Congress Pressures DoJ With PIRATE Part II 217
Anonymous Pirate writes "Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) have re-introduced the 'PIRATE Act' (pdf) to Congress. According to Ars Technica, the purpose of this act is to get the DoJ to go after individual copyright infringers. It would allow the Department of Justice to bring civil lawsuits instead of criminal ones so that they would be able to prosecute copyright infringers with only a minimal burden of proof, rather than the heavier burden required for criminal prosecution." Took a long time to do a sequel; we first talked about this proposal quite some time ago.
Huh? (Score:2)
While IANAL, I've never heard of the state bringing a civil suit against an individual citizen. Does that ever even happen?
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Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
That makes sense, but in a case like this, how could the state even have standing to sue? It's not like they are the copyright holder. With a polluting corporation, the state could argue that the offender is damaging the public commons, and thus demonstrate harm; where is the harm to the state involved in one person making a copy of a book, movie, or song, or in helping another to do so?
Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Follow the trail. This act is being brought forward by congressmen bought by lobbyists, this time the **AA. They want this bill passed so that the government can end up doing their work for them.
Basically, so they can force the government into paying for their own lawsuits, and complain when they feel not enough people are being "prosecuted".
This seems transparently corrupt to me, but I would imagine they're able to pull the wool over on others because of the catchy name.
Well, at least I
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Elections are coming up in a year ...
> "Well, at least I'm Canadian."
So you have to stick your 2.1 cents in :-) Maybe they should be lobbying Canadians - more "buck for the bang".
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While IANAL, I've never heard of the state bringing a civil suit against an individual citizen. Does that ever even happen?
Also not a lawyer...but I can't possibly see how the state could bring a civil suit since it's not the aggrieved party. How is the state damaged? Please tell me they're not going to try some dumb thing like lost tax revenue from the RIAA's sales that didn't occur. Leahy's comments certainly suggest it:
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If the Legislature passes a law creating standing for the DOJ in civil cases such as this, then standing exists. Of course, like all laws, such a law could be challenged
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Standing is an artificial object: it is created by law, and needn't correspond with anyone's intuitions about who has the right to complain. While standing exists in a highly limited capacity for non-statutory claims, almost 100% of claims which can be filed in court (criminal or civil) have their issues of standing defined by statute.
OK. So the state wins, no problem. What's the judgement, $1, since they weren't harmed?
Again, I realize I'm not a lawyer and am well out of my depth, but this just doesn't
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Let's just be real, here.. I'd challenge anyone here to claim that they've NEVER infringed on a copyright. We've all done it. I was a Senior in High School when Napster reached its apex. I've probably downloaded 3-4 thousand songs from P2P networks.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a culture now that is very pervasive amongst those that are in the late 20's on down that music should be free as in beer. To many, it's almost outrageous to suggest that music should be paid for.
You can't give something away free for those who "can't afford it" and charge the ones that can. Pretty soon the ones that can are going to feel swindled and they're going to at least be TEMPTED to think that if it's free for everyone else, it ought to be free for them, too.
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No, no, NO! Stop taking a plastic knife to a gunfight. Your example does not make any sense with copyright.
To fix yours: It is like everyone on your block is making copies of their houses and land at an extremely low cost (or none) and then giving them out to anyone for free.
YOU are arguing that your house *design* and lot *design* is now being devalued because those with similar (or maybe e
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Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
If half the people on your block got their homes for free, how could you convince somebody to pay you $250k for YOURS?
Why should someone pay you $250k for your house if other people are able to get theirs for free? What's so fantastic about your house that it's worth so much, while other houses are being given away?
You can't give something away free for those who "can't afford it" and charge the ones that can.
The evidence we have suggests that that isn't true. Firstly, piracy exists, and is very widespread. What are some of the most pirated pieces of software in existence today? I'd hazard a guess that Windows and MS Office are in the top 10. And what pieces of software are some of the biggest money-earners in the software market? Windows and Office seem to have done a fantastic job of keeping Microsoft profitable over the years, even while they pour money into unprofitable markets. It's almost as if the people that can afford to pay hundreds of dollars for them are doing so, even though those that can't afford the arbitrary price tag don't.
What about the latest high-profile example: Radiohead's latest album. They explicitly gave it away for free, and made paying anything at all for it optional. Yet somehow they still made a profit from it. This isn't merely people finding an alternative way of acquiring the IP: this is a case of the owner and creator of that IP saying they don't believe it has any inherent value in and of itself; just pay whatever you think it's worth and can afford.
Another angle: I'm a slashdot subscriber and have been for ages, even though I don't really get anything out of it. Sure, no ads on pages, but I could just use adblock for that. But I like /. and I think the price is quite reasonable for what they offer, and I'm happy to support them in my little way. I periodically donate to subsim.com, because I find the forums useful. Neil (who runs it) pays for the hosting and bandwidth and so forth out of his own pocket, and tries to recoup some of the costs from people who can afford to pay for it, while letting everyone else use it for free.
So I really think your matter-of-fact statement "You can't give something away for free to those who can't afford it and charge the ones that can" is patently bogus. Charity organisations do this all the time. The OLPC project is doing this directly with the "buy one give one" programme.
To many, it's almost outrageous to suggest that music should be paid for.
Well, what's so wrong about that? Music is an easily produced and easily distributed commodity. Think about it. When was the last time you paid someone for having a conversation with you? Even if it was a really useful conversation which gave you great insight or clarity? What, you mean you don't pay people you converse with for their creativity and time when they pass on useful thoughts to you? For shame! How can you expect anyone to spend their time and creativity coming up with new original thoughts if you don't pay for every single one you hear?
Perhaps it's time to adjust our thinking, and face the fact that anything digital is a new economic paradigm. We can literally replicate this stuff an infinite number of times at no direct cost to the creator of the content. I have a torrent of Jimmy Eat World's latest album running on my server which I've uploaded 1,672 times over (make that 1,673 times). The cost to JEW of this: $0.00. That's at least 1,600 people who've heard the album because I haven't gotten around to stopping the torrent yet. Seems like a good deal to me.
I think content producers need to accept that not everyone is going to pay for their content, but that's okay, because not everybody has to. It's enough to simply have enough people pay.
In a way, this has been going on since the first days of commercial radio and TV: most people don't run out and buy everything that's advertised during thei
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It was very clear in my example (record resale, houses on your block) that was talking micro, not macro.
I'm not sure I follow this. What's the difference? How can something that works "macro" not work "micro"? How does this apply to Radiohead's experiment? Privately-funded websites that get by with the help of donations?
It's considered the trick of a slimy salesman if he prices the product, be it a car or whatever, to what he thinks you can pay.
My examples were all about voluntary payment, where the buyer decides what price they think is appropriate. It's completely different!
Why do I not deserve exclusive rights to my work?
You should be allowed to do whatever you want. That's fine. This is what I have a problem with (from your original post, which gets us back on to the th
Oh (Score:5, Insightful)
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Oh crap! (Score:2)
Screw that (Score:2, Insightful)
Besides, why the hell should the DoJ, a government institution, police what happens between other people, shouldn't only the "victim" be allowed to file a lawsuit over this? Hell, how does the govt even knopw when the copyright hlder actually wants a lawsuit? Most holders like keeping fan projects in a legal grey zone of implicit permission which lets them C&D the project at will but doesn't require them to shut it down before they really
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Buried deep inside the bill is a paragraph that changes the name of the "Department of Justice" to "The Ministry of Love".
Oh Great!...as if.. (Score:2)
Strat
EFF (Score:4, Insightful)
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The EFF also engages in lobbying, as do the professional lobbying firms hired by the MAFIAA and other corporations, only this time the lobbying is being done on behalf of the people. In fact, I have contributed several hundred dollars to them over the years to support just these types of activities. It is an unfortunate truth in American society that if you want good laws (or a better defense against bad ones) then you have t
EFF and Leahy (Score:3, Interesting)
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At which point the MAFIAA runs to Congress, and says, "ZOMG!!!! All our profits are gone! It's the fault of the Evil Content Pirates(tm)!!!! Give us an Uber-DMCA!!!!"
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Fantastic (Score:5, Insightful)
Mostly because, well, then we have the government pursuing civil litigation on behalf of corporations. Are we then going to have the copyright holders pay for the cost, or will this be another free federal benefit on behalf of lobbyists?
Moreover, is the DoJ going to do this fairly? Will they contact the copyright holder to make sure that there isn't a license and that there is a desire to go after the person? Moreover, if someone steals my work as an individual, will the DoJ treat it equal with Microsoft, the RIAA, or the MPAA?
If not, then, well, please vote Leahy, etc. out of office.
US Constitution - Amendment IV (Score:4, Insightful)
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Re:US Constitution - Amendment IV (Score:5, Insightful)
The more corporations hijack the legal system, and the more absurd the laws become the greater the "corrosive" (in Lessigs words) the effect. The rule of law has ceased to be an instrument to serve the people. That is a pretty fucking serious situation if you think about it. We have a generation of people who were born criminals and have lived all their life so far as criminals while doing nothing wrong (ethically, morally, humanly).
Without fundamental respect for law we have nothing to look forward to but anarchy, civil unrest and violent conflict. So it is up to citizens to stop the corporations before they undermine society. Every useless pice of shit you buy from Wallmart, Disney and Sony is just feeding the beast, stop doing it NOW, you are part of the problem.
Re:US Constitution - Amendment IV (Score:4, Interesting)
-mcgrew [kuro5hin.org]
PS- Funny, the comment, in reply to someone who mentioned the 4th amendment in a story about the EFF, was modded "offtopic". Seems some corrupt police officers and corrupt legislators have mod points. No matter, I have karma to burn; mod me any damned way you want.
This is disgusting. (Score:3, Insightful)
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When I lived in Vermont as a kid, he was someone to look up to. He's been a Senator for a very long time, and I believe his judgment on a great number of issues has been without reproach. This, however, appears to be a case where he is out of his league. I also find it disturbing given some information from his Wikipedia entry:
In 2004 Senator Leahy was awarded the Electronic Privacy Information Center's Champion of Freedom Award for efforts in information privacy and open government.
So on the one hand he's trying to champion the people's cause. On the other hand:
In March, 2004, Leahy and Orrin Hatch introduced the Pirate Act backed by the RIAA as part of an on-going crusade against Internet file sharing.
In July, 2004, Leahy and Orrin Hatch introduced the INDUCE Act aimed at combating copyright infringement.
Obvious (Score:2, Insightful)
A dark day if this passes (Score:3, Interesting)
Not enough crime? (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to consider myself a republican until I realized that BOTH sides are essentually the same and will abuse their power in an instant to take what is not theirs and line their own pockets to keep power. This is getting REAL OLD... I now consider myself a libritarian, but if it keeps going the way it is, I may have to consider myself a revolutionist and start dumping tea. I already gave up Music and movies because of the RIAA and the such... (Along with the fact that their hasn't been anything good to hear/see in a number of years.) I hoped they would get the message but they don't. They just keep shoveling more sh*t into our graves... Anyone for a CD Tea Party? Real Pirates can steal boxes of CD's and we pick a good harbor to dump them into.
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IMHO the greatest threat to our peace and freedom is not criminals at all; Criminals may hurt
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How about we legalize the broads and drugs (and gambling and other victimless "crimes"), as the war on (some) drugs (and the prostitutes who are addicted to them) are what has caused the constitution to be meaningless. [slashdot.org] Then the cops would have a little more time to go after violent people, and more room in the prisons to hold them.
A friend of mine was shot and killed by an armed robber a couple of decades back. The killer spent two yea
So let me get this straight... (Score:5, Interesting)
So let me get this straight: we can't even get a commitment from this DOJ to enforce to enforce things like the laws against torture or the constitutional authority of congress to conduct oversight into the actions of the executive branch, trust them not to use their power for partisan purposes, or even to hire qualified people who graduated from real law schools, but we're going to let them start filing civil suits on behalf of plaintiffs who (generally) could well afford to file for themselves, and would, if they had a shred of merit?
Great. That's just great.
--MarkusQ
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Well, that's the BS I've been hearing from the war-mongers.
It'll be the same thing over again... (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with distributed infringement is that it takes such a large amount of resources to prosecute a single person, with the prospect of retribution (after investigation, court, and accounting costs) of far less than a monetarily positive result. They might be gung-ho at first to set examples, but once they realize that they've already sucked every last dollar out of 95% of all citizens by way of taxes, they will quickly learn that there's no more money at the bottom of the money well (prosecute counterfeit distributors, not their consumers!). Seriously, does congress or the DoJ believe that we have bundles of cash ready to hand over like they do? (Forgive this digression, but that's actually one of the biggest problems in our society. The people with oodles of money make social policy, and they think that everyone else lives like them -- a suburban household income of $200,000 a year or more...but only in a situation like this would this legislation be tabled in the first place)
The end result isn't going to be deterrence. Everyone in the electronic community will do the equivalent of standing around the train wreck staring and gasping "Oh my god, is there no humanity", for five minutes and carry on as normal (downloading and buying $5 DVDs). The counterfeit vendors will continue to pander their crap, and people will continue to buy it. The government will (in the publics eye) be scrambling and grasping for every last possible stranglehold on its citizens they've be aiming for, for the last 7 years.
How can they believe that persecuting their citizens is a good idea?
If we go a little deeper into the problem, you might agree with me that it's sociological in nature and fairly inevitable and inexorable. Can I get a comment from any sociologists?
This is thoroughly evil. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't like the idea of the government getting involved in civil suits on behalf of a third party. What's next, investigating people for adulterous behavior, and then filing divorce proceedings on the spouse's behalf?
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Oversimplifying.. but.. (Score:2, Interesting)
The real issue appears to be that the authorities simply don't have time to go chasing copyright laws.
If you, as a copyright holder, want to come down here and file some court papers.... you can take peopel to c
Mod me redundant (Score:3, Insightful)
-mcgrew [mcgrew.info]
Mismatched, anyone? (Score:2)
Instead of Impeaching (Score:2)
Priorities.
The real pirates are working for the RIAA. (Score:3, Insightful)
Acronyms (Score:2)
Sometimes, it's not so bad, e.g. RADAR, HTML. But making, PATRIOT or PIRATE or INDUCE the actual name of your legal bills makes a joke out of the entire legislative process. Must everything become a marketing ploy?
It's the national sport. (Score:2)
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It makes it easier to spin so they can sell it to the electorate. Joe Sixpack isn't going to read these bills and call his Congresscritter, he'll glance at the name, think 'This is a Good Thing' like the spin doctors want him to, and go his merry way, not knowing that Good Thing just made him p
Write your Senators (Score:4, Insightful)
The system can't work without feedback from citizens.
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the DoJ isn't interested in "real" crime (Score:4, Insightful)
It's no wonder that law enforcement agencies are all jumping at the chance to investigate myspace and facebook "criminal activity". It's a lot easier to sit at your desk and surf the web all day instead of being out on the street and arresting people who are actually harming others (violent acts, robbery, rape, etc.).
Simple solution (Score:2)
Then we can go ahead and have the 2nd revolution and get this segment of the 'civilization cycle' over with.
PIRATE Part III: The Next Step (Score:2)
(ooooh, nifty movie title)
Having lowered the bar in evidentiary burdens against copyright infringers by shifting prosecution into the civil court system, I think the obvious next logical step is to declare content piracy* as a terrorist act, eliminating the requirement for evidence entirely!
*not my phrase, not my idea, I'm just sayin' it like the pigopolists would.
PIRATE vs. global warming (Score:2)
"Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) have re-introduced the 'PIRATE Act' (pdf) to Congress. According to Ars Technica, the purpose of this act is to get the DoJ to go after individual copyright infringers. It would allow the Department of Justice to bring civil lawsuits instead of criminal ones so that they would be able to prosecute copyright infringers with only a minimal burden of proof, rather than the heavier burden required for criminal prosecution."
Flying Spaghetti Monsterism is making more sense. It wasn't high seas pirates they were referring to, rather wasteful acts of congress called PIRATE whose resources and manpower energies could have been used to to fight global warming instead, thus becoming correlated with its rise.
Two Supreme Court decisions that killed democracy (Score:2)
1. Decision that corporations were individuals, same as we meat puppets, endowed by their creator with the right to life, liberty, and the freedom of speech. A decision, BTW, that never happened, as it was an interpretation by a SC clerk, not a Justice, that was seized on by the Guilded Age corporations as the institutionalization of their organizations as immortal citizens.
2. 1990s: decision by SCOTUS that political donations w
Forget About Constitutionality (Score:2)
Thank the lord the Dems are in charge (Score:2)
Shows you where my mind is this morning (Score:2)
Thought I was on the wrong website for a second.
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CD sales are down because what is released on CD is crap. What record companies do not like about file sharing is not piracy at all, it's that they do not control what you can listen to. Like an independent band (I happen to have an Amy Martin CD right here, for instance) you can purchase it without th
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Re:how much are companies losing? (Score:4, Insightful)
That said, there is an argument for free distribution and pay per performance. This is essentially what The Dead opted into. They didn't care about bootlegs because ultimately it fueled concert revenue which they kept the lion's share of.
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No one else expects residuals. Why should writers be any different?
In that last (successful) RIAA case, they decided to drive their point
home by playing a 25 year old audio recording. No one should be getting
bent out of shape regarding the "piracy" of 25 year old recordings. They
should be PD by now (or nearly so).
Although in the end the distributors are much better at victimizing the artists than the customers.
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"No one else expects residuals. Why should writers be any different?"
That one's answered in the U.S. Constitution: to promote the progress of science and useful arts.
I know it's easy to imagine that people who write poetry, novels, screenplays, songs, and so on must have it so good -- just write a little something and you're set for life. But the reality is quite different: these creative arts often have a 99% unemployment rate. It may be hard to believe, but you and I actually have it easier in a lot
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I don't think the framers of the constitution imagined copyright lasting for seventy years after the death of the author. How exactly does that help your poor staving creative artist?
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No one should be getting bent out of shape regarding the "piracy" of 25 year old recordings. They should be PD by now (or nearly so).
They should be public domain within a reasonable amount of time -- say ten years -- of course, thanks to this [wikipedia.org] however, they remain copyrighted for the life of the author plus 70 years.
How exactly this advances the progress of "science and the useful arts" is beyond me, but there you go :(
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You are correct. There's no way to know. Still, I don't think it's that much of a stretch to believe that many people aren't going to bother to buy something when they can get it for free. (Numerous studies have been done to see what the effects are filesharing are, but all the results seem to tell you
You forgot the big reason... at number 5: (Score:2)
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"CD sales are down because what is released on CD is crap."
Most music released has always been crap. 90% of what's released today is crap, but most of the stuff released in the 90's was crap, too. As was the stuff in the 80's, and the 70's, and so on.
It's easy to remember decades past as having better music than what's being released today; this is due to our propensity to remember the good and discard the bad. There's even a common word for this phenomenon: "nostalgia."
Ask many people and they'll s
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Actually, I think it's obvious that CD sales are down partly because the huge sales of CDs from a decade ago was an unsustainable once-in-a-lifetime windfall for the recording industry, driven mostly by people buying CDs to replace records they already had, used to have, or "kind of/sort of" wanted to have, but were never sufficiently motivated to buy as LPs or cassettes. CDs were a major improvement over LPs and cassettes, and properly remastere
But how do I make sure that I don't copy? (Score:2)
If I was an artist of some kind today I'd be really worried about all the people making copies of my work and "sharing" them with their friends over the net.
If I hear your song and then ten years later I write a song that happens to be like that, is that copying? If so, should such be illegal? If so, what do you recommend that authors do to prevent themselves from accidentally copying [wikipedia.org] your works?
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If I was an artist of some kind today I'd be really worried about all the people making copies of my work and "sharing" them with their friends over the net.
Speaking as an artist of some kind, I love when people share my work, as that free publicity not only builds up a community of fans around my stuff, but ultimately nets me artistic gigs.
Yeah, yeah, I KNOW, Radiohead is offering their new album online for as much as you want to pay, but they can afford to.
In my business model (you know, the one that makes use of today's technical and social realities rather than futilely trying to put the proverbial toothpaste back into the tube) I can't afford NOT to.
Re:how much are companies losing? (Score:5, Interesting)
Bull. Sorry, but that's just completely bass-ackwards. I *am* in an indie band, and these days people can now get a chance to hear our material that never would have before, because of the music cartels' history of locking up radio/TV/CD sales to exclude anyone not owned by them. We've done the same thing as Radiohead has now for a good while. It's been an overall win for us.
We *want* people to copy and share our music! That's free exposure, and the kind of word-of-mouth promotion that can't be bought. We will continue to encourage people to share our music, even if we were to get as famous as U2 or Radiohead or Led Zeppelin.
We sell physical CDs and video DVDs and other merchandise at shows. We state right on the media that it's fine to share, and if they feel what we've created is worth it to them, send a little money our way to help us keep creating. We receive enough to let us keep going.
CD sales aren't the end game, they're a means. They get us fans. They are a promotion tool, nothing more.
Cheers!
Strat
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Oh, you don't have to limit yourself to just lil' ol' me. There's a few of us here:
http://www.indie911.com/ [indie911.com]
Cheers!
Strat
Re:how much are companies losing? (Score:5, Insightful)
And I spend all of it.
Then what is the impact on the world economy for any additional copies of goods I receive?
The fact is that entertainment is overpriced. In reality, entertainment is at the highest supply level it has ever been. It is now impossible to ever catch up with all the entertainment that exists. Why are prices going up then?
Normally when something is in oversupply, the prices go down.
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The world economy IS severally affected by all the illegal sharing.
lol. Somehow the ridicule of that claim proves the opposite of your point.
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I'm not going to buy your stupid CD if I've never heard any of the songs. Someone once said (I wish I could find the exact quote) that far more authors have starved from obscurity than from copyright infringement. Actually the number that have starved from copyright infringement may in fact be zero, can you name one?
-mcgrew [mcgrew.info]
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Not really. I'd want as many as possible to pay for the game. If others download it for free, I lose nothing. To put it another way, if a million customers buy the game and a million download it for free, the sum of sales is still exactly one million; not zero.
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I honestly feel that for the most part, people pirating sofware and/or music wouldn't have bought it even if there weren't pirated sources available. Just my $.02
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Indeed, Roger McGuinn [wikipedia.org] has said that the old, outlaw Napster revitalized his career, bringing his music to a whole new generation.
-mcgrew
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Oddly, Leahy usually counts as one of the best pro-privacy, pro-bill-o'-rights, anti-big-brother senators. It really surprises me to see his name attached to this atrocity.
Enough so, that it makes me wonder if we've missed something about this bill that makes it not quite as bad as it sounds - Like capping liability at some absurdly low level ("Yup, ya got me, will you take a check or should I just pay the $2
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If it's there, I don't see it. Let me point out section 506a of this chunk o' legislation:
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Looks like a double jeopardy run-around, but IANAL and IANYL.
Thing is, we've got a helluva backlog in the Federal courts, and this will just add more logjams to the load. How much more can we pile on til the whole system collapses?
Re:MONEY MONEY MONEY (Score:4, Interesting)
One citizen, one vote... however, one corporation, many, many zeros on a vote figure! I am sure that exact monetary value of a vote could be assessed and it wouldn't come out too pricey. In fact, I'm certain that political parties and politicians' "advisers" do operate with that figures when they make their decisions. It is an ugly thought, breaks the rosy picture we have about Democracy, but we should get over the shock and get on with calculations in order to regain the hold of our destiny.
Ad hoc Citizen groups and specific, limited in scope, political initiatives, especially those in favor of common citizens' interests but going against particular interests of corporations, should be able to make independent (from major political parties) pressure funds, "political initiative unions" with sole purpose of lobbying and counter-lobbying.
The rich (i.e. large corporations) get their wealth from the poor(-er then themselves), where most of money lays. It is not a phrase or anecdote: Hypothetic possession of more then half of whole monetary mass in circulation would be a sure sign of loss (sitting on top of claim that can never be satisfied and is therefore void - the rest of the world is bankrupt, your money is worthless paper or meaningless integer number).
That same amount of money, transferred from low density multitude of small "hoards" ("the poor") toward small number of large "hoards" ("the rich") and then from them toward world of politics to be converted into power, could be also used for other purpose, it could be "turned around and pointed backwards", simply take a shorter path and come to destination from other side.
If someone uses money begotten from us to make us pay more by furthering unjust laws made to rip us off some more (common example would be avoiding proper taxation), we should be able to counter that by spending our money on exactly the opposite goal instead. Net effect would be elevation of price of political favors. Equilibrium will shift a little bit toward the people and part of thus gained funds (keeping more money in citizens' wallets) could be "reinvested" to secure the control of public over democratic process.
It is perfectly capitalistic way for masses to limit the power of the plutocrats. No violence, no revolutions, no plunder, just playing the same game as they do, making same moves they do. Organizing masses over common, limited goals is well-known and proven strategy of, e.g. trade unions. It could work in lobbying too.
Money talks, votes babble. As long as people have money, they can have the power too. Just don't try to solve all world's problems at once. First things first, make the system work and keep it safe!
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