All I see is a continuing ratcheting down of any concepts of due process, let alone fair use, that gives the MPAA and RIAA and the like unilateral judicial authority to delete any content online they do not like, and where the process is akin to the odious civil forfeiture laws in which you must prove your innocence to get your property back.
These people are suing moms for what they had playing on the radio in the background of their youtube videos. Piracy is wrong, but frankly I want these organizations to have their balls cut off and fed to them, which most certainly precludes giving them even more unaccountable power.
Oh, and as an independent content producer of, say, indie games? You’ll be next on their hit list. Slippery slope is only a fallacy when it hasn’t been amply demonstrated over and over.
@Appel. I think you are a victim of your market. Hollywood doesn’t see pushing material to Iceland as being worth the effort, or maybe the government is censoring what material can be accessed there. I feel for, but getting pirated material isn’t your only course of action, it’s just the easiest.
The Register has a calm and thoughtful follow up on the issue. tldr; the reasons for the bill won’t go away, even though the rather badly-crafted bill itself is likely history now. It will be back in another form perennially until the issue is resolved satisfactorily for everyone.
It won’t be resolved to anyone’s satisfaction. And no amount of law will change the way things work. Block google from returning hits about torrents, other search engines will spring up that do nothing but give torrent results. Distributed searches on the dark nets, with tools a child can use will come out. etc
Piracy is here to stay. Like it or not. The internet will not go away. Even China can’t control it. Why do you think the UK and the US can?
Countries do not seek, I think, to control the internet; they seek to control their citizens, businesses, and economy, which is much easier.
Not a great deal of amendment needs to be made to various parts of that SOPA bill, from what I can see, that would make it rather more effective and rather less likely to attract the ire of tinfoil hats around the globe. They’ll chisel away at it until eventually the basic sentiment of what it seeks to do - that is, make sure people like me have a framework where we feel we can more safely earn a reasonable crust in a position of mutual trust - is achieved. It will happen.
China, by the way, does a remarkably good job of controlling its citizens use of the internet. As does the UK, though almost none of us are even aware of it.
I think you have way too much faith in the legislative process. I think what will eventually come out will be a bill that favors big media monopolies and still manages to screw people like you.
When they tell you that they collect on your behalf, but surprisingly at the end of the year, that comes out to only $5 of royalties but the fees for a year are $200. And no you can’t say no, and you can’t opt out, and you can’t collect royalties yourself… Much like they already do for musicians now…
If you want to argue your case, the lawyer fees will be $100 per hour. Budget for at least a 2 year long protracted set of court hearings.
They want control of distribution. You are not part of their plan. Mark my words.
Nah, I know exactly what I’m talking about, I work in this industry here, IPTV business, we’re the largest here and run VOD services containing movies and tv shows.
Has nothing to do with the government, we were among the first in the world to offer VOD to the entire nation. There’s no restriction of what material can be accessed here, except by the restrictions Hollywood imposes.
Problem is, it’s all in SD. Why? Hollywood won’t give us HD because they charge obnoxious amounts for that sort of “premium” content. So, people just go online and pirate it. (I wonder if color tv was premium at the time)
They won’t give us TV shows for the VOD rental, instead the TV broadcasters here are able to insert their two latest episodes for each show into our VOD catalog, because they hold the distribution right. They are only viewable by the subscribers for that particular TV channel, they cannot be rented by others. So, we don’t have all the shows for each series, only the 2 latest shows. So, people just go online and pirate it.
We have a lot of movies, but not the ones we’d like to have. We have something called a “running window” agreement, which means movies come into the catalog for a period of time and then vanish. New movies are only there for 3-4 weeks and then vanish. Old or bad movies are longer. Each year we receive a list of movies we can show, and we can pick from it. So, for example, by chance we’re able to get Terminator 1 and Terminator 3, we’ll get it, but we won’t be able to get Terminator 2. So, people just go online and pirate it.
Heck, you know, some people like to watch some movies when they want, not when Hollywood wants. So, maybe Harry Potter is no longer in our catalog because it’s expired, but someone wants to watch it, tough luck. So, people just go online and pirate it.
And don’t think for a second we’ll be able to get Star Wars, those are so special movies they won’t ever distribute it in other forms than some platinum coated boxes with George Lucas’s signature. So, people just go online and pirate it.
We’re the largest distributor of LEGAL content here in Iceland, movies and TV shows, yet Hollywood simply won’t give us what we want so we can give to our customers what they want. And they wonder why so many people pirate their stuff? Stop treating people like children that must be force fed entertainment.
People want to watch the latest tv show, watch entire series, and watch latest movies, and find any movie to watch, when they want. They can only do that via piracy.
I’m not really trying to justify piracy, but I’m just explaining the reasons why people do it. It’s lack of legal means of getting it. I hate the fact people have to resort to piracy, because that means less business for us, and it hurts my job security in the end.
Piracy is not the internets fault, it’s the fault of Hollywood unwilling to satisfy their demanding consumers.
Heh, I wonder how you guys will react when I tell you that a two-episode 40-45 minute anime BD costs about 11 000 yen here in Japan, and any music CD costs about 3000 yen.
Am I the only one thinking that if the money spent on combating piracy was given to aspiring game/music/film makers on the condition that their content was freely available then the world would be a better place?
It wouldn’t work IRL. How much money does each developer deserve? If we were living in an utopia where such a system was possible, we wouldn’t be having this problem in the first place…
