RIAA Lawyer Complains DMCA May Need Revamp 303
the simurgh writes "The DMCA is just not providing the kind of protection against online piracy that Congress intended, RIAA lawyer Jennifer Pariser says. The judge in Universal Music Group's copyright suit against Veoh as well as the judge in EMI vs. MP3tunes.com issued similar findings. The courts have now determined the burden of policing the web for infringing materials is on the content owner and not the service provider. Content companies think it is unfair for them to be required to spend resources on scouring the Web when their pirated work helps service providers make money. What they complain about almost as much is that after they notify a service provider of an infringing song or movie clip and they're removed, new copies appear almost immediately. Basically they are complaining the the DMCA makes them responsible for policing their own content at their expense."
"responsible for policing their own content" (Score:5, Insightful)
Working as intended, then.
Re:"responsible for policing their own content" (Score:5, Insightful)
Are they offering to share the loot with the ISPs when they win a court case...?
How about a part of the increased profits? According to them they lose tens of billions per year due to piracy. Are they going to reward the ISPs with a fair share of that?
Re:"responsible for policing their own content" (Score:5, Insightful)
How about they pay for the costs they bring the ISP's to try to filter content in the first place?
Again, I believe that challenge was backed down by the MAFIAA as well...wasn't it worded as "pay a day of our supposedly free costs of youtube"?
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Wait, why are people paying for a video that is free in the first place? There is cost for distribution, but the video has no cost or value - value is determined by those who choose to pay for what they perceive as value - not the other way around.
There is an equivalent to what you're talking about already, but it doesn't work by restricting content and nor would anything that restricts the content itself. It's called flattr.com
Restricting content is a quick way to put anything out of business.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Their claims of Losing money is also vastly different than what happens in reality as well.
Matching their fairytale with another one is absolutely correct.
Re:"responsible for policing their own content" (Score:4, Interesting)
The way I see it, they just want to have another place to file a lawsuit (the ISPs). Why file against just the 'infringers' when you can file against everyone who has anything to do with the internet.
Next up, log visitors and file against anyone who saw that there was infringing content but didn't report it.
Re:"responsible for policing their own content" (Score:4, Insightful)
They've been used to buying enforcement (Score:5, Interesting)
A few million in lobbying money thrown around over the years has bought a LOT of US government enforcement of their copyrights for them.
They would like to continue this trend, as recently they've found out they don't like the expense and public backlash of enforcing themselves.
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Many of us hate the RIAA, but we like the music and some of us are actually willing to purchase said music... Sadly, depending on the channel, we may have to give them some money. But that doesn't mean we've forgotten that link. Some of us feel that it's important to legally purchase the music of our favorite artists, and are willing to concede that some of it goes to them.
...and some of us do not. Independent music is a better buy. I will gladly (and frequently do) buy music. It's civilised. However, the band of companies behind RIAA will get not one dollar from me, simply because I don't like them. Call it "their marketing dollars in action".
Re:"responsible for policing their own content" (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically they are complaining the the DMCA makes them responsible for policing their own content at their expense.
It's not the government or the ISP's job to monitor and/or determine the usage of the content available on the internet. Were I to publish a game, for example, it would then be up to me as an individual to research, inspect, and determine if anyone is infringing on the copyright of my game. Just because they're a large entity doesn't mean they should be exempted from the same issues facing the individual content owners.
Why should the ISP's be forced to swallow the costs of such a manhunt, when they receive zero benefit from the search, it costs them money, and it displays them negatively in the public light such that their brand is devalued, however slightly.
Essentially, content owners should be, and are, responsible for making sure that everyone who uses their content is abiding by their specified licenses, etc. If you're complaining about the costs that you incur whilst enforcing your licensing model, and want the government to help out, perhaps you should re-evaluate your licensing model. Of course, that particular dead horse has been beaten so severely, at this point, to be unrecognizable.
Re:"responsible for policing their own content" (Score:4, Insightful)
Shoplifting is a misdemeanor because public order is not achieved through civil torts alone. Infringement via filesharing has become the petty offense of the 21st century. Sooner or later it will need the same treatment.
Before that can happen, the notion of infringement must be revised to something that isn't so expansive as to criminalize ordinary and reasonable behavior. We need a more comprehensive view of the unwaivable rights of the owner of one copy of a work before we can clearly understand when those rights have been exceeded to the copyright owner's detriment. Right now it's getting the Prohibition treatment and that's not sustainable either.
Re:"responsible for policing their own content" (Score:5, Interesting)
Shoplifting is a misdemeanor because public order is not achieved through civil torts alone. Infringement via filesharing has become the petty offense of the 21st century. Sooner or later it will need the same treatment.
The trouble is that shoplifting is still primarily enforced by the shop owner. The state does not pay a police officer to stand in every shop and watch for shoplifters, because it isn't cost-effective. And so it is with copyright infringement -- the cost to detect and prosecute an infringement far exceeds the harm it causes.
That is really why copyright for entertainment is failing. People blame the internet, but it isn't the internet. It's the availability of storage devices that cost $0.20/GB. You can pay $100 for a portable hard drive that will hold every song released by all the major labels in the last decade and be left with a fair chunk of free space.
Right now infringement is detected because people share with strangers, so the industry becomes one of the strangers and gets the IP address of the other side of the connection. Never mind that though. Remember six degrees of separation? Even if they somehow stop all infringement on the internet -- which is obviously impossible, but let's make the assumption -- in person sharing is still just as bad. Soon enough you'll be able to get a hard drive that can hold every song ever recorded. Then someone will buy one and put every song ever recorded on it. That person's friends will want a copy, and six degrees of separation later everybody has got it. New releases follow the same path and as time goes on the process becomes more efficient as the people involved improve it. Nobody will care about "filling up their hard drive" and someone will create a piece of software that allows you to mark files as "send to friends" and people you designate as friends will automatically get them the next time your any of your devices is in wireless range of theirs. Then their friends will get them, etc.
Notice that it doesn't matter whatsoever that the copies are made over the internet rather than in person. It doesn't matter whether the number of copies made by each person is small or large, because making each recipient a distributor results in exponential growth that makes the number of generations before everyone has it small regardless of the number of distributions made by each person. And there is no good opportunity for detection because no one is distributing to anyone who they don't trust.
That is the future we have to design copyright around. A future in which zero-cost redistribution is widespread and undetectable. That doesn't mean we should give up the idea of creating a government incentive for authorship, but it does mean that we probably have to give up trying to prohibit the thing we can't effectively prohibit.
Re:"responsible for policing their own content" (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, precisely. How exactly are companies who don't own the rights supposed to be able to identify who owns what, and whether they are an authorised provider of that material or not? Some copyright owners, especially smaller or indies, do in fact self-publish their work on youtube or other places. Hell, even comedy central and Channel 4 in the UK post their stuff on youtube. The only people who CAN police this stuff are the copyright owners themselves.
If the MAFIAA gets the changes they want, only 'authorised' channels posting material from known large corporate accounts -viewable for a fee, no doubt - would be able to to put up anything on the internet at all - individiuals and small publishers wouldn't be able to set their own distribution network, and no ISP could host anything as they'd never be able to work out who could give permission. You'd be turning the internet into a broadcast-only medium for the biggest content cartel companies only!
Oh. Right.
DMCA (Score:4, Funny)
I think that DMCA stands for Digital Millennium Copyright Act, so its supposed to last 1000 years before they need to change it.
Re:DMCA (Score:5, Funny)
Wouldn't a digital millennium be 1024 years?
Re:DMCA (Score:4, Funny)
That's be a dibigital mibillenium.
Re: (Score:2)
How did "digital" get applied to the electronics realm where data is most commonly dealt with in binary? Quite a few of a computer's problems are caused by the fact that it ISN'T digital.
Analog vs digital ~= continuous vs discrete. In this context it means countable or enumerable, like your fingers. If it was refering to base 10 it would be called decimal, just like octal is 8 and hexadecimal is 16.
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How nice [wiktionary.org] of you to assume that where a word comes from is what it currently means.
Excuse me, I have a call to place. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hopefully, the Waaaaaaahmbulance is available.
Seriously, they engage in all manner of illegal investigation and questionable lawsuit, and now they're whining about the fact that it's their responsibility to police their content? If this was a small company, I could totally understand, but this is an industry that takes in billions of dollars every year. If they can't afford to bring a few lawsuits, perhaps they need a new business model.
Obligatory Dead Kennedys quote (Score:2)
But sales are slumping .
And no-one will say why
Couldn't be you put out one to many lousy records . . .
-MTV Get Off the Air
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Sure it does, there's plenty of times when I could have sued, but lacked the financial resources and time to do so.
It's fairly common for lawsuits to drag on for years during which time you'd have to be paying attorney's fees hoping to get the money back after winning the case.
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I think planimal means to say "...should not be relevant", as far as legality is concerned. A small business or individual copyright owner should be no more catered to than a multi-billion dollar conglomerate. The law is not supposed to be just for those who can afford it.*
The problem here is that the RIAA seems to be of the opinion that they can just stamp their feet and scream until everyone listens and does what they want, which is not appropriate. All non-large business artists are much more directly
LOL Power companies are profiting from infringment (Score:5, Insightful)
It takes electricity to power those copying material. I guess the power companies should also police the web.
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One idiot to bind them all.
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You might be onto something here... expect a "piracy tax" in your next power bill, and loophole closing (solar panels) in the next few months. I mean, in europe they charge a tax on blank media, that, in theory, goes to "artists".
Re:LOL Power companies are profiting from infringm (Score:5, Interesting)
They do that in the US, too.
Because of this, you can borrow CDs from your friends or a library, and copy them for yourself, and it's all perfectly legal. 17 USC, Chapter 10, Subchapter A, Section 1008 [house.gov] specifically states:
Section 1001 defines a "digital audio recording medium" to be:
In more common language, this refers to audio/music CD-R discs, which are made to work in digital audio recorders (it also covers cassette tapes, FWIW). These discs are different from the more common data CD-Rs, in that they contain special digital markings (standard data CD-Rs won't work in digital audio recorders). In addition, by law a royalty has been paid on this blank media. These royalty payments are in turn distributed to copyright holders (see Section 1006 of the law cited above). They usually cost slightly more than data CD-R discs, but they can be found for less than $0.25 each.
The law which allows this was enacted at the urging of the RIAA, so thanks go to them for all the CDs I got for a quarter instead of $15.
Re:LOL Power companies are profiting from infringm (Score:4, Informative)
Chill out, dude. It was a firmware feature (like DVD region lock, which is usually easily circumvented), and some companies decided to honor it, and others didn't. Philips CD recorders (stand alone audio units), sold in Argentina didn't work with non-audio CDs. There was no obligation for them to do that. They did it because they sold media too.
On the other hand, Philips DVD players, at the beginning, were factory region-unlocked (because in the late 90s DVDs were rare down here, and people used to order from US stores). Nowadays they're region locked.
Re:LOL Power companies are profiting from infringm (Score:4, Interesting)
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QQ for u ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Since the copyright owner is the one who profits from their exclusive legislatively-granted monopoly, they _should_ bear the costs of enforcement. Who else can decide that enforcement is worthwhile? Blanket enforcement is far too chilling on free speech and fair use. Not that the RIAA recognizes either, so why recognize them?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Bingo! (Score:5, Insightful)
Most insightful comment.
A corporation does not have the "right" to exist, or to make a profit, or to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The best thing that could happen is if every member of the RIAA was boycotted to the point of going out of business, just to show them who's boss. I know I'm doing my part.
Re:QQ 4 u ! (Score:5, Insightful)
Since copyright is to encourage writers and artists to create, it must be prospective and not retroactive. Retroactive grants ("extentions") cannot influence creation already made!
Second, as a prospective inducement, copyright is subject to the power of compound interest -- 15 years is close to 25 and 95 is not much more when discounted at commercial rates of interest. A short term would be sufficient inducement/reward, and longer terms are wasteful and hobble society. Patents only run 17 years! Why should copyrights be longer? The value of series like Sherlock Holmes, StarTrek/Wars was initially in the creation, but now is mostly in the preceptions (mindshare) of society at large. The claim has lapsed.
Re:QQ 4 u ! (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem began when some person, probably in PR, came up with the term "Intellectual property". It caught on as the RIAA and others realized the power of the term in making it seem that that information can be "owned" like a house or a car. Now the meme has taken hold, people ARE thinking of information in the same class and, instead of fostering innovation, it is strangling it.
And don't forget to let your congress critter know what you think of the "Protect IP" act which will largely codify that information is "owned" and take it further by allowing them to control what is said on the Internet. (Not that it will help unless you have the sort of money that can compete with the entertainment lobby.) "Protect IP" will be the end of the Internet as we know it.
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Besides that, how can the ISP possibly know that it's infringing without spying on the user? And even then, how is the ISP supposed to know whether or not a suspected pirate file is really illegal?
Folks who download legal music (indies) can easily download RIAA dreck by mistake. Try to get The Station's song "Fingertips" from bittorrent. Do you have any idea how many completely different songs have that name? Try "Scatterbrain", there are hundreds of songs with that name, many legal and many not.
eh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because *OBVIOUSLY* it doesn't cost the service providers ANYTHING to go through all those DMCA notices, check the legal validity, ensure the content is on their systems, isolate it and remove, reply to the DMCA, handle appeals etc.
They make it sound like 100% of the burden is on the record companies, etc. when actually there's just as much hassle for everyone involved (courts included). What they've noticed is that there are JUST TOO MANY files out there that could be the valid subject of a legal DMCA notice but that neither they, the courts, or the service providers can really handle the sheer volume. So their complaint is to make someone else pay for it, in time, effort, money and liability when they get it wrong.
I don't think that stands up, really, as an argument. And it makes you wonder why they ever bothered at all. There are international users who will, just for mischief, repost anything that you don't like. And you'll struggle to take it down and will *never* legally stop them posting it somewhere else - or even the same place (it might not even be illegal in their country to "infringe" that copyright, for instance).
I don't think it's a valid response to the problems. Now, if you'd pushed for harsher sentences, greater fines, etc. to try to put people off repeat offending, then your argument would at least be consistent. PR suicide, but consistent. Their next step can really only be pushing for more punishment and harsher law (how they carries to international or anonymous users is left as an exercise to the user), or to realise that it was always a bit pointless to play Whack-a-mole over an MP3 that you're already making MILLIONS from.
The option "It's not working, so we want someone else to do our job and provide repercussions to people who pirate for us" isn't really sensible or logical.
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Yes, so? (Score:2)
Yes, so?
I'm going to go with... (Score:5, Insightful)
FUCK THEM. They are raking in fat stacks of cash every year off of their supposedly well-honed machine, they should be responsible for policing their own content. It is not the responsibility of the government of the United States or any other country to police the Internet looking for content violations. Most governments have put in place laws and regulations that allow the "owner" of the content to be able to work within that system and get rid of infringing copies - AT THE OWNER'S EXPENSE. Not at the expense of the taxpayers.
Fuck you if you expect me and 250+ million other taxpayers help you sue for damages when we don't see a dime of that unless we are a luxury car dealer or real estate agent (or a lawyer). Not to mention that the net effect on the United States of corporatism laws like the DMCA and extended copyright periods is that we, as a nation, are less and less LEADING the way into new science and technology frontiers and more and more about holding the status quo or LOSING ground to other nations who don't exactly give a shit about the laws of the United States.
Tragedy (Score:3)
"Basically they are complaining the the DMCA makes them responsible for policing their own content at their expense."
My God, how can this be America?
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Bailout time for costs!
How would an ISP know if a work is copyrighted? (Score:2)
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In the mean time, let's introduce a new feature to our friends over at the RIAA and MPAA that will allow them to shift the burden of checking data they store for users to see if it's some pirated content. MD5! That should keep them busy for a few more years before the whining resumes. Just don't tell them, yet, that it's their business model that's broken.
Pay to protect your own shit (Score:5, Insightful)
Guess what. The patent system and the copyright system require that holders of such must protect and defend their own material. The patent and copyright laws give them the legal means to do so (but they must provide the lawyers). If they demand that the ISP's do their dirty work, they should be required to pay the ISP's for the service. They have to pay their lawyers.
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True, for now. The danger is Congress hasn't truly represented the people for quite some time, and instead represents those with money. This means those with money, like the RIAA, can have the law changed. That's the real danger.
Queue sound of the world's smallest violins (Score:3)
"Basically they are complaining the the DMCA makes them responsible for policing their own content at their expense."
All together now, "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Too bad."
Can't have it both ways (Score:2)
Like everyone else (Score:5, Insightful)
If someone hurts your rights, you have to take legal action yourself. Why would the content industry be an exception? And in fact, the DMCA already requires service providers to police their users, as they are bound to remove content upon mere accusations without any proof that it actually infringes the IP of the rightsholder. The content industry should not be treated differently from any other one: if they think someone is hurting their rights they should stand up for themselves and take legal action against the person in question, not run to the government/service provider to help.
Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
Content companies think it is unfair for them to be required to spend resources on scouring the Web when their pirated work helps service providers make money.
And car manufacturers should pay for smuggling, because most smuggling happens by cars so clearly that drives the sales of cars. Or transporting stolen goods. Or for speeding, because clearly they make money on letting you speed.
What they complain about almost as much is that after they notify a service provider of an infringing song or movie clip and they're removed, new copies appear almost immediately
And how exactly would putting the burden on the service provider help that? It wouldn't but it makes their impossible problem the ISP or hosting company's impossible problem. If you can't solve it, pass it. You can then wail forever that they're never doing enough.
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Or for speeding, because clearly they make money on letting you speed.
This is a very good point, and a similarity I often draw when talking about the MAFIAA. Why are car manufacturers not held partially responsible for speeders? After all, they are the ones that make sports cars, that are capable of going twice the maximum speed limit! The police should be funded by GM to help stop speeding! (not really, but that is the point)
intellectual property tax (Score:2, Interesting)
If the RIAA wants their property protected without paying for it directly, then I suggest they start paying property taxes like everybody else who relies on the military or police to protect their property.
The best systems are ones that intrinsically converge to fairness -- e.g. the best way for two people who want cake to cut cake? One person cuts, the other chooses; the system enforces fairness. The best way for intellectual property to be protected? The content owners can pick whatever value they th
Re:intellectual property tax (Score:4, Interesting)
Agreed.
They can have the changes to the DMCA they want as long as all Intellectual Property is taxed at the claimed price they have put up in the courts... at property tax rates. If at any time they claim a value in court, it will go on record that that is the value for each and every piece of IP of that type industry wide.
Suddenly the RIAA and MPAA, and BSA will shut up.
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Brilliant. This would fix about 95% of all problems with Intellectual Property. Suddenly, it becomes an asset that needs to be put to work, rather than one that can be hoarded indefinitely.
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Re:intellectual property tax (Score:4, Interesting)
That's almost sensible, and it might even lead to some works being let out of copyright. However, that also means that if I write a short story and never publish it, then it essentially has no value - if someone finds it, there's no copyright to enforce if they steal it and sell it as their own.
Seriously? (Score:2)
Maybe these shit-for-brains RIAA execs could have thought that through before they wrote the law?
I mean it's bad enough that we have these dumb-as-a-kumquat soulless automatons deciding what music the rest of us should hear. It's bad enough that they essentially rape their "not really employees" with ridiculous contracts that require them to suck out their own bone marrow in order to have a career at all (one reason I enjoy my music a a private hobby and make far more than most rock musicians as an IT guy)
Wow (Score:2)
They are actually complaining that the law doesn't let them win any case they want, with impunity.
Jesus.
Settlements? (Score:2)
How about all the money they get from copyright lawsuits and settlements?
Doesn't that money cover legal expenses?
Or do they want to make profit off of copyright infringement?
Pay no attention. (Score:2)
RIAA has shown itself to be incompetent in the making of public policy. That is clear. The hard part will be convincing Congress of that.
Isn't the DMCA to protect physical media? (Score:3)
Of course it doesn't do much to protect online content -- the DMCA was to stop use of "circumvention measures" such as decoding and ripping DVDs and Blu-Ray disks. All it does is make it illegal to decrypt stuff.
Welcome to Earth (Score:3)
What they complain about almost as much is that after they notify a service provider of an infringing song or movie clip and they're removed, new copies appear almost immediately.
That tends to be how things work with humans. You tell them no, and instantly people do everything in their power to do it anyway, even if they had no interest before.
I agree... (Score:2)
I agree with this guy 100%!!! But to make it easier for the ISP's to censor these infringing works, then we need to have complete and total access to all of the movie and record industries contracts, licensing agreements and accounting books. That way they can easily check an infringement claim to make sure that they really do have "rights" to said works.
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And the ISPs would also need full access to the digital source for all their copyrighted media. I mean, how can they look for copies if they don't have unencrypted source to all the copyrighted material? Hashes are completely insufficient because those would be defeated by simply changing one byte and/or of the data. With full, unencrypted source media, then the ISP could compare all new media files uploaded to see it it's a close match to the source and flag those that are close for manual review.
See, a ni
Update suggested by RIAA. (Score:3)
I say make it fair (Score:2)
The copyright owner has always born the cost of enforcement, or at least detection of infringement and that is fair because they are the ones deriving the benefit from the protection copyright offers them.
Its not like service providers and site operators are not burdened by compliance with all those take down requests. It cuts both ways. The content industry as usual wants a free ride.
So I say we as a society offer them this: Service providers,site operators, and individuals will be responsible for being
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So who pays the taxes for GPL software? My personal photo collection is public domain? Implicit copyright has a lot of value and I wouldn't give that up just to have cheaper music.
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You already have to register the copyright in order to sue. The price, unlike patents, is affordable to most ($30 the last time I looked), to raise it would, like patents, put copyrighting something prohibitively expensive for most individuals... and artists and musicians usually don't earn a lot of money for their crafts.
Retailers too? (Score:2)
I heard that there's a similar move afoot by retailers across the nation. They are tired of having to police their own stores for shoplifting, and their research shows that most thieves make their getaway in an automobile, so they are going to force automakers to include merchandise antitheft scanners in all cars. They are tired of automakers making all of that profit from stolen goods. If someone enters a car with a product that hadn't had the antitheft tag deactivated, the car will immediately explode.
The
A perfectly reasonable point of view! (Score:2)
The RIAA's view is perfectly reasonable. Why should they pay to protect their stuff when they already paid a LOT of money and continue to pay a lot of money buying politicians and laws like the DMCA.
Their complaint is that they have ALREADY paid and shouldn't have to pay more. But you know, that's not how bribery works... you don't just bribe one or a few. You bribe them ALL.
new postings (Score:2)
What they complain about almost as much is that after they notify a service provider of an infringing song or movie clip and they're removed, new copies appear almost immediately.
What they (content providers) need to do is consider WHY so many people will re-post the content that was removed. Trouble is, in their little ivory towers, where they lack real knowledge of the real world, they will be totally unable to see reality. And this is why they are still using their failed business model.
Economics fail (Score:2)
The RIAA is learning that there is no free lunch, which is just as fundamental to understanding business as supply and demand.
They should probably figure out how much they're really losing before they force ISPs to scare their customers away.
Burden of the holder (Score:3)
The burden of preserving the "sanctity" of copyrights and patents has always fallen on the holder. This ensures that the holder is earnest in keeping their government-sanctioned property to themselves. It's simply a problem of our court system that enforcing these rights has become very expensive.
Cost of Piracy Overstated (Score:2)
The cost of piracy in Canada was grossly overstated in an attempt to impose draconian controls on the transport of music. The Canadian Intellectual Property Council (an agency of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce) actually proposed that travelers entering the country have their luggage searched for counterfeit recordings.
On investigation,it was discovered that the Council based its estimated cost of piracy on data circulating in the U.S. The U.S. costs were contained in various reports from the FBI and the
Another solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically they are complaining the the DMCA makes them responsible for policing their own content at their expense.
Perhaps it is copyright law that should be changed instead. For starters, we could limit the inconvenience of policing their own content at their own expense to 15 years.
Can someone else pay for lock on my front door too (Score:3)
Can someone else pay for lock on my front door too? That seems to be a good analogy for this.
That's a big rock you're rolling uphill (Score:2)
Name of their new proposal (Score:2)
DMCAA - Digital Mafia Collection Agency Act.
Civil Disobedience (Score:2)
summary (Score:3)
RIAA/MPAA convinced congress with big contributions that they need extra laws to protect their outdated, inefficient business model but they forgot to convince the judges who apply the actual laws.
Congress has been bought a long time ago by private interest; they're no longer working for the people and although we still pay for a chunk of their luxurious lifestyles their source of livelihood comes from elsewhere. The judges are still on government payroll, so they can use common sense and make decisions that benefit mankind instead of bending to private interest.
Solution: put the judges on payroll.
Music industry is too tiny to justify legislation (Score:4, Interesting)
The music industry is tiny. North American total music recorded music sales are about $12 billion a year. In comparison, Apple revenue is about $63 billion a year, and Google revenue is about $23 billion.
We can't have some two-bit dying industry mess up one of the major engines of economic growth in America.
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I knew that they're sales were low, but I had no idea they were that low. Bill Gates could just about buy out the entire industry and have money left over.
Re:crony capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright and Patents are merely two systems of dozens that are broken in the exact same way.
This happens when people can buy power in the government and can write their own laws.
Re:crony capitalism (Score:5, Interesting)
No, they're both broken, but in completely different ways. Anyone can get a copyright, registring one is only about $30. Patents cost thousands and are hard to get. In that respect patents are broken, copyright not.
But patents only last 17 years, while copyright lasts effectively forever. In that respect patents are ok, copyright is broken.
Can you imagine the technological stagnation if patents lasted as long as copyrights? That's how art and music are suffering. And if copyrights were as costly as patents, only corporations and very rich individuals could obtain a copyright.
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I'm leeching AND seeding - right now! Do I get 2 weeks, or overlapping sentences?
Because a $50 piece of software is the same as a week in jail.
nae tru neutral third party (Score:4, Insightful)
Let the content owners police their content or go out of business. It's not like we have a shortage of musicians, artists, and filmmakers in our society. I'm not paying to fund a third party to protect their business model.
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Libertarianism is another dimension, that really has nothing to do with what makes sense in this context. In the real world these are major industries and the government does spend money on regulating and helping to advance major industries.
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The quality of first posts on slashdot has dramatically decreased during the last year. What is causing this trend?
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Perhaps the Occupy Goatse movement is clogging the works?
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Sounds familiar. Corporate success in the new age isn't about making good products and succeeding on the merits, it's about shifting all the costs onto the backs of others. Meritocracy indeed...
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It's not about removing parking restrictions, it's about removing multi-million fines for parking in the wrong spot. Especially if you think that here we are dealing with infinite ammount of parking spots available.
Back on topic: the industry that is well known for extortion and terrorist tactics (what else can you call multi-million fines for downloading an mp3 but an attempt to scare people into submission?) is trying to push it's expenses on the taxpayers. That will be nice — seeing you taxpayers d
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In a democracy, if the majority of the population disagrees with a law to the extent of breaking it, the law should be changed and will eventually be changed. It is a measure of how much our democracy has degraded that this is even a matter for discussion.
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You can't prove copyright infringement based solely on the title. There's no infringement if I shoot my own film and upload it with the same title as someone else's film. To prove infringement, you need to look at the actual data.
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If I post "New Lady Gaga Video" on YouTube and her label sends a takedown notice, there's nothing stopping me (other than taste) from immediately reposting it as "New Gaga Video", "New Official Lady Gaga Video", "New Lady Gaga Video 4 U!", etc. That's kind of a big loophole.
That's because you're thinking it falls under the wrong law. They should be going after you for a trademark violation instead of a copyright violation. "New Gaga Video" could be fine, but when you put up a video like "New Official Lady Gaga Video," you're pretty screwed.
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No, they're complaining that the DMCA's safe harbor provisions have a loophole that allows content providers to be free of liability, even when the same infringing content is posted over, and over, and over again.
That is not a "loophole". In order for it to be a loophole, it would have to allow the ISPs to be intentionally encouraging the posting of copyrighted material and not be held liable. The courts have found several services that were not explicitly and solely about copyright infringement liable because they encouraged the use of the service for the purpose of copyright infringement. So, there is no loophole.
The content industry is complaining because they thought they would be able to use the DMCA to shut