Anti-SOPA, PIPA lawmakers want Internet Bill of Rights | Hacker News Reader

Anti-SOPA, PIPA lawmakers want Internet Bill of Rights

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107 pointsiProject21 comments

2. Openness – digital citizens have a right to an open, unobstructed Internet

10. Property – digital citizens have a right to benefit from what they create, and be secure in their intellectual property on the Internet

It seems to me that 10. would often times conflict with 1., 2. and 6. How would these conflicts be solved?

Why do we need to secure a "right to benefit from what they create"?

If it's not beneficial for authors, they can go do other things. Is there reason to believe this will lead to a loss of authorship? Abolishing copyrights would make derivative works' authorship possible, and that's probably a more significant source of creativity than brand new works. And we're currently sacrificing it for the former one, as well as various rights.

Of course when it comes to busting terrorists on Facebook, it's all "then don't share it on the Internet"

Proposed bill of rights (with comment section): http://opengovfoundation.org/digital-bill-of-rights/

"10.Property – digital citizens have a right to benefit from what they create, and be secure in their intellectual property on the Internet"

As a photographer, I support this part of the bill, at least in the spirit of that section. I don't want my photographs used in professional situations without AT LEAST my permission.

Could you please expound upon what you've said instead of quoting the last right?

I support the idea. PG's dismissal of IP in general is quite a bad idea, in my opinion. Yes it will be very difficult, but I think it is important.

They say that good fences make good neighbors. The problem with IP is that there's no good way to fence off anyone's property. I'm not convinced there can be, because maintaining the metaphorical fences require controlling everyone else's computer.

So I put more hope in new ways of doing business to help artists profit from their work.

I suppose, perhaps, our current system can work just fine. Whenever someone is caught doing something illegal with another person's artwork (for example, using a photo-manip'd version of a photo that person took as part of a CD album cover) take them to court for copyright infringement.

From what I can gather, anything more than that is draconian. I mean, what artist really cares if their artwork is used as someone's desktop background?

Before they try building that, they should take a look at what these guys have been building so far:

http://www.reddit.com/r/fia

You might want to tell them about it in their discussion, so maybe they can collaborate.

Simply stating, in law, that the Bill of Rights applies to the Internet would suffice (I would hope).

As for the right to use the Internet, that would invalidate Three Strikes laws. So expect major watering down if this ever makes it to a floor vote.

Don't forget about people that don't reside in the United States

I'd actually rather it make it to the floor without watering down and fail than make it to the floor in a form that could pass. I'd really love to force every member of congress to be on the record voting on this.

The ironic thing to me is that in order to enforce the idea of an Internet Bill of Rights, you have to throw anonymity out the window. How do you defend an anonymous user in court?

It's not a bad idea, but how do we defend the anonymous users?

How do you bring an anonymous user to court to defend? I don't quite get your question (but I'd like to).

And as a parallel - the EU cookie law:

I used to be able to allow only session cookies. Now I get asked if I'm cool with cookies every time I visit a ton of major websites, and the only way to stop the message coming back? Allow persistent cookies. Ugh!

How do you defend an anonymous user in court?

See this specific example: http://www.aclu.org/national-security/doe-v-holder

More generally, groups like EFF can represent the interests of groups of users without naming them individually.

Why cant these damn people just keep their noses out of the internet? Seriously, leave it alone. Yeah, yeah, I know, but really, poke the thing enough with a stick and in then end you'll kill it.

Because someone else won't leave it alone. Someone needs to establish our rights online. At least they're trying.

Because Bills of Rights have a lot of meaning outside of the internet, right?

I know that doesn't really mean we shouldn't have one in first place, but these days seem to be more about tools than text and I think that's what the internet community has always been really good at.

We already have a declaration of independence btw:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Declaration_of_the_Independen...

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