Copyright czar cozied up to Big Content, e-mails show, page 1
Pages:
ATS Members have flagged this thread 4 times
Topic started on 18-10-2011 @ 09:27 AM by Maxmars
Top-ranking Obama administration officials, including the US copyright czar, played an active role in secret negotiations between Hollywood, the recording industry and ISPs to disrupt internet access for users suspected of violating copyright law, according to internal White House e-mails.


Sometimes I become weary of the people who just won't "get it." They will sit here and post about how downloading songs, movies, and other stuff hurts the artists and creators of the media. But then, when stuff like this comes out, they are blind to the true danger it represents.

released e-mails (w/many redactions www.scribd.com...

The records show the government clearly had a voice in the closed-door negotiations, though it was not a signatory to the historic accord, which isn’t an actual government policy.

The agreement includes participation by the US’ largest consumer internet providers including AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon. It requires internet service providers, for the first time, to by downloading copyrighted movies or music from peer-to-peer networks.


Please not the phrase: ..punish residential internet-service customers who media companies suspect are violating copyright rules..[

This is not some casual, half-considered thing. These corporations are establishing 'defacto' law which our government is legitimizing by it's participation. In the end, the accusation alone..., the claim of suspicion, is being set up as a 'just' reason to disrupt or end your connection. And who makes this determination, certainly not the government, but the corporations themselves.

That's all it takes... "We think you may have downloaded or are downloading our stuff..." BANG! "No internet for you.... the government says we have that right."

But the communications show that a wide range of officials—from Vice President Joe Biden’s deputy chief of staff Alan Hoffman, the Justice Department’s criminal chief Lanny Breuer to copyright czar Victoria Espinel—were in the loop well ahead of the accord’s unveiling.

“These kind of backroom voluntary deals are quite scary, particularly because they are not subject to judicial review. I wanted to find out what role the White House has played in the negotiation, but unfortunately, the OMB (Office of Management and Budget) withheld key documents that would shed further light on it,” Soghoian said when asked why he sought the documents. He is appealing to OMB to disclose more e-mails.


Our prestigious "czar" of copyright, I presume, will soon be a "Retired Obama Administration Policy-Maker" talking-head for a major network or cable company ... if she's not hired by the RIAA or the MPAA as a lobbyist. Political appointees from the corporate world making law for us to obey and deciding the 'fitting punishment' by virtue of what? Their wisdom? Their "popular support?"

Digital rights groups were barely visible in the messages the government provided to Soghoian, an issue that was not lost on Espinel. In a December 2010 e-mail to Cary Sherman, the RIAA’s president, the copyright czar asks, “How are things going on putting together a rollout plan?”

She adds: “I was at Brookings this morning and CDT came up to ask me to please not have the graduated response announcement be a complete surprise but to have some outreach to stakeholders in advance,” the e-mail to Sherman said.

CDT is the Center for Democracy and Technology, a centrist digital rights group based in D.C. David Sohn, CDT’s senior policy counsel, said in a telephone interview that the group participated in a “couple of meetings.”

“We weren’t there during the whole negotiating process,” Sohn said. “We did have an opportunity to provide some feedback.”


In the end, the CDT had no real input in any substantial way. And the 'announcement' was a 100% win-win for the industry looking to eliminate a households connection the to internet for the daring crime of some teenager who wanted to listen to a song, or watch some screener.

But this is beside the point. Why are our government-paid employees so deeply vested in corporate affairs? Why are corporate officers being placed in government positions? and what would make this whole process "secret"? What manner of national security is threatened by the corporate aim to own everything that can be conveyed digitally? And why would ISPs honor the industry accusation over their customers paid contracts?
edit on 18-10-2011 by Maxmars because: (no reason given)



reply posted on 18-10-2011 @ 05:44 PM by rebeldog
reply to post by Maxmars


Its you....awesome!! Maxmars.


I really want the whole copyright issue disected, if thats ok with you sir/mam..



reply posted on 18-10-2011 @ 09:37 PM by Maxmars
reply to post by rebeldog


Rebeldog,

It would be sir..., if you are so inclined, but Maxmars will suffice. And thank you.

I would enjoy doing it. But it's hard to commit it to a promise... it is definitely on my 'to do' list of projects.

I will try to offer up a thread on copyright.... though I may cause a few winces here and there, after all... our copyright woes are all centered around commerce. (if it were otherwise this would be a Utopian ideal.... in other words, to many, it would be hell on earth.) Such a thread will probably belong in the Media and Education forum... give me some time and you'll be the first to know.
Pages:     ^^TOP^^



Have You Seen the Attention-Grabbing New TIME Cover?
  Posted 19 days ago with 31 member flags
The one topic even TED won\'t touch: Income Inequality
  Posted 13 days ago with 10 member flags
Denying Ignorance about Copyright
  Posted 13 days ago with 9 member flags
Dan Rather Slams Corporate Media
  Posted 9 days ago with 9 member flags