Isn’t it fucking crazy that “industry demands ____” is likely to come to fruition, but “group of individuals demands XYZ” isn’t likely to change shit?
I demand better living conditions. We all demand an economy that doesn’t favor the rich. Not shit will change.
Companies “demand” shit and then just literally write the laws and hand them to legislators who pass them.
literally write the laws and hand them to legislators who pass them
Remember, they pass them without reading them.
No, but they do read their bank account statement before passing to see if the
bribecampaign donation was paid in time.
If your demands are being met you have power, if not you don’t have power.
Companies “demand” shit and then just literally write the laws and hand them to legislators who pass them.
Well, Congress only hears one side, they don’t read Lemmy to get the other side.
They have no respect for their constituency, because they think their constituency doesn’t care enough to engage them about it, and are ‘dumb’ enough to vote them back in the office again.
There was a study recently that showed legislators’ votes are affected by like .3% by input from constituents. I’ll try to find it again, but I can’t say I’m surprised.
There was a study recently that showed legislators’ votes are affected by like .3% by input from constituents. I’ll try to find it again, but I can’t say I’m surprised.
I’ve seen it (there’s always one person who shares the link whenever I make this kind of argument), but that study doesn’t take into account what would happen if a large percentage of the electorate that actually participated in the system were to start communicating with their elected legislators.
Right now there is so little interaction done by the electorate with their representatives.
I guarantee you that if a large amount of the voting electorate all started contacting their senators and house reps often, on different various issues, things would matter/change.
So my point still stands.
If you just sit at home reading Lemmy, they’re not going to take you seriously, and they’re not going to look out for your best interests, but instead they’re going to look out for their own best interests, which is usually getting money from corporations that they use to win elections, because they know they can still get re-elected even when they disrespect their electorate.
Fundamentally, they do what they do because they can get away with it, they are not policed by their voters.
TL;DR: If you don’t engage, nothing will change.
But during the trump years, those figures spiked big time. Especially with services like resistbot. The amount of form letters and shitty Republican legislators using my contact as some sort of consent on my part to join their fucking mailing lists?
Not to mention, these legislators are insulated from their constituents pretty effectively. If you do manage to get someone on the phone (I never did. Ever.), it’ll be an aide that might summarize the general tone of the calls and e-mails in a couple seconds worth of walk n’ talk. I mean…the system is rigged for people with money.
I get the feeling of wanting to change that. But I don’t think the system that has been further and further adulterated to those ends will ever just hand us the tools to upend that system. It was built this way.
I mean, how many times and how many ways do they have to display their wholehearted willingness to watch us all starve and slaughter countless of us in service of capitalism? They’ve made it abundantly clear.
But during the trump years, those figures spiked big time.
[Citation required.] [And define ‘big time’.]
Not to mention, these legislators are insulated from their constituents pretty effectively.
No, they are not. You can contact them directly.
But moreso, they are not policed. If they started losing elections because the electorate actually participated in the system, with more than just sometimes voting, that would change. It truly comes back to them being able to get away with doing their jobs poorly because they are not held responsible for their (bad) work.
But I don’t think the system that has been further and further adulterated to those ends will ever just hand us the tools to upend that system.
The whole point of my argument is that we have those tools today, we’re just too lazy/not-caring to use them.
Umm…have you ever tried contacting your representatives? You seem to think it’s so easy to get them on the phone. Why. How can you possibly think that? Those numbers don’t ring in their pockets. Their aides are the only people receiving and sorting through those calls and emails and letters.
There are a great many ways to petition the government, including with actual petitions, but, short of showing up in person, the one reputed to be the most effective is picking up the phone and calling your congressional representatives. In the weeks following the Inauguration of Donald J. Trump, so many people started doing so that, in short order, voice mail filled up and landlines began blurting out busy signals. Pretty soon, even e-mails were bouncing back, with the information that the target in-box was full and the suggestion that senders “contact the recipient directly.” That being impractical, motivated constituents turned to other means. The thwarted and outraged took to Facebook or Twitter or the streets. The thwarted and determined dug up direct contact information for specific congressional staffers. The thwarted and clever remembered that it was still possible, several technological generations later, to send faxes; one Republican senator received, from a single Web-based faxing service, seven thousand two hundred and seventy-six of them in twenty-four hours. The thwarted and creative phoned up a local pizza joint, ordered a pie, and had it delivered, with a side of political opinion, to the Senate.
Americans vote, if we vote at all, roughly once every two years. But even in a slow season, when no one is resorting to faxes or protests or pizza-grams, we participate in the political life of our nation vastly more often by reaching out to our members of Congress. When we do so, however, we almost never get to speak to them directly. Instead, we wind up dealing with one of the thousands of people, many of them too young to rent a car, who collectively constitute the customer-service workforce of democracy.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/what-calling-congress-achieves
That doesn’t offer cold data, but it’s a pretty well known fact that this was an explosion of sudden political participation. And I don’t remember things going particularly well. Do you.
Umm…have you ever tried contacting your representatives?
I did it just a few days ago, actually.
You seem to think it’s so easy to get them on the phone.
You contact them, not call them. I never said call, I said contact.
Let them know you’re watching, let them know your opinions on issues, let them know you’re engaged, and you’re not just mindless cattle that they can manipulate in whatever way they want. If we all do it, if they feel the ‘Eye of Sauron’ on them, they act differently.
All you have to do is use one of their online email forms. They even respond back, letting you know they registered your email on what subject you’re talking about. They track this stuff internally.
From the article that you linked…
Unlike call volume, the data on mail sent to Congress is public, and it suggests that, at least among the politically active, the U.S. Postal Service remains popular; the Senate alone received more than 6.4 million letters last year. Contrary to popular opinion, those written communications are an effective way of communicating with Congress, >>>as are their electronic kin<<<. “Everything is read, every call and voice mail is listened to,” Isaiah Akin, the deputy legislative director for Oregon’s Senator Ron Wyden, told me. “We don’t discriminate when it comes to phone versus e-mail versus letter.
So, even in the article you linked, even the aides of Representatives state that contacting them is effective in making them aware that they’re being seen by their constituency.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/03/06/what-calling-congress-achieves
There’s a volume/ratio problem of citizens to a single representative, so of course theyir aides are going to triage the calls coming in.
If you have a serious problem, some legal or administrative issue with the government, you actually are able to get elevated past the aides and talk to your actual representative. That happens all the time to citizens here.
But again, what I’m advocating is contacting them, you don’t call, you email (which is actually easier for us citizens to do anyways). They usually even have a link on their website where you can just web email them directly.
Their aides are the only people receiving and sorting through those calls and emails and letters.
And what, the aides never talk to their senators or their representatives? They never track why people are calling? B.S., they do both.
You’re not being intellectually honest. No one ever said you get personal one-on-one meetings whenever you want, and it’s weird how you’re purposely trying to motivate people not to engage in the political system they live in. Almost like you have an agenda/motives of your own.
Edit: Have you actually read through that whole article you linked? It really makes my point.
This is just two of the many examples that the article documents…
On January 2nd, House Republicans voted in secret to defang the Office of Congressional Ethics; less than twenty-four hours later, following what seemed at the time like a deluge of calls but later turned out to be just that loud patter you hear on your window before the storm really begins, they reversed their decision.
On January 24th, Representative Jason Chaffetz, Republican of Utah, introduced a proposal to sell off 3.3 million acres of federal land. Barely a week later, on February 1st, he withdrew it, after getting an earful. “Groups I support and care about fear it sends the wrong message,” he explained. “I hear you and H.R. 621 dies tomorrow.”
From the article…
He also told the audience that pirate-site operators "aren’t teenagers playing an elaborate prank. The perpetrators are real-life mobsters, organized crime syndicates—many of whom engage in child pornography, prostitution, drug trafficking, and other societal ills.
I’m honestly surprised they didn’t throw the word ‘terrorist’ into that description as well.
Especially eye-roll-inducing considering the pedophile problem in Hollywood hasn’t really gotten better, let alone been solved. Many of the exec types demanding things change are likely to be either perpetrators themselves, or sympathisers with the perpetrators of this behavior, and they tell us what we should believe is right or wrong based on the almighty dollar? Fuck Hollywood in general, but especially fuck the movie industry executives in charge. Greedy bastards.
I think maybe they are describing themselves.
Aren’t those things already illegal? Wouldn’t the solution be to just go after the pirate-site owners for those reasons? Then the only pirate-site owners remaining will be regular people—the vast minority, they would have you believe.
…Many of whom engage in child pornography, prostitution, drug trafficking, murder, terrorism, poisonings, Hentai, bad DIY, unsolicited advice, telling women to smile, wearing JNKOs, hacking banks, and NOT FLOSSING!
There are vegans that were dictators. Therefore veganism should be illegal. Also some people who breath air have been known to be murderers.
Everybody knows movie pirates eat babies—
You wouldn’t download a baby?!
Wait.
Pirate Bay.
Pirate Ba(b)y?
Pirate Babe Eat?
I think you’re on to something!
Are we surprised that the people that make up fantastical scenarios are selling a fantastical scenario? The people pirating are every day people that don’t want to pay so much for entertainment. You inept dolt.
You inept dolt.
Hostile much, conflict bot?
And people accuse me of wooshness. 😋
I’m upset at the movie executive that is inept. Not you.
Are we surprised that the people that make up fantastical scenarios are selling a fantastical scenario? The people pirating are every day people that don’t want to pay so much for entertainment. You inept dolt.
I’m upset at the movie executive that is inept. Not you.
The way you bolted that on to a comment that was directed at me, and have it meant for someone else, seems a little unusual, but fair enough.
Thanks for the clarification.
Yea. I was definitely talking to the exec. But I see the confusion. I should have quoted him or something.
Service Provider
Not Service Regulator
They shouldn’t have any knowledge of what websites people visit
Basically demands lawmakers for ISPs implement censorship tools.
And when people demand living wages, or properly priced housing, or affordable food, that shit doesn’t matter right?
Fuck the movie industry.
They were doing just fine until people started to hate theatres and so their main source of ripping people off faded away.
Block piracy websites with what? Dns resolver?
Piracy websites should add a copy of the U.S. Constitution to their websites. Just slap a “/constitution.html” on the site.
Then, if the MPA succeeds, we can talk about how the U.S. Government is blocking access to hundreds/thousands of copies of the Constitution online.
LOL this should be done.
“/ConstitutionUSA.html”
Should be added.
Hmmm, yes. Build a whole generation of tech savvy people with knowledge of VPNs and that activelly hate your guts. I cannot foresee any way this could backfire.
Cool. Now all of Google Drive is blocked because one guy hosted a movie there for a few days.
All it would take is someone getting AWS blacklisted for an hour, that law would disappear like it never existed.
Piracy Shield blocked a Cloudflare IP address recently too
Wage theft and fraud poses a larger threat to the economy. Rather than hiring 20 million dollars of internet policing to save zero dollars of the economy could we get 20 million dollars of police that prosecute fraudsters and shitty employers?
Can we just start hanging the rich on live TV?
Y’know the French did this “publicly execute the rich” thing before. Worked out pretty great for them… maybe we should learn a thing or two.
Imagine how much money the movie industry would have if it stopped wasting time and effort on the false idea that 1 download = 1 lost sale.
But remember, when it comes to doing a public good/service/education/etc, the government is perpetually broke and can afford nothing.
150M $? This sounds like with such money entire city’s Public Transport can run for 10 years. Without fees.
How about they start making good movies that are actually worth to go to cinema for instead of whatever they are doing
And adjust the fucking business model so that theatres can make money from people just buying tickets at reasonable prices and don’t have to try to gouge them at the concession stand or treat them like criminals for bringing their own food.
I’ve been to one movie in the theatre since the pandemic and the main thing it did was remind me that seeing movies in a theatre just wasn’t really worth it anymore.
Yup, I go to movies when they look good. But movies are so expensive these days that the bar is raised enough that I rarely go. If you’re going to ask $10-15 for a single viewing, you need to make a really good movie.
I’m happy to spend £10 to watch a movie at the cinema, but I refuse to spend £10 AND have to buy the movie to watch it again. I will watch it then pirate it. I don’t think that’s such a big deal.
Okay, I’ll use my own DNS provider
Maybe they will actually geoblock…
I’ll use my VPN.
an industry which throws away finished movies because they don’t want to spend the money to release it?
yeah nah, you’re disqualified from an opinion on piracy.
Justice for Coyote Vs. ACME
Yeah! Like, just because you make something, doesn’t mean you get to decide what to do with it.
Movies are made by a lot of people.
Many people pouring time, effort, and creativity into a difficult art form.
You really think any of the people who actually made the movie had a say in the decision to shelf it?
Those people were paid for their efforts. Sure it might be disappointing for that effort to not see the light it day, but at the same time I’ll bet many are relieved their name won’t be attached to a poor product.
not paid well enough.
No, of course not.
If I commission an artist to make me a painting, and I then decide to throw it in a storage bin (or the trash) rather than put it in a gallery - that’s my decision. Neither the artist or the general public gets a say in it. Claiming otherwise (especially in case of the public) is pure entitlement.
If you commission the artist to make you a painting, with some portion of the price being a cut of the revenue generated by displaying the painting, you absolutely should not be permitted to just throw it in the trash.
There should be an inherent obligation to make a good faith effort to make the revenue you’re required to share.
The artist would still be able to display it, even if just a high quality scan of an original.
Instead of being contempt with one yacht, they’re gonna do what they can to have zero.
When A24 and state run film studios like Vicscreen are the only ones making anything remotely worth the box office, you have a problem, and burning down the barn to stop the foxes from all those delicious hens aren’t gonna fix it. Just more socialized losses.
I demand laws requiring the movie industries to throw any IPs they don’t want to use or any movies they don’t give reasonable and simple access straight into the public domain
Just cut out the middleman and get rid of copyright and patent laws altogether.
They are not good for society and only useful idiots think otherwise.
No. Copyright laws originally allowed creators to profit of their work for 28 years, which is perfectly fair and reasonable. Corporate lobbying extended copyright to 70 years past the author’s death, which is obviously insane, since creators can’t profit off their work after they die. But just because corporations perverted the law in an attempt to retain IP indefinitely, it doesn’t mean that copyright law itself is bad, and wanting reasonable protection for an authors IP doesn’t make you a useful idiot.
🥱
🤡
