Government Was Very Involved Helping RIAA/MPAA Negotiate Six Strikes

1. I'm disappointed that the Government is working so closely with special interests like the RIAA to set legislation.<p>2. I'm glad that it is possible to FOIA it.<p>People do lots of things to cover up unpopular news. It seems that for whatever reason, the people in charge wanted to brush this under the rug. If the government does this and we don't like that, let's exercise our right and vote them out.<p>That there is no one who you'd actually want to vote in to public office to replace the scoundrels that screw the people over and over again is another issue.

The way to fix this is for the ISPs to charge the MPAA members to process any accusations. This was the result from the three strikes legislation in New Zealand, and since the law and $25 fee came into force a month or two back there have been _no_ recorded requests from the MPAA members to ISPs. It makes it obvious that even the MPAA knows that the claimed losses are a bunch of hogwash.

Deeper link: <a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/10/copyright-czar-cozies-up/" rel="nofollow">http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/10/copyright-czar-cozi...</a>

For some odd reason this doesn't suprise me at all... The Freedom of Information Act is really a blessing in cases like these.

In Sweden the RIAA/MPAA has been deeply involved in dictating copyright legislation and using the police as their private enforcement agency for years. Not even a secret.

Considering the fact that the very reason that the RIAA exists is because of the government (collusion/anti-trust laws prevent labels from working together directly on things like pricing) and as a lobby organization, this doesn't seem that revelatory.<p>The whole point of trade associations (MPAA, RIAA, IFPI, ESA, CRIA, AJA, BSA, etc) is to avoid collusion while protecting the interest of associated members.<p>I had a lot of things I had to be aware of when working with other labels. All these tests, etc. SOX compliance also added another wrinkle.<p>In the case of those mentioned, usually these members are associated with intellectual property and representing copywrited works.

This should be part of the #OccupyWallStreet movement, too.

&#62; <i>"In theory, the government should be representing the people, but the cozy nature of the relationship suggests it was exactly the opposite. The government was representing industry against the public interest."</i><p>Aren't artists and content creators "the people", too? Just because the RIAA represents the "industry" to so many people doesn't mean that they're not, if even as a bi-product, fighting for the rights of artists.

Long-time lurker who just had to jump into the fray about this nonsense and non-story.<p>Reading tech-dirt I came across quite a few comments equating copyright with censorship. You folks need to take a deep breath and then ask yourself if your support for your 'civil right' to consume something trumps the right of the person who produced the work in question to decided for themselves how the work should enter and survive in the marketplace. Because all I hear these days is that your desire to consume without renumeration is all that matters. Any deviation from that tucks into some part of the copyright conspiracy boogeyman.<p>The most important right is that an individual should get to decide how their own works are treated - want to give it away for free? Want to set up your own torrent? Want to charge for it? It should be an individual's choice what they do with their work; you have no right to make that choice for them and it is a painfully shameful that capitalism's consumerist end has come to long polemics on why stealing something isn't - and now watching torrents of The Office is a civil right.<p>There is an important statue being dedicated tomorrow in Washington DC - some of you folks should turn off Pirate Bay and pay attention to things that are actually worth caring about.<p>By the way, I lost my single karma point to bring up the issue of individual control. The issue of piracy affects developers deeply - it's important to discuss it, not down-vote it.

Why is it surprising that the government would be involved in enforcing its own law?

USA folks - your move.