My Beef With Big Media: How government protects big media–and shuts out upstarts like me. By Ted Turner
Ted Turner argues that the big media corporations are stifling innovation and should be broken up.
I agree particularly as they are encouraging Senators to produce rather insane bills such as the INDUCE act proposed by Senator Orrin Hatch et al. An overreaching act that would hold technology companies liable for any product they make that encourages people to steal copyright materials. It would in effect ban any device capable of recording a copyrighted work. Wired magazine asks Will Copyright Bill Kill Tech? and Lawrence Lessig (Professor of Law and author of Free Culture) writes even I can’t believe this.
Also in on the act so to speak is the RIAA whose letter in support of INDUCE has been reproduced and annotated by Ernest Miller of Corante.
The RIAA wishes to protect its menbers from loss of revenue due to illegal file-sharing over the Internet even though there is evidence to the contrary.
Yet despite the industry’s belief that file sharing is anathema to record sales, a recent study has shown that it may not be so clear cut. “Downloads have an effect on sales that is statistically indistinguishable from zero,” the controversial report claims, even going so far as to suggest that for popular albums, “the impact of file sharing on sales is likely to be positive”.
The US Copyright Office goes further than the RIAA and says that the INDUCE act doesn’t go further enough. Ernest Miller writes
Yesterday, Marybeth Peters, the head of the US Copyright Office, testified before the Senate regarding the INDUCE Act. Her testimony was even more radical than the RIAA’s. Not only did she (inappropriately) explain what outcome the Appeals Court in the Grokster case should reach and argue (wrongly) that the INDUCE Act wouldn’t have a chilling effect on innovation, she actually said she thought the INDUCE Act was not enough. The Register of Copyrights argued that the Betamax decision, which made VCRs legal, should be overturned by Congress. Wow.
Tags: copyright
