MPAA on SOPA blackouts: "irresponsible, a disservice to users, an abuse of power."

[Bad^Hat]

In a Tuesday statement, Chris Dodd, chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)—and a former Connecticut senator—said Web sites participating in the blackout are "resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging."

"It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on [these sites] for information and use their services," Dodd wrote. "It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today."

Dodd accused blackout participants of skewing the facts "in order to further their corporate interests."

"A so-called 'blackout' is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals," Dodd concluded. "It is our hope that the White House and the Congress will call on those who intend to stage this 'blackout' to stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy."

Also here's some gibberish Rupert Murdoch vomited onto twitter.

"Big bipartisan majorities both houses sold out by POTUS for search engines. How about 2.2 m workers in entertainment industry? Piracy rules," he tweeted yesterday. "Nonsense argument about danger to Internet. How about Google, others blocking porn, hate speech, etc? Internet hurt?"

Murdoch concluded that the "blogosphere has succeeded in terrorizing many senators and congressmen who previously committed" to supporting SOPA and PIPA. "Don't care about people not buying movies, programs or newspapers, just stealing them," he concluded.

I think "internet hurt?" is going to become my new catchphrase.

So, there you have it. The people who stand to gain the most from the bill are speaking out against it's detractors, calling their response an abuse of power for inconveniencing the users and treating them as corporate pawns. Presumably after making this statement, the MPAA will cease it's practice of suing teenagers and modem-less grannies for more money than they can even imagine, and stop funnelling more untold millions into congress to influence legislation which will allow them to do more of same. Right?

Haha, yeah.

Source: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2399019,00.asp

 

[Remus]

So he's basically saying "Internet companies stop abusing your power, only we have the right to do that !11"

HILARIOUS.

 

[Maestro]

I would pay money to see the CEOs of these company compete in gladiatorial games to the death.

 

[AKIRA]

The U.S. Gov. is just digging themselves deeper and deeper and further promoting themselves as the idiots of the World.

Good job America, keep up the stereotypes that the rest of the world, and even your own citizens have of you.

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

The issue is not piracy. Piracy is illegal. The SOPA and PIPA bills are a threat to free expression and open the door to censorship of the web. Perhaps not at first, or even for the first few years, but later on future administrations WILL abuse this power to silence websites they have a problem with. Barring me from doing business with anyone is wrong, and has only ever been done on an international level before for US citizens (IE: no buying from embargoed nations ,etc) I can do business with someone that has been convicted of a felony, as long as the business is a legal venture. Why should advertisers be barred from running ads on a site like the pirate bay? Hold the individuals uploading copywritten material responsible, not the space it happened on.

If a privately owned park that is accessable to the public becomes a seedy spot for drug deals, does the landlord go to jail if they bust a dealer at that park? No, someone came onto his property and did that crime there. Why is there a different standard for intellectual property crime? It's the exact same concept.

 

[Laivasse]

Time to hack the voicemails of these anti-SOPA types to see if they're planning any more horrible abuses of power.

 

[Yorick]

America: Where only the rich have freedom but we pretend that everyone else does, too.

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

America: Where only the rich have freedom but we pretend that everyone else does, too.

While bills like this continually threaten American freedoms, I still feel we're much more free politically than any other nation. We have serious flaws in the criminal code that restrict certain actions that, constitutionally, shouldn't be restricted by the Fed Gvt, but overall I feel much better living here than any European nation, etc, even if their culture/language were the same but they just retained the laws.

We have to be vigilant to fight legislation like this, and to repeal all other unconstitutional legislation that has taken away other freedoms over the years.

 

[Yorick]

While bills like this continually threaten American freedoms, I still feel we're much more free politically than any other nation. We have serious flaws in the criminal code that restrict certain actions that, constitutionally, shouldn't be restricted by the Fed Gvt, but overall I feel much better living here than any European nation, etc, even if their culture/language were the same but they just retained the laws.

We have to be vigilant to fight legislation like this, and to repeal all other unconstitutional legislation that has taken away other freedoms over the years.

The whole "Grass isn't greener anywhere else" is the only reason I'm still here. No matter where you go there are going to be trade-offs. There's nowhere on this planet that's perfect.

But with the media's presentation of Occupy Wallstreet, coupled with all of the attempts to shut it down, and now this? We say we want our freedom's preserved and then we very nearly elect McCain and Palin, who have no business at all running this country? And now the Republican's best bet for presidential candidate is that idiot Mitt Romney? And he'll probably get in because so much of this country is dissatisfied that Obama hasn't been able to instantly fix things.

I tell you, the faults that Europe has look more appealing to me every day.

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

The whole "Grass isn't greener anywhere else" is the only reason I'm still here. No matter where you go there are going to be trade-offs. There's nowhere on this planet that's perfect.

But with the media's presentation of Occupy Wallstreet, coupled with all of the attempts to shut it down, and now this? We say we want our freedom's preserved and then we very nearly elect McCain and Palin, who have no business at all running this country? And now the Republican's best bet for presidential candidate is that idiot Mitt Romney? And he'll probably get in because so much of this country is dissatisfied that Obama hasn't been able to instantly fix things.

I tell you, the faults that Europe has look more appealing to me every day.

We have very different views on what is wrong with the US right now then. Occupy Wallstreets demands for various forms of wealth redistribution are not constitutional. I don't like Romney but I prefer him over Obama. I will vote for Ron Paul in the general election if he's nominated or if he runs third party. If he doesn't run I will probably vote Chuck Baldwin or whoever has the Constitutional Party nomination.

 

[Raziaar]

If a blackout on wikipedia is terrorism... let's waterboard them. I don't know what kind of actual action that would require in stupid land.

 

[sixteenth]

Ran today during the blackout.

 

[Krynn72]

Ran today during the blackout.

"but now American creativity and innovation are under attack. Every day foreign criminals use illegal websites to steal American products, steal our ideas, and put Americans out of work."

I wonder if Mr. Chris Dodd has anything against the hyperbole used in this ad as well. hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

 

[MJ12]

http://gizmodo.com/5877167/follow-all-the-morons-confused-by-wikipedias-blackout-in-one-place

 

[dfc05]

"a disservice to users"
Ha, like they actually care if we're disserviced.

I just read that my senator has gone from supporting PIPA to "leaning no." From the canned email response I got back (to my admittedly canned EFF email), I thought he was for sure supporting, but it looks like he's switched over. Good job Pat Toomey.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

Funny stuff there.

 

[mechanicallizard]

>snip<

Seriously? are you ****ing kidding me right now? I wonder how many mindless tools saw that and actually listened.

"foreign criminals" ! THEY MUST BE STOPPED

 

[Stylo]

designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals

This bit made me laugh.

Some poor statements though. Just about everyone opposed to SOPA isn't wanting Piracy for all ffs. It's just that this solution to Online Piracy is a steaming pile of shite. If anybody's doing the distorting here, it's people like Murdoch. Yeah we all want to steal movies and newspapers! My God, man. *Head Desk*

 

[Tagaziel]

While bills like this continually threaten American freedoms, I still feel we're much more free politically than any other nation. We have serious flaws in the criminal code that restrict certain actions that, constitutionally, shouldn't be restricted by the Fed Gvt, but overall I feel much better living here than any European nation, etc, even if their culture/language were the same but they just retained the laws.

So you've lived in Europe long enough to make such asinine statements? Enlighten me as to why a nation with a concentration camp, NDAA and the Patriot Act that made war upon other nations pretty much unprovoked is better than my continent. Please

 

[ríomhaire]

The Pirate Bay's comments on the entertainment industry and SOPA:

https://static.thepiratebay.org/legal/sopa.txt

Because of Edisons patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures
in the North american east coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call
Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent.
There was also no copyright to speak of, so the studios could copy old stories and make movies out of them - like
Fantasia, one of Disneys biggest hits ever.


So, the whole basis of this industry, that today is screaming about losing control over immaterial rights, is that they
circumvented immaterial rights. They copied (or put in their terminology: "stole") other peoples creative works,
without paying for it. They did it in order to make a huge profit. Today, they're all successful and most of the
studios are on the Fortune 500 list of the richest companies in the world. Congratulations - it's all based on being
able to re-use other peoples creative works. And today they hold the rights to what other people create.
If you want to get something released, you have to abide to their rules. The ones they created after circumventing
other peoples rules.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Apparently that's blocked in some countries, so here's the full text in a spoiler.

Spoiler

INTERNETS, 18th of January 2012.
PRESS RELEASE, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.

Over a century ago Thomas Edison got the patent for a device which would "do for the eye what the phonograph does for
the ear". He called it the Kinetoscope. He was not only amongst the first to record video, he was also the first person
to own the copyright to a motion picture.

Because of Edisons patents for the motion pictures it was close to financially impossible to create motion pictures
in the North american east coast. The movie studios therefor relocated to California, and founded what we today call
Hollywood. The reason was mostly because there was no patent.
There was also no copyright to speak of, so the studios could copy old stories and make movies out of them - like
Fantasia, one of Disneys biggest hits ever.

So, the whole basis of this industry, that today is screaming about losing control over immaterial rights, is that they
circumvented immaterial rights. They copied (or put in their terminology: "stole") other peoples creative works,
without paying for it. They did it in order to make a huge profit. Today, they're all successful and most of the
studios are on the Fortune 500 list of the richest companies in the world. Congratulations - it's all based on being
able to re-use other peoples creative works. And today they hold the rights to what other people create.
If you want to get something released, you have to abide to their rules. The ones they created after circumventing
other peoples rules.

The reason they are always complainting about "pirates" today is simple. We've done what they did. We circumvented the
rules they created and created our own. We crushed their monopoly by giving people something more efficient. We allow
people to have direct communication between eachother, circumventing the profitable middle man, that in some cases take
over 107% of the profits (yes, you pay to work for them).
It's all based on the fact that we're competition.
We've proven that their existance in their current form is no longer needed. We're just better than they are.

And the funny part is that our rules are very similar to the founding ideas of the USA. We fight for freedom of speech.
We see all people as equal. We believe that the public, not the elite, should rule the nation. We believe that laws
should be created to serve the public, not the rich corporations.

The Pirate Bay is truly an international community. The team is spread all over the globe - but we've stayed out of the
USA. We have Swedish roots and a swedish friend said this:
The word SOPA means "trash" in Swedish. The word PIPA means "a pipe" in Swedish. This is of course not a coincidence.
They want to make the internet inte a one way pipe, with them at the top, shoving trash through the pipe down to the
rest of us obedient consumers.
The public opinion on this matter is clear. Ask anyone on the street and you'll learn that noone wants to be fed with
trash. Why the US government want the american people to be fed with trash is beyond our imagination but we hope that
you will stop them, before we all drown.

SOPA can't do anything to stop TPB. Worst case we'll change top level domain from our current .org to one of the
hundreds of other names that we already also use. In countries where TPB is blocked, China and Saudi Arabia springs to
mind, they block hundreds of our domain names. And did it work? Not really.
To fix the "problem of piracy" one should go to the source of the problem. The entertainment industry say they're
creating "culture" but what they really do is stuff like selling overpriced plushy dolls and making 11 year old girls
become anorexic. Either from working in the factories that creates the dolls for basically no salary or by watching
movies and tv shows that make them think that they're fat.

In the great Sid Meiers computer game Civilization you can build Wonders of the world. One of the most powerful ones
is Hollywood. With that you control all culture and media in the world. Rupert Murdoch was happy with MySpace and had
no problems with their own piracy until it failed. Now he's complainting that Google is the biggest source of piracy
in the world - because he's jealous. He wants to retain his mind control over people and clearly you'd get a more
honest view of things on Wikipedia and Google than on Fox News.

Some facts (years, dates) are probably wrong in this press release. The reason is that we can't access this information
when Wikipedia is blacked out. Because of pressure from our failing competitors. We're sorry for that.

THE PIRATE BAY, (K)2012

 

[TechnoHippyChic]

 

[Sulkdodds]

We have very different views on what is wrong with the US right now then. Occupy Wallstreets demands for various forms of wealth redistribution are not constitutional.

Yorick referenced the response to Occupy Wall Street, though. I would imagine that whatever your views on the movement you would not endorse endemic police brutality (which some evidence suggests may have been federally co-ordinated) and a media whitewash thereof as a reasonable and constitutional response.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Is this some kind of meta thing?

Edit: Ugh I just read that press release from Pirate Bay I posted above, what a load of incoherent garbage.