What's appalling is that this is the same group who were judging the validity of software and internet patents who had no access to the technology they were ruling on, in fact weren't allowed to. At least at work.
Complete lunacy. Particularly as other branches of the US Government had helped develop the Internet.
I hate to tell you this but where I worked there was access on every desk in my department in 1997 and on about half of them in 1994. So to say that pretty much every company didn't permit it is false. I personally know of many brokerage firms who were early adopters as the Web grew and became more valuable to them.
There may not have been ADSL to homes in those days but there was certainly HDSL to businesses and other technologies available such as ISDN. And, I can also tell you that governments got the best of connections for the Internet from suppliers as that would come in very handy later as ADSL and cable were extended to homes.
It's still utterly stupid and appalling that those making decisions about software patents weren't allowed to access the technology they were making judgements on.
Lithuania does have a culture and language going back a thousand years or so think what you will of it. And I doubt that many Americans are all that interested in the content they produce though I guarantee that Lithuanians are.
How typical of some of our trolls to mistake size, in this case of a country and population, with determination and the right to express itself.
I remember the same being said of the "small" anti-SOPA/PIPA movement not so long ago as well.
It's interesting to see the strength of the opposition from Eastern Europe and the reasons why. Some of that may also explain Germany's sudden retreat is that there's not much support for ACTA in the eastern half of the country. If unfettered access to the internet is linked to democracy and freedom in Eastern Europe that's a hard thing for ACTA advocates to overcome. Almost impossible.
For such a conservative magazine (conservative in their journalism as well as outlook) as The Economist to make predictions like this unless they're sure ACTA will fail in Europe.
And if ACTA fails in Europe it's future in the rest of the world is gloomy.
If ACTA fails in Europe then I doubt there's much of a future for TPP either. Both big if's at the moment but this is one hairy mouse clicker Old enough that I'm talking nose and ear hair here!
I'm gonna take it that O'Reilly publications isn't mainstream then. Even if they did repeat all the same objections and more that sites like this and others did. Including Reddit, Wikimedia and Slashdot had.
Because someone disagrees with you doesn't make them (or me) anarchists. But if that's as little as I have to to wear that label in your mind please apply it.
I do demand the fancy button with the big A on top of a smiley face though!
A nice rewrite of OWS but ultimately a failure there. Actually I didn't hear that much of a cry for more pie that I did a deep concern that something had gone seriously wrong in America. And the idea that there might be more pie if what was wrong got fixed. Though both movements would hate me for saying it there's a lot they had in common with The Tea Party that way.
Both have identified the growing gap between the richest and poorest in the United States, not a good thing if you want to look back historically on it, though the solutions such as they were are different.
SOPA/PIPA opposition wasn't a cause of the week though some might hope it was. The message wasn't unified to those who didn't want to listen though it was hard to have a unified response to bills with so much wrong with them on any number of points.
By the time sites blacked themselves out the message was unified, though, that these bills were an affront to freedom and liberty, that they threatened the very underpinning of the Internet and that they adopted "solutions" to a "problem" being felt by a small (by GDP) industry with money to spend which they did and freely.
There's not even verifiable figures to say that piracy is a problem that has cost so much as a single job much less millions.
There is, however, the easily spotted flaw in that the solution to this phantom problem was to adopt a firewall mentality currently only in use by the most oppressive regimes in the world.
You only hope this is a "cause of the week" thing but it isn't. The Internet and the Web have become an integral part of our culture, society and body politic in ways no one could imagine even 5 years ago. It's become the backbone of much of the global economy and most of us are smart enough to know all of that. There was widespread opposition to the bills that the supporters couldn't counter because thee was nothing to counter the points the opposition was making. At least nothing that made cultural, societal, political and economic sense.
Something that the "evening news" has now way of explaining in handy 40 second voice or video clips. Or a couple or three paragraphs in a newspaper already committed to the legislation in question. And no blood in sight!
It's not even a mob conversation at first, it's a small group conversing about an issue or problem that them spreads out as more people join in.
Despite the trolls, and some of their best efforts, the conversation, for the most part, stays respectful, and people do get listened to and their arguments taken into account as positions are come to.
While there may be controversy there is little of what old media loves which is summed up thusly "If it bleeds it leads". The lack of blood on the floor makes it even harder for old media to get a handle on things. It makes "he said; she said" journalism next to impossible when there are no or few entrenched positions. (Outside of the trolls who aren't interesting anyway.)
It isn't even the case that the SOPA/PIPA debate was leaderless. The old media had Mike, the editors of Reddit, any number of security experts and internet architects to explain why the bills were such an awful idea. That's not even bringing out the biggest gun who just happens to be Tim Brenners-Lee who is so shy he'd rather not do things like tweet!
Now if the discussion had turned into name calling, raucous splits between factions and good old "left-right" cracks old media might have had something to hang it's collective hat on. But, mostly, that didn't happen either. They were badly thought out, badly written bills crafted for a single special interest group that's already as low on the opinion scale as the profession of politics itself.
As well, old media is so conditioned to movements that have clear leadership that when one appears where there is no clear leadership they don't know what to do with it and sentence it to failure.
It's when the citizenry, you know, the people discussing this stuff civilly and with purpose, WIN, the media has no way of explaining that either.
Neither to some trolls who start using words like insurrection to describe what happened. In part they're right. The citizenry had had enough of Congress bowing and scraping to a small industry (in GDP terms) while there were more important things to consider and threatening the Internet in a way everyone could understand and most did.
The Internet is now part of our culture, our society and our economy. Threatening it for the protection of one small (in GDP terms) industry makes no sense. Even more when that industry is already highly unpopular and is already known to be addicted to entitlement for what is, all in all, a not very good record of creation. It was a peaceful insurrection against influence peddling, long suspected graft and the refusal of Congress to listen to anyone except the RIAA/MPAA amd other SOPA/PIPA supporters.
If that's an insurrection I'm proud to have been a part of it.
It would be funny if it didn't mirror a lot of what was said about broadsheets (newspapers) in the early days of printing in Western Europe and elsewhere.
Broadsheets would be the end of civil society as they knew it, it would undermine the structure of society, broadsheets were vulgar and crude and no one was "fact checking" to make sure they got it right.
Broadsheets could be used to foster revolution as they recently did in the 13 colonies along the Atlantic seaboard owned by England. If we aren't careful we could lose our control over places rightfully Spanish such as South America and the Netherlands where, by God's will (well at least a well paid off pope's will) we have been promised eternal sovereignty.
And, if we aren't careful, on our northern border the uneducated rabble could be wound up to become another revolutionary force to topple our brother the King of France!
We must control media, ensure that the facts and only the facts get out there. Enough of this random printing press nonsense that brought us such soul destroying fashions such as Lutherans and Anglicans already!
(I'd tag this as sarcasm except that it's far to close to the truth.)
Murdoch's empire has a record of destroying civil society where ever is appears. It's like an invasive plant species. Unstoppable, unwanted and hated but from early spring to later fall and early winter you have to look at the damned thing!
I suspect the support difference in Germany and the UK has as much to do with the electoral systems in place in each nation.
The UK, well at least England, is a first past the post system which tends to "punish" new parties rather than reward them. The proportional system used in Germany allows for new and not yet in the mainstream parties such as the Pirate Party and the Greens to emerge and win seats.
At this point voting Pirate in the UK is a protest vote only, in Germany it means something.
(By the way I'm no defender of proportional representation particularly in large countries such as Canada until some of the kinks get worked out such as how do we fire a rep who isn't performing as we'd like him/her to. Virtually impossible under most forms of PR.)
For those of us on this side of the pond it's important to remember that the Federal German Republic elects it's representatives by a form of proportional representation. As Hephaestus says if Germany signs ACTA and it doubles the vote for the Pirate Party and increases support for the Greens, who already oppose ACTA the shift in parliamentary representation would be far larger than it would be in first past the post systems such as the United States, Canada or the UK.
If it's a doubling of support then the effect on the "old line" parties would be immense.
This may be one of the reasons the Germans are holding off.
"The problem is with the free content that is thrown into the ocean without compensating the owners of it. Believe it or not, there are professionals who need to be paid for their creative output."
And just who, exactly, is denying that?
Though, in the creative arts the correct ending is "who want to be paid" as a lot of them aren't. At least regularly. And certainly not by the RIAA and MPAAs of the world unless you live on an entirely different world that the rest of us do.
I do get concerned about the often random use of tasers by law enforcement. Not that I'd find myself in the position that this man did nor would I give a false name there's a real possibility that using a taser on me would kill me as I'm 100% dependent on my pacemaker and the amount of electricity generated by the weapon would destroy it.
Despite the propaganda of Taser International these devices are not always non fatal.
A few indie films do make it into Hollywood controlled movie theatres and into wide distribution and a few do very, very well.
And yes, there is an effective monopoly in place in the distribution of motion pictures in North America and always has been.
These days I wouldn't call Hollywood "brands" good filters, quite the opposite it's just that it's those brands people get to choose from and little else. People put up with most of it and when the odd great film comes through they flock to it.
That said, there's a large market for indie films in continental Europe where the Hollywood chains don't control the movie theatres, and in the UK and Scandinavia and Russia. The global market isn't just the United States, you know.
Filtering will come from where it's always come. Word of mouth, film festivals, reviewers on different sites if newspapers don't survive and so on.
I'm sorry if that looks like a firehose to you. But essentially it's the same as now. Even if the site it's being downloaded from is The Pirate Bay.
What insurgency? Unless of course you mean that people standing up for their rights and decrying the corruption of IP laws over the years from monopolies granted for short periods of time to ones now almost stretching into eternity.
There was no insurgency. There was a democratic an open discussion and debate and the people won.
You remember that, don't you? "We, the People..." and all the rest of it?
It didn't start out "We, the Special Interests..." or "We, the Lobbyists with truckloads of cash...." or anything like that it started out "We, the People..."
If you think it was an insurgency then no lessons were learned, nothing learned that you can take back to your employer which destroys your value to them. If standing up for everything the US Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution is an insurrection then you learned nothing. And we, too, look forward to the next round.
I'm as cynical as anyone else here about just what it might accomplish but there's no harm in trying.
It would be important that Dodd and Sherman are treated with respect even if there's no necessity to treat their views and the views the represent respectfully.
It's just as important that Dodd and Sherman actually listen to what's being said and treat that with some degree of respect even if they disagree.
Equally important that the meeting not devolve into the mob scene our beltway insider troll seems to be sure it will. (Though that might be closer to debate on the floor of Congress it just doesn't look good.)
The meeting wouldn't solve anything. But it could be the start of them understanding that the revolt wasn't Google fueled but was fueled by people who were concerned that SOPA and PIPA would erode constitutional rights, impair the development of new and better ways of doing things and actually speed progress and the economic recovery. Keeping in mind that a free and fully functional Internet is vital to that recovery as is a thriving tech sector.
Ultimately that neither the internet or the tech sector are their enemy. It's a reality they need to adapt to.
No communication is going to start unless something like this meeting is held. The ones with the most to lose by a failure here are the RIAA and the MPAA and the IP maximalists who have already lost the day.
On the post: Schrödinger's Download: Whether Or Not An iTunes Music Sale Is A 'Sale' Depends On Who's Suing
Re: Re:
Wonderful when you can have your cake and eat it too. Over and over again.
On the post: One Reason Why The USPTO Granted Ridiculously Stupid Internet Patents: Patent Examiners Were Banned From Using The Internet
Re:
Complete lunacy. Particularly as other branches of the US Government had helped develop the Internet.
I hate to tell you this but where I worked there was access on every desk in my department in 1997 and on about half of them in 1994. So to say that pretty much every company didn't permit it is false. I personally know of many brokerage firms who were early adopters as the Web grew and became more valuable to them.
There may not have been ADSL to homes in those days but there was certainly HDSL to businesses and other technologies available such as ISDN. And, I can also tell you that governments got the best of connections for the Internet from suppliers as that would come in very handy later as ADSL and cable were extended to homes.
It's still utterly stupid and appalling that those making decisions about software patents weren't allowed to access the technology they were making judgements on.
On the post: Lithuanian Minister Of Justice Says ACTA Is Unnecessary, Doesn't Actually Help Creators And It's Time To Reevaluate IP
Re: Lithuanian power
How typical of some of our trolls to mistake size, in this case of a country and population, with determination and the right to express itself.
I remember the same being said of the "small" anti-SOPA/PIPA movement not so long ago as well.
On the post: 'The Economist' And 'Financial Times' Already Writing Off ACTA As Dead
For such a conservative magazine (conservative in their journalism as well as outlook) as The Economist to make predictions like this unless they're sure ACTA will fail in Europe.
And if ACTA fails in Europe it's future in the rest of the world is gloomy.
If ACTA fails in Europe then I doubt there's much of a future for TPP either. Both big if's at the moment but this is one hairy mouse clicker Old enough that I'm talking nose and ear hair here!
On the post: SOPA Strikedown Aftermath: Old Media Cannot Tell The Narrative Of One Million People
Re: Re: Re: Re: Wouldn't it be great
As for this fella from Boulder I wish him luck and I pray that he is the kind of politician that stands for what he believes in without exception.
On the post: SOPA Strikedown Aftermath: Old Media Cannot Tell The Narrative Of One Million People
Re: Re:
Since when?
On the post: SOPA Strikedown Aftermath: Old Media Cannot Tell The Narrative Of One Million People
Re: Re: If you are going to ask or assume
Because someone disagrees with you doesn't make them (or me) anarchists. But if that's as little as I have to to wear that label in your mind please apply it.
I do demand the fancy button with the big A on top of a smiley face though!
On the post: SOPA Strikedown Aftermath: Old Media Cannot Tell The Narrative Of One Million People
Re:
Both have identified the growing gap between the richest and poorest in the United States, not a good thing if you want to look back historically on it, though the solutions such as they were are different.
SOPA/PIPA opposition wasn't a cause of the week though some might hope it was. The message wasn't unified to those who didn't want to listen though it was hard to have a unified response to bills with so much wrong with them on any number of points.
By the time sites blacked themselves out the message was unified, though, that these bills were an affront to freedom and liberty, that they threatened the very underpinning of the Internet and that they adopted "solutions" to a "problem" being felt by a small (by GDP) industry with money to spend which they did and freely.
There's not even verifiable figures to say that piracy is a problem that has cost so much as a single job much less millions.
There is, however, the easily spotted flaw in that the solution to this phantom problem was to adopt a firewall mentality currently only in use by the most oppressive regimes in the world.
You only hope this is a "cause of the week" thing but it isn't. The Internet and the Web have become an integral part of our culture, society and body politic in ways no one could imagine even 5 years ago. It's become the backbone of much of the global economy and most of us are smart enough to know all of that. There was widespread opposition to the bills that the supporters couldn't counter because thee was nothing to counter the points the opposition was making. At least nothing that made cultural, societal, political and economic sense.
Something that the "evening news" has now way of explaining in handy 40 second voice or video clips. Or a couple or three paragraphs in a newspaper already committed to the legislation in question. And no blood in sight!
On the post: SOPA Strikedown Aftermath: Old Media Cannot Tell The Narrative Of One Million People
Re: Re:
Despite the trolls, and some of their best efforts, the conversation, for the most part, stays respectful, and people do get listened to and their arguments taken into account as positions are come to.
While there may be controversy there is little of what old media loves which is summed up thusly "If it bleeds it leads". The lack of blood on the floor makes it even harder for old media to get a handle on things. It makes "he said; she said" journalism next to impossible when there are no or few entrenched positions. (Outside of the trolls who aren't interesting anyway.)
It isn't even the case that the SOPA/PIPA debate was leaderless. The old media had Mike, the editors of Reddit, any number of security experts and internet architects to explain why the bills were such an awful idea. That's not even bringing out the biggest gun who just happens to be Tim Brenners-Lee who is so shy he'd rather not do things like tweet!
Now if the discussion had turned into name calling, raucous splits between factions and good old "left-right" cracks old media might have had something to hang it's collective hat on. But, mostly, that didn't happen either. They were badly thought out, badly written bills crafted for a single special interest group that's already as low on the opinion scale as the profession of politics itself.
As well, old media is so conditioned to movements that have clear leadership that when one appears where there is no clear leadership they don't know what to do with it and sentence it to failure.
It's when the citizenry, you know, the people discussing this stuff civilly and with purpose, WIN, the media has no way of explaining that either.
Neither to some trolls who start using words like insurrection to describe what happened. In part they're right. The citizenry had had enough of Congress bowing and scraping to a small industry (in GDP terms) while there were more important things to consider and threatening the Internet in a way everyone could understand and most did.
The Internet is now part of our culture, our society and our economy. Threatening it for the protection of one small (in GDP terms) industry makes no sense. Even more when that industry is already highly unpopular and is already known to be addicted to entitlement for what is, all in all, a not very good record of creation. It was a peaceful insurrection against influence peddling, long suspected graft and the refusal of Congress to listen to anyone except the RIAA/MPAA amd other SOPA/PIPA supporters.
If that's an insurrection I'm proud to have been a part of it.
On the post: Newspaper Boss Says Newspapers Need More Money... Because New Media Steals & May 'Destroy Civil Society'
Re: Seems we need more censorship!
Broadsheets would be the end of civil society as they knew it, it would undermine the structure of society, broadsheets were vulgar and crude and no one was "fact checking" to make sure they got it right.
Broadsheets could be used to foster revolution as they recently did in the 13 colonies along the Atlantic seaboard owned by England. If we aren't careful we could lose our control over places rightfully Spanish such as South America and the Netherlands where, by God's will (well at least a well paid off pope's will) we have been promised eternal sovereignty.
And, if we aren't careful, on our northern border the uneducated rabble could be wound up to become another revolutionary force to topple our brother the King of France!
We must control media, ensure that the facts and only the facts get out there. Enough of this random printing press nonsense that brought us such soul destroying fashions such as Lutherans and Anglicans already!
(I'd tag this as sarcasm except that it's far to close to the truth.)
On the post: Newspaper Boss Says Newspapers Need More Money... Because New Media Steals & May 'Destroy Civil Society'
Re: Murdoch
On the post: Big News: Germany Says It Won't Sign ACTA [Update: ... Yet]
Re:
The UK, well at least England, is a first past the post system which tends to "punish" new parties rather than reward them. The proportional system used in Germany allows for new and not yet in the mainstream parties such as the Pirate Party and the Greens to emerge and win seats.
At this point voting Pirate in the UK is a protest vote only, in Germany it means something.
(By the way I'm no defender of proportional representation particularly in large countries such as Canada until some of the kinks get worked out such as how do we fire a rep who isn't performing as we'd like him/her to. Virtually impossible under most forms of PR.)
On the post: Big News: Germany Says It Won't Sign ACTA [Update: ... Yet]
Re: Speechless...
On the post: Big News: Germany Says It Won't Sign ACTA [Update: ... Yet]
Re: Re: ACTA
If it's a doubling of support then the effect on the "old line" parties would be immense.
This may be one of the reasons the Germans are holding off.
On the post: If The RIAA Wants To Talk About Misinformation Campaigns, Let's Start With The RIAA's Misinformation Campaign
Re: Re: Re:
My, what a persuasive argument.
Anyway, SOPA and PIPA aren't laws yet. They are still bills that may be debated if they're ever taken off the shelf they're now collecting dust on.
On the post: If The RIAA Wants To Talk About Misinformation Campaigns, Let's Start With The RIAA's Misinformation Campaign
Re: Re: Re:
And just who, exactly, is denying that?
Though, in the creative arts the correct ending is "who want to be paid" as a lot of them aren't. At least regularly. And certainly not by the RIAA and MPAAs of the world unless you live on an entirely different world that the rest of us do.
On the post: Park Ranger Tases Guy Walking Dogs Without A Leash
Despite the propaganda of Taser International these devices are not always non fatal.
On the post: Beware Of Those Who Claim They're 'Saving The Culture Business' When They're Really Protecting Those Who Strip Artists Of Rights
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
And yes, there is an effective monopoly in place in the distribution of motion pictures in North America and always has been.
These days I wouldn't call Hollywood "brands" good filters, quite the opposite it's just that it's those brands people get to choose from and little else. People put up with most of it and when the odd great film comes through they flock to it.
That said, there's a large market for indie films in continental Europe where the Hollywood chains don't control the movie theatres, and in the UK and Scandinavia and Russia. The global market isn't just the United States, you know.
Filtering will come from where it's always come. Word of mouth, film festivals, reviewers on different sites if newspapers don't survive and so on.
I'm sorry if that looks like a firehose to you. But essentially it's the same as now. Even if the site it's being downloaded from is The Pirate Bay.
On the post: Open Offer To Chris Dodd & Cary Sherman: Meet The Internet Online And In The Open
Re:
There was no insurgency. There was a democratic an open discussion and debate and the people won.
You remember that, don't you? "We, the People..." and all the rest of it?
It didn't start out "We, the Special Interests..." or "We, the Lobbyists with truckloads of cash...." or anything like that it started out "We, the People..."
If you think it was an insurgency then no lessons were learned, nothing learned that you can take back to your employer which destroys your value to them. If standing up for everything the US Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution is an insurrection then you learned nothing. And we, too, look forward to the next round.
Bring it on.
On the post: Open Offer To Chris Dodd & Cary Sherman: Meet The Internet Online And In The Open
Let's meet then
I'm as cynical as anyone else here about just what it might accomplish but there's no harm in trying.
It would be important that Dodd and Sherman are treated with respect even if there's no necessity to treat their views and the views the represent respectfully.
It's just as important that Dodd and Sherman actually listen to what's being said and treat that with some degree of respect even if they disagree.
Equally important that the meeting not devolve into the mob scene our beltway insider troll seems to be sure it will. (Though that might be closer to debate on the floor of Congress it just doesn't look good.)
The meeting wouldn't solve anything. But it could be the start of them understanding that the revolt wasn't Google fueled but was fueled by people who were concerned that SOPA and PIPA would erode constitutional rights, impair the development of new and better ways of doing things and actually speed progress and the economic recovery. Keeping in mind that a free and fully functional Internet is vital to that recovery as is a thriving tech sector.
Ultimately that neither the internet or the tech sector are their enemy. It's a reality they need to adapt to.
No communication is going to start unless something like this meeting is held. The ones with the most to lose by a failure here are the RIAA and the MPAA and the IP maximalists who have already lost the day.
Let's meet.
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