Obama Admin Backing New Six Strikes ISP Policy

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@notreally: Did I say I liked Obama's track record? This is about how it breaks down:

Lobbyists: Calling the shots no matter who's in office
Obama: Is not as powerful as the lobbyists, but atleast attempts to do good things sometimes
Bush(and all Repubs except Ron Paul): Love the lobbyists, see nothing wrong with the lobbyists or fascism, and have nothing but contempt for the middle class

Of course nothing changed, because the lobbyists are still calling the shots. My only beef with Obama is that he didn't grow a pair and follow through on his campaign promises. Goodness knows what they threatened him with to get that about-face from him...
 

Rab1d-BDGR

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[citation][nom]thetrigger[/nom]Lawyers cost money.
The banks charge you.
Did you get your last house free?
Quarter Pounders still cost money last I checked.
Yet all the musicians, engineers and songwriter's hard work and sacrifice is now suddenly deemed "free" by the public. It's as if all the record stores in the world had their windows broken, looters running wild with the police just watching it all unfold, chasing nobody.

 Charming.[/citation]

Did you pay the architect for the last building you went in? Did you pay the plumber last time you took a dump? They both got paid for the work they did. Once. Then they moved on and did other work and got paid for that too.

Musicians can get paid by playing live - being paid for the work they actually do. Outside of the copyright industry's intellectual monopoly, nobody else expects to be paid for the rest of their lives for a couple of hours/days/weeks work they did several years or even decades ago.
 

NuclearShadow

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Ah, how great it is when a government formed by the people and elected by the people turns around and supports big money and corporations instead. This will require you to be spied on to some degree how else would they know what you are doing. Your privacy and rights will never come before the interests of the wealthy few so long as you support a government that bends its knee to them.
 

the_brute

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Ok people stop this whole Rep VS Dem. They are fighting each other for the point of fighting, not for the good in the end, so they are both horrible.

As for this, it appears nothing has changed because this is what was happening before. The ISP isnt going to cut you off as long as your paying, and most of the litigation is 3rd party (some wana be law firm trying to make a name for themselves). I have received several of these letters and was able to send them back. Sad thing is I was using a semi-legit site, that wasn’t paying the recording companies.
 
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Don't forget... recordings of tv shows that aired on regular tv are also considered copyrighted material. I got a copyright infringement warning for downloading a tv show that aired on spike tv a few days prior.
 

Stryter

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[citation][nom]hotsacoman[/nom]Once ISP's start losing subscribers due to this new legislation, they'll probably back off from it.[/citation]

Assuming you can get enough people to ditch the bastards. It sucks in my area as I only have ATT and Comcast to choose from as far as internet goes. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
 

potatolord

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[citation][nom]Rab1d-BDGR[/nom]Did you pay the architect for the last building you went in? Did you pay the plumber last time you took a dump? They both got paid for the work they did. Once. Then they moved on and did other work and got paid for that too.Musicians can get paid by playing live - being paid for the work they actually do. Outside of the copyright industry's intellectual monopoly, nobody else expects to be paid for the rest of their lives for a couple of hours/days/weeks work they did several years or even decades ago.[/citation]

Patent holders get paid for work they did several years ago. Investors continue to collect money on their initial investments for many years. Researchers and academics use their publications (admittedly not payment, but...) to secure further funding and work- they collect a reputational dividend for many years.

While I think the copyright system isn't perfect (why should Richard Wagner's grandchildren collect payments for his work?), I don't think that artists should effectively have their work stolen by all and sundry. Setting the value of any art as zero will surely mean that the incentive to produce further art will be diminished.

Suggesting that the fruits of people's labour do not belong to them just seems plain wrong to me. In my opinion, many people confuse the rights of artists with "greedy" media corporations. This is not helpful.

And now I await a flood of votedowns...
 

torque79

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The article touches on the very obvious monopolistic problem with ISP's also being broadcast providers... that IPTV could be FAR FAR cheaper than broadcast TV and also truly "on-demand" so you select what you actually want to watch. I am forced by my cable co to pay for an extremely horrible cable box whose interface looks like a commodore 64 (and behaves roughly as quickly) so they can have digital encryption which is unecessary.

Now i have a listing of 700+ channels, which my cable box can't be set to only show me ones I'm subscribed for, half of which are the same channel listed twice or more for the sake of "categorizing" them. If I paid more for the "HD" box and service, I'd have a pittance of "HD" channels that broadcast over 50% non-hd, and even the HD shows are often compressed to hell.

TV SUCKS in Canada, and there's no way I would pay for cable service if my wife did not insist on it. Licensing costs and the CRTC ensure that our broadcasting will always have far inferior selection and quality, because a large portion of the programming must be Canadian (when obviously there is FAR LESS content available that's Canadian).

If my broadcasting sucks, why can't I have access to exactly the programming I want, whenever I want, via IPTV? I can't even get access to US content because of my IP in Canada.

I went on this long rant to illustrate that there are reasons people pirate television. there are several advantages:
- less compression of HD content (because it can be recorded from OTAHD sources)
- more potential selection and quality, and HD content that is not available HD from your provider
- more convenience (most PVR's are not as intelligent as you want them to be, and may even lack ability to record time slots instead of programs like 1980's VCR's so they don't keep recording repeats that are not properly marked by your cable co)
- no commercials (why am I paying for the broadcast, if there are constant ads bombarding me??)
 

happyballz

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Ah the Axis of Evil team is at it again, making everyones lives horrible since 1985.

"...but worst case scenarios mean that their internet connections will be throttled and/or a person-to-person discussion with the ISP itself."
Actually the worst case scenario, which they do employ is they(RIAA,MPAA etc) subopena ISP's records for IP's subscruber address and send extortion letter to settle out of court "for a lower fee than if you would be sued by us".
Guilty or not you will still have to pay court costs which end up being thousands, which is B.S. Like some judges ruled IP is not a person...

While I cant say I support pirating, it dose have its place in the system and copying something is NOT equivalent of theft. Period.

Copyright MAFIAA Extorters and Huge ISP/Telcos are two boots apair... both dinasours that do not want to change their ways in a changing world.
 

joebob2000

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[citation][nom]Archean[/nom]Obama (and for that matter every president since Lincoln) has been pushed up the ladder by a system which benefits from and protects the big business interests, putting aside people's interest (unless they too would benefit these same people) avoiding having to take time to understand factors which lead people to such behavior and fixing them.[/citation]

FTFY. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cr%C3%A9dit_Mobilier_of_America_scandal and other Transcontinental Railroad related bits of history. This has been going on longer than anyone in the US has been alive. This is why most people don't seem to have a problem with it; they simply don't know any other way.
 

joebob2000

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[citation][nom]potatolord[/nom]Patent holders get paid for work they did several years ago. Investors continue to collect money on their initial investments for many years. Researchers and academics use their publications (admittedly not payment, but...) to secure further funding and work- they collect a reputational dividend for many years.While I think the copyright system isn't perfect (why should Richard Wagner's grandchildren collect payments for his work?), I don't think that artists should effectively have their work stolen by all and sundry. Setting the value of any art as zero will surely mean that the incentive to produce further art will be diminished. Suggesting that the fruits of people's labour do not belong to them just seems plain wrong to me. In my opinion, many people confuse the rights of artists with "greedy" media corporations. This is not helpful.And now I await a flood of votedowns...[/citation]

Why must setting the value of art (in the form of duplicated media) at $0 be a bad thing? The sad reality is that currently (in the case of music especially) the artists' claim on their duplicated works really is pathetically small, (actually 0% until a set amount is reached) and climbs, gasp, to 2-3% if their work is popular for many years, and maybe if they are really lucky and are the next Beatles, they might see 10% of all copies sold starting after 10 years.

Artists are seemingly eager to be brutally exploited; it's just that in this case the exploiter is the big media corporations. Let them work for their art, and let them be rewarded for it. Right now, we are letting artists be raped by a system that has far less compassion than the public at large. If duplicated media were valued (legally) at $0, the only ones hurt would be the media tyrants.
 

potatolord

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[citation][nom]joebob2000[/nom]Why must setting the value of art (in the form of duplicated media) at $0 be a bad thing? .[/citation]

Because it means that the resources and incentive to produce further high quality art will inevitably diminish.

[citation][nom]joebob2000[/nom]The sad reality is that currently (in the case of music especially) the artists' claim on their duplicated works really is pathetically small, (actually 0% until a set amount is reached) and climbs, gasp, to 2-3% if their work is popular for many years, and maybe if they are really lucky and are the next Beatles, they might see 10% of all copies sold starting after 10 years.Artists are seemingly eager to be brutally exploited; it's just that in this case the exploiter is the big media corporations. Let them work for their art, and let them be rewarded for it. Right now, we are letting artists be raped by a system that has far less compassion than the public at large. If duplicated media were valued (legally) at $0, the only ones hurt would be the media tyrants.[/citation]

This makes no sense at all to me. You're suggesting that artsts will be better off under a system where they receive £0, than one under which they would receive £1? How does valuing their work at £0 afford them any scope to earn a living?

While large media corporations may have "ripped off" artists , and may continue to do so, your solution where they apparently get £0 forever would make them all destitute in the short term and hopeless in the long-term.

And don't give me that "they can play gigs for money" argument- that's not feasible for everyone, especially those who have families and full-time work and make recordings in order to recoup their recording costs and maybe make a few £ on the side.
 

joebob2000

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[citation][nom]potatolord[/nom]Because it means that the resources and incentive to produce further high quality art will inevitably diminish.This makes no sense at all to me. You're suggesting that artsts will be better off under a system where they receive £0, than one under which they would receive £1? How does valuing their work at £0 afford them any scope to earn a living? While large media corporations may have "ripped off" artists , and may continue to do so, your solution where they apparently get £0 forever would make them all destitute in the short term and hopeless in the long-term.And don't give me that "they can play gigs for money" argument- that's not feasible for everyone, especially those who have families and full-time work and make recordings in order to recoup their recording costs and maybe make a few £ on the side.[/citation]

The difference is realizing up-front that they are going to get screwed on the duplicate media that gets sold with their work on it, instead of having a system that entices them with huge payouts that are inevitably vaporized once the media tyrants finish with their exploitation of the artists. The artists are also forced to hand over a huge chunk of all of the money they earn doing live work. Instead, why not just say to the artist:

"OK, you can try to sell duplicate media but you have to cope with the very real possibility that it will get copied and distributed without your approval. You need to realize, starting now, that you are much better off with a revenue stream that you generate organically through live shows, selling of merchandise that is nontrivial to duplicate, and coercing your fans to purchase duplicate media at a fair price because they want to support you."

The shocking thing (to me at least) is that this has *already happened* and so few people want to acknowledge the merit of it. Artists like Jonathan Coulton (I am not the biggest fan, just using him as an example) have said to their fans "hey, you can go pirate this for free, and I don't really care if you do. But, if you like my work, please buy my media, or some merchandise, or come to a show." Go ahead and ask him how victimized he is by a world of music pirates (*spoiler alert* he is doing pretty well for himself.)

Fans will support their acts. Pirates will copy music. The question we need to ask is how involved do we want huge corporations or government sanctioned entities to be in the process? I, just so we are clear, am in support of an artist-driven free market and for the government and the corps to go back to running banks. What side are you on?
 
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