"While the bill includes some detail on surveillance capability requirements, perhaps the most dangerous provision is Section 14, which gives the government a stunning array of powers:
to order an ISP or telecom provider to install surveillance capabilities "in a manner and within a time" specified by the government
to order an ISP or telecom provider to install additional equipment to allow for more simultaneous interceptions than is otherwise specified in the law (the government sets a maximum and then can simply ignore its own guidelines)
to order an ISP or telecom provider to comply with additional confidentiality requirements not otherwise specified in the law
to order an ISP or telecom provider to meet additional operational requirements not otherwise specified in the law"
Does this mandate COMPULSORY widespread spying? No, admittedly it does not. I don't think that's what most of us are concerned about, though if that was on the table it would be worse. Like SOPA / PIPA, we're not concerned about the intent of the law. We're concerned about its capacity for abuse.
This section gives the government / police the POWER to enact compulsory, widespread spying without further legislation. So no, it doesn't require the government to build a spy database. But it does give it the ability to build such a thing, and the government should not have that ability.
"It is regulated, and in those regulation, it can include provisions to mark, label, or have identification that can be used"
Incorrect. It is about to be regulated, and there are damn good reasons to allow anonymous access. That's what this whole argument is about. Saying we should accept these regulations because the regulations are already there is ridiculous.
"an you show the EXACT provisions that suddenly create the widescale spying you seem to be implying is out there"
The situation as it stands - where most of the time personal information is handed over with no oversight - is bad enough. What we should really be lobbying for is to make sure that ISPs aren't allowed to hand over personal information without a warrant.
The provisions that people are upset about are the ones that require information to be handed over without a warrant. Maybe that's just symbolic because the information gets handed over most of the time anyway, but I'm damned if I'm going to let the problem get worse.
"The reality is that it is never a bad thing for companies to know who their customers are"
Maybe not from the point of view of the company. From the customer's point of view - sorry, your statement is patently false. There are companies that I trust to know stuff about me, and companies that can't do business without knowing things about me, but the choice to give them that information should be mine.
I absolutely DO NOT want my grocery store to know who I am every time I show up. I CERTAINLY don't want Target (for example) to know who I am. I put up with the fact that the pros of giving my e-mail to Google outweighs the cons, but the fact that they know a lot about me is NOT universally a good thing.
Yeah, I got that talking point from Vic Toews too.
The legislation doesn't need to legislate the creation of the database. I'm sure it already exists. Police don't seem to need any further motivation to track us.
The legislation is about the extent to which they are allowed to populate it without oversight. Given that ISPs already comply with 95% of requests, it seems likely that much of this information is already out there.
Long story short: Stopping the legislation isn't going to solve the underyling problem. But it will prevent it from getting even worse.
Your reminder ignores the realities of dealing with major labels as a filmmaker. This isn't a case of cheaping out or a saving a few dollars. Most of the time a "full" license simply isn't available unless you're willing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars per song. Music licensing would quickly exceed the cost of the production if we licensed every song in perpetuity. See also Nina Paley and Sita Sings the Blues.
Here's the thing. Regardless of the strength of evidence against Megaupload, the internet has two major, legitimate complaints here:
1. The site has been taken down with no warning after a secret hearing at which the site was not represented. This is a violation of due process and, indirectly, free speech.
2. Neither the company that owns the website, nor its principles are subject to American law. The American DOJ does not have jurisdiction over them, the NZ justice system does. This is a violation of national sovereignty.
Both of these deserve a strong response - they are violations of the foundational principles that democratic nations are built on. #2 could be considered an act of war. It's ok to be upset about this, no matter how bad the perpetrator is, or how much it "deserves" to be taken down.
There's some wisdom to lighter screenings for low-risk flights. Blowing up a rural domestic flight just doesn't have the same fear effect as a transcontinental 747. There's no way a domestic flight from Cedar Rapids IA to Chicago warrants the same level of security as an inbound flight from the middle east.
"That's the nice thing about being a privately-owned company--Paypal can do as it pleases. Nothing "horrifying" about it. I respect their decision, even though I don't agree with it."
Banks are privately owned companies. We do *not* allow banks to revoke accounts at any time and keep the money that they hold. Functionally, Paypal is bank. I don't understand why you wouldn't hold them to the same standard.
Funny, I thought Shakespeare's business model had a lot more to do with royal patronage than selling tickets. Scarcity or not, making a living off theatre tickets alone is pretty tough to do, and that's one thing I *don't* think has changed in the last 400 years.
I'd say Shapiro's assumption about Shakespeare's revenue model is specious even before all the BS about "cultural paywalls".
I think the only chance they would find out so promptly and announce it so loudly is if they posted it themselves. 200 downloads at the time of printing? It just stinks of a publicity plant.
Is this why the Canadian government is apparently deciding to ignore its copyright consultation? Because too many people are in favour of fair copyright?
1. So far this is a rumour, albeit one from a source who has been fairly reliable in the past. Moore and Clement have yet to make much public statement about this, and I'm willing to give them some benefit of the doubt until I *know* it's bad.
2. C-61 failed because an election was called, not because of public protest. I wish I could say that was the case, but it wasn't.
I don't believe money has ever been a primary incentive for artists. The people for whom money is *the* reason to create end up creating works that will generate the most money ... and this is fundamentally opposed to creating art, which is about *expression*, not market research.
But, the waters are muddied when the projects get bigger. Money may never be an incentive for art, but it certainly enables it. In particular it enables large scale projects, like movies or large-scale records. Mass-media scale projects like these can't get off the ground without a substantial amount of money -- more than even your average rich person can supply.
As this applies to copyright: Copyright enabled the creation of mass media because it made it profitable. We would certainly have had far fewer records and movies in the 20th century if it hadn't been possible to prevent commercial piracy.
Perhaps this is also true on the internet, but I think it is less so. The internet enables mass distribution (not the same as mass media) without requiring a large amount of money, so all the "amateur" labours of love (which have no financial incentive) can be distributed to the world at large at minimal cost. The cost of producing and distributing records and movies has come way down, sometimes within reach of being funded out-of-pocket by a single artist.
So, no, money is not an incentive. But it's still a necessary part of the creative process where larger scale arts are concerned.
And, in the end, that's what every content producer is really doing: they're telling stories.
No, every "content producer" is not telling stories. Many of them are, and virtually all of the most marketable ones are. You're romanticizing what artists do here, but you're overgeneralizing a bit. Many artists chose their medium because they are attracted to the specific characteristics of that medium, and many of the best examples of film art are neither story-based nor easily transferrable to other mediums. The same goes for music, painting, photography and all sorts of other types of culture.
I'm all for being multidisciplinary and telling stories in multiple ways. It's what I do. But the phrasing "no longer need to pigeonhole themselves" irked me. It sounds like marketingspeak for "content production" without a good understanding of what actually motivates many artists.
If you're commissioning a public piece of artwork, shouldn't you also make sure you get all the rights associated with it?
I believe this should read "If you're commissioning a public piece of artwork, shouldn't you also make sure the public gets all the rights associated with it?"
And by public, I mean this should automatically end up in the public domain. It shouldn't end up in the possession of the government, and it shouldn't end up in the possession of the benefactor.
1 - Products last a lot longer than their patents. Do products marked with the patent suddenly become "infringing" (for lack of a better word) when the patent expires? What about old stock that shows up in the retail stream after the patent has expired? I would imagine that retooling a "marking device" is not cheap either... What about people still using (or reselling) versions of old software?
2 - The "per infringement" ruling is terrible in my non-lawyerly opinion. It essentially means that liability is determined by they type of the thing that is patented, not the degree of infringement. So, Solo gets in trouble for trillions, and the maker of some sort of specialized one-of-a-kind (but expensive) device is liable for ... $500. I would like to think that, if $500 flat really is not the appropriate way of assigning liability (and maybe that flat number needs increasing), it should at least be tied to some kind of *actual* infringment numbers. Perhaps, one is liable for the number of years since the patent expired, multiplied some kind of quantification of "market penetration". Yes, I realize that is vague, but some effort could certainly be put into finding a fairer way of determining this liability.
Is this a sign that those in the US saw the Canadian Copyright consultation ... and actually saw something they liked? Maybe it's time to retire those calls complaining about how Canada is always following rather than leading...
On the post: How New Internet Spying Laws Will Actually ENABLE Stalkers, Spammers, Phishers And, Yes, Pedophiles & Terrorists
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
In any case, he was asking for evidence within the bill that allows for widespread spying. I believe Dr. Geist just pointed to it: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6335/125/
Quoting:
"While the bill includes some detail on surveillance capability requirements, perhaps the most dangerous provision is Section 14, which gives the government a stunning array of powers:
to order an ISP or telecom provider to install surveillance capabilities "in a manner and within a time" specified by the government
to order an ISP or telecom provider to install additional equipment to allow for more simultaneous interceptions than is otherwise specified in the law (the government sets a maximum and then can simply ignore its own guidelines)
to order an ISP or telecom provider to comply with additional confidentiality requirements not otherwise specified in the law
to order an ISP or telecom provider to meet additional operational requirements not otherwise specified in the law"
Does this mandate COMPULSORY widespread spying? No, admittedly it does not. I don't think that's what most of us are concerned about, though if that was on the table it would be worse. Like SOPA / PIPA, we're not concerned about the intent of the law. We're concerned about its capacity for abuse.
This section gives the government / police the POWER to enact compulsory, widespread spying without further legislation. So no, it doesn't require the government to build a spy database. But it does give it the ability to build such a thing, and the government should not have that ability.
On the post: How New Internet Spying Laws Will Actually ENABLE Stalkers, Spammers, Phishers And, Yes, Pedophiles & Terrorists
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Incorrect. It is about to be regulated, and there are damn good reasons to allow anonymous access. That's what this whole argument is about. Saying we should accept these regulations because the regulations are already there is ridiculous.
"an you show the EXACT provisions that suddenly create the widescale spying you seem to be implying is out there"
This sentence makes no sense. The spying is already out there - there's no need for a law to require spying because it's already happening. This isn't paranoia. This story wouldn't be a story if AT&T didn't help the US government eavesdrop on every text and phone call their network carries: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120208/05014817703/canadian-muslim-who-sends-text-urging-his-empl oyees-to-blow-away-competition-arrested-as-terror-suspect.shtml . This kind of mistake simply shouldn't be able to happen, because private texts should be private. Period.
The situation as it stands - where most of the time personal information is handed over with no oversight - is bad enough. What we should really be lobbying for is to make sure that ISPs aren't allowed to hand over personal information without a warrant.
The provisions that people are upset about are the ones that require information to be handed over without a warrant. Maybe that's just symbolic because the information gets handed over most of the time anyway, but I'm damned if I'm going to let the problem get worse.
On the post: How New Internet Spying Laws Will Actually ENABLE Stalkers, Spammers, Phishers And, Yes, Pedophiles & Terrorists
Re: Re: Re:
Maybe not from the point of view of the company. From the customer's point of view - sorry, your statement is patently false. There are companies that I trust to know stuff about me, and companies that can't do business without knowing things about me, but the choice to give them that information should be mine.
I absolutely DO NOT want my grocery store to know who I am every time I show up. I CERTAINLY don't want Target (for example) to know who I am. I put up with the fact that the pros of giving my e-mail to Google outweighs the cons, but the fact that they know a lot about me is NOT universally a good thing.
On the post: How New Internet Spying Laws Will Actually ENABLE Stalkers, Spammers, Phishers And, Yes, Pedophiles & Terrorists
Re: But there is no database!
The legislation doesn't need to legislate the creation of the database. I'm sure it already exists. Police don't seem to need any further motivation to track us.
The legislation is about the extent to which they are allowed to populate it without oversight. Given that ISPs already comply with 95% of requests, it seems likely that much of this information is already out there.
Long story short: Stopping the legislation isn't going to solve the underyling problem. But it will prevent it from getting even worse.
On the post: La La La La La: The Internet Routes Around Copyright Censorship To Restore Daria
Re: Re:
On the post: The Internet Strikes Back: Anonymous Takes Down DOJ.gov, RIAA, MPAA Sites To Protest Megaupload Seizure
Re: Horrible change of events
1. The site has been taken down with no warning after a secret hearing at which the site was not represented. This is a violation of due process and, indirectly, free speech.
2. Neither the company that owns the website, nor its principles are subject to American law. The American DOJ does not have jurisdiction over them, the NZ justice system does. This is a violation of national sovereignty.
Both of these deserve a strong response - they are violations of the foundational principles that democratic nations are built on. #2 could be considered an act of war. It's ok to be upset about this, no matter how bad the perpetrator is, or how much it "deserves" to be taken down.
On the post: EU, Mexico & Switzerland Will Not Sign ACTA This Weekend, Despite The 'Signing Ceremony'
And neither is Canada...
On the post: TSA May Let 'Trusted Travelers' Avoid Being Groped
Low threat flights
On the post: Dutch Publishing Organization Says Filesharing Should Be A Criminal Offense
On the post: PayPal Cuts Off Account For Bradley Manning Support
Re:
Banks are privately owned companies. We do *not* allow banks to revoke accounts at any time and keep the money that they hold. Functionally, Paypal is bank. I don't understand why you wouldn't hold them to the same standard.
On the post: Would Shakespeare Have Survived Today's Copyright Laws?
Scarcities in Theatre
I'd say Shapiro's assumption about Shakespeare's revenue model is specious even before all the BS about "cultural paywalls".
On the post: Irony Alert: NYC's Anti-Piracy Propaganda Campaign Using 'Free' YouTube
Ad space
On the post: New Zealand Media Claiming That Huge Local Film Success Story Is Being Harmed... By 200 Downloaders?
Can you say publicity leak?
I think the only chance they would find out so promptly and announce it so loudly is if they posted it themselves. 200 downloads at the time of printing? It just stinks of a publicity plant.
On the post: Because Too Many People Think It's A Good Idea, Australia Holding Off On Approving Adult Video Game Rating
On the post: It's Baaaaaack: Canadian DMCA Bill Expected Next Month
Two points
2. C-61 failed because an election was called, not because of public protest. I wish I could say that was the case, but it wasn't.
On the post: What If More Money Makes People Less Inclined To Create?
The problem is the word "incentive"
But, the waters are muddied when the projects get bigger. Money may never be an incentive for art, but it certainly enables it. In particular it enables large scale projects, like movies or large-scale records. Mass-media scale projects like these can't get off the ground without a substantial amount of money -- more than even your average rich person can supply.
As this applies to copyright: Copyright enabled the creation of mass media because it made it profitable. We would certainly have had far fewer records and movies in the 20th century if it hadn't been possible to prevent commercial piracy.
Perhaps this is also true on the internet, but I think it is less so. The internet enables mass distribution (not the same as mass media) without requiring a large amount of money, so all the "amateur" labours of love (which have no financial incentive) can be distributed to the world at large at minimal cost. The cost of producing and distributing records and movies has come way down, sometimes within reach of being funded out-of-pocket by a single artist.
So, no, money is not an incentive. But it's still a necessary part of the creative process where larger scale arts are concerned.
On the post: Heroes Producer: Honored To Be The Most Unauthorized Downloaded Show
Stories
No, every "content producer" is not telling stories. Many of them are, and virtually all of the most marketable ones are. You're romanticizing what artists do here, but you're overgeneralizing a bit. Many artists chose their medium because they are attracted to the specific characteristics of that medium, and many of the best examples of film art are neither story-based nor easily transferrable to other mediums. The same goes for music, painting, photography and all sorts of other types of culture.
I'm all for being multidisciplinary and telling stories in multiple ways. It's what I do. But the phrasing "no longer need to pigeonhole themselves" irked me. It sounds like marketingspeak for "content production" without a good understanding of what actually motivates many artists.
On the post: US Postage Stamp Found To Be Infringing On Copyright Over Statues In US Korean War Memorial
A slip of the tongue?
I believe this should read "If you're commissioning a public piece of artwork, shouldn't you also make sure the public gets all the rights associated with it?"
And by public, I mean this should automatically end up in the public domain. It shouldn't end up in the possession of the government, and it shouldn't end up in the possession of the benefactor.
On the post: New Industry Springs Up Overnight: Filing Patent Marking Suits Over False Patent Claims
Two major problems here
2 - The "per infringement" ruling is terrible in my non-lawyerly opinion. It essentially means that liability is determined by they type of the thing that is patented, not the degree of infringement. So, Solo gets in trouble for trillions, and the maker of some sort of specialized one-of-a-kind (but expensive) device is liable for ... $500. I would like to think that, if $500 flat really is not the appropriate way of assigning liability (and maybe that flat number needs increasing), it should at least be tied to some kind of *actual* infringment numbers. Perhaps, one is liable for the number of years since the patent expired, multiplied some kind of quantification of "market penetration". Yes, I realize that is vague, but some effort could certainly be put into finding a fairer way of determining this liability.
On the post: Administration Asks For Public Input On Intellectual Property Enforcement
Following Canada?
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