> I'd rather cut this problem off at the head

I don't understand what you mean by this! I know it's an expression or a way of saying something, but I don't understand what you mean

"Removing outdated or poorly written laws by paying off Congress is more effective than funding lawyers to litigate their misuse on a case by case basis forever"

I'm guessing RIAA's lobbyists are more powerful than an EFF lobbyist. By powerful, I mean have deeper pockets.

We need stop the existence of mafia like extortion rackets that claim they protect artists but in fact they line their own pockets and pockets of the labels and at the same time artists can't afford to even eat well.

Now that musicians make proportionally more from live shows (the recorded music is just the advertisement for the the show), the idea that anti-piracy is for the artists themselves is even more preposterous.

UBI + no anti-piracy would clearly be a huge improvement for the vast majority of artists and art itself. Let's just do that.

Not all artists can do shows - e.g. disabled, but I believe true fans will buy a record. I wouldn't like someone like RIAA to pressure someone into paying just because they downloaded my song to check it out (and I wouldn't see the money anyway). These days we have great technology and companies like Spotify can pay artists directly. Labels these days can only provide financing (on mafia like terms) and influence gate keepers, but this is also changing. You can totally make a commercial grade record on your own without label involvement, same with videos, merch etc. and even gigs.

They are suggesting lobbying to change the law, rather than struggling with current law in court.

Don't lobby. go to your local caucus and change it from within. Note that I said Caucus: even in a primary state there is some form of caucus where the party decides things. You want to be in this system, this is where the party platform is decided on. This is where the people who are working behind the scene to elect someone make the plans. In turn this is where politicians go to find people who will work for them. Which in turn means this is where you can have a one-on-one meeting from the standpoint of someone important to listen to. (when you spend a few Saturdays knocking on potential voters doors for someone that someone listens to you)

If both parties get anti-DRM legislation into the platform in random places you can be assured they will listen. If both parties see their big supporters as against something they will listen. Politicians do not want money, contrary to what you might think: they want a power, and in this country that means they need votes. Money (for ads) is one way to get votes, but real humans doing real work is at least as powerful.

This sounds hopelessly naive. At the risk of starting a political flamewar, it’s really not possible for any individual to effect large scale change to policymaking beyond the hyper local level. It’s especially impossible to go against massive lobbying interests like the RIAA.

You alone yes. However if everyone reading this works at the problem...

Could you imagine getting HN to agree on what the definition of Open Source is?

If someone wants to do that bit I'd say go ahead. Don't tell people not to pursue lobbying though.

After the last four years I have now blocked all social media and all american news sources in my house with the expressed intent of not hearing a word about politics, news, etc... It has taken a massive toll on how I feel day to day, I found my personal relationships waning, and made me feel uncomfortable meeting new people. I'd rather pay someone to involve themselves with this kind of world, not be involved in it myself.

You start of saying don't lobby and then suggest a course of action that is lobbying.

Lobbying is not the same thing as campaign fundraising

If we give money to open source lobbyists then they can do the work of influencing the government so that bullies like the RIAA are a thing of the past. It also means that free software gets some legitimate representation, and by proxy the people who contribute to free software either casually or professionally are largely better for it. There's also some merit to the idea that free software cannot depend on corporations and although good will has prevailed here, far too often it hasn't.

The meaning is to deal with a problem before it grows worse. There are a lot of variances to the expression, 'cutting it off at the head' 'Nip it in the bud' 'Cutting the problem at it's roots' They're all references to killing something before it grows more difficult to deal with.

Nipping in the bud is preventing a problem from getting worse.

Cutting the head off the snake is about removing the point of control from an organisation.

Thank you for correction.

I feel like the problem is already fully-realised in this case, so you can't "nip it at the bud" but have to stop the full-form yes? That goes along with "cutting it off at the head" moreso in my opinion.

"cut he/she/it/them off at the pass"

Pretty sure Google is ensuring employees to give money to EFF.

They should use the power of Chrome to discourage the use of DRM on the web instead.

I know you are dead serious and I agree, but this made me laugh at how such an obvious answer can be so absurd to the company itself since it's their window to the world of users. You and I would say that is their leverage in the fight of abusive DRM, yet they would argue it is what allows them to survive.

Given that Google is the author of the main browser-based content decryption module in use (Widevine), and Google also has a bunch of content provider partnerships to maintain, and they run YouTube, which in some ways relies on content owners not getting pissed off and suing it out of existence (content owners are the reason YT has ContentID, not because of any legal requirement)... I don't think it's in Google's best financial interest to fight against DRM. So they won't do that.

> I don't think it's in Google's best financial interest to fight against DRM. So they won't do that.

Yep, it's much cheaper to ensure employees to give money to EFF ;)