While Everyone's Busy, Hollywood & Record Labels Suggest Congress Bring Back SOPA
from the guys,-give-it-a-fucking-rest dept
There are a million different things going on these days when it comes to preventing the powers that be from destroying the internet that we know and love. There are dozens of mostly bad ideas for regulating the internet here in the US, and of course, over in Europe, they’re doing their best to destroy everything with the poorly thought out GDPR, the new Copyright Directive and the upcoming Terrorist Regulation (more on that soon). With all of that keeping everyone trying to protect the internet busy, it appears that the MPAA and the RIAA have decided that now would be a good time to re-introduce SOPA. No joke.
Every year, the US government’s “IP Enforcement Coordinator” — or IP Czar — takes comments for its “Joint Strategic Plan for Intellectual Property,” which is supposed to lay out the federal government’s yearly plan for protecting Hollywood’s profits. As questionable as that is already, this year, the comment submissions seemed to go a bit further than usual. The RIAA’s submission, the MPAA’s submission and the (almost so extreme as to be a parody) Copyright Alliance’s submission all seemed to push a pretty consistent theme. Despite the incredible abundance of content creation happening these days, despite the myriad new ways to distribute, to build a fan base, to create new works and to make money from those works… these legacy gatekeepers all insist that the internet is truly a horrible attack on creativity and must be stopped.
And how to stop it? Well, how about widespread censorship in the form of outright site blocking. In short, these legacy gatekeepers want to bring back SOPA, the law that they tried to ram through seven years ago, only to be embarrassed when the internet stood up and said “no fucking way.”
Let’s start with the RIAA submission, which admits that, hey, the music business is pretty good these days, and almost all of that is because of innovations in technology that the RIAA fought at every freaking step (well, they don’t admit that last part), but, my god, there are still some people out there who don’t pay every single time they hear a song, and that must be stopped. And thus, they request changes to the law, including this:
With respect to website blocking, as one 2018 article states, ?[s]tudies show that blocking regimes that target these large scale piracy sites (not sites that accidentally host pirated material) are an effective tool in reducing piracy and increasing the consumption of legal content and services.? Given the increasing ease for rogue infringing actors to access U.S. audiences while keeping all of their infrastructure off-shore, such as through the use of non-U.S. cctlds for their domain and bullet proof ISPs to host their services, there is a pressing need for additional tools to deter and stop this type of piracy harming U.S. consumers and businesses. As website blocking has had a positive impact in other countries without significant unintended consequences, the U.S. should reconsider adding this to its anti-piracy tool box.
They also suggest making the DMCA even worse, killing off its safe harbors and ramping up the penalties, but let’s focus on the above paragraph. Because that is specifically a suggestion to bring back SOPA, whose main provisions were about site blocking. The idea that this is an “effective tool in reducing piracy” is laughable. Multiple studies (including our own have shown no evidence that greater enforcement reduces piracy over the long term (there is a short, but fleeting impact). Instead, focusing on innovation and providing good services is what decreases piracy. Second, the idea that site blocking is “without significant unintended consequences” is fucking laughable.
Let’s just remember that this is coming from the very same RIAA who supplied false claims of infringement concerning multiple websites, leading them to be seized and held for many years. In those cases, the RIAA told ICE that these blogs had been posting infringing music, and yet could never provide ICE with any evidence to support it. Of course, ICE still held onto those sites for nearly five years, just because. But the RIAA says there have been no unintended consequences?
Okay, how about the time that Australia, which has site blocking under law, tried to take down one site, but actually took down 250,000. Oops. Or when Homeland Security took down 84,000 sites. Do those “unintended consequences” not exist?
At this point, the RIAA cannot be seen as a credible voice on this particular issue.
How about the MPAA’s filing? Well, it’s more of the same. It notes, correctly, that we’re in the “golden age” of movies and TV — much of that being driven by technological developments that the MPAA (who, again, once called the VCR “the Boston Strangler”) fought at every turn. Then it says something that is laughable: “Respect for Copyright Drives Innovation and Competition.” Uh, what? That’s… not even close to true, in part because almost no one — least of all the MPAA — actually “respects” copyright.
But, when we get to the MPAA’s suggestions. It is not as blatant as the RIAA in directly calling for bringing back site blocking, but it does request that DHS and the DOJ get more aggressive about criminal procedures against foreign sites (a la Megaupload) to try to prevent piracy. Why Hollywood expects the federal government to use its law enforcement abilities to stop civil violations is left unsaid. And then, the MPAA demands that basically the entire internet ecosystem be shifted to stop any piracy from ever happening.
The IPEC could do much to promote greater collaboration aimed at reducing these harms by endorsing voluntary initiatives, as it has in the past. For example, more online intermediaries should adopt ?trusted notifier? programs, under which they accept referrals from the content community about entities using the intermediaries? services in the aid of piracy and, after doing their own due diligence, take remedial action. In particular:
Domain name registrars and registry operators should agree to keep WHOIS data public, to the extent permitted by law; to suspend the domain names of referred sites; to freeze the domain name so it becomes unavailable to others; and to disclose the true name and address of pirate site operators, prevent that operator from re-registering, and agree not to challenge third-party application of court orders regarding domain name suspension in cases by rightsholders against pirate sites.
Hosting providers should filter using automated content recognition technology; forward DMCA notices to users, terminate repeat infringers after receipt of a reasonable number of notices, and prevent re-registration by terminated users; implement download bandwidth or frequency limitations to prevent high volume traffic for particular files; agree not to challenge third party application of court orders regarding suspension of hosting services in cases by rightsholders against pirate sites; remove files expeditiously; and block referral traffic from known piracy sites.
Reverse proxy servers should disclose the true hosting location of pirate sites upon referral; terminate identified pirate sites, and prevent these sites from re-registering; and agree not to challenge third party application of court orders regarding suspension of reverse proxy services in cases by rightsholders against pirate sites.
ISPs should forward Digital Millennium Copyright Act notices to users; terminate repeat infringers after receipt of a reasonable number of notices and prevent re-registration by infringers; expeditiously comply with document subpoenas for user information; and block sites subject to court order in the applicable jurisdiction.
Social media should remove ads, links, and pages dedicated to the promotion of piracy devices and terminate repeat infringers.
Got that? Basically every other company in the world should be required to police the internet for the MPAA so that a few stray infringements don’t get through. Hilariously, the MPAA admits that some may be worried about the impact of such demands on free speech, but then proceeds to brush away such concerns as if combating infringement caused by the MPAA’s own unwillingness to adapt its business model… is the same as stopping cybersecurity attacks.
Some argue there is tension between curbing illegal activity online and free expression. The argument is made far too broadly. Combating unlawful conduct like identity theft, unauthorized distribution of entire copyrighted works, cyberattacks, and illicit sale of opioids is no more a threat to free expression on the internet than it is in the physical world. In fact, curbing illegal activity promotes free expression by creating a safer environment where individuals feel comfortable to communicate and engage in commerce, and to create and lawfully access content
It is truly awe-inspiring how the MPAA turns its own industry’s failures to adapt to innovation into a public crisis in which everyone else must change… while simultaneously raving about how it’s a “golden age” for its own industry.
And, finally, we come to the Copyright Alliance’s submission. This one focuses on supporting copyright trolling via a small claims copyright board, which is of questionable constitutionality, and which would clearly enable a massive increase in copyright shakedowns. But, then, of course, among the other suggestions there are a bunch focused on having intermediaries take down sites, including full site blocking:
?Over the last decade, at least 42 countries have either adopted and implemented, or are legally obligated to adopt and implement, measures to ensure that ISPs take steps to disable access to copyright infringing websites, including throughout the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia, and South Korea.? Research shows such measures can have significant effect on shifting users toward legitimate services, with one study finding that ?blocking 52 sites in 2014 caused treated users to increase their usage of legal subscription sites by 10% and legal ad-supported streaming sites by 11.5%.? In addition to learning what remedies are effective, much can be learned from other countries in ensuring such remedies are proportionate and do not result in overblocking or other unwanted consequences.
Again, we have already shown how widely site blocking DOES lead to overblocking and unwanted consequences. Furthermore, the evidence that site blocking increases the use of legitimate services is laughable, and not supported by the data at all.
In short, here are the major copyright industry representatives, knowing that everyone’s busy off fighting other fires, making quiet inroads towards bringing back SOPA, despite the total clusterfuck it proved to be seven years ago. These guys will never stop in their quest to destroy the internet as we know it, and their push to turn the internet into a broadcast medium controlled by gatekeepers, rather than a communications medium for all of us.
Filed Under: censorship, copyright, site blocking, sopa, takedowns
Companies: copyright alliance, mpaa, riaa
Comments on “While Everyone's Busy, Hollywood & Record Labels Suggest Congress Bring Back SOPA”
Won't go away until pirates are defeated.
The problem of thieves simply taking the work-product of the creative has been clear since 1789 when US Constitution written. It recognizes the Right of Authors and Inventors to EXCLUSIVELY control their works. Period.
Thieves, whether individuals or commercial-scale, get no notice from lawmakers precisely because they’re outside of law, decide to TAKE instead of reward those who make.
Re: Won't go away until pirates are defeated.
By the way, here’s what ol’ Gwiz actually believes about copyright:
https://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20130116/09224321702/just-as-many-musicians-say-file-sharing-helps-them-as-those-who-say-it-hurts.shtml#c2063
"But not the natural rights to copy and distribute. Those existed prior to copyright law and exist with or without copyright. Copyright restricts those rights by law, that’s all. Once a work is released beyond the original author, the natural rights of copying and distribution exist. Period. The only way to truly restrict those rights on a particular work is to lock that work in your bottom desk drawer and never let anyone else see it."
There can be no quarter given to those with THAT view (which is most of Techdirt readers).
Since the creators have all of the moral basis which is on bedrock Constitutional law, pirates are not going to win.
I’ve also long mentioned that gov’t LOVES to use copyright infringement for its own purposes, so expect an effective. SOPA soon.
The productive part of society has given pirates every opportunity to show restraint, but there can no longer be doubt: NO ONE WILL PAY IF DON’T HAVE TO.
Once past the stealing threshold and don’t get punished, thieves only keep making excuses for and justifying their thefts. As above.
Re: Re: Won't go away until pirates are defeated.
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What it does not recognize, however, are both the principles of Fair Use and the notion that works would eventually become so easy to duplicate and distribute that it can be done in mere seconds by an untold number of people around the world. Funny how a law made in 1789 might require an update to account for changes in society and technology, huh?
What, then, do you have to say about the infringers who take (read: make copies of) creative works but eventually go on to support the artists via monetary compensation?
“Sinners will be allowed no quarter—kill them all, let God sort them out!”
Aye, lemme have a wee chat with you, lad.
Absolutist statements such as “there can be no quarter given” do not change minds. They offer no convincing argument. All that they accomplish is making you look like a stubborn fool who thinks your view is the only “right” view of a given subject. Attempts to enforce your dogma upon others with absolutist statements such as yours—statements that imply the inherent wrongness of “heretical” beliefs that go against your dogma but offer no evidence for that wrongness—will do little to help your cause. If you are assured in your belief, make an actual argument for it instead of taking a childish “I’m right and you’re wrong so there” approach to discussing that belief.
FYI, that “Constitutional law” says copyright exists at the whims of Congress, not the Constitution itself. Congress could theoretically nullify copyright as a whole if a majority in both chambers wanted to do so.
“Effective”? Well, that’s a matter of perspective, really.
And yet, plenty of people pay for content that they could just as easily pirate so long as they have the technical know-how to do so.
You know, I have asked this question, and I have never gotten an answer that mentions something other than intangible concepts, but maybe this time will be different: What, pray tell, is “stolen” in an act of copyright infringement?
Re: Re: Won't go away until pirates are defeated.
No it doesn’t.
The Constitution doesn’t grant copyrights and doesn’t mandate that Congress enact copyright law. It merely empowers Congress to do so, should it wish. That authority is then sharply limited in several respects. Here’s what it says:
You’re misreading the “exclusive right” sub-clause. It doesn’t mean that they can “exclusively control” their works as though no one else can. An exclusive right is literally a right of exclusion. That is, the copyright holder (who may not be the author) can exclude other people from engaging in certain, limited, types of behavior with regard to the pertinent copyrighted works. It doesn’t mean that the copyright holder has control. It’s the difference between a shield and sword.
This is most clearly seen in the example of blocking patents. (In short, inventor 1 invents and patents an invention. Inventor 2 later invents and patents an improvement to the invention. Inventor 1 cannot use invention 2, and Inventor 2 cannot use Invention 1. Each one excludes the other unless they come to an agreement — or patent 1 ceases to exist, which frees up Inventor 2 to do as he likes.)
Another example would be a libelous book — the copyright holder can use the copyright to prevent other people from printing copies, and his copyright is never diminished in the least during the term, but he cannot himself print the book because it’s libelous.
Well, that’s basically all copyright scholars then. The Supreme Court too, which rejected your ideas almost 200 years ago in Wheaton v. Peters, 33 US 591 (1834), which was, ironically, about copyrighting Supreme Court opinions — they said no, it cannot be done, and found in favor of the guy accused of piracy.
There is no moral basis to copyright. It’s amoral, like an ordinance regulating what sort of fence your house can have.
Your grammatical error aside, there was never any doubt and there has never been any restraint. Publishers have always been nasty about piracy — often even when they themselves were pirates.
But there’s a far easier solution. If authors don’t think they’re getting a good deal, just stop creating and publishing works. Let’s see for once and for all of there are enough authors who care to have an effect or whether society can keep humming along without them.
Re: Re: Re: Won't go away until pirates are defeated.
Why am I reading “securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right” to mean that only the original author or inventor has a constitutional right to hold a copyright or patent for their work.
Am I reading this wrong?
Re: Re: Re:2 Won't go away until pirates are defeated.
Yes, you are reading it wrong. In its simplest sense what the clause says is that any copyright scheme enacted by Congress must reflect that in the first instance the copyright in a work has to vest with the author or authors of the work. Of course, this begs the question “But what about a work for hire?” To that question I can only answer that I have never read any legal rationale that sustains what Congress has done over the years in decreeing that the author of a work for hire is the commissioning party.
Re: Re: Won't go away until pirates are defeated.
If that was true, explain how both the interviewer and interviewee are making a living.
Re: Re: Won't go away until pirates are defeated.
“The only way to truly restrict those rights on a particular work is to lock that work in your bottom desk drawer and never let anyone else see it”
Yep. You have a choice – make your work available to the public, or accept that the public will use and share the work in ways you didn’t intend. That’s been true since the first written word. Deal with it.
If your entire argument rests on the idea that reality and human nature be bound to your will, you’re going to fail.
“NO ONE WILL PAY IF DON’T HAVE TO”
Name one work that has been successful that CAN’T be pirated. Go on, I’ll wait.
If you can’t name one, your entire argument is a lie.
“Once past the stealing threshold…”
If someone takes a work and deprived you of the original item, as per the definition of stealing, I agree. The fact that you want to redefine people making a mixtape for friends as stealing just means that you’re lying and need to redefine history that has benefitted artists because you can’t be bothered to work for a living.
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I see you quoted my words*, but failed to actually rebut them beyond "There can be no quarter given to those with THAT view…". That’s not a cogent argument whatsoever.
*By the way, isn’t it convenient that you can see what I’ve said in the past, unlike you, who attempts to hide behind various monikers as to not be accountable for your own words. Seems pretty cowardly to me.
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I find it very disingenuous of you to use a quote, out of context, from a very lengthy thread where Karl, I and others were discussing copyright, natural rights and property rights and how they intersect to prove…..well…I really don’t know WHAT you were trying to prove.
Also, I don’t believe you’ve ever addressed your own disconnect between your pre-1900 view of "common law" property rights and the fact that copyright violates those principles by extending rights to the original owner AFTER the transfer of ownership.
Re: Won't go away until pirates are defeated.
They also act like there is no such thing as an indie who can make a modest but nice living off their work.
Just lock them up. Enough is enough. Blogs like this are going to help make them happen. Someone’s spent a little too much time in Big Tech’s echo chamber.
Wait until the world learns where Masnice gets his money. Tons of things they don’t know about him…for now.
Re: Won't go away until pirates are defeated.
Pay the 6 billion the labels owe in damages in Canada for the commercial theft of the work of creatives that was played off as an oppsie or admit the rules aren’t supposed to apply to our betters who deserve to control everything you see, hear, say, do on the off chance a baby dancing to a shitty copy of a song stole 200 billion dollars from them.
Also…
GFY
Re: Won't go away until pirates are defeated.
The problem of thieves simply taking the work-product of the creative has been clear since 1789 when US Constitution written. It recognizes the Right of Authors and Inventors to EXCLUSIVELY control their works. Period.
Why oh why do pro-copyright maximalists insist on being completely clueless even where copyright law is concerned?
The constitution allows congress to implement copyright and patents. From a strictly constitutional perspective it’s the one amendment which provides an option. Unlike any other amendment then, constitutional protection can vanish the very second 51% of congress votes against it.
Secondly, no law in the land allows the word "theft" to be used for "copyright infringement" – which is after all just making a copy of something.
Thirdly, the only thing SOPA would ever accomplish is muck things up for legitimate parts of the web. "Piracy" won’t be affected at all since DHT isn’t blockable this way of pulling the plug on the entire internet.
In summary, pirates won this game as soon as the internet was invented. You want to reverse that trend you’ll just have to make the internet – as a whole – go away again. Good luck with that.
SOPA’s necessary in a world where no one protects intellectual property, and victim-blames content creators for “provoking” theft.
Just LOCK TAHEM UP. Five years in club fed every time someone steals work. Doesn’t have to be for financial gain either if one reads the law.
Enough of this crap. Thieves deserve no quarter, no mercy. People won don’t like a work are free to not steal it or not purchase it. Metallica got it right: they don’t need parasitic thieves for fans.
The blowback is going to wind up leading to this type of enforcement and law, and blogs like this are going to be cited as evidence of the intransigence of the pirates. Already is in fact. Congress reads this and sees there’s no alternative.
A better approach would be lobbying for reduced damages for downloading (similar to ASCAP), and to differentiate it from plagiarism, but the pirates are showing no mercy, which is why Hollywood will do the same.
Put these losers in prison.
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Rut roh looks like jhonny escaped the old folks home again. Be on the lookout for a deranged old coot with no pants screaming at the sky about lawyers and cyborg thieves from the future.
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” Metallica got it right: they don’t need parasitic thieves for fans”
Metallica? The band that completely reversed their original position after they lost money through fan backlash and CURRENTLY give away all of their concerts for FREE on their own website?
Yeah, you go with them as an example.
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Just LOCK TAHEM UP. Five years in club fed every time someone steals work. Doesn’t have to be for financial gain either if one reads the law.
So society as a whole will be required to pay over 35.000 x 5 = 175.000 USD for every person who downloaded an illicit copy?
You realize that what you just suggested will actually bankrupt the US in less than one week?
Enough of this crap. Thieves deserve no quarter, no mercy. People won don’t like a work are free to not steal it or not purchase it. Metallica got it right: they don’t need parasitic thieves for fans.
Oh boy, the same tired old diatribe the copyright cult has been harping on like wheezing old pulpet thumping fire-and-brimstone televangelists since 1990…
…with just about the same amount of realism.
Copying is not theft. Get back to us about that once someone making a copy magically makes YOUR original vanish.
Four posts, all by the copyright trolls, and four posts flagged.
Got to be trolls, I can’t understand how any real person could be that evil.
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I take it that anyone who may support the concept of copyright and accordingly provides a comment here is by definition a troll. That does seem to be a rather loose definition.
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I take it that you are new here and also have recently suffered massive head trauma and should seek medical attention.
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I take it that anyone who may support the concept of copyright and accordingly provides a comment here is by definition a troll. That does seem to be a rather loose definition.
No. Anyone who supports copyright as a principle will be be met with a few arguments.
But suggestions such as copyright infringement being theft is trolling.
Suggestions such as someone making a copy being locked up for five years – to the cost of 175000 USD per caught pirate – that’s trolling.
Making blatantly false and disproven claims, such as no one paying for what is free? Trolling.
The ugly truth is that no one arguing for copyright so far has been able to make an argument without resorting to outright lies, bad rhetoric, and/or hyperbole.
And that more or less confirms our convictions that since no one can present a case FOR copyright, we’re on the right track.
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Someone who has never created a work of value and has no fans would think that those who do protecting their work is “evil.”
Lock up the pirates. Thieves belong in prison. They’ll get the message soon enough. Lock up some of the intermediaries and they’ll reall get the message. They want war? They’ll lose.
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How do you know this for a fact? Please provide proof of your claim and the necessary citations required for verifying your evidence.
What, exactly, is stolen in an act of copyright infringement?
You know who else will lose? All the artists who could have made a decent living—or a good amount of side money—from all the services that will inevitably go down as collateral damage in your precious, dogmatic, misguided “war” on copyright infringement. Go ahead: Kill Soundcloud and YouTube and DeviantArt and every other “stronghold” of copyright infringement. (Yeah, fan art is technically infringement, so DA would have to go, too.) I mean, test yourself to see how long you can go without anything at your fingertips but the mass-market media produced and distrubuted by major media publishers—no fan art, no fanfics, no independently-created music or books or videos or writings of any kind.
If you can live with that level of cultural destruction on your hands, wage your war, for all the good you think it will do. But you would do well to remember one simple axiom that holds true to this day:
In war, there are no winners.
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I have a suspicion that famous authors like Charles Dickens, who cared very much about social damage and the effects of stupid laws, would have a hard time agreeing with the copyright trolls here.
A great many people produce “useful Arts” works that are not specifically for monetary return, but rather because they have a message they wish to convey. See Khan Academy for an example (among hundreds of others) of how to contribute to society without the primary goal of remuneration.
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Ironically, Dickens is one of the very few who probably would have agreed with them, in his time anyway. Transatlantic piracy and rip-offs of his work in places he couldn’t legally get to them was a big problem with him. But, he also didn’t have the tools available to him that modern authors do, nor the direct access to fans.
I do however, notice, that their arguments always include works that have been pirated that become box office record breakers anyway, and the claim that nobody who supports the rights of consumers could possible be an artist themselves.
Dickens would presumably have been intelligent enough to understand how laughable these claims are on their very face, even if he was also getting a little miffed about the infringement. Although, I presume that he’d be happy that this long after his death so many people are still reading and being influenced by his work, even as they’re legally no longer paying for it.
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In Pickwick Papers, at least, he was quite direct in his disdain for the offensive lawsuits that were so common in his time. Nothing seems to have changed much though.
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Merely to clear up a common misunderstanding, copyright law is associated with “science” and patent law is associated with “useful arts” (as the terms are used in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the US Constitution).
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"Johm Smith" and "tp" prove you wrong.
Re: trolls
Trolls or not, flagged posts are not visible by default, and the discussion cannot be easily followed. Those posts should remain visible, as narrow-minded as they are.
PS: Trolls are funny creatures, they should be displayed to the public, not hidden away.
Re: Re: trolls
It takes literally a single mouse click for a hidden comment to be visible, and you need to click it again to collapse it. If that makes the discussion too difficult for someone to follow they have an incredibly short attention span.
As for leaving them visible, nah, if people want to read ranting by a paranoid lunatic(among other things) then they can choose to do so, for those that don’t not having to wade through garbage like that unless desired is much better.
Re: Re: Re: trolls
A single click and I can see it? You are so wide of the mark it is almost comical. Try seeing a slew of responses to a post, but not knowing which hidden comment comprises the original post that gave you a butt hurt. There have been times I have had to search numerous hidden posts before finally finding the one of interest. I look at posts in chronological order as it simplifies readily identifying new comments, and in this circumstance what you so readily dismiss turns into a royal pain.
Re: Re: Re:2 trolls
“Try seeing a slew of responses to a post, but not knowing which hidden comment comprises the original post that gave you a butt hurt”
Intelligent people would switch to threaded view and look at the top comment in the thread. But, intelligent people don’t use terms like “butt hurt”, so I’ll presume you’re one of the less intelligent people who is doing the whining about having to click their mouse button one time.
“I look at posts in chronological order”
So… you’ve deliberately chosen the option that makes things more difficult, then you’re whining at everybody else because they’re more difficult? Figures…
“it simplifies readily identifying new comments”
You know what else makes that really easy? Creating a login and letting the site mark new comments since the last time you visited that page. But, again, you’ve chosen the route that makes things more difficult for you.
Sorry, the rest of us can’t help you if you refuse to use the tools already supplied to you.
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I see. The site affords one choices that are subject to the whims of others who are apparently grievously injured and offended by the opinions of others…so much so that they are unable to conceive of anything wrong with negatively impacting another’s use of the site.
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“The site affords one choices”
…and normal people will make those choices individually rather than whine that the whole site does not cater solely to their own whims.
“they are unable to conceive of anything wrong with negatively impacting another’s use of the site”
If trolls and spammers didn’t exist, the tools required to get their crap out of adult discussion would not be necessary. As it is, the tools that create the least amount of problems for the majority of people have been provided. If you feel left out by this, your whining should be directed at those who make the tools necessary, not those who make the tools available.
I dare say you’ve just spent far more time and energy complaining that you have to do something than you would have done in a year of actually doing it. – and you’ve changed nothing by doing so.
Re: Re: Re:5 trolls
Lesson learned here is never say anything negative to or about someone who embraces without any guilt the act of censorship.
Re: Re: Re:6 trolls
No wonder you hide out here, sites with actual censorship must terrify you, let alone the real world! Imagine how you’d cope with moderated sites where comments are altered or even removed completely, rather than you being told to click on them! :O
So, your literal argument is that you shouldn’t take responsibility for your own actions, but everyone needs to change everything they do in order to save your delicate fingers from 2 extra mouse clicks? Yeah, good luck with that.
Re: Re: Re:7 trolls
No…my point is that you are an arrogant know it all who cannot fathom that a point contrary to yours may have a modicum of merit.
Re: Re: Re:8 trolls
Can’t you trolls come up with something more original than projection?
Dude, it’s not Techdirt’s responsibility to fix every PEBKAC error that comes along.
Re: Re: Re:8 trolls
No, your point is that you’re a lazy child who would rather whine about injustice than fix your own behaviour that causes it.
That might not be the point you intend to make, but it’s loud and clear to everyone else.
Re: Re: Re:9 trolls
I can only assume you have overlooked the fact that sorting by chronological order is the default selection for the site.
Re: Re: Re:10 trolls
I’m overlooking nothing, as I understand that defaults can be changed and stored, and only needs to be done once if you don’t block the site from doing that. I also understand that if you refuse the ability to store different settings, it only takes a single click to change view.
So, you’re either still refusing to use the tools easily available to you, or just need something to whine about. The onus is still on you to grow up, not for everyone else to change what they do because you can’t be arsed to do so.
Re: Re: Re:11 trolls
There is one tool not available that would solve the matter…a simple selection in preferences that would allow bypassing what TD fanboys Ike you force on everyone else when a post is not to your liking.
You seem to feel there is nothing wrong with making a decision for others. I happen to believe otherwise.
Re: Re: Re:12 trolls
“There is one tool not available that would solve the matter.”
No, you’d find something else to whine about, since the arguments you usually attempt when you’re not complaining aren’t normally based in fact to begin with. If you didn’t make something up you’d probably start whining that the font looks too similar to Google’s or something.
“You seem to feel there is nothing wrong with making a decision for others. I happen to believe otherwise.”
No, you’re literally arguing that everybody else’s opinions be ignored because you’re too much of a lazy child to click on things.
You’re arguing the opposite of what you claim you are arguing, and spending far more time and energy doing so than the thing you’re opposed to in the first place. If everybody else is telling you that you’re a dick and to shut up, maybe the problem is not with everybody else.
Once again, if you think you’re so hard done by here, one wonders how you cope with sites that exercise actual censorship, let alone the real world.
Re: Re: Re:13 trol
Obviously you have a very strong opinion about preserving the ability of others to relegate posts with which you disagree to a hidden status, and have no reservations of looking down at the opinions of others who view this as a form of censorship and unappreciated interference with their use and enjoyment of the site.
I note from many of your posts to others a recurring theme that you view repeated comments by others that you deem as having been repeatedly debunked to be trollinsh and deserving of being hidden because of their falsity. Just a comment that you are free to ignore…some of those you consistently slam that deal with legal issues are accurate reflections of US law, and forcing them into hiding because of their “falsity” reflects on your imperfect understanding of law and legal nuances.
Re: Re: Re:14
“Obviously you have a very strong opinion about preserving the ability of others to relegate posts with which you disagree”
No, just the spam and trolls. Given the options presented on other sites I frequent (deleting offending posts, requiring non-anonymous logins, blocking accounts and IPs permanently, etc), it’s the most workable and least objectionable.
If you have another option, please present it – note: you’ve already rejected anything involving a log in or more than one click, if you wish to keep your arguments consistent.
“you view repeated comments by others that you deem as having been repeatedly debunked to be trollinsh “
Since repeating false information in order to get a response is pretty much the definition of trolling, yes I do. So, why do you continue to lie?
“some of those you consistently slam that deal with legal issues are accurate reflections of US law”
Have you ever tried refuting them with verified facts and trustworthy supporting evidence, or are you just the guy who spams posts with biased opinion posts and whines about censorship when people tell you that the blog you just linked to doesn’t say what you say it does?
Re: Re: Re:15
Why do you accuse me of lying when it is clear that a following sentence is a modifier?
As for presenting contrary data, that has been done on many occasions. Problem here is that contrary data is almost always the recipient of ad hominem attacks. That is why, for example, I did not bother to comment upon first reading the post that was chosen as the most recent “editors’ choice”. In some respects it was wrong, and in some others legal nuances were missing.
Re: Re: Re:16
“Why do you accuse me of lying”
Because if you’re the same whiny little guy I think you are, that’s your modus operandi when you’re not whining. I apologise if you’re not that particular liar, but you don’t make it easy when you post anonymously.
“As for presenting contrary data, that has been done on many occasions”
Can you maybe present an example? For obvious reasons I can’t track your previous comments so can’t tell you why any specific post was downvoted outside of this thread.
“That is why, for example, I did not bother to comment upon first reading the post that was chosen as the most recent “editors’ choice””
So, let me get this straight – as an example of how mean everyone is when you present contrary data, you’re presenting an example of when you expressly DID NOT comment? That makes sense to you?
Re: Re: Re:2 trolls
Funny thing, I have no problem locating them when scrolling through the comments in threaded view, which might have something to do with the green bar alongside comments added since I last viewed the page.
…and here we are. This is what I’ve been saying for the last seven years: saying no to SOPA isn’t enough, because the problem isn’t SOPA. The problem is the precedent that SOPA is building on, set by the DMCA, that establishing intermediary liability and getting Internet companies to do your dirty work for you extralegally is a valid tactic.
When a weed grows in your garden, if you just cut it off, it will grow back as long as the roots remain intact. Which is exactly what we’re seeing here. The only solution that’s actually effective is to pull up the roots as well.
Until we repeal the DMCA, and return Internet law to the same standard of sanity we have everywhere else, where the accused is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, (although that incredibly-important standard is coming under fire in more and more areas as time goes by, which shows what a bad idea it was to ever let it get chipped away at in this one area in the first place!) we will continue to get crap like this trying to make it even worse.
Shutting down SOPA is not enough. We must push back.
Re: Re:
We’re going too go the other way and start imprisoning pirates.
Don’t fuck with Hollywood. They generate way too much money for this country. Pirates generate theft and noise and steal from those who create valuable works. Blogs like this make it clear that prison is the only effective deterrent. It’s coming.
Re: Re: Re:
https://www.ted.com/talks/rob_reid_the_8_billion_ipod
“Hollywood accounting” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting) is a known fallacy meant to centralize money to the studios involved.
The actual impact is somewhere behind minor farm crops…
Back up your claims or please STFU.
Re: Re: Re:
Bring it on old man.
Re: Re:
Shutting down SOPA is not enough. We must push back.
I’m actually halfway convinced we should simply allow the copyright fanatics all the legislation they want. It won’t impact piracy a single bit but WILL render the internet as a whole dysfunctional outside of the deep net.
Once John Q Doe discovers that the only part of the internet that works is the pirate havens either the net as a whole starts operating under the radar…or copyright finally dies as a concept once enough politicians find their choice is listening to the lobby OR keeping their job.
Re: Re: Re:
The “just let shit get as bad as possible, then it will improve” strategy doesn’t seem so great to me.
Re: Re: Re: Re:
"The "just let shit get as bad as possible, then it will improve" strategy doesn’t seem so great to me."
Great? No.
But let’s be honest with ourselves. Every time technology progresses we get to fight and win the same war over and over again, because Copyright is and always has been in fundamental conflict with every basic right of communication which contemporary technology is capable of exercising.
When the self-playing piano was invented various artist associations tried having it banned. When the cinema was invented actor associations tried having it banned. And then there were the wars on TV, tape cassette, VCR, MP3, CD-ROM, DVD…and now of course the war continues on search indexes and core internet infrastructure such as ISP’s and CDN’s.
I’m not keen on letting shit get "as bad as possible" either. But I’m somewhat tired of going to the barricades on behalf of the herd of lazy and willfully blind sheep who WILL be the ones impacted by the insanities lobbied for by vested interests.
Nothing will save copyright in the end. Every time this battle has been found it’s been a result of "New Tech 1, copyright 0". But it may, by now, be preferable to just let the pro-copyright lobby have all they demand to ensure the end result will not be umpteen more battles where copyright is successively banished from the world in increments.
It may be a lot faster just to let them screw up all they like, until it hits the point where being an IP lawyer is good grounds for a good old public lynching.
After all, absolutely nothing suggested by the copyright lobby thus far has ever had any hope of impacting that piracy they’re so worried about, nor the people who already employ the "pirate methods" of VPN’s and proxies.
Re: Abolish Copyright
That’s the root of the problem.
Re: Re: Chesterton's fence
Copyright, in its original form, has very legitimate reasons to exist. The problem is that what we have today looks about as much like legitimate copyright as Pennywise resembles Ronald McDonald. The solution isn’t to abolish copyright, but to restore it to its pure form.
Re: Re: Re: Chesterton's fence
As I’ve mused in the past, while I’m not quite on the ‘kill it’ side just yet, given the choice between ‘copyright as it currently exists’ and ‘no copyright at all’ I would have to pick the second option, as copyright as it stands seems to do far more harm than good.
By all means, reform it so that it actually focuses on the public again, but barring that I can certainly see why people would be calling for it to be killed off.
Re: Re: Re: Chesterton's fence
"Copyright, in its original form, has very legitimate reasons to exist."
A curious definition of "legitimate" considering that the original form of Queen Anne’s statutes were a political-religious censorship tool and the successor – copyright – was a desperate attempt by the guild of stationer’s to retain their highly lucrative monopoly on publication rights when the crown no longer supported their charter of being the Royal Censorship Department.
Historically most countries have had a far more extensive and in-depth production of culture in times when copyright and creator’s rights protections were weak or nonexistent.
I’d say the only part of copyright which has any reason at all to exist would be the right of attribution and the right of commercial application. The right to control copy creation, however, has to go completely.
Perhaps all the government resources that are wasted on illegal-drug-suppression could be redirected towards copyright infringement. Perhaps some conveniently-isolatable place (Manhattan Island springs to mind) might be completely dedicated towards locking up the infringers.
After all, “studies show” that “intentional listening to free entertainment” is the leading cause of death among young adults, and is barely edged out by “browsing application accidents” among teenagers.
Re: Re:
Itr’s not free entertainment, it’s stolen entertainment, no different than dining and dashing.
The pirates want war and they will get it. They’re leaving no alternative.
Re: Re: Re:
What, pray tell, has been stolen when someone downloads a digital copy of Black Panther from The Pirate Bay?
Re: Re: Re:
The East India Trading Company is getting its panties in a twist are they?
Re: Re: Re:
You and what army? Your imaginary police investigators? Those cyber barristers? Or is it this weeks phantom private investigators? Nobody cares about your horseshit you delusional old fool.
Re: Re: Re:
"Itr’s not free entertainment, it’s stolen entertainment, no different than dining and dashing."
Except that nothing is stolen and the metaphor which actually applies would be "Cooking a dinner at home, using your own ingredients, identical to the one served at a restaurant"
And frankly speaking, given the mass production of music and most movies the comparison today would be more like a fast food joint getting upset over not being paid because people prefer to make greasy second-rate burgers at home.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if that was your argument since, at the end of the day, the "Lost Sale" is all about "But they don’t buy OUR stuff".
The pirates want war and they will get it. They’re leaving no alternative.
We won that war when the internet was invented.
But you’re right that we leave no alternative to the fanatics of the first church of copyright who view everyone not invested in their twisted view of reality an enemy.
And the politicians will be quite happy if that happens, as controlling the population is much easier by making it harder for them to get organized to oppose the politicians..
Re: Re:
When that happens, the old internet will die just like AOL and pay tv are right now. It will be replaced with some new fangled thing they will label just a fad and nothing to worry about.
all 3 cant be trusted.
It may be obvious to us here that we can’t trust these companies but your average person and politician aren’t paying enough attention to realize it.
Thank God for Midterms...
Thankfully, only Congress can make Copyright Policy and I don’t see the new Democratic Controlled House wanting anything to do with this. Heck, we had bipartisan opposition to this last time. So I just don’t see this going anywhere in the next two to four years at least…
Just pay attention, however, because fuck these soulless and barbaric copyright fascists…
Re: Thank God for Midterms...
Dems are in Hollywood’s back pocket.
We dont’ need new laws. We need to lock up anyone who infringes. A message needs to be sent.
The FBI could do this tomorrow under existing laws. Thieves do not deserve freedom.
Re: Re: Thank God for Midterms...
Copyright infringements are a CIVIL matter; why is the FBI supposed to treat it as a CRIMINAL offense other than the baksheesh (go look it up…) provided by the entertainment industry to our elected officials?
Shouldn’t law enforcement be after more important crimes like, say, terrorism, drugs, etc than worrying about somebody copying a freakin’ CD?
Re: Re: Re: Thank God for Midterms...
"Shouldn’t law enforcement be after more important crimes like, say, terrorism, drugs, etc than worrying about somebody copying a freakin’ CD?"
Not according to the copyright cult whose sense of scale, proportion and reality is as shallow as that of a leaky toddler.
They would indeed rather waste a few hundred thousand USD worth of tax money on everyone who ever made a copy of media than they would invest a hundreth of that amount to solve, say, every other budget issue law enforcement ever faced.
I guess living in la-la land has seen them ill prepared for basic math and causal reality.
Re: Re:
How can you be certain that you will not be locked up while waging your war? How do you know, with the certainty of an omniscient deity, that you have never infringed upon someone else’s copyright even by accident (which would still be infringement all the same)? What makes you so sure of your own innocence, your own immunity from a war that would jail millions of people?
Re: Re: Thank God for Midterms...
I thought the feds were minutes away from arresting everyone who ever made fun of your impotent old ass. What happened?
Re: Re: Thank God for Midterms...
Lock up anyone who infringes?
Fine, so long as anyone who false flags or makes false infringement claims gets locked up for longer.
You can’t claim the moral high ground while your side has examples of far too many false flags, lies and unjustified threats and extortion against innocent people.
If pirates are thieves, your side are terrorists.
Re: Re: Re: Thank God for Midterms...
Penalties for both sides? What madness is that, everyone knows that penalties should and do only apply on the (accused) infringers, with those levying said accusations safe from any repercussions from doing so, as is only just and right.
When it comes to protecting The Most Holy Copyright, Without Which Creativity, Culture, And Society Itself Could Not Exist, no method is too extreme, and any roadblocks that might inhibit that protection and present a risk to The Most Holy is a hindrance to be eliminated as quickly as possible.
(Recycling my reply to this troll’s recycled bullshit)
These make-nothing economy-harming loser thieves you’re talking about have names, you know. Here are some of them:
Prenda
Righthaven
IO Group
Copyright Enforcement Group (CEG-TEK)
Global Equity Management (SA) Pty. Ltd.
Liberty Media Group
Malibu Media
Getty Images
Blackbird Technologies
Njord Law
Venice PI
CryptoPeak Solutions
Rights Enforcement
Voltage Pictures
d/b/a Sharing Sound, LLC
U+C
TQP
Zambezia Film, LTD
CP Productions, Inc.
Wetro Lan, LLC
what do you expect from an industry that's owned by russia?
Literally the same folks that Trump is dealing with are the same folks who own a majority of the RIAA/MPAA. They should be RUSSIAA not RIAA or MAFIAA. Same russian oligarchy own pieces of the industry.
When you look at the policy actions you’ll notice they’re similar as well.
Can we please, for the love of all that is digital and decent, quit using the legacy gatekeepers’ terms for this activity? Part of pushing back against them means taking back the language. They deliberately chose the connotatively negative terms pirate and piracy to frame the narrative and shape the public view. To counter that, we should stop using those terms entirely. Instead, we should use the connotatively neutral (and more accurate) terms infringers and infringement. This makes it clear nothing is actually lost in the activity, as the US Supreme Court has already recognized, and makes it easier for those less familiar with the issue to understand that it is not an inherently negative thing despite what the gatekeepers and trolls would have them believe but that it is something that EVERYONE does at one time or another whether they realize it or not.
>Can we please, for the love of all that is digital and decent, quit using the legacy gatekeepers’ terms for this activity?
You might have better success going the other way. Example news headline: “Route Infringement in Malaysian waters!” (Malaysian route infringers have occupied a cruise ship, stealing the lives of four crewmembers, and holding passengers for licensing fees. This is the fourth boat this week to have its route infringed in the region. Umpteen trillion dollars are lost annually to infringement activity.)
Re: Re:
Yeah… about that… legacy gatekeepers re-purposed a word that ENTIRELY meant sea-faring malefactors stealing stuff, killing and kidnapping people, and other law-breaking activities.
I’m with TDR, we shouldn’t let them get away with it.
Projecting hard enough to reach space
As I’ve noted before, the ultimate punchline to pushes like this is that the very people decrying those dastardly copyright infringers as ‘entitled’ show time and time again that no-one has a bigger sense of entitlement than them.
Constant and repeated demands that everyone else do their work for them, complete indifference towards what their demands would do to anyone else, always acting as though no one or nothing is more important to society and/or the economy than the drek they shovel out…
The projection they display on a regular basis is so significant you might as well have the AA’s as the default definition/example for the term.
I think it’s time that TechDirt retired or at least updated the whole MPAA/Boston Strangler bit. I mean, do you have to keep referring to some 40 year-old comment every time the MPAA is mentioned? Have they not done more dastardly things in the last 40 years?
Re:
The VCR/“Boston Strangler” bit exists to remind people that the MPAA had to be dragged into the home video age kicking and screaming. It is a reminder of how a device that became one of the most widespread technologies in the mass market and changed the landscape of home media forever was damn near snuffed out of existence because of an industry too afraid to embrace it. Every MPAA fight against piracy, against distribution channels (even legitimate ones!), against the Internet itself—all of them can be traced, in some way, to the VCR fight.
Re: Re: Re:
“It is a reminder of how a device that became one of the most widespread technologies in the mass market and changed the landscape of home media forever was damn near snuffed out of existence because of an industry too afraid to embrace it”
At, it needs to be stressed – at their own cost in ways they could not have imagined at the time. Ways in which the industry has been changed by home video well beyond what could have been conceived by Valenti.
One example I like to bring to mind – had the US killed the VCR, they probably would have caused a certain level of collapse worldwide. Which means that when Peter Jackson decided to spend a few years filming a low budget horror comedy on video, he possibly would not have had the chance to make his movie at all. At the least it would not gone on to become a cult hit on video in the US and other places. He would never have had the opportunity to work with Robert Zemeckis, which means he would certainly never have worked with him to set up the beginnings of WETA, where he first had the idea of doing Lord Of The Rings for his next production following The Frighteners….
Whether you think that’s better or worse culturally, there were literal billions resting on the shoulders of just one individual’s ambition that came from the VCR being widely available. It’s a great example of how wrongheaded such moves are, because they not only remove predictable methods of generating income, they destroy the culture we don’t know about yet.
Re: Re:
No, it’s always worth mentioning as it’s the clearest example of not only their behaviour, but of how wrong they were about it.
Everyone can see that the hyperbole and FUD are similar to what’s being spread about the online services. Everybody can also see how laughably wrong it all was, along with the massive pile of money that was waiting for them when they decided to adapt. Not only was the VCR n to “the Boston Strangler” but when forced to accept it, they managed to create a new income stream that actually dwarfed the one they were scared of losing, for a time.
There are more recent examples of stupid fear mongering, but few such clear examples of how much the tech they feared actually benefitted them when they embraced it.
Troll times
Has anyone else noticed that on many copyright based topics discussed at TD there is a troll comment very near the top of the comments which then derails the discussion for some length, or is it just me?
I suggest that
a) TD is being professionally trolled, and
b) the TD community should stop feeding them.
The chinese government is pushing HARD to change TCP/IP so it can be used with extra ‘blocking’ codes that physically block websites at a DNS level.
The MPAA and RIAA (now basically elements of the chinese government due to ‘investments’) (i.e. direct cash payments to buy out the entire MPAA and RIAA controlling boards) are pushing for EXACTLY the same thing.
What I’m directly accusing the MPAA and RIAA of is, working for a foreign government to directly undermine the stability of the United States by requesting technology implementations that would allow China to arbitrarily and randomly shut off US websites to the ENTIRE PLANET at critical times.
For example – shutting off official government video and audio feeds during the COVID lockdowns. Or maliciously blocking Fox, CNN, MNBC etc the INSTANT they start broadcasting anything felt to be ‘anti-chinese".
Such a block would just give people a ‘site not found’ error, so they wouldn’t even know until MUCH later that the news was blocked. And again you could just block all news sites that say China was to blame.
Not a conspiracy theory, but something the Chinese government has openly said they want from the ITU.
Fortunately the US Government and ICANN are resisting this, but it’s only a matter of time before China tries buying more people’s acceptance and condonement.