Dear USTR: Want Other Countries To Sign Your Trade Agreements? Stop Letting Hollywood Write Them
from the just-saying dept
With more and more countries in the EU backing away from signing ACTA, and even the EU Parliament's president speaking out against it, it's raising serious questions about the ability to get the EU signed on to ACTA.Harold Feld, over at Public Knowledge, has published something of an open letter to the USTR suggesting that, just maybe, if it stopped letting Hollywood lobbyists drive the agenda for their international trade agreements, such agreements wouldn't be chock full of crazy -- and might result in an agreement that countries actually want to sign.
So let me give USTR and the non-Hollywood industries involved right now in negotiating trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) another spot of free advice. (I won't even try to suggest this to Hollywood, given they are still in denial there was ever anything wrong with SOPA.) Do not let hollywood hijack your trade negotiations to put in even crazier stuff no one in the world likes, wants, or will sign on to. I know Hollywood has probably already been pushing for plenty of crazy stuff and doing crazy things like saying Canada's not moral enough to join you all on the Group W Bench at the TPPA negotiations. But it is never too late to take them aside and talk some sense into them. You can point out that we now have yet-another-study from academics rather than paid industry flunkies showing that peer-2-peer piracy has little impact on U.S. box office revenue and that Hollywood could do a lot to cut down on international piracy by making content available (for a fee) in a time and manner that customers want rather than insisting on an out-dated, complex "release windows" system developed in the old days when folks either went to theaters or waited 'til it showed up on DVD. So perhaps Hollywood should ratchet back the crazy stuff, or risk getting cut out of the negotiations entirely so every one else can get a trade agreement done?It's such sensible advice that it'll never happen.
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So, tell us, Mike, who is better qualified to write legislation to benefit Hollywood?
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"Hollywood could do a lot to cut down on international piracy by making content available (for a fee) in a time and manner that customers want"
Also, legislation isn't supposed to benefit hollywood. It's supposed to benefit everyone in the country.
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And why specifically Hollywood?
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As Jeremy2020 pointed out, the solution has been offered many times. Furthermore the technology required to implement these solutions exists in many forms.
There is of course the super famous 'reddit'/steam solution:
http://www.techedon.com/2012/02/02/video/media-hollywoods-piracy-problem-solved-solidwhet stones-reddit-post/
People obviously want to access content. Perhaps (as has also been mentioned MANY times) Hollywood could actually provide people with access to this content.
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Legislation should be written to benefit the people, not companies. Legislators should be responsible to their constituency, not the biggest payoff.
See that? You tried to troll, but you defined the problem instead.
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Free Market dictates that if you can't compete, you die.
Also...
http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-common-anti-internet-arguments-that-are-statistical ly-bs/
Read that. Notice the part about "individual sales" are taking us BACK to the golden age of 70 years ago when you could buy singles for cheap.
Also, notice how he mentions that there are people who put their books on the internet, for FREE, so people would buy them...
If Book authors are willing to change with the times...
Why won't Hollywood, the MPAA and RIAA change with the times?
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So long as writers continue to write, there will be books.
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Implied are so many things, like Hollywood needing beneficial legislation, or that the legislation they have lobbied for/written already has actually benefited their industry.
I think you're slipping.
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You'll see the solution in the post, once you choose to see it, and no im trying to sprout some proverbs here, i mean literally, read the post again, or for the first time, whatever
Im surprised you didnt put "First" in you're post, it seemed.........appropriate
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And they wonder why younger people hate them and despise the laws they bought.
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Mike you need to add plus and minus's to the comments section, to many times ive come across a comment, that pretty much reflects my line of thinking, and no method to show support by numbers
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I bought my last new vehicle in 95. I'm still driving it and having no troubles at all with it. It's a Nissan Pickup.
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They won't see it until the day that foreign music and movies surpasses domestic movies and music.
I, for one, welcome the onslaught of more anime music and movies.
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+100 interwebz to Harold Feld for the Alice's Restaurant reference.
The basic message behind that song seems relevant to current events.
....And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement....
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This is the Alice's Restaurant link.
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F OFF Hollywood
SOPA = Dead and buried.
PIPA = Knocked into a coma.
ACTA = Having its limbs pulled off and soon dead.
So their key aim should not be a list of nasty new surprises but to actually write a trade agreement that the public will accept. Removing Internet attacks would be a good start.
However, if they go and throw another ACTA at us, then we will only blow it out the water. This would then waste all their time and money but we would not shed any tears.
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The term should be shorter than before as payment to society for stealing our public domain.
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End copyrights and those terms will be very appealing for people who don't have a monopoly anymore.
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And when other corporations ask why, point them at Hollywood.
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Supporting the protests with free Tshirts
At our company we've organized a small campaign against ACTA and we're willing to offer 50 free Tshirts printed with the best message we
can find and ship them to be used at local protests. If you have an idea of a clever design or text please share it with us, here you can
find more details: http://www.brandshout.net/opportunities/stop-acta-campaign/
Cheers!
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"Hollywood" (reality according to, that is)
We live in a reality constructed by Hollywood and made for television, my friend - not the real one out there in the woods where I come from.
"'Contrariwise,' said Tweedldee, 'if it was so, it might be, and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't it ain't. That's logic.'" (Lewis Carroll).
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This actually reads like something Glyn would post, another feeble attempt to justify widespread piracy. It's a failure from end to end.
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Alice's Restaurant
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Blog comment
the more success Google and partners will have in adopting Google Apps.
We�re loving it.http://www.blackcloudnetworks.com
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