Gary Shapiro and the CEA take a stand

We try not to get too political or alarmist here on Engadget -- especially when it comes to draft legislation that's yet to make it far in congress -- but Gary Shapiro and the group he represents, the CEA (you may have heard of them?), are taking a stand against big content in America. Sounds like someone's hearing all the whining we (all) do about the overly restrictive DRM and fundamentally adversarial posturing the content industry has consistently taken against consumers and their devices. A release issued by the CEA at Shapiro's behest calls for the immediate passage of bill H.R. 1201 (the Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act of 2005) by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, on behalf of the HRRC (Home Recording Rights Coalition). Shapiro's on a crusade now, people, to tackle what he perceives as some very serious issues plaguing the industry today, like big content's apparent enforcement of copyright as property law, and the "gross extension of copyright protection" keeping work from entering the public domain. Whether H.R. 1201 is actually going turn up roses we don't yet know, but it's not like there's anything to thing to stop the content companies -- and the CEA's many members -- from lobbying against this bill, especially megacorps like Sony that play on both sides as content and device maker.

[Thanks, Alex C]

[unreal mccoy @ Apr 27th 2006 4:54PM]

Big content? please....

Want to demonize an industry? Just use the adjective "big".

[Jesse J. Anderson @ Apr 27th 2006 4:56PM]

That poster is awesome.

Any chance i can get a high-res print-ready version somewhere?

[Jesse J. Anderson @ Apr 27th 2006 4:56PM]

That poster is awesome.

Any chance i can get a high-res print-ready version somewhere?

[Brandon @ Apr 27th 2006 4:58PM]

That is an awesome poster. Where can I get some copies to hang up in my college? This is an epidemic that is ruining the commercial landscape today, and threatening our children's. The RIAA must be stopped.

http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/

[Todd @ Apr 27th 2006 5:08PM]

A noble cause, but hopeless. "Big Content" has bribed...oops I mean "contributed" to 9 out of 10 congressmen's re-election *cough-SLUSH-cough* funds.

I just read on some other blog that downloading copyrighted content gets you 10 years federal prison time, downloading kiddy pr0n gets you only 5 � WTF?

But props to that guy coining the term "Big Content" though, I hope it gets lumped into the collective Zeitgeist and associated with "Big Oil".

T

[Victor @ Apr 27th 2006 5:09PM]

That is soo awesome, I want a poster of that as well. Yet piracy is worth the truth when it comes to greed of executives.

[Dmnkly @ Apr 27th 2006 5:22PM]

I wholeheartedly support the CEA in this.

However, I think there's an important flipside that is often ignored. People should tell record labels not to crack down on legitimate consumers, absolutely. But people should also tell their friends and family who fill up their iPods with downloaded music they haven't paid for that they are NOT legitimate consumers.

Goes both ways.

[Brian @ Apr 27th 2006 5:31PM]

I'd also like to know where I can get a higher res version of the poster -- I'll flyer my campus (which is pretty much preaching to the choir but at least it will give me false sense of accomplishment)

[KD @ Apr 27th 2006 6:33PM]

The CEA has is right. Companies just want more and more control over consumers so the can squeeze more money out of us. The copyright and liscensing laws are crazy. Music and film companies want consumers to pay crazy prices, over and over. And new laws won't stop piratcy as much as make it difficult and costly for honest consumers.

[blah @ Apr 27th 2006 7:22PM]

I would also like a hi-res version of the poster...

This is great but unfortauntely unless we all become millionaries and "contribute" to the senators all we're get are generic letters and "aw its ok" messages from our "politicians"

Votes don't talk, money talks in Washington. I wish there was something more we could do

[tpp @ Apr 27th 2006 7:51PM]

YES! About f***ing time someone did something like this.

[Jake @ Apr 27th 2006 8:13PM]

You can pester your Congressperson about this law by visiting the Electronic Freedom Foundation website here:

http://action.eff.org/site/Advocacy?id=115

Takes you straight to a form letter, just fill in your data and it will send it on your behalf.

Do it now. Takes 10 seconds. No one else is going to fight for what is ours to lose. If we want to keep the rights and freedoms we have, WE have to do something about it.

Jake

[Torontoguy @ Apr 27th 2006 8:19PM]

Yeah...right...like Bin Laden isn't a 'murdering terrorist' he is a 'misunderstood freedom fighter'.

What he doesn't realize is that there are 'big' consumers too. People who appropriate material on a massive scale. People who download and distribute hundreds of thousands of copies of other people's work.

It is like the drug world. There are the 'pushers' but you really need to concentrate your efforts on squashing the casual user...they are the base that supports the whole dirty industry. So, in the case of music thevery...it is right to come down as HARD as possible on the users and cut the foundation out from under the 'pushers'.

[expungablerobot @ Apr 27th 2006 8:27PM]

The black market feeds itself, and if you honestly believe cutting out the person on the bottom doesn't mean the pushers will simply find another buyer, you're as delusional as the people who lock kids up for smoking weed.

You can't lock up enough at the bottom to keep the top stagnant. There's never going to be a time when someone with thousands of dollars of Illegal Whatever (Heroin, Music) sits on it just cause there aren't enough buyers.

[tychocentauri @ Apr 27th 2006 10:03PM]

Although I agree with the ideas proposed, I wouldn't get too excited about the resolution being introduced. It is very common for congressmen, particularly in the House, to draft legislation knowing that it will most likely get pidgeonholed in some committee. But they hope to earn PR points for acting as though they care. :)

[Julian Bond @ Apr 28th 2006 3:52AM]

DRM Is Killing Music (And it's a Rip Off). Get your T-Shirts here
http://giantrobotprinting.com/store/shirts/commies/drm
and the image here
http://www.voidstar.com/images/ipodpirate3.png

[Claudiu Spulber @ Apr 28th 2006 7:59AM]

This is a good initiative. I wonder, if the "bad guy" looks like a pirate, how would they have represented RIAA? (suddenly an image from "Seven" comes in my mind, the fat man stuffed with food until he was killed)

[vancouverguy @ Apr 28th 2006 9:53AM]

I'd like to just comment about #12. What a maroon. First of all, "Squashing the casual user" is fucking ridiculous. Laws are made and upheld until a large enough contingent of the population cannot amicably uphold them anymore. The pervasiveness of the internet and the ready availability of "illegal" music has made current copyright law obsolete. Its ones and zeroes, you can't stop ones and zeroes. Its everywhere. And YEAH, LETS FOLLOW THE EXAMPLE OF THE DRUG WAR BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY THAT STRATEGY HAS BEEN SUCCESSFUL: 100 Billion a year to watch drug use increase dramatically since it began. Wow, way to go, that's some good 3 trillion dollar investment there guys. That's an ADMIRABLE STRATEGY! But now, "Big Content" is getting the government to do its fighting for it, so your tax dollars can go to some bespecktacled douchebag so he can arrest you for downloading a Coldplay album and Sony (who doesn't spend an extra dime) can make more money.
Torontoguy, eat a rod.

[TxdoHawk @ Apr 28th 2006 10:17AM]

Yeah, I want a high-res of that poster, stat!

[Brendan @ Apr 28th 2006 11:46AM]

#12 is a troll, since no one is that dumb.

[JohnDoe @ Apr 28th 2006 12:51PM]

@19:
I humbly suggest to you that you widen your social scope. I think if you did that you would find that they are that dumb and dumber. Troll or not, that viewpoint exists among the general public and is what we need to overcome. Writing it off as a troll makes us incapable of explaining why its a troll to the general public, and thus the losers.

[Vudu @ Apr 30th 2006 7:17PM]

While I commend the CEA in its new stance, anyone that attended CES (an event organized primarily by the CEA) this past year can tell you that the environment was entirely DRM friendly.

Gary Shapiro in particular has been leading the charge for DRM for some time now. In my book, DRM is hardly a consumer-friendly technology.

[Jeremy @ May 1st 2006 3:11PM]

We need to donate large sums of money to these guys and to the EFF to help us fight to retain Fair Use of products we purchase. The content may have been created by them, and therefore, they should have some say over how it is duplicated and distributed, but once they sell it to us, we should be able to make personal backups. I don't want to lose that legal right, but that is exactly what these large media conglomerates are trying to take away.

[rizzo @ May 2nd 2006 10:36PM]

It's a little bigger.

http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/piratead/CEA_ad.png

[Bob Schwartz @ May 17th 2006 10:14AM]

There's also a CONSUMER ALERT that helps send messages to your OWN members of Congress at www.HRRC.org. Also will be information there re latest outrage, the suit against XM Satellite Radio, which DOES pay royalties on both the service and the devices, over devices that CAN'T send content to the Internet.

[Mark Jeffrey @ Oct 30th 2006 11:05AM]

Whatever the issue, if you want to influence a congress person you need to write a letter. On paper, preferably by hand, in an envelope with a stamp on it.

Easy-click email is soon identified for what it is, and gets ignored. Good old hard-copy that fills the bag is what makes them listen, on this issue or on any other.