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MPAA Puts Words in Mouth of CA Attorney General
An anonymous reader writes "In another example of Microsoft Word meta data coming back to bite you, Wired News reports that a document circulated by the California Attorney General to fellow lawmakers supporting new restrictions on P2P software was actually authored by a senior vice president of the Motion Picture Association of America."
So I'm not surprised by this. It's been happening for a long time - his pockets (and the pockets of many others) are probably lined with MPAA/RIAA green.
metadata is a good thing, as long as it is accurate and useful. Go Metadata!
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. -Martin Luther
I am going to hell and I am going to take all of you with me.
This new governmental policy of letting the corporations dictate public policy has just got to stop. America is being overrun by special interest politics, and with so many politicians with their hands in the cookie jar, the MPAA and related organizations essentially have a free hand in drafting legislation, policy notes, you name it.
I'd be very interested to know whether this Attorney General received campaign "contributions" from the MPAA, and how much. What do you have to pay to buy an Attorney General these days? $10,000? $50,000? I hate that everyone has their price, but what really makes me sad is how low that price is sometimes...
While a staunch anybody-but-Bush voting liberal, even I have to confess that rank corruption in the realm of intellectual property legislation is universal - the voting record declares authoritatively that both Democrats and Republicans alike have, on this issue at least, sold out to special interests with fervor and abandon.
Ah, who cares. I'll continue to reap rewards from vendors and lawyers who send .DOC files.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Considering the MPAA's activity in Tennessee this year. The MPAA is a super-powered lobbying machine, fueled by your movie theater ticket and DVD sales. We initially gave them the power to protect their products, which has been increasingly leveraged by turning consumer dollars into political "donations", which in turn allows them to increase the duration of their copyrights, ad infinitum.
CALIFORNIA ELECTS GOVERNOR FROM HOLLYWOOD, GOVERNOR OFFERS FAVORS TO HOLLYWOOD. NEWS AT 10
You elect a governor with vested interests in preventing movie piracy so he can rake in the residuals from Junior, Last Action Hero and Twins, and you're surprised when his government turns around and follows through on those interests?
These and many more support meta data. No word processor is safe. If your going to write controversial material, click File, Properties in the menu of your word processor and edit out the meta data!
However, if you kept reading your law book, you could have found that the 14th (IIRC) amendment has been established by the courts to extend the restrictions placed on the government in the bill of rights to the states as well.
IOW, California has no right to do this either.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
The federal constitution is still the supreme law of the land. If you argue the federal government is forbidden from restricting P2P on first amendment grounds, then you can't argue that the state or local government has any more ability to restrict it.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Now, what was it Mussolini said about Fascism being about the merging of the State and Corporation?
Welcome to the future.
--
This sig is inoffensive.
That's because when you get to choose only between the Republicans and the Democrats, in reality, you have no choice at all.
It's about time Americans stopped calling themselves a democracy.
.
Everyone is commenting on the fact that the MPAA wrote this document, but what is more disturbing to me is the actual precedent this kind of thing sets, as mentioned in the article:
And it's interesting that this comes right around the time that Congress is passing legislation banning liability suits against the fast food industry...
So, while Congress says "Hey you have to be responsibile for your own actions with regard to the products you use, even if you use those products as intended", the state attorneys general are saying "Hey if you get in trouble, it's the product manufacturer's fault, even if you're choosing to use the software in a way not intended by the company."
So why not take the EFF's argument one step further? If I drive a Ford to rob a bank, is Ford then responsible also for not warning me not to do so?
Of course, I'll probably get modded down for being off-topic...
Yea right tax the net. Who have the mandate to tax Norwegians/Albani or Korean net-users? How can we differentiate the ones who download and the ones who dont?
Hmmm
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
We're a representative republic. But I guess democracy sounds so much better.
Or something.
Then get off your ass and VOTE, or run for office. These days the political climate is overwhelmingly in favor of the little guy, because people are so disenfranchised. If some 80 year old farmer from Vermont can get elected to congress for being a "regular hard working guy", why can't you? There's something like less than a 20% turnover of elected officials these days; our government is chock full of career politicians more interested in getting reelected than actually representing the people or working for good government.
People whine about corporate involvement in government, then do nothing when it comes time to do the one thing corporations can't- actually place a vote, or run for office. Voter turnout in this country is pathetic; 3rd world countries have better turnout than us, and they have to deal with gunslinging "supporters" and whatnot. In Russia, Putin's opponents simply disappear.
What's your excuse?
Please help metamoderate.
As a P2P software developer and distributor, we believe you have the ability and responsibility to better educate consumers about these known risks, and to design your software in a manner that minimizes the risks. We view with grave concern reports that at least some P2P software developers may be adding features deliberately designed to hinder law enforcement in its prosecution of crimes using P2P software. Companies that engage in such conduct, and fail to meet the important responsibilities referenced above, harm the interests of consumers in our States.
Yes. God forbid we have anonymity or encryption.
[shrug] Well, as I said earlier, I have no interest in following directives like these. Software can be developed privately and via anonymous access through Freenet if necessary. It'd be a pain in the ass, but I'm
* Not interested in adding back doors to my work
* Not interested in stopping work on problems of how to provide secure/nonabusable/anonymous P2P systems (yes, part of that is to benefit users concerned about law enforcement attention).
If the AG wants to do something to go after people operating in legal gray area, he can go after people with radar detectors (speeding can, y'know, kill people, whereas a pirated song only means that a large company gets a small amount less money), or those committing corporate accounting hanky-panky, or any number of other more damaging actions. Admittedly, there aren't people with deep pockets and old-boy connections to the government trying to finance hunting people down (note: AG can also go after corrupt government officials, IMHO), but theoretically that AG was appointed to be the servant of the people, and as the House is demonstrating, popular support for the RIAA is awfully low.
May we never see th
Oh wait.. it's the same comapanies...
Well at least I'll hear about on the radio...
Oh wait those are the same companies too...
Well at least they will discuss it in the next session of congress...
Oh right I keep forgeting.....
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
What do you expect, that's normal business practice.
..."
It's called lobbying.
Big companies talks to politican and tells him: "We know our business better than you.
- P2P is bad for the public in gerneral and bad for my business.
- Terrorist use P2P to coordinate their attacks.
- P2P is used for distributing kiddie porn, P2P Software comes from shady sources.
- These are bundeled with spyware and zombie bots to attack other websites.
- What about $2000 I spend for your reelection champaign?
-
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
00101010
The worst thing is to put a blanket tax on a particular medium to the advantage of one or a few groups of people.
I don't download music, why should I be punished? My company doesn't burn music CDs, we archive our projects and data on CD and DVD, why should they have to pay the RIAA tax? My CD burner at home is used mostly for storing my digital pictures. Why should I pay the RIAA tax?
I hate to say this, but there is ALWAYS going to be some sort of theft going on somewhere. People still steal CDs from retail stores, after all. The internet may have made it easier to break the law, but if they just made it easy to comply with the law, instead of punishing their would be customers, copyright infringement would drop.
Apple and several other companies have already proven that given a reasonable and easy method to legally download music, people will do it. If those were real mp3s instead of a restricted format, I bet there'd be a LOT more people downloading. If there were a convenient method for me, I'd do it. I just haven't seen one that I think is worth it.
So I don't buy. I also don't steal. I simply do without. I shouldn't have to pay a fine for using the internet.
On the other hand, like the audio cassette and CD fine that I'm already forced to pay, I think it would legitize copyright infringement. After all, if I'm going to be punished one way or another, I might as well take advantage.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
There's no "good fight" here to join...
You're missing the third side: those of us who think that corporations shouldn't be throwing money at politicians to buy laws, and think that copyright is actually a good idea when implemented properly (i.e. limited to a couple of decades max and actually limited to the right to copy, rather than preventing people from decoding DVDs to watch, etc).
This isn't going to sound very pleasant to you, I suspect, but the fact is that your industry is undergoing rapid and catastrophic - for good or ill - changes, and like any other intelligent creature you are going to have to learn how to adapt to best take advantage of the new environment forming around you.
Two tips come immediately to mind:
1) View all studio recordings as advertisement and nothing else. If people are willing to pay for a physical copy of that advertisement, so much the better - but don't expect them to. Your prepared music being distributed VIA ANY FASHION in the modern music industry has but one primary purpose to serve: to get your name out there.
2) Start viewing live performances as your bread and butter and your only means of actually, you know, making money within the industry. If your style of music doesn't lend itself well to live performance (techno, etc.), come up with a different form of spectacle to keep the audience entertained - they want to pay you money to participate in an event, and you need provide that event. This is your new means of earning an income - selling spectacle to the masses.
--Ryvar
As for the EFF's VCL:
1) Do you really think that the record companies are now going to voluntarily agree to this?
2) Do you really think that downloaders are going to voluntarily agree to pay?
Also, from the EFF's VCL, under the section "What about file sharers who won't pay?", I quote:
"Copyright holders (and perhaps the collecting society itself) would continue to be entitled to enforce their rights against 'free-loaders.'"
What does that sound like to you? ;)
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
But note: if the goal is to "legitimize" p2p so that artists get paid, how would you do it?
I would do nothing, since the exchange of information between two individuals is already a legitimate practice.
Of course, based on the hypothetical "solutions" you're suggesting, the real question you're looking to answer is "How do you maintain the viability of selling recordings?". If the people who stand to benefit from that can't figure it out, then let them go out of business. Performers can go back to making their money the way they have throughout the majority of human history: Live performances, and commissioned works. The best part about this? The money will be well spread amongst musicians instead of making a small few vastly wealthy and screwing everybody else. The idea of being able to create a recording and have it be an endless fountain of wealth with no more input of labor from the creator was broken anyway. Nobody deserves a free lunch.
No, the real question is just the inverse : in a world where copyright is unenforceable, why do you expect the courts to protect an industry whose time has been and gone? If you were looking for another job, ask yourself whether you'd consider training to be a buggy whip manufacturer.
Listen, this is the REAL issue:
Someone's current chosen profession and it's ability to feed them or their family should not dictate my personal freedoms.
So what if artists don't get paid? Who the hell promised that they WOULD get paid forever? Will people will stop making music just because they can't sell 10 million CD:s? No. Can I get a job as a professional scribe, doing nothing but copying bibles by hand? No. Can I make a living building sextants? No.
Nobody gives a rat's ass about the people that got laid of in the automotive industry because of robotics. Just think of all the lumbermen we could employ if we outlawed concrete! And tractors, what evil! There used to be millions of hard working people just barely making a living planting crops! Oh, the good old days of Old Industry before all of these horrbile, apocalyptical, communist inventions ruined our society and took away the ability to make a living!
If new thechnology will kill the music INDUSTRY, then let it die, since it is obviously flawed. It's called a market economy, if nobody wants your stuff, your fucked. Laws are not going help.
Even though every time this comes up, it's always cast as "freedom" vs. Great Satan, it's more complicated than that.
Independents like me are also protected by copyright.
Indeed, I fully agree.
But note: if the goal is to "legitimize" p2p so that artists get paid, how would you do it?
There are lots of suggested methods, you could tax CD-Rs which are most commonly used by P2P users for backup of the files they download. You could start a subscription service, under which you pay a (small) fee and have access to a P2P network (note this differs from such things like iTMS et al in that it's a P2P network, not a store). There are lots of proposed solutions, it's just that no one is listening. It's also possible that artists may have to take a loss here and find another way of making income. Maybe CDs on demand instead of mass production.
Would you add a new Internet tax that everybody should pay?
of course not, that's senseless. The only people that should pay are those that use the services, a net tax will not do that.
Would you add new monitoring software so that an agency can track what people are doing on the net?
Again, no, we only want to charge those that use the services.
Would it actually be any more helpful to independents?
It seems to be fairly helpful to a lot of them. But what does this have to do with anything? If it's not more helpful to the independents we shouldn't do it?
Do you think that everybody whose income depends on their ability to sell their own copyrighted work should just have to find another job?
If need be, yes. You are not entitled to an icome via your method of choosing.
Look I'm not some kid that only wants free music, I'm on the music making side of this too. But I'm realistic about this too. My groupd puts out CDs, and yes they can be very expensive to produce, but we have come to realize the money isn't in the CDs. We make more money charging $5 a head for a concert than we do selling CDs for $10 a piece. That's just life someimes. Sometimes you take a loss in one place to gain in another.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
2) Start viewing live performances as your bread and butter and your only means of actually, you know, making money within the industry. If your style of music doesn't lend itself well to live performance (techno, etc.), come up with a different form of spectacle to keep the audience entertained - they want to pay you money to participate in an event, and you need provide that event.
As you say, not everything lends itself to a live performance. But some things can only be done (and recorded) live.
Should the London Philharmonic income be limited to only those who can actually attend the performance? Or some group such as Mannheim Steamroller? I don't really want to buy a t-shirt from them.
Not everything lends itself to 'spectacle' or live performance.
It's the citizens of California the AG is sworn to protect.
You poor, naive fool. The AG's purpose is much the same as everyone's purpose: To keep his/her job.
Doing what's right for the people don't make a popular politician.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
It maybe that Money != Power
But money can buy you power, awful lot of it. And then it maybe that Power != Money
But power can earn you an awful lot of money. It is as simple as that.
It is not only that: the US government is willing to jail a guy for swapping an MP3, and denting the profits of a record company by, say, US$2. But the guy who stole US$7 trillion from his own employees and shareholders goes scott free.
I don't know how one can even consider US government a democracy, when it is definitely not the wish of the people that is being carried out. Money speaks: loud and clear.
The saddest part is, there's really no difference between the Democrats and Republicans when it comes to carrying out the wishes of their big corporate bosses.
And the US is the leader of the free world. And you are not safe even if you are in Australia. Right.... time for me to move to the new planet
Indefinitely Detained US Citizen
I can't imagine who at Slashdot would have a problem with what happened. It's effectively Open Source Legislating (OSL). The "code" was stamped with the author's name, and was reused with attribution.
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
Its time to take political action against the MPAA and RIAA including a campaign to try and reduce copyright length back to the originoal 14 years (with 1 manual extention allowed for 28 years maximum).
With millions of P2P users I am sure a political party (like the Green party maybe) that supports a progressive copyright reform platform can get elected.
Yet why is the state AG not addressing gun control instead of P2P?!
Oh they are, have you looked at the gun legislation in california recently? But that's besides the point because the right to keep and bear arms is a constitutionaly protected right.
The right to "infringe on copyright" is not.
Our politicians are crooked because they are ALLOWED to be.
No, I think George Carlin put it best. Our politicians suck because the public sucks. There are no public serving selfless humble politicians out there that are just waiting to run for office if only they would get the vote. The fact is, America is full of selfish self serving pricks who's only true goal in life is to get what they want for themselves and to hell with everyone. The politicians we elect are the best this country has to offer. And that's sad.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
I agree with you. I don't normally download copyrighted materials without permission (as far as I know). I have on occasion. Whooptie-doo, come get me. I do download copyrighted works with permission, from indie artists and such. And I downloaded a bunch of Metallica stuff from their website. I was a sucker and bought their latest CD. The only redeeming quality was the passcode included with it that allowed me to download a bunch of free tracks from their website. What if I put those on a P2P network?
See, here is the dividing line for me on this whole issue. There are bad guys on both sides, but there are no good guys that I can see on the MPAA/RIAA side. I don't believe their BS about "protecting the artist" for one AMD clock cycle. They are in it to retain their stranglehold on the music industry. At least with P2P, there are some legal uses for it. Placing restrictions on it for the benefit of the corporations is NOT the correct thing to do. People are using it to break the law? Go after them, that is your right. They tried this, but in a half-assed attempt and got a nice PR road rash from it. The laws are there, they don't have to get any new ones passed. Just because they couldn't easily reach out and grab the perps isn't the rest of the world's problem.
There's no "good fight" here to join...
I think the fight to join is the fight of freedom. With freedom, you have the choice to break the law or not. Without it, your only choice is to conform or to break the law. Look at the recent goings-on with Howard Stern and other DJs who are getting hammered by the puppets at the FCC. Clear Channel is using a government agency to do its bidding. I heard people at work say "I am glad Stern is getting kicked off the air, I hate him." I could have argued, but instead I educated them. It doesn't matter if you like him or not, he is being thrown off the air because he spoke out against Clear Channel, GWB, and the religious right. It doesn't matter if you like him or not, he should have the right to say what he wants to say (within the established rules, of course). He didn't violate any rules. They pulled some clips of him from 3 years ago, and said it violated their standards! And instead of fining him, they just cut his show from their stations. There was no appeal, no nothing. And what he said was nothing you can't hear elsewhere on TV/Radio. It is a farce, and it is only one of many going on in this country. And before you say "Hey, if you hate this country so much, why don't you leave?", remember this - I love this country, and the reasons this country is so great is BECAUSE of our freedom. Freedom that is systematically being taken away from the people in favor of large corporations.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
That is not the goal - your statement assumes that people should not have the freedom to use a tool without the oversight of a nanny government because that tool can also be used for illegal purposes.
The goal of the MPAA appears to be to "delegitimize" p2p applications because it can also be used to bypass payment schemes of copyrighted material - and any legal use, or users, can just be damned.
Interestingly, several times I've heard mentioned today flat taxes on media to support artists. ( Rather than replying to one commentor, out of the many, I thought I should start a new thread. ) The biggest arguement to this is that "I shouldn't be charged, I don't listen to music," or "I don't burn music onto CD-Rs."
This is a silly arguement. Not everybody is on is on welfare, but who pays? There are several good reasons for there being things everyone pays into, and only a few people get benefits from. ( Welfare helps to stimulate the economy, single mothers don't horde their cash. )
However, I too think that a flat tax for music _IS_ silly. Why should any person declaring themselve an "artist" get welfare. The issue with flat taxes are not so much who pays, but WHO _gets_ paid.
After all, if I'm going to be punished one way or another, I might as well take advantage.
This is the exact same reason the murder rates were ridiculously high several hundred years ago in Europe (or at least Britain). There were so many poor people, the theft rate was quite high. The penalty for theft was made death by hanging, and hey, whaddaya know, that's the same as the punishment for murder. So why not kill the guy so you can take more of his stuff with less risk of getting caught?
If the punishments for minor infractions are made similar to those for greater infractions, people will tend to think less of committing the greater. If we're forced to pay more for using the Internet because of the people piracy, well then, why shouldn't we commit piracy, too? After all, we've already paid for it, haven't we?
Of course, they'll still sue you. And levy the taxes on a dozen forms of media, and raise CD/DVD/movie prices. Because they don't get that treating customers as criminals is not the way to handle this, and all they see is $$$$.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Ninety-nine percent of all laws are passed by the interested parties. The law makers are just reacting to the 'paying' constituency.
Pick an issue, a 'dead dog' issue, and start up some agit-prop about it, real agit prop no the freebie email campaign kind, and you'll be able to get whatever you want passed without recourse to the law.
Your problem is that you aren't pre-emptive. You guys wait until the opposition is 'talking to its friends', who aren't its friends at all but merely respond to whoever makes the most noise, and of course they put the screws to you.
Why wasn't P2P agitating way back since the beginning FOR, instead of trying to row upriver...
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Wow!!! That is quite a plan. Surely it has to work. I think we might be in the midst of one of the greatest cultural awakenings of all time! Why don't we put them on other instrumentalities of crime, such as knives, cars, baseball bats,and guns (i forgot...people kill people, not guns...so label all of the people instead). We can make these warning labeled people register to buy panty-hose and ski masks (wait...some towns have already outlawed those). As we all know, warning lables have rid our society of smoking, drunken driving, and climbing up the wrong side of ladders. We should encourage our lawmakers to keep up the good work. As for the involvement of an organization with deep pockets, I am neither shocked nor surprised. In fact, my faith in the American Way would have been destroyed if business interests weren't somehow involved in the drafting of legislation.
Here's the response:
1) if the record companies are making money off CD sales, then money can be made of CD sales
2) if the artists start to throw off the record industry and take control over their work, that could be their money instead of the record companies'
3) in an effort to screw the record industry now, p2p disenfrachizes those CD sales
4) that, in turn, disenfranchizes the hope of those same artists from reclaiming those CD sales
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
I have a good idea for company run as a democracy. I will create something called "shares" and distribute them equally with all of the employees. This "share" would enable everyone to vote in important matters of the democracy, such as the election of the officers to run the company. If the elected officers fail to perform their duties, one of the shareholders could call a "shareholders meeting" to take appropriate actions and remove them. Profits of the company could then be distributed according to these "shares", in a sort of "dividend".
Over time, employees that were particularly good could perhaps receive additional shares as a result of their help in increasing the value of the firm and as a valid motivational and performance tool. Similarly, there may be some new employees that join, and they certainly should not be entitled to the same number of shares as those who had put in much hard work, as that would hardly be "fair".
Thus, this would allow varying the number of shares of each of the participats in this venture, while still preserving the "democratic" aspect. However, what to do when somebody wants to leave the company? It would be unfair to have him/her simply give up their ownership involuntarily, conversely it would not make sense for him/her to be forced to hold said "shares" when they no longer are a willing participant in the venture. One solution would be a "market" which would allow people in the company to exchange their "shares" for another store of value, such as "cash".
Now while it might make sense to restrict this "market" to employees, this might not ensure that the price for shares received was fair, as a smaller market might not be as transparant or efficient. Additionally, if the venture needed money for new products, marketing, etc, it might be hard to keep asking the employees to put in more. It would seem opening this "market" to other non-employee participants could address this.
What do you think of this idea? I will also create something called a "patent" so you don't steal it.
Quite right! If we were truly a democracy, we could vote all sorts of evil upon any group too small to gather 50.1% of the electorate!
Don't like [insert ethnic group here]? In a true democracy, you could vote to have them ousted from the country, or make it legal to kill them. The mob truly rules.
I'm glad I live in a representative republic...
It sounds like you're doing exactly what you're accusing the EFF of doing. If you want to engage in substantive dialogue rather than gross generalizations, talk about what you find wrong with their clearly labelled premises and conclusions.
Personally, I think the concept of a tax is incorrect as well. However, if you've read The Future of Ideas by Lessig, or Digital Copyright by Jessica Litman, you might be more amenable to look at copyright historically, and see that the EFF is actually taking a dangerous route by allowing any compromise in this area (because in the 20th and 21st centuries, the public's side always compromises, while the copyright holder's side always has remained relatively rigid. The result is less and less rights for a public that wishes to participate in culture and not simply consume).
Copyright is an important law, but it is not a moral black/white law, and it has always functioned best when it is loose. As heretical as it sounds to today's ears (inculcated as we have been with an increasingly propertized concept of copyright over the last few decades), I don't think noncommercial usage should require payment, and I think stepping back from a 'solution' that is the only solution we should allow. Any other fix, via a tax or a 'smart' internet which charges and monitors for copyrighted-work transfer, would be a much more serious loss to all the public, including and especially future artists, than noncommercial personal copying.
Start viewing live performances as your bread and butter and your only means of actually, you know, making money within the industry.
Do you know who controls most music venues? Do you know who owns the most radio markets and controls the playlists? Do you know who earns the majority of the money from your concert performances? The answer is Clear Channel.. and no that's not tin-foil goodness, that sadly is true.
Corporate influence bought deregulation resulting from the Telecommunication Act of 1996 and the whole MPAA issue is probably small peanuts relative to Clear Channel's influence.
OK, so let those who depend on selling copyrighted music run the risk of having to live of something else if they had to opportunity to think about this issue for a minute.
I prefer that to the risk of being sued for sending a "remember that song?" email with to an old friend with an mp3 attached. And I am sure most people would agree with me.
Copyright should be imposed to commercial utilisation of someone else's work. That should be enough to let every artist survive. Of course any time you change a law -- or open a new road, or change the tax system -- there can be telented people harmed. But to restrict the freedom to share the information we want with friends is for me more incompatible with the basics of our civilisation than to ask this effort for the artists.
People vote for the best possible outcome with their wallets. Do I get more from buying CDs or from free downloads? I'm much happier getting it free. I and 99% of the world (everyone except the RIAA) get a massive benefit from not buying but downloading. Until the RIAA can make buying music worth more than downloading, I see no need to spend money instead of bandwidth. Threatening me with lawsuits only means I start hating them and downloading out of contempt. That's why I give away complete sets of Metallica CDs:)
...' DVD I wouldn't download? Or candy? I can't download candy yet.
How about the RIAA gives me a motivation to buy instead of a motivation to fsck them over? Like a $15 off concert admission with the CD? Or a 'The Making of
- Use LaTeX and xv for text and presentations
- Use Word and Presentations, and give the guy a copy
After you do the presentation, if the guy likes you, he'll do a presentation to his boss, who will pick out his favorite projects from the first filtering from his underlings. The underling you presented to is usually lazy, so in all likelyhood, this presentation will consist of cut-and-pasting from your Word and Presentations documents. If you give him the documents inIf I were a lazy administrator drone in the attorney general's office, I would have documents on my desk from MPAA, P2P United, EFF, FSF, RIAA, etc., all in .doc format. I would then read all of the documents, discuss with the attorney general what our stance should be, and cut-and-paste sections presenting that stance from all of the documents on my desk. It saves me time, and avoids duplication of work. It's how the government works.
I don't doubt many politicians are corrupted by the RIAA/MPAA. The fact that they have MPAA-authored text, however, is not direct evidence of this. The best ways to find corruption is to follow the money, as well as to look for unreasonable actions. This may be an unreasonable action, but the fact that the document went through or from the MPAA/RIAA says nothing.
How can they think a tax is the right way to go about this.
Your saying even though I dont download music I have to pay a tax to musicians I hate, and would never listen to, we should have to pay a tax?
Being musicans is their job, if they cant afford to live off their music, they should get a better job.
If the Music industry cant surive off their current technology, they need to change it, not change the world around them.
TruePunk | Games
Okay. I'm fine with that. I'll either make do with what's in the public domain, commission a work, or (gasp) create my own art. Where did people get the idea that the "recording industry" was a necessity for life?
Sean
First of all - FEW DVD are $10 where I'm at - $20 is more the norm. Is a DVD of content wish to listen to worth that? Yup, I've purchased more than 300 of them to prove it. Now, is a CD that's 99% TRASH worth that SAME amount? Nope! I have plenty of MP3 from old CDs and from friends. I purchase songs from iTunes occasionlly and will once in awhile buy compilations and "best of" CDs. For the most part the RIAA can piss off so far as I'm concerned - the motion picture guys are doing a little better in my book. when they decide to break compaability with my current player, change to a different encryption scheme, or succeed in screwing up the HDTV standard (it's coming) then I will cease and they too can piss off.
P2P isn't about just trading feature movies despite what these bozos would have the legislature believe. I know more than a few people who use it to get free amatuer p0rn clips, race videos, and other USER made stuff - they have NEVER gotten an MP3 from P2P. Why should they be penalized?
The heart of this matter - despite everyone turning this into an RIAA debate - is that a member of the Motion Picture trade association appears to be helping AUTHOR documents for a legislative office. If this were a gun manufacturer or P0RN industry executive would we be a little more incentivized to talk about the REAL issue here perhaps? These people have NO business attempting to shape legislation in this manner - why is everyone debating P2P when that is NOT the issue here?
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
that's what commissoned works are for.
before copyright, works that couldn't be developed based on performance revenues were commissioned by the local royalty, wealthy families, church, and/or government. if you can't get people to pay to see it, and you can't get someone to commission it, then you need to find something else to do to make money.
copyright, as it now stands, doesn't do a terribly good job of getting money to performers, and it seriously intrudes on my right to copy and exchange sound and video recordings. that's a terrible bargain that we should be getting rid of as soon as we can.
-esme
We have faced this sort of situation before many times. Here is one example: In the Middle ages the Church had an interesting strangle-hold on society: Forgiveness of sin. and, to insure such forgiveness, the Church would issue a slip of paper good for any future sin (I am NOT kidding). This "get out of jail free card" was called an Indulgence. An Indulgence was issued upon receipt of a small "contribution" to God's representative on Earth. I mean, who could refuse a deal like this? Teams of clerics (sweat shops) worked night and day with quill and parchment churning out Indulgences. The money thus generated was a major revenue stream for the Church. Many of the major Cathedrals of Europe were paid for mainly by the income from: Indulgences. Then, along came Gutenberg...At first the printing press was a boon to this "business". Printed indulgences were far cheaper to produce then hand made. The only people hurt by the technology change were the "artists". Then two things happened in quick succession: First, pirate presses churned out unauthorized indulgences and flooded the "market". Quick fortunes were made and the local parish priest threatened "dire woe". Second: Joe Peasant FINALLY awoke to the scam and figured out that the indulgence was not worth the paper it was printed on (expect for a trip to the jakes). Paradigm shifts are not new, but, the power structure of the day is usually the last to let go of a proven money maker, even after it no longer works.
- Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
Wow, someone give this man a clue.
Artists should get paid the same way everybody else gets paid. They provide a service. Indviduals choose whether or not they would like to part with some of their money for said service, at the price set forth by the service provider. It's the same business model as everybody else in the world. So, what do you do for a living? Write code for an employer, maybe? Well, you provide your service (code writing) to the employer, who chooses to part with some of his cash in exchange for your services. It's the same thing for motion picture artists. Peter Jackson and crew spend considerable time and money creating The Lord of the Rings film adaptation. You decide you would like to see it, so you part with $10 to view the film.
The difference is as such. While your skills are only of interest to one person (your employer), the artists skills are of interest to many, many people. It's also much easier to rip off the artist, and not pay for his service, than it is to rip you off by not paying your salary. Your current chosen profession and it's ability to feed you or your family should not dictate your employer's personal freedom to consume your services, and not cut you a check, right?
I agree, business models have to change, and they are. I make my living as a photographer, mostly weddings and portraits. In the last five years, the average cost of wedding photography has right about doubled, because of copying. It used to be that photographers made most of their money off reprint orders from families. Those orders have pretty much ended since everybody and their brother has a scanner and a printer, or the "Make Prints from Prints!" kiosk at Wal-Mart.
The business model used to work like this:
1) Look at your costs. $30,000 worth of equipment plus insurance, maintainance, replacements, backups, etc. Studio overhead, business overhead. Film, developing, printing. Health insurance, mortgage, food, etc.
2) Determine profit necessary to stay in business, and eat. Say, $2,000
3) Charge the couple $1,000. Make another $1,000 off reprint orders from parents, grandparents, friends, family.
Today, step 3 is ) Charge couple $2,000, and give them the negatives/high res image files. Let them deal with making crappy prints from their home printers to save a few bucks, because they don't listen when you tell them to bring them to a pro lab.
So who wins here? Nobody. Who loses? The customer. Now the couple is paying more, and getting worse quality. Technology is a two-edged sword...
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
> Someone's current chosen profession and it's ability to feed them or their family should not dictate my personal freedoms.
You mean, your freedom to use their copyrighted material without compensating them?
Actually, copyright is a protection extended by society to an author's intelectual works. The intention being to improve everybody's "wealth" by stimulating each person or groups of person's to be creative.
The other side of this is that intellectual property (incl copyright) is an artificial construct.
If we take that in account, then the reasoning of the original author can be read as: "I will not support [artificial] garantees of income to someone in any profession they choose if that limits my personal freedoms".
Just my 2 cents.
Get rid of the labels and sell cds cheap. No p2p network is really that great for dling music. Kazaa is full of crap, soulseek (the best out there) doesn't have a decent client that i know of, though that may change. (The client works, but the dl and search features are very primitive). I would be willing to pay a few bucks for a cd. Prehaps, the artist's share (about $2, right?) plus a little for dist. costs. So it would be $3-4 for a cd. That would be fair. Artists coutld also offer downloads for less, maybe $2.50. This does not seem like it would hurt the artists much, but everyone (except the labels) would be happy. The labels don't seem to do much to help artists signed with them. All they do is make sure as few people as possible hear about artists that didn't sign with a major label.
iTunes DMA is irrelavent. The hole in their copy protection scheme is allowing songs to be burned onto CD's. I downloaded songs off of iTunes courtesy of the Pepsi Bottle Hack and burned them to a CD and ripped them back onto my computer. Now their floating around on my xbox, laptop and mp3 player all in a DMA free format.
No, it's not irrelevent, it's annoying, and that's why more people aren't using it. If you could just download mp3s instead, you wouldn't have had to jump through those hoops. It's not irrelevent, it's symbolic of the stupidity in the industry, they only manage to annoy their honest customers while the people who steal the music enjoy greater freedom and less hassle.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
Market is not perfect. Most people living in capitalist countries usually suck it with the milk of their mother that markets are perfect, but that's a big lie. Markets are good at one thing - achieving equilibrium between supply and demand. All other efficiencies can only be proved if you postulate the market equilibrium is the most efficient solution.
:)
Now back to the issue at hand. Not everything lends itself to 'spectacle', but not everything lends itself to a CD or radio performance as well. Market develops a framework, inside which people and businesses need to operate. If that framework changes, that may harm a few players, but that's a fact of life. They have to deal with it. Many things are not practical today, in the current environment. Clever hard sci-fi movies are one example, there are simply none of them made. One or two small budget productions per decade at most. That's just one example, there are thousands more examples of things markets do not provide, but we do not miss them, because we don't have them.
The alternative, of course, is a shift to a more planned economy (at least in the field of music). There is nothing wrong with state support, as witnessed by the European filmmakers and art in the Soviet Union (not kidding). And a nice side effect is that artists suddenly find that they can live on $50000-200000 just fine.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
> 2) Do you really think that downloaders are going to voluntarily agree to pay?
I would. About 1/3 of the songs I have are from artists who's records are either:
a) No longer produced (I can't even find them in used CD stores)
b) Produced in some other country and I have no clue on how to pay them.
If it was standard practise for MP3s to include metadata that tells where you can pay (along with a PGP signature), I'd happily pay.
But we remain concerned about the potential dangers posed to the public by peer-to-peer file-sharing technology.
p2p is terrorism at it's finest! It causes the death of many people, and is more fatal than second-hand smoke! Fellow members of society are adversely affected by your useage of such applications, because surely the data residing on your machine can cause heart problems for your neighbor, will cripple their offspring, and will ultimately blow up their house.
"Harmful to the public." What kind of bullshit are they trying to pawn on us? One can argue that the RIAA and MPAA are harmful to the public, by way of the negative influences upon the younger generations of society. One can argue that I could fend off an army of attacking barbozons with a spoon. One can argue that Rush Limbaugh is both detrimental and beneficial at the same time. I don't know how they can argue that p2p applications themselves, though, are harmful to society.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
Nowadays in holland we are all hooked up the gas network. How does the coal man and oil man make his living? Answer they don't. They lost their job because of changes in technology. Same with factory workers. Typists. Farm hands. Miners. Type setters. Etc Etc Etc.
Artist are a spoiled lot. Everyone else has had to adjust to technology taking their jobs away. Now it is your turn. Exactly were is it written you are guaranteed to make a living selling pieces of plastic at 100 times production cost?
Maybe you will just have to go back to 100 years ago. Before copyright and the music industry and simply perform live. At least you job is not entirely gone. You will just have to work like all the other performers who work live.
Did shakespear, beethoven and all the other greats need the MPAA/RIAA?
So my answer is: YES. Others have lost their jobs because of changes. Answer me in turn: why should you be excempt?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
But the EFF has come to adapt a pro file-sharing-even-when-it's-copyrighted schtick, and that's when they got off track.
May be it's because they got on FastTrack. Seriously, the freedom to copy information trumps the freedom to make money. There are few things that should not be freely distributed, very few... What few examples I can think of are really far-fetched.
Yes, freedom of information can harm businesses. Like in the case of Enron wistle-blowers. Or in the case of people downloading the latest Brittney's album for free. But in both cases the right to freely disseminate information (even when this information is a trade secret, commercial secret or copyrighted work) should prevail.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
The only way this could have happened if they used the MPAA wordfile to add their own text too.
So they did not use simply the text. They used the entire MS word file from the MPAA. You only do this if your own additions are going to be minor. At least that is how it works when I write a document.
Copy and pasting a quote, acceptable. Just adding your name to an MPAA drafter document, unaccaptable.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Warning: it is possible to do illegal stuff with this rock. Doing illegal stuff with this rock is illegal. The Maker of this rock will not be held liable for any illegal activity done with this rock.
"The document proposes an unprecedented legal theory with regard to peer-to-peer file-sharing services. If P2P software can be used to violate law, the argument goes, its makers should be obligated to incorporate a warning on the product or face liability for deceptive trade practices."
So far this story doesn't appear to be getting a lot of mainstream press, but Forbes Magazine does cover it in this article. A lobbyist for the MPAA confirms that they had something to do with it, but the MPAA VP denies authorship: "They sought our input. We didn't write the letter." Otherwise there doesn't seem to be much media interest. Not at all surprising.
I wonder how many of Lockyear's words in this DVD decryption case also came out of the mouth of the MPAA.
Side observation:
In the excerpts from the letter, the attorney general uses the term "consumer" 7 times to refer to the general public. He uses the term "citizen" only once, urging the business audience to be "good corporate citizens." Our government increasingly refers to us as "consumers." Apparently they recognize who the actual "citizens" are, whose rights they diligently strive to enforce.
does anyone else (maybe just non americans?)find this line in particular a bit scary?
In the future, we will not hesitate to take whatever actions we deem necessary to ensure that you fulfill your duties as a responsible corporate citizen.
I'd like to think of myself as a free human being personally, and have feel no responsibility to any corporation, only to me, people I care about, and our dying world.
watch "the money masters" on google video
But the two-party system provides an outlet through which the electorate can voice their opinion on whether upper-class politicians whom corporations have wrapped around their little fingers get into power or well, higher upper class politicians in the pockets of the corporations get into power. Dude, we have like, plenty of choices, yeah?