A History of the Digital Copyright Struggle

sconeu writes "The National Journal has an article detailing the battle between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. An interesting read, it discusses the tech industry's early miscues, and the efforts made to ensure that Hollywood isn't the only voice heard on the Hill."

Comments

Funny stuff

[MxTxL]

With a cue from Walt Disney Chief Executive Michael Eisner, Senate Commerce panel staffers dimmed the lights for a packed February 28 hearing in the Russell Senate Office Building. A full house of lawmakers and lobbyists settled back to watch an ABC Nightline

How funny would it be if it came out that Eisner had downloaded the footage the night before off of LimeWire?

Which makes you wonder, did he actually have the rights to show the footage? Sure, Eisner OWNS abc, but i wonder if he went through the red tape to get something printed that said he had the rights.

This isn't about stealing.

[Lonath]

It's about control and competition. They aren't scared of copying, they're scared of people making their own stuff and not paying the industry taxes to get it made and distributed. They are trying to hinder the progress of the arts by artificially restricting what gets made while keeping themselves as the "gatekeepers to culture". You might not believe this, but most artists would accept a modest lifestyle if they could make the art that they want without being controlled by others. Those kinds of people are the ones who make the really good stuff. The idea that those people would be able to make a living without being controlled scares the shit out of the copyright industry.

Also, besides hindering the progress of art, they will also hinder the progress of science since most scientific advancements of today depend heavily on the use of computers. If computers are taken away (which they will have to be in order to get this level of control), then the copyright industry will be using copyright to hinder the progress of the useful arts and sciences.

However, since the ONLY reason that copyright exists is to promote the progress of the useful arts and sciences,what they're doing is blatantly unconstitutional. It's just that they can't come out and say that they want to control culture and prevent people from cmpeting with them by creating their own art, since they would get destroyed in the backlash. Maybe someday their internal notes and memos will come out and people will realize that this is about control and doing blatantly unconstitutional things to make money, not about stealing.

So what does this mean? This means:

1. Stop talking about this in terms of piracy. If you believe this is about piracy and not about control of culture, then you're still a part of the problem since you believe the copyright industrys' lies.
   
2. Stop buying anything from the copyright industry forever. Fuck em. Giving money to the copyright industry is giving weapons to people who want to destroy freedom to help sustain their bankrupt "-ism". So, stop seeing, renting, buying movies and music. Forever, since that's how long they would want copyright to last if they got their way.
   

Outlawing The Right to Read

[Anonymous Coward]

CBDTPA & other such future laws will outlaw information sharing. They will forbid the fundamental right to share. It is very important to understand this process.

(1) "The Right to Read" by Richard M. Stallman.

http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

(The important thing about this story is that it was written before the DMCA was even proposed!)

(2) "What's Wrong With Copy Protection" by John Gilmore.

http://cryptome.org/jg-wwwcp.htm

(3) "Re-evaluating Copyright: The Public Must Prevail" by Richard M. Stallman.

http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/reevaluating-copyrig ht.html

What is copyright, and what is it meant to accomplish? How can we tell whether it is meeting its goals?

This was also written before the DMCA; Stallman argued that copyright law had _already_ gone too far.

(4) Sold Out, By James Boyle

http://www.wcl.american.edu/pub/faculty/boyle/sold _out.htm

Observations

[OverCode@work]

a) Many industry forces want to combat the rise in Internet copyright infringement through technological means.

b) These technological means would likely result in a considerable reduction in the flexibility of personal computers.

c) This "considerable reduction in flexibility" might preclude 100% open source operating systems, depending on the technology used. It stands to reason that open source and free software license compatibility is not the primary concern of the proponents of such legislation.

d) At the very least, this is likely to make it difficult to play movies and/or music with open source software, which will reduce the desirability of the software we've worked so hard to build.

e) This is unacceptable.

What are we going to do about it?

I can think of a few possibilities.

We could stop infringing copyrights, and convince the industry that the problem has been solved. Fat chance this'll happen.

We could implement a classic broad-based boycott, but history has shown that this only works until the next cool shiny DVD comes out.

We could convince our representatives to stop listening to the entertainment industry.

We could do nothing (or do things that amount to nothing, like sit around and gripe like I'm doing right now).

Something is going to happen, and it's probably going to suck unless we, a community of people who have a vested interest in preventing these things from happening, unite and implement an effective solution.

What'll it be?

-John

Re:Observations

[Steve B]

We could stop infringing copyrights, and convince the industry that the problem has been solved.

The industry's problem is not that some people infringe copyrights. The industry's problem is that technology has made it practical for artists to produce and distribute their works independently. Don't use language that supports their scam of suppressing the latter under the guise of suppressing the former.

DaveNET plan

[perfessor multigeek]

Check out scripting.com, where Dave Winer and his friends have figured out a good response to this. Don't sit around bitching, learn how to game the legislative process and get good people elected.
They've started backing the Libertarian candidate to replace one of the Congress critters backing this nonsense and now she's getting real media coverage and is given a chance to win.
We don't need to put up with these yahoos in DC. God knows they need us more than we need them, so let's get moving on replacing their bought and paid for asses.
I'm certainly doing my partto spread the word.
Rustin

History repeating itself

[GreyWolf3000]

Even the broadcast-flag technology failed to address an infinitely harder problem: how to stop people from using the Internet to spread movies from sources other than digital television. Disney used that limitation as an opportunity to reframe the debate.

I'm sure this point has been made before on some other similar article somewhere else, but I enjoy ranting and most posts do this too, so I'll speak my mind anyway :)

If one looks back in history 50 years, one will recall the 50's as a decade where Hollywood studios were in trouble, feared the television media for similar reasons as they fear the 'net today, and were reluctant to enter the new technology. The studios faced monopolistic charges (I'm recalling a John Lithgow PBS segment) and almost went bankrupt. They bit the bullet, embraced television, and Hollywood fared quite well.

Now, movie making and television have virtually merged thanks to Time Warner, Turner, etc (well for our purposes they have). They are not starving for cash these days, but they certainly are not embracing this new technology. They are rather attempting to control it and resist it, like in the 50's. What they must realize is that more people "pirating" means more people viewing their content. These then could be customers if the RIAA would embrace (I'm sick of that word too; homonyms?) the 'net, they could provide content from third party sites that they could control just like television. They would need some ad system which I am not going to try and pull out of my arse to gain the sites revenue, but I think it could work. Either that or a pay system, but because of who we're dealing with, it would have to be good.

My point (ah yes, there it is) is that if the big guns spent some of their budget for fighting the 'scourge' that is 'piracy,' they could at the very least have a better argument in court, if not a peaceable solution for everyone. All of you out there downloading m0vI3Z will have to give it up if anything but more rights being lost is to be acheived. They will win if you don't, and honest hackers and their rights will get screwed.

Re:Copyright: if you dont like it don't buy it

[Waffle Iron]

The people who make movies and such have the right to sell the product in any way they please

This is true. Now, after they've sold me a copy, it's my property. The law says I can do whatever I please with my new property, except for one thing: I am not generally allowed to make new copies of the content encoded in my physical copy, other than copies allowed under the statute of "fair use".

yet people for some reason feel they are 'entitled' to use it any way they want

I should be, as long as I don't make copies of the content that aren't protected by fair use.

There is nothing wrong with companies trying to peddle information that is saddled with any kind of onerous encrpytion/copy protectsion/annoyances/whatever..

However, by the same token, there should be nothing wrong with me doing whatever I want with my property, including decrypting it, hacking it, burning it, or gluing it to my forehead. (As long as I don't make copies of the content on it that aren't protected by fair use.)

The problem is that the media industry has bought legislation that gives these technical tricks the force of law. That is a huge change in the nature of the copyright landscape, and it effectively eliminates many of the tair use rights people used to hold over their own bought-and-paid-for property.

It used to be, you bought a CD, and you owned it; the record company only owned a lein that prevented you from redistributing additional copies of the CD. Now, through technical measures backed by new laws, the record company removes most of your ownership rights in your CD and retains them for itself. You are effectively renting the CD and are only allowed to play it on record-company approved equipment.

Scariest part?

[Mekanix]

It's a battle between Hollywood and the tech-industry... who is missing from this picture? The consumers... the people... It isn't untill the end of the article consumersgroups are mentioned... and rightly so... they hardly play a role...

Isn't it scary to live in a nation, where the voice of the voting people are ignored?

When did democracy die?