Check out this story about how the MPAA sponsored a study linking piracy to organized crime and terrorism. The mighty Motion Picture Association of America, you see, has a problem: prosecutors are reluctant to waste millions of dollars in public money going after millions of software, music and movie downloaders. Somehow, the MPAA has to screw with the priorities. So let’s review how politics, corporatism, law and heaps of bullshit are coming together to turn your kids into enemies of the state.
Early 19th Century – Intellectual property protections are created in Europe to that labors of the mind are enjoyed, for a short time, by their authors.
20th Century – Due to the logistics and cost of marketing and distributing media, music and movie creators sign over their work to publishers. Publishers get rich. Artists get a pittance.
1967 – World Intellectual Property Organization is created “to encourage creative activity, to promote the protection of intellectual property throughout the world” (from the preamble to the convention establishing WIPO)
1990s – Rise of personal computing and the Internet. Logistic complexity and cost of marketing and distributing media evaporates. Traditional publishers become obsolete.
1990s through today – Rise of collaboration, sharing, open source, remixing, etc. IP laws, particularly software patents and copyright law, cease to achieve their original purpose (to encourage innovation). IP Laws become obsolete.
1999 – Napster created.
2000 – Publishers realize they are becoming obsolete; go batshit crazy. Begin to trick artists into thinking the same way.
Summer 2001 – Publishers sue Napster into oblivion; begin diverting all remaining resources to scaring the shit out of the public by suing teenagers, senior citizens and anyone else they can intimidate for bajillions of dollars in damages those people never could have caused.
Fall 2001 – Bush/Cheiny/Rumsfeld invent “War on Terror” for the dual purposes of bankrupting the USA while enriching themselves and instituting a dictactatorship. Dictator Numbnuts then calls everyone he doesn’t like a terrorist, abducts them and imprisons them in the floating S&M dungeon we call Gauntanomo Bay. Dictator Numbnuts further labels any action he doesn’t like “terrorism” or “supporting terrorism.”
2005 – Artists like Radiohead begin realizing that publishers are obsolete, embrace the new order and begin independent online distribution.
2006 through today – Lawsuits begin to backfire. Courts begin realizing that publishers are trying to use civil courts to prosecute criminal offenses but cannot justify the damages they are seeking due technicality – they have no evidence.
2007 through today – Desperate, publishers attempt to delegate enforcement by leaning on Internet Service Providers and Universities. Harvard Law takes it personally.
2008 – Charles Nesson, Professor of Law at Harvard and Captain of the SS Fuckoff starts blasting dirty-big holes in the side of the RIAA’s Fort Bullshit.
2009 – Seeing the RIAA’s bullshit shield weakening, the MPAA realizes it’s in shit up to its collective eyeballs and decides to take radical action. The MPAA “commissions a study” (read, “pays someone to invent evidence for a pre-made conclusion”) to link piracy with terrorism.
How why do you think publishers would want to conflate piracy with terrorism? Wouldn’t that just muddy the whole issue? Yes. Yes it would. That’s how OJ got away with killing his wife, and that’s how the publishes intend to get away with screwing over artists and consumers for half a century. They are going to try to have you, yes you, declared a terrorist. They are going to use fear and stupidity to pressure prosecutors to put piracy cases on top of their lists. Then they are going to spend every dollar they can beg, borrow and steal to have you, and people like you, thrown in jail for a very long time. They are going to try to frighten the living shit out of as many people as possible so people stop downloading.
Terrorism: the systematic use of fear as a means of coercion.
Downloading movies and music is not terrorism. Using the legal system to protect your profit margin by scaring the public into changing its behavior is.
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Actually they are talking more about counterfeiting – Making and selling burned DVDs and CDs.
Well the solution to that is simple. Download it and burn it yourself instead of paying for a pirated copy and funding terrorism. Hilarious how they shoot themselves in the foot on that one.
This is the most ridiculous report ever and shows just how stupid the MPAA think the rest of us are.
@H, while you are correct that the report specifically mentions counterfeiting, they know goddamn well most people, including most of our idiot politicians, will only read the title. They’ll see “movie pirating” and “terrorism” in the line and that will be it.
You might not be that stupid, and I might not be that stupid, but Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reily and Rush Limbaugh and everyone who listens to them ARE that stupid.
You forgot about pedos. Evey download = a child is raped. Pedogeddon is upon us. Don’t download illegal files. THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
It’s time for the movie studios to enter the 21st century. One to three weeks after the movie is released in theaters, offer a downloadable version (optimized for PC viewing) on their website for a small fee (say $10). Stop blowing money on DVD pressing – we buy our own blank ones anyway – and follow iTunes’ lead already!
Exactly dan. If they can have a pretty good quality version of a movie on the torrent networks in that time (or less) there’s no excuse for the studios to not be able to as well.
@Dick, I’m not aware of attempts to link child pornography with piracy, though I wouldn’t put anything past the MPAA.
@dan and H, the studios will resist digital distribution because physical distribution was one of their main reasons for existing. Removing the need to stamp and distribute millions of discs removes one major value proposition from the publishers and brings them one step closer to extinction.
I think Dick was joking
@ H, perhaps he was. I don’t get it.
Which reminds me of a rant about XKCD I was going to write…
“2007 through today – Desperate, publishers attempt to delegate enforcement by leaning on Internet Service Providers and Universities. Harvard Law takes it personally.”
Of course the ISPs will gladly jump on this bandwagon. You see, the ISPs have significantly oversold their service (bandwidth/infrastructure). Yes, they sold me 10M internet service (speed), and yes, I think I might actually have gotten it (for about ten seconds at a time); however, the ISP is banking on the fact I will only need that speed for short periods of time, and thus, won’t use 80% of the service they sold. Now with TPB and other torrent sites (and P2P) people are actually using some of the resources they were sold, and for longer periods of time (seeding). If everyone was to start using the bandwidth they were sold for extended periods of time, they ISPs infrastructure would puke all over itself.
As for MPAA and all the people who think its wrong to get something for nothing, you better go pull your money out of the stock market you assholes. The only reason it’s there is because someone you thought gave two shit’s about you, said could make you could make money for nothing.
Of course stealing is wrong. I’ll quit if they do! You go first.
@Rick, I agree with you about the ISPs overselling their service, but I don’t understand what you mean about the stock market. If a stock is just a piece of a company, and you spend money to get it, then receive dividends or capital gains, that isn’t free money – you had to give them your money first.
I would argue that downloading cannot be stealing because the person you downloaded from still has what you took a copy of.
@Kavan – OK, free money wasn’t the best way of putting it. I see buying stock like buying chips at a casino. You put a chip down on the poker table hoping to get several chips back. No real work involved, and certainly, no guarantees. Now I realize most investments won’t come with a guarantee, but I don’t like the idea putting my money/investment in someone’s hands I don’t know (even most I do know). To make a short story long, the stock market is (imo) where people go when they don’t want to put in any work in to receive a return.
My 401k for years was made up of company stock (from a bank which shall remain nameless). Now the company had a real enticing program (many companies did), they would match 50 cents on the dollar up to 5% of my salary, in company stock. Now, every swing dick who could get air time was saying , DO IT, DO IT, it’s free money. Well, do I really need to go on. Lucky for me, I plan to die before I retire, but some people, especially those close to retirement, they’re screwed.
There are many different types of investments which don’t require me to involve someone who may, or, may not have my best interest at heart.
For example, I could invest money in some books, then invest some time making my kids read them (or read to them). The return on my investment could be just knowing I raised a responsible, productive member of society. This could also be a financial invest, since we won’t have to support the little slug for the rest of our/their lives. The best part, no taxes on your return. Just one of many examples.
“I would argue that downloading cannot be stealing because the person you downloaded from still has what you took a copy of.”
I wouldn’t consider it stealing from the person I downloaded it from either; however, a compelling argument could/is being made that you are stealing from the from the software company,artist…etc, as you are less likely to go purchase their product now. For me, right now is not really a good time to talk about the little guy stealing (or whatever) from the big guys. I say, take your movie, song, full version of Adobe CS4 (fucking awesome) and enjoy. You will/have paid for it a 1000x over.