Slashdot Mirror
Viacom Wants Industry Wide Copyright Filter
slashqwerty writes "Unsatisfied with the proprietary copyright filter Google recently unveiled, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman has called for an industry standard to filter copyrighted material. Mr. Dauman has the backing of Microsoft, Disney, and Universal. 'They reflect the fact that there ought to be a filtering system in place on the part of technology companies,' he noted. 'Most responsible companies have followed that path. What no one wants is a proprietary system that benefits one company. It is a big drain to a company like ours to have to deal with incompatible systems.' How would an industry standard impact freedom of speech and in particular censorship on the internet? How would it affect small, independent web sites?"
Has anybody been to youtube lately?
Almost every link to a video worth watching(with the rare educational exception) leads to "This video has been removed due to...."
Control is controlled by the need to control. The content providers will shoot themselves in the feet so many times that they won't have a leg to stand on.
I really don't get it. So, they want to filter out content so that no one sees any copyrighted material anywhere on the net. What next? Sue movie theaters for displaying trailers of films you didn't pay to see in the first place?
Heck, if you don't even get a preview/prelisten of the movies/songs you are interested in in the first place, how do you know whether you'll want to buy them later? And they still wonder why their revenue is on the decline?
These guys should get a clue from RadioHead.
What companies like this forget ss that they're not the most important thing on the internet.
Frankly, they need less of a say about what goes on online, not more. The internet was never designed to be their bitch where people can only do what the various media and entertainment companies want.
Time and money should be spent on developing the internet not turning it into some media-company run advertising network.
An industry wide copyright filter shouldn't affect small and independent websites unless its embedded into the OS or browser. If it is then companies selling such crippled products should be forced to disclose it first. As for it being built into websites, I see no problem with that provided they have fair use exceptions. After all, people SHOULDN'T be providing copyrighted content except under fair use laws. Although companies should only institute systems that take into account their local laws, so these situations do not occur.
If a system didn't incorporate one of those conditions, then I would not patron any website that utilized it. The DMCA, for all its flaws, is good in that if someone erroneously issues a DMCA takedown notice and the host complies (safest course of action). The person who originally put it up can issue their own DMCA notice to have it rehosted and there is nothing the "copyright owner" can do execpt take the person to court. In these situations the DMCA (when its not abused and its the duty of webhosts to make sure they haven't been sent a clearly abusive DMCA takedown notice) is good in that it has checks and balances. Any industry wide copyright filter should have their own checks and balances, in my opinion in the form of my first paragraph.
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
Okay, the copyright cartel wants to "protect" (read: extort consumers for every cent they're worth) their content, and they want the tech industry to do it for them. What does the tech industry get out of it? As long as DMCA takedowns are properly followed, theres very little risk of a lawsuit hitting them that would stand a snowballs chance in hell, so this idea just seems pointelss to me.
Further, if for some reason the industry gives in and creates a universal copyright filter that can be applied to most major routers and backbones on the US portion of the net, how long until our good buddies at the justice department start to demand that other filters be put into place besides copyright ones?
If you build the system, they will misuse it. Its not needed, and it would just lead to more stupidity.
These people (Viacom and their ilk) are the worst of the worst as far as I can see. They want to control everything. They want to control how they think, what we say, what we can do. If they don't control it, they want it banned. These people are horrible.
What I must ask, where are efforts to fight these people? Do you realize these people hate the Internet? They will stop at nothing to dismantle the Internet.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Hold on a minute. Isn't *all* content copyright protected?. I mean everything that gets written down, recorded, or whatever, is instantly protected. Why should content belonging to one set of businesses have any sort of special protection above and beyond anyone else's content?
It's grossly irresponsible for the modern internet to circulate e-mail without deploying an industry-wide standard spam filtering system. If everybody uses the same spam filtering system, and it was a global standard, then we wouldn't have to worry about unpredictable mail delivery problems. It's just common sense.
While we are at it, it's high time that flying ponies were standardized across all little girl's bedrooms. There is absolutely no reason why some of them should be pink, while others are purple and painted with stars. This reflects economic inequality among these young humans, and we should fix it immediately.
I think standards are great. It will make things easier across the board, whether your intentions are good or bad. ...crap
...crap
Technically, since there is only one standard to support.
Legally, since if you implement the standard, you will get some sort of legal protection in return (ie if copyrighted material gets through anyway).
Civil rights advocates have fewer targets to critique.
Politicians have fewer targets to corrupt.
That being said, the guy making the statement sounds like one of those management types that isn't fully technically "aware". He is accusing Google's failure to create an adequate anti-piracy filter is a case of laziness. Maybe it's because its a difficult problem? An automated piracy detector? Has that ever been done before?
Disclaimer: I own some Viacom stock.
...until someone cracks it. They did the same thing with DVD's and thanks to DeCSS, movies these days are barely considered encrypted. Then we're gonna enter a whole new era of non-backwards compatibility, frivolously lawsuits, and more angry customers.
Does anybody else remember the article in an old 2600 about the proposed mandatory cop filtering chip what would stop the device from recording or taking a picture of anything that was copyrighted?
Using openSUSE instead of Windows since 9th of October, 2007 and liking it.
..rather then create an anarchist society where people do whatever they want.. As an anarchist, i have to respond to this. Anarchy does not mean people can do whatever they want. It means they can do whatever they want so long as that action does not stop other people from doing what they want. There is a massive difference between the two.Please, get a clue and stop spreading the FUD about anarchists.
And I want Viacom to buy me one and keep paying for it. Why should Viacom get a copyright filter if I can't have a pony?
When does my company get to make up rules and then have other companies enforce it for free?
...demonstrate to me how desperate the content industry is to get the toothpaste back in the tube or Pandora's box to shut. Sorry, guys, but your content is out there on digital media, and given the nature of humans, there's no way you're going to keep it from being spread around. Digital piracy is too easy to accomplish, and rather than adapt to a business model that might incorporate easy distribution and sharing of digital content, they get all offended and feel it's necessary to sue their customers and prosecute middlemen who don't commit the crime, just provide sites on which the crime can be committed. I can think of no other way to alienate the world against you than taking the tack all these content providers have.
One day, maybe in the not too distant future, there will be an article on /.
It will read like this:
Your Rights Online: MPAA admit that everything they have said for the last 5 years has been a practical joke
Posted by kdawson on Tuesday Cantrembember 75th @ 27:00
from the i-knew-it department
Anonymous Coward writes: The MPAA has finally admitted what a lot of people on Slashdot have suspected for a while. Everything they've done for the last 5 years was all part of a practical joke.
"The lawsuits, the absurd DRM, the crazy "the entire industry is going to collapse" rhetoric - we never believed any of this crap", said a spokesman. "What actually happened was someone suggested that perhaps we could somehow start announcing these ridiculous ideas, record the reaction then release it as a movie. Kind of like The Truman Show, only much much bigger." Has the MPAA finally gone too far? Will this lead to their ultimate collapse? Quiver with excitement. Tremble with fear. Eat peanuts with raisins.
I know we've been down this path before, but seeing Microsoft get behind open standards when it suits them, and then getting behind closed proprietary stuff when that suits them, still makes me sick. Such a complete absence of any virtue whatsovever.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
The media companies love standards when it suits them, such as when it limits the technology companies power (as in music DRM or content filtering). However, when the standards become, well, too standard, they want their own proprietary formats. NBC pulls out of ITunes because they didn't like the standard pricing. Sony tweaks its DVD's because it doesn't like the standard DRM (and I rented a coaster from Blockbuster recently, thanks Sony).
Viacom says "we believe in following the consumers". The real quote was "We believe in following the consumers as long as it pleases us. Otherwise fuck the consumers."
Management meeting: Ok guys. To protect our copyright we need a filtering system without copyright. This would be better for all of us. Wait a second, I feel a clue train rolling in to the station.
Nobody is forcing you to watch their stuff, to read their stuff, to listen to their stuff.
You are paying them. You are supporting them. You are encouraging them. You are to blame.
You want to stop them?
Stop watching their films. Stop reading their newspapers and magazines. Stop watching their TV shows. Stop listening to their music. Boycott them.
If you're not willing to do that, well you can go fuck off, I'm not interested in what you have to say.
Deleted
.. then we just have ONE "standard" to attack :)
Easier to hack.
http://www.rense.com/general79/wdx1.htm
First up we have a new variant on googlebombing. The filter will be gamed by content owners to pick up on anything they possibly can.
This is because of the asymmetric costs. A false positive will cost them nothing, but the poster will get zapped. Indeed blockingd free content will serve the industry quite nicely.
There are >50 content formats, and new ones keep appearing. If the "standard" filter cannot read them, then the obvious thing to do is ban them.
You've now established a monopoly where only "approved" formats are allowed.
Even if it is an open standard, who writes the filter for new formats ? More importantly, who pays ?
It is also an arms race, and I think we can be clear that the "standard" filter will not be open source.
DRM attracts crackers in direct proportion to it's success. Many crackers may not be fans of economics, but their goals are easily modelled in economic terms.
They want to take out the "big beast" current filters are small, unsucessful critters.
Cracking the industry standard media filter will be more of a coup than breaking WEP, and thus inevitably be swamped.
Also, an entertaining technical/legal point is so many site use Linux so the GPL may get involved.
Dominic Connor,Quant Headhunter
Its about time the internet was shut down. There is too much copyright infringement going on and it is the only solution. Hackers invariably get past the filters, so filters only work out to be a temporary solution. Maybe we should consider turning off TV transmission too, since those stealing pirates keeping on seeing our copyrighted work without paying us. If we can't have 100% control then we would rather have no one be able to see our work. The Spanish inquisition were taking the right approach.
Okay, so the copyright holders aren't saying the above, but their desire for total control makes the above scenario feel not to far from the reality that they seem to want.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
There is a common standard: you upload your videos, and these sites filter them for you. For Google (or anybody else) to disclose their algorithms would be stupid, simply because that would make circumventing the copyright filters much easier.
I think what's really going on here is that Microsoft is egging on Viacom to gain an advantage for themselves.
1) They reflect the fact that there ought to be a filtering system in place on the part of technology companies
No, there ought to be a filtering system in place on the part of the media companies. Go check the DMCA, that's your responsibility, a responsibility stemming from legislation you pushed for.
2) I can see this being totally open to abuse. Don't want a competitors work to be shared online despite their wishes? Put a sample of it in the internet-wide copyright filter! Don't like someones political speech? Submit it to the copyright filter!
3) How is this filter going to interoperate with fair use of copyright works?
4) How is this filter going to know the circumstance under which a copyright work is being used? What if a license explicitly permits some type of use?
The small, independent web sites will form the basis of a new Internet that will arise from the ashes of the old. The new Internet will have features such as encryption and anonymity built into it.
I say give them the filter. It should be built into every node of the network, so the network flat refuses to transmit Viacom's material, or that of any other copyright holder who wants out of the Internet. Surely a network that will only transmit stuff under a free license would have to be every free software author's dream?
London Printers, Music Moguls, Hollywood Twits; all these content providers want to own the content. They start as a service to deliver content from producer (author, musician, director & actors,..) to consumer (you & I), BUT greed makes them stupid. Unfortunately the best friends of 'Greed & Stupidity' are lawyers. They can and will support either side of an argument for money. Right, morals, ethics are not part of the equation. And we, the consuming public, allowed the legislatures of nation and states to be filled by these amoral, anethical, 'money is right' bottom feeders. A pundit wrote that 'wanting to make laws controlling others, is proof that you are not to be trusted to make laws!'
The freedom of the future belongs to those who understand that the threat of content control is not JUST entertainment, but truth. It is not about the next episode of '2&1/2 Men', it is about the next election or the next war or the next reduction in services or the next increase in taxes for the middle classes.
If all you have is "Trusted!" computing can you trust your family to their control?
(oh wait this is the internet)
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
Copyright application is really quite simple.
The moment anything is published it is copyrighted. Its about prior art, establishing it.
The only way to fulfill what he wants is to take down the whole world wide internet.
Considering everything is copyrighted. The real question is: when are such people going to
get a clue that what they want is simple not going to happen. Not everyone wants to constrain
their works
A clue that its getting time for fundamental changes in the way we live and exchange value?
If the world wide internet was taken down then the same people would come along and say they
want to have it back but only if they completely control it like any other media.
Their problem is no more up to others to solve this delima for them, then it is for everyone
to be responsible for making me a billionaire while those who help me do so, are to be put in
the poor house with constraints I used to get there.
Perhaps the easier solution that provides them with total control, is for them to simple not
publishing anything that they don't want people to access. That way they are not trying to impose
constraints upon the freedoms of others.
The only reason piracy exist, the only reason infringement of copyright, patent and in sum
"Intellectual Property" (with its double meaning) constraints exist is because the abstract economic
systems we have can't handle it otherwise. IP rights are done on a "cannot use" basis. You cannot use it
unless I say you can.... Yet all that we have today is built upon what those before us have done because
we "did use" the works of others.
It is by using the works of others that we improve upon the quality of life for all.
So... we have abstract value exchange systems in place that have problems dealing with abstract
works using a technology designed specifically to manipulate the abstract.
Seems to me we have created our own abstraction problems. However, since we are the ones who
created such abstractions, we are the only ones to correct them. It'd be interesting to create a
parrallel to what we have, value representation system. Even if only to start getting a better
handle on whether or not such piracy claims are real of just excuses to try and rationalize even
more constraints to apply.
The only problem there is here is of the more fundamental economic systems that employ "cannot use"
as a way of extracting value through permission constraints.
So Do I have permission to improve quality of life for everyone including myself? Even by such a
seemingly insignificant amount?
Not with the economic systems we have in place.
I'm all for credit where credit is due. Its to bad there are those who haven't figured out what
the open source community has.
I'm finding more and more value in open source software in comparison to proprietary software.
And there is one thing for sure regarding infringement claims and that is any such constraint
claims are very small in comparison to the overall value of open source even minus the claims
property.
We need to develop another abstract value representation system that allows "can use".
TFA is a summary of comments made at the Web 2.0 Summit which reference another announcement which summarizes these principles.
Considering who's on the press release - NBC Universal, Disney, Viacom, Fox, Microsoft, MySpace, Dailymotion (who?), veoh (who??) - the proposed principles are actually fairly balanced. They mention fair use four times, including a statement that "When sending notices and making claims of infringement, Copyright Owners should accommodate fair use" and "If the UGC Service is able to identify specific links that solely direct users to particular non-infringing content on such [piracy-oriented] sites, the UGC Service may allow those links while blocking all other links" and even "If a UGC Service adheres to all of these Principles in good faith, the Copyright Owner should not assert a claim of copyright infringement against such UGC Service with respect to infringing user-uploaded content that might remain on the UGC Service despite such adherence to these Principles."
It's worth reading the whole principles statement. I'm sure there are things that could be tweaked, but there are no major outrages that jump out at me; I'm actually kinda impressed.
He seems to be confusing "responsible" with "threatened."
"It is a big drain to a company like ours to have to deal with incompatible systems"
Isn't it the place of the copyright holder to enforce copyright? Regardless of how incompatible it is with viacom's systems, a system that has been put in place to help copyright holders protect their works is still doing them a favor. Adapt or die Viacom.
I only buy pepper spray that's been tested on anti-vivisectionists.
industry standard to filter copyrighted material
...
How about we suggest the following standard:
1. the © character (Unicode 00A9, or decimal 251), followed by
2. the date of the copyright, followed by
3. the name of the copyright holder, optionally followed by
4. an email or web address to contact the copyright holder
I've heard that a system similar to this (but lacking part 4.) is already in use in some publications.
Such a copyright standard would make it easy to use hundreds (or thousands) of programs that already exist to filter copyrighted material and determine what to do with it.
Think anyone would go for it?
Maybe we should write up an RFC
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Last I heard, a certain proposed industry standard from Microsoft doesnt work as well as it should.
...you mean like some sort of proprietary technology that locks you to one platform? Why you poor, inconvenienced people, you!
We're geeks... We're the sorcerers of the modern-day world. --
Generally, its not because people want to watch a commercial free broadcast of *insert show here* but rather they don't have time to watch it live, they missed an episode, its not available where they live, or they don't get the channel it is on. Viacom is not losing any money because of this because obviously people can't watch the show when they want to on TV so they are watching it online. An industry wide copyright filter will just encourage people to crack and hack it.
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
You know what? I'm tired. I'm just damn tired of all of this content maneuvering.
I think I'm just going to swear off of music and video all together and find other uses for my time. I'm serious. I've already canceled the cable TV.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Is about 3 days away from a 20 year old kid who creates a filter to get around the identification system.
It's only about 10 times easier if the system is well understood and published.
I have a very hard time believing that an uncrackable system like this is even theoretically possible. Anything even remotely good would have to be some kind of sophisticated computer vision system, that could automatically identify the face of say Steven Colbert. Even the good face identifications have large amounts of false positives.
Even that's not unbreakable. Figure out what the parameters for face identification are, and go any slightly modify those parameters.
The underlying problem here is that it takes an enormous amount of effort to create an identification system, and a correspondingly small amount of effort to break it. The whole idea is just the content producers wish upon wish that this is possible. The only reason Google is doing it is to show that it will fail. Then they can hold up all the brilliant programmers that made the system and say "well, we tried, but it's not possible"
AccountKiller
A lot of people have posted about how Disney has made millions by remaking stories in the public domain (Snow White, Cinderella, Beauty and The Beast, The Little Mermaid, Tarzan, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Sleeping Beauty, Pinocchio, ...) and then very aggressively protecting all use of the "Disney" versions of these stories.
However, I found it even more revealing to learn of how Igor Stravinsky was treated when "Fantasia" was made. Disney offered Stravinsky $5000 USD for use of "The Rite Of Spring" in Fantasia. Stravinsky declined, saying that he did not want his score used in that context. The response of Disney was that the offer was just a gesture of good will, because Stravinsky's work was copyrighted in Russia. The US at that time did not recognize Russian copyrights, so Disney was not bound to respect the composer's wishes, and they went ahead over Stravinsky's objections.
One more thing - I have personal knowledge of Disney objecting to images of their characters being used in murals in a _children's_ _hospital_ (!) as an "IP violation". The said hospital is All Children's Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida. The first floor hallways have beautiful murals involving Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters, but the volunteer artist did not pay any royalties. The other floors have non-Disney cartoon characters, because the hospital was threatened with legal action if they added any more Disney images. At least Disney did not force the hospital to paint over the Disney murals.
I am working on a website with my own music, and it occurs to me that I'll be lost in a sea of over-hyped, over-produced, under-inspired music and media that was never intended to be "free" in any sense. I can't imagine how I could begin to get noticed, much less "compete" with all this stuff that's been promoted so vigorously in the establishment media. When people go looking for music that's free-as-in-beer, they're looking for bootleg versions of mainstream artists. If that were unavailable to them, then their searches would be more likely to find music produced by artists who are not affiliated with any of the corporations that we all love to hate.
Just a thought: if mainstream media were less freely accessible, it might give alternative artists a real visibility boost in the online marketplace.
:P
It's funny: which industry exactly should have a standard to filter copyrighted material?
The music industry? The movie industry? The book publishing industry?
Or something completely different: the IT industry?
Universal and all the other music, movie companies are screwed, because they are only that, music, movie, etc. production companies and not technology companies. They produce something which is delivered by the means that they don't produce, develop, etc. because they are not technology companies. They want the only thing they can: trying to force technology companies by lobbying, by forcing legislation, etc. to do the "filtering" for them.
Mind you, this is in direct conflict of interest with the consumers of the technology companies.
Since there is not only a single technology company which can deliver (copyrighted) content to the public - and "filter" it for you, for your benefit - what are you gonna do? Sue the entire universe? Extend copyright protection by law makers to one thousands of years?
The world has changed, the reality has changed, the old way of controlling artists, audience and making (lots of) money is gone for you guys. Suck it up. Grab a history book and you will find, that many other industries had to experience this in the past. Get a grip: you are history.
You're telling me because Viacom et al won't allow their stuff to be on the internet that people will just go back to passively watching TV and listening to their CD players (well, maybe not CD's... evil pirates can rip them... maybe the phonograph)?
Entertainment is highly dependant on the delivery mechanisms that allow people to watch them. If the old-school companies won't participate, artists will gradually move to where they can reach ears and eyes and make money. I'm very glad Viacom is trying to get itself away from where the next generation actually watches and listens. They're slitting their own throat. I hope they make things very restrictive very quickly.
Copyright is a legal right certainly. Let's not pretend it's a moral right. Copyright as it was put together was intended to prevent commercial exploitation of another's work (http://www.advogato.org/article/323.html). It was not really intended to prevent you and I from swapping CD's. That's a recent idea pushed by the record companies not to protect a moral interest, rather it was intended to maximize revenue.
As to the idea that professionals make stuff that is good, my counterexamples are "American Idol", "Dancing with the stars", and "Survivor". If that's what the professionals are producing, I guess I'll just read a book.
No seriously, the tension between media cartels, consumers and creators of content is always going to be there, if only because their interests are different. But don't pretend the tension is a moral struggle; it's an economic argument about how much we should pay and when. The smarter companies (which don't exist yet) will try to find a middle ground between the three interests. Right now, the media cartels are just trying to get lawmakers to set up the ground rules that favor them. Voters and artists, apparently, have no one representing their interests.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
"It is a big drain to a company like ours to have to deal with incompatible systems."
Incompatible systems. Hmm...I wonder if the fine gentleman from Viacom also understands how big of a drain all these incompatible DRM systems, some with rootkits, are to their consumers. Probably not.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
imeem is a great example of how media filtering can work to everyone's advantage, after you upload your mp3's their media filtering figures out what the track is you've just uploaded and depending on the results the music will be shared in youtube style either as a full length track with the copyright holder getting a cut of the advertising, or if the copyright holder has said no it'll just be a 30 second sample with links to iTunes/amazon to buy. imeem is using snocap for their song fingerprinting - if you rememebr snocap was originally seen as a plugin to a p2p sharing network, but the folks at imeem seem to have done away with the p2p part and just let users upload the music straight to their website. So it's like napster, except that it provides instant gratification, no waiting to listen to the track, or find out that the link is merely a 'broken' sample.
... mean for the system requirements of Windows 7?
Of course Viacom poo-poo'ed the idea of Google's video identification system. They are currently locked in battled with them in court. If they said "Yes, we like this new system, and it works to eliminate copyright violations of Viacom content on YouTube" there would be much less ammunition for them in their lawsuit.
That being said... screw Viacom for suing, and screw them for waiting for the acquisition to complete before suing, in the hopes that there would be a much larger pool of money to drain if they win.
Other than this text, there is no discernible information contained in this sig.
Because now when that article is posted to /., the first 273 comments will be "DUPE!"
Not that we'll notice, what with all of those flying pigs and all, but still.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
It is all about greed and ego. The media conglomerates want to tell the consumer how and when they can "use" the published media. Remember DIVX? You had 2 days to watch that DVD, and then you had to connect to a dialup line and pay more money if you ever wanted to watch that movie again. This is the same thing, but with a longer payout. They don't want the avberage citizen to have control. Everytime you want to watch, you will have to pay up. They want a continuous stream of cash coming in for all of their published media. They don't want you to "own" anything. There won't be any right to resell your DVD collection.
Look at what Radiohead did. They published their album for free. If the rumors are true, and they pocketed $6 million to $12 million dollars without any media company or anyone else taking their cut, then the media companies have something SERIOUS to worry about. Putting filters out there gives the media companies a backdoor to quickly shut down ANYTHING with very little effort. They want to consolidate control. Big company says your content infringes on "their property". Try to prove otherwise! You'll have to go to court against the big bad media company. They want the ability to remotely shut off any media without any effort at all. If Viacom and companies have their way, they could "dispute" anything, have it shut down, and then you'd have to fight to hear it. Radiohead would have to go get a court to "enable" their album. By that time, Viacom and the other media companies have attained control. Viacom could say that they have an artist under contract that has material that is copyrighted, and Radiohead "sounds too similar". The RIAA and MPAA will do anything possible to retain control. Their antiquated business model needs a serious update. If they'd embrace technology, they'd see an increase in business. Instead, they fight it kicking and screaming. They spend millions on technologies to ruin other technologies. Consumers can't fight it. Poor struggling artists have always been slaves to the media companies. Movie houses are dependent on investment money from the media conglomerates. Someone needs to teach these greedy idiots a lesson. It's too bad Madonna signed that HUGE contract. She should have done something on her own like Radiohead. That would have taught the media companies a lesson. They're holding onto this old business model. Sad. The music biz has gone down hill.
Just erase all trace of Viacom from the internet. They get what they want, and so do we (they stop existing, hopefully offline too).
What happens if I, a Canuck, go to make a personal copy (prefectly legal in Canada) and the OS filters the output? I wouldn't put up with someone interfering with my RIGHT to make personal copies. Overarching copyright filtering could lead to some interesting litigation in various jurisdictions.
If anything, this would make encryption much more wide-spread among savvy users.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Never forget Sound Exchange, who feels they own your music whenever it's broadcast in order to collect royalties for you.
Of course, never forget also that the cost of collecting those royalties from them likely exceeds the size of the check you'll actually receive, so they'll just keep your money for the big companies that own Sound Exchange. If you make music under the current regime, you're pwned!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
One DRM system to protect them all.
And only one DRM system afterwards to break-through.
This might not be as bad as it sounds. They're outnumbered a million crackers to one DRM system.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I think the most telling quote is "No one wants a proprietary system that benefits one company." Never would I expect a Movie Industry exec to sound like a proponent for open-source... well, as long as it is not actually for his company's original works of authorship.
FOR PONY!
It was a nice idea, but in practice, corporations are just not able to restrain themselves from grave unethical abuse of copyright laws. Society as a whole would be much better off if we simply void all of copyright law (patents, too, but that's a different post). Mike
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
These industry shills had better learn to do business in the new market.
capitalism is getting to hard for them.
Disney: obsolete
SONY: obsolete
Warnerbros: obsolete
columbia: obsolete
atlantic: obsolete
universal: obsolete
paramount: obsolete
VIACOM: obsolete
learn to do business in the new market or become obsolete.
They're using their grammar skills there.
The issue is not about whether something is copyrighted or not. Virtually everything is copyrighted. The issue is about whether the owner permits the distribution, which is a form of copying. And it is about identifying who the owner is from the content.
So I have this simple solution. Create a single central repository for all copyrighted content that copyright owners want to exercise control over. The owners will deposit a copy of each work they want to have identified as belonging to them. Then that content would be available to anyone that wants to check and see if some content that was given to them matches the owner's content.
Oh, wait.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman has called for an industry standard to filter copyrighted material.
Phooey on that. What we really need is an international standard to filter out people like Mr. Dauman. The world would be a much better place.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Personally, I always figured that their collapse would come whenever enough disgruntled geeks figure out how to build powerful EMP weapons and where to aim them.
:]
Anyone know where to get really beefy capacitors?
The easiest and most efficient way to stop copyright infringement is to stop creating content. If viacom et al would just stop making DVD, television programs, and movies, the infringement would come to a dead halt.
:)
It's a win win win.
They wont be put out of business by copyright violations, the evil hackers will wither and die from like of things to "steal", and I wont have to watch corporate mind-control shit on youtube anymore.
So just go out of business, and everyone wins
How dare Google come up with a proprietary means of filtering content for copyrighted material.
We demand that this product be made freely available to all parties and the code released as open source.
Sincerely,
Viacom President and CEO
Philippe Dauman
0100001001100101011010010110111001100111 0100100001110101011011010110000101101110
They need to learn the new market too.
Case a, my laptop: I live in Spain and bought the laptop there. I wanted Windows in English.
.Net Professional (which costs an awful lot more than Windows) and it turned out to be unusable bloatware which crashed several times a day and made me less productive. I never used it, I stayed with Visual C++ 6.0 until the free Visual C++ Express came along and became my development system of choice. One copy of Visual Studio is worth quite a few copies of Windows XP so I'm still down on that little deal.
Case b, my desktop machine. I bought a legit copy of Windows 2000 but it never got a device driver for my ADSL card - despite the manufacturer saying it would work. I could never use the copy of Windows 2000, I had to stick with NT4 until XP came along. XP worked, it cost the same as Win2k and I figure Microsoft owes me a license.
Case c is that I bought a full copy of Visual studio
Bottom line: There's four machines in here but only one of them passes the WGA test.
I'd be completely legal (in fact I'd be better off monetarily!) if Microsoft had a working refund system and I could return the unused software. A full refund for that copy of Visual studio would even have paid for upgrades to Vista (not that I'd have upgraded of course...)
No sig today...
The corpoRATS will take away everything we got and NO one will stop them ..
You are arguing against a William S. Burroughs quote. You can't win.
;
)
con: you would punish (only) lawful users.
pro: single point of failure for the rest of us. Break once, hack anywhere.
Like anti-spam measures, filtering systems will probably only work well
Another standard, backed by microsoft?
We should call this battle "OOXML II - The fight for copyright!"
Seriously though, why is it that whenever i see microsoft and some kind of broad-brush standard i think "oh god this is going to be bad for the industry". Its no small irony that they're pushing an MS standard to battle google's "proprietary".
One can only hope google turn proprietary into standard and perhaps we have a chance for a real standard like ODF rather than another non-standard like ooxml!.
Viacom,
On behalf of every person who is or will be on the Internet, I hereby offer the following for your kind consideration.
"Fuck you."
If you have any questions, you may direct them at the nearest convenient brick wall.
A.C.
Well....good reason to buy Dell. Dunno if they will change it, or if it applies to all versions of Windows, but I was told by a support person that a Dell OEM Win disk (I've done it with XP-Pro, all Service Packs) that I should not have to enter a serial number or be "validated" by MS if I'm installing the OEM disk onto a Dell machine. So far has been true.
Windows "Genuine Disadvantage" still does its checking to download various tools, but at least the initial setup is more hassle free.
As for OEM versions not being transferable -- maybe, but a friend bought a copy of WinXP over the internet and when it arrived, it was a "Dell" OEM disk with older artwork. He was installing onto a generic "white box". He had to call MS to verify, but they didn't have any problem providing a confirmation code. He was, as far as we know, using a unique serial number, but it was an OEM version.
Are you sure about the "non-transferable" bit? Since most OEM's won't give you a windows refund (which MS's license claims is available from your vendor if you don't agree to their terms). With most OEM's refusing refunds (at least Dell does, claiming it is part of the package cost), it seems you cannot get the refund MS "promises". As a result, I think it should be resalable. I can't see a judge enforcing the non-resalable clause if MS has no way to return the OS for a refund (presuming you don't want it: running another OS).
Of course this all assumes their "click-to-run" license is valid. From other legal cases, this is, at least, questionable, if not legally unenforceable.
The argument that no one wants a proprietary system with sole beneficiary is certainly at the forefront of the BBC's "iPlayer" debacle, and indeed that to me doesn't appear either "responsible" of the company concerned, or "open" (as opposed to proprietary), so much so that Linux and MAC users are effectively "locked out" (and yeah, I know they offer some lame-ass Flash alternative, but that doesn't cut it imho). How would an industry standard impact freedom of speech and in particular censorship on the internet? How would it affect small, independent web sites? I suppose the crux of the matter (to me, anyway) is that provided the "industry standard" in question is neither proprietary nor beneficial to one company, who cares how they attempt to control their "IP". If the "real" question is "Would an industry standard restore freedom of speech (and in particular limit censorship)" then I fail to see how this will be the case. Certainly not for as long as these media companies are allowed to ride roughshod over the DMCA, and fail to recognize the true nature of copyright legislation (in particular Fair Use).
Back on-topic, so the media moguls want a "universal, standard copyright filtering mechanism". Cry me a river! I'd love many things - Net Neutrality, an end to worthless "Disease Ridden Media [DRM]", World Peace, and so on... The media industry appears to love nothing more than to turn a blind eye to the phenomenon that is "Teh InterWeb" and try to milk old business practice for all it's worth, then want to cry foul because they've missed the boat, failed to embrace what should have been one of the most powerful distribution channels ever created, treated (the majority of) their consumers like criminals, and now they magically expect, nay demand, a "universal copyright protector". Damn, I'd bet there's a lot of software houses out there who would love such an invention to protect their products - maybe they could even petition ISP's to filter all traffic using such an algorithm to prevent software piracy? Pur-lease!
A copyright defender thinks that copyright filtering software shouldn't be copyrighted?
HAAAAAA-ha-ha-ha-ha! The fight to keep Artificial Scarcity on life support goes open source!
You are trollish, using your paid +1 karma modifier.
I wipe my hands of you. > smack smack
If there's only one filter, instead of hackers spread out over so many different projects, all can focus on cracking The Big One.
98% of America's teens drink alcohol, smoke, and have sex. Put this in your sig if you like bagels.
Now they have to start over.