Slashdot Mirror
The MPAA and EFF Cross Sabers
wigwamus writes "Motion Picture Association President Dan Glickman and Electronic Freedom Foundation co-founder Johh Perry Barlow lock horns, then knock lumps off each other over the movie business' attitude to the Internet. From the article: 'These are aging industries run by aging men, and they're up against 17-year-olds who have turned themselves into electronic Hezbollah because they resent the content industry for its proprietary practices.'"
The bottom line is that if I can see it or I can hear it, I can find a way to copy it. If you make it too difficult to watch a movie or listen to a music, people won't buy it. They'll eventually figure out that they have more to gain by making things easy to use rather than creating ill will and incompatibiity by trying to stamp out casual copying.
I think Glickmans comparison of music to clothes and cars is where his argument fails.
Copying a song does not deprive anybody of the item - only the entity that controls how money is made from the transaction
See the Boston Tea Party and the American War of Independence.
KFG
As someone who recently was a 17 year old "electronic Hezbollah", I can say ideology had nothing to do with my choice to download and share movies. I did it, and still do, because it's easy and costs basically nothing. Sure I don't like the MPAA but I would still torrent if they didn't exist.
if you change one word I think your point becomes fallible.
People with old world business experience going up against young idealists
In either case, new ideas actually quite often do win.
My Computer Music Tutorial Videos
These are aging industries run by aging men, and they're up against 17-year-olds who have turned themselves into electronic Hezbollah because they resent the content industry for its proprietary practices.
Dear EFF: It's probably not such a good idea to align yourself with terrorist groups. Remember:
"But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow"
This kind of "play by my rules or I'm taking my ball and going home" attitude is disgusting. When will these suits realize that technology is change by its very essence and refusal to accept change breads discontent. There totalitarianistic utopia has ended but they refuse to seek out new means to an end. Do they realy believe a threat of "noones gonna make movies anymore if they can only become millionaires instead of multi-millionaires" is gonna work?
Walk with Music;
The real thing the 'AAs have lost is the power of distribution.
20 years ago if you wanted a movie you had to hop in the car. Even for home viewing of a VHS you had to go to the video store.
The MPAA and RIAA need to face the fact that the internet is essentially a broadcast/time-shifted medium which casts to a broader audience than ever. And how do broadcaster's make their money? Advertising.
This may or may not be a popular notion - but it is my opinion that the best way to support movies and music in the future is via product endorsement. Yes, that's right. You might see wayne's world-esqe product placement rise - but isn't everyday life just product placement anyhow? look around you and count the consumer items that have no labeling on them. Our movies and music should follow suit and become freely distributable.
They cannot hold back the tide forever - I think it is inevitable.
My Computer Music Tutorial Videos
I'm generally a Barlow fan, but that's some of the most poorestly chosen words in the history of language. Just what the MPAA, RIAA, et al. and their paid governement servants need, a little more help getting the little guy who just wants a backup copy of a movie sent to Gitmo.
"Look, this works. I have proof."
"I refuse to believe it can work."
If they can't listen to reason, we'll have to wait for them to die, it seems.
You can't take the sky from me...
The reason why the movie industry is getting clobered, and the music industry got clobered: they didn't offer legal alternatives to the service.
To say it's a battle between free and paid is oversimplifying: iPod + iTunes is wildly succesful. It's paid, but it leverages the ease of the internet to get legally downloaded music.
If these industries had tried to embrace the new tech instead of surpressing it, most would go to them, and the black market would be a fringe issue.
For movies, the choice right now is either online and illegal/unpaid, or offline and legal.
A lot of people are choosing online, not illegal.
Example: if they offered movies for download, or online streaming movies and paid subscription, and the price wasn't retarded, a LOT of people would ditch piratebay et al.
My $0.02
Oh, great way to give propaganda to the enemy. Fucking dimwit. Why not just compare the Apache group to Al Qaeda because they're an umbrella group for "renegade" software developers like Al Qaeda is a terrorist umbrella group. In this day and age of terrorism being the new "think of the children!!!!" rallying cry for every attack on freedom, why choose the one comparison that gives a talking point to the forces who want to end freedom in their area?
>See the Boston Tea Party and the American War of Independence.
That's why the tea is crap in America and good in Britain.
Evil people are out to get you.
You can tell Dan Glickman's age in his speech:
- Microsoft: SQL Server 2005, Visual Studio 2005
- Washington Mutual: 2 dollars given out in $2 denominations(the $2 bill)
- Gentleware: Poseidon(Community Edition)
- Wal Mart / Sam's Club: Sampled foods from selected vendors
- Arby's: Chicken Fingers(?)
- Google
It doesn't defy the law of nature, it's a useful technique called marketing!Old man should see this
In a contest they would.
----- You know you have ego issues when you register a domain in your name.
You are correct to state that a business will indeed win. It likely won't be Big Recording, however. It will be those who can capitalize on the new music market we have today. Some of those 17-year-olds will age to become the ones who are able to make money off of the new ways of distributing content. But soon enough, they'll be the old men, trumped by the young again.
In a way, business is always the winner. It's often just not the same businesses.
I know this analogy doesn't apply to digital media, but it might.
How? Why would copying a stream of bits degrade the original?
The Grateful Dead encouraged sharing of fan recordings, etc. So you would tape a concert or a mix and share dubs of that tape. Which didn't sound that hot compared to a LP. Most people went out and bought the LP for 2 reasons: ( (1) more convenient (2) sounds better )
Zoom ahead how many years? Now we have the internet and you can get the album quicker than running to the store (kill reason #1) and if you encode it right the quality is the same or at least undiscernable to the untrained ear (kill reason #2)
Now I'm a firm believer that there is a middle ground but JPB is way off base saying they can just take "their" model nowadays. Times have changed, man!
When the EFF selects as a spokesman the former lyricist for the Grateful Dead, you can just sort of expect the colorful, counter-culture (or is that counter-productive?) over-the-top stick-it-to-the-man metaphors and accusations to fly. The result is hardly what I would call "crossing sabres;" more like crossing Ohio State Daisys with National Guardsman sharpshooters.
And that always works out well, doesn't it?
But the folks to whom the EFF is pitching -- the college kids and twenty-somethings who are donating to them and actually paying for the EFF people to fly comfortably cross-country from SF to DC so frequently (I'll never figure that move to the West Coast out...), they'll probably think that "JPB RAWWKS, D00D!! KICK A$$!! FAWK, YEAH!!" and pony up some more dough for the EFF coffers, so in the end, it's probably a brilliant idea to keep tilting at those windmills with tie-dyed lances.
often, but not always. with movie piracy I am reminded often of what happened in Canada many years ago with cigarettes. Big business (the Canadian gov't) lost big time on that one and the little guy was triumphant.
Without going into much detail, or even providing a link (i'm that lazy and at work so I shouldn't even be here) - Canada decided smokers would pay out the ass if they heavily taxed cig's, i mean heavily, i think at the time it was early 90's and suddenly the price of the dirty cancer sticks jumped a couple of dollars. they still paid. for awhile. than, oddly enough, people found some stores that sold cheaper slightly less taxed (OK, not taxed at all) cigs at some stores. Canadians liking to save money like everyone else opted for the lower cost. I inquired into it a bit and discovered that pirate rings for cigarettes had been established - in some cases it was local reserves, others it was smuggling from the US, and local stores were frequently buying quantities of cigarettes of people who sure didn't look very official.
the gov't saw this happening and took immediate steps to stop it that succeeded, they dropped the tax on the cigarettes and learned a valuable lesson - when you charge a lot for crap, people stop buying it. now to bring this up to today, in the article the MPAA advise that they need to pay these people salaries so they will continue to produce, i whole heartedly agree, but not million dollar salaries, if you need to make several million for working for a few weeks and can't get by without it, than screw you and the horse you rode in on. if the product was priced more on par with the value the consumer got from it than they wouldn't be having this problem.
> People with real world business experience going up against young idealists. Guess what? Business always wins. Always has, always will.
Except when they don't. Don't confuse the aggregate power of the profit motive as evidence for the competence of individuals.
In this case, it is the business people who are living in a fantasy land, and the "idealists" are the ones thwacking them with the cold cruel club of reality.
People are powerless when they are convinced they are powerless.
Join Tor today!
Yeah, they're into evil stuff like hosting legal torrent tracking files (probable cause? I guess by your logic that the NSA has probable cause to investigate me because I post on slashdot and criticize the current administration's actions as of iate). They're into other nasty evil stuff like running banner ads (oh gosh, more probable cause!) and distributing free porn (OMG more probable cause), all legal in their home country. The problem there is corruption.
If they are doing stuff which is illegal, let authorities find actual probable cause grounded in legalities and not engage in corrupt practices by giving in to our (the American) government when Bush granted the MPAA a favor and pushed Sweden's government into illegal activities, similar to what our government has been doing here since 2001/09/11. The political elite are just using the Muslim extremists as an excuse to grab more power and money for themselves, and to use it as an excuse to gravitate toward one single global government where there are no checks and balances, and where those who are in power will always remain in power.
I'm sure all of us have been willing to work for free at one time or another. If you believe in something and enjoy the work enough, it's not really "work". If all these movie makers were as passionate as they should be about creating what they sell, the dollar they earn from making it is secondary to creating something that they and others will enjoy for years to come. Glickman talks like a man that is only interested in profit and that's the problem entirely. No one in their right mind will whole heartedly buy anything from a company or group that is interested only in profit.
I cringe whenever I hear file sharing termed as 'piracy' or, in this case, to the activities of a terrorist group ('Hezbollah'). Allowing this vocabulary to continue wins the argument for the entertainment industry on the power of semantics without any analysis of the facts.
What the entertainment industry and ilk are against is sharing. It is only through their imposition of selfishness and self importance on the ability of others to share that they can make money. Unfortunately, this makes them net negative resources to society because in doing so, they compromise the free flow of information necessary to a technically and culturally advancing civilization. Imagine if they had been around when humans only had oral history as a way to pass information between people and generations. There would be no tape recorders, no CDs, and certainly no computers.
Piracy is when someone actually takes something of value and realizes the value of it themselves. The Hong Kong outfits that take a movie, stamp it on a DVD, and then package and sell it as if were the original are pirates in this sense. It makes sense to have copyright laws preventing this type of activity. However, to use the parlance of the summary," 17 year old kids" are not "Hezbollah". They are not terrorists. They are not pirates. Pirates do not share. They are simply sharing information with each other (and us), which is a virtue we espouse to younger generations. The effort of the entertainment industry to criminalize their behavior is an affront to all of us who share thoughts, ideas, and anything else we choose to share without charge.
Why doesn't hollywood focus on finding the sources of these centers and shutting them down.
Very simple. It's the same reason that the police harass ravers instead of the local hells angels rally.
These people will shoot back and fight back.. Grandma and some college kid will roll over and say "ow dont hurt me! I'm sorry" these organized piracy rings will turn around and kill the cops that raid their shop, kill the families of the cops and then kill the Exec that sent the cops after them.
Why take on a hard target when you can pick on the easy ones, the general american public.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I make music for the sake of making music.
Dan Glickman: John Perry Barlow is the one who's doing a disservice to the consumers, because you see if you don't adequately compensate the artist, the director, the creator, the actor, they won't do it in the first place so people won't get movies.
Patently untrue, as the renaissance of truly independant movies coming out today prove. It is based on the presumpition that money is the only motivation that moves people to create. That is hardly the case, and in generaly, artists who are motivated only by money make an inferior product.
Living next door to Hollywood, I know a number of people in the industry, and all of them are motivated by various combinations of three things: money - yes, they do want to get paid to do it, so they can do it all the time, a desire for fame (which is far easier to meet online these days), and a need to create (which will never go way until the day they die). Mostly, they create because they don't know how to stop.
What Hollywood needs to fear isn't pirates, who, from the evidence we've seen so far, actually increase industry revenues rather than decrease it. Rather, Hollywood should (and does) fear the interent as an independent (as in, beyond their corporate control, and outside their revenue stream) distribution channel. It is no longer necessary to sell your soul to a big studio for a distribution deal to deliver your movie to an audience. Between digital video (which Max Allen Collins called "the keys to the kingdom") and the internet, it is not possible to make a movie, and sell it commercially to people all over the world, and make a profit doing so for an investment smaller than the price of a new car.
It is, I suppose, a happy coincidence for the movie industry that mandatory copy restrictions that depend on patents that require substantial cash outlay to use will just happen to continue to lock out indpendent industry outsiders from the market. I say "happy coincidence" because I see no reason to believe that the indstury tycoons are smart enough to have planned it that way on purpose.
As a pastime musician I'm frequently using the "Copyleft" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft license for distribution of my songs and CDs. I think it's a cheap way to get known and to hook more people to my shows.
So here it goes:
1. Free music
2. More collaborations with others underground musicians
2.b More contacts, friends and partys, B2B ideas sharing
3. More free music
4. No label to pay
5. More people @ my shows
???
== Profit!
IN YOUR FACE RIAA
Let's not turn these "17 year olds" into deep thinkers or idealogues. They simply want free stuff. That's what 90% of this is about, people want to download movies and music for free. The other 10% is legitimate "I want to do what I want with my music/movies", but it's disingenous to make this some kind of 100% noble battle.
Sure, I know JPB's resume, EFF co-founder, the Well, all that. Gosh, I even had a subscription to Mondo 2000 and remember Wired when it was readable. But my point is, whether you're playing as if it's 1994, or 1969, you're still SOL in the 21st Century. The media companies just are not as clueless as the unwashed digerati like to believe they are.
But for the EFF, it's about making money, and Good Theatre keeps the donations rolling in. They've become a kind of "Digital Rights PETA."
The music recording and movie industry are clinging to outdated business plans, distribution and cost models, because they have been seeing increasing profits as the costs of production and distribution drop.
The technologists have seen the same thing, and ask: "why should I pay $17 for a CD when I can download the songs for $0.99 each off iTunes, or $0.11 each off AllofMP3.com?"
The answer probably lies somewhere between the two. Distribute non-DRM'd music and videos at a reasonable price. After all, making a small amount of money is better than making none. AllofMP3.com succeeds by making the price reasonable. It probably won't be around much longer, but that means there's going to be a vacuum...and an oppportunity. Unfortunately, the recording industry is probably *not* agile or innovative enough to capitalize on that opportunity.
For the bit of, er, *things* I have, umm *archived*(yeh, archived) I don't feel like I have stolen anything. These people have been robbing everyone including themselves and those that share their *ideals* for a loonnnngggg time. It's funny, nobody ever talks about the people within those industries that have short-changed other artists; and not just the big-name headliner, but the lighting man or sound man, the hairstylist or caterer. In fact I don't even THINK the entertainment industry can be profitable without robbing someone or a lot of someone's. I dare you to ask for a refund after a sucky flick, or after the album you just dropped $20+ on sucks. Although on that same hand, different side, I dare you work on a sound or lighting gig and come with some, "Where's my check?!", or "How come the last check bounced?!", or my favorite(the one I know the best)"Nah, sorry, the check didn't come in yet...". I promise you that you will find a reaction that feels nothing less than the kiss of death. The consumer get's screwed with over-hyped, bad content, sure; but the guys that have to feed families and work on a contract to contract basis are at the mercy of the content provider(s). The industry has created an illegal science of robbing those that help them the most. And the only thing that is/can be said is "That's show-business." (breathes from inhaler)
Too true, and while their business model may not survive, there is no denying that big business owns the IP. Whether their content gets distributed for pennies 'per use' or dollars per DVD, they still win.
What infuriates me the most personally is that these companies are allowed to hold IP hostage. If it weren't for the 'Hezbollah' this stuff might never see the light of day again.
Example#1. I would happily buy old MST3K episodes legally (yeah I'm wierd), but many of them simply aren't available at any price.
Example#2. The Sci-fi channel bought up rights to the original outer limits, therefore shutting out my local PBS station. Which would be ok if they actually aired them occassionally, but you know...they dont.
The computer industry has created a lot of jobs (not just Steve Jobs). The movie industry creates moral depravity.
The movie industry claims we are forced to choose: either kill technology innovation or the movie industry won't survive. My proposed message to the movie industry: don't let the door hit you on the way out.
I could care less if no more hollywood movies are ever made.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
In this case I think that point that's being made is that the 17yr olds are not playing by the 'rules' at leats not by the rules of big business because they're not engaged with the system - suppose instead we say "it's a bright new wild-west frontier and some stuffy victorian gentleman is saying 'hey old chap that's not cricket' - see another metaphor - but from times gone by - the 'Hezbollah' is an idea standing in for something else - it may push your buttins right now 20 years from now it will be just a word, but it also wont carry the idea of 'working outside the existing legal system' that it does now
The funny part is (at least to me) that this is not about an industry so much as it is about the *AA and associates trying to maintain a fully disfunctional (in light of current and future technologies) business model.
The real deal in all this mess is that content creators "REALLY DON'T NEED THE *AA ANYMORE" since for not much more than a data center contract, any record label, including independents, can set up their own music distribution system over the Internet. The entire need for a music and movie distribution organization (i.e., the *AAs) no longer exists.
US Telephone users are finally going to get to stop paying for the Spanish American war, but when will recording artists get to stop paying for 'breakage of vynl disks' on their contracts?
Its not about DRM, its about stolen wealth, and the *AA is currently stealing it, blatantly stealing it. They counter claim that because they were unable to steal it from content buyers, it was stolen from them.... I'm calling BS.
Now, the price of content is high because of the *AAs of the world, but if content providers could get out of the draconian contract they signed, and start providing content over the Internet at reasonable costs to users for the 'PURCHASE' of said content, most users would happily just purchase the content as its not worth the effort to most people to be illegal or even figure out the ins and outs of stealing it. Additionally, any kind of licensing setup that allowed fair use (backup copies, multiple players, etc.) would be accepted easily if the price was low enough (see iFanboi rhetoric for an example).
Its pure "pot and kettle black and white" when it comes to the *AA claiming downloaders and file sharers are stealing from them.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
They're also very rich men. Perhaps they actually believe that every download is a lost sale because they can afford to buy every single piece of music which they like. Is it possible that they're totally out of touch with the idea that many of us had to budget our CD purchases? It's been said before, and I'll say it again: They need to start selling ten times as much music for one tenth of the price. Unfortunately, some people don't like to change.
Look, to assume that artists are going to stop doing what they're doing because there isn't wealth in it is stupid. People who enjoy creating and sharing art will continue to do it so as long as it remains enjoyable for them and they can get enough money to fund their projects. And technology is making that easier not harder. So to say that music, movies, writing, story telling, dancing, painting, sculpting, and anything else that contributes to a culture is going to die because of piracy is silly. We have the history of civilization to prove it.
What we observers know is that models and technology pass from existence, not art. Mr. Glickman represents a bureaucracy that currently dominates western movie production and distribution. He'd like us to think that he is doing something noble but his intentions are not. He isn't fighting to save art. He isn't even fighting to save the industry. He is fighting to save the model on which the industry is currently locked into.
Every bureaucrat hates innovation. They hate new ways of doing things which are more productive. Innovation makes the old people and old ways look incompetent, and no one likes to look incompetent.
I have no doubt that movies and movie makers will survive. Mr. Glickman might even survive, but not by trying to fit his old model over the new one. I'm sure he will land on his feet either way.
I thought I would say it because I don't think that Mr. Barlow did an adequate job.
As far as locations are concerned, they didn't move to the West Coast - they were founded on the West Coast - San Francisco being only a short drive away from the headquarters of Yahoo, Google, Intel, Sun, Apple, eBay, Cisco, HP, Seagate, Western Digital - those companies who's technologies are the reason that the EFF needs to exist?
The EFF needs to exist because of the legislation being created in D.C. That's where all the serious lobbying outfits are based. But the EFF is not serious (it's a fact that none of the legislators take them seriously any more), so they *moved* from DC, to the West Coast, in the late '90s (Google it). It was regarded, by anyone with half a clue regarding how US government policy works, as their "Jump the Shark" moment.
Now, the EFF is about fresh-faced interns who genuinely believe they are "doing good," cocktail parties with high-level luminaries from the companies you iterated so the rank-and-file legal beagles can network their way into corporate gigs, flying business class, and drumming up new crises every quarter or so to coincide with their fundraising drives.
Hey, so it goes. It's how the world works...
Right. The Americans still weren't done killing off the natives so the Americans could rule with their own imperialist corruption. Luckily they got the job done in the end and we can all enjoy a nice McDonald's burger while sipping a Coke and watching Fox News. Good stuff.
One thing that seems to be over looked in all of this is actual economics. MPAA says they need to pay the directors etc big bucks to work. Fine, do that. One problem, I don't want to pay that much for the final product. The MPAA is an organized monopoly. My company doesn't have that luxary. If it costs us too much to make a chip, our competitor will do it for less and we'll be out of business. It is that simple. Think Dell.
I'm not saying copying movies is the best thing to do, but don't bitch to me that you have to pay your out-of-wack bills either. $5 is what I'll pay to see a movie. If $5 * #_of_tickets isn't enough money for your $200M movie, that is not my problem. Don't cry to me about ticket sales decreasing while ticket prices are increasing. Supply and demand is not balanced so fix your business model.
If Nicole Kidman wants $20M per movie and that blows the budget, don't hire her. She'll adjust too after being unemployed like many Americans (or Australians).
>But you know the problem is - the bad news is that you're up against a dedicated foe that is younger and smarter that you are and will be alive when you're dead. You're 55 years old and these kids are 17 and they're just smarter than you. So you're gonna lose that one.
No. The bad news (for EFF) is that while this dedicated foe will be alive but bankrupt when the old guys are dead, a new generation will have taken the aforementioned old guys' place and will have inherited all of their wealth, power and influence. They'll still be calling the shots while the "younger and dedicated foe" will be struggling through debt slavery.
Yah, it's the District of Columbia, dumbass...