MPAA Gets Town To Turn Off Free Muni-WiFi Over Single Unauthorized Movie Download

from the the-internets-must-die dept

Dan alerts us to the news that the free muni-WiFi system used around the Coshocton’s County Courthouse in Northern Ohio was shut down over a complaint by the MPAA over a single unauthorized movie download. Amazingly, rather than admit that perhaps that was going a bit too far in punishing everyone in that town over a single individual's usage, the MPAA couldn't resist the opportunity to complain about the evils of movie piracy again. The MPAA doesn't seem concerned at all about the collateral damage, and just thinks that it's a good opportunity to push ahead with its misguided complaint against file sharing.

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Public Knowledge Points Out MPAA's Lies On Why It Wants To Break Your TV

from the nice-work dept

For quite some time now, the MPAA has been asking the FCC for permission to break your TV, so you won't be able to record certain movies shown on TV. Specifically, it wants to be allowed to use something called "Selectable Output Control" to tell DVRs that they can't record a show. It's basically the whole "broadcast flag" concept all over again. The MPAA's argument for why it needs this makes no sense at all. It basically makes two arguments, neither of which are true. The first is that they need this in order to be able to put movies on TV earlier. This is not true. There's nothing stopping the studios from putting movies on TV earlier, other than a misguided fear that people will "pirate them." And that's the second problem: even the industry admits that the movies they'd release on TV are already pirated and available on file sharing networks, so it's not like having this would stop that. The movies will still get out there. SOC won't stop piracy at all -- but it will piss off a ton of people who bought a DVR expecting to be able to record what they want to watch.

Consumer rights group Public Knowledge, thankfully, has now sent a letterexplaining all of this to the FCC:

"The MPAA has submitted no proof that grant of the waiver will serve the public interest at all. To the contrary, what proof exists in the record shows that the 'problem' of a longer window for release of movies to MVPDs than for release on DVDs is a business decision made by MPAA's members. Rather than shed crocodile tears for the poor shut-ins and busy parents who must either subscribe to NETFLIX to get the earlier window or wait a whole thirty days, MPAA's members could simply negotiate a shorter release window."

Hopefully the FCC listens.

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Cable Lobbyists Side With MPAA On Getting Permission To Break Your TV

from the not-really-a-surprise dept

As Hollywood keeps asking for permission from the FCC to break your TV with Selectable Output Control, it's picked up an unsurprising ally. Cable companies. NCTA, the lobbying group that represents the cable industry has come out in favor of the request, claiming that it will let them offer movies earlier. This is a myth that they want regulators to believe. The MPAA and cable companies could offer up movies whenever they want. They just don't want people to record them, because they want to introduce yet another annoying window. So, they declare that they need to break your TV and DVR from recording. Hopefully, the FCC knows better than to break TVs and piss off so many people just because Hollywood is upset some people will want to record movies.

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Hollywood Asks FCC For Permission To Break Your DVR Again

from the because-pissing-off-consumers-is-always-a-good-strategy dept

Every few months for the past year and a half or so, the MPAA has basically begged the FCC to let it make use of "selectable output control" on televisions to block DVRs from recording stuff shown on TV. The MPAA claims this is necessary to release certain movies on TV, but that's hogwash. Rather than focusing on what consumers want, the movie studios are simply trying to add in yet another "window" to try to squeeze more money out of people. And, of course, like any DRM system, it won't do a damn thing to stop file sharing of the content (all anyone needs is one copy, and by the time any movie is broadcast on TV, it's too late, the content is out there). All this would do is piss off legitimate viewers, who are pissed off because their TiVos didn't record some movie, despite it being on TV.

In the MPAA's most recent attempt, it's back to begging the FCC, but Matthew Lasar notes that the MPAA is finally admitting that if it gets its way, it may actually require some people to buy new equipment. So, not only will the plan functionally break lots of DVRs by not letting them do the one thing they're designed to do (record what's on TV), but they may break other parts of the process as well, such that people will need to buy new equipment.

And all for what? It won't stop or even slow down file sharing. But it will piss off a lot of people. The MPAA insists that it physically cannot release movies on TV prior to its DVD release unless it gets this DRM enabled. But that's ridiculous. If the studios wanted to they could absolutely release the movies for TV viewing prior to the DVD release. It won't change a thing. But they really, really, really want to believe the myth that somehow file sharing magically goes away, and no legitimate customers get annoyed, when they try to lock up their content.

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RealNetworks Ups The Ante; Wants To Add Antitrust Charges Against The MPAA

from the your-move dept

With the lawsuit between the movie studios and RealNetworks off to an inauspicious start, it looks like RealNetworks decided to pull out the nuclear option: it's trying to add anti-trust charges against the movie studios to the case. The company claims it's come across evidence that the studios colluded to boycott RealNetworks and its attempt to let people back up their legally obtained movies. It would be interesting to know the details behind the evidence, as it could make the case a lot more exciting pretty quickly.

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BBC Presents MPAA Propaganda On Movie Piracy, Claims It's 'Fully Balanced'

from the on-one-side-of-the-scale... dept

You may recall back in 2007, that the BBC put on a program all about the "dangers" of WiFi that was entirely one-sided and had shoddy reporting, bad science and (best of all) conflicts of interest, as one of the main participants sells products to protect people from so-called radiation. The program was widely criticized, and many months later, the BBC finally admitted it made some mistakes with the program -- but the only one it would admit was that it was unfair in how it presented the one dissenter who pointed out that there's little to no evidence that WiFi causes any harm.

It looks like the BBC has done the same thing yet again. TorrentFreak notes that it just did a segment on all of the harm done by "piracy" to the movie industry, including quoting the already discredited report, paid for by the movie studios, claiming that movie piracy funds terrorism. Beyond that, the BBC program speaks to four different people -- all of whom agree that movie piracy is a hugely dangerous problem that could (they claim) end the movie industry in the UK. Do they present any evidence? Other than the discredited Rand study, not a bit.

So when someone complained to the BBC about the piece, you would think that maybe they'd realize that the piece had been a bit one-sided, but instead, they responded:

This report focused in on a legitimate problem for both the film industry and the authorities as they try to tackle what is an ever increasing and profitable criminal activity. We feel the report outlined the laws surrounding the issue of film piracy adequately and that the interviewees from the film industry were entirely appropriate people to comment on the problem.

Impartiality is the cornerstone of all our output, and we feel this report was fully balanced in it's coverage of copyright theft.

You see, apparently there is no other side to the story, and you can take the word of the industry insiders, because they're the only ones who can or should comment on the issue.

Amusingly, TorrentFreak also points out that the previous segment on that same broadcast, was about pirate radio, where the participants are described as "lovable." Yet, suddenly, when it switches to movies, they become "no laughing matter." Why? Did it ever occur to the folks at the BBC that perhaps the issues are actually the same -- and the people involved in both types of "piracy" are effectively doing the same thing? Apparently not.

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MPAA Matches RIAA In Massive Layoffs

from the couldn't-happen-to-a-nicer-bunch dept

I missed this one when it initially happened, but it looks like the MPAA is following in the footsteps of the RIAA -- who recently laid off a bunch of folks. Apparently the MPAA quickly followed suit and drastically scaled back after the studios cut the MPAA's funding by about 15 to 20%. Apparently some of the entertainment companies are finally realizing that the strategies employed by the RIAA and MPAA (lobbying for favorable laws and suing the crap out of anyone who dares to innovate) aren't actually helping them build a stronger business. Of course, it seems likely that they'll keep making the wrong moves, even at a reduced budget -- but maybe, just maybe, they'll finally start to realize that their recent strategy has been a colossal failure.

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Hollywood Takes Another Crack At Getting Permission To Break Your DVR

from the they-just-won't-stop dept

The movie studios and the MPAA have been pushing hard over the last year to get the FCC to let them use "selectable output control" to basically block DVRs from recording certain broadcasts of movies. Their somewhat creative (but totally ridiculous) argument is that this would allow more consumer choice. Now, you might ask how limiting what consumers can do with products they already purchased can possibly allow more consumer choice, but this is where the MPAA tries to play a bit of a jedi mind trick. It claims that if it's allowed to block recording of movies, then it would add another window to its windowed release program of movies (i.e., theater -> special locations (airplanes/hotels) -> DVD -> cable TV -> network TV). If they can break your DVR, they claim that they'll also release it to TV before it's even out on DVD.

Now, it doesn't take much thought to see the logical flaw in the MPAA's plan, but since some politicians are a bit slow, we'll spell it out for them. You don't need to block recording to release the movies early. There's absolutely nothing stopping the MPAA from offering this "consumer choice" right now. The MPAA is simply trying to confuse politicians into thinking that they can't possibly add this other way to get paid for the same content without this DVR-breaking DRM. The simple fact is that (a) selectable output control won't stop the movies from being recorded by some and (b) it won't stop the movies from being offered in unauthorized format online. It won't do a damn thing to stop "piracy." But it will annoy an awful lot of people who bought a DVR to record what they see on TV and are seriously pissed off at why they can't actually make the product they bought work legally.

In other words, it's not at all about "expanded consumer choice." It's about giving the MPAA another way to block legitimate watchers from doing perfectly legal time shifting of the content on their TV.

The good news was that when Kevin Martin ran the FCC, he turned down the MPAA. Though we heard mixed reasons on why (one story is that he tried to do some "horse trading" whereby he would give the MPAA what it wanted if they would side with him on things like a la carte cable), it at least kept the MPAA down. Of course, with Martin gone, it hasn't taken long at all for the movie studios to rush right back up to the new FCC yammering on and on about "expanded consumer choices." Hopefully Michael Copps (the temporary FCC boss) and the rest of the FCC are smart enough to recognize that you don't expand consumer choice by breaking their DVRs.

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Internet Filtering Appearing On Various Wishlists For Obama

from the hopefully-this-goes-nowhere dept

It's tough to get that worked up about the various "wishlists" being sent by different interest groups to President-elect Obama. After all, you'd expect the groups to basically push for their entire agenda, and there's no indication that an Obama administration will agree to any of these -- but it's still worth watching. For example, the MPAA's wishlist includes plenty of forced filtering and a "three strikes" policy that Europe recently rejected as taking away basic human rights (there's that MPAA spirit!). Then, we've got a group focused on "protecting the children" asking Obama to create a child protection czar, who apparently will take on the role of "first parent" in the White House, because it's not like we can expect parents to be responsible for protecting their own children.

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MPAA Tries Out Its New 'Up Is Down, Day Is Night' Strategy

from the how's-that-working-for-ya? dept

The MPAA has been pushing the FCC to allow it to basically add a kind of DRM to broadcasts. As it stands, the FCC blocks broadcasters from using "selectable output control" (SOC) to stop people from recording shows broadcast on television. They do this realizing that recording for the purposes of time or place shifting is perfectly legal, and allowing broadcasters to block consumer rights would be tremendously undesirable.

The movie studios, however, are trying to figure out yet another way to get money, and they want to rejigger release windows for movies. The way they're done now, movies are released to theaters, then special locations (airplanes, hotels), then DVD, then cable and finally network TV. What the studios would like to do is charge cable companies a lot of money to show movies on cable after they're in theaters but before they're released on DVD. Their (misguided) fear is that, if they show them on TV, people will record them and make them available via file sharing sites, killing off the DVD business. This is wrong on many levels, especially since high quality versions of the movies are almost always available on file sharing networks long before they are released on DVD, anyway. So, blocking the ability to record the movies on your DVR (which is what loosening SOC restrictions would do) wouldn't actually do anything to stop piracy -- but would piss off an awful lot of DVR owners out there, who want to know why they can't record the latest movies on TV.

The MPAA has been saying a lot of funny things in trying to defend its position, claiming that this form of DRM is necessary to let the studios release the movies early. That's simply wrong. There is nothing stopping the studios from releasing the movies in this manner right now. It's just their own misguided fear of people doing what they're legally allowed to do (record stuff on their TV) that's stopping them.

Yet, now, as a bunch of you have sent in, it seems the MPAA is going even further in this "up is down, black is white" argument in favor of being able to use SOC. It's claiming that it's the movie studios who are being pro-innovation here, and it's the consumer electronics companies (and consumers) who are anti-innovation:

"At its core, the position of CEA is that technology should be frozen in time, and any new services that require advanced technology should be banned," the MPAA told Adelstein on November 25. "This position is quite astonishing, coming from an organization that in the past has advocated in favor of technological innovation."

This is a neat bit of intellectual judo. Take your opponents (accurate) argument, and claim that it's actually your argument. The MPAA is lying, of course. They don't need SOC to innovate and release movies however they want. And, the CEA is quite pro-innovation, in letting consumers actually make use of their rights to record content. It's quite a statement for the MPAA to claim that taking away consumer rights is innovation. But, I guess that's what you get from a dying organization fighting for its life.

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Dark Knight... Both Most Pirated And Highest Earning Movie

from the what-does-that-tell-you? dept

You may recall when The Dark Knight opened, we pointed out that its record breaking opening was because movie makers created a movie that people wanted to see in a theater. The fact that parts of the movie were designed for IMAX theaters drove many people to pay even more (or even see the movie multiple times) in order to experience the IMAX version, which simply can't be replicated at home. As we pointed out, this was a perfect example of how the movie studios could compete with free. In fact, in such a scenario, you could even make the argument that the more people saw the movie in download format, the more willing they would be to go pay to see the IMAX version, to get the full experience.

However, it was stunning to hear movie industry execs then claim that the reason the movie was so successful was because of their anti-piracy efforts. That was clearly untrue at the time, and now Parker Mason alerts us to the fact that The Dark Knight was not just the biggest grossing film, but also the most pirated film of the year. Of course, if you believed the studio execs, that would be impossible. After all, if so many people are downloading the movie, then clearly they're "stealing" from the industry and would never go see the movie. But, seeing that the movie made record profits, it seems to show that's simply incorrect. Many people, reasonably, viewed the download as marketing, convincing them to go see the movie in the theaters.

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Dear MPAA: DRM Is Not A Requirement For Releasing Movies

from the nice-try,-but...-no. dept

We've written about the request from the MPAA to the FCC to grant a waiver that would allow the MPAA to use "selectable output control" (SOC) in order to block DVRs from recording their movies. As we noted, the movie studios basically would like to add in another movie release window, letting movies appear on television before they're released on DVD. Of course, there's absolutely nothing stopping them from doing so today. However, they claim that it's impossible for them to do so unless they get to implement DRM via SOC to stop people from recording these movies. The MPAA's own defense of this plan was exceptionally weak, but now some others are actually coming forward to defend the MPAA's position.

Ryan Radia, over at the Tech Liberation Front, has a long and thoughtful article where he tries to paint the MPAA's position as being pro-market and anti-regulation: "Consumers are willing to pay to watch new movies at home, and content producers are willing to transmit them, but government is standing in the way." It's a neat twist, but it's 100% wrong. The government is not standing in the way. If consumers are willing to pay, the movie industry can absolutely offer up the movies and let them pay.

Radia's claim is based on the entirely false premise that the MPAA needs this special kind of gov't approved DRM in order to release its movies. Radia plays a neat trick in spinning this the other way, claiming: "But content owners aren't required to ensure that all movies can be easily timeshifted and archived." Yes, indeed, nor are movie studies required to use DRM.

There is absolutely nothing stopping the movie industry from making use of this "new business model" other than its own unsubstantiated fear of non-DRM'd content. It's not a government regulation. It's not some weird FCC rule. It's the MPAA itself.

Mark Cuban gets it right when he points out what a huge mistake the MPAA is making in even bringing this issue up in the first place:

For all the money the RIAA wasted on trying to stop digital piracy, about all they accomplished was explaining to everyone exactly where and how to steal music. Please do not make the same mistake. Right now its a hassle to unitlize the analog hole to copy movies. Most people have no idea how to do it, particularly for HD delivered movies. Please do not go through a big process of teaching people exactly what the analog hole is in hopes of getting companies to prevent its use. All you are going to do is turn on the lightbulb for many who would otherwise not have a clue.

The theatrical exhibition industry just experienced a phenomenal several weeks with The Dark Knight setting record after record. People by the 10s of millions went to the theater, many multiple time to enjoy the unique experience of going to a movie. Could you please, please, please use the money you are going to spend fighting the unfightable and instead spend it on promoting the fun of going to the movies ? More people going to the movies is more people getting excited about movies. More people getting excited about movies means more people watching movies on TV, which is good for revenues, and more people buying DVDs or legal downloads of the movies. Again, good for revenues.

Piracy is not, and has never been, a real threat to the movie industry. The movie industry is doing incredibly well by releasing good movies that people want to see. Even if they're available for unauthorized download, movie watching is a social experience, and the better the industry makes that social experience, the better it will do. Wasting time demanding unnecessary DRM isn't necessary. It's not blocking any business model. Wasting money fighting for this "analog hole" to be patched won't stop piracy at all. If anything, it will attract more attention to that analog hole, while pissing off more viewers and making it that much harder to get movie fans to want to pay money to see movies. Even if the MPAA prevails, it won't put a dent into unauthorized file sharing. People will figure out how to get around the SOC protection, and once a single copy is out there, it's everywhere. Focusing on stopping file sharing is a lose-lose proposition.

So, please, movie industry, stop pretending you need DRM for your business models. You don't. You never have. And the more you pretend you do, the more trouble you're causing.

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Congress Moves Forward With Plan To Make Universities Copyright Cops

from the first-ISPs,-then-colleges dept

For a little over a year, there have been stories about how the entertainment industry has been pressuring Congress to make universities responsible for stopping copyright infringement on their network. This got a lot of attention late last year when Congress tried to tie such a mandate to a provision granting financial aid to students. In other words, the threat was that if universities didn't act to stop file sharing, their students wouldn't be eligible for financial aid. This got plenty of attention, and the bill never passed. The most interesting part of it, though, was that much of the reasoning for the bill was driven by MPAA claims that 44% of all illegal file sharing took place on college campuses.

There was just one problem with that: the number was completely wrong. Earlier this year, the MPAA admitted that it had made a small mistake, and the number was actually something like 15% (and even that could be argued).

You might think that would allow our Congressional representatives to focus their attention on something a bit more important -- but with super low approval ratings, the people they actually represent matter a lot less than their biggest campaign donors. So, of course, the bill to turn universities into copyright cops is back once again. It is somewhat toned down, but will still require universities to basically be the mouthpieces of the entertainment industry, repeating their propaganda and ignoring that the problem is the industry's obsolete business models rather than any legal issue.

However, as you read William Patry's post on this above, you see that the MPAA is also positioning the legislative history on the law so that next year or so, they'll be able to come back and insist on mandatory filters at universities. Basically, it looks like the MPAA tried to bite off too big of a chunk when it pushed for this law last year, so this year, it's taking half a bite, but getting everything ready to get the rest of what it wants next year.

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TorrentSpy Appeals Lawsuit Over MPAA Getting Access To Its Emails

from the not-done-yet dept

While TorrentSpy may have shut down and lost its copyright infringement lawsuit against the MPAA, it's still appealing a separate issue: whether the MPAA broke the law in hiring a guy to break into TorrentSpy's email server and forward emails to the MPAA. The MPAA got away with playing dumb when this issue first came up, claiming it assumed the guy they hired had legitimate access to all of the emails he was handing over -- though, that seems highly questionable.

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MPAA Worried That People Don't Know A Gun Can't Shoot Through Your TV

from the how-nice-of-them dept

Apparently the MPAA is quite worried that people watching a movie trailer might not understand that a gun pointed at the screen can't actually shoot through the screen. The organization is forcing preview trailers that show someone pointing a gun directly at the screen to actually change the video or cut that scene out of the ad. As the report at the AV Club asks, is the MPAA worried that someone from a century ago who's never seen TV or a movie is going to suddenly show up and freak out? Anyone who's seen the movie This Film Is Not Yet Rated knows that the MPAA works in mysterious ways, but this just seems ridiculous.

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Dark Knight Proves Again: Give People A Reason To Go To The Movies And They Will

from the silly-MPAA dept

While the MPAA still wants you to believe that movie piracy is a huge problem, it's never quite able to explain how the movies that are most likely to be available for free online also happen to be the biggest box office winners. The latest example is with The Dark Knight, the latest Batman installment. It's getting tremendous reviews and had a record opening week, despite the fact that you could download it online. This isn't a surprise. Piracy has never really been a threat to the movie business -- which has always been more about selling the experience than the movie itself. And, things are even better with The Dark Knight because it's actually designed to look amazing on IMAX screens, which is an experience you just can't replicate at home. Somehow, though, we doubt the MPAA will give up its pointless claims about the "threat" of movie downloads.

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MPAA Doubletalk On FCC Request To Block DVR Recordings

from the the-mainstream-press-may-believe-you,-but... dept

You may recall back in June we wrote about the MPAA's petition to the FCC to block DVR recordings of certain movies by removing a restriction on "Selectable Output Control" (SOC), allowing it to set rules that forbid recording. What the MPAA is clearly trying to do here is start releasing movies on TV before they're available on DVD, but wants to do so in a way that users won't be able to record on their DVRs (though, they hardly come out and say that). Matthew Lasar has an absolutely hilarious interview with an MPAA representative where the MPAA guy tries to pretend that this has nothing to do with blocking recordings of movies and everything to do with stopping piracy.

"I can't emphasize this enough," Oster finally exclaimed. "We've hit on this a number of times so you might sense some frustration in my voice. 'Recording'—take it off the table. Put it out of your mind. This has nothing to do with recording at all in any way."

"Ok. I guess I'm confused," I replied. "What is selectable output control about then?"

"It's in large part, first and foremost, about the fact that our industry has a multibillion-dollar theft problem, which is that billions and billions of dollar's worth of film content is stolen every year," Oster replied.

"How is it stolen? What's the mechanics of its being stolen?" I asked. "What happens?"

"It comes in many forms," Dean Garfield interjected. "It comes in camcording."

"Did you just say the word 'recording'?" I asked.

"No!" Oster intervened. "He said 'camcording'!"

"But isn't that just basically recording?" I begged.

"No!" Oster insisted. "What we want is to offer consumers high-definition content earlier than they can today. That's what we want to do! We want our studios to have the flexibility to put in place business models that allow them to offer high definition content on demand to the home, earlier than they do now. Period! Full stop!"

Let's translate this for everyone. Basically, the MPAA falsely believes that it has a problem with camcording. It likes to come out with all sorts of bogus stats that don't add up. The truth is that camcorded versions don't keep people from going to the movies, and most movies online have studio quality versions leaked from insiders.

So what does that have to do with SOC? Not much, really. But the MPAA wants to change the release window pattern it currently uses for movies. Rather than theaters, video, PPV, cable TV, it wants to be able to put some movies on TV before they're released to video, hoping that it can charge cable channels a lot for showing them. But, if it does that, it's worried that it will undercut its own business model in the video rental space. So, it falsely believes that it needs this "exemption" from SOC to effectively enable DRM on those movies to prevent them from being recorded. It's the same old mistake, believing that DRM somehow enables new business models when the truth is that DRM only restricts opportunities. The content will still get recorded and released. The effective DRM will do nothing to stop that -- and once the content is out there, it's out there. However, this will be a pain for plenty of legitimate viewers who start wondering why their DVRs don't work properly.

It's not about stopping any kind of piracy. This won't do that. It's not about enabling any new business models or new content. It's about a misguided MPAA which thinks it needs DRM to add yet another way for it to make money while pissing off legitimate users. For that, the FCC should not grant a special exemption.

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DRM Company Releases One-Sided Study On DVD Copying

from the let's-pick-this-apart dept

The MPAA has probably been the worst of the various Big Copyright industries in terms of the level to which their studies exaggerate the negative impact of unauthorized copying, while totally ignoring any positive impact. For example, it likes to widely cite a study (which it paid for) that triple- and quadruple-counts "losses" by noting the ripple effects. At the same time, it totally ignores the same positive ripple effects (the ones that cancel out the negative ones, and may even outweigh them). Of course, a big part of this is the claim that an unauthorized copy is a "lost sale."

Now it appears that Macrovision, the big DRM company that supplies DRM to movie studios has cooked up its own study trying to support the MPAA in this argument, claiming that lots of people are copying DVDs and that most of them would buy the DVDs they copy otherwise. However, the LA Times' Jon Healey does an excellent job pointing out the many significant weaknesses in the study, starting, of course, with the fact that it was paid for by Macrovision, with a clear intent in the results. And while Macrovision hypes of the fact that many people in the survey said they would have bought the DVDs they copied, it ignores the fact that the majority of folks they spoke to said the DVDs they made copies of were ones they already legitimately owned.

Even then, the results really aren't as significant as Macrovision would like you (or, rather, Hollywood) to believe. As Healey notes, the study completely ignores the positive impacts of being able to make a copy of a DVD. In fact, the most common reason for making a copy was for perfectly legal time-shifting or back-up purposes from DVDs they legitimately own. In other words, being able able to make those copies is a valuable part of the DVD. Take that away and people will buy fewer DVDs because you've made them less valuable. But, of course, that doesn't show up anywhere in the results, because that's the last thing Macrovision wants people thinking about.

While the study also hypes up the fact that more TV shows are being copied via DVD, it ignores the fact that this is probably quite beneficial. Since TV shows are ongoing experiences, you want more viewers -- and if a copy of a DVD gets someone new hooked on the show, they're more likely to start watching it on TV or to buy a future DVD. But, again, that's not mentioned at all. Either way, props to Healey and the LA Times for digging into the numbers a bit and not just parroting the press release findings, like many other news sources.

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MPAA Asks FCC To Allow It To Block DVR Recording Of Certain Movies

from the winning-fans-all-over dept

The entertainment industry lobbyists are basically working ever possible angle to get more "control" over its content. We've already seen how they mess with the legislation process and the international treaty process, and now they're trying to use the FCC as well (not for the first time, either). The latest is that the MPAA is asking the FCC to remove certain restrictions that forbid it from blocking the recording of certain movies and from downgrading the ability to record certain movies. Basically, the MPAA is asking the FCC let it make use of "Selectable Output Control" to keep its rapidly disappearing "release windows" business model possible.

As you probably know, the movie business has worked for many years on the model of "release windows," where films first show up in theaters, then at special locations (hotels/airplanes), followed by video, then PPV, cable and finally network TV. This is a legacy of an old business model, where the studio had a lot more control over content -- but it makes less and less sense these days, in a world where people have a lot more options for their entertainment time and money. These "windows" have been shrinking, because that's exactly what the customers demand -- and it actually has worked out well for the studios, because with shorter windows they actually get more benefit from a single advertising campaign plus consumers are happier since they have more options about how they consume the content. But the industry is so focused on these windows, that when anyone dares to upset the norm, they freak out.

The latest situation is because the studios want to keep this totally unnecessary window process in place. So they're asking the FCC to let it either degrade recordings or block recordings of movies if they occur before the movies go to DVD/video rental. The MPAA reasoning behind this is pure bunk, claiming that it would encourage more people to buy HDTVs, speeding up the transition to digital TV. There are multiple inaccuracies in this claim by the studios. First, while HDTV's are digital, one does not need to upgrade to HDTV to switch to digital TV. More importantly, basically, the studios are pretending that it's someone else's fault that they're unwilling to put good HDTV content on TV. They're basically saying "oh, if you let us block copying, then we'll put much more good content on TV." That's hard to believe for a variety of reasons. There's plenty of demand for content on TV, and if the studios aren't willing to put on good content, then others are finding plenty of ways to fill in the gaps.

Furthermore, there's nothing stopping the studios from releasing movies earlier. Claiming that they need this extra copy protection is a myth. The copy protection won't actually stop copies from being made. "Professional" pirates will easily get around the protection schemes. The only people who won't are your average home family user, who the industry is trying to screw over by making them pay over and over again for the same content. Besides, even the FCC knows that the MPAA's argument is incorrect. In its own report, it stated:

"In particular, we are concerned that selectable output control would harm those 'early adopters' whose DTV equipment only has component analog inputs for high definition display, placing these consumers at risk of being completely shut off from the high-definition content they expect to receive."

In other words, for every person that "more HDTV content" encourages to upgrade, you're probably going to get more than one person pissed off that their DVR can't record that content. Hopefully the FCC tells the MPAA that its regulatory power isn't designed to let it prop up an obsolete business model.

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Would You Believe Copyright Infringement Notices Are Based On Faulty Information?

from the and-that's-against-the-law... dept

This has been pointed out before, but never by an academic study: it turns out that many of the infringement notices that get sent by the big entertainment companies are based on incorrect information, often accusing perfectly legitimate content of being infringing. The study, by some professors at the University of Washington, proved that the notices are sent, rather haphazardly based on whether or not an IP address participates on a file sharing network -- and not whether or not it actually uploads or downloads any content. Specifically, these researchers set about to monitor file sharing networks themselves, and introduced a software agent that watched over what was happening -- but which did not actively upload or download anything itself. But what happened? The researchers received 400 notices claiming that their IP address had participated in unauthorized file sharing. Basically, as suspected, the industry watchdogs merely list out (easily faked) IP addresses, and use that as their entire body of evidence to file a claim.

So, while this isn't that surprising, it's even more proof of just how flimsy the RIAA/MPAA evidence is when they file these suits. Even worse, when this information is the basis of DMCA takedown notices, it's potentially a violation of the law -- as part of filing a DMCA takedown is swearing that you have proof that infringement occurred. The scary thing is that all of this has been pointed out to the industry before -- and yet the folks involved still seem to think that they are above the law. For all their moralizing about "pirates" not obeying the law, you would think that they would be careful about making sure they weren't breaking the law themselves. Apparently not.

Update: Realizing I left out the best part. In showing how the IP addresses can be easily faked, the researchers used the IP address of three laser printers who were then accused of "making available" unauthorized material. Somehow, I get the feeling this particular research paper is going to find its way into a variety of legal battles in the near future.

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