Regardless of the spin of the article, it's important to note that the big entertainment companies are pushing for harsher punishments for internet companies to prevent the distribution of "unlawful" content.<p>I think this is interesting because while they sound like they are attacking Facebook, they are likely looking to go after their old enemies: YouTube and any video on the public internet.
The copyright cartel will take any chance it gets to fundamentally reduce freedom. For every copyright extension and extra control it demands, it further violates the social contract. Their control over my speech is seemingly unlimited in duration and continues to expand its reach. I have no doubts their true motivation is "(3) prevent the distribution of unlawful and harmful content through their channels.". The cartel's only goal is the consolidation of your freedoms into an indefinite monopoly on their junk.<p>Long has this "IP" group sought to violate the social contract. When their control exceeds the social contract, then they no longer promote progress in the science and the arts. At which case I no longer respect their not-so-limited-time exclusive right to their writings and discoveries. May bittorrent, youtube, and the like continue to be the eye for an eye for their flagrant disregard of it.
A strategic hole in America's privacy advocacy front, obvious with the benefit of hindsight, is the degree to which we count on lobbying by technology companies. They have the users and they have the lobbying dollars, the thinking went, so why not leverage it? It made sense. But it afflicted on us a Dutch disease [1]. Every problem was more easily solved by pressuring Google than by organizing a community. The more we did it, the easier it became.<p>This was fine, while they were on our side and influential. But counting on a small collection of correlated elites is not a robust strategy. We need to turn privacy into a grassroots cause.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease</a>
I think something to note in parallel to this article is that today $FB is up 10%, and over the past month as almost completely recouped it's recent "privacy-related" drop. From a year ago Facebook indicated it was still gaining new users (+13% DAU), increased headcount by +50% and has over 2 BILLION monthly users worldwide...<p>So they will "Kick Facebook While Down"? Any company in the world would enjoy being "down" like Facebook is.
This is simply another case of a group pushing for their evil to be classified as good and the good to be classified as evil. Their support of increasing penalties for what they claim is "theft" when they are supporters of actual theft is quite funny is a sad, sad way.<p>This is a case of them wanting their "rights" with no intention of ever carrying out their responsibilities.<p>I actively teach the young people that I have relationship with (including my children, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, etc) that you have one right only, the rest is privilege and responsibility. That one right is to choose your course of action and there are consequences (good and bad) with every choice you make, but that is your right. Everything else that is called a right is a privilege and it comes with attendant responsibilities.<p>These kinds of groups make choices but have no desire to face the consequences of their action, they want to place on others those consequences.
Meanwhile they cut deals that ensure very good shows, like "The Expanse", get pirated to hell because people won't wait for stupid regional delays.<p>Hell, I'll pirate a show to avoid waiting until the next day to watch it on Amazon. I still buy it, but why the hell should I have to wait.<p>I'm not even super anti-DRM. It's dumb, but if I can watch the show I just don't care. Just let me pay you money to watch content.<p>Easiest thing in the world and they fuck it up <i></i>constantly<i></i>.
This article reads like it's written by an outraged 14-year old. It's point may be true, but I'm just not going to believe s/o who calls people's reservations about the Facebook business model an "exaggerated moral panic".
Copyright is one of those issues where I haven’t found a conclusive answer yet. The for argument is that the content makers need be paid. The against argument is that this hinders knowledge sharing and acts as a threat to humans’ collaboration and there should be a limit to how much profit the content makers can make. Which one is wrong? And how do you find a middle ground? Piracy and torrents immediately start coming to my mind.
Good. I've changed my mind. Let them fight it out, The Valley has long since abandoned the moral high-ground over Hollywood's attempts to control the internet. If Hollywood can kick them around a bit: great, they deserve it.<p>Facebook created a consolidation of control, so that they could use their newfound power to exercise their will over other people. They put a target on their own back, and on the backs of every last person running online systems in general.<p>That's the cost of creating control levers. You alone don't get to set them because nobody is ever - or has ever been - at the top of every power hierarchy simultaneously.<p>The problem was never that Hollywood wanted to <i>use the government</i> to tell me what I could and couldn't do. The problem was that they wanted to <i>tell me what I could and coudn't do</i>.