Australian MP Pushes Back Against Expanded Site And Search Blocking Laws
from the my-hero dept
We've been talking for several months now about the amendments to Australian copyright law currently under consideration by the government there. As a refresher, Australia put a site-blocking policy in place several years ago. That policy has been praised by both government and rightsholders as effective, even as those same interests insist that it doesn't do enough to stop piracy down under. As a result, the government is currently considering amendments to Australian copyright law that would make it easier for extra-judicial blocks of "piracy sites" and their mirrors, and includes demands that search engines like Google participate in this censorship as well, despite the fact that blocking search returns relevant to a user request is the opposite of what Google does. Predictably, the amendments to the law have wide support across political parties in Australia, and pretty much everyone is sure it's going to pass as is.
A key aspect of this is that all of the focus is on piracy and how to stop or minimize it, regardless of whatever negative effects that might have on ISPs and a free and open internet. There has been zero focus thus far on whether these legal mechanisms are really the optimal route to addressing this problem. This week, however, one Australian MP decided to grab a microphone and finally take rightsholders to task.
An expansion of Australia's piracy site-block laws is "a form of regulatory hallucinogen", Labor MP Ed Husic has said, adding that the voice of the consumer needs to be heard and rights holders should be less "resistant" to digitisation and reforming their systems.
"The big challenge is the freeing-up of copyright to ensure that innovation can spread more widely and to face up to big rights holders and the types of hysterical arguments we get in this space," Husic said. "These rights holders think that by constantly using legal mechanisms through this place and elsewhere, piracy will disappear. The reality is that piracy is a reflection of a market failure."
It's rare that a member of government gets things so absolutely correct on this subject. Far too many rightsholders seem to only have one arrow in their quiver, and that's the legislative or judicial arrow. What has actually occurred is that a disruptive force, the internet, has changed the possibilities and demand for certain types of content. Does anyone remember the consumers of these products, legitimate and otherwise? They are supposed to have a voice in government as well, and yet they are consistently ignored. But, really, it's the public and the internet that are driving this whole discussion. How is it possible that they don't have a seat at the table?
Husic goes on to ask the same question, all while poking lawmakers in the eye for bowing to the wrong constituency.
"As lawmakers, just because we might get a selfie with Richard Roxburgh -- I love Rake as much as anyone else -- or a political party gets a donation from a rights holder, does not mean that we should stop looking at how to make the types of reforms that balance the needs of creatives and the needs of producers versus the needs of consumers," he said.
The sad part of all of this is that Husic is the exception, not the rule. When you read that these amendments will almost certainly pass in Australia, that prediction is almost certainly correct. And, when that happens, exactly whose interests will be served? The answer, I think, cannot possibly be "the public's."
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Filed Under: australia, copyright, ed husic, innovation, intermediary liability, search blocking, site blocking
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Yees, let's turn entertainment into a hobby, because it's not "real work."
As I've said, this will fuel a cheap-culture model, which is why YouTubers can get rich even in this piracy environment, and a patronage model, where entertaining the rich just pays better than entertaining the masses.
sEither way, the masses will see a vast reduction in the quality of their entertainment. You get what you pay for. That "legacy" copyright industry they decry is the only thing left supplying quality content.
If you want to make TV Guide richer than every network whose shows it lists, you can, but they won't produce content and what they usher readers too will decline in quality.
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A more reasonable question is how many man hours were involved in creating that song, and what is the effective hourly rate from that income.
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Better questions: At what point is someone guaranteed to receive income from Internet popularity, and how much do they deserve?
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So the RISK of not getting paid at all doesn't factor in?
A pro-piracy market will discourage creators from investing in making quality content. "Cheap culture" like cellphone video ensues.
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Counterpoint: Black Panther was a $200m film that made $1b at the box office and even more money through digital and home video sales. If Disney execs were “discouraged” from making the film due to potential (and sure to be rampant) piracy, that discouragement did not appear to last long.
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I don't think a "vast reduction" is possible. TV was called a "cultural wasteland" in the 1950s and has been getting worse since.
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You offer no compelling argument as to why this will happen beyond “but piracy”. Seriously, your entire argument can be boiled down to “but piracy”, because even if—not when, if—piracy were to somehow create a “cheap culture model” (which is a bogus assertion on its face when you consider Black Panther), plenty of people would still work to make the best possible creative works they could. You think money is the only reason people draw or write or make movies; you are so wrong that you betray your ignorance of the most fundamental understandings of human behaviour.
People make fan art and fan fics and fan films all the time. They have little-to-no hope of ever monetizing those works because of copyright law. They do it anyway because they are compelled to use their voice and their skills for the sake of bringing an idea into the world that no one else might have done otherwise. Plenty of people paint, write, draw, make music, and do other creative work as a side hobby that they never intend to monetize—it just gives them a creative outlet.
Take a look at the videogame industry: Sure, “triple-A” publishers still control the industry, but smaller publishers (especially mobile game publishers) and indie devs have made serious headway in cutting into the revenue of “triple-A” games. A couple of decades ago, Undertale would have probably been passed over by a majority of gamers, only to later become a “cult classic”; in today’s world, it is one of the most talked-about RPGs in gaming well after its release and a mainstream success by any meaningful measure (the console ports certainly helped).
If you think we need Disney, Electronic Arts, Penguin Books, Universal Music Group, WWE, or any other major entertainment corporation to find and experience “quality content”, you are not looking hard enough for it. Your lack of effort in that regard is outmatched only by your “sky is falling” schtick, which…well, to use the current popular vernacular: That ain’t it, son.
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It pays for companies to create advertising content for large coprorations, which is why influencers are the new celebrities. Cheap culture. Creativity and information are not rewarded. Popularity is.
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No. No, it does not. And neither have you, for that matter. Besides, how can you—or anyone else—objectively measure a “decrease in quality” of creative works?
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Are you implying something other than popularity should be rewarded? That's not really compatible with exclusive rights for copying (copyrights), which inherently drive people toward popularist business models.
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If he's making the same argument he usually does on that point, I think the chain of logic is:
There are multiple points where that chain could break down, of course - the two most obvious being "piracy doesn't necessarily reduce sales" and "quality of production doesn't necessarily correlate with size of budget" - but the idea itself has at least a seed of reasonability to it.
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A song with 178 million hits on YouTube made $5,000, to be split among everyone involved in production, many of whom make union wages (and who used to pay taxes).
I'm sorry, but this is bullshit on multiple levels. First off, the story of 178 million streams referred not to YouTube, but Pandora, where the economics are wholly different: https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2015/09/24/my-song-was-played-178-million-times-on-spotify-i-was-pa id-5679/ As a non-interactive streaming service, Pandora's rates are set by the Copyright Royalty Board. That's unrelated to YouTube and other platforms.
Second, that ONLY applies to songwriting royalties, not performance royalties, which are much higher. And because it's songwriting, not performance royalties, its bullshit for you to claim that it covers "everyone involved in production." That's... specifically the cut to the songwriters and that's it.
Third, the writer in that case was a co-writer, and the $5,000 was his cut alone, not the total for both songwriters.
So, yeah, your entire claim is based on a myth.
But, more importantly, if you have 178 million streams of your music, YOU HAVE TONS of other ways to cash in, because you have a massive audience and can use that to your advantage in so many different ways.
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You mean John Smith lied and/or made use of incorrectly interpreted data?
Mind. BLOWN.
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"You mean John Smith lied and/or made use of incorrectly interpreted data?"
I know, right? You'd almost suspect the reason all these staunch defenders of sacred copyright came up with reversed logic, numbers-out-of-ass data, straw man arguments and incoherent cause-correlation metrics is because when there is no longer, fact in hand, any defense left for copyright in general, the only thing left is repetitive guilt-tripping and screaming.
I'm sure that has to be the reason "John Smith" and a thousand other nicknames protesting in favor of copyright provide arguments so similarly erroneous it looks like they were all handed out at the latest one-page trainer sheet to be handed out to the fifty cent army.
It's a nice thing to see an MP somewhere call the copyright cult out on it's religious bullsh*t, but I think it gets clearer every day that even our grandchildren will have to keep fending off one insanity after the other until we finally get around to cutting down copyright, as defined in the Berne convention, to a saner approach - attribution and commercial restrictions only, for instance.
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"Huh. John Smith appears to have disappeared from this thread..."
Oh, He's probably around - same as "Bobmail", "Nejtillpirater", "Out_of_the_blue" "Conspicuously random strangers #1, #2 and #3".
After a few years on lurking around on Torrentfreak and Techdirt I'm moved to consider the option that the persistent choire of flatulist sock puppets farting the same tired old long-disproven copyright maximalism arguments on three or four forums HAS to be one deeply disturbed person who fills the tedious lack of meaning in his life by propping up internet celebrities and tech giants as an imaginary nemesis he can scream in opposition of.
This "John Smith" fellow seems to be more or less identical to TorrentFreak's "Bobmail. Or as we affectionately called that troll, "Baghdad Bob".
I suspect the answer to his disappearance this time can be blamed on his inability to find more ways to misspell "John Smith" in order to get himself an unblocked name or account to post with.
He'll be back.
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Pulling number out of thin air doesn't make them true, you know.
Small channels may get $2 per 1000 views, larger channels more. So if there are 178 million hits simple math tells us that they would get AT LEAST $356000.
Either you are so grossly misinformed it's ridiculous or you lie. So which one is it?
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"A song with 178 million hits on YouTube made $5,000, to be split among everyone involved in production, many of whom make union wages (and who used to pay taxes)."
1. Let's see your proof for those figures. No, pulling them out of your ass doesn't count, let's see the proof that this is what they pay for that many "hits" (let's be charitable here and assume you're talking full listens, and not expecting people to be paid when someone accidentally plays 2 seconds because it autoplayed after what they actually wanted to watch before).
2. How does that compare to what they make with that number of listens on the radio - DO NOT LIE and pretend these are equivalent to sales, because they are not.
3. Why are these morons depending on a single revenue stream to make a living? If they're so bad at business that depend on another business to pay them 100% of their revenue, they will fail no matter who that is.
4. Did you know that not only are most artists not making a living straight from copies of their music alone, but most never have in the history of recorded music?
As usual, you think you're making great points, but all you're doing is to display how much of a simpleton and a liar you are straight out of the gate.
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Hollywood (label) accounting, who (k)new?
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Some pirate done stole The Public's cred and seat.
Already answered.
Techdirt and other pirates define "innovation" solely as getting valuable content for free, NOT opportunities to make and sell their own. Period. -- And yes, applies especially to Youtube.
Some too difficult to catch, sure, but that it's all criminal is solid principle. Those who make content have ALL the rights: no law-maker should take the side of thieves.
You can't compete with free. There is no "market" if piracy is even allowed, let alone rampant.
At least you're starting to recognize that piracy is advocated by only a tiny minority.
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Re: Some pirate done stole The Public's cred and seat.
And just the thought of someone getting away with it will drive them to spend millions of other peoples money trying to catch that last bloody pirate.
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Re: You can't compete with free.
New to this site, are you?
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Re: Some pirate done stole The Public's cred and seat.
Big content (RIAA, MPAA, Elsevier) are 20th century creations. The world has changed since then, starting with Xerox, audiotape, the VCR. and digital cameras.
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In that case, you should support lawmakers who want to loosen copyright restrictions and shrink copyright terms. After all, Disney has been stealing from the public (i.e., preventing works from going into the public domain when they already should have) ever since it managed to extend copyright terms with the Mickey Mouse Act.
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Whether he'd argue that the creators should retain those rights permanently without being able to sell them, or that the rights which the creators have include the right to sell those rights, I'm not as clear about. Both approaches have their negatives, but I can't tell which set of negatives his particular pathology would take as being positives.
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Re: Some pirate done made you cry again
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Re: Some pirate done stole The Public's cred and seat.
The government, most notably, advised its citizenry to use VPNs when using Netflix to get content. Much to Graham Burke's dismay since he can't continue ripping them off, and the same for you, blue boy!
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"You can't compete with free. There is no "market" if piracy is even allowed, let alone rampant."
Oh. Cool. bottled water doesn't exist, according to you?
There are a few thousand cell phone games with full function available for free who beg to disagree with you. All those microtransactions certainly add up.
The actual facts are that competing with free has always been a success story. Competing with actual convenience is the true impossibility.
"At least you're starting to recognize that piracy is advocated by only a tiny minority."
Oh, please. When you guys at the copyright cult keep pounding out statistics which show "piracy" accounts for 25% or more of digital consumption, the "pirate" cause certainly isn't advocated by a tiny minority. But hey, don't let one set of numbers you pulled out of your ass stop you from making another insane assertion, hmm?
Cloned drones such as your own low self have been making these exact assertions for roughly a century or more, and somehow the only thing that happens is that copyright enforcement keeps leaking money into ineffective ways of fighting piracy until, at the end, technology progresses to the point where an old model of piracy is silently replaced by another...at which point you declare a nutbusting triumph over the now-obsolete medium.
But I must thank you and your bottom-feeding peers for all the free entertainment you keep offering by making all these no doubt well thought out spurts of rambling incoherence.
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Seems Husic Is No Exception To The Rule
The Register has reported that, after spouting his fine words, he has gone and voted in favour of the new bill anyway.
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Re: Seems Husic Is No Exception To The Rule
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Some people can't. And that's OK. Because lower cost production is better than artificially propping up incompetants.
>There is no "market" if piracy is even allowed, let alone rampant.
Welcome to planet Earth. Reality is different here, and in some ways better than your home universe. There are markets--not as many as there could be--and there are also many avenues for free consumption: radio, broadcast TV, libraries, free public performances (also not as many or as efficient as they could be with modern communications technology).
If only there were more, and more efficient, markets--and more, and more efficient, free legal venues, there would be less infringement.
At least, that's what experience has always been in this universe.
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You know, for someone who constantly insinuate that rich dudes are the sole reason why you can't get laid, you spend a hell lotta time bitching at significantly less affluent people. Why? Because we don't give you enough brothel money?
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Too bad Masnick is such a coward he has to rely on folks like this to grind his axe.
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You treat everyone disagree with as a pirate stealing your "pleasurable company" fund right under your nose.
You advocate suing of children to fill the coffers of billionaires regardless of whether your evidence passes the laugh test.
Sorry, but you're not in any position to be screaming "never did anything to".
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Lack of money is why I don't have to BUY women, uyou know, the way lawyers do whent hey hire ex-hookers as paralegals.
Just like when lawyers tweet bigoted remarks that can be used against them in Title VII cases. That's just civil, however. Retaliate against someone who has report4ed a federal time ahnd it grows to 20 yerars in federal prison.
Keep running that mouth, coward. You might inadvertently help bring down some very bad people.
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I'm sure the ladies are just lining up around the block for the self-help books you want to write but can't because the fact that Section 230 exists gives you such a knot in your thong you get writer's block.
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You don’t have enough money to hire a prostitute?
I’ll refourtort federal time anytime I want.
Bring it on pussy. I think I have helped give you a stroke.
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If they don't like the prices, why do they have to pirate the content? Why not just boycott it and wait for all those freebies to come online?
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Piracy is not what potentially threatens the legacy publishers, labels and studios, but rather all the legal self published content on the Internet. However piracy is a useful excuse via which they hope to gain control over the Internet and once again become the arbiters of what is published.
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Or buying from competitors who don't try ripping them off at every opportunity, perhaps finding better product than the shit you're shovelling anyway. Or, simply doing without that particular form of frivolous entertainment, since most of what's produced means nothing anyway, and many many other forms of entertainment exist
Funny how your ranting always seems to forget the options that have nothing to do with "stealing", isn't it? Face it, your business model which depended of fleecing people as much as possible doesn't work in the modern age, and good riddance.
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I've always found the objection of 'If you don't like the terms/price do without' to copyright infringement(which is not stealing, no matter how many times certain people conflate the two) to be a poor and even counter-productive in the sense of making money, because of the two, 'do without' and 'copyright infringement', the latter is actually worse for the creator/copyright owner.
If someone's not paying but getting something via infringement that just means they're not paying monetarily now, but they are still paying with their time and interest and there's a chance that they might pay later.
If someone does without however they're not paying with their money or time and interest, and as they aren't aware of and/or engaged in the content at all the odds that they'll suddenly decide to pay at some point in the future is much lower than it would be for the copyright infringer.
If someone knows about something and is willing to go through the effort to get it, even if they're not paying currently, they might still pay down the line.
If someone can't even be bothered with that, and/or has no clue about current and future content because they 'do without' the odds of them paying now or in the future are close to zero, because as you noted there's plenty of other works out there for them to check out and potentially pay for instead.
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Pretty sure you meant "the former" in this, based on the rest of your post.
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"If someone knows about something and is willing to go through the effort to get it, even if they're not paying currently, they might still pay down the line."
Indeed - and the irony of that is that many would pay *now*, only the industry is set up to try and force them not to. A quick personal example: I missed The Predator at theatres but have drawn it for this month's random assigned monthly viewing in a movie game I take part in. No cinema anywhere near me is still showing it, but I'm not allowed to pay for a streamed version until it's released in January. I *would* pay now, but I have to wait, by which time this month's contest will be long over and I'll probably have plenty of post-Christmas backlog of various media to go through so I'll waiting till it's available cheap or on a sub service I already pay for. I'm here literally wanting to pay money, but it's being refused.
But... I could easily pirated the film if I were so inclined. I'm something of a completist and would be fascinated to see if they delve into the film's troubled production history or include some good stuff on the extra features, so chances are high that I would buy the film after watching it anyway. But, why make the effort if they're refusing my money, when I can just forfeit this month's challenge and watch one of the backlog of films I already own?
Once again, it's not the fact that the pirated version is available that's the root cause of problems...
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Don't buy it
Don't steal it
If it's overpriced and worthless just ignore it.
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That means I can ignore all those books you allegedly wrote, then.
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Just like consumers are free to ignore online reviews of attorneys that link those attorneys to reveal connections that otherwise might have been missed.
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Like all internet cowards you have quite the mouth.
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As for the anonymous coward, they have to make stuff up and run their mouths while hiding behind montiors to debate, just like that coward Masnick hides behind them. He's a public figure so scrutiny comes with the territory.
Sites which allow hate speech are being de-platformed, btw.
Now to get back on topic, anyone who doesn't value someone's work is free not to consume it. if they steal it, they should expect legal consequences.
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Legal consequences? Tanya Andersen says hi.
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You’re right though. We both know there’s not enough Viagra in the world to allow you tiny dick to wake up again.
What’s your real name JoHNny boy?
Thought so you fucking coward.
Come make some more empty threats I haven’t laughed quite hard enough tonight.
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You are an anonymous coward too, by the way, even if you're apparently trying to distinguish your posts by making a typo that any self-proclaimed author should be thoroughly ashamed of. If there's no login associated, you are an anonymous coward. One too afraid to back his claims up, and thus worse than those who have made no such claims to authority.
"anyone who doesn't value someone's work is free not to consume it"
Once again, name yourself so that we can avoid your crappy products, then both sides will be happy. Nobody here will steal from you because they know what to avoid, and the rest of us don't accidentally feed such a trolling fool.
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The real coward is Masnick, letting anonymous cowards grind his axe.
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letting anonymous cowards grind his axe
Shrieked the pseudonym.
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Like I said, there is already police involvement.
Even without law enforcement, there will be lots of publicity once a full investigation is complete. I'm very patient.
The last stunt pulled on here may not even be within the protection of Section 230, which is an affirmative defense.
Whoever impersonated meon here is going to live to regret it, as will whoever enabled it.
I did not start this.
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If you think the court system is going to bend over backwards because an Internet pseudonym had his feelings hurt - well, more power to you. Whatever helps the gnomes in your head go away.
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Will the real John Smith please stand up?
Oh no the last thing we need are the internet police and lots of publicity about a thin skinned prick. Jeez I wonder if there’s a police report with your real name on it? Will it come out when everyone is paying attention? Who knows if some clever clogs has been found the research while you been running your mouth off. Goodness me that would be unfortunate.
No one “impersonated” you fucking numpty. That was the real John Smith.
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If you really expect me to believe you called the police over someone insulting you on the Internet, well…not only can I believe it, I choose to laugh at that admission to show you just how pitiful it truly is.
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Like we said, we await the proof that you refuse to post for all of your claims.
"Whoever impersonated meon here is going to live to regret it, as will whoever enabled it."
YOU enabled it by posting anonymously, you twat. If you created an account, people wouldn't;'t be able to mock your idiocy by posting under your name. Plus, as you've admitted before, it's not even your own name to begin with.
Did that meeting with police end with them laughing hearting, I wonder? It wasn't *with* you if so.
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I'm sure you're all going to be behind bars for something! I'm not sure what the crime is here, but there's definitely a crime going on. I can tell because I am an expert in these things, you see.
I will kill Techdirt because it disagrees with my views, and then once it is dead I will feel sad and lonely because I will have nowhere to spout off and be yelled at and allow me to feel like a victim of something.
I am totally John Smith and not someone just typing the name John Smith in to the name field.
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I am totally John Smith and not someone just typing the name John Smith in to the name field.
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I am John Spartacus!
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Please, people, consider the likelihood that the poster is, really and truly in a clinical sense, mentally ill. I'd recommend searching the "popehat" site (often recommended here for other reasons) for the phrase "mental illness". The site has at least one regular blogger and one regular troll who who are, more or less successfully, dealing with mental illness.
This poster may not be able to stop the (admittedly wonkers) posts so long as he gets so much of some kind of attention thereby. Y'all and youse who are sane, please exercise the self-control he can't.
Last week in the U.S. there were two "mass murder" attempts--one, by the way, appearing from each side of the political spectrum. The problem wasn't politics, but deeply damaged personalities, isolated from society by their own mental weakness, and able to re-contact society only through mutual hatred.
When some nutjob goes obsessively off like this--please consider the possibility that it's the only contact he has with society.... It really doesn't matter whether he's picked Jews, or pirates, or international corporations, or caucasian men, or refugees, or little green aliens from Sagittarius, as his obsession. Discuss something else....as if it were so much more important than the obsession.
Downvote without reply, if there's too much reflected self-loathing in the post. That's a very good way of saying "your obsession, whatever merit it may have, isn't relevant in this conversation." The expressed contempt doesn't need to go both ways.
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Nina Paley was right. Copyright is brain damage.
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I don't think that's what he's saying, no.
I believe he's responding to the article describing Husic as "a member of government" and saying that in a parliamentary system, "the government" refers to the majority, not the opposition. Husic would not be referred to as a member of "the government" in Australia. At least, such is my understanding.
(In the US, we don't make that distinction; the majority and minority party -- as well as the executive and judicial branches -- are all considered "the government".)
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said before..
its more failure of the corps NOT keeping up with tech..
But its also More stupid, as OUR own Corps are running around the World, making trade agreements that LOCK them into OUR LAWS..or worse..
It USEd to be that every nation had its OWN RULE/regulations.. and agencies that they complied to..
And Laws from another nation, didnt have any backing..
NOW the copyrights in the USA are in INDIA..and they cant use our music or anyone elses.. When before there WAS NO protections and things worked VERY WELL..
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