MPAA Still Trying To Convince ISPs To Act As MPAA Police

from the why-should-they-protect-someone-else's-obsolete-business-model? dept

Tue, Sep 18th 2007 10:45pm — Mike Masnick

The entertainment industry has been on a bit of a crusade this year trying to convince ISPs that either they should feel responsible for the fact that people use their broadband connections to share unauthorized content. It started with NBC Universal arguing that ISPs somehow bore the responsibility for policing their networks for others' content. It's an odd argument, because most ISPs will admit (in a quiet moment) that unauthorized file sharing had been one of the biggest drivers in convincing people to switch from dialup to broadband. Furthermore, considering that there are some enlightened companies who realize that having your best fans promote and distribute your content can be good for business, it's impossible for ISPs to know whether or not the content being passed around is being done so with or without the approval of the content holder. In fact, that can lead to situations where content that producers are happy having shared gets taken down against their will.

No matter, though, as the entertainment industry has already convinced the government that its outdated business model needs to be protected, now it's trying to convince other industries that they, too, spend their own resources to protect another industry's dying business model. The MPAA's Dan Glickman, who has had trouble understanding basic economics before, is now trying to convince various ISPs that it's their job to protect the entertainment industry's business model. Why? About the only argument he can come up with is that all that unauthorized content is a bandwidth glut: "more and more they're finding their networks crowded with infringed material, bandwidth space being crowded out." That sounds nice, other than the fact that it's not true. So far, not a single prediction that the entertainment industry has made about unauthorized file sharing has come true -- and each step they take seems to make things worse. Why would another, totally separate industry, buy into the argument that it, too, needs to drag itself down to protect someone else's dying business model?

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Filed Under: dan glickman, isps, mpaa

27 Comments

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Jacob Buck, 18 Sep 2007 @ 11:45pm

I have a broadband connection that i do not use to share unauthorized content, maybe I'm the only one.
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Jacob Buck, 18 Sep 2007 @ 11:48pm

P.S.

Mike you're a tool.

Any time I see an anti-mpaa article here its brought to us by you. Expand your horizons man, file sharing should not be the basis for your life.
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Anarchy_Creator, 19 Sep 2007 @ 1:32am

Re:
you are such a lying douchebag
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Anarchy_Creator, 19 Sep 2007 @ 1:33am

Yeah Right
Next you'll tell us how you don't have any pr0n on your hard drive, and have never saved a copyrighted image off of a website without the IP owners permission.
Go lie somewhere else you lying lier.
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Neo, 19 Sep 2007 @ 1:37am

Keep it up
Mike,

Keep talking about it! Until they get the picture, Thanks!
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Mike (profile), 19 Sep 2007 @ 2:23am

Re:
I have a broadband connection that i do not use to share unauthorized content, maybe I'm the only one.

You and me both. I never said that it was the only driver. Not sure why you would read it that way.
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serf, 19 Sep 2007 @ 4:30am

Re:
Just like the industry hires people to poison torrents they are hiring people to poison these forums....heh, nice try n00b.
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but if you think about it, 19 Sep 2007 @ 5:31am

If you think about it... That's pretty much all people want the internet for. To send files and information. Anybody who claims otherwise is a retard.

The phone company is in a bit of a catch 22. They have been enjoying piracy money for a long time (if you think back to the old bbs days, when everyone had 2 land lines).

Today. Same story.
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Killer_Tofu (profile), 19 Sep 2007 @ 5:34am

AH HA!!!
"more and more they're finding their networks crowded with infringed material, bandwidth space being crowded out."

Even he doesn't call it stolen or theft. =P
Sorry, just really felt the need to point it out that one of their big players might finally be understanding terms.

And just because it was today and I found it amusing:
http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/1010.html
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Frank Andrews, 19 Sep 2007 @ 6:07am

File Sharing
Broadband ISP's aren't the only ones cashing in on file sharing. Does anybody really need 1 terabyte hard drives ? I think NOT, yet they are flying off the shelves at retailers. HUM, wonder why anybody would need that much storage for.
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detenebrator, 19 Sep 2007 @ 6:13am

ISPs will lose their 'safe harbor' protection if t
ISPs currently do not have legal liability for the content on their networks because they are common carriers - they don't care what the data is. The second they start patrolling *anything* for the RIAA or MPAA or *anyone*, they are no longer common carriers, and they can and *will* be sued for *EVERYTHING* that pisses someone off and will spend the prodigious profits they make on lawyers. It's to their financial interest to go out of business fighting this because they'll go out of business anyway once they lose that protection.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Sep 2007 @ 6:19am

Re: File Sharing
Why does anybody need that kind of storage? Apparently you have never experienced the world of fansubbed anime. A 26-episode season at, say, about 170MB per episode (many are bigger than that) will be enough to fill one 4.7GB DVD-R. And that's just one season of one anime. While other people may have bragging wars about their CPU and graphics capabilities, anime people tend to have bragging wars over who has the most storage capacity.

And that's not even mentioning PCs that people use as DVRs in their home entertainment systems. Trust me, lots of people can actually use that amount of storage.
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Overcast, 19 Sep 2007 @ 6:41am

I have a broadband connection that i do not use to share unauthorized content, maybe I'm the only one.

Naaa, I don't really deal with 'Rogue' content either. The vast, vast majority of music I have was just ripped from my CD's for convenience. Actually, I laughed a few weeks ago cleaning up my CD shelf - man it was dusty indeed.

I don't bother running Torrent all day to give out files.

But on the same note, I don't buy CD's like I used to. I was 100% not buying CD's for quite some time, but I've bought maybe 2 over this last year. Which is a big difference from the 3/4 I used to average per month.

Now it has more to do with content I like - there's very little of it out there now. Some... but little.

I would much prefer to buy digital singles, but only if they are...

1. Reasonable Cost
2. I have a method of getting them again - with no charge, if I loose data
3. Good Quality

That's about it. I'm just worn and tired of buying the same stuff over and over. I mean in some cases, I have an Album, cassette, and CD of the same freakin' thing.

I'm done buying that again and again.

Sure, I have DVD backups of my music too - but if they want me to buy digital, they will have to offer a means of getting the file again if it's lost. Otherwise, it's worthless to me.

And... no way I'll pay more than 2 bucks for a single, Sorry. These $7 'ringles' are a complete joke. I don't use 'musical' ringtones as it is.
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JustMatt, 19 Sep 2007 @ 7:11am

Re: Jacob's misuse of
P.S., or Post Script, actually means "after writing" so in neglecting to include some 'before writing' you have made a fatal error. Muah ha ha ha

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postscript
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Sep 2007 @ 7:35am

Re: Re: Jacob's misuse of
wow the grammar police kicked in the wrong door just like the RIAA does. Jacob was the first poster, therefore while slightly out of place the P.S. usage is not entirely incorrect.
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Killer_Tofu (profile), 19 Sep 2007 @ 9:47am

Re #12
Mmmmm, anime.
I love me some anime.
But only have about 200GB worth =(
About 100GB is backed up video games I buy (those are my money sink, that and DVDs, but not as much lately because they are being stupid so I will fight back the one way I can).
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jack_me, 19 Sep 2007 @ 11:51am

Re: File Sharing
For storing home movies maybe? Tool
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Jacob Buck, 19 Sep 2007 @ 1:49pm

Re: Re:
You wrote its a "fact that people use their broadband connections to share unauthorized content."
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Jacob Buck, 19 Sep 2007 @ 1:51pm

Re: Yeah Right
I said I do not share unauthorized content, I never said I don't rip an image every once in a while.
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Raptor85, 19 Sep 2007 @ 2:51pm

Re: File Sharing
"Does anybody really need 1 terabyte hard drives ? I think NOT"

really? nobody really needs any more than 128k of memory then either then huh? Every one of my machines has at LEAST 1 tb in it. I must pirate TONS of stuff then, right?

WRONG

Ever heard of mythtv? pop in your dvd, rip it, put your master copy away and enjoy being able to select your movies and play on demand. Source code, linux ISO images, raw 3d models/level files, tons of material I have takes up massive amounts of space.

As for the story at hand, this is not the ISP's job. Should people infringe copyright by downloading movies? No. Should it be the ISP's job to spy on everything we do just IN CASE we do do something illegal? HELL NO. They're the internet service provider, not the internet service nanny. Next step after this i guess is make it the isp's job to filter porn so our virgin american eyes can't see it....then after that maybe start filtering "political dissent", to keep the hate down you know?
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Mike (profile), 19 Sep 2007 @ 3:20pm

Re: Re: Re:
You wrote its a "fact that people use their broadband connections to share unauthorized content."

It is a fact that people use their broadband connections to share unauthorized content. Did you stick an invisible "all" before people, because I didn't?
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Jacob Buck, 19 Sep 2007 @ 6:48pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
The invisible "all" is implied. Without a given identifier of a subset, people refers to humanity as a whole.

Douche
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Scott, 19 Sep 2007 @ 9:42pm

MPAA RIAA
Why we are at it, why not get the ISP to do something better for whole WWW.
Monitor and stop Spyware, Virus, Trojans before they even escape from some unknowing persons computer.
Can you imagine Symantec as your ISP provider?
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Blob, 21 Sep 2007 @ 12:35pm

WTF?
Gee Lazy MPAA pricks tryin to unload the workload which we all know is damn near impossible to kill off over 10 million file shares given there are quite a handful of protocols that can be used to swap copyrighted materials like ftp,newsgroups,torrents,ssh,sftp,IM, and so on.... Complete waste of time... Only way to kill filesharing is completely kill the internet
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Blob, 21 Sep 2007 @ 1:11pm

WTF?
Gee Lazy MPAA pricks tryin to unload the workload which we all know is damn near impossible to kill off over 10 million file shares given there are quite a handful of protocols that can be used to swap copyrighted materials like ftp,newsgroups,torrents,ssh,sftp,IM, and so on.... Complete waste of time... Only way to kill filesharing is completely kill the internet
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ROY DAVIDSON, 6 Jun 2008 @ 10:10am

THERE IS ANOTHER WAY TO STOP FILE SHARING
IF COMPANYS WOULD STOP MAKING BLANK DISKS
SUCH AS CD-R ,DVD-R ETC
PIRATED SOFTWARE WOULD BE MOST LIKELY TO BE A THING OF THE PAST.
THE ONLY WAY U WOULD BE ABLE TO KEEP SUCH CONTENT
IS ON Y0UR COMPUTER
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miu, 16 Feb 2010 @ 6:12am

ah
Hi,I am Japanese.
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