Lamar Smith's Head-In-Sand Approach To SOPA Critics Inspires 'Lamar Smith Can't Hear You' Anti-Campaign Poster
from the speak-up-please dept
This is pretty awesome. Last week, Lamar Smith (once again) tried to dismiss any opposition to SOPA, by insisting that it was a tiny "vocal minority" who was peaking up, and insisting that "not one of the critics was able to point to any language in the bill that would in any way harm the internet." Except... that's not true. Tons of people have pointed out language that was problematic. Furthermore, spitting on and lying about the widespread internet community, just as it's trying to make a difference, isn't that smart. Via BoingBoing, we learn that this is just leading to further backlash, such as ChadRocco creating a brilliant "anti-campaign" poster against Lamar Smith: Lamar Smith Can't Hear You:
Meet Lamar Smith, representative from Texas, and Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary.If anything, I'd say that the graphic significantly underplays the opposition. The massive list of those opposed to SOPA is growing daily and has a lot more impressive folks than are just in that graphic (also, as far as I know, Microsoft has not publicly opposed SOPA -- though it was rumored to have done so quietly to get the BSA to back off). Still, the graphic really is emblematic of the stance that Smith has taken on SOPA. As long as he ignores the loud, widespread and growing opposition, perhaps he thinks it will just go away.
As Chairman he can kill any bill he doesn't like by denying it a hearing while giving priority to the bills he wants to pass, Like SOPA.
While addressing the massive outcry over SOPA he stated that:
“It’s a vocal minority. Because they’re strident doesn’t mean they’re either legitimate or large in number. One, they need to read the language. Show me the language. There’s nothing they can point to that does what they say it does do. I think their fears are unfounded.”
Above is a list of people that have pointed at the language, including law professors and computer experts.
You have a civil war among video game companies, and the successful boycott of a company. How do you ignore that?
It's an election year. This November. Whatever happens, Texas, please kick this guy out of office.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: anti-campaign, lamar smith, pipa, poster, protect ip, sopa
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
photo forgot 1 group
democrats
republicans
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
(Thanks to high cable prices and a whole lot of commercials, many people probably have enough disrespect for companies like Time Warner to oppose SOPA on the basis that they support it).
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
... oh wait, it was last spring when the storm sirens went off and I wanted to make sure I wasn't about to be blown to the magical land of Oz.
So yeah... a tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiny bit obsolite there Time Warner.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
For example, I was at my in-laws over the Christmas holiday and I sat down to watch some tv. After flipping through the channels for the 3rd time looking for something, I switched over to Netflix and was watching something 1 minute later. Instant gratification beats spoon-fed crap any day.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: No spoon
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: No spoon
He was sitting at home in front of his 50" flat screen with Fox News on. He starts ranting on about a lady he took out to dinner that spent the whole night looking at her phone each time it vibrated.
He said "This younger generation with all their gadgets, and computers; I just don't understand it. I can't believe anything that is said out there on that thing you call the Internet. I like the good old standby's like Fox News for example. They tell it like it is. It's real."
I'm pretty sure the look on my face equated "Facepalm".
He was smart enough to take one look at me and say, "Well, I guess there always comes a point in time where there is a generation gap.".
I just smiled at him.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No spoon
But maybe I'm just too old to appreciate a date who spends all her time paying attention to everything except me. Maybe it is a generational thing.
Contrariwise, I don't have cable, don't watch broadcast, consider Fox to be an unreliable news source, and I own a smartphone and multiple computers.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No spoon
Now if your date starts puts down the phone and starts rearranging the table or talking to somebody else you might take that as a clue that is you.
On the other side of the coin.... I often sit on the couch an cuddle with my wife while we look at our own devices, but we will share and show each other the cool and interesting stuff we find or are doing.
It is all about context and how you interact, not the device, or book or tv show or keg of beer.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: No spoon
Apparently it's a generational thing; your generation was obviously raised with very different social values from mine. Good news: I won't be asking you out on a date anytime soon.
P.S. It works both ways. It would be just as rude for me to ignore my date. I'm not trying to claim it's all on her. Contrariwise, if I found that I couldn't stand her, I'd try to remain polite and simply end the date as early as I could.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
All of the above products can be replaced merely by actually using a computer (as it is already capable of doing), and all of the above support drastic DRM/give you far less control over everything, for about 1/5th the cost of the above products.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
I'm in a country that the US has recently been attacking, and whose services (which have been deemed legal in this country) bills like SOPA are being created to block. Said services being set up as a direct response to said material not being available legally.
Why, it's almost as if servicing the market would take care of the problem without needing censorship laws...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
When SOPA opponents put their names on ads critical of the bill, it's likely to garnish even more support of the political ad and more opposition to the bill than had they not.
Tells you something about the companies supporting these bills and the public's perception of them vs the companies opposing them and the public's perception of them.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Top money
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Top money
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Top money
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
(Should probably use someone else's fingers as well. I would think Lamar's fingers would do a less-than-thorough job.)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Really helpful for getting in there and moving material out of the hole. We should always use well designed tools when possible.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Lamar Smith did indeed listen, as the manager's amendment so obviously shows.
You just love piracy, Masnick. When are you going to come out and admit it?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
The poster encapsulates the fact that he is lying. There is a massive outcry over this. If Smith says no-one is talking about the bill, and in fact there is, the only possible reason for his statement is...he is lying.
You just love censorship and falsehoods, Anonymous Coward. When are you going to come out and admit it?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I rarely seen a comment open with a description of the comment. It's almost too self-referential.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Maybe you can write something definitive about emasculation some time.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Just send me whatever you've compiled to this point and I'll "punch it up."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
"I can't hear you!"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
But I'm not surprised you're not pointing this out. You're in the camp who thinks that whatever the artist does, even poorly, the label should be paid.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
If he does or doesn't is totally irrelevant to SOPA. SOPA will suck even for content owners - they are just too over zealous to get *something* (anything) passed.
Haste on this will prove it will be nothing but a waste.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
answers to the 'Chairman of the House Committee on the Judiciary' only, please!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
He never saw it coming either.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Sympathy for the devilish
LOBBYISTS: Lamar, I'm sure you're concerned with stuff like America, jobs and stealing.
LAMAR SMITH: Of course. I'm here to serve my constituents and nothing would make them happier than America, jobs and... whoa... is that real?
LOBBYISTS (LB): Oh, this? Yeah, it's real. It's what we in the business call "a shit-ton of Benjamins." You can touch it.
LAMAR SMITH (LS): Nice. Wow. I don't I've ever seen this many, um, "Benjamins" in one place. I feel like Rick Ross. You know, "Ever seen a million cash, gotta count it carefully..." I think I'm going to count it! Let me get my lounge pants!
LB: Lamar. That's really not necessary...
[10 minutes later]
LB: Anyway, Lamar, we've got a proposition for you.
LS: 250,300... 250,400... wha?
LB: Are you familiar with The Internet?
LS: A little. I get my email on it. Sometimes I watch some youtubes.
LB: Well, The Internet is great... in theory. The problem is that The Internet is never used for great things. Take a look at this.
[Plays presentation entitled "The Internet: Always On, Always Wrong." Footage includes shots of Kim Dotcom driving a sports car while humming a copyrighted tune, a few Youtube comment threads, Eileen Siedler issuing DMCAs, Eileen Siedler issuing more DMCAs, some brief sapphic eroticism, /b/, someone being bullied on Facebook, the ultra-sad face of a creative ladder operator, pages full of DVD covers and foreign text, a LOLCAT and Terry Hart marking his own comment as "Insightful".]
LS: [absently thumbing stack of $100s] I see. Well, nothing more needs to said or viewed, especially /b/. You can count on my tireless support of this legislation, which you have yet to detail for me but I'm sure that [waves in the general direction of the money] I've got the gist of it. Jobs, foreigners, America, right?
LB: That's pretty much it. We'll be needing to break The Internet to pull it off, but as you can see, it clearly offers nothing but theft, misspellings and tentacle porn. And don't worry about your email. We can always build you an intranet, which is much like The Internet, only it locks from the outside.
LS: Swell! I do like to get my email!
LB: There will be tons of opposition to this but don't let it dissuade you. Remember, the opponents are nothing but a bunch of thieves who can't spell, hate America, live in their mom's basement and violate themselves while watching anime.
LS: Those... those bastards! Sorry. I normally don't swear but the money and the tentacle porn and the Rick Ross thing sort of took over.
LB: Alright. We can count on you?
LS: What opposition?
LB: [LAUGHS EVILLY, POINTS TO NOSE]
LS: [LAUGHS EVILLY, SCREWS UP AND POINTS TO LOBBYIST'S NOSE]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
...anyone posting this image, since it's clearly transformative works of a copyrighted work.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
more like tying the rope around their own necks and standing there, they will die eventually but extremely slowly and painfully possibly at the expense of others, someone needs to give them a push to hurry it up
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
"When OpenDNS sees a request for a known malicious site (i.e., irc.badbot.ru), OpenDNS will block the domain from resolving by redirecting the request to a block page and will notify you."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
1. Not mandatory, for the people who implement them or for you. (It's not yet a federal crime to switch DNS servers.)
2. Not defined by politicians who enjoy bragging about how little they understand the technology they regulate.
3. Not blocking anything anyone would ever actually want for any reason ever. (Does a spam filter deny spam companies' free speech rights? Answer: Nobody cares about spam companies, so whatever.)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Ask yourself if you have a real choice about how you are connecting to the Internet.
Ask yourself about who is compiling this list of bad locations.
Ask yourself how this list is compiled, implemented and managed.
Now ask yourself how you could get around these bad site filters to investigate for yourself.
Finally, ask yourself who might claim that a location is infringing on copyright and what the result of that could be under SOPA.
One short answer from me is that all of those bad locations you're referencing can be gotten to via DNS right now, one way or another, via DNS name resolution. Their DNS presence has not been hijacked.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
From a trust point of view, if you start blocking anything that is not accepted universally everywhere you are not going to succeed, people don't go after viruses to get infected, they don't go out and learn how to bypass anything in great numbers to go view pedo material, but they will create solutions to view other things and that will be used by criminals too. So instead of one route you now have to secure and take care of alternative routes and that is no easy task since nobody knows what they will look like in the future.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
truth
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Govt control of internet
Back off you government progressives .
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
SOPA/PIPA = WAR
You will not be re-elected and you will go down in Infamy.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
He's deaf on purpose
How can he not be deaf to smart people when he can say he knows some Hollywood big wigs who can line up a hot date for him any time?
It's better than some Internet dating service, that's for sure!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]