Recording Industry Using Net Neutrality Debate To Try To Link Child Porn With Copyright Infringement Again
from the it's-not-the-same dept
We've already seen how music industry execs and lobbyists cynically use "child porn" to their advantage (even, sickeningly, declaring "child porn is great") by lumping it in with copyright infringement in trying to force filters or other third party policing of the internet on politicians and companies. What's amazing is that they don't seem to have any shame at all in doing so. The latest example can be found in the "open letter" put together by a bunch of music industry trade groups (RIAA, A2IM, AFM, AFTRA, ASCAP, BMI, NMPA, SESAC, SoundExchange, the Recording Academy, the California Songwriters Association, the Music Managers Forum, and the Nashville Songwriters Association International) to Verizon and Google asking them to make sure their proposed "framework" for net neutrality still doesn't cover forcing ISPs to be copyright cops. It's no surprise why they sent this letter, but the inclusion of "child porn" with copyright infringement is really ridiculous:The music community we represent believes it is vital that any Internet policy initiative permit and encourage ISPs and other intermediaries to take measures to deter unlawful activity such as copyright infringement and child pornography.The industry seems to work overtime to try to link these two concepts together, despite the vast differences between them. It's really an incredibly cynical, exploitative and disgusting move by the recording industry, and people should really start calling them on it.
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.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: child porn, copyright, net neutrality, recording industry
Companies: a2im, afm, aftra, ascap, bmi, nmpa, riaa, sesac, soundexchange
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
In my opinion, any network so anonymous it cannot be traced even for child porn should be illegal. The costs to society for creating untraceable online hacker/spammer/pedophile/terrorism havens far outweighs any benefit these services might provide.
And taking down networks like Tor/Freenet/I2P is just as easy as tracing a node and then imposing sanctions (or filtration if overseas) on that IP.
But that would require ISP cooperation and God forbid they lift a finger to do anything except collect subscriptions.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ending the evil perpetrated against the RIAA
Seriously, I would like to end both of these, and I propose the easier problem be taken first so we can focus our resources quickly afterward to tackle the greater challenge. First, let us downsize copyright law significantly so that it will not be nearly as possible in the future to exploit the RIAA's monopoly subsidy grants. Afterward, children everywhere will celebrate.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Also, before too long, they'll stop charging pedophiles with KP possession, and start charging them with copyright infringement... because the jail terms will be longer.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Think of "the children".
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
And she's not the worst of it
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
That got what they paid for...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
What's just as sad here are the attempts a being funny, fob it off or basically agree with them (yeah I'm speaking to you the first AC on the list). And TV shows.
It is long past time they were called on it. Long past.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Disgusting!
/s
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Prob with record industry here
SO the try at think of children is utter fail and in 10years of bittorrent i've never seen anyone even think of or try to upload sick kiddy porn.
IN fact i hardly bother with porn , i am human and an adult.
FACT is i sense an ACTA leak shortly , odd how these kiddy porn messages start coming right when a doc gets leaked....
So also would you be thinking of children to have htem all staying in doors away form sickos at the park that could kidnap them?
Would it also be safer keeping them away from cocaine and meth dealers to have them online more?
WELL, i am sure mike there is some study proving i'm right some wheres.....
AND i'll add if they even so much as mention canada , i am now milling around a slander and defamation suit , seeing how we pay a levy...
SO by htis article people in Canada paying a levy aka license are pedophiles?
SLANDER and DEFAMATION OF CHARACTER MAN HARDCORE.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Prob with record industry here
"FBI agents are actually pulling guys off missing children cases to look after ... Hollywood IP."
You know it might be fun to translate all your stuff to a language we all speak.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Prob with record industry here
Are you on the dope?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
A music lover's prayer
While you're at it, if you could please destroy the "movie industry" too.
I know that the destruction of the music "industry" and the movie "industry" doesn't mean there won't be music or movies, just that the people who leech off the artists will have to find other employment, probably as pimps or drug dealers. Maybe it's best just to smite the lot of them.
Amen.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: A music lover's prayer
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: A music lover's prayer
You people love to attack the middlemen, but you're ignoring the fact that FB, MySpace, TPB, Bittorrent, Google, Pandora, Spotify, etc are the new MIDDLEMEN! How much ad revenue do these sites make off the content of others? That's the entire scope of their business model! You can't be much more in the "middle" than that.
And besides, this scare tactic of "They're linking child porn with copyright infringement" is patently transparent. They're only correlated together in as far as they are both illegal activities that propagate through the web. And for a rather long missive, "child pornography" appears only one time. But I doubt anyone bothered to read the actual letter.
But wait, let's be a little antiseptic and think about this. Copyright issues might come into play: If we just consider the "actors" in child porn to be "content creators" then don't the "performers" technically own the rights to their performance? I don't believe there are scripts, so the performance would solely be the property of the participants (especially since I doubt that these children sign contracts that release the reproducible rights of their performance) Is there a royalty scheme in place for these "actors" or any system of recompensation? Or should they just be happy with the free "promotion" they received from starring in a child porn flick?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Right of Way Link?
Can't have one without the other..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It's disgusting that the RIAA would exploit underage victims just to try to convince people that their archaic business model should receive special protection under the law.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Recently I saw an open letter to craigslist on forced child prostitution. My first thought was "what is their agenda?" My second thought was "Its probably the newspapers trying to get their classified ad revenue back".
Organizations that represent the abused children of our world should take these people to task for using this as a rallying cry. It dishonors the abused children.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
The power of gravity.
It doesn't really matter democrat or republican is all the same crap it just changes the name.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
but the assertion that these things are not only technically unlawful but also bad relies on mutually contradictory logic.
If the free copying of music and movies hurts the music/movie production industry and results in less music and movies being produced (arguably a bad thing) then why doesn't the free copying of child porn hurt the corresponding production industry and result in less child porn being produced?
You could of course turn this argument around - but you can't have it both ways.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: you're on the wrng side of technology
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I'm not quite sure what you mean here. Are you outright admitting that ISP's policing copyright is a fundamental invasion of privacy? That the music industry won't be happy until the entire communications industry is required by law to implement global, warrantless wiretapping?
Good to know.
All unlawful activity including phishing, cc# interception, stalking, anything illegal and on the network, will be defined as such and combatted as such.
Yet, their letter mentioned none of these things. I wonder why? Could it be because Nigerian royalty scams don't cause the citizenry to clench their vaginas in fear quite like child rape does?
The free ride that all forms of unlawful internet activity have enjoyed because tech outpaced law is drawing to a close as it must, as we always knew it would. Those who advocate the internet must remain an unregulated free-for-all have always been on the wrong side of history.
I've seen absolutely zero evidence that this is even close to true. If anything, the internet is becoming more open. Filesharing is increasing, communication is increasing, and all attempts to curb online activity (even by repressive governments) are little more than nuicances to everyone but an unlucky few. Even on the tech side, proprietary technology is on the way out, and open source and open standards are more common now then ever before.
So, keep dreaming that dream.
Get used to it. And knock off the sophistry.
Pot, meet kettle.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
If you connect to open P2P you CHOOSE to make your connections public. And if your P2P is so anonymous, law enforcement can't even trace for child porn, it has no place in civil society and should be banned.
None of this has to do with your privacy. It has to do with you wanting to break the law and then escape punishment for doing so.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Copyright control agencies are deceitful.
The copyright control agencies lobbied lawmakers to:
1) Outlaw Home Taping.
2) Blamed the loss of sales in 1981 on home taping when in fact the recession dried up the money for consumers to make discretionary purchases.
3) Lobby Lawmakers to pass laws which were passed requiring manufactures of high fidelity cassette recorders and cassettes to pay a fee to the copyright control agencies, just in case the cassette was used to record copyrighted music. They were successful and consumers wound up paying this hidden fee even if they did not use the cassette to record copyrighted music.
4) Outlaw the Digital Compact Cassette.
5) The lawmakers as a compromise to the copyright control agencies passed laws that required that all consumer CD recorders incorporate the Serial Copyright Management System and only copy music on CD ROMS that were encoded to indicate to the consumer CD Recorder that it was a CD ROM on which a fee was paid to the copyright holders.
6) Now the Red Herring is the sharing of copyrighted music.
Both lawmakers and copyright holders have failed to take into account that there are more opportunities for consumers to spend their discretionary money on things other then prerecorded music.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Disgusting...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Such levels of ISP responsibility should apply for any Internet crime. And yes, piracy is a crime.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
But
[ link to this | view in chronology ]