IMHO, the sudden upwelling of 'anti-piracy' laws (remember, digital piracy has been around a long time, and has done the most empirically demonstrable damage to the film industry) is a means of destroying embarrassing documents that have become widely available on the Internet (Wikileaks has been basically burnt to the ground, but there are still plenty of file-sharing venues where classified documents are trafficked, or even old archived stuff that isn't strictly classified but is otherwise difficult to get hold of).
The strong push for 'anti-piracy' bullshit correlates very, very closely with the digital publication of documents from the old Soviet archives, old CIA cables, and (of course) all of the documents released by Wikileaks.
Anyways, this bill won't be signed into law. As big as the MPAA thinks it is, companies like Apple and Google who have come out against are even bigger.
Plus, I don't think Obama would be dumb enough to sign this into law. It's a do-nothing bill that does far more harm than good.
I love how willing the House/Senate is to try and crack down on some highschool students, but they won't lift a fucking finger to deal with the actually important piracy of East Asia basically stealing every piece of IP that they can.
There are actually non-media companies that are losing a lot of money, and that money is coming from the one competitive edge the US economy actually manages to retain, and a fair amount of it is state sanctioned if not sponsored.
Ohh and then they pirate all their movies/cds too.
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Magus`The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered Userregular
We can't hurt our future Chinese overlords, though.
VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
There should just be a movement to push for an amendment that the internet is covered under the first amendment. For all intents and purposes, it is the modern day printing press.
There should just be a movement to push for an amendment that the internet is covered under the first amendment. For all intents and purposes, it is the modern day printing press.
... It is, but I can't print copyrighted books either.
tinwhiskers on
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VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Remember kids, music piracy is wrong unless you are a consortium of recording agencies. In that case, please feel free to infringe on artists copyrights all you want and then sue your insurance to pay any copyright infrignment lawsuit penalties that are levied against you:
Earlier this year, the four primary members of the Canadian Recording Industry Association (now Music Canada) - Warner Music Canada, Sony BMG Music Canada, EMI Music Canada, and Universal Music Canada - settled the largest copyright class action lawsuit in Canadian history by agreeing to pay over $50 million to compensate for hundreds of thousands of infringing uses of sound recordings. While the record labels did not admit liability, the massive settlement spoke for itself.
The Canadian case has now settled, but Universal Music has filed its own lawsuit, this time against its insurer, who it expects to pay for the costs of the settlement. National Union Fire Insurance Company has refused, understandably taking the position that the liability reflects Universal Music's own use of copyright works for which it promised to set aside money for future payment. As the Hollywood Reporter notes:
UMG put out albums without artist permission, held back royalties from these artists, and then finally paid out when faced with a much bigger legal threat. Now, even though the settlement money seems to cover what was claimed and acknowledged to be owed to artists, UMG is using the guise of a copyright claim to recover the money from its insurer.
Perhaps this represents an innovative new business model - profit from infringing on tens of thousands of copyrights and then look to an insurance policy to cover the expense. Needless to say, if Universal Music is successful, this will presumably encourage infringing activities for anyone with insurance policies (ie. businesses, universities, even some homeowner policies) that could engage in risk-free conduct secure in the knowledge that an insurer would cover potential liability.
They must have gotten a bulk discount on the penalty per copyright violation. They admitted to $50 million dollars in infrignment, and if things had followed the legal system as it works for individuals, not corporations they could have been on the hook for more than $6 billion. Apparently the largest pirates are the recording labels. I wonder how that skews the stats.
Having engaged in widespread copyright infringement for over 20 years, the CRIA members now face the prospect of far greater liability. The class action seeks the option of statutory damages for each infringement. At $20,000 per infringement (the amount owed on some songs exceed this amount), potential liability exceeds $6 billion. These numbers may sound outrageous, yet they are based on the same rules that has led the recording industry to claim a single file sharer is liable for millions in damages.
Which was a better analogy than Stevens got credit for.
No it wasn't. The Internet is not 'a series of tubes'. You could loosely translate this to, 'a series of cables', but even that isn't very accurate. It's like saying the power grid is 'a series of wires'.
Will they even really make money off of this? There is no way this will stop piracy and most of the people it really will hurt are people who add value to the product. Nothing that sounds like an increase in revenue.
Nice to see Google is on the right side of things.
Sad to see they were treated so terribly for it.
The way to make money is to shake down startups and other established companies who deal with content in some way.
It's a fruitless task to try and stop individual users. But if any obviously raise their head they'll make an example out of them just because.
My congressman is doing some town hall meetings this weekend. I'll be there to speak out against this, hopefully I can convince some other people I know to come with me.
There should just be a movement to push for an amendment that the internet is covered under the first amendment. For all intents and purposes, it is the modern day printing press.
... It is, but I can't print copyrighted books either.
You can copy excerpts if you attribute them properly. The problem with "... DIGITALLY" is that a few really stupid people are trying to chip away at that for no discernible reason. And a number of idiotic kids are uploading shit that blatantly infringes for no reason.
Just thinking through it, a large portion of the youtube things I've watched today would infringe logically on so many copyrights. But .. realistically it doesn't freaking MATTER. A video game intro with a new music track over it in theory breaks two copyrights. But is not going to harm the sales of either the game or the music track. So who the fuck cares?
Sadly, I don't think judges are allowed to look at the case before them and go ".. so fucking what?"
Just thinking through it, a large portion of the youtube things I've watched today would infringe logically on so many copyrights. But .. realistically it doesn't freaking MATTER. A video game intro with a new music track over it in theory breaks two copyrights. But is not going to harm the sales of either the game or the music track. So who the fuck cares?
Sadly, I don't think judges are allowed to look at the case before them and go ".. so fucking what?"
The IP & copyright laws, as has been stated so many times before, are just way out of touch with current technology & the current market. That wouldn't necessarily be a problem, except that certain conglomerates are religiously opposed to adaptation, even if said adaptation would be a financial windfall to their current woes. So they insanely lobby, opposing their own interests, against reforms to a system that just plain no longer joins-up at all with the modern culture, deciding that engaging in lawsuits until the end of time is somehow a better income source than steadily raking-in dollars from electronic transactions.
Art Bordsky, spokesman for Public Knowledge, a Washington-based public policy group, said Sopa was "the proverbial bull in the proverbial china shop" and that the bill as it stands would have "terrible consequences" for the internet.
"The international aspects alone are very worrying," he said. "It appears that the US is taking control of the entire world. The definitions written in the bill are so broad that any US consumer who uses a website overseas immediately gives the US jurisdiction the power to potentially take action against it."
How is it possible for the US to just create a law that gives them power to pull the plug on companies anywhere in the world, outside of US jurisdiction? I don't mean to sound indignant, I really just don't understand. No other country would even think of drafting such a law.
By imposing sanctions on financial processors for doing business with them and by getting flights to "refuel" on US territory and then ejecting people on RICO charges. That's how it's done
Just saying, if he does it for that, chances are he'll do it for this. Obama's a smart guy.
You may want to check his DOJ and advisers. Obama will explain how his respectful and smart, but unfortunately misguided, supporters don't actually understand how good this bill is for them and how important it is for the economy. It's just a matter of educating them! It will work.
If Obama wants to lose the 2012 election he'll come out in support of this.
While the mainstream won't understand or care about this, the people that get out the vote and do the heavy lifting online for Obama will, and he really can't afford to piss those people off in this election.
If Obama wants to lose the 2012 election he'll come out in support of this.
While the mainstream won't understand or care about this, the people that get out the vote and do the heavy lifting online for Obama will, and he really can't afford to piss those people off in this election.
Nope. The electorate en mass won't understand or care and the small portion that cares will decided that there are "bigger issues" and the alternative is absolutely terrible so they may as well vote for him. He can eat a baby on live TV and still win 2012 the way the republicans are shaping.
If Obama wants to lose the 2012 election he'll come out in support of this.
While the mainstream won't understand or care about this, the people that get out the vote and do the heavy lifting online for Obama will, and he really can't afford to piss those people off in this election.
Nope. The electorate en mass won't understand or care and the small portion that cares will decided that there are "bigger issues" and the alternative is absolutely terrible so they may as well vote for him. He can eat a baby on live TV and still win 2012 the way the republicans are shaping.
What he's saying is that he could lose his ground team. Which was instrumental to his last win.
Edit-If all the website that claim will be effected are then you can bet your ass people will be aware of the issue.
Which was a better analogy than Stevens got credit for.
No it wasn't. The Internet is not 'a series of tubes'. You could loosely translate this to, 'a series of cables', but even that isn't very accurate. It's like saying the power grid is 'a series of wires'.
I'm not sure you know what 'analogy' means.
'series of tubes' is a good analogy for the Internet when talking about bandwidth (which is what Stevens was talking about). There is a limited capacity at any given time. If the tube gets full (more traffic than can be handled, or 'fit through the tube') or if it gets clogged (system failure), traffic slows down or stops.
Although I am positive Stevens was just trying to repeat what someone else told him without understanding it.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
remember, digital piracy has been around a long time, and has done the most empirically demonstrable damage to the film industry
Which was a better analogy than Stevens got credit for.
No it wasn't. The Internet is not 'a series of tubes'. You could loosely translate this to, 'a series of cables', but even that isn't very accurate. It's like saying the power grid is 'a series of wires'.
I'm not sure you know what 'analogy' means.
'series of tubes' is a good analogy for the Internet when talking about bandwidth (which is what Stevens was talking about). There is a limited capacity at any given time. If the tube gets full (more traffic than can be handled, or 'fit through the tube') or if it gets clogged (system failure), traffic slows down or stops.
Although I am positive Stevens was just trying to repeat what someone else told him without understanding it.
Except those exact conditions exist for actual traffic. Like, roads and stuff. And well... Stevens was comparing the two analogies of 'a big truck' and 'a series of tubes'
It's really really not. He was saying that it's a series of tubes, rather than a highway with trucks delivering information. Stuff in tubes doesn't route itself. Stuff in tubes goes by a single route. Stuff in tubes does not travel in discrete chunks that need to be reassembled on the other end. Crap being delivered in trucks using a highway system(or even better containerized delivery by road, rail, sea and air) actually does all of those things,
Hell, he thinks people downloading movies caused his e-mail to be slow, because it's a series of tubes and he has to wait for the movies to get transmitted before he can get his e-mail. Of course, that's actually wrong. He doesn't get his e-mail right away because it's waiting at one or another UPS terminal, getting ready to be put on a truck and sent to a different UPS terminal that will eventually deliver it to his door. Just like my damn video card that has been sitting in Jacksonville, doing absolutely nothing, for the past 18 hours.
It's a shit analogy that is worse than the one he was attempting to replace.
Neat thing about this bill, it makes torrenting fan-subs of anime a felony, because it add extra penalties for distributing material in a market where it is not available yet.
The film industry had record profits last year. I'm sure piracy impacts them, but I find it hard to really care. At least in the US, foreign piracy is absolutely having an impact.
Wouldn't passing these bills mean that websites like Tumblr, Youtube, Reddit, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and even Google will be required to be shut down until both domain and user content is completely under control? Effectively reshaping the internet as millions know it?
Wouldn't passing these bills mean that websites like Tumblr, Youtube, Reddit, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, and even Google will be required to be shut down until both domain and user content is completely under control? Effectively reshaping the internet as millions know it?
Which is why I don't give it great odds of passing.
But I actually don't give anything great odds of passing in the current congress.
I really thought that producing agencies would relish the free advertising fans give their products; isn't publicity much more important than anything else? I know Youtube has become a virtual free market for expanding ideas and products at uncontrollable rates, does the loss of sales really exceed the increase of interested buyers? I can't help but feel that industries are still very desirable of control.
My father once explained to me the uproar that occurred when VCR players were released to the public. The notion that people could play and record their own movies at home was preposterous and fought tooth and nail. I'm reminded of this when I think of these bills.
Hah, if my reps are anything like John Cornyn on this issue, I should be expecting a nice "Fuck you, I do what I want you fucking thief" response within the next week.
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The strong push for 'anti-piracy' bullshit correlates very, very closely with the digital publication of documents from the old Soviet archives, old CIA cables, and (of course) all of the documents released by Wikileaks.
Anyways, this bill won't be signed into law. As big as the MPAA thinks it is, companies like Apple and Google who have come out against are even bigger.
Plus, I don't think Obama would be dumb enough to sign this into law. It's a do-nothing bill that does far more harm than good.
There are actually non-media companies that are losing a lot of money, and that money is coming from the one competitive edge the US economy actually manages to retain, and a fair amount of it is state sanctioned if not sponsored.
Ohh and then they pirate all their movies/cds too.
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Because China would collapse without the US buying all their shit.
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
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His really stupid comment was when he said he just got internet this morning.
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
... It is, but I can't print copyrighted books either.
Remember kids, music piracy is wrong unless you are a consortium of recording agencies. In that case, please feel free to infringe on artists copyrights all you want and then sue your insurance to pay any copyright infrignment lawsuit penalties that are levied against you:
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6131/125/
They must have gotten a bulk discount on the penalty per copyright violation. They admitted to $50 million dollars in infrignment, and if things had followed the legal system as it works for individuals, not corporations they could have been on the hook for more than $6 billion. Apparently the largest pirates are the recording labels. I wonder how that skews the stats.
Edit: Numbers come from the original article, several link layers deep from the one above
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4596/135/
No it wasn't. The Internet is not 'a series of tubes'. You could loosely translate this to, 'a series of cables', but even that isn't very accurate. It's like saying the power grid is 'a series of wires'.
Basically, this.
Nevertheless, I emailed Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray and told them to vote "no."
At this point, I don't think they listen to their constituents anymore.
For when last year's satire becomes today's reality. Just replace the word pedophiles with pirates.
You can't even make this stuff up anymore.
The way to make money is to shake down startups and other established companies who deal with content in some way.
It's a fruitless task to try and stop individual users. But if any obviously raise their head they'll make an example out of them just because.
You can copy excerpts if you attribute them properly. The problem with "... DIGITALLY" is that a few really stupid people are trying to chip away at that for no discernible reason. And a number of idiotic kids are uploading shit that blatantly infringes for no reason.
Just thinking through it, a large portion of the youtube things I've watched today would infringe logically on so many copyrights. But .. realistically it doesn't freaking MATTER. A video game intro with a new music track over it in theory breaks two copyrights. But is not going to harm the sales of either the game or the music track. So who the fuck cares?
Sadly, I don't think judges are allowed to look at the case before them and go ".. so fucking what?"
The IP & copyright laws, as has been stated so many times before, are just way out of touch with current technology & the current market. That wouldn't necessarily be a problem, except that certain conglomerates are religiously opposed to adaptation, even if said adaptation would be a financial windfall to their current woes. So they insanely lobby, opposing their own interests, against reforms to a system that just plain no longer joins-up at all with the modern culture, deciding that engaging in lawsuits until the end of time is somehow a better income source than steadily raking-in dollars from electronic transactions.
By imposing sanctions on financial processors for doing business with them and by getting flights to "refuel" on US territory and then ejecting people on RICO charges. That's how it's done
You may want to check his DOJ and advisers. Obama will explain how his respectful and smart, but unfortunately misguided, supporters don't actually understand how good this bill is for them and how important it is for the economy. It's just a matter of educating them! It will work.
While the mainstream won't understand or care about this, the people that get out the vote and do the heavy lifting online for Obama will, and he really can't afford to piss those people off in this election.
Nope. The electorate en mass won't understand or care and the small portion that cares will decided that there are "bigger issues" and the alternative is absolutely terrible so they may as well vote for him. He can eat a baby on live TV and still win 2012 the way the republicans are shaping.
What he's saying is that he could lose his ground team. Which was instrumental to his last win.
Edit-If all the website that claim will be effected are then you can bet your ass people will be aware of the issue.
I'm not sure you know what 'analogy' means.
'series of tubes' is a good analogy for the Internet when talking about bandwidth (which is what Stevens was talking about). There is a limited capacity at any given time. If the tube gets full (more traffic than can be handled, or 'fit through the tube') or if it gets clogged (system failure), traffic slows down or stops.
Although I am positive Stevens was just trying to repeat what someone else told him without understanding it.
out of interest, what damage is this?
Except those exact conditions exist for actual traffic. Like, roads and stuff. And well... Stevens was comparing the two analogies of 'a big truck' and 'a series of tubes'
It's really really not. He was saying that it's a series of tubes, rather than a highway with trucks delivering information. Stuff in tubes doesn't route itself. Stuff in tubes goes by a single route. Stuff in tubes does not travel in discrete chunks that need to be reassembled on the other end. Crap being delivered in trucks using a highway system(or even better containerized delivery by road, rail, sea and air) actually does all of those things,
Hell, he thinks people downloading movies caused his e-mail to be slow, because it's a series of tubes and he has to wait for the movies to get transmitted before he can get his e-mail. Of course, that's actually wrong. He doesn't get his e-mail right away because it's waiting at one or another UPS terminal, getting ready to be put on a truck and sent to a different UPS terminal that will eventually deliver it to his door. Just like my damn video card that has been sitting in Jacksonville, doing absolutely nothing, for the past 18 hours.
It's a shit analogy that is worse than the one he was attempting to replace.
Neat thing about this bill, it makes torrenting fan-subs of anime a felony, because it add extra penalties for distributing material in a market where it is not available yet.
Have you seen Deep Impact? It's an allegory about the industry, man!
I thought it was just an allegory about the porn industry.
No man, the title is a metaphor about the porn industry. The movie is an allegory about the TPB vs MPAA struggle. True story.
Which is why I don't give it great odds of passing.
But I actually don't give anything great odds of passing in the current congress.
My father once explained to me the uproar that occurred when VCR players were released to the public. The notion that people could play and record their own movies at home was preposterous and fought tooth and nail. I'm reminded of this when I think of these bills.