p2pnet news view MPAA | RIAA News:- So it’s done.

The Big 4 music labels, Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG; and, Hollywood, Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney, now have their own official White House representative whose salary will be met by not by the corporate entertainment industry, but by American taxpayers.

Under ‘Protecting American Innovation,’ “President Bush Has Worked To Ensure That There Is A Level Playing Field Worldwide For American Businesses And Innovators, Free Of Counterfeiting And Piracy,” says a White House ‘fact sheet’, caps and all.

The cartels achieved it by causing George W. Bush to sign the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO IP) Act.

“In what must be one of their greatest triumphs yet, entertainment industry interests have greased a copyright Top Cop with his/her own copyright police into the White House — just before the present incumbent is replaced by a new president who might not be so amenable to corporate movie and music industry blandishments as George W’s administration,” p2pnet posted, referring to the PRO IP Act.

But that wasn’t yesterday or the day before. It was back in May.

It went on »»»

The official title will be US Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative

“We are transitioning from a nation whose economy was driven by what we created with our hands to one driven by what we create with our minds,” Billboard has RIAA boss Mitch Bainwol declaring with a straight face.

“This creative and economic genius deserves to reach its full potential, and this bill is an important step toward achieving that goal.”

Says TorrentFreak »»»

The person filling this Copyright Czar role will, presumably, be in a similar position to that of the Drugs Czar, and will listen mainly to lobbyists and ’safe’ peer pressure. Just as in the case of narcotics, symptoms will be dealt with, and not causes. Targeting causes means targeting contributors, while targeting symptoms just means targeting voters, and there are millions of them. It also remains to be seen who will be given the role of Copyright Czar, but don’t be surprised if it’s a member of the MPAA/RIAA, although some might start pushing for Prof. Lessig, as happened when California’s 12th District lost its congressman. However, Prof. Lessig told TorrentFreak that he’s “not going to be an enforcement czar, and nor would I be wanted for that.”

Perhaps the worst aspect of the bill, though, is the extension of forfeiture. Already used extensively in drugs cases, it is often inappropriately applied. If drugs are found in someone’s home, and along with that comes a claim from a 3rd party (even if they were caught breaking into the home) that they were dealing, the home owner can have their house taken away, along with anything of value in it.

Although some may feel that forfeiture is an appropriate response to serious large scale drug dealing, those same draconian measures can now apply to copyright infringement cases. It can cause more ese and difficulty in defending cases when defendants have to prove in a separate court action, that the materials seized were not used for the actions claimed. Wikipedia indicates that 3 years, and $10,000 is the typical cost of fighting such cases. Public Knowledge opposes these forfeiture measures, with spokesman Art Brodsky saying: “Let’s suppose that there’s one computer in the house, and one person uses it for downloads and one for homework. The whole computer goes.”

In another post pointing out industry stats aren’t worth a light, “A federal judge is handing a Louisiana man a year in prison for pirating thousands of DVDs and CDs in a case highlighting the Motion Picture Association of America’s wildly varying valuation of pirated discs,” we quoted Wired’s David Kravets as saying.

He went on »»»

In the case of Tanner Hills of Louisiana, according to court records, (.pdf) an MPAA expert concluded that the 3,557 bootleg DVDs seized from the defendant’s Jefferson Parish apartment outside New Orleans was valued at $67,583. That’s $19 a disc for such films as Borat, Bambi, 300 and Premium.

And if you think those numbers are high, consider last year when the MPAA said 200,000 illicit DVDs seized in Australia were worth $83 per movie disc. Some 6,200 pirated discs were also found in Hong Kong that year, and the MPAA affixed value at $20 million, meaning each disc was worth $3,225.80. We’re not kidding.

For Hills, the inflated figures don’t really matter. The two counts (.pdf) of criminal copyright infringement to which he pleaded guilty require an illicit cache of $2,500 or more.

But it matters when the MPAA, the movie studios’ lobbying arm, declared Tuesday that movie piracy costs foreign and domestic producers, distributors, theaters, video stores and pay-per-view operators “$18 billion annually as a result of movie theft.”

Lies, half-lies, mistatements and unadorned bullshit

In Hollywood, lies and hype rule with US politicians as their primary means of delivery via industry owned print and electronic media.

Meanwhile, here’s the whole packet of lies, half-lies, mistatements and unadorned bullshit as conceived, written and presented by Hollywood and the Big 4 music labels with Bush as their front »»»

Today, President Bush signed the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO IP) Act. This legislation helps protect the rights of America’s consumers, workers, and entrepreneurs by strengthening both our civil and criminal laws against counterfeiting and piracy. Specifically, the Act increases statutory damage awards in civil counterfeiting cases, it strengthens remedies available in the prosecution of criminal cases involving counterfeiting and piracy, it enhances resources (personnel, training, and equipment) for Department of Justice programs that combat IP theft, and makes permanent the Administration’s Strategy Targeting Organized Piracy (STOP!) Initiative and its inter-agency IP coordination efforts. The PRO-IP Act protects the work of American innovators, strengthens the rule of law, and will help keep American families safe.

• Counterfeiting hurts businesses, innovators, workers, consumers, government, and our national security. In recent years, counterfeiting has grown rapidly. Counterfeiting costs America hundreds of billions of dollars a year and has harmful effects throughout the economy. Fake products can expose consumers to serious health and safety risks. Government loses out on tax revenues and is forced to divert law enforcement resources. Terrorist networks use counterfeit sales to finance their operations.
• The Administration is protecting intellectual property with a bold initiative called STOP! – The Strategy Targeting Organized Piracy. In October 2004, the Bush Administration announced STOP!, which is led by the White House and brings together the Departments of Commerce, Justice, Homeland Security, State, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. STOP! is the most comprehensive initiative ever advanced to fight global piracy and counterfeiting by systematically dismantling networks that manufacture and distribute intellectual property rights (IPR) infringing goods, blocking pirated and counterfeit works at our borders, helping American businesses secure and enforce their rights around the world, and collaborating with our trading partners to ensure the fight against fakes is global.
  • The PRO IP Act broadly reflects the principles of STOP! and helps to reinforce and codify the Administration’s accomplishments in protecting and strengthening the rights of American workers, consumers, and innovators.
  • In July 2005, the President appointed the first ever U.S. Coordinator for International Intellectual Property Enforcement to lead the STOP! Initiative under the framework of the National Intellectual Property Law Enforcement Coordination Council.
• The Administration established the StopFakes.gov website and STOP! Hotline (1-866-999-HALT) to provide individuals and businesses the information they need to protect their intellectual property rights. The website includes IP toolkits to guide businesses through securing and enforcing their rights in key markets around the globe, including China, Russia, India, Brazil, Mexico, Korea, Thailand, Egypt, Malaysia, and the European Union. The hotline is staffed by attorneys from the Commerce Department’s U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, who counsel businesses on how to protect their IPR and work with callers on how to best resolve problems.

Over The Past Eight Years, The Administration Has Led The Global Fight Against Counterfeiting And Piracy

• The Administration has focused its efforts on China, the global epicenter of counterfeiting and piracy, through the Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade (JCCT) and the Strategic Economic Dialogue (SED). The Administration has also brought actions to enforce IP rights under our trade agreements. In April 2007, the Office of the Trade Representative filed cases against China in the World Trade Organization for inadequate enforcement of IP rights.
• In 2004, the Commerce Department posted the first IP attaché at Embassy Beijing. Since then, the program has grown to include eight attachés in six embassies worldwide. The Justice Department has dedicated legal attachés at two embassies to focus on IP enforcement.
• The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted the first ever joint investigation with Chinese law enforcement counterparts. Operation “Summer Solstice” was the first ever joint investigation by U.S. federal law enforcement agencies with Chinese authorities. “Summer Solstice” resulted in 25 individual arrests and the seizure of counterfeit goods totaling over $500 million, the second largest counterfeit seizure in monetary value ever.
• The Departments of Homeland Security and Justice have seen significant improvements in measures of IP enforcement increase over the last five years. The Department of Homeland Security reports seizures totaling $200 million in FY2007, a 27 percent increase from the previous year. The Department of Justice reports a 33 percent increase of criminal cases involving violations of intellectual property rights in the last two years.
• In 2005 the Department of Commerce’s U.S. Patent & Trademark Office created the Global Intellectual Property Academy (GIPA). GIPA is a one-of-a kind education and training facility dedicated to educating and training foreign government officials on IPR protections and enforcement.
• In October 2007, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative launched efforts to negotiate an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) – a groundbreaking agreement dedicated to advancing global leadership in the fight against IP theft.
• The Administration has pursued collaborative engagements with key trading partners throughout the last four years, including most prominently the European Union, Mexico, and Canada. These engagements have achieved significant results in coordination, particularly in law enforcement and enforcement of IP rights by customs authorities.

Stay tuned. There’ll be worse to come.

Jon Newton – p2pnet

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 at 2:31 pm and is filed under P2P, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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