Anti-Piracy Supergroup formed, will filter the internet, oops, make the Internet “safe”
AT&T, Microsoft, Cisco, Viacom, NBC Universal and The Songwriters Guild of America have joined together to form a new advocacy group called Arts& Labs (artsandlabs.com). On the surface, the group’s goals seem so benevolent:
Arts+Labs is a collaboration between technology and creative communities that have embraced today’s rich Internet environment to deliver innovative and creative digital products and services to consumers.
A key element of the Arts+Labs mission is to inform and educate consumers about the availability and vast array of legal, safe, affordable and innovative entertainment content on the Internet. The group will also raise awareness of the growing problem of net pollution — which includes viruses, malware, hack attacks, spam, illegal file trafficking and other activity that threatens to degrade consumers’ Internet experience.
Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Educate the consumers, provide them with legal and innovative entertainment content, protect them from “net pollution”. Those are all admirable goals but that is not what this consortium is really all about. The real aim of this group and it less than admirable tactics are revealed if you look a bit beyond their lies below the surface. Hit the jump to read some more.
An article from the Songwriters Guild in the testimony section of the Arts & Labs website provides great fodder for reading:
piracy is also one of the main contributors to the current network congestion problem. Thus, SGA believes that ISPs must be allowed the flexibility to manage traffic on their networks in a manner that: (1) permits, protects and encourages legitimate online commerce such as licensed music services to thrive, and (2) deters illegitimate conduct such as music piracy (including piracy of video content with embedded music), which will have the added benefit of reducing network congestion in the long term.
Hmm, that sounds like they want to promote their services and degrade the services they deem illegal. Have they ever heard of the concept of Net Neutrality? We figure they have but have chosen to ignore it. Reading a bit further, their plans become even more blatantly obvious:
Some network operators, such as AT&T, are researching whether there might be a technological means to identify and/or filter unlawful content transmitted over the Internet. In my view, this would make good economic sense, because lawful owners of copyrighted content would be anxious to make their works available on those networks that incorporated such technology – given the lower risk of digital theft of their works.
CRIA not a sponsor?
As long as i can have my torrents
damn another **aa?! guys this is gettting ol fast the riia didn’t work the mpaaa didn’t work they satbed you in the back as lawers trying to make a quick buck. what make sthem think this groupe won’t do the same snake eats tail
Heres an idea lower your fracking prices on tuff then you will kill the root cause ofpiracy. we know you in business to make a buck blahblah balh
but whne you have product thats a necesity an the rising cost to live wel ssmeg happens
police ing the problem will just force it underground. happed with weed and opium smokers happed in the 1920’s during prohibition an alcahol.
earth to old fat cats change you business model an stop relying on distibution methods
NBC SUXORS anyways
I laugh at this. And the reason I laugh, is because the SECOND that AT&T (the provider of my DSL service) tries to filter anything that I want to do, view, download, etc. I will personally be canceling my service and seeking a provider that “won’t play nice.” This is ridiculous, and just like mentioned in the post, it’s a way for these companies to promote their services and kill the networks of those that aren’t part of their stupid plan.
yeah geat way to loos market share her coercing your services and way of thinking on peopl anti trust and anti compettition anyone?
What he said (Juvenile) and (Forrest)
Great another group to try and shut my site down for offering things they refuse to offer in mass availability
And oh yeah, don’t think just because your not an att subscriber you won’t see the affects on another provider, let’s not forget att’s network backbone stretches far and wide at some point your data will hit an att pipe and be “filterd”
Cheeky, they want sell content but everyone else have to pay, take a loss, cooperate to ensure their business model.
Seriously what is “filtering the internet” going to do? So they filter bittorrent, a few days before that filter even goes into effect, people will design a new method, an encrypted method.
They filter that? It gets changed again.
RIAA/MPAA/Arts+Labs: Give up, you are not going to win.
what’s truly pathetic about efforts like these is the lie that they base their work on: piracy being a major cause of network congestion.
Really? It isn’t poor design? What about the exponential increase in video services like YouTube and Hulu?
Upgrade your trunks and manage them.
“… net pollution — which includes viruses, malware, hack attacks, spam… ”
The vast majority of viruses and malware are on “arts+labs” member Microsoft’s Windows platform. The vast majority of “hack attacks” are coming from such infected machines. The vast majority of spam also comes from such machines.
I know that with its 90% market share, one would expect Windows to have 90% of the infections, but it has more like 99%.
Even if its widespread use is the only reason Windows has the most infections, other platforms are not likely to reach such levels within the next several computer generations.
Whatever other platform you switch to, be it OS X, Linux, *BSD, Minix, or something more obscure, make the switch. Please do your part to fight against the “viruses, malware, hack attacks, spam…” that could, even as you read this, be coming from your own system without your knowledge. Find someone you know who uses an alternative Operating System and ask them to help you switch.
Even if the other platforms are just as weak against attacks (they aren’t), it will still benefit you to switch if everyone else does. If market share was split equally between OS X, Linux, and BSD, then there would still be less of a chance of a random virus being able to infect a random system then there is with Windows (or any other system) dominating with 90% market share.
Look, piracy is a problem for the content owners as it results in loss of profits, it is illegal and does represent a large majority of P2P traffic which does congest current networks.
However, empirical studies suggest that the widespread and almost rampant nature of the piracy is an indication of price gouging and lack of options. Content owners and media outlets are getting very greedy. A 1 hour television show has 20 minutes worth of advertisements plus numerous product placement advertising. Entire feature length films are nothing more than $10MM commercials. Cable rates keep rising out of control. And, you can no longer do anything with the stuff you purchase. Can’t make backups, can’t rip it to your iPod, can’t play it on your computer.
It’s the restriction of our lives, the “Minority Report”-esque advertising, draconian DRM and the freaking nickle and diming by the industry that has caused this.
All they want to do is fight it outright. So they spend more and then raise their prices more to compensate on all the billions they waste on useless DRM that’s cracked within days of its release.
If they pulled their heads out of their asses they would see this.
So imagine an organization like the RIAA tasked with policing the Internet. That’s exactly what they’re trying to do, and that’s exactly why they’ll fail.
im sure the guy who invented bittorrent sees this article and just him and his team are quickly programming a way to “encrypt” but oh wiat….well im not gonna say it on the comments page…most of you should know about that and if you dont….my name is my aim s/n…only reason why is to protect that “secret” arts&labs is watching….hopefully they disagree with one another and they will…..and they would just disband….
Just so you know… the Net Neutrality legislation in front of Congress ALLOWS for filtering of illegal content… so don’t think
Net Neutrality is going to allow you to continue to keep looting music and movies!
Put all your albums online and charge half the price or less.
You will get alot more sales this way.
If the record companys die who cares? music will always be around and even more so with the internet.