FBI Anti-Piracy Seal

Supp0rtLinux writes "Looks like the FBI is giving a new anti-piracy seal for entertainment and software products. Looks like now the RIAA and MPAA pursuits will add a new federal level to future prosecutions." I'm pretty sure that our forms of media already contain warnings against unauthorized duplication, rebroadcasting, and public performance, but now it's in logo form!

Comments

Not a big deal..

[SoIosoft]

It's not like anyone paid attention ever to the FBI warnings at the beginning or end of VHS tapes.

Yeah, great marketing....

[0mni]

Great now anyone who buys a cd will have to listen to a 40 year old man tell you to report piracy. It almost makes me want to get piranted cds more that way.

Re:Yeah, great marketing....

[wo1verin3]

It's like those stupid ads in the movie theatres telling you that you should pay to see a movie and not copy it.

DON'T YOU THINK YOU MAY BE TARGETTING THE WRONG AUDIENCE? YOU KNOW? THE PEOPLE WHO PAID FOR THE TICKET?! (no free pass trolls pls kthx)

I cause a ruckus every movie I see and my gf tells me to shutup...

Doesn't hurt me

[ObviousGuy]

It's a label.
It spells out explicitly that the product is covered by copyright and it also specifies the maximum penalty for violation of the copyright.

No harm, no foul.

Re:Doesn't hurt me

[Anonymous Coward]

More to the point, why is the FBI spending money on propaganda that is attached to private goods for sale to the general public?

These are not like health warnings on cigarette packs; these are threats with the weight of government put on packaging at the request of the entertainment monopoly.

It stinks. It makes the FBI look like hired enforcers. Can I get an FBI label to put on my car saying "The FBI says Grand Theft Auto is a bad thing"?

If the MPAA/RIAA wants warning stickers, they should make their own, and not use FBI logos and its implicit authority to intimidate people.

Permission

[Luigi30]

Oh my god... A LOGO! I think I'm gonna pause... and then keep going. I mean, come on. You have that stuff there. All a logo's gonna do is make people glance at it, then copy it. ESRB anyone?

But it already exists

[Nakito]

And it looks sort of like this: (C)

criminal or civil?

[genixia]

The seal, marked by the "FBI Anti-Piracy Warning" label, is accompanied by a statement that criminal copyright infringement is punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

...and what about the old plain-jane civil copyright infringments?

Re:wooooooo, so neat and pretty.....too bad

[bonch]

You'd think they had more importaint things to do like prevent another 9/11.

I hate this line of thinking. As though an organization only focuses on one thing at a time. "I guess they don't have more important things to do." As though deciding to put out an anti-piracy logo consumed 100% of their resources and manpower. They probably hired some marketing company to do it anyway.

Good article quote:

[Mad_Rain]

"Keith Kupferschmid, VP of the anti-piracy division of the SIIA, said piracy also remains rampant in the software industry, costing U.S. companies about $12 billion a year in lost licensing revenue....."While the seal will not solve the problem, we feel it will aid the software industry in its war against piracy.""

So let me get that last part straight - "We're trying this anyway, and it's not going to work."

So why bother, and/or what strategy might work?

Wel...

[Anonymous Coward]

Movie execs also are worried about lost revenue from DVD sales and rentals. "We absolutely need downstream revenue to survive," said Ken Jacobsen, senior VP and director of worldwide anti-piracy operations for the MPAA, noting that only four of 10 movies earn enough at the box office to recoup the average of $89 million spent on producing and marketing a film.

Maybe if they stop hiring the 20 million 'bennifer' actors/actresses and start spending just a 10th of that money on the script and they might see some profit.

Is anyone else disturbed by this quote?

[mynameis (mother ...]

Jana Monroe, assistant director of the FBI's cyberdivision, said the unit, created 18 months ago in large part to help hunt perpetrators of digital copyright infringement, will continue to get significant funding from the bureau. Monroe said preventing and prosecuting cybercrimes is now the FBI's No. 3 priority, behind anti-terrorism efforts and counterintelligence operations.

3rd highest priority is cybercrime!?!?
This is more important that say forensics???

My god if that doesn't smack of special interests gone horribly, horribly, wrong.

And that's without even addressing what how slippery a slope the prevention of virtual crimes would seem to be.

Re:no

[yerfatma]

Yeah, but you sure as shit can't do it with DVDs. Lost in Translation came with a nice warning followed by 10 minutes of trailers I couldn't skip. It's not like I own the DVD player and TV or anything.

Disturbing...

[EvilTwinSkippy]

I'm a bit disturbed by the last paragraph. Anti-Piracy is not the FBI's number 3 priority behind Anti-terrorism and counterintelligence.

As a taxpayer I can think of a hell of a lot of things the FBI should be spending it's time on WAY before jailing bootleggers.

Well, at least they are making a distinction between terrorists, spies, and copyright infringers.

Re:Manipulated numbers?

[bonhomme_de_neige]

Does anyone also think they were manipulating numbers there?

Absolutely. Reread the wording carefully:

noting that only four of 10 movies earn enough at the box office to recoup the average of $89 million spent on producing and marketing a film.

So what they're effectively saying is that the average cost for a movie is $89m, and only 4 out of 10 movies make more than $89m. But that doesn't mean 4 out of 10 movies are profitable - the other 6 probably had much lower budgets and consequently broke even with a much lower revenue.

For example: let's say 4 movies cost $120m each to produce (the likes of Titanic, T2, etc.). Then to make the average 89m per film the other 6 cost about 68m each. Now let's say the 4 big budget films (due to superior film quality, more aggressive marketing, etc) make huge profits, while the other 6 only make 75m each. They still made a profit but they didn't make the requisite 89m. Now this scenario has been turned into "only 4 out of 10 movies are profitable" (that's not what they said, but that's what everyone heard), even though all the movies made a profit.