Of Course: New Fox Delay Means More Unauthorized Downloads Of Fox Shows

from the this-isn't-rocket-science dept

Back in July, when the Fox Network announced plans to block or delay many of its popular shows from going online, we predicted this would increase the number of unauthorized downloads. This just seemed stupid. People want to access it online and they will access it online. Why not offer it to them in an easy and convenient manner that can be monetized. Of course, when others pointed out the same thing, the geniuses at the MPAA threw a hissy fit about how even admitting that Fox's stupid business decision might increase unauthorized file sharing was the equivalent of praising "stealing."

So, um, I wonder how the MPAA's brilliant strategists will respond to the news that, in the first week of Fox's delays alone, unauthorized downloads of some of its most popular shows increased massive amounts, doubling or tripling what they were before. In fact, that article notes that many of the people viewing it through unauthorized means left comments about how they tried to watch via legal channels, but couldn't.

So I'm wondering how the folks at the MPAA might explain this. Are they going to throw another tantrum and blame "reality" for supporting file sharing? Or will someone there finally buy a clue and recognize that not providing consumers what they want is a bad business decision. I guess that would require someone at the MPAA to actually have experience in business -- but they all seem to be lawyers or political flunkies.

Filed Under: consumers, culture, downloads, fox, tv
Companies: fox, hulu, mpaa, news corp.

MPAA Calls MPAA Intellectually Dishonest For Claiming That Infringement Is Inevitable

from the talking-points dept

We've been having some fun with the MPAA's extraordinary cluelessness lately. It started with MPAA communications person Alex Swartsel bizarrely and unfairly attacking GigaOm's Janko Roettger for daring to point out that an economic downturn (combined with dumb moves by the movie industry) might lead to greater file sharing. Swartsel, a spokesperson for the MPAA, went ballistic, claiming that such a statement was intellectually dishonest and somehow condoned the practice as socially acceptable. Here's the key paragraph from Swartsel and the MPAA:

We doubt many people will subscribe to the kind of intellectual dishonesty that suggests that it’s fine – or really, that it’s inevitable – to steal as a way of saving. But it’s troubling that by suggesting that stolen content available on rogue sites and elsewhere is just another substitute good, Roettgers is tacitly arguing that content theft is legitimate and socially acceptable. Truth is, it’s neither.

And what, specifically, did Roettger say? Here's the exact quote:

The U.S. credit ratings downgrade, tumbling stocks and international instability have made not just financial analysts nervous this week. Consumers are also starting to wonder whether we’re about to enter another recession. Whenever that happens, people start to tighten their belts and cut unnecessary expenses — like paying for movies and TV shows. Add in the Netflix price hike as well as new authentication plans from broadcasters like Fox, and you’ve got yourself a perfect storm for piracy.

I don't see how that's condoning anything, really. But if Roettger is being intellectually dishonest and saying that it's fine, well, then that means that the MPAA is also intellectually dishonest and condones piracy. That's because, as TorrentFreak points out, just a couple years ago, former MPAA boss Dan Glickman said almost the exact same thing that Roettger said:

"This is a high priority issue," said Motion Picture Association of America head Dan Glickman, who expressed concern that the dire financial situation would make pirated movies more popular on the streets and online.

"If you look at the situation, the current economic crisis makes this problem much more serious than before," he told a forum.

So, if I'm reading all of this correctly -- and I pretty sure that I am -- according to the MPAA, the MPAA is being intellectually dishonest in suggesting that "it's fine -- or really, that it's inevitable -- to steal as a way of saving." Got it.

In the meantime, we're still waiting for the MPAA and Ms. Swartsel to issue an apology to Roettger, an excellent and fair reporter, who certainly doesn't deserve the MPAA's bizarre "blame the messenger and accuse him of supporting piracy" treatment.

Filed Under: alex swartsel, dan glickman, infringement, sophistry
Companies: mpaa

Dear MPAA: Stomp Your Feet And Repeat It As Many Times As You Want, But Infringement Is Not Theft

from the must-we-do-this-again dept

Ah, gotta love the MPAA and their gleeful sophistry. We wrote about how MPAA comms person and former Congressional staffer (note the revolving door...) Alex Swartsel went way, way overboard in attacking GigaOm's Janko Roettger for noting, accurately, that the entertainment industry's anti-consumer behavior, combined with a potentially worsening economy, could mean that more people switch away from authorized options for watching movies to unauthorized options. This is a pretty reasonable analysis, and it's hard to see how you could disagree with it. However, in the minds of Swartsel and the MPAA, anyone who even dares to acknowledge that unauthorized file sharing exists must be condoning the practice, and Swartsel wrote one of the more intellectually dishonest pieces we've seen in a long time, going after Roettger, pretending he was telling people that it was fine to infringe on copyrights.

We responded on a bunch of points, including Ms. Swartsel's repeated incorrect use of the words "steal" and "theft" to describe infringement. Swartsel has now responded, with a post so full of sophistry, you have to wonder if the MPAA might not be better off sending her back to remedial talking points training. It seems clear that Swartsel is jumping into a debate for which she is woefully unprepared -- though, of course that explains why the MPAA, yet again, has turned off comments on its blog. The main point of the blog post appears to be to simply repeat the words "steal" and "theft" so many times that readers are driven into submission. Of course, most people aren't stupid, though the MPAA seems to presume that's the case.

By my count, the post uses a form of "steal" six times and a form of "theft" another six times. That's a dozen incorrect uses of those two words in a mere seven paragraphs. Impressive.

Even worse, nowhere does Swartsel admit that she totally and completely overreacted and irresponsibly attacked Roettger for accurately reporting what's going on in the world. Instead, she doubles down on the this claim that merely stating what's happening means we all think that it's okay:

In other words: movie and TV theft is inevitable. Why? Because it’s easy to steal something that, in physical form, exists only as data, and easy to justify stealing it as a result? Because information wants to be free, no matter the cost it took to produce or its creators’ judgments about how best to disseminate it? Because anything is fair game once it’s on the Internet? Because if I rip a movie file off of a DVD or camcord a showing at a theater, I have created that movie with my own labor and can do whatever I want with the file, including posting it online and making money from ad sales or subscription fees? Because by stealing films and TV, or watching stolen films and TV, I’m just exercising my First Amendment rights to freedom of speech? All those are arguments we’ve heard before.

Oh gosh. Where to start? Notice how she intermixes the fact that making a copy and sharing is easy with the idea that people need to "justify" it. Poor Ms. Swartsel. No one ever shared a DVD with you? No one ever invited you over to their house to watch a TV show together? Sometimes "sharing" is just that. It's not stealing.

And, no, no one -- not me, not Roettger, not Torrentfreak -- ever attempted to "justify" the actions that are infringement. None of us said that it is "fair game." None of us said that "information wants to be free." None of us said that it's a First Amendment issue. It seems that, rather than respond to the actual points all of us raised, Swartsel and the MPAA are simply throwing out a ton of strawmen -- every false caricature she can come up with -- to describe the "scary" people who argue that maybe, just maybe, the MPAA is going about this the wrong way.

Mike Masnick wrote that we need to “adapt and deal with reality,” and actually, I think he’s right – depending on which reality we’re talking about. Is it the reality that the Internet and the explosion of mobile technology have opened up vast new ways for us to communicate with one another and for film and TV-makers to offer their work to people who want to watch it? Because as Julia blogged last month, there are “more options than ever before to get movies and TV shows online safely and legitimately” – we have a list on MPAA.org here, and the creative minds in our industry are working on even more as we speak.

And yet... and yet, as folks like Wil Wheaton recently pointed out, those efforts are still at about the 1997 level of fan friendliness. They still treat most people as if they were criminals who need to be limited and contained. For the most part, they do not offer the same level of convenience and user-friendliness of other options that are out there, even if they are illegal. Historical evidence has shown time and time again that what Swartsel thinks of as "theft" is not in any way similar to "theft," but is merely her industry's best customers expressing how they would like to be offered content.

And sometimes, indeed, the industry does get it right -- but it's usually with a lot of kicking and screaming as they're dragged there by a much more innovative tech company. Netflix, of course, is a great example. Yet, every other online movie offering is horribly limited. Things like only being able to watch a movie within a 24 hours period, forcing people to watch previews (and the silly FBI warning for something they paid for) isn't fan friendly at all. It just drives more people to unauthorized means.

And, as for Netflix, which actually does seem to be about as consumer friendly as they come (and has done quite well because of it), well, then along comes the MPAA and the Hollywood studios with plans to kill the golden goose, by doing everything possible to strangle it. They're ratcheting up the prices, they're limiting the selection (drastically). They're trying to demand further restrictions.

Honestly, it's quite easy to show that the MPAA and its member studios have done much more to drive people to infringement than any mere reporter who simply points out the reality of the market.

Is it the reality that some people do steal content online? Unfortunately, it’s clear that’s true – otherwise we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation. But do “many, many people” really intend to engage in theft just to watch a movie or TV show cheaply or for free? We doubt it, particularly if legitimate, better alternatives are available; if they know it’s wrong; and if they understand it’s not a victimless crime.

Ah, my favorite bit of sophistry, which really shows that Swartsel is somewhat new to this particular debate. Look, the industry has been screaming about "education" and "victimless crimes" for decades ("home taping is killing music!"). And it's totally bogus and everyone knows it. Even bringing it up is an admission that you have no real argument. Both significant research and basic history show that this is not an "education" issue. Telling them "file sharing is bad," doesn't change anyone's mind. And these people are more than willing to pay, as is seen time and time again by study after study after study after study.

While Swartsel and the MPAA sit back and claim "but we are offering legal options!" they're totally missing the point (again). They're not offering the legal options that people want. In some cases they are, but every time they get close, they try to make those good services worse, and drive more people to alternatives. The people are willing to pay if given a reasonable option that doesn't treat them like a criminal and put ridiculous restrictions on them.

That's not "theft," that's frustration that the industry is so clueless that it can't offer a good service after all these years.

But if what Masnick means is that we need to throw up our hands and look the other way while people who had nothing to do with making a movie or a TV show steal and profit from it, that is a reality to which we do not care to adapt, period.

In what world does "learning to adapt" mean looking the other way? Seriously, if you're going to make ridiculously false statements about my position, at least make them appear logically consistent. I'm not saying throw up your hands. I'm saying stop being stupid and start offering services that don't treat people like criminals and which actually compete on value with the services that people want. It's not that hard, but if you're going to go around calling your biggest fans criminals a dozen times in the course of seven short paragraphs, I guess it's little surprise that you wouldn't be able to comprehend such basic things.

Filed Under: alex swartsel, business models, mpaa, sharing, stealing, theft
Companies: mpaa

Stealing Isn't Saving, But Sharing Isn't Stealing

from the time-to-learn-some-economics dept

Last week we wrote about Janko Roettger's GigaOm post concerning the fact that file sharing continues to grow. We focused on how the MPAA and the RIAA might be declaring "victory" too soon. Amusingly, the MPAA's Alex Swartsel took offense to Janko's article and posted one of the organization's typically laughable responses, in which they attempt to scold Janko for his "intellectually dishonest" claim that file sharing is "socially acceptable." Let's just say that between the Swartsel and Janko, one of the two is in denial, and it's not Janko.

The part that the MPAA takes issue with is the following part from Janko's post:

The U.S. credit ratings downgrade, tumbling stocks and international instability have made not just financial analysts nervous this week. Consumers are also starting to wonder whether we’re about to enter another recession. Whenever that happens, people start to tighten their belts and cut unnecessary expenses -- like paying for movies and TV shows.... With memories of the housing slump still fresh, many people could simply return to BitTorrent and download movies for free instead of going to the movies or paying for VOD.

It's pretty clear that there is no statement of support or cheering on or anything here. Janko is simply reporting a simple fact. Some group of people will continue to find unauthorized means of accessing content a better deal than authorized offerings. I don't see how that's objectionable at all. It's a pretty easy prediction to make because who honestly doesn't think it's true?

But, to the MPAA, this is "intellectually dishonest" and the equivalent of Janko supporting "shoplifting clothing." Wow. You know what would be intellectually dishonest? Pretending that lots of people don't use file sharing would be intellectually dishonest. Pretending that a bad economy combined with dumb moves by movie studios might drive fewer people to unauthorized file sharing would be intellectually dishonest. Repeating blatant falsehoods from the MPAA would be intellectually dishonest. Comparing stealing of physical goods to someone making a copy of a digital file would be intellectually dishonest. Calling out a reporter for accurately making a point would be intellectually dishonest.

What's not intellectually dishonest is accurately reporting what's happening.

But the MPAA and Swartsel are so in denial that apparently they've decided to "shoot the messenger." This is all too typical of the MPAA. Rather than adapt and deal with reality, the folks there like to pretend the world is a very different place and will attack any messenger who shows otherwise. Honestly, Swartsel's post reads the same way an MPAA blog post would have read a decade ago if it had a blog back then. It's full of misleading or downright incorrect claims:

T-shirts and jeans aren’t made out of zeroes and ones, at least not yet. But just because movies and TV shows and songs can now be packaged and distributed as data, not just as film reels or vinyl records or DVDs, and can be acquired or distributed with a few clicks of a mouse, doesn’t mean that the labor and time and money that went into making them is any less meaningful.

No one -- especially not Janko -- has claimed that "the labor and time and money that went into making" movies is "less meaningful." Swartsel is simply changing the topic because she can't actually argue against what Janko has said -- because it's accurate. So she's pretending he said something entirely different. The fact that labor and time and money goes into something doesn't make a difference. I put "labor and time and money" into Techdirt, and then it's my job to figure out how to make a living out of it. It does me no good to sit around and say "but I worked hard -- now pay me."

No one cares how hard you worked or how much money you spent. People buy things based on the market. They buy things based on the intersection of supply and demand -- and this is an economics lesson that the MPAA and Swartsel apparently remain ignorant of.

We doubt many people will subscribe to the kind of intellectual dishonesty that suggests that it’s fine – or really, that it’s inevitable – to steal as a way of saving. But it’s troubling that by suggesting that stolen content available on rogue sites and elsewhere is just another substitute good, Roettgers is tacitly arguing that content theft is legitimate and socially acceptable.

He made no such argument, tacitly or not. I will, however, make the argument that for a very large segment of the population, it absolutely is socially acceptable. It is not socially acceptable to me. I don't engage in it myself and never have. But it's intellectually dishonest to pretend that many, many people don't find it socially acceptable. If the MPAA were really concerned about adapting to the changing market, the first step would be actually recognizing that. But that's not how the MPAA works. It works by denying reality, and then running to Congress to get them to change the laws because its member studios don't want to have to change. Tellingly, it appears that Swartsel's last job was... working for Congress.

It would be nice, just once, if the MPAA (and the RIAA) could actually be intellectually honest. If the folks there could admit some basic facts: the market has changed and many, many people find unauthorized file sharing socially acceptable. If you start at that point, and then say, "now what do we do about it?" you can come up with all sorts of productive answers. But that's not what they do at all. They just keep trying to demonize it, and don't seem to realize that every time they insist reality isn't real, people trust them even less.

Filed Under: piracy, reality, reporting, socially acceptible
Companies: mpaa

Shouldn't The Infringement Tracking System Used In New Six Strikes Program Be Open To Scrutiny?

from the nope.-it's-hidden dept

With the entertainment industry and ISPs agreeing to a "voluntary" six strikes plan, which treats users as guilty until proven innocent and takes away completely valid defenses (for example: that file is in the public domain is not a valid defense!), you would think that the very least the public could ask for is that the system used to make the accusations is open to scrutiny.

But, of course, there was no one representing the public at the negotiations, so instead, the monitoring system is shrouded in secrecy. No one will speak about it on the record. TorrentFreak has gotten off the record sources to confirm that it's going to be handled by DtecNet, which means we should expect some problems with the accusations. This is, after all, a company that didn't even understand how BitTorrent works, but put out a totally misleading report about it, which was so bad that the company eventually retracted it.

Doesn't it seem highly questionable that no one involved in this plan is willing to discuss the monitoring technology publicly? If they actually had faith that it worked, wouldn't they be showing it off? The problem is they know it's not good. They know it doesn't hold up to scrutiny. They know there will be people falsely accused. But they don't care. As long as they think that they're holding on to some tiny bit of a business model that is pretty much dead... they can pretend that they're doing something smart. And the public and our culture suffers as as result.

Filed Under: copyright, six strikes, tracking
Companies: dtecnet, mpaa, riaa

File Sharing Continues To Grow, Not Shrink

from the hollywood-in-denial dept

The entertainment industry always seems to think that the next thing they do will suddenly kill off piracy. They file lawsuits, they shut down sites, they change laws, they, finally (kicking and screaming), agree to license innovative new services... and then they declare victory over "piracy." To hear industry folks talk about things these days, between the Limewire shut down, the new six strikes plan and the impending approval of PROTECT IP, piracy is somehow on its very last legs. There's definitely a sense of mission accomplished coming from them.

There's just one problem with this. None of the actions taken by the industry appear to have slowed down infringement online. Instead, it appears that it just keeps growing. Yes, some legal services have been growing faster, but in typical fashion, the industry seems to want to make those services worse, not realizing that there's still a viable (if illegal) alternative for many users.

At what point will the industry finally realize that maybe there's a better strategy, one which doesn't treat fans who use file sharing as the enemy, but as a potential opportunity?

Filed Under: business models, file sharing, growth, movie industry, recording industry
Companies: mpaa, riaa

Court Shuts Down Zediva: Apparently The Length Of The Cable Determines If Something Is Infringing

from the the-insanity-of-copyright dept

A few months ago we wrote about the new online movie rental site, Zediva, noting how it demonstrated some of the ridiculous nature of copyright. That's because Zediva worked by setting up a single DVD player with the DVD of the movie the user wanted to rent being put into that player, and then streamed from that player. In other words, their argument (based on the Cablevision ruling), was that as long as they were doing the same basic thing that a customer was doing in their homes, but with the physical device in a central location, it should be legal. To put it more simply, the fundamental question is whether or not the length of the cable matters in determining whether something is infringing or not. If the cable is just a few feet from your DVD player to your TV, that's legal. But if the cable is much longer, as the DVD player lives in a data center, would it suddenly no longer be legal? The Cablevision ruling said no.

However, the MPAA quickly sued and a judge wasted little time in agreeing to issue an injunction shutting down Zediva as infringing.

The whole setup of Zediva should show you how silly modern copyright law is. It's technically relatively easy to distribute movies online, but Zediva had to set up this convoluted and ridiculous process of reserving DVD players and DVDs for each customer in a (so far, failed) attempt to stay within the law. But the end result goes even further in showing how ridiculous copyright law is. Basically, the judge admits that the length of the wire defines copyright. That's insane when you think about it. If the wire between my DVD player and my TV is 10 feet... legal. If it's miles... infringement. How can people respect a law that leads to such results?

The judge's reasoning strikes me as equally twisted. For example, it claims that Zediva violates the "public performance" right under copyright law. Not surprisingly, the judge relies on the (similarly terribly decided) On Command Video Corp. v. Columbia Pictures, which ruled that a hotel similarly showing movies in rooms from a central system was "transmitting" the works, thus making them a public performance. But this has a little itty bitty problem: the "transmission" is over a wire, and under that definition, you're also transmitting if you play a DVD player in your own home. It's the same physical thing other than the length of the wire.

Now how the hell is viewing a DVD in the privacy of your own home a "public performance?" Again, the court's reasoning is twisted. You'll love this:

Customers watching one of Plaintiffs’ Copyrighted Works on their computer through Zediva’s system are not necessarily watching it in a “public place,” but those customers are nonetheless members of “the public.” .... The non-public nature of the place of the performance has no bearing on whether or not those who enjoy the performance constitute “the public” under the transmit clause.

Yes, you read that right. Again, how can you take copyright law seriously when it's interpreted that way? Under that definition, pretty much anything is a public performance.

The court also brushes off the Cablevision decision in a footnote, claiming that that case was different because each person viewed a single digital copy, whereas in this case... since it's a DVD, it's now being transmitted to the public. I honestly read this section four times, and I have no idea how that distinction matters. At all. Even they seem to quote the Cablevision case, saying that they don't understand why there's a difference here, but there is.

Under the facts of that case, the Second Circuit found that the transmissions were not “to the public” because “each RS-DVR playback transmission is made to a single subscriber using a single unique copy produced by that subscriber.” Id. at 138. (“Given that each RS-DVR transmission is made to a given subscriber using a copy made by that subscriber, we conclude that such a transmission is not ‘to the public.’”). In this case, unlike Cablevision, Defendants’ customers do not produce their own unique copy of Plaintiffs’ Copyrighted Works. Instead, like On Command and Red Horne, the same DVD is used over and over again to transmit performances of Plaintiffs’ Copyrighted Works. As the Second Circuit held in Cablevision, while “neither the Red Horne court nor Prof. Nimmer explicitly explains why the use of a distinct copy affects the transmit clause inquiry,” its “independent analysis confirms the soundness of their intuition: the use of a unique copy may limit the potential audience of a transmission and is therefore relevant to whether that transmission is made ‘to the public.’”

But it seems to me that this pushes the weight in favor of Zediva, since it's only using a "single copy" as well -- a single copy of the DVD. That would suggest an even stronger argument that the transmission is not to the public -- only one subscriber can view each copy at one time at their single location. How can you twist that into claiming it's a "public performance"?

Honestly, the real issue here is the very nature of copyright law itself, which is patched up with duct tape each time some new technology hits the market. The internet has merged together a variety of these technologies into one, so different parts of the law are clashing, and out of it we're getting ridiculous decisions like this, which only serve to show how broken copyright law is. When the real result of a lawsuit depends entirely on the length of a cable, the law is fundamentally broken.

Filed Under: copyright, movies, public performance
Companies: mpaa, zediva

UK Court Orders BT To Block Access To Usenet Site Hollywood Hates

from the this-won't-end-well dept

It's been quite a week for UK copyright law, hasn't it? Today alone we've reported on UK courts deciding that they're qualified to rule on US copyright law and that merely clicking a link to open a web page can be infringement. To top it all off, the UK high court ruled that BT must block access to Usenet service provider Newzbin2. This is an incredibly questionable decision that plunges the UK into blatant government censorship. And, of course, the entertainment industry (who you would think would know better than to celebrate censorship) is thrilled beyond belief.

The ruling itself is quite troubling:

"In my judgment it follows that BT has actual knowledge of other persons using its service to infringe copyright: it knows that the users and operators of Newzbin2 infringe copyright on a large scale, and in particular infringe the copyrights of the studios in large numbers of their films and television programmes," said Justice Arnold in his ruling at the high court in London.

"[BT] knows that the users of Newzbin2 include BT subscribers, and it knows those users use its service to receive infringing copies of copyright works made available to them by Newzbin2," Arnold added.

There are many problems with this. First of all, an ISP should never be responsible for the actions of its users, and yet that's what the court is saying here. Furthermore, Usenet, which has been around for ages (and, of course, predates the web) does have non-infringing uses as well. Sure, many people do now use it to infringe, but it's pretty ridiculous to blame BT for allowing access to one service that provides access to Newzbin2, because some of its users infringe on copyrights. Furthermore, it's not even "Newzbin" that is making this content available, as the judge wrote. It's users who are making the content available.

Considering the sites that the entertainment industry has declared infringing -- including the Internet Archive, Vimeo, SoundCloud, Vibe.com and tons of blogs and forums, this is a very worrying sign indeed. Basically, if the entertainment industry is scared of your online site or service, and too clueless to figure out how to use it, you can be booted off the internet in the UK. Scary stuff.

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, uk
Companies: bt, mpa, mpaa, newzbin

Hotfile Claims Warner Bros. Issued Takedowns On Content It Had No Copyright Over

from the uh-ohs dept

The legal battle between cyberlocker Hotfile and the MPAA continues to heat up. After a judge severely undercut a key claim of the MPAA, the MPAA has been acting petulantly, refusing to hand over certain documents under discovery to Hotfile. The MPAA claims it would reveal their secret "anti-piracy" plans... but the real issue may be that Hotfile believes that Warner Bros. used Hotfile's takedown tool to remove content over which it had no copyright. That would be a no-no and would certainly make the case that much more interesting...

Filed Under: dmca, takedown
Companies: hotfile, mpaa, warner bros.

Who Do You Trust On Whether Or Not PROTECT IP Will Break The Internet? The Guys Who Built It... Or The MPAA?

from the easy-question dept

We've already covered the white paper written by a bunch of the biggest names in internet infrastructure, explaining why PROTECT IP breaks key underlying elements of the internet. At the same time, we've seen the entertainment industry try to brush off these concerns. However, the guys who wrote the white paper have been speaking up lately trying to get our elected officials to recognize the consequences of passing PROTECT IP as is. But the really funny part is watching the technically clueless MPAA try to brush off these concerns. It's almost laughable. Basically, the MPAA stamps its collective foot, and insists that it couldn't possibly break the internet, and then suggests that "America's technology community" can fix any problems:

DNSSEC was designed to provide consumers with a secure, trusted connection to services like online banking, commercial transactions, and electronic medical records - not to foreign websites operated by criminals for the purpose of offering counterfeit and infringing works. These evolving protocols should be flexible enough to allow for government, acting pursuant to a court order, to protect intellectual property online.... We rely on the Internet to do too much and be too much to let it decay into a lawless Wild West. We are confident that America's technology community, which leads the world in innovation and creativity, will be capable of developing a technical solution that helps address the serious challenge of rogue sites.

Nowhere do they actually respond to the issues raised by Paul Vixie, Dan Kaminsky and others about how PROTECT IP won't just break the internet, but also make it more vulnerable to malicious hackers. Instead, the MPAA seems to be relying on the "but we don't think that'll happen!" argument. And the sad thing is that our elected officials are likely to buy that explanation from the MPAA before listening to those folks who actually helped build the very internet architecture they're about to break.

Filed Under: internet, protect ip, security
Companies: mpaa