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MPAA Seeks Stronger Actions To Fight Streaming Video Piracy (streamingmedia.com)
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is stepping into the online video piracy debate and calling for criminal charges against violators, as well as strong coordination between a broad range of online service providers. From a report: The association's recommendations came in response to a call from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration's (NTIA) call for comments regarding internet policy concerns. On July 17, the MPAA issued a 40-page document advocating a modernization of online policies in response to rampant illicit activity. While a range of commercial offerings help studios and sports leagues battle online piracy, anyone who has a friend with a Kodi box knows that unrestricted access to popular shows and movies is only a few taps away. The MPAA notes that 6.5 million homes in North America are equipped with a Kodi box, and the North American piracy ecosystem generates $840 million per year.
Why should the MPAA do this when they can get one of their wholly owned subsidiaries (eg, the US Government) to do it for them?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Have gnu, will travel.
that the industry could use to stream an archive of all old and new movies and shows to a persons home through the internet for a nice affordable price. Maybe one day someone will invent it.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Don't forget that it has been proven time and time again through studies and practical application (Incompetech being just one example) that any artist with actual talent and quality product(s) will benefit more from utilizing piracy than warring against it.
Some using piracy as a marketing tool, some eve put their stuff on torrents and make the news among the pirate scene for it which translates into a loyal consumerbase of people who chip in money too (and a loyal base is always better than generic sales since it translates to guaranteed revenue), and even the fact that the majority of pirates also have the biggest Steam libraries due to the fact that they tend to respect quality product more than the average consumer due to the quantity of products they go through thanks to piracy to weed out the shit from the gold.
The industry, whether gaming or music or movie, are over-saturated.
So over-saturated that it's impossible to give even a 1/10th of each of those industry's artists the chance to be sampled if we had to pay for each and every one.
The over-saturation argument is probably the main and biggest argument going for piracy, especially now that even demos and samples are being corrupted and turned into scam methods for trying products.
We've known these things for decades now:
1) Downloading is not "piracy". Piracy is a specific crime related to making and distributing copies, generally for personal gain. Somebody who sells copies of someone else's personal DVD and sells them is a pirate. An uploader might be considered a "pirate", but a downloader is not, because a downloader is not distributing. **
2) Downloading is a copyright violation, not a crime. In scope, it is akin to making a personal copy of a videotape.
3) In most cases, downloading is done when there would not have been an original sale (e.g., movie ticket or DVD) anyway. So the copyright owner didn't "lose" anything.
4) Even if there hypothetically might have been a sale, copyright violation is not "theft". See # 3. It is a completely different area of law.
5) And even if there would have been a sale, all the copyright owner "loses" is the potential profit, which is a tiny fraction of the retail price.
6) Penalties for copyright violation are already unreasonably harsh.