MPAA and consumer education.. (1 Viewer)

[DeathStar1]

Here's something I found amazing.

My mother, who is one person who does not really care much about complaining on things that are technical, hears the same commercial on her main XM station. Considering that we are paying for this somewhat spotty service (Tree's nearbye, anyone?), she told the guy that one commercial is one too many, and apparently the guy at the store has been getting similair complaints,so I hope that complaining is being kept up.

But, who is complaining to the MPAA? If they get even more out of control, eventually we'll be buying hi-Def movies, and paying per view through a box that has a net connection. Then we just access our credit card info and boom, we can watch our bought disc again.

What I have in mind, is a consumer educaition site. I don't have the research skills needed to pull it off, but even a simple version would be good. If we could get a diagram going that shows how a TV is connected now....

- A Set Top Box. Coax in, coax out.

And a Box of the future, as I found out last night with Verizon Tv... If you want hd content, you need an HDMi cord.

- A Set Top Box. Coax in, HDMI out. tv older than 5 years and does not have an HDMI? you are out of luck. You'll be stuck using component.

To complicate matters, I am sure the MPAA is going to fight tooth and nail to prevent HDMI enabled Capture cards that will let us record HD conent straight from the box. This means that for my setup, and others, I will have to use S Video and have about 4 extra cable lying around untill I can merge them all into one HDMI input.

God forbid we would be able to record HD content and put it on our Zens, and ipods without a service like Amazon unbox.

Do you think that if properly motivated, we could get people to complain to MPAA and whoever else is involved in making these deicisions to get our fair use rights back, without having to sell our soul?

 

[BrianW]

No.

 

[Buzz Foster]

Personally, I wonder how many others like myself are giving up on new music and entertainment and deciding that the old stuff I like is all I need. If the powers in charge gut HD and new digital content to the point of pay-per-view/listen everything, I will regress to my old equipment, music, and movies and say "the hell with it". I have better things to spend my money and time on.

I hope they cripple their own industry and flatten sales. It wouldn't hurt most people to expose themselves to less media entertainment and to get up off their butts and do something like exercise, learn a musical instrument, or even just read a book, anyway.

 

[DeathStar1]

You know, I'm starting to feel the same way.

I hardly ever go to the movies anymore with my home theater system. I don't care for any of the new, dull music that you hear on the radio as it all sounds the same.

At this point, once this computer upgrade is done, I'm going to be content for a while

 

[BrianW]

Sorry for my pessimism. I can't think of any instance where eroded rights have been restored. I don't hold out any hope that our fair-use rights will ever be what they were.

Neil, I have to ask. Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Linux community?

(And if not, is it something you would consider?

 

[DeathStar1]

I've been thinking of going to unbutuu (sp?), but i've found some of my applications won't work at all..

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Habeas Corpus was restored at the conclusion of the Civil War. Japanese internment, a bad violation of civil rights, was ended after WWII. Military trials for foreigners committing acts of war on US soil was ended after WWII (it had been used to execute 8 German saboteurs, with Roosevelt himself presiding over the sentence).

I know this is off-topic, but "eroded" rights are quite often restored after the reasons for "erosion" are past.

 

[BrianW]

Thanks for the great examples, Jeff. I stand corrected.

What would it take, then, for the reason for the erosion of our fair-use rights to go away?

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Well, the reason is to protect the interests of the artists and publishers (I suppose just as the examples I gave protected the citizenry at large). Find a way to safeguard the interests of the threatened party and still have the former interpretation of "Fair Use" rights in place and you would probably see them come back. I imagine it would have to do with an encryption and licensing scheme that monitors originals, copies, users and players, with massive registration of each. I don't think we want that, do we?

Another way would be to make each so cheap that the benefit of copying goes away. Then again, the devalueing may lead to more copying because formerly honest people would think it was now no big deal.

 

[DeathStar1]

With music, the RIAA is screwing the artists....so other than to organise concerts and reduce music shipping costs... why do we need them? anyone can create a song and distribute it on their own site now..

As far as the MPAA....Dunno about that side. What is their primary purpose other than to reduce consumer freedoms?

 

[BrianW]

With regard to protecting the copyright owners' interests, copyright law alone is supposed to be sufficient for that. I understand, however, that technology makes copying stupidly cheap and easy today, and the resulting paranoia is understandable. I'm not sure what the solution is. If it's more DRM, I'll tune out and become a mediaphobe.

I'm curious, though, why you put Fair Use in quotation marks, as if it's a grass-roots notion uninhabited by statutory merit. Fair Use is just as much a part of copyright law -- and is supposed to be just as enforceable -- as the part that restricts unauthorized copying.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

There is no such thing as a "right" to Fair Use, it is a defense against charges of copyright infringement and nothing more.

I won't get into a long diatribe on rights, but with today's technology and the flagrant abuses that the public has demonstrated in violating the rights of the copyright holder, I don't see any lessening of the controls. In theory, the laws should be enough but the reality is that it is simply unrealistic to expect a copyright holder to be able to defend their rights in court when there are potentially millions of people who could be named as infringers to varying degrees.

As for the notion that the RIAA is no longer needed becase anyone can supposedly make their own records, this is a very uninformed view (sorry). Just because the costs of the technology for recording has become more accessable does not mean that people have either the finances, talent or experience to create finished masters that are commercially viable, let alone the millions of dollars it takes to promote a new artist so anyone other than their immediate family knows who they are.

While I am not a proponent of stricter copying controls, I have no problem with a video model that does away with media. I have collected for decades, and now have a sizeable collection of media that has either been superceded with new versions, is now defective, or is simply taking up space because I am no longer interested in that product. If I had the option of on-demand viewing in the same quality I have now on DVD or HD for a reasonable price, I'd say bring it on. No more storage issues, no more double dipping, no more rotting discs. Apart from having bunch of "stuff", I'd still have the same entertainment value if not more.

Happy New Year.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

The reason I put Fair Use in question marks was a statement on the present condition of the rights to fair use, not the original law itself. Nowadays, the state of "Fair Use" is that it is neither fair, nor usable.

 

[BrianW]

Thanks for explaining, Jeff G. Sorry for being so thick. I should have read your subtext better than that, and I appreciate your patience.

To Jeff U: Fair Use isn't just a defense, it's an affirmative defense, specifically referenced and written into the statute. No, it's not in the Bill of Rights, if that's what you require before labeling it a "Right" (to Jeff G: Right? ), but it is a privileged action specifically excluded from possible prosecution.

I'm not trying to be disagreeable -- in fact, I pretty much agree with everything you said, especially regarding the futility of the law alone to keep some copyright holders whole. I wish there were a better solution that would obviate the need for more DRM or for more prosecution of 12-year-olds -- not that those are working very well -- but I must confess that I don't have any ideas.

I do know that the movie industry balked at video tape and DVD technologies, thinking that they would severely undermine their profitability. Of course, as we know, these technologies enhanced the profitability of the movie industry.

I bring this up, because I've heard the argument that since the movie industry's profits were enhanced by past technologies they originally balked at, the same will be true for every technology to come. Personally, I don't buy that argument. With video tape, some people made illegal copies of movies just for their friends and relatives, because making copies took time and money. These people, even combined with the pirates who set up cottage industries making and selling illegally-copied VHS movies, didn't do nearly enough damage to offset the staggering profits of VHS movie sales.

But today, any idiot can make a copy and make it available to the entire world at almost no cost. That changes everything. Things are different, and something's gotta give.

(Edit: I removed a statement equating a statutory privilege with an absolute right on a functional level to the narrow extent the statute is enforced. Since this extent is so narrow, I decided to remove the statement.)

 

[JeremyErwin]

Suntrust v Houghton Milton

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Very true, and unfortunately the public (generalized of course) has demonstrated that they have no regard for the rights they are infringing, and as a result the means used to secure those rights will get more and more restrictive as technology makes it even easier to illegally distribute protected works. Since litigating after the fact is not only futile but unrealistic except in extreme cases, preemptive measures will continue to evolve and be implemented.