Hollywood Unions: Now That You Lying Hacking Thieves Have Won, Can We Set A New Conciliatory Tone?
from the which-lies dept
The big Hollywood unions who supported SOPA and PIPA (even as many of their own members disagreed) have finally come out with their own statement on the whole PIPA/SOPA thing, and like the other supporters we've seen, it too, is totally tone deaf to what happened. Rather than recognizing the problems of the bill, it's obnoxious and condescending:We recognize that we are currently part of a complex and important debate about the future, not just of the Internet but also of creativity, the American economy, free expression, and a civil society. We believe that the light should be being shined on every aspect of this discussion and on all of those who have a stake in it. We believe we should discuss what an unregulated ‘free’ Internet means for the future of content, just as we should also discuss the importance of an open Internet.First of all, the internet is not "unregulated" -- no matter how many times they insist it is. Second, given what we saw with Megaupload, it's pretty ridiculous to think that the US cannot (and does not) currently have the tools to go after foreign sites (in fact, there is some evidence that it has too many tools with too much power). But, really, what strikes me as ridiculous about this statement is that it attacks everyone whose opinion they totally ignored for over a year -- and then pretends that it wants to set a conciliatory tone? If you want "a new tone" to take place, let's start with you guys not calling people who raised legitimate concerns liars.
We welcome this debate. We hope a new tone can be set and it is not one that turns our advocacy for this legislation into an implication that we promote censorship. Our commitment to the First Amendment is decades old and long established – it is a matter of public record from long before the word ‘Internet’ was part of anyone’s vocabulary. If one truly embraces free expression, they do not take down the Library of Congress websites, the very symbol of our country’s belief in knowledge and learning. We would hope a new tone can be set that does not pit the creativity and innovation of our directors, actors, performers, craftspeople, and technicians against those innovators in other industries. We hope a new tone can be set that does not include website attacks, blacklists, blackouts, and lies. We believe an Internet that does not allow outright stealing has to be the Internet of the future or all the promises it holds will be unrealized.
More importantly, if we're going to talk about "lies," let's start with the claims of "losses" that have widely been debunked, but which were used to put forth this legislation. Let's talk about the lies about the legislation being "narrowly targeted" when pretty much every legal analysis worried about its broad definitions. Let's talk about the lies that the legislation would not censor free speech -- when even the big First Amendment lawyer you presented to support this bill admitted that protected speech would be taken down under these laws.
Don't accuse others of lying when your side has a much bigger, much longer, much more detailed history of lying. Did some of those against the bills misunderstand them and present false information? Yes. But these are people who aren't used to reading legislation and may have missed key points. On the side of you and your lobbyists, you knew exactly what you were doing. I find that a lot more pernicious.
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Filed Under: conciliatory, hollywood, pipa, protect ip, sopa, unions
Companies: dga
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Is it just me....
Ok. You first.
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Re: Is it just me....
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Re: Is it just me....
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Re: Is it just me....
Frakken lying Hollywood
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Re: Is it just me....
"We hope a new tone can be set that does not include website attacks, blacklists, blackouts, and lies. (from your side, we are gonna keep doing what we do)" ftfy
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Re: Is it just me....
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Re: Is it just me....
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Be Careful Mike
/sarc
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Civil civilians
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Pack up...
"Pack it up guys, your con-man days are over, and you better get out of town before the torches and pitchforks take on a physical form."
But they seem to think they can keep it up a little longer.
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Got a deal for you
Deal?
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Re:
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/runs off to whitelist techdirt.
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http://i.imgur.com/jL2Go.png
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http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/bca9a600-45e3-11e1-9592-00144feabdc0.html
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"She said: “I often wish instead of hysterical resisting, our opponents would come forward with some constructive suggestions. It’s always ‘no, no, no’.”"
Constructive critism: stop trying to run the country and start running your business.
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Day #24 of my big media cold turkey detox. (no dvds, or cds from the major labels and moviehouses for the rest of the year, nor any downloads of the same.)
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So, do you think boycotters count as pirates or rogues in their stats?
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Your business's inability to adapt without stomping on the rest of the people's rights and bribing Congresscritters is hardly the moral ground.
So Union Reps, start fixing the problem and stop depending on people like Mr. Dodd (Who do nothing but make you look WORSE.) to fix it for you.
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How about these:
Malcolm Hume = dumbass
or
MPAA = bribing members of Congress = felony.
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How is TechDirt aiding and abetting Disney, Viacom, etc., boy?
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Let's start with a funny man calle Charlie Sheen, whose salary was just shy of $18m before he got fired. That money went directly to drug dealers (because of the War on Drugs) and prostitutes (also because of the War on Drugs, amongst other things).
Next, we'll move on to Eminem, whose digital "sales" werte license, except when it came to paying royalties, where it was actual sales. That is called "Breach of contract", which result in a civil suit which Eminem won and was awarded damages equal to the royalties he was "rightfully" entitled to under the terms of hisd contracts.
Thirdly, we have former Senator Chris Dodd, who has been involved in three separate allegations of outright corruption beyond what was already in place at the time of his being a Senator.
Fourthly, we have the flourishing gang trade in LA, which reaults from a clusterfuck of bad circumstances caused by lobbying for lower corporate taxes in the state of California. The MPAA aren't paying their fair share to , well, anyone, and are keeping all the money they can for tthemselves, whilst stiffing everyone else.
So you tell me, who are the real criminals?
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offensive to morality or decency; indecent; depraved
check
abominable; disgusting; repulsive
check
I believe that I should be getting my obscenity from good ole Larry. I miss that world.
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Masnick pretends lies were not the method of choice to fearmonger the net about SOPA, then goes right ahead and lies again when he says losses have been "debunked"
Employment stats have not been "debunked".
Revenue stats have not been "debunked".
Mike Masnick is not looking for a solution.
He is the premier piracy apologist on the net and a famous gigantic liar. He came in very handy when extreme lying became Google's preferred MO for fighting SOPA.
Mass, unchecked piracy is part of Mike Masnick's boneheaded business model, and he will fight to save it no matter how futile his efforts ultimately will be.
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But a suit paid a quarter of a million a year plus bonuses can't? Pull the other one, it's got truth on it, and it's coming to BEAT YOU DOWN.
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"Everything you know is wrong."
i would link to a youtube video but youtube apparently hates me more than usual today.
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Holy crap this is getting annoying.
Why don't you take some time and go look up the definitions of "apologist" and "realist". Once you have figured out that those two words are not interchangeable come on back to the adults table where the grownups are having a discussion.
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2) If you follow Mike actually already does this anyway before anyone asks. There have been many potential solutions brought up on this site, and he will tell them to anyone who will listen :)
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This would be akin to the buggy whip industry asking Popular Mechanics (if they were around then) for solutions to their problems 100 years ago. Pathetic. How about trying to solve your own problems?
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Seems to me that there would need to be a problem defined first and then you can begin to work towards a solution.
Prove that increased enforcement of copyright laws are needed. Prove it with real facts and figures, not just with vapid hand waving and crying "But, but Piracy!". Privacy and free speech rights are extremely important, and anytime anyone wishes to limit them, for any reason, there needs to be absolute proof that the gain to society outweighs the loss of individual liberties.
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Seriously?
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Not sure why everyone has to do their own ripping and converting when it has already been done.
Part of the problem is the industries do not wish to clarify what you "bought" and what you have "licensed."
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Re: Seriously?
Honestly, I really don't know.
What you are describing is a moral issue. Moral issues are always hard legislate due to their nature. What I view as immoral you may find acceptable and vice versa. Think about Prohibition. That was a moral law (ie: "Alcohol is evil, ban all alcohol") and it ended up being repealed because most everyone ignored the law.
But still, my original point stands, if the rights owners are asking for increased enforcement that possibly may limit my personal liberties, shouldn't the burden to prove the necessity of such actions fall to them?
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Re: Seriously?
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Re: Seriously?
Stealing (depriving someone of physical goods) and piracy (presumably copyright infringement, not acts of robbery or criminal violence at sea) are quite different things. Don't mistakenly conflate the two.
"...don't try to tell me that downloading a movie rather then paying to see/own it is perfectly exceptable behaviour."
You mistakenly believe that those are the only two options. The third is I don't watch the movie at all because I don't believe it's worth the asking price. I might borrow it off someone, or wait for it to play on TV, etc. So if I was never going to pay for it, but I watch a downloaded copy, who is the victim? I might enjoy it so much I pay to see it again on a big screen, or buy the DVD, or recommend it to others who do pay. I might be so impressed with the creator's work I pay to see their next film. I have done all of these things. Of course if I don't enjoy the movie, all of the opposites may happen...
If you can only see infringement as an immoral act and a lost sale, you're views are far more simplistic than reality.
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Re: Re: Seriously?
Your first point is fair enough, although weather or not one is better then the other is something we can agree to disagree on.
If you don't believe something is worth the asking price, then you don't buy it, and enough people agree with you then either the seller drops his price or he goes under.
If you borrow it from a friend, then s/he is lending it to you and is thus deprived of it for the time being. It's his movie, he can lend it or give it away as long as he doesn't profit of it. I guess if he were to burn himself a copy and lend the original to his friends then we get into a gray area, but I won't get into that.
As for waiting for it to come on tv, you are paying for it, with your eyeballs. If a movie is on tv, the station playing the movie sells ad space, and everyone wins.
All of these scenarios are totally reasonable, I don't think anyone has issues with them. Gwis made the statement that a problem needed to be 'defined' before we can begin to discuss it, and I put forward the statement that the problem has been defined, just not properly quantified. We know there are people who could have seen or bought the movie through legal means, and simply chose not to, and the artists/authors/movie makers lost SOME money on this.
And before anyone else replies saying how I just down't get it or I'm some crazy ideolog, notice how I stress the SOME. Is it as much as Hollywood is crying it is? No. Does it justify SOPA/PIPA? Fuck no. Will it probably be fixxed through inovating the way we see movies, ala netflix and quality 3d movies (no clash of the titans 2-and-a-half-D) rather then try to censor and lock down every site? Almost definately. But there still is a problem and it does have to be adressed, saying there isn't one can be just as bad as going overboard trying to correct it.
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How do we find out before hand?
Don't forget, most items we are talking about cannot be returned after cellophane has been torn.
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Abolish copyright laws.
That would put an end to copyright infringement over night.
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You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink.
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Finally, get a huge yacht and sail it on the water while pissing over the side, so that the water and people don't forget who owns them.
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Too little, too late
To my fellow union members: seriously, now is the time to get involved. Whether you are in a "Hollywood" IATSE union (most of the world lump us in as "Hollywood" whether we live in L.A. or not), a Teamster or other AFL-CIO we need to make our voice heard. I know a lot of you have been scared to raise the issue, but now there is safety in numbers. Speak up in your union meetings and write to your leaders. Let them know that making short sighted deals with MPAA to support bad legislation is unacceptable, and we will all be paying attention in the future. Remember, union leaders are elected too...
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Problems with perception
The studios have sold a bill of goods that the reason for all of the problems in the world is the internet and the "thieves" who are stealing their content.
Unions are used to being on the "liberal" side of arguments and don't like to see themselves as limiting freedom of expression.
Their perception is that they are the good guys on the side of the "people".
The reality is that this time they got caught on the side of the devils that they think that they are fighting.
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Re: Problems with perception
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fiction must be plausible.
reality just has to happen.
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Re: Problems with perception
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a good place to start any negotiation is to tell the truth, something that just about everyone concerned with the entertainment industries seems incapable of doing!
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> something that just about everyone concerned with the
> entertainment industries seems incapable of doing!
Most of entertainment is about creating fiction and fantasy.
Like those piracy numbers. Or how box office blockbuster movies aren't profitable. Or how artists who sell lots of records still end up owing the recording industry money.
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"We would hope a new tone can be set that does not pit the creativity and innovation of our directors, actors, performers, craftspeople, and technicians against those innovators in other industries."
Including both those you claim to represent and those you do not? Such as allowing full and open testimony should these bills or something like them appear again? Remember that you just said you do not stand for but against censorship.
"We hope a new tone can be set that does not include website attacks, blacklists, blackouts, and lies."
Just as we hope that a new tone can be set in terms of real accounting and not fantasy numbers tossed around by the employers of your memberships that you seem to want to take at face value. That would start to end the lies.
Mike didn't include this beauty in his post but I will.
"We will work with Chairmen Leahy and Smith to make both possible."
So you will continue to work with politically damaged goods to attain your goals? Why does that strike me as denial?
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Translation: We will remind Chairmen Leahy and Smith of the millions of dollars we've raised for their campaigns and threaten to cut off future funding if they don't fix this in our favor.
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https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/reduce-term-copyrights-maximum-56-years /MnXrd3xG
This could very well turn into a very interesting battle. The general population vs. big media.
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The petition (if it gains enough signatures) will probably just generate the response: "This is not our job, please contact your congressmen."
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The important thing right now is to get people to stand up and do ANYTHING. Sure a lot will do things like this that will have little to no effect but they are at least out there trying. Once enough people are standing they can then be directed to actions that will have an effect.
I just find myself excited to see what I hope is a building momentum to get things fixed.
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56 years was the standard (actually 28 plus a 28 renewal you had to file for or you didn't get it) before 1978.
And it worked until Disney, seeing the 56 year period ending for their oldest properties, lobbied Congress for extended copyright terms in the mid-1970s.
They also pushed for eliminating things like filing paperwork, which helped the Library of Congress actually keep track of copyrights, but cost the corporations money to create.
Look where we are now...
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wgos lying
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yes, let's start from the beginning....
Can we start with a discussion of Copyright itself, and include "The Public"?
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Re: yes, let's start from the beginning....
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And if the legislation you're advocating for we're just supposed to quietly ignore that fact and not point it out? I mean either you're stupid and you don't know what's in it or you're lying.
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Unfortunate
It's not unthinkable to rationalize that Anonymous will ironically help to enable the one thing they dread the most.
As for Anonymous targetting the Feds website. I will say this, they certainly have cojones the size of basketballs.
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Re: Unfortunate
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Re: Unfortunate
For a long time Anonymous cut out doing DDoS against websites when the gain was not worth the punishment. This Mega matter through was certainly important enough to launch their most successful attack to date.
And should they get busted their only defence is "denial" and if that fails then they have the honour of becoming a political prisoner.
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The internet of the future is here now, and all the promises it holds are being realized, but the promises it holds are not to support middleman transactions between the public and artist - it's to eliminate the middleman between the public and the artist. It is therefore a direct threat to your power and livelihood.
And until you stop calling it stealing, you are not fostering debate. Copying is not theft. Copying is infringement. It's a legal issue. Stop trying to make a moral issue out of it. All you are doing is showing your fear.
You state your beliefs as if that's the outcome we must all agree upon, when it's actually your beliefs that need to be debated. We do not trust you in this debate, because it is our belief that you are unlikely to ever change your beliefs.
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Copyright was never supposed to be LIFE + 70 YEARS. How are you supposed to promote creativity when someone (usually a corporation) owns some creative work for over a century? This is a real issue because ALL creativity comes from OTHER creativity. No creative work is 100% original and no idea is 100% owned by someone. That's why copyrights and patents are supposed to have term limits. So others can later take your works and improve on them and add new ideas to them, just like you have done with your work that on based on somebody else's work.
This a great article:
http://radar.oreilly.com/2012/01/on-pirates-and-piracy.html
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It is widely recognized and a matter of law that holding up a shield of non-infringing work to protect a mass of infringing content is NOT censorship under the First Amendment. This is the essence of the question Rep. Watt asked the Google lawyer. Does taking down a site that displays both child porn and the King James Bible equal censorship. Same question for infringing content and the bible. Supreme Court says no. Take it up with them crybaby.
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Just because we all agree on certain laws does not mean that they do not abrogate speech: it simply means that we agree to abide by that particular law.
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The US Supreme Court begs to differ, pervert.
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You didn't even bother with the explanation I gave. I'll quote it again, because you seem to have missed it:
Just because we all agree on certain laws does not mean that they do not abrogate speech: it simply means that we agree to abide by that particular law.
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No, it equals stupidity.
Why would you take down the whole site?
Just have the child porn content removed/deleted and leave the Bible content!
Or are you totally techno-illiterate, boy?
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Both are censorship. However...
Society has generally come to a consensus that censoring child porn is acceptable.
Society has generally come to a consensus that censoring the King James Bible is not acceptable.
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SOPA
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Re: SOPA
The US Constitution guarantees the right to keep and bear arms..........but not if you are convicted of certain crimes.
Constitutional rights are not absolute.
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What is it with you people with black & white judgements and ridiculous conspiracy theories?
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You're either an insider individual who is dancing on the barbed wire fence taunting the other side with your alleged privileged information, or you're a slimy liar.
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Are you using LOIC on LOC?
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This graphic says it all - Liar Liar Pants on Fire?
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/images/sopa_busted.gif
Here's how it starts off:
Actual letter from Entertainment industry to congress:
Over 2 million Americans across all 50 states earn a living and support their families and jobs connected to the making of motion pictures and television shows. [ . . . rest of lies omitted . . .]
Then the graphic continues:
That's interesting, because according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were only 361,900 wage and salary jobs in the motion picture and television industries.
[. . . figures omitted . . . ]
Then the graphic continues:
KNOW WHO ACTUALLY DOES EMPLOY MILLIONS OF PEOPLE?
The Tech Industry. Around 4 million jobs in the US.
eBay, Cisco, Google, Microsoft, Amazon.com, Oracle
IN FACT, thest 6 Tech companies alone employ more people than the entire motion picture and television industry combined.
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Truth
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Re: Truth
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Ahh, but when ACTA (and other bills) was being negotiated in secret where only you and industry interests were invited, you didn't welcome this debate.
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Unfortunately near the end they did mess up...
"We hope a new tone can be set that does not include website attacks"
The DoJ and FBI did start that one in their service of the MPAA and RIAA.
Them wanting to bring justice to Mega is one thing, and we do not oppose the Government upholding the law, but to do so through deleting 4% of the Internet including millions of Public Domain and Creative Commons titles is a total violation of the free, fair and open Internet that we believe in... and our right to share.
They mention the Library of Congress. Well tell me how people would feel if we burned down the Library of Congress just because it was "assumed" that the management were conduction unlawful acts?
The FBI in their big mistake overlooked that they were not just seizing hardware here.
I should add that the MPAA and RIAA are a bit upset here when Anonymous, LulzSec and many hackers are currently causing large disruption to hundreds of their servers. If you want to moan then remember you started this.
"blacklists"
I presume they mean the likes of GoDaddy and the boycott of SOPA/PIPA supporters. Is it not our right to use boycott as a means of democratic protest?
"blackouts"
Again more lawful protest. It seems they are objecting to our fundamental rights to fight back against proposed laws.
I am proud of the 6000 sites that did blackout even of most people would not have spotted more than 5 of those during the blackout unless they searched. Even history does not record the vast majority of small sites by only noting the bigger ones.
They should remember why this happened... in that our voice was being ignored until we began screaming like crazy people.
"and lies"
Here is hypercritical irony in just one word.
The MPAA and RIAA are well known to be major liars including their economic reports used to back up these bills.
I will be honest and say us unapproved leaders of this revolt did twist the truth in some cases. The public did need powerful concepts to rally them but what we did claim was not untrue either.
Should they now want a lie-less future then sure let us look at the real economics in play and to fix areas where real financial damage is seen to be done. We have no desire to harm media creation but we also want our independent distribution channels and to "share" when there is no harm in doing so.
"We believe an Internet that does not allow outright stealing"
And here is always your core problem. Copyright Infringement is not stealing. Us file sharers are happy to admit that we infringe copyright but my own 400+ title DVD library clearly highlights that I do not "steal"
"has to be the Internet of the future or all the promises it holds will be unrealized"
Here is some irony for you. The Tech Industry of the Internet could enforce copyright protection to levels beyond their wildest dreams. But we simply will not undertake such a goal until our own demands are met.
1. A major reduction in the term of copyright and 30 years sounds a good start. It would also help to simplify the process when the complexity they have already added makes enforcement much harder.
2. To establish and promote a viable Public Domain as a resource of ideas and free entertainment. Those who seek Copyright Protection must also welcome the addition to the Public Domain once the term has expired.
3. To make non-commercial file sharing lawful all the time that economic damage is not being done. This is a great free promotion and advertising resource that can help to boost sales. Should harm be noticed then the "minimum" action should be taken to resolve this problem.
File-sharing sites once lawful should reside as non-profit organizations to avoid commercial exploitation.
Should the MPAA and RIAA submit to these three key points then we will grant them their strictly enforced copyright to sell as they please. No one could then make money on their creation without their approval.
If they reject this offer then the War will continue and they should be aware that the opposition against them increases in leaps and bounds. What they most should fear is that we are now getting organized to fight them on every level and on every proposal.
When the playing field has been levelled then who do you think politicians will listen to? A monopolies thirst for greed and control? Or the public's desire for freedom and harmless fun?
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How?
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Copyright would also need to become global beyond the current national when the Internet has no borders.
Websites would then be required to check media upload against the digital fingerprinting. For example Mega already did this to avoid repeated upload to save space.
The upload of copyrighted media for personal storage should be allowed unless shared... on the wrong service.
Should a match be found then a much more detailed comparison would need to be done to avoid mistakes. Then the infringing media can be deleted. However I believe it best if upon a match a digital note is sent to the owner asking if they would prefer to make money from their supply instead.
And all that is done automatically through a central database which is all owners need to maintain. Needing to search the Internet for infringement would be much reduced with no more DMCA take down notices.
The only problem, beyond those refusing to play ball, is when media is re-encoded to a point the digital fingerprinting fails. Then owners only need to find out these copies and claim ownership as well. All sites then spot that change and mass deletion follows.
False claims should carry harsh punishments. Media grab is a nasty business.
We should also consider inserting a digital media status record into the file which would much help in many ways. People could see Copyright, Public Domain or Creative Commons when they play the file. To avoid tampering it would need to be hash checked. Not the best solution when to crack the system only needs to understand the encryption method for the hash. However that can be used no problem for information purposes only.
Control only works through cooperation.
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Under the current regime, all expression that is sufficiently creative to meet the threshold is automatically "copyrighted". Your suggestion would prohibit online activities such as sharing family photos, sending emails, and even posting comments on message boards.
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Tone?
Your tone sucks and you're going to have to work a lot harder to make up for that before we change anything.
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