RIAA CEO Hopes SOPA Protests Were a 'One-Time Thing'
internetevolution.com
internetevolution.com
1. The public can be roused to fight bills like this... at least once. What about the next ten times these bills, or parts of them, are reintroduced under different names or tacked onto other bills? Sherman is probably right when he says that lobbyists will win in the long term.
2. Hollywood's economic importance is literally dwarfed by that of internet companies like Google. Even ignoring the rights of citizens, the mere cost of implementing SOPA/PIPA would cause far more harm to the U.S. economy than it could possibly prevent. SOPA/PIPA was like shooting your horse in the head in order to thwart horse-thiefs you only think you saw.
3. Why does Hollywood get preferential treatment? A long history of lobbying. When Hollywood was threatened with federal content regulation laws in the 20's they responded by adopting a self-imposed production code (half-heartedly at first) and also by lobbying. Although the code is long dead, Hollywood has never slackened their lobbying efforts.
4. Hollywood has been getting a free ride. While Hollywood was once happy just to avoid falling under federal regulation, now they seek (and have gained) regulatory capture. Copyright life seems to be forever tied to the age of Mickey Mouse. Laws like DMCA have forced taxpayers to pay for protection of Hollywood content. Tax laws are written so that wildly successful movies that earn far more than they cost can be losses on paper, while the profits are siphoned off through tax loopholes without a penny going to the government except as campaign donations. If Apple was run by Hollywood, they'd be reporting a loss every quarter and laughing all the way to the Cayman islands.
The big conclusion:
Net companies are bigger than Hollywood and have a lot more capital to spend lobbying. SOPA/PIPA was a declaration of war by Hollywood on internet companies. The MPAA tried to have legislature passed that would shore up their own interests at the expense of Google, Yahoo, etc. while doing more harm to the U.S. economy than good. Even if the grass roots movement that stopped PIPA/SOPA was a one time thing, it likely will not be necessary the next time. Big Net money is rolling into Washington as we speak.
We've been doing this since 1998. He'll get sick of it and quit like the rest of them before him.
"[We fight against] foreign criminals selling counterfeit pharmaceuticals to Americans?"
second only to "think of the children" and "Save American Jobs Law".
Worst movie I ever saw in my life, but watch it, because the Ghost Rider considers illegal downloads a sin (line from the movie, can't reproduce the exact quote).
Hollywood has been brain-washing people for years and we shouldn't underestimate their power of persuasion.
Exactly where the line between respect for the law and conflict with God's commands lie is a favorite topic for Christian ethics debates, but probably not relevant to the linked article. ;)
Not all Christians have the same interpretation. I was taught in Catholic school that this meant that everything is God's and nothing is Caesar's.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Render_unto_Caesar...#Modern_in...
2:8 - "The silver is mine and the gold is mine, saith the Lord.
Great answer to a trick question.
Worse, the spin-masters in power have taken control of the conversation, everyone in Canada calls them “generic” drugs, as if molecules and atoms were identical to each other and there’s no difference besides the logo stamped on the pill and the label glued on the bottle.
And we’re prisoners of the system, trapped in the endless nightmare of free health care.
As a fellow prisoner of Soviet Kanuckistan, I feel I must rebel against the Department of Truth and point out that we pay, dearly, for health care. Interestingly, however, we spend only slightly more than our free brethren to the south: 7% vs 6.7% GDP (this is only public, not private spending).
pdf warning: http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2009/fin/F2...
Not that I'm a fan of intellectual property, but I do recognize that there are a few areas where the upfront investment to produce the product is so massive, and copying the final product so easy, that it might make sense to guarantee the profits for a period of time.
Does the pro-generic side have any data or counterpoint to that?
Which I personally think is far better, because typically (not always of course) academics will share and collaborate, instead of being in walled gardens.
That's because big-pharma companies love to focus on treatments, not on prevention and they also like to focus on controlling the disease instead of curring it.
Like in the case of allergic asthma, why treat a patient once when you can take money from him monthly?
Contraception and sexually transmitted diseases - will the religious right / moral majority voters turn against a representative who supports medical research for these?
What about diseases associated with lifestyle - smoking, alcohol, obesity. Will a parent group ask why X million is going to emphysema research when it could have gone to childhood cancer research instead? What about the anti-vaccine groups? Vegan/Vegetarian groups? Whatever other special interest group or political viewpoint?
I really don't want to see Bill O'Reilly or Rosie O'Donnell on tv expressing their outrage at why funding is going to curing the wrong diseases/disorders.
There's something very wrong there...
I'm in 2 minds about the whole medicine patent thing. One the one hand, as you say, new medicines would not be developed but on the other hand the patents drive the prices so high that people in 3rd world countries cannot afford them. It also means medicines for 3rd world diseases are not worthwhile for the large pharmas. There really needs to be a better balance, maybe spending 5-10% of their R&D on medicines they know will never see it's return on investment but will save many more lives than their high profit products.
The additional profits that come from lobbying after year 20 to keep out generics don't get reinvested into more research, they get reinvested into more lobbying.
I suspect a lot of the talk about counterfeits and generics misses the third category, generics that are contraband in the USA because they are still under patent protection.
The USDA can identify the source of bad pork; the FDA similarly needs to investigate bad batches of medicine.
It seems you probably don't have a condition that would lead you to need to know about their services. I wish you continued good luck on that front.
Even some of the normals around me are start are starting to get how broken SOPA/PIPA were and how wrongheaded the "content provders" actions have been.
Not many, unfortunately, but still ...
Personally, I never would have thought I'd hear the RIAA talk about millions of songs for $10/month. Question of course is, did the RIAA kill the subscription model and then announce it's failure? Still, $10/month is pocket change in exchange for never having to hunt for music.
There is an invisible sheath of social truth. The elephant in the room. We've all pirated music, software or movies at some point. None of us openly admit it, and if asked we all say "Ya, the artist should be compensated". Then we pirate more music and movies, proclaiming, "They're the thieves! They give artists X% of the profits!". True. But I still don't see an argument for pirating music - or at least, pirating music but pretending you think it is wrong.
I don't think anyone wants to pirate music. What people want is convenience. If the incentive for route X is greater than route Y, route X is destined to be the popular route by default. $10/month vs. searching the pirate bay every time I hear a new song I like? $10/month wins.
The RIAA is generally evil, don't get me wrong. But I imagined a complete jack ass at the helm, and I am surprised to see something different.
Because it's "illegal" to acquire it by other means?
The law is not a moral authority by any means. At least it shouldn't be. Ideally, things are against the law because they are considered to be morally wrong. The other way 'round (something is morally wrong because it is against the law) is a similar fallacy as confusing correlation with causation. It just doesn't follow.
There's a quite nice saying in Germany, frequently attributed to Berthold Brecht, that roughly translates to "When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes obligation.". That's essentially the current situation - injustice is law. Piracy is but one of many forms of resistance.
To calm our conscience?
I don't think downloading music is wrong. In fact, I don't think sharing anything can be considered wrong in any way, and I must actually commend the content industry for managing to twist and pervert the public's perception of morality to such a degree. It's the most natural action a human being can undertake. And digital data isn't scarce - there's absolutely no reason not to share it. It's the refusal to share (and the active battle against it) that should be considered highly unethical.
To support the artist?
There're better ways that don't involve dead and obsolete business models (distribution of information, which is virtually cost-free today), such as going to see a show, or maybe buying their merchandise. I know some people who frown on donations because they argue that would make artists beggars, but I prefer to liken donations to tip money. Crowd-funding is slowly becoming more accepted and might face wide-spread adoption in a few years. I like this approach because it's essentially a service based model - the artist gets paid once to create something, and it can be freely used by everyone when it's complete - there's no monopoly rent on something that's not inherently scarce.
And finally, accept the fact that not everyone is able to live off their art, and that's fine too. No one is entitled to succeed in a given job, and no one is entitled to protection of their business model if something comes along that makes it obsolete.
How about going to each and every artist you believe you should be able to download for free and get their permission to copy their art first? They created their work for your entertainment, it should be their decision to say weather you can have it for free, or for a price.
Why? Because you say so? I don't think so.
>It is just a way to get things for free with a (very small) chance of any repercussions. If some new magic technology was invented overnight, and the risk of being sued went up to 99% every time you tried to download something in violation of copyright I think this 'moral code' would disappear quite quickly. This is a cover up for 'I want free shit, and I am not going to get in trouble, so I do it'.
What I'm saying is that these repercussions are completely unjustified and morally wrong. Appeals to (imaginary, and quite frankly, impossible) force don't change that. You're essentially saying the same as "If being gay was against the law and we had the power to crack down on gay people, that would make being gay wrong".
>How about going to each and every artist you believe you should be able to download for free and get their permission to copy their art first?
I must present you with a counter-question instead: based on what moral authority should an artist (or anyone else) be allowed to forbid me to copy art?
Let me say it again: there's nothing more inherently good and natural than sharing. If you are opposed to sharing (of a truly non-scarce resource, at that), then it's you who's arguing against one of, if not the most universally accepted ethical practice of humanity.
Take note that nobody can be forced to share. The opposite, however, holds true as well: you can't force people to stop sharing. Or to put it in another, polemic way: if you don't want people to share your art, lock it up in your basement and never show it to anyone.
>They created their work for your entertainment, it should be their decision to say weather you can have it for free, or for a price.
I don't see why. Sure, they can charge people for distribution done by themselves if they so chose. That doesn't mean they have any authority to tell people who acquired a copy to further share said copy, with or without compensation.
Logical conclusion: We can consider whatever you do 9-5 to pay the bills also as your 'art'. I as your boss now decree that you are entitled to $0 compensation this month.
You are extremely happy now yes, because 'art wants to be free'?
But if you shovel a walkway the adjacent store gets to use it without paying a dime.
It seems the sentiment has become one of: since music and movies are easy enough to copy online without me getting in trouble, and for free, the price of art should also drop to zero as a whole. This doesn't look like something anyone in the music or movie industry would think is a good thing would it?
What matters is not what an industry thinks, but what is best for society. I personally think a couple decades of copyright is a good thing but it does not equate to employment.
Have a nice day.
by made I mean manufactured, or in this case, duplicated digitally. I'm not talking about the artist's efforts actually creating the music. I'd be happy to send them a 10 spot if I like their music and they asked for it.
If you want to give me money, send me some or come to one of my shows. I was involved with a label/mngt. company in the 90's and they just ripped me off. Don't give them any money by buying "official" records.
Kill Hollywood: Pirate...download and direct your dollars directly to the musicians. Ignore the agents and the middlemen. They're parasites.
Note the followup post will be: 'Just go to their concerts! All is well!'. Since Ticketmaster screws me out of about 30 bucks for each pair of tickets I buy, should we be trying to sneak into concerts for free because 'the man' is doing things we don't like even though the artist is receiving some of the profits from a legal sale?
I'd rather adapt.
Most of the money from online purchases go to the label.
I imagined a complete jack ass at the helm,
and I am surprised to see something different.
I still don't see an argument for pirating music
The model of selling tapes or CDs was based on scarcity. Now that scarcity is gone, because with a few clicks and key-presses you can find anything.
And really, punishing users for pirating content is just like punishing them for having sex.
As long as it's easier to pirate than get stuff through legitimate channels, people will pirate. And people will always fight having to jump through hoops and being treated like they are criminals all the time.
My current pirating usually has to do with books that I've signed out using Overdrive and are then unable to read! Instead of fighting with Overdrive and reinstalling it, hunting down passwords, or finding out I can't read it on device X, I usually have a pirated copy within 2 minutes. Then when I'm done I return the Overdrive book. (That's the one function that seems to work on the damn thing.)
Not artists.
The sooner they cease to be an issue the better.
Knowing history I have little hope that will be the case.
producing or selling counterfeit drugs is already illegal. the importation of those drugs is also illegal, if somebody is importing them customs already has the legal authority to stop it. it might be difficult to enforce, but that doesn't mean that more laws are the answer. passing more laws isn't going to make it more illegal, those laws are just going to be abused to infringe upon the rights of people who aren't actually producing or selling counterfeit drugs.
He's probably smart enough to realize the typical "you're a hipocrite" backlash, I wonder what his goal in this piece is? If we are going to win the internet censorship, internet ownership, and intellectual property legal battles we have to find a way to make it financially unwise to launch campaigns to sustain business models that can't tolerate freedom to transmit any data we want with uncensored internet connections.
Make no mistake, these are the death throes of the RIAA/MPAA
These statements lack the confidence of secure financial backing. These statements are basically saying, "We are doing what you asked of us, it's not our fault it isn't working", and the studios aren't amused.
As far as I can tell Grossman is an established professional with quite a portfolio.
From your profile, I see a whimsical Twitter stream.
So who's going where in your little scheme again?
If Wikipedia and other sites tried to do the blackout thing again, my bet is it would garner quite a backlash from users. People can care, but only so much and only for so long.