The People Are The Enemy/S. 1867-DoD Authorization Act

[Debra]

Lord Voldemort on SOPA

[Toedancer]

More Repugs changed their minds then Dems. Even Al Franken, one of the writers of SOPA is sticking to his guns.  http://news.firedoglake.com/2012/01/19/sopa-activism-moves-republicans-more-than-democrats/ 


Now why is that?


Perhaps because Hollywood moguls won't pull their cheque books out anymore. After all they want what they already bought and paid for.


Not A Dime More! http://www.deadline.com/2012/01/exclusive-hollywood-moguls-stopping-obama-donations-because-of-administrations-piracy-stand/


Liberals/Dems, funny bunch they are. They know how to mouth the words of the needs of the people, but only insofar as their specific perks/jobs aren't taken away or made to feel uncomfortable. Shit reminds me why they are all douchebags.

[greenvie]

Not US based, but deffo related to censorship online and economy:

Rick Falkvinge: the Swedish radical leading the fight over web freedoms

The tech entrepreneur launched the Pirate party to fight online censorship. Now, it is Europe's fastest growing political group.

Falkvinge says:

"We're at an incredible crossroads right now. They're demanding the right to wiretap the entire population. It's unprecedented. This is a technology that can be used to give everybody a voice. But it can also be used to build a Big Brother society so dystopian that if someone had written a book about it in the 1950s, it would have been discarded as unrealistic."

The creeping attempts at legislation are down to the power of what he calls the "copyright monopoly", and although the US record industry and Hollywood studios view file-sharing sites as theft, and this week succeeded in having the founders of one site, Megaupload.com, charged with racketeering, Falkvinge is clear that it's no such thing.

"It's not theft. It's an infringement on a monopoly. If it was theft and it was property, we wouldn't need a copyright law, ordinary property laws would suffice." Nor does he have any truck with the argument that file-sharing hurts art and artists."
"It's just not true. Musicians earn 114% more since the advent of Napster. The average income per artist has risen 66%, with 28% more artists being able to make a living off their hobby. What is true is that there's an obsolete middle market of managers. And in a functioning market, they would just disappear."
But in any case, he says, it's not about the economy or creativity. "What it boils down to is a privileged elite who've had a monopoly on dictating the narrative. And suddenly they're losing it. We're at a point where this old corporate industry thinks that, in order to survive, it has to dismantle freedom of speech."

With 2 seats in the European Parliament and a presence in 56 countries (incl. Canada), The Pirate Party is "sweeping the floor" in the EU with the under 30 demographic. Jon Stewart aired some of the people debating on SOPA & PIPA in the Senate last week. I know many of them are almost willfully ignorant on many issues, but this was beyond pathetic. They clearly do not know what they're doing, other than do the bidding of their money masters.

[Debra]

now this is truth and must be broadcast

"It's not theft. It's an infringement on a monopoly. If it was theft and it was property, we wouldn't need a copyright law, ordinary property laws would suffice." Nor does he have any truck with the argument that file-sharing hurts art and artists."
"It's just not true. Musicians earn 114% more since the advent of Napster. The average income per artist has risen 66%, with 28% more artists being able to make a living off their hobby. What is true is that there's an obsolete middle market of managers. And in a functioning market, they would just disappear."

[Herr Magoo]

It's not theft. It's an infringement on a monopoly.

A monopoly?  If anyone is free to make and sell a book, song or movie -- uh, which we are, right? -- then it's not a monopoly.

[Mandos]

Fine, it looks and quacks like a monopoly, because everyone treats it as such and it is the accepted social and cultural gatekeeper---or were you trusting the Free Market (heh) to get rid of it?

[Herr Magoo]

What is "it" which looks like a monopoly?  The exclusive right to distribution of an artist's work?
 
Or in other words, does Madonna have a "monopoly" on the distribution of Madonna's work??  Is she unfairly denying you and me the right to sell her work too?

[Debra]

does Madonna have a "monopoly" on the distribution of Madonna's work?

No she doesnt the record company does. The artist make very little from that. They make their cash from touring and selling high priced t-shirts at the venues.  Now the record companies are even trying to take that away by making new artists sign that over as well.

[Herr Magoo]

In keeping with their legal arrangement with Madonna, I would assume.
 
I'm still not seeing any monopoly here.
 
ed'd to add:  just to be clear, I think that the big record companies were fools, who squandered their opportunity to create a new, viable revenue model, and I'm not specifically supporting SOPA.
 
At the same time, I strongly disagree with those who think that anything that anyone creates -- music, movies, books -- should de facto be in the public domain for all of us to enjoy for free.  The idea that someone -- Madonna or her label -- should have the exclusive right to distribute her songs and profit from them doesn't offend me in the least.  What free rights should I have to anyone else's work?

[Debra]

Well supporting the record companies is of course your option.

[Toedancer]

I like what TechDirt said - Based on our behavior, you would not be wrong to deduce that some of us think funny videos on YouTube are more important than honoring intellectual property rights. This kind of thing has happened before. Entire industries rise and fall as the world changes and our priorities shift. Sorry.

I believe in copyright. I benefit from it. I don't want it to go away. I love that we have laws and people to enforce them. But if I had to give up one thing, if I had to choose between copyright and the wild west, semi-lawless, innovation-fest that is the internet? I'll take the internet every time.
Amen to that.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120121/16551717500/jonathan-coulton-destroys-rationale-behind-megaupload-seizure-with-single-tweet-follows-up-with-epic-blog-post.shtml
My fave line in the article "Make good stuff, then make it easy for people to buy it. There's your anti-piracy plan."

[greenvie]

The best article I've read on the sopapipa so far. Someone at a kind of dumb Guradian "what's next" article pointed to it in the comments. It's quite long, but fast and fascinating reading. by an ex-war-on-drugs-enforcer.

SOPA, PIPA, Good Intentions And The Road To Hell

Just a taste:

Option a) would turn your internet service provider into an arm of the Department of Homeland Security, and would require that the ISP be subsidized by the same organization because they would need to install large amounts of very expensive equipment and software and hire a whole bunch of tech savvy folks. Obviously each ISP would have to be standardized and any changes to their hardware and software, i.e. their service, would have to be approved by the government. So much for competition and innovation. Also, given the nature of both people and businesses, I’d expect immediate corruption, i.e. unscrupulous ISP’s providing uncensored access for a certain fee that somehow doesn’t end up on the company’s account sheet.  So, then the ISPs will have to be policed. Who’s going to do that? And how much do you think it will cost?  And likely that would result in unlicensed pirate ISPs, tapping into the internet undetected. So we’d have to hunt those. And so on.  We’re going to need a whole new, very large, law enforcement agency.

Then there’s Option b), which would require all internet data to be routed through choke points, just like in China and Iran.  The enormous and exponentially growing volume of internet traffic will require vast, vast, vast resources on a scale never implemented before - for comparison, imagine if you had to monitor the origin, position, speed, contents, and destination of every single vehicle on every road in America every second of every day – times about, oh, a billion.  I would expect that wouldn’t be cheap, even if it wasn’t being done by a defense contractor (because who else do you think would be doing it? Seriously?).  Also, given my experience in similar architectures in a much smaller setting, i.e. secure military networks, I wouldn’t expect your surfing experience to be anything but horribly slow, painful, and fraught with massive amounts of fail.  Just the kinds of things that make innovation and web-based business suffer massive failure and screaming death.  All of which is fine, if you like living in 1970.

[Debra]

My fave line in the article "Make good stuff, then make it easy for people to buy it. There's your anti-piracy plan."

and Louis CK proved this, he offered all new material on sale on the internet for 5 bucks. He made his first million in 12 days.


What these people dont get is that the majority of people who download fall into 2 groups.


Those who can't afford the over priced shit that most 'entertainment' is these days, and those that download - love it and go buy it.


No band, movie etc who has ever purposely enabled free or cheap downloads has ever lost money - in fact they make more than expected.

[Herr Magoo]

This *should* be classical, first year economics.
 
If I want to purchase a car, and the dealership down the road sells one with features I need for $25K, and the one up the block sells one with features I need for $20K then I'm likely to buy from the dealership up the block.  Not only will I save money, but if others do the same it may have the added effect of applying downward pressure to the price at the dealership down the road.  But personally, I won't really care about that other, more expensive dealership, or how much they charge, or whether I think their prices are "a rip off".  I've got what I need, and cheaper too.
 
A lot of people who are against copyright or intellectual property will point out how many bands (for example -- substitute comedians if you wish) release their work for free, or for very low cost on the internet.  But then why should anyone "need" to fileshare?  Why should anyone have to share content from Justin Beiber if there's plenty of totally free content they could legitimately have and listen to?  Who gives a rat's ass if Justin Beiber's record label charges "too much" for one of his albums?  There are plenty of free or inexpensive alternatives, right?
 

"Make good stuff, then make it easy for people to buy it. There's your anti-piracy plan."

Some content producers do this.  So why is there still piracy?

[Debra]

Piracy is the new radio. That’s how music gets around.