Jay 's Techdirt Comments

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  • On the post: FBI Agent Tries To Register Copyright On Top Secret Interrogation Manual… Making It Available To Anyone

    Jay ( profile ), 20 Dec, 2013 @ 12:29pm

    So are they going to prosecute the leaker as a whistleblower?

  • On the post: NZ Customs Refuses To Answer Questions After Revelations Of Illegal Orders To Give FBI Info On Kim Dotcom For 'Brownie Points'

    Jay ( profile ), 20 Dec, 2013 @ 06:38am

    " At least one of the people who received the email noted that people should "seek legal advice" before handing over such information, but it's unclear if anyone actually did that."

    Wasn't the legal council of this spying also the person to retire recently because of it?

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Dysfunctional Capitalism

    Jay ( profile ), 19 Dec, 2013 @ 06:51am

    Re: Re: Re: Re: Capitalism, Schmapitalism

    The lesson of capitalism is that regulations can be undone. You can't reform asystem where people are inherently unequal.

    We have to rethink the workplace. Giving people no choices in what they produce, when they produce it, is the problem. If we don't allow democracy in the workplace, how can we fight for democracy in other areas? That's why we've gone backwards to the 1930s where corporations rule the soiree and the people have their rights infringed.

  • On the post: Santa Claus Is Coming To Town… And EMI Is Keeping The Copyright

    Jay ( profile ), 19 Dec, 2013 @ 01:15pm

    I wish I wasn't right

    *sigh*

    It seems that my analysis on what copyright is all too consistent with reality. We have corporate rights invading on the people and the public. Whatever shareholders and corporations want, they are pushing into being through corporate sovereignty.

    As such, it seems that people need to focus on corporate rights and turn them into public rights.

    The public's right to copy and share has been harmed through these corporate rights. Copyright is no longer a human concept. It is a corporate concept put into being to promote the interests of corporate control.

    How do we promote access to knowledge and innovation? We can no longer believe in the reduction of copyright. As has been shown, that concept will be extended for those with the most money. The only available decision is the abolishment of this form of corporate property. There is no dichotomy of expressions of an idea. The ideas have been stifled by corporate rights. As such, copyright can no longer be considered compatible with the First Amendment. It is used to censor and control public discourse through laws that harm free speech.

    Reform was tried and at every turn, from Aaron's law in the legislative, the constant enhancements of time in the Supreme Court, to the president's support of the TPP in the executive, the public has been rebuffed and neglected.

    The fight, at its core, is against these corporate rights.

    Abolish copyright.

  • On the post: DailyDirt: Dysfunctional Capitalism

    Jay ( profile ), 19 Dec, 2013 @ 04:26am

    Re: Re: Capitalism, Schmapitalism

    You're asking people to accept capitalism and this idea that a corporation will ever care about its workers over profits...

    It might be time to rethink it.

  • On the post: Hayden Says They Did Surveillance In A 'Madisonian' Way

    Jay ( profile ), 18 Dec, 2013 @ 08:39am

    BS!

    He got the model wrong. What we're looking at would be the Hamiltonian model where the plutocrats run all forms of the government and does everything in secrecy and deceit without regard to the protections the Constitution is supposed to uphold.

    Madison wanted more democracy while Hamilton helped usurp it through his many maneuverings through the law to aglow the minority rules to usurp the majority.

    Maybe Hayden should go back and read the Federal Papers and see what the Framers actually said.

  • On the post: Tone Deaf NSA Officials Tell Reporter It's Time To Reform The First Amendment

    Jay ( profile ), 17 Dec, 2013 @ 07:25am

    Re: WTF?!

    Dammit! Anyway, just to recap...

    Why does the NSA exist? They aren't in the Constitution and they aren't scared of reforms it seems. So I'm of the opinion that they need the death penalty. Seriously, you refuse to uphold the parchment that protects the rights of all Americans?

    You need to go...

  • On the post: Digital Exports Dwarf Other Industries, So Why Is The USTR Ignoring Them?

    Jay ( profile ), 17 Dec, 2013 @ 01:41pm

    Protection?

    I seriously think people need to recognize what happens if you "protect" an industry. This is clear proof that the protection doesn't help at all.

    I believe the bovine and textiles industry were a part of NAFTA. If anyone paid attention to the trade agreements there, they basically shipped jobs overseas along with those of the manufacturing industry in order for the "protected" industries to become prosperous by making workers miserable.

    So it seems that these trade agreements protect corporations over the needs of the public. If the TPP were to be signed tomorrow, it would harm America far more than it help and you can tell that by comparing the numbers of those industries affected by NAFTA.

  • On the post: Digital Exports Dwarf Other Industries, So Why Is The USTR Ignoring Them?

    Jay ( profile ), 17 Dec, 2013 @ 09:32am

    Google should be pissed...

    So how can Google ignore the giant elephant that the TPP is a direct attack onthen where Microsoft controls the market digitally while they have to expend massive resources to fought this and the government on the NSA front?

    Did they just not think that maybe the TPP wasn't a threat to them? While I could think of other companies, the Google v Microsoft debate heating up on the copyright/patent front should have been a reason they focus more on the public rights issue which helps them out considerably.

  • On the post: Tone Deaf NSA Officials Tell Reporter It's Time To Reform The First Amendment

    Jay ( profile ), 17 Dec, 2013 @ 07:23am

    WTF?!

  • On the post: You Don't Own What You 'Bought': Disney And Amazon Play The Role Of The Grinch In Taking Back Purchased Film

    Jay ( profile ), 17 Dec, 2013 @ 07:19am

    In other words...

    On a side note, piracy has increased 20% as corporations prove that you have no right to enjoy films and movies without a hassle.

  • On the post: If You're An American Who Believes In The 4th Amendment, You Have No Excuse Not To Sign This Petition

    Jay ( profile ), 11 Dec, 2013 @ 04:26pm

    Re: Re:

    You're wrong, and you're contributing to the problem. It's apathy from people like you that make the government think they can get away with this. Please reconsider.

    Signing a petition is not going to change the world. It's a great start, but it's really time to begin to work on other options. Things that actually mean a change in things to come. A petition won't do that.

    How can people form up into groups and fight these changes in their communities?

    How can people form up?

    Yes, we defeated SOPA but as of now, SOPA was implanted in the TPP, we lost Aaron Schwartz to an overzealous governmental system, and the battles that we do have come down to political bickering.

    We need new strategies and groups because the old ways aren't working.

    We need new ways to form up and have business interests that coincide with the public. We need to find out how to force the government to back away from this position and to actually do a lot more than reform.

    These are egregious acts that have been caused. The government has criminalized whistleblowing, forced their hands to spy on everyone, and the 4th Amendment has been savaged by our Constitutional monarchy who decides the law over the Congress that we can't even elect through gerrymandering.

    If people were willing to form up and fight these issues as important through a number of means, such as forming their own businesses and groups to go to Washington, we may have more leeway. And that's what it's going to take.

    The petition is a great start, but there needs to be far more action for such an important Amendment.

  • On the post: A Look At Just How Much The US Is Isolated In Its TPP Demands

    Jay ( profile ), 11 Dec, 2013 @ 03:34pm

    /Sarcasm

    Wow.. I'm amazed that a few graphs are so friggin hard to understand.

    No one has ever talked about visualization nor shown a way to understand democracy and inform the public at all.

    I'm amazed at my own ignorance at not being able to see such things with my own eyes and make my own decisions about how the US is treating the public.

    Curse you Gabriel! And your little dog too!

  • On the post: Make Art Not Law

    Jay ( profile ), 09 Dec, 2013 @ 11:57am

    Re:

    There is no benefit to controlling who copies.

    People nerd to make copies to share knowledge and learning while publishers want to prevent copying for their bottom line.

    We have to all ourselves a serious question... Which idea is more important?

    Controlling quantities or sharing?

    How much have we lost to sharing information?

    How much have we lost when someone thinks about each skated copy as a sale?

    Those are better questions imo.

  • On the post: Ridiculous: Why Is Any Country Supporting Locking In Life + 70 Copyright Term Protection?

    Jay ( profile ), 08 Dec, 2013 @ 08:52am

    Re: Re: Corporate rights

    Nah.

    I tend to play with language a lot so I've been coming up with new digital and analog analogies anyway. It's just how I see the copyright issue which seems the best way to talk about it moving forward.

  • On the post: Supreme Court To Hear Key Case On Software Patents That Appeals Court Couldn't Figure Out

    Jay ( profile ), 07 Dec, 2013 @ 11:16am

    Re: Re: Is it just me...


    In questions of statutory interpretation, isn't the court just figuring out whatever it was that Congress actually wrote?

    Judicial review is the Court deciding what Congress says. But there's a problem. You have them basically turning over laws even though the public has high support for them such as the Civil Rights Act or copyright law to make it more supportive to corporations.

    This power is NOT in the Constitution no matter how you look at it. This is a legislative power that Congress has power over.

    What you're suggesting is that the government decides how to rule over the public without the public having a say so in those laws. That isn't quite how a democracy should work.

  • On the post: Supreme Court To Hear Key Case On Software Patents That Appeals Court Couldn't Figure Out

    Jay ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2013 @ 03:58pm

    Is it just me...

    Wow... We really set up a great Constitutional Monarchy where 9 wise elders can decide on how to figure out patent law and copyright over the needs of the public...

  • On the post: Ridiculous: Why Is Any Country Supporting Locking In Life + 70 Copyright Term Protection?

    Jay ( profile ), 06 Dec, 2013 @ 01:36pm

    Corporate rights

    I believe the best way to coin the term is to call copyright exactly what it is: Corporate Rights.

    The public has rights to access information until they come under corporate right law.

    For the past 50 years, that has been what corpoate rights have been all about. Extending copyright to the benefit of corporations. Fair use has been decimated with knowledge, innovation, and sharing the things most harmed.

    What this has been is a way for the legacy studios and industries to control the past. They no longer have to compete with new competitors or new fields and shut down independent artists and writers who work outside of their systems of governance. That's been the way to control the markets. Why can't artists make money on Spotify? The market is controlled.

    Why can't people go to the big six publishers for a fair shake or deal? They're too busy trying to collude with Apple to control the markets.

    And why can the MPAA spy on people through TWC, force startup companies to shut down for innovative use of technology and basically resist any form of adaptation?

    Again. Control.

    And that control spreads to the TPP, India, Brazil, China, Australia, Belgium and other places where the individual rights of the public are trampled to give more and more rights to the corporations that have stagnated.

    In WWI, we had that very same type of corporate governance that became unbearable on a country. It was called the Treaty of Versailles. Now we call it the corporate sovereingty of the TransPacific Partnership.

    It was never about the control of the artists. It's always been about the control of how much money the artists make. The more that goes to the legacy industries, the more stagnant we become.

    The question isn't "Why is any country supporting this?"

    The question is "Why haven't we stopped this corporate abuse of power?"

  • On the post: Obama's Response To Too Much Secrecy About Surveillance… Is More Secrecy

    Jay ( profile ), 27 Nov, 2013 @ 11:22pm

    Re: Obummer

    How does that make sense? The last time someone didn't have term limits, they had four terms and damn near passed a second Bill of Rights.

    Or do you think FDR was a bad president?

  • On the post: The USTR's Revolving Door With Copyright And Patent Maximalists Removes All Credibility

    Jay ( profile ), 27 Nov, 2013 @ 03:38pm

    Why are we in the 1930s?

    Please explain this to me... We tried this type of stuff in 1929. Very bad treaties that usurped sovereignty to corporations for short term profit over long-term gain.

    One of the big ones before that was the Treaty of Versailles.

    Why are we seriously repeating history where the extremely conservative view of the world lead us to bad circumstances?

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