Corporate America has taken yet another step towards stretching copyright protection laws beyond all reason. First they went after people hosting stolen content. Then they went after little old ladies downloading easy listening music in their bedroom. Now they’re going after people who aren’t hosting illegal content and aren’t downloading copyrighted material… they’re just talking about it.
The Hollywood Reporter says, “Hollywood studios are suing a pair of dot-coms that provide links to scores of file-sharing Web sites, extending a campaign targeting the unauthorized dissemination of copyright material.” I wanted to quote that, so you wouldn’t miss the subtle nuance of godforsaken evil in it. If you fell out of your chair halfway through it, feel free to go back and read it again. I’ll be down in the next paragraph.
What we have here is a pair sites, specifically YouTVPC and PeekVid.com, which don’t actually have any illegal content on them. What they do, is tell people about other sites that do contain copyrighted, illegal content. So if I ran a story here which said Freemovies.com has Brokeback Mountain available for download, I’d pretty much be doing the same thing. I’m not distributing copyrighted material, I don’t have any copyrighted material, I’m just telling you about this other guy who does have some. Essentially, they want it to be illegal for you to talk about illegal downloaders. Not just to download yourself, but to even talk about other people doing it.
The MPAA is couching this as them pursuing people who are “profiting from the theft of other people's creative works,” and those are some nice buzz words except these people haven’t stolen anything. At worst they’re profiting off the people who have profited off the theft of other people’s creative work. They’re like the pirate’s step-cousin twice-removed. While we’re at it, let’s go after newspapers who profit off the crimes committed by thieves, since they make their money by reporting on break-ins. Or the next time John Stossil does an expose on the piracy problem, let’s toss him in prison. After all, he’s earning his paycheck by telling you about pirates. How long until the MPAA goes after Google for including file sharing sites in their search engines? Oh wait, never, because they’re rich.
Of course the standard, do nothinger response to this will be that these are bad people who are encouraging people to do bad things, and if the courts set a legal precedent like this the government wouldn’t ever really apply it to anything we care about. They’ll only apply it to people with bad intentions. And they’re right, in that these are bad people. I don’t care about PeekVid, they’re a bunch of assholes who encourage people to watch movies on their computers instead of watching them on a 40ft screen the way they ought to see them. They’re scum, but free speech protects lowlife bastards with bad intentions as much as it protects you and me. It has to work that way, or it ceases to be free speech. Free speech doesn’t differentiate between the man who means well and the guy who works for the anti-Christ. It’s simply free speech. You can say what you want. Talking about crimes is not the same thing as committing them, no matter what your reason for talking about them.
I’ve just about had it with copyright laws. At some point they were a good idea (and probably still are). But they’ve been taken much too far. They don’t protect artists and copyright holders anymore. Most of those people can’t afford the teams of lawyers necessary to enforce their copyrights anyway. They exist only to line the fat cat pockets of greedy, money-grubbing corporations who will push and pull and stretch copyright laws until they’ve choked the life out of the internet and everyone on it If the MPAA has to go after anyone, try going after the people who are actually stealing your content, instead of taking the lazy, slimy, socially irresponsible route of going after just about everyone else.
