4 ms·

Netflix creates super-PAC

39 points by hornbaker 15y ago

emehrkay 15y ago
I've been a paid Nexflix users for maybe 30+ months now. I like, love, the service. This is unfortunate, the only thing that I can do is see how it plays out over the next cuple of weeks and move my money out of the service if necessary.
- ComputerGuru 15y ago
  s/cuple/couple/ (sorry!)
powrtoch 15y ago
AFAICT, Netflix has said nothing about supporting SOPA-like legislation with this PAC, and indeed has said nothing about FIXPAC's agenda at all. It could just as likely act as a net neutrality advocate. Stow your pitchforks, at least for now.
- leeoniya 15y ago
  this. the PAC's agenda could be to pay politicians not to sign these bills, also.
greenpizza13 15y ago
If it turns out that Netflix does in fact financially support these types of initiatives, I will have no choice but to take my business elsewhere. Let's see how it turns out.
Zikes 15y ago
Other than in this article, and those like it, where exactly does it say that this PAC will be pro-SOPA? I haven't seen anything at all from Netflix saying as much.
- dissident 15y ago
  I'm really surprised Russia Today links are even allowed here.
  - guard-of-terra 15y ago
    Your nickname suggests you associate yourself with people who struggled for the right of voicing their opinion; but then you actually suggest some opinions should be discarded right away without looking on per source basis. This is amusingly confusing.
    - freshhawk 15y ago
      The source is Russia Today. Which, objectively, has an extremely poor track record of reporting things that turn out to be true. Maybe the featured story on mind control weapons that are about to turn us all into zombies that's there today will change people's minds? Or maybe we do want to discard troll stories from here and The Weekly World News since they aren't opinions but just link bait.
      - guard-of-terra 15y ago
        Funny that you noticed, I went and read the article on zombie rays: http://rt.com/news/weapons-future-zombie-media-486/ http://rt.com/news/weapons-future-zombie-media-486/ and it turns out the article actually tries to debunk the "zombie rays" hoaxes and explain what's actually possible and what isn't when talking about experimental weapons.
    - jerf 15y ago
      Having an open mind does not mandate that one become an idiot.
    - maratd 15y ago
      > This is amusingly confusing. Not so confusing when you understand that RT is a Putin mouthpiece.
lachyg 15y ago
"what lawmakers consider a dire problem in the States: online piracy."
marcamillion 15y ago
I am confused by this, if this is true. Can someone explain why they would want to do this?
- Zikes 15y ago
  This most likely stems from a partial support of SOPA in the past, in that Netflix said something along the lines of supporting some of what SOPA does, but not supporting the way in which it does it. I'm afraid I can't provide any sources, as I heard this second-hand myself, but that's how I understand it to be at the moment.
jack-r-abbit 15y ago
On the surface, I don't see anything wrong with people/corporations being on the side of "stopping online piracy". So just saying a new bill is being introduced to stop online piracy or that a corporation is going to funnel money to legislators writing it should not be enough to break out the pitchforks and assemble in the town square. Just because SOPA was a dog turd doesn't mean that every attempt to stop piracy is going to be the same. If the next bill fixed all the problems that people had with SOPA/PIPA and still managed to combat piracy, would that be a bad thing? Is it so crazy to be against piracy? Isn't piracy illegal? EDIT: just to clarify... I torrent the hell out of movies and CDs. I just won't ever claim that doing it today is legal. Would I be sad if it all went away? sure. But I don't think I'm entitled to any of it. And I don't buy the "I'm poor... so I have to pirate it" argument.
- bgilroy26 15y ago
  While I agree with you in principle, I think that in the long term, piracy issues in the United States are going to go the way of abortion. Just to illustrate what I mean: I personally oppose women's right to have abortions -- no holds barred -- I think that it's always morally wrong to pursue the termination of pregnancy as an end and practically always wrong to pursue it as a means to some other end (although there are cancer treatments etc that jeopardize the well-being of a fetus that people should not be barred from pursuing simply based on the potential harm). On the other hand, it is very clearly a cultural issue. I believe that on a practical level, to attempt to police abortion would require a Stasi amount of government effort. If the people want the right to abort, the horse is already out of the barn, and the job is not the government's to swing the pendulum back, it belongs to magazine article writers, philosophers, and op-ed journalists. If they should fail, that's okay. It is more important not to live The Lives of Others than to save those children's lives, simply because saving them would not represent a noble Arthurian quest, it would involve spying on pregnant women and assassinating doctors. Disgusting. Intellectual property is a patently less important arena of human activity, but I think in a similar way the policing of the internet should be cultural. There ought to be a cultural directive not to steal things over the internet when you're not a college kid anymore. When you can afford something, and it's reasonably available, I think this cultural directive already exists. This cultural approach is successful and that's the reason that -- for the most part -- torrenting and music sales are weakly correlated. Most of the people that think it's okay to steal things, would not be customers anyhow. I believe that most of the time torrenting represents charity on the part of movie studios and textbook publishers and music labels, providing their wares to those who would not have otherwise been able to afford them, which is not a bad thing, they're hiring cheap brand ambassadors. The ability to work subtle complicated questions like this one out is the power of cultural motivation. TL;DR : When you're talking about the decision to terminate a pregnancy, or the decision to commit online piracy, the power is entirely in the hands of the citizen. It is so easy to pirate, it is so distasteful to set a woman's body against her will. Law-abidingness in these cases requires the cooperation of the potential "criminals". You cannot pursue justice in these cases through traditional law enforcement.
aaronsw 15y ago
This is much more likely to be about the VPPA, a law which Netflix believes makes it illegal to provide social features in the US: http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2012/01/netflix-to-testify-tuesday-at-senate-committee-against-the-vppa.html http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2012/01/netflix-to-testify-tue...
hornbaker 15y ago
More info here: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/09/sopa-supporters-await-cash-infusion-from-netflix-pac/ http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/09/sopa-supporters-await-...
jack-r-abbit 15y ago
So is this one the truth then? http://gigaom.com/2012/04/09/behind-the-netflix-pac-a-broadband-power-play/ http://gigaom.com/2012/04/09/behind-the-netflix-pac-a-broadb... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3821854 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3821854 (comments)

39 points by hornbaker 15y ago

I've been a paid Nexflix users for maybe 30+ months now. I like, love, the service. This is unfortunate, the only thing that I can do is see how it plays out over the next cuple of weeks and move my money out of the service if necessary.

ComputerGuru 15y ago
s/cuple/couple/ (sorry!)

powrtoch 15y ago

AFAICT, Netflix has said nothing about supporting SOPA-like legislation with this PAC, and indeed has said nothing about FIXPAC's agenda at all. It could just as likely act as a net neutrality advocate. Stow your pitchforks, at least for now.

leeoniya 15y ago
this. the PAC's agenda could be to pay politicians not to sign these bills, also.

greenpizza13 15y ago

If it turns out that Netflix does in fact financially support these types of initiatives, I will have no choice but to take my business elsewhere. Let's see how it turns out.

Zikes 15y ago

Other than in this article, and those like it, where exactly does it say that this PAC will be pro-SOPA? I haven't seen anything at all from Netflix saying as much.

dissident 15y ago
I'm really surprised Russia Today links are even allowed here.
- guard-of-terra 15y ago
  Your nickname suggests you associate yourself with people who struggled for the right of voicing their opinion; but then you actually suggest some opinions should be discarded right away without looking on per source basis. This is amusingly confusing.
  - freshhawk 15y ago
    The source is Russia Today. Which, objectively, has an extremely poor track record of reporting things that turn out to be true. Maybe the featured story on mind control weapons that are about to turn us all into zombies that's there today will change people's minds? Or maybe we do want to discard troll stories from here and The Weekly World News since they aren't opinions but just link bait.
    - guard-of-terra 15y ago
      Funny that you noticed, I went and read the article on zombie rays: http://rt.com/news/weapons-future-zombie-media-486/ http://rt.com/news/weapons-future-zombie-media-486/ and it turns out the article actually tries to debunk the "zombie rays" hoaxes and explain what's actually possible and what isn't when talking about experimental weapons.
  - jerf 15y ago
    Having an open mind does not mandate that one become an idiot.
  - maratd 15y ago
    > This is amusingly confusing. Not so confusing when you understand that RT is a Putin mouthpiece.

lachyg 15y ago

"what lawmakers consider a dire problem in the States: online piracy."

marcamillion 15y ago

I am confused by this, if this is true. Can someone explain why they would want to do this?

Zikes 15y ago
This most likely stems from a partial support of SOPA in the past, in that Netflix said something along the lines of supporting some of what SOPA does, but not supporting the way in which it does it. I'm afraid I can't provide any sources, as I heard this second-hand myself, but that's how I understand it to be at the moment.

jack-r-abbit 15y ago

On the surface, I don't see anything wrong with people/corporations being on the side of "stopping online piracy". So just saying a new bill is being introduced to stop online piracy or that a corporation is going to funnel money to legislators writing it should not be enough to break out the pitchforks and assemble in the town square. Just because SOPA was a dog turd doesn't mean that every attempt to stop piracy is going to be the same. If the next bill fixed all the problems that people had with SOPA/PIPA and still managed to combat piracy, would that be a bad thing? Is it so crazy to be against piracy? Isn't piracy illegal? EDIT: just to clarify... I torrent the hell out of movies and CDs. I just won't ever claim that doing it today is legal. Would I be sad if it all went away? sure. But I don't think I'm entitled to any of it. And I don't buy the "I'm poor... so I have to pirate it" argument.

bgilroy26 15y ago
While I agree with you in principle, I think that in the long term, piracy issues in the United States are going to go the way of abortion. Just to illustrate what I mean: I personally oppose women's right to have abortions -- no holds barred -- I think that it's always morally wrong to pursue the termination of pregnancy as an end and practically always wrong to pursue it as a means to some other end (although there are cancer treatments etc that jeopardize the well-being of a fetus that people should not be barred from pursuing simply based on the potential harm). On the other hand, it is very clearly a cultural issue. I believe that on a practical level, to attempt to police abortion would require a Stasi amount of government effort. If the people want the right to abort, the horse is already out of the barn, and the job is not the government's to swing the pendulum back, it belongs to magazine article writers, philosophers, and op-ed journalists. If they should fail, that's okay. It is more important not to live The Lives of Others than to save those children's lives, simply because saving them would not represent a noble Arthurian quest, it would involve spying on pregnant women and assassinating doctors. Disgusting. Intellectual property is a patently less important arena of human activity, but I think in a similar way the policing of the internet should be cultural. There ought to be a cultural directive not to steal things over the internet when you're not a college kid anymore. When you can afford something, and it's reasonably available, I think this cultural directive already exists. This cultural approach is successful and that's the reason that -- for the most part -- torrenting and music sales are weakly correlated. Most of the people that think it's okay to steal things, would not be customers anyhow. I believe that most of the time torrenting represents charity on the part of movie studios and textbook publishers and music labels, providing their wares to those who would not have otherwise been able to afford them, which is not a bad thing, they're hiring cheap brand ambassadors. The ability to work subtle complicated questions like this one out is the power of cultural motivation. TL;DR : When you're talking about the decision to terminate a pregnancy, or the decision to commit online piracy, the power is entirely in the hands of the citizen. It is so easy to pirate, it is so distasteful to set a woman's body against her will. Law-abidingness in these cases requires the cooperation of the potential "criminals". You cannot pursue justice in these cases through traditional law enforcement.

aaronsw 15y ago

This is much more likely to be about the VPPA, a law which Netflix believes makes it illegal to provide social features in the US: http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2012/01/netflix-to-testify-tuesday-at-senate-committee-against-the-vppa.html http://www.hackingnetflix.com/2012/01/netflix-to-testify-tue...

hornbaker 15y ago

More info here: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/09/sopa-supporters-await-cash-infusion-from-netflix-pac/ http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/09/sopa-supporters-await-...

jack-r-abbit 15y ago

So is this one the truth then? http://gigaom.com/2012/04/09/behind-the-netflix-pac-a-broadband-power-play/ http://gigaom.com/2012/04/09/behind-the-netflix-pac-a-broadb... http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3821854 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3821854 (comments)