Draft Alternative To SOPA Released 170
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."
Re:Don't want (Score:5, Interesting)
For some of us, "follow the US Constitution" means exactly that what it says. It doesn't mean it can't change. It means, "The US Constitution is the supreme law of the land and we cannot in good conscience call ourselves a country of the rule of law if we can't even make token efforts to follow the supreme law of the land."
I firmly believe that the people that worked so hard to craft such an amazing document realized that it was supposed to be a living document. They realized that times were always changing and the Constitution needed to change with it. That's why they proposed and adopted (and used 3 times for a total of 12 amendments during Thomas Jefferson's lifetime) Article V. Using that little tidbit they saw fit to include, we can make whatever changes we want so long as each state has the same number of Senators.
To tout the idea that the framers were unable to appreciate what the world would be like today is to truly underestimate the likes of Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison and their peers. While they may not have seen the likes of personal computers or the Internet or movies, they certainly saw the need to adapt and change. And here's a hint: the tool they envisioned to adapt and change was not the Supreme Court deciding that the meaning and intention of words written more than 200 years ago has somehow changed over time.
While I'm not answering the meat of your post, you started to drift in the "living document" direction near the end.
note: Not the same AC as above.
On the Plus Side (Score:4, Interesting)
This bill at least allows (even if it doesn't go so far as to require) that a free be charged to whomever makes the Copyright complaint, to pay for the investigation.
If the fee is set high enough, a lot of the shotgunning we see from the RIAA/MPAA types might be cut back significantly.
On the other hand, if it's set too high, small Copyright holders might find themselves unable to defend their own Copyrights....
Re:Bait and switch! (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not terribly worried... the internet has always been somewhat just beyond the reach of the law. IMHO the only thing laws like this will do is increase the technical sophistication with which the internet can function beyond the reach of the law. If it gets more people to set up encryption / anonymization services / distributed mesh networks / decentralized DNS / etc. to circumvent attempts at enforcement, then it will be a better internet for the effort.
People have always wanted to get rich for the minimum amount of work. Having a piece of paper that says every else has to pay them money for doing something completely arbitrary is the easiest way these days, especially when you can also convince everyone else to pay for enforcement. With digital distribution, these days are behind us, and are only going to get further behind us as we get into various forms of widget replicator machines.
Bravo for putting up a good fight for sitting back and collecting royalties on an empire of past contributions, with no promise of future contribution or worse yet stifling the contribution of others. Now bow out as the curtains close on that act.
Re:Don't want (Score:5, Interesting)
Not a problem. I'm sure they can get a job doing something more useful to society, such as cleaning toilets.
Our society needs music business majors about as much as it needs buggy whip manufacturers.
Re:Don't want (Score:5, Interesting)
What he means is that things have changed such that rulings from 1800 are not *necessarily* good for today. The fact that the rulings of 1700 ARE better than what we have today is not so much because the Statute of Anne was perfect as much as because the Mickey Mouse Protection Act is insane.
To wit, authors of 1709 were turning a profit on books with only 14 years of protection. This at a time when few people could read, distribution was expensive, printing was expensive and "piracy" (in the form of book sharing) was running rampant.
And enforcement only implicated regulating publishing companies.
Nowadays companies claim to need 120 years of protection, at a time when consumption is widespread, copying and international distribution is practically free and even more convenient than asking a friend to lend you a copy.
Granted, P2P file sharing is more disruptive than book lending, but enforcement against that requires to essentially attach a police man to every device, watching anything that the citizens do, with all the implications to civil liberties that such implicates.
1800 laws certainly aren't good for these days, it's just that today's laws are even worse.
Re:Don't want (Score:5, Interesting)
You were doing perfectly right up to there. The Constitution demands interpretation precisely because it's so sparse. Broad principles need to be applied to highly specific circumstances for the law to be of any use. That requires interpretation.
Additionally, it's worth noting that many people who claim they're against interpretation are, when pressed, really just opposed to particular interpretations. We may safely assume you'd interpret the Constitution differently than how the various justices have done so over the last 208 years, but interpretation is inescapable.
Additionally, the more precisely and lengthy a legal document, the more it is wedded to the specific, precise, circumstances it was written to address. That will leave a lot less room for interpretation, but will require much, much, more frequent revisions of the letter of the law.
Re:Don't want (Score:4, Interesting)
And here's a hint: the tool they envisioned to adapt and change was not the Supreme Court deciding that the meaning and intention of words written more than 200 years ago has somehow changed over time.
200 years? More like 16 years. Thomas Jefferson, the person whom you appear to hold in such high regard (by your mention of him twice in your post) disagreed with the result of the very first case of judicial review. He thought the Supreme Court was already interpreting the words of the Constitution incorrectly.
At that point, while most all of the framers of the Constitution were still alive, they could have chosen to create and pass an amendment to stop the Supreme Court from continuing to decide the meaning and intention of words written 16 years prior. They didn't. So while no one expected the Supreme Court to take on the job it did, no one (not even those founders you idolize) tried to stop them.
Re:Don't want (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm willing to compromise, but here's my starting position:
Title 17 of the United States Code is hereby repealed. All rights and privileges formerly granted under this code are null and void. The United States hereby withdraws from the Berne Convention, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, and the World Intellectual Property Organization. Any currently living executive or lawyer who is now or ever has worked for the RIAA or the MPAA or their foreign counterparts is declared outlaw, and the United States will pay a $50,000 bounty for their capture dead or alive.
Re:They make record profits yet aren't happy (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, I *could* file a counterclaim. But if I do that, then I invite them to sue me. That would be a Japanese company suing a British citizen under American law - the legal fees would take all my savings before they could even decide where to hear the case. If it did go to court, the amount of time I'd have to take off to attend would likely cost me my job as well. I'd be ruined, and that's if I *win*. The law favors the rich, and I am not rich.
Particually annoying, someone else has uploaded the entire episode in question to Youtube, and others have used far more material than I did to make AMVs, none of which have been taken down. I believe I actually offended someone at Shopro by insulting the studio's work, so I wouldn't put it past them to sue out of pure spite given half a chance. It's also the second strike on youtube - one more and they close down my account and pull all my videos, most of which are just demonstrations of video filters I programmed. And I can't easily open another account, as it's tied into the google ID now.
Re:Don't want (Score:3, Interesting)
This is historically wrong. Marriage has always been between men and women.
I was leaving the bigotry out and just focusing on what it is, not which groups were allowed to participate. There's no "difference" between a man marrying a man and a woman, and when I was doing my vows, most vows were gender neutral such that the wording for all but the last 3 words would have worked great for two men or two women. Who it has always been between and who was explicitly excluded from marrying someone else is completely missing my point. Your specifics seem to indicate you got it, and refused to respond in kind.
Fuck you.
Interestingly enough, most proponents of homosexual marriage are against polygamy or polyandry or other forms of "plural" marriages. Arbitrary indeed. I did notice that you simply went to the extreme example I provided, and bypassed this one.
A man is eligible for marriage, under *everyone's* definition, as is a woman. A complaint about the other person being required to select someone from the other gender in no way requires the inclusion of animals as eligible marriage participants. If you complain about people picking your own examples to use against you, then you should stop using them for their "shock value" or whatever you are trying to prove with them. I demonstrated that your exclusivity rules are absurd, so you changed the bar. Too late. You stated a flaw in "their" argument, and I proved you wrong. I don't need to prove you wrong on everything. You are wrong on that, so you are wrong on the issue. And your "gays can't procreate anyway, so they don't need marriage" statements are silly, but no need for me to seriously address them because you proved them wrong yourself with adoption and fertilization options available. IT's almost like you know you are wrong, but are still opposed to the idea for no logical reason, just plain bigotry, and you invent reasons to help you feel less like a bigot.