SSSCA Introduced in Senate 802
Peter BG Shoemaker writes: "Wired is reporting that Hollings has officially submitted his newly renamed SSSCA, carrying the moniker Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA). It carries all the provisions we've been worrying about...there is a new battlefield folks..." Newsbytes has another story. Reuters has a story about News Corporation and Disney lobbying in support of the bill. I haven't seen the exact text of the bill as introduced; it will probably be in Thomas tomorrow. Update: 03/22 00:12 GMT by M : Declan McCullagh has collected several documents pertaining to the SSSCA, errr, CBDTPA. He's got a faxed copy of the bill (barely legible; read it on Thomas tomorrow), plus statements from Hollings (read it!), the MPAA, the RIAA, and several lobbying groups for the tech industry, who seem less enthralled about it.
Re:Gentlemen... start your faxes! (Score:2, Informative)
Good info from the EFF (Score:5, Informative)
--Ben
Text of SSSCA (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Hollings + who? (Score:3, Informative)
Him + Mr. Stevens, Mr. Inouye(sp?), Mr. Breaux, Mr. Nelson of Florida, and Mrs. Feinsteine(sp?)
Make Your Voice Heard (Score:3, Informative)
We are no longer accepting comments via e-mail, as we have created a new,
web-based submission form. I encourage you to please re-submit your comments at
http://judiciary.senate.gov/special/input_form.cf
So although it's too bad that this apparently means that all those emails were ignored, here is yet another chance to make your voice heard. Please take advantage of it. In my case, I just pasted my email to the comments form.
How to stop this bill (Score:3, Informative)
Write an actual letter to your two Senators and House member. Do not bother to email the office - it gets deleted. Make sure your letter is at least two pages long and is well written - typed, not handwritten. We use to have a wall where we would put up "nut mail" - make sure your letter doesn't wind up here.
Find out who the legislative assistant is for this issue. The senator or representative has literally hundreds of issues to deal with on a daily basis - so he delegates research and advisory power to people on an issue by issue basis. One guy may do defense and foreign affairs, another maybe judiciary and constituent service, etc. Find out the *name* of the legislative assisatant for this issue and communicate with them directly.
Get a group of similarly minded people to meet with the Senator/Rep and his senior staff. Don't feel like going to Washington DC? Remember that your member probably has several offices spread throughout your area and he always come home on the weekends. Remember - it's important that the member have a senior staff member PRESENT when you meet with him. This means he is taking you seriously.
Be polite. Do not make a damn fool out of yourself and put on a tie. Always be reasonable and patient. This is an easy case to make - maybe /. people can organize "lobby presentation package" that you can use when you meet with your member.
Good luck. I believe that digital media needs to be legally protected, but this is not the way to do it. Civil litigation, not federal legislation.
Re:Canada (Score:2, Informative)
This bill wo't become law because... (Score:5, Informative)
The chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Intellectual Property Howard Coble (R-North Carolina) opposes the bill and won't bring it up therefore the bill is DOA.
You can get more info over at Wired [wired.com]. That little Disney shill Hollins can try and repay his evil mouse ear masters but it won't avail him...
Educate your senators, but by postal mail... (Score:5, Informative)
For this reason, our legislators tend to pay far more attention to writen letters sent by snail mail, not least because mailings are limited to some minor degree by the cost of stamps, and it is currently illegal to impersonate others via postal mail, whereas the same is not true via email.
Faxing your well thought out objections to this bill, might be a good compromise, but I recommend postal mail as the most effective means of communicating with your senators.
If you are unsure of how to contact the senators from your state, Look Here [senate.gov]. Also, it would be useful to begin to address this issue in the house as well. The house of representatives has a far more convenient contact mechanism. You can Lookup your Representatives Here [house.gov].
Remember, do your research, and make coherent arguments. Don't waste the time of our elected oficials. They are not stupid, but simply need to be better informed of the problems with this legislation.
--CTH
Why do you idiots waste your time? (Score:5, Informative)
Instead of wasting your time and effort sending faxes begginng them not to pass the bill. Consider this, 80 million people used napster in 2000-2001. Thats 80 percent of internet users who DONT want this bill to pass.
Face it, they KNOW we are against it and they dont care. The only way to battle these people, is to battle them on their level.
Go to these sites, give donations, if you dont have the money, host a rally at your local campus to gain money, follow these intructions.
http://digitalspeech.org/
http://www.digitalconsumer.org/bill.html
Donate to
http://eff.org/
Support the lobbying groups on OUR side.
I promise you, a petition will get you NO WHERE! People petitioned against DMCA, people petitioned against the Patriot Act, you think petitions will stop this? You have to have massive rallys, protests with hundreds of thousands of people, donations in the millions of dollars to lobbying groups on our side, and people like the EFF.
Re:Canada (Score:5, Informative)
I think probably it would be more useful to worry about the terrible *Canadian* legislation that is working its way through the system, including:
- Canadian Copyright Reform Process [ic.gc.ca]
- the proposed new and increased levies [cb-cda.gc.ca] from the CPCC
- DRM in Canada
See Music fans face raw copyright deal [globeandmail.com]Re:My question about licensing data.. (Score:2, Informative)
Instead of borrowing a CD-Key from a freind, our employer or finding one on the Internet, he called Microsoft. He found the 1-800 # on their website (Customer Service, I beleive) and although he was transferred twice in the conversation, they readily supplied him with another valid CD-Key.
No questions, no validation or Proof of Purchace, they just gave it to him over the phone!
Two months later, he had to reinstall again (he messes around in the registry too much) and had forgotten where he placed the CD-Key. He called them again and without question they gave him another CD-Key!
If the most evil company in the world can do this for a customer, why can't the companies who sell CDs? DVDs? Hell, even books for that matter!
Mask work (Score:2, Informative)
When is the code used in hardware no longer software?
When it's implemented as a netlist in silicon (e.g. from verilog or vhdl source code) rather than as instructions for
When it's eligible for mask work protection [wikipedia.com] (17 USC chapter 9) rather than standard copyright.
Read the bill; an AC has posted the link to its text.
no they won't... (Score:3, Informative)
Higher quality copy. (Score:5, Informative)
Where to contact your legislators (Score:3, Informative)
I know it's been posted before, but there's no harm in doing it again...
You can locate your legislators at www.congress.org [congress.org]. If you choose to contact them, keep these things in mind:
And if this is going to work, spread the word to other organizations and people who can help oppose it. Do you subscribe to a magazine that would be interested in this? Send a letter to the editor. Does Consumer Reports print letters to the editor? If they do, send one their way. Lots of people read that magazine, people who may not otherwise find out about this.
Talk radio may be another useful outlet. If your local station has a show that has open discussions about any subject of interest to listeners, call in. Calling in to CNET Radio [cnetradio.com] would be a good place to start. The CNET site says you can tune in at 910 AM in the Bay Area, at 890 AM in Boston, and on XM Satellite Radio, channel 130. Most every city has at least one talk station, so there are many places to call in.
There are other things you can do. Write a letter to the editor of your local paper. If you get it published, great. Even if you don't, someone there has to read it, so at least the newspsper people will be educated, so they'll be more sensitized to the issue when they see it again.
Whatever you do, think of it in terms of getting information to the right people. With Congress, it's getting lots of people to contact them. With the public, it's getting as many people as possible familiar with the issue. It's a numbers game. Just don't forget that most people don't get their information primarily through the Internet. They log on to get their daily fix of the large Web sites and then log off. They may care about this, but you're going to have to reach them offline. Be creative. Think of it as a way to beat the big media companies at their own game. These guys most likely think they can get this garbage passed without the public ever knowing. Let's prove them wrong.
As a matter of fact, CNET Radio just reported on this thing. It was the last item in their newscast, and the whole report lasted about 20 seconds. That needs to get changed, and only our action can change it.
out of date (Score:3, Informative)
The copy at Cryptome to which you linked is not the bill that was introduced; it's an old draft from last September. For instance, it doesn't have the provision concerning open source software that several people have brought up.
Re:Gentlemen... start your faxes! (Score:1, Informative)
Don't write congress (Score:2, Informative)
Write letters to the eidtor of your local newspaper, write your old instructor at college, write your mom.
About 1976 in Missouri a ragtag group of us (and deed major credit to others) defeated an Army Corp of Engineers dam that had been planned for 30 years for the Merrimac River south of St. Louis. Our representatives all supported it - big money, inside influence, and all that was on the other side.
But, they did not focus on public opinion. We did. We organized letters to the St. Louis and all the local papers on a regular basis - we talked to the editors of the newspapers to get positive editorials - we honed and refined our arguments - we conducted opinion surveys - we did a thousand little grass roots activities. We got to know reporters, held protests, created organizations and issued press releases.
In this case, think of:
a) Finding a local newspaper and write to them this week. Then get a friend to write a letter the next weeek. Then repeat. The editors decide what to publish partly on volume.
b) After a while, organize a group and ask to see the edtior about the newspaper talking a stand in an editorial. See what it takes to get them to commit.
c) Figure out who does the local tech beat at the paper (or tv station) and figure what it takes to get them to write a story. Talk to them if you can. Organize, hold protests, issue press releases, picket a movie theater - get press.
d) Find allies. Who else cares? Movie theater owners? Perhaps a secure digital pipe means the theaters will lose out. Having chamber of commerce types on your side helps.
e) Produce graphics. T-shirts "I hate Hollings - ask me why!", Web banners, posters, anything to make it easy for someone else to express this opinion.
f) And, instead of letters, show up in force at your representatives town meetings. Ask questions at these forums. Make them give their opinion in public.
It takes hard, continuous work to fight a battle like this, and you have to match the opponent on all the battle fields, not just Congress.
Re:handwritten? (Score:2, Informative)
The bill is S.2048 (Score:3, Informative)
From the Congressional Record:
Committee members [senate.gov] are the following (note that both senators from Oregon are here, your call/letter will matter!). I'd include their phone numbers but the lameness filter doesn't like that...
DEMOCRATS
Ernest Hollings, SC, Chmn
Daniel K. Inouye, HI
John D. Rockefeller IV, WV
John F. Kerry, MA
John B. Breaux, LA
Byron L. Dorgan, ND
Ron Wyden, OR
Max Cleland, GA
Barbara Boxer, CA
John Edwards, NC
Jean Carnahan, MO
Bill Nelson, FL
REPUBLICANS
John McCain, AZ
Ted Stevens, AK
Conrad Burns, MT
Trent Lott, MI
Kay Bailey Hutchison, TX
Olympia J. Snowe, ME
Sam Brownback, KS
Gordon Smith, OR
Peter G. Fitzgerald, IL
John Ensign, NV
George Allen, VA