NBC Still Down On P2P But Plans To Use It Themselves 153
Cotton Eye Joe writes "Ars Technica has an interview with Rick Cotton, the general counsel for NBC Universal who is best known for saying that piracy is a more serious offence than robbery. Cotton still has some strong opinions on P2P, even though the network will be using it for distribution. 'He's convinced that the pirate problem is costing NBC Universal real revenue and that the scale of the problem is so vast as to discourage investment in the carrots, positive solutions like Hulu. "With all that pirated material available, it creates tremendous disincentives to content owners who need to invest in new content," Cotton says, "and that just hurts consumers over time."'"
Re:Because it's only a bad thing... (Score:5, Informative)
I see no problem with them being anti-piracy, pro-copyright, and pro-using p2p for legal means.
Re:BSG anyone (Score:3, Informative)
And I hear that Global Frequency got axed and buried [wikipedia.org] precisely because the pilot got leaked and was incredibly popular on P2P networks.
The minds of movie execs move in mysterious ways.
Re:Piracy also hurts corn growers (Score:5, Informative)
Almost right.
Let's try again. Monsanto owns the copyright on popcorn seeds. Only Monsanto can grow popcorn. Some farmers in China managed to copy a couple of seeds and are growing their own popcorn.
Someone else drives a harvester through Monsanto's field and steals their popcorn crop.
Which is theft and which is a copyright violation? Get it right. In one case Monsanto still has a field of popcorn. In another, it has been stolen.
It boils down to protecting a single popcorn growers monopoly on the popcorn market. This isn't about theft. It's about copies of a product.
If you can only buy popcorn at Regal Cinemas at $8.00 a tub, that is a monopoly. Fortunately I can legally buy popcorn seed to grow my own, or buy bulk seed and pop my own.
http://www.popcornpopperdirect.com/popcornsupplies.html [popcornpopperdirect.com]
50 lbs of seed (4 ea 12.5 lb sacks) for under $40.
You can plant it if you wish. This is enough for about 4 acres of land.
http://www.wildlifetrends.com/deer.cfm [wildlifetrends.com]
I used the Monsanto company as an example as they are into genetic engineering and are suing the neighborhood farmers who happen to be the unlucky recipients of cross pollination from the designer varieties. They are trying to litigate the competition out of business. The above "We own the copyright on popcorn is becoming reality.
http://www.i-sis.org.uk/MonsantovsFarmers.php [i-sis.org.uk]
Monsanto VS Farmers