Two things about SOPA/PIPA and then I'll shut up

https://plus.google.com/u/0/117114202722218150209/posts/4GgaRiSyaTf

by johnthedebs • 15 years ago

709 172 15 years ago

plus.google.com

VMG• 15 years ago

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

nostromo2• 15 years ago

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...)

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...) so it's not unthinkable.

jonmc12• 15 years ago

If there was a way to opt out of exposure to political advertising (kind of like can-spam and do-not-call lists), and most Americans adopted this option, maybe it would remove the motivation to exercise this 1st amendment right.

MichaelApproved2• 15 years ago

YouTube sponsoring the debate gave them valuable exposure and audience participation which has positive value. Google giving away ad space has neither of these benefits.

rmc• 15 years ago

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.

cschwarm2• 15 years ago

From Wikipedia about "Citizens United v. FEC": "the First Amendment prohibits government from placing limits on independent spending for political purposes by corporations and unions."

The German system does not place rules on independent spending; it only requires TV channels to provide ad space for political parties that run for office. The amount of space is tied to the relevance of the party, usually measured by the success in the previous election. The TV channel can charge the party 35% of the usual price, this is considered to be the cost price of the channel. [1]

Parties are, of course, allowded to buy additional space, but they would have to pay the usual price. In other words, the German law doesn't limit independent spending.

[1] http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/Grundlagen_f%C3%BCr_Wahlwerbung...

muuh-gnu2• 15 years ago

> considered unconstitutional because you're limiting freedom of speech.

Then amend the constitution to allow this particular limit on freedom of speech. Freedom of speech is not a sanctum that has to be protected at all cost, even if we can see how it leads to the whole system going down the toilet.

Enforcing copyright is a form of limiting freedom of speech and the constitution obviously has no problems with it. If I cant publicly repeat what somebody else said because the speech is copyrighted, this is limiting my freedom of speech. I dont see that freedom of speech can be freely limited here (not only limited, but life+70yrs limited, meaning from my finite-lifespan point of view prohibited forever) but but somehow cant be limited to fix the utterly broken political/election system.

ojbyrne4• 15 years ago

In Canada the government used to give funds to each party that had more than x seats in the parliament. One of the first things the current neo-con government did was abolish that, and let donations from individuals and businesses fund each party. It's disgusting to be honest - businesses always have deeper pockets and could care less (actually actively oppose) individual liberty.

MichaelApproved2• 15 years ago

If only the established parties who already have seats in parliament get funding, does that favor the establishment and make it difficult for new parties to win seats? Genuinely curious.

AgentConundrum2• 15 years ago

I don't follow the ins and outs of Canadian politics quite as closely as perhaps I should, but I was under the impression that the federal funding still exists. Wikipedia[1] seems to agree:

> For each registered federal political party that received at least 2% of all valid votes the last general election or at least 5% of the valid votes in the electoral districts in which it had a candidate, the per-vote subsidy, also referred to as the "government allowance", gives the party an inflation-indexed subsidy each year of $2.04 per vote received in the last election.

Now, Wikipedia can be inaccurate, I know, but major changes like this do tend to get documented, and major pages like this tend to have a lot of people watching it, so I'm reasonably confident in this content.

If you have a citation which refutes this, however, please do share because I'd hate to walk around believing false facts.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_political_financing_in...

adamgravitis• 15 years ago

In fact, businesses (companies) are not permitted to donate to political parties in Canada. And this same "neo-con" government has lowered the maximum personal donation from $5000 per person to $1000 per person.

If anything, this has encouraged a more 'grassroots' approach to fundraising, as it's more the number of people you can engage, rather than a particular (wealthy) demographic.

LearnYouALisp2• 15 years ago

By the satirical party, are you talking about the "Horst Schlemmer Partei"?

trin_• 15 years ago

no its "Die Partei".

BoppreH• 15 years ago

We have the same system in Brazil. People are watching soap opera at home, then all channels cut to a long string of short (<1 min) presentations for all candidates. Most of them are trashy.

The main problem is that people just turn the TV off for that period, and the candidates battle for the other TV spots.

Maybe targeted online ads could help this. Imagine Google helping select candidates based on your profile, like they do with other advertisement.

pgeorgi2• 15 years ago

In Germany, it's not one long string of all candidates, but the TV channels have certain slots between shows that are semi-randomly assigned (semi-randomly in that each spot is shown equally often), with one party per slot.

That way it's a fair chance for every candidate, and people have less an incentive to turn off the TV - it's just one ad, after all.

molmalo• 15 years ago

Recently, in 2010, before the last presidential election (2011) here in Argentina, we had by decree a 'political reform'. It would have been far better to do it by law, but there was such a short time before campaigns started.

Some of the most important changes introduced by the new system are:

- Inability to be a candidate, to people condemned for crimes against humanity (in our case, mainly former members of the dictatorial government from 1976-1983).

- A party needs to have at least 0.4% of the electoral roll as its members, to be able to participate in the electoral process.

- Only physical persons can donate to the campaign. Donations from companies are prohibited.

- The government will give money to the parties to develop their respective campaigns in this way: 50% of the total to be divided equally between all parties. The other 50% based on the amount of votes from the last election.

- Contracting advertisement in audiovisual media and radio by political groups is prohibited.

- Publicity in audiovisual media will be paid by the government, and the function of distributing spaces that can be up to 10 percent of broadcast time among all the contending groups in all media for the purpose of developing their political campaigns is assigned to the National Electoral Directorate; the NED will assign 50% equally between all parties. The other 50% based on the amount of votes from the last election.

The end result: Lots of ugly TV spots in the months previous to the election day. But everyone had the chance to speak in prime time TV spots and deliver their message. Some of the spots were really bad (mostly, the smaller parties... they lacked of the experience I guess).

I can't tell for sure, but I bet that corporations, being prohibited to donate money directly, stimulated their top management to donate (and their families), and then gave them bonuses (so, repaying the money). So, its all the same game. It's very hard to change how politics work.

wslh• 14 years ago

You missed an important point: the ruling party in Argentina uses the state TV for propaganda. So all these rules only put in disadvantage other parties except the ruling party.

pedrolll• 15 years ago

About Joel's second point: Why would Google/Facebook give free ads only for U.S. politicians? If they start with that, shouldn't they do that for every other country as well? Sure for the moment nominally their HQs are in the U.S. but they are multinational corporations, with huge HQs in Ireland and several other countries as well.

ticks• 15 years ago

Yep. To me, it's one of those issues where opening the floodgates to free one-sided political ads should result in an investigation (EU-style). A business with such dominant platforms shouldn't be pushing political agendas (on said platforms), even if we agree with them.

That applies equally to other services from Apple, Amazon, Sony, Microsoft, Comcast, Time Warner, BSkyB, Virgin Media etc.

jeffool7• 15 years ago

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.

modeless2• 15 years ago

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.

jeffool7• 15 years ago

There is no natural progression of law here. The first US copyright laws lasted seven years. Works were sold to publishers, they were printed, and shipped around the nation on boats and trains. Seven years.

Now with a mouse click anyone can upload music and books to digital storefronts.

The law has caught up, directly in favor of those who own the majority of successful IP. As culture has accelerated our laws have only gotten more draconian.

I'm all for this fight, but don't doubt that it will be just that, a fight that the victors will write the history of.

moultano• 15 years ago

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.

snowwrestler7• 15 years ago

Consider how long it takes to make a movie sometimes. The Tolkien estate realized quite a bit of value on the Lord of the Rings copyright via the Peter Jackson films, several decades after it had been written (not sure of the exact timing of the various payments).

Now--is that a good argument for such a long copyright period? I don't think so. I think the only time copyright should survive the author's death is if they have kids who are not yet adult.

yuhong2• 15 years ago

I'd suggest a short default copyright period with a renewal system for the works that do require a long copyright period like the infamous Mickey Mouse.

zecho3• 15 years ago

The biggest hurdle with copyright is the Berne Convention. Copyright isn't merely an American problem, but one that needs to be tackled globally.

jeffool7• 15 years ago

I'd ask if we need to extend copyright on Mickey Mouse films? What good does that do?

Now, extension of trademark, that I get to a limited degree. They can be the sole Mickey maker for a while. But why should they not have to make new material to generate new income from it?

fleitz2• 15 years ago

Why do Mickey mouse films require longer copyright; has Disney not recouped the costs of production?

The point of copyright is to get works into the public domain by allowing creators to recoup the costs of production and make a little bit of profit, the point is not to allow an endless revenue stream from something that is public domain.

If anything works that create more revenue should have their terms expire faster.

grncdr• 15 years ago

Cross-posted from the G+ thread:

Regarding limiting copyright to 10 years, and since you brought up ponies, I feel that solves the wrong problem. The issue I see is that a few large greedy corporations effectively monopolize the copyrights for the vast majority of the nation/worlds creative output, that they then further exploit a corrupt political system to extend those copyrights indefinitely is almost secondary.

A thought experiment: make the sales/purchase of copyright ownership illegal. This would still allow an artist or creator to license the right to sell and distribute their work, but leave them unable to lose (legal) control of such distribution. This still allows a lot of room for the mega-corps to profit, but with less outright exploitation of artists than we currently see. Copyrights are held by the creator(s) for life, and works pass into the public domain after death, not the artists estates (or more often, the organization that owns the copyright). I feel this is simple to understand, fair to creators, and still provides business incentives to non-creators to invest time and money in the production and promotion of quality content.

stan_rogers• 15 years ago

A lot of legitimate copyright ownership depends on the ability to assign copyright. It varies by work and by jurisdiction, but the default copyright holder (by statute) is not always the party it should be. In the US, for instance, a corporation's identity might belong by default to the designer, such that they may be able to register trademarks but be prevented from using them freely without copyright assignment. In Canada, the commissioner, not the creator, of a work holds copyright by default, so contracts of commission for things like portraits and weddings photos usually include a copyright assignment clause. (That's actually an improvement over the previous state of affairs, in which the photographer would have to hire the subject as a model for a nominal fee in one contract, then have another contract for purchase and use of the work.)

I suppose you could legislate the general condition, but there will always be edge cases. Unfortunately, allowing for edge cases is going to result in abuse.

amirmc• 15 years ago

> "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.

saryant2• 15 years ago

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.

jeffool7• 15 years ago

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

crazygringo• 15 years ago

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.

bcrawl• 15 years ago

I support this notion. I dont think there is any current organization which deals with patent rights + free internet etc. There is EFF but no one takes it seriously. EFF is such a joke that Google autocomplete doesnt even find it even if you type EFF!

Patents stuff is too confusing for me, but the concept of ad space on popular websites to spread the voice of Joel/Internet would be awesome. I think Reddit will participate because they have been pretty devoted so far, definitely not Facebook though. I dont think they want any of this drama..... asusal.

adambarber2• 15 years ago

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.

zecho3• 15 years ago

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.

snprbob862• 15 years ago

> what's stopping Google from declaring war on the MPAA

Google bends over backwards to make sure that their rankings are entirely algorithmic so that they can retain the moral high-ground and various legal protections. It would be insane for Google to jeopardize either of those things or to risk anti-competitive and anti-trust prosecution.

ericflo2• 15 years ago

Google should never censor its search results. It would lose a lot of credibility if it did. However, perhaps it might choose not to sell ads to organizations that threaten the internet.

thebigshane2• 15 years ago

I think that's a lot of trust being put into Google, Facebook, etc to not use this same lobby group to lobby for laws that would benefit them over smaller companies.

mark_l_watson• 15 years ago

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.

rabidsnail2• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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.

Duff4• 15 years ago

I think the EFF is a great organization and advocate for individual rights. But their agenda is often at odds with the interests of the "industry".

snowwrestler7• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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.

snowwrestler7• 15 years ago

Non-profits are corporations too; they are also forbidden from donating to political campaigns.

If you created a PAC, then you could solicit donations from individuals and spend it on whatever candidates you, the PAC director, chose. But, PAC contributions and distributions are also pretty strictly limited: $5,000 per person, and $5,000 per candidate, respectively.

Political parties can spend a lot more money, but only on candidates who are members of the same party. So for instance if you started the Internet Party, you couldn't give much money to a politician who is a declared Democrat or Republican.

noibl2• 15 years ago

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

antoko• 15 years ago

Not to worry, the Citizen's United vs FEC decision already "fixed" this problem. Internet companies can donate their advertising space to super PACs rather than directly to candidates. Problem... "solved" :)

snowwrestler7• 15 years ago

Sure, or the Internet companies could just make their own ads supporting each candidate, and run those. For instance Google could create ads telling voters to vote for Sen. Wyden and pre-roll them before every YouTube video served to Oregon.

Duff4• 15 years ago

Huh?

You're looking at a simplistic measure of a single type of elected office. A broad measure isn't very interesting, because freshman house seats aren't very valuable. BIG money is spent to defend the seats of House members with seniority and key committee seats.

The reality is that Federal politicians are bought and paid for in many ways. Spouses, friends and family of congressmen can find themselves possessing an uncanny degree of luck. Spouses become partners in wealthy law firms, etc.

Then you have less shady practices. PACs and special interest groups will happen to run ads in your home district that happen to help you out. Most primaries for the general election happen in September... if you keep the teacher's union happy, lots of teachers will spend their summer vacations supporting your campaign.

The entertainment industry plays all of these cards. They use celebrities to attract people to paid fundraises. They have influence over unions that can bolster attendance at rallies or make lots of phone calls.

Duff4• 15 years ago

Here's an example of the phenomenon described above.

From http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Records-detail-FBI-s...

"A 26-page FBI affidavit indicates that prior to the 2008 raid, the investigation unearthed information that Sweeney may have received payoffs from Powers & Co., which was founded by Sweeney's longtime friend and mentor, William D. Powers, who was state GOP chairman from 1991 to 2001. The FBI's theory was that Sweeney may have received the undisclosed gifts through the salary, commissions and benefits paid to Sweeney's then-wife, Gaia, who was given a job at Powers' lobbying firm during the height of Sweeney's tenure in Congress.

Gaia "Gayle" Sweeney did little if any work for her income, the FBI said, yet the lobbying firm also paid her commissions from a contract the firm had with Siena College. The college received federal grants facilitated by Sweeney, who became a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee in 2001.

The FBI said Powers told agents that Gayle Sweeney was a full-time employee who did clerical work. But Gayle Sweeney told the FBI she worked part time, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays, and that she spent most of her time conducting campaign fundraising efforts for her husband."

LVB• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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.

toyg2• 15 years ago

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.

nostromo2• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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?

nthj• 15 years ago

Sure, then Congressmen just get cut in for equity. Or some other crazy loophole that will be left open.

Here's the problem: the Federal government has too much power. So long as it retains that power, people and corporations will figure out a way to influence the people who hold that power, through salaries, bribes, equity, favors, lobbying, or whatever.

The only real solution is to reign in Congress.

tomjen32• 15 years ago

The only thing that will accomplish is to limit the spending for a congressional seat at approximately the cost of a life-time annuity at $1m/year. Basically a lot of people will want to go to congress for that salary, which is more than they can otherwise make. Once in congress, they have no further desire to stay in congress (they get their millions anyway) and so will not care what laws are passed.

anamax3• 15 years ago

> A friend of mine had a genius idea.

Your "genius" friend doesn't know much about the economics of congress.

For example, Nancy Pelosi's net worth while in Congress has been going up by far more than $1M/year.

beachgeek• 15 years ago

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!

ph33t• 15 years ago

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.

thebigshane2• 15 years ago

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.

twainer6• 15 years ago

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.

gergles2• 15 years ago

Fine, the copyright protection for Google's algorithm has evaporated. Where do you plan on getting a copy of it? And even if you did somehow acquire it, how do you plan on using it without violating Google's trade secret protection on it?

There are existing legal frameworks in place (trade secret, trademark, service marks, etc.) that complement copyright and would enable software (and movies!) to remain viable enterprises even with drastically shorter copyright terms (or no copyright at all.)

twainer6• 15 years ago

What's good for the goose is good for the gander. If my business and my copyright are the same thing, why should I be forced to 'open-source' my business after ten years?

Neither trade secret nor trademark nor service marks protect my creative work; only copyright. But my copyright is my business just as the source code is the foundation of Joel's business. So what Joel thinks is good for my business is surely acceptable for his own.

If anti-copyright folks are as concerned as they claim to be about adding value back into society - and as quickly as possible at that - it makes overwhelming sense that valuable services such as software should be scrutinized first, before mere entertainment. We should obviously be talking about limiting a term on trade secrets - not just copyright - people will still have trademarks and service marks to defend their reputation and authenticity.

toyg2• 15 years ago

Just to explain my downvote: you're arguing that, when locked into thermonuclear war, one side should just unilaterally disarm. You obviously know this is absurd. Unless all parties agree to a compromise (or they are forced to by higher authorities), the first mover will always be a loser.

Oh, and the 10-years copyright is extreme, of course, but current rules are also extreme and need to go. That is Joel's point: in order to get a sane compromise, we must ask for an insane target.

twainer6• 15 years ago

It's funny, I never down-vote people even when I don't agree with them. But that's just me - I am anti-censorship.

Though, I do thank you for taking the time to make an argument - I get down-votes for almost every unpopular viewpoint I take here on HN; 90% of the time the down votes are anonymous.

In order to get a sane compromise one first has to appear credible. The pro-copyright folks have no legitimacy around here because they demonstrably don't understand how the tech world works; clearly that disconnect extends to both sides.

joshu• 15 years ago

You might consider actually reading what he wrote instead of having an emotional reaction.

philwelch4• 15 years ago

> After ten years all code should be made open-source.

Long digression. Which may not even be totally true, but close enough to make the point.

This isn't actually that far from the original intention of patents. It used to be that things were kept as trade secrets and hence lost to the ages, which is why no one knows how to make Damascus steel anymore. On the other hand, if someone leaked your trade secret, you could sue them for breach of contract or something, but once the secret itself was out, it was just free speech and free enterprise for people who didn't sign an NDA with you to go ahead and use it. So trade secrets were both ineffective for the secret-holder (unless they kept them very, very well) and bad for society as a whole (since none of us could use any of the secrets that didn't leak out.)

So the patent was invented. Now you had a choice: either your trade secret could remain secret or it could become a patent. If you patented, for instance, your revolutionary manufacturing process for steel, no one in the entire country could legally use that process themselves--at least not until the patent term was up. On the other hand, the process itself was published, and once your patent expired, everyone gained your knowledge.

Copyright enters the picture with software in a funny way. If you documented the process of, say, manufacturing steel, the document itself would be copyrighted. Anyone could read that document and then implement the process with no problem. The same is true for, say, the plans to some machine or appliance--the plans themselves would be copyrighted, but that wouldn't prevent you from assembling an actual device. Obviously with software this is different.

I actually think that with software, both traditional patents and the copyright process don't really work. Rather, I think software should be subject to the same kind of social contract patents successfully imposed on pre-software inventions: no copyright protection on source or executable code (copyright on documentation or string or graphic resources are acceptable), source and executable code can be "patented", which entails a limited-term (5-10 year) monopoly on the use of that source code, but after 5-10 years the code is effectively public domain, and published in perpetuity by the government.

defen• 15 years ago

Just out of curiosity, do you work in the tech industry? I notice that 90% of your posts have to do with copyright, usually from a perspective that is very corporation-sympathetic.

Anyhow, to address your point: I would argue that the computer software field is light years ahead of any other enterprise in human history, in terms of free, open, and shared contributions toward the betterment of mankind. That's not to say that we're without flaws or total fuckups, but a lot of us have been practicing what we've been preaching for decades. Would you disagree? Given that the music and movie industries still operate like it's 1930, what's to say they would follow suit if we "went first"? Because I would argue that we already did, 30 years ago.

twainer6• 14 years ago

I'm a new arrival in the tech industry; used to work in the content industry. I have NO love for corporations - none at all - it's just that I have really gotten to know the people on both sides and find it frustrating that the fight ends up being about which sides corporations can win - not how we can all win. I might add, as an aside, that we've seen with Google's recent turn that no corporation can be trusted to 'not be evil'.

I would certainly agree that the people that make up the content side of the tech industry - programmers, devs, designers, etc . - really do take open and shared contribution seriously, to an impressive extent.

But that's true in Hollywood too - forget about the business structure - the real work happens across thousands of small disparate shops with groups of people working together on the things they love. This is true from development all the way to post-production. It's an open and creative environment.

I do see a clear way that copyright can be reformed to create a win-win scenario. It's a lengthy idea and if I can find the time to put it on paper, I'll happily post it here.

saalweachter• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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.

icebraining2• 15 years ago

How exactly did you go from expiring copyright to open sourcing?

Expiring copyright is just that: you can copy the distributed result (binaries) as you want. It does not entail open sourcing any more than it would force the studios to release their raw footage and CGI files.

What creators, exactly, are you talking about? If you mean screenwriters, they could simply sign a simple contract ("You shall not produce a movie based on the work without authorization") before showing it to the studios. Why would they need copyright?

twainer6• 14 years ago

Expiring copyright and open-sourcing are not the same thing - but they can have the same result. That's a point I think tech-people don't think about enough. If my business is the creative work I've done, what right does an expiring copyright have to put me out of business? By placing my work in the public domain?

Open-sourcing code - though different from an expiring copyright - would create the same result in a business based on the ownership and public non-availability of that code.

Regarding the 'simple contract': contracts mean very little - leverage means everything. Granting very short-term copyrights removes all leverage from the owner of the work. His commercialization window grows very small and he is dependent on organized outside entities to 'make it happen' for him.

Patent coverage isn't even as short as a ten-year term mentioned in the OP. And patents are usually produced by it integrated firms that already have a huge commercialization apparatus running 24/7.

mahyarm• 15 years ago

Just because a copyright has expired doesn't mean you have to actively distribute it

signalsignal2• 15 years ago

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?

ericd• 15 years ago

Abolishing copyright completely is an extreme position even here, I think. What most people are pulling for is shortening copyright from it's currently obscenely long term.

dlitz2• 15 years ago

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/

signalsignal2• 15 years ago

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?

tomjen32• 15 years ago

I think ten years would make sense -- you would constantly have to produce new stuff in order to make money which is what copyright is about.

On the other hand copyright may not be enforceable much longer (it could be argued that it is already unenforceable) and I would prefer to give up copyrights before the internet.

fufulabs• 15 years ago

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.

ojbyrne4• 15 years ago

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

yonasb• 15 years ago

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

techiferous• 15 years ago

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.

tzs3• 15 years ago

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).

shallowwater2• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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?

cmcewen• 15 years ago

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?

tzs3• 15 years ago

> 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• 15 years ago

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

tzs3• 15 years ago

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.

chernevik• 15 years ago

Here is an old Fog Creek software management reading list:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogCreekMBACurriculum...

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• 15 years ago

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.

forrestthewoods2• 15 years ago

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.

philwelch4• 15 years ago

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.

forrestthewoods2• 15 years ago

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

EGreg• 15 years ago

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

ggchappell• 15 years ago

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.

Jayasimhan• 15 years ago

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

henrikschroder• 15 years ago

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.

bambax• 15 years ago

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

daintynews• 15 years ago

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?

talos• 15 years ago

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.

MarkMc• 15 years ago

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

infocaptor• 15 years ago

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.

mrdingle• 15 years ago

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.

drcube• 15 years ago

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.

naner• 15 years ago

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• 15 years ago

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.

studentrob• 15 years ago

Raising awareness of the problem is the first step.

A lot of people still do not know why software patents are bad. Similar to sopa and pipa, except to a larger degree here, mostly software engineers and very internet savvy users are aware of the problem with software patents.

We need more anecdotes and evidence, then a way to deliver the message. Once the problem is defined, the solution will present itself. If it doesn't, we have failed at defining and convincing people of the problem.

beatpanda• 15 years ago

What's fair or even possible isn't the point.

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

See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window, Richard Stallman

mhb• 15 years ago

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.

jebblue• 15 years ago

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

Two things about SOPA/PIPA and then I'll shut up

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