FTC Staff Discuss a Tax on Electronics To Support the News Business 381
dptalia links to this piece describing a staff discussion draft from the Federal Trade Commission, writing "The FTC is concerned about the death of the 'news.' Specifically newspapers. Rather than look to how old media models can be adapted to the Internet, they instead suggest taxing consumer electronics to support a huge newspaper bailout. Additionally, they suggest making facts 'proprietary' and allowing news organizations to copyright them."
Note, though, "The good news in all this is that the FTC's bureaucrats try hard to recommend little. They just discuss. And much of what the agency staff ponders are political impossibilities."
Let them Die (Score:5, Insightful)
Bail Me Out Please (Score:5, Insightful)
Failing businesses should be allowed to fail. Someone will figure out a successful business model and will fill the void or a market that no longer needs to exist (hello buggy whips) will fade into the history books.
Ayn Rand was right. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's frightening just how much modern American government has become like the nightmare Statist government in Ayn Rand's novels, constantly meddling with and attempting to control market forces that it and it's members are incapable of understanding or wanting to understand.
Regardless of what you may think of her personally, she was prescient.
Stop. Just... stop. (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear Washington,
You're doing it wrong.
Thanks,
Everyone
Seriously what the hell? Stop giving our money to greedy corporations. Want us to buy a house? Spend more on crap? Buy new cars? HOW CAN WE DO THAT WHEN YOU KEEP TAKING OUR $?
OH wait. You'll just take it and give it to corps for free.
Now, I am not a tax hater. I am fine with taxes for things like emergency services, libraries, roads, schools. The difference is those services provide for the public good. Forcing me to hand money over to your buddies at the "too big to fails" is bullshit. You crooked fucks.
Re:Let them Die (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Start laughing now... (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, and who's going to report it as the bad thing it is?
The major news media? No, they'll just take their bailout and spin the news to all goodness and light and fluffy bunnies and fuzzy puppies.
Other outlets? No, they'll get sued to oblivion because the news media will have copyrighted the facts, so anyone else who tries to report on it will get a DMCA Smackdown.
Re:Start laughing now... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Let them Die (Score:3, Insightful)
Forget letting them die; they should be killed. News should be shared, not sold.
Right, because journalism doesn't cost a dime to the journalists.
have they completely LOST IT??? (Score:2, Insightful)
have they considered this bit of law??
"Congress shall make no law ... or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
this fails on these grounds.
Re:I don't see anything wrong with this (Score:5, Insightful)
Go ahead, "copyright" your investigated information.
Oh fuck them and their investigated information. Asshole journalists steal the research done by bloggers, like myself, all the fucking time. While bloggers happily link to the information they are using for their work, journalists never do and cite how it's just not done in their industry.
While I am happy to research, request, and even sometimes pay to make data public which may not have been before, I do expect that the journos will cite that work I did when they use my materials when they write their stories--just like I do for them. Using other people's work without citation is called plagiarism anywhere else in the world and I really and honestly believe that the entire journalism field needs to go back to college and learn how to do their jobs again. Perhaps at that point the industry will turn around for them.
No way (Score:3, Insightful)
Want to save the news business? (Score:5, Insightful)
Put a tax on lying.
State Sponsored (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm against this, not because I think newspapers need to adapt to modern times (I think alot of them are trying now and I truly hope it works out for them) But I have a more serious problem with it.
Wouldn't this make the newspaper industry state sponsored? Which I think is one of the biggest mistakes possible and I know in the past Americans have always cried out against state sponsored news in other countries. I would hope they would cry out against this one.
This isn't about supporting a failed business (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Let them Die (Score:3, Insightful)
Right, because journalism doesn't cost a dime to the journalists.
Modern 'journalism' mostly seems to involve reprinting press releases and rewriting information from Wikipedia, so surely it can't cost that much?
Libertarian alert! (Score:3, Insightful)
It's frightening just how much modern American government has become like the nightmare Statist government in Ayn Rand's novels, constantly meddling with and attempting to control market forces that it and it's members are incapable of understanding or wanting to understand.
Regardless of what you may think of her personally, she was prescient.
Regardless of the merit of this case, don't you think it's just a bit early to come with this magic market libertarian stuff as we are still in the midst of a major financial crisis caused by massive deregulation?
I am not bothered by the fact that you exist; I am seriously concerned, however, that there was one person to mod you insightful...
Re:Let them Die (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No bailout for newspapers (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the automakers are kind of strategic assets
No, their plant and equipment are strategic assets. That equipment wouldn't have vanished if GM went out of business. It would have been bought up by more nimble competitors during the Chapter 7 proceedings.
Re:not bad in spirit - but the implementation suck (Score:2, Insightful)
There is good reason to worry about the loss of an independent source of information to an otherwise uninformed electorate. So all the comparisons to capitalism "we didn't bail out the wagon-wheel, buggy-whip, ...has-been technology" are a bit shoot from the hip.
How is it an independent source of information if it needs to rely on money from the government to stay in operation?
Re:Let them Die (Score:4, Insightful)
If the news agencies failed It would leave a huge information vacuum that the government could fill as it wished.
And you don't think those same news agencies will be beholden to the government when the government is the one keeping them in business?
Re:Start laughing now... (Score:3, Insightful)
Stop trying to reverse the evolution of the market (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No bailout for newspapers (Score:4, Insightful)
What do you mean, "without someone to sell to"? Do you think the demand for automobiles would have disappeared just because GM went under? Ford, Toyota, Honda, etc. would have had to expand their capacity to meet increased demand. The easiest way for them to do that would have been to start purchasing parts from GM's now idled suppliers. There was no reason to bail them out other than as a gift to labor. Look at the way the administration abused the bankruptcy code. The bankruptcy code said that the bondholders were secured creditors and should have been repaid first -- but they got screwed while the unions got most of what they asked for.
Beware the Government that can't even be bothered to follow it's own laws.
Re:Let them Die (Score:3, Insightful)
Somehow I don't remember the DMCA or the Copyright Term Extension Act being passed during a recession.
Just make the News public domain. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wouldn't be the first time... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:government meet the court system (Score:3, Insightful)
Never the less, we are already perilously close to "making facts 'proprietary' and allowing news organizations to copyright them."
The first news organization to publish a story often has a monopoly on that story until another journalist (no bloggers need apply) gets there and files a report (usually after the fact).
For that interval, the story is for all intents and purposes proprietary. Doesn't matter what Joe Citizen saw (unreliable eyewitness), or what Polly Pajama Blogger posts (unprofessional). The story is essentially OWNED by the first agency.
It is not that hard to imagine our current copyright law being tweaked to extend this ownership for some period of time (weeks, then months) in the interest "protecting intellectual property" (aks propping up the current news infrastructure).
Re:Libertarian alert! (Score:4, Insightful)
Regardless of the merit of this case, don't you think it's just a bit early to come with this magic market libertarian stuff as we are still in the midst of a major financial crisis caused by massive deregulation?
Has it occurred to you that government interventions in the marketplace helped to create the imbalances that contributed to the financial crisis? Government keeps interest rates artificially low, thus negating any real incentive to save, then wonders why we have high debt and low savings rate. Government favors large corporations at the expense of small ones and then wonders why large players dominate the financial/telecommunications/medical/etc industries.
Ever heard of regulatory capture [wikipedia.org]? Ever wonder why established business lobbies in favor of regulations that make it harder for upstarts to enter the market?
Re:Start laughing now... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, laughing at this proposal is appropriate, but there is a real problem.
Unfortunately, I think that I am the problem.
In spite of the fact that I understand and value the role that newspaper play, particularly in investigative journalism, I continue to increase the amount of news that I get online.
I often visit the sites of the same newspapers that I have always trusted, but I know that the revenue they get from my online presense is much less then they got from the subscription that I have now cancelled (and its associated advertising revenue). Once they get good enough, I'll get a pad or a tablet and stop reading from paper completely.
As well, I'm slipping into reading articles from scattered sites, probably because those scattered sites pander to my particular view of the world and don't have to uphold the journalistic standards that the newspaper did.
To top it off, I don't believe in bail-outs, which usually don't work and are typically politically motivated anyway.
So, I'm not sure what the solution is, but I know that there is a problem. Not much help am I.
Re:No bailout for newspapers (Score:3, Insightful)
And with the country going into a recession, a certain proportion of the workforce being laid off, and the sudden downturn in sales for their suppliers, all reducing the amount of available consumer resources - where is the increased demand supposed to come from?
Re:Bail Me Out Please (Score:1, Insightful)
A business and an industry are not one and the same. A business fails, another rises... an industry fails and it could be anything from a minor inconvenience, to a major national security threat, to chaos in the streets.
Re:No bailout for newspapers (Score:3, Insightful)
From the millions of people that would have otherwise bought GM automobiles? You can't have such a bad understanding of economics as to believe that GM's demand comes entirely from employees of GM and GM suppliers.
Re:Start laughing now... (Score:4, Insightful)
This kind of bullshit is exactly why America needs to wake up and vote for people who are truly conservative. I do not mean "neocon" type conservatives who consider the Constitution an inconvenience, and certainly not "liberals" (as in the moonbat type) who consider it to be toilet paper, and I don't mean outright libertarians either; I mean people who actually read and understand the Constitution and who are grounded in common sense, and don't intend to legislate morality, prop up big business with pork legislation, not tell us what we can and can't eat, not legislating marriage (and in fact take marriage AWAY from government since interference in marriage is restricting freedom of worship as marriage is a religious construct), and certainly not tell us what we HAVE to buy (see: Obamascare, which is based on Massachusetts' failed RomneyCare), and not those who rack up insurmountable piles of deficit spending.
Vote for people who want to preserve and protect the Constitution, that way the public good will truly be preserved for the generations to follow us. We need to stop voting based on who will protect or punish big business, but for those who consider the long term ramifications of such legislation. Vote for those who don't push for extended government micromanagement of our lives.
We have only ourselves to think by turning it into a Red vs. Blue debate and allowing, no, demanding that government enforce those "values." Take back the country by voting for constitutionalists (regardless of party affiliation) and don't try to legislate what other people do. Want to affect change? LIVE the example; don't try to legislate it.
Otherwise, the result will be exactly this kind of unconstitutional copyrighting of facts bullshit, and the perpetual "mickey mouse" and "sony bono" copyright laws. It really is a s;ippery slope because people see an opportunity to become a career politician than a true leader. The making of a good leader is a good servant. Constitutionally, our elected leaders report to us. In practice, politicians see it the other way and we need to send a very clear message to these stupid fucks in office that WE are in control and THEY are in place to SERVE.
Re:Start laughing now... (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't that libertarianism? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hell, you make Atlas Shrugged sound like an almost progressive book - it sounds like you're saying that the government should have been stronger than the corporations rather than the other way around. The idea that government should have no intervention in business whatsoever is a pipe dream, right up there with the idea that government should facilitate a society where everyone receives exactly equal pay and benefits. In a society where government stands back and allows profit-driven corporations to police themselves, then eventually you will have corruption as those corporations recognize the profit value in bribing and maintaining control of government, just as communist governments tend to become corrupt as officials recognize their special privileges. The "it was deregulation" rhetoric is a notion that government has a role to play in facilitating a free market, and that the extreme opposite of that is not a system in which the government goes completely hands-off - the extreme opposite is a government dictated by the whims of the corporations.
** "I don't give a damn about my bad regulation! You're living in the past, it's a new generation!" And now that will be stuck in my head all day.
Re:Media consolidation (Score:3, Insightful)
You've got it backwards. Media consolidation was a consequence of the collapse; as circulations fell, newspapers had to merge to survive. This is easily seen by simply observing that the decrease in circulation started happening *before* the consolidations.