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Posted: |
Jan 19, 2012 - 12:45 AM
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By: |
Yen Fai
(Member)
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LeHah mentioned New Speak, and although his position appears to be more accepting of SOPA and PIPA, George Orwell's 1984 was exactly what these bills made me think of.
One of my major concerns is that SOPA and PIPA give companies unrestrained control over any website's content (as it appears in the US.) A claimant, without due process, would be able to block any site they choose with nothing more than an allegation. It would then be up to the blocked site to prove it isn't abusing copyright, a potentially expensive prospect. The danger of this is that larger companies would be able to quickly eradicate the internet presence of smaller competitors, effectively stifle blogs and message boards containing unfavorable content, and claim ownership of materials which do not belong to them. Thus these companies are increasingly empowered to become the new Big Brothers, with full control over the internet and the ability to rewrite information as they see fit with unheard of ease. Internet fan art and fan fiction would become a thing of the past. Don't like the fade to black after your West Side Story credit sequence? Just forget about complaining on the internet because MGM will have your blog for breakfast.
The situation I've described is not hypothetical. It can be shown unequivocally that it will happen if the bills pass. The corporate sponsors of these bills regularly abuse similar existing laws. Entertainment companies regularly block YouTube videos created under fair use (as well as those which actually do violate copyright) through fully automated processes without review or recourse. Photos and artwork are regularly removed from photo sharing sites with a simple click. Disney perpetuates the myth that they own Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a character fully in the public domain, using improper legal action and deep pockets against any parties using the character legally. Similarly, the public domain works of Robert E. Howard continue to have royalties paid, and the song Happy Birthday, also public domain, now belongs to Warner Brothers thanks to corporate greed and information manipulation. A popular free stock photo site (I can't recall the name) was converted to a paid subscription service by new owners, who then aggressively pursued substantial claims against sites using these images legally. The SOPA and PIPA bills would make these types of abuses easier and more effective.
Obviously there are other concerns with these bills, but this is the one that gets my goat.
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I can understand the shutting down of websites that allow you to illegally download content [like torrent search engines and things of the like] but how on earth does that mean going after TWITTER or FACEBOOK? Aren't artist, directors, musicians, and pretty much anyone who WANTS people to buy their work on those sites promoting? Did I miss something?
Since when does social media have anything to do with illegal downloads or even working against or helping to stealing money from people in the entertainment industry?
I don't think I've ever seen entire films or music or damn near anything illegally shared on FACEBOOK or TWITTER.
Can anyone enlighten me?
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Posted: |
Jan 19, 2012 - 1:08 AM
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By: |
Yen Fai
(Member)
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I can understand the shutting down of websites that allow you to illegally download content [like torrent search engines and things of the like] but how on earth does that mean going after TWITTER or FACEBOOK? Aren't artist, directors, musicians, and pretty much anyone who WANTS people to buy their work on those sites promoting? Did I miss something?
Since when does social media have anything to do with illegal downloads or even working against or helping to stealing money from people in the entertainment industry?
I don't think I've ever seen entire films or music or damn near anything illegally shared on FACEBOOK or TWITTER.
Can anyone enlighten me?
I see video clips shared on Facebook often enough, usually funny fan edits (which likely fall under fair use.) Songs appear on MySpace pages. At the moment the expense and responsibility lies with the copyright holder to defend it's copyright (as well it should be.) SOPA/PIPA puts the expense of patrolling for illegal materials in the site owners hands, lest they risk retribution. Thus SOPA/PIPA gives copyright holders the power over the site, 'do it or we can shut you down.' Sites like Facebook and YouTube would be forced to play ball, and I'm sure they would. These sites would also be tempted to take the bill's 'proactive loophole' and delete anything that might be even remotely infringing without determining if it falls under fair use. On Twitter or Facebook, if a user were to post damaging but true remarks about a product, the owner of the product could simply claim copyright infringement. To appease the powers that be, the site may then have the comment or perhaps even the user's account removed.
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I can understand the shutting down of websites that allow you to illegally download content [like torrent search engines and things of the like] but how on earth does that mean going after TWITTER or FACEBOOK? Aren't artist, directors, musicians, and pretty much anyone who WANTS people to buy their work on those sites promoting? Did I miss something?
Since when does social media have anything to do with illegal downloads or even working against or helping to stealing money from people in the entertainment industry?
I don't think I've ever seen entire films or music or damn near anything illegally shared on FACEBOOK or TWITTER.
Can anyone enlighten me?
I see video clips shared on Facebook often enough, usually funny fan edits (which likely fall under fair use.) Songs appear on MySpace pages. At the moment the expense and responsibility lies with the copyright holder to defend it's copyright (as well it should be.) SOPA/PIPA puts the expense of patrolling for illegal materials in the site owners hands, lest they risk retribution. Thus SOPA/PIPA gives copyright holders the power over the site, 'do it or we can shut you down.' Sites like Facebook and YouTube would be forced to play ball, and I'm sure they would. These sites would also be tempted to take the bill's 'proactive loophole' and delete anything that might be even remotely infringing without determining if it falls under fair use. On Twitter or Facebook, if a user were to post damaging but true remarks about a product, the owner of the product could simply claim copyright infringement. To appease the powers that be, the site may then have the comment or perhaps even the user's account removed.
OK but this would mean if anything shutting down YOU TUBE or forbidding links from the site.
Also, I'm a bit lost with this bit -- "On Twitter or Facebook, if a user were to post damaging but true remarks about a product, the owner of the product could simply claim copyright infringement. To appease the powers that be, the site may then have the comment or perhaps even the user's account removed."
You can go on Amazon.com and read negative reviews for products and that doesn't seem to break any law so how is that any different.
Hell, how are negative reviews for albums and films any different?
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Surely the likes of YouTube are for YOUR stuff - your own music, your own films of your cats or a nice sunset? Or speaking into the webcam about stuff? Really, what's the difference between putting Goldsmith's TOTAL RECALL score on a YouTube playlist and uploading it to a torrent site?
Someone pointed out on Twitter that uploading a Michael Jackson video would theoretically get you "a harsher prison sentence than the guy who killed him". In which case, surely the logical thing to do is to not upload Michael Jackson videos. That's not a freedom of speech issue. Your freedom of speech isn't being curtailed because you're not exercising your freedom of speech. You're uploading someone else's. Without their permission.
That's why it annoys me slightly that YouTube clips of score tracks get put into this forum. Isn't that piracy? Isn't that bootlegging? That you're not making money out of it (and since there are occasional adverts on YouTube, someone IS making money out of it) isn't the point. If I made 3,000 copies of say, Michael Giacchino's MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 4 album and then just gave them all away, would not Varese and Paramount and whoever still have a case of infringement?
What's at the heart of the problem is the sense of entitlement that has been nurtured with the technological developments: ripping software (don't bother reading the small print where it says this product must not be used for copyrighted material), online streaming video (but please don't use it for stuff which isn't yours). If there wasn't piracy, there wouldn't need to be anti-piracy legislation.
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While I agree with the desired result -- the elimination of piracy to help shore up various media companies and individual artists -- these bills do seem to give a great deal of elbow room to allow for the shutting down of sites rather arbitrarily. The "Megaupload" situation, at least to me, hints that media companies might use increased powers to shut down content that they simply don't like with no copyright infringement.
Perhaps this is naive, but wouldn't a solution to all of this is, similar to other media like radio and TV, involve fair and reasonable prepaid license fees, agreed to by all parties, to be assessed to IP providers and major sites -- licensing fees that offer compensation for dissemination of copyrighted material? I believe that is how radio stations offer content "for free" to the public without the implications of piracy -- by paying annual fees to BMI, ASCAP, etc.. Compensation is surely the key here.
From the ASCAP website:
http://www.ascap.com/legislation/jointstatement.aspx
(P.S. ASCAP strongly supports the legislation apparently!)
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Posted: |
Jan 19, 2012 - 1:43 PM
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By: |
LeHah
(Member)
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As for the rest of my Twitter feed, I really don't care if everyone else at this board combs through it. Chances are you already know what my views are anyway.
Sigh. This again?
I am a coarse person, but I'm also reasonable - I'll listen to arguments. This may result in my making fun of you if what you type is worth the time to make fun of but at least I'll say it to your face instead of on a Twitter.
Yeah, I know about that Twitter you hide in plain sight. Someone linked me to it and my reaction is one you won't like: I was flattered. I mean, really, you must have a whole line of expensive axes to grind on your circular sharpening stone made of precious jewels if you have to start a Twitter profile just to run your mouth behind my/our back. (I said "our" because you also thumbed your nose at Erik Woods... Allardyce... Lukas Kendall before deleting the posts - don't worry, everyone saw it by now I'm sure.) For all my own numerous faults that I've mentioned over the years, the view from here is that you are specifically trying to pick a fight with others. Why else would you post that silly Twitter account in your FSM profile? Or mention it here? You can't possibly feign much surprise that people (me especially!) will react when you interrupt threads with horrible thoughts. But more than that - you opened a Twitter account to say stuff there and not on the board. Are you ashamed? Do you feel what you post on that Twitter is wrong? It obviously can't be about Allardyce's and Lukas's form of board administration because you call them a "joke" and if you believed that, you'd just post whatever you felt here.
(Maybe you're afraid of me? Eh, if thats true, thats kind of lame. I'm some guy you never met who lives something like 11 hours away and across a national border.)
Let me be perfectly clear, since you seem to desire such a statement: I've never posted to a pony website or toward your LeHah/FSM/Pony obsessed Twitter account or anywhere else you now venture, and I've never started a thread anywhere about you. I think that gives me a pretty good degree of moral authority. And if you are the standard, then you don't deserve my respect or the respect of people on this board (though that is entirely up to them).
Here is the issue as it exists: you have no core to your personal opinions save the ability to organize the antagonism of your betters. If you actually cared about our opinions, you'd voice your own here -- coming here and telling us we're wrong is disgusting. *WE* - I'll let you decide who falls under that umbrella - do not go to your pony boards and talk about Jerry Goldsmith and then cry foul when a board about cartoon ponies takes umbrage with us. You claim persecution as if we were singling you out for your gender, race, sexual orientation, upbringing, income - but we don't and we likely won't ever do that. What we have said is toward your loud and obnoxious posts. And there is the difference: you've chosen to be this person and to have these bad opinions and this does not make you bulletproof to criticism.
Now that I've spoken to you with an obvious measure of disdain and one raised eyebrow, I'm sure you'll either post your indignant rage on your livejournal or your Facebook status or you'll close your account with those out of frustration just like when Gamingforce drummed you out of their ranks for acting this way a couple years ago. Yeah, I remember how you took such issue with the people there last year but truth be told is that you stuck your foot in your mouth and they chased you out of town like a common pygmy.
And be honest for a second, you've never been really supportive of filmscore - not in the abstract, really. You're just interested in more music for yourself (free or otherwise!) As someone else pointed out your "conservatism is clearly rooted in his love of free downloads". And as if that Minecraft blog link in your profile explaining away piracy (by someone who wrote freeware!) wasn't bad enough, lets not forget the page after page after page of bootlegging you did on Gamingforce. Remember this thread last year?
http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=72944&forumID=1&archive=0
Yeah, that was in reaction to you being kicked out of the forum and looking to get revenge. Saxypunch is the website owned by the guy who made that text-to-voice YouTube of your rant on GFF, which is what embarrassed you so bad you left the site forever.
This is not lashing out at persecution, this is just you being very small.
Yeah, and I guess all those long-ass threads you made about ripping and uploading soundtracks for downloads aren't your fault either. Heck, you won a community award in 2007 for "My Stuff Award for Best Services to the Sharing Community". The very thing you attacked when you were spurned! The very thing you posted about in the FSM thread! Imagine that!
http://wiki.gamingforce.com/index.php?title=GFF_Annual_Awards
(You can tell that list is legit since I won "kindest member", "most intelligent" *and* "hottest male"!)
Then I'll just go right out and say it: You are a shill, a con-artist, an opportunistic person who lied to us all about your scruples but most of all - I think you're just a kid. You're just someone who has the age but not the experience. I think everyone goes through that and perhaps this internet age sadly made yours more apparent by having it happen all over some forums. I'd bet you five dollars here that in ten years time you'd be embarrassed as hell about what happened with this drama. I know I am just by *responding* to this.
When all is said and done, I don't look down on you or think badly of you - but I am angry you're making it a point to involve choice people in the FSM community as some sort of scapegoat. You're not a victim, you're just looking to name a bogeyman so you can explain to yourself why you're so far outside everyone else's clique to your own satisfactions. Well, that may be an acceptable thing in Basil's Imaginary World but in real life - which I highly recommend you join as soon as possible - thats just sad.
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