If you're not familiar with hip-hop music blogs like the one cited in the article, please visit http://nahright.com or http://missinfo.tv to get a better idea of what they look like (since dajaz1.com doesn't seem to be back up yet, understandably).
Almost every track posted to sites like these are released by the artists themselves (or by their labels). Many hip-hop blogs (including the two I linked) will not post songs if they weren't legitimately authorized by the artists (e.g. if a track was stolen and leaked on the web).
Something you won't ever see are full albums. These sites aren't designed to replace album sales, they actually encourage them. They will only link to individual songs or freely released mixtapes.
(Also, you'll note that a lot of the music posted is from unsigned artists. A lot of newer rappers actually rose to prominence after having their music posted on these sites.)
There are many, many sites that willingly infringe on copyright and the government has good reason for shutting down. This was not one of them.
PS. For more information on how music gets released to these blogs, read this excellent piece, also by Techdirt:
> There are many, many sites that willingly infringe on copyright and the government has good reason for shutting down.
Or maybe, the notion of copyright police is stupid. Have we caught all the bad-guys and evil-doers in this world, and all that's left is COPYRIGHT abuse? I mean, what about all those terrorists who hate us for our freedom. Yet, we have enough resources left over to shut down some poor dudes blog? I feel safer all-ready!
Terrorists do not threaten the power of congress. The freedom to share any data you want over the internet does. Digital rights, saving the children, pornography are all just smoke screens for the government to acquire a "thumb of smite" button to squish anything on the global internet that challenges US congress's authority.
Congress just got done bankrupting this country 800 times over, you think they are worried about some pennies lost by some company due to copyright? It's about power.
I'm sure every Congressperson rides the border between:
- Personal morals (i.e. voting against gay marriage or evolution because their religion dictates it)
- Pandering to corporate interests for campaign money (or votes in the case of strong unions)
- Supporting their constituents (or at least appearing to). This can take the form of pandering to corporate interests so that said corporations open up their new offices within said Congresspersons constituency (i.e. bringing new jobs into the area!). It can also take the form of voting on crap laws to look 'tough on crime' or 'tough on child porn' or whatever.
I doubt very much that many of the people in Congress see it as a 'power grab' even if that is essentially what it is.
You know I read all these comments about how this is just incompetence, but I think it smells like payback for something. How interesting that it was all filed under seal. That speaks to intent to me more strongly than anything else.
How doing all this is legal is still beyond me. I hope someone SOMEWHERE is planning to sue the living crap out of these asshats.
Is there any case in the history of America where the FBI was found to be corrupt or in violation of human rights? What would it take? If the FBI starts murdering people and taking them away in the night, is there a process to check that power?
I'd be surprised if a significant number of countries - or any really - exist in which human rights are enforceable. It is certainly not the case for the US.
Almost every track posted to sites like these are released by the artists themselves (or by their labels).
How would an outside copyright enforcer know that? In a world where companies send takedowns to YouTube over videos that they uploaded, it seems like it's not enough to be legal — sites need a way to prove that they're posing authorized content.
How would an outside copyright enforcer know that?
Well, for one, there is no such thing as "an outside copyright enforcer." The only people allowed to complain at all about a song's presence on a website are the people who own the copyright. That's it.
Apparently the seizure was facilitated by a complaint and affidavit from the RIAA, even though the website kept scrupulous records of permission to post songs directly from the labels.
Which tells us that the RIAA lies to law enforcement and should be criminally investigated. If its a corporation, and since corporation are now people, perhaps we should put it in prison and allow it one phone call per week.
What makes you think this isn't entirely intentional? I mean if an industry writes processes and remedies, isn't it reasonable to assume that to any reasonable outside, they will abuse them?
For whatever reason, it's good to know for the future. That is, it's probably a good thing to remember when future legislation (like today's new SOPA) comes up. I totally agree that the whole industry-written legislation Thing is lame.
So you're defending the outsourced copyright "enforcers" because they can't help but be incompetent, and you're defending the people who hire them because they're too incompetent to do it either?
I assume this burden of proof did, or still does exist, and SOPA is the industry attempt to change that because it's too much of an inconvenience for them.
Those familiar with Nick Davies' Flat Earth News[0] will know that copyright is a prime candidate for a flat earth story. The lobbyist angle is so pervasive that it has, to the media at large, become a fundamental truth.
The trouble is, copyright infringement is so widespread these days that the burden of proof is quite a burden indeed. It isn't just on the consumer end that copyright law hasn't yet caught up with the times.
You can't use that as an excuse to put someone (or some corporation) in a position power to hurl around accusations that cause mountains to move because they are assumed to be true.
"It's so hard for us to enforce our copyrights, so just give us the ability to point the finger at anyone, and have them (and their business) forcibly thrown off the Internet until they prove their innocence."
Oh, I agree completely. I just think "The burden of proof needs to be on the ones making the accusations" kind of glosses over some very important facets of the problem — it's a "Let them eat cake" sort of idea.
Philosophically that's supposed to be true. In practice, not so much.
For example, in NJ, if you're found in possession of a firearm, you are assumed to be in violation of this state's gun control laws unless you can prove that you acquired the gun in accordance with State laws.
Weird, the way the government said they had a secret court extension, but couldn't even give a redacted copy. It almost sounds like they didn't have a court extension, and were lying that they did, and eventually had to hand the domain back out of sheer embarrassment.
Sure. Usually if you give embarrassing people the runaround, they eventually go away.
It was, admittedly, way too optimistic for the government to assume every seized domain would work this way. But for them to assume this one specific one would work that way is actually depressingly likely.
Governments illegally seize stuff all the time, especially when investigating anything drug-related. They can seize and auction off your stuff basically even on suspicion of it being bought with drug money.
What happens if it wasn't? Well, they owe you money back if your lawyer is good enough to make that happen.
My reading was "they lied. They never planned to do anything."
I dunno, if it was my site, I would ask that my lawyer sue to the government to get the site back, and make the government prove that another judge was already handling it.
It always amazes me how quickly abuses of power seem to occur once such power is enabled. I always expect that at first the recipients of the power will be very cautious, bound by the social norms and expectations set by the previous situation, and it will take many years or even decades for the abuses we complain about to actually happen. However it doesn't seem to work like that. Abuses seem to happen almost immediately the minute it is possible for them to occur.
It's almost comforting in a way - at least truly terrible laws don't just slip in unnoticed and get established without us noticing. Their bad effects get manifested almost straight away.
The system is so very large, and it only takes one person to make one decision - in this case, a single federal prosecutor or his boss who decided he wanted to charge this case - to decide to utilize their power. You don't hear about the thousands of other prosecutors who use appropriate discretion, and don't file inappropriate charges/motions.
If the system were constructed such that it took two persons to make the decision to commit an abuse of power, perhaps it wouldn't be such an abusive system.
Heh. It wouldn't be perfect. But if the system of N people has C < N people who will make or approve corrupt decisions, and each person had to have 1 randomly chosen person sign off on each possibly corrupt decision, you go from C/N chance of a randomly chosen decision being a corrupt one to a (C/N)^2 chance. If the system has a relatively low percentage of corrupt people, that could be a big win.
If C is too large, you could improve the scheme by adding another sign-off to increase it to (C/N)^3, as well as by punishing the original requester and anybody who approves along the way when a corrupt decision is caught.
We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion.
What I don't understand is why a meeting with the government lawyer was the final action and why what they say matters? What prevents the blog owner from filing a suit to get the property returned? The government failed to provide proof that they were legally in possession of the property. File a suit to get the property back and then they have to produce the legal order allowing them to keep it. I know money might be a major factor in this but the article's author acts like there was nothing else that could have been done.
It seems like lawsuits work on about a ~1 year latency scale too, so I don't see how that would improve the situation. The site owner had counsel, and they chose the best mechanism they could see to get the result they wanted. And ultimately they did. The courts don't work quickly, sadly.
There's also a good chance that after the lawyer was first stonewalled, he saw a bigger lawsuit opportunity down the road if it persisted. And it did. I still expect civil action against the government to be on the way.
Serious question. This article seems to be about censorship and the First Amendment. The opening paragraph equates this to a magazine being shut down and the printing presses seized. But I don't think this hip-hop blog was saying something the government wanted to stop. I don't get why the prevalent "bad thing" the government did is being called censorship.
Isn't the real story the government put a company out of business for no reason? They took a "top 10" website in a category and shut it down for a year, allowing their competitors an unfair advantage. No due process, no communication, not even a case number. They picked a random company and put it out of business.
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
The point is that under the First Amendment, the government shouldn't be able to do this for any reason (aside from the usual "fire in a crowded theater" or "disclosing state secrets" kinds of exceptions). Basically, if only "speech criticizing the government" were protected by the First Amendment, then the government could just claim "but this wasn't really criticism". So the Founders made the First Amendment broader than that.
And under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, taking away property without due process is forbidden.
A few years I heard a radio interview with a prominent rap artist (I forgot who) who said something like:
There's some evidence around that the government does consider rap and hip-hop to be, in a variety of cases, a potential threat on the order of political speech. In particular, a number of artists have ongoing files with the FBI.
The supposed reason is that if you had to pick one artform with the highest potential to start widespread political action in a short time, it would probably be music. And one of the demographics that presents a significant potential political threat to established order (ie large-scale city riots) it is the audience for rap and hip hop.
This happened in a different way to me. They didn't take my domain; they threatened my ISP and they deleted everything on my domain, include six other sites that lived there - the music blog was a subdomain.
The thing I couldn't believe was that I'd never posted a track I hadn't gotten approved by the artist; I'd estimate 70% was sent to me by promoters, artists, or the label themselves. If it wasn't, it was likely found on another blog and I only let readers download content that was available for free from the artist themselves.
Totally ridiculous. Trying to get a response for their grounds was impossible, and I eventually had to switch ISPs and rebuild all my sites.
Yeah, it was a pretty huge pain in the ass. I hammered the CEO of the ISP and he gave me some boiler plate response. Honestly, I'm running a startup and the music blog is a fun side project so I didn't pursue it. I sent word to some of the other bloggers that I know have high traffic like I did and that I know share downloadable content. I wanted to know if I was behaving differently than they were, and I wasn't. They were all pretty nervous about the whole thing.
Music blogger in general are huge proponents of driving money to artists; either by putting them on the map or literally driving sales. If you're lucky enough to collect attention on the aggregators you can be pretty sure that your posts will get traffic, so finding a young band with little exposure is hugely gratifying.
Then the record label gorilla lawyers get in the way. Really sad state of affairs.
It's obvious to me that as time goes by, governments are going to want to shut down more and more internet services for whatever reason.
It seems to me that the thing that is needed most is an even-more distributed internet system, so that things like DNS and ISPs cannot be controlled by governments.
A peer-to-peer DNS system and someway of easily setting yourself up as an ISP would mean that this type of intervention would be impossible.
P2P DNS exists. One implementation is Namecoin. I've heard of ideas of making a large mesh network with people's Wi-Fi routers, but there are many technical hurdles to overcome there, though it should be workable, if excruciatingly slow.
Mistakenly implies that it wasn't a direct result of policy and an inherently malicious protocol of operations. This, in my opinion, was not a mistake, but rather the result of systemic incompetence and technical illiteracy on the part of the US government. The ladder climbers that pulled this off are headed straight to a nice private job just as soon as they get done making a name for themselves.
I am really shocked and disturbed by this article. From reading it I believe that this is a total violation of the trust towards the Government and the whole legal system.
The lack of due process is what is most disturbing. Someone (the Government in this case) can accuse one of a crime, but they have to prove it. Hijacking a domain and not producing evidence on why it was hijacked and not following the proper procedure which is outlined by the law and finally hiding behind the Government blanket of 'no' is simply wrong and must not be allowed to happen again.
To me this read as abuse of power by certain employees of the Government. Not allowing due process is illegal and I hope that Dajaz1's lawyers will get to the bottom of this.
The techdirt article repeatedly makes reference to seizure laws as they apply to confiscated PROPERTY. Is there legal precedence for the blog to immediately assume that such laws apply to digital domains, where nothing physical was confiscated?
Well, what law do you think the government invoked and why?
Litigating an entire case ex parte and sealing the record so that the accused never even finds out what they were accused of should be quite troubling to anyone who believes in due process.
>Litigating an entire case ex parte and sealing the record so that the accused never even finds out what they were accused of should be quite troubling to anyone who believes in due process.
seems like definition of due process has been changed, secretly to avoid unnecessary disturbance to the public peace and enjoyment.
A domain name is property, even if it is not physical. For that matter, if the contents of a bank account are seized, nothing physical moves, but it is still certainly property. A future (as opposed to possessory) interest in land is property that can be seized, sold, and used as collateral, but it does not physically exist either (even if that one is tied to something that does physically exist).
In short, a thing does not need to be tangible for it to be property.
Legally speaking, no, you can't. If you download a song illegally, you might be accused of copyright infringement, which ironically carries stiffer penalties than just stealing the record would in many cases, but you will not be charged with theft unless they also suspect you stole something physical.
Assuming you meant convicted of stealing, and not accused (you can always be accused of doing anything): that hasn't been established. What has been established is that you can upload a song and be sued for violating someone else's copyright.
The domain wasn't copied, downloaded, streamed, remixed, tweeted, emailed, torrented or archived.
The domain was taken by ICE and its owner was deprived of any use of it, all while it hosted an image proclaiming the former owner to be a criminal of some sort.
Is there a complete lack of quotes on the record in that article? I see the lawyer's name for dajaz1.com but no quotes from him, no owner is named, no quotes from him... Just sayin'.
Everything is not right here. This is pretty basic stuff though, an accused man deserves to face his accusers, who is accused? The whole story is just better when there is an actual victim of the government tyranny. I expect it has something to do with payola but .... the feds will never defend themselves and who knows how much traffic this site is going to get now.
The right to innocence until proven given guilty is quite fundamental to our legal system, and laws like SOPA and Protect IP go against that very ideal. Right now these laws that take away these fundamental freedoms are only in the copyright domain, but if these laws stand, I'm assuming they could be used as a precedent and used to justify other laws that take away the presumption of innocence. I'm not a lawyer, but this is what these laws seem to be heading towards.
Not the case. Andrew Bridges was at the Stanford Law Center's SOPA talk last night. He knows his law inside and out and was all over this. The government messed up here and tried to bury it. Because he didn't go away that this is coming out.
I'm not sure if I'm happy to hear he is indeed good. That is even more troubling.
I would expect lawyers to have some kind of recourse if things obviously are not going the way the law intended them to, instead of simply getting "no" for an answer. But IANAL.
Someday, perhaps populists and socialists will realize that the very structure of American government combined with our culture leads to complete incompetence in government. We are better off with every power we take away from them.
Or could it be that it's exactly this sort of reflexive government-bashing that makes it easy for the general public to elect fools and charlatans? After all, if government is the problem, why would people bother electing representatives who take governing seriously? Heck of a job, Brownie.
Regardless, I think your thesis is false. A lot of the powers we've taken away from government lately (regulation of financial services, regulation of financial markets, regulation of campaign contributions) have made us worse off, and specifically have made it easier for RIAA to buy legislation like this.
regulation of financial services, regulation of financial markets
This isn't going to be rehashing the Glass-Steagall myth, is it? See, e.g., [1]
regulation of campaign contributions
Isn't this in itself a repudiation of democracy? We're not talking here about Blagojevich-style corruption in the election process. If you're worrying about campaign contributions, that boils down to how much advertising a campaign can buy. If you're worried about a candidate advertising a lot, that's pretty much a vote of no-confidence in your fellow Americans' ability to weigh options and vote rationally.
Also, if you're one of those people horrified that corporations can now contribute to campaigns, can you tell me where the line should be drawn? I'm sure you don't object to my right to contribute to a campaign, nor my right to pool money with a friend to do so. If two of us can do so, why not, say, my whole club (e.g., my hypothetical flying club wants to have elected the guy who promises to grant a permit to expand the airport in town)? As this scales up, at some point we need a formal structure to organize things, which is legally recognized by a corporation; why can't my incorporated flying club make a contribution?
"If you're worried about a candidate advertising a lot, that's pretty much a vote of no-confidence in your fellow Americans' ability to weigh options and vote rationally."
One's ability to weigh options is predicated on the fact that people have awareness of the options and their implications in the first place. People don't have perfect knowledge even before millions of advertising dollars flood the market with misinformation about the options themselves, let alone the implications for same.
If you're truly interested in maintaining the integrity of our democracy and our discourse, it's hard to imagine why you'd be in favor of more unrestricted money. The fact is that vanishingly few people are wealthy enough to participate in this flavor of democracy, let alone make any sense of it.
"Isn't this in itself a repudiation of democracy?"
It's a strange sort of democracy you have here, where some voices are obviously more equal than others.
"This isn't going to be rehashing the Glass-Steagall myth, is it? See, e.g., [1]"
Wow. The future more than a little pwned this guy. What about the billions of dollars BoA and JP Morgan took from the gov't? How about WaMu? And in what universe CDOs, et al, not risky investments?
My understanding about Glass-Steagall isn't so much that it directly led to the crisis, although for all I know maybe there's some intricacy there that I'm missing. Rather it allowed banks to use depositors' money to play Wall Street, and during the financial/housing bubble over the last decade or so, this meant you could become fantastically rich. So you make money, you buy up other banks, and you become progressively closer to "too big to fail."
AIUI, more and smaller banks -> more resilience, more diffuse risk rather than big, big chunks of concentrated risk in a few, critical places.
It's a strange sort of democracy you have here, where some voices are obviously more equal than others.
My definition of democracy is that everyone gets an equal vote. I don't see where it relates to who can advocate with how loud a voice.
You haven't addressed my question about where, in the spectrum of single speaker to small groups up through corporations, the right to invest money in political speech ought to be curtailed.
So you make money, you buy up other banks, and you become progressively closer to "too big to fail." ... more and smaller banks -> more resilience, more diffuse risk rather than big, big chunks of concentrated risk
I appreciate your reply here. It's thoughtful, and you're the first one I've encountered that has actually tried to put some meat behind the standard talking point. So in my book, you've got an upvote for engaging in a principled debate, even if I disagree with you.
The thing is, G-S did not prevent banks from becoming too big to fail. It prevented them from diversifying. So if G-S were still in place, there's no reason to believe that the banks would have been any smaller. It just would have ensured that the banks didn't have sufficient diversifying to ride out any problems. If you look at my citation above, you'll see that this is exactly what happened. There were giant non-diversified banks that were failing, while those that did diversify, thanks to Gramm-Leach-Bliley, were able to weather the storm.
> My definition of democracy is that everyone gets an equal vote.
So how does it come about that you interpret support for restrictions on political campaigning as an attack on democracy? You can't have it both ways: either democracy is just about giving everyone one vote, in which case nothing wpietri [EDITED to add: or wonderzombie] said can possibly be taken to be at all opposed to it; or it's concerned more broadly with enabling and/or trusting people to vote rationally in the light of the best available information, in which case it's obviously not undemocratic (though it might turn out to be wrong) to want to regulate possible sources of misinformation.
> You haven't addressed my question about where [...] the right to invest money in political speech ought to be curtailed.
Your implicit argument seems to be this: If you can't point to an obviously correct place to draw the line, then no line should be drawn anywhere. I think this argument is hopelessly wrong; there are thousands of cases where you have a continuum with something obviously reasonable at one end, something obviously unacceptable at another, and no obviously correct place to draw a line.
However, here is one proposal that seems reasonable to me: Individuals and corporations can both invest money in political speech, but the amount any individual or any individual corporation is allowed to put in is limited to (some credible estimate of) the largest amount a not-entirely-crazy person on a roughly-median income would be prepared to put in. (The problem with letting corporations run political advertisements isn't that there's something especially evil about corporations; it's that corporations have a colossal amount of money and a great deal to gain or lose from political outcomes, and that their interests are not obviously well aligned with those of the general public. If IBM or General Motors or ExxonMobil can only spend $5k/year on politics, they can't do much harm.)
I would put the limitations in the other direction; in fact, I would say that one reasonably obvious place to draw the line is that in order to contribute money to a political campaign, you have to be a registered voter. That would immediately shut down corporate contributions completely. If a group of individuals all want to contribute to the same politician's campaign, great! They can each make their individual contributions. But it seems to me that the biggest source of corruption in the whole process is the idea that any entities other than individual voters can be part of the process. Government is supposed to represent actual human beings, not legal fictions.
So how does it come about that you interpret support for restrictions on political campaigning as an attack on democracy?
If you believe that the additional political speech that greater donations would allow, would break the democratic process, then you have little faith in the ability of voters to weigh the facts and cast a rational vote. If you don't think that voters can do this, then it seems to me that you don't believe that democracy can really work.
I'm not saying that the people who want to limit political contributions are opposed to democracy. I'm saying that it reveals that they have little confidence that democracy can work.
Your implicit argument seems to be this: If you can't point to an obviously correct place to draw the line, then no line should be drawn anywhere.
No. I'm saying that for such restrictions to be implementable, there must be a line defined somewhere. If you want to make a rule, you've got to add something to it that still allows me, or me and my buddies, or whatever, to still make political contributions.
Secondarily, I'm hoping that expressing that distinction might reveal more about what these people are trying to accomplish (or not accomplish, as the case might be). Sort of a black box test.
Individuals and corporations can both invest money in political speech, but the amount any individual or any individual corporation is allowed to put in is limited to (some credible estimate of) the largest amount a not-entirely-crazy person
So you're prohibiting me from pooling money with friends in order to send a message of our own. Is that your intent?
(Please note that there are several different people in this discussion. My opinion is not necessarily the same as wpietri's or wonderzombie's.)
I think that how well democracy works depends on all kinds of things. How well informed voters are is certainly one of them. Voters, being human beings, are demonstrably vulnerable to misinformation. Therefore, it is possible that taking measures to reduce misinformation may make democracy work better.
And I am entirely at a loss to see how anyone can seriously regard this sort of position as not believing that democracy can "really work", whatever the hell that's meant to mean.
> for such restrictions to be implementable, there must be a line defined somewhere.
For sure. But how do you get from there to suggesting that anyone who thinks there should be some limits is somehow obliged to have a specific place where they think the line needs to go, still less obliged to tell you where that place is?
> might reveal more about what these people are trying to accomplish (or not accomplish, as the case might be).
Jiminy.
> you're prohibiting me from pooling money with friends in order to send a message of our own.
I'm not prohibiting anything, and the proposal I made would obviously not have the effect you describe -- and this sort of rhetoric is one reason why I don't in the least blame anyone who declines to answer your tell-me-where-the-line-goes demands.
However: my suggestion is that you and your friends are welcome to send your money wherever you want, but that any single legal entity acting as a single entity only gets to play with as much money as a typical person could afford to use for influencing the political process.
The sort of corporate activity that some people worry about is not remotely like you and your friends pooling some money.
> I'm not saying that the people who want to limit political contributions are opposed to democracy. I'm saying that it reveals that they have little confidence that democracy can work.
Nicely put!
Just going to point out that a corporation isn't just a "large group" - it is a government-created entity that enjoys vastly reduced liability for individual members of that group.
I'm sure you don't object to my right to contribute to a
campaign
Why are you sure of this? How do you know wpietri doesn't support publicly-funded campaigns? Your short post sure does contain a lot of assumptions.
And what's with the link to a citation-free Heritage blog post that, not surprisingly, begins with, "It has become an article of faith on the left [...]"? Next time, please link to an informative paper published by an organization like the AEA. Thanks.
Your apparent theory that too-big-to-fail corporations should be allowed to play heads-I-win-tails-you-lose with taxpayer money (and then buy politicians with the winnings) is comical.
Isn't this in itself a repudiation of democracy?
No, it's honoring the practical core and the historical roots of it.
If you're worried about a candidate advertising a lot, that's pretty much a vote of no-confidence in your fellow Americans' ability to weigh options and vote rationally.
If you actually believe that advertisements are about delivering information to inform a rational decision-making process, I can't help you.
tell me where the line should be drawn?
Personally, I'm for public funding of elections based on achieved milestones. With pretty modest amounts of funding. Forcing information on people made sense when information was scarce and difficult to get. Any voter with an internet connection can be as informed as they want to be today. Anybody who has an opinion can publish it with worldwide reach.
why can't my incorporated flying club make a contribution?
Maybe because the end of your slippery slope is oligarchy and/or crony capitalism masquerading as representative government?
Your apparent theory that too-big-to-fail corporations should be allowed to play heads-I-win-tails-you-lose with taxpayer money
I don't recall advocating that those corporations should have been bailed out. Indeed, I believe just the opposite. The market was malfunctioning back in '07, but the way to solve that problem isn't by rewarding those doing it. The correct fix, painful as it might be, is to allow it fail.
Maybe because the end of your slippery slope is oligarchy and/or crony capitalism masquerading as representative government?
Perhaps my previous statement clarifies that I'm not a supporter of corporatism at all. I'm opposed to the government grabbing additional powers. That's it.
Ok, corporate donations are not linked to what everyone inside a corporation decides but rather a small set of people whose interest don't necessarily align with the shareholders or the workers at large. Handing disproportionate power to middlemen breeds corruption without the counterbalance of risking large personal fortunes or publicity.
This same argument also disproves the idea of giving personal tax breaks on large incomes as apposed to corporate tax breaks for small businesses. AKA middle management don't create jobs so tax breaks targeting 'job creators' that include them are misnamed.
Edit: The above is a position piece just like those people at the Heritage Foundation are paid to create. There is nothing wrong with suggesting you find credible sources that are not simply spouting propaganda.
"Consider the source" is a perfectly valid heuristic for credibility, which is necessary when counterarguing major political topics like those surrounding Glass-Steagall/Graham-Leach-Bliley. Is HF the most credible source for GP's argument? If so, then that is part of the story.
I didn't provide anything deeper because this has been rehashed many times, and those claiming that G-S is what allowed the crisis have never offered anything of substance in those previous discussions.
But if you insist on more meat, consider (from the original citation [1]):
the evidence so far shows that Gramm-Leach-Bliley has helped soften the blow to taxpayers by allowing commercial banks to take over trouble investment firms. Just look at which organization’s have failed:
Bear Stearns was an investment bank before it was sold to JP Morgan Chase (which includes a commercial bank).
Fannie Mae were Freddie Mac were government sponsored entities before the government bought them.
Lehman Brothers was an investment bank before it want bankrupt.
Merrill Lynch was an investment bank befor it was sold to Bank of America (which is a commercial bank).
AIG is an insurance company with no commercial banking division.
Remember, Glass-Steagal was passed to protect commercial banks from failure by forbidding them from investment bank practices like trading in securities and underwriting stocks and bonds. As you can see above non of the failed institutions are commercial banks that got in trouble through risky investment banking. Instead, it is the commercial banks that are providing some stability to the system by purchasing troubled investment banks. Without Gramm-Leach-Bliley they would not even be allowed to technically do this.
Or from a respected economist:
Many wise people are now recognizing that the repeal of Glass-Steagall was one of the few saving graces of the current crisis. [2]
Most of all, the Act enabled financial diversification and thus it paved the way for a number of mergers. Citigroup became what it is today, for instance, because of the Act. Add Shearson and Primerica to the list. So far in the crisis times the diversification has done considerably more good than harm. Most importantly, GLB made it possible for JP Morgan to buy Bear Stearns and for Bank of America to buy Merrill Lynch. It’s why Wachovia can consider a bid for Morgan Stanley. Wince all you want, but the reality is that we all owe a big thanks to Phil Gramm and others for pushing this legislation. Brad DeLong recognizes this and hail to him. Megan McArdle also exonerates the repeal of Glass-Steagall. [3]
If you have more money in the bank than you have more freedom than someone else because you may be able to stay on your soap box for days on end while said someone else would have to go to work everyday or do other things in order to earn enough money to survive. Merely having more money will buy you more freedom. What solution to you propose to this people-with-more-money-can-influence-others-more problem? Does it matter whether a corporation's internal marketing designs an ad to support their candidate of choice instead of making a donation to their candidate's campaign?
Or could it be that it's exactly this sort of reflexive government-bashing that makes it easy for the general public to elect fools and charlatans? After all, if government is the problem, why would people bother electing representatives who take governing seriously? Heck of a job, Brownie.
The current form of government allows people to elect charlatans and fools. That's not because the population is stupid. On the contrary, a democratic system required the population to be unusually educated & informed, while always deciding to vote in our long-term interest. In other words, the democratic system requires the impossible.
Our civilization relies on extreme specialization and deep division of labor, not that everyone knows everything.
Regardless, I think your thesis is false. A lot of the powers we've taken away from government lately (regulation of financial services, regulation of financial markets, regulation of campaign contributions) have made us worse off, and specifically have made it easier for RIAA to buy legislation like this.
Regulatory capture means that regulatory framework aren't necessary free of corruption. It just means we ought to be smarter how we devise regulations or lack thereof, as sometime doing nothing is better than corporations gaining control of the law.
If anything, the government are in bed with the bankers.
The current form of government allows people to elect charlatans and fools. That's not because the population is stupid. On the contrary, a democratic system required the population to be unusually educated & informed, while always deciding to vote in our long-term interest. In other words, the democratic system requires the impossible.
So you would rather live under an absolute monarchy? An enlightened dictatorship? Oligarchy? Theocracy? Which form of government, extant or extinct, would you prefer over the western democratic republic?
We were supposed to have one of those, but the Constitutional limitations seem to have atrophied. See, for example, the overuse of the "Interstate Commerce Clause"; the rotting of the 10th Amendment; Kelo, Raich, and so forth...
As long as we're fantasizing, why limit to extant or extinct governments? Do you think a clean slate government design wouldn't be a huge improvement over any government ever present in the world?
Your parent post is absolutely correct about the major flaw in a democracy, and despite your insinuation, this is not, I believe, an unfixable problem.
>Do you think a clean slate government design wouldn't be a huge improvement over any government ever present in the world?
The problem with every "clean slate" redesign I've ever seen is that it runs into bootstrapping issues. If bootstrapping a new form of government was so obvious or easy, it'd have been done by now.
By "bootstrapping issues" you mean that the people in power aren't in a hurry to give it up, right? Obviously they're not and that's why I used the term "fantasizing". :)
The real problem is the government is afraid to police the markets like they police the people. There are all sorts of things that are legal for people to do absent the harm of others. However, when you throw in harm to others in there, you may become criminally liable for your otherwise legal actions - I'm speaking of negligence. This is what's missing. Without this concept, the government will always be several steps behind the market "innovators".
The authority we grant to the government to make laws that regulate financial markets, currencies, and (you wish) campaign contributions gives them the authority to make bullshit laws sponsored by the RIAA. A public that isn't engaged with the political process because our central bureaucracy is to distant to interact with personally: THAT'S why we have this trash happening today.
Glass-Steagal would only be good because it keeps FDIC-insured money from being used for gambling, which is what securities trading is. One could argue we don't need FDIC insurance, and in fact, we shouldn't have regulation and monopoly of currency by the government.
As far as campaign contribution regulation, it's a violation of free speech to tell me how I can spend my money to talk. I can go on if you really care to know how CFR is a bad idea.
I want this country to "not suck" and respect the freedoms of its citizens. Several simple, yet fundamental things need to change:
-Repeal the 17th amendment
-Our voting system for the legislature
-The scope of federal government needs drastically reduced.
this type of thinking is just lazy. the government did something bad? government can't work! take away as many powers as possible!
or maybe, we need to figure out a good solution. problem is, that's not easy and requires domain knowledge and critical thinking. its a lot easier just to say, well i have this one solution that will solve all the problems.
Historically speaking, as governments and politicians gain more central power, they tend to get more corrupt. As governments get more corrupt, they forcefully accumulate more central power. It is a positive feedback loop.
No they don't. They just say they do so they can get elected and expand government. Those of us who actually believe in small government* across the board are as likely to be in the Occupy Wall St. movement as the Tea Party, and we realize that neither party is anywhere near our views.
* I mean this in a literal way, that government should be no larger than necessary and no more intrusive than required. The goal is to get to a point where we can engineer intrusive, large government structures out of the picture. For example, if we were to have state and local governments running the last mile telephone network but allowing services to be provided by a host of competing businesses, we'd have a freer market with less regulation. But it would require some use of eminent domain to achieve in a way that neither party would support.
"Oh, that's just rhetoric" is not a realistic critique. Actual people shape their perspectives based on what messages come from a) people in power, and b) people they agree with. They aren't just words.
But the words and actions are entirely out of sync. The fact is that very few running for federal office have any interest in limiting federal power.
Additionally one thing I have found interesting is how folks who supported Obama during the campaign when he promised to reduce the impact of state secrets, create a more open executive, etc. have more or less continued to follow him (more often than not) as he has done the near exact opposite of his promises. Sure we can argue why Gitmo is still operating as a prison, but the executive has made an about face on the "war on terror" (after about a day in office) which quite astounding, though not as surprising as the willingness of Democratic supporters to go along with it.
Of course the excesses of the Bush and Obama years are probably why we have both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall St, but that's a discussion for another time.
Frank discussion on the failure of powerful central government in America is appropriate when it's central to the topic that is posted. The fact that the US government did this, for a year, without any backlash, is a symbol of how far gone the US government is.
That's one of the less obvious reasons that secret proceedings, secret rules, and the like are bad. They make it harder to discredit conspiracy theorists. "Well, if they kept the seizure proceedings secret for a year, maybe the seven days of food rule is secret too".
Almost every track posted to sites like these are released by the artists themselves (or by their labels). Many hip-hop blogs (including the two I linked) will not post songs if they weren't legitimately authorized by the artists (e.g. if a track was stolen and leaked on the web).
Something you won't ever see are full albums. These sites aren't designed to replace album sales, they actually encourage them. They will only link to individual songs or freely released mixtapes.
(Also, you'll note that a lot of the music posted is from unsigned artists. A lot of newer rappers actually rose to prominence after having their music posted on these sites.)
There are many, many sites that willingly infringe on copyright and the government has good reason for shutting down. This was not one of them.
PS. For more information on how music gets released to these blogs, read this excellent piece, also by Techdirt:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101222/02112912376/more-b...