Hollywood demands consumers
I just found this video from TED, presented by Clay Shirky and thought I would share it with you. Even though SOPA and PIPA has been shelved, the idea and motivation are not going away anytime soon. This video really lays out the war on sharing that underlies bills like SOPA (and its predecessors COICA, ACTA, and the DMCA). Some excerpts:
SOPA and PIPA…want to raise the cost of copyright compliance, to the point where people simply get out of the business of offering it as a capability to amateurs….
In order to fake the ability to sell uncopyable bits, the DMCA also made it legal to force you use systems that broke the copying function of your devices…they also made it illegal for you to try to re-set the copyability of that content. The DMCA marks the moment where the media industries gave up on distinguishing between legal and illegal copying, and simply tried to prevent copying through technical means….
PIPA and SOPA are round two. But where the DMCA was surgical – we want to go down into your computer, into your television set, your game machine, and prevent it from doing what they said it would do at the store – PIPA and SOPA are nuclear. They’re saying we want to go anywhere in the world and censor content.
If you’re trying to explain the issues regarding SOPA to someone else, try showing them this. Yes, it’s 14 minutes, but still much more concise and comprehensible than anything I could accomplish in a much longer conversation.
Salman Khan even created a video as well explaining the issue.
“Those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake,”
This certainly follows what many people assumed was happening, and fits with the anonymous comments from studio execs that they will stop contributing to Obama, but to be so blatant about this kind of corruption and money-for-laws politics in the face of an extremely angry public is a really tone deaf response from Dodd.
It shows, yet again, that he just doesn’t get it. People were protesting not just because of the content of these bills, but because of the corrupt process of big industries like Dodd’s “buying” politicians and “buying” laws. To then come out and make that threat explicit isn’t a way to fix things or win back the public. It’s just going to get them more upset, and to recognize just how corrupt this process is. If Dodd, as he said in yesterday’s NY Times, really wanted to turn things around and come to a more reasonable result, this is exactly how not to do it. It shows, yet again, a DC-insider’s mindset. He used Fox News to try to “send a message” to politicians. But the internet already sent a much louder message… and, even worse for Dodd, he bizarrely sent his message in a way that everyone who’s already fed up with this kind of corruption can see it too. It really makes you wonder what he’s thinking and how someone so incompetent at this could keep his job.
The MPAA doesn’t need a DC insider explicitly demanding the right to buy laws and buy politicians. The MPAA needs a reformer, one who helps guide Hollywood into the opportunities of a new market place. The MPAA needs someone who actually understands the internet, and helps lead the studios forward. That’s apparently not Chris Dodd.
Public Knowledge issued a fantastic statement that not only highlights the ridiculousness of Dodd’s threats, but also the hypocrisy of the Hollywood studios on this issue:
Public Knowledge welcomes constructive dialog with people from all affected sectors about issues surrounding copyright, the state of the movie industry and related concerns. Cybersecurity experts, Internet engineers, venture capitalists, artists, entrepreneurs, human rights advocates, law professors, consumers and public-interest organizations, among others should be included. They were shut out of the process for these bills.
We suggest that in the meantime, if the MPAA is truly concerned about the jobs of truck drivers and others in the industry, then it can bring its overseas filming back to the U.S. and create more jobs. It could stop holding states hostage for millions of dollars in subsidies that strained state budgets can’t afford while pushing special-interest bills through state legislatures. While that happens, discussions could take place.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) of late has fooled Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to seize legal domain at their whim and despite the vast volume of lawful music supply, was a flop as most sites were back up withing hours. In doing so, this shows another problem with SOPA/Protect IP that hasn’t been mentioned before, no double jeopardy protection. There’s nothing to stop a bunch of copyright holders from getting together and one by one getting a site they all don’t like pulled/cut off from ad revenue for nonexistent infringement, then have another copyright holder falsely accuse once the previous charges are dismissed, and so on.
What is most concerning with this latest Mega case is that they shut down MegaBox. We may recall that Kim was offering artists 90% of the sales and setting himself up as direct competition of the RIAA. That service was announced during the Mega Song conflict when Universal Music Group (UMG) falsely took down this lawful independent site. The time between then and now is just long enough for the Feds to plan this massive raid! Having the power to take down content that is not even owned is incredible! So it all boils down to money, eh?
So let me get this straight, the RIAA used their private Governmental Police service to just close down a huge and dangerous market rival. I can promise you now that the Judge is going to take a very close look at that one and he won’t like what he sees, a clear pattern of the RIAA abusing the market, destroying independent channels, to protect is monopoly.
If someone sends you a DMCA takedown notice, you’re guilty until proven innocent. And if you buy a copyrighted work that includes DRM, and something goes wrong with the authentication, you’re not even guilty until proven innocent; you’re just plain *guilty*, and screw any relevant facts.
Until we manage to push back and overturn the DMCA, this will keep going on. Clay Shirky is quite right that the DMCA is at the root of all of this, and the only way to win any real, meaningful victory is to get it repealed or thrown out in court.
