7 ms·

Google rips Senate's online piracy bill: 'This is what is wrong with Washington'

161 points by cwan 15y ago

redthrowaway 15y ago
Those comments are downright depressing.
nextparadigms 15y ago
“When Google and other piracy apologists start talking about free speech, it’s completely disingenuous,” Harbinson said. “These guys don’t give a crap about free speech.” Maybe they don't, but at least they are trying to stop this bill, while the others are pushing for it, clearly not giving a crap about free speech either, as it seems all they care about is the ability to stop piracy - at all cost.
- roc 15y ago
  > "while the others are pushing for it, clearly not giving a crap about free speech either" This, I think, is the problem in American politics. The best the citizenry can hope for, given the amount of corruption that unfettered political donation has brought, is for a corporate champion whose own economic interests just happen to align with our liberty on this issue. Because the legislators supporting this don't care about piracy any more than Google cares about free speech. They care about protecting their share of political donations by the industries whose economic interests are aligned with pushing crap like SOPA.
  - CWuestefeld 15y ago
    the amount of corruption that unfettered political donation has brought That's one side of the issue, and it's not inaccurate. But I'd ask you to consider the other side as well. Why do you think that businesses find it worthwhile to dump so much money into political contributions? I submit that the reason is because, as the government has assumed increasing amounts of power, it acquires the ability to confer significant advantages upon those favored by the law. So it's necessary for business to take extreme steps to ensure that they are, in fact, favored thusly. In these terms, I think that a more constructive strategy for solving the problem isn't to attack political contributions (which is bound to get into thorny First Amendment questions), but to strike at the root by limiting the power that the government has to decide who is going to win and who is going to lose. If we take away the government's power, then there's nothing for corporations to buy. If we give the government more power (to regulate the corporations' contributions and other matters), then there is an even greater incentive for the corporations to influence the goverenment -- which is exactly what we're trying to get away from.
    - shadowfiend 15y ago
      There is something for them to buy—each other. Arguably this is an even more dangerous situation, because the result then is monopoly, or close. And then, no competition. And then... Well, then the free market falls on its face, and all of a sudden the answer is that one company wins and everyone else—competitors and customers alike—loses. There is no silver bullet, for this as well as other problems. Just a web of interconnected aids that we can use to at least try to react when the inevitable corruption arises.
      - TDL 15y ago
        Monopolies rise up in the scenario you describe only in a static marketplace. Very few, if any, markets are static. There is constant change. Well healed competitors from other markets will enter a market where they see monopoly pricing power and begin to compete to grab a piece of a high margin business. Disruptive technologies or methods are also in play. In order for a company to successfully buy it's way into a monopoly, it requires that all other competitors (and potential competitors) either acquiesce to being bought or not enter the market after the monopoly has been created. Certainly there can be barriers to entry, but those barriers will not be permanent.
        shadowfiend 15y ago
        A pleasant fiction, but a well-operated monopoly will move to crush nascent competition by undercutting them in price or securing their supplies—and thus their ability to produce at all—at prices that cannot be competed with by a smaller entity. This isn't to say that it wouldn't be possible to defeat a monopoly eventually, just that it's not as straightforward as you make it sound. Indeed, historically, monopolies seem to have required government intervention to be dismantled (Standard Oil, AT&T, etc), though perhaps that's simply defining monopolies as those entities that the government dismantled as such. Regardless, I think this is one of the two “silver bullet”-style myths that likes to float around the area of government regulation: one, that less regulation is always better, the other, that more regulation is always better. In essence, a refusal to acknowledge that regulation is and should be in a fluid state, adapting to what the market is doing at any given moment—and ideally ahead of the curve, rather than reacting after financial or other disaster has already struck.
- kevinalexbrown 15y ago
  It's not just piracy, unfortunately. Suppose SOPA passes - there are all these tools available to stop Google/other services from interacting with "rogue" websites. But what about other things that are as bad as or worse than piracy -- if we use those tools to stop piracy, why not use SOPA-like tools to stop them? (This isn't a slippery-slope argument, it's more of an "equivalent-harms" one.) Similar to how terrorism-inspired tools are used all the time for non-terrorism law enforcement.
- firefoxman1 15y ago
  Yeah Google obviously isn't trying to protect free speech; they have their own business interest in mind. But really, who cares what their motivation is, as long as someone is fighting the dark side. This bill has turned into a fight between old Big Business vs. new Big Business. There would be no reason for congressmen to just randomly decide to create a bill like this. It was obviously the result of heavy lobbying from the dying record industry, the overpriced and overpaid film industry, and older tech companies like Microsoft. It's just nice to see newer big companies like Facebook and Google fight on the opposing side, even if it's just because this bill could possibly kill their companies. I've read the bill myself and it's pretty unsettling. Check section 1.4 for some real-world "1984" thinking.
  - numeromancer 15y ago
    "But really, who cares what their motivation is, as long as someone is fighting the dark side." If you must make any agreements with firefoxman, make sure you get it in writing, notarized, with witnesses.
    - numeromancer 15y ago
      A bit too personal. Sorry.
ddw 15y ago
> "This will protect Americans’ intellectual property rights, which in turn boosts our economy and promotes American jobs,” Leahy said in a statement. Besides lawyers, is there really any evidence behind this?
- rayiner 15y ago
  There is way more money in catering to companies like Google that build markets than there is in helping the RIAA keep grandma and cousin Timmy from illegally downloading music. I don't think there is any real money in SOPA for anyone involved. It just seems to be a dying industry spitefully flailing about as it takes its last gasps of breath.
click170 15y ago
> “All players in the Internet chain who profess to care about copyright protections should come forward with meaningful solutions — not simply throw up unfounded charges and suggest they will ignore the will of Congress anyway," said Recording Industry Association of American senior vice president for communications Jonathan Lamy. 1) maybe they don't see a need for additional solutions like you do. 2) the will of congress? You mean your will, care of your lobbyists, care congress, right?
tomp 15y ago
It seems that the main argument of the supporters of the bill is that piracy is bad for the economy, since it causes job loss. In reality, at least the way I see it, things could not be further from the truth. Yes, there is a slight loss to the American economy when foreign consumers are not paying for the movies and music (although mostly American companies are to blame here - I cannot buy music anywhere on the internet even if I want to, so TPB is my only source of 24/7 entertainment). However, when it is the American customers that are "stealing", this is not really bad for the economy, as no money is actually lost, it is simply redistributed when the consumers use the money they saved when downloading to buy other stuff - probably coming from the industries that make much less profit than the entertainment industry. Also, the entertainment industry seems unable or unwilling to face the fact - the consumers aren't buying not because they can download for free, but because the products are crap, not worth the money. Avatar was the most commercially successful movie of all times, in the period of most piracy of all times.
- Natsu 15y ago
  > It seems that the main argument of the supporters of the bill is that piracy is bad for the economy, since it causes job loss. The average politician sees IP related matters in purely economic terms. So the most effective line of argument is to compare the economic cost of new regulations to their benefit. I suggest keeping that in mind when writing your representatives on this issue.
biot 15y ago
This makes me wonder what it'd be like if Google ever goes bad: "Kill this legislation or we release the entire search history of you and your family. Then we'll see who the pirates (and worse) really are."
DanielBMarkham 15y ago
Protect IP and its House counterpart, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), are strongly supported by the entertainment industry, organized labor and business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Well there you go. If you made a list of the top ten groups that give money to Congressmen these guys would definitely be in it. And because they support both parties, guess what? It's biparisan! Something to vote on so you can say that Washington really works. It's just not all gridlock. Hey, look at me! I'm reaching across the aisle to get things done. If you were some uneducated Congressperson, probably a lawyer/political hack who came up through the ranks, this looks on the outside like just the kind of vote to take home to the voters. I'm your man. I'm stopping internet pirates, protecting the innocent. Think of the children! I have to laugh, but in reality it's a sad mess we're in. These pressure groups are going to keep at it until something like this passes, whether it's this year or ten years from now. We are well and truly fucked. I'm glad Google is speaking up on this. I only wish more folks would listen. If you haven't contacted both your House and your Senate guys, now is the time to do it.
- tomkarlo 15y ago
  "If you made a list of the top ten groups that give money to Congressmen these guys would definitely be in it." Not sure that's true, esp. in reference to organized labor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_the_United_States#Lobbying_expenditure_by_sector http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_the_United_States#L... http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s
  - nickpinkston 15y ago
    The dollar values may show this, and these numbers show you're right. However, influence wise, unions have massive sway because of the breath / consistency of their voter block - which provides a higher ROI on their lobbying money.
    - tomkarlo 15y ago
      You mean, because they have a bunch of people who vote for politicians? I'm pretty sure that's how things are _supposed_ to work.
firefoxman1 15y ago
"Creating jobs" is just the post-2008 buzzword that is applied to just about every political argument. Just because a company makes more money doesn't mean they'll hire more people. There are clearly enough people employed by record companies because the records are getting produced. If the company is able to accomplish their goal (create content and make $$$ off of it) with the number of employees they have now, why would they hire more just because they have more money? (Assuming, of course, that they will actually make more money by "stopping piracy")
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
BSousa 15y ago
Ok, I'll admit I don't know much about the laws about US donations/lobbying on the political trail, but I'm assuming you can run for a slot for Congress using your own money for whatever is needed right? Why not get Bill Gates, Larry Page, Sergey, Mark Zuckenberg (sorry about spellings) and most all other internet billionaires to threaten to run for congress if Congress keeps doing stupid shit like this? This would probably scare Congressmen more than anything else as I doubt, anyone running against these guys wouldn't have a chance of winning, and thats all they care about. Because apart form threatening with force (a.k.a. as shooting them), only way I see the people get their power back is if some of these billionaires stand up and make it really hard for some people to be re-ellected again.
- suivix 15y ago
  I think they have more important business to take care of than squabbling with Congressmen all day.
  - orangecat 15y ago
    True. What if they selected a member of their staff to be the actual officeholder?
    - BSousa 15y ago
      Exactly. I'm not actually saying they should be in congress, God knows they are way too competent to be there. But if these smart rich people can threaten to do something (run themselves, say they will do all donations to maximum permitted by law to other candidate, support some aide of them, etc) that will cost the election for the current candidate that is supporting SOPA, they may think twice about being shells for some industries. What I am advocating is actually fighting fire with fire. You have politicians that get elected mostly by the donations made to them by these companies. So, why not get other companies that matter (Google, Mozilla, MS and Apple (not sure they stance on this) FSF, etc) together and start pushing the agenda as well? Again, I don't know enough about the US system to even think what I'm saying is possible.
- 15y ago
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
o2sd 15y ago
I think this Bill will be good for the world. By the 'world', I mean anywhere that is not the United States of America. The US has outsourced it's manufacturing, rationalized retail into behemoth monopolies and completely destroyed it's capital markets with rampant corruption and incompetence. The ONLY area in which the US still is a leader and an innovator is in the internet/web, and now the US government is planning to destroy that as well. Soon the rest of the world will be providing all kinds of services to US citizens behind the silicon curtain, to allow them to illicitly access information without fear of censorship or imprisonment. Alternative DNS, proxies, darknets will spring up in the free world, giving the disenfranchised and repressed USians a voice and access to otherwise subversive websites that have forums with comments.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

161 points by cwan 15y ago

Those comments are downright depressing.

“When Google and other piracy apologists start talking about free speech, it’s completely disingenuous,” Harbinson said. “These guys don’t give a crap about free speech.” Maybe they don't, but at least they are trying to stop this bill, while the others are pushing for it, clearly not giving a crap about free speech either, as it seems all they care about is the ability to stop piracy - at all cost.

roc 15y ago
> "while the others are pushing for it, clearly not giving a crap about free speech either" This, I think, is the problem in American politics. The best the citizenry can hope for, given the amount of corruption that unfettered political donation has brought, is for a corporate champion whose own economic interests just happen to align with our liberty on this issue. Because the legislators supporting this don't care about piracy any more than Google cares about free speech. They care about protecting their share of political donations by the industries whose economic interests are aligned with pushing crap like SOPA.
- CWuestefeld 15y ago
  the amount of corruption that unfettered political donation has brought That's one side of the issue, and it's not inaccurate. But I'd ask you to consider the other side as well. Why do you think that businesses find it worthwhile to dump so much money into political contributions? I submit that the reason is because, as the government has assumed increasing amounts of power, it acquires the ability to confer significant advantages upon those favored by the law. So it's necessary for business to take extreme steps to ensure that they are, in fact, favored thusly. In these terms, I think that a more constructive strategy for solving the problem isn't to attack political contributions (which is bound to get into thorny First Amendment questions), but to strike at the root by limiting the power that the government has to decide who is going to win and who is going to lose. If we take away the government's power, then there's nothing for corporations to buy. If we give the government more power (to regulate the corporations' contributions and other matters), then there is an even greater incentive for the corporations to influence the goverenment -- which is exactly what we're trying to get away from.
  - shadowfiend 15y ago
    There is something for them to buy—each other. Arguably this is an even more dangerous situation, because the result then is monopoly, or close. And then, no competition. And then... Well, then the free market falls on its face, and all of a sudden the answer is that one company wins and everyone else—competitors and customers alike—loses. There is no silver bullet, for this as well as other problems. Just a web of interconnected aids that we can use to at least try to react when the inevitable corruption arises.
    - TDL 15y ago
      Monopolies rise up in the scenario you describe only in a static marketplace. Very few, if any, markets are static. There is constant change. Well healed competitors from other markets will enter a market where they see monopoly pricing power and begin to compete to grab a piece of a high margin business. Disruptive technologies or methods are also in play. In order for a company to successfully buy it's way into a monopoly, it requires that all other competitors (and potential competitors) either acquiesce to being bought or not enter the market after the monopoly has been created. Certainly there can be barriers to entry, but those barriers will not be permanent.
      - shadowfiend 15y ago
        A pleasant fiction, but a well-operated monopoly will move to crush nascent competition by undercutting them in price or securing their supplies—and thus their ability to produce at all—at prices that cannot be competed with by a smaller entity. This isn't to say that it wouldn't be possible to defeat a monopoly eventually, just that it's not as straightforward as you make it sound. Indeed, historically, monopolies seem to have required government intervention to be dismantled (Standard Oil, AT&T, etc), though perhaps that's simply defining monopolies as those entities that the government dismantled as such. Regardless, I think this is one of the two “silver bullet”-style myths that likes to float around the area of government regulation: one, that less regulation is always better, the other, that more regulation is always better. In essence, a refusal to acknowledge that regulation is and should be in a fluid state, adapting to what the market is doing at any given moment—and ideally ahead of the curve, rather than reacting after financial or other disaster has already struck.
kevinalexbrown 15y ago
It's not just piracy, unfortunately. Suppose SOPA passes - there are all these tools available to stop Google/other services from interacting with "rogue" websites. But what about other things that are as bad as or worse than piracy -- if we use those tools to stop piracy, why not use SOPA-like tools to stop them? (This isn't a slippery-slope argument, it's more of an "equivalent-harms" one.) Similar to how terrorism-inspired tools are used all the time for non-terrorism law enforcement.
firefoxman1 15y ago
Yeah Google obviously isn't trying to protect free speech; they have their own business interest in mind. But really, who cares what their motivation is, as long as someone is fighting the dark side. This bill has turned into a fight between old Big Business vs. new Big Business. There would be no reason for congressmen to just randomly decide to create a bill like this. It was obviously the result of heavy lobbying from the dying record industry, the overpriced and overpaid film industry, and older tech companies like Microsoft. It's just nice to see newer big companies like Facebook and Google fight on the opposing side, even if it's just because this bill could possibly kill their companies. I've read the bill myself and it's pretty unsettling. Check section 1.4 for some real-world "1984" thinking.
- numeromancer 15y ago
  "But really, who cares what their motivation is, as long as someone is fighting the dark side." If you must make any agreements with firefoxman, make sure you get it in writing, notarized, with witnesses.
  - numeromancer 15y ago
    A bit too personal. Sorry.

ddw 15y ago

> "This will protect Americans’ intellectual property rights, which in turn boosts our economy and promotes American jobs,” Leahy said in a statement. Besides lawyers, is there really any evidence behind this?

rayiner 15y ago
There is way more money in catering to companies like Google that build markets than there is in helping the RIAA keep grandma and cousin Timmy from illegally downloading music. I don't think there is any real money in SOPA for anyone involved. It just seems to be a dying industry spitefully flailing about as it takes its last gasps of breath.

click170 15y ago

> “All players in the Internet chain who profess to care about copyright protections should come forward with meaningful solutions — not simply throw up unfounded charges and suggest they will ignore the will of Congress anyway," said Recording Industry Association of American senior vice president for communications Jonathan Lamy. 1) maybe they don't see a need for additional solutions like you do. 2) the will of congress? You mean your will, care of your lobbyists, care congress, right?

tomp 15y ago

It seems that the main argument of the supporters of the bill is that piracy is bad for the economy, since it causes job loss. In reality, at least the way I see it, things could not be further from the truth. Yes, there is a slight loss to the American economy when foreign consumers are not paying for the movies and music (although mostly American companies are to blame here - I cannot buy music anywhere on the internet even if I want to, so TPB is my only source of 24/7 entertainment). However, when it is the American customers that are "stealing", this is not really bad for the economy, as no money is actually lost, it is simply redistributed when the consumers use the money they saved when downloading to buy other stuff - probably coming from the industries that make much less profit than the entertainment industry. Also, the entertainment industry seems unable or unwilling to face the fact - the consumers aren't buying not because they can download for free, but because the products are crap, not worth the money. Avatar was the most commercially successful movie of all times, in the period of most piracy of all times.

Natsu 15y ago
> It seems that the main argument of the supporters of the bill is that piracy is bad for the economy, since it causes job loss. The average politician sees IP related matters in purely economic terms. So the most effective line of argument is to compare the economic cost of new regulations to their benefit. I suggest keeping that in mind when writing your representatives on this issue.

biot 15y ago

This makes me wonder what it'd be like if Google ever goes bad: "Kill this legislation or we release the entire search history of you and your family. Then we'll see who the pirates (and worse) really are."

DanielBMarkham 15y ago

Protect IP and its House counterpart, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), are strongly supported by the entertainment industry, organized labor and business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Well there you go. If you made a list of the top ten groups that give money to Congressmen these guys would definitely be in it. And because they support both parties, guess what? It's biparisan! Something to vote on so you can say that Washington really works. It's just not all gridlock. Hey, look at me! I'm reaching across the aisle to get things done. If you were some uneducated Congressperson, probably a lawyer/political hack who came up through the ranks, this looks on the outside like just the kind of vote to take home to the voters. I'm your man. I'm stopping internet pirates, protecting the innocent. Think of the children! I have to laugh, but in reality it's a sad mess we're in. These pressure groups are going to keep at it until something like this passes, whether it's this year or ten years from now. We are well and truly fucked. I'm glad Google is speaking up on this. I only wish more folks would listen. If you haven't contacted both your House and your Senate guys, now is the time to do it.

tomkarlo 15y ago
"If you made a list of the top ten groups that give money to Congressmen these guys would definitely be in it." Not sure that's true, esp. in reference to organized labor. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_the_United_States#Lobbying_expenditure_by_sector http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_the_United_States#L... http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/top.php?indexType=s
- nickpinkston 15y ago
  The dollar values may show this, and these numbers show you're right. However, influence wise, unions have massive sway because of the breath / consistency of their voter block - which provides a higher ROI on their lobbying money.
  - tomkarlo 15y ago
    You mean, because they have a bunch of people who vote for politicians? I'm pretty sure that's how things are _supposed_ to work.

firefoxman1 15y ago

"Creating jobs" is just the post-2008 buzzword that is applied to just about every political argument. Just because a company makes more money doesn't mean they'll hire more people. There are clearly enough people employed by record companies because the records are getting produced. If the company is able to accomplish their goal (create content and make $$$ off of it) with the number of employees they have now, why would they hire more just because they have more money? (Assuming, of course, that they will actually make more money by "stopping piracy")

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]

BSousa 15y ago

Ok, I'll admit I don't know much about the laws about US donations/lobbying on the political trail, but I'm assuming you can run for a slot for Congress using your own money for whatever is needed right? Why not get Bill Gates, Larry Page, Sergey, Mark Zuckenberg (sorry about spellings) and most all other internet billionaires to threaten to run for congress if Congress keeps doing stupid shit like this? This would probably scare Congressmen more than anything else as I doubt, anyone running against these guys wouldn't have a chance of winning, and thats all they care about. Because apart form threatening with force (a.k.a. as shooting them), only way I see the people get their power back is if some of these billionaires stand up and make it really hard for some people to be re-ellected again.

suivix 15y ago
I think they have more important business to take care of than squabbling with Congressmen all day.
- orangecat 15y ago
  True. What if they selected a member of their staff to be the actual officeholder?
  - BSousa 15y ago
    Exactly. I'm not actually saying they should be in congress, God knows they are way too competent to be there. But if these smart rich people can threaten to do something (run themselves, say they will do all donations to maximum permitted by law to other candidate, support some aide of them, etc) that will cost the election for the current candidate that is supporting SOPA, they may think twice about being shells for some industries. What I am advocating is actually fighting fire with fire. You have politicians that get elected mostly by the donations made to them by these companies. So, why not get other companies that matter (Google, Mozilla, MS and Apple (not sure they stance on this) FSF, etc) together and start pushing the agenda as well? Again, I don't know enough about the US system to even think what I'm saying is possible.
15y ago

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

o2sd 15y ago

I think this Bill will be good for the world. By the 'world', I mean anywhere that is not the United States of America. The US has outsourced it's manufacturing, rationalized retail into behemoth monopolies and completely destroyed it's capital markets with rampant corruption and incompetence. The ONLY area in which the US still is a leader and an innovator is in the internet/web, and now the US government is planning to destroy that as well. Soon the rest of the world will be providing all kinds of services to US citizens behind the silicon curtain, to allow them to illicitly access information without fear of censorship or imprisonment. Alternative DNS, proxies, darknets will spring up in the free world, giving the disenfranchised and repressed USians a voice and access to otherwise subversive websites that have forums with comments.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]