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Movie Industry to sue File Sharers
Wack Valenti writes "SiliconValley.com reports that the motion picture industry, taking a cue from the RIAA, is planning to file copyright infringement lawsuits against file sharers it says are illegally distributing movies online. The first suits could be filed as early as tomorrow."
A Democrat President, with bi-partisan congressional support, passed both the DMCA and the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act.
The Ninth Circuit is considered the most liberal in the country, and yet it has been very friendly to the members of the RIAA and MPAA.
Poor government knows no party.
Rent a DVD from blockbuster
Play it with VideoLan client
Open up dvd smartripper
Rip the DVD
Run the ripped files through DVD2One
Burn to a DVD
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Unless you have been living on Mars for the last eight months, you might have noticed that George Bush is not the darling of the entertainment industry. If you look at the top contributers not one of them are from the entertainment industry. One cannot say the same for John Kerry. The top contributors include Time Warner and Viacom. If you look at the RNC ($2.8M) and the DNC ($5.7M) who do you think is more beholden to the entertainment industry?
I think it is obvious that the actions of the entertainment industry is independent of the occupant of the White House. The Democrats are as friendly to corporations as the Republicans. If you believe otherwise, then you have tasted to much of the Kool-Aid. I hope you voted Nader, because both the Democrats and the Republicans are not for you.
Let's make this clear:
The Democrats created the DMCA.
It's traditional to cite such things. It often makes for a stronger argument, assuming the facts support it.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (Public Law 105-304) was sponsored in the House by a Howard Coble, a republican (NC-6th). In the senate, it was sponsored by Orrin Hatch, also a Republican (UT).
The Democrats extended copyrights.
The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (Public Law 105-298) was also sponsored by Orrin Hatch. It was named for a Republican congressman. In the House, it was sponsored by, (get this!) Howard Coble of North Carolina.
Yeah yeah, some Democrats are listed as cosponsors. And both bills did garner the votes of both Republicans and Democrats. Details, details.
Lawrence Lessig wrote about that in his book Free Culture (freely available online). He talks about it on Page 67 and shows his references on Page 317
Okay, so a philosopher, a philologist, and a philatelist walk into a bar...
The answer is simple. Only share porn. They don't seem to mind at all.
I think I've heard one or two complaints from the porn industry, but over all I think you are completely correct.
And I think I know why.
Royalties. There are none.
Very few, if any, porn contracts include royalties for anyone - performers, cameramen, "director," etc. They all get paid as a work for hire. The publisher then makes a run of DVDs and sells most, if not all, in one big transaction to a distributor who parcels them out to the buying public through various parallel channels.
By the time the end product has made it into a large enough number of hands so as to inevitably end up shared on the net, everybody has already been paid.
I think that bears repeating - by the time any widespreading "pirating" can get into gear, everybody involved has been compensated for their work, so they really don't care.
I think that if the music and mainstream movie industries could come up with a similar business model, the entire problem of "piracy" would disappear overnight, essentialy redefined out of existence.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.