Hollywood's Favorite Lawmakers Preparing Next Level Of Draconian Copyright Laws
from the because-ProIP-wasn't-enough dept
Because (of course) last year's ProIP bill that (once again) strengthened copyright laws wasn't enough, Hollywood's favorite lawmakers all got together outside of LA and complained about how copyright laws needed to be even more draconian. They once again quoted the same mythical stats about the damage done by infringement, and didn't hear from a single defender of the public or someone who could explain the basic fact that strengthening copyright law doesn't solve anything. Instead, they just complained, blamed pretty much every foreign country (other than France) and insisted "something must be done!"Apparently changing their business models to adapt to a changing marketplace has yet to be considered. Not when all of these Congressional Reps from California have no problem swallowing made up stats and misleading fear mongering from an industry unwilling to embrace new business models. Instead, they blame everyone else, including apparently a major session blaming Canada. It's still not clear why Hollywood thinks Canada is such a copyright pariah. The country already has pretty strong copyright laws and doesn't seem to be a haven for piracy at all.
The only country they did seem to like? Apparently that would be France, which just sneakily (after most of Parliament had gone home for the night) passed a three strikes bill. The entertainment industry execs seemed to think this might be a perfect solution -- once again looking to kill off any opportunity to create a better business model, and instead piss off fans and drive them further underground. It's like seeing the same dumb horror movie over and over again, where we the consumers/audience keeps yelling out "no, don't go in there!" and yet they still go in there, make the same mistakes over again and end up only damaging themselves. Is it really that difficult for them to recognize that the business model is the issue, and no amount of increased copyright protection is going to change that?
In the meantime, it's pretty sickening that our elected officials would choose only to hear from one extremely biased side on the debate, and will now introduce legislation that bails out that one industry at the expense of the public. Clearly, these hearings were not to "hear" anything new -- but to put on a puppet show prior to already written (by the industry) legislation to be introduced.
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Filed Under: canada, copyright, foreign countries, howard berman, legislation, piracy, three strikes
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Next stop, the United States of America
You write this as though you're no longer living in this country.
Where the hell are you?
This is the standard operating practice of today's government, which makes decisions based on who lined the contribution pockets with the most amount of cash.
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Re: Next stop, the United States of America
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However, ISPs could institute such a policy voluntarily. And only enforce it in areas without any broadband competition. That way they could get rid of their bandwidth hogs. But like I said, that would only work if there was no competition. In most areas there are at least two broadband providers in an area, cable and DSL.
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Canada is a haven for piracy. The taxes on blank CDs and combined decision by law enforcment and the courts to pretty much turn a blind eye to music sharing has turned Canada into a free for all.
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At this point, there are no signs of this site rolling over for the MPAA.
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Of course, since changing the business models would completely eliminate the big studios and record labels. What's so hard to understand? Just sitting on a big leather chair and raking in money is much easier than actually doing something useful. That would require, you know, work. And we can't have that, now can we? *shudder*
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And you're doing what...?
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Sigh
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Re: Sigh
Only the French could give us a run for our money in the Fucking-Up-Democracy Race...
Don't worry. We'll 'normalize' with them soon enough.
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Re: Sigh
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch." - Benjamin Franklin
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Why would ISP's cooperate?
The people that are expensive to support are the techno-challenged that require lots of time online with support or even worse, the ones that need to have a truck rolled out to their home to reboot their cable modems. The "bandwidth hogs" generally a savvy enough to keep their systems running and when they do have a question they can find their own solutions.
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Re: Why would ISP's cooperate?
There is no loyalty to the end customer. The network has already been paid for and consolidated, with your tax dollars.
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Now if the had something worth while to watch I would even pay to download it (i.e. Dark Night, which I paid to see in the threater .... first movie in 5 years)
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Blame Canada, eh
Our Kids are getting worse!
They wont obey their parents
They just want to fart and curse!
should we blame the government or blame society?
or should we blame the images on tv?
NO! blame canada, blame canada
with all their beady little eyes
an' flapping heads so full of lies
blame canada, blame canada
we need to form a full assault, its canada's fault
don't blame me for my son stan
he say that darn cartoon and now he's off to join the clan!
and my boy eric once had MY picture on his shelf
but now when I see him he tells me to fuck myself
well, blame canada, blame canada
it seems that everythings gone wrong
since canada came along
blame canada, blame canada
they're not even a real country, anyway
my son could've been a doctor or a lawyer it's true
instead he burned up like a piggy on a barbecue
should we blame the matches, should we blame the fire?
or the doctors who allowed him to expire?
HECK NO!
Blame canada, blame canada
with their hockey hullaballoo
and their bitch Anne Murray too
Blame Canada, shame on Canada!
the smut we must stop
The trash we must smash
laughter and fun
must all be undone
we must blame them and cause a fuss
before someone thinks of blaming us!!!
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Mike needs a thesaurus
"2 : having legal obligations that outweigh the advantages"
I like that more. give Onerous a chance, Mike.
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In praise of 'Onerous'
Speaking of REM, anyone know where I can download "Daysleeper" in FLAC format on P2P?
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Larry Lessig should be on speeddial.
It's very similar to this discussion at TED.
In the 1920s, Radio was a common technology, in the sense that extraordinary range- of people were radio broadcasters. Political Speech, Social Speech, Religious Speech was common in this space.
When People began to think that they could make Commercial radio function through advertising, the Federal Communication Commission began to implement a very different idea of how radio would function.
Working with Business and Government, the spectrum was allocated in such a way that made it so only a few could get access to the Spectrum.
By the mid-1930s NBC and CBS would be responsible for an astounding 97% of night-time broadcasting.
Now in both cases, what I am describing is an exogenous technological change which produces an explosion of democratic speech.
And this innovative, uncontrolled speech threatens.
And those threatened, then react.
They react to take a culture that had been unlocked, by this exogenous technological change and relock it up.
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Re: Larry Lessig should be on speeddial.
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I believe a far better and more accurate term is "reasonable".
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How are these companies structured? Transparently? Why NOT?
This is interesting because it shields them from the SEC, regulatory, and public scrutiny a publicly traded company would require. Transparency is not required, and they don't even have to produce a balance sheet, yet they all get together and want to overtake our intellectual property system.
Something isn't right here.
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Canada
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