Murdoch slams White House over SOPA in Twitter row Rupert Murdoch has posted a series of rants on Twitter, accusing the White House of bowing to lobbying pressure over its lack of support for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). “So Obama has thrown in his lot with Silicon Valley paymasters who threaten all software creators with piracy, plain thievery,” he posted on his …
"There has grown in the minds of certain groups in this country the idea that just because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with guaranteeing such a profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is supported by neither statute or common law. Neither corporations or individuals have the right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."
- Heinlein, Life Line, 1939
I'm having that.... but wait! When did the person you're quoting die? If it was 1943 or after then this persons creative work my still be copyrighted (on death +70 years)... So by you quoting some dead dude you are effectively going to get El Reg removed from the internet.
That's SOPA at work right there. The copyright laws are already over the top for what is effectively as bad a crime as littering or Jaywalking.
This man is responsible for the travesty that is the Fox "News" Channel. It is a bastion of bigots where greed is worshiped, and lies and innuendo are put forth as the "Truth".
Please follow this link to the article published by them on January 14th and browse through the comments regarding the Martin Luther King memorial.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/14/quote-on-mlk-memorial-to-be-changed-after-complaints/#comment
I am deeply ashamed these "people" represent a significant percentage of my fellow Americans. Many of you will have heard of the incident where some of our troops filmed themselves pissing on the corpses of killed Afghanis. I would like to emulate that event over Murdochs still warm body.
After reading some of those comments I am truly ashamed to be a member of the human race. It's really no wonder any passing aliens only land in remote places to place with the arseholes of the sort of people who write on the FoxNews website, perhaps they think enough electro-shock treatment up the backside is the quickest way to the brain of these people!
“Piracy leader is Google who streams movies free, sells advts around them. No wonder pouring millions into lobbying.”
That's got fuck all to do with Murdoch Objecting to piracy. It's clear that Murdoch has always had a problem with any form of broadcast which is free to the viewer even when it's funded by advertising. Murdoch wants the viewer to pay and for them to be bombarded with advertising. Anybody who doesn't use both revenue streams is obviously more attractive to the viewer and Murdoch thinks he should be allowed to drive them out of business.
The difference between Google and Murdoch's companies?
Google's business model is that everything should be free to the consumer, but funded by advertising. It matters not to them if the advertising is legal or ethical just so long as they make money out of it.
Murdoch's business model is that everything should be sold to the consumer and funded by advertising. It matters not to him if the advertising is legal or ethical just so long as he agrees with it and makes money out of it.
In short neither care a fuck for their customers just their income streams. Neither are at all ethical or moral and I don't support either. Nor do I see why either should have the ear of any government. Any political system that actively encourages big business to fund lobbying or to fund political parties is inherently corrupt.
Not a good idea to pick on the person in charge.
Insult them then ask them to do something - I would turn it down in same circumstance.
Anyway anything from wallnut head is best ignored - his meteor is about to strike. (Or was it a custard pie).
Even then WH showed he is an arse by not laughing it off.
In my humble opinion, this old fart's senile tweeting must surely be the kiss of death for SOPA: Hopefully,it will smother ugly sister PIPA, as well. And if we are really lucky, we might even add the careers of a few technically illiterate legislators to the funeral pyre or force them back into school. Pass the matches and RFCs, please......
Seriously tho, if this latest show of support doesn't bury the SOPA manure six feet under and fast, then we are truly done for. The "Old media" dinosaurs must either get wih the program and learn how to use digital tech properly and ethically or get out of the media business completely and follow Rupert into the yawning tarpit of irrelevance. The world has changed guys, its time to move on. And Hollywood, I don't think your little stealth operation in Congress is gonna raise DVD sales, either. ...Tell all your friends... Rupert Murdoch loves SOPA !!!!!!!!
I care what Rupert Murdoch has to say because WHY? Murdoch is one of the most offensive members of The Corporate Oligarchy who seek to overthrow and thwart CITIZEN rights so they can overlord We The People instead. He belongs in jail, not in the public dialog. Of course this rectal pore of humanity is siding with the RIAA, MPAA and Chamber of Commerce! THEY are the "paymasters" who are perpetrating SOPA and PIPA with an order of magnitude more lobbying MONEY than the sum total of Silicon Valley companies.
Tonight the nasty Mr. Murdoch was sitting in the audience at the Golden Globe Awards. Why? His company News Corp owns Fox who had films up for awards. Fox is a member of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) who are one of the lobbyist corporate organizations shoving the SOPA & PIPA atrocities down the throats of We The People, the actual citizens of the USA, whom the Congress are elected to represent. Corporations ≠ people ≠ citizens.
The problem Murdoch has with Google is simple.
1) Google do not care about Murdoch.
2) Google is lot more successful on Internet then Murdoch has ever been able to be.
3) There is no way Murdoch will ever own Google.
4) Google is cash rich. (Banks can not the removal line of credit for not playing ball)
5) Google dares to have different view from Murdoch.
6) The writing on the wall about broadcast TV and IP-TV. (see point 2)
And don't forget that Murdoch just doesn't get the way most of the internet operates. For example Murdoch just can't understand why everybody doesn't get their news from his sites, but would rather go to a free source. He likes to rant about the BBC news being licence fee funded and not a a level playing field with, say, The Times. There are, however, plenty of other free news sites out there other than the BBC. Murdoch just doesn't understand that people like free content from the net and don't mind how it's funded. Lets be fair most of us ignore online advertising so advertising funding is not an issue. And most UK citizens have a TV licence so TV licence funding for the BBC site is not an issue anyway - we already paid for it.
I'd be more inclined to say that Rupert doesn't understand how normal human beings or basic economics work, (news for free - or pay for news? gee... that's a toughie). Sites with good news content (sometimes protected by a full or partial paywall) often see their stories passed on, quoted or simply linked to. It's not really a scoop unless it was published less than 15 minutes ago.
There are very few news sites I would even consider paying money to read (NYT or Wall Street Journal maybe). But good papers which continue to do quality journalism should thrive on the inter-webs too. It's all about quality, really, unlike the Murdoch empire. And I still buy newspapers I like, once in a while.
I also like the BBC publicly funded model, even if I don't always get my news from their site (or pay for it, because I don't live in the UK). But you wonder how much sense any pay news-site will make when everyone gets all or most of their news from the internet. One thing is for sure, Rupert and his legions will not be leading the way forward, which is just fine by me.
The trouble with Murdoch and his ilk is they just can't accept that the genie is out and won't get back into the bottle, no matter how hard they try. But that is precisely why Murdoch supports freedom-friendly initiatives like SOPA. Let's just hope that any future Murdoch support for US legislation becomes as welcome in Washington as a fart in a ski-suit.
Consider that the good folks at Spitting Image had the right of this moron back in the 1980s when he was attempting to fleece the UK press with the support of HM Gubbermint of the day. All that you need to do here is substitute a few names. In this case, however, he doesn't have the unequivocal support of the US because, unlike the UK, the US actually have a written constitution. Griping about it won't change that.
Well in the interest of fairness, I tuned into an interview with Senator Christopher Dodd (http://www.bloomberg.com/video/83704616/), who is now chairman of the MPAA. Although once a respected politician, he does seems to epitomize the clueless legions of big money moguls who think they know what is best and say "just get it done and screw the details".
If Hollywood really needs to go after pirates to save their dwindling fortunes, let them at I say. But don't ask for even more restrictive ad useless legislation. There are already courts and lawyers aplenty where you can spend your profits. The WTO's 153 members have all agreed that copyright infringement is wrong. Of course it would be a whole lot cheaper if you could just control the inter-tubes like the airwaves, but it ain't gonna happen because your industry won't live long enough. I'm sure the horse and buggy manufacturers would have loved to stick it to Henry Ford via Congress, but it just won't work
To Senator. Dodd, I would say the real challenge is to find some way to combat piracy which continues to "meet" all of the following criteria:
1) Target real villians (like those who SELL stuff they don't own, as opposed to grandmas who just want to listen to those old show-tunes one last time and are much easier to catch and prosecute). I would lump product counterfeiters into this group as well. I suspect this actual group is relatively small (unless you include Google et al and their many wierd and wonderful links and the entire interweb population who use search engines). That is indeed a very big number. Perhaps the MPAA should target these people as customers instead of crinimal, free-loading scum. I'm sure we would all appreciate it (and you) a lot more.
2) Puts and restricts the power to target truly bad folks (see above) into the hands of legally recognized bodies, i.e. courts, international law enforcement agencies, etc. This is sometimes done (and considered SOP) against real criminals such as drug lords and child pornographers. Such bodies need to be subject to review and face accountability for their actions. We should not use the same techniques against grandma / college students as those used against the billion dollar a year drug baron. No the punishment and enforcement should really fit the crime. Even during prohibition days, the Feds did not hose down the gin drinkers with lead bullets (unless they got in the way).
I personally don't consider the chronic freetard file-sharers as criminals, they are more accurately just misguided (and probably poor). Much like jailing the addict, jailing the freetard will do little to counter the real cause of drug addiction/piracy. Lowering the price of entertainment media would be a more intelligent and creative approach.
3) Allow any people who have been targeted by any cease and desist orders the time to contest and protest these actions, legally. Terms to be defined, oh wait, we already have laws like this. Are they going to be replaced by more anti-constitutional SOPA laws? Are the original laws not working? You mean people will still not take their family to the cinema anymore (which costs about 80 USD where I live). Does that mean we need more laws to change human nature (and econimic sense) and cause people to over-spend? The 1930's Depression was a boom time for the entertainment industry because it helped people forget their troubles. Maybe you should ask your accountants to explain why that isn't happening during this Depression.
4) Definitely not perform "shotgun" censorship of linking sites, domain names etc, this is just criminally stupid. Maybe we do need to force some ISPs to take down some egregiously and outrageously infringing sites, going through the local courts where the ISP is domiciled (even though it will always be a waste of time and money). Yes, the infringers will move elsewhere. No you will never be fast enough to stop them all. So deal with it. Media companies do not need to control internet access any more then they do already, they just need to compete on the provebial level playng field. Sadly, competing inside a new paradigm can be very hard when you can't (or won't) understand it. That would require clear-headed and innovative thinking, something that is clearly in short supply in the media industry's head space.
5) Stop basing bad legislation on bull-shit statistics. How in the hell can online piracy cost the ecomomy 100 billion a year? That's twice as much as people spend on drugs and probably a lot more than is spent on malaria prevention. Where is this money going? Who is getting it? Give us some facts, senator. Show me the money. Show me the freetards living in obscene opulence with their ill-gotten gains (I am not talking about your supporters). Show me why stopping people from getting free music is more important than investing money into better education, renewable power, better infra-structure or simply allowing online commerce to continue flourishing without governmental interference. Do (I am probably going out on a limb with this one) googles, ebays and youtubes ask the government to protect them from the nasty bullys on the playground who stole all their marbles ? No! Successful companies innovate, invest, invent and think about how to best harness one of the coolest things ever created by mankind: THE INTERNET. They then try to make some money with their new ideas. Sometimes they succeed. Why doesn't the MPAA promote that kind of thinking instead? Why do I have to spend so much money to see a film that might be complete garbage? How long do you think that will keep working as a business model?
This is not a Hollywood blockbuster plot line, boys, where shining hero wins against evil pirates with his magical legislative powers and influence. It is the future. And the future is leaving some people very, very far behind. Such a shame that these same people all seem to be concentrated in a few very distinct locations, such as Capitol Hill and the pockets of rich media and entertainment moguls. Good luck....
By their fruits ye shall know them....
Matthew 7: 16
How do you do #1 and #2 if they're based in countries who don't respect American copyrights (China springs to mind)? And they don't respect American law enforcement. And they know how to get around any blocking tactic you can think of--probably by disguising their addresses as American ones. IOW, how do you play ball when there's a stubborn guy on the field who keeps stealing the balls and chucking them over the fence into the backward with the bulldog (and the house owners are his parents and encouraging him to do it, so there's no convincing him to stop, you get the picture).
SOPA is an example of how bad a piece of US/UK legislation can be: a highly technical subject matter for an easily swayed and clueless legislature, created solely to give advantage for a single industry (one with huge pockets), that would muddy the waters between regulation and freedom on the Internet, and (in my opinion at least ) have the potential to render the Internet a controlled mouthpiece rather than an expression and tool of the free market and free peoples ......all packaged up with a deliberately deceiving title..... Sounds just like something Murdoch would support.
The bottom line is, if the SOPA act goes through, liturally half of youtube would need to be taken down over night. Like to watch some guys videos who makes reviews for computer games? well that wont be happening any more if they have anything to do with it. The whole things ridiculous, and dosnt help anybody in the slightest.
Oooh, look! I've just found some pirated films using Google's search system, which Murdoch thinks is a very bad thing and wants Google shut-down.
Then I downloaded the films using a Sky connection to the Internet.
OK, Rupert, when are you going to close down Sky as an ISP?
I have had sales people try to pursuede me (a few years ago pre HD, early Freeview).
They failed.
Kept on about something called a Sky Plus, it can record TV programmes, but you had to pay money every month for it to work.
They had internet there, they had a rather good look at the Pace site now they knew there were free to view PVRs.
Now looking forwards to a call trying to sell HD then they can have a look at the Humax HDR site. However we are TPS registered.
Visit the File Sharing section of File Planet powered by IGN:
http://www.fileplanet.com/73/0/0/0/1/section/File_Sharing
notice how they have multiple pirating software for download?
Notice how IGN Entertainment is a division of News Corp (Murdoch's company):
http://www.newscorp.com/operations/other.html
Maybe he should clean his own house before complaining about this subject.
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