Surely Hollywood wouldn’t try to suspend due process, would they? Or create a parallel enforcement system? Or take away citizen recourse if they were unfairly silenced? They wouldn’t imagine the possibility of a longer jail term for streaming a Michael Jackson video than Jackson’s own doctor got for killing actual Michael Jackson? Would they?

That was written in response to this NYT blog entry, in which the author makes a few somewhat valid points about there being two different camps opposing these bills. However, that writer sympathizes with the entertainment industry position of “It’s very difficult to counter the misinformation when the disseminators also own the platform.” Maybe so, but that is the same frustration many people have felt for decades with the power to distribute movies and music being concentrated in the hands of a tiny group of people. Compared to the “disseminators” of the internet, these are much smaller groups with much higher requirements for entry. What’s more, the internet “disseminators” rarely own the platform. I own the content of this blog, but I don’t own the platform it’s served from – the hosting provider I’m paying does. The huge majority of websites that participated in this blackout protest also don’t own the infrastructure their sites are hosted on. They are more effective at getting their message out, because they’ve actually taken the time to learn how to use a decentralized platform. The entertainment industry, on the other hand, have stubbornly done everything in their power over the last 15 years to save their outdated, centralized propaganda and distribution networks – and always at the expense of everyone else in the world.

I think the first blog writer hit the nail on the head when he says “[Pogue] simply cannot imagine that the bills are as bad as they actually are.” I’ll take it a step further, and suggest that maybe Pogue (the NYT writer) has a flawed understanding of life in general, when he says:

At the same time, what the piracy sites are doing doesn’t seem quite fair, either. Yes, it’s a quirk of the Internet that you can duplicate something infinitely and distribute it at no cost. But that doesn’t make it O.K. to shoplift, especially when the stolen goods are for sale at a reasonable price from legitimate sources. Yes, even if the company you’re robbing is huge, profitable and led by idiots.

Well, no, piracy isn’t fair. So what? Life isn’t fair! And as far as the theft straw-man argument, I’m going to avoid it completely and say this: No one would argue it’s O.K. to shoplift, but people still do it anyway, no matter what laws are written. The retail industry acknowledges this when individual companies measure “shrink” and set an acceptable level for it. They acknowledge it as a fact of life and deal with it. Contrast that with the entertainment industry response of “It’s not fair! There should be a law!”

It also isn’t fair that RIAA and MPAA routinely hire companies that spider through web sites, at rates that resemble DOS attacks, eating up bandwidth and tying up hardware that the entertainment industry has not  paid for. Instead of crying about life not being fair however, I and many other webmasters simply set up rules to block those companies, and that’s that. The “legal” criminals in other countries are harder to deal with, because they’ve spent more time refining their tools to make them harder to filter. Imagine if the entertainment industry had spent it’s considerable resources evolving the tools necessary to deal with those criminals, instead of hiring lawyers, hackers, and Congress critters. If they had chosen to make lemons from lemonades, they could be selling licenses to that software and have another source of revenue. However, what’s become abundantly clear the last few years, and even more so in the last two months, is this: The members of the entertainment industry never heard from their parents when they were growing up, that life isn’t fair, so get over it! Of course, they aren’t the only ones whose perceived status quo is threatened by disruptive technologies like the internet – they’re just the first to have to face the requirement to adapt or die. They have not adapted well, and they only have themselves to blame for that.

“Exerting leverage on companies here in the United States” will never stop overseas piracy sites, or even the domestic ones. (It’s also open to debate how wise it is to make ISPs and domain registrars enforcers of the laws Congress writes, instead of the Executive branch.). In all of the writing I’ve seen on this subject, there seems to be little knowledge about what a site like the pirate bay is, even though it gets mentioned so often. TPB is no more than a search engine for torrent files – specifically, files that will tell a bit-torrent client how to search a p2p (peer-to-peer) network for a specific file. There actually are legitimate files to be had by searching TPB (though admittedly legitimate files are easier to find on other sites). Let’s imagine the entertainment industry were to finally have it’s dream come true, and they were able to kill TPB for good. That act will not effect the existence of those torrents one single bit, nor will it even effect the ability to use a search engine to find those torrents, because there are many other sites that track torrents. Even if those other sites could all be shut down too, the bit-torrent network is still operating. The only way to kill that would be filtering the entire protocol at the ISP level – and as there are many legitimate uses for torrents, that act would be blanket censorship. The movie industry, at least, is well aware of this: it regularly examines bit-torrents to see who’s downloading them, in order to file their complaints with the ISPs. So, when the movie industry issues official statements like this, I see nothing but a disingenuous, duplicitous, former politician who’s twisting words to establish a witch-hunt, to rationalize horrible legislation. Even if one puts aside the issues with censorship and due process, and these bills are considered solely as anti-piracy measures, they are complete and utter failures. The current entertainment industry stance of “you’re either with us or you’re with the pirates” that is so irritating in it’s ignorance and it’s arrogance, insures they will remain so.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he was postponing a test vote set for Tuesday “in light of recent events.”

I don’t know what a “test vote” is, but it definitely reinforces the perception I already have that Congress wastes a lot of time.

“The day will come when the senators who forced this move will look back and realize they made a knee-jerk reaction to a monumental problem,” [The main Senate sponsor, Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.] said. Criminals in China, Russia and other countries “who do nothing but peddle in counterfeit products and stolen American content are smugly watching how the United States Senate decided” it was not worth debating the bill.

This is entirely the fault of the sponsors of these bills. In the House, where they had the chance to debate these bills back in November, they instead chose to marginalize anyone who wasn’t completely on board with their horrible proposed legislation. Clearly they thought it was made of golden fleece when it was actually made in a cesspool, from a cesspool. When a “consensus” is reached that the best possible outcome can be decided without involving the experts on the internet, there is no debate – there can only be dissent and alienation.

In the House, [House Judiciary Committee chairman Lamar Smith, R-Texas] said he had “heard from the critics” and resolved that it was “clear that we need to revisit the approach on how best to address the problem of foreign thieves that steal and sell American inventions and products.” Smith had planned on holding further committee votes on his bill next month.

I don’t understand how laws that censor DNS records on US government sanctioned name servers, while circumventing all due process in the court system, help “address the problem of foreign thieves” in “China, Russia and other countries.” (Countries which, by the way, happen to have their own name servers that do not fall under the jurisdiction of the United States Federal Government!)

Reuters itself says that

The two bills would allow the Justice Department, and copyright holders, to seek court orders against foreign websites accused of copyright infringement. They would bar online advertising networks and payment facilitators such as credit card companies from doing business with an alleged violator. They also would forbid search engines from linking to such sites.

Actually, the bill would allow the Justice Department to shut down all websites (not just foreign) with court orders based only on an accusation. There are very subtle differences in Reuters’ statement and the one I just made. The people at Reuters are professional journalists (meaning they get paid, not that they follow some imaginary journalist code of ethics) who know exactly what they are writing and why. However, Reuters has made their stance over the years on this issue crystal clear, so I don’t expect to read unbiased reports from them on this subject. (UPDATE: MSNBC is reporting this same story – postponed Congressional votes on legislation – as “U.S. lawmakers stopped anti-piracy legislation in its tracks on Friday.” Add that to “idiots making up the news” category.) More importantly though, what good is a law when it’s enforcement will be left to private companies (in this case, the search engines, ISPs, and hosting companies)? Anyone who believes that simply passing a law and requiring private companies to be the sheriff will effectively end piracy – especially when policing user content is not in the business interests of said companies – is drinking some potent Kool-Aid. It’s the same Kool-Aid they were drinking 14 years ago, when they said that DMCA would solve these same issues. Even if the government carries out enforcement themselves, their record with existing laws and cases is hardly encouraging.

But the CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, former Connecticut Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd, warned that, “as a consequence of failing to act, there will continue to be a safe haven for foreign thieves.”

There will be a safe haven for foreign thieves no matter what laws are passed in the United States. This man is such an effective shill (he is the CEO of the MPAA, so shill is an accurate description) that he’s lost any common sense or critical reasoning skills he might have ever had. (Actually, I don’t think he ever had any reason, and I’m convinced he never head any morals – but if I’m ever in a position to need a lobbyist without a conscience, Dodd will surely be the first person I look up!)

The MPAA, which represents such companies as Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., is a leading advocate for the anti-piracy legislation.

In the process, they’ve turned their cause into the latest incarnation of McCarthyism. Anyone who disagrees with them must be on the side of the pirates, and is not participating constructively. Additionally, anyone who’s involved in the blackout protest – which according to the MPAA, is an “abuse of power” aimed at turning Web users into “corporate pawns” – should “stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy.” (Now you know the real reason I have the “Stop Censorship” ribbon there as I write this – it’s not any issue I have with censorship, I’m trying to turn you, dear reader, into my corporate pawn. Oh wait, maybe I should go file with my state for a corporation before I start collecting corporate pawns!)

An issue that is rarely talked about by anybody in all of this, is that what used to be handled as civil cases – copyright/patent/trademark violations – is being turned into a criminal offense, which will divert law enforcement expenditures from prosecuting crimes that actually have a victim. It’s bad enough that there are patent trolls abusing the system, but we want to make I.P. offenses criminal now? We still have bankers that cost the taxpayers of this country trillions of dollars – not a single executive was arrested, much less tried, and the “bank reform” that Congress passed was a joke. The economy? No worries, it’s fixed. Government Spending? No problem, the Treasury still has plenty of pension funds to raid.  Clearly, we’re living in a Golden Age (or was that Gilded?), as Congress has the time and energy to ram a law down our throat that will give the DOJ authority to muzzle someone on the internet for merely the accusation of posting a song on their website, as well as locking them out from the financial system. Maybe next, they could work on introducing debtor prisons to this country!

Here is the most ironic thing of all, which shows the effectiveness of the entertainment industry’s propaganda: The MPAA and RIAA (and the companies they hire to do their dirty work) are the biggest abusers when it comes to DOS’ing, scanning, and scraping my web sites – all things that would be considered illegal if I did it to their sites, or any of the sites belonging to the Government that are paid to protect their interests. That is to say: the biggest pirates and hackers are the ones demanding legislation to stop piracy committed against them.

• Obama signed a $1.1 trillion spending bill
• The House approved a $155 billion jobs bill: I guess the stimulus package wasn’t enough to create jobs, so spend yourself further into debt, it’s the American way!
• The House raised the debt ceiling by $290 billion to finance six more weeks of spending: A $12.1 trillion debt limit, really, how quaint! And $290 billion over six weeks? C’mon Big Daddy-O, that’s not an allowance, it’s a pittance!

Well, that’s $1.1 trillion spent, with another $445 billion, in just one day. Does anyone even notice anymore?

• Pelosi hasn’t even done a full year’s work, and she’s already in campaign mode: Has she ever left it in her political life?
• The Senate Banking Committee rubber-stamped Ben Bernanke for another term: What intelligent statesman that committee has! Apparently, 16-to-7 is “an unusual amount of opposition from lawmakers who are disgruntled over the Fed’s bailout of financial firms.”
• Obama, Medvedev may get arms deal “in principle”: Yes, Reuters actually ran the story with exactly that headline. I guess an arms deal “in principle” is supposed to be meaningful, but does a deal “in principle” lower nuclear stockpiles “in reality”? No, I didn’t think so.

Apparently, spending ridiculous amounts of money is the only thing that can be performed with any efficiency or effect there.

“I don’t expect to actually read the legislative language because reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I’ve ever read in my life.”
If legislative language is confusing for a lawmaker, then why is he a legislator? Oh, that’s right, Congress doesn’t actually legislate – that’s the job of Congressional aides who, unlike most Congressmen, can actually express a coherent thought. The lobbyists who have an interest in any given bill are certainly a big help in writing bills too.

“We, we write in this committee and legislate with plain English and I think most of us can understand most of that.”
Most Congressmen can understand most of the plain English? This implies that there’s some plain English they don’t understand, and Carper certainly has a problem speaking plain English!

“Senator Conrad actually read some of it, several pages of it, the other day and I don’t think anybody had a clue–including people who have served on this committee for decades–what he was talking about.”
A Congressman finally admitting that Congress doesn’t have a clue! And the American voters’ response? Silence, with a cricket chirping in the background.

“…legislative language is so arcane, so confusing…and it’s just, it really doesn’t make much sense”
How are the American people supposed to obey the dictates of the laws Congress enacts, if even those writing the law consider it arcane and confusing?

“The idea of reading the legislative language: It’s just anyone who says that they can do that and actually get much out of it is trying to pull the wool over our eyes.”
Ergo, anyone in Congress who votes for this legislation is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the rest of the country!

“They might say that they’re understanding it. But that would probably be the triumph of man’s hope over experience. It’s hard stuff to understand.”
Hope of change in one hand, Washington bullshit in another – see which one fills up first!

“I use it to like, for example, credit card disclosures. If you actually read the stuff, you say, you read it and say, like dozens of pages: ‘What does this say?’ And this is one of the reasons why we’ve directed, among others, banks to use plain, plain language, plain English to explain what they’re doing, so that the gibberish, you can’t read it and really know what it says.”
This is one major reason I have no credit cards (Congress allowing credit card companies to charge extortionate interest rates is the other). I really doubt that if a credit card company presses it’s claim on your debts in the court system the “plain language” is what will be considered by the court. If Congress makes health insurance mandatory, I won’t have the choice to just say no like I do with the banks’ credit. If Congress can pass a law to require the banks to use plain language, why can’t they do the same themselves? Most importantly, how can anyone compare credit card language to health insurance language? Does this guy truly believe my credit score with the banks is more important than my health? Well, in looking at his bio, Mr. Carper is an economist, so it should come as no shock that his view of reality is just a tad skewed.

“If people who work here on a daily basis and work with the legislation and shape the legislation…maybe it doesn’t make much sense for either the legislators or me to read that kind of arcane language. It’s just hard to decipher what it really means.”
It makes perfect sense to me: The “incomprehensible and arcane” language is what will be made into law. That’s the language that has to be interpreted by the folks who will implement your reforms and the folks who have to enforce the laws. If the people creating the legislation can’t understand the laws they are enacting, how is any body else down the road supposed to? Isn’t this an example of “triumph of man’s hope over experience?”

The Interviewer asks if the legislative language will be available for the American people to read. Response: “Why that is a value and why someone should need to read that, or feel the need–I don’t understand…”
If you don’t understand thr value or the need for people to read the version that will be made into law that has to be followed, then you don’t understand the point of having law – and you certainly don’t understand justice. Is the health reform legislation going to have a plain English version ordered by law? NO! In essence, you’re voting on different legislation than what you’ve read and debated in committee.

In the accompanying article, it was noted that “Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who also serves on the committee, said the descriptive language the committee is working with is not good enough because things can get slipped into the legislation unseen.”
That’s exactly what happened with the bank bailout a year ago. It didn’t pass in the house, the senate took it and added all sorts of pork barrel riders and passed it, then the house took the senate’s version and added even more riders, and they were happy and passed it so Bush could then sign it into law as the largest Christmas tree bill ever.

It really is a crying shame that 99% of Congress is so afraid of rocking the boat by making any kind of principled stand to do the right thing that they can delude themselves so completely as Mr. Carper has.