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RIAA Chief Whines That SOPA Opponents Were "Unfair"
First time submitter shoutingloudly writes "In a NY Times op-ed today, RIAA chief Cary H. Sherman accuses the opponents of SOPA of having engaged in shady rhetorical tactics. He (wrongly) accuses opponents such as Wikipedia and Google of having disseminated misinformation about the bills. He lashes out at the use of the term 'censorship,' which he calls a 'loaded and inflammatory term.' Most Slashdot readers will get the many unintentional jokes in this inaccurate, hypocritical screed by one of the leaders of the misinformation-and-inflammatory-rhetoric-wielding content industry lobby."
A gem: "As it happens, the television networks that actively supported SOPA and PIPA didn’t take advantage of their broadcast credibility to press their case. That’s partly because 'old media' draws a line between 'news' and 'editorial.' Apparently, Wikipedia and Google don’t recognize the ethical boundary between the neutral reporting of information and the presentation of editorial opinion as fact."
I didn't like the legislation either, but isn't this headline and summary kind of biased? I don't know...I just feel uncomfortable having the submission frame it specifically to make me react a certain way. I mean, it flat-out states how "most /. readers" will respond. I'd rather just read what Cary Sherman has to say and come to my own conclusions, which will likely align with others here, but at least I arrived there on my own.
Maybe it's just me. Carry on.
I won't click the link. I just don't want to in any way encourage the Times to print this stuff.
Well, it would be the sound of the world's tiniest violin playing a sad song, but due to copyright restrictions I can't actually post a link to it.
I am officially gone from
Yes, calling a bill that requires ISPs and search engines to block access to certain websites a "censorship" bill is obviously bad -- it gets people angry! We should just sugar coat it and hope that nobody notices that the bill pushes for censorship.
Palm trees and 8
Seriously, RIAA has some balls....
Piracy - originally a violent theft (usually at sea). Equivalent of a mugging. But they've changed it to simply mean unauthorized use.
Theft - the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. Wait, have the downloaders deprived ANYONE of any tangible property? Nope...once again, RIAA has changed meaning to unauthorized use.
So if "unauthorized use" can mean theft and piracy. Then SOPA can mean censorship.
SOPA sucks, but the opponents *were* unfair. Nerds love to break free from their boring lives and pretend that they're freedom fighters, and companies like Google played along because it made the nerds happy--never mind that Google didn't shut down their services like a lot of places did, so they cynically got their cake and ate it too. Same with Slashdot. Slashdot is an advocacy site that gets its page views by stirring up the emotions of a particular demographic, and "first time submitter shoutingloudly" pushed all the right inflammatory buttons up there.
I'm all for changing the legislation, but can we stop with this goofy bogeyman stuff against the RIAA? There are valid reasons to fight against piracy. It ruins the argument to be so silly and inflammatory.
"As it happens, the television networks that actively supported SOPA and PIPA didn’t take advantage of their broadcast credibility to press their case. That’s partly because 'old media' draws a line between 'news' and 'editorial.' Apparently, Wikipedia and Google don’t recognize the ethical boundary between the neutral reporting of information and the presentation of editorial opinion as fact."
And when does Cary Sherman recognize the ethical boundary of paying off the people who vote on this bill -- a bill which clearly serves his interests?
My work here is dung.
Mr. Sherman: You made a good point in your conclusion, "we need reason not rhetoric." That's exactly why it was a terrible idea for you to have written this rhetoric-filled inflammatory piece /we're done here
No refunds.
In a NY Times op-ed today, RIAA chief Cary H. Sherman accuses the opponents of SOPA of having engaged in shady rhetorical tactics
Fortunately, the RIAA and it's brethren always engage in reasoned, non-iflammatory rhetoric when presenting their case. After all, it's a well documented fact that every unauthorized, err illegal, d/l of material they own directly results in a terrorist organization receiving money.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Cary Sherman still thinks this is a battle between "Google and Wikipedia" vs "Media Companies". And that the only reason his companies lost is because the other companies had better PR.
He still doesn't get that what happened was the people who consume the content - content linked to by GOOG, content distributed by Wikipedia, and content licensed by RIAA and MPAA - who finally got off their duffs and exercised their rights as citizens to demand that their elected representatives actually represent them.
I can't be too hard on him. When I ask "Who does Sen. or Rep. X represent", my answer is typically a company or group of companies that funded his/her campaign, and/or hired the lobbyists to write the bills that the politicians sponsor.
To put it in language that Sherman can understand, it's not that Rep./Sen. X changed from (R/D - MPAA) to (R/D - GOOG). It's that, this being an election year, and there being tens of millions of active internet users who are also eligible voters, Rep./Sen X represented (R/D - wishes of their constituents as tallied by their staffers, regardless of donation size).
I actually sometimes wonder about the individual people involved in big media.
I mean we like to personify the RIAA and friends.. talking about it as some kind of big bad pure evil entity, but it's actually a huge collection of people all doing their individual (evil) parts. I wonder if these guys actually take these attitudes home with them, or if they just play the part at work/in public.
Please remember that a good paper publishes relevant opinions, not just ones they agree with. I've seen abortion opponents, global warming deniers, and all kinds of whackos published in their letters section, and you can be damn sure the paper doesn't agree with them. I'm not sure they ever publish full-length editorials they truly disagree with, but you still can't take the presence of this piece as the Times endorsement of Sherman's viewpoint.
So please calm down and stop saying things like "I won't click the link. I don't want to in any way encourage the Times to print this stuff". Censorship isn't just suppressing the very existence of opposing views in the media, you know, you can also censor yourself by refusing to even acknowledge and examine the viewpoints of people who disagree with you. You even ultimately censor your friends and peers to some degree when your behavior leads them to stop thinking and automatically ignore data from certain sources or types of people.
So click the damn link. Know what was actually said rather than just knowing the summary opinions and selective quotations from someone who did read it and already thinks like you. Understand that encouraging full-length discourse over sound bites is always a good thing, even if it it means encouraging lobbyists and liars sometimes.
That’s partly because 'old media' draws a line between 'news' and 'editorial.'
They say they do, but did they ever?
they play fast and loose about this too much. I think every subculture group thats ever been covered in the news can attest to this. They have a great way of influencing court decisions by assuming guilt or lack there of on the onset, and using "news" articles to cater to their opinions.
just because they keep the TONE quasi npov(less and less these days), doesn't mean the content is in any one bit NPOV. When they mean "fair and impartial" they just mean they "dead pan" it to have the stylistic elements of being "fair and impartial". Anyone who's ever watched cable news know how skewed it is, and how news broadcasters use heavy bias in their reporting.
FOX News
MSNBC
CNN
Even before this, they had a long history of skewing the news in any dirrection they like. They NEVER lived up to the standards they pretended to. Like the rest of their arguments, its a bold face lie. This is about command and control, and their made up authority.
I do not mean in the 'bubble boy' sense. Specifically, I do not think that Sherman interacts with anyone not in a position where piracy has caused real damage to their income, or who does not have a personal interest in maintaining the current copyright laws. There is no one who Sherman is talking to who is going to say anything negative about copyright.
Talking to Sherman about the privacy situation is like trying to talk to your grandmother about the internet. You may work with the internet every day and you may be aware of what Meme's are, you have an opinion on Facebooks privacy policies, and you know enough not to click on links to a certain .cx domain. If you work in that world every day, and all of your friends work in that world every day, it gets harder to relate to people who chose to live a life without an internet connection.
I have no doubt that Sherman was truly surprised at the amount of visible and high profile backlash because in Shermans world, he cannot understand why a 'normal' every day person would have a problem with SOPA and PIPA. So clearly someone else must have manipulated the agenda to turn the masses against his agenda. So I bet that Sherman is certain that once he carefully explains his position that everyone will understand why SOPA / PIPA is a good thing.
END COMMUNICATION
I think this is what he found so unfair. SOPA/PIPA opponents went about brandishing the truth when everyone knows that the truth is poison to the RIAA. This just in: Truth declared a WMD! (Weapon of Media-conglomerate Destruction)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Did you know that, in the 12 hours since Cary Sherman posted his editorial, over 10,000 Americans have lost their jobs? Clearly this man must be stopped before he destroys our economy! And that's why I urge you to support the Stop Cary Sherman/Super-Patriot/I Love America/Support Out Children Act. To do anything less is to deny our children a future of hope and prosperity!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
... We here at the RIAA prefer the term: Corporate Approved Network Demarking and Inhibiting. After all, who doesn't like a nice piece of CANDI?
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
"Policy makers had recognized a constitutional (and economic) imperative to protect American PROPERTY from theft, to shield consumers from counterfeit products and fraud, and to combat foreign criminals who exploit technology to steal American ingenuity and jobs."
From the Constitution Article 1 Section 8 - Powers of Congress
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
It's not theft of property. It is a violation of your Congressionally granted limited monopoly.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
We have record profits but want more money. This is a crucial issue that Congress needs to tackle, because record profits aren't enough. To that end, we think that we should have the right to seize personal property without due process. And even though we're currently abusing the DCMA (filing mass take-downs for content they don't own or review), we feel we need more power and promise not to abuse it for censorship.
Why wouldn't people support that?
The RIAA holds artists back from making more money by fighting the adoption of digital music. As content becomes more convenient to digest, people will consume more of it. Stop fighting consumers and embrace them. That is the way to combat piracy. Just look at iTunes, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime streaming, HBO Go, Spotify, etc. etc.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
First off, the "author" (used loosely) unfairly lumps the ENTIRE population into the category of gullible schlubs lapping up the misinformation spread by Wikipedia and Google. He assumes (which is par for the course for RIAA and MPAA) that the consuming public is completely made up of blithering idiots and thundering morons and that none of us are capable of understanding any piece of legislation that isn't presented to us in a manner that we "can understand". That destroys any credibility to his statements.
So I'm going to largely ignore what was said in the article because he largely ignored that I leaned about SOPA when the legislation first came about and read up on it for the length of time it was being deliberated in Congress. PIPA as well. Wikipedia only made it stupidly easy to contact my representatives...which I had already emailed about 9 times each concerning SOPA and PIPA prior to the day of protest.
I'm all for protecting intellectual property. But there are serious concerns with those bills that money-grubbing windbags like my senator, Frank Lousyberg, don't see. SOPA and PIPA are both bills intended to prevent people OUTSIDE the U.S. from stealing U.S. property. Great! I love it! But, explain to me HOW a U.S. law will apply to a jurisdiction outside of it's reach like, I dunno, Russia? China maybe? How are you going to punish Oleg in Moscow for a crime against the U.S. using U.S. based legislation without Russian buy in? Simple, you're not. The legislation will only serve to watch and punish U.S. citizens, the ones they say it's going to "protect".
SOPA and PIPA give FAR too much control to non-law enforcement bodies like the RIAA and MPAA by allowing them to get websites and even domains shutdown with "evidence" that amounts to "Hey, that looks like my words "the" and "and" on that webpage! I'd better tell a judge and get them shut down so I can investigate further!" (yes, I know it's exaggeration but it's used to show the absurdity) Once you prove that the ass trumpet that went to court and got the order is wrong, you can get your site turned back on and BAU it all day long. BUT! You have to prove your innocence first.
Let me restate that. You have to PROVE YOUR INNOCENCE FIRST.
What happened to innocent until proven guilty, in a court of law, by a jury of your peers? When did the RIAA become a law enforcement body with judicial responsibilities and furthermore, my peer? In most court rooms, someone with an invested financial stake is tossed off the jury or even reassigned because of a POTENTIAL conflict of interest. Not even an actual conflict, just the potential to have one.
I for one am not happy about any of that. I think the legislation is self-serving and far too open for interpretation. I don't even care about what Google and Wikipedia were on about. I don't care if they were spread "misinformation" or not. What I care about is some windbag, crybaby in L.A. putting out BS articles like this because legislation serving his personal agenda was shutdown by a government for the people and by the people because THOSE people think it sucks.
BTW Mr. Sherman, your profits and sales are down since 1999 because you make a shit product. Nobody wants to pay for your over-priced, overly produced, auto-tuned schlock. Piracy isn't destroying your business, your customers are. If my company lost 50% of it's market share over the last 12 years we'd be out of business...mainly because we don't have half of Congress in our back pocket to prop up our sucktastic business model and mediocre product line. I guess it's easier to point the finger away than to look at your sniveling, self-serving mug in the mirror, huh? So, tell me, what happens when you do actually get to stop piracy (good luck) and you're still hemorrhaging money and market? Who are you going to blame then? Or will we all still be stupid and not know a good thing when we are told to like it?
Or "steal". You wouldn't steal a car....
The music and movie industries have blatantly twisted word to their advantage for far too long. The only reason they are "surprised" and "shocked" now is that after decades of the general public just rolling over, the industries finally woke the sleeping giant, which they expected to remain asleep despite their incessant poking.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
That RIAA chief has got to be the worst kind of sociopath.
Probably cheats on his wife.....with underage children prostitutes.
Screw that douchebag and whatever backstabbing he had to do to become the RIAA chief...
Yes, ad hominem attacks with absolutely zero evidence of any kind are definitely the way to invalidate his point that anti-SOPA people are using shady rhetorical tricks.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
"During the negotiations for SOPA/PIPA we experienced the kristallnacht of the online community's false rhetoric and the gas chamber of old media's refusal to support it."
Cary Sherman still thinks this is a battle between "Google and Wikipedia" vs "Media Companies". And that the only reason his companies lost is because the other companies had better PR.
He still doesn't get that what happened was the people who consume the content - content linked to by GOOG, content distributed by Wikipedia, and content licensed by RIAA and MPAA - who finally got off their duffs and exercised their rights as citizens to demand that their elected representatives actually represent them.
No, I think he really does get it -- but it's easier to build a case against Google and Wikipedia as the next big evils to legislate against. Google, Wikipedia, and the open Internet in general are anathema to the old top-down television-and-radio style of content provision. I don't think he's trying to sway public opinion, he's making a calculated misrepresentation to emphasize the perceived danger of these two with Congress and thereby pave the way for the next round of paid-for dubious laws that help narrow the competition. The more the MAFIAA can turn the Internet into just another TV channel, the more they can extend their ride on the gravy train.
He really does get it. And that makes him more dangerous.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Even screwballs like this guy are entitled to an opinion.
The problem is he's not satisfied with having an opinion -- he's trying to change the law to suit his screwed up world-view. You can't have someone who is clearly on acid making decisions about the legal structure of nations.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
RIAA chief gets his head handed to him by the Internet. He feels compelled to reply, and his choice of venue is...
An old-line media outlet that loses relevance every time one of its articles slips back inside its paywall.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
Let's take a step back and imagine what a reasonable solution looks like, one that balances IP and fair use. When CDs were the primary media format, it was lawful (under the Copyright Act of 1983, if I'm remembering correctly) to make a tape from a CD, so long as the tapes were distributed for free, or a nominal fee not more than the cost of the tape transfer process ($1?). Why can't we do that now?
Establish a bit rate threshhold for music (resolution/fps for video) and allow people to share files in those "less than perfect" formats, just as we once could with cassette tapes. Anything above that threshold would require a purchase/license. Heck, I'd be fine if a minimal fee (fractional pennies to pennies) were imposed on each and every media-capable player or storage device (much as blank CDs had such fees built in).
Just realize that it is entirely natural (and, as shown repeatedly, good for business) to let people share. That's how I got introduced to most of the music I learned to love over the years. Stop trying to fight the concept of sharing, and establish some reasonable parameters that regulate sharing.
Regarding eBooks and similar formats, I love their convenience, but hate their limitations. I believe the First Sale Doctrine (the idea that rights holder get paid their share only on the first transaction--not with each subsequent change of ownership) is one of the greatest concepts in the legal sphere. Since eBook publications are typically licensed to a single user, the provisions of the First Sale Doctrine don't apply. I can understand more objection to its applicability with eBooks, because, unlike books, electronic editions should never deteriorate (that will remain to be seen). Once a physical book is worn enough, you need to buy another copy if you want to read it again. If the First Sale Doctrine applied universally to digital media files, then the need to ever replace a copy of a work is greatly reduced (perhaps only when dealing with physical loss, or system malfunction).
Okay, I'll get off my soap box now before I bore all of you to death.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
These statements are not backed up. Given the industry's history of exaggerating their claims, I put the onus on them to prove that these numbers are in any way correct.
Yet the author's use of "theft" and "piracy" are totally neutral, without any intent to evoke particular emotions in the readership?
This is being purposefully obtuse. The claims of 'censorship' were about collatoral damage: that the laws would have a chilling effect and would be open to abuse. No one was directly equating "shutting down online counterfitting sites" with censorship. (Although, of course, the difference between shutting down a physical store and an online presence is indeed that the Internet is all about communication/data-transfer, and curtailing communication is essentially censorship.)
This is an interesting claim. But if the author is sure that the "No Duty to Monitor" section protects conveyors of content, then why not spell that argument out in detail? Why not quote from the bill, and explain how this protection works? That is the very crux of the disagreement, it would seem, yet the author just mentions it in passing.
This is perhaps the only valid point in the entire piece. It is true that Wikipedia and Google (in very different ways) strive for some measure of neutral transmission of information. I can see how one could argue that using their position as trusted sources of information to spread their own viewpoint is an abuse. However:
1. This is begging the question, by assuming that what Wikipedia and Google were reporting was incorrect. But that is precisely what the debate is about: is it true that SOPA/PIPA would lead to collatoral censorship? If the claim is true (and as far as I can tell, it is), then Wikipedia spreading that information was just another manifestation of them spreading truthful statements.
2. These entities do have a right to let their opinion be known.
3. The opinion piece provides no reason why these companies would be misinforming the populace. What is it they hope to get out of it? Their stated reason is simple: that they wanted to stop the legislation because they couldn't continue operating under the legislation. The author provides no evidence, not even spurious reasoning in fact, for any other motivation. So, one could accuse them of being mistaken, but to accuse them of pushing an ideology is wrongheaded.
This is laughable. Mainstream media has a well-documented history of injecting bias into their reporting (everything from their selection of what to cover, to how events are described, to thinly-veiled ed
That's what this whiny loser is: a middleman. Can he play one musical instrument? Can he carry tune without using a bucket? Can he act his way out of a paper bag? Write something worth reading? Of course not; he is no artist. His creations are only those of greed, paying the truly creative pennies on the dollar; a leach in an Armani suit.
The comedian Louis C K spent around $200,000 to record a special and put it up for sale with no DRM but simply a plea not to pirate it. He cleared a little over $1 million for his efforts. A creator working directly with his most ardent fans with no middleman required.
Go back though the NYT archives and I'm sure we could also find a buggywhip manufacturer whining about the destructive nature of the horseless carriage.
Oh good, you took everything out of context to prove your point. Usage in that sense came from the actual "pirate at sea stealing things" sense.
And in every example you have given except for 1996, these are the "traditional" meanings of piracy. Even the 1996 entry probably relates to selling counterfeit software, which is common in poor parts of Asia. A physical good is either copied mechanically or reproduced on another medium. Of course the 1654 quote is not long enough to tell if it involves ships.
I don't see any evidence that anyone but the BSA / MAFIAA and media printing MAFIAA quotes have brought "unauthorized use" into the common usage of the word "piracy" until the pre-BSA did in the 1970's. The very concept of copying without using a physical medium did not exist until the digital age.
Copying a disc and selling the disc, whether it's music or software, or movie, meets the pre-MAFIAA definition. But it does not meet the "downloading without paying for it" definition from the 1970's, and I draw a clear line between monetary gain and gainless copying.
Piracy is a subset of copyright infringement which downloading is not a part of, and this overloaded usage equates violently storming a ship at see and plundering its booty with clicking a link and having something without paying for it.
I believe in the evolution of language, but this is not an acceptable overload of the word. We should not accept such usage.
In US law, which is what the MAFIAA follow and what we are discussing for SOPA/PIPA, Piracy is almost always either accompanied by "profiteering" in the sense of counterfeit or otherwise copied tangible items, or specifically qualified as in "Cyberpiracy" such as 15 USC 1129.
The RIAA website answers the "Piracy" question with specifics using "copyright infringement" and "unauthorized", not "piracy"
http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=piracy_online_the_law
A report to Congress summarizes the usage of the term "piracy", and software/music/movies are not mentioned.
http://www.justice.gov/usao/eousa/foia_reading_room/usam/title9/crm00009.htm
It has only caught on in sound bites from MAFIAA, therefore I don't accept the redefinition.
never was. never will be
of course, in the past, they TRIED to be unbiased, but those with vested interest sensed plots and subtle bias nonetheless (unconscious, unpurposeful, or illusionary)
and so the new landscape (same as the old landscape: see "yellow journalism") is pure unadulterated bias all the time everywhere
i actually like it: keeps your bullshit filter healthy... why is your instinct that a media source SHOULD be unbiased? just assume it isn't always, and filter appropriately. depend upon YOURSELF to filter out the bias, depend on no media source to do that for you
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I don't see the summary like that at all. We all know the MAFIAA is reactionary, brutal, and flat wrong. They thoroughly deserve that reputation. They earned it by suing thousands of ordinary people, in an attempt to terrorize us all into giving up the Internet. And by trying to impose DRM on the public. The Sony BMG Root Kit fiasco alone is enough to condemn them, but they've tried much more than that. And they earned their reputation still more by bribing and suborning our legislators into supporting their insane vision, and attempting to hide what they do. Their motives in trying to keep ACTA secret are painfully obvious. They've shown no regard whatever for the damage they've done to the public and artists, while screaming very loudly and selfishly about the supposed damage done to them. At the very least, holding back public libraries from going digital costs us all huge amounts of money in maintaining, housing and tracking "dead tree" copies. Yet the damage they've done is as nothing to the damage they would do if they could.
No, it isn't bias to call it like it is. I don't feel there's much left to debate except the details of what will replace copyright, and so what'd I'd like to do is move on to that, not keep rehashing this controversy that's become almost as fake as the controversy between Creationism and Evolution. They of course refuse to admit it and want to keep it alive, to "teach the controversy", and they have some success because there are a lot of uninformed people who haven't heard or thought much about the issue. Moving on, how can we once and for all end this threat to our freedoms? Shut down this attitude so hard that anyone who ever again dares to raise it will find themselves sidelined in the same way that flat-earthers and other kooks are? A "Freedom of Knowledge" constitutional amendment perhaps?
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
So, correct me if I'm understanding this correctly, the RIAA and MPAA are upset because they:
And they're upset because some organizations put a spotlight on their activities and now they are crying because they didn't get their way? I really don't want to live in a world where these guys have their way.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
So I can steal GPL code then? Technology lets me do it, after all.
Yes, you can.
Well, technically, no, you can't--you can violate the copyright license under which GPL code is distributed, but you can't actually steal it, unless you're physically taking away the author's hard drives, etc.
But seriously, I think the reason most folks on /. have a problem with GPL violations is because of the hypocrisy involved. Companies viciously enforce their copyrights, but then violate copyright law when it's convenient for them to do so.
Hatta's comment might be flamebait, but it's also pretty much true. Virtually costless, anonymous duplication fundamentally alters the economic underpinnings of modern intellectual property law, and there's really no going back. It doesn't matter how many op-eds Cary Sherman or the Author's Guild publish about how it's unethical to violate copyright... when you confront humanity with the ability to duplicate something of value at essentially no cost, there's only one reasonable result to expect, and it isn't self-control. This doesn't justify the behavior, but reality doesn't need a justification.
IP law needs a total and fundamental reworking to remain relevant in the next century. Whether or not this happens, culture will survive... how creative works are created and disseminated may change significantly, but culture existed long before IP was even a concept.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
"They also argued misleadingly that the bills would have required Web sites to “monitor” what their users upload, conveniently ignoring provisions like the “No Duty to Monitor” section. "
Having just read through HR. 3261 (SOPA), the only mention of "No Duty to Monitor" applies to Payment Network Providers (the people who process credit card charges) and Internet Advertising Services (services that send ads to various websites). There is no "No Duty to Monitor" at all for Internet Sites, Internet Search Engines or Service Providers.
So, no, they were not conveniently ignoring those provisions, because those provisions do not apply to Web sites.
If you can't beat them, embrace and extend them.
Completeness is far more useful than "lack of bias".
If an article is detailed enough, I can sift through the bias. I can create my own informed opinion given enough information. Any article that skimps on the details does not allow for this.
So in truth, an "unbiased" article is more of a problem. It's much more likely to constitute a "lie of omission" by leaving out key details.
In true Newspeak manner, it will be the "unbiased" article that actually represents the greatest bias.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
If you want to reduce piracy, there are much better ways. I would bet that Apple has been the most successful at this with iTunes. Not because of their stupid DRM format, but because it's easy to get music legally, possibly even easier than the piracy methods. This kind of legislation wastes all of our time and money and is an abomination. It'll never work, you'll never kill piracy. It wastes taxpayer money as well as the ISPs who have to implement this kind of thing somehow, and it very literally stifles innovation. Going through congress is the wrong way to combat piracy. Just being clever is the right way.
to me, the big point of Nineteen Eighty Four was a warning about political abuse of language
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Completeness is far more useful than "lack of bias".
Perhaps you are unique, but in practice, completeness increases the acceptance of incorrect information. When you give "fair and balanced" exposure to the Flat Earth Society, then people begin to think that there may be something to that Flat Earth idea. Further, that the "other" networks don't give equal time to a provably false idea is proof that Flat Earth is true and it's a conspiracy to keep the truth from us.
Learn to love Alaska