U.S. Senators Introduce SMART Copyright Act to Combat Piracy
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U.S. Senators Introduce SMART Copyright Act to Combat Piracy
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Re: U.S. Senators Introduce SMART Copyright Act to Combat Piracy
#2How convenient that Patrick Leahy is retiring this year and won’t be on the hook for screwing his voter base.
Re: U.S. Senators Introduce SMART Copyright Act to Combat Piracy
#3Among other things, the senators stress that all government-imposed protection tools and takedown measures will go through a consultation process, where all stakeholders and the public are allowed to have their say.
If history is any indicator, the public can have their say, but that won't be who the government is listening to. That, or it will be the clusterfuck that was the FCC's public comment period on net neutrality. Hope always springs eternal for me that Senators and Congressfolk will act in good faith (EDIT: toward their constituents), but I'm also realistic in that they probably won't.
If one has the time, click the "facts and myths" link in the article[0]. Or as I like to call it "vague rebuttals, and the straw man arguments that they rebut".
[0] https://www.tillis.senate.gov/services/files/BBDBFA87-17CA-4...
Re: U.S. Senators Introduce SMART Copyright Act to Combat Piracy
#4Setting aside the arguments around infringement equaling/not equaling actual theft, is the actual incidence of piracy high enough that it's on beancounters' radar? I may be wrong, but my impression is that streaming made it a non-issue. This feels like a smokescreen.
Re: U.S. Senators Introduce SMART Copyright Act to Combat Piracy
#5I don't pirate music, I don't pirate games, I don't pirate software, I don't pirate anything but TV and movies and the reason is simple: piracy is a service problem for me. I know where to get music/games/software, I have no idea where to get the movies and TV I want to watch, they're spread over 20 different services, 90% of which are not available in my country and the ones that are don't have that specific content available in my country, I've even ran into issues where a streaming service say they for sure have some content and I just need to sign up to start watching, great! but after signing up and paying boop nope that content isn't available in your country anymore. And even in the cases I find the content available I am treated like a pirate, use a browser without DRM support? nope go away, use a VPN even when connected to the country your payment details come from? nope go away, oh and by the way we removed that content you were watching but we still have season 1 and 2 if you want anything after that it's on this other streaming platform and no it's not in your country. Even when everything goes right I get a highly compressed stream with all sorts of ugly artifacting. Piracy fixes every single one of those issues for me so I will continue to do it without feeling bad about it. I am very willing to pay for these services by why would I if paying is an inherently worse experience? And I didn't even list all the issues I've faced with these services.
Re: U.S. Senators Introduce SMART Copyright Act to Combat Piracy
#6Setting aside the arguments around infringement equaling/not equaling actual theft, is the actual incidence of piracy high enough that it's on beancounters' radar? I may be wrong, but my impression is that streaming made it a non-issue. This feels like a smokescreen.
I can't speak to media piracy, but I previously did work with a large supplier of professional software. This is not stuff people often use for fun, and the software had free and easy-to-get student versions available. The software still saw 80+% piracy in many markets according to internal metrics. This is a big part of why companies are so enthusiastic about cloud everything - recurring revenue is nice, but unpirateable recurring revenue is even nicer.
That's not to defend this bill. It sounds like rubbish to me.
Re: U.S. Senators Introduce SMART Copyright Act to Combat Piracy
#7What sucks is how the US will pressure the rest of the world to also implement this garbage.
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/downloading-and-uploading_what-...
I am going to cancel my Netflix and start pirating because am not going to pay more than Germans for netflix and get an even smaller catalog than they get. Germany already pays more than the US for a much smaller catalog. We just get take to the cleaner just because, no reason whatsoever. The law that would require Netflix to pay a percentage to subsidice Swiss movies hasn't even been voted on yet and if it does pass will push the price even higher.
Re: U.S. Senators Introduce SMART Copyright Act to Combat Piracy
#8It's getting to the point that services will simply be hosted outside the United States, the index page will say "this site shall not be used by United States citizens," and then people can go about using the Web like it already works anyway. It seems Senators don't understand well what it is they're trying to accomplish because they don't understand how the Web works.
Re: U.S. Senators Introduce SMART Copyright Act to Combat Piracy
#9Would a government-mandated upload filter pass constitutional scrutiny?
Re: U.S. Senators Introduce SMART Copyright Act to Combat Piracy
#10I don't pirate music, I don't pirate games, I don't pirate software, I don't pirate anything but TV and movies and the reason is simple: piracy is a service problem for me. I know where to get music/games/software, I have no idea where to get the movies and TV I want to watch, they're spread over 20 different services, 90% of which are not available in my country and the ones that are don't have that specific content…
You are not entitled to any movies or television shows at any quality at all because it's not your IP. If someone wants to shoot a movie and then lock it in a vault, never to be seen by anyone, Prince-style, that is their right. If they want to change it to remove and permanently memory-hole offensive elements, that is their right. If they want to release it only in certain formats, up to and including theatrical-only releases, that is their right. Because they own the copyright and hence, control over how the work is distributed and exhibited.
So take what they offer you or leave it. Anything else is a violation of the law.