[Reader-list] What to do for better laws ...

[A. Mani]

US-specific, but nevertheless relevant. Do see the comments at the site.
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https://plus.google.com/117114202722218150209/posts/4GgaRiSyaTf

"The internet seems to ignore legislation until somebody tries to take
something away from us... then we carefully defend that one thing and
never counter-attack. Then the other side says, "OK, compromise," and
gets half of what they want. That's not the way to win... that's the
way to see a steady and continuous erosion of rights online.

The solution is to start lobbying for our own laws. It's time to go on
the offensive if we want to preserve what we've got. Let's force the
RIAA and MPAA to use up all their political clout just protecting what
they have. Here are some ideas we should be pushing for:

* Elimination of software patents
* Legal fees paid by the loser in patent cases; non-practicing
entities must post bond before they can file fishing expedition
lawsuits
* Roll back length of copyright protection to the minimum necessary
"to promote the useful arts." Maybe 10 years?
* Create a legal doctrine that merely linking is protected free speech
* 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.

(2)

The dismal corruption of congress has gotten it to the point where
lobbying for legislation is out of control. As Larry Lessig has taught
us, the core rottenness originates from the high cost of running
political campaigns, which mostly just goes to TV stations.

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. Imagine if
every political candidate had free access (under some kind of "equal
time" rule) to enough advertising inventory on the Internet to run a
respectable campaign. Sure, candidates can still pay to advertise on
television, but the cost of campaigning would be a lot lower if every
candidate could run geo-targeted pre-roll ads on YouTube, geo-targeted
links at the top of Reddit.com, even targeted campaigns on Facebook.
If the Internet can donate enough inventory (and I suspect we can), we
can make it possible for a candidate to get elected without raising
huge war chests from donors who are going to want something in return,
and we may finally get to a point where every member of congress isn't
in permanent outstretched-hand mode."
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Best

A. Mani





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A. Mani
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http://www.logicamani.co.cc