p2pnet - rss feed: RIAA, MPAA, on new ‘worst’ list
p2pnet news | P2P:- Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s RIAA, already voted the Worst Company in America, has a new distinction.
It’s Number Two on a new list of hated American corporations.
Number one is Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney’s MPAA.
Their names keep, “coming up over and over again in courtrooms and corridors of power across the country - those groups whose interests always seem to run counter to those of technology companies and consumers,” says PC World.
And the issues which keep them in business, operating against the public interest, are “digital rights management and fair use, patent law, broadband speed and reach, wireless spectrum and network neutrality”.
PC World’s Mark Sullivan, “talked to a good number of tech and media policy insiders in Washington, DC - mostly off the record - to find out who these groups are, how they operate, and who pays their bills.”
Vested corporate interests
“I think it’s fair to say that their approach is that any innovation that they haven’t signed off on is bad,” the story has famed EFF (Electronic Frontier FoundationFred von Lohmann) stating.
What PC World doesn’t say is: virtually anything approved by the two corporate attack dogs is also certain to be in the vested corporate interest and directly anti-consumer.
“Companies distributing music or video in ways the studios or labels don’t approve of have quickly found themselves on the wrong end of a lawsuit,” says the story, going on:
“There are many examples. Perhaps most famously, the RIAA sued Napster in 1999, charging the file sharing service with “contributory” copyright infringement. After losing several major court decisions, Napster (as we knew it) folded in 2002.
Around the same time, the RIAA sued and shut down Michael Robertson’s (MP3.com) BeamIt service, which helped users to upload and store music from their CD collections in an online locker, it points out, continuing:
“Earlier this year Warner Music Group filed an infringement lawsuit against the social networking site imeem, which allowed its members to post songs on their profile pages that could be streamed by other users. San Francisco-based imeem was forced to settle out of court and now can stream only songs from labels with which it has contract agreements. All other songs run for 20 seconds and then stop.”
Not even sacred corporate cows are sacrosanct.
Says Sullivan:
“On the video side, some major copyright infringement lawsuits against YouTube (sued by Viacom) and MySpace (sued by Universal) are still in progress. If these suits end badly, they could further restrict our access to online video and even endanger the video operations of YouTube and MySpace. Video copyright lawsuits are also in progress against the DivX Stage 6 and Veoh online services.”
Von Lohmann believes the lawsuits threaten the next generation of, “bi-directional, participatory Web services that are the promise of Web 2.0″ and are, ” just the tip of the Web 2.0 litigation iceberg”.
The MPAA and RIAA scream and shout about online pirates, suing their own customers, claiming they’re “reluctantly” forced to use criminal and civil court systems around the world to preserve their businesses.
Entertainment industry cartel lawsuits increasingly clog up already overloaded judicial calendars and occupy over-pressed taxpayer funded police forces. The vacuum thus created allows genuine crooks and white collar criminals to skate away, unscathed.
Even worse, perhaps, a trend already heavily under way in America is likely to soon spread to Europe and the rest of the world.
The RIAA, principally, with the MPAA, close behind, is with the full knowledge and approval of the Bush administration turning universities across the US into cartel marketing and enforcement divisions . They’re able to exert direct influence on the activities of staffs and students, digging deeply into time which should have gone into education, taking staff away from their normal duties, and seriously sapping financial resources.
Sullivan quotes Von Lohmann as saying he also thinks the suits may hurt legitimate companies, “while leaving the real content pirates untouched, going on:
In other words, “the innovation that should be fueling our economy is now fueling someone else’s.”
Furthering their long-term agendas.
Continues PC World:
The RIAA and MPAA have worked very hard in Washington to apply the aggressive posture they use in the courts to the policy-making arena. Their attorneys and lobbyists are constantly meeting with members of Congress and presenting their side of issues of concern (mainly copyright-related) in front of regulatory bodies like the Federal Communications (FCC). And, most would agree, they’ve been fairly effective at getting their way. “Their combined muscle in lobbying and inter-corporate pressure is pretty substantial,” says von Lohmann says.
Both organizations have their own staffs of lobbyists in Washington, but both also contract with numerous outside lobbying firms. In 2006 alone, the RIAA reported lobbying expenses of $1.5 million, while the MPAA reported $1.8 million. The RIAA retained the services of 13 outside lobbying firms in 2006 to help make its case to lawmakers, while the MPAA used 17 outside lobbying firms. [Our emphasis]
Content owners also donate to candidates for federal office as a way of furthering their long-term agendas.
“For example, Time Warner gave $17 million to various candidates for federal office between 1989 and 2005, says the Center for Responsive Politics.
The Walt Disney Company donated almost $9.5 million during that period.
Meanwhile, “whether or not the RIAA’s and MPAA’s tactics have really helped the entertainment industry is debatable,” says the story, adding:
“Their legal and lobbying tactics have put real limitations on the way that we consumers are allowed to use the digital content we purchase, causing many of us to wonder if we truly own the digital content we buy.
“The digital rights management (DRM) software that the content owners wrap around our music and video files often prevents us from playing media on all of our devices, copying it, or owning it forever. This has stirred up a lot of resentment, even as file sharing continues to be rampant around the globe.
(Thanks, Michael)
Also See:
Worst Company in America - RIAA NOT world’s biggest liar, November 7, 2007
PC World - The Most Anti-Tech Organizations in America, December 2, 2007
cartel marketing and enforcement divisions - RIAA Christmas message to US students, December 7, 2007
seriously sapping financial resources - Fight the RIAA! MIT student, December 7, 2007
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December 10th, 2007 at 10:52 am
They must proud of this honor…