You can tell that intellectual property rights are not real property rights just from this very interesting item on BoingBoing, a report on round one of the Google vs. Viacom case. With real property rights, people do not usually go around actively violating their own rights in order to collect from innocent defendants. I’m not even sure I understand how that would work in a case of real property rights. But in this Viacom case:
Filings in the case reveal that Viacom paid dozens of marketing companies to clandestinely upload its videos to YouTube (sometimes “roughing them up” to make them look like pirate-chic leaks). Viacom uploaded so much of its content to YouTube that it actually lost track of which videos were “really” pirated, and which ones it had put there, and sent legal threats to Google over videos it had placed itself.
Why would Viacom have done that if the company really believed that these postings were hurting its business? Perhaps they believed they would help the business: promoting its product and creating an opportunity for legal blackmail.
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Viacom simply adopted a tactic common in Federal Trade Commission cases. As I’ve documented on this blog before, the FTC uses falsified names and credit card accounts to make “undercover purchases” from businesses it wishes to prosecute; these clandestine acts create acts of interstate commerce used to support the Commission’s jurisdiction — in lieu of any actual consumer complaints.
Anything to prevent or delay the death of an outdated business model. Rather than change with the times, they seek to use government to steal from the productive.
They had to become pirates to end piracy.
Next, Viacom will be fighting fire with fire, running up debt to reduce their debt, and destroying the village to save it.
@Jeffrey_Tucker: What’s so confusing? The physical property analog would be if someone had agents go out with Brand X widgets and say, “Psst! Wanna buy some stolen Brand X widgets for 1% of their legal price?” Police use similar methods to find fences (i.e. people who buy and re-sell stolen goods).
And yes, that would be a reasonable thing to do for makers of Brand X widgets if they wanted to find out the driving force behind the theft of their products.
So I don’t see how this presents a convincing disanalogy to someone not already convinced in favor of physical property and against IP.
So are you claiming that Viacom didn’t know that you could post copyrighted videos there until they tried it themselves, and that’s how it’s analogous?
I don’t think that’s the case at all, it’s pretty clear that they posted the videos because they wanted cheap promotion. Unfortunately the right hand didn’t know what the left was doing at Viacom so they ended up looking stupid when they made complaints about the videos they posted themselves.
“Police use similar methods to find fences…”
so are you happy with this modus operandi?
Obviously, the justice system needs significant reform. But no, I wouldn’t see a problem with a private investigation agency finding distributors of (knowingly) stolen goods this way. Do you?
i have a problem of law-enforcers breaking the law to enforce it. perhaps you can help understand the logic of this.
How is it breaking the law if you own the Brand X widgets and authorized them to be used this way? How is it *following* the law to knowingly buy stolen Brand X widgets?
i was referring to your example of police entrapment.
“Why would Viacom have done that if the company really believed that these postings were hurting its business? Perhaps they believed they would help the business: promoting its product and creating an opportunity for legal blackmail.”
Or just that the company would get more money from the legal blackmail than would lost from the postings.
I agree, Mr Tucker. However, there are examples a-plenty of people who destroy their real property intentionally-such as in cases of insurance fraud. Thank you for your work.
This is an interesting side effect of the current imaginary property fascism that exists today.
So it seems like our choices are ignorance and/or dishonestly.
Don’t worry Viacom, the White House has your back.
Oh, I shouldn’t have watched it, it’s fury inspiring.
“With real property rights, people do not usually go around actively violating their own rights in order to collect from innocent defendants.”
Remember that political activist a year or two ago who beat herself up and then claimed that partisans from the other side did it.
Let see if I get this.
If a company gives away stuff as a way of promoting, it has no right to complain or seek justice, if there is a robbery committed against it.
And as an individual if you ever given stuff away for charity you lost all your property rights over the things you haven’t.
You are smarter than this Jeff.
We’re not talking about Apple giving out 100 free iPhones as promotion, then someone stealing 100 more from their warehouse. You are smarter than this Karem.
Sounds to me like Fight Club. Specifically the scene in which the main character beats himself up in front of his boss and then acts like the boss did it.
Is this even legal. What right does viacom have to blackmail google?
This is probably exactly what Viacom intended, knowing that videos on the web are excellent at creating attention and advertising upcoming movies and shows. If a video looks grainy and “raw”, it probably does even more to attract attention because it gives the user the belief that they are looking at something they’re not supposed to have access to.Turning around and threatening to sue creates even more attention and “buzz”. It’s Hollywood 101- everything is fake and created for the purpose of elevating awareness- just like the sex tapes that celebrities release with full knowlege and payment from the adult DVD companies, but state in the news that they are “horrified and will sue.”It’s all a sham designed to create attention.
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