2 ms·

This seems like a monster profit center for future government. Just set up the laws so that you have to look up and pay dozens of little fees in order to have t

This seems like a monster profit center for future government. Just set up the laws so that you have to look up and pay dozens of little fees in order to have the law protect you from trolls. The trolls are incentivized to troll, you are pressured to pay up, and the government just sits back and watches the money roll in.

_delirium 16y ago
They're often used essentially as an "only applies to big companies" trick. Big companies running sites like YouTube are worried about liability, so push for a safe-harbor bill; other big companies owning large media portfolios are worried about the effects of a safe-harbor bill. One possible compromise: pass a safe-harbor bill that only applies to big companies like YouTube, while still leaving smaller operators, like individuals running forums, liable for infringement. It's hard to pass something like that directly, so one proxy is to require some registration nonsense that will be trivial for any significantly sized company to comply with, but means that the provisions don't apply to smaller operations.
- caf 16y ago
  I like your healthy cynicism, but if that's the case, then why isn't the fee something like $2000? That's still trivial for YouTube, but pretty steep for some independent forum site.
  - loup-vaillant 16y ago
    $2000 would be too obvious, and can't reasonably be linked to real bookkeeping costs. Anyway, even a smaller amount would do the job. Even at $10, people will tend to take the default path, which is not doing anything (meaning, not register). Big companies, thanks to their legal teams, know how to behave. Small ones (or individuals, or non-profits), might not.
- noonespecial 16y ago
  I was thinking more along the lines of neat new tax streams with the enforcement outsourced to trolls. They want everyone to pay them, and they want people spooked so they're always in permission seeking mode, paying everything, just in case.
Symmetry 16y ago
Not really, the government can already tax away all the money it wants and (thanks to withholdings) probably annoy people less. What you're describing feels like the sort of thing municipalities do to get money from people who live in other towns, like shorten yellows on streetlights with speed cameras. The federal government doesn't really need to do stuff like that, though, and compared to the money its already getting from you this is peanuts.

_delirium 16y ago

They're often used essentially as an "only applies to big companies" trick. Big companies running sites like YouTube are worried about liability, so push for a safe-harbor bill; other big companies owning large media portfolios are worried about the effects of a safe-harbor bill. One possible compromise: pass a safe-harbor bill that only applies to big companies like YouTube, while still leaving smaller operators, like individuals running forums, liable for infringement. It's hard to pass something like that directly, so one proxy is to require some registration nonsense that will be trivial for any significantly sized company to comply with, but means that the provisions don't apply to smaller operations.

caf 16y ago
I like your healthy cynicism, but if that's the case, then why isn't the fee something like $2000? That's still trivial for YouTube, but pretty steep for some independent forum site.
- loup-vaillant 16y ago
  $2000 would be too obvious, and can't reasonably be linked to real bookkeeping costs. Anyway, even a smaller amount would do the job. Even at $10, people will tend to take the default path, which is not doing anything (meaning, not register). Big companies, thanks to their legal teams, know how to behave. Small ones (or individuals, or non-profits), might not.
noonespecial 16y ago
I was thinking more along the lines of neat new tax streams with the enforcement outsourced to trolls. They want everyone to pay them, and they want people spooked so they're always in permission seeking mode, paying everything, just in case.

Symmetry 16y ago

Not really, the government can already tax away all the money it wants and (thanks to withholdings) probably annoy people less. What you're describing feels like the sort of thing municipalities do to get money from people who live in other towns, like shorten yellows on streetlights with speed cameras. The federal government doesn't really need to do stuff like that, though, and compared to the money its already getting from you this is peanuts.