GEMA is doing a shit job of serving both the musicians and the public market.
One of many examples is YouTube who have successfully negotiated music deals with most countries around the World but Germany is blocked to them simply because GEMA is overpriced beyond reason and refuses to budge.
Sure enough everyone is mad at GEMA from the record labels who would actually like some income, through the hundreds of sites that can't work with GEMA, down to the users always seeing "this music/video is not available in your country"
Now GEMA have gone the final step of annoying clubs as well when since many services now refuse to deal with GEMA they are losing money and so need to boost their core club income to compensate.
Here we now are with the German Government failing to rein in this monster, or ideally to force consumer regulation on them, now allowing GEMA to destroy most of the music market in Germany.
I am sure most people would like to see GEMA die and for a new fair service to replace them. The problem there is even if a second collection agency was started and everyone stuck to non-GEMA music then you can bet your last Euro that GEMA would still demand their fee and would have some very fascist law to back them up.
So music life in Germany is as sad as you can get with GEMA failing to do their most basic job of licencing music at fair rates.
Yes they avoid implementing DMCA law in their dispute system to simply allow such organizations to do censorship galore with no fear of legal retribution.
Sure due to all the abuse going on YouTube does want DMCA in ContentID disputes but would groups like UMG actually allow them? It is easy enough for UMG to say "You add DMCA and we will pull all our videos" which would be a lot of pain to YouTube. UMG has already got burned by DMCA fair use in the Lenz case so they have reason to remind YouTube who's bitch they are.
No doubt due to all the bad publicity YouTube will soon restore this video but for every one that makes the headlines there are one thousand more who do not and thus remain censored.
It is nice to see voters remembering those who played a large role in bad legislation and voted to get them out.
Yes many people are very unhappy with what Congress has been doing to the Internet where it has mainly been the big push of 15 million people who helped kill off SOPA and PIPA.
We should never forget though that this is a global fight and we do need to stand united. Even the Philippines got that damned Cybersecurity law currently suspended by their Supreme Court.
So Biden sits on the board of the MPAA now. Another reason to fire Obama/Biden even if their rivals are almost as bad.
It does make you sad that there is no good choice. I well recall Obama's early promises to transparent government and to respect the law. It is also not like he has done much to earn that Nodel Peace Prize he got.
Then what can you say to yet more anti-piracy messages. File-sharers if they see them just ignore them and it is not like adding more won't stop them ignoring them still when it only increases their level of annoyance and to validate their belief in piracy.
I know quite a lot about this case myself when over a decade ago many of the people I knew were smartcard hackers.
I certainly heard stories then about NDS employees being full members of their hacking groups and they were certainly handing over confidential information like the Sky card ASIC code.
NDS were at the top of the game and their large knowledge of smartcard technology and hacking techniques went on to produce their very secure VideoGuard system.
As pointed out in this story NDS had little concern in getting their hands dirty and assisting their rival services to be hacked.
Now here is a good theory for you to mull over when years ago the Italian TPS and Stream service were in competition which helped none. Also they were seriously hacked with pirate smartcards and firmware going about.
Eventually these two services under serious financial strain merged and right when they were at their weakest was this service bought out by NewsCorp to become the new Sky Italia.
With NDS being hand in hand with the hackers then you can only guess the rest. I can certainly say that there are people out there who well know what NDS got up to a lot better than I do.
This is the world we live in these days with a DMCA free-for-all by a bunch of trained monkeys.
Congress is certainly to blame for this situation when they specified no punishment for false DMCA take-down requests. So many do not even care if their results are valid or not when at worst people can take them to Court... to recover their Count expenses... and for any actual damaged caused... which for most people is... zero. This is why no one cares to punish false take-down requests when the Court route is a whole lot of time and effort for no real gain.
As I said before if people issue false take-down requests then they should be made to pay a fixed fine. Should this happen too often then issue them a suspension. Then at last right holders have reason to respect what is not theirs.
Congress never does what you need them to when to put it simply no one is paying them to fix this problem. So DMCA law is rapidly becoming a joke and recent news like me.ga goes to show websites would prefer to by-pass the law.
New records are being set all over the media industry but of course anything that does not make the old industry money gets classed as various degrees of trash.
The indie movie market still has a long way to go to become a major market force but I can see the various pieces getting mobilized ready for the day of market domination.
That is what scares Hollywood and why they like to lie.
The real question Hollywood should ask themselves is why older better movies like Back to the Future had a budget of $50 million when adjusted for inflation but many top movies these days command a budget of about $200 million. Doing the same kind of thing at 4x the cost well highlights Hollywood's inefficiency when modern technology should have lowered the cost.
This seems best for people who live very close to their movie theatre when travel costs can soon spiral up. Seeing 30 of the newest movies per month for $29.99 seems good value if you love movies and have the time.
The one change I believe they should make is to scrap the reviewing ban when since they are allowed only one ticket a day then who cares what movie they see or to see again? They can still pose limits during popular movie times.
Avoiding the cinema food is also a good idea when aiming for value and you can always sneak in your own food and drink. It is not like they would ever gain if you choose not to buy from them in the first place.
It could attract new customers but yes people who already visit the cinema are the most likely buyers. The biggest gain they have is word of mouth with these people attracting others to see some movies.
Laws cannot be upheld if the majority of the public reject the law.
One example would be the Poll Tax in the UK when they wanted to directly tax everyone but too many people caused too many problems. So instead of trying to prison loads of the population they cancelled the whole scheme and did their taxation plans another way.
So laws cannot be enforced if the population do not want them enforced. Even the police do not take action against lawbreakers if enforcement is not in the public interest.
1. Unlawful raid on Kim Dotcom's home.
2. Unlawful seizure of property.
3. The unlawful removal of HDD data from NZ by FBI agents.
4. Unlawful wire taping (spying) by GCSB.
Those are the four I can think of but I am uncertain if the first three would rank as "proven" when they like to appeal anything that goes against them where it is only "proven" once the appeal fails.
1. Unlawful raid on Kim Dotcom's home.
2. Unlawful seizure of property.
3. The unlawful removal of HDD data from NZ by FBI agents.
4. Unlawful wire taping (spying) by GCSB.
Those are the four I can think of but I am uncertain if the first three would rank as "proven" when they like to appeal anything that goes against them where it is only "proven" once the appeal fails.
Good news indeed and let us hope the Supreme Court goes all the way strikes this law down.
While the Philippines seems far away from the Western World we should still stand shoulder to shoulder with our Pinoy and Pinay brothers and sisters so that during our days of need they stand with us.
This attack on the Internet is a Global fight and we simply cannot allow countries to fall to such harsh laws to curb our Internet freedoms.
Let us recall that 56kbps was the claimed maximum where the minimum was 28kbps and where my local line quality allowed for between 36 and 42kbps.
Those modems were really a new breed though where back in 1995 you could well be stuck on 14 and 28kbps dial-up modems.
Well I may have some live video broadcast recordings from back in 1997 but this is really not the type of stuff that you would want to see.
I will recall 1997 and 1998 when here in the UK BT made a whole lot of money from me of around £2000 per year. BT then got so rich they purchases a telecoms company in Japan. Then ISPs began to offer 0800 "free" connections and BT's plans and income crashed. I then got broadband around 2000 for an always on fast link.
This discussion is odd to me when recently I have been watching some 1080p video that needs to be streamed at over 0.69 MB/s. How the world has moved on and we still need faster and better technology to achieve even better results.
I can well recall seeing video streaming via Real Media back in 1997 so it had obviously existed prior to that.
I think he is right that video streaming was rather a trivial matter when even years prior to that time you had your MPeg video that become fixed into a v1.0 standard in 1993. So it would have been about pulling these known features together and getting it working over the Internet with the main problem being people's slow dial-up connections.
We sure to live in a strange time with many people trying to carve themselves a slice of the Internet. Patent trolls falsely claiming ownership of things they did not create is one small part of this.
This is indeed good news when YouTube's ContentID system has been very biased leading to many big stories of wrongful action.
It is a big step to have YouTube follow DMCA law when then infringement claims become a lot more serious and those defending their uploads have a greater defence. So should they want to reject a DMCA notice then their video stays up and this can then turn into a court matter where both side can state their case to a Judge.
This step would help to eliminate false claims to other people's uploads as has been very common. So this is a good step for Google to take when they are now actually following the law instead of making up their own.
From what I have seen this morning then many of those people in the Philippines are blacking out their Facebook accounts in protest starting with students and working up.
I really can't see that there is any good in this new law when it seems very anti-society and only helps to keep the poor in the harsh poverty they well know by removing the few options they have to try and better their lives.
The main focus of piracy in this country beyond some pirated movie sellers in local markets would actually be bluetooth. The locals share around videos and music as it becomes popular. Internet piracy of course works but this is a country with a rather unstable wireless Internet network system with frequent disconnections and rolling brownouts. The locals seem to prefer to waste their time with online game-play.
This law is nothing more glorious mistake and benefits the working on Philippines society none.
Good luck to Kyle Goodwin and the EFF when they represent the hundreds of thousands of other people who have lost access to their own files due to the FBI and DoJ.
I can't see this one ending well for the FBI/DoJ when it is simply the case that they can't withhold innocent third party property. Taking out one corporation and harming a large part of general society should not be happening.
I think the Judge in this case can only make one ruling which is to reunite people with their files. It would then help to point out that those who cause damage get to pay for that damage even if it is the US Government.
I have always said that we stand no realistic hope of reforming copyright laws on National levels all the time those laws are fixed in concrete on an International levels as part of near-impossible-to-break trade agreements.
So just like in this case some group of countries desire to create a copyright free media sharing world then this is impossible when as correctly identified every snippet of media now created is born with "owned by copyright" stamped on it. That is no matter if the person created it desires that or not and that leads to an array of problems like orphaned media.
We should also recognize that things did not used to be this way when the Berne Convention was once created with choice and balance in mind. Years ago to be copyright restricted the media had to be released baring a copyright declaration and the name of the owner. It was in later years that the corruption of copyright set in and not only was the copyright term extended to life plus 70 years but that all media ever made get an automatic copyright status.
It is nice to see them wanting a change but the foreign office is only the first small step in this. To change the Berne Convention requires all the countries to have signed it to agree to a change and the United States would be a very tough nut to crack.
You are really talking about the battle of the century where many IP organizations like the MPAA and RIAA are quite proud of their ownership over IP laws. So if you want to start attacking their control base then they would certainly bring out their biggest guns to fire back. Huge lobbying funds employed to resist change and endless media owners and artists saying how their media would be raped from them.
Well all great things have small beginnings so I can only hope to see the ball keep rolling on this one.
The main problem there was that the MPAA and RIAA were running a propaganda campaign. Simple terms like "thieves" are powerful concepts in weak minds where they also turn out a vast array of false economic reports seemingly showing the decimation to the industry.
The little fact that the income from the movie and music markets have been doing very nicely well highlights that they are liars.
So here we are simply saying "Look what is going on, look at how the world has changed, then only fix REAL PROBLEMS". I can say politicians are not very good at that one, reflective by SOPA, PIPA, ATCA and more, but they may well get there in the end as the world transforms around them.
On the post: GEMA Gets Bailed Out By Germany's Parliament; Allowed To Proceed With Venue-Killing Rate Hikes
hoffnungslos
One of many examples is YouTube who have successfully negotiated music deals with most countries around the World but Germany is blocked to them simply because GEMA is overpriced beyond reason and refuses to budge.
Sure enough everyone is mad at GEMA from the record labels who would actually like some income, through the hundreds of sites that can't work with GEMA, down to the users always seeing "this music/video is not available in your country"
Now GEMA have gone the final step of annoying clubs as well when since many services now refuse to deal with GEMA they are losing money and so need to boost their core club income to compensate.
Here we now are with the German Government failing to rein in this monster, or ideally to force consumer regulation on them, now allowing GEMA to destroy most of the music market in Germany.
I am sure most people would like to see GEMA die and for a new fair service to replace them. The problem there is even if a second collection agency was started and everyone stuck to non-GEMA music then you can bet your last Euro that GEMA would still demand their fee and would have some very fascist law to back them up.
So music life in Germany is as sad as you can get with GEMA failing to do their most basic job of licencing music at fair rates.
On the post: Video About Fair Use, Remix & Culture Taken Down Over Copyright Claim (Of Course)
Bitches
Yes they avoid implementing DMCA law in their dispute system to simply allow such organizations to do censorship galore with no fear of legal retribution.
Sure due to all the abuse going on YouTube does want DMCA in ContentID disputes but would groups like UMG actually allow them? It is easy enough for UMG to say "You add DMCA and we will pull all our videos" which would be a lot of pain to YouTube. UMG has already got burned by DMCA fair use in the Lenz case so they have reason to remind YouTube who's bitch they are.
No doubt due to all the bad publicity YouTube will soon restore this video but for every one that makes the headlines there are one thousand more who do not and thus remain censored.
On the post: Is Using A Single Lyric From A Musician You're A Fan Of 'Theft' Or 'An Homage'?
Assigned
Taylor Swift fans now have a job to do. Nothing these days is ever unique so study Matt Nathanson's music and find out what he copied and from whom.
Showing he is a hypocrite is the best form of revenge.
On the post: Surprise: Two Of Hollywood's Favorite Representatives, Howard Berman & Mary Bono Mack, Defeated
Brothers and Sisters Unite
Yes many people are very unhappy with what Congress has been doing to the Internet where it has mainly been the big push of 15 million people who helped kill off SOPA and PIPA.
We should never forget though that this is a global fight and we do need to stand united. Even the Philippines got that damned Cybersecurity law currently suspended by their Supreme Court.
On the post: Biden Takes Part In MPAA Board Meeting; Suggests Studios Tell Paying Customers They're Thieves
Hopeless
It does make you sad that there is no good choice. I well recall Obama's early promises to transparent government and to respect the law. It is also not like he has done much to earn that Nodel Peace Prize he got.
Then what can you say to yet more anti-piracy messages. File-sharers if they see them just ignore them and it is not like adding more won't stop them ignoring them still when it only increases their level of annoyance and to validate their belief in piracy.
On the post: Spy Stories From The Murdoch Empire: News Corp Fights With Itself In Grand Game Of Espionage
Bad Boys
I certainly heard stories then about NDS employees being full members of their hacking groups and they were certainly handing over confidential information like the Sky card ASIC code.
NDS were at the top of the game and their large knowledge of smartcard technology and hacking techniques went on to produce their very secure VideoGuard system.
As pointed out in this story NDS had little concern in getting their hands dirty and assisting their rival services to be hacked.
Now here is a good theory for you to mull over when years ago the Italian TPS and Stream service were in competition which helped none. Also they were seriously hacked with pirate smartcards and firmware going about.
Eventually these two services under serious financial strain merged and right when they were at their weakest was this service bought out by NewsCorp to become the new Sky Italia.
With NDS being hand in hand with the hackers then you can only guess the rest. I can certainly say that there are people out there who well know what NDS got up to a lot better than I do.
On the post: LeakID And The DMCA Takedown Notice Farce
The Joke
Congress is certainly to blame for this situation when they specified no punishment for false DMCA take-down requests. So many do not even care if their results are valid or not when at worst people can take them to Court... to recover their Count expenses... and for any actual damaged caused... which for most people is... zero. This is why no one cares to punish false take-down requests when the Court route is a whole lot of time and effort for no real gain.
As I said before if people issue false take-down requests then they should be made to pay a fixed fine. Should this happen too often then issue them a suspension. Then at last right holders have reason to respect what is not theirs.
Congress never does what you need them to when to put it simply no one is paying them to fix this problem. So DMCA law is rapidly becoming a joke and recent news like me.ga goes to show websites would prefer to by-pass the law.
On the post: The Proof That Movies Won't Get Made Any More Is That... More Movies Are Being Made Today
The failure of Hollywood
The indie movie market still has a long way to go to become a major market force but I can see the various pieces getting mobilized ready for the day of market domination.
That is what scares Hollywood and why they like to lie.
The real question Hollywood should ask themselves is why older better movies like Back to the Future had a budget of $50 million when adjusted for inflation but many top movies these days command a budget of about $200 million. Doing the same kind of thing at 4x the cost well highlights Hollywood's inefficiency when modern technology should have lowered the cost.
On the post: MoviePass Offers 'Unlimited' Movie Tickets For $29.99 A Month -- But Can It Ever Hope To Turn A Profit?
Tickets
The one change I believe they should make is to scrap the reviewing ban when since they are allowed only one ticket a day then who cares what movie they see or to see again? They can still pose limits during popular movie times.
Avoiding the cinema food is also a good idea when aiming for value and you can always sneak in your own food and drink. It is not like they would ever gain if you choose not to buy from them in the first place.
It could attract new customers but yes people who already visit the cinema are the most likely buyers. The biggest gain they have is word of mouth with these people attracting others to see some movies.
On the post: Sad: 75 Year Old Explanation For Why Copyrights Are Bad... Locked Up Behind Paywall
Re: Re:
One example would be the Poll Tax in the UK when they wanted to directly tax everyone but too many people caused too many problems. So instead of trying to prison loads of the population they cancelled the whole scheme and did their taxation plans another way.
So laws cannot be enforced if the population do not want them enforced. Even the police do not take action against lawbreakers if enforcement is not in the public interest.
On the post: Court Says Case Against Megaupload Can Continue, Despite Not Being Able To Serve The Company
Re: Scores on the doors so far....
2. Unlawful seizure of property.
3. The unlawful removal of HDD data from NZ by FBI agents.
4. Unlawful wire taping (spying) by GCSB.
Those are the four I can think of but I am uncertain if the first three would rank as "proven" when they like to appeal anything that goes against them where it is only "proven" once the appeal fails.
On the post: Court Says Case Against Megaupload Can Continue, Despite Not Being Able To Serve The Company
Re: Scores on the doors so far....
2. Unlawful seizure of property.
3. The unlawful removal of HDD data from NZ by FBI agents.
4. Unlawful wire taping (spying) by GCSB.
Those are the four I can think of but I am uncertain if the first three would rank as "proven" when they like to appeal anything that goes against them where it is only "proven" once the appeal fails.
On the post: The Philippines' Awful New 'Cybercrime' Law Put On Hold -- For Now
The Beast Awakens
While the Philippines seems far away from the Western World we should still stand shoulder to shoulder with our Pinoy and Pinay brothers and sisters so that during our days of need they stand with us.
This attack on the Internet is a Global fight and we simply cannot allow countries to fall to such harsh laws to curb our Internet freedoms.
On the post: Early Inventor Of Streaming Video Wants To Help Fight Off Video Streaming Patent Trolls
Re:
Those modems were really a new breed though where back in 1995 you could well be stuck on 14 and 28kbps dial-up modems.
Well I may have some live video broadcast recordings from back in 1997 but this is really not the type of stuff that you would want to see.
I will recall 1997 and 1998 when here in the UK BT made a whole lot of money from me of around £2000 per year. BT then got so rich they purchases a telecoms company in Japan. Then ISPs began to offer 0800 "free" connections and BT's plans and income crashed. I then got broadband around 2000 for an always on fast link.
This discussion is odd to me when recently I have been watching some 1080p video that needs to be streamed at over 0.69 MB/s. How the world has moved on and we still need faster and better technology to achieve even better results.
On the post: Early Inventor Of Streaming Video Wants To Help Fight Off Video Streaming Patent Trolls
History
I think he is right that video streaming was rather a trivial matter when even years prior to that time you had your MPeg video that become fixed into a v1.0 standard in 1993. So it would have been about pulling these known features together and getting it working over the Internet with the main problem being people's slow dial-up connections.
We sure to live in a strange time with many people trying to carve themselves a slice of the Internet. Patent trolls falsely claiming ownership of things they did not create is one small part of this.
On the post: Google Finally Changes ContentID Appeals Process
It is a big step to have YouTube follow DMCA law when then infringement claims become a lot more serious and those defending their uploads have a greater defence. So should they want to reject a DMCA notice then their video stays up and this can then turn into a court matter where both side can state their case to a Judge.
This step would help to eliminate false claims to other people's uploads as has been very common. So this is a good step for Google to take when they are now actually following the law instead of making up their own.
On the post: The Philippines' New 'Cybercrime' Law Aims To 'Protect' Citizens By Going After Filesharing, Online Libel
I really can't see that there is any good in this new law when it seems very anti-society and only helps to keep the poor in the harsh poverty they well know by removing the few options they have to try and better their lives.
The main focus of piracy in this country beyond some pirated movie sellers in local markets would actually be bluetooth. The locals share around videos and music as it becomes popular. Internet piracy of course works but this is a country with a rather unstable wireless Internet network system with frequent disconnections and rolling brownouts. The locals seem to prefer to waste their time with online game-play.
This law is nothing more glorious mistake and benefits the working on Philippines society none.
On the post: Court Doesn't Buy DOJ's Argument For Why Megaupload User Can't Sue To Get His Data Back
Damage
I can't see this one ending well for the FBI/DoJ when it is simply the case that they can't withhold innocent third party property. Taking out one corporation and harming a large part of general society should not be happening.
I think the Judge in this case can only make one ruling which is to reunite people with their files. It would then help to point out that those who cause damage get to pay for that damage even if it is the US Government.
On the post: European Parliament Committee Calls For Creation Without Copyright To Become EU Policy
Copyright without choice
So just like in this case some group of countries desire to create a copyright free media sharing world then this is impossible when as correctly identified every snippet of media now created is born with "owned by copyright" stamped on it. That is no matter if the person created it desires that or not and that leads to an array of problems like orphaned media.
We should also recognize that things did not used to be this way when the Berne Convention was once created with choice and balance in mind. Years ago to be copyright restricted the media had to be released baring a copyright declaration and the name of the owner. It was in later years that the corruption of copyright set in and not only was the copyright term extended to life plus 70 years but that all media ever made get an automatic copyright status.
It is nice to see them wanting a change but the foreign office is only the first small step in this. To change the Berne Convention requires all the countries to have signed it to agree to a change and the United States would be a very tough nut to crack.
You are really talking about the battle of the century where many IP organizations like the MPAA and RIAA are quite proud of their ownership over IP laws. So if you want to start attacking their control base then they would certainly bring out their biggest guns to fire back. Huge lobbying funds employed to resist change and endless media owners and artists saying how their media would be raped from them.
Well all great things have small beginnings so I can only hope to see the ball keep rolling on this one.
On the post: DOJ Lawyer Explores 'Copyright Freeconomics'; Suggests Copyright Needs To Change
Re:
The little fact that the income from the movie and music markets have been doing very nicely well highlights that they are liars.
So here we are simply saying "Look what is going on, look at how the world has changed, then only fix REAL PROBLEMS". I can say politicians are not very good at that one, reflective by SOPA, PIPA, ATCA and more, but they may well get there in the end as the world transforms around them.
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