SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Copyright Coalition Asks President Biden to Help Fight Piracy and Big Tech
The CreativeFuture coalition, which represents companies and individuals in the film, TV, music, and publishing industries, is asking President Biden to help fight online piracy. Now that the felony streaming bill and the CASE Act have been passed, big tech companies such as Google and Facebook are key adversaries once again.
[...] With the felony streaming bill and the CASE Act passed, the pro-copyright group already got most of what it asked for in last year's letter. But there is more. In the letter sent this week, CreativeFuture points the finger at an 'enemy' that's closer to home. "As you well know from your years in the Senate and as Vice President, not everyone in Washington is a supporter of copyright. The creative community has often been on the losing end of the battle to improve copyright protections," the group writes.
[...] With this week's letter, the group reminds President Biden of its concerns, calling for support. "We hope that your Administration will support ongoing efforts to ensure that the biggest internet platforms – companies such as Facebook and Google – have greater accountability for addressing the unlawful conduct occurring across their worldwide services."
"We know that you are personally aware of how these platforms can be misused and how they dodge accountability – all while making immense profits," the letter adds.
Also at The Hill.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Thursday February 25 2021, @12:53PM (1 child)
By now, we're all familiar with the copyright extremists' false reasoning and spurious arguments, but for the, uh, record, it should be pointed out.
"companies such as Facebook and Google – have greater accountability for addressing the unlawful conduct" Note how they slide "unlawful" into the verbiage while simultaneously being vague about just what conduct they're talking about. Of course everyone knows they're talking about piracy. They're once again trying the loaded statement, trying to smear some conduct as unlawful, when it is clear that the conduct they speak of should be legal. Note that they didn't try to smear it as theft, or immoral, no, they are actually being careful on that point. Yet this is complaining about activity that wouldn't be criminal if they hadn't done their utmost to keep it criminalized, and had some success.
And once again, they're trying to turn private entities into their enforcement arm. They've always wanted ISPs to police ISP customers for them, and were righteously told to bugger off. Of course they also want public resources spent on this "problem".
"how these platforms can be misused and how they dodge accountability" Again with the loaded statements. Speaking of misuse, propagandizing is a misuse of language that gets a huge pass. Freedom of Speech seems to cover the freedom to lie. And, woof, how some have used that to the hilt. Demagoguery, how do we deal with that? Criminalizing lying seems a bad idea. Discovering the honest truth can be very hard, and we don't want to punish people for simply being wrong. And we definitely don't want to increase groupthink by chilling our freedom of expression.
The War on Drugs was a massive failure. The War on Piracy is worse in that while substances can be abused, it's all but impossible to argue that data can be abused in a similar manner. Where, therefore, is the public interest in this matter? They really have to reach to argue that harm is somehow being done. Yeah, yeah, artists will all starve if everyone can freely copy their works without paying them anything. Except there are ways to compensate artists without resorting to laughably futile efforts to regulate copying. Perhaps a violent video game could be considered data that can be abused. Yet the idea that violence in video games can lead to violence in real life is one of those notions that proponents perpetually overreach in their efforts to demonstrate that there is a link. Maybe there is, but if so, they've got to get real about demonstrating it in a convincing manner, without tainting their experiments with their agendas. Instead, they are repeatedly debunked. Then there's the notion that video games are addictive. Another sticky area is porn and the War on Sex. Social conservatives have made a mess of that, and more often than not, their efforts backfire.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday February 25 2021, @05:41PM
"how these platforms can be misused"
Most anything can be misused. Their goal isn't to stop that which could be misused because it can be misused. Their goal is to abolish user generated content, to stop their intended use.