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Web Protests Piracy Bills, and 2 Senators Change Course (New York Times)
The New York Times reports
that Internet protests against anti-piracy legislation (SOPA and PIPA) are
working. "Freshman Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a rising Republican star, was first out of the starting gate Wednesday morning with his announcement that he would no longer back anti-Internet piracy legislation he had co-sponsored. Senator John Cornyn, the Texas Republican who heads the campaign operation for his party, quickly followed suit and urged Congress take more time to study the measure that had been set for a test vote next week."
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Web Protests Piracy Bills, and 2 Senators Change Course (New York Times) Posted Jan 18, 2012 20:08 UTC (Wed) by landley (guest, #6789) [Link]
Anybody else having Communications Decency Act (I and II) flashbacks?
Sigh. At least we agree it's not a truck.
Web Protests Piracy Bills, and 2 Senators Change Course (New York Times) Posted Jan 19, 2012 0:34 UTC (Thu) by theophrastus (guest, #80847) [Link]
Even if these two rotten bills go completely away (and that's by no means certain yet), there will be another round of congress bribery to curtail internet freedoms soon enough. I've often wondered if (aside from the dark fringe times of the congressional calendar) if there's a 'natural' period to these IP land-grab things. Currently with NET act, INDUCE, ACTA, DMCA, SOPA/PIPA It seems like a large push every three years or so.
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty"...from lobbyists.
Web Protests Piracy Bills, and 2 Senators Change Course (New York Times) Posted Jan 19, 2012 14:16 UTC (Thu) by proski (subscriber, #104) [Link] But we are stronger now than we were in the days when DMCA was passed.
Web Protests Piracy Bills, and 2 Senators Change Course (New York Times) Posted Jan 19, 2012 14:59 UTC (Thu) by dark (subscriber, #8483) [Link] Yeah, but vigilance isn't working. The lobbyists just keep pushing and every time they get a little bit more. Unless we fail, in which case they get a lot more. Is there a way to start rolling things back instead?
Donate to tech liberty orgs Posted Jan 19, 2012 15:15 UTC (Thu) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
> Is there a way to start rolling things back instead?
Like, some clever trick that we just didn't notice before? Or a game-changing reshuffle of existing resources? Probably not.
We'll be able to start rolling things back when our movement is strong enough.
It's not for this year thus, but maybe it will start happening in 2020 if we spend the eight intervening years building up our community and the organisations that are fighting for our rights, like FSF.
We need to be able to afford some lobbyists for ourselves.
Donate to tech liberty orgs Posted Jan 20, 2012 18:49 UTC (Fri) by oldtomas (guest, #72579) [Link] It's not for this year thus, but maybe it will start happening in 2020 [...]It's great to see optimism here time and again. Thanks, Ciarán. We need to be able to afford some lobbyists for ourselvesAgreed. Still, I think this lobbying stuff is a great danger for (what is left of) democracy: it slowly shifts power from "one (hu)man, one vote" towards "one dollar, one vote. Ugly, ain't it?
Donate to tech liberty orgs Posted Jan 21, 2012 8:12 UTC (Sat) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
> It's great to see optimism here time and again. Thanks, Ciarán.
:-)
Here's an idea for a game-changing reshuffle of resources: How about all free software projects set aside 10% of their funds for software freedom campaigning (either in-house or by donation to an existing org)?
I think that politics is by far our weakest point, and if people want to support the development of the free software they use, they should be supporting orgs like FSF and FSFE. No matter what your favourite free software project is, support for FSF and FSFE is probably the most important way you can support that project.
We can rely on businesses to fund development of free software but for political work, not only do we get almost no funding, but some of our software development allies are fighting against software freedom (supporting software patents, DRM, etc.).
Orgs like FSF and FSFE work on really important stuff but the most people who benefit from their work (users of free software) seem more interested in critically analysing their campaigns instead of giving them support. That's what's broken in our community.
Donate to tech liberty orgs Posted Jan 23, 2012 7:37 UTC (Mon) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link]
<em>Like, some clever trick that we just didn't notice before? Or a game-changing reshuffle of existing resources? Probably not.</em>
I'd like to think something game changing is exactly what is needed. The idea that foss projects should donate money to fight hollywood lobbyists in their own game seems like a lost cause to me. Even if we could get rich companies like Google to do that, it is still stupid because (like one Ars Technica article mentioned) then Congress would just be having an auction between hollywood money and tech money. The problem is not that hollywood has more money than we do, the system itself is a problem.
Lessig is onto something in asking for reform of campaign donations.
As for myself, ever since I was in university I've been playing with the idea of developing a platform for "delegated direct democracy". Essentially software that would allow me to a) vote for someone to represent me in the parliament just like we currently do, b) change my representative at any time, not just 4 years between, and c) vote directly on an issue at any time I feel like it.
In addition the system would also d) allow my vote to be cascaded so that if my representative is not among the top N who usually get elected to parliament (in Finland N=200) that person could nevertheless influence votes with the small number of votes he got, he just wouldn't be paid a salary to be a politician full time. This way votes are not lost and the system doesn't inherently end up in a 2 party system like US and UK currently.
A colleague recently commented a very European perspective to this: The main difference between US and China is that one country has one party and the other has two. Other than that they are pretty similar. (The discussion was about "lawful interception" and censorship.) This kind of entrenched oligopoly is what allows this kind of bribery to continue even at such obnoxious levels.
Donate to tech liberty orgs Posted Jan 23, 2012 9:23 UTC (Mon) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
> The idea that foss projects should donate money to fight hollywood lobbyists in their own game seems like a lost cause to me.
(now here's my chance to show my optimist side :-)
Wikipedia's blackout was one part of our fight against the hollywood lobbyists. The work by ESP/FSF, SFLC, and others on the Bilski cases is another example, and the big campaign in the EU from 2002-2005 against software patents is another.
Political action isn't just a competition for who can transfer the most money to anonymous lobbyists.
Having a strong FSF, FSFE, SFLC, FFII, LaQuadrature, WikiMedia Foundation etc. is important. We can make a big difference.
> Lessig is onto something in asking for reform of campaign donations.
Absolutely!
I'd like to fix democracy all over the world (the EU has democratic problems too), but we also shouldn't accept the damage being caused by the current broken system. Fixing (or ruining) democracy is a huge project - it's our gift to the next generation - and computer users having control over their software and their communications is part of fixing democracy.
Donate to tech liberty orgs Posted Jan 24, 2012 14:48 UTC (Tue) by hingo (guest, #14792) [Link]
Ok, this much I of course agree with. In fact, the SOPA blackout is perhaps even more remarkable achievement than the EU sw patent fight was (assuming it doesn't come back next month.)
All I was saying was that we shouldn't expect that we can raise *more* money than the entertainment industry is donating to politicians. We can certainly support activities where we try to do something in a different way.
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