MPAA, RIAA, US team up
p2p news / p2pnet: The US government has, “joined forces with the entertainment industry to stop the freewheeling global bazaar in pirated movies and music, pressuring foreign governments to crack down or risk incurring trade barriers,” says The Washington Post.
But it’s not just the entertainment industry. As p2pnet has been emphasising for Lo! these many months, it’d be more accurate to say the Cheney / Bush administration is working hard for the music, movie and software cartels.
And they’re not alone. Police and other agencies in the US and elsewhere in the world, all wholly funded by local taxpayers, are increasingly being suborned as RIAA, MPAA and BSA pseudo-police units to terrorize citizens into buying cartel-made product.
“Last year, for instance, the movie industry lobby suggested that Sweden change its laws to make it a crime to swap copyrighted movies and music for free over the Internet,” says the story.
“Shortly after, the Swedish government complied. Last month, Swedish authorities briefly shut down an illegal file-sharing Web site after receiving a briefing on the site’s activities from U.S. officials in April in Washington. The raid incited political and popular backlash in the Scandinavian nation.
“In Russia, the government’s inability, or reluctance, to shut down another unauthorized file-sharing site may prevent that nation’s entrance into the World Trade Organization, as effective action against intellectual property theft tops the U.S. government’s list of requirements for Russian WTO membership.”
More than ten years of pressure from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), “has convinced U.S. lawmakers and law enforcement officials that it’s worth using America’s muscle to protect movie and music interests abroad,” says The Washington Post, going on:
“Now, lawmakers are calling the trade groups, asking what else Congress and the government can do for the entertainment industry.
“Efforts to stem piracy within the United States by targeting peer-to-peer file-sharing networks have produced mixed results. Kazaa – once the most popular of them and a hard target of the music industry – has half as many users as it did at its peak three years ago, thanks in part to the music industry’s lawsuit and education campaign. At the same time, the total number of peer-to-peer users has grown in the past year, according to Internet traffic researchers.”
This hasn’t, however, stopped RIAA boss Mitch Bainwol from disingenuously claiming his ‘trade’ association has “contained” the file sharing problem.
Kazaa’s cynical efforts to climb into bed with the same groups persecuting Kazaa users, as well as owner Sharman Networks which, at the same time purports to espouse the ‘p2p revolution;’ and the fact Kazaa was used by most of the victims being attacked in the RIAA’s bizarre sue ‘em all marketing scheme, are as closely linked to its precipitous fall from favour as any efforts by the RIAA to kill it. And to add to its troubles, perversely, Sharman Networks and Kazaa ceo Nikki Hemming are currently suing p2p site p2pnet for alleged libel in a case which, if it’s successful, will stifle freedom of speech in Canada.
In the US, the MPAA and RIAA, with the BSA (Business Software Alliance) lurking in the wings, say people who share files with each other are criminals and thieves. However, it’s never been shown that a shared file equals a lost sale.
Nothing has been stolen, no one has been deprived of something he or she formerly owned, and no money has changed hands. Nor is there any such crime as file sharing. At absolute worst, someone’s copyright has been infringed and in fact, at a time when the reputations and credibility of the movie and music industries are at an all time low because of bad product, bad management and bad business decisions and models, it could be said file sharing represents and priceless, and free, advertising in the digital 21st century.
Meanwhile, “Overseas, U.S. government officials say, it is in the national interest to work on behalf of Hollywood and other entertainment and intellectual property industries,” The Washington Post continues. “The United States does not offer specific dictates on how other nations handle their border controls, said Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Victoria Espinel, ‘but they need to have an effective intellectual property system for protecting our rights holders abroad’.”
China and Russia are presently at the top of the US trade representative office “priority watch list” of countries, “that, in its estimate, do not adequately protect intellectual property rights” and the MPAA, in particular, has cosy links to the office.
Dr Susan C. Schwab is the new US trade rep, taking over from Rob Portman, a loyal Hollywood friend.
Interestingly, Schwab started out as a USTO agricultural trade negotiator and MPAA boss Dan Glickman is the ex-US secretary of agriculture who also appointed Greg Frazier as the MPAA’s svp for international trade policy.
Frazier, Glickman’s special advisor since 2004, was also Glickman’s chief of staff at the agricultural department.
The story goes on to highlight The Pirate Bay case, initiated by the MPAA, as p2pnet was initially virtually alone in pointing out.
Now, “An ongoing battle between Swedish authorities and an illegal file-sharing service called the Pirate Bay can be traced to an April meeting in Washington between the Swedes and the U.S. government.
“Officials from the State Department, the Department of Commerce and the U.S. trade representative’s office told visitors from the Swedish Ministry of Justice in April that Sweden was harboring one of the world’s biggest Web sites for enabling the massive and unauthorized distribution of movies, music and games. It uses a file-swapping technology known as BitTorrent that is tougher to contain than earlier systems such as the original Napster, which the U.S. government shut down in 2001, and popular current peer-to-peer services, such as LimeWire.
“A little more than a month later, Swedish police hit the headquarters of the Pirate Bay and closed the site. The MPAA crowed, saying it had helped the effort by filing a criminal complaint against the site.”
TPB did not, however, stay closed for long, re-opening a couple of days later in The Netherlands. And it’s now apparently comfortably back at its home port in Sweden, operating much as before. But as far as the mainstream media are concerned, the MPAA triumphed and it and its fellows in the software and music industries continue to dictate US trade policy.
“Entrance into the World Trade Organization would grant the country numerous trading benefits,” The WashingtonPost emphasises. “Each of the WTO’s 149 members has veto power over accession and each has key demands of applicants.
“For the United States, the focus is on intellectual property. And the U.S. wants to make sure the mistake of China is not repeated. ‘We let China in and China has not fully complied with the WTO requirements’ for protecting intellectual property, Glickman said. The MPAA has an enforcement division in Hong Kong whose members accompany local law enforcement officials on raids. ‘The time to get action is now, rather than after they get in,’ Glickman said.”
But the MPAA isn’t alone in using Bush administration agencies to protect the bottom lines of its owners, the Big Six Hollywood movie studios, Time Warner, Viacom, Fox, Sony, NBC Universal and Disney.
Owned by the Big Four record labels, Warner Music (US), EMI (Britain), Sony BMG (Japan, Germany) and Vivendi Universal (France), the misnamed Recording Industry Association of America’s equivalent of The Pirate Bay is AllofMP3.com, based in Russia.
It, too, is thumbing its nose at US efforts to crush it. American trade negotiators, “darkly warned that the Web site could jeopardize Russia’s long-sought entry into the World Trade Organization” and the US trade office is going after the Russian download site on the Big Four’s behalf.
“Assistant U.S. Trade Representative Espinel said shutting down Allofmp3.com ‘is right at the top of the agenda,” states The Washington Post. “This is a top-priority issue in terms of our discussion with Russia and the WTO’. As the bilateral talks with Russia continue, congressional leaders are bringing pressure to bear on President Bush, who has vowed to speed that nation’s entry into the WTO. Working against Russia, the lawmakers say, are its plans to make intellectual property rights violators subject to civil, rather than criminal, penalties.”
Stay tuned.
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Also See:
The Washington Post – U.S. Joins Industry in Piracy War, June 15, 2006
disingenuously claiming – P2p file sharing contained: RIAA, June 13, 2006
currently suing – Free speech in Canada, June 2, 2006
cosy links – Hollywood lauds US trade office, April 29, 2006
Greg Frazier – Hollywood’s agronomical air, April 20, 2006
initiated by the MPAA – The Pirate Bay back online, June 3, 2006
home port in Sweden – The Pirate Bay: home again, June 14, 2006
darkly warned – AllofMP3.com statement, June 5, 2006
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June 15th, 2006 at 5:54 pm
[quote]pressuring foreign governments to crack down or risk incurring trade barriers[/quote]
I am from Chile, yoohoo! More grapes stay in Chile, please go ahead.
The overall impact of such measure would be minimal. USA is all about consumption (imports), and very little about production (exports), therefore the US threatrning not to trade with countries that do not crack down on file sharing would only affect the wealthy exporters of such countries, a very minimal proportion of the population, but it would benefit most of the locals who would have a surplus of item otherwise destined to go abroad.
If anybody remembers the Chilean Grapes Case back in the 80s, it was a conspiracy, started in the US, it was all a buch of bullshit, in any case grapes were for a while cheaper than ever, and the quality better than ever, boy! Did I eat a lot of grapes? A handful of entrepreneurs weren’t really happy with it, but the most citizens were delighted.
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Jon, can you make BBcode work? Please!