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The RIAA's Rocky Road Ahead
The RIAA's new plan to enlist ISPs in its war on file sharing, once it announced it was calling a halt to new consumer lawsuits, is running into rough sledding. Wired reports on the continuing legal murkiness of the RIAA's interpretation of copyright law. And one small ISP in Louisiana asks the recording organization, "You want me to police your intellectual property? What's your billing address?"
"What's your billing address?"
That's not exactly an unequivocal rejection.
Where would all you music sharers be if the RIAA responds with a valid billing address? It is just a matter of money before those ISPs start cooperating.
What is the legality of this? RIAA tells them that they represent Metallica and I have a rar file called metalica. This would mean that the provider opens my rar file and looks into it. They should not be allowed to do so. Privacy and such, you know.
In Belgium what happens is that a letter is send to the provider that user X with IP Y at time Z was downloading a file that they believe to contain copyrighted material. The provider then could do several things. Basicaly 1) forward the letter or 2) ignore it.
No information could go to the local RIAA. This is called privacy. So the only thing they could do was try to sue. However the courts said that they would not follow up unless people where making money out of it.
So copying songs and selling them: burn in hell.
Downloading them and sharing with friends or strangers: nothing happens.
The fact that I have 60 petabyte of songs downloaded does not mean they lost money. I stopped buying long before the internet made it possible to download. I shared music with friends on casette. Hey, that is a good casette, can you make me a copy? How did you get it?
Well, I got copies from friends and using my dual-cassette player copied the different numbers so I had my own music, minus the crap.
When I think since when this has been going on, I am getting old.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Obligatory Take Down Notice:
Dear sir or madame;
You are currently infringing upon a protected named asset; "Rocky Road" ice cream. You are hereby notified to remove any and all uses of a known name, links to it and all other references.
You may, however, re-title the article: "The RIAA's Moose Tracks Ahead" since that name is not copyrighted.
why does the RIAA have to pay this ISP? Part of the value that the ISP provides to customers is the ability to pirate music. Therefore, the ISP should be paying for this.
And the ISP should send the RIAA a pony.
And a cute little puppy.
Whups, sorry about that. I channeled the RIAA there for a second.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
I can't believe sueing people like the RIAA does is a viable business model. The costs must outweigh the benefits by far. Even if the RIAA manages to win a case against a poor grandmother who has never heard of P2P and the like, she won't be able to pay the fine because the costs of defending herself have bankrupted her for good. I have a very hard time understanding the people who work for the RIAA and sue people for a living.
-- Cheers!
This small ISP is a perfect example of why the RIAA's new scheme for free money music protection simply won't work. Content filtering, detection and litigation on the ISP's part costs money and takes time. ISP's aren't NPO's, they don't do charity work.
The fact that our governments endorse and even found extortion companies tells a lot about the roguishness of these governments. It is time to pass the ball back and extort and rat out these politicians.
. . . it looks to me like they are ramping up to sue ISPs. They are probably lobbying right now to get laws requiring ISP enforcement.
There is more money to squeeze out of them, compared to grandma.
Viable business model? More like a dieing business model. I would prefer to see a music industry in the future, that is comprised of artists and consumers, where the artists are payed fair prices for their work.
And no big record labels.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
The equipment and software to do filtering properly (up to layer seven) can cost a lot of money. Most ISP's don't already have this stuff unlike corp or edu environments which may already have this gear to protect their internal networks.
This whole story bores the crap out of me... It's been going on pretty much since the mp3 was invented. I remember it being an issue back when the original mp3.com was founded in the 90's. The RIAA cant ever stop people recording or distributing sound. Maybe they have some influence in the US, but there are billions of people on the web who don't live in the US and will continue to copy and share music/videos. I've heard that there are chinese p2p programs like ppstream that allow you to watch hundresds of recent movies on demand and there's nothing the Americans can do about it.
Seems to me that the RIAA doesn't need every ISP to join it in this fight anyway. As long as the RIAA can get some of the big ISPs involved, they might be able to get people to cut-down their downloading.
Anyway, I don't really understand what slashdoters want the RIAA to do exactly (well, other than curl up and die). It seems to me that the recording industry has hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. I think it's fairly obvious that a group watching it's life-blood sucked away by illegal downloading is going to get over-zealous in this fight. It seems like a very "damned if you do, damned if you don't" kind of a situation for them.
It could be the RIAA is getting ready to sue the providers who will in turn sue its customers to recover costs. Essentially outsourcing the individual lawsuits and focusing on those companies who might just have the cash to pay up when they lose.
I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of how awesome I am.
If the RIAA (or whomever) gives a report of illegal activity to an ISP but cannot prove it -- or better yet, it's demonstrably false -- could they be opening themselves up to a defamation lawsuit?
The RIAA's new strategy isn't perfect, but it's a helluva lot better than trying to sue their customers into lifelong financial ruin.
When it comes right down to it, you're not supposed to share their music, and the content industry is well within their rights to tell you to stop if they see you doing it. And if ISPs agree to block you for repeat offenses, then you're pretty much out of luck if you don't heed those warnings.
There are two things still shady about this plan, though, and both have to do with reducing the RIAA's liability. One has to do with MediaSentry not being licensed as a private investigator. It's possible that the new plan will prevent them from having to get a license in each state where they operate or investigate. Most likely, MediaSentry will never get taken to task for their alleged illegal actions in most states, even though their activities won't change.
And two, the RIAA lawsuits have had a lot of missed targets, each carrying the possibility of backfiring in a big way. The RIAA reduces this liability once they're sending nastygrams to ISPs instead. Under the new plan, they can pretty much send letters complaining about Intartubes users at random, and they never have to worry about countersuits or heinously large legal expenses. Of course, this also means that there's little avenue for protest - if your ISP cuts you off, how are you going to convince them of your innocence (aside from paying a jacked-up reconnection fee, of course)?
Honestly, the only thing that got me buying music again (after about 10 years of not buying more than a single mp3 here and there) was not only finding music that I really, really liked but also artists who I respected. When the music isn't disposable, in terms of quality and my investment in the artists, I found myself wanting to pay for it. And in some rare cases, pay for it more than once: ie a physical as well as digital copy. The only reason I would download an album via torrent/download site now is if I couldn't preview the whole thing on the artist's website. The 30 second previews on iTunes/Amazon just is not sufficient to make a buying decision. Giving me the ability to preview an album, more than once, in a way that is not too difficult (no installing anything more than say flash in my browser) for me to use and I'm more prone to give the music a chance, care about the music and (if it appeals to me) buy it.
The artists/bands I'm most willing to spend my spare money on are the ones that are able to interact with fans on a somewhat personal level: twitter, blogs, youtube videos, etc. I get to see them as real people and it increases my estimation of the value of their music. I spend money to go to their concerts, buy their merchandise and physical cds.
But the industry seems to be designed to work on quantity not quality. Corporate funded 'artists' like the Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus are part of a huge hype machine that is about being 'cool' rather than creating music that really makes an impression or impacts people emotionally. It's about getting as much crap sold to as many people as possible, not putting out the best you can put out there. And so, naturally, people will treat it like the disposable crap that it is. This week my niece OMGLOVES! the Jonas Brothers, next week it'll be some other corporate construct. And she'll never remember any of it past the following year.
http://transformativeworks.org/
Let's say ISPs begin to cooperate with RIAA. The first few to participate would lose all their users (atleast those that care enough to pirate in the first palce) to ISPs that don't police their data.
This leaves an ISP with an increasing percentage of income from the RIAA to police their (non-existent/non-offending) customers.
There's a point where either the ISP will stop cooperating, or the RIAA is paying them more than their users...
it's an indication of the emptiness one experiences 'living' for the next game to provide content to the emptiness. better days ahead.
What it always comes down to is that the RIAA never has any proof. When you buy a song, you get a right to use license, which means you have access to one copy of song/album xyz to listen to. But you could loose or have your copy stolen from you, that doesn't mean you lost the right to use license.
How can they prove that you never purchased what you downloaded? They can't!
Remember Eiffel 65? I had their CD, then I lost it, so I hit up WinMX (I think it was at the time), and downloaded it. What do you have to say about that RIAA? It is perfectly legal for me to download that CD because I'm not infringing on any copyrights.
They prey on weak poor families who can't defend them selves, often with "proof" that is questionable at best.
There will come a time when people like those who work at the RIAA will be healed accountable for what they do to the less fortunate people on this planet.
I remember somebody saying copyright law is okay, it's the abuse of the law that isn't okay.
How do we stamp out law abuse?
And what the hell does this mean? The RIAA is asking for action but says it does not know anything?
Nothing contained or omitted from this letter is, or shall be deemed to be either a full statement of the facts or applicable law, an admission of any fact, or waiver or limitation of any of the Zappa Family Trust's rights or remedies, all of which are specifically retained and reserved.
for the member companies of the RIAA? I think it's more productive for those passionate about this issue to examine the annual reports for the largest members of the RIAA, figure out what their financial point-of-no-return is, and come up with a plan to help them get there more quickly.
Kind of makes me think the world needs an anti-RIAA to coordinate those efforts.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Only if you listen to 1 song at a time.
the trick is play 500 songs at 4x speed...then you are done in in like 55 years
or if you will 4 songs at 500X speed.
Their position is that since the ISP is providing a communications channel, it is incumbent upon the ISP to ensure that there is no infringement of the RIAA's intelectual property over that communication channel.
If we draw this to it's logical conclusion, we see that this position means that any communication channel must be monitored for any activity that may be considered illegal, or that may infringe on someone's intellectual property. Since voice phone calls are communication channels as well, this position would require that every phone call be monitored in a similar fashion, as well as all print media, or any other communication channel that may be offered.
This is clearly against the first amendment, and if it comes to a court room, the RIAA will fare poorly.
I think that the RIAA is signaling that they have an all-new tortured-logic murky legal theory that they intend to roll out. The target of the new theory is likely ISPs. We can look forward to ISPs being hit with bogus litigation in order to force their co-operation. The big guys who already do traffic shaping and content filtering will click their heels, shout "sieg heil" and close up file sharing -- the ones that haven't already. A few smaller ISPs will band together and fight it, until they run out of money and go out of business.
...is right around the corner...
kulakovich
Chris Rock has a routine that bullets should cost $5000, because if a bullet cost $5000 there would be no death by random bullets.
Similarly, if RIAA and MPIAA has to pay a HUGE fee UPFRONT to remove a single user from an ISP, then they would target serious offenders, not just attempt to create an environment of fear.
I'm not unsympathetic with what RIAA and MPIAA claim they want to do, ensuring that artists get fair compensation for their work, what I find despicable are their actions and tactics and the fact that the artists get next to nothing (or actually nothing.)
http://superawesomebroadband.com/
Unlimited connections on static IPs. Secure VPN exits in Sweden and Switzerland. No download or upload limits. No content filtering. No port blocking. No packet shaping. No transparent web caches. No fair usage policy. No Phorm. No small print. No call centres. No lock in period. No cooperation with the RIAA / MPAA.
Super Awesome Broadband
It does not matter how many allies the RIAA has, they will never win a war with their customers.
As much as the RIAA wishes differently, attempted copyright infringement isn't actual copyright infringement, and isn't a crime under current copyright law. This new RIAA approach sidesteps that issue by sidestepping the courts entirely and convincing the ISPs that "Yes It Is, So Help Us Out!" While this is all blowhard garbage by the RIAA, they now have the Big Stick of your ISP to shut you down based on the RIAA wishlist of how they want the world to be.
And it will probably take a few big class action suit wins to knock this nonsense out of your ISP.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Did I mention Netflix?
Sure, you mentioned Netflix... but if I want to watch "live" movies from Netflix, I'm screwed 'cause of my hearing... It's the biggest reason I don't use 'em.
Got a better suggestion for legal online movie viewing for a deaf guy?
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
It is all free now. Period. No recourse.
Law enforcement? Ha. Nobody gives a damn. Civil suits? Sorry, but we're putting roadblocks in the way to ensure that anonymous users on the Internet STAY anonymous and cannot be sued.
Now the down side to this is pretty clear - if I use the Internet, I can get away with anything. Either the court doesn't understand the technology or there are regulations and customs in place to prevent any real prosecution. Sure, if I run to a cop and say "I did it! Aren't I kewl!" I will find myself in trouble. But if I can contain my glee I have nothing to fear.
But the RIAA isn't going to benefit from the "downside" to this. There isn't any rescue for them - if it is in digital form, then it can be shared. They get to sell one and only one copy so it better be priced right. From then on, it is a free-for-all with everyone with high-speed Internet downloading whatever they want. Don't have a broadband connection? Too bad, you aren't included in the new economy. I guess you still have to pay. Until you wise up or we have a tax payer supported Internet Utility so everyone gets stuff for free.
Recorded music has been forced into being an ad-supported loss-leader. Sure, there are some folks that will pay iTunes to aswage their guilt. Or the latest incarnation of AllOfMP3.com. Whatever. None of this makes for a "business" to the people producing the stuff, and the more people learn about BitTorrent and other P2P tools the less traffic iTunes will have. Guilt? Well, I'm sure the guilty will always be with us, just like the poor. I don't think it will be enough to keep them in business, but there will always be people that find a store to pay 10x as much as somewhere else. Why do these stores stay in business?
But no matter what, the idea of anyone paying for recorded music will be pretty much like the idea of paying for sex from 26-year-old crack whores. Some people do it, but nobody really understands why and everyone thinks it is disgusting.
I'd like a drink from that ppstream!
I'd like to sip from that ppstream!
Well, I don't know of any legal online movie viewing services that has CC included.
The totality for ALL copyright law is being extended by works done for hire for a single corporation (which NEVER dies, though it may go bankrupt.)
We need:
one law for people (14 years from publication[, which should be enough time according to assorted studies,]) and
one law for corporations (14 years since last use[, which should be enough to protect them too{, which means that we need not "fear Mickey Mouse"(, nor would "Mickey Mouse" have any reason to fear us.)}])
BUT works owned by corporations CANNOT be labeled as anything but as owned by the corporation.
That insures that the provenance is clear.
That insures that the ultimate destination for moneys paid is clear.
That insures that you know EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE PAYING FOR.
If you still want it, knock yourself out, but you should KNOW.
Then you'll know what you've got when you see RIGHT ON THE CD JACKET or ON THE INVOICE FOR THE DOWNLOAD (and tagged in the MP3)
""
song: ""
as performed by: ""
© ""
licensed for personal play ONLY
by: ""
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Welcome to the post of the minority opinionator, where your opinion matters. Unless it agrees with that of the majority. Then you are obviously being coopted and brainwashed. Only those who hold minority opinions can possibly have logic on their side. No, this isn't sore-loser whining: it's principle! Anyone who agrees with the majority obviously has no principles, since the only explanation for this common opinioin is that the holders of it are afraid of the majority. I am unafraid therefore I am right. Your Mileage Must Vary.
Original DOOM did not have mouselook, tho some of the later ports do (like ZDoom), as did Quake, IIRC.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
And it's a damn stupid idea. I like to target shoot. On a typical trip to the range I go through several hundred rounds of ammo. Under his idiotic plan, my hobby would cost me at least a million dollars. He wants to tax an innocent hobby so that only the very rich and elite chosen class can afford it.
His idea also assumes that criminals would follow the law and only buy their ammo from legitimate ammo suppliers. At $5000/bullet I don't think illegal immigrants would have a problem with a pocket of bullets when they sneak across the border.
-- Will program for bandwidth
This insanity requires ISP to pay the bill for the RIAA. As the RIAA has found out, you can't cut corners. That bill is extremely high. If the RIAA had to pay, they would run out of money.
The sickening part is that it is a STANDARD business model to lie to you shareholder about your business or its potential. That "Piracy made us loose XXX $ ..." is the perfect example: Their numbers never include their actual projected revenues with NO piracy.
A few variables that are conveniently "forgotten":
Publicity lost: Piracy is a form of publicity.
Non buyers: Those who will not buy regardless.
Cost of refunds: Yes, they have one of the only business where poor quality will not force massive refunds. The law protect them from that. Remove piracy and that protection is no longer justified.
Etc.
According to one friend of mine...
Having to pay off to individuals solely vested in one corporation means wiping out that one corporation wipes them all out in one fell swoop. (And the money that was there and now which is no longer there had to go ... somewhere, in the pockets of them there rich folks, right? [Well not quite since money is fungible {some to do with fungus, I think. (Created spontaneously from nothing. [Sorta like the trillions of US Federal Reserve notes {NOT a department of the US Gummint by the way.}])}])
Instead now the powers that be, in order to make us all miserable and scared and too distracted to "Pay Attention To What's Really Going On"©(TM)® and rising up to string up by their own intestines, had to take the entire economy off-line.
This was an improvement?!?!
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Here's the thing. Chris Rock is a comedian. He was making a joke. Just thought you'd want to know that.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.
If I want to watch "live" movies from Netflix, I'm screwed 'cause of my dialup. So I don't watch live movies from Netflix; I get them through the mail.
If the RIAA actually manages to convince ISPs to ban the 20% of their customers that use the internet the most, people will finally insist our government take control of the telecommunications infrastructure that we subsidized. This way ISPs who allow themselves to become RIAA puppets will just be competed out of the market by ISPs that provide a dumb pipe. This will solve the net neutrality debate.
Merry christmas to you, too, RIAA!
http://www.riaaradar.com/
I love looking on this site and finding that my favourite bands aren't RIAA funded.
Insanity: voting in the same two parties over and over again and expecting different results
If I want to watch "live" movies from Netflix, I'm screwed 'cause of my dialup.
Your dialup isn't bodily integrated, is it? With other media streamers able to send CC/subtitles, this is a glaring omission from NF's services... and a reason NOT to tout them as firmly as above.
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
The OP was touting Netflix as an alternative to purchasing or illegally downloading DVDs, neither of which gives you on-demand streaming. Just like those two options, however, Netflix via USPS gives you CC'd movies.
So part of the Netflix offerings are unusuable to you. A large number of their customers also are unable to "Watch Instantly" for varying reasons (I don't have the right OS or browser, myself). That doesn't stop those customers from finding Netflix worthwhile.
On all of these he takes the standard American-liberal position.
You have a good sense of humor, that was a very funny joke.
You bring up a good point. At $5000 a bullet, criminals will spend less time target practicing. They won't learn how to aim. We will have just replaced random bullet fatalities with poorly aimed bullet fatalities. Oh the humanity.
any isp that signs on to there extortion ill drop , should there be no isps left well YUP im leaving the net then aren't I.
ANd i still wont be buying there crap.
NO until then im going to pirate even harder and get TB drives to get all the tv and movies i ever wanted in response to this action.
Also note they have launched 12 suits against people last week so they are trying to tax you and sue you.
NICE
Merry Christmas i just got terabyte Hard drive!
I support the pro-downloading crowd, but I didn't know ripping groups went out of their way to provide access for the hearing impaired : /
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
If i'm making buggy whips, and I see this here new ford, i'm going to retool my factory to make leather interiors for the ford, or leather jackets, or something else which can be produced with minimal modification.
The record companies' main job is PR and marketing. A proper exec who thinks of the future might start treating artists as free agents and charge fees for marketing services, but that would involve giving up a huge racket.
Who needs that when you can use immense amounts of cash and heavy control over the news media to twist legislative arms and destroy civil liberties en masse?
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
The problem is the majority of gun deaths in the US are the result of impulse actions.
It would cut down on gun deaths and injuries quite a bit because fewer people would carry guns, and those who did would think twice before spending 5k, even if they're pissed.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
"What's your billing address?"
That's not exactly an unequivocal rejection.
read up on your politics.
The diaRIAA has been insisting to lawmakers that ISPs are intentionally uncooperative trying to get "3 strikes" laws shoved down their throats.
This sidesteps the issue in the same way the MAFIAA are trying to sidestep the courts. "pay us, just a modest fee of 10,000 per user"
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Downmix to mono, one song for each ear. Transpose some songs two octaves up, some two octaves down, play them at the same time too.
The 4x speed is merely a software limitation; VLC (1.0.0 nightly alphas) only plays sound (increased tempo, normal pitch) at 4x , no longer at 8x speed. Windows Media Player goes upto 16x. Though the quality of of WMPs time stretching is quite useless beyond 2x speeds.
Mirror's Edge and Dead Space have not sold well so far this year.
See what happens when they try to publish innovative titles (neither of them was developed in-house by EA)?
Gamers fail to reward them with the dollars. So EA will now cut 10% of its workforce, close some sites, and go back to making Madden 2010 and such (which did sell well this year).
As an employee of one of EA's largest competitors, let me say that its really a shame to see EA start doing something right with games like Mirror's Edge, and then see the market not reward them for their efforts.
I certainly bought two copies of Mirror's Edge (one as a christmas gift) and a copy of Dead Space for myself, so I've done my part. I wish everyone on Slashdot would do the same!
Imagine the RIAA pushed your ISP into suspending your account and a critical emergency arises! For example, an old lady suffering a heart attack tries to call 911 using Vonage, but the system responds with: "Sorry, your internet connection has been suspended due to a music copyright infringement". The lady dies!. Unknown to her, 13 yr old grandson johnny had a P2P file sharing program installed on her computer. Epitaph reads: "RIAA/ISP 1, little old lady 0". Bring it on RIAA/ISP... Solution: Provide a legit medium to acquire songs, such as Netflix does with videos, etc.,... Thanks.
I think the original report was merely propaganda. They haven't stopped bringing lawsuits, they don't have any deals in place with any ISP's, and what the heck does the NYS Attorney General have to do with this issue? Which New York law was he enforcing? And against whom?
"IP Watch" couldn't get any confirmation on any of this stuff.
It was just some kind of propaganda. Ask the lawyer in Greensboro, North Carolina, who has 15 cases to defend whether anything's changed.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
"I still don't see anyone giving any good reason why these monopolies should be granted for such ridiculous amounts of time."
I'm not going to bother arguing with you on that - there are very good arguments out there, from ensuring that the work has a champion to improve its chances of survival to giving creative artists a legacy to leave to their descendants, but you strike me as one of the people here who are too interested in reinforcing their own sense of entitlement to actually listen to anything that contradicts your beliefs.
If I'm wrong about that, and I hope I am, and you are actually wanting to become more informed about the issue, you will want to read this paper published in a peer-reviewed law journal: http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v36-issue1/martin-original1.pdf
(Ironically, he's writing more about the constitutional issues, but he still covers the arguments you're wanting to learn about quite well.)
"And why was Disney able to create its classics? Because those fairy tales weren't copyrighted, so Disney just did what they wanted with them, with no restrictions or payment needed. That doesn't hold true for practically anything created in the last 70 years or so."
You mean besides a large number of the works by Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft?
You're holding up basic math as the problem here. The term in the United States is now lifetime plus seventy years. Of course a lot of work will fall into that - but not all. Because of the way that copyright in the United States has lagged behind the rest of the world, the actual issue of what is in the public domain is far more complicated. Here is the actual chart that shows copyright terms:
http://www.copyright.cornell.edu/public_domain/
I am going to point out a couple of things. First of all, not all of the work in the last century in the United States receives a term of lifetime + 70 years. In fact, only those works created after 1978 receive that term. For that matter, anything published between 1978 and March 1, 1989 without copyright notice or registration is now in the public domain in the United States.
Additionally, the longest copyright term for anything published from 1923-1977 is, in fact, 95 years from date of publication, and that's only if the copyright was renewed - and according to footnote 8, as of 1961 less than 15% of total works were, and less than 7% of books were. So, far from the whole of culture in the United States from 1923 onwards being locked away behind copyright law, odds are that 85% of cultural works between 1923 and 1963 at the very least are in the public domain right now, and 93% of books published by American authors in that time are now public domain.
So, the idea that nothing has entered the public domain in the last 70 years because of copyright term extensions is blatantly wrong. For that matter, the Sonny Bono extension act stripped a number of works that had previously enjoyed perpetual copyright due to a form of common law of their copyright protection, and placed them in the public domain.
So, before you make any more claims about how culture is being locked away, or how nothing in the last 70 years is entering the public domain, you might really want to do some basic research and get your facts right.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive