Bill S. 978 - About Copyright

[Bla]

Only problem is that the socialist/communist system just doesn't work very well economically in the long run.

Yes I know people would point out China, but I'm referring to the former Soviet Union and China does have it's own problems with the economy among other stuff, and it's more of a hybrid.

China is certainly hybrid. You're welcome to dig into their problems and we shall see if they're because of Socialism.

The Soviet Union did well for a long time - it had more than 10% growth for many years around the 1950's. USA undermined an important part of its export by making deals with Saudi Arabia to increase their oil production. And its military was a huge part of their economic problems - it spent more than 20% of its gross domestic product on military, rather than development, which was far more than the western countries during the cold war as far as I know.

I would say Capitalism has no chance in the long run, because it has no way to plan for the long run, when everything is based on corporations' short term impulses for profit. It will ruin the environment it relies on, like bacteria consuming an isolated apple. Blind exponential growth until the point where it runs out of something to consume, and then collapse.
And profit doesn't always equate to something which is actually beneficial to society, the people or the economy. You can see that every single day in your life - the spambots on this forum trying to trick people into buying probably non-existant products, the Coca Cola, alcohol and burgers people fill themselves with and the tobacco they smoke, costing immense amounts of money for the healthcare system, I could go on...

A planned economy can exactly take the future into account, because it's planned on the big scale.

Communism is the future. One day machines and computers can, and hopefully wil, do all of our work, and not distributing everything equally would be completely ridiculous at that point.

I don't have time to write anymore today.

[deoxy99]

Too long; didn't read.

Thankfully you didn't have time to right more, you'd probably post something three times the size of what you wrote.

[smjjames]

I think modern capitalism (as we know it and define it) started in the later 19th century while communism/socialism as it's define now probably really began to take on its modern form in the late 19th/early 20th century (Karl Marx and Lenins time), so the modern concepts are relatively young on the timescale of civilization, but yea...

Also, part of the Soviet Unions problem is that they were pretty oppressive and China is definetly to a lesser extent, so I'm not really sure if there can be a communist/socialist economy without getting an oppressive goverment.

I'm not being a defender of capitalism as I agree that there are major problems with the corporations, especially banks and capitalism is certainly a percentage of the cause of the current issues with the global economy (a great deal of it is due to politics though....).

[matty406]

I've head a lot of bills and acts about copyright and I find them all depressing.
But isn't Youtube just a glorified version of "word-of-mouth"? Surely, you're using Youtube to describe a game to someone, but with a different medium. How about arresting me for telling people what I did in Skyrim today?

[atomic7732]

Hah, very interesting view. Totally agreed.

[Bla]

Also, part of the Soviet Unions problem is that they were pretty oppressive and China is definetly to a lesser extent, so I'm not really sure if there can be a communist/socialist economy without getting an oppressive goverment.

True. However, some of Europe is probably more hybrid than China, Denmark has one of the highest tax rates in the world for example (if not the highest). And their governments could hardly be called oppressive from a western point of view. And again, many capitalist governments are also very oppressive, like the extremely conservative ones in the Middle East. And capitalism must accept the oppression which money is bound to cause as well.
I think the power struggles in the early Soviet Union between not only the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, but also other revolutionary Socialists like the Socialists Revolutionaries. When they received 40% of the votes in 1917 and the Bolsheviks only received 24%, the Bolsheviks then made the wrong move to try taking all control for themselves. I don't think you can blame Socialism for the oppressive rule which came after, maybe the chaos created by an armed revolution could play a role (however, I think the revolution was more than justified against the probably even more oppressive rule which came before it).

[atomic7732]

http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_internet/

[Bla]

http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_internet/

But I have already saved it!

Dun dun dun.

http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_internet/?cl=1392740568

[atomic7732]

Oh lol, fail on my part.

[vh]

SAVE EET TTWICE!

[Bla]

I got e-mail:

Incredible -- 800,000 signers in days, Congress is hesitating, and one Senator will block the vote by reading out our petition for hours!! Let's get to 1 million - forward this email to everyone --

Dear Friends,

Right now, Congress is debating a law that would give them the power to censor the world's Internet -- creating a blacklist that could target YouTube, WikiLeaks and even groups like Avaaz!

Under the new law, the US could force Internet providers to block any website on suspicion of violating copyright or trademark legislation, or even failing to sufficiently police their users' activities. And, because so much of the Internet's hosts and hardware are located in the US, their blacklist would clamp down on the free web for all of us.

The vote could happen at any time now, but we can help stop this -- champions in Congress want to preserve free speech and tell us that a global outcry would strengthen their hand, and one of them -- Senator Wyden -- says he will "filibuster" or block any vote on the bill by reading out our petition names until the clock runs out! Let's urgently raise our voices from every corner of the world to build an unprecedented global petition. Click below to sign and then forward to everyone:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_internet/?vl

For years, the US has condemned countries like China and Iran for their clampdown on Internet use. But now, the impact of these new censorship laws could be far worse -- effectively blocking sites to every Internet user across the globe.

Last year, a similar Internet censorship bill was killed before reaching the US Senate floor, but it's now back in a different form. Copyright laws already exist and are enforced by courts. But this new law goes much further -- granting the US government and big corporations enormous powers to force service providers and search engines to block websites based just on allegations of violations -- without a trial or being found guilty of any crime!

Free speech advocates have already raised the alarm, and some key senators are trying to gather enough support to stop this dangerous bill. We have no time to lose. Let's stand with them to ensure that American lawmakers preserve the right to a free and open Internet as an essential way for people around the world to exchange ideas, share communication and work collectively to build the world we want. Sign below to stop censorship, and save the Internet as we know it:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_internet/?vl

In the past months, from the Arab Spring to the global Occupy Movement, we've seen first hand how the Internet can galvanize, unify and change society. Now, if we stand together, we can stop this new attack on Internet freedom. We've done it before -- in Brazil and Italy, Avaaz members have won major victories in the fight for a free Internet. Let's galvanize our global web community to crush the most powerful censorship threat that the Internet has ever seen.

With hope,

Luis, Dalia, Diego, Emma, Ricken, Aaron, Antonia, Benjamin and the rest of the Avaaz team

Sources Op-Ed: Blacklist Bill allows Feds to remove websites from Internet (Digital Journal)
http://digitaljournal.com/article/313463

Disastrous IP Legislation Is Back – And It's Worse than Ever (EFF)
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2011/10/disastrous-ip-legislation-back-%E2%80%93-and-it%E2%80%99s-worse-ever

Silicon Valley legislators oppose online piracy act (SFGate)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/15/BUO81LV0KI.DTL

House Hearing on Stop Online Piracy Act Scheduled (PC World)
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/243659/house_hearing_on_stop_online_piracy_act_scheduled.html

Growing Chorus of Opposition to "Stop Online Piracy Act"
https://www.cdt.org/report/growing-chorus-opposition-stop-online-piracy-act

The stop online piracy act: summary, problems, and implications
https://www.cdt.org/files/pdfs/SOPA%202-pager%20final.pdf

Why Is Justin Bieber So Pissed Off?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timothy-karr/why-is-justin-bieber-so-p_b_1071055.html

Stop Online Piracy Act
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr3261ih/pdf/BILLS-112hr3261ih.pdf

PROTECT IP Act
http://leahy.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/BillText-PROTECTIPAct.pdf

[FiahOwl]

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[Bla]

Pirating is capitalism's fault. Just make everything open source, give people credit for their work and give everyone equal amounts of material stuff so they don't have to rely on people not pirating their stuff to avoid starving to death (okay, that's not the case for the massive corporations, which really just want more money to expand to get even more money to make a colony on Mars, so they can conquer Pluto and then TAKE OVER EARTH and get more money) and as a result want to put ristrictions on the internet.

[deoxy99]

I don't think pirating is illegal, but that's just me. The person who made the torrent should go to jail for putting it up.

[Bla]

I don't think pirating is illegal, but that's just me. The person who made the torrent should go to jail for putting it up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement_of_software
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement

I don't pirate stuff, but I am very much against copyright laws, just as much as the current system which makes them neccesary. I don't feel sorry for massive companies and rich people, but there are also people who rely on their software sales to pay for their normal house etc., and I think it's wrong to pirate their software.

I'm always scared of being jailed and having to pay 3000 trillion money units for having done SOMETHING wrong copyrightwise somewhen. I mean, almost all software has ridiculously long terms of agreement which nobody could possibly have the time to read, kol, if I read them for all of my games, I could spend the rest of my life on that and never get to actually play them.
But then again, the leader of The Unity List has no intentions to stop pirating music in protest, so I probably shouldn't be that afraid, kolkolkol.

[atomic7732]

Well someone wrote them, so it can't take THAT long to read. What are they giving us, 1950 technology games?