Every time I post something here about those bastards at the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and their record company cronies I get a comment about how a teenie downloading music is a thief. Those poor movie producers and record companies! Mugging victims.
Look over on the left sidebar at the badge under the blogroll. You'll see we are licensed under a Creative Commons license. The license I chose has some of my rights reserved, but allows anyone to:
Share -- to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work,
or to
Remix -- to make derivative works
But only under the following conditions:
- Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor.
- Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under a license identical to this one.
- For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.
Any of these conditions can be waived if you get permission from me first.
Creative Commons calls this an Attribution/Share-alike license. I'm willing to share but only under the condition that you acknowledge me as the source and you agree to share just as I did. Pretty generous, I'd say. And numerous websites actually take my posts, in their entirety, and put them up on their own pages. As far as I am concerned this is in accord with the spirit and the letter of the legal license under which I publish this and I am glad to have more people read what I say here. I write to be read.
What's this got to do with MPAA? Via Boingboing:
The author of ForestBlog, a blogging tool, has discovered that the MPAA was using his code in violation of his license. He gives the code away for free, but requires that users link back to his site and keep his name on the software. The MPAA deleted all credits and copyright notices from his work, and used it without permission. They ripped him off:
Way back in October last year whilst going through the website referals list for another of my sites I stumbled across this link. That's right, my blogging software is being used by the MPAA (Motion picture Association of America); probably one of the most hated organisations known to the internet. Cool, I thought, until I had a look around and saw that all of the back links to my main site had been removed with nary a mention in the source code!
Now, as Patrick Robin (the software author) notes, this probably wasn't the outcome of a high-level board meeting wherein the executive committee decided to rip him off. It was more likely the work of a lazy Web person at the MPAA who was cutting corners at work. But the MPAA believes that employers should be held responsible for employees' copyright infringements. They want you to know that if you download movies at work, your employer will also be named in the suit. Infringe as we say, not as we do. (Boingboing)
[snip]
The studios regularly hose writers, painters, composers and performers, nicking their creative labor without compensation, and sneeringly invite them to sue if they don't like it. Even the web-development departments get in on the act.
Here's the exact language on Mr. Robin's software site:
You may not remove, alter or otherwise disable all or any of the hyperlinks to the Host Forest website (http://www.hostforest.co.uk). All images, links or text must remain unchanged and intact and visible when the pages are viewed unless you first obtain explicit written permission from the copyright holders. (Patrick Robin's blog)
You don't have to be a lawyer to understand it. I checked the website and it says that if you want to remove the links you can, but you have to pay a fee. MPAA ripped Mr. Robin off, plain and simple.
However you feel about music downloading, these guys are hardly ones to cry foul. As Boingboing notes, they have been screwing their artists for years. And screwing you, too. When you bought that CD you bought the license to do whatever you want with it. Chop it up. Lend it to a friend. Even copy it. Except they prevent you from doing that with their copyright protection software.
There are a lot of things, organizations and people worse than MPAA and RIAA. They aren't war criminals or in charge of Bush administration foreign policy. But that's about the best I can say about them.
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My take on the MPAA and the RIAA:
"A bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came."
Of course, they don't realize that the revolution has come-- or, rather, they are trying to legislate it away.
-Rob
Rev,
I'm glad u and so many bloggers are keeping the pressure on the MPAA and RIAA...
...but since this is a post on CCL and economics of creative enterprises, i'd like to raise a question with you that has been bugging me for a while.
Why did you switch from blogger to scienceblogs? Blogger is a free engine, owned by google, but pretty much free from advertising and in no way controlling of content.
This scienceblogs engine seems to be a fairly corporate affair. I looked at a seed magazine once recently and was pretty much turned off immediately. Aren't you concerned that Seed is taking advantage of you and the other science bloggers here to sell their magazine?
R; You draw similarities between MPAA & Bush, I just look at all patents & copyrights and think that their time has come.
Back in history, when we first decided that novelty should be rewarded, business was slow, and 20 years (for a patent) seemed reasonable. Now everything happens at the speed of light, and perhaps patents & copyrights should be limited to one or three or 5 years.
I had recent hopes that the sheer impractibility of enforcing most copyrights & patents (in the face of DVD recorders, 3rd world pharma manufacturers) might have them wither, but big business is using the law to avoid paying it's dues, while it still attempts to collect from individuals and other organizations (even China, using US government power).
Folks opposed to the MPAAfia might be interested in these sites. The second Swedish site is in English and contains links to Pirate Parties worldwide and to translations of the Swedish pary's manifesto.
http://www.pirate-party.us/
http://www2.piratpartiet.se/
http://www2.piratpartiet.se/international/
Why is it that when software is upgraded you can by it for a discounted price if you already purchased the full price previous version, but with movies (and music), you have to pay full price for every version. I have quite a few movies on VHS-NTSC, VHS-PAL, VCD, LD, DVD Region 1, and DVD Region 3, and many more on 2 or more of these versions where I paid full price for each one. They tell you the majority of the price is the intelluctual property rights, so why am I spending 15-25 USD for a movie I already have just to get the latest storage medium and packaging whose value is less than 10% of the total price. Until they resolve this I have no sympathy.
The downloading of music probably increases sales to some extent. There is so much crap out there people want to hear it before buying the product. The slump in music sales has more to do with the quality of the music than pirating. Most of the music that makes money for these companies is on the radio for free anyways, and can be taped and then converted to mp3 files for personal use. I guess the issue is a good excuse for these guys when they have to explain to their shareholders the reasons for slumping sales and diminishing returns. I personally do not listen to any of the new stuff on radio, staying with the oldies stations, but until 10 years ago I enjoyed the new stuff.
Here's me hoping that Patrick Robin takes those usurious bastards to the cleaners to hard that their suits shrink three sizes.
And here's me hoping that his lawyers rub RIAA's lawyers' noses in it real good during the trial by quoting their very own arguements -the ones they use against teenie downloaders- back at them until they run around in circles shrieking and waving their hands in the air.
And please, oh please, let's have major publicity all the way through. And huge punitive damages while we're at it.