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Hacker Stockholders Unite!
MeanGene writes, "Hacker News Network published an article that calls upon the hackers (broadly speaking) to exercise their views through a shareholder proxy to influence big business - for the DVD cause in particular. I like the conclusion: Hack life!"
...I wonder if we might not see companies behaving unethically (or at least unpopularly) in the hopes of driving up their stock price.
Things might get a little wierd when you start buying stock in companies you're opposed to.
"Last week, Nil Ethicus Mercantile announced its new plan to club baby seals (using frozen dolphins and beluga whales to cut down on club costs) for the meat of their tongues, to be included in the recipe of an undisclosed school cafeteria supplier's luncheon meat. This week, the value of their shares shot up an amazing 400% as GreenPeace members bought up 60% of their stock. Recognizing the clear market support, several other companies have announced their intent to take up the plan NEM abruptly dropped under its new ownership."
Okay, your sad story has encouraged me to show you how I see the people behind the faceless corporations...
Jack Valenti drew the curtains closed in the DVD CCA and MPAA war room. He smiled that Congress charming smile he was known to use to get his way on Capitol Hill. "So, is everyone clear on what we're doing and why we're doing it?"
A naive young executive spoke up, "I understand that we are trying to criminalize the use of unlicensed reverse engineered DVD players. It cuts into our licensing profits and it's bad for business. However, I'm confused by some of our tactics. I mean, we keep telling the press that deCSS allows the creation of copies of DVDs, but people can already do that. Another thing, people are allowed to do that, the Berne convention, fair use and all that. Isn't this just kicking up dust clouds that obscure our main issue?"
"Well, I understand what you are saying, but you have to understand that this is bigger than just CSS," Jack said, causing one of the cowled figures from the DVD CCA to hiss.
"Now, now, my friends," he said, glancing nervously at the DVD CCA council, "We all admire the fine work you've done, just hear me out ok?"
"We don't want unlicensed DVD players to exist for a few reasons. The first, of course, is the licensing fee, but in reality, that's chump change. Regional coding, you see, is where the real money is. Say we release a movie in the US. Well, that's all well and good, but there is a huge market in India that can't afford to pay as much as the US market can. We can make a profit from that country, but we have to knock some bucks off the price. Now, in a free market," here Jack pauses as the sinister assembly in the room chuckles, "an enterprising entrepreneur could buy up cheap DVDs in India, and sell them in the US, bleah! With regional coding, we can maximize our profits on a per region basis! Oh, and of course, we can release mature versions of movies in other parts of the world where they think of us Americans as a bunch of Puritans, but still keep the FFV (Fanatics for Family Values) folks happy."
"But, Mr. Valenti," said the young executive, "This is all interesting, but it's got nothing to do with copying."
"Sorry, went off on a tangent, there, and your right," he paused, "Do you know what else maximizes profits? I'll tell you what, selling people the same thing, over and over and over again. It's huge! Now, you may not know this, it's top secret, but look at this."
Mr. Valenti pulls out a tiny, coin sized disk, "This is the future, it can hold every Spielberg, Lucas and Tarentino movie ever made just on this one disk. Not that we'll do that, of course," he chuckled, "But we are going to be switching to these in about five years, just like we switched from tape to DVD. By that time, we're going to need to have changed the law so you can't copy materials for personal use. I mean do you know how difficult it is to produce new content? That'll sell? It takes a huge effort, but when you have content that's proven popular, like, say, The Wizard of Oz you don't want people to pay for it once and never buy it again!"
"Tapes were a fine media, know why?" he asked, "'Cause they decay over time, with viewing, and everthing else. Pretty soon, that copy of It's a Wonderful Life is all worn out, and Joe Sixpack has to buy another copy if he wants to watch it... well, when it isn't showing fifty times on TV. With DVDs, decay isn't as certain. Oh, a good scratch will take it out, and these baby's," he shows one of the new decaying coating DVDs, "rot away just as well as video tape, thanks for that Fred," a sinister black cloaked figure nods slightly at the praise.
"Where was I? Oh, but what if Johnny Lunchpail could make a perfect copy of that great Mr. Potter movie... love the way he got to keep the money... huh? What then? I'll tell you what!"
Jack shook with rage, even the sinister DVD CCA people backed off slightly, "We could never sell it to him again, that's what! He'd own it! Well, what we are out to do here is change the concept of ownership itself. The unwashed masses will never own our movies! They'll just have possession for a temporary time! When DVD players go out of style, we stop letting people make them, pretty soon those saps have to rebuy their whole video collection! Technology always advances, and when it stops, we'll find a way! We'll change a nut or a cog inside, and the old disks won't work, heh, heh heh.... they'll never be safe!"
"Oh... right, and we have to stop casual piracy, because that's just awful," here, Jack gave a broad wink to the young executive. "Now, let's close the meeting with a rousing song, provided for us by the good folks at Disney," Michael Eisner grinned at Jack.
The droning voices of the assembled began to sing:
o/~ Yo, ho, Yo ho, a pirates life for me
We'll ravage and pillage and won't give a hoot
Drink up me hearties, yo ho! o/~
I really feel sorry for these people, don't you?
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
My favorite quote from the day was a shocked murmur that some of the attendees were wearing 'tradesmen trousers' (Jeans to you and me).
threadeds blog
Are people here actually interested in this idea? I'll look into Massachusetts law on starting a non-profit (I'm an MIT student, so I'm Boston based) and the investment club work. Obviously we'd need a web site with online discussions to handle it.
My Linux box (I'm bringing it back up next week) could host it... it doesn't use 90% of it's resources... I use it for play...
I think that I can use the MIT network for non-profits, just not for-profit businesses, but I'll check.
If you are interested, e-mail me at scorpion@mit.edu, and tell me, roughly, how much you would contribute. If it looks substantial, I'll look into the paperwork. I just made a donation to the McCain election fund, so my cash for "causes" is low, but I'd put the time in (and maybe $100 or so of my own money) to get this up and running.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to the name for this endeavor?
Note: most of these companies have multi-billion dollar capitalizations. Even if only 30% of stock holders (including big money) vote their proxies, a $1b companies has $300m dollars worth of voting stock. That means that we'd need $150m to get a majority. OTOH, the ability to buy 1 share in each of these companies would be minimal, and would give the rights to attend the meetings.
So I guess the goal would be either:
A) raise enough money to buy 1 share in each company plus cover travel costs to speak at meetings
B) raise enough money to get awareness, then raise enough money to actually buy real chunks of the companies... you'd only need to buy one at a time...
However, I think that the potential for launching a hostile take-over of these companies is nil, and most companies elect the Board as a slate so you can't even push all your votes for one person on the board... however, it would be a neat experiment.
If you are interested: e-mail scorpion@mit.edu
I've just finished reading the transcript of the application for an injunction against the distribution of DeCSS, and I've got to say the defence really looked fairly weak. The laws that the plantiffs are pursuing seem to be deliberately aimed at the sort of software that DeCSS is, and the way it was manufactured.
The incredible uprising against the supression of this information really had better be as a demonstration against the way they treated Jon and his father (and does anyone actually have even a second hand account of that ordeal?), because the legal situation looks very very cut and dried.
Despite what any linux zealots might like to think, the case is being made purely against the production of software that is "primarily designed for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls the access to a work"
In a purely legal sense, the judge very quickly, and I think justifiably, knocked back every single defence that was put forth, because none of them actually related to the case that had been presented.
We can all rave on forever about how this is an example of repression of a "small entity" (to quote the above article) by a "Big Business", but really, you can't abjure responsibility by attributing personalities to the opposing sides. Calling Big Business "BB" reduces those companies to a nameless, faceless force, thus making them emminently more suitable as a target for hatred, while simultaneously personalising the "small entity" by calling them "a son and his father" evokes sympathy.
If you actually stop for a millisecond and take note of these things, and think about reversing them, you might get a different image.
A father and his son today were finally forced to take legal action against a Big Business that had illegally bypassed the security measures on their product, known as 'DVD's. The father and son had developed their encryption to protect the content of these distributed DVDs in line with various US and international laws. Their livelihood is founded on the security of this data, and so they had to take steps to prevent it becoming publicly accessible.
As it became clear that this Big Business had deliberately circumvented their protection system, in order to use these DVDs on their internal platform of choice, as opposed to the platforms for which it was available, they took steps to prevent the circulation of the code which allowed this circumvention.
As information of this prevention attempt became available, the Big Business immediately took steps to widely distribute the code in an attempt thwart any restrictions the courts might impose. It has been speculated that the genie might never be put back in the bottle due to this deliberate action, which was frequently accompanied with rude or abusive comments: "Jon and his father are cock suckers!"
(Don't forget, Big Business is run by People too, it even employs some)
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I mean give me a break. Any time we hear of big corporations trying to use loopholes in the law to escape from obvious infringements, we get all narky, but when it's some 'father and his son', it's suddenly a human rights issue.
Yes, I can see that the purchasing of that DVD should entitle you to view the information stored therein. However, I don't think that the fact there is no player for linux justifies the creation and distribution of source code that is obviously intended only to break DVD encryption.
All these script kiddies are just rabid about anything that might undermine some Big Business, so as soon as they see something like that, are they thinking "Oh good, now I can use linux to play my DVDs"? Hell no. They're thinking "SCREW YOU Big Business! I'm going to copy and distribute as many DVDs as I like now, hahahahaha!"
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Having said all that, I still do think that there are some fairly serious issues here in regards to production of code, and whether it forms a part of 'speech' in terms of 'free', and whether it should be protected as such. I think that producing code is an expression of human ingenuity, an advance in the field of human endeavour, whatever that code might do, and however small that advance may be.
As it stands though, that code is illegal, it was produced illegally and it is intended for a purely illegal use. I for one won't defend it.
B.
There are several things that need to change in order for this Battle to be less uphill. For starters, I think people need to stop using "Hacker" anywhere near the word "DVD". I know that the word has been misappopriated to mean someone who breaks into computers, but whenever the general public hears the words "Hacker", "DVD", and "circumvent copy protection", they'll immediately draw the wrong conclusion. They'll think "bunch of freakish computer outlaws came up with a way to Pirate DVD's" not "normal people who want to watch the DVD's they legally buy or rent on something other than windows". The whole issue should be changed from a "Hacker" thing to a Linux thing.
Second, I think the multi-billion dollar ipo linux company's need to put their muscle into this conflict, not just make a few token donations to the EFF. Big businesses have no problem coercing people who threaten their interests. With Red Hat and VA technically being big businesses (who have something at stake if we can't have dvd with our linux) they should do everything barring murder to force the movie companys to stand down. Though it's not likely it'll happen, it would be cool if Bob Young did a hostile takover of movie studio then fired the board of directors, just to make a point.
Another third hand that should be played is the justice department's anti-trust suit against Microsoft. The linux community should argue to the government that by refusing to let people have DVD players that work with Linux, a serious challenger to Microsoft's dominance is crippled. And Microsoft, given the chance, *will* beat the the fact that Linux can't play DVD's (even if it is because of a stupid legal reason) over the linux community's head.
A fourth and final card that should be played is the fact that more and more movie studios are using linux to render their scenes. It would be good publicity to show a list of movies put out by these major studios that have used beowulf clusters to cheaply render their CG scenes. Basically, show the government and the public that by preventing Linux's progress, the movie studios are biting the hand that feeds them. While it would legally do nothing, it would be a good PR move.
Share prices are mostly based upon perception. The hack needs to take that into account. Going along and voting means very little - you're reacting to them. We have to make them react to us.
Who are they? The BB Execs/Directors and Institutional holdings.
If we proposed a motion we would easily be outvoted. So, the hack is never going to be a numbers game.
In New Zealand, we are entitled to register a proxy vote for companies we hold voting class shares in. That is, we can nominate any person to attend the meetings, vote and ask questions in general business.
There is no need to have a fund to manage the shares, we just have to nominate that X is our representative, and they are going to attend the meeting and act on behalf of us for our shareholding.
I imagine this should be possible in the US, without having to use the afore-mentioned fund manager.
Sample Hack. DVD - why notThe hack needs to be concerned, informative, and non-confrontational. Remember, we hold shares in the company and are not trying to destroy it, but make sure that our future returns are protected. ;)
And DVD has never faced a bigger threat than now...
"Any other general business?"
"Mr Chairman, I would like to raise a matter that is of great concern to the stakeholders I represent."
"A couple of months ago, a small group of dedicated engineers, software developers and security experts banded together with the goal of creating an open source, hardware and software solution for the distribution of digital media.
Their goal is to provide one secure, free and recognised standard for the physical distribution of large quantities of digital media.
This system, once complete, will not have any zoning issues, will use publicly available secure encryption algorithms, and all the required source will be available for implementation on any hardware/software platform that there is time, interest and intent.
There will be no licensing fees for this distribution system.
Already a large number of small entertainment companies have pledged not only support for the Open Source Storage Device (OSSD), but have also provided much capital required for the ongoing development of this solution.
George Lucas has been quoted as saying 'We finally have a secure digital solution that we trust - Star Wars II will be one of the first OSSD discs released.'
This is hot on the heals of the popularity of MP4, which has now steamrollen over SDMI, providing an open source, yet secure solution for digital media management. And with the plethora of different devices available for playback these days, MP4 runs on almost everything.
We have some questions that we would like to ask, as we are extremely concerned that this could have a drastic effect on our DVD player revenues, along with associated products namely the music, movies and software you sell.
1/ Do you perceive OSSD to be a threat to our DVD business?
2/ What actions have you taken to mitigate and prepare for the introduction of OSSD?
3/ Have you considered adopting OSSD?
4/ What effect upon our returns do you think the introduction of OSSD will have?
I note that DVD associated revenue has jumped in the most recent quarter to 15% of all quarterly revenue. We believe that OSSD is a significant risk to future cashflow and returns.
Thank you for allowing us to raise our concerns."
How would that hack go?
Cheers
RedIguana
Cheers