Hollywood on the rampage
p2pnet.net News:- Hollywood has been busy, lately. But not making movies.
In the US, Texas is feeling the heat. The studio cartel`s MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) filed lawsuits against Richard Chavez and Shannon Cockrell in San Antonio, and in Houston, against Kevin Hazelton for allegedly sharing movies online. And last week, other alleged copyright infringers were sued in Waco, as well.
Over in the Philippines, on July 29 and 30, the Motion Picture Association (MPA – MPAA without the ‘America’) and Optical Media Board (?), ably assisted by Philippines National Police officers with “representatives” of the Big Four record label cartel’s IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industry) along for the ride, carried out a commercial interdiction raid.
No one was killed
The raids, on Quaipo street traders, were “conducted by 440 law enforcement officers and support personnel, including 100 Special Action Force troops” to “assure the security of the raiding team,” says the MPAA proudly.
Apparently, “Enforcement personnel conducting raids in Quaipo are frequently subject to violent attacks from pirate traders and last weekend`s operations were no exception”.
Must have been crowded. But, you’ll be relieved to know, shielded by hundreds of Philippines enforcement agency troops who didn’t have anything better to do, none of the Hollywood crew were killed, or even injured.
Rosy Videos
In Singapore, “Police say they won’t spare any effort to hunt down those who blatantly disregard intellectual property rights laws and think they can exploit the faceless and anonymous features of the internet to ply their trade,” says ChanelNewsAsia.
Four men and a woman were arrested for “peddling pirated materials on the internet” and in Delhi, India, the scene of much frenetic activity, of late, Devinder Singh, owner of Rosy Videos, was given maximum sentences under India’s new Copyright Act.
Until recently, sentences for copyright-related offenses had ranged from six months to one year imprisonment. But following intense pressure from Hollywood, copyright infringers can now go to jail for up to three years, as Singh discovered. He’ll serve two concurrent three-year terms for copyright infringement and “failure to display censorship and copyright ownership information as required by the Copyright Act”. He was also fined the maximum Rs 200,000 (US$4,612) for each offense.
Hollywood ‘initiatives’
However, as a recent debacle in California proved, many Hollywood enforcement ‘initiatives’ are based on perceived rather than actual counterfeit or duplication activities.
As we say in another story, in one of its more memorable recent cock-ups, it splashed news of a raid in Los Angeles, “claiming to have seized CDS worth $30 million”.
Unfortunately, the business was a legitimate duplicating facility and the ‘$30 million’ was pure MPAA fiction.
Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
Waco – More MPAA lawsuits, p2pnet, July 27, 2005
ChanelNewsAsia – Police arrest five internet pirates in anti-piracy operation, August 2, 2007
frenetic activity – Hollywood helps Bollywood, July 29, 2005
recent cock-ups – MPAA kops in Bollywood raid, p2pnet, July 11, 2005
August 3rd, 2005 at 5:14 pm
I wonder what the bollixed raids will cost the cartels. All they will have to do is strike the wrong person and they will have to deal with another Marvin Heemeyer
August 3rd, 2005 at 5:29 pm
The MPAA / RIAA (or MPA / RIA as known internationally) and sister organizations are on a rampant — a ‘Shopping Spree’ of sorts…
Which is why it is so critical to ‘intercept’ the cartels (which is illegal by definition) from the “games” they play. It is important to be able to recognize the games, and put and END to them.
The cartels (BSA, RIAA, MPAA, etc, etc, etc) are not separate entities, but “ONE” organization. Their ‘networks’ extend and reach into every nook and craney of our civilization, and have been doing so for centuries at least. These cartels have an extensive history of overthrow and corruption — having infiltrated the highest levels of society and government.
These seamingly ’separate’ groups, actually are a single entity through centuries of inter-breeding. Their tactics have been extensively and thoroughly documented. Being able to identity them and their acts in the key to preserving your rights.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>. A particular weapon of choice these Cartels employ, is a category called “mind games.” The LAW, which is based on human language, is naturally subjected to “interpretation” and manipulation. The reality is such that LAWS are essentially POWERLESS, if it were not for the support of ‘police’ enforcement. This is true of all nations. Enforcement is through COERCION (by physical, economic, psychological, and whatnot) and BRIBES (kickbacks, “mutual assistance”, etc).
Hand in hand with the above methodology, the ‘cartels’ have also employed a “classic” technique often seen in “magical acts.” For those of your who know a magic trick or two — the key element is “Deception by Diverting the Audiences’ Attention Somewhere Else” while you do your ‘trick.’
And this is exactly what has happened and are currently witnessing.
And this is the “Moral Abuse” on the people. The Western world, or the entire world for that matter, holds in high regards for “doing the right thing” and shunning “acts of evil.”
By repeatedly POUNDING over and over and over again, into peoples’ heads that file sharing, ‘public showings’ of music/video, and P2P, etc — is STEALING — what the CARTEL has effectively archieved, is the weakening of the person’s moral fibre and their ability to defend themselves.
So what we have is “guilty WITHOUT the need to be PROVEN guilty.” Henceforth, currently over 12,000 “lawsuits” and EXPONENTIALLY escalating WORLD-WIDE to rediculous numbers.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> What the MPAA / RIAA “forget” to mention to address is the issue of whether or NOT they have the “right” (in its truest and purest form) to lay CLAIM to the “works of art” in question (whether music, literature, movies, or “ideas”).
Because when you look at history and precendent, you will see that EVERY SINGLE ‘work of art’ has precedent and DEPENDED on PRIOR ‘work of arts’. Not a single musician, produce, artist, intellectual, or any person for that matter, can claim they “created” it ALL ON THEIR OWN WITHOUT having learned and prospered from OTHER people’s prior works. Not a single person, not a single ground of people, nevertheless a superficial cartel can possible lay TOTAL CLAIM of a “work of art” as ONLY theirs alone — to do whatever they wish and to use as a tool to persecute people with.
Even the instruments and tools used to ‘create these works of art’ are the DIRECT influence from DIVERSE AREAS of the world — with each nationality, each tribe, each person contributing, whether a lot or a little. Take for example the GUITAR and VIOLIN, which are the “classical” and “traditional” musical instruments in EUROPE — But, did you know that the Europeans BROUGHT THIS OVER FROM THE MIDDLE EAST during their centuries of religious conquest. Heck, many many words in English are Arabic in origin. The same is true with Science and Technology, with the West originally benefiting from the knowledge and experence of the East — only to later surpase the East, in which we are now witnessing a second major reversal of technological prowness…
So…. Is it suffice to say that people and organizations have the “right” to “copyright” COMMON words and phrases (which we are witnessing now)?!
If that is the case, then every ‘English’ (or if your American, ‘American’) utterance you make — you owe the Queen of England a royalty?! While you’re at it, you might as well pay a royalty to the Queen of Sheeba and her royal descendents in Arabia!
>>>>>>>>> In essence what I have just described is the “skillful” art of HIJACKING — That is, the VIOLENT act of STEALING. Claiming something you have NO RIGHT to claim as totally yours and yours alone.
And this is what we are witnessing with Intellectual Property, or IP (TM) for short.
August 3rd, 2005 at 9:57 pm
that’S what i’ve been telling for ages: there is no such thing as intellectual property as all art is derived from other sources, people and culture. to claim “absolute intellectual ownership” is inane, esp when you see how often songs are merely bad rip-offs from other songs. copyright should only apply to commercial use and the public should have free access to it because in the end it’s the public that creates art by inspiring artists. it’s about time the public realises that.