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Copyright Industry Calls For Broad Search Engine Controls
The copyright battles going on right now are not all about SOPA, PIPA, or even the wider-reaching ACTA: suraj.sun snips thus from TorrentFreak: "At a behind-closed-doors meeting facilitated by the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport, copyright holders have handed out a list of demands to Google, Bing and Yahoo. To curb the growing piracy problem, Hollywood and the major music labels want the search engines to de-list popular filesharing sites such as The Pirate Bay, and give higher ranking to authorized sites. ... If the copyright industry had their way, Google and other search engines would no longer link to sites such as The Pirate Bay and isoHunt. In a detailed proposal handed out during a meeting with Google, Yahoo and Bing, various copyright holders made their demands clear. The document, which describes a government-overlooked 'Voluntary Code of Practice' for search engines, was not intended for public consumption but the Open Rights Group obtained it through a Freedom of Information (FOI) request."
We should also all install mandatory software that makes sure we don't infringe copyrights.
For the children, of course.
Why the hell do these morons keep tabling impossible and/or extremely EXPENSIVE (compute-wise) proposals without talking to someone who knows ANYTHING about IT and technology FIRST?
The last thing the world needs is ignorant luddites making the technology decisions for the global internet infrastructure.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
... the copyright industry to go fuck itself.
The movie and music industry make material available globally and easily themselves or the governments of the world regulate their distribution chain.
Also the governments audit and oversee all their artist contracts and revenue streams.
See how much they like government regulation and scream about the idea.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
How does one get money from a group that wants everything for free? Piracy is the antimatter to commerce's matter. The two are opposites.
How about making these legal websites (and their content) easy to use and affordable and then people will link to them, thus having a higher page rank.
Can anybody control what you are looking for and how you chose to look for it?
I don't think so.
Governments must be stopped and copyrights must be abolished. Is this getting clearer?
You can't handle the truth.
It's not as stupid as this. http://bit.ly/yLaFnY
Anyone else thinks this is more about censorship than about supposedly lost profits from piracy? Because I'm starting to think it's not about lost revenue, but really about creating things that have a side-effect of effectively censoring the Internet. The side-effect being the intended effect to begin with, not as an accidental consequence.
Anyone else notice that the captchas seem a bit too coincidental? Mine says, "detain".
These whores are basically wanting to censor for their own interest. No shame. No worries. No hesitation.
Modern carriage industry refusing to die and taking everyone hostage.
These need to be killed. Asap. first should be hollywood. else, we are never going to get 'cars' at this rate.
And, NO - as you can see, this has gotten out of hand - there is no way to make it work. Now, its either us - the cyber age, internet, 'the people', or them.
Read radical news here
And what do Google and co. get out of it? Make big media pay, and pay big.
So by your argument were there is a preview, the the respective content never gets pirated? Or where the price is say a dollar ("It costs too much)? How about independents ("Stick it to the man")? Or when it get's distributed before it's even available to the retail market ("Oh copyright is too long") See whatever excuse you can come up for why piracy is OK, there's always someone out there who's going to make a liar out of you, and by association the rest.
Don't overlook that they apparently believe that the best defence is to give as much offense as you can. Also, they do know how to play the lobbying game better than the entire tech industry combined and are quite willing to buy as much influence as they can.
Apple could buy up the entire rigamole from its petty cash, as could the other tech giants, even if some would have to team up to make it happen. Yet nobody is doing so. They, too, are in it for themselves, not for the societies they're rooted in.
What alternatives are there?
ITunes? Apple's been whining for a while about how low their cut per track is. Is it still DRM'd? Or did grow a pair and now serve up MP3s?
Netflix (and similar companies)? Nice model, shame they screwed a lot of their customers recently with their pricing. They also don't have every show/movie ever produced. Nor does P2P I'm sure, but it's closer than Netflix. Nor do they have the most recent shows/movies.
I don't give a fuck what anyone else does. I'm LEGALLY ENTITLED to preview media in Canada and to format-shift content I already own. The US is it's own nightmare, and as long as they never succeed in shoving their fucked-up system down Canada's throat, I could give a tinker's damn about what the US does to itself.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Why was this done behind closed doors, what were they afraid of ? Alarm bells start to ring in my head as soon as I hear of people trying to keep something secret.
In short, the illegal activities of the few or the many does NOT mean I'm willing to budge an INCH on defending my established legal rights as a Canadian citizen to kiss American ass, or the asses of even Canadian media lobbyists.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
*LOL* ".. my established legal rights as a Candian citizen to kiss American ass..."
Woot! That's a hilariously bad phrasing, but you know what I MEAN!
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
You may not "give a fuck" but copyright is worldwide and so is piracy. Thinking the entire issue is just a US issue is myopic in the extreme. The actions of "us" will apply to the "I".
The US system of "copyright" is NOT global, no matter what the US lobbyists would like to believe.
Keep your fucked up laws to yourself.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Google and others should threaten to go to the FCC, FTC and others with a proposal: how about we provide you with software that can allow for total censorship of music and movies which are offensive to community standards? They can say "two can play at the using-a-government-as-a-weapon game" by creating software which can analyze radio broadcasts, cable TV content, etc. and provide end-to-end censorship of any content that violates community standards.
Not that I am particularly fond of censorship, but it would stick a boot up these industries' asses and REALLY garner a lot of public support. There are a lot of people who want these industries to restrain themselves and are getting sick of their overall behavior (such as this issue and offending reasonable sensibilities for profit).
this is the crack cocaine of corruption
It is not a "myopic" opinion -- it is a recognition of the FACT that different nations have different copyright legislation. US law != Global Law, no matter WHAT the American people think about their role in the world.
It is AMERICA that is "myopic" in their presumption that they get to shove their dictatorship and police state down the throats of the international community.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
4. Democracy on the web works.
Google search works because it relies on the millions of individuals posting links on websites to help determine which other sites offer content of value. We assess the importance of every web page using more than 200 signals and a variety of techniques, including our patented PageRank algorithm, which analyzes which sites have been “voted” to be the best sources of information by other pages across the web. As the web gets bigger, this approach actually improves, as each new site is another point of information and another vote to be counted. In the same vein, we are active in open source software development, where innovation takes place through the collective effort of many programmers.
6. You can make money without doing evil
Advertising on Google is always clearly identified as a "Sponsored Link," so it does not compromise the integrity of our search results. We never manipulate rankings to put our partners higher in our search results and no one can buy better PageRank. Our users trust our objectivity and no short-term gain could ever justify breaching that trust.
Doesn't this proposal breach both these policies of Google?
http://www.google.com/about/corporate/company/tenthings.html
The US and Canadian media lobby groups are doing their DAMNDEST to force Canada to take on legislation "imposed" by the US system, in direct violation of nearly a half century of precedent cases in Canada.
I, for one, will NOT stand by quietly and allow that to go unchallenged. I LIKE my copyright priveleges as a Canadian, and our media companies are NOT running in the red, so it seems to work for EVERYONE, no matter how much the luddites and dogs-in-a-manger bitch about how the "current system is broken."
The chicken little media companies have been claiming piracy was going to kill the music and movie industries since the 1970s with cassettes made of LPs. They have ZERO credibility in Canada left to their name.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Let's say that Google de-lists a bunch of sites that the *AA's don't like. At some point a non-zero number of Internet users will not longer rely upon Google as their search engine (at least not for these materials), and will look to other search engines such as Bing, Yahoo!, or if they want to kick it old-school, HotBot, Askjeeves, or Altavista.
But the the *AA's go after search engines s_0 ... s_i (sorry, no better subscript), then these disaffected users will now go even further afield, to find sites from other search engines. Some might even go to a (hypothetical) website like HowToDownloadSomeCoolShitNotInTheSearchEngines.com that just has a static list of urls of music/video/goat/meme/whatever sharing sites.
At that point, the *AA's will say that they need to cleanse the HTDSCSNITSE's of the web of links to the prohibited sites, at which point we've basically gotten to urls that are "illegal" to link to (cf. 2600 DeCSS circa 2002).
F(uckity uck uck uck)
coding is life
Now, I'm saying that you should really go and buy some insurance for your business from the insurer we're referring you to. Now, the decision is of course entirely up to you, and I'm not saying anything bad would necessarily happen if you were to refuse. But it would be terrible if, after refusing, something did happen, wouldn't it?
These megalomaniacs aren't even hiding it any more, are they? Though it was really very nice to see what hindsight will probably record as the Internet's first immune response when it bitchslapped sopa/pipa down. Hopefully the first of many. We just have to remember, its power of persuasion will fade through excessive use. The whole internet spawning "stop this evil bill" messages has to be very rare event.
We are past peak copyright, and they know it, and are desperate.
to prevent piracy Google & bing should drop all references to any all MPAA & RIAA "properties". No Elvis Presley, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Justin Beiber or OneDirection. For a week. Then watch the xxAA's whine and complain - probably try and get an anti-trust action about it.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
After the kill of megavideo, a lot of people probably as gone back to downloading movies with bittorrent. If listing of torrent sites are removed, then people will start sharing bookmarks to these sites.
What I want to know is when the politician are going to start legislating the con-committal responsibilities that go with these so called "rights." I was taught that being granted rights meant there were a whole range of responsibilities that went with them. Let us come up with a few for Copyright. 1. If a protected work is out of active circulation (new copies promoted for sale in a currently readable format) for 10 years by any distributer who has purchased the right then the copyright returns to the author. If the author (or his heirs or assigns) is unable to offer the work for sale for an additional 10 years the work falls into the public domain. 2. Should a corporation owning copyrights outright through works for hire be guilty of any serious infraction - environmental, securities, labor, etc. - such work are forfeit to the public domain. Settlement of such charges without any admission of guilt shall not be deemed sufficient to avoid the penalty. 3. Format changes must be updated for similar platforms. If the content is electronic then the producer cannot create a new format for the sole purpose of reselling the content. Product support for older formats must be maintained. Other idea or refinements?
Why are the USians killing their own market (again) with this protectionism? Maybe it is necessary to feel extra pain before copyright is abolished.
nosig today
Our media companies aren't running in the red, either. In fact, they are making record profits. And I think that is part of the problem. It gives them far too much money to spend on lobbyists like this. They need a fall guy when they finally stop having record profits to point to why, and to be able to say it isn't their fault. In short, they need a scapegoat. Piracy is a good one since it is impossible to reliably prove any effect from it at all.
the music and movie industry spent 120 millions on lobbying, start spending money in DC get laws passed that protect things necessary for your business.
"It is our policy , not to negotiate with terrorists".
Slipping shoelaces ?
On that point, we're in 100% agreement! :D They have WAY too much money to "invest" in lobbyists over the will of the people, never mind foreign governments and their citizens.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
who thought that the slippery slope argument had no merit,
Pricks!
That next year computer using windows 7-8, and intel's E?{Remember: Intel bought McAfee} something processor will allow BIG BROTHER to be able to brick your computer if it contains software deem inappropriate. Cool Yes! Its a win win senario for the NeoCons, more felony charges to the people, more computers being replaced, more people fearfull of sharing software. Great huh? Now who says the NeoCons dont know about I.T.?
I think Google's anti-SOPA stance may be the beginning of a shift in that "soft" stance of the IT industry. It's becoming quite clear that without spending money on lobbyists to tell the IT side of the story, government will CONTINUE to be ruled by ignorant luddites.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
I looked through the document and could not fins an author.
i support this proposal.
if all these pirate sites are delisted from the search engines, they will simply move "underground" (whatever that could mean) and they would still be accessible (for example, someone posts a link on some unrelated website).
but now the big media companies wont be able to find these underground sites via the search engines EITHER, thus making their takedown requests even harder.
The red herring of Piracy is the medium through which the US. will repeal the First Amendment (Freedom of Speech). The Internet will be made "read only" in the interests of controlling piracy, which will also have the effect of stifling what little criticism of our monolithic government that exists now.
I think we need to stop calling them a Mafia. Since that would be an insult to an actual Mafia. Because an actual Mafia would never be that goddamn stupid.
"Media" criminals: GO FUCK YOURSELVES!
You think you can win because you're so high on cocaine that you think you're some fucking Mafia now?
You can't even imagine the crazy shit we will do to you. Your conspiracy shit will look like a fuckin' child's birthday in comparison!
There will be child porn, bomb building plans, Al Qaeda contacts, bribery proof and copies of your worst competitors "media" all over your computers so fast, you will think you're in a fuckin' "Jupiter eye" class hurricane!
The (partially paid, partially our own people) cops will storm through your door in the middle of the night, drag you out like a dog, beat you to a bloody pulp, and the next thing you know will be the huge hairy asshole of Bubba Bonecrusher tightly wrapped around your shit-smeared tongue!
Plenty of pirates only pirate because they have no legal option to acquire the content.
They always have the option to move to a country where the works are published lawfully.
Sometimes its available on a streaming service but the streaming service has DRM (or restrictions) that means they cant watch it on a mobile device or on a TV.
They always have the option to buy the appropriate brand of computer or game console and watch it on that. And since when has a PC been able to tell whether its VGA, DVI, or HDMI output is headed to a "TV" as opposed to a "computer monitor"?
Or maybe its a sporting event they want to watch but cant because its blacked out on their local station.
They always have the option to buy tickets to watch the game in person.
at a reasonable price
What is reasonable to you is not always reasonable to the work's author.
by pooling their petty cash and simply buying up the big mass market content providers. And probably manage the Hollywood IP portfolio more efficiently and profitably than Hollywood can.
We can hope that everyone actively involved has figured this out and the real Net war in progress is over how much Hollywood is going to get paid to go away. Perhaps Hollywood should get what it wants to ensure that these people get an early start on partying themselves to death.
Tech Public Policy stuff
How about the fact, that in some countries 500 euros is a good monthly pay, while in others 2000 euros per months means one step above poor.
Then the countries in which "500 euros is a good monthly pay" need to start exporting more so that local wages will rise. The Balassa-Samuelson model explains why.
It's not as stupid as this. http://bit.ly/yLaFnY
just remove these companies
and not just the movie, or music or tv divisions. the whole damn company. I'm looking at you sony.
responsibilities that go with these so called "rights.
- don't buy into the propaganda, 'copyright' is not a right at all, it's an entitlement.
It shouldn't even be called a 'copyright', it should be called a 'copy-entitlement', but then many things shouldn't be called 'rights' because they are not. Any kind of a group 'right' (be it women, disabled, race, etc.), those are all entitlements and obligations.
The copy-entitlement is not a natural right of an individual or anybody, rights cannot be 'granted', they must be protected or otherwise they are stolen, but that's the difference between a right and an entitlement.
Your right to life, free-speech, pursuit of happiness, free association, religion, etc., those cannot be granted to you, but government can steal them from you and it can entitle groups of people to something that is unnatural.
There is nothing natural or right about 'copy-entitlement', it's a completely contrived, totally artificial idea that goes against the nature itself and it can only exist where government steals rights from individuals.
You can't handle the truth.
It's about gaining absolute control over the distribution channel. Copyright violation is just the pretext. They want to be able to control all content distributon via the internet, the same way as they control other distribution channels.
Without the channel control, their position as indispensible middlemen is under threat. The destruction of the internet as a communications medium, and the resulting destruction of any other venture that uses the internet in any way is merely collateral damage, not even particularly "regrettable".
Even the most corrupt politicians can't come right out and say "We've been paid to hand total censorship control over the internet to the media companies". They need a plausible reason to make those laws, and the "fact" that the media companies are being robbed a large proportion if GDP is the reason they've chosen. It doesn't have to be a financially viable reason, just one that sounds better than "Because we're being paid to" when they are asked why they are passing such laws.
It's all about gaining absolute control over the channel, at any cost. Remember, you aren't allowed to sing to yourself in a public place without paying a license fee - people have actually been threatened with lawsuits for doing so. They want control of the internet the same way, so fo instance, you can't make your own music or videos and post them for people to see unless you pay the media companies a license fee for doing that. Control over commercials so companies have to pay for the right to show commercials (like they do in magazines and cinemas now) would be nice too. Maybe that's the real reason they want to attack Google so much.
I mean, nobody takes the Jehova's witnesses serious anymore
You'd be surprised. Abstinence from blood following Acts 15:29 ("keep abstaining [...] from blood") has led to development of surgery techniques with zero risk of transmitting a bloodborne disease. These include less-invasive procedures, blood expanders, and lately even blood substitutes that carry oxygen. These benefit not only Jehovah's Witnesses but anyone who wishes to reduce disease risk and anyone living where safe blood transfusion is not available.
This is why we need an Open Source, distributed search engine.
I make widgets. They are very special widgets. Firstly, I don't want anyone else making widgets. And it doesn't matter if people wants them or not or if they are over-priced or if the people are simply curious about my widgets -- they ALL MUST PAY. No refunds, no warranties, no guarantees.
I'm already making loads of money from my widgets as evidenced, oh law makers, by the excessive money I pay you. But I need more. I need you to make laws and then to enforce them. Call out the military if you must, but my business must grow.
Google Search, and Bing, and that Yahoo/Bingy thingy: let me enter "cyrus miley" or "yesterday beatles" and see all the copyright infriged data you can show me. According to SOPIPA, a site showing IP protected content can be shut down. Lets shut down Goog/Yahoo/Bing. Lets shut them down, since these giants also host copyrighted material. Lets shut down the whole internet, since recycling is how culture gets ahead. Here is a line of text for which I do not hold copyright: "I don't even know what I was running for - I guess I just felt like it." (JD Salinger) Shut down /. Please.
Murdoch knows far more about it than most posters here would think (he bought his first ISP in 1992 FFS) but he wants a lot of what we think of as the internet stopped so he can get the advertising money instead of Google. This current layer of bullshit is an escalation of his travelling roadshow of the last few years where he called us all thieves to anybody that he could force to listen. The "luddite" paywall tactics were most likely designed to fail so that it can all be blamed on Google etc, and since newspapers were bleeding money anyway there isn't much financial difference even in the short term if they fail. That Chinese cable network Murdoch sold the year before last gave him far more cash from a single sale than all of his newpapers are worth, and the yearly revenue from Fox is probably more than they are worth as well.
So yes, they know but they want to sell us space in a walled garden instead of letting us do things on the commons.
Search engines should d-list entertainment industry material.
Stories like this are why I will never spend another $.01 on music from the major labels. I support musicians I like by going to their concerts and buying their T-shirts but never again by paying for the privilege to listen to a recording of their music. My piracy of music is civil disobedience against the RIAA and MPAA for the copyright terrorism they continue to perpetuate. First it was the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act which ignored the interests of all mankind and extended copyright protection of 75 year old movies for another 20 years specifically to enrich USA media companies. The USA Congress specifically disregarded the rights and interests of the people who elected them into office in order to line the pockets of major corporations. Then it was Metallica suing Napster destroying something which they actually could have leveraged to control online MP3 distribution.
It is my hope that some countries will finally pass rational copyright legislation which sets copyright terms back to the Copyright Law of 1790 which set a term of 14 years, with the right to renew for one additional 14 year term should the copyright holder still be alive. To this original law I would require that the work remain in print and for sale to the public. eBooks makes it easy to keep books in print so this should not be a huge burden to copyright holders. The moment something goes out of print (or a site ceases to exist on the Internet) the material should enter into the public domain. For example, the day Microsoft stops selling / supporting Windows XP the operating system should enter into the public domain for free use by all.
For most of my life, I've been getting increasingly resentful of these corporate pirates for stealing, hoarding, and even sometimes destroying human culture. They have no interest whatsoever in the "the Progress of Science and useful Arts," nor will they ever be satisfied with any "limited Time" regulating their monopolistic control over thoughts.
Now, these assholes have already shown... They cannot be trusted.
With the exception of some governments, NGOs, and a minority of intelligent artists, the public domain, as defined by law, is a thing of the past. My response to this government and corporations mutual disregard for the founders' more than generous monopoly terms, is to disregard those terms myself, with the maximum effect I can bring to bear. No useless letters to government prostitutes involved.
My uTorrent stats show 964GB transferred in the past ten days, and a 1:12.8 dl:ul ratio since install. I put as much as I can on properly stored archival DVDs, but I'm one person with limited resources. One advantage that we "little people" have over libraries and funded preservation/conservation efforts is not having to wait past death to make a copy; I have a copy a minute after an RSS feed update, and at least ten more public copies before I'm done with it. Hopefully some of my peers are doing the same. You know, I find it tragicomical how these industrial copy-Nazis and their apologists get so confused about who's greedy, freeloading, cheap, thieving, and who's really "entitled."
That all said, I'm not certain what I'm actually achieving in the end, but I do know that I'm motivated to try to improve things for maximum people, and the MAFIAA pirates' motive is amassing more corporate welfare; i.e., "transfer of wealth" at everyone else expense.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
so you can go back to sleep.
At the low-budget end of the film market, Kickstarter is already replacing Hollywood angel investors and YCombinatot is bringing in more conventional VC startup money. What I'm proposing here would simply accelerate the process.
As for legacy content, even MICROSOFT can figure out that masters of films or records in archival storage that just sit there make the owner no money. There's a lot of long-tail potential in the vaults of Universal. Why should a movie or record EVER go out of print?
But those concerns are for grownups. You can go back to dreaming of being sparkly. And hope the next VAMPYRE you see isn't carrying a Zune.
Tech Public Policy stuff
"Hollywood and the major music labels" = JEWS...
We can't have Jews doing manual labour, can we!!! They are 'God's chosen people', apparently, and the rest of us are their 'cattle' (goyim)...
*LOL* ".. my established legal rights as a Candian citizen to kiss American ass..."
Woot! That's a hilariously bad phrasing, but you know what I MEAN!
You like! Big! Butts and you can not lie! Us other brothers can't deny...
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
....then they can pay property taxes on it.
That way the govt is reimbursed for all the services it provides in protecting this "property".
And Sony/BMG will have motivation to let some older works slide into the public domain.
It's that Stupidity vs. Malice thing again.
There's an elephant in the room, in the sense of they've got some scary ace in the hole that no one wants to talk about.
Look at the language of the whole summary! "Copyright holders have handed out a list of demands to Google, Bing and Yahoo". Funny phrasing - They handed out .... to (Company) Google, (Company) Yahoo, and ... *PRODUCT* Bing? How do you hand something to a product? Bing is of course Microsoft.
So by "sniping out" search results, of course it is a frontal attack on the search engine's relevance, and therefore its revenue.
What am I not getting, that the media guys are essentially trying to take down Google? Do the search engines need content to search for?!
"List of Demands" - that sounds like blackmail - "or what? You'll sue us to death? Where are you getting the money to do THAT?"
Or is it that they are paying a billion dollars per demand set to both the companies and the lawmakers?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
You're right, it's only nearly global.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
I have to pay the govt to protect my ownership of my land... its why we have a system of deeds and titles in this country.
Do the same for intellectual property... if its so damned important & valuable... then you can pay some taxes on it.
Or if you suddenly find that it isnt all that damned important & valuable afterall, you could just let it slip into public domain.
Those brazen claims by these pillagers and their unbridled greed must be contained or it will be the clearest case of killing the goose for the golden eggs in History.
The problem is they'll take everything down with their greed -- not just the internet!
What I don't get is how the "little" Media companies are out lobbying the entire Tech industry. How are they doing that? Did they just buy off the tech companies to stand aside? Or in that "Every Corp Wins with a Big Brother engine?"
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
This kind of lobbying is about getting as many ideas up there as possible, as extreem as possible and then see what sticks. What slips through the cracks. The public can't catch every bill and with the US tendency to piggyback bills on other bills, something might get passed because people are for something else. It is entirely possible in the US (no other country has anything similar as far as I know) to discuss a piece of legislation dealing with war-brides that adds copyright laws as well.
Mind you, the EU did a similar thing with the EU constitution, the original needed a referendum and was voted down in several countries (the only ones who accepted were the leech countries who never contributed a single penny to the EU). So they renamed it and passed it without that pesky democracy thing getting in the way.
Articles about silly laws that get rejected obscure the just plain bad laws that do get passed without notice or without enough effective opposition to stop them.
Use google a lot and you can already see plenty of messages about forcibly removed results and they already rank and filter. All passed without you being fully aware of it. This is just another attempt to take it even further. Maybe it is stopped, maybe not but another 100 attempts are already in the making and ONE of them will make it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I don't know the exact figures, and I'm sure that it could be spun as lies, damned lies and statistics, but the entire movie industry takes in something like $60 billion a year. That's about one year at Intel alone. Maybe combine another half a company somewhere to get some more digits added up right. The music and video game industry...oh wait, we can not mention the video game industry because they figured out the piracy issue and aren't hammering laws down our legislators throats.
Lets be generous then...lets say annual revenue of RIAA/MPAA members is $100 billion...hell, lets say it's $200 billion (it's nowhere close to 200bil, but lets just say).
$200 BILLION IS NOTHING. Why the hell are we letting these asshats try to control the internet? General motors has $135 billion annual revenue (wikipedia). Shall we let them just waltz into googles offices and start making demands about how they run their company? They're also just middlemen(mpaa/riaa)...they produce NOTHING. They add NO VALUE. They're a bunch of thieves trying to hold onto a failing business model.
I say make them compete in the real world or get out.
Artists and such do deserve a right to be able to make a fair shake on what they produce.
However, why should patentable items only have a 20 year shelf life while a song have 150 years of protection?
A "reasonable" counter-position is to demand that copyright retroactively returns to reasonable periods such as a 20 years and that's it, no extensions. That would put most of the fun stuff in public domain where it belongs anyways. Hence the copyright bargain between those who create and those who consume gets rebalanced.
That should give the entertainment/content industry pause, if there was a strong SOPA-bashing united Internet demand for fair copyright terms.
That should give some pause to those trying to take over the production and distribution of ideas.
For free literature, most classics are already in the public domain. You can get many of the greatest works of literature in English free (and without violating even today's ridiculous copyright laws) at places like Project Gutenberg. Some things, like the later Barsoom novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs, are in the public domain in Australia, but not in the USA. In any case, there are a few Project Gutenberg sites. I got the first few Barsoom novels from the Project Gutenberg site for the USA (linked above), and the rest of them from the one for Australia.
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
ONLY on slashdot would I point out copyright is global which is true (is it a lie or isn't it?) and someone would come back with a snappy "US copyright" then get a 5:insightful to boot. Now I remembered why I stopped coming here. You all can play your "us" vs "them" game all you want. You're the one's going to be surprised and hurting.
The copyright holders are alleging that Pirate Bay, isoHunt, etc., are engaging in illegal activities, right? Then why not get the proper authorities involved to take down the people behind sites like Pirate Bay, especially since that's already worked against Megaupload? Even if this wasn't completely successful, it would make sites like Pirate Bay less of a presence on the Internet and thus show up less prominently on search engines. Why have Google and Bing be the police when you can just let the police be the police?
So?!?!
I **seriously** doubt that Pilot Corp. would go out of their way to sue someone for buying that model in Japan and selling them, at profit, in America. And even if they did, I seriously doubt they'd win!
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
I thought the content 'owners' were in the business of suing search engines for linking to their content?
Korma: Good
Would you prefer the US exercise that option instead? There's not a nation on earth that can withstand that from the USA once it employs it on anyone. In case you don't realize what the "ultimate diplomacy tool" is, then the point's lost on you.
Consider the tech industry a sleeping giant. Consider that Wednesday protest as it opening an eye. Media cartel should be worried. (You can legislate that pi is 3.0, but then your buildings will be more likely to fall down.)
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
It is only a matter of time until this happens, as long as we have centralized search. Search is big business, and it will eventually realize that maximizing shareholder value is more important than satisfying the needs of the end user to see unbiased results. Everything between now and then is just big content and big search negotiating the sellout price. (along with the occasional ceremonial firing of volleys of lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians (redundant?))
Decentralizing search is hard. It certainly won't be perfect. It will be biased. But it won't be as biased as Bing and Google will become in the coming years.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Society Calls for Broad Copyright Industry Smack Down
\r
After Dobbs' comment broke out on the internet, I hope this puts the issues of Copyright and Lobbying on the forefront of the political agenda.
Millions of people are currently unemployed and our infrastructure is in need of repair.
These 'AA assholes should be given the boot. We have many other issues like unemployment to deal with. The 'AA people are a greedy, whiny bunch who like to tie up our court systems (at no cost to them) and take time away from politicians to do other work. This has gone on for 100 years (look at the music performance controversy in 1920 or 1930).
I know its the "point" of lobbying. But lobbying in general, or the way it is corruptly practices, needs to end.
One should also be able to bump/downgrade search rank of sites based on their political standing. For example, if a site supports controversial laws like SOPA, it probably should get a lower rank... oh wait... oh shoot.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Search Engine Industry Calls for Broad Copyright Controls How about elimination? While we are at it, get rid of patents.
Voluntary my foot. " do this or we will just buy the laws to force you "
So they force desisting of TPB today, tomorrow its any p2p program.. later its the competition, then finally, just a discussion of how bad it is around here will have to be removed.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
They are not paying the bills, so why should they care? The cost will be passed down to you, dear consumer.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The organizations pushing for these changes are not "Copyright holders" and there is no "Copyright industry."
These are clearly trade organizations attempting to censor the Internet to effect a better bottom line. They are not the holder of any rights, other than being the US Hollywood movie studio and music lobbying arms, and they bring nothing to the table.
Death to the MPAA, RIAA, and BSA. Long live freedom of speech, expression, and no more stupid nonsense words like "Copyright Industry."
Seriously.
E
Enough with the "American people". I'm American, I don't support this crap and I'm tired of the US trying to ram this down the throats of other countries. In reality blame your own country for accepting this crap no matter what the source. It's not the American people that want this it's the corrupt Hollywood / Government relationship that exists. The whole "to protect" US jobs mantra is BS. The only jobs they're looking to protect are the top 1/10% of those working in the music/movie business along with the bribes they pay to the various US Congressmen who blindly push this.
WTO. Need any other answers? Oh, and its working in both directions.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Those big greedy and evil search engines need to be regulated because we cannot let them make profit on the back of those poor content creators.
We have to restrict their freedom for the good of the collective just like we do with telecom companies, oil producing companies, retailers and everybody else. We cannot let ourselves become slaves of those search engines.
Remember, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Power and War is Peace.
They have failed to adapt for 10 years now, and their solution is just web censorship. Fuck the MPAA and their ilk.
I don't have a tinker's dam - since you said "I could give a tinker's dam...", how about giving it to me?
Orwell's 1984 big brother didn't happen at the projected date but Hollywood, RIAA & Congress are doing all they can to make it happen by 2014. What it's going to boil down to is a 'pay per page' internet where every page has been 'approved' by big brother's net censors. Maybe the public outcry over these heavy handed tactics will delay it another few years but it is definitely the internet of the future, like it or not.
The US and Canadian media lobby groups are doing their DAMNDEST to force Canada to take on legislation "imposed" by the US system, in direct violation of nearly a half century of precedent cases in Canada.
I, for one, will NOT stand by quietly and allow that to go unchallenged. I LIKE my copyright priveleges as a Canadian, and our media companies are NOT running in the red, so it seems to work for EVERYONE, no matter how much the luddites and dogs-in-a-manger bitch about how the "current system is broken."
The chicken little media companies have been claiming piracy was going to kill the music and movie industries since the 1970s with cassettes made of LPs. They have ZERO credibility in Canada left to their name.
Oh my God, shut up with the caps. I saw those before reading your post and thought "fucking moron", so whether or not my quick assessment is actually true, it sure suggests you should just type normally if you want anybody reading your comments.
It's time for the music, film, and software industries to die. Pirate everything and pay them nothing. Do everything you can to take money away from them. Copy your movies and music, hand them out to strangers, leave stacks of them at supermarkets and other public places, clearly marked. The best thing we can do for society is hurry the demise of these fucked-up, fascism-supporting industries that are poisoning our lives.
Do the big search engines really want to take advice from an industry that is out-competed in distribution by *amateurs*? Most people sharing files don't make money off it.
To those who ask "how will creators get paid?", there are plenty of people who will willingly pay for things at a reasonable price, as demonstrated by iTunes, NetFlix, Steam, and even for books, where Baen free library *increased* sales by exposing readers to new authors. I have 100+ DVDs that I got for about $6 each on average over the last decade. I got them used from the video store, and to me that was a reasonable price. $20 new is just too much for me, so I have nearly never bought new ones.
Why the hell do only lobbies get legislation that benefits them? It's the PEOPLE who should be getting laws that expand freedom and make OUR lives better. It's time for us to push back, and move this the other way, starting with the Fair Use and Personal Internet Freedom Act - http://wh.gov/K1L
Just drop out.
Stop buying new movies and commercial music altogether. Support local live music and theater. Big entertainment needs to fail and it can only do that if people ignore it.
It is AMERICA that is "myopic" in their presumption that they get to shove their dictatorship and police state down the throats of the international community.
Don't lump me in with those shitheads!
"AMERICA" is not who you think it is. The average American does not want to have anything to do with the dictatorship attitudes of the 1% and those in power, and we are pretty much split down the line on the wars. Americans who were for the wars, were only supportive because they honestly felt threatened and were manipulated by those in power to believe it had to be true. As for the police state laws being exported, that has nothing to do with Americans .
Those in power in this country had to use "National Security" to hide ACTA from us for so long. In less than 48 hours over 30,000 Americans told the Whitehouse to investigate Chris Dodd for bribery when he said some pretty stupid things on television because he was butthurt for his Big Content masters.
What about opposing SOPA? Some tech giants got together and a huge amount of Americans got up and screamed against it!
The American People are not who you need to place your anger with. We are powerless victims here either through apathy or the naivete that we can actually be involved in the political process. In other words, we are being played from multiple angles and we are having a very hard time fighting back.
As much as you don't want "our" copyright laws shoved down your throat, we don't want them to apply to us either.
Your anger needs to be placed very specifically on those running America into the shitter. Please don't sully the name America by including them in it.
My latest piracy - entirely legal here in Switzerland, by the way - was to download a very nicely formatted complete set of the Harry Potter ebooks. Our family owns the entire set of books as dead-tree editions, but we wanted the option to re-read them as ebooks.
Why piracy? I would have happily paid for ebooks (assuming a reasonable price), and I was looking forward to the promised release date of last fall (even though this was ten years after publication of the first book). However, the official ebooks are still not available, and the release date has been pushed a year into the future. So I gave up, and downloaded them from a link on TPB.
If publishers (and authors, and musicians, and labels) want to end piracy, it's really simple!. Clue bat: (a) make your material available, (b) DRM-free, (c) at reasonable prices. Start with step (a). The stuff I have pirated is all material that I cannot otherwise get. As long as these idiots continue to shoot themselves in their collective foot, piracy will thrive.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Although I think it should not be necessary to spend lobbying money to defend the natural rights defined in the Bill of Rights, I'll agree that congress has become so corrupt that it does appear to be necessary now. It's a sad turn of events.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
De list the "pirate" sites and the media sites.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Corporate copyright holders should sign a voluntary code of practice; such that after 36 months holding any copyright, they voluntarily donate it to the public domain. If they fail to do so, the public will specifically introduce legislation considering whether any FCC-related materials they utilize are 'in the public interest.' Any radio station or TV station broadcasting copyrighted materials held by that corporation, over any protocol, will be at risk for being taken back by the FCC for resale - so any distribution of their copyrighted material over, say, the cell phone, radio or TV networks will need to be halted immediately by those corporations to protect their spectrum...
Y but given that the amount that can turn the tied is about 1/100 of what google spent to acquire their patent portfolio, it would actually serve them well to spend it.
"What is reasonable to you is not always reasonable to the work's author."
And what does that have to do with anything? Copyright, meaning the prohibition of others from making copies, is not any sort of intrinsic right like freedom of expression, etc. It is a pragmatic deal that is solely intended to increase production of new works for eventual entry into the public domain (at least according to the U.S. Constitution).
If an author publishes his work in Country A but doesn't want it in Country B, too bad. He doesn't have to publish in Country B, but no sane set of laws should let him prohibit others from buying his works and reselling them as they see fit.
(I can't tell if your post is aiming for "Funny" or "Insightful" - I sincerely hope it is the former).
The MAFIAA can present their "demands" all the want, but at the end of the day Google and Amazon will just ignore them. The tech industry is now vastly wealthier and more powerful than the traditional entertainment industry.
The movie and recording industries simply have the wrong business model (artificial scarcity supported by restriction of copying). Basically, anyone whose profits depend on prevention of copying is going down, because copying is only going to get faster and easier. It's fair enough to argue that unauthorized copying is wrong and deserves to be illegal, but that doesn't mean that it is going to go away. As Bruce Perens said in a recent talk, there will never be a time in the future when copying is as difficult as it is now.
We are way past the tipping point.
...that should get get them to shut up pretty quick.
Most creations are sold 1 time and the creators must continually produce to make a living. So... why should a singer not have to work every day for a living either creating or performing -- you know, real work like the rest of us. Why should they be entitled to sitting around making money from all re-sales of their creation (like how video games now want you to pay for used games) or similar to making somebody pay you each time they buy the item on ebay. Sure, these are intangible items that can be copied while physical ones get resold over and over without the creator/producer getting payed more than ONCE.
MOST creators in movies and film do not make much of a living if any; only a few make a living; as would still be the case without copyright law (which is a modern creation.) They may not be able to justify great expense on large productions; and we'd suffer no actual loss as those high production films and songs have little merit anyhow. The upfront costs would go up as the creator would get little residual; unless they become famious, in which case... Plenty of media whores willing to create things to try to warrant the attention they seek.
NeoCons means {Neo means "New in latin", Cons is short for "constable" which was a common term in briton in the 1700's}. So NeoCons means New-Constables. The NeoCons are the police in the sectors of america which they control.
such complicated plans requiring en-masse social participation in precision, do not work. you need simple solutions.
Read radical news here
So what you're saying is that EMI, Sony, Universal, Warner, Disney, Paramont, and Fox doesn't want to make use of a program that can prominently show their websites on Google's search results as a sponsored link.
Instead, "they want to boost the rankings of [their] licensed content"-- presumably at no cost to themselves.
If I read this correctly: they want to get stuff without having to pay for it.
Here's a thought... remove every reference to any movies/books/music by them. Let them fade into obscurity.
"Civil disobedience means that if they decide to sue you that you plead guilty to the crime"
No. It means you cause them as much pain in suing you as possible.
You hire lawyers, you tie them down, you counter-sue, you make them hate the day they engaged you.
I don't have a problem with Google agreeing not to link to infringing material that's illegally distributed.
However, Google should be permitted to link to copyrighted materials and use fair-use excerpts, and they should also be permitted to charge companies for placement. Demands by media companies for free, high-ranking results are unacceptable.
Here is the problem. Everything on the internet is copyrighted ! Yes everything. In reality what I have just written here is automatically copyrighted to me. So if you reproduce it you are effectively using the fair use part of copyright. Simple as that.
So what makes Hollywood special ?
Copyright law was developed in a world where copying was expensive and therefore to advance written work it was necessary to create some kind of law to enable distribution. Copying have fundamentally changed. It is not expensive anymore so therefore the original copyright law is becoming more irrelevant.
That being said if I have a plumber install a pipe. I pay the plumber for the pipe not for each and every time I turn the tap.
To me it is ridiculous to pay an actor and author millions of dollars for a couple of weeks of work. While plumbers, electricians work harder yet get paid less. Then we have to create laws to make sure that the rich and lazy keep getting richer. Sounds like we are going back to the 1600
[Corporations] have WAY too much money to "invest" in lobbyists over the will of the people, ...
Lest people think this is hyperbole, you might try googling "lobbyists return on investment" (without the quotes) and read a few of the hits. Here's an informative passage from one of the articles on the first page of google hits:
Read some of the others, and you'll get a real feel for the way "the System" works these days. Treating a lobyist as an "investment" isn't a joke at all; that's exactly how the corporate world views them.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Instant runoff elections where you rank your candidates in order of preference. If number one is eliminated you don't lose your vote. It goes to the next candidate on your list. This enables people to vote for a third party without risk of swinging an election since voting for a third party candidate doesn't lessen the chances of victory for the second choice candidate when the first choice is eliminated.
Well... you guys wanted to be independent... and celebrate that fact every year...
Maybe it is time you start fighting for your independence again.
Because apparently... independence-day is just like Christmas... celebrating an event that might or might not have happened centuries ago and has no value to anyone today. Other then talking about it and pretending you live up to it.
I would argue that the meaning of independence-day has diluted over the years.
Why would people think we could create a competitive website that offered content in a way that people would link to us and increase our network footprint?
No - we should be given a boost in violation of the integrity of the search engine, while search providers lie to the consumer and downgrade others. Because we can't compete on an even playing field.
Pug
An Invisible Entity of Vast Power whose existence must be taken on faith alone: Liberal Media
I understand what the music industry is trying to accomplish. But how they do it is totally wrong. Personally they are shooting themselves in the foot if they continue to act like this. If you force people to your orders, you have a slight chance it will work and even if it does, it's not for long anyways. It's never permanent. I'm not an expert on this but by taking down sites megaupload and "trying" to take down sites like piratebay is not a solution. This situation proves with fact that the governement and all the industry that support pipa and friends dont understand the Internet and the "modern" way to make business. I believe that one of the problem is those "people" are still stuck with their old traditional ways and are forcing it down on us when we tell them it`s not working anymore. What happens next...friction and the creation of 2 sides...
I will continue to point out that false piracy accusations are being used to shut down ALL music sites, without any due process for the accused. It will soon go beyond prosecuting downloaders to radio broadcasters like my self, banning us from playing any unsigned internet musicians, then to artists themselves to prevent them from posting their own music. This lunacy is already happening in several countries.
But it goes beyond that. This is a scheme by several groups, politicians, activists and regimes to censor the web by controlling all media and information flow. Think it can't be done? China, Iran and North Korea are just a few which have been controlled the internet for years.
The naive ones refusing to believe it can't happen in so-called free societies will be the first to support internet censorship when it's repackaged as "stopping racism" , "ending war", "saving the climate" , "wealth equality" or some other dime store slogan.
The cult of idol worship and goofy tends are being used to achieve a global tyranny. Just look at the creepy fanaticism behind Obama, Apple Computers and juvenile social network sites, whose mindless followers acts like lemmings.
I LIKE my copyright priveleges as a Canadian
Get ready to be using the past tense. Your privileges are about to be revoked.
Good point, but Americans are the ones who put those people in power and are allowing them to stay there.
As someone who is not an American (and gladly so), it is excruciating watching The American People continue to allow this kind of bullshit to go on. It may not be you specifically, but you have to realise that the rest of the world is only able to sit back and watch while you lot get your shit together - and until then you are an American just like those idiots in power.
Good point, but Americans are the ones who put those people in power and are allowing them to stay there.
Ummmmm, how?
It does not matter who we vote for, we get the same thing. Attempts at an independent party have failed.
Allowing them to stay there?
What do you propose? A bloody revolution? That's all that is left. Reform through political process is impossible because the political process has been corrupted so completely that only by burning it the ground and starting over *is* reform possible.
Nobody that gets put into office actually represents the people with their actions. I don't know how much clearer that can be made. It's not like the majority of us even vote anymore.
At this time I don't support a bloody revolution. I still have hope that maybe reform can happen, but I doubt it. It will probably need to get pushed to a point where people like me are finally willing to pick up a gun, get organized, and create a new government.
We are not there yet.
Of course, I could say the same things to you. Why do YOU elect people in your countries that are willing to accept the import of our "democracy"?
Goes both ways.