The saga surrounding SOPA will be dominating the headlines for a while yet, and today is no different. First of all, and most importantly, the European Parliament has adopted a resolution against SOPA, while also calling for net neutrality to become part of EU law. Second, and this is also interesting, we now have a list of software companies which are against freedom of speech on the web. Unsurprisingly, Apple and Microsoft are on this list. Update: House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has spoken out against SOPA. Update II: Tumbler’s anti-SOPA message on their website generated almost 90000 (!) phone calls to representatives. Amazing.
Large software companies like Microsoft and Apple do not openly support SOPA – although Microsoft does openly support Protect IP, its predecessor – but they do support it via a back door. The Business Software Alliance (the RIAA of the software world) strongly supports SOPA, and the BSA consists of some of the largest American software companies – including Apple and Microsoft.
This is war – and as long as these companies keep pumping money in the BSA without publicly distancing themselves from it or without openly opposing SOPA, they support it. So, without further ado, here’s the list of companies supporting curbing free speech, so you can avoid buying their products (I’ve highlighted the more interesting ones):
- Adobe
- Apple
- Autodesk
- AVEVA
- AVG
- Bentley Systems
- CA
- Cadence Design Systems
- CNC Software – Mastercam
- Compuware
- Corel
- Dassault Syst~A¨mes SolidWorks Corporation
- Dell
- Intel
- Intuit
- Kaspersky
- McAfee
- Microsoft
- Minitab
- Progress Software
- PTC
- Quark
- Quest
- Rosetta Stone
- Siemens PLM Software, Inc.
- Sybase
- Symantec
- TechSmith
- The MathWorks
With that out of the way, the more important news of the day regarding SOPA is that the European Parliament has adopted a resolution against SOPA. Technically, the resolution stresses the importance of – among other things – “the need to protect the integrity of the global internet and freedom of communication by refraining from unilateral measures to revoke IP addresses or domain names”. The resolution is directed at the United States, and while SOPA is not mentioned, it’s pretty clear what the European Parliament is referring to.
In addition, the European Parliament also adopted a resolution stating that net neutrality should be part of EU law. True, unconditional net neutrality currently only exists in Chile (first!) and The Netherlands (second!), but if it would be enshrined in EU law, it would become part of many, many more European countries. This is interesting, because, for instance, France has long since discarded freedom on the web. It’ll be interesting to see how Sarkozy’s anti-freedom government deals with EU-imposed net neutrality rules.
All in all, it would seem the opposition against SOPA continues to grow. As I said yesterday, all this illustrates that in the US, the will of the people truly no longer means anything. There is no way to spin this as anything other but a very clear case of US Congress only caring about money, and not about the people. There is nothing good in this law. Absolutely nothing.
Luckily, the people in America know full well what a corrupt mess their Congress really is: Congress’ approval rating is lower than “the US going communist”.
Just reposting the link to the actual hearing video for those who missed it:
http://judiciary.edgeboss.net/wmedia/judiciary/full/full11162011.wv…
http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/hear_11162011.html
Edited 2011-11-17 23:41 UTC
Another reposted link (allowing you to protest online):
http://www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_internet/?fp
You should highlight Sybase, because it’s a division of SAP now. And most obvious is Siemens! There are some pretty unethical companies in EU as well…
They’re German, what did you expect?
…are on the list:
-PTC
-Siemens PLM
-Dassault
and don’t forget about the strong connection between dassault and ibm
i don’t like this :/
BSA is on the list and one of BSA’s essential members is IBM. Though they don’t really have a fight in this, since no-one in their right mind would pirate IBM software.
(As someone who has no idea about the political system in the US other than there are two sides that hate each other.)
If approval ratings are lower than communism, why hasn’t anyone forced a re-election? Or doesn’t it matter who is elected any more?
Because as long as you don’t take their guns you can take away as much freedom as you like.
There does seem to be a lot of fervor towards something that most of the world finds deathly boring.
elections are every 2 / 4 / 6 years (depending on office). You don’t force new ones, outside of extremely rare instances like California’s recall of Governor Davis.
aperently that’ll do it too.
Forcing a re-election in the US is the equivalent of a rebellion, might as well get ready for a fight. We have elections all the time and the Presidential elections are coming next year along with (some ?) congressional seats and I believe all of the house of representatives.
As much as I would like to blame our government for our problems, we the people keep putting the same scum back in power. People (at least here) quickly forget the wrongs done by our leaders when they start in with their glorious campaigns and all they’re going to do to make our lives better. In the end, they **** us every time. Until the greater populace comes to realize that when they’re at the polls things will not change and unfortunately I don’t think it will happen until everything is ruined for ourselves and our kids.
So there’s no equivalent of a no confidence vote or double dissolution?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_dissolution
Granted these are political based solutions. (The people just can’t demand an election)
What do you do if you have a government that says “We will do everything in our power to screw this country over!!!”
Is the only option rebellion?
No, there’s nothing like that in the US system. If the Congress is deadlocked, then just nothing ever happens until the deadlock is broken in some way. Typically by making backroom deals, or by just moving on to another topic that can be agreed on.
You can have individuals forced out, or recalled, but that only happens under extreme circumstances, and a single vote here and there would rarely make any kind of difference.
The US system is based around checks and balances – if Congress does something stupid, the president will hopefully veto it. If not, then it goes to the courts to get invalidated. And if that doesn’t work, the only option is to wait for the next elections. House of Reps is every 2 years. President 4 years. Senate 6 years.
The problem is that everyone in the US likes their own representative in Congress while hating everyone elses. They all blame others for adding pork, getting political favors for their districts, etc. Yet if their own representative doesn’t do the same thing they get voted out in favor of someone who will.
Edited 2011-11-18 04:39 UTC
Yeah, but the reason they love their own representatives/senators is because they wheel and deal behind the scenes to get benefits for their own states. The longer a congressman is in office, the more he/she can accomplish with seniority.
So what you’re saying is that Amercians* are really small minded when it comes to politics. NIMBY syndrome at it’s best!
Frankly, that system makes a lot of sense for 18th century, not much for anything post universal suffrage.
* – nothing anti-American in particular most people are small-minded.
You have to understand that the government in America has very little power, because the politicians are owned by the corporations, who are really the ones running the show.
It IS possible for the people to elect somebody who doesn’t work for the corporations, but these candidates generally get little-to-no attention in the mainstream press, so they are quickly weeded out. The candidates who are spotlighted in the media and get all the attention are basically a bunch of jackasses who have been pre-selected to do the bidding of their corporate masters, and who nobody likes. So, the election process is basically weeding out the candidates that people hate the most, until you’re left with just 2 candidates (one republican and one democrat), at which time the people vote for the one whom they believ to be the lesser of two evils, who are both little more than corporate shills.
As an example of what I’m talking about, in the 2004 presidential election, Ralph Nader was the obvious choice for the liberals. However, since most of them didn’t think he had a chance in hell of winning, they settled on jackass John Kerry and voted for him instead. As it turns out, some liberals actually did vote for Nader, and he took away enough votes to cost them the election. Had they ALL voted for Nader (which is the guy they really wanted), the election probably would’ve turned out differently.
Edited 2011-11-18 05:15 UTC
We REALLY need to restrict lobbying. Won’t happen, but it should.
No sir… not much can be done. When their term comes up we vote them out (or if they suck up to their constituents enough the last few months we vote them back into office, only to have them revert to their bad behavior).
Some states do have clauses in their constitutions that allow revolution.
I know NH does. Or at least did up to a decade or so ago.
My own choice for gov’t (which will never happen with the Dems and Pubs holding onto power) would be libertarian or something similar where the function and scope of the federal gov’t is drastically reduced to managing interstate and international commerce law, and defending our borders.
You’d just move goalposts, open up opportunities for really massive swindling, corruption (while you seem to grumble about “lobbying” nearby); it will be trivial for powerful enough entities (with enough capital) to coordinate them across states, largely unopposed – since you dismantled, just as such entities manipulated you into (when pushing on you the PR of “libertarians” …or is that libertines?), any structures able to really oppose such.
The solution of flaws in administration isn’t to destroy any real power of administration (and wasn’t impotent central administration a major reason behind your 2nd civil war? So we know how the “able” people use such “liberties” http://www.osnews.com/permalink?489273 maybe also http://www.osnews.com/permalink?489271 )
Well, on the state level, some states have the ability to initiate a recall on the elected official. This was most recently used against the governor of California, Grey Davis. Which led to the election of Arnold.
I’m not sure if individual electives to the house or senate can be recalled by the states, but the house of representatives are up for election every two years.
Instead of bloody revolt, we could always bypass the US government entirely and amend the constitution with out them.
http://www.usconstitution.net/constam.html#process
If I were one of those extreme political types who thinks the government doesn’t represent the people any more, that’s the route I’d take. I however am not so optimistic to think that we do not deserve the government we have.
We don’t have a parliament system. You cannot force a president out with a vote of confidence/no confidence.
We elect our federal officials for terms. State officials CAN be booted. I live in AZ and we just had enough people sign a petition to force an early election in one district.
But the process is more difficult on the federal level and generally it would have to be a massive ethical failure to begin an impeachment process.
*Apologies all around in advance for this political post.*
The two major parties in the U.S. don’t actually hate each other. At their roots they are quite similar. However, the stereotypes of severe partisanism do have a basis in reality.
The major differences are that the Conservative Republicans want smaller government and less taxes (which often means less government assistance to the poor and lower class), laws that lean more towards “Christian” morals as opposed to progressive and agnostic laws, and they favor Capitalism over Socialism when it comes to economics.
Liberal Democrats don’t mind bigger government if it means a better world for the people, are generally favorable towards higher taxes and big spending, are progressive when it comes to what is considered moral and just, generally eschew ties to any particular religion or lack thereof, and appear to be more Socialist than Capitalist though there is room in the philosophy for forward-thinking Capitalism.
All that said though, at their core American politicians all around are greedy and selfish bastards who only want to push the agendas their fathers and mothers drilled into them. At least, that’s how it has been my entire life. I know things change as the generations change, but if things keep going the way they are now we will soon be the least desirable country to live in.
My fondest wish is for the people of my generation and the next younger one — people from their 40s all the way down to teens coming of age — to rise up and say “To hell with this shit!” and start voting in true leaders and innovators. We’ve had quite enough of the 1950s mentality from elected officials who weren’t even born in that decade.
Sadly, the people who “get it” are rarely into politics enough to run for office, or even if they are, they don’t have the personality to win votes. Politics has by definition always been a popularity contest, and the contestants are rarely known for their intelligence and foresight.
/rant over, sorry about that.
Anyone who wants the job should be disqualified.
You’re right, but sadly these days no one with both their heart and mind in the right place ever runs. Or if they do, somehow there are always accusations of some sort of misconduct from their past. Whether the accusations are true or not is irrelevant, by the time it’s sorted out the damage is done and the better candidate is out of the race.
And just to clarify: I’m not speaking specifically about the most recent activity in the U.S. GOP race (my personal opinion of Mr. Cain is quite thoroughly mixed). This crap has been going on since the first Neanderthals got together to vote for the hunting party leader.
I’d also like to say that dirty politics is a recent increasing development but one need look no further than some of the presedentail runnings during the Prohibition years to see just how dirty it can get; seporation of church and state indeed.
From down here in New Zealand – well done to the EU for opposing the SOPA (and for supporting net neutrality). Thank goodness there are a few people left who still have common-sense.
Thankfully there are still enough countries in the EU that remind their elected representatives who they represent. And there are countries that have 0 tolerance to corruption and Scandics don’t really understand what “corruption” is.
The lines are as follows(wildly generalising):
– Protestant countries are least corrupt
– Catholic countries are corrupt
– Eastern orthodox countries are very corrupt
(It’s more to do with the cultural heritage that religion brings with it, rather than that religion per se)
Congratulations. You’ve successfully posted the biggest load of crap I’ve ever seen on OSAlert.
It’s not crap. This divide into three regions is actually pretty damn accurate – especially the Catholic vs. Protestant countries. Don’t be fooled by the religion-based dividing line – this is about *cultural* differences, not *religious* differences. A better way may be to say Germanic+Nordic countries vs. Romanic countries.
However, fact remains: Protestant/Germanic+Nordic countries have very sound financial policies and very little corruption. Catholic/Romanic countries, on the other hand…
Edited 2011-11-18 13:05 UTC
Oh how I wish that were so in the U.S.! The American Catholic church, of course, has come under fire in the past decade for corruption and conspiracy surrounding the sexual allegations against church leaders.
The Protestants are perhaps a little better on those grounds, but they overwhelmingly (especially here in the southern states) want to stay in the early 20th century as far as morality law is concerned, and corruption among Protestants is rampant at the state and local level all across the country.
On both sides, there’s no such thing as fiscal responsibility at the moment.
—–
As an aside, I find it quite odd that there are more than a few Catholic congress members but so far only one Catholic president, and it was quite controversial when he was elected. Then again, we’ve had Unitarian and (suspected) atheist presidents too. In the distant past, some chose not to affiliate with a church until they left office, and some were accused of being one thing (atheist, Deist, etc) when they were actually of a more common Christian background.
Gotta love this country of ours. *rolls eyes*
France? Belgium? I wouldn’t class as corrupt. What about Eire? Huge financial mess but not a country I would count as suffering from corruption.
Is southern Germany more corrupt than northern Germany? Or has this nothing more to do with religion than the commenter’s own religious prejudice.
Generally speaking that’s true.
It still has nothing to do with religious prejudice but, as stated in the comment, with culture.
The so-called “christian” party that keeps a stronghold on Bavaria for 50+ years can do pretty much whatever they want (including large scale corruption) and still get reelected with a comfortable margin. But they’re weaker these days and need a minor partner, and in the other southern state they’ve been shown the door in March.
Protestants.. well, they protest at some point
Not saying that there’s no corruption in the northern parts of Germany, but either their smarter at hiding their tracks, they’re really less corrupt than in the south, or they’re dumped more quickly (and thus weigh their benefits by corruption with the risk of losing officed more).
I’m culturally Russian Orthodox, why would I place the biggest turd on my own cultural background? Not knowing it is really not the case.
But, hey, unlike most people in the world I have the luxury of being brought up in a wildly multicultural family. And when I say wildly I mean: Christians, Muslims, Jews and Buddhists all mixed but not merged…
Currently living in Dublin for a few months, I can tell you that the Irish have a very “unique” outlook on corruption. By my standards, which are set to those of Scandinavians, this country has a lot of corruption. In fact, much more than their “orange brethren” from the north.
Greetings from France ! Let me introduce you to Areva, Servier, l’Or~A(c)al, and their friends in the government
(I personally find this link between former religion and corruption quite suspictious, but I wouldn’t say that we have no serious corruption problems in France)
Edited 2011-11-20 11:40 UTC
I bet you haven’t really travelled around Europe, have you?
Thom, what’s it take to move to NL? I’m actually considering it. Canada’s just following down the exact same path as these folks, if you can’t say we’re there already…
I would consider emigrating to a Nordic country instead of the Netherlands. Because I move a lot between the Netherlands(I’m Dutch) and Finland I’m interested in both countries paths. I find the Finnish(and other Nordic) politics and mentalities to be much less short sighted the ours.
…tonight I’m actually emigrating to a nordic country myself again…Skyrim
Edited 2011-11-18 16:24 UTC
Ron Paul, duh. But Pelosi…….????
Did not expect that from her. +1.
(For those of you outside the US, Pelosi is almost universally reviled as being dishonest I think from both the left and right.)
Yeah, anytime I see “Pelosi” the hair on my back stands up and I start looking around nervously like something bad is about to happen.
Hmmm..so if she’s considered dishonest by everyone maybe she’s not the person you want to speak up *against* SOPOR…err SOPA.
You say that at least slightly in jest, but trust me, as soon as I saw Pelosi’s approval of the bill, it gave me pause to think twice. But then, I saw Ron Paul’s approval.
Ron Paul’s positions aren’t popular with a lot of people, but I think everyone agrees that he’s the most principled and consistent national politician in the U.S. (in a tie with Bernie Sanders, but he gets no press since he is *literally* a socialist–true story, world, there is an actual socialist in the US Congress). And if the issue is civil liberties, especially privacy, you can bet that Paul’s approval is a reliable guarantee of quality. So for him to be in the same boat as Pelosi is…odd, to say the least.
The Ars article’s headline captures it well: “Strange Bedfellows”.
With people who rigidly follow, are consistent about some set of “principles” (which always include lots of crazy stuff), it’s especially important to “pause to think twice” I’d say…
(that goes both to Paul and Sanders of course; anyway, in regards to the former and “a reliable guarantee of quality” for example – when was the last time he really did something, instead of largely posturing as could-be-awesome-president?)
Edited 2011-11-25 00:00 UTC
Yes, Pelosi coming out against it is interesting. She’s the democrats leader in the house, which means she pulls some actual weight and could get this stopped. No offense to Ron Paul, but all he really does is run for president and lose. Pelosi is someone who can crack the whips and get people to vote with her.
Of course, the Republicans are in charge of the House right now, and her support could actually galvanize them to vote against her.
It’s just interesting, though – she’s the first powerful politician I’ve seen to come out against SOPA, which is promising. Maybe more are coming. She’s also from California, which I figured were all owned by the MPAA/Hollywood. Maybe the tech companies are bigger money in San Fran.
She’s a Rep, not a Senator, and she happens to represent SF, so I suppose that makes sense. On the other hand, I’m not sure what proportion of tech companies are actually against SOPA. In terms of constituents, however, I can imagine that most of the SF tech crowd would personally be against it.
I wonder why you haven’t highlighted Dell as well. Sybase too, as mentioned above.
Based on this list, I have no choice but to only buy AMD hardware and run Linux or BSD…works for me.
Indeed. Works for me too.
Sadly, from all appearances, doing that isn’t going to be enough.
Why doesn’t anyone steal great European movies and software?
Is there a list of companies that are against SOPA?
Non-Profits are nice, but they don’t work in every area.
Sure seems unfair to those few people who are censored on this site. If you were really about openness then OSAlert would ban this modding down feature. It is a form of censorship.
It’s as much a censorship as closing a book is. See? I can read and even reply to your “censored” comment.
Actually, if I have a look at your profile, you have as much posts voted up that you have posts voted down, and for someone who doesn’t like the “vote down” feature, you still make more use of it than the “vote up” feature… (“33% positive moderation”)
SOPA is out and about for only one reason, it is to prevent the average person from being the innovator of things and ideas, and only allowing corporations (through the control of government) the power behind all innovation.
Democracy caused innovation among citizens to flourish, that is why we have our society today. It is also why all these so-called corporations to exist in the first place. Now, their only concern is to keep power and financial base to themselves.
SOPA effects primarily citizens, regardless of religious, political, or cultural beliefs. Its a bad call.
You know, such mantra needs more than just repeating it…
If you look at history, there was plenty of innovation done during definitely “undemocratic” periods; possibly by far most of it.
And, when looking at last few decades, it seems that creating a bogeyman, revving up the people on some lies (say, red scares or the myths of bomber, missile, or mine shaft gaps) – which, of course, depend on “undemocratic” flow of information – while assuring “bread and games” works at least as good.
(and if you’re a small ~democracy in, say, South America but not aligned properly with “the good guys” – you might very well be “democratically” given some coup d’etat and brutal dictatorship)
It is a not a simple as closing a boot. Everyone else that visits may be subject to a single or few person’s viewpoint. The modding down to censor is wrong.
jefro,
It’s going a bit far to call it “censoring” since the moderators don’t actively ban particular viewpoints. I’ve been on discussion boards where they do censor discussions and I find it tasteless. One is a popular job board in the US that’s been banning members based on their negative views about the market. Of course they have their own selfish reasons for doing so, but it’s a real disservice to the community. Thankfully osnews isn’t like that.
I do think everyone should be able to “vote” on every post without the odd restrictions in place now, but it’s just a gimmick anyway. I really come here for the news and discussions.
I hope SOPA is struck down, allowing corporations to take the law into their own hands and sidestepping the courts is a terrible idea.
It’s not censorship – looking over your posts in this thread, it seems more like marking down trash (which is otherwise perfectly available, if somebody’s into it), to help those who mostly would just glance over discussion. Those who usually don’t want to spare much time on comments, for example – so it’s better for them to have greater chance of stumbling on something potentially valuable.
Something not like your comments in this thread – in which, for example, it seems you either troll or just don’t have the faintest idea how much of “American” film, music, or games industry is in hands of overseas interests, also European. Or how much of it is European (easy to miss, there are quite a few big European productions of all kinds with EN as a working language just to broaden the potential public, even when made by entities outside EN-speaking places) – like that legendary “something so envelope-pushing like Crysis could be only done by Americans!” idiot.
Edited 2011-11-24 23:50 UTC
I agree with the US Congress that piracy is a huge threat. It costs businesses lots, and intellectual property deserves protection.
But seriously, anyone who understands technology can see that the side-effects of the SOPA legislation would be disasterous. It eliminates due process and proper checks-and-balances.
It is sad that we Americans, once admired world-wide for our leadership in human rights and democracy, now must hope our European neighbors can help keep the increasingly authoritarian tendencies of our own government in check.
Edited 2011-11-21 08:16 UTC
“Please Europe, Help Us” …you know, you can always backtrack on some of the events & decisions of the 2nd half of XVIII century
(but sort of seriously, if you’d look at, say, Canada – still mild vassals ;p – they seemed to had done better over those two centuries, though more “steady” hence quiet / under the radar …much less of that Manifest Destiny / exceptionalism / America’s Backyard like BS; as for “democracy” one can hardly beat Iceland …alas, also a place light on PR)
I just saw this on techdirt:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111121/12585716869/bsa-changes-i…
Did BSA realize they were up to their necks in shit?
In Greek the word “Sopa” means “Shut up”…!!! Strange coincidence.