[LINK] Movie Exec says "[iracy" deserves as much attention as terrorism

[Craig Sanders]

On Mon, Nov 18, 2002 at 11:46:08AM +1100, Frank O'Connor wrote:
> These people (and the music industry) seem to think that taking away
> consumer rights to 'fair use' and product enjoyment is fine and a
> winning marketing position, and on the other side they feel its OK to
> screw their own as well.

you seem surprised.  that's been their business model all along, they're
middle-men raking in a fortune by screwing over both the producers and
the consumers.

the only reason we're hearing about it now is that at long last, there
is an alternative to their monopolistic stranglehold on distribution and
they're squawking as loudly as they can about the terrible damage
they're suffering.

there's a three-sided battle going on at the moment, with consumer
groups wanting to keep their existing fair-use rights, artists wanting
to finally get a fair share, and the middle-men trying to shaft both
consumers and producers, attempting to distract them by setting them
against each other while buying new legislation to preserve their
dominant position.

it's doomed to failure in the end.  the only way you can survive whilst
pissing everyone off is if you have a monopoly, and that is vanishing.




telstra has a reputation for screwing both sides too - e.g. ask any
service provider on the (ancient and discontinued) viatel or discovery
services how they were treated by telstra (or telecom as they were known
then).

they're doing the same thing now with broadband services like cable &
adsl - if you ever wondered why there's hardly any local content
services on cable or adsl, it's because telstra's broadband pricing
model (paying for upload AND download usage) makes it impossible to get
started.  lots of free and/or community-run sites died when they had to
start paying for outbound traffic.

craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas@taz.net.au>

Fabricati Diem, PVNC.
 -- motto of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch