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01.20.12 - 8:09 PM
SOPA Loses. Internet, and Its Random Marvels, Wins
After much online uproar, the sponsor of SOPA is pulling the bill, killing the chances for now of any anti-piracy legislation. The move was applauded by critics as a victory for grassroots democracy; it also improves the odds of continuing to stumble on cool weird stuff online, like these conceptual digital photo manipulations.
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Show AllIs this one of those occasions when we're meant to be grateful to the government for not oppressing us?
It's so easy for them to announce evil things then say they aren't going to do it.
Costs them nothing and draws attention away from the bad that they do do.
My guess is that the Lobbyist suitcases for Google and Youtube, facebook, etc, had more Congressional cash in it this time than the Lobbyist suitcases for the recording industries. Nothing coming out of a senator's mouth is anything but distortion in this fake democracy, so I agree with those who suspect this was a Corp vs. Corp fight.
Until we restore democracy back to the 1776 levels of 300 voters to One Rep, instead of the 45,000 to One Rep we now have, we are just all along for the Corporate ride. The one percent who can pay 10 grand a plate for a Senatorial Dinner and get his attention afterwards, actually have democracy. But those of us in the 99 Percent live in veiled tyranny and are dictated to by the Fortune 500.
I think we just lucked out on this one.....
TJ
It's 600K+ today, TJ, not 45K.
It was already ca. 40K in 1804 (http://www.thirty-thousand.org/), which is, I believe, 10K more than the Constitution specifies. And that high limit in the C. is one of the reasons Patrick Henry spoke out strongly against ratification.
Yeah Mairead,
Thanks for the correction; I've been saying it wrong. Here's my understanding, and it's not perfect, because representation was the most contentious part of US law in the 1787 convention and in years since with redistricting etc. It's about like reading tax law, and finally the supreme court had to rule on what it means. I've been speaking Historically, Constitutionally; the proposed numbers during the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention of 1787 shifted around prior to the Connecticut Compromise. 30,000 was thrown out for a rep for 45,000 as I recall back then. California you used as an example, was not around back then, and numerous public laws or amendments or appropriation laws and rulings, have changed the rules, before and after many territories became states. After the Civil War, it went back to a max of 1 rep in the house for 30,000 in the Constitution after the 14th amendment superseded Article 1's first two sections.
After that, new states were admitted throughout the nation's history, and eventually the rule was violated by fear-of-losing-control Repukes in the Congress and Executive Branch in 1921. Today in this fake democracy, most states actually only get one house rep for about 700,000 people, as you correctly stated, since the One Percent Repukes had the House capped to 435 reps in 1929 in violation of the Constitution.
But the point remains the same. You can't be represented by one person in such a ridiculously high sea of faces. When you hit the thousands, representational democracy is a scam according to the Anti-Federalists who opposed even lower numbers of citizens all clamoring for their reps to listen to them in person.
From wiki:
Controversy and history
During the period that the current U.S. Constitution has been in effect, the number of citizens per congressional district has risen from an average of 33,000 in 1790 to almost 700,000 as of 2008. Prior to the 20th century, the number of representatives increased every decade as more states joined the union, and the population increased. In 1911, Public Law 62-5 raised the membership of the U.S. House to 433 with a provision to add one permanent seat each upon the admissions of Arizona and New Mexico as states. As provided, membership increased to 435 in 1912.
But in 1921, Congress failed to reapportion the House membership as required by the United States Constitution. This failure to reapportion may have been politically motivated, as the newly elected Republican majority may have feared the effect such a reapportionment would have on their future electoral prospects [7] [8]. Then in 1929 Congress (Republican control of both houses of congress and the presidency) passed the Reapportionment Act of 1929 which capped the size of the House at 435 (the then current number), but allowed temporary increases upon the admission of new states which were to be reverted upon the implementation of the immediate subsequent census.
In truth, the rules prohibiting legislative entrenchment would allow any subsequent legislature (after 1929) to increase or decrease the membership of the House of Representatives if such legislature so desired....
(Article One, Section 2, Clause 3 of the current Constitution implies;)
...Since clause 3 provides that Members of the House of Representatives are apportioned state-by-state and that each state is guaranteed at least one Representative, exact population equality between all districts is NOT guaranteed and, in fact, is currently impossible, because while the size of the House of Representatives is fixed at 435, several states had less than 1/435 of the national population at the time of the last reapportionment in 2000.[23] However, the Supreme Court has interpreted the provision of Clause One that Representatives shall be elected "by the People" to mean that, in those states with more than one member of the House of Representatives, each congressional election district within the state must have nearly identical populations.[24] UNQUOTE.
Thanks again for the correction,
TJ
"it also improves the odds of continuing to stumble on cool weird stuff online"
Cool? Some.
Weird? Most.
Creepy? Maybe.
Corporate visual lies? All!
Happy they killed SOPA though, for now at least...
Peace
Pet
I love the images, especially the hair horses.
The way they're created is done about the same as the things the government does. No wonder we sometimes feel like we've lost our minds.
What about its companion bill in the Senate, PIPA?
The defense of Hollywood over high tech takes us back to Congress defending buggywhip makers against the automobile industry.
"And contrary to what many people believe, the already-existing law permits the government to do pretty much whatever it wants, as this case shows. The government relied on a 2008 law to make criminal instead of civil charges. A newly created IP taskforce is the one that worked with the foreign governments to seal the deal. In the end, it was a presentation of exactly the nightmare scenario that anti-SOPA protesters said would happen if SOPA had passed. It turns out, as the deeper realms of the state already knew, that all of this was possible with no Congressional action at all. Congress doesn’t need to do anything. We can watch the debates, go to the polls, elect people to represent us, and perform all the rest of the rituals of the civic religion but none of it matters. Power is here, active, oppressive, in charge, permanent, regardless of what you might believe. Might it be that some of the users’ shared content on Megaupload was copyright protected? Absolutely. It is nearly impossible not to violate the law, as shown by SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith’s own campaign website, which used an unattributed background image in technical violation of the law. The leading opponent of piracy might himself be a pirate! But the trendline with Megaupload was clearly toward using the space to launch new artists with new content: not piracy but creativity. As Wired.uk wrote, this crackdown came shortly after Megaupload announced music producer Swizz Beatz — married to Alicia Keys — as their CEO. They had rallied a whole host of musicians including Will.i.am, P Diddy, Kanye West and Jamie Foxx to endorse the cloud locker service. Megaupload was building a legitimate system for artists to make money and fans to get content. What’s this all about? It is some powerful corporate lobbyists trying to prevent the emergence of an alternative system of art and music delivery, one powered by people rather than merely the well- connected."
This excerpt is from user Gail on CD on another thread about Anonymous retaliatory hack against shutting down Megaupload.com. (https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/20-4)
SOPA/PIPA may have gone down in flames, but then you have the Corporations pull shit like this example that makes that win a fart in a hurricane: http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-absolute-worst-thinks-owns-221600501.html
You do the work, Apple gets all the profit.
You mean like huffpo and icanhazcheeseburger?
"So Apple is providing you with a free tool that will help you sell your work through their own store. But even though it's your creation, Apple claims ownership over it simply because you used its app to make it."
It pays to read the EULAs. But it should be said many forums and other software have similar stipulations. Most of us don't bother to read them, we just click through when installing software or registering. And it's very rare that we ever question or complain about them.
TED explains why SOPA is a bad idea at youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9h2dF-IsH0I
1. The individual is assumed guilty of copyright infringement until you show you are innocent.
2. Those, ancient, 20th century, entertainment companies do not want individuals producing & sharing (even legal content) because that is competition for their obsolete business model - Disney wants your only option to be sitting on the couch - just like 1973.
so the ability to chance upon cool weird stuff is more important to you than protecting small artists and business from having their works stolen and preventing them from putting food on the table for their family? If the artist wants to make those pictures freely available they will be no matter what, duh, just go their own web sites.
this legislation will never stop anybody from using the internet in a legitimate way, or freely sharing what they want to share. why don't people just come out and say it, "we want the right to download free stuff no matter what the cost to those who make a living creating."
make no mistake about it, when you steal copyrighted works you are not stickin it to the man, you aren't hurting the big companies and mega artists at all, but you are completely f'in the little guys and gals -- period -- don't get all high and mighty about the free flow of information, you just want to steal your content and you don't care who you hurt. So admit that.
how would you like it if you didn't get paid from your job just because somebody wanted the service or product you or your company makes or provides and didn't feel that they should pay for it? You'd be pissed and think you were in the right! so all you high and mighty c*&nts can p*&s right off!
There are copyright laws already in place. I don't see any reason or need to expand them in the form of SOPA or PIPA. They are expansive enough already. Forbes has a very good analysis on what's wrong with these bills.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/derekbroes/2012/01/20/why-should-you-fear-sopa-and-pipa/
that article is so wrong on so many levels, but thanks for sharing. Here is what is why the writer is wrong:
1. Piratebay.org doesn’t actually host, deliver or infringe on any copyright at all....those sites can not only be prosecuted but shut down entirely for the behavior of others they cannot control.
--the old argument that they are not hosting any actually content is flawed because they are providing a way to get the illegal content! So the are responsible and at the very least an accomplice to the theft. And of course they can control what is on their site! Many bit torrent sites categorize, control, limit, and select which torrents they provide access to.
2. This legislation will cost millions of jobs.
--How? Theft of films and music has already done that and keeps doing it.
3. For most users, shutting down an infringing DNS address would prevent them from reaching the website that contained the infringing content or the link to the infringing content. It would NOT however stop the pirate from typing in IP address of (256.196.2.x) as an example, to reach the same content.
---This is no argument against SOPA because who knows the IP address of their favrite bit torrent site? For all intents and purposes the site would be shut down with only the most advanced thief being able to find it wit the IP address, the average bit torrent user would be unable to find the torrents. So it would help quite a bit.
I do think SOPA is flawed and that soon a better solution will be found. I just don't like all this holier than thou, keep the internet free BS when what they really mean is that they want to be able to download free stuff that they should be buying.
3.
bobjackson,
I don't think you understand intellectual property law at all. The Supreme Court ruled a long time ago that other artists have the right to alter or make a parody of someone else's previous art. The new rendition is clearly not the same as the original girl without horses in her hair. Now if you feel that it's too much plagiarism, you could sue the modifier if he's making money off this new hybrid that includes your original art. But mostly it's just for fun and it might actually make your work better distributed and recognized.
For instance, text is not copyrighted. Anyone is free to use my text as their own in their postings and I encourage it. I like to see my ideas proliferate. That happened for a while here at CD. I was extremely flattered, as you should be if someone alters your art. Now if I wrote a whole article on a private website or a commercial book of mine was ripped off, word for word, that would be something different altogether.
But you seem to want to lock down creativity and free speech just so you can buy a new car or house. Your personal greed should not chill or stifle public free speech and free exchange of information and images. If your art is so exclusive, don't put it up on the internet - just display it privately. Most Artists understand this and just provide low resolution samples of their work for others to decide if they want to pay to enter their sites membership area to see more. If you're a staving artist, I'm sorry. Their are many starving actors, writers, sculptors, musicians, etc: it comes with the territory.
But you should know, that these draconian restriction laws are not crafted to protect individual artists. They are engineered to make the middle man rich. Many artists who have been blackballed, abused, and ripped off by the huge recording industry's Monopolies don't want Wall Street to be able to criminalize experimentation and sharing that we used to do with albums and hardcopy before the internet was even invented.
Best Regards,
TJ
I suppose 'coolness' is in the eye of the beholder. Literally.
It is not about protection of intellectual property. It is about censorship of free speech.
I actually think that having to pay for music and films is the only hope for keeping artists afloat. No one I know, except myselft, pays to download music. I go to live concerts of older not too well known musicians, and they look tired. I wonder if they long for the days when they could spend months creating an album and then be able to sit back for awhile and make money from the sales. Now they have to schlep around the country far more often to make survival wages.To me this is not progress for the Arts. I'm not sure what the answer is, but it's not letting everyone take music and films for free from the creators.