Hollywood Freaking Out That Europe Might Make It Marginally Easier For People To Legally Access Content

from the gotta-make-it-as-difficult-as-possible dept

Okay, we have some really serious concerns about the absolute mess of a draft copyright reform proposal that was leaked via EU regulators. The whole thing is basically a giant handout to legacy entertainment companies, pushing for things like taxing Google and other aggregators, and generally ignoring what's best for the public.

But apparently there's one single part of the plan that the entertainment guys don't like: the fact that a big part of the proposal is to knock out geoblocking, to create this "digital single market." To hear Hollywood whine about this, you'd think it was the equivalent of forcibly making all their content available via BitTorrent.

In a letter to the presidents of the European Commission, European Council and European Parliament, they warn that the EU's plans to help make more films and TV shows available online across borders will have "severe negative impacts on our industry and incentives to invest, which would stunt economic growth and innovation for years to come."

To which the only proper response should be: "Oh, for fuck's sake, get over yourself."

You have to be one seriously fucked up industry to believe that a plan to bring down barriers and that makes it easier for the public to access your work completely legally will somehow have "severe negative impacts." At the very least, it certainly gives you an idea of what the MPAA thinks of the current suckers who are happily paying them to watch movies.

A Digital Single Market makes a ton of sense. Geoblocking is the bane of many people's existence, especially in Europe where so much content is blocked. You'd think that Hollywood would be happy to decrease barriers and open up greater opportunities to expand markets. But it often feels like "logical" and the "MPAA" are consistently at odds with one another. Opening up more markets creates better experiences and more consumers. But the MPAA is so focused on control that it doesn't realize that it's working against its own interests here.

And, really, given everything else that's in the bill, it seems like the least Hollywood studios could do is not attack the one good thing about this whole plan, the lowering of market barriers.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright reform, digital single market, dsm, eu

Final Reminder: Tell The EU Commission Not To Wreck The Internet With Poorly Thought Out Regulations

from the last-call dept

Join us in telling EU regulators not to wreck the net.
Read & sign our open letter »

Just a quick reminder of our project to remind EU regulators not to wreck the internet with short-sighted regulations, where you can sign on to a letter that will be sent out early next week. The issue is that EU regulators have taken what seems like a good idea (removing geographic restrictions on the internet in Europe) and turned it into an excuse to try to cram in a bunch of bad internet regulations, mostly focused on removing or weakening intermediary liability protections. It appears that some in the EU Commission think that by forcing Google and Facebook to monitor communications and be forced to more proactively delete content that it will somehow (1) stop bad stuff from happening online and (2) hold back those two companies from continuing to dominate the European market.

They're wrong on both accounts and need to hear from people -- both inside and outside the EU. Such rules will not stop bad stuff from happening, and actually could make it more difficult to track down when necessary. And, it will almost certainly further entrench the biggest internet companies, as they'll have the resources (both money and people) to deal with the monitoring requirements, while startups will be unfairly harmed and burdened by such demands. Imagine trying to enter the video space today if you were required to build your own ContentID system first.

So please join all the people and companies who have already signed on and sign our letter as well. Thanks.

Filed Under: digital single market, dsm, eu, eu commission, internet, platforms, regulations

National Institute For Mental Health Abandons DSM Just As American Psychiatric Association Prepares Massive Update

from the good-for-them dept

The American Psychiatric Association's infamous DSM or Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is often called "the Bible" of classifications for mental illnesses, but it's perhaps almost as famous for its problems than for any usefulness. The list of criticisms and controversies over the DSM are pretty long, and there are significant concerns about the fact that it's not scientific, and that it falls sway to both extreme biases of psychiatrists and their overall profession as well as general cultural biases. The most famous bit of controversy, of course, is that it used to include homosexuality as a mental disorder -- which should be an indication of how trustworthy the book is (i.e., it's not, at all). More recently, the discussion to possibly include internet addiction (or, more officially "Internet Use Disorder" or IUD) in DSM-5 caused a fair bit of mocking.

That's why it's great to see that the National Institute of Mental Health has declared that it's effectively abandoning the DSM just as the APA releases the long awaited DSM-5. After highlighting many of the problems with the DSM, it notes:

But it is critical to realize that we cannot succeed if we use DSM categories as the “gold standard.” The diagnostic system has to be based on the emerging research data, not on the current symptom-based categories. Imagine deciding that EKGs were not useful because many patients with chest pain did not have EKG changes. That is what we have been doing for decades when we reject a biomarker because it does not detect a DSM category. We need to begin collecting the genetic, imaging, physiologic, and cognitive data to see how all the data – not just the symptoms – cluster and how these clusters relate to treatment response.

That is why NIMH will be re-orienting its research away from DSM categories. Going forward, we will be supporting research projects that look across current categories – or sub-divide current categories – to begin to develop a better system. What does this mean for applicants? Clinical trials might study all patients in a mood clinic rather than those meeting strict major depressive disorder criteria. Studies of biomarkers for “depression” might begin by looking across many disorders with anhedonia or emotional appraisal bias or psychomotor retardation to understand the circuitry underlying these symptoms. What does this mean for patients? We are committed to new and better treatments, but we feel this will only happen by developing a more precise diagnostic system.

As others have noted, this is a "potentially seismic move" since the NIMH is so central to funding so much research concerning mental health.

Filed Under: dsm, mental health, nimh, research
Companies: american psychiatric association