
Hollywood Groups Advocate for More Internet Regulation - sqdbps
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20180422/16535039688/hollywood-front-groups-decide-to-kick-facebook-while-down-advocate-more-internet-regulations.shtml
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cmiles74
Regardless of the spin of the article, it's important to note that the big
entertainment companies are pushing for harsher punishments for internet
companies to prevent the distribution of "unlawful" content.

I think this is interesting because while they sound like they are attacking
Facebook, they are likely looking to go after their old enemies: YouTube and
any video on the public internet.

~~~
confounded
What's the spin of the article that you object to?

~~~
Clubber
Me personally, I'm concerned that media creation companies are trying to add
harder penalties for DCMA by disguising it as a privacy issue. In the end, the
voters will get nothing or very little to improve their privacy but we will
get tougher DCMA laws and penalties.

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kevin_b_er
The copyright cartel will take any chance it gets to fundamentally reduce
freedom. For every copyright extension and extra control it demands, it
further violates the social contract. Their control over my speech is
seemingly unlimited in duration and continues to expand its reach. I have no
doubts their true motivation is "(3) prevent the distribution of unlawful and
harmful content through their channels.". The cartel's only goal is the
consolidation of your freedoms into an indefinite monopoly on their junk.

Long has this "IP" group sought to violate the social contract. When their
control exceeds the social contract, then they no longer promote progress in
the science and the arts. At which case I no longer respect their not-so-
limited-time exclusive right to their writings and discoveries. May
bittorrent, youtube, and the like continue to be the eye for an eye for their
flagrant disregard of it.

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JumpCrisscross
A strategic hole in America's privacy advocacy front, obvious with the benefit
of hindsight, is the degree to which we count on lobbying by technology
companies. They have the users and they have the lobbying dollars, the
thinking went, so why not leverage it? It made sense. But it afflicted on us a
Dutch disease [1]. Every problem was more easily solved by pressuring Google
than by organizing a community. The more we did it, the easier it became.

This was fine, while they were on our side and influential. But counting on a
small collection of correlated elites is not a robust strategy. We need to
turn privacy into a grassroots cause.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease)

~~~
btilly
This is normal. In
[http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674537514](http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674537514)
it is appropriately called the exploitation of the large by the small. That
book is short and a classic. It is worth reading by anyone who is interested
in these matters.

The underlying reason is that most of the time, most are only motivated to put
out significant effort for their own personal gain. Which means that in public
goods, only if they believe that they will make the difference. Therefore
public goods tend to fall into one of the following buckets:

1\. A single individual or group supplies it out of self-interest and everyone
else is a free rider. (This is the exploitation of the large by the small.) A
good example is how most of the world lets the USA play global policeman and,
despite complaints, contributes little to the effort.

2\. A small group provides the good with complex negotiations where each tries
to do as little as possible. A fun example is the infighting within OPEC as it
tries to keep oil prices high.

3\. A large group that is formed for some other purpose and is coercive in
nature provides the good. Most government action falls into this category.

4\. The public good fails to be provided. Examples are too numerous to bother
listing.

~~~
confounded
I find these sorts of theories by US economists (that game theory is how
humans think, all humans are lonely, distrustful, little 'value' hoarders)
little more than telling introspections. They're approximately as scientific
as evolutionary psychology.

In the context of privacy, how would 1, 2 or 3 explain the FSF, the EFF, or
Wikipedia?

Does the selection explain things better than people wanting them to exist
because they inherently believe that public goods are good, and they want to
make a better world for everyone? (Even if such a belief is 'irrational' and
thus game-theoretically impossible.)

~~~
jccooper
They do not need to be explained under the parent's rubric, because that's
describing the provision of public goods by large organizations. FSF, EFF, and
Wikipedia are small organizations and operate differently. Which the linked
book covers. Even in its precis, had you bothered to click through.

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hbosch
I think something to note in parallel to this article is that today $FB is up
10%, and over the past month as almost completely recouped it's recent
"privacy-related" drop. From a year ago Facebook indicated it was still
gaining new users (+13% DAU), increased headcount by +50% and has over 2
BILLION monthly users worldwide...

So they will "Kick Facebook While Down"? Any company in the world would enjoy
being "down" like Facebook is.

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malvosenior
This is a great example of why media companies fear tech companies. The media
has been engaged in outright war against FB. The end result? Nothing.

People don’t let media companies tell them what to believe anymore, they do as
they want and they want tech. The media is no longer the gatekeeper of public
opinion and you can see their fear in every anti-tech push they make.

~~~
mr_spothawk
> The media is no longer the gatekeeper of public opinion

i feel like its a new media now... but still a media driven by advertising bux

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oldandtired
This is simply another case of a group pushing for their evil to be classified
as good and the good to be classified as evil. Their support of increasing
penalties for what they claim is "theft" when they are supporters of actual
theft is quite funny is a sad, sad way.

This is a case of them wanting their "rights" with no intention of ever
carrying out their responsibilities.

I actively teach the young people that I have relationship with (including my
children, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, etc) that you have one right only,
the rest is privilege and responsibility. That one right is to choose your
course of action and there are consequences (good and bad) with every choice
you make, but that is your right. Everything else that is called a right is a
privilege and it comes with attendant responsibilities.

These kinds of groups make choices but have no desire to face the consequences
of their action, they want to place on others those consequences.

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Dowwie
Hollywood needs its own regulation

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stephengillie
Movies should be an artistic expression, not a mathematically-optimal plot to
maximize repeat viewership wrapped in as many special effects as they can pack
into 90 minutes.

We've reached "peak special effects" \- raytracing has been used in movies for
decades, and we're very close to having realtime raytracing in videogames.

~~~
s2g
> Movies should be an artistic expression, not a mathematically-optimal plot
> to maximize repeat viewership wrapped in as many special effects as they can
> pack into 90 minutes.

Why? I want to be entertained and who the hell are you to say I can't get what
I want (and millions of others want it too).

I don't have any problem you getting to watch some art film I have zero
interest in.

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s2g
Meanwhile they cut deals that ensure very good shows, like "The Expanse", get
pirated to hell because people won't wait for stupid regional delays.

Hell, I'll pirate a show to avoid waiting until the next day to watch it on
Amazon. I still buy it, but why the hell should I have to wait.

I'm not even super anti-DRM. It's dumb, but if I can watch the show I just
don't care. Just let me pay you money to watch content.

Easiest thing in the world and they fuck it up __constantly __.

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thomastjeffery
> I'm not even super anti-DRM. It's dumb, but if I can watch the show I just
> don't care. Just let me pay you money to watch content.

That's one of our biggest problems: no one cares about DRM until it directly
hinders them.

Most people don't care about watching Netflix in Linux, but the rest of us
have to deal with being arbitrarily constrained to 720p.

Most people don't mind their favorite video game needing to ask the internet
for permission to load, or frequent large forced updates, but that leaves
people with slow or limited internet in a frustrating situation.

Our society's problem is apathy: so long as copyright holders provide the
_bare minimum_ , they can avoid any serious action, because there simply
aren't enough people willing to _act_ against copyright abuse.

~~~
s2g
meh, pick your battles.

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IAmEveryone
This article reads like it's written by an outraged 14-year old. It's point
may be true, but I'm just not going to believe s/o who calls people's
reservations about the Facebook business model an "exaggerated moral panic".

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abhishekjha
Copyright is one of those issues where I haven’t found a conclusive answer
yet. The for argument is that the content makers need be paid. The against
argument is that this hinders knowledge sharing and acts as a threat to
humans’ collaboration and there should be a limit to how much profit the
content makers can make. Which one is wrong? And how do you find a middle
ground? Piracy and torrents immediately start coming to my mind.

~~~
thomastjeffery
Piracy is not anywhere near as harmful as it is made it to be.

The copyright holder does not lose anything to piracy.

We need to lose the propaganda-based rhetoric, and go back to the real
descriptive term for copyright: Monopoly.

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forgottenpass
Good. I've changed my mind. Let them fight it out, The Valley has long since
abandoned the moral high-ground over Hollywood's attempts to control the
internet. If Hollywood can kick them around a bit: great, they deserve it.

Facebook created a consolidation of control, so that they could use their
newfound power to exercise their will over other people. They put a target on
their own back, and on the backs of every last person running online systems
in general.

That's the cost of creating control levers. You alone don't get to set them
because nobody is ever - or has ever been - at the top of every power
hierarchy simultaneously.

The problem was never that Hollywood wanted to _use the government_ to tell me
what I could and couldn't do. The problem was that they wanted to _tell me
what I could and coudn 't do_.

