It was fun while it lasted. This internet thing became too powerful, and shifted the balance of power too much to the people. Politicians found a partner in the content industry, and here we have it. After a mysterious unexplained 180 by a Dutch political party, ACTA has been signed by all 27 members of the EU. In the meantime, it’s looking like SOPA, despite delays, is going to make it through, despite fierce opposition from the technology industry (except Apple and Microsoft, who don’t care about a free and open web) and the very architects of the internet. To top it all off, UMG apparently has complete control over YouTube’s content, allowing them to remove any video they don’t like without even having to invoke the DMCA.In response to a claim we received under the Stop Online Piracy Act, we have removed the content of this article. If you wish, you may view the SOPA complaint that caused the removal of the content of this article.
Not just cluelessness – blend in some good old corruption and influence from the folk that benefit from this. It’s a shame but hardly surprising in this – or any – day and age.
Imagine if Google, Wikipedia, and Facebook, who are opposed to SOPA, went black all at the exact same time out of protest, with a message about SOPA. Can you imagine the panic and chaos?
Sadly, most people would not read the message and just blame the sites, so it won’t happen – but still.
I wrote to Wikimedia and told them that if SOPA goes live without any action on Wikipedia then they can kiss their yearly donations good bye.
But I guess Jimmy gets his money elsewhere and does not really care.
(I got a cool, although probably copy&pasted, answer:)
Hello, ******.
I appreciate your concern about SOPA. The Wikimedia Foundation shares it; our General Counsel Geoff Brigham recently posted on our official blog explaining the issues and the Foundation’s stance on the matter here: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/12/13/how-sopa-will-hurt-the-free-we…. This was the Foundation’s second blog post on the issue. The last one was posted on November 15, by head of Communications Jay Walsh: http://blog.wikimedia.org/2011/11/15/wikimedia-supports-american-ce… The Foundation has made it very clear that it will stand behind communities such as the volunteers who create and manage Wikipedia in whatever action they decide is most appropriate to protest the bill, whether that is posting a site-banner similar to the one we use for donations or temporarily blacking out the site to spread word of the issue.
While staff from the Wikimedia Foundation is working with other organizations to determine our best Foundational approach, there is a lot of conversation about how the community would like to address the matter. If you’re interested in reading those thoughts – and even in participating! anyone is welcome – the bulk of them are taking place at the talk page of Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales. You don’t even need an account to speak up, if you’d like:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Jimbo_Wales#Request_for_Comm…. There’s quite a lot of reading there. People feel strongly about this.
There was also a small meeting yesterday to discuss the matter between some members of the staff and community volunteers. The transcript of that meeting is here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours/Office_hours_2011-1…. Staff is represented primarily by Sue Gardner, our Executive Director; Geoff Brigham, our General Counsel; Philippe Beaudette, Head of Reader Relations; and Steven Walling, Community Organizer. The person speaking under the name “Mindspillage” is Kat Walsh, a member of the Board of Trustees, who is also a policy analyst and legal researcher from Washington, D.C. Most (if not all) of the other speakers are volunteers.
We will all be continuing to monitor SOPA and taking such action as we can to protect the free dissemination of information. I hope you will bring your passion to bear to the community discussions to help determine what direction Wikipedia should take.
Thank you again for writing.
I read on the german Heise Webpage, that the parliament has to sign it too. If this is right, it isn’t fully signed by the whole EU by now.
Recommended reading:
http://falkvinge.net/2011/12/16/do-we-really-have-to-prepare-for-th…
It’s a pity I can’t vote this up anymore, cos it’s so true. I’ve been saying this for at least the past 5 years now. Our collective governments do NOT serve us, the people, and they CANNOT be trusted. They will not let their power go willingly, so the only way this can be fixed is to aggressively re-take it back. I suspect that our current governments and businesses would rather destroy this world than relenquish it.
Dave
This is so DUMB. As always what its gonna do is now move the balance of domain name power to countries like China and Russia. Now if you don’t want to get taken down by America, get your domain name from China.
Next you will be able to get your DNS from them also.
Soon they will be sending tons of traffic through those countries. How dumb can these governments be?
Edited 2011-12-16 22:32 UTC
I’m glad I don’t own either an Apple or Microsoft product. Fuck them. Honestly.
america is the leader in anti-americanism. ironic
leaders of every other country fall in line. tragic
china and iran do whatever they want to the internet too. but they’re the bad guys?
SOPA has now been pushed back into next year, thanks to delaying tactics and objections by the opposition, which gives us more time to try to kill it.
Or not…
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111216/11102617108/sopa-markup-r…
You know what? Every time I read about our modern day politics (and this goes on not just in the US, but here as well) I’m reminded of the Roman Empire just right before it started crumbling. Rampant corruption, gluttony, total disconnect between the state and the people, decadence to levels us normal folk can barely imagine…
It’s hard not to think that this is somehow going to end with the people taking up arms (in whatever shape or form). For some reason, I’m slowly but surely starting to understand why even non-redneck, well-educated left Americans value the right to bear arms so much.
Exactly Thom, our right to bear arms is our insurance policy for if(and probably when) the government gets too out of hand. The forefathers of the US knew that one day the government would be corrupted again, its a pattern in history, so they gave us this way out to start all over.
Ok, so basically you have no clue what the 2nd Amendment actually is and what right it actually grants you as an American citizen. I’ll just cut to the chase and say your entire statement is false.
Do you honestly think that a group of citizens with guns, would stand any chance in open combat against even a handful of trained soldiers?
Depends on whether or not they’re veterans. (the citizens, not the soldiers)
Edited 2011-12-20 05:34 UTC
Do you honestly think the state doesn’t know who its veterans and their families are? (so that “antisocial elements” can be observed, or eventually isolated as a preventative measure …or more; hey, we are very much talking about such situation here; if the military itself isn’t largely the protective force any more – but supposedly doesn’t have qualms about battling the population – then shit has very much hit the fan)
As is, the US already has crazy incarceration rates – so the necessary infrastructure is all there, one just needs to release a significant portion of present inmates (say, the largely harmless in context mostly black drug “offenders” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Jim_Crow ) …and you will immediately have plenty of room for other kinds of undesirables.
Edited 2011-12-24 00:13 UTC
That’s a bit naive, childish even thinking.
NVM how not necessarily supported by recent history (fall of Soviet-backed regimes most notably, often with big Soviet armies in the place – bloodless to a remarkably large degree …but if the extreme factions / crazies would have their way, I’m not so sure; vs. …look at some more recent turmoil in few parts of the world – when people are armed, you get what is really a civil war – and only foreign interventions with serious usage of military fist is what often tips the scales)
NVM how, now, the militia envisioned by “perfect mythological forefathers” probably wouldn’t stand a chance against a modern standing army.
In particular, it’s a simplistic “us vs. them” thinking – and not only “where do you think the people in ~govs & bureaucracies come from?”, also total disregard of how the extreme factions, those most trigger-happy, are also of the prime interest and often the most heavily infiltrated (helps how they are a small & focused target, too) …and there are MANY ways to get people on the “payroll” of ~security services.
(I would suggest watching one “TV Theatre” fabulously covering those issues, in harder times at my place, MiÅ› Kolabo – quickly checking out, it’s on http://youtu.be/-jqT8eC__Uc …sadly, I don’t think EN subtitles exist anywhere; a member of “Polonia” should suffice, even if some nuances would escape them / on average this diaspora is generally way too disconnected for too long)
And, maybe worse, also some trigger-happy white trash who would come armed and potentially jeopardise any organic process (generally, revolutions don’t promote the “best” people, but the most ruthless ones)
Yes, you are possibly (justifiably) counting on the military not firing on the “revolutionaries”, perhaps even protecting them …which means that the military (and undoubtedly also many police forces, etc.) would be the real muscle, anyway.
(curiously, with how the US recently formally became essentially a state under martial law, one might ponder if that wasn’t also sneaked in by some in the military for the purpose of a possible sort of legal coup d’etat…
…but overall, really, probably too many are “in” for the easy living & perks which military career brings; and, most importantly, readily susceptible to propaganda …about the terrorists or, say, commie revolutionaries / inciters who want to take over the Land Under God – come on, a short while ago the majority of US troops in Iraq still thought the place had something to do with 9/11…)
I believe some objections were raised against this on the grounds that it breaks EU human rights law. If this is so it’ll take just a single law suit to break it.
In response to a claim we received under the Stop Online Piracy Act, we have removed the content of this comment. If you wish, you may view the SOPA complaint that caused the removal of the content of this comment.
Would you please give us some English language links too? From what I understand, and it’s very little, the agreement hasn’t been ratified yet. Wikipedia remains silent on the matter and I believe the article there would get updated very quickly to reflect a change of such scale.
For a start, musicians should be distributing their work directly, bypassing Big Content altogether.
( I’ve heard that a number of them already do this.)
Another step – distribute works as “public domain”.
That means that “nobody and everybody” “owns” the work, and they can do anything they like with it.
Public-domain has long been overlooked – it is time for it to take its rightful place in centre-stage.
Public domain completely bypasses all of the copyright/licensing legal BS.
Public domain is the future.
These are two positive steps that can be taken NOW.
People will hopefully have more ideas to add.
Edited 2011-12-17 22:54 UTC
People do tend to think it’s that simple. I suppose if I didn’t know any better I would too.
First of all, all that copyright and licensing legal “BS” is there to protect the owners rights & interests. It works very well at doing so, but it can’t help people who make bad decisions.
Secondly, you can not make a living off of releasing public domain works. Any music who says they don’t care about making money with their work is lying to your face — unless they actually do release their music free-of-charge.
The idea that music should be free is absolutely absurd. I suppose all forms of art should be free as well. Every painting, every poem or piece of written work, movies, everything. People always seem to forget the music business is a BUSINESS FIRST. Products are created with the intent of for-profit sale to consumers. People CHOOSE to participate in this business.
As long as there is _any_ financial components, there’s nothing positive about what you’re suggesting. And for the people who don’t have a financial component, it’s a complete non-issue because they don’t participate in the music business.
I choose to give my money to:
artists on Jamendo (and other free stuff I find elsewhere (I bought the free albums from NIN, Machinae Supremacy))
EFF
Wikipedia
Open Source Projects
People who put their stuff on YT, etc. for free
Sometimes projects like Magnatune or Humble Bundle, where most money goes to the creators.
I give the stuff I don’t need to for-free shops.
Everything works pretty well, if you just do it. Not everyone is dumb and brainwashed by now.
Yep, the music of artists, like Brad Sucks, Tryad and hundreds of others can easily compete with commercial stuff.
Edited 2011-12-18 22:57 UTC
That’s great and I hope you continue to do so. I hope others are inspired to do the same.
Music is music, and all of it is valid. It doesn’t matter what label you put on it, it doesn’t matter whether you like it or not. It’s quality & value is subjective with each listener having their own opinions. For that reason alone commercialism in music is not derogatory, and not a measure of (lack of) quality.
Perhaps, but I would argue that the copyright term needs to be severely curtailed, perhaps down to 20 years (fixed). This would allow authors to reap the rewards of their work, while at the same time preventing them (and their publishers) from smothering innovation long-term.
I understand that many people are opposed to having what they consider their property taken away, but the fact of the matter is Intellectual Property is not, in fact, property. It’s the right to monopolize on a work of art. Such a right should be assigned with great reservation and only when it furthers the public good.
This comment has been donated to the public domain. Any allegations to the contrary shall be met with carping criticism, harsh letters, and a good deal of foul language.
Edited 2011-12-20 06:00 UTC
You are kidding right?
I know a lot of you who read in the press about some of the things politicians do that are seemingly stupid, I can assure you are not stupid at all.
These people know _exactly_ what they are doing. However, they live by an entirely different set of laws.
Those laws, are for them, not for us. So when you hear of corruption, etc….thats the people’s way of looking at things.
These leaders in the EU and the USA enact laws for themselves and their friends, so that what is illegal for us, is not illegal for them.
Before the internet however, it took a lot of work to see these other sets of laws these politicians lived by and very few people were informed.
That has changed with the internet, and these politicians in the EU and USA do _not_ like it.
We got FEMA camps being activated over here in the USA right now, and just as a coincidence, now any American is legally a terrorist and can be arrested, tortured and executed without due process.
Do you think all of the Senators in our Senate in the USA are clueless that signed the American Detention Act?
Not at all, they _KNOW_ what is coming. Civil War.
Which, will probably happen after the banks collapse.
Every banker is going to get his frickin head chopped off, along with the senators and Reps. that where on his/her dole.
Chop chop chop.
-Hack
ACTA is good. EU legislature did the right thing.
Does ACTA say that linking to material, copyrighted or not, is evil? if so, then it is an evil act. If not, then it’s ok. The worst it can do in that case is to stop us from quoting copyrighted material.
But if linking is prohibited, then we are doomed. We are all going to be charged for something we posted online.