

Chris Dodd's Email Reveals What MPAA Really Thinks of Fair Use - nvk
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150416/17252230680/chris-dodds-email-reveals-what-mpaa-really-thinks-fair-use-extremely-controversal.shtml

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shmerl
I think for real creative community it should be insulting that he speaks for
it, presenting MPAA's perverted views as "views of the creative community".
Lexi Alexander is quite outspoken about how interests of MPAA are at odds with
interests of actual creators.

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FreakyT
Well, given some of the past actions of the MPAA[1][2], I suppose this
attitude is altogether unsurprising. The sooner the MPAA fades away and is
replaced with something less archaic, the better.

[1]: [https://torrentfreak.com/google-mpaa-
censorship-150303/](https://torrentfreak.com/google-mpaa-censorship-150303/)

[2]: [http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-mpaas-
att...](http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-mpaas-attempt-to-
revive-sopa.html)

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anigbrowl
The MPAA is not going to fade away, because motion picture publishers have
economic interests, same as any other industrial sector. I could cite a bunch
of things I don't care for about it, such as the ratings policy, but it's
going to keep existing in some form.

I think what the MPAA is worried about here is that if US fair use standards
are exported to all TPP countries, then decisions in US courts come to cover a
much larger part of the world, with potentially unpredictable economic
effects. In this case, they're arguing for _not_ changing the copyright laws
of the other countries.

~~~
shmerl
Catch is, MPAA don't serve interests of the publishers anymore. They serve
their own Lysenkoist interests. It takes some guts for publishers to ditch
them though.

 _> In this case, they're arguing for not changing the copyright laws of the
other countries._

They are perfectly fine with changing those laws, as long as they make them
worse (lengthen the copyright term, more DRM anti-circumvention idiocy and
etc.). They obviously don't want to change them when it goes in the different
direction. However it has nothing to do with economic unpredictability.

It's pretty simple. They support what gives them (MPAA) more control, and they
oppose what reduces their power. However their control has no positive effects
on economic benefits of the creative community. If anything, it hurts it,
since they stifle innovation, lock up culture and are acting in backwards
thinking and crooked manner in general. MPAA are parasitic, but always try to
come up with new ways to justify their existence in the eyes of the actual
creative community (because more and more people there understand that their
existence isn't justified).

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anigbrowl
That's complete nonsense dude. There are big fish and little fish and the MPAA
largely represents the interests of teh big fish, ie the majors and to some
extent the mini-majors to use the industry nomenclature. If you think the MPAA
has gone rogue and that Disney, Universal, Sony and the others are clutching
their pearls in horror then you're detached from reality.

As an indie producer, do I think my interests are coincident with those of the
major studios, no. But they're not entirely orthogonal to them either. If
you're going to come back with the line that nothing really original or
creative comes out of the major studios, that's a tired old 'No True Scotsman'
fallacy and the conversation isn't going to go anywhere. The fact that the
industry is lopsided and dominated by a small number of big economic interests
who wield disproportionate influence isn't inherently bad, taht's actually a
pretty normal and expected outcome of any given system.

 _If anything, it hurts it, since they stifle innovation, lock up culture and
are acting in backwards thinking and crooked manner in general._

Yeah yeah, wake me when the revolution comes. It's going to be a while,
because nobody has come up with a good way to monetize content at scale yet
outside of the regular distribution channels (even companies like Amazon and
Netflix basically operate within the traditional model in terms fo content
acquisition and so forth). The reality of film production is that the
manufacture of a good quality product still requires a lot of capital up
front, ie in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and up.

Ultimately, it is the distributors that write the checks. And considering the
total film industry involves ~$100 billion in revenues, with the US being by
far the biggest producer (capturing more than a third of that), I don't think
that's going to change all that quick.

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shmerl
Disney, Sony and etc. aren't the creative community. They are legacy
publishers who are stuck in DRM obsessed mentality. Yeah, MPAA is their pawn.
But such mentality doesn't actually help the creative community. You know,
actual authors. That's what I was talking about.

 _> The fact that the industry is lopsided and dominated by a small number of
big economic interests who wield disproportionate influence isn't inherently
bad, taht's actually a pretty normal and expected outcome of any given
system._

It is pretty bad, since they weild too much power to screw up the legal
system, and this has negative effect on everyone, way beyond their own
industry.

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j_baker
You know, after the "Blurred Lines" incident[1], it wouldn't surprise me if
the music industry started pushing for more limits on copyright enforcement.

[1] [http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/mar/10/blurred-
lines-p...](http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/mar/10/blurred-lines-
pharrell-robin-thicke-copied-marvin-gaye)

~~~
JoshTriplett
I doubt it. As with patents, sometimes they burn the people wielding them, but
those wielding them as a weapon still see more value in excluding smaller
players and those who don't cross-license than in stopping damage to
themselves.

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gldalmaso
Appearance of 'concern' throughout the email:

1st paragraph: 1 time

2nd paragraph: 1 time

3rd paragraph: 2 times

4th paragraph: 3 times

Total: 7 times

~~~
shmerl
Control freaks (aka DRM proponents) are commonly paranoid.

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baldfat
Former Academic Librarian:

Fair Use doesn't even get used in Colleges and Universities since there is
such fear of litigation. How about we secure the fair use in our school first
and than we can start talking about Fair Use for International Treaties.

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pornel
I don't understand your position. TPP/TTIP create new major litigation risks,
so without rejecting these treaties it may not even be possible to achieve the
goal of risk-free Fair Use at schools in the first place.

~~~
baldfat
My psoition is we have never had fair use in the first place. The dear of
lossing your job because your orginization gets sued is intense.

So can we have fair use in education? The treaties cut down what even counts
for fair use.

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coldcode
Of course they love fair use, i.e. it's fair for them to charge for every
single use.

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fixxer
"P.S. The rest of the TPP, however, is just hunky dory to my member companies.
Sony's consumer electronics division can not wait to sue the living shit out
of the next country that tries to institute an environmental impact assessment
on one of its devices. Woot!"

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dang
Please don't use quotation marks that make it look like you're quoting when
you're not. It's too misleading. The satirical intent of your comment is clear
enough without the quotes.

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fixxer
The satirical intent is clear enough to not warrant quotes, but the existence
of quotes is enough to make it misleading?

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dang
Correct.

~~~
fixxer
"Brilliant"

