Kicking People Off The Internet Not Enough In South Korea, Copyright Lobbyists Demand More

from the it-never-ends dept

Thu, Nov 19th 2009 7:07am — Mike Masnick

If you thought that the entertainment industry would stop at having the ability to force ISPs to kick people they accuse (not convict) of file sharing offline, you might want to pay attention to what's happening in South Korea. South Korea, of course, is home to very high broadband penetration, with exceptionally high speeds. And, not surprisingly, there's a lot of unauthorized file sharing going on there. Of course, if you looked at the Korean cultural world, you'd immediately learn that smart entrepreneurs and entertainers quickly learned to adapt and take advantage of this new world. Entrepreneurs like JY Park recognized the changing marketplace, and adapted -- and the massive success he's had with artists like Rain and Wonder Girls, suggests that perhaps "piracy" wasn't a big deal. All you need is some smart business people who can adapt.

But, of course, we've all seen what sorts of companies are afraid to adapt. The big record labels and the big movie studios couldn't be bothered with the tricky proposition of actually understanding the new marketplace and adjusting their business model. So, they went to the US government and said "something must be done." That "something" turned out to be a new "free trade" (ha ha!) agreement with South Korea, that had little to do with free trade, but plenty to do with pushing ridiculously draconian copyright laws on South Korea (i.e., protectionism for the entertainment industry, not free trade). Of course, these new laws went way beyond what any other country had, and included getting the government to shut down file sharing sites while restricting how user-generated content sites could work as well. Not surprisingly, once the law passed, various sites began restricting how they could be used, even limiting the uploading of any songs, even ones that users themselves had created. And, of course, with all that, a "three strikes" plan to kick people off the internet was also included.

You would think that the industry would be happy and leave well enough alone, right?

Of course not. Reader Dan alerts us to the news that some entertainment industry lobbyists are now demanding that all file sharing services must use content filters. Otherwise, they plan to sue. Just another reminder that for some of these folks, enough will never be enough. They will keep pushing for more and more, just as consumers keep pushing back on having their own rights stripped away.

And, don't think this is limited to South Korea. Many of the "leaked" points about the needlessly secretive ACTA deal are supposedly "based on" the trade agreement that was done with South Korea. So take a look at what's happening there and see if that's how you think copyright law should work in the US.

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Filed Under: copyright, filters, liability, lobbying, south korea

27 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 19 Nov 2009 @ 7:37am

"We can and we will put the Internet genie back in the bottle."
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Ima Fish (profile), 19 Nov 2009 @ 7:41am

3 strikes is not working? People are not suddenly buying music and movies despite being kicked off the net? This what you've been saying all along Mike.
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Chronno S. Trigger (profile), 19 Nov 2009 @ 7:42am

Copyright Lobbyists Demand More
No, how could they betray us like that? If only someone had seen this coming a F**KING MILE AWAY.
/sarcasm

OK, I feel better now.
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mike42 (profile), 19 Nov 2009 @ 7:51am

Yay!
Anonymous Coward/Angry Dude now has a poster child to show how well this system works!
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Trevor, 19 Nov 2009 @ 7:52am

That's exactly what is going to be imposed on everyone if ACTA becomes reality. Most of the time people dismiss the slippery slope argument as paranoid ramblings but I think that this is sufficient proof that this is what we'll be facing (if not worse), if ACTA goes through.

Also, as some people were discussing this yesterday, the copyright industry will never be happy with what they make even if they increase their revenue. They will probably keep on claiming that they could have earned more and that something should be done about the "pirates" even after they get their way with ACTA.

It seems to me that we're letting our rights be stripped away just so we can have the "honor" of paying the **AA for listening to Britney Spears and watching 2012. If that's not insanity, then there's no such thing as insanity anymore.
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Marcel de Jong (profile), 19 Nov 2009 @ 8:11am

From what I heard, services like Dropbox don't even work in South-Korea. No online backup system is allowed in that country as it could potentially be used for illegal filesharing.
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lawyers, 19 Nov 2009 @ 8:19am

and the hitchikers guide to the galaxy states:
and when the revolution comes the lawyers were the first to go.......
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Call me Al, 19 Nov 2009 @ 8:25am

My current plan is to collect as much media as possible between now and the signing of ACTA and then to watch and listen to it, and only it, until I am old and grey.

It'll be my own personal boycott of the media in a post ACTAlyptic world.
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CastorTroy-Libertarian, 19 Nov 2009 @ 8:46am

Shakespear said it best
"first kill all the lawyers"
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Johnny Canada, 19 Nov 2009 @ 9:08am

Quote

So, they went to the US government and said "something must be done." That "something" turned out to be a new "free trade" (ha ha!) agreement with South Korea, that had little to do with free trade, but plenty to do with pushing ridiculously draconian copyright laws on South Korea (i.e., protectionism for the entertainment industry, not free trade).

Unquote.

Now the "AA" go to the U.S. Gov and say we have to step up our laws because we have a Treaty with S.Korea and if we don't we are in breach of the treaty.

Coming soon to the U.S. near you.
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tracker1 (profile), 19 Nov 2009 @ 9:34am

Tax Intelectual Property
If they want the protections of real property, they should be taxed like real property.
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David tz, 19 Nov 2009 @ 9:44am

IP laws in Korea are a Joke
I actually live in South Korea and have been here for 6 years.

Pirating is rampant, with the latest releases available at every subway station, sometimes days before they co,e out in the theater. Recently. they have started a "Good Downloader" campaign on TV here where famous Korean movie stars talk about downloading things responsibly. This is ONLY after they discovered that local Korean movies have been losing money locally.

When it came to western, Hollywood movies nobody gave a shit, but now that Korean studios are losing money, there's a huge campaign about it. It's like like closing the barn doors after the horses have escaped.

This a place where motorcycle delivery drivers drive on the sidewalk while the cops idly watch them pass. The cops sit in the cop cars in front of schools SLEEPING while on duty. There may not be a lot of crime, but making a law and actually enforcing it in this country is futile. No one gives a shit. They only give a shit if you're a foreigner doing something illegal against one of their citizens-- then you can expect to be deported or spend a couple of years in jail.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Nov 2009 @ 10:07am

If these kinds of laws get enacted here, there WILL be violence and bloodshed. This is freedom of expression we're talking about.
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Hephaestus (profile), 19 Nov 2009 @ 10:07am

Re: IP laws in Korea are a Joke
Lets lobby for a law in S. Korea making internet access a right ...
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Nov 2009 @ 10:14am

Re: Yay!
That guy is so angry. I think it's because of all the cocaine abuse. Hollywood is a den of vipers.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Nov 2009 @ 10:17am

Re: Tax Intelectual Property
Exactly! Why isn't this seriously being considered? I mean, who do you have to bribe, sorry, lobby to get things done?
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Nov 2009 @ 10:20am

Re:
I don't know about violence or bloodshed but I do know if something like this passes I will happily go to jail over something mind-numbingly trivial.

"What are you in for?"

I downloaded Snow White which came out in 1937.

"Shouldn't that be in the public domain by now? Tough break. I'm in here because I ripped someone's face off for profit."
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kyle clements (profile), 19 Nov 2009 @ 11:42am

In South Korea, people can no longer post comments to youtube videos.

you read that right, they can't even post a comment replying to what they've seen in a video.

"We have voluntarily disabled this functionally on kr.youtube.com because of the Korean real-name verification law"

way to encourage science and the creative arts, copyright...
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Daemon_ZOGG (profile), 19 Nov 2009 @ 11:56am

".. demanding that all file sharing services must use content filters."
Well.. The Pirate Bay just switched to DHT. Which means no cenralized servers to install content filters. :D
In the near future I can see other torrent-trackers doing the same(ditching the centralized tracker).

ALL of my software is opensource. NO M$/Apple here. :D
What they put in, CAN and WILL be removed. The opensource community would never tolorate this filtering crap anyway. Legitimate downloads or not, bit-torrenting itself is not a centralized service. There is no "entity" in charge.

Kazaa and others alike are worthless. Torn apart by MAFIAA industry groups, Script-kiddies, and noobs that don't know what the hell they are doing(RTFM).

..Nuff Said.

;)
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Anonymous Poster, 19 Nov 2009 @ 12:14pm

Everyone with a brain says:
"Yeah, that'll happen."
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Call me Al (profile), 19 Nov 2009 @ 2:15pm

Re: Re: Tax Intelectual Property
actually thats a pretty good idea. Every other kind of property gets taxed. You could even turn it round on them and say "You want your copyrights to be policed. Well we need to pay for that so pay up."
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Kevin Carson, 19 Nov 2009 @ 4:32pm

Orrin Hatch is sponsoring legislation requiring that all hard drives be equipped with lasers to burn out the retinas of anyone who looks at proprietary content without authorization.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Nov 2009 @ 5:39pm

WRONG, you ARMCHAIR Biznibabblist
JY wasn't that successful, which is why Rain left the company. Rain is also having tremendous financial problems and has had to resort to an entirely new line of work to pay his bills--playing a martial arts dude in a film. Under your pretense, only musicians that can strip to the waist and sell the panties off of their audiences via tie-ups and co-marketing schemes will be able to tangentially make any money off of music. I'm sorry, but "adapting" to the locust hoards is too tall of a command to make to any industry. If all of a sudden CARS were stolen at a rate of 95%, and you were to take the same barbaric narcissistic stance by telling the car industry to "change business models", I would assume that your kleptomaniac delusion would be viewed by car creators much in the same manner as creators of intellectual property do in our current reality. Recordings cost money to make you dimwit. Even if a record is made with one microphone and a computer, who will pay for the time involved of the person making the record? 7-11? McDonalds? You are suggesting that the record companies are screwing themselves by not being adaptable. I suggest that you and the public are screwing the artists. Every single one of us out here that are being screwed by people like you have to pay an electric bill, feed ourselves and pay our taxes as we make music. I find your lack of plausible business alternatives and your lazy knowledge of the facts to be full proof of your n00bishness. You're hiding your supremely lacking moral stance in a $hitfest of biznibabble and shrieking platitudes. But what more could I expect? You're probably 35 years old and and starting to see your GenX entitlement dreams hit the fast wall of middle-aged reality. Certainly people don't fall over themselves over you and your stupid website as they do a real rock star. Music has been the REAL star of the Internet and it has driven businesses like Baidu and Google. You, on the other hand, are just some self-important geek with a website. Did your site make you rich yet? Did you buy your house in Hawaii?
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The Smart One, 19 Nov 2009 @ 9:29pm

Re: WRONG, you ARMCHAIR Biznibabblist
I suggest you STFU, quit making crappy "art" nobody wants and get a real job. You obviously are clueless to how copyright and public domain work, their importance and relevance and position in society. It is you who has an entitlement mentality... "I'm an Artist, you all owe me money."

Get a job and find out why the rest of us can't afford the crap the MAFIAA pulls.
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gorehound (profile), 20 Nov 2009 @ 5:14am

Boycott Hopllywood everyone and do not ever buy a new movie from them.only buy your movies used.this is what i do to fight back against these greedbags.i am not all talk and no action.i complain and do something about it.
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anonymous, 21 Nov 2009 @ 11:07am

Re: WRONG, you ARMCHAIR Biznibabblist
Rain's 5-year contract with JYPE, which debuted in May of 2002, ended on May 11 2007. That's why they parted, & rather amicably in fact, amid the cloud of concert lawsuits that hung over their heads. (Heard they eventually settled out of court.)
JYP was also busy with new proteges Wonder Girls at that point, whereas Rain wanted to manage his own affairs, half-eyeing Hollywood after befriending the Wachowskis & Joel Silver (after JYPE got him the Speed Racer role around the same period as the contract expiration).
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lrobbo (profile), 30 May 2012 @ 12:55pm

Ah, the Wonder Girls, the finest South Korean contribution to modern society . . .
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