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Topic: MPAA Pushes To Suspend 4th Amendment In The Name Of Fighting Piracy
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Forum Watchdog / Soup Nazi
Posts: 215
Registered: Apr 2004
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posted 05-25-2011 05:49 PM
MPAA Pushes To Suspend 4th Amendment In The Name Of Fighting Piracy
Source: cinemablend.com
quote:
One of the many things that makes the United States such a great place are its laws protecting individual freedom and privacy. One of my favorites is the 4th Amendment. That’s the one which forbids unreasonable search and seizures. In practical application it says the government can’t break into your house or your private property and run off with your stuff without a warrant. If the police suspect you’re hiding dead bodies, or cooking meth in your basement, they can’t just bust in. The police have to go to a judge and get him to sign off on it. This creates an extra layer of protection, ensuring that you aren’t unduly harassed by overzealous (or possibly even corrupt) law enforcement officials. Basically, the cops need some sort of reason before they can go rifling through your record collection and reading your diary. Unless, of course, the MPAA says they don’t have to.
Wired and numerous other sources report that California is working on passing legislation which would allow law enforcement officials to enter factories and seize disc stamping equipment or pirated movies and music on discs, without the need for a warrant. Basically they can strap on some body armor and come charging on to your private property any time they want, as long as the RIAA or the MPAA thinks you may have something to do with movie or music piracy.
The move is being justified in the name of protecting California’s struggling economy. State Sen. Alex Padilla says, “The crime of illegal mass reproduction of music and movies is a serious problem. Last year alone, more than 820,000 illegal discs were seized by law enforcement authorities in California.” The legislation in question has already passed two state Senate committees and goes up for a vote in another one, this week.
The RIAA and the MPAA are, of course, out in strong support of this measure which also includes a provision for fines of up to $250,000. The legislation specifically targets “replicator plants” which are believed to be responsible for 90% of all the illegal discs floating out there. This begs the question… who still watches pirated DVDs? There’s this thing called the internet. Maybe you’ve heard of it?
Don’t worry, they haven’t forgotten about your computer. Federal legislation allowing the government to sue “infringing websites” is already underway.
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Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
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posted 05-27-2011 05:35 PM
quote: Cinemablend
The move is being justified in the name of protecting California’s struggling economy.
That's a laugher right there.
Assuming the movie industry would be big enough to support a state with more than 30 million legal residents, declining disc sales alone are not really the big thing causing all the economic woes.
The MPAA (funded by the major studios and thus an arm of the majors) might want to take a proverbial look in the mirror when looking for culprits to blame for those economic woes and resulting job losses.
The major studios, or perhaps rather their giant, international media conglomerate parent company owners have been very very busy for the past 20 years outsourcing more and more of the production end of things to other countries. First of all, the real money in entertainment is with TV not movies.
It's amazing how many American TV shows are shot in Canada (cities like Vancouver and Toronto) and not in the United States. I was fairly annoyed the TNT original series Saving Grace, a police drama starring Holly Hunter, was shot almost entirely in Canada despite the story being set in Oklahoma City. Oklahoma is a right to work state and very conservative. The Sooner State and quite a few other American states are aggressively trying to recruit film production and offering all sorts of tax benefits. Nope. New Mexico seems to be the only one scoring much of that action, thanks in part to its scenery and also in part to Santa Fe being just about as fake and bake plastic a town as Hollywood is anymore. I can talk shit about New Mexico since I was born there. Nyah.
Lots of big Hollywood hits like The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings were filmed in Australia and New Zealand. Many others were filmed there, some of which would bring up questions like, "the story is set in the United States, why not film the movie in the United States?" There's several answers with cost being the first. It must cost less to fly actors and crew members to the opposite side of the world to film a movie than shoot it in Los Angeles. Americans are apparently clueless idiots when it comes to geography. We wouldn't recognize the skylines of Sydney or Vancouver versus that of New York or Los Angeles. Same goes for various well traveled areas in those cities. That's why Lower Grand Avenue in Los Angeles can double as a city street anywhere. I'll bet if anyone based a movie in Lawton, Oklahoma a scene shot on L.A.'s Grand Avenue would show up in it. Maybe city planners in Sydney, Toronto, Vancouver and Mexico City are working on copies of lower Grand Avenue. That way they can even get all the B-Unit pickup shots done off shore as well!
The executive bean counter jobs are continuing to stay right here in the United States. For now. If the outsourcing trend continues some of those lower levels of management and accounting will be relocated to places like India and China (if this isn't already happening). Then more and more of it will disappear off shore until finally the only "shingle" the "American" movie studio has left here in this country is a few hall offices for executives in New York City.
Declining disc sales is all about the declining quality of the product. This is certainly true in the artistic sense for both music and movies. The shit is really getting terrible. Even in a technical sense the music industry has grown much worse. Despite all the great non-linear audio editing applications and brute force computer power today's music is being tailored for MP3 players and smart phones rather than a good quality stereo system.
At this point, considering how corporate bean counters have crushed the efforts of originality out of the movie and music industries, I would rather see both of those industries and pretty much the rest of America's entertainment industry die off before suspending the 4th Amendment. Right now losing those industries would really be no big loss.
Bring on the bitchin' tunes and flicks, Red China! Americans might be ready to buy!
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