Slashdot Mirror
Seagram Declares War On Napster
GrokSoup writes: "Seagram Chairman Edward Bronfman declared war on online piracy in a speech in San Jose on Friday. While many of his arguments are hard to dispute -- Napster-like music-sharing services have turned a blind eye to theft -- he makes others that are tougher to support. For example, Bronfman said that anonymity isn't privacy, arguing that we have a right to the latter, but not the former: '[online anonymity] is nothing more than the digital equivalent of putting on a ski mask when you rob a bank.'"Apparently some folks have a hard time figuring out that the stuff in quotes and italisced is a quote from the submittor. That's not me writing above - that's GrokSoup.
This article makes a lot more sense when you realize that Seagrams doesn't just make seltzer anymore. I don't know if that's common knowledge...
MSK
I declare war on Seagram's alcohol branch.
...
He can't argue when I say that alcoholism disrupts families, causes death, unemployment,
--
For some reason I feel like a mafia don is calling me a criminal.
If the only logic these corporations have behind removing your privacy is "*pout*.. we're losing money... boo hoo!" then they can blow me. My personal privacy is more valuable than your corporate ledger any day, no matter how many thieves are out there.
The fact is, privacy won't stop people from stealing. How many people walk into a store and shoplift even though they know cameras are surrounding them? How many people speed even though they know there are patrol men potentially lurking around every corner? How many people cheat on their taxes? The truth is, the less privacy individuals have, the easier it is for Seagram's and others to steal from us. Easier to track where we go, what we do, what we buy, how much we make, what they can sell to us,when they can sell it, whether or not to give us health coverage...
Just to further prove my point, an AOL user recently complained to me because, unlike eBay, my auction site doesn't require people to send me a photocopy of their driver's license, their social security number and their credit card number.
I was floored. This person thought it was improper business practice (nevermind the fact that the site is not a business, but a FREE non profit-site) not to collect this extremely sensative data on every one of our 3,000 members.
If people expect that from the places they do business with, I'm afraid to know what the average person would sacrifice for the "sake of government" or the "sake of children" or the "sake of corporate pockets" or the "sake of jesus" or whatever else is this month's "for the sake of...".
---
icq:2057699
seumas.com
"There has grown up in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or a corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute nor common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back, for their private benefit. That is all." -- Robert A. Heinlein ("Life-Line")
This is my observation, it is not my moral judgement on either side of the issue.
Are we going to blame everything on Napster? It seems like it. Soon we'll see "Rapist says Napster contributed to crime" on /.. Next time I rob a bank or something I'm going to blame Napster. That way I'll have the RIAA backing me with an army of lawyers in my case.
-Antipop
Anonymity, on the other hand, means being able to get away with stealing, or hacking, or disseminating illegal material on the Internet - and presuming the right that nobody should know who you are.
...
One of the major attractions of the internet to some people is the prospect of anonymity - creating an online persona to experiment and discuss what you wouldn't normally in a public, non-anonymous forum. The whole idea of not knowing exactly who you're talking to is both a blessing and a curse (is that really a dog on the other end?), and it's what helps many people who are normally pretty introverted actually express themselves. Anonymity does not propagate stealing, it permits privacy and expression.
Here, we have already seen some major successes:
Another recent victory confirming the application of copyright law to cyberspace involved the unlawful dissemination of DVD anti-copy codes.
Since when was this case a victory??? It hasn't even come to trial yet!
In the appropriation of intellectual property, myMP3.com, Napster, and Gnutella (which has stolen from the breakfasts of 100 million European children even its name) are, in my opinion, the ringleaders, the exemplars of theft, of piracy, of the illegal and willful appropriation of someone else's property.
ok... so an open source program is a ringleader of piracy? This guy's logic is amazing!
Those whose intellectual property is simply appropriated on the Internet or anywhere else, are forced to labor without choice or recompense, for the benefit of whoever might wish to take a piece of their hide.
If this is a principle of the New World, it is suspiciously like the Old World principle called slavery.
So... trading mp3s is equated with slavery!!!
Let this be our notice then to all those who hold fairness in contempt, who devalue and demean the labor and genius of others, that because we have considered our actions well and because we are followers without reticence of a clear and just principle, we will not retreat.
For in the end, this is not only a fight about the protection of music or movies, software code or video games. Nor is it a fight about technology's promise or its limitations. This is, at its core, quite simply about right and wrong.
Thank you for letting me speak from the heart.
And what a cold, misguided heart that is... This is not simply right and wrong. It is about freedom, and he is saying freedom is bad. This guy needs to be educated. I'm disgusted.
Funky! Check out their history . They started with wines and branched to owning DuPont, and bought up MCA (Universal Studio's) 4 years ago.
I think what's at the heart of this issue is not that music is being widely distributed by Napster, but is that the MP3 format and the widespread acceptance of MP3 has the potential of destroying the record industry.
Record executives hate to admit that they essentially rape their artists. And I'm not talking about the Backstreet Boys and N Sync, who are no-talents and deserve to be raped, but real artists who produce great music and see most of the revenue from that music fall directly into the pockets of those execs that treat them like slaves.
The future, in executive minds is very clouded because they know that it's quite possible that some of their best, and most abused artists will up and leave them, starting up very profitable distribution channels via MP3.
They have some choices. Either they pay the artists more money, which they'll never do, lose their artists, and everything they would have otherwise earned from them, or attack Napster in a feeble attempt to discredit and destroy MP3 in general. Guess which one they've chosen?
I'm not defending Napster here. Any form of copyrightable material should be legally protected from theft. If the author says "you must pay for this, or you are in violation of our copyright" then that statement should be respected and adhered to. But I don't believe that napster is in any way hurting the record industry. It costs about ten cents to manufacture a CD and only a little more than that to distribute it. Most of the cost of a CD goes directly into the bank accounts of record executives and is never seen by the artists. Casette tapes never did and MP3s never will even come close to offsetting the amount of profit that is being made in the industry.
A lot of artists are already making pretty good livings off of MP3 distribution and the record industry has no control over them. I bet that scares the shit out of them.
>obfuscating your identity during a criminal act is immoral and unethical
Um, no. The criminal act is immoral and unethical. Obfuscating your identity while performing a criminal act is common sense....
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. (Marx)
and then he gets really crazy.....
I have discovered a massive conduit for stolen intellectual material. They call it 'email', but beneath it's innocuous sounding name hides a great evil. As I write this, there are potentially gigs and gigs of illegal material flowing all around the world.. entire chapters of books, song lyrics, and the misuse of corporate trademarks are all taking place - but that's not the worst of it! Using a technology called "attachments" actual songs, TV shows, and stolen software can be exchanged along with the plain-text.
I have done a little research, and it appears that the major ring-leaders are a company going by the name of 'MicroSoft' with their 'hotmail' service (even in the name they are brazen about the 'hot' or 'stolen' nature of the contents!) and a company that goes by the name of 'Time/Warner/AOL' operating under the alias 'Netscape Webmail' (Which I assume relates to the web of lies and trickery that the service enables).. I have heard that there may be some other software that make use of this 'email' technology, but I think we have to go after the biggest most brazen CopyRight Theft Enablersto send a message to the internet community at large: 'Sharing is bad! Communication is Sharing!'.. We must get congress to ACT NOW and stop these 'ringleaders' while we can..
air and light and time and space
His initiative one, 'secure' media downloads, combined with the third initiative, using technology to trace downloads, sounds like they could be planning to encode serial numbers of some such into the media. The player could be made to send off information about the user and the media file being played to the company, so that they can make sure that the user has the legal right to do so. Naturally, this isn't an invasion of privacy (re initiative five), they're just checking up on you to make sure you aren't doing anything wrong. Anyone who objects is obviously a thief trying to hide their identity and trying to take your privacy away.
Just what the world needs - music files that spy on us and report us to the authorities if we 'misbehave'... *sigh*
This is a such a cheap shot I had to single it out. Is this trying to make it sound that such programs -literally- steal food out of the mouths of millions of children.This whole speech in general sounds very much like something from Orwell's 1984. I see definate echoes when he talks about pirates essentially making slaves of creators of IP, or the bit about anonymity being a threat to privacy.
This man scares me, and it is people like this that will destroy the internet as we know and love it.
Phillip Morris, Nike, Microsoft..
For such crimes against humanity and depraved indifference
I game, therefore I am...
I simply can not believe that depths to which some people will lie. Perhaps Seagrams is just ignorant of this, but as a US Citizen you do have a right to be anonymous. To speak anonymously, to buy things anonymously and yes, to even walk around, all day if you want, with a ski mask on to remain anonymous. You do have a right to anonymity. My guess is that Seagrams is saying this as part of a larger straw man argument to equate anonymity with criminal activity and hence to be able to dismiss it out of hand. Whatever the case, Edgar Bronfman, Jr., is totally and completely wrong. However, its this kind of thinking that is not only incorrect but its dangerous for us as citizens to dismiss his argument out of hand. Alot of people think this way, and alot of those people, like Mr. Bronfman, have tremendous power to change the laws so that anonymity can be restricted and to try and take that right away.
Here are some references to back my assertions on anonymity:
McIntyre v. Ohio
Flood Control on the Information Ocean: Living With Anonymity, Digital Cash, and Distributed Databases
Talley v. California
--
Python
Python
Specifically, combating the dangerous and misguided notion that property is not property if it's on the Web, and the piracy that that notion perpetuates.
I don't think that most of us have any such illusions. We do have certain other issues that probably contribute to the "piracy" that he is warring against.
In addition, I want to discuss the very real difference between privacy and anonymity. In the blurred vision of speed and innovation, those two quite separate values have become indistinct, and that lack of distinction is currently having - and will continue to have - a deleterious effect on our culture, our society and the long-term growth of the Internet.
Translation: "If we can't find you, we can't prosecute you. If we can't prosecute you, we can't scare everyone into believing that we actually 'own' the 'intellectual property' out there, just as we own our cars, homes, etc."
Music is on the leading edge of this revolution, and because of that, it has become the first product to illuminate the central - and I believe the most critical - challenge for this technological revolution: The protection of "intellectual property rights."
As we'll see, he isn't talking about the "protection" of these rights. He's talking about the extension of corporate ownership and control.
For all of us, "property" rights are well understood and universally accepted. You own a home. You own a car. They're yours - they belong to you. They are your property. Well, your ideas belong to you, too. And "intellectual property" is property, period.
Here's where he really goes out on a limb. Intellectual property is not the same as physical property. Never has been. Hopefully never will be, although it seems to be getting closer every day thanks to the lobbying by corporations such as Seagram.
If intellectual property is not protected - across the board, in every case, with no exceptions and no sophistry about a changing world - what will happen? Intellectual property will suffer the fate of the buffalo.
What does he mean by "protected?" In every case? With no exceptions? What is he trying to pull here? Then there's his remark about the changing world argument being a sophistry. He says this in the same article in which he claims that the technological revolution will probably change the world much more than the industrial revolution did, and a few other similar remarks about the huge changes that will take place. Then he does nothing to explain why he believes it to be a sophistry. Sounds like he's just trying to use a big word to gloss over something he doesn't want to discuss.
For the great ferment of works and ideas, including your own, if taken at will and without restraint, have no chance of surviving any better than did the buffalo.
Actually, the ideas will survive much more easily when nobody can control who has access to them. I think what he means here is that they won't be able to make as much money off of these ideas if they can't control them. He should just say what he means.
And why is this important? Because you, like we in the entertainment business, are thoroughly dependent on patents and copyright. You need them no less than we do, to protect your processes, your conceptions, your software code, your procedures, your designs, your ideas.
Actually, many programmers are quite set against patents on software. Or at least they are against the system as it exists today. But then they're just the creators, they often create for purposes other than profit. Corporations, on the other hand, exist to make a profit, so I guess I can see why he thinks this way. Copyright is a mockery of what it was supposed to be. It no longer serves just to encourage the creation of new "content", but to enforce the ownership of ideas for as long a time as possible, and the time grows longer every time these corporations go back to Congress to lobby for lifespan to be increased.
I have moved those lawyers - or some of them - but I have done so, and will continue to do so - not to attack the Internet and its culture but for its benefit and to protect it. For its benefit.
Oh, ok then. He's doing this for our own good , so that we'll continue to have an Internet. Thanks dad, but why don't you let us decide what's for our own good. I don't need this self-serving, disingenuous crap.
First, we are focused on creating and launching a consumer-preferred and legal system for consumers to access the media they desire - beginning with music.
"Consumer-preffered?" What makes it consumer-prefferred anyway? It doesn't exist yet. I think he means the creation of an "one-true-way." Anything else will be deemed illegal.
We are providing artists with a broader canvas on which to express themselves, and we are creating a far richer experience for the consumer. For example, consumers will have access to album art, lyrics, production notes and photos of the artists, links to other sites and, eventually, music videos. We'll also offer the chance for them to chat on line with artists.
We can already get all this stuff. Where's the innovation? Where's the broader canvas for artists? What are we getting from all this?
And because of the security our product will offer, consumers' privacy will also benefit because their files and their systems won't be corrupted.
Is that it? That's our incentive? He's going to have to do a lot better than that. I've downloaded over a gig of MP3s and have never had any of my files corrupted. This is just some crap he threw in so that it looks like consumers might see some benefit from his plan.
Second, we know that going into a record store and removing a CD is wrong. It is stealing. It is thievery.
Well, if you don't pay for it when you remove it, then yes.
We will re-emphasize this truth and articulate this message in an educational effort, with our industry allies, targeted to the great majority of people who want to do the right thing - yet, may not fully comprehend that accessing copyrighted material without proper payment or permission in the digital world, is as wrong as it is in the physical world.
Seems to me that the majority would like to support the artists without having to take it in the rear from the recording industry. I'm not sure what he considers proper payment. That concerns me. If I purchase a DVD, I should be allowed to access the copyrighted material that I paid for, but the MPAA (via the DMCA) would have you believe otherwise. They want to control the methods by which you can access the material you purchased. There's definitely a lot of changes coming up, but they are NOT going to benefit the consumer, or even the artist. They will benefit the middlemen.
The Internet world is a brave new world. But make no mistake, it could only have been created and it will only survive, in the context of our civilized world, which has taken humanity centuries to construct.
I wonder what he even knows about the creation of the net. This is just more BS and fear-mongering.
Whether it is better and more robust methods of security, or tools to track down those who ignore right from wrong, technology will offer the owners of property at least as much comfort as it may currently offer to hackers and spies, pirates and pedophiles.
This really ticked me off. He's rolling hackers and "pirates" into the same category of criminal as pedophiles. This is why using terms such as "pirate" to mean "copyright infringer" was a great propaganda move for these corporations. The term "pirate" comes with all sorts of negative cannotations attached to it. It's hard for someone to stand up and defend "piracy." And "pirates" can convieniently be equated with all sorts of other criminals, even violent ones. "Hacking" isn't even a crime, but hackers get rolled in as criminals. I know a lot of people here claim that it's ok to use these terms this way and that language changes all the time, but this is not just changing language, this is manipulation of public opinion by using loaded words, and twisting the meanings of existing words.
Technology exists that can trace every Internet download and tag every file. These tools make it possible to identify those who are using the Internet to improperly and illegally acquire music and other copyrighted information. While adhering to the principle of respect for individual privacy, we fully intend to exploit technology to protect the property which rightfully belongs to its owners.
Technology also exists to prevent such things from being done, which is why their technology will have to be accompanied by legislation. There are more "DMCAs" on the horizon. Besides, corporations almost never respect individual privacy if the potential profits outweigh the risk of a consumer backlash, unless they are forced to do so. Why should we believe this guy?
Another recent victory confirming the application of copyright law to cyberspace involved the unlawful dissemination of DVD anti-copy codes.
Excuse me? What victory? A preliminary injunction that, in all likelyhood, will soon be lifted? That case is far from over.
We will fight for our rights and those of our artists, whose work, whose creations, whose property are being stolen and exploited.
Damn straight. Only corporations such as his should be allowed to exploit artists' work. He says the artists' property is being stolen, but neglects to say that in many, if not most, cases, the corporation owns the work, not the artist. I firmly believe that artists deserve to be able to profit from their work. The problem is that corporations such as Seagram have not dealt with us in good faith. They buy extensions every so often to make sure that copyright doesn't fulfill it's original purpose of expanding the amount of artistic and creative works in the public domain, but instead is twisted to become a tool of corporations to maintain indefinite control over our culture by retaining ownership of the creative works and information that defines it.
What individuals might do unthinkingly for pleasure, in my view, they do with forethought for profit, justifying with weak and untenable rationale their theft of the labor and genius of others.
Here he is talking about Napster, myMP3.com, and Gnutella. If I'm not mistaken, Gnutella doesn't profit from the service that people obtain through using the program. I think myMP3.com was also fairly ethically correct, in that they at least verified that you posess the cd that you want to access from their servers. Napster is on more shaky ground, at least now that the "common carrier" defense has apparently failed, or at least needs to be backed up and argued a lot better than it has been.
Some of the donors may regret their generosity when later they are confronted with their children's college tuition and orthodontic bills, but yes, they have given, and they have given freely.
Cheap shot. He obviously doesn't like the idea of people giving their creations away freely. Cuts into his profits. Also shows that he's not really interested in what the artists want. He's just interested in his company's profits. Kinda sheds some light on his other statements.
Those whose intellectual property is simply appropriated on the Internet or anywhere else, are forced to labor without choice or recompense, for the benefit of whoever might wish to take a piece of their hide.
I agree that the creators should be able to be compensated for their creations. I simply don't think that this guy gives a damn about those who create the works that he wants to profit from. There is a big difference between giving the artist a means to earn a living from his work, just as the rest of us want to do, and giving corporations a means to own, control, and profit indefinitely from the work of these creators.
If this is a principle of the New World, it is suspiciously like the Old World principle called slavery.
That's a pretty over-the-top statement. Copyright infringement bears no resemeblance to slavery. This guy needs to tone down the rhetoric.
The massive power of the Internet can permanently wipe out and shut down in one unthinking moment, a writer who may depend for his living on the sale of 5 or 10 thousand copies of his book. It can devastate a musician who sells a few thousand copies of a homemade CD to his fans in some small and little known community.
More fearmongering, hardly deserving of a comment, but I'll do it anyway :). As he has stated, and as I've said, most people want to support the artists. The problem is the corporations who keep trying to increase their control and length of ownership. They are the one's causing the problem. They are the one's who control the pricing. They are trying to pull off a coup against consumers that will give them complete and utter control over the content that we wish to access. Think Divx was bad? We ain't seen nothin yet. Wait until such schemes are not left to live or die in the market, but are enforced by legislation. He says they are working on a "consumer-preffered" system. We've already seen how much consumers preferred Divx. What do you want to bet that his system ends up being "legally-mandated" system instead?
And these would only be the first casualties. The rest would follow as the very basis of the New Economy was undermined.
More fearmongering. As I said, this is a ploy to scare people into supporting the granting of draconian levels of control over copyrighted works to corporations. This has the potential to turn into another "war on drugs." We've already seen how "hackers" are treated by the government. Next we'll have 15 year-olds serving 20 year sentences for downloading Britney Spears' new song. (I'll leave the jokes about that being a fitting sentence to you guys :) The point is that these things are already getting out of control and people's lives are being seriously and irreversibly harmed due to minor infractions, just as what has happened with the "war on drugs." I'm not trying to do any fear-mongering of my own here. I'm trying to point out what is already happening and that what this guy is leading up to, if past and present events are any idicator, has great potential for turning into a system of terrible injustice.
To those who would abandon or subvert those principles, I say we are right with the Constitution, in which protection for intellectual property is founded; right with the common law; right with precedent and right with what is fair and just.
He needs to check the Constitution again. They've managed to pervert the whole principle of copyright and that's what has us in this mess to begin with. I have absolutely no sympathy for his situation.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer