The “content industry” is doing just fine. More music is being produced than ever before. There are more festivals & concerts and new ones are popping up all the time. It is easier and cheaper to produce quality music than ever before, and the internet has turned what once were scarce goods (plastic discs) into infinite goods (sequences of 0s and 1s) and enabled kids with no means to have free global distribution and exposure at their fingertips. More movies are being made, and the film industry has actually enjoyed record profits of late. 2011 saw a *slight* dip that was attributed to a lack of quality films and absence of a “Dark Knight” type must-see.
The Content Industry has accused every new technology of being “dedicated to infringing activities” and views every such technology as a grave threat that will bring the Apocalypse to their business. And each time they have been proven to be stunningly wrong. Hollywood used to own all of the theaters. Independent ownership was going to destroy them, much like the player piano was predicted to kill jobs for piano players. The VHS was supposed to end the movie industry and instead brought along its renaissance. Remember cassette tapes and the “home taping is killing the music business” ads? And what about blank CDs? The content industry felt entitled enough to get governments to levy taxes on blank media.
The bottom line is these laws have absolutely nothing to do with piracy. They have everything to do with CONTROL. The content industry does not want to compete. They want to control the way people can consume digital media- when, where, how, using their software, and at their stated price. Governments like China, Syria, and Iran are most happy to oblige for obvious reasons.
It should be painfully obvious why we should not set up a global internet censorship regime in the name of propping up legacy business models.
Note that the Senators and Congressmen who have backpedaled on SOPA/PIPA have all done so with language that suggests they still support the bills but are merely temporarily hedging the public ire. This should not be tolerated. Any Congressman or Senator that put their name on this Chinese-style censorship / Monopoly Rents bill needs to be run out of town.
Very well written and informative. You have put what many people feel about this bill into a clear and concise message. Ironically, some of these points can be copied into an email to our own congressman and sentors. Can we say in this case that infringment in the pursuit of liberty is no vise??:):):)
The question is, would our society be better off with the current status quo or would things be better with this bill in place? Bills written by those who do not understand what is being regulated is a plain scarry.
IWho says the “content companies ” are doing fine? the music industry was a 14 billion dollar a year business..now it’s about 6 billion a year. If your boss takes away half your salary ( or however it is you are paid) and asks you to produce 30% more product what would you say / do? Kinda how it is in the grand scheme of things. Let’s say one song downloaded is shared 100 times…that’s 99 times that product didn’t generate a sale. And that happens how many thousands of times per day…? Tax revenue declines and everyone involved in the writing, recording, performing of that song gets screwed because someone thinks it’s ok to steal…AND the internet sites just lost 99 sales to piracy…multiply that by the billions of times it’s happened and you may see a different point of view…stealing is wrong…
Despite the ridiculousness of SOPA/PIPA, what I found most damning/enlightening is that the author of the SOPA bill, Sen. Lamar Smith (R-Tx) is guilty of internet copyright infringement himself!
Now, I’m not trying to point fingers at either political party–both sides are woefully ignorant about the internet, fair use, and the potential ramifications of the incredibly ignorant and short-sighted SOPA/PIPA.
What we do not need is another bill which is not well thought out. SOPA/PIPA seems to need more work, much more. If the legislators do not get it right, then the resulting law becomes the plaything of the powerful and their attorneys. As we have seen so many times in the past, that is an expensive way to run a country…or an economy. Content providers come in many sizes. On the web, the large are out numbered by the small. It is a matter of equal access and protection. That is something the elected might ponder before they weigh in on bills like these.
The “content industry” is doing just fine. More music is being produced than ever before. There are more festivals & concerts and new ones are popping up all the time. It is easier and cheaper to produce quality music than ever before, and the internet has turned what once were scarce goods (plastic discs) into infinite goods (sequences of 0s and 1s) and enabled kids with no means to have free global distribution and exposure at their fingertips. More movies are being made, and the film industry has actually enjoyed record profits of late. 2011 saw a *slight* dip that was attributed to a lack of quality films and absence of a “Dark Knight” type must-see.
The Content Industry has accused every new technology of being “dedicated to infringing activities” and views every such technology as a grave threat that will bring the Apocalypse to their business. And each time they have been proven to be stunningly wrong. Hollywood used to own all of the theaters. Independent ownership was going to destroy them, much like the player piano was predicted to kill jobs for piano players. The VHS was supposed to end the movie industry and instead brought along its renaissance. Remember cassette tapes and the “home taping is killing the music business” ads? And what about blank CDs? The content industry felt entitled enough to get governments to levy taxes on blank media.
The bottom line is these laws have absolutely nothing to do with piracy. They have everything to do with CONTROL. The content industry does not want to compete. They want to control the way people can consume digital media- when, where, how, using their software, and at their stated price. Governments like China, Syria, and Iran are most happy to oblige for obvious reasons.
It should be painfully obvious why we should not set up a global internet censorship regime in the name of propping up legacy business models.
Note that the Senators and Congressmen who have backpedaled on SOPA/PIPA have all done so with language that suggests they still support the bills but are merely temporarily hedging the public ire. This should not be tolerated. Any Congressman or Senator that put their name on this Chinese-style censorship / Monopoly Rents bill needs to be run out of town.
Very well written and informative. You have put what many people feel about this bill into a clear and concise message. Ironically, some of these points can be copied into an email to our own congressman and sentors. Can we say in this case that infringment in the pursuit of liberty is no vise??:):):)
The question is, would our society be better off with the current status quo or would things be better with this bill in place? Bills written by those who do not understand what is being regulated is a plain scarry.
IWho says the “content companies ” are doing fine? the music industry was a 14 billion dollar a year business..now it’s about 6 billion a year. If your boss takes away half your salary ( or however it is you are paid) and asks you to produce 30% more product what would you say / do? Kinda how it is in the grand scheme of things. Let’s say one song downloaded is shared 100 times…that’s 99 times that product didn’t generate a sale. And that happens how many thousands of times per day…? Tax revenue declines and everyone involved in the writing, recording, performing of that song gets screwed because someone thinks it’s ok to steal…AND the internet sites just lost 99 sales to piracy…multiply that by the billions of times it’s happened and you may see a different point of view…stealing is wrong…
Despite the ridiculousness of SOPA/PIPA, what I found most damning/enlightening is that the author of the SOPA bill, Sen. Lamar Smith (R-Tx) is guilty of internet copyright infringement himself!
Now, I’m not trying to point fingers at either political party–both sides are woefully ignorant about the internet, fair use, and the potential ramifications of the incredibly ignorant and short-sighted SOPA/PIPA.
What we do not need is another bill which is not well thought out. SOPA/PIPA seems to need more work, much more. If the legislators do not get it right, then the resulting law becomes the plaything of the powerful and their attorneys. As we have seen so many times in the past, that is an expensive way to run a country…or an economy. Content providers come in many sizes. On the web, the large are out numbered by the small. It is a matter of equal access and protection. That is something the elected might ponder before they weigh in on bills like these.