4 ms·

Megaupload to Universal: You’ve Got Some Explaining To Do

118 points by Garbage 15y ago

tibbon 15y ago
Perhaps its just me, but when I read about the UMG/Megaupload thing I can't help but thing that UMG did this an intentional stab against a rival/competitor and alleged piracy service, hoping that no one would notice, but someone did notice. Now instead of owning up to anything (let's face it, the music industry has never been one based on honesty), they are going to dig in their heels and try to deny everything, eventually pegging the blame as a 'clerical error' on some intern or lower management? Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but I haven't seen anyone on the side of UMG make any salient points that would show otherwise.
- yock 15y ago
  Isn't "clerical error" essentially the same excuse that Kenneth Lay & friends made about the frauds perpetrated by Enron? In that case, they alleged that intentional bad acts were carried out by employees and that the executives had no knowledge of their activities. This prompted new law stipulating that company executives could no longer claim ignorance of illegal activities by employees as a defense. Is "clerical error" the new refuge of this same mentality? "We can't claim they broke the law without our knowledge, but we can claim they made a mistake." Can we, and should we, make this similarly illegal? Or should we stike closer to the core issue, where executives may be lying about their knowledge of fraud/mistakes to deliberately take advantage of any benefits that may arise from them? Is this even practically enforceable?
  - jfoutz 15y ago
    Anybody can claim anything, that's the whole point of an adversarial judicial system. ideally the other side will poke holes in the defense's argument. One, perhaps worthwhile, change would be to tie penalties to income. it's impossible for a corporation to do jail time. $100,000 would be a lot for most people, but for many corporations this is a tolerable sum. being held accountable for, say, up to 10% of revenue would get some attention.
    - jeltz 15y ago
      In anti-trust cases the EU has fines tied to the earnings of a company. I believe they can go as high as 15% so for large corporations like Microsoft it can become quite the sum. I believe Microsoft were fined 1.5 billion euro before they gave in to the demands.
      - tibbon 15y ago
        I worry in the US that fees like this would be accused as being 'job killers' by their friends in politics.
    - electromagnetic 15y ago
      It's not impossible for corporations to face criminal charges, and I believe jail time shouldn't be ruled out. Board Executives are going to think twice if a 6 month jail sentence is divvied up between them based on the percentage of shares they hold.
      - chc 15y ago
        A corporation is not its board members. To put the board members in jail, you would have to try them. What you're proposing would be a major overhaul of the criminal justice system.
- earbitscom 15y ago
  After yesterday's article about not making petty technical corrections of peoples' choices of words, I hesitate to say anything, but you should, at most, say "the major recording industry has never been one based on honesty". It is still probably an overstatement but at least it removes a whole slew of hard working people who you probably do not mean. We work with over 200 record labels, thousands of artists, dozens of venues, and partners across the industry, and nearly all of them are cool people of high integrity.
richardburton 15y ago
I read this and my heart sank: Universal later added that it had a deal with YouTube to take down content even if it doesn’t infringe their rights.
- sek 15y ago
  Youtube already denied this.
  - richardburton 15y ago
    Good to know. Thank you.
  - tibbon 15y ago
    Link/citation/source? Very interested in this.
    - skymt 15y ago
      Here's the Ars Technica article on the matter: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/umg-we-have-the-right-to-block-or-remove-youtube-videos.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/umg-we-have-... YouTube's statement was added as an update at the end of the article.
      - barredo 15y ago
        > Update:YouTube provided Ars Technica with the following statement: "Our partners do not have the right to take down videos from YouTube unless they own the rights to them or they are live performances controlled through exclusive agreements with their artists, which is why we reinstated it." So, certain companies have access to some sort of Youtube backend and they can shut videos and such without prior Youtube/Google permission (due to time limitation, I'd guess). Although Youtube/Google has the power to overwrite any changes made by these 'partners' (don't know which word to use). Does that seem right?
        15y ago
soulclap 15y ago
everyone who was around in the amiga scene days knows that kimble is a very 'special' person, to put it politely. i love him for going all the way regarding the 'mega song' issue though. and besides that, he is one of the few (?) people who came back rather strong after going down when the 'dot-com bubble' bursted.

118 points by Garbage 15y ago

Perhaps its just me, but when I read about the UMG/Megaupload thing I can't help but thing that UMG did this an intentional stab against a rival/competitor and alleged piracy service, hoping that no one would notice, but someone did notice. Now instead of owning up to anything (let's face it, the music industry has never been one based on honesty), they are going to dig in their heels and try to deny everything, eventually pegging the blame as a 'clerical error' on some intern or lower management? Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but I haven't seen anyone on the side of UMG make any salient points that would show otherwise.

yock 15y ago
Isn't "clerical error" essentially the same excuse that Kenneth Lay & friends made about the frauds perpetrated by Enron? In that case, they alleged that intentional bad acts were carried out by employees and that the executives had no knowledge of their activities. This prompted new law stipulating that company executives could no longer claim ignorance of illegal activities by employees as a defense. Is "clerical error" the new refuge of this same mentality? "We can't claim they broke the law without our knowledge, but we can claim they made a mistake." Can we, and should we, make this similarly illegal? Or should we stike closer to the core issue, where executives may be lying about their knowledge of fraud/mistakes to deliberately take advantage of any benefits that may arise from them? Is this even practically enforceable?
- jfoutz 15y ago
  Anybody can claim anything, that's the whole point of an adversarial judicial system. ideally the other side will poke holes in the defense's argument. One, perhaps worthwhile, change would be to tie penalties to income. it's impossible for a corporation to do jail time. $100,000 would be a lot for most people, but for many corporations this is a tolerable sum. being held accountable for, say, up to 10% of revenue would get some attention.
  - jeltz 15y ago
    In anti-trust cases the EU has fines tied to the earnings of a company. I believe they can go as high as 15% so for large corporations like Microsoft it can become quite the sum. I believe Microsoft were fined 1.5 billion euro before they gave in to the demands.
    - tibbon 15y ago
      I worry in the US that fees like this would be accused as being 'job killers' by their friends in politics.
  - electromagnetic 15y ago
    It's not impossible for corporations to face criminal charges, and I believe jail time shouldn't be ruled out. Board Executives are going to think twice if a 6 month jail sentence is divvied up between them based on the percentage of shares they hold.
    - chc 15y ago
      A corporation is not its board members. To put the board members in jail, you would have to try them. What you're proposing would be a major overhaul of the criminal justice system.
earbitscom 15y ago
After yesterday's article about not making petty technical corrections of peoples' choices of words, I hesitate to say anything, but you should, at most, say "the major recording industry has never been one based on honesty". It is still probably an overstatement but at least it removes a whole slew of hard working people who you probably do not mean. We work with over 200 record labels, thousands of artists, dozens of venues, and partners across the industry, and nearly all of them are cool people of high integrity.

richardburton 15y ago

I read this and my heart sank: Universal later added that it had a deal with YouTube to take down content even if it doesn’t infringe their rights.

sek 15y ago
Youtube already denied this.
- richardburton 15y ago
  Good to know. Thank you.
- tibbon 15y ago
  Link/citation/source? Very interested in this.
  - skymt 15y ago
    Here's the Ars Technica article on the matter: http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/umg-we-have-the-right-to-block-or-remove-youtube-videos.ars http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/12/umg-we-have-... YouTube's statement was added as an update at the end of the article.
    - barredo 15y ago
      > Update:YouTube provided Ars Technica with the following statement: "Our partners do not have the right to take down videos from YouTube unless they own the rights to them or they are live performances controlled through exclusive agreements with their artists, which is why we reinstated it." So, certain companies have access to some sort of Youtube backend and they can shut videos and such without prior Youtube/Google permission (due to time limitation, I'd guess). Although Youtube/Google has the power to overwrite any changes made by these 'partners' (don't know which word to use). Does that seem right?
      - 15y ago

soulclap 15y ago

everyone who was around in the amiga scene days knows that kimble is a very 'special' person, to put it politely. i love him for going all the way regarding the 'mega song' issue though. and besides that, he is one of the few (?) people who came back rather strong after going down when the 'dot-com bubble' bursted.