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May 17, 2012
FMC on Congress Hitting "Pause" on SOPA & PIPA
The following statement is attributed to Casey Rae-Hunter, Deputy Director for Future of Music Coalition:
“Future of Music Coalition is pleased that Congress has hit pause on controversial policy proposals to address the issue of intellectual property (IP) infringement. It is crucial that lawmakers recognize and understand the legitimate concerns of a broad array of stakeholders — including thousands of copyright owners — who have reservations about certain provisions in the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT-IP (PIPA).
“Creators must be able to maximize value from their copyrights in a legitimate digital marketplace. We understand the very real problem of intellectual property infringement and its impact on the music ecosystem. We also share the convictions of those who depend on the internet in practically every aspect of their lives and careers that free expression and entrepreneurship are too important to be undermined by overly-broad policy.
“We look forward to working with our many friends in the music and arts communities, as well as those in the innovation sector to find ways to achieve stronger protections for artists while preserving the dynamics of innovation and expression that are the engines of the internet.”
Comments
2 comments postedBoth these hastily written
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on January 20, 2012 - 3:23pm.Both these hastily written and far too broad bills would have as much effectiveness as the RIAA suing a preteen downloader. It is great news that lawmakers will have to rethink their strategy (or lack thereof).
Regarding those industry
Submitted by Dr Roger Wallis, Royal Institute of TEchnology, Stockholm, S (not verified) on January 23, 2012 - 1:37pm.Regarding those industry attempts to push through Draconian laws on piracy - interesting how the major film and music companies have co-opted the labour unions (film hands association, musicians union) to do their PR for them. The BBC had a sport on this the other day and support for the new laws was provided by the chairman of the US film industry film hands association (film workers).
THe simple facts from Sweden that a) those who download films regularly buy more cinema tickets than those who do not, b) that an increasing number of those who download illegally are buying cinema tickets regularly, and c) a diminishing number of those who do not download regularly are buying cinema tickets, does not seem to affect the heated arguments.
There was a good quote in the Financial Times from one Tim O'Reilly ( of a technology friendly media company)
"SOpa and Pipa not only harm the Internet, they support existing content companies in their attempt to hold back innovative business models that will actually grow the market and deliver new value to consumers"
This tallies with my experience at our UNiversity in STockholm (Dept of Media Technology) where I have seen so many new initiatives from students which have ben immediately squashed after receiving nasty threatening letters from big media companies.
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