Previous Politech message: "California's Sen. Feinstein cozies up to SSSCA, anti-copying laws" http://www.politechbot.com/p-03271.html --- Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2002 11:56:37 +1100 From: Nathan Cochrane <ncochraneat_private> Reply-To: ncochraneat_private Organization: The Age newspaper To: declanat_private Subject: Re: FC: California's Sen. Feinstein cozies up to SSSCA, anti-copying laws Hi Declan I don't have too much sympathy for Hollywood. Back in 1996, while writing a story on digital distribution of music, I called all the major US-based record labels in Australia and asked them about MP3. None of them had heard of it. When I suggested it could kill their businesses, they scoffed at me. With a lot of heat, some accused me of fear mongering and being ill-informed. Two years ago, I got a similar response from some film distributors when I asked about DivX;) Seems these guys, despite being vertically and horizontally integrated, just don't learn the lessons from other divisions. The knee-jerk reaction of "Content Co.'s" after the horse has taken off down the laneway, is to build a steel wall where the gate once stood. Only, the old wooden fence is as ricketty as it ever was. The SSSCA is a bad law. But bad laws seem to be the order of the day in the US at the moment. The rest of the world wouldn't likely care, except the US uses its economic and political might to export bad laws on to the rest of us. Movie boss lets fly at PC pirates http://www.theage.com.au/1014704999792.html All Hollywood has to do is embrace the technology and do a better job than the crackers and hackers. Give the people what they want and the problem becomes an asset. But the myopia of people whose business is creative vision is renowned. Maybe someone should make a movie about it? I'm reminded of a scene in the 1993 movie written by Ebbe Roe Smith and starring Michael Douglas, Falling Down. Douglas' character, William Foster/D-Fens, walks into a fast food outlet. He is told that because the breakfast menu stopped a few minutes earlier, he can't have his order. He asks if the server remembers when the customer was always right? "That's not our motto," the server tells him through gritted teeth, and then loops the request to order from the lunch menu as if the previous conversation never happened. Seems the content industries are stuck in a loop, and they are demanding we pay. And if we don't, they have no scruples about bending representative democracy and our elected public servants to service their shareholders. FYI from Tuesday 15 August 2000 Mayhem at the movies Michael Saunders' popular website, Global DiVX, is a small but important cog in a worldwide movement that threatens the movie industry's economic base. http://it.mycareer.com.au/communications/20000815/A2904-2000Aug14.html Smile, you're on ;-) camera DIVX ;-) is a rough and ready amalgam of two technologies - the MPEG4 video CODEC hacked from a beta version of Microsoft's Windows Media Player (WMP) and MP3 for the stereo sound track. http://it.mycareer.com.au/communications/20000815/A64645-2000Aug11.html See change in the video store HOLLYWOOD and its dependents have a narrow window of opportunity to avoid a rerun of the MP3 traumas that have beset the music recording industry. They can either embrace new technologies like DivX ;) or be swallowed by them. http://it.mycareer.com.au/columns/broadway/20000815/A64646-2000Aug11.html DivX;) Video http://media1.f2.com.au/ramgen.asp?fileid=1637 --- Date: Fri, 15 Mar 2002 19:48:55 -0800 To: declanat_private From: "A.Lizard" <alizardat_private> Subject: Re: FC: California's Sen. Feinstein cozies up to SSSCA, anti-copying laws At 10:36 AM 3/15/02 -0500, you wrote: >Politech SSSCA archive: >http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=sssca > >--- > >http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51072,00.html > > Cal Senator: Hollywood Over Tech > By Declan McCullagh (declanat_private) > > 2:00 a.m. March 15, 2002 PST > WASHINGTON -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein may come from Northern California, > but she's siding with Hollywood instead of Silicon Valley. Here's why: http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/indus.asp?CID=N00007364&cycle=2002 campaign contributions - industry totals 4 TV/Movies/Music $214,638 8 Computer Equipment & Services $103,016 While incompetence might also play a role in this, I assume the money is the main factor in deciding Feinstein's actions. I'd say that the entertainment content sector is getting good value for money. A.Lizard --- ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Tue Mar 19 2002 - 21:52:26 PST