TPP Copyright Chapter Leaks: Website Blocking, New Criminal Rules On the Way 258
An anonymous reader writes: Knowledge Ecology International (KEI) [Wednesday] morning released
the May 2015 draft of the copyright provisions in the Trans Pacific
Partnership (copyright,
ISP
annex, enforcement).
The leak appears to be the same version that was covered
by the EFF and other media outlets earlier this summer.
Michael Geist unpacks
the leaked documents, noting the treaty includes
anti-circumvention rules that extend beyond the WIPO Internet
treaties, new criminal rules, the extension of copyright term for
countries like Canada and Japan, increased border measures,
mandatory statutory damages in all countries, and expanding ISP
liability rules, including the prospect of website blocking for
Canada.
They will strangle (Score:5, Insightful)
They _ARE_ strangling (Score:5, Informative)
and considering the utter populace indifference, they will prevail.
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The populace is hardly indifferent. Look at the mass amount of letters and phone calls and emails sent in during the SOPA and PIPA hearings, or during the FCC "Fast Lane" proposal. I'm sure you've heard the term "bread and circuses" - screwing with the Internet is the modern equivalent of taking away the circuses. If TPP wasn't being held entirely behind closed doors with only occasional leaks to inform the public, there would be a massive outcry about it as well.
Re:They _ARE_ strangling (Score:5, Insightful)
The "mass amount of letters and phone calls" mean absolutely nothing and will in no way stop the lockdown of the Internet. And as long as there are cat pictures on YouTube and Reddit forums for people to vent their 2 minutes hate, and plenty of stuff to buy from Amazon, that's all the "circuses" that most people care about. As long as there's online porn, most people don't care who's listening in, because they think their browser's "incognito" setting is protecting them.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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Reddit is playing a shell game with hate groups. Now you see them, now you don't, but it's still the biggest host for online hate groups on the Internet. It's picking off the low-hanging fruit, but leaving the orchard alone.
Your other points are valid, but I'm not sure we'll see people claiming ownership of dank memes. I won't say "never" though.
Re:They _ARE_ strangling (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at the mass amount of letters and phone calls and emails sent in during the SOPA and PIPA hearings
They had no effect whatsoever. It wasn't until Google, Apple, HP, etc got involved did anybody listen. We simply don't have the capital to direct anything. People could try voting for different politicians I suppose, but they seem unwilling out of the irrational fear of losing what they have.
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Which is why it is the law today.... wait that's not right. The outcry over SOPA stopped it from being passed so I am not sure that amounted to nothing.
You gotta view it from the *ELITE* pov (Score:5, Interesting)
Internet may be the goose that lays the golden egg, to 99% of the people, but to the *ELITES* the same Internet has become a threat to their exclusivity
Before the Internet the masses had no way to know what the *ELITES* were doing - yeah, we may have the trash rags with occasional pics of the *ELTES* doing _something_, but all in all the *ELITES* were well protected, even their scandals could be covered up easily
With the advent of Internet, more and more of the scandals of the *ELITES* have been pried open and leaked into the wild. As more and more of the internal dealings are being known to the masses the status of the *ELITES* has started to crumble
That is why for the *ELITES* the Internet is no necessarily the goose that lays the golden eggs. It is a big threat to them, and is becoming more and more threatening
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Internet may be the goose that lays the golden egg, to 99% of the people, but to the *ELITES* the same Internet has become a threat to their exclusivity
Before the Internet the masses had no way to know what the *ELITES* were doing - yeah, we may have the trash rags with occasional pics of the *ELTES* doing _something_, but all in all the *ELITES* were well protected, even their scandals could be covered up easily
With the advent of Internet, more and more of the scandals of the *ELITES* have been pried open and leaked into the wild. As more and more of the internal dealings are being known to the masses the status of the *ELITES* has started to crumble
That is why for the *ELITES* the Internet is no necessarily the goose that lays the golden eggs. It is a big threat to them, and is becoming more and more threatening
You mean like...the printing press?
Agreed though
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That already happened some years ago. The goose was force-fed to make capitalist foie gras and has been turned into a shopping mall. A party-line system of communication where the powerful get to listen in.
At this point, the Internet is nothing but part of the mechanism of control.
Its all about control (Score:4, Insightful)
All through the 20th century if you created some content and wanted to distribute that content to a wide audience, you needed to go through a distributor who could distribute that content. These distributors would distribute your content (whether it be music, movies, TV shows, books, video games, magazines or whatever else) to the wide audience and would take their cut.
But in the early years of the 21st century, things changed and new distribution methods have appeared that allow people to distribute their content (even paid content) to a wide audience without going through a big corporation middleman taking a cut.
And now the big corporations are fighting back and trying to put the Internet genie back in the bottle and return to a world where companies like Comcast, Disney, 21st Century Fox, Time Warner, Viacom and Sony get to control what content is available to the general public.
Its been said before but I am saying it again, the #1 problem with this world is the control of the worlds governments by big corporations. Find a way to end that and the roadblocks preventing many of the other problems with this planet from being fixed will disappear.
Well shit (Score:4, Insightful)
At this rate you'll soon be able to smoke all the pot you want, but damn, if you download that song you'll be doing hard time.
Re:Well shit (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny enough in some countries that are pushing for 'hard time' for copyright infringement, I could commit manslaughter(maybe as much as 2nd degree) here in Canada and be out before they would be.
Re:Well shit (Score:5, Insightful)
Well there is no bigger crime than potentially reducing the profits of corporations
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Doesn't manslaughter do that too?
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Reducing the profits of corporations is economic terrorism.
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Won't somone think of the non-value adding suits?
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Not "expected" ... "completely fucking fictional".
According to corporations copyright infringement costs them more than the entire GDP of ever nation on the planet.
They basically would claim a zillion trillions dollars in losses, but that doesn't make it true.
You haven't fixed anything.
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That's due to a complete failure to understand economics. At all.
I can probably use my new theories of economics to explain how public domain makes us more wealthy, but I'd be more comfortable making that claim with patents (I can definitely draw that one up) than art and entertainment. Educational material, however...
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No, even the corporations don't "expect" those numbers.
They use them in their bullshit calculations, but if any of them actually believe those numbers they're complete fucking morons
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you can get less time for passing fake bills at movies.
Re:Well shit (Score:4, Funny)
Funny enough in some countries that are pushing for 'hard time' for copyright infringement, I could commit manslaughter(maybe as much as 2nd degree) here in Canada and be out before they would be.
Of course, they want it for the threat, not the actual incarceration rate.
Not a bona-fide Made Man with establishment credentials? Starting to get traction in local elections? A nice man in a black suit shows up at your door step with a suitcase full of printout (on tractor feed paper). He sits down in your living room and shows you and your wife the list of hundreds of copyright infringements you have committed, and asks you wouldn't it be a shame if your wife and kids were put out on the street because you were languishing in jail for longer than someone who committed manslaughter and really wouldn't it be a good idea to withdraw from the race and stop making press? Of course it would. And he was never there. And nobody would believe you if you said he was.
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If the Illuminati actually control everything, explain Rand Paul's prominence.
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He has no power other than to attract attention to himself with things like a filibuster that was never going to work.
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One of the problems with threatening someone with a certain sentence longer than they'd get for manslaughter is that they might do the math and decide it's less risky to just kill you and dispose of the evidence
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These days cameras and recording equipment are everywhere. There was a documentary on the TV about how the government spooks have had to adapt to the modern world, and one thing they don't do any more is cold call people in their homes. Too easy to get caught on CCTV, or the guy opens the door with his phone already filming and half an hour later it's on YouTube. I imagine the corporate spooks have learned the same thing.
Surveillance works both ways.
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Nah, too much work. I'm Canadian, I only get outraged it someone touches my internet or hockey.
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Indeed. Software piracy has become too risky; we'll have to return to pirating shipping lanes.
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Wrong. You can download all you want, you just can't SHARE a movie. When people get in trouble for downloading, it's because they were using torrents, and sharing as they downloaded.
I'm currently being sued for something I didn't download. Don't get me wrong, I torrent all the time, just the title I'm accused of sharing I never touched.
Global framework of laws (Score:5, Interesting)
This global framework of laws will render the nation state useless. Corporations will have ALL of the power nation states used to have. And you will have none.
Re:Global framework of laws (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, ask yourself, which nation states are most actively advancing corporate interests because their politicians are on the payroll?
This is the world being taken over by corrupt politicians who report only the those corporations, which means the rest of the world needs to be looking at these "trade" treaties and asking "in what way does this benefit our citizens, our economy, or our jobs".
Because the short answer is "it doesn't, it maximizes corporate profits at the expense of everybody else".
We're basically being robbed to allow multinationals carve up the world for themselves. And it's being championed by politicians who are lining their pockets at our expense.
Re:Global framework of laws (Score:5, Insightful)
And it's being championed by politicians who are lining their pockets at our expense.
Exactly. Anyone who says Obama gets an unfair amount of criticism - no he doesn't. He doesn't get nearly enough. TPP and TTIP will have happened on his watch, and not by accident.
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Ha! Trick question. The answer is: all of them.
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Jade helm is gonna take our freedoms.
Re:Global framework of laws (Score:5, Insightful)
The media pushes that crap so people won't worry about the real threats to their freedom.
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You should learn from them. Those issues *are* important, and people care about them, so they get coverage. People don't give a shit about international trade deals because they are boring and hard to understand. You need to figure out the practical implications and boil them down to examples you can use to rally people. Make people understand how it will screw with their lives, then they will care.
Re:Global framework of laws (Score:5, Insightful)
I think there are certain issues like abortion that the two major parties have agreed upon as suitable for political theater - it distracts the public from the other issues on which they are in agreement, and would rather the public not talk about.
Yet more proof ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet more proof we live in a global oligarchy, championed by assholes, who have stacked the deck so heavily in favor of corporations the rest of us are completely fucked.
Everything in these damned treaties are about maximizing the profits of multinational corporations, and don't benefit the citizens.
The treaties are basically theft on a global scale designed to give corporations more rights than people.
This is really American politicians fucking over everybody else in the world because they're so undeniably on the fucking payroll of the corporations it isn't even funny.
It is now pretty much a moral imperative we either start eating the rich, or start copyright infringement on such a massive scale they simply can't do anything about it.
We've sold the farm on the bullshit promise that what is good for greedy assholes and corporations somehow uplifts us all, when nothing could be further from the truth.
The pressing problems we need to solve in the world haven't got a fucking thing to do with copyright.
This treaty is a terrible idea.
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... start copyright infringement on such a massive scale they simply can't do anything about it.
Because that plan worked so well for fighting the war on drugs?
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OK, then start shooting the fucking politicians and CEOs.
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Pretty much: Trillions have been spent fighting the war on drugs, and they are still commonly available and not too hard to get. Copying files is even easier than growing a plant or synthesizing a chemical.
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Methinks you confuse "victimizing a small proportion of drug users" vs "doing anything whatsoever to lessen drug use".
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Many drugs are chemically addictive. But that isn't why they are banned - if it were the reason, nicotine would also be banned, as that is a fairly addictive drug itsself. Public safety is also not the reason, because if it were then alcohol would be banned (again) too - it kills more people each year than every other recreational drug put together.
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You really haven't been paying attention [wikipedia.org] it would seem.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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I would have put it "It was only through centuries of unconfronted, unchecked treason that this country ended up completely disregarding and dishonoring its governing constitution".
Every single official who takes an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, and then does nothing in the face of that Constitution being torn up, is committing treas
Re:Yet more proof ... (Score:5, Interesting)
Some interesting insight with regards to the possible breaking down of negotiations: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com... [nakedcapitalism.com]
It's a longer-than-a-slashdot-summary-read, but insightful.
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The sad fact is that there was and is, only one evil empire in the world.
Systemd.
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Systemd is a nice operating system. All it needs now is a good init subsystem.
Fighting back the only way it seems I can (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to buy all of the media I consumed. It seemed to be the right thing to do.
Now they say I can't rip the media I bought to use it when and where I want. I'm infringing simply by watching it where I work and on my way to work (oil rig, hotel on the way).
A treaty from another country gets to write my country's laws? And we don't have any say in it?
I am so sickened by all this that I stopped purchasing media. It only funds these assholes. I have no respect for copyright any more. Why should I? There is no respect for the consumer any more. I'm a freetard now.
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I used to buy all of the media I consumed. It seemed to be the right thing to do.
Now they say I can't rip the media I bought to use it when and where I want. I'm infringing simply by watching it where I work and on my way to work (oil rig, hotel on the way).
A treaty from another country gets to write my country's laws? And we don't have any say in it?
I am so sickened by all this that I stopped purchasing media. It only funds these assholes. I have no respect for copyright any more. Why should I? There is no respect for the consumer any more. I'm a freetard now.
In Soviet China IP owns you!
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I say this excessive punishment is anti-copyright, since it punishes the infringer way more than he deserves and portrays copyright as an evil thing in the minds of the consumers. TPP and its troll politicians are ruining the good name of copyright, which is the cornerstone of decent income for ar
How Odd! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How Odd! (Score:5, Informative)
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I believe there is a documentary that shows that pretty much all companies that are large enough to matter (including all media companies) are owned by the 6 large chemical companies.
It was sort of interesting as it showed that a parent company of a soda company bought a media company so they could add more advertisement blocks to sell the soda.
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That's not correct. *Control* of multinationals is by a core of banks and investment houses ( http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.5728 [arxiv.org] ), which for shorthand we can call "Wall Street". A number of them are based outside the U.S., but pretty much all have an office in the Wall Street area. *Ownership* is distributed more widely. For example, I used to work for Boeing, and I'm vested in their retirement fund. Theoretically the fund holds the assets in trust for the retirees, who are the beneficial owners. The con
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You would think... except many of those media companies are themselves owned by multi-nationals that dwarf Microsoft and Google put together.
Doesn't seem so:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Unless you have other references to share?
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in Britain the BPI and the PRS both act on behalf of the industry players. Neither of them actually own any IP yet they file copyright claims on behalf, thus violating common law in that only the victim of a crime OR the Crown (at the behest and following on from a police investigation) could file an information at a magistrate's court. Even in civil proceedings, nobody not directly involved in a case could file a claim. This is very well settled in case law (examples abound, BAILII is full of judges compla
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BTW, have you ever noticed that these TDNs and publicised copyright claims are always "the label" or "**AA" vs... and NEVER "The Band" vs...?
Makes you wonder who does actually own creative content rights...
It's election time in Canada... (Score:5, Insightful)
And we have a Prime Minister who's vowing and trying to get TPP ratified just before the vote. He's disappointed he couldn't get it ratified before the election call, but in the middle of his campaigning, that's one of his key pillars.
Might also try to participate in that debate as well and ask about it. Though given bill C-51, and the other bills he's trying to get passed, website blocking might be the least of your problems.
And always - go vote. I know he also passed a new law making it harder to do so, and the courts have even admitted that while the law is bad, they won't overturn it because it will screw with the election. All the forms and all that were printed out and it's too troublesome for the courts to repeal the bad law because it's too close to an election. Between that and his efforts to disenfranchise voters through other means (including fake phone calls directing people to the wrong location - and handcuffing the officials in charge of investigating election fraud...), well, make sure you have all your ducks in a row, because unless you bring in a Conservative party member card, they're going to make it hard for you to vote.
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This October, vote Anyone But Conservative in Canada (ABC).
Re: It's election time in Canada... (Score:3)
This coming election is one that I'd love to have voted in. Except I got a letter through the door this week saying that the Ontario Court of Appeals has ruled that expats must wish to return to Canada and must not be gone more than 5 years unless employed by the government.
These restrictions are fucking idiotic. I fully intend to return, I just don't know when exactly. So what if I've been gone 5 years (and 16 days). I still care a great deal about my country. I was born and raised and will always be Canad
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so basically you're being alienated by your country of birth just so they can fuck it up some more by wedging a secret treaty in?
That's treason, dude. Simple as.
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There will be a Supreme Court challenge. And Harper will almost certainly lose. He is, after all, the losing-est PM in the courts that we have had in recent memory, if not ever.
I'm profoundly grateful for our courts and our Charter of Rights, which have done an excellent job of keeping Harper from turning this country into the sort of shithole he would like it to be.
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If you haven't lived there for five years, it is easy to make the case that you no longer have an understanding of local concerns that the local Member of Parliament is meant to represent.
Basically your entire argument is that if you aren't educated enough ("enough" being defined by you I guess) then you should be stripped of your right to vote. Are you fine with having people in Canada disenfranchised if they aren't following the news closely enough?
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We need to get this Sith Lord out of office. The problem is that we really depend on the non-voting 45% and have no Jedis. Hopefully those who voted conservative last time will realise the ugly truth of their choice.
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Fat chance. The Conservatives know they aren't electable. So all they're doing is pandering to their core audience - the people who literally will not vote anyone but Conservative. Almost no one would put a second choice of another party if their first choice is Conservative.
The other parties ge
TPP minus USA? (Score:5, Interesting)
Although it is hard to know because of the secrecy, it seems like there is a whole lot of stuff around 'intellectual property' and corporations getting to sue governments over policy changes which has been pushed hard by the USA and opposed not quite as hard by everyone else. So there is lots of stuff that objectionable to everyone but the USA. (Given that the USA parliaments haven't been allowed to see the TPP, possibly not even they want it. This could be stuff wanted only by the USA negotiators, not the country.)
What I want to see is USA kicked out of the TPP, then renegotiate to get rid of all the bad stuff USA pushed in. After that, the USA can negotiate for a late entry into the agreement. They can propose all this IP stuff, and the rest of us can consider whether we that badly want USA in the TPP.
That is pretty much a pipe dream, but more realistically: I'd like to see the governments of all participating countries go through all the provisions and state how strongly they are for or against them. If there are any bits that are liked only by negotiators, this would show them up.
It really worries me that this is secretly negotiated by people with almost no democratic oversight and will be presented as a monolithic take-it-or-leave-it with greater effective force than the laws of the participating nations.
Buying into the TPP is effectively accepting a huge lump of laws you had almost no say over and are almost impossible to modify in future.
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It's to stop those pesky governments that try to limit cigarettes and asbestos.
Ok, kids, here is the deal (Score:5, Insightful)
Next time you want to have music, don't download it. Go into a store, kick the guard in the nuts and grab the CD. Alternatively, find some old granny on the street, hit her over the head and grab her purse, then pay for your downloads.
The reason is simple: If you get caught, you'll be doing much less time.
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I feel sorry for the poor security guard though - he's talking about having a family, and this might ruin his chances.
I'd love to see some advertising saying this if/when the legislation gets in front of the law makers. Won't happen of course, but it would be nice ;-)
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I have to admit you're right.
Ok, kids, leave granny alive, killing her won't solve the problem.
"mandatory statutory damages in all countries" (Score:2, Informative)
I would have thought that would be incompatible with the legal systems of most countries. "Damages" are normally limited to the real loss suffered by the plaintiff/claimant. "Punitive damages" is a US thing.
IANAL but.. (Score:2)
WTF can we do? (Score:2, Insightful)
It is not that we are going to sit on our laurels and do nothing, but the said truth is, WTF can we do?
It's the *ELITES* that are controlling every f*ing thing - so much that now they want to criminalize the non-elites for dipping out hands on their exclusive domain
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It's the *ELITES* that are controlling every f*ing thing
Indeed. It is outrageous how the elites forced us to elect President Romney.
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I'm pretty sure the *ELITES* have convinced you that the Ds and the Rs are different.
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I'm pretty sure the *ELITES* have convinced you that the Ds and the Rs are different.
Whatever [xkcd.com].
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That's fine for an election where you not only know the candidates on a personal level but can also easily use this personal level base with everyone voting to run yourself. On this level such a voting system actually works. But that doesn't say much about the quality of the voting system, at this level communism works great, too. For exactly the same reasons.
Re:WTF can we do? (Score:5, Informative)
1: Buy a gun, preferably something rifle-like with a decent range on it and a reputation for accuracy.
2: Buy ammo.
3: Buy MORE ammo.
4: Shoot anyone involved in advancing this idiotic agenda.
5: Repeat steps 2, 3 and 4 until you achieve your objective or are caught and killed.
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The noun form of "elite" refers to one or more. It has no plural form, any more than "sick" does. It just makes you sound ignorant when you say "elites". Do you say "helping the sicks"?
Re:WTF can we do? (Score:4, Informative)
The noun form of "elite" refers to one or more. It has no plural form, any more than "sick" does. It just makes you sound ignorant when you say "elites". Do you say "helping the sicks"?
That's an overly narrow take on the word "elite" and its various meanings [merriam-webster.com]. Yes, in one construction, "elite" is a (usually plural) collective noun [wikipedia.org] referring to a class of people or things that are superior. "The Silicon Valley elite are conspiring to keep the lowly programmer down, man!"
But unlike "sick," "elite" need not be a collective noun. Right there in the dictionary definition, you can see a member of "the elite" is "an elite," and multiple such members would be plural "elites." Just because you have 3 Rockefellers and 2 Kennedys in a room together, does not reconstitute the whole murky cabal that is "the elite"--you have 5 elites. This construction also conveys a subtle connotation of particularity. You may say the "wealthy elite" are, as a class, not paying enough taxes, but you'd refer to "wealthy elites" who are being investigated for tax evasion.
Now, GP's usage is closer to the first meaning, and it would've been fine to use "elite." But, whether intended or not, using "elites" gives the statement a slightly different spin. It reads not as [the whole of landed gentry] or [the class of one percenters], but rather a nonspecific-but-interested subset of the wealthy and powerful who want to further criminalize infringement of their IP.
Re:Just a reminder... (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you think voting for any other candidate would have created a better outcome?
You should still blame Obama (Score:2)
Maybe, maybe not; possibly. But even if a whole bunch of people are willing to commit a crime, it's good to prosecute (or at least talk shit about) the one who actually goes through with the dirty deed.
Don't let Republicrats off the hook for this, even if you think a third party president would have also pushed hard for it. If you're not willing to point the finger of blame, then you're not creating any incentive for anyone t
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That's too easy a dismissal of trying, and too convenient an excuse for losing. Money is a facilitator, but it is not the only one, and fixating on it only takes your concentration off the REAL requirements. To be elected you need exposure, recognition, and the ability to sell, convince, and persuade. If you can't be bothered getting yourself exposed and recognized, and have no knack to sell, convince, and persuade, you join a long list of LOSERS complaining about "the sy
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TPP will pretty much be applied worldwide.
If you're stepping on this planet, you gotta be affected horribly by it.
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You honestly blame the low quality of the puppet theater on the punch, not his player?
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And what happens when a cop beats the shit out some kid after down load a MP3 from a file share?
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At first, nothing. Then we'll get to hear a press conference testing the waters for support of the ridiculous laws. Depending on how this one goes over we either get a "that criminal deserved it" media campaign or a "poor artists are starving and those snooty kids want their cake and eat it too while you pay for music and they steal it" campaign.
The cop may or may not be sacrificed, depending on how severe the backlash really is. In the end he'll be put on desk duty for a while 'til the dust settled.
And if
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BWAHAHAHA!!! You don't think your puppets have been owned by corporations for many years already?
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Sorry, doesn't work. We've been doing that for a while now. All it accomplished was to give them an argument for more ridiculous laws, for when we don't buy their overhyped, overpriced crap content, it can only mean that we're copying it. It is simply not fathomable that we do without it.
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Even if you abstain it still gets counted as if you copied it.
There have been quite a few computer games that I really wanted. I had to do without, simply because their ridiculous copy protection meant I cannot in good faith buy them and support a company making such decisions. I wrote in no uncertain terms exactly this to the maker of the games, citing how I would have loved playing it and I was putting aside money for it, but they won't get it as long as they engage in such tactics.
Most (ok, almost all) o
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You can still buy USENET services very cheaply from third parties ; ISPs stopped running them because the vast majority of their customers don't even know they exist, let alone used them, and I'd bet that at least 95% of the people who DO use them are doing do for copyright infringement. That puts them firmly in the realms of a cost-centre, rather than a profit maker - no-one selects their ISP based on how great their news servers are. If I ran an ISP, I'd not even bother setting one up.