MPAA claims that only they can create content that people want

Unless the US is going to throw out the law, then the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is not going to get its wish to become a monopoly; people were listening to what the MPAA had to say at the Association of American Publishers annual meeting this morning, and their one-sidedness, blatant propaganda, and profiteering agenda were made very transparent.

It seems that when the industry giants get together in their secret club meetings they begin to act with the money-first mentality that the robber barons of the nineteenth century swore to.

The government had to intervene on behalf of the suffering people, the consumers then, but it seems unlikely – with lobby groups being what they are – that any intervention will come. More likely is that the US government will keep up their continued support of the MPAA and their cronies, because a lot of money gets thrown around between Congress, lobbyists, and these entertainment barons.

Is this the reality? What do the people working for the MPAA have to say?

At a panel of all the big copyright industry trade group associations — the MPAA, the RIAA, the BSA (software) and the AAP (book publishers) . . . the MPAA’s Fritz Attaway, flat out claimed that only they can make content that people want:

“Our industries do something that no one else can do,” said Attaway. “We create content that people want to have.”

But no one else does?

With the ease of HD video and great movie making software, like Final Cut Pro, that can play on a home computer – or laptop even – massive amounts of successful filmmakers, game makers, and music makers are producing industry quality artwork from outside the MPAA, RIAA, AAP baron industries.

The movie organization has spent the last few years lobbying the US government for file hosting, sharing, and transfer services to be shut down for copyright infringement, in a similar manner to how they petitioned for the VCR’s VHS recording abilities to be illegal in the 1980’s.

At this panel, the MPAA made it clear that they were among the largest proponents of SOPA and PIPA, and that their horrendously restricting legislation – to consumers that is – was only defeated by the lies of a “grassroots” fad that will not interfere if they reword the content of the next bills carefully.

Attaway: “Right doesn’t always prevail,” he said of SOPA and PIPA. “This time, it didn’t, because our opponents were able to energize a grassroots response. In my view, and I think all of us would agree, [the protest against SOPA and PIPA was spread] primarily through disinformation and spinning their interest in a way that captured the attention of a number of consumers.”

The RIAA’s Cary Sherman chimed in to confirm the future plan to make much of consumers’ Internet freedoms null and void by law:

“The digital tsunami we encountered with SOPA and PIPA—we’re not going to get the same kind of engagement when we talk about statutory damages or open works,” he said. “We’ll have the opportunity for a more rational discussion.”

Rational discussion seems to mean that no one gets to speak, and then the US legislation goes with the lobbyists.

We, as consumers, will have to pay close attention to every time laws or conversations (like these posted here) come available, or we could be cited for speaking a line from a movie that violates the copyright. As Neo says in The Matrix, “Wo!”