NBC News Produces Propaganda Video Highlighting NBC's Views On Domain Seizures
from the fair-and-balanced dept
Can you trust one of the biggest companies supporting greater government domain seizures to fairly report on those government domain seizures and their impacts? Well, NBC Nightly News recently ran a report about the government's domain seizures, which you can watch below. To be honest, I had to check a few times to see if this was really done by NBC, since the production quality is awful and really amateurish, the sound mix is dreadful and the background music is too loud and out of place -- something way below the standard that I've seen done by NBC in the past:But the really bizarre parts are the quotes from the main ICE investigator, William Ross, on these seizures. It becomes pretty clear pretty quickly that the man has no business running such operations as he doesn't know what he's talking about:
"We try to protect the economic interests of US industries and manufacturers. People are taking their work product and selling it for free!"Neither of those sentences makes any sense. Protecting the "economic interests" of US industries is way too broad. I mean, based on that, should the US government have blocked the creation of the automobile industry, because it would negatively impact "the economic interests" of the US horse & buggy industry? The economic interests of US industries are often put at risk through disruptive technology... but what comes out of it are new industries. The US government should never be in the business of picking winners and losers of disruptive technologies, yet that's what Ross just admitted he's doing here. Scary.
And the second sentence... um what? How do you sell something for free? Furthermore how do you "take" something if the original is still there? This is the guy we have making the call on whether or not to seize domain names? Yikes! He goes on:
We're protecting them against other people taking their ideas and selling them.Um. Shouldn't Ross know that "ideas" are not protectable under US intellectual property law? Patents cover inventions. Copyright covers expression. Trademarks cover trademarks. Ideas are not covered. In fact, they're explicitly not covered. So, again, I have to ask, how is it that this is the guy who gets to decide what domains are seized when he doesn't appear to know the law? The report also makes bogus claims, such as seizing domain names effectively shuts down the websites.
It goes on along these lines, basically repeating all of NBCUniversal Corporate's talking points as fact. It's hard to see how you can expect any reasonable reporting on this topic from a company that is heavily involved in lobbying for laws like PROTECT IP which will expand these sorts of things even further, and allow folks like Ross, who clearly has no business deciding the legality of websites, to continue censorsing websites in the name of the US government, but which is clearly just to protect some businesses who don't know how to adapt.
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Filed Under: domain seizures, propaganda
Companies: nbc universal
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Wow, that is scary
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You people just get upset when the cold water of reality gets thrown in your face.
Masnick's silly indignation over something like this just demonstrates how far over the cliff he is with his piracy love and apologism.
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Oddball logic
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Re: Oddball logic
First you line up a buyer.
He says "I'll give you $10 for that"
and you say "$2"
He says "fine, $2"
you say "$1"
And so on, until you've haggled the price to down to "Free"
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Re: Re: Oddball logic
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Prepare for retaliation?
It would appear that the U.S. had better be ready to answer for what, under its own definition, is a string of warlike attacks.
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Re: Prepare for retaliation?
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Re: Re: Prepare for retaliation?
Well, duh! Of course! That's because the U.S. rules! Anyone who doesn't believe it is welcome to receive a cruise missile through their window.
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meant to add a link to the announcement
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US has declared war on freedom
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Re: US has declared war on freedom
TFTFY
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Re: US has declared war on freedom
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How many of the In Our Sites that were seized have reappeared? What do you think will happen to them when Protect IP passes?
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They never went away. Having your number removed from the phone book doesn't prevent people from calling you.
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You know you can get to webservers via IP address, with no domain at all, right?
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This definitely wouldn't be something they'd put on television, notably because the video mentions MSNBC.com, most likely this was done by one of the websites' interns.
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"I know it's illegal but I just don't feel that it is wrong"
When laws are at odds with community values, then those laws will fail.
They may fail despite continued pressure and shedloads of money being spent on them by government as with narcotics or they may fail as prohibition failed, with government eventually undoing the stupid law.
One thing is certain though, the longer such bad laws stay on the books, the more misery and destruction is created for everyone and the people who do the most damage are the ones who try to keep those laws going, the mafia didn't want prohibition to end, drug barons don't want the bans on narcotics and other banned drugs to end and certain people perhaps (almost certainly) wrongly think that their best chance of making a mint is for current IP legislation to be kept and even beefed up.
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The drug laws have been a resounding success. They have allowed the government to expand it's powers much more than they would have likely been able to otherwise. At the same time, the "criminal justice" and prison industries have grown by leaps and bounds.
One thing is certain though, the longer such bad laws stay on the books, the more misery and destruction is created for everyone...
Well, not exactly everyone. Lots of people in the legal, enforcement and prison industries have enriched themselves handsomely. The losers have been outside those areas.
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ONLY 25 out of 125 were illegal ?????
WTF???? what about the other 100 that weren't illegal? And has it been proven in case law that link is illegal yet?
This is outrageous
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Re: ONLY 25 out of 125 were illegal ?????
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Logic fail
DOes that mean that ICE will soon take over the foreign companies where the American jobs were outsourced?
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Agitprop
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Re: Agitprop
Maybe it was produced in the executive offices? You know, where they pay people hugely inflated salaries to mess things up.
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Again I refer you to Nudge by Cass R. Sunstein.
Also the USA Government Green Technologies deal with General Electric.
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NBC is old media...
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Linkage
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Meanwhile...
And what kind of websites ICE is shutting down? Not illegal and dangerous drugs websites, but torrents sites.
My dear Dog, aren't we a bit swimming in Irony here? (capital I for irony needed I think.)
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"We'll keep going after them no matter how many times they come back up"
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
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If nobody wants these laws, the solution isn't to brainwash people into wanting these laws (or to use the legal system to brainwash people into wanting these laws), it's to abolish these laws. The government should represent the will of the people, not the will of a few corporate entities, and instead of trying to use the law to brainwash those who don't want these laws, the laws and politicians should seek to serve the will of its constituents.
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