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RIAA/MPAA: the Greatest Threat To Tech Innovation
TAGmclaren writes "The Harvard Business Review is running an article stating that it's not India or China that are the greatest threat to technological innovation happening in America. Rather, it's the 'big content' players, particularly the movie and music industry. From the article: 'the Big Content players do not understand technology, and never have. Rather than see it as an opportunity to reach new audiences, technology has always been a threat to them. Example after example abounds of this attitude; whether it was the VCR which was "to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone" as famed movie industry lobbyist Jack Valenti put it at a congressional hearing, or MP3 technology, which they tried to sue out of existence.'"
The printing press was/is the greatest threat. That's where it all started. The first "Bertamax" case..
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
These corporations are not a threat to tech innovation: Voter apathy is the threat. In every country where intellectual property concepts have been strengthened by legal precident, it has done so because the issues are too complex for the average person to understand. They are uninformed, and unable to feel any sentiments towards what is happening one way or another. They may vaguely understand that it is wrong, but being unable to form a cohesive argument against it, they shrug and move on. It's intellectually dishonest to place the blame on a handful of individuals and corporations for this situation. If you really want to drill down to the root cause of this, it's our poor public education system and a lack of training on using critical thinking skills that has caused this, and many other, social ills. And that's true globally, not just in the United States. Wherever you cut back education and voter participation falls, corruption grows and corporations become more powerful.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
The **AA singlehandedly turned the net from a fun place to mashup stuff into a hush zone where soon if they get their way a misclick will send you to jail! Even the usual patent games don't hold a candle to that!
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I assumed this has been well known for a long time, at least among the /. crowd. Other examples I can think of off the top of my head.
1) Mobile Cassette player
2) CD-RW drives
3) iPods
4) Youtube
5) bittorrent
do you expect anything less from these people. They rather sue to support their dinosaur of a business model than inovate and keep the status quo.
Treating all IP in every industry the same way is flawed to begin with and the barrier to entry to stake a claim on an idea is way too easy.
The whole point of IP is to encourage innovation by providing incentive for the inventor. Today's IP laws are a flimsy shadow of that. Studios and IP troll companies collect the rewards and inventors are relegated to idea-generating grunts.
There is no inherent morality to ownership of an idea; it is something granted by the public to individual holders of IP for the benefit of the public. If at any time, said laws are detrimental to the public, it should be repealed.
Of course, that would require a government that isn't bought and paid for and a populace that's at least decently educated and informed.
consumers are obviously better off without mafiaa
it is my belief artists are better off without mafiaa. the evil communist business model in question is... the same business model as good ol' radio from the 1950s: give your content away for free. should we dig up senator mccarthy and tell him wolfman jack was endorsing a communist business model? make cash in related ways: gigs, ancillary revenues, advertising, endorsements, etc. on the internet, you are giving away your digital content for free, for free advertising, exposure. then you capitalize on that
of course, not all artists will take that route. that's fine. i think copyleft content will take off regardless as a valid zone of content that pays dividends for everyone who is not the beetles or the rolling stones. because really, with the mafiaa, unless you are the beatles or the rolling stones, some middleman is making cash, not the artist. they write the contracts in such a way you're screwed as an artist unless you have clout
so we just need to reach artists, and rather than confront IP laws directly, just route around them with a new generation with a new understanding: artists who want exposure more than anything else
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
No need to understand technology when in addition to having piles of money, you understand that buying law makers will keep your current system safe. This way you don't have to do anything different and you still make money.
Even as close as a few years back, I had the impression that Democrats somehow had the people interest in mind more than Republicans. I finally realized that both are the same. They simple represent different segments of industry which sometimes have competing views. One thing both can agree on, we are the enemy.
Off topic, I know but it still makes me sad. To think I wasted 6 years in the military to defend an ideal that doesn't exist anymore. You try to do something about it and everywhere you run into these stupid American hicks saying, if ya dont like'it git'out.
Well, you know what hick, I did get out. I have moved to Germany. Sure, I cannot have a gun without a really good reason, but at least I can laugh at you will all the people around here...even though it still breaks my heart to see what is happening to my old home.
1. It’s great to see this coming (finally) from a well-respected business source. The Lessigs, Doctorows and even Nissons of this world are potentially dismissed as impractical ideologues; not so Harvard Business.
2. The things that really makes me sad and angry is the continuing complicity of the US government in the RIAA & MPAA’s money-grabbing, price-fixing, collusive monopolistic ransom-holding of contemporary cultural output. From the anti-democratic secret ACTA treaty shenanigans to Joe Biden’s White House lunches with the Big Content and law enforcement, even Obama, by far the most technologically forward thinking president ever, has completely failed to comprehend the nature of the problem, despite excellent books on the subject, notably Lessig’s Free Culture.
I thought Obama would change this, because his election campaign was funded by crowd-sourcing and he railed against the “Special interests” in public debates.
It’s the public’s interests vs. those of a business elite with a powerful lobby. Guess where the Administration’s placing its support. Change we can believe in, indeed.
That is akin to the "what about the artists?" statement the industry always uses. What about the artists? They make most of their money from live performances since they don't have to pay the record industry to perform their songs live (usually). "Artists are paid royalties usually somewhere between 3% and 25% of the suggested retail price of the recording. Exactly where it falls depends on the clout of the artist (a brand new artist might receive less than a well-known artist). From this percentage, a 25% deduction for packaging is taken out (even though packaging rarely costs 25% of the total price of the CD)." The US Supreme Court recently refused to hear the Eminem/Universal case upon which the lower courts had ruled in Eminem's favor that he should receive 50% of revenue from downloaded songs versus the 3 to 5% he was receiving based on CD licensing agreements. That's a big deal and really does put money back in the artists pocket. If the record industry was really concerned about the poor artists they would not be fighting to keep their 95-97%. http://www.prefixmag.com/news/supreme-court-refuses-to-hear-eminemuniversal-case/50487/
Michael Geist, Canada's copyright law guru and law prof at the University of Ottawa, posted an interesting observation about the copyright fight a lot of these organizations like RIAA and MPAA engage. It's marketing failure, not bad behaviour that is the cause of piracy.
Meaning, it's RIAA and the MPAA failure to properly price their products at a reasonable level that makes the consumer believe that the purchase is reasonable. I mean, if a movie to buy was $1 or $2, would you purchase it or DL it? If a music CD was $3, not $20, would you own your own copy? Or if they offered monthly subscriptions, like the Netflix model, would you subscribe or pirate?
Not only are they missing the boat and stifling innovation, they're attacking and going after consumers who don't believe the purchase is worth the money and then lobby governments to put in CRAZY laws that illegally downloading a movie can cost you $250,000 + 5 years in jail if you're charged and found guilty. Yet get in your car drunk and kill a family of 5, spend 2-3 years in jail + $50,000 in legal fees.
Is it me, or does the who copyright debate sound complete like corporate sheit they've bought and paid for and then rammed down our throats?
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. - Peter F. Drucker
Why cant there be a property tax on it?
Nice try there. Copyright infringement isn't theft, never has been and hopefully never will be. You cannot steal a non-rivalrous good. Secondly, the reason why the *AA so loves the statutory damages is because it's impossible for them to prove that they've been harmed, consequently the conclusion that it's not a victimless crime is just as flawed as concluding that it is.
Big Oil is why you fight wars.
Big Insurance is why you can't have the health care you want.
List goes on.
In the end, it is that Big has too much sway in the political system. They pay little tax yet have a disproportionate amount of influence.
I still basically "support" Obama –whatever that means, being from the UK. How anyone even slightly left of Bill O'Reilly could favour the alternative, the Cavalcade of Crazy currently coming from the Republican side is beyond me.
Still, I don't agree with your assessment that "The President tried change, and was rewarded by the people by taking away his majority in the house." I just didn't see the evidence of him "trying change" –the secret ACTA negotiations and white house events for the MPAA (incl. presence of FBI brass) etc. were all going on way before the Dem majority was lost.
I do understand your point that generally there is a great deal of FUD (must not mention Fox News... dammit) that results in many people being grossly misinformed and therefore punishing politicians trying to act in their interest (cough health care cough socialism cough).
Please if you know of significant ways Obama tried to make government less beholden to "Special Interests" (as he promised), give us some info.
Just reduce copyright protection to 25 years.
That would violate international treaties. The Berne Convention requires at least life plus 50 years for unregistered works. Leaving Berne would require leaving the World Trade Organization, which would impact numerous industries that affect voters far more directly.