That, of course, raises the question: what is copyright really worth anymore if technology has turned it into something that benefits only those with the resources to enforce and defend it at every turn?
PDNPulse: Insult to Injury: AFP Suing Photographer It Stole Photos From
Rafer sez:
AFP has come a long from way from 2005 when they sued Google for including them in Google News.
(via rafer)
You see who the power has when looking who writes the bills/laws. Ie in UK, the Digital Economy Bill was entirely written by the Music Industry Lobby Group blah. It wasn’t written democratically by and with users, indie artists, artists with 360 contracts, ISPs, lables, lawyers. It was written by the music bigheads.
And the ‘so democratic UK government’ made it rule of the land with a blink of the eye. Would like to know how much money each MP got to vote yes on the DEBILL.
Pre-internet generation determines how post-internet time is ruled.
Warren Buffett is lobbying the U.S. Senate to avoid derivatives reforms that would require, among other things, financial institutions to put up collateral to cover potential losses.
According to the WSJ, Buffett, who has referred to derivatives as “financial weapons of mass destruction,” is leaning on Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson to help him with an exemption that would potentially help Berkshire Hathaway’s (BRKa) (BRKb) $63 billion derivatives portfolio avoid a financial hit.
Must Read: politics & imperfect knowledge, lobby, health care debate, collaboration, online journalism & blogging.
Consider what happened in September [09], when the insurance industry released a study purporting to show that reform would cause insurance premiums to skyrocket. The Senate Finance Committee—the logjam in the legislative process—was set to vote on its bill in less than 48 hours. The study, commissioned by the insurance lobby and conducted by a private accounting firm, represented a clear effort to undermine support. It was the kind of move that lobbying groups make all the time—and, in the old days, it might have worked, since nobody would have seen through the study’s tilted assumptions until, as with McCaughey’s old article, the damage had been done. But within hours of its publication, several blogs, including this one, had published critiques showing just how flawed the study was. The critiques circulated in Washington and provoked a backlash against the insurers. Wavering Democrats said they were offended by the effort at political sabotage; the Finance Committee went on to pass the bill, as it had originally planned.
Not that fact-checking was the media’s sole job over the last year. Speaking for myself, I certainly spent far more time on the more mundane task of explanation—whether it was describing how a particular policy proposal might work or laying out the political dynamics of a particular moment. Occasionally this writing got a lot of attention, because it included a reporting tidbit that qualified as a scoop. More often, it didn’t. But over time I came to realize that the mere sharing of information has enormous value—even to people in Washington who, you might suppose, already know what they need to know.
Indeed, one of the many lessons I learned over the last year is that, even at the very highest levels of power, people frequently operate with limited knowledge and perspective. That’s true of how they think about policy and that’s true of how they think about politics. As one high-ranking official memorably told me in February, while everybody was scrambling to salvage reform after the Massachusetts Senate race, nobody really sees the whole playing field.
[via The New Republic - Finishing ‘The Treatment’]
Worth reading!
As I said before, this financial crisis will either make him a great President, or break him as President. He even said once to be “rather a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.” see here. And here.
As it seems, he will be neither both. Even when Geithner will be ousted this year, it won’t help his re-election. This recession would not have help any current administration. Especially that lobbyists and special interest groups sit in the White House. He talked of an lack of trust, where he is the current centerpiece of it. He campaigned for closing the revolving door of the lobby and Wall Street. He campaigned for regulation and reform.
And nothing has been done. It all got worse, mounting debt, dollar decline, taxpayer bailout, too big to fail, health care bill, and the loss of the Massachusetts seat (just to name some of many more). He is wrong to blame the senate, the house or politicians with the R or D after their name.
Keep your front lawn tidy before lamenting about others. Especially when you said you will keep your lawn tidy during the election.
All broken promises [as usual] we believed. Campaign rhetoric. The American people thought that this ‘time it is different’ (another campaign rhetoric), that this time politics of the people for the people would overcome the crisis. But how wrong they are - there are bigger forces behind the curtain. And the chambers where politicians discuss reform, regulation, and overhaul, have lots of curtains. (See here, here, here, and here).
