Disastrous IP Legislation Is Back – And It’s Worse than Ever | Hacker News Reader

Disastrous IP Legislation Is Back – And It’s Worse than Ever

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237 pointsthere20 comments

One thing I don't understand: why is the (relatively small) entertainment industry still so much more effective at lobbying than the (relatively large) tech industry? Google, Facebook, ISPs and others would seem to have a strong incentive to not want excessive regulation of their industry. So why aren't they stepping up to the plate and countering the entertainment business' lobbying efforts with serious bucks?

Google has been stepping up. (Google it.) Facebook has been hiring a lot of "Washington insiders" for awhile now. Etc.

While pg talks about HN as a community of (historically) "apolitical nerds" as a positive thing[1], but being apolitical will catch up with you eventually if you have anything worth losing. If members of congress don't have programmers in their mind as future frothing voters, or people who would ever support them, that's probably a bad thing.

[1]I do agree a lot of the political 'discussions' on HN aren't worth having here, and create a lot of noise, but I know way too many apolitical tech savvy individuals. At least make it known to whoever is in office that they do not want you against them, and be willing to pick a side.

French Proverb: "Those who do not do politics will be done in by politics."

The 'relatively small' entertainment industry is part of the hugely influential media business, upon which our 'representatives' are especially dependent.

I'm sorry, where does relatively small come in here? We are talking about companies like Fox (I'm sorry, what was the parent company?) and the entire music/film industry. Google/Facebook pale in comparison.

The dying industries are the middle-men. They are fighting back.

Based on market cap Google is about four times the size of News Corp.

The video game industry is twice the size of the film industry. Music is around 13 billion a year (record sales) and falling fast.

Sadly, the entertainment industry is much larger and has a lot more money than the tech industry. And yes, Google, Facebook and other large companies are stepping up - they're the reason most people are even aware of the issues...

Really? Do you have numbers to support this?

Depends on how you look at it.

The traditional entertainment industry (movies, tv, and music) is very small. But put 'broadcasting', which is part of the 'information' industry, and it is comparable to the tech industry. Add in the fact that media companies are vital to politicians, and the result is an industry that punches orders of magnitude above its weight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States#Se... http://www.bea.gov/scb/pdf/2008/05%20May/0508_indy_acct.pdf

Various other posters question the assertion that the entertainment industry is small:

Computers and Electronics: 1.1M people employed http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag334.htm

Motion Pictures and Music: 365k people employed http://www.bls.gov/iag/tgs/iag512.htm

Computer and tech sector workers get paid more on average per hour as well. That said, the entertainment industry is probably a bigger exporter relative to its size (how many foreign movies do we watch?) and is also REALLY good at creative accounting. Maybe it's actually making a lot more money than the figures say.

I think you can lump a whole pile of extra industry sectors in with entertainment and still not get close to the tech sector.

So it's definitely a case of disproportionate lobbying.

If you oppose PROTECT-IP, consider signing this letter against it: https://www.votizen.com/m/gvoa12/

(Disclosure: I work for Votizen.)

If you sign the letter as a verified voter, the letter and your signature will be delivered to your representatives.

In Australia, the signing the petition actually gets it heard in parliament if there's enough signatures.[0][1]

Is there a similar venture for your company?

[0] House of Representatives: http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/petitions/petitions.ht...

[1] Senate: http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/work/petitions/index.htm

In general in the US, if a petition gets enough signatures, then a representative takes it up as a topic. But there is no guarantee that a petition will have its hearing.

Are you saying that in AU there is a guarantee? How many signatures are required?

In switzerland, once a referendum request gathers enough signatures (500k for nationwide), the government is required to conduct a public referendum.

It's 50k, not 500k (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendum#Switzerland)

Consider supporting the EFF, as well, if you haven't already:

https://www.eff.org/helpout

In addition to direct support, there are several other things you can do. If you're going to buy from Amazon, you can use their affiliate link. Or if you're going to buy a book from No Starch Press, they have a coupon code to use: ISUPPORTEFF (side note: they also read HN).

When do we start calling it the "Great Firewall of the US of A." ?

Just a joke with some attitude. I love how moral gets dictated by those with money in the US. Not that that isn't the case in most of the world. I just love how terrible a job they do of hiding it in the US.

Interesting; it has anti-circumvention provisions. These provisions would appear (to my not-legally-trained reading; this is not legal advice) to apply to software such as BIND. After all, anyone can run their own instance of BIND, and thereby "resolve to that domain name’s Internet protocol address notwithstanding the measures taken by a service provider under paragraph (2) to prevent such reso lution".

This seems like a bad consequence, what with BIND and its equivalents being absolutely vital pieces of Internet infrastructure software.

My immediate reaction to this (actually the Ars article http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/10/house-takes-...) is that it's a sterling attempt to create a problem for Bitcoin to solve.

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