Biden, Goodlatte Preach To The IP Maximalist Choir, Vow To Make 'Second-Rate' Countries Bend To US IP Laws
from the what-do-you-give-industries-that-have-everything? dept
One of the rules of public speaking is: know your audience. You can hold people's attention better and garner support by following this rule. This doesn't mean you need to prostrate yourself before them and give them exactly what they want, however. Once you do that, you're just preaching to the choir, like Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Robert Goodlatte did recently.
Here's the pitch:
Vice President Joe Biden told members of the tech and entertainment industry that intellectual property protections need to be bolstered to account for changing technologies and foreign threats.That's a pretty delusional assumption on Biden's behalf. There's no indication that "bolstering" IP laws is the only route worth taking, especially when considering "changing technologies." Stronger IP protection isn't a panacea. It's little more than legislatively pleasuring overly-satiated incumbent industries.
But every choir needs a preacher, especially this one.
American creativity needs protections at home and abroad to thrive, he said, speaking at an event hosted by the Motion Picture Association of America and Microsoft.Give the people what they want to hear. That's the real message Biden is sending. Lifetime plus 70 years still isn't enough protection. 20-year patents (plus extensions triggered by any number of variables) isn't enough protection. Trademark forever isn't enough protection. ICE partnering with the MPAA to play copyright cop isn't enough protection.
But enough about the domestic front. The other "obstacle" these industries face on their way to record sales numbers is "weak" protections abroad.
In addition to benefitting American creators, other countries would benefit from having stronger intellectual property protections, he continued.Oh, sweet lord. Trust Daddy Yankee. The First World is the First World because copyright lasts well over 100 years in most cases. All of you "second-rate" countries need to lock IP the fuck down if you ever want to make something of yourselves. Look at all this condescension! Play by our rules if you want to succeed, Biden says, without offering anything in the way of evidence.
“Until they clamp down on copyright infringement … those nations will remain second-rate powers, unable to nurture that environment that enables home grown innovation.”
You can practically hear the "amens" from here. Of course Microsoft and the MPAA want to hear the US will shame, cajole, threaten or TPP every other country into compliance. Might = right, and the US wields the mightiest IP laws of all.
Goodlatte also pitched in a bit, pretending he and his committee are "conducting a sweeping review" of copyright law. He's also taken part in the "Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus," which had done little more than "call on" ad networks to stop "supporting" whatever sites the Caucus/incumbents have determined to be "pirate sites."
Here's Goodlatte's contribution, which follows a statement where he expresses faith in legislators' ability to bend China to America's will.
Ultimately, the U.S. needs to have laws and business models that protect intellectual property, Goodlatte continued.The US has "laws and business models that protect intellectual property." Does he actually believe the US doesn't? What Goodlatte envisions is some sort of IP utopia where nothing is ever
“We’ve got to convince consumers that they’ve got a long term investment in paying something,” he said.
“If you don’t reward the creators, you’re not going to get the creativity.”
But Goodlatte goes further and blames those who pay for content for not paying enough, or often enough. Stupid consumers, Goodlatte says, why don't you just make everyone rich(er)? If you're not going to buy DVDs for $20-25 and CDs for $15-20, then the whole creative system will just collapse. At some point. In the future. Presumably.
Napster killed everything off in 1999, according to RIAA lawyers, and since then, it's been a real struggle to find music being made or movies being produced or books being written, said no one outside of the incumbent industries ever. The world is full of creative works, which are being generated at a pace faster than any time in history. Technological advances have made every computer a recording studio/production studio/publishing platform, and yet somehow "technology" is pointed out as the entity that destroyed creativity.
The MPAA wants you to believe that without its help -- and its lobbied-for IP laws -- no one would make movies. Microsoft wants you to believe that other countries are destroying its business, while it retains lucrative contracts with government agencies and controls the most widely-used software in the business world. Won't someone step up and give these poor souls a hand in their fight against third-rate countries with lousy IP laws and even worse extradition policies?
And up come BIden and Goodlatte's free hands, signaling their intent to browbeat the rest of the world into deploying the same crappy IP laws that gut the public domain, block affordable generic drugs and generally make it that much harder for our "second-rate" brethren get a leg up in the international economy.
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: bob goodlatte, copyright, infringement, joe biden, maximalist, secondary liability
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
So much for a system that is supposed to keep the US in the lead.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Protection
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Protection
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Protection
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Whine about piracy and how it's 'decimating' your sales all you want you parasites, but more and more people are realizing that what you're really fighting for is control, control over the creator, control over the seller, and control over the buyer.
And yet, as time passes, no matter how much you flail about and try and dam the flow of progress and competition with bought laws and bought politicians, that control you desire so badly will slip through your fingers at an ever increasing rate, soon to leave you in the dust of history as little more than a footnote.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
to deal with the MILLIONS of creators who never have, and almost certainly never will, given either the RIAA
nor the MPAA control of a single one of their creations.
As long as people can route items between themselves without the gatekeepers being able to restrict the flow
they are like a candle before a forest fire and they know it.
They want a read only world, like TV, Radio, records, and movies were before the damned engineers screwed things up.
Oh they want the efficiencies and the cost reductions those bring, higher profits you see. But they do not want
anybody but themselves to benefit from them.
First come the "drivers license for the Internet" implying that communication with others needs permission from them.
Then will come the "Business licenses for the Internet" to make sure that only "approved" businesses are allowed to contact
"licensed" Internet users.
That government thugs (police) can no more stop "unlicensed use of the Internet" than they can garage sales
will never be talked about.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
And the irony is that the USA has fallen into its own metric of "third world country."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
You do know that absolutely no one buys this tired bullshit, right?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Gotta watch out for those stawmen, they're crazy flammable
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Gotta watch out for those stawmen, they're crazy flammable
I'll do it for him.
Looking at the big picture, there are two battling theses. Just to personalize things, I'll call one the �Litman� thesis, and the other the �Ginsburg� thesis. Although these labels may be inaccurate and unfair, and both women may object strongly to these characterizations.
The �Litman� thesis is that the law don't mean shit unless people obey.
The �Ginsburg� thesis boils down to �Suck it, serfs!�.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Gotta watch out for those stawmen, they're crazy flammable
"It's hilarious how you bozos still trot out "copyright length" as the reason you steal a movie or album that was released last week."
The question:
"If you would, point out where in the article anything remotely resembling such claims is mentioned."
The response quotes:
"�We�ve got to convince consumers that they�ve got a long term investment in paying something,� he [House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.)] said."
The disconnect:
The original poster is casting dispersion's on Techdirt and the questioner asks where. Your response quotes not Techdirt, but some congresscritter.
Scored a miss.
Negative quantillion points for a metric fuckton hubris.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Gotta watch out for those stawmen, they're crazy flammable
Res ipsa locquitor.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Gotta watch out for those stawmen, they're crazy flammable
If you don't own what you've bought, you extremist, you � what do you stand to gain in the long term from your "investment?"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Gotta watch out for those stawmen, they're crazy flammable
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Gotta watch out for those stawmen, they're crazy flammable
Second, for most of those, the reasons listed that I've noticed are generally more along the lines of 'I pirate X because it's flat out not available in my area, meaning they were never going to get a sale from me anyway'.
Now, your claim of that being a reason does have some truth to it, but it's only covering the first half of that excuse/reason.
Those that use something like that as their excuse to pirate usually explain it as 'They've broken their half of the 'copyright agreement', so I don't see why I should be forced to hold up my half'.
Now, is this a valid reason to pirate? Depends on who you ask I'd say*, but at the same time, the fact that copyright has been completely twisted such that it no longer serves the public or even creators most time, being instead all about protecting large companies, that is pretty much a given at this point, so the argument is at least somewhat understandable.
*I'm in the 'Do without' camp myself, because there's always more options from more reasonable sources, making pirating rather pointless, and because if people really do 'Do without', it completely removes any interest or potential profits that might have sprung from piracy, and if people don't care about something, whether it be show, music or movie, then they're certainly not going to be spending any money on it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Gotta watch out for those stawmen, they're crazy flammable
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Gotta watch out for those stawmen, they're crazy flammable
1) Could you explain your reasoning behind your action there?
2) And, as it comes up at times, could you give your best estimate as to how piracy has effected your purchasing frequency and habits?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Gotta watch out for those stawmen, they're crazy flammable
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Gotta watch out for those stawmen, they're crazy flammable
As for 'why', probably because now matter how often it's claimed that TD is a 'pro-piracy blog', it doesn't make it true, anymore than someone pointing out that throwing flour on a house-fire isn't going to work, and will likely make the problem worse makes them 'pro-arson'.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Gotta watch out for those stawmen, they're crazy flammable
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Gotta watch out for those stawmen, they're crazy flammable
I can rent a DVD for $2.00 and burn it off onto a blank disc costing less than $1.00. So that's approximately $3.00. Or, I could go to Wal-Mart and pay around $20.00 for that same movie. Which makes more economic sense?
Besides all that, "piracy" is a hobby of mine. It's something I enjoy doing.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Gotta watch out for those stawmen, they're crazy flammable
As predicted in 1841:
http://homepages.law.asu.edu/~dkarjala/opposingcopyrightextension/commentary/MacaulaySpeeches.html
"A nd you will find that, in attempting to impose unreasonable restraints on the reprinting of the words of the dead, you have, to a great extent, annulled those restraints which now prevent men from pillaging and defrauding the living."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I don't see that as a reason to infringe on copyright at all.
I do however view it as the main reason as to why nothing enters the Public Domain anymore and why the rights holders are reneging on the original copyright deal between the public and creators.
I also see it as being extremely counterproductive to the original intent of copyright, which was to be an incentive to create new works. Seriously, why create something new, when one can rest on their laurels until their children's children are dead?
But hey, that's just my opinion.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
"You do know that absolutely no one buys this tired bullshit, right?"
Precisely. So why don't you stop spouting it?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
What no one is buying is the fact that copyright is at the extreme it is.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
USA USA USA
And as has been shown many many many times there is nothing better to create a market than fair use of content, where people will evolve to create their own content once they have viewed the stuff for free, it encourages people to create little projects editing a movie into something else or taking parts of it and creating something new. Copyright is not helping the third world just as it did not help the US many years ago. Third world countries would be doing their creative market a disfavor not allowing them to use fair use to create.
And this is proven when Bill gates was told that the tech market in 3rd world countries would be nowhere near what it is if it was not for the piracy of Windows, where people who could not afford the hundreds to purchase it used pirate copies to learn how to use a computer and how to program, creating games and other programs that they then were able to sell all over the world..
Piracy is good for the economy of any country and should be relaxed a hell of a lot, forget about the us and their bad lists they can't put every country on the naughty list and expect anything to happen positivly for the US.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The only business model that needs strong IP laws is the publisher model, where a middleman gains control of the IP, and restricts the number of works on the market so that they can maximise their profits. There were, and still are enough people offering works for publication that they publishers can reject the majority of the works that they are offered, and generally offer poor terms for those that they accept.
Goodlatte continued.
�We�ve got to convince consumers that they�ve got a long term investment in paying something,� he said.
Consumers will pay the creators that they like, but are becoming increasing disillusioned with the publishers.
�If you don�t reward the creators, you�re not going to get the creativity.�
He has that the wrong way round, most creators are driven to create, and making money is very much a secondary consideration. Also for creators, Several to many works are produced before they learn their craft well to create sellable works. Of more importance to creativity is a strong public domain, and copyright is destroying this, and this restricts creativity, or drives it underground in a effort to gain an audience.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
If, however, in the long term, we can have the thing we paid for yanked from our grasp and restricted in how it can be used, what exactly are we investing in and what return can we hope for? Goodlatte is a fool if he thinks we're going to fall for this fraud. We, the consumers, gain but the temporary restricted use of the creative items we pay for. That's not much of an investment.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I'm guessing he meant China.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I guess China's strong IP laws is what lead them to this achievement.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I need some new clothing styles...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I need some new clothing styles...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
What actually happened:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
why would they listen
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mafia protection Racket - Lansky and the gang
I feel the rest of the world should replace their legislation with a 20 year copyright law. Much like patent law, short terms encourage innovation and copying and deriving new works from the old.
Forget this life plus 70 years, who need to place his kids in my back pocket for ever
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I agree with him, the consumers should feel like they are paying for something. Trouble is it's all digital they are wanting to sell on line. When I go to show my neighbor what I bought, it's like holding a hand full of air to do that. Somehow I am failing to see value in empty air. Looks more like I got ripped off. But yet you see the prices increase for something you can't physical show you bought. Add to it when you buy it, the copyright crowd wants to say it isn't yours. Either I bought it with my money and it's mine or it isn't worth buying. No where on the outside did it say I was to rent it before I bought it.
Ever tried to return damaged digital goods that don't work or maybe you didn't like the product? You can do it with a shirt, you can't do it with digital goods.
Somehow I'm finding it really hard to see any value what ever in these copyrighted works.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Ah but you see, that was all due to copyright, and it's ability to drive creativity and creation forward.
Now, you, silly person that you are, might say...
'But, copyright has only been around for a relatively short period of time(historically speaking), only coming into existence in the last few hundred years, how could it be responsible for creativity until that point?'
To which I would point out the obvious fact that you had, somehow, unfortunately missed...
'Ah, but you see, copyright is so effective at driving creativity and creation that is does so even when it didn't exist. After all, since copyright came into effect a few centuries past, an immeasurable explosion of creativity has resulted, causing massive amounts of works, from art, to music, books to movies, to come into being.'
Don't let yourself be led astray by those (sometimes foolish, but more often nefarious) people who claim that the massive explosion of creativity and the resulting works is due to the advancement of technology, and how it has both given the masses as a whole more free time with which they can create, as well as the tools to do so easily and share their works with the world, as such a claim is ludicrous, to such an extreme that you don't even need evidence to refute it.
Nay, put such foolish thoughts and claims from your mind entirely.
No, obviously if copyright is the reason so much is created in modern times, then it follows that it is likewise responsible for creation in the past, even before the idea of copyright came into being, we just don't quite understand how a force as powerful as the mighty Copyright has been able to transcend space and time.
Up next on the 'You really should have known that before I told you' list...
'Almost all tyrants throughout history have had hair: How hair is obviously responsible for tyrannical drives and actions'.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
"Long term investment" is a joke because the term of investment isn't long.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Crowdsourced songs
by all modes.
I think he would easily reach the $5 million. Others might try the same for a lesser amount.
I think it is a viable method.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Crowdsourced songs
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
music and movies and audio
I am retired, 75, I never listen to music or buy music = not worth the waste of time.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Ship John Steele to China, and let him sue random Chinese people under Chinese law for porno copyright infringement. It's our patriotic duty to do it.
He's filed enough "freedom lawsuits" in 'Murica. It's time to export our superior way of life to these backwater, inferior nations that don't understand the glory of apple pies that are baked by Jesus.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Minus the bolstering of human rights, protecting folks from actions, "TO ACCOUNT FOR THE CHANGING TECHNOLOGIES and foreign" AND DOMESTIC "THREATS"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]