The majority of the population does NOT want to see this pass, yet it made it through the Senate with NO opposition?
You're surprised?
Senator Patrick Leahy, "the main sponsor of the bill" is the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
All but 4 members of that committee are co-sponsors of the bill.
One of those 4 is Al Franken who has close ties to the entertainment industry.
That leaves 3 others who might have voted against it but knew going in that it didn't matter either way so they probably offered to trade their rubber stamp vote for a vote on something they wanted.
This thing should have died in committee. But with the deck stacked like it was I can't say the results surprise me.
I've been keeping an eye on this bill for over a month now. Here is where it currently stands.
The bill has been referred to committee. For those not familiar with the process of a bill entering into law in the US, this is the second step (the first being the introduction of the bill). In this case it is the Senate Judiciary Committee to be precise. At this point, the only Senators who have any say about the bill are the members of the committee.
It is scheduled for consideration by the committee on 11/18/2010.
The committee's job is to discuss the bill, make modifications to it, and decide it it should be put before the entire senate for discussion and a vote.
Ideally, a bill such as this could be killed in committee, that is the committee does not agree to move it on the entire Senate. In this case that is unlikely to happen. All but 4 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee http://judiciary.senate.gov/about/members.cfm are co-sponsors http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-3804 of this bill. And the chairman of the committee is also the sponsor of the bill.
So, per my subject-line above? Yes folks: We "upstate N.Y.'ers" can thank the GREAT Nikola Tesla for his creation of the Niagara Falls power turbine system (sends power as far as to NY City too, afaik/iirc)...
That cheap power? It was "part of the package" they used to attract YAHOO & others, along with tax incentives & plenty of cheap land: CHEAP electrical power via "hydro-power"!!!
APK
I grew up in Buffalo. I know first hand that electricity there is anything but cheap. Most of the electricity produced at Niagara Falls goes east to NYC and points in between. This is because those areas will pay a higher premium for that "cheap" electricity. If YAHOO is getting cheap electricity it's because they aren't paying the going market rate for the area.
I agree, the guy in the striped shirt is carrying what looks to be an AK. The guy walking next to him carrying the long object turns at about 3:44 and the end of what he's carrying looks to have the profile of an RPG warhead. Combine this with the two journalists who are carrying unidentified items that could possibly be weapons and you have what appears to be half the group armed. Add into this the fact that insurgents would often use unarmed members of their team in front to screen an ambush (seen in some of the the videos posted by the insurgents) and you now have a reasonable assumption of threat.
As for firing on the van, can you tell the difference from evacuation wounded and sanitizing the are of any evidence of insurgent presence? It's not like they can just go chasing after the van to find out their intentions and risk being led into an ambush.
There are other possible legitimate uses for something like this as well.
It could be used for secure and clandestine meetings with foreign VIPs. Some don't take well to sacrificing comfort and ostentation in the name of secrecy. This would allow such meetings to remain secret without ruffling feathers.
Say for example said VIP is meeting with a foreign head of state (or other high profile figure). The meeting needs to be top secret (no publicity or press knowledge). Said foreign VIP goes to visit airbase (US plane with our VIP and comfort pod is there waiting). While out of site of press in secure area, hops into Comfort Pod which looks like generic cargo container and is loaded into plane. Plane takes off and flies around for meeting to maintain security then returns to airbase. Foreign VIP is happy with comfort level and feels special while security is maintained.
VIP aircraft stand out. A cargo plane on a military airbase does not. When you don't know whether or not the other side is watching, make it harder for them to spot what they are looking for.
The end result of this type of legislation is infinite copyright for some and no copyright for the rest.
While I understand that many see this as a way to stop the infinity + years copyright duration, it does nothing to the corporations who exploit the extended duration for their own benefit. It does not put corporately shackled works back into the public domain. These corporations have legal departments on retainer to maintain their claims in perpetuity. These works will NEVER become orphan.
This will just create a legal way for content corporations to poach the work of individuals not actively defending their copyright. US copyright registration cost $45 per individual work. How many photographs have you taken? Have you filed for copyright on all of them? If they find their way to the internet and someone uses them after "reasonable effort" to contact you they are an "orphan work" under this legislation. Remember that story you posted to a forum back in college? It's about to be a major motion picture. The forum shut down 2 years ago, and you don't use that isp any more so there was no way to contact you.
Sure, you can make a claim and take the infringer to court, but if they can make the orphan work defense stick, they are only liable for a token sum instead of statutory penalties. That is if you can prove they are infringing your work. If they have deep enough pockets, they could tie things up in court so that you end up losing money. Or you could take their offer to sell them all rights to the work for $100. Either way they would still get the work at less than the market rate from a professional. If you don't make a claim, they file copyright on their use and defend it in perpetuity. No public domain. This is what big content providers want. Cheap work for hire content that they own instead of the creators.
Everything you write, photograph, draw, video, everything you create is protected by copyright now so that other cannot profit from your work without you getting anything. This would force everyone who creates anything to pay registration fees per work and make sure that their records are up to date. Professionals who do this will be undercut by corporations poaching the work of amateurs who don't.
Slashdot Mirror
The majority of the population does NOT want to see this pass, yet it made it through the Senate with NO opposition?
You're surprised?
Senator Patrick Leahy, "the main sponsor of the bill" is the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
All but 4 members of that committee are co-sponsors of the bill.
One of those 4 is Al Franken who has close ties to the entertainment industry.
That leaves 3 others who might have voted against it but knew going in that it didn't matter either way so they probably offered to trade their rubber stamp vote for a vote on something they wanted.
This thing should have died in committee. But with the deck stacked like it was I can't say the results surprise me.
I've been keeping an eye on this bill for over a month now. Here is where it currently stands.
The bill has been referred to committee. For those not familiar with the process of a bill entering into law in the US, this is the second step (the first being the introduction of the bill). In this case it is the Senate Judiciary Committee to be precise. At this point, the only Senators who have any say about the bill are the members of the committee.
It is scheduled for consideration by the committee on 11/18/2010.
The committee's job is to discuss the bill, make modifications to it, and decide it it should be put before the entire senate for discussion and a vote.
Ideally, a bill such as this could be killed in committee, that is the committee does not agree to move it on the entire Senate. In this case that is unlikely to happen. All but 4 members of the Senate Judiciary Committee http://judiciary.senate.gov/about/members.cfm are co-sponsors http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-3804 of this bill. And the chairman of the committee is also the sponsor of the bill.
So, per my subject-line above? Yes folks: We "upstate N.Y.'ers" can thank the GREAT Nikola Tesla for his creation of the Niagara Falls power turbine system (sends power as far as to NY City too, afaik/iirc)...
That cheap power? It was "part of the package" they used to attract YAHOO & others, along with tax incentives & plenty of cheap land: CHEAP electrical power via "hydro-power"!!!
APK
I grew up in Buffalo. I know first hand that electricity there is anything but cheap. Most of the electricity produced at Niagara Falls goes east to NYC and points in between. This is because those areas will pay a higher premium for that "cheap" electricity. If YAHOO is getting cheap electricity it's because they aren't paying the going market rate for the area.
I agree, the guy in the striped shirt is carrying what looks to be an AK. The guy walking next to him carrying the long object turns at about 3:44 and the end of what he's carrying looks to have the profile of an RPG warhead. Combine this with the two journalists who are carrying unidentified items that could possibly be weapons and you have what appears to be half the group armed. Add into this the fact that insurgents would often use unarmed members of their team in front to screen an ambush (seen in some of the the videos posted by the insurgents) and you now have a reasonable assumption of threat.
As for firing on the van, can you tell the difference from evacuation wounded and sanitizing the are of any evidence of insurgent presence? It's not like they can just go chasing after the van to find out their intentions and risk being led into an ambush.
Gadget security, no matter how good the gadget, is ever going to provide security.
Go Go Gadget Terrorist Detector!
There are other possible legitimate uses for something like this as well.
It could be used for secure and clandestine meetings with foreign VIPs. Some don't take well to sacrificing comfort and ostentation in the name of secrecy. This would allow such meetings to remain secret without ruffling feathers.
Say for example said VIP is meeting with a foreign head of state (or other high profile figure). The meeting needs to be top secret (no publicity or press knowledge). Said foreign VIP goes to visit airbase (US plane with our VIP and comfort pod is there waiting). While out of site of press in secure area, hops into Comfort Pod which looks like generic cargo container and is loaded into plane. Plane takes off and flies around for meeting to maintain security then returns to airbase. Foreign VIP is happy with comfort level and feels special while security is maintained.
VIP aircraft stand out. A cargo plane on a military airbase does not. When you don't know whether or not the other side is watching, make it harder for them to spot what they are looking for.
The end result of this type of legislation is infinite copyright for some and no copyright for the rest.
While I understand that many see this as a way to stop the infinity + years copyright duration, it does nothing to the corporations who exploit the extended duration for their own benefit. It does not put corporately shackled works back into the public domain. These corporations have legal departments on retainer to maintain their claims in perpetuity. These works will NEVER become orphan.
This will just create a legal way for content corporations to poach the work of individuals not actively defending their copyright. US copyright registration cost $45 per individual work. How many photographs have you taken? Have you filed for copyright on all of them? If they find their way to the internet and someone uses them after "reasonable effort" to contact you they are an "orphan work" under this legislation. Remember that story you posted to a forum back in college? It's about to be a major motion picture. The forum shut down 2 years ago, and you don't use that isp any more so there was no way to contact you.
Sure, you can make a claim and take the infringer to court, but if they can make the orphan work defense stick, they are only liable for a token sum instead of statutory penalties. That is if you can prove they are infringing your work. If they have deep enough pockets, they could tie things up in court so that you end up losing money. Or you could take their offer to sell them all rights to the work for $100. Either way they would still get the work at less than the market rate from a professional. If you don't make a claim, they file copyright on their use and defend it in perpetuity. No public domain. This is what big content providers want. Cheap work for hire content that they own instead of the creators.
Everything you write, photograph, draw, video, everything you create is protected by copyright now so that other cannot profit from your work without you getting anything. This would force everyone who creates anything to pay registration fees per work and make sure that their records are up to date. Professionals who do this will be undercut by corporations poaching the work of amateurs who don't.