The Happy Birthday Copyright Saga: Generating Millions On A Copyright That May Not Exist

from the but-would-anyone-test-it-in-court? dept

In the past we've joked about the (supposed) fact that the song "Happy Birthday" remains under copyright, due to a copyright originally held by sisters Mildred and Patti Hill, the claimed original authors of the song. However, William Patry points us to a fascinatingly detailed research paper into questions surrounding the copyright. What comes out of it is pretty strong evidence that the copyright is not valid -- but it's never gotten far enough in court to have a decision rendered. Plus, it sounds like many aspects of the "history" of the song really appear to be close to a myth.

The sisters in question may have written the melody, but they almost definitely did not write the lyrics (their original copyright was on a different set of lyrics, "Good Morning to All"). As for the melody, there's plenty of evidence to suggest that it was actually taken from a series of extremely similar songs. So, there's a good chance they wrote neither the melody nor the lyrics. Also, there are numerous questions concerning whether or not the copyright holders correctly followed the various rules required of copyright holders at the time, suggesting that even if there were a legal copyright at some point, it's long since expired. And, of course, there's even some evidence to suggest less-than-legal tactics involved with transferring around some of the interest in the song. Amazingly, however, the legitimacy of the copyright has never been determined in court, and it now generates over $2 million per year. Over 1% of the money that ASCAP distributes to songwriters is for this one song, even though it may not be legitimate. Somehow, I doubt this is what the Founding Fathers intended when they wrote the Constitution.

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Who Says Patent Lawsuits Aren't Sexy?

from the cybersex-it-is dept

Joe Mullin has the details of a rather bizarre patent dispute involving a patent covering the user interface of force feedback technology used in "cybersex" or "teledildonics." You may have heard of the company Immersion, which, for years, has claimed to hold pretty much all patents on "haptic" technology, which most people are familiar with in the form of "force feedback" game controllers for console games. Some feel that Immersion's patents are overly broad, but that's beside the point on this one. Apparently, at some point, Immersion realized that there was going to be (or already was) a decent sized market in using such haptic technology for virtual sex. Yet, at the same time, the company felt uncomfortable about filing infringement lawsuits on such uses, recognizing that it could lead to negative publicity. So, instead, it licensed out the patents and the right to sue for infringement to a company called Internet Services, LLC (ISLLC), which (from the description in Mullin's article) sounds like a shell company just for this purpose.

However, when Immersion won its patent infringement lawsuit against Sony for its use of force feedback controllers on Sony gaming consoles, ISLLC apparently felt that Immersion owed it some of the proceeds. It hired famed patent attorney (and patent system expert) Mark Lemley to represent it. However, for somewhat unclear reasons, Lemley now appears to want nothing whatsoever to do with ISLLC and has asked to withdraw from the case. ISLLC has now hired other lawyers just to force Lemley to still represent it in its lawsuit against Immersion. It's like a patent battle soap opera -- complete with sex toys. See, just because stories are about patents, doesn't mean that they're not sexy.

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House Passes Pro IP Overwhelmingly

from the well-that's-no-good dept

Last week we questioned why Congress seemed to think that the White House should be playing the role of copyright cop. Yet, apparently, the House of Representatives didn't think it was a question worth asking, as it has passed the PRO IP bill by an overwhelming vote, 410 to 10. It seems like our Congressional Representatives felt that, once they got rid of one bad portion of the bill, that the rest of it must be perfectly fine. This bill has a ton of problems, expanding copyright law and the executive branch's authority in ways that are pretty clearly unnecessary. It is, in effect, a bill to prop up the obsolete business model of one particular industry, so it's rather disappointing that our Representatives have rushed through to approve it with little discussion or debate over whether it's even necessary. Either way, it seems unlikely to get much further, as the Justice Department has already come out against the bill, one would hope that even if the Senate approves a version of the bill, the President would veto it.

In the meantime, though, given just how much damage arbitrary expansions of copyright law have done, you would think that Congress would at least want to spend some time exploring the issues before rushing through new laws. Tragically, it seems that entertainment industry lobbyists still have politicians convinced that stronger copyright is naturally "good."

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Does The GPL Still Matter?

from the expired-license? dept

The GNU General Public License heads to court again today, as Skype attempts to defend its distribution of Linux-enabled SMC hardware handsets that appear to be in violation of the operating system's open source license. It's easy to guess why Skype is fighting the suit, which was brought by GPL activists: the company relies on a proprietary protocol, and releasing the code could give competitors an advantage. You can't blame them for trying. Although in the past few years the GPL has made important strides in establishing its legal enforceability, it's still conceivable that a court could find something wrong with its unusual, viral nature.

Few think that this will be the court case that makes or breaks the GPL. Skype's already lost early rounds of this fight, and the claims it's now making seem so broad as to imply desperation. Besides, the case is being tried in the German legal system, which to date has proven friendly to the GPL.

But even if the license was invalidated, either in this case or another, there's an argument to be made that the GPL has already served its purpose. Its impact on the world of open source software is undeniable: by ensuring that an open project would remain open, the license encouraged programmers to contribute to projects without fear of their work being coopted by commercial interests. And by making it difficult, if not impossible, for a project derived from a GPLed project to go closed-source, it encouraged many programmers to license their efforts under open terms when they otherwise might not have.

But today, with open source firmly established as a cultural and commercial force, the GPL's relevance may be waning. The transition to the third version of the license left many in the open source community upset and intent on sticking with its earlier incarnations. And an increasing number of very high profile projects, like Mozilla, Apache and Open Office, have seen fit to create their own licenses or employ the less restrictive LGPL. The raw numbers bear out the idea of a slight decline in the GPL's prominence, too: Wikipedia lists the percentage of GPLed projects on Sourceforge.net and Freshmeat.net, two large open source software repositories, as 68% and 65%, respectively, as of November '03 and January '06. Today, the most recently available numbers show that Sourceforge's share has fallen to 65%, and Freshmeat's share has fallen to to 62%.

This is, of course, a small decline, and the GPL remains the world's most popular open source license by a considerable margin. But it does seem as though there may be a slowly decreasing appetite for the license's militant approach to copyleft ideals. I certainly don't wish Skype well in its probably-quixotic tilt at the GPL, but if they were to somehow get lucky at least they'd be doing so at a point in the open source movement's history when the GPL is decreasingly essential.

Tom Lee is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Tom Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Fewer Than 5,000 Broadband Over Powerlines Subscribers

from the again:-it's-dead,-jim dept

Following the story earlier in the week about the death of broadband over powerlines, Broadband Reports points out that even by the FCC's "stunningly meaningless" broadband stats (that tend to inflate access claims), BPL only has 4,776 subscribers. This for the technology that it declared as "the great broadband hope" five years ago. So, once more, with feeling: broadband over powerlines is dead. It's not a serious option.

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LA Includes Piracy With Drugs, Gangs, Prostitution And Gambling As 'Detrimental To Public Health & Safety'

from the but-of-course dept

Various laws have allowed local governments to declare specific property "detrimental to public health & safety" when that property becomes overrun with drugs, gangs, prostitution or gambling. However, the entertainment industry's hometown gov't in Los Angeles has now expanded the list to include music and movie piracy as well. Whatever you think of unauthorized copying of content, it's difficult to see how you can, with a straight face, claim that it is the equivalent of property being overrun with drugs, gangs prostitution or gambling.

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RIAA, MPAA In Denial About The Death Of DRM

from the good-luck-with-that dept

As a bunch of you are submitting, at a panel discussion down in LA, an RIAA representative claimed not only was DRM not dead, but that it was making a comeback. However, the statements show a fundamental misunderstanding of what's happening in the marketplace. RIAA technology guy David Hughes made this statement:

"I made a list of the 22 ways to sell music, and 20 of them still require DRM."

Well, David, I just made a list of 22 ways to sell transportation mechanisms, and 20 of them still require a buggy whip -- but it doesn't mean anyone will buy them. Then, even worse was the statement from the MPAA's Fritz Attaway:

"We need DRM to show our customers the limits of the license they have entered into with us."

Well, there's your problem Fritz. The second you focus on how to limit your customers, you've lost them. No one wants to be limited these days. They want to be able to do what they want and they will reward those who allow them to do so. Treating your customers as people to be limited (i.e., people who you offer less value to) pretty much guarantees that they'll go elsewhere.

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TorrentSpy, Though Out Of Business, To Appeal Massive Fine

from the might-as-well-fight dept

Following yesterday's $110 million fine against TorrentSpy, ostensibly for copyright infringement, but really for destruction of evidence, we figured that the whole thing would drop, as the company has already shut down. But... not so fast. The company has decided to appeal, claiming that the result was a Hollywood PR stunt. Given the way the MPAA tried to claim that this ruling acted as a warning to other torrent trackers, he has a point. Still, given the destruction of evidence in this case, it may not be the model case on these issues. There are plenty of other cases, such as those against The Pirate Bay (in Sweden) and isoHunt that will be more important long term.

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IP Lawyer Explains Why Uploading Files May Not Be Distribution For Copyright

from the forget-making-available... dept

While there's been a big ongoing discussion in various courtrooms concerning the question of whether or not making unauthorized files available for download is copyright infringement, there's another interpretation of copyright law that many copyright scholars agree with -- but which the RIAA and the MPAA would certainly prefer you not hear. I'm at the San Francisco MusicTech Summit and on an early (and not particularly well attended) session in the morning, intellectual property lawyer Andrew Bridges made a fascinating argument: that if you follow the actual text of existing US copyright law, uploading unauthorized content does not infringe the distribution rights of copyright. This goes even beyond the whole "making available" question, by saying even the uploading doesn't violate the law directly.

The reasoning requires a very literal reading of the law. Section 106 of copyright law lists out the specific "exclusive rights" granted under copyright law to copyright holders, including things like reproduction rights, performance rights and distribution rights. The text of the distribution right is: "to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending;" From this reading, one might conclude that uploading a file is a "copy." But if you go to Section 101, which holds the definitions for the law, it states (quite clearly):

"Copies" are material objects, other than phonorecords, in which a work is fixed by any method now known or later developed, and from which the work can be perceived, reproduced, or otherwise communicated, either directly or with the aid of a machine or device. The term "copies" includes the material object, other than a phonorecord, in which the work is first fixed.

Note the emphasis on material objects. As such, you can read the law, as written, to conclude that passing around the song itself, which is not a material object, is not actually an infringement of the distribution right under the current law.

Now, before people get too excited about this, in a later panel this question was raised again, to the EFF's Fred von Lohmann. He agreed that this appeared to be a literal reading of copyright law -- and that just about every copyright scholar he's spoken to agrees -- but that every time he's argued it in court, the court has disagreed or ignored it. He says he'll continue to make the argument, but that it has not been effective. Also, as Bridges noted in making the original statement, just because the distribution right isn't infringed, doesn't mean there aren't other issues. For example, whoever downloaded the file downloaded it to a material object (the hard drive) probably violates the first exclusive right, the "reproduction" right. And, thus, an argument could be made that the person who uploaded the file contributed to the violation of the reproduction right. However, based on this argument, it does seem clear that uploading a file is not, technically, a violation of the distribution right under copyright law -- not that the courts recognize that. Of course, if the courts ever did recognize this fact, you could bet that within a matter of days, a Congressional Representative would introduce an amendment to copyright law to change the definition of "copy" to include content not tied to a material good.

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Up-and-Coming Label Illustrates How to Sell Infinite Goods in the Internet Age

from the true-fans dept

The New York Times has an interesting profile of Fueled by Ramen, a record label that has managed to thrive at a time a lot of other labels are struggling. The label seems to be practicing several of the principles we've talked about here on Techdirt. First, they seem to understand that the secret to success for a band is to build up a core of serious fans. Fueled by Ramen encourages its bands to engage with their fans online, doing frequent blog posts and studio updates. And the label has apparently mastered the type of viral marketing that builds excitement among the most devoted fans. Second, it has kept expenses low. It produced Panic at the Disco's debut album for just $18,000, allowing it to make its money back even if the album doesn't sell hundreds of thousands of copies. Finally, it seems to understand that the real money is in using the music as a way to market the band, and to use the band's popularity to sell scarce goods related to the band. For example, the label's bands tour aggressively, and the label has "a merchandise company that sells band T-shirts at stores like Hot Topic, as well as on its Web site." As the costs of music distribution continue to drop, it will be increasingly difficult to turn a profit on music itself. But people who recognize that the music is a way to build the band's popularity in order to sell other stuff, for which marginal cost isn't dropping toward zero, will do just fine. Fueled by Ramen is still largely in the CD-selling business, so they're not all the way there yet, but their success at a time when more traditional labels are floundering suggests that they're moving in the right direction.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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The Non-Controversy: No, Wikipedia Authors Should Not Get Paid

from the manufacturing-controversy dept

Let's say that I sold you a piece of land, and you then built a nice house on that land, and then you sold the property for a lot more money. Would anyone think that it was reasonable for me to then show up and demand a piece of the profits? Of course not. Yet when that scenario is tweaked just slightly into the digital realm and using $0 as the original price, suddenly people start getting things backwards. A few months back, for example, there was the situation with Billy Bragg complaining about the fact that musicians who chose to put their music on Bebo didn't get any of the AOL buyout money. But that was perfectly reasonable, because the musicians made a fair trade initially: they gave their music, they got publicity. Asking for money after the fact is no different then me trying to renegotiate my land sale after you made the land more valuable and resold it.

Now we're seeing yet another such case. Ethan Bauley writes in to point to an article suggesting that somehow Wikipedia authors are being ripped off because Bertelsmann is going to publish a paper version of Wikipedia for profit. But, again, it's the same thing. People who contribute to Wikipedia clearly felt that giving their labor away for free was a fair transaction. Bertelsmann is now trying to make Wikipedia valuable to a different audience by putting it into book form. They're taking on the risk of printing the book (building the house), and to have the various writers go back later and demand payment is equally as ridiculous. Luckily, it seems like most people recognize this -- and many comments on the ReadWriteWeb article point this out. It's just a few agitators, who apparently want to change the terms after the fact, who are having trouble getting this.

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Viacom Agrees With NBC Universal: Our Business Model Problems Need To Be Fixed By Everyone Else

from the *sigh* dept

For the last year or so, NBC Universal has been on quite the rampage, basically telling a bunch of other companies that it was their responsibility to help prop up NBC Universal's obsolete business model. It appears that Viacom's Sumner Redstone can sing that song too. In a speech in South Korea, he said that "ISPs, device manufacturers, hosting companies, and site operators" all need to be protecting his content. Yes. Either that or maybe you should just find a new business model, and stop whining about how everyone else needs to protect yours. It really is rather ridiculous to see these huge entertainment conglomerates demanding that other businesses act to protect their business models, just as more and more companies are figuring out how to embrace (not fight) the changing market.

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EA To Use Controversial Internet-Required DRM On New Games

from the pissing-off-your-customers dept

SteveD writes "PC Gamers are in an uproar over a new copy projection system announced by Electronic Arts for use on their upcoming titles. The PC-port of the successful Xbox title Mass Effect, and the eagerly awaited Will Wright title Spore will be two of the higher profile games to use this new system. The new system is the latest iteration of the SecuROM protection, which has caused problems in the past over technical issues with several popular titles. The version of SecuROM that shipped with Bioshock was even accused (but never proven) of installing a root-kit on users PCs.

This new version is causing controversy due to an online verification system connected to its CD key. The system requires a connection to the internet during installation to check the CD key is valid, and then registers the key with the users' computer. After this the game will try to re-check the CD key every 5-10 days to ensure it hasn't since been found posted on a forum, or used in some form of piracy. If the game can't verify the key within this period it will continue to try for a further 10 days, after which it will stop working until the key is checked. The protection will also only allow the game to be installed three times.

A lot of gamers consider this intrusive and inconvenient, and that the publishers are effectively assuming their customers are pirates and looking over their shoulders every 10 days to check. Other concerns have been raised over users who don't play with machines permanently connected to the internet (such as laptops), or how the system will work in regards to resale. A comprehensive help-line has been promised to help people deal with these issues and the developers have mentioned the new system will remove the need for a DVD to run the game, but these potential problems combined with SecuROM's past have made some call for a boycott of the titles and others to declare an intention to pirate the game out of spite."

Seems like more short-term thinking. If the effort is to reduce "piracy" it won't work. People will figure out other ways to pirate the games -- that's almost guaranteed. So, in the end, all this will really do is piss off the legitimate customers who paid for something that suddenly doesn't work, though no fault of their own. That hardly seems like a good way to build up a strong supporting fan base.

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And Just Like That... Neither Yahoo Nor Google Really That Motivated To Complete A Search Ad Deal

from the after-sobering-up... dept

Last month Yahoo did what it had previously insisted it wouldn't do: it began testing Google's ads in place of its own search ads. At the time, Yahoo insisted that it had nothing whatsoever to do with Microsoft's attempted takeover. It even claimed that the plans had been put in place well before Microsoft's unsolicited offer. Of course, now that Microsoft has withdrawn the offer -- citing the potential ad deal with Google as one of the main reasons for backing away -- suddenly it appears that neither Yahoo nor Google are all that keen on moving forward on a more advanced deal. Funny how that works.

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FBI Forced To Back Down On Secret Info Request To Internet Archive

from the civil-liberties-matter dept

Congress curtailed the FBI's ability to use National Security Letters (NSLs) a few years ago after it became clear that the FBI was widely abusing the process to request information from organizations with no judicial oversight and with built in gag orders forbidding recipients from talking about receiving the letters. However, the FBI is still using the letters in some cases. Last fall, it sent one to Brewster Kahle and the Internet Archive, demanding info on an Archive user while forbidding Kahle from talking about the letter to anyone but his lawyers. Kahle, the EFF and the ACLU fought back in court and have won, getting the FBI to rescind the demand and also removing part of the gag order, allowing Kahle to say he received the letter (though not discussing what info it demanded). As the EFF points out, this should serve as a blueprint for how others can challenge questionable NSLs as well.

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Court Orders TorrentSpy To Pay $110 Million To MPAA

from the don't-destroy-evidence dept

Just as IsoHunt is gearing up to fight its MPAA lawsuit, a judge has ordered TorrentSpy to pay $110 million to the MPAA in a similar lawsuit. However, despite the MPAA's Dan Glickman giving the expected "this is a warning to other such sites" quote, this actually shouldn't have much of an impact on other such cases -- as the details are somewhat different here. The problem with TorrentSpy's case was that the company was found to have destroyed evidence, which resulted in the ruling. It had little to do with the actual issues at hand. And, yes, while the "destroyed evidence" claim was somewhat exaggerated when the judge included TorrentSpy's refusal to spy on its users, the destruction of evidence went further than just not spying on users. The company was found to have deleted specific evidence, including forum posts and directory info. So, unless all the other torrent search engines out there also deleted evidence, it's hard to see how this case acts as a warning to anyone over anything other than the stupidity of destroying evidence. As for getting any money, given that TorrentSpy has shut down, the MPAA probably won't be getting any money -- not that they'd be giving it to moviemakers anyway.

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Marketers Freak Out About Mandates To Make Clickstream Tracking Opt-In Only

from the but-what-about-our-data? dept

With all of the fuss finally being raised concerning clickstream tracking by companies like Phorm and NebuAd, there's an effort underway to force ISPs to make any such tracking strictly opt-in. That is, users would have to proactively agree to allow their data to be used in this manner. In response, various marketers are complaining about how much data they would lose, claiming it would be an "armageddon" for the industry. Don't believe them. This is the same thing marketers warned about when the US instituted a "Do Not Call" system, and it's hardly decimated the marketing industry. Instead, it's improved marketing by making firms focus less on intrusive telemarketing and more on useful marketing. The same would happen if ISPs were required to make this an opt-in instead of opt-out setup. It would force the ISPs and companies like Phorm to make sure that the services really benefited customers in meaningful and noticeable ways so that customers would be happy to make use of the services. By whining about an opt-in solution, all these firms are really admitting is that they do not add value to the surfing experience of users.

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Ideas Are Everywhere... So Why Do We Limit Them?

from the gladwell-missing-the-point dept

Malcolm Gladwell is a truly fantastic writer. However, sometimes he gets so interested in making a story sound good that he misses the real point. His latest piece for the New Yorker starts out as a puff piece on Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures (which gets way too many puff pieces), but then turns into a much more interesting article about how just about every major invention or scientific or mathematical discovery came from multiple, entirely independent people at almost exactly the same time. As Gladwell points out -- rarely is it about "genius," but about the fact that all of the previous work in the field naturally leads to this end result -- and if it wasn't one person discovering it, someone else would. The article lists out big name invention after invention that all have "multiples" -- multiple entirely independent individuals who came up with the same thing at the same time. Not only that, but almost always the person who gets credit for the discovery isn't actually the person who discovered it. In fact, someone even coined a term for it: Stigler's Law: "No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer."

Gladwell uses this to talk up what Myhrvold is doing, suggesting that Intellectual Ventures is really about continuing that process, getting those ideas out there -- but he misses the much bigger point: if these ideas are the natural progression, almost guaranteed to be discovered by someone sooner or later, why do we give a monopoly on these ideas to a single discoverer? Myhrvold's whole business model is about monopolizing all of these ideas and charging others (who may have discovered them totally independently) to actually do something with them. Yet, if Gladwell's premise is correct (and there's plenty of evidence included in the article), then Myhrvold's efforts shouldn't be seen as a big deal. After all, if it wasn't Myhrvold and his friends doing it, others would very likely come up with the same thing sooner or later.

This is especially highlighted in one anecdote in the article, of Myhrvold holding a dinner with a bunch of smart people... and an attorney. The group spent dinner talking about a bunch of different random ideas, with no real goal or purpose -- just "chewing the rag" as one participant put it. But the next day the attorney approached them with a typewritten description of 36 different inventions that were potentially patentable out of the dinner. When a random "chewing the rag" conversation turns up 36 monopolies, something is wrong. Those aren't inventions that deserve a monopoly.

What Gladwell misses (though others have discussed it in detail) is that while ideas may be a dime a dozen, executing on those ideas is what's difficult. Innovation isn't idea generation. Innovation is taking an idea and making it do something useful. Yet, in giving monopoly rights to Myhrvold and his friends, we make it much more difficult for others (even those who discovered the same things totally independently) to help actually make them useful.

In the end, the Gladwell article inadvertently makes the best case against Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures, while hyping up the company at the same time. It's a strange disconnect, and it's too bad that Gladwell, like so many others, fell so under Myhrvold's spell, that he missed the real story he held in his hands.

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Florida Judge Won't Let The RIAA Off The Hook

from the pissed-off-judge dept

If you follow the various RIAA lawsuits, you'll notice the pattern. The RIAA bullies and bullies and bullies people, trying to get them to settle. They almost never want to go to court -- and if someone fights back -- especially to the point of filing countersuits, the RIAA looks to get out of the case as quickly as possible. Step one, of course, is trying to get the countersuits dismissed. Apparently, it tried to do that last year when a defendant in Tampa countersued the RIAA. The judge, however, wouldn't let the RIAA off the hook and refused to dismiss most of the counterclaims. Amazingly, in a very similar case in front of the same judge, with the defendant again countersuing -- the RIAA asked the court to dismiss the countersuits, claiming the earlier decision was in error. Generally speaking, it's probably not a great idea to tell the judge that a ruling he made a few months back in a nearly identical case was a mistake. After receiving the motion to dismiss the countersuit Tuesday evening, the judge turned it down first thing Wednesday morning. The judge's order itself is short and sweet, saying that the RIAA showed no evidence as to why the original ruling was incorrect and so it sees no reason to treat this countersuit any differently than the last one. Of course, just like last time, the RIAA doesn't want this to go to court, and will likely try to settle up as quickly as possible.

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Congressman Freaks Out About Second Life; Demands Ban In Schools

from the fear!-save-the-children!-be-afraid! dept

Just a few months after worrying about terrorists hiding in Second Life, now at least one Congressional representative is worried about how Second Life is corrupting your children. He's trying to drum up support to ban Second Life from schools and libraries, hyping up the fact that "bad stuff" happens in Second Life and, gosh, we wouldn't want kids to learn how to deal with bad stuff in an environment where they're protected from any physical harm. It'll be much better when they learn to deal with it out on the streets.

This is actually an attempt by Rep. Mark Kirk to reintroduce DOPA, the Deleting Online Predators Act. It was last introduced almost exactly two years ago (note the timing: right before Congressional election season...). Because very few politicians want to give an opening to challengers to their seats to put out an ad saying they voted against "protecting the children" last time around the law was quickly approved by the House by a massive 410 to 15 vote, at which point it moved on to the Senate to die (not having all Senators up for re-election at the same time has its benefits). Of the 15 dissenters to the original bill, Rep. John Dingell was the one who said what needed to be said (and which so few other Reps were willing to say):

"So now we are on the floor with a piece of legislation poorly thought out, with an abundance of surprises, which carries with it that curious smell of partisanship and panic, but which is not going to address the problems. This is a piece of legislation which is going to be notorious for its ineffectiveness and, of course, for its political benefits to some of the members hereabout."

Yes, the law would effectively ban a ton of internet sites from schools and libraries, including ones like LinkedIn, Slashdot and Amazon.com, based on its overly broad language. On top of all that, study after study after study has shown that social networks and virtual worlds (despite the FUD) are not "breeding grounds" for predators. And, of course, parents are finally coming to terms with this and are no longer freaking out about kids using these sites. So, explain why we need such unnecessary and overly broad legislation again? Oh right, it's election season...

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