WTF: Beginning in July, ISP's will start monitoring and policing user activity
You know that's what they're scared of, right?
So, I just shared that article about how Louis CK made a million dollars in twelve days with DRM-free downloads.
Then, earlier this month, Universal had a video Megaupload owned taken off of youtube, then claimed that they couldn’t be sued for it.
I wonder how much of the million Louis CK would have seen had he gone though a label. I’m guessing they would have gotten a pretty big cut, and that’s exactly why we have things like SOPA making their way though congress.
The big media companies don’t want to be cut out, they’re the middle men, they make their money off the distribution of media, but today when we have such high bandwidth and anyone can figure out how to use a torrent client or download an MP3 file, there isn’t actually a whole lot of use for a distributor when it comes to home media.
Anyone could release their work online and directly take the profits and cut the distributors out of the picture.
And if it sounds like I’m veering into tinfoil hat territory, remember when the RIAA flipped shit over internet radio?
It turns out that of that 56% of music and 70% of unique songs played on streaming internet broadcasts back in 2006 were from independent artists and labels (as cited in the link above).
These big media companies don’t want to be cut out of the game, and they’ll bring down the internet as we know it to accomplish this.
“The movie and music industry think pirates are criminals and parasites who cost both industries billions of dollars in lost sales. In order to prove this fact a number of studies have been commissioned to help demonstrate the effect a pirate has on sales of entertainment. GfK Group is one of the largest market research companies in the world and is often used by the movie industry to carry out research and studies into piracy. Talking to a source within GfK who wished to remain anonymous, Telepolis found that a recent study looking at pirates and their purchasing activities found them to be almost the complete opposite of the criminal parasites the entertainment industry want them to be. The study states that it is much more typical for a pirate to download an illegal copy of a movie to try it before purchasing. They are also found to purchase more DVDs than the average consumer, and they visit the movie theater more, especially for opening weekend releases which typically cost more to attend.”
—Suppressed Report Shows Pirates Are Good CustomersTo Catch A Hypocrite
Yesterday, Jason Kincaid posted damning evidence of VEVO, the online music video entity jointly owned by a few major record labels, committing piracy at their boozy event at Sundance this year.
Watch the video, then read Jason’s full story. It’s worth it.
Today, VEVO’s CEO has responded. Here’s his stance:
A guest of our lounge asked for an NFL game to be aired. We said no. There was a laptop hooked up to VEVO.com that fed into the large TV screens around the bar. Unfortunately, the laptop was easily accessible to the public. That was our mistake for not making sure the laptop was more secure. While VEVO staff was in other areas of the venue, the game was put on – via a website transmitting ESPN’s broadcast of the NFL game – without our permission or knowledge.
Which reads a lot like:
Holy fucking shit. We’re so fucked. Is there anyway on Earth we can spin this so it doesn’t look so bad? … Anyone? … Okay, fuck you all, I’ve got it! We’ll say that we were so grossly negligent at our own event that some some shady, masked criminals — preferably foreigners — illegally took control of our laptops to access the game. It was actually an elaborate terrorist plot, if you must know. We’re investigating — and we’ve hired the same people that O.J. Simpson is using to find the real killers.
As Jason says, it’s probably impossible to prove this dipshit is lying, but come on: common sense and Occam’s razor here. Someone was clearly refreshing the feed over and over again. And it never was taken down the entire time Jason was watching.
Either VEVO employees take extremely long bathroom breaks as a group, or — wait for it — they were the pirates!
These assclowns should be fined out of existence or go to jail for a level of hypocrisy so bad that it makes Newt Gingrich seem like a good husband fully qualified to lecture others on ethics. By the music labels’ own definition, they are now criminals.
This situation perfectly highlights the SOPA/PIPA times we live in. As Jason writes:
Sure, there are some people who will duck the bill when they can — but many of them were never going to buy the content they downloaded in the first place. And a huge swath of ‘pirates’ are driven to their ways because it’s easier to stream or download something via an illegal site, not because they’re averse to paying for content. Stick a bunch of DRM and ads in front of the media they’ve already paid for, and they may opt to go with the path of least resistance next time.
Why would VEVO pirate content? Because it was easier than getting it legally. This is the actual root cause of piracy online. It’s not shady, masked individuals at swanky events commandeering computers to pirate for the hell of it. It’s VEVO employees. It’s everyone.
The RIAA Pirated $9 Million Worth of TV Shows
gizmodo.comThe same RIAA that makes examples out of ordinary folks by suing them for millions of dollars for file sharing? Turns out someone there’s been pirating full seasons of Dexter. Nine million dollars worth. Whoops!
That number—$150,000 for each of the 60 episodes illegally downloaded on the RIAA HQ ISP (OK?)—comes compliments of YouHaveDownloaded which logged the BitTorrent activity of some 50 million users and revealed that not only are the major movie studios pirating their own movies, but the RIAA is downloading pirated TV shows. Lots of ‘em.
Again, this is the same RIAA that has been shaking down a Minnesota mother of four for $1.5 million over 24 songs she shared on Kazaa. And it turns out, they’re being generous in that case! Since the statutory damages cited by its own guidelines are much higher:
… copyright holders can sue you for up to $150,000 in statutory damages for each of their copyrighted works that you illegally copy or distribute.
So let’s see, $150k per episode times 60 episodes comes out to roughly… $9,000,000, checks payable to CBS.
Look, the RIAA’s method of “enforcing” copyright law by suing people to oblivion is unfair. But to layer hypocrisy on top of that unfairness is just gross. How about you get your own house in order before you target your next Minnesota mom? [TorrentFreak]
“Hopefully that was a one-time experience that came from a lot of different things coming together where a lot of different people came to the conclusion that this was a terrible piece of legislation.”
—RIAA head Cary Sherman • Discussing the experience of SOPA and his hopes that the mass online protests won’t repeat. Yeah, internet, we should prove him wrong — by, for example, spreading this quote!Let it die.
The music industry as we know it is dying. Let it die.
Music is free and I honestly don’t think downloading should be illegal. In fact, a lot of bands are giving their music away for free on their websites with the option of paying a small amount for better quality recordings, as well bundles including special edition versions, t-shirts, etc. This money goes straight to the band and everyone involved with them and not in the pockets of people like Apple, Warner, Sony, etc.
Trent Reznor even put his own music up on The PirateBay XD
If musicians want to make any money these days they will go on a reunion tour, play a lot of shows, connect with their fans in any possible - Twitter, YouTube, their website - and sell a lot of merch. Give your fans options on how much they want to spend.
There is still money in making music, just not in record sales. Now artists can’t just retire and then sit back and watch the money come in as people buy their CDs. Bands actually have to be active to make money nowadays, no more living off of past success and record sales alone.
LimeWire To Pay $105M To Major Labels For Infringement; Avoid $1.4B In Damages
LimeWire have finally settled their cases with the RIAA and major labels and will be paying $105,000,000 to the four labels. The settlement allows LimeWire to avoid what could have been a debt of $1,500,000,000 to labels and others. Check out an article on the news below after the jump.
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RIAA Claims LimeWire Owes $72 Trillion
RIAA To Count Streams Toward Gold, Platinum Certification (100 Streams=1 Download)
The RIAA has changed its certification standards for gold and platinum records to include streaming services (RDIO, Spotify, YouTube). Every 100 streams on a service will count as song download. Check out details from Billboard below after the jump.
