I took this quote from http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/tech/ there are several blue bulleted issues in the main body, expand the third one from the top and you get:

Copyright-Based Industries Are Critical to Economic Growth: Products of the mind from America’s scientists, engineers, computer programmers have little value without intellectual property protections. Copyright based industries alone now account for nearly 6% of all jobs in America and 7.75 % of GDP. These industries are in jeopardy because of the Bush Administration’s failure to enforce international treaties to protect America’s creative community from piracy.

Stop Intellectual Piracy: The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative estimates that losses theft of U.S. intellectual property in 51 foreign countries total $9.7 billion. In China alone we lose $1.8 billion to piracy. Yet even where we have strong agreements, piracy remains a major problem due to a failure to fully implement the TRIPS agreement and an unwillingness or inability to crack down on the problem. A Kerry Administration will take theft of the jobs of America’s creative workforce a trade and foreign policy priority.

does this mean we'll go from oil wars to mp3 wars?, or is he truly making a deliniation between these issues? After emailing their campaign and snooping/prodding as best i could i still could not raise an official response, which is ominous to me.

I've never liked Kerry anyways. I remember in the last election he had some very arrogant remarks about third party candidates and throwing votes away if you don't vote for one of the two major parties. flies in the face of the constitution. Problem is I'm not any crazier about Bush. So what's the answer?

This is to be expected. He is number three this year in the top recipients of money from the movie/music groups at opensecrets.org just behind Bush and Dean. They tend to buy the vote of anyone they think might come into power.

Like the current 'occupant' of the White House, Kerry is an alumnus of Yale's super-secret "Skull & Bones" fraternity from which not only Bushes #43 and #41 emanated, but also the nucleus of the CIA as first organized and the late Averill Harriman, who also served as Governor of New York State in the mid-to-late-'50's. This should certainly give pause for thought as to where Mr. Kerry's loyalties lie. That, and his rich wife Theresa Heinz Kerry, and also his first wife who was likewise something of a moneybags . . .

I truly am tired of having to vote for the lesser of two evils all the time. This country really does need more than the two party system that we currently have. Ah well, one evil at a time I guess.

The real problem is that it's been mathmetically proven that there's no way to hold a fair election if there's more than two candidates.

There are more parties, like the Green and Libertarian, but the sad fact remains that voting for one of them usually spreads the vote makes the Republicans win. As much as I hate the idea of "throwing away your vote" for voting for who you think is the best candidate, it's true.

I think we need Code Warrior for president.

Gee, no one complaining about Democrat-bashing?

See how this works? Criticizing the current administration is forbidden and we are blasted for being a fringe element. Critique against the opposition is greeted with silence from those same "concerned" posters who never had anything to say about anything else.

voting for who you think is the best candidate is NEVER throwing away a vote. that's why in many countries they have run off elections. the top two candidates in a general election compete in a run off.

Most of what I see on this thread George is bashing politicians in general Except maybe w-b's post. I see an enormous amount of Bush bashing that goes unchallanged. Even in some articles. Once in a while it goes overboard but not usually. actually I consider this mild compared to what I've heard about Bush. I don't like either candiate or party myself. That's why I'm a regsitered indepenent.

I used to be registered as an independent, but since I live in a commonwealth state that just means that I can't vote in the primary. That's no good. I may not like the candidates, but I at least want the right to choose from what's being offered.

So, what about the notion of run off elections? Has anyone made a major push lately for an amendment to The Constitution to include run off elections? I know that a lot of people want to get rid of the electoral college, especially after what happened in the last election. But I haven't heard any buzz about amending it so that the electoral college is used to enable a run off in a situation such as was presented during the last election.

I want to be very clear , I would vote for anyone but Bush. And I don't even mind him personally. At least he is entertaining. However, my anti-Bush credentials are impeccable.

But the problem is that every presidential candidate will court the entertainment and media industry. The only people I would trust to be polluted would be Nader, Kuncinich(sic) or McCain. Kerry is totally in their pocket. Particularly ironic considering his faux populist pretense.

Really we LOOSE 1.8 billion to china? So, is china hijacking our ships and planes and stealing our CD's?

Bullshit. They're making their own copies, and that costs us nothing. How many of them would have bought WinXP had it not been free? None. If there was no way to copy WinXP they would all be using Linux because it IS free. So we don't loose anything because we never had their business to begin with.

We need None of the Above added to the ballot, then if the winner doesn't get at least 50 % of vote, he isn't elected. Problem is most of todays politicians wouldn't get elected and there wouldn't be anyone running the country. Come to think of it, we might be better off.
R

I'm not sure if I like Kerry because he seems to me like a Republican who calls himself a democrat just to get elected. I'm sad to see that Howard Dean is doing so poorly in the primaries. I guess I just won't be voting in 2004. I can't imagine Kerry will be much better than GWB...

Hey George,

I'll complain, just so you feel better.

Honestly though, it pisses me off that the current adminstration, although they haven't passed anything that restricts copyright further in the U.S. so far, are pushing through trade treaties other countries to follow the U.S. lead on copyrights for most favored trade status. In most instances this is called blackmail. The justification from the adminstration is that it protects U.S. jobs.

Will someone explain to me how other countries with rampant piracy, and who never pay for the stuff anyway, are going to boost the economy in the U.S.?

Stopping piracy overseas just means that no one will use the stuff.

I've been to these places, and they could care less about the U.S. economy or laws.

Sounds like Kerry has the same staff bought and paid for that the current admin has. No big suprise there. The RIAA plays both sides to stay in the game.

As a practical matter, Bush is a disaster, and Kerry and Edwards are probably the most likely candidates who could beat him. I don't know where either of them stand on the file-sharing issue, but I suspect Edwards would be more inclined to stick up for the little guy who's getting sued by a big corporation, since he primarily fought big corporations as a trial lawyer.
What we really need is someone to run as an independant 'pro-file sharing' candidate. If there is popular support for such a candidate, then the message will immediately be co-opted by one campaign or the other.

Well, given that Hollings, Berman, Feinstein and Levin (to name a few) seem to be Democrats who are also huge fans of the copyright cartel, yeah, a Democrat in favor of copyright interests doesn't seem that hard to imagine. This isn't a Democrat/Republican issue...they're both dirty with **AA money. We won't find many friends with the Republicrats.

I do not believe you will find anyone in either party that would support anti-RIAA legislation or the loosening of copyrights. This is mainly due to the artist's being convinced that MP3 downloads are hurting their careers.

You need to educate the artists so their attitudes will change and only then loosen the RIAA'S power over them.

I do not believe you will find anyone in either party that would support anti-RIAA legislation or the loosening of copyrights. This is mainly due to the artist's being convinced that MP3 downloads are hurting their careers.

You need to educate the artists so their attitudes will change and only then loosen the RIAA'S power over them.

Nah I never liked kerry either. And you probably wont which is sad. It is even more sad that they use the english language so loosely.

I see the statement on kerry's page as a paradigm of the past. It is the old way to focus on nothing but corporate protection. It is the new way to focus on freely flowing technology to stimulate growth.

You would not find anyone in either party who would loosen copyright laws, but this is just because of lobbying. Teams of perswasive experts with almost unlimited budgets who are payed to convince those with power that unless copyright laws are tightened both domerticially and internationally the pirates are going to take over the world, the economy will collapse, civilisation will fall and we will have to restore the old feudal system.

That, and of course the content industry payes taxes and campaign contributions. Polititions like both.