Since When Did Phone Service Cost $13,000 Per Year?

MPAA Betting On Its Next Silver Bullet

from the haven't-we-seen-this-movie-before? dept

Fri, Jul 21st 2006 12:24pm — Mike Masnick

A little over two years ago, we wrote about how the RIAA was so excited about its new "silver bullet" in the fight against unauthorized music downloads. It was a system, called Audible Magic, that was going to use its fingerprinting system to spot any copyrighted audio files online, so they could be blocked. It was going to change everything. Except... it never actually worked. First it seemed like vaporware because no one could see it in action. And, of course, once it finally came out, it turned out that the technology didn't really work that well, causing some to give up on it, after they realized it didn't help matters. Even if it did work, it would simply drive people to other, more underground, services -- so it's hard to see how it would have much of an impact.

However, it appears the MPAA didn't bother to watch that movie, and are starting down the same path, excitedly talking about how a different (but remarkably similar sounding) offering from tech firm Guba to spot copyrighted video content will be important for them. Even more amusing, though is the quote from a Guba exec that: "It was great in the old days, where you could just cue up The Daily Show. But those days of 'cowboy content' are over." Hmm. That's why one of the most viewed videos today on YouTube is the Daily Show clip we discussed yesterday about net neutrality. Of course, much more important is that the folks behind the Daily Show have made it clear that they're happy about that content being available online -- and they have no intention of trying to stop it.

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14 Comments

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ROn (profile), 21 Jul 2006 @ 1:21pm

Again
Instead of writing a new news article each time RIAA, MPAA, whatever-AA comes up with some stupid idea to make their product unpalatible and to protect their profit margins, a simple sentence saying "Another f*cking stupid idea from ...: would likely suffice.
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Yet another Anonymous Coward, 21 Jul 2006 @ 1:27pm

Huh?
First, I'm in Oklahoma, where there are real cowboys. I'm not one, however.

Of course the MPAA doesn't know any history. That has been demonstrated many times, but see the previous sentence.

The irony of this is beautiful. MPAA is trying to protect the show that is delighted that it isn't protected.

This is the case of yet another institution that collects large sums of money to protect the downtrodden, that morphs into a protector of itself and it's stream of income. You could even apply this principle to the American government. (I'm a blue dot in a red state.)

I have an idea - the contractor Guba is going to chew up a lot of bandwidth doing this. Let's have AT&T try out their internet pipe tax on them first.
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jdragon, 21 Jul 2006 @ 1:38pm

Goober
I guess we won't be using Guba anymore.
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PopeRatzo, 21 Jul 2006 @ 1:52pm

The MPAA does not care how much bandwidth they use, or even if their technology were to completely destroy personal computing and the Internet.

The Internet has been nothing but a problem for them. It's cost them money and they've never been able to figure out how to get rich off it, so it's their enemy. If every personal computer were to go away tomorrow, the MPAA wouldn't care.

Net Neutrality or not, the MPAA will do everything they can to destroy the Internet as we know it. They want it dead dead dead.
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Wire Cramped, 21 Jul 2006 @ 2:34pm

Re: Huh? I AGREEEEE
Lets have the Telcos make the RIAA pay a TAX to use the internet and the RIAA to try to use the telcos to track everyone on it and then while they work it out we will configure "OUR" routers that hold up most of the internet to block traffic from any of their administrative buildings through our routers.

I think that would leave them with not much left to go on about and the rest of their offerings would be ALL OURS!!! Free music on the FREEE Internet!!!

ok I am a tard but hey I am no where near the level of a TRAFFIC PROVIDER who makes money on selling traffic lines taxing the people in a way to drive them off it! or nearly as dumb as a Protection company trying to protect someone who doesnt need or want protection, I am just a dumb old IT guy who thinks outside the box.
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willy nilly, 21 Jul 2006 @ 3:04pm

alt
its high time the MPAA get with the program. they need to start doing serious reveune model changes. one candidate would be to emulate the newspaper model. use embedded advertising (product placement etc) instead of commercials, embed a woman in a bikini walking by the characters drinking a Pepsi while holding on to a derweinerschnitzel bag. didnt anyone see the truman show? then massively push volume distribution . make the stuff digital and release it so pirates have no incentive. hey if i only have to pay $1.25 to own a digital image of "the matrix" why would i want to pirate it?
adapt or die.
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Junyo, 21 Jul 2006 @ 3:37pm

Guba is a whore. They made their money off of having a slick Usenet interface, with specific predefined searches for movies and MP3s. And now that a few studios and porn producers are willing to let them license content they've found religion. It's like a hooker marrying one of her johns and becoming some holier-than-thou suburban Stepford wife.
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Kelly Denison-Cole, 21 Jul 2006 @ 5:13pm

Daily Show and Utbe
True- the Daily Show seems O.K. with their stuff gone viral, but Colberts Press Dinner thing disappeared one day off Utbe with a copyright warning posted in it's stead. Soon there after it was available on iTunes as a purchasable download
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jimbo, 21 Jul 2006 @ 6:55pm

Daily Show
I was under the impression that broadcast television is legal to re-distribute via the internet and that there are no laws in place that state otherwise. Interesting that there could be some sort of copyright on such a thing.
Anyway, I doubt the MPAA and the RIAA will come up with anything useful. For every team of developers trying to come up with a solution there will be ten times the amount of pirates working to break it down.
I feel the eventual outcome of the pirating industry will be good for musicians in the long run. The real money from album sales goes to the labels not the musicians. And if I happen to download an album for free that I probably wouldn’t have purchased in the first place I would think that would be good exposure for the artist. Just because I pirated their album doesn’t mean I won’t go see them live when they come to town.
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jw.oldguy, 21 Jul 2006 @ 9:01pm

from guba's site.

Upload videos that you shot or just have sitting on your hard drive (up to 1GB in size).

from my hard drive.

f:movies n shitSuperman Returns (2006) maVen Telesync KvCD by Hockney(TUS Release).bin

also from guba's site.

Uploading your video will take a minute or two.

it's premature, i know, but still, mpaa, eat my shit.
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Chuck Noblet, 23 Jul 2006 @ 12:18pm

Re: Daily Show and Utbe
CSPAN issued the Cease & Desist
http://news.com.com/2061-10802_3-6068398.html?part=rss&tag=6068398&subj=news
Didn't know they they then sold it to iTunes tho.
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Ratburger, 23 Jul 2006 @ 6:36pm

What about me???
How are they gonna stop me? I bought a video IPOD and I bought a $29.99 video capture card with a tv tuner in it. I record anything I want to mpg, run videora converter to make it IPOD compatible and take it with me. I'm not gonna pay for daily show or anything else on regular tv. Screw them.
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Zundr, 24 Jul 2006 @ 11:30am

Daily Show
@Kelly Denison-Cole on Jul 21st, 2006 @ 5:13pm

I watched the Colberts Press Dinner thing last night. It might have come down, but was quikly reposted.
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Lay Person, 24 Jul 2006 @ 1:42pm

Funny
Funny thing is that no matter what locks they throw up, people will find a way around it.

As long as our eyes need light to see and sound to hear, someone can steal the media.

All, and I mean all these media can be stolen because the signal is analog at some point, it must be. Unless they remove the quality of the user experience, the potential for theft is there.

The only real way to stop it is to make a completely new, sealed, piece of hardware that from the point of distribution to the point of listening, you cannot alter anything. This would secure the media but the user experience would be near 0...essentially rendering the device unusable because the listener would want choices at some point.
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