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MPAA Boss Makes Case for ISP Content Filtering
creaton writes "At the annual UBS Global & Media Communications Conference yesterday, MPAA boss Dan Glickman banged on the copyright filtering drum during a 45-minute speech. Glickman called piracy the MPAA's #1 issue and told the audience that it cost the studios $6 billion annually. His solution: technology, especially in the form of ISP filtering. 'The ISP community is going to be at the forefront of this in the future because they have everything to lose and nothing to gain by not seeing that the content is being properly protected ... and I think that's a great opportunity.' AT&T has already said it plans to filter content, but others may be more reluctant to go along, notes Ars Technica: 'ISPs that are concerned with being, well, ISPs aren't likely to see many benefits from installing some sort of industrial-strength packet-sniffing and filtering solution at the core of their network. It costs money, customers won't like the idea, and the potential for backlash remains high.'"
No one has told this guy about encryption yet?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Glickman called piracy the MPAA's #1 issue
No, the MPAA's #1 issue is their high prices and crappy movies.
I'm fairly sure it is either incorrect on "nothing" and "everything", or "lose" and "gain"...
Self proclaimed typo king, and inventor of the bear destroying coffee table (patent not pending).
Easy answer. If it REALLY costs the MPAA companies $6bn a year, they should be willing to pay quite a lot to have it done. Say, somewhere around 50% of the "pirated" revenue. So ask them to pay the ISPs $3bn a year and see if they are so keen. How many other investments do you know with a guaranteed 100% return?
- Paul
on a method of locally delivering stored digital content (Video-On-Demand) for fees, such as subsidizing the cost of VOD servers, more content would make it to the end users legally. I would see that as a win-win-win (MPI,ISP,User) for everyone. They get their cut, the ISP doesn't have to pay for the excess bandwidth in/out of their network and the end users get quick access to VoD.
Everything except public domain and governmental reports will be filtered?
By definition, all text, pictures, and video have copyright applied to them at the moment of creation.
1) the DMCA allows for safe harbor IF ISP's don't otherwise filter content. So if they start filtering copyright, they can be held liable for other illegalities - 419 scams, stock fraud, child porn.
2) The **AA's will therefore lobby for an exception to the DMCA for their stuff.
3) Congress will grant it.
Any questions?
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
I hope AT&T doesn't mind getting dragged into pretty much every lawsuit involving one of their customers that comes down the pike now... "what do you mean you're not responsible for the child porn coming out of one of your client's computers!? You filter content now, don't you...?"
(I know, loopholes and such, but at least (IMHO only) the precedent and mechanisms to claim AT&T responsible for all their users' content is now in place. If they filter inbound, they can filter outbound. If they filter movies, they can filter pr0n. If they filter by discrete packet, they should (at least according to a plaintiff in such a lawsuit) be now collaterally responsible for the flow of data through their network.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
ISPs try to do the same thing with spam, and spam still arrives in my inbox. It seems logical then that the best way to get around ANY filter is to change the name to one with genitalia spelled in leetspeak. On an unrelated note, my download of TransP3N1Sformers[2006]DvDrip[Eng] - aXXo is almost done.
Just because you're playing basketball on horseback, and you went out and got a zebra, that does NOT make you the referee, Dan Glickman.
People in this country always tout their freedom as the single greatest thing that differentiates them from many other countries. What we filter isn't so much important as the fact that we might filter at all. And if we filter the internet on a corporate or government level, how are we any different from countries like China?
And if ISPs should filter our content, then why shouldn't other service and content providers outside of the internet be responsible for censoring what we consume, say, do as well? Parents can filter what their children consume. I can filter what I can consume. It should stop there.
...measuring the drop in growth/profitibility from the first years these jerks started claiming stupendous losses due to piracy? They've always seemed to claim billions in losses, and yet they're industry doesn't seem to feel the effects. The past few years they've been losing money due to iTunes, so that's why I ask about the early years they were crying foul...
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FTA, Glickman says, "The ISP community is going to be at the forefront of this in the future because they have everything to lose and nothing to gain by not seeing that the content is being properly protected," he said, "and I think that's a great opportunity."
This claim makes a lot of baseless assumptions. Besides the fact that P2P can be used for legal purposes, how does he know that P2P is ultimately a bad thing for ISPs. Sure, more people will have access to files, but more people will also be sharing files. No one person is forced to provide everything, so any damage is spread out over several ISPs and countless users. I think ISPs are eventually going to have to realize that it is misleading to tell their customers they will be able to download at X MB/s when their system couldn't possibly handle more than a small fraction of customers actually doing so.
If they are willing to accept all of this liability, then I have no problems at all with them filtering network content. I'll still pick one of their competitors that doesn't, however.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
TELLING YOUR PARTNERS TO MAKE DECENT FUCKING MOVIES. Maybe then people might want to pay 30 bucks to see your movie in a theater...
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
you can't own information
you can own atoms: a ham sandwich, your car in the driveway, but bits and bytes, sorry, not yours, never will be
you'll figure it out in 200 years at the rate you are going
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
When you purchase your connection from your ISP the speed you buy is regulated by the modem, especially in cable modems.
So why not have unrestricted downloads of content from the ISP's servers when purchased.
Actual value is added to the content (I get it faster) and the pirated copy is no longer the better version.
I for one am not interested in storing massive amounts of material, I download watch seed a little more than I took and delete everything.
DRM becomes unnecessary if the content is available instantly from an un-metered connection.
"Now this move will end that pesky arms race once and for all!"
Richard Dawkins chuckles, then turns back to his computer and downloads a screener of Bender's Big Score.
These stories are free but worth money.
Step 1: Find a wealthy owner/CEO/President of a company.
Step 2: Offer to fix an unsolvable problem.
Step 3: Profit!
Step 4: Repeat!
It's not in the best interest of ISP to filter content. They they lost what common carrier status they have. This will open them up for lawsuits and make them responsible for content carried over their "wires."
The MPAA and RIAA want this so they will have bigger fish to sue.
Supporting World Peace Through Nuclear Pacification
The problem is there aren't that many movies worth the purchase price and, perhaps it's just me, not that many worth renting or watching again after seeing it in the theater. The last few times I've browsed the video store I thought, no, no, maybe, no, ...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
And it's a point that is rarely if ever brought up.
These filtering systems, and by this I mean systems from Macrovision on VCRs on up to DVDs and internet video, serve not just to protect 'the content' but also serves to lock out any growing or potential competition. Just as the RIAA presumes that all MP3s are illegal, the MPAA presumes that all content online must also be illegal. How can any filter system like that ensure that legal content is permitted unhindered? And when 'legalized' video content is allowed through, what's there to prevent DRM or Watermarking from being stripped from the original data?
What these systems serve best, just as in the case of DVD CCS, not to protect the copyright...or really even the ability to copy, but the right of playback and content formatting and presentation control. How many times have you bought a DVD only to find that there are stupid commercials or previews that you are prevented from skipping? That's the REAL intent as far as I'm concerned.
- ISPs sell internet connectivity. They charge based on potentil(!) bandwidth supplied (as opposed to actual bandwidth, but that is a different topic).
- P2P consumes bandwidth like nobody's business.
- Subscribers realize they need more bandwidth.
- ???
- Profit!
Hmmm, MPAA, how well is pissing off your customers, as opposed to making them "need to" buy what you are selling, working?e=mc^2
so m=e/c^2
therefore, i owe you e/c^2 for the mass of yours i am using
do you take picodollars?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
> Glickman called piracy the MPAA's #1 issue
Can't the Navy or Coast Guard help them with this?
Sorry, I can't finish that, shaking with laughter....
Filter away.. but wait, aren't they then blocking all traffic of a certain type (bittorrent for example), I mean, they can't really easily and reliably distinguish what is legal and what is illegal content, though i'm sure that certain companies will offer products/services that claim to do just that (hello MediaPretender). If you can only filter by traffic type and not based on content, then all one needs to do to make all the money in the world is:
-start a company that delivers content via bittorrent
-have a few friends "buy" products and then be unable to complete the download
-have them then proceed to mock this company
-file lawsuit against ISP, claim loss of business damages for $100k and $20M in punitive damages
-repeat
Then again, if bittorrent and all other dedicated P2P protocols are somehow filtered, there's still many protocols that can be "hijacked" to carry payloads but cannot really be filtered (IRC, NEWS.. heck, if you encrypt the content, even email).
Try as they might, illegal filesharing will never end.. it may only diminish if they start offering a reasonably priced and featured legal alternative.
In 2080, when $30 buys what today's George Washington will buy, I'll gladly put down $30 for a movie.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
KGB boss makes case for samizdat filtering
Southern farmers say that emancipation costs them $6 billion annually
Dear MPAA prick, we do not owe you or your corporate buddies a living. Our freedoms are not contingent on your business model. Stop being evil, and get a proper job instead of living off corporate welfare.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
And here is the #1 group of pirates they should fear!
These MPAA clowns are the same bozos who said the VCR was the movie industry's biggest threat a couple of decades ago.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I'm sure the "ISP Community" would be happy to accept $6B of the MPAA's money to implement content filtering.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
'The ISP community is going to be at the forefront of this in the future because they have everything to lose and nothing to gain by not seeing that the content is being properly protected ...'
That sounds like a pretty serious threat if you ask me. I wonder if ISP's will wake up with severed horse heads in their beds...
6 billion dollars - MPAA budge == ??? profit? "Technology will be the key to determine how successful we will become," Glickman said. Successful at what? I would have thought shareholder value would be that key? Has anyone else ever wondered how independent films, and their more recent popularity has hurt the MPAA and its members?
It's a wonder he did not mention free indy films distributed by BT. But "technology" in isolation won't do much to help the movie business. The MPAA needs the support of those companies best in a position to implement filtering technology: ISPs. Acknowledging that the studios have often been "in tension with" the ISP community, Glickman claimed that the two groups have a much better relationship these days.
Does this mean they are admitting defeat? If only sniffing packets as they enter and leave your NIC can squelch the flow of illegal downloads, haven't they lost? Why not send an MPAA rep to your house to live in your spare bedroom so they can truly monitor what you are doing online? I'm absolutely certain that no one else would ever get that monitoring data or use it for nefarious purposes, now would they? Is the **AA funded by the NSA? WTF
Seriously, if it were not for the preconditioning that Bush and co. did with the NSA and DHS, I think wallstreet boys would be dumping **AA stock like it was anthrax about now. This article is tantamount to saying "we have a dead business plan, and we NEED help to stay in business. We probably won't be able to stay in business over the next 10 years unless the government forces ISP's to bail our sorry asses out of this sling called The Internet because we can't produce anything that people like, and all our competitors are killing us with good content"
Repeat after me, "innovate or die... innovate or die... innovate or die"
Can we all pitch in and buy a buggy whip to send to this guy?
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Could somebody repost Glickman's comments? My ISP had its "whiney bullshit" filter set on high and the original didn't come through.
Have gnu, will travel.
Dan Glickman is the proverbial Pointy Haired Boss (PHB). He sits behind a desk at work, probably surfing the web through a websense filter and assumes that similar filtering can be applied to peer to peer traffic.
PHBs like Glickman seldom realize the technical limitations of any given technology. All filtering technologies work by inspecting the data as it crosses the wire. If you can not inspect the data - GAME OVER.
ISPs know that if every peer to peer application switches to SSL encrypted traffic, there is no way to differentiate P2P traffic, from other encrypted traffic like your credit card's web site, your bank's web site, your SSL VPN tunnel to work....etc. As an ISP you can't reasonably block SSL traffic since it would break to many commonly used things for Joe Sixpack.
I don't expect ISPs to play along with this at all. ISPs know filtering will piss off their customers, reduce revenues, and for a short term reduction in P2P traffic. Once the P2P application vendors SSL encrypt their traffic the ISPs are powerless to inspect the packets.
In short ISPs take all the risk for ZERO gain. If the ISPs have a brain in their skulls, they will tell the MPAA to get stuffed.
-ted
I'll worry when they start using some of that $6 billion to offer ISP's useful hardware that happens to contain robust filter features. But aside from offering cost without an incentive I think "what's in it for me" would be a appropriate response from most ISPs (moral and privacy issues not withstanding).
Quack, quack.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
They make such a big deal of this because it is digital. Well, let's take their metaphor to analog medium. Why are they not demanding the post office to scan every package, letter or post card that comes through for illegal material?
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
The RIAA and MPAA claim billions of dollars in damages due to piracy each year, yet when asked how much an individual download costs, they have no clue.
Get a clue: Clamping down on casual trading is not going to bring increased revenues. People aren't paying because they either see no value, or they feel the process is flawed. Making it harder to find these works won't make anyone suddenly feel as though there is value. People will just start to look elsewhere, or - as usual - get smarter, and find means around this. Virtually all deep packet inspection can be thwarted by encryption, so what exactly is there to be gained except more headaches for those running ISPs and higher prices for their customers?
They should take a few pointers from Microsoft. There's a time and place when piracy is actually good for your business. The realm of emerging markets comes to mind. They've already incorporated price discrimination across the globe, piracy in some forms is just an extension to that same idea.
This sadly is a threat from the MPAA (that I guarantee you will be followed by the RIAA) that is a double-edged sword for any ISP....
Glickman called piracy the MPAA's #1 issue and told the audience that it cost the studios $6 billion annually. His solution: technology, especially in the form of ISP filtering. 'The ISP community is going to be at the forefront of this in the future because they have everything to lose and nothing to gain by not seeing that the content is being properly protectedThis to me is a threat. The only "everything to lose" that an ISP (who is currently protected by the Safe Harbor provisions of the DMCA) is the **AA getting laws changed to hold an ISP liable (or winning a precedent setting case that ignores those laws - which they keep trying).
...but others may be more reluctant to go along, notes Ars Technica: 'ISPs that are concerned with being, well, ISPs aren't likely to see many benefits from installing some sort of industrial-strength packet-sniffing and filtering solution at the core of their network. It costs money, customers won't like the idea, and the potential for backlash remains high.'"Which brings us to the above part, which I think Ars is on target with. If an ISP/OSP (becomes required to and) starts filtering their content, then the **AA can hold them liable for whatever content they miss... and even if they miss nothing, it still is at a greatly increased cost to the ISP and their customers.
Basically, the **AA is saying "We are going to force you to do this or you lose everything because we sue you out of existence... and if you do follow through and do this, then we still may sue you if you miss something... so, please pick option (a) You (the ISP) Lose, or option (b) You (the ISP) Lose."
This has been something the **AA has been trying for years... it's a lot more profitable to be able to hold an ISP that has money liable for their customers' infringement - than to hold Joe Citizen liable who cant pay the amount the **AA wants. (I wonder) how much longer before the **AA actually sneaks a win through in one of their cases against an ISP - a win that violates the Safe Harbor provision...
Well, that's the way I read it.
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
... and I think that's a great opportunity. For whom?1) ISPs spend money to implement filtering of traffic
2) ???
3) ISPs profit!
It costs money, customers won't like the idea, and the potential for backlash remains high
Not only did I not read the RTFA, I need to share that I stopped reading the summary when it hit "I think it's a great opportunity," out of sheer depression.
I used the old net, before public ISPs. I watched small businesses - really good guys! - in my town grow up into a service I could early adopt, then later share with friends, then later turn people on to as better and more cost-effective than AOL. I've used three of those guys locally (one of them I still do for one of our business units), Earthlink and Qwest. Despite flamey this or thats over the years, I'm going to tell you something - I've had good service for my money from all of those guys.
Now, here comes the jerk with an oh-such-clear-opportunity. Allow me to state it plainly: "Hi. I have a business problem. I can make it someone else's business problem. I have a plan to require them to solve my business problem. I am not going to pay them money, in fact, as I said, they will have everything to lose and nothing to gain. I can solve this with the expenses of political lobbying and litigation, which I'm already budgeted for. I have a very good chance of succeeding."
And if that becomes a requirement for the ISPs, then they'll meet the requirement. And how do you think they are going to recover their costs? You bet, by passing the costs on to the subscribers, you and me. So all of us will end up paying for the actual piracy of a few and peceived piracy of many.
And that will be just the beginning.
I am depressed, boys and girls. Over an opportunity. Thanks for listening.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
"The ISP community is going to be at the forefront of this in the future because they have everything to lose and nothing to gain..."
What do ISPs have everything lo loose? They provide connection. Period. That's why customers pay them.
Not for filtering them. Period.
Is this "everything to loose" some kind of a threat? Reminds me a movie line: Go ahead, make my day...
Worst. Porno. Ever.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Why can't you ISPs see how integral it is to your future success to prop up our failing business model by blowing your own money on worthless technology that just pisses off your own customers. Come on guys, Stand up for your future!
shitty movies.
The main reason P2P apps are so popular is due to the fact that there is no market providing this service (at least nothing like what I describe above). Lets assume for a moment that the **AA are able to convince lawmakers to require ISP's to filter content. How on earth is this enforceable? The possibility of encryption renders the whole filtering concept moot, never mind the government using the "filtering" to further clamp down on our rights. Nothing will change. This will result in nothing more than a perpetual game of wack-a-mole.
What would happen if consumers set up their own network not connected to the Internet and shared content amongst themselves? Forgive my ignorance on the inner workings of P2P applications, but does Bittorrent need a connection to the Internet at large to function? Setting up something like this in a small apartment complex would be trivial, even if one didn't use wireless.
"Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know."
-- Ernest Hemingway
Content Filtering is a [Filtered by Comcast] reaction by a [Filtered by Comcast] company that is [Filtered by Comcast] focused on [Filtered by Comcast] its users and they couldn't care less about [Filtered by Comcast] profits.
Signed,
An [Filtered by Comcast]-happy Comcast User
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
if you own a bike, you can lock it in your garage, guard it with a shotgun, etc.: you own it
but if you put that bike on your front lawn, someone may take it. doesn't make it right, but everyone understands the common sense about defending your property
so yes, the concept of owning property in real life is just as coontrived as owning bits and bytes, EXCEPT that you can actually defend your property in real life, so it has some value as a concept
if you own say a "movie", when you give it to someone, you've given it to everyone
it is the philosphical equivalent of leaving your bike on your front lawn.
furthermore, with as much effort as it takes me to blink, i can make 10,000 copies of your bike and give it to 10,000 random people, effortlessly
now how the hell is ownership of bits and bytes enforceable then, a sstealing isn't so much stealing, as it is effortless copying
so yes, you can make intellectual property laws if you want, if you like to make unenforceable laws
that fact should lead you to realize you need to change your philosphy about whether or not ip should exist as a valid concept in the real world
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
makes you happy, who am i to argue?
just don't expect that laws that can't be enforced have any meaning in the real world
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Quoting the summary, ISPs "... have everything to lose and nothing to gain by not seeing that the content is being properly protected ...." Or to put it another way, ISPs have everything to lose and nothing to gain by NOT filtering content.
Last I knew, an ISP could not be held accountable for the actions of their users so long as they remained unbiased according to the actions their users. It is for this very reason that the MPAA and RIAA do not target ISP's for aiding users in illegally obtaining copyrighted material.
However, as soon as an ISP begins to filter content across its network they are no longer an unbiased third party observer and may then be liable for aiding their users in illegally obtaining copyrighted materials whenever their content filtering system fails to protect the rights of the copyright owners. Furthermore, ISPs who do filter content may become targets if their content filtering system interferes with other legitimate protocols.
It seems to me that ISPs have everything to lose and nothing to gain by filtering content.
don't release it in public
but when you release it in public, it is in fact free
so you are misdirecting the argument to one about privacy. no, wrong subject
the subject is about commerce: those who attempt to install tollbooths on the flow of information in public: the riaa, mpaa, etc.
unfortunately, they can make all the ip laws that they want. they just happen to be unenforceable laws
in my world, i would like to make valid laws, laws that someone can actually enforce
but if you want to pass laws that the sky should be green and every little girl has a pony, well then be my guest if that makes you happy
good luck then enforcing those laws that can't be enforced in the real world
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
'The ISP community is going to be at the forefront of this in the future because they have everything to lose and nothing to gain by not seeing that the content is being properly protected ... and I think that's a great opportunity.'
/sarcasm]
Seems the MPAA would rather blame outside influences for their problems rather than tackle them themselves. Let's also blame the local grocery store for selling me the alcohol I drank before I (hypothetically) ran over that family of 4 crossing the street.
Shif the blame MPAA, the copyright issues are everyone's fault but yours.
'mmmmmmmmm.... forbidden donut'
...who couldn't be bothered to acknowledge that they were violating the GPL with their "University Toolkit" till their ISP got a DMCA takedown notice?
Seriously, remind me why we should take their "intellectual property rights" seriously if they're not willing to reciprocate.
"My life's work has been to prompt others... and be forgotten." --Cyrano de Bergerac
Keep fiddling Nero--Rome is burning!
I have just one question... How are they going to make any money that way? Like, if I want to watch a movie one a brand new iPod, or my computer, and I can't rip it from the physical disk, then how do they collect my money? I'm not going to just give my money to them for 'not watching' what I can't even use.
Do these people even have a brain?
Now there's an idea. Any film that doesn't meet minimum quality standards for script, acting, direction and intellectual depth could be electronically tagged and filtered away at ISP level like spam. Web pages wouldn't display flash ads for grotesquely commercial tripe masquerading as a "film". And if you accidentally bought a bad film at an online store, your ISP would automatically swap it out with a good one. What a wonderful service that would be. The film industry doesn't want to cost the film viewers billions of dollars and countless lost viewing hours that result from bad movies every year. It happens purely by accident, and filtering the bad stuff out at ISP level would be a win-win situation for everyone. =)
OK so piracy is an issue for the MPAA, but I would love to see the numbers that show which act of pirating is costing them the most money. Is is Joe Schmo on bit torrent in his mom's basement seeding away, or is it some not-so-underground pirating company churning out copy after copy of bootlegged movies to anyone and everyone for pennies on the dollar somewhere over in Asia. It seems obvious to you and I what the correct answer is here, but the MPAA wants you to believe otherwise.
My other point is, that while piracy is a concern for the MPAA, their bigger concern should be getting a quality product to consumers. I think the real money is lost on crappy movies that nobody wants to see. I'm sure they also love to blame that loss of revenue conveniently on oh noes teh piratez!!!111!
MPAA surely has a problem with piracy. They were hit with a DMCA takedown notice for their University Toolkit just the other day. The MPAA should stop infringing on other peoples' copyrights before complaining about how piracy hurts them.
If I EVER catch you filtering *ANYTHING* to my internet connection
you will lose my internet business, my phone business and wireless business
to the local cable company.
Oh, right, I forgot; this is Slashdot. No-one has girlfriends, much less spouses and/or children :-)
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
suck my dick, grammar nazi
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Glickman called piracy the MPAA's #1 issue and told the audience that it cost the studios $6 billion annually."
Just think how good movies would be if instead of putting that money into anti-piracy, they put the money into making movies (which *should* be their #1 issue).
What? It's not 'costs', but rather 'lack of money you wish you would have made'?
"Oh. That's different. Never mind." -- Miss Emily Litella
I find it ironic that they're paying people to poison bittorrent streams, forcing people to make multiple attempts to achieve a download, and so multiplying the bandwidth used, while the ISPs are considering or installing packet shaping technology to cut down on the bandwidth usage by bittorrent users. Except, no I don't really find it ironic because they're both trying to steer us towards pay-per content.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
its all fine but if they get all these laws passed and still lose money i want them put in prison for life for crimes against humanity. that is the only fair way for social experiments at my expense.
Notwithstanding all the technical problems (which themselves are probably insuperable), Dan Glickman misses the point. He says copyright infringement costs the studios $6bn per year. But he wants the ISPs to fix the problem. I can't think of a suitably wacky analogy for the moment, but this is fundamentally not the ISPs' problem (and installing filtering would likely annoy much of their customer base). So what possible motivation do they have to spend money to fix it? (I don't see the studios offering to buy any of the necessary kit for the ISPs even though it's indubitably more in their interest to implement filtering than it is the ISPs' interest.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
This is coming from the same organization whose university toolkit had to be taken down because it was pirated from open source and violated the GPL...?
When you point a finger at someone, remember there are three more pointing back at you.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
This is exactly what happens in the movie business. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if they (MPAA) really understand this. Or they just haven't asked why piracy happens. They just assume that it's because people don't want to pay for their entertainment but will do so if they are forced to.
We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
What happened was the old Napster caught everyone off guard, so now they all think that there's some kind of "magic" or whatever with regards to downloading stuff. They're still stuck on the original "defeat", or the original "surprise", or whatever you want to call it. A bad case of a deeply wounded ego, perhaps.
And now, with many ISP's seeing lots of big green dollar signs when they realize this gives them an opportunity to reduce traffic and delay upgrading the networks, the reality of actually turning the internet into a delivery method for content is slowly being eroded as well.
Even if they succeed at eliminating the ability of people to download stuff, that's not going to stop people from making copies for personal use. People will always find ways to get together and share stuff they like and enjoy. That's what music and movies are about - a type of communal experience. It's probably been that way since the dawn of the human race - if you believe in evolution, storytelling and musicmaking as such may very well predate the existence of the human being. People getting together online, anonymously, via p2p networks, is just an evolution of these primitive instincts. No, it's not "real" human contact, but in a sense, it's just as communal, even though it's largely anonymous or semi-anonymous and done electronically.
Napster caught everyone by surprise, sales took a hit, and so for some reason these dimly-witted morons think that the solution to reverse this situation can also be found online. What the content industry wants is more sales. What the artists want is the ability to quit their day jobs and make ends meet. What the consumers want is diversity and a fair price. These issues, unfortunately, are not being addressed to the extent that they need to be addressed.
It is important that ISPs upgrade their networks, and eliminate bandwidth hogs by making the pipes so large there are no bottlenecks. You can't hog the bandwidth if there's enough of it go around. It is also important for ISPs to continue to try to reach more people with broadband options. By doing this, it will create an opportunity for third-party companies (such as Netflix) to offer content delivery over the internet. This would be an extremely user-friendly method that would generate significant amounts of royalties. No CD's or DVD's to press, no packaging to print, no inventory, no warehousing -- none of that. Royalties happening every time someone clicks a button on their remote. We have lots of PC's connected to the internet. What we need now is TV's - televisions connecting to the internet. Yes, it will shake things up to do this, but in the long run, everyone is going to win. This is the battle. This is the struggle. Connecting the internet to the television. The ramifications are immense.
They complain they're losing money, while their actions are directly and indirectly slowly destroying an opportunity to generate significant amounts of royalties. They must be missing something - perhaps they're missing an ability to "see the big picture". The members just feed them money, and they just keep rubbing more salt into the wound. The record player is broken -- the record is stuck -- the damage to the groove is too great.
is to step on the citizens' legal rights like privacy and free speech.
And the software to do this is already fully mature thanks to American companies' partnership with the Chinese government. If you don't think it will happen, watch the PBS Frontline episode Tank Man. After railing on the Chinese government for censoring photos and video on the internet for 50 minutes, the American censors step in during part six and delete out a scene of their own in the name of copyright. It's already happening voluntarily. AT&T is promising you it will ratchet up the online oppression. Those reluctant to follow their lead will be forced to do so due to more legislation like the 1997 NET Act and the DMCA. The software developed in China could easily be deployed here. Copyright *IS* censorship.
our lame "make better movies or music" excuse does nto justify you illegally obtaining
Yes it does.
Content filtering is no different than any other means used by retail distribution networks to stop piracy, it is possible and will work
It is different. It's requiring a third party to protect their content. And it's unlikely to work.
Encryption yes a formidable opponent in stopping piracy but if you are believing encrypted traffic cant be cracked with those who have resources unavailable to the likes of you, you are fooling yourself, its happening now.
Good encryption is uncrackable with every computer that could ever be produced. The MPAA don't have that sort of resource available.
Your "you cant own information" line of reasoning is bunk and not only is data information but it is property and just because you penguin fuckers think its not, does not mean your right, look around, the courts prove otherwise on a daily basis
I pirate haeps of shit disproving this on a daily basis
An ISP is no different in this regard as any other delivery system like Fed Ex or UPS etc. and if they were foud to be instrumental in facilitating world wide illegal distribution of pirated goods, you can bet there will be and occassionaly is law enforcement involvement
They probably are instrumental in facilitating worldwide illegal distribution of pirated goods. They assume whatever they're given is legal. If they ask too many questions they'll become liable if it is illegal so they tend not to.
it says i can tell the MPAA TO GO FUCK THEMSELFS!!!!
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Filter! filter! filter! filter!
Filter! filter! filter! filter!
CON-TENT CON-TENT!
filter (x 8)
CONTENT CON-TENT!
filter (x 8)
A SUIT! A SUIT!
OOOOOOOOOH, IT'S A SUIIIT!
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
The problem with the argument of Mr Glickman, ignoring for a moment the fact that it most certainly does NOT come from a disinterested source (i.e. Mr Glickman is the paid hired gun of the MPAA, an organization which has a clear financial interest in squeezing as much power out of copyright as they possibly can, right and wrong be damned), is that it does not take into account the essentially adversarial nature of copyright and the economics driving the piracy of intellectual products be they movies, music, software or indeed any other reproducible and transmittable works.
The false assumption underlying the position of the MPAA, Mr Glickman, and many other copyright holders at large is this (from TFA): that technology that can be used to halt film piracy. And they (the copyright holders) expect ISPs to implement it.
However, as the author so aptly pointed out, what incentive do the ISPs have to do this other than the coercive threat of legal action (which invariably leads to an adversarial situation and grudging compliance)? It costs them money, their customers (i.e. the people paying the ISP for service) by and large don't care about filtering EXCEPT when their service is degraded (in the opinion of the customer and the customer is the one paying the bills which butter the bread of the ISP) and the customers want someone or something to blame. So how does it help the ISP to increase their costs AND piss of their customers? It seems to me that the MPAA and Glickman are all stick and no carrot here with their lawsuit threats.
People are turning to pirated works because they either (a) cannot afford to pay full price and probably live outside the United States, in which case they don't really give a s*** about American Copyright Laws OR (b) they want to pay a reasonable price for their copyrighted goods BUT they don't like all of the Digital Restrictions Management (i.e. playsforsure but only on WindowsCE devices...oops) bullcrap that comes with going legit so they get their fix someplace else.
Finally, if packet filtering ever becomes widespread then encryption will surely follow as an increasingly common feature and then what? The technology arms race is not going to solve what is essentially a social and economic problem with regard to piracy. In fact, I would bet upon encryption winning out in the arms race against packet filtering so it is not terribly wise for the copyright holders to press that issue anyway.
"I opened this story ready to comment about encryption... and bang! It was the first reply!"
Which is kind of sad, actually. Are there that many people out there who think they're automatically entitled to free music, movies, books, games, and software?
"The only thing their minds are capable of is greed."
Since the primary identifying characteristics of a pirate is NOT paying for content, and in the process keeping as much of their own money as possible, I'd say that "greed" works both ways.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
A big problem with this is ISPs have, at least in some jurisdictions, common carrier immunities. If they filter anything they could become liable to all issues that filtering could resolve and responsible for the content sourced or passed through their service and equipment, like some pedophile seeking an underage liaison, the parents could find the pedophile's ISP partly responsible, and in many cases even if a fraction of liability is assigned, the whole of the financial responsibility can be sought.
And as it is "costing" MPAA folks 6 billion a year now I assume they are willing to pony up the money for the new equipment needed and staff positions required to meet their needs as well as assume all liability for eventual ancillary lawsuits. Until then don't expect me to risk filtering anything that my customers haven't already agreed to.
We have and market a better solution that is currently used by the MPAA folks. Our prior solution was even vetted by the major motion picture studios as acceptable for protection of "early release" content. They apparently think this bully approach is cheaper. MPAA has never approached technology realistically or with open eyes.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Until encrpyption is modded down. Infact alot of ISPs already do this making ssh useless.
http://saveie6.com/
By the same logic of one being able to blame the internet provider for not blocking the traffic, can one who legitimately uses bittorrent or similar p2p service sue an ISP for blocking their network traffic and their customers subsequently being unable to access what they paid for? Some good examples include Linux distributions (bittorrent), some of Microsoft's updating system (partially p2p) and Blizzard's World of Warcraft downloaders and updater's (partially p2p) Will ISPs be able to tell the difference between bittorrent traffic and non-bittorrent p2p traffic? If not, will companies that could potentially lose thousands of dollars a year in both problems in distribution, forced to increase server capacity, and millions of customer support questions, claims, returns and lost sales? As bittorrent becomes increasingly popular for legitimate purposes, will the big ones step in? If so, could someone create a p2p server not based on bittorrent, mostly that could seed from existing bittorrent servers from areas where it is allowed?
What could be more fun than your ISP checking to see if they approve of what you're putting out on the internet?
That would be great, and I'm sure customers would view it as a great "opportunity".
How stupid can these motherfuckers possibly be?
expandfairuse.org
At least to the MPAA. They don't pay for the bandwidth it's the consumer that pays. Sure they might not receive money for their works but it doesn't actually cost anything. It will however cost ISPs a LOT of money to implement a filtering system that I would guess that the customer would be paying for that. I'm not that familiar with the ISP's in America, but here in Australia the customer pays for the amount of traffic you consume and if you take away all the illegal material that is downloaded then I'd imagine that the ISP's would loose a lot of money because there would be no reason to have anything above 20gig plans, hell I have a 20gig plan and if P2P filtering came into place I'm sure I could get away with 5gigs and save an awful lot of cash. So I can't see this happening here in Australia at least. Obviously the MPAA and RIAA haven't learnt much from their DRM experiences no matter what they do there is always smarter people trying to get around systems put in place to restrict access to media, this is just another one that will fail.
"MPAA Boss Makes Case for ISP Content Filtering"
Just in case the Slashdot editors didn't get the memo: A news story like "Dog bites man" isn't interesting. Show me a story with "Man bites dog"... now that gets attention.
Can't stop the signal, Mal..
Cost to innocent consumers: their rights.
P.S. Sharing is caring!
i find it odd that there are still people out there who think that content filtering, for censorship purposes or, as in this case, for copyright enforcement, is still workable.
consider spam. content filtering has hardly made a dent in the amount of spam moving across the internet. and everyone agrees that spam comes from the ninth circle of hell. where do these people get the idea that content filtering is going to work where its use is so much more controversial?
when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.
How is it a 'loss' to the MPAA/RIAA when people download something they never intended to pay for to begin with? Aren't they just measuring 'potential' sells? ...then again they aren't 'potential' if people don't want to pay for it to begin with... wait..
If this where true, all of Usenet would have been shut down a long time ago. From what I've seen, there is plenty of content in the binary groups which are probably copyrighted and/or pr0n which is illegal in many jurisdictions. Similar situation with ISPs who use proxies.
I don't see how caching downloads could be seen as changing their common carrier status, unless they are picking and choosing what is allowed in a very specific way.
The ISP community is going to be at the forefront of this in the future because they have everything to lose and nothing to gain by not seeing that the content is being properly protected ... and I think that's a great opportunity.
What? First of all, ISPs are not a "community", they're a bunch of cutthroats that would cheerfully sell each other out for a song, and frequently do. Secondly, he (as usual) gets it exactly backwards. ISPs have nothing to gain and everything to lose, pissing of their entire customer base by filtering and making the Internet less useful to people. Their core business is shipping packets from point A to point B, not telling people what packets they can't ship at all. So, what exactly is the MPAA going to offer ISPs to make up for all the business they're going to lose if they starting doing the Copyright Cop thing?
Arrogant twit.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Right, because there is no LEGAL reason for using large amounts of bandwidth.
I pay extra for my internet connection and host my wife's website - which happens to host videos. Lots of bandwidth.
I have a VPN tunnel to work - sometimes I download gigs of data to and from work. Lots of bandwidth.
We use remote backup software from some of our locations - all SSL encrypted. Lots of bandwidth - this traffic gets sent to many redundant off-site backup locations through out the world.
Are you suggesting that I stop doing all of these things or tolerate my ISP shutting me off just because I was doing these things?
You may enjoy being bent over by your ISP, but I won't tolerate it.
-ted
So in the future when everything is locked down, we'll have you to thank
its always the same, the few spoil the experience for the masses and the overreaciton that ensues will be far worse than anything attempted so far, once again thanks to the likes of you and your answers-
illegaly obtaining is fine
you cant own information, a socialist communist collectivist mindset
shipping companies of physical goods like ups and fed ex are facilitating illegal and worldwide distro of goods (a simplistic statement that ignores the reality that its these exact companies that ultimately aid in stopping it, thats why it only exists in places like china or russia where there reach is limited but here in the US, they work with the law all of the time)
So not only are you a penguin fucker but a communist one at that and I have news for you, encryption is crackable, the mpaa etc will obtain the resources and you will be left with your smelly little penguin hole in a dark room
Just think how much room that would free up on the InterTubes for the spammers to convey their important messages!
Don't blame me, it's usually 2 in the morning when I post
its always the same, the few spoil the experience for the masses and the overreaciton that ensues will be far worse than anything attempted so far, once again thanks to the likes of you and your answers-
Olay. So the MPA wil loverreact, and that's somehow my fault?
Okay.
Gotta wonder what's going to happen to all my DVDs though and how the MPAA will stop those from working.