$30B was just pissed away 20x over in the misallocation of capital in the $900B covid bill.
Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming
181–190 of 509 posts
Re: Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming
#182Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's what the linked press release[1] says but looking at the wording of the bill[2] I'm not so sure it's that cut and dry: > It shall be unlawful to will-fully, and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, offer or provide to the public a digital transmission service that... The term "private financial gain" typically includes an individual receiving anything of value. I agree it doesn't com…
You quoted the preamble but didn't quote the rest of the text: [...]transmission service that: (1) is _primarily _ designed or provided for the purpose of publicly performing works protected under title 17 by means of a digital transmission without the authority of the copyright owner or the law; (2) has _no commercially significant purpose or use other than_ to publicly perform works protected under title 17 by mean…
I envy your gift of statutory clarity. It isn't clear to me. And I can't imagine I'm the only lawyer who can spot the squishy bits of this legislation ripe for manipulation.
The three paragraphs you've quoted are "or" elements. A person need only violate one of the three to be criminally liable. Paragraph 2 is broad enough to include just about anything.
Re: Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read on a post somewhere that if you replace "the economy" with "rich people yatch money" a lot of headlines make more sense. "Last year, one study reported that digital video piracy costs the U.S. rich people yatch money $29.2 billion a year."
It's still funny money. You can't just take that $4 price tag for streaming a movie through Apple TV or wherever, and multiply it by the number of movies people illegally stream, and get a number that makes any sense. The idea that American households would spend an extra $230/year on average on movie rentals, if only those nasty content pirates would get out of their way, is just absurd. Especially when you consider…
I can't find it right now, but I swear there was a study that showed that people who pirated content also on average spent _more_ on digital entertainment.
I remember pirating video games about 10-15 years ago to see if they were worthwhile, since the demo scene had pretty much died down. I'd end up buying the games I played through to completion as well.
Re: Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming
#184Earlier quoted context omitted.
It may not be everyone, but there are a number of pirates who would buy a subscription to a legal streaming service if illegal streaming was not as easily available.
Personally, my issue is more with DRM. I considered buying a few Blu-rays, but I have little use for a bunch of copyrigh-protected plastic, and circumventing the DRM on it might be a hassle, plus drives cost quite a bit. I just want some GoG-like store for movies. Have sales like Steam, price competition, keep what you buy, "complete your collection" bundles, etc. THis could really work with federation: each righthol…
Providing DRM-free downloads would probably kill the studio's long-tail revenue streams. Once people have a copy of the content in a format that's going to be indefinitely forward-portable, they will never buy another copy again.
Not even for "higher" quality versions. I have an AVI of my LotR movies ripped from DVDs from whenever people bought DVDs and ripped AVIs. The quality is still very good, even played on a 4K TV. I've never sat thinking, "I wish I had the 4k Bluray remaster" while watching it.
Re: Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming
#185If the United States’ populace elects its officials, why do the representatives act against the populace’s wishes? Is this typical of all governments with elected representation? Are they solving different organizational problems that most people are not aware of? I am curious how such a system arises, maintains itself, and is resilient to change.
Identity politics, for the most part. Talk about how you're going to "own the libs" or "every trump support is a racist" and you can loot the country. The political divisions are advantageous for getting citizens to vote against their own interests. The "us vs them" mentality is by design, something that is fomented to achieve political goals.
People complain about do nothing congress and stagnation, then vote in hardcore right wing conspiracy theorist QAnon candidates who are unlikely to pass real legislation.
Re: Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming
#186- Everyone discussing this law should really read the text The difficulty in doing so is a big part of the problem. As per AOC's comments on twitter yesterday, at 2PM Members of Congress got 5000 pages of bill dropped on their desk with a vote call at 4PM. The whole thing needs to be much more transparent.
Shouldn’t the collective default be to simply vote “no” if it’s given like this
I don’t know why the behavior would exist otherwise..
Re: Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's what the linked press release[1] says but looking at the wording of the bill[2] I'm not so sure it's that cut and dry: > It shall be unlawful to will-fully, and for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain, offer or provide to the public a digital transmission service that... The term "private financial gain" typically includes an individual receiving anything of value. I agree it doesn't com…
You quoted the preamble but didn't quote the rest of the text: [...]transmission service that: (1) is _primarily _ designed or provided for the purpose of publicly performing works protected under title 17 by means of a digital transmission without the authority of the copyright owner or the law; (2) has _no commercially significant purpose or use other than_ to publicly perform works protected under title 17 by mean…
[deleted]
Re: Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read on a post somewhere that if you replace "the economy" with "rich people yatch money" a lot of headlines make more sense. "Last year, one study reported that digital video piracy costs the U.S. rich people yatch money $29.2 billion a year."
Are all the people, from the film crew to the VFX artists and engineers that work on the IP that is being stolen "rich people yatch (sic!) money"? You can say what you want about IP law; you wouldn't be able to enjoy many big-budget productions if it wouldn't exist. Many jobs, high-paying and low-paying, wouldn't exist. Of course, the business model for content distribution is somewhat nonsensical and the time until…
The film & recorded music industries were built in an era of information scarcity, maintained by tightly controlled distribution. We now live in an era where information is infinite and everywhere.
Criminalising people isn't going to turn back this fundamental sea change.
Re: Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, but the second-order effects of you not paying may very well affect them in the future. If the studios get less revenue and have to pay more for enforcing IP law, they have less money for new productions and therefore less jobs and salary for the people producing the content. And I don't see why you should have a right to enjoy the fruits of their labor without paying.
I will spend the money somewhere else and that is where they will be working in the future.
How fast would you be able to switch the industry you are working in?
I would guess that a lot of the jobs that are discussed in this thread are fairly specialised ones and if that industry would disappear they would be out of work.
Re: Tillis Releases Text of Bipartisan Legislation to Fight Illegal Streaming
#190Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, but the second-order effects of you not paying may very well affect them in the future. If the studios get less revenue and have to pay more for enforcing IP law, they have less money for new productions and therefore less jobs and salary for the people producing the content. And I don't see why you should have a right to enjoy the fruits of their labor without paying.
That suppositions might carry some weight if Hollywood Accounting didn't deny every penny possible to those same people. ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting
The people we're talking about are paid in normal ways, and not via "percentage of the profits, which there will never be" etc