>"But he won't [having a public discussion], because Dodd is a coward and a DC-insider who only knows how to cut deals, not how to actually respond to the public's best interests."
SOPA was a malignant offshoot of a dying industry, but that doesn't justify being irrational.
Chris Dodd is no longer a Senator, he's now the chairman of an industry trade group - he isn't responsible for the "public interest" any more. Cutting deals in public would dilute the MPAA's negotiating leverage. He isn't being private because he's a coward but because he's not a clueless negotiator.
It's the Lamar Smiths who are the clear and present danger. The sitting representatives and senators supporting this crap are the ones violating their responsibility to the public interest, they're the ones warping the chess board. Dodd? He's another player.
1. Hollywood is dwarfed by Big Internet companies. Big Internet is more important to the economy of both the U.S. and the world than Hollywood is.
2. The MPAA declared war on Big Internet with SOPA.
What's really going on is that, thanks to that SOPA wake-up call, companies like Google and Comcast now have lobbyists on the ground in Washington greasing palms and promising campaign contributions, and they can offer a lot more cash than the MPAA can. The MPAA has grown accustomed to being able to buy politicians but now they're being outbid.
The MPAA represents the interests of companies that are owned by media conglomerates that control the mainstream news media. They strongly influence who wins elections. Don't underestimate their power.
The influence of the mainstream media is waning. All they do is gather information into a centralized location, editorialize, and distribute the information. How much longer will people listen to them instead of their friends on Twitter?
Long enough to to let the Internet get fucked over.
And I'm sorry, but outside tech people I know almost nobody who really uses Twitter. I know a ton of people who have Twitter accounts and almost none of them ever use it.
The influence of mainstream media is not waning. The influence of proper journalism is waning though, and that's pretty scary.
Maybe. But Wikipedia going blank for a day had a fair bit to do with SOPA's demise. And I suspect Google and Facebook get more pageviews in a day than all news sites put together.
Unless I'm totally confused I would think comcast would be on the side of SOPA type legislation. I mean there interest aligns more with content companies than with Tech companies.
"Hollywood vs. Big Internet" is a false and simplistic dichotomy, and perpetuation of it does us no favors. The reality of the situation is far more complex.
Some of the primary sponsors of SOPA were big ISPs, like Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, etc. These companies -- especially Comcast, which owns NBC-Universal -- have vested interests in maintaining and growing their control over the internet.
The movie industry represents a significant, but non-majority piece of the puzzle here. I'm not going so far as to call it a red herring, but I would say that a laserlike focus on the MPAA, and the MPAA alone, is dangerously incomplete.
Case in point: you rally to the side of Comcast, not realizing that it's a SOPA/PIPA supporter. Similarly, I've read quite a few blog posts calling on movie buyers to switch their time and dollars to the video game industry (whose lobby, the ESA, is also a SOPA/PIPA supporter, and is standing united with the RIAA and MPAA).
It's time to draw a more holistic and accurate picture of the battle lines here. There's blood on plenty more hands than we're giving credit for. And continued ignorance of the bigger picture would have us withdrawing support from one SOPA-supporting industry, simply in favor of another.
Of course he says this, he's trying to peacock some power. I'm guessing the "negotiations" aren't going so well if he's broadcasting this, but one of the side-benefits to him and his talking like this would be to discourage activism. Once again, the AAs act undemocratically.
Big Internet is going to have to spend a lot more money if they want to win the war. Big Media & friends are outspending Big Internet when it comes to lobbying. According to Opensecrets[1]: Computers/Internet spent $125.6M in 2011.
OTOH, TV/Movies/Music spent $123.2M and Telecom spent $58.9M. But that’s not all of their allies. If you look at the SOPA supporters list[2], many of them produce brand name goods, like Tiffany. They're worried about counterfeiters. Let’s call this potential group of supporters, Misc Business. In 2011, they spent $491.2M.[3]
It boils down to incentives. For them, there’s limited downside to supporting SOPA-like legislation, and a lot of upside in deterring pirates.
For clarification: Their goal is actually to just decrease his victory to 70% of the votes. He's basically been unchallenged for decades and has had over 80% of the vote forever. By damaging his success by even 10%, you get to the real reason for doing this...
Not because it will solve all the world's problems, but as a demonstration of power. Showing that the movements can be organized by the internet, and they can have real world effects.
I think that in the end, "we" cannot win this one. This is happening in the US, and the EU is up to the same game. We all know that when business and governments want some thing, they get it. People will be harassed and jailed so that failing businesses can be kept on life support so that they may influence "democracy" on behalf of politicians. Yes, its corrupt and vile, but its is also inevitable.
But most businesses don't want SOPA. It's one tiny minority of businesses that control most of the media that wanted SOPA. So while it may sound like business and government want SOPA, it's simply not true; the media companies are merely telling everyone it's true.
(That's why they got so mad when the Internet companies, which have a lot of reach, fought SOPA. It resulted in an epic loss for them. And it will continue to do so, because the government isn't in the business of protecting tiny industries at the expense of much bigger ones.)
In politics all organizations strive to portray themselves as the natural winners. The easiest way to defeat someone is to persuade them that they cannot win, that they should cut their losses.
> I think that in the end, "we" cannot win this one. This is happening in the US, and the EU is up to the same game. We all know that when business and governments want some thing, they get it.
This may be true in countries like the USA and UK, which use the FPTP voting system and therefore have two big parties and therefore very little choice.
But most of Europe uses various systems of PR, which is a friendlier environment for new political movements to rise up and beat the MAFIAA. Which is exactly what the Pirate Party is doing.
It is a good thing to have tech companies talking to content companies out of the glare of the press. They'll be more likely to understand each other and find common ground.
Tech and content are not enemies or even competitors, they are inextricably linked pieces of the economy who must work together. That's why they fight so much; it's like brothers sharing a small room.
SOPA was a malignant offshoot of a dying industry, but that doesn't justify being irrational.
Chris Dodd is no longer a Senator, he's now the chairman of an industry trade group - he isn't responsible for the "public interest" any more. Cutting deals in public would dilute the MPAA's negotiating leverage. He isn't being private because he's a coward but because he's not a clueless negotiator.
It's the Lamar Smiths who are the clear and present danger. The sitting representatives and senators supporting this crap are the ones violating their responsibility to the public interest, they're the ones warping the chess board. Dodd? He's another player.