Posted on 02/26/2003 10:54:57 AM PST by GeneD
WASHINGTON -- As part of an uphill battle against Internet movie piracy, entertainment industry lobbyist Jack Valenti offered university students a lesson in morality Tuesday.
"Too many students don't believe it's wrong to steal these movies," Valenti told students at Georgetown University Law Center. "It is fracturing the moral contract to take something that does not belong to you."
The appearance was one of several that the president of the Motion Picture Association of America plans at prominent universities over the next few months. Students are among the heaviest online traffickers of illegally copied material.
Since the late 1990s, a host of file-sharing sites have flooded the Internet with digital copies of music, television shows and films that can be downloaded at no cost. The recording industry says digital piracy was a factor in last year's unprecedented decline in compact disc sales, and Hollywood fears it could be next.
Driving those fears are the booming popularity of high-speed Internet connections and the recent appearance of low-cost DVD recorders on the consumer market.
Valenti said that around half a million movies are illegally downloaded each day from sites such as KaZaA, Morpheus, Grokster, Gnutella and Limewire. The extremely fast fiber-optic Internet connections common at major universities and the students' high interest in pop culture make campuses a center of digital piracy.
Valenti lauded the "vast benefits" of broadband Internet access, but said that the file-sharing is in violation of copyright law, and is plain wrong.
His moral appeal faced mixed reviews from the law students.
"I didn't feel he completely addressed all the questions we had," said Puraj Puri, 21. "The moral argument doesn't convincingly get the argument across."
One student was dissatisfied with Valenti's black-and-white version of the file-sharing issue.
"I think you're simplifying the argument beyond a level that's appropriate for this audience, I'm sorry," he told Valenti during a question-and-answer session.
Others said the moral appeal against file-sharing resonated strongly.
"No question, it's wrong, it's stealing," said third-year student Rudy Salo, 25.
Earlier this month, major companies received a five-page "Corporate Policy Guide" from MPAA and its sister, the Recording Industry Association of America, urging corporate heads to stamp out illegal downloading activity by employees at work.
The memo came with a stern threat of legal action, citing a $1 million settlement paid in 2002 to RIAA by Arizona-based Integrated Information Systems, whose employees had been downloading music files.
Movie industry representatives are now meeting with universities to develop a similar code of conduct for students, Valenti said.
Like many universities, Georgetown already has an "acceptable use" policy that students must read before receiving online accounts.
Georgetown's current guidelines, which have been in place since 1997, state that university equipment "may not be used to violate copyright or the terms of any license agreement. No one may . . . distribute or copy proprietary data . . . without proper authorization."
"It is working well on our campus," Georgetown Law Center spokesman Pablo Molina said of the policy. Violations happen "very infrequently," he said, and offending students must remove illegal files from their computers.
But MPAA continuing its campus campaign aggressively. A few months ago, college presidents received letters from the organization asking them to monitor student computer use more closely.
And Valenti's tour will continue. Earlier in the week he spoke to Duke University students, and he'll head to Stanford University next.
Nora Achrati is a Washington correspondent for Cox Newspapers.
Reread my post. Did I lobby on behalf of those who download movies or music?
All I said that such a thing (downloading movies) is a big waste of time because, unlike music, movies have fallen in price to the point that anyone can buy one on the cheap. VHS movies even cheaper. Besides, the quality would suck.
So go pound sand or something....
Yes, Goldmember.
It's already happened. There's a rock group out in Seattle that distributes its music entirely through it's website.
They also run their promotions and concerts online also.
People seem to forget that it was Metallica who bypassed the recording suits and started playing in front of live concerts and shows.
The recording industry as we know it is dead. Within five years, CDs will go the way of the 8-track and vinyl. Everyone will get their music through a pod where they can download their favorite songs. There will be no more Platinum or Gold sales standard - sales and artist status will be measured in downloads and airplay.
Here are the facts, "piracy" has been part of the recording industry since people had the ability to record sounds, period. I can remember back in the mid to late 70s my parents had a reasonable record collection, and our regular babysitter at the time would often bring her old reel to reel with her when she babysat, and would record the albums after she put us to bed on her reel to reel. Now, was she violating copyright law? Certainly.. were the record companies out there ranting and raving over it? No... later Cassettes replaced reel to reel and copying albumns and then even songs directly off the radio became even easier, and there isn't a person in america who hasn't recorded a song in some fashion that they personally did not directly pay for... then VCR's became household and copying movies and/or recording shows off of TV became common... did the MPAA get jumping ugly, or the RIAA scream bloody hell? Nope... because these things NEVER threated control of the distribution channel.. CD burners and DFS came along... only thing DFS has done has made the distribution/sharing of these copies easier.. but that's not the real threat to the RIAA... the real threat is now the distribution channel of these DFS is far faster, more efficient and better than what the RIAA has in place... now the RIAA does not control the distribution channel, and that is the true threat... that's what threatens their power. Piracy is not largely demonstrably hurting their bottom line today, anymore than it ever has... what it is doing is allowing distribution of music to the masses in a way they can't and don't control! And that is what scares the bejeebers out of them. IF artists don't need labels, then labels are dead. And if the labels don't wake up to reality, they truly will have nothign to offer but promotion, and thus be dead, at least in their current forms.
Lets face it look at the RIAA business model, we offer a contract to a band... we front them some cash to live off of, and the cost to record an album... If the band is unestablished this money is minimal, then if we think the band has some mainstream appeal we will launch our marketing arm into motion to get the band airplay and attention... then if all works well we make our profit back in spades on the albums sales. The band may get a cut of the albumn sales but for the most part their real income will come via touring, not through their points on the albumn.
Now, suddenly a band doesn't need the labels money to make the albumn.... it doesn't need the label to distribute the albumn at all... what is left for the label? PROMOTION, that's all they have to offer... and they know darn well with out that front end carrot (pay for production of the albumn, and get it distributed) they can't get away with the back end rape. If promotion is the only commodity they have their entire model breaks down.
The RIAA just hasn't kept up with the times, and they have no one to blame but themselves. CDR technology is here now, why is it a kid can't walk into a record store, plunk down $5 or $10 (tops) and walk out with a custom burned CD with exactly the songs they want on it, burned as they choose them? You could set them up as kiosks in malls, arcades, amusement parks or other venues... there is nothing there that is not technologically feasible, and you can't say there is no demand for it... the gripe of the average albumn having maybe 1 to 2 good songs certainly predates digital recording...
This is a win-win for everyone... stores no longer have to carry physical inventory, other than blank CDR's... their square footage expenses drop dramatically... music becomes more customized and the distribution becomes cheaper as well, for now instead of phsyically shipping CD's a simple DSL/T1 line into the music store allows them to update their library with new and fresh material instantly... if a user wants an obscure title, they can get it on the spot, no custom ordering and waiting... etc etc... There is nothing here I am advocating that JUKEBOXES don't do now (other than the physical burning of the CD, but since they are a controlled environment, memory only storage is fine). It makes sense for the Jukebox distributor to update, and change music via phone lines rather than physically lug around CD's or Records... but the RIAA is still forcing the old system.
The mantra is simple, EVOLVE or become irrellevant... and RIAA has firmly placed itself on the path to irrellevance.. they have no one to blame but themselves.
This guy has just exposed himself as an idiot. Next.
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