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If he just got off the phone with the White House, I'd imagine he has a pretty good idea of what their response was. Your cynicism is a big part of the reason i
by Cushman 14y ago
If he just got off the phone with the White House, I'd imagine he has a pretty good idea of what their response was. Your cynicism is a big part of the reason it's so hard to change things around here.
- sneak 14y agoNo it's not. I emigrated from the US after it became clear they weren't going to reinstate the rule of law. Your military-industrial complex is the reason that it's so hard to change things around... there. This is why you have bullshit laws like the DMCA in the first place.
- jvrossb 14y agoWhere did you emigrate to?
- ynniv 14y agoNeukölln, Berlin, Germany [https://twitter.com/sneakatdatavibe https://twitter.com/sneakatdatavibe]
- antimatter 14y agoI'd be interested in reading about your experience doing this. I've been considering leaving the US as well lately.
- cgio 14y agoI hope you do not get too dizzy by the swings on the cradle of democracy and peace that you moved to. How would someone compare democracy in the States with that in Germany is beyond me. People tend to forget very easily.
- socialist_coder 14y agoSame here. Berlin is absolutely awesome. My wife and I came back to the US this winter to visit with family so they could meet our new baby. The longer I'm back in the US though, the more I miss Berlin. If anyone is in the video game industry and wants to try and move to Berlin, this is a pretty good company who is hiring right now: http://www.yager.de/career/ http://www.yager.de/career/ The way I immigrated was by having a baby with a German. That allowed me to get a work permit / permanent resident status without any hassle at all.
- Cushman 14y agoIt's not? Normal people abdicating the political process is exactly what hinders change in democracies. We just completed our one-hundred-thirteenth peaceful transition of power at the will of the people. The entrenched powers-that-be are only entrenched because we, as an electorate, keep voting for them. If everybody showed up to the polls, they'd be out in two years— but hey, why bother?
- danenania 14y agoUnfortunately, the "entrenched powers" in the US definitely have not been elected by anyone. Because of this, we haven't had a true transfer of power in many many years.
- onemorepassword 14y agoThere has been no transition of power. Power is still in the hands of those who have bought it. All democracies are far from perfect, but the US have allowed theirs to be dominated by money from the very foundation. Even quite corrupt democracies are more open to be changed by popular vote than the US, were not being bought and paid for beforehand means you don't have the means to successfully stand for election. Hell, even countries where political candidates regularly get murdered stand more chance of peaceful democratic change. The US political system is a effectively a convoluted equivalent of having a ballot with only one name on it. Only in this case it's a dollar sign. I would be very surprised if this could be overturned by peaceful means, but it will most certainly require extra-parliamentary action, because US democracy has been sold.
- peterwwillis 14y agoPower is still in the hands of those who have bought it. You're half right. Technically we tax payers only lease our elected officials, they aren't our property (that became illegal a few years ago) What's really funny is how people keep paying into a system they don't like and never do anything about it. According to popular practice, everyone thinks that Facebook and Twitter statuses will create change in Congress. Somebody should write a FAQ about that.
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- nohat 14y agoHow exactly is the military industrial complex related to DMCA? If you really mean special interests, then say that instead of recycling the 'military industrial complex' catch phrase.
- SeanLuke 14y ago> Your military-industrial complex is the reason that it's so hard to change things around... there. Wait..., what? The military-industrial complex has something to do with locking cell phones? Are you familiar with the origin of this phrase?
- sliverstorm 14y agoThe military-industrial complex is probably the reason he thinks the military-industrial complex is responsible for everything wrong in America
- danenania 14y agoIt has quite a lot to do with the corruption of principles that make such legislative absurdities possible.
- rayiner 14y agoThe DMCA is not a "legislative absurdity." It was embraced by both content owners and internet companies, who sought the safe harbor provisions of the act. From Congress's viewpoint, it was a measure that had broad industry support, with little to no public opposition. As for why "broad industry support" is so crucial--it's because Americans care pretty much only about jobs. The media sector has jobs and the internet sector has jobs, and when you can get content owners and tech giants to agree on something, well then from the perspective of a Congressman you're in job-creation wonderland. It's mind-boggling to hear all these rants about how "democracy is dead" when people here obviously fail to look beyond their own circle of idealistic friends to see what the American electorate is really asking for. E.g. remember Obama and Romney falling over themselves to see who could support coal power more in the last debate? You think it was because of checks written by the coal lobby? Of course not. In 2008, more than half of Obama's money came from donations under $200. Some coal lobby checks aren't going to make a dent in the situation. The real reason the candidates fell over themselves supporting Big Coal is voters. Voters in rural Pennsylvania whose livelihood depends on the coal industry. Hell voters everywhere--even your average American liberal is deeply skeptical of well-established progressive concerns like the environment, and are liable to believe something like "we can't pass measures that raise energy prices in a recession." You think they give a shit about "freedom of information," the "freedom to tinker," etc? American politics is 90% a referendum on jobs, and has been since the recession of the late 1980's/early 1990's. Big corporations hold themselves out as job creators and creators of economic growth. At least half of voters outright believe that, and even among those that ostensibly don't, they don't disbelieve it all that strongly. That's what creates the corporatism in American politics. Why does Congress support Verizon's right to lock down their phones over peoples' freedom to tinker with their phones? Because Verizon creates jobs. And while individuals may be annoyed by policies like that, what they are more worried about, indeed deeply afraid of, is any measure that would piss off the job creators.
- Karunamon 14y agoHow exactly is the DMCA "bullshit"? It provides an (addmitedly imperfect, yet better than the alternative) notification/takedown/reinstatement process and indemnifies content providers from the infringing acts taken by their users. There might be many BS copyright laws and extensions, but the DMCA ain't one of them.
- yuliyp 14y agoThis has nothing to do with the takedown and indemnification sections. It has to do with the sections which make talking about, writing, distributing, and running certain types of code illegal.
- eek04 14y agoWe're talking about 17 USC § 1201 - Circumvention of copyright protection systems (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201), the anti-circumvention part of the DMCA, most importantly 1201(a) Violations Regarding Circumvention of Technological Measures (with the associated 1201(b) Additional Violations). What you're talking about is USC 512 (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512 http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512), 17 USC § 512 - Limitations on liability relating to material online These are more or less completely unrelated apart from being introduced in the same legislative act (which also did a fair number of other changes to the law.)
- peterwwillis 14y agoWait, are you saying the military-industrial complex is responsible for the DMCA? Because it's really, really not. Perhaps you should look up what "lobbying" is, and what industries have lobbies. (hint: ALL OF THEM)
- azernik 14y agoSorry to break it to you, but this response is completely in line with the rule of law - the Administration is bound to follow the laws passed by Congress, even if they disagree with those laws.
- smsm42 14y ago"Military-industrial complex" doesn't vote. People vote. If people refused to vote for congressmen that enact stuff like DMCA, this won't happen. But most of the people think as long as their congressman "brings home the bacon" and doesn't steal too much money and doesn't cheat on his wife (this one is the most important for some reason unless you're Clinton), it's fine.
- niketdesai 14y agoI appreciate your view only because the skepticism is important as it draws attention to things optimists of the system like me will ignore. There is a problem with some skeptics that purposely lead people on goose chases, but the true ones will attack key problems that we can then focus our efforts.
- marcamillion 14y ago>"reinstate the rule of law".....are you kidding me, right now? I mean....ok...I get that the process by which laws are made and passed can seem corrupt at times.....but come on.....this is just straight hyperbole and cynicism. If you are complaining about America, why don't you move to a third world country - where we don't have basic things like election campaign laws that politicians have to disclose donors. It's so easy to complain about what you have...when you have no idea what others have to live with on a daily basis.
- aneth4 14y agoThe rule of law is not mutually exclusive with a "military-industrial complex." Anyway, where did you move that's so much better? Somewhere else you can organize a petition against the interest of major corporations and receive a phone call from the highest levels of government agreeing with you and asking to work with you. Sure, some small uniform Scandinavian governments might be more accessible, but I'm curious what your choice was.
- arthurrr 14y agoMexico? The wall along the border is not to keep Mexicans out, it is to keep Americans inside.
- eli_gottlieb 14y agoThe DMCA has little to do with the military and everything to do with the fact that humanity simply doesn't know how to accurately value software goods, which are non-scarce in their marginal cost of production, next to a world full of hardware goods, which are strongly scarce and sometimes near-impossible to make more of (land, water, air, etc).
- kirillzubovsky 14y agoResponse != action.