p2pnet - rss feed: Alberto Gonzales’ school horror show
p2p news / p2pnet: America’s No 1 enforcement officer, federal attorney general Alberto Gonzales, is on the road as part of a deeply cynical dog-and-pony show set up by the Big Four record labels and Big Six movie studios, but implemented by the Bush administration.
He’s visiting schools with horror stories of what’ll happen if kids don’t buy entertainment cartel product.
“I hope you never have the misfortune to deal with me as a result of engaging in something you shouldn’t be doing,” he warned 7th and 8th graders at Windmill Springs Elementary school in San Jose, California, states CBS News. “Illegally downloading music, movies and software is a form of stealing,” he said, demonstrating his own appalling ignorance of the laws he’s supposed to uphold.
No theft is involved, and file sharing isn’t a criminal matter, efforts by the cartels to elevate it to that level notwithstanding. It’s a civil one and what’s at issue isn’t if someone’s broken a law. It’s whether or not he or she has infringed a copyright, which is a very long way from “criminal” or “illegal”.
Nonetheless, Gonzales’ scare ‘em all campaign is part of a week long program, “in which the kids studied Internet dangers as well as the moral, social and legal implications of Internet piracy”.
“I am the top cop in the United States,” he declared, says the San Jose Mercury News.
Nor is this farce costing Warner Music, Sony BMG, EMI and Vivendi Universal, on the music side, or, studios Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney, one red cent.
Rather, American taxpayers are having to foot the enormous bills for these, and similar, wholly corporate escapades without a murmur from parents, the media, or anyone else.
Downloading a song for free from a file-sharing Web site, Gonzales declared, “is just like stealing blue jeans or copying off a neighbor’s (school) paper”.
It’s a, “tough message to sell to pre-adolescents, but the Justice Department is apparently going for a ‘get ‘em while they’re young’ approach as the best long-term remedy for rampant online piracy,” the story goes on.
“It certainly wasn’t a typical school day, as Secret Service agents with earpieces checked campus buildings, a bomb-sniffing dog roamed the halls and TV crews interviewed packs of giggly students.
“The program started Tuesday with the students, ages 12 to 14, designing a Web site. It continued Wednesday with students testing a new educational computer game. ‘AirDogs,’ distributed by Web Wise Kids of Santa Ana, teaches middle-schoolers to avoid cybercrime activities such as credit-card theft and re-selling stolen notebook computers.
“The finale came Thursday with a four-hour assembly in the cafeteria, recorded by Court TV for an upcoming documentary, as the students slouched on uncushioned brown metal folding chairs.”
Unbelievable.
File sharing doesn’t involve theft.
Nothing has been stolen and no one has been deprived of anything they used to own.
No money changes hands.
The phony ‘educational efforts and lawsuits launched by the entertainment cartels against their own customers are achieving nothing. In fact, every day more and more people are going online and accessing the p2p file sharing networks, as the Big Champagne statistics on the left clearly demonstrate.
Big Champagne collects and collates music and other data and its numbers show the average number of users simultaneously logged into the US and international p2p networks at any given time.
Moreover, neither Hollywood nor the Big Four Organized Music cartel have ever come even close to demonstrating that a file shared equals a sale lost and in fact, as far as the labels are concerned, a report which has just hit the Net says unequivocally, “lawsuits against individual consumers, payola practices, and, most recently, restrictive use of digital rights management” are the cause of their problems.
Do you believe people who share files with each other online are ‘thieves’ and ‘criminals’ as the CRIA [Canadian Recording Industry Association of America], et al, claim? - p2pnet asked internationally respected Canadian internet and copyright expert Dr Michael Geist.
“No,” he stated flatly.
Does a download equal a lost sale? - we asked.
“No,” he said. “I don’t think anybody would argue that it does. Even the Copyright Board of Canada has valued a downloaded song as a lesser value that the CD version for purposes of the private copying levy.”
Are file sharers and counterfeiters equally and jointly responsible for entertainment and software industry downturns, as the CRIA and other trade-cum-PR units suggest repeatedly? - p2pnet asked.
“I don’t think file sharers and counterfeiters should be equated - there is a significant difference between the two,” Geist responded.
Should the cartels be allowed to have a definite presence in schools and universities via their so-called ‘educational’ programs? – we wondered.
“I think it’s up to the schools to ensure that their students gain a balanced perspective on these issues,” declared Geist. “Educators wouldn’t tolerate commercial messaging in other areas and shouldn’t here either. It’s essential that educators take that role seriously by educating their students on the full range of copyright issues including their user rights to use works without prior permission.”
As p2pnet reader Sandro says, “I’m in favour of educating kids.
“Let the US attorney General bring New York attorney general Eliot Spitzer along with him for a crash course on industry payola, control of distribution channels and price fixing.”
Also See:
CBS News - Kids Warned About Illegal Downloads, March 31, 2006
San Jose Mercury News - A LITTLE RESPECT, March 31, 2006
‘thieves’ and ‘criminals’ - p2pnet talks to Michael Geist, March 24, 2006
March 31st, 2006 at 2:34 pm
Using the Attorney General to muscle in on kids’ lunch money is horrendous. This is nothing short of State sponsored fear mongering on behalf of the entertainment lobby.
March 31st, 2006 at 4:03 pm
Eight months till election day. Hope to see some changes.
March 31st, 2006 at 5:10 pm
Only in America, for the moment, anyway.
March 31st, 2006 at 5:53 pm
Gonzales thinks that civil matters and criminal matters are one and the same?
Apperently his law school degree isn’t worth the toilet paper its written on.
March 31st, 2006 at 5:57 pm
What law degree? The one he bought in Bangladesh?
March 31st, 2006 at 8:26 pm
Out with the old boss, in with the new? Sheeez our tax dollars at work!
March 31st, 2006 at 9:47 pm
Spanish-guitar intro, female voice singing LAAAA-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-LAAAA
Then a male voice, “It was a moonlit night in old Washington City. I walked alone between some old adobe government buildings when suddenly, I heard the plaintive cry …..”
Then the start of the vocal, “You better go home, Speedy Gonzales …..”
With apologies to Pat Boone =)
March 31st, 2006 at 11:39 pm
your quote:
“I don’t think file sharers and counterfeiters should be equated - there is a significant difference between the two,” Geist responded, and on the question of whether or not a download equals a lost sale, “I don’t think anybody would argue that it does,” he said.
your first statement about filesharers/counterfeiters is spot on. but the second part is just wrong.
the movie, music, software cartels and others have always claimed that a file downloaded through free p2p is a lost sale. this claim has been repeated time and again through their press releases, court documents, and by the puppet government officials and lamescream media outlets they control.
it has also been reported here on p2pnet and other concerned websites numerous times.
this claim is the basis for their illegal searches and court cases they’ve been orchestrating around the globe. if you don’t think that “anybody would argue that it does” (equal a lost sale), please look around p2pnet and other websites and i’m sure you’ll find this claim repeated quite often by the RIAA, MPAA and others.
April 1st, 2006 at 12:26 am
Indeed, Geist should of said “I don’t think anybody (other than the RIAA) would argue that it does.”, but that’s hanging on every word…
April 1st, 2006 at 9:38 am
I, too, would like to see some changes; but that’s a pipe-dream in the single-minded two-party system which is destroying the once-sacred institutions of this great country, even if the majority party becomes the minority party, and vice-versa, it will not result in any change.
I am so disgusted with the once-upon-a-time people’s representatives in Congress, the Democratic party! Diane Feinstein is a prime example! The GOP is unable to mount a viable assault against her reelection; but she sure in Hell does not represent her consituency! Every Democratic Senator on the Hill might just as well re-register themselves as Republicans.
I am not wil about the Libertarian Party, but right now, they are the only alternative. I will vote for anyone running against Feinstein, simply because D.F. speaks with a forked tongue (example: swearing to mount and support a filibuster against The latest Supreme Court nominee; then very quietly backing down and VOTING FOR HIS CONFIRMATION).
Furthermore, she might just as well register as an active lobbyist for the RIAA and MPAA cartels! And Harry Reid is a milquetoast — a perfect Poster-Boy for the almost defunct Democratic Party.
Sorry for the outburst! Useless rhetoric. I wonder if anyone is interested in rekindling the Federalist Party, with an eye to dissolving BOTH the Dems and the GOP…
April 1st, 2006 at 1:17 pm
This is the explanation.
America runs on Arab oil and intellectual property.
The arabs are taken over and so is intellectual property. Bush is going all the way to grab all the money from oil and music, for you know who.
April 1st, 2006 at 5:39 pm
I read this article and the original one in The Mercury. This is just pretty sick that our tax dollars are being used for Attorney General Gonzales to go to elementary schools and brainwash young children.
“The students listened attentively and asked respectful questions — unlike a session in April 2005, when Gonzales met with 120 students from Los Angeles-area high schools and got more than a little push-back.
Several of those teenagers asked Gonzales if the government wasn’t just trying to protect greedy record labels and Hollywood studios.”
Seems he quit going to high schools because the kids were more informed as to the actual truth of what is really going on.
Since Attorney General Gonzales says he’s the “Top Cop”, my question to him would be instead of going around and spreading half-truths to kids, why isn’t the Justice Department investigating an organization who is operating using some pretty questionable tactics (and some of those are actually by their own admission.) In my opinion, they should be protecting United States citizens. (Since he states he is the “Top Cop,” isn’t that supposed to be the job of law enforcement?) Instead of supporting organzied crime?
April 1st, 2006 at 9:39 pm
I bet Eliot Spitzer is crying right now, from laughing that is.
April 2nd, 2006 at 3:48 pm
Ah yes, the typical “Speak to the young minds before theyre too old to realize im full of shit” speech, this time made by some guy who makes entirely too much money from the country. It never ends with these guys, saying a download is a lost sale, downloading a game is like stealing a pair of jeans, yadda yadda..i think these guys need to get a new campaign:
1. sell shit cheaper.
2. stop paying movie actors tens of millions of dollars. they dont deserve it.
3. keep selling shit cheaper..no more 27 dollars for 2 good songs on a cd, no more 65 dollars for a video game thats only got 1 hour worth of entertainment.
4. Stop trying to make an impact on 7th graders, because they either a: dont download but telling them about it makes them go do it. or b: will grow up in a few years and see that your speech has no credibility. Trying to speak to a class of 80 kids is like trying to clean up the ocean when it comes to stopping the 10 million+ people on the internet downloading right now as we speak. Its a free for all, we’ll always win, you can try to sue us but your suits and scare tactics dont work. Its sunday, im going to play some PIRATED video games and theres nothing you can do to stop me.
April 4th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
I still agree that, it’s all about HOW MUCH money is able to be made by forcing File Sharing out & Establishing their own set of controls. All ok’d by our own paid advisors, who plan to make our (yours & mine), world a better place to be. Communication to each other is free but when the teacher reads a story, is she breaking the law as well. The amount of MONEY to be made should be disclosed to all of the population. We have a right NOT to have to pay a dollar value more that what the value is. Disc value, pennies, artistic value has a more agumentive (subjective) value. The amout of money we are talking about is not for the ARTIST, although all the A&R poeple may disagree along with distribution, design, agents, & production. We the people are begining to see where the money is going and we are acting on our own behalf with the peoples interests at heart.
Chi…
April 4th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
though I agree with you 98%, it’s the last 2% i can’t get behind you on. In your case a downloaded game probably equated to a lost sale because you’re actually playing it (it’s possible you wouldn’t have bought it, but since it was free, it’s for you). If you enjoy the game, BUY IT. Support the game makers that spend the months upon years slaving to make the game you spend your time enjoying.
You are the exact reason the **AAs are going after people. Because 1 download COULD equal 1 lost sale, and in your case, it probably did.
July 2nd, 2007 at 4:56 pm
[…] Four record labels and Big Six movie studios, but implemented by the Bush administration,” p2pnet said in March, 2006, continuing: He’s visiting schools with horror stories of what’ll […]