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[Learning Community Group's Research Network :: Main Page] "Not that there was ever any doubt that Congress would pass this, but yesterday the House of Representatives approved the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005. Besides making it explicitly legal for companies like ClearPlay to sell software which automatically edits out anything that anyone might possibly find objectionable from DVDs, the bill also makes it a federal crime to use a video camera to record films in movie theaters (punishable by up to three years in prison for the first offense) and sets a penalty of up to ten years in prison for sharing a movie or a song prior to its commercial release. We’ve got no beef with the ClearPlay-enabling part of the legislation (for the most part), since people should be able to do what they want with a DVD they’ve bought and paid for, but that was really just a smokescreen to railroad the rest of the bill, which may as well have been written by the MPAA and RIAA’s lobbyists.
Some slightly related from Technorati and Google.
[Power2thePeople] Eliminating People Part X This story was actually...: Bush's "Family Movie Act," as it's called, states that it's now okay to use software to "mak[e] imperceptible changes to...limited portions of audio or video content of a motion picture...from an authorized copy of the motion picture." Up until now copyright law made it illegal to sell edited versions of Hollywood films. Imperceptible. Right.
[FPF - HENK RUYSSENAARS] REPORTERS WITHOUT HONOUR - RSF: Read what Molly Bingham - a very well known and respected US journalist/photographer writes at present, about how afraid she even has to be for her own government because she has been trying to do 'solid journalism' writing about the illegal war in Iraq! - Article: ''Home from Iraq - Journalist urges Americans to search for truth, freedom' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/b34pt
[FPF - Internet Samizdat] 'REPORTERS WITHOUT HONOUR' - RSF: Read what Molly Bingham - a very well known and respected US journalist/photographer writes at present, about how afraid she even has to be for her own government because she has been trying to do 'solid journalism' writing about the illegal war in Iraq! - Article: ''Home from Iraq - Journalist urges Americans to search for truth, freedom' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/b34pt
[news-opinion.blog-city.com] THE LEFT'S STRATEGIC MISSTEP: Yesterday, I slammed the Democrats - especially those representing the party in the Congress - for the many times some of them have caved in and voted for Bush initiatives enabling them to pass. Today's blog is also critical of Democrats and the Left in general -- or the Progressive community, if you prefer -- but in a different way. This is a critique of strategy decisions that I believe played a major role in bringing about the dominance of the Right and the neo-fascists who now call the shots for and control all three branches of government. It's a cogent and incisive analysis by Robert Parry of Consortium News, http://www.consortiumnews.com , which published it online a couple of weeks ago. In their capsule summary of the essay they write, "Over the past three decades, the Right has achieved extraordinary success in building a powerful media infrastructure and reversing the media dynamic that existed in the days of Watergate and Vietnam. But that conservative accomplishment owes part of the credit to a parallel decision by the progressive community to forsake media in favor of a focus on local organizing -- a miscalculation on the importance of media that continues to this day." I think this strategic miscalculation needs to be studied and remedied if the situation is to be reversed.
IPcentral Weblog - Intellectual Property and Copyright Commentary: On the same panel, super-slick attorney Adam Eisgrau, who represents 5 P2P companies, boasted about the new disclosures his members are planning. One disclosure, to be used on eDonkey (which is now being sued by MPAA, as Jim DeLong noted), will inform users that downloading copyrighted files without authorization "may be illegal." Well now. I'm imagining myself showing up as an 18-year-old freshman at the Delta house's toga party and being handed a beer by Otter, Delta's Pledge Chairman, while he says with a wink, "Remember, drinking alcohol underage may be illegal."
Farfetched Blog: November 2004: A while back a federal court declared that the manufacturers of the most popular forms of peer-to-peer file-sharing technology are not liable for copyright infringement committed by people using their technology. Congress immediately sprang into action by taking up legislation to reverse the court's ruling. The goal is to make it clear that p2p manufacturers are indeed liable for copyright violations committed with their products. No doubt many hope this will drive the p2p companies out of business.
No Such Weblog: WHOIS hearing notes: Besides the usual "whois is important" statements, Rick Wesson testified about his fraudit system, and pointed out that registrars have no business incentives to verify contact data supplied to them as long as they are paid. He seemed to suggest that additional lelgislation was needed in order to create such incentives. (I may have mis-heared him on that point, though.)
Congress legalizes ClearPlay - Engadget - www.engadget.com.: Not that there was ever any doubt that Congress would pass this, but yesterday the House of Representatives approved the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005. Besides making it explicitly legal for companies like ClearPlay to sell software which automatically edits out anything that anyone might possibly find objectionable from DVDs, the bill also makes it a federal crime to use a video camera to record films in movie theaters (punishable by up to three years in prison for the first offense) and sets a penalty of up to ten years in prison for sharing a movie or a song prior to its commercial release. We’ve got no beef with the ClearPlay-enabling part of the legislation (for the most part), since people should be able to do what they want with a DVD they’ve bought and paid for, but that was really just a smokescreen to railroad the rest of the bill, which may as well have been written by the MPAA and RIAA’s lobbyists. The bill now heads to President Bush, who is expected to sign it into law.
Blogalicious -- Technology and Information Society -- Steve ...: If I have a point, besides venting a bit, it's that we seem to spend our money in funny ways. We spend billions on airport security, yet there is a big whole in airline security that is too expensive to fix. We stopped spending money on mental health to reduce "big government," only to wake up with homeless people in our door stoops and suicidal people parking their SUVs on the train tracks.
Reflected tags on Technorati: Blog, Videography, Digital Video Info
Posted at May 20, 2005 09:32 AM
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