US "the Enemy" Says Dotcom Judge

First time accepted submitter Flere Imsaho writes "During the NetHui Internet conference last week, the NZ judge to hear the Dotcom extradition case was speaking on the Trans Pacific Partnership agreement and how the U.S. entertainment industry is pushing to make region code hacking illegal, when he said 'Under TPP and the American Digital Millennium copyright provisions you will not be able to do that, that will be prohibited ... if you do you will be a criminal — that's what will happen. Even before the 2008 amendments it wasn't criminalized. There are all sorts of ways this whole thing is being ramped up and if I could use Russell [Brown's] tweet from earlier on: we have met the enemy and he is [the] U.S.'"

Comments

And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[crazyjj]

And even if your country doesn't have a DMCA (and they WILL soon, if not already), don't think for a second that the U.S. can't extradite you here for punishment anyway, or that your government won't fall to its knees like a trained lapdog when the FBI snaps their fingers and says "Put him on a plane."

The sooner you people accept that the U.S. is large and in-fucking-charge, the easier it will go for all of us.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Anonymous Coward]

False: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Estimated_ownership_of_treasury_securities_by_year.gif

While I'm dispelling myths, US manufacturing is alive and growing, automation has simply replaced all the jobs.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[camperdave]

Dogs don't have knees.

Of course they have knees. They're land mammals.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? They literally own America? When did they purchase it, and for how much? Got links to a bill of sale?

Sincerely Yours,

The AC that hates people using the word literally when they say things that are anything but literal.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength
Land of the Free
Home of the Brave

Repeat the phrase "Land of the free, home of the brave" with a straight face. Now, repeat until some one has to pick you up, off the floor with the laughter cramps preventing you from remaining upright.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[mc6809e]

Tell that to China. China literally owns America.

Nah. They just own those young Americans that will be paying off the debt.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[CrimsonAvenger]

Nah. They just own those young Americans that will be paying off the debt.

Meaningless. There is no plan to pay off the debt, ever.

And there will be no such plan, ever. We're well and truly caught in the "living beyond your means" trap....

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be just like America to hold a Bill of Sale above the Bill of Rights :)

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[AngryDeuce]

Also, the higher the price of oil gets, the more domestic manufacturing we're going to see, regardless of the difference in labor costs.

Those behemoth Ultra Large Container Vessels consume an enormous amount of fuel bringing their shit from Asia to the U.S., and short of discovering some huge untapped energy source, I don't see that being sustainable at all in the long term. To be honest, though, I think we're probably going to end up at war with China before that really becomes an issue over China's stockpiling of Rare-Earth elements, preceded by sanctions and ever-increasing limits on Chinese imports that will help to encourage domestic production.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd suggest you take a closer look under all your products in future, you'll find that 96% of them say "All your base are belong to China"

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[iamhassi]

US has more rare earth elements than China but we don't even bother mining because it's been cheaper to just buy from them so far. Similar to oil, we have it, but it's cheaper to buy from the middle east.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[tysonedwards]

Team America: World Police

Who would have thought that with a little bit of time it would no longer be a satire?

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Bogtha]

Don't forget:

Sharing is stealing.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Gr8Apes]

Rare Earth elements aren't that rare. Not only that, China is the biggest miner, but not the only proven source.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[arth1]

Of course they have knees. They're land mammals.

But bees aren't land mammals.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[higuita]

US oil is shit... it can still have many uses, like making roads, but the high quality oil is in the middle east. If you want a efficient oil refinery, you will use better oil.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[b5bartender]

Just don't route them around the horn of Africa.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[beltsbear]

US oil is harder to refine and will choke refinery that is not designed for it. That being said it is used in pretty much every purpose that middle east oil is used for, it is just refined in the US and used here. The US uses more gas then diesel so we also have refineries that crack down more of the diesel into gas (which is an inefficient process because diesel is more energy efficient to start out with).

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Pairing of negating opposites. Perfectly in congruence.

Now, maybe you can use your romantic ditty to sing yourself back to sleep, little brother.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Pieroxy]

Just don't route them around the horn of Africa.

Yeah! Just let them go straight through Africa !

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Pieroxy]

Nah. They just own those young Americans that will be paying off the debt.

Meaningless. There is no plan to pay off the debt, ever.

And there will be no such plan, ever. We're well and truly caught in the "living beyond your means" trap....

Very true, there is no plan to pay off the debt. However, every month, you pay the interests of said debt. And it'll stay like that just forever.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[element-o.p.]

history | tail -2 | sed "s/China/Japan/"

Didn't we already have this discussion, say, 50 years ago? That Toyota I used to own sure was a throw-away product, as are the Nissan, Suzuki and (1977!) Honda products I currently own.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[serviscope_minor]

Those behemoth Ultra Large Container Vessels consume an enormous amount of fuel bringing their shit from Asia to the U.S., and short of discovering some huge untapped energy source, I don't see that being sustainable at all in the long term.

The ultra-large container ships do consume ultra-large amounts of fuel, but they also transport ultra-large amounts of stuff. In fact, the bigger the ship, the less fuel is used proprtionally.

It takes about 20 days to sail a container ship from the UK to China. Based the Wikipedia article for the Emma Maersk (new top of the line container vessel), that comes to about 57 to 123 gallons of fuel per 20 foot container.

A 20 foot container holds a LOT of stuff. For most domestic manufactured goods, the amount of fuel used per item shipped from China is tiny: much much less than the amount of fuel you will use to drive to the store to buy the item, or the amount of fuel used to deliver it to your house.

It's pretty safe to say that private use of cars will disappear long before high capacity long range shipping of goods.

preceded by sanctions and ever-increasing limits on Chinese imports that will help to encourage domestic production.

I expect the latter will happen very soon. I don't know why it hasn't already: China has effectively used government money to shut down the rest of the world's rare earth manufacturing. I'm not entirely sure why this didn't cause the introduction of tarriffs.

I doubt war will happen. It would be much cheaper to build domestic factories and (NB) re-open domestic mines. Then use subsidies/import tariffs to protect an important strategic industry.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Trent Hawkins]

Microsoft files about 464,676 DMCA take downs last month, larger then any other copyright owner. http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[symbolset]

DMCA is for criminalizing the circumvention of DRM. The US Attorney prosecuting Kim Dotcom is Neil H. MacBride, former Microsoft meatpuppet as VP and chief counsel of the Business Software Alliance. Please do try to keep up.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[KhabaLox]

Enjoy your cheap badly made throwaway goods.

Like iPads and iPhones?

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[DinDaddy]

Invest in nylon!

http://www.thefutureisawesome.com/2008/11/09/cargo-ships-now-with-kites-solar-sails-and-less-fail/

Wait, what do we make nylon out of again?

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Anonymous Coward]

But China is larger and fucking-in-charger :-)

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[symbolset]

We're not paying the interest on the debt. We're reborrowing it again. There's no plan to pay that either. When China figures this out they're going to be really mad. They've been shipping us real manufactured goods for many years, and in return we've been shipping them fictional binary switches representing copies of nicely printed tissues of no inherent value. It's the Manhattan beads thing all over again.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[ArhcAngel]

Actually demand in the US is so low right now the big oil companies are making more money exporting from the US.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Carewolf]

Sounds good in theory, right?

The problem is that as long as you want to keep living about your means - you can not afford to default..

And! If it is not already the case, soon if you want to live at all - you can not afford to default..

Because with no production of your own, defaulting and being trade boycotted would leave you without anything at all.

So, while leaving without paying could have been the greatest scam of the century some decades ago, you have already blown the possibility but stopping working yourself, and thereby making you 100% dependent on imports and goodwill from the people whose money you are loaning.

They got you by the balls!

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[shentino]

Protected Video Path.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[spire3661]

And yet, we still live better then 95% of all humans who have EVER lived.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[spire3661]

I dont think you understand what satire is.....

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Pieroxy]

To be really fair, China only holds a very very reasonable amount of the US total debt. They only hold 27% of the foreign debt, which account for a low percentage of the total debt. So far.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[rtb61]

Hate to bust you bubble but statistics are undeniable, you are worse off this year than last year and that has reflected the drop in quality of life over the last few decades. The water is getting hotter and hotter and before long they'll be making a lovely Cuisses de Grenouille out of you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frog_legs. Lies about how good things are while ignoring that they we are well worse off in every regard for every year over the past decade is just bullshit and next year will be worse as will the year after. The steady but inexorable decline for the majority driven by the insensate psychopathic greed at the top. The US out of control and run by corporations for the benefit of corporations is most certainly the enemy not only of the rest of the world but also the majority of Americans.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[spire3661]

I may be worse off RELATIVE to MY past, but in terms of human history we live like KINGS, and people like you tend to forget facts like that.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Anonymous Coward]

US has more rare earth elements than China but we don't even bother mining because it's been cheaper to just buy from them so far. Similar to oil, we have it, but it's cheaper to buy from the middle east.

If China suddenly stopped exporting rare earths as they've threatened to do, it would take US mining companies years to re-tool and bring sufficient quantities to market. By then, most US companies dependent on them would go bankrupt.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Carewolf]

Good point, most of the debt is actually held by pensions and banks inside the US, which would make defaulting politically unacceptable (because old people does most of the voting).

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[shentino]

The borrower truly is slave to the lender.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[smaddox]

True, but if the ponzi scheme falls apart due to further credit no longer being extend, then the dollar will fail, and the US people will be the ones to "pay".

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[jkflying]

Please look up a definition of satire and post it here so I can tell that you have.
Once you've done that please answer the following question: what aspect of Team America was not satire?

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[sociocapitalist]

Microsoft files about 464,676 DMCA take downs last month, larger then any other copyright owner.

http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/removals/copyright/

You do realize that google, who you are referencing, isn't an objective party when it comes to Microsoft right?

Not saying it's necessarily wrong...just that it might not be accurate either.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Solandri]

Based the Wikipedia article for the Emma Maersk (new top of the line container vessel), that comes to about 57 to 123 gallons of fuel per 20 foot container.

Which is roughly 1/2 to 1/3 the fuel capacity of a tractor trailer hauling one or two such containers. Basically, the fuel cost of trucking something a few hundred miles is more than the fuel cost of transporting it across the ocean via cargo ship.

Totally different story for rail, which is about 3-5x more efficient than truck, or about half the efficiency of cargo ship. But the U.S. mostly killed off its rail industry by subsidizing trucking. (The highways are paid for disproportionately by passenger cars - they pay about half the cost, while trucks cause most of the road damage which needs to be repaired. The average passenger car simply does not weigh enough to damage the highway appreciably.)

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[tsm_sf]

I may be worse off RELATIVE to MY past, but in terms of human history we live like KINGS, and people like you tend to forget facts like that.

What is your point? Who cares what kind of mud hut people used to live in?

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[tragedy]

In some ways, perhaps. Certainly the availability and variety of things like food and material goods would be amazing to an ancient king (quality is a different story, that's more hit or miss). On the other hand, how many vassals do you have?

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[tragedy]

You mean through the Suez canal?

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Salgak1]

Try my reboot of the Superman Standard:

Standing for Truth, Justice, And/Or the American Ways !!

(evil grin)

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[geezer nerd]

As a US citizen living in a small foreign country subject to the bullying of the US over these kinds of matters, I feel ashamed of what the US is doing. AND it is not funny!

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[riverat1]

The average passenger car simply does not weigh enough to damage the highway appreciably.

Unless they're using studded tires (allowed November through March in Oregon).

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[dbIII]

How do these gangsters get into positions where they can cause an international incident? Don't you guys have some sort of Federal police set up to deal with gangsters :)

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[dbIII]

They've figured it out as one of the costs but they are still making money over the top. Obviously China isn't going to lose as much if the US economy finished it's collapse as the US would. Remember it's only four years since they had a trial run of what they would do if the US economy collapsed.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Marxist Hacker 42]

The Gangsters have been running the federal police since the death of Elliot Ness.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[doccus]

I may be worse off RELATIVE to MY past, but in terms of human history we live like KINGS, and people like you tend to forget facts like that.

Agreed.. you only have to walk into any supermarket to see that!

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Marxist Hacker 42]

The reason for that is military strategy. Rails only go where the rails are, trucks and tanks go anywhere. The civilian usage just followed the subsidy.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[doccus]

I'm wondering if, in fact, our governments haven't been applying "indentured servitude" towards all of their citizens..

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[DerUberTroll]

And bankers share their wealth.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

U.S. TSA personnel will be stationed at British airports during the Summer Olympic Games, according to SkyNews. Authorities are scrambling to shore up security before the games open in 11 days. Organizers are already under withering criticism after G4S, the private contractor coordinating security preparations, said last week that it can't supply enough security. Now, TSA seems to be augmenting a beleaguered UK Border Agency. The US agents would begin arriving at Heathrow and other major UK airports next week. The agents will not be allowed beyond boarding gates or onto British aircraft.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[JimFive]

There is a difference between oil and oil products.

The U.S, imports oil and exports oil products such as gasoline. This is not new. -- JimFive

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[KingBenny]

really funny...
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield
the sooner the north-american military junta accepts that it doesn't actually rule the whole world, the sooner you can start mending the damage it caused you so far
there's a growing feeling of being sick of bending over backwards just because the others do, i think it's about to go 180 on the pivot point there
i don't get how they can get so much support from citizens either, just how do they justify the cost in both money and reputation/goodwill from other nations by playing the classic bully instead of tending to their own wounds first?

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Pieroxy]

Methinks you don't understand what a public debt is. China won't barge in and say "You have 24 hours to pay us back". It's not some mob claiming its money or else you'll lose a finger.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[RockDoctor]

That would be a rational response to the threat of invasion from the US's neighbours?

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Nobody ever said Eisenhower was rational. Or, for that matter, and to Godwin the argument, Hitler (though, I suppose in this case, since the Autobahn is Hitler's one POSITIVE legacy, is it really a Godwin? Eisenhower thought the concept was good enough to steal, and so we have the Interstate Highway system which enabled those trucks to replace trains which has to pay for not only shipping efficiency, but the cost of building and maintaining the rails as well).

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[RockDoctor]

I'm just wondering how much targeted bombing of the Autobahn system took place during the war, as opposed to targeted bombing of factories and ports at the ends of the autobahns.

I don't recall hearing of any such bombing raids. Not one. Which clearly suggests what Bomber Command thought of this argument.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[Marxist Hacker 42]

By the time Bomber Command was bombing Germany, the autobahn had become a military weakness- we were using it to move our OWN troops into Germany in an invasion. Sometimes military targets are actually valuable to both sides.

Re:And the U.S. law is YOUR law now too

[RockDoctor]

Cause

Effect

ReArrange

Then buy NZ music

[Anonymous Coward]

If you buy music produced in the US you buy it under the terms of the license. Don't like those terms? Buy music produced elsewhere.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[cpu6502]

Or we could have a license-burning bonfire. That would be fun. I'll bring the marshmallows.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[betterunixthanunix]

I'm sorry, but do USA copyrigth laws cover every country on the planet? No, they do not, so people need to learn to deal with the fact that some countries take a different approach to promoting the distribution of science and art.

Oh, what, you were hoping to turn music into a form of property? That's cute.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[MickyTheIdiot]

but but but but but... we have the missiles!!

look at the warships!

Re:Then buy NZ music

[Goth Biker Babe]

I don't buy US produced music anyway. Its not like you make it all or far from it. The UK makes better music!

Re:Then buy NZ music

[Antipater]

Funnily enough, NZ people don't have to look at the warships (or at least they didn't 10 years ago; this might have changed). NZ at some point declared themselves a "nuclear-free" zone, meaning not only no warheads but no vessels running on nuclear power are welcome there. And since that means the US Navy has to skirt waaaay around NZ to get to their Australian naval bases, it's actually been a major source of diplomatic tension between the two countries. But it also shows that the Kiwis have no qualms about giving America the middle finger, so don't expect them to cooperate with this copyright stuff all too quickly.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[PPH]

I started digging through my DVD collection. All my region 1 discs state "Licensed for sale only in the U.S." or something similar. If they say anything at all.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[StripedCow]

Sorry, that music may have been produced in the US, but contains ingredients taken from music produced elsewhere. Ergo, there is no basis to declare that US copyright laws should extend to other countries.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[just another AC]

More and more I am liking NZ.

The countryside is awesome. The people are laid back. They haven't bought into a lot of the world's bullshit.

If there was more job opportunities there, and their economy wasn't in the toilet (compared with Aus... although we could be about to cliff dive ourselves) I would be looking to pack up and get over there.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[X.25]

If you buy music produced in the US you buy it under the terms of the license. Don't like those terms? Buy music produced elsewhere.

You are confused a bit.

They don't need to buy NZ music, US needs to stop selling music in the NZ and expecting their laws to apply there.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[Bitsy Boffin]

(or at least they didn't 10 years ago; this might have changed)

Still very much Nuclear Free here in NZ. It's law, and it's basically political suicide for a politician to try and change it.

Really very strongly supported by the NZ population.

NB: The US Navy is more than welcome to stop by New Zealand with it's conventional powered ships, as long as they confirm that there are no nuclear weapons on board. Unfortunately the US Navy isn't so keen on confirming that.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[aaarrrgggh]

Just wait until Peter Jackson or a delegate runs for office in NZ, and then there will be a re-focused priority on protection of intellectual property.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[O('_')O_Bush]

Most of the US Navy surface ships are diesel, not nuclear. The nuclear ships are underwater and do as they please, as NZ isn't capable of knowing they are there.

If U.S. skirts NZ, it is to improve their image to the rest of the world, not because they give a rat's rear-end what NZ'ers think.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[arth1]

More and more I am liking NZ.

The countryside is awesome. The people are laid back.

Except for the All Blacks.

f there was more job opportunities there, and their economy wasn't in the toilet (compared with Aus... although we could be about to cliff dive ourselves) I would be looking to pack up and get over there.

Too many earthquakes. And you always have to hold on to something so you won't drop off.
They do have fjords, though. And Derek.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[modecx]

They say NZ's nuclear-free law extends only to their territorial waters--12 nautical miles from shore--not even out to the the 200 nautical mile "exclusive economic zone"; 12 NM hardly qualifies as a "long way" around NZ, particularly for a nuclear powered warship, which would typically not come that close to shore unless the ship was already going to port.

So, like most blahblah-free zones, it's basically just a feel-good measure. It's almost certianly more of an negative economic cost to business in NZ than anything else, since even diesel-powered US warships won't be able to visit NZ ports for provisions or other economic purposes, as the US Navy will refuse to confirm or deny that they have nuclear weapons on board any particular ship. Also, in the event of a natural disaster, the people of NZ might be in for even more hurt. The US Navy, more than any other force on the globe, is a massive resource for quickly sending out a great deal of logistical support for disaster relief. I wonder if they would suspend that policy in the event of a disaster, even though I hope that need never arises.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[ccguy]

If you buy music produced in the US you buy it under the terms of the license.

No. If I buy music (from any country) in Spain I buy it under Spanish laws. Anything else, feel free to shove up your ass, license included.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[Eevee]

And since that means the US Navy has to skirt waaaay around NZ to get to their Australian naval bases, it's actually been a major source of diplomatic tension between the two countries.

The US Navy "skirts waaaay around" NZ because NZ isn't between the US and Australia. Look at a map (or a globe if you've got one), find Hawaii and Australia, and trace a line between the two. Now find New Zealand; notice that it's off to the side.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[Hatta]

Ugh, I'm not one for the flavor of burning shrinkwrap.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[Hatta]

NZ is lucky that they are mostly populated by English speaking people of European decent.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[alex67500]

I'm sorry, but do USA copyrigth laws cover every country on the planet?

Not yet, but they're trying very hard though :-(

Re:Then buy NZ music

[rgarbacz]

If you buy music produced in the US you buy it under the terms of the license. Don't like those terms? Buy music produced elsewhere.

It is actually a very interesting comment. Tells a lot about the mentality, and explains much all the conflicts in the world we witness, kind of surprising assumption that certain laws, even though locally agreed, should be enforced all over the world.

In this case it is sort of like every product labeled US has a statue of a US embassy, ergo within its realm the only applicable law is the US one, which is (unfortunately for some, luckily for others) not the case - it is as simple as this, going to another country you are bound by the law of this country, unless you are an ambassador or an invader.

I always thought the the whole purpose of the law is to make lives easier, decent, and respected, well ideally, at least I would expect this from US "the best country in the world" as they say. It so happens that people do travel, not only from suburbs to downtown, but also from a continent to continent, also not just as tourists. Lets imagine someone lived in the US for a while, collected a nice set of DVDs, and then moved to another continent, with a different regional code. So do you want the person to keep multiple playing devices just to be able to use what he has paid for, or to abandon his collection?

Do not answer, it was a rhetorical question, I know the answer.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[element-o.p.]

Use a globe and a string, if you want an accurate representation. Google "great circle route" if you don't understand why a map and ruler won't cut it.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[spire3661]

Do Kiwis fear the sun too??? Is sunlight banned in NZ? After all, its nuclear powered.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[jpapon]

And since that means the US Navy has to skirt waaaay around NZ to get to their Australian naval bases

Actually, they don't, territorial waters only extend to 12 nautical miles offshore. They just decided that if the kiwis didn't want the US Navy there, they wouldn't bother going near NZ. Not much of interest in them waters anyways.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[shutdown -p now]

NZ at some point declared themselves a "nuclear-free" zone, meaning not only no warheads but no vessels running on nuclear power are welcome there.

To be more specific, this means that any US Navy ships are not welcome there, because US refuses to acknowledge or deny the presence of nuclear weapons onboard any of its vessel, so the default assumption is that they all carry them.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[grumpyman]

It's important to point out that they're at everybody's backyard too.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[SharpFang]

This is true when concerning local purchases, the labels need to sell music under local laws of where they sell it.
This is not true when you download the music from American file-sharers. The sharer violated US license, and you participate in violation of the same license by downloading the music from them. And by redistributing it, you continue violating the same license.

Of course if the sharer is, say, Spanish, and their law says they are legal to share the music, American labels can kiss your ass. You're legal to obtain that music from them, and redistribute it further.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[ccguy]

This is true when concerning local purchases, the labels need to sell music under local laws of where they sell it.

I'm bound by the laws of the country I'm in at any time. In fact, if I visit the US, buy a CD there and come back to Spain then the laws that I'm expect to respect are the Spanish ones. I stop being subjected to US laws as soon as I stop being there. At least in theory, anyway.

This is not true when you download the music from American file-sharers. The sharer violated US license, and you participate in violation of the same license

Where do you get this? That "license" doesn't apply to me. What apply to me are laws, and contracts I agreed to, and the later only if they don't contradict any law. Nothing else.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[Master Moose]

With a decent sized ozone hole, and some of the highest rates of skin cancer in the world. many NZers are starting to fear the sun

Re:Then buy NZ music

[ewibble]

Or if you don't like other countries copyright laws just don't sell those countries. There would also not be any lost sales from "illegal" copying since any copying could not have lead to a sale.

See problem solved.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[styrotech]

And hobbits. Why do you think LOTR was filmed there?

Ummm that was implied - it was Derek that made LOTR after all.

Dereks don't run!

Re:Then buy NZ music

[lennier]

Do Kiwis fear the sun too??? Is sunlight banned in NZ?

Yep, most definitely. You should see all the "Be sun smart! Slip, slap, slop! SKIN CANCER IS SCARY!" ads we've had for years. It's a wonder anyone goes to the beach at all when we've basically been taught it's crispy fried insta-death to go outside.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[sociocapitalist]

Funnily enough, NZ people don't have to look at the warships (or at least they didn't 10 years ago; this might have changed). NZ at some point declared themselves a "nuclear-free" zone, meaning not only no warheads but no vessels running on nuclear power are welcome there. And since that means the US Navy has to skirt waaaay around NZ to get to their Australian naval bases, it's actually been a major source of diplomatic tension between the two countries. But it also shows that the Kiwis have no qualms about giving America the middle finger, so don't expect them to cooperate with this copyright stuff all too quickly.

That's only because they feel safe believing that many if not most Americans (including one recent president) have absolutely no idea where NZ is or even, in fact, that it exists or if it exists that it is actually a country separate from Australia who would therefore bear the brunt of any retaliatory action.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[lennier]

NZ is lucky that they are mostly populated by English speaking people of European decent.

Some of my European ancestors weren't all that decent, actually. There were some scoundrels, a couple of bounders, and at least one rapscallion.

And that was just the judges.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[SuperTechnoNerd]

"I'm sorry, but do USA copyrigth laws cover every country on the planet? No, they do not"

For now, but our pressure will cause every country to cave. Just a matter of time. We wont learn to deal with anything, they will learn that you can't win when the US entertainment industry wants something. If they can control our government, they will control yours too.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[SuperTechnoNerd]

Why does the UK government bend like a reed in the wind when we tell you what to do?

Re:Then buy NZ music

[shiftless]

The sharer violated US license, and you participate in violation of the same license by downloading the music from them.

Wrong. There is no "license." This is a law you have bought into. When I buy a song....I own it. If I give a copy of it to someone, that person has committed no crime. Arguably, neither have I.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[rHBa]

As a Brit I would have to say that the US tends to invent new genres and the UK/Europe nurtures/improves on them until they become commercially viable. Want examples?

Dance music:
Almost all of it (Hood/Mills never made it big until they moved to UK/Berlin, same could be said for many 'big' Detroit or Chicago artists such as UR)

Reggae:
Bob Marley et al

Rock/Blues: (I admit that most of the best Rock/Blues musicians came from the US but they generally didn't make much money until the style hit UK/Europe so I'm only listing the more recent ones who made the recording industry happy)
Hendrix
Rolling Stones
Clapton
Pink Floyd
Led Zeplin

I'm sure my karma is going to be eating dust for this (there are probably loads of examples that disprove my theory) but, I'm hoping, some others might back me up here?

Re:Then buy NZ music

[bsdewhurst]

Also, in the event of a natural disaster, the people of NZ might be in for even more hurt. The US Navy, more than any other force on the globe, is a massive resource for quickly sending out a great deal of logistical support for disaster relief. I wonder if they would suspend that policy in the event of a disaster, even though I hope that need never arises.

You mean like a series of earthquakes which reduces large parts of its second largest city in soggy piles of rubble? New Zealand is well setup for disaster relief locally because they know what can go wrong. The largest city sits on a volcanic field, the next two are on fault lines, the largest lake is a volcanic crater, the list goes on.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[Kalriath]

The judicial system seems to be doing a great job of tanking that lawsuit though, innit?

Re:Then buy NZ music

[modecx]

No, I mean a megathrust earthquake the likes of which may produce tsunamis capable of crippling any number of large cities & countries, simultaneously, virtually anywhere on that side of the Pacific Ocean (and Indian Ocean), you know, seeing how those areas account for the vast majority of oceanic fractures, subduction zones, trenches, etc. on planet Earth.

Yeah. Things might not be so bad when your close neighbors can come and help, but when their day is also ruined, things can start to suck, big time.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[RagingGolem]

I would so love to see a USA vs Rest of the World battle. shut these mo fo's up up once and for all.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[gronofer]

Also, in the event of a natural disaster, the people of NZ might be in for even more hurt. The US Navy, more than any other force on the globe, is a massive resource for quickly sending out a great deal of logistical support for disaster relief. I wonder if they would suspend that policy in the event of a disaster, even though I hope that need never arises.

NZ has a lot of experience with natural disasters. Remember the Christchurch earthquake last year? Somehow they have managed to get through without the massive US Navy logistical support.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[Goth Biker Babe]

Because they're idiots. Its not always the case. But lately its not been good. Don't worry its not what the Brits want.

Re:Then buy NZ music

[SharpFang]

"throwing rocks across the border". Due to modern communication devices you don't have to be present at location of where you commit a crime. And laws of place of crime apply.

For something less morally ambiguous than filesharing, imagine a North Korean hacker manages to break into american nuclear power plant network and makes the reactor blow up. Should he be judged according to North Korean law, where he was at the time of the hack, or according to American law, where he committed mass homicide?

The enemy among us.

[Q-Hack!]

I know that this is normally a forum to bash **AA, but the fact still remains that Kim Dotcom made his fortune by providing a service that was used to circumvent paying for content. Never did he even attempt to stop this illegal activity, and at times, promoted it. People like to talk about how the rich make there fortune off the backs of the working class... this guy is your poster child.

Re:The enemy among us.

[Anonymous Coward]

This interview by Cambell paints a different picture about what Kim Dotcom actually does.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pF48PjCtW4k

Re:The enemy among us.

[Anonymous Coward]

Certainly he's a shady character, but last time I checked, this guy actually wanted to pay the artists

Dotcom described Megabox as Megaupload’s iTunes competitor, which would even eventually offer free premium movies via Megamovie, a site set to launch in 2012. This service would take Megaupload from being just a digital locker site to a full-fledged player in the digital content game.

The kicker was Megabox would cater to unsigned artists and allow anyone to sell their creations while allowing the artist to retain 90% of the earnings. Or, artists could even giveaway their songs and would be paid through a service called Megakey. “Yes that’s right, we will pay artists even for free downloads.

Re:The enemy among us.

[jez9999]

I know it's popular to sound all level-headed and point out the law, but many of us think copyright law desperately needs an overhaul. I, for one, would like to see anything released over 10 years ago go into the public domain. Then, much of the Megaupload activity would've been legal.

Re:The enemy among us.

[Anonymous Coward]

Attention: **AA does not represent the working class. Dotcom made his money off the backs of the already rich guys. Thus we frankly don't give a damn as long as he's given a fair trial in NZ for any crimed committed in NZ against NZ law.

Re:The enemy among us.

[wisnoskij]

Providing a service that he got paid for is not making your money off the backs of the working class, weather it is illegal or not.
Dismantling companies and peoples pensions for profit, paying low wages, company towns, and monopolies are taking advantage of the working class.

Re:The enemy among us.

[betterunixthanunix]

A pedicab driver makes money from a service that gets you from point A to point B without paying for gasoline! THE HORROR!

Re:The enemy among us.

[Hentes]

Which is why he is the perfect bogeyman for this suit that will serve as a precedent to make online file storage illegal. But many overlook that when their judgement is clouded by their (however justified) personal dislike of Dotcom.

Re:The enemy among us.

[MadKeithV]

I know that this is normally a forum to bash **AA, but the fact still remains that Kim Dotcom made his fortune by providing a service that was used to circumvent paying for content.

And the recording industry made their fortune by providing a product that was used to circumvent paying for artists playing their music live.

Re:The enemy among us.

[blind biker]

I know that this is normally a forum to bash **AA, but the fact still remains that Kim Dotcom made his fortune by providing a service that was used to circumvent paying for content.

Sop do DVD and Blu-ray writer manufacturers, and blank media manufacturers. Also HD manufacturers. Also all Internet service providers. All these are used to "circumvent paying for content."

Re:The enemy among us.

[cpu6502]

>>> Kim Dotcom made his fortune by providing a service that was used to circumvent paying for content.

If he's such a horrible person, why was he able to get ~50 top-of-the-charts singers (and musicians and audio engineers) to perform a Megaupload song for him? If he really was hurting these people, they would have refused to do the ad. But instead they helped write, sing, and produce it.

I suspect your attack is without merit. Dotcom no more wanted to hurt people than does Googlemail or the Amazon Cloud (which is also used to share content w/o payment). If anybody is guilty here it's the U.S. government for overstepping its legal authority. Last I checked its juris diction ends at the border or the 14 mile oceanic limit.

Re:The enemy among us.

[Riceballsan]

Megauploads model was not illegal, at least no more so than dropbox etc... No more so than memorex and roxio were in the late 90s. You think memorex really believed that the massive surge in sales for blank CDRs were from people backing up documents? Or roxio believed that most people burning MP3s onto CDs and didn't download them from napster? Megaupload followed the DMCA to a T, they gave the IAA's a tool to instantly pull copywrited materials with the push of a button, something they used freely and even very clumsily (quite a few reports of them killing legitimate software that was using megaupload as their distribution system). Now I admit if the alogations of megaupload actually directly conspiring with others to upload pirated material to megauploads servers are true (what they actually are charged for), then there is a case. However I find it absolutely apauling that the US somehow had the right to shut down a full business BEFORE the trial. If the FBI's case is true, they should have had NZ police establish a search warrent, and check some parts of megaupload (IE they should not have been able to fully close down the business indefinently), then tried him in NZ, and were he found guilty THEN shut him down. This method of bogus due process is ridiculous, could you imagine if the anti-trust cases against microsoft worked that way. "OK we have accusations of antitrust, we need to pull every copy of windows from the shelves, halt all development, and put bill behind bars, once the trial is over we can decide if we'll let you re-release or send you to jail. I dislike microsofts tactics, but even against microsoft I would have found that result BS.

Re:The enemy among us.

[Xest]

"I know that this is normally a forum to bash **AA, but the fact still remains that Kim Dotcom made his fortune by providing a service that was used to circumvent paying for content."

Right, and all car manufacturers made their fortunes by providing cars that were used to break the speed limit, all gun manufacturers made their fortunes by providing guns that were used to kill, and Apple made it's fortunes by making media players that were used to play pirated MP3s.

Similarly neither Ford, nor gun manufacturers, nor Apple have done anything to stop illegal speeding, illegal killing, or illegal downloading, and at times have "promoted" it.

Honestly, your argument extends to many industries, as the whole data loss fiasco has proven, Megaupload had many legitimate customers. The point being that the service he was providing was not illegal, not any more so than the industries mentioned above. The problem is that his industry is one that:

a) The US is spending a fuckton of money attacking at the behest of corporate interests

and:

b) Not as big as the likes of Apple, Google, Microsoft, or Ford, or whoever to have had the money and lobbying power to protect themselves

Re:The enemy among us.

[Skapare]

Any and every online storage system can be used for such. Even the owners of the pipes are making money on the theft of copyright. Maybe they should all be put out of business.

Or maybe not.

Re:The enemy among us.

[P-niiice]

Link to proof of your claim is needed here - the service quite regularly and quickly removed infringing content.

Re:The enemy among us.

[AngryDeuce]

**AA

working class

Clearly our definitions of 'working class' are pretty disparate. The MAFIAA organizations that were most harmed by this are anything but working class, they're little more than middlemen that are using their immense wealth and every legal maneuver available to them to continue to justify their existence in an era when artists are eschewing the mainstream industry entirely and self producing more and more.

When the horse fell out of favor as the preferred method of transportation, the harrier became an endangered species, and I doubt very many people shed too many tears over that fact. Now that the MAFIAA organizations are no longer the preferred method of distribution, they're living on borrowed time, and they know it. Imagine if the harriers of yesteryear possessed the political clout at the turn of the 20th century that the MAFIAA possesses at the turn of the 21st and the negative impact that would have had on the automotive industry.

As a consumer of media, I have as much use for an A&R rep these days as I do for the harrier, which is to say, none at all. 99% of the music I listen to is self produced and put on the 'net free of charge by the artists themselves, and what's more, an ever growing percentage of the videos I watch are as well. The days of the "Major Label Darling" riding around in limousines snorting coke off of hookers tits and trashing hotel rooms is quickly coming to a close. I have a hard time feeling bad about that, no matter how much David Lowery cries about it (whose band Cracker almost epitomizes the problems in the industry in the 90's before Napster took off, go back and listen to Kerosene Hat, the album endlessly pimped on MTV when "Low" was a Buzz Clip...a handful of decent tracks and a shit-load of low-production filler bullshit that were obviously recorded as fast and loose as possible and shoved on the album to justify charging LP prices for EP content).

Re:The enemy among us.

[nashv]

" the fact still remains that Kim Dotcom made his fortune by providing a service that was used to circumvent paying for content."

Calling your opinion a fact , does not a fact make.

The fact would be that Kim Dotcom provided a service for file sharing, hosting and distribution. The files the clients of said service chose to share , host and distribute happened to contain content that they were not licensed to do so with. The clients are the criminals, not the provider of the service. This is the the technical and legal fact.

Since they can't prosecute a million people and possibly maintain their political office at the same time, the US (politicians and agencies) chose to go for the easiest and softest target in this case - namely , Kim Dotcom.

Why is he a soft target? He is a single identifiable individual, who is obese and rich from doing something that is borderline legal. The psychological impact of seeing a fat , pompous and rich man , who got that way doing something the common man is repeatedly told is a very very bad thing is rather irritating.

If you think there is even a shred of legality in the behavior of the US you are fooling yourself. Even if Kim Dotcom turned out to have facilitated crimes (which is debatable but may be alleged), the US did not stay within the law either. That just brings it down to a case of Might is Right. This is why this case should be an indicator to the US public that their system is going to the dogs.

"All murderers are punished unless they work in large numbers or to the sound of trumpets" - Voltaire. He said it best.

Re:The enemy among us.

[Durrik]

10 years is probably too short, but you're right that copyright laws are broken. I do like 10 years as a good number to work from.

I think copyright should be broken into personal and corporate copyright. Personal copyright is owned by the author. Corporate by a corporation.

Personal copyright should have a maximum 10 year exclusive license limit, after ten years the license should be renegotiated, and perhaps transfered to another publisher. He time limit for personal copyright should be Death or twenty years whichever is longer.

Corporate copyright should be free for 10 years. And then renewed in each country that the corporation wants to enforce it in for $10,000 for then next 10 years, then $100,000 for ten more years and so on. So:

0-10 years free
11-20 years $10,000 per country
21-30 years $100,000 per country
31-40 years $1,000,000 per country ...

If a company wants to bankrupt itself to keep a copyright that's fine but it'll quickly become too expensive for companies not to let copyrit lapse.

Breaking digital locks should not be illegal. You blame the lock if it gts broken, safes and locks are rated by how long it takes to break into them. Also you could look at it as a National Security question, if you my cryptography illegal, only crimals will be cryptologists. And then how are you going to secure your communications? Digital locks are a good way to train the next generation of cryptologists, and keep them practiced.

Re:The enemy among us.

[OldSport]

And let's not forget that the "rich guys" made THEIR money by leeching off the artists in the first place. If you're going to complain about artists being screwed, you'd better be prepared to propose an entirely new system, because the music industry's traditional business model has been blatantly and obscenely ripping off artists for *decades* now, long before Megaupload, The Pirate Bay, Kazaa, Napster, CD-Rs, and even cassette tapes came onto the scene.

Re:The enemy among us.

[__aaeihw9960]

While I agree with your arguments, mostly, there is one place that I just don't get.

This is why this case should be an indicator to the US public that their system is going to the dogs

Do you really believe that the US is falling apart? It seems to me that around 99% of the problems we see today are mostly manufactured by various news agencies/websites to drum up viewers (or, rather, pointed out in grand fashion and made to seem much, much worse than they are – what’s the word? Oh, yeah, sensationalism). It seems to me that this alarmist “THE PRESIDENT IS A TYRANT”/”CONGRESS IS EVIL”/”HOLLYWOOD IS KILLING INNOVATION”/”OCCUPY PROTESTERS RAPED 10000 PEOPLE” arguments are just varying degrees of ‘get off my lawn’.

It just seems that this panicked running around is a bit much? Or maybe I’m off the mark on this.

While our congress may be bought and paid for, don't we have a long history of crooked politicians being led around by their purse strings? The president may be grasping power for some aim, but don't they all? And haven't young people always hated what the generation before them loved?

Re:The enemy among us.

[poetmatt]

Uh, how was it circumventing paying for content? If you mean that he paid them directly (more profit directly to artists) instead of through the label, then yes.

Since when is it his job, even remotely, to monitor how people use his service if it's not a child porn issue? In no country on the planet does such a requirement actually exist except China, I suppose.

He has indeed tried to pay artists as highlighted by the anon post - in taking this down a number of artists *lost* a revenue stream for distributing their music. Plenty of Independent artists started on megaupload.

Re:The enemy among us.

[cpu6502]

To be more precise: The pedicab makes money without paying the gasoline tax, which funds the roads. Maybe the government should add an additional tax on this deadbeat... also bicyclists, horse-drawn carriage riders, and EV drivers. (That was sarcasm.)

Re:The enemy among us.

[silas_moeckel]

In NZ that is a civil issue extradition from NZ requires something that would be a crime in NZ.

Re:The enemy among us.

[NotSanguine]

Certainly he's a shady character, but last time I checked, this guy actually wanted to pay the artists

Dotcom described Megabox as Megaupload’s iTunes competitor, which would even eventually offer free premium movies via Megamovie, a site set to launch in 2012. This service would take Megaupload from being just a digital locker site to a full-fledged player in the digital content game.

The kicker was Megabox would cater to unsigned artists and allow anyone to sell their creations while allowing the artist to retain 90% of the earnings. Or, artists could even giveaway their songs and would be paid through a service called Megakey. “Yes that’s right, we will pay artists even for free downloads.

The above, if true, raises an interesting point. MegaUpload operated using the same model for years. Somehow, once they talked about creating a service that directly competed with iTunes -- and charging artists less for the privilege of selling their music via the MegaBox service, the FBI got quite frisky. Seizing servers, requesting arrest and extradition, freezing assets, etc. Now MegaUpload is no longer a threat to iTunes. I wonder what changed?

[Removes tinfoil hat]

I'm not saying that Apple owns the FBI, nor am I saying that these events weren't coincidental. It just gives you something to file away for future reference.

Re:The enemy among us.

[dnwheeler]

Why 10 years? I think copyright should only last long enough for the creator of the work to earn an amount of money equivalent to a standard* wage that would have been earned during the time it took to create the work. There's no reason that creators of copyrighted works should expect to be paid more for their time than any other worker.

If a band releases one album each year, then as soon as the band members each receive income equivalent to one year's pay, the copyright on that album should terminate.

If a writer takes a week to write a magazine article, the copyright should terminate once the writer earns one week's pay.

* "Standard" would have to be defined.

Re:The enemy among us.

[X.25]

I know that this is normally a forum to bash **AA, but the fact still remains that Kim Dotcom made his fortune by providing a service that was used to circumvent paying for content. Never did he even attempt to stop this illegal activity, and at times, promoted it. People like to talk about how the rich make there fortune off the backs of the working class... this guy is your poster child.

You use word "fact", then you put some silly insinuations.

Don't let your ignorance stop your from posting, though.

Never stop posting.

Re:The enemy among us.

[gutnor]

Well most of the working condition in China/India/... are illegal under US/EU law. Using this working force to build your widget is not illegal, it is not even considered immoral - it is considered a good think, even a very good thing. Doing it is not discouraged, it is encouraged. The closest to dodgy you get it is to use fiscal paradise and fiscal loopholes, but then people will just tell you that if it is legal, it should be done.

Sure technically that is not the same, it is more complicated, there are laws, history, etc. But on principle, it boils down to finding a way not to pay a US widget worker is fine, not to pay you fair share of taxes is accepted, but not paying a US artist is immoral and illegal.
We are told we cannot defend some work in the US because it is more efficient elsewhere and any legislation would only delay the inevitable at great cost to all of us. We are also told that all the efficiency that the free market brings will pay back for all the pain it causes.
Yet we cling to laws that maintains artificial scarcity of digital goods and we go to great diplomatic extend to maintain those law in force in most of the world. Will not the gains in the future offset the pain of the current generation of artist ?

So I don't like Kim Dotcom as a man, he is difficult to like really. But frankly, that is as difficult to feel for the outrage of the *AA.

Re:The enemy among us.

[nashv]

Yes, I do think the US is falling apart. This is of course entirely subjective and based on my feeling of the trajectory of events in the last 20 years in the US. I don't live in the US, though I am 'involved' in the US being in a profession that is very international and am affected by US systems.

From the outside, irrationality seems to dominate US public opinion. US laws and rhetoric seem to drift further and further from ground realities. Especially so when concerning the nature of digital information, environmental issues , issues on religion and so on. And if anything can be considered to be the major sociological topics of our generation, I think the internet, environment and religion are the top three.

I may be - in fact hope to be, completely wrong in my pessimism.

Re:The enemy among us.

[Hatta]

I know that this is normally a forum to bash **AA, but the fact still remains that Kim Dotcom made his fortune by providing a service that was used to circumvent paying for content.

You could say the same about every owner of every ISP, anyone who makes hard drives, blank DVDs, or any file locker anywhere. These tools have legitimate uses.

Traditionally, someone who provides a tool with legitimate uses isn't held responsible for the illegitimate uses of that tool. Should FedEx be held responsible for shipping stolen property? Should CutCo be held responsible for domestic violence? Should GM be held responsible for smuggling?

The answer to the above is clearly "no". Why should it be different for KDC?

Re:The enemy among us.

[k(wi)r(kipedia)]

People like to talk about how the rich make there fortune off the backs of the working class... this guy is your poster child.

No, Dotcom at worst would be an example of the rich ripping off the rich. Rich in this case would be the **AA mob bosses, who made their fortunes off the backs of their not always working "artists".

Re:The enemy among us.

[cheesybagel]

Considering that Apple seemingly has the Secret Service in their pocket the FBI seems like a small thing all considered.

Re:The enemy among us.

[aaarrrgggh]

Separating personal and corporate is dangerous at best. Where does a family trust fit? If anything can be separated it is creative rights and publishing rights; creative rights should last much longer than publishing rights.

Re:The enemy among us.

[arth1]

Why 10 years? I think copyright should only last long enough for the creator of the work to earn an amount of money equivalent to a standard* wage that would have been earned during the time it took to create the work. There's no reason that creators of copyrighted works should expect to be paid more for their time than any other worker.

The whole idea of limited copyrights was to entice the creators to keep on creating, not to rest on their laurels.
I don't still get paid for the servers I set up and house I painted twenty years ago. And neither should I.

Re:The enemy among us.

[k(wi)r(kipedia)]

I prefer that copyright be limited to the actual producers of the work, which could be a person or a partnership, not a corporation. Corporations could, however, be given revokable licenses by the producers of a work, that is, the "media" corporations would act merely as the distributors of the work, a task which might include both the marketing and the actual distribution to the performance venues. This would reverse the situation with regard to, say, movies, where the director or scriptwriter are the hired workers, while the studio "owns" the movie.

Re:The enemy among us.

[OldSport]

But how does allowing people to profit indefinitely (which, for all intents and purposes, is how US copyright is currently set up) from the same exact piece of work encourage innovation, as the copyright proponents assert -- doesn't it accomplish the exact opposite?

Re:The enemy among us.

[cheesybagel]

They shut down the business and the servers were in Hong Kong of all places.

Re:The enemy among us.

[jxander]

If I was going to don my Tinfoil hat for this one, I'd pin the culprits higher up the chain: RIAA for instance.

Apple/iTunes is, for better or worse, as close to an "old style" marketplace as you can get. The files easily traceable, proprietary, and all the powers that be get their cut of sales, while keeping all the starving artists starving.

A service like megabox would be counter to all of that. Most importantly, the powers that be would NOT get their free money, and we simply can't have that.

Re:The enemy among us.

[jez9999]

10 years is probably too short

Why? Justify that assertion. Is it not the case that the vast majority of profits for the vast majority of copyrighted works get made in the first 5 years after release, let alone the first 10? How is it a greater public good to help the odd outlier that is still going strong after 50 years make money, as opposed to letting many millions of people enjoy quality works for free once they've made a good profit (if they're ever going to)?

Re:The enemy among us.

[X.25]

Link to proof of your claim is needed here - the service quite regularly and quickly removed infringing content.

As did Megaupload.

Yet, there are still hundreds of full-time movies (I am talking Hollywood movies) available in YouTube.

I actually didn't believe it would be possible, but a friend proved me wrong and supplied me with dozens of URLs which were actual full-length movies. I'm looking at a full-length (1 hours 32 minutes) movie right now, with around 20 more loaded in 'suggestion' bar.

How those movies are still there I don't know, but obviously YouTube managers should be arrested and YouTube should be closed.

Re:The enemy among us.

[MurukeshM]

What start-up remains one for 10 fucking years?

Re:The enemy among us.

[Pav]

"Musician" used to be a vocation like any other... I come from a musical family who remembers that time. Hell, there are societies who had/have whole castes devoted to musicianship (eg. the griots of west africa). The recording industry made most musicians obsolete, except for a few caged birds... and only a few of those ever make it big enough to escape, end up owning the rights to their own music etc... The musicians I know myself are part timers, academics and music teachers. The only professional musicians I know of that exist in this large regional city are military band members.

I don't necessarily have a problem with that, but nor can I shed a tear for the music industry. It's just another obsolete industry that will change or die in this new information age... another example is the news industry. Americas problem as a whole is it's the forces trying to go back rather than charting a course forward. The dead weight is just too rich to die in a timely fashion, but once they do new entrepreneurs will fill the gap. Those outside the U.S will get a head start though.

Re:The enemy among us.

[Phrogman]

The music industry has *always* been slow to adapt historically. Its been slow to recognize new markets when they appear, and in fact usually resists them and attempts to shut them down.
I was just listening on CBC radio to a documentary about the music industry, where one of the executives who in essence created the market for both Rock and Roll and Country & Western said the established labels of the time didn't want anything to do with those emerging markets - they thought they would never amount to anything. He said it was the rising small labels that built those markets against opposition from the big labels.
Its no different now, except that the RIAA has the backing of the US Government in prosecuting its attempts to shut down new markets and new ways of doing business. They are still resisting change, likely because the current crop of executives in charge is afraid of trying to adapt, its risky and the likelihood is that they would be replaced by those who understand the new possibilities.
In the meantime the rest of the world gets its rights to privacy destroyed in the name of protecting an outdated business model run by an industry that has been all but criminal in its treatment (re: abuse) of the "artists" it supposedly represents.

Re:The enemy among us.

[Grishnakh]

Yes, I was promoting the exponential fees idea here on Slashdot years ago. However, I think your fees are too low; add an extra '0' to each one. If a copyrighted work is so successful that a company wants to keep a monopoly on it for an additional 10 years, $100k is not an unreasonable figure as it should be making many millions of dollars over that time. If it's not profitable enough to justify that fee, then it's not making enough money to keep very many people employed and it should be released into the public domain.

Re:The enemy among us.

[Phrogman]

Imagine the reaction in the US, if a US citizen was being investigated by a foreign government - say Russia - and the Russians sent the FSB over to shut down a US business, seize its assets and arrest that citizen prior to him being tried.
Thats what its like to live in another country that, through fear/intimidation - or massive bribery - allows the US to run roughshod over its own laws and basically do whatever the fuck it wants to whomever the fuck it wants because that individual is seen as a threat by some powerful US corporation or organization. If it was a rare occurrence it would still be wrong, but not much concern but its happening a lot more these days it seems.

Re:The enemy among us.

[DinDaddy]

A lot of recent studies have shown that those under 30 are deeply in debt and so aren't paying for any of their home media.

So only people aged 30+ have money and buy music, which means they're all still listening to the stuff from the 70s and 80s because new music all sucks. Ergo, copyright needs to be 30 years or more.

Did I get RIAA logic right?

Re:The enemy among us.

[Goaway]

You are aware that Kim Dotcom is a guy who used to run a warez BBS and pay uploaders for uploading copyrighted software, right?

Re:The enemy among us.

[DinDaddy]

Harrier = farrier (crafter and installer of horseshoes)?

Trying to figure out which definition of harrier you would have meant here.

Re:The enemy among us.

[Goaway]

"Much of"? You think most of the traffic they generated wasn't for the latest movies, music and TV shows?

Re:The enemy among us.

[Goaway]

You think the labels don't actually pay their artists anything?

Re:The enemy among us.

[DinDaddy]

I think it is predicated on your definition of "The U.S.".

I'd agree that the U.S. in terms of its population being well-off and educated and having a decent standard of living is falling apart, and likely has a generation left.. In terms of its corporate power structure and elite holding sway over the world, that part is probably doing OK.

Re:The enemy among us.

[TheLink]

but the fact still remains that Kim Dotcom made his fortune by providing a service that was used to circumvent paying for content.

I'd like to see some proof that most/all of his fortune was from that. Because his service (and similar services) was also used by people to legitimately transfer files too big to be emailed.

I wonder how many of the people who wanted stuff free would actually pay Kim Dotcom. Paying seems to defeat the purpose of getting stuff free ;).

In contrast, how many organizations who need to send huge files _fast_ to many other people would be willing to pay for the service?

There's Akamai and EC2/CDN but there appears to be a big enough market gap between Akamai and running and managing your own download servers and pipes.

Re:The enemy among us.

[Khashishi]

10 years is too short. How about 14 years instead, with the option to extend it to 28 years?

Re:The enemy among us.

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Do you really believe that the US is falling apart?

Yes. A fundamental part of what has made American society great has changed over the last 40 years - upward mobility. Rates of upward mobility have plummetted. Our system of meritocracy has become just another form of aristocracy where the rich are able to give their kids the skills to compete on merit but the children of the poor are left out - no SAT prep, no AP courses, no extra-curricular activities, etc.

What has followed is a false equivalence that success on the narrow scales of our meritocracy (such as standardized testing, high GPAs and ultimately the accumulation of wealth) makes people good decision makers in more broader, complicated areas -- that the expertise which has served a person well enough to make millions on wall-street is also going to make their opionions on things like social policy wise and considered.

Re:The enemy among us.

[chromeronin]

But his company was based in Hong Kong, he lives in New Zealand, the only thing American about megaupload was the .com in the name. Yet the us feel this is enough to send in the armed police to drag him and his family out of their home and extradite him to the US. There is a kid in the UK facing the same problem, and he didn't even take a dime of US money!

Re:The enemy among us.

[T Murphy]

Well, the artists had a choice who to side with:
-The labels, who make millions off the artists, and if they're feeling generous they'll pay the artist a pittance while still acting like the artist owes them. They have no interest in improving things.
-Dotcom, who makes millions off the artists just because he can. He is interested in improving things for the artists.

With a choice between a soul-sucking demon and a mere leech, it's kinda easy to make the leech look good. Sure, if Dotcom had the 90% for the artists service going I admit his income from that would be well-deserved, but the millions he has made up to now isn't*.

*Talking about karma/morality/whatever, regardless of legality.

Re:The enemy among us.

[shentino]

Make it so that copyrights cannot be alienated.

Don't let them be sold, acquired as works for hire, or anything else.

Re:The enemy among us.

[sociocapitalist]

10 years is probably too short, but you're right that copyright laws are broken. I do like 10 years as a good number to work from.

I think copyright should be broken into personal and corporate copyright. Personal copyright is owned by the author. Corporate by a corporation.

Personal copyright should have a maximum 10 year exclusive license limit, after ten years the license should be renegotiated, and perhaps transfered to another publisher. He time limit for personal copyright should be Death or twenty years whichever is longer.

Corporate copyright should be free for 10 years. And then renewed in each country that the corporation wants to enforce it in for $10,000 for then next 10 years, then $100,000 for ten more years and so on. So:

0-10 years free
11-20 years $10,000 per country
21-30 years $100,000 per country
31-40 years $1,000,000 per country ...

If a company wants to bankrupt itself to keep a copyright that's fine but it'll quickly become too expensive for companies not to let copyrit lapse.

Breaking digital locks should not be illegal. You blame the lock if it gts broken, safes and locks are rated by how long it takes to break into them. Also you could look at it as a National Security question, if you my cryptography illegal, only crimals will be cryptologists. And then how are you going to secure your communications? Digital locks are a good way to train the next generation of cryptologists, and keep them practiced.

So the more profitable a product (tangible or not) is, the longer the corporation should be able to lock it in?

AIDS medicines for example?

I have to disagree. Stick with 13 years max, period.

Re:The enemy among us.

[loshwomp]

I, for one, would like to see anything released over 10 years ago go into the public domain.

The best idea I've ever heard came from someone right here on slashdot. Unfortunately I can't find it, and I'm going to butcher it, but the gist was:

- After a brief free introductory period, you must pay an annual tax to keep your copyright viable.

- The tax is based on your own "declared value" of the work in question.

- You can declare any value you like, but the catch is that anyone can buy out your copyright for your stated value, at which point it immediately becomes public domain.

- The tax is pretty high (since you're now paying for the privilege of having government enforce your copyright).

- The tax rate increases over time, to encourage eventual release to the public domain.

Want to keep Mickey Mouse copyrighted in perpetuity? Fine, but it's going to cost you a little more every year, and you'd better choose your stated value well because anyone can come along and buy it out for the benefit of humanity.

Re:The enemy among us.

[twmcneil]

From the outside, irrationality seems to dominate US public opinion.

Seems like that from the inside too.

Re:The enemy among us.

[Culture20]

Congress seems to be largely failing to serve it's purpose these days. They mainly seem to think their job is to pass new laws (it's not), and are willing to let other things like the federal budget be used as bargaining chips in the game of who writes the most laws. When in reality, the only duty congress actually has is to determine the federal budget, and passing new laws is an optional power the body can choose to exercise (not one they actually have to use).

The Executive and Judicial branches are still mostly doing what they're supposed to. Though the general increase in power of the executive branch is a bit worrying. Time was you had to get congress to declare war for you rather than being allowed to just invade like the recent presidents have. All and all I think the real problem is that Congress is no longer being held accountable by the people. [...]

Congress is a mob, and mobs are hard to hold accountable.

Re:The enemy among us.

[dotgain]

He also used to be a little boy who threw a pebble through my lounge window. Rascal!

Re:The enemy among us.

[shiftless]

The tax is pretty high (since you're now paying for the privilege of having government enforce your copyright).

Tell me, how is adding even more onto the tax burden going to stimulate our economy?

Re:The enemy among us.

[shiftless]

No, they don't.

Re:The enemy among us.

[shiftless]

When you're old enough, perhaps the reasoning will be more clear to you. This isn't a dig, but a statement of fact.

Re:The enemy among us.

[shiftless]

Do you really believe that the US is falling apart? It seems to me that around 99% of the problems we see today are mostly manufactured by various news agencies/websites to drum up viewers

Try visiting Michigan some time. It's looking more and more like Serbia.

Re:The enemy among us.

[shiftless]

I may be - in fact hope to be, completely wrong in my pessimism.

I'm sorry to disappoint you, but you're entirely correct.

Our system, as it exists now, cannot stand....and there is not enough political willpower to change. It's like the Titanic trying to steer away from the iceberg with too much momentum and too small of a rudder.

Re:The enemy among us.

[chrismcb]

I think copyright should be broken into personal and corporate copyright. Personal copyright is owned by the author. Corporate by a corporation.

Personal copyright should have a maximum 10 year exclusive license limit, after ten years the license should be renegotiated, and perhaps transfered to another publisher.

You do know that in copyright today, there are two types of copyright? Personal, and corporate. And they have different term lengths?
And why would you take something that is fairly simple, and make it MORE complicated?
Copyright isn't broken. Current copyright lengths are too long, and personally I believe unconstitutional.
But the mess you suggested is just a mess. For one thing you'll force personal copyright away from the person after 10 years? Or was that a 20 year max. Why should corporate length be longer than personal?
Just propose 20 years, and be done with it.

Re:The enemy among us.

[chrismcb]

10 years is probably too short

Why? Justify that assertion.

Why are you asserting 10 years is too long?
Movies tend to make a majority of their money in the FIRST weekend, so should copyright be two weeks?
You have to pick a certain amount of time. 10 years just doesn't feel like a very long time, especially given the length of time of current copyrights. No author would get paid for the movie rights as all movie companies would just wait 10 years to make a movie. Most "based on book" movies are probably based on books older than 10 years.
For music a LOT of music that is just 10 years is still popular, and probably still making money.

Re:The enemy among us.

[riverat1]

I agree, copyrights (and patents for that matter) should be owned by the people who created the work and only them. If they want to hire a corporation to manage there rights in regard to IP that's fine but ownership should only rest in the original creators hands (although I would probably give their heirs a 10 year window after their deaths for any work that is less than 10 years old already).

Re:The enemy among us.

[chrismcb]

And the recording industry made their fortune by providing a product that was used to circumvent paying for artists playing their music live.

It is a bit inconvenient to listen to a live band while driving a car.
BUT the recording industry DID do what they did with the band's permission. And they also provided a product.

Re:The enemy among us.

[loshwomp]

Tell me, how is adding even more onto the tax burden going to stimulate our economy?

It's called fiscal responsibility. If you want public resources devoted to protecting your copyrights, then someone has to pay for that, and it might as well be the people registering those copyrights.

Re:The enemy among us.

[Goaway]

Well that sure is a convenient lie to use to rationalize your piracy.

Re:The enemy among us.

[brit74]

First, this doesn't change the fact that was allowing people to pirate creators works - which still makes him shady.

Secondly, if he wants to compete **legally** with legitimate digital media sites, then he needs to knock off the piracy side of his business. It's some serious tinfoil hat area to claim this was just an "attack" by placed like iTunes and Amazon. He knew full well that he needed to clean his own house and knock off the illegal shit.

And, third, there are places getting started where creators can start selling digital media without needing to go through intermediaries like iTunes and Amazon. Lookup GumRoad sometime.

Re:The enemy among us.

[brit74]

and charging artists less for the privilege of selling their music via the MegaBox service, the FBI got quite frisky. Seizing servers, requesting arrest and extradition, freezing assets, etc. Now MegaUpload is no longer a threat to iTunes. I wonder what changed?

That's some serious tinfoil hat stuff you're messing with. Lookup "GumRoad" sometime. It allows creators to sell directly to consumers and they payout 95% to the creator (minus an additional 25 cent fee). You can get back to me if gumroad gets shutdown by the feds, but I'm putting money on the fact that they won't. The existence of sites like GumRoad shows that the MegaUpload conspiracy theory is just that -- a conspiracy theory.

Re:The enemy among us.

[brit74]

I, for one, would like to see anything released over 10 years ago go into the public domain. Then, much of the Megaupload activity would've been legal.

Most piracy is done on music and movies and software released withing the last ten years. So, I'd bet 90% of those downloads would still be piracy.

Re:The enemy among us.

[brit74]

If he's such a horrible person, why was he able to get ~50 top-of-the-charts singers (and musicians and audio engineers) to perform a Megaupload song for him? If he really was hurting these people, they would have refused to do the ad. But instead they helped write, sing, and produce it.

They didn't. First of all, there were only a few famous people in that video (not "50 top-of-the-charts singers"). Secondly, it was pretty clear from the video that they were paid a few bucks to say that they liked MegaUpload. I have a hard time believing they even knew what MegaUpload was. They might as well have said they loved Crest toothpaste or Domino's Pizza. They were just acting as paid celebrity spokespersons. They did not produce a song for him. Rather, a couple of unknown musicians were paid to put together a song where they inserted the famous musicians' spoken words. That song was shady as fuck, and the fact that people actually believe that musicians were supporting Kim Dotcom just shows how shady the guy is.

Re:The enemy among us.

[NotSanguine]

and charging artists less for the privilege of selling their music via the MegaBox service, the FBI got quite frisky. Seizing servers, requesting arrest and extradition, freezing assets, etc. Now MegaUpload is no longer a threat to iTunes. I wonder what changed?

That's some serious tinfoil hat stuff you're messing with. Lookup "GumRoad" sometime. It allows creators to sell directly to consumers and they payout 95% to the creator (minus an additional 25 cent fee). You can get back to me if gumroad gets shutdown by the feds, but I'm putting money on the fact that they won't. The existence of sites like GumRoad shows that the MegaUpload conspiracy theory is just that -- a conspiracy theory.

I never said it was true. In fact, I pointed out that it was pretty tinfoil hat too.

Out of curiosity, how many users does GumRoad have? How many artists distribute their music through the site? How much infrastructure and cash does GumRoad have?

Are they a threat to iTunes? The MAFIAA? They certainly thought that MU was a threat.

While broad conspiracy theories imagining that Apple (and/or the MPAA/RIAA) is pulling the FBI's strings might be pretty fanciful, It's interesting to me that the FBI doesn't really seem all that interested in gathering evidence or making a strong case against MU now that they've been shut down. While it is certainly speculation, it's not so far to go that shutting MegaUpload down -- not prosecuting the officers of same -- was the whole point of the exercise.

Re:The enemy among us.

[MadKeithV]

It is a bit inconvenient to listen to a live band while driving a car.

It's inconvenient to have to drive to a music store as well if you can download music while sitting at your PC.

BUT the recording industry DID do what they did with the band's permission. And they also provided a product.

Megaupload had cooperations with several bands, i.e. they did have permission (e.g. Busta Rhymes.
And an online locker service is also a product.

Re:The enemy among us.

[Intrepid imaginaut]

So greedy corporations don't just wait for JK Rowling's works to expire and make a huge mint without paying her a penny. Same goes for book publishers. I'd prefer 12 years for free, then a modest sum for each work to 24 years, then much larger costs after that to maintain it, to a maximum of 48 years.

Re:The enemy among us.

[Goaway]

How about you point out a reliable source that says that labels pay nothing at all to artists?

Re:The enemy among us.

[aaarrrgggh]

I agree with your assessment; my only point is it is no different for individuals or corporations, in practical terms. (The value of an asset to an individual is the greater of what they can earn from it directly or what they can sell it to someone else for.)

The societal value vs private value of copyright has been skewed far too much in the direction of "content owners" for too long, and it needs to be fixed. The same is true for all IP; we need rationalization of the system.

Re:The enemy among us.

[redlemming]

It's not really clear that the current copyright system in the US, in its current form, is even legal. It's important to remember that James Madison wrote the Bill of Rights to be an open-ended document: that's why the 9th Amendment retains unspecified rights to the people, and the 10th Amendment reserves rights to the people.

The current copyright system is certainly excessively and unnecessarily complex. To see this, just look at how hard it is to figure out whether or not something is still under copyright, or what is actually allowed under "fair use" rights.

Legal professionals as a class in society (which includes the lawyers in Congress who write the laws, the attorneys that prosecute violations of the laws, and the judges that decide cases regarding them) are in a position of ethical conflict of interest with respect to complex laws: the more complex the legal system, the more demand created for the services of legal professionals.

Without a doubt, one of the most fundamental rights that can be asserted under the 9th Amendment would be a right to not be subject to laws, orders, judgments, rulings, precedents, etc ... (i.e. anything that tends to be created by legal professionals) that can reasonably be supposed to involve conflict of interest on the part of legal professionals. Excessively complex laws violate this fundamental human right.

Another fundamental right that could be asserted would be a right to not have the legal system be allowed waste people's time (the human span of life being finite, all too short, and precious) which also works against excessively complex laws.

Making copyright law depend heavily on contract law (which is how it is currently implemented) also creates a huge conflict of interest for legal professionals, as a huge amount of the work that legal professionals do during their careers involves contracts in one form or another. Thus, having copyright (and patent) law depend upon contract law automatically guarantees lots of business to legal professionals as a class in society.

One possible way to handle copyright (and for that matter, patents) that would avoid contract law and issues of transfer of ownership, would be to give all persons involved in creating the work some reasonable share of the gross made by any commercial sales of items. This would also help with the abuse of authors, musicians, and so forth that routinely goes on in certain industries.

There would doubtless be some issues that would need to be thought through in detail to make such a system work, such as rights to protect authors from abuse of their names and reputations. Doubtless those details could be worked out.

There is also an issue with handling items that go out of print: things that go out of print for some (short) number of years should automatically be freely available for non-commercial purposes, rather than staying under copyright for some arbitrary period of time.

Re:The enemy among us.

[Goaway]

Please give us your reliable source that the labels pay a significant percentage of the royalties to the artists.

At no point have I claimed this.

My original challenge about not paying anything was because the original poster was acting as if it didn't hurt artists at all to pirate their material. This implies that getting 0% of royalties is just as good as getting 2.3%, which is clearly nonsense.

Re:The enemy among us.

[jahudabudy]

While broad conspiracy theories imagining that Apple (and/or the MPAA/RIAA) is pulling the FBI's strings might be pretty fanciful,

While I have no knowledge of any influence Apple (and/or MPAA/RIAA) may have with the FBI, imagining US federal agencies taking questionable actions abroad in the interests of major US corporations isn't so much fanciful as it is documented history.

Easy solution for Australia (And NZ?)

[Anonymous Coward]

It's at least true in Aus that it is illegal to lock things down to a region.

Make cracking the region locks illegal but make every region coded item illegal too. And put equal effort into persuit of the wrongdoers in each case.

Does NZ have the same law? Seems likely. In which case: sorted.

Re:Easy solution for Australia (And NZ?)

[Tastecicles]

In the UK we have this thing called the Trade Descriptions Act 1968, which among other things prohibits misdescription of goods. A DVD-video must by definition comply with the DVD-video standard (Part 3, Book B and DVD Video Recording Book) or it CANNOT be referred to as a DVD video.

Now, people do still have choice over whether or not to purchase a barcode for a particular title. If one does purchase a DVD video, then he has a statutory expectation that that is what he is getting. There is NOTHING in the standards to cover region locking, CSS encoding, or any other restrictive mechanism. ANY DVD that employs any of these mechanisms CANNOT claim to be a DVD-video.

Having made the choice to purchase a barcode with the DVD-Video logo, if one then finds out that one cannot play that DVD in a standard, open-region player (lots of Chinese players are not region locked hence will play ANY otherwise compliant disc), then IMO there would be a case under 1968 (c. 29).

My boggle with the region coding thing is the fact that unless specified on the box that a player is region-free*, there is no indication whatsoever on the hardware or the packaging (or the manual!) that the player is region locked and to what region. This is clearly a violation of 1968 (c.29)?

*Since DVD-video units hit mainstream in around 1997, I've been aware of the region coding and studiously avoided region locked players, unless there was a clear-cut and simple way of jailbreaking them. The only player I ever had to jailbreak was a Meridian 586 (bought near the end of 1997 and cost a bloody fortune).

Re:Easy solution for Australia (And NZ?)

[phorm]

" there is no indication whatsoever on the hardware or the packaging (or the manual!) that the player is region locked and to what region"

As much as I think that region-encoding is lame and somewhat evil, that statement is false. Almost all DVD players I've seen have a region indicator (on the box at least).
The Blu-ray player I recently bought indicated both the regions for DVD and blu-ray (and actually, the Blu-ray region is a lot "bigger" than the DVD region).

Cheap brands may not have any such indicators, but often enough the cheaper brands don't have region-locking (or unskippable ads... wish I could have found a BD player like that).

Re:Easy solution for Australia (And NZ?)

[lennier]

It's at least true in Aus that it is illegal to lock things down to a region....Does NZ have the same law?

Yes. At least for as long as it takes our current Prime Minister to sell it down at the pub for a couple of extra bucks to play on the pokie machines at Sky City Casino.

(So, gone by next Tuesday, probably.)

But it's been great having it for as long as we have. Region-locked DVD players made in China come into our stores by the pallet-load, and we buy them, smile and ask "can we have it region-unlocked, please?" and the guy behind the counter does it for free while we wait. Then we buy any DVD we want (even the cheap import ones usually cost twice as much as in the USA anyway) and play them.

Then we boot up Windows or OS X and whoops, the US-made software DVD player flatly refuses to change region codes more than three times. Which is illegal here in NZ, but who you gonna sue? So, um, hooray for the proprietary desktop OS, I guess.

Stop using the word "US"

[Anonymous Coward]

We read "US" as "us", same as "we". It's the United States of America, not the United States.

And by the way, American means someone from America, not someone from the USA.

Re:Stop using the word "US"

[JWW]

Whooossshh.

You're totally missing the point. The famous quote is "we have met the enemy and he is us."

That is why it is a snarky (and accurate) turn of phrase to say "we have met the enemy and he is (the) U.S."

Relating to the old quote is meant to give context via the truth of the snarky new stating of it. It gives the statement more weight.

You're literally taking it to literally.... ;-)

Re:Stop using the word "US"

[Anonymous Coward]

What about someone from Chile. Are they also American?
How about Mexico? Are they American?
Or Argentina? Brazil? Uruguay? Panama? Puerto Rico? Are they all Americans?

Re:Stop using the word "US"

[cpu6502]

>>>American means someone from America, not someone from the USA.

So what are we supposed to call ourselves instead? United Statesians?!?!? Until you can come-up with a better name, we'll just keep saying Americans. And US. And EU. And RF.

Re:Stop using the word "US"

[WindowPane]

Yes.

Re:Stop using the word "US"

[NatasRevol]

I noticed you left out Canada.

Re:Stop using the word "US"

[Anonymous Coward]

>>>American means someone from America, not someone from the USA.

So what are we supposed to call ourselves instead? United Statesians?!?!? Until you can come-up with a better name, we'll just keep saying Americans. And US. And EU. And RF.

We are to call ourselves CITIZENS OF THE GREAT AND GLORIOUS UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AS FOUNDED BY GOD THROUGH HIS MIGHTY AVATARS GEORGE WASHINGTON AND RONALD REGAN, FOREVER AND EVER, A SUBSIDIARY OF THE HALLIBURTON CORPORATION, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, AMEN. Yes, every word is vital. Yes, the capital letters are important. You wouldn't want to sound unpatriotic, now, would you, COMRADE?!?

Re:Stop using the word "US"

[geogob]

And by the way, American means someone from America, not someone from the USA.

Please, present me a single person from Canada or Mexico describing himself as "an American". Better, find me a single person from Brazil or Peru that presents himself as "an American". Furthermore, per definition you are correct, but the word "American" is also defined as a citizen of the USA.

Taking into account usage and accepting the fact that this usage definition of "American" is correct, I'd simply say that you are wrong.

Re:Stop using the word "US"

[Yvan256]

What about us, eh?

Re:Stop using the word "US"

[serviscope_minor]

American means someone from America, not someone from the USA.

Try calling a Canadian "American". You'll manage to offend not only the Canadian, but also any nearby Americans as well.

Re:Stop using the word "US"

[DoofusOfDeath]

I have a different take on the issue you're (sort of) raising.

It may be that the U.S. trade representative and his puppetmaster lobbyists are pushing these treaties, but I'm a U.S. citizen and these guys sure as hell don't speak for me.

We ceased to be a real democracy approximately when corporations became people.

Re:Stop using the word "US"

[Hentes]

It seems that many people here didn't get the pun.

Re:Stop using the word "US"

[Tanktalus]

I'm just guessing here, but I suspect that the OP probably doesn't care about offending any "citizens of the U.S.A.".

But now that you've pointed out how he'll be offending Canadians, he's probably got his panties in a knot.

Re:Stop using the word "US"

[InsectOverlord]

Probably not many Canadians.

But with a few seconds of research you'll find that many Latin Americans, especially of Indian descent, do call themselves "the true Americans".

Re:Stop using the word "US"

[rHBa]

I'm curious about this...

As someone from England, if someone said to me "As a European how do you feel about...etc" I'd reply without thinking about the European bit of the question.

How do people from the American continents feel if I ask them "As an American how do you feel about...etc"?

I'm guessing that if I reworded it as "As a [North|South] American how do you feel about...etc" it would be okay?

To be honest though, it does seem like the USA has hijacked the whole 'American' thing for themselves (not to mention words like Freedom and Democracy). It's kind of a microcosm of how the rest of the world feels about the USA at the moment.

Re:Stop using the word "US"

[rHBa]

Microcosm probably wasn't the right word considering how bloody huge the Americas are... sorry about that.

Re:Stop using the word "US"

[jahudabudy]

I think you meant United Mexican States there; clearly, abbreviating any portion of a country's name will cause AC to throw a temper tantrum. God help us all if he sees someone referring to "China"!

It's all about who you know.

[Picass0]

Dotcom is a comparatively little guy who had his own service and when the sh-t hit the fan didn't have anybody else in his corner. His antics and courtroom theatrics aside, what separates him from Youtube? An 800 pound gorilla named Google. People upload copyrighted material to Youtube every day but Google somehow makes it all right.

Is Google more responsive to takedown notices than megaupload? Is there more infringing material on one service vs. the other?

My opinion is Megaupload's biggest problem in the end is they never made friends in high places.

Re:It's all about who you know.

[TemperedAlchemist]

Yeah, but the MAFIAA know they can't actually challenge Google and get away unscathed with the same pedantic antics. By the time the word litigation reaches their doorstep an army of layers will already be deployed via autonomous cars.

Re:It's all about who you know.

[eriklou]

My opinion is Megaupload's biggest problem in the end is they never made friends in high places.

I think you mean pay off, not make friends.

Re:It's all about who you know.

[the eric conspiracy]

> Is Google more responsive to takedown notices than megaupload?

Google have been sued many times on this issue, and are definitely have state of the art capability in this area.

Re:It's all about who you know.

[icebraining]

Google's Content-ID program lets companies submit their own content that is then matched against every single frame of every uploaded video using state-of-the-art recognition technology and lets them block it or make money off the ads.

Megaupload took down links on request.

Yes, it's different.

Re:It's all about who you know.

[Picass0]

>> 'I like playing devil's advocate -- A guy worth hundreds of millions is "a little guy".'

In the technology and internet business sector a company worth few hundred million is small. I don't know how much of megaupload's money went straight to Dotcom's pocket. That's not really the question. If he was absorbing most of MU's cash that just speaks to poor financial management.

The bottom line is MU is relatively small compared to a company like Google who have formed partnerships with media suppliers and have papered over their previous bumps with copyright.

I can watch many films in their entirety on Youtube without the specter of legal reprisal.

>> "In other fora, mwny of you leftists would be bitching about him as an evil rich."

Excuse me, my eyes rolled so hard they fell out of my head. "You leftists"? Do not presume to know my politics from a few lines of opinion regarding a non-partisan issue.

>> "Also, he got wealthy providing a trading house, like Napster..."

MU was a file hosting service. So is iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive and many other services. Some of them have better filtering technology. Friends can share access to each other's Dropbox folders and it would be no different that providing a link to a Megaupload folder. It's all just spliting hairs.

Is legitimacy achieved because of filtering? From response time to DMCA takedowns? What does Rapidshare need to do to prevent seizure of their servers?

Re:It's all about who you know.

[shentino]

MU got nailed because it failed to comply with DMCA takedowns.

I mean, from a technical standpoint, only keeping one copy of a file that is uploaded multiple times is just an optimization.

But it gave the feds the loophole it needed to burn them.

Re:It's all about who you know.

[Picass0]

>> "You, trolling, perhaps?"

Big words AC. No, I'm not trolling. Since I have not seen the internal correspondence (and neither have you) I will withhold opinion on that subject until later.

It will need to be proven that Mega had intent before it becomes criminal. Without malice it becomes a civil matter with penalties but no jail. The DOJ can't press a criminal case unless they allow Dotcom access to materials to defend himself.

     

Re:It's all about who you know.

[X.25]

Google's Content-ID program lets companies submit their own content that is then matched against every single frame of every uploaded video using state-of-the-art recognition technology and lets them block it or make money off the ads.

Megaupload took down links on request.

Yes, it's different.

That is nonsense. There are many many commercial works (full length movies) available on YouTube, which were not removed using "state-of-the-art recognition technology" (which is broken).

Both YouTube and Megaupload took down links on request, since that's what LAW REQUIRES them to do.

Both of them also provided direct access to content owners, so they could delete files immediately without a need to submit DMCA request. Law doesn't require them to do that, yet they did it.

Re:It's all about who you know.

[Picass0]

I think that claim will be challenged in court if this case will ever goes to trial. If MU can demonstrate it did comply with many of the takedowns then the jury will need to decide how many infringements does it take before it becomes a criminal matter. This is grey area stuff.

Re:It's all about who you know.

[icebraining]

GP asked if Google was more responsive than MU, not if MU was breaking the law.

Re:It's all about who you know.

[icebraining]

That is nonsense. There are many many commercial works (full length movies) available on YouTube, which were not removed using "state-of-the-art recognition technology" (which is broken).

The fact that it's far from perfect doesn't make it "nonsense". It blocks a whole lot of stuff and it pays off ad money to many companies.

Also, those movies might just not have been submitted to their program. The system can't exactly match against thin air.

Both YouTube and Megaupload took down links on request, since that's what LAW REQUIRES them to do.

I never claimed otherwise. GP's question was whether Google was more responsive, and that's obviously true - they give out a lot more tools and benefits to media companies than MU ever did.

Both of them also provided direct access to content owners, so they could delete files immediately without a need to submit DMCA request. Law doesn't require them to do that, yet they did it.

MU's system didn't delete files, it deleted links.

Re:It's all about who you know.

[sdguero]

Dotcom was hardly "little" in any pics I've seen of him... http://cdn2.gamefront.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/kimble.jpg

Re:It's all about who you know.

[cheekyjohnson]

Is Google more responsive to takedown notices than megaupload? Is there more infringing material on one service vs. the other?

I don't think either of these should even matter. The former is the copyright holder's problem (I don't believe anyone should have to enforce their own copyright for them as the DMCA makes people do), and the latter is the problem of the users.

Re:It's all about who you know.

[MartinSchou]

Considering that we keep hearing about people getting their own stuff blocked on YouTube by spurious claims, I fail to see how Google's Content-ID is better.

Easier for the big corporations, sure. But not better.

Re:It's all about who you know.

[icebraining]

And I fail to see where I claimed it was better.

one of the most beautiful quotes I know.

[Johann Lau]

Traces of nobility, gentleness and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly. It is just unfortunate that in the clumsy hands of a cartoonist all traits become ridiculous, leading to a certain amount of self-conscious expostulation and the desire to join battle.

There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blast on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us.

Forward!

-- Walt Kelly

I heard "we met the enemy, and he is us" a million times before I bothered checking out the full quote, and I think it's kind of a shame to truncate it like that.

(and yes, I know this is off-topic, I don't care :D)

Re:one of the most beautiful quotes I know.

[Anonymous Coward]

I hope for your sake that you have the licence to redistribute that quote.

Re:one of the most beautiful quotes I know.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree, Walt Kelly was the best. The original cartoon and quote is available on Wikipedia here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogo_(comic_strip)

Re:one of the most beautiful quotes I know.

[Johann Lau]

Or this panel, for that matter :/ But I learned on Slashdot that Germany doesn't extradite; so even if I go to jail, it won't be pound-me-in-the-ass prison. YAY!

Re:one of the most beautiful quotes I know.

[Johann Lau]

Thanks! I either didn't know, or forgot, that it's actually a parody of something else as well!

Illegal but not necessarily wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to be treating legality in the area of copyright as a natural law of physics and carved on tablets of stone. Well it's neither, and everything is in a state of flux..

The law in this area was never subject to public approval in any country, and it runs totally contrary to how the VAST majority of people seem to feel about it when asked. Instead it was developed through intense lobbying of politicians by content creators in a completely one-sided manner. What's more, much of it was developed out of the public eye and turned into law through a process of direct bribery, particularly in the US where bribery is legal and called "campaign contributions".

So while you're factually correct in calling it "illegal" by US law, it's only "illegal" because this totally corrupt and non-democratic system has defined "illegal" to suit itself. It may be illegal in your country, but it's not illegal everywhere, and it's regarded as "wrong" by only a small percentage of the world's population.

Things aren't as clearcut as you make out.

Pirates dont care about region codes

[voss]

The only people that are affected by region codes are people who want to want to watch foreign dvds often stuff that has never been released and never will be in other parts of the world. Often stuff purchased legally on vacation.

Re:Pirates dont care about region codes

[rolfwind]

blockquote>Often stuff purchased legally on vacation.

Yeah, my parents have been hit with this, and with vacation tour DVDs of all things. You know, the kind of stuff no one wants to pirate and you expect to sell to tourists of all stripes so why even put a region code beside ALL on there?

But I digress, my parents learned their lesson, they stopped buying the stupid shit.

Re:Pirates dont care about region codes

[X.25]

The only people that are affected by region codes are people who want to want to watch foreign dvds often stuff that has never been released and never will be in other parts of the world. Often stuff purchased legally on vacation.

Of course, expats don't exist.

I've spent 4 years of my life in different part of the world, where I bought hundreds of DVDs.

When I got back home, I did bring the DVD player as well, but it died a year later. I managed to get a region-free DVD player in the end.

Isn't it great having hundreds of legally purchased DVDs which you can't watch unless you 'break the law'?

Re:Pirates dont care about region codes

[phorm]

Like my wife and I, who purchased various DVD's while in her home country because:
a) They weren't readily available here except possibly from Chinese bootleg shops (generally of crap quality)
b) The local versions wouldn't have Subs in her language

My player doesn't like them, but the PC attached to the TV had no problem using VLC.

Re:Pirates dont care about region codes

[the eric conspiracy]

> Of course, expats don't exist.

Yes, the world is too small for this sort of bullshit.

My wife is from a family that has multinational roots. She was born in Chile; her grandparents were immigrants to Chile from England. She has relatives living all over the world. Who send us things.

She was raised in a bilingual household where both English and Spanish were spoken on a routine basis. She lived in Europe for several years as a student - and as a result of this background speaks several languages fluently. Some of which she has taught at the university level.

The collections of media in our home reflect this. Of course region codes are sometimes an impediment that we have to deal with. The idea that overcoming these restrictions could be considered a crime is ridiculous.

Re:Pirates dont care about region codes

[DinDaddy]

Or spend time living in foreign countries. Or buy a version of a movie from another country because it is cheaper or better in some way. Or who live in countries with extremely delayed release windows. or ...

Only.

Re:Pirates dont care about region codes

[MartinSchou]

It SHOULD be considered a crime!

Don't you realise, that if you watch anything that isn't made in the US, you are subject to filthy and dirty propaganda?!?

Doesn't matter if you're not in the US - it's still propaganda!

USA! USA!

Or something like that ...

Sarcasm and irony may have been used ...

With enemies like that...

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

The US is the enemy...because we don't want you getting our shows without paying for them? You just want friends with benefits without having to buy us dinner, first?

Re:With enemies like that...

[betterunixthanunix]

People have a problem with the USA when we start applying our laws in other countries, and rightly so. New Zealand has a legitimate, democratic government that creates its laws, so what business do we have trying to extradite NZ citizens for violations of US law that did not occur in the US?

Yeah, blah blah blah, he registered a US domain name. If we start using the Internet as a vehicle for applying our out-of-control legal code in other countries, we are just going to make more enemies.

Re:With enemies like that...

[gstoddart]

No, but if someone buys a DVD while abroad, and brings it home only to find out that they're not allowed to watch it (since the American copyright groups are pushing to have breaking the region encoding declared a criminal act) then they're expected to sit there with a dud DVD and not play it.

This isn't about getting the content without paying for them. This is about taking a good you bought, and using it where you live.

Breaking the region encoding just allows you to play a product you legally purchased, and legally brought home without waiting for the same product to be re-released where you live.

America is basically trying to export laws which strip the right of first sale and other fair use rights they already enjoy.

There's a huge difference between that and what you describe.

Kim Dotcom is a scumbag

[circletimessquare]

And yet the USA by their actions make him look saintly

Definition of enemy

[gmuslera]

Suppose that some arab country starts accusing and claiming extraditions of women all around the world because them commited adultery. Or that Sweden do the same with all men all around the world that had sex with a sleeping woman. Or a country with a corrupt government, where shady men or private companies pushes laws for criminalize people that drinks coke or read certain books, that exports that laws to all the world and claims extradition for people breaking that laws elsewhere.

That is what is doing USA, and that is what other governments are letting them to do while signing "cooperating treaties". I suppose that yes, the enemy is us, or at least USA and the people in your government that signed that kind of treaty.

Re:Definition of enemy

[static416]

I completely agree that the US extradition case against Dotcom is flawed, but your analogy is also flawed.

All of the crimes you listed only effect people within the country that the laws apply to. Copyright is different, particularly when applied to copying things via the internet.

The **AA could make the argument that by facilitating piracy of their content online, Dotcom was hurting their sales within the US, and in fact was using US servers to do it.

A more accurate analogy would therefore be if someone in NZ (where the drinking age is 18) was selling alcohol via the internet to 19yr olds in a US state where the drinking age is 21. He would technically be in violation of the law in the US, but not in NZ. So the question for the purpose of law is, because internet was used to conduct this transaction, where did the allegedly-illegal act take place? NZ or US?

I'd argue in my hypothetical case that the US would have grounds for blocking the transaction, but at the same time, the guy in NZ cannot be charged or extradited and would be free to continue to attempt his operations.

Of course all of this legal stuff goes out the window when you involve powerful lobbies and the ego of American government, which when combined can essentially create whatever result it is they are looking for regardless of the actual law.

Re:Definition of enemy

[brit74]

Out of curiosity, what would you think if Sweden was allowing counterfeiting of US currency? Would that be okay? Why should the US have any say in what happens in another country? Personally, I can fully understand why it should be illegal to create counterfeit US currency, and why people who do so (even in other countries) deserve to be punished.

Opportunities

[DaMattster]

I will say that the US media industry and content providers have gotten way too powerful. What's worse is that there is little to no checks or balances against this power. But, in their greed, the industry has created an opportunity for a bourgeoning Indie media growth spree. The Internet makes an awesome distribution platform, so there can be Indie television shows and movies without the big studios greedy, restrictive hands in the pot. This is why I check out platforms like Vimeo for the Indie stuff. Much of it is surprisingly good. I would love for Indie to move beyond podcasting.

Re:Opportunities

[DaMattster]

i can't follow most people in these threads.... what is wrong with policing a warehouse of stolen goods? you guys think you're robin hood, but you're just stealing other people's work. yay?

There is nothing wrong with enforcing copyright in a fair and just manner. However, much of the legal framework today gives powers that are way too broad and have the potential for innocent people to get caught up in the fracas. I cannot condone a NAZI style of enforcement for anything. I do not pirate software or published media of any sort.

Re:Opportunities

[DaMattster]

As soon as Indie stuff becomes a serious competitor (i.e. starts eating in the big media revenue) they'll find a way to stop it. Does this story not have some similarity to that other story produced by big media? Isn't the rhythm of this song vaguely similar to that big media song? They'll find something, for sure.

Or maybe they'll exploit the distribution format: Make sure that the common distribution format is patented, and make the pricing so that independent distribution of content just isn't profitable due to licensing fees. Of course big media doesn't need to pay those high fees, either because they are patent holders (and thus are on the collecting side) or because they get "mass discounts".

I respectfully disagree. There is a strong history and precedent for Independent authors and artists. This would trample on the constitution and I think even the most ardent conservative Justices of the Supreme Court will concede this point. Indie movie and television show creators can turn to VP8 and WebM video to bypass the patent encumbered MPEG and there is Ogg Vorbis for audio. There is enough backing behind HTML5 to virtually ensure that it will remain open. Believe you me, corporate arrogance causes people to be creative and find a legal way around an obstacle. Microsoft's arrogance gave rise to Linux which everyone scoffed at initially and now it is a serious competitor in the server market. Apple's arrogance over the iPhone and iOS has cost them dearly in terms of market share. Enough people didn't like its walled garden and arrogant rejection of apps thus spawning Android. Android is now the dominant market player.

That'll work fine in peacetime

[Viol8]

But if there was a war amd the US needed to get to those bases fast then it would just do what it damn well pleased and worry about upsetting the Kiwis later. And given that the feminised socialist government of NZ in 2001 removed all the new zealand air forces combat aircraft they couldn't even launch a token protest against it. Perhaps they could just hold hands and sing CND songs loudly instead?

(I'm not american btw , but countries who think they have the yanks by the balls are almost always deluding themselves)

Re:That'll work fine in peacetime

[f3rret]

If the US (Or any nation of sufficient military strength) was at war and it was strategically important for them to pass through an area (water or otherwise) that belonged to a non-hostile sovereign state, they would go straight through, sovereignty be damned.

If it is all out war diplomacy takes a back seat to strategy.

Re:That'll work fine in peacetime

[sosume]

They would have to pay up the royalties if they did, ofcourse.

Re:That'll work fine in peacetime

[lennier]

And given that the feminised socialist government of NZ in 2001 removed all the new zealand air forces combat aircraft they couldn't even launch a token protest against it.

I'll take the feminised socialist government of Helen Clark which at least pretended to stand up to the US and refused to send combat troops to Iraq without a UN declaration of war rather than the manly masculine men's-man free-market government of John Key which is currently bending all ways at once to do Washington's bidding, auctioning off both our law and public assets with unholy haste to the first bidder that shows up.

But that's just me, as a New Zealand citizen with still a little bit of national pride left.

Re:That'll work fine in peacetime

[lennier]

IF it looked like we were going down, you bet your ass we will launch nukes at you.

Yeah, about that foreign policy of "looking and acting like a crazy guy wearing an explosive vest and a loud ticking detonator". You guys might want to get that looked at sometime. It doesn't always endear you even to your friends.

Admittedly the USA is still - barely - the nicest of the paranoid meth-crazed explosive-vest-wearing gang-bangers on the global block... except for the occasional drunken bouts of violent rage... but that's not exactly a career path you really want to aspire to, y'know? Yes, you're still better than North Korea. But you have a bigger gun, and you're still swigging from the hip flask.

Re:That'll work fine in peacetime

[blueforce]

I'm American, I'm not happy about it either. No one I know thinks that way or wants us to behave that way.

We have two main problems in America: our education system sucks balls but we still let those people vote (way more than enough people to swing elections). And the other problem is that our "elected" representatives are career politicians who have become an uncontrollable Nobility of sorts. You think our government actually listens to us? LOL.

Re:That'll work fine in peacetime

[Jerry Smith]

If the US (Or any nation of sufficient military strength) was at war and it was strategically important for them to pass through an area (water or otherwise) that belonged to a non-hostile sovereign state, they would go straight through, sovereignty be damned.

If it is all out war diplomacy takes a back seat to strategy.

Funny then how US nukes somehow aren't able to pass OVER an area. Almost sounds like it's more about occupying foreign territory than attacking it.

Re:That'll work fine in peacetime

[Kokuyo]

If you want to have anything resembling a democracy, you know what you've got to do.

Re:That'll work fine in peacetime

[f3rret]

Funny then how US nukes somehow aren't able to pass OVER an area. Almost sounds like it's more about occupying foreign territory than attacking it.

Wat?

What I said was that if the US (Or Russia or China or France or the UK) was at war with someone and for whatever reason it was strategically important for them to bring nuclear weapons in to a "nuclear free zone", they would do so in a heartbeat.

The same goes for passing through the sovereign territory of a non-hostile non-allied nation.

Re:That'll work fine in peacetime

[Jerry Smith]

Funny then how US nukes somehow aren't able to pass OVER an area. Almost sounds like it's more about occupying foreign territory than attacking it.

Wat?

What I said was that if the US (Or Russia or China or France or the UK) was at war with someone and for whatever reason it was strategically important for them to bring nuclear weapons in to a "nuclear free zone", they would do so in a heartbeat.

The same goes for passing through the sovereign territory of a non-hostile non-allied nation.

And nobody is actually surprised about that, that's the most worrying part.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[Lumpy]

Show me SOMETHING that is made inthe USA.

Ford? Nope China parts, Assembled in canada and mexico.
GM? as china as you can get.

Honda? Yes they are more american than any american car brand, but parts are still China
Computer? China
Beer? China... for the cans. Your all american Budwiser is in a China made aluminum.

China, china, china. NOTHING you buy in a supermarket or big box store is made inthe USA.

Want USA made? local small artisan or maker. is your only choice. What that does is makes my Coffee Cup go from $3.95 to $16.99. Any my glass drinking glasses, I cant get the $1.99 each china junk. I have to pay a glass artist $22.50 each for them.

I am fine with it, but all the "BUY AMERICAN" morons dont walk the walk but they shoot off their mouths.

BUY AMERICAN means you never set foot in ANY big box store. You buy your clothing from a local tailor. You ready to pay $35.00 for a t-shirt that a seamstress will make custom for you? Want new Silverware? $15.00 a piece from your local Metal Artist.

The biggest problem is these BUY AMERICAN loudmouths also ride Harley Davidson bikes, which are mostly China parts. The Loudmouths wont do what they say. It's why Harley's are all china parts and soon to be BUILT in china. It's why Indian went out of business. Because these LOUDMOUTHS dont do what they say others should do.

They wont pay the cost if buying all american.

then don't buy any music ever

[OrangeTide]

NZ brings in more money selling music in the US than the other way around. And there are plenty of NZ artists that are signed under Broadcast Music, Inc (BMI). NZ citizens currently benefits from the laws and organizations of the US. But I guess everyone eventually complains after making a deal with the devil.

no chance

[OrangeTide]

They can do what Canada already does, make a law that requires every musician to be part of an organization that indirectly taxes people for music. That will squash any free market Indie dreams.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[roblarky]

Exactly!

You wouldn't BELIEVE how many artisans and makers were involved in the building of my computer. It may have cost around $60,000, but worth every AMERICAN penny!

(I do sincerely agree with your post)

US Gov't + Entertainment Industry = team fail

[solardiesel]

Wow does this sort of behavior by my government get me riled up.

The whole system we have set up here where the Govt passes legislature helping out lobbyists (in this case is so broken it's not even funny. I wouldn't go so far to say we are the sole enemy, but we definitely are not helping the situation.

I am 25, and the majority of my friends are way too busy trying to wiggle out from debt or job hunting in a stagnant environment to make their voices be heard (unless wikipedia shuts down). Seeing as it costs time and money to make sure you actually get a seat at the table, it seems to me that a huge number of our generation is grossly misrepresented.

Is there someone/something out there that is working to involve our young adults in foreign and domestic politics... as opposed to telling them what to do/not to do? I cannot put it as eloquently as Jon Stewart did, but our problems are only going to expand if we let people who refer to our type as "nerds" run the country.

We need to either a. Set up a strong lobby group to oppose heavy handed corporate driven legislature or b. change the system in it's entirety.

Re:US Gov't + Entertainment Industry = team fail

[Semptimilius]

Yeah, that's nice. The Jon Stewart video is not available in my area.

Re:US Gov't + Entertainment Industry = team fail

[Eth1csGrad1ent]

+1 to this... "Sorry, this video is unavailable from your location..."
We should be cutting ties with anyone (thats YOU Washington Post) who wants to wall themselves off and try to create their own "little Internet"

Pick up your picnic blanket and GET THE FUCK OFF MY SUPER-HIGHWAY!

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[Anonymous Coward]

Weed is still an American commodity! You'd like to BUY USA? Get a locally made bong and locally grown weed.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[Khyber]

"Show me SOMETHING that is made inthe USA."

Every bit of medical cannabis I use is USA-produced, typically locally, at that.

I manufacture hydroponics systems. Plenty of plastic forming companies here in the USA.

The alcohol I consume is USA-made, right to the can.

ALL of my guitar equipment is USA-made, excepting my Japanese Jackson, and including my hand-built effects pedals.

What weak argument were you trying to make, again?

re: Dotcom - a "shady character"

[King_TJ]

You know something? The more I read about Kim Dotcom, the more I get the idea "shady character" doesn't really fit him neatly. He reminds me much more of some of the "old school" computer geeks I knew from back in the mid 1980's and still run into occasionally. Many of them have a burning desire to make something of their lives ... to do something memorable, within the realm of what their talents are. They're a little eccentric or "off beat" by mainstream society's standards, sure. And maybe some of them are a bit guilty of being a little too materialistic. (But some of that simply comes with the territory of being interested in technology, IMO. If you spend much of your time working with computers and tech. - you develop an appreciation for all of those physical gadgets and devices that other people may not really have. It extends out towards all manner of complex machines and devices, too. Lots of I.T. hardware guys I know also get very interested in sports cars, for example. Even though they're not "gear heads" in the sense of putting in thousands of hours in someone's garage taking apart engines and transmissions? They appreciate the work that goes into building such a machine, and desire one of their own -- the same way they want the fastest PC out there, even if they don't really have a NEED for one that performs quite that well.)

Dotcom strikes me as all of the above, with a need to be recognized.... to be a "celebrity" of sorts, within his own circle of fellow geeks at least. (The fact he'd change his last name to Dotcom, alone, tells you how much he wants to be noticed as a "guru" in his field of interest.)

He was recently seen in photos hanging out with Steve Wozniak ... with Woz having nothing but good things to say about him. That's not quite what I'd expect if the guy was just your run of the mill online scammer, trying to make his fortune at everyone else's expense.

It's govt. and big media wanting you to think of this guy as something like a foreign leader of a drug cartel ....

Ignorant twits

[LeadSongDog]

What Pogo said to Porkypine was "YEP SON, WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US." In ALL CAPS. Now, all of you get back in your respective mom's basement until you've read your classic comics! http://planetwaves.net/pogo.web.jpg

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[Nyder]

Show me SOMETHING that is made inthe USA.

...

Marijuana is usually grown locally.

Meth is usually made locally.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[element-o.p.]

His argument isn't that confusing; it's just that his grammar sucks. I try not to be a Grammar Nazi, but sometimes clear communication is impossible when people don't even *try* to get it right.

Translation in a nutshell: "When you buy cheap, outsourced Chinese products by buying at Amazon and Walmart, you hurt the American economy by not supporting local producers and manufacturers. If local producers and manufacturers can't compete with those in places like China, the money going to China to purchase those products -- instead of staying in the local economy -- will eventually be reflected in *your* personal wealth as well."

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[skine]

I'm sorry, but just because the plastic containers aren't made in the US, that doesn't mean that the dairy processor in my city is outsourcing its work, or that the farmers they get milk from are outside the US.

We live in a global economy, and I would hate to have to revert back to only a local economy.

I love that I can get fresh produce year-round, and that I can wash it down with Scotch whisky.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[MiniMike]

Show me SOMETHING that is made inthe USA.

I agree with much of what you're saying, but since you asked the question-
There's this list of Ford and GM automotive factories in the US for a start.
There's also this snippet discussing the effect the many new automobile plants have had on the economy of the southeastern US. I believe some of these plants also produce parts, and don't just import them and slap them together.
Also my favorite shoe brand, New Balance, makes some of its shoes in the USA.
I'm sure there's many more- I'm hoping someone posts something else made in the USA that I don't know about yet!

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[MitchDev]

What can you find that is made in the USA anymore? Also, I'm not in the "Top 5% richest people" group. I have to take care of my household and family on the money I do make. I can't just raise taxes to get more money. I'm going to buy what's affordable. Gotta bring down the cost of living before we get the manufacturing jobs back. The cost of labor and all the benefits Americans expect (and need due to the failure of the American government [healthcare anyone?]) is going to have to drop a lot, or the government is going to have to implement some serious protectionist tariffs on imported goods before the US can complete on labor costs with China. Politicians and corporations don;t give a shit about people, only power and money. That's why nothing is getting fixed or improving.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[shutdown -p now]

USA does not manufacture that many goods used by common folk day to day, but it still manufactures a lot (on par with China), it's just in other areas, most notably heavy industry. Things like modern aircraft (Boeing), power plants (GE), factory equipment in general.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[f3rret]

Weed is still an American commodity!
You'd like to BUY USA? Get a locally made bong and locally grown weed.

Mexican, mostly, as I understand it.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[Tailhook]

Show me SOMETHING that is made inthe USA.

Here is something. 100% US manufacture.

Your point is well taken, however. We don't make much here anymore, unless you count government. We make a lot of that.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[element-o.p.]

Pretty much.

In the early '90s, Chrysler ran a huge "Buy American!" campaign. The radio and TV (at least where I live) was blasted with ads about buying "Made in America" rather than buying imports, and the local Dodge/Chrysler dealer took out a huge full page ad dredging up memories of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor FIFTY FREAKING YEARS AGO. Shortly afterwards, my dad bought a brand new Dodge Ram Charger (guess the ads worked, sigh...). I looked inside the door, and guess what was stamped in the door frame?



Wait for it...



"Made in MEXICO ."

Well...I guess Mexico IS on the North American continent, so *technically* it wasn't false advertising. But IMHO, it certainly was deceptive.

Friggen' hypocrites

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[Gingernads]

"We live in a global economy, and I would hate to have to revert back to only a local economy." The corporations live in a global economy. The summary talks about criminalising those who work around region codes. Region codes are there specifically to thwart people trying to benefit from a global economy. You will pay the price the corporations want you to pay based on where you live, while they surf the world's lowest cost economies for their benefits. I appreciate this benefits their shareholders, who are usually the same people getting the shaft from region codes and the like. Wouldn't it be better if those same shareholders could see the bigger picture and benefits to everyone of not locking down local markets.

I work automotive logistics

[Anonymous Coward]

I do logistics work for automotive parts manufacturers. Forgive me if I cannot post in an account. I will tell you what I know.

Ford? Nope China parts, Assembled in canada and mexico.

Various bits made in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, and Canada. Shipped to various states, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, and China.
Some vehicles are made local, some are not. Local variants elsewhere in the world are assembled there with parts made here.

GM? as china as you can get.

Nearly identical to Ford. More parts are shipped to Michigan from Germany, combined with local bits, then shipped various places. Including back to a different company in Germany (this happens nationally as well with great frequency).

Honda? Yes they are more american than any american car brand, but parts are still China

In my line of work I handle no proprietary Honda parts manufactured in the United States. Toyota on the other hand is the biggest customer. Huge amounts shipped to Japan from Michigan for my company. The tsunami was a serious hit to our bottom line. Many people did not mind the refocusing on other partners as Japanese businessmen treat anyone of any ranking here like third world peons. Much gnashing of teeth over the disrespect.

My opinion of my little part of the world is that manufacturing seems to be a huge mishmash of middlemen doing slight work to products and moving them on to the next. It happens within countries, between countries, and between continents. There is no real way of telling where something came from with so many feedback loops and nondisclosure agreements. Though I should not complain. Knowing the system is what makes me money.

The deepest trading chain I could find beginning-to-end looks like this:

Spain (natural resources)
Italy (refinement)
Indiana (forming)
Michigan(more forming)
Michigan (stamping)
Germany (additive processing)
West Virginia (testing)
Michigan (finishing processes)
Ohio (assembly priming and packaging)
Japan (put in a vehicle)

All for a little fuel system fastener that you can get OEM for a fistfull of dollars.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[element-o.p.]

Don't get me wrong -- I wasn't supporting the argument of the guy with the confusing grammar; I was merely interpreting it. I tend to be middle-of-the-road on most issues, and I am on this one too, because reality is often quite a bit more complex than such black-and-white arguments make them out to be.

Quite honestly, the idea of "buy local" in a global economy doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. What's more "American" -- a car built by a Japanese company (Honda, Toyota, Nissan) but built in an American plant, or an "American" car that's built in Mexico? I won't even discuss how Chrysler is actually Daimler (German) - Chrysler (American). Or consider Eric Buell Racing's Buell 1100RS motorcycle? That's an American company, but it uses a Rotax engine (Austrian). How many American cars have Bosch components (German) or ECU's and sensors made in Taiwan? The boundaries get pretty grey, and it becomes difficult, if not downright impossible, to determine what is "American" and what is "imported" even if you want to.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[spire3661]

There is pretty much no 'mexican' weed along the U.S.pacific coast. All that shit weed gets shipped East.

Secret Negotiations?

[gr8_phk]

FTFA:

The negotiations are secret but it is known that the United States entertainment industry is pushing for stronger copyright provisions among the 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific region negotiating the deal.

How does a private company (person as some would claim) get involved in secret international negotiations?

Oh right, it's on their behalf. But in no way does that represent the people of the country.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[bobbutts]

This is vastly overstated and then served as cool aid.
Check out this article which debunks some myths.

Misconception: Most of what Americans spend their money on is made in China.

Fact: Just 2.7% of personal consumption expenditures go to Chinese-made goods and services. 88.5% of U.S. consumer spending is on American-made goods and services

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[bobbutts]

dammit I meant "Kool-Aid"

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[jpapon]

Software, music, movies, vegetables, beef, chicken, fruit, grains, milk, lots of different types of guns,Boeing airplanes, fighter jets, bombs, radars, ships and on and on. Lots of things are made in America.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[dbitter1]

Show me SOMETHING that is made inthe (sic) USA.

Well... lessee... we make corn here. And we feed it to (some of) our food... so we could say most of our CAFO beef is made here...

(And yes, I know it requires foreign oil as part of the process, but it is still manufactured here).

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[f3rret]

There is pretty much no 'mexican' weed along the U.S.pacific coast. All that shit weed gets shipped East.

Sure, just like all European hash is supposedly from India, Nepal, Kashmir or Afghanistan when in reality it's pretty much all Moroccan.

Mexican drug cartels like money, potheads like pot, so if there is money to be made from selling pot (bad pot or not) then you can be sure that there is Mexican weed.

So either you verify your source for me or I stick with my 'it is all Mexican weed"-hypothesis.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[oldmac31310]

"Honda? Yes they are more american than any american car brand". You're joking right?

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[spire3661]

Mexican dirt weed has no market in So-cal. Everything here is indoor grown under very careful conditions. All the crap outdoor grown mexican weed gets shipped elsewhere. They cant compete here because the local quality is so damn good. Sure there may be quality grow-ops in mexico, but the vast majority of it is crap compared to the North American growers. All the pot i buy is locally grown. I know the growers, ive been to their ops, I have bought plants from them. Please tell me your personal expertise on this subject.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[Anonymous Coward]

Home-processed 135mm. Old tech, yet I have enough $$$ to own it.

Oh, you thought individuals couldn't produce their own cheap shit?

This AC prolly knows more than the OP. You know jack shit.

"Do you think that's air you're breathing now?"

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

What truth?

That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.

What's a NutHui?

[viperidaenz]

Is it anything like the NetHui?

No DMCA in NZ

[vik]

In NZ, where Kim Dotcom lives, you are allowed to circumvent digital locks on regional content if they prevent you viewing what you paid for,

America

[shiftless]

Fuck yeah

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[shiftless]

"Verify your source"? Apparently you don't understand how this whole "underground market" thing works. There are no sources, only facts. The fact is poor, dumb, or ignorant people smoke Mexican weed anymore. Not only is California blown up with their own high grade weed as the GP said, but due to improved communication and sharing of knowledge, smokers across the nation want the good stuff too. Mexican brick just doesn't cut it anymore.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[Anonymous Coward]

Go look up the car with the most US content....a Toyota Avalon last year from KY. I was gonna buy a Buick and didn't and was shocked at the difference in US content.

Re: Dotcom - a "shady character"

[rHBa]

This exactly.

If I had mod points and you weren't already +5 Interesting...

we will launch nukes at you

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why you are the enemy.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[blueforce]

Filson. http://www.filson.com/ Made in the USA. Sold at big boxes like Cabela's, Bass Pro, and even small local boxes like a retailer a couple miles up the road from me.

1 world government BS

[bussdriver]

One World government will not likely happen with the U.N. it will happen by economics using corruption to bring about bad trade deals, bad treaties, and privatized organizations like the W.T.O. and banks.

If you can buy legit DVDs in somewhere else and bring them to the USA cheaply then by all means allow it. I don't think it will be a big threat to the bottom line of any movie corporation... Especially as transport becomes more expensive. I've known people who made a few bucks traveling by trading items at both ends -- it wasn't making them a living or harming the economy.

Reality is that corporations ONLY care about profit but for traded corporations their profits are measured by orders of derivatives not simply profit, but the rate of the rate of increased earnings (and I simplified it!) This means inevitably squeezing blood from a stone; that fails to grasp it... They need a bucket of blood from that stone by next quarter and then a barrel of it the next quarter after that and 10 barrels after that... Forcing them to seek out new blood by grinding up anything they can get, this creates a relative perspective problem where the perfectly good stones have no value because it doesn't matter how solid and strong they ARE they do not provide enough of what the bloody the vampires want.

Ok I ran on too far with that metaphor. Point is their DESIGN is fatally flawed and will continue until something crashes.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[ub3r n3u7r4l1st]

Well, inflation can drive the U.S. dollar down, and when the U.S. dollar at unity with Chinese Yuan we will be much more competitive in terms of labor cost.

Re: Dotcom - a "shady character"

[Kalriath]

The fraud convictions probably.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[mirix]

That must mean the average American only has 5% of their money left over after paying the mortgage, tax, food, and fuel costs.

Of which 2.7/5 is spent on chinese shit.

Re: Dotcom - a "shady character"

[brit74]

Dotcom has a long list of convictions long before this latest round. He also wasn't "hanging out" with Steve Wozniak. Steve Wozniak didn't turn up until Steve thought Kim was being mistreated. To say they were "hang out buddies" long before this indictment seems like a big stretch.

The fact he'd change his last name to Dotcom, alone, tells you how much he wants to be noticed as a "guru" in his field of interest.

The fact that he changed his name to Dotcom tells me he's all about marketing and hype. He strikes me as one of those guys who wants to be perceived as the go-to guy for all that internetty stuff, but he's as shady as a spamlord.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[bogjobber]

Nah, you still get Mexican weed, even in Cali. A lot of mids are Mexican, and you can even find brick weed if you're so inclined. Not everybody's buying top of the line all the time.

blame the right people

[khipu]

More than 60% of the US and world music market go to UMG, SonyBMG and EMI. Who owns them? UMG is French, Sony BMG is Japanese (it used to be Japanese and German), and EMI is British. Yes, Hollywood and the US music industries pushes restrictive copyright legislation. So do European publishers, directors, writers, and artists, as well as European governments who like to make their media happy. And the legal situation surrounding copyright and fair use is restrictive in Europe already, and has always been.

The DMCA wasn't something invented out of thin air by the US, it was the implementation of a WIPO agreement. Europe implemented the WIPO agreement with a number of directives, including Directive 2001/29/EC, which in some ways is more restrictive than the DMCA. But Europeans don't follow EU politics much; to them, it looks like the US implements some draconian law and then Europe is made to follow, when in fact, the real reason is that both EU and US special interests perform policy laundering at WIPO, and the US just happens to be a bit quicker implementing it.

If you're a geek interested in keeping fair use alive, the "blame the US" approach isn't going to work because the US isn't the primary source of the problem. The problem is media companies. European media companies have much tighter control over European public opinion and politicians, and they love to present these issues as "evil American companies like Google want to steal European culture and impoverish European artists" and at the same time "the evil American government is forcing our poor politicians to implement all these draconian laws that we don't really want to implement but are bullied into". Stop letting yourself be manipulated and get the facts. These laws are going to keep coming until the politics in countries like France, Germany, the UK, and Japan change radically.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[RagingGolem]

what do you mean India went out of business ?

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[Builder]

And if I remember that, they included mortgage / rent costs in the expenditure box just to skew the amounts.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[strack]

are you seriously comparing mass production in china to custom hand built stuff made in the USA? to be fair, i already knew you were full of shit cause you randomly CAPITALISE your words for emphasis, but that is a utterly unfair comparison you are making there. it does not cost that much more in the price of goods to pay workers on your mass production line located in the USA a reasonable wage. its just a race to the bottom that is the reason everything is made in china.

Did I just misread this?

[tehcyder]

Or has New Zealand declared war on the US?

Who saw THAT coming?

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[L4t3r4lu5]

Mexican dirt weed has no market in So-cal. Everything here is indoor grown under very careful conditions. All the crap outdoor grown mexican weed gets shipped elsewhere. They cant compete here because the local quality is so damn good. Sure there may be quality grow-ops in mexico, but the vast majority of it is crap compared to the North American growers. All the pot i buy is locally grown. I know the growers, ive been to their ops, I have bought plants from them. Please tell me your personal expertise on this subject.

I'm from Amsterdam.

Your move.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[MitchDev]

Agreed, the "foreign" brands are becoming more American. It seems like the "Big Three" (and living in the Metro Detroit Area, I see the ignorant "Buy American!" stickers and sentiment all over) keep shipping jobs overseas and the foreign automakers keep building plants in America, employing Americans. At least they're smart enough to setup away from Detroit and the Union Mentality...

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Thanks for just justifying in my mind a switch from buiy-American-Fossil-Fueled Ford to Chinese Zap Zebra- I'm funding the Chinese either way, and the Zap Zebra I can potentially fuel on water (hydropower).

The EU Rejected ACTA

[partofthepuzzle]

Well, on 7/4/12, the European Parliament rejected ACTA by a 478 - 39 vote with 165 abstaining. Maybe some of the TPP members will grow some stones and stand up to the US/MPAA pressure?

OK, so I wanted to have a minute of hope this morning. It's over now.

The Declaration of Independence 1776 T. Jefferson

[DerUberTroll]

All men are created equal and there are certain unalienable rights that governments should never violate. These rights include the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. When a government fails to protect those rights, it is not only the right, but also the duty of the people to overthrow that government. In its place, the people should establish a government that is designed to protect those rights.

Eliminate the middle men and get rich

[DerUberTroll]

There wouldn't be a "need" for all of this if people around the globe could just pay and have immediate access to their favorite shows and movies. I really don't mind paying 10 USD to download a movie in HQ. The problem is the middle men with sticky fingers. They must have their share of the cake, eventhough they had no role whatsoever in the creative process. It's all a damn lie. PS to the movie stars: You don't need that 1 million Dollar coat.

Re:remember that raise you didn't get?

[element-o.p.]

Thanks -- I wasn't aware of that.