The Barnyard

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EarthyTechnoPop said...

Play Play Play

"Courage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities... because it is the quality which guarantees all others." - Winston Churchill

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uscemb said...

I am not very familiar with the bills and agree censorship in general is bad and not conducive to a free society. With that said, I think it is a travesty what has happened to intellectual property rights in this country, most particularly to musicians. Somehow in the past 15 years outright theft has become commonplace among otherwise law abiding citizens, and people honestly believe they have a "right" to free music, which is the property of another.

I am not advocating these bills as the answer to this problem, but something aboslutely has to be done about music/movie/other piracies, and it is WAY overdue. I think ISPs should be required to track this activity and make reports to the government. Make it a federal crime. Mandatory jail time for repeat offenders.

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GOCOCKS!nohomo said...

not sure if ol' kim jong allowed the interwebs...

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Joe Arrives said...

Wilco has been thriving by doing things like giving away digital copies of their album online and then working hard as hell on the road performing. Of course, they are not the only ones that do this. The successful business model is changing toward musicians that tour, and do it well. It’s not like I wasn’t making mixed tapes back in the 80s often when borrowing music from others. Some people lump in the Itunes single complaint here as well, but buying single tapes, records, and CDs go back decades before the mixed tape.

The album sales model is only a century old, really, so we’re basically returning (somewhat) to an older model (live performances). Thanks to YouTube, and digital sharing/posting, musicians can remove any shadow of doubt on the originality of their intellectual property because they have the ability to post their very first performances, their writing and practicing of their music with timestamps from YouTube, or whatever site. I'm personally really happy with the quality of live music these days thanks to the shifting business model.

Also, maybe we’ve gone overboard with the intellectual property assurances. Hector Berlioz “sampled” the church’s Dies Irae in Symphony Fantastique (he wasn’t the first), which was then “sampled” for the Shining score; both are great. Mozart became great writing some music based entirely on variations to existing songs like the French melody Ah vous dirai-je, Maman, which we know today as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

The Once and Future King and Le Morte d'Arthur aren’t the first and won’t be the last books that retell the King Arthur legend. I think you get my point. In my book, freedom of speech and assembly trump intellectual property rights.

Lastly, copyright laws already exist. SOPA/PIPA won't stop the Chinese from pirating art.

Bump.

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uscemb said...

The bottom line is we have certain rights in this country, and those rights have to be reconciled together.. Freedom of speech has to be reconciled with copyright. No right in this country, including the freedom of speech, is absolute.

One of the rights we have is that if we create something, we, alone, have the right to determine how that material should be distributed. If Wilco wants to give their music away, that is their business, but not everyone should have to conform to their model. There are countless musicians who depend on album sales as their primary form of income and they should have the right to sell their music in the manner they see fit.

Additionally, you have not addressed movie piracy. Movies don't go on the road and tour. Movies go to the theater, and then they are released to the general public through licenses (dvd sales, hbo, etc.) When people steal movies on the internet, they are violating the rights of those who created the work.

And the argument that "they aren't hurting financially" is totally misplaced and irrelevant. First of all, the data don't back that up, but secondly, we are a nation of laws. The laws don't simply protect people who don't have a lot of money, they are suppossed to protect everyone equally (ever heard of the Equal Protection Clause?).

We do have copyright laws. They are being violated. Period. The existing laws are insufficient, however, to protect the rights of citizens who create. It is very obvious and well known that the existing enforcement mechanisms are insufficient to stop this blatant violation of law. Something more has to be done, and new legislation is needed to meet this (relatively) new problem..

Again, I am not advocating SOPA as the answer, primarily because I haven't read the legislation and I do not trust websites' concise summaries, especially when they are written by non-lawyers. If it is true that it amounts to censorship, then A) I am against it, and B) it wouldn't withstand a constitutional challenge anyway. However, I am very glad this issue is getting some media attention, and that the government is finally getting around to do something about it. To the extent the law goes too far, it should be amended..

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Joe Arrives said...

Self-censoring by private entities does not violate our rights. We are free to not associate with said entity. State-sponsored/enforced censorship is another matter. :-)

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uscemb said...

Someone else in the thread made the financial argument, my comment wasn't directed to you. I don't see how much they make has anything to do with it.

I will watch the video when I get a chance. I am rather interested in this topic and even more interested in what this legislation does and doesn't do.

Our first amendment jurisprudence is pretty clear on content based restrictions on speech, and yes I have faith in the Supreme Court in most instances. If the law is as it is being characterized in this thread, which I highly doubt, it would not withstand an attack.

I think probably a better argument against this legislation, based on what I know about it, is it places an undue burden on private enterprise to help the government fight copyright violations, rather than a content bases censorship argument. But I really don't know enough about the legislation to really know.

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