White House Cracks Down On Piracy & Counterfeiting

GovTechGuy writes "On Tuesday the White House made a show of rolling out an expansive new strategy to combat online piracy and counterfeit goods, to the delight of industry groups. The plan emphasizes targeting foreign websites that host pirated software and movies and increasing the number of investigations and prosecutions by the FBI, FTC, and Justice Department. Here is the complete plan, introduced by the new 'copyright czar,' Victoria Espinel."

This result shouldn't be surprising at all...

[macraig]

...considering who we have as a Vice President and who his friends are:

Biden to MPAA: you'll like Obama's pick for copyright czar
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/04/biden-to-mpaa-youll-like-obamas-copyright-pick.ars [arstechnica.com]

I don't care enough to read it for myself

[sangreal66]

but I did read the analysis of the plan on Ars (link [arstechnica.com]) and their conclusions are far more favorable to consumers and less favorable to industry groups than the Slashdot summary suggests.

Am I missing something?

[Andorin]

I'm not going to read the full report myself, but earlier today I did read Ars Technica's piece on this subject [arstechnica.com]. The impression I get from that article is that the federal government is going to largely stay out of the battle between rights holders and file sharers:

The Administration believes that it is essential for the private sector, including content owners, Internet service providers, advertising brokers, payment processors and search engines, to work collaboratively, consistent with the antitrust laws, to address activity that has a negative economic impact and undermines US businesses, and to seek practical and efficient solutions to address infringement.

According to Ars, reaction to the report has been positive, even from Public Knowledge. You know, one a-them digital hippy organizations that campaign for peoples' rights. There won't be any gov't-sanctioned three-strikes or Internet filtering, and they're going to get the Department of Commerce to put together an ultimate report on financial harm from piracy (good luck with that, but A for effort since they mentioned that the media industries are basically making shit up). It really doesn't sound all that bad, and it could have been much worse.

And then we have this Slashdot summary, making it out to be all doom and gloom, as though the feds weren't even going to try to hide that they're in bed with Big Content. As the subject line says, am I missing something here?

Re:Fooled us

[Tassach]

Protecting the industry that votes Democrat and squelching free speech that criticizes the party in power.

Protecting the copyright cartels is one of the few things both parties agree on. Don't forget that Sonny Bono, author/sponsor of the copyright for eternity-on-the-installment-plan, was a Republican. Both houses passed this stinking piece of legislative manure by voice vote, which makes it impossible to determine who voted for or against. Republicans controlled both the h

Take your partisan nitwittery elsewhere, where the audience isn't persuaded by facts. Freep, perhaps.

Re:Fooled us

[Shakrai]

Well, I assume his second remark was in reference to the so-called "fairness doctrine", which is pretty much universally opposed by the GOP......

Don't be too Optimistic

[Zancarius]

I'm of the mindset that the media industry at large is hurting not so much because of piracy but because of quality and the inability to adapt. Me? I used to by CDs whenever I'd hunt for music. Now, I just purchase it from Amazon if it's available; if not, I do without. (Before anyone whines about lossy codecs, I might remind you that this is simply an anecdote; I honestly can't tell the difference between FLAC and MP3 for the majority of what I own except in very rare circumstances. If you can tell the difference, by all means purchase something you can encode in the format you desire.) I don't watch a lot of movies anymore, and the most recent thing I watched was an old series I enjoyed that Hulu happened to have.

So, it's great that they have the average consumer in mind.

But, I feel Ars missed something of value in this statement by Espinel (a copyright Czar? seriously? we have an entire legal framework put in place to enforce copyright, and we now need a copyright Czar to watch over all of this?):

"The Administration believes that it is essential for the private sector, including content owners, Internet service providers, advertising brokers, payment processors and search engines, to work collaboratively, consistent with the antitrust laws, to address activity that has a negative economic impact and undermines US businesses, and to seek practical and efficient solutions to address infringement." (Emphasis added.)

(Original emphasis is not mine.)

Read that quote. Got it?

Now, I want you to read it again--carefully this time. Specifically, minus the distracting bits:

"The Administration believes that it is essential for ... Internet service providers, ... and search engines, to work collaboratively, consistent with the antitrust laws, to address activity that has a negative economic impact and undermines US businesses, and to seek practical and efficient solutions to address infringement."

Emphasis mine.

I don't know about you, but that sounds a lot like a subtle (or maybe not to subtle) hint to industry that it needs to start cracking down on illicit behavior. Specifically, I'm talking about deep packet inspection. More importantly, her words imply to me that even Google would need to filter its results for potentially illegal download links.

But wait, there's more!

The plan says the government will soon begin trading samples of "circumvention devices" with the content industry "to assist in determining whether such devices violate an import prohibition." Obviously MPAA and RIAA don't like modchips that allow users to end run DRM restrictions. Groups like Public Knowledge, on the other hand, point out that educators can't exercise fair use rights if they can't access technologies to help them extract video content from DVDs.

Judging by the reaction of Public Knowledge, I suspect that all such "circumvention devices" are indeed software applications that might help pull content off otherwise DRM-protected discs. Really, this statement better reads as "We're going to let the RIAA and MPAA look at all of this stuff and tell us whether it violates the DMCA. If it does, then we'll punish the authors."

To me, though, the most comical bit was this:

The report also promises more vigilance against "foreign-based and foreign-controlled websites and web services" that "infringe American intellectual property rights," but acknowledges that there isn't much the US can do about them.

Oh really? We have all these fanciful ideas and if any one of those evil pirates overseas is in an area where we can't enforce our IP laws, we're screwed!

So tell me, aside from the little blurb about online pharmacies (which I do think ought to be shut down, but that's another rant entirely mainly because I suspect they pay for a vast majority of spam delivery), what part of this sounds as if it's not simply a thinly veiled attempt at selling ISP-level packet filtering?

Re:The people lose again

[Maxo-Texas]

Son,

When I went to college, rates had gone up and it cost me $1500 a semester for a full load. This was about 20 years ago.
College rates have gone up insanely fast compared to everything else except medical care.

I graduated college debt free. without student loans. I didn't have to do any of that crap because college used to be affordable.
It's not any more.

I read about students graduating with $50k, $100k, and even $550k in debt and it makes me really sad for the kids today.

Open your eyes, they are taking you for a ride.

Re:The people lose again

[mpe]

But if the MPAA is correct, the people aren't apathetic, they are simply doing what they believe is right.

Consider also that the MPAA has been caught "pirating" both movies and software. There are only interested in protecting their "intellectual property". Quite possibly some of what they claim as "theirs" actually isn't...

Re:The people lose again

[Anzya]

In Sweden schooling is not only free but you also get around $800 each month while you study. Some of it is a special kind of loan but a smaller part you don't need to pay back.
This is enough that most students don't need to take an extra job on the side.

USA might be the "land of opportunity" but in Sweden we believe that one of the best ways to give everyone a chance is to make certain they can go to any school they want. If you are smart enough to get in, money shouldn't be an object. We want the best not the richest ;)

Re:The people lose again

[MoeDumb]

" . . . that we The Peeps (aka Government) . . . "

We, the Peeps, are not the Government. We are the governed.