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Piracy Crime Government The Internet United States Your Rights Online

Trump Promises Copyright Crackdown As DoJ Takes Aim At Streaming Pirates (torrentfreak.com) 107

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Yesterday, a panel discussion on the challenges associated with piracy from streaming media boxes took place on Capitol Hill. Hosted by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), "Unboxing the Piracy Threat of Streaming Media Boxes" (video) went ahead with some big name speakers in attendance, not least Neil Fried, Senior Vice President, Federal Advocacy and Regulatory Affairs at the MPAA. ITIF and various industry groups tweeted many interesting comments throughout the event. Kevin Madigan from Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property told the panel that torrent-based content "is becoming obsolete" in an on-demand digital environment that's switching to streaming-based piracy. "There's a criminal enterprise going on here that's stealing content and making a profit," Fried told those in attendance. "The piracy activity out there is bad, it's hurting a lot of economic activity & creators aren't being compensated for their work," he added.

And then, of course, we come to President Trump. Not usually that vocal on matters of intellectual property and piracy, yesterday -- perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not -- he suddenly delivered one of his "something is coming" tweets. "The U.S. is acting swiftly on Intellectual Property theft," Trump tweeted. "We cannot allow this to happen as it has for many years!" Given Trump's tendency to focus on problems overseas causing issues for companies back home, a comment by Kevin Madigan during the panel yesterday immediately comes to mind. "To combat piracy abroad, USTR needs to work with the creative industries to improve enforcement and target the source of pirated material," Madigan said.

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Trump Promises Copyright Crackdown As DoJ Takes Aim At Streaming Pirates

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  • Target the source. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Thursday March 08, 2018 @07:34PM (#56230873) Homepage Journal

    Isn't the source... the movie/TV industry?

    • by jwymanm ( 627857 ) on Thursday March 08, 2018 @07:46PM (#56230953) Homepage
      That's what I was thinking. Not delivering content without high prices, ads that you can't fast forward even if you purchased the damn media and "license to use it." Constant forever extensions of copyright law..
      • Information Technology and Suppression of Innovation Foundation (ITSIF)

        FTFY?

        • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08, 2018 @11:06PM (#56231711)

          Be honest. There is only one type of video Trump wants to protect. And he is in it.

          • Be honest. There is only one type of video Trump wants to protect. And he is in it.

            Maybe we can tell him he's going to be in the most-watched video of all time, and have him walk straight into the arms of ISIS.

      • by zifn4b ( 1040588 )

        Constant forever extensions of copyright law..

        Blame Mickey Mouse

        • by jwhyche ( 6192 )

          Constant forever extensions of copyright law..

          Blame Mickey Mouse

          Actually, I kind of understand why the house of mouse wants to do this. From their point of view it makes perfect sense.

          The very first Disney movies and cartoons will fall in to public domain soon. That doesn't just mean any one can pick them up and show them. That means any one can just pick them up and make a version and clam owner ship of them.

          Tom Sawyer is in the public domain. I can take the story, replace Mark Twain's name with my own, and claim it as my story. With it being in the public do

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Isn't the source... the movie/TV industry?

      Wait... aren't those evil, money hating lefties supporting the Democrats?

  • by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Thursday March 08, 2018 @07:35PM (#56230881) Journal

    When I drink a lot of rum, I become a streaming pirate.

    • And then you go in the sauna and come out a steaming pirate!

      • And then you go in the sauna and come out a steaming pirate!

        And then you go in the barrel and he comes out a reaming pirate.

        Then he takes a nap and he's a dreaming pirate.

        (Possibly just after becoming a creaming pirate)

        (Maybe I have the wrong users involved ... is that what "creimer" means?)

  • Excellent (Score:5, Informative)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 ) on Thursday March 08, 2018 @07:37PM (#56230899) Homepage Journal
    Lets let the wars drag on for decades, but we need to take a stand now for copyright!
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Lets let the wars drag on for decades, but we need to take a stand now for copyright!

      The clause states that the United States Congress shall have power "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

      The biggest area that needs attention is the "limited Times" clause. A human is going to live, on average, less than a hundred years. A limited time should be viewed with respect to that basis. 25 seems reasonable to me.

      Limit copyright of the original material to 25 y

      • limited time should be viewed with respect to that basis. 25 seems reasonable to me.

        Not going to happen in a nation as stupid as america, you're a totally lawless nation and you worship corporations. George carlin said it best about americans.

        Carlin [youtube.com]

        US distribution of wealth

        https://imgur.com/a/FShfb [imgur.com]

        Wealth in america [ucsc.edu]

        • Not going to happen in a nation as stupid as america, you're a totally lawless nation and you worship corporations.

          Lawless? There's so many laws that noone knows exactly how many there are.

          Oh you meant lawless as in none are enforced? This is not true. The US has the largest prison population, as laws are rigorously enforced on peasants. I'm sure a for-profit prison industry has nothing to do with that.

          Anyway, if you happen to be European, if you're accusing the US of being stupid and lawless, you can just go fuck off into one of your no-go zones or other culturally enriched area. Say hello to one of your friendly ar

      • Limit copyright of the original material to 25 years.

        Actually, I proposed a bill to authorize unlimited copyright terms [google.com]:

        The Copyright term shall be seven (7) years from first publication, with one (1) renewal for seven (7) years for a fee of $1,000 or a larger amount adjusted by CPI inflation, and subsequent renewals for one (1) year each at twice the fee of the most recent renewal for the work.

        The United States shall recognize Copyright terms for international works not registered in the US by treaty only, and for no longer than fourteen (14) years. The United States shall not enforce Copyright terms in foreign markets except by treaty, and only until 14 years.

        All works in Copyright for longer than seven (7) years at the time of this passing shall be recognized as in copyright for the next seven (7) years, after which they shall follow yearly renewal starting at twice the base fee.

        No fee shall be charged for Copyright renewal until seven (7) years after the time of this passing. Renewal of a Software work shall include submission to the Copyright Office of the full software source code in a form not pre-processed nor otherwise obfuscated or obscured.

        The Copyright office shall publish the source code of software works upon and not before the expiration of Copyright.

      • by Rhipf ( 525263 )

        Actually the " to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" might also need looking at. Most copyrights are held by large corporations. These corporations are neither "Authors" nor "inventors". They may hire authors and inventors but the corporation itself is neither.

    • Lets let the wars drag on for decades, but we need to take a stand now for copyright!

      One set of captured corporations is already being extremely well-served; here comes another. More police state, more government-enforced monopolies.

      The thought of Hollywood funding a Trump re-election is a joke, though, even if he gives them everything they ever wanted.

      • The thought of Hollywood funding a Trump re-election is a joke, though, even if he gives them everything they ever wanted.

        Hollywood's so passé. Nowdays it's Mickeywood. You can't ever take The Mouse!

    • Re:Excellent (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Thursday March 08, 2018 @11:08PM (#56231721)

      Actually one of the very first things they did after the US had nominal control of Baghdad, before realizing it was hard to do nation building than they thought, was to try and get the locally appointed legislature to pass some laws. Amongst the laws that the US was intent on pushing through quickly, was an agreement on copyright, patents, and other IP issues. Seriously, that was what they thought was high priority; before getting the country's infrastructure working again we had to make sure that Mickey Mouse was wasn't pirated.

      • Seriously, that was what they thought was high priority; before getting the country's infrastructure working again we had to make sure that Mickey Mouse was wasn't pirated.

        That's what the Gates Foundation thinks is high priority, too. You can't get vaccinations from them unless you institute strong IP law that will have the drug companies owning your ass down the road.

  • No Money To Spare (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Thursday March 08, 2018 @07:54PM (#56230983) Homepage

    Let's be honest, regardless of the infinite greed of publishers and extreme desire on their part for extreme poseur status, there is no fucking money left in the economy to pay for their fucking delusions, it's called austerity morons, get fucking used to it. Right now their content and the psuedo celebrities are reaching all time lows in popularity mainly because of the collapse of the saturation advertising model, simply too many venues for advertising for too many products and dilution to insignificance for ads across all platforms. Austerity, people will not starve themselves to buy shitty content, the pseudo celebrities just look like any other egoistic blogger, in fact the pseudo celebrities are forced to act like typical youtubers ie https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com] (don't bother watching it through just get an idea of the content) because they and their message have become insignificant except for the most gullible believers.

    So they crap on about copying content, as people go hungry, as the middle class is crapped on (the people with the real power), as the poorest a living on the streets, the insanity of insatiable greed, never ever having enough, not matter how many that greed kills.

    Don't expect to sell high priced content to hungry people and expect those hungry people to hate egoistic poseur pseudo celebrities rubbing the poverty of the poor into the face of the poor, starve fuckers, I need my private jet.

    • there is no fucking money left in the economy to pay for their fucking delusions

      Nope.

      Austerity, people will not starve themselves to buy shitty content

      If true, serves to emphasise that people should be encouraged to open their wallets unwillingly - perhaps by a tax on argggghh^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hpiracy paid for by everyone^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hthose least able to afford it?

         

    • by Anonymous Coward

      This is as close to class consciousness that you'll find on slashdot. Pay attention.

    • Don't expect to sell high priced content to hungry people

      Obviously that all is true. But it doesn't change the fact that someone else taking that content and making even a small amount of money form it is wrong.

      I don't really begrudge the people just torrenting movies or whatever. But if you are buying bootleg DVD's, or streaming from a site that has ads - someone is making money of that in a way that is not deserved, and is simply wrong...

      There is also the aspect of yet another way of breaking the law be

      • streaming from a site that has adsThat's why I use Kodi. You can screw over the MPAA by getting free content, AND the pirate streaming sites by using their bandwidth yet having to view zero ads.
      • The rest of it will naturally follow as really expensive media gets squeezed to go to lower prices.

        No it won't. You can by out-of-copyright DVD movies in supermarkets for $2 each - that covers production costs, logistics and retail mark up and still leaves room for profit! How do you justify the rest of the ticket price on DVD/Bluray movies?

        • How do you justify the rest of the ticket price on DVD/Bluray movies?

          Because I enjoy new movies (well, some).

          Sure they'll dump older movies at a very low price, but that's after the money is either made or it just doesn't matter and they are getting what they can out of it.

          Honestly there's a lot of movies you couldn't pay me to stream, and some I would happily pay hundreds of dollars for if they would make more like them. The cost of a thing does not represent the VALUE of a thing...

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • You want government run like a business? Rule 1 - there's always money for whatever inane project your manager wants to work on ;).

    • The entertainment industry has been called "Recession Proof" because they don't take the same hits everybody else does when one comes along. "Man cannot live by bread alone" as they say. People won't usually starve themselves (a few will, e.g. "Whales") but you'd be surprised what they'll put up with for a little relief from their bleak existences.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Start redistributing 99% or the worlds wealth and people may feel they have a bit left to give back.

    I don't think anyone feels that bad about not giving more of their cash to some entitled 1%ers.

    Until I'm a 1%er, fuck 'em all.

  • Piracy helps sales (Score:4, Insightful)

    by malditaenvidia ( 4015209 ) on Thursday March 08, 2018 @08:27PM (#56231139)
    Yet the film and other entertainment industries keep posting record years in terms of profits. Piracy has been proven not only not to hurt, but help [arstechnica.com] sales of video games.
    If it can be played it can be copied, they're completely unequipped to deal with piracy, even with the net neutrality repeal in effect.
  • "As far as the cyber, I agree to parts of what Secretary Clinton said. We should be better than anybody else, and perhaps we’re not. I don’t think anybody knows that it was Russia that broke into the DNC. She’s saying Russia, Russia, Russia—I don't, maybe it was. I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay?

    ...

    We came in with the Internet. We came up with
  • by Anonymous Coward

    You mean they will stop going after the guys who downloaded a song or movie and instead attack the ones who are uploading/hosting the servers who provided those downloads in the first place? What's this common sense from a republican government? Blasphemy.

  • nerds, Trump is not your friend. He was a jock for Pete's sake. He was the guy that gave you wedgies and beat the shit out of you while his friends held you down.
    • He was a jock for Pete's sake.

      Too bad his athletic career was ended by those damned bone spurs.

      Or maybe those damned cheeseburgers.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) had strong intellectual property protections that the US fought hard to get into the agreement. Essentially it would have forced all partner countries to enforce US intellectual property rights (regardless of their own laws). Trump pulled the plug on it and the remaining TPP members stripped out all the US copyright demands and ratified the TPP without the US. Now Trump's complaining the US's copyright laws aren't being respected after he was the one that canceled the dea

  • Wait, what? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 08, 2018 @09:45PM (#56231473)

    You lost me at "Trump Promises..."

    He promised that Mexico was going to pay for the wall. And that that pipeline would be built with American steel. And that he'd be too busy working to have time to go golfing.

    Trump's promises might be worth a dollar, but only if he writes them on a dollar bill.

  • and they are very, very vocal about it, but somehow he loves them, and their bosses in particular. Strange huh? Wonder what is going on there, but there is more going on than meets the eye. Perhaps it's just Copyright Industry lobbyists somehow being handed the reins?
  • Then maybe he will do something about the Russian hacking the US election happening this year.
  • There's a criminal enterprise going on here that's stealing content and making a profit,"

    It's called "Hollywood".

    a lot of economic activity & creators aren't being compensated for their work

    It's called "Hollywood Accounting".

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

  • Torrents and Usenet and IRC aren't being used at all for piracy anymore, they're completely dead technologies which no one is even thinking about using anymore. Not worth spending any time at all going after them. Just go all-in against illegal streaming, which is at least 100% of all piracy now and in the future.

    • You are so wrong! There is no streaming piracy - it doesn't exist. Its a myth. Even thinking about streaming piracy is a waste of time since as a technology its dead in the water. 100% of piracy in via torrents, usenet and irc which are the growth technologies - they will probably keep growing for decades to come and its what all the cool kids are moving to. If you want to Make America Great Again they must devote all their resources to the elimination of the Axis of Evil - Torrents, Usenet and IRC!

      Remember

  • Does anyone doubt that Trump has copyright-violating material on nearly every digital device he owns?

    Or that his companies share copyright-violating materials?

    Or that he retweets and promotes copyright-violating materials?

    Or that his employees stream copyright-violating materials using his company's hardware on company time?

    Etc.

  • Remove net neutrality. Packet sniff and de-prioritze anything that doesn't toss a rent back to the ISP. Pirate streams are not on the ISP whitelist. Profit !!!

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