I thought the most important part of the White House response was this:

So, rather than just look at how legislation can be stopped, ask yourself: Where do we go from here? Don’t limit your opinion to what’s the wrong thing to do, ask yourself what’s right. Already, many members of Congress are asking for public input around the issue. We are paying close attention to those opportunities, as well as to public input to the Administration.

One would think slashdot should be a perfect forum to gnash out a reasonable approach to the piracy issue. If we keep letting the RIAA/MPAA craft laws, they're always going to be crap because the MAFIAA never considers the ramifications beyond their own desires. Techies have to solve this problem.

These people thought they could take as the please with only minor repercussions?

Not at all. The entertainment industry is still not going to be punished for stealing from writers and artists.

Then obviously we should ban cars.

It's not the cars that are the problem, it's the open access to roads.

...they reason that if a consumer wants to enjoy fair dealing privileges, then they simply will not buy works with digital locks.

And if the products with the digital locks do not sell, the corporate uproar grows because the lack of sales is obviously due to the evil pirates stealing their stuff, which leads to a call for even tougher restrictions and suing individuals.

At least that's how it works in the U.S.

"If a company like Sony music puts a song on the Internet for others to download..."

Okay, now THAT is funny!

Don't know about the Stones, but the Beatles sold the rights to their songwriting when the band broke up, which is how Michael Jackson (and then Sony) snatched all the rights.

But this is about the sound recording rights, NOT the songwriting rights. The record labels still own them, which is why Apple Corp. has to sue EMI every five (or seven) years to collect 10% or so of what the label misappropriates by not paying royalties properly. This applies pretty much universally to almost every recording artist in the world. Almost no one owns their work, the labels do.

This will become even more evident in the next year or so, when U.S. artists start requesting ownership of their sound recordings (a result of the 1976 copyright act. which comes into play in 2013), and the labels claim in court that every song ever recorded was a work for hire. Bob Marley's family already found this out.

I think the U.S. Coast Guard should sue the U.S. Copyright Group for stealing their acronym.

Actually, I was understating by a factor of four because I have a crappy memory.

"...over a three year period, the RIAA spent over $64 million on this lawsuit campaign... which brought in about $1.4 million in settlement money. We're talking about getting back about 2% of the money spent."

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100713/17400810200.shtml

It cost the RIAA $16 for every dollar they collected with the lawsuits. 2009 sales were off more than 67% compared to 2000. EMI is on the edge of defaulting on its CitiGroup loan and being foreclosed upon.

Yeah, this "everyone is a pirate" angle is pulling in the big bucks, isn't it?

Uh... While that statement sounds logical on the surface, there's one slight flaw in this "insightful" comment. The members of the BSA ARE the patent trolls.

http://www.bsa.org/country/BSA%20and%20Members/Our%20Members.aspx

Have you seen the music industry sales figures? Ignoring the products is what brought on the copyright legislation. And the lawsuits.

The less we buy, the more they cry. It can't POSSIBLY be their fault.

I see your logic, but it overlooks the fact that very few of us have a name that is truly unique. If the law won't apply to John Smith, then it shouldn't work for what's-her-name, either.

I personally don't do file sharing, am a musician trying to scrape by a living, but this is the very point I've been trying to make other musicians understand for years, especially the ones who gleefully attack children for seeking out new music.

The artists and labels who have become vindictive assholes about file sharing are the ones destroying the music industry because their passion for money exceeds their passion for the art. They are the ones who will continue pay the highest price for the War on Music.

Maybe you're thinking of the Internet Archive.

http://www.archive.org/

You're right. "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" was not what I wanted to hear.

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After reading through more than 2/3 of this thread, the real question I have is:

What the hell does any of the conversation above have to do with the White House pressuring registrars to block sites?

We should be figuring out how to prevent the government from censoring the Internet.

In addition to the original topic not being discussed, there is also S. 3804, the "Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act," which is going to give the recording industry a new way to interfere with independent musicians sharing their own music by making it easier to accuse us of breaking the law and silence us.

But everyone would rather argue about tangents, past history, conservatives vs. liberals, third party viability or the rest of the partisan political bullshit than tackle the issues at hand. This is why our country has gone to hell.