That back story sets up the current “six strike” system that the RIAA proposed in July 2011. They signed on AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cablevision and Time Warner Cable to implement a “graduated response system.”

What would this “six strike” system entail? Well, a P2P user would be give warnings until their fifth or sixth alert. The ISPs at this point would implement more strict measures such as throttling the user’s Internet or redirect them to a warning page until they call their ISP to discuss copyright matters. They could also deem it necessary to permanently disconnect the user from the Internet.

The group put in charge of this is the new Center for Copyright Information. CCI’s Web site and Twitter account were created on July 7, but neither have been updated since. The group said that ISPs would be implementing copyright alerts in 2011 and 2012 and that the center would be formally opened in 2011.

It’s now February 2012 and there’s no sign of the CCI. Ars Technica found this odd and went digging. They found a couple of sources who would comment on the group off the record. They confirmed that the CCI is still continuing onward and will launch shortly. They have hired an executive director and are waiting for the director to get caught up to speed before they announce anything.

As Ars Technica rightly points out, the Internet has changed since the RIAA first formulated this plan. More people are sharing content through streaming sites and file lockers. Going after people on P2P networks isn’t going to be as effective as it would have been a few years ago.

One of the main driving points in the entertainment industry’s support of SOPA and its various incarnations has been their claim that, allegedly, piracy is gutting the entertainment industry. To hear them, along with the government proponents aligned with them, describe the ordeal conjures up an entertainment industry as some Saint Sebastian of Hollywood, bound and beaten by the ruthless and rampant piracy of the Internet that has unforgivingly robbed them blind. It would be a pretty compelling defense against piracy, and it was obviously enough to convince at least some within the ranks of the U.S. government to support their cause.

Like I said, though, it would be a compelling defense. If it were true.

A study commissioned by the Computer and Communications Industry Association and conducted by Michael Masnick, CEO of Floor 64, investigated the economy of the entertainment industry over the past decade and found claims of plunging profits due to piracy to be a crude fabrication. Contrary to the entertainment industry’s claims of lost profits, Masnick postulated that we may actually be “living in a true Renaissance era for content.”

He continued in the report, “More money is being spent overall. Households are spending more on entertainment. And a lot more works are being created.”

Indeed, some of the figures put together by the report create a condemning rebuttal against any claim by the entertainment industry that they’re bleeding money:

Given this sample of the results (and there’s a lot more where those came from), it would appear the old adage that the entertainment industry is “recession-proof” would maintain its truth today. Masnick concurred this point in the report and wrote, “For an industry that claims to be plagued by piracy, this steadfast level of growth during the Great Recession appears to justify the boastful statements of being recession proof.”

So if the megapowers of the entertainment industry are not bleeding money (due to their favorite boogie man, Internet piracy) but are actually rolling deep in the dough, then what are they so angry at the Internet for? I don’t see what they could possibly hope to gain from the ratification of a SOPA-like bill. It’s not like they actually care about the integrity of their work – just look at the last two decades of film in the United States. 95% of their content has been complete sir-reverence, and the past few years seem to have been dominated exclusively by remakes, sequels, and driveling offerings so bland in their creativity that they have to use books and graphic novels as their personaizedl storyboards.

Masnick writes that, for the entertainment industry, “the evidence points to a very optimistic future” but that “it feels like much of the debate about copyright law over the past few decades has been based on claims about the state of an industry that simply don’t match up to reality.” Seriously, though, that’s a good point – why is the MPAA so willfully divorced from reality that they’re trying to convince everybody the entertainment industry is being fleeced when they’re really doing better off than probably any other industry in the United States (or world, for that matter) today? It’s like they’re one of those poor hoarders you see on The Learning Channel, hopelessly squirreling away all their copyrights for a purpose even they themselves can’t quite understand.

I just don’t get it. Why can’t the MPAA and other leaders of the entertainment industry embrace the public’s use of their material? It’s not as if Hollywood is really hurting for money and so, if this study from Masnick and CCIA ever really breaches the surface of the mainstream, it’ll be interesting to watch if the entertainment industry sticks to their blanks-firing pistols or if they’ll resort to another fabricated excuse to justify their greed.

We just want to participate in the culture we live in, MPAA – a culture that you have helped foster around us. For the most part, you’ve helped create a rather crummy culture, but still, we’re here to play around in it and you get to stay rich. Everybody wins. So why does that make you so mad?

Now Wheaton is calling MPAA boss and former Senator Chris Dodd a liar. He says that jobs aren’t being lost because of piracy, but the bad business and culture of Hollywood itself. On his tumblr, he reacted to the news that Dodd threatened congressmen over their opposition to SOPA and PIPA.

Wow. Chris Dodd is not only an asshole, he’s a stupid, tone deaf asshole. And so are all the asshole Democrats who are on the wrong side of this issue because they want money from Hollywood. Guess what, Democrats? You’re finally starting to reclaim the populist mantle that could help you win back congress and keep the White House. You may want to, you know, get on the right side of public opinion you idiots.

He then clarifies his position on piracy and its effects on his job:

I have lost more money to creative accounting, and American workers have lost more jobs to runaway production, than anything associated with what the MPAA calls piracy. Chris Dodd is lying about piracy costing us jobs. Hollywood’s refusal to adapt to changing times is what’s costing the studios money. That’s it.

It’s nice to see more actors speaking out against Hollywood’s corrupt practices and their buying out of senators. Maybe Wheaton and Wales can form an alliance to get Dodd fired.

Wales and Dodd have been arguing at opposing ends of the SOPA / PIPA battle, more generally the argument covers differences in opinion regarding how to deal with the perceived threat of online piracy. In response to SOPA and PIPA, Wales led the charge o protests by blacking out Wikipedia for 24 hours last Wednesday. SOPA and PIPA, two pieces of legislation that Dodd and the MPAA support, have been put on the backburner as the House and Senate have delayed action, respectively.

Dodd has been critical of the shelving of both SOPA and PIPA, even calling the massive internet SOPA Blackout led by Wikipedia an abuse of power. Wales addressed that at the DLD conference:

“10 million people contacted Congress,” Wales said. “That’s not an abuse of power, that’s democracy. [Dodd] had best get used to it.”

According to comments made as part of Sundance’s Cinema Cafe series, it looks like Dodd is softening his rhetoric when it comes to the internet protests that seem to have had such an impact on Congressional action on SOPA. From the Hollywood Reporter:

“It’s a watershed event, what happened,” Dodd admitted, noting that opponents’ “ability to organize and communicate directly with consumers” was a game-changing phenomenon that he hadn’t seen in more than three decades in public office.

Dodd seemed to have a sense of humor about the recent beating he’s taken as spokesman for the mainstream entertainment industry, the kind of “chaos” that the former Senator had hoped to leave behind when he left office in January 2011. “Up until a week ago I thought that was a pretty good decision,” he joked. But the message Dodd most seemed to want to get across was that “the white noise has
made it impossible to have a conversation about this,” he said. “We’ve gotta find a better way to have that conversation than we have in the last two weeks.”

In no way is Dodd backing off his support for legislation like SOPA, but at least he recognized the power of collective internet protest.

As you probably know, Dodd has been under fire recently for some comments he made on Fox News:

Candidly, those who count on quote ‘Hollywood’ for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who’s going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don’t ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don’t pay any attention to me when my job is at stake. …

I would caution people don’t make the assumption that because the quote ‘Hollywood community’ has been historically supportive of Democrats, which they have, don’t make the false assumptions this year that because we did it in years past, we will do it this year. These issues before us — this is the only issue that goes right to the heart of this industry.

The gist here is that Congress needs to remember who writes the checks, and need to fall in line with their interests. These comments are obviously teeming with hints of corruption, so much so that an online petition at the White House petition site had been started asking for an investigation of Dodd and the MPAA for bribery. The signature currently has 26,470 signatures and has hit its threshold to warrant a White House response.

His update to the MPAA blog reflects that subdued anger:

We applaud those leaders in Washington who have chosen to stand with the millions of hard working Americans all across this nation whose livelihoods are threatened by foreign criminal websites designed to steal. As a consequence of failing to act, there will continue to be a safe haven for foreign thieves; American jobs will continue to be lost; and consumers will continue to be exposed to fraudulent and dangerous products peddled by foreign criminals.

With today’s announcement, we hope the dynamics of the conversation can change and become a sincere discussion about how best to protect the millions of American jobs affected by the theft of American intellectual property. The threat posed by these criminal operations has been widely acknowledged by even the most ardent critics. It is incumbent that they now sincerely work with all of us to achieve a meaningful solution to this critically important goal.

He does call on for the tech and film sector to come together, which is new for him. Maybe he’s turning over a new leaf and wants to cooperate on Internet legislation that works for everybody.

That is, unfortunately, probably not the case.

Because so many big-name sites are blacked out to protest SOPA, naturally, the MPAA decided it was their responsibility to remind us how misguided these entities are and that SOPA/PIPA are good pieces of legislation (PDF). Not only did the MPAA’s PR department issue a release, one that refers to these protests as a “gimmick,” they also wrote something about it on their blog.

Both pieces of content essentially mock the anti-SOPA efforts with such brilliant prose like the following, which is taken from the MPAA’s blog:

some technology business interests 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 them for information and use their services. It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today. It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users 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. 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.

So the MPAA wants the government to step in and try to stop the blackouts from happening? So, basically, instead of addressing the issues these protesting entities have directly, the Motion Picture Association of America would rather the government intervene? Therein, folks, lies the problem with the entities that are trying to influence Internet legislation: They only see their side of the story, and anyone who disagrees with the proposed anti-piracy bills are “irresponsible.”

Because insulting those who disagree with your position is a great way to find common ground; but then again, common ground is not what the MPAA wants. They want to be able to shutdown whatever site offends their sense of copyright infringement, and nothing more. They do not care if Google, Reddit, Wikipedia, and the host of other sites resort to drastic measures in order to protest SOPA/PIPA. They only want compliance with their way of thinking.

Lead image courtesy of Aaron McGruder and The Boondocks.

Using IP-scraping tools similar to those used by the movie and recording industry to file lawsuits against “pirates”, a Canadian firm has discovered that *someone* at Canada’s Parliament has downloaded ebooks, films, music, Windows cracks, Adobe Premiere, and many “torrented” materials.

So, who was it? No one seems to know. But, they can conclusively prove that it was someone at an IP address at Parliament. Who should they sue? No one knows that either.

So, what if they show up at your door? Or, your grandmother’s door?

“Hello. We’re with the Recording Industry Association of America. We have conclusive evidence that someone at this residence has downloaded illegal copies of the latest release by Lady Gaga. We hope you have an attorney, ma’am, because you’re in big trouble.”

“Well, I’m a widow. I live here alone…”

“Ma’am, you’ve been downloading music from Internet torrent sites, haven’t you? Admit it.”

“I have a record player…”

“You steal music on the Internet!”

“My grandson set up my Internet so I can get pictures of cats. I call him when I can’t see cats. He comes over.”

“So, your grandson downloads music illegally using your computer?”

“Well, why would he? He has his own computer.”

“Ma’am, we have some papers here for you. Our attorneys will be in touch.”

Meanwhile, next door to Grandma, a fifteen year-old girl clicks on the same unprotected wi-fi she has been using for weeks. Somebody lives close enough and doesn’t seem to mind at all.

The tactics used by the RIAA and MPAA to track down pirates are woefully inadequate to the legal task. Mostly, they are intimidation tactics, saber-rattling. The fact that many legislators don’t know the limitations of these methods, yet have the responsibility to vote on laws that govern what these organizations can do to their enemies, is worrisome.

Meanwhile, that janitor at Parliament needs to fire up Transmission on his MacBook and finish that download of “True Blood” season four he started last night. Someone may be knocking any day.

In Ebert’s article, he gives six valid reasons why the movie industry is suffering financially, and not of the reasons includes piracy. Granted, this is Ebert’s expert opinion, but considering how long he’s been tied to the movie industry, his word carries as much weight as spokespersons for the various “AA” organizations that support SOPA (RIAA, MPAA), if not more. In fact, the only area the computer industry is mentioned in relation to the movie industry’s financial woes is in reference to new methods of content delivery:

5. Competition from other forms of delivery. Movies streaming over the internet are no longer a sci-fi fantasy. TV screens are growing larger and cheaper. Consumers are finding devices that easily play internet movies through TV sets. Netflix alone accounts for 30% of all internet traffic in the evening. That represents millions of moviegoers. They’re simply not in a theater. This could be seen as an argument about why newspapers and their readers need movie critics more than ever; the number of choices can be baffling.

While that could be seen as a subtle knock against those that pirate movies, the fact Ebert refers to movie-goers as “consumers” indicates he’s talking about those who acquire their movie content legally. Considering how much of a straight shooter Ebert is, if he wanted to blame movie pirates, he had the perfect platform to do so, and yet, he put the majority of the blame on ticket prices, lack of choice, and the “absence of a must-see mass-market movie.”

In other words, the fact that there wasn’t an Avatar or a new Dark Knight installment — next summer, folks — is a big part of what led to lower-than-expected revenue. Take the following numbers, for instance. According to Box Office Mojo, the highest grossing movie of 2011 was the last installment of the Harry Potter franchise, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, which made $381,011,219 as its total gross. In fact, that and the third Transformers movie, Transformers: Dark of the Moon, were the only two movies to break the $300 million mark.

Compared to 2009, the year Avatar came out, three movies broke the $300 million — with Avatar making an astounding $749,766,139. Besides the three that broke the $300 million barrier, there were two more that got close to breaking it as well, doing over $290 million worth of business.

So if pirates are to blame for lower revenues, what about when revenues are soaring? Did piracy somehow cease in 2009 because the movies were just too awesome to miss? Considering James Cameron believes his Avatar movie was “the most pirated movie ever,” that sounds like a big no.

So what gives? Are these movie revenue woes due to rampant piracy, something SOPA/PIPA looks to eradicate, or, as Ebert says, a number of reasons, including lack of choice, expensive tickets, and overpriced theater experiences? Let us know what you think.

That being said, the subject of fair use has been soiled by such entities as the RIAA and the MPAA.

An example of this would be Walt Disney making beautiful art of such stories as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Alice In Wonderland. Disney played absolutely no part in the creation of these stories, but he did adapt them, giving the public classic films that have stood the test of time. With that in mind, let’s see what happens if one of us — members of the general public — try to make use of characters from the The Lion King.

For an idea of what would happen, see the story of the Air Pirates versus Disney, and try applying what happened then with what you know of the RIAA and its strong-arm legal tactics.

With that in mind, the concept explored in the Everything is a Remix videos shows just how much influence past works have on new ideas, especially in regards to movie-making. As pointed out by SlashFilm, Everything is a Remix is a project being done by Kirby Ferguson, a New York-based filmmaker.

The goal of the project is to show just how much influence — or outright concept theft — older works play a part in movie-making, and after watching the video, it’s pretty clear that without the concept of fair use, what we see as inspiration could be categorized as outright copying. Too bad these concepts are not part of the thought process when it comes to copyright enforcement from the RIAA and the like.

Over at the site, it’s explained that the series will be presented in a four parts, with three of them already available. There’s also been a new video posted, and it breaks down The Matrix, pointing out numerous occasions where the Wachowskis were either inspired by another movie, and/or directly copied a concept or a particular fight scene.

Be sure and take a look, because it’s an awesome video:

It’s pretty clear there aren’t that many original thoughts left in regards to visual entertainment, which is another reason the concept of fair use should be upheld, if not defended as staunchly as the rights of the musicians the RIAA protects. If you’d like to see the rest of Kirby’s work, be sure and check out the installments of his Everything is a Remix project, all of which are available on his site.

If it doesn’t force you to take a look at the current conditions in regards to the entertainment industry’s vise-like grip on content, I’m not sure anything will.

The agreement, which has apparently been in the works for some time, would see participating ISPs put some teeth on their anti-piracy efforts.

Under the proposed plan, ISPs would send out written warning to users who were flagged as sharing copyrighted material across P2P networks. These written warning would be called “Copyright Alerts” and there is no word on how many warnings a user would get before more drastic measures were implemented.

This is basically what is in place right now for many ISPs. Not all ISPs send written warnings, some send emails and make phone calls as well.

Where the new plan distinguishes itself is with the strategies for dealing with the repeat “offenders.” Apparently ISPs would have some flexibility in choosing how to deal with these customers, but CNET’s sources give some specific examples of possible responses. A user who is deemed to have shared files illegally may see their internet restricted – maybe just to the top 200 sites until the sharing ceases. The ISP may even be able to intentionally slow down the user’s bandwidth speed.

Here’s the best part – “The subscriber may also be required to participate in a program that educates them on copyright law and the rights of content creators.”

So…P2P traffic school? Seriously? Will it help me avoid points on my internet license?

The plan is called a “graduated response” method.

Of course the ISPs will not be constantly monitoring users for “illegal file sharing.” It will be the job of copyright owners to accuse internet users of malfeasance, and then the ISPs will be at liberty to act.

Recent attempts to combat file sharing by industry groups include the takedown and eventual settlement with P2P service Limewire. Some film companies have enlisted the services of U.S. Copyright Group. That particular organization monitors IP addresses for “illegal file sharing” and then subpoenas ISPs for user’s information. Many times they will sue large numbers of users, as we’ve seen with the Hurt Locker and Expendables cases. They will then offer smaller settlements, maybe a couple thousand dollars, to the defendants.

Those cases involved over 47,000 people combined. These new measures, if they go into place, have the ability to affect an even larger number of people.

CNET’s sources made a point to stress that the deals were not finalized, but were incredibly close. Unless the communications fall through, it looks like ISPs are going to join the anti-piracy movement in a big way.