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U.S. Joins Hollywood in War on Piracy
Section_Ei8ht writes to mention a Washington Post article about a new joint initiative between the U.S. government and the entertainment industry. The government will now be aiding efforts abroad to stop copyright infringement. They cite the recent Pirate Bay fiasco, as well as the problems Russia is having with the WTO as a result of their thriving IP black market. From the article: "The intellectual property industry and law enforcement officials estimate U.S. companies lose as much as $250 billion per year to Internet pirates, who swap digital copies of 'The DaVinci Code,' Chamillionaire's new album and the latest Grand Theft Auto video game for free."
This is dumb for two reasons. One is that it is the US meddling in other nations purely internal affairs. The other is that it is yet another war on an abstract idea. (joining the war on terror and the war on poverty) Bad news, you can't win against an idea, only against a group of people (terrorists, pirates, the poor?). And yes there are too many pirates to even think about "winning" against them. They probably make up more than 50% of the population.
Philosophy.
I'd like to see a study that looks at if people that pirate software and other copyrighted materials would pay for them to begin with. I'd also like to see a study of the commercial gains from piracy. For instance, downloading an MP3 from a friend of a song. The downloader likes the song, so he buys the entire album from iTunes. He now kmow about the band and enjoy them and will likely purchase more. All I see are press releases from the record and movie industry claiming they "lost" money.
Ah, the democratic will of the people in action. At last the US government is listening to the cries of its people to punish those Swedish guys who make free stuff available and aren't breaking any local laws. Oh, wait...
It's unfortunate, but this is just more of the same.
But what are we going to do? Intervene more in the politics of other nations? Yeah they love that. We can go to war to get all our copies of Grand Theft Auto back (right before we ban them for being obscene).
Sooner or later India and China will have a larger say in global economics, and their positions on these topics will carry more weight. I wonder what things will be like when other countries don't bend so easily to the will of the U.S.
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is the industry giong to pay for our government to do this? oh wait, taxpayers will.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
It looks like a reporter has a hard time distinguishing between legal jurisdictions. I doubt that the Swedes would have wasted time criminalizing something that was already illegal. This is a perfect example of the fuzzy thinking that most people bring to this (admittedly complex) issue.
The whole article sounded more like a RIAA/MPAA press release then anything resembling news.
The obscure we see eventually. The completely obvious, it seems, takes longer. - Edward R. Murrow
The US picks and chooses which of its laws it will enforce in other countries -- the general trend seems to be that if there is a belief that some US corporation can profit from the law being enforced, it will be; otherwise, the US government couldn't give a shit. Consider the laws here in the states (and recognized by several international groups) regarding chemical factories. Does the US start meddling with other countries when a US chemical company decides to open up a plant somewhere and blatantly breaks the laws it would be required to follow here in America? No. Labor laws? No. But turn it around,so that the company is producing its products here in the states and selling them overseas, and suddenly, the US is interested in enforcing American laws outside of America. Double standard?
Palm trees and 8
"Just as a man could light his taper from an existing candle without diminishing the original flame, so, too, could he acquire an idea without diminishing the original source."
Thomas Jefferson is right but you, and pretty much everybody else misunderstands copyright when they quote him as you did here. His analogy basically gets it wrong, regardless of how poetic and insightful it may initially seem. Ideas are free to use and take as you like. Copyright doesn't stop this, never has, never will. What copyright protects is the expression of an idea in a tangible medium. What does this mean? Let's use the Da Vinci Code fiasco as an example (because it was mentioned in the summary). Three authors jointly wrote a book called Holy Blood Holy Grail where they established the theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene sired a child and his bloodline is potentially still in existence today. That's the idea. These three authors expressed their idea in the form of a non-fictional historical account of the facts behind this theory. Dan Brown took the idea and wrote a fictional story around the premise. the subsequent court case against Dan Brown failed simply because his expression of the theory (idea) was vastly different from the HBHG historical account. It doesn't matter how unique an idea is, and the theory presented by HBHG is rather unique, the only protection one will receive is for the uniqueness of the expression once it's fixed in a tangible medium (book, music, play, sculpture, painting, etc.).
I bought 5 books last night, knowing fully well that I could easily get them online for free.
I haven't bought any music or movies in at least five years due to the greedy ****ing **AA - that and everything released has been a -2/10.
Make stuff worth having and we will probably buy it... or you can just sue grandma for downloading without a computer, that always works.
The article repeats the falsehoods that The Pirate Bay and the AllOfMP3.com are illegal file sharing websites. One is a legal under Swedish law and is a torrent site that does not host any copyrighted material. The Russian site, AllofMP3.com sells mp3 tracks legally by a quirk of Russian copyright law. The reason the RIAA is pissed is for 2 reasons, the first is that the songs are sold cheaply to both Russians and foreigners who go to the site which screws with their regional price fixing system, and the other is that they are not collecting the royalties to which they are owed because of those who are supposedly representing foreign copyright holders in Russia pocket the money themselves or they simply choose not to make the effort to get their share from those entities. This also infringes on the RIAA's patented business model which is mostly based on cheating artists out of royalties. If the writer did even a scrap of research beyond the press releases from the RIAA then at the very least the word "allegedly" illegal file sharing might be used instead.
Think for a moment about this sentence. No not about the amount or how they arrived at it. Think about that sentence and and the saying, "you can't spend a penny twice".
That amount X is perhaps lost to the content owners BUT it is not somehow evaporating into thin air, that amount saved is being spend on other things.
So if the content industry gets the amount X then other industries will lose an amount X. Put simpler, that kid who has a allowance who just got a movie for free will now spend that money on his cellular phone, fast food, clothes etc etc.
It is the real problem with the content industry. They used to have to contend only with clothes for young kids pocket money. Now there is games and the phone to contend with. If you ever worked for a phone company you will know how many people get into trouble with their mobile phone bill. That is money they can't spend on music/movies/games. You can't pirate cell phone minutes but you can pirate content.
The industry world wide isn't being hurt by pirating, just the industries that are being pirated.
As to the amount, well you then have to simply ask, where the hell would the economy come up with a spare 250 billion dollars. Since that amount of money is unlikely to be stuffed behind the couch, even Bill Gates, the figure is meaningless. You may as well make it a gazillion for all the relevance.
If piracy was eleminated today the only thing that would happen is that you would see a shift in spending patterns. Perhaps the fashion industry needs to get in on the side of the pirates, cause if everyone has to pay for every bit of content they used to get for free, they will have a lot less money to spend on clothes.
The economy is not a infinite idea, there is X money and you can't just wish up an extra amount. That 250 billion just doesn't exist.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
No, not your write-up, but that you mailed the author of the article.
This has been in the paper, seen by many thousands. You want to try to educate one guy?
Send it to the opinions/letters to the editor instead.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
As some political commentator once said, once the feds declare war on anything the cause is already lost. How is a "war on piracy" going to actually accomplish anything? All it will do is provide an arena for posturing and bribery^h^h^h^hlobbying.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
RIAA/MIAA isn't losing $250 billion every year. The real truth is that society is gaining $250 billion/year because of file sharing. In other words, filesharing is very good for society. Without it, society would be a lot poorer.
Might as well declare a war on human nature.
Because that is what enforcing music copyright is all about. The single reason why there are music pirates is because music has ALWAYS been free. Since the dawn of time, it has been free. Free to listen to. Free to create. Free to copy (when copying became possible). Free to share.
People have always shared music, and no one has ever thought they were criminals when they did it. ESPECIALLY not the publishing industry in the USA when they flagrantly spent decades ripping off sheet music from Europe, and printing it for local consumption. (Hello China! I'm Pot, are you kettle?)
See, this is the whole ball of wax right here: There's NOTHING WRONG with sharing music. There never has been, and there never will be. Fuck the law - the law is a TOTAL ass in this regard. When did musicians get the idea they should earn 20 Million a year? That's fucked.
Sharing music isn't "copyright infringement". It definitely isn't "piracy". (Piracy involves sailing, murder and grappling hooks). It's just Civil Disobedience. And it's great!
It is only in recent times that music has been deemed to be "property" (LOL - what a concept) and that it can be "stolen" (LOL! "Theft" removes the item from the owner. Ipso facto, sharing is not stealing, and it is not theft.) but the population has NEVER accepted these laws.
In general, copyright laws are acceptable to a population provided they are not affected by the law. Americans have been stupid to allow Congress to repeatedly rape the public domain of the vast majority of material that should be in it right now. Just why this has been allowed to happen, I am not sure. Nor do I really care: I live in New Zealand!
One day, the American public will quite literally, stand up and say "ENOUGH IS E-FUCKING-NOUGH! IF YOU CAN'T MAKE YOUR MONEY IN 7 YEARS - FUCK YOU!".
There's no reason why anything should be protected beyond 7 years.
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
Copyrights aren't to protect "cultural heritage", they're meant to give authors/artists/musicians etc an incentive to create works, as they will have a monopoly over the distribution rights for a limited time, and then be open to the public. The key part here is limited time, which Congress keeps extending every time Mickey Mouse verges on going into the public domain. IMO, these extensions violate both the letter and spirit of the Constitution, and should have been smacked down two or three exensions ago.
Much piracy happens because the media is there and it's easy to get. If all methods of copyright infringment ceased to exist, these industires would not see anything close to $250 billion a year. And in any case, as failure to gain is not a loss, the amount of money lost to piracy is zero. You can't lose what you never had in the first place.
And I wouldn't have gone for the "facism" angle. I would instead have pointed out that the government is supposed to be looking out for the welfare of the people, not corporations.
*looks at the Da Vinci Code box office*
:-(
:-/
Oooh, it cost $200 million to make, and just made $650 million in worldwide profits so far.
I feel so sorry for them.
You guys must stop downloading that movie right now!
You aid crippling the movie industry! Just look at where we are today!
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!