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MPAA, RIAA Seek Permanent Antitrust Exemption
Devistater writes "Webcasters sued RIAA two months ago in an antitrust case for anti-competitive behavior. The response? An exemption from antitrust laws. Today's Register tells about RIAA/MPAA's efforts to get just such an exemption written into law. They could become permanently exempt from such a suit, if the bill passes. They snuck it into a bill sponsored by Orrin Hatch called EnFORCE Act (Enhancing Federal Obscenity Reporting and Copyright Enforcement Act of 2003). Orrin Hatch says this bill contains "First... an antitrust exemption in the Copyright Act [for] record companies and music publishers" Why? Because of 'market realities.' Which ones? The 12-year-old girl? The 15-year-old girl? Or the 66-year-old Grandma with a Mac?"
I wonder whether Mr. Hatch ever paused to consider that porn is a market reality as well...
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
the mob is exempt from murder charges due to 'market realities'.
I have faith that SOMEONE in the government will see the absurdity of this request and will stop it before it gets too far.
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
to have Orrin Hatch as my congressional representative. I have never voted for him and after several news stories like this will never vote for him in the future. When will the people of Utah wake up and see that he does our state no good and harms our nation as well. Anti-trust laws are there for a reason. To keep companies from running rampant and having ultimate power to do as they will without regard. Nice move Orrin how much money did you take to get this law written? I suggest everyone write a letter to Senator Hatch and tell him what you think of this law. Utahans especially but it helps if anyone sends a letter in.
*Ok rant's over, flame on!
Hold up, wait a minute, let me put some pimpin in it
Great. This is what we need. More power to those who hold the purse strings. Give more power to big business and less to consumers.
The thing that concerns me is that the RIAA is trying to circumvent a diplomatic process. I always thought that, while not completely effective, challenging an organizations actions (even in court) kept what organizations do in check - that the could not overstep their boundries. Now, the RIAA is trying to be immune from it's actions, while suing consumers for their actions.
This could start a dangerous precident - allowing corporations immunity from their own actions. Hope SCO isn't watching.
It is not our abilities that show what we truly are... it is our choices.
I don't care what you say, there is no reason, no reason at all for anyone to be exempt from anti-trust laws. The reality of the market? What on earth does that mean?
Clearly the music and movie industries are larg amalgams esigned to stigle anything that resembles competition, is that the reality that they're talking about? The only reason a company would want an exemption from anti-trust laws would be if they were or were planning on becoming a monopoly, or if they are or plan on just raping those laws in the name of extreme profit. Those laws are in place to protect not only consumers but the economic and creative interests of the United States of America.
What a bunch of bums, really. I don't care if no one likes you. I don't care that your companies are losing money because people found out that they didn't have to pay $20 for a CD (they could pay like $10 with I-Tunes). Why should you be immune the the laws? I'm sorry Mr. Corporate Conspiracy Group, but the laws are there to apply to everyone equally, and no one should get exempted from them, this is what we call equality, if you don't like it, then you can stick it in some place and go move your companies out to Vantua with Sharman networks.
So far this week our government has passed laws legalizing spam and giving huge kickbacks to insurance companies. They have a majority on a bill indemnifying oil companies for MTBE pollution. They declared intent to ban gay marriages in the US. Now there is a bill that would give all publishers the right to become monopolies? And this actually received sponsorship?
Isn't our government supposed to behave near elections?
The ______ Agenda
According to Open Secrets, a lot.
1997-1998 PAC Contributions
1999-2000 PAC Contributions
2003-2004 PAC Contributions
Important to note:
1. there's no data available for 2001-2002 Cycle
2. The 2003-2004 is a running total
'I ain't a liar, baby, and I ain't proud I just want what I'm not allowed.' -- Violent Femmes, 36-24-36
Hatch is trying to pull this off at the same time Congress is debating whether the BCS violates antitrust laws. The NCAA doesn't have an antitrust exemption, and neither does the NFL. To my knowledge, Major League Baseball is the only group of that sort to have an antitrust exemption, and even that's come up for debate during all those strikes.
A simple public awareness campaign should put an end to the madness. In the context of other "market realities," it simply doesn't make sense. In fact, Congress has taken an active interest in limiting those other "market realities." Seriously, what's the difference between one group controlling all access to recorded music and one group controlling all access to pro football?
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Something cleverWell, according to Open Secrets, Hatch has raised $152,360 for his 2004 campaign from TV/Movies/Music industries. In the 2000 election, he raised $515,207 from the Communications/Electronics sectors.
Viacom and GE have given him over $14,000 each.
Please email all complaints to root@127.0.0.1 and the issue will be dealt with in due time.
I am ashamed to have Orrin Hatch as my congressional representative.
... I do not have any optomism whatsoever that our government will ever recover from its current despicable state without a descent into revolution and chaos, and I do not have much optomism that our society will survive such a descent. In other words, I think it likely that our culture and our political system is about to consume itself and collapse utterly, and I am of two minds as to whether or not that will, ultimately, be a good thing or not.
... they are the only ones in the industry who would support this atrocity).
And well you should be. As an American, I am ashamed of virtually everyone congress and the presidency, and a number of Supreme Court justices. It is appalling how deep the rot is
When will the people of Utah wake up and see that he does our state no good and harms our nation as well. Anti-trust laws are there for a reason. To keep companies from running rampant and having ultimate power to do as they will without regard. Nice move Orrin how much money did you take to get this law written?
To answer your question, Orrin Hatch whored himself out to the entertainment industry for $150,000 or so. Interestingly enough, he is brazen enough to take $100,000 from the computer industry at the same time (one wonders if that isn't Microsoft priming the pump for TCPA/DRM
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Why? Because of 'market realities.' Which ones? The 12-year-old girl? The 15-year-old girl? Or the 66-year-old Grandma with a Mac?"
I am as much against the RIAA as anyone, and have been a victim of their tactics (in 1998/99 I was threatened with a suit via my school over an ftp site, ended up being protected by my school, but got slapped w/ loss of network access and academic probation for a year). But come on now guys, these quotes are the same type of crap pulled to get these laws in place 'for the children.' (Ok this doesnt apply really to the DMCA, but it doesnt change the central point). What is worse, is that we are now throwing grandmother's in the picture. It is equally heinous to sue your customers regardless of age, or maternal status. Can we please try to keep the loaded language to the mass media and off of slashdot? If not, might as well do some digging around, im sure one of them has or had cancer, perhaps is HIV positive.
Come on guys, lets keep the standards high, and use solid arguments in place of trying to sling mud at the RIAA.
The "market reality" is that the RIAA and the recording companies that they "represent" have completely lost their sense of reality. They are so afraid of losing the market share they currently posses to new and emerging technologies that they want to litigate and lobby until nobody but them and their archaic means of distribution are legal.
Look at how the movie industry fought against VHS, BetaMax, and more recently DVDs because they would "destroy" the movie industry. Now VHS and DVD rentals and sales are a huge chunk of the movie industry's sales each year. Just as cassettes were once a huge chunk of the RIAA's child company sales.
The simple reality of the situation is that very, very few high quality products are being released in this day and age by large corporate media companies (both music and movie). There are no musical groups that can compete in record sales with the likes of Elvis, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and the like and there are no movies any more that can be compared in out-and-out quality with older movies like Scarface, Gone With the Wind, the Wizard of Oz, etc. Everything now is about image and flashy special effects and the simple reality of the market is that this stuff just doesn't sell as well as a good product.
Duris MUD - The best pkill MUD. Ever.
Well heck, I thought it would be more expensive to buy off a senator. We should start saving up and buy our own Slashdot senator or congressperson.
Communications/Electronics:
Top 20 Senators
Rank 6 - Hatch, Orrin G (R-UT) $404,388
Source
No, it's because there are no actual feelings of guilt.
Why should I feel guilty for double-clicking on an icon, and then listening to a song? The idea that I have to pay someone to listen to music is a relatively new concept. I don't feel guilty in the least. The music industry, in addition to suing its customers is now trying to enact legislation that will exempt it from laws put in place to protect consumers.
It is manufacturing new crimes, and prosecuting 12-year-old children.
The music industry is evil, pure and simple, and I don't feel bad when I "steal" (not even the correct term) from evil. Getting my money is not some sort of god-given right. It has to be earned, and the music industry is not earning it. Humanity got along fine for thousands of years without them, and will do so again.
"Do you expect them to go through all tens of thousands of people?"
If they expect to collect money from them, and not create another PR disaster, yes. I can garauntee they will this time.
If you fall off a building, go real limp, because maybe you'll look like a dummy and people will be like hey, free dummy
No, they latch on to the young and old targets because:
- They're good emotional jumping off points.
- Who the fuck in their right mind expects a 12 year old to understand copyright law when most well-educated adults don't?
- TV = Free imperfect music w/ ads. Radio = free imperfect music w/ ads. Computer =
.... not free imperfect music w/ ads? Huh?
- People are being threatened with lawsuits for the whole purpose of extorting "small" cash "settlements" out of them before they get a chance to defend themselves. Not that they could afford to if they tried.
Besides - bear in mind that the issue at hand right now is the fact that effective monopolies (just like Verizon - yea, they HAVE competition, but go try and find it in any significant way) are trying to become immune to laws that govern that govern the United States. You have a piracy problem? Too fucking bad. Like it or not, black markets are 'market realities' that reflect problems in the product being "pirated". Fix your distribution chain and make the product more attractive to buyers so they don't go to the black market.Yea yea, yap yap - the law says this, the law says that. The law in Kentucky says you can't fish in the Ohio river without an Indiana fishing license. Doesn't mean it's a good law or that anyone with half a brain should pay it any mind. Laws are meant to protect CITIZENS not CORPORATIONS that have, on more than one occasion, proven that THEY have as little disregard for the law as everyone they're yelling at (can we say... "price-fixing").
I hate to be the one to provide the rude wake-up call, but the RIAA, the MPAA, the BSA - they aren't interested in protecting SHIT. There's no money to be made in protecting business interests. There IS money to be made in holding illegitimate customers upside down and shaking them and then trying to turn EVERYONE into an illegitimate customer SOMEHOW.
Frankly - the law can suck my nuts in this matter. When they stop threatening to hand out low-price laws on Capitol Hill to these nutjobs and hold them to the same standards as everyone else, I'll give the law the respect it deserves. I don't expect that to happen anytime soon, though.
And look at that, while I was typing some other mod abused their power by modding the parent a Troll solely because they don't agree with the subject matter. I love Slashdot... I think Slashdot needs to run a censorship article on some of these idiots that get mod points sometime.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
I don't get why people think this. I haven't yet seen any Slashdot articles advocating piracy and only a small handful of comments that actual advocate it.
What you seem unable to differentiate is the advocation of piracy and the contempt people have for:
tactics used by the RIAA & MPAA to "enforce" their copyrights,
publicized lies, propaganda, and assumptions by the RIAA & MPAA claiming harm from P2P infringements WITHOUT EVIDENCE,
modification of laws by the RIAA/MPAA to remove rights or benefits from consumers/citizens (as in this article),
proposed tactics/laws for acting against P2P (such as destroying the contents of a computer they "find" in violation -- without trial or judicial oversight),
attacks on P2P to make them illegal or shut them down even though they have legitimate legal uses,
hypocrisy of arguing that P2P has no legally legitimate uses and then using P2P to (a) send messages to users and (b) purchasing the download statistics to rate songs for improved marketing,
issuing of supoenas without judicial oversight
attempts to enforce an ancient business model that has little relevence in the modern world,
copyright laws that violate the principle in which they were created (i.e.,limited exclusive right of creators followed by public domain to promote progress, not perpetual exclusive right which hinders progress).
There are possibly other complaints too, these are just off the top of my head. As you see from this list, it's not just a "I want free music" tirade. There are tons of legitimate complaints about copyrights and the RIAA & MPAA.
Ummm... yes, I do expect people to make sure they have the right person before they sue. Maybe I'm old-fashioned that way.
Here's what's cute to me: if I rip and encode a cd and give you the resulting mp3s, that's illegal. But, if I rip and encode a cd, keep the mp3s and give or sell you the CD, that's legal. Something is wrong there.
Record distributers do not have a "right" to make money by distributing music, though they have a right to try. Musicians do not have a "right" to make money recording and performing music, though they have a right to try.
I'll be perfectly honest that I support "pirating" music (though I've never done it) because *anything* that makes big record studios lose money is GOOD. They have been nothing but a negative force in music since the 1930's.
We no longer need centralized A&R, production, or distribution. EVERY SINGLE THING a record studio does can be done more efficiently with commodity hardware, software, and communications. Anything that moves us closer to cutting out unneccessary middlemen, even if it tramples on the imagined "rights" of music rentiers, is good.
All's true that is mistrusted
This is the huge problem -- corporations do not have a right to a profit. They have the right to do business and attempt to make a profit. If they are unsuccessful, well, losing money != violation of rights.
So often these days, corporate profits go down, and some Congressman thinks, oh, they're losing money -- someone must be breaking the law! Uh, no. Maybe if the music industry had a product worth paying for, people would buy it. (You know, that whole "capitalism" thing...)
Get over yourselves...they're within their legal right to protect their copyrighted works.
The RIAA has no right to act as enforcers of laws. That's what the police and the courts are for. Unlike the RIAA, these bodies are subject to checks and balances, not only from other branches of government, but from the citizens of the United States.
The RIAA has no right to be exempt from antitrust laws. They have no right to be exempt from any law, for that matter.
The RIAA has no right to expect twenty dollars from me every time they release a new album. I don't want it; I won't buy it, I won't steal it. They can't get people to hand over their money voluntarily anymore, so now they want to legislate it out of them.
The RIAA is within their legal right to protect their copyrighted works, but this goes far, far beyond that. How far do they have to go before people see that this isn't about piracy, or theft, or any of the terms the RIAA uses to distract us while they buy our freedom out from under us? How much of the government do they have to own before people stop calling me a hippie and a thief for standing up for my right not to give these assholes any money? What's next, a monthly bill for everyone in the country, whether or not they listened to any music?
I don't advocate music piracy. What I advocate is my government protecting *my* rights, not the rights of corporations. Look at that Constitution. It says "We the People", not "We the Shareholders". As long as we keep on saying "STFU pirate" and ignoring the real issues, they'll keep on taking our country from us, one purchased bill at a time.
I am a citizen, not a consumer.
I am a human being, not a revenue source.
I, for one, reject our new overlords.
Ph-nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
"Laws are meant to protect CITIZENS not CORPORATIONS"
Ah! but you have to understand that, according to the law (for example: Louisville R. R. v. Letson -- 1844), a corporation IS a citizen! The railroads lobbied for and got this judgement passed back in the 1800s and corporations have run completely amok since then.
There's so many ways that the RIAA could shift its business model to make a killing off of file sharing, and they have instead chosen to not move with the times. They deserve what all organizations deserve that fall behind the times: bankruptcy.