Eagles singer Don Henley: EFF, Google "aid and abet" criminals

[Brett_Tabke]

[arstechnica.com...]

A fairly powerfully worded statement by Henley. It is too bad the current legislation has stalled and this type of language acceptable by both sides.

I am most troubled by the EFF's response:

As a result, it poses a threat to online innovation, free speech, and creative efforts that our intellectual property system is supposed to promote... Apparently Mr. Henley does not object to compromising the Internet in the name of intellectual property rights enforcement. We do, and we think your readers should, too.

It is not the charge of a govt or any law to "protect online innovation". it is the charge of the govt to protect property. That property extends to intellectual property in the form of published works.

Henley Says:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-08-21-counterfeit-copyright-protect-ip-act_n.htm

Search engines, including Google, already make filtering tools that block references and links to websites featuring #*$!ographic and other content considered unsuitable or offensive. The technology is there, but the will of some companies is not. It seems that their real agenda is to avoid the loss of advertising, "pay per click" and other revenue if these sites were shut down. After all, Google is reportedly bracing for a $500 million fine for doing just that ?— accepting untold advertising dollars from illegal online pharmacies.

I am not fond of him dragging Google into the debate, because this issue isn't entirely about Google. Focusing on Google, only waters down and distracts from the issues involved.

Either way, it is a very important issue that is in front of us. One that I think is over due for a look. The protection of IP property (such as Webmaster generated content), is important. The scary part to me, is that was have ZERO voice being heard on this issue. Maybe it is time to rectify that?

[lucy24]

US Constitution, Article I, Section 8:

[1]The Congress shall have Power ....
{snip, snip}
[8] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

Not everything written in 1787 holds up today*, but I'm sticking with this version. Patents and Copyrights are not rights granted to the artist or inventor**; they are a means of ensuring the common good.


* The word "Discoveries" is especially unlucky, since its meaning changed about five minutes later ;)
** Let alone to their descendants, decades after the creator's death. Oops, different forum.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Free speech? They must be joking! The people who defend this are almost always those who have a vested interest in making large profits from this "freedom".

.

[jecasc]

I can relate to the part of the legislation that allows court orders against payment providers. But meddling with DNS entries? What's that going to solve? It takes about 20 seconds to switch to an alternative uncensored DNS server. The US does not have control over worldwide DNS servers. And you do not need a domain name to connect to a server on the internet in the first place.

The US government has tried to meddle with DNS entries in the past, with the result that not only the offending website but thousands of other websites too were not available. It will only be a matter of time until all wordpress blogs go down because Aunt Sally illustrated here recipe for raspberry muffins with a picture from Getty Images.

[greenleaves]

Few things are as disgusting a millionaire singers, who have enjoyed all the best things in life, to then want civil liberties to be cut to ensure they make 1 million per year instead of only 900,000.

I'm not in favor of stealing. And neither am I in favor of rape. But I'd rather keep a government camera out of my bedroom, even if that increases the chances of me getting raped at night. I know, I know, I have these crazy ideas on freedom. Where could I have gotten them from?

@ lucy24,
Unfortunately you waste your breath. People are too greedy to let little things like freedom get in the way of their profits.

[graeme_p]

WW world has as sympathetic an audience pretty sympathetic to defending copyright, and he is still not getting much agreement here. I find that encouraging.