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.'"

Comments

Neat

[Dunbal]

No one has told this guy about encryption yet?

Re:Neat

[Cajun Hell]

Screw encryption, what differentiates a DRM-free MP3 flying in from iTunes or Amazon from one coming through a modified BT protocol which uses port 80 and fake http headers?

iTMS and Amazon are on the whitelist. Comcast "consumers" don't need to talk to anyone other than Time Warner, Disney, and News Corp anyway. When they let you connect to Apple or Amazon, you should be grateful for the favor.

Re:Neat

[ShieldW0lf]

Makes a very good argument for the spontaneous creation of a grassroots mesh network by the citizenry. I suppose that's why the US Gov are criminalizing open Wi-Fi. Well, they're not criminalizing it, but all they have to do is send someone out with some illegal images to set you up, don't they? In a pinch, they can always re-define obscene.

Wrong.

[Spy der Mann]

Glickman called piracy the MPAA's #1 issue

No, the MPAA's #1 issue is their high prices and crappy movies.

Re:Wrong.

[Spy der Mann]

like they can really do anything against piracy?

Nice point. People will still get sent to jail, but that won't stop piracy. Eventually, they'll have to admit that the only way to minimize (not stop) piracy is to step on the citizens' legal rights like privacy and free speech.

But even with that, they can't control the world and enforce the same laws without stepping on the other nations' rights.

And not even that will stop piracy.

Re:Wrong.

[techpawn]

Glickman called piracy the MPAA's #1 issue

No, the MPAA's #1 issue is their high prices and crappy movies.

I wonder where the ongoing WGA strike fell on this list of issues

Re:Wrong.

[TallMatt]

I think subscriptions like Netflix are part of the reason why people are not going to the theaters as much as they used to, not the economy. Instead of paying $10 to drive in traffic and sit in a crappy theater, I can watch as many movies as I want at home in comfort, for the whole month! Now with HD-DVD and a nice surround system, there is almost no reason to go to the theater as far as I am concerned.

Re:Wrong.

[AndersOSU]

I have a netflix subscription, and it hasn't stopped me from going to the theater. What it has done is stop me from going to blockbuster (or jumping on thepiratebay). While this is certainly an anecdote, I wouldn't be surprised if it were the general trend.

If I were to guess why theater attendance is a bit down from a decade ago, I'd point to gas prices, and less spending money, but also to the fact that with videogames and the internet there is more competing for our entertainment dollar (or hour) than there was 10 years ago.

Re:Wrong.

[jandrese]

Actually, Netflix doesn't hurt theater sales too much, but it's murder on DVD sales. DVDs have been taking it in the rear for the past year or so and the MPAA is using it as an excuse to get lawmakers to pass legislation to stop them thar pirates who be stealing arr sales.

I have to admit, after getting Netflix my urge to actually buy DVDs dried up pretty quick. I'll still get stuff here and there (especially if I plan to show it to friends/lend it out), but for the most part my collection has been stagnant for a couple of years now.

Can I borrow his dictionary?

[ByOhTek]

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

I'm fairly sure it is either incorrect on "nothing" and "everything", or "lose" and "gain"...

Re:Can I borrow his dictionary?

[Elemenope]

Yeah, I had the same reaction. If ISP customers buy internet service for (among other reasons) clandestinely downloading movies, then that customer is one more customer you might not have had before. The only thing ISPs have to lose by limiting downloads is more customers.

...Unless you take his quote as a veiled threat, i.e. "You'll have everything to lose and nothing to gain by not seeing things our way, since we will bend legislators over our knee to provide us with the tools to bitchslap you into line if you don't come around." I'd say that's a logical reading of the quote that seems to conform well with the **IA modus operandi and way of thinking.

Re:Can I borrow his dictionary?

[Anonymous Coward]

The ISPs will have to get equipment that can tell the difference between encrypted BitTorrent traffic & all other encrypted and non-encrypted traffic. Eventually, the equipment requirements to do that will cost as much as any bandwidth savings.

That still wont address other issues like legal BitTorrent use, the large amount of false positives they'll get, customer complaints about Service X being slow for some reason.

Theres no way this will be s good thing for ISPs in the long term.

also...

if ISPs join together and reject this, theres a chance they can use a common carrier type of defence but once they try to actively filter BitTorrent, wont they be blamed every time they fail.

Interesting response if you get a letter from the MAFIAA... My ISP filters piracy so I shouldn't be able to download anything illegal and if I can its their fault.

Make the MPAA pay for it

[Paul Bristow]

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?

Re:Make the MPAA pay for it

[KeatonMill]

See the problem here is that the MPAA is calculating this $6 billion/year number by saying multiplying the number of pirated copies (a number they can only estimate and they probably highball it) times the retail cost of a legitimate copy.

The problem with this is that it completely bypasses all microeconomic theory.

In simple terms, there are a huge number of people that will consume your good if it doesn't cost them anything (or next to nothing), but as soon as you raise the price a little bit, the number of people willing to buy the good drops substantially. This is called the price elasticity of demand.

While there is some limited evidence that the market for piracy has shrank the overall market, it's difficult to tell how much of an effect piracy really has. There are so many other factors (dilution of purchase points, ease of access to new/unsigned bands, etc) that there's some evidence that the total market for media has actually increased substantially, but the record labels are being left out of the equation.

Piracy isn't good, but it is a result of a free society and the deadweight loss (basically: if you tax someone or restrict prices via regulation, the decrease in income from the economy is greater than the income from the tax, so there's 'lost' production that never occurs) incurred by preventing it is astronomical.

IANAE, BIAAEM (I am not an economist, but I am an economist major and I hope to get a PhD in economics down the road)

If the MPAA focused more on assisting ISPs

[bagboy]

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.

It will happen, and here's why...

[R2.0]

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?

I don't have a problem with ISP filtering...

[TheRaven64]

...but they have to understand the flip side. If they are filtering the Internet then they must be legally accountable for everything that flows over their pipes. If I click on a link and get a virus then it's their responsibility for not filtering it. If I download something from someone who doesn't have distribution rights, same deal. If I come across classified documents, then they are guilty of trafficking in state secrets.

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.