Internet Filtering Appearing On Various Wishlists For Obama

from the hopefully-this-goes-nowhere dept

It's tough to get that worked up about the various "wishlists" being sent by different interest groups to President-elect Obama. After all, you'd expect the groups to basically push for their entire agenda, and there's no indication that an Obama administration will agree to any of these -- but it's still worth watching. For example, the MPAA's wishlist includes plenty of forced filtering and a "three strikes" policy that Europe recently rejected as taking away basic human rights (there's that MPAA spirit!). Then, we've got a group focused on "protecting the children" asking Obama to create a child protection czar, who apparently will take on the role of "first parent" in the White House, because it's not like we can expect parents to be responsible for protecting their own children.

Filed Under: mpaa, obama, protect the children, wishlists
Companies: mpaa

MPAA Tries Out Its New 'Up Is Down, Day Is Night' Strategy

from the how's-that-working-for-ya? dept

The MPAA has been pushing the FCC to allow it to basically add a kind of DRM to broadcasts. As it stands, the FCC blocks broadcasters from using "selectable output control" (SOC) to stop people from recording shows broadcast on television. They do this realizing that recording for the purposes of time or place shifting is perfectly legal, and allowing broadcasters to block consumer rights would be tremendously undesirable.

The movie studios, however, are trying to figure out yet another way to get money, and they want to rejigger release windows for movies. The way they're done now, movies are released to theaters, then special locations (airplanes, hotels), then DVD, then cable and finally network TV. What the studios would like to do is charge cable companies a lot of money to show movies on cable after they're in theaters but before they're released on DVD. Their (misguided) fear is that, if they show them on TV, people will record them and make them available via file sharing sites, killing off the DVD business. This is wrong on many levels, especially since high quality versions of the movies are almost always available on file sharing networks long before they are released on DVD, anyway. So, blocking the ability to record the movies on your DVR (which is what loosening SOC restrictions would do) wouldn't actually do anything to stop piracy -- but would piss off an awful lot of DVR owners out there, who want to know why they can't record the latest movies on TV.

The MPAA has been saying a lot of funny things in trying to defend its position, claiming that this form of DRM is necessary to let the studios release the movies early. That's simply wrong. There is nothing stopping the studios from releasing the movies in this manner right now. It's just their own misguided fear of people doing what they're legally allowed to do (record stuff on their TV) that's stopping them.

Yet, now, as a bunch of you have sent in, it seems the MPAA is going even further in this "up is down, black is white" argument in favor of being able to use SOC. It's claiming that it's the movie studios who are being pro-innovation here, and it's the consumer electronics companies (and consumers) who are anti-innovation:

"At its core, the position of CEA is that technology should be frozen in time, and any new services that require advanced technology should be banned," the MPAA told Adelstein on November 25. "This position is quite astonishing, coming from an organization that in the past has advocated in favor of technological innovation."

This is a neat bit of intellectual judo. Take your opponents (accurate) argument, and claim that it's actually your argument. The MPAA is lying, of course. They don't need SOC to innovate and release movies however they want. And, the CEA is quite pro-innovation, in letting consumers actually make use of their rights to record content. It's quite a statement for the MPAA to claim that taking away consumer rights is innovation. But, I guess that's what you get from a dying organization fighting for its life.

Filed Under: blocking, business models, drm, dvrs, fcc, mpaa, soc
Companies: mpaa

MPAA Effectively Shuts Down Largest Fan Edit Movie Site

from the can't-make-stuff-better dept

One of the great things about Matt Mason's The Pirate's Dilemma books is the never-ending examples of how allowing people to take content and remix it leads to greater overall creativity and almost always opens up new opportunities for the original -- even as the original creator sometimes freaks out about it. A great example of this is with movie fan edits -- attempts by fans of certain movies to make the movie even better by re-editing it, changing scenes around, cutting out certain scenes, adding in new special effects or even new scenes entirely. Such efforts are non-commercial, and tend to increase attention and interest in the original film. The first such popular fan edit came after the release of The Phantom Menace, back in 2001, when fans were upset about a variety of things (Jar Jar Binks' character being a big problem). What came out of it was The Phantom Edit. The resulting attention caused many more people to get into the business of editing films.

TorrentFreak reports that one of the biggest sites for sharing such fan edits has effectively been shut down by the MPAA, which sent a DMCA takedown to the site's hosting provider, forcing the site to pull all of its download links. Prior to this, there were no specific complaints, and Lucasfilm apparently was a big supporter of various fan edits. Considering the nature of fan edits, it's difficult to see how these are likely to diminish the commercial value of a movie. Some might claim that people will be drawn to the fan edits, rather than the authorized cuts of a movie, but that seems unlikely for most people. Realistically, the only folks who are going to invest their time in watching a fan edit would be someone who was already a fan of a specific movie, and was interested in how other fans had re-imagined and re-cut the film.

Lucasfilm has been able to build up tremendous goodwill among fans by allowing such fan edits, knowing that they tend to make fans of various films even more attached to the originals. It's disappointing, though not surprising, that the folks at the MPAA would rather shut off such creativity rather than encourage it.

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, fan edits, fanedits.org, movies, takedown
Companies: mpaa

RIAA Gets Tennessee Law To Force Universities To Filter Networks For Copyrighted Content

from the the-riaa-never-sleeps dept

After more than a decade of watching the entertainment industry (mainly the RIAA and the MPAA), one thing I've learned is that the organization never gives up in pushing its legislative agenda. If there's a setback in one area, you can be sure that others from the organization are eagerly pushing the exact same rules through some other angle. The typical MO is that they try to get federal legislation passed in their favor. However, if that fails, they switch to the fallback plans which involve international treaties and state laws. Both of these are great because they tend to get a lot less scrutiny. State laws are a bit of a pain, because you have to get a few of them approved to create the "groundswell" that makes other states jump on board, but changes to state laws can often pass through under the radar.

That appears to be what's happening in the effort to force universities to install filters monitoring their networks for any unauthorized transmissions. You may recall that the RIAA pushed strongly to get Congress to pass laws requiring filters. Basically, the entertainment industry first flat-out lied (yes, lied) about how big a problem file sharing on campus was, and that got some Congressional Reps (with plenty of campaign contributions from the entertainment industry) to introduce legislation punishing universities if they didn't filter their networks. Widespread outcry against that legislation helped water it down, but it appears the industry just moved on to state legislatures.

The RIAA is now celebrating the fact that Tennessee has passed legislation that requires universities to install filters if they've received at least 50 DMCA requests. Considering the massive number of DMCA notices that the RIAA has been known to file, this is hardly a large hurdle. The law will cost Tennessee taxpayers nearly $10 million in the first year, and another $1.5 million each year -- based on the state's own estimates. And for what? To put in filters that won't work, just to try to prop up an obsolete business model from legacy players in an industry that needs to learn how to adapt to the market?

Filed Under: copyright, filtering, tennessee, universities
Companies: mpaa, riaa

Don't Worry About MPAA's Congrats To Obama

from the step-back-from-the-ledge dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in Wired's short article claiming that the MPAA is "already lobbying Obama." And, while I'm certainly never one to suggest that the MPAA isn't full of sneaky tricks, this is hardly anything to get worked up about. I don't even understand why Wired posted it, other than to get people angry. The MPAA, like pretty much every major lobbying organization, put out statements congratulating Obama. That's what you do as a lobbying group, and it's entirely meaningless at this point. I have no doubt that the MPAA will pull plenty of misleading stunts over the next four years, and most likely will convince all sorts of politicians, including Obama, to put into place bad laws. But a simple congratulations statement from a lobbying group is hardly a sign of impending doom.

Filed Under: barack obama, dan glickman, lobbying
Companies: mpaa

Why Does The MPAA Get To Approve DVD Players?

from the that-doesn't-seem-right dept

In discussing a recent ruling against a Chinese manufacturer of DVD players who wasn't implementing approved DVD DRM technologies, News.com notes in passing that the ruling allows the MPAA to review and test any new or re-engineered products that use CSS technology before going to market. It's difficult to see what sort of rationale there is for this. Once again, we see a situation where the MPAA seems to think that it gets to decide what innovations are allowed, and which are not. And, unfortunately, we have a court which has agreed, basically giving the MPAA full control over what kinds of DVD players can be sold in the US.

Filed Under: china, css, dvd, dvd players
Companies: mpaa

So Why Did The MPAA Need New Camcording Laws Again?

from the please-explain dept

You may recall that throughout 2007, the MPAA was on something of a worldwide campaign to get governments to pass new laws with stricter punishment for "camcording" movies. Of course, camcording is not really a big deal. The quality is bad, and DVD-quality releases find their way to pirates pretty quickly anyway. The "losses" from camcorded movies are minimal, though it didn't stop the MPAA from totally making up numbers that were clearly bogus. Each place they pressured to get new laws apparently represented some huge percentage of camcorded movies on the market, such that if you added them up, you were talking about well over 100%. Then, of course, there was the case where they claimed that anti-camcording laws in the US had wiped out piracy in the US. Of course, that was when they were pushing for such laws in Canada. Two months later when they were pushing for such laws in the US, suddenly New York represented 40% of all camcorded movies.

However, what was most disturbing was the idea existing laws weren't already enough to deal with whatever "problem" camcording represented. So, it's rather interesting to see that a guy who was caught camcording movies in Maryland was just sentenced to 21 months in prison under a 2005 law. So why did the MPAA scream bloody murder about needing new, more stringent laws in 2007? As for someone getting 21 months in prison for filming a movie that was probably already available online from a studio leak, well, that's a different issue for another day...

Filed Under: camcording, jailtime, laws
Companies: mpaa

If The Handbag Industry Took After The MPAA

from the not-all-that-far-fetched dept

Lauren sent in an amusing spoof put together by a website about handbags, looking at how the handbag industry would be different if it had the equivalent of the MPAA around. It's an amusing little satire, with things like demands that you not appear on YouTube with a handbag and getting threatened with lawsuits for sharing handbags. Then, of course there's Handbag Rights Management, which pisses off legitimate handbag buyers, but the industry insists is necessary to stop copying.

Of course, this might not be as far-fetched as it seems. Remember the 17th century French button makers? They tried to do something along these lines. And, the fashion industry (including handbag makers) have been pushing for new intellectual property restrictions, and claiming that if they don't get them, counterfeit fashion items will help terrorists (which is one of the points in the spoof post too!). It appears that truth may have beaten fiction to the punch line.

Filed Under: drm, handbags
Companies: mpaa, riaa

MPAA's Suit Against Real About Control And Innovation -- Not Piracy

from the clarifying dept

As we've been writing about the MPAA's odd lawsuit against RealNetworks for its RealDVD DVD ripping product, we've pointed out (multiple times) how it doesn't make much sense. The problem was that there are tons of much more effective DVD ripping products out there. Unlike RealDVD, they don't hobble the ripped copies. So, shutting down RealDVD doesn't do anything to stop piracy -- and if anything only increases it, as those who want to rip DVDs are more likely to just download one of those free products that don't encumber the resulting rip with more DRM. Thus, people will still be copying DVDs, and will do so in a way that is a lot more "piratable" than if the MPAA let RealDVD live.

So why is the MPAA doing what it's doing?

The EFF has stepped up with theory that makes a lot of sense: this has nothing to do with stopping piracy, and everything to do with controlling how innovation happens in the movie market. The movie studios that make up the MPAA believe that they own the movie business, and thus any innovation in the industry needs to come through them and get their approval. What Real is doing with RealDVD is ignoring the MPAA's "approval" process, and effectively taking the path of innovation out of the studios' hands.

If this sounds familiar, it's because this has what's been going on with almost all of the "anti-piracy" battles over the last decade. Napster wasn't so much about stopping piracy (which of course, didn't work in the slightest), but about the RIAA record labels freaking out that someone else (a college kid, no less) had established a much better and more efficient distribution mechanism without getting their approval and running it through their filter first.

Effectively, the Big Content players believe that they own their industries, and innovation should come from the top down through the paths that they choose. Thus, these sorts of lawsuits will continue until the management of these firms recognize that innovation is a bottom-up phenomenon. Or, the big firms go out of business. Whichever comes first.

Filed Under: control, lawsuits, piracy, realdvd
Companies: eff, mpaa, realnetworks

Judge Keeps Restraining Order On RealDVD

from the not-ready-to-give-in dept

Earlier this week we noted that the judge in the lawsuit over the RealDVD software had placed a secret temporary injunction against RealNetworks selling the software. The original promise was that a more permanent injunction -- or a lifting of the injunction -- would come Tuesday. But Tuesday has come and gone and the judge has decided she needs more time to decide on an injunction, and may want to consult some "experts" on the subject.

I can understand the desire to better understand the situation, but it's hard to see how preventing the sale of the software in the meantime does any less harm to the movie industry. In fact, you could easily make the argument that it does more harm to the industry, based on the way the industry defines harm. That is, right now, if someone wants to make a backup copy of a DVD, they're going to look online and find a variety of free ripping options, that offer no additional DRM and make totally free and clear rips. If Real's software was out there, they might discover that option and pay to get additional DRM (why, I don't know -- but some might feel comfortable with the Real brand, for example). Thus, it's difficult to see how the movie industry is any worse off if Real's software is on the market. In that scenario, at least some might end up with ripped DVDs with DRM. Without Real on the market, those who want to rip DVDs will have their rips with no DRM at all.

Filed Under: dvd ripping, injunction, realdvd, restraining order, secrecy
Companies: mpaa, realnetworks