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Rupert Murdoch's anti-democratic tweets over SOPA/PIPA
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https://twitter.com/#!/rupertmurdoch/status/159425611000057856"Seems blogosphere has succeeded in terrorizing many senators and congressmen who previously committed. Politicians all the same."
Why is it that when regular citizens express their voices to their elected representatives it is "terrorising", but when corporations like his own lean on Downing St and Congress, that is perfectly acceptable?
Seems to me the controversy over SOPA and PIPA has revealed once and for all the scale of influence wealthy "special interest" groups have over politicians.
Is anyone out there still defending Rupert and News Corp as being on the side of the people?
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Outside the Murdoch family ? I doubt it.
I guess we see there the world that Murdoch and others like him want. Voiceless drones doing whatever there corporate overlords tell them, thinking what they are told to think and the right to protest silenced.
As if Rupert could give a damn about the 2.2m workers in the entertainment industry. They're only there to feather his own nest and if he makes a business decision that just happens to shred their margins and threaten their livelihoods, them's the breaks. Declaring solidarity with them now when he's run roughshod over them for years is shamelessly offensive.
He's an entertaining tweeter, I'll give him that. Doesn't appear to give a flying **** what he says or who he offends.
To say piracy is costing jobs too, it's only the industries threatening jobs to make a stand. They make enough money to employ millions more.
Good on the senators and congressmen that have stepped away from the two bills too. Even if either of the bills were to pass the president (who is not really a supporter of the bills) can veto them and hopefully he does if they were to pass.
I'm not quite sure how you square that with the fact top actors are trousering millions.
I think the aim of the legislation is quite reasonable though how it proposes to go about it has some serious flaws but your post seems to be of the view they already make enough money so people have a right to piracy.
Until such point as he's no longer controlling of one of the largest and most influential media organisations in the world - you'd be a fool not to.
Even if his reputation had not been destroyed by the phone hacking his tweets come across as the rantings of an increasingly senile and out of touch old man who, despite his power, has little idea of the modern world.
Quite a lot I would imagine including me but then again there are probably many who don't give a damn what Jimmy Wales thinks.
The Entertainment industry rather than trying to shut down access to pirate sites - would do better to learn from iTunes. Make their output available for download easier and legally and cheaper - the pirates will then move to more lucrative activities.
At the moment the distribution companies are trying to keep too much control - a classic case is the way US TV shows take months to get to Europe officially - so a market builds up in pirate versions - reduce this and that problem goes away.
Ah, but many of the Entertainment industry companies have already experienced iTunes from the angle of music supply and have bitterly regretted ever getting involved (iTunes with its dominance is almost universally loathed by suppliers). As for making their products cheaper, you might as well be speaking Martian to them - they simply won't understand. This lot don't change direction, they want to have their cake and eat it - and after that, they'll want your cake too. Decades of investment in lobbying, floors and floors of lawyers and a sociopathic distrust of anyone pretty much ensures that hell will freeze over before they give in on this issue.
I don't have much time for the man or for what he says but the one thing I can give him credit for (who'd have thought you'd see the day when I praise Murdoch for something?) is that he at least speaks his mind and isn't afraid to tell it like it is. It was shown during his desire to paywall his online newspapers and encourage others to come on board, whilst accusing the BBC, a corporation he loathes, of stealing his news content and worse still, providing it free of charge* and accusing Google of the same (but not Microsoft owned Bing - funny that?) that he is completely out of touch with the modern day.
* - you do not need to pay a licence fee to access the BBC's free news content.
It is free to access for all and sundry but is paid for by the TVL.
I agree, why are his P.R people letting him do this I wonder.
Just reading Murdochs tweets, How has this man got to the top of an industry where literacy is probably a key skill.
"On SOPA, where are all big film stars with many millions to lose?"
The people who would still pirate when everything is available like this are never going to pay for stuff anyway (if we ever get to that position), so they were never customers in the first place. Counting these numbers as lost revenue is like counting all the sperm lost during a bit of 'me time' as genocide. Even if all those chaps had been launched in the right place only one at most would have hit the target, so to speak.
The entertainment industry really does have an irrational attitude to modern technology. There are millions of customers out there who want to buy their stuff, but they keep turning them away, make them wait, or simply deny them their products, and then they complain when people turn to black markets to get hold of them!