Slashdot Log In
U.S. Joins Hollywood in War on Piracy
Posted by
Zonk
on Thu Jun 15, 2006 05:28 PM
from the taking-on-the-real-terrorists dept.
from the taking-on-the-real-terrorists dept.
Section_Ei8ht writes to mention a Washington Post article about a new joint initiative between the U.S. government and the entertainment industry. The government will now be aiding efforts abroad to stop copyright infringement. They cite the recent Pirate Bay fiasco, as well as the problems Russia is having with the WTO as a result of their thriving IP black market. From the article: "The intellectual property industry and law enforcement officials estimate U.S. companies lose as much as $250 billion per year to Internet pirates, who swap digital copies of 'The DaVinci Code,' Chamillionaire's new album and the latest Grand Theft Auto video game for free."
Related Stories
[+]
ThePirateBay.org Raided and Shut Down 1189 comments
An anonymous reader writes "ThePirateBay.org, a longtime fixture of the BitTorrent community, is currently under investigation. Slyck.com is reporting their servers have been seized by the Swedish police." What's really interesting about them is the strange political power that they held in their homeland. There was much discussion even of a political party. This will be interesting to watch unfold.
[+]
Politics: AllofMP3.com May Hinder Russia Joining WTO 419 comments
gitana writes "The New York Times is reporting that American trade negotiators may demand the shutdown of AllofMP3.com as a condition of Russia joining the World Trade Organization." From the article: "Music industry officials say AllofMP3, which first came to their attention in 2004, is a large-scale commercial piracy site, and they dismiss its claims of legality. "It is totally unprecedented to have a pirate site operating so openly for so long," said Neil Turkewitz, executive vice president of the Recording Industry Association of America, who is based in Washington ... AllofMP3.com says on the site that it can legally sell to any user based in Russia and warns foreign users to verify the legality within their countries for themselves. The site features a wide selection of Russian music, but is written in English with prices listed in United States dollars."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Stupidity in action (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stupidity in action (Score:5, Insightful)
I think we need a war on politics, personally. Might actually have some benefits for the public in the long term.
Re:Stupidity in action (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stupidity in action (Score:5, Funny)
"War on" == already lost (Score:5, Insightful)
As some political commentator once said, once the feds declare war on anything the cause is already lost. How is a "war on piracy" going to actually accomplish anything? All it will do is provide an arena for posturing and bribery^h^h^h^hlobbying.
Re:Stupidity in action (Score:5, Interesting)
In other words, This is smart for two reasons. One is that it is the US meddling in other nations' purely internal affairs. The other is that it is yet another war on an abstract idea. (joining the war on terror and the war on poverty and the war on some drugs, which that other guy forgot.)
Good news, you can't win against an idea, only against a group of people (terrorists, pirates, the poor?). And yes there are too many pirates to even think about "winning" against them. They probably make up more than 50% of the population, meaning that there's about a 50/50 chance that when we need to put someone in prison, or just sue them into the stone age, we'll be able to do so.
All we need now is a war on pr0n, and we'll have around 70% of the population as criminals. Then we turn power over to the Democrats, they can declare the Christian fundies that make up our voting base as McVeigh militia whackjobs, and we'll have absolute power over everybody.
Power corrupts. Absolute power is pretty cool.
A corollary quote... (Score:5, Interesting)
That God
Did not want us to be
All the same
This was
Bad News
For the Governments of The World
As it seemed contrary
To the doctrine of
Portion Controlled Servings
Mankind must be made more uniformly
If
The Future
Was going to work
Various ways were sought
To bind us all together
But, alas
Same-ness was unenforcable
It was about this time
That someone
Came up with the idea of
Total Criminalization
Based on the principle that
If we were All crooks
We could at least be uniform
To some degree
In the eyes of
The Law
Shrewdly our legislators calculated
That most people were
Too lazy to perform a
Real Crime
So new laws were manufactored
Making it possible for anyone
To violate them any time of the day or night,
And
Once we had all broken some kind of law
We'd all be in the same big happy club
Right up there with the President
The most excalted industrialists,
And the clerical big shots
Of all your favorite religions
Total Criminalization
Was the greatest idea of its time
And was vastly popular
Except with those people
Who didn't want to be crooks or outlaws,
So, of course, they had to be
Tricked Into It
Which is one of the reasons why
Music
Was eventually made
Illegal.
--Frank Zappa (from the booklet of Joe's Garage, Acts II & III - 1979)
Re:Stupidity in action (Score:4, Insightful)
. .
KFG
Re:Stupidity in action (Score:5, Interesting)
Think about alcohol Prohibition. Before and after Prohibition, a majority of adult Americans drank alcohol at least occasionally. (Perhaps even during it, though we'll never know.) Yet the idea was popular enough to get passed via constitutional amendment, requiring the approval of two thirds of both houses of Congress AND all the state legislatures. Not that it wasn't stupid, it was *so* stupid that 13 years later it became the only amendment ever repealed.
Never underestimate the ability of the American electorate to be precisely that stupid.
Re:Stupidity in action (Score:5, Funny)
Unbelievable (Score:5, Insightful)
As the Pirate Bay folks are fond of pointing out, what they do is not explicitly illegal in Sweden, nor has it been tried in court. It would be silly to say that they don't facilitate infringement, but stating flatly that they are "an illegal file-sharing Web site" is like saying that "people who drive on the left side of the road are driving illegally." It's true in the U.S... but not everywhere.
Then we get this garbage:
Whether or not this site is "authorized" is still up for debate. Just because the RIAA doesn't like what they're doing doesn't mean it's illegal or even unauthorized. The RIAA is not a governing body, though they certainly seem to be headed that direction.
Later we get the words "intellectual property theft" and still later we get "Working against Russia, the lawmakers say, are its plans to make intellectual property rights violators subject to civil, rather than criminal, penalties." This entire article is shilling for the MAFIAA and for the glorious powers of infringing on the sovereignty of other nations. Criminal penalties for infringement? "Suggestions" on how to improve domestic laws?
These people are monsters.
Re:Unbelievable (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Unbelievable (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Stupidity in action (Score:4, Insightful)
Internal affairs? International trade is not an internal affair, by definition. When you're violating the copyright of citizens from other countries, it has moved out from being "purely internal" to "international".
"You're allowing wholesale violation of our citizens' internationally recognized copyrights" is hardly the worst reason I've ever heard for objecting to membership in trade organizations, too.
-Erwos
Double standard? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Stupidity in action (Score:4, Informative)
TFA talks about 1) the Pirate Bay: a tracker site. It doesn't have any copyright files on its servers. Arguably facilitates copyright infringement, but so does Google or Yahoo if you put in the right search terms. 2) AllofMP3: it has the right, under Russian law, to distribute the files it sells. Rights holders can just ask for their royalty checks, they refuse to do so and claim they're being robbed.
Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
Gee, you should be PAYING THEM to download that crap. Eew.
Something I'd like to see: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Something I'd like to see: (Score:5, Insightful)
The other problem with such studies are their credibility. Would you believe the results of a study that was funded by the RIAA (or even a copyright friendly government.) A study conducted by a group like downhillbattle.org or the FSF would have the same level of credibility (remember the adage 'Just because you agree with a statement, does not make it true). Ultimately, any study conducted would be hailed by interest groups that agreed with the outcome and ignored by interest groups that did not. Leaving everyone right back where they started, just angrier.
$250 Billion? With a B? (Score:5, Funny)
These 3 products have a value of as much as $250 billion? Wow, these guys really are making too much money. Guess I better go download some more movies.
Re:$250 Billion? With a B? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:$250 Billion? With a B? (Score:5, Informative)
Little wonder nobody gives a damn about what they have to say on the issue.
Re:$250 Billion? With a B? (Score:4, Funny)
How much money would we make if we sold 10 copies of Grand Theft Auto to every person on earth? How much money did we actually make? The difference between the two figures is how much we lost due to piracy.
Grand Theft Auto (Score:5, Funny)
Democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there anything left to say on this topic? (Score:4, Insightful)
But what are we going to do? Intervene more in the politics of other nations? Yeah they love that. We can go to war to get all our copies of Grand Theft Auto back (right before we ban them for being obscene).
Sooner or later India and China will have a larger say in global economics, and their positions on these topics will carry more weight. I wonder what things will be like when other countries don't bend so easily to the will of the U.S.
Since the war on terror worked out so well (Score:5, Funny)
I love contributor links... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hopefully I was correct about all this, but the claims I have made above were made in many long-standing high-score comments in the last discussion about this subject, and not refuted, so hopefully peer review will have made me sound like I know what I'm talking about.
Re:I love contributor links... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, not your write-up, but that you mailed the author of the article.
This has been in the paper, seen by many thousands. You want to try to educate one guy?
Send it to the opinions/letters to the editor instead.
Every time you read this sort of story... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Every time you read this sort of story... (Score:4, Funny)
Are they even trying anymore?
Re:Every time you read this sort of story... (Score:3, Insightful)
SO how much (Score:5, Insightful)
There's No Business Like Show Business (Score:5, Funny)
Stamp out and abolish redundancy! (Score:4, Insightful)
It looks like a reporter has a hard time distinguishing between legal jurisdictions. I doubt that the Swedes would have wasted time criminalizing something that was already illegal. This is a perfect example of the fuzzy thinking that most people bring to this (admittedly complex) issue.
Joins the war? (Score:3, Insightful)
Mission accomplished!
Books and "The Industry" (Score:3, Insightful)
I haven't bought any music or movies in at least five years due to the greedy ****ing **AA - that and everything released has been a -2/10.
Make stuff worth having and we will probably buy it... or you can just sue grandma for downloading without a computer, that always works.
Lost opportunities (Score:3, Insightful)
Yup. Potential loss of extortion money always pisses the mob off.
I've never even heard of Chamillionaire. (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm. (Score:4, Funny)
(Wikipedia's article on Piracy [wikipedia.org].)
TFA consists of no research whatsoever (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah fantasy accounting (Score:5, Insightful)
Think for a moment about this sentence. No not about the amount or how they arrived at it. Think about that sentence and and the saying, "you can't spend a penny twice".
That amount X is perhaps lost to the content owners BUT it is not somehow evaporating into thin air, that amount saved is being spend on other things.
So if the content industry gets the amount X then other industries will lose an amount X. Put simpler, that kid who has a allowance who just got a movie for free will now spend that money on his cellular phone, fast food, clothes etc etc.
It is the real problem with the content industry. They used to have to contend only with clothes for young kids pocket money. Now there is games and the phone to contend with. If you ever worked for a phone company you will know how many people get into trouble with their mobile phone bill. That is money they can't spend on music/movies/games. You can't pirate cell phone minutes but you can pirate content.
The industry world wide isn't being hurt by pirating, just the industries that are being pirated.
As to the amount, well you then have to simply ask, where the hell would the economy come up with a spare 250 billion dollars. Since that amount of money is unlikely to be stuffed behind the couch, even Bill Gates, the figure is meaningless. You may as well make it a gazillion for all the relevance.
If piracy was eleminated today the only thing that would happen is that you would see a shift in spending patterns. Perhaps the fashion industry needs to get in on the side of the pirates, cause if everyone has to pay for every bit of content they used to get for free, they will have a lot less money to spend on clothes.
The economy is not a infinite idea, there is X money and you can't just wish up an extra amount. That 250 billion just doesn't exist.
War on "Freedom of Press" (Score:3, Insightful)
Obviously we cannot have that much freedom. Information is dangerous for the masses.
Only the publishing/media companies know best.
To restore order, publishing should only be done by the big media companies.
The material should of course be screened by the Department of Homeland Security, to fight Terrorism.
120 years for copyright is not enough. 1000 years would be fair.
Restore something even better than the Stationers monopoly of 1557!!
Down with "Freedom of Press (Piracy)".
Pitty the MPAA (Score:3, Funny)
Why do they always cite the new releases? (Score:3, Insightful)
The true Costs of Piracy! (Score:4, Interesting)
They appear to be taking a page out BSA's [bsa.org] book to reach such conclusions.
Using the entertainment industry's analogy, every P2P download represents a lost sale,
& it sounds & looks good to the average Politician!
Now if we use an example the flaw will become apparent.
Example: If Photoshop's [adobe.com] latest version get's downloaded via P2P 100,000 times does
that mean they lost those sale's?
Answer: At $649 US a pop I very mush doubt it!
Being generous I'd guess only 1% to 2% of those 100,000 people would truly pay
$649 US for Photoshop if that was the only way they could get it.
I think it would be safe to say the true cost of Piracy isn't $250 billion, but closer to the
$2.5 to 5 billion mark anually.
In all likelyhood the U.S. government will spend more than that amount each year hence
forth in fighting Piracy, thanks to the lobby groups mystical figures.
Awww yeah, this will work. (Score:3, Interesting)
Notice what they're doing now. They're flaunting it - before they had cannballs fired from the ship at a Hollywood sign, today they're using an abstract phoenix in the shape of the pirate ship as their logo, and in the blog (see link above) they have offers from many in various servers to set up redundant hosts. The MPAA and RIAA cannot and will not win. They HAVE to come to grips with today's technology or face extinction. Whether or not they want to admit it, P2P and sales CAN coexist. Some folks use it as try-before-you-buy (I've done this, quite recently in fact), and the folks who won't buy, are likely not the target consumer anyway.
Personally, I often wait for movies to hit cable or DVD before I watch them (usually cable first and if I like it I buy the DVD), unless it's a movie I want to see in the highest possible resolution, then I'll go to the theater and hope they bothered to focus the projector. I am mainly part of the secondary market - the market that the MPAA fought tooth and nail against when they tried to block home video from becoming reality. I buy lots of DVDs (although admittedly not since the MPAA illegally caused thepiratebay.org to come down for all of three days), probably too many, but I rarely go to the theater because so few new movies are worth the hassle.
As an aside where politics is concerned, rather than just the MPAA's stupidity: Is it IP that will be the final straw and get people to say "enough is enough" and actually get out and VOTE, or run for office, or do whatever else it takes to institute change? Will the reality that Joe Sixpack's Hi-Def television will not display Hi-Def from legitimate content with HD-DVD or Blu-Ray but will display pirated content at full resolution make him realize that it is the politicians he put in power which enabled this sort of bullshit to happen? Don't mess with Joe Sixpack's television, because he gets pissy when the telly goes on the fritz, and I would not want to be the one responsible! It'll be the boston tea party of the new millennium, only it'll be HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs!
Actually, if it is IP which causes major changes for the better, it would be a pretty sad statement of today's society.
A war on human nature? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because that is what enforcing music copyright is all about. The single reason why there are music pirates is because music has ALWAYS been free. Since the dawn of time, it has been free. Free to listen to. Free to create. Free to copy (when copying became possible). Free to share.
People have always shared music, and no one has ever thought they were criminals when they did it. ESPECIALLY not the publishing industry in the USA when they flagrantly spent decades ripping off sheet music from Europe, and printing it for local consumption. (Hello China! I'm Pot, are you kettle?)
See, this is the whole ball of wax right here: There's NOTHING WRONG with sharing music. There never has been, and there never will be. Fuck the law - the law is a TOTAL ass in this regard. When did musicians get the idea they should earn 20 Million a year? That's fucked.
Sharing music isn't "copyright infringement". It definitely isn't "piracy". (Piracy involves sailing, murder and grappling hooks). It's just Civil Disobedience. And it's great!
It is only in recent times that music has been deemed to be "property" (LOL - what a concept) and that it can be "stolen" (LOL! "Theft" removes the item from the owner. Ipso facto, sharing is not stealing, and it is not theft.) but the population has NEVER accepted these laws.
In general, copyright laws are acceptable to a population provided they are not affected by the law. Americans have been stupid to allow Congress to repeatedly rape the public domain of the vast majority of material that should be in it right now. Just why this has been allowed to happen, I am not sure. Nor do I really care: I live in New Zealand!
One day, the American public will quite literally, stand up and say "ENOUGH IS E-FUCKING-NOUGH! IF YOU CAN'T MAKE YOUR MONEY IN 7 YEARS - FUCK YOU!".
There's no reason why anything should be protected beyond 7 years.
Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
Oooh, it cost $200 million to make, and just made $650 million in worldwide profits so far.
I feel so sorry for them.
You guys must stop downloading that movie right now!
You aid crippling the movie industry! Just look at where we are today!
Re:IP not property (Score:4, Insightful)
Thomas Jefferson is right but you, and pretty much everybody else misunderstands copyright when they quote him as you did here. His analogy basically gets it wrong, regardless of how poetic and insightful it may initially seem. Ideas are free to use and take as you like. Copyright doesn't stop this, never has, never will. What copyright protects is the expression of an idea in a tangible medium. What does this mean? Let's use the Da Vinci Code fiasco as an example (because it was mentioned in the summary). Three authors jointly wrote a book called Holy Blood Holy Grail where they established the theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene sired a child and his bloodline is potentially still in existence today. That's the idea. These three authors expressed their idea in the form of a non-fictional historical account of the facts behind this theory. Dan Brown took the idea and wrote a fictional story around the premise. the subsequent court case against Dan Brown failed simply because his expression of the theory (idea) was vastly different from the HBHG historical account. It doesn't matter how unique an idea is, and the theory presented by HBHG is rather unique, the only protection one will receive is for the uniqueness of the expression once it's fixed in a tangible medium (book, music, play, sculpture, painting, etc.).