Big Money 42, Democracy 0
Brace yourselves for a copyright rant. Ready? In 3...2...1...liftoff!
The Copyright Alliance, a lobby group which includes the MPAA and RIAA, among other industry clusterfucks (er.., conglomerates) has written a letter to the assorted US presidential candidates asking what laws they would enact to protect the "creative community", i.e. the big movie studios, record labels, etc. (indie types need not apply). This according to a report on Ars Technica. While it is not unusual for lobby groups to go to politicians before an election, ask "what have you done for us lately", and wave the carrot on a stick of campaign funding, this instance is especially undemocratic. I'm sure we've already established that the RIAA and Co. do not share the same interests as the voting public whom would feel the sharp end of more restrictive copyright laws.
This ties in nicely with a report on the same site the previous day were one university professor who happens to be an expert in copyright law found that, if one where to take the most literal interpretation (and you can bet the RIAA does), he would rack up $4.5 BILLION US a year in liability, as would most of us. This pretty much shows that the laws that exist are overbroad, overeaching, and out of date, nay, completely out of sync with the digital age.
But rather than push for reasonable and much needed reforms, it seems that the Copyright Alliance want to protect the entertainment industry as is and have its faulty business model enshrined in ever more draconian laws.
This is a strategy which seems oddly familiar to me. Over the past few years in Canada, several provinces have brought in government-regulated gas pricing. Just in case you think I've wandered way off topic, consider the following argument. Rapid rises and wild price swings (sometimes in excess of 10 cents a litre overnight) led to a very unhappy customer base who accused the big oil companies of price gouging. Pretty soon there were demands that gas prices be regulated and, social democracy that we are we love regulating everything, soon the laws were in place. The thing is that the oil companies never opposed a move that no longer let them directly set their own pricing, they actually welcomed it. You see, the way the regulations work is that the oil companies go to a government committee and basically feed them some (probably cooked) numbers and say, this is what our expenses are, this is what we need to be charging. The public is informed only after the decision is made. So really what big oil in Canada has done is kept its profit (the swings are a little less but on the whole gas is not any cheaper), changed its business model very little, and now the government takes the heat when people feel the pinch of peaks in the price of gas.
What the Copyright Alliance is attempting to do south of the border is much the same. By getting their current business model made into law they are legitimizing it and diverting the anger of the public from them to the politicians. Score another one for big money. I sincerely hope that this does not come to pass because it hurts consumers and subverts the democratic process, plus there would be an echo in Canada as big media here pressures our government to align our laws with those in the US.
In a related story, music stores in the UK are actually sticking up for the consumer. Say whaaa?
It seems that music and DVD retailers in the UK are feeling such a backlash from DRM that they've sicked their lobby group, the Entertainment Retailers Association, on big media. They say that fragmented and incompatible DRM schemes are confusing and frustrating their customers who can't get the content they own to play on all their devices and want DRM dropped entirely. It likely won't happen, but the fact that there is pressure coming at big media from other businesses is an encouraging sign that maybe it will all work out in the end. Hey, I can dream.
Big tip of the hat to Ars Technica for their excellent coverage of what's become the biggest legal issue of modern times.
The Copyright Alliance, a lobby group which includes the MPAA and RIAA, among other industry clusterfucks (er.., conglomerates) has written a letter to the assorted US presidential candidates asking what laws they would enact to protect the "creative community", i.e. the big movie studios, record labels, etc. (indie types need not apply). This according to a report on Ars Technica. While it is not unusual for lobby groups to go to politicians before an election, ask "what have you done for us lately", and wave the carrot on a stick of campaign funding, this instance is especially undemocratic. I'm sure we've already established that the RIAA and Co. do not share the same interests as the voting public whom would feel the sharp end of more restrictive copyright laws.
This ties in nicely with a report on the same site the previous day were one university professor who happens to be an expert in copyright law found that, if one where to take the most literal interpretation (and you can bet the RIAA does), he would rack up $4.5 BILLION US a year in liability, as would most of us. This pretty much shows that the laws that exist are overbroad, overeaching, and out of date, nay, completely out of sync with the digital age.
But rather than push for reasonable and much needed reforms, it seems that the Copyright Alliance want to protect the entertainment industry as is and have its faulty business model enshrined in ever more draconian laws.
This is a strategy which seems oddly familiar to me. Over the past few years in Canada, several provinces have brought in government-regulated gas pricing. Just in case you think I've wandered way off topic, consider the following argument. Rapid rises and wild price swings (sometimes in excess of 10 cents a litre overnight) led to a very unhappy customer base who accused the big oil companies of price gouging. Pretty soon there were demands that gas prices be regulated and, social democracy that we are we love regulating everything, soon the laws were in place. The thing is that the oil companies never opposed a move that no longer let them directly set their own pricing, they actually welcomed it. You see, the way the regulations work is that the oil companies go to a government committee and basically feed them some (probably cooked) numbers and say, this is what our expenses are, this is what we need to be charging. The public is informed only after the decision is made. So really what big oil in Canada has done is kept its profit (the swings are a little less but on the whole gas is not any cheaper), changed its business model very little, and now the government takes the heat when people feel the pinch of peaks in the price of gas.
What the Copyright Alliance is attempting to do south of the border is much the same. By getting their current business model made into law they are legitimizing it and diverting the anger of the public from them to the politicians. Score another one for big money. I sincerely hope that this does not come to pass because it hurts consumers and subverts the democratic process, plus there would be an echo in Canada as big media here pressures our government to align our laws with those in the US.
In a related story, music stores in the UK are actually sticking up for the consumer. Say whaaa?
It seems that music and DVD retailers in the UK are feeling such a backlash from DRM that they've sicked their lobby group, the Entertainment Retailers Association, on big media. They say that fragmented and incompatible DRM schemes are confusing and frustrating their customers who can't get the content they own to play on all their devices and want DRM dropped entirely. It likely won't happen, but the fact that there is pressure coming at big media from other businesses is an encouraging sign that maybe it will all work out in the end. Hey, I can dream.
Big tip of the hat to Ars Technica for their excellent coverage of what's become the biggest legal issue of modern times.
Labels: big bad business, copyright, DRM, oil
posted by Colin at
6:45 p.m.
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