I think that's part of it. Remember, Rick Perry is holding firm that people in Texas don't need healthcare and selling the idea that Obamacare is the devil. So when you go to the hospital, pull yourself by the bootstraps and heal the wound yourself.
Forcing the rich to pay for their mistakes and bad investments would help.
I unfortunately missed an italics after "Roosevelt declared."
Currently, they're holding onto $2- $5 trillion dollars which the government gave them in taxpayer dollars. And they're not loaning that out without high interest.
It was a systemic crash. The bankers did what they did and people, with very money or hope borrowed money to finance their needs and those of a future for their children.
While that's happening, we have a capacity utilization rate, or how much technology is being utilized, of 80%. In other words, we aren't doing anything efficiently.
And no, Obama has not spent money and it's just amazing how people don't realize that the government has to spend money to get its way out of debt. You spend more on investments such as roads, bridges, and public services. If you cut those away, the nation suffers.
I always wonder why people make the economy seem so much harder than it has to be.
We faced this exact problem in 1929 with Hoover who made the mistake of listening to Andrew Mellon:
"Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate. It will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people
will pick up the wrecks from less competent people."
People were benefitting from a false prosperity where borrowed money was used to buy stocks and necessities.
The problem was solved by FDR doing something amazing. He changed the tax bracket from 35% to 94%:
FDR and his New Dealers wanted to finance the war equitably, with stiff tax rates on high incomes. How stiff? FDR proposed a 100 percent top tax rate. At a time of “grave national danger,” Roosevelt told Congress in April 1942, “no American citizen ought to have a net income, after he has paid his taxes, of more than $25,000 a year.” That would be about $350,000 in today’s dollars.
The year before, steel exec Eugene Grace had grabbed $522,537, over $8 million today, in 1941 salary.
But conservative lawmakers would quickly reject FDR’s plan. Four months later, Roosevelt tried again. He repeated his $25,000 “supertax” income cap call in his Labor Day message.
Congress shrugged that request off, too. FDR still didn’t back down. In early October, he issued an executive order that limited top corporate salaries to $25,000 after taxes. The move would “provide for greater equality in contributing to the war effort,” Roosevelt declared.
In other words, forcing the bankers to pay for their mistakes did a lot better for the nation than anything that regulators could do.
Still, the fact is that the financiers have gotten away with running Congress for the last 30 years since they helped to elect Reagan who helped increase the national debt with Voodoo economics. So if we want to pay it down, then we need to just tax the rich and corporations.
You know, the same ones that want the rest of us to tighten our belts while they get all the money? Those austerics are just insane.
Then kindly answer the question presented. When someone makes a digital copy of information, how is that theft? No property was taken. The holder has original rights to their version. So what exactly is being taken?
People make a lot of reverence to that piece of paper, yet our government is not working for the majority of people. And there's a ton of reasons why:
Bicameral legislation - No other modern democracy has this because it's inherently undemocratic. Just look at what it takes to get legislation that the public actually wants through Congress.
Tolerance of Slavery - Say what you will, but the fact that our government now depends on slave labor in prisons is rather telling. We've worked 40 years to bring about slavery for the masses by depriving them of wages, then depriving them of freedom and that's morally unjust.
Judicial Review - I have found very few arguments for Judicial Review given that because of the Courts, we have inducement when it was never written into law as well as a very pro corporate court is one of the most dangerous things to a republic we can have.
The Framers (not the Founders) wanted a representative democracy because they were fearful of direct democracy. And you know what? The Framers found massive loopholes to exploit the system culminating into James Madison's fears in Federalist Paper 10. However, James Madison would have gone in a more democratic way had he been told to bring about the Constitution in a different set of circumstances. Once he'd learned more about how the Constitution was being influenced by democratic measure, he lost doubts on democracy.
This doesn't mean that the Constitution can't be changed. It should be recognized that it has some massive weaknesses that have been exposed over the centuries.
In essence, with our Constitution, it's Democracy 1.0 whereas most other countries are running Democracy 4.5. They have proportional representation. They don't have an electoral college. They don't have money in politics. We don't have an effective government. We need universal healthcare and a government of/by/4 the people.
Ah yes Jay, my favorite socialist, love how you have to twist the fanatical words of the ultimate example of what happens when socialist become communist (Trust me Hugo and Stalin would love this guy...kinda suprised you dont too)
Nope. I may have a more democratic view than you, but I'm not a Stalinist nor a communist. Good job on finding a new angle of attack instead of focusing on actual arguments though.
Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist organization seeking legal redress to Tamil war victims said, "Santhirarajah was arrested on 14 July 2008 on the US extradition request. He was remanded in custody (for more than 4 years) until the date of this judgment in 31 August 2012. Court also concluded that "in or about November 2009" was the time when it was reasonably practicable for the AG to make a determination whether to surrender Santhirarajah. Santhirarajah's liberty was curtailed extra-legally for a period of 2 years and 9 months," TAG noted.
BEFORE he was extradited to the United States, Hew Griffiths, from Berkeley Vale in NSW, had never even set foot in America. But he had pirated software produced by American companies.
Now, having been given up to the US by former justice minister Chris Ellison, Griffiths, 44, is in a Virginia cell, facing up to 10 years in an American prison after a guilty plea late last month.
Still, it's amazing that a man that's never set foot in America can come to the US to be punished, ironically in the same way most Aussies were shipped to Australia to be exiled as criminals.
I don't know which is worse. The fact that Holder advocates for more prisons in America when it doesn't work or the fact that most people understand that he is greatly misleading the public about the pursuits of Hollywood. Better yet, why keep sending people to prison for the fact that Hollywood can't be bothered to innovate? There's story after story of their screw ups, their destruction of technology that people want, and their inability to adapt. After all of that, it's time to get some new stories from new industries based around what the public wants, not what a trade industry wants.
We've done that. Countless times in recent memory.
We have black people incarcerated in greater amounts and use them for slave wages in helping people get rich.
Immigration is screwed up so that we can use Mexicans for cheap labor while we can't have higher skilled workers from other countries.
Women are not pushed into STEM sciences which stops them from taking advantage of various fields that require math and sciences in large amounts.
We don't even pay for the next generation and load them up with debt from getting college degrees.
McCarthyism is hidden right here in the US as neo-liberalism which wants the rich to succeed while everyone else fails. And instead of a functioning government that provides for the nation, we have a ruling elite that works to keep themselves making money while the rest of the nation suffers. It's ridiculous.
I'm sure there was influence and pressure that went into this, but painting it as a case where Chris Dodd called up Joe Biden and said, "Destroy Megaupload" is probably a massive exaggeration.
Mike, I have to wonder... How many stories have you done where the MPAA uses ICE to be their private police force?
In 2011 they raided a fully authorized factory with no consequences.
In 2010, you questioned their raid on the Pirate Bay.
In 2007, you questioned why the FBI and the MPAA were training Swedish Police.
And in March you explained why the best thing with the MPAA was censorship and freaking out.
In 2012, you explained how the MPAA didn't want the public to have fair use.
And yet, the same story over and over is how the MPAA or some industry uses their private police force to destroy competition not for innovation, but because they want to maintain their business model.
The message should be clear: Beware of mercantilists who abuse the rules for their own money seeking purposes.
Just to drive this point home, look at what Adam Smith had to say about such mercantilism:
The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from [capitalists] ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whos interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.
“The monopolists, by keeping the market constantly understocked... sell their commodities much above the natural price... The price of monopoly is upon every occasion the highest which can be got. The natural price, or the price of free competition, on the contrary, is the lowest which can be taken....”
We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters [cartels]; though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour....
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
In general, if any branch of trade, or any division of labor, be advantageous to the public, the freer and more general the competition, it will always be the more so
To which piracy and infringement challenge the status quo of the MPAA.
It is the industry which is carried on for the benefit of the rich and powerful, that is principally encouraged by our mercantile system. That which is carried on for the benefit of the poor and the indigent, is too often, either neglected, or oppressed.
And finally, let's call out the DoJ:
Commerce and manufactures, in short, can seldom flourish in any state in which there is not a certain degree of confidence in the justice of government.
What Kim is actually doing is calling out the bad behavior of the US government that has acted in bad faith to politicians getting money. This weakens the respect for the DoJ to carry out the powers of the state. Rather than look at the corruption right under its nose with the MPAA, it opts for a third party that was thought to be weak. He's called out the copyright monopoly.
And I think that by showing the revolving door of justice, Kim's lawyers indeed have a strong case with the public on this issue.
"Yeah, because the only use for the Internet is piracy."
Actually, the most trafficked thing on the internet is porn. It makes up 30% of the bandwidth that is exchanged. just think about that, You have a site that traffics in just porn that is even bigger than Netflix while Youtube has much more traffic than both combined.
While I understand that a lot of copyright trolls are scared in their boots from Judge Wright's order, I have to wonder about the other issues that this raises.
In the US, we should be concerned with Six Strikes and educating judges about these issues of copyright. The problem comes in that copyright continues to hamper innovation and learning while giving publishers immense incentives to pervert the law and get money from people.
But we've seen that the trade industries will go through any lengths to try to conflate piracy and their poor business sense with being entitled to money, whether that's Chris Dodd using the same stump speech to argue for more legal wrangling in how the movie industry works against public interest or Germany's unions suppressing artists and making Youtube ,difficult to work with in that country.
For me we have to ask how does this affect Six Strikes? How can ISPs be told to prevent piracy with soft-SOPA while HADOPI didn't work nor did it work with other types of piracy alternatives?
Does this kill Six Strikes? Expand it? Is public wifi in danger? How about the public's right to decide how they want content?
At this point, there is a major victory for the side of common sense, but the battle is far from over.
"Bit Torrent helps to take away artists rights, by making their work widely available without cost or constraint, often against their will and desire."
And that's what the public wants.
The Public > than any individual artist
Also, the artists that take advantage of this are the ones benefitting.
" Bit Torrent and copyright are both tools, and when misused, cause harm."
Kindly name how BT has been misused. It provides for the progression of culture and the arts even if the artist doesn't agree.
But copyright? It stifles and harms speech, commentary, and discussion of arts and sciences.
" Trashing copyright for those who misuse it is about the same as trashing bit torrent because it's used by pirates."
False dichotomy. Discussing the criticisms of our copyright laws allows for people to promote how they can indeed be better without digressing into a nanny state or making bad decisions on what's important in society.
I'd rather have more criticism and art than artists that control what society can produce.
"What percentage of "Hollywood" contracts involve this practice? "
Enought that this has become standard business practice.
"Is it fraudulent, or are people getting what they bargained for?"
They can't bargain for better in an industry where the advantages all favor corporations over people.
" All I'm hearing is FUD, not details."
Because that's all YOU want to hear, AJ.
Holy crap, you've been on this site for close to four years. You argue about how legal something is while forgetting the constitutionality of it. You say that morality doesn't matter so long as it helps your argument and you've gotten worse since you've resorted to mere taunts, ad homs, and non sequitors that don't help people see the merits of your arguments.
Copyright is in the best interest of corporations over the people. This is a well known fact since 1978 when innovation was slowed to a crawl for the Big Record label studios of the time who have only gotten smaller while their profits got larger.
You might not think that this is mercantilism, where a small cabal of groups control markets, but it is.
You haven't presented any evidence that your argument holds merit. So why don't YOU do so now? Show us something other than FUD. Show an argument that isn't based on bad rulings and bad precedents. Show us why copyright has helped out the artists and the public who is the focus of more innovation and learning.
On the post: PSA To Parents: Step 1 After Your Child Is Shot Is Not Checking WebMD
Re: Re:
Look at Lipitor prices in America compared to France and Spain. Most people in the EU pay $15-$20.
We have to pay $150 on average.
So most of our money goes to an industry that wouldn't survive without the profit motive and gives us subquality care at monopoly prices.
On the post: PSA To Parents: Step 1 After Your Child Is Shot Is Not Checking WebMD
Re: Health Care
God will help you. Oh, and science is the devil.
On the post: Who Would You Rather Trust: Bankers Or Regulators?
Re: Re: Economics
I unfortunately missed an italics after "Roosevelt declared."
Currently, they're holding onto $2- $5 trillion dollars which the government gave them in taxpayer dollars. And they're not loaning that out without high interest.
On the post: Who Would You Rather Trust: Bankers Or Regulators?
Re: Re: Re:
Honestly, we've had a crash under every president since FDR where their policies don't address the needs of the nation.
While that's happening, we have a capacity utilization rate, or how much technology is being utilized, of 80%. In other words, we aren't doing anything efficiently.
And no, Obama has not spent money and it's just amazing how people don't realize that the government has to spend money to get its way out of debt. You spend more on investments such as roads, bridges, and public services. If you cut those away, the nation suffers.
On the post: Who Would You Rather Trust: Bankers Or Regulators?
Re:
Granted, Obama didn't have to go through with the bailout but your timing is off considering everything else that was on the table at the time.
On the post: Who Would You Rather Trust: Bankers Or Regulators?
Economics
We faced this exact problem in 1929 with Hoover who made the mistake of listening to Andrew Mellon:
"Liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate the farmers, liquidate real estate. It will purge the rottenness out of the system. High costs of living and high living will come down. People will work harder, live a more moral life. Values will be adjusted, and enterprising people
will pick up the wrecks from less competent people."
People were benefitting from a false prosperity where borrowed money was used to buy stocks and necessities.
The problem was solved by FDR doing something amazing. He changed the tax bracket from 35% to 94%:
FDR and his New Dealers wanted to finance the war equitably, with stiff tax rates on high incomes. How stiff? FDR proposed a 100 percent top tax rate. At a time of “grave national danger,” Roosevelt told Congress in April 1942, “no American citizen ought to have a net income, after he has paid his taxes, of more than $25,000 a year.” That would be about $350,000 in today’s dollars.
The year before, steel exec Eugene Grace had grabbed $522,537, over $8 million today, in 1941 salary.
But conservative lawmakers would quickly reject FDR’s plan. Four months later, Roosevelt tried again. He repeated his $25,000 “supertax” income cap call in his Labor Day message.
Congress shrugged that request off, too. FDR still didn’t back down. In early October, he issued an executive order that limited top corporate salaries to $25,000 after taxes. The move would “provide for greater equality in contributing to the war effort,” Roosevelt declared.
In other words, forcing the bankers to pay for their mistakes did a lot better for the nation than anything that regulators could do.
Still, the fact is that the financiers have gotten away with running Congress for the last 30 years since they helped to elect Reagan who helped increase the national debt with Voodoo economics. So if we want to pay it down, then we need to just tax the rich and corporations.
You know, the same ones that want the rest of us to tighten our belts while they get all the money? Those austerics are just insane.
On the post: Eric Holder Answers Question About Kim Dotcom Prosecution
Re: Re: Constitution
On the post: Eric Holder Answers Question About Kim Dotcom Prosecution
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Nothing was stolen, so no theft occurred. You're confusing analog laws for digital reality.
On the post: Eric Holder Answers Question About Kim Dotcom Prosecution
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Then kindly answer the question presented. When someone makes a digital copy of information, how is that theft? No property was taken. The holder has original rights to their version. So what exactly is being taken?
On the post: Eric Holder Answers Question About Kim Dotcom Prosecution
Re: Re: Re: Re:
On the post: Eric Holder Answers Question About Kim Dotcom Prosecution
Constitution
People make a lot of reverence to that piece of paper, yet our government is not working for the majority of people. And there's a ton of reasons why:
Bicameral legislation - No other modern democracy has this because it's inherently undemocratic. Just look at what it takes to get legislation that the public actually wants through Congress.
Tolerance of Slavery - Say what you will, but the fact that our government now depends on slave labor in prisons is rather telling. We've worked 40 years to bring about slavery for the masses by depriving them of wages, then depriving them of freedom and that's morally unjust.
Judicial Review - I have found very few arguments for Judicial Review given that because of the Courts, we have inducement when it was never written into law as well as a very pro corporate court is one of the most dangerous things to a republic we can have.
The Framers (not the Founders) wanted a representative democracy because they were fearful of direct democracy. And you know what? The Framers found massive loopholes to exploit the system culminating into James Madison's fears in Federalist Paper 10. However, James Madison would have gone in a more democratic way had he been told to bring about the Constitution in a different set of circumstances. Once he'd learned more about how the Constitution was being influenced by democratic measure, he lost doubts on democracy.
This doesn't mean that the Constitution can't be changed. It should be recognized that it has some massive weaknesses that have been exposed over the centuries.
In essence, with our Constitution, it's Democracy 1.0 whereas most other countries are running Democracy 4.5. They have proportional representation. They don't have an electoral college. They don't have money in politics. We don't have an effective government. We need universal healthcare and a government of/by/4 the people.
And that's what we should all strive for.
On the post: NYPD Sergeant Says 'Guilty Until Proven Innocent' Is Just The Price We Pay For A 'Free Society'
Re: Re: Already done
Nope. I may have a more democratic view than you, but I'm not a Stalinist nor a communist. Good job on finding a new angle of attack instead of focusing on actual arguments though.
On the post: Eric Holder Answers Question About Kim Dotcom Prosecution
What is wrong with extradition?
Tamils Against Genocide (TAG), a US-based activist organization seeking legal redress to Tamil war victims said, "Santhirarajah was arrested on 14 July 2008 on the US extradition request. He was remanded in custody (for more than 4 years) until the date of this judgment in 31 August 2012. Court also concluded that "in or about November 2009" was the time when it was reasonably practicable for the AG to make a determination whether to surrender Santhirarajah. Santhirarajah's liberty was curtailed extra-legally for a period of 2 years and 9 months," TAG noted.
But make no mistake that the US has successfully gone after hackers in the land downunder:
BEFORE he was extradited to the United States, Hew Griffiths, from Berkeley Vale in NSW, had never even set foot in America. But he had pirated software produced by American companies.
Now, having been given up to the US by former justice minister Chris Ellison, Griffiths, 44, is in a Virginia cell, facing up to 10 years in an American prison after a guilty plea late last month.
Still, it's amazing that a man that's never set foot in America can come to the US to be punished, ironically in the same way most Aussies were shipped to Australia to be exiled as criminals.
I don't know which is worse. The fact that Holder advocates for more prisons in America when it doesn't work or the fact that most people understand that he is greatly misleading the public about the pursuits of Hollywood. Better yet, why keep sending people to prison for the fact that Hollywood can't be bothered to innovate? There's story after story of their screw ups, their destruction of technology that people want, and their inability to adapt. After all of that, it's time to get some new stories from new industries based around what the public wants, not what a trade industry wants.
On the post: NYPD Sergeant Says 'Guilty Until Proven Innocent' Is Just The Price We Pay For A 'Free Society'
Already done
We have black people incarcerated in greater amounts and use them for slave wages in helping people get rich.
Immigration is screwed up so that we can use Mexicans for cheap labor while we can't have higher skilled workers from other countries.
Women are not pushed into STEM sciences which stops them from taking advantage of various fields that require math and sciences in large amounts.
We don't even pay for the next generation and load them up with debt from getting college degrees.
McCarthyism is hidden right here in the US as neo-liberalism which wants the rich to succeed while everyone else fails. And instead of a functioning government that provides for the nation, we have a ruling elite that works to keep themselves making money while the rest of the nation suffers. It's ridiculous.
On the post: Kim Dotcom Files Brief In His Trial In The Court Of Public Opinion
Raids and mercantilism
Mike, I have to wonder... How many stories have you done where the MPAA uses ICE to be their private police force?
In 2011 they raided a fully authorized factory with no consequences.
In 2010, you questioned their raid on the Pirate Bay.
In 2007, you questioned why the FBI and the MPAA were training Swedish Police.
And in March you explained why the best thing with the MPAA was censorship and freaking out.
In 2012, you explained how the MPAA didn't want the public to have fair use.
And yet, the same story over and over is how the MPAA or some industry uses their private police force to destroy competition not for innovation, but because they want to maintain their business model.
The message should be clear: Beware of mercantilists who abuse the rules for their own money seeking purposes.
Just to drive this point home, look at what Adam Smith had to say about such mercantilism:
The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from [capitalists] ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whos interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.
“The monopolists, by keeping the market constantly understocked... sell their commodities much above the natural price... The price of monopoly is upon every occasion the highest which can be got. The natural price, or the price of free competition, on the contrary, is the lowest which can be taken....”
We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters [cartels]; though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour....
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.
In general, if any branch of trade, or any division of labor, be advantageous to the public, the freer and more general the competition, it will always be the more so
To which piracy and infringement challenge the status quo of the MPAA.
It is the industry which is carried on for the benefit of the rich and powerful, that is principally encouraged by our mercantile system. That which is carried on for the benefit of the poor and the indigent, is too often, either neglected, or oppressed.
And finally, let's call out the DoJ:
Commerce and manufactures, in short, can seldom flourish in any state in which there is not a certain degree of confidence in the justice of government.
What Kim is actually doing is calling out the bad behavior of the US government that has acted in bad faith to politicians getting money. This weakens the respect for the DoJ to carry out the powers of the state. Rather than look at the corruption right under its nose with the MPAA, it opts for a third party that was thought to be weak. He's called out the copyright monopoly.
And I think that by showing the revolving door of justice, Kim's lawyers indeed have a strong case with the public on this issue.
On the post: Dutch Law Would Authorize Police To Hack Into Foreign Computers And Phones: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
Re: Just more proof...
1) Gain access to laws to screw over the populace
2) Promote the universal scourges of terrorism, hackers, and piracy
3) Work to undermine legitimate speech concerns by deleting them
4) ????
5) Profit.
On the post: Royalty Collection Agency SABAM Sues Belgian ISPs In Pursuit Of Its Fantasy 'Piracy License'
Re:
Actually, the most trafficked thing on the internet is porn. It makes up 30% of the bandwidth that is exchanged. just think about that, You have a site that traffics in just porn that is even bigger than Netflix while Youtube has much more traffic than both combined.
On the post: Judge Wright Sentences Prenda To Poetic Justice
But what about Six Strikes
In the US, we should be concerned with Six Strikes and educating judges about these issues of copyright. The problem comes in that copyright continues to hamper innovation and learning while giving publishers immense incentives to pervert the law and get money from people.
But we've seen that the trade industries will go through any lengths to try to conflate piracy and their poor business sense with being entitled to money, whether that's Chris Dodd using the same stump speech to argue for more legal wrangling in how the movie industry works against public interest or Germany's unions suppressing artists and making Youtube ,difficult to work with in that country.
For me we have to ask how does this affect Six Strikes? How can ISPs be told to prevent piracy with soft-SOPA while HADOPI didn't work nor did it work with other types of piracy alternatives?
Does this kill Six Strikes? Expand it? Is public wifi in danger? How about the public's right to decide how they want content?
At this point, there is a major victory for the side of common sense, but the battle is far from over.
On the post: Mike Masnick's Favorite Techdirt Posts Of The Week
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Typical
And that's what the public wants.
The Public > than any individual artist
Also, the artists that take advantage of this are the ones benefitting.
" Bit Torrent and copyright are both tools, and when misused, cause harm."
Kindly name how BT has been misused. It provides for the progression of culture and the arts even if the artist doesn't agree.
But copyright? It stifles and harms speech, commentary, and discussion of arts and sciences.
" Trashing copyright for those who misuse it is about the same as trashing bit torrent because it's used by pirates."
False dichotomy. Discussing the criticisms of our copyright laws allows for people to promote how they can indeed be better without digressing into a nanny state or making bad decisions on what's important in society.
I'd rather have more criticism and art than artists that control what society can produce.
On the post: Universal Responds To Lawsuit About Its Hollywood Accounting Tricks By Claiming That It Actually Overpaid
Enough is enough
Enought that this has become standard business practice.
"Is it fraudulent, or are people getting what they bargained for?"
They can't bargain for better in an industry where the advantages all favor corporations over people.
" All I'm hearing is FUD, not details."
Because that's all YOU want to hear, AJ.
Holy crap, you've been on this site for close to four years. You argue about how legal something is while forgetting the constitutionality of it. You say that morality doesn't matter so long as it helps your argument and you've gotten worse since you've resorted to mere taunts, ad homs, and non sequitors that don't help people see the merits of your arguments.
Copyright is in the best interest of corporations over the people. This is a well known fact since 1978 when innovation was slowed to a crawl for the Big Record label studios of the time who have only gotten smaller while their profits got larger.
You might not think that this is mercantilism, where a small cabal of groups control markets, but it is.
You haven't presented any evidence that your argument holds merit. So why don't YOU do so now? Show us something other than FUD. Show an argument that isn't based on bad rulings and bad precedents. Show us why copyright has helped out the artists and the public who is the focus of more innovation and learning.