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The MPAA's Lobbying-Fu is Stronger Than Yours
georgelazenby writes "The Frisco Chronicle reports: While the music industry has been clumsily bullying its way through the federal government, the movie industry has taken a more subtle -- and more effective -- approach. The MPAA has been lobbying individual state legislatures to pass laws reaching far beyond the original DMCA. The proposed laws would permit cable TV companies to 'limit subscribers to using only certain brands of VCRs and could ban TiVo in favor of their own proprietary PVR technologies.' According to one expert, the bills are 'tremendously open-ended and create theoretical and potential criminal liabilities for just about anybody on the planet.'"
How would something like this be enforced? House inspections?
BOO! TERRO
>According to one expert, the bills
>are 'tremendously open-ended and create
>theoretical and potential criminal liabilities
>for just about anybody on the planet.'"
What planet? Planet America? US laws sure don't reach us in Europe.
Having a system where everybody is a criminal and anybody can be arrested whenever the government want to is scary beyond imagination.
As unfortunate as it is, many laws that stem from the United States DO carry over to other countries. That's just how things work with the US being such a great superpower in the world. One can only hope that other countries will have more sense than Bush and his cronies.
[insert witty comment here]
Last I heard, US law didn't apply outside US borders. Officially. After all, that's what makes it necessary to hold small boys - sorry, al Queda terrorists - at Guantanamo Bay, safely outside US jurisdiction.
On a more serious note, this seems part of a trend that will eventually block off access for ordinary people to the unregulated internet. Nice to know that the States are learning from Beijing.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
These lobbying groups have a way of creating the problems that they try to fight.
For example: way back in 97 people were using IRC and Hotline and FTP to trade music, and it was under the radar to the mainstream. Then Napster comes along and the RIAA takes notice, and a staggering number of news stories announces to the public that it's possible to trade music online. The RIAA was the reason for the popularity of napster. And inderectly they are also responsible for the rise in popularity of trading movies on the net because of the migration to morpheus after napster's demise.
Lobbying groups like the RIAA and the MPAA are doing a great service to the cause of piracy.
I wonder why they don't see that.
We have caught the sniper like a duck in a noose. We understand that hearing us say this is important to you...
The law is unenforceable without on demand inspections. Any packaged string can always be resampled from analog and move out into the wild.
It will be up to individuals in the future to decide the value of and reward the creators of binary strings.
Any packaged string can always be resampled from analog and move out into the wild.
This sort of thing is of great interest to me. The issues here are actually twofold. First is that some generic idea of "content" can be represented by multiple bit streams. Never mind resampling; how many different ways are there to encode a specific song? The combinations of different bit rates, different encoders, and different formats is staggering. Somehow, all those series of ones and zeros are going to be assigned (in theory) to the copyright holder? Maybe, but consider . . .
The second part of the problem is that a series of ones and zeros is meaningless without context. The decoding algorithm comes into play. What do you do if your nice new piece of software just happens to tar+gzip (or in some other way get encoded) into something that can be decoded, in whole or in part, by some music software to an mp3 of the latest manufactured band? It's like the illegal prime. Any laws that get passed regarding digital content without a lot of insight are going to leave things a real mess in the future.
That will be the end of them, and good riddance.
The end of the MPAA or the end of the Tivo? There are only 650,000 Tivo subscribers. Cutting off part of their market could easily kill the company (especially if a cable monopoly decides to standardize on the lowest common denominator, and bans Tivos even in states where Tivos are still legal, just because a big chunk of their cable network is in a Tivo-illegal state.) You don't want them to be hogtied until someone overturns the law in court - they might be bankrupt by then. Best thing to do is preemptively fight (for example, the SonicBlue subscribers preemptively sued the studios for the right to use ReplayTV units to timeshift and share shows.)
Don't let the enemy define where and when you fight - you must be the one to control the battlefield.
It is unfortunate that things have to go this way, but until this silliness is brought home-- literally-- the masses can't get behind any effort to put a stop to it.
Does the DMCA make life difficult or inconvenient for your family or non-technical friends? Probably not. Not in a way that they notice or associate with anything in particular. Not being able to rip music CDs may impact a reasonable chunk of the voting public, but no critical mass there.
Wait until your parents want to Tivo their favorite TV show or a movie on a premium station that they pay extra for, but they find out that not only can they not record that show or movie, but in fact the Tivo is not really functional at all anymore... and maybe their VCR doesn't record everything they want, either.
When voters are effected by this stuff, and when they are effected enough so that they get angry, matters like this will suddenly get the attention they deserve. So long as lobbyists and campaign contributors are the only ones making noise, there won't be anything reasonable coming out of our politicians.
At least FCC Chairman Michael Powell likes his Tivo, so maybe there will be some advocacy there. Maybe.
>or the culture is going to shift and people are going to start paying for things again instead of stealing them (net result: good for everybody).
The culture isn't going to shift until people such as yourself stop referring to simple copyright violation as such a heinous crime as theft.
In society, when a law is ignored en masse, it shows a flaw in the system. For exmaple, take speed limits. They never prevented a fast driver from causing an accident (don't believe me? Check your newspaper for the next high-speed deadly street racing collision -- only a driver's judgement prevents accidents), and it would take draconian measures to the point of absurdity for the law to be successful.
Or, for example, take the fact that time shifting was illegal in the US prior to the BetaMax ruling. The fact it was illegal made no difference to anyone commiting the crime.
Some would suggest increasing punishments will stop people from commiting the crimes. Current drug laws prove this is a fallacy. The fact that downloading an MP3 makes you vulnerable to 5 years of pound-me-in-the-ass penetentiary rather than the few days it really should be (if jail is needed) hasn't made any difference. Does a night in the slammer stop a drunk from drinking? Does losing a job stop a barfight? Do satellite raids and cease and desist letters keep pirated TV off the streets? Does risking your marriage keep people from visiting whores?
No.
Most of the time people follow their own rules in a free society, despite whatever the laws state, unless they feel sure to be caught (draconian society, usually) or that the consequences are so extreme the risk isn't worth it (I suppose a minimum death penalty for certain crimes without any option for parole fits in here, because most lifers never thought they'd be there for life). Fortunately, the vast majority of people are adverse to physical harming each other, and wouldn't dare steal anything much more than some pens from work (and does the possibility of losing your job and spending the night in jail make you want to stop?)
Patch the flaw and regrow the economy. It's about time. Artists deserve so much more for their hard work than what today's failed laws give them.
And, part of the patch is to note that people are much more likely to treat others nicely if they're treated well. It's a two way street, and laws like these proposals put 10 ft. sinkholes in that street.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
You know I really couldn't care less what happens in the US, I never intend to visit the place and the more riduculous laws they subject themselves to to, well you 'voted' the guys in, so you have to live with them.
My problem is that now that the US has officially told the rest of the world you do what we say or else (not that it was much different previously, just a bit more hidden), we find that our governments are doing whatever the US wants. Now I didn't vote for the US government so why do they get jurisdiction over me? Perhaps the whole world should vote for the US government and perhaps the world would be a better place.
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
One thing I really wish the RIAA and MPAA would SERIOUSLY crack down on and even make REWARD laws to police departments is Flea Markets. My local flea markets are FULL of people selling knockoffs and CDRs of both movies and say 50 cent/Eminem. And yes these people ARE different than file sharers because they are PURPOSELY trying to make money off of someone else's work. They are NOT sharing it without financial gain as "napster/kazaa users do".
Rather than privacy intrusive laws like the article mentions and really even as DMCA is, I wish states would consider the battle more local and leave the organizations out of it. Instead, be more concerned for the taxable commerce in their state.
I have always been concerned when the corporate world feels like they have the right to justice on their own without the law. Cable companies, Music companies, Movie companies (most are all 3) are beginning to be able to carry out vigilante justice on the public.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
I think more scary than the movie industry thwarting technological and artistic advance for their own financial gain, is the fact that powerful interests can literally sneak bills into law with absolutely zero debate. Not good.
<a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>
Information has a time dimension. You may not want to buy a movie for $20 today, but might be willing to wait a year and buy it for $2 in the bargain bin. But if you make an illegal copy today, you won't buy it tomorrow for $2. Further, if you went to the trouble to illegally copy it, that does imply that it had some value to you. Otherwise why bother taking the time to locate it, download it, etc? The MPAA/RIAA have indeed lost something when a potential customer chooses to make an illegal copy today rather than purchase it for less tomorrow.
FreeSpeech.org
--an even further analysis shows that at some point "IP" as property is going to be fairly silly. What would a geek really want in his kitchen? A star trek replicator? How would the farmers pay their bills then, once their job and work is outdistanced by available technology?
What this is is an example of the age old rift between protectionism and advances in technology and more open markets. The paradigm of the IP creator being a full time "worker" who garners all his wage with producing those works has always changed over time. At one point only the royals were rich enough to "own" a painting, or to keep a court musician on the payroll, or to have "theater on demand". Only a few owned books, because of the monopoly of the royal religious scribes, who hand copied bibles etc.
Right now we are at a major crossroads again, as the technology already exists to make a large part of "IP" business obsolete. That's why they are pulling out all the stops, they right now can be replaced. So you then have to ask, which parts still require "protectionism".
I find this sort of amusing, moving in political circles where up into about two years ago, white collar workers were sneering at blue collar workers as their jobs got "outsourced" and "made redundant" by advances in technology and the markets. Myself being a blue collar worker noted that is was few and far between that I could see much support (on the web in forums) from much higher paid people than I, working in "still vibrant" economies such as IT/IP. I got laughed at, put down, told to STFU, that my "work" was buggy whip work that modernization and automation and the "free market" made obsolete, so tough luck. Now that THEIR paycheck is threatened, by outsourcing and automation,by improvements in technology, by the skills required to produce this sort of "product" becoming lower and easier, etc, they are crying foul, FOUL they say,they are "wondering how they will feed their families and pay their mortgage".
Well, same thing I kept getting told and keep getting told, at a retirement (or close enough) age, "learn a new skill, perhaps the old one isn't as relevant any more, keep up with the times, pull yourself up with your boot straps" and etc.
SUCKS to get told that doesn't it? Pretty easy to slam it out when it's someone else, isn't it, real easy? But it SUCKS to take it, doesn't it,. sucks to be honest, to actually SEE reality.
"IP" busy-ness and it's related side "jobs" as a full time "job" is rapidly being replaced with automation and ease-of-accomplisment.
GASP, OH NO!!! Geeks who type arcane symbols fall out of chairs all over, "artistes" swoon and get the economic vapors, middle man skimmers get red in the face, demand "laws, we say MORE,MORE, AND MORE LAWS!!! TO PROTECT....." Whatever. Whoops, you are demanding "protectioinism". wow.
It is no different from ANY other industry, nothing special or magical about anyone's "job" there. You never got handed a lifelong job/profit guarantee. Joe Bubba in the factiory doesn't have it, and is losing bigtime, told to "get with the program". Joe Farmer at the family farm is going through it. Where is it carved in stone that programmers and entertainment "artistes" and middle man "trader-skimmers" are guaranteed a full time job that "pays all the bills"?
Soon-perhaps- it will be possible for the end user-the consumer-to "program on demand" applications exactly like they want them. What then? Soon it will be possible to have huge amounts of "entertainments" created-not even copied but CREATED "on demand", cheaply and at the single consumer level. If anyone forgot, it was blacksmiths that "put themselves out of business". The metal workers did it to themselves. today, engineers are putting themselves out of business, as they concentrate on automation-even with their own jobs! When I was a kid, AUTOCAD did NOT exist.
Where do you draw the line on advances in technology? Should we still be paying scribes to hand copy books? At one time it was
I sell Shareware on the 'net. I know my stuff is on zero-day warez sites. But you know what? People who go there to get my software wouldn't have purchased from me anyway. They have to live with their conscious, and sooner or later I believe they will either change or have it come back and bite their ass.
Take your pills, please. I can understand that some people see copyright infringement and theft as equally serious crimes. But you deny that there is any difference at all and therefore reject the notion that some people have a reason to differentiate between the two. You don't need to agree with the moral or legal conclusion, but insisting that two things, which are obviously different, must be treated the same just because the difference doesn't matter to YOU is obnoxious and, if you fail to realize what you're doing (which I doubt), a sure sign of stupidity. Many people on this board think that copyright infringement and theft are not only different in a legal context but also from a moral perspective. Now don't be a clueless dick and accept that in order to discuss this matter, it is necessary to have different words for different activities.
2) You should be able to have it because the GOVERNMENT does NOT own the road (taxpayers do) and they certainly don't own your car. They also do not have the right without warrant (probable cause) to interfere with or search your car. (Just because a police officer isn't searching your car, rather an electronic "detector", it is STILL an illegal search.
3)Most radar I know I of that are sold today also have the emergency alert - a legal reason to own a radar detector.
This goes back to my original post - the recording industry and movie industry have YET to prove TO ME that I am breaking law and have probable cause to search and confiscate things on my computer or things that I own.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
I'll just go back to books, if they make those hard to get in paper form, I'll write my own and put them under the gnu license.
I could really care less if they make my tivo illegal, I haven't bought an hdtv due to hdcp, and likely won't ever, same with their "special" pvr or a series 2 tivo for that matter. I might go back to hardware hacking, I enjoyed that more than watching their programs anyhow.
If they don't want me to record and store for future enjoyment don't send it to me! I haven't read too much on itunes, but that actually "seems" like a pretty decent deal.
Throwing your vote away? Since when was this a popularity contest. I appreciate your efforts to learn about who it is you are actually voting for, but this diarhea of the mouth about 'throwing away your vote' is total garbage and just by using the phrase you show how little you are actually thinking about your ability to vote.
Stop sounding like a whiney loser who expects their vote to not accomplish anything anyway, if you plan on carrying around that attitude please refrain from posting anymore. Theres already enough people on that bandwagon.
If you think for 5 seconds that ANY other party who was in control would be any different, you have a severely warped view of what governments functions actually are. Perhaps you should dig out some of your old college books and re-read "The Republic" by plato, and all those thoughts about the 'perfect' republic being one of slave-owning, censoring, determinists might make a little more sense to you now.
maybe independents can think for themselves
Maybe, but it sure doesnt look like it now
this will be no suprise to you...if your not turned onto politics, politics will turn on you.
In any event, you're falling for the old "you must justify this behavior" fallacy. In a free state, I shouldn't have to justify to a cop anything I do, it is up to The Powers That Be to convince me (or a jury of my peers) why I shouldn't be allowed to do it. Ignoring this wisdom has lead to such wonderful legislation as Prohibition, the War on Drugs, and anti-sodomy laws that end up telling married couples how they may have sex.
Dyolf Knip