MPAA Explains Why It's Okay To Tie Federal Funds To Blocking File Sharing
from the because-we-say-so,-dammit dept
While Congress' new bill on education funding may not be as bad as some are making it out to be, it still seems quite questionable that Congress appears to be regulating the idea that universities need to do the kind of marketing and educational campaigns that the recording industry cannot. We've asked supporters of the bill to explain how it could possibly make sense to mandate such things, and the MPAA's top lawyer, Fritz Attaway, has given his answer, claiming that it's because the internet is "used primarily to allow college students to traffic in infringing content," while being subsidized by gov't funds. It would be nice if Attaway or someone else at the MPAA could actually back up the claim that the primary use of the internet by students is infringement. While I wouldn't doubt that it's a popular use, to say that it's the primary use is hard to believe -- unless you count things like visiting Facebook pages, using Google and sending emails as "infringement." At the same time, this doesn't seem to support the reasons for this bill. After all, many kids on college campuses own cars -- and I'd imagine that most of those students break the speed limit frequently enough. Yet, we don't see any bills being proposed in Congress that would prevent financial aid funding unless universities start handing out more speeding tickets and put in place plans to offer public transportation. So why should they do that for copyright infringement?Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: congress, copyright, fritz attaway, mpaa, music, subscriptions, universities
Companies: congress, mpaa, napster, ruckus
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stupid people?
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Campaign Finance Reform
If your strategy as an entertainment company is to influence government to crack down on tv/music/movie downloads to increase your profit margins, then something is wrong. Make a product worth buying, and it will be sucessfull.
I'll gladly pay my hard earned tax dollars to give everyone health insurance, but not to police the internet and invade privacy.
The success of an entertainment company should be determined by the quality of their products, not by the sleazyness of their legal team.
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clearly they lack research
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Beat them at their own game...
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Re: Beat them at their own game...
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They imposed those limits in 2002 or 2003 and, as far as I know, still are in place. That's probably the only effective way to halt internet use, infringing or otherwise.
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another moron talking to the morons in charge...an
Another reason people shouldn't be allowed into Law School unless they can successfully demonstrate that their brains works before their mouths open.
Anyone know of an impending bus crash off a really tall mountain? I'd like to buy that idiot a seat on it.
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Measured by bandwidth used
Page views are insignificant in terms of bandwidth. So are emails. Torrents, and file sharing services of all kinds, including usenet and irc, tend towards downloading huge files. Remember what Mark Twain said ... There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.
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Re: Measured by bandwidth used
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Primary by way of traffic quantity
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Electronic Voting Machines :)
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Internet's primary use
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Re Overcast
Lol, I love it.
However, I have a feeling for a few of the cases it is seriously true.
In the case of stupid people voting and getting stupid people in office. Well, I will forego starting an argument over the 'brilliance' of a certain current leader.
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Double-speak. Infringing content can be any web page accessed. Most all people copyright their pages, and you have to copy them to view. Everyone is infringing... the lawyer included!
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They do. Now pay up.
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Somewhere though there is a tipping point, and all these lawsuits and draconian laws will come crashing down on these old line interests. Because, the dirty secret, as we all know, is that the monied interests are all that matters now to congress, and they have long ago stopped listening to the people, but the people at some point will correct that problem.
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politicians and corporate execs
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Abject Moron
Only one way to correct congress at this point and that's with bullets.
Oh well, doubt anybody would miss any of them (goes for executive branch too)
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right away, sir!
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mpaa fed funds?
here is what you do.
make them all $5
idiots.
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Let the Government do your dirty work
Nothing new.
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A saner alternative
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Continued rise of expanded Federal government powe
the fed is far too powerful leading to ...
-the "drug war"
-the "terror war"
-"hate crimes"
-loss of habeas corpus
-increasing national debt to the tune of $9 trillion
-spying on Americans without a warrant (4th amendment)
-taking peoples land and giving it to businesses (kelo vs new london
and on and on...
vote for candidates who will stop this criminal nonsense even if "they don't have a chance of winning".
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Re: Continued rise of expanded Federal government
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MPAA's death throes
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LOL filesharing
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I've gotten to the point nowadays where I pirate music and movies simply to help in ensureing their demise - but I don't want their suffering to end quickly though, I want them to suffer a slow and agonising defeat.
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Screw Them!
How is it that this industry can coerce a large University into providing essentially free services to them? Fear. The Colleges and Universities must stand up to these bullies. Tell them we will not be their lackies and unless they can provide us with solid evidence that an individual was infringing to go and pound sand. We are an ISP for the students who live here. We are not their parent, nanny, or servant. We provide a service much like dining, housing, parking, etc. Unless they provide similar legislation that will financially impact Comcast for allowing their subscribers to illegally download content...but that will be the day.
The Universities and Colleges need to band together and demand that we be treated for what we are...a service, just like your home broadband service. We need to tell them to do their own dirty work if they insist upon pursuing this tactic. Better yet, everyone who cares about this issue needs to boycott the big record labels and media conglomerates who are represented by these slimebags. Hit them in the pocketbook.
BTW - WTG to Harvard and UOregon...you are my heroes!
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Disgusted
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