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SOPA 'shelved' until consensus is found

washingtonmonthly.com

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Re: SOPA 'shelved' until consensus is found

#31

Post by rbanffy »

muuh-gnu wrote: post #16
jrmg wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would your proposed law say? Congress can't make a law that says that it can't make a SOPA-like law in the future (or, at least, it would be meaningless, since future legislation could repeal it).

There should be a way for the people to veto a law in a referendum, like in Switzerland. That way politicians would be more cautious passing laws which they know that the public probably won't like and probably will veto. The current US system only provides "checks and balances" between political parties, so when one party cracks up (meaning, gets bought by special interests and turns against the people) we only can…

> a general possibility to override unpopular laws.

We have to be very careful with this. Sometimes a very popular law is exactly what you don't want. There are vast areas where a law mandating the teaching of creationist superstition in science classes would be immensely popular while a law forbidding it would be very unpopular.

Re: SOPA 'shelved' until consensus is found

#32

Post by mcherm »

snprbob86 wrote: post #6
Maxious wrote: post #4

Excerpts from Rupert Murdoch's reaction https://twitter.com/Rupertmurdoch "So Obama has thrown in his lot withSilicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery." "Piracy leader is Google who streams movies free, sells advts around them. No wonder pouring millions into lobbying." "Sure misunderstand many things, but not plain stealing. Incidentally google blocks many other undesi…

"Incidentally google blocks many other undesirable things." That statement really pisses me off. It also really pissed me off when some politician was like "Google has the technology". Presumably both were referring to SafeSearch and related technologies. These people have no idea what they are talking about. Blocking porn is an entirely different problem than blocking copyright infringement. Identifying an image as…

As I would say if I got 5 min to testify before a congressional committee:

"Gentlemen, it has been suggested that, since Google and others have built technology to detect and block pornographically explicit pictures and videos, that they could build technology to block copyrighted pictures. This is simply not true. Please bear with me and I can demonstrate this. [show two pictures] Can you tell which of these is pornography? It's like Justice Stewart said: 'I know it when I see it'. [show two identical pictures] Can you tell which of these is a copyright violation. [pause] You don't have to peer TOO closely, they are absolutely identical. But the author signed contract allowing me to duplicate and display copies of the one on the left, and did NOT allow me to duplicate and display copies of the one on the right. Determining whether something is a violation of copyright requires one to know details how a court would evaluate fair use exceptions, as well as knowing the details of contracts between two third-parties you may not even know. This is not difficult, it is impossible."

Re: SOPA 'shelved' until consensus is found

#33

Post by alan_cx »

Heh, first post here. Hi.

Although I'm from the UK, I have been following this with keen interest,particularly as US authorities are able to pluck our citizens from our country on mere suspicion.

Just to say, and Im sure you all know it already, you have not won, keep pushing and pushing until there is a law, but a fair just one. I don't want such laws, but there are inevitable. Just be sure they are laws that work fairly and properly.

I think the thing to do now is for the community to create and propose its own law(s) and push that on the politicians. Present a credible alternative. Get the legislation we want, not what they want. Perhaps some one needs to set up a site where the on line community can collaborate in putting together a workable solution.

Any way, congratulations for winning the battle, just remember that we still have the war to win.

Re: SOPA 'shelved' until consensus is found

#34

Post by dsplittgerber »

Awesome, so politians now have two large constituencies to milk: big media and internet-savvy technology companies/the general tech-savvy public.

See, the only one profiting from this ordeal irrelevant of how it plays out are politicians. They get to enlarge their power and money base whenever anyone thinks an issue best be regulated by law.

Re: SOPA 'shelved' until consensus is found

#37

Post by mgkimsal »

wisty wrote: post #30
Maxious wrote: post #4

Excerpts from Rupert Murdoch's reaction https://twitter.com/Rupertmurdoch "So Obama has thrown in his lot withSilicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery." "Piracy leader is Google who streams movies free, sells advts around them. No wonder pouring millions into lobbying." "Sure misunderstand many things, but not plain stealing. Incidentally google blocks many other undesi…

Says the guy who bought a social network where practically every profile had a pirated mp3 autoplaying, and pirated profile decorations.

Good point. MySpace couldn't have happened with SOPA in place - perhaps that would have been a good thing overall. :)

Re: SOPA 'shelved' until consensus is found

#38

Post by jules »

rbanffy wrote: post #31
muuh-gnu wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There should be a way for the people to veto a law in a referendum, like in Switzerland. That way politicians would be more cautious passing laws which they know that the public probably won't like and probably will veto. The current US system only provides "checks and balances" between political parties, so when one party cracks up (meaning, gets bought by special interests and turns against the people) we only can…

> a general possibility to override unpopular laws. We have to be very careful with this. Sometimes a very popular law is exactly what you don't want. There are vast areas where a law mandating the teaching of creationist superstition in science classes would be immensely popular while a law forbidding it would be very unpopular.

Such is democracy, the least bad system we have. Overall it would probably lead to laws that are more in your interest, as opposed to in the interest of people who lobby for laws.

Re: SOPA 'shelved' until consensus is found

#40

Post by dhimes »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #29

I would urge extreme caution about reading too much into this article. I (I'm a political junkie) saw Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) on TV yesterday. The message I got from his body language, nuance, and phrasing was something like "Obviously people who are elected from heavy technology areas are feeling a lot of heat. There's still a lot of support, though. Let's see if we can tweak this in such a way as to p…

I think you hit the nail squarely on the head, Mr. Markham. I too sense this is not going away soon. I don't even trust my own reps in the long term, and they are supposedly opposing.

I think this issue will be to the RIAA what abortion is to fundamentalist Christians: they intend to fight this fight until they win it.

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