SOPA lives—and MPAA calls protests an "abuse of power"
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
This statement, in my eyes, shows just how ridiculous the whole thing is. Regardless of your political leanings, I think most folks in the US right now agree that Congress is doing a pretty shoddy job of representing the people's interests. It's basically a joke, on both sides of the aisle at the moment, when politicians claim to be doing what's best for the public.
There are a lot of things that go right every day, and we don't hear about them, which is unfortunate.
But the things that politicians are beating their chests over right now are so obviously in the interests of lobbying groups and "big money" that it's ridiculous. Lady Gaga might lose money to piracy, but she is hardly a starving artist. And those artists that are usually are happy to get ANY kind of exposure, even if it's through piracy.
Also, and this is lost sometimes in the debate, piracy is responsible for the spread of a lot of ideas. And almost everyone does it at some point in their life. Even Lars Ulrich from Metallica - he and James bonded while Lars was at James's house, ripping LPs to tape. Times have not changed much.
The reason it's so upsetting is precisely for the reasons you state. I (perhaps foolishly?) believe that America has the opportunity to be a role model for the rest of the world in terms of how a society can work.
America has its problems. I will be the first to agree with that.
But for all its problems, America has a lot going for it. It's a relatively free society, there is social mobility (more for some than others, it's true) and it's a nice place to live, even just in terms of its geography. (I live in California and so that of course will make me biased).
Consider - America is a country that, despite all its problems, people risk their lives to get into. There's a simple reason why America continues to attract illegal immigrants - it's better than wherever they came from. So much so that they'll pay sleazy people to transport them across borders under the cover of night. It sounds dramatic, but that's because it is!
So - America is great and I'd personally like it to stay that way. That's why it's the responsibility of the people living in America to keep their backyard clean and their politicians in line.
I am not a US citizen, all I know about US is from TV, Movies and the web. But this is not a proof that US is a great place to live in. It just means that the neighbouring countries have far worse living conditions. I harder test would be if the more fortunate, richer class of people who are already comfortable with their living standards in their respective countries, choose to move to US because they cannot add to their level of satisfaction otherwise.
> this is not a proof that US is a great place to live in. It just means that the neighbouring countries have far worse living conditions.
In my book, that means the US is better than those places. True, it doesn't make it great. But there are many other places in the world with good living standards and yet the US is where people try to come.
> I harder test would be if the more fortunate, richer class of people who are already comfortable with their living standards in their respective countries, choose to move to US because they cannot add to their level of satisfaction otherwise.
This is actually my own case. My parents left a very comfortable life in Western Europe to go to the US and try and make things better. My stepdad was doing a startup back in the late 90's and it was much easier to get funding here. Americans are risk takers, which is why so much innovation comes out of this country.
There's a reason why the Apples, Googles, and Intels of the world are located in the US, and it's much more than economic.
You don't see the people flooding into France? Italy? Switzerland? Germany? The UK?
The US is good at one thing though: advertising.
Yes, the labor is absolutely cheaper. But US labor has never been cheap. It's a common illusion that politicians have gotten very good at selling. Even in early times (100-200 yrs ago), US labor was not inexpensive.
My point was more that all those companies were founded in the US.
But the point I am making is that illegal immigration, the example you had given, is not a measure of how good the country is with respect to the rest of the world. It only measures how good the country is (and how porous the borders are) with respect to its neighbours. Legal immigration on the other hand is a much better measure, and US has tons of it.
[Edit - typos]
further, just because a country is better than many (it is) is no reason for complacency..... if things are going so great, why not khelp out your suffering neighbours more? and if they arent going so great, how can one say its the best place on earth?
Yet, we still love you guys (except for Adam Sandler), and wish you would just moderate a little on the politics: things are grey, not black and white ;).
Living in the first world is great, we hope you can stay in the club.
- An American expat who's most likely never coming back.
If you see my others comments in this thread, I'm a Danish expat who's never going back. Perhaps it's the idealism of the immigrant that makes me feel the way I do.
Yes, you believe foolishly. See below for why.
> But for all its problems, America has a lot going for it. It's a relatively free society, there is social mobility (more for some than others, it's true) and it's a nice place to live, even just in terms of its geography. (I live in California and so that of course will make me biased). Consider - America is a country that, despite all its problems, people risk their lives to get into. There's a simple reason why America continues to attract illegal immigrants - it's better than wherever they came from.
Background: I am an United States citizen now working in northern Europe.
To quote a TED Talk, "If you want the American Dream, move to Denmark."
The United States is not a free society. Is it more free than China? Yes. Is it more free than the majority of the OCED? No. They have gotten very good at selling the "American Dream", that is the sole reason people still risk their lives to get into it.
The dream cracked for me when I realised that despite 10 years of programming experience, I could not get a job in the U.S.; whereas, one month after searching for work in Europe and I had a job offer.
"Well, why didn't you start your own business in the U.S.?" My answer is simple: I am sick of living "at the pleasure of the king". To live in the U.S. is to be constantly unsure of where you stand with respect to the law. This applies doubly so if you start a business.
This problem with the law results from two positions:
1. Ignorance of the law is not a defence.
2. Interpretation of the law can change.
This brings up some major problems. Principally, how can I know the law if the interpretation (and thus the application) of the law is not constant? Add in low levels of corruption (on average, the bad ones are really bad) and different application of the law as a function of a person's class and you might begin to understand why I want no part of living at the pleasure of the king.
That's interesting to me as I am a Danish citizen living in the US. I grew up in Denmark but have no intention of ever moving back permanently.
I don't know how long you've lived in Denmark, but perhaps you are familiar with "Janteloven"? To someone who did not grow up in Scandinavia, it may just seem like another one of those cultural quirks that pops up from time to time. But, it is quite real and drilled into your head from the moment you're born. Some parts of the country are worse than others in this respect, but everyone succumbs to it at times. Many Danes make it a point to vigorously deny this.
Perhaps it's just because I grew up there, but I was overjoyed when I found out that my family was moving to the US. I definitely feel more at home here than anywhere else in the world.
With that said, I can absolutely understand why you, as an American, would like and probably prefer to live in Denmark. The people are friendly (mostly, there's always a grouch somewhere), it's a well-educated culture, and the social safety net is enviable. If you're okay with the tax rate and don't mind the weather, I would agree it's quite idyllic.
Also, the points you make about the US being a litigious society are well taken. The US is rightly made a laughing stock for people being able to sue McDonalds for making them fat. That's just ridiculous.
So I think it may just be that we value different things in life. I've met many American expats in Europe who would never want to go back, who feel, as I do, that where they are is their home. If we all are interested in making where we live a better place, that's probably the best we can do.
Three things that you could implement that other democracies already have:
- electoral boundaries are controlled by a statutory independent body, not the government.
- voting and counting are controlled and supervised by a statutory independent body, not the government. The Bush-Florida mess could not have happened here.
- all political donations over a trivial amount, say $5000, must be reported.
As well, Ministers cannot take jobs in their portfolio's area for some period of time, from memory it is 5 years, after leaving politics.
I think a better approach is to define an algorithm for setting boundaries: something like "minimal border perimeter of districts, starting from the northwest corner of the state". But we might need to find a way to avoid breaking up cities between districts, that makes it a lot more complicated.
Your proposal would not have saved the Bush/Gore election mess. The big controversy there wasn't over the recounting, but in the way that State laws governing the counts would be enforced, in the context of the 14th and 15th Amendments. Any legislation you propose would probably fall afoul of the same problems. In any case, I believe that actual voting and counting is a very minor issue today in America.
And your third suggestion is already in force. Political donations must be reported today.
You forgot to mention the parrot on the shoulder and the peg-leg...and the gratuitous usage of Google Pirate:
Man, I HATE it when companies do that.
Nothing in that ad is going to deter me from pirating. Just like the you wouldn't download a car commercials that are made fun of. If I could download a car I would do it in a heartbeat...
However, the corruption of due-process is worse. It truly is dangerous, and I'm saddened that SENATOR Dodd doesn't understand this (or, more likely, chooses to ignore it so he can make some cash).
Those lovely, piracy prevention notices/copyright infringement notices on the Blu-Ray's I've purchased. That can't be skipped.
I'm not paying to be advertised to. I'm not paying to be threatened with FBI notices. So my solution is I'm just not paying.
http://news.cnet.com/ReplayTV-puts-ad-skipping-on-pause/2100...
So, I take it you feel entitled to the content one way or another? Your way or the highway, right?
I don't like paying for ads.
If taking a car or purse were as simple as taking content online, I'd wager that most people would do it.
See Orwell, "Politics and the English Language."
This financial mess we're in which started with a housing bubble in part caused by crazy loans? He was Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee which oversees that sector and received a special loan as a "friend" of Countrywide Financial, which was one of the biggest problem lenders. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countrywide_financial_political...
Both had (and have) a legitimate purpose, both delivered value to society, and both used the proceeds of their enterprise to secure rents at the cost of society.
I cannot empathise with the OP on the whole; the music and publishing industries, though kicking and screaming plenty, are reforming. The film industry has yet to figure out heads and tails of their predicament, but neither did Kodak and we rarely call their incompetence evil.
Where I converge is on the malignancy of the industries actions; SOPA/PIPA is an attack on civil and productive society. In that act of selfishness and rather-burn-Berlin-than-let-her-fall rhetoric is, in my mind, morally UN-forgivable.
I wonder if the MPAA has heard of DRM. Of course, said 'interests' have evaluated the cost of annoying their customers against the social and economic cost of SOPA and make their own decision.
"... or turn them into their corporate pawns"
Because, in the eyes of the MPAA, information is bad and/or people are stupid.
"It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today."
Using their market freedom to protect their market freedom? How dare they!
Etc.
"...designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals."
Yes, the poor and weak American elected official must be protected from the wrath of the informed populous.
Le Sigh.
> In February 2011, despite "repeatedly and categorically insisting that he would not work as a lobbyist," Dodd was identified by The New York Times as the likely replacement for Dan Glickman as chairman and chief lobbyist for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). The hiring was officially announced on March 1, 2011.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Dodd
Between this and the "debate" on MSNBC the other day, it makes me despair when the other side has that kind of firepower and disregard for fair play. Classic example of regulatory capture (in this case, of the US Congress, which is explicitly designated in the Constitution as having the power to establish copyright).
"It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on [Negroe slaves] for [labor] and use their services. It is also an abuse of power given the [sunshine and fresh air] these [Negroes] enjoy in the [cotton fields] today. It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the [Negroes] that serve as gateways to [cheap cotton] intentionally skew the [shovels and pitchforks] to incite their [fellow human witnesses] in order to further their [basic human] interests."
If you're passionate about SOPA, tell people; write a blog post; write to a congressman. Slacktivism needs to go away.
As far as I can tell, these sites are distributing correct information, they're not asking for any special status under the law, and they're not asking people to do anything illegal.
On the other hand, the MPAA/RIAA paying millions of dollars to buy off politicians and write legislation is very obviously an abuse of power, power that was never voluntarily granted to them in the first place. If this law passes, you will absolutely be forced at gunpoint to conform to the will of the MPAA.
Ever since they've announced the blackout, it's been all over Australian newspapers and radio. I hope it's having the same effect in America.
If you don't know what I mean, here is a funny parody of these warnings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg
The Hypocrisy is at an all new level.
Remind me, the next time I write to my MP, that I'm abusing my power and trying to subvert democratically elected representatives.
Protests: Unethical Bribes: Ethical
You know what I've noticed about this? When it comes to this topic, the people on the PIPA/SOPA side of things who are saying the facts are getting skewed NEVER get around to actually discussing the substance of the facts and trying to set the record straight.
Go ahead, Mr. Dodd. Educate us -- if you can. You and the clients you've sold yourself to have a pretty big media platform for speaking yourself. Surely it wouldn't be too big of a challenge to address specific misconceptions, rather than just using weasel words to imply that there's a problem that you can't seem to actually explain.
"First they ignore you (the 90s - "internet what? here, buy some CDs instead")
then they laugh at you (2000s - "we can shut down those nerds in seconds!")
then they fight you (2010s - "let's write laws all over the world to criminalize new technology")
then you win." (2020s...?)
Such a system would not have to handle all the DNS resolutions, only those where the Domain owner thinks the Domain is beeing censored. He'd then inject the real Name/IP into the alternative system. The alternative DNS could be decentralized. It only has to make sure the list is not beeing tampered with.
Like dnsmasq mutated with Bitcoin.
Sigh...
If the US were to start messing with, say, DNS, it seems fairly obvious that they couldn't restrict the effects to their own country (especially since the Internet is canonically /not/ organised around national boundaries). So, they'd be breaking not only their own internet but everyone else's too - and they simply do not have that right, morally speaking.
If bills like SOPA/PIPA pass, I intend to write to my MP about the importance of establishing a separate infrastructure that co-operates with, but is not dominated by, the existing system. The US has too much control over things like name authorities and SSL root CAs. ICANN is a US corporation. If the US wanted to break the BGP routing table, they wield enough power to do it (heck, AS7007 did it by /accident/).
It is becoming increasingly clear that the US cannot be trusted with stewardship of the global Internet; a still more decentralised approach is needed.
(Maybe, if they break it entirely, we can build a new one with all the lessons we've learned over the past few decades about how to build peer-to-peer decentralised internetworking. Plus, y'know, we could use IPv6 from the start)
1., Big government grabbing the freedom of its people
2., After freedom of speech, your guns are next. They will raid your homes without warrants on the pure premise that someone has maybe placed a gun there.
Turn the Foxnews/Tea Party monster against Murdoch.
Funnily enough, this is the same attitude GoDaddy copped just as the shit started to hit the fan.
Tomorrow should prove to be fun.
You (i.e. Mr. Dodds and cohorts) are more than welcome to support the book industry, who, like you, are having some difficulty adjusting to technological advances (though not as much), and purchase a copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica for information to replace Wikipedia, which, as we all obviously know, is made up of copyright thieves (just look at all the [WP:Copyvio]s that exist!). But obviously that's not the solution, since you want free (as in gratis) information. /sarcasm
I'll admit it's not hypocrisy yet, but I'd say it's bordering on it.
Canonical example of chutzpah.
Likewise, it's not a class-war until they hit back. In both cases the logic is entirely consistent.
I know it's unlikely, but this organization could use a reminder we're not just political opposition, we're part of their customer base.
Currently the statistics say otherwise, but good luck getting anyone in a place of power to acknowledge them.
It's nearly impossible to win an argument when one side is so willing to not only lie, but engineer those lies to manipulate a population that doesn't know any better (including the folks making decisions on behalf of that population).
MPAA’s members are the six major U.S. motion picture studios
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation
Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc.
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Universal City Studios LLC
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.Your best bet for MPAA-less movies are non-US movies and independent movies. However, I don't think indie movies will ever become as widespread as indie music.
I think its good to see them being angry. It shows we getting somewhere while they can't get anywhere other than bitch about the whole thing.
How exactly are these people so blind to this kind of obvious contradiction? It completely baffles me that any intelligent human can see this bill as a good thing.
It also scares me that politicians and lobby groups are using the idea of protecting "American" jobs as one of the main selling points for getting this bill past. It is far to obvious that American hasn't realized that to survive in this world one must join the global community and not either separate oneself from it nor try to rule it.
> How exactly are these people so blind to
> this kind of obvious contradiction
Why isn't Google, in turn, publicly accusing them of corruption and bribery?
But totally cool to pay for government pawns.
Only ours will have the weight of truth.
It's time for a boycott, along with a large campaign, something along the lines of: Americans against Hollywood. It's necessary to turn their public image into a giant black mark that nobody wants associated with.
It is incredible what they do, they almost never pay taxes this way and a lot of people at the bottom get screwed. It is really painful to hear when they argue with the poor workers and blame the internet.
Google, Microsoft, and Facebook among others use tax dodges to pay negligible amounts of tax in the United States.
I know it's not just some random cause, but it makes me think of questions like, "what would happen if Wikipedia (or similar entity) were to go dark until we got marriage equality?"
Take Wikipedia, for example. To the extent users are aware of Wikipedia as a cohesive unit, they probably assumed that its highest value was to inform people, always working through controversies/technical-problems/legal-problems/etc. to achieve that goal. Wikipedia has been granted credibility via that understanding.
In a way, it's a bit like a doctor's duty, to treat even those they dislike. Or a lawyer's, to defend even criminals.
The blackout sends a message that, for at least 24 hours, lobbying on one topic is a higher duty than informing people about everything else.
Of course, as an entity sovereign over its own operations and property, Wikipedia has the "power" and right to do what it wants.
But Wikipedia has earned another dimension of "power" that's been freely granted to it by readers, based on their estimation of its mission. That power is somewhat conditional, and it's that power that even a well-intentioned blackout could be seen as abusing and undermining.
As of the day of the blackout, Wikipedia is no longer providing information like air, free to all. It's rationing information as power, to be withheld occasionally for political advantage.
I don't think law and medicine are good comparisons here.
Lawyers should defend people they dislike because they believe in the value of the adversarial system in teasing out justice from subjectivity.
Doctors treat all people because there is no credible way to value one life over another that does not ultimately trace its source to prejudice.
Wikipedia sees SOPA as a fundamental threat to itself and the internet in general. Users of the internet should be made aware of the stakes. Nobody will die or lose their freedom from Wikipedia strongly making this point to its users.
(A slight caveat being that most doctors I know turn to wikipedia/google multiple times a day for clarifications of diagnoses or to provide hypotheses for a given set of symptoms that they hadn't previously considered. I guess someone could die from the absence of this resource, but mostly doctors use them because its easier than logging into one of the medical databases and more up-to-date).
I tend to think any line of reasoning that begins, "this is such a fundamental threat to our survival that normal practice must be discarded" is a signifier of panicked groupthink, most common in war and campaign season, but that's just me.
As of today, Wikipedia is an always-on information utility. As of Thursday, it will be also understood as an occasional lobbyist/information-withholding-disciplinarian.
And I hadn't thought about the effect on medical/safety reference during the blackout period until earlier today. Given the large numbers of professionals and laypeople who rely on Wikipedia (far more than they should!), it's possible someone somewhere will die because of the blackout.
updated to add:
The health risk applies via the Reddit blackout, too. For some people, this is the support community from which they get urgent life guidance. See for example: http://www.reddit.com/r/bestof/comments/nzfow/my_life_was_sa...
That's a bit extreme isn't it? But if Wikipedia (or any other site) is that important of a resource, imagine what would happen if it disappeared as a result of being blacklisted by SOPA/PIPA or an equivalent piece of legislation.
They're perfectly in their right to advocate against a misguided effort that could threaten and impair their ability to function/exist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma (link may be broken due to political protest)
The only people currently taking Wikipedia offline are Wikipedians themselves. Anything else is hypothetical and unlikely.
The Wikipedians are taking action so that "unlikely" isn't even a possibility.
And while Wikipedia may be a central resource, it's not the only or primary source of information (see all the citations). At most it'll be an inconvenience but one that will prove a point.
For the blackout to do harm, one of the many thousands of people searching for reliable info tomorrow just has to miss crucial information they would have otherwise quickly found. And it won't be Representative Lamar Smith, the MPAA, or the Attorney General blocking readers from getting that info – it will be Wikipedia itself.
I personally am most impressed by those who keep providing the services that they think are right, without regard to the edicts of misguided lawmakers, until the moment men with guns show up and give you no other choice. "You can have my Internet when you pry the servers from my cold, dead hands."
Not, "Oh, yeah? We'll show you, we're taking our toys and going home today. Nyah-nyah."