White House Opposes Key SOPA Provisions

twdorris writes "Is this an example of our 3-part government actually working as intended? It seems the executive branch doesn't agree with the legislative on a key piece of SOPA. From the article: '"While we believe that online piracy by foreign websites is a serious problem that requires a serious legislative response, we will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global internet," the White House said in a blog post.'"

Comments

They can say they oppose it,

[Gideon Wells]

They can say they oppose it, but do they oppose it enough to actually Veto it when/if it gets passed? Or will it be "We'll sign it, but we'll say we disagree adamantly on this post-it not attached to it!"

Re:They can say they oppose it,

[modmans2ndcoming]

They could have ignored the issue entirely if they were planning to let it pass. It is not like this issue is something covered on Fox and MSNBC and CNN.

I do think they will support a heavily modified version that meets their published requirements because as they say in their statement, they support legislation to curtail piracy....just not stupid legislation that breaks the internet, hurts the ability of start-ups to innovate, ignores due process and limits free speech.

Re:They can say they oppose it,

[Anonymous Coward]

Elections are coming, they can't afford any bad publicity. Just because they say they oppose "some" SOPA provisions, actually means, they'll have to modify it a little, and they both get to win, SOPA supporters don't lose anything important, and White House, says, look, we negotiated for you. If they really opposed it, the article would have been titled "White House Opposes SOPA.". Notice that? Just a couple of words, that's how politics works.

Re:They can say they oppose it,

[Arancaytar]

It is not like this issue is something covered on Fox and MSNBC and CNN.

Ever since 2008, elections aren't won by ignoring the internet, and Obama of all people knows it.

Not to say this is all idle campaign talk. I have high hope that whatever we end up with won't be the end-of-democracy-as-we-know-it bill we have now. It might not even be as bad as the DMCA, and the internet survived that one. But it'll still be bad legislation, because the very principle behind it is trying to solve the wrong problem the wrong way.

Re:They can say they oppose it,

[betterunixthanunix]

A fact that was never in question by anyone who spent more than 2 seconds examining American politics.

Re:They can say they oppose it,

[berashith]

Or maybe even if it is veto-proof, our leader could, well , you know.. LEAD or something. Veto the damn thing if you dont like it, and it could be that others may change their vote if they see that someone is willing to start things in motion. If everyone believes that they will be alone in opposition, then the safe move is to not oppose. All these paid off crooks could go back to their bosses and show that they voted yes on the first pass, but things just werent going to work out.

Re:They can say they oppose it,

[modmans2ndcoming]

50 thousand people voted on that poll.... so... how does that make it something that they could not ignore?

Re:They can say they oppose it,

[Alex Belits]

If SOPA is problematic, that has to be for specific reasons - not just because of its name or because (in agreement with all the rest of US law) it makes copyright infringement illegal.

No law can make copyright infringement illegal because copyright infringement is already illegal. If this is the only excuse for some new law, then the law is worthless no matter what is in it.

Re:They can say they oppose it,

[Digital Vomit]

You know things are bad when we start talking about the DMCA in a positive sense with respect to newly proposed legislation.

why did this shitty summary get posted???

[sribe]

Seriously, this is news that deserves to be on slashdot. But a link to an article behind a paywall, which just gets a popup pushing subscriptions, is NOT the proper way to submit this story!

Not really

[Mathinker]

> Is this an example of our 3-part government actually working as intended?

No, not really. "As intended" would mean that:

• The branches of government would be trying to optimize for the good of society.
• The public would be informed enough to think about what was good for them in the long term, and vote accordingly.

Instead we have:

• The public is excessively swayed by whatever they see in the popular media.
• The branches of government optimize for maximizing their chances of re-election.

Re:No Hollywood money for Obama 2012...

[Runaway1956]

I dunno - maybe Ethanol is racist, maybe he isn't. But, Obama DID "reluctantly" sign that fucking NDAA, did he not? Ethanol's point stands, racist cockbag or not.

Re:No Hollywood money for Obama 2012...

[artor3]

It was passed by a veto proof majority. Refusing to sign it would have been an empty gesture, and would have allowed Republicans to run ads against him stating that he vetoed health care for wounded veterans.

So no, his point does not stand. And FYI, when someone uses the phrase "Supreme Leader Baraq Hussein Sotero", there is no "maybe" about their racism.

Re:Obama supporter addresses this issue...

[betterunixthanunix]

You may not have noticed, by the Obama administration is full of people who have ties to Hollywood. What reason is there to think that he will not sign the bill into law?

Wake up -- the Democrats are just as quick to ignore individual rights as the Republicans are, they just have a different (but not even close to disjoint) set of corporations that they prefer to give hand-outs to.

Re:No Hollywood money for Obama 2012...

[Grave]

Empty gesture? No, it would have been saying "I do not give a fuck about stupid politics, and would prefer to stick to my guns about something that really matters for a change."

When you act out of concern for your re-election rather than what is best for the nation, you are acting as a traitor to your country.

Re:This is the beginning of the new government

[jmerlin]

Billions of people worldwide do work they don't particularly like for money. For small sums of money, too. The hundreds of millions of campaign contributions I can very easily see as public record given to these people followed by their $700,000+ /yr jobs in the private sector after they retire can't possibly indicate that the same applies. Given enough money, most people do what they're told. This is completely valid and actually correct thinking. The tinfoil hat is when you talk about the corporations planning some kind of NWO, but really it's about control to kill competition and remain absurdly profitable with govt. assistance. It's called tyranny. You might want to read up in some history books.

Re:No Hollywood money for Obama 2012...

[shutdown -p now]

It was passed by a veto proof majority. Refusing to sign it would have been an empty gesture

Not all gestures are empty. Sometimes it is important to have it be known what you stand for.

What you're saying, basically, is that Obama has said "fuck you" to everyone who disagrees with NDAA, to appease a bunch of Republican nutjobs who hate him anyway. I don't even see how this could possibly be smart in any sense.

Free Market Failure or Success?

[Ouchie]

When will the media companies and government realize that the proliferation of piracy is not the internet it is the outrageous prices they try to extract. The fact is that if they didn't keep trying to sell every stinking CD at $17 when we all know most aren't worth $5. Sell the product at what the market wants to pay for it, if you don't then the incentive to steal goes way up.

There have been several recent examples of artists releasing their work at reasonable prices with no DRM. Rather than being ripped off by the public at large, their fans have put down the money.

Louis CK has made over $1,000,000 off his most recent video. You can download it without DRM for $5. And yes he is Hilarious.