ACT NOW: DON'T LET COPYRIGHT HOLDERS STEAL OUR PROPERTY RIGHTS!
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[url]http://www.youvebeenowned.org/[/url]
[B][U]ACT NOW: DON'T LET COPYRIGHT HOLDERS STEAL OUR PROPERTY RIGHTS![/U][/B]
In a few weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether you have the right to sell your stuff on eBay. Do you really own the smartphone or computer you’re using to read this? If you sold your books, would you be breaking the law? A federal court in New York says you would be, even if you legally paid for and bought them.
It's unbelievable, but trademark and copyright holders are trying to use a legal loophole to take away your right to sell things that you own. The mainstream media is starting to catch on, with the Wall Street Journal just running an article headlined, "YOUR RIGHT TO RESELL YOUR OWN STUFF IS IN PERIL". Please add your name at right to fight back.
Public interest advocates are taking the case all the way to the Supreme Court, and Demand Progress is joining up with a coalition of groups -- including many of those that came together to kill SOPA -- to support the rights of ordinary Internet users and everyday consumers.
Once again, big entertainment company lobbyists are fighting us in the courts to ensure their profits are given higher priority than consumer rights. But this time the MPAA and RIAA have the Obama administration on their side -- they've all filed legal briefs asking the Supreme Court to restrict our right to resell the things we own..
We only have a few weeks to make our voices heard before the Supreme Court makes a lasting ruling. We are working to defend a long-standing principle known as the "First-Sale Doctrine." This common-sense rule gives us the right to sell most property we own, but big businesses have been trying to chip away at out our rights in the courts. If the Supreme Court supports the lower court’s decision, we won't really “own” anything if any part of it was made in a different country. And practically anything you own -- from your iPod to your house -- could have been made abroad, in whole or in part.
If we lose this fight, practically anybody who wants to resell products they bought -- from Macbooks and iPhones to our clothing and textbooks -- will have to ask copyright holders for permission first. And they'll have the right to deny it!
It's bad for so many reasons: It'll undermine Craigslist and Ebay, hurt the environment, increase incentives for manufacturers to move jobs off-shore, and effectively ban the traditional American yard sale.
[B][U]There is a very particular America I want to see.[/U][/B]
Entertainment industry and media cartels pushing to twist the law to take away your ability to resell goods you've already purchased. After SOPA, PCIPA, CISPA, NDAA, ACTA, PIPA, I'm rather sick of the public constantly being on the defensive here. I actually hope the court supports the corporations in this case. I hope all of the Privacy and freedoms Americans still have left are legislated away.
Christopher Hitchens once made the astute remark that State-enforced religion is the best way to mass-manufacture Atheism. In a similar vein of thought, I don't think Americans or the rest of the world will wake up to this problem until the enemy wins and they understand what it is they are losing.
I Sincerely want an America where major corporations can censor small businesses' websites for the most trivial of reasons. I want an America where Quantum Artificial intelligence is used to decrypt, read, and analyse everything every American says and does, track where they go, and monitor every minute aspect of their lives in the interest of "National Security". I want an America where all the information collected by the NSA, CIA, and DHS is available to private corporations. I want an America where political dissidents are detained indefinitely to silence opposition to the state. I want an America where Autonomous AI flying police drones monitor every corner of every city 24/7. I want an America where Police and Federal agents monitor every person contemplating breaking the law and pre-emptively arrest them before they can break it. I want an America where it's not unusual for people to be tranqd or tazed by drones in the middle of the street or disappeared at night from their beds.
I want an America where You have no Reasonable expectation of privacy anywhere. I want an America where there is Joint Government-private sector databanks with the sensitive information of hundreds of millions of people in one place for hackers to break into and steal.I want an America where Employers can know EVERYTHING about you and every website you've visited online and all about all of your friends and social life, where they can discriminate against you for even the tiniest reason.
I want an America where Internet Service Providers are allowed to tamper with the traffic going through their wires and throttle speeds to some websites and block others, packaging up websites in "packages" like TV channels, where you can pay 5 dollars a month to get your full advertised speed on X social media sites and for another 5 expand the high speed to all of Y social media websites; but wait for only 15$ a month you'll be able to use youtube! and how about a 5 cent charge on your bill for every Google search?
I want an America where You cannot purchase electronics, only lease them. I want an America where all the computers sold in stores only allow installation of Signed operating systems and contain government and corporate malware out of the box. I want an America where You can be fined or arrested for trying to resell copyrighted material you paid for with Legal US Tender. I want an America where Companies can prevent you from 3d printing things they manufacture so that you are forced to buy from them. I want an America where Teenagers are fined for millions of dollars for downloading a few songs, indebting them for life to the Multinational entertainment industry, and where failure to pay your debts results in you being placed in Federally-funded private prisons and where state and federal prison inmates are Leased to corporations as slave labour under the guise of a "Civilian inmate labor camp". I want an america where computers are designed at the hardware level to only be capable of one encryption protocol which the government has a backdoor for.
I want an America where Not only does the electoral system favor a two party regime, but where the people are removed completely from the presidential elections, placing that decision in the state legislatures' hands. I want an America where Corporations are human citizens while Labor unions, advocacy groups, and NGOs are not. I want an America where the wealthiest .0001% of the population control 50% of the wealth and control the entirety of society for their own interest.
I want an America where there's not only an individual mandate to buy healthcare insurance from Private sector companies, but also mandates to use private schools, healthcare, Universities, Roads, electricity, Water infrastructure, Communication infrastructure, and Prisons. I want an America where Oil and Gas Companies can drill and frack anywhere they want without regard for the environment or the health of local populations, including current national parks. I want an America where industrial fisheries drive millions of species of sea-life to extinction. I want an America where Coal is only source of energy, and solar, wind, and nuclear have been abandoned while coal plants spew Pollutants and radiation into the atmosphere and Smog chokes our megalopolises.
I want an America where GDP growth becomes the only respected metric of human development. I want an America where the Minimum wage is abolished and workers earn only exactly enough to eat while the owners of the corporation live in lavish private manses and opulent gated cities. I want an America where "middle-class" children have to work until the age of 20 before they can afford to start middle school. I want an America where Retirement is a thing of the past and our elderly Contribute "their fair share" by working until they're in their graves.
I want an America where all of this happens so that Americans, just as they developed a fear of monarchy, totalitarian Communism, and direct ownership of other human beings can learn to fear these ghastly, dreadful injustices of corporatist fascism, Where Americans will guard against these conjured ideal futures created by the plutocracy, fighting to the last of their number to prevent these things from ever happening again. That is the America I want.
[highlight](User was banned for this post ("Not News - didn't read the sticky" - Craptasket))[/highlight]
Sensationalist headline, but this isn't a news article.
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