Ask Slashdot: How To Inform a Non-Techie About Proposed Copyright Laws 254
First time accepted submitter skywiseguy writes "I know someone who continues to argue that the takedown of MegaUpload shows that the existing laws are not adequate and that we *need* SOPA/PIPA to protect the movie/music industries from offshore (non-US) piracy. I keep trying to inform him of the history the *AA's have brought to bear on the copyright laws and how these bills are something that will continue the abuse of copyright instead of ending piracy as they are claiming. He has no grasp on how DNS works, much less the internet in general. What can I do to show him how destructive these bills actually are, preferably with something that is as unbiased as possible?"
Setup your own DNS server and point his PC at it.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Setup your own DNS server and point his PC at i (Score:5, Interesting)
Or just block that site completely.... In essence just demonstrate how his life would be affected by the laws.
You may not be able to convince him (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in the day, when SCO started their ill fated lawsuit against IBM (but actually against Linux), I had a co worker who I discussed this with. He didn't know much about what was going on, but read the various industry rags and loudmouths, and thus believed that (his words) "SCO has a strong case".
Rewind about three years. I was talking to him about open source and Linux. His reaction about a free high quality OS always came back to "but how do they make their money?". After explaining about open source more, he finally understood it was not about money. I'll never forget his reaction. His words caused my jaw to drop to the floor: "They can't be allowed to do that!"
From that point on, we always were at odds over a lot of fundamental viewpoints. He tended to take the view that anything big business did that was profitable was therefore morally right. Yes, I kid you not.
My point? You may not be able to convince your non techie friend.
Oh, and when you say "unbiased" I think you might have meant "reasonable". There's nothing wrong with being biased because you have a particular viewpoint that you advocate.
Compare the *AA to the East India Company (Score:5, Interesting)
The *AA and related music publishers are government sponsored pirates.
They raid the public domain, the prevent their own work from being in the public domain.
They sell music to which they do not have the rights.
They rob their own artists with dodgy accounting.
They falsely inflate damages by infringers in order to punish them way beyond worse offenders
They use other peoples materials without rights because they (like everyone else) can't be bothered to follow the laws they sponsor
They issue false take-down notices to material that they do not own (some of which they or their artists use illegally).
They interfere with the politics of other nations in order to further their own interest.
They attempt to make a criminal out of every man woman and child in the world in order to increase revenue.
These are all behaviours observed over the last few years.
Will other slashdot readers please provide citations for each type of behaviour or add new behaviours.
We then ask why elected officials pay more attention to this group of pirates than individuals who have the democratic right to vote.
Re:Find a Good Car Analogy (Score:5, Interesting)
Better yet - ACTA, SOPA and PIPA are the digital equivalent of trying to legislate water to flow uphill. You can try as hard as you want but it just won't happen.
Those laws will have no effect whatsoever on the actual copyright monopoly infringements. Pirates will simply abandon sharing technologies vulnerable to enforcement and take better care of covering their tracks. Technology and will of individuals to break stupid laws always beat the law. Communists in Central and Eastern Europe tried to crush rock music by force in 1960s and 1970 and they failed miserably despite much harsher penalties for live performance and distribution of records. They failed miserably.
What makes you think that the almighty US of A can win the very same war on culture? Because that's what it is. Sharing is what creates culture out of individual works of art.
Re:Easily done (Score:5, Interesting)
If you are trying to convince a conservative that SOPA/PIPA is bad, it's very easy:
Explain to a conservative that SOPA == "Fairness Doctrine - part 2"
The Fairness Doctrine was an attempt to use the government to stop Rush Limbaugh's radio show. Like the show or not, it was too successful, and Congress felt like it was their duty to stop it. Because of 1st amendment, they couldn't just make the show illegal, so instead, they tried to give the FCC the ability to withdraw licenses from stations whose programming was too biased.
Now, the government sees the internet as another huge industry that cannot be controlled. The least-controlled part of the internet is forums (like Slashdot). People can, and do, say anything.
Once again, the first amendment gets in the way. But, Congress is creative. Is it possible for them to get the power to shutdown entire sites based only on the content posted to the site?
The answer is obvious ... copyrighted material. Find a site that you don't like, submit copyrighted material (as a plant), and then if they don't clean it up completely, have them shut down at the DNS level.
The only obstacles were technical (no current method to force DNS servers to drop records), and political (DMCA guarantees safe harbor privileges to ISPs and websites from the actions of users). SOPA/PIPA are designed to clear both obstacles.
~~~~~
Liberals are a little different.
Usually liberals respond well to stories of corporate greed. Explain to them that the MPAA and Disney are big business, and that they are the only ones pushing for this legislation. I'd like to see a liberal respond with the best methods of persuading other liberals.
Be Sure to Clarify to Him/Her... (Score:3, Interesting)
...that entertainment is not "information," nor should it be free, whether or not it has been "digitized," and to be certain to compensate the writers/musicians/artists/designers/videographers and other creators whose work he/she enjoys.
Re:Be Sure to Clarify to Him/Her... (Score:5, Interesting)
...that entertainment is not "information,"...
you are simply wrong...at it's base level it is all information, and what and how it communicates is different to different observers. As a composer I listen to a lot of music as research, that is damn important information. Even if I am simply being entertained, I am only able to be entertained by being communicated to, it is all information, it is all data.