Intellectual Property Mafia

  • January 20, 2012 16:03

Intellectual property mafia is just part of corporate mafia in USA (and other capitalist countries). In the newest example we can see how function American ”democracy”, how congressmen are corrupted by different corporate mafioso. Lobbying is nothing else than corruption and entertainment industry is corrupting politicians in order to make the law in their interests. The fact is that movie and music industry is really full of money, they are so rich that they can’t spend all the money they have, but they are hungry for more. Will they really get more if they limit poor people from poor countries to watch movies without to pay? They just make presumptions that people will pay for watching movie if online piracy is stopped. That’s totally wrong, if I can not watch it online for free, I will not watch it at all. It is good to compare budget and profit for movies before 10 or 20 years and budgets and profit today and you will see how much they are greedy. For example, the production budgets of  Marvel films (The spider-man, Thor, X-Men, Iron-Man, The Incredible Hulk, Captain America…) were all relatively close to one another, average per-film $160 million, the average total primary revenue per film is $525-585 million, profit per movie is $365-425 million.  In 1997, the average American film cost fifteen million euros, was nearly hundred percent privately financed, grossed 58 million euros, and reached 10.5 million persons (Dale, 1997). (Click below on Continue Reading)

We should not forget also that movie industry relocated studios to some cheaper locations (studio out of the cities and making movies in some poor parts of the world), at the same time movie industry got new chance for profit: development of Internet (cinemas, DVD, TV, Internet). Mad Max movie was made in 1980, budget was $200,000 and worldwide gross $99,750,000. Here are numbers for the most profitable movies: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (budget $250 million, Worldwide Gross $1,039,163,875), Spider-Man 3 (budget $258 million, worldwide gross $891 million), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (budget $250 million, worldwide gross $934  million), Avatar (budget $237, worldwide gross $2,783,918,982 )… All this full of money studios pay politicians to make the law as they need it and the newest was anti-piracy law: The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its Senate companion, the Protect IP Act (PIPA). Behind this lobbying (or better said corruption) stand Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and business representatives like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (part of this chamber is also Global Intellectual Property Center) and CBS Corporation, which owns CBSNews.com (member of the Copyright Alliance). Present law like Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) focuses on removing specific, unauthorized content from the Internet, SOPA and PIPA instead target the platform, that is, the site hosting the unauthorized content. The bills would give the “Justice” Department the power to go after foreign websites, sites like The Pirate Bay. The government would be able to force U.S.-based companies, like Internet service providers, credit card companies and online advertisers, to cut off ties with those sites. At other side, many internet companies saw themselves as a target of the new law and they stood up against new law. They feel endangered because they function on the basis of links: Google, Reddit, and so on. They can be held liable for linking to such pirated content and they can finish in the court. PIPA and SOPA would push all this companies to control all links and content on websites, PIPA and SOPA introduce control of the whole internet. Therefore many companies made one day online strike: Reddit, Wikipedia, BoingBoing, Mozilla, WordPress, TwitPic, MoveOn.org and the ICanHasCheezBurger network. Search giant Google is showing its solidarity with a protest doodle and message: “Tell Congress: Please don’t censor the web,” but the site planned no complete blackout. Other sites — like Facebook and Twitter — oppose the legislation in question but aren’t participating in blackout. Some people physically protested on Wednesday outside of their congressional representatives’ offices. At least 19 members of the Senate announced on Wednesday their opposition to SOPA and PIPA, at least five of the newly-opposed Senators were previously co-sponsors of the Protect IP Act. Here is the video how new SOPA and PIPA break the Internet:

Even this new law is still not created, FBI attacked website megaupload.com and charged its founder with violating piracy laws. Four Megaupload members were also arrested. As a response, hacker group called Anonymous launched largest attack ever on government and music industry sites. The following sites were taken down in response to the FBI shutting down megaupload.com
Department of Justice (Justice.gov)
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA.org)
Universal Music (UniversalMusic.com)
Belgian Anti-Piracy Federation (Anti-piracy.be/nl/)
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA.org)
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI.gov)
HADOPI law site (HADOPI.fr)
U.S. Copyright Office (Copyright.gov)
Universal Music France (UniversalMusic.fr)
Senator Christopher Dodd (ChrisDodd.com)
Vivendi France (Vivendi.fr)
The White House (Whitehouse.gov)
BMI (BMI.com)
Warner Music Group (WMG.com)

Anonymous published also pastebin called “Dox of MPAA CEO Chris Dodd, Powerful Lobbyist for SOPA/PIPA”:
The MPAA, under the guidance of Chris Dodd, has lobbied Congress with enormous sums of money while trying to rush these dangerous bills through Congress. Since Dodd has taken over the MPAA, they have come out in full force against net neutrality, claiming it hinders efforts to combat piracy.
Name: Christopher John Dodd, Jr.
Birthdate: May 27, 1944
Age: 67
Religion: Roman Catholic
Party Affiliation: Democratic Party
High School: Georgetown Preparatory School, Bethesda, MD
University: BA English Literature, Providence College (1966)
Law School: JD, University of Louisville School of Law (1972)
Occupations: US Senator, Connecticut (1981-2011), US Congressman, Connecticut 2nd (1975-80)
Current Position: Motion Picture Association of America Chairman & CEO (2011-Present)
Wife: Jackie Marie Clegg Dodd
Age: 49
Religion: Mormon
High School: Orem High School, Orem, UT
University: BA Communications and Political Science, Southern Utah State College (1987)
University: MA National Security Studies, Georgetown University
Occupation: Clegg International Consultants LLC Managing Partner (2001-Present)
Children: Grace Dodd (10), Christina Dodd (8)
Address 1:
8 7th Street Northeast, Washington, DC 20002-6022
Phone Number: (202) 548-6040
Property Value: $997,000 [http://bit.ly/A7wfpb]
Address 2:
53 Main Street, East Haddam, CT 06423-1305
Property Value: $453,400 [http://bit.ly/ynBXN0]

Motion Picture Association of America Corporate Offices:
Washington, D.C.
1600 Eye St., NW
Washington, D.C. 20006
Phone: (202) 293-1966
Fax: (202) 296-7410
Los Angeles
15301 Ventura Blvd., Building E
Sherman Oaks, CA 91403
Phone: (818) 995-6600
Fax: (818) 285-4403
New York
200 White Plains Road 1st Floor
Tarrytown, NY 10591
Phone: (914) 333-8892
Fax: (914) 333-7541
Chicago
1010 Lake St.
Suite 422
Oak Park, IL 60301
708-660-0481
Phone: (708) 660-0481
Fax:(708) 660-0484
Dallas
1425 Greenway Dr.
Suite 270
Irving, TX 75038
Phone: (972) 756-9078
Fax: (972) 756-9402
Sao Paulo, Brazil
Rua Jerônimo da Veiga, 45, Conj 121/122, 12º Floor
Jardim Europa, São Paulo, S.P
04536-000, Brazil
Phone: 011-55-11-3667-2080
Website: www.mpaal.org.br
Brussels, Belgium
Motion Picture Association
Brussels office
Avenue des Arts 46 box 8
B – 1000 Brussels
Phone: +32 2 778 27 11
Fax: +32 2 778 27 00/+32 2 778 27 50
Mexico City, Mexico
Lafontaine #42
Chapultepec Polanco
Mexico, 11560 DF
Phone: 011-5255 5280 6878/5281 6090
Singapore
#04-07 Central Mall
No. 1 Magazine Road
Singapore 059567
Phone: +65 6253 1033
Phone: +65 6255 1838
Website: www.mpa-i.org
Toronto, Canada
55 St. Clair Avenue, West
Suite 210
Toronto, ON M4V 2Y7
Phone: (416) 961-1888
Phone: (416) 968-1016
Website: www.mpa-canada.org
MPAA Email: ContactUs(at)mpaa.org

Other Contact Info:
Website: http://chrisdodd.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SenChrisDodd
Twitter: http://twitter.com/SenChrisDodd
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/SenChrisDodd
Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/SenChrisDodd
Miscellanous: http://www.peekyou.com/chris_dodd/229085828

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