
Two things about SOPA/PIPA and then I'll shut up - johnthedebs
https://plus.google.com/u/0/117114202722218150209/posts/4GgaRiSyaTf
======
VMG
I forgot that political parties had to pay for TV time in the US and how this
influences elections. In Germany, we actually have (nearly?) the system Joel
describes with equal time for everybody which has some interesting
consequences:

* I don't think campaign financing is that big of a deal in Germany

* There are a lot of TV ads from politically extreme or plain weird parties during election time. There also is a satirical party that makes pretty funny ads.

* The politically extreme parties can refund their advertising costs if they are above a certain threshold of votes, which causes some controversy

Edit for clarity: of course every party can refund their expenses, but for
politically extreme parties this is controversial

~~~
nostromo
In the US giving equal time to all would likely be considered unconstitutional
because you're limiting freedom of speech.
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Elec...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission))

What I like about Joel's approach is that it doesn't limit speech, but instead
expands it online. I have no idea if Google (et al) would go for such a thing,
essentially giving away ad time for free / cheap, but it's a great idea.
YouTube has already sponsored debates where candidates take questions from the
public ([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN-
YouTube_presidential_debate...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CNN-
YouTube_presidential_debates)) so it's not unthinkable.

~~~
rmc
Sounds like ye need to change your free speech laws. After all, you can't
shout fire in a crowded theatre because it would harm the public good.
Likewise, surely only giving one political party airtime harms the public, in
the long run.

~~~
nokcha
> After all, you can't shout fire in a crowded theatre because it would harm
> the public good.

That's not true; there's no general "harming the public good" exception to the
First Amendment. There __are __exceptions for lying (i.e., making false
statements with knowledge that they are false (or with reckless disgard of
whether they are false) and intent to deceive), and that's the actual reason
why it is unprotected to __falsely __shout "fire" in a crowded theater.

------
amirmc
> _"And ponies. We want ponies. We don't have to get all this stuff. We merely
> have to tie them up fighting it, and re-center the 'compromise' position"_

I bet the MPAA et al have used this tactic to their own advantage thus far.
I'm aware of this concept from negotiation tactics and it's made me think of
the current situation in a completely different way. Thanks Joel.

~~~
saryant
Yes, it's known as the Overton Window
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window>) and has certainly been a
primary tactic of the entertainment industry for the last several years in
their war against the internet.

It's high time we began using it ourselves.

~~~
jeffool
Agreed! ... Anyone have suggestions on what idealistic things to ask for?

~~~
Hemospectrum
Total abolition of the copyright and patent systems. That's a start.

~~~
saryant
Come now, that's not good for _anyone_. The GPL/BSD/Apache licenses are all
fairly useless if they aren't backed up by copyright law.

~~~
pjscott
I don't see a whole lot of difference between the BSD and Apache licenses and
just putting software in the public domain. And maybe also tacking on a SHOUTY
ALL-UPPERCASE DISCLAIMER OF LIABILITY so you don't get sued for not having a
shouty all-uppercase disclaimer of liability.

The GPL does have some extra requirements, in the form of source code sharing
requirements for derivative works, but judging by how many people use more
permissive open-source licenses, the difference here seems to be pretty slight
in practice.

------
toyg
The problem is not just campaign contributions; it's also the "revolving
doors" system, of which Mr. Christopher Dodds is such a shining example.
That's extremely difficult to regulate, so the best option is to find some
place where ex-political operatives can be "re-purposed" for the tech
community.

I'd also be careful not to stir the hornets' nest that is the patents system.
Depending on how you do it, you end up on the opposite side of companies like
Apple and Microsoft, which you need on board for any push on copyright (easing
copyright rules would make it easier for them to keep building tools for
creatives; easing the patent system will just make life easier for their
competitors). Patents, copyright and trademarks are not as closely intertwined
as some people believe, they are actually very different concepts.

~~~
nostromo
A friend of mine had a genius idea. We pay everyone in congress like $1mm a
year for the rest of their life, but we don't allow them to ever work for
money again.

If they want to work, fine, but it's free. I bet they'd spend less time
lobbying and more time working on noble pursuits.

~~~
kijin
That's what generous salaries for elected officials was supposed to accomplish
in the first place.

In reality, why would a would-be corrupt politician forgo multiple tens of
millions in exchange for only 1 million?

~~~
timdev2
I think that's kind of the point, isn't it? Make elected office unattractive
to those motivated by the thought of megabux.

Of course, such lavish pensions would still create gravity for the self-
serving types who just don't think as big.

~~~
nextparadigms
I would normally agree with that. Make it even $5 million per year if needed
be. But I have one worry - that they become too disconnected with regular
people. Then again, there aren't too many politicians these days who aren't
already rich, so maybe that won't change too much.

------
chernevik
Here is an old Fog Creek software management reading list:

[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogCreekMBACurriculum...](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogCreekMBACurriculum.html)

And, an old Joel Spolsky reading list on programming:

<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/navlinks/fog0000000262.html>

These are terrific lists, I've learned a ton from them and haven't yet gotten
further than halfway through either.

But I submit that the politics of the United States of America are every bit
as complicated as software. We have _one_ fundamental problem, and that
related to the TV ads? Um, how likely is it that so broad and general a
statement about software development would be true, never mind helpful?

We will not understand our country's politics until we give them the same
attention we give our profession. We shouldn't be silent before we've
checklisted some reading list -- but maybe we ought to speak as if perhaps
this is a big and complicated system about which we have a lot to learn.

~~~
saulrh
There are plenty of complex systems with complex problems but deceptively
simple solutions. Those solutions might be difficult to implement, and might
have nasty little details, but they're still simple enough to sum up in one
sentence. For example, back in 1911, the problem was "monopolies", and the
answer was "regulate the maximum size of a corporate entity."

I'm not saying that _this particular problem_ has a simple solution. I'm
saying that we shouldn't throw out ideas because they seem too simple. And, of
course, the more angles we have on the problem, the better.

------
naner
So I'm an engineer for a living which means I'm probably about as politically
(un)knowledgeable as most people here, but do all of our "calls to action"
seem hopelessly naive to anyone else?

I mean take the first example: elimination of software patents. This is great
and I would like this to happen, too. A pretty significant problem, however,
is that some of the most successful and most powerful American companies are
built around these laws and prop up these laws, help write these laws, etc.

Does anyone believe our legal system is going to say: "Sorry, Microsoft
(Apple, IBM, whoever), all the billions you spent on software patents and
legal fees and all the money you earn from them is gone. We've decided
software patents are unfair so that massive part of your business is now
invalid."

We can sit around all day outlining what we think would be the most fair
policies. It is all irrelevant if we can't define a path to get there.

~~~
keen
How about banning new software patents, and letting existing ones run their
course?

The Apples and Microsofts of the world _might_ be okay with that.

------
thebigshane
I am in full support of Joel's intentions here. But...

1) How are we going to prevent this powerful lobby group from betraying us
(the smaller guys) in the laws they lobby for?

2) How are we going to determine who gets to participate in this equal share
of air time on these YouTube/FaceBook spots? Do I get a spot if I want one?
Who gets to decide? The same GOP/DNC? How do we prevent YouTube/Facebook from
working deals with candidates for favors after they get elected? How do we
guarantee candidate A has the same face time as candidate B? What if candidate
B is campaigning on shutting down this technology lobby, will he still get
face time?

I suppose all of his suggestions are better than the current situation, but I
don't feel they are _that_ much better. We are still going to have to become
incredibly vigilant and anti-apathetic with these new powerful groups we form,
and I just don't think that's realistic, given our current situation.

------
mark_l_watson
Excellent. Is the EFF a reasonable organization to lead this fight? I am not a
member of the EFF but sometimes I give them tiny bits of money when they do
something that I particularly like.

I am not 100% sure about this, but isn't the "Internet economy" much, much
larger than the "Entertainment economy?"

I don't hold out much hope of curing the corruption in our political system
but I do hope that we can continue shining a bright light at corruption so
more people know what is happening. Unfortunately it is the threat of a bright
light of public accountability that causes attacks on Internet freedoms.

~~~
rabidsnail
The EFF is a public interest organization with its own goals. We need an
industry lobby. The closest things to that that we currently have are ACM and
IEEE, both of which suck hard as lobbies.

~~~
_delirium
The ACM and IEEE probably suck even more than they need to, but I don't see
much hope of the tech industry being a good lobbying force even with a better
organization. Part of the problem is that it isn't really all on "our" side
(if you read "our" to be the EFF side). We do have a fairly strong industry
lobby of sorts already, the BSA, but it almost always takes the Hollywood side
(and initially supported SOPA). I think, unfortunately, a lot of "our"
companies just aren't on "our" side (Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, etc.), because
of their MPAA-esque paranoia about piracy, jailbreaking, etc.

If it would be possible to make a professional association like the ACM take a
stronger and more visible stance, imo that'd be a better approach, because the
tech industry's _employees_ are often intelligent, but the tech industry's
_companies_ would imo be more likely to just lobby as a special interest, not
in any sort of enlightened way. So it needs to be structured so the employees,
not their employers, control the lobbying organization.

~~~
rabidsnail
The BSA is a lobby for the shrink-wrapped software industry, which is even
more in competition with the internet services industry than the movie
industry is.

------
crazygringo
Indeed... why isn't there an IIAA (Internet Industry Association of America),
modelled along the same lines of the MPAA/RIAA?

Google, Facebook, etc. could be the main contributors, but smaller companies
would donate too (there might be a very significant long tail).

It could lobby for everything Joel talks about.

~~~
adambarber
More to the point, what's stopping Google from declaring war on the MPAA? I
imagine a lot of money would be lost if Google just pulled every site
belonging to a member of the MPAA from the search results.

Aside from a few people at the top of Google with a sense of restraint and
fair play, if Google alone decided to ruin the movie industry, they could -
quickly. Obviously an IIAA pays more respect to the current way of doing
things, rather than just making a unilateral decree that the movie industry
doesn't get to exist anymore if they won't extend the same courtesy to the
tech industry.

Slightly less drastically, I wouldn't mind Google making a note in the SERPs
about which members of Congress are in favor of censoring freedom of speech. A
small note with that person's position on SOPA would be a handy tool to keep
the public informed.

~~~
zecho
What's stopping Google is reasonable principals. They shouldn't censor the
Internet, because that's stupid and against everything the blackout stood for.
Where they can fight is in competing with Hollywood dollar for dollar by
lobbying and funding campaigns.

~~~
ojbyrne
s/principals/principles/

~~~
zecho
thanks.

------
jeffool
I can't agree enough. And the longer we take to address all if these problems,
the harsher the backlash is going to be. I'm so disgruntled with copyright I
almost think 10 years is too long.

~~~
modeless
I'd love to see some statistics showing revenue from copyrighted works vs.
age. I'm betting the vast majority of revenue (and especially revenue which
actually accrues to the original creator) is made in the first 3-5 years,
after which continuing copyright protection is a net drain on society.

As the internet continues to accelerate our culture, that time is only going
to grow shorter. Longer copyright terms may have made sense in the past when
distribution was hard, but today's world moves much faster, and the law needs
to catch up.

~~~
moultano
This is so different from industry to industry that I don't think it makes
sense to aggregate the statistics. Plenty of photographers and illustrators
for instance make large fractions of their income from reselling stock images
long after they were created.

~~~
derefr
It'd be interesting if the law had some sort of "activation" clause, where the
copyright would only start to tick toward expiry once a single cent of
royalties had been made. That way, things that immediately start to make money
(like music and movies) would immediately start to count down, while things
that can take years to be licensed (like stock photos) will only start their
countdown when someone actually payed for them.

------
twainer
A modest proposal for Joel:

Ten years as a period for copyright? How about you go first.

Since the tech industry understands copyright so much better than everyone
else it might be good for them to set an example and show all the 'old' dodo-
like industries how it's done.

After ten years all code should be made open-source. Google has made plenty of
money - and I think it's time that they release their algorithm so other
innovative and disruptive companies can make better use of it. I mean, how
many Google bikes can one ride behind?

Fogcreek has had a nice run too - surely some open-sourced FogBugz would be of
great value in second and third world countries that have emergent tech
sectors but can't possibly afford the cost of the real service? Certainly,
even 10-year-old Fogbugz is going to help society a lot more than license-free
copies of My Big Fat Greek Wedding [2002] or Stuart Little 2 [2002].

Anyway, since many of these places exchange rates means they could never
purchase software in the first place, it's not like there would be any lost
sales, right?

Oh another thing: very important:: a short term of copyright like a few years
would be the biggest boon to Hollywood ever as they could simply sit and wait
for works to drop into the public domain before turning around and producing
them without paying the creators a penny. There would be tons of creators
strung along via a studio option - just long enough till the work dropped into
the public domain. It would harder than ever for individuals to profit from
their creative work and easier than ever for Hollywood to make money off of
it.

So - sorry to say - I'm a bit disappointed! But that's just my fault -
assuming that people who knew so well the cure for the ills of the content
industry would actually have an idea about how that world works. My bad.

~~~
saalweachter
You are conflating Google's code _ten years ago_ with Google's current
codebase.

I think releasing 2002's Google open source would be far less revolutionary
than you think. 2002 was, like, really long ago.

C++? C++ was still largely pre-Standard in practice. GCC 3.x (which was the
first release line with good C++98 support) was still in its infancy, and most
universities still had GCC 2.95 installed until 2004 or 2005. Java? Java 1.4
wasn't released until February 2002. Do you remember Java from those days?
_Casts_. Two, three, four casts per line. Generics wouldn't be introduced
until late 2004, at which point Java would become usable. Python 2.2 was all
the rage in 2002. I don't know about you, but I cry every time I have to write
a Python script which works with 2.4 because of a busted old server.
Decorators weren't even a glint in Guido's eye back then. Source control meant
CVS. _CVS_.

How about the Web? Well, IE6 was the new thing back in 2002, so there's that.
Phoenix -- later renamed Firebird, later renamed Firefox -- was released late
in 2002. Opera's leading feature was that it would reload your old tabs if you
restarted it, which was great because it crashed every 15 minutes. Ajax was
used by, like, two sites. Webmail meant Yahoo!. _MySpace_ didn't even exist in
2002, let alone Facebook. People still used ICQ, although AIM was still more
popular. KaZaA was still spelled with random capital letters in 2002, and
people still used it. "Warcraft" meant the hot new game, Warcraft III.

Ten years is a _really long time_ in internet time. I don't think Google or
Fogcreek would be hurt in the least by releasing their 10-year-old codebases,
because their 10-year-old codebases are damn near useless by modern standards.

~~~
Ingaz
I'm totally agree with you. I think that even 5-year is enough.

What harm for Id Software was in open-sourcing Doom, Quake 1-3 ?

Several years ago Win2K code was leaked - what harm for Microsoft was in it? I
suppose zero.

------
snowwrestler
Political campaigns are not, in the broader context of the U.S. economy, that
expensive. The average cost of a winning House campaign in 2010 was less than
$1.5 million. The max limit on a personal donation to any federal political
campaign is $2,500.

These are numbers that are pretty small compared to the value and salaries
generated in either the entertainment or tech industries. The difference is
that the entertainment industry has developed the culture and institutions to
direct some of their value toward political activities. The tech industry
largely has not.

Joel's idea of free political advertising on tech properties could be
problematic because advertising, even if freely given, has an economic value.
Corporations are expressly forbidden from donating money to federal political
campaigns, so this whole idea might be squashed by the FEC.

~~~
marquis
What if a non-profit was the middle-man for placing ads, for example? The
crowd-funding covers the donation requirements from individuals, many who do
not donate to normal elections but might put $5 on this. I'm sure there are
tricks already used to get around funding caps that could be taken advantage
of.

~~~
noibl
Political Action Committees can raise unlimited sums from corporations:

'In 2010, the landmark case filed by Citizens United changed the rules
regarding corporate campaign expenditures. This ruling made it legal for
corporations and unions to spend from their general treasuries to finance
independent expenditures. Direct corporate and union contributions to federal
campaigns, however are still prohibited.'

'The 2010 election marked the rise of a new political committee, dubbed "super
PACs," and officially known as "independent-expenditure only committees,"
which can raise unlimited sums from corporations, unions and other groups, as
well as individuals. [...] Super PACs are not allowed to coordinate directly
with candidates or political parties since they are "independent".'

\-- <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_action_committee>

~~~
snowwrestler
"Super PACs" can spend freely on their own political speech (i.e. their own
ads). Legally, they can't give money directly to candidates or even coordinate
with them. Only traditional PACs can do that.

Giving ad time or ad space directly to candidates, as Joel proposes, would
violate that rule--even if it was done by a Super PAC.

However nothing would stop a Super PAC, or even the tech companies themselves,
from creating their own ads supporting candidates, and running them on their
own sites. (as long as they are not coordinated with the campaign)

~~~
noibl
> Legally, they can't give money directly to candidates or even coordinate
> with them. Only traditional PACs can do that.

Pretty sure I covered that point.

> Giving ad time or ad space directly to candidates, as Joel proposes

He didn't actually say that. He said giving ad space to a 'political
campaign'. Spolsky also, and quite rightly I think, steers clear of the idea
of tech companies directly spruiking friendly candidates. But you could have a
PAC whose sole function was to allocate ad inventory evenly between a
disparate field of candidates, for example. Google could even run it
algorithmically off their own system.

There are lots of ways to do it and, as demonstrated, no real regulatory
barriers. The only thing missing is political commitment on the part of
internet companies. I agree with Spolsky that there is huge untapped power in
this idea. I'm just not sure that it would be beneficial to society over the
long term to have it unleashed.

~~~
snowwrestler
"A solution is for the Internet industry to start giving free advertising to
political campaigns on our own new media assets... assets like YouTube that
are rapidly displacing television. Imagine if every political candidate had
free access (under some kind of "equal time" rule) to enough advertising
inventory on the Internet to run a respectable campaign."

From the second sentence, it seemed to me that he was talking about companies
directly giving advertising inventory directly to candidates. But now reading
it again, it is a bit ambiguous.

The PAC intermediary you describe would work legally, but it wouldn't be able
to allocate much ad inventory to each candidate, since the most a PAC can give
to each candidate is $5,000 aggregate per election cycle.

------
tzs
> Create a legal doctrine that merely linking is protected free speech

I disagree with this one. How about this instead?

* Create a legal doctrine that linking is legally the equivalent of a citation in a printed publication

If something is protected free speech in a book or magazine or newspaper or
flyer, it should be so on the internet. If something would not be protected
free speech when published in a book, etc., then I don't see why merely being
published on the internet should make a difference.

In other words, the internet is just another publication medium. In most areas
it does not need different laws. The ones we have for other media are fine.

~~~
Dylan16807
I'm curious now; how could a citation in a book be illegal?

~~~
tzs
I'm not sure if it is possible or not for a citation in a book to be illegal.

If by "illegal" we include civil liability, not just criminal liability, I
could imagine that a book could contain libelous citations. For instance, if
someone published a book called "Child Molesters Among Us!" that contained
citations to a bunch of people in the community that are not in fact child
molesters (basically people that the author simply didn't like) he'd be in for
some serious lawsuits.

If he did the same thing on a web page, with the links being names that when
clicked brought up the person's house on Google Maps I'd have no objection to
him being in for the same lawsuits.

------
ggchappell
This is a nice little essay, and I agree with most of it, but this part is
rather naive:

> A solution is for the Internet industry to start giving free advertising to
> political campaigns on our own new media assets...

A comment by daeken on the "Can we kill the music business too?" HN post
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3493002>) has some ideas that apply
nicely here, too.

From that comment:

> While I think the author's heart is in the right place, I think he's fallen
> into the trap that nearly everyone in the music startup industry has fallen
> into: the content and distribution are the easy parts, getting people to
> give a damn is the hard part.

> The hard part in all this is getting it in front of users, and getting them
> to care about the music.

Similarly, the hard part of a political campaign is _getting noticed_. 100,000
people out there would be happy to run for president I'm sure; the vast
majority of them are never noticed. Some few are. Fewer still are noticed _a
lot_.

I would love to see a world in which money-buys-attention is not the primary
rule that determines who gets the most powerful job there is. But turning on
the firehose and flooding people with free ads from 100,000 presidential
hopefuls, does not look to me like the way to make that happen.

How to make it happen, is worthy of some serious discussion.

Again, nice post. I think the first part is right on target.

------
cmcewen
It seems like most people agree that "something should be done", but the
question remains what can be done? Should there be a day where everyone calls
and complains to Congress about copyright issues? Start an Internet Industry
Association of America?

I think calling Congress could be effective, but it'd be hard to get the
volume required to make a difference, and there is no bill to explicitly
support. Likewise, an IIAA might work, but it seems like Google, Facebook, and
Twitter would have to be deeply involved to make a difference.

My only remaining thought is to use the tactics of the MPAA and RIAA: hire a
lobbyist. The only thing I could think of would be a sort of Kickstarter
project. Everyone pledges money, and once a target is reached, a lobbyist is
hired to draft a bill on Issue X, and lobby Congress for its passage. There'd
have to be a sympathetic member of Congress in order to introduce the bill,
and I'm sure a serious amount of money would have to be raised, but this is
the only way I can think of that the average joe on the Internet could do
anything besides complain on HN. Thoughts?

------
techiferous
Per Joel's second point, I've recently noted at how absurd it is that
campaigns spend so much money communicating their message when technology has
made it extremely easy to communicate a message to millions of people at very
low cost.

I fully support a move away from TV-dominated campaigns to Internet-dominated
campaigns, especially since the Internet is more interactive anyway.

------
LVB
_A solution is for the Internet industry to start giving free advertising to
political campaigns on our own new media assets... assets like YouTube that
are rapidly displacing television._

I'm not sure what this fixes. I already get to see and hear campaign ads
incessantly. What would be my desire to go watch more on YouTube? They've
already become background noise to me because the messages originating from
the candidates and super PACs range from heavily spun at best to plainly
false. I don't learn anything from them.

Better would be to offer more compelling solutions than ads. Things like
highly interactive, real-time Q/A and debating schemes would engage the
electorate by allowing them to rapidly see who is for real and who is an
empty, purchased, Presidential-looking shell.

I'll throw out one specific idea: during debates, let's have a Watson-like
presence on stage that is, in real time, able to display the BS-factor of
what's being uttered. Wouldn't that be fun?

~~~
fferen
Well, presumably ads are fairly effective for the majority of the populace as
candidates are willing to spend a lot of money on them.

On a side note, I personally see a Ron Paul ad every other Youtube video on
the occasions when I have AdBlock disabled, which may be why he has such
strong support among younger voters.

------
drcube
Regarding point 2: Advertising is an arms race. Nobody benefits from spending
millions of dollars on advertising; they benefit from outspending their
competitors. Everybody would be happier if they could outspend their
competitors without spending millions of dollars. But they can't.

As soon as there is a cheap, or even free alternative to spending megabucks
for tv slots, those channels will get filled up _in addition_ to your
traditional outlets. And the internet isn't free, nor is coordinating a
massive internet campaign. The net result of number 2 is that we'll have
_more_ political advertising, and the person with the most money will still
win.

Still, there is a democritizing influence to be had from shifting campaigns
from traditional broadcast media to the internet. We're seeing that already
and it's only going to grow. So, in essence, point 2 won't help, and it's
already happening. This is a hard problem.

------
ojbyrne
After reading this, I donated to the EFF and the ACLU. Because there are
already lobbying organizations for the tech viewpoint.

------
henrikschroder
If you are in the EU, and you want these things Joel talks about, vote for
your local Pirate Party. Vote for them in your national elections, and vote
for them in the elections to the European Parliament. We don't need external
lobbying to get what we want; we can just elect the representatives we want.
So _do_ it.

------
fufulabs
There's a startup called Votizen that I think makes your voting profile
visible and therefore be easily considered by political parties. I would
imagine that if there is critical mass of people in that platform interesting
tools can be derived for any mass actions for/against politicians.

------
mhb
The problem isn't that it costs a lot to win an election. It will always be
expensive to get people's attention regardless of the medium.

The problem is that the government is too powerful and it's worth so much to
win an election. But that's even harder to fix.

------
signalsignal
What are people's opinions on removing copyright laws? Not just copyrights on
music and movies, but also all copyrights on software, computer graphics,
wordpress themes, etc. Is this something that the YCombinator community is
behind?

~~~
dlitz
Jonathan Coulton said it well:

"I believe in copyright. I benefit from it. I don’t want it to go away. I love
that we have laws and people to enforce them. But if I had to give up one
thing, if I had to choose between copyright and the wild west, semi-lawless,
innovation-fest that is the internet? I’ll take the internet every time."

<http://www.jonathancoulton.com/2012/01/21/megaupload/>

~~~
signalsignal
I can see indie filmmakers being innovative, but I fail to see how Megaupload
was innovative. Yet noone has made the argument or the claim that it was,
though it is obviously more important than the arts to the people on this
forum. As though it was a representation of the innovation of the Internet and
now the rallying cry for entrepreneurship. Is the Internet really only about
data-center storage and distributing other people's content without
compensation to the authors or producers? Is Ycombinator really going to
become a forum about evading laws due to loopholes like Megaupload was?

------
mrdingle
We also need to seriously start electing people that represent us. Honestly,
we need to pick people who understand technological issues and we need to
cycle them regularly.

Most importantly, we all need to participate in government.

------
tzs
On the issue of copyright terms, one thing I've not seen discussed much is the
idea of having different terms for different copyright rights. Copyright is
not a monolithic things--it encompasses several rights. In particular, there
is the right to make and distribute copies, and there is the right to make
derivative works. (There are other rights, but those are the most important).

I think a good case can be made that different durations are appropriate for
these rights, and also that different durations are appropriate for different
kinds of works.

Let's start with artistic works. In particular, let's consider the infamous
Mickey Mouse copyrights.

The reproduction right should be fairly short. It's purpose is to allow the
creator to get paid for their time and effort in creating the work. We
maximize creating of new works if creators can get paid for creating. If
creators cannot do so, and so have to turn to ancillary methods of making
money, they have less time for creating. (This is why the argument that
musicians can make their living touring is not persuasive to me. I'd much
rather have great musicians creating new music than spending a lot of time
playing their old songs over and over and over to make a living. How would we
feel as programmers if employers did not pay us to program--they hired us to
do tech support, and then told us that we should be writing programs on our
down time so there would be something to provide tech support for?).

I think it is quite reasonable for the derivative works right, on the other
hand, to have a very long term. That encourages other artists to come up with
new characters to tell their stories. I think we'd have a lot less great
cartoon characters if everyone who wants to make a cartoon could just make
their own Mickey Mouse cartoon.

A long derivative works right also helps preserve our culture, by preserving
the artistic integrity of bodies of work. A fictional character, such as a
Mickey Mouse, or a Frodo, or a Harry Potter, or a Sherlock Holmes, has a
personality, character, mannerisms, morals, etc., developed by the creator.
They become in a sense real and part of our culture. If someone else comes
along and starts producing fiction with those characters that does not fit in
with how those characters should behave, it diminishes the value of the
original to society. If you want to write stories about hot boy on boy wizard
sex, make up your own wizards--leave Harry and Ron alone.

To summarize so far, for artistic works like films (including cartoons) and
fictional books, I'd like to see a relatively short reproduction right
combined with very long derivative works rights.

For utilitarian works, such as computer programs, it would not make sense to
have a long derivative works right. Programs do not become beloved parts of
our culture. (Characters introduced in programs sometimes do--Mario and Zelda
are good examples, so I'd argue that while the game code for a Zelda game
should have a short derivative work right because it is a program, if you make
a game based on it you would have to come up with new characters).

~~~
shallowwater
The only problem with your derivative works proposal is that it won't work.
Fans will make fanwork of things they are fans of, regardless of the legality
involved. Akin to the culture of digital sharing, that horse has already left
the barn, it is pointless to try and close the door now. If you wanted to ban
only commercial derivative works for a longer period, that might work, but
non-commercial fanwork isn't going anywhere.

~~~
repsilat
There are two arguments to be made here. The first you'll probably agree more
with:

I think the answer to that is that nobody cares about kids writing fan-fiction
as long as they're not selling it. If copyright exists to "promote the
progress of science and useful arts", I don't think you'll find an artist
deciding not to write or publish their work because non-commercial derivative
works might be made. Exclusive rights to commercial derivative works, on the
other hand, might convince people to create new things.

The second point is that whether or not enforcement can be completely
effective isn't really relevant. As long as it can be somewhat effective, and
as long as people believe the law is just, people will believe that the law is
worth keeping. Governments tend to believe that "the culture of digial
sharing" is a moral evil, and that not going after it would be to abdicate
their duty. "It's too hard to police" isn't a good enough excuse for pot or
gambling or seatbelts, why should it be good enough for fan-fiction?

~~~
shallowwater
I do agree with your first point, and it would basically be a continuation of
the status quo, which seems like a pretty reasonable compromise between
allowing people to profit from their work without stifling the creativity of
others and criminalizing harmless behavior that is going to keep happening
anyway.

My rebuttal to your second point is to acknowledge that you have part of a
point, but also to draw a comparison between the futility of policing digital
sharing and the futility of policing fanwork. Since we're (sortof) making a
'in a perfect world' wishlist, I think we can do better than fall into the
same traps that current law/lawmakers/our assorted predecessors fell into,
criminalizing behavior that is entirely or mostly harmless and where
enforcement has minimal benefits.

With your other examples, I think that there is a case to be made on both
sides with regards to the dangers vs the benefits from enforcement. But with
those cases, I can more clearly see the arguments that enforcement has
benefits that are worth the difficulty (depending on how damaging you think
pot, gambling, and car accidents are). So I could see where a person would
argue that noncommercial fanwork is severely enough damaging to the
creator/rights holder to make enforcement worth it, but I personally don't see
it as such and would have a very hard time believing such arguments without
strong proof. Car accidents where someone is not wearing a seatbelt, on the
other hand, has pretty demonstrable damages.

(I'm not really going to get into pot or gambling, because I think ath this
point, the arguments for and against pot criminalization are well-established,
and starting to weight every-so-slightly toward decriminalization, and I
personally find gambling distasteful and boring and don't have the energy to
read up on the damages associated with gambling or the benefits associated
with enforcement of anti-gambling laws.)

------
yonasb
This is genius. I really hope this post gets some exposure

------
EGreg
I always wanted to meet Joel Spolsky. I should soon :)

------
Jayasimhan
Lobbying is corruption irrespective of how we cut it. Finding ways to abolish
it should be the only goal.

------
MarkMc
As a side note, Google Plus is clearly still in beta - the page crashes using
Safari on my iPad.

------
jebblue
Elimination of software patents, ok, so patents bad. I stopped reading after
that.

------
bambax
Joel is right. As it is, we have to win every time: they need to win only
once.

------
talos
well said. what kind of lobbying power have Google et al invested in? with
their cash flow, I see no reason why they couldn't fund/push for reasonable
legislation that defends their corporate existence.

------
beachgeek
I got tired of seeing notices to "contact your senator" on
Wikipedia/Craigslist etc and sent a note to Senator Feinstein. To my surprise
someone from her office actually responded. My response was pretty similar to
Joel's.

Its easy to kvetch on your favorite Internet forum, but if you get things
started your Congressional reps will listen.

This is way easier than cold-calling a customer!

------
infocaptor
Joel, why don't you and other Internet personalities start something and we
all will join. Setup a website, get donation from every developer, hire
lobbyists or whatever is needed. You and people you know have the reach and
get things in motion. We will follow the lead.

------
daintynews
Joel is right on some terms, however the problem is how are we going to know
who gets to join in this share of air time on these sites? Also, who is going
to determine that?

------
ph33t
I don't think Joel is wrong per say, however, I don't think he is attacking
the symptom not the problem. The answer lies in federalism and giving power to
the states. If the federal government didn't have such broad and sweeping
power it wouldn't be worth the money to fund their campaigns in the first
place. Let's take the power away from the federal government. Big business can
only benefit from massive donations if the clowns in power can give them a
return.

------
forrestthewoods
Are you kidding me? The first Harry Potter book came out in 1997. A 10 year
copyright means that 5 years ago someone could have taken the book, mass
produced their own copy, and sold it at Barnes and Noble. That would be the
same time the 7th and final book came out and well before the movies were
complete. That is a simply absurd idea.

Edit: Downvotes aren't surprising but I'd love to hear the argument why rights
to a creative work should be lost when it's still in development and rapidly
growing with each day.

~~~
philwelch
For one, that wouldn't interfere in the slightest with Rowling's ability to
successfully sell her seventh book. In fact, it might get her to write some
more books, since the first wouldn't be sufficient to make her quite as rich
as she is.

~~~
forrestthewoods
Because watching other people get rich off of your work is such a good
incentive.

