DNS Provision Pulled From SOPA

New submitter crvtec sends this excerpt from CNet: "Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), one of the biggest backers of the Stop Online Piracy Act, today said he plans to remove the Domain Name System blocking provision. 'After consultation with industry groups across the country,' Smith said in a statement released by his office, 'I feel we should remove (DNS) blocking from the Stop Online Piracy Act so that the [U.S. House Judiciary] Committee can further examine the issues surrounding this provision.'"

Comments

No, he didn't

[trogdor8667]

He said he'd postpone it until further research had been done... In other words, pass the bill now and then shove it down our throats later.

Re:No, he didn't

[Ouchie]

The research is whether congressional hipocracy is exempt. It appears that under the law the congressman's website would have been permanently shut down for copyright infringment.

The background image on Chairman Lamar Smith own website was being used without the consent of the photographer.

Re:so what obnoxious bullshit did they leave in?

[wickerprints]

That statement assumes that those elected officials currently in office and favor such legislation do so out of ignorance. As has been noted, it's not technological ignorance that motivates the push for SOPA: it's money. We're talking LOTS of money, offered by the entertainment industry lobbyists.

Everyone needs to wake up and realize that we don't live in a representative system of government. We live in a plutocracy, in which government policy is shaped solely by those who have the money and power to buy it. The Citizens United SCOTUS decision was not so much evidence of such bribery as it was a reflection of the brazen impunity with which corporations now feel they may act. Same thing with SOPA and Protect-IP. The government knows EXACTLY what it's doing. Don't think for one second that they're just clueless, doddering old fools who barely understand email. They know full well the consequences of their actions--they just don't care, because they're being paid off. Most Americans in their place would do the exact same thing.

Re:Republicans love Big Government when it suits t

[Toonol]

Notice how the Democrats have the exact same problem?

Re:Update The background image is now gone.

[Marillion]

Actually, that's a perfect example of how it should be done. A copyright owner notifies the infringer of a violation. The infringer says, "Sorry, my bad, I didn't know. I'll address that immediately." The infringing material is removed. Both parties go on their merry way.

Because infringement is very easy to do unintentionally, as Representative Smith found out, I feel there needs to be a safe-harbor course of action. If infringement is removed within (picks a number from thin air) seven days, then the infringement should be presumed to be unintentional and not liable for any damages. Furthermore, there should be a process where an alleged infringer can say to an accuser, "No, you've got it all wrong. I have a right to use this because of [insert reason here]." The matter would be settled either inside or outside of courts, using well-established procedures from Civil Law, but the matter would eventually be settled.

Anyway, that's my fantasy world. It's happy there. I only wish it could actually happen.

Re:so what obnoxious bullshit did they leave in?

[dgatwood]

No. I do not want to wake up and work part of every day to provide campaign cash to someone who says I'm evil for thinking that it's not government's role to make sure everyone gets the same stuff regardless of whether or how they work. I do not want to be forced to support a candidate that says I'm inherently wrong for being, say, male. Or that I'm evil for thinking that people who break the law by sneaking into the country and lying on federal paperwork should get free stuff that I spend other parts of my day working to pay for. You're welcome to give such people campaign cash, but don't force me to.

The problem is that there's really no other choice that preserves democracy. Either you spend taxpayer dollars to ensure that everyone who meets some reasonable set of criteria (e.g. getting n signatures) is funded equally from the public treasury or you have elections in which the politicians are inherently for sale.

This is one of the few issues that is absolutely black and white. Giving money to a politician is a bribe, and those who give the most money will inherently have more influence. There's just no good way to prevent that. Public funding prevents corruption precisely because you are forced to support not just your candidate, but also everyone else, thus ensuring that politicians have no incentive to try to raise more money than their competitor. Without that built-in leveling, you cannot have a truly free election.

You may want to run your state or your country like a PTA meeting, but the founders had a much better grip on the tyrrany and foolishness of the simple majority and capricious elections. You do sound like someone who would like California, though. That's working out really well, isn't it?

The founding fathers could not possibly have envisioned a world in which the cost to run for President would be equal to an average person's salary over eleven thousand years (based on 2011 U.S. median income). They did their best to make sure that we would not end up in a plutocracy, but we managed to end up there anyway. So clearly, those founding fathers you so are so enamored with didn't know everything....