The SOPA/PIPA debacle revealed a few interesting things.
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.
I wouldn't be so sure. This particular guy may be gone to retire on his private island or whatever, but the industry still will be there. And so far they are winning and the rest of the internet is losing. Right now they already acquired capability to take any site off the internet merely by sending a message to the services provider, and take any content off a popular site like YouTube by using an interface specially built for them, often without any human intervention or consideration for real rights. They are completely exempt from any due process and from the concept of "innocent until proven guilty". When it comes to copyright, it's shoot first, sort out later, and they're holding the biggest guns ever.
So the industry confidence that internet users will get tired and with relentless pressure the industry will succeed to take more and more rights from them is completely founded. This is what happened repeatedly up until now, and winning one instance doesn't change it. There will be more laws like SOPA, and if past experience predicts anything there is a very big chance that they will succeed in sneaking it in one way or another. At least that's exactly what happened till now and we don't have an effective solution for that - so far they had only a handful of failures, and they found new ways of doing the same. For example, they failed with SOPA that was to give them DNS control - but they effectively control big parts of DNS already, see recent HN stories about Godaddy and Verisign domain takedowns. And they won't stop until they will have same as SOPA and more.
The other weekend I somehow ended up seeing "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance 3D".
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.
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.
OK. I watched the whole interview and, I have to say, Sherman seems to understand technology better than I had figured. He even appears tolerable, approachable and maybe even someone who would listen to reason. Is it a front? We have every reason to think it is.
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.
I openly admit it. When I hear a song I like I immediately download the artist's entire discography. And then when they come to town, I go to their shows.
I imagined a complete jack ass at the helm,
and I am surprised to see something different.
Don't let the show put by him distract you. Of course he's competent. These things are never pulled off by incompetents.
I still don't see an argument for pirating music
I still don't see an argument for punishing people for pirating music. Sharing is in our genes, just as sex. Preferring free stuff is also in our genes. Wanting convenience is also in our genes.
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.
Mmmm. Self-serving vitriol. I would really like to be able to see step-by-step these 'advocates' thinking processes and sidesteps over any (if any remaining) moral qualms.
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.)
The RIAA has one of the biggest misnomer names in the lobbying business. They serve the interests of record labels and the plutocracy who maintains control and legislation of that control.
The sad thing is that even at that angle, their real motivation is to shut down foreign pharmacies selling generic drugs (often made on the same production line as their branded equivalent) directly to Americans without the price-gouge they're able to inflict with their market dominance.
If freedom limitations applied only to people that I consider to be bad, and that authorities agree with me, I'd support it wholeheartedly. After all, bad people don't need same rights to due process as good people, and since I'm one of the good people, it could never happen that my rights would be infringed because somebody thought I'm bad and authorities sided with him and not me. Sounds about right.
this is exactly the sort of attitude that gets exploited to pass bad laws. A law restricting free speech or violating privacy should not be specific to any sort of behaviour, whether it's child porn or counterfeit drugs or pirated movies.
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.
Cary Sherman, the RIAA CEO, has a degree from Harvard in law. Sherman's compensation package from the RIAA was $3.2 million. In 2010, Sherman helped the RIAA secure a $105 million settlement from LimeWire for copyright infringement. The guy is a self described lobbyist and he has the guts to challenge google and wikipedia of demagogy? (a strategy for gaining political power by appealing to the prejudices, emotions, fears, vanities and expectations of the public).
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.
I think it's important to realize that we (the general public) are not the intended audience for statements like this. The RIAA/MPAA are lobbyist Organizations that are failing to pass legislature. They are legal teams that are losing steam in the court room. Their "customers"/investors are the various studios that have banded together to find means to sustain a dying business model.
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.
Here is an idea..since RIAA and MPAA like closed deals so much lets every 6 months stage the same protest to remind them that its still somewhat WRONG!
I think they probably were. Copyright holders can just keep trying to pass the same law, people will get tired of resisting, and it'll happen. In light of that, the complaint that they were unable to get out their side of the story strikes me as canny and disingenuous. They'll get what they want.
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.
Lets give Hollywood censorship rights at the dns level on one condition. The government absorb mpaa, riaa and hollywood as an unholy appendage of all the other slow moving buracratic nightmare agencies sucking tax dollars from the people.
[+] [-] beloch|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] beedogs|14 years ago|reply
We've been doing this since 1998. He'll get sick of it and quit like the rest of them before him.
[+] [-] smsm42|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iwwr|14 years ago|reply
"[We fight against] foreign criminals selling counterfeit pharmaceuticals to Americans?"
second only to "think of the children" and "Save American Jobs Law".
[+] [-] bad_user|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] djcapelis|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Sindisil|14 years ago|reply
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 ...
[+] [-] tomkin|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] marknutter|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bad_user|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] orbitingpluto|14 years ago|reply
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.)
[+] [-] ethank|14 years ago|reply
Not artists.
The sooner they cease to be an issue the better.
[+] [-] cynoclast|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] njharman|14 years ago|reply
Knowing history I have little hope that will be the case.
[+] [-] efsavage|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] burke|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smsm42|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] notatoad|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] malachismith|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maeon3|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] JoeCortopassi|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] dangrossman|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brown9-2|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shareme|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emeraldd|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] funkah|14 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] maeon3|14 years ago|reply