MPAA Chief Dodd Hints At Talks To Revive SOPA

suraj.sun writes "Christopher Dodd, the former Connecticut senator who now leads the MPAA, hasn't given up on his dream of censoring the Internet. In an interview with Hollywood Reporter, he said that Hollywood and the technology industry 'need to come to an understanding' about new copyright legislation. Dodd said that there were 'conversations going on now,' about SOPA-style legislation, but that he was 'not going to go into more detail because obviously if I do, it becomes counterproductive.' Asked whether the White House's decision to oppose SOPA had created tensions with Hollywood, Dodd insisted that he was 'not going to revisit the events of last winter,' but said he hoped the president would use his 'good relationships' with both Hollywood and the technology industry to broker a deal."

Comments

LOL! American Freedom!

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL! American Freedom!

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[PrescriptionWarning]

The freedom to pirate their stuff despite their lame attempts to control it all is the priceless part.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[cpu6502]

There's a reason out of thousands of innate natural rights, the Founding Fathers decided to include guns as one of the top 10. No not for hunting. For self-defense. Both of yourself and your fellow compatriots.

We haven't hit that stage yet, but we're getting very very close. If they start rounding-up Americans and throwing them in jail without trial (NDAA), I'm running for office. I'm fed up. And if they start executing americans.....

Let's just say the 2nd amendment is the only right left that I have not exercised. But that will change. Time to follow the example of our fellow human beings in Egypt. Libya. Eastern Europe. And the original 14 states (including Vermont).

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why hasn't the MPAA been declared an illegal price-fixing conspiracy under RICO statutes yet? They've been convicted of price fixing TWICE...

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[Goocifer]

Mod parent up.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why hasn't the MPAA been declared an illegal price-fixing conspiracy under RICO statutes yet? They've been convicted of price fixing TWICE...

Because they buy off the politicians.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[zieroh]

LOL! Anonymous Coward is a Coward!

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[dbet]

If the U.S. armed forces are capable of all that, why can't they beat 3000 farmers with little access to firearms and technology in Afghanistan?

It's not like dissenters will line up on a battlefield with the army and all take turns shooting each other. They'll be an insurgency. Your neighbors. People you work with. And they'll have easy access to guns and technology.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[ffflala]

I'm very much interested in how feasible you think it is for you to apparently shoot your way to freedom. Please spend more of your time, effort, and energy on the running for office plan, because of the two I strongly believe it will be the far more effective one.

The way is still open to "overthrow" every elected official --and, after time, all appointed officials-- without violence. It is incredibly difficult, statistically unlikely, and the odds are very much stacked against you... but it's still a much better idea then trying to, ah, "free" a 300+m country with oh say, for starters, 1.5m active personnel and 1.5m reserve personnel and an annual budget of more than half a trillion (long scale) dollars.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[NeutronCowboy]

Yes, because the US of today is like Libya, Egypt, Yugoslavia and the colonies in America circa 1700. And Obama and Bush are like Ghaddafi, Mubarak, Tito and King George I. *roll eyes* I'm always wildly amused by the type of hyperbole that is coming from some people in the US public. To some extent, it shows exactly how little they know about the world, and even about their own government. On the other hand, it also shows just how frighteningly violent they are.

Good thing that entertainment in the US is highly efficient, and very good at keeping people glued to the couch. And that it really isn't as bad as people make it sound like. It means all this talk will just stay that - talk.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[kheldan]

Why hasn't the Catholic Church been declared a conspiracy to aid and abet child molestors? The reason is emm-oh-enn-ee-why, that's what. The MPAA, rotting from within or not, still has a shit-ton of money, and they're happy to toss it around to try to get what they want -- and so far they're fairly effective at it.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry to break it to you, boyo, but the 2nd has been dead since 1934. You can't have a gun if you're the "wrong" kind of American, and you can't have a good one unless you're rich enough to pay the staggering taxes (in which case, you probably won't be one of the revolutionaries). Take a good look at California (no ccw, no open carry, no (useful) "assault rifles") - that's the future of the rest of the country.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[Requiem18th]

Main problem with dissenters is how easy it is to disband them. Firstly any body needs a head, and the FBI/CIA have practice with headshots. If anyone starts making sense they throw them in jail. It's really easy given todays level of population surveillance and overbearing laws.

Downloaded a song? Jailtime. Smoke weed? Jailtime had a younger girlfriend when he was in collegue? Statutory rape => jailtime.

Even if nothing can be found to get rid of a target (Cardinal Richelieu whould be dissapoint) you can thrump up false charges or, if pressed for time, charge him with disrruption of order or (for anyone seeking *actual* effective action) incitation to violence. It's therefore almost impossible to coordinate an organized rebelion. Which only means that any rebellion that does succed will be utter chaos.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[JavaBear]

I wonder if a self-defence plead would fly in court. "But your honour, I were merely defending myself, he were taking away my freedom as provided in the constitution."

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[lightknight]

Nonsense. The easiest way to overthrow the current batch of elected officials is to make the people enraged (not anger, which burns bright, then not at all; enraged, the sort of rage that glows like a lump of coal, and possesses a man to keep fighting even during bitter winters in places like Valley Forge). I have a book which purports that it's the printing of propaganda, timing, and anger that destroys entrenched governments.

In short, you personally do not do anything (violence, demonstrations, etc. only undermine your position, and draws the attention of power-brokers / rulers); you let the authorities fuck up, by shooting unarmed citizens or something equally unpalatable, then ensure that everyone knows they fucked up. Several incidents of a similar nature over a few years, supplied with the right condemnation, creates a firestorm that money & military cannot put out. Again, based off of this book's writings, it was the action of a certain founding father who helped turn the colonists against the crown (well, a little more than helped; more along the lines of ensuring that a military conflict would occur, and that the military would be loathed / despised / shunned by even the prostitutes).

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[lightknight]

Best guess? It won't be a problem.

Why? Because the power-brokers are aware that the military has some reservations about firing upon an unarmed populace, specifically their own people. The military is required to swear an oath of loyalty to uphold the US Constitution, and the protect the people. They lack, for the vast majority, the psychological profile needed; and they are taught all about the Nuremberg trials, and how "I was only following orders" is not a valid defense; they are required to reject illegal orders, even from the commander in chief.

Instead, LEOs will be used. LEOs have shown that when outfitted with surplus military hardware, and trained with military tactics, they can be every bit as deadly as the military, while having little to no reservations over shooting an unarmed populace, specifically their own people (they do it all the time as it is). It also neatly sidesteps the issue of declaring martial law, which would put everyone on guard against a possible dictatorship. If the US President were to declare martial law today, an invisible clock would start ticking; a clock which various power-brokers would sell their own grandmother to prevent ticking. It's the kind of clock which has the citizenry polishing their pitchforks and acquiring fuel for torches, the kind of clock that has the military trying to decide whether it has a "problem," the kind of clock that gets the crazies thinking of being a 'hero' by sacrificing themselves to take out the "Big Bad." Using LEOs means you can say you're just trying to restore 'order' (plausible deniability), while you maintain control through your 'not-an-army.'

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[Cyberax]

US armed forces can easily erase ANY organized armed group from the face of the Earth. The problem is, insurgents are not an 'organized group'.

They are a diffuse network, and rooting them out in reality is more of a police work (i.e. building networks on informants, fighting weapon smuggling, etc.) than military work.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a reason out of thousands of innate natural rights, the Founding Fathers decided to include guns as one of the top 10. No not for hunting. For self-defense. Both of yourself and your fellow compatriots.

This works if there's no difference between one armed person and another. You no longer have parity.

Allow me to repeat DavidTC's excellent post from http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=346351&cid=21193115

Contents:

Have fun in your little made-up universe where the government comes to round you up and you manage to fight it off.

In the real world, fascism is when the corporations and governments work as a single entity, and you can wander around with your fucking gun all you want. In fact, you'll have to wander around, because the government/corporations took your house and your car, and no one will hire you.

At which point you'll be arrested, not as some big anti-government hero by jackboot thugs, but for stealing bread to live on, by a perfectly normal cop who's just doing his job, a job that absolutely no one except you disagrees with, so when you shoot and kill him you're getting the electric chair and no one thinks you're a hero at all.

There are different types of totalitarian governments, and assuming a fascist one operates like a communist one is faulty. Fascist governments don't put troops in the streets...they work with corporations to make sure 'the wrong sort of people' do not have any economic power, and do not have anywhere to peddle their ideas.

Modern fascist states don't even bother to kill those people, and pretending they're going to show up in some stormtrooper outfit and start a gun battle with you is insane. They'll show up with a court order to evict you from your home because you failed to pay your mortgage, because pressure came from the top at your company to let you go. Or they'll just sue you and ruin your finances.

America is not a bunch of tiny castles where, as long as you can hold off the invading armies, you will be fine. The idea that that is how the world works is astonishingly naive. Almost all the population of America lives in housing they do not fully own, they get food from places they do not control like the supermarket, they require operating in society for money to obtain said food and shelter, a society where economics are controlled by some very large players that can crush them like bugs.

And a fascist state isn't going to 'assume control', you asshat. There's not going to some insane coup, there's a going to be a slow change, which has, in fact, already happened, or have you not looked at the telecom immunity stuff? That's classic fascism. The government breaks the law, the government gets private companies to break the law, the government gives said companies huge amounts of cash, the government attempts to make such behavior legal retroactively. We've got government officials and AT&T officers leaping back and forth between each other in an incestuous loop. Your government spying on you, sponsored by AT&T. It's not 'totalitarian' yet, as evidenced by the fact Democrats managed to stop the immunity, but it is fascism, at least the start of it. (And the same thing's happened with Blackwater.)

Oh, and before you start ranting about gun control some more, be forewarned I'm against it. I'm just not stupid enough to think that the US government being slowly corrupted by business is something that can be fought off with gunpowder. Guns are useful to deter crime and to deter invasion. They aren't useful against a corrupt government in any meaningful way.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[scharkalvin]

Hey MPAA, don't touch OUR internet or we will take it away from YOU!
Don't mess with geeks. You have been warned!

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[NormalVisual]

you can't have a good one unless you're rich enough to pay the staggering taxes

$200 isn't exactly a "staggering" tax, and the required tax stamp isn't why you don't see more automatic weapons in civilian hands. The real reason is that it's illegal for an average member of the public to buy or own an automatic weapon manufactured since May 19, 1986, courtesy of the Firearm Owners Protection Act, and specifically owing to William J. Hughes and Charles Rangel. Consequently, the 30 year old full-auto MP5 that should only cost $2,000 or so now can't be had for less than $20,000.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[jythie]

Because it makes a useful example of the same basic problem. It isn't really bringing in religion (and more then talking about the MPAA is bringing up movies), but instead a specific example of a quasi-state institution that receives preferential legal treatment that weaker groups could only dream of, including getting away with behavior that, if another group tried it, they would be locked up. Both are examples of the privilege that comes with private power.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[jythie]

Scary part is, probably the only group that actually could challenge the US government with any degree of organized effort would be the drug cartels. Though I could also see another civil war type situation where groups of states decide that the general direction of the country is not in their best interest and take parts of the military with them. Neither situation is all that likely though.... as much as people complain about how the US is going to 'hell in a handbasket' and people are on the verge of revolt.. realistically we have it pretty damn sweet here, in fact we are spoiled rotten.. it would take things getting much, much, MUCH worse to actually cause real action as opposed to talk/rallies.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[jythie]

Rats, out of mod points. But yes, this. Even if the general soldiers could be convinced to turn their guns on fellow americans (not too implausible given how easy it is to build rhetoric around 'traitors'.. soldiers tend to be pretty authority oriented), convincing the generals to go along with it would be pretty hard. Generals tend to be war-adverse at the best of times (they love toys and simulations and wargames, but traditionally are not keen on actually sending people into a war zone), but if you started ordering them to attack their own soil you would probably have to replace a bunch of them quickly.. meaning promoting up a new group, which will not be very effective at their jobs.

While yeah. LEO (and the national guard) have, over the years, demonstrated that they can be turned on citizens very easily. Many LEO already see non-LEO as 'the enemy' already and are easily swept up in the 'it is important to maintain authority, any questioning of authority puts everyone at risk' meme... thus anything that makes them look bad or less powerful is justification for taking it out.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[jythie]

'useful' assault rifles are easy to get even in CA.. the rules regarding what counts as an 'assault rifle' are so arbitrary and aesthetic that they are easy to bypass and still have a weapon just as effective.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[jythie]

Generally no. The Constitution is secondary to precedent, so using it as a defense only works if other people have successfully used it like that in the past.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I'd often wondered what would happen if a small army of say, 200 people, decided to march on Washington DC with unloaded weapons to make a point about the Second Amendment? And how the people are the ones in charge?

It seems I wasn't the first one with that idea. And it did not go well. Some uprisings have done a little better? But others have fared much worse.

At 4:45 p.m., commanded by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the 12th Infantry Regiment, Fort Howard, Maryland, and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, supported by six battle tanks commanded by Maj. George S. Patton, formed in Pennsylvania Avenue while thousands of civil service employees left work to line the street and watch. The Bonus Marchers, believing the troops were marching in their honor, cheered the troops until Patton ordered the cavalry to charge themâ"an action which prompted the spectators to yell, "Shame! Shame!"

So. My advice to you?

SHUT. THE FUCK. UP.

No, seriously. Shut. Up.

Don't tell the world what you are going to do. Don't post on the Internet. Don't organize via Twitter, or Facebook, or Slashdot or Reddit. Don't talk on cellphones, don't communicate via email unless you use PGP. Don't give the government-local or federal-any reason to look at you.

That way, when it is time to move, and time to start shooting, the government won't have time to react, and you might actually get something done.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[canadian_right]

You guys did not beat "3000 farmers" because you are too civilised to bomb the whole country into rubble, and it was a lot more than 3000 farmers.

I have no doubt that if the full might of the USA armed forces was unleashed on Afghanistan, without any civilized restraints, the war, well slaughter, would have been over in a year.

This is a good thing.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[s.petry]

I like this quote myself.

but that he was 'not going to go into more detail because obviously if I do, it becomes counterproductive.

That in itself tells you where their minds are. Their way, or the highway. And damn it they will spend what ever it takes to buy off politicians and make it their way!

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[Captain Hook]

And every other country would have united against the US.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[cayenne8]

Take a good look at California (no ccw, no open carry, no (useful) "assault rifles") - that's the future of the rest of the country.

Not gonna be a problem in any part of the US I live in, or want to live in.

That kinda crap won't pass at all in the south.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[b4dc0d3r]

I think it has more to do with elections. No one wants to persecute the entire Church and be labeled anti-Christian. Many states have gone after specific high-ranking individuals who have been directly accused.

When you get to international concerns it's even harder to fight. The Vatican is essentially its own country, so you can't just issue a summons to appear to the Pope or anyone else who lives/works there. And you'd piss off a huge number of Catholics around the world if you tried some other method of justice.

The best you could get is a conspiracy among a few scapegoats to brush it under the rug - going for the whole organization would result in failure.

These two are entirely different. I fully agree that the amount of money the MAFIAA have spent getting their choice candidates elected has tainted things, but your choice to bring the Catholic Church into the argument was really a terribly misguided idea.

Re:LOL! American Freedom!

[bzipitidoo]

Same reason why Bank of America still exists. They bought the politicians. They've suckered much of the press. And we, the public, haven't exercised our power to stop this corruption, this parasitic drain upon our economy. Many of us are woefully distracted, too busy trying to stay afloat to pay attention even to important matters, even those things that are making it so hard to stay afloat. Criminals love distraction. Some people even go so far as to agree with our oppressors' propaganda. If the politicians were more than being buried in angry letters, if they were facing recall elections, if some got the boot, the MAFIAA would be busted so fast your head would spin. We ought to see a bunch of CEOs being fired, with some dragged off to prison. And these Too Big To Fail companies ought to be failed, broken up, liquidated, and the proceeds given back to the taxpayers who bailed out their undeserving, ungrateful, lying, cheating asses. Why hasn't any of this happened!?

We could also make the MAFIAA behave or die if we'd simply quit doing business with them. Why does anyone still bank at Bank of America? And buy music from the labels and see movies? If we can't even bring ourselves to shut down the likes of Bank of America, I see little hope that the MAFIAA can be brought to heel.

How many of us have seen an OWS protest in person? Actually participated in one? Anyone? Anyone?

My goodness

[Sigvatr]

What motivates this man to be so evil?

Re:My goodness

[Anonymous Coward]

He's liberal.

Re:My goodness

[hondo77]

The usual suspects: money and power.

Re:My goodness

[andydread]

Yes but the person that introduced SOPA is a staunch conservative....Lamar Smith (R-Tx) Yeah Texas no less. So we have a liberal from Ct and a Conservative from Tx What exactly is your point?

Re:My goodness

[an unsound mind]

The common factor is that they are both filthy rich and consider themselves far too poor.

Re:My goodness

[betterunixthanunix]

My guess is that he has a thing for green pieces of paper with pictures of dead men and numbers printed on them.

Re:My goodness

[e9th]

The word you're looking for is greed.

Re:My goodness

[Fast Thick Pants]

Very true, it will probably be round 4 in 2014 before the outrage fatigue sets in and the MPAA gets about 60% of what it's asking for. By round 6 it'll be up to 135%. By 2025 your children will be required to name their children after an Oscar winner, and pay monthly license fees accordingly.

Re:My goodness

[fustakrakich]

Not sluts, whores...

Sluts do it for free. Whores get paid

Re:My goodness

[philip.paradis]

Sluts do it for free.

There's always a price, man. There's always a price.

Re:My goodness

[fustakrakich]

Oh come on... How much is a shot of penicillin at the free clinic?

Re:My goodness

[quizzicus]

Money.

Re:My goodness

[ohnocitizen]

Actually, he's conservative. Most modern Democrats are conservative, or centrist. If you want a liberal Democrat, look at Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken, or Russ Feingold.

Re:My goodness

[c0lo]

What motivates this man to be so evil?

This is not half that evil as others... watch out CIPSA

Re:My goodness

[fnj]

For God's sake, stop falling for the tired old left-right lie they've been foisting upon us. It's not about left-right, liberal-conservative, or whatever other obfuscation the bastards want you to believe in. It's about the corporate state vs individual liberty. Some D's are OK and some R's are OK. The rest are in the bag.

When and if this dawns on enough people, it's Katie bar the door. It will be the end of the evil empire and they know it.

Re:My goodness

[gmuslera]

Money, what else? With great power comes great greed.

Re:My goodness

[Anonymous Coward]

Not evil, just an Industry protectorate. It's the same with every other industry. Energy... Agro... Defense... He's just trying to protect his Industry.

SADLY, he's so blind-sided into thinking his Industry saves America, that he's willing to subjugate the entire life-blood of the Internet, OPEN COMMUNICATION, to make sure his industry stays afloat despit their continued unwillingness to adapt to STUPIFYINGLY PROFITABLE distribution models.

I'd say take him out to pasture and put him out of his misery, since I doubt he'll ever really change his tune, even after he leaves the MPAA, so I suggest we make him rewind magnetic audio tapes for the rest of his life in some 3rd world country with no electricity, and no batteries for the portable tape deck.

Re:My goodness

[LocalH]

Is he from outer space?

Re:My goodness

[Anonymous Coward]

Should've been clear as day to people when Bush started the Wall St. bailouts and then Obama continued them! What more do people need to see to realize what's going on? The parties are the same! They try to distract you with little non-economic trivialities like abortion or gay marriage but when it comes to looting the economy they are both the same.

Re:My goodness

[Wild_dog!]

I think these guys are so bought and paid for they don't really have any moral fiber. All that is holding them up is the stacks of cash which are stacked around them. They have no opinions except those that money can buy.

Re:My goodness

[Wild_dog!]

yep.... I don't know how you got modded down.
shows how complete the illusions being painted are.
Reminds me of the Matrix.

Re:My goodness

[e9th]

Politicians of both parties speak of seeking common principles on which they can all agree. It seems they've found one.

Re:My goodness

[ohnocitizen]

Who isn't corporatist on the right? Name 3 Republicans. All 3 Democrats I named are liberals, and have gone on the record fighting against corporate control of American politics. It isn't a tired old lie to say there is a difference between someone like Romney or Santorum, and someone like Warren or Feingold.

The realization that Corporations control our government is behind the Occupy movement. It will take more than realization to end an evil empire.

Re:My goodness

[Grimbleton]

As one of the "Yea" votes on DOMA, I'm not sure how "liberal" Dodd can be.

Re:My goodness

[lightknight]

The money must be that good.

Re:My goodness

[philip.paradis]

Inquiring minds wish to know why your pants are so thick, yet so fast. Is it a consequence of network congestion attributable to the transfer of many large files over an Internet link for which your pants serve as a single hop, or rather are your pants so thick that they, by necessity derived from the sheer geographic coverage (estimated as a multiple of the extrapolation of standard dimensions associated with the mean thickness of pants allocated to citizens in G20 nations) required for their mere existence and the improbability that C can be exceeded, are responsible for multiple hops, perhaps even providing service via each pant leg for multiple routes? Also, are your pants very baggy?

Again, inquiring minds are demanding answers. Pants followers everywhere eagerly await your reply, in the fervent hope that the insights you provide may take them 'round the universe.

Re:My goodness

[roman_mir]

It doesn't matter how evil a person is, what matters is that the US public is fine with giving away its rights and growing a huge government that then can abuse them, once they have no rights left.

When I say: giving away rights, I mean - allowing the government to overstep the boundaries that are set by the Constitution in the first place, be it printing money, any of the socialist programs (SS, Medicare), starting illegal wars (all wars that are undeclared), bailing out companies, meddling with business in any way, all of the executive power, etc.

Giving away rights because of perceived benefits does only one thing in reality: takes away your freedoms and then you can't stop this, it becomes an avalanche, and then you have Patriot Act, NDAA, extra-judicial killing, etc.

Re:My goodness

[nurb432]

Money.

Re:My goodness

[NIN1385]

This is extremely relevant:

Reddit campaign to unseat Lamar Smith

Re:My goodness

[NIN1385]

And now I see the same story below mine posted yesterday, my bad. Can't post it enough though.

If that language doesn't

[kungfuj35u5]

Spit out plain and simple bribed legislation I don't know what does.

Re:If that language doesn't

[geminidomino]

Are you kidding? That's downright diplomatic for Dodd.

Did you forget about him Calling out the government for not doing what they were told?

Re:If that language doesn't

[Kenja]

Money is now speech, so bribes are just a way to tell someone what you think. Why are you against the 1st amendment?

Re:If that language doesn't

[c0lo]

Money is now speech, so bribes are just a way to tell someone what you think. Why are you against the 1st amendment?

It thought that 1st amendment would protect any speech, so why would anyone's speech in opposition to bribes be suppressed?

You think I'm not getting the joke/irony/sarcasm? Well, maybe I do get it, but I'm not quite in the mood to take the things lightly: watch out CISPA.

Re:If that language doesn't

[GmExtremacy]

When will they rule that punching someone in the face is speech? I need to let off some steam...

Yawn...

[Black Parrot]

The *AA will keep sponsoring legislation until they get what they want. Then they'll decide they want more.

News, indeed.

Re:Yawn...

[iter8]

I like how he said "that Hollywood and the technology industry 'need to come to an understanding' about new copyright legislation." Hollywood and industry? We peasants don't get a say I guess.

Re:Yawn...

[TubeSteak]

It's hard for them to see us as stakeholders in the society whose rules they are trying to manipulate
As opposed to consumers that they are trying to sell a product to.

Re:Yawn...

[AlamedaStone]

It's hard for them to see us as stakeholders in the society whose rules they are trying to manipulate
As opposed to consumers that they are trying to sell as products.

I have altered your comment to more accurately reflect the situation.

Pray I do not alter it further.

Re:Yawn...

[elsurexiste]

That, and the little bit about Obama, really tells how things get done in Capitol Hill. It's a deal between big players and nothing more. For him, "the Internet" is a very vocal, unpredictable and uncompromising big player. Lawrence Lessig had a point, methinks...

CISPA

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the current bill trying to snake its way into US law is CISPA:
http://kat.ph/blog/GreenPirate/post/1774/

Re:CISPA

[lightknight]

I have a solution. Let's (all) stop looking for bugs and security issues in software; the problem will then quietly attend to itself.

Obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

If I tell the people about the legislation I am crafting there will be outrage. So don't tell anyone. Obviously.

Re:Obviously

[Riceballsan]

Sounds about right, They felt the system failed them last time, because major webpages actually told the public what was being planned. The goal the next round is going to be to figure out how to slip it in without anyone who actually understands it getting a voice. It still cracks me up how with SOPA, the most common statement from the congressmen making the decision was "I'm not a computer nerd, so I don't understand how this works at all", that part was what the **AA's considered, the process as intended. The companies and people who were effected by it speaking up and making sure that the ramifications of it were understood, that was an "abuse of power".

In MPAA-speak...

[sconeu]

"Broker a deal" means "Bend over and take whatever we give you"

Re:In MPAA-speak...

[SteveFoerster]

I'm not one of her followers, but I think Ayn Rand made a good point when she said that in a compromise between good and evil, evil always wins.

Come to an understanding?

[russotto]

You'd think the guy could at least try to resist the temptation to sound like he's in a mob movie. Unless that's part of the draw of the whole being evil thing.

Re:Come to an understanding?

[cervesaebraciator]

He had to say "come to an understanding." He was unwilling to pay the licensing costs 'to make them an offer they can't refuse.'

Jack Valenti is dead

[fustakrakich]

Long live Jack Valenti!

It's ironic, but...

[FridayBob]

... the fact that we can't resist buying his shit is what gives him the money to keep trying to censor our Internet.

Re:It's ironic, but...

[Bucky24]

Speak for yourself. I have much better things to do with my time, and it's been that way for a long time in my household.

The problem is, you and people like you are the minority. FridayBob doesn't speak for you, clearly, but does speak for the majority of American citizens.

Why we fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Copyright is the problem, it needs to be limited to 20 years. Only people should be allowed to own copyright. Businesses should only be allowed to lease copyright.

Re:Why we fail

[__aaltlg1547]

Corporations are people my friend.

Re:Why we fail

[visualight]

Hollywood stepped off the moral high ground in 1998:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act

Until we're back to where we were in 1997 the copyright lobby won't get a dime from me. I hope they all go bankrupt and I'll do anything I can to help that happen.

Re:Why we fail

[chrismcb]

20 years is a good start but what stop issues like this.
As for corporations not holding copyright, I don't understand why you think this is an issue or helps. Some things cost a lost of money to create. If we corporations can't hold copyright, then those things won't get created.

Re:Why we fail

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporations are people my friend.

You know, I'm not a republican, but I gotta defend Romney on this one just because I absolutely hate when either side takes a quote out of context to make the other guys look bad. If you have to resort to fooling people instead of legitimately making a good argument, you don't have a leg to stand on.

At the event in question, Romney was making the point that either we had to cut certain welfare programs or "raise taxes on people." It's a statement I agree with, but he argued that you shouldn't raise taxes, and instead should cut the benefits of programs like social security and medicare (which I don't agree with, I believe we should raise taxes). That said, someone on the audience screamed out in response, "tax the corporation, not the people!" to which Romney answer, "corporations are people, my friend" as a way of explaining that corporations are composed of people so ultimately that's who you're taxing. It's, once again, a correct statement.

You can disagree with Romney, and I do. I say tax the corporations but I understand that's a tax on people. It is, however, a tax on wealthy people, and not being republican, I don't see anything wrong with wealth redistribution, and see it as necessary in fact. That said, he was not making on argument on the whole "corporations should have the same rights as people" front, which is what this quote is used by the media and his opponents to imply he was saying.

Re:Why we fail

[HiThere]

They had stepped off the moral high ground long before that. That was when they stopped even trying to pretend.

Re:Why we fail

[ATMAvatar]

If eliminating corporate ownership of copyrights comes at the cost of the 4th or 5th re-release of Titanic, then I am all for it.

Re:Why we fail

[roman_mir]

Once there is a PRINCIPLE of such a ridiculous idea as copyright and patent, then the length of the term is just a detail up to lengthening at any time.

Copyrights and patents must be abolished altogether.

Re:Why we fail

[TFAFalcon]

Or just have the same taxes for corporations as you have for people. Tax their income, not their profit. Suddenly making it look like your company is loosing money will no longer be useful as a tax dodge.

Re:Why we fail

[blahplusplus]

"If you have to resort to fooling people instead of legitimately making a good argument, you don't have a leg to stand on."

Except this is not how the human mind works. The fact that you even give credence to republicans at all shows how intellectually bankrupt you are.

http://bit.ly/dYaWUc

Re:Why we fail

[gstrickler]

Easily preventable, and legally flawed on it's face. If the employee can be forced to surrender it, then it's clearly not really theirs, ergo, it's the corporations copyright, and it would expire in 20 years.

And if the employee holds the copyright, they're the one due royalties, not the company.

And, yes, I've already thought out how you can have an organization handle collecting the royalties so each artist doesn't have to personally do that if they don't want to spend the time. The artist could contract out the administration and collection of royalties to an organization (trust, corporation, company, etc.), with a limit that the fee for such service would be capped at less than 50% of the collected royalties, ensuring that the rights holder actually receives more than 50% of all royalties collected. The exact percentage TBD or contractually negotiated.

That way, if a corporation wants to try to game the system (or support their content creators) by assigning rights to the content creators, they can have the longer copyright, but the majority of the royalties still go to the individual creators.

Under this plan, a "work made for hire" would be the property of the non-person entity for 20 years, and then public domain. So, it becomes a choice of 20 years of "made for hire" corporate ownership, or give the actual content creators ownership and more than 50% of the royalties to get a share of the royalties for a longer term.

There would be no copyright renewal/extension.

Re:Why we fail

[__aaltlg1547]

Or just have the same taxes for corporations as you have for people. Tax their income, not their profit. Suddenly making it look like your company is loosing money will no longer be useful as a tax dodge.

If you taxed business revenue instead of profits, most businesses would be destroyed.

Re:Why we fail

[TFAFalcon]

So it's ok if people get ruined by taxes, but businesses are somehow sacred? If corporations want to be treated like people then treat them like people. Same taxes for all.

Re:Why we fail

[__aaltlg1547]

People don't get ruined by taxes.

And they mostly ARE taxed the same way. Net income is taxed and it's computed as gross income minus the expenses of generating that income. This is true for corporations, private business activities, investments and wages.

The reason it seems like you don't get to deduct anything when you work for wages is that almost all of the costs of generating the income are borne by your employer: they provide the property, equipment and raw materials you use. (If you provide any of those you should be deducting them and your employer can't.)

Most of the distortions in the tax code are in the form of credits. They should be eliminated for everybody, along with all special deductions.

Re:Why we fail

[TFAFalcon]

But can a person also deduct the costs of generating income from his taxes? A corporation can deduct things like rent of offices and maintnance of equipment. But can a person deduct his mortgage and food bill from his taxes? A what is food and a home except an expense of generation 'labor', which is a person's way of generating income? So why can't a person buy a house, then pay no taxes for the next 20 years, since the house was such a big expense?

Re:Why we fail

[__aaltlg1547]

I answered that in the post to which you are replying. It would really be nice if before posting, you would have the courtesy to READ the post you're replying to.

Houses and food for yourself and your family are not BUSINESS expenses. They're LIVING expenses. They are not related to your producing income because people who don't work still have to eat and live in a home of some kind.

Re:Why we fail

[TFAFalcon]

If you don't maintain a machine, even if it's not being used, it will break down eventually. Just like the human body, except not so quickly. How many people can work (well) when starving? So why not include food into business expenses? Same with shelter - just try running an office without a roof.

A corporation can define just about anything as a business expense. Even accountants and tax lawyers can be counted as costs, when they have nothing to do with the business side of the company, just with reducing it's tax burden. Avoiding taxes is not related to producing income, just profit. And a corporation that produces nothing will still need them to reduce property taxes and fight off lawsuit.

So why can't a person define some reasonable part of his own expenses as 'cost of doing business'? I'm not saying that buying an iPad should be covered (although a corporation will quickly point out that it's vital that employees have the best equipment). But things without which you'll likely be unable to work should be completely tax deductible.

An "Understanding," You Say?

[ewhac]

In an interview with Hollywood Reporter, [Dodd] said that Hollywood and the technology industry 'need to come to an understanding' about new copyright legislation.

Here's the understanding, Chris: Computers copy data. Period. End of novel; no sequel coming. It is a fact of the landscape that is not going to change.

And that, as far as any clear-thinking technologist is concerned, is the end of the discussion. Business models must be constructed around this reality. (And if your business model is not based on reality, but instead on a la-la fairy land where every computer is under MPAA/RIAA/SPAA control, unsanctioned copies never happen, every view is metered, and directors and actors work for naught but "exposure"... Well, they have anti-psychotics that can help with that now.)

BTW, anyone hoping to debate the merits of copyright policy is REQUIRED to read this speech by Thomas Babington Macaulay -- it will easily be among the most enlightening forty-odd minutes of your life.

Schwab

Re:An "Understanding," You Say?

[TubeSteak]

Here's the understanding, Chris: Computers copy data. Period. End of novel; no sequel coming. It is a fact of the landscape that is not going to change.

It's also a fact of the landscape that to get online and function once you're there, most Americans go through very few gatekeepers/ways.
Whether we're talking about ISPs, search engines, payment processors, file hosts, etc... there aren't actually that many.
By attacking these gateways, the **AA can focus its power much more efficiently than if they were going after every American online.

/And the money they spend on advocating this crap gets written off on their taxes, so it isn't a big loss to them.

Re:An "Understanding," You Say?

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is, if the *AAs actually acknowledged the new reality, and worked with it, rather than against it, they probably would be able stop almost all piracy. They won't ever make as much money as they used to, because the Internet allows us all to do our own distribution. Why should we pay extra for a separate media distribution service when we've got a perfectly effective one in the Inteternet?

What we're seeing is the *AAs trying to cripple the Internet as a distribution medium because it encroaches on the job they (used to) do. Part of your movie ticket or CD purchase pays for the production of that movie or CD, and part of it pays for the whole distribution channel. Cut out the distribution channel from that price and a whole lot of profit dissapears (that would never have gone to the original artists).

Perhaps there should be some "consumer information" printed on the movie ticket / DVD / CD that tells us how much of it actually goes to the actors / artists and production crews, and how much goes into "studio" coffers.

Re:An "Understanding," You Say?

[the eric conspiracy]

Well, I read the Macaulay speech. And found that it had nothing to do with this particular discussion. In fact it could be construed to support the idea of copyright, in so far as that it recognized granting a monopoly to authors as the solution to seeing they are paid.

"It is good that authors should be remunerated; and the least exceptionable way of remunerating them is by a monopoly. Yet monopoly is an evil. For the sake of the good we must submit to the evil; but the evil ought not to last a day longer than is necessary for the purpose of securing the good."

Clearly legislation that controls the content of the internet, or tries to is evil. I was among the many who was active in opposing SOPA and PIPA. However that does not solve the issue - making sure authors get paid. And sometimes the cost of authoring is great, especially in the realm of film.

So SOPA-like legislation is not acceptable. But what happens when there are exceptions to monopolies?

Re:An "Understanding," You Say?

[Anonymous Coward]

Encrypted-tunnel based P2P makes the ISPs a non-starter, the search engine side is as hopeless as maintaining a blacklist of pornsites for censorware, payment processors are almost moot beyond the outrageous types of shenanigans that were used on wikileaks.

That leaves file hosts which is like trying to kill a hydra, DNS, and the most important one which you didn't even mention which is aggregators.

DNS shares the same issue as file hosts, and aggregators just become layered like onions or russian nesting dolls. If you can't aggregate torrents then you aggregate Blogger pages which aggregate torrents. If you can't aggregate Blogger pages then you aggregate Blogger page agreggators.

So long as content takes less time to find and download for free than it would take to buy it legitimately and earn the money necessary to buy it working a minimum wage job, then there will be an advertising market which exists to support piracy. This is particularly the case with the unemployed and the unemployable who have more time than money.

The can battle this economically by providing higher quality of service for a lower time & money cost, or they can approach it thuggishly by trying to bury the competition until they accomplish the first without lowering prices or improving service.

As demonstrated by the War on Drugs, and nearly a decade of their own actions: I suspect human nature will guide them towards the second choice until they run out of money.

As much as anything this is about a trade lobbying association composed of lawyers trying to demonstrate value to their member organizations to justify their existence. The easiest way to remove this lobbying association(to be replaced by the evil we don't know) is to gather support and then one at a time sand bag individual members with boycotts(buy their shit with cash, damage the contents/packaging, return to retailer for full refund).

This is a 4chan-raid waiting to happen. Live action DDoS. A surge in sales met with immediate cash-flow volatility and product support liability which can only be combated by self inflicted gunshot wound in the form of refusal to accept product returns(or understaffed customer service desks ; P ). They cannibalize their customer loyalty in order to amputate a cash-flow cancer.

You start with the smaller labels and members who can least readily absorb the damage and let them start the exodus from the MAFIAA.

Re:An "Understanding," You Say?

[Rich0]

I think the obvious solution is a better compromise. I think most people are fine with the idea of making money off of creating things, whether they be movies, drugs, or whatever. The issue is that there is no end to the greed of the companies that control these things. It isn't like the average musician is making loads of money - it all goes to line executive pockets, and shareholders.

Copyrights and patents need to be reigned in and given durations appropriate to their nature. Go ahead and let Apple have a year or two lead if they come up with multitouch or whatever, but after that anybody can use it. If a new song comes out, give the artist a year or two to make a load of money on it, and then it goes in the bargain bin. Perhaps books last a little longer (not sure what the profits vs costs look like there). Let movies have a month of theater protection, and two years of DVD/streaming protection. Maybe for drugs set a cap on profits - you get 10 years from market approval (and another 10 years to get it to market as long as you actively pursue it), or a few billion dollars, whichever comes first.

There is nothing wrong with rewarding people who create things that are useful to society, even if only for entertainment. The issue is that these rights get used to stifle all kinds of potential innovation, and are far in excess of what is required to create an incentive.

Re:An "Understanding," You Say?

[robot256]

The point that Macaulay made is that while we can concede that copyrights must exist, it is mandatory that they have an end as well as a beginning. Any legislation enforcing copyright monopolies must enforce both the beginning and the end of copyright terms. Make the government responsible for prosecuting infringements upon the public domain and make the damages comparable to those awarded to infringement on private copyrights. Oh, and make the length of the terms short enough that there actually *is* an end. None of the copyright legislation in the last two decades, or indeed anyone in power, has mentioned enforcement of the public domain. Without a strong public domain, copyright becomes monopoly for monopoly's sake, rather than for the public good, and that is what makes it evil.

Re:An "Understanding," You Say?

[dweller_below]

Thanks for the link to Macaulay on Copyright. It is extremely relevant. His summation was amazingly prescient:

"And you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the works of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living."

This is the modern copyright wars in a nutshell. Copyright can NOT exist in defiance of common sense. It must be reasonable or it will destroy our respect for the law. If we wish to continue as a lawful nation, we must restore reason to copyright.

Reason would look like:

• Copyright should last 20 years.
• Things that can't be copied (IE works with effective technical copying restrictions) are not subject to copyright.
• And, either no punishment for non-commercial copying or the punishment is limited to just the actual cost of buying a copy.

But, when negotiating with a crazy opponent, you can't begin with reason.

Our initial negotiating position must be:

• Copyright is only granted to works submitted to the Library of Congress.
• Mandatory licensing. Anybody can get a copy from the Library of Congress at any time for $1
• Copyright duration is 5 years, with 1 renewal.

Miles

Re:An "Understanding," You Say?

[lightknight]

Shhhhh. Let them pass this bill -> it'll slowly cripple the technology industry by removing all cyber-threat vectors (programmers), while the number of bugs (for lack of eyes / minds to fix them) will gradually accumulate. After a little while, things the various Congress member take for granted will begin to be affected. Airplanes, with faulty firmware controlling their engines, will suddenly stall and drop from the sky. Trains will collide when switching signals develop minor wiring faults. Cars will have difficulty starting, as the chips that control fuel / air mixing display erratic behaviors. Land-line phone service will be sporatic, at best; television communication will slowly degrade. The Financial District will close.

People are always talking about the need for more community, and more back to nature lifestyles. Well, they'll get it. Nothing like an antibiotic shortage to really show you what nature looks like up close and personal.

Re:An "Understanding," You Say?

[ImprovOmega]

Thank you for the brilliant link.

This part especially caught my eye as being of surpassing prescience:

Men very different from the present race of piratical booksellers will soon infringe this intolerable monopoly. Great masses of capital will be constantly employed in the violation of the law. Every art will be employed to evade legal pursuit; and the whole nation will be in the plot.

Substitute "piratical booksellers" for "file sharers" and it describes almost exactly the situation we find ourselves in today, and it was written 180 years ago!

Re:An "Understanding," You Say?

[the eric conspiracy]

Well, I don't know much about the economics of copyrights, but I sure do when it comes to patents. Clearly I think the term needs to be flexible - for some of the technology that is patented takes an awful lot of money and time to commercialize. Say like a new drug. One or two years isn't going to work there. A company I worked for invented amorphous metals - I think their basic patents (which had a term of 17 years) expired long before they were able to recoup their investment.

The question is can you come up with a practical system for doing this? I have real doubts.

Of course

[nine-times]

Ok, in case you didn't know this, of course they're going to revive it. They're going to keep pushing it and keep pushing it until it goes through. You thought we beat it because it didn't pass that one time? What, did you think the entertainment industry ran out of money and stopped paying congressmen?

They'll wait a little while, they'll rename it, they'll alter it to hide the more controversial aspects, and they'll wage a propaganda war. They will not stop trying to consolidate their power until they're ousted from power.

Re:Of course

[martin-boundary]

Which is why we have to keep following and mentioning it on slashdot, even if we already know this. We (the public) can outlast them, if a relatively small number of us are dedicated to bringing the attempts to light, again and again, for as long as it takes.

Re:Of course

[c0lo]

It's called CISPA.

FTFY. Now, go and try to do something.

Re:Of course

[martin-boundary]

You're very adorable. The movie and music industries don't age, sleep, or need to do any work to get money. We will inevitably have to do all three.

Do you always compare apples and oranges? "The music industry" doesn't age or sleep, and neither does "The public". "The music executives" age, sleep, and work, just like "The members of the public".

Re:Of course

[lightknight]

That can be arranged.

Moron

[WML MUNSON]

Chris Dodd said that there were

conversations going on now

but that he was

not going to go into more detail because obviously if I do, it becomes counterproductive.

It becomes counterproductive because nobody fucking wants this, and the people you're "having discussions" with are probably corrupt.

Re:Moron

[__aaltlg1547]

Or he's trying like hell to corrupt them or bamboozle them into thinking MPAA's vision is a good idea and not a scheme that puts the utility of the internet at risk.

The New Deal

[MrKaos]

The technology industry wipes out the existing business model introducing a more efficient one, retaining only the creative elements that produces movies and music. That's what IT does.

I mean evolving business models was the whole idea of capitalism in the first place, from memory.

Well, OK then

[inode_buddha]

Lets everybody keep a sharp eye out for whatever the fuck they may be trying, and shout it down when it comes out again... just like SOPA.. again

I found this guy's theme song...

[Cazekiel]

Voltaire says it best in 'When You're Evil'...

I'm the fly in your soup, I'm the pebble in your shoe
I'm the pea beneath your bed, I'm a bump on every head...

Senator *AND* he leads the MPAA???

[sl4shd0rk]

I guess corporate dollars and political motivation can't get spelled out much clearer than that. Anyway, there have been plenty of alternatives proposed to SOPA/PIPA. If he can't work with what's been proposed then he should be fired.

Re:Senator *AND* he leads the MPAA???

[R3d M3rcury]

In this case, the title is honorary. Much like George Bush is still referred to as "President Bush" even though he isn't in the White House anymore, Senator Dodd is no longer a senator.

This is why center-left .\ needs Conservatives

[windcask]

We may disagree with you about social issues and government assistance, but you'd better believe we're your brothers in fucking arms when it comes to the overreach of Hollywood and big government censorship.
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/kevinglass/2012/01/18/republicans_backing_off_internet_piracy_acts
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jpmoore/15-republicans-you-can-thank-for-bailing-on-sopap
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_Congresspersons_who_support_or_oppose_SOPA/PIPA

Re:This is why center-left .\ needs Conservatives

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

We may disagree with you about social issues and government assistance, but you'd better believe we're your brothers in fucking arms when it comes to the overreach of Hollywood and big government censorship.

Don't confuse being the "party of no" with being anti-MAFIAA.

Take, for example Orrin Hatch former republican senator from Utah and RIAA bitch.

Re:This is why center-left .\ needs Conservatives

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Make that current senator from Utah and still a RIAA bitch.

Re:This is why center-left .\ needs Conservatives

[windcask]

And don't confuse being a remember of the Republican party with being Conservative. Hatch is the quintessential old guard Republican, having been in office longer than half of the people reading this thread have been alive. He has massive lobbying interests in pharmaceuticals and other areas as well, not just the RIAA.

Re:This is why center-left .\ needs Conservatives

[Microlith]

No worries, we'll just wait for "conservatives" in Congress to back big oil, big coal, and other large industries.

Let's do something about it.

[Pinkfud]

It's time to organize a general boycott of the productions of their member companies. Can't you find some entertainment other than seeing the latest movie? I haven't bought a theater ticket in 10 years, and I do just fine. Most of their stuff these days is garbage anyway. The only way we are EVER going to be free of this tyranny is to deprive the members of the money they need to keep supporting it.

Re:Let's do something about it.

[__aaltlg1547]

Also no rentals or Netflix subscriptions.

Re:Let's do something about it.

[R3d M3rcury]

The only way we are EVER going to be free of this tyranny is to deprive the members of the money they need to keep supporting it.

But, then I'll miss Battleship!

Re:Let's do something about it.

[Pinkfud]

Fine with me. I never had a Netflix account and I don't know whether my DVD player even works - I haven't turned it on in years.

I don't understand this.

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason this is happening is because the *AA is pumping so much money into members of Congress. The tech giants, however, have far more money than the *AA.

Why aren't the tech giants protecting their interests by spending more than the *AA are on lobbying?

Chris Dodd

[cosm]

Fuck that guy.

It's just like home...

[mark-t]

As a Canadian, I'm torn between taking some sort of sadistic delight in seeing that the characteristic of elected representatives making decisions contrary to the electorate's desires is not a uniquely Canadian trait, and feeling genuine empathy for the USA in this situation.

After careful consideration, I'll go with the latter. It's a more PC.

I am Canadian, after all.

Re:It's just like home...

[inode_buddha]

Want to know what's even worse? He's at least partly responsible for the real-estate meltdown. Back in the 1980's he pushed for bank deregulation and universal home ownership... even for those who wouldn't meet normal credit worthiness. Banks had to make quotas of mortgages to those who wouldn't normally qualify, or else face investigation/penalties. You probably know whats happened the last few years...

No.

[atari2600a]

Just no.

There's a petition for everything

[airfoobar]

http://act.demandprogress.org/sign/new_sopa/

Do sign, please. It may not help, but it can't hurt.

Re:There's a petition for everything

[c0lo]

http://act.demandprogress.org/sign/new_sopa/

Do sign, please. It may not help, but it can't hurt.

While at it, give CISPA a bump... while you still can.

An understanding?

[Freddybear]

Maybe Chris Dodd needs to come to an understanding with a bucket of tar and a pile of feathers.

Re:An understanding?

[Anonymous Coward]

ounces

You gringos and your damn Fred Flintstone units...

Would you prefer it in grains?

Re:An understanding?

[robot256]

By "come to an understanding" he means asking the tech companies the question, "How can we break the Internet without hurting your bottom line so you let it pass into law?"

Of course, the answer is a resounding NEVER.

Re:An understanding?

[Freddybear]

Not as long as tech customers are watching. But we can't let down our guard for a second...

Really?

[Benfea]

What is it about liberal ideology that makes us want to align with a group of large corporations to screw over large numbers of individuals just to line the pockets of said corporations? I thought liberals were bad people for doing precisely the opposite. Make up your minds!

Re:Really?

[paiute]

Progressive policies are those which seek to establish control over all aspects of people's lives by experts who know better what those people really want and need than those people do themselves.

In stark contrast to that are the Conservative policies, which seek to establish control over all aspects of people's lives by nonexperts who know better what those people really want and need than those people do themselves.

Re:Really?

[Attila Dimedici]

No, conservatives seek to limit government to the minimum amount of power necessary to keep society functioning. Unfortunately, there are many politicians who claim to be conservatives, and manage to appeal to conservatives by careful marketing, who seek to expand their power and thus the power of government.

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the same thing as you've just asserted has happened to the word liberal. "Conservative" is now something else entirely.

Re:Really?

[zieroh]

Progressive policies are those which seek to establish control over all aspects of people's lives by experts who know better what those people really want and need than those people do themselves.

That's complete bullshit and you know it. Progressive policies are those which seek to keep corporations from screwing the people. Anyone who says otherwise is a conservative trying to spin the story.

Re:Really?

[zieroh]

No, conservatives seek to limit government to the minimum amount of power necessary to keep society functioning. Unfortunately, there are many politicians who claim to be conservatives, and manage to appeal to conservatives by careful marketing, who seek to expand their power and thus the power of government.

So in other words, none of the so-called conservatives actually behave in the way that you think they ought to, but it never dawned on you that if that's what all the conservatives do, then that's probably the de-facto definition of conservative. Meanwhile, you ascribe a ridiculous set of beliefs onto liberals, but it never dawns on you that what you think liberals are is in fact just some made-up crap that so-called conservatives like to believe about liberals to make their own heartless existence more tolerable.

Or, put another way, you're completely full of shit.

Re:Really?

[SteveFoerster]

You're confusing conservatives with libertarians.

Re:Really?

[lightknight]

Nonsense. Capital L "liberals" = Progressives, small l "liberals" = the people who favor liberty.

Admittedly, it does make starting some sentences more difficult.

Re:Really?

[lightknight]

Everyone does. Why? Because it's easier than learning that there are more than two ideologies in the room.

Re:Really?

[Attila Dimedici]

Then how come have corporations become more powerful as government has implemented more progressive policies?
Look at the history of progressives. They have always sought to expand the reach of government authority and take it out of the hands of elected officials and give it to unaccountable "experts".

Re:Really?

[Attila Dimedici]

So, let's see, because many politicians who claim to be conservative end up doing what the progressive politicians said they would do in the same situation, I should support the progressive politicians who, despite saying that they want to take away my freedoms, will act against their self-interest and actually defend my freedoms? I don't follow your logic at all. The way I see it, there is at least a chance that the politician who says that he believes in limited government will act to limit government. I can't see any chance that a politician that runs on the platform of the government being all things to all people will do so.

Re:Really?

[Attila Dimedici]

No, libertarians seek no government. And I am not confusing them because I moved from liberal to conservative by way of libertarianism. I was indoctrinated from grade school through college that "liberals" (really progressives) were about protecting freedoms (as laid out in the Bill of Rights, particularly the First Amendment, and more) against attempts by conservatives to diminish them. After I left school, I kept noticing that "liberals" were supporting policies that infringed on freedoms (speech codes at universities, restrictive gun laws, limiting religious activity, suppressing dissent), so I moved even further "left" and became a self-identified libertarian. Then I noticed something, almost all of the more or less mainstream voices that were actually standing up for individual freedom were conservative. The "liberals" were all busy proclaiming that flag-burning was protected speech while promoting laws that limited what you could actually say regarding political issues.

Re:Really?

[Attila Dimedici]

Well, I suppose you could try and do that. The problem is that there are very few voices, if any, that identify themselves as "liberal" who are not promoting policies that restrict liberty, let alone actually promoting liberty.

Re:Really?

[tbannist]

Then why is "conservative" presidential candidate Rick Santorum, for example, so keen on telling people what they can do with their bodies?

The real truth: Liberals are people who value fairness and preventing harm. Conservatives aren't as keen on those, principles they believe that fairness and preventing harm can be limited to the good people who live the correct way, because they place a high moral values on conformity, tribal identity*, and obedience. Liberals, generally speaking, do not appreciate those conservative values. That is the root source of much conflict between liberals and conservatives. Conservatives seek to limit the government when the governments actions appear to benefit non-conservatives, and support government action when it appears to support conservative values. That's why conservatives think it's ok to have laws on who you can put your tally-wacker into and what you can smoke. Those laws reinforce the tribal identity that conservatives would like American to mean. Liberals meanwhile support government actions that increase fairness and prevent harm, and oppose government actions they think will decrease fairness or harm people without just cause. For example liberals generally oppose everything conservatives want done to enforce conformity, because they see that as unnecessary harm.

Libertarians are technically neither conservative nor liberal. They value individual liberty above all else. They care little for fairness, preventing harm, conformity, tribal identity, or obedience except where those values align with liberty.

* Tribal identity for many conservatives is "conservative", though it can also be based on nation, city, favorite sports term or something else.

Re:Really?

[tbannist]

Not really. Take an example from Canada we have a Prime Minister who campaign on honesty, integrity, openness and transparency who has run the most secretive, deceitful, closed, and ideological government we've ever seen. Sometimes the guy who promises to limit government will be worse than the guy who doesn't. You should spend more time looking at actual individual positions on issues (and their history of actions taken) so you can judge more accurately who is less worse. Conservative politicians are generally lying when they say they want less government, see this explanation, they don't want less government they want government to stop helping people they don't like. It means they want a government that punishes those who are different and rewards those conform to their idea of who Americans should be.

Re:Really?

[Zordak]

Take an example from Canada we have a Prime Minister who campaign on honesty, integrity, openness and transparency who has run the most secretive, deceitful, closed, and ideological government we've ever seen.

Barack Obama is the Prime Minister of Canada, too? Dang, that man gets around.

Re:Really?

[zieroh]

So, let's see, because many politicians who claim to be conservative end up doing what the progressive politicians said they would do in the same situation, I should support the progressive politicians who, despite saying that they want to take away my freedoms, will act against their self-interest and actually defend my freedoms?

I didn't say you should do anything. I said you were full of shit.

Re:Really?

[Attila Dimedici]

You said that what I believe about liberals is made up shit, when what I believe about liberals is a combination of what they do and what they say. They say they want to expand government regulation in order to protect my freedom (which is nonsensical on the face of it, how can an increase in the rules I need to follow make me more free?). They do expand government regulation and spend tax payer dollars on projects that reward their rich supporters.

Re:Really?

[zieroh]

And again, you're still full of shit. And it's unlikely that you'll ever stop being full of shit, because you've already made up your mind about the liberal boogyman.

Re:Really?

[Attila Dimedici]

So, are you saying that those who currently identify themselves as liberals do not favor expanding government regulation (for example, Obamacare)?

Re:Really?

[paiute]

So, are you saying that those who currently identify themselves as liberals do not favor expanding government regulation (for example, Obamacare)?

"Obamacare" ideas came originally from a conservative think tank and were promoted by conservative politicians. Until Obama supported them.

Re:Really?

[Attila Dimedici]

No, conservatives told those politicians that claimed to be conservative that the Constitution did not authorize Congress to meddle with healthcare and thus politicians who had at one time supported various forms of federal healthcare reform dropped it some time before Obama supported those ideas. There were politicians who claimed to be conservatives who believed that some kind of federal control over everyone's healthcare was an avenue to greater political power because many Americans had been convinced that that was the only way to fix what was wrong with American healthcare (Most Americans considered the primary problem with American healthcare to be the out of control price increase. Obamacare demonstrated that any federal program designed to "fix" healthcare would make that problem worse).

Re:Really?

[paiute]

No, conservatives told those politicians that claimed to be conservative....

You should add this to your sig: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

Re:Really?

[Attila Dimedici]

There is no need to do so. You make the mistake of not understanding the definition of conservative as it currently applies to American politics. A conservative as it generally applies in today's American politics is someone who believes that the Federal government should be limited to those powers explicitly given it by the Constitution. When you look at the actions taken by those who were at the Constitutional Convention when they were President (or otherwise in decisive positions), you get a pretty good idea of what they understood to be the limits. Several of them addressed issues like the way that Obamacare (and other federal laws) try to twist the Commerce Clause to grant Congress unlimited power, by explaining the limited definition of "commerce" that was meant in that clause.
Any politician (or other individual) who supports the federal government exceeding the limits set by the Framers of the Constitution is not a conservative.

Re:Connecticut

[CelticWhisper]

Perhaps we should call in a Connecticutioner?

How much more openly?

[blind biker]

How much more explicitly should he say that he doesn't give a rat's ass about the general interest? Should he say "I poop on all you little folks!"

I swear, Americans seem to just *love* these self-interested politicians.

Chris Dodd petition

[WhyNotAskMe]

Why don't we have more signatures on this petition to have him investigated for bribery?

Re:Chris Dodd petition

[Martin Blank]

Because such petitions are pointless.

I only added my name to an anti-SOPA petition because the list stood a chance of being read on the Senate floor as part of a filibuster. Senators are allowed threaten a filibuster to slow consideration, but I prefer it when they actually get up there and speak until 61 others tell them to shut it and this seemed like a worthy example. Other than that, I pretty much never add my name to such things.

Re:Chris Dodd petition

[Mikawo]

Because if you read the page, they have responded:

...the White House declines to comment on this petition because it requests a specific law enforcement action.

The site would be pretty cool if the administration actually kept their promise to address petitions after a number of signatures. I'm looking at the popular petitions and even though they have tens of thousands of signatures, they have not been addressed. I don't know. Maybe this is because signatures were added after the deadline, but why is there even a deadline? I think the fact that the signatures exceeded the threshold at all is reason enough to address the petition.

Another problem with the site is that your voice still doesn't make a difference. The things that do get addressed are typically of the form: "Oh, yes, that does seem to be an issue. Thanks for the input." In other words, "See, we're listening! We just don't particularly care about what you're saying."

Quoted as saying

[Culture20]

"We &@$%ing own the executive branch! And we've already bribed Congress. Only nine more people to buy; five if we're not interested in a unanimous decision."

Electronic Frontier Foundation needs to step up

[Karmashock]

All the people that complained about special interest groups... well, this is what they're good for... EFF has been pretty good about fighting this stuff off in the past. And as time goes on this will be a bigger struggle.

You can't ban special interests. You can only counter special interests with special interests. The abortion people fight each other. The gun people fight each other. And now we're going to have a war between the MPAA etc and the EFF etc.

Bring it.

Re:I wish

[Elbereth]

You're advocating fascism.

Genes perhaps?

[danwiz]

Senator Thomas J. Dodd Memorial Stadium is a minor league baseball stadium in Connecticut. It was named after a Senator who was censured in 1967 for converting campaign funds to his personal accounts and spending the money.

That's Christopher Dodd's father. And the memorial stadium was built in 1995 during Chris Dodd's tenure as a Senator. Senator Chris Dodd has had his share of scandals too.

Something about apples not falling too far from the tree comes to mind.

Re:I wish

[geminidomino]

Actually, he's advocating vigilantism. Dodd is (one of many) advocating fascism.

Speaking of Lamar Smith...

[Freddybear]

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/REddit-TestPAC-SOPA-PIPA-Lamar-Smith,news-14720.html

"What better way to kill the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) bill for good than to nuke its author right out of Congress? That's what a group of Reddit users are trying to do after forming a Political Action Committee, or PAC. They want Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX.) booted out of office, and will do everything they can to see it happen."

If they succeed in booting Smith in the primary, that should put some fear into others who might otherwise support SOPA/PIPA style legislation.

Re:Speaking of Lamar Smith...

[rtb61]

The only way to stop it for good, is to destroy the industries that bright it into being. They will never stop, insane psychopathic greed drove them to seek ways to censor and shutdown the peoples version of the internet so they could create an eighties version of mass media on it instead.

That kind of sick thinking doesn't stop until the people behind it and then people behind them have lost all the power.

We will be fighting the SOPA battle for the next decade at least and possibly longer. They spend years perverting the news, they spent billions buying up control and they still lie on those mass media channels day in and day out. Fox not-News is just the very worst example, not just the only one spreading corporate propaganda as news.

Re:Speaking of Lamar Smith...

[lightknight]

Nice.

Re:Speaking of Lamar Smith...

[Freddybear]

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

Re:Speaking of Lamar Smith...

[canadian_right]

The only way to stop it for good, is to destroy the industries that bright it into being. They will never stop, insane psychopathic greed drove them to seek ways to censor and shutdown the peoples version of the internet so they could create an eighties version of mass media on it instead.

Exactly. The problem is that the MPAA, RIAA, etc... have to admit that the current and future state of technology has made their business model as obsolete as a buggy whip maker. It is time to move on. It is time for copyright reform that is based on the actual behaviour of citizens, not the desires of a dying cartel.

I propose 20 year free copyright, 1 time expensive 20 year extension, well defined fair use, well defined right to copy for non-commercial use, copyright cannot be transferred to companies, except for work for hires, but stays with the artist, and a reasonable compulsory royalty rate for copying all works after the first twenty years is up.

Re:Speaking of Lamar Smith...

[nu1x]

In fact, a certain character in anime "One Piece", Red-Hair Shanks said, "The price of freedom is responsibility for your actions", and that is a superset of this vigilance thing you americans are so fond of. When in fact, you cannot blame other people and remain free.

Status quo is all your fault.

Re:I wish

[Elbereth]

Come to think of it, you've got a point there.

I'm usually more careful about throwing around the F word, but, in this case, I think it's clearly misapplied.

Re:Ashamed

[AlamedaStone]

Chris Dodd makes me ashamed to be a life-long Connecticut Resident.

Have you stood in downtown Hartford after business hours recently? Dodd's just the tip of the iceberg.

And its kept far from news headlines

[Burz]

if its covered at all. This issue is supposed to be do-or-die for the media, but they're keeping it pretty quiet.

This is one of the many corporatist putsches where they expect to write the legislation and pay the campaign funds (or hold out the golden parachutes) and have it pass quietly while the media keep us distracted with 98% nonsense. Its like the debate over extending Medicare to the rest of the population -- oh, wait! There was no debate: We were told we could either deal with the private insurance companies, or the private insurance companies. And healthcare reform was a media megaproduction compared to ACTA/SOPA/DMCA.

Corporatism

[SteveFoerster]

Exactly so. It's for this reason that I wish those on the left would stop referring to the system we currently have as "capitalism". It's not even close, it's corporatism, and that's very different, and vastly inferior. Now, if those on the left don't like capitalism either, then that's their prerogative, but those on the left and the right who are not part of the establishment should recognize that corporatism is their mutual enemy, and that it should be rooted out first, and differences settled afterwards.

Re:Corporatism

[Wild_dog!]

There aren't really any national corporations. The powerful ones are global corporate oligarchies. They buy out governments, pit countries against each other and fund the hate that americans feel for each other. ... a house divided......

The sheeple and small businesses are just fodder for the global corporate elites to play with at their whim.

Re:Connecticut

[ffflala]

Better hurry up, then! Looks like you've only a few more weeks. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/05/us-usa-deathpenalty-connecticut-idUSBRE83406N20120405

Only Corporations matter to these

[grantspassalan]

politicians! What the common people using the Internet want is irrelevant and totally and completely meaningless to them!

Quote: "but said he hoped the president would use his 'good relationships' with both Hollywood and the technology industry to broker a deal."

The big corporations in media and technology who finance the politicians should get together for a "solution". What the people want is not even considered for a microsecond by the **AA and others in Hollywood. When the first Tuesday in November comes, remember who these politicians were that sponsored and supported SOPA and PIPA and vote them ALL out of office. If they are still in office after November, it is reasonably certain that such laws and worse ones WILL get forced down everybody's throat.

Dodd also voted for DOMA

[Grimbleton]

He's an all-around scumbag.

Compromise

[sohmc]

Since compromise is required for anyone to get behind SOPA/PIPA, I suggest the following concessions of the MPAA: * Copyright is reduced from 75 years after authors death to 10 years after the creation of a protected work. * No more software patents. * Lobbying groups that donate more than $1 million dollars annually to politicians shall be taxable. While I realize that this is purely a fantasy and likely to never happen, I think a compromise like this would help MPAA and others at least sell their snake oil. Wondering what concessions others slashdotters would like to see in order for them to accept SOPA/PIPA in it's current form.

Of cousre they are

[nurb432]

if anyone thought this was dead, they are sadly mistaken.

These groups wont stop until yo cant even *think* about content without being jailed, and get 100% of your income funneled to them automatically by the government as a 'fee' for breathing.

Most liberarians are not anarchists

[SteveFoerster]

I was raised by progressives in an overwhelmingly progressive community, and had a similar experience to yours moving from that to libertarianism. I think you know, then, that while some libertarians seek no government, the majority of libertarians call for a very limited government that sticks to national defense and a criminal justice system that addresses only crimes with actual victims and civil dispute resolution.

Without addressing the issue that most politicians who say they're conservative really aren't, conservatives may be good when it comes to individual freedom in the economic sphere and in some other cases, like the right to self defense. But they are not standing up for individual freedom when it comes to other social issues, such as immigration, drug use, prostitution, and gay rights.

That last one is a good example of how the three ideologies really differ. Progressives think gay marriage should be legal. Conservatives think it shouldn't. But only libertarians ask why government is in the marriage business in the first place. The mindset is simply different from either of the others.

Re:Most liberarians are not anarchists

[Attila Dimedici]

When our society agreed on the definition of marriage, there were societal benefits from the government recognizing marriages. Now that our society no longer agrees on the definition of marriage, the government is overstepping its appropriate authority by being in the marriage business. The problem of course is that as our society disagrees on more and more things (such as marriage, although that issue in itself is not decisive), it becomes increasingly difficult for there to be a functioning government. The problem is that in order for a society to have a functioning government, it must have a shared set of moral principles. There have been people who instinctively understand this. Unfortunately, history has proven that the government cannot impose that set of moral principles.
The problem we have in this country is that there have been people who have attempted to use any tool at their disposal (including government action) in order to destroy the traditional moral consensus in order to replace it with one more to their liking. This has led some conservatives to attempt to use government action to reinforce the traditional moral consensus. Both of these approaches are disastrous for the country. The only way to maintain a functioning government and change the moral principles of a society is by persuasion. Once the new moral principles are accepted by the overwhelming majority of society, the laws will change to reflect that position.

Re:Most liberarians are not anarchists

[SteveFoerster]

This is exactly what I mean. When you use terms like "our society", "societal benefits", "shared set of moral principles", and "traditional moral consensus", you're demonstrating a collectivist mindset that's extremely different from one that's concerned with individual freedom. I appreciate that you advocate persuasion and recognize that conservatives can't impose their particular flavor of morals on others through force, but the way you put it makes it sound like you only advocate this because you think it won't work, not because it's antithetical to liberty.

Re:Most liberarians are not anarchists

[Attila Dimedici]

You seem to miss the fact that I, also, believe that "liberals" can't impose their particular flavor of morals on others either. The fact of the matter is that any group of people that does not have a common set of moral principles is unable to function as a unit. You do not seem to understand that moral principles are something that an individual must subscribe to, therefore it is not possible to impose (by any means) moral principles on individuals. Even indoctrination has limited effectiveness as it starts to break down as soon as the individual in question is outside of the controlled environment necessary (such as schools or the military) to conduct indoctrination.
Additionally, you fail to recognize that liberty is one of those moral principles that must be part of the moral consensus if there will be any. The thing that you must understand is that everyone has a set of moral principles that they would like to see as the basis of government policy and law. In your case, the central moral principle is liberty (although I am sure there are a few others--such as honoring contracts). If a society does not have a shared set of moral principles that the overwhelming majority of its members agree will guide government policies and laws, government will either move in the direction of totalitarianism or anarchy and chaos as various people attempt to impose their will on others (totalitarianism occurs when a small group is able to gain a de facto monopoly on the tools of violence, anarchy and chaos when those tools are distributed among the populace).
One of the reasons for the federalist system that the Founders of the U.S. favored was that they envisioned that it would allow people with different moral principles to gather in separate areas with people of similar moral principles.

Re:Most liberarians are not anarchists

[SteveFoerster]

"You seem to miss the fact", "you do not seem to understand", "you fail to recognize" — not only is that obnoxious, but the reality is simply that we don't agree, which actually relates closely to my original point that libertarian ideology is concerned with individual freedom and conservative ideology is not. As you say, that's true of progressive ideology as well, true enough, but that doesn't mean that progressives and conservatives don't have a different mindset, they do.

"The fact of the matter is that any group of people that does not have a common set of moral principles is unable to function as a unit." I don't want to function as part of some unit, that's the whole point. And I couldn't disagree with you more that "distributing the tools of violence" leads to chaos. Indeed, decentralized power is the only way to avoid oppression, but again, that difference of opinion suggests that I as a libertarian believe in individual freedom and you as a conservative do not — or, perhaps, that you believe individual freedom is incompatible with law and order and that the latter should prevail.

Thanks for the exchange, I think I've made all the points I could usefully make in one conversation and more would just be repetitious. The last word is yours, if you wish.

Re:Most liberarians are not anarchists

[Attila Dimedici]

Again, you seem to miss the point I made that you can only have a functioning government that respects individual liberty if the majority of the people that are part of the society that government governs share the moral principle that individual liberty is important. As well, I did not say that distributing the tools of violence leads to chaos. I said that a society that does not have a common set of moral principles where the tools of violence are distributed will end up in chaos.
You keep overlooking the point I make that you can only have a government that respects individual freedom if the majority of its citizens share the moral principle that individual liberty is important. If the overwhelming majority do not believe that individual liberty is a central moral principle, the government will not respect individual liberty. If it attempts to, the result will be the strong taking advantage of the weak.
I happen to believe that individual liberty is an important moral principle, most conservatives do as well.

I don't want to function as part of some unit, that's the whole point.

I take it from this that you are one of those libertarians who seeks no government, because any form of government requires that those who live under it form some kind of unit.

Chris Dodd & SOPA

[PortHaven]

Two things that should be labeled DO NOT RESCUSCITATE.

Yet another reason....

[cayenne8]

...to vote Obama out of the Whitehouse...

...but said he hoped the president would use his 'good relationships' with both Hollywood and...

Re:Yet another reason....

[NIN1385]

...and replace him with who, another puppet? They're all lawyers, so the old saying old boss, same as the new boss. Yeah.

Re:Yet another reason....

[cayenne8]

...and replace him with who, another puppet? They're all lawyers, so the old saying old boss, same as the new boss. Yeah.

Given that I know the current one, and don't know for 100% sure on the next one...I'll at least take my chances on the next one....

Re:Yet another reason....

[b4dc0d3r]

Any Democrat is going to have Hollywood support, because the people in the business tend to be left wing, and Republicans tend to be social conservatives who like censoring things.

I forgot who it was, probably Dodd, who recently said Obama's lack of support would result in no campaign contributions, which was interpreted as some sort of blackmail or quid pro quo. What he actually meant is that, as above, Hollywood tends to support the Democrat, but it would be pointless to support someone who was against their interests. That's quite normal, and individuals make the same choices, and frequently the same "threat" to their elected officials.

Obama does not have the same kind of "good relationship" with Hollywood as Reagan did, or Aahnold, or Sonny Bono, all Republicans with direct connections to MPAA/RIAA members.

mpaa's failing business model no a gov problem

[Dan667]

maybe the mpaa should stop trying to be a horse and buggy maker in a car world instead.

Well no shit.

[JustAnotherIdiot]

Dodd said that there were 'conversations going on now,' about SOPA-style legislation, but that he was 'not going to go into more detail because obviously if I do, it becomes counterproductive.

Well no shit, if you tell the people about the new law that you're going to introduce, it's going to be popular with NO ONE (again), and everyone's going to piss on your doorstep about it (again)
Fuck off sir.

The founding fathers did not include guns.

[Benfea]

The second amendment as we know it started out as an amendment forbidding the government to maintain a standing army in times of peace (many founding fathers considered standing armies to be a threat to freedom). The original wording was about maintaining militias to fill in for the lack of a standing professional army in times of peace. The wording got hacked down to what we see today. Heck, in their day, militia members didn't even store their militia weapons in their own homes; they stored such weapons in armories.

Guns should be legal because most citizens want them to be legal, but to claim that individual gun ownership should be legal because of the second amendment is a bad argument based on a lie.