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KristineS
01-18-2012, 01:35 PM
Nice one, Vangogh! I like it. :)

For those who don't know, a lot of websites, Google among them, are blacking out their websites entirely, or at least blacking out the name of the site today to protest SOPA.

Here's some info on the SOPA blackout (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/18/sopa-blackout-internet-censorship_n_1211905.html).

Here is some general info on SOPA and why it matters (http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/17/technology/sopa_explained/index.htm).

I'm glad to see we're participating in the blackout.

vangogh
01-18-2012, 05:15 PM
I was wondering if someone would say something. I hadn't realized today was the day for the protest until late last night. I debated blacking out the site, but decided we weren't big enough for that to gain a lot of notice. I figured it would be better to just go with the blacked out logo (which links to americancensorship.org (http://www.americancensorship.org) by the way) and let people here know what's going on.

One thing I really hope Congress learns is that they really need to understand how technology and the internet works before attempting to write laws about it. SOPA and PIPA have 0 understanding of the web. They'll cause much more harm than what they hope to prevent. Under the proposed law a site like YouTube could be shut down without warning because someone posts a video of their kid's first steps while some copyrighted song happens to be playing in the background. Facebook would have to moderate every single post made to their site to ensure no one posts something that's been copyrighted.

I think the goal of fighting piracy is a good one, though one I don't think will ever be legislated away. Unfortunately these bills won't prevent it at all. Instead they'll hurt legitimate businesses.

nealrm
01-18-2012, 06:08 PM
I went out and read the bill. I would agree that the enforcement portion is heavy handed. I don't like the portion requiring the search engines to remove a website from the SERP based a complaint. That is what the courts are for. But I do believe that site owners should have reasonable procedures in place to assure that copyrighted material is used properly on their sites. At some point you have to say, "Hey it's on your site, you should know about it". At what point does not being aware of copyright violations or counterfeit products on your site become an endorsement of violating copyright materials and sell counterfeit products.

I would also like to throw this out there. Many of the companies that are most opposed to this bill are also making million from selling ads dealing in counterfeit and copyrighted materials or ads on pages dealing with those searches. I'm not say that shows the bill is good or bad, but you may want to think if the information they provide is biased.

vangogh
01-18-2012, 08:02 PM
Neal it's unrealistic for a site like Facebook to be aware of every post on the site. It wouldn't even be realistic on a forum like this one. Think blog comments on a popular blog. If site owners have to be responsible for checking every bit of user generated content it would mean no more user generated content. Think of WordPress.com with it's millions of blogs.

Do you have written permission for every photograph that appears on your site? I'm guessing you get them from a database of real estate for sale, but that doesn't protect you. If any of the photographers can can convince a judge you don't have permission to use the image you get shut down. You don't get contacted first.

Technically everything you see on a Google results page is copyrighted information since they're showing results from other websites.

It's not just big companies either. In fact the smaller the company the less likely you'd have the resources to police everything. Would I be expected to be on this forum 24/7? And even if I was how exactly would I be able to tell if an image that's posted was created by the person who posted it or by someone else who owns the copyright? I'd probably just shut down the forum because it wouldn't be worth the effort to maintain it.

Every hour, more than an hour's worth of video is uploaded to YouTube.

Think about the financial damage this prevents as opposed to what it causes. It causes a lot more problems than it solves. Most people aren't against doing something to fight piracy. The issue is that these bills are being written by people who have no understanding of how the internet works. I think by his own admission the person behind SOPA doesn't use the internet. Is that who should be writing laws about how to do things on the internet?


but you may want to think if the information they provide is biased.

The information isn't being provided by the companies you allude to. It's a non-profit organization providing the information. The companies are backing it and yes in part because it hurts their business. But understand many of those business would never have existed if SOPA or PIPA existed. Think about all the others that won't existed if these bills are passed.

nealrm
01-18-2012, 09:10 PM
I keep hearing the quote about a single post on Facebook would bring down the entire site. But I do not agree that is written into the bill. The bill is crafted toward sites that are designed and operated to primary illegally use copyrighted material. Here is the portion that address that definition:



DEDICATED TO THEFT OF U.S. PROPERTY- An `Internet site is dedicated to theft of U.S. property' if--




(A) it is an Internet site, or a portion thereof, that is a U.S.-directed site and is used by users within the United States; and





(B) either--






(i) the U.S.-directed site is primarily designed or operated for the purpose of, has only limited purpose or use other than, or is marketed by its operator or another acting in concert with that operator for use in, offering goods or services in a manner that engages in, enables, or facilitates--








(I) a violation of section 501 of title 17, United States Code;









(II) a violation of section 1201 of title 17, United States Code; or









(III) the sale, distribution, or promotion of goods, services, or materials bearing a counterfeit mark, as that term is defined in section 34(d) of the Lanham Act or section 2320 of title 18, United States Code; or








(ii) the operator of the U.S.-directed site--








(I) is taking, or has taken, deliberate actions to avoid confirming a high probability of the use of the U.S.-directed site to carry out acts that constitute a violation of section 501 or 1201 of title 17, United States Code; or









(II) operates the U.S.-directed site with the object of promoting, or has promoted, its use to carry out acts that constitute a violation of section 501 or 1201 of title 17, United States Code, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement.






Based on that, a single post in violation of the copyright act would not make a site's "
primarily design" to be inside of the scope of this bill. Also note the "And" between sections 1 and 2. So to fall under this bill it must be a US directed website that primary purpose is to steal copyrighted material or sell counterfeit goods. In the case of a video of a birthday party with a copyrighted song playing in the background. The videos primary purpose is not listening to the song, its primary purpose is showing the party.

While there are things wrong with this bill, being able to take down an entire site due to a single post is not one of them.

I also hear "Censorship" being through around a great deal. So when is protecting copyrighted material equal to censorship. Does stopping a robber from stealing your belongings equal the robber being denied his right to the pursuit of happiness.

vangogh
01-18-2012, 11:51 PM
First here are links to PDFs of both bills

SOPA (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr3261ih/pdf/BILLS-112hr3261ih.pdf)
PIPA (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112s968rs/pdf/BILLS-112s968rs.pdf)

Might as well link to the actual documents

What you quoted doesn't really offer as much as you think since it points to a bunch of sections that aren't in the quote. Hard to tell what a violation of section 501 of title 17 is from the partial quote.

The censorship comes in because the bill includes search blocking which many consider internet censorship.

Some problems with the definitions. I'm paraphrasing to save space. These are at the start of section 101 of SOPA

Domestic domain name - a domain registered through a registrar located in the United States
Domestic Internet Protocol - An IP address sitting on a server in the U.
Domestic Internet site - A site with a domestic domain name or a domestic IP

The foreign versions are defined as not domestic based on the definitions above.

Those definitions don't make much sense in a global economy. What about sites that host content on servers in different countries? Or sites that purchase several different domains in different countries all pointing to the same place.

Here's another definition


The term "Internet site" means the collection of digital assets, including links, indexes, or pointers to digital assets, accessible through the Internet that are addressed relative to a common domain name or, if there is no domain name, a common Internet Protocol address.

So linking to a site makes you part of that site? What's relative to a common domain name or common IP address. Relative isn't very specific.

How about:

OWNER; OPERATOR.—The terms "owner" or "operator", when used in connection with an Internet site, includes, respectively, any owner of a majority interest in, or any person with authority to operate, such Internet site.

As a web designer I have authority to operate every site I work on. Does that mean if I work on a site that later does something illegal after I've worked on it am I still responsible. Unless the usernames and passwords have changed I would still have access and could operate the site.

A U.S. directed site is defines as one that is accessible to people in the U.S. A foreign infringing site is one in criminal violation and also U.S. directed. Criminal violation points to several sections not shown, but I would guess those sections refer to piracy and copyright infringement.

I'll stop with the definitions.

The problem is so much of the bills are vague and not truly reflective of how the internet works. It may not specifically say a single post on Facebook could shut the site down, but it's vague enough where it could. The bills seems to expect sites to do an unrealistic amount of policing.

Ok one last definitions.

An "Internet site is dedicated to theft of U.S. property" if

it engages in, enables, or facilitates

the sale, distribution, or promotion of goods, services, or mate- rials bearing a counterfeit mark

I broke those up because it's not one continuous sentence in the bill. I would think engages means the site actually hosting the content. What does enable or facilitate include? I assume a web host does both. How about an affiliate? What about linking to a site? How about linking to a site that links to a site? It's more vagueness.

This isn't the right bill to fight piracy. I don't see how a U.S. bill could force sites in China to shut down. Even if it could the shutdown is based on things that those wanting to purchase illegal material know how to get around. All while putting a lot of responsibility on average sites to police things they can't realistically police.

Business Attorney
01-19-2012, 11:23 AM
I agree that both of these acts need to go back to the drawing board for several reasons, but I also feel compelled to point out that there is a degree of vagueness in every law. What is "aiding and abetting" in the commission of a felony? Should someone be able to buy someone else a bulky coat when he knows for a fact that the person wants to use it to hide guns and ammo so he can go on a shooting rampage? Or do we need a 2000 page list of every conceivable scenario of what constitutes "aiding and abetting" that would have to probably define a "coat" so that it is broad enough to cover "any garment worn over clothing that is capable of concealing a weapon". Of course, "weapon" would also have to be defined.

Of course, allowing some ambiguity in statutory language doesn't mean that the language can be so vague that a reasonable person cannot predict whether an act is legal or not. I do agree that some of the provisions are too vague, but I think that some of the most vocal opponents are taking things to an unrealistic level of interpretation, even given the vagueness.

By the way, there is already an existing concept of "contributory infringement" that can make someone liable for enabling or facilitating infringement, so that is not new.

My biggest problem with the legislation is the "shoot first, ask later" aspects that allow for extra-judicial actions. Yes, courts are slow and costly, but that is also true for disputes of all kinds. I don't see anything singular about the nature of copyright disputes that merit elevating copyright disputes to a special tier that allows unilateral action by one party. To some extent, DMCA takedowns already do that, but that involves taking down specifically infringing materials rather than an entire site.

vangogh
01-19-2012, 12:44 PM
there is a degree of vagueness in every law.

Fair point and I realize most laws can't be written so specifically to include every possible case. That would be more of a nightmare than adding a little vagueness to be a little more encompassing.

I agree with you on the shoot first ask later mentality of the bills and I think that's a big part of why people are troubled by the laws. You also have to keep in mind that the impetus for these bills is the entertainment industry with a not so great history in regards to shooting first. It wasn't so long ago the recording industry was suing 12 year old girls for illegally downloading a dozen songs. Granted the downloads were illegal, but the response was an overreaction.

To me this whole situation is being pushed on us by an industry that needs to change. The entertainment industry doesn't like it, but the internet and digital data fundamentally changes how their industry works. The only long term solution the entertainment industry has is to change. Instead they're trying to hang on to the old through legislation. It isn't going to work any more than DRM did.

While I think stopping piracy is an honorable goal, I really don't see it happening. Piracy has always existed and likely always will in some form. Fair or not, today's technology makes it easier, however that doesn't have to mean entire industries will go under. They just need to change. Most people do not want to steal and most people are willing to pay for content, especially if you create tools that make it easy for them to acquire that content.

By the way this is coming from someone who spends a lot of time creating content and watching as that content is stolen and republished on another site within minutes.

KristineS
01-19-2012, 01:07 PM
Wow, I was just saying yay for the banner and it turned into an awesome discussion about the proposed laws. Very cool!

vangogh
01-19-2012, 11:29 PM
I think it's important about these proposed bills. The news today is that neither is likely to pass as many in Congress have removed support. They even talked about it at the Republican debate tonight and all 4 said they didn't support it. Still something else is going to come along and this whole conversation will start again.

There's nothing wrong with trying to fight piracy. I don't feel like it can be legislated away, though. SOPA and PIPA seem to far reaching to me, which I think happens in part because the people writing the bills don't have the necessary understanding of how the technology behind the internet works. I also think the entertainment industry has some powerful lobbyists and will try to give themselves more power than necessary.

On a related note a file sharing site, Megaupload, was shut down today because it's used to shared pirated and copyright protected material. It's also used in legitimate ways. That existing laws can be used to shut down this site suggests to me that more bills aren't necessary. The laws already exist to fight piracy. Any lack of effectiveness is more to do with the lack of effectiveness any legislation will have.

nealrm
01-20-2012, 08:02 AM
There's nothing wrong with trying to fight piracy. I don't feel like it can be legislated away, though.
The same can be said for all crime. Yet we have to keep trying.



That existing laws can be used to shut down this site suggests to me that more bills aren't necessary. The laws already exist to fight piracy. Any lack of effectiveness is more to do with the lack of effectiveness [enforcement than] any legislation will have.
Technology is changing so additional bills will be necessary.

Part of the problem with the current laws is that sites are stating they are two big to police content and using "user supplied content" as a shield to protect them from liability. There needs to be some level of responsibility on the part of the site owner that holds them accountable for what is on their site. If a site has 100,000's of stoles works, the only solution can't be that you have to sue 100,000 individuals while the site owner continue to make profits off of those works.

PS. I did modify Vangogh's statement to reflect what I believe he was saying. I hope it is clear the edits where mine.

vangogh
01-20-2012, 11:04 AM
The same can be said for all crime.

I don't think you could say it about all crime. The technology here just makes it too easy. This isn't anything new. Years ago when we still listened to music on cassettes people made mixed tapes for each other. That's technically illegal and the music companies wanted to prevent it. The movie studios were opposed to VHS when it first came out. Now we're on to digital versions.

I'm not suggesting you shouldn't try, but that I don't think legislation is going to work. The entertainment industry is trying to hang on to the way things were done in the past instead of thinking about how their business has to change for the future. 10 or so years ago, sites like Napster were making it easy for people to download music. The record companies managed to get Napster shut down. Kazaa spring up. The illegal music downloads didn't stop until iTunes came around offering a better and legal way to download music.


Technology is changing so additional bills will be necessary.

Yes technology is changing, which is my point. The technology isn't what's being legislated against though. It's what the technology is being used for. Technology is going to change much faster that laws do. If you put laws in place to fight the technology then a new technology springs up making things possible again or you go so overboard that you stifle progress, which would be more damaging than what the laws are trying to prevent.


Part of the problem with the current laws is that sites are stating they are two big to police content

The solution isn't to require that they remain small or force them to police themselves. It's simply impossible for sites like Facebook and YouTube to police everything posted. It's also unrealistic to think small sites like the ones you and I run can be policed either. How exactly should these sites police themselves? Are they supposed to hire people to check everything posted as it's being posted? These people would also need to know copyright law in order to determine what's infringement and what's fair use. They'd also have to check the sites on the other side of every link.

It's easy to say these sites should police themselves. It's not easy to actually do that. I'm someone who does spend a lot of time policing his sites. Look around this forum and think about why there's so little spam. It's mainly because I put in a considerable amount of time policing the place. At the same time I can tell you I have not seen every post on this forum or clicked every link to check out every page on sites being linked to. However that's what you're asking me to do and you're asking me to do it 24/7. With the shoot first mentality of these bills someone posts something against the law and I wake up in the morning to a forum that's been shut down and apparently me a criminal.

nealrm
01-20-2012, 12:29 PM
Law always tend to be behind. Because it takes time to react to new crimes. That is the nature of laws.

You used yours and my sites as examples. I believe your forum is a better example than mine. By its nature I can 100% guarantee the content on my site. Yours would be more difficult. But you do police your site. I am reasonably certain that if you found material you knew was a copyright violation or were notified that a specific post was a violation you would resolve the issue. I am also reasonable certain that if any member was to repeatedly post material that violated copyright laws you would ban them from the site. I would expect larger sites to also have similar procedures in place. I don't expect that they would be 100% effective, but I do expect them to strive for 100% effectiveness. Nor would I expect them to police what is not on their site. They should be responsible for what is on their site and nothing more. What I don't accept is the idea that they are so big that it would be difficult so lets not do anything.

I do agree with you point that the shoot first and question later is wrong. That is why we have a court system. To determine if a crime was committed before punishing the accused.

vangogh
01-20-2012, 01:25 PM
Law always tend to be behind. Because it takes time to react to new crimes. That is the nature of laws.

Which is exactly why you can't legislate this away. Enact a law to fight some technology and another technology springs up to take it's place. It become a never ending cat and mouse game that ultimately costs a lot more than it hopes to save.


By its nature I can 100% guarantee the content on my site.

Are you sure. I'm guessing, but I assume your content comes from some database of real estate listings. Do you know 100% that the people who collect all the data are policing everything to ensure it's all legit? I would bet it is, but do you really know? You're relying on someone else to police the data, but you could be held responsible.


But you do police your site.

Yes I do, but again I haven't and couldn't check everything posted here. And this is a very small site. We're about 800 million members behind Facebook and that disparity grows every minute. As this site has grown it's gotten harder and harder to police. What you're missing is that as the site gets larger and larger policing becomes more and more difficult. It's not realistic to police some of the site you think you should be policed. Also while I may ban people who spam I can't tell if every image here is copyrighted or if every piece of text is unique and original. I'd bet there are things here that are infringing on someone's copyrighted work. Not a lot, but I bet some things.

I'm not even sure how you go about taking an image and finding out if the copyright holder forbids it being posted. You can run a search in the file name, but if someone changes the file name that search isn't going to return anything meaningful.

Think about what it would take to police every post on Facebook. There are 800 million members. Let's assume everyone posts once a day, which I think probably underestimates the number. In most cases you can't just look at a post and know if it is or isn't copyrighted. In fact you can never know for certain that it isn't. What you could do is spend some time looking to see if it is. Assume each post takes a minute on average to police so a single person can check 60 posts an hour.

800 million divided by 60 = 13.333 million hours

We'll hire people to work 8 hours a day

13.33 million divided by 8 = 1.67 million people we need to hire

Let's say we pay them $5 an hour or $40 per day

1.67 * 40 - 66.8 million dollars per day * 365 days = 24.382 billion dollars a year.

Minimum wage in the U.S. is more than $5 a day. If you outsource the work you're probably hiring many of the very same people who are pirating in the first place. None of the above even considers the people needed to manage those 1.67 million employees. It also doesn't consider that the low wage probably means many of these people aren't going to care that much if they do or don't catch the infringes. In fact how would any one know whether they do or not unless you hire another workforce to at least spot check the first work force.

You might argue there are software solutions, but if there please point to them. You're asking someone to search the entirety of the internet to run checks on every other piece of content on the internet and then run it against some check that proves any duplicate content is in violation. I don't know how much that costs, but it isn't cheap and probably isn't possible. Think how much search engines spend to crawl the internet and understand they don't find everything.

The point is these sites can't realistically do what the law says they need to do.

nealrm
01-20-2012, 02:43 PM
You might argue there are software solutions, but if there please point to them. You're asking someone to search the entirety of the internet to run checks on every other piece of content on the internet and then run it against some check that proves any duplicate content is in violation.

That sounds very much like what search engine spiders already do. Search engines already use duplicate content to determine SERP ratings. So there is already a technical solution for text. I believe that this would satisfy a reasonable policing of the site.

This leave images, video, music and programs. Programs can be scanned to see if the match certain profiles. Virus checkers already do this. So that technology is already in available. You can also have the internet scanned for use of your images. Some artist do use this to catch illegal uses of their work. So this leave video and music. I don't know first hand of software that can be used to detect copies, but since images can be detected, I suspect that both video and music can be.

So let's go the example you posted for manual label to police a site. Per my prior post, I am not expecting 100.0% perfection. Using 3 people, about 1400 post each day could be checked. This would tell the owner within 0.1% how many copyright violation were present. This would tell them if the policies of the site were working. If they were seeing .1 or 1%, then they could continue with random check and handle violations as they are found. If they are seeing that 5, 10 or 50% of the posts were violating copyright laws, they need to step up the level of random checks. The simple knowledge that a site was being monitored would reduce copyright violation on its own. But some sites are simply stating that they don't monitor, they don't care if you violate the law and they will only do something if forced.

FYI: The reason I can 100% guarantee the content of my site is because of the type of source of the content. Facts cannot be copyrights, so I don't need to worry about the data concerning the homes. The home descriptions are generally so vague they would not be copyrightable. That leaves the images. We take 99.99% of all the photos on the site. Anything we do not take, I can tell if they were taken by a pro. That leave photos provided by the home owners. It would be a extremely unlikely case were a amateur photographer would have access to a home AND the home owner would have access to the photo in a format suitable for using. So this would also fall under the heading of reasonable policing of a site.

dynocat
01-22-2012, 11:07 AM
Wow, I was just saying yay for the banner and it turned into an awesome discussion about the proposed laws. Very cool!

I've enjoyed reading the discussion here too. Thanks, guys and Kristine, for mentioning the sbf banner. I missed seeing it, but did take part in the protest by signing a few petitions and posting on facebook.

vangogh
01-23-2012, 01:09 AM
That sounds very much like what search engine spiders already do.

You're not considering the cost. Think of what it takes to run Google. It's not as though any site can do the same thing. It's not realistic. Not even close. Google runs multiple servers in multiple data centers and they've even built their own generators to run all those servers. Also keep in mind Google has not indexed every piece of content on the web. And search engines still can't tell what's inside an image or video or audio file, which are really the files we're talking about here in regards to the movie and recording industries.

Beyond the expense, indexing alone is not enough. Just because two web pages show the same content doesn't mean any piracy or copyright infringement has occurred. They don't tell you which site owns the copyright so which is then infringing. They don't know if either site has permission to use the content. As far as I know there's no database where one can search to determine all the content that's been copyrighted and all the permissions the copyright holder has given to others.

By the way Google currently doesn't do the best job of discovering copyright infringement, given how often they have indexed two pages with duplicate content and how often they rank the page that copied the original, while the original page is nowhere to be found in the results.


If they were seeing .1 or 1%, then they could continue with random check and handle violations as they are found.

Random checks won't do, particularly in regards to the proposed bills. They have to be 100% clean or they could be in violation of the law.

Let's take the search engine thing further and pretend it's a realistic solution. It really wouldn't be that hard to get around them. Search engines still have trouble reading inside JavaScript. They don't see well inside of Flash. While search engines do some amazing things they are far from perfect and easily fooled, especially if you're not interested in ranking.


The reason I can 100% guarantee the content of my site is because of the type of source of the content.

I didn't realize you took most of the images, though I really didn't expect there would be any violation on your site. I was mostly trying to point out that there are sites that do get much of their content from other sites and they're trusting those other sites to only be delivering content that's free to use.

nealrm
01-23-2012, 09:34 AM
You're not considering the cost. There are costs on both sides. Right now the entire cost of lost revenue is being bore but those whose property is be stolen. This isn't confined to just the entertainment industry; web-designers, reporters, writers, photographers, graphic artists, programmers, and many more are have their work stolen. In effect, revenue that should be going to the creator of the work is being redirected to the owner of these sites.



Random checks won't do, particularly in regards to the proposed bills. They have to be 100% clean or they could be in violation of the law. I do not agree. The bills clearly stated that the site's primary purpose had to be copyrighted or counterfeit products.

vangogh
01-23-2012, 11:15 AM
First let me say that I'm enjoying this conversation and I think it's an important one to have.


The bills clearly stated that the site's primary purpose had to be copyrighted or counterfeit products.

The bill's really aren't clear at all. They're vague in a lot of definitions and they don't provide due process. They're also written to protect an industry (the entertainment industry) that has a history of pushing laws like these to the extreme.


There are costs on both sides.

Not equal costs. Again you're suggestion above was basically that every site would need to be a search engine. Aside from the fact that the search engines aren't going to release their algorithms, since it would put them out of business, the overwhelming majority of websites can not afford to run a search engine on the scale required here. It's simply not in the realm of reality. And again as I pointed out above it still wouldn't solve the problem since search engines haven't indexed every page online and even if they did it still doesn't tell them when copyright has been infringed. We haven't even considered all the information that's offline that's yet to be online.

Taking everything back a step, what's going on here is technology progresses like it always does and often when it does it disrupts old business models. The telephone disrupted the telegraph. When highways were built across the country, the railroads suffered, Kodak recently filed for bankruptcy because the ability to take digital pictures means we no longer need film. Technology always advances and when it does it both creates new industries and kills old ones.

The entertainment industry is being disrupted and they want everyone to believe it's solely because their product is being stolen. While it's true that technology has made it easier to copy and share their products that's not why they're hurting.

The entertainment industry does 3 things.

1. They finance and produce the finished product whether it's a musical recording or a movie.
2. They provide one level of distribution for the product.
3. They market the product.

Technology changes all 3 significantly.

It's now more affordable for an individual to finance and produce their own music and even movie. In some cases the finished product isn't going to be up to the same standards, but in some places it will be.

The internet is a huge distribution channel. People can easily put their own creations online for sale

The internet is also great for marketing. Look how quickly word of different things can spread through social media.

Now consider the movie studios and recording companies historically and how they've treated artists. If you read the biographies of many famous musicians in the last 100 years part of the story is how the record companies had them sign completely one-sided deals. The recording companies have always taken then overwhelming majority of the profits. The movie studios do the same thing. The companies now complaining about how the internet is ripping off artists are the same companies that have been ripping off artists for the last century.

To give you an example the comedian Louis CK recently recorded one of his live stand up shows and is selling it online. In the past he would have had to go through HBO or similar, who would have taken most of the revenue and charged $20 or more for any DVD produced. That DVD would also have to wait until after the show did several runs on HBO itself. Instead Louis CK cut out the studio. The show costs only $5. In 24hours the recording had recovered all costs and made a quarter billion in profit. I think by the end of the first week it had brought in a half billion above costs. The artists is doing well. The artists fans are doing better. The only one not doing so well is the studio.

The show is delivered digitally without any DRM. You're welcome to download it burn it to DVD or do whatever you want with it. People will make copies for friends and I'm sure you can find the whole show online somewhere for free. And still the artist or his fans aren't suffering one bit.

That's just one story. There are others of artists doing very well with their creations even though technology makes it easy to copy and share those creations. Legislation isn't going to save the entertainment industry. They need to change their business models and accept that they aren't going to be as necessary in the process as they once were. They may not like it, but I doubt those who'd put all their money in the steam engine were happy to see the combustion engines and electric motors that technology brought.

The answer for the entertainment industry today is to adapt to their business to the changing technology. It's not to seek legislation to fight the technology.

vangogh
01-23-2012, 11:43 AM
One more thought about the following


The bills clearly stated that the site's primary purpose had to be copyrighted or counterfeit products.

Again I don't think that's so clear, because primary needs to be defined more specifically and we'd also need to know who gets to decide what a site's primary purpose is.

However it's also a perfect reason why legislation can't work. If these bills all come down to "primary purpose" than any site can legally distribute copyrighted works according to the bills by making sure it's not the primary purpose of the site. As soon as primary is defined there will be a corresponding definition of not primary, which any site could use to ensure these bills don't apply to them.

vangogh
01-24-2012, 03:05 PM
Here's an infographic I found that attempts to sum up a lot of what the issues are with SOPA and PIPA (http://luminconsulting.com/sopa/). Thought some people might find it interesting, especially if you don't want to wade through the entirety of the bills.

KristineS
01-24-2012, 05:19 PM
That is interesting. I've read some stuff about SOPA and PIPA but that graphic summed up a lot of the main issues quite nicely.

vangogh
01-25-2012, 12:21 AM
Yeah I thought it did a nice job too. Trying to read through all the legalese of the actual bills is difficult at points.

nealrm
01-25-2012, 03:41 PM
After reviewing the graphic, I was shocked at the number of completely wrong and misleading statements, statements that don't match current legal principles and comment that only purpose is inflammatory and don't deal with the bill. All quotes are from A Technical Examination of SOPA and PIPA - - (http://luminconsulting.com/sopa/)


These bills make website owners responsible and punishable for how users interact with their site
Yes - it make site owners responsible for aiding and abetting in the commission of a crime. This is not a new concept. If you give a gun to someone knowing that will use it to commit a crime, you are responsible. If you allow someone to use your property knowing they are using it for illegal purposes, then you are responsible. If you need to review the concept of aiding and abetting here is a link:
Aiding and Abetting/Accessory - FindLaw (http://criminal.findlaw.com/crimes/a-z/aiding_abetting_accessory.html)

Government can't censor most things before their publication; only AFTER
The bill holds you accountable for what is on your site, not what could be on your site. So I am not sure what this comment is intending to imply.


... Youtube can't pre-censor absolutely all copyright material, but it can take down videos one-by-one AFTER they're posted...
This is false, wrong, completely inaccurate. Youtube and all other private sites have complete and absolute right to remove ANY material for ANY reason at ANY time from its site. The sites also have the complete and absolute right not to allow any and all posts on their site. If Vangogh doesn't like ANY of my post he has the completed and absolute right to remove them from his site for any reason. If he decides, he can even state that I cannot post here anymore (Please don't) You, I and everyone else have ZERO rights to post ANYTHING on someone else's site. All posting are allow by the grace of the host. If you don't like it, get your own site. (by the way, thank you Vangogh for allow us to post on your site and not banning me from the site.)


These bills attempt to wipe out prior restraint, making website responsible for pre-censorship of ANY illegal or copyright material. This in unconstitutional
Again completely false. It you know something is illegal there is nothing unconstitutional about not aiding in the illegal act. If I know a site is selling counterfeit watches, there is nothing unconstitutional about me stating I will not accept their advertising.


The definition of illegal and copyright material ....
A quick internet search will show that the legal definition of both these terms is very, very, very, very...well defined. Case law, ruling, etc go back hundreds of years. So this is nothing more than a inflammatory comment.


The problematic system for defining "Domestic" vs "Foreign" sites leaves itself wide open for abuse
No definition of foreign and domestic will be perfect. But this definition does have a historical bases. Sea going vessels sail under the flag of the country of their registered port. This is even true if their current route only include ports of other nations. So where a site is registered would follow a similar thread.


Entire domains can be blacklisted if ANY Part of the site is found in violation.
Wrong again. The bill clearly states that the site has to be primary designed as a means for engaging in, enabling or facilitating the illegal activities. For example, if you set up a service that's primary purpose was to provide car for bank robberies, you would be charged with aiding and abetting the crimes. That is different than a car rental agency whose car was unknowingly used in commenting a bank robbery. Before you post 'how do we know if the accused know or didn't know about something' - That is why we have a court system.


Facilitating ... vague language
The terms facilitate and facilitating are found through out criminal and civil legal definitions and various other regulations at both the state and federal levels. There is a long history of the legal use of the term. Calling the term "vague" is at best inaccurate. At worst it is an deliberate attempt to mislead.


Qualifying plaintiffs can send notice ... without involvement of the attorney general
This is the only true portion of the complaint that I have found to be valid. The courts should be making the judgement on if a site is in violation, not a private company.


SOPA and PROTECT IP do not focus on the removal of actual infringing content, but rather the censorship of links to entire domains
They focus on not preventing sites whose primary purpose is to steal other people property from benefiting from those activities. If a site is designed to sell stolen merchandise, the owners know the site is being used to sell stolen merchandise, it is not censorship to prevent them from profiting from that site.


Internet users interested in illegal material will continue to find ways to access banned sites. News flash - No laws have ever stopped criminal activity. People still steal, murder and rape even so there are laws against those activities. All a law can ever do is punish those that commit or help commit the crime, and in doing so hope to reduce the amount of people engaging in those activities.


This will hurt startups and tech innovation
I have a hard time seeing how preventing someone work from being stolen will hurt them. The copyright system is in place specifically so the creator of inventors can profit from their inventions.


Last comments: The word censor and censorship have been used repeatedly. These words were selected purposely by those benefiting from the sale and advertising of illegal material to mislead the arguments on this topic. I want to be clear - YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO STEAL OTHER PEOPLES DIGITAL PROPERTY AND USE IT AS YOUR OWN. This is not censorship, this is respecting the property of others. It falls under "Thou shall not steal". Those that are knowingly helping others steal property are as guilty as those doing the stealing.

Business Attorney
01-25-2012, 06:37 PM
I looked at the graphic yesterday and was going to respond along the lines that nealrm did when I had enough time to do a thorough job, so he saved me a lot of time.

There is no question that there are problems with the two acts and I am happy to see that the sponsors are going to spend more time trying to get it right before the acts are voted on. However, the so-called "summary" of the acts is full of misstatements, half truths and opinion masquerading as facts.

It may be "interesting" but no one should form an opinion on the acts based on the graphic.

vangogh
01-25-2012, 09:44 PM
Fair points about the graphic. My bad for not checking through it as well as I should have.

However:


These bills make website owners responsible and punishable for how users interact with their site

Neil I understand your point, but this bill is putting the responsibility on site owners for any link posted on their site, including those posted in blog comments. forum posts, social sites. You're critical of the graphic for being misleading, but the whole handing a gun to someone analogy is just as misleading. You're implying that for someone to be aiding and abetting here they need to do a lot more than what the bill says.


The bill holds you accountable for what is on your site, not what could be on your site.

Again it also holds you accountable for things your site points to as well as things others put on your site. With both it's unrealistic to think a typical site owner is going to be able to police those things fully.


If Vangogh doesn't like ANY of my post he has the completed and absolute right to remove them from his site for any reason.

I'd have to see the post first. According to the bill the forum could be shut down before I had a chance to see it and remove it. In the case of YouTube and videos, sure they could take it down without being told. What's difficult for them to do is determine in advance if something is in copyright violation. You've yet to offer a realistic way a company could do this. Or are you suggesting YouTube just pulls everything?


A quick internet search will show that the legal definition of both these terms is very, very, very, very...well defined.

We're not talking about the definition you find with a Google search, but what's in the bill itself. I'd disagree that copyright is as well defined as you suggest though. Fair use allows for some amount of copyrighted material to be used, for example quoting a copyrighted article, and fair use isn't defined well at all. Sure copyright is defined, but it's use isn't.


The bill clearly states that the site has to be primary designed as a means for engaging in, enabling or facilitating the illegal activities.

We've been over this. It doesn't define this clearly. The word primary is subjective. How does one objectively determine primary. It doesn't really matter anyway, because no matter how you define primary you've just created a loophole for any site to engage in, enable, and facilitate without breaking the law. The site will make those activities secondary.


The terms facilitate and facilitating are found through out criminal and civil legal definitions and various other regulations at both the state and federal levels.

What would constitute facilitating for a website? The long history you talk about predates the internet. If I link to a site am I facilitating? What happens if I link directly to a domain and several years later that domain is not engaging in illegal activity. Am I still facilitating even though when I linked to it it was only engaged in legal activity.


No laws have ever stopped criminal activity.

Agreed. The point is these laws while doing nothing to stop criminal activity make it harder for many to conduct legal business.


I have a hard time seeing how preventing someone work from being stolen will hurt them.

Given that sites like Google, and Facebook, etc. can't realistically police what's on their site in accordance with these bills, the sites might never have come into existence.

As or your last comment, no one is suggesting anyone has the right to steal other people's work. What people are saying is this bill is completing unrealistic in how it expects people to police their sites. We went through this a page or two back. The only way a site could police itself is to never link to anything and never allow user generated content. That's where censorship comes in. In order for me to ensure this forum never violates these bills I'd have to close it. Nothing else could guarantee something illegal isn't posted or linked to.

Proponents of the bill have also chosen their words carefully. The bills refer often to theft, but copyright isn't stolen. It's infringed upon. Except infringement doesn't sound so bad. It doesn't sound like any big danger. So instead the word theft is used in its place.

Again my basic problems with these two bills is they go too far and ask people to do unrealistic things to protect an industry that's not facing it's real problem. I also find it laughable that they're trying to champion themselves as the saviors of artists when those in the entertainment industry have been the ones ripping off artists for their entire history. The real issue here is that technology is disrupting an old business. The only long term solution is for the industry to change and adapt to the new technology. Instead they are trying buy legislation to avoid dealing with the basic issue.

nealrm
01-26-2012, 12:02 AM
These bills make website owners responsible and punishable for how users interact with their site


Neil I understand your point, but this bill is putting the responsibility on site owners for any link posted on their site, including those posted in blog comments. forum posts, social sites. You're critical of the graphic for being misleading, but the whole handing a gun to someone analogy is just as misleading. You're implying that for someone to be aiding and abetting here they need to do a lot more than what the bill says.
I'll admit to being dramatic on the gun example. But the simple fact is the if you knowing and willing allow your property to be used for illegal purposes you are aiding and abetting a crime. It doesn't matter if the property is a website, land or a car. The same concept holds.


Again it also holds you accountable for things your site points to as well as things others put on your site. I do not agree. An internet site defined as a set of digital assets...including links.. that are address to a common domain name or internet address. So links pointing off your site would not be included as part or your site.


If Vangogh doesn't like ANY of my post he has the completed and absolute right to remove them from his site for any reason.
I'd have to see the post first. According to the bill the forum could be shut down before I had a chance to see it and remove it. In the case of YouTube and videos, sure they could take it down without being told. What's difficult for them to do is determine in advance if something is in copyright violation. You've yet to offer a realistic way a company could do this. Or are you suggesting YouTube just pulls everything? Not the point I was try to make. The graphic implied that sites could not simple pull content. That someone would have to complain about the content, then after the complaint was upheld the content could be removed. The point I was trying to make was that site owners have the right to control what is on their sites. They do not need a reason or complaint remove material. All user supplied content is posted on sites at the grace of the owners. They can do what the please with it.

We appear to disagree on if terms like copyright, facilitate, primary are legally subjective. While in public use, these terms may have a subjective nature, legally they are well defined. Copyright law and cases goes back to the birth of printing (1400s), fair use predated the US and 'primary' and 'facilitate' are terms used term throughout legal documents with clearly understood meanings. While the internet maybe revolutionary, it is not revolutionary in the use of these terms. What is revolutionary is the ease and accuracy at which copyright material can be violated.

I agree that the internet will change the entertainment industry. It going to eliminate the middle man and allow the artist to interact directly with the public. This bill will not even slow that down, nor should we try to slow that change. But what we need to do is assure that those producing content are assured just compensation for its use. What happens to the programmer that spends a year to develop a software package, only to have it available for free within hours of its initial offering. How many photos would Ansel Adams have produce had his works been available for free the moment it was made. Without just compensation, neither of these two would be able to continue. They would be forced to find work that would allow them to sustain themselves. In the end, without assuring compensation we end up with a digital realm full of free content. It may sound great, but remember you get what you pay for. The other side of the coin is just as bad. This is the one where content is still be made, but is only supplied to a very limited few. Programs made only for a specific individual, art work made only for the collector and rarely released to the public. Not a very good picture there either.

vangogh
01-26-2012, 03:14 AM
I wrote a whole post debating with you point by point again, but I think we're going around in circles arguing the same points again and again. Let me summarize a few things instead.

I don't agree with you that these bills are as clear as you say. In part I think it's because they were written by people who by their own admission don't use or understand how the internet works. Some of the terms may have clear definitions, but to me they collapse when we move them online. I also think the bills don't allow due process and they're mainly being written for an industry that lobbied to get them in place; an industry that has historically looked to push the limits of bills like these. I do think they would be very wide sweeping in who they think violates their copyright and don't think they would act responsibly in any way.

We both agree that stealing another's intellectual property is wrong and I think we both agree bills like these don't really prevent it from being stolen.

The question really comes down to how to assure people that create are justly compensated for their work. My point through all of this is that legislation isn't the answer. It's not going to prevent IP theft and so changes nothing in the current situation. Fair or not technology has reached a point where it's too easy to copy and redistribute the works of others. Another solution is needed. I'm not suggesting there should be no laws, but I think the ones that currently exist are enough and ultimately what's required is new ways of thinking and new business models for those who create IP.

I think most people are happy to pay for intellectual property as long as you make it easy for them to do so and offer it to them at a fair price. iTunes proved that. Prior to iTunes the record companies were complaining that everyone was just downloading illegal copies of music. Apple provided a convenient way for them to download better quality music at a price the market was willing to bear. Downloading illegal music isn't the same issue it was. There will always be some people who download illegal copies, the same way there were people who only listened to cassettes their friends made.

Movie studios and software companies need to change too. People want to stream movies over their TVs. The movie studios fight that with everything, included lobbying Congress for SOPA and PIPA. Software companies need to charge more reasonable prices and stop with all the registration and validation and restrictive licensing. There are separate arguments going on now about whether or not software should be patented, which it currently is or moved to copyright, which probably makes more sense.

I disagree with you that people like Ansel Adams wouldn't be able to continue. Artists like Adams do what they do not because of the money they earn. They create from a higher purpose. No matter how they're compensated they find a way. I'll point to my uernamesake Van Gogh who earned a total of $5 in his lifetime from his work, which he gave away on his way home from earning it to someone he thought needed it more than he did. That doesn't mean artists shouldn't be compensated, but that they'll still find a way to create.

By thinking differently about their works given the current technology they will still be compensated too. More than enough people will still pay even if illegal copies exist.

nealrm
01-26-2012, 07:51 AM
I think your right, we have covered the main point from both side. It was a good discussion, but time to move on the the next topic. Should we try something easier like assuring world peace?

KristineS
01-26-2012, 12:11 PM
It was a very interesting discussion though. I learned a lot about the bills and both sides of the issue from reading your posts. So thank you for taking the time to write them. It was educational.

vangogh
01-26-2012, 01:09 PM
Should we try something easier like assuring world peace?

Sure. We should be able to solve that in 8 or 9 posts, don't you think? :) We could keep this thread going with a discussion of possible solutions to the deeper problem of how some old industries can compete in the new environment.

While I know these industries don't want to hear this, part of the solution is they probably need to accept they won't make as much money as they once did. However the alternative for some is watching as they cease to make any money at all. Think about newspapers. Once upon a time people woke up, read the morning paper, and learned about events around the world and in their own backyard. Today that same news is delivered much quicker and more conveniently over the internet. And in many cases the information is available for free.

Part of the problem is many newspapers gave away everything online in the first place, setting the expectation that this information should always be free. Many people will no longer pay for news. Many still will, though. Not long ago the NY Times moved to a subscription model for their online news. I've been reading the NY TImes as long as I can remember. It was always in my house growing up and if you put a few dozen newspapers in front of me, that's likely the one I'm picking up. I'm more than willing to pay for an online subscription to the NY Times. However that comes with one major caveat. The price has to be right.

I'd be willing to spend a maximum of $10/month though, I'd also like some discount to pay annually. Say $100/year. I think the sweet spot for most people would be closer to $5/month. I want to read the paper on my iPhone and iPad. I don't read it on my laptop, unless someone links to an article, and I don't want the print version delivered at all. Unfortunately the Times subscription wants me to pay a lot more for the access I want. In order to get the Times on my iPhone and iPad I would need to pay $35/month. I like the Times, but not that much. They priced me and many people out of the market. Drop the price and I'm sure they would make up the revenue in volume. That would also mean more eyeballs for advertisers further increasing revenue. The costs of serving more digital copies of the paper, while not $0, are far less than printing additional papers.

The Times could also do things like provide the basic news at a low price and charge additional for extra sections, say $1/month for these extra sections. They could charge additional for specific columnists or perhaps an easy way to get collections of articles on a single topic. Not every paper could do these things, but the NY Times still has a strong brand and a loyal readership. Charging a low fee for access to the basics and selling add on subscriptions at a lower and more reasonable rate, probably keeps them profitable in the years ahead. Instead they price most people away from the paper.

Not every newspaper could do this, but there are many with equally strong brands and loyal readers. The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal (which has always charged a premium), The LA Times, to name a few. I think there would need to be something different for smaller local papers, but we can save that discussion for another post should anyone want to continue the conversation.

KristineS
01-30-2012, 12:49 PM
I think the problem with a lot of traditional information sources, newspapers being one, as you mentioned, is that they try to resist change. You can also see the problem with television. If I had a television show, I'd want to make it available for viewing in as many places as possible. I'd be encouraging fans to make videos about the show. I know I've started watching shows for free on Hulu and then looked for new episodes on cable, or bought the DVD box set of a season. I first got hooked on Mythbusters through videos of episodes on YouTube and subsequently have purchased the DVDs for the entire series.

You could make the argument, I suppose, that the person who put the video of the episodes of Mythbusters on YouTube was stealing content, but it got me hooked and a subsequently spent money with the people who make the show. The original video poster didn't make anything off what they posted, so how much harm did it really do?

As a writer, I get that copyrights are important and that content needs to be properly attributed, but if someone chooses to share your content because they like it and they attribute it properly, is that a bad thing?

vangogh
01-30-2012, 03:18 PM
I think the clinging to tradition and resisting change is a big reason why many media companies aren't doing well or positioning themselves to do well in the future. The cost of production has gone down significantly, and the ability for an individual or small business to both distribute and market their products has increased significantly. These 3 changes are disrupting old media and sadly instead of learning to adapt they're trying to hang on to the old ways. That's why you see bills like SOPA and PIPA being proposed.

Late last week Netflix accepted terms from Warner Brothers that people would have to wait 28 days to add a movie to their queue when a movie is first released on DVD. This comes after expanding from 28 days to 56 days the amount of time before the movie would be available for renting. The thinking for Warner Brothers seems to be that by forcing people to wait more of them will buy the movie instead. The problem is that's not likely going to be the result.

Read the comments on this post about the queue waiting period (http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/26/2744175/netflix-warner-brothers-deal-four-week-queue-delay). Many comments are saying they'll just find a pirated copy of the movie instead. Now I don't think piracy is a proper reaction by any means, but it's what's going to happen and no law is going to stop it. The reality will supersede the law. Better would be for Warned Brothers to make it easier to rent the movie either as a one time fee through something like iTunes or as part of a subscription through Netflix or Hulu. They'll make money from the deals they establish with these companies and more people will ultimately watch the movies. Those who want to watch again will buy a copy.

I've never purchased a DVD to watch a movie for the first time. If it's important to me to see it as soon as possible I'll go to the theater, where I'll get a better experience and pay less than the price of a DVD. If I've skipped a movie in t he theater it's not important to me to see it right away. I can wait the additional 28 or 56 days and probably much longer. There are so many things competing for my attention that missing a movie isn't a big deal. However if the movie studios made it easier to watch the movies they produce I would likely watch more of them and the more I watch the more money I'm ultimately putting back into the movie studios.

KristineS
01-31-2012, 01:21 PM
I think you're right. A lot of the media companies are clinging to the old way of doing things and it will hurt them, if it isn't already.

There's something similar on Hulu, where some companies only allow a certain amount of episodes, or make you wait a month after the episode first airs before you can see it on Hulu. To me, this is dumb. If you're trying to drum up viewership for your series, let people who find the series midway through a season catch up on back episodes online. The point is viewership, and people have too many options to want to view only when the networks and cable channels want them to view.

It's the same thing with music. If I hear a song or Spotify for free, that I like, I'll search other songs by that artist. If I like the song enough, I'll buy it. I'm not stealing the music, and I'm willing to download and pay for it, if I like the song enough, but giving me the choice and allowing me to hear it first makes it more likely that I will buy, not less. At least this way I know I'm not wasting my money.

vangogh
01-31-2012, 02:23 PM
If you're trying to drum up viewership for your series, let people who find the series midway through a season catch up on back episodes online.

I can't tell you how many shows I never watched, because I missed a few early episodes and didn't know what was going on. There are even series I do watch where for one reason or another I miss an episode. Most of the online services make you wait at least 8 days so the following episode will air before you can catch up. All that means is I DVR the newer episode and later watch sans commercials. If they'd let me watch the episode I missed prior I would more likely watch live with the commercials.

Having said that I do find I watch fewer and fewer shows when they air. There are very few shows I watch at all and I more inlined to set the DVR and watch when I want. The networks are going to have to accept that that's what most of us want or will want soon. The only thing I watch live anymore is when the program is live, like sports or news.

What the networks and cable are not understanding is there's enough entertainment out there now that we don't specifically need them to entertain us. It's not that I don't enjoy watching television, but the more they drop the ball, the more I realize how I also enjoy watching video on my computer. I find more and more that when I'm unwinding at night the content I'm consuming is on my computer rather than on my TV. The networks, cable companies, and movie studios can still change that momentum by offering more of the content outside of the same old schedule. Unfortunately they want to hang on to the past and by the time they're ready to catch up with the present, they'll have lost a large part of their audience.

KristineS
02-01-2012, 12:46 PM
I don't watch anything when it airs anymore. I record it all, and watch mostly on weekends. I also tend to consume a lot of content on computers now.

What's really sad is that even when the "traditional" companies try to get it right, they often get it wrong. Let's take, for instance, my cable company. We have one choice in our area, so we get gouged on price, that's a given. Still, it's a decent service and they have a good channel line up. They also have something called "On Demand" which I was really excited about at first. They offered free shows, which were older, and then premium stuff, which was mostly newer movies and things. The cost of buying a movie wasn't exorbitant, and being able to watch when I wanted sounded good.

Of course, then the problems started. First of all, it's impossible to find anything that you want to watch. If you're searching for a specific movie, they don't give you search options, you have to scroll through page after page of titles to find what you want. Second, lots of stuff wasn't available. It turned out not to be as good a deal as advertised and certainly not enough to make me appreciate it as an extra service. There are ways they could make it better and more useful, but I doubt that they will.

vangogh
02-01-2012, 01:33 PM
lots of stuff wasn't available.

That's a big part of why people aren't happy with the current set up. Why do we have to pay to watch programming someone else wants us to watch when there's plenty of content out there we prefer to watch. Let us watch what we prefer to watch and we'll be happy.

I found this yesterday. It's someone's proposed solution to how Hollywood could kill movie piracy (http://robsheridan.tumblr.com/post/16802205570). Click on the image to read it. I'm not sure it addresses everything, but it does have some good ideas. I'm not entirely sure people prefer buying every movie they watch. I get the feeling many prefer a monthly subscription like Netflix or Hulu offer. It may just come down to price though. If you can buy the ability to watch the movie anytime for a dollar or two the money probably works out.

KristineS
02-02-2012, 12:33 PM
That's an interesting idea and it's true. If the market is demanding a certain thing, you can try to buck the tide and force people to do it your way, or you can accept that the market wants what it wants and try to capitalize on those desires.

I'm not against buying something if I really like it, but I'd probably prefer to watch it first and see if it's something I want. I have some movies I've watched a million times and others that I saw once and will never need to see again.

vangogh
02-02-2012, 05:31 PM
The market is going to decide this along with the technology. People no longer want to watch tv and movies like they once did and the studios and networks have to change. The technology makes it impossible to stop piracy despite what some lawmakers think and the technology makes it easier for anyone to create new content. The reality is the studios and networks need to adapt to what their market wants or their market will find what they want elsewhere.