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.'"
Exactly as they want you to think (Score:5, Insightful)
Unintentional honesty (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation: Dammit, what part of "cartel" have my clients forgotten they once understood?
Re:Exactly as they want you to think (Score:5, Insightful)
Its dead until the elections are over, then don't be surprised if it comes back.
Electronic Democracy (Score:5, Insightful)
'There were eight million e-mails [to elected representatives] in two days.' That caused senators to run away from the legislation.
So, now we know what to do to prevent or get rid of Dodd-Frank and other pieces of idiotic legislation.
They should be happy. (Score:5, Insightful)
These people are making money hands-over-fist. Billions of dollars flowing into their pockets.
Why do they feel they "need" to do anything about piracy? The vast majority of people will pay for their content. Even I, who used to pirate things like crazy when I was a teenager (due to complete lack of funds) now pay for my stuff since I can afford it.
They should instead find ways to make it easier for customers to buy their media. Look what they did for music; it's DRM free now and so convenient to buy from numerous places, and it all plays on pretty much every device out there. They should do the same thing for video content. Make it so when I pay $10 to download a movie, that it's truly MINE, and I'll gladly buy more movies online.
It's not hard. Yet they are stubborn jackasses and continue with this war of theirs. Reminds me of the equally pointless "war on drugs".
Quack (Score:5, Insightful)
To paraphrase a politician (who's name I don't know). "If it quakes like a duck, walks like a duck and looks like a duck, it is a duck."
Censorship is censorship, just because it is done by a corporation doesn't some how magically make it better. The fact that they manipulated Google into doing their censoring for them doesn't somehow make it clean just because the government wasn't the one doing it.
I don't buy that they aren't engaging in censorship just because they don't have the government doing it on their behalf. For the average person, they would be hard pressed to find an alternative that isn't censored.
Re:Exactly as they want you to think (Score:5, Insightful)
But now the film companies have put up so many barriers to my seeing their stuff that piracy is logical. I go to the theater for a 9:15 film arriving say 9:05. For those 10 minutes the theater blasts cell phone and car commercials at me. Then at 9:15 they start showing trailers and around 9:30 the film begins but not really it is advertizements for the various levels of production company and more advertisements for the actors and directors so maybe around 9:32 I am seeing a movie that I payed $13 for nearly 30 minutes earlier. Renting a movie is much the same except that I don't know where to rent movies anymore. But if you do get a blue ray most players won't let you skip past the various warnings and even sometimes the trailers.
Now compare that to pirating a movie. Download time 5-10 minutes, cost almost nothing, restrictions: none. So you set the download, get the download and fast forward to the exact moment the real movie starts.
But the one restriction is that it is slightly hard to do. Most people will have difficulty getting a movie onto their computer, finding the file, sending it to a large TV somehow, and then controlling the movie. And this is where the movie industry has a chance. They could make it really easy for most people to use any box (game consoles, apple TV, roku) like netflix and just get the movie for a reasonable price. If the theater charges me $13 don't think you can either charge me more (for my convenience) or anything even close; I know that if you are distributing it directly to me that you have a huge savings so at $2 per movie I will happily watch a zillion movies; at $9.99 a movie I'll find a better use for my money.
This brings me to another point. In this modern age people are finding better uses for their money so don't blame all your dropping revenues on piracy. A blockbuster video game can make billions, that money is coming out of people's entertainment budget which once went to movies and music.
Re:I hate to be that guy, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a bad feeling that something worse is waiting for us down the line...
Exactly. That something worse will be the persistent steady erosion of rights and the criminalization of activities with extreme penalties. Bit by bit they will get what they want. Their mistake was grabbing at the powers they wanted too fast.
In the U.S. they've won on the constitutionality of statutory damages that bear no relation to actual harm. Essentially that is a private criminalization of a commercial tort.
They're winning on extradition more than they are loosing.
Megaupload is gone. Everyone else is scared.
In Japan, downloading a song is now a criminal act that can get you two years in jail.
And on, and on . . .
So, do they really need SOPA or PIPA?
Re:Exactly as they want you to think (Score:5, Insightful)
Its dead until the elections are over, then don't be surprised if it comes back.
Only if one party controls the legislative branch and the executive and it can get rubber stamped through.
Otherwise, there was enough negative publicity about the effort that I think either side would jump at the opportunity to claim that they are the true defenders of the internet by blocking bad legislation.
Re:Exactly as they want you to think (Score:5, Insightful)
E.g. Make crappy movies I'd never go to in the theatre or purchase on any medium $0.99 and I might decide it's decent popcorn fodder. Blockbuster that's just out? I'd be willing to pay more. But as long as I don't have advertisements etc shoved down my throat before getting to watch the film.
I think any worries about inviting the neighbourhood over or sending the file to someone else (if it's drm free) are just that, worries (with no basis in reality). Make it cheap enough and it's not worth someone's time or hassle to save a few bucks. I have a big TV, good sound system, comfortable seating, I can drink booze if I want to (cheaply at that), better popcorn (imho), I can order any type of food I want.. etc etc. The theatre has no draw to me. Why would I want to sit around with a bunch of strangers that talk and text during the movie?
The market has been ready for direct from studio downloads for almost a decade. The studios just have to get with it.
Re:I'm paranoid (Score:5, Insightful)
OF COURSE they're preparing something identical behind the scenes. They haven't STOPPED being greedy, stupid, shortsighted, corrupt assholes. Chris Dodd and everyone else who would rather screw over the public domain for a very small theoretical increase in profits, THEY are not the ones who are dead and never coming back. It's a damn shame too that they don't all slowly and simultaneously die of hemorrhoids.
Re:Exactly as they want you to think (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'm paranoid (Score:4, Insightful)
SOPA and PIPA were stopped because people found out.. What if this is just misinformation while they prepare something behind the scenes?
If? There is no if [wikipedia.org]
Re:Exactly as they want you to think (Score:4, Insightful)
This (piracy beating movie theaters on convenience) is why services like Netflix are so important. Netflix is easier than piracy which tips the scales back into the studios favor. Except the studios see Netflix as a pseudo-pirate robbing them of DVD sales (instead of an ally turning would-be pirates into paying customers). Therefore, they restrict what content Netflix has access to and wind up cutting off their own nose to spite their face. Other services, like Amazon VOD, are good, but more expensive. (The Avengers is $3.99 for a 48 hour rental. For just the price of 2 Amazon VOD movie rentals, you can get a month of Netflix streaming.)
Re:Exactly as they want you to think (Score:5, Insightful)
Downloads cost them servers and bandwidth. If you take away the cinemas, you lose the profits from the over priced food. If you lower the price of your product, you lower the perceived value If your customers are accustomed to a particular price point, selling below that point will lose you more profit than you'll recover by increased sales.
Mod poster Funny?
"Downloads cost them servers and bandwidth." - meanwhile everyone and their dogs are downloading their movies over bit-torrent at no additional cost to either them or the movie makers.
"If you lower the price of your product, you lower the perceived value" - for the last 10 years untold millions of people have been downloading their films for free. I think they're long past the point of having to worry about the 'perceived value' of their product!
"If your customers are accustomed to a particular price point, selling below that point will lose you more profit than you'll recover by increased sales." - addendum: If your customers are leaving you in droves and you refuse to change your pricing strategy, and instead try your very hardest to piss off the people who you should be trying to woo, then you deserve everything you get.
No sympathy from me.