So basically you're saying that since it gives the target of criticism a new, small stick by which to beat the critic, the critic may actually be better off since that might defuse the conflict.
If you genuinely believe it would help the critic, then you should support making this law optional. Since critics would benefit from it, they should sign up for it, no? Of course, if it's optional, it's not much of a law. In fact the current situation is already this way: the critic has the option of posting the rebuttal and thereby defusing the situation.
This law doesn't change that. It just offers a more civilized way of settling a dispute than dragging eachother to court over published statements.
It places new legal requirements on the publisher and gives the target of criticism one more stick by which to beat the critic. It does not offer a civilized way of settling a dispute, since that civilized way already exists should the publisher choose it. You can't give me something I already have.
Counterstatements are usually limited to factual depictions. "No, Slashdot does not suck" would not have to be published.
That is an excellent illustration of what I and others mean by "chilling effect". That is the sort of picayune legal detail that you need to consult a lawyer to make sure you get right. So now publishing a website includes the cost of legal advice. Talk about chilling effect.
I can still say anything I want. I can say slashdot sucks on my blog. All I have to do is give the slashdot editors a chance to put up a message on my blog that says "no we don't".
And if what they post on your website is libelous against someone else? Then this libelled third party sues you for posting libellous comments about them?
Or suppose in their response they say something nasty about a third party. Now of course the third party has a right to respond on your website, so they do, and now the first party has a right to respond to that, etc. You become moderator to a Usenet newsgroup. But a moderator with the government constantly breathing down his back. And God forbid that you should ever make a mistake and fail to post something on time or make an error in copying the post.
Freedom of speech and of the press includes the freedom to edit content, and therefore it includes the freedom to exclude as well as include whatever you want. Any curtailment of that freedom is a curtailment of the freedom of the press.
Let's take the European idea to the logical conclusion. If people have the right to reply in the same physical place (e.g. the website) as the criticism, then why not in the same article, why not right after the very sentence in which the criticism takes place? If it really is a fundamental right to reply in the same place and in a timely manner, then why shouldn't critics be obliged to let their targets know ahead of time what they are going to publish, so that their targets can prepare a reply thereby avoiding unfair damage to their reputation? And if people's ownership rights over their own reputation extends to the right to force a critic to include their own response in the same location and in a timely manner, then why does it not extend to the right to edit the very text that is critical? If the criticism is unfair, then its very existence has potential to unfairly damage the reputation of the target, and therefore the target should have the right to exercise editorial control. And what about a public speaker? What if someone gets up in front of an audience and says something critical of someone else? Maybe the target has the right to append a response and force the speaker to read their response. Why not? It would be nothing other than an exercise of their right to force the critic to host a response in the same place as the criticism and in a timely manner.
If that sounds wrong, then maybe the basic ideas underlying it are wrong. Maybe the target of a criticism does not have the right to force the critic to do anything to host their response.
The article has some good points, which are worth considering:
Article segment.
First, a right of reply penalizes an Internet speaker or publisher. It takes time to receive a reply, to edit it for space, and to verify that it actually came from the person being criticized. In many cases, the cost may be minimal, but in marginal cases, it is likely to stifle robust political discussion--which lies at the heart of a democracy.
Second, the proposal substitutes an unelected bureaucrat's judgment about what material is appropriate for a mailing list, a chatroom or a Web log for the judgment of the person who first created the resource.
End article segment.
If anything, this might make free speech *more* available, since anyone who says "wal-mart sucks" has a non-onerous way of placating wal-mart without having to take down the text that offended wal-mart.
I believe you are mistaken: as far as I can see, this additional requirement in no way cancels the right of a person to sue, e.g., for libel.
I'm sorry but calling a double-negative still a negative is not reasonable. I know the majority of English speakers do it, but so what?
In Spanish, you must use a double negative in many cases. It would be incorrect not to use a double negative. This fact proves that it is reasonable for a language to not only allow, but require, double negatives.
Examples of Spanish double negatives:
"No veo nada." (I don't see anything; "nada" is literally "nothing", and "no veo" is literally "I don't see".) The whole sentence means "I don't see anything."
"No hay nadie." ("Nadie" is literally "nobody".) The whole sentence means "there isn't anyone [e.g., here]."
Score 5? Give the guy an F for reading comprehension.
To repeat: Point two: A standards body is often a lousy place in which to invent a technology
The supposed counterexample is that invention is enhanced when screws are standardized. That's not a counterexample. You have to read the statement. Point two does not say "Standards bad." It says something very specific that you need to actually read.
So it's still on a fee per copy of the song, your point being how the fee is set. There are a couple of options. The fee could be set across the entire industry. Alternatively, each song could carry its own independent fee set by the copyright holder and made public knowledge. Either approach avoids negotiation, but the latter approach is more fully a market approach.
However I really have my doubts about the workability of any of this in the face of the ease of copying.
Not sure what you mean by "blanket compulsory licensing for Internet media", but if you mean everyone who uses the Internet pays into a common fund, and then this fund somehow gets distributed among content producers, that won't be a market arrangement, so it can't "open up new markets". A market arrangement requires independent buyers and independent sellers, and it requires that every participant has the choice to buy or sell to a particular other participant, or not. What you're describing is an Internet tax, fees pooled into some common pool administered by some central decisionmaking body, and a dole distributed by this body - essentially welfare.
"Sony [...] wanted twice as much for the Betamax system. Although market forces may have had an effect, surely VHS's success was more to do with the bigger profit margins it made for the manufacturers?"
You just described market forces, namely: lower cost of production (specifically, cheaper license). That usually translates to: lower cost for the consumer. That tends to translate to: greater popularity among consumers. That is a straightforward example of market forces at work.
"Bigger profit margins" is unlikely. In a competitive market, competition brings prices down forcing the makers to pass on the cost savings. High profits are associated with market dominance and monopoly, not with competitive markets with different manufacturers competing for the customer's dollar. So it is more likely to apply to the early, Betamax- and Sony-dominated period of the VCR market.
Reasonable points, but consider these points in reply:
1) The state widely publicized the new dollar coin. Remember the new dollar coin, came out not too long ago? No? I don't blame you.
2) Compare the viewership of PBS with the viewership of CBS. Which is more popular?
3) You don't need a rule from on high to set up a second-level domain like kids.us. Most domains are like that, e.g., slashdot.org.
I'm not complaining that I don't like it. I'm saying it will fail commercially, and when it fails, the problem it attempted to address will remain.
But you don't need the state to set up a domain like this, as you yourself point out. What does the state bring to this domain? It brings its vast experience in customer service, for example at the borders with Mexico and Canada and in the Passport office.
"NeuStar's primary responsibility is to police the new domain, ensuring that Web sites bearing kids.us addresses abide by the child-friendly standards established by Congress."
1) Congress's idea of what is "child friendly" is just going to be *one* idea of it. Different parents will have different ideas, so the domain will simply be useless to some - I would guess most - parents.
2) Parents want their kids to access stuff on the "real web", and it's not all going to exist on the child-safe domain. Parents will want their kids to access Britannica.com, Webster.com, etc., etc., etc. The child-safe domain does not help these parents keep their kids on safe websites, since the kids are already off the domain. That will be most parents. So again, the domain will be useless to most parents.
3) What level of control is necessary to get this idea off the ground? Consider the publishing business: the only way to ensure appropriate material is essentially to be a publishing house. As a parent, can I really trust a level of editorial control less than what children's publishers exercise (e.g. I trust books from Dorling Kindersley, because it exercises close control over the material it publishes)? But can n domain provider play the role of a publisher? And what would the economics of the situation develop into? The whole "domain" might become nothing more than an officially sanctioned website. And a government website at that, since remember, it's Congress that pulls the strings. What great government websites do you like to visit on a daily basis?
"The act says that Web site with a kids.us address cannot post hyperlinks to locations outside of the kids.us domain."
Either the kid's browser has the ability to access sites other than those in the domain, or else it does not. If it does not have that ability, then the above requirement is superfluous. But if it does have that ability, then the above requirement is not going to stop any kid from leaving the domain.
The idea looks like it will fail, like anything that involves government oversight. It will easily be defeated in the market for underage eyeballs by kid-friendly sites that do not make the mistake of placing themselves under the thumb of Congress.
Slashdot Mirror
So basically you're saying that since it gives the target of criticism a new, small stick by which to beat the critic, the critic may actually be better off since that might defuse the conflict.
If you genuinely believe it would help the critic, then you should support making this law optional. Since critics would benefit from it, they should sign up for it, no? Of course, if it's optional, it's not much of a law. In fact the current situation is already this way: the critic has the option of posting the rebuttal and thereby defusing the situation.
So the law should no be passed.
This law doesn't change that. It just offers a more civilized way of settling a dispute than dragging eachother to court over published statements.
It places new legal requirements on the publisher and gives the target of criticism one more stick by which to beat the critic. It does not offer a civilized way of settling a dispute, since that civilized way already exists should the publisher choose it. You can't give me something I already have.
Counterstatements are usually limited to factual depictions. "No, Slashdot does not suck" would not have to be published.
That is an excellent illustration of what I and others mean by "chilling effect". That is the sort of picayune legal detail that you need to consult a lawyer to make sure you get right. So now publishing a website includes the cost of legal advice. Talk about chilling effect.
I can still say anything I want. I can say slashdot sucks on my blog. All I have to do is give the slashdot editors a chance to put up a message on my blog that says "no we don't".
And if what they post on your website is libelous against someone else? Then this libelled third party sues you for posting libellous comments about them?
Or suppose in their response they say something nasty about a third party. Now of course the third party has a right to respond on your website, so they do, and now the first party has a right to respond to that, etc. You become moderator to a Usenet newsgroup. But a moderator with the government constantly breathing down his back. And God forbid that you should ever make a mistake and fail to post something on time or make an error in copying the post.
Freedom of speech and of the press includes the freedom to edit content, and therefore it includes the freedom to exclude as well as include whatever you want. Any curtailment of that freedom is a curtailment of the freedom of the press.
Let's take the European idea to the logical conclusion. If people have the right to reply in the same physical place (e.g. the website) as the criticism, then why not in the same article, why not right after the very sentence in which the criticism takes place? If it really is a fundamental right to reply in the same place and in a timely manner, then why shouldn't critics be obliged to let their targets know ahead of time what they are going to publish, so that their targets can prepare a reply thereby avoiding unfair damage to their reputation? And if people's ownership rights over their own reputation extends to the right to force a critic to include their own response in the same location and in a timely manner, then why does it not extend to the right to edit the very text that is critical? If the criticism is unfair, then its very existence has potential to unfairly damage the reputation of the target, and therefore the target should have the right to exercise editorial control. And what about a public speaker? What if someone gets up in front of an audience and says something critical of someone else? Maybe the target has the right to append a response and force the speaker to read their response. Why not? It would be nothing other than an exercise of their right to force the critic to host a response in the same place as the criticism and in a timely manner.
If that sounds wrong, then maybe the basic ideas underlying it are wrong. Maybe the target of a criticism does not have the right to force the critic to do anything to host their response.
The article has some good points, which are worth considering:
Article segment.
First, a right of reply penalizes an Internet speaker or publisher. It takes time to receive a reply, to edit it for space, and to verify that it actually came from the person being criticized. In many cases, the cost may be minimal, but in marginal cases, it is likely to stifle robust political discussion--which lies at the heart of a democracy.
Second, the proposal substitutes an unelected bureaucrat's judgment about what material is appropriate for a mailing list, a chatroom or a Web log for the judgment of the person who first created the resource.
End article segment.
If anything, this might make free speech *more* available, since anyone who says "wal-mart sucks" has a non-onerous way of placating wal-mart without having to take down the text that offended wal-mart.
I believe you are mistaken: as far as I can see, this additional requirement in no way cancels the right of a person to sue, e.g., for libel.
I've patented patenting
Too late. Too much prior art.
I'm sorry but calling a double-negative still a negative is not reasonable. I know the majority of English speakers do it, but so what?
In Spanish, you must use a double negative in many cases. It would be incorrect not to use a double negative. This fact proves that it is reasonable for a language to not only allow, but require, double negatives.
Examples of Spanish double negatives:
"No veo nada." (I don't see anything; "nada" is literally "nothing", and "no veo" is literally "I don't see".) The whole sentence means "I don't see anything."
"No hay nadie." ("Nadie" is literally "nobody".) The whole sentence means "there isn't anyone [e.g., here]."
Score 5? Give the guy an F for reading comprehension.
To repeat: Point two: A standards body is often a lousy place in which to invent a technology
The supposed counterexample is that invention is enhanced when screws are standardized. That's not a counterexample. You have to read the statement. Point two does not say "Standards bad." It says something very specific that you need to actually read.
"all pretty goddamn old. Even the people who do web stuff (relatively "new" technology) are at least 30+."
Aren't you cutting the "not goddamn old" years pretty thin?
Mayve I should contact Social Security. I'll let them know I'm "goddamn old" now and it's time for my checks to start coming.
So it's still on a fee per copy of the song, your point being how the fee is set. There are a couple of options. The fee could be set across the entire industry. Alternatively, each song could carry its own independent fee set by the copyright holder and made public knowledge. Either approach avoids negotiation, but the latter approach is more fully a market approach.
However I really have my doubts about the workability of any of this in the face of the ease of copying.
Not sure what you mean by "blanket compulsory licensing for Internet media", but if you mean everyone who uses the Internet pays into a common fund, and then this fund somehow gets distributed among content producers, that won't be a market arrangement, so it can't "open up new markets". A market arrangement requires independent buyers and independent sellers, and it requires that every participant has the choice to buy or sell to a particular other participant, or not. What you're describing is an Internet tax, fees pooled into some common pool administered by some central decisionmaking body, and a dole distributed by this body - essentially welfare.
"Sony [...] wanted twice as much for the Betamax system. Although market forces may have had an effect, surely VHS's success was more to do with the bigger profit margins it made for the manufacturers?"
You just described market forces, namely: lower cost of production (specifically, cheaper license). That usually translates to: lower cost for the consumer. That tends to translate to: greater popularity among consumers. That is a straightforward example of market forces at work.
"Bigger profit margins" is unlikely. In a competitive market, competition brings prices down forcing the makers to pass on the cost savings. High profits are associated with market dominance and monopoly, not with competitive markets with different manufacturers competing for the customer's dollar. So it is more likely to apply to the early, Betamax- and Sony-dominated period of the VCR market.
Reasonable points, but consider these points in reply: 1) The state widely publicized the new dollar coin. Remember the new dollar coin, came out not too long ago? No? I don't blame you. 2) Compare the viewership of PBS with the viewership of CBS. Which is more popular? 3) You don't need a rule from on high to set up a second-level domain like kids.us. Most domains are like that, e.g., slashdot.org. I'm not complaining that I don't like it. I'm saying it will fail commercially, and when it fails, the problem it attempted to address will remain.
But you don't need the state to set up a domain like this, as you yourself point out. What does the state bring to this domain? It brings its vast experience in customer service, for example at the borders with Mexico and Canada and in the Passport office.
"NeuStar's primary responsibility is to police the new domain, ensuring that Web sites bearing kids.us addresses abide by the child-friendly standards established by Congress." 1) Congress's idea of what is "child friendly" is just going to be *one* idea of it. Different parents will have different ideas, so the domain will simply be useless to some - I would guess most - parents. 2) Parents want their kids to access stuff on the "real web", and it's not all going to exist on the child-safe domain. Parents will want their kids to access Britannica.com, Webster.com, etc., etc., etc. The child-safe domain does not help these parents keep their kids on safe websites, since the kids are already off the domain. That will be most parents. So again, the domain will be useless to most parents. 3) What level of control is necessary to get this idea off the ground? Consider the publishing business: the only way to ensure appropriate material is essentially to be a publishing house. As a parent, can I really trust a level of editorial control less than what children's publishers exercise (e.g. I trust books from Dorling Kindersley, because it exercises close control over the material it publishes)? But can n domain provider play the role of a publisher? And what would the economics of the situation develop into? The whole "domain" might become nothing more than an officially sanctioned website. And a government website at that, since remember, it's Congress that pulls the strings. What great government websites do you like to visit on a daily basis? "The act says that Web site with a kids.us address cannot post hyperlinks to locations outside of the kids.us domain." Either the kid's browser has the ability to access sites other than those in the domain, or else it does not. If it does not have that ability, then the above requirement is superfluous. But if it does have that ability, then the above requirement is not going to stop any kid from leaving the domain. The idea looks like it will fail, like anything that involves government oversight. It will easily be defeated in the market for underage eyeballs by kid-friendly sites that do not make the mistake of placing themselves under the thumb of Congress.