Wikipedia's SOPA box

[Hallack]

Sadly too much regulation and government interference in the market is anti-competitive  acts on behalf of one group or another (usually based on who bought and paid for the gov interests involved).

Though monopolies themselves are anti-competitve, so it's give and take. Some rules make more sense than others, but the absence of rules is just as bad.

Historically monopolies only form due to government intervention in the market limiting competition and giving special status to the business that is becoming the monopoly.   Outside such a state, a monopoly could only form if said business did such great work/service/product at such an awesome price that no customer would be looking for alternatives.  But the catch there is that some greedy bastard would certainly want to get a piece of that pie and so start rival companies. 

The usual argument I hear against such naturally occurring big business is that they would start abusing/cheating their customers and the customers would have little recourse.  If the government is doing its job of helping protect valid contracts and punishing theft and fraud (or other harm to others persons or property) then there is no horrible business abuse possible.

Cheers

[X-Codes]

One of the original monopolies in the US was, IIRC, the Standard Petroleum company.  They were good enough to get a significant portion of the market share, but they probably weren't good enough to control the entire oil market.  They did so, anyway, by forcing the vibrant (read: highly competitive) Railroad industry to charge extra to other oil companies shipping their products and then sending that excess towards Standard Petroleum, otherwise Standard Petroleum would withdraw their business (which would be a significant to lethal blow to the railroad).

At the time, that was perfectly legal.  The thing that makes it illegal was regulation and government intervention.

[SolEiji]

First, join me on this petition if you will.  The more the better.  Also, have they been increasing the minimum?  it keeps going up: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/%21/petition/make-more-transparent-and-inclusive-trans-pacific-partnership-treaty-negotiations/BX7S0rpy

But besides that, rapid fire news time!

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120205/14043517663/romanian-prime-minister-admits-he-has-no-idea-why-romania-signed-acta.shtml BLAM!

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120206/10005617669/czech-government-suspends-acta-ratification.shtml WHAM!

It's like watching a Jenga tower have the blocks pulled out of it.  Oh, this makes me happy!  The more which pull back, the better!

[Prime32]

You know how, to read data, a computer* copies it into memory?
TPP will make that illegal.

*I don't just mean PCs, I mean DVD players, washing machines, etc.

[oslecamo]

Not to mention, you know, the very act of organic learning, since our brains also do make mental copies of everything we experience.

All those politicians seem to fully suport that people shouldn't even be allowed to think, as they're aparently signing world-changing rules whitout even bothering to read them (until the angry mobs come knocking at the door that is).

[X-Codes]

   

That is absolutely hilarious.  Compounded by the fact that I recently referred to SOPA/PIPA is "some guy working for the film industry that read an 'Internets for Dummies' book and thought he figured out the whole piracy thing."

If they want to make the operation of a computer illegal, they should just say so.

[skydragonknight]

"Each Party shall provide that authors, performers, and producers of phonograms have the right to authorize or prohibit all reproductions of their works, performances, and phonograms, in any manner or form, permanent or temporary (including temporary storage in electronic form)."

Wow. Just wow. If I am reading that right it means an end to fair use.

[veekie]

"Each Party shall provide that authors, performers, and producers of phonograms have the right to authorize or prohibit all reproductions of their works, performances, and phonograms, in any manner or form, permanent or temporary (including temporary storage in electronic form)."

Wow. Just wow. If I am reading that right it means an end to fair use.

If I'm reading it right, it means an end to use. Period. All those smooth movies, and compact encodings reguire that a large bulk of the media be buffered(and thus copied) so that they can be prerendered and played well. Assuming you're using it with RAW. Which would be the whole point of a law.

The only thing left would then be to stream everything from primary sources with no buffering.

Proposed solution: Google blocks all French IP's from using it's services.  Let's see how long it takes for a national freak-out to teach these idiots their lesson.

That now would be monopolistic muscling.

[ImperatorK]

If I'm reading it right, it just means that we will have to pay more.

[veekie]

Yes, every time you play media, a copy is generated. It'd be pay per view.

[Jackinthegreen]

I have a feeling hackers would get around the whole PPV thing.  Much like they do now actually.

And streaming doesn't quite work, since the computer being streamed to has a bit of a buffer on its own.  It also wouldn't take much to record streams anyway.

[veekie]

Thats the thing, it murders legitimate users. The illegal community does what its always done.

[X-Codes]

^ Even better, it's so ridiculously heavy-handed with regards to the legal user that it will drive them to become illegal users.

Seriously, I can't believe that these people are so utterly stupid.  It's comedy.

[Bauglir]

On the other hand, if literally every computer user is a criminal, it becomes easy to arrest whoever the hell you want through selective enforcement. Should I be ascribing malice where stupidity is plausible? Maybe not. Bordering on conspiracy theory with that. Nevertheless, I occasionally worry about that. I'm certainly not being reassured by the rest of the political atmosphere.

[veekie]

More concerned about stupidity enabling malice. You can simply extend existing acts of greed(excessive claims etc) and  apply the new model.

[Prime32]

Hey Kuro...
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120207/03474017680/brazilian-government-ordering-web-hosting-firms-to-kill-domain-names-they-dont-like.shtml

Yes, every time you play media, a copy is generated. It'd be pay per view.

Actually, a copy is generated a few hundred times per second. So yeah...

[Prime32]

80,000 Irish people have been officially ignored (because otherwise the music industry would sue the state for negligence)
http://siliconrepublic.com/new-media/item/25696-irelands-sopa-no-reprieve


February 11th, there are anti-ACTA protests all over Europe (and one or two in the US). The Irish one is Dublin, 1pm to 4pm, in the Garden of Rememberance. I'll be there.

Find yours: https://www.accessnow.org/policy-activism/press-blog/acta-protest-feb-11
There's some in the US and Canada too, and one in Australia.

[X-Codes]

That's not an ACTA protest in Michigan.  Those people are already protesting pretty much everything going on in that state, ACTA is just another thing to add to their list of grievances.  Sucks that that's the closest one to me, though...

In any case, regardless of whatever enforcement mechanisms there are in ACTA, it's going to fail at what it is ostensibly supposed to do for one really big reason: China isn't going to sign it.  I don't think they're even being invited to.

[SolEiji]

Time for some positive news.
http://torrentfreak.com/tribler-makes-bittorrent-impossible-to-shut-down-120208/
AND
http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_save_the_internet_spread/?cjOkNcb
AND
http://falkvinge.net/2011/12/01/mafiaafire-just-killed-all-current-and-future-copyright-industry-censorship/
AND this one is just dang impressive....
http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20120208/23505717705/people-rushing-to-give-hundreds-thousands-dollars-just-hours-brand-new-adventure-game.shtml

[SolEiji]

And one more for good measure.

Also if you weren't aware of it before...
http://www.theurbn.com/2012/02/free-internet-act/

This is actually the reason I joined Reddit at all.  I need to see this happen!  I'm glad this person is doing articles on it, knowledge must grow!