6 ms·

It's amazing how much collateral damage is caused by our horrible copyright laws. Mostly just so the MPA/RIAA can protect their roles as gatekeepers of what we'

It's amazing how much collateral damage is caused by our horrible copyright laws. Mostly just so the MPA/RIAA can protect their roles as gatekeepers of what we're allowed to see and hear. They can put enormous pressure on even the wealthiest and most powerful companies to act as copyright police on their behalf. Even Google is afraid of them. ISPs are forced to spend huge amounts of time and money working for them. Now duckduckgo is being strong armed into doing a bunch of free work for them too? Maintaining lists of websites and domains to block and removing links to even non-infringing material like youtube-dl just to keep from being sued into the ground. I don't know what it'll take to rein in these guys, but I doubt the courts will be the ones to do it. So far courts seem fine with the idea that ISPs must permanently ban users from their service over nothing but repeated unsubstantiated claims of infringements which is an insane amount of power to give any industry. Has any US politician ever run on a platform that includes copyright reform?

rglullis 5y ago
Lawrence Lessig
- autoexec 5y ago
  I forgot about that! What a missed opportunity that was for this country. He's exactly the sort of person we need to see more of in politics.
  - perardi 5y ago
    His campaign was much more about electoral reform than copyright reform. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig_2016_presidential_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig_2016_president... Which is broadly more important than copyright reform…and broadly Americans don’t seem to particularly care about either of them all that much.
    - wussboy 5y ago
      Either would have been a win as far as I’m concerned.
    - zozbot234 5y ago
      The case for copyright reform is much more clear-cut, though. There's no plausible argument for the current extent of copyright.
      - cogman10 5y ago
        Both are pretty clear cut. Lessig, in particular, doesn't push for throwing out the electoral college all together (to avoid system shock) but rather to move towards proportional representation the state level. That is, if your state has 10 electors and votes 60:40 R:D, then you should allocate 6 electors for R and 40 electors for D (rather than the current "winner take all" method we do). This kills off gerrymandering as a tool and makes it so that rather than appealing to swing states, presidential candidate would actually have to convince every state that they are the right choice (because you don't just automatically get California. The difference between a 55:45 cali and a 90:10 cali would completely change how you campaign). Right now, Presidential candidates campaign to swing states which is why you get weird things like presidents talking solely about auto manufacturing or natural gas extraction.
  - mfer 5y ago
    It wasn’t a missed opportunity. It was intentional. When he became popular enough to get into the main debates the Democrat party changed the rules to exclude him. It has led many to believe the party leaders don’t want his message out there
throwaway82652 5y ago
There is no political will in the US to change the copyright system. Aside from some technologists, I haven't seen anybody who actually wants that. You will anger basically everyone else in the information business. Writers, researchers, artists, architects, musicians, composers, filmmakers, actors, podcasters, even a lot of software developers, you name it. These people all depend on copyright enforcement to get paid. That to me is the worst thing about repeated phrasing of this as some kind of evil special interest groups against everyone else. The "special interests" here are the people who produce the copyright material you want to access. You have to play ball with them or they will simply not be able to produce those things anymore.
- fleddr 5y ago
  Fully agree. "collateral damage" just means...why can't I just consume everything for free, as if it's some human right?
  - amelius 5y ago
    Not true in the case of Yt-dl.
  - rglullis 5y ago
    The point is not "consuming things for free", the point is neutering "the Biz". I for one wouldn't mind to lose Hollywood as an industry, or Broadway, or Silicon Valley... All of these industries are way too big and over-influential in all aspects of our lives, and leave us without any chance of a more human-scale alternative to counteract. I mean, how many TV networks are owned by Disney? Do you really think that all that lobbying is just to keep people away from watching copies of Mickey's Fantasia?
    - throwaway82652 5y ago
      This makes no sense. Disney is not stopping you from making your own home movies. You can even put them on YouTube or any of the other alternatives. There's actually lots of good criticisms of Disney, but you didn't mention any of them.
mardifoufs 5y ago
I mean even Google did not go this far though. So it sounds like DDG is doing more than the strict minimum required by law.
- account42 5y ago
  Google also has more resources to fend of lawsuits as well as existing deals with many big copyright holders. The letter of the law is not the only thing that matters, chilling effects are real.

rglullis 5y ago

Lawrence Lessig

autoexec 5y ago
I forgot about that! What a missed opportunity that was for this country. He's exactly the sort of person we need to see more of in politics.
- perardi 5y ago
  His campaign was much more about electoral reform than copyright reform. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig_2016_presidential_campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig_2016_president... Which is broadly more important than copyright reform…and broadly Americans don’t seem to particularly care about either of them all that much.
  - wussboy 5y ago
    Either would have been a win as far as I’m concerned.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    The case for copyright reform is much more clear-cut, though. There's no plausible argument for the current extent of copyright.
    - cogman10 5y ago
      Both are pretty clear cut. Lessig, in particular, doesn't push for throwing out the electoral college all together (to avoid system shock) but rather to move towards proportional representation the state level. That is, if your state has 10 electors and votes 60:40 R:D, then you should allocate 6 electors for R and 40 electors for D (rather than the current "winner take all" method we do). This kills off gerrymandering as a tool and makes it so that rather than appealing to swing states, presidential candidate would actually have to convince every state that they are the right choice (because you don't just automatically get California. The difference between a 55:45 cali and a 90:10 cali would completely change how you campaign). Right now, Presidential candidates campaign to swing states which is why you get weird things like presidents talking solely about auto manufacturing or natural gas extraction.
- mfer 5y ago
  It wasn’t a missed opportunity. It was intentional. When he became popular enough to get into the main debates the Democrat party changed the rules to exclude him. It has led many to believe the party leaders don’t want his message out there

throwaway82652 5y ago

There is no political will in the US to change the copyright system. Aside from some technologists, I haven't seen anybody who actually wants that. You will anger basically everyone else in the information business. Writers, researchers, artists, architects, musicians, composers, filmmakers, actors, podcasters, even a lot of software developers, you name it. These people all depend on copyright enforcement to get paid. That to me is the worst thing about repeated phrasing of this as some kind of evil special interest groups against everyone else. The "special interests" here are the people who produce the copyright material you want to access. You have to play ball with them or they will simply not be able to produce those things anymore.

fleddr 5y ago
Fully agree. "collateral damage" just means...why can't I just consume everything for free, as if it's some human right?
- amelius 5y ago
  Not true in the case of Yt-dl.
- rglullis 5y ago
  The point is not "consuming things for free", the point is neutering "the Biz". I for one wouldn't mind to lose Hollywood as an industry, or Broadway, or Silicon Valley... All of these industries are way too big and over-influential in all aspects of our lives, and leave us without any chance of a more human-scale alternative to counteract. I mean, how many TV networks are owned by Disney? Do you really think that all that lobbying is just to keep people away from watching copies of Mickey's Fantasia?
  - throwaway82652 5y ago
    This makes no sense. Disney is not stopping you from making your own home movies. You can even put them on YouTube or any of the other alternatives. There's actually lots of good criticisms of Disney, but you didn't mention any of them.

mardifoufs 5y ago

I mean even Google did not go this far though. So it sounds like DDG is doing more than the strict minimum required by law.

account42 5y ago
Google also has more resources to fend of lawsuits as well as existing deals with many big copyright holders. The letter of the law is not the only thing that matters, chilling effects are real.