MPAA's Lies About Films Being Available Online Easily Debunked In Seconds

from the why-do-they-even-bother? dept

Stan McCoy was, until recently, the lead negotiator on "intellectual property" for the US Trade Representative -- making him the main guy behind ACTA and the horrific intellectual property sections of the TPP and TTIP agreements. Then, last year, he jumped ship exactly where you'd expect him to go: becoming a lobbyist for the MPAA. McCoy, as we've noted, has a history of condescension and mocking towards anyone expressing concern for "the public," rather than "the industry" which pays his bills.

So, it should come as little surprise at all that, in his current role, he's out there trotting out more bogus claims that ignore reality, in order to push the agenda of his employer. In a blog post discussing his appearance on a panel in the UK, McCoy insists that he's busting the myth that there's piracy because the content isn't available from authorized sources:

We need to bust the myth that legal content is unavailable. Creative industries are tirelessly experimenting with new business models that deliver films, books, music, TV programs, newspapers, games and other creative works to consumers. In Europe, there are over 3,000 on-demand audio-visual services available to European citizens. According to a recent KPMG report, 86% of the most popular and highest quality films and television series are available across legal digital platforms to UK consumers.

Okay, so this is McCoy's attempt at mythbusting. And it fails, pretty miserably, as TorrentFreak's Ernesto showed with just a little bit of effort. He went and looked at the top 10 most downloaded films last week and busted McCoy's weak attempt at mythbusting:
Click through for TorrentFreak's clickable chart And, of course the KPMG study that McCoy relies on is quite misleading as well, since it actually found that over 80% of the top movies are not available on Netflix, by far the most popular service. That means that if people actually wanted to see the movies they want, they face a fragmented, confusing market, in which they'd need to sign up for a bunch of different services with different limitations to actually see what they want.

In other words, despite the MPAA pretending otherwise again and again, it remains a simple fact that the lack of availability and convenience on authorized services has a difficult time competing with the availability and convenience of unauthorized offerings. The same thing has been true for well over a decade. The music industry has mostly figured this out, so why can't the movie industry?

Of course, what McCoy can't really say is the truth: the movie industry can't readily adapt because it will piss off the theaters. The recording industry couldn't more fully embrace the internet until the old record stores finally lost their power, and the studios are held back by the theaters nowadays. Of course, the MPAA could and probably should be trying to help transition to the future by pushing back against the theaters' outdated views and explaining to them how they can also easily compete with home viewing by providing a better in-theater experience. But that takes real work. Instead, the MPAA's focusing on "content protection" because that way it retains a reason to exist.

Filed Under: availability, copyright, innovation, movies, piracy, releases, stan mccoy, windowing
Companies: mpaa

Revolving Door: MPAA Hires Chief USTR Negotiator Behind ACTA And TPP's IP Chapter

from the a-big-pat-on-the-back dept

For the past five years or so, the USTR's chief intellectual property negotiator has been Stan McCoy. McCoy has long positioned himself as an intellectual property maximalist, repeating talking points from lobbyists regularly, while condescending to anyone who questions the legitimacy of those claims. McCoy famously was the chief negotiator behind the US's disastrous (and mostly failed) attempt to push ACTA through, as well as the lead on the TPP's intellectual property chapter -- a chapter so bad it may help sink the TPP agreement. In fact, previous reports have noted that McCoy's bullying and aggression in trying to push through the TPP were angering others in the negotiations. McCoy also has a long history of mocking public interest advocates, while praising maximalists for similar tactics. From a report a few years ago concerning a hearing that McCoy chaired:

The burden of proof was very obviously on the public interest, civil society groups. Stan McCoy of the USTR, who was presiding over the hearing, joked about the two-phonebook-sized submission by the International Intellectual Property Alliance. (Lol?) Sadly, there is no independent verification of these industry reports and there were no tough questions for industry regarding their testimony. Several times, McCoy interrupted civil society groups’ testimony to chide them on speaking too generally about IP policy, but refrained when industry witnesses did the same.

Given all that, it should be no surprise at all that McCoy, the failed strategist behind ACTA and the TPP's IP provisions... has received his reward and pat on the back from the industry: a shiny new job at the MPAA. As Tim Lee notes in that link, this is just the latest in the never-ending revolving door between maximalist lobbying groups and the USTR:

Last year I wrote that at least a dozen former senior USTR officials have moved to industry groups that favor stronger protections. McCoy's hire makes it a baker's dozen. Previous hires include including Greg Frazier, who (according to his LinkedIn page) spent 8 years as the executive vice president of the Motion Picture Association of America after a stint at USTR. Other former USTR officials took jobs at drug and medical device companies.

McCoy's old job, assistant USTR for intellectual property and innovation, made him the Obama administration's highest-ranking trade negotiator on patent and copyright issues. Jamie Love, director of the public interest organization Knowledge Ecology International, notes that this isn't the first time USTR's top intellectual property official has gone on to take a lobbying job. McCoy's predecessor, Victoria Espinel, is now the head of the software industry group BSA.

Espinel's predecessor at BSA was Robert Holleyman, the man Obama just nominated to a senior post at USTR. While at BSA, Holleyman supported the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act, which would have created an official internet blacklist to aid in anti-piracy efforts. (He backtracked a few weeks later after an uproar in the technology community.

Another of McCoy's predecessors as USTR's top IP official is Joe Papovich, who later spent seven years as a lobbyist for the recording industry.

As Lee notes, the revolving door between maximalist lobbying organizations and the USTR goes round and round, with USTR officials joining the lobbyist organizations and then going back to the USTR. It's a clear case of regulatory capture by the industry. None of those folks go on to public interest or civil society groups, nor does the USTR ever seem interested in hiring those people. It's entirely a one-sided effort to help out the biggest lobbying interests. Work for a few years pushing through policies that favor those companies, and then get "rewarded" with a nice, high-paying job for those very same lobbyists, and no one ever seems to point out the obvious corruption in the entire process.

As Lee notes, as easy as it is to ascribe comic-book levels of ill-intent here, that's unlikely. McCoy and others genuinely believe what they're doing is the right thing. But the end results are clear:

I doubt public servants like McCoy consciously pursue dubious policies in an effort to curry favor with future employers. McCoy's press representative hasn't responded to my interview request, but I assume McCoy sincerely believes the Hollywood-friendly policies he advocated at USTR were in the interests of the nation.

But the revolving door between USTR and industry groups creates a strong but subtle pressure on USTR's culture. Like many government agencies, USTR regularly turns to outside experts to help it sort through complex trade issues. Naturally, they turn to people they trust: their former colleagues — or even former bosses — who now work at trade organizations with plenty of resources to devote to understanding the minutia of trade policy.

And it's even worse than that, frankly. Because, when you combine that revolving door, with the proposals seen in ACTA, TPP and elsewhere, it undermines the public trust in all of this. People see it and naturally assume corruption, even if the intent is pure. In other words, even if we give McCoy and others the benefit of the doubt, the very fact that he spent 5 years pushing entirely for the MPAA's policies, while brushing off any and all claims from the MPAA's critics, and then took a job at the MPAA, confirms in the minds of many people that the USTR has no interest in representing the public good. And that perception (regardless if the underlying intent is real or not) corrodes public trust in the federal government, and the USTR in particular.

Filed Under: acta, copyright, maximalists, patents, revolving door, stan mccoy, tpp, ustr
Companies: mpaa

US TPP Negotiators Accused Of Bullying; Refusing To Budge On Ridiculous IP And Corporate Sovereignty Demands

from the i'm-sorry-for-my-country's-insane-negotiators dept

This is hardly a surprise, but more reports are coming out revealing that the US's ongoing strategy in negotiating the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) agreement is to not take into account the many, many concerns about the US's hardline, maximalist position on both intellectual property issues and efforts to give corporations sovereignty over national laws under the misleadingly named (and purposely boring) "investor state dispute settlements" (ISDS). You would think that with widespread dissection and concerns expressed about the leaked intellectual property chapter, that the USTR might possibly ease up on its crazy maximalist demands. Not so -- but that's to be expected when you have Stan McCoy as the lead negotiator on intellectual property issues. McCoy is a famed extreme maximalist on IP issues who has more or less admitted to having no interest at all in hearing from public interest groups, while lapping up any opportunity to parrot bogus claims from the industry. McCoy was the same guy behind the embarassing disaster known as ACTA, which flopped so miserably. You'd think he'd take a hint, but instead it appears he's decided to dig in his heels and make sure the US continues to live up to its reputation as an obnoxious bully.

Multiple reports have called out the US (and McCoy in particular) for its aggression and "bullying" in the negotiations. Others have accused the US of engaging in a "negotiation by exhaustion," in which US negotiators seem to figure if they just stand their ground forever, everyone will eventually be bullied into agreeing to the US's positions.

‘The US has adopted a strategy of exhaustion in its bullying of negotiators on the crucial intellectual property chapter to force countries to trade away health in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement negotiations in Salt Lake City’, according to Professor Jane Kelsey from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, who is monitoring the negotiations.

‘The US has stepped up its aggression as they move towards their "end point" of the TPPA ministerial meeting in Singapore from 7 to 10 December’, said Professor Kelsey.

[....] ‘This is a loaded game’, Professor Kelsey said. ‘McCoy sets the agenda and timetable. Negotiators are working from morning until late at night and preparing to work all night, if necessary.’

The second link above, from a publication in Australia, notes something similar and complains about the Australian government's seeming willingness to side with the US on these issues:

The United States has been accused of negotiation by exhaustion in last-minute talks in Salt Lake City ahead of the final ministers' meeting that will decide the makeup of the Trans Pacific trade deal between Australia and eleven other nations.

Information leaking from the closed official-level talks suggests the United States is giving no ground on questions of intellectual property and medicines and is insisting each nation sign up to so-called Investor State Dispute Settlement provisions that would allow global corporations to sue sovereign governments.

[....] “What is happening is not a negotiation,” said Patricia Ranald, Convenor of the Australian Fair Trade Network. “The United States is dictating the terms and it seems the Australian Government is not prepared to join other governments which are resisting these demands

While Stan McCoy plays out his own last stand game, pushing for policies that may help a few of his friends in the industry at the expense of the public, hopefully that last point -- about other governments resisting McCoy's attempt to bully them into a really bad deal -- stays true. An analysis of the positions on the IP Chapter, done by Gabriel Michael, highlighted how the US's position is a lot more isolated than it might like. That may explain the bullying behavior. It looks like the USTR is getting desperate, realizing its usual tricks and games aren't fooling most of the other negotiators. As Michael's analysis showed, the US and Japan (two of the strongest supporters of maximalism) appear to be fairly isolated -- issuing a lot more proposals that no one else supports.

Of course, the USTR is somewhat famous for its ability to start horse trading, promising bogus sweetheart deals if people just agree to awful language that will do massive harm to the public, so it's still something to be quite nervous about until any final text is revealed. Of course, just the fact that the USTR has still refused to reveal the text itself should be reason enough to recognize that this deal is a joke designed to screw over the public. Those acting in the interest of the public don't hide their efforts from the public.

Filed Under: bullies, copyright, corporate sovereignty, intellectual property, isds, negotiations, public interest, stan mccoy, tpp, ustr

Double Standard On The Special 301 Report: Industry Is Allowed Vague, Unsupported Statements; Consumer Advocates Are Not

from the funny-how-that-works dept

We've already pointed out the general ridiculousness associated with the USTR's "Special 301" report, which is widely regarded as a joke. The report, which allows the administration to name which countries have been "naughty" when it comes to intellectual property enforcement, has no methodology. It has no objective measures. It has no accountability. Basically, industry groups submit their own reports on what countries are bad, and the USTR rewrites them as its own report, doing nothing to actually fact check the claims or to even quantify anything. In the past couple of years, the USTR has been more open about having consumer rights organizations -- and even consumers themselves -- submit their own reports, but there's been little indication that anyone at the USTR has actually listened to any of those reports.

And, in a rather striking demonstration of how this all works, Stan McCoy, from the USTR (and apparently a top candidate to take over the Copyright Office, despite not being an expert in copyright law), presided over hearings concerning the Special 301 report recently, in which both industry groups and consumer groups appeared. Yet, as one observer noted, McCoy appeared to have a total double-standard concerning how he viewed the comments of each:

The burden of proof was very obviously on the public interest, civil society groups. Stan McCoy of the USTR, who was presiding over the hearing, joked about the two-phonebook-sized submission by the International Intellectual Property Alliance. (Lol?) Sadly, there is no independent verification of these industry reports and there were no tough questions for industry regarding their testimony. Several times, McCoy interrupted civil society groups’ testimony to chide them on speaking too generally about IP policy, but refrained when industry witnesses did the same.

Testimony from groups like Global Health Organization, the Forum on Democracy and Trade, Oxfam, Public Knowledge, and others were met with aggressive push back and questioning on how criticism on the Special 301 process was at all relevant to the committee’s ability to render judgments on individual countries.

But that’s exactly the problem. The report is written so vaguely, and industry complaints taken at such face value, that specific criticism of the report is near impossible. I was surprised to learn that the report doesn’t include a list of criteria used to evaluate countries or even clear explanations on why specific countries are placed on the watch list, nor does it say which industry-submitted comments were the basis for citation.

So if you're from industry, it's absolutely fine to make vague, totally unsubstantiated statements -- even if they've been widely debunked by actual experts and researchers. Yet, if you're representing consumers, you need to have specific points to make or you get chided. And, of course, you can't make any actual specific points because the USTR doesn't have any specific criteria on which it bases the overall report. Brilliant.

Also, it appears that McCoy is somewhat uninformed about his own organization's report (which he is closely connected with):

The best moment of the hearing, to me, was during Sean Flynn's testimony on behalf of the Forum on Democracy and Trade. Flynn argued (for the second year in a row, I might add) that citing countries like Finland, France, Italy, and Japan for "unfair [pharmaceutical] reimbursement policies" was incredibly vague, hypocritical (because the US has similar reimbursement policies), and--most importantly--outside the statutory mandate of the Special 301 process. McCoy retorted that no such citation was in the 2010 report [pdf].

Flynn’s response? "It's right here on page 14..."

And people wonder why foreign governments, and many of us who pay attention to these issues, consider the Special 301 process to make a mockery of the US government on intellectual property issues.

Filed Under: consumer rights, copyright, industry, politics, special 301, stan mccoy, ustr

USTR Insists Gov't Isn't Keeping ACTA Secret

from the up-is-down,-black-is-white,-you-said-what-now? dept

Stan McCoy, the assistant US trade rep, is apparently the new point man from the USTR office on jaw-dropping political doublespeak about ACTA. You may recall a few days back when McCoy insisted that there was a lot of misrepresentations about ACTA, but failed to clarify any of them. Instead, he started talking about the dangers associated with counterfeiting (something no one denies) and then simply wrapped copyright infringement into that -- even though copyright infringement and counterfeiting are entirely different. Now, McCoy has gone even further. Jamie Love points us to a letter he sent the Financial Times, where McCoy insists that there is great openness about ACTA. He kicks off with another bogus attempt to blur the lines between counterfeiting and copyright:

Intellectual property protection is critical to jobs and exports that depend on innovation and creativity. Trade in counterfeit and pirated products undermines those jobs and exports, exposes consumers to dangerous knock-offs from toothpaste to car parts, and helps fund organised crime.

See the switcharoo in the middle there? He starts of talking about intellectual property... but then in the middle lumps counterfeiting and infringing (which he falsely calls "piracy" even though he's not talking about what's happening off the Somalia coast) together, and then at the end he's really only talking about counterfeiting, but to the untrained observer, they still think he's talking about copyright infringement. That's political bullshitting. And I won't even get into the evidence that raises serious questions about whether his first sentence is true at all, but will mention there's a lot of data that suggests IP actually limits jobs and slows down innovation and creativity. But, at this point, I think McCoy has already established that the USTR is not a fact-based organization.

The ACTA negotiations are one of many international efforts to fight counterfeiting and piracy -- not to "transform" already strong US and European Union copyright laws. Far from keeping them secret, governments participating in these negotiations have sought public comments, released a summary of issues under discussion, and enhanced public engagement.

Okay. Pick your jaws up off the floor. That last sentence is so ridiculous and so false; it's amazing he thought that he could get away with it. Exactly which governments have "sought public comments" on ACTA? The answer? None. Why? Because no government has yet revealed what ACTA is officially. Hell, in the most recent ACTA negotiations, held in Mexico, the government wanted to force the public to sign NDAs just to attend a public meeting, and then had industry representatives mocking public concerns and demanding that a blogger leave the proceedings for live Tweeting the meetings. Yes, "sought public comments" indeed. Does he think that if he says day is night people just believe him? And the idea that the government is "far from keeping [ACTA] secret" is pure hogwash. A comparison of ACTA secrecy to similar negotiations suggest that ACTA is being kept exceptionally secret.

Furthermore, if the laws are already strong, then what's the point of ACTA?

Among other things, the summary states clearly that "ACTA is not intended to interfere with a signatory's ability to respect its citizens' fundamental rights and civil liberties".

Oh, well, if the summary states it, then why didn't you say so in the first place? Obviously there's nothing to worry about at all. Except... it doesn't appear that the actual documents follow what the summary says. Of course, we've only seen the "leaked" documents, but they certainly suggest plans to interfere with fundamental rights and civil liberties on a pretty widespread basis. Supporters of ACTA even talk about "dragging countries in the 21st century" by forcing on them DMCA-type laws and requiring secondary liability that flat out violates basic fundamental rights. The fact that the "summary" says so isn't convincing, Mr. McCoy. It just highlights that you're hiding what the document actually says.

So, come on, Mr. McCoy. Stop treating concerned citizens like we're idiots and maybe respond to the actual concerns of citizens around the world.

Filed Under: acta, copyright, counterfeiting, secrecy, stan mccoy