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Content Faction v. Tech Faction
An Anonymous reader writes: "This essay describes the current battle between two former allies in the DMCA fight - The Content Faction (Universal, MPAA, etc.) v The Tech Faction (IBM, Microsoft, etc.). It gives a great overview of what the battle is, who is taking what position, what's at stake - and how consumers are going to be taking it in the *** no matter who wins, it's just a matter of how rough it will be. "
Huh? The content feaction would be the artists who actually create the stuff. These companies are just the Distribution Faction.
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
"If you think about it, the content industry does not want people to have computers; they're too powerful, too flexible, and too extensible. They want people to have Internet Entertainment Platforms: televisions, VCRs, game consoles, etc."
I don't really know who to cheer for. The content guys are obviously stupid, but MS's tactics and IBMs tendency to forget what one hand is doing means Linux guys get stuck right in the middle. We can access content through 'uncoventional means', without the advertising channels and other marketing gizmos.
You have IBM supporting linux on one hand, and its hard drive people pulling that digital management stuff for IDE drives.
We need to tread lightly before we jump to conclusions...
Just because a technology enables you to break the law should not make the technology itself illegal. That is what we're headed for though.
Maybe someday we'll see a constitutional amendment that gives people the right to own technology. Just like we have the right to bear arms, which may have been equally important to people back in the 1700s.
Just as guns can be used to commit crime, so can technology, but that is more the fault of the perpetrators than the technology itself.
I Heart Sorting Networks
"Because computers are potentially very efficient and capable copying machines, and because the Internet is potentially a very efficient and capable distribution mechanism, even in the hands of ordinary individuals, the Content Faction has set out to restructure the entire digital world we have today. They want to rearchitect not just the Internet, but every computer and digital tool on or off the Net that might be used to make unauthorized copies."
Slashdot article on W3C TAG
" In an effort to build shared understanding of Web Architecture principles, W3C has chartered and assembled a Technical Architecture Group - the TAG for short. The TAG will document cross-technology Web architecture principles, and resolve architectural issues. "
In all honesty I just skimmed the article because I didn't find it all that interesting. I don't really see so much of a bad point of IBM and company winning this fight, compared to the nightmare described if the Content faction wins - basically making it all but illegal to have a general purpose computer.
civil offense for anyone who developed (for example) a new computer that did not include a federally approved security standard preventing the unlicensed copying of copyrighted works
Now THIS really scares me. That is just a skip away from "having any copyrighted material on your computer will result in prison time". Movies first, then Music (or perhaps at the same time). Then we move on to images. Have a wallpaper of some copyrighted picture? Yeah, that's illegal. At some point we have to draw the line. I don't agree with copying movies, but that could be because I hate watching movies on a computer anyway. I'd much rather sit on my cushy couch and watch a movie myself. Go rent a high quality DVD, or search the internet, find a link that works, and wait for hours downloading it - hmm... I'll just spend a few bucks. And if I liked it I'd probably buy it anyway. I really wonder if movie downloading is as wide spread as the movie industry claims.
At the risk of being moderated redundant, fair use gives you the right to make a copy under certain circumstances. It does not mean that content distributors have to provide the means to allow you to do it. In fact, they can quite legally make it technically challenging for you to do so.
I guess I don't hear people clamoring for "compelling music and movies and television" over the Internet. I already have devices that do all three of those things just fine -- what's going to compell me to buy new devices to do these same things? I don't really want to sit in front of my computer to watch movies or television anyway, and I don't see the digital televisions coming into the _really_ affordable range (sub $1k) anyway.
I'd be happy to keep it that way as long as nobody tries to mandate how my computer treats bits! Why would I want to give up my existing devices for new content-controlled, digital rights managed devices? Is it somehow going to be "better" for me? What are the benefits to the consumer? It seems like (almost?) all the benefits are for the content companies, not me! Why would somebody pay money for this?
I find it somewhat scary that 'content companies' have willing allies in congress for this kind of oppressive legislation.
To me it's a symptom of too much prosperity. Think about it, these 'content companies' are no more than _businessmen_ who profit from other people's work. They say it's their god-given right to buy something and then sell it repeatedly forever making billions of dollars. Yet they forget (and it would seem congress forgets) that money != value. Money is supposed to represent value so that people can trade goods. Throwing more middle-men into the equation doesn't increase value UNLESS they provide quality-assurance, shipping, or some other thing that the producer themselves doesn't want to do but is nevertheless necessary.
Our quality of life is determined by how many goods and services get produced, not how much money is spent. Because the United States is so rich, we forget that the value of money comes from all our hard work. If we suddenly start devoting man-hours to stifling distribution of existing work and regulating everything so that every pasty-faced exec can get his stock options + bonus, where will the value be?
In the information age it's clear that the richest society is the one with the most information. The way to achieve that goal is to spend our time researching and developing new information, not creating a world where trading information becomes harder.
Note that this is not an "information wants to be free" argument. I think people who contribute to society should get paid, and get paid well. Currently there is not an efficient mechanism whereby information producers can get paid small amounts by the masses who enjoy their work. That's the 'content companies' niche.
I grudgingly admit that there is a place for middle-men in this world, but we have to draw the line at legislation that just makes them fatter and reduces our cultural value.
I think this problem, like so many in our society is caused by too much money in government. The founding fathers knew that religion had to be separated from government in order to be fair and just. Sadly we were too poor then for them to realize that the economy must also be kept strictly out of government. I say we have publicly funded elections with standard forums where candidates can express their views. Outlaw political advertising as subversive propaganda, and let Joe Schmoe run for office. It has been said that "You can't legislate morality." But that is a falacy because what else is legislation for?
We know the SSSCA does not make sense from a technical point of view. We know that it is akin to smothering basic freedoms. But of course, these considerations do not compute in the dollar terms that are the only things filtering through your average executive's thick ears (not to mention many Congresscritters).
So let's humor Eisner's point of view and talk greenbacks here. Let's see: Unless my sources are totally wrong, Hollywood's revenue is about $9 to $13 billion a year. Among which a lot of derived products reimported in the USA (e.g. console games on movie licenses) which actually degrade the US trade balance. But let's retain the $13 billion/year for the sake of this discussion.
On the other hand, the IT industry represents $600 billion at least. Heck, just adding up IBM, Microsoft, HP/Compaq and EDS gives you more than $300 billion/year.
So let me get this straight, Mr. Eisner: in order to "protect" a $13B/year industry branch against a problem that isn't an effective threat yet, and might never be, you and other SSSCA supporters want to hamper and possibly seriously harm an industry that is at least 25 times bigger?
And this is going to help the US economy?
So even from a strickly financial point, SSSCA does not make any sense. Eisner is a fraud. He is athreat to the IT industry, which produced far more jobs, wealth and well-being than any other industry since WWII.
With business executives like that at the head of American corporations, who needs Ben Laden?
P.S. Actually, from the moment Eisner started draping himself into patriotic self-righteousness, it sounded fishy. The guy is a patriot the way a televangelist is a believer.
--
Mad science! Robots! Underwear! Cute girls! Full comic online! http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/
"Do you hear that, Mister Andersen?"
Listening to this argument is interesting, because you can see just how much these companies, the Tech giants on one side and the Distribution giants on the other continue to rail against what they call the 'Destruction of the Intellectual Property Industry', at least as what they said in the article.
All I have to say is: The Sooner the Better.
Seriously. These guys are fighting obsolescence. They were obsolete the second the first computer disk was digitally written. That was the shot that killed them. Not Napster... not Gnutella, not Morpheus. Not even DivX or DeCSS. What these industries do not know is that they've been doomed to slow death the second mankind invented digital storage. The ability to store and manipulate data in a digital format is one of those watershed inventions, like fire, the wheel, gunpowder, or the combustion engine. Too much has changed for the existing order to survive. Just like there are no wagon makers any more, there will be no 'content distributors' in the future.
The fact that information can be reproduced endlessly, perfectly and easily by individuals, invalidates all the companies who sprung up in order to fill the gap that existed before digital information storage was possible.
The record industry bitterly, bitterly regrets the invention of the CD. It's very nearly a perfect format for storing audio. The people who make CD's and hardware for and software for creating CD's sure as hell don't, though. Roxio, as well as others like Phillips and Magnavox all have commercials on TV that encourage their customers to make CD's full of 'free' MP3's.
Yeah, right. As if. 'Free'. Sure....
The same thing is going on between the distribution industry and the computer hardware industry. Sure, it's a good thing for hard drives and CPU's to be altered so that information cannot be copied on them. That makes them a lot more expensive to produce, however. Why should one industry suffer because another is obsolete? That's the thought going through the minds of the people at Maxtor, Western Digital, and Iomega. It's also the thought going through the minds of people at Intel and AMD.
For the recording and entertainment industries to survive, they're very literally trying to cripple an entire industry with players from all around the globe. They're buying legislation right now because that's the only chance they have to force companies like ABit and Acer, who aren't even headquartered in the United States to tow the line.
But it's already too late. The first step in any kind of revolution is civil disobedience. Sometimes that's enough. Sometimes the flow of ideas is just too powerful to allow the existing order to stay in power. Gandhi believed this when he led India against Britain, and he ended up being right.
Even if the recording and entertainment industries manage to buy all the legislation they want, they're still faced with the daunting task of stopping the civil disobedience they've created. They'll very literally have to march into every home and take away non-DRM compliant computers and TVs.
Here's a quick hint. The U.S. government tried to do this in the 30's with alcohol. It ended up being one of the single greatest failures of the government and has created criminal and social problems that live on today.
So, the long and short is not how long you can hold on to your computers... It's how long the RIAA, MPAA and any other companies that make money by restricting the flow of information can hold on to life.
Die, bitches, die...
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
"Back in the nineties, when we bought a movie on video, your grandma and me could watch it as many times as we wanted, without paying for it again each time. We could pause it to get up and get a soda, and we could rewind it if we missed something and it didn't cost no extra to do that."
"Wow, gramps. You mean there were no coin slots on TVs back then?"
"That's right. And if the movie was a dud, we could sell the tape at a garage sale, or give it to a friend, or even just throw it in the trash."
"Weren't you afraid you'd get arrested, grandpa?"
"They didn't arrest people for those things back then, boy. Didn't need no stinking TV license, heck, nobody didn't even have to own a TV if they didn't want to."
"When grandma gets out of prison for muting commercials, can she tell us some stories about the old days too?"
Technology giveth, there was no real music industry until the phonograph was invented, and technology taketh away. Limiting technology in favor of business is shortsited, ill founded, anti-capitalistic, and doomed to fail.
Insanity is the last line of defence for the master diplomat. But you have to lay the groundwork early.
> [Tech Faction: Hundreds of billions, maybe a trillion, in revenue]
I think we'd all agree that government operates by the Golden Rule: Those that have the gold, make the rules. But if we truly live in a "one dollar, one vote" society, why the fsck is anyone in Congress listening to the Content Faction at all? Do Content Faction lobbyists hire better hookers, with cocaine instead of silicone in their tits?
> So even from a strictly financial point, SSSCA does not make any sense. Eisner is a fraud. He is a threat to the IT industry, which produced far more jobs, wealth and well-being than any other industry since WWII.
>
> With business executives like that at the head of American corporations, who needs bin Laden?
I thought my "Hollywood hookers and better coke" crack was good, but I think you've got the better soundbite, by far.
Rack up the dollar cost of the WTC disaster. (Conservatively $100B), and compare it to the dollar cost to the Tech Faction if the Content Faction gets its way, and discover that a mere 10-15% "hit" in Tech Faction revenues is the equivalent of a WTC attack when it comes to GDP. The Eisner-Valenti-Rosen triumvirate is a greater threat to the economy than bin Laden ever was.
I think we need to push three talking points:
- The memes "Content Faction" and "Technology Faction". Portraying Hollywood as a "faction", rather than an "industry" makes it clear that there are opposing interests here.
- The fact that tech is at least an order of magnitude larger - in jobs, revenues, profits, and taxes remitted to the government - than the Content Faction.
When you write your Congresscritter, you can call them "industries" instead of "factions". And instead of asking him which industry is likely to give him the most campaign dollars over the next 30 years, ask him which industry is most likely to provide the most jobs for his constituents. He'll do the campaign contribution math by himself, and you've pointed out there's a compelling "it's the economy, stupid" excuse his opponent can use against him, should he side against the Tech Faction.When you talk to your co-workers, write letters to the editor, or post to weblogs, feel free to be honest - call 'em Factions, and ask the campaign contribution question. The readers will do the "Hollywood must have better hookers, if my Congresscritter supports the Hollywood faction, he must be corrupt" math by themselves, and vote accordingly.
http://www.sacbee.com/state_wire/story/1348770p-14 18333c.html
Elton John, No Doubt and the Eagles are among a group of musicians who will perform at five benefit concerts the night before the Grammy Awards telecast to raise money for a legislative fight against the record industry. [...] "It's about time for artists to take control of their work and how it is presented to our fans," said Dexter Holland of the band Offspring, which will perform as part of the effort. [...] The tentative lineup is Billy Joel, Sheryl Crow, the Eagles, Dixie Chicks and Stevie Nicks at the Forum in Inglewood; Offspring, No Doubt, Weezer at the Long Beach Convention Center; Ozzy Osborne at the Los Angeles Sports Arena; rhythm and blues acts to be announced at the Universal Amphitheatre; and country artists at an undetermined fifth site.
Of course, the record companies are denying any allegations.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
It almost brought tears to my eyes when I watched this week's news footage of Afghani citizens out in their back yards in Kabul, digging up old VCRs and TV sets that they had buried to keep them from being seized by the Taliban. One old gentleman had constructed a secret room in his house to hide thousands of books, magazines, and videotapes that would have been destroyed had they been discovered. People were lining the streets listening to music again after a decade long ban, and many were openly weeping for joy.
But what really choked me up was the whole time I was watching that story, I was thinking to myself "this is your future, this is you digging holes in your yard, in the U.S., to hide computer parts and copies of Linux from your oppressive government".