Speak out against new RIAA and MPAA proposed legislation

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Speak out against new RIAA and MPAA proposed legislation

Post by roymond »

They want to force hardware and software restrictions that will cripple independent production and fair-use of copyrighted material, and also severely limit innovation in digital media applications.

Here's an EFF petition you can send to your representatives in congress (it'll figure who they are from your mailing address). There are also helpful links to learn more about the Nov 3rd session where this legislation was introduced.
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Post by Hoblit »

I even added a rant.
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Post by mc3p0 »

Everyone should stop purchasing RIAA and MPAA endorsed products, period. Just like insurance agencies they syphon gains away from artists and impose incredibly galling laws under the guise of "protection". IMO they should be disbanded altogether, their global executives (and their families) investigated, all profits returned retro-actively and a public apology would be in order. De-regulation, tax-exemption, nationalizing proprietary systems and prosecution of 13 year-old "law-benders" wasn't gift enough..

After scanning their P2P ideals, the EFF might also be another form of harvesting - since we are obviously interested parties.
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Post by deshead »

mc3p0 wrote:Everyone should stop purchasing RIAA and MPAA endorsed products, period
That's a bit drastic, don't you think? It would punish all the "guilty by association" independent labels who happen to have distribution deals with RIAA-friendly companies like WEA and BMG.
mc3p0 wrote:Just like insurance agencies they syphon gains away from artists
If you're going to troll, at least get the basic facts straight: It's the labels who pocket most of the artists' gains. (Read Steve Albini's seminal article on the subject, and notice the absence of any reference to the RIAA.)

The RIAA by definition represents the interests of the industry, not the artists or listeners. Their mandate is simple: "Foster a business and legal climate that supports and promotes their members' creative and financial vitality."

In that regard, the system functions exactly as it should. The RIAA is charged with supporting the rights of its members. Those members are publicly traded companies with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo to protect their revenue streams (revenue streams mean happy shareholders.) A significant component of the status quo is the rights granted to record labels by copyright law, through which the Big Labels indirectly earn most of their money. The RIAA, then, exists to ensure that copyright laws remain record-industry friendly. They don't care, nor do they need to, what effect their actions have in any area except the rights of their members.

I'm not gonna go all Marxist and suggest that the real issue is Big Business or shareholders. That said, the EFF grossly oversimplifies the situation with their "RIAA is evil" bogeyman. The RIAA simply perform the task with which they are charged. (And IMO they do it well. How many other trade groups have such visibility and perceived clout?)

In some regards, the EFF actually stands in the way of resolving the situation, as they have us fighting a proxy. As long as people focus their outrage at the "evil" RIAA, they miss the bigger picture: For the RIAA to succeed, they need two things: continued existence of their raison d'être, the Big Labels; and lawmakers amenable to upholding the rights of those labels. That we have both of these speaks volumes. We, the people, vote those lawmakers into power, and vote at the cash register to allow the Big Labels to continue doing business.

But here's the thing: Along with the right to vote (in elections, and at the cash register,) comes implied responsibility for the consequences of your vote. That most people don't understand the superlative importance of this fact is the real problem.


(In fairness, the EFF do their part to educate people about Big Label practices and the policies of our lawmakers. But the RIAA bogeyman certainly serves their purposes, and they haven't done much to mitigate our misplaced outrage. That said, they're still fighting the good fight, so sign the petition Roymond linked. Just know why you're doing it.)
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Post by j$ »

deshead wrote:If you're going to troll, at least get the basic facts straight: It's the labels who pocket most of the artists' gains. (Read Steve Albini's seminal article on the subject, and notice the absence of any reference to the RIAA.)
I would wager that this is mainly because Albini wrote this article 12 years ago (Baffler #5 came out in 1993) when the influence of the RIAA (and the internet) was nowhere near as much of a concern as it is now. Although founded in 1952, the RIAA in its current format really started kicking back in 1997, with the growth of music on the internet. (CF here for corrobating evidence.)

Not agreeing or disagreeing with your argument, just putting it into context.

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Post by deshead »

j$ wrote:... 1993) when the influence of the RIAA (and the internet) was nowhere near as much of a concern as it is now. Although founded in 1952, the RIAA in its current format really started kicking back in 1997, with the growth of music on the internet.
That's true, but they've worked the anti-piracy gig for the major labels a lot longer than 8 years. For example, the RIAA was the driving force behind the 1992 Audio Home Recording Act. (The best reference for this is on the site I shouldn't link to.) And they fought the DAT format hard in the 80's, for the same reasons. (Negativland has an older version of the MPAA press kit which claims their work with law enforcement, on behalf of the copyright holders, goes all the way back to 1970.)
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Post by Tonamel »

deshead wrote:(The best reference for this is on the site I shouldn't link to.)
Yeah, I'm still trying to figure out how Puce did it without having it censored. An escape code of some sort, no doubt.
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Post by mc3p0 »

deshead - Maybe I was too focused on immediate figureheads rather than the amendments.. You would pass them?

It seems logical to me to simply not participate in the consumption of the products. These laws seem extreme, especially when seeing what RIAA protects.
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Post by deshead »

mc3p0 wrote:deshead - Maybe I was too focused on immediate figureheads rather than the amendments.. You would pass them?
No, I wouldn't. Though my opinion's as irrelevant as the proposed legislation. (I'm Canadian; and the law would be technologically unenforceable.)

That said, I'd defend the RIAA's right to push the bill on behalf of the people who pay them to do so.
mc3p0 wrote:It seems logical to me to simply not participate in the consumption of the products. These laws seem extreme, especially when seeing what RIAA protects.
Yep, I agree. But my point above was that you'd be better served to identify the best target for a "vote with your wallet" action. The RIAA aren't the problem (they're just, as you said, the immediate figureheads,) and if you stop buying product from anyone associated with the RIAA, you're going to hurt a lot of innocent artists.
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Post by mc3p0 »

deshead wrote:..I'd defend the RIAA's right to push the bill on behalf of the people who pay them to do so.
We share a difference of opinion and tactic. From what I gather, "future" intellectual property rights are what's at stake, thus the hardware legislation. But this is also a fight to maintain public domain rights - such as disallowing public education material to be available for free online. Home schoolers are really gong to impact future book-publishing profits? These battles all seem tied together into a single agenda, imo.
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Post by roymond »

deshead wrote:That said, I'd defend the RIAA's right to push the bill on behalf of the people who pay them to do so.
I'd agree if they did so honestly and didn't distort the numbers they present as evidence. For instance, they maintain that the entire loss of CD revenue between 1998 and 2002 was due to piracy while not acknowledging the meteoric rise in sales of DVD and gaming (online, console and PC based).

CD sales suffer when people simply have less time and money for them (they're watching movies and playing games...duh). Interestingly, the RIAA do talk about the important roll they play for the industry in light of these "potential threats" for market share. They also ignore the fact that CD sales of back-catalogs will saturate at some point, once people have re-purchased their collections, replacing vinyl and tapes. That trend obviously started earlier but continued through the 90s (well, for us oldies, anyways).
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Post by mc3p0 »

full article.
The MPAA and RIAA have looked at the MS windows Media and Apple iTunes approaches (and watched the Sony uprising) and begrudgingly are agreeing with EFF's (Electronic Freedom Foundation) approach that there has to be a gentler, kinder DRM that will make everyone but the died-in-the-wool thieves happy. In fact they should focus all of their sleuths and legal raiders to job of getting the big fish. Then they could make so much money they could forgive the aging grandfather and mother on welfare. Real content developers - the indies and special interest groups - could use good-enough DRM and make a living.

If they get the lawyers out of the discussion process and let regular people develop a DRM solution everyone could live with because intellectual property (IP) is valuable and within reason must be protected. Problem is, it isn't an American issue. It's a global issue because surprise folks…IP is developed - and stolen - everywhere on the planet!!!
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Post by jb »

Y'all should note that the censor filter does not affect hyperlinks. So you can link to <a href="http://wikipedia.org">Wikipedia</a> with impunity, as long as you don't care about the black mark on your soul.
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Post by Hoblit »

jb wrote:Y'all should note that the censor filter does not affect hyperlinks. So you can link to <a href="http://[CENSORED].org">[CENSORED]</a> with impunity, as long as you don't care about the black mark on your soul.
Strange, because I once used a hyperlink to the site and it didn't work. I ended up using a link to a redirect script from my website to 'said site'. Hmmm.
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Post by a bebop a rebop »

It works in your original post jb but not in hoblit's quote of it. What's up with that?
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Post by jb »

a bebop a rebop wrote:It works in your original post jb but not in hoblit's quote of it. What's up with that?
No clue.
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Post by mc3p0 »

A torrent regarding Pirate Bay being pressured though MPA and probably congress (aka fuckwit Michael "What's a TiVO?" Powell).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Po ... olitician)
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Post by fluffy »

jb wrote:
a bebop a rebop wrote:It works in your original post jb but not in hoblit's quote of it. What's up with that?
No clue.
It's because phpBB is a fucking piece of shit which is written by a few dozen monkeys with no high-level architecture skills, is what's up with that.

Also I think BBcode links work while <a href="http://wikipedia.org/">HTML links</a> don't.
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Post by fluffy »

fluffy wrote:Also I think [url=http://[CENSORED].org]BBcode links[/url] work while <a href="http://[CENSORED].org/">HTML links</a> don't.
Never mind. Both of those links worked in the original post, but then the quoting mechanism must have run them through the censor filter, sorta. I think maybe the censor filter is badly-written and tries to be all like 'oh hey person is trying to see original naughty language by quoting the original message' or something. Ignoring that HTML attributes don't go through the censor filter.

So yeah, previous statement wins.
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Post by HeuristicsInc »

From cues in the video it sounds like those people are talking specifically about the real music pirates, those that copy stuff and sell physical CDs rather than just sharing files on your computer. They specifically said CDs, not digital files. And I think the *real* music (and DVD) piracy business, yes, it is connected to other kinds of crime (organized and not). I think the people that posted it are trying to make a point that isn't really there, unless there are parts of that video that are cut out where they try to relate it to filesharers... but really there's no need to try to make the RIAA look worse, they do a good job on their own.
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Post by Hoblit »

I think think since the video itself is a training video for the RIAA (assuming thats true) that they are casually lumping that type of REAL crime into the same category as you and I downloading the latest Against Me! single.

They already do that with those DVD commercials you see right before the movie you rented. They lump shoplifters into the same category as the casual downloader.

They say: People downloading songs is the same thing as everybody running into a CD store and grabbing whatever they want while the alarm bells are banging and everybody is running in a steady flow in and out of the store.

*I* say: Its more like people running into the CD store, carefully removing the packaging, ripping the music off of the CD, taking a photograph of the CD cover front and back, gently placing it all back into the packaging for someone else to buy. If you are burning that onto another CD then you can add: Going to the counter PAYING for CDs. (that could even possibly be made by an affiliate of the company of the copied CD) Don't forget that you are already paying for your internet connection as well and that TOO could also be affiliated with the same company somehow.

That doesn't change the fact that they are lumping all of this CRIME into the same category and virtually treating everyone who does this like a criminal...and suing for their own 'street value' calculations.
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