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from the you-wouldn't-download-a-speech dept.
Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984
The entertainment industries are growing increasingly frustrated with major Internet platforms that, in their view, are not doing enough to tackle online piracy.
This was also the topic of a speech given by MPAA chief Charles Rivkin, during the TPI Aspen Forum yesterday.
[...] "I want to address one of the most vibrant and interconnected ecosystems in human history. That, of course, is the internet. And as we meet, the healthy and vibrant internet that we all want is in serious jeopardy," Rivkin says.
[...] While the complaints about Internet piracy are not new, the MPAA ties piracy in with more recent debates about fake news, election meddling, and hate speech. From Cambridge Analytica to Infowars.
Rivkin calls for a national conversation on how to return the Internet to a place of vibrant but civil discourse. A place where fake news, hate speech, and piracy are properly dealt with.
Eventually, this leads the MPAA's boss to Silicon Valley. Rivkin sees a major role for Internet platforms to do more to stop piracy and other types of abuse. If that doesn't happen voluntarily, the US Government could step in, he suggests
[...] The widespread problem of online piracy is a sign of worse to come, the MPAA chief suggests.
"Online piracy is also the proverbial canary in a coal mine. The same pervasive theft that my industry faces is part of a continuum of toxic developments that harm all of us in this ecosystem – consumers, creators, and commercial operators alike," he says.
In his speech, Rivkin refers to the "broken windows" theory to illustrate his point. This theory suggests that an atmosphere of lawlessness is created when small crimes are left unpunished. Seeing broken windows in the streets makes it more likely that others will start vandalizing as well.
Source: https://torrentfreak.com/piracy-is-the-internets-canary-in-the-coal-mine-mpaa-chief-says-180821/
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 26 2018, @03:10PM (3 children)
There was quite a lot of content created before 28 years ago. A lot of it was damn good too.
Now, imagine you're an aspiring author of children's books and all the Dr. Seuss books are public domain. Good luck trying to make a living competing with that mountain of free and genius content. (Dr. Seuss books are indeed still easily accessible, and even though they are not free, children's books are probably the hardest genre to make money in these days because of them and a scant handful of other children's classics.)
Restricting access to older works is not just about profiteering off them. It's also about protecting and managing the marketplace so new works can appear. Sure, new works will appear anyway. But do the math. How many? How original or derivative? How serious can an author be knowing there's no way to make a living off his work. We're already having enough trouble with so much crap out there. If you want smart, talented people doing a job, they need to be able to make a better living than teaching at the local community college, or playing politics at a corporate office gig while they make a half-assed show of doing real work. I personally know a damn good writer, prolific and funny as shit stuff. He quit writing to run a restaurant. Why? Because it's easier and he makes better money. If you know anything about running a restaurant, that should tell you a lot about the effort involved in writing.
Yes, writing is damn hard work. It's not a magical talent people are born with, it's a skill you have to develop. It takes a huge investment of time and effort. Go ahead, try to write a novel that doesn't suck by the fifth page. If you make it that far, get some feedback from friends and neighbors. See how much they love it, or more likely, hate it. Go ahead, do it. If you can't even get that far, then shut the fuck up about copyright law you stupid poser. Yeah, it's not a perfect system. Name one that is.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 26 2018, @04:58PM
https://www.amazon.com/s?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=children%27s+books [amazon.com]
There is no shortage of children's books. Reading your post, one might suspect that you attempted to write children's books, and that you failed. I won't even accuse you of writing crappy books that didn't appeal - there are plenty of other reasons why an author might fail. You didn't build the proper networking while in college? Politics? Your work is not politically correct? Maybe the illustrations just weren't good enough? I can't say why you might have failed, but you failed to compete in today's real market.
But, that isn't because of Doctor Seuss, or copyright law. Browse the link above. There are more children's books than you can shake a stick at. That first page has publication dates ranging from the '80's right up through 2015. Books are being published, and Seuss isn't stopping them.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 26 2018, @05:03PM
You're either a troll or a jackass moron. I can't quite tell from your post, so I'll assume jackass moron simply because there are more of those on the internet.
I think that's the biggest load of horse shit I've ever seen. Hold on, I've gotta grab the 9/11 Commission Report and take some measurements...
Do you know how I know you're not a good author? I take it in your world nobody is writing new orchestral music, seeing as how there's so much good classical music out there already. Why should they when there are so many songs by Bach and Beethoven (and others) available in public domain?
Not posting the author's name? You're full of shit. Either the author isn't as prolific as you claim, or they're a figment of your imagination. Post their name (published name is fine if it's a pseudonym) or STFU.
Or, much more likely, because he's a shit writer and couldn't give away his books. But we don't know because we don't even know who you're talking about. Again, post his name or STFU.
Some people are good at certain tasks, some are not. Anyone can write computer code. Very few can write efficient and secure computer code. Anyone can use a pencil to make marks on paper. Very few can actually make those marks resemble something meaningful. The same holds true for writing. Some people are good writers and some just can't make a story flow to save their life. If you weren't such a jackass moron you'd realize that.
Let's move on to something other than your word salad. I present to you the story of Kimba the white lion. A piece of public domain work that was copied and slightly modified by one international crime syndicate (guilty of crimes against humanity, which is what current copyright laws are) commonly called Disney. If someone tried to copy the Kimba story again and add a small amount of original content (just like Disney did) Disney would lawyer them to death for copying their story "The Lion King." Even though they didn't copy Disney's story, they copied the public domain story that Disney copied. In the end it doesn't matter, nobody else can take the same easy route Disney did, and nobody will ever be able to in the future because Disney has a copyright that is, for all intents and purposes, perpetual. If copyright terms were sane that easy route would be clearly available again a few years from now.
Take a look at Disney's back catalog. A large amount of their work is copied from public domain. Once that public domain work is copied it's possible for Disney to claim that any new copies of the public domain work are copies of their copies, thereby actually removing that work from the public domain. That's another thing I'd change: make public domain infective the same way GPL is infective. If you copy public domain work, your new work automatically becomes public domain. Create new or GTFO.
I'll leave you with this: Why should I pay part of my tax money to protect your precious authors when I will see ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in return for my taxes? Public domain was what I was supposed to see in return. As the laws were originally written, after the copyright expired, I got free access to that which I paid to protect previously. As it stands right now we're socializing the costs to protect the privatized profits of your oh so precious authors. Sounds like welfare handouts to me. That's worse than socialism: it's fascism. We're living in a corporatist kleptocracy and it seems like you don't have a problem with that.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday August 26 2018, @10:08PM
Obviously. I never said otherwise. And I agree it's a travesty it's not available in the public domain.
The point I was making was quite simple: >99% of transactions of copyrighted material online are very likely involving material created in the past 28 years. Torrent swarms happen around newly released movies, albums, etc., not frequently around stuff from the 1980s or before. So, if one is going to make an argument about Constitutional copyright as it applies to online sharing, it's important to keep in mind that the vast majority of infringements would still be within the period the Founders identified as reasonable for copyright.