81–90 of 269 posts
Zoe Lofgren's statements were really good, and her criticisms of the way the hearing was structured (5 for, 1 against, no engineers) were compelling. Her question of, "How many sites would you want to see taken down?" and the dodging is telling, too. And Darrell Issa did a phenomenal job calling into question the need for the legislation because of the function of the ITC & usefulness of administrative law solutions…
If this is still a terrible idea, it's not an obviously terrible one.
"...protect American jobs..." "...innocent civilians and American soldiers at risk..." Who would have thought BitTorrent was such a threat to American civilisation?
Please just stop. The people/bands I download are not ones I'd pay for right out of the gate. For example: Pink Floyd. I hear a lot about them, but don't know if I'd like them. So I downloaded some of their popular albums for free and gave them a listen. After recovering from the awesomeness, I've since bought two of those albums on iTunes, and yesterday 3 friends and I each dropped $78 on tickets for a concert with…
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[citation required]
Interesting point about reordering search results to favor known-legit content distribution channels...roughly: "Can we get Google to put Netflix above TPB in search results?" If this is still a terrible idea, it's not an obviously terrible one.
Furthermore, there's a terrible burden for startups moving into certain spaces if suddenly you can't get ranked because you're not a Trusted source.
Plus, controlling search engine neutrality or listing position is not the business of the government or rightsholder. Remember, Google is a private entity.
"Would you agree that the current piracy landscape makes it much more difficult to start a new fee-based distribution model vs. a free/ad-supported distribution model?" Good question. Piracy status quo, without some sort of crackdown, already skews the "legitimate" distribution models to those that benefit companies with Google's model (e.g. for YouTube).
"If we could get Google to index those sites [iTunes over the Pirate Bay] in a way that favored legitimacy..." Hey, duck duck go might get some real legs if they work this one out =)
I'm listening currently (11:43a EST) and they're quoting cyber security experts about how it could undermine security. From consumer union groups about how it affects consumer safety, from venture capitalists about how it can stifle innovation. A lady right now is addressing how it's an issue that they don't have any technical expertise on the panel. It's not ALL madness..
That's not the madness of the legislative process. You'll witness the madness play out when the legislators, having given the plebes their "voice", ignore every single one of them and proceed with graduating the bill to a full vote. Which will likely pass.
Pass the House of Representatives. Then a similar bill has to pass in the Senate, which, because of filibuster rules, now effectively requires 60 votes to pass anything significant rather than a simple majority of 51 votes. Once it's passed in both the House and the Senate, the two sides have to reconcile the differences into one bill that both houses then have to pass again. That final bill then has to be signed by the President to become law.
All of this has to happen in an election year, which always makes it harder to pass significant legislation.
There are still lots of places for the bill to die, or at least be weakened significantly, and there's still plenty of time for voters to take action to make their voices heard.
"If I had my way I'd lock all three of ya in a room and don't come out until you agree."
"As a consumer I can't tell who's a thief and who's not a thief. What can Google offer this bill that would allow Google to sign on to this bill?"
How is "Google signing on" the key issue here? Is Google the gatekeeper to basic constitutionality in legislation now?
"Google would publicly support a "follow the money" approach."