> A so-called “blackout” is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals.
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.
Most people are dissatisfied with Congress, but I suspect that if you asked them to compare America to anywhere else in the world, they'd immediately jump to America's defense. My favorite line I've heard from some of my friends: "Our system may not be perfect, but it's the best we've got."
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 (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.
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.
>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."
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.
> "attract illegal immigrants - it's better than wherever they came from"
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.
They even speak English there - it would be so much easier to move to the US!!! Except, ten days holidays; no employee protection; no medical care; no social welfare; insane politics and warmongering; property taxes that screw your retirement; high crime rate...
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 ;).
I am not a US citizen either though I live here. (I'm a permanent resident, intent on becoming a citizen, as I like this country a great deal).
> 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.
I definitely agree. I would rather go to US than Europe and this is not because the former has better living conditions but because there are better opportunities to learn and for a CS student like me, Silicon valley is the Mecca.
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.
slightlymobvious, but the us only has two neighbours, canada d mexico. canada is no more a source of illegal immigration to the us than the us is to canada (it happens in both directions, nobody cares.) which leaves mexico. osmsure, people sneak in because life for them is better as an illegal in the hus than legal in their own country.
this happens all over the world, not just to the us.
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?
> There is a reason that most of emplyees of Apples, Googles and Intels of the world are located outside of US :)
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.
Ugh, typical example of the attitude many of us find so annoying. America has the same things going for it any first world country does. People risk their lives to get into lots of first world countries as well.
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.
In terms of cultural cache alone, America is leaps and bounds beyond most other third world countries. This isn't from luck; America's brilliance has always been in its sociogeographic diversity.
> - 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.
I suspect you're talking in generalities, but from an outside perspective the US is far from best practice.
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 agree with your first point; gerrymandering is the cause of a lot of our problems, I believe. But a 3rd party would be just as susceptible to tampering.
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.
I think our (the US) government has a lot to say against it. But America's not great because of its government, it's great in spite of it. America is great because of our culture of risk taking and experimentation, a culture that we are slowly losing to increasingly mind-numbing entertainment (which, I admit, is quite addicting) and restrictive legislation.
All fair points with which I agree. Again, the US could get better, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily bad now. (I, like many, have days where I feel the US is going to hell in a handbasket). But I agree with the things you've pointed out.
Not to mention the sheer bigotry of blaming piracy on "foreign criminals", which makes this the pure nuts. Is the average US pirate kind of tanned, has a really tacky foreign accent, or conveys in any other way a vaguely menacing ethnicity?
That part is actually relevant to the bill. SOPA's intended purpose is to close the foreign loophole that the DMCA leaves open, in that there's no recourse for a US holder of copyright to stop a foreign-owned/operated site (a la Pirate Bay) from giving pirated content to US users. So "foreign criminals" is actually what we're talking about, here. There's a lot of other things you could pick up on, but xenophobia probably isn't the best tact to take.
"It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests."
What I love about that quote is it could clearly be used to condem the PSAs they've been playing in theaters and tacking on DVDs quite some time now. For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE9-W9JNjio
> What I love about that quote is it could clearly be used to condem the PSAs they've been playing in theaters and tacking on DVDs quite some time now. For example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE9-W9JNjio
Those lovely, piracy prevention notices/copyright infringement notices on the Blu-Ray's I've purchased. That can't be skipped.
I stopped buying DVDs back when I stopped being able to skip the 15 minutes of commercials and 5 minutes of copyright notices, because apparently I need to be warned in French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, German, etc.
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.
I remember discussing with friends of mine whether or not it would be reasonable to have a DVD player that, upon encountering unskippable content, automatically skipped it. None of us could come up with any difficulty there.
As far as I know DVD is a licensed technology and the companies that produce DVD players probably have some draconic measures in the license to prevent them from doing this. I think there used to be some players with an easily accessible factory settings, and the info about how to tweak the factory settings conveniently leaked, but I’m not sure how that worked in the end.
In my fantasy world where we did this, it would be hacking apart VLC or something similar (which already, sensibly, ignores this dross); not so much the physical hardware (fingers wanted to type harmware, huh) because of the problems you cite.
what's ironic is that the MPAA Anti Piracy Ad made the ONLY thing that's good about watching pirated movie is that you don't have to want the ad....as pointed out by comedian Dara O'Brian: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bxqt0siy34
Not at all. He feels that he has the right, as a lawful paying customer, not to be threatened and preached to. Imagine if you sat down at a restaurant, and the server lectured you about dining-and-dashing before serving you. It's his right to be pissed off about sanctimonious bullshit from the MPAA
I understand, these are the grandparent's conditions for purchase. Someone else might have a different set of conditions. What the grandparent is asking for, then, is prices (and the product itself) to be set per-purchase, per-customer. This does not scale to Hollywood movies.
I think I understand why the copyright notice needs to be un-skippable. But the ads/previews/whatever-else-you-may-want-to-call-them have pissed me off since they started putting them on VHS (LONG time ago).
That anti-piracy ad makes me want to put a bullet through the brain pan.
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...
The anti-piracy mentality is so evil. Right now we have a few small categories of goods with zero marginal cost of production -- software, books, movies, and music. But we're setting precedents that can have long-lasting negative consequences. In the distant future we may have real replicators that are able to bring post-scarcity to a broad array of categories. With the precedents we're setting today, these replicators will be saddled with government-backed DRM. In such a world, where food can be reproduced for free, poor people will continue to starve, lest they be accused of "stealing" food.
I think piracy sucks. I am a somewhat sympathetic for students and other low-income people, but certainly when you reach the stage where you can make choices about how to spend your money you shouldn't be pirating any more.
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).
I thought that bit was really interesting. The MPAA and other SOPA supporters adamantly maintain that the law would only serve to enforce copyright infringement. Is Chris Dodd trying to say that Google, Wikipedia, etc. have an interest in preserving piracy? Or, more likely, is this simply a rhetorical contradiction?
Chris Dodd went from being a senator in 2010 to being head of the MPAA in 2011... and he calls political protest an abuse of power? He is the canonical example of what's wrong with our revolving door political system.
There's a curious parallel in the social malignancy between the banks he used to regulate and the MPAA he now commands.
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.
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...
"some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users..."
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.
Chris Dodd? That name sounds familiar. Wasn't that guy a U.S. Senator for 30 years? Oh right...
> 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.
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).
The great-great-grandpappy of whoever authored this press release, in late August of 1831, in a dispatch from Southampton County, VA:
"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."
So protests and black outs in protest of a bad bill are an abuse of power but funneling millions of dollars to create a bill that censors the Internet isn't? I don't think I could detest the MPAA more than I do at this very moment.
How is a company exercising its freedom to deliver whatever product it wants to deliver an abuse of power? Any power that Google or Reddit has is the outcome of providing value to their customers, and in return their customers providing dollars or time. Any such "power" is not the result of legislation and enforcement at the point of a gun. No legislation forces you to use Google.
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.
What exactly makes it an abuse for Google, Wikipedia, and Reddit to tell the people who use their site the likely consequences of a given piece of legislation and to ask them to engage their legislators on the issue?
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.
In a world where corporations are people and 'donating' to politicians is part of their free speech rights, why would be an 'abuse of power' to a corporation to protest a law that threatens it?
It's so disgusting that Chris Dodd just retired from being a senator for 30 years and now is the CEO of a corporate lobbying firm pushing legislation in congress. He represents everything that is wrong with politics in the country. Fuck him.
"It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts"
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.
Is there any usable decentralized DNS system right now?
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.
Hmmm.... what about the abuse of power by the Copyright Lobby pouring millions of millions of dollars into the legislator's campaigns and PAC's? That kind of lobbying is OK, while net.lobbying isn't?
I think the /real/ abuse of power here isn't the RIAA/MPAA at all... it's the US (or rather, govt and certain corporations thereof) thinking that because key Internet infrastructure is located on their territory, they have a right to screw with it.
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)
someone should go on Foxnews and explain to those viewers that this is:
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.
"It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information and use their services."
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.
I think rather than saying that this is an abuse of power, MPAA with its massive lobbying power should really reconsider its position. Lobbying was particularly helpful way to reduce information inefficiencies to the government prior to the existence of the internet. The opinion of the smaller, individual voters would only be reflected on a voting day, hence every 2 or 4 years depending on if we are talking about a congressmen or a senator. However, with the progression of free flowing information, aka the internet, the opinion of the public became more readily available, to a point where it is in direct competition with an older form that is the lobbying system. Of course, I'm not saying that lobbyists are completely obsolete. But what I am saying is that the new form of information and opinion expression using the internet will take a bigger and bigger share of the way the constituents actually express themselves to the politicians. Hence, instead of complaining about it, they really just got to embrase it, and learn that what if they are indeed plotting to hurt the consumers, that even if they go around the consumers and directly to Washington, they will not be able to get away with it without consequences.
If you run media companies that own nominally-independent news operations, it is not an abuse of power to 'discourage' their coverage of your legislative agenda. If a media company that opposes this agenda successfully spotlights your non-abuse of power, it is a clear abuse of power.
Likewise, it's not a class-war until they hit back. In both cases the logic is entirely consistent.
I know there are blackouts, and boycotts of other SOPA supporters, but I would love it if there were a significant boycotting of the going to the movies and purchasing dvds/blurays.
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.
That's a double-edged sword. If a significant portion of the population adamantly boycotted any particular industry, their response would be to claim piracy as the cause and use it as ammunition for their argument.
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).
Well that may just play into their hands instead, as they (the MPAA etc) would be able to go "look, sales are down, see how much damage these foreign pirates are doing to our companies!".
Currently the statistics say otherwise, but good luck getting anyone in a place of power to acknowledge them.
Most non-US based movie industries? MPAA is composed of just six studios:
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.
Making good music can be done by a few sufficiently talented people in a garage, and good enough microphones to record that aren't that expensive. Making good movies requires hundreds of people to cooperate, a huge time commitment, and equipment (cameras, film, lighting, sound, editing software/hardware, actors(!), et cetera). There is the indie movie industry, and it can certainly be done for significantly less than what Hollywood spends on feature films, but making a good movie is still significantly harder than making a good song.
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.
So voluntary blackouts in protest of SOPA are to be stopped because they are dangerous gimmicks, but a bill that will allow the government to blackout websites isn't?
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.
One of the major problems is copyright. The copyright laws have gotten so out of hand in this country that things still retain copyright long after the creator is dead. Back when it was first issued, it use to be only 28 years in 1710, but it has just increased and increased...
I mean, what good is money if your dead? Does the media industry really need to make more than billions and billions of each year? And its not like they're that original, they release old films and books countless times and you're telling me its impossible to turn a profit in 28 years?
It's ridiculous
www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk862BbjWx4
What would really be the reaction if, in protest over - lets say legislation written by lobbyists from Silicon Valley that would make any variation of SOPA illegal - the big media companies had a one day blackout. Why aren't they considering this? Would people flip out because the new episode of Jersey Shore was supposed to be on? Would they understand the motivations and join in protest by contacting legislators?
It seems like everyone in this thread is falling for a false dichotomy. I would argue that both the MPAA and many internet sites are abusing power. In an ideal system, neither one of them would be able to do what both parties are doing. Now, we don't have an ideal system, so I'm still in support of the blackouts, but I'm going to call a spade a spade and say this is an abuse of power.
I think you're drawing a false equivalence. On one side, the MPAA/RIAA are bribing our elected officials to turn online communities into major business liabilities. On the other, existing online communities have rallied the companies that host them to take a stand. Remember, Reddit was the first major company to announce a blackout. And they wouldn't have done that without a lot of prodding from the community.
Apparently the MPAA is made up of a small group of individuals nobody really knows. They are generally shrouded in secrecy and have very odd subjective systems. They tried it with Howard Hughes 90 years ago, ultimately they must adapt.
Now that we're playing their game, it's only natural that we get hit with the political soundbite insults that survive not a moment's scrutiny. Battle won, war ongoing... but maybe we can start shouting insults too.
It's about time to actually begin punishing Hollywood for the evil shit they're doing. It's not enough to just respond in defense when they try, time and time again, to destroy the Internet.
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.
The first comment on ars was very interesting, lets lobby for transparent accounting practices in the Movie business.
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.
Politics by the numbers, wound a politically motivated entity and it uses every tactic at its diaposal to destroy you. Lets show them that we can play politics too.
Just to be clear, I don't support SOPA/PIPA, and I'm all in favor of the blackouts. I don't think it's an abuse of power. As a display of power, it's a little bit unsettling. Ask yourself, if Wikipedia went dark over something you didn't agree with, would you be OK with that? Along the same lines, are you OK with them not going dark about other things you may care about?
The bill threatens the existence of Wikipedia itself, its their right to do whatever they want to protest it. I think your're misjudging the situation a bit. This isn't the same as protesting some random cause, its something they believe can directly affect their organization's continued ability to serve its users.
Again, I don't support the proposed legislation, but the rhetoric of "this bill threatens the very existence of Wikipedia" is a bit hyperbolic and may harm the cause.
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?"
Yes. I would. Whether it's something I agree with or not, they're an independent entity. It might change whether I'm willing to do business with them, but I'm not going to wail and rant and piss and moan. They're under no obligation to provide service to me NOR are they a necessity.
The 'abuse of power' claim will not seem absurd to many of the casual users of blacked-out sites.
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.
Your point about information rationing as power is valid, but there is a fundamental threat to the existence of the internet as is, and I think given that wikipedia relies on that freedom its important for them to make this point firmly.
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).
'Making aware' does not require withholding service.
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.
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.
Hypothetical and unlikely? You're talking about legislation that is supported (if not written by) groups that don't exactly have a sparkling track record of being reasonable and not abusing any bit of power that they're given or feel that they're entitled to. Take the Universal/Megaupload fiasco for example.
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.
That is a good point, and I agree with your argument that this boycott is a significant turning point for Wikipedia and other websites. If we think about the reason that the boycott exists, however, which is the danger that this legislation will allow Wikipedia to be taken offline without adequate recourse, then suggesting that "it is possible that someone somewhere" will die because of the blackout could similarly lead to an argument like, "if SOPA is passed, it is possible that someone somewhere will die" due to the Wikipedia (or some other website) being taken offline.
You're right, but the chain of events for SOPA to kill someone requires it to pass (mixed probability), to survive an inevitable court challenge (unlikely in my opinion), and be enforced against a Wikipedia-like site (also unlikely in my opinion).
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."
I personally am most impressed by those who see the possiblity of people arriving with guns (or whatever hyperbolic event you wish to imagine) and then work to avoid it /today/, rather than pretending that the future is out of their hands.
This is more like a lawyer not taking a client that plans to sue the lawyer's firm. A lawyer is not going to defend a criminal if said lawyer is the victim. This--on a bigger scale--is similar.
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.