Obama Backs MPAA, RIAA, and ACTA 703
boarder8925 writes "In a move sure to surprise no one, Obama has come out on the side of the MPAA/RIAA and has backed the ACTA: 'We're going to aggressively protect our intellectual property,' Obama said in his speech, 'Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and creativity of the American people [...] It is essential to our prosperity and it will only become more so in this century. But it's only a competitive advantage if our companies know that someone else can't just steal that idea and duplicate it with cheaper inputs and labor.'"
We should all copyright... (Score:5, Funny)
... our jobs!
Re:We should all copyright... (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually assuming you have a particular way you go about accomplishing your job, it might actually be patentable.
I remember not long ago some company was trying to patent how they ran their business, something to do with how to schedule and conduct the business meetings I believe.
Re:We should all copyright... (Score:5, Funny)
.....and speeches.
What he wanted to say was: "Our single greatest asset is the innovation of the American people.....innovation and ingenuity.....ingenuity and innovation. Our TWO greatest assets are the innovation and the ingenuity of the American people.....and their creativity.....our THREE greatest assets are the innovation and the ingenuity and creativity of the American people.....and an almost fanatical devotion to Hollywood and the RIAA.....our FOUR.....NO.....AMONGST our assets are such elements as innovation, ingenuity and creativity.....I'll come in again...
NOBODY expects the ACTA imposition.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
>>>they are you employee, keep on their back, force them to listen
Ahhhh so young. So naive. Here's a portion of an email I sent to my Senator: "re: The debate over cutting PBS' funding: Please do cut them. We live in a 100-channel universe with many, many channels such as TLC, Discovery, History, and so on to fill PBS' role. PBS was important in the 1960s when it was a 3-channel universe, but today it's been sidelined and is no longer crucial. Furthermore I never watch PBS, and feel no desire
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
*blinks* You voted for the guy from Chicago who only managed to get elected to the lower offices by DQing his opponents and getting his buddies to release confidential court records of his opposition opponent as the not total sell out? What color is an orange in your universe?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the things I really enjoyed about the Obama election is that it brought the crazies and the racists out in the open.
It could have been worse... (Score:4, Funny)
...at least he's not a Republican!
Re:It could have been worse... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It could have been worse... (Score:5, Insightful)
an ex-ussr european here. do the two parties in usa _actually_ differ ?
one seems to be a communist part no. 1, and it is pushing for more milk to workers in dangerous conditions.
second one is a communist party no. 2 and advocates increasing the wine dosage for those who donate blood.
and they are identical in every other way.
Re:It could have been worse... (Score:5, Insightful)
They have different mascots and each has their own set of fans whose primary distinguishing characteristic is hating the other side's fans.
Re:It could have been worse... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Um... you got that backwards:
And
Not Trolling ... (Score:5, Insightful)
What would we expect from any President? Pick anyone from the last batch, or even the next batch, of candidates. Do you think any one of them wouldn't back big business in this situation?
Re:Not Trolling ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... I'm just asking: What would we expect from any President? Pick anyone from the last batch, or even the next batch, of candidates. Do you think any one of them wouldn't back big business in this situation?
Ron Paul?
Re:Not Trolling ... (Score:5, Insightful)
3 candidates I can think of off the top of my head that would have not taken this kind of stand in favor of big business:
- Ralph Nader, because he's built his entire career on going after corporate chicanery.
- Ron Paul, because he as a general rule doesn't want the federal government to either support or oppose a particular industry or business model.
- Dennis Kucinich, because he's consistently advocated the use of government power to put a check on big business's abuses of their power going back to his days as mayor of Cleveland.
Notice how seriously anyone in the mainstream media took either of their campaigns (for instance, asking Kucinich about UFOs rather than health care or Iraq).
Could be an honest move? (Score:3, Interesting)
Makes sense that our politicians on both sides would sick up for our successful industries. Don't hear about those two needing bailouts...
The USA doesn't EXPORT much of anything anymore:
Military and related products
Movies & Music & TV(?)
IP lawsuits
MSonopoly software
Gambling (aka Banking "products")
It makes sense these "industries" are largely untouchable; even when they screw over their own country.
Re:Not Trolling ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Only liberals are allowed to complain about their leaders, is that right?
As long as the other crazies do nothing but walk around with picket signs of Heith Ledger's face as the Joker with a Hitler mustache painted on it, yes.
Re:Not Trolling ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Dissent IS a form of patriotism. But misinformed fear-mongering, blatantly FUD-spreading speculation, and purposeful yet meaningless obstruction is NOT.
I see, so you've only got a problem with dissent you disagree with and/or uses facts or logic that makes your point of view look untenable and/or is in *your opinion* "misinformed fear-mongering, blatantly FUD-spreading speculation, and purposeful yet meaningless obstruction"?
What about protecting free speech, and especially that speech with which you disagree? Or is that protection only for Progressives & others on the Left with the "correct" views & opinions?
Strat
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As soon as Obama was inaugurated the 24/7 American Patriot Dissent Machine renamed itself as the 24/7 American Obama Patriot Machine.
Any dissent which days before was front and center on every blog, newspaper, cable news outlet, protest headquarters, faculty meeting, etc effective immediately became vile racist treachery and that had to be denounced if uttered in relation to Obama.
Many moderate supporters of Obama such as myself were bitten by this turn around. Opinions and views that just weeks earlier ha
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"Single greatest" = "sole remaining" amirite? (Score:5, Interesting)
Next up: The Texas schoolboard mandates that textbooks 'de-emphasise' the RECORDED HISTORICAL FACT that Hollywood was founded on industrialised copyright infringement.
Re:"Single greatest" = "sole remaining" amirite? (Score:5, Informative)
Next up: The Texas schoolboard mandates that textbooks 'de-emphasise' the RECORDED HISTORICAL FACT that Hollywood was founded on industrialised copyright infringement.
For people wondering about the context here. See Motion Picture Patents Company [wikipedia.org] :
"Since the 1890s, Thomas Edison owned most of the major American patents relating to motion picture cameras.Since 1902, Edison had also been notifying distributors and exhibitors that if they did not use Edison machines and films exclusively, they would be subject to litigation for supporting filmmaking that infringed Edison’s patents.
[...]
Many independent filmmakers, who controlled from one-quarter to one-third of the domestic marketplace, responded to the creation of the MPPC by moving their operations to Hollywood, whose distance from Edison’s home base of New Jersey made it more difficult for the MPPC to enforce its patents. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and covers the area, was averse to enforcing patent claims."
Via [kungfugrippe.com].
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Many independent filmmakers, who controlled from one-quarter to one-third of the domestic marketplace, responded to the creation of the MPPC by moving their operations to Hollywood, whose distance from Edison's home base of New Jersey made it more difficult for the MPPC to enforce its patents.
This has the flavor of legend.
Three decades earlier Hollywood had been chosen by the emergent film industry for more than just a balmy climate and abundant sunshine. Within a day's drive from Los Angeles was an astoni
Same song (Score:4, Insightful)
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
Re:Same song (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Same song (Score:4, Insightful)
Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
Is there anyone here who honestly expects democrats to be the exact opposite of republicans on every issue? Especially when a small fraction of the voters care about said issue, and against that there is millions of dollars of campaign contributions to be had? I hate ACTA and its sponsors too, but come on, national politics are always about the lesser of two evils. It strikes me as pretty foolish to act like because we don't have a saint, we have the exact same sinner.
Logical (Score:5, Insightful)
Those up high have understood that the USA's commercial future is not in manufacturing (they left that to China or Germany). If it's not physical goods, then what else is America selling abroad? IP, that's what. That's where the USA's commercial future lies, and that's what it'll have to defend at all costs, trampling their people's and other nation's right to defend that.
It's that or become insolvent. (look up the USA's trade balance over the last few 20 years. Think it'll improve? Think again.)
Imaginary property is insolvent (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's Do Something (Score:5, Informative)
I know that Obama is more tech-savvy than any President prior and is trying to do everything he can to boost the current US economy, but those of us who are knowledgeable and have a strong opinion on this should contact the White House as well as your Senators and Congresspeople to let them know why we should not be supporting ACTA.
White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact [whitehouse.gov]
Senators: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm [senate.gov]
Congresspeople: https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml [house.gov]
Re:Let's Do Something (Score:5, Insightful)
ACTA will actually make the US poorer.
Yes, ACTA is aimed towards giving IP laws more power, globally. But how much do you think countries with real problems care about protecting IP laws from countries they don't care about? Do you think China will put some muscle behind enforcing IP laws? Or anyone in the far east, maybe with the exception of Japan? Do you think Russia cares a lot, or any of the post-Soviet Union countries? South America? They got bigger problems. Yeah, they'll certainly pay lip service to it and maybe, when enough of a stink is brewing, they might stage a sting or two, arrest a few token low level copy sellers, then ignore the problem. Why? Why not? What's their interest in it? They have little to no IP, it's like asking a landlocked country to spend money to make the coasts that don't belong to it secure.
In the US, ACTA will be enforced fully, of course. Not only the IP of the US, but also the IP of other countries. Yes, including countries like Russia, China and all the others that will not put the same amount of muscle behind it. So who benefits from it? THe US? Stop kidding. Yes, the IP owners in the US will be happy about it, but the US as a country will lose money in the process. Because its consumers have to hand money to the IP owners abroad, with nothing to little coming back in return.
And I'm not even talking about how DVDs are sold for a buck there because else you couldn't sell them at all.
Re:Let's Do Something (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, ACTA is aimed towards giving IP laws more power, globally. But how much do you think countries with real problems care about protecting IP laws from countries they don't care about?
From the position of the MPAA and RIAA there are several different positions that they care about or don't. Russians and Chinese copying music and movies isn't a big problem - those countries have always had large scale piracy operations and undeveloped IP markets, and the potential profit margins are thin or non-existant. If this were to change, then there would be an opportunity to develop new markets, which the RIAA/MPAA would be interested in. But at the moment the markets are lost. The real global battlefield is in the European Union - a larger market economy than the USA, where the average price for a DVD or CD is much higher than the US, and with a voracious appetite for American produced content. If groups like the Pirate Party begin to make serious headway in scaling back European copyright, then the RIAA/MPAA is going to lose control over one of its most profitable markets. The other market they really care about is (obviously) the USA. It is not such a large battlefield since U.S. laws are already more MPAA/RIAA friendly. By agreeing to a global copyright enforcement treaty, that is supported by American corporations, they will be able to easily pass legislation with broad cross-party support, and with little room for debate because the details have "already been agreed and signed" before being considered at the level of national law.
Because its consumers have to hand money to the IP owners abroad, with nothing to little coming back in return.
Have you got any idea how much money is spent by European consumers and businesses on U.S. software, movies, books, films etc?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I know that Obama is more tech-savvy than any President prior and is trying to do everything he can to boost the current US economy
Your naivette is refreshing, but I would not like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Having an ipod doesn't make you tech-savvy. Neither does having a cool campaign website or having a twitter feed. The man's just as clueless about the nuts and bolts of tech and tech policy as any other career politician whose education was in the law and not in engineering. The only branch of government that's historically had any semblance of a clue about tech has been the military, and even then, they farm most of the h
Copyright or Patent? (Score:5, Informative)
Wait, MPAA/RIAA? Since when do they deal with fake iPods? I hate them as much as the next guy, but I can't find a word in the article relating to copyrights that wasn't inserted by the author.
Obama's speech (as quoted by TFA) seems to relate only to patents and perhaps branded goods, even if ACTA extends to both. It would be interesting to know if this is indicative of an official focus with regard to ACTA.
Re:Copyright or Patent? (Score:4, Insightful)
SOP in politics these days. Just quietly stitch the unappealing laws into legislation that really does need to be passed.
Unrealistic World View (Score:5, Insightful)
In any reasonably free society, copying of digital content is impossible to prevent. In non-free societies, it does not matter as those in power can take the money of anybody anyways. So, trying to prevent copying of digital content is just a sure path to failure. Incidentially, protecting outdated business models holds a society back and is bad for eveybody.
Well, I guess it does not matter that much for the rest of the world, the US-centric century is certainly over, as its economic power is vanishing rapidly.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
In any reasonably free society, copying of digital content is impossible to prevent. In non-free societies, it does not matter as those in power can take the money of anybody anyways.
True. However, preventing copying of digital content is a step towards a non-free society, where those in power can take the money of anybody anyway.
I really despise obama now. (Score:5, Interesting)
despite i have been a staunch supporter of him and quarreled with my conservative american friends for close to a year since his candidacy to his election and even beyond.
really, from this point on, i dont think i will be hypocritical to defend him in any regard. there are things that can be overlooked and forgiven, noone is perfect. but ransoming rights and liberties of the thought process to private individuals is nothing less than feudalism at its best. and someone who can justify this to himself cannot be defended in anything else.
Re:I really despise obama now. (Score:4, Insightful)
Wow. So Obama does something that is actually fully consistent with his pre-election promises, and that throws you into rage; while the many times he reneged on what he said was fine and peachy?
Re:I really despise obama now. (Score:4, Insightful)
So you didn't look past just "change"?
Obama was definitely vague on some points of his platform, but he was just as specific on the others. IP was one of those [blogs.com]. After he was elected, it became even more clear on short notice - change.gov has been around for a while, and has some rather explicit statements [change.gov] on the subject.
Future wars (Score:3, Funny)
We're going to aggressively protect our intellectual property,
I can't wait until the US launches a pre-emptive military strike against <insert media vilified nation here> for a grave and gathering threat of...copyright infringement!
Slashdot Official Translation (Score:5, Insightful)
'Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and creativity of the American people [...] It is essential to our prosperity and it will only become more so in this century. But it's only a competitive advantage if our companies know that someone else can't just steal that idea and duplicate it with cheaper inputs and labor.'
TRANSLATION:
"Our single greatest asset is the innovation and the ingenuity and the creativity of the American Lawyer. As our education system collapses and laziness and ignorance steadily increase until the Constitution is entirely without meaning and it becomes impossible for our society to function without coercion -- we expect lawyers to bring home enough cash to sustain not just their coke habits but also our military... with a small amount of funds possibly left over for health care (but don't bet on it). We won't have the money in this century to bully anyone with our military capabilities, so we're counting on our lawyers to win the important battles."
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Its only fair... (Score:3, Insightful)
Open letter to the United States Government (Score:4, Insightful)
Dear Mr. President and members of Congress and Senate,
Please, stop listening to the corporate un-citizens. I say un-citizens because all they care about is lining their pockets with money. Not to say that most Americans wouldn't love to line their pockets with money as well, but only Corporate citizens (which aren't even real citizens as they can't be called to fight for their country, aren't held accountable for their actions unless someone with more money than them can fight them) have the money to pay for you to listen to their needs. The luncheons, the corporate sponsored getaways, the private flights and perks are all their way of buying you, you the representatives of us, not corporations.
If you really want to protect the creators of ideas and artistic endevours, you must do away with tyranical organazitions like the RIAA and MPAA which prosecute little children as well as dead or dying citizens for a percieved (never proven) loss of a few pennies, all the while wholesale stealing from the very creators they cry woefully to protect.
I'm going to copy en masse an e-mail sent to me - please read it, please consider it, and please, when you are done, think about pushing corporate citizenship back where it belongs, to non citizenship - without rights, without needs to protect as you would the individuals who actually do the creating of everything you wish to protect.
Pretty interesting if one reads all the way to the end. Follow this by reading "Confessions of An Economic Hit Man", by John Perkins. We had a surplus in 2000 and no way does the banking industry and those who rule it want to see that again, even if it takes two wars.
EVERY U.S. CITIZEN NEEDS TO READ THIS AND THINK ABOUT WHAT THIS JOURNALIST HAS SCRIPTED IN THIS MESSAGE. READ IT AND THEN REALLY THINK ABOUT OUR CURRENT POLITICAL DEBACLE.
Charley Reese has been a journalist for 49 years.
545 PEOPLE
By Charlie Reese
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.
You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason.. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits.. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.
Re:Open letter to the United States Government (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Open letter to the United States Government (Score:4, Insightful)
Very misleading article (Score:5, Informative)
While I'm no particular fan of the MPAA, the RIAA or the ACTA, it deserves to be pointed out that the article is substantially misleading and inaccurate. Firstly, the speech to which they refer, in the section about IP protection, talks exclusively about protecting the licensing of technology and make no mention what so ever of the MPAA, the RIAA or music of video piracy. While these organisations happen to also support the ACTA, it is grossly misleading to say that the speech comes out in support of either of them. Secondly, the article says that "the European Parliament has already shot the ACTA agreement down". This is completely incorrect. The European Parliament have demanded that the European Commission make public the nature of its discussions in the ACTA negotiations, and the EU Privacy Commissioner has expressed concern that the treaty might be incompatible with existing EU law, but the parliament have not passed any resolutions regarding the content of the treaty itself (not least because it's secret, so they don't know what it says).
The process through which the ACTA has be created is highly suspect but it does its opponents no service if those who campaign against it can't present an accurate case.
EU already shot ACTA down. (Score:5, Informative)
you have to read well.
EU passed a resolution that banned any form of 3strikes anywhere in europe. Held the regulations and rules it put out before over anything proposed in acta. this means no isp liability of policing their networks for private parties' copyrights. it mandates that cutting an individual's internet access cannot happen unless through a court. it demanded full disclosure of the acta text to all members of the parliament, as mandated by eu laws. eu laws also mandate that parliament share anything with eu public, so anything that is disclosed to eu parliament has to be disclosed to entire european public.
european commission has to abide by it. there is no other route that they can take. commission already said that they are going to push the other acta negotiating parties for full disclosure. if they dont, commission wont be able to stay on the table any more, for they are not allowed to negotiate and sign anything before eu parliament knows it.
and if the text is disclosed, that means shit will hit the fan.
so yea, eu parliament seems to really have shot acta down. and probably not only for europe, for entire world.
IP based society. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do we then start sending troops into nation X for downloading Disney movies? How about when they all decide to stop paying royalties?
- Dan.
Another un-winnable war. (Score:5, Interesting)
We sure know how to pick 'em.
Motherhood and apple pie... (Score:5, Insightful)
He made some un-controversial statements about protecting U.S industry from commercial copying: "But it's only a competitive advantage if our companies know that someone else can't just steal that idea and duplicate it with cheaper inputs and labor."
I don't think anyone would mind that, and that is what a legitimate anti-counterfeiting treaty would prevent.
Alas, the commentator leaps out from beneath his bridge and shouts "the RIAA wants that too, and they're evil, so Obama is evil". That's then picked up by a page headed "Obama Care - Stop Him", and retitled "Obama Sides with RIAA, MPAA; Backs ACTA" and referenced here as "Obama Backs MPAA, RIAA, and ACTA".
Do you begin to see a pattern here? This is a classic "guilt by association" scam, in which you say "X", and are promptly tarred and feathered by a commentator who says "but the <insert your choice of evil group here> is in favor of X, therfore you're a member/supporter/fellow-traveler of <evil group>.
One should attack Mr. Obama for what he said, not for something Mr. Sandoval said on his behalf...
--dave
excuse me (Score:3, Insightful)
but if an individual cannot distinguish the importance of freedoms over 'right of ownership' over thought processes, and comes up defending the private interests that seek to monopolize thought, there is nothing to defend about him.
acta is evil. it is the most evil thing since spanish inquisition. the very fact that whole thing proceeds by CIRCUMVENTING democratical procedures is itself appalling from the start, leave aside all the 'measures' that seek to cramp down freedoms for some parties' interests.
it w
Neal Stephenson is a genius (Score:5, Interesting)
When it gets down to it -- talking trade balances here -- once we've brain-drained all our technology into other countries, once things have evened out, they're making cars in Bolivia and microwave ovens in Tadzhikistan and selling them here -- once our edge in natural resources has been made irrelevant by giant Hong Kong ships and dirigibles that can ship North Dakota all the way to New Zealand for a nickel -- once the Invisible Hand has taken all those historical inequities and smeared them out into a broad global layer of what a Pakistani brickmaker would consider to be prosperity -- y'know what? There's only four things we do better than anyone else:
Taxation without representation (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't forget the military!
If all you have is imaginary intellectual property, the only way you can really protect it is by force. Well, and trade sanctions, but those won't mean much soon...
Too true, and too tragic considering the birth of the USA as a nation if they should dictate taxes for others to pay and force military action if they refuse.
Though I'm not sure how easy it is to be the #1 military power when more and more manufacturing capability is outsourced.
Cartels (Score:4, Interesting)
I thought cartels were generally considered illegal. By supporting these entities he is essentially supporting the notion of legal cartels. I think the USA is going to become more and more isolated in its point of views.
I had great hope for some real change when Obama came in, but he standing shows that there isn't really much separating the Democrats and the Republicans. For me, it really goes to show the whole notion of democracy in the states is more about changing the logo of the party in charge, rather than anything else. Which ever party is in charge, it is still the corporations which hold them by the balls. What it will take to institute a government which is by the people for the people, rather than by the people for the corporations.
I have nothing against copyright, rather I disagree with copyrights going beyond a reasonable amount of time.
One question I do have, is what will the reaction of the open source community be in 70 years when the first copyrights of Linux become public domain? This is not a indication of support for long copyrights, but trying to understand the reaction of the community when the shoe is on the other foot.
ACTA or ad acta (Score:4, Insightful)
ACTA will only work when every (first world) country is implementing it, but the EU-Parliament is already against it, because the discussion on ACTA and all documents are kept undisclosed. You could say: Who cares what this parliament is thinking? Well Obama should care, because if the parliament is not involved and the documents are not public, then the EU will not implement ACTA which means almost 500 mio people will not be threatened by ACTA. Third world countries will not adopt to ACTA either when the EU is not doing so.
Even though, some information leaked and it looks like that ACTA would not be legal in Germany as the constitutions defines certain rights. For example the state is not allowed to transfer information on Internet-traffic to private organizations without reasonable suspicion and a letter from a judge. Also the three-strikes-law-idea is against the rules in the EU, and obviously it is against the French constitution. And I am absolutely sure if they would try it in Germany it will fail too. As cutting you of from the Internet violates your right to be informed. And this right is very important in a democracy. It is definitely not an allowed sanction by any European constitution or agreement. So ACTA may be a dead horse and Obama is riding it. It would be better when he would tell all these US-Americans that general health care is good and that securing the existential basis of any person in a country is a necessary thing.
The most dangerous part ... (Score:3, Insightful)
But it's only a competitive advantage if our companies know that someone else can't just steal that idea ...
Ideas cannot be stolen. It is a physical impossibility. The copyright & patent industry love to blur the lines of the law and pretend that using IP without authorization is as heinous as breaking into someone's house and stealing their physical goods. But it is a complete lie. It's bad enough that the various industries that benefit from these get away with blatant misleading and deception of the general public about it, but having the *president* endorse that lie is very disappointing.
Well DUH. (Score:3, Interesting)
They're trade representatives of their respective industries. No shit that Obama's going to back them.
As much as we like to shit on the MPAA and RIAA, they make IP. subsequently, and often foolishly, they try to protect their IP. Which is their right.
I can't get riled up over IP violation law anymore. There's just so much more to life than ripping DVDs to put on my PSP, Phone or for backup purposes. I'm not saying that the cause is lost, just, not worth burning calories on on slashdot.
Hows that hope and change? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sides with the RIAA.
Wants DNA collected with all arrests.
Shuts Down Federal ACORN Probe into Corruption & Voter Registration Fraud.
Kills further moon projects.
Raise gas prices to $7.00 a gallon to "protect the environment".
He is either evil or stupid.
Heinlein said it best (Score:5, Interesting)
"There has grown in the minds of certain groups in this country the idea
that just because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the
public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged
with guaranteeing such a profit in the future, even in the face of changing
circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is
supported by neither statute or common law. Neither corporations or
individuals have the right to come into court and ask that the clock
of history be stopped, or turned back."
- Heinlein, Life Line, 1939
Reality (Score:3, Insightful)
To be realistic - and fair - we are never going to see an American president coming out clearly and strongly against the interests of major industries; at least not until American society and its constitution are fundamentally altered - as in a violent revolution. I can't quite see how that is going to happen, but of course, you never know.
Much as I like Obama for his intelligence and what still looks a lot like sincerity, idealism and honesty, when I heard him talk about changing things, I could see that he had set himself up for a major challenge. Like it or not, America is not governed "by the people, for the people", and the president only has the power allowed him by the noble classes that everybody in America assures me don't exist (the fact that you can enter "nobility" in America by becoming immensely rich is not an argument against this - that has always been the way throughout history). Change will only occur as and when they want it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Rampant" piracy? I suppose that's why they've pulled not just record profits pretty much every year but also almost always had a record breaking increase over the previous year's record breaking profits as well.
Their piracy figures, when they aren't just plain made up, are them saying "We expected this much of an increase over last year's profits and we actually got this slightly lower amount so since we didn't overshoot our initial prediction by 500% that 500% must have been lost due to piracy."
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I think we have to be careful though with separating unjust prosecution of piracy and piracy itself.
Obama is exactly right. IP is going to be the foundation of any future economy. There needs to be a means by which efforts of the mind are as recognized legally as efforts of the body.
We're becoming a nation where digging ditches and assembling parts is going to be taken over more and more by automation and cheap overseas labor and it'll be up to our inventions and our software and our innovation in expor
Re:Wild West Internet will be gone (Score:5, Insightful)
Meanwhile, those indie artists who actually WANT free distribution get screwed by the general assumption that all songs/movies are controlled by the RIAA/MPAA.
If an artist ever had a contract with a big label, that label will try to control their songs, permanently. It's happened before, and it will happen again. It doesn't matter what the details of the contract were. Somebody's going to make a poor design choice (possibly but deniably with intent), and say "For all these billion songs we published, start sending DMCA notices to Youtube users," and their automated system will do it. It doesn't matter that since that original (non-exclusive) contract, the song is now freely available. If they get caught, they say "Oops, sorry!" and pay no fine, and make no effort to prevent it from happening again. If they don't get caught, then it's another person who might pay them a $2000 settlement for music they don't own.
It's not even likely that tougher laws will prevent the recording labels from trampling your rights anyway. According to OSNews [osnews.com], each label has a list of songs they used without permission, such as for compilation albums and such. They say they're making an effort to track down the artists on that list, and that's good enough for them. They can claim that with such a huge number of songs to deal with, and so many contracts, such things fall through the cracks. They'll get sympathy from courts, and go on their merry way.
The system, especially when designed by big groups, screws over normal people.
Re:Wild West Internet will be gone (Score:5, Interesting)
IP is going to be the foundation of any future economy.
IP is just various monopoly rights. See the former Soviet union on how well monopolies work. Monopolies are antithetical to an effective economy and thus will not be a foundation, but a burden.
it'll be up to our inventions and our software and our innovation in exporting ideas
Please. IP is mainly good for extracting resources out of an economy, it has nothing to do with 'exporting'. Implementing IP laws is a net loss for any economy, and most of the time (certainly in the case of the US), the monopoly rights will be held by foreign corporations.
The only way forward is to make western economies competitive again. Repealing at the very least copyright and patents would be a good start towards reestablishing a highly competitive free market and lowering the burden on western labour (thus reducing their price).
Re:Wild West Internet will be gone (Score:5, Informative)
In theory, yes.
But the cost of fighting any of these mega-corps is so immense that, in effect, unless you're fighting somebody near your own weight class (in terms of available resources) you will lose, and likely never even get to see the verdict. Look at what Monsanto's done to agriculture in the last decade. If you don't pay to plant Monsanto's seed, they sue you into bankruptcy where you have to sell the farm to a Monsanto friend. It is defacto illegal to harvest seed from crops now, because though there is no law against it the people who used to make a living running the seed-collecting machines were sued for contributory infringement against Monsanto's genetic patents. It just costs too much for a person to defend against that. Especially since most corperations structure themselves in such a way that they don't own anything and use cashflow for everything, and the laws are written to that effect. Farmers have little cashflow and millions of dollars in assets (land, property) and therefore repeatedly get destroyed if they don't lay down and give a large cut of profits to Monsanto.
Your argument about the RIAA stealing an indie band's music and selling it on their own is crap. The laws that protect the RIAA don't cover that, and the indie bands can't afford the cost to use a DMCA-approved content protection system to trigger DMCA violations. Having music IP laws that allow for statuatory payments per performance and such is fine, but the erosion of fair use (though, historically, fair use as a legal concept has re-emerged more recently than not, and is being beat back down) is soley the RIAA powed by friends in Washington DC.
Other IPs vary, but more often than not it's the Monsantos that the laws are written for to protect, not the individual inventor.
Rampant Piracy (Score:4, Insightful)
Sounds better in the media then ' we bilked you people out of lots of money last year.. and we want more this year"
Re:First rebellion (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that this got rated "Insightful" is a woeful commentary on the state of rational debate and analysis in the geek world. I thought we were supposed, as a group, to be smart. Apparently not.
In fact, manufacturing in the U.S. is doing very well. Productivity is at an all-time high, and the amount we are producing has not been in decline, as is commonly believed. Of course production is down right now because we're in a recession, but as a percentage of our economy, manufacturing production is pretty stable. What's down is manufacturing jobs, and that's because productivity is up. The better you are at doing something, the less work you have to do to do it.
In a perfect world, more production per unit of labor would mean that we would all have to work less to achieve the same level of prosperity. Unfortunately, that's not the case in the U.S. because our current intellectual property laws allow a relatively few people to take the lion's share of the benefit from the production being done. Rather than this new-found prosperity being spread across the whole population, it reaches only a relatively few peoples' pockets, and of course those people get quite rich.
So in fact draconian intellectual property laws are antithetical to prosperity. Obama's thesis here isn't just irrelevant to the average worker's prosperity. It's antithetical to the average worker's prosperity.
Re:First rebellion (Score:5, Insightful)
Ummm.... I see you ignore the fact that major portions of our manufacturing capability have been moved offshore. When was the last time you bought a TV made in the US? When was the last time you bought a major household appliance that was manufactured entirely in the US? How about a car? How long has it been since the majority of steel used in the US was made here?
Re:First rebellion (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but more likely than not many of the key parts (with the most valuable IP) - the processor/SoC, digital tuners, etc, are made by a US company. The "interesting" software in new Internet-connected TVs (Netflix, VUDU, Cinemanow, Pandora, Youtube) is all made by US companies. And not coincidentally, all of those companies focus on distribution of the higher-margin content that the RIAA and MPAA are trying to protect.
The economic (and military) successes of the United States have almost always been based on technological innovation and entrepreneurship - and those innovations DO need to be protected.
The MPAA/RIAA's methods of "enforcing" their IP are despicable. But without any protection, one of the current major assets of the US - media and entertainment - will be in serious jeopardy. Let's put it this way - if Chinese citizens actually paid for even a small fraction more of the American software, movies, and music they consume, the trade deficit picture would be significantly different. That is what Obama is talking about, not picking on homemakers who shared a few mp3s online. Hopefully the MPAA & RIAA can get a damn clue and start focusing on the real threat to their business - rampant, organized, professional international piracy.
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The MPAA/RIAA's methods of "enforcing" their IP are despicable. But without any protection, one of the current major assets of the US - media and entertainment - will be in serious jeopardy. Let's put it this way - if Chinese citizens actually paid for even a small fraction more of the American software, movies, and music they consume, the trade deficit picture would be significantly different. That is what Obama is talking about, not picking on homemakers who shared a few mp3s online. Hopefully the MPAA & RIAA can get a damn clue and start focusing on the real threat to their business - rampant, organized, professional international piracy.
The problem here is that for all his apparent "good will" he either doesn't get it, or he is banking on the voters not to get it and push something through.
It is essential to our prosperity and it will only become more so in this century. But it's only a competitive advantage if our companies know that someone else can't just steal that idea and duplicate it with cheaper inputs and labor.
You can't put a copyright on an idea that someone else in a third world country won't just copy WITH CHEAPER INPUTS AND LABOR. You can copyright a song, a movie that sort of thing yes - but unless he wants the US to simply be the entertainment supplier of the world, he is chasing the wrong fish here.
If you come up with an idea to say, make cheap energ
Re:First rebellion (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but more likely than not many of the key parts (with the most valuable IP) - the processor/SoC, digital tuners, etc, are made by a US company.
I wish that was the case, but unfortunately, it's not. With a few discrete exceptions (Motorola and TI still provide a lot of the digital processing chips, for example), most of it is made overseas as well. This certainly includes the user interface processors, memory, A/D conversion, and most of the "glue" chips, which are made by NEC, Hitachi, Samsung, et. al.
Don't take my word for it, open up that box and look at the chips for yourself.
Not that I agree with draconian IP laws, and I'm no fan of the RIAA/MPAA, either. And I certainly believe that software patents go beyond dumb and descend into insanity.
There's a world of difference between protecting genuine innovation, and just granting "unlimited gouge rights" to the first guy who races to the Patent Office with something obvious (think: One Click Shopping, "Look And Feel" with a "Help" button to the right, etc., etc.).
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yes, but more likely than not many of the key parts (with the most valuable IP) - the processor/SoC, digital tuners, etc, are made for a US owned company by workers in a foreign country...
There. Fixed that for you.
I haven't seen an Intel processor that was actually manufactured in the U.S. in what, 15 years? 20?
As for your argument that RIAA and MPAA are "losing billions" to Chinese piracy, please... First of all, that argument doesn't fly here in the U.S. (no, not every pirated copy is a lost sale), so why should it be any different in a country where the average citizen has even less disposable income than here? More to the point, suggesting that music and movies will solve our trade
Re:First rebellion (Score:4, Insightful)
That's true as far as it goes, but take it another step. If those fat cats can't make their money in America any more, they move to other countries where they can. That means our best and brightest (and often luckiest) will not BE in America any more. Now their success doesn't help America -at all-.
Those laws, as much as we hate them, keep those fat cats from taking their fat loot elsewhere.
Are they too much right now? Absolutely. Should they be abolished? Hell no.
Re:First rebellion (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, manufacturing in the U.S. is doing very well. Productivity is at an all-time high, and the amount we are producing has not been in decline, as is commonly believed.
To quote Peter Schiff [youtube.com] : 'If we're becoming so much more productive where are the goods we're producing and why can't I see it in the balance of trade ? If we're so productive where are the exports ?"
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Um, Raleigh and the whole RTP area is about research and education, not manufacturing. Hell, there are three major universities and a bunch of smaller universities in the area. It's not set up for manufacturing. That's just how the US. Manufacturing is done is some places, and research in others. The two usually don't overlap. Or perhaps you would expect a smelting plant next to Princeton University? O
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We do still produce a lot of that kind of stuff domestically; manufacturing of consumer products has been offshored much faster than manufacturing of expensive industrial goods has. For example, the domestic car industry has declined, but the U.S. is still by a good margin the largest e
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I'm not sure why you think that since you can't see factories from your area that they aren't any around. First, you live in the RTP. Research generally means white collar, learning type of work and not manufacturing. Second, drive about 4 hours to Greenville and visit the BMW plant sometime. Drive a couple more hours to the Honda plant that's also in SC. There is plenty of manufacturing around even if you can't see it from your porch.
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In fact, manufacturing in the U.S. is doing very well. Productivity is at an all-time high, and the amount we are producing has not been in decline, as is commonly believed.
I'd have guessed that greater than 95% of the products I purchase and use on a regular basis are manufactured outside of the U.S. Would you mind providing more information as to what sectors are producing 'at an all-time high'? I'm not trolling or even necessarily disagreeing with you, but there appears to be a distinct disconnect here.
Re:First rebellion (Score:4, Informative)
Re:First rebellion (Score:5, Interesting)
This is completely misleading. These numbers include goods produced by nominally American corporations even if all the work is done by employees based outside of the US. This particular scam has been debunked multiple times by the business press.
BTW, the US GDP numbers also include goods produced outside the USA by non-American labor.
If you strip out the work/products made by non-US employees of US corporations, you'll see that both the US GDP and exports have been in steep decline for the past decade.
Magnus.
It's not just IP laws (Score:4, Interesting)
In a perfect world, more production per unit of labor would mean that we would all have to work less to achieve the same level of prosperity. Unfortunately, that's not the case in the U.S. because our current intellectual property laws allow a relatively few people to take the lion's share of the benefit from the production being done.
Not just IP laws. The fact that a lot of industrial manufacturing is capital intensive combined with the relatively small segment of social networks that access to capital flows in. Or, as Marx might have said, most workers don't own the means of production under a capitalist system. Go back in time and reduce patent and copyright protections circa 1910 or even 1810 (where the benefits were more limited) and story of how the gains in the system play out for labor is pretty much going to be the same.
It's not that copyright and patent laws don't represent another barrier to entry: they sometimes do. But most of the time, they pretty much protect industrial competitors from other would-be industrial competitors.
We software geeks tend to see things a bit differently because for the last 20-30 years, we're one of the few groups lucky enough to be in an industry where we do more or less own the means of production (got a computer? And a compiler? Or interpreter for a capable language? Congratulations! You have production capacity!) because it's relatively affordable. So our barriers to entry are less about capital and more about other things like product awareness, network effects... and cost of compliance with the law, including copyright & patent law.
Maybe this will become more important in the future if it turns out that more industrial capacity becomes available for ownership down at the household level, and that's reason enough to make sure copyright and patent law are a balance bargain rather than a giveaway to lawyers and other people whose sense of entitlement is so great that they really, genuinely view ideas as genuine property, and so I think fighting against ACTA and its ilk are worthwhile... but let's not kid ourselves, copyrights and patents haven't really been the main tool of abuse in the relationship between capital and labor.
Re:First rebellion (Score:4, Insightful)
So in fact draconian intellectual property laws are antithetical to prosperity.
Isn't any draconian law antithetical to prosperity?
I think the interesting question in this case is where the line is between "draconian" and "impotent". You'd think there would be a huge area in between, but we don't seem to be able to find it: a few people are getting penalised absurdly for relatively minor infractions, while millions of people continue to break the law at the expense of legal rightsholders and get away with it.
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"Isn't any draconian law antithetical to prosperity?"
No, not really. You could pretty easily make a draconian law to that effect, but you can't possibly say that a law which (for example) allows suspected drunk drivers to be executed on the side of the road (extremely draconian) would realistically prevent everyone from being prosperous.
"I think the interesting question in this case is where the line is between "draconian" and "impotent". You'd think there would be a huge area in between, but we don't seem
Re:First rebellion (Score:5, Insightful)
Anybody who expects the democrats to be on the right side of the issue on patent and copyright issues is fooling themselves. I wish it weren't so, but progressives haven't yet figured out that maximal patent and copyright is a really bad thing. OTOH, the Republicans aren't any better. So at least until one or the other party gets a clue, this isn't an issue upon which we can really base our voting choices. If you care, the place to work this out is in the primary races--run against the incumbent yourself, and make copyright/patent balance your issue. You won't win, but you might raise some consciousnesses.
Re:First rebellion (Score:4, Insightful)
So at least until one or the other party gets a clue, this isn't an issue upon which we can really base our voting choices.
Still, it's funny looking back on Slashdot comments from 2008 and realizing how Obama's supporters had bamboozled themselves into thinking he was going to be "different" about this issue...
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Spotty, to be honest, but I wasn't actually expecting the Second Coming. The World is more willing to work with the US now. The war spendings are now in the budget, and I don't think we're torturing people anymore. We're not being scared like children every other day by orange alert levels. The health care reform - warts and all - seems to have a chance. The rich are no longer getting tax cuts that insult our intelligence. The economy is bad, but not as bad as it could easily have been. Compared to early 20
Re:First rebellion (Score:5, Funny)
You mean, we should start to stock ARM netbooks?
Re:First rebellion (Score:5, Insightful)
For every Vespasian, there's a Nero AND a Caligula.
idiot (Score:3, Insightful)
this is precisely capitalism, and precisely what you term as 'free market'.
in any environment in which you allow groups or individuals to become more powerful than others, eventually those who get to the top first subdue or eliminate others and a power hierarchy gets established. this is how precisely feudalism came to being in the first place.
this is the nature of social dynamics, and it will never change. unless there are rules and laws preventing anyone from becoming more powerful than others, there will
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Re:Coffee party (Score:5, Insightful)
The so-called Coffee Party is actually just another astroturf [bigjournalism.com] wing of the Obama campaign machine.
Re:Coffee party (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to raise a "tu quoque" argument here, but of course the Tea Party is precisely the same thing, just a part of a different political machine (the same one that brought Sarah Palin into the limelight).
Which brings me to Rule #1 of understanding any political organization: follow the money.
Re:Coffee party (Score:5, Insightful)
Do something about it and join the Coffee Party [coffeepartyusa.com]?
I love your solution to disagreeing with behavior by the Obama Administration: Join an organization started by members of Obama's Presidential campaign. You are worried about the tea party being taken over by special interests, so you suggest joining an organization that is basically just a subsidiary of the Democratic Party (which you seem to believe, likely correctly, is run by special interests).
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The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Honest personal opinion: If Obama gets ACTA passed, but -actually- fixes health care, I'm voting for him again.
Obviously, the two do not go hand in hand, and I'm making no statement as to the likelyhood of him actually fixing health care. If he passes ACTA, but not health care, I will be voting for someeone else and will publicly apologize for voting for him the first time. However, if saving political capital on this one means it can be spent on something that is a much bigger deal to me, then I don't at