Entertainment Industry's Dystopia of the Future 394
renek writes "If you think the RIAA/MPAA's tactics have been outlandish, laughable, and disconcerting in the past, you haven't seen anything yet. From government-mandated spyware that deletes infringing content to border searches of media players, this reads like an Orwellian nightmare. Given the US government's willingness to bend over for Big Media it wouldn't be terribly surprising to see how far this goes and how under the radar it stays."
It's simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't possibly protect content without directly affecting the people who play by the rules. Things like the Patriot Act suffer from the same problem.
Re:It's simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
I dunno about you but www.eff.org just got another donation.
Seriously if you don't like this kind of thing happening then:
1. SPEAK OUT
>Not only to those around you but to
a. Your Congressmen and Senators - Letter writing, and phone calls are simple, fairly cheap and CAN make a difference but only if you do it.
b. Signing Petitions - Online petitions are good ways of building support for causes you like and are quick and easy to do
c. Talk to those around you. Let your views be known you might help someone else realize how important this is.
2. Donate and Support good causes
Unfortunately our legal system is a pay for service setup where lawyers cost money. You can send a few bucks to places like the EFF or ACLU to help support your rights online and off. Their websites are easy to find and often have good information on what else you can do to support civil liberties. If you are not a US citizen then the organizations may be different but the idea is the same.
3. VOTE
It is your right and it may be a drop in the bucket, but that bucket will never fill if you don't put it in. If you don't like either of the two-party candidates vote for a third party. Even if they don't win, a third party getting a higher percentage of the vote DOES help them and other parties in the next cycle.
Voting is not just a right it is a duty. Yes YOU by living in a representative democracy have a duty to vote, and that doesn't mean just showing up at the polls on election day. You also have a duty to do what you can to RESEARCH and LEARN about the candidates and to THINK about who will be getting YOUR vote.
Democracy is hard and demands the most of its citizens compared to any form of previously tried government. ALL citizens have to work in government because all citizens ARE PART of the government.
Re:It's simple. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It's simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is not about protecting content. It is protecting content "owners" desire to perpetually sell the content by creating laws that support that desire at the expense of the general public.
Human nature is one of sharing, remixing, co-creating. Standing on the shoulders of giants and all that.
In business, like in war, the party with the least compassion wins.
People who lobby for draconian IP laws are not creators, inventors, artists. They are the middlemen, trying to squeeze maximum profit and lock in their ownership of others' creations forever. Any politician that votes for such laws is by definition not serving the people, not doing their job, and deserves to be immediately removed from their position due to their being corrupted.
Simple.
Bending over? (Score:3, Insightful)
Disclosure (Score:5, Funny)
Customs authorities should be encouraged to do more to educate the traveling public and entrants into the United States about these issues. In particular, points of entry into the United States are underused venues for educating the public about the threat to our economy (and to public safety) posed by counterfeit and pirate products.
Customs forms should be amended to require the disclosure of pirate or counterfeit items being brought into the United States.
[x] One eye patch.
[x] One peg leg.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
[x] One parrot
[x] One keg of grog (duty free)
[x] Marks the spot
Market balancing itself (Score:2)
Sooner or later when things get ridiculous the market with solve the problem. Sites like Jamendo already exist for freely sharing music. There is impulse for distributing games DRM free and is making a profit at it.
These old dinosaurs have a lot of power but it will soon evaporate once the world has moved on without them. There is a long line of new businesses that do "get it" which can replace them.
Re:Market balancing itself (Score:4, Insightful)
Trouble is, cartels tend to work outside of the free market...
Re:Market balancing itself (Score:5, Interesting)
Not only that, but there is another, and may be stronger force which distorts the market operation: advertising. The entertainment industry would be dead without it. And it is not that the advertisement pays the bills, no: it is what it does to our brains. The TV-watching public is not able to make rational choices in the marketplace. An individual can, through a concentrated effort which involves skipping commercials and/or boycotting the advertised brands, but on average, enough people are brainwashed into buying shit they do not necessarily need. Entertainment is not food. You cannot get free quality food on a regular basis, but the entertainment you can. The fun factor is completely subjective and is determined, in most heads, by ads. You could rent DVDs twice a week ($10/week), or you could play with you cat ($0). You could buy an album per week from an online store ($10/week) or you could play your own guitar ($0) or a bassoon ($0). Or you can record your music and post it on your website ($5/month), or walk in the park with your dog and try to pick up chicks ($0), you get the idea.
Ladies and gents, let's do it, let's educate the public. Tell your friends how to block ads: this is the first, and pretty much the last step, the nail in the coffin of the commercial pop art industry. Stop wondering why bad movies sell so well, I'll tell you the secret: the movies may be bad, but the ad campaigns are real works of art. So educate your friends, lovers, people on the street, and even enemies, on how to
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Trouble is, cartels tend to work outside of the free market...
I would argue that the black market is more free then the free market.
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And if they successfully legislate their survival?
Re:Market balancing itself (Score:5, Insightful)
This probably isn't true. The point of the article is that the entertainment industry is trying to push obscene measures to stop "piracy." While in a normal market situation people would just stop supporting these companies and go to a competitor, such a scenario is unlikely to play out since there are no real competitors besides companies that will probably be squelched as illegal.
Think of it this way: would the automobile ever have taken off if the buggy industry owned and legally controlled all materials and technology related to the making of wheels? Sure the buggy makers could adopt the new automotive technology, and it would be better for the consumer if they did, but there is no immediate incentive for them to do so.
The music industry as a whole controls the vast majority of music, and are pushing laws to crush emerging technologies that might obsolete their main revenue source. There is no reason for them to switch and take advantage of these new technologies, because they don't have to. The average consumer of entertainment just doesn't have the self control to stop listening to songs or watching films for an unknown amount of time just to put pressure on the industry, and groups like the RIAA know this. Thus, they have every incentive to try and legislate the problem away, as the market has no way to correct. Only if their grip on copyright is loosened, or some form of piracy allowed to flourish, is there any pressure to adapt to changing realities in the world.
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Maybe I missed it in the article but how so in the context of a competitor that doesn't infringe on their copyright? They're trying to impose harsh restrictions on their copyright but how does it effect consumers of competitors such as Jamendo?
They can really only push so far before people get fed up and just go elsewhere even if there isn't as much content available. When that happens they won't be able to do
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Umm. Are you an American? They've been almost winning every legislative battle inside the U.S. If the world moves on, but American legislators block it, then the world will be moving on without America. I've watched many American TV shows on Chinese video sharing sites, usually via surfthechannel, which bods ill for America's future.
Americans who "get it" really must support the pirate parties in Europe. Europe has some real chance for finding a western model for relaxation of intellectual property, on
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> Americans who "get it" really must support the pirate parties in Europe.
> Europe has some real chance for finding a western model for relaxation of
> intellectual property, one the U.S. could adopt later, and then catch back
> up.
ROFL. It isn't the US Congress that is happily enacting "three strikes" laws.
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Free Market this, free market that. Two things. One, there is no such thing as a free market. Two, the last thing the "free market" solved was Soviet Russia.
Re:Market balancing itself (Score:5, Insightful)
The market tried to sort out the banking industry, but the the goverment stepped in and handed a trillion dollars of taxpayer money to the banks for no good reason, ensuring they wouldn't learn a lasting lesson from their foolishness.
The government certainly has a role in regulating the logistics of markets: creating a standard language for contracts, defining standards for weights and measures, enforcing contracts, and protecting against fraud. They had a serious failure in doing so with the mortgage derivatives market that caused so much hassle. But the regulation needed there was simple "look, trade this shit on the CBOT or another major exchange, so that everyone is using the same standardized set of contracts". This is required for most other financial intruments, and creates enough transparancy to keep the market functioning (without the government even needing to create the standards, just insisting that there are standards.
Plus, of course, the mortgage fraud was starting to get out of hand before the collapse, but we didn't need any new laws for that, just to stop turning a blind eye to it.
Rather than doing the simple, non-instrusive job the government is suposed to, it created a problem which it then used to nationalize a big chuck on the American economy. Ditto healthcare, and to some small extent auto manufacturing.
To paraphrase Star Wars... (Score:5, Insightful)
If they treat consumers as enemies they will become enemies.
You're far too forgiving... (Score:4, Informative)
You think as if they are NOT already treating customers as enemies.
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How many young people do you know these days that download stuff willy nilly without a second thought? How many young folk do you know that, when they can't convince Mom or Dad to buy them the next CD, find a way to get it off the internet or from a friend for free? How many college dorms exist were kids swap huge external hard drives full of content they will never listen to just because they can? How many of those folk stop and think, "What I am doing is so wrong. Maybe I
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"I'm old, and I predict the imminent demise of western civilization because these newfangled gadgets the kids love so much are different than what I grew up with. And get off my lawn!"
It would have been faster. I bet if we went back and looked at the hypothetical iPod playlist of a 13-year-old You, it would be as embarrassingly banal as the playlists of today's crop of 13 year olds. Nostalgia is powerful, but tends to blind us to the fact that things really aren't "worse" t
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it's the fact that music itself is becoming less and less important, so less value is placed on it. Music is now something you listen to while studying, something you put on in the car or at a party, not something to be enjoyed for its own sake. The advent of portable music devices insure that it's everywhere all the time, utterly trivial to get, and not something you'd feel attachment to. We value what we have to work to get, and getting music nowadays is not work at all.
I hadn't ever thought about that before, the fact that many folk take music as a given since it permeates everywhere these days. I mean, it seems pretty obvious, but it is a decently insightful observation with regards to the values our culture has. The reason we don't value music enough to pay as much as we used to, these days, may very well be because we can see, hear, and access music everywhere. That doesn't just involve iPods and such, but
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It was more a joke than an attack. As an "oldish" guy myself, I know how tempting it can be to view every new gadget as the herald of the end of civilization as we know it. :)
"Valuing" music in the sense of art appreciation is not necessarily tied to the amount of money you pay for it. Recor
haggling (Score:3, Insightful)
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From TFA:
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politics, where one get one batshit person in suit to make a outrageous claim so that a very similar claim from different suit seems mundane...
Re:haggling (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course it is. And remember we're only seeing what EFF want us to see - they're hardly going to present the most unbiased view.
Thing is, money talks. It certainly talks to the US government, and also to my own (UK) government. Those who are going all out pro-piracy are easily labelled as insane (which is remarkably easy - much of the western world doesn't produce any sort of property but intellectual, it doesn't take a debating genius to put forward an argument that some sort of protection is absolutely necessary for the continued wellbeing of the economy - frankly, the previous system of patronage doesn't scale so well. It's easy to overlook the fact that a cleverly built website could probably fix that by allowing lots of small donations to be wrapped up into one big lump, because nobody's done that yet. Closest thing is probably Magnatunes).
This leaves the moderates. Those who produce and/or enjoy music, don't see a problem with artists getting paid per se but do see a problem with the current system. Problem is, AFAICT the moderates aren't proposing workable solutions, they're simply complaining that every suggestion that's brought up is worse than the current system. Which is true, but right now you've got people on all sides saying "We need to do something. Hey, Government, do something!" and the only "something" that's being presented to do is presented by the entertainment industry. So the Government reaction is likely to be "We need to do something. This is something. Let's do it."
Re:haggling (Score:4, Insightful)
This leaves the moderates. Those who produce and/or enjoy music, don't see a problem with artists getting paid per se but do see a problem with the current system.
The MAFIAA are at one extreme, those who wish to abolish copyright completely are the other extreme, and the Pirate Party members are the moderates; they simply want reasonable laws.
RMS described it well (Score:5, Insightful)
The Right to Read [gnu.org] was written 13 years ago, and is still remarkably prescient.
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I just read this for the first time. AMAZING.
Sadly, too many people don't care, are too ignorant, worrying about the next reality show, and when to buy the next bag of Doritos(TM).
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If it makes you feel better, I think I've never eaten Doritos.
It's already here basically (Score:4, Interesting)
Border searches of data storage - sure (a small addition of one stated purpose required)
Spyware that deletes infringing content - game DRM is very close; if it "thinks" something's wrong, it nukes your ability to use the content.
Managing to stay mostly under the radar just fine...
And here I was just joking... (Score:5, Insightful)
*shakes head*
Security through obscurity (Score:2)
Would a security inspector even know what an LTO or 3592 tape cartridge looks like? I can fit a lot of music/movies on a tape. Come to think about it, most people on this earth or /. don't know what a LTO or a 3592 tape cartridge looks like. I don't even need to use the native encryption built into LTO-4 or the TS1130 drives.
Just hope they don't put me into a little room until they locate something to access the tape..
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Ahh.. big iron
So much stuff that would be useful at home here in the data center. At least in the winter, when excess heat is a good thing.
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DOH... instead of bringing my 7-iron, I should have brought my big iron.
For once, /. summary not an exageration (Score:3, Interesting)
Just a sample:
There are several technologies and methods that can be used by network administrators and providers...these include [consumer] tools for managing copyright infringement from the home (based on tools used to protect consumers from viruses and malware).
In other words, the entertainment industry thinks consumers should voluntarily install software that constantly scans our computers and identifies (and perhaps deletes) files found to be "infringing." It's hard to believe the industry thinks savvy [sic], security-conscious consumers would voluntarily do so. But those who remember the Sony BMG rootkit debacle know that the entertainment industry is all too willing to sacrifice consumers at the altar of copyright enforcement.
Pervasive copyright filtering
Network administrators and providers should be encouraged to implement those solutions that are available and reasonable to address infringement on their networks.
Right. I have a hard enough time getting my customers to realise the danger of installing pirated software; now I'll have to tell them that they should try and implement stuff that will detected 'illegal' MP3s and AVIs.
Oh, and in order to do so will necessitate rootkitting all their boxen and opening the corporate firewall?
Yeah, that'll work...
bending (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the US government's willingness to bend over for Big Media...
Wrong metaphor; It is not the government who is getting screwed here. On the contrary, congressmen are collect big checks from media corporations for selling off our rights. I think you mean.
Given the US government's willingness to force citizens to bend over for Big Media
You ain't seen nothin' yet (Score:5, Funny)
They said I had it comin' to me, but I wanted it that way
I think that any music is good music
And so I took what I could get, mmm
Oooh, oooh, they looked at me with big brown eyes
And said
You ain't seen nothin' yet
B-B-B-Baby, you just ain't seen nothin' yet
Here's something that you never gonna forget
B-B-B-Baby, you just ain't seen nothin' yet
And now I'm feelin' better, 'cause I found out for sure
They took me to their lawyer and he told me of a cure
He said that only their music is good music
So I took what I could get, yes, I took what I could get
Oooh, and they looked at me with big brown eyes
And said
You ain't seen nothin' yet
B-B-B-Baby, you just ain't seen nothin' yet
Here's something, here's something that you're never gonna forget
B-B-B-Baby, you just ain't seen nothin' yet
You need educated
Any music is good music
So I took what I could get, yes, I took what I could get
And then, and then, and then they looked at me with big brown eyes
And said
You ain't seen nothin' yet
Baby, you just ain't seen nothin' yet
Here's something, here's something,
here's something, mama, you're never gonna forget
B-B-B-Baby, you just ain't seen nu-nu-nu-nothin' yet
You ain't been around
You ain't seen nothin' yet
I know I ain't seen nothin' yet
I know I ain't seen nothin' yet
Baby, Baby, Baby
You ain't seen nothin' yet
The U.S. Depends on it (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, the reality is that the U.S. economy currently depends almost exclusively on culturally created content/entertainment. Nothing gets made in the U.S. and exported anymore BUT movies, music, etc. So it's not a surprise that it's becoming more and more draconian in trying to defend those assets.
It's like if one country controlled all the oil. They'd jack up prices, but they'd also do everything they could to stifle the creation of oil alternatives. They'd start to insist changes in engine designs that used their oil, or else they wouldn't sell you the oil. They'd limit anyone trying to purchase the oil then refine it on their own, because they'd want to do all the refining themselves.
Every indicator I see says that this is going to get much worse in the future.
Re:The U.S. Depends on it (Score:4, Insightful)
Look, the reality is that the U.S. economy currently depends almost exclusively on culturally created content/entertainment.
So our society will collapse if people stop buying the latest Lady Gaga album?
Nothing gets made in the U.S. and exported anymore BUT movies, music, etc. So it's not a surprise that it's becoming more and more draconian in trying to defend those assets.
Except that all the defenses are aimed at stopping stuff from coming in, not going out. Nobody checks laptops, cameras, thumb drives, etc. that could be leaving the country with the latest music videos, jet fighter blueprints, photos of the White House and other target candidates.
Its all about maintaining a monopoly for distribution within this country. Companies see no need to cut prices or improve products so long as they have a block of suckers (us) that have to buy their products at huge markups.
This is a tired myth (Score:4, Informative)
"Nothing gets made in the U.S. and exported anymore BUT movies, music, etc." [citation needed]
Try this [wikipedia.org] for starters.
Please note, I'm not picking on you in particular. You, like a lot of intelligent people, have come down with a nasty case of memes wrt to the composition of output in the US economy.
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Thank you. I think the problem is that it's a meme that the RIAA, MPAA, etc. are pushing. Their lobbyists go to congress and claim that if they don't get bailed out and propped up, then no music or movies or art of any kind will be created anymore and the entire economy will implode.
Thanks to all (Score:3, Interesting)
Blanket reply here at the end of the thread, because I don't feel like hanging around for the "slow down cowboy" thing.
Thanks for pointing out that the data were stale, and for providing data that were less stale.
As for how the meme got started, I actually think the *AAs are late comers. We did see a shift from the rust belt to the non-union South in auto manufacturing. Unions probably preferred to blame international competition, as opposed to interstate competition.
Among geekdom, the phrase "music mov
MPAA & RIAA: Social Harmony approved! (Score:2)
“Now, the latest stats show a sharp rise in grey-market electronics importing and other tariff-breaking crimes, mostly occurring in open-air market stalls and from sidewalk blankets. I
From that noted journal of Socialism (Score:2)
The Economist [economist.com]
The EFF should do itself a favor (Score:2)
EFF's words: Bully countries that have tech-friendly policies
From the RIAA proposal: Targeting such companies and websites in the Special 301 report would put the countries involved on notice that dealing with such hotbeds of copyright theft will be an important topic of
Re:The EFF should do itself a favor (Score:4, Insightful)
The EFF isn't "pirate friendly". They just have different priorities: namely civil liberties.
Calling civil libertarians "pirate sympathisers" is a nice bit of Orwellian Newspeak.
Pirates are simply preferable to the alternative.
Although the real value of "eliminating piracy" is highly disputable. It's not a given that it would benefit artists.
Be sure to let me know how that's working for you (Score:3)
I don't know what the entertainment industry has been smoking, but it must be some powerful shit if they think crap like this is going to fly. Read my lips: Over my dead body.
"Under the radar?" (Score:2)
Sounds like the submitter is concerned that people won't pay attention to this issue and/or take it seriously.
Here's an idea: If you want to encourage people to pay attention, lay off the trite cliches about Orwell and just stick to a factual discussion of what's going on.
You know who's really to blame for the health care bill passing? That would be the highly vocal conservatives yelling about "death panels" when they should've been sending a message people would listen to.
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What's going on?
We're moving towards media technologies that allow Amazon to snatch back your copy of 1984.
It doesn't get much more "Orwellian" than that. There is no hyperbole here. That's the problem.
Sugar coating the situation is hardly going to help anything.
Touché MPAA/RIAA/OMNIPATENTDROLLCARTEL (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't you just hate it when you're not even finished with your great American dystopian Sci-Fi novel and it suddenly morphs into a friggin' documentary?
The new War on Drugs (Score:5, Interesting)
This is the new War on Drugs. Think of all the freedom we lost fighting the war on drugs. If you're within 100 miles of a border, you can be stopped and search for any reason without a warrant. It's a common occurrence to piss in a cup in front of a stranger as a condition of employment. Anyone carrying moderate to large amounts of cash can have it confiscated by the police, with no trial of any sort. And so on.
But the war on drugs is old and busted, we need a new enemy. As the U.S. loses its economic dominance of the world, anything that threatens (whether in theory or fact) the cultural dominance we've had is going to be attacked vigorously. It will be a scorched earth policy. We can expect to lose as many, if not more of our right under this new War on Copyright Infringement. It's just ramping up now, but we'll be seeing people who speak out against the new laws branded as anti-American. Copyright infringement will become a jailable offense.
Sure, it sounds preposterous now. But once upon a time jailing someone for Cannabis would have been preposterous. The American propaganda system is the best in the world. If they can sell a 70 year war on a substance that's factually safer than aspirin, if they can manipulate us into an optional war in Iraq for absolutely no reason at all, they'll have no problem turning copyright infringement into the next witch hunt.
Artist will starve. The non-existent problem (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was a child our house was heated by oil, a tank car came by every now and then and fueled up a tank in the back.
That no longer happened. The guy who drove the tanker, has lost THAT job.
Coal was used earlier, and a lot of people made their money mining the coal in Holland and shipping it to homeowners. The mines have closed. The miners are gone.
In Amsterdam and many an old city you can still see evidence of horse stables in the center of the city. Evidence that once horses were the only method to power transport and the industry that made it happen.
Gas lighters once went around, turning on each street light individually, a job typically given as a charitable cause for people who could not earn their money in another way.
Countless jobs are gone as companies claimed that putting them in other countries was best for society, for the world, for the future.
And now, it is the time of the artist to loose their job, to see their means of earning a living turned upside down.
Does that matter? Is it worth halting progress to keep some people earning money the same way they are used to?
We could have stopped the car from ever going faster and thereby saved the horse industry. But at what cost to our society?
But art is different. Why? Great art has been created LONG before copyright was added (the current copyright is a recent invention and was fought tooth and nail by the record industry) and that art will remain.
Will people stop performing Opera because the composer is no longer being paid... oh wait, the composer died centuries ago.
Then perhaps people will stop making new art... except unpaid art is produced all the time. Go to flickr.com for just a tiny sample. Nobody there expects to be paid, yet they are producing art.
Yes, some artists will perhaps die of starvation. Just as lost of coal miners lost their job and countless stable boys before them.
THOUGH LUCK. The MPAA/RIAA/Brein/Bumastemra all love to claim that our society will collapse when no more "play for cash only" bands will exist. No more spice-girls, no more backstreet boys. The end of civilization as we know it. I could just cry.
But does it matter? I am not going to argue that pirates buy more CD's because I am trying to make a far bigger point. If indeed the end of copyright means NO more music is produced. Will that matter? Or is it just another development of our society? Imagine a world without movies. Ain't that hard, movie tech is not all that old. One thing often miss about Star Trek is that it is a fictional world without money (ToS and TNG at least) but ALSO without art. Think about it, there are no paid for artists and content in the series itself. We watch on TV a TV-less world. They make their own content, for their own consumption and art is "merely" something that each does for the fun of it, not for profit.
The RIAA and the likes hate such a future. They want us to believe that the artist who works for profit, a Michael Jackson or Madonna IS the ONLY part of our modern civilization that is worth anything. Everything else is secondary to them. The Spice girls are the 20th century, and everything else just plays second role to it. If content is not paid for, it does not exist, it is not worth it and if it is content it must be paid for.
This goes to such extremes that copyright mafia's collect royalties for music for that isn't even subject to royalties. If I produce a piece of music and put it in the public domain and it is played on the radio (in Holland at least) then Bumastemra collects a fee for it. A fee I, the person who created the music can't collect, nor can anyone. They have a legal right to collect money for something they don't own and which they never have to pay out to anyone. It would be like giving Shell the right to collect a fee from anyone on the road, no matter if they drive a car or not.
And the Internet, personal liberties, common sense, artisic license, law, they all got to bend or be broken s
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Some other major reasons why "think of the artists" is pure BS:
- Well, for starters, they're musicians creating music, or actors and directors and producers and everyone else making movies, not "artists" making "content". Calling it "content" immediately states that artistic endeavors are only worth something if they can be sold.
- RIAA-signed musicians don't get squat for their work most of the time. Read just about any of the reports on it, including this one [salon.com].
It's also worth remembering that it's easy to d
That's Entertainment (Score:4, Insightful)
You know what's entertaining?
Watching people argue for rights they don't have against people enforcing rights they don't have.
"Free" Content will Change Everything Eventually.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:woohoo.. payday (Score:4, Funny)
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That's "sudo apt-get install dystopian-copyright-protection" dumbass.
Also, "Couldn't find package dystopian-copyright-protection"
Re:woohoo.. payday (Score:5, Insightful)
obscene-censorship
government-intrusion
corporate-greed
ubisoft-games
sony-rootkit-drm
You should explicitly select one to install.
E: Package dystopian-copyright-protection has no installation candidate
Re:Don't forget... (Score:5, Insightful)
That we citizen elect the politicians.
Yes, but we don't select them.
To be unnecessarily extreme, we can essentially pick between Hitler and Pol Pot. While it's a tough choice, it's not a choice I want to make.
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I thought you could write whomever you wanted onto your ballot?
Or is your objection that voting for third-party candidates is useless because only Republican or Democratic candidates get enough votes to win and so your vote is only useful in helping one of those two to win?
I've seen this objection before. I'm pretty sure what makes it that Republican or Democratic candidates are the ones that get enough votes is because so many people choose to vote for them. So it seems your objection amounts to somethin
Re:Don't forget... (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought you could write whomever you wanted onto your ballot?
Nope. They have to be pre-approved [google.com] (pdf in Google Docs) or they just plain won't be counted.
"The majority chooses who wins, and I'm not part of the majority!"
No, my objection is that the minority choses who the majority gets to pick. The US version of an "election" is a joke relative to modern systems [wikipedia.org].
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Okay, sure, you're right, they have to be pre-approved (I'm Canadian so I feel alright being ignorant of the subtleties of the US electoral college). But, what barriers are there for someone being pre-approved? Has anyone who has filled out that form (or its equivalent in other contexts) with the correct information ever been denied pre-approval? It doesn't seem like a requirement to fill-out a form with basic contact information places much of a limit on whom you can vote for.
Re:Don't forget... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've seen this objection before. I'm pretty sure what makes it that Republican or Democratic candidates are the ones that get enough votes is because so many people choose to vote for them
The Republican and Democrat candidates are the only ones who really get presented to the public. Every election I can remember that got covered on major media is always red vs. blue, every single one. Some early debates might include several candidates, but once things start getting close to election day the debates are also red vs. blue.
In the most recent presidential election there were five parties with ballot access in enough states to win the required 270 electoral votes. So how come the televised debates only show two of those parties to the public? Who has the authority to decide which parties get to debate and which don't? Why aren't the Constitutional, Green, and Libertarian parties allowed to debate in prime time on major networks? The reason most people vote for red or blue is because those are the only choices they think they have, they never even have a chance to hear the other voices to decide if those fit their views better than The Two Who Are More Alike Than They Are Different. How come Chuck Baldwin, Cynthia McKinney, Ralph Nader, and Bob Barr weren't allowed to debate in prime time with the others? Even with no coverage those 4 candidates together got over 1.6 million votes. Imagine how many they would have got if every debate included all 6 candidates.
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Look at what happened to Colbert when he tried to run in South Carolina. He was shot down because "he could never win,"
I'd argue that he was shot down because "there is a real possibility he could win, and/or garner enough votes that we would have to take him seriously"
Re:Don't forget... (Score:4, Insightful)
That we citizen elect the politicians.
Yes, but we don't select them.
To be unnecessarily extreme, we can essentially pick between Hitler and Pol Pot.
Or Kang and Kodos! (Simpsons did it!)
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I always say that choosing between democrat and republican is like deciding between Mephistopheles and Cthulhu. Its pretty damn hard to determine the lesser of two evils when both cause a buffer overflow error on the evil register.
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That we citizen elect the politicians.
Yes, but we don't select them.
To be unnecessarily extreme, we can essentially pick between Hitler and Pol Pot. While it's a tough choice, it's not a choice I want to make.
Yes, that is unnecessarily extreme. Why is everything in politics like this these days? Aren't there shades of wrongness? I mean really, we have a choice between politicians who have authorized the killing of millions of people? How about, 'we can essentially pick between Franco and Peron?' Both pretty bad, and fascist corporatists like many of today's politicians, but, you know, they didn't murder millions of people.
Rational politics requires rational citizens. Throwing around names like Hitler and Pol Pot
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the corporatist that wants to give you health care
Speaking of encouraging irrationality...
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Personally, I think he sold out to Big Medicine, and what we ended up getting will require a lot of fixing. We need a single payer system that guarantees free health care to all, like every other civilized country on Earth. It's a moral issue: we're Americans and we shouldn't let Americans die like rabid dogs in the street. That's third world bananna republic bullshit.
What we got is not a system that guarantees health care to all, it's a system that basically hands money from taxpayers directly to insurance
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I've heard this argument before and the counter argument to it as well: this flawed first step is necessary in order to get the ball rolling. And, you know, it does do a few good things. Not everything in the HCR bill is a corporate giveaway. Some things are quite necessary, like requiring insurers to cover people with pre-existing conditions. Obviously, this is not the universal coverage the majority of Americans wanted. Hopefully, the bad parts can be fixed while the good parts are retained.
No doctors are
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No doctors are going to leave the country or into other professions because of this bill, that is really over the top hyperbole. Really, where did you even get that ridiculous hypothesis?
There's a lot of places in the country where it's really hard to find an OBGYN because they've left states where the malpractice insurance was too expensive. I've also heard of doctors quitting general practice because of malpractice insurance premiums costing more than their entire revenue.
Not to be a wikidick, but [citation needed]. Even in states with restrictive requirements, there are physicians mutuals that are physician run and much cheaper than commercial insurance providers. Have been since the 70s.
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Personally, I think the Federal government is broken, and should be abolished. The states should break apart, and form new, smaller unions with their regional neighbors, and if anything, the US should have a loose union more like the EU, where they only share currency and defense. States need to go back to governing themselves, and funding their own projects, instead of crying to the Federal government to do everything for them. Eventually, states that can't govern themselves well and turn into 3rd-world
Re:Don't forget... (Score:4, Informative)
Mark my words, what we ended up with is going to be even worse than the mess we had before, [...]
What's interesting is it's basically identical to the system in Switzerland (compulsory health insurance from private companies, subsidies for the poor), and there it seems to work quite well (base on my few years living there).
(Not that I think it will work in the US - way too much corruption here from what I've seen so far.)
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Nothing's a panacea. But at least government doesn't have profit as its primary role and motivator, unlike private companies who exist solely to make a profit. Additionally, the government, while frequently bloated and inefficient, is still answerable to the voters. Private companies are answerable to no one but their boards of directors.
Finally, the choice seems to be between two systems:
1) taxpayer -> government -> insurance companies -> healthcare providers
2) taxpayer -> government ->
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I just re-read your comment, and thought I should provide you with an answer, since you sound like you're probably not an American citizen.
why do you even need insurance companies in the loop ?
Simple: because the politicians who wrote this legislation were given large bribes, err, campaign contributions, by these insurance companies, so they were required by their employers (the lobbyists) to write the legislation to benefit them.
I think a lot of people don't realize that America's government is just as cor
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You right wingers love to point out that we are a constitutional republic, but that does not negate anything I said. Technically, I am right, hehehe, you even admit it. But look up the commerce clause.
Yes, the insurance companies do say that. If hold the only source of food, and I say, "suck my dick or starve to death," what will you do? Enter into a dick-sucking-for-food contract? If I hold medicine that will cure you, and I demand an outrageous price for it, what will you do? Economic coercion is real, es
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Works better if your audience at least have heard the names you're using before.
I weep for our country. History, doomed to repeat it, and so forth. Fuck. You don't know who Francisco Franco [wikipedia.org] was? Really? Seriously? You've never heard of Juan [wikipedia.org] or Eva Peron? [wikipedia.org] They made a Broadway musical about her. Madonna was in it, fer chrissake.
Re:Companies need protection too! (Score:4, Insightful)
Bottom line: copyright law was created to benefit SOCIETY, not big media, and we have every right to be upset with them removing any value we receive from it.
Re:Companies need protection too! (Score:5, Insightful)
But what protects that same guy from the RIAA/MPAA/**AA bankrupting him and ruining his life for (maybe) sharing a few songs?
That's more important to you than your civil liberties?
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Citizens won't fight very hard for freedom to use shit pop-culture content.
If their rights over crap are restricted, they will find some other way to be amused.
THAT is why there isn't more momentum against media industry associations. So what if content producers make it difficult to exercise fair use of their shit? It's still shit, and even those who crave shit don't crave it enough to spend the effort to fight for it.
The USA needs a "Pirate Party" (Score:5, Insightful)
The PP will probably never win an election, it's just there to show them how many votes they lose when they support the RIAA.
(OTOH I'd bet the PP could get quite a few votes in today's America...)
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Yep. But once upon a time copyrights longer than 30 years sounded really ludicrous....
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Did you include a large bribe^Wcampaign contribution in that letter?
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I bet if you had included a $100K "donation" to said Critters' "re-election campaign", you would have gotten your H & B in short order.
What a silly idea.
There are way cheaper ways to quickly and discreetly procure hookers and blow.
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...It is a standard tactic to ask for pie in the sky stuff just to make your other requests look more credible....
I wonder why that makes sense to so many people - asking for things which a mad, sociopath lunatic would want makes you more credible? Really?
Negotiating (Score:2)
this is part of democracy where groups negotiate with each other to get what they want. to negotiate you have to give something up,
Some things are non-negotiable.
xxAA: We want to take away all your rights.
EFF/users: No!
xxAA: Oh, come on. Let's negotiate about this.
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So EFF shouldn't be asking for balanced copyright laws, they should be asking for the complete abolition of all copyright (and willing to settle for a rational policy).
PS: Your shift key broken or something?
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Entertainment wants to be free!
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this article is also on eff's site who have their own narrow minded goals
Freedom is not a narrow minded goal.
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Suggesting that corporate profits are more important than individual liberties is itself an extreme position.
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So, in your world view, corporate special interests and 'narrow minded' groups like the EFF, which works to protect the rights of citizens, are lumped into the same group, and we, the citizens, will be best served by a compromise between those who would remove all our rights for a buck, and those who would protect them without asking for anything from us?