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EFF Ad Campaign On File Swapping
miladus writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation is launching an ad campaign
to
counter the RIAA's lawsuits about file
swapping. There are more details available at the File Sharing: It's Music To Our Ears subsite." The press release kicking off this campaign says that "EFF's Let the Music Play campaign provides alternatives to the RIAA's litigation barrage, details EFF's efforts to defend peer-to-peer file sharing, and makes it easy for individuals to write members of Congress."
You obviously have never produced anything of merit, which you might wish to protect.
Turn filesharing off.
So WHAT exactly is the EFF campaigning against? If it's campaigning against the above, and suggesting that people should be able to redistribute the works of others without the permission of the people who were responsible for us having those works in the first place, then how is this going to make the EFF, technical community, and peer-to-peer advocates look in general?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
can we just automod these "theft" posts down
Only if we get to mod the "copyright violation != stealing" posts down at the same time. Honestly, you guys sound like a broken record.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Support Tort Reform!!!
American Tort Reform Association
The Economic Benefits of Tort Reform
American Tort Reform Foundation
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
Who is running the EFF now? There has obviously been a number of changes of power over the last decade, but this latest incarnation of the EFF seems to have nearly nothing in common with the principles with which the organization was formed.
.com era knows how meager ad revenue can be, especially for someone who is creating their own content and not simply presenting millions of page views of other people's work. Digital patronage, another answer presented is akin to saying "We don't want to pay you to do your work, find someone else to pay you. We still want the product, though!"
As a former supporter of and contributor to the EFF I am appalled at this latest campaign. After reading the information available about their latest campaign on their website, it is clear that the EFF now is promoting mass violation of legally held copyrights of music and other works. Obviously stepping far beyond fair use doctrine, the EFF appears to be supporting mass distribution of copyrighted works to thousands of people the user has never met.
Some of the alternatives to paid copyright use the EFF suggests are simply laughable. Tip jars are one of the suggestions, something that nearly every investigation into that i have read has discounted as ineffective. Ad revenue sharing is another suggestion they make, and anyone who has survived the
Cases such as Steve Jackson Games and others that the EFF cut their teeth on and grew influential were all examples of protecting individual's rights online and in a digital age. Indeed there was a need for this kind of protection and there still is, physical rights that citizens had been granted were being ignored either intentionally or unintentionally in a digital venue.
Now it seems that the EFF has done a complete 180 degree turn in their approach. They are now attacking copyright holders, saying that they shouldn't have the same protections online as they have in the physical world. Meanwhile, while these rights still do apply to the digital world the EFF is trying to make sure that anyone who choses to violate them is guaranteed anonymity.
Wouldn't the old EFF have stood up for these people who were having their rights violated - the vast majority of whom are regular folks, paying their rent, or small businesses (bands) making only a mediocre income on their work?