

Government Was Very Involved Helping RIAA/MPAA Negotiate Six Strikes - d0ne
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111014/09164516365/worst-kept-secret-now-confirmed-government-was-very-involved-helping-riaampaa-negotiate-six-strikes.shtml

======
sudonim
1\. I'm disappointed that the Government is working so closely with special
interests like the RIAA to set legislation.

2\. I'm glad that it is possible to FOIA it.

People do lots of things to cover up unpopular news. It seems that for
whatever reason, the people in charge wanted to brush this under the rug. If
the government does this and we don't like that, let's exercise our right and
vote them out.

That there is no one who you'd actually want to vote in to public office to
replace the scoundrels that screw the people over and over again is another
issue.

~~~
powertower
> I'm disappointed that the Government is working so closely with special
> interests like the RIAA to set legislation.

If you're disappointed about the above just wait until you read about the
blank CD tax which you pay every time you buy a blank CD. A federally mandated
tax that goes directly to a private corporation.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy>

~~~
mkr-hn
"This only applies to CDs which are labeled and sold for music use; they do
not apply to blank computer CDs, even though they can be (and often are) used
to record or "burn" music from the computer to CD. The royalty also applies to
stand-alone CD recorders, but not to CD burners used with computers. Most
recently, portable satellite radio recording devices contribute to this
royalty fund. [13]."

I've never seen one labeled for use with music. I doubt that's by accident.

~~~
steve-howard
I have, in stores like Target. It's confusing because the packaging tell you
it's the "best" one for music, when I'm almost certain those CDs are identical
to the ones next to them.

~~~
beedogs
Some very, very old CD players won't accept "non-audio" CD-Rs.

> Physically, there is no difference between the discs save for the Disc
> Application Flag that identifies their type: standalone audio recorders will
> only accept "music" CD-Rs to enforce the RIAA arrangement, while computer
> CD-R drives can use either type of media to burn either type of content. [0]

[0] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-R>

------
lancewiggs
The way to fix this is for the ISPs to charge the MPAA members to process any
accusations. This was the result from the three strikes legislation in New
Zealand, and since the law and $25 fee came into force a month or two back
there have been _no_ recorded requests from the MPAA members to ISPs. It makes
it obvious that even the MPAA knows that the claimed losses are a bunch of
hogwash.

------
aw3c2
Deeper link: [http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/10/copyright-czar-
cozi...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/10/copyright-czar-cozies-up/)

~~~
rsingel
Thanks very much for linking to the original story. The author, David Kravets,
did a bang-up job on it. (I edited it). And while I'm glad Mike Masnik of
Techdirt reblogged it, I wish the OP had followed the link to the originating
story, which has primary documents.

------
stfu
For some odd reason this doesn't suprise me at all... The Freedom of
Information Act is really a blessing in cases like these.

~~~
chime
I'm actually surprised it even works. I would think most communication like
this would happen by means that cannot be subpoenaed or FOIA'd.

~~~
Bud
Don't worry. I'm sure the remaining utility of FOIA will be more thoroughly
emasculated soon. Give it a few years.

------
SODaniel
In Sweden the RIAA/MPAA has been deeply involved in dictating copyright
legislation and using the police as their private enforcement agency for
years. Not even a secret.

------
ethank
Considering the fact that the very reason that the RIAA exists is because of
the government (collusion/anti-trust laws prevent labels from working together
directly on things like pricing) and as a lobby organization, this doesn't
seem that revelatory.

The whole point of trade associations (MPAA, RIAA, IFPI, ESA, CRIA, AJA, BSA,
etc) is to avoid collusion while protecting the interest of associated
members.

I had a lot of things I had to be aware of when working with other labels. All
these tests, etc. SOX compliance also added another wrinkle.

In the case of those mentioned, usually these members are associated with
intellectual property and representing copywrited works.

~~~
_delirium
_The whole point of trade associations (MPAA, RIAA, IFPI, ESA, CRIA, AJA, BSA,
etc) is to avoid collusion while protecting the interest of associated
members._

They vary in just how much they _really_ have that aim, though. In some cases
they really are organized as a way of protecting collective interests (e.g.
the interests of the whole sector) without crossing over into collusion; with
other organizations, it comes closer to attempting to collude without being
caught. For example, is the purpose of the organization to expand the pie for
music sales in general, or is the purpose to keep up profit margins by
reducing competition among its members? The RIAA in particular has been caught
doing that on numerous occasions. It's lost cases over pretty overt things
like price-fixing, and I wouldn't be surprised if it does a lot of less overt
things as well (various kinds of signaling and informal agreements to
structure operations and campaigns in mutually beneficial ways).

Professional organizations that represent a sector, like the IEEE or ACM, seem
to have a somewhat "cleaner" record on really promoting the sector rather than
mainly aiming at reducing intra-sector competition.

~~~
ethank
Re RIAA: I agree. I'm no fan.

But what I said was that the point of trade organizations was to ensure
collective rights while avoiding collusion. That is the POINT, that isn't what
they always do.

Sometimes they just hide collusion under the guise of avoiding it: hence
lobbying.

Also any time you have an organization speaking for many, there are never any
"clean" records. IEEE, IETF, ACM all have had their controversies.

------
nextparadigms
This should be part of the #OccupyWallStreet movement, too.

------
earbitscom
> _"In theory, the government should be representing the people, but the cozy
> nature of the relationship suggests it was exactly the opposite. The
> government was representing industry against the public interest."_

Aren't artists and content creators "the people", too? Just because the RIAA
represents the "industry" to so many people doesn't mean that they're not, if
even as a bi-product, fighting for the rights of artists.

~~~
ubernostrum
The RIAA is fighting to maintain an outmoded business structure in which major
record labels' presence as a middleman was convenient for artists seeking
broader visibility and distribution.

It is no longer the case that an artist must sign away all of their rights and
virtually all the resulting revenue from their work merely to get their music
distributed, so what purpose does the RIAA serve?

~~~
earbitscom
> _merely to get their music distributed_

That is correct. Distribution is such a small part of what a _good_ record
label does for you. Even if you want to believe that an artist _can_ do all of
the things a label can do for them, that's not to say that they want to, or
that they can do those things while successfully continuing to do what they do
best - which is make music. Just because a handful of artists have achieved
success without a label does not negate that the most successful artists today
are still using them.

Take it from someone who works with hundreds of labels - the best ones still
add tremendous value. The RIAA fights for the rights of labels, and by
default, some of those rights are shared by artists.

~~~
earbitscom
I'll also point out that the people who have achieved the greatest results
without a label, NIN, Radiohead, etc., were already famous, due in no small
part to their prior labels.

------
twainer
Long-time lurker who just had to jump into the fray about this nonsense and
non-story.

Reading tech-dirt I came across quite a few comments equating copyright with
censorship. You folks need to take a deep breath and then ask yourself if your
support for your 'civil right' to consume something trumps the right of the
person who produced the work in question to decided for themselves how the
work should enter and survive in the marketplace. Because all I hear these
days is that your desire to consume without renumeration is all that matters.
Any deviation from that tucks into some part of the copyright conspiracy
boogeyman.

The most important right is that an individual should get to decide how their
own works are treated - want to give it away for free? Want to set up your own
torrent? Want to charge for it? It should be an individual's choice what they
do with their work; you have no right to make that choice for them and it is a
painfully shameful that capitalism's consumerist end has come to long polemics
on why stealing something isn't - and now watching torrents of The Office is a
civil right.

There is an important statue being dedicated tomorrow in Washington DC - some
of you folks should turn off Pirate Bay and pay attention to things that are
actually worth caring about.

By the way, I lost my single karma point to bring up the issue of individual
control. The issue of piracy affects developers deeply - it's important to
discuss it, not down-vote it.

~~~
pessimizer
That an individual gets to decide how their own works should be treated is not
the most important right, it's not a right at all. It's a limitation on other
people's rights to imitate or reproduce things that they hear, read, or
understand, that has within many legal systems been granted to various degrees
in order to encourage the creation of new things. Freedom of expression _is_ a
civil right, and one which we may see fit to limit in order to encourage
development.

Dismissing it as wanting "torrents of The Office [as] a civil right" is about
as offensive to the people you're having the discussion with as dismissing the
Catholic church as 'using a so-called mandate from God to get away with
getting drunk' during Prohibition. People are having a real discussion about
the limits of government, and you're dismissing it with hand-waving assertions
of non-existent rights, and accusations of shallowness and greed towards
anyone who would dare to find anything there to discuss.

The dedication of statues may be important to you, but it's as important to me
as the record of the Windward Islands cricket team last year.

~~~
twainer
By way of a more pointed reply to your specifics:

you express that an individual getting to decide how their work is treated is
not a 'right' at all. You see it actually as a limitation on other people's
right to use that work.

So, do you support a minimum wage?

An average worker has only their 'labor' to contribute; that is their basic,
creative work. It is also fundamental to all sectors of the economy.

So, should laborers have a right to a basic level of recompense for their
work?

Is their demand/desire for recompense such a limitation on those who benefit
from their work that that desire for recompense is illegitimate?

~~~
pessimizer
Do I support a minimum wage? Yes. Do I think a minimum wage is a right? Only
in the jurisdictions that recognize it as one.

~~~
twainer
Thank you for answering the question.

I too support a minimum wage. I believe successful societies work and thrive
because they create more of those 'win-win' scenarios that I have referenced a
few times here.

So would you support a period of time in which an artist can monetize their
creation?

------
joelmichael
Why is it surprising that the government would be involved in enforcing its
own law?

~~~
muuh-gnu
Surprising it isn't any more, but it is still striking how recklessly one-
sided and opinionated the goverment can be regarding one particular business.
We dont officially know whether this relatively small business is _really_
that überimportant for the country, or did the business owners simply find a
way to puppeteer the goverment to claim that it is überimportant. The
circumstances strongly resemble the story of french 17th century button makers
and their fight against innovation:

"Two of the most extreme examples of the suppression of innovation in France
occurred shortly after the death of Colbert during the lengthy reign of Louis
XIV. Button-making in France had been controlled by various guilds, depending
on the material used, the most important part belonging to the cord and button
makers' guild, who made cord buttons by hand. By the 1690s, tailors and
dealers launched the innovation of weaving buttons from the material used in
the garment. The outrage of the inefficient hand-button-makers brought the
state leaping to their defense.

In the late 1690s, fines were imposed on the production, sale, and even the
wearing of the new buttons, and the fines were continually increased. The
local guild wardens even obtained the right to search people's houses and to
arrest anyone in the street who wore the evil and illegal buttons. In a few
years, however, the state and the hand-button-makers had to give up the fight,
since everyone in France was using the new buttons." [1]

and

"The question has come up whether a guild master of the weaving industry
should be allowed to try an innovation in his product. The verdict: 'If a
cloth weaver intends to process a piece according to his own invention, he
must not set it on the loom, but should obtain permission from the judges of
the town to employ the number and length of threads that he desires, after the
question has been considered by four of the oldest merchants and four of the
oldest weavers of the guild.' One can imagine how many suggestions for change
were tolerated.

Shortly after the matter of cloth weaving has been disposed of, the button
makers guild raises a cry of outrage; the tailors are beginning to make
buttons out of cloth, an unheard-of thing. The government, indignant that an
innovation should threaten a settled industry, imposes a fine on the cloth-
button makers. But the wardens of the button guild are not yet satisfied. They
demand the right to search people's homes and wardrobes and fine and even
arrest them on the streets if they are seen wearing these subversive goods."
[2]

Sources:

[1] <http://mises.org/daily/4315>

[2] <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070110/004225.shtml>

~~~
joelmichael
Thanks, crazy person.

------
kodisha
USA folks - your move.

~~~
TheAmazingIdiot
We're working on it

    
    
       ---occupywallst.org

~~~
suivix
Sitting in tents and blocking traffic doesn't help here.

~~~
Natsu
You're right. Fundamentally, the question that must be answered is "what are
you going to do about it?" They've got their answer: they've hired lobbyists
to push for legislation, they've gotten a copyright czar who is working to
broker voluntary agreements, and they're using the US Trade Reps to push for
legislation abroad. I'm sure there are other things, too, that I forgot to
list.

Thus far, there have been few counters to any of that. There's the EFF and
folks who also lobby, support political allies and expose what's going on, but
not much else except unfocused and therefore ineffective protest, though the
Pirate Party has had some notable success abroad in terms of getting votes.

Admittedly, playing defense is much harder, but there are other possible
avenues that haven't been tried. For example, forming a coalition of ISPs who
do NOT subscribe to this agreement, pushing for copyright reform legislation,
etc.

