There's no way for Youtube to know whether I have a license for the content. There are cases where hosting companies have taken down the artist's own websites after the labels' automated systems complained about finding "copyrighted" material there. And I've yet to see a supercomputer that can determine fair use.
Again. You stated the problem as clearly as she tried to, repeatedly, in front of the committee. What makes perfect sense to logical people is unsurprisingly nonsensical to the idiots running the country.
People have suggested that there's an anti-intellectual bias ingrained in the American psyche, but I don't think that's actually the problem. It's the assumption that someone else will do the thinking for you that's the real nasty, seedy little heart of the matter.
I really look forward to the gov't expending taxpayer dollars it doesn't have, and endless amounts of energy, chasing down ghosts and persecuting middlemen in defense of trillion-dollar interests. Because the sooner the US becomes the laughingstock of the western world, the sooner it's likely to get its house in order and gag the busybodies, wingnuts, corporate interests and degenerate senators who are creating its current policies.
I like the sentiment, but I believe that (unfortunately) it's not an effective strategy -- because there's no guarantee the US will get its act together if we go down that road. I think a better strategy is to fight this every step of the way, delaying the apparent inevitable until the effective state of affairs (where nobody can really enforce this mercantilistic cultural monopoly crap any longer) becomes the overwhelmingly obvious and undeniable truth in all respects, and the whole point becomes moot.
The Bitcoin community's already gearing up for this to be the end of Visa/MC if it passes. Once they're forced by fiat to shut down their largest clients and put in a squeeze between continuing service or getting sued by the RIAA, capital will go elsewhere. This could be sort of, to the American economy, what the Iran/Iraq war was to authoritarians in the middle east; great way to spend energy while the civilized free world passes you by on the highway.
No. Catastrophic failure does not somehow naturally lead to reform and success. Look at all the catastrophic failures out there that are not in the middle of dazzling recoveries.
In fact success is a rare and fragile confluence of many conditions that is hard to find.
