NYC LOCAL: Wednesday 18 January 2012: Rally for Freedom of the Net, Official Name: Rally for the Future of Tech

[secr...@lxny.org]

Many Representatives and Senators in the Congress of the United
States do not know what the Net is. Let us tell Senators Schumer
and Gillibrand what the Net is, and why they should withdraw
their support for the MPAA RIAA written bills called SOPA, for
Stop Online Piracy Act, and PIPA, for Protect Intellectual
Property Act.

The names of the proposed bills are not accurate. For
information about what SOPA and PIPA would really do, see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act
[page was last modified on 17 January 2012 at 08:18]

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/01/how-pipa-and-sopa-violate-white-house-principles-supporting-free-speech

https://action.eff.org/o/9042/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=8173

We built the Net. Neither the MPAA nor the RIAA built the Net.

And we will keep our Net.


On Wednesday 18 January 2012, let us gather to speak with
Senator Schumer and Senator Gillibrand at their offices at

780 Third Avenue
between 48th Street and 49th Street,
on the Island of the Manahattoes

Our rally starts at noon.


The New York City office telephone number of US Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
is 212 688 6262, fax 866 824 6340. The Senator's website is at:

http://gillibrand.senate.gov/


The New York City office telephone number of US Senator Charles Schumer
is 212-486-4430, fax 212-486-7693, TDD 212-486-7803.
The Senator's website is at:

http://schumer.senate.gov/

Every telephone call in opposition to SOPA and PIPA counts.
Already the other side has, in part, retreated. But we have not
yet defeated the Englobulators on this front.


Official Notice from NY Tech Meetup below.


Jay Sulzberger <secr...@lxny.org>
Corresponding Secretary LXNY
LXNY is New York's Free Computing Organization.
http://www.lxny.org


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Subject: Rally for the Future of Tech
X-URL: http://nytm.org/sos/


Emergency NY Tech Meetup
Join Us to Stop PIPA and SOPA
__________________________________________________________________

January 18, 2012 - 12:30 PM to 2 PM
Outside the Offices of Senator Charles Schumer and Senator Kirstin
Gillibrand
780 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 [marker.png]

RSVP on Meetup
__________________________________________________________________

What's happening?

IFRAME:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=3D780+3rd+Ave,+New+York,+NY+10003&ie=3D=
UTF8&h
q=3D&hnear=3D780+3rd+Ave,+New+York,+10017&t=3Dm&vpsrc=3D6&ll=3D40.754=
994,-73.9717
2&spn=3D0.007802,0.082312&z=3D18&output=3Dembed

The future of the NY tech community is in jeopardy. The Internet and
information technologies have created a renaissance in startup
innovation in New York that now rivals Silicon Valley as a hub for
economic growth. Tens of thousands of New Yorkers have been inspired =
to
become entrepreneurs creating thousands and thousands of new jobs and
offering professionals in many of New York's traditional industries t=
he
opportunity to start new careers participating in the 21st century
global economy.

However, Congress is in the process of rushing through legislation
which will not only severely damage the Internet as a marketplace and
platform for entrepreneurship and open innovation, but will also
seriously impact the ability of our New York tech community to contin=
ue
to generate jobs, grow and flourish. Within the next two weeks, the U=
S
Senate is planning to bring the Protect Intellectual Property Act
(PIPA) S.968 to the floor for a series of votes to ensure its passage=
=2E

This legislation would give the government and corporations the abili=
ty
to censor the net in the name of protecting creativity simply by
convincing a judge that a site is "dedicated" to copyright
infringement. PIPA would give the government and corporations the
ability to shut down any site connected to an accused copyright
infringer. Its companion legislation in the House, the Stop Online
Piracy Act (SOPA), H.R. 3261, contains many similar problems, as well
as threatening ordinary users with jail for streaming any copyrighted
work - even just video of themselves singing a pop song.

More importantly, the legislation amounts to a wholesale re-engineeri=
ng
of the open web in a way that would allow the US government to
prosecute Internet users without due process, which in turn would
discourage innovation, limit investment, and hurt the our economic
future. You can read and hear more about this dangerous and hurtful
legislation here: FightForTheFuture.org/pipa or AmericanCensorship.or=
g.

As much as we agree that infringing on copyrighted material should be
eliminated from the web as much as possible, the cure that is being
proposed and championed by the lobbying power of major copyright
holding organizations like the Recording Industry Association of
America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
will create a cure that is much worse than the disease and irrevocabl=
y
damage the very nature of the internet and by extension, the future o=
f
New York.

We believe it is imperative that we stop this bill from passage!

Signed: Andrew Rasiej, Chairman -- @rasiej
Scott Heiferman, Founder -- @heif
Nate Westheimer, Executive Director -- @innonate
Jessica Lawrence, Managing Director -- @jessicalawrence
And the entire NY Tech Meetup Board -- @nytm

Join Us

When =BB Wednesday January 18, 2012

Time =BB 12:30 - 2:00 PM

Where =BB 780 Third Ave (at 49th street) -- outside the offices of Ne=
w
York Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand.

What to Bring =BB Your bodies and your minds, your co-workers, your
friends, your family, and your social networks.

Who Will Be There =BB Everyone who cares about the New York Tech Indu=
stry
and the future of the web. Special guest speakers to be announced.

How To Sign Up =BB Please RSVP here to show your support.

Tweet This =BB I'll be at the Emergency NY Tech Meetup on January 18 =
to
stop SOPA and PIPA. Join us: http://nytm.org/sos

Hashtag =BB #nytmSOS

Contact Us

Please direct all inquiries to orga...@nytm.org.

RSVP on Meetup
RSVP

Share With Twitter

Crafted by Hacker Union

[JohnF]

In comp.os.linux.misc secr...@lxny.org wrote:
> [snip]

> As much as we agree that infringing on copyrighted material should be
> eliminated from the web as much as possible, the cure that is being
> proposed and championed by the lobbying power of major copyright
> holding organizations like the Recording Industry Association of
> America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)

> will create a cure that is much worse than the disease and irrevocably
> damage the very nature of the internet and by extension, the future of

> New York.
> We believe it is imperative that we stop this bill from passage!

So, rather than simply stopping the bill as currently written,
if you "agree that infringing on copyrighted material should be
eliminated from the web" (your words above), has anybody drafted any
alternative legislation that would accomplish the agreed-upon goal
without "irrevocably damaging the very nature of the internet"
(your words again)?
That is, rather than just ranting about it as written,
propose an acceptably written alternative. How do you suggest
"eliminating infringement of copyrighted material on the web"?
Why don't you come up with a positive solution here?
P.S. This post is Copyright (c) 2012, John Forkosh Associates, Inc.
(just kidding:)
--
John Forkosh ( mailto: j...@f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )

[The Natural Philosopher]

Belling of cats ...

What we don't want is the elimination of copyrighted material from the
net, what we want is some kind of way for people to pay - even just a a
little - for reading or using it.

This is of course a mammoth proposition with enormous implications and
one that - apart from having some sort of digital watermark (and how
easy to remove that!) in packets that get counted by ISP's and added to
bills to consumers - I have no idea how might be achieved.

This problem is not just about the internet: Its about any material
which takes many man hours to prepare to quality standard, and then may
be copied and distributed in seconds.

It has in the end no intrinsic collectable value, not can anyone
actually make a livelihood from it.

I don't have an answer, but at least we should be addressing the right
question.

[ec429]

On 17/01/12 14:29, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> This problem is not just about the internet: Its about any material
> which takes many man hours to prepare to quality standard, and then may
> be copied and distributed in seconds.
>
> It has in the end no intrinsic collectable value, not can anyone
> actually make a livelihood from it.

IMO the problem is with people who expect to make money by selling such
material; for such a business model to be sustainable in the vast
majority of cases requires huge and illiberal externalities to be
imposed (such as so-called "IP" law).
People who think they should be able to make money by selling trivially
duplicable material (more than once; if you only want to sell the first
copy it's fine) are /wrong/ and any concession to them impoverishes
everyone.
A market that can effectively and efficiently distinguish between use
value and sale value outperforms one that can't.
-ə
--
'sane', adj.: see 'unimaginative'
on the web - http://jttlov.no-ip.org

[Jay Sulzberger]

John, there are already laws on the books with various criminal
penalties for various forms of copyright infringement. Civil
cases can also be brought under our present system. And some
time ago special laws, aimed at forms of copyright infringement
made more convenient by the Net, have been passed. The most
famous of these newer laws is the The Digital Millennium
Copyright Act, often called "DMCA":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMCA
[page was last modified on 16 January 2012 at 09:16]

The DMCA has made it a criminal offense to take root from Apple
on iPhones and iPads. The DMCA should be repealed, so that we
keep our right to own a computer. The DMCA, and the two proposed
laws, SOPA and PIPA, are part of an ongoing, and so far, partly
successful campaign to outlaw private ownership of computers, and
to take from us our great and free Net.

There is no "problem of copyright violation" worthy of the name,
when compared to the instant threat to our ancient rights of
property and free assembly. We have a right to keep and own a
computer, and we have a right to use the Net, the Net we built,
for private, tribal, business, and public communications and
assembly.

I run mainly the Debian distribution of GNU/Linux. Most GNU
software, and the Linux kernel also, is licensed under the
General Public License. Sometimes authors of free software bring
copyright infringemnet actions against people and organizations
which infringe the copyright on software provided under the GPL.
We have old traditional statute and case law sufficient to the
violations.

oo--JS.

[The Natural Philosopher]

ec429 wrote:

> People who think they should be able to make money by selling trivially
> duplicable material (more than once; if you only want to sell the first
> copy it's fine) are /wrong/ and any concession to them impoverishes
> everyone.

Right, so I book a studio and lay down the album of a lifetime, and you
are going to pay me a million bucks for the master tape and then put the
CD online for free?


I am not sure what planet you are on, but I wont and you wont.

I'll find something else to sell.

And you will keep ripping off anything free you can get under the
impression that those who created it aren't worth a living wage.

[ec429]

On 17/01/12 21:02, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> Right, so I book a studio and lay down the album of a lifetime, and you
> are going to pay me a million bucks for the master tape and then put the
> CD online for free?

I don't know at what point I said this; no matter how many times I
re-read my post, it still doesn't say that.
Perhaps you mistook my caveat for a proposition. I wasn't suggesting
that only wanting to sell one copy was necessarily sensible (although
there are in fact copyright-free hierarchical distribution models in
which the original creator sells a small number of copies at a high
price; while the number of people with a copy is low, the lowest price
any of them charges will stay high, because most people cooperate on the
Prisoner's Dilemma). I was merely noting that in the pathological case
where you only wish to sell one copy, its subsequent duplicability
doesn't pose a direct problem, thereby creating an exception to the
general rule I was outlining.

> I am not sure what planet you are on, but I wont and you wont.

You are wont to cant. (Phrased another way: remember your damn
apostrophes!)

> I'll find something else to sell.

Right - something that a free market will actually pay you for.

> And you will keep ripping off anything free you can get under the
> impression that those who created it aren't worth a living wage.

The world doesn't owe you a living: you either do something a free
market will pay you to do, or you go hungry. There shouldn't be any
other options here.

[JohnF]

Hi, Jay, nice speaking with you again (last time was mid-1990's
at some linux meeting in the Washington Square area, probably at
NYU but I don't exactly recall). Anyway, perhaps, as I believe
maybe you're suggesting, the solution is better enforcement of
existing laws already on the books. But your original post
doesn't make that clear (at least didn't make it clear to me).
And, not being familiar enough with the situation to read between
your lines, they read somewhat like a rant. Many people may be
equally unfamiliar, and read it the same way, especially since
rants are, unfortunately, the lingua franca of usenet (and of
the net in general). Moreover, your vocabulary is sometimes
a bit flowery, e.g., "tribal" and "Manhattanoes" above, that's
often a hallmark of typical ranters.

Moreover, your remark

> There is no "problem of copyright violation"
> worthy of the name, when compared to the instant threat
> to our ancient rights of property and free assembly.

is just wrong, at least to the extent that there's
definitely a large copyright violation problem that
needs to be addressed. Your "compared to our rights"
part is, of course, way harder to make any judgement
call about. But I hope you're not trying to deny
that a large problem indeed exists.

In fact, here's a personal anecdote illustrating it...
A book I ordered from alibris last July was delivered through
their partner/subsidiary/I-don't-know-what called Shams, but was
the wrong volume of a two-volume set. After obtaining a return
authorization as instructed, they pretty quickly and without
any bickering refunded the full $171.50.
But then, while searching the net for an alternate source,
I serendipitously stumbled across an absolutely pristine pdf of
the right book online -- the entire book cover to cover -- and
somewhat reluctantly took the easy way out, saving me
the $171.50 that I'd obviously been willing to spend.
I'm pretty sure that's not what the publisher had in mind.

[notSOPA-PIPA]

On 2012-01-17, The Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

>> People who think they should be able to make money by selling trivially
>> duplicable material (more than once; if you only want to sell the first
>> copy it's fine) are /wrong/ and any concession to them impoverishes
>> everyone.
>
> Right, so I book a studio and lay down the album of a lifetime, and you
> are going to pay me a million bucks for the master tape and then put the
> CD online for free?
>
>
> I am not sure what planet you are on, but I wont and you wont.

Like many ppl who argue on the web, you take an outlandish example to
some absurd extreme to make your pont. Who said you gotta put on the
web for free?

A more practical example is, LouisCK the comedian, who spent $250K to
make a 1 hr show of himself and sold it directly from his website for
$5 per copy and netted over one million dollars within a couple
months. That scares the crap outta the industry heavyweights, and
well it should.

Times change and so do business models. Censorship should not be a
business model.

notSOPA-PIPA

--
Fight internet CENSORSHIP - Fight SOPA-PIPA
Tell your congressman and representative, now!