posted
The websites are down for both of my senators, Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee. I guess it doesn't help that Wikipedia will look them up for you and give you direct links to their contact pages.
Posts: 1204 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
We could only freely share ideas and IP if we could do so and still enforce commercial patents and copyrights.
Take drug companies, for example. They wouldn't put all of the money involved into development if they didn't have a window of exclusive production.
Posts: 1204 | Registered: Mar 2003
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quote:...but I didn't know how to argue against someone who fundamentally disagrees with me at that level.
Perhaps a discussion of the consequences if such a policy were realized?
Hobbes
I tried that. I talked about the importance of patent protections and copyright laws and he said that was all crap, that research and development would happen without any protections because universities do all the real work anyway, and they don't require outside funding. And artists should just suck it up.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Aros: We could only freely share ideas and IP if we could do so and still enforce commercial patents and copyrights.
Take drug companies, for example. They wouldn't put all of the money involved into development if they didn't have a window of exclusive production.
That's exactly the example I used. The guy I was arguing with, as I said in my last post, claimed that Big Pharma just leeched off universities, who did all the real work and didn't really need any corporate money.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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posted
*nod* He's either an idiot or flat-out lying. The only way to really dispute the idea that medical research doesn't just work out of universities would be to believe that the reported statistics on research are just lying, and then you get into conspiracy theory territory.
While it won't lead to a productive conversation, it is amusing, such as one man who told me that on the one hand we can't trust the media because they don't report on the super-engine auto companies have in secret or how 9/11 was an inside job...but also claims that it's obvious violent crime is up everywhere steadily in the country, because when you turn on the news what do you see?
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
I wouldn't argue the need for copyright/patent but I do disagree with the implementation. For example, I don't feel guilt downloading books because I own them in paperback so why should I have to pay $10 to have them in my iphone? I got a few paperback books for Christmas and was kicking myself wishing I had instead got them for my iphone. Also, some of the pharmaceutical stuff is crazy. On one of my husbands drugs, it has like 13 years left before becoming a generic and at $400 a month, that is insane. The drug is just a tweak on another drug (gel instead of injection) so development should have been relatively (relatively being a key word there) small and it is a drug for a condition that affects a lot of people so the cost feels a lot more like gouging than protecting development to me.
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
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quote:I got into a long argument the other day with someone who basically disagreed with the fundamental idea of intellectual property, and thought all ideas should be free to share without any protections, but I didn't know how to argue against someone who fundamentally disagrees with me at that level.
You let them move to the libertarian seastead and/or the anarcho-X banana republic capitaltopia project, should either one be realized, and let them report back on their findings?
posted
The idea that universities "don't require outside funding" or even the more narrow "didn't really need any corporate money" are both based on a different model of universities than we have today. Grants from Pfizer or Lockheed Martin or Shell or <insert corporation here> have become an integral part of the modern American university (at least, within the technical colleges). Including other "outside" funding from federal grants through NSF, NIH, and various other government R&D agencies, I would guess a majority of most research universities' operating budgets are made up of "outside" funding (meaning non-endowment, non-tuition, non-direct government support)*.
I've often recommended the book Universities in the Marketplace by Derek Bok (former president of Harvard) as a good exposition on the ways in which universities have come to rely on outside funding, particularly corporate funding, and how it warps the university's role in society.
*Having written this, I realize that I don't really have a good sense for the relative balance of outside versus innate funding within, say, a moderately-sized state school. It could be that some universities would continue to operate quite well with no outside funding. But I believe the generation of IP would be considerably slowed as large research universities raised tuition, raided their endowments, and decreased the number of professors and researchers employed by the university.
Posts: 2926 | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
I called my congressman and both my senators, and emailed them.
I also blacked out three of my sites today.
I've also in general cut out about 90% of my online piracy over the years, which I was pretty bad about in my early twenties. There are a few things I still am not perfect about. The model has also slowly changed and influenced my habits. I can now watch new tv on the network websites, I can watch old tv on netflix. I can watch movies on netflix or hulu or amazon instant play, etc...I can listen to music on pandora or spotify.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
SR, if you're including things like NSF grants or state department grants for research then state universities are utterly reliant on them to survive, and basically all science-based research is funded this way (and none from the university itself). My father, in physics, pays his whole salary from the grants he gets for research, and then brings in several million on top of that in grants most of which goes to the university. The university ends up paying zero dollars for him or his research. Though many at least get paid for teaching I've met no one in the sciences or engineering who get any research money from the university itself. (I suppose you could say that they help pay by maintaining facilities, but the research grants pay for that and more, as most univerisities take at least hald the grant right off the top before the researcher can use it themsleves).
If you're talking specifically corporate money then in the fields I know of (mainly physics and structural engineering) it makes up maybe 5% of research budgets tops. I wouldn't be surprised to hear it's different in other fields but that's my experience.
quote:I got into a long argument the other day with someone who basically disagreed with the fundamental idea of intellectual property, and thought all ideas should be free to share without any protections, but I didn't know how to argue against someone who fundamentally disagrees with me at that level.
You let them move to the libertarian seastead and/or the anarcho-X banana republic capitaltopia project, should either one be realized, and let them report back on their findings?
quote:It may be true for most people, but it doesn't have to be.
It's our natural state. One has to be trained to integrate rather than ignore new information that conflicts with existing views. If I could change one thing about public education, it would be to make training in logic and critical thinking a requirement with the same priority as english, math, or science.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: How depressingly pessimistic!
It may be true for most people, but it doesn't have to be.
Even if this were true, if it is really only 'true for most people,' and there's a slim fraction of people for whom the truth of being a human being miraculously misses them, it still dooms the ideas that video is poking fun at.
I'm confused. Or maybe not... I think your two points that
1) Cognitive biases are innate biological facts of being human and not irrational acquired memes which can be rejected...
2) Libertarianism/Anarcho-Capitalism/Free Markets only work if everyone is perfectly rational and free from cognitive biases at all times.
Am I reading you correctly? I disagree with you on both counts, if so. If not, could you clarify?
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
There was a online debate between some very important and smart tech guru's (the dude from G4TechTV for instance) and made some interesting and I believe saliant points that there is virtually nothing you can ever do to stop piracy and that any effort to try to police it is inherently contradictory and damaging to the internet.
If you look at even CURRENT copywrite law from the DMCA you'll see how bad it is already, there's very small paper thin due process as it is SOPA and PIPA aren't just bad implementations, they are exactly how any form of regulation of piracy will look like in the future, there's virtually no to little middle ground.
The problem has and always will be that 'pirates' provide a better service than the IP originators and piracy only goes away not through increased DRM and other protections but through artists and companies sucking it up and providing better service.
A handful have, but there are still several that support it. Enough that it's no given that it won't pass.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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posted
I'm curious, is there anyone outside of the lobbying business who actually supports this? I've yet to see anyone who is not a corporate or political spokesperson say they think SOPA is a good idea.
On the issue of medical research, let's note you can't change a major thing like patent protection - not the same thing as copyright protection anyway - and then assume other things will be constant. For example, Big Pharma might, if they didn't get patent protection, try to rely on secrecy instead; that's what inventors did before patents, they didn't publish their results. Or, if the corporations got out of clinical research, universities might pick up the slack. It is true that currently universities do basic research on things like protein pathways; this forms the foundation of the clinical research that pharma companies do, but it requires a lot of work to make academic results into actual medicines. But this division of labour is not written into the structure of the universe, or even the US constitution. If pharma companies didn't do the clinical research, it seems possible that universities would fill the gap, getting paid in prestige - same as for their current basic research.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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A handful have, but there are still several that support it. Enough that it's no given that it won't pass.
It doesn't have the majority it would need to pass and to override a veto.
This is more about making sure that if the bill should pass, it *is* vetoed, or has gone through significant enough changes that most concerns have been addressed. In the case of a veto, you want your senators and reps aware that you are not personally satisfied with the bill's content, and encourage them to either drop it, or suggest revisions. This is not a win/lose situation; some form of industry protection legislation is likely to pass at some point, but the question is how many inroads that will give private business into government regulation and free speech.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:Members of the Senate are rushing for the exits in the wake of the Internet's unprecedented protest of the Protect IP Act (PIPA). At least 13 members of the upper chamber announced their opposition on Wednesday. In a particularly severe blow for Hollywood, at least five of the newly-opposed Senators were previously co-sponsors of the Protect IP Act. (Update: since we ran this story, the tally is up to 18 Senators, of which seven are former co-sponsors. See below.)
Given the horrendous quantity of pure bribery cash that groups like the MPAA have been hurling at congress to implement laws for themselves, though (it's really a lot of money) it is guaranteed that we'll get another go at this carnival of stupidity.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
If you follow the money and see what their common 'arrangements' they have with organizations, it becomes less astonishing and much more straightforwardly understandable.
Still as completely idiotic, but straightforwardly so. Doesn't matter what we're talking about: pharmaceuticals, agribiz, or media — money buys votes.
Votes for very stupid things.
The pirate bay response:
quote:INTERNETS, 18th of January 2012. PRESS RELEASE, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE. Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would "do for the eye what the phonograph does for the ear". He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, he was also the first person to own the copyright to a motion picture.
Because of Edisons patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures in the North american east coast. The movie studios therefore relocated to California, and founded what we today call Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent. There was also no copyright to speak of, so the studios could copy old stories and make movies out of them - like Fantasia, one of Disney's biggest hits ever.
So, the whole basis of this industry, that today is screaming about losing control over immaterial rights, is that they circumvented immaterial rights. They copied (or put in their terminology: "stole") other peoples creative works, without paying for it. They did it in order to make a huge profit. Today, they're all successful and most of the studios are on the Fortune 500 list of the richest companies in the world. Congratulations - it's all based on being able to re-use other peoples creative works. And today they hold the rights to what other people create. If you want to get something released, you have to abide to their rules. The ones they created after circumventing other peoples rules.
The reason they are always complainting about "pirates" today is simple. We've done what they did. We circumvented the rules they created and created our own. We crushed their monopoly by giving people something more efficient. We allow people to have direct communication between eachother, circumventing the profitable middle man, that in some cases take over 107% of the profits (yes, you pay to work for them). It's all based on the fact that we're competition. We've proven that their existance in their current form is no longer needed. We're just better than they are.
quote:On Weibo, joking about SOPA’s similarities to Chinese censorship was sensitive enough that some posts on the subject were almost certainly deleted (though it can be hard to know). But among those that survived, a commentator known as Dr. Zhang wrote: “I’ve come up with a perfect solution: You can come to China to download all your pirated media, and we’ll go to America to discuss politically sensitive subjects.”
quote:Originally posted by Bella Bee: Well, toady the FBI have shut down Megaupload and had people arrested all over the world. I guess this is where it starts.
Can't find a news link about it in English yet. ETA: Okay, here we go.
And Anonymous has retaliated in a show of force I am a bit blown away by.
posted
Same here. This is probably the biggest and most ballsy attack by Anonymous yet. Shutting down the FBI website? Wow. The fact that they have the know how and power to do something like this scares me a bit. While I don't approve of them carrying out the attack, I agree with their reasons.
Anonymous basically just made an enemy in the US government. They may have only been a minor annoyance before, but I have a feeling the FBI isn't going to take this lightly.
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Nov 2006
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posted
It's a symbolic blow, like Tom says. How seriously the FBI and the rest of the government takes it seems to be up to them at some point, but I have to wonder what resources they could commit to hindering or catching Anonymous now that they weren't already.
It's also a symbolic attack in the sense that it makes the government look foolish and inept in the eyes of many, and who wants that sort of organization with powers such as SOPA?
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:There’s no evidence that the United States is currently suffering from an excessive amount of online piracy, and there is ample reason to believe that a non-zero level of copyright infringement is socially beneficial. Online piracy is like fouling in basketball. You want to penalize it to prevent it from getting out of control, but any effort to actually eliminate it would be a cure much worse than the disease.
ETA: Another issue related to the "dead weight loss" he mentions is when there just isn't enough of an audience for an existing piece of intellectual property to be sold profitably. Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future will never be released on DVD, but thanks to Youtube I can revisit my youthful love of it for free.
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
Based on the amount of dreck I see on Netflix and Hulu, I think a lot of that old stuff that can't muster the sales for a DVD release is still being legally licensed and distributed.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
But not Captain Power! You're talking to a guy whose recent Youtube viewings include StarCom: US Space Force, Inhumanoids and the failed pilot White Dwarf.
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
I got a form e-mail back from my senator (only one of them) explaining to me why PIPA is a great idea. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
posted
Chris Dodd, chairman and chief lobbyist of the MPAA, went on fox news and said this!
quote:"Those who count on quote 'Hollywood' for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who's going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake,"
Yes! No embellishment! It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It's straightforward and overt. He is directly and publicly threatening politicians that oppose him by not being corrupt enough to stay bought.
Then, there was this:
quote:The NY Times has a fascinating, if ridiculous, interview with Chris Dodd about everything that happened regarding SOPA/PIPA. It starts off with the suggestion that the real problem here was that, due to Senate ethics rules, Dodd can't personally lobby Congress until 2013. You may recall that, before leaving the Senate, Chris Dodd promised that he would not become a lobbyist -- a promise he broke just a few months later in taking the top job at the MPAA. And make no mistake about it: Dodd's role is as a lobbyist. He is barred from personally lobbying Congress, but can lobby the White House, and is the main "strategist" behind the MPAA's PIPA/SOPA strategy trainwreck.
But the bigger issue in the article is that Dodd still doesn't seem to understand what happened....
*goes off to dance in a very unsubtle political cartoon where every visual element is labeled 'lobbying,' 'bribery,' 'democracy for sale' 'this is money that is being used to buy elections and lawmaking, it is in a giant sack, a pig in a suit is holding it how can i make this a more blatant visual analogy' and 'citizens united'*
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
The ideas behind SOPA/PIPA aren't over yet. The forces that sponsored it are still out there, and they'll be back.
Posts: 338 | Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
Actually, in this case, Earl is absolutely right. The forces that sponsored SOPA/PIPA are still out there, and the bills are already being pushed through again. Bad law never gets defeated for good; it just gets delayed until someone runs out of money.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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quote:Yes! No embellishment! It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It's straightforward and overt. He is directly and publicly threatening politicians that oppose him by not being corrupt enough to stay bought.
Is it more corrupt to accept a bribe to vote a certain way and then chicken out at the last moment, or accept the bribe and then cast your vote as agreed despite pressure from those you represent? Honest question: it's hard to tell what the right thing to do is when you've sold your morals that far downstream to begin with.
posted
I'm just giving you crap because of the way you phrased your statement.
Yeah, the groups that very publicly backed SOPA still exist, and still want to achieve those results.
Calling them "forces" and saying they are "still out there" makes them sound like a shadowy, nefarious conspiracy instead of just greedy and misguided people trying to solve what they see as a problem. At least, it sounded that way to me. Especially coming from a die-hard Ron Paul supporter, because, frankly, Ron Paul is a conspiracy nut, and so are a lot of his fans.
In general, your language sounded very ominous and mysterious, so I jumped to a conclusion that this was intended. Sorry. I agree with you that the RIAA and the MPAA and SOPA's other major sponsors still exist, since I think their dissolution would have probably made the news.
Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Yes! No embellishment! It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It's straightforward and overt. He is directly and publicly threatening politicians that oppose him by not being corrupt enough to stay bought.
Is it more corrupt to accept a bribe to vote a certain way and then chicken out at the last moment, or accept the bribe and then cast your vote as agreed despite pressure from those you represent? Honest question: it's hard to tell what the right thing to do is when you've sold your morals that far downstream to begin with.
Hobbes
And yet, with the amounts of money needed to run for office and the way we have allowed unlimited corporate money, how is any politician supposed to get elected without being beholden to corporate interests in just the way Dodd was talking about?
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
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quote:Yes! No embellishment! It's pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It's straightforward and overt. He is directly and publicly threatening politicians that oppose him by not being corrupt enough to stay bought.
Is it more corrupt to accept a bribe to vote a certain way and then chicken out at the last moment, or accept the bribe and then cast your vote as agreed despite pressure from those you represent? Honest question: it's hard to tell what the right thing to do is when you've sold your morals that far downstream to begin with.
Hobbes
Both are corrupt. They have both taken bribes to further their political career. One is weak in the sense that they are intimidated enough to drop their bargain with their bribers, one is weak in the sense that they are coerced enough to stick with the bargain to their own detriment, 'or else.' The difference between the two, as stated, offers no compelling argument that one is taking a less amoral path due to their response to unexpected challenges to the tactical validity of their selling out.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I didn't want to go into details at the time, so I used the more abstract "forces," but specifically this means institutions like the RIAA and MPAA and individual lawmakers and lawyers that support them. These institutions and people still exist, and they still want tougher regulation of intellectual property on the internet. What political clout got them PIPA/SOPA is still with us since these organizations and people haven't run out of money or willingness to push their regulatory ideas in Congress.
Eventually they will try again. They probably see recent events as a temporary setback.
Posts: 338 | Registered: Jan 2001
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posted
Don't worry about it.
Posts: 338 | Registered: Jan 2001
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Blayne Bradley
unregistered
posted
Being a conspiracy theorist when it comes down to the regulation of the internet is actually the reasonable properly paranoid stance; for example International Treaties actually trump the constitution and can side step the first amendment issues of the SOPA and PIPA bills and generally harder to notice or fight against like ACTA which is a treaty currently under discussion I believe that will force many other countries to adopt SOPA and PIPA like regulation of the internet while consolidating it in the USA.
Its basically a tower defence game for the freedom of the internet.
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