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p2pnet news view Games | RIAA News:- Is the Entertainment Software Association gearing up to launch a massive RIAA-style attack on file sharers?
Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG’s RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is infamous as a truth adjustment organization whose employees are expert at turning fact into fiction, and vice versa.
Quite a few ex-RIAA staffers are out there in the world working in other areas, but how many of them actually sever their ties with their former employer?
Matt ‘The Dentist’ Oppenheim was senior RIAA VP of legal and business affairs, in 2004 leaving to join RIAA-friendly law firm Jenner and Block. While he was there, he fronted for Hollywood’s MPAA. He left in 2006 to work for himself, we understand. But he still keeps showing up in RIAA cases.
Another ex-RIAA employee who’s gone on to greater (or lesser, depending on your perspective) things is Jenny Engebretsen, a once RIAA misinformation director who, last we heard, was deputy ceo for public affairs for the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.
Then we have Kenneth Doroshow, an RIAA executive who was supposed to debate the statutory damages issue with Ray Beckerman back in March but who, says Ray, ” chose to avoid that subject and instead recounted his opinion of the facts in Capitol v Thomas, and who later inserted some paper he’d written into the transcript of the conference instead of allowing his talk to be reported”.
He left the RIAA to join the ESA (the “Entertainment Software Association”) and, “If he accomplishes for game manufacturers what he accomplished for the recording industry, I would say the industry’s prospects are bleak,” said Ray.
Interesting.
But wait!
ESA, you say?
“Something came across the news yesterday that caught my attention,” writes Superbus in Diary of a Displaced Canadian, going on the ESA hired a man by the name of Michael Gallagher to be their new General Council.
Yup. You got it. Gallagher is yet another ex-RIAA lawyer.
But Gallagher was there first. In fact, he runs the ESA so the move to hire Horrorshow (sorry, Doroshow) undoubtedly came from him.
So now we have two ex-RIAA hitmen in senior ESA positions.
Does this mean ……………………… ?
‘If that doesn’t scream “protection racket’ “
“Regular, everyday gamers don’t know who that is or why it’s relevant, but if you read between the lines, this could be a very bad thing for end users all over the spectrum,” says Superbus, continuing »»»
Michael Gallagher’s name is relevant to this case because his former job was as Senior Vice President, Litigation and Legal Affairs of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). *DING!* THAT name should ring a few more bells! For those of you that have been living under a rock for the past few years, the RIAA’s claim to infamy is their massive litigation efforts to crack down on illegal filesharing and piracy, which would be a noble endeavour if they didn’t approach this task with the subtilty of a prison rapist, or if they didn’t use the tactics of a crime family offering “protection”.
“The tactics the RIAA use are illegal,” Superbus says. “They’ve used a company called MediaSentry/SafeNet to do their investigations, a company that is currently in hot water in a few states for conducting unlicensed, illegal investigations.”
Superbus goes on the RIAA actions, “have caused consumer confidence in the music industry to plummet to an all-time low, partly because of anectodal evidence, but also mostly becuase the RIAA’s tactics have directly impacted the end user in the form of Draconian DRM restrictions, increased prices for CDs, Sony’s rootkit fiasco, and the repulsion that comes anytime an organization that relies on customers starts attacking said customers as if they’re criminals by default.
“In addition to this, Mr. Gallagher’s very position and CV indicate that he spearheaded the majority of these efforts.”
“Now,” Superbus goes on, “I actually don’t mind the ESA,” after all »»»
They have done a very good job of fighting piracy while still respecting the consumers, prefering to educate the consumers, and go after the really hardcore pirates. They basically make sure to protect the big names and big games, without worrying about all the small stuff; even “honourable” ROM sites have a list of games that the ESA has requested them not to carry on their sites, and the honour system, in my mind, works fine. However, with Mr. Gallagher involved, I fear that the ESA is going to take a more aggressive approach to their efforts. Conservative, pro-industry types tend to react to this by saying things like “alright, fuck the pirates!”, but this is far-reaching. Remember the fit about SecuROM? Picture that times ten. Now, imagine a crackdown - using largely illegal means - targeting anyone pirating the game, even to get around the DRM within? Imagine how many people could get caught up in that dragnet that are innocent?
Unlike the music industry, the games industry has had a massive, all-encompasing crash. It’s been dead in the water, and Nintendo had to catch lightning in a bottle in order to bring it back from the dead. Unlike games, music has it’s grips in society at all ages, across all social cliques, and ignoring social status altogether. The RIAA goes on their campaign of terror - the hyperbole really is appropriate with their tactics - knowing that the average consumer is stupid enough to keep buying their music, and if something they do is illegal, they know that their massive contributions to politicians will effectively change the books in their favour, becuase the entertainment industry is large enough to get what it wants. But the video game industry has none of those advantages, and as a matter of fact, the industry is constantly under attack by politicians looking to draw the votes of scared, ineffective soccer moms by painting them as murder simulators. Furthermore, video games are not nearly ingrained into popular culture enough to sustain the negative PR that would come from an RIAA-like assault on consumers. If customers deem that buying video games is no longer in their best interests, or is too much hassle, they will leave, and find something else to do. And if there is a massive, ESA sponsored push to criminalize the pirates, how far will it extend? I can understand fully wanting to protect the investment in a game like Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto, but you mean to tell me some poor schmuck could see a massive lawsuit because he downloaded some shitty arcade game from the early 80’s to play it on MAME? And how large would that suit be? In every case they bring up, the RIAA demands the maximum fine of $150,000 per song, per user; Jammie Thomas had to pay a fine of $9,750 for each of her 24 counts. But an individual song - taking iTunes’ pricing scheme - costs only 99 cents. A video game costs $60; what’s the price of pirating one of those going to cost? Millions?
All of these efforts would be for… what? Stamping out piracy? Ending it forever? The mere thought that this is plausible is or even possible is laughable. From copying floppy discs to Bittorrent, piracy has been around since the beginning of time, and all efforts to stop it have done very little to stem the tide. Even in the music and movie industries, the hard-line tactics of both the RIAA and the MPAA have done nothing to so much as help keep these files off of torrent trackers, download sites and other distribution methods. Within an hour, I could be downloading The Dark Knight, and listening to Nas while doing it, having downloaded that from any one of numerous sources. And that’s just a couple of items; with four clicks, I could own the entire discography for the Rolling Stones, including bootlegs, live concerts, unreleased and dark tapes, etc. Shit, considering all of that, and the lack of DRM involved, it could be argued that pirating a product results in a better overall product than buying it from a store! An insistence on heavy-handed DRM and the price increases that come from these legal battles (anyone that doesn’t think the consumers are absorbing the cost of those is a fool) are the main reasons for that little conundrum.
I don’t like piracy. I believe the sheer scale of piracy of all games is startling, and it’s doing irrepairable harm to the PC gaming industry, and I fully believe in purchasing a product to support it’s developers and programmers. But the recruitment and praising of Michael Gallagher - a boorish, short-sighted and dishonourable man, judging by his company’s actions under his tutilege - tells me that the ESA could be ready to go entirely too far to protect it’s assets. That would be a tremendous mistake that could have long-ranging effects for an industry just starting to get mainstream traction.
Definitely stay tuned.
Jon Newton - p2pnet
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August 23rd, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Hmm add to this a few games companies leaving the ESA in recent times.
Perhaps they didn’t like these perspective hiries and their tactics. Time will tell.
August 23rd, 2008 at 5:14 pm
remember the commodore pet and vic 20
and even the c-64
the games back hten had protections and guess what they all got cracked, people lived and no one died of starvation at a gaming company,
to that end i say unto them all your time is really going to come.
http://sourceforge.net
14000+ open source games.
Even myself has said screw the prices and screw the DRM and i make my own game to amuse myself, if others like it i will share its source.
YA see when someone else makes a neat feature it gets added to the whole and suddenly the collective intelligence is realized.
With proprietary your motivation is : make the part you are told and do so for cash, if you dont do it right your going to starve.
and if the piracy is doing such harm hten how did MS make all that Xbox cash over what was that game ( and it profited over a hundred million)
that to me is the greed
One day it will end and we all will have games and entertainment free and we can all contribute as we see fit for sheer enjoyment of it.
August 23rd, 2008 at 5:15 pm
and a video game only costs so much cause YOU say that it does.
If i make the game for free then what is the cost my time, so the value is on the greed of what one says he must be paid per hour not the distribution of said game, nor of its making , plenty of proof on the above website.
August 24th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Ok, ESA go for it!
We will start boycotting the ESA members as soon as they start attacking the people. These guys will be going down real fast! Please, Please, Please, nobody settle, nobody pay!
Target Firt year of boycott 20% down in income, second year 30%, Third year. . . . They might not last that long.
Since they are a lot smaller than the big 4 labels they will go down a lot faster.
By the way the majors are almost dead.
Some people never learn.