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- netmancer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+24About time!! For those who don't know, Gary Shapiro is president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). Hopefully this will cause some kind of positive change.
- drizek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15File sharing has already been illegal for a while and nobody could care less, people still downloaded.
The more stupid laws they make, the less people are likely to take them seriously, which means we will just see more piracy as a result of this stupidity.
Of course, the solution is for the record companies to stop being such greedy bastards. Kind of ironic because if they do that they will make more money. - Elohir, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12When people gained audio cassette recording technology they used it to copy audio from cassette and radio to backup and to give to friends.
When people gained video cassette recording technology they used it to copy audio and video from TV to backup and to give to friends.
When people gained CD recording technology they used to copy audio and video from radio, TV and other media to backup and to give to friends.
People gained mp3 (and similar format) encoding. Guess what they did? Used it to backup audio media and distribute to friends.
People have been doing this for what, 30, 35 years now?
If they expect people to stop sharing this data after half a lifetime they need to be given a viable alternative, like, oh I don't know, reasonably priced media?
What does the RIAA do? Do they change their now irrevelvant and archaic business model, or do they go out and sue 10 year old girls?
I will never buy a CD or DVD from anyone associated with the RIAA until they pull their head out of the sand and realise that no matter how much they bribe the government people do not want overpriced, low-quality DRM-crippled media.
The government will let them do this, they'll create new laws to put more kids in jail for copying an mp3. They'll make web services pay for bandwidth twice over, making us pay for bandwidth, over the lines our taxes paid for, twice over. We'll offshore services, encrypt communications, switch ISPs, use proxies but most of all we'll raise our voices, fight for our rights, laws and freedoms and vote so people like the George Bush administration never gain office again. - andyman1, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13I'll see your "anti-anti-anti-piracy campaign" and raise you an anti-anti-anti-anti-piracy GRASS ROOTS campaign! Huzzah!
- phpirate, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14Oh yeah? I'm going to start up a anti-anti-anti-piracy campaign! Take that!
- hankyone, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Finnaly! Someone trying to stop this non-sense
- serra, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7I would like to be the first in this thread to say "***** the RIAA!".
Viva la piracy! - Cerebral, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I Fold :(
- schwab002, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5this and the Canadian artists banding together against the CRIA (canadian riaa) is so uplifting to hear. I'm hoping this is just the beginning of the end.
more about the Canadian artists here:
http://www.musiccreators.ca/
'A group of prominent Canadian artists that will likely start growing very soon has formed to speak out against the RIAA/CRIA's fan-destroying tactics. You can read thier policy paper over at the site. So yeah, go Canada. Founding members are: The Barenaked Ladies, Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Chantal Kreviazuk, Sum 41, Stars, Raine Maida (Our Lady Peace), Dave Bidini (Rheostatics), Billy Talent, John K. Samson (Weakerthans), Broken Social Scene, Sloan, Andrew Cash and Bob Wiseman (Co-founder Blue Rodeo).' - br0ken1128, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5My "friend" .. ahem .. would occasionally download a film he had watched in the theater, only because it was not yet available for purchase and had gone out of the theater in that limbo state, sometimes a movie is good enough that you want to see it again but you can't because it's just not available yet to purchase.. in every single one of those cases, he bought the film when it came to DVD.. in cases like that, having the DVD available for purchase right as the film leaves theaters would lessen downloads.
Same thing with music, there's a band "he's" waited 5 years for to put out a new cd, he knew he'd buy it whether he liked it or not because it belongs in the collection, but when it leaked, he had to get it to check it out until it was available to buy, once it hit the stores, he bought it.
His movie collection contains 859 DVD's, even if you average the cost at only $10 per DVD that's not far from $9,000 paid for movies.. the cd collection is much larger than that.. i think - bowels, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Only the content/software companies have enough bribe money to get laws passed.
Consumers of content/software - even if backed by the EFF - will never be able to raise more bribe money than the corporations.
So don't hold your breath waiting for a consumer friendly coypright law. If anything, the laws will get more pro-corporation because they corporations still have plenty of bribe money left, even considering that the congress & senate have raised bribe prices a lot. - scheper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3-tin hat-
If enough laws are passed, and downloading illegal content is something only terrorists do, virtually anyone could be legally arrested and indefinitely held on suspicion of terrorist acts, including the opposition.
-/tin hat- - p9s50W5k4GUD2c6, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act of 2005: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:H.R.1201:
"`and it is not a violation of this section to circumvent a technological measure in order to obtain access to the work for purposes of making noninfringing use of the work';" - animeher, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This is the first digg I've ever seen where no comment has negative digg. (atleast till this post was posted).
Seems everyone is truely glad regarding this. - Avengelist, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I can't count how many mixed tapes and CDs I have made or had made for me. I think that it's a fairly common practice.
So after 30 years of it, doesn't it become part of our culture?
I can't imagine not being able to share music with people. - DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The headline isn't exactly correct. This is about maintaining fair use rights. I don't think they are advocating p2p file sharing with this campain. But it's still a good thing.
- DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This is the best part....
"The content community has undertaken a slick public relations and positioning campaign to distort the law of copyright to make it seem as if it is a subset of the law of real property. What they totally ignore, is that the United States Constitution accorded patents and copyrights a different treatment allowing Congress to grant patent and copyright terms for limited times. By contrast, the ownership of real property has no such restriction and is perpetual." - DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2From: http://www.ce.org/Press/CurrentNews/press_release_detail.asp?id=11004
"The content industry must stop its campaign to thwart technological innovation and restrict consumer rights, stated Consumer Electronics Association (CEA®) President and CEO Gary Shapiro this morning during a CATO Institute conference titled, Copyright Controversies: Freedom, Property, Content Creation and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Shapiro's comments underscored written testimony submitted with the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on behalf of the Home Recording Rights Coalition (HRRC) as the committee considers new legislation, which would restrict well-established consumer recording practices.
"Our nation's leadership in innovation is being threatened by the content industry's campaign to extend intellectual property law so as to grant them the right to dictate the design of technology," Shapiro told the CATO audience. "The content industry's campaign is to the detriment of consumers, business and the nation's economy. It's time for them to stop.
"Passing HR 1201 would be a good first step to cleaning up this mess. This bill would merely ensure that consumers, libraries, and educators can use new technology without threat of liability, so long as they don't violate the copyright law."
In his comments, Shapiro outlined four major trends, beginning with the fact that the major content providers have pushed to define copyright as if it was real property.
"The content community has undertaken a slick public relations and positioning campaign to distort the law of copyright to make it seem as if it is a subset of the law of real property. What they totally ignore, is that the United States Constitution accorded patents and copyrights a different treatment allowing Congress to grant patent and copyright terms for limited times. By contrast, the ownership of real property has no such restriction and is perpetual."
Shapiro went on to say that the term "intellectual property" is misleading since it actually is only a license.
"It is not only intellectually disingenuous to treat copyright as a real property, it distorts the debate so that fair use becomes less relevant and consumer rights and the constitutional goal of broad public access and public domain works become marginalized to the point of vanishing."
The second trend Shapiro identified is the gross extension of copyright protection - from 14 years in 1790 when the law first was established to more than 120 in some circumstances today, depending on the author and length of his life. He pointed out that 11 of the 13 total term extensions have been made in the past 40 years alone.
"This sudden increase in copyright terms means that copyright has shifted from a brief exclusive monopoly to a very long monopoly where the public is foreclosed from access. This not only benefits the incumbent content community, but it deprives creative uses of new technology, documentary films and scholars form accessing or using historic and even commercially valueless content."
Shapiro also noted that it is much easier to qualify for copyright protection today and that copyright owners have broader powers to control their copyrighted works today thanks to new digital rights management (DRM) technologies.
"Congress has created entirely new rights, through laws such as the DMCA. Indeed, even as we speak, there is a hearing going on in the Senate Judiciary Committee on a proposal to restrict how consumers can enjoy satellite radio services. The amazing thing is that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) wants Congress to mandate more design restrictions on digital radio receivers even though the satellite companies pay them for the music and the manufacturers pay a royalty to the music industry for every recording device. On top of that, every recording device already has technical limitations that the recording industry asked for, claiming that would forever solve any issue they had with digital recording products. What are we to believe now? The game of crying wolf is not only tiresome; it's harmful to consumers and innovation."
Shapiro's third and fourth trends centered on the fact that copyright owners have received new royalty flows and new restrictions have been put on creation of technology and distribution of copyrighted content. The consequences of all four trends are troubling, according to Shapiro.
"Makers of pioneering technologies are now routinely subject to expensive and time-consuming lawsuits, which discourage innovation. Meanwhile, venture capitalists are reluctant to touch new technologies and inadvertently invest in a lawsuit. The constant threat of lawsuits impedes the ability of U.S. companies to compete globally, and encourages U.S. companies to make and hold innovation offshore. Finally, the opportunities for consumers are unnecessarily constricted-just when new technologies are enabling everyone to be a creator. It's time the balance shifted back to the entrepreneur and away from a handful of big content companies."
About CEA:
The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) is the preeminent trade association promoting growth in the consumer technology industry through technology policy, events, research, promotion and the fostering of business and strategic relationships. CEA represents more than 2,100 corporate members involved in the design, development, manufacturing, distribution and integration of audio, video, mobile electronics, wireless and landline communications, information technology, home networking, multimedia and accessory products, as well as related services that are sold through consumer channels. Combined, CEA's members account for more than $125 billion in annual sales. CEA's resources are available online at www.CE.org, the definitive source for information about the consumer electronics industry. CEA also sponsors and manages the International CES - Defining Tomorrow's Technology. All profits from CES are reinvested into industry services, including technical training and education, industry promotion, engineering standards development, market research and legislative advocacy." - ehmjay, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Good to hear! Now that we got this guy and the good old Canadians perhaps finally the war will begin only it being between the two powers rather than us getting our butts kicked by the RIAA.
Lets just hope it turns out okay!! - chris9902, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6The people who download movies and music were never going to buy them anyway.
Just give people who pay for you movie the right to do what ever they want with it and STFU!... when I buy something it's mine and if I want to watch it on my PC or TV I should be allowed to or if I want to use a copy of one of the many comic-book-to-movies you seem so intent on making as a place mat then so be it. - rudlavibizon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1No pasaran!
- logden, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Yes, you are right the CEA is looking out for member interests here, it just so happens however that member interests are also consumer interests. I know you weren't blasting them but it should be made clear simply wanting to make a profit is not evil. The CEA wants its members to make a profit by innovation. The *AA members want to retain their stranglehold on the content market by stifling any innovation that makes them re-think their business model or has any potential risk at all.
- dragondiner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1No, "anti-anti-piracy" is starting a campaign against the people against piracy.
- jerwong, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The bill mentioned, HR 1201, has been promoted by the EFF for a while now as a means of repairing the failures of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. It's good to see its getting a little more support. Hopefully it passes into law.
- Elohir, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1You're confusing anti-anti-piracy with non-non-piracy. The second would be pro-piracy, whereas the first is simply the resistance of anti-piracy.
Example: My mum bought an overpriced CD with her own money. She wanted to create a copy of it to use in the car, so as to not give people incentive to break into the car. She tried to create a copy and lo and behold, her computer crashed. She tried again, now the CD drive is having major problems. She then had to wait for me to find time to travel to her, fix the drive, repair the after-effects of the crashing and bypass the DRM on the disk and create a copy for her.
Now she is not pro-piracy, or pro-non-non-piracy. You won't find her buying bootleg CDs from car boot sales. You won't find her distributing hundreds of albums; but thanks to this experience she is now VERY much 'anti-anti-piracy'.
To the extent she now tells all of her friends never to buy this artists CDs because of the built in (and largely faulty and often downright dangerous) DRM.
As an aside, she now feels she can't trust the CD stores and so is toying with the idea of getting hold of downloaded albums and sending the artists themselves a 'donation' for each album. If anyone knows of a reliable way to do this, please let me know. - MrGeneric, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Although I applaud any call to cease the predator litigation against children that the RIAA like to indulge in (reminds me of Micheal Jackson for some reason...) I think that the CEA have more than one motive, the second one being profit.
Why profit? Because if people become so disgusted with the RIAA and draconian IP law they may simply avoid all such content completely and that would kill the CEA's markets. Look at the impact the Internet has had on people's spending patterns, people do change their behavior very quickly if something takes their interest, is more interesting or cheaper. Making your customers the enemy is guaranteed to amplify the impact that disruptive technologies will have on you.
While the likes of the RIAA are managed by people that think like lawyers or 1970's style accountants there is no way they are going to be able to foresee the rapid changes that they will need to face, let alone react to them wisely. - evilTak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The best part of this article: the image. Yarr!
- ADDHITMAN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0ok i lied...
- RIPtechtv, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0After years of laws that have been nothing but help for the copyright holders and users loseing more rights then ever it looks like there might be some hope that things turn around. We need to take away copyright holders power and give some of it back to the people.
- ADDHITMAN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I PAYED 4 A CD AND I CANT DO ***** WITH IT CANT CHANGE ENCODING OR ANY THING DID I PAY 12.99 JUST TO GET SLAPPED IN THE FACE BY THE FBI
THE ONLY THING THER DOING IS PROVOKING ME TO LIMEWIRE IT
I SIGN OFF PROMISING THAT I WILL NEVER PAY FOR MUSIC AGAIN (30 SECONDS TO MARS A BEAUTIFL LIE)
ILL DO WAT I WANT B***H VIVA LA PIRACY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! - dpk87, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2so with the double negative, they are essentially starting a Piracy camaign? I know that the RIAA is stepping way over bounds, and something needs to be done. But piracy does still need to be kept in check, just in some reasonable manner. How you ask? psssh I dunno.
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