MPAA: The Cloud Is A Threat To Us And The Best Response Is Censorship

Among other things, people are driven by incentives. This includes the fine folks at the MPAA and RIAA. Given that their primary goal is making money, and that rampant piracy causes them to lose money (or so they believe), they clearly have a strong incentive to keep piracy in check, as well as any forms of innovation that make piracy easier. If you account for a few other universal psychological factors (cognitive dissonance, fear of loss, human short-sightedness, desire for consistency) as well as situational factors (lots of money with which to hire lawyers and lobbyists), their actions are unsurprising. Expected, even.<p>Does this make them right? Of course not. But that's irrelevant.<p>What matters is that we as human beings comprehend our nature and strive to create systems that account for all of its idiosyncrasies. We can spend all day complaining about the immoral and illogical bad guys, but at the end of the day, human nature is human nature. If a system exists that allows for and incentives bad behavior, people will engage in bad behavior. Period.<p>In this particular conflict, we should be spending our effort fighting for a government that: (a) Understands that no industry has a guaranteed "right" to continued profit in the face of technological/market changes. (b) Affirms and upholds the true purposes of copyright and patent law as originally intended: to protect and encourage innovation for the good of the people, not to make certain people rich. (c) Limits the influence of money on political process. (most importantly imo)<p>Of course, this is all easier said than done. But it's good to at least focus our efforts in the right direction.

No sympathy for business that depends so heavily on obstructing innovation that it requires special laws. The enforcement of these laws is a clear case of socialized costs with privatized profit.

Whenever I hear someone use the phrase "The Cloud" I replace it with "some computers".

I'm waiting for the reply article "We The People: The MPAA is a threat to us all and the best response is to make it illegal".

The joy of remembering I installed that cloud -&#62; my butt extension.<p>“My butt also represents a threat in that it facilitates piracy, and the pirates seem to have gotten into this space first.”

“The cloud also represents a threat in that it facilitates piracy, and the pirates seem to have gotten into this space first.”<p>Sorry, am I to understand that you are upset because pirates did something for free that you could have charged for? Not that I defend piracy, but this is the same song as VCRs, DVD burners, Napster, etc...<p>This argument is rehashed to the point where it's laughable, just like everything else that comes out of Hollywood.

MPAA is threat to tech industry and freedom. Tech is worth more than movie industry. When will we stand up and stomp them down?

I have difficulty reconciling the community of creative professionals who are skilled enough to create the environment that amazing works of cinema emerge from and the individuals who make comments like this. Are they really so unimaginative that their solution is "filter anything that remotely resembles sketchy"?<p>That philosophy applied to a city like New York would prevent people from entering the city solely on the accusation that someone at one time maybe broke the law. On what planet would someone think that the value gained by implementing a policy like this would outweigh the potential for abuse and for beautiful content (read: potential inspiration for new movies) to be blacked out by a censorship screen? This doesn't even speak to the massive PR debacle that always erupts from comments like this, be it about a VCR or "the cloud."<p>While we're on this topic, what's the definition of insanity again?

My favourite comment on the original post - "Old Man Yells At Cloud"<p><a href="http://www.globalnerdy.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/grandpa_simpson_yelling_at_cloud.jpg" rel="nofollow">http://www.globalnerdy.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008...</a>

I misread the title as "we don't understand this shit so clearly we gotta fight it".

Oh, so it was them! Hong Kong was trying to pass a draconian copyright law which meant that satire of existing copyrighted works became illegal, as well as giving the option for the government to pursue offenders on behalf of copyright holders - effectively meaning the government can pursue citizens producing political satirical works.<p><a href="http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/196747/hong-kong-artists-cry-foul-over-copyright-bill" rel="nofollow">http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/196747/hong-kong-artists-cry-fo...</a>