Movie Studios Jump In Late: Sue LimeWire And Demand Cash From Dead Site

from the the-new-business-model? dept

Limewire is long dead and buried as a file sharing platform, and with the company settling the lawsuit filed against it by the major record labels for $105 million (down from the many trillions it had originally said it deserved), you might think that the legal shenanigans were long over. Apparently, someone in the MPAA just woke up to the fact that this might be a way to get some easy cash to pump into its next lobbying campaign, and has just now sued Limewire as well, demanding cash for any of its files that were traded. Of course, a bunch of indie record labels also sued, so it appears that lots of those who chose not to innovate are now trying to feed off of what's left of Limewire's carcass. It does make you wonder, of course, what made the movie studios wait so damn long. Of course, isn't that just like Hollywood? Rather than do something original, it just does a "remake" of something someone else already did?

Filed Under: copyright, file sharing, lawsuit
Companies: limewire, mpaa

CreativeAmerica Literally Resorts To Buying Signatures

from the grassroots! dept

Remember CreativeAmerica? This is the slickly produced operation that claims to be a "grassroots" organization in favor of SOPA and PIPA... but which is actually funded by the major studios, staffed by former MPAA employees, and has had all the major studios directly pushing employees and partners to sign up for the program -- even to the point of threatening to take away business if they don't sign.

This is also the group that was caught copying an anti-SOPA activism letter, and using the exact same words as if it was written by themselves (I guess they're fine with plagiarism). It's also been caught using funny math to pump up its tiny number of supporters.

In December, we joked that CreativeAmerica had resorted to buying support, after it released a big (and expensive) advertising campaign all over TV and on some big screens in Times Square. Not exactly a "grass roots" operation.

Either way, it appears the group has gone more direct now: to the point that it's literally paying people for signatures. I've received very credible evidence, that a consulting firm hired by CreativeAmerica is now offering to pay people to get signatures on CreativeAmerica's petition. The following email was forwarded to me, with some details redacted to protect privacy:

the organization I am doing work for is Creative America, which is a grassroots organization that is working to stop foreign rogue websites from illegally distributing American content such as books, music, films, etc.... These specific websites costs the U.S. and the 2.2 million middle class industry workers $5.5 billion in wages and hundreds of thousands of jobs. Your job would be just collecting signatures from whoever is interested in signing up for updates. A newsletter may come once a month and anyone can unsubscribe if they don’t want it. We don’t care if they do; all I care about is getting initial signups.

The hours are flexible and we will pay you $1/signature, so if you collect 100 signatures a week, we would pay you $100/week. We will also pay for you to go to local film festivals in the area (SXSW, Austin Film Festival, etc.). We are also taking as many people as possible, so if you have some friends who are interested in doing it we can take them as well. Let me know your thoughts....

This raises even more questions about the already anemic number of people supporting CreativeAmerica and its pro-SOPA, pro-PIPA, MPAA-driven agenda. As the email makes clear, they're willing to pay as many people as possible to get signatures to make the group look larger than it is. That's pretty crazy. I think we can be pretty sure that the millions of people who spoke out against SOPA/PIPA did so without someone paying them $1 per call or email.

Filed Under: astroturfing, buying support, copyright, grassroots, pipa, protect ip, sopa
Companies: creativeamerica, mpaa

Hollywood Gets To Party With TPP Negotiators; Public Interest Groups Get Thrown Out Of Hotel

from the yeah,-that-doesn't-look-corrupt-at-all dept

We've been talking about the ridiculous levels of secrecy around the TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) agreement -- a trade agreement that is being designed to push through basically everything that Hollywood wants in international copyright law. Last week, we mentioned that various civil society groups were planning to hold an open meeting about TPP in the same hotel where the negotiations were being held (in Hollywood, of course).

However, it appears that once the USTR found out about this, it got the hotel to cancel the group's reservation at the hotel. According to Sean Flynn, the Associate Director of the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property (PIJIP) at American University:

The public interest briefing was booked last week and advertised to all delegations, including the host USTR. An hour after the invitation was sent, we received a cancellation of our venue by the hotel. The cancellation by by Sophie Jones, Event Sales Manager, Sofitel Los Angeles stated:

“I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news but unfortunately we will not be able to move forward with your luncheon for Tuesday January 31st. It was brought to my attention that we have a confidential group in house and we will not be allowing any other groups in the meeting space that day. Again, my apologies for the late notice. Hopefully we can work together in the near future.”

Okay. I guess if no other groups are allowed in the meeting space that day it's understandable. Except... oops... someone in the group confirmed that the hotel was lying:

After receiving the cancellation, members of an advocacy organization called the hotel and were able to book a room for a claimed private event not related to the TPP. Apparently only TPP-related events were banned from the hotel at the request of an unidentified party. USTR is serving as the host of this meeting.

Well, at least MPAA execs were similarly blocked from access to the negotiators, too, right? Nope:

The film industry did not have similar problems – they hosted a multi-hour tour of 20th Century Fox Studies last night, led by a representative of the studio’s government relations office.

Yeah. This is what corruption looks, smells and tastes like. And the MPAA still doesn't get it. They still think that backroom deals like this are fine and that the public won't notice or care. That's quite a bet to make, and one they may regret.

Filed Under: acta, hollywood, secrecy, sopa, tpp, trade negotiations
Companies: mpaa

White House Says It Can't Comment On Possible Chris Dodd Investigation

from the no-surprise-there dept

This isn't a huge surprise, but following the popularity of the petition asking the White House to investigate Chris Dodd (after Dodd's own statements suggesting that he expects politicians who get Hollywood money to pass Hollywood's preferred bills no questions asked), the White House has officially stated that it can't comment on the matter. As per the terms of the White House's "We the People" petition site, it can refuse to address issues that deal with law enforcement:

consistent with the We the People Terms of Participation and our responses to similar petitions in the past, the White House declines to comment on this petition because it requests a specific law enforcement action.

I'm sure the White House has no interest in getting involved in this in any way, and that if it was actually investigating any of this activity, it wouldn't want to talk about it publicly until later. Still, I think the petition -- and the publicity it got -- did serve a key purpose: to highlight the public's disgust with the MPAA's form of crony capitalism, and the hubris of folks like Chris Dodd who think that as long as they donate enough money, politicians should be working for the MPAA, rather than the public.

Filed Under: bribery, chris dodd, petition, white house
Companies: mpaa

MPAA Exec Admits: 'We're Not Comfortable With The Internet'

from the and-it-shows dept

There have been a ton of post mortems about the whole SOPA/PIPA fight, with many trying to figure out where and how the MPAA "went wrong." After all, this is a group that is very used to getting its way inside DC. And it got slaughtered. We've already discussed our thoughts on why the MPAA failed, but what stuns me is how every time someone from the MPAA opens their mouth, they seem to make the situation worse by demonstrating just how tone deaf they are to the online community and what their concerns were. Whether it's just blaming Google or thinking that the solution is more backroom dealing, each response just sounds like a group of people who are playing a different game, and still don't realize the rules have changed.

The Hollywood Reporter's version of the postmortem is a good read, even though it covers much the same ground as many other such recaps. Still, it's worth reading to get a good feel for Hollywood's view of the world. But the really stunning part is the quote from Michael O'Leary, the MPAA's number two guy, who makes what may be the most tone-deaf statement we've seen to date in this fight:

The MPAA's O'Leary concedes that the industry was out-manned and outgunned in cyberspace. He says the MPAA "is [undergoing] a process of education, a process of getting a much, much greater presence in the online environment. This was a fight on a platform we're not at this point comfortable with, and we were going up against an opponent that controls that platform."

Yes, even when he tries to say that they're trying to learn about that confounded internet thingy, he sounds ridiculous and dismissive. But the real point is his inadvertent admission within that statement: the MPAA (and the rest of "old" Hollywood) simply "is not comfortable with" the internet. And that's really what SOPA and PIPA were about. Rather than trying to understand this new platform, and learn from the many entertainers who do get the internet, they did what the MPAA does and simply tried to regulate that which they don't understand and fear.

Furthermore, even more ridiculous is the end of that sentence: "an opponent that controls that platform." As the article makes clear, he means Google. Which shows that he still doesn't get it. First, Google didn't lead the protests. It came late to the game, after the grassroots had already taken off with this stuff and run with it. But, more to the point, contrary to what O'Leary and the MPAA seem to believe: Google does not control the internet. No one does.

This, of course, explains why the MPAA wants to "negotiate" with Google these days. But that's not going to work. The folks on the internet don't want a backroom deal, whether it's negotiated by Google or someone else. Either way, this suggests that the MPAA is desperately in need of new leadership. They need leaders who don't try to regulate that which they admit they don't understand. They need leaders who aren't so clueless as to think that Google controls the internet (or that Google is somehow "the enemy"). And, really, most important, they need leaders who recognize and understand that the internet is their future too -- and any leadership needs to not fear the internet, but understand it and learn to embrace it. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem likely that the MPAA is going to find such leadership any time soon.

Filed Under: control, michael o'leary, pipa, protect ip, protectionism, sopa
Companies: mpaa

An Infographic Showing Just How Frequently Hollywood Has Cried Wolf About 'Piracy'

from the sky-is-falling,-the-sky-is-falling dept

A few folks have sent over this excellent infographic about the frequency with which Hollywood insists every new technology will destroy the movie business. It's based on the list that Steve Blank put together of Hollywood being totally wrong on lots of things: Figured some folks here might appreciate this...

Filed Under: crying wolf, history, hollywood, infringement, piracy, sopa
Companies: mpaa

Once More, With Feeling: It Wasn't Silicon Valley Or Google That Stopped SOPA/PIPA, It Was The Internet

from the wake-up-folks dept

Over the last week, after SOPA and PIPA were put on life support, we've noticed an incredibly tone deaf response from the supporters of these bills, lashing out at the wrong parties and trying to figure out where to place the blame. The usual target has been "the tech industry," by which they usually mean "Google." That's why the MPAA's Chris Dodd wants to sit down with "tech companies" at the White House to discuss this. It's why the head of the movie theaters' lobbying group, NATO, brushes this whole thing off as Google "flexing" its muscles. As we've said all along, that not only misses the point, and is totally tone deaf to what happened, but it pretty much guarantees the wrong response from supporters of the bill.

Larry Downes has a great piece over at Forbes making this point and tracing back who really "stopped" SOPA and PIPA (full disclaimer: Downes gives me unnecessarily nice billing in the piece, providing too much credit for my early coverage of the bills). The key point that he makes is that this wasn't about "tech companies" or "Google" rising up -- but about internet users. And until the bills' supporters understand this, they're going to make the same mistakes over and over again:

The sponsors of SOPA and PIPA don’t even know who stopped them cold. But supporters of the proposed laws are retrenching anyway, preparing to launch a new assault on an enemy it hasn’t identified.

Given both their arrogance and ignorance, it goes without saying that the content industries are unlikely to avoid similar catastrophes in the future, let alone find a way to work collaboratively with a political force they don’t know—or believe–exists.

This is the message that many people are trying to get out there, and which keeps getting dismissed. Perhaps an even stronger point was made by the many, many people "in Hollywood" who came out against the bill as well. Take a look at what the Future of Music Coalition had to say on the matter, highlighting that anyone who thinks this is "Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley" is missing the point in a big bad way.

Unfortunately, some folks seem to be missing that point entirely, and are clinging to the idea that the SOPA/PIPA kerfluffle was simply Big Content vs. Silicon Valley.

We beg to differ.

Among the millions of people who voiced concerns about the scope and application of these bills were many copyright owners. We’re talking tens of thousands of arts and culture reps and even individual artists like MGMT, Trent Reznor, Amanda Palmer, Jason Mraz, Zoe Keating and more. What does this tell us? That a lot of folks with skin in the game are uncomfortable with Washington trade groups like the MPAA and RIAA claiming to represent their interests.

This isn't about "Hollywood vs. Silicon Valley." This is about "the internet" vs. the old way that things were done (artificial scarcity, backrooms and gatekeepers). Misunderstanding that key point will lead to the same mistakes again and again. Understanding this presents a clear path forward.

Filed Under: internet, pipa, silicon valley, sopa
Companies: google, mpaa

Hollywood Astroturf Group Releases Ad Saying It Needs SOPA To Shut Down Megaupload... Five Days After Megaupload Is Shut Down

from the you-guys-make-me-laugh dept

CreativeAmerica, the astroturfing group that pretends it's a "grassroots" operation -- but which is funded by the major Hollywood studios and run by former studio/MPAA execs -- is amazingly inept at communicating with the public, especially considering these guys are supposed to be communications experts. Remember, this is the same group who, while fighting for stronger laws against copying, flat out copied the email of anti-SOPA activists, and changed a few words to push their own pro-SOPA message.

Their latest move is even more bizarre. The group is touting its latest slickly produced propaganda film, insisting that SOPA/PIPA are needed for a variety of reasons -- almost none of which are true. It throws out the bogus claim of jobs being at risk, even though the evidence shows otherwise. But where it gets totally ridiculous is that the video focuses mostly on Megaupload and Kim Dotcom/Schmitz. The point of focusing on Megaupload? To claim that it can't be reached under existing law. Seriously. It talks about Megaupload for a while (claiming that it brings in $300 million per year -- which turns out to be 10x the actual number, by the way) and then says:

US law enforcement is only permitted to shut down US-based IP addresses. Overseas sites, like Megaupload and Megavideo, and the Swedish-based Pirate Bay, are out of reach.

Yes. And they're releasing this video five whole days after the US government showed that existing laws actually do allow them to reach Megaupload and shut it down. So, um, why do we need these new laws again?

Seriously, the video shows the level of lies that CreativeAmerica and the MPAA will spread to try to pass new, even broader laws. What's stunning is how blatant they are about it, releasing this video even after events from a week ago already proved it wrong.

Furthermore, almost everything else in that sentence is wrong, beyond just the idea that Megaupload was supposedly out of reach of US law enforcement. Current law enforcement can seize US domains, which are different from IP addresses. And, even more ridiculously, in the video, right before they claim that US law enforcement can't reach foreign sites... they show a clip of TVShack.net -- a UK-based site that the government seized and shut down (and is now trying to extradite its founder, student Richard O'Dwyer).

Why must CreativeAmerica lie? Perhaps because the facts just aren't on its side.

The video has a number of other problems. It relies heavily on Erik Barnett, Deputy Director for ICE, regularly seen in various press releases about ICE's program of illegally censoring websites. It really makes you wonder why a government official is appearing in a video for a lobbying group trying to pass new laws. Perhaps it's not illegal, but it certainly raises serious questions about the cozy relationship between ICE and the MPAA. Barnett has a history of being less than truthful about ICE activities. Last summer, you may remember, he flat out lied, in claiming that none of the sites seized by ICE were challenging the seizures, when he knew that a bunch of sites had already brought up challenges.

Now Barnett is claiming that this program of seizing domains without any due process is a huge success because they seized "the nine most popular content theft sites out there." Even ignoring the misuse of the word "theft" (shouldn't law enforcement know how to use the word properly?), this is laughable. I mean, elsewhere in the video, they claim that TPB and Megaupload are the two most popular, but they weren't seized when the video was made. Instead, what ICE seized was a bunch of hip hop blogs (that weren't even that big), including one that it held for a year before the Justice Department was forced to effectively admit that ICE totally screwed up and the domain had to be returned. Other domains are still being held in this manner as well. The fact that Barnett would flat out lie and pretend that this program of blatant censorship is some sort of big success... in an industry propaganda film, certainly raises some significant questions about ICE and how it's run these days.

The video has some other laughable moments... such as talking to Bruce Leddy, the writer/director of the film Wedding Weekend (originally called "Sing Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace" or "Shut Up And Sing"), who freaks out over the fact that his movie was available online, and is decrying all of the "losses." A couple problems with this. Wedding Weekend was apparently a terrible movie. The movie made a grand total of $15,998 on its opening weekend on 11 screens, and was out of theaters a week later, grossing a grand total of $20,903. And it wasn't because of infringement. It was because most people thought it was awful. Most of the professional reviews make it sound pretty bad, using words and phrases like "uneven," "less tolerable," "clunky narration," "one-trait characterizations," "the title is the least of the film's problems," etc. User reviews are more harsh. Over at Rotten Tomatoes one user notes:

This film is horrible. It has no redeeming features what so ever. I could criticise every single aspect of this film but I can't be bothered, it would be quicker for me to tell you about what is good about it. So here it goes, the only good thing about this film is that it has damaged the careers of everyone who worked on it. Hopefully. Never have I wanted to punch every single person on screen....

Somehow, I get the feeling that its availability online was the least of its problems. I'd be surprised if it actually got that many downloads at all. Meanwhile, we keep hearing stories of smart filmmakers embracing the internet, and giving people reasons to buy (starting with a better quality movie). He claims, "there's no recourse," but that's ridiculous. One only needs to look at the experiences of Louis CK to know that, even if your videos end up on torrent sites, if you handle it properly, you can still cash in. Leddy's failure to make a good movie and his subsequent failure to put in place a good business model is no excuse for passing a bad law with massive unintended consequences.

Still, this really shows the incredible desperation of the MPAA, though. The astroturf group it has created is really reaching in its efforts to come up with some sort of justification for SOPA/PIPA...

Filed Under: astroturfing, copyright, dhs, erik barnett, grassroots, ice, pipa, protect ip, sopa
Companies: creativeamerica, megaupload, mpaa

Elected Officials Asked To Return Hollywood Money Following Dodd's Threats

from the avoid-corruption dept

Late last week, we wrote about the ridiculous situation in which MPAA boss Chris Dodd publicly threatened elected officials who take Hollywood money, but who don't pass the laws that the MPAA wants. Of course, most people assume that everyone expects a quid pro quo, but actually stating it out loud and on television is really remarkable, and has resulted in calls for an investigation into Dodd. I'd argue that the focus should really be on the politicians. In fact, the folks over at Free Press are now calling on those in Congress to return campaign donations from Hollywood to show that Congress is not for sale:

"The MPAA is so brazen in its efforts to buy legislation with campaign cash that its leader, himself a former senator, sees nothing wrong with threatening legislators on national TV. We think it's time that Congress showed that its votes are no longer for sale. The first thing Congress must do is give back the MPAA's tainted campaign cash or give it to charity. Congress must make it clear to the world that it won’t be bullied into supporting censorship."

Of course, it's unlikely that anyone in Congress will actually do this, but it certainly would make a pretty loud and clear statement.

Filed Under: campaign finance, chris dodd, congress, corruption, donations, pipa, protect ip, sopa
Companies: mpaa

Jimmy Wales Says Chris Dodd Should Be Fired

from the you-want-abuse-of-power? dept

Chris Dodd and the MPAA have been pretty harsh on folks who protested online last week, arguing that the protesters were "corporate pawns" and that the blackouts were an "abuse of power." It appears that Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales feels otherwise. In a conference appearance he responded to the "abuse of power" claims by suggesting that the real abuse of power was Dodd threatening politicians who accept Hollywood money:

Wales argued that these transparent statements make the MPAA out to be a corrupt, Congress-buying organization. He also challenged Dodd’s assertion that Wikipedia’s decision to blackout its site in protest of SOPA, an effort Wales said was a “massive success,” constituted an abuse of power.

10 million people contacted Congress, Wales said. “That’s not an abuse of power, that’s democracy,” he said. “[Dodd] had best get used to it.”

Well, of course, to Dodd, actual democracy is an abuse of power. He prefers backroom dealing to actually letting the people out to have their say...

Filed Under: blackout, chris dodd, jimmy wales, wikipedia
Companies: mpaa, wikipedia