing companies.

      Nowadays companies claim to need 120 years of protection, at a time when consumption is widespread, copying and international distribution is practically free and even more convenient than asking a friend to lend you a copy.

      Granted, P2P file sharing is more disruptive than book lending, but enforcement against that requires to essentially attach a police man to every device, watching anything that the citizens do, with all the implications to civil liberties that such implicates.

      1800 laws certainly aren't good for these days, it's just that today's laws are even worse.

      --
      But... the future refused to change.
    9. Re:Don't want by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The US Constitution is one of the simplest substantial legal documents in the world. There are very few words

      You were doing perfectly right up to there. The Constitution demands interpretation precisely because it's so sparse. Broad principles need to be applied to highly specific circumstances for the law to be of any use. That requires interpretation.

      Additionally, it's worth noting that many people who claim they're against interpretation are, when pressed, really just opposed to particular interpretations. We may safely assume you'd interpret the Constitution differently than how the various justices have done so over the last 208 years, but interpretation is inescapable.

      Additionally, the more precisely and lengthy a legal document, the more it is wedded to the specific, precise, circumstances it was written to address. That will leave a lot less room for interpretation, but will require much, much, more frequent revisions of the letter of the law.

  3. Bait & Switch by uutf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Propose something terrible that'll never go through. If it succeeds LOL. If it fails, then propose something not quite as bad to try to get people to say "well, it's not as bad as what they proposed earlier.." Rinse and repeat until you get what you want - eventually you'll sneak one past the people fighting against it.

  4. Overton by woodsbury · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This springs to mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

    Do something everyone hates, then "compromise" with something slightly more attractive so that people think they're getting a good deal.