MPAA Boss Admits SOPA and PIPA Are Dead, Not Coming Back 186
concealment points out comments from MPAA CEO Chris Dodd, who has acknowledged that SOPA and PIPA were soundly — and perhaps permanently — defeated. Quoting Ars Technica:
"Dodd sounded chastened, with a tone that was a far cry from the rhetoric the MPAA was putting out in January. 'When SOPA-PIPA blew up, it was a transformative event,' said Dodd. 'There were eight million e-mails [to elected representatives] in two days.' That caused senators to run away from the legislation. 'People were dropping their names as co-sponsors within minutes, not hours,' he said. 'These bills are dead, they're not coming back,' said Dodd. 'And they shouldn't.' He said the MPAA isn't focused on getting similar legislation passed in the future, at the moment. 'I think we're better served by sitting down [with the tech sector and SOPA opponents] and seeing what we agree on.' Still, Dodd did say that some of the reaction to SOPA and PIPA was 'over the top' — specifically, the allegations of censorship, implied by the black bar over Google search logo or the complete shutdown of Wikipedia. 'DNS filtering goes on every day on the Internet,' said Dodd. 'Obviously it needs to be done very carefully. But five million pages were taken off Google last year [for IP violations]. To Google's great credit, it recently changed its algorithm to a point where, when there are enough complaints about a site, it moves that site down on their page — which I applaud.'"
Re:Exactly as they want you to think (Score:5, Informative)
Re:They should be happy. (Score:5, Informative)
But that is what the RIAA and MPAA really want to prevent. "Piracy" is just a pretext that gets the politicians on their side. Their real goal is to revoke the idea of owning a copy of a book or movie, and "monetize" all digital "content;" that is, lock you in to paying them every time you want to review/view/listen to anything.
DNS Filtering != Google Takedowns (Score:2, Informative)
" 'DNS filtering goes on every day on the Internet,' said Dodd. 'Obviously it needs to be done very carefully. But five million pages were taken off Google last year [for IP violations]. "
Google takedowns are not the same as DNS filtering. This just shows basic lack of understanding of Internet architecture from those that are in the legislature and how they confuse (intentionally or non-intentionally) far reaching Internet architecture concepts with company control concepts to further their agenda.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2011/05/dns-filtering-absolutely-the-wrong-way-to-defend-copyrights/
They Learned Their Lesson: Avoid Democracy (Score:4, Informative)
Yeah, the RIAA/MPAA isn't going to try any more "Stop teh pirates!!!1!" bills anytime soon. They will probably try a few more disguised as cybersecurity legislation, tacking on copyright maximalism onto "think of the children!!!" alarmism. But that's all irrelevant.
The important lesson they learned is this: Accomplish your goals in an arena where there's no pesky democratic process to worry about. Instead, they push ACTA (which still isn't dead), and TPP (which looks to be significantly worse than ACTA). And they label them as "trade agreements" (even though they're obviously treaties), that way they don't have to deal with that pesky Senate that seems to respond better to millions of voters than millions of dollars. Yep, now they can do ALL their business in secret, back-room deals, and skip that entire public review phase.
And then, once the U.S. is signed onto these treaties, Congress gets the easy out: "We have to bring our laws into line with our international agreements!"
Re:I'm paranoid (Score:4, Informative)
The behind-the-scenes "thing" that they're hiding is the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement)
https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp
Read and be informed!!!!!!!!
Re:Exactly as they want you to think (Score:4, Informative)
The biggest problem with a worldwide release of a movie is the big question - what do you allow in?
In the US a pair of tits will get you an R rating instantly - which is fine, if that is the audience you are shooting for. If you want a PG-13 movie for the US audience, you have to cut the tits. Or, in a R movie in the US you can show female pubic hair - except if you want to release the movie in Japan that would instantly have it blocked. There are other rules for EU countries as well.
And then there are the other markets. Have a scene where someone is holding a Bible in a courtroom? Such a movie cannot be distributed in an Islamic country, or at least most of them. Want a movie where the hero is wearing a turban? Good luck
It gets absurd. They thought they could capture this in eight bits with DVD region coding, but that wasn't really sufficient. What it means today is pretty much anything outside the US gets stuck with everything being cut that could possibly be objectionable to anyone, anywhere. Maybe the US version is less chopped but think about a movie made for an adult EU audience - they are going to have to cut it for the US!
The fact that the entertainment industry at all levels has to deal with this is silly and it throws a lot of extra costs into it. I am pretty sure it is filtering into games today as well. Certainly music has had some run-ins with this sort of issue. The problem is there is no worldwide standard and there isn't going to be any time soon - certainly not until someone like SPECTRE takes over the planet and declares themselves to be Dictator for Life.