A clusterfuck of 12 Dems and 7 RINOs proposed a bill that would have imposed heavy censorship on the internet. There was all kinds of hell raised about it, and at least one Senator stepped up to the plate to bring it to a halt.
The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA) would have permitted a blanket takedown of any domain alleged to be assisting activities that violate copyright law, based upon the judgment of state attorneys general.
To his credit, it was a democratic senator, Ron Wyden (OR) who blocked the passage of this ominous shit.
Oregon Senator Ron Wyden could very well go down in the history books as the man who saved the Internet.
A bill that critics say would have given the government power to censor the Internet will not pass this year thanks to the Oregon Democrat, who announced his opposition during a recent committee hearing.
Patrick Leahy, who is one of the biggest assholes in Senate, thinks it’s just a matter of “intellectual property”:
“Few things are more important to the future of the American economy and job creation than protecting our intellectual property,” said Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont who co-sponsored the bill.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/11/oregon-senator-vows-block-internet-censorship-bill/”
Here’s the REAL reason this shit was proposed in the first place:
COICA is the latest effort by Hollywood, the recording industry and the big media companies to stem the tidal wave of internet file sharing that has upended those industries and, they claim, cost them tens of billions of dollars over the last decade.
The content companies have tried suing college students. They’ve tried suing internet startups. Now they want the federal government to act as their private security agents, policing the internet for suspected pirates before making them walk the digital plank.
Many people opposed to the bill agree in principle with its aims: Illegal music piracy is, well, illegal, and should be stopped. Musicians, artists and content creators should be compensated for their work. But the law’s critics do not believe that giving the federal government the right to shut down websites at will based upon a vague and arbitrary standard of evidence, even if no law-breaking has been proved, is a particularly good idea.
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/11/coica-web-censorship-bill/all/1
Speaking of compensation, the recording industry (RIAA) are the same greedy, nasty mutherfuckers who screwed their own contracted entertainers out of royalties for years, and in 2007, claimed that it had the rights to ALL royalties:
The RIAA’s (Recording Industry Association of America) affiliate organization SoundExchange claims it has the right to collect royalties for any artist, no matter if they have signed with an RIAA label or not. ‘SoundExchange (the RIAA) considers any digital performance of a song as falling under their compulsory license. If any artist records a song, SoundExchange has the right to collect royalties for its performance on Internet radio.
http://slashdot.org/articles/07/04/29/0335224.shtml
They also wanted royalties for used CDs.
http://www.boycott-riaa.com/article/4942
And they wanted to track songs on the internet:
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on Thursday announced a project to develop a worldwide standardized system for identifying digital music files so that the owner of the recording’s copyright can easily track its use and collect royalties.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/31742/riaa_wants_to_track_music_files.html
The RIAA wanted public radio to pay royalties:
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=7427
The morons even tried to sue dead people, children, and people that didn’t even own computers:
http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2006/04/6662-2/
In short, the RIAA wants control of every single song, musician, and private citizen’s access to music.
The RIAA is a mafia. The statutes under the RICO Act fit them perfectly.
Here’s a list of the assclowns who sponsored the bill:
Patrick J. Leahy (D) Vermont
Herb Kohl (D) Wisconsin
Jeff Sessions (R) Alabama
Dianne Feinstein (D) California
Orrin G. Hatch (R) Utah
Russ Feingold (D) Wisconsin
Chuck Grassley (R) Iowa
Arlen Specter (D) Pennsylvania
Jon Kyl (R) Arizona
Chuck Schumer (D) New York
Lindsey Graham (R) South Carolina
Dick Durbin (D) Illiniois
John Cornyn (R) Texas
Benjamin L. Cardin (D) Maryland
Tom Coburn (R) Oklahoma
Sheldon Whitehouse (D) Rhode Island
Amy Klobuchar (D) Minnesota
Al Franken (D) Minnesota
Chris Coons (D) Delaware
It’s not just music in question, this would apply to anything deemed “copyright property” by a Hollywood corporation, a news outlet, or news/opinion internet sites, using the government as its jack-booted enforcer.
As Lonely Conservative points out:
Just suppose I were to link to and quote a Media Matters article, poke fun at them, disagree with them, or whatever. Suppose the people at Media Matters were to tell Eric Holder or some lower level DOJ official to shut down my website for “content theft.” They could do it, and I wouldn’t have any way to get the word out to even let you know what happened. I couldn’t set up a “Save the Lonely Conservative” tip jar because I’d have nowhere to put it. Large outlets would have the resources to fight something like this, small ones such as this site wouldn’t.
http://lonelyconservative.com/2010/11/coica-net-censorship-bill-is-what-we-hate-about-bipartisanship/
The Associated Press has bullied those who dared to show AP’s own doctored photos as proof of AP’s bias.
http://sfcmac.wordpress.com/2008/03/04/associated-press-thugs-threaten-blogger/
CNN squelched fair use because of its embarrassment over Susan Roesgen’s erratic behavior:
http://sfcmac.wordpress.com/2009/04/20/cnn-latest-media-thug-to-use-copyright-as-censorship/
The powers that be, both government and corporate, don’t like scrutiny or anything that threatens their monopoly on influence and control. A law like COICA would open up a Pandora’s Box of litigation and oppression of freedom of speech. The American public will not allow it.
Related articles:
- “RIAA Totally Out Of Touch: Lashes Out At Google, Wikipedia And Everyone Who Protested SOPA/PIPA”.
- “RIAA still raging against Google, Wikipedia for “misuse of power” in SOPA battle”.
- http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9215074/RIAA_request_for_trillions_in_LimeWire_copyright_case_is_absurd_judge_says