SCH, SOPA, The Internet and You

#shawfacts

I’ve have the privilege (and sufferred through the ordeal) of being involded in ordinance/statute drafting at the local and state levels. It is far harder than one thonks to do it well (so as to address the problem at hand well, and avoid screwing up lots of other things).

A one stop shopping place as to elected representatives for those residing here in Illinois is

http://www.elections.il.gov/DistrictLocator/DistrictOfficialSearchByAddress.aspx

One can enter a full address (a bit clunky because the compnents pieces are all separate fields) or pick the Zip +4 option and get all of your reps at each level by just entering the 9 digits Zip +4 number.

This is pretty damn good.

www.theoatmeal.com/sopa

How we not win that by four

Does that mean I can’t nominate Andrew Shaw as the Republican Presidential candidate here?

I agree with krome about copyright. I lost my job, as did a lot of my friends and colleagues, and am getting to watch the death-throes of a 90-year old bastion of the UK High Street, a company I worked for and loved working for, for over ten years as a result of piracy (or at least with piracy as a main contributing factor).. but hey, I’m a hypocrite who watches illegal streams of Hwaks games.. mainly because i don’t have any other options, but I’m rationalising here.
Anyway.. yes, something needs to be done but this sure ain’t it..

or just the DLR thread?

And it is required by the Constitution to be protected. This IMO is NOT the way to do it, to target bystanders and not the actuall purpatrator on the infringements. Piracy is a real issue and needs to be adressed, but against those who supply or consume it, not by an intermediary who offers a broad platform that can be abused and used in a manner it was not intended or designed for. It is not reasonable (by manpower or cost efficiency) to expect any such provider to be able to police or monitor ever action to prevent it, and because of it making them equally liable will only cause these platforms to shutter, and still NOT address the real problem.

On the the flip side, the manufacturers (music, movie, software, etc…) also need to look at their business practices and the cost of their products. MOST people have no desire to engage in Piracy (consumption) by the industry has also made it cost prohibitive in areas to consumers, where they feel the risk of being caught and morally is less then the price of going about aquiring it correctly. When this occurs it means the supply price is higher then the demand, when this occurs you do not increase the price and force people to accept it (because they won’t they will just stop consuming it all together) you drop prices to a better market value.

Piracy needs to be stopped, it is stealing in my mind and according to the law. The industries also need to market their product to demands, and not demand the market adapt to their product, this will never work. These bills address neither of these issues directly, AT MOST they will only move the problem elsewhere, while at the same time damaging huge markets and avenues of legitimate speech and association out of fear, or uncontrollable circumstances and abuses of their systems.

These are the people who are making these decisions.