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Movie and Music Giants Are Hypocrites

The giant movie and music corporations – and their water-bearing politicians – pushing draconian copyright laws are hypocrites.

According to TorrentFreak, members of the RIAA, Department of Homeland Security, Sony, Universal and Fox may have illegally downloaded files from BitTorrent.

Lamar Smith – the Congressman sponsoring SOPA – used a pirated photograph on his official campaign website.

TechCrunch reports today:

VEVO, the music portal owned by some of the biggest record labels in the US, had a pirated NFL playoff game playing on screens throughout its ‘PowerStation’ venue.

The incident was immensely hypocritical, given that VEVO is owned in part by Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment (with EMI licensing its content to the service) — the same music labels that have made a habit of attacking consumers over alleged acts of piracy.

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Imagine what the music industry would say were it on the other side of this. Is there any doubt it would dismiss these explanations and, lawsuits in hand, cry foul over such an overt act of piracy?

Furthermore, this seems no different than an accused pirate explaining that they left their Wifi open, only to have it used by someone else to download content illegally. Which happens to be a defense the RIAA has previously fought vigilantly against, when it sought to make owners of ISP accounts liable for any infringing activity, even if the owner had no knowledge of it. Hypocrisy, indeed.

The movie and music studios also allegedly encouraged people to use file-sharing software for pirating copyrighted material, made hundreds of millions of dollars in the process and are now suing people using the software they pushed.

And the very foundation of the Hollywood movie industry was intellectual property infringement. Specifically, inventor Thomas Edison owned the patents for movie cameras and for several types of movie film. Edison formed the Motion Picture Patents Company (known as the “Edison Trust”) with Kodak and others, and this trust controlled every aspect of movie-making: from cameras to film to distribution.

As Wired notes:

Edison assembled representatives of the nation’s biggest movie companies—Biograph, Vitagraph, American Mutoscope, and seven others—and invited them to sign a monopolistic peace treaty. Since 1891, when the Wizard of Menlo Park filed his first patent on a motion picture camera/film system, his lawyers had launched 23 aggressive infringement suits against other production outfits.

Sometimes Edison won. Sometimes he lost. But the costs of these battles overwhelmed his rivals, and that was the intent.

“The expense of these suits would have financially ruined any inventor who did not have the large resources of Edison,” one of his lawyers boasted, “and it could hardly be expected that he would be able to prosecute simultaneously every infringement as it arose.”

Thus his victims sold their patents, making the Edison movie empire ever larger.

But the old man wanted it all, so he assembled his rivals and proposed that they join his Motion Picture Patents Company. It would function as a holding operation for the participants’ collective patents — sixteen all told, covering projectors, cameras, and film stock. MPPC would issue licenses and collect royalties from movie producers, distributors, and exhibitors.

To top it all off, MPPC convinced the Eastman Kodak company to refuse to sell raw film stock to anyone but Patent Company licensees, a move designed to shut French and German footage out of the country.

“The negotiations were finalized in December,” Gabler notes, and by early January, “the company made its announcement that the old laissez faire of the movie business was being abruptly terminated.”

The Edison trust was based on the East Coast. In order to escape the onerous restrictions of the trust, independent filmmakers fled to Hollywood. Because travel was so much slower back then, Hollywood filmmakers would have plenty of time to close up shop if they got wind that the trust’s enforcers were coming to visit:

If Edison ever sent agents to California, word would usually reach Los Angeles before the agents did, and the filmmakers could escape to nearby Mexico.

In addition, the federal courts in California were also less eager to enforce patent rights.

As Armando Franco writes:

•These actions led several independents to flee to the West Coast. California was remote enough from Edison’s reach that filmmakersthere could pirate his inventions without fear of the law.

•But because patents grant the patent holder a truly “limited” monopoly (just seventeen years at that time), by the time enough federal marshals appeared, the patents had expired. A new industry had been born,in part from the piracy of Edison’s creative property.

And Bullies …

It used to be a widespread practice for music companies to unlawfully bribe radio stations using “payola” to play their songs. Indeed, the practice is still ongoing (at least as of a couple of years ago). See this, this, this and this. Indeed, many have alleged that the music industry is still riddled with organized crime.

It is also well-known in the entertainment industry that movie studios use fraudulent accounting – widely known as “Hollywood Accounting” – to cheat writers, actors and others who are not on the favored list from getting paid. There are many famous examples where writers and actors have been paid little or nothing on films which made billions of dollars. And see this.

And TorrentFreak notes:

The Canberra Wikileaks cables revealed the US Embassy sanctioned a conspiracy by Hollywood studios to target Australian communications company iiNet through the local court-system, with the aim of establishing a binding common-law precedent which would make ISPs responsible for the unauthorised file-sharing of their customers.

Both the location, Australia, and the target, iiNet, were carefully selected. A precedent set in Australia would be influential in countries with comparable legal systems such as Canada, India, New Zealand and Great Britain. Australian telecommunications giant Telstra was judged too large for the purposes of the attack. Owing to its smaller size and more limited resources, iiNet was gauged the perfect candidate.

The involvement of major American studios in the offensive was suppressed. “The case was filed by … the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and its international affiliate, the Motion Picture Association (MPA), but does not want that fact to be broadcasted,” the US Embassy, Canberra wrote. “We will monitor this case … to see whether or not the ‘AFACT vs. the local ISP’ featured attraction spawns a ‘giant American bullies vs. little Aussie battlers’ sequel.”

Whether or not these two industries are actually run by criminal cartels, it is beyond dispute that they are acting like bullies.

Widespread Protests Are Starting to Turn the Tide Against Anti-Democratic Bill

The widespread protests against the anti-democracy bill ACTA by the Polish people have forced Poland’s prime minister to stall – or perhaps even back out – of the treaty. As TechDirt notes:

Following the growing protests about ACTA in Europe, as well as signs of US meddling, Poland’s prime minister is making it clear that Poland will not ratify ACTA for the time being, leading to speculation that the EU may not actually join ACTA.

Tusk’s backtracking could spell the end of ACTA for the entire European Union. If Poland or any other EU member state, or the European Parliament itself, fails to ratify the document, it becomes null and void across the union. As it stands, there are already five member countries that have not even signed ACTA.

“I share the opinions of those who from the beginning said that consultations were not complete,” Tusk said, according to a report in Wirtualna Polska. The 54-year-old prime minister added that a Polish rejection of ACTA is now on the table, and admitted that he had previously approached the agreement from a “20th century” perspective, due to his age.

The Slovenian ambassador to Japan has apologized to her country and her children for signing ACTA, saying she signed it because her government told her to, and “out of civic carelessness” in not bothering to understand what ACTA meant before signing it.

Bulgarian and Polish MPs wore Guy Fawkes masks to protest ACTA. Again, from TechDirt:

We recently pointed out that a bunch of Polish politicians wore Guy Fawkes/Anonymous masks in Parliament to protest ACTA:

It appears that some politicians in Bulgaria thought that was a good idea, and have done the same thing:

Indeed, even the elderly are wearing Guy Fawkes masks in protest of ACTA:

European Parliamentarian Marietje Schaake writes:

As a Member of the European Parliament, I very much welcome the increased attention the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has received in the past weeks. It has taken a while for massive outcry to emerge, but we are seeing protest voices getting louder and louder.

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Via TechDirt, we learn the frequency with which Hollywood insists every new technology will destroy the movie business:

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click for full infographic

giant infographic after the jump

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What does a bill like PIPA/SOPA mean to our shareable world? At the TED offices, Clay Shirky delivers a proper manifesto — a call to defend our freedom to create, discuss, link and share, rather than passively consume.

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How Does America Compare to China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Other Repressive Regimes?

Top constitutional law expert Jon Turley notes in a must-read Washington Post article called “We are no longer the land of the free” (I have edited slightly to remove parentheses in several places):

Americans often proclaim our nation as a symbol of freedom to the world while dismissing nations such as Cuba and China as categorically unfree. Yet, objectively, we may be only half right. Those countries do lack basic individual rights such as due process, placing them outside any reasonable definition of “free,” but the United States now has much more in common with such regimes than anyone may like to admit.These countries also have constitutions that purport to guarantee freedoms and rights. But their governments have broad discretion in denying those rights and few real avenues for challenges by citizens — precisely the problem with the new laws in this country.

The list of powers acquired by the U.S. government since 9/11 puts us in rather troubling company.

Assassination of U.S. citizens

[The U.S. assassinates its own citizens.]

Nations such as Nigeria, Iran and Syria have been routinely criticized for extrajudicial killings of enemies of the state.

Indefinite detention

[The U.S. has passed a law allowing indefinite detention of American citizens.]

China recently codified a more limited detention law for its citizens, while countries such as Cambodia have been singled out by the United States for “prolonged detention.”

Arbitrary justice

The president now decides whether a person will receive a trial in the federal courts or in a military tribunal, a system that has been ridiculed around the world for lacking basic due process protections. Bush claimed this authority in 2001, and Obama has continued the practice. (Egypt and China have been denounced for maintaining separate military justice systems for selected defendants, including civilians.)

Warrantless searches

[The U.S. routinely conducts warrantless searches.]

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan operate under laws that allow the government to engage in widespread discretionary surveillance.

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War crimes

[The U.S. has committed various war crimes, then refused to hold the actors to account.]

Various nations have resisted investigations of officials accused of war crimes and torture. Some, such as Serbia and Chile, eventually relented to comply with international law; countries that have denied independent investigations include Iran, Syria and China.

Secret court

[The U.S. uses secret courts under the guise of national security.]

Pakistan places national security surveillance under the unchecked powers of the military or intelligence services.

Immunity from judicial review

Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has successfully pushed for immunity for companies that assist in warrantless surveillance of citizens, blocking the ability of citizens to challenge the violation of privacy. (Similarly, China has maintained sweeping immunity claims both inside and outside the country and routinely blocks lawsuits against private companies.)

Continual monitoring of citizens

The Obama administration has successfully defended its claim that it can use GPS devices to monitor every move of targeted citizens without securing any court order or review. It is not defending the power before the Supreme Court — a power described by Justice Anthony Kennedy as “Orwellian.” (Saudi Arabia has installed massive public surveillance systems, while Cuba is notorious for active monitoring of selected citizens.)

Extraordinary renditions

The government now has the ability to transfer both citizens and noncitizens to another country under a system known as extraordinary rendition, which has been denounced as using other countries, such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan, to torture suspects. The Obama administration says it is not continuing the abuses of this practice under Bush, but it insists on the unfettered right to order such transfers — including the possible transfer of U.S. citizens.

Professor Turley stresses the fact that it is the ability of powerful men to make arbitrary decisions which defines an authoritarian country:

An authoritarian nation is defined not just by the use of authoritarian powers, but by the ability to use them. If a president can take away your freedom or your life on his own authority, all rights become little more than a discretionary grant subject to executive will.

The framers lived under autocratic rule and understood this danger better than we do. James Madison famously warned that we needed a system that did not depend on the good intentions or motivations of our rulers: “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”

In fact, we go from the land of the free to tyranny the moment we go from a nation of laws to a nation of powerful men arbitrarily making laws in secret.

Indeed, Bush and Obama have claimed some tyrannical powers that even Hitler and Stalin never claimed.

As I pointed out last month, many American leaders appear to be consciously copying China:

The American copyright bill is modeled after the Chinese system. As I noted Monday:

Given that Joe Lieberman said that America needs an internet kill switch like China, that the U.S. economy has turned socialist (at least for friends of those with control of the money spigot), and that the U.S. government used communist Chinese torture techniques specifically designed to produce false confessions in order to sell the Iraq war, I guess that the bill’s Chinese-style censorship is not entirely surprising.

I am always disappointed to see the usual attacks on the patent system. We have underfunded the Patent office, ignored the system and its requirements for so long it developed warts.

From both a societal and an investing perspective, it is important to protect Intellectual Property rights. We want to encourage entrepreneurs and innovators to create and invent, and protect them from those who would simply steal their inventions.

Regardless, here is a healthy critique of what is wrong with the patent system — in particular, I am concerned about the patent warehouses:

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Full size infographic after the jump

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I find it interesting to see the debate framed in terms of huge companies battling over inventions — but to me, the much bigger concern is when giant firms rip off the smaller inventor, who often cannot afford to prosecute their claims.

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Via: Business Insurance Site

Hat tip IP Metrics

When it comes to Microsoft, I have long argued that they got lucky int heir deal with IBM. Aftewr that, pretty much everything they ever did was either ripped off from someone else — as in stolen — or a very obvious “inspired by.” (They did occasionally buy stuff as well, but not if they could avoid it).

In terms of revenue, the vast majority of their revenue comes from what I would call misappropriated technologies — if not legally, then certainly ethically.

Windows was a copy of the original Apple OS, Excel was from Lotus 123,  was Word Dont forget Microsoft the Innovator is opening retail stores; their innovation has also led to the brilliant idea to digitize 100,000 books. Even the purchase of DOS was done in a nefarious way, leading its creator to commit suicide.

And now, we find out that Bing is stealing from Google results — and in a very creepy way: “Google says it suspects Microsoft is doing this by using Internet Explorer 8 and the Bing toolbar, both of which send user data to Microsoft, to watch how people use Google.” (See Google: Bing Is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results).

No, I have never been a fan of Microsoft. A company I am on the board of sued MSFT for patent infirngment, and eventually wrested a $60 million settlement from them. One day, I will explain how Mister Softee was the prime cause of the tech bubble in the late 1990s.

But for now, let’s stick with the simple thesis: The Microsoft culture never respected intellectual property of others, and was a bully that took what it wanted.

Discuss.

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Via Focus.com, comes this informative infographic:

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click for ginormous infographic

Source:
Innovation Crisis: Job Creation Stalled by Patent Backlog, Says Pat Choate
Stacy Curtin
Yahoo tech Ticker Sep 08, 2010 09:41am

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker/innovation-crisis–job-creation-stalled-by-patent-backlog-says-pat-choate-535400.html