MPAA Joins RIAA In Having Budgets Slashed

from the obsolete-organizations-die-off dept

Following the news that the RIAA's revenue was cut dramatically in the past few years, TorrentFreak has also posted the MPAA's 2010 tax filing, showing that it, too, has taken a pretty massive beating in terms of revenue from its gatekeeper members.

In just three years the revenue generated by the anti-piracy outfit reduced from $92.8 million to $49.6 million. The decreased budget is a direct result of the major Hollywood studios cutting back on their MPAA funding. In the same period membership dues dropped from $84.7 million to $41.5 million, more than a 50% decline.

The filing (embedded below) includes some interesting tidbits. It's not at all surprising to see that the MPAA funds the Copyright Alliance, but I had not seen before that it funds ITIF. ITIF was the think tank who was the major "intellectual backer" of SOPA/PIPA. They had published the first paper that more or less suggested the approach found in SOPA/PIPA, and when the MPAA was absolutely desperate for technology "experts" who could argue that SOPA wouldn't break DNS, the only people they rolled out were ITIF staff members. It's not surprising that the MPAA funded them, but I don't recall that being disclosed anywhere previously.

Also, as with the RIAA's salaries, it's pretty ridiculous to see the MPAA complaining about being rich as proof that someone must be breaking the law, when its top execs are all making pretty large salaries. Nearly every person listed in their list of key employees/highest compensated employees is clearly way far north into the 1% of most highly compensated Americans.

And all that while its budget keeps getting slashed. Perhaps the studios are recognizing that they're better off no longer throwing good money after bad. Of course, it's noteworthy that a number of people on the list ended up leaving the MPAA. Former CEO Dan Glickman left earlier than expected, apparently due to dissatisfaction from the studio heads, and a number of others left as well. So it will be interesting when the 2011 report finally comes out to see if they studios fed money back into the MPAA once Chris Dodd was brought in.

Filed Under: budgets, failures, funding
Companies: copyright alliance, itif, mpaa, riaa

Google Is To Pink Slime As Apples Are To Airplanes

from the they're-nothing-alike dept

Copyright maximalist operation "The Copyright Alliance," purveyors of ridiculous copyright propaganda, has really topped itself with a recent blog post. It is trying to compare Google to "pink slime." You know pink slime -- the stuff that got all sorts of attention a few months ago as being a somewhat disgusting looking output of excess beef products all mashed up together and then reused in other foodstuffs. What does one have to do with the other? Well, according to the absolute geniuses at The Copyright Alliance:

Among the reasons I believe companies like Google are so hostile not only to copyright but to other regulations, is that their revenue and aspirations are anathema to distinguishing value (prime meat) from muck (MSM). To the contrary, their business models are literally based on grinding up all content into a homogenous slurry in order to turn billions of clicks into billions of dollars. To companies like Google, torrent sites, and many aggregators, everything goes into the big, digital grinder — a John Irving novel, some bits of junk journalism, a few stupid cat videos, Lawrence of Arabia, several thousand mail-order brides, a hard-news report from Central Africa, trafficked children, an episode of Downton Abbey, counterfeit pharmaceuticals, The White Album, years of scientific research, and of course several jiggling pounds of college chicks shaking their booties at webcams. It’s all just ones and zeroes, right? It’s digital pink slime.

I've now read this paragraph a dozen times. And my only conclusion is the person who wrote it has never used Google or, perhaps, any search engine. Because it gets the story exactly, 100%, completely backwards. It's not reality. It's the opposite of reality. Up is down, black is white, day is night kind of backwards.

The whole point of any search engine is to distinguish the value from the muck. The reason Google became such a huge phenomenon when it first came out (long after people had declared the search engine wars "dead") was that Google did a much better job finding what you wanted. How does it do that? By properly finding the value and surfacing it at the top while pushing down the muck. A search engine that doesn't distinguish the value from the muck is no search engine at all. It's a random website generator.

Search engines care deeply about finding the best value. Hell, just a week or so ago, Google explained how it had made 39 changes to its search in May alone, with the goal of helping people better find value out of muck. There may be all sorts of reasons to dislike or distrust Google. The company is very big, and has lots of info on you, which raises plenty of privacy concerns. But to claim that it wants to homogenize all content and that it's against their best interest to distinguish value from muck makes zero sense. If it were true, we'd immediately see tons of other search engines and do the exact opposite: provide more value and take over the market (just like Google did a decade ago).

I'm all for discussions about copyright issues, but can we at least keep them in the realm of reality, rather than fantasyland?

Filed Under: aggregation, media, pink slime, search engine
Companies: copyright alliance, google

Senate Lets Copyright Lobby Set Up Shop In Senate Building During PROTECT IP Debate

from the how-about-some-bias-with-your-coffee? dept

This is pretty ridiculous. Just as the Senate is debating the PROTECT IP bill, the Copyright Alliance, a lobbying group created and funded by a bunch of the big legacy copyright maximalist companies, apparently got to set up an "educational display" in the Senate Russell Building Rotunda. The Copyright Alliance has no shame about how it's using this "educational display" to influence the vote:

The exhibit is an opportunity to showcase for lawmakers and visitors to the U.S. Capitol Complex the importance of copyright to creators across America, by focusing on people behind the lens, sharing stories about the images, and helping viewers understand the investment and commitment made by photographers capturing our nation’s many stories.

I'm curious if the Senate allows such other totally biased parties to set up exhibits like that during debate on other bills. How about pharmaceutical lobbyists setting up an "educational" nursing station in the Senate, just to show the "importance" of protecting pharma. And I'm sure the banks would love to set up an "educational" bank vault in the rotunda during Wall Street reform hearings. How could anyone in the Senate see such a biased effort as being okay?

Filed Under: copyright, lobbyists, protect ip, senate
Companies: copyright alliance

Copyright Alliance Takes On The Aaron Swartz Case With A Post Full Of Bad Analogies

from the again-with-the-'copying-is-exactly-like-stealing'? dept

As the Aaron Swartz saga continues to play out and more information rolls in, the question has been raised as to why no allegations of copyright infringement have surfaced. All this discussion of "theft," especially in relation to digital "goods" usually brings the copyright patrol right up to the virtual doorstep in less time than it takes to say "fair use."

Well, our wishes have been granted (apparently). Copyright Alliance has posted its take on the situation, and it's bringing all the tried-and-patently-false analogies it could fit into a misguided attack post -- a post that still somehow manages to be about "copyright" without actually uttering the word "copyright."

Let's get started. After running the down the list of charges, Sandra Aistars takes on Demand Progress' now-famous response to the indictment, in which Executive Director David Segal compared Swartz's actions to "allegedly checking out too many books from the library:"

Really? It is in fact nothing like checking out books at the library. Checking out books at the library involves walking through the front door (or legitimately signing on online) and presenting a library card (or legitimate online credentials). This is more like sneaking through a library window in the middle of the night and making off with the entire non-fiction section.

Really? It is in fact nothing like making off with the entire non-fiction section. Even the "sneaking in through the library window" analogy is bad. Swartz accessed these documents from a university licensed to access the JSTOR system. This is more like Swartz walking through the front door and making copies of everything on the shelves and replacing everything exactly where he found it so that other patrons (and certain domineering librarians) would have no trouble finding what they needed.

Aistars then goes on to discuss the troubling aspects (as she sees it) of Swartz's actions, especially in relation to his work with Demand Progress:

If the allegations prove true, the episode is revealing in numerous respects. First, of the mindset of those who engage in intellectual property theft. The indictment states that Swartz "intended to distribute a significant portion of JSTOR's archive of digitized journal articles through one or more file-sharing sites." Sound familiar? This is no different than those who steal other kinds of copyrighted works and monetize them through advertising or through subscription fees, only in this instance the victims are a non-profit and educational institution.

Oh, but it is different. For starters, these digitized journal articles are locked up and provided only to certain members of the public at extremely high prices. Considering that the oft-stated purpose of copyright is to "promote the progress of science and the useful arts," it makes absolutely no sense to keep these valuable works tied up behind academic paywalls.

The other difference is that freeing these documents would not have been done for a profit, but rather to spread this wealth of information for the benefit of many, rather than keeping it in the hands of the few holding the keys.

The next part of her argument is ludicrous speculation, especially as Aistars wanders away from Swartz and begins attacking "infringers" as a whole:

These individuals are not "setting information free" as they like to proclaim. And they are not "removing the middlemen." They are flat out stealing the work of others and using it to prop up their own commercial endeavors. It is the perfect example of the unapologetic belief that what's mine is mine, and what's yours is also mine, and if I can get some venture capitalist to cash me out for millions or billions of dollars based on the traffic a library comprised of someone else's lifetime of work has generated to my site, so much the better.

But nothing has been stolen. The university still has all its documents. So do the gatekeepers. To assume Swartz was looking to profit from this interaction is to assign him a motive that fits your particular agenda, and furthermore, the only reason Aistars assumes this is because she assumes this of all infringers. In the Copyright Alliance view of the world, people only infringe for profit. This narrow view extends to the very creative artists Copyright Alliance claims to represent, who apparently only create in order to make money.

She follows this assumption up with claims that stray even further from reality, suggesting that to make this information "free" would undermine JSTOR's efforts and that, without JSTOR's stranglehold on academic documents, further academic research would slow considerably, if not come to a complete halt:

What JSTOR has done by investing in, developing, publishing and accumulating this research in a searchable form, and what MIT has done by paying license fees for the subscription, ensures there is more research, more analysis, and more scientific, peer-reviewed information available to benefit all of us.

I'm sorry but I'm not able to follow that money trail. JSTOR scans documents and sells them to others. Almost all writing for these published documents is done for free. If it's already being done for free, how does freely distributing this information remove the impetus to do more? Add to that the fact that most research is government-funded, and it looks like JSTOR's only true purpose is to stand between the public and the research they didn't actually "invest" in. It's just another intellectual monopoly dressed up in an educator's costume.

If you read Aistar's post, you'll notice that copyright infringement is never mentioned specifically, but the arguments remain the same, despite the specifics of Swartz's indictment. All the old favorites make an appearance: If someone copies something, it's as good as being gone forever. People only copy to profit from it. If this copying is unchecked, no one will have a reason to make originals, etc. The dance around the term "copyright" is delicate, but the partners still look the same.

Filed Under: aaron swartz, cfaa, copyright, demand progress, hacking
Companies: copyright alliance

The Copyright Alliance Blog Takes On Someone Who Wrote Something

from the afterparty-to-be-held-at-the-'tomb-of-the-unknown-writer' dept

A short while ago, we were openly discussing how not to hold an open discussion in the free air of the internet. It was a highly editorial post, stating my (and apparently, others') disagreement with the view that the "high road" is composed of off-hand insults and closed comment threads.

With that in mind, I bring you another blogging faux pas, courtesy of the Copyright Alliance blog. In a post titled "Setting the Record Straight on PROTECT IP," Sandra Aistars takes aim at an article posted elsewhere on the web:

Since the introduction of the PROTECT IP Act we frequently see articles and blog posts that severely mischaracterize and make false assertions about the legislation. For example, today we noticed a piece that claimed that the PROTECT IP bill would be a detriment to entrepreneurship. As an organization that represents individual artists and creators, who are themselves entrepreneurs and small businesses, we share the author's concern for entrepreneurship and economic growth. The creative sector in the United States, which is comprised largely of people you would consider the copyright owner next door, accounts for 11.1 million jobs across the country. Unfortunately his portrayal of the PROTECT IP bill is factually inaccurate in virtually every respect.

This is quoted verbatim. If you haven't noticed by now, there are no links to the original article or any mention of who wrote it. Considering this lack of information, Aistars could be talking about something her neighbor wrote and shoved under her door for all we know. In this day and age, I don't see how you can expect to tackle someone else's arguments without at least mentioning their last name.

It's a shame, too. Aistar's post does a fairly good job laying out her disagreements (even if I don't agree with all of her disagreements) in a very easy-to-follow point-by-point argument. (Although, she does spend more time than is needed pounding home the point about the bill addressing only sites dedicated to infringement, which according to the beneficiaries of this law include archive.org, Vimeo, Soundcloud and 50 Cent's personal website.) The problem is, no one knows who she's arguing with and even worse, nobody can verify whether this mystery person made the claims she's attributing to them.

It would seem that linking to the original article would be second nature... unless you're trying to avoid people actually reading what you're arguing with.

If you're confident in your argument, why wouldn't you link to the article? Techdirt disagrees with pretty much everything and yet, every post links to the source of disagreement. But the more Aistar calls out "the author" as a nameless, linkless being, the less inclined most people are to believe that her piece is even-handed.

If you haven't Googled up the solution to this "mystery writer," I'll go ahead and provide you with the link that the Copyright Alliance apparently couldn't get coded in by presstime:

"Blacklisting Entrepreneurs: PROTECT IP Could Harm Web Startups" by Paul Kedrosky 

Of course, it's no use rushing to the Copyright Alliance blog to ask why this was handled this way. The comments are closed and pingbacks have been politely asked to leave. Ironically enough, Copyright Alliance did take the opportunity to exercise their one-way rights and leave a comment on Kedrosky's post, which takes this whole situation past "obtuse" and into "egregious." Since I told myself that I'd be very even-handed in dealing with this bizarre breach of internet etiquette, I'm ending this post now and opening it up for discussion. Have at it.

 

Filed Under: blog, copyright, linking
Companies: copyright alliance

Entertainment Industry Propaganda Organization Kicks Off Hilarious Astroturf Letter Writing Campaign

from the good-luck-with-that,-pat dept

The "Copyright Alliance" is a propaganda organization put together by the entertainment industry, pretending to focus on "the rights of creators," but which has always been focused on strengthening the monopolies of the middlemen (the same folks who quite frequently screw over the creators). Recently, the Copyright Alliance came out with its latest astroturfing attempt, with an automatic letter generator that will pop out cloned letters that the Copyright Alliance itself will send to President Obama and Vice President Biden. The tone of the letter is rather silly, as it seems to suggest that Obama and Biden haven't been supporting the entertainment industry's position all along -- and that there's some huge legislative movement afoot to wipe out artists' rights. It is, as William Patry notes, yet another attempt by the entertainment industry to create a folk devil and a moral panic in an attempt to further prop up its business model. Patry, not surprisingly, takes little time ripping the letter to shreds:

It is very hard not to laugh in the face of such ugliness and to wonder where the reason is in such dysfunctional nonsense, but what came to my mind was Helen Reddy's 1972 anthem, which began: "I am woman, hear me roar/In numbers too big to ignore." The moral panic in the Alliance's letter is that the very essence of what makes America America is threatened by evil forces that supposedly have launched an assault demanding that Helen Reddy and her 11 million colleagues give their works away for free, that the evil doers be permitted to have their way with the vestal virgins of America's copyright sweethearts. This is of course complete baloney. Name one piece of pending legislation that would accomplish what the Alliance claims. Name one lawsuit currently pending that would accomplish what the Alliance claims. There are none.

Indeed. At first, I had considered setting up our own "letter generator" in response, highlighting the problems of stricter copyright law, the vast and ever growing evidence of how copyright law is misused by the very organizations that back the Copyright Alliance to prop up obsolete business models rather than innovate. On top of that, such a letter would highlight all of the creative content creators who have been embracing new technologies for creating, promoting and distributing content along with embracing new business models and finding that they work better than the old models.

But, honestly, I'd like to believe that our President and Vice President aren't swayed by a bunch of form letters from an industry propagandist, and that, instead, people would be inspired to write their own letters highlighting the creativity that new technology has allowed -- and how some legacy industries have repeatedly abused copyright law to stifle such innovation and creativity many times over. Luckily, Jonathan Melber has a nice prototype of just such an open letter, where he highlights our cultural heritage, and how content creators regularly build on the works of others in creating something new and wonderful -- but how that tradition is often blocked by an industry that doesn't like outsiders trying to route around its control.

Separately, the Copyright Alliance should be ashamed of itself for blatantly lying with statistics. It tries to claim the right to speak for $1.52 trillion of the nation's GDP. This is pure farce. It's based on a study done by (you guessed it) the industry itself in the form of the International Intellectual Property Alliance, which is yet another propaganda/lobbying organization made up of the other lobbying/propaganda groups representing different industries: including the MPAA, the RIAA, the BSA and the ESA among others. In other words, hardly an unbiased source.

The methodology of the study is pretty laughable. It's based on WIPO's stated methodology, which is basically "count absolutely everything that even remotely touches on copyright" and then assume that every bit of that revenue is because of strong copyright laws. Hell, by the methodology used in the report, all of the revenue we earn here -- despite all the content on this site being public domain -- gets credited to "the copyright industry." It's such a typical DC-insider move: use totally bogus stats to bolster a weak argument. But that's the game that the Copyright Alliance has played since its inception. Just defining all those industries as "copyright industries" is misleading, because it implies that their revenue is due to copyright. But it's much worse than that. Companies that make furniture or jewelry are specifically listed as being a part of "the copyright industry" for purposes of this calculation. Yes, because without copyright, no one would be making furniture, right?

Even more amusing -- that same report shows continued and strong growth in what it defines as the copyright industries. So much for that massive attack destroying American society, huh? And this highlights the intellectual dishonesty of the Copyright Alliance and its backers. For the sake of making themselves look "big" they have to throw everything and the kitchen sink into their estimates and show that it's "growing." But for the sake of demonizing anyone who might seek to stop abuse of copyright laws, they have to claim that those industries are under constant attack, even as they grow to record levels. Propaganda at its finest.

Filed Under: copyright, propaganda
Companies: copyright alliance

RIAA Still Pretending It Represents Musicians

from the feed-a-musician,-support-those-who-ditch-the-RIAA dept

The somewhat redundant new copyright lobbying organization, The Copyright Alliance (who still doesn't seem to actually understand copyright) held a little dog and pony show in Washington DC last week. It didn't sound all that well attended from the News.com description, and even copyright's best friend, Rep. Howard Berman skipped the show, despite being a scheduled speaker. Perhaps even Berman has noticed the shifting tide. However, other than a sad display of solidarity, perhaps the most ridiculous statement on the event came from the RIAA, who hung up a t-shirt saying "Feed a musician. Download legally." That suggests that the RIAA still wants people to believe it represents the best interests of musicians. Such a concept becomes more laughable every day, as musicians seem to be shoving each other aside to bail out on the record labels to take their chances making money without them. The RIAA has never represented the interests of musicians, and it's sad that so many politicians act as if it does. The RIAA has always represented the interests of the recording industry -- whose own interests have often involved treating musicians terribly. So if you want to feed a musician, you're better off not paying money to the RIAA -- but figuring out ways to pay for things where the money actually goes back to the musician.

Filed Under: copyright, lobbyists, musicians
Companies: copyright alliance, riaa