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Microsoft Leaves Anti-Piracy Group After it Scolded EFF's New Board Chair
Microsoft has cut its ties with anti-piracy group CreativeFuture, after the group criticized the copyright track record of the new EFF board chair. This decision didn't sit well with CreativeFuture, which wrote a scathing letter arguing that Microsoft is turning its back on the copyright industries that helped the company to thrive.
In recent years CreativeFuture has been one of the most vocal anti-piracy groups. The coalition is made up of more than 550 organizations as well as hundreds of thousands of individual creators. The group lobbies lawmakers and leads the charge when it comes to many anti-piracy discussions. Its message is loud and clear: piracy is terrible and Google is enemy number one.
In recent years CreativeFuture has repeatedly pitted itself against major technology companies which it believes don't do enough to curb piracy. In this often hostile ecosystem, it found one sole tech giant at its side, Microsoft. "In an era of creative decimation perpetrated by the world's biggest technology companies, one of their very biggest made a point of joining us to stand up for copyright," CreativeFuture noted in a recent mailing.
While that sounds positive, the reason for the email isn't good. The anti-piracy coalition explains that Microsoft is the first member to ever leave the group. While the company hasn't publicly explained its motives, CreativeFuture knows why. According to the mailing, Microsoft wasn't happy with an article [archive] the group wrote about Pamela Samuelson, the new Board Chair at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
[...] "Confused and hurt, we did some digging, and discovered that Samuelson and Microsoft have a long history together, going at least as far back as 2005, when Microsoft gifted a whopping $1 million to the Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic at UC Berkeley," CreativeFuture writes. In addition, the coalition points out that Samuelson published a paper defending Microsoft in a lawsuit against AT&T, while the tech company continued to support the Samuelson Clinic.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ilsa on Wednesday November 27 2019, @09:49PM (3 children)
"In an era of creative decimation perpetrated by the world's biggest technology companies"
Yeah, it's all the tech companies fault. It can't POSSIBLY be the publishers' fault. They don't lock up works, making them harder to access. They don't charge unreasonable fees for things. They don't abuse the crap of artists who make the mistake of signing on with them. They don't force copyright terms so long that it takes two (or is it 3 now?) full generations of people to live and die before anything can enter the public domain.
The only reason Microsoft would be a part of such a group in the first place would be if they thought they could get something out of it. I'm guessing the equations no longer work out to Microsoft's benefit.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 28 2019, @02:10AM
I have one video game that I have bought 5 times.
The first time it was worth the 30-40 bucks I paid for it. It really is a good game.
Over the years I have ended up with this same game in different bundles and whatnot. I did not seek out to buy this game again. Yet the publisher of that game got more money. Because I wanted the other games in the bundles. I have to wonder when I have paid enough for a game I finished well over 20 years ago.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday November 28 2019, @02:47AM (1 child)
It all has to do with politics. Back when Disney was extending copyright terms for their own benefit ad infinitum, the voting public was asleep at the switch - did little or nothing to push back. Recently, there is much more awareness and hostility toward copyright and the political climate was not at all receptive to yet another term extension, so they didn't even waste the effort (money and political capital) on a Quixotic attempt at another extension. We (the US voting public) are apparently not pissed off enough to change the status quo and get copyright term rollbacks yet, but hopefully we're at the end of the pendulum swing.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 28 2019, @04:36AM
Well heh.
Bear in mind that a topic like this, 'copyright', enters the mind of one in 1k people. Ever. Maybe even one in 10k people!
Most people don't even know what copyright *is*, and could care less if you started to explain it to them. They have other concerns, whatever those may be.
Which isn't copyright.
And of those with the ability, or interest, or desire to care, many may still not really care how long copyright is extended for!
People that care? Those making money off of it, and those profiting in some non-fiduciary way.. such as people using GPL based software. Yet, do you know how many people using Linux, and don't even know what the GPL is? Or have seen the acronym, but didn't even Google wtf it is?
I mean, look at the mickey mouse thing. How do you explain it to the non-interested? That "disney is evil' and 'now they get to still be the only ones to make mickey mouse films'? Or worse, 'Now they can profit off their work for 20 more years!' or what not? Why would most people care?
I care. You apparently care. But... we've decided to click on a story that interests us, on a board/forum that has topics of this type...