NBC chief urges all-hands assault on piracy
WASHINGTON--Copyright holders are "losing the battle" against piracy, at the expense of economic security and public health, and will never prevail unless a wide swath of governments and industries gets proactive, NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker said Wednesday.
The media conglomerate's chief shared a lengthy attack plan in a speech at an antipiracy summit here hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Jeff Zucker
(Credit: NBC Universal)He wants alleged intellectual property violations to take center stage at all levels of government, from the White House to U.S. embassies around the world. He wants Congress to create dedicated IP enforcement departments and to offer federal grants for state and local governments to escalate their own policing efforts.
He wants advertisers and credit card companies to stop providing "financial support" to Web sites that are "overwhelmingly devoted" to making pirated content available.
And he wants Internet service providers, university network operators, user-generated content sites, search engines, auction Web sites and even consumer electronics and home networking device manufacturers to install filtering technologies designed to detect and block unauthorized copyright content. Critics argue that technique is prone to being either over- or underinclusive--or downright ineffective--but Zucker said he's convinced it's an approach worth pursuing.
Just as cable companies have helped to combat theft of their signals through encryption, "technology has been and continues to be an incredibly powerful tool to combat theft, whether we are talking about hard goods or digital goods," Zucker said. Such tools will never be perfect, he conceded, "but committed development of technology has the potential to reduce dramatically the traffic in counterfeit and pirated products."
In an attempt to illustrate the impact of piracy on the U.S. economy, Zucker touted the "staggering" numbers in a new study released Wednesday by an economist named Stephen Siwek, which found the U.S. economy loses $58 billion and U.S. workers are deprived of nearly 375,000 jobs annually because of global and domestic-based copyright infringement.
A copy of that study was not immediately available, so it was unclear how those numbers were derived. The group that released the study, called the Institute for Policy Innovation, has a history of sponsoring pro-Hollywood events.
But despite concerns about the Internet as a piracy venue, Zucker said his company has no intention of shying away from the medium. In fact, the General Electric subset intends to continue beefing up investments its digital presence by "ripping apart old business models and pioneering radically new ways of reaching audiences."
Take the network's hit comedy sitcom 30 Rock, for example. If viewers miss its broadcast TV airing, they have a multitude of options for watching it later, including in free, streaming form at NBC.com; in free, downloadable form from NBC.com (albeit with a 7-day lifespan); through some cable and satellite on-demand services; and, in a few weeks, through Hulu.com, the new joint digital video venture between NBC and News Corp. (There wasn't a peep about the fall lineup's newfound lack of availability through Apple's iTunes store, though.)
"On screens small, medium or large," he said, "we are there wherever or however consumer wants to consume our content."
the terms. In the case of copyright infringement (the only thing
Zucker has an interest in), it's generally unlicensed activity.
The problem is that it's not possible to determine a priori one's
license status or technically if something is a fair use without
foreknowledge of the work, the copyright holder, the user, the
use, and any prevailing agreements regarding the work. No
technological solution can resolve this sort of ambiguous
semantic problem (which, basically boils down to no use is
infringing until after the use occurs AND a court has determined
that it isn't a fair use).
If you send Zucker an e-mail telling him he's an idiot, it's a
copyrighted work. Can he forward it to someone? Can he use
any application he wants to read it? Is he allowed to copy it to
his laptop or Blackberry to read? Hmmm... In his vision, the act
of reading the e-mail would have to be scrutinized by the ISP,
the mail software, and a government agency to verify that the
copy is legitimate. If he surreptitiously reads the e-mail without
all the proper legal clearances, he'd be facing a felony charge.
What he's calling for is just plain stupid. It would cost much
more than $58 billion in damage to the economy and destroy
small businesses and thwart development of novel content. And
what a pittance, we spend that much blowing people up IN REAL
LIFE each month.
Jeff Zucker is a moron lobbying for something that would
bankrupt his company if he got it.
which if you have to have DRM is a good way to do it - and
starts giving stuff away for free at NBC.com, then pulls these
"staggering" numbers out of...well, somewhere?
How can piracy cost NBC/Universal anything if they're giving the
content away? I think Zucker's just out of ideas and miuldly
panicked because he doesn't understand that the fundamental
entertainment model has irrevocably shifted. The content
makers no longer have all the power because they ignored the
role of digital distribution for so long.
My advice to Zucker would be to cede power to someone else
who has a better idea how to make money as a content provider,
and to stay out of the distribution business, letting the, worry
about safeguarding work from "piracy".
These media conglomerates yell "fire" and "property violations" in an attempt to get the government infrastructure on their side, which is simply another form of repression.
We have a right to privacy, and we have a right to free speech, and someone in a position of leadership needs to stand up for us.
How does this effect public health?
This guy sounds like a nutcase...
http://www.ccianet.org/artmanager/uploads/1/FairUseStudy-Sep12.pdf
season premier via the free NBC streaming thing. We had to
restart it about every 6 minutes, because (it seemed) their
streaming server was killing the connection.
It has a chapter select feature, ala DVD menu, but clicking on a
chapter just started the video from the beginning. Fortunately
we could scroll to the point where we left off.
I would have gladly purchased the show off iTunes, but since
they took that option away, my inclination is to use BitTorrent if
I miss a show in the future, or just not watch it. I'd really prefer
to be perfectly legal, but NBC doesn't seem to be interested in
making that convenient for me.
I realize that they feel like big shots for sticking it to Steve Jobs
and Apple, but Sunday night, they lost out on a cut of my $2 and
pushed me towards piracy as a source for their shows. I doubt
I'm the only one.
You are right about NBC, CBS, and other networks streaming. It sucks canal water.
I believe that this business model would be highly successful and would make everyone happy.
Your thoughts and commments would be appreciated.
Just my $ .04 (Inflation)
First of all, the piracy problem is nowhere as bad as he claims. The $58 billion in losses each year was made up by some industry-financed group, and there is no evidence to back it up, as there is no way to measure how much content is illegally copied. Also, only a fraction of those people who get "pirated" content would actually pay for the pirated content if they couldn't get it for free. Many people obtain songs and videos that they never listen to or watch, and others would just go without.
But what is completely absurd is the notion that other enterprises should devote financial resources to protecting NBC's intellectual property. Guess what, Mr. Zucker, that's your job. ISPs, search engines, consumer electronic manufacturers, and the government shouldn't have to spend money to help keep your house secure. Is NBC willing to spend money to prevent shoplifting? Should car manufacturers install devices that detect the presence of stolen merchandise in the car, and then notify the police? Should shopping malls hire security guards to inspect packages of everyone in shopping malls? Of course not, so why should everybody make stopping the copying of TV shows a top priority, and one that they need to invest in?
Not only is what Zucker asking for completely unreasonable and economically unfeasible, it's an unconstitutional invasion of privacy. Those corporations he wants to force to spend money protecting his garbage don't have the right to look at all of the traffic that passes through the internet.
I think NBC, along with all of the other networks, should be forced to verify the truth of all advertisements that they broadcast. That would be a much more valuable service to this country than having government-mandated, consumer-financed spying.
If NBC wants to protect its' pseudo-intellectual property, they can spend money encrypting it and then selling the keys and hardware that can open it up only for paying customers. The technology is there for them to protect their shows, it's just going to cost them. But that's their problem.
I don't think that's true. Otherwise, I don't believe piracy would continue to grow.
Where is 30 Rock for my Apple TV? Now that they're off the iTunes store, I can't get it on there...
People want to record content. They want to use it wherever they want - including ripping from DVDs and recording onto Tivos. Ripping from DVDs is something that allows someone to yes, pirate. However, it also allows people to put it on to their iPod or AppleTV.
People want to have control over the content they purchase - like DVDs.
He has a *long* way to go before making a statement like that. I think it's a losing battle because in large measure they can never really make that statement, not because people haven't "woken up" to the dilemma.
The industry is changing and enforcing copyright laws is nice but the changes are larger than that.
http://eyeoftherabbit.wordpress.com/2007/10/03/jeff-zucker-is-a-retard/
JEFF ZUCKER IS STUPID
This man is asking that our federal government subsidize if not out right pay for the investigation and litigation of anyone who breaks the law regarding piracy of copyright property. Does the general public benefit from this action and expense? Maybe to some extent that the extra revenue would keep small, starting bands and artists going but does that really help studios and major stars? Do we WANT to help studios and major stars? In reality, this is an industry's way to squeeze every drop of money they can from the public when their model for making money has changed but they haven't found a new way to do business yet. Rather than change, they would like to intimidate and extort.
Their request to fund departments of federal government to help the studios would take money away from education, public health, international safety and goes against everything we are striving for as a civilized country. We should be spending our resources on fighting terrorism, aids, poverty, sickness, unemployment and so many other worthwhile endeavors. Not a penny should be spent to help rich people get even richer.
Mr. Zucker, please focus your energies on finding a new business model for your entertainment. Stop trying to bully the general public and do yourself a favor. Shut up.
I don't believe however that any effort on his part short of trying to end the Internet will stop piracy. The solution here isn't another "War" but to accept it, embrace it, and work with it. Just as the "War on Terror" and "War on Drugs" cannot ever actually be won, the "War on Piracy" is flawed at the core. Files on computers are virtual, they are hard for a company to "own" and even harder to control the distribution.
Therefore the best thing for these companies to do is stop there efforts to thwart piracy and devote the money to better endeavors, more Internet-broadcasts to make it harder for people to download the media directly and distribute it. At the same time this will allow companies like NBC to profit from the commercials that are immovable from their "intellectual property"
And are you really that stupid to think that copyright needs to take "center stage"? Pardon me, but if you think so then you have no clue of what reality is. What about people who are living below the poverty line? What about the homeless? What about the jobless? What about the uninsured? What about the elderly? Ever stop to think of them? Probably not because you have free healthcare care of NBC, your kids are educated, you have a roof over your head and enough food to make you fat, and since you're an executive at NBC you obviously have a job.
Whenever I read some piece of crap like this from you, all I hear is the crying of an adult baby who never had crap fall down on them like a hard rain.
So long civil liberties. It was nice knowin' ya.
show piracy. The reason? It's called IP (intellectual property)
and I don't find much or any of this stuff "intellectual".
Is this garbage worthy of protection? No! Is it reasonable or
justified to put it to the tax payers to ensure this garbage
continues to be profitable? No way!
As a country and as individuals, we would be far better off if
none of it existed, so why protect it? That mass piracy might be
happening is less important than that it is a strong proof of the
dumbing down that most who watch this stuff are doing
voluntarily.
On the other hand, I couldn't care less about the welfare of the
people to pirate this stuff, but I do care that people, and
businesses and institutions that do have more important things
to do may be forced to police for piracy, if Zucker and his mob
get their way.
But, the American character is gluttony: in video games,
watching sports, making money, eating, passively watching and
listening to movies, tv, and music -- the cost in money and
time, real thinking and real progress be damned.
Real progress will be when the Zuckers have to plead with us
watch their stuff.
- Piracy and loss of jobs
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by budeverett
October 3, 2007 2:53 PM PDT
- Many of these same companies that claim that piracy causes loss of American jobs, are the same companies that outsource jobs from the U.S. to other countries and move manufacturing and other jobs to foreign countries. These companies are the real cause of loss of American jobs. Most pirated products are made in other countries, so they are not really causing the loss of American jobs since the legitimate originals are usually not made in America. What NBC and Hollywood and other companies are really complaining about is the loss of profits, not jobs. Large corporations are dictatorial and just want to be able to control consumers. The corporations don't care about individual rights and freedoms. They want only corporate rights and freedoms to do whatever they want to do and the ability to order consumers what to do and not do.
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