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White House Holding Piracy Summit
DesScorp writes in to let us know about a White House piracy summit, which is going on this afternoon. Judging by the press accounts, the sort of intellectual property criminals they are interested in are large-scale DVD bootleggers, not individual downloaders. "Hollywood once again demonstrates its close ties to Washington DC, regardless of who is in power, with a White House summit on piracy to be attended by the top executives in Hollywood, as well as the music industry. Vice President Joe Biden will be leading the summit to discuss organized cooperation between the federal government and the entertainment industry on all matters of piracy. Also at the summit will be the Obama Administration's new Copyright Czar, Victoria Espinal. The summit comes after Congress has earmarked $30 million dollars of taxpayer funds for anti-piracy efforts." According to one attendee's tweet, the press was kicked out of the meeting around 20:45 GMT.
There's already online versions of music. You can buy tracks for $0.99 from Amazon with no DRM whatsoever. They come in a nearly universal (mp3) format that is easily converted to other formats and which can run on just about anything. For slightly more you can purchase the same product from the Apple Store. Yet people continue to pirate music in fairly significant numbers. Could it just be that free > pay?
Movies are trickier. Not aware of any online movie distribution systems that aren't laced with DRM or locked into a specific vendors product. But if the music example is telling it wouldn't matter if there were -- people would keep right on pirating them.
The industry did miss the boat with online distribution but I can't be the only one that thinks that excuse is wearing thin as a justification for piracy.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I think the parent is both insightful and informative. Mod+, Mod+!
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Because a dozen people post exactly what you posted any time they call it piracy and posts and hits are the selling points that Slashdot uses to sell ads. All you're doing is to help keep the practice going.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.