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11/04/09
They can try and police this all they want but it will change nothing. All it will do is hurt the legit consumers, and they'll get frustrated and say forget it.
Meanwhile pirates will find ways around it, create their own networks and the like. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
"Last, but by no means least. ACTA signatories will be required to adopt both civil and criminal legal sanctions for copyright owners’ technological protection measures, in line with the US-Korea (and previous) FTA obligations. They will also be required to include a ban on the act of circumvention of technological protection measures, and a ban on the manufacture, import and distribution of circumvention tools."
Jailbreak software would be a "circumvention tool", same as a modchip or DVD ripper. Using any of the above would be an "act of circumvention". #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
[www.law.cornell.edu] #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
The ACTA is an international treaty. Ratified treaties have the weight of federal law.
US Constitution, Article 6:
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land;"
[www.law.cornell.edu]
The President has the power to make treaties, under Article 2:
"He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur;"
[www.law.cornell.edu]
If the ACTA is ratified, then the DMCA would be supplemented/supplanted, and I assume that discrepancies between the two would have to be heard and decided in the courts. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
Yes, you are correct, but with the ACTA, I believe people in the US would actually be prosecuted for it.
Not to mention, as an international treaty, the ACTA affects far, far more than the United States. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
In any case, I'm not sure whether this treaty would require additional anti-circumvention laws, or simply be satisfied by the existing portions of the DMCA. But if, for whatever ridiculous reason, ACTA requires more, different anti-circumvention laws, it could conflict with whatever exemptions to the DMCA may or may not have been decided on.
I think that might just be confusing enough for government work, right? #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
11/04/09
I should be able to rip my own DVD's for personal use (HTPC + media server) without violating "circumvention" clauses.
I should be able to open up my hardware beyond what it is already capable of (jailbreaking, flashing Linux-based custom firmware on routers).
I should *own* what I purchase and be allowed to do with it what I will. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
11/04/09
Can't say how comforting it is to know that any attempts to stop people from stealing my recorded music 1) is universally derided, 2) is easy to circumvent 3) doesn't matter anyway because you're not really stealing from me, you're stealing from some evil person in a suit or the studio engineer who helped make the album and doesn't deserve to get paid either 4) is justified because unlike movies, it doesn't cost anything to make an album, 5) makes it impossible to produce ambitious recording projects because you can't recoup your costs, 6) is justified because even if you pirate my music and actually like it, all music sucks these days so only suckers pay for it 7) a tiny percentage of people who pirate will pay for some of their music some of the time, justifying the overwhelmingly massive pirating of music that has replaced bought copies 8) Fuck the man! Rawrrrr. 9) all that work and time and money I put into making an album is just a glorified ad for live shows and t-shirts, so I should STFU.
Come to think of it, if I want a car, or need my teeth cleaned, I pretty much just wind up buying t-shirts with cars and teeth on them instead of actually paying for them, and that seems to work for them. Stupid old music industry business model - get paid for what you do - fucking dinosaurs! #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
Something tells me these people represent more than a tiny fraction. I'd be very surprised if there are many people who exclusively pirate music. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
I do feel your pain though...
How much of your music really is distributed thru online piracy, though? Do you have any idea? It's a serious question: I read a lot of comments by angry people claiming to be smallish-time artists losing out to the Big Evil Pirate, but the music I see on torrents etc seems to be overwhelmingly dominated by the big boys - not least because without big demand the seeds die off pretty quick. (Of course, maybe you are a big boy...) #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
But if you want to tell me that those same ineffectual systems need to be moved up to cutting off internet access, which is a growing source of income and opportunity for people...no, sir.
The fact that you have troubles in an unfair world does not mean you have the right to cause others troubles.
I have mad amounts of sympathy for you, and I know it doesn't sound like. I produce videos and have many musician friends. I'm not unfamiliar with the struggle. However, I've seen far better results from people who work with their consumers, rather than vilify and litigate against them. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
And how much do you make off of live tours?
uh huh... #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
There seems to be a struggle in corporate America/World that we are going through a paradigm shift and digital delivery WILL change everything. Unfortunately, from the record companies to the movie studios, they are struggling with this concept and instead of embracing it, they are fight it. I think this problem is even larger in the music world since you can record and produce an album/cd/track in your garage and get pretty good advertising and distribution all on the internet. The movie studios are trying to figure it out by creating "independent" studios that just buy someone else's talent after they have created something instead of risking producing it themselves. I don't know how that is working in the music world.
This is going to be an interesting battle that I hope is lost. Not because of the artist but because it is looking to legislate and police the wrong location. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
11/04/09
The labels, you're right, are generally the more antagonistic of the two sides. However, for the listener that downloads without conscience, that apathy is just as bad, if quieter. If the people you know aren't like that, I'm thrilled for you. Unfortunately, it's not universal.
I've recently fallen in with a site called Jamendo. All the artists there offer their music for free downloads under Creative Commons license. There's space available to donate to artists, in addition to the revenue sharing that popular artists get from ads. In my mind, this is one of the more perfect solutions. It's unlikely to work in a bitter, cynical, selfish world. But there's musicians out there who don't treat their listeners like criminals, and there's listeners who value their music enough to voluntarily donate to the artists they enjoy. Frankly, I prefer to hang out there. I'm sure major labels have some good music, but this is just too cool a community. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
Good points and endless discuss... #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
11/04/09
[news.bbc.co.uk]
You're gonna have to do better than "someone said so, but I won't provide you any evidence of that!"
11/04/09
Digital formats have already caused the paradigm shift; content creators just don't want to accept it. Decades ago, a content creator's addressable market was people who wanted to consume content - consumers. Now, however, a content creator's addressable market is only people who are willing to PAY to consume content - customers. Unfortunately, potential customers are only a subset of the larger consumer group.
While I really sympathize with frigg, it's time that content creators accept this paradigm shift. It's not right. It's not fair. But it's impossible to change. Some people are just unwilling to pay for content, and they never will be. I think it's far more productive to channel the majority of your energy meeting the needs of your current addressable market: CUSTOMERS. Make it easy for them to enjoy content they have attained legal rights to, and do your best to ignore those who steal. It's unfair for people to steal content and make excuses, but it's also unfair to make those who do obtain content legally to pay the price, as they have already (why can't I legally rip a DVD I bought to watch on my iPhone?) and will continue to.
Legislation of this kind will likely drive up the cost of Internet access; all this monitoring won't pay for itself. The money won't be going to content creators, and there's no guarantee it will discourage piracy at all. Attacking the pirates is not the way for content creators to move forward. It's just not. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
To continue my somewhat incoherent ramblings (and to avoid a direct answer :) )...
Piracy ramifications go beyond the loss of income to the big boys. Everyone is pirated, which makes it impossible to recoup the cost of an album based on sales. Opportunities evaporate most of all for promising new artists because there's no return on production investment - outside of it viewed as an ad.
Imagine, for example, if 99% of the people who saw Batman saw it for free. The movie - a great movie - would not be able to recoup the 100 million or whatever it took to produce it, let alone offer a profit incentive. So, there wouldn't be another Batman. Or it would never have been made at all.
Movies and music can be made a lot cheaper than in the past, but big albums and big movies still cost a lot of money to produce. Without return on investment, it's virtually impossible, particularly for a new artist, to produce an ambitious project.
People accuse Apple of greed. But they love their iPhones. If iPhones were pirated, they would not have been created in the first place. Apple makes iPhones with the intention of at the very least not losing money, and is driven by the prospect of profit. Thus, iPhones exist.
Music really is no different.
Copyright protections and the ability of artists to profit from their work resulted in the explosion of popular music in the 20th century.
Without the ability to profit, let alone recoup the costs of an album, I guarantee you that your favorite album from this past year, the album that is now a classic, that you listen to over and over again and has changed your life... hasn't. Because you never heard it. It doesn't exist. Because of pirating, today's best albums don't get made.
11/04/09
Technology created a market and an inflated bubble for musicians and media in general. That same technology has evolved and is popping that same bubble. Music has generally degraded and you have artists who want to charge more for ringtones than a complete song. Top that off with the corporate fatcats that are reaping the profits of bloated prices and then sueing their customers and treating them like criminals and guess what, Piracy has a market.
If you want to make money off your art I suggest you find a different career. Talent does not always equal $$$ in todays music world, just as it didn't 200 years ago. However if you want to make music to make music, then continue to do so, that is where the good music comes from and I though you may not become a millionaire, pirates are more likely to pay for your stuff than the corporate pop.
11/04/09
If your band doesn't want to record an album then great, that's one less album that nobody hears and one or more albums that people will listen to by bands who are actually passionate about music and not just profit motives.
11/04/09
Outside of the legal solution, which will work itself out over time (and which, IMO, will involve filters that will monitor traffic generically over the internet and proportionally distribute a universal content tax at the ISP, making "pirating" legal and content creators paid and without threatening network neutrality), there's a kind of philosophical ripple that is, I suppose, what frustrates me.
There's just this never-ending stream of "good" reasons why people shouldn't pay for music. A lot of the things people throw around on the net, though, just aren't true - doesn't hurt the artist, artists make their real money selling hamster pelts with their logos on it, etc... :( #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
11/04/09
11/04/09
Yeah. Yeah, I think I can get behind that.
I have a terribly cynical attitude towards humanity as a whole. As the sage Tommy Lee Jones once said, "A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it." I hope to be proven wrong, and that folks can litigate reasonably. But I think the best way to do anything about it is to do what should be done, rather than criticize what's wrong.
......Says the dude who hangs out on Giz, criticizing beliefs he thinks are wrong. ;-)
As a side note, you got a link to any music you've done? If so, send me a private message (just to avoid derailing this rather interesting thread). #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
People who think musicians aren't passionate about music because, you know, there are actually real expenses associated with producing it are in some kind of adolescent fantasy land.
Musicians don't fail to release albums because they're pissed, they fail to release them because they can't afford to produce them.
Why would you think music is free to make?
Hell, it even costs money to play Guitar Hero. Now picture it with real guitars...
If it costs $25,000 to make an album, is the band not passionate because they need to pay production expenses? Does the fact that they have rent to pay make them less of a passionate artist?
Albums people love are made by passionate artists AND production budgets.
11/04/09
Show us. That is, a non-biased (i.e. non-industry and non-industry-paid) source. You made the claim, it is your responsibility to justify it with evidence. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
11/04/09
I certainly understand the pain of piracy (and the annoyance that people feel that they deserve all content free), since I am planning to enter software development, but you have to realize the real scope of the problem.
And as a consumer, I can't tell you how annoying DRM can get. I think the draconian anti-piracy mechanisms used in a lot of products do a lot more harm than good. We can ask are they effective. I can immediately say no, because pretty much any anti-piracy method can be easily cracked with a quick search on the internet.
So again, this is why there is the universal hatred of anti-piracy measures; it is because in the end it hurts paying customers more than the pirates.
Maybe cutting off internet access is more effective, who knows, but ultimately it is the consumer paying for this enforcement and I don't agree with that. And many of these consumers don't give half a flying shit if a record company or Hollywood is making profits (which they still are, just maybe not as much as they wish they could or they think they could). I sure don't.
And for music sales, it seems they were going up in 2008. CDs are continuing their downward trend, but that's from the shift to digital media. If you are trying to sell a CD, then obviously you will have a harder time since people are moving away from CDs (how many people still carry around CD players?).
Digital media seems to be on the rapid rise. Also with the rise of iTunes, consumers don't have to buy albums anymore: they can pick individual songs. So if you are looking to sell a whole album, then again it would be harder just because of the media change. So I don't buy that piracy is killing the music industry. And looking at piracy rates, they are about 95% in music. If all that was lost sales, the music industry would have ended already with a shrink to 5% of what it was originally. But obviously it hasn't.
[arstechnica.com]
2009 music seems to be down, but I venture to guess that has to do with the worldwide economic meltdown as much as anything.
[www.nytimes.com]
11/04/09
If an artist goes on tour without any recognition, he won't get signed to play at any clubs or bars. Once he's got an album out though, he can point to it and the number of people who listened to it to show that his presence will bring people into the club.
And where do you even get $25,000 from? Self-recording and self-publishing is becoming more commonplace and more realistic for artists to pursue. The artist needs to get a loan, make the CD, and then make the real money off the tour. It's tough to get started but that's how the music industry actually works. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
The buts being numerous. One being that Batman is obviously not the best example, since the last Batman movie was likely one of the most downloaded movies of all time yet turned a fair old profit as well (and will be followed up with a sequel I have no doubt).
Less facetiously...
But most critically, I think it's about access and scale. Three hundred thousand illegal downloads does not equate to three hundred thousand lost full-price album sales, but it does indicate high demand. That could and should be monetized... not through killing the market but by reaching it.
Download rates are so high because people want massive collections of music to listen to only from time to time. Never before would any but a real music buff even dream of having hundreds of albums; now it's the norm. Charging dollars is fine for the album you'll tisten to again and again and again, but most albums will just be left to come on shuffle once every couple of months.
Penalizing piracy is fine, but it must be balanced by making legal downloads of equal or better quality available at prices that suit the download market. That means thinking in cents, not dollars, per sale - but thinking far more sales. (The old-school music pirates - with cheap illegal CDs - tapped into this long ago.)
So far, the industry has responded to piracy with utter incompetence.
Oh, and it may be that other segments of the music industry also need to change. If it costs 25 grand to make an album, maybe the cost of making an album is too high.
(Parenthetically, and returning to a less serious mode: I guess someone would have to crunch the numbers to answer this, but if it is the big boys who dominate downloads then how big (or how profitable) do you have to be before you really get seriously affected by piracy? Piracy is only actually going to kill the industry, stop music getting made etc if it actually prevents profits being made... not just if it reduces the profits made.) #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
While I do sympathize with your position and agree with you on many points, it's hard for me to sympathize with the position because the ONLY tactics I see the music industry trying are very aggressive and anti-customer. The industry seems really resistant to change. They only embrace new ideas when their backs are against the wall, and they accept them kicking and screaming (see the entirely-too-long battle about DRM).
This resistance to change means holding onto a distribution model that now seems destined to fail. Why are they holding onto it? Because it's the only model that works? Maybe it is, but there's no way of knowing that for sure because we don't see them at least trying to adapt to the changing market.
For someone like me who DOES pay for music and movies, it seems really unfair to expect me to pay for Internet policing or a content use tax when I'm ALREADY paying for content. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
Given the opportunity to get out of paying for stuff, people tend not to pay. Even if they love the product.
While music is fun and wonderful and social, it is also a product that takes time, resources, and cost to produce. And ostensibly you want the good musicians to be able to continue making the good music that people like.
So why does music and music alone get the "pay whatever you want" treatment when everything else in life has to be paid for? Why should musicians have to plead on behalf of the value and cost of their work, when no one would question the value and cost of paying for computers, nurses, tomatoes, and movies? #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
The thing about music is there is unprecedented demand. It's not as if people don't want it. They can't get enough of it, particularly the good stuff.
And you're right. Musicians struggled and won the right to earn a living in the 20th century thanks to copyright protection. And now that's in jeopardy.
But look at it from the public's perspective. Thanks to the ability for musicians to earn a living in the 20th century, popular music flourished.
Copyright was intended to benefit the public, more so than the musician.
If music becomes amateur in the way it used to be (not as a perforative, but literally - something done as a hobby and not paid for), you deprive the public of awesome pro-grade quality music - music made by talented people who can devote their time and energy producing it, and produce it (which has a lot of expenses attached). You deprive the public of bands whose music changes your life, but get a lot more weekend warriors, which isn't bad, but it's not the same thing. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
Look at the number of artists who are finding that people downloading their songs for free helps promote their music and drive up their performance profits and CD sales. Many chose to let their fans download their work. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
There's like a formula in here somewhere - people have much larger libraries thanks to pirating than they would have otherwise. So if 95% of music is pirated, if all that music wasn't pirated, it's not as if the music industry wouldn't increase by 95%. But paid sales would increase by some percentage because some music people would pay for that they otherwise download for free.
As for software - it's an interesting comparison. If you simply read the comments around Giz, there's more awareness that software pirating is stealing than for music. If anything, software pirating is discouraged while music pirating is encouraged.
Incidentally, I've noticed my follower count is going down the more I chime into this thread. Mine is not a popular position. Ha ha!!!!! #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
Albums should be made like movies - as ambitious and often expensive (or cheap - whatever is appropriate) works of art.
The shift in the music industry has been that touring used to promote the album; now, albums promote the tours. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
Actually, 25k for an album is not a lot. Some albums cost 250k on up easily.
Below a certain budget, you're asking musicians to play for free or using bad musicians, getting free studio time or not using good studio gear, not doing the kind of production you'd want to do, etc.
Many great albums just cost a lot of money to make. Pirating impacts recording budgets, recording opportunities, and the quality itself. There are other factors for sure, but pirating is preventing innovative new music from getting made.
(This is kind of aside the point but some albums are actually ruined by money. Sometimes low budgets have resulted in the best albums (e.g. cheap synths sometimes sound better than expensive synths - throwing money at a project can sometimes ruin it).)
As for offering higher resolution files for a price - the public overwhelmingly chooses lower resolution and cheap or free over higher resolution audio for a price. People tend to be more picky about video resolution than audio resolution. MP3's are "good enough" for most people for a lot of music, particularly for music that has a high noise component and seems less degraded by file compression.
Trent Reznor did an experiment (and got pissed off by it) with Niggy tardust by letting people pay for a higher resolution file or get a lower resolution file for free. Money went straight to the artists, no evil record company in sight. Still, only a small percentage paid. I doubt they recovered their costs, 100k.
As for price, $1 a song seems reasonable to me. Not sure what would happen if a song was .25. If there were 300,000 downloads, I'm not sure you'd capture all that many more as sales with .25 than with $1.
Anyway, I appreciate what you're saying, but I'm not sure the answer is as pragmatic as lowering the cost of a song. Wish it were.
As for big vs. small - pirating is a non-discriminating force. It hurts everyone. Particularly if you're small, and you make an awesome album, people download it and you don't get paid, you're career can stall instead of getting the push it deserves.
If you look at how emerging artists were able to capitalize on successful albums in the past compared to today - it's painful.
Anyway, I think someone pirated my brain. Busy day... starting to lose it. :D
11/04/09
The reality of how labels, producers, and artists actually operate is much more integrated and complex. Imagine, for example, saying you'll pay the actors in a movie, but not the camerman, the producer, the gaffer, the caterer, the support staff, and everyone else.
Many artists do chose to let their fans download their work for free because they have no alternative and it promotes their shows. But if that's all there is, free downloads, then there's only so far they can go. And not one of those musicians wouldn't prefer to get paid. After all, someone (them?) had to pay to produce their album.
11/05/09
Really? Because I make the same argument about touring. Touring isn't just about the music - the guy doesn't just sit on a chair on stage with ambient light and blandly play his songs. Tours are (in the case of rock, metal, et al) high-energy affairs with a lot of attention paid to lighting, pyrotechnics, choreography, etc. To argue that a live music performance like this is not art is to argue that other performances like ballet, theater or opera are not art.
The purpose of an album today is to give people a taste of what the performance will be like - to tease the imagination with just one sense (hearing) instead of all the senses incurred by a live show. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/05/09
Most albums are listened to without the listener ever going to see the performer live.
Personally, I've never viewed the purpose of an album as a way to give people a taste of what a performance will be like. It's more like the other way around. You make your album, and then the tour recreates that.
11/07/09
That said, there is a DIRE lack of good original music music nowadays. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/07/09
From my perspective, however, I don't find broad exposure better than money. Broad exposure gives you fame beyond your fanbase, and makes life difficult.
Money, however, allows you to continue producing music, to literally pay production costs, not for the sake of greed or living large.
My own interest is not in fame or fortune, but doing the job of making music. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
If so... yeah... good luck with that. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
CALEA
[en.wikipedia.org]
DCSNet
[en.wikipedia.org] #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
Regardless, scary stuff. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
11/04/09
11/04/09
Because the ISPs are all private companies, they cannot take the responsibilities of becoming a policing body. If they do so, they will fail, then they will be held accountable. If they want to take a stand and try to eliminate all naughty things on the internet, I propose they will be responsible when there are still naughty things on the internet in 5, 10, 25 years.
3 strikes you're out? Do the ISPs really want to roll the dice on that one? I know they're all about bandwidth caps, which keep their lines flowing, but I don't think they want to actually lose customers. It's the same reason they're tip-toeing their way through all this QoS and BW-Cap crap, because they want to implement new policy without ticking off their customers. The second someone gets cut under this policy, it'll make some major headlines. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
[gamepolitics.com]
I don't see why the US wouldn't do the same thing, if not go even further. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
ACTA: ISPs, you know I ain't seen no...
ISPs: Did you notice a sign out in front of my house that said 'Internet Copyright Cops?'
ACTA: [pause] No. I didn't.
ISPs: You know WHY you didn't see that sign?
ACTA: Why?
ISPs: 'Cause it ain't there, 'cause policing the internet ain't my fucking business, that's why! #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
11/04/09
Yes? #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
11/04/09
There is no need to prove guilt under this form of punishment. An accusation will suffice. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
11/04/09
USER-GENERATED CONTENT meaning that FREEDOM OF SPEECH goes in to to toilet. The mainstream media is already in the hands of the few, the only viable alternative media is the INTERNET.
The cost of the implementation of such atrocity will be charged to the taxpayers. PPL WAKE UP. THIS IS NOT ABOUT RIAA.
11/04/09
However, I recently saw a video where Glenn Beck tried to claim that net neutrality was about government takeover of the internet. The legislation that says everything must get through equally was about government deciding what gets through.
For making slightly more sense than Glenn Beck: +1. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
11/04/09
..They can never stop the signal. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
11/04/09
11/04/09
The part that really scares me is that these provisions allow cops to forgo warrants if the ISP flags you. ISP says you downloaded Wolverine? The police will be taking your computer without even consulting a judge. Innocent before proven guilty will be thrown out the fucking door.
No one is going to stop piracy, even with provisions like this, so by doing this it turns non-violent, otherwise law-abiding people into god damn criminals. You think recreational drug users in prison is unethical? Wait until you get some time just for downloading the newest song. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
Then you were already technically engaging in criminal behavior. It's already illegal, this simply changes the response to the behavior.
"The part that really scares me is that these provisions allow cops to forgo warrants if the ISP flags you. ISP says you downloaded Wolverine? The police will be taking your computer without even consulting a judge."
Where did you read this? I can hardly believe that comment is accurate.. but hey, I'm not an expert on American law. The police can lawfully search your home and seize your assets without prior warrant? #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
And this isn't just American, this is an international set of standards. If you are from the UK or Canada you're going to have to deal with this garbage too, don't act like only the US is doing this. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
11/04/09
"What is interesting about ACTA is a different set of provisions. The first is one that would allow countries to bring criminal penalties against those who commit "willful infringements without motivation for financial gain to an extent as to prejudicially affect the copyright owner (e.g., Internet piracy).""
This goes counter to the laws in Canada that, for the moment, say that if no financial gain is being made individual copies may be made for personal use. This treaty would erase that precident as well as empower police to charge people with criminal charges on an issue that has been based in civil court in the past.
"Possibly most worrying to US residents, due to its novelty here, is the discussion about a system to give rights holders a way to "expeditiously obtain information identifying the alleged infringer" of someone's intellectual property. Companies can do this now, of course, under judicial oversight through the subpoena process, but that can be slow and expensive."
This would allow IP holders to more easily flag individuals to law enforcement and gives enough probable cause to allow a search. Once the full document is released I would be surprised to not find articles that make it easier for police to search you.
As for just trying to justify stealing music, this isn't it. First off, as has been pointing off piracy is separate from stealing in that no physical copy is being taken, no person is being removed of ownership of the items, copies are just being made. Sure, it may be semantics, but there's something to be said for calling something by it's real name.
As has been shown in many cases, most people have pirated music and it's not always to circumvent spending money. In general people are not spending money on music, not just people who pirate, and people who do pirate music are, as this site as shown, more likely to purchase CD's and digital copies and to attend concerts which gives the artists money, not the labels. Artists get a 4% cut from record sales. They get most of their money from live performances, something that true fans run to whether they bought the CD or not. As long as the artists still get paid I feel no remorse for downloading, be it legal or not. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
It's not semantics. It's destroying the ability of musicians to earn a living from their work, and depriving the public of music that will never get made because it won't get paid for and can't recoup its costs. What you view as semantics will keep musicians working in Starbucks instead of studios.
Don't pay for it? It won't get made. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
Instead of sticking to the old precedent why not embrace the internet like other artists have done to build fanbases with open distribution of their music and made their money on live performances based on the fans they gained through the internet? One of my favorite bands, Machinae Supremacy, did just that. A big portion of their music is allowed through their site and has lead them to a big enough fanbase to be able to make money through touring and has lead to a record deal when they otherwise would not have gained one. Building a fan base leads to studio deals, not playing in Starbucks.
11/04/09
Cost to implement this? Tremendous.
Watching pirates circumvent it in a matter of hours or days? Priceless
There are some things in life money can't buy, for everything else there's Masterc- wait what? #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
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It's the problem that the locks are so costly and difficult to make but you can often just substitute the key with a hairpin.
Also this is slightly off topic but in regards to DRM it's silly how insecure that is. They give you both the lock AND the key when you buy a product because otherwise it'd be unusable. It's like showing you how to open a door and then asking that you don't tell anyone else. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
Saying that I hope the UK doesn't, but then again we do have Gordy as PM. Oh fuck. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09
Mandelson is trying to push similar crap to this through. Apparently the House of Lords has given it the go ahead too and it'll be coming in next April. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
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I hope they win =( #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
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And if you don't mind ISPs being made to spend what will likely be a humongous amount of money on a system that the hardcore pirates will get around in two days tops. Then having to use that system to hemorrhage customers. I'm certain the ISPs will just eat that cost and your internet prices probably won't go up. You know, probably.
And if you completely ignore the fact that the "piracy problem" is a largely imagined overreaction to a changing media landscape where people are buying less media. The execs somehow believe that with folks turning to YouTube, indie bands and movies, and homebrew content, they would still make the exact same amount of money. The fact their revenue is declining couldn't possibly be due to a loss of interest in their product. And competing with new mediums is, of course, absurd.
You know, all of that aside, you're right. It's totally reasonable to accept needless restrictions and laws that have an incredible potential to screw up the internet, the multimedia economy, and freedom of expression. I mean, how else are we gonna get rid of those damn, dirty pirates?
See, there's this thing called "stupid people". Some of them are making laws. #secretcopyrighttreatyacta
11/04/09