Lol that's funny, I was thinking the exact same thing.. Government shuts down a website, Anonymous takes one down for a while.. kind of like standing in front of a poster and waving your hands around for a while.
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Chris Dodd, former Senator who once said he would never become a political lobbiest and who is now the head of the MPAA, said this:
Quote:
Dodd blames the bills' reduced support on a slow timeline that allowed opposition to mobilize, but also on a strategy that ended up making the anti-piracy effort seem specifically about helping Hollywood.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/20/27...egy-compromise
So he doesn't see anything wrong with the legislation (and why would he - the MPAA is paying him $1+ Million per year), it was just that they didn't ramrod it through fast enough.
You know they are going to try again. Unless the big tech firms get into the lobbying game the big media moguls have bought and paid for the legislation.
Quote:
Lobbying is one art form the entertainment industry doesn’t mind investing heavily in: SOPA’s 32 co-sponsors received four times more in campaign contributions from the entertainment industry than from the tech industry. We shouldn’t be surprised that SOPA is as bad as it is; we should be surprised it’s not worse.
__________________
"The problem with any ideology is that it gives the answer before you look at the evidence."
—Bill Clinton
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance--it is the illusion of knowledge."
—Daniel J. Boorstin, historian, former Librarian of Congress
"But the Senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity"
—WKRP in Cincinatti
Chris Dodd, former Senator who once said he would never become a political lobbiest and who is now the head of the MPAA, said this: http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/20/27...egy-compromise
So he doesn't see anything wrong with the legislation (and why would he - the MPAA is paying him $1+ Million per year), it was just that they didn't ramrod it through fast enough.
You know they are going to try again. Unless the big tech firms get into the lobbying game the big media moguls have bought and paid for the legislation. http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/18/27...e-fate-of-sopa
(that article is an unsurprising yet very depressing read)
I had mentioned this before, but I believe Google has begun pouring more money into their lobby groups. It's unfortunate that lobby groups are what makes the difference, but a lot of tech companies have begun learning this lesson.
I think with recent events with SOPA and PIPA, you'll see these tech giants possibly doubling or tripling their lobby dollars.
The worth of facebook and google alone are over $200 billion. I seriously doubt these 2 companies would jeapordize that without doing something about it. I would also say the music and movie industry better be careful on who they piss off. These guys aren't your team of geeks running a basement tech company. I akin this to waking up a sleeping giant.
Last edited by TheyCallMeBruce; 01-20-2012 at 11:33 AM.
I understand that, but the vast majority of people do not. Even if they did, they would have to have that IP address, which you wouldn't readily have if DNS entries were removed or poisoned.
You can't remove DNS entries and hit sites by IP for many, many sites - not all web servers have dedicated IP's, and instead rely on host headers to determine which site, on a shared machine or cloud environment, you're asking for.
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I don't think was linked yet. It's a pretty good take on something relating to this issue, so I thought it's appropriate.
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For example before my stint working in the film business I was kind of wondering why the heck don’t the filmmakers sell the movies like that, because I certainly would be a buyer. To my defense, I should say that this felt like a thing that looks really simple to an outsider, but once you enter the sausage factory, things turn out to be quite complicated. And that’s of course exactly what it was. Here’s the part where I blame the victim.
You hear a lot of bitching from media industry and artists that these filthy internet people don’t understand the realities of the work. And whose fault is that, hmm? They don’t understand the realities of the work, because nobody has ####ing told them.
If one percent of the energy that is spent calling downloaders filthy thieves was spent educating the public about how the business model works now, maybe, just maybe someone would’ve already come up with viable alternatives.
Didn't read the article, but that quote you pulled out is garbage. It's not that people don't know how their business model works, it's that their business model sucks. They want a theatrical release followed by a commercial release, followed by a commercial release of whatever future format comes out. They want absolute control of the formats and the devices that can play the formats so that they can continually charge you for the same content.
Besides, SOPA had a lot more to do with driving up the costs of running a site dependent on user-generated material than actually stopping piracy. Piracy isn't an imminent threat to the media cartel, but independent artists operating online are. Places like megaupload and youtube may be havens for piracy, but they also provide a business model for independent artists and distributors.
Yea or until the next time when we get it pushed through faster so no one can raise a fuss.
PIPA has been pulled as well. Huge victory for the tech industry and the websites that protested. The MPAA/RIAA will definitely try again, but one thing that will be different is that a pair of bills that was said to combat piracy (good) was easily supported by ignorant politicians. Those politicians now now that there is more than meets the eye to these things, so it will be harder to sneak the provisions that allowed for censorship and security holes. We might see a bill like OPEN, which is backed by Google, gain more support as well.
I can't speak too much for the movie industry, but there's a reason that the music industry doesn't publicize their business models or how they make their money; people would have even less sympathy for the RIAA and their insanely bloated record companies. The amount of useless overhead that goes in to releasing an album using traditional channels and at major label scales is absolutely staggering.
Basically, big labels throw hordes of crap and money at the wall and hope something sticks. Something like 99% of major label releases technically don't break even. That's not to say that there isn't a lot of revenue on those releases, but just that all the money is eaten up by groups of people who have little to no impact on the finished creative product (label executives, A&R men, managers, agents, lawyers, PR people, lobbyists, not to mention all of the secretaries, janitors, caterers, drivers, etc. that serve them). Unless a major label album sells something in the 1-2+ million range, the artist walks away with nothing but the songwriting royalties because of all those costs.
They also use tons of shoddy accounting to justify not paying artists royalties. For instance in 2005 EMI was sued by the Beatles for $50+ million in unpaid royalties. The Beatles had requested an accurate accounting of what they were rightfully owed and EMI couldn't (or wouldn't) provide that. An audit done for the Beatles revealed that they were owed millions in unpaid sums. Bands without the clout and financial means of the Beatles aren't so lucky. For most artists the legal and accounting fees would dwarf the money owed and labels know that.
Stuff you can't really replicate over the internet or at home (live shows, merchandise, movies in theaters, etc.) is probably going to have to be the main revenue stream for the entertainment industry. Most artists nowadays love people downloading MP3s because it increases their exposure for live shows. A moderately successful band can take home as much money from 3-4 months of touring as they could if they had a gold record.
But big music labels don't like that model because they can't make money out of it since they don't actually create anything; they're just a giant bureaucracy of middle men. For the most part they produce little of value other than feeding their archaic system and business model. If labels want to stay relevant they're going to need to become much more efficient or they'll die. Unfortunately nearly 15 years of MP3s being in the public consciousness hasn't convinced them so I doubt they'll ever learn until they're bankrupt.
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PIPA has been pulled as well. Huge victory for the tech industry and the websites that protested. The MPAA/RIAA will definitely try again, but one thing that will be different is that a pair of bills that was said to combat piracy (good) was easily supported by ignorant politicians. Those politicians now now that there is more than meets the eye to these things, so it will be harder to sneak the provisions that allowed for censorship and security holes. We might see a bill like OPEN, which is backed by Google, gain more support as well.
They're already planning the next time. MPAA president Chris Dodd
Quote:
Slow pacing gave the Internet and free speech advocates time to wake up and mobilize
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Mr. Dodd is barred from personally lobbying Congress for two years after leaving office.
In other words "It's too bad I can't directly bribe anyone in Congress yet, but when I can I'll make sure the legislation is rammed down your throat even faster so you don't have a chance to react"
Imagine, he was involved in legislation for regulation of the financial sector.
Actually, I think the guy knows exactly what he's doing and gets away with it most of the time. He's been involved in several big financial scandals and accusations against him have never stuck.
Even though both bills have been shelved for the time being I'm sure we haven't seen the end of this given Congress's tendency to slip amendments into other bills.
I really wish that taking down Megaupload happened in a slightly less charged atmosphere. I think it ends up fueling ignorant people on both sides of the copyright issue. People who want a free and open internet see the Anonymous DDOS attacks and think, "I thought we won, but I guess big brother is still watching. Wait here comes Anon! Those guys I dislike are getting what they asked for". And the pro-enforcement side is saying, "This is why we have to regulate the internet. We cannot allow hooligans to run wild on commercial and government properties".
All this will do is make people on both sides of the issue dig in their heels. But this particular website made a lot of enemies, and from what I have seen the case against them is fairly strong. Should Megaupload have been taken down by the DoJ? Probably.
Regardless, here's a fairly compelling case that these laws (SOPA, PIPA or at least the relevant parts) are going to pass. Regardless of how well internet users did at actually caring for one full day.
NSFW!
Stolen flagrantly from reddit. Links below.
Quote:
Originally Posted by reddit user
Lamar Smith has a royal flush and few people know it. SOPA may pass. It may not. He doesn't care, and it doesn't matter. The MPAA and RIAA started working on their legislative strategy to pass a new anti-piracy bill in late 2010. SOPA was designed to raise the noise. Everyone is playing right into the entertainment industries hand. The lobbyists are laughing manically at the ignorance of the mob. Even Wikipedia and reddit have played into it.
What people don't know about is the ace: H.R.1981, the Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011 which is lying in wait. It's not complete. You see, PCIP is not contestable because it's about protecting children. They can, and very well might, copy and paste the full text of SOPA to the end of PCIP. That's the backup. That's the deal that was struck with entertainment industry lobbyists. We will try to push this anti-piracy bill. It probably won't work. Don't worry, we can pass it under an anti-child pornography bill.
There are two things which no Congressman will risk supporting: terrorism and child pornography. There can be no opposition, no discussion. Any anti-piracy law can ALWAYS be reframed as an anti-child pornography bill and it will pass, without even discussion. It will have the full support of the House (minus Ron Paul), the full support of the Senate, and most importantly the full support of the American people. NO ONE wants to risk being called a pedophile.
The entertainment industry has finally caught up with technology. They understand how it works. It took them 15 years, but they know what DNS is. They are going to exploit a fundamental problem with the way DNS is centralized and there is nothing that can be done to stop it. They have found an error in the very architecture of the Internet. The solution, from a free speech standpoint is not to fight it politically. The solution is the fix the error.
We must move to a decentralized system of DNS. It is not impossible. It requires some new thinking and a re-architecture of some web services, but it must be done if we want the Internet, as we know it today, to exist in 5 or 10 years.
As an aside I find it humorous that you could (if casting the Great Gatsby) cast the MPAA/RIAA as Tom Buchannan and the internet as Jay, especially considering that Fitzgerald was writing Nick and Jay as outsiders at the time. And considering F.Scotts ties to Hollywood.
Didn't read the article, but that quote you pulled out is garbage. It's not that people don't know how their business model works, it's that their business model sucks.
I think it might be of interest to tell who linked that article for me.
This bunch of people I know, (distant friends I guess you could say) are independent film makers who have already released a movie using an internet distribution model, rather succesfully. (http://www.starwreck.com/ It was released on the internet and on DVD and has an estimated 8 million viewers. I know at least a dozen people who worked on that one.)
Their current project is Iron Sky, (http://www.ironsky.net/) which has been hailed as a model for independent movie financing.
Being in the movie business, they know other people in the movie business and they've talked a lot about financing with them, because of what they've done. These are the kinds of people who agree with this article. When they say it's not as simple as people say, I believe them.
What do you base your opinion on?
Maybe it's different for big Hollywood studios, but I'm not convinced.
The main problem, as far as I've understood, is that films require A LOT of money up front. That kind of money isn't there yet for alternative distribution methods, so traditional methods need to be counted on, which means the traditional methods need to stay profitable...
Of course this problem can fix itself over time, but it's a little more complicated than just "getting on with the times". Films are so expensive to make that no-one is ready to take chances with distribution methods that have not been tried yet. This is propably especially true for major Hollywood productions.
And btw, here's the trailer for Iron Sky. I've seen some other footage and it looks to be hysterical. It's a scifi-comedy.
There's a key point in all of this that we missed in our earlier analysis about paid accounts at Megaupload. In the indictment, the government seems to assume that paid accounts are clearly all about illegal infringing works. But that's not always the case. In fact, plenty of big name artists -- especially in the hip hop world -- use the paid accounts to make themselves money. This is how they release tracks. You sign up for a paid account from services like Megaupload, which pay you if you get a ton of downloads. For big name artists, that's easy: of course you get a ton of downloads. So it's a great business model for artists: they get paid and their fans get music for free. Everyone wins. Oh... except for the old gatekeeper labels.
And here's a quote from Busta Rhymes:
Quote:
1st of all I am soooo proud of my brother @THEREALSWIZZZ 4 being apart of creating something (MEGAUPLOAD) that could create the most powerful way 4 artist 2 get 90% off of every dollar despite the music being downloaded 4 free...
With labels and companies doin' deals with Spotify and many other companies like it who doesn't give us #### continue 2 do what they do and blatantly show us how much they value the artist with doing deals of such disrespect and lack of value 4 our content...
I think it might be of interest to tell who linked that article for me.
This bunch of people I know, (distant friends I guess you could say) are independent film makers who have already released a movie using an internet distribution model, rather succesfully. (http://www.starwreck.com/ It was released on the internet and on DVD and has an estimated 8 million viewers. I know at least a dozen people who worked on that one.)
Their current project is Iron Sky, (http://www.ironsky.net/) which has been hailed as a model for independent movie financing.
Being in the movie business, they know other people in the movie business and they've talked a lot about financing with them, because of what they've done. These are the kinds of people who agree with this article. When they say it's not as simple as people say, I believe them.
What do you base your opinion on?
Maybe it's different for big Hollywood studios, but I'm not convinced.
The main problem, as far as I've understood, is that films require A LOT of money up front. That kind of money isn't there yet for alternative distribution methods, so traditional methods need to be counted on, which means the traditional methods need to stay profitable...
Of course this problem can fix itself over time, but it's a little more complicated than just "getting on with the times". Films are so expensive to make that no-one is ready to take chances with distribution methods that have not been tried yet. This is propably especially true for major Hollywood productions.
And btw, here's the trailer for Iron Sky. I've seen some other footage and it looks to be hysterical. It's a scifi-comedy.
