Google vows to fight antipiracy bill even if passed • Hacker News Board

Re: Google vows to fight antipiracy bill even if passed

#41

Post by palish » Fri, May 20, 2011, 6:12 AM UTC

btilly wrote: post #39

palish wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you see nothing inherently wrong with that task? (Otherwise, you'd label it as more than an "unpleasant task".) "Memory Hole" comes to mind.

I do see something wrong with the task. We are being poor stewards of DNS. Given past abuses of the legal system by the RIAA, I am sure they will abuse us further. I'm also quite uncomfortable with how this will work in practice. The bill has a number of assurances to protect non-US companies from having it be unfairly applied to them. I do not trust those assurances. When a US lawyer sends a subpoena to the DNS prov…

Thank you for the effort you've put into your reply.

Re: Google vows to fight antipiracy bill even if passed

#42

Post by skrebbel » Fri, May 20, 2011, 6:33 AM UTC

bluedanieru wrote: post #40

randomwalker wrote: post #29

Today I got to talk to Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, one of the very few legislators who is fighting this. Here are my notes: http://33bits.org/2011/05/19/fighting-protect-ip-congresswom... There were some surprises for me. Here is the summary: Appeals to free speech and chilling effects are at best temporary measures in the fight against Protect IP and domain seizures. Even if we win this time it will keep coming back…

Even that's not enough. He's assuming most people in Congress and the Obama administration give a damn about the effects of piracy on artistic expression, or indeed what is in the best interests of society. They don't. It's sad to see someone so naive in that position.

don't confuse naivety with pr: she's talking on record there.

barring a few nutjobs, i've the idea most politicians are significantly less naive than they let show.

Re: Google vows to fight antipiracy bill even if passed

#43

Post by chris11 » Fri, May 20, 2011, 6:48 AM UTC

iwwr wrote: post #11

Ruudjah wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google does not need that kind of PR.

For hackerdom at least, it's good PR. Consider Sony's case, they might have shut out a large number of talented people by the way they handled the PS3 hacking affair.

The difference is that Sony's pr was negative. And while an absence of a statement on the legislation might disappoint some people, I doubt it would actively shut out a lot of talented hackers.

Re: Google vows to fight antipiracy bill even if passed

#44

Post by chris11 » Fri, May 20, 2011, 6:59 AM UTC

petar wrote: post #23

My take on this: http://popalg.org/schmidt-response

While I agree that this legislation will be ineffective in fighting piracy, I don't think Google is concerned about the effects of piracy. This would seriously threaten any site that deals with legally questionable material. Instead of dealing with a DMCA notice, now they are threatening with the loss of their site. And it's not like you have to try to infringe when dealing with user submitted content. In the Google vs Viacom lawsuits, the Viacom legal team brought up videos submitted by Viacom Marketing employees as evidence of infringement.

Re: Google vows to fight antipiracy bill even if passed

#45

Post by DanielBMarkham » Fri, May 20, 2011, 8:56 AM UTC

randomwalker wrote: post #29

Today I got to talk to Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, one of the very few legislators who is fighting this. Here are my notes: http://33bits.org/2011/05/19/fighting-protect-ip-congresswom... There were some surprises for me. Here is the summary: Appeals to free speech and chilling effects are at best temporary measures in the fight against Protect IP and domain seizures. Even if we win this time it will keep coming back…

If the message to legislators is: won't you please do something to protect all those poor and starving artists? Then we are well and truly hosed.

More likely: big money bought the bill and the "starving artist" facade is a convenient and facile deceit. Like all good bought laws, it works loosely on a philosophical scale, has emotional appeal, and is difficult to argue without getting into the weeds of changing business models, the way the internet works, etc.

I'm a big fan of politics (micro and macro) and philosophy, mainly because I love studying how people make group decisions. Over the past couple of years I've become more and more convinced that humanity has entered a time where things are changing so fast that the average guy isn't fully aware of how he's getting screwed over. The only saving grace is that older people can see the changes more clearly. With transhumanism on the way, Google and others creating the Borg in the cloud, and governments snooping into every little thing we do, it's almost like the previous 2500 years we have been studying very hard at how freedom and virtue inter-relate, and now comes the test.

Sure hope we do well.

Re: Google vows to fight antipiracy bill even if passed

#46

Post by danssig » Fri, May 20, 2011, 9:10 AM UTC

electromagnetic wrote: post #31

powertower wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just an example... When I used Google AdWords, 30% of the clicks came from Google "content partners" which where nothing more than link farms. I'd say that was a significant source of revenue for Google... So much so that Google even put up its own parked domain service to further its profits. If Google was "good", they would have either got rid of this 8 years ago, or never got into it in the first place. Don't unde…

Justify with evidence please. Don't go spouting slanderous statements and have nothing to back them up with. If it's as obvious as you seem to be claiming then you shouldn't have any trouble backing up your point. Google's policy isn't to be "good", it's to "do no evil" and they are very, very different things. This legislation is dangerous like a bomb. If you integrate a system that can drop an IP address from globa…

>Google's policy isn't to be "good", it's to "do no evil"

This isn't their policy, it's just a meaningless motto. Google is in this fight because it will financially impact them. There not doing it because they care about us.

Re: Google vows to fight antipiracy bill even if passed

#47

Post by rickmb » Fri, May 20, 2011, 11:41 AM UTC

wccrawford wrote: post #3

"Google seems to think it's above America's laws." ... No, it seems to think that particular law is unjust, and as responsible citizens, they are duty-bound to fight it.

Responsible citizens my ass.

Google does what is in Google's interests. Remember how Google vowed to fight for Net Neutrality until it became against their business interests in the mobile arena?

Google is "duty-bound" only to its shareholders. All the copyright-mafia needs to do is to find a way in which it becomes in Google's best interest to not fight that law, and they will change their "ethical" stance faster than you can say "u-turn".