Started July 1.
Last summer major ISPs including Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and Cablevision signed off on a new plan by the RIAA and MPAA taking aim at copyright infringers on their networks. According to the plan, after four warnings ISPs are to begin taking “mitigation measures,” which range from throttling a user connection to filtering access to websites until users acknowledge receipt of “educational material.” As you might expect, that educational material’s chapter on fair use rights likely won’t exist.
The plan, as with most plans of this type, was hashed out privately with the government’s help — but with no consumer or independent expert insight. As a result groups like the EFF say the plan has massive problems, like relying on the IP address as proof of guilt, placing the burden of proof on the consumer, while forcing users to pay a $35 fee if they’d like to try and protest their innocence.
“Hashed out privately with the government’s help.” More and more our government has simply become a clearinghouse for business to do whatever it wants.
So, what’s new?
Exactly. After all, Orrin Hatch has been Disney’s flunky for years now.
The RIAA and the MPAA own the WH. What do you expect?
For Obama to respect due process, individual rights and that sort of thing? This man does thing the Chicago way which means set down and shut up slave.
I guess this requires a new “Tax”.
Well, the “Stake Holders” hashed it out, and the ordinary folks get a STAKE IN THE BACK !!! (OR THROUGH THE HEART !!!)
So will my neighbor a.k.a. oblivious service provider, be forwarding these warnings to me?
Having the ISPs handle the copiers is an obvious solution. Better than trying to get the people whose work was stolen to try and determine identities and file lawsuits. The ISPs are rewarded with the people using the most bandwidth taken off their networks. Other non-stealing customers are rewarded by having a better internet connection for their use.
Free market which would dictate to those ISPs to provide better service for less is the loser. Mediocrity is the winner, both on ISP and on content producer sides. As for “non stealing customers”, just wait for them to come for you – slippery slope of Fascist economy quickly spreads into general mind control and no one is free very soon.
Solution: people whose work is stolen doing their own work on protecting it as it suits them and filing proper lawsuits when they legally gather condemning evidence. Nowhere in the Constitution or the Law does it say “rights are less important than ease of prosecution”.
They did that, and the advocates of stealing condemned that as well.
One poster on this site thought the proper penalty would be to pay the total value of the DVDs for the movies stolen.
The film industry has long been known for the “creative” accounting methods used in their books. Now the Cato Institute has called them out for using these dubious accounting methodologies when calculating piracy losses.
http://digital-digest.com/news-63241-MPAA-Conning-Congress-On-Piracy-Losses-Says-Cato-Instititute-GAO.html
The MPAA considers EVERY download a lost sale even though common sense would put the figure much lower. The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) disputes the 1 for 1 loss calculation.
But it gets worse. The lost $10 DVD sale by a studio morphs into a $19 loss to the economy by adding up the loss in each segment. This results in the MPAA estimating that they lose $20 Billion each year in the US alone. Compare this to the actual sales of DVDs and Blu-Rays last year of about $9 Billion.
Agree. Once the corporate lawers get involved the padding of ‘losses’ begins. Soon they will lobby Cingress to claim those fictitious losses as actual losses off their gross income.
“More and more our government has simply become a clearinghouse for business to do whatever it wants” – BS. It goes both ways and as in most Fascist economies it is the Government who steers the ship. People are losers but businesses are NOT winners. Winners are the new class of Community Social Engineers, with the Community Leader Social Engineer at the helm. This is done to control both the population and the business. The only solution is to break “public private partnership” as called in their Orwellian language (translation: Fascist economy controlled by the political elite).
“public private partnership”
I saw Katrina vanden Heuvel (gag) on TV this weekend lauding that very thing.
No.
Here is a direct link to Julian Sanchez’s article on what the actual losses to movie piracy are:
http://cato-at-liberty.org/how-copyright-industries-con-congress/
A major take-away from the article: “Of the total $6.1 billion in annual losses LEK estimated to MPAA studios, the amount attributable to online piracy by users in the United States was $446 million”
And the LEK study was commissioned by the MPAA and LEK and the MPAA have admitted to errors in the study, but not even the US GAO can get a look at the underlying research.
Instead of the billions of dollars in losses professed by the MPAA, the number from their own (flawed) study is $446 million. My guess is the actual loss is a fraction of this number.
“copyright infringers on their networks”
define this…
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder’s “exclusive rights”, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, spread the information contained within copyrighted works, or to make derivative works.
It often refers to copying “intellectual property” without written permission from the copyright holder, which is typically a publisher or other business representing or assigned by the work’s creator.
Copyright infringement is often associated with the terms piracy and theft.
Although piracy connotes brazen high-seas robbery and kidnapping, it has a long history of use as a synonym for certain acts which were later codified as types of copyright infringement.
Theft is more strongly hyperbolic, emphasizing or exaggerating the perceived harm of infringement to copyright holders who choose to utilize their copyrights for profit; it connotes a kind of loss which infringement may not actually effect, and the U.S. Supreme Court has even ruled that infringement does not “easily” equate with theft.
WRONG:
Copyright is the rights to Distribution and SALES..Of physical merchandise..
Music/movies are SUPPOSED to be sold/leased to USE..
Theft is of PHYSICAL material.
There are FEW if any REAL pirates. Understand that MOST of the wording tends to be for Privateers. HIRED by other countries to Raid and pillage other countries. FEW, very FEW were pirates that TOOk ships/goods of their OWN accord. There was NO market for it. Very little could be sold to the Main markets. it had to go to the black market.
So, its a Mis-wording.
Pirates do it for the MONEY. in this understanding.
But, under the RIAA/MPAA, you can do it for YOUR OWN GOOD/choice and still be FINED/JAILED.
Under THESE meanings, if you copy it off the NET, there is no crime.
No one is making any money and there is no physical material.
There is the material that you are now enjoying for your benefit, for which you did not pay the amount desired by the producer. That is stealing.
$446 million.
WHICH i HAVE ALWAYS THOUGHT FUNNY..
2 things on it..
The population of the world/USA at $1-1.25each.
AND that all the laws being created are FROM THE USA, not from other nations.
AND the restrictions would be placed INSIDE the USA..
SO. the USA would BLOCK access to a site NOT in the USA.
USA has NO RIGHT, to tell other nations WHAT/HOW they regulate things.
BUT we threaten them…Over and over. IF’ they dont sign into regulations WHAT WE ASK…We cut the food we send to them and ask other nations NOT to send them goods.
FOR all that the INTERNET is free..try going to the OTHER sites for cartoon network. see if you can WATCH the cartoon in Australia.. Try other channels from the Major corps. THEY WONT LET YOU.
TRY watching the BBC program, Dr. WHO at BBC or any affiliates..WONT HAPPEN.
Because you live in the USA. You need to live in 1 of those OTHER areas.
“More and more our government has simply become a clearinghouse for business to do whatever it wants.”
In what way is it not?