Articles For Week 2
Verison refuses to join fight on Hollywood's war on piracy
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/verizon-rejects-hollywoods-call-to-aid-piracy-fight/
Saul Hansell writes that although AT&T seems all to eager to accept Hollywood's terms to fight piracy, Verison is refusing to take anything even remotely simmilar to the same steps. AT&T is working to create a system to identify and block illegally copied materials on their networks. Verison is walking a radically different path, saying it is in their own self interest to keep the privacy of their customers secure and they are not responsible for what is said, or sent through their lines. Thomas J. Tauke, the vice president for public affairs at Verison offered three objections to the idea of tracking the content on their network. The first objection was that once someone takes a little bit of responsibility, then more and more of that responsibility is demanded. If it is asked that they stop one problem, who's to say they won't be asked to solve many more 'problems' such as offshore gambling or pornography or anything else anyone takes issue with. Secondly it makes Verison responsible if they fail to stop all of the copyright trafficking and opens them to lawsuits from Hollywood. "It is no secret they think we have deeper pockets than others and we are easy-to-find targets," Says Mr. Tauke. Thirdly there is the issue of privacy for Verison customers. Verison must weigh copyright protections against their customer's desire for privacy. Mr. Tauke warns that what other networks such as Comcast and AT&T are doing may or may not be the right thing to do, but it seems he doesn't find their methods acceptable.
This article relates again to who should be taking the blame for content being shipped over networks. Hollywood is set on it's new strategy to find a larger less socially innocent scapegoat with substantially "deeper pockets". I can imagine this is because of the large negitive outcry when they bang on the door of some poor old lady and fine her the worth of her house because her grandson downloaded something illegally. Networks policing what is traficked on them might be the right thing to do as far as enforcing current copyright law goes. The deeper issue is the one was are discussing in class, if the laws themselves are just in trying to hold back this commonly shared space of the internet.
Freedom or Copyright? Lock down users to pay for each copy, or let them pay what they want and give freedom.
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/story.php?storySection=Opinion&sid=65472
Richard M. Stallman writes a breif history of copyright law but then moves on to the issue of what may happen in the future as the young generation breaking the copyright law ages and the older generation's ideas of intellectual property fade away as they do. He states "In a democracy, a law that prohibits a popular and useful activity is usually soon relaxed," But because of determined efforts of publishers, copyright has inflated past its origional intent using it as a tool for domination rather than one to be used to spurr creativity. Every time you read a digital book, or play digital music, you would have to identify and pay. He goes on to say that although we still have many of the same freedoms when it comes to books and hard copies, but if digital replaces analog, we can say goodbye to libraries, used book stores, and lending a book to a friend. He belives that limiting use through DRM does not have to be the solution. He mentions several artists who have let their music be copied freely, and pay only what the user feels like paying. Radiohead made millions in this manner and Issa has not done badly eaither, people willing to pay when freely given the option. He reccomends not buying any more DRM protected software to protect yourself.
So how does one fight off the illegal trading of copyrighted materials? Perhaps one doesn't. This reflects our in class discussion that the DRMA is a poor solution for end users and it is we, after all, who carry the majority and therefore have the biggest say. The DCMA seeks to kill the public domain, but perhaps what is neccicary is to shut down our current thinking of private domain, and allow ideas to be freely expressed and shared on the internet at least.
suggestion of free music paid for by adds
http://www.sundayherald.com/business/businessnews/display.var.2014704.0.no_business_in_showbusiness.php
Leon McDermott takes the viewpoint that the movie and music entertainment businesses need to keep looking for new solutions that go around the unfriendly world of strict DRM and work with the user's desire to obtain software and data for free. He writes that the entertainment businesses are loosing grand mounts of money. Even now more painful to them is that artists are starting to protest what their labels are doing to their product, and even joining the file sharing networks like Radiohead who welcomes the user to take and share the music and pay what they feel like paying. The labels are loosing ground by over 10% per year. P2P file transfer services have changed the way the entertainment businesess looks at the market, but they were too late to react if they wanted to keep it under their thumb of physical sales. Slowly, however, the industry is starting to react more appropriately, suing sharing networks like The Pirate Bay over suing individual users from the result of negative clamor of the public. The picture is, according to Dan Cryan, an analyst with Screen Digest, a little less grim than the one facing the music industry. "People are becoming less wedded to physical product," he says. "Broadly, what drives online content sales is hardware platforms; for the domestic computer, people in general don't want to pay for content." So the question is how do you get this to work. A site called Qtrax appeared to fill that very need. It offered free downloadable and shared files and gained its revenue through advertisement profits. The system is being shut down by record labels who say they never signed contracts with Qtrax, but the idea may still hold water. Eamonn Forde, editor of industry publication Five Eight, isn't convinced. "Music for free is a tricky proposition," says Forde. "I don't think the industry is seeing it as the end solution to the P2P problem, but it is a means of coaxing people away from illegal services and getting through to them the message that there is a moral decision for consumers. People can go to sites like that with a clear conscience, knowing that the artist and the label are getting paid, but whether there's any advertising money there remains to be seen: that's the big equation." The problem of people cherry-picking individual tracks instead of buying whole albums is a problem for record labels as well. So while big entertainment rushes to completely rewrite thier business plan to try and save face in the rappidly changing world it is money lost. The last proposed solution is the clampdown of the ISP networks which is already being seen globally and at home.
Once more, what are record labels and the movie industry to do? The DMCA is failing in the US and record labels that used to be so dependant on albums are finnaly realizing that the profits might not be there anymore. The Pirate Bay continues relitively unabated in spite of big entertainment's efforts to shut it down and predictions show that we will still be arguing this past 2015. Is freedom of speech limited by freedom of profit?