The Tech Industry Has Already Given Hollywood The Answer To Piracy; If Only It Would Listen
from the stop-shooting-yourself-in-the-foot dept
While many in the press have really enjoyed claiming that the SOPA/PIPA fight has been about Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley, we've been pointing out for a while just how silly that is. Months ago, we pointed out that it's a strange "fight" when one side (Silicon Valley) appears to give the other side all the weapons it needs to succeed (only to watch Hollywood then aim those weapons at its own feet). It's been pointed out time and time again that Hollywood has a habit of looking a gift horse in the mouth... and accusing it of piracy, when it later turns out to be the answer to Hollywood's prayers.When the White House came out against the general approach in SOPA and PIPA, it still said that a legislative response was necessary... and asked for the "best ideas" from the tech community and people online:
Washington needs to hear your best ideas about how to clamp down on rogue websites and other criminals who make money off the creative efforts of American artists and rights holders. We should all be committed to working with all interested constituencies to develop new legal tools to protect global intellectual property rights without jeopardizing the openness of the Internet. Our hope is that you will bring enthusiasm and know-how to this important challenge.But, here's the thing: as many of us have been saying for quite some time, the "best ideas" have nothing to do with legislation, because legislation is tackling the wrong problem. No amount of legislation or enforcement stops piracy. That's been shown over and over again. What does help deal with infringement is offering a better service that gives consumers more of what they want in a reasonable and convenient manner.
And thus, I can't recommend enough Nat Torkington's brilliant response to "the President's challenge" above by likening it to this old joke:
Heavy rains start and a neighbour pulls up in his truck. "Hey Bob, I'm leaving for high ground. Want a lift?" Bob says, "No, I'm putting my faith in God." Well, waters rise and pretty soon the bottom floor of his house is under water. Bob looks out the second story window as a boat comes by and offers him a lift. "No, I'm putting my faith in God." The rain intensifies and floodwaters rise and Bob's forced onto the roof. A helicopter comes, lowers a line, and Bob yells "No, I'm putting my faith in God."How does that apply to this situation? Same thing. The tech industry keeps sending Hollywood the tools it needs to save itself... and Hollywood keeps "waiting" for some miraculous savior, while missing all of the tools it's been offered to save itself:
Well, Bob drowns. He goes to Heaven and finally gets to meet God. "God, what was that about? I prayed and put my faith in you, and I drowned!"
God says, "I sent you a truck, a boat, and a helicopter! What the hell more did you want from me?"
All I can think is: we gave you the Internet. We gave you the Web. We gave you MP3 and MP4. We gave you e-commerce, micropayments, PayPal, Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, the iPad, the iPhone, the laptop, 3G, wifi--hell, you can even get online while you're on an AIRPLANE. What the hell more do you want from us?
Take the truck, the boat, the helicopter, that we've sent you. Don't wait for the time machine, because we're never going to invent something that returns you to 1965 when copying was hard and you could treat the customer's convenience with contempt.
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Filed Under: best ideas, business models, hollywood, innovation, pipa, protect ip, silicon valley, sopa, technology
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Shall we just make a new GNU license that bans them from using things released with it?
They want a world without innovation, so lets take our toys and head home.
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Neither me nor anyone else is gonna spend a Saturday night paying to watch videos of your cat.
oh, and btw:
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/googles-4q-lobbying-bill-triples-205546463.html
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God, I sound like a fortune cookie today...
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The MPAA (movie industry) lives in a fiction fantasy world. (see no evil)
The RIAA (music industry) is tone deaf. (hear no evil)
The Lobbyists and PR people only speak doublespeak. (speak no evil)
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Re: Re: Derp
They're lobbying for sane laws.
Or "don't hate the player, hate the game."
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Then need to be very crazy about enforcing it. Make sure if any company uses it that they get sued into oblivion.
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Why? Because real innovators are problem solvers, not problem makers. They would never intentionally limit the functionality or accessibility of something they've made. A true engineer rejects something like always-online DRM not because of ideological reasons but because it's fucking stupid from an engineer's perspective. Why would you intentionally make something more easy to break? Unthinkable. Same with EULAs and other licenses: why would you pretend a device has less functionality than it actually does? Insanity.
So though I see the temptation, I'm glad that the tech sphere isn't exacting that kind of "take our toys and head home" revenge on hollywood. True innovators are already on to their next project before they have time to worry about idiots who don't understand their last one - and true innovators trust that, in the long run, smart solutions and useful things will win out over outdated mentalities, no intervention required.
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It wouldn't change anything unfortunately. The MPAA/RIAA don't want YOU to pirate, but they're not above it themselves.
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Which just shows you that copyright maximalists have a peculiar form of brain damage wherein they think that if someone watches something, then they should be paid.
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Rogue Politicians....
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HADOPI over the its life has increased in numbers which suggests that piracy is rising not diminishing and despite all of that in France the IFPI just claimed victory saying HADOPI was responsible for an increase in sales of 25%.
In Brazil despite rampant piracy and laws already stating that you can go to jail for 5 years if you are caught with pirated material surprise sales are up the same in China, Russia and every other pirate haven out there.
Which just proves to anyone who wants to see it that piracy can coexist with actual business models, democracy on the other hand depends on a free society to exist, it depends on people not being censored, the economy depends on startups that need an environment where they are not constantly threaten by legal issues.
Between Hollywood and pirates I take the pirates any day, they lie less and are more honest than that other industry will ever be, besides I don't know if I'm ready to make Jesus a fellon for being the one preaching sharing to everyone thousands of years ago.
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Hmmm, RIAA's next move - bribe Congress to fund time travel!
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1.Educating my fans and friends
2.created a Facebook Group called Boycott Big Content
3.never going to a theater again
4.never buying a Film from Hollywood
5.ignoring anything Hollywood does even if I am interested in the film.
6.will only purchase a used physical thing and nothing else
7.will purchase NON-HOLLYWOOD Indie Material
8.Posting info on various News & Tech Boards
9.taking part in any petitions & calling up Washington/Reps
Hope others are doing their part too.
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oh wait, no it wasn't.
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1) We need to prohibit alcohol consumption. Perhaps a constitutional amendment will be needed. All we need to do is pass strong enough laws against alcohol, and the problems caused by demon rum will be eliminated. Some critics say this will just cause more organized crime and disrespect for the government, but those are just apologists for the liquor industry. We just need to get the laws on the books. It is really very simple.
2) We need to pass laws prohibiting drug use, especially marijuana. Marijuana not only leads to Reefer Madness, it is a gateway to other drugs. We need laws that have stiffer penalties for drug possession than violent crime, child abuse, and in some cases murder. If the laws end up causing more violent crime, child abuse, and murder we will just have to live with it, and it is worth the cost. Getting rid of drugs is going to cost some money and time to root out entrenched use. If we spend a trillion dollars over 40 years we should have the drug problem eliminated. It is all so simple.
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Let me see if this thought can be hammered in... Provide a good legal alternative and Google can direct people to that instead of pirate sites.
Business model:
1. Provide easy to use site for downloading content.
2. Google directs users to that site.
3. Everyone profits!
The content could be ad supported, pay for download (good format, no drm), or subscription.
There you go! I've done almost all the thinking for you!
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Re: You forgot
I, for one, wouldn't want to live in such a society.
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Because that would disprove your pitiful attempt at a point, boy.
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Neither me nor anyone else is gonna spend a Saturday night paying to watch videos of your cat.
Well - nothing in the world really requires that "premium content" as you call it is created.
Maybe if there wasn't any you might get off your backside and DO something instead of passively consuming.
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I buy or trade used dvds/cds or remaindered DVDs at shops like Big Lots or Dollar Stores.
(Your local used record/cd/dvd stores are your friends.
Patronize them!)
If there's something worthwhile on the premium satellite channels, I DVD it. (Don't use DVRs, there's copyguard features on most of them that prevent copying.)
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who exactly decides what shall wear your lofty title of 'premium'?
Someone whose opinion I do not respect, no doubt.
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Response to: Zane Stuart on Jan 25th, 2012 @ 1:35pm
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Which is beyond ridiculous when you think about it. An engineer's entire pursuit is to find out the truth. They look through the numbers and find the problems if the numbers don't add up. Then, they can propose a plan to sit down and make laws that are doing exactly what needs to be done for the greater good of the economy.
Bear in mind, I'm a biased party, but there's a reason that engineers don't much get into politics. When you're dealing with an industry that doesn't benefit from legislation, but instead tries to push for laws that will cut the internet off for millions of people, and you're trying to state how you know more than an engineer about the computer when your own is outdated, there's a problem with being believable.
That's why it's great to allow the Doug Morrisons and Chris Dodds to fail on their own merits. Sure, they make a little money now. But they have to watch as their businesses collapse in front of them as everyone moves away from the unwanted services they support.
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Good idea. Eliminating guns and bullets in the US should be easy given the success of both Prohibition and the War on Drugs. There will be some whining about pesky constitutional issues, of course. Industry apologists are such whiners. But SOPA proves that the government doesn't really see much problem with ignoring the constition, so consider it a done deal.
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Response to: Zane Stuart on Jan 25th, 2012 @ 1:31pm
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seems it's very similar when someone is hard of hearing!
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Tools like open source acoustic fingerprinting.
http://maart.sourceforge.net/
http://acoustid.org/
That the industry should use to hunt down their "products" and bother every single person they can find.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_online_music_databases
By the way "WhoSampled is great to see who stole what from whom over the years LoL
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Hollywood replies, "Please send money!"
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There is none so deaf as those that will not hear. (RIAA)
Yet neither seeing nor hearing they both doublespeak. (ACTA/SOPA)
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musipedia
Humm, tap it and it will find the music for you, musicians should use that to sue each other for stealing their works, collection agencies should use it for automated collection of data from anywhere.
I want them to go all out and do the right thing for them.
Why?
Because it greatly annoys people, it is only good for them and burdens the rest of society tremendously and people don't think it affects them but the idiots don't even know the tech industry already have free and open source tools that could help turn true their wildest dreams, they could finance and help those open projects and create their own bundle of security measures to give it away to anyone so they take the excuse that it would be to expensive to implement.
I want to see them going after every citizen out there and making them mad, the average citizen will come down on them like tone of bricks.
The only people who would be allowed to play music are the ones that could pay for a lawyer and the little artists those up and coming should be aware that they are not welcome and what better way than to give and idiotic industry all the tools they need to hang themselves?
I give them all the rope they need.
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Buy, but buy used or borrow from your local library. Why? Because it pisses them off even more... they would LOVE to shutter those 2 outlets as "unpaid theivery dens" but they both have gone through court challenges with 100% of the results favoring the customer.
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The problem...
http://www.cracked.com/article_15229_5-things-hollywood-thinks-computers-can-do.html
rather than what it actually is all about
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Hollywood would prefer direct deposit.
It saves them a trip to the bank.
Oh, and please set up and pay for the servers yourselves. The actual execution of 21st century ideas is up to you. Just send us the lion's share of the money.
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Thank you, Thank you, I would be here all week but I see the hook coming.
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The World Is Not Enough
What big businesses know better than anyone is that the secret of success is not making the best product, but controlling the marketplace. They know the Internet is their only future marketplace. Quite simply, they want it.
http://i.doubt.it/2012/01/25/stay-free/
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People just want stuff for free.
If this wasn't the case, then the above companies and all the others like them would have eliminated piracy in the US.
This "piracy is a business model problem" meme is total bullshit.
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I wonder why law firms have not yet adopted software that can compare and quantify similarities in objective ways it would be a boom to them.
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Paywall!!!
All of the content delivery systems here are big paywalls: Netflix, iTunes, and Amazon. Is this more proof that you've joined me in the paywall lover's club? Wow. In a few years, you'll be telling me that DRM is another one of the great gifts from tech community.
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How funny would it be if that were happening right now? The film and music industry working together to build new closed-end systems using entirely LED and RF based transmission functions?
Then they would tell Silly Valley to go pound sand.
Silly Valley would freak out and come back on their knees begging for a piece of the action.
And the middle finger would come out of everyone's hand including mine.
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Quote:
Source: Google Translate: Presidency of the Republic, Civil House Deputy Chief of Legal Affairs, Law No. 10695, OF JULY 1, 2003.
As one can see if you have any pirate thing in your possession you can go to jail for 4 years, and still Brazil is a piracy haven, the problem is not that they don't have laws, the real problem is enforcing those laws, now you could say but oh that is a backwater country, third world, developing crap country, well what about France?
HADOPI was hailed as the reason sales increased there the thruth I'm afraid is that once you get the numbers you see that the number of accusations have increased over time suggesting very strongly that piracy is growing not diminishing and still there was growth but I digress what I wanted to really point out is that hundreds of thousands of first and second notices have been sent, but for some unkown reason the government has only 168 in the third strike, most probably because they know they can't send hundreds of thousands of third strikes it would harm ISP's but most importantly it would make the population jump up, down and sideways coming down on them like a hammer.
If anybody believes that hundreds of thousands of people just stopped because of the first notice they are delusional since the number of first ones sent grows with time not diminish how is that possible?
The number of first notices increases and the number of third strikes continue to be so low?
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/pedantic
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http://www.owen.org/wp-content/uploads/after-peer-review.jpg
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Scientists are the ones worried about if there's life on Mars.
Engineers are the ones building the tools to find out. :)
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Eight days before I can watch a TV episode online? Our friends in Canada or else where in the world are unable to use some of those same services. Oh I can't BUY that song because it's not available in my country?
The Internet does not recognize the same geographical boundaries because they make no sense. I bet you'd see a lot less piracy if that issue alone was resolved. How many episodes of TopGear are torrented every year because fans in the US don't want to wait weeks/months to see them, edited, on BBC America?
The legal services, many of which I pay for and use regularly have their limitations, not because of technology, but because of artificial restrictions put in place by rights-holders. Consumers don't care what those reasons are, they just want the content. If the legal means are available, they'll seek out the less legal ones.
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I'm deciding you must be brain dead. No wonder I have to do all your thinking for you.
Which of those sites fit the good format, no drm requirement? Pirate sites have good formats, and no drm. Oh! And all the newest releases! So... You can point me to what service that has all that? If there is none, you are not competing.
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Thinking that their content is what the Internet lives for, why it exists, this is not only ludicrous but darn right stupid. Ignorant would be too flattering.
The business is the problem, the old fucking media business. Large problem. Very large. Too large. Kill it now large.
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Of years, not weeks or months.
Remember they need you more that yoou need them.
you have enough, but just like hollywood you don't realize it either.
If 3/4 or better just stopped using this stuff they would change their tune...
SADLY, it won't happen because you have been lulled into a sense of you need this stuff to make your life complete.
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Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley
http://mankabros.com/blogs/chairman/2012/01/25/davos-world-economic-forum-2012-khan -manka-jr-keynote-address/
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By the time they do, if they do, they've long since lost the market to those they once called pirates and worse. And if you look closely at the history of their objections you can easily see that it has been less about copyright, though that's what often gets paraded around like some wounded bird, it's about distribution and packaging. The battle over cable had less to do with minor details like picture quality and the like than it did with cozy exclusives MPAA members, for example, had negotiated with tv stations which were at the far edge of the capability of over the air antennas to pick up.
Radio changed how music was distributed and places like Tin Pan Alley objected though, over time, many songwriters from there became fabulously wealthy because more artists covered their work or they cold release it themselves.
Television was supposed to kill movie theatres and live productions though it did no such thing and often increased attendance at movies and some live locations.
On and on it goes.
It's not just the old rejecting the new, it's the old not being able to see the new and what it can do to make them more money than they are now.
Instead of adopting the new, they fight it and, when they do get ready for change they see the space they wanted to move into already occupied by those dirty pirates and freetards.
This is about holding onto the familiar, even if it is dated and rapidly becoming irrelevant, at the risk of their own future.
All the Web and the Internet are doing is accelerating that process.
Who will head up the future MPAA? One site has staked that claim, none other than Pirate Bay, and I can't see anything wrong with that claim.
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We can argue about the quality of the content, but let us say that what gets produced by Big Content is valuable. What the pirates are saying is here are some new distribution tools to monetize the vast increase in availability. Use the fucking tools already and quit whining about how times have changed.
Oh, and quit hijacking the political system with your truckloads of cash. Your head in the sand approach results in fundamental rights being trampled on and you seem to think that it is ok for that to be the collateral damage.
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Let me spell out the point I am trying to make. Prohibition did not make problems go away, it made them worse. The War on Drugs has not worked; we now have more drug use than we did before the WoD started. Laws banning guns and sex would be ignored. So why does anyone think that outlawing infringement would do anything besides making the problem worse?
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What they want is to have the legal 'big sticks' to force everyone from YouTube to Netflix to ThePirateBay to cough up ever-increasing 'royalties' and contort themselves to not threaten the corporate and regional fiefdoms.
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We are blithely ignorant that the Congresscritters passing laws on the internet are happily uninformed on the subject. As tech types we are used to deal with people who "get it" or can get it if we use the right terminology.
I think a restrictive license would benefit as Hollywood would come to learn what the rest of us know, we could not do what we do without the hard work of others. They believe they just fund it and it happens, it would be nice to see this group so concerned about the little guy getting screwed over by pirates at a loss as to why they can't have nice CGI fire in their explosions. Because the little guy who adds it in is barred from doing it for them with the newest coolest fire cgi.
Most of us tech types don't sit in amazement and look into each and every person who made the web better, we just end up using it. The ability to tap on a screen and have a message appear elsewhere in the world is something we take for granted. The difference is we aren't using our checkbooks to kill something with so many uses because we can't/won't understand it.
They came close to screwing up the entire internet, maybe not sweating the idiots isn't a viable solution anymore.
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So why, oh why, is it, that in 2012, I cannot go to the website of my local whatever affiliate and click a link to watch their current live broadcast? The servers and bandwidth probably cost less than the multi-kilowatt transmitter(s) and antennas, and they would be able to harvest viewership statistics that they now pay tens of thousands to get from Nielsen.
The reason is not because giving away content for free is not a business model. Every attempt over the years to implement such a system was immediately killed by the affiliates, for fear it would undermine their local monopolies.
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Re: Paywall!!!
Did you get a double dose of Thorazine today?
This story has nothing to do with DRM but its so cute you bring it up.
I think you need to look up what a paywall is, Netflix iTunes and Amazon (and several other sites) are sellers of content who use a delivery system that does not require a little plastic disc brought to your home. You pay for the content, and it is good. It would be better if Hollywood stopped making demands that were unreasonable and overreaching expecting that because the cost of duplication has dropped to 0, and distribution is close to 0, that the material itself is suddenly worth more to make up for this shortfall on their mimeographed chart.
Thanks for stopping by.
1/10 - Go have your juice box and then a nap on your mat... the grownups are busy talking.
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I think what i mean is, I don't think I'd like to see the tech sphere attempt to block the legacy content industry in the way you initially mentioned. I want old media to succeed, and I want them to use the tools that are available. The makers of those tools do too. The thing is that in the long run this shouldn't be a war between two sides, and the only way a conflict turns into a partnership is when one side agrees to be the bigger man no matter how childish the other side gets. Arbitrarily blocking hollywood from new innovation would only galvanize the conflict - and would fly in the face of years and years spent telling them that they need to innovate more and embrace the future.
YouTube could have put a harsh blacklist on all major label content - and they, the labels, and the public all would have suffered. And honestly, YouTube would probably come out on top: the labels would have just died sooner as new players moved in to fill the digital gap even faster than they are now. But instead YouTube built robust platforms to allow the labels to monetize their content - and everyone benefited. That's innovators solving real problems in productive ways, and that's what makes me the happiest, and that's almost always the win-win solution.
But there absolutely is a flipside. At the same time, YouTube was forced to build robust platforms to allow the labels to block and remove their content, once again to everyone's detriment. So yeah, I'm all for finding ways for innovators to push back with the kind of power demonstrated last week - I just really want to make sure they are the right ways. Ways that don't betray or abandon the spirit of problem-solving and collaboration that is what defines this movement to begin with - so that even if the legacy industry drowns we can be guilt-free, knowing we sent them a truck, a boat and a helicopter...
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wtf is the point?
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I think it's fair to say that engineers have a similar passion for the truth, though - in that you can't lie to a machine. You can't tell a rebar it can bear more tension than it actually can. When designing something, an engineer is seeking a sort of raw physical truth: what is the true solution to this problem.
That's why DRM is so annoying - it's engineers who have decided or been forced to lie. To say "no, this machine can't play a DVD from Japan" or "here, let me loan you this ebook" when both of those things are utter bullshit.
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http://qntm.org/daleks
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Politicians disgust me. ALL of them. Them and their thinly veiled evil.
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If it was happening, the first thing Hollywood would do would be to call themselves the Boston strangler, and litigate themselves before the technology saw light of day.
ffs, we're talking about people who proudly declare they have no idea how the Internet works. Go on having the blind leading the blind.
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Step 2 - Figure out MP3 is a format for music.
Step 3 - Clue in that MP4 is an audio/video format that saves Hollywood.
Step 4 - "Piracy" despite being an overused term is incorrect, MP4 means they could release the material sooner at next to no cost to themselves in distribution. This would counter people getting tired of waiting and looking elsewhere to obtain the content they are willing to purchase if only it was available before some 1950s flowchart says it should be.
Step 5 - Get a new night job, your not cut out for trolling.
0/10 - Seriously this is the best they can offer?
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They denounce every new innovation as a new way to rip them off, that it will kill them. Think of the restrictions as being a nice firm grip on their neck, because they understand the Boston Strangler so well.
I think it is high time that everyone else stop being expected to be the bigger man and take it in the ass because Hollywood is butthurt over how this new idea will be the thing that finally kills them off after years of the same broken record over and over.
How many more times do we have to repeat the mantra of innovate and prosper? We have examples at every tech advance of them screaming they are dying, and then once they finally accept they can not stomp their foot and get their way they look at the tech and say oh hey, this is so much better for us.
We can build a better mouse trap, but we keep getting the same stupid mice. They are more than willing to sacrifice everyone else to support their outdated business model and offer up the internet on the altar of sacrifice... it might be time to see the problem for what it is and force the shareholders to vote out the people lying to them and their lobbyist lackeys.
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Yes, they would lobby for laws that make boycotts of their products illegal...
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Is like the guy that knows you can't go anywhere so he keep jacking up the price and trying to stop every attempt of an alternative to him. In the end he will fail but until that they it causes a lot of problems to a lot of people.
Copyright right now is a problem for democracy.
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Autoritarian regimes, censorship, monopolies, high cost of living, security through monopolies to outsource jobs that only you can decide where they can be done?
Yah right pal, it is time to end the monopoly you got there.
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I'm open to the idea but I'm still uneasy without knowing what form it would take... I still feel like the best thing the tech industry can do is continue making useful tools - especially the tools that allow artists to route around the legacy industry.
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Continue to try and wrap your illegal behavior in moral justification. It worked for George W Bush, right?
You people are just bullies. You bully creators into thinking they have no rights in your world.
Enjoy this bizarre moment in history while you can. It isn't going to last.
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I wonder how long before the MAFIAA tries to ban libraries from having DVDs and CDs... FOR FREE. Those evil pirates!
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So these protests may be in vain.
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Do you think 500 million people are just going to change? What makes you think they'll tolerate any attempt at making them?
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I have not done this with retail film yet, but it wouldn't be too difficult: I haven't been to a movie theater since 2005. I buy DVDs very rarely...about three in the past year. Everything else I just watch on digital satellite, or download independent material online (I'm two episodes in to Pioneer One right now). After the SOPA fiasco, cutting MPAA material off completely seems tempting.
And no, I don't "pirate" anything.
In short, these media boycotts aren't difficult once you get into them. There's more than enough quality material in Creative Commons and the public domain.
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Also, if the content industry is upset about the fact that some of us feel copyright should be ignored or abolished they really have nobody to blame but themselves. They are the ones who have pushed and pushed to make copyright far far beyond the limits, both in scope and duration, of anything even approaching reasonable. They are the one who continually treat their customers and clients like trash. Actions have consequences, and now they are having to bone up to theirs.
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The legacy industry is working on killing anything they can't control or understand, screaming about all of these lost jobs while they still pay their top staff more and more. They shaft the underlings and blame it on "piracy losses", the internet is the face of the new boogeyman used to scare people. It is a shame we can't coordinate a strike or something from all of the new content providers and show them what they are pushing the internet towards.
Imagine if they were unable to get a slot from any web retailer for their new release, if NetFlix said... nah we don't want it right now it costs to much for the effort. If they found themselves stymied as they were shut out from all of the "boston strangler" technology they once feared and now rely on.
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Go look up the definition of rent seeking. Then apologise for your error.
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DAMMIT, NOW YOU'VE GOT ME SEEING PAYWALLS EVERYWHERE!!!!!!!
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...singing away your copyrights anyone?
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Anyone with a solution can open a movie studio
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Now imagine the owner sees the renter put a gun into the unit. In some cases guns are illegal. Gun makers want the owner to seize(and destroy) the gun on sight, report the renter to them and the police, and sort it out later. It may turn out several weeks later the user files the correct paperwork with the correct people and finally is told that the gun that was seized(and destroyed) can be returned, and the renter gets back a pile of metal shavings.
Now imagine that the owner has millions of renters, and that each visits several times a day and some of them bring their friends along. See the practical issue with a system that requires that storage unit owners to escort each renter, and how that makes each renter dislike the whole system? Some of those renters may decide that renting a room in someone's basement is an easier way to store their stuff.
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Entertainment
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I bet they only bought one copy of Photoshop and stuck it on multiple computers....
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the West Wing Take This Sabbath Day (Karl Malden)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfLZrPq136I
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Greed
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Not a helicopter
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Trolling Ars Technica not enough for you, eh Brett?
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Anyway, AC, your argument doesn't work. Bullies are bullies because they use existing leverage (physical, social, monetary, legal) to make punitive actions against people with less leverage.
Being numerically insignificant only strengthens the argument that the big content industries are bullies: they are abusing power disproportionate to their role, in order to take punitive actions (restrict the Internet for everyone) against people with less leverage (the general public as individuals).
The collaborative power of the Internet, though, means that, when confronted with the worst of these measures, the Internet can form up into a citizen organization that is vastly more powerful than you. Your black bear is getting stung by the swarm of bees.
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What Hollywood wants...
Which is of course a model that practically DEMANDS pricy. And of course Big Entertainment absolutely LOATHES digital media for exactly that reason. Despite the success of iTunes, amazon, YouTube and others... they resent being strong-armed into participating in the digital continuum, despite embracing digital technologies at the production end.
This is part of why Apple has be so committed to disruption, and eliminated virtually all tape support in the new version of Final Cut Pro X. They hope to force the industry to evolve, kicking and screaming if they have to.
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