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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
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
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.
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.