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

Easy

[Eponymous Crowbar]

If we just hire 750,000 copyright czars, well there ya go. That would be mavericky, you betcha.

Re:Easy

[Jimmyisikura]

Yes but then we have created a problem by removing 10,000,000,000 pirates from the market. Pirates need to eat too. Studies also show that 12/15 of those 750,000 are part-time ax-murderers. I think the statistics show the real victims here.

Re:Easy

[mcgrew]

Yet, it doesn't cite where that number comes from

Cue the goatse trolls in 3...2...

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

[Ortega-Starfire]

It is odd. Whenever goatse would actually be on topic, the goatse guy is never around. Psychological reverse trolling, perhaps?

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:Easy

[gnick]

That's an interesting way to phrase that - And you're not actually wrong. Piracy spreads culture to a much wider audience than could appreciate it otherwise.

However, there are a number of activities that people can undertake that improve their quality of life without any cost to other individuals or society as a whole. But some of these we've decided to outlaw because of various problems. For example:
* Jumping over subway turnstiles rather than walking to your destination or buying a ticket.
* Sneaking into private museums/movie theaters/plays to observe the goings-on rather than buying a ticket.
* Peeking into your sexy neighbor's window while she's changing for a cheap thrill rather than going to a strip club.
* Breaking into a house that's are nicer than your own and living there when the normal tenants are known to be away on vacation before cleaning up after yourself and leaving the house as you found it.

I could go on, but hopefully you see my point. All of those activities improve one person's quality of life without any noticeable cost to any other person or society overall (assuming that nobody gets noticed - then society suffers due to law-enforcement.) The first couple of examples are outlawed because, if everyone did them, the business model would fall apart and we (society) would lose things that we value - The same logic used for copyright enforcement. The latter couple of examples are outlawed because they offend our popularly accepted morals, although they are still examples of one person benefiting with no cost to others (assuming again that nobody gets caught or causes damage).

So do you jump subway turnstiles and sneak into museums/movies/plays/concerts? If not, why not? I see very little difference assuming that you would not have ridden or attended if you would have had to pay.

As a side note, I really need to learn to post A/C when countering somebody here who advocates rampant piracy. For some reason I just can't bring myself to do it... I must mention this to my analyst.

Re:Easy

[plague3106]

Who am I to tell someone they can't destroy their own body? Seriously though, if you look at this history of drug laws, they are based in racism. You know.. blacks had a hard enough time not raping poor defenseless white women, and when they were on cocain, well watch out!

Re:Easy

[nine-times]

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.

What if we added in an extra $700 billion? Because I've heard that if you throw in an additional $150 in pork projects, Congress will pass anything.

Re:Easy

[ShieldW0lf]

Clearly, the business model is flawed and needs to be replaced with one that meets the social goal of providing for those who are valued creators without requiring artificial scarcity to implement it.

History is full of such models. The BBC and the CBC are both good examples. And if you compare the quality of such with Fox News and CNN, you find that they also produce superior programming.

Re:Easy

[PotatoFarmer]

Yeah, thank god we've never tried to legislate against booze. Imagine how bad that would have turned out...

As an aside, the 18th amendment was repealed during a period of unrest involving a major economic downturn. Would be interesting to see if history repeats itself this time around with regard to the war on drugs. I wouldn't expect heroin to be available at your local grocery store, but I could certainly imagine less restriction on "soft" drugs like marijuana.

Re:Easy

[discord5]

Whenever goatse would actually be on topic, the goatse guy is never around. Psychological reverse trolling, perhaps?

Great, now I've got the expression "Pulling those facts out of his ass" associated with that image. Thanks... Really... Thanks

Another one to scratch off of the "frequently used expressions" list.

Re:Easy

[n dot l]

The first couple of examples are outlawed because, if everyone did them, the business model would fall apart and we (society) would lose things that we value - The same logic used for copyright enforcement.

One small nitpick here. Subways, museums and theaters are selling the use of a finite resource (a spot on the train/the space in their building). A person that sneaks in without paying is actually robbing the company in that they cause wear on the train/building for which the operator is not compensated, and they take up space, physically preventing paying customers from using it. At the very least they force the company to pay more for security to throw out the thieves at peak hours so that the actual paying customers can ride the train/view some art. A copied song, on the other hand, is made at the infringer's expense and maybe costs the artist a potential sale.

Re:Easy

[OVDoobie]

I bet your relationships are based on scientific method, so you are certainly qualified to make this assertion. /sarcasm

As I said, I was not equating (or equaling for those lesser skilled in engrish) drug consumption to piracy. I was equating the enforcement of the US drug policy to the potential enforcement of this piracy policy.

The problem with "NEW" science, is that it is often quickly refuted. There is also the fact of funding, frequently science can come to the conclusions desired by the folks who fund the research. While I don't know for certain that is the case here, it certainly could be.

Lets not even get started on the War on Terror, the enforcement in that area could certainly be applicable here. Then there is the almighty "think of the children" congratulations on being a meme king btw.

Re:Easy

[gnick]

Secondly: In your post you are equaling piracy with drug consumption, that is not only offtopic as you say but also is pleasing to the media industry wich used more than once this association to make it look bad. ...
In conclusion: Then next time try to equate piracy with pedofilia and terrorism, just to close the loop and make RIAA happy.

To be fair, OVDoobie never equated piracy with drug consumption. He made an analogy between a potential "War on Piracy" with the "War on Drugs". Both are unwinnable, but compensate by being expensive.

When you start putting words in people's mouths or blatantly misinterpreting what they say, it's hard to take seriously any valid points you may or may not have. It's even worse than assuming that TYPING LIKE THIS will win some points because, presumably, otherwise WE CAN'T HEAR WHAT WE'RE READING.

Re:Easy

[TubeSteak]

Who am I to tell someone they can't destroy their own body?

You are a taxpayer and you have to cover the social costs of drug use.
Yes, there are social costs for [drug] that you think isn't all that harmful.

Legalize and require that drug users to be bonded & insured, then let them go wild, because they'll be directly responsible for the costs of their actions. Can't afford to be bonded and insured, then don't take [drug].

Re:Easy

[Endymion]

As I have talked about before, why do you support violence in our streets by pushing for drugs to be illegal?

There are three options on how society can handle the drug market: private industry, public (government) programs, or illegal black markets. By saying you want to remove the options of the legitimate public or private industries that can be regulated. controlled, and taxed, you want to hand that entire profitable market to organized crime.

Note: I didn't say anything about the effects of any particular drug (which are largely exaggerated), nor did I say people should run out and start using such chemicals. I am simply commenting on pure Capitalism. Supply rises to meet demand, and the demand has said that being the supplier for drugs is going to be very profitable.

Help remove the violence in our streets by moving that market into legitimate business! ...

And to stay on topic here about the copyright stuff, it's obvious that the powers that be want another method of social control now that the War On (some) Drugs is losing a bit of momentum. Controlling other forms of culture such as music/etc is the next obvious step.

$oldmsg = "It's not a War On Drugs, it's a War On Personal Freedom - keep that in mind at all times!"
$oldmsg =~ s/Drugs/Music and Other Culture/

Re:Easy

[Dun Malg]

Who am I to tell someone they can't destroy their own body?

You are a taxpayer and you have to cover the social costs of drug use.

This is a bullshit argument. If "society" thinks it's unfair that it has to pay the price of helping those who fuck themselves up with drugs, then it bloody well ought to stop paying. It's completely asinine to ban a substance because of the irresponsibility of a small subset of the population. The substance isn't what fucks people up. Fucked up people turn to substance abuse. It's idiots like you parroting discredited religious nutjob temperance bullshit from the turn of the previous century that are the problem. The foolish notion that the only difference between a drunkard and a pious churchgoing citizen is the bottle of whiskey is what keeps reasonable programs to address the root of the problem from being created. Do you treat suicidal tendencies by banning razor blades, ropes, guns, etc.? Of course not. You treat the person so they don't feel like they need to kill themselves! Why, then, does it make sense to you that the way to treat drug problems is more aggressive prohibition of drugs?

Re:Easy

[Reziac]

Exactly the same war is being waged against dog breeders and livestock producers by various "animal rights" interests (CA Prop 2 is one such example).

Extending civil asset forfeiture to extremes like taking the cars from people who merely WATCH a street race is another example.

We seem to be returning to a Puritan culture, where "anything *I* don't like, YOU can't do either!" whether there's a logical reason for that or not. And if you can't jail someone for some such offense, taking his property for that offense is ... well, not the next-best thing; it's probably "even better" because it's profitable!

We've also entered an era of finding ways to ALWAYS ensure that any person of interest can be convicted of a felony. CA Prop 6 does this by requiring gang members to register with the police (in blatant disregard of our Constitutional Right of Assembly). Arrest some kid without enough evidence of a crime? no problem... chances are he never registered as a gang member; GOT HIM!

The RIAA's desired incarnation of copyright is similiar: Did you even THINK of perusing that material? then PAY UP! and if you don't, we'll send Vinny and Guido to confiscate your computer (that way we can be sure what IP address to tie your "crime" to). The moment we have a "Copyright Czar" you can expect the "war on piracy" to escalate to levels very similar to the "war on drugs" -- with equally negative effects. Imagine raids on average citizens for the crime of copying a disk they got from the library...

Personally, I believe the "war on drugs" is encouraged and even partly funded by the drug lords, to keep prices artificially high. One could draw similar parallels to the RIAA cartel.... as to drugs, I'm all for legalize/regulate/tax. It's relatively easy with hard goods like drugs. How could we do that with content -- to legalize, regulate, and tax, so everyone gets their cut yet no one (short of "smugglers") can be hauled in for a "crime"??

Re:Easy

[Endymion]

As to other things like the animal issues and Civil Forfeiture, don't think limit what I said to just copyright/drugs. There are a lot of other grabs for power going on as well, such as the ones you mention. They won't all get traction, but some will, and those that profit from the situation will keep trying.

Personally, I believe the "war on drugs" is encouraged and even partly funded by the drug lords, to keep prices artificially high.

"Follow the money!"

I have no doubt at all that those that are profiting the most from the war on drugs also have an interest in keeping the status quo.

I'm all for legalize/regulate/tax. It's relatively easy with hard goods like drugs.

No only is it easy, there are a lot of options available. If it was handed to the states, we could even have several different methods of legalization experimented with. Perhaps some states would try government ownership of the distribution process, like some already do with government-run liquor stores. Perhaps some could try a pure private-industry approach. All of these are far less expensive to society than the current situation.

How could we do that with content -- to legalize, regulate, and tax, so everyone gets their cut yet no one (short of "smugglers") can be hauled in for a "crime"??

That is a problem, as the entire premise of "content" is about controlling ideas. Before digital distribution, there was a significant overhead on the per-copy cost of distributing an idea. Digital distribution is has forced that cost to basically zero. This makes digital distribution inevitable. Note, I have not made a moral judgment on this distribution - just that it will happen. As an industry, the contend distributors and producers can adapt to this new situation or succumb to the basic forces of capitalism. This just means they have to get creative, and change their business to offer things that cannot be copied for zero cost. Creative packaging, or fancy (and expensive) pre-release concerts, to name a few examples.

The idea of "everyone gets their cut" is based on there being a gradient of cost between the producers and consumers. If that gradient has slope zero, your business is doomed from the start. All businesses need some form of arbitrage to function, and that doesn't exist with digital ideas.

Re:Easy

[Endymion]

This entire problem seems to be based on two really idiotic 'theories':

1) That banning something with laws actually changes the rate of occurrence of something, in any significant society-changing scale.

2) That if someone cannot do something stupid with a particular thing, they will magically turn into an upstanding member of society.

These are such obvious bullshit that I put anyone who seriously believe in this idiocy into the "(mildly?) mentally handicapped" group. It's what psychs call "Magical Thinking" - that wishing something would happen makes it happen, and is a pretty significant delusion.

The example of suicide you bring up is a good one. If someone wants to kill themself and they can't get a gun, they'll use a rope. If they can't get a rope, they'll use pills. If they can't find pills, they will find a tall bridge. You cannot stop a determined person* simply by stopping one of the methods they might use. With drugs, it's the same. If they want to get messed up on drug "A", and they simply cannot get it, they'll use drug "B' instead. You actually see this behavior all the time: people that cannot use relatively safe drugs like marijuana end up moving to other, more dangerous things.

As a society, are we better off by spending money on a drug test that pushes a heavy user from marijuana to, say, cocaine? That one is a pretty obvious "no"...

* - Speaking of "determined persons", it's worth noting that the same reason banning razors to prevent suicide is a stupid idea makes "banning XYZ on an airplane to prevent terrorism" a really stupid idea. The big thing that 9/11 showed us is that terrorists can be innovative if they need to. Nobody had thought of box cutters in that manner before, and we aren't thinking of the weapon for the next terrorist attack for the same reason.

Re:Easy

[musicalwoods]

Wait, aren't we already paying the social costs of drug use? The prison system isn't cheap.
Neither are the ER overdose visits, the police enforcement, the lack of a tax on illicit drugs, etc. etc.

Re:Easy

[Kokuyo]

I agree with some of the other replies to your post but I would like to state that I belief the amount of money a country could save if the police force didn't have to waste so much time on possession and if the prisons weren't three fourths full with drug related inmates, you could finance many a drug addict before you'd lose any gains.

Re:Easy

[electrictroy]

>>>You are a taxpayer and you have to cover the social costs of drug use.

(1) Why is alcohol still legal then? Maybe we should ban that too. Along with McDonalds fries, burgers, Kentucky fried chicken, .....

(2) I don't think society should pay for healthcare. Let the durg abuser pay his own bills, rather than swipe money from his neighbors' wallets. If the drug abuser can't afford the bill, then let them pass-on to heaven. He/she will be far happier there than here.

Piracy

[arizwebfoot]

We know where those lost jobs went, India and Pakistan all pirated our IT jobs.

--
Oh Well, Bad Karma and all . . .

Re:Piracy

[TinFoilMan]

I think you have a valid point, maybe the new czar can pirate them all back.

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"

Henry Paulson

[whisper_jeff]

They got that number from Henry Paulson - he's so good at pulling out random large numbers that sound plausible while being founded on nothing of substance, after all.

Re:Henry Paulson

[n0dna]

Dammit.

I was going to say exactly the same thing, only I would have probably guessed where I think he pulled them out of.

Good show.

Re:Henry Paulson

[mcgrew]

Thanks for not linking his wikipedia entry. Unfortunately for me, I looked him up. Do not click that link! Jesus Christ but that's one freaky looking fuckweed! In order to save you the horror of seeing that man's face (makes goatse look like it came from a children's book) I'll quote wikipedia's entry on who he is:

Henry Merritt "Hank" Paulson Jr. (born March 28, 1946) is the United States Treasury Secretary and member of the International Monetary Fund Board of Governors. He previously served as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs.

Born in Palm Beach, Florida, to Marianna Gallaeur and Henry Merritt Paulson, a wholesale jeweler,[1] he was raised in Barrington Hills, Illinois. He was raised as a Christian Scientist.[2] Paulson attained the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America.[3][4]

A star athlete at Barrington High School, Paulson was a champion wrestler and stand out football player, graduating in 1964. Paulson received his Bachelor of Arts in English from Dartmouth College in 1968;[5] at Dartmouth he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and was an All Ivy, All East, and honorable mention All American as an offensive lineman.

He met his wife Wendy during his senior year. The couple have two adult children, Henry Merritt III and Amanda Clark, and became grandparents in June 2007. They maintain homes in Washington, DC and Barrington Hills, Illinois.

In 1970 Paulson received a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School.[6]

He is, in short, an anti-nerd. He is the complete and polar opposite of you and me.

I think it's obvious now why the banking industry crashed and the stock market is crashing. It's because of people like Henry Merritt "Hank" Paulson Jr. who will not lose their jobs and homes and who will NOT go hungry as a direct result of their actions, as you and I may. Not as a result of our actions, but as a result of HIS and the actions of people (and I use that term loosely) just like him.

If you fear people like Osama Bin Laden more than you fear people like Henry Merritt "Hank" Paulson Jr., IMO you're brain dead stupid.

Re:Henry Paulson

[maxume]

This is ridiculously reactionary. Up until this point, the vast majority of people who have lost their homes in this crisis have lost their homes because they took on loans that they could not afford (there are people in Detroit who lost their homes because Michigan is imploding, and so forth). Sure, they were offered teaser rates and things probably weren't always made real clear, but it seems pretty reasonable to hold each and every buyer of a home somewhere around 50% responsible for the loan that they agreed to.

Irresponsible behavior on Wall Street has exacerbated the mess, but to Paulson's credit, Goldman Sachs is having among the least of the troubles (I guess this could be taken as a sign that they are the true bastards, but they weren't the ones originating hilarious securities, they were the ones selling the hilarious securities short).

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?

Re:Henry Paulson

[CodeBuster]

Irresponsible behavior on Wall Street has exacerbated the mess

Wall Street took advantage of the way that the government altered the rules of the mortgage game in the only sensible way that they could in an attempt to protect their investments and savings from inflation. They invested in the best thing going (erroneously as it turns out) which was the super hot housing market. The whole thing began in the last decade of the twentieth century (1990s) with the Community Reinvestment Act, which essentially required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to extend credit to borrowers who would NEVER have gotten loans according to any strict financial analysis of their credit worthiness (i.e. their ability and willingness to repay the debt) for POLITICAL reasons. This was exacerbated by community organizers such as ACORN who successfully agitated for even more expansion of loans to marginal borrowers (i.e. they threatened banks with discrimination litigation under the Community Reinvestment Act and other laws if they didn't start lending to these marginal people). The banks finally relented when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, when ordered to by the government, began buying these loans which the banks were then happy to make as long as they didn't have to hold them privately because they knew that these new borrowers were a terrible credit risk (i.e. the banks were happy to pass the buck). The investment banks on Wall Street were irresponsible for not seeing through this ruse (i.e. they assumed that Fannie and Freddie backed loans rated AAA by the rating agencies were gold and didn't dig any deeper before they invested their capital). The situation is complex and it will take time to work through the details, but the essential truth is this:

The irrational expansion of credit, which is at the root of our current economic crisis, would NEVER have happened if the government hadn't FORCED the banks to loan to marginal borrowers which the banks KNEW were TERRIBLE credit risks and would probably default on their loans. How did the government force them you ask? They made it illegal to deny credit to marginal borrowers by making it easier to sue for loan discrimination and then the banks, fearing these government mandated bad borrowers, forced the government to buy up the loans (i.e. the banks said: Fine, we will loan to these people, but only if YOU the government agree to buy up the loans). There are additional layers and details in the process of course (which amplified the effects), but that is essentially what happened.

The only way that this will eventually be resolved in a way that all parties can grudgingly accept will be policies that inflate the currency enough to make the bad debts go away in the long run (i.e. they will solve this through the back door tax of inflation). Then every side can claim a victory without making it obvious that everyone lost because of the resulting inflationary policies that were used to fix the problem.

Re:Henry Paulson

[coyote_oww]

This is hyperbole. We're perhaps seeing one reason why his wife left - wild exageration can get old in an intimate partnership.

1) ARM (adjustable rate mortgages) can and usually do have annual increases in interest rate, resulting in an increase in the monthly payment. Usually, ARMs are limited to 1% per annum, and have a cap interest rate around 5% higher than the starting rate. I was in an ARM when I first bought my house, so I have a little experience to draw from.

(aside - ARMs typically offer a lower interest/payment for the first 2y, making them attractive for entry-level buyers)

2) Adding 1% to your interest rate on a 30y mortgage will not cause your payment to triple. That's just really bad math.

3) Buying a house 3 years after declaring bankrupcy puts you, by definition, into the high-risk pool.

4) Anyone posting on Slashdot ought to have the savvy to read a mortgage, look through the payment schedule, calculate the worst case scenario, and not be suprised by anything that happens. Some people can claim stupidity, but that won't fly here.

5) Further, the OP is on his second mortgage - he's been through this before. So he really has no grounds for complaint. He made a financial bet - that housing prices would continue to rise, even though they were at all-time highs. The bet failed, in that housing prices are now declining. Smart money would have stayed in the apartment for 1 more year, he'd be $100K ahead or something like that (based on my area's housing prices). If only we could see into the future....

6) It is his fault his mortgage is increasing - he decided to buy, he picked the mortgage, he signed on the dotted line. I certainly didn't - so I don't want it blamed on me. "The Government", George Bush, Henry Paulson, et. al. did not sign on the dotted line. Part of life is trying to pick and choose what to do and when. In a free country, you can make your own choices, but you have to live with the consequences. Buying was his choice. He certainly could have chosen NOT to buy - home-ownership is not legally required of anyone. Renting is sometimes the better financial choice. Given housing prices at historic highs (relative to wages), not buying would have been a sound decision, and time has proven it would have been the prudent course.

Re:Henry Paulson

[CodeBuster]

From TFLA: Rhetoric aside, the argument turns on a simple question: In the current mortgage meltdown, did lenders approve bad loans to comply with CRA, or to make money?

IMHO, the article is wrong to assume that the CRA had little nothing to do with it (it was at the start of the whole process even though it wasn't wholly responsible...it was the second step on the road to where we are now if you will with the Great Depression and the New Deal creation of Fannie Mae being the first) and the correct answer is really both. The banks made the loans both to comply with the provisions of the CRA and also with subsequent laws and pressure from community organizers (lawsuits and political pressure cost money too you know, just like bad loans) AND they also wanted to make money of course (since if you are not earning interest then you are losing money because of inflation).

Ask yourself this question: Would the deposit banks in the United States (and elsewhere), which have a long history of mortgage lending and experience in that business, have loaned to the subprime borrowers if THEY had to hold the loan paper and suffer the loss if the marginal borrower defaulted? Perhaps more personally, would you loan $1000 to your coke-head do-nothing uncle (or other irresponsible family relation) given what you know about his lifestyle, financial history, and credit worthiness (or lack thereof)? Of course not and it is the same situation with these banks. Now, what if the government said that they would take that loan to your uncle off your hands for face value (i.e. they assume the risk and pay you your profits up front) or let you resell the loan as AAA debt without having to disclose the details? Well then it is a whole different ballgame.

If lending standards had not been lowered by the government (they very arguably encouraged bad loans with CRA by signaling that the Fed would not deny the banks access to overnight loans for making irresponsible loans to subprime borrowers who met CRA requirements) AND the government had not made things even worse by having Fannie and Freddie buy up and guarantee a large part of the bad loans themselves, then the subprime mess would never have become large because banks and investors would not have loaned to people, at least not on a large scale, that they KNEW were not going to repay and THEY (the banks) were going to be left holding the bag.

Remember that it is the government (and to a lesser extent those banks which can borrow from the Federal Reserve) that creates money in the fiat money system here in the United States so if the government tells the banks that it is OK to lend to marginal borrowers AND then agrees to take the loans off the bank's hands OR allows them to sell them into the securities market as AAA packages then of course they are going to do it (As long as the banks aren't forced to hold the bad loans themselves). They cannot afford NOT to participate in what is essentially an expansion of the money supply with lots of NEW credit (if they did sit it out then their competitors would increase their share of the money supply while their own pre-expansion holdings would decline in value because of all the new money being created).

If the government had not interfered in the housing market, beginning in the 1930s and continuing until today, for essentially political reasons then we would NOT now be having the financial crises that we are having today because private investors don't generally lend money at low rates to bad risk borrowers. The present situation is the inescapable result of decades of poor government financial policies made for political reasons. Does this mean that we should have zero regulation? Of course not, but there is a big difference between having the government regulate and mandate full disclosure of relevant information and directly supplying the capital and altering the lending s

750,000??

[jgtg32a]

Are there even that many people working in the music and movies/tv industry in this country?

Re:750,000??

[Eponymous Crowbar]

Including porn, or not?

Re:750,000??

[theM_xl]

Well, not anymore, obviously ;)

Re:750,000??

[sesshomaru]

I think most of that number was clerks at Blockbuster video.

Reliable source for numbers of all kinds

[ivandavidoff]

The numbers came from The U.S. Department of the Posterior.

Uh huh

[Xeth]

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 383,000 people employed in the Motion picture and sound recording industries in September 2008.

My money is on the idea that they took the amount the industries estimate they lose from piracy and then divided that by some moderate wage.

Re:Uh huh

[halcyon1234]

Heck, think about it this way:

There are about 300 million (thousand thousand) people in the States

According to All Knowledge Ever, 24.6% are minors, and 12.7% are of retired age. That means there are only 188 million "employable" citizens.

The same BLS says the unemployment rate is 6%. That means there are 11.3 million unemployed citizens

If every single one of those lost jobs resulted in a currently unemployed person, then 6.65% of all unemployed persons were from the entertainment industry.

Now, assuming that their number isn't complete and utter bullshatistics-- nah, I think I'll just call BS and be done with this one.

Re:Uh huh

[LordNimon]

The same BLS says the unemployment rate is 6%. That means there are 11.3 million unemployed citizens

Bzzz.... wrong. Thanks for playing.

The 6% unemployment rate refers to people who are actively seeking work but haven't found it. That is a small percentage of the total number of adults.

Too bad

[Corpuscavernosa]

It's too bad that one of the jobs lost wasn't Uwe Boll's. I'm just sayin'.

Quickly!

[tgd]

We need a content producer bailout!!!

Progress

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, don't manufacture anything, litigate instead. Sure, that will get you out of a recession!

"...it doesn't cite where that number comes from."

[Snarfangel]

Easy. It comes from the set of real numbers.

Re:The real costs

[n0dna]

YOU could turn on a radio or stream a station.

YOU also have a choice, but please, continue to justify it for us.

Steal it if you want to, don't steal it if you don't want to, but please don't expect us to believe that you're being forced to download music at gunpoint.

Source of the number

[192939495969798999]

That 750,000 jobs number comes a very reliable source, the bird. Haven't you heard, about the bird?

Re:The real costs

[YrWrstNtmr]

I have to have a phone thats 40$ a month

No you don't. My cell costs less than 1/2 that.

I get internet cause im stuck in the house ...thats another 40$

Instead of being 'stuck in the house', a second job, or school to get a better job, might be in order. And NetZero is only $9.95/month..:)
Don't use your apparent insolvency to justify why you think you are entitled to music for free.

YOU at least have a choice.

So do you.

Inefficency

[Wildclaw]

claiming that 750,000 American jobs have been lost to piracy

Overexaggerated number for sure, but jobs may very well have been lost because of piracy. But, so what? Let me formulate the matters in another light.

750,000 American jobs would have been wasted if piracy hadn't existed to combat the inherent inefficencies in the copyright and IP systems.

Jobs are good if they actually produce something useful to society. Otherwise they are just a big waste, and do little more than shuffle resources around because the current system don't have a better way to allocate it.

Even if more actual intellectual property were produced with stronger IP laws, it still isn't sure that it would be a better idea. The real value of IP isn't how much is produced, but how much is produced times how well spread it is among the population. Also, that total value has to be balanced against the cost of producing it.

Say that 700,000 more jobs would be created. That is a multi billion cost. And what would be the gain. More tv? More music? More movies? It isn't like there is a lack of choice right now.

Re:Inefficency

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not the same old complaint. He is just making a case that piracy may be good for the economy, by allowing consumers to spend their money on more beneficial markets.

It makes perfect sense, and the only argument against it is the sense of entitlement for your own creative works. Make no mistake, that sense of entitlement is unnatural, and is only tenuously supported by copyright as granted by the constitution.

It certainly isn't outlined as an unalienable right. And more to the point, the right for profit isn't either.

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:"...it doesn't cite where that number comes fro

[Qzukk]

It comes from the set of real numbers.

Funny, I could have sworn it looked imaginary.

Yes, great

[Nimey]

because America needs another powerful, unaccountable functionary in the government.

Suppose, instead, that Congress does its job and shits out a decent copyright law.

Re:Yes, great

[oldhack]

Hey, our economy is hollowing out, and Hollywood is one of the few things left now that still "produce" things others would buy. But then, our copyright laws can't do squat to piracy in other countries. Genius.

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.

Re:Incitement Czar

[Doc Ruby]

I wasn't grammatically clear. The Czarist regime drove the Russians nuts, so nuts that the Russians went Communist, which nearly got us all mutually killed. That had everything to do with the Cold War, which the bloody demise of the Czars, replaced by "Communist" bureaucratic monarchs, inexorably produced.

Japanese Anime Translation

[Khisanth Magus]

Although it is more in the thousands, possibly as high as ten thousand, it is true that there has been a significant amount of job loss due to piracy in the companies that bring japanese anime over to the US. I've talked with voice actors as well as people who run those companies, and piracy really has hurt them. Some companies are closing up shop, others are just having to severely cut back to make ends meet. This was never a large profit business in the first place, and with people downloading it so much as opposed to buying the DVDs they can't manage to squeak by.

The irony of this is that the "copyright czar" would probably just ignore this as the MPAA and RIAA aren't involved. Not that I'm advocating law suits against people who do pirate it, as I think that is way over the top, just pointing out that people HAVE lost their jobs due to piracy.

Re:Japanese Anime Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

The anime industry in the US might not exist at all were it not for people who were violating copyright and giving away fan subtitled work -- when I first saw anime ('93) it was all fansubs.

More recently -- I've purchased anime and manga which I wouldn't have know about were it not for people violating copyright laws: specifically because the friends who introduced me showed me fansubs. I'll grant that absent pirating, some of them might have purchased the shows ... but most wouldn't, the initial price tag is too high. (Once you know you like a series, it's easier to justify spending $15-30/disk.)

Ah well. Time to write my congresscritters.

Re:Japanese Anime Translation

[Wildclaw]

Well, when you have people who are willing to translate (a.k.a. fansub) for free, and most people (atleast those who watch lots of anime) seems to prefer original japanese voice, then it isn't that strange that it is a tough market.

Of course, at the same time you have people selling bottled water that basically is no different than the water you can get directly from the tap. So it isn't that easy to predict where there is a market.

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:I have a question:

[wcrowe]

Not sure if you're being serious or not, but the Russian "Tsar" has historically been tranliterated into English as Czar or Tsar. For a long time one might have found it spelled either way, but since "Czar" started being used to describe a high government official, e.g., "Drug Czar" the CZ spelling has tended to be applied to that use, while the TS spelling has now nearly always come to be applied to the rulers of the Russian Empire. The OED comments thusly: The spelling with cz- is against the usage of all Slavonic languages; the word was so spelt by Herberstein, Rerum Moscovit. Commentarii 1549, the chief early source of knowledge as to Russia in Western Europe, whence it passed into the Western Languages generally; in some of these it is now old-fashioned; the usual Ger. form is now zar; French adopted tsar during the 19th c. This also became frequent in English towards the end of that century, having been adopted by the Times newspaper as the most suitable English spelling.

why does a free market economy need commie czars?

[Russ Nelson]

Why does a free market economy need czars? Aren't they an invention of the same country that adopted communist central planning to such poor effect?

Actually...

[SerfsUp]

Great idea. I nominate Lawrence Lessig!

Re:The real costs

[zippthorne]

He might be stuck in the house because of some disability y'know.

Note: "Too fat to walk" although it appears to be enough to get yourself a "free" scooter at the expense of the SSA, is not a particularly sympathy inducing 'disability'.

Re:"...it doesn't cite where that number comes fro

[zippthorne]

Good point. Now, the question is, is it rational?

Re:The real costs

[mcgrew]

YOU could turn on a radio

And sample it. Three or four hours of top-40 radio will have all the hits on your hard drive. Piracy? It's label-sanctioned piracy!

Steal it if you want to, don't steal it if you don't want to

Stealing: You walk into Best Buy or Walmart, stick a CD under your coat, and walk out.

Copyright infringement: Uploading your CD collection as MP3s on Kazaa. Or downloading with Morpheus and letting the downloads go into your "share" folder.

Stealing: misdemeanor retail theift, small fine.

Copyright infringement: Civil suit with a huge payment.

Downloading without sharing; sampling the radio, downloading or buying indie music: PRICELESS as it helps drive the copyright cartel out of business. I, for one, wish to see Sony and the other three evil mainstream labels GO UNDER. They are hindering the creation of art, hampering the independant artists who aren't in it for the dough.

They are, in my opinion, EVIL and should die horribly.

YMMV. HAND.

how about a Frivolous Lobbying Czar

[Dan667]

He can start by suing Sony, EMI, Warner Brothers, and Universal (the RIAA) for the unnecessary burden to the tax payers of them trying to make their businesses a government problem.

true in some sense

[Trepidity]

Sure, you could say that the lender and lendee are each about half responsible. But the difference is that the lender is supposed to have known better: their job is finance. By contrast, the average homeowner has no financial expertise.

Thus two sides mutually entered a stupid contract, but one of the sides was actually staffed by full-time professionals whose supposed expertise lay precisely in evaluating contracts for non-stupidity.

Re:true in some sense

[maxume]

Sure. I'm all for low quality loans requiring a statement from the loan granter that they reviewed the payments (the whole schedule) on the loan with the customer, over various scenarios, with legal consequences (revoke their license, fines, etc.) if they mislead the customer.

The lack of transparency and diligence certainly went well beyond the mortgage brokers, on to the ratings agencies, insurers, securities originators and securities purchasers. This goes to my point about Goldman Sachs; I'm not sure if they originated a bunch of garbage filled MBSs (this would make them bastards), but I'm pretty sure that they weren't holding a bunch of them (this makes them diligent).

made up statistics

[weiserfireman]

For there to have been 750,000 lost jobs, wouldn't you have to prove that these people have been employed in the industry first?

Can they show that businesses decided to leave Copyright protected industries because of piracy?

Or are they trying to show a decrease in production of Copyrighted materials because of production?

Maybe they are trying to say that Piracy accounted for $XX lost sales and the money from those sales could have employed as many as 750,000 other people.

It is probably the latter, but it is made up statistics anyway. To prove the lost sales, you have to prove that people who acquired the material through piracy would have paid the higher price to acquire the material if piracy didn't exist. My hypothesis is that a significant number of them would never have bought the item, they would have done without, or acquired a competitive at a lower cost.

Stupid statisticians

Re:The real costs

[vux984]

No you don't. My cell costs less than 1/2 that.

Mine costs triple that. I couldn't bring it down to save my life. If I had your deal at ~$20/mo I'd end up paying hundreds a month in airtime. If he says he HAS to have a phone at $40/month, why not take him at his word. Maybe if he shaves $20 bucks of his plan, it will cost him hundreds. Sure he could talk less, but that might mean not talking to clients, again costing him hundreds...

Instead of being 'stuck in the house', a second job, or school to get a better job, might be in order. And NetZero is only $9.95/month..:)

1) Going to school costs money, and likely conflicts with work.
2) Getting a 2nd job likely conflicts with his first job, and usually results in massive stress. Lots of people CAN'T just get a 2nd job. If you work a mc-job or mall-job for example, where they seemingly schedule staff blindfolded with a dart board, you can't possible hope to find a compatible 2nd job, and if you limit your availability at one job to give your self some gaurantee for the other one, they more often than not retaliate by dropping you down to 1 shift every two weeks... meaning you now have no job.

Getting a 2nd job for a lot of people usually means finding a 1st job that has static reliable hours first, before they can even think about getting a 2nd job. And who knows, maybe he's looking for a new, better, first job, that's as good as his current job but with better hours. It doesn't happen overnight.

And Netzero? Please.

Don't use your apparent insolvency to justify why you think you are entitled to music for free.

He's not saying he's entitled. He's saying he's not costing the industry anything, because if he couldn't download the songs for free its not like he would buy them. He's saying, rightly, that "losses" due to copyright infringement are inherently false because the majority of the billions of dollars of "lost revenue" don't exist. For a lot of people, including him: if they couldn't consume for free they wouldn't consume at all.

Re:The real costs

[YrWrstNtmr]

The dude says has has $20/week for food/transport/clothes, etc. Whatever he's doing, he's doing it wrong.

Oh, and that $20 (actually ~$18) cellphone rate? Thats total. monthly + airtime. What's the trick? PAYG, and don't live on the damn phone.

"it's not MY fault, it's the fault of people with good jobs". Please...waa waa waa.

McCain and Obama both voted for Senator Leahy's "P

[JCWDenton]

http://www.stallman.org/archives/2008-jul-oct.html#01%20October%202008%20(McCain%20and%20Obama%20vote%20PRO-IP)

McCain and Obama both voted for Senator Leahy's "PRO-IP" bill, which calls for seizing people's computers for sharing.
Don't vote for them!

http://www.defectivebydesign.org/stop-revised-riaa-ip-enforcement-bill-s3325

It still has new and extremely broad provisions for seizing property like computers and servers. Such powers are notoriously abused to go on fishing expeditions, and since servers are often shared, people who are not even the targets of investigation will be hurt in the process.

750k Jobs Lost

[nurb432]

Sure, its a lie, but since when did the facts ever get in the way of congress trying to pass laws?

Re:why does a free market economy need commie czar

[Hatta]

Who said anything about a free market economy?

8%...?

[maharvey]

By my estimate, 750,000 is 8% of the unemployment total. So one out in twelve people at the unemployment office lost their jobs to piracy?

And which year are we talking about? Presumably this didn't just start this year. In 2007 750,000 would be 12.5%, or one person in 8.

Re:The real costs

[kocsonya]

When you talk about the subsidizing of leeches, I take you mean the **AA?

I mean, they are not operating on a free market, are they? They have a government granted monopoly to charge money for 100-150 years for the same thing over and over again. Do *you* have the right to charge for your singular production output for an infinite number of times?

What's more, the **AA do not create anything. They are the middlemen, or rather, middle-organisations for they are not natural persons. Yet, they keep enjoying the government granted benefits long after the actual human being creators of the things they control are dead.

Note, I do *not* download books, movies or music. I can afford to buy what I want and I have a really large collection of books, CDs and DVDs. Yet, I have no problem with pirated material at all when for example the publisher decides that they do not offer the material any more or in the format I want it (film X is only available on VHS for $60 - a pirated, reasonably good quality copy on DVD+R from eBay at $12 is the way to go, although I would have paid $30 for the real DVD, had it been available).

Piracy is, to a large extent, an indications that the market has been distorted significantly. Often the pay-per-view proponents come up with the analogy of a concert or a theatre, you have to pay every time you want to see the performance. True. However, the artist *has to perform* every time as well. What the entertainment industry wants is to perform once and be paid for eternity. Preferably without paying the artist at all...

Why should a kid, who was born decades after Walt Disney went fertiliser, pay royalty to a corporation when he buys a keyring with a mouse on it? In what way does it advance the arts and culture of humanity?