Save the Internet ... before its to late!
-
These copyright bills freak me out. if you have ever been locked out of a site without having done anything wrong it is a very stressful and frustrating experience. the advantages of an open internet vastly outweigh the disadvantages.
Im not saying anything goes- I am happy to see genuine abuse being punished, but in this current climate of attempted lockdowns around the world and with another potential attack by the US on yet another middle eastern country (funny... that happens to have large reserves of oil) looming, i think the corporations need to take a backseat for a while before they lead us all into the abyss with their appalling use of disinformation, dodgy IAEA report etc.
its kind of like the way Michael Bloomberg is suddenly interested in the cleanliness of Zucotti park while the cleanliness of the rest of new york is not really as important.
Leave the internet alone, thanks. Our survival may just depend on it.
Heres Wired's opinion: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/11/blacklist-bill-analysis/
-
Jeff, I take your point but cannot agree with the proposed action. No, I have not read the Bill in its entirety only sections. I simply do not trust Governments, which are under the influence of the Big Corps, to act in a fair manner.
The way this thing is being set up, I still feel the onus will be on the accused to prove their innocence rather than the accuser to prove their guilt. Also money talks! Particularly when it come to the hire of the Legal Eagles. Now if they inserted a clause that the accused defense legal fee would be paid by the accuser and the accused would only have to pay this fee when actually convicted, that would be a different matter. But you can be sure that won't happen because it will probably fall outside of the criminal range.
On the copyright issue infringements, it looks to me that its mostly the big name record and movie companies that are behind this. Let's just go back in time a little. Prior to the Net, if I wanted a particular song, I went to my local record shop and bought the record. This stated changing when the tape came into common use.
It was the same case with a movie. If I wanted to see the movie, I went to the cinema. This started to change when the video machines came into the picture.
What I'm getting at here is, prior to music and movies going into tape they were hardly ever pirated. Once these industries made the decision to move / sell their product in this fashion they left themselves open, little by little, until what we have now.
From what I see, they have invested next to nothing from their vast profits into technology that would prohibit copyright infringement. So far the extra VAST profit far outweighs the loss to pirates. But now they want to do things the political way and create a system that, will most likely be abuse left, right and center for things other than copyright protection. Let's be realistic! the politicians care little or nothing about copyright protection. They see this as something that will suit their aims / ambitions, censorship! Its been achieved on most TV and Newspapers and all that remains is the Net.
In the case of software there are ways that companies can further protect their product. The dongle is crude way to do this but again, I imagine if resources were put into protection, we would see fairly fool-proof systems coming on the scene. These companies are smart enough to create brilliant software, surely can could produce brilliant protection!
As far as I'm concerned the onus should be on the digital product producers to protect their property in the first place and not try to place restrictions on the marketplace, that will be open to abuse, to protect their property for them.
If I had a shop I would be sure to lock it up good and tight every evening! I would like to see the local police having any extra powers other than investigation, arrest and prosecution. This proposed law could be compared IMO to allowing the police 'shut down' whoever they had suspicions about and only release them when they prove their innocence!
Its the same old story! Money talks! And Big Money Talks Big!, particularly when its talking to politicians! The Net was designed to do what it does, we have to accept the good and the bad, otherwise it will be a crippled duck! If things keep going the way they are heading. This place could be shut down for having the discussion we are currently having
-
Thanks Paul, I read the Wired article, looks balanced to me!
Sometimes when I want to learn about a particular Bill, I look up who is behind it! In this case the main proposer is a gentleman by the name of Lamar Smith. I have looked him up on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamar_S._Smith and was not impressed, then again I imagine Mr Smith is not impressed with it either!
One thing that struck me was this,
'On June 24, 2011, Lamar Smith's Facebook page was flooded with protests from citizens, asking him to change his position on the bill and calling for a fair hearing. Smith's Facebook page was temporarily taken down soon after, to be returned void of all comments related to H.R. 2306 and with future comments disabled. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) encouraged MMJ patients and activists to contact Smith via his phone, which was soon turned to an automatic answering machine, stating the office was closed'
This man has his own agenda in my opinion. As a public representative he was not prepared to LEAVE his constituents comments on his FaceBook page! Someone should tell him that its required to take the rough with the smooth in public life and most definitely not censor his constituents opinions or worse not allow them to voice their opinions. If he gets his Bill passed, I imagine Wikipedia will be on his list of 'take downs' also.
The other proposer is a gentleman by the name of Melvin Watt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_WattNot much about this gentleman except what looks to me to be some gray areas with certain fundraising activity. Wiki states,
Ethics Investigation
'Congressman Watts was formally investigated by the Office of Congressional Ethics over a series of fundraising events he was involved in. On December 9, 2009 Watt held a fundraiser and soon after withdrew a proposal he had introduced to subject auto dealers to more stringent regulations. The fundraiser brought donors mainly from large finance companies such as Goldman Sachs.[14] Watt was later cleared of charges or wrongdoing.[15]
In what the nonpartisan Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington called “disgraceful”[16], Watt introduce legislation to slash funding for the Office of Congressional Ethics.'
.... figures!
Again, I imagine he would have Wikipedia on his 'hit list' also!
Question! How would you feel if Wikipedia was shut down?
-
@unknownuser said:
Jeff, I take your point but cannot agree with the proposed action. No, I have not read the Bill in its entirety only sections. I simply do not trust Governments, which are under the influence of the Big Corps, to act in a fair manner.
We've lived with Big Business and Government as bed partners for years and the consuming public reaped the rewards. It's hasn't been until recently, when the world's economy turned a fiscal somersault, that anyone got their ire up and made "Big Business is Evil" noises.
@unknownuser said:
The way this thing is being set up, I still feel the onus will be on the accused to prove their innocence rather than the accuser to prove their guilt. Also money talks! Particularly when it come to the hire of the Legal Eagles. Now if they inserted a clause that the accused defense legal fee would be paid by the accuser and the accused would only have to pay this fee when actually convicted, that would be a different matter. But you can be sure that won't happen because it will probably fall outside of the criminal range.
I don't see why you think would happen. This bill is intended to provided the legal groundwork for protection of copyright and IP infringement cases. What I do see is a lot of paranoia and fear-mongering about how evil business interests and corrupt government politicians will turn it to some (undefined) kind of personal gain.
@unknownuser said:
On the copyright issue infringements, it looks to me that its mostly the big name record and movie companies that are behind this. Let's just go back in time a little. Prior to the Net, if I wanted a particular song, I went to my local record shop and bought the record. This stated changing when the tape came into common use.
It was the same case with a movie. If I wanted to see the movie, I went to the cinema. This started to change when the video machines came into the picture.
What I'm getting at here is, prior to music and movies going into tape they were hardly ever pirated. Once these industries made the decision to move / sell their product in this fashion they left themselves open, little by little, until what we have now.
Well, from a historical perspective, while piracy was happening back then (a certain Far Eastern nation has been making illegal copies of media for decades) it was not as easy as it is today. But "excusing" piracy due to lack of effective anti-piracy safeguards isn't right either. We could talk about DRM then and the furor it raised when software companies and media companies tried to implement it as a strategy to deter piracy. The consuming public was livid!
@unknownuser said:
From what I see, they have invested next to nothing from their vast profits into technology that would prohibit copyright infringement. So far the extra VAST profit far outweighs the loss to pirates. But now they want to do things the political way and create a system that, will most likely be abuse left, right and center for things other than copyright protection. Let's be realistic! the politicians care little or nothing about copyright protection. They see this as something that will suit their aims / ambitions, censorship! Its been achieved on most TV and Newspapers and all that remains is the Net.
Realistic! Mike, the reality is that piracy is already rampant! It's already abusive and it show little to no signs of slowing down. What would you prefer in place of a sustainable law? Anarchic responses like Wikileaks, Denial of Service attacks against servers by hacker groups who think they have the "higher road" for Internet moral codes?
@unknownuser said:
In the case of software there are ways that companies can further protect their product. The dongle is crude way to do this but again, I imagine if resources were put into protection, we would see fairly fool-proof systems coming on the scene. These companies are smart enough to create brilliant software, surely can could produce brilliant protection!
I worked in computers systems, network and software for over 20 years. I can tell you, there is no software solution that cannot be reversed engineered and compromised. The most effective form of protection is a physical device such as a dongle, or encoded SD card. BUT, the public, for the most part, doesn't care for those kinds of solutions ... it adds cost and that, my friend, isn't what the public wants to see.
@unknownuser said:
As far as I'm concerned the onus should be on the digital product producers to protect their property in the first place and not try to place restrictions on the marketplace, that will be open to abuse, to protect their property for them.
They are. They are asking the government to produce a law that gives them the resources and legal position to protect their, and their clients interests. They are not asking to place "restrictions" except those that would insure the legal protection of their property through due process of law. Does anyone think for a minute that Pepsi would want to see their logo on anything besides their products or a contracted second party item, such as a banner, poster, etc. Not on your life.
@unknownuser said:
If I had a shop I would be sure to lock it up good and tight every evening! I would like to see the local police having any extra powers other than investigation, arrest and prosecution. This proposed law could be compared IMO to allowing the police 'shut down' whoever they had suspicions about and only release them when they prove their innocence!
Read the bill in it's entirety.
@unknownuser said:
Its the same old story! Money talks! And Big Money Talks Big!, particularly when its talking to politicians! The Net was designed to do what it does, we have to accept the good and the bad, otherwise it will be a crippled duck! If things keep going the way they are heading.
Well, if OWS (for instance) is any measure of how the common person intends to change government, I won't lose any sleep and won't expect to see any INTELLIGENT changes made.
@unknownuser said:
This place could be shut down for having the discussion we are currently having
If it weren't for the eye roll at the end, I'd say that is a fairly paranoid statement to make. The last time I looked, Orwell's 1984 wasn't a reality, the Thought Police could never read my wife's mind, and I still don't have to "show my papers" when I cross state lines in the US.
Cheers.
-
Most of SketchUcation's advertisers are negatively effected by piracy -- some will be eventually driven out of business by it.
That directly impacts everyone who uses this place for "free speech" without paying for the service... so you cannot have it both ways -- there's no such thing as an endless free ride.
If you'd like to see how rampant piracy is simply do a search on my name. Over half of the top 50 results will be links to pirated versions of my tutorial video series... every person who pirates my videos takes me one step closer to being unemployed.
Best,
Jason. -
The measure for lowing the piracy is not censor. Indeed is not a simple problem, but the solution must be one adequate. Behind websites and cracked software are real human beings ! Those should be punished for their actions.
-
This thread is going into the electronic piracy direction.
I doubt online piracy is making many people unemployed.Though I'm not saying it doesn't have an impact. It's an old argument that seems to make sense to me; most people who get pirated stuff online either won't or can't buy those products, so they weren't really potential buyers. Thus the people making the product didn't lose any money but gained notoriety. I think if you play your cards right you can make piracy work for you and win more than you lose. I don't see many big game companies or film studios going out of business despite the piracy. In fact they make tens of millions of dollars if not hundreds of millions on a regular basis.
To be clear this is not about making money with said pirated products but only the case for personal use.The internet has a more complex impact on the global level than people think. Laws like this are products of short minded politicians and corporations who don't know how to exploit a new technology/phenomenon.
-
I'd love to hear some current SketchUcation advertisers weigh in on your POV.
I'm not one to rail against piracy, but to deny it has any impact is pretty naive (to say the least).
Just think of all the development resources that are wasted trying to prevent piracy -- if those same resources were devoted to making the software better then all users would be better off.
Also the economics of scale say that if more people actually purchased then everybody could pay less.
So right off the top you have higher prices and less new features for paying customers as a result of piracy.
Best,
Jason. -
I have to agree with Jason. We've struggled with pirated content ever since we opened...even though, as a subscription service we don't suffer the wholesale pillaging of CD/DVD content that retail companies like Dosch or Archmodels (or Jason) do.
We even got the same twisted logic from some idiot who decided to post a load of our content onto the 3D Warehouse. He thought he ought to be thanked for giving us publicity, completely ignoring the fact that we didn't need publicity if we couldn't sell our services at all...because some moron was giving away all our content for free.
It's utterly naive to think that software companies thrive on piracy or even welcome it. They try to make the best of it, which is entirely different. Nor do most software companies make millions of dollars. Some game companies might as their products are generally under $50 and compare well in terms of entertainment hours per buck with, say, going to see a movie...so pirated copies, although numerically impressive, will form a fairly low ratio compared with actual sales. However most other companies really struggle; and some (like Fo2PIX, who made the best photoshop effects plugin I've ever seen...Buzz Pro) actually go bust.
-
Okay Jeff, I took your advise and read the entire Bill. I must admit, that after reading it, it looks reasonable and fair. Also that many of the outcries would appear to be unfounded! But is it the thin edge of the wedge as many feel?
Of course I also agree that the USA Lawmakers have the right and should make laws to protect its citizen and that the USA Courts should enact those laws. But, in this case I don't think its quite a simple and straightforward as that.
The USA is in a key position when if comes to the Net, after all the 'invented' it! I could see this law quite easily being used by entities that want to censor and use copyright infringement issues etc as a means to that end. The actual process lends itself to this, again its a deep pockets rule situation.
I think the only way out of this is for an international body of Internet providers to be set up. I think we could all agree that the vast majority of providers are law abiding entities? If so, I would prefer to place my trust in them, rather than the US Court system. Please do not get me wrong, I am not saying that the US Court system is in any way biased / unfair. Its just that money gains access more quickly than no money!
An International Body of Internet Providers, would I feel, be the appropriate governing entity to monitor, adjudicate and control Internet Providers. They could easily, after due process, have rouge sites taken down.
Of course, such a body could not be set up in the USA as I feel it would turn into something similar to the UN ..... but that's another story.
Maybe it should have an office in every Country in the World that is a member with no HQ! This would make it a more unbiased body in my opinion. It would be self governing and that is something that I do not fully trust but I don't see a better alternative.
-
@jason_maranto said:
but to deny it has any impact is pretty naive (to say the least).
I did not say that it doesn't have any impact,
@marian said:Though I'm not saying it doesn't have an impact.
I'm sure your point is a valid one.I do agree that piracy can and does affect businesses, but not all and not in the same way.
@alan fraser said:
It's utterly naive to think that software companies thrive on piracy or even welcome it.
I didn't say they thrive on it, but instead of trying to cover the Grand Canyon with a band aid I think their efforts would be better spent if they aknowledged they can't stop the pirating of their products and try to do something in order to benefit from it. I don't know what exactly but that doesn't mean it can't be done.
All I'm saying is that to completely stop piracy we would have to demolish the internet and its freedoms and instead of doing that businesses could use methods that bypass piracy. I don't think it's impossible it just hasn't been done before.
-
@marian said:
I didn't say they thrive on it, but instead of trying to cover the Grand Canyon with a band aid I think their efforts would be better spent if they aknowledged they can't stop the pirating of their products and try to do something in order to benefit from it. I don't know what exactly but that doesn't mean it can't be done.
If something could be done then the person who figured it out would be a billionaire instantly... with that many billions of dollars riding on piracy if something productive and useful could be done somebody would have by now.
@marian said:
All I'm saying is that to completely stop piracy we would have to demolish the internet and its freedoms and instead of doing that businesses could use methods that bypass piracy. I don't think it's impossible it just hasn't been done before.
If find it interesting that often the countries with the least political freedoms are the ones who most take advantage of the Internets "freedoms" to pirate... interesting correlation? just a coincidence?
Controlling/regulating the internet is something that is inevitable and has been ever since people starting making and losing money on it.
Best,
Jason. -
@jason_maranto said:
If find it interesting that often the countries with the least political freedoms are the ones who most take advantage of the Internets "freedoms" to pirate... interesting correlation? just a coincidence?
I do not think that would be the case. I rather think that it is more related to the financial situation of the general population. Believe me that (apart from the militant freeloaders), most of the people would rather be happy to afford copyrighted material than having to hassle with cracks and all the hazard it implements.
-
Mike, I think your idea for an international body to police the 'net and provide anti-piracy monitoring is a grand one. And, even though I'm a US citizen, I'd be as happy as corn flakes if the central headquarters for this organization were anywhere else but the US. I know how our political system is viewed at times, and I agree there is some substance to those views as well. Also, having locations in various countries is wise as it allows for legal prosecution (when needed) to proceed under local sovereign law and not some "mandate of the Americans".
[CAUTION: ANECDOTE AHEAD]
I was traveling down a major US highway a few months ago over in the eastern US and along side the road there was a billboard with a sign on it that said simply; "Pornography hurts everyone." Erected by a co-operative group of local congregations, it was no doubt in response to a business that was selling pornographic materials a bit further up the highway.I think of piracy like that. It hurts everyone, at all levels, from the guy burning the midnight oil writing software to the folks selling it legitimately on the 'net. Sure, we can point to Big Business and the evils thereof, but businesses are owned by stock and shareholders. Just regular folks and we expect a profit from our investments.
The online piracy problem is complex, and while I'd be the last person on earth to suggest that we need more legislation (I'm staunchly libertarian) or more laws to deal with the situation, it seems necessary. We had to establish laws to deal with pornography to protect citizens, we'll have to do the same with IP piracy too it seems ...
Cheers.
-
@gaieus said:
I do not think that would be the case. I rather think that it is more related to the financial situation of the general population. Believe me that (apart from the militant freeloaders), most of the people would rather be happy to afford copyrighted material than having to hassle with cracks and all the hazard it implements.
Oh, I definatly understand that -- I have often wondered if some of the viruses we see aren't made by companies to target the pirates... but maybe I'm paranoid
Don't get me wrong I pretty laid back about the whole thing... but I'm not oblivious to the realities of the situation.
I'm mostly just sad about the huge waste of human manpower in this pirating thing -- after all you have the companies continually investing in stronger licensing schemes to try to defeat the pirates and you have the crackers investing time and energy in breaking those schemes... if only all that time, energy, and expertise could instead be put into creating stuff we'd all be much better off.
But that's just my idealism talking -- in reality I know darker motivations win out over ideals most of the time.
Best,
Jason. -
You know what pisses me off is when pirates do not crack jut for the hack of it or because they think they are the moodern age Robin Hoods or even because they can simply not afford the copyrighted material but when they make huge (and read HUGE) money by reselling these cracked software in 3rd World countries.
We all know examples (even banned from here) like that. Now I agree that theyshould be shut down (and locked up).
-
@idahoj said:
Mike, I think your idea for an international body to police the 'net and provide anti-piracy monitoring is a grand one.
That's me! A man of 'Grand' ideas but no clue how to get them implemented at the scale that is required in order that they could be effective! On the other hand, isn't voicing such and idea and getting folks to also back it, a start.
This Bill will get through in some fashion, I have no doubt. It will probably have a few amendments tagged on before it does and I think that might be no harm. However, I am still nervous about the ways that it could be abused by the big wallet guys.
Maybe in time the Net providers, the genuine ones anyway, will see that it is in their interest to form into a consolidated international group and self monitor / regulate their industry in a democratic fashion. Until now they may not have seen the need or a good reason to do so but this Bill could change that, particularity if abuses creep in and I have no doubt they will.
Advertisement