In this article, Paul Sweeting reported that the Motion Picture Assn. of America is joining forces with the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a diverse collection of other industry groups to
press Congress and the White House on an ambitious agenda to bolster enforcement
of anti-piracy and anti-counterfeiting laws.
MPAA head Dan Glickman shared the podium with representatives from the Recording
Industry Assn. of America, the National Assn. of Manufacturers and the
pharmaceuticals industry, as well as the Chamber, to unveil a six-point program
that, if enacted, would amount to a major realignment of federal law enforcement
efforts.
NBC/Universal general
counsel Rick Cotton said,
Our law enforcement resources are seriously misaligned. If you add up all the various kinds of property
crimes in this country, everything from theft, to fraud, to burglary,
bank-robbing, all of it, it costs the country billion a year. But
intellectual property crime runs to hundreds of billions [of dollars] a year.
Glickman, head of the MPAA said,
The motion picture industry employs over a million people in this country,
and most of them are not high-priced stars... Most of them are
blue-collar workers, or craft workers, who are just trying to make a decent
living.
The campaign’s six-point agenda includes:
- increasing investigative and enforcement resources at DHS and DOJ, including
dedicated, institutionalized IP resources in U.S. attorneys offices;
- strengthening enforcement of counterfeiting laws at U.S. borders;
- increasing penalties for trafficking in counterfeit and pirated goods;
- improving federal coordination of IP enforcement efforts;
- reforming civil and judicial processes to combat organized criminal
trafficking; and
- consumer education.
The group also supports the creation of a new IP enforcement coordinator
within the White House.
Now don't get me wrong, I am in favour of IP enforcement and that people should be punished for piracy and other IP infringement. However, the statement of how the law enforcement are seriously misaligned and that intellectual property crime runs into hundreds of billions of dollars a year is just absurd.
This is the kind of ridiculous statement that is making them look silly, which in turn makes people not to take them seriously. Then they try to put the fear into us 'commoners' by saying that we're hurting blue collar workers like ourselves by pirating movies or music. Add to that the thousands of lawsuits being mailed out by the RIAA, it is no wonder why the RIAA beat out Halliburton in Consumerist's Worst Company in America in 2007 reader poll as the worst company.
Even though the campaign's six point agenda has merit, most people
will focus on the absurdity of the statement and point out how silly
the RIAA and MPAA are. Their six point agenda sounds reasonable and if they have a well laid plan for it to work then I do support it fully. The most important part of their six point agenda to me is consumer education.
The first step to consumer education is not to make ridiculous statement like the above. The second thing needed to educate consumer is to respect the consumer and not threaten them with law suits like the RIAA did. To be able to educate anyone, people will have to listen to you first. In order for people to listen to you, you have to have treat the consumer with respect and provide reasoning for your claims and back it up with valid data. If you threaten people you want to educate and make silly statements, even with totally valid claims backed up with data, it will be hard for them to listen to you.
A lot of people that I have come into contact with still do not have much of an idea on what copyright is much less IP. Once I talk to them about the importance of IP and what it is in a friendly manner, most of the time they understand the importance of it.
It is with the hope that this site will help others understand the value of IP, even if it's only one person, it will be worth it.
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