Commerce Department Pushing For New "Copyright Czar"

TechDirt is reporting that those all-too-familiar "stats" surrounding the cost of piracy are being trotted out in an attempt to push through a new "Copyright Czar" position. "In urging President Bush to sign into law the ProIP bill, which would give him a copyright czar (something the Justice Department had said it doesn't want), the US Chamber of Commerce is claiming that 750,000 American jobs have been lost to piracy. Yet, it doesn't cite where that number comes from."

Comments

Commerce Department?????

[lecithin]

The Commerce Department is not the US Chamber of Commerce.

Chamber of Commerce = non-for-profit business federation.

Commerce Department = Federal Government Entity.

As a matter of fact, the Commerce Department OBJECTS to a "Copyright Czar"

Incitement Czar

[Doc Ruby]

Has any of these "czars" the US government has been fond of appointing the past decade or so actually accomplished anything except creating more serfs?

Why does the US government have people modeled on the most hated monarchs, who drove Russians so nuts that they went "Communist" on us for 3/4 of a century, and nearly helped us blast the world back to microscopic life?

How about Congress just returns copyright to its Constitutional basis: at most 17 years (a human "generation") of private monopoly on any content, but only when that monopoly will "promote progress in science and the useful arts". That regime doesn't need a czar, it needs a searchable content registry archive and an antitrust watchdog.

Actually...

[SerfsUp]

Great idea. I nominate Lawrence Lessig!

Re:Easy

[ShieldW0lf]

Average Americans used to be restricted to a very small subset of the information and culture that exists. The average person just couldn't afford any more than that.

Now, thanks to piracy, they have access to most of it.

In addition to having access to more, percentage-wise, it is a fact that despite current conditions, there are more creative works being made than ever before in recorded history. And they get access to most of that too.

Therefore, rampant piracy has improved the average persons quality of life.

If it came to pass that there was an end to piracy, and an extra 250 billion a year was divided amongst all Americans, that amount of money wouldn't be anywhere close to enough to pay for what the average person currently has access to because of piracy.

Therefore, the average Americans quality of life would be significantly diminished should effective copyright enforcement become available and common.

In conclusion, the victims of the American War on Piracy are... the American people.

Re:Easy

[OVDoobie]

Oddly enough, the same goes for the American War on Drugs. 80% of arrests are for simple possession. Before you mod me off topic think about this: if they pass this, and are equally efficient with enforcement how may millions, if not billions, will this cost average Americans (assuming there is no jail time, just fines).

Re:Inefficency

[mcgrew]

More like 75000 jobs GAINED. I would like to Quote Cory Doctorow from the forward to Little Brother (emphasis mine):

I recently saw Neil Gaiman give a talk at which someone asked him how he felt about piracy of his books. He said, "Hands up in the audience if you discovered your favorite writer for free -- because someone loaned you a copy, or because someone gave it to you? Now, hands up if you found your favorite writer by walking into a store and plunking down cash." Overwhelmingly, the audience said that they'd discovered their favorite writers for free, on a loan or as a gift. When it comes to my favorite writers, there's no boundaries: I'll buy every book they publish, just to own it (sometimes I buy two or three, to give away to friends who must read those books). I pay to see them live. I buy t-shirts with their book-covers on them. I'm a customer for life.

Neil went on to say that he was part of the tribe of readers, the tiny minority of people in the world who read for pleasure, buying books because they love them. One thing he knows about everyone who downloads his books on the Internet without permission is that they're readers, they're people who love books.

People who study the habits of music-buyers have discovered something curious: the biggest pirates are also the biggest spenders. If you pirate music all night long, chances are you're one of the few people left who also goes to the record store (remember those?) during the day. You probably go to concerts on the weekend, and you probably check music out of the library too. If you're a member of the red-hot music-fan tribe, you do lots of everything that has to do with music, from singing in the shower to paying for black-market vinyl bootlegs of rare Eastern European covers of your favorite death-metal band.

No artist ever starved because of copyright infringement. Many artists have starved because of obscurity.

Re:Japanese Anime Translation

[SaXisT4LiF]

I think that parent AC makes a valid point. While fansubs may technically be a violation of copyright law, those viewers that become fans of the series will probably end up purchasing the DVDs, T-Shirts, Video Games, and other merchandise related to the franchise.

In respect to the Anime market in the US, there are a number of other factors that could be contributing to low sales:

• Bad voice acting. There are exceptions to this (i.e. Mononoke Hime), but many of the English dubs are terrible. The English actors don't seem to convey the same tone and mood of the original voice-overs. Most anime fans prefer Japanese voice-overs with English sub-titles. The only real reason to include an English dub is if the target audience is very young and can't be expected to read.
• Price tag. The average cost per disk is about $25-$30 and it contains 3 episodes on average, 4 if you're lucky. It probably works out to about $8 per episode. Considering that many of the series contain upwards of 200 episodes, this becomes a hefty chunk of change. I think the problem here is the cost of producing the English dubs. You can often import the same series without English VOs in a box set for closer to $1 an episode. Why pay 8 times the price for English VOs that you're not going to listen to anyway?
• Release delays. The DVDs don't hit the US stores until almost 3 years after the original air date. Presumably this is due to the time it takes to record the English VOs. By the time the DVD hits the US market, the buyer has lost interest in the series and moved on to something else.

In short, Anime publishers should ditch the English VOs and get the product to market sooner and for a lower price.

Re:Henry Paulson

[mcgrew]

I'm not talking about those who have lost their homes, I'm talking about those who WILL lose their homes. Prepare for a really really bad recession; perhaps even a depression. I'm not the first to say "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it" but nobody listens to them, either.

If you want the crap scared out of you, I have three uncaracteristally SFW mcgrew journals to chew on:
Hoover for President
More Hoover (DAMN!) and
I hate it when I'm right

I already lost one house. It was back in '04 after my marriage went south. I'd bought my ex-wife a brand new PT Cruiser two months before she and her income left. She'd not paid the bills in order to save up for an apartment. She left me with months worth of bills, a broken van that I was still paying for, a mortgage, and two teenaged daughters to feed.

After declaring bankrupcy I gradually got my credit good enough to buy another house (after throwing my money away in a basement apartment for three years).

My house payments tripled this month. Yeah, it's MY fault.

I'll be able to make my payments, barely, but I won't have much if any left over to buy anything with. My lack of money caused by the mortgage company's greed will hurt all the people I normally do business with, who will all have a hell of a lot less of my money, because I have a hell of a lot less of my money.

You'd better hope you're not one of the millions that will lose their jobs in the next year. Can you afford your mortgage payments on unemployment insurance?