IF things are this bad, how bad would it be with SOPA enacted?

[GreyGeek]

http://torrentfreak.com/universal-ce...-label-111210/

Earlier today, Megaupload released a pop video featuring mainstream artists who endorse the cyberlocker service. News of the controversial Mega Song even trended on Twitter, but has now been removed from YouTube on copyright grounds by Universal Music. Kim Dotcom says that Megaupload owns everything in the video, and that the label has engaged in dirty tricks in an attempt to sabotage their successful viral campaign.

This morning we published an article on a new campaign by cyberlocker service Megaupload.

Site founder Kim Dotcom told TorrentFreak he had commissioned a song from producer Printz Board featuring huge recording artists including P Diddy, Will.i.am, Alicia Keys, Kanye West, Snoop Dogg, Chris Brown, The Game and Mary J Blige. These and others were shouting the praises of Megaupload.
...
“Those UMG criminals. They are sending illegitimate takedown notices for content they don’t own,” he told us. “Dirty tricks in an effort to stop our massively successful viral campaign.”

So did Universal have any right at all to issue YouTube with a takedown notice? Uncleared samples, anything?

“Mega owns everything in this video. And we have signed agreements with every featured artist for this campaign,” Kim told TorrentFreak.

“UMG did something illegal and unfair by reporting Mega’s content to be infringing. They had no right to do that. We reserve our rights to take legal action. But we’d like to give them the opportunity to apologize.”
...

Universal KNEW that they did not have any legitimate copyright or IP interest in that video, but they used EXISTING laws to send a bogus claim to YouTube, which immediately acted upon the "guilty until proven innocent" philosophy and removed it. Thuggery explains it all, especially when one considers how Universal and the other media groups use creative accounting to steal from artists and writers, as this example illustrates:

Winston Groom was paid $350,000 for the screenplay rights to his novel Forrest Gump and was contracted for a 3% share of the film's net profits. However, Paramount and the film's producers did not pay him, using Hollywood accounting to posit that the blockbuster film lost money—a claim belied by the fact that Tom Hanks contracted for the film's gross receipts instead of a salary, and he and director Zemeckis each netted $40 million. Additionally, Groom was not mentioned once in any of the film's six Oscar-winner speeches.

This is amazing since the film cost $55 Million to make and grossed $677,387,716 worldwide. It defies credulity that a corporation could stay in business if it lost more than $677 Million on a $55M film. Thieves at work.

I think that it is also obvious that "Hollywood accounting" is the studio's major way of dodging taxes on their true profits. Again, such is possible only because Congress has been adequately bribed ("campaign donations") to look the other way.

BTW, the video is on the first link posted, the s.megaclick.com website, but you may have problems seeing it. It is not an exceptional video but it has a LOT of high profile people (even Kardashian shows up on this one!) and it is obviously an ad video promoting an upload/download service.

[woodsmoke]

Re: IF things are this bad, how bad would it be with SOPA enacted?

Hi GG good post, and I'd add if I might:

I had a former student who was a rap musician and writer at the time of being in my class and decided to go into "Christian" rap because he found that he actually got paid what his contracts said from the Christian music companies.

Many of the regional country and western bands compose their own music and just work the "bars and dance halls" and sell their own cds and make more than enough living from it.

One owner of a very successful band carries around the actual check, he never cashed it, for, as I remember, twenty some dollars for the total proceeds from I don't know how many tens of thousands of cds of music that he sold through one of the biggies.

When he got the check, he waited out the contract by doing odd jobs and went independent. He has five people in the band and all of them sing, he works all over the midwest and they keep all of their money.

A local building contractor was a former "on the road" guitarist in country and blues and now does the contracting but also has his own studio in which he works in the "off hours" producing the "back music" for a bunch of country and blues bands who eschew going through the biggies. They all make a nice amount of money.

Note: the old hands can stop reading here because I'm going to do my usual rant about the RIAA.

The RIAA and the companies that it protects are why the only streaming music station that is left in the U.S. is probably SOMAfm and it may very well go under because of the backroom deals about "royalties".

And, I won't get into the argument again about which congress person from California did this.

woodsmoke

[vinnywright]

Re: IF things are this bad, how bad would it be with SOPA enacted?

looks like youtube realized the "mistake"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9caPFPQUNs

VINNY

[ScottyK]

Re: IF things are this bad, how bad would it be with SOPA enacted?

With as much music, movies, audio books I have archived, I could completely stop consuming the current stuff that is released, and still never quite go through the entire catalog. I like the idea of supporting the local artists, time to seek a few out here in OKC.

[SteveRiley]

Re: IF things are this bad, how bad would it be with SOPA enacted?

I've heard of the practice where people download via BitTorrent with reckless abandon and then send money directly to artists or their agents, completely bypassing the record companies. It's surely an extremely intriguing moral proposition.

[Telengard]

Re: IF things are this bad, how bad would it be with SOPA enacted?

This is amazing since the film cost $55 Million to make and grossed $677,387,716 worldwide. It defies credulity that a corporation could stay in business if it lost more than $677 Million on a $55M film. Thieves at work.

I think that it is also obvious that "Hollywood accounting" is the studio's major way of dodging taxes on their true profits. Again, such is possible only because Congress has been adequately bribed ("campaign donations") to look the other way.

Nothing new here. Just reinforces the idea that the so called studio system is a crufty relic of a bygone era. Support independent artists in all media, especially those who share their works electronically. Those luddites who refuse to adapt to the needs, wants, and desires of modern audiences will die out eventually.

[HalationEffect]

Re: IF things are this bad, how bad would it be with SOPA enacted?

According to an article over at Ars Technica (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...ube-videos.ars), UMG didn't use the DMCA to get the video pulled... they had some kind of shady, smoke-filled backroom deal with Google that pretty much allows them to get anything they dislike taken down

[Telengard]

Re: IF things are this bad, how bad would it be with SOPA enacted?

http://2briancox.wordpress.com/2011/...ad-about-sopa/

Cox's argument seems to be that the power of government is being abused to preserve failed business models. I can't help but agree, and struggle against the urge to cheer out loud.

In other words, if a government were to make a decision that a current business model was the correct one, and begin passing laws that cement that business model in place forever, then that government does not have the best interest of the entire economy at heart. Instead a true Capitalist system encourages any and all business models to exist. And a government that wishes to promote the ideals of Capitalism does not lend itself to any industry as its personal strong-arm to prevent competitive threats. Instead, such a government would stick to its original purpose of promoting freedoms of its people.

(emphasis mine)

He goes on:

The reason we have come to the point where a government intended to protect individual liberties is asserting itself as the unpaid bully of select business models is that we have gradually slid far from the ideals of Capitalism and into the morass of Corporate Socialism. We have allowed ideas like “too big to fail” and “vital industries” to slip into our vernacular. We have fostered the socialist idea that the role of our government is to make sure certain favored entities remain unscathed.

(emphasis mine)

[GreyGeek]

Re: IF things are this bad, how bad would it be with SOPA enacted?

....

The reason we have come to the point where a government intended to protect individual liberties is asserting itself as the unpaid bully of select business models is that we have gradually slid far from the ideals of Capitalism and into the morass of Corporate Socialism. We have allowed ideas like “too big to fail” and “vital industries” to slip into our vernacular. We have fostered the socialist idea that the role of our government is to make sure certain favored entities remain unscathed.

(emphasis mine)

Excellent comments, Telengard!

At heart I am and always have been in favor of capitalism over socialist command and control structures, and I abhor Corporate Socialism. It has at its base the extension of "protected classes" into corporatism. Corporate money has all be destroyed both democracy and free enterprise in America (a million dollars of bribes, a.k.a. "campaign donations", is worth more than one million votes), which is one reason why I advocate the elimination of the idea the corporations are real people and the outlawing of ANY kind of participation in our democracy by corporations as corporations.

[Telengard]

Re: IF things are this bad, how bad would it be with SOPA enacted?

Excellent comments, Telengard!

Thank Mr. Cox. He's the one who eloquently expressed the thoughts and feelings I've been having for quite some time now.

At heart I am and always have been in favor of capitalism over socialist command and control structures, and I abhor Corporate Socialism.

As do I. We haven't seen true Capitalism in this country for over a hundred years. The coercive power of government has corrupted almost every institution and ideal which made our country great to begin with.

Corporate money has all be destroyed both democracy and free enterprise in America (a million dollars of bribes, a.k.a. "campaign donations", is worth more than one million votes), which is one reason why I advocate the elimination of the idea the corporations are real people and the outlawing of ANY kind of participation in our democracy by corporations as corporations.

I don't believe that would fix the problem. What I think is that a return to The Constitution of the United States as the supreme law of the land. It was intended to protect our liberties from government, not empower government and financial interests. Oh, and to anyone who thinks The Constitution of the United States is an outdated docment which doesn't reflect current reality, that is why we have a provision for Amendments.

[GreyGeek]

Re: IF things are this bad, how bad would it be with SOPA enacted?

.....
I don't believe that would fix the problem. ...

Perhaps not, but if corporations (public, private or charitable) were not allowed to donate money to ANY campaign or to any elected official, or make or publish political utterances for or against anything, BECAUSE they are not real people, AND, elected officials were NOT allowed to accept money or anything of value from corporations for any reason whatsoever, it would go a long way toward helping solve the problem.

One proposal I heard about would outlaw ALL campaign contributions from any but registered voters and those contributions would come from a $50 tax rebate which the tax payer could, on his tax return, specify to whom ever is running for office and how it would be divided among those so listed. It's an idea pushed by AxeToTheRoot.

One thing for sure... "bidness" as usual cannot continue as it has been for very much longer or there will be severe civil unrest, especially if there is a collapse of the US Dollar.

[de_koraco]

Re: IF things are this bad, how bad would it be with SOPA enacted?

why I advocate the elimination of the idea the corporations are real people and the outlawing of ANY kind of participation in our democracy by corporations as corporations.

I agree, but unions, NGOs and similar entities should also be banned from donating to campaigns.

[Telengard]

Re: IF things are this bad, how bad would it be with SOPA enacted?

Perhaps not, but if corporations (public, private or charitable) were not allowed to donate money to ANY campaign or to any elected official, or make or publish political utterances for or against anything, BECAUSE they are not real people, AND, elected officials were NOT allowed to accept money or anything of value from corporations for any reason whatsoever, it would go a long way toward helping solve the problem.

How the hell can you think to enforce that?

One proposal I heard about would outlaw ALL campaign contributions from any but registered voters and those contributions would come from a $50 tax rebate which the tax payer could, on his tax return, specify to whom ever is running for office and how it would be divided among those so listed. It's an idea pushed by AxeToTheRoot.

I hate the tax system. Why grant the IRS even more power over our lives? It think the income tax is an abomination not envisioned by the people who fought and died to rid our land of tyrannical influence. Less govt., not more!

[woodsmoke]

Re: IF things are this bad, how bad would it be with SOPA enacted?

this is a great thread with a great "backing and forthing" I hope that others will join in.

woodsmoke

[GreyGeek]

Re: IF things are this bad, how bad would it be with SOPA enacted?

.....
How the hell can you think to enforce that?
...

Just like every other law is enforced. We had a foreign exchange student this year and he wondered why we allow corporations to buy influence. He said that in his country, Holland, corporations are not allowed roll in politics.

I hate the tax system. Why grant the IRS even more power over our lives? It think the income tax is an abomination not envisioned by the people who fought and died to rid our land of tyrannical influence. Less govt., not more!

No more than I. I am in favor of abolishing the IRS and ALL current taxes, and instituting a national sales tax, with exemptions on rent and health services, that can only be raised by a vote of the people. From that kitty all federal, state and local government expenses would be apportioned and borrowing would not be allowed. I am also in favor of term limits so that we don't have a politician buying his votes with ear marks for decades, and then "leaving" his office to one of his or her children as if it were an entitlement. But, until we raise a generation of voters who can think beyond sound and video bytes, that is not to be.

So, starting with what we've got, outlawing corporate political activity could be a start. Knowing how corrupt and greedy our politicians are, elected by a citizenry which has come to expect something for nothing, it's probably an impossible task.