In related news.. Thousands of co-location facilities and web hosting companies have fled the United States bringing much needed jobs to Latin America, India and Eastern Europe.

Are they *trying* to turn the US into more of a backwater than it already is? Almost all of our infrastructure is too old, as a country we don’t believe in science and our politicians are very bribe-able.

There will be a EULA saying that if you upload content to the Internet, you’re taking legal liability and responsibility for having checked its provenance and ownership.

You make a claim to ownership an permission and you have to back it up.

It will get tested in court, and fines will roll out (eventually). Most of those fines will be eaten in legal fees.

If you want to put a stop to this, you can’t just fight the government, although that is absolutely required. You also have to get rid of the businessmen and the business model that has led to this. And you don’t do it by downloading music and movies of their artists, you do it by turning your backs on them — all of them, both the companies and the artists who are enabling them. There’s a whole world of people out there who would love for you to download their music and watch their films for free because they just want to be heard. Go to archive.org and see, and that’s just one example. And support your local musicians and artists — go see local artists at local gigs.

And then fight like hell to rip these cancerous miscreants out of our government once and for all.

Well, apparently you posted it anonymously and from a different IP, because it’s not in the system.

Does this mean that the Chinese guy suing J.K.Rowling for stealing the idea to Harry Potter could have everything related to Harry Potter removed from the internet? He was actually suing.
-That’s what it seems to say, but I’m no lawyer. Just trying to wrap my head around how this would work.

And really, to the fools that argue FOR big business, you could not be more pathetic. Fighting on the side of business (THAT YOU’RE NOT EVEN INVOLVED IN!) over the rights of people (including, yourself). Grab a pair of balls.

*OR*, you can actually have industries which change over time, capable of, you know, this thing we call “Free Market Competition?”

Fan-made productions like Star Trek New Voyages have produced MOVIE-QUALITY fare for years now (and have received rather prestigious awards to prove it), and all on the backs of volunteers. These groups can make movies far more cheaply, and with comparable quality, than the existing, archaic, and uncompetitive incumbent organizations.

When I was in business, I had to close my doors because I was out-priced by a cheaper competitor. Why should the rules governing MY world be any different for the media producers? Did I throw a temper tantrum? No. Did I petition Big Government to enact laws explicitly intended to protect me (*AHEM*AT&T*AHEM*)? No. I took it like a man, gave it my best shot, and closed my doors after 4 years of business.

You know what? As of right now, I openly advocate piracy of commercial content, all the while supporting the fan-made production houses that are savvy enough to exploit the Internet as a distribution medium. If you want to support media producers, give it to the people who deserve it most. Civil disobedience, as a previous poster indicated, can be quite powerful.

People will pay for material that’s actually worth paying for. If folks aren’t buying the Big Media’s content, maybe there’s a problem with the content or the distribution channel, and not with consumers. Did they ever think of that?!

No.

I suggest you should get real. People have been paying for their content since forever, and getting utter DRECK in return. Serves the producer’s right.

What do they want? The usual, power, money, status. The pattern is over and over to betray the base for some less popular agenda that they think will result in campaign contributions or broaden their support (i.e. please those who didn’t vote for them).

Why do they do this? How can they get away with it? Simple, where you gonna go? The other guy will almost always be just as scary sounding next time as you remember from the last time. Those who don’t bother to vote are the rational ones.

Only when they are out of power can a politician be relied upon to defend the interests of their base.

So you’re essentially saying that we should trust the government’s vision of copyright control by attacking the writer’s approach to the story? That’s your argument? History has shown us that we (being citizens) cannot trust the government. That’s not me speaking, but the deep baritone of history. If you need evidence, feel free to evaluate the Nixon administration, the Bush administration, the Clinton administration, etc. Plenty of evidence there for you to review. And speaking of evidence:

RE: no evidence whatsoever…downloaded a song.

Evidence can’t really exist when precedence doesn’t exist. Likely because we’re relatively new to this information age thing, but missteps can occur and its best to be vigilant. I’m sorry but that argument is fallacious.

RE: harassing users

This is a blog. You choose to read, then choose to either believe or dismiss. No one is harassing anyone. You complain of Cory’s choice of tone when you may be better served considering your own words. To be clear, I’m not attacking you here, but you’re short-circuiting your own argument when you wield language like a pair of brass knuckles rather than a handshake.

RE: emotionally blackmail – great phrase. See above note concerning tone.

RE: a tiny handful of Flickr cases

And a not-so-tiny chunk of YouTube cases. The fact here is that copyright law, as it exists, is a wee-bit old and needs to be re-evaluated because it’s being wielded like a weapon for big businesses. It hampers innovation when creative people take existing content and create new things with it, but are threatened with a lawsuit and financial destruction. This is not a blank check for theft, mind you.

Times change. As people, we have to change with them. I don’t think it’s out of line to suggest that our laws should also be re-evaluated.

A humble suggestion:

Return to the days of 26-year copyrights, renewable only for a large fee.

All works now protected revert to the regime in place when they were created.

Software binaries are copyrighted for the longer of 5 years or the duration of significant manufacturer support. (MS DOS 1.0 has 65 years to go, still.)

The fair use exception is expansive and presumptive.

Punishment for proven willfull violation of the much more limited copyright is severe.

i’m in.

We are the people. We are the internet.

I am a research lawyer, an american, living for the past several years in China.

as to this article, i agree we should see some sources or quotes; these should provide a trail back to the parties who drafted such nonsense. if its all true, it is dangerous, indeed.

further, for a law to be considered ‘enacted into positive law’ [after congressional muster] it must be recorded in the Federal Register for at least 60 days. your local law librarian can easily show you this. this will allow time for exposure and public debate and outcry.

also, as to China… although we all know china is a ‘communist’ country, i find it much freer here than in the USA, which has, with astonishing rapidity become a police state.

yes, the Chinese have recently blocked youtube and facebook. while this is just an inconvenience for some people, it is a loss of lifeblood for others. just now, millions of chinese are buying into VPNs and still going strong. this puts millions of RMB [chinese yuan /dollars] back into the IT/Comm community, and things continue without a hitch…

while this internet Treaty is an important issue, a much larger issue looms on the horizon: world reserve currency. the US is set to lose its position as the world’s only reserve currency. i speak chinese, and i have edited documents to this effect. i will make them available upon request…

if this should happen, and it seems quite likely, america and other countries tied to her currency will experience a very significant change of lifestyle… it would be drastic…

so, while you all are fighting this necessary and difficult fight, please avail yourself of some other info about issues which could change western life for the worse, and for a long time.

thanks for reading this.
^j^

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/0,1000000097,39843951,00.htm

Whether or not this is covert slimeballing of Obama, or RIAA put-ups … douchebag politicians the world over think it’s an amazing idea. The UK, Australia, Canada, Sweden, France… there’ll always be some hack back-bench politico willing to raise a motion because, you know, the internet and computer games and rap music makes rape happen.

Since you can’t win the war on drugs, you can’t win a war in Afghanistan or Iraq, it’s no longer cool to victimise blacks, Jews or women or Muslims or some other minority, why not pick on a nice, faceless, anonymous target. The Internet. Nobody knows what it is, nobody knows where it comes from…

“…Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.
Because my ISP had my blog and email shut down on a blind accusation.”