Hacker Extortion Attempt Falls Flat Because Netflix Actually Competes With Piracy

from the sound-and-fury,-signifying-nothing dept

A hacking group calling itself TheDarkOverlord (TDO) has tried, and failed (so far) to extort Netflix and several other companies after stumbling onto a server of unreleased content. TDO was apparently able to compromise the servers of an audio post-production company by the name of Larson Studios. Among the content acquired from the hackers were ten episodes of the as-yet-unreleased new season of the popular Netflix show "Orange is the New Black," which isn't supposed to see full release until June. Outside of some free advertising in the news media and some wasted calories, the group's efforts don't appear to have culminated in much.

At first, the hacking group tried to extort the post-production company, which didn't go very well. The group claims that Larson originally agreed to pay 50 bitcoin (around $67,000) to prevent the release of the compromised content, but then didn't follow through on the payment after a December 31 deadline. TorrentFreak claims they were shown a copy of a contract purportedly signed by Larson Studios, but the group claims that while the contract was printed, signed, scanned and returned to them, Larson got cold feet about paying up.

The hacking group then shifted its attention to trying to get Netflix to pay up to avoid public release of the episodes. After apparently getting no initial response from the giant streaming company, the hacking group announced on Twitter it had leaked the first episode in the new, as-yet-unreleased fifth season of "Orange is the New Black" on BitTorrent networks:

When Netflix didn't respond to that, the group proceeded to release ten episodes of the show's 13-episode season, and an already deleted message via Pastebin claiming Netflix would lose significantly more money if the company didn't pay up:

"It didn’t have to be this way, Netflix. You’re going to lose a lot more money in all of this than what our modest offer was. We’re quite ashamed to breathe the same air as you. We figured a pragmatic business such as yourselves would see and understand the benefits of cooperating with a reasonable and merciful entity like ourselves."

Netflix's response to the entire affair? A giant..."meh":

“We are aware of the situation. A production vendor used by several major TV studios had its security compromised and the appropriate law enforcement authorities are involved."

That's a notably calmer and more reasoned response than you usually see from traditional Hollywood operations after a leak (read: pouting, crying, lawsuits, hysteria and face-fanning). In large part because Netflix knows that it's extremely unlikely that users are going to cancel their Netflix subscription just because of an early, partial leak of the show's upcoming fifth season. That, in turn, is largely because Netflix's flat-rate, relatively-inexpensive pricing model provides enough value that users don't find piracy to be the superior alternative (read: they successfully compete with piracy).

Its ambitions quashed by Netflix's apathy, the hacking group is apparently moving on, and says it plans to now target other companies (ABC, Fox, National Geographic and IFC) whose content was also found on the compromised server:

Outside of some short-lived infamy and a few spoilers, it doesn't seem likely that any of the group's efforts will amount to much of anything.

Filed Under: business models, competition, copyright, hackers, leaks, piracy, streaming
Companies: netflix

New Survey: Most Millennials Both Pay For Streaming Services And Use Pirate Streams When Content Isn't Legally Available

from the fulfilling-customer-demands dept

For any of the entrenched entertainment players seated comfortably in their lofty offices, quite used to counting stacks of money and calling it a profession, they likely already know this fearful mantra: the millennials are coming. Millennials, and even more so the generations younger than them, are driving changes in the entertainment industry. These younger consumers are largely responsible for the cord-cutting trend winding its way through the cable industry, not to mention being the force behind ever-expanding streaming options for everything from movies to television shows and live sports. These are the customers of the future. Customers that will outlive a public that became used to having bloated cable television packages filled with channels and content fit to be ignored.

And those customers are both great customers for streaming services and they are customers perfectly happy to get the streaming they want if legitimate methods for it aren't available. A recent survey conducted specifically with millennials finds that more than half of them regularly use pirate streaming sites to watch movies or shows, but would prefer to use legitimate streaming sites had they been available.

This is one of the main conclusions of a new survey conducted by Launchleap. The data come from a survey among millennials between 18 and 35, and zooms in on pirate streaming preferences in this age group. The results show that more than half of the respondents, a whopping 53%, admit to having used illegal services to stream movies or TV-shows over the past month. Legal streaming services remain on top with 70%, but interest in more traditional platforms such as TV, DVDs or Blu-Ray is clearly lagging behind. The respondents don’t appear to be particularly bothered by their habit. Only 7% of the people questioned say they feel guilty when they watch a pirated movie, the remaining 93% experience no guilt.

You can disagree with the moral calculation of these young people all you like, but the numbers here are both stark and illuminating. If nothing else, this survey should signal to the entertainment industry that however many days are left of customers being willing to live in walled off gardens where content is enjoyed only in the manner approved by a cable company or movie studio, rather than being determined by consumer demand, that number of days is on a short timeline. It's also worth noting that the respondents that said they used pirate streaming sites also paid for content via subscriptions to Netflix and the like. The issue is that there is both a content war currently, with movies and shows available only on one streaming site at a time, as well as the long-entrenched protectionism that has kept some content off of any streaming site at all. The attitude of these respondents seems pretty clear by the numbers: hey, we tried to pay for the content, but you wouldn't let us, so we went and got it from a place that had it.

Money is still a factor in the survey, of course. After all, consumers could get most of the content they demand legitimately by subscribing to, say, three or four different streaming sites at once and switching between them. But that doesn't change the fact that television and movie studios are going to have to contend with the reality that the public doesn't want to, or can't afford to, do that. The question then becomes whether these exclusive streaming deals and content protection continue to be good business, given that these younger customers are finding illegitimate ways around them anyway.

The millennials are coming. And they don't think about entertainment content in the same complacent way the last generation has.

Filed Under: availability, copying, copyright, millennials, pirating, streaming

Actual Lawyer Thinks That Criminalizing Showing Murder On Facebook Will Prevent Murders On Facebook

from the where-did-you-get-your-law-degree? dept

Earlier this week, we wrote about the silly take at Wired, more or less suggesting that it was somehow Facebook's issue that a troubled individual took a video of himself randomly killing an elderly man and then uploaded the video to Facebook. Unfortunately, others have had similar takes, including the New Yorker's Steve Coll, whose piece is mostly balanced and admits that it's basically impossible for Facebook to prevent this thing... but then at the end ignores all that and says, effectively, "Well, Facebook's big so it has no excuse not to do something."

That is a fair and restrained assessment, but Facebook cannot expect to plead growing pains or a lack of resources for much longer. At the end of last year, the corporation reported holding almost thirty billion dollars in cash and marketable securities; its annual profit exceeded ten billion dollars for the first time. Facebook can afford to slow down and take on more of the risks associated with curating content—the risks of not doing so being increasingly glaring. Its engineers might, in addition to their habitual writing of improved algorithms, consider the durable oath of a profession that has long wrestled with the kinds of ethical quandaries that arise from innovating in the pursuit of the greater good: first, do no harm.

That's one of those things that sounds good to someone who hasn't thought through the actual consequences of what they're saying. When you argue that Facebook should "slow down" and "take on more risks associated with curating content," you're arguing that Facebook should censor more content. Think of how that plays out in reality. Because we know already: every time Facebook takes down "good" content, the same media folks start bitching and screaming about how Facebook is so bad at moderating content. Remember Facebook blocking Napalm Girl? While Coll didn't address that issue himself, just months ago, he raved about the importance of Napalm Girl and how adults need to see this kind of thing to "pause and reflect upon the costs of war." But, apparently having them confront murder is a step too far.

But... that is not the worst take on this whole thing. So far, that award goes to Danny Cevallos, a legal analyst for CNN and apparently a real practicing criminal defense attorney. His argument is not to blame Facebook... but to criminalize posting murder videos to Facebook. It's not often that you see a criminal defense attorney arguing for more crimes, but here we are.

To be fair to Cevallos, he's not the first to come up with an idea this dumb. As online video became more popular, and as stories emerged of people (often young kids) filming themselves doing stupid things online, various grandstanding politicians have often argued that filming crimes should be illegal, arguing (often without any evidence) that the only reason these people were doing stupid/illegal things was because of the draw of being able to film them and post them online. This reached a fever pitch a few years ago when a legislator in South Carolina picked up on an exaggerated moral panic about the idea of the "knockout game" -- in which people filmed themselves punching unsuspecting people -- and wanted to pass a law saying that it was illegal to film a crime.

That's more or less where Cevallos goes, though he'd limit it to just murder videos:

Use the law to deter this sort of depraved predator. We can criminalize the criminal's act of broadcasting his crime.

In for a bit, Cevallos digs in deep:

When it gets into the realm of a horrendous crime like the recent shooting, what is to be done? As heretical as it is for a criminal defense attorney like myself to say, deterrence could help. More criminal legislation: enhancements, penalties, mandatory minimums.

And how the crime and its victims are legally framed is key. Whether it's murder or simple assault, acts of violence that are also posted online create additional victims in the audience: the public at large. Broadcasts of intentional violence intimidate a civilian population, just as terrorism does.

What?!? Now he's comparing broadcasting a murder tape as terrorism? Who exactly is intimidated? Will it horrify people? Yes, absolutely. But that's not illegal, nor should it be.

Also, there's this. How the hell is this actually a deterrence? What kind of person will say "Well, I was going to shoot that guy and broadcast it on Facebook, but since broadcasting it is illegal, I guess I won't." Really. Who? If you're going to murder someone, you've already kinda committed to breaking basically the most serious law we have. Somehow, I doubt that the additional charge of "Oh, and he put it on Facebook," is going to change the incentives much.

And, then, of course, Cevallos starts digging deeper with a really terrible First Amendment analysis (especially for a media company like CNN to publish). All it's missing is the explicit use of the bullshit "fire in a crowded theater" trope.

The challenge here is that criminalizing Facebook broadcasts of one's crimes does potentially infringe upon one's freedom of speech about those crimes. The US Supreme Court held that the original Son of Sam law ran afoul of the First Amendment, because the suppression of speech was not narrowly tailored enough.

However, the First Amendment has plenty of limits, and today, almost all the states and the federal government have laws prohibiting those criminals who plan to profit from their crimes from doing so. The ability to profit still shouldn't be constitutionally-protected.

Pretty simple rule of thumb: your First Amendment analysis is bad and you should feel bad if it's basically limited to "Well, there are exceptions to the First Amendment, so surely the exception I want should be fine." Hell, it's near the top of Popehat's famous "censorship tropes" in discussions of free speech.

But Cevallos isn't done. After already carving out a new exception to the First Amendment, he then also argues that posting your own murder video maybe would fit under the very limited and extraordinarily narrow "obscenity" exception to the First Amendment:

It's a tougher question whether "killing videos" could be additionally penalized as obscenity. This is because the term "obscenity" generally applies to depictions of sexual acts. The Supreme Court has held that violence alone is not obscenity.

On the other hand, obscenity may extend to deviant acts that are not sexual, and images of extreme cruelty alone could possibly be obscene, as evidenced by a case involving videos of animal cruelty. Indeed, "animal crush videos" — which are every bit as horrific as they sound — may be outlawed, even if sexual activity is not depicted.

Again, the legal analysis is... lacking any substance whatsoever. It's basically "Well, animal crush videos can be outlawed, so sure, murders on Facebook too."

Criminalizing the broadcast of crimes like Robert Godwin's shooting death is doable. It won't prevent these attacks, but it will deter them.

It will deter them... based on what evidence exactly? Just in your head?

Finally after all that nonsense, Cavallos points out just about the only accurate thing, and hilariously calls it "perverse": the fact that what these videos do is provide all the evidence law enforcement needs to prosecute individuals for the crimes they're committing on video:

The perverse upside is that social media creates a treasure trove of evidence: the criminals of social media may harm the society that views them, but they often assist the authorities in prosecuting them.

Yeah, that's not "perverse." That's why the rest of your article makes no sense. The video is evidence of a crime. Layering on another, much lesser crime just for posting the video doesn't deter crime. It deters people making it easier to catch, arrest and convict themselves of committing crimes. CNN needs better legal analysts.

Filed Under: danny cevallos, deterrence, facebook live, filming crime, murder, streaming
Companies: facebook

American Division Of Persona 5 Developer Warns That Their 'Masters' Don't Want People Streaming Spoilers

from the uh,-okay? dept

This seems like something we'll need to keep repeating: revealing entertainment spoilers is not copyright infringement. What ought to be common sense is apparently not so for all kinds of content owners in the entertainment space. As such, DMCA notices or threats for DMCA notices have been used to combat spoiler releases in all kinds of forms, from movie predictions, to television show predictions, to video game footage that reveals spoilers. Some of these instances involve actual footage of the copyrighted material while some don't, but the core of the matter is that if you're talking copyright infringement because of spoilers, you're doing copyright wrong.

The latest version of this comes from Atlus, developers of Persona 5. The American division of Atlus put out a notice on its website, in which it starts off with bubbling excitement over the release of the game, but then spills into a lecture on what gamers can stream and what they cannot.

Ok, now let’s talk Persona 5 streaming and videos. Simply put, we don’t want the experience to be spoiled for people who haven’t played the game. Our fans have waited years for the game to come out and we really want to make sure they can experience it fully as a totally new adventure. Please read our video/streaming guidelines below:

Please, PLEASE do not post any specific plot points or story spoilers, and only talk about the game in broad strokes. (Good example: “The game deals with dark themes right off the bat, with a lecherous teacher and other corrupted individuals.” Bad example: “Players immediately run into trouble with the pervy teacher *spoiler*, whose actions go so far as to cause *spoiler*.”)

You’re more than welcome to talk/show Confidants, the new combat, the Velvet Room, the dungeons, etc. Just please keep in mind that as a singular story playthrough, viewers are *highly* wary of spoilers!

In-game Content Limit: Please limit video content through the in-game date of 7/7.

"7/7" refers to a date within the game itself, which means that players of this game who want to stream their playthroughs will apparently have to check their fictitious calendars to make sure they haven't reached the streaming event horizon. That in itself ought to strike you as ridiculous on its face, but reading through the subsequent guidelines about what should be streamed and what shouldn't literally had me chuckling. For example:

No major story spoilers, and I’ll leave that up to your good judgment. If you need some guidelines, avoid showing/spoiling the ending segments of the first three palaces. While you can show initial interactions with Yusuke, avoid his awakening scene, and that whole deal about THE painting. Also, don’t post anything about a certain student investigator.

This obviously takes live streaming out of the equation. How is one to know what in the sweet hell any of this refers to unless they've already played the game? And dictating commentary topics, as opposed to footage, doesn't carry any weight having to do with copyright infringement. Streamers can discuss whatever they want. And if Atlus allows streaming of its game, it's not clear to me that the DMCA or copyright law allows them to dictate the segmentation of what's allowed for streaming and what isn't.

But the stranger part is the American Atlus division's sheepish reason for putting these restrictions out there in the first place. I can't quite tell if some of this is supposed to be taken tongue in cheek or not, but it comes off sounding rather ominous.

This being a Japanese title with a single-playthrough story means our masters in Japan are very wary about it. Sharing is currently blocked through the native PS4 UI. However, if you do plan on streaming, video guidelines above apply except length. If you decide to stream past 7/7 (I HIGHLY RECOMMEND NOT DOING THIS, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED), you do so at the risk of being issued a content ID claim or worse, a channel strike/account suspension.

Japanese masters? That just sounds creepy. Beyond that, threatening channel suspension with spoilers being the differentiating point between when that threat applies or not doesn't make any sense. I get that spoilers can be annoying for some, but that doesn't fall under the purview of copyright law. Either let people stream or don't.

Filed Under: copyright, dmca, fans, let's play, persona 5, promotion, spoilers, streaming, takedowns
Companies: altus

UK Court Grants First Live Blocking Order To Stop New Infringing Streams As Soon As They Start

from the whose-side-are-the-ISPs-on-these-days? dept

As we noted last week, one of the main copyright battlegrounds in the UK concerns the use of Kodi boxes -- low-cost devices running the open source Kodi multimedia player, usually augmented with plug-ins that provide access to unauthorized content. One of the popular uses of such Kodi boxes is to watch live streams of sporting events. TorrentFreak reports on an important new court order obtained by the UK's Football Association Premier League (FAPL) to prevent people from viewing live streams of soccer games free of charge. The problem for the FAPL is that the addresses of the servers streaming matches are often only known once the games begin. To meet that challenge, the court has granted a new kind of injunction: one that allows live blocking. Here's how it will work:

servers can only be selected [for blocking] by FAPL if it "reasonably believes" they have the "sole or predominant purpose of enabling or facilitating access to infringing streams of Premier League match footage." Secondly, the FAPL must not know or have reason to believe "that the server is being used for any other substantial purpose."

In other words, the servers must be dedicated to live streaming rather than doing it incidentally alongside other, possibly more legitimate, activities.

This caution is needed because this injunction will be carried out live, as soon as matches begin to hit the Internet. FAPL and its anti-piracy contractor will monitor the Internet, grab IP addresses, and ask the ISPs to block them in real-time. No court will be involved in that process, it will be carried out at the discretion of the FAPL and the ISPs.

Giving the FAPL the power to ask for any IP address to be blocked as it sees fit, and without a court order, is bad enough, but the TorrentFreak post points out some other extremely troubling features of this latest decision. It explains how the FAPL hired an "anti-piracy" company to monitor unauthorized streams. It seems that leading UK ISPs helped by providing data about download patterns:

"A very substantial volume of traffic from BT, Sky and Virgin, who are the three largest UK ISPs, has been recorded from these [infringing servers] during Premier League match times," the injunction reads.

"The extent of these spikes in traffic, the closeness of their correlation with each scheduled match, and the absolute volume in terms of raw bandwidth consumed, are only consistent with large numbers of consumers obtaining Premier League content from these servers."

This information is also "only consistent" with those three ISPs actively helping the investigation of streaming servers. As TorrentFreak points out:

Overall, this injunction provides a clear indication of what can happen when ISPs stop being "mere conduits" of information and start becoming distributors of entertainment content. In the case of Sky and BT, who pay billions for content, it would be perhaps naive to think that they would've behaved in any other way.

Indeed, this case has all the hallmarks of companies agreeing to take action together and then going through the formalities of an injunction application to get the necessary rubber stamp and avoid criticism.

If confirmed, that's a terrible development. It would mean that the ISPs with investments in material that customers view over their connections no longer see themselves as neutral "mere conduits," but now are on the side of the copyright industry.

The legal blog IPKat points out another important aspect of this latest case. It seems to be the first time that the awful GS Media ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union -- that a link posted "for profit" can be considered direct infringement -- has been applied in the UK. The judge in this live streaming case wrote:

Generally speaking, the operators of the Target Servers are not merely linking to freely available sources of Premier League footage. Even if in some cases they do, the evidence indicates that they do so for profit, frequently in the form of advertising revenue, and thus are presumed to have the requisite knowledge for the communication to be to a new public.

Expect to see more of these live blocking orders in the UK as the copyright industry there continues to wage its war on the popular Kodi boxes. The question is, will courts in other EU countries start to use them too?

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: censorship, kodi, live blocking, live streaming, streaming, takedown, uk
Companies: fapl, premier league

UK Local Government Confirms Surprising EU Position That Viewing Pirated Streams Probably Isn't Illegal

from the but-a-key-court-ruling-may-change-that-soon dept

A couple of years ago, the MPAA was freaking out about a piece of free software called Popcorn Time. Even though it was hugely popular as a result of its ease of use -- and access to large numbers of infringing copies of films -- it had a serious weakness. Since Popcorn Time was basically a BitTorrent client with an integrated media player, it was often possible to track down people who were using it. That fact, and the increasingly heavy-handed legal action taken against some sites that only had a vague connection with the Popcorn Time software, led to people moving on to more discreet alternatives that are based on direct streaming. One of the most popular today is Kodi, which describes itself as a "software media center for playing videos, music, pictures, games, and more." Like Popcorn time, it is also open source, but it does not include a BitTorrent client. Instead, as its website says:

you should provide your own content from a local or remote storage location, DVD, Blu-Ray or any other media carrier that you own. Additionally Kodi allows you to install third-party plugins that may provide access to content that is freely available on the official content provider website. The watching or listening of illegal or pirated content which would otherwise need to be paid for is not endorsed or approved by Team Kodi.

That distinction between the main code and third-party plugins has meant that it is generally accepted that Kodi itself is perfectly legal. The problem arises when third-party plugins are added that allow users to stream pirated content, typically through what are called "fully-loaded" boxes, which are sold very cheaply -- one benefit of using open source. There are two issues here: is it legal to sell these "fully-loaded" boxes, and is it legal to use them?

The UK authorities clearly think that selling these boxes is illegal: recently, five people were arrested for doing so. On the second question -- is it legal to use these boxes? -- an interesting article published in The Derby Telegraph quotes a spokesperson for the UK local government department known as Trading Standards as saying:

Accessing premium paid-for content without a subscription is considered by the industry as unlawful access, although streaming something online, rather than downloading a file, is likely to be exempt from copyright laws.

That might seem a surprising position for an enforcement department to take, but support for it comes from an unusual quarter, as TorrentFreak noted in an article last year:

the European Commission doesn’t believe that consumers who watch pirate streams are infringing. From the user’s perspective they equate streaming to watching, which is legitimate.

The European Commission gave its view during the hearing of an important case currently before Europe's highest court involving the Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN, which wrote in its summary of the hearing:

The case concerns the sale of a mediaplayer on which the trader has loaded add-ons that link to evidently illegal websites that link to content. For a user such a player is 'plug & play'. This king of pre-programmed player usually are offered with slogans like 'never pay again for the newest films and series' and 'completely legal, downloading from illegal sources is prohibited but streaming is allowed'. In summary the pre-judicial questions concern whether the seller of such a mediaplayer infringes copyright and whether streaming from an illegal source is legitimate use.

The judgment from the Court of Justice of the European Union is expected soon, and will lay down whether the sale and use of "fully-loaded" boxes is legal across the EU. Meanwhile, in the UK, a consultation has just been launched on the subject, whose title -- "Illicit IPTV Streaming Devices" (pdf) -- suggests the government there has already made up its mind on the matter.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: copyright, kodi, legality, streaming, uk

Patent Troll Sues Netflix, Soundcloud, Vimeo And More For Allowing Offline Viewing

from the but-the-patent-system-encourage-innovation,-right? dept

Joe Mullin over at Ars Technica has the story of a patent troll, Blackbird Technologies, which was founded by (of course) two patent attorneys to buy up patents and shakedown companies with legal threats. Blackbird Technologies has now sued Netflix, Soundcloud, Vimeo and a variety of other companies over US Patent 7,174,362, issued in 2007 (filed for in 2000) on a "method and system for supplying products from pre-stored digital data in response to demands transmitted via computer network."

Specifically, the lawsuits are targeting various "download to consume offline" features on various content websites. Netflix, of course, just famously launched that long-requested feature, which is useful in cases where people have slow or no internet access (e.g., taking your laptop on an airplane without internet access). If anyone thinks that this kind of feature was developed because of this patent, they're being delusional. And that's especially true because the patent itself isn't even about downloading content from the network for offline viewing. Instead, it's actually about someone ordering some content over the internet, having that content automatically burned to a CD-ROM and having that CD-R shipped off to the person. As Mullin notes, the true irony here, is that the guy who got the patent in the first place, Sungil Lee, may have been inspired by Netflix, which already had a very popular business shipping DVD's ordered online to customers:

Context is important when looking at Lee's patent. It's extremely unlikely an inventor writing up the idea of a web-based system for creating and shipping CD-Rs, in the year 2000, was not acutely aware of Netflix—whose DVDs-in-the-mail business had begun blowing up. If there was any copying at all, it was Lee copying Netflix's idea. But in the upside-down world of patent trolls, it's Blackbird who gets to claim the mantle of defending innovation, while it accuses Netflix of being the copycat.

And the thing is, even the idea of having content written automatically to CD-Rs was hardly new in 2000. This patent never should have been granted. I remember back in 1998, when I was working for a company that did electronic distribution of software being pitched by multiple companies that were working on similar solutions, and even seeing a demonstration of one such company at COMDEX in the fall of 1998 (if I remember correctly, to demonstrate how it worked they burned me a copy of Internet Explorer 5) which had just been released. So this patent never should have been granted in the first place. On top of that, to sue companies for doing the obvious thing of offering downloads for offline viewing is a clear abuse of the patent system.

The lawsuits were filed in Delaware, which has become the "new East Texas" in recent years due to a series of patent troll friendly rulings. Every time we hear stories about how patent trolling is on the decline, we see stories like this, suggesting patent trolling is still a huge problem and still a huge cost on innovation, rather than a boon to innovation.

Filed Under: downloads, offline viewing, patent trolls, patents, streaming
Companies: blackbird technologies, netflix, soundcloud, vimeo

Ridiculous Congressional Proposal Would Fine Reps Who Live Stream From The Floor

from the congress-excels-at-petty-actions dept

It would be nice if we weren't remind daily just how petty politicians can be (on all sides of the aisle... so don't go making this about one party or the other). Over the summer, we wrote about a situations in which House Democrats tried to stage a protest on the House floor -- and House Republicans responded by gavelling the House out of session and turning off the live feed on C-SPAN so that the protest could not be easily seen (again, this isn't partisan: the House Dems did the same to House Repubs eight years ago). In response, some of those participating in the protest started using Periscope and Facebook Live to livestream online from the floor.

And, now, just to turn up the level of petty vindictiveness, some House Representatives have proposed fining Congressional Reps who live stream (or post photos) from the House floor.

... the new policy would fine representatives $500 for the first offense of broadcasting video, audio, or photos, and rise to $2,500 thereafter. In order to take effect, the proposal would need to be approved by the House when its next session starts in January.

And, of course, supporters of the proposal change are doing their best to give totally bullshit reasons for this petty action, claiming that it's about "ensuring" that "order and decorum are preserved in the House." That's a load of hogwash. This is just politicians acting like elementary school children yet again.

The push for this is being led by Speaker Paul Ryan, who apparently doesn't much care for the Constitution. You see, people who actually have read the Constitution are noting that this proposal is likely unconstitutional:

But experts say Ryan’s proposal may run afoul of Article 1 of the Constitution, which says “each House may … punish its Members for disorderly behavior.” For more than 200 years that has been interpreted to mean any contested sanctions against lawmakers must be approved by the full House with a floor vote, attorneys steeped in congressional legal matters say.

“The Constitution gives the House the authority to discipline members; I have never heard of anything where an officer of the House was given that authority,” said Mike Stern, a former lawyer for the nonpartisan House counsel’s office and the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s GOP staff.

Meanwhile, one of the members who took part in the streaming, Rep. Eric Swawell, is coming out fighting against this proposal: Back in June, Swalwell responded to the shutdown of the C-SPAN cameras by pushing a proposal that would have given control of C-SPAN's camera stream to C-SPAN, rather than petty politicians in the House who can shut down the stream whenever they want to.

And, honestly, as I'm writing this entire post, I'm sitting here wondering why the hell this is an issue. Of all the things that Congress should be doing right now, is this really a major priority? To try to punish Congressional representatives for actually wanting to provide a more transparent look into what happens on the floor?

Filed Under: congress, eric swalwell, live streaming, paul ryan, politics, streaming
Companies: c-span

I Thought Piracy Was Killing Entertainment? New Record In Scripted Shows In 2016

from the look-at-that dept

Remember how piracy was supposed to be killing the entertainment industry and no one would make anything any more? Of course, almost exactly five years ago, we showed this wasn't true at all, and the actual output of creative content was way, way up. Obviously, some of that was "amateur" creations, but it was true of professional creative content as well. One area that we pointed out was that the internet had made it possible to create much more new content and release it in new ways -- and that certainly has held true in the realm of scripted TV shows. A new report from FX Research shows that the amount of scripted TV shows has absolutely exploded over the past few years. Since just 2010 the number of scripted series available has more than doubled. That's crazy (but also awesome): Of course, it won't surprise people to see that a bunch of the new shows are on online services (Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, etc.). But it does seem noteworthy that all the other areas have been growing also -- even broadcast TV, which is a very limited resource, has somehow figured out how to cram in a few more scripted shows.

And, of course, many people now consider this to be "the golden age of television" because there are so many amazing shows on TV. So it appears that -- contrary to the whining that we've heard in the past about how all this new content creation would lead to more crappy content, it's actually done the reverse -- and pushed more scripted TV show creators to up their game, and to be even more creative and original. Of course, you'll hear stuff about TV execs being "worried" about there being too much TV content, but that's just them trying to suppress competition.

What's most hilarious about all of this is that I remember in the early 2000s, when "unscripted" or so-called "reality TV" was everywhere, being told that it was because of piracy that scripted TV was "dying." We were told that the big TV studios would no longer invest in scripted TV, because it just couldn't make any money in the internet era -- and at least "reality" TV often created a demand for live viewing. And yet, look at how things have changed. And look at how little "piracy" seems to actually be an issue.

Filed Under: internet, piracy, scripted tv, streaming, tv