Comments on: Fighting for file swapping on Capitol Hill

As chief lobbyist for Kazaa's parent company, Philip Corwin says the entertainment industry is sparing no expense to squash the P2P phenomenon.

[DarkMark]

GOP Congress?

Hasn't the GOP controlled congress for the past several years? Why on Earth is the Hollywood elite getting any respect or help from the party they love to hate and ridicule? Did I miss something?

[bit-looter]

different sets of hollywood

It is clear the actors don't like the GOP, i am not sure the same can be said for the behind the scene movers.

regarding peer-to-peer

In any lengthy discussion of the subject of music swapping/piracy/loss-of-royalties-to-artists, i haven't seen an argument--although i know they exist-- that presents peer-to-peer swapping as an incentive to purchase recordings, or as an effective way to acquire a song that one has already purchased. I know people who bought every LP the Beatles made. Sometimes more, given the fragility of the medium. Then they've bought tapes. Then CDs. Essentially they've paid royalties many times over, & may simply want to download a song from a missing work without buying the the entire contents again.

Another dynamic exists: downloads of songs that act in the same way as hearing a song on the radio does: ooo, I like this, gimme the works. I know i've bought entire oeuvres for this reason (unfortunately, on occasion).

I know younger people are driven by different reasons: the penury of youth, random sampling, the joy of downloading (for downloading's own sake), & unfathomble drives only they comprehend. However, in many instances they also seem to own (in spite of the dearth of funds) thousands of dollars of CDs. Go figure.

And finally: A radio station buys a work. They play it. Listeners tape off the radio. Or they borrow LPs, tapes, Cds etc from a library & copy what they want. They go buy their own. Or not. I fail, in my dotage, to see a difference.

I know there aren't receipts for old acquisitions. Or proof in any case of intent or reason. But I do think that this technology has warped the common sense of whole industries: companies who bought everything on the market in the '90 only to find out they were always behind the tech curve. They had no idea how to effectively utilize what they had (that the needed an actual PLAN in depth, --another whole screed), or simply didn't realize other allied considerations (networking, support, X-platform issues, ad nauseum).

I see the industry's point. I do. I simply think they've derived it by failing to make the connection between the same activities in different technologies. Or worse, they have thought of the analogies but have chosen to pursue a pogrom in absolute.

Some day we'll talk about scanning magazine pictures of celebrities & models (& others unmentionable) for the aesthetic enjoyment of others who have no interest in buying *Elle* or *Women's Day.* Or maybe not. That's a whole new fettle of kish.

End considered points.

In low dudgeon, I remain,
a curmudgeon

[Prndll]

Interesting take

I like your thinking....

...experience combined with logic, very good

[Ubber geek]

random sampling

http://www.analogstereo.com/chrysler_fifth_avenue_owners_manual.htm

[daxwax]

UH, OH......Here It Comes.....

Whenever you hear a rumblings of an Internet Provider Tax....You KNOW someone somewhere has already been working on this...
It'll be slipped in as a Fair Use tax...It's just opening the "BACK DOOR" flood gates for more taxes via the Internet...email...Cyber-shopping..etc...

[Prndll]

ya just know they will....

The US federal government has been chomping the bit just trying to find a lucrative way to put some kind of tax on people using the net. VOIP is a hot issue.

With Microsoft, AOL, and Google doing their thing and the government trying to get in....
it seems that everyone wants to be king of the world wide web for the individual user to bow to and worship.

Well......not me

[AlecWest]

Tough questions...

I'm not surprised. I've yet to see the established media treat pro-P2P people with anything but contempt. The tough questions asked Mr. Corwin literally reek with that implied contempt. But there are two other things I've yet to see the established media do.

I'd like to see the media ask tough questions of the Justice Department like, "Why haven't criminal charges been brought against the recording industry for the $400,000,000 ripoff they engineered via their MAP policy (figures according to the Federal Trade Commission)?"

And, I'd like to see the media ask tough questions of the RIAA like, "Of the $400,000,000 your industry ripped off from music consumers, the civil suit spearheaded by NY State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer only recovered approximately $144,000,000. Where's the other $256,000,000 your industry ripped off?"

By the way, the industry's MAP policy started at least 4 years BEFORE the original Napster client was even born. So, if you're looking for pirates, you'll have to go back further than Napster and its users to find the first of them.