Draft Alternative To SOPA Released

angry tapir writes "Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, and Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican, have released a draft version of the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade (OPEN) Act and posted a copy at KeeptheWebOpen.com. The act is intended to be an alternative to the Stop Online Piracy Act."

Issa Bad

[Doc Ruby]

Anything coming out of Darrell Issa I just don't trust. His business career [wikipedia.org] was criminal, and his political career has been even worse [wikipedia.org].

But these congressmembers don't usually know anything about what's in legislation they support or oppose except what lobbyists tell them. Wyden usually seems to know what he's talking about. I don't know what's in it for Issa, but Republicans are so lockstep that getting one like Issa to support it is necessary if it's going to go anywhere in Congress. Especially when so many Democratic congressmembers are never going to protect actual rights to free speech/press when Hollywood's against it.

Re:They make record profits yet aren't happy

[tepples]

The DMCA works, and works well.

Even when a time-sensitive parody, which is a legally protected fair use, gets taken down for the two weeks that it remains relevant?

Re:They make record profits yet aren't happy

[Omega Hacker]

I was generally of the position a few minutes ago that it's generally a bad idea to have the government step into the middle of what *should* be a private-to-private issue ("rights holder" vs "infringer"). However, in thinking about it I think there's actually a chance for the government to solve the problem that is the DMCA. Because the courts are all over the map in how the deal with these things, a DMCA takedown letter is basically a completely free shotgun approach that can be taken by an aggressive "rights holder", and as such they have things radically tilted their direction because it's not feasible or safe to fight bogus claims. However, if a single agency (with strong court oversight of course, assuming that's written in to OPEN somewhere but not looking forward to reading legistlatese that's comparable to patentese) has a set of rules they follow, and the shotgun approach used with the DMCA is forcibly redirected through it, there's a chance to reign in the probably millions of DMCA letters sent down to the 1000's that are legitimate. There's a (TBD) fee associated with filing a complaint, which should discourage the shogtun approach compared to DMCA takedowns, not sure if there are strong enough sanctions for filing invalid claims to deal with the RIAA and such who have deep enough pockets to shotgun entire lawsuits.

Re:Bait and switch!

[Anonymous Freak]

Ron Wyden is known for defending consumer freedoms. If he's one of the people involved, it's not bait-and-switch.

Non-Legalspeak Version

[Ben_R_R]

Section by section explanation of the legal speak: http://www.keepthewebopen.com/assets/pdfs/open-act.pdf [keepthewebopen.com]

Re:Bait and switch!

[CrimsonAvenger]

Hm, this bill seems, on the face of it, to require foreign websites to obey US law or be shutdown/blocked/whatever they can get away with.

Check the fine print on "infringing websites", and what they can do to not be infringing....

Not sure how that defends consumer freedoms.

Still No Good

[Bob9113]

Sec 337A.(a)(7)(C)(i) (top of the third page of the PDF):

[an Internet site is not infringing]:

if the Internet site has a practice of expeditiously removing, or disabling access to, material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity after notification by the owner of the copyright or trademark alleged to be infringed or its authorized representative;

This still says that a claim is as good as a conviction in terms of requiring the removal of information, and that failure to comply with such claims is enough to cut off the air supply of the company.

We just had a story posted earlier today [slashdot.org] of a company that was closed down for an entire year without having done anything wrong except being falsely accused. We cannot simply shut down any company that the copyright cabal says we should, especially when they have proven time and again that their dragnets have a total disregard for accuracy.

Sorry Mr. Wyden, I love your work in general, but this is still far outside the realm of due process. I know; failing to support this may mean SOPA gets passed instead -- but the "less wrong" swindle has been pulled on us by these guys too many times for me to buy it anymore. I'm not going to support a law that proposes to shut down slightly fewer innocent businesses.

Re:They got the acronym wrong.

[Grishnakh]

Unfortunately, that's the way most laws are these days. Just look at the PATRIOT ACT. You think they came up with the name and the acronym just happened to be those two words?

50 years ago, they never did BS like this in lawmaking. Not saying there was no BS in lawmaking, but this acronym stuff is way over the top.

Re:Don't want

[Alsee]

Well, in California, they did pass a State Constitutional Amendment to say Marriage is between one man, and one woman

Up until 1998 South Carolina's state Constitution had an equivalent clause prohibiting interracial marriage. Hell, even in 1998 38% of the state's voters voted to keep it in place. Bigotry dies slowly, fighting tooth and nail all the way.

The point is, it doesn't matter what California's or South Carolina's Constitution said on the subject. They were both null and void under the US Constitution.

Under Article IV, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, EVERY STATE is required to give full faith and credit to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state. And that includes marriages. It doesn't matter if your state has a two year waiting period to obtain a marriage license, you can fly to Nevada and get a quickie marriage in a cheezy Vegas chapel. Every state is required under the US constitution to give full faith and credit to that marriage. It doesn't matter if your state prohibits interracial marriages or gay marriages. You can fly to Iowa and have an interracial gay marriage, and it doesn't matter if one state constitution attempts to ban the marriage for being interracial and another state's constitution attempts to ban the marriage for being gay.

And regardless of the Full Faith and Credit clause of the constitution, any law or state constitutional ban on gay marriages or interracial marriages is null and void anyway under the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. The law cannot examine the RACE of marriage applicants as a basis for discriminating between acceptable and unacceptable marriage applications. The law cannot examine the RELIGION of marriage applicants as a basis to discriminate between acceptable and unacceptable marriage applications. The law cannot examine the GENDER of marriage applicants as a basis to discriminate between acceptable and unacceptable marriage applications.

Any prohibition against gay marriages is null and void for the exact same reason any prohibition on interracial marriages is null and void, and the exact same reason any ban on mixed-religion marriages would be null and void.

The only way to stop gay marriages (or interracial marriages), would be with an amendment to the US Constitution.

Anywho, the battles will linger one but the war is already over. General public opinion on the issue is already split almost dead even, and it's increasing twice as fast as approval increased for interracial marriage. And most significantly, there is an overwhelming generational split. Exactly as happened with interracial marriage, opposition is concentrated among the older generation and particularly the senior citizens. Exactly as with interracial marriage, the younger half of the population is overwhelmingly accepting, viewing it as an issue of civil-rights vs bigotry.

The fact is, the war is over. The gay marriage opponents just don't know it yet. There is just plain no way to stand against a generational shift. Each and every day the younger generations just plain bury more and more of the senior generation, and their bigotry gets buried with them.

If you don't want to marry a black/white/asian/latino/homosexual/lesbian/christian/muslim/hindu/atheist/blond/brunette/redhead or whatever else, then fine. Don't marry anyone you don't want to marry. But it's no skin off your nose if some other consenting adult couple choose to get married. Live and let live.

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