Fox Explains Why SSSCA Is Bad 739
corbettw writes "Fox News is running an article that slams Sen. Fritz Hollings ("The Senator from Disney") and the Democrats (with the notable exception of Rick Boucher) as having betrayed their principles. More importantly, the article explains why the SSSCA is so bad, in language any American can understand. It's nice to see someone in the mainstream media taking this beast on before it becomes law."
The Senator from Disney (Score:5, Insightful)
We can rant and rave on
I sincerely hope that the people in his district are well aware of Sen. Holling's attrocities.
A little out there? (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean, c'mon, linking to a Wired article and then speaking endlessly about "opportunities for Republicans" doesn't sound like an informative article about the evils of the SSSCA. Maybe they forgot about the other evil crap that John Ashcroft has brought us: the PATRIOT Act, monitoring of cable modems, what have you. It's clear that neither party is wholly clean of messing with our rights, but this article just skews the discussion into endless political ranting. Kind of like this topic will devolve into, I foresee.
"Keep your grubby laws off my computer" (Score:2, Insightful)
"This partiality is a betrayal of principle."
"Talk about screwing the little guy:"
"denouncing the "spyware" already on Windows Media Player "
{a few snips from the article} Can I get an AMEN! It is now offical, I am becoming a republican.
To bad there a 'cowboynealican' party...
Correction.. (Score:3, Insightful)
On that note, I'm not defending these Democrats that are in the pockets of the MPAA, et al, but this article is a very left-ist piece of FUD.
This is a first... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not *everything* is the fault of the MPAA. (Score:4, Insightful)
Despite being illegal, payola is rife, keeping interesting artists off the air in favor of the manufactured hitmaker of the week.
Okay, assume that statement is fully true, and major labels pay radio stations big bucks to play their manufactured hitmaker of the week. This is keeping the interesting artists off the air?
Wrong.
Somebody listens to it. Someone buys the albums. N'Sync didn't get big because of major label payola, they got big because some clown looked at a shelf in a record store, and said, 'I want THIS one!'
The same with Hanson, Britney, 98, blah-de-freakin'-blah. Someone's listening to this crap. And you know what? It's trendy to call it crap. But when a radio station, that makes money off ad revenue, has to choose what to play, it's either going to choose the mainstream 'crap', or the indie 'interesting' stuff. The rest of what will happen is left as an exercise for the reader.
Other things pointed out in the article are just plain criminal, however:
Record companies regularly deduct 15 percent off the top of sales as an allowance for "breakage" -- a survival from the days of shellac records that now simply serves to reduce artist royalties by that amount
and
And now, record companies -- who have allied themselves with the just-as-bad motion picture industry - want to make it a felony for you to own a computer that is capable of copying music from a CD to your portable player without paying them money, even though courts have held that such copying is entirely legal.
Blame the MPAA for a lot - the DMCA, copy protected CD's, starving artists that sell more than 50,000 records, but not for the bad taste of the little girl down the block.
More Political than Factual (Score:2, Insightful)
Many here will love the article because they agree with the conclusion that the law is a bad one but overall the article has little to do with copy right protection.
The author is merely reflecting on poliitical ramifications for the Republicans and Democrats. In the process we see that Washington no longer worries about right vs. wrong- but rather solely on what will bring in votes and or money. Here the democrats have a bit of a pickle because they may have to choose rather than have both.
I remain confident that the American people will be screwed regardless-- while the parties fight over their little kingdoms.
.
In other news.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Seriously folks, with the money they are making [slashdot.org], the the arguments against them [slashdot.org] and the turning tide of public opinion on one side and their soft money contributions on the other.... I hope we the public win.....
May be as Chris Sprigman says, this may happen if campaign reform takes place.
Interesting Political trend. (Score:2, Insightful)
Republicans help big business! Democrats help the common man! Perhaps we should re-evaluate their views.
Don't forget Kelly (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Senator from Disney (Score:3, Insightful)
We'll be lucky to ever get a "non-biased" politician in a position of power. To get elected takes a lot of money (to get your name out there in advertising, etc.). Real people don't have that kind of money. So where does the money come from? Big industries like these. After their elected, they can't stray from what these industries what because they'll need their money to be re-elected in a few more years. There is no forseeable end to the cycle.
There is no "good guy" any more is there? A politician's a politician.
Bought and paid for (Score:3, Insightful)
This is all great news anyway - the best way to stay away from corporate ownership of your computer and data is to stop buying their crappy content, which will have the beneficial side-effect of promoting indie artists.
Re:The Senator from Disney (Score:3, Insightful)
Consume less and create more! (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, I was thinking that a huge part of the problem is that the public in general is looked upon solely as consumers of entertainment. It's as if we can't think for ourselves...we must be fed entertainment by corporations.
While I enjoy TV shows and movies and music, I spend a lot of time trying to create my own "content." I take photographs and post them on my website. I write travelogs about my trips, and post those too. I fool around with my guitar, though I'm not very good at it. I write software. Basically, I think this serves two purposes. It is time spent that I'm not "consuming" the coporate-fed entertainment, and at the same time it's more home-brewed content out there, for someone else to look at and ignore the output of big companies who want to control their works with an iron fist.
So get out there and publish your own content. Just don't do it with the idea that your heirs will still be profiting from it in the year 3000.
Chicken or egg? (Score:2, Insightful)
Okay, assume that statement is fully true, and major labels pay radio stations big bucks to play their manufactured hitmaker of the week. This is keeping the interesting artists off the air?
Wrong.
Somebody listens to it. Someone buys the albums. N'Sync didn't get big because of major label payola, they got big because some clown looked at a shelf in a record store, and said, 'I want THIS one!'
Wrong.
Think about this: why do people say "I want THIS one!"? I don't know of anyone who trolls the local music shop buying albums because the cover art is keen or because the band has some uber-cool name like "59 Pink Wallabies". People buy records from music stores because they say "Hey - I recognize the name of that band. I heard them on the radio on the way to work yesterday." Give the local "interesting" stuff some air time and their albums (assuming they aren't crap) will go flying off the shelves, too!
philmills
Re:The Senator from Disney (Score:4, Insightful)
Write and phone your congresscritters NOW.
Re:Consume less and create more! (Score:5, Insightful)
You can:
Re:Opinions, opinions (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not *everything* is the fault of the MPAA. (Score:2, Insightful)
People buy what they hear, whether they heard it on the radio or on MTV or in their best friend's car. Studies have suggested (I wish I could find a reference now;-) that with the first listen to a song, a person may not like it - but with each subsequent listening, the chance that they will like the song actually goes up. What is played on popular stations will become popular. If "payola" gets it played often enough CDs will sell, arenas will sell out, posters, paraphernalia, etc...
Fact is, payola is still a part of the business. It won't make people love crap, but it gives a new group a chance.
Now breakage charges - someone deserves to be beaten!
Re:The Senator from Disney (Score:2, Insightful)
"Sir, we would be much happier if you would make it where you can't get re-elected again, please?"
Sure... they'll go for that.
Re:Not *everything* is the fault of the MPAA. (Score:5, Insightful)
What you are ignoring is the simple fact that the MPAA members, and everyone else in the music industry, learned a long, long time ago -- what people hear on the radio (and later, see on video channels) is what they buy. That's the truth -- you can argue how it's not strictly true in some ideal, controlled circumstance, but that's irrelavent. In the real world, what people hear on the radio, is what they buy.
(Again, whether it's directly true is irrelevant -- alot of kids might listen to stuff because thier friends do. But somewhere along the line, someone is influenced by all the radio play and promotions that the record companies pay for.)
The system of payloa that is currently in use right now is kind of fucked, because payola is strictly illegal -- a record company can't just send a check to the radio stations for airplay. They have to go through an inderect level of "independant" promoters who decide what music to push, and get paid based on whether or not "thier" radio stations play any of "thier" music. So by adding a layer of indirection, the system avoids the old payloa laws (which are there, because it was recognized that paying to get stuff on the air makes people want to buy it -- this is an observed fact.)
This is one of the reasons why the MPAA doesn't like mp3's at all. Because it puts the power of what to listen to into the hands of the consumers. If people can just sit down at thier computer, and listen to whatever-the-hell they want to, from all the music in the world, that shoots the record company's biggest weapon -- control of what's played on the radio -- down. If people want to listen to Cool Indie Band, and they start passing around Cool Indie Band's track, this means that they're more likely to go out and buy Cool Indie Band's album rather than an album made by an MPAA artist.
That is why the MPAA is attacking mp3's and p2p file sharing systems, not because of the arguable amount of revenue they loose because people get thier music for free -- but because it takes control of what people listen to, and what influences people's purchasing decisions, away from them, and puts it back in the hands of the consumers.
This is a huge factor in the equation, and brushing it off by saying "people buy what they want" is simply ignoring the reality that people, en masse, are manipulated into wanting what the MPAA wants to sell to them, via radio.
To bad... (Score:2, Insightful)
simple language, poor explanation (Score:2, Insightful)
ummm
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would mandate the inclusion of copy-protection in every digital device and every computer operating system
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record companies
... want to make it a felony for you to own a computer that is capable of copying music from a CD to your portable player without paying them money
looks like slashdot has been trolled by FOX news!Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Why the Content Cartel REALLY fears & hates th (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's the true threat of the Internet to all the content providers, the movers and shakers, the Content Cartel: The Internet, through the Web, makes everyone a publisher. There are no modes of distribution, no official channels, no place for the middleman to snag a piece of the action. We are liberated from the drivel pushed in the name of mass appeal. We look up. We thrive without them.
Digital copying is just the vector through which this enters. The true threat is human creativity, unchained and untrammeled and unfunneled through the corporations.
Re:Consume less and create more! (Score:3, Insightful)
But, this shouldn't be about me. Neither you
The deal is to make people understand that all of these creations should be made for your own, or your friends, pleasure.
Like you said, our society less often thinks about other impact of an action than the monetary one, or corporative power.
For example, all those 'self-help' books while preaching you must be strong, have confidence, live a health life, etc, are geared to one objective. To be _sucessful_. And they sell a lot, just check any bookstore chart.
This desire for sucess is really a double edge knife. On ancient times, you had no option. You slowly gets power by just getting older. After, we had several dominant types of success. Religion was, sadly, one of them.
But today, as always IMHO, what constitutes sucessful is how much _others_ think you are. But there's a major problem, we create and destroy celebrities fast. One day you are god, next you are a perverted drug addicted.
This fast dominance wave creates several interesting effects on people. First, sucess is easy to achieve. Year after years, thousands of cases are created and succumb.
Second, sucess is imitable. Britney Spears is, even on surface, the same women as Aguillera, J-Lo, etc... There are minor discrepances about what they say while talking to the public. Their music looks the same, their hair, their bodies. It sends you a message that you can achieve higher society positions if you do it like them.
Third, sucess, while instantenous, lasts forever (?). Most people haven't realized this yet, but we are recording what we do more often, and we are storing this information in such a way that it will last longer. TV can save their content forever, copying from place to place. So can music, photo, software, etc, etc...
This feeling that your achievements can be eternal is a strong reason for people to jump on the pop bandwagon.
This might sound like a rant, but it's not. To achieve a society where people care less for money, we should attack these simbols and paths to our current sucessful values.
After they are destroyed, we can begin to enjoy our content.
The more interesting story (Score:3, Insightful)
If a big deal was made about how record companies were not only exploitive, but participating in illegal activities, it would cut the legs out from under their arguments.
Payola and 'breakage' are just the tip of the iceberg. Lets hope a more credible news source picks this up and turns the big labels into the next Enron.
Re:The Senator from Disney (Score:4, Insightful)
The only way to reduce the political dependence upon money is to reduce the power of the government. Reduce the power of the government, and you reduce the number of people (corporations) who want to control it. Reduce the people trying to conrol it, and you reduce the amount of money flowing to politicians.
If the Federal government scaled back services to those specified by the constitution, a lot of the money-chasing and corruption problems would disappear.
Re:The Senator from Disney (Score:2, Insightful)
Afterall, a lot of people here equate "code" with "speech". If code can loosely be equated to speech, why can't money?
Campaign finance reform amounts to government control of political speech (money). Government is at its worst when it tries to restrict political speech.
Re:Not *everything* is the fault of the MPAA. (Score:5, Insightful)
However, I think you're ignoring the number one problem in the music marketing industry today: the labels are free to pay MTV as much as they like. They're also free to pay the teenie show of the week on WB as much as they like. So they do, in exchange for featuring their bands.
This leads us down the road where there's a constant assualt on TV viewers with paid ads (videos, interviews, guest appearances). This gives the labels huge power to invent fads. N'Sync (you UNIX types may know them as XNSync()), Brittany, Christina, Spice Girls, etc, etc were created this way. I find Brittany to be the most illuminating example. Most young girls are attracted to her as a role model because she's famous and seems happy and comfortable with her fame. Try to find someone who will say "I was a Brittany fan before she was famous" (and doesn't just mean they saw her on TV before their friends) and you'll be looking for a long time. Why? Because she was introduced with a massive media blitz that was designed to make her seem "already famous".
So, the payola situation in the Radio industry is silly (even more silly because of the very tiny number of independant stations), but TV makes it look like an honest day's work.
Re:The Senator from Disney (Score:2, Insightful)
The idea that giving money is a form of speech is the most ridiculous defense of the current corrupt system I can think of. After all, you are allowed to try to talk your way out of a speeding ticket - as soon as you've pulled out the wallet, you've gone into a completely different domain, which we call bribery.
Re:The Senator from Disney (Score:3, Insightful)
For the next person that thinks the republicans (Score:1, Insightful)
During last Thursday's hearing in the Senate, it was the Democratic members of the committee who proclaimed the need to legislate -- while Republican senators such as John McCain (R-Arizona) and Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) said they "would be extremely hesitant regarding any proposal for government to mandate copy-protection technology."
Re:The Senator from Disney (Score:3, Insightful)
Then the state funds everyone who gets a certain number of signatures at exactly the same level.
Toss any politician who accepts bribes, and the heads of any company that offers them, into jail for a while.
That'd really straighten things out.
Enron Boy Scouts? (Score:3, Insightful)
oh dear God you are dumb! (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you even RTFA?
Maybe you should also consider that fair.org is biased as well?
But that thought probably didn't cross your mind... you probably just pick a side and close your mind...
Re:The Senator from Disney (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporations and organizations are much different from individuals ("natural persons" as the law puts it). They have different lifespans (indefinite) and different primal motivations (fundamentally businesses are entities for creating wealth, generaly of the monetary kind, but sometimes also the social kind). People's actions are tempered by the fact that your life is finite and the demands of the human psyche for things like love, social contact, happiness, etc. We act towards our physical survival, but once that's taken care of, most act towards -- dare I say -- spiritual survival as well. Corporations don't.
Why not just ban corporations from participating in political discourse at all? Corporations should get no say in how my government regulates my life; I chould have perfect free choice (using amount of money spent) about how much influence any corporation has over my life. The individuals making decisions at corporations will have as much of an opportunity to participate in the political process as anyone else, but they will have to do it as individuals.
You could also play around with this idea and see where it takes you in the realm of copyright law. Should corporations be allowed to hold copyrights at all? Or perhaps we should have some fundamental notion that only the individual creator can be the ultimate holder of a copyright, and corporations are thus more limited in how much control they can have over your MP3s and computers and CDs. The creators of the work are legally protected from having to relinquish total control over their creations in order to merely do business with the rest of the public.
"Corporation" is an entity different from "person"-- not an inherited class. Clearly corporations require certain rights and have certain obligations/responsibilities, but these should be assigned based on corporations' nature as wealth-creating entities rather than assigned just because human beings have those rights as well.
I'm disappointed in Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of the comments so far are just reactions to where it appeared - not what it says.
Whatever you think of FoxNews, try to read the article without projecting on it what you think it's going to say. Note that it's really an opinion piece, apparently part of Fox's Straight Talk feature - corbettw mislabelled it in his summary.
The article in my view is really just analyzing the political risks and possibilities for both parties here. The reality is that both the Democrats and Republicans support constituencies at times that are at odds with the philosphies they publicly profess. In this case it's the support that several heavyweight Democrats have been giving to the recording and movie industries for the SSSCA. Glenn Reynolds (the author) really would like to see the SSSCA buried and all he's really doing here is pointing out is that the Republicans could help kill it AND potentially score political points for doing so.
Glenn Reynolds also produces music in his spare time when he's not teaching law. He also runs a 'blogger' website with nearly hourly comments. He's also a Slashdot reader and poster (which is how I first heard about his web site InstaPundit [blogspot.com]). I've been reading his site since just before 9/11 and he's been consistent in criticizing the record industry for its corruptness and sneaky ploys to take advantage of the consumer. He's hardly a ideological Republican. Mostly he's libertarian and anti-Idiotarian in his viewpoints. In this, I don't think he's that far off from most Slashdot readers. That is, if they can overlook their media outlet biases.
Forest Gump & Hollywood Accounting (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Senator from Disney (Score:5, Insightful)
If we want a government that looks after the good of the people, we need citizens who take an active interest in the government and vote according to principle. After all, Disney, Microsoft, et al don't have a single vote in the elections, so who cares how much money they donate? The only reason they have any power over the politicians is because we the people are morons who don't vote, who simply toe the party line, who vote for the candidates with the best commercials, the fullest head of hair, the greatest height, the best-sounding name, etc, etc.
We need to throw the politicians out on their asses when they put Disney's interests above the people's. Nothing will improve until we do this. Campaign finance reform will not help. There will always be loopholes, unless you are wiiling to completely eliminate the first amendment.
I honestly think we get the quality of government that we deserve, and our current government doesn't say much about us as a society.
Not enough information for the general public. (Score:3, Insightful)
I say "almost" because I don't feel turning the story into an angle for the Republicans is the correct way to go about this. I think this approach gives the appearance that Republicans should approach this case with an eye for strengthening their political power rather than to show their concerns for the consumers (the "little guys"). This article would probably turn away a significant number of readers who would invalidate the article in their minds as some sort of Republican "propaganda".
Also, I don't think enough information was conveyed regarding what exactly the SSSCA does, except that it has something to do with "computer laws". By putting such a broad generalization on the SSSCA you water down the effect the article has on the readers. In the past several laws have come to pass which many individuals and organizations within the technology industry have vehemently fought against and lost when the safety of children or safety from terrorism was made as a major point behind the bill. This is not happening with the SSSCA, however there's been such a saturation of computer laws dealing with terrorism and child safety in the past that the general public will probably gloss over any new story on the subject. To most individuals it's just another story on their local news to ignore.
Perhaps that this article appears on FOXNews.com is something like preaching to the converted? At any rate, I think this story could have focused more on what the SSSCA is and why it's bad for consumers, rather than just telling the reader that it's so.
I think getting more information out to the general public, in terms they can understand, is really the only way to approach the SSSCA and other such acts.
campaign contributiion caps (Score:3, Insightful)
Should be some sort of limits as the maximum amount of money that can be used, as well as maximums from any one source, as well as industry. Of course, industries will collude together, and offer contributions that "have no monetary value."
It could be a start though.
Of course, it is hard to find enough Republicans and Democrats that would be willing to give themselves such cuts...
Heck, we might even get ourselves into a position where there is more than two major, influential, political parties in the United States!
Re:Write Your Senators! (nicely, please) (Score:3, Insightful)
How hypocritical! (Score:3, Insightful)
Talk about bad journalism...
-Ozzy
Re:I'm disappointed in Slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)
FOX NEWS is not a news network. It is the media branch of far-right wingers, created to destroy Clinton, and now existing to elect Republicans.
Not that it is a Republican network -- it is not. It is a reactionary network, composed of radical political ideologues, neo-conservative economic libertians, religious fundementalists, objectivists, and assorted people who are only there to ride the money train.
They demonify Democrats and court Republicans in order to spread their view of religion, economics, media, and social order. The minute a Republican turns against them in any way, it's fire-up-the-stake time. No prisoners taken. No logic taken, either.
It is a machine for grinding right wing knives. A propaganda outlet which proclaims the grandest lie of all as you turn it on for the first time: "Fair and Balanced". Heavens to Orwell.
Re:The Senator from Disney (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Real schools. Southern schools generally suck (I mean really really suck), unless you live in a rich suburb of Atlanta or Charlotte or Chapel Hill.
2) Roads. The roads in South Carolina suck, unless you are traveling to/from a rich beach town. Many roads haven't been updated in years, so that they are carrying several times the traffic they were designed for with potholes and no paint much of the way.
Cover the basics, first, Mr. South Carolina. The people need you.
Re:"Keep your grubby laws off my computer" (Score:1, Insightful)
I dunno...how about
I think either of those would do.
Re:Smaller government as a solution? (Score:3, Insightful)
Who are these strong you're talking about? Who are these weak?
I'm sure you'd agree that the bill of rights is valuable, and having some way to enforce that is necessary.
The Constitution allows for its own enforcement. The Federal government was strong enough to stand up to Standard Oil at the turn of the century and break it up, so I don't see how expanding the Federal budget by so much over the past hundred years to continue to stand up to the strong is really necessary.
Furthermore, I suspect most people would agree that some amount of government will always be necessary. I.e. we will always need a military to protect ourselves and a police force to stop the occasional nut. Y'know, traffic lights so we can drive the streets in safety. Garbage collection so the streets aren't full of trash.
The items you mention (apart from the military) are local issues, best handled by local governments. This decentralization of government business acts both to be more responsive to localities and to reduce the amount of cash flowing through the Federal government (which is a good thing).
So in other words, there's a limit to this "small government" thing. Yes, going back to services specified by the constitution as you propose would be a smaller, but it would not be better. For example, there was no concept of an Air Force in the original constitution. No internet. No kiddie porn. Hell, blacks were considered 2/3 of a person and women couldn't vote!
Nice straw man. 1. No one said anything about the "original Constitution", just the Constitution as it now stands, which allows for womens' voting and the equality of blacks (btw, they were counted as 3/5ths a person). 2. Of course there's a limit to this "small government thing", of course we have to allow for modern things like the Air Force.
No, that's no solution. What we need is to remove the power of money in the government, not less government.
Here are some ideas that make sense to me:
1)Let's pass some legitimate campaign finance reform legislation. Maybe McCain-Feingold is a start.
The soft money problem and the dramatic escalation of money needed by politicians was caused by their mucking with the system in the first place.
I have a significant problem with the government restricting political speech by controling how people spend their money on political advertisements and campaigns. I'd be happier if they removed restrictions, but mandated the strictest of reporting, so that you could know who gave what to which parties/candidates.
2)Let's open the debates up to any candidate that has gotten on the ballot in >50% of the states. Ok, so maybe they won't win, but at least we can find out what they have to say.
So, the government will now be in charge of the debating process? I think that a little government intervention in the political process goes a long way. I don't vehemently oppose your suggestion, but don't really embrace the idea, either.