HR 3261 - Internet Blacklist Bill

How interesting. Seems someone else is upset about copyright infringements.

 

The internet is one of the last places where people can freely communicate their political views. It can be used to organize mass protests. I just see it as another step to limit democracy and free thought in this nation.

 

Yep, its going to be a disaster if it makes it through Obama. Another blow against freedom of speech in the name of the almighty corporations.

 

More like another step to limit free speech and dissent. Democracy and free thought is in real trouble. Wish people saw that. Instead they get caught up in the phony Rep. against Dem. battles but they have been pretty much the same for awhile now. The Unions who have the organization need to start a third party, "A workers party", but their leadership is too fat and comfortable.

 

It is only a matter of time before the government regulates, taxes and generally screws up the entire internet for the good of the people.

 

An offshoot of the left's Fairness Doctrine?

 

I fail to see how you can connect the two. One is designed to give everyone equal access to communication channel and the other is designed to shut down access to communication. Please, explain how this works because I can't see it.

 

They just keep missing the point. The RIAA and MPAA have completely lost their minds. When they started wanting to charge people for the song happy birthday I knew they were nuts. It is just another symptom of the corporations and their insane insistence on maintaining complete control over everything.

 

If you owned the copyright to Happy Birthday, wouldn't you want to be paid for its use? Just sayin'.

 

Don't give me any ideas now...

 

Actually both are artificial controls on free speech.

 

Simple from now on any one who wishes to post something that might or might not be under copyright has to post a link and nothing other than a very brief outline

 

Actually, no I wouldn't. I think copyright is extremely overused and counter to progress. I feel the same way about patent law. I think that copyright and patents should be severely time limited and after that time period they should be released into public access. When we have reached the point where someone else can patent your genes without your permission things have went way overboard.

 

I think that the original intent was to give the inventor or creator a chance to make some bucks off his or her work and inspiration. But it wasn't intended to provide a protected income stream for decades and decades if not indefinitely, which seems to be where it's heading.

 

If you create, say, a song, why shouldn't it be yours for decades and decades? Or yours to sell to someone else? It doesn't effect anyone's ability to sing Happy Birthday to their kids or friends. But if you want to make money off of a song that someone else created, it seems simple to me that you should have to pay the person who created the song (or the person they sell it to). If that wasn't the case, it would just make corporations able to use someone's work without compensating anyone at all.

There are things going on in the Patent arena that I do not understand at all but, for copyrights, I think about a hundred years or life plus 70 years is fine for a duration.

 

How magnanimous of you. Fortunately, that's not the way it works. If you create something, such as a song, it's yours to do with as you want. If you want to give it away, sell the rights to it or keep the rights and charge for its use from now on, that's the way it should be. Don't force something on, say, a musician in this case and make him relinquish his copy rights.

 

Incorrect
It's copyrighted. Usually that would only affect people who are singing it while attempting to make a profit (the lady your dad hired to jump out of your birthday cake, for instance). However, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) requested that the Girl Scouts pay royalties for "Happy Birthday to You," and other songs they'd been singing around the campfire without a single stripper, or paying customer in attendance.

Presumably thinking that this was a prank by the girls from the camp across the lake, the Girl Scouts consulted an attorney who found that the law applied to any "public performance." Going by the strict letter of the law, you have to pay anytime you sing the song "where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered."

Read more: 6 Laws You've Broken Without Even Realizing It | Cracked.com http://www.cracked.com/article_1945...-without-even-realizing-it.html#ixzz1cCbgCXkI

 

The greatest power that humans have is the ability to cooperate and share knowledge. Without the ability to share knowledge creativity comes to a standstill and innovation suffers. When a company, or a person, insist in keeping secrets to themselves over a prolonged period of time he is willing choosing to restrain humanity. All the things you rely on daily are there because someone built on the work of another and created something new. It only came about because the knowledge was shared.