SOPA Makes Strange Bedfellows 439
davide marney writes "What do 1-800-Contacts, Adidas, Americans for Tax Reform, Comcast, the Country Music Association, Estee Lauder, Ford, Nike and Xerox all have in common? According to OpenCongress.org, they all have specifically endorsed H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act. A total of 158 corporations have signed up in favor of the bill, and only 87 against. $21 Million has been donated to Congressmen who favor the bill, but only $5 Million to those against. Thanks to OpenCongress for these insights. This goes a long way towards explaining why this bill has so much traction, despite all its negative publicity."
Do something (Score:3, Interesting)
VPNs are not a viable alternative but there are other technologies that can help. Write one-click installers for darknets, p2p networks, distributed DNS systems. Seriously, technology cannot solve social problems but at least can alleviate them. SOPA will come, so it's time to act now.
I guess I don't understand... (Score:4, Interesting)
...what non-information companies have to gain by this bill. Ford is limited to intellectual property related to their physical products, and only could really deal with software piracy for ECM and BCM computers which are limited to use in Ford products anyway. Nike could face a competitor stealing their product designs which would be easier to make than Ford's, but still would fall into industrial espionage rather than casual piracy, and Estee Lauder makes cosmetics and other products that again, aren't exactly end-consumer-piratable...
I wonder if it's a bigger deal that these companies are supporting Congressmen who are passionate about this bill, and this is just another way of helping to keep these Congressmen in their pockets.
I dont get... (Score:2, Interesting)
...the american system.
How is it possible, that you can publicly 'donate' money to a representative supporting your cause. IMHO political offices should be state funded.
Re:Go after the companies (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Stand up, people! (Score:5, Interesting)
PBS might also support it. Last month, the News Hour ran a story on piracy [pbs.org]. They interviewed two "opposing" parties, the Open Internet Coalition and the MPAA, whose only difference was how much copying should be regulated: a lot, or a lot more. That was the most biased, unbalanced, and stupidly wrong coverage I'd ever seen from PBS. I thought they were a cut above the rest of the mainstream media. They weren't, not that time.
Re:Stand up, people! (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't understand why unions...support it
"It protects American jobs!"
AFL-CIO is a political organization; sometimes they do things that legitimately help the working class, other times they do things that they can claim help the working class. SOPA is squarely in the second category: labor organizations can point to it and say, "We are helping protect your job by supporting this legislation!"
Our current extreme [copyright/trademark/patent/trade secrets enforcement regime] inhibits economic growth
Only over the long term. In the short term, the fat cats get to report big profits and continue to buy yachts and mansions. Over the long term, consumers are forced to wait longer for new products and technologies, pay more for existing products and technologies, and forced to turn over their own profits to the entrenched businesses and trolls. Eventually the rest of the world will start ignoring American demands about trademarks and copyrights, and then the system's hollow core will be exposed and the fat cats will abandon ship and leave the rest of us to our fate.
When the design of a logo or the composition of a soft drink is considered to be a major economic issue, you know the system is destined to fail. We still have a chance to turn things around...but not with the current set of politicians.
Weird money (Score:5, Interesting)
Just look at these amounts :
Sen. Harry Reid [D, NV] $3,502,624
Sen. Charles Schumer [D, NY] $2,648,770
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand [D, NY] $2,080,651
I wonder how much Obama got ... in the beginning of an election year no less. What do you think Obama > Harry Reid or the reverse ?
Weird, weird names on the list though :
* United States Tennis Association
* Council of state governments
* National Confectioners Association
* Major City Chiefs
* Let Freedom Ring
* Outdoor Industry Association
* Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council
* Eli Lilly and Company
* Center for Individual Freedom
* Concerned Women for America
* Americans for Tax Reform
* Society of Plastics Industry
* Beam Global Spirits &Wine
Half of these sound extremely fake. Most of these look like it's VERY unlikely they would get themselves on this list if it didn't gain them money ...
Not that I tell myself these guys collectively contributed even 1% of those amounts ... very strange names here. Were the pressured into signing this ? There's another collection of names that clearly were pressured to get in there (National Electrical Manufacturers Association ... are these names just an attempt to point "broad support" or ? Weird weird weird.
, Electronic Components Industry Association)
Interesting though : all but one electronics manufacturers are in the opposing category ... /me suspects threats from customers. All think tanks, democrat or republican, are on the opposing side. So clearly both parties are aware of the publicity loss. Lots of the organisations supporting this bill are subsidiaries of other supporters (so the supporter list shoulds be a LOT shorter). WTF is visa doing supporting these guys ?
Some organisations could have contributed more by staying out of it, me thinks :
* 4chan
* Torrentfreak
* Tumblr
(let's just say people might think they know why these guys are opposed, and it's not for the right reasons)
And, surprisingly in the "opposing" category (although I must admit this legislation doesn't strike me as conservative, and it doesn't seem like it's supported by the software industry either, it's almost purely privilege grab by the entertainment industry) :
* Business Software Alliance (also known as Microsoft)
* Brookings Institute
* Competitive Enterprise Institute
Re:Stand up, people! (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/o78co/my_friend_and_i_wrote_an_application_to_boycott/ [reddit.com]
Re:Weird money (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I guess I don't understand... (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting/Informative post, but you miss two key issues:
1. You ARE aware that the whole fashion industry has NO copyright and yet still continues to profit, right?
Johanna Blakley: Lessons from fashion's free culture
http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html [ted.com]
> There is no difference in the intrinsic value of the product.
2. Correct. You are close to a key Insight to reach the next level of understanding but not quite there yet; so let me help you out --> Value is multi-valued! i.e. Two different people can value the same thing differently; what is it "perceived" value then? The High, the Low, the Average? No, it is BOTH the low AND the high. It is a 1-to-many relationship, NOT a 1-to-1 relationship. THIS is the main factor on why [almost] all economic theories are doomed to fail -- they don't accurately model the relationship of value -- multi-valued, not single-valued.
> The real counterfeit is ... people are buying fake value
People literally buy into the pseudo-cool factor all the time. They are called "fads." Suckers have yet to learn that having object X doesn't matter one bit when you the true value in life is relationships. e.g. The rest of us get on with our lives buying the $20 jeans instead of the $100 designer jeans laughing (and/or feeling sad) at the sucker ^H^H^H financial idiot willing to throw away his money at a lame attempt of being a hipster.
There is a much bigger issue looming on the horizon ( 100 - 400 years) though that you will want to ponder -- what happens to "value" when anyone can simply "print" whatever object they want? =)
Cheers
Re:Money. (Score:5, Interesting)
In a recent study, researchers Raquel Alexander and Susan Scholz calculated the total amount the corporations saved from the lower tax rate. They compared the taxes saved to the amount the firms spent lobbying for the law. Their research showed the return on lobbying for those multinational corporations was 22,000 percent. That means for every dollar spent on lobbying, the companies got $220 in tax benefits.
You know what's funny? In Germany, the president is currently under a lot of pressure, and may have to resign, because he got a private credit for his house at too favorable a rate of interest. In the US (the home of democracy, defender of the free world, etc), corporations can openly bribe their senators to get the laws they want.
Something's rotten in the state of Merica...
CJ
Re:Weird money (Score:5, Interesting)
Fascist States of America (Score:5, Interesting)
Calling them fake is ignorant at best. First, China makes the "genuine" ones; then they make "non genuine" of varying qualities, starting from identical, all down to rip-off. Also, you can make them stamp anything on them, starting from an identical logo, subtle variations to avoid "counterfeit" claims in different countries, down to generic or whatever you want written on them. These variations have different prices and levels of legality (within China). They will officially deny to stamp "Sony" in some random electronic equipment, but if you are willing to pay, it can be done. Kinda defeats the saving of buying a cheap alternative in the first place? You decide, but people is stupid enough to buy for brands.
Many times I'd rather buy a Chinese labelled device because at least the price is fair, some people do try to sell you bad quality but brand stamped stuff; when instead you could buy good quality but generic Chinese brand instead. Indeed, you can buy in Hong Kong super expensive brands, or cross the street and obtain very high quality same brand stamped "non genuine" product. Knowing to recognise which is which can be very hard, sometimes they copy packaging, stickers and such very well; and normally that doesn't matter there because it has the fair (much lower price) while keeping the same quality very often.
What I hate is when they try to sell you a counterfeit with almost the same price of the genuine, or sometimes just a little cheaper. Software is silly, "counterfeit" price is 0$ in the net, but fakes are sold online for 25$ or such, sometimes with good enough packaging, aluminium (plant pressed) CDs etc for software meant to cost 100$, 500$ etc.
Does these justify blocking of sites? the Bill is a blacklist, how do you fall on it or how do you get out of it is shady at best. Further, the State is not even enforcing it directly (like China or Iran), it passes the responsibility to the ISPs. This means they will rather block in excess rather than infringe the law; and many will be falsely accused and promptly disconnected in fear.
Iran is requiring full ID before using the net, and America is not far from that. China forbids cryptographic connections, America will get there as well, because this gets in the way of proper deep packet inspection; and only criminals have something to hide... Soon enough dissent will get banned, it is too easy to make a site go down by having agents post links to blacklisted sites; and this way the establishment cannot be accused. See? Americans are much more refined than China and Iran, while achieving the same.
Of course, the countries who do not implement these laws become "source of terrorism", blah, blah lets invade (war helps the economy, stupid).
Re:Weird money (Score:5, Interesting)
The Greeks also considered "demokratos" to be equivalent to anarchy.
The meaning of anarchy is different, as Kant explains:
Immanuel Kant's societal categories [wikipedia.org]
The German philosopher Immanuel Kant defined "Anarchy" in his article about anthropology in the chapter "Freiheit und Gesetz" (http://korpora.zim.uni-duisburg-essen.de/kant/aa07/330.html) as follows:
A Law And Freedom without Violence (Anarchy)
B Law And Violence without Freedom (Despotism)
C Violence without Freedom And Law (Barbarism)
D Violence with Freedom And Law (Republic)
Re:Stand up, people! (Score:5, Interesting)
My main issues with the DMCA lie in how it interferes with the bypassing of DRM, and reverse engineering. Another problem though is that the DMCA introduced pretty stiff penalties for infringement, yet what happens when a media company, with the presumption that they have legal people who should know better, send pretty obviously frivolous take-down notices. In theory this is perjury, yet how many prosecutions do we see? Out of curiosity, should I receive a malicious take-down notice from an American entity, how would I get a prosecution rolling? Send a letter to the FBI, or would I instead need to engage a solicitor to begin civil proceedings?
Re:Money. (Score:1, Interesting)
the home of democracy
You put it like the EU is less democratic than the US. Are you an idiot? Democracy was created thousands of years ago in Europe. And it is still stronger in the EU than in the US. The EU has no Guantanamo, Patriot Act, but it has e.g. much stronger protection of privacy and rights of their citizens (including minorities).
Re:Money. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Money. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Weird money (Score:4, Interesting)
A lot of those on the list aren't interested in copyright so much as they are in branding, like the National Confectioners Association and Nike. They couldn't care less about internet piracy - they just want a way to shut down overseas-run websites selling counterfeit products with their logo on.
Perhaps ... but an enlightened capitalist realizes that he won't always get what he wants, and shouldn't get everything he wants if the cost to society is too great. Fact is, anyone supporting SOPA for financial gain has demonstrated that they think like the big media companies: do whatever it takes no matter who gets hurt.
That's more than enough to make me look elsewhere for my needs.
Re:Stand up, people! (Score:5, Interesting)
We'll have to route around the USA. Make the DNS root be in EU or iceland, and start paying for things in bitcoin, rather than Mastercard or Visa. Actually, it's not so big a deal. It can be done!
Yes, it is a big deal because DNS only works _if everyone uses it._ One of the big fears about DNS (one that I think Congress is not considering because, well, they're fundamentally stupid) is what will happen to the global network when DNS becomes balkanized, with every nation (or blocs of nations) running their own systems. Granted, the Internet couldn't care less about DNS: all it cares about is IP addresses. But the Domain Name System is a vital part of the World Wide Web, and URLs are everywhere, even within embedded systems.
Secondly, there is no single "DNS root". There are, last I was aware, thirteen root servers that are geographically distributed around the world, and hundreds of thousands of secondary domain name servers operated by ISPs and large organizations of one kind or another. Historically, the U.S. government pretty much left the things alone, and that worked out very well for all concerned. The fact that we're going to be sacrificing the trust other countries placed in us when they got on-board the Internet, just to satisfy the greed of an industry worth a paltry five or ten billion dollars a year is just astonishing. The rest of us, the ones who run our 2.4 trillion dollar economy, are more than a little pissed off about this.
To be fair, you can thank several _European_ corporations, the big media conglomerates such as Sony, Vivendi, BMG and others, for spending the millions to buy SOPA, PIPA, and a host of other similar bad laws. So you don't get to dump all of this in our laps, and if our Justice Department hadn't already been subverted by big media (several top spots at the DoJ are currently occupied by ex-RIAA lawyers) several Congresspeople would be under investigation for treason.
Re:Stand up, people! (Score:5, Interesting)
Thank You.
The long and short of it, is that this bill is, put charitably, penny-wise and pound-foolish. We will lose $300 billion to get back $10 billion. And that's just the monetary aspect. From the freedoms aspect, we stand to lose a fair amount more.
Two points need to made here:
1.) Steam figured out how to use DRM and not piss off its customer base. That members of the MPAA and RIAA are seemingly incapable of doing the same is a reason I would not invest in either their constituent's companies, given the choice (leadership failure, lack of vision).
2.) Using jack-booted thugs (off-duty police offices dressed like members of SWAT) to bust into people's homes, and arrest someone's grandmother for copyright violations is f*cked up. Any sane politician would cut off his own arm to NOT be associated with that kind of imagery.
The only possible reason I can contemplate that some members of government are getting on board with this is some sort of power-grab. Which is cute. The people you are going after are already US citizens, but for some reason you feel the need to degrade and humiliate your own people. Basically, it's a form of power masturbation: it gives our country something to do, but in the end, we're f*cking themselves.
Re:Weird money (Score:5, Interesting)