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Media Industry Wants Mandated Spyware and More
An anonymous reader writes "The joint comment filed by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) requests anti-infringement software on all home computers, pervasive copyright filtering, border searches, forced US intellectual property policies on foreign nations and a joint departmental agency to combat infringement during major releases." The MPAA would also like to have its rent paid a bit by Congress, with a ban on what seems to me like a useful tool (for those in as well as outside the film industry), the recently-discussed futures market for box-office receipts.
People in hell want ice water, too.
Well, fat chance. The government is not going to mandate big media sponsored spyware on everyone's computers. It would conflict with the DoJ & NSA software already installed ;-)
When are these bastards going to be prosecuted for racketeering?
When are people going to finally be fed up with being treated like criminals for the sake of a greedy cartel of Suits that have no morals to speak of?
When are people going to finally wise up and put these assholes in their place?
Yeah...I know. I'm delusional because they hold almost all the cards and have the gooberment in their pockets.
"Bah!" - Dogbert
Simple, they bought it.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
1. Propose something to Congress so wacked out it would never ever pass
2. "Negotiate" it down to "semi-reasonable"
3. Pass legislation, GOTO 1
They won't get what they want this time, but something bad will still likely get whittled out from this.
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
Pretty much the same as:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/10/04/15/1559208/Entertainment-Industrys-Dystopia-of-the-Future
RIAA, MPAA - why don't you just sell your product for a reasonable price so that more people will buy it? Make it easily downloadable and hassle-free (standard formats with no DRM).
Wouldn't that be easier than the technical and legislative shenanigans you seem so enamored of??
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
I'm really torn about this one. The movie industry hates it, but the finance industry likes it; which one is more evil?
Well, if this happens, people who never before even considered running Linux will start installing it en masse on their PCs or Macs. People who never before would have made the effort to learn how to install it will become quite proficient at doing so.
I'm guessing nobody will bother writing such software for Linux. Even then, how do you ensure it's installed with every single distro? What are they going to do? Ban Linux? They'd have to either shut down or block every single site that offers a Linux ISO.
One way or another, this isn't going to fly.
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Actually, it sounds like a great idea. No wait, here me out:
People who want peace of mind to not be sued for something they're not sure they did or not could install and run it on their system since they aren't going to actively download infringing content anyways.
The rest of us, will simply download a cracked version of this watchdog software which, when it runs, never finds anything. Hence, "the pirates" enjoy the same protection from the xxAA that the ignorant get.
"But your honor, my client downloaded and ran the program provided by the prosecution and it never found any infringing content. Clearly any content found on my client's hard drive is legal or it would have been automatically deleted."
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
Correct. Corporations aren't human. But somebody thought it would be a great idea to give them the same rights as individuals.
The teachers will crack any minute, purple monkey dishwasher.
Of course, if they want spyware on every computer, then you can no longer have control of your computer. Software development will have to be heavily regulated.
RMS saw it coming over a decade ago; go read his little parable The Right to Read , if you don't know it already.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Surely this is one of those evil, nasty derivatives that will soon be banned by financial regulation anyway. After all, everyone knows that speculators and derivatives caused the recession, right?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Just wait, they'll 'compromise' on a 'reasonable' solution that's probably better than they wanted in the first place.
Should these asinine ideas come closer to fruition I would urge the union of which I am a member: IATSE Local 700 Motion Picture Editors Guild to go on strike and encourage other IATSE unions to do the same. The ideas being proposed can and will harm our industry and our livelihood by creating distrust and distaste of the media in the general public. It is unacceptable to treat our customers as criminals.
If entertainment industry workers took a stand for the country as a whole then public opinion would be on our side. The producers would have to take us seriously.
Who remembers stoppoliceware.org ? (don't bother clicking - the site has been abandoned, and it's for sale now)
Word was, some years ago, that "Da gubbermint wants to install spyware on your computer to track what you do, and it will report if you have any pirated software, among other things"
Stoppoliceware was one part of a multipronged attack on that idea, and those politicians who were considering it seemed to have abandoned their idea. So, the site was neglected, and finally ceased to exist.
We see that whole thing coming back, around the world today. RIAA and their ilk are looking for antipiracy, but da gubbermint is willing to go along with that program, so that they can install monitoring software of their own.
Unless, of course, there is enough of an outcry against the concept. Australia and New Zealand have been pretty effective in blocking this kind of crap - but I have little faith in the US. So precious few people have the least clue regarding the issues, and those who have a clue often buy into the "Think of the children" nonsense.
Thank God (and Torvalds) for Linux. There won't be any spyware on my machine. The bastards can spy from my internet gateway, but that's as close as they get, unless they come in with a warrant. At that point, I'll most certainly be joining the revolution!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Makes me think of the movie Brazil... in the xxAA future you'll go to jail or not based on a boolean return value.
Of a closed source program.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
Sometimes the position of the pirate party looks more and more sensible.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Exactly how is this proverbial scanning software supposed to tell the difference between an illegal file and a legitimate one? Based on file name? Based on hash? Easily defeated and ineffective. The only way to truly tell if a file is infringing is to have a Turing complete artificial intelligence to watch it, listen to it, read it, or play it. Nothing short will do. Since websites hosting questionable content are having such difficulty separating out the files when forced to we can only conclude that Turing quality AI is not available yet. So, although the design specs call for a magic wand none are available.
Shh.
I think they can "want" in one hand and sh*t in the other hand and see which hand fills up first.
How about what I want for a change?
I "want" everyone involved with the *IAA to be gelded so their genetics are not passed on to further generations.
I "want" constant IRS scrutiny of all their books.
I "want" constant webcam surveillance of every room in their houses, their cars, their offices and GPS bitch collars so their whereabouts can always be known.
I "want" those who would invade my privacy to have their skin peeled off and used for lampshades in my house.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Instead of just not paying for it, don't watch it at all. Or don't listen to it.
If you don't like their tactics, do not provide them with an avenue to distribute their products.
I call prior art.
Seriously, this is all to be done in the name of protecting movies? Not nuclear secrets or D-Day invasion plans, but movies? I don't want whatever it is they've been smoking, as it's clearly too powerful and causes grandiose impairment of one's general reasoning abilities.
Puh-lease. They're acting like guarding the earning potential of Waterworld should rank right up there with National Security secrets.
It's the American way to pay shittons of cash for the laws you want.
Keep your eyes to the sky.
WHAT ARE THEY SMOKING?
Better dope than most of us can afford.
There was a guy in another article who stated that he believes that piracy is as much of an enemy to open source as it is to proprietary software companies. His theory was that Adobe for example turns a blind eye to college kids pirating Photoshop so they will be hooked and pay for it later when they work for or start their own business. Also, Microsoft would rather you pirate Windows and keep the mind-share as he called it instead of downloading Linux. I agree, and hope this idea backfires, similarly to Apple backtracking on the political cartoonist and Opera browser.
Imagine, everyone (average Joes) starts to see just how invasive these snobs are and say, NO we don't want your spyware watching me (I like porn, or whatever, I just want a little privacy and not to wonder if my webcam is on while I get dressed), I don't want to be searched at the border for a DVD that (I feel) looks clearly legit. I want to be able to freely trade and invest in movie futures and just because you don't like it, tough titty. I do it with everything else that involves money. One day, perhaps they will cross that line. All it takes is the media seeing green and watching everyone else make money and they will fall like dominoes not wanting to miss the story.
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
Unfortunately this is MORE LIKELY to happen than not. The Vice President is fully influencing the President on this matter and it's not in a way we like. Joe Biden's pro RIAA history will almost guarantee it.
As Senator, Senator Biden had sponsored five pro-copyright bills and co-sponsored three. Among these bills includes the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2004, of which the similar yet brutal 2005 edition became law. Another was the Perform Act of 2006, which intended to restrict the recording and playing back songs off satellite and internet radio (this died in committee).
As Jeff Raikes (Microsoft buisness group president) said on the subject of piracy:
If you're going to be a software counterfeiter, then please copy and illegally use Microsoft products.
It's not just open source that suffers, it's smaller competitors. In the '90s, MS Office was probably the best office suite around, but there were lots of ones that were good enough for most people and cost a tenth of the amount. Given the choice between MS Office for $200 and SmallCo Office for $20, it was a trivial decision; MS Office was not worth $200 to a typical home user, or even a lot of small businesses. If you're pirating though, it's a choice between MS Office for $0 and SmallCo Office for $0. You pick MS Office, because it has more features.
The product that you're pirating comes from MS, but the company that lost a sale is SmallCo. This seems to be something that the RIAA and friends miss when they equate one download to one lost sale. Even if the person would have bought if they couldn't pirate, they often would not have bought the same thing that they downloaded.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I'm afraid that they'll insist this software runs on the TCM only, and that every personal computer has a properly operational TCM. Then if you've cracked your TCM, you'll be in much bigger trouble.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Or we could just leave any nation stupid enough to pass laws like that.
It's not like those countries need us for taxes or anything, right? I mean, they have all those rich people. Rich people have to pay the greatest share of the taxes anyway, right? Right? Because that's the only sane way to do it. So all the decent human beings who are tired of being treated like they are somehow lower class leaving shouldn't have any effect at all. And since those rich people have so much money, I'm sure they can just pay people in other nations to do all the work anyway without those workers living under the stupid laws they don't accept but never had agency to change.
Seriously, now.
I've said this before. RIAA == ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY. E-N-T-E-R-T-A-I-N. You do not have the authority as an entertainment organization to fuck up millions of peoples lives. The government is tasked with law enforcement, military defense, et al, and they STILL don't have the authority to be tyrannical dickheads. They try, lord do they try sometimes, and hell, sometimes they manage, but they do not have the authority.
xxAA should not be thinking they've found a loophole in that system. If they are thinking they have a loophole, they should be shot, along with anyone in the government who is enabling them to do so.
Charging extra for "digital download" for content I have already purchased a license for
Cable Companies that set the CCI bytes such that TV shows can't be transferred from one DVR to another
MPAA/RIAA/friends suing their consumers instead of getting with the program and adopting the new world that they find themselves in
Take away features with a software update
da w00t. mtfnpy?
Even Darth Vader was screwed over by shady movie industry tactics. http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/694518/darth-vader-actor--david-prowse-asks-wheres-my-money.html
It's disgusting they can claim Star Wars never made a profit.
I don't think you read my posting carefully enough, but since you ask why I used the analogy of theft in my comment, I'll answer.
The entertainment industry is free riding on an agreement (copyright) designed to encourage literature and quality writing. They are allowed to restrict other's freedom of speech in return for (supposedly) increasing the amount of speech. However, not only are they turning in completely vapid useless and sometimes even damaging speech; now they are actively trying to interfere with all sorts of other free speech.
At the point where they start to knowingly interfere with free speech (by encouraging censorware) and deliberately failing to keep up their own end of the bargain (by ensuring that their copyright products will not be available after the term of copyright) anything more that they try to take is theft. They have broken their contract with society and lost the right to any of the royalties which they take. I used an analogy to theft deliberately and with meaning.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
I have altered the deal. Pray I don't alter it further.
Sewage Treatment Facilities - "Our duty is clear."
I used to have an emusic.com subscription. They were DRM free before it was cool, and had a catalog consisting of mostly independent labels. The songs cost a fraction of what you would have found on iTunes at the time, and you didn't have to worry about what computers or devices you could put them on.
Clearly, I wanted to pay for a good service, and I did. As a result I found dozens and dozens of artists I would have never found otherwise because they are small-time. I could have spent more money on artists signed to big labels and been sold a restrictive product, but I spent less for more instead.
Had I pirated, I would have probably just found the same crappy recycled stuff that everyone else thought I should listen to. The software analogy shared by TheRaven holds true.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
The same held true for me with Magnatune. They aren't just "whatever you want to throw in" and do filter for quality, but license under CC-BY-SA-NC. And despite the fact that it's entirely legal to share it (so long as you don't do so commercially, anyway), they've been around for several years now, and put out some very good music where the artists actually get paid a significant share.
I've also run across the independent band Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, and quite like them. They do amazing live shows (and most of the time you can sit down and have a beer with the band afterward), and I've been to several. They highly encourage fans to share their stuff-if my sister hadn't sent me a copy of Americano, I'd probably have never heard of them. That sharing sure didn't hurt them a bit.
Filesharing is in no way bad for the artist. Now the media cartels, those are horrible for the artist-and distribution channels existing outside their control is in turn disastrous for the cartels. The "artists", aside from a few very big names, get very little to nothing out of record/box office/etc. sales, and then the cartels deliberately fudge the numbers to avoid paying even that small amount.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
TPM is the correct term. The TPM is what "trusted" computing is built on. And it's not a bad thing: like any tool, it's moral value lies in how it's used. For the TPM, whoever owns the keys owns the computer. If you have the keys, all is good; if the vendor does you're just sort of leasing the right to use the computer in approved ways. Which, again, is fine if you know that's what you're getting and you like it (e.g., XBox360).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.