PRO-IP bill signed into law

[Xiahou]

While we were all looking the other way, congress overwhelmingly passed and the president signed the PRO-IP(Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property) act.... You know, the bill that creates a new federal office for the "copyright czar"- who basically sounds like a government tool of the recording and movie industries.

If the acronym alone isn't enough to convince you that it's a great bill consider the following benefits cited by its supporters:

In addition to creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs (says the Copyright Alliance) and boosting our economy at this "critical juncture" (says the RIAA), the PRO-IP Act also has the happy benefit of hurting terrorists. As the White House noted when Bush signed the bill, "Terrorist networks use counterfeit sales to finance their operations."

Who knew that haranguing petty file sharers will create jobs, save the economy, and fight terrorism?

More background: Copyright Czar is Born
Even more background.

[Papewaio]

Hang on the pirates are the ones without money.

If they want the financiers go after the Saudis...

[Louis VI the Fat]

They're fighting a lost war. And one shouldn't enter a war that's lost.

The law has many aspects, but I'll focus on one, file sharing. It is no longer stoppable. Here you go, think of it what you must: I've downloaded thousands of illegal copies of music and movies this year. Not because I feel entitled to it. Not because I couldn't afford to rent DVD's and buy CD's. But simply...because I can. And because everybody does it. And because this is how people listen to music nowadays, and watch movies.

My illegal files haven't replaced CD's and DVD's, they've done much more than that: they replaced radio and television.
I've got five thousand files on my IPod and computer that function as a radio. MTV? I watch more music videos on YouTube. Movies I don't watch on television, but at my own leisurly pace after I downloaded them.
Yet radio, television and MTV all managed, and manage, to make a living from broadcasting content free of charge, instead of from selling hard copies.

So if they ever want to make a profit from the time I spend listening to music and watching movies, they'll have to innovate and figure out a way. It's like that.
Old times won't return. I mean, a fourteen year old doesn't even know what a compact disc is anymore. It's a museumpiece to them. The thought that people should pay for music is as alien to them as the thought that I should pay to walk in the park.

[Strike For The South]

They're fighting a lost war. And one shouldn't enter a war that's lost.

The law has many aspects, but I'll focus on one, file sharing. It is no longer stoppable. Here you go, think of it what you must: I've downloaded thousands of illegal copies of music and movies this year. Not because I feel entitled to it. Not because I couldn't afford to rent DVD's and buy CD's. But simply...because I can. And because everybody does it. And because this is how people listen to music nowadays, and watch movies.

My illegal files haven't replaced CD's and DVD's, they've done much more than that: they replaced radio and television.
I've got five thousand files on my IPod and computer that function as a radio. MTV? I watch more music videos on YouTube. Movies I don't watch on television, but at my own leisurly pace after I downloaded them.
Yet radio, television and MTV all managed, and manage, to make a living from broadcasting content, instead of from selling hard copies.

So if they ever want to make a profit from the time I spend listening to music and watching movies, they'll have to innovate and figure out a way. It's like that.
Old times won't return. I mean, a fourteen year old doesn't even know what a compact disc is anymore. It's a museumpiece to them. The thought that people should pay for music is as alien to them as the thought that I should pay to walk in the park.

QFT

[Husar]

If that were the case then I wonder where they are supposed to get the money for a 100,000,000$ movie production from? Or does everybody prefer amateur short films?

It's kind of hard to run a business without any income, it's even harder to sustain a family without any income, I suggest you try it. Of course there are other jobs those people could pursue, like washing dishes, and then everybody could watch them do that for free.

[TevashSzat]

If that were the case then I wonder where they are supposed to get the money for a 100,000,000$ movie production from? Or does everybody prefer amateur short films?

It's kind of hard to run a business without any income, it's even harder to sustain a family without any income, I suggest you try it. Of course there are other jobs those people could pursue, like washing dishes, and then everybody could watch them do that for free.

Well, my view of piracy is as follows:

The vast majority of pirates are those who either don't have enough money to buy games or want to just try out games that they would have normally never bought.

Now in both situations, the industry would have never seen the people's money. True, there are a minorty of the piracy population, i think, who never buy games, rent DVDs, go to the theaters, ect... but they are not the biggest.

In fact, the pirates are being exposed to new things that they may have gotten access to otherwise. If they truly like whatever product they pirated, the odds are that they would become a fan of the product and actually spend money to get it.

I think piracy is being used as a scapegoat for the declining music industry and what not. The fact is the vast majority of people have no idea how to use torrents and such to get pirated items. So, the general loss in revenue has alot more to do with the industry's declining standards or products rather than the horrible piracy that apparently everyone and their mother uses.

The thing is that great movie for the foreseeable future will always make money. Look at the Dark Knight, it has made hundreds of millions and has paid its 80 million dollar budget (iirc) many times over. I don't see anyone complaining how low the box office numbers for it was. Instead, the complaining and whining only comes after some movie or computer game does below exception. Of course, there is no chance that your product may be faulty, it must be everyone else's fault

[Louis VI the Fat]

If that were the case then I wonder where they are supposed to get the money for a 100,000,000$ movie production from?

They get the money from suckers like y ...erm...I mean, they need to adapt or die. To devise new strategies.

We should remember that intellectual property only came into full being when technological breakthrough made perfect reproduction of art possible.

In the 19th century, you went to a live concert to hear music. Only the invention of the grammophone created the music industry, and with it the possibility of making money from music through reproduction.
Likewise, only the possibility to reproduce visual art - whether through reproduction of posters, photographs or the moving image - meant that intellectual property needed to be protected. Previoulsy, once sold, an image was sold and with it all the rights resting on it. Before the 20th century, if you could paint a good copy of a famous painting, then good for you, you were well within your rights. Only the possibility of mechanical, perfect reproduction created the need for intellectual property protection.

Intellectual property rights to protect against reproduction is a distinctly twentienth century legal concept, tied to advances in mechanical reproduction. Currently, we are witnessing a new technological breakthrough. An advancement in digital reproduction. Which makes reproduction instantaneous, global, and, most importantly, with zero cost. And we are only at the beginning...
So not only does industry need to innovate, so too must our legal concepts progress, just like they did during the last century.

In this respect, this law is reactionary. And stultifying for enterprise. It doesn't protect American industry, it is detrimental to it, by protected vested industry at the expense of innovation. This law belongs to the laws of Ming China or the guilds of Europe. Desperatley clinging on to old ways by means of ever increasing suppression is decidedly un-American.


*now you'll need to excuse me. Dark Knight just arrived on my hard drive.*

[drone]

If I'm not mistaken, the most egregious aspect of the proposed bill was removed, the one that tasks the feds with the prosecution instead of the IP holders. But the bill still sucks. The point of the copyrights and patents are:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

Limited times, and to promote progress. Maintaining a copyright for 50+ years past the author's death does not meet this criteria. The Hill sisters should not be allowed to sit on their laurels and collect Happy Birthday money for decades, this does not encourage them to produce more works of art. Regarding the recording industry, the actual authors don't even own the copyright to their work. System broken.

[Xiahou]

If I'm not mistaken, the most egregious aspect of the proposed bill was removed, the one that tasks the feds with the prosecution instead of the IP holders. But the bill still sucks.

There's still plenty to love, even without that:

Passage of this latest draconian law, on top of the already draconian Digital Millennium Copyright Act and several others, is a victory for the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America. But the law's critics say there's no evidence that increasing statutory damages—currently $150,000 for a song that sells for 99 cents on iTunes—would help stem the tide of piracy.

The new law contains other provisions that are just plain scary. For instance, the Justice Department could seize and auction off any computer or network hardware involved in a copyright crime, as it does with the property of drug kingpins—even if the owner is not found guilty of a crime.

link

It also mentions increasing the fine from it's current $150,000- apparently to $7.5 million:

For instance, someone copying a 50 songs from a boxed set could be liable for $7.5 million in damages instead of the current $150,000.

And while the Justice Dept isnt being tasked with prosecuting complaints for the RIAA, they still get a copyright czar in the White House to look out for their interests.

[Kekvit Irae]

As an avid high seas corsair, I see this bill as epic fail.