If the goverment goes through with what they think they are going to accomplish, they are going to cause serious problems for themselves first.
Another typical “we don’t know what the problem is nor how to address it”.
Most of the issues pertain to stuff being done over-seas anyways, and while I’ve heard other countries already have similar laws, most of these countries don’t even bother enforcing it as the law was passed more for show than for actual implementation. It’s typically used in communist states just to find yet another way to attempt to control the population and have reigns on what goes in and out. They soon find that was a waste of time and back to “corruption as usual”.
The other fact is that copyright theft costs the industries affected by this to the tune of billions of dollars in loss a year. This piracy is what drives up software costs, CD costs and DVD and bluray costs rise as well. As a backlash, the music industry is suffering from lack of CD sales, and trust me, they aren’t getting much returns on MP3 sales. They get more royalties off a CD, which is odd since a CD costs more to produce, while an MP3, once uploaded to the distribution site and has been digitally protected(whatever, that’s so amazingly simple to get around), costs NOTHING to really “produce”.
One of the key issues is the copyright holder is supposed to pull the trigger, because it is up to those with control/ownership of the copyright to make a decision of good vs. bad. The current bills being thrown about loosen this up, allowing almost anyone to be a whistle blower and cause a cascade effect, which will ultimately cause an already over-worked justice system to grind to a halt.
One of the issues is of course money and royalties. Bottom line is that it’s all about money. Another simple fact is that most people feel that when they BUY music, they feel they own it. Nothing could be further from the truth. They own a LICENSE, and that license has rules and restrictions.
How does this affect the yoyo community? Well, most of the YouTube stuff is, well, needs to be cratered. But, we also have the no ex post facto laws that should protect stuff already produced. Most yoyo contests will come under scrutiny as players find their choices of music severely limited. Just because it’s been done this way for years doesn’t make it right and technically speaking, each track that gets played is owed a royalty. Yeah, here’s a nickel, don’t spend it all in one place, right? Well, maybe a nickel is high, but it depends on contracts and other things. Artists and record companies and copyright holders are NOT enforcing their legal rights because they are deciding that “it’s not worth the hassle to go after this two-bit stuff and it’s going to cost us $10K to get a dollar in returns, so why bother”.
I am also dealing with this in another arena. AMV’s(Anime Music Videos) is another “art form” under attack. People cut anime to music. We’re talking violating mechanicals, sync, copyright, publishing in TWO areas at once: music and video.
This MIGHT affect a show I work on, but the promoter does a lot of CYA and gets full written permissions and proper contracts to ensure he can do his shadowcasts.
The reality is that this won’t stop anything. It will just move over-seas where the laws HERE(United States)cannot be enforced. Oh wait, it mostly already has. What, are we going to prosecute the end users? That’s never worked out good. Go after the big fish? Well, they just swim to “warmer waters” where the “predators” are unable to follow. The industry itself has been self policing and been able to take care of itself better than any government agency could ever do.
We already took a major backwards step with the Patriot Act and it’s impact on the 1st Amendment. How far back are we willing to take? This isn’t about copyright protection really, or even piracy. It’s about money. These are just using “copyright and piracy” as excuses to justify ill thought out legislation. And guess what? It’s already costing YOU, the taxpayers, a million dollars a day for congress to act stupidly anyways. I can guarantee someone is getting a pocket lined with hundred dollar bills from lawyers who need work and are anxious to get unleashed if this can go live.
We don’t need this. What we do need are people to understand licensing and how they can use the music they have access to. As I said, the industry is self policing and has taken decent care of itself for years. Thanks to the internet, piracy is at an all time high though, but operations have largely moved “offshore” where enforcement is difficult.
Just what we need, more bottom-feeding lawyers having a reason to exist. Won’t mommy and daddy be proud that their useless child is no longer chasing ambulances and insurance adjusters to make a living. God bless the almighty dollar!
