Internet for Everyone: Brad Burnham

Internet for Everyone: Brad Burnham


Brad Burnham Explains Why SOPA Must Be Stopped | TechCrunch

@David VanMiddlesworth
obviously stopping online PIRACY is a good thing, and stopping online PRIVACY is not, so we need to see this SOPA thing stopped. Or there is a typo in the first line of this story.
@Caleb White
Privacy is more important than the very small percentage of piracy that does take place. I think movements in the cloud servicing of music will help change that. For instance, companies like Spotify and Rdio are amazing for music, and affordable for everyone to pay for receiving the music content. It will be interesting to see where this a la carte approach will take us on stopping online piracy.
@Joey Flores
Spotify and Rdio pay scraps to artists. They're only marginally better than piracy, seem to be decreasing album sales further, and they're only being humored by the industry because piracy is still a problem. Eliminate the illegal access to MP3s and the industry would not let you access 15M songs for $0, $5 and $10 per month. Those prices are a joke.
@Matt Welch
Joey Flores Right, because songs are worth 15 dollars per album for the one song you want. Sounds like you're buying into the industry brainwashing.
@Joey Flores
Matt Welch Nah, what I'm buying into is the process of learning an instrument over decades, having life experiences worth singing about, forming a band, writing an album, rehearsing tirelessly, investing in a recording, investing and working hard to market it, and ultimately making it available for me to enjoy. That's worth $15. If you don't think so, you've bought into the tech industry devaluing what it takes to create and produce content. And if you don't think it's worth it, then live without it. That's pretty much how it's supposed to work. Someone makes something, they set a price, you decide whether you want to pay that price, and that determines whether you end up with a copy. If you think it shouldn't work that way simply because some idiots dilute the value by illegal copying content that people worked hard to create, then watch SOPA get shoved up everybody's ass because they couldn't just pay for the things they want to own.
@Paul Heintzelman
Joey Flores um no... that is backwards. If a band doesn't like what people are willing to pay they can all become firefighters or what have you, no where is it written that someone must start a band or that a band must be rich. Music should be priced based on what people will pay like standard economics dictates.
@Joey Flores
Paul Heintzelman That's the thing, Paul. Every industry prices their items based on what people will pay, you're right. But the price people are willing to pay in music is based on the alternative price of $0 because people have figured out how to steal the content instead. Many people still pay $15, and many people still pay nothing and go without albums - myself included in both of those. The problem in this market equation is the people who don't want to pay $15 but who still think they're entitled to the content. They're not. They can rightly go fuck themselves. If that means the band doesn't make enough money, that's the band's choice to make and then the market can correct itself. But as long as their are dickheads with a sense of entitlement and poor laws in place to police them, we can't have a real market discussion.
@Caleb White
Joey Flores The fact of the matter is the percentage of piracy vs. paying customers has actually gone up in recent years. Not to mention the artists aren't starving or malnourished by any means, most still do quite well. The model that is setup is actually $.99 a song or $9.99 an album for music. Obviously the larger the band the lower number of points each content producer receives based on their contracts. Musicians also go into the industry knowing what they are getting into. Do you actually think the record companies actually give a damn how much the artists are receiving? They only care about how much the label is bringing in and have happily screwed over artists for years. The actual musicians are only getting pennies on the dollar compared to the mega-rich labels. I for one will continue to use Spotify and services that let me preview the albums all I want before I buy.
@Jim Jonz
DMCA doesn't work, never did. Funny to see bankers/vc folks defend it.
@Jai Rawat
While the measures being proposed by SOPA may not be completely well thought out, I do think that some level of monitoring is justified. When you enter USA, your bags may be scanned/opened to make sure that you are not carrying any illegal substance. Why is Internet any different? If pirated content is 'illegal substance', what's wrong with figuring out a way to make sure that it gets blocked?
@Karen Kazaryan
It's always baffles me how many more stupid real world comparisons will SOPA supporters produce
@Joel Fiaschi
As with all things, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Yes, on paper, SOPA doesn't seem TOO unreasonable. But in reality, the potential for ABUSE is ENORMOUS. Things WILL get out of hand. Quickly. Censorship is NEVER ok.
@Joey Flores
The real problem is the inability of these two industries to come together to form real solutions that work for both, and tech is as much to blame as anyone. The damage that piracy causes is real. Why should the film and music industries lobby for legislation that continues to make enforcement difficult and treats tech fairly when so many people in tech run around saying, "You just need to adapt to new consumer behavior," while fostering and enabling illegal activity? What needs to happen is tech needs to say, "You're right, this isn't effective. Artists shouldn't have to email Grooveshark every day to get their content taken down. That's not feasible and it's helping takers at the expense of creators. We recognize the flaws in this system and before laws get past that restrict true innovation, let's figure out the best way to deal with this together." Instead, one side proposes hair-brained legislation and the other pretends that everything is fine the way it is. I go into tech forums and see people defending the Groovesharks and Pirate Bays of the world as examples of innovation, and hear ignorant comments like "information wants to be free". With an overwhelming attitude from the tech community supporting companies that the DMCA does not work to prevent infringement by, why should the content industries try to play nice? If tech took a proactive role in addressing the issues themselves, they wouldn't get poorly written bills shoved down their throats.
@Yousef Soliman
This. Requiring either side of the party to have to constantly police is a burden. The content industry has had to deal with it since the inception of the DMCA however, and I guess this is kind of a flip-around in a sense. In my opinion, and perhaps it's not that well thought out, SOPA should be revised to only work against sites that are hell bent on delivering content without license, e.g. Grooveshark, not any site that works with user generated content (e.g. a blog with comments, where a single individual might choose to link to song on Grooveshark) and payment providers/advertisers (which does bode the question, how would they be able to police who exactly is getting money? It's not like you submit your website url when you sign up for a personal PayPal account, and it's not like all advertisers run through major ad networks - there's tens of thousands of smaller ad networks out there). On the other hand, the bottom line is consumers. What consumers want. After a decade of more of easy access to free content, they're not going to suddenly turn around and say "Oh hello, I'm going to pay for it now".
@Karen Kazaryan
Yousef Soliman How Grooveshark is any different from Youtube?
@Yousef Soliman
Karen Kazaryan Intent. Grooveshark is solely about sharing music. Sure it's got a nice UI, but it's still positioned towards sharing copyright music. YouTube on the other hand has a portion of users who upload music without a license, but it's not the intent of the site.
@Joey Flores
Karen Kazaryan Grooveshark has also been accused of having employees upload copyrighted material to keep the catalog full. The courts will determine if that's true, but generally speaking they infringe more frequently than Youtube and literally built their business on the backs of mainstream music, bragging in (now-disclosed) emails about it.
@Karen Kazaryan
Joey Flores Viacom accused YouTube of the same
@Joey Flores
Karen Kazaryan You can find millions of videos on Youtube made by amateurs that have nothing to do with music or other copyrighted works, which have tons of views. Youtube has a massive business in original, homemade content. Grooveshark's business is nothing if not an on-demand catalog of mainstream music. At any rate, they are, as of a few days ago, being sued by ALL of the major labels. Time will tell.
@Roger Williams
What we need to do is to vote out the MPAA's and RIAA's puppets in Congress - Lamar Smith (R-TX), John Conyers (D-MI), Howard Berman (D-CA), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Mary Bono Mack (R-CA), Steve Chabot (R-OH), Ted Deutch (D-FL), Elton Gallegly (R-CA), Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), Timothy Griffin (R-AR), Dennis A. Ross (R-FL), Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Lee Terry (R-NE). If you are from any of these states, please contact your represenative and tell them you won't stand for CRIMINALIZATION OF INTERNET...
@Felix Sulla
The U.S. have already given up the rule of law with the Patriot Act. I wouldn't be surprised to see it given up again with SOPA.
@Paul Heintzelman
The conversation about piracy needs to be shifted. If media companies don't want their material stolen than they need to make it publicly available in a timely and convenient manner <- this is on them. If any ppm streaming services had full libraries including current seasons of shows piracy would go way down.