US Gov't Thinks Censorship Is Bad, Unless It's Paid For
from the funny-how-that-works dept
Aaron DeOliveira sends over an amusing statement summarizing the US government's views towards "censorship" on various issues:Person: Hey, there are child porn sites everywhere!It may seem quite amazing that the government seems to have a massive blindspot to how copyright conflicts with the First Amendment, but one big difference (of course) is that it's only that last situation that has a group of legacy industry players with strong lobbyist ties to DC pushing for such censorship to protect their outdated business models. And, suddenly, the rest of the chat makes a lot more sense.
Government: We are working on it.
Person: Hey, there's these pro-anorexia sites telling young girls to starve themselves!
Government: W/e. (editor's note for the old people: this means "whatever")
Person: Hey, registered hate groups like the KKK have websites!
Government: Well we can't stop them.
Person: I downloaded a movie from ThePirateBay.
Government: PIRATED MOVIES HARMING NOBODY? Time to censor the Internet!
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Filed Under: censorship, first amendment, the pirate bay
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It's such a huge conflict that it took almost two centuries before anyone even noticed. LOL! Keep selling your B.S., Mike, I'm sure your dimwitted fans are buying it.
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Nice try, but you get an F
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And neither is the First Amendment. It means way more today than it did when it was written. So what?
Nice try, but you get an F
And you haven't added anything to the conversation.
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I can't say the same for copyright law.
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Ben Franklin was a bookseller and author, and yet also opened the nation's first subscription library, hired the first librarian, and talked at length about how these things had to be balanced.
Balance is the whole point of the Constitution's phraseology.
I just finished reading Don Quixote, published in two parts in 1605 and 1615. The fictional characters start volume two by becoming aware that someone wrote of their exploits in a fictional volume one (ostensibly the same as the real volume one). And part of the plot of the second volume is that the characters have to contend with a rogue who rushed to market with a volume two. Don Quixote visits the bookmaker, notes the production of the "apocryphal" volume two, and has a peaceful inner dialogue on the topic of the copyrights and the balance between the bookmaker's livelihood and the facts. (This from a character who will work himself to a froth if you suggest the merest hint of un-chivalrous notion.) In the year 1615!
Older discussions of how copyright conflicts with expression surely exist, but law around copyright started to form more rigorously a hundred years later, so I didn't want to dig too hard.
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But since you seem to want a clearer opinion of the people who actually initiated copyright in the United States, I give you the correspondence of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. In it you can see that Jefferson was opposed to such monopolies while Madison couldn't foresee the the abuses that would come about.
Luckily, others have already done the work for us:
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/bparchive?year=1999&post=1999-02-11$2
Thom as Jefferson:
Here we see a limit on government granted monopolies which was applied to patents to 14 years. This matches what the law had been at the time.
If you read the article I've linked, you can see that Jefferson felt that protection of the people from monopolies was so important, that it be included into the Bill of Rights along with "...freedom of religion, freedom of the press, protection against standing armies, restriction against monopolies, the eternal and unremitting force of the habeas corpus laws, and trials by jury in all matters of fact triable by the laws of the land..."
Now it's easy for someone to dismiss this argument since it talks about patents and not copyrights. It wasn't until 1790 that Congress passed the first copyright law which gave a limited monopoly to creators. Before that it was considered a legal issue for individual States. Copyright protection in the United States was first championed by a group of authors, including Noah Webster and Joel Barlow. (source - Warning: PDF) http://lsolum.typepad.com/copyfutures/files/nachbar_constructing_copyright.pdf
The Copyright Act of 1790 was an altered, rewritten version of England’s 1710 Statute of Anne.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Anne
Legislation conferring exclusive rights upon the author of books not yet printed or published for a period of 14 years and for a further 14 years if the author was still alive at the end of the first period. The legislation also provided the same rights for the authors or owners of books already in print for a single 21 year term.
As with each extension to Copyright Law in the United States, there was discussion for and against it by representatives in congress and those who would benefit from it the most. This includes the 1909 Act which rewrote Copyright law. A response by the then music industry against player pianos of all things. Then there's the Renewal Acts of 1962 and 1974 which continued the posthumous copyright extensions and removed the registration requirements. Congress commissioned multiple studies on a general revision of copyright law, culminating in a published report in 1961. A draft of the bill was introduced in both the House and Senate in 1964, but the original version of the Act was revised multiple times between 1964 and 1976.
To try to suppose that none of these changes and extensions to copyright before 1974 were without debate is absurd.
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Otherwise, you don't add anything to the discussion.
For the record, the reason it took almost two centuries was because the methods of publication that were used for copyright infringement, were out of the hands of ordinary people.
Now that we have the internet, and anyone can publish anything, its now that there are huge conflicts between copyright law and the First Amendment.
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What are the conflicts? How does copyright law conflict with First Amendment values?
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Now, its the year 2012 and anyone with a computer and internet connection can publish anything they desire. Video cameras are cheap and plentiful, as is editing software. So is storage, a la Youtube.
Yet, copryight law, in the form of the DMCA, allows anyone to claim that any video is infringing. Youtube, not wanting to be sued, will pull that video down.
There you have it. A clear case of a conflict between the First Amendment and copyright law.
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It's the best way for them to maintain the facade of their sad delusions.
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There you have it. A clear case of a conflict between the First Amendment and copyright law.
They don't just claim it to be infringing, they attest that it is so "under penalty of perjury." http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512
And there is also a counter-notification process, that probably, I think, saves the statute from a prior restraint challenge.
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Really though, the perjury conviction should be automatic in the case of a false takedown. I mean, it is a criminal offence, not a civil one, so should not need a complaint. Just as soon as material has been restored, the DMCA notice is forwarded to the prosecutor. It is a signed statement that has already been proven false, slam dunk. It sounds like this should be happening frequently enough to be noticable.
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You know, the ones with eyepatches, go "Arrrr", and plunder sites, destroying them for personal gain in lawsuits?
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The Golan v. Holder case was somewhat of an interesting conflict between copyright and First Amendment.
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The URAA attempted to charge one of the plaintiffs for using a song that would have been considered public domain in the U.S. for his own derivative work with a high school band.
That classical song would have been much more difficult to obtain in the era before the internet,hence why it has caused conflict.
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I can list numerous examples. Did you know that because of copyright law, it is illegal for me to describe certain algorithms to you? The algorithms themselves are not copyrighted, understand. There are even numbers that are illegal for me to recite.
Besides that, we already have legitimate first-amendment speech being suppressed through overly aggressive copyright takedowns. In at least a couple of these cases, the sites were taken down not because they engaged in copyright infringement, but because they irritated major corporations.
Even besides that, we see copyright law being used to outright destroy legitimate and useful-for-noninfringing-purposes internet services such as file lockers.
We see certain forms of art that is historically considered legitimate and allowable (collage, for example) that is legally impossible to do today because of copyright law.
I can go on and on and on, but I'm sure you get the idea.
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Don't be silly; we pirate it.
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My darling anonymous coward, copyright changed a LOT in these 200 years. And so did society; for example:
It may seem quite amazing that the government seems to have a massive blindspot to how slavery conflicts with basic human rights
It's such a huge conflict that it took almost [more than 2] centuries before anyone even noticed. LOL! Keep selling your B.S., Rosa Parks, I'm sure your dimwitted fans are buying it.
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It's such a huge conflict that it took almost [more than 2] centuries before anyone even noticed. LOL! Keep selling your B.S., Rosa Parks, I'm sure your dimwitted fans are buying it.
Not to nitpick but the 13th Amendment was ratified in 1865.
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And Rosa Parks and the freedom riders were arrested for failing to give up their seats to white passengers in 1955. Thus showing that the government of Alabama did in fact have a massive blindspot to how slavery conflicts with basic human rights and it took nearly a century and two decades to fix that problem. Not sure what pointing out the 13th Amendment being ratified in 1865 was meant to prove, but there were a number of states that ignored the 13th Amendment until well into the 20th century.
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Slavery and involuntary servitude...Slavery may have ended in 1865 (though that is arguable.) But involuntary servitude still exists, even in the US today. Just ask anyone who is familiar with trafficking in persons.
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The belief that one class of person is fit to rule another and own their productive and creative output is still thriving. Anyone with money can still employ slaves, minus some of the sharper edges, through employment law. It is telling that adherents to the effectively one-sided absolute "freedom to contract" are generally of slave state heritage.
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Our prisons are overflowing with minor drug crimes. And what's even worse, we have allowed private prisons to profit from that labor.
So don't tell me that segregation doesn't exist. It was never eliminated. Thanks to Nixon and Reagan in particular and their "war on crime" it soon became a war on minorities that has had a devastating effect on the politics of the US in a severely negative fashion.
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Or making them work on chain-gangs either.
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The 13th was not literally ignored; the 14th and 15th were. Please get those straight - they're very important.
However, your point stands anyway, since African slaves were introduced to Virginia in 1619.
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All three amendments are important, and all three are ignored in places.
13th Amendment ended slavery, yet there are places and times when the 13th Amendment has been ignored since it was ratified. See Chain Gangs.
14th Amendment gave all people in the US, regardless to citizenship, equal protection under the law, yet there are places and times when the 14th Amendment has been ignored since it was ratified.
15th Amendment allowed all male citizens, regardless to race, to vote, but yet Jim Crow laws prevented certain people from voting as late as 1965.
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I know what you mean. The First Amendment means so much more today than it did 200 years ago. And yet copyright is still just about giving an author a property right for a limited time. It's amazing how much the First Amendment has changed while copyright is basically the same.
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And given that it's possible to sell copyright to someone else, and apparently companies can buy copyrights (because according to US law, companies are people too). We have a defacto eternal copyright:
- "Eep, I'm dying, better sell my copyrights."
- "Eep, the deceased had a lot of debts, but also owned a lot of copyrights, better sell those."
- "Eep, when exactly does a company die?"
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http://copyright.cornell.edu/resources/publicdomain.cfm
Or to quote it: 70 years after the death of author. If a work of corporate authorship, 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever expires first.
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"§ 302. Duration of copyright: Works created on or after January 1, 19784
(a) In General. — Copyright in a work created on or after January 1, 1978, subsists from its creation and, except as provided by the following subsections, endures for a term consisting of the life of the author and 70 years after the author's death."
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap3.html#302
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Can you explain what you mean that copyright is "basically the same"?
When it originated, it covered only books, maps and charts (and nothing else). The works had to be registered, and it lasted only 14 years (renewable for another 14).
Today, copyright applies to everything new that's fixed, it does so automatically, and is life + 70.
To claim that's "basically the same" is ludicrous.
The First Amendment, on the other hand, hasn't changed. While it's true that it's taken on greater importance over the last century, the fact that it didn't really come up as an issue for a little over a century does not diminish it's importance. It was the very first amendment, after all...
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It's such a huge conflict that it took almost two centuries before anyone even noticed. LOL! Keep selling your B.S., Mike, I'm sure your dimwitted fans are buying it.
hahahahahaha.... true that! +1
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That's a good sign you're a lazy American, you can't even voice an opinion on what the government is doing wrong.
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The same or similar concerns were expressed again during the drafting of the United States Constitution where some felt, Jefferson if I remember correctly at this hour among them, who felt that copyright and patents should have been left out entirely.
I freely admit to being a dimwit at this hour of the day before my first carafe of coffee but not enough of one to buy into your BS. Mike, on the other hand, makes well reasoned sourced arguments something I notice you seem deficient in.
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The statue of Anne doesn't stand anywhere anymore. It's off cowering in a dark dusty cobweb filled corner of the Parliamentary Library in Westminster where even the British Museum can't find it!
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http://www.smhmeaning.net/moreslangs.html
Here's an example:
HB- Hurry Back
Warner- Hey, have you not finished you packing for the journey yet?
Sam- No, not yet, doing
Warner- HB, dude!
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So, pay up.
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Now..
Your a fuckwit!
There.. 1 cent well spent!
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What an ironic grammar fail.
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Corruption, thy name is...
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Re: Corruption, thy name is...
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~People, on the other hand...
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when money talks, everyone of law making and political power and position listens. for everything else there's the delete button!!
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The Gov't doesn't seem to care about any ammendment
They have a massive blind spot to the 1st, 2nd and 4th amendments. In fact, that whole constitution really seems to be in their way right now. Though it doesn't seem to be too much in their way since they are doing pretty much whatever they want to and nobody can stop them.
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Person: Someone is exposing the truth about the government';s doings around the world on a site called Wikileaks.
Government: CENSOR!!! And throw that bastard in jail and persecute the other bastard who thinks he can hide from us overseas.
If content is detrimental to those in power, censorship is good. If it's detrimental to society at large, it's free speech, First Amendment, etc.
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Surprised?
Our leaders are for sale... sure, they may not outright take money... but how many dinners, contributions, trips, etc. do they take on the lobbyist dime.
And you know, whatever lobbyist "donations" they report... they're probably getting twice that under the table or passed through some loophole.
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