"This is not to say that Google is not censoring search results, just that they are doing at least some fighting too."
I am aware of this. But they have been doing far too much censoring, and way too little fighting, in the name of profits.
The fact is, they don't have to be there at all. The only reason they are is for profits. They didn't go there for their health or the health of the Internet or the Chinese people. In fact, when they announced that they were going to start operating in China, their excuse was "if we don't, somebody else will." And make all the profits, of course.
That is NOT exactly a reflection of the world's finest ethical principles. Ultimately it all boils down to money. At least for Google. They have said as much.
"Today, only a tiny minority of influential stake-holders violently pushes it, and the majority of free men is merely subject to enforcement, without having a bloody chance in hell to be allowed to re-evaluate that 300 yr old agreement any more."
The thing is, there wasn't much wrong with that "300-year-old" agreement, and IT probably doesn't need to be re-evaluated. It is modern changes that have messed everything up, like the now-automatic grant of enforceable copyright. (Prior to that, in most cases you had to publicly CLAIM copyright, with a notice, before you could enforce it. No notice meant no enforcement power.) Then there's the DMCA, and all the extensions...
Things were MUCH better the way they were, before legislators in modern times began mucking around with them. If we merely put them back the way they were, our lives in relation to copyright would be much better. How do I know? Because they were.
Re:Your right to what?
on
BTJunkie No More?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
"Indeed, the Supreme Court has ruled that yes, Congress *can* pass copyright laws that rip culture out of the public domain."
Bravo.
I propose that we limit not just the Executive and Legislative branches back to their original Constitutional limits, but also the Judicial, so they can't keep ruling themselves more and more power.
And yes, they were supposed to have limits. As historical evidence, see Madison's Report of 1800.
Well, then, we have no argument. I'm not going to defend the U.S. government for their acts in the matter. They should never have been there in the first place.
"The police in your example WOULD be held responsible."
No, in fact you are quite wrong. At least in the legal sense. Some people might consider them to be responsible, but they would not really be, whether you mean morally, ethically, or legally.
First, let's get rid of the legal part: the Supreme Court has ruled, in so many words, that the police are under NO obligation to either protect your ass or prevent crime. We rather expect them to, at times, but that is not really part of their job definition. Despite such slogans as "to protect and serve", the "protect" part is not actually a required part of their job.
Police exist to CATCH criminals who have already committed illegal acts. They are NOT there to protect you. That is a completely unrealistic and unworkable expectation. They try to prevent, when it is convenient for them, but they are not very good at it, nor should they be expected to be. That's just not living in the real world. The logistics simply aren't there.
As for "protection", it is your right -- and your duty -- to protect yourself. And your family. And your property. Anything else is living in fantasyland.
If the police in your region CHOOSE to police the Superdome or whatever, by pulling police off the streets, then if you want additional coverage you had better pay a premium for that extra coverage. You don't work for free, and neither do they. The owners and operators of the teams and the stadiums should be footing the bill, because they are the ones who profit from the games. Anything else amounts to a taxpayer subsidy.
But lack of police still does not excuse criminals for their criminal acts. It might have made it easier for them to be criminals, but criminals they still were.
In the same sense, courts have held that neglecting to lock your door does not excuse the criminal who walks through it and steals from you. He is still invading your home and stealing; the unlocked door was not a literal invitation.
"Would this have happened if the USA didn't started this illegal war over some oil?..."
Perhaps you misunderstood me. I was vocally opposed to the war before it ever started. And since. But that wasn't my point.
I was referring to "proximate cause", not historical events about which nothing can be done. I am not trying to excuse the U.S. for its acts related to the Iraq war.
But they still aren't responsible for gangs who take advantage of wartime and pillage others... especially if they weren't even there.
My personal opinion is that GWB should be in prison at the very least, and Barack Obama hung for treason... but that's just an opinion; I am not threatening anybody or making suggestions.
However, even they are not responsible for the direct, selfish acts of others. Let's put blame where it is due, but not where it is not. Those locals who committed those acts are responsible for them.
"A multinational corporation - by definition - operates in multiple nations, and hence under multiple legal jurisdictions."
Yes, but my point was that there is nothing FORCING anybody to be multi-national or multi-jurisdictional. One of my own websites, for example, resides on a server in a particular country, and it's nobody else's f**ing business. It is available for anyone in any country to view, and if they don't want to look, they don't have to. They do not have any right to tell me what to say or do, or the companies that host my site, or my ISP, etc.
Censorship, if it exists at all, is PURELY jurisdictional, whereas the internet, inherently, is not. Let them block it if they want, but leave me and the rest of my internet out of it.
Thank you, and I do as well, when it is my turn to moderate. Seems to me, "moderate" is the operative word: not to force conformity, but to eliminate the obvious outliers.
The U.S. is to blame for lots of things in regard to Iraq, but that is not one of them.
That is rather like saying that because the police were busy containing an unruly crowd at the Superbowl, they are to blame for looters who broke into businesses elsewhere.
We might question their priorities, but blaming them for the criminal acts of others is just not valid.
No. Which is bad because (as courts have found already), it allows others to infer (a) who your mistress might be, (b) your political affiliations, (c) your use (or not) of illegal but morally justifiable controlled substances, (d) when you are away from home (oooh... look! an unoccupied house just waiting to be burglarized)... and many more things. It has been CLEARLY shown, beyond reasonable doubt, that even "de-personalized" data can give people personalized information.
Also, your version of "best case scenario" is pretty bizarre! Corporations trade your "personal" information among themselves secretly??? How, in the name of Grid, could that be considered "best case scenario"? Somehow, I don't think you are on the same channel as everybody else here.
"Multinational means multi-jurisdictional too, something to do with having your cake and eating it." [spelling corrected]
Actually, that is not the case at all. In a very real sense (and completely aside from the whole "cloud computing" hype), the Internet can be considered to be an information resource that is simply "out there", for anybody who wants to to visit.
It is not "intrusive" in any way. If countries want to block it, they have both the facilities and ability to block it.
Instead, what they have done is to try to force EVERYTHING on the internet to be the "lowest common denominator", and show only content that is acceptable to everybody, in the entire world. And to say that is unrealistic is probably the understatement of the century.
And it's also complete bullshit. You are in charge of your own home, and you can decide what you want your family to watch on TV, or see on the Internet, or whatever. If you are a country, you are free to block whatever content you want into your own country, at least in the sense of what citizens are willing to put up with.
But... you DO NOT have the right to force others to use technologies for censorship, or ANYTHING of that sort. If you want to censor, you are free to do so. But stop putting the onus on others simply because YOU are some kind of religious extremist or anal-retentive of some other sort.
Don'tya just love it when somebody mods you "redundant" because you are later in the sequence he read, but actually made the first such comment (as clearly shown by the timestamp)?
Sometimes, I get a real charge out of the quality of "conversation" on Slashdot. Other times, like now, I am reminded that while it might be better than average, there are still some real bozos here. (squeak, squeak)
Ahem... Yes, "piddly". When Bill Gates personally, much less Microsoft, is worth over $60 BILLION, a fine of $357 Million is "piddly". The purpose of such fines it to be "punitive" and "preventative", which means that they are supposed to demonstrate that it is unproductive for companies to engage in such practices. But when the results are not high enough to be "preventative" -- as they have generally not been for many years -- they do not discourage such practices at all! Instead, they simply share the wealth with Government.
And that answers most of the rest of your argument. Except:
How come Google are bending over backwards to follow chinese censoring laws?
Because they make sh*tloads of money by being in China. I have to wonder how that escaped your attention.
The "U.S. concepts of free expression and commerce" mentioned are of the current Corporatist Government, and are not representative of "U.S." views. I would thank anyone writing about this to make that distinction.
As I have been saying for years now, if you really want to look at the demographics of the United States, you really have to consider the citizens and the Federal government separately, because the Federal government has been so completely out of touch with the wants and needs of the average citizen.
"U.S. concepts of free expression and commerce", if by that you mean the vast majority of people who live here, very much do include personal privacy. Anyone who thinks otherwise has a distorted view of what's really going on. And anyone who represents the Federal government's "views" as those of the average American citizen is likewise out of touch.
"Priority is irrelevant (priority would only become an issue of a purported treaty violated a negative restriction in the Constitution, not if it merely extends beyond the other enumerated powers of the federal government in the Constitution.)"
You must be an attorney. You sure as Hell aren't a Constitutional scholar. Which stands to reason, since today they seem to be almost mutually exclusive categories.
First, priority is very much relevant (not to ACTA, but to the comments you made earlier), because your comments presupposed that treaties had priority over the Constitution. (NOT as in Missouri v. Holland, which dealt specifically with a 10th Amendment issue.)
On the other hand, a Constitutional scholar will point you to any number of historical documents, including Federalist Papers, Anti-Federalist Papers, minutes of the State legislatures prior to ratification of the Constitution, and minutes of the State Legislatures AFTER ratification (notable are the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 and subsequent documents, again particularly Madison's Report of 1800) that demonstrate beyond doubt that SCOTUS was never intended to have the authority to make such a decision as Missouri v. Holland in the first place.
I am well aware that if you are not a scholar of America's political and legal history, you may have been unaware of that, but it is fact nevertheless. In Jefferson's words, the Federal government (which includes the Supreme Court) was never given authority to be "the final arbiter of the powers delegated to itself", and in Madison's words, making use of perfect logic:
"On any other hypothesis, the delegation of judicial power would annul the authority delegating it; and the concurrence of this department with the others in usurped powers, might subvert forever, and beyond the possible reach of any rightful remedy, the very Constitution which all were instituted to preserve."
Your argument that law "has ruled unequivocally" rests on the (unfounded) assumption that the Supreme Court is in fact the final arbiter of States' rights. But that was never intended to be so, and both history and current events demonstrate that it is not, as a practical matter, so.
"Ratification of treaties is by the Senate alone, not "by the Congress.""
Yes, by the Senate. But the Senate is part of Congress. Therefore, since you feel like nitpicking, "not 'by the Congress'" is incorrect.
"If an international agreement is implemented by Congress through the normal legislative process..."
Correct, but completely irrelevant in this case.
"If an international agreement is implemented by the President alone... it is constrained by the same bounds as the President's independent executive authority..."
Exactly. And as a corollary: it is therefore not domestic law. That was my point.
"Only by treaty ratified by a 2/3 vote in the Senate can an international agreement extend beyond the other enumerated powers of Congress and/or the Executive, since only by treaty is a separate, independent Constitutional power of government exercised."
This is very much debatable, since the Constitution does not stipulate which shall have priority, nor has the question ever been unequivocally settled by the Supreme Court. It would be just as valid to claim that the Constitution constrains treaties. Either one is an assumption with very little foundation.
"In international law as opposed to US Constitutional law, all three forms of agreements are "treaties"."
Again, irrelevant in this case, since I was referring to its effect on U.S. law.
ACTA, as it currently stands, in not binding on the U.S., because Congress has not ratified it.
The Executive branch has no Constitutional authority to enforce it as any kind of treaty without ratification by Congress. I know some are "debating" this, but the debate is nothing but BS. The Constitution spells it out pretty clearly.
"As I recall, it was 'profiting from copyright infringement', not just 'selling counterfeit merchandise'..."
I think you are correct, but on the other hand I believe 99.9% or more of actual criminal copyright infringement involves sales.
To the best of my knowledge, nobody has made the theory that "downloading = profit" stick. As far as I know, you have to actually "make a profit", that is to say, material gain, from your infringement in order for it to be criminal. Also, it usually involves "mass" copying.
"Visitors to these websites will then find a seizure banner that notifies them that the domain name has been seized by federal authorities and educates them that willful copyright infringement is a federal crime."
Correction: Willful copyright infringement in the form of selling counterfeit merchandise is a Federal crime. If you are infringing copyright solely for personal use, the vast majority of the time there is no "crime" at all. It is a civil infraction.
Slashdot Mirror
"Do you really think it would be better if Google just remained out of China?"
I think that depends very much on your point of view. What is meant by "better", and for whom?
"This is not to say that Google is not censoring search results, just that they are doing at least some fighting too."
I am aware of this. But they have been doing far too much censoring, and way too little fighting, in the name of profits.
The fact is, they don't have to be there at all. The only reason they are is for profits. They didn't go there for their health or the health of the Internet or the Chinese people. In fact, when they announced that they were going to start operating in China, their excuse was "if we don't, somebody else will." And make all the profits, of course.
That is NOT exactly a reflection of the world's finest ethical principles. Ultimately it all boils down to money. At least for Google. They have said as much.
"Today, only a tiny minority of influential stake-holders violently pushes it, and the majority of free men is merely subject to enforcement, without having a bloody chance in hell to be allowed to re-evaluate that 300 yr old agreement any more."
The thing is, there wasn't much wrong with that "300-year-old" agreement, and IT probably doesn't need to be re-evaluated. It is modern changes that have messed everything up, like the now-automatic grant of enforceable copyright. (Prior to that, in most cases you had to publicly CLAIM copyright, with a notice, before you could enforce it. No notice meant no enforcement power.) Then there's the DMCA, and all the extensions...
Things were MUCH better the way they were, before legislators in modern times began mucking around with them. If we merely put them back the way they were, our lives in relation to copyright would be much better. How do I know? Because they were.
"Indeed, the Supreme Court has ruled that yes, Congress *can* pass copyright laws that rip culture out of the public domain."
Bravo.
I propose that we limit not just the Executive and Legislative branches back to their original Constitutional limits, but also the Judicial, so they can't keep ruling themselves more and more power.
And yes, they were supposed to have limits. As historical evidence, see Madison's Report of 1800.
Well, then, we have no argument. I'm not going to defend the U.S. government for their acts in the matter. They should never have been there in the first place.
"The police in your example WOULD be held responsible."
No, in fact you are quite wrong. At least in the legal sense. Some people might consider them to be responsible, but they would not really be, whether you mean morally, ethically, or legally.
First, let's get rid of the legal part: the Supreme Court has ruled, in so many words, that the police are under NO obligation to either protect your ass or prevent crime. We rather expect them to, at times, but that is not really part of their job definition. Despite such slogans as "to protect and serve", the "protect" part is not actually a required part of their job.
Police exist to CATCH criminals who have already committed illegal acts. They are NOT there to protect you. That is a completely unrealistic and unworkable expectation. They try to prevent, when it is convenient for them, but they are not very good at it, nor should they be expected to be. That's just not living in the real world. The logistics simply aren't there.
As for "protection", it is your right -- and your duty -- to protect yourself. And your family. And your property. Anything else is living in fantasyland.
If the police in your region CHOOSE to police the Superdome or whatever, by pulling police off the streets, then if you want additional coverage you had better pay a premium for that extra coverage. You don't work for free, and neither do they. The owners and operators of the teams and the stadiums should be footing the bill, because they are the ones who profit from the games. Anything else amounts to a taxpayer subsidy.
But lack of police still does not excuse criminals for their criminal acts. It might have made it easier for them to be criminals, but criminals they still were.
In the same sense, courts have held that neglecting to lock your door does not excuse the criminal who walks through it and steals from you. He is still invading your home and stealing; the unlocked door was not a literal invitation.
"Would this have happened if the USA didn't started this illegal war over some oil? ..."
Perhaps you misunderstood me. I was vocally opposed to the war before it ever started. And since. But that wasn't my point.
I was referring to "proximate cause", not historical events about which nothing can be done. I am not trying to excuse the U.S. for its acts related to the Iraq war.
But they still aren't responsible for gangs who take advantage of wartime and pillage others... especially if they weren't even there.
My personal opinion is that GWB should be in prison at the very least, and Barack Obama hung for treason... but that's just an opinion; I am not threatening anybody or making suggestions.
However, even they are not responsible for the direct, selfish acts of others. Let's put blame where it is due, but not where it is not. Those locals who committed those acts are responsible for them.
"A multinational corporation - by definition - operates in multiple nations, and hence under multiple legal jurisdictions."
Yes, but my point was that there is nothing FORCING anybody to be multi-national or multi-jurisdictional. One of my own websites, for example, resides on a server in a particular country, and it's nobody else's f**ing business. It is available for anyone in any country to view, and if they don't want to look, they don't have to. They do not have any right to tell me what to say or do, or the companies that host my site, or my ISP, etc.
Censorship, if it exists at all, is PURELY jurisdictional, whereas the internet, inherently, is not. Let them block it if they want, but leave me and the rest of my internet out of it.
Thank you, and I do as well, when it is my turn to moderate. Seems to me, "moderate" is the operative word: not to force conformity, but to eliminate the obvious outliers.
They aren't MY regulations. They are regulations from government that has lost touch with those whom they presume to govern.
But aside from that, your statements have become increasingly close to incoherent. Try again when you sober up.
The U.S. is to blame for lots of things in regard to Iraq, but that is not one of them.
That is rather like saying that because the police were busy containing an unruly crowd at the Superbowl, they are to blame for looters who broke into businesses elsewhere.
We might question their priorities, but blaming them for the criminal acts of others is just not valid.
No. Which is bad because (as courts have found already), it allows others to infer (a) who your mistress might be, (b) your political affiliations, (c) your use (or not) of illegal but morally justifiable controlled substances, (d) when you are away from home (oooh... look! an unoccupied house just waiting to be burglarized)... and many more things. It has been CLEARLY shown, beyond reasonable doubt, that even "de-personalized" data can give people personalized information.
Also, your version of "best case scenario" is pretty bizarre! Corporations trade your "personal" information among themselves secretly??? How, in the name of Grid, could that be considered "best case scenario"? Somehow, I don't think you are on the same channel as everybody else here.
"Multinational means multi-jurisdictional too, something to do with having your cake and eating it." [spelling corrected]
Actually, that is not the case at all. In a very real sense (and completely aside from the whole "cloud computing" hype), the Internet can be considered to be an information resource that is simply "out there", for anybody who wants to to visit.
It is not "intrusive" in any way. If countries want to block it, they have both the facilities and ability to block it.
Instead, what they have done is to try to force EVERYTHING on the internet to be the "lowest common denominator", and show only content that is acceptable to everybody, in the entire world. And to say that is unrealistic is probably the understatement of the century.
And it's also complete bullshit. You are in charge of your own home, and you can decide what you want your family to watch on TV, or see on the Internet, or whatever. If you are a country, you are free to block whatever content you want into your own country, at least in the sense of what citizens are willing to put up with.
But... you DO NOT have the right to force others to use technologies for censorship, or ANYTHING of that sort. If you want to censor, you are free to do so. But stop putting the onus on others simply because YOU are some kind of religious extremist or anal-retentive of some other sort.
Don'tya just love it when somebody mods you "redundant" because you are later in the sequence he read, but actually made the first such comment (as clearly shown by the timestamp)?
Sometimes, I get a real charge out of the quality of "conversation" on Slashdot. Other times, like now, I am reminded that while it might be better than average, there are still some real bozos here. (squeak, squeak)
"Piddly as in what Microsoft faced in 2006? ..."
Ahem... Yes, "piddly". When Bill Gates personally, much less Microsoft, is worth over $60 BILLION, a fine of $357 Million is "piddly". The purpose of such fines it to be "punitive" and "preventative", which means that they are supposed to demonstrate that it is unproductive for companies to engage in such practices. But when the results are not high enough to be "preventative" -- as they have generally not been for many years -- they do not discourage such practices at all! Instead, they simply share the wealth with Government.
And that answers most of the rest of your argument. Except:
How come Google are bending over backwards to follow chinese censoring laws?
Because they make sh*tloads of money by being in China. I have to wonder how that escaped your attention.
The "U.S. concepts of free expression and commerce" mentioned are of the current Corporatist Government, and are not representative of "U.S." views. I would thank anyone writing about this to make that distinction.
As I have been saying for years now, if you really want to look at the demographics of the United States, you really have to consider the citizens and the Federal government separately, because the Federal government has been so completely out of touch with the wants and needs of the average citizen.
"U.S. concepts of free expression and commerce", if by that you mean the vast majority of people who live here, very much do include personal privacy. Anyone who thinks otherwise has a distorted view of what's really going on. And anyone who represents the Federal government's "views" as those of the average American citizen is likewise out of touch.
"Priority is irrelevant (priority would only become an issue of a purported treaty violated a negative restriction in the Constitution, not if it merely extends beyond the other enumerated powers of the federal government in the Constitution.)"
You must be an attorney. You sure as Hell aren't a Constitutional scholar. Which stands to reason, since today they seem to be almost mutually exclusive categories.
First, priority is very much relevant (not to ACTA, but to the comments you made earlier), because your comments presupposed that treaties had priority over the Constitution. (NOT as in Missouri v. Holland, which dealt specifically with a 10th Amendment issue.)
On the other hand, a Constitutional scholar will point you to any number of historical documents, including Federalist Papers, Anti-Federalist Papers, minutes of the State legislatures prior to ratification of the Constitution, and minutes of the State Legislatures AFTER ratification (notable are the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798 and subsequent documents, again particularly Madison's Report of 1800) that demonstrate beyond doubt that SCOTUS was never intended to have the authority to make such a decision as Missouri v. Holland in the first place.
I am well aware that if you are not a scholar of America's political and legal history, you may have been unaware of that, but it is fact nevertheless. In Jefferson's words, the Federal government (which includes the Supreme Court) was never given authority to be "the final arbiter of the powers delegated to itself", and in Madison's words, making use of perfect logic:
"On any other hypothesis, the delegation of judicial power would annul the authority delegating it; and the concurrence of this department with the others in usurped powers, might subvert forever, and beyond the possible reach of any rightful remedy, the very Constitution which all were instituted to preserve."
Your argument that law "has ruled unequivocally" rests on the (unfounded) assumption that the Supreme Court is in fact the final arbiter of States' rights. But that was never intended to be so, and both history and current events demonstrate that it is not, as a practical matter, so.
"Ratification of treaties is by the Senate alone, not "by the Congress.""
Yes, by the Senate. But the Senate is part of Congress. Therefore, since you feel like nitpicking, "not 'by the Congress'" is incorrect.
"If an international agreement is implemented by Congress through the normal legislative process..."
Correct, but completely irrelevant in this case.
"If an international agreement is implemented by the President alone... it is constrained by the same bounds as the President's independent executive authority..."
Exactly. And as a corollary: it is therefore not domestic law. That was my point.
"Only by treaty ratified by a 2/3 vote in the Senate can an international agreement extend beyond the other enumerated powers of Congress and/or the Executive, since only by treaty is a separate, independent Constitutional power of government exercised."
This is very much debatable, since the Constitution does not stipulate which shall have priority, nor has the question ever been unequivocally settled by the Supreme Court. It would be just as valid to claim that the Constitution constrains treaties. Either one is an assumption with very little foundation.
"In international law as opposed to US Constitutional law, all three forms of agreements are "treaties"."
Again, irrelevant in this case, since I was referring to its effect on U.S. law.
"as always: might makes right. and you and I have no real might. not really."
How fatalistic can you get? Sheesh.
Actually, as a citizen you have A LOT of "might". A lot more than the police, OR the Federal government, if you but stick together on an issue.
Um... no. SOPA and PIPA were bills before Congress. ACTA was (supposed to be) a treaty.
They are very different things.
Granted, there may have been some of the same "power groups" behind them, but legally and politically they are completely different species.
"Since when does it matter what's spelled out in the constitution?"
I agree that many in D.C. have ignored the Constitution. But it does matter. It matters a lot.
ACTA, as it currently stands, in not binding on the U.S., because Congress has not ratified it.
The Executive branch has no Constitutional authority to enforce it as any kind of treaty without ratification by Congress. I know some are "debating" this, but the debate is nothing but BS. The Constitution spells it out pretty clearly.
"As I recall, it was 'profiting from copyright infringement', not just 'selling counterfeit merchandise'..."
I think you are correct, but on the other hand I believe 99.9% or more of actual criminal copyright infringement involves sales.
To the best of my knowledge, nobody has made the theory that "downloading = profit" stick. As far as I know, you have to actually "make a profit", that is to say, material gain, from your infringement in order for it to be criminal. Also, it usually involves "mass" copying.
"Visitors to these websites will then find a seizure banner that notifies them that the domain name has been seized by federal authorities and educates them that willful copyright infringement is a federal crime."
Correction: Willful copyright infringement in the form of selling counterfeit merchandise is a Federal crime. If you are infringing copyright solely for personal use, the vast majority of the time there is no "crime" at all. It is a civil infraction.