Brooklyn City Council Member Wants The Police Invited To Any House Party

from the sorry,-you're-not-invited dept

When we talked a while back about Boston police catfishing locals in order to suss out where the parties were so that they could shut them down, the general speculation was that it was a heavy-handed attempt at police enforcement. I had gone along with that, because it was an isolated case and no other explanation made sense to me. But perhaps there's another explanation. When I was in high school and college, I would occasionally learn of some great bash that I had missed over the weekend. There's a certain level of embarrassment that goes along with the realization that your peers were shotgunning beers, inhaling certain plant fumes, and throwing up in someone's bushes without you. How dare they! If only there was some way the squares could know where these get-togethers were happening and when, then we could just show the hell up and demand entry. Sadly, no such notification method existed.

That might change, however, if Brooklyn City Council member and likely party-non-invitee Jumaane Williams gets his way. Williams announced his plan to propose a local regulation that would require any house party of more than 40 people to notify the NYPD and community board with at least 3 days advanced warning that there's a shindig in the works. Also, he'd like to fine the hell out of anyone who manages to get more people at their parties than Williams did at his really, really embarrassing fifth birthday party when a couple of kids only showed up for the clown and then left before the cake was cut.

City Council member Jumaane Williams said he will propose legislation that would require hosts to notify local police precincts and community boards three days in advance if they intend to throw a party with 40 or more guests, following a multiple shooting that took place in East Flatbush last weekend. Another proposal put forward by Williams would seek to crack down on what the councilman calls "house clubs," fining homeowners who advertise parties in advance, sell drinks and charge covers at the door.

"We think when there's 200, 300 people in a backyard, and this happens on a routine basis, you're really inviting trouble," Williams said at a press conference earlier this week.

It's always interesting to me to see a politician display a complete disregard for the concept of private property and the people's right to assemble. It will be pointed out that the First Amendment specifically assigns the right of assembly as a method to display grievance to the government and seek redress. Surely, most house parties of 40 people might not fall under that designation... until, of course, you seek to require permission for those same parties. Suddenly, partying without notification is a political stance, a form of speech, showing your grievance, in which case the First Amendment suddenly applies.

What's ridiculous is that it came to this at all. One thug shooting up a party should not result in the government being consulted each time a frat-house sized party takes place. And, no, having a party with 200 people isn't asking for trouble. It's asking for a party with 200 people. As long as the local regulations for safety (fire, alcohol laws, etc.) are observed, no further action should be required by the state.

So, sorry, Councilman, but neither you nor the government are invited to the party.

Filed Under: brooklyn, house parties, jumaane williams, legislation, nyc

New Jersey Lawmaker Proposes Legislation To Ban Games With Mature Content From Public Places

from the waaaay-past-regular-stupid-and-into-scary-stupid dept

Following on the heels of Connecticut state senator Toni Harp's bill to ban arcade games utilizing fake guns, comes this bit of amazingly bad (and of course, broadly written) proposed legislation seeking to "ban Mature-rated games in public places."

Ostensibly, the proposed bill is aimed at arcades, whether standalone operations or as part of the entertainment at restaurants, retail stores, etc. But the wording goes much deeper (and further astray) than simply banning M-rated arcade games. Before we get to the problems inherent in the proposed bill itself, let's take a quick look at one fatal flaw, as pointed out by GamePolitics.

Unfortunately for the Assemblywoman, her bill won't have any affect on games that might be found in public places because what she is referring to are arcade machines, which aren't rated by the ESRB. So banning a game with such a rating is much like banning blue unicorns - neither exists in reality.

There's that issue. Arcade games don't carry ratings. That's one strike against the legislation. But there's a lot more that's troublesome or stupid, and plenty of it is a good mix of both. NJ Assemblywoman Linda Stender has hit the jackpot, bad bill-wise, with this one. Her press release opens with a horrendously flawed assumption stated as fact and gets worse from there.

Noting the correlation between violent video games and violent behavior, Assemblywoman Linda Stender (D- Middlesex/Somerset/Union) today announced plans to introduce a bill that would prohibit video games containing mature and adult content in public places.

If Stender's going to state this as a fact, the least she could do is offer the name of a study or two backing up this claim. But she doesn't. She simply fires off the statement that she has "noted" a "correlation." Maybe she has, but she's not saying where she made this observation.

The next sentence tops this bit of conjecture-as-fact by throwing the First Amendment down like a doormat and announcing Stender's intention to walk all over it (with the "blessing" of other NJ officials).

The bill comes as a report from the New Jersey SAFE Task Force on Gun Protection, Addiction, released by the state Attorney General this week, listed the regulation of violent video games among its recommendations to mend the root causes of mass violence.

Regulation of violent video games isn't an option, according to the SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. But whatever, it's not as though most state legislators aren't itching for some federalist action, especially when it's their homegrown legislation on the line. Someone will find an angle and pursue it until shut down by higher courts. It's a shame this so-called "task force" didn't do its homework on video games and government regulation. I would imagine this isn't its only bad suggestion.

"Games that are meant for older, more mature audiences have no place in places where children can easily access them. Video games alone do not influence violent behavior, but they can play a role. Some of the most prolific mass shootings not just in this country, but in the world had links to violent video games," said Stender. "The longer a child is exposed to video games where killing is the sole objective, the greater the chance that he or she will become numb to this type of behavior and even consider it acceptable. This bill would ensure that video games with graphic adult content would not be available to children who are not old enough to make a distinction between fantasy and reality."

If by "links," she means "owned/played video games," then she's somewhat correct. If she actually means "links," then she's right back where she started the press release -- in serious need of actual evidence. As for what exactly the bill will "ensure," that's up for debate.

One thing is sure: the bill will rake in some cash for the state. Stender's bill would "prohibit operators of a place of public accommodation from making video games with an ESRB rating of Mature or Adults Only available for use by the public." Any violations would be punishable with a $10,000 fine (for the first offense -- up to $20,000 for any subsequent offenses) under the Consumer Fraud Act. That's a pretty steep fine for something as vague as making certain games "available." (The vagueness increases exponentially with the long list of "places of public accommodation." More on that in a moment.)

That's not the only monetary punishment, though. At the Attorney General's discretion, punitive damages can also be assessed and "treble damages and costs" awarded to the "injured" party. Nice little twist, that last part. This makes playing certain video games while underage potentially profitable.

Now, the part that's most disturbing about this proposal is the "place of public accommodation" list, which is far too long and far too inclusive.

For the purposes of this bill, "place of public accommodation" means any inn, tavern, roadhouse, hotel, motel, trailer camp, summer camp, day camp, or resort camp, whether for entertainment of transient guests or accommodation of those seeking health, recreation or rest; any producer, manufacturer, wholesaler, distributor, retail shop, store, establishment, or concession dealing with goods or services of any kind; any restaurant, eating house, or place where food is sold for consumption on the premises; any place maintained for the sale of ice cream, ice and fruit preparations or their derivatives, soda water or confections, or where any beverages of any kind are retailed for consumption on the premises; any garage, any public conveyance operated on land or water, or in the air, any stations and terminals thereof; any bathhouse, boardwalk, or seashore accommodation; any auditorium, meeting place, or hall; any theatre, motion-picture house, music hall, roof garden, skating rink, swimming pool, amusement and recreation park, fair, bowling alley, gymnasium, shooting gallery, billiard and pool parlor, or other place of amusement; any comfort station; any dispensary, clinic or hospital; any public library; any kindergarten, primary and secondary school, trade or business school, high school, academy, college and university, or any educational institution under the supervision of the State Board of Education, or the Commissioner of Education of New Jersey.

Stender is overstepping her bounds and seeking to regulate the actions of private entities by casting an impossibly wide net. "Taverns" and "roadhouses" aren't normally associated with drawing crowds of children, but now they'll have to worry about what sorts of games they have available in their establishments, just in case. Normally, they cater to adults but now they have to treat their entertainment as "appropriate for all ages." Again, the games on hand at these locations (including tabletop touchscreen game systems featuring a wide selection of titles) would not be rated by the ESRB, but would still likely be subject to Stender's law. (And don't forget that bars/taverns/roadhouses would fall under "where any beverages of any kind are retailed for consumption on the premises" wording as well.)

"Any retail establishment" dealing with "goods or services of any kind?" That covers a whole lot of ground. This could conceivably cover adult-oriented businesses like smoke shops, liquor stores and adult bookstores. Should they be required to clean up their selection of "available" games just in case?

What about your normal retailers, like Wal-Mart or Gamestop? If they aren't keeping mature titles under lock and key, are they making these games "available?" (Never mind the fact that 87% of the time, minors are unable to purchase M-rated games from retailers.) Or does this refer to what's loaded in demo stations? Or are we still pretending this targets in-store arcades only?

"Summer camps, day camps, resort camps" -- are these entities responsible for any games their guests bring in and "make available" for anyone to play? The camps may provide nothing but E-rated games but anything involving the public makes this a risky situation. Is there some form of IRL Section 230 that can protect businesses from the actions of their guests, like a camper setting up a console and a selection of M-rated games for other campers to enjoy? Or does this responsibility fall on the operators, forcing them to police the "content" of their campsites in order to avoid paying hefty fines?

"Any public library?" Really? If a minor uses a publicly accessible computer to access M-rated games, the library is at fault?

"[A]ny kindergarten, primary and secondary school, trade or business school, high school, academy, college and university?" This list starts where children are reasonably expected to be the majority and not exposed to "adult-oriented" entertainment, but it quickly goes off the rails and includes establishments where adults are the majority, if not 100% of the attendees.

GamePolitics suggests Stender's proposed law is aimed at arcade games, but nothing in this press release indicates it's limited to only those. The "places of public accommodation" language suggests arcade games, but there's nothing in here strictly defining the platform. The word "arcade" is never used.

It doesn't even seem to be limited to preventing children from "accessing" prohibited games. Her exact wording is: "prohibit video games containing mature and adult content in public places." She also throws in "access" and "available," but the broad wording and long list of "public places" suggests her ideal ban would prevent offending games from ever leaving people's homes -- about the only location the list doesn't name.

This is a bill Stender plans to introduce, so it's likely to be more narrowly defined before it's opened up for debate. The large chunk of "public place" language feels borrowed from somewhere else, but if that's what she's actually intending to target, this proposal is very worrying. She's clearly made her mind up about the negative effects of video games and it looks as if the Attorney General's task force is willing to ride shotgun (so to speak...).

There will be some people who will wonder why anyone would care what a plans a NJ assemblywoman may have for video game regulation. The problem is this: politicians have to start somewhere. Some fall off the lower rungs while others keep climbing. Either way, they tend to keep their head full of bad ideas with them. At some point, they're in the big leagues, able to do real damage.

Stender's proposal is a wreck -- an all-encompassing dragnet built out of baseless suppositions. It creates perverse incentives for the enforcers and ignores the Supreme Court's decision on the regulation of video games. This should never have made it as far as an internal dialog, much less a press release. If someone's aiming to top the list of Bad Video Game Legislation, they've got their work cut out for them.

Filed Under: first amendment, free speech, legislation, linda stender, new jersey, video games

NJ Assemblyman Sean Kean Doubles Down On Bad Video Game Legislation

from the twice-as-stupid-in-half-the-time! dept

To all you politicians out there willingly riding the coattails of a massacre into the Big Book of Bad Legislation: Just. Stop. There's too many of you out there right now using your downtime to Pin the Tail on the Scapegoat with poorly conceived bills that aim to clean up a video game market that, quite frankly, is doing a great job regulating itself.

But if you're someone like Sen. Charles Grassley, Rep. Jim Matheson, CT State Sen. Toni Harp or Rep. Debralee Hovey, something needs to be done about this nonexistent problem, and it needs to be done now. Lots of "something" has already been proposed and, fortunately, most of that "something" will be discarded before it ever becomes law, thanks to the Constitution.

However, if you're someone like NJ Assemblyman Sean T. Kean, you're not going to stop at one "something." No, if you're an inspired go-getter like Kean, you're going to introduce two diametrically opposed video game-related bills, hurl them into the legislative chambers and shout: "Now kiss!"

Here's "something" No. 1:

The first proposal prohibits the sale of any video game with an ESRB rating of “mature” or “adults only” to a person under the age of 18. Violating this law would carry a fine of up to $10,000 for a first offense and up to $20,000 for each subsequent offense. In addition, the Attorney General would be given the legal authority to issue cease and desist orders against the retailer and award punitive damages to the minor.

Kean is obviously unaware that the video game industry's entirely voluntary ratings system has managed to turn away 87% of underage purchasers. And this is happening without threats, hefty fines or the heavy hand of government intervention. But, as we all have learned over the years, the government simply cannot believe that good things happen without its interference. Politicians' jobs rely on this misconception. And that's how we end up with suggestions legislation like this, one that claims to be "for the children," but is really just the government hanging around outside game retailers with its hand out.

Judging by the impressive size of the fines (and the bizarre award of punitive damages to the minor -- what? getting the game isn't reward enough?), Kean is very serious about keeping "violent, sexually explicit" video games out of the hands (and eyes) of children -- so serious, in fact, that he has introduced another bill, which oddly enough, finds a way to put these M-rated games right back in these kids' hands (and eyes).

Under the second bill, minors would be permitted to purchase video games containing mature and adult content only if their parent or guardian is present during the purchase and gives their consent verbally or in writing at the time of the sale. Penalties for any violations are the same as with the first bill.

Good news, kids! Know someone over the age of 17? Then you too can own any number of "violent, sexually explicit" titles simply by declaring a random 17+ person your "guardian!" It's called a "two-party sale" and it's no different than hitting up the nearest 21-year-old still wearing his high school letter jacket and asking him (or her -- but it's always a him) to pick you up something to drink from the local liquor jobber. More seriously, why is this even needed? Parents have always had the option to purchase M-rated titles for their kids. This just throws additional pressure on the retailers who now have to make a judgement call as to the legitimacy of the adult accompanying the underaged purchaser. Before Kean's meddling, all a retailer had to do was refuse the sale. If this bill makes it through, retailers will be faced with the dubious pleasure of selling M-rated games to minors simply because someone over the age of 17 said it was OK -- and hefty fines if they screw up.

Here's Kean rationalizing these two bills.

“Just as it’s unlawful for minors to purchase alcohol and cigarettes, because it’s detrimental to their well being, the same can be said of adult video games, most of which contain extremely inappropriate content for a young viewer’s eyes and ears,” said Kean. “These two pieces of legislation are intended to protect children.”

While I can appreciate the tiny bit of deference shown towards parents who may feel their children can handle Call of Duty (or just don't care), I'm of the opinion that Kean's much more fond of the first bill than the second. The first is a deterrent with a government-rewarding fine attached that plays right into his "video games hurt children" mindset. The second is lip service towards individual responsibility. If Kean truly cares about individual responsibility, he'd shut up and get out of the way and let a system that is working extremely well continue unimpeded by unnecessary government interference.

Filed Under: free speech, legislation, new jersey, sean kean, video games, violence

Why Shouldn't New Legislative Data Flow Directly Into Wikipedia

from the automate-that dept

There's an interesting event going on today and tomorrow at the Cato Institute, with a very practical focus: looking at ways to automate the process of getting legislative data into Wikipedia. That is, when new bills are introduced, and as they make their way through Congress and to the President, is there any reason that data doesn't automatically populate to Wikipedia?

Our project to produce enhanced XML markup of federal legislation is well under way, and we hope to use this data to make more information available to the public about how bills affect existing law, federal agencies, and spending, for example.

What better way to spread knowledge about federal public policy than by supporting the growth of Wikipedia content?

There are a bunch of services out there that present such legislative data, but having a straight XML feed from Congress to Wikipedia seems like an all around good idea.

Filed Under: congress, data, legislation, wikipedia, xml

Finnish Act Lets The Public Send Bills To Parliament, Volunteer Group Makes It Easy

from the true-democracy dept

Reactions to the White House's We the People initiative have been mixed, but it is certainly one small step in the right direction. In Finland, they're taking a giant leap: letting citizens pass complete bills directly to parliament. The Citizen's Initiative Act, which came into effect this month, requires Parliament to process any bill that collects 50,000 signatures from citizens of voting age. Alternatively, citizens can make a proposal for a bill, which will then be examined and potentially drafted by a ministry. To facilitate the process, a volunteer group in Helsinki has created the Avoin ministeriö (Open Ministry) website, an online tool for drafting bills and proposals and gathering signatures.

The Open Ministry is an idea that Joonas Pekkanen came up with last December. Pekkanen, who has been involved in launching Internet-based start-up companies, saw a newspaper article about the citizens’ initiative. He began to recruit volunteer workers for the project from his circle of friends, and the group was formed quickly. The entire operation has started from the grass-roots level. No money from the government or any interest group is involved. Openness and involving everybody in the operation of the ministry has been the central principle behind the activity.

They plan to start small and get people comfortable with the idea, by first targeting a much-maligned dog tax that is effectively un-enforced but still on the books and actually costing the government money. Pekkanen plans to focus on submitting completed bills rather than proposals, saying “the aim is that citizens’ initiatives would have the best possible chances of being passed as laws by Parliament.”

There are similar projects underway in the U.S., but none go quite as far as this. Apparently there is going to be a delay while the Ministry of Justice builds a system for accepting legal digital signatures, but once that is taken care of it will be fascinating to see how this develops, and how responsive the Finnish parliament is to citizen-drafted legislation.

Filed Under: crowdsourcing, finland, legislation

New Platform Launched To Crowdsource Better Internet-Related Regulation... With Expert Help

from the hybrid-approach dept

In the wake of the SOPA/PIPA fight, there have been more and more efforts to use the interest in keeping the internet free and open in a more proactive manner, rather than just reactive. We've already talked about the Reddit community crowdsourcing a law, as well as our own attempt at crowdsourcing an internet innovation agenda (which is generating some interesting discussions). Within Congress, there is also the Madison platform, which was used to crowdsource feedback on Darrell Issa and Ron Wyden's OPEN Act, and suggests an interesting way that bills should be presented for feedback.

However, as many people have noted, there have been some limitations to these efforts. With the Reddit example, what comes out of a totally open system for generating laws has been a little... messy so far. It's pretty clear that the drafts coming out have significant problems and so far seem pretty disconnected from any actual policy objectives, and thus seem unlikely to actually get anywhere. That could change over time, and I'm still eager to see what happens with it, but watching the process is at times cringe-worthy, as you think about how just a little help from people who actually know how this stuff works might help speed things along. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the Madison platform, while a nice idea, still relies on someone in Congress to have a bill ready to go -- and many of the complaints about the platform (such as those seen in the article linked above) are that it really discourages participation.

Is there a middle ground approach to all of this? The folks at Public Knowledge seem to think so, as they've launched a rather interesting project called the Internet Blueprint. Unfortunately, I think the design needs a lot of work, as it's not entirely clear how it works, but the idea behind the site is that users can submit ideas for legislation. From there, people can vote. Similar to the White House's "We The People" petition site, if a proposal reaches a specific threshold of votes, Public Knowledge will then get actual legislative language written up, either by themselves or by other experts (or may explain why a certain bill can't be written up, if that's the case).

Then, once a bill is ready, the site can list out Congressional (or organizational) supporters to champion the bill. Initially, they're starting out with five specific bills that I think many people around here will appreciate:

1. Curb Abuses of Copyright Takedowns
2. Ensure Openness in International IP Negotiations
3. Permit Lawful Uses of Copyrighted Content
4. Reduce Copyright Abuse and Overreach
5. Shorten Copyright Terms

In other words, this is something of a hybrid approach. Rather than a full on crowdsourced version, like Reddit, this has an initial proposal and voting period, but then someone with experience in actually writing legislative language helps out. This is a beta launch, and I know Public Knowledge has a lot more planned, so while I think the platform is a bit limited right now, I'm excited to see what comes out of it. For example, I hope they work on cleaning up the design, but also it would be nice to allow more commentary and feedback on the bills already submitted (more like the Madison platform). If they could combine all of those features, the overall system could be really quite useful.

Filed Under: crowdsourcing, internet blueprint, legislation
Companies: public knowledge

Tim O'Reilly Explains Where The Federal Gov't Has Gone Wrong On SOPA/PIPA: Solving The Wrong Problem

from the indeed dept

A few months back, in going into great detail on everything wrong with PIPA & SOPA, I started it off by explaining that the whole effort was attacking the wrong problem. Here's what I wrote at the time:

That main issue, we're told over and over again, is "piracy" and specifically "rogue" websites. And, let's be clear: infringement is a problem. But the question is what kind of problem is it? Much of the evidence suggests that it's not an enforcement problem and it's not a legal problem. Decades of evidence from around the globe all show the same thing: making copyright law or enforcement stricter does not work. It does not decrease infringement at all -- and, quite frequently, leads to more infringement. That's because the reason that there's infringement in the first place is that consumers are being under-served. Historically, infringement has never been about "free," but about indicating where the business models have not kept up with the technology.

Thus, the real issue is that this is a business model problem. As we've seen over and over and over again, those who embrace what the internet enables, have found themselves to be much better off than they were before. They're able to build up larger fanbases, and to rely on various new platforms and services to make more money.

And, as we've seen with near perfect consistency, the best way, by far, to decrease infringement is to offer awesome new services that are convenient and useful. This doesn't mean just offering any old service -- and it certainly doesn't mean trying to limit what users can do with those services. And, most importantly, it doesn't mean treating consumers like they were criminals and "pirates." It means constantly improving the consumer experience. When that consumer experience is great, then people switch in droves. You can, absolutely, compete with free, and many do so. If more were able to without restriction, infringement would decrease. If you look at the two largest contributors to holding back "piracy" lately, it's been Netflix and Spotify. Those two services alone have been orders of magnitude more successful in decreasing infringement than any new copyright law. Because they compete by being more convenient and a better experience than infringement.

Tim O'Reilly (who you should know already), who makes his living in the content business, but has always been against these kinds of ridiculous laws, has come out with a great, detailed discussion of the same issue, concerning how the federal government still has mis-defined the problem. He's doing this in response to the White House's statement on Saturday, and makes some important points:

I found myself profoundly disturbed by something that seems to me to go to the root of the problem in Washington: the failure to correctly diagnose the problem we are trying to solve, but instead to accept, seemingly uncritically, the claims of various interest groups. The offending paragraph is as follows:

"Let us be clear—online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy, and threatens jobs for significant numbers of middle class workers and hurts some of our nation's most creative and innovative companies and entrepreneurs. It harms everyone from struggling artists to production crews, and from startup social media companies to large movie studios. While we are strongly committed to the vigorous enforcement of intellectual property rights, existing tools are not strong enough to root out the worst online pirates beyond our borders."

In the entire discussion, I've seen no discussion of credible evidence of this economic harm. There's no question in my mind that piracy exists, that people around the world are enjoying creative content without paying for it, and even that some criminals are profiting by redistributing it. But is there actual economic harm?

From there, he talks about his own experience running a content business, and how he's learned that any actual infringement tends to benefit him in the long run. That's because, like I explained above, if you put in place a smart business model (something Tim is good at) piracy is no problem at all. O'Reilly is fond of the phrase that "obscurity is a bigger problem than piracy" and he's completely right:

In my experience at O'Reilly, the losses due to piracy are far outweighed by the benefits of the free flow of information, which makes the world richer, and develops new markets for legitimate content. Most of the people who are downloading unauthorized copies of O'Reilly books would never have paid us for them anyway; meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of others are buying content from us, many of them in countries that we were never able to do business with when our products were not available in digital form.

History shows us, again and again, that frontiers are lawless places, but that as they get richer and more settled, they join in the rule of law. American publishing, now the largest publishing industry in the world, began with piracy. (I have a post coming on that subject on Monday.)

From there, he starts talking about what the White House should be doing, and it's simple: look for ways to allow innovation to flourish -- not create protectionist plans for industries who aren't keeping up with the times:

Congress (and the White House) need to spend time thinking hard about how best to grow our economy - and that means being careful not to close off the frontier, or to harm those trying to settle it, in order to protect those who want to remain safe at home. British publishers could have come to America in the 19th century; they chose not to, and as a result, we grew our own indigenous publishing industry, which relied at first, in no small part, on pirating British and European works.

If the goal is really to support jobs and the American economy, internet "protectionism" is not the way to do it.

It is said (though I've not found the source) that Einstein once remarked that if given 60 minutes to save the world, he would spend 55 of them defining the problem. And defining the problem means collecting and studying real evidence, not the overblown claims of an industry that has fought the introduction of every new technology that has turned out, in the end, to grow their business rather than threaten it.

He also has a final suggestion that may seem unrelated, but is actually directly at issue:

If Congress and the White House really want to fight pirates who are hurting the economy, they should be working to rein in patent trolls. There, the evidence of economic harm is clear, in multi-billion dollar transfers of wealth from companies building real products to those who have learned how to work the patent system while producing no value for consumers.

But, of course, that will never happen. That's because a totally useless "patent reform bill" passed a few months ago, and Congress and the President now consider that problem "done." And that's even though nothing in the bill actually addressed the issue of patent trolls, which has been a huge problem, and has hit many of the new businesses that are needed to build the innovations that will help the old guard in the content industry adapt. Hell, just look at Spotify. Days after being introduced in the US... it was sued for infringement.

So, the real response to the White House should be that it's time to stop making this a faith-based debate. Let's focus on the actual evidence, and define what the actual problem is. Because if it's (as all the evidence shows) a business model problem, not a legal or enforcement problem, pushing forth new regulation is not going to be the answer.

Filed Under: business models, copyright, economics, internet, laws, legislation, pipa, protect ip, protectionism, regulation, sopa, tim o'reilly, white house

There Is No 'Internet Kill Switch' Legislation... And Pretending There Is Distracts From The Real Debate

from the overhyped-analysis dept

In mid-June, we noted that due to all the questionable cyberwar hype, Senator Joe Lieberman had introduced a "cybersecurity" bill. We had plenty of issues with that bill, but still found it odd a week or so later, when we started getting all sorts of submissions from people saying that Lieberman was trying to implement an "internet kill switch." As bad as the bill appears to be, there isn't an internet kill switch in the bill, and so we wrote another post pointing that out.

However, it appears that the meme of an "internet kill switch" -- which apparently was first put forth by Declan McCullough -- has pretty much taken over the debate on the bill. And some are noting that this is problematic, as there are lots of real issues to be discussed around the bill, and focusing on the bogus "internet kill switch" makes it less likely those other, real, issues will get as much attention.

Filed Under: internet, kill switch, legislation

More Privacy Laws Don't Mean More Privacy

from the think-this-through dept

There's evidence that we're about to see a big new push in "privacy" laws at both the state and federal level, and while privacy is important, these laws often do the exact opposite of what they're intended to do. They, like so many laws, do a lot more to give politicians headlines so they can say they protected constituents' privacy, but the reality is quite different. A recent Forbes article explored what a mess privacy regulations have become, basically creating huge bureaucracies in order to comply with the laws, but having little to do with actually protecting privacy. Instead, the added regulations have just created the need for people to sign various consent forms that they don't understand, and limited certain types of useful information sharing, while making it that much more difficult to accomplish certain basic tasks. And, on top of everything, in some cases it's actually increasing the privacy risk, by requiring the collection of certain "private" info in a database that now makes it that much more vulnerable.

No one denies that protecting privacy is important -- but that's not what's being done. Instead, politicians are rushing through legislation to make it look like privacy is being protected, when all it really does is create extra burdens on both companies and users without any corresponding privacy benefit.

Filed Under: legislation, privacy, regulations

Hollywood's Favorite Lawmakers Preparing Next Level Of Draconian Copyright Laws

from the because-ProIP-wasn't-enough dept

Because (of course) last year's ProIP bill that (once again) strengthened copyright laws wasn't enough, Hollywood's favorite lawmakers all got together outside of LA and complained about how copyright laws needed to be even more draconian. They once again quoted the same mythical stats about the damage done by infringement, and didn't hear from a single defender of the public or someone who could explain the basic fact that strengthening copyright law doesn't solve anything. Instead, they just complained, blamed pretty much every foreign country (other than France) and insisted "something must be done!"

Apparently changing their business models to adapt to a changing marketplace has yet to be considered. Not when all of these Congressional Reps from California have no problem swallowing made up stats and misleading fear mongering from an industry unwilling to embrace new business models. Instead, they blame everyone else, including apparently a major session blaming Canada. It's still not clear why Hollywood thinks Canada is such a copyright pariah. The country already has pretty strong copyright laws and doesn't seem to be a haven for piracy at all.

The only country they did seem to like? Apparently that would be France, which just sneakily (after most of Parliament had gone home for the night) passed a three strikes bill. The entertainment industry execs seemed to think this might be a perfect solution -- once again looking to kill off any opportunity to create a better business model, and instead piss off fans and drive them further underground. It's like seeing the same dumb horror movie over and over again, where we the consumers/audience keeps yelling out "no, don't go in there!" and yet they still go in there, make the same mistakes over again and end up only damaging themselves. Is it really that difficult for them to recognize that the business model is the issue, and no amount of increased copyright protection is going to change that?

In the meantime, it's pretty sickening that our elected officials would choose only to hear from one extremely biased side on the debate, and will now introduce legislation that bails out that one industry at the expense of the public. Clearly, these hearings were not to "hear" anything new -- but to put on a puppet show prior to already written (by the industry) legislation to be introduced.

Filed Under: canada, copyright, foreign countries, howard berman, legislation, piracy, three strikes