NationStates Jolt Archive

This was previously titled "DRM and Media Act." I would appreciate any additional comments/suggestions that anyone has.


The United Nations,

-A- NOTING that the artistic, cultural and entertainment media industry is a growing sector and is essential to the economic development of our Nations and the happiness of our people,

-B- RECOGNIZING that this industry includes a wide assortment of businesses and individuals that create and produce video, music, graphics, books and various other types of content,

-C- DEFINES a “regional system” as any method to prohibit the transmitting or viewing of media from one region or nation in another region or nation,

-D- NOTING that some regional systems are designed to prevent access to graphic or restricted types of media content in individual nations,

-E- CONVINCED that the universal standards are likely to increase consumer confidence, further adding to the practical and economic viability and success of these standards,

-F- REGRETTING the problems consumers face when using incompatible media formats, and when attempting to transport media from other cultures, which is a barrier to cultural awareness,

-G- REGRETTING that the current restrictions on media use increase piracy and hurts artistic, cultural and entertainment media creation,


-1- URGES all Nations to promote artistic, cultural and entertainment use of media and encourage its development, in particular its online distribution ,

-2- URGES STRONGLY all nations to regulate commercial DRM (Digital Rights Management) systems and duplication protections for commercial media, in order to assure compatibility for customers with most media players,

-3- BANS any "regional system" for commercial DRM’s and for all past, present and future commercial media formats. These formats include but are not limited to:
-Blu-ray disc
-High Density Digital Versatile Disc (HD DVD)
-Universal Media Disc (UMD)
-Super Audio CD (SACD)
-DualDisc
-Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD)
-Holographic Versatile Disc (HDV)

-4-URGES all Nations to uphold legislation against any media sharing, distribution, or reproduction methods which are widely considered piracy,

-5- MANDATES developed nations where companies propose a commercial media support or DRM system standard to regulate the cost of its patent licensing in order to be financially reasonable and available to developing and less economically stable nations.

Co-authored by Love and esterel

The Proposal looks great, I have no problems with it, I like that you have covered future media formats (So this proposal is ready for the future so there is no need to repeal it and create another proposal) and that you have mentioned DRM (Digital Rights Management).

Hopefully by offering the technology of copy protection to poorer nations it will replace the black market of counterfeit media products, and this proposal might create movie, music, T.V and Software Studios in poorer nations as they are no longer under threat by illegal usage.

But, one problem remains, the hackers might find away around the DRM and can copy the media source, the DRM needs to be more restrictive (can not be edited by anyone) in order for this to work.

Sounds reasonable- definitely not a priority, but the USSGBJ would be in favor of such a resolution. In our country, we have some of the finest authors in the world, and the book publishing industry is surprisingly larger than the movie or music industries. As such, we suggest a definition of what constitutes as the entertainment industry and ask that it includes books as well as the prominent digital forms of media the proposal assumedly refers to.

Love,
The United Socialist States of Garbage Bag Johnny

Putting aside my belief that this is not worthy of the UN's consideration, I must ask what category this proposal would be submitted under?

Minister of UN Affairs
Edward Jones

This should cover all types of media (Including Paper Based Media Sources e.g Books) the category should be free trade and all of this should be merged into a single media copyright proposal.

Thank you all for your comments.

We will submit this proposal under the Free Trade category.

Thank you all for your comments.

We will submit this proposal under the Free Trade category.

Free Trade, huh?

-2- URGES STRONGLY all nations to regulate DRM (Digital Rights Management) systems and Media duplication protections, in order to assure compatibility for customers with most media players,

-4- BANS any "regional system" for commercial DRM’s and media formats for all past, current and future storage mediums.

Both of those clauses seem to be for regulating commerce rather than removing restrictions on it.

Minister of UN Affairs
Edward Jones

Free Trade, huh?

This has already been posted on the mods forum
and it seems it's the right category

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=445392&highlight=media

This has already been posted on the mods forum
and it seems it's the right category

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=445392&highlight=media

I don't see a Mod ruling on it either way.

indeed, you right, this was not a mod, i bumped the thread, thanks

indeed, you right, this was not a mod, i bumped the thread, thanks

Thank you for bumping the thread. I was about to do it, but you saved me the trouble. :)

The DRM act enjoyed the support of Compadria during its first draft debate and we participated in the discussion, so as to craft it into a resolution of excellence, along with many other committed and far-seeing nations.

The issue of consumer confidence is essential to the development of the economy and we feel that in enabling consumers to expand their expenditure, confident of the quality of their purchases and media formats, we will overcome any short-term difficulties in transition. The free-passage of ideas and the garantueeing of standards and quality, will require companies to put the consumer, not profit, first and enable purchasing power to be strengthened through the increased means available to buyers.

Breaking down regional barriers, will create a flourishing of industry and content, as well as breaking down the corporate monopolies over media services, enabling a more independant, more free media to develop. In addition, expanding the ability of nations to possess new technologies, will promote these ideals and strengthen the democratic institutions of societies.

Regional standards must become International standards to both compete and offer the best possible service to the consumer. Thus, Compadria re-iterates its support for this proposal.

Leonard Otterby
Ambassador for the Republic of Compadria to the U.N.

Long live media-developed Compadria!

The Theoretical Dominion of Ficticious Proportions will gladly attempt to take this resolution to the vote again. :)

bump (sorry).

I don't see this as Free Trade. Most of the proposal relates to trade limitation and regulation. It may be Free Trade in the sense that it's corporate protectionsim, but it doesn't 'free' trade, it restricts it.

It's not Social Justice either, as it only protects the producers. It doesn't seem to do anything for the consumers, which is why I don't see it as "reduc(ing) income inequality and increas(ing) basic welfare."

I don't think we've got a category that fits. Lemme get a second (and maybe third and fourth) opinion, and see where we can take this.

The Federal Republic would sooner approve the International Cheese Act than support this meaningless bit of regulatory garbage. We especially take issue with article 5, as we are big fans of illegal filesharing networks (which, incidentally, are not illegal in the Federal Republic).

I don't see this as Free Trade. Most of the proposal relates to trade limitation and regulation. It may be Free Trade in the sense that it's corporate protectionsim, but it doesn't 'free' trade, it restricts it.

It's not Social Justice either, as it only protects the producers. It doesn't seem to do anything for the consumers, which is why I don't see it as "reduc(ing) income inequality and increas(ing) basic welfare."

I don't think we've got a category that fits. Lemme get a second (and maybe third and fourth) opinion, and see where we can take this.

Thanks for your post

Here are our arguments about it:

We think the category of this proposition is « free trade », as more cultural, artistic and entertainment goods and services will be available worldwide. Media supports will be imported more easily from one country to one another, while digital ones, protected from piracy with DRM, will be available to buy worldwide on the internet.

We also think that our proposition remove some barriers that obviously lead to piracy.

Furthermore, our proposition encourages the growth of the digital media industry whose absence in the music sector before last the 2 years has nurtured piracy and whose current absence in the video sector is one of the main reasons of piracy. It seems to us that piracy is the opposite of free trade.

Thanks for your post

Here are our arguments about it:

We think the category of this proposition is « free trade », as more cultural, artistic and entertainment goods and services will be available worldwide.

Whether the people actually producing them want them to be or not...

Media supports will be imported more easily from one country to one another, while digital ones, protected from piracy with DRM, will be available to buy worldwide on the internet.

Which completely ignores the fact that regional encoding was instituted by the entertainment industry itself because it is harmful to them for people to be able to do this.

If they are sending a film to theatrical release at one time in one part of the world but aren't going to be able to do a theatrical release in another part of the world until a later date they do not want people from the first area sending their movie to people in the second area before they can even put it in a theatre there!

It is their product, which they paid to produce, and which they paid to market... and undermining their ability to control sales and distribution of it in the name of "free trade" is ludicrous.

We also think that our proposition remove some barriers that obviously lead to piracy.

Because surely it will be so much harder to pirate movies after all the regional encoding is removed. Or are you somehow under the impression that people who were going out and buying $5 pirated DVDs before will no longer want to buy them once the $15 to $25 retail versions in another country that got the release first have the regional encoding removed... and they can have it shipped to them... in 2 to 6 weeks... with an associated shipping and handling charge on top of that?

Because that certainly will appeal to the mindset of the average consumer of pirated media...

Furthermore, our proposition encourages the growth of the digital media industry

We don't see how.

It seems to us that piracy is the opposite of free trade.
How do you figure that? Piracy is totally free trade. They don't pay anyone for their services, nobody gets royalties, it's total deregulation. You can't get much freer than that.

What you want to do is limit trade to the so-called legitimate owners. Can't say I disagree, but it's not free trade. It's regulated trade.

After a review of the proposal and a discussion with Frisbeeteria, the decision is as follows:

This proposal limits what businesses may do. It is limiting the economic freedoms of businesses. As the "Social Justice" category is the only category that reduces economic freedoms, this proposal should go under "Social Justice".

This proposal is not "Free Trade".


The following proposal was just deleted:
Worldwide Media Act

A resolution to reduce barriers to free trade and commerce.


Category: Free Trade


Strength: Significant


Proposed by: Richard2008

Description: The United Nations,

-A- NOTING that the entertainment industry is a growing sector and is essential to the economic development of our Nations and the happiness of our people,

-B- RECOGNIZING that the entertainment industry includes a wide assortment of businesses and individuals that create and produce video, music, graphics, books and various other types of content,

-C- DEFINES a “regional system” as any method to prohibit the transmitting or viewing of media from one region or nation in another region or nation,

-D- NOTING that some regional systems are designed to prevent access to graphic or restricted types of media content in individual nations,

-E- CONVINCED that the universal standards are likely to increase consumer confidence, further adding to the practical and economic viability and success of these standards,

-F- REGRETTING the compatibility issues caused by multiple media formats around the world, and the further lack of coordination between media companies

-G- REGRETTING the problems consumers face when using incompatible media formats, and when attempting to transport media from other cultures, which is a barrier to cultural awareness,

-H- REGRETTING that the current restrictions on media use increase piracy and hurts the creation of artistic media creation,


-1- URGES all Nations to promote artistic use of media and encourage the growth of legal media sharing,

-2- URGES STRONGLY all nations to regulate DRM (Digital Rights Management) systems and Media duplication protections, in order to assure compatibility for customers with most media players,

-3- BANS any "regional system" for commercial DRM’s and for all past, present and future media formats. These formats include but are not limited to:
-Blu-ray disc
-High Density Digital Versatile Disc (HD DVD)
-Universal Media Disc (UMD)
-Super Audio CD (SACD)
-DualDisc
-Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD)
-Holographic Versatile Disc (HDV)

-4-URGES all Nations to uphold legislation and measures against any media sharing, distribution, or reproduction methods which are widely considered piracy,

-5- MANDATES developed nations where companies propose a commercial media support or DRM system standard to regulate the cost of its patent licensing in order to be financially reasonable and available to developing and less economically stable nations.

Co-authored by Love and esterel

Approvals: 108 (Razatavia, Baudrillard, Skyscraper Island, Gaiah, Republic of Freedonia, Sumnmerset, Shariann, Love and esterel, Kevin Islands, Leonstein, Blue Buddhas, Les Patineurs, Nag Ehgoeg, Antipatris, Richard2008, Tajiri_san, Vien, Bilbao City, Emerald Phoenix, Bellaben, Of Cascadia, DC Plus Plus, Jusma Kullailie, Landreth, Trantorsja, Flanagania, Fallen Gnomeregan, Benthan, Kavenna, Rawkenshtocken, Ficticious Proportions, The Unending Winter, Neon Plaid, Nevareion, Wuotanval, Izalium, Xanthal, WZ Forums, GanJapie, Hauraro, Lucilla-Isabella, The United Humanity, Cal Asirgu, Electronistan, Blue Scorpions, Blamange, The Shu-Han Dynasty, Karpathia, The 1st Kemdoph Army, Mythila, Burnaway, Darpatia, Mihkrit, Brunelian BG advocates, Punrovia, Jey, Marion Oaks 2, Dehny, Ramboville, Jjuulliiaann, Sinaasappel, Synnenodel, The Smelly Hippys, Giant Cheese Weasels, Listeneisse, The Philosophes, United Tribe of Maddox, Dexta, Tonca, Guiya, Bulgarian Legion, BrCru, AP Students, America-Canada-Mexico, Aryes, Eastern Louisville, Nova Varsovia, Technocratic Thought, New Hamilton, Sheep Buggering, Kalmar_dk, Pel, Hoegsholt, Spaz Land, Bettia, Clintoned, Vohteria, Clapton Pond, Keleih, Athradicon, Phthisis, The Game and Watch, LawnElf, Musashi Islands, Typhoonium, Robinski, Another hobby, Eve the First, Legendary Rock Stars, Underwear Fairies, Faldawi, Shirrad, Onahere, Darth Mall, Selat, Square rootedness, Brutix, Mommy D) No official warning was issued.


--The Modified Democratic States of Cogitation
NationStates Game Moderator

How do you figure that? Piracy is totally free trade. They don't pay anyone for their services, nobody gets royalties, it's total deregulation. You can't get much freer than that.

What you want to do is limit trade to the so-called legitimate owners. Can't say I disagree, but it's not free trade. It's regulated trade.

it's not easy topic, but it seems to me that a great part of piracy is even not a trade at all:

http://www.hyperdictionary.com/search.aspx?define=trade&sourceid=Mozilla-search

trade:
the commercial exchange (buying and selling on domestic or international markets) of goods and services

when millions people download movies on P2P networks for free, there is no trade at all

many people do that because it's free
but also many people would be absolutly ok to pay these movies on legal internet distribution system, if these were available

the same things happens few years ago for music; music was not available legally on the internet for years => people became use to download it for free

i'm not saying here that 100% of piracy come from the absence of content business on the internet, but for sure an important part

After a review of the proposal and a discussion with Frisbeeteria, the decision is as follows:

This proposal limits what businesses may do. It is limiting the economic freedoms of businesses. As the "Social Justice" category is the only category that reduces economic freedoms, this proposal should go under "Social Justice".

This proposal is not "Free Trade".


The following proposal was just deleted:
No official warning was issued.


--The Modified Democratic States of Cogitation
NationStates Game Moderator


thank you for telling us about the good category "social justice"

this category system is tricky, just for information, a thread was opened on the mod forum on this matter 9 days ago:
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=445392&highlight=media

this category system is tricky, just for information, a thread was opened on the mod forum on this matter 9 days ago
Yeah, we know. That combination is why there are no warnings associated with this deletion ... but please don't take that as an invitation to run every little thing by us. We DO have other things to work on besides the UN.

Yeah, we know. That combination is why there are no warnings associated with this deletion ... but please don't take that as an invitation to run every little thing by us. We DO have other things to work on besides the UN.

ok, no pb, thanks for giving us the right category, it will be easier for us now.
and anyway, it's an opportunity for us to make some minor but good improvments :)

Mods- thank you for the clarification and assistance!

Here is (hopefully) final draft:


Worldwide Media Act
The United Nations,

-A- NOTING that the artistic, cultural and entertainment media industry is a growing sector and is essential to the economic development of our Nations and the happiness of our people,

-B- RECOGNIZING that this industry includes a wide assortment of businesses and individuals that create and produce video, music, graphics, books and various other types of content,

-C- DEFINES a “regional system” as any method to prohibit the transmitting or viewing of media from one region or nation in another region or nation,

-D- NOTING that some regional systems are designed to prevent access to graphic or restricted types of media content in individual nations,

-E- CONVINCED that the universal standards are likely to increase consumer confidence, further adding to the practical and economic viability and success of these standards,

-F- REGRETTING the problems consumers face when using incompatible media formats, and when attempting to transport media from other cultures, which is a barrier to cultural awareness,

-G- REGRETTING that the current restrictions on media use increase piracy and hurts artistic, cultural and entertainment media creation,


-1- URGES all Nations to promote artistic, cultural and entertainment use of media and encourage its development, in particular its online distribution ,

-2- URGES STRONGLY all nations to regulate commercial DRM (Digital Rights Management) systems and duplication protections for commercial media, in order to assure compatibility for customers with most media players,

-3- BANS any "regional system" for commercial DRM’s and for all past, present and future commercial media formats. These formats include but are not limited to:
-Blu-ray disc
-Digital Versatile Disc (DVD)
-High Density Digital Versatile Disc (HD DVD)
-Universal Media Disc (UMD)
-Super Audio CD (SACD)
-DualDisc
-Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD)
-Holographic Versatile Disc (HDV)

-4-URGES all Nations to uphold legislation against any media sharing, distribution, or reproduction methods which are widely considered piracy,

-5- MANDATES developed nations where companies propose a commercial media support or DRM system standard to regulate the cost of its patent licensing in order to be financially reasonable and available to developing and less economically stable nations.

Co-authored by Love and esterel

ok, no pb, thanks for giving us the right category, it will be easier for us now.
and anyway, it's an opportunity for us to make some minor but good improvments :)

Not submitting it ever again would be the best improvement. This whole discussion is a farce. The resolution has changed name several times so old discussions get lost. Arguments against the very basics of this resolution are ignored.

I will support all campaigns against this resolution which will badly damage our economies. We should be heading towards more free trade, not restrict it even further!

After the success of repeal of "DVD Region Removal", the proposal "Worldwide Media Act, also presented by the tri-alliance of Jey, Richard2008 and Love and esterel managed to get 133 approvals and reached quorum.

Richard2008, congrats.

Stealthmunchkania will refuse to support this motion. It restricts the rights of people to copy and share information, which is a right we consider important, and likewise it restricts the rights of creators and industries to release their product in whatever way they see fit, which is also a right we consider important.
Should we ban photocopiers and video recorders too, to protect industry?
Should we ban languages other than English because they cause confusion and are a barrier to cultural understanding?
This is unneccessary regulation which will harm both business and consumers, without having any clear beneficiary.

An excellent final draft! We are particularly hopeful that this will at the very least come up for debate.

May the blessings of Tarkan the Great Otter be upon you.

Leonard Otterby
Ambassador for the Republic of Compadria to the U.N.

The Digital Network']This should cover all types of media (Including Paper Based Media Sources e.g Books) the category should be free trade and all of this should be merged into a single media copyright proposal.

Although this is clearly not a proposal for free trade, as has already been noted, the people of Cluichstan agree with our friends in the Digital Network that the contents of this proposal should be part of a single proposal on copyrights, not a separate proposal unto themselves.

Respectfully,
Sheik Nadnerb bin Cluich
Cluichstan's Ambassador to the UN
Regional Delegate from Scybala

Thank you to everyone who commented on this draft and who sent me suggestions. I am grateful to the delegates that approved it, and am excited to see it finally completed.

Regardless of people's feelings on the subjects of free trade and media distribution and sharing, it has been a positive experience hammering out a final copy of this resolution and working with fellow UN members and delegates.

Thank you to everyone who commented on this draft and who sent me suggestions. I am grateful to the delegates that approved it, and am excited to see it finally completed.

Thanks for ruining our economy and spoiling my enjoyment of the UN by proposing this utterly useless resolution, which once again turns the UN into a joke. Thank you for not listening to any criticism on your proposal.

Regardless of people's feelings on the subjects of free trade and media distribution and sharing, it has been a positive experience hammering out a final copy of this resolution and working with fellow UN members and delegates.

Discussing this hasn't been a positive experience. I hope the wider UN audience will see the errors of this resolution and will vote against it.

http://www.nationstates.net/images/flags/uploads/cluichstan.jpg

The people of Cluichstan note with disappointment that this proposal has already received enough support to be put in the queue for a vote. We urge all clear-thinking delegates to vote against this measure.

Respectfully,
Sheik Nadnerb bin Cluich
Cluichstan's Ambassador to the UN
Regional Delegate from Scybala

We just submitted a complaint to the mods this morning with regard to this proposal, yet we did not see that the mods have already given their ruling.

How the fuck do these monuments to stupidity keep reaching quorum? We remain opposed, and will be casting our votes against it come Sunday.

If this kind of nonsense gets passed I'm going to start lobbying for UN resolutions promoting theatre, live art and jousting.
I knew this would come back to haunt me.

Please, vote against this waste of space, if for no other reason than sparing me my sanity; I don't think it would withstand another TG campaign. Especially with my senior on her holiday.

Mathieu Vergniaud
Deputy Speaker to the UN

Well, this trash is up for vote. So, how do we stop it from passing? Is there a TG campaign?

after making some sense of this proposal the Empire of Kirisubo has voted against.

our reasons are simple. This is a pointless proposal and even more pointless than its predecessor was.

We have regions for DVD's and other media because each regions TV systems are different and for example a TV you would buy in the north pacific region may not work in Gatesville.

this proposal would actually encourage more piracy and damage the legal copyright holders when a DVD, CD etc gets a worldwide release.

Although this is clearly not a proposal for free trade, as has already been noted, the people of Cluichstan agree with our friends in the Digital Network that the contents of this proposal should be part of a single proposal on copyrights, not a separate proposal unto themselves.

Respectfully,
Sheik Nadnerb bin Cluich
Cluichstan's Ambassador to the UN
Regional Delegate from Scybala

Cluichstan you are right, the reason why the Digital Network chose Free Trade is that it affects trade between countries, but the Digital Network was not exactly sure about what category the resolution should be in, and therefore the category Social Justice was chosen.

The UMA is a horrible idea and a reagions economy will go down as only the greedy movie companys make any money. the stores set prices anyways and i'd pay more to know my movie disc format is made in Northern Sushi rather than Timbucktu...

Vote AGAINST this economic depression of an idea. Save your economy, then your people.

Unfortunally I think it is too late now to do anything about it. :(

We should vote no, but a majority (so far) already said yes, if this passes we will need a repeal resolution. Then next we could have a merged Copyright Media Act to save time and increase UN efficiency. :)

The Digital Network']We should vote no, but a majority (so far) already said yes, if this passes we will need a repeal resolution. Then next we could have a merged Copyright Media Act to save time and increase UN efficiency. :)No. No more Copyright Media acts, Worldwide Media acts, DVD region removals, no more media legislation altogether. Just knock it off. This issue simply does not merit the UN's attention and is a monumental waste of the UN's time and energy.

What you should do instead is pass a UN resolution that says the UN cannot interfere in copyright issues. Do that, and then you prevent the UMA and other like-minded propasals to exist. It also acts as a guard...if somebody makes an attempt to repeal it, then you can assemble others to fight against this.

Why does this not merit the UN's attention?

Piracy is a pretty big industry between countries now. DVDs that play fine in Hyrule don't play in my country because of the encoding on them. This is not related to stopping piracy - just stopping my people from playing Hyrulian DVDs on their systems.

And some of the Hyrule DVDs get a lot better special features than they do in mine, so people tend to copy them from Hyrule and edit the encoding on them. Creating a whole new industry of pirates.

But this proposal would prevent that - the people of Hyrule (assuming Hyrule is in the UN, which given I have made it up, it can be) will not be able to make DVDs just for them - they will be for everyone. And the pirates have less work to do on this front since they won't need to make copies of DVDs for my country.

Further more I have heard it argued in the past that it would be a huge victory for freedom of speech and freedom of expression. But I will leave that for another time.

By the by - I am not yet in the UN, but have applied to join. When I do, this will certainly get my vote. It is an international issue.

The UMA is a horrible idea and a reagions economy will go down as only the greedy movie companys make any money. the stores set prices anyways and i'd pay more to know my movie disc format is made in Northern Sushi rather than Timbucktu...

Vote AGAINST this economic depression of an idea. Save your economy, then your people.

Surely the economy would benifit. You can now sell your DVDs all over the world, instead of just a small confined area. How is that not good for business?

What you should do instead is pass a UN resolution that says the UN cannot interfere in copyright issues. Do that, and then you prevent the UMA and other like-minded propasals to exist. It also acts as a guard...if somebody makes an attempt to repeal it, then you can assemble others to fight against this.

Copyright is different to encoding for regions. And there is already a resolution about copyright (if memory serves it is UCPL - Universal Copyright/Patent Law), but I am not sure it applies cause encoding something to work on one DVD but not another is not the same as encoding it so it can't be copied.

The Digital Network']Unfortunally I think it is too late now to do anything about it. :(

We should vote no, but a majority (so far) already said yes, if this passes we will need a repeal resolution. Then next we could have a merged Copyright Media Act to save time and increase UN efficiency. :)

Too late to do anything about it? It's only the first day of voting. We should not be giving up on defeating this proposal so soon. Indeed, as my esteemed colleague from the Federal Republic of Omigodtheykilledkenny has already said, we should be standing firm against all proposals of this sort. The sooner we can deliver the message to the UN membership that senseless proposals of this sort will not meet with success, the sooner (hopefully) they will stop coming before this body to waste our time, time that would be much better spent focused on real issues.

Respectfully,
Sheik Nadnerb bin Cluich
Cluichstan's Ambassador to the UN
Regional Delegate from Scybala

i see no drastic downside in this proposal and can see many possibilities so u can count on the free land of loremansland to vote for

Not seeing a "drastic downside" is no reason to vote for a given proposal. There should be an upside. Approving proposals just for the sake of passing yet another senseless resolution is just plain silly.

Respectfully,
Sheik Nadnerb bin Cluich
Cluichstan's Ambassador to the UN
Regional Delegate from Scybala

Not seeing a "drastic downside" is no reason to vote for a given proposal. There should be an upside. Approving proposals just for the sake of passing yet another senseless resolution is just plain silly.

Respectfully,
Sheik Nadnerb bin Cluich
Cluichstan's Ambassador to the UN
Regional Delegate from Scybala

It promotes freedom of speech and expression.
It cuts down on Piracy.
It promotes business and free trade.

Do you want more upsides?

It promotes freedom of speech and expression.

How?

It cuts down on Piracy.

How?

It promotes business and free trade.

How?

Do you want more upsides?

The people of Cluichstan are still waiting to see one.

Don't we have bigger things to worry about?

Don't we have bigger things to worry about?

Yes, and this is why we should stop this!

If these idiots gain contorl of the UN (and what if they already have?), then they can force in laws and ruin us. This is all a farace, an attempt to hide their true goal: the takeover of the UN for their own selves so they can rule it stupidly! First, you get this crazy propsal, then another one, and then even another one! Finally, one more crazy propsal, and you'll realize thes idiots has changed everything and ruined us all!

We have to stop this axis of idiots before, well, before they come up with another crazy idea.

"Axis of idiots" -- the people of Cluichstan like it! :cool:

The more limits you put on exporting and distributing DVDs (et al) the more people are going to break those rules and create a new piracy industry.

If you say that a DVD can only be played in one country, you can put out two versions of a film - one for country A, one for country B - that tell different versions of the story. The massacre at Giflan Creek for example - depending on who you talk to it was a slaughter of epic proportions or a glorious battle in a war of defence of The Queen.

The more limits you put on exporting and distributing DVDs (et al) the more money you have to spend to make differently encoded versions for selling abroard.


This is why this resolution is a good thing.

Perhaps the people of Lazy days are confused due to our recent ascension to this hallowed institution and have thus not had the opportunity to follow the discussion about media technologies, but whatever the cause, we fail to see how making nations enforce DRM reduces income inequality. We fail to see how forcing companies to remove region encoding on DVDs reduces income inequality. We fail to see how telling nations that they must make technologies developed by the effort and capital of their people available to all nations increases the basic welfare. We’re talking about rich people (relatively) with enough money to buy DVDs and other consumer electronics devices; they’re not the people that need social justice wrought by the UN. We are not even sure what this proposal does; it opposes both piracy and industry’s attempts to restrain piracy. It does not even have an international body to decide standards, instead declaring that nations must develop these laws.

Therefore, as the UN delegate from Covenanters, I must vote against this resolution.

The Digital Network']Unfortunally I think it is too late now to do anything about it. :(

Perhaps I spoke too soon. My colleague from the Digital Network may have a point. It seems that UN members like to approve any proposal that hits the floor, regardless of its merits. Indeed, one has to wonder if they even think through their votes -- or even read the proposals -- at all before blindly approving these proposals. The people of Cluichstan (and by extension, the people of the region of Scybala) are left to wonder if they are wasting their time by participating in this supposedly austere body.

Respectfully,
Sheik Nadnerb bin Cluich
Cluichstan's Ambassador to the UN
Regional Delegate from Scybala

Perhaps I spoke too soon. My colleague from the Digital Network may have a point. It seems that UN members like to approve any proposal that hits the floor, regardless of its merits. Indeed, one has to wonder if they even think through their votes -- or even read the proposals -- at all before blindly approving these proposals. The people of Cluichstan (and by extension, the people of the region of Scybala) are left to wonder if they are wasting their time by participating in this supposedly austere body.

Respectfully,
Sheik Nadnerb bin Cluich
Cluichstan's Ambassador to the UN
Regional Delegate from Scybala

(smile) According to the history of the UN, a number of proposals have been voted down when they have been obviously abohorrent or stupid (for example the attack on labour rights that came with the two attempts to repeal the 40 hour work week and the labour unions). It does happen :}

Why do people contuinue to propose resolutions about media? the United Socialist States of The No Fun Ninjas does not believe this is a topic worthy of UN consideration. we believe this is a topic best left to the governments of individual nations. our nation will not be supporting this resoulution.

It promotes freedom of speech and expression.
It cuts down on Piracy.
It promotes business and free trade.

Do you want more upsides?

care to explain how this resolution will cut down on piracy?

Ladies, gantleman, producers, consumers, and to all else it may concern:

The budding nation of Fetrimos would like to present its opinion in this matter:

While the Emperor of Fentrimos does indeed control more shall we say progressed nations, such as Alta Vexus, among others, Fentrimos is the worst off one in the entire group.

Being in such a position, we believe we would be most apt to present most logically and realistically the opinion on this matter from the perspective of a small, economically struggling nation, which is currently attempting to endorse some form of democracy:

We believe that

A.) This act, if passed, will enable weaker countries to establish an economic freedom perhaps previously unknown to its populus.

B.) This act would allow economic benefits to smaller countries in the form of knowledge and international business perspectives from more developed countries.

C.) Nations like ours would be able to use our limited resources in more concentrated amounts and thereby devote them to more neccessary economic areas.

Thank you all for your time.

-Quintus aurelius, Current U.N. ambassador for Fentrimos, the only Imperial nation currently in the U.N.

"Axis of idiots" -- the people of Cluichstan like it! :cool:
Perhaps we should bring back Resolution #1, but rename it "Fight the Axis of Idiots".

Perhaps we should bring back Resolution #1, but rename it "Fight the Axis of Idiots".
But wouldn't the Axis of Idiots consist of the entire UN. :p

Bob Flibble
UN Representitive

care to explain how this resolution will cut down on piracy?

Imagine you have two nations - Hyrule and Pallatium. A company releases a film called "A Giant Monkey Attacks New York" on DVD. However in Hyrule they release it with directors commenty, deleted scenes, actor's commentry and lots and lots of extras. In Pallatium, they don't - they just release the film. The encoding prevents Hyrule DVDs playing in Pallatium and visa-versa.

If you lived in Pallatium, and had the ability to copy DVDs from Hyrule, bypassing the encoding, and you knew people would buy them, wouldn't you be tempted to do that?

Where as if there was no region coding - no encoding for specific countries - you would not need to do that as you could buy Hryule DVDs and play them yourself w/o the need to copy them.

I am not saying it will prevent piracy, I am just saying it will cut down the reasons people will have to do it.

Imagine you have two nations - Hyrule and Pallatium. A company releases a film called "A Giant Monkey Attacks New York" on DVD. However in Hyrule they release it with directors commenty, deleted scenes, actor's commentry and lots and lots of extras. In Pallatium, they don't - they just release the film. The encoding prevents Hyrule DVDs playing in Pallatium and visa-versa.

If you lived in Pallatium, and had the ability to copy DVDs from Hyrule, bypassing the encoding, and you knew people would buy them, wouldn't you be tempted to do that?

If there's any demand for those features in Pallatium don't you think the entertainment industry would release it there themselves? Or were you under the impression they're opposed to making money?

If there's any demand for those features in Pallatium don't you think the entertainment industry would release it there themselves? Or were you under the impression they're opposed to making money?

Yes - but it might take time (special editions are usually released two to three months after the original) and if you wanted it in the mean time, you really expect people not to resort to piracy?

I have voted firmly against this and, for the first time since resignation, wish I was still a delegate so it would have been 3 votes against instead of a miserable 1.

Just because a resolution is repealed, doesn't automatically mean it needs to be replaced. This one should have stayed well and truly dead.

Entertainment of their people is a national concern and not an international one. Why the heck should the UN care who can and can't watch movies?

All this is going to achieve is to allow pirates to thrive and offer cheaper media for sale world wide instead of within their own region, greatly undercutting the legitimate producers. The only people who will get any benefit from this are the pirates themselves and cost concious consumers.

Entertainment of their people is a national concern and not an international one. Why the heck should the UN care who can and can't watch movies?


Cause regions vary with countries, and anything that effects more than one nation can be argued by definition to be a UN issue.


All this is going to achieve is to allow pirates to thrive and offer cheaper media for sale world wide instead of within their own region, greatly undercutting the legitimate producers. The only people who will get any benefit from this are the pirates themselves and cost concious consumers.

I think it's the other way - that ensuring DVDs are released region by region, country by country, would require pirates to set up a system to bypass that encoding, or require people who make DVD players (et al) to deal with more than one encoding if people aren't going to be screwed over by the legitimate producers.

Watching movies is not a human right, its not necessary for the health and well being of an individual. Regions aren't discrimination as all get the media eventually. So again, I ask why does the UN need to be involved in this?

International sport crosses borders too, should the UN be regulating that as well?

I find it very hard to believe that opening up an unrestricted in anyway world market for pirates won't greatly increase piracy. Its just basic logic to assume they will take advantage of this resolution to flood the world with illegal copies, putting a greater strain on the police of those nations who fight media piracy to stamp out the practice.

I don't see legitimate producers putting protection on a product they produced as "screwing people over". Its their product, they went to the time and expense of making it, they should and must be allowed to market it any way they wish (within a nations existing laws of course). If some people can't afford the product or have to show a little patience and wait a while to get it, then so be it.

And yet, with all our good arugments, the tyranny of the majority will vote it in, regardless of what the UN says!

"Hey, let vote in the Emergency Widget! Don't know what it is, but I'll proberly need it in an emergency!"

The UN shouldn't be a rubber stamp, it sholuld instead be an organization dedicated to do something SMART! Maybe we have to make a propasal that says that leaders of nations must take an IQ test. Whoever fails the test will be rejected.

It's unfair and it won't pass, I admit. But we citizens must do SOMETHING to save this UN! We have a chance, we must take it!

Watching movies is not a human right, its not necessary for the health and well being of an individual. Regions aren't discrimination as all get the media eventually. So again, I ask why does the UN need to be involved in this?

International sport crosses borders too, should the UN be regulating that as well?

I find it very hard to believe that opening up an unrestricted in anyway world market for pirates won't greatly increase piracy. Its just basic logic to assume they will take advantage of this resolution to flood the world with illegal copies, putting a greater strain on the police of those nations who fight media piracy to stamp out the practice.

I don't see legitimate producers putting protection on a product they produced as "screwing people over". Its their product, they went to the time and expense of making it, they should and must be allowed to market it any way they wish (within a nations existing laws of course). If some people can't afford the product or have to show a little patience and wait a while to get it, then so be it.


So you are happy with the practice of releasing one "fully loaded version" in one country, and a crappy discount one in another? Only to have the same fully loaded version released six months later at an inflated cost when most people have bought the original and now have to buy another copy to get what they should have had in the first place?

And the fact that without this, the movie producers would be able to change the encoding every so often and force the DVD player manuf. to update their players?

If people made cars that could only be driven in one country and not another there would be an outcry amongst the people who are opposing this resolution. And having a car is not a basic right either.

If the people of a nation don't like whats on offer then they can vote with their currency and not buy it. Owning a movie isn't essential to life. People can and do live without them.

Thats what I'm having a problem understanding. That some of you seem to think buying and owning media is a right of the people and producers are supposed to cater to their every whim. I'll say again, its the producers product and how they market it is up to them.

(think I need to do my political compass again, my economics is getting more capatilistic by the day :D).

(think I need to do my political compass again, my economics is getting more capatilistic by the day :D).

That means you're learning. ;)

From across the forum, King Hassan the Chop shouts:

Hey, once again this proposal sounds like a lot off bullcrap to me--Telling me how to run my own nation. What a load......."

From across the forum, King Hassan the Chop shouts:

Hey, once again this proposal sounds like a lot off bullcrap to me--Telling me how to run my own nation. What a load......."

However if it passes, we have to obey it. This is unfair, our ecomony is going to tank and be ruined.

Therefore, if (when) this resolution passes, I will not enforce it until it get repealed. Not resign, since the UN can be saved, if we band together, but not enforce it. I suggest other nations do the same.

I also ask that we all work together to stop the Axis of Idiots that may have taken over the UN, and bring back sanity! I envision a day when we smart people rule the UN, not dumb idiots! When real issues are discussed, not dumb ones! And we can do this! Once the idiots go away!

As mentioned in an earlier thread, Greater Onactia is against any document that opposes piracy of any form due to the large Pastafarian majority. Most of us believe that lack of piracy angers our god, His Noodleyness, the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

One can read more about our position here:
More on our positon (http://http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9773296&postcount=37)

We believe that this move to stop piracy is extremely dangerous to the world and humanity and that the current lack of pirates in the world is cause for enough concern already.

Why does this not merit the UN's attention?

Piracy is a pretty big industry between countries now. DVDs that play fine in Hyrule don't play in my country because of the encoding on them. This is not related to stopping piracy - just stopping my people from playing Hyrulian DVDs on their systems.

And some of the Hyrule DVDs get a lot better special features than they do in mine, so people tend to copy them from Hyrule and edit the encoding on them. Creating a whole new industry of pirates.

But this proposal would prevent that - the people of Hyrule (assuming Hyrule is in the UN, which given I have made it up, it can be) will not be able to make DVDs just for them - they will be for everyone. And the pirates have less work to do on this front since they won't need to make copies of DVDs for my country.

Further more I have heard it argued in the past that it would be a huge victory for freedom of speech and freedom of expression. But I will leave that for another time.

By the by - I am not yet in the UN, but have applied to join. When I do, this will certainly get my vote. It is an international issue.If you think piracy is a problem, then you are free to regulate against it, in your own country. You're even free to enter into agreements with other nations to prevent cross-border piracy. But please, for the love of God, STOP IT with this positively impetuous mindset that every little thing in life needs to be covered by a UN resolution! Even the UN powers-that-be questioned the value of this proposal: the mods had a problem categorizing it, because there really was no category for it -- meaning it was outside the UN's jurisdiction. But somehow it squeaked through as a "Social Justice" resolution on a technicality (and how it advances social justice I have no idea, since no one has the right to watch movies, and regulating the entertainment industry does nothing to promote income equality).

As for the people of your nation not being able to watch Hyrulian DVDs, I really don't give a fuck. No offense.

[/rant]

As for the people of your nation not being able to watch Hyrulian DVDs, I really don't give a fuck.

The people of Cluichstan second the not giving a fuck.

I would third it, but I don't like cursing.

However, a bad news is that once the resolution passes, governments automatically passes laws in order to comply with the new resolution. We have to stop this. If we pass a law in support of this resolution, we have already given into the enemy!

Then what you should do is join us in telegramming delegates who are voting in favor of this travesty of a resolution in the hope of swaying enough of them to our point of view.

As for the people of your nation not being able to watch Hyrulian DVDs, I really don't give a fuck.
The people of Cluichstan second the not giving a fuck.
I'll third it. I cannot believe that there is a debate occuring in the UN forum over ENTERTAINMENT. Much less a vote taking place. Next up: The International Traffic Sign Act which will regulate the size, color and shape of all traffic signs in all UN nations. Category: Human Rights. Strength: Strong.

UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTION #125 (http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/)

Repeal "DVD region removal"
A proposal to repeal a previously passed resolution


Category: Repeal
Resolution: #5
Proposed by: Jey

Description: UN Resolution #5: DVD region removal (Category: Free Trade; Strength: Mild) shall be struck out and rendered null and void.

Argument: The U.N.

Realizing:

-A- The rights and privileges of nations and regions involving all other media types, including: Blu-ray disc, High Density DVD (HD DVD), Universal media disc (UMD), super Audio CD (SACD), DualDiscs, other record types, and nearly all computerized were not mentioned at all in the previous resolution.

-B- Other media supports exist or will arrive soon on the market and should be also free of a “regional system.” This resolution only covers one type of media which is only effective during the time in which DVDs are used as standardized media.

Regretting:

-C- This resolution is poorly written, and contains numerous grammatical errors which can be embarrassing to the U.N.

-D- This resolution is illogical to only include one type of media and this makes it in a way unenforceable and meaningless.

In light of this resolution ineffectiveness and failure to expand to other media types, be it resolved that:

Resolution #5, “DVD region removal” is repealed

Co-Authored by: Love and esterel


Votes For: 11,801
Votes Against: 2,320

Implemented: Sun Oct 2 2005

I do notice that some of the newer technological products are not listed in this draft but the new proposal must be illegal, it would have to repeal this repeal wouldnt it ?

It would? Then we stopped the Axis of Idiots!

Though I'm still sending Telegrams to tell people to vote against the propsal anyway. Just in case!

It seems to us that some Nations are indeed more interested by trying to collapse agriculture in developing countries (Global Food Distribution Act) than by trying to promote to growth of a promising industry and in the same way trying to reduce piracy.

FTTH (Fiber To The Home) for hundreds of thousand of people in Tokyo, Seoul and more and more cities = 100mb/s

DSL by Yahoo in Japan > 50m/s

DSL at my home = 10mb/s

VDSL2 in experimentation in a city few km away from me by a major worldwide DSL provider > 100mb/s, soon in your home

More than 9 millions of people at any given time on a P2P network.

Millions of movies downloaded on P2P networks

What about the legal online movie distribution?
=> That doesn’t even exist

In the 21st century, consumers acquired more music online than on CD.

i downloaded illegally my first mp3 in 1999, i was far to be the first, the 1st serious music legal system was created in 2003… 4 years later. Do you know any others industry refusing technology advance for so long than 4 years?

Our proposition aim to promote an almost absent industry, and for which its absence is one of the main cause of piracy.

In the 21st century, consumers acquired more music online than on CD.

But those who did so illegally were also more likely to purchase CDs.

lol shhhh dont say that out loud you can be charged for illegally downloading copy write material these days.

It would? Then we stopped the Axis of Idiots!

Though I'm still sending Telegrams to tell people to vote against the propsal anyway. Just in case!
No way it looks like it will go through aswell! if it goes through it can be repealed easier :D

Removing regions is not going to stop, or even slow down, piracy. If anything it will increase it out of sight.

The vast majority of people who aquire pirated media don't do it because its unavailable. The get it because its free or much cheaper than the legal version.

This resolution will allow pirates to copy media and sell it in every flea market and pub in every nation without the problem of getting rid of regional protection first. P2P won't be affected in the slightest.

(OOC)I have downloaded software and music over P2P available freely in this nation simply because I can, its easy to aquire and its free.

SNLA']lol shhhh dont say that out loud you can be charged for illegally downloading copy write material these days.


i have no remorse to have useD new technology in 1999 to get music, but i'm very sad that legal system didn't exist at that time and i had to wait more than 4 years to get some legally

Ausserland is firmly opposed to this proposal. Regional coding on multimedia products is a marketing issue, one that must be left to the determination of the producers. They are the ones that have invested their time and money in producing the product; they must be allowed to decide how it will be marketed. There is no rational justification for the UN to dictate their marketing strategy to them.

As for the notion that this proposal will somehow reduce piracy (which we seriously doubt), some rational thought is in order. Who is hurt by media piracy? The companies who make and sell the products. If there was economic benefit to removing regional coding for piracy reduction, wouldn't the producing companies do it? If they decide not to do it, what earthly right has the UN to step in and force them to?

Ausserland votes NO.

Patrick T. Olembe
Minister for Foreign Affairs

But those who did so illegally were also more likely to purchase CDs.


i bought hundreds of cd's few years ago, but as millions of people i prefer to have music on my computer, Cd is an obsolete technology since 1998

media are getting more and more dematerialized, this is what new technology are about

i have no remorse to have useD new technology in 1999 to get music, but i'm very sad that legal system didn't exist at that time and i had to wait more than 4 years to get some legally
Don't lie lol :D

I respectfully submit that the representative from Love and Esterel has missed my point.

Removing regions is not going to stop, or even slow down, piracy. If anything it will increase it out of sight.

The vast majority of people who aquire pirated media don't do it because its unavailable. The get it because its free or much cheaper than the legal version.

This resolution will allow pirates to copy media and sell it in every flea market and pub in every nation without the problem of getting rid of regional protection first. P2P won't be affected in the slightest.

(OOC)I have downloaded software and music over P2P available freely in this nation simply because I can, its easy to aquire and its free.

the main objective of many in real life is not to crush P2P
=> it's to create a healthy industry sector
we shoul promote the creation of this industry, itunes, rhapsody are ths 1st step in music and this is good
but nothng exist for movies, this occur only because major playersin this sector don't manage to finalize agrements between them

let's look at Sony:
bad management for years concentrate more on obsolete minidisc player instead of mp3 player => they had to change management and now they hav to struggle to follow Apple

SNLA']Don't lie lol :D

i listen a lot of house music
do you know what is the only legal way to buy most of house music?
vynil!
don't you agree it is absolutly crazy

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/ContentShowcase.aspx

please watch some of these HD movies and let me know if you like it

this is the future, HD movies you can buy legally on the internet

Love and esterel, you have admitted to being a pirate. This is not good. The co-writer of a propsal is a pirate himself...prehaps he is using the propasl to make one standard media format so that his piracy can contiune? This is bad! Why does a pirate even exists in the UN?

OOC: Sorry if the comment on downloading illegaly was suppose to be OOC, but your comment about downloading illegally was IC, and I assumed it was IC.

Love and esterel, you have admitted to being a pirate. This is not good. The co-writer of a propsal is a pirate himself...prehaps he is using the propasl to make one standard media format so that his piracy can contiune? This is bad! Why does a pirate even exists in the UN?

OOC: Sorry if the comment on downloading illegaly was suppose to be OOC, but your comment about downloading illegally was IC, and I assumed it was IC.

yes i admit i've downloaded some music in the past on P2P networks as millions and millions of people in the world, sorry i'm not an hypocrit,

now i buy on my best legal system, and it's really important that legal system exist for movies
people will not continue to buy DVd, the market is on the internet now, this is where technology goes

Thats the companies problem though. Its their product. They produce it, they release it, they market it. We as consumers don't have a god given right to own a movie or any other type of media if the producer decides not to market it in our region or decides to market it in a way we don't like. The producer owns the product, not the consumer.

I guess my opposition to this and my arguements are age related. I was a teen before the video player first appeared in Australia so never had a feeling that I had the right to aquire, or somehow "owned" media and that as a consumer the producers had to cater to me.

It seems some of the younger generations that were brought up in the "entertainment age" as I call it and were using videos as small children, have a very different outlook on this because they were raised surrounded by and using the latest techonolgy. I can't help seeing a bit of an attitude that says basically to producers "I want it, I have a right to it, you will give it to me on my terms. I don't care about your company, hand it over".

No matter what the attitude, the producer owns the media. Its theirs to market as they want to market it. If they want to use regional protection or any other safeguard for their products, then that is their choice. The consumer can decide for themselves whether to buy the product or not on those terms.

It seems to us that some Nations are indeed more interested by trying to collapse agriculture in developing countries (Global Food Distribution Act)
Which has a thread of its own that you could have posted this comment in. It has no relevance here.
than by trying to promote to growth of a promising industry and in the same way trying to reduce piracy.
For one thing, this is a Social Justice resolution, it doesn't promote the growth of this (or any other) industry. Here is what a Social Justice resolution does:
Social Justice
A resolution to reduce income inequality and increase basic welfare.

These are almost exactly opposed types of resolutions. Both affect Economic freedoms. "Free Trade" increases Economic freedoms while "Social Justice" reduces Economic freedoms. In addition, "Social Justice" also increases government spending on welfare and healthcare (though "Free Trade" does not have an opposite effect). Economic freedoms primarily discuss how much regulation there is on business/industry or how much government spending goes to helping poor/sick people. Total Economic freedom is Laissez-faire Capitalism. Zero Economic freedom is a completely government-controlled economy. Creating a Food and Drug Administration in all UN member nations, or creating a Securities and Exchange Commission in all UN member nations is imposing a mild form of Economic control, and therefore a mild reduction of Economic freedoms; you're imposing restrictions on what businesses and industries may do and you're moving away from a completely-uncontrolled Laissez-faire system.
For another thing, I'm saying that entertainment is not an area that the UN should be involving itself in because I genuinely believe that it isn't. That is the crux of my argument, that we shouldn't even be doing this. So I'm not interested in debating P2P or various removable media formats because I really don't think it's important enough for the UN to legislate on. This will be my last comment in this thread.

For one thing, this is a Social Justice resolution, it doesn't promote the growth of this (or any other) industry.

-1- URGES all Nations to promote artistic, cultural and entertainment use of media and encourage its development, in particular its online distribution ,

I also agree that the U.N. should not be involved with the Entertainment area. As stated before, it is not a right to see every single kind of media out there. It is not ethical to have produceing companies produce media to be able to send out to each and every nation of the world. That would be quite detrimental to a company if they had to do so. Forgive me for using a RL example, but every country in the world doesn't see everything that is shown in every other country in the world.

It is the right of the producers to analyze and decide if they are able to profit from bringing in media from their country to another. It is their right to see if the media they have produced will be well liked enough to have some kind of lasting business there. It is their right to decide if media is not suited for one country, but could be liked in another.

I am against this resolution.

yes i admit i've downloaded some music in the past on P2P networks as millions and millions of people in the world, sorry i'm not an hypocrit,

now i buy on my best legal system, and it's really important that legal system exist for movies
people will not continue to buy DVd, the market is on the internet now, this is where technology goes

I understand, love, but this doesn't excuse the fact that you have confessed to being a pirate.

Piracy is very dangerous, as companies loses money. You have aided it and I wonder why aren't you punished for it. How could you even look yourself in the mirror...how could your pro-business government support you, with you being so anti-business supporting piracy and all.

And how dare you accuse me of being a pirate? I'm not the one who install P2P software! I'm not the one using my national INTERNET, wasting precious bandwhich and taxpayers money just to download the latest songs! I never done that! I never have broken the law! And nobody else here. Only you, love, has confessed to being a pirate! Only you are low enough to do this. National leaders are rich and can afford their own songs. Why then did you do it? Because you wanted to, because you wanted the thrills of downloading illegal music! This cannot be premitted. Otherwise innocent people will resort to piracy because they can think their leader can get away with it.

If a leader of a Capitalist Paradise can get away with piracy...then how many other people has gotten away with it?

If you are seriously interested in stomping piracy instead of secertly supporting it with your propsal...then you should vote a propsal to actually enforce existing laws. You should recant your crimes of piracy, pay money to those companies you hurt by committing piracy, and make a public apology to your people.

OOC: I'm taking your comments out of context, love and estrell. Please don't pound me, I'm just roleplaying.

Hey, I was suprised YOU didn't pound me, accusing me of being a liar, of framing you for treason, or putting sanctions on me. :)

If you are seriously interested in stomping piracy instead of secertly supporting it with your propsal...then you should vote a propsal to actually enforce existing laws


-4-URGES all Nations to uphold legislation against any media sharing, distribution, or reproduction methods which are widely considered piracy,

please, may i encourage every person who posted in this thread to read paragraph -1- and -4- in our proposition, thanks a lot

The Blissed out State of Ateelatay had origianally veted for this resolution, in the hopes that the UN could get passd this issue and move on to others. However, after listening to the debate of the international community, along with the innapproprate strength rating of the proposal, and the fact that our nation does not care much about the issue nor does it feel that regional formats on media is a human rights issue, we have changed our vote to AGAINST, and hope that, no matter the outcome of the vote, this issue will not come up again.
Peace!

Yes, problem is though those points are only urged so nations are free to ignore them if they wish.

Point 4 is interesting, you are only "urging" governments to uphold previous legislation against piracy but in point 3 you are demanding that all protection against piracy be removed from all media. That reads of supporting piracy to me.

SNLA']UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTION #125 (http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi/)

Repeal "DVD region removal"
A proposal to repeal a previously passed resolution


Category: Repeal
Resolution: #5
Proposed by: Jey

Description: UN Resolution #5: DVD region removal (Category: Free Trade; Strength: Mild) shall be struck out and rendered null and void.

Argument: The U.N.

Realizing:

-A- The rights and privileges of nations and regions involving all other media types, including: Blu-ray disc, High Density DVD (HD DVD), Universal media disc (UMD), super Audio CD (SACD), DualDiscs, other record types, and nearly all computerized were not mentioned at all in the previous resolution.

-B- Other media supports exist or will arrive soon on the market and should be also free of a “regional system.” This resolution only covers one type of media which is only effective during the time in which DVDs are used as standardized media.

Regretting:

-C- This resolution is poorly written, and contains numerous grammatical errors which can be embarrassing to the U.N.

-D- This resolution is illogical to only include one type of media and this makes it in a way unenforceable and meaningless.

In light of this resolution ineffectiveness and failure to expand to other media types, be it resolved that:

Resolution #5, “DVD region removal” is repealed

Co-Authored by: Love and esterel


Votes For: 11,801
Votes Against: 2,320

Implemented: Sun Oct 2 2005

I do notice that some of the newer technological products are not listed in this draft but the new proposal must be illegal, it would have to repeal this repeal wouldnt it ?


You can't repeal a repeal. All a repeal does is get rid of past legislation. It doesn't prevent any future legislation at all, or have any permanent effects of its own beyond wiping out the legislation it was aimed at.

in point 3 you are demanding that all protection against piracy be removed from all media.

Regional system are absolutly not "all protection against piracy" as it's even not the main one, the main protection against piracy for support is duplication protection.

All support protection have so far proved inneficient against piracy
please have a look on em*#@, you will find all the latest movies
sorry but it's time here to stop hypocrisy, and admit these protection had only little effect

The main piracy is not about support, the main piracy is on the internet

The best way to fight piracy is to build legal online system as itunes raphsody for music, but nothing exist yet for movies, and the more you wait, the more you encourage piracy

the paragraph -1- of our proposition do exactly that



maybe we should have "mandates" instead of "urges" in our fight against piracy in -4-, but we didn't think that we can impose to developping countries
to use money to do that
so maybe it would have been better to do a distinction and "mandates " for developped nations, and "urges" for "developping ones"

but once again, the best ways to fight piracy is to create legal distribution system on the internet

Yes - but it might take time (special editions are usually released two to three months after the original) and if you wanted it in the mean time, you really expect people not to resort to piracy?

What the hell kind of argument are you making here anyway?

If the industry is going to take time before it can release the special edition in Pallatioum then just who exactly is going to be selling Pallatium all these extra copies of special editions that were already released elsewhere after you remove the regional encoding? Because if it isn't the industry doing it you're talking about pirates... and if the industry can do it themselves we don't need the regional encoding removed, do we?

Don't we have bigger things to worry about?

We really understand if some nation don't think this topic is important, this is your opinion, we respect it.

We think it's important to promote the development of this industry
It's becoming a more and more significant economic sector

We also think its really important that artistic, cultural and entertainment media can be more transmitted from one region to one another

And also we think it's important to fight piracy and to propose an alternative to piracy when this alternative doesn't really exist

Furthermore, if you have bigger things to wory about, may i encourage you and everybody to write a proposition, post it on the forum and improve it with the help of many nations and then submit it

This resolution is completely awful.

Nations should have the freedom to restrict foreign media, to allow any formats and have complete control over their media business.

-3- BANS any "regional system" for commercial DRM’s and for all past, present and future commercial media formats. These formats include but are not limited to:
-Blu-ray disc
-High Density Digital Versatile Disc (HD DVD)
-Universal Media Disc (UMD)
-Super Audio CD (SACD)
-DualDisc
-Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD)
-Holographic Versatile Disc (HDV)


This is unreasonable. it would devestate some ecconomies rather than assist free trade.

Hey, I was suprised YOU didn't pound me, accusing me of being a liar, of framing you for treason, or putting sanctions on me. :)

i like this forum, everybody can express his/her concern freely, it's great :p

Why would i pound you, or accusing you of anything? we are debating arguments.

so nobody told me if he/her like these videos
these are High definition video (if you don't have a 17"" screen sorry forget it, and also your computer need to be somehow powerful, it's lagging a little bit on mine :( )

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/ContentShowcase.aspx

-3- BANS any "regional system" for commercial DRM’s and for all past, present and future commercial media formats. These formats include but are not limited to:
-Blu-ray disc
-High Density Digital Versatile Disc (HD DVD)
-Universal Media Disc (UMD)
-Super Audio CD (SACD)
-DualDisc
-Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD)
-Holographic Versatile Disc (HDV)


This is unreasonable. it would devestate some ecconomies rather than assist free trade.

one statement from Toshiba Digital Media Networks’ Hisashi Yamada:

: “We’ve gotten a variety of opinions about region controls. Even in the Steering Committee, they are extremely unpopular; we decided to not put them in. HD DVD probably won’t contain any region playback controls.”

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000873062235/

First off, this bill is mis-classified. This has NOTHING to do with social justice. I just can't find anything involving civil liberties or income inequality in this ill-advised act. Rather, this is about trade regulation, and I'll show everyone on this floor how this will hurt, and not help, the music industry as well as the free speech of the citizens of your UN-enrolled nation.

This was previously titled "DRM and Media Act." I would appreciate any additional comments/suggestions that anyone has.


The United Nations,

-A- NOTING that the artistic, cultural and entertainment media industry is a growing sector and is essential to the economic development of our Nations and the happiness of our people,

-B- RECOGNIZING that this industry includes a wide assortment of businesses and individuals that create and produce video, music, graphics, books and various other types of content,

-C- DEFINES a “regional system” as any method to prohibit the transmitting or viewing of media from one region or nation in another region or nation,

-D- NOTING that some regional systems are designed to prevent access to graphic or restricted types of media content in individual nations,

-E- CONVINCED that the universal standards are likely to increase consumer confidence, further adding to the practical and economic viability and success of these standards,

-F- REGRETTING the problems consumers face when using incompatible media formats, and when attempting to transport media from other cultures, which is a barrier to cultural awareness,

-G- REGRETTING that the current restrictions on media use increase piracy and hurts artistic, cultural and entertainment media creation,

(Skipping to the mandates....)


-1- URGES all Nations to promote artistic, cultural and entertainment use of media and encourage its development, in particular its online distribution ,

While using the word "URGES" does not make this a mandate, it is puzzling that a UN bill would try to influence governments to deal specifically in the arts. A basic historical study can illustrate the damaging effect on the arts that the government can have when it's involved in its promotion in any forum. The agenda of government often finds its way into, in front of, and against artistic expression, and those artists pandering to the status quos will find themselves better promoted by government programs than those artists critical of the establishment.

-2- URGES STRONGLY all nations to regulate commercial DRM (Digital Rights Management) systems and duplication protections for commercial media, in order to assure compatibility for customers with most media players,

And make unique and proprietary media players unusable, hindering market demand for the sake of uniformity? I thought we were supposed to urge nations to promote the arts with this act!

-3- BANS any "regional system" for commercial DRM’s and for all past, present and future commercial media formats. These formats include but are not limited to:
-Blu-ray disc
-High Density Digital Versatile Disc (HD DVD)
-Universal Media Disc (UMD)
-Super Audio CD (SACD)
-DualDisc
-Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD)
-Holographic Versatile Disc (HDV)
(emphasis mine)
So my recently purchased Sdvelius' Greatest Hits DVD that has a commercial DRM should be declared illegal property? Am I in violation by having made that purchase before this act comes into effect?

I haven't been able to find a UN resolution that prohibits retroactive enforcement of such acts, but I must state before this floor that this affront on property rights is astounding. And the phrase "commercial media formats" does not distinguish from already-purchased media.

As for the ban's intent, this will effectively give international media pirates an edge over the golbal entertainment industries, allowing them to more easily copy CDs from, say, Sidestreamer and playing them in the nation of Richard2008 without inhibition. Piracy has been reduced since the repeal of the first DVD region act. Let's not go back to this, please!

-4-URGES all Nations to uphold legislation against any media sharing, distribution, or reproduction methods which are widely considered piracy,
What kind of message are we supposed to give to our citizens when we make international piracy easier by banning DRM protections?


-5- MANDATES developed nations where companies propose a commercial media support or DRM system standard to regulate the cost of its patent licensing in order to be financially reasonable and available to developing and less economically stable nations.

Doesn't this contradict clause -3-, which bans regional systems in their entirety?

-------

The Corporate Christian Empire of Sidestreamer, through it's colony, the Puppet and UN Mouthpiece of the Sidestream, shall vote to defeat this act.

First off, this bill is mis-classified. This has NOTHING to do with social justice.

here is mods decision:
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9725986&postcount=20

After a review of the proposal and a discussion with Frisbeeteria, the decision is as follows:

This proposal limits what businesses may do. It is limiting the economic freedoms of businesses. As the "Social Justice" category is the only category that reduces economic freedoms, this proposal should go under "Social Justice".

This proposal is not "Free Trade".


The following proposal was just deleted:
No official warning was issued.


--The Modified Democratic States of Cogitation
NationStates Game Moderator



While using the word "URGES" does not make this a mandate, it is puzzling that a UN bill would try to influence governments to deal specifically in the arts.

-1- URGES all Nations to promote artistic, cultural and entertainment use of media

what is encouraged here is the use of media, in particular online distribution which is lacking and is one of the main reason of piracy on the internet, no influence by governments on art here

So my recently purchased Sdvelius' Greatest Hits DVD that has a commercial DRM should be declared illegal property? Am I in violation by having made that purchase before this act comes into effect?

a law cannot be retroactive, what is done is done, no pb with your Sdvelius' Greatest Hits DVD, we are dealing here with "formats", it's not retractive we are just dealing with existing obsolete technology by "past"

What kind of message are we supposed to give to our citizens when we make international piracy easier by banning DRM protections?

there is no ban on DRM in our proposition, we just regulate them, and it can also prevent eventual other proposition wanting to ban them

The community of Stealthmunchkania considers this proposal misguided, is of the opinion that the subjects covered are not a matter for the UN, and furthermore is of the opinion that so-called 'piracy' has as many good points as bad ones.
The purpose of the UN is not to spend time and resources protecting the assets of some of the richest, most powerful organisations in the world, even if this were worded in such a way that it would have the desired effect.

Regional system are absolutly not "all protection against piracy" as it's even not the main one, the main protection against piracy for support is duplication protection.

All support protection have so far proved inneficient against piracy
please have a look on em*#@, you will find all the latest movies
sorry but it's time here to stop hypocrisy, and admit these protection had only little effect

The main piracy is not about support, the main piracy is on the internet

The best way to fight piracy is to build legal online system as itunes raphsody for music, but nothing exist yet for movies, and the more you wait, the more you encourage piracy

the paragraph -1- of our proposition do exactly that



maybe we should have "mandates" instead of "urges" in our fight against piracy in -4-, but we didn't think that we can impose to developping countries
to use money to do that
so maybe it would have been better to do a distinction and "mandates " for developped nations, and "urges" for "developping ones"

but once again, the best ways to fight piracy is to create legal distribution system on the internet


It doesn't really matter if this removes all protection from media or not (and I'll concede I may have been wrong about that but its how this reads to me). The basic thing is this resolution is telling companies how to market their media and the UN has no right to interfere in that in my opinion. The product belongs to them, not the UN, not the consumer, not society at large. It belongs lock stock and barrel to those who put in the time, effort and paid for its conception, development, manufacture and distribution.

No-one will convince me this resolution will reduce piracy. There are tons of legal music download sites on the internt now. There are also tons of illegal music download sites on the internet now. If there is a demand, there will always be someone willing to satify that demand, and there will always a demand for free or extremly cheap media.

If companies want their movies sold legally online they can do it themselves. Why do they need the UN forcing them to do it.

The nation of Cuation will vote no to this bill. More important things need to be dealt with, this would allow people to buy films and such like that may be illegal in a nation and I worry about piracy.

I am utterly against this resolution. Cultural and artistic goods should belong to the community, not restricted in hands of corporentions and shielded by that copyrights you like so much. What you call piracy i call info liberation. And be honest, you also download music!!!
We should free info from corp hands and be it accesoble for everyone at the Net.

This was previously titled "DRM and Media Act." I would appreciate any additional comments/suggestions that anyone has.


The United Nations,

-A- NOTING that the artistic, cultural and entertainment media industry is a growing sector and is essential to the economic development of our Nations and the happiness of our people,

-B- RECOGNIZING that this industry includes a wide assortment of businesses and individuals that create and produce video, music, graphics, books and various other types of content,

-C- DEFINES a “regional system” as any method to prohibit the transmitting or viewing of media from one region or nation in another region or nation,

-D- NOTING that some regional systems are designed to prevent access to graphic or restricted types of media content in individual nations,

-E- CONVINCED that the universal standards are likely to increase consumer confidence, further adding to the practical and economic viability and success of these standards,

-F- REGRETTING the problems consumers face when using incompatible media formats, and when attempting to transport media from other cultures, which is a barrier to cultural awareness,

-G- REGRETTING that the current restrictions on media use increase piracy and hurts artistic, cultural and entertainment media creation,


-1- URGES all Nations to promote artistic, cultural and entertainment use of media and encourage its development, in particular its online distribution ,

-2- URGES STRONGLY all nations to regulate commercial DRM (Digital Rights Management) systems and duplication protections for commercial media, in order to assure compatibility for customers with most media players,

-3- BANS any "regional system" for commercial DRM’s and for all past, present and future commercial media formats. These formats include but are not limited to:
-Blu-ray disc
-High Density Digital Versatile Disc (HD DVD)
-Universal Media Disc (UMD)
-Super Audio CD (SACD)
-DualDisc
-Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD)
-Holographic Versatile Disc (HDV)

-4-URGES all Nations to uphold legislation against any media sharing, distribution, or reproduction methods which are widely considered piracy,

-5- MANDATES developed nations where companies propose a commercial media support or DRM system standard to regulate the cost of its patent licensing in order to be financially reasonable and available to developing and less economically stable nations.

Co-authored by Love and esterel



You want to help one sector or industry while it does nothing to help all the others? How could you ever call this fairness? Althogh the concept is good, it does not help all citizens in any which way, shape or form. Make it all businesses and and you might have something. I for one, must reject this resolution. :gundge:

The delegates of Richard2008 and Love and esterel have, in promoting this resolution, proven themselves to be no friends of the poor. In their frenzy to micromanage the most trivial aspects of life, they condemn poor nations to financial misery and crippling bureaucracy.*

We in Ecopoeia could accept taking a economic hit for a worthy cause. But for the legislation of entertainment? Of an industry whose development in our nation would struggle to qualify as even embryonic?

This also sets the most appalling standard for UN legislation by making acceptable the UN interfering in areas that should be none of its concern. You have made a mockery of this once noble institution, dragging it into a swamp of triviality and, indeed, scorn for its member states.

Ecopoeia - historically an ardent supporter of the UN - will rescind its membership prior to the passage of this heinous act and will give serious consideration to the idea of never returning.

Shame on you.

Mathieu Vergniaud
Deputy Speaker to the UN


*OOC: Social Justice + Significant = tanked economies, no matter what's written in the resolution about promotion of industry

The delegates of Richard2008 and Love and esterel have, in promoting this resolution, proven themselves to be no friends of the poor. In their frenzy to micromanage the most trivial aspects of life, they condemn poor nations to financial misery and crippling bureaucracy.*

We in Ecopoeia could accept taking a economic hit for a worthy cause. But for the legislation of entertainment? Of an industry whose development in our nation would struggle to qualify as even embryonic?

This also sets the most appalling standard for UN legislation by making acceptable the UN interfering in areas that should be none of its concern. You have made a mockery of this once noble institution, dragging it into a swamp of triviality and, indeed, scorn for its member states.

Ecopoeia - historically an ardent supporter of the UN - will rescind its membership prior to the passage of this heinous act and will give serious consideration to the idea of never returning.

Shame on you.

Mathieu Vergniaud
Deputy Speaker to the UN


*OOC: Social Justice + Significant = tanked economies, no matter what's written in the resolution about promotion of industry


I would argue that far from punishing the poor it is going to help them, and while it might punish the movie makers and makers of DVDs (who in no way can be classed as the poor) by stopping them from producing limited editions for some countries and big editions for others. And I would even argue that by forcing all DVDs to be compatiable with a vast majority, if not all, players they are able to reach a much wider market without the necessity for spending more money.

And if the UN is here to act on international issues, the trading and production of DVDs for sale in more than one country is definitely an international issue.

You want to help one sector or industry while it does nothing to help all the others? How could you ever call this fairness? Althogh the concept is good, it does not help all citizens in any which way, shape or form. Make it all businesses and and you might have something. I for one, must reject this resolution. :gundge:

Most resolutions only help one group or one area of society. Gay rights (for example) doesn't provide any rights for hetro-sexuals, but no one is suggesting that be repealed because of it (or at least no one serious!)

It helps citizens because it means they don't have to pay over the odds (or indulge in piracy) for "special editions" of DVDs that only play in other nations. They also don't have to convert their players to play multiple regions because there won't be multiple regions.

All in all it will be a lot cheaper for the average person on the street.

I would argue that far from punishing the poor it is going to help them, and while it might punish the movie makers and makers of DVDs (who in no way can be classed as the poor) by stopping them from producing limited editions for some countries and big editions for others. And I would even argue that by forcing all DVDs to be compatiable with a vast majority, if not all, players they are able to reach a much wider market without the necessity for spending more money.

And if the UN is here to act on international issues, the trading and production of DVDs for sale in more than one country is definitely an international issue.
Ecopoeia's economy will suffer and for what?

DVDs.

Are the truly poor helped by having their televisual entertainment 'needs' addressed by the UN?

Outrageous.

MV

Ecopoeia's economy will suffer and for what?

DVDs.

Are the truly poor helped by having their televisual entertainment 'needs' addressed by the UN?

Outrageous.

MV

How will it suffer? (Just curious - if there is a part of this I am overlooking then I would like to be enlightened)

How will it suffer? (Just curious - if there is a part of this I am overlooking then I would like to be enlightened)
OOC: No probs! Social Justice resolutions restrict economic freedoms; one of 'Significant' strength is likely to reduce these freedoms, well, significantly. The game is - regrettably - coded such that reducing economic freedoms hurts the economy (assuming all else remains equal).

I'm roleplaying a developing nation where virtually no one has a television, let alone DVDs, so you can understand how we'd be a bit narked at taking the economic hit!

As it happens, my actual views broadly coincide with my nation's on this issue.

i listen a lot of house music
do you know what is the only legal way to buy most of house music?
vynil!
don't you agree it is absolutly crazy
LOL it is but at least you can get it from Kazza ++ lite :D for free just like lots of lovely games,films and much much more lol also i found that not many things i ever download have viruses or anything aelse like it, a few do but not many.

OOC: No probs! Social Justice resolutions restrict economic freedoms; one of 'Significant' strength is likely to reduce these freedoms, well, significantly. The game is - regrettably - coded such that reducing economic freedoms hurts the economy (assuming all else remains equal).

I'm roleplaying a developing nation where virtually no one has a television, let alone DVDs, so you can understand how we'd be a bit narked at taking the economic hit!

As it happens, my actual views broadly coincide with my nation's on this issue.

Ecopoeia, these proposition doen't reduce economic fredom, and will not hurt your economy, it will, if passed, free the market from unfair practice, which have for consequences to reduce importations and to increase piracy


Furthermore i will say it again and again, it will it urges all nations to encourage online distribution in area, such as movies, where the industry is sadly even not existing at all, and this absence is one of the main reason of piracy

if your economy has no television, nor DVD

=> the only thing that this proposition will do if passed for your nation is:

-5- MANDATES developed nations where companies propose a commercial media support or DRM system standard to regulate the cost of its patent licensing in order to be financially reasonable and available to developing and less economically stable nations.

this can be good for your nation

Love and esterel will be happy to begin a "sharing technology" program wih your nation, i you want to

Ecopoeia, these proposition doen't reduce economic fredom, and will not hurt your economy, it will, if passed, free the market from unfair practice, which have for consequences to reduce importations and to increase piracy


Furthermore i will say it again and again, it will it urges all nations to encourage online distribution in area, such as movies, where the industry is sadly even not existing at all, and this absence is one of the main reason of piracy

if your economy has no television, nor DVD

=> the only thing that this proposition will do if passed for your nation is:

-5- MANDATES developed nations where companies propose a commercial media support or DRM system standard to regulate the cost of its patent licensing in order to be financially reasonable and available to developing and less economically stable nations.

this can be good for your nation

Love and esterel will be happy to begin a "sharing technology" program wih your nation, i you want to
OOC: No. In game terms, this resolution does reduce economic freedoms. Anyway, the main crux of my argument is that this economic hit comes about because you're legislating on trivia. Fluff. I'd oppose this even if it boosted the economy, on account of it being a complete waste of time.

SNLA']LOL it is but at least you can get it from Kazza ++ lite :D for free just like lots of lovely games,films and much much more lol also i found that not many things i ever download have viruses or anything aelse like it, a few do but not many.

kazaaa is almost over no?

No-one will convince me this resolution will reduce piracy. There are tons of legal music download sites on the internt now. There are also tons of illegal music download sites on the internet now. If there is a demand, there will always be someone willing to satify that demand, and there will always a demand for free or extremly cheap media.

if you have better solution againt piracy, please let us know, i will support you

piracy or not, there is something more important => to create a healthy business in this area, about movies, this business doesn't exist

our proposition will encourage its creation



If companies want their movies sold legally online they can do it themselves. Why do they need the UN forcing them to do it.

Online distribution is the future, dematerialization, is an strong direction, look at pictures: Kodak even decided to stop its non-digital photo activity

looks at Sony they were fighting desesperatly with their minidisc again digital media player, they make a 180 U-turn, once they realized what's happening

this proposition is not forcing on this matter, Nations are "urge to encourage"

I'd oppose this even if it boosted the economy, on account of it being a complete waste of time.

it's of course not our position
but no problem, i respect your argument

it's of course not our position
but no problem, i respect your argument
OOC: Thanks.

kazaaa is almost over no?

Not Kazza ++ lite wich is an illegal copy of Kazza itself witout the crap and there is nearly everything you could ever want on it i even got team america ages before it came out in the UK :D even though it popped up at the bottom every now and then Property of the FBI lol

With only two days left of voting for the new World Wide Media Act proposal it has come to the attention of the I.N.A.T.U.N.F that it is actually an illegal proposal and that it contradicts a former resolution like itself.

UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTION #125
Repeal "DVD region removal"
A proposal to repeal a previously passed resolution

Category: Repeal Resolution: #5
Proposed by: Jey

Description: UN Resolution #5: DVD region removal (Category: Free Trade; Strength: Mild) shall be struck out and rendered null and void.

Argument: The U.N.

Realizing:

-A- The rights and privileges of nations and regions involving all other media types, including: Blue-ray disc, High Density DVD (HD DVD), Universal media disc (UMD), super Audio CD (SACD), Dual Discs, other record types, and nearly all computerized were not mentioned at all in the previous resolution.

-B- Other media supports exist or will arrive soon on the market and should be also free of a “regional system.” This resolution only covers one type of media which is only effective during the time in which DVDs are used as standardized media.

Regretting:

-C- This resolution is poorly written, and contains numerous grammatical errors which can be embarrassing to the U.N.

-D- This resolution is illogical to only include one type of media and this makes it in a way unenforceable and meaningless.

In light of this resolution ineffectiveness and failure to expand to other media types, be it resolved that:

Resolution #5, “DVD region removal” is repealed

Co-Authored by: Love and esterel
Votes For: 11,801
Votes Against: 2,320
Implemented: Sun Oct 2 2005

Surely this would mean that it will be thrown out and made to apply for a repeal of the current resolution stated SNLA president Muzz source: http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=446611&page=6&pp=15
There was also concern stressed by the sidestreamer president today about this proposal source: http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=446611&page=8&pp=15

I.N.A.T.U.N.F. spokesperson has stated that they think there should be no place for such proposals or resolutions in the first place and that the UN should have much more pressing issues to deal with at this time.
They also went on to say that the number of votes for the illegal proposal shows the weakness of the UN’s current state.

Just taken from the I.N.A.T.U.N.F NEWS (http://antiun.20m.com/custom2.html)

I got into there news lol woohoo...

As I explained in this post (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9775790&postcount=107), the current resolution is not illegal as repeals do not prevent any future legislation or have any permanent effects beyond wiping out the resolution it is aimed at.

Several old resolutions have been repealed, rewritten and repassed, including The sex industry worker act and UN biological weapons ban.

As I explained in this post (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=9775790&postcount=107), the current resolution is not illegal as repeals do not prevent any future legislation or have any permanent effects beyond wiping out the resolution it is aimed at.

Several old resolutions have been repealed, rewritten and repassed, including The sex industry worker act and UN biological weapons ban.

Surely the current proposal must repeal against the current resolution ?
If not it contradicts the UN's policy on illegal proposals as some of the current proposal are already appart of a current resolution.

:confused: The repeal was successful, wouldn't that make it a resolution of the UN?

http://www.nationstates.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi

I don't understand what you mean.

The repeal you have posted passed at the beginning of this month and wiped out the original DVD region removal resolution that can can be found here (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=7029580&postcount=6). It has no effect on the resolution up at vote now whatsoever.

OOC: No probs! Social Justice resolutions restrict economic freedoms; one of 'Significant' strength is likely to reduce these freedoms, well, significantly. The game is - regrettably - coded such that reducing economic freedoms hurts the economy (assuming all else remains equal).

I'm roleplaying a developing nation where virtually no one has a television, let alone DVDs, so you can understand how we'd be a bit narked at taking the economic hit!

As it happens, my actual views broadly coincide with my nation's on this issue.

Right. That makes sense.

I still disagree and support the resolution, but now I am not so much in the dark as why people oppose it :}

I don't understand what you mean.

The repeal you have posted passed at the beginning of this month and wiped out the original DVD region removal resolution that can can be found here (http://forums2.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=7029580&postcount=6). It has no effect on the resolution up at vote now whatsoever.

They are more or less the same thing, plus the products listed in the current resolution are the same as some of the ones wich are in the current proposal.

I have voted against it but if it were to repeal the current resolution it may swing my vote.

I agree with SNLA.

Thats the companies problem though. Its their product. They produce it, they release it, they market it. We as consumers don't have a god given right to own a movie or any other type of media if the producer decides not to market it in our region or decides to market it in a way we don't like. The producer owns the product, not the consumer.

I guess my opposition to this and my arguements are age related. I was a teen before the video player first appeared in Australia so never had a feeling that I had the right to aquire, or somehow "owned" media and that as a consumer the producers had to cater to me.

It seems some of the younger generations that were brought up in the "entertainment age" as I call it and were using videos as small children, have a very different outlook on this because they were raised surrounded by and using the latest techonolgy. I can't help seeing a bit of an attitude that says basically to producers "I want it, I have a right to it, you will give it to me on my terms. I don't care about your company, hand it over".

No matter what the attitude, the producer owns the media. Its theirs to market as they want to market it. If they want to use regional protection or any other safeguard for their products, then that is their choice. The consumer can decide for themselves whether to buy the product or not on those terms.

But does that give the producer the right to change encoding every year? So that every so often the people who make DVDs (et al) are required to update their players to cope with the new encoding?

One would argue that since we are the customers, the ones who pay for their jobs, they should have some respect for us, and not treat us like hapless puppets who will dance at their every whim.


The truth is while the producers continue to screw over the customers by releasing one issue in one country and another in another, then releasing "special editions" six months down the line for an overly inflated price, then the customers are going to do what they can to avoid being screwed over. And if that means resorting to piracy to break region encoding (not copy-protection) then that's what they are gonna do.

And you, and everyone who opposes this resolution, is going to be encouraging them.

They are more or less the same thing, plus the products listed in the current resolution are the same as some of the ones wich are in the current proposal.

I have voted against it but if it were to repeal the current resolution it may swing my vote.

I agree with SNLA.

I think it's possible that you and SNLA are missing the point. Or I am totally misunderstanding you.

In the beginning, there was Resolution #5 - Ban Regional DVDs (or something like that). This prevented people putting region codes on DVDs.

Then came the repeal (a dark day for NationStates, but that's another matter). This did not say YOU HAD to put region codes on DVDs, but it merely said you were no longer banned from doing it. But it did not write anything in to law saying this was the case - it merely struck down an old law that said you couldn't do it.

So right now - as it stands - people can put region coding on DVDs (et al) to their hearts' content, and no one can stop them.

If this proposal passes then it will ban people from putting region coding on DVDs (ea) again, but it will not override the repeal, nor will it strike down the repeal, as this is a different law, and Resolution #5 will still be null and void.


Does that help?

But does that give the producer the right to change encoding every year? So that every so often the people who make DVDs (et al) are required to update their players to cope with the new encoding?

One would argue that since we are the customers, the ones who pay for their jobs, they should have some respect for us, and not treat us like hapless puppets who will dance at their every whim.


The truth is while the producers continue to screw over the customers by releasing one issue in one country and another in another, then releasing "special editions" six months down the line for an overly inflated price, then the customers are going to do what they can to avoid being screwed over. And if that means resorting to piracy to break region encoding (not copy-protection) then that's what they are gonna do.

And you, and everyone who opposes this resolution, is going to be encouraging them.


If the customers don't like it they don't have to buy. Thats the best way to get companies to do what the customer wants.

Mc Donalds right now in Australia are busy revamping their menu with healthy food and their resturants with a more adult theme. Why? because sales were dropping as people were voting with their money and not buying their fatty, salt and sugar ladden food for themselves or their kids. Now the company is changing to suit the mood of the customer.

If customers are unhappy with the way movies are marketed and stop buying them, the companies will change to accomodate that. They are in the business to make money after all.

Besides, its only movies for petes sake. Not something necessary to life. Not something to protect families from harm, not something essential for people to have. Its just entertainment and why the UN needs to deal with it at all is something I just can't figure out.

As for me and others opposing this resolution encouraging piracy, sorry but you're wrong. Pirates will thrive whether regions are removed or not. In fact removing regions will just make it easier for them as they won't have to go to the trouble of removing it themselves.

The Blissed out State of Ateelatay had origianally veted for this resolution, in the hopes that the UN could get passd this issue and move on to others. However, after listening to the debate of the international community, along with the innapproprate strength rating of the proposal, and the fact that our nation does not care much about the issue nor does it feel that regional formats on media is a human rights issue, we have changed our vote to AGAINST, and hope that, no matter the outcome of the vote, this issue will not come up again.
Peace!

Despite previous disagreements with our friends in Ateelatay (specifically, concerning the Fossil Fuel Reduction Act), the people of Cluichstan applaud their change of heart on this matter.

They are more or less the same thing, plus the products listed in the current resolution are the same as some of the ones wich are in the current proposal.

I have voted against it but if it were to repeal the current resolution it may swing my vote.

I agree with SNLA.

A repeal is not a resolution or a proposal. Its just a repeal and always stays a repeal. Its only effect is to wipe passed resolutions out. Nothing more, nothing less.

I think it's possible that you and SNLA are missing the point. Or I am totally misunderstanding you.

In the beginning, there was Resolution #5 - Ban Regional DVDs (or something like that). This prevented people putting region codes on DVDs.

Then came the repeal (a dark day for NationStates, but that's another matter). This did not say YOU HAD to put region codes on DVDs, but it merely said you were no longer banned from doing it. But it did not write anything in to law saying this was the case - it merely struck down an old law that said you couldn't do it.

So right now - as it stands - people can put region coding on DVDs (et al) to their hearts' content, and no one can stop them.

If this proposal passes then it will ban people from putting region coding on DVDs (ea) again, but it will not override the repeal, nor will it strike down the repeal, as this is a different law, and Resolution #5 will still be null and void.


Does that help?

Blah... :confused: im confused lol they both seem to me to be proposing near enough the same thing, but the new proposal has newer technology on its list :confused:

If the customers don't like it they don't have to buy. Thats the best way to get companies to do what the customer wants.

Mc Donalds right now in Australia are busy revamping their menu with healthy food and their resturants with a more adult theme. Why? because sales were dropping as people were voting with their money and not buying their fatty, salt and sugar ladden food for themselves or their kids. Now the company is changing to suit the mood of the customer.

If customers are unhappy with the way movies are marketed and stop buying them, the companies will change to accomodate that. They are in the business to make money after all.

Besides, its only movies for petes sake. Not something necessary to life. Not something to protect families from harm, not something essential for people to have. Its just entertainment and why the UN needs to deal with it at all is something I just can't figure out.

As for me and others opposing this resolution encouraging piracy, sorry but you're wrong. Pirates will thrive whether regions are removed or not. In fact removing regions will just make it easier for them as they won't have to go to the trouble of removing it themselves.


(smile) I think you are overlooking mortal nature (I would say human nature, but that might be offensive to the elves/dwarves etc). People want what they want, and they think they have a right to it. Whether or not they are entitled to that view is another matter - it's the view they hold.

On the topic of entertainment - what if someone wanted to put forward a proposal that films containing simulated scenes of child sex should be banned under UN law. There is no actual sex going on, so it is not breaking the "Outlaw Pedophillia" resolution, but people think it's offensive anyway.
Should the UN be permitted to do that?

And anyway - this a matter of trade between nations, not entertainment. And that should be the purview of the UN.

I understand your position, but I totally disagree with it.

I think i understand lol may have to retract my vote and cast a new one :D

SNLA']Blah... :confused: im confused lol they both seem to me to be proposing near enough the same thing, but the new proposal has newer technology on its list :confused:

(grin) Yes. That is how repeals and resolutions work. If something is repealed, it just means the law is struck down, not the idea of the law. The idea of the law can be brought back, and since #5 (The original resolution) was written in 2003 (I think?) there have been a lot of technical advances since then so the new proposal takes it in to account.

(grin) Yes. That is how repeals and resolutions work. If something is repealed, it just means the law is struck down, not the idea of the law. The idea of the law can be brought back, and since #5 (The original resolution) was written in 2003 (I think?) there have been a lot of technical advances since then so the new proposal takes it in to account.
I prefer to think that the assembled delegates came to their senses and chose to strike from the statute books an embarrassing blight of the UN's legislative record. In light of the positive reaction to the current resolution, however, I may be forced to re-evaluate my position...

MV

I understand your position, but I totally disagree with it.

Ditto :).

Again, my government announces its disgust over this resolution. Not only is it ill thought out, it is also a great danger for the economy, for cultural diversity and for the entertainment sector. The restrictions in this resolution are an unnecessary restrictive form of regulation for companies.

Please vote against this resolution.

First of all, the "difficulties" with varying media formats is hardly an issue to be concerned with especially at the UN level. Transferring data from one medium to the next is child's play at worst. Secondly, unifying all medium under one format will be murder to competitive industries. By putting all media under a mandated umbrella you will be alienating the vast majority of the industry that is not prepared to switch to this medium and giving an unfair advantage to the few industries that are already using the "preferred" mediums. We live in a digital age and transferrence of ideas and culture is NOT a problem we face. At least it's not a problem that is caused by the type of media we use.

This proposal screams of favoritism. Someone is going to make a LOT of money by eliminating all their competitors with one fell swoop. Prices for media will rise since you will immediately have a bottle necked number of suppliers that can produce this medium and only the more fortunate class of people will be able to afford music, art etc... You want to expedite the transfer of ideas?? This proposal will be choking it.

VOTE NO.

*snip*
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-2- URGES STRONGLY all nations to regulate commercial DRM (Digital Rights Management) systems and duplication protections for commercial media, in order to assure compatibility for customers with most media players,

-3- BANS any "regional system" for commercial DRM’s and for all past, present and future commercial media formats. These formats include but are not limited to:
-Blu-ray disc
-Digital Versatile Disc (DVD)
-High Density Digital Versatile Disc (HD DVD)
-Universal Media Disc (UMD)
-Super Audio CD (SACD)
-DualDisc
-Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD)
-Holographic Versatile Disc (HDV)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, a new universal standard coding/player/system will be developed and adopted, and won't be compatable with old formats/players since they promoted a "regional system."

Oh what brave new world we envision that the media moguls get an international mandate to force the common cattle to pay for new stalls and chutes as well as for their own feed. All the moguls have to do is pay the cook for their steak.

Mark The Confederacy of The Comyns as viewing this as a non-issue, not worthy any significance, and far below any standards of what the UN should be discussing. It is wrong, it is bad, and if it passes we strongly support any repeal of this resolution that may be offered. The mere fact that a vote has come to pass on this resolution has damaged the image of the UN.

So, a new universal standard coding/player/system will be developed and adopted, and won't be compatable with old formats/players since they promoted a "regional system."


Sorry to rain on your picnic, but that's not actually true.

The original ban on regional DVD encoding has been in force since June 2003 (I think?), and was only overturned on the 2nd of October this year (or eight days ago, as some people call it). So any DVD players made before October 2nd can not have had any regional coding in them, as they would have been illegal.

Any made in the past eight days might have, but it seems somewhat unlikely that an entire industry would be able to reconfigure itself in that short length of time. Plus this proposal must have been in the queue before it was up for a vote, so if the industry has retooled itself before knowing whether or not this will pass, it only has itself to blame :}

First of all, the "difficulties" with varying media formats is hardly an issue to be concerned with especially at the UN level. Transferring data from one medium to the next is child's play at worst. Secondly, unifying all medium under one format will be murder to competitive industries. By putting all media under a mandated umbrella you will be alienating the vast majority of the industry that is not prepared to switch to this medium and giving an unfair advantage to the few industries that are already using the "preferred" mediums. We live in a digital age and transferrence of ideas and culture is NOT a problem we face. At least it's not a problem that is caused by the type of media we use.

This proposal screams of favoritism. Someone is going to make a LOT of money by eliminating all their competitors with one fell swoop. Prices for media will rise since you will immediately have a bottle necked number of suppliers that can produce this medium and only the more fortunate class of people will be able to afford music, art etc... You want to expedite the transfer of ideas?? This proposal will be choking it.

VOTE NO.


No offence, but are you insane? This proposal does not ban various mediums - it just bans regional encoding on the said meduims.

Further more it will lower prices because now people who sell DVDs to Hyrule and Pallatium will no longer be able to restrict the cheap end of the market to just one country - they will be competing on a global scale and will have to offer a more competative value.

This is not about formats - it's about the regional encoding on the formats. If you are going to oppose something with such venom, you could at least read it properly first :}

Call me lazy, but I don't feel like skimming through 11 pages of forum to see if this has come up, so I will just ask this question.

This resolution seems fairly agreeable and straight foreword, until it goes as far as trying to ban "(sic) media piracy." Would this include file sharing? If this does indeed cover file sharing, it begs the question, could the un be over stepping its bounds here? It should be left to individual nations and governments to take a stance on such an issue as file sharing, and implement them on their own accord. To create a universal standard of media is a far cry different than that of banning music sharing.

Respectfully,
The Dominion of Bobaflex Warriors

Call me lazy, but I don't feel like skimming through 11 pages of forum to see if this has come up, so I will just ask this question.


You're lazy.

Call me lazy, but I don't feel like skimming through 11 pages of forum to see if this has come up, so I will just ask this question.

This resolution seems fairly agreeable and straight foreword, until it goes as far as trying to ban "(sic) media piracy." Would this include file sharing? If this does indeed cover file sharing, it begs the question, could the un be over stepping its bounds here? It should be left to individual nations and governments to take a stance on such an issue as file sharing, and implement them on their own accord. To create a universal standard of media is a far cry different than that of banning music sharing.

Respectfully,
The Dominion of Bobaflex Warriors

Not to speak on behalf of someone else (but I am going to anyway) it is a matter of perspective.

The line says :-



-4-URGES all Nations to uphold legislation against any media sharing, distribution, or reproduction methods which are widely considered piracy,



Firstly it does not require you to do anything - it just urges you to do something about piracy. So you can ignore this if you require.

Secondly it can be argued that it only requires you to do something about media sharing that is considered piracy - the sharing of files to which you do not own the copyright for example (but if you do own the copyright, you are not engaging in piracy so....)

But if both of those fail to convince you, then yes - this is a call to uphold laws against media sharing. But not a very convincing call at that.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/ContentShowcase.aspx

please watch some of these HD movies and let me know if you like it

this is the future, HD movies you can buy legally on the internet

We see what you meant, but the people of Lazy days would like to point out Microsoft is the past, not the future. We value openness and speed, not bloatware and viruses; customer responsiveness, not monopolistic arrogance, in our technology firms.

This is relevant because the proposal assumes that protecting data in the way corporations want benefits consumers. To a point, copyrights and patents are valuable. But with a lot of information, widespread availability is actually better for both producer and consumer; DRM is largely a tactic to harm consumers for the benefit of large corporations.

OOC: A great RL example is the video industry. Large companies fought ferociously to keep recording technology out of the hands of consumers. Yet a couple decades later, studios actually make more money selling movies than movie tickets. Not only are consumers not deprived of the myriad of benefits from VCRs/DVD-R/CD-R/TiVO/etc, but producers are actually better off, as well.

I know the mods have ruled on this but i cant imagine why this is bloody social justice.

I know the mods have ruled on this but i cant imagine why this is bloody social justice.

I really would have thought it is free trade :}

I really would have thought it is free trade :}

Not when it places restrictions on trade.

Votes For: 3,868

Votes Against: 2,399

The people of Cluichstan find this appalling.

Slavaskaya is in favor of keeping information free and open to the extent of the creators consent. But, this resolution forces restrictions on the creator of said intellectual property, therefore Slavaskaya cannot give its support.

I've read this resolution a dozen times but I still have no clue as to what it is trying to acomplish. Canada6 will vote against.

Elyasini votes against. This resolution is a waste of time and space and creates more bureaucratic red tape. It accomplishes nothing.

i've already explained my reasons for opposing this and as support has moblised in my region against this idotic proposal i'll state them again.

a region free media will only give copyright pirates an easier time causing loss of revenue to the people who make a piece of entertainment, the retailers in that country and ultimately the citizens who will lose out in the long run.

the DVD act was repealed because it wasn't thought through and we trawled though similar arguements that time as well.

We don't need this act and the side debate about file sharing is only mudding the waters. you can share something if you hold the copyright on it. if you don't then its copyright theft.

regional coding is necessary to defend copyright owners and economies.

I've read this resolution a dozen times but I still have no clue as to what it is trying to acomplish.

Thanks for asking, sorry if the redaction of our proposition is not as clear as we were hoping it was. i will try to detail here:

-1- The online distribution of media is obviously lacking, in particular movies distribution, as millions of people in the world are ready to pay and download on the internet for movies, but they cannot as this legal distribution doesn't even exist. this absence is also one of the main reason of piracy
=> We encourage this industry to appears

-2- DRM are important for protection against piracy, but if they goes to far, as when they prevent people to use it on various players => the effect is opposite and that deter many people to buy and also encourage piracy
=> This proposition urges nations to allow while regulating them

-3- Regional limitation system prevents transmitting culture from one nation to one another, limit where consumer can use Medias and encourages piracy
=> This proposition ban these limitations

-4- as, if this resolution pass, people will be able to buy more media online, as their use of media will not be restricted to some region of some player=> piracy will not be justifiable anymore
=> Nation are urged to do something to decrease piracy

-5- As the media industry become more and more global, it's important to think about developing countries
=> This proposition will secure that these new technologies will be available to developing nations

i hope this will be more clear, but feel free to ask others questions

This doesn't seem like a UN issue to me. Its focus is not piracy or copyright protection, but rather expansion of media markets. That is a problem for the producers of the media. For piracy to be an issue, some portion of a company's legitimate sales must be affected. If there is a regional barrier to such sales, this cannot be an issue. If there is a large enough foreign market, then companies will produce product accessible to those markets. The internet is a great way to transfer media that is unmarked by regional domains. The lack of such a market will be determined by the businesses concerned, not a governmental body. Since when do we pass laws to encourage the existence of particular markets?

Another concern, which is briefly mentioned and then flouted by this proposal, is that there are nations with particular content laws regarding media sold within their borders. You may fairly view those societies as oppressive, if you wish, but they have the sovereign right to maintain whatever standards they want, and regional compatibility is one form of enforcing such rules.

I was first tempted to abstain from this vote. However, upon further introspection, I feel that this proposal is not just UN fluff, but a precedent for UN presence in matters of national obscenity standards. Moreover, it is a precedent for UN involvement in national politics in general.

Not when it places restrictions on trade.

By preventing the regional encoding it opens up all sorts of new trade possibilities - you can trade with a lot more nations.

At least that's what I would argue it was capable of being argued and changed, but as it isn't.....

Slavaskaya is in favor of keeping information free and open to the extent of the creators consent. But, this resolution forces restrictions on the creator of said intellectual property, therefore Slavaskaya cannot give its support.

How? How does it force restrictions on the creator? If you can explain that I will give your arguement more consideration, but I think you are wrong on this point.

Worthy of note is that this resolution is yet another attempt by the UN to chisel away at national sovereignty. I won't support it, nor will my home region.

AK_ID

Originally Posted by Cluichstan
Votes For: 3,868

Votes Against: 2,399

The people of Cluichstan find this appalling.
Yes, it's a pointless waste of UN time, and the fact that it's so far being approved is disappointing. But at least it's getting more votes against it at this stage than either Promotion of Solar Panels or Fossil Fuel Reduction Act did.

And I don't know whether that should make me optimistic or very, very sad.

EDIT: But at least I am a "member" now. Woo.

-3- BANS any "regional system" for commercial DRM’s and for all past, present and future commercial media formats. These formats include but are not limited to:
-Blu-ray disc
-High Density Digital Versatile Disc (HD DVD)
-Universal Media Disc (UMD)
-Super Audio CD (SACD)
-DualDisc
-Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD)
-Holographic Versatile Disc (HDV)

The citizens of the Democratic Republic of Vampire Killers find that this will hurt companies producing these products and will affect our economy as well as other nations in a negative way and oppose this resolution.

I know the mods have ruled on this but i cant imagine why this is bloody social justice.

same for me, but i follow the rules even if i don't understand them, as it seems to me that these category are obviously obsolete, not important and not relevant

-3- BANS any "regional system" for commercial DRM’s and for all past, present and future commercial media formats. These formats include but are not limited to:
-Blu-ray disc
-High Density Digital Versatile Disc (HD DVD)
-Universal Media Disc (UMD)
-Super Audio CD (SACD)
-DualDisc
-Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD)
-Holographic Versatile Disc (HDV)

The citizens of the Democratic Republic of Vampire Killers find that this will hurt companies producing these products and will affect our economy as well as other nations in a negative way and oppose this resolution.

We think, in the contrary, that it will open the market and allow more importation between different countries

furthermore i would like to quote once again a sentence from a top Toshiba executive, toshiba is the main compagny behind the HD DVD standard

“We’ve gotten a variety of opinions about region controls. Even in the Steering Committee, they are extremely unpopular; we decided to not put them in. HD DVD probably won’t contain any region playback controls.”

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000873062235/

kazaaa is almost over no?


OOC: People still use Kazaa? Utter lamers.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/ContentShowcase.aspx

please watch some of these HD movies and let me know if you like it

this is the future, HD movies you can buy legally on the internet


http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/ContentShowcase.aspx

these are high definition videos (1280 x 720 or 1920 x 1080), nobody told me if one like it or not :p

by comparaison DVD= 720 x 576

-3- BANS any "regional system" for commercial DRM’s and for all past, present and future commercial media formats. These formats include but are not limited to:
-Blu-ray disc
-High Density Digital Versatile Disc (HD DVD)
-Universal Media Disc (UMD)
-Super Audio CD (SACD)
-DualDisc
-Enhanced Versatile Disc (EVD)
-Holographic Versatile Disc (HDV)

The citizens of the Democratic Republic of Vampire Killers find that this will hurt companies producing these products and will affect our economy as well as other nations in a negative way and oppose this resolution.

HOW???

Everyone is saying this, and yet not explaining why. Cause as far as I can tell it will allow people to mass produce DVDs (et al) and sell them to every country in the world. How will that hurt the producers?

taking the example of DVD's i would like to suggest what could happen if there were no region restrictions.

for starters TV systems across the nation states would have to be standardised so you could watch the film in the first place. i'm sure you would agreed thats a separate resolution of its own since TV broadcasting systems haven't been mentioned in this proposal.

assuming thats in place after TV and DVD player manufacturers have spent a lot of money doing their R&D to standardise TV signals a major film is made with several big stars in say Pallatium.

the film company then sells this accross the world using a region zero disc (or even online).

they will find a lot more piracy of the product since low wages in some countries make the same disc more expensive to them. hence pirates will come in, copy it and sell it cheaply to those citizens.

the film company loses out as does the governments who collect the sales tax and the retailer in the cities high street.

the pirates get richer since a common format makes it a lot easier for them and the big company wonders where its sales have gone to.

this just isn't about market forces at work. it also involves protection of copyrights and future film making.

the pirates get richer since a common format makes it a lot easier for them and the big company wonders where its sales have gone to.

the common market already exist: on the internet
emule and bittorrent are global, aren't they?

=> the pirates are not richer, nothing is sold on P2P networks, everything is free

so the fight you want to do is already lost and useless

the pb of piracy is not anymore: DVD duplication

piracy = illegal sharing on the internet

=> the best way to decrease piracy is to encourage the industry to go on the internet, to adopt new technology, to sell movies online (by download or streaming)
it's a great opportunity for them, not a threat

taking the example of DVD's i would like to suggest what could happen if there were no region restrictions.

for starters TV systems across the nation states would have to be standardised so you could watch the film in the first place. i'm sure you would agreed thats a separate resolution of its own since TV broadcasting systems haven't been mentioned in this proposal.


If that were true, most TVs would be set up like that already. The original DVD resoluton was in place for 2 3/4 years before it was repealed, and anything that would apply under this resolution would have had to apply under that.


assuming thats in place after TV and DVD player manufacturers have spent a lot of money doing their R&D to standardise TV signals a major film is made with several big stars in say Pallatium.

the film company then sells this accross the world using a region zero disc (or even online).

they will find a lot more piracy of the product since low wages in some countries make the same disc more expensive to them. hence pirates will come in, copy it and sell it cheaply to those citizens.


They will find less piracy because no one will need to wait for it to come out in their country any more. Films used to be released in Hyrule two to three years before Pallatium, and consequently piracy was rife. Now that will be impossible it will lessen the requirement for piracy.


the film company loses out as does the governments who collect the sales tax and the retailer in the cities high street.


They sell to a wider market, and make more money, so they don't lose out.


the pirates get richer since a common format makes it a lot easier for them and the big company wonders where its sales have gone to.


Nope. A common format means there is less of a need to pirate specific copies (special editions in one country that aren't released in another, dvds that are released two years - or never released - in one nation but are in another)


this just isn't about market forces at work. it also involves protection of copyrights and future film making.

I know, and that's why it is a good thing.

I seriously cannot understand the people who claim that DVDs will become more expensive to make. The process will be simple:
-All DVD players in all regions will read all DVDs in exactly the same manner.
-The way that DVD players transmit information to the television set will depend on the way in which the regions' television sets operate. This will not require any monumental amount of engineering or capital, particuarly as it's already been law for the past two years.

In addition, the problem of piracy is consistently and incredibly overhyped. The amount of money lost by the video industry to piracy each year is absolutely miniscule. Mostly, it's just used as a distraction from the industry's stagnation and lack of innovation.

That being said, there is absolutely no reason why the United Nations should be involved in this issue. This is a commercial matter, and best left up to the movie industry. If they want to lose sales due to such trivialities as regions, it is none of our concern.

Everyone is saying this, and yet not explaining why. Cause as far as I can tell it will allow people to mass produce DVDs (et al) and sell them to every country in the world. How will that hurt the producers?

What this resolution does is restric what producers can do (technically) to prevent piracy. If producers want to use a regional system to limit copying, then that's in their economic interest, so presumably not having a regional system will hurt their income.

What this resolution does is restric what producers can do (technically) to prevent piracy. If producers want to use a regional system to limit copying, then that's in their economic interest, so presumably not having a regional system will hurt their income.


Some players in this industry have prove the world they fear new technology without reason

as i have said, i downloaded my 1st mp3 in 1999, the 1st legal download system was available in ........................................2003

as legal online system for movies doesn't even exist today!!!
=> millions of movies are downloaded on P2P networks,

what would have happened if when CD technology was available, many company had refused to produce CD and had only continue to release tapes?


edit: whoooo, Groot Gouda, thanks, you made me write my 500th post, i'm deadly now!

What this resolution does is restric what producers can do (technically) to prevent piracy. If producers want to use a regional system to limit copying, then that's in their economic interest, so presumably not having a regional system will hurt their income.

Isn't that what copy protection is for? Regional coding is just used to stop people getting hold of DVDs before they should.

Some players in this industry have prove the world they fear new technology without reason

as i have said, i downloaded my 1st mp3 in 1999, the 1st legal download system was available in ........................................2003

as legal online system for movies doesn't even exist today!!!
=> millions of movies are downloaded on P2P networks,

and having legal sites where people pay to download movies won't make the slightest dent in that whatsoever. The majority of people download movies from P2P because its free, not because its unavailable. Even if legal sites exist, they will still download illegally because they don't want to pay. There are tons and tons of sites on the net where people can buy actual movies if they want to.

When companies are ready to allow legal downloads of movies on the internet, they will. Its not up to the NSUN to demand they do it just because we want them to.

Having said that, this is NationStates, not real life. How can you be sure there is no legal downloads of movies on our within the game internet?


what would have happened if when CD technology was available, many company had refused to produce CD and had only continue to release tapes?

Their choice, and the consumer would have had to put up with it or demand change. Just because new technology is released doesn't mean companies should be forced by governments or the UN to use it. They are in the business to make money, not pander to every want and whim of the consumer, and if a new technology isn't financially feasible to them, it makes no business sense to change to it.

i would like to point out that the file sharing tangent we seem to have gone off at is not part of the resolution at vote.

the closest we get is point four which urges governments to stop illegal file sharing (p2p) which infringes copyright.

no mention of legal P2P file sharing was made in the original proposal which reinforces my view that this is a matter best left to copyright holders and the businesses involved. Not the UN.

There are tons and tons of sites on the net where people can buy actual movies if they want to.

you right, they are tons of, but all of them are only selling one kind of movies: PORN

so if you really like that the only kind of movies available legally (by download or streaming) on the internet is porn, yes, indeed, you argument is really logical

you right, they are tons of, but all of them are only selling one kind of movies: PORN

so if you really like that the only kind of movies available legally (by download or streaming) on the internet is porn, yes, indeed, you argument is really logical

I wasn't talking about porn and I wasn't talking about downloading. I was talking about buying the actual disk. You seem fixated on this idea of downloading movies. What the heck is wrong with the customer buying the actual DVD?

For a long time Japanese anime was pretty hard to find for sale in Australia but its now starting to appear. The reason is because customers started asking for it so companies started importing it. Thats just one example.

Players do exist that play all regions. If someone is that into watching movies from other regions that they can't have the patience to wait until its released in their own, then they can fork out the extra money and buy one.

I wasn't talking about porn and I wasn't talking about downloading. I was talking about buying the actual disk. You seem fixated on this idea of downloading movies. What the heck is wrong with the customer buying the actual DVD?

For a long time Japanese anime was pretty hard to find for sale in Australia but its now starting to appear. The reason is because customers started asking for it so companies started importing it. Thats just one example.

Players do exist that play all regions. If someone is that into watching movies from other regions that they can't have the patience to wait until its released in their own, then they can fork out the extra money and buy one.

Waterana, dematerialization is a powerful and increasing force. Nobody will stop it, it's a lost battle. Dematerialization is more powerfull than a tsunami.

If you don't believe me and if my arguments in this thread about FFT, DSL, VDSL2 internet connection, about Kodak, about Sony did not managed to convince you of this inevitable dematerialization, please have a look by yourself

=> please, may i encourage you to download this software: emule:
http://cogent.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/emule/eMule0.46c_Installer.exe
this software is legal
it's an access to the 1st P2P networks in the world
more than 3 millions people (i think more than 4 now) in the world are connected to this network at any time (and many more to others networks)

Please, don't download copyrighted media there, but please just have a look, make some searches and see
thanks

i hope mods wil not delete my previous post i didn't intend to post it before
but i think it's important information to know for people wanting to collect information on the topic at vote
i'm sorry that the topic of this proposiion was maybe a little bit too much "technical", but this game is on the internet, so i never think it will appears technical

but it seems to me there is an obvious lack of knowledge and interest about new technologies in this forum

even if our proposition seems to have high odds to pass, Love and esterel is very sad with the lacl of interest and knowledge about new technologies in this forum

we already posted 4 time a link with high definition video
i bet than a large majority of people in this forum have never see in their life a high definition video, but nobody seems interested in:(
=> i will post the link a 5th time:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/ContentShowcase.aspx

I know about P2P. I use bittorrent fairly often.

What is this resolution really about?

I thought it was to get rid of regional protection for media but has moved away from that completly to focus on P2P, downloading movies and new technology.

I haven't clicked your links because this resolution isn't mandating the use of new technology, its mandating that companies remove regional protection from their products.

The reason the downloading of movies doesn't interest me is because I'd never bother doing it. Most movies are huge, and would take forever (well many hours anyway) to download. Its much easier to walk into a shop and buy a nice shiny new disk.

The following clause alone is a violation of sovereignty and the libertarian values the people of Cluichstan hold dear:

-5- MANDATES developed nations where companies propose a commercial media support or DRM system standard to regulate the cost of its patent licensing in order to be financially reasonable and available to developing and less economically stable nations.

We are voting against this proposal and are actively urging others to do so, including those who have already voted in favor of it.

Respectfully,
Sheik Nadnerb bin Cluich
Cluichstan's Ambassador to the UN
Regional Delegate from Scybala

Pirates Unite !!!

I urge everyone to vote against this resolution. By passing this legislation you are declaring war on all Pirates !!

Kaztopia and the Circle Islands of Tola will pull themselves from the UN and declare war on the UN if this resolution passes.

Racism against pirates will NOT be tolerated and should not be condoned by the UN !!


I again urge ALL members to vote AGAINST this racist resolution !!!!!
If this passes, I ask all Nation members that support Pirates to disband from the UN and come join the Circle Islands of Tola where we harbor and protect pirates.

Pirates Unite !!!

I urge everyone to vote against this resolution. By passing this legislation you are declaring war on all Pirates !!

Kaztopia and the Circle Islands of Tola will pull themselves from the UN and declare war on the UN if this resolution passes.

Racism against pirates will NOT be tolerated and should not be condoned by the UN !!


I again urge ALL members to vote AGAINST this racist resolution !!!!!
If this passes, I ask all Nation members that support Pirates to disband from the UN and come join the Circle Islands of Tola where we harbor and protect pirates.


thanks a lot for your intervention, it seems now to us that the majority of people voting against our proposition do so because they feels that our proposition goes to far against piracy

1. we just want to say that our proposition do nothing against people downloading on the internet, but only with "sharing" and "distributing", we don't want millions of people to be fined.

2. Our proposition will boost legal online avaibility of media, and these media, even protected by DRM will be compatible will most players
=> i think today piracy is justified (this point engage only Love and esterel and not Richard2008: the author, i don't know his opinion about "today piracy is justified"), but if our proposition pass piracy will not be needed anymore, and we think it's reasonable that nations do something against organised piracy or massive illegal sharing

Racism against pirates will NOT be tolerated and should not be condoned by the UN !!


I again urge ALL members to vote AGAINST this racist resolution !!!!!


The people of Cluichstan are, as we have stated, against this proposal as well, but in response to the remarks made by our friends from Kaztopia, we have only this to say: "Huh?"

HOW???

Everyone is saying this, and yet not explaining why. Cause as far as I can tell it will allow people to mass produce DVDs (et al) and sell them to every country in the world. How will that hurt the producers?

You were told this many pages ago. If companies had the capacity to distribute DVDs to multiple regions siumultaneously and there was a demand for them, they would do so and regional protection would have virtually no impact on that.

You have been asked before, you did not answer, so now you will be asked again. Who exactly is going to be selling all these extra copies of DVDs and such to other regions where the product hasn't been distributed yet after these regional protections are removed? You argued that removing the regional protections would reduce piracy by allowing people from one region to buy the DVDs, etc... from any other region they were released in. That requires enough copies be available to satisfy the greatly expanded market you're speaking of. So who is producing these copies? If the original company responsible for the media was able to do it they could do it now and distribute to all those different regions and the regional protection would have little to no impact on them. And if you're talking about making it easier for anyone else to do so then you're talking about pirates because it's not their bloody product to distribute.

You are also ignoring the impact to theatre sales. You are now requiring the entertainment industry to logistically support a global simultaneous release of their product if they want people to see it in the theatres. They have to make sure they get it in theatres everywhere before anywhere gets it on DVD or else their ticket sales take a large hit. Maybe the very largest media giants have that capacity but you're potentially screwing everyone else.

The following clause alone is a violation of sovereignty and the libertarian values the people of Cluichstan hold dear:

-5- MANDATES developed nations where companies propose a commercial media support or DRM system standard to regulate the cost of its patent licensing in order to be financially reasonable and available to developing and less economically stable nations.

We understand what you mean, but Cluichstan, we live in a world who is more and more globalized

i don't know your opinion about free trade (Love and esterel is a fervent supporter of free trade) but even if you like it or no, more and more nation in the world are engaded in FTA (Free trade Agreements)

=> as the market become more and more global, we need regulation, in particular for developping nations, its a kind of win-win agreement:
-market are open, and in the same time
-market become more fair

This is what we are doing by trying to secure that new technologies wil be affordable for industries in developping nations

On this Topic The Most Serene Republic of Love and esterel want to say, that even if our economy is a "Powerhouse" as defined by the UN, we have a strong policy to help developping Nations who want to take off their economy.

It's a main of the reaons why we were the co-author of "repeal "promotion of solar panel""

it's why we have introduced a draft for a repeal of "Fossil Fuel Reduction Act" and will support it

it's why even if we like very much most of "Global Food Distribution Act" we oppose it, and we tried since the beginning, that it include a clause to protect the fragile agriculture of developping nations

The Most Serene Republic of Love and esterel is tired by proposition who never care of developping nations

The people of Cluichstan are, as we have stated, against this proposal as well, but in response to the remarks made by our friends from Kaztopia, we have only this to say: "Huh?"


Thank you for your support against this resolution. The people of Kaztopia would like to thank our friends of Cluichstan.

We call this a racist resolution because Kaztopia is made up of several races of Pirates. Thats what they were born to do, and thats what they love. They download booty all day long and sail the seas. Arrggggggggggg.

i don't know your opinion about free trade (Love and esterel is a fervent supporter of free trade) but even if you like it or no, more and more nation in the world are engaded in FTA (Free trade Agreements)

The people of Cluichstan strongly support free trade, but by their very nature, trade regulations restrict free trade. Also, it should be noted that there is a marked difference between a free-trade agreement among a group of nations and UN-mandated trade regulations.

Respectfully,
Sheik Nadnerb bin Cluich
Cluichstan's Ambassador to the UN
Regional Delegate from Scybala

The people of Cluichstan strongly support free trade, but by their very nature, trade regulations restrict free trade. Also, it should be noted that there is a marked difference between a free-trade agreement among a group of nations and UN-mandated trade regulations.

Respectfully,
Sheik Nadnerb bin Cluich
Cluichstan's Ambassador to the UN
Regional Delegate from Scybala

One could aruge that a regulation that prevents restrictions on trade does not restrict free trade at all.

If one were so inclined :}

The resolution would create a restriction on what type of goods could be sold.

The people of Cluichstan strongly support free trade, but by their very nature, trade regulations restrict free trade. Also, it should be noted that there is a marked difference between a free-trade agreement among a group of nations and UN-mandated trade regulations.


Cluichstan, welcome in an non-blackVSwhite world, welcome in a complex world where

as "liberty stop where someone else liberty begin"

"free trade stop where some other nation/compagny free trade begin"

The resolution would create a restrictionon what type of goods could be sold.

But it would open up where it could be sold by an almost infinite amount.

Take this :--

Would you rather only every could shell to one nation, or only red shells to every nation?

I would take the second over the first in a heartbeat.

But this proposal mandates certain formats for digital media. Let's try an analogy to print media. I'm sure the people of Cluichstan would prefer that all books be printed in a format they understand -- their native tongue of Cluichstani. However, the UN cannot and should not ever mandate such a thing. So why should it do so for digital media?

Moreover, the proposal requires companies to produce digital media in a certain format. The UN has no authority over private companies.

Respectfully,
Sheik Nadnerb bin Cluich
Cluichstan's Ambassador to the UN
Regional Delegate from Scybala

But this proposal mandates certain formats for digital media. Let's try an analogy to print media. I'm sure the people of Cluichstan would prefer that all books be printed in a format they understand -- their native tongue of Cluichstani. However, the UN cannot and should not ever mandate such a thing. So why should it do so for digital media?



I don't think it does, but if you have any evidence to back that up, I would be happy to revise my position :}



Moreover, the proposal requires companies to produce digital media in a certain format. The UN has no authority over private companies.


That isn't strictly speaking true. One example would be that "The 40 Hour Work Week" limits the number of hours a company can require it's workers to work.

That isn't strictly speaking true. One example would be that "The 40 Hour Work Week" limits the number of hours a company can require it's workers to work.

Another example of the UN overstepping its bounds.

Another example of the UN overstepping its bounds.

I would adamantly disagree, but that is a topic for another thread and another time :}

QUOTE
BANS any "regional system"


meaning any
QUOTE
as any method to prohibit the transmitting or viewing of media from one region or nation in another region or nation


which means my nation would be bound by law to accept imports of Child pornography as that would be deamed a "regional System" as well as snuff films, macisitic tourture etc.


I am really surprised at the hate and wrath this proposal has produced, and the lack of understanding people appear to have in it.

No nation will be bound by law to accept child porn because of regional encoding. Regional encoding ensures one player can not read a disk from another region. IT DOES NOT (I REPEAT NOT) cover content of the DVD.

Regional encoding ensures one player can not read a disk from another region. IT DOES NOT (I REPEAT NOT) cover content of the DVD.

It would appear that my analogy to print media, though, was entirely accurate.

It would appear that my analogy to print media, though, was entirely accurate.

I would argue that it is the other way round.

Imagine if you sold books, one to each country, that had a special lock that could only be opened by people in that country. You would never be able to sell the book anywhere else - only to that country. So instead of mass producing one book with no lock, you would have to produce a book for each country with the specific lock. Which would be WAY more expensive in the long run (I would have thought)

I would argue that it is the other way round.

Imagine if you sold books, one to each country, that had a special lock that could only be opened by people in that country. You would never be able to sell the book anywhere else - only to that country. So instead of mass producing one book with no lock, you would have to produce a book for each country with the specific lock. Which would be WAY more expensive in the long run (I would have thought)

That depends. If without a lock the book would get copied illegaly more, than it could cost more money. In the end, it's up to the company to decide on what terms they want to sell their product (at least, in the case of luxury goods). It's not up to the government to decide on that. The only products where the government should regulate is the essential basic goods such as food. But movies? Stay out of it. And I'm saying that as a leftie. That's how bad this resolution is.

The WEA is being defeated as we speak.

Votes For: 6,904

Votes Against: 6,920

Thank you for all those that vote against the resolution. You have struck a blow for national indepedence. May we all work together to make the UN a better, more meaningful place.

But until then, let us vote against the WEA, more, and more, so that this propsal doesn't stand a chance of passing.

Still winning the battle against this thing! Let's just hope the number of votes against continues to grow...

Votes For: 6,904

Votes Against: 6,927

The WEA is being defeated as we speak.



Thank you for all those that vote against the resolution. You have struck a blow for national indepedence. May we all work together to make the UN a better, more meaningful place.

But until then, let us vote against the WEA, more, and more, so that this propsal doesn't stand a chance of passing.
Even if it were to pass now, it would be by but a slim margin. This would cause me, just as with the Bioweapons ban, to all it a victory for us, as a repeal would be fairly easy to pass.

Votes For: 6,909

Votes Against: 6,971


Things are looking up!!!

Even if it were to pass now, it would be by but a slim margin. This would cause me, just as with the Bioweapons ban, to all it a victory for us, as a repeal would be fairly easy to pass.

Very true, and should it pass, the representative of Powerhungry Chipmunks would have my full support in the repeal effort.

We should celeberate this effort. I suggest that if this resolution is voted down, all those that has vote down the propsal can go to the "UN Stranger Bar" for a little party for our efforts and some dialouge on how to make the UN a better place, bringing back sanity into the NationStates United Nations.

We desereve it.

Things are looking up!!!

You right, things are turing in your favor and of course we are disapointed, but even if it happen the proposition we co-authored fail, we are HAPPY

HAPPY to have bring this topic so far, happy to have bring this topic to reach quorum, happy to have a very close final reasult, happy to have debated democratically on the forum about topic such as DRM, dematerialization, developping Nations, cultural exchanges

The Most Serene Republic of Love and esterel would like to thanks every delegate who approved it, every nation who voted FOR or AGAINST this proposition and every nation who debated politely in this thread

It looks like this is going to be very close...

I'm extremely unhappy about this whole resolution, which distracts the UN from far more important issues, as well as endangering our nation's economy. Defeating this resolution is a victory for common sense. Those involved in this resolution should start to re-think what should be submitted to the UN, as I have rarely seen a period in which so many resolutions have been defeated or repealed.

It looks like this is going to be very close...

yes, i play NS only for 2 month and half, i had never see a vote so close
does it already happen in the past?

yes, i play NS only for 2 month and half, i had never see a vote so close
does it already happen in the past?

:) It has, and frankly I find it exciting!

The 40 Hour Workweek
8,637 to 8,526
2004.05.23

The thread for that debate was added to the NationStates archive, as that was by most believed to be the closest a vote would ever come. A mid-sized region could have changed the outcome.

I commend the Love and esterel delegate on their attitude.

MV

:) It has, and frankly I find it exciting!

The 40 Hour Workweek
8,637 to 8,526
2004.05.23

The thread for that debate was added to the NationStates archive, as that was by most believed to be the closest a vote would ever come. A mid-sized region could have changed the outcome.

yes, but maybe just a little bit more exciting when you are only a spectator than a co-author ! lol! :p:D

i think i break a world record today
the larger number of click on a "reload button" in 1 hour:eek:

OOC: I've been clicking it every couple of minutes. Watching the vote tilt back and forth is rather exciting! (Gawd, I've got no life... :( )

Votes For: 7,086

Votes Against: 7,141

not god for us! lol! but we like more democracy than our proposition

and what is really disapointing for me is not that much the result of this proposition but the total absence of comment about the link to some high definition movies, i posted several time in this forum:)


http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/ContentShowcase.aspx

Votes For: 7,086

Votes Against: 7,141

not god for us! lol! but we like more democracy than our proposition

and what is really disapointing for me is not that much the result of this proposition but the total absence of comment about the link to some high definition movies, i posted several time in this forum:)


http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/content_provider/film/ContentShowcase.aspx

I would like democracy if it was actually democractic, but that is a whole other issue :}

OOC: I've been clicking it every couple of minutes. Watching the vote tilt back and forth is rather exciting! (Gawd, I've got no life... :( )

(ooc) The last time I got like this was the repeal of The 40 Hour Work Week earlier this year. I spent a lot of time campaigning against it, and spent a lot of time watching the vote as it fluctuated all over the place.

(still ooc) It was one of the things that lead me to leave NS cause I realised that no one should be that invested in a game. There are better things to do with life

Votes For: 7,086

Votes Against: 7,141

not god for us! lol! but we like more democracy than our proposition

Yeah, we won't have a mandatory recount once all the votes are in!

Yeah, we won't have a mandatory recount once all the votes are in!

Hmmmmmm. Do you think we could get the moderators to write such a suggestion in to the code? (HUGE evil grin)

(still ooc) It was one of the things that lead me to leave NS cause I realised that no one should be that invested in a game. There are better things to do with life


OOC: Not when you're stuck at work there isn't. ;)

It's done.

The resolution "Worldwide Media Act" was defeated 7,193 votes to 7,093.

(ooc) The last time I got like this was the repeal of The 40 Hour Work Week earlier this year. I spent a lot of time campaigning against it, and spent a lot of time watching the vote as it fluctuated all over the place.

(still ooc) It was one of the things that lead me to leave NS cause I realised that no one should be that invested in a game. There are better things to do with life
OOC: Who were you before, if you don't mind me asking?

One thing that puzzles me: why did Gatesville vote against this? I thought they were meant to bring down the UN, yet this has proved an unpopular piece of legislation on the forums. Anyway, glad that sense prevailed.

Maybe to prevent similar fiacsos, prehaps a 2/3 majority is needed to pass resolutions, instead of a simple majority.

OOC: Yes, I know, against rules. :)

One thing that puzzles me: why did Gatesville vote against this? I thought they were meant to bring down the UN, yet this has proved an unpopular piece of legislation on the forums. Anyway, glad that sense prevailed.

Gatesville doesn't vote based on making the UN appear weak in the eyes of the international community, but rather based on their belief as a region.

We've actually had a large number of Gatesville nations support a number of our resolutions, though typically the Gatesville Delegates have voted against many Mikitivity sponosored resolutions.

I hate to claim victory (but eh - I am going to) but for a resolution that is so appallingly bad that no one could vote for it, losing by 100 votes - getting what amounts to 46% of the vote - is pretty impressive. And as a moral victory, if you look at the total number of delegates, as opposed to the number of votes they carry, my bet is that the actual popular vote would have carried it to victory.

But such is the way of Democracy in the UN :} (This is not a call for change, nor is it sour grapes at what I consider to be a bad decision. I am just commenting is all)


(On the bright side, we are spared the countless onslaught of badly thought out and badly written repeals, which I think is something we can all be thankful for!)

i brought this to their attention and we voted against mainly because of the piracy issue.

now maybe we can deal with some sensible ideas for a change.

Love and esterel take note of the defeat of "Worldwide Media Act", we think the UN missed a good opportunity, but this is the wish of the UN.

We would like to thanks Richard2008 the author, Jey the author of the Repeal "DVD Region Removal", Pallatium who was a great support in this thread and every nation involved in the vote, the approvals or the debate.

As this resolution was part of a strategy, and the first part was the Repeal "DVD Region Removal", i would personnaly want to apologize to all UN members who voted against the "DVD Region Removal" or approved it with the hopes a new better broader resolution will pass.

Hovewer, as Blu-ray and HD DVD will replace DVD as soon as spring 2006, i hope they will not be so angry against me as "DVD Region Removal" if not repealed would have been obsolete as soon as spring 2006, it's why even if "Worldwide Media Act" failed, we think it's was worth trying to do it.

Furthermore, as i already stated in this forum, a top executive from Toshiba made the following statement last week:

“We’ve gotten a variety of opinions about region controls. Even in the Steering Committee, they are extremely unpopular; we decided to not put them in. HD DVD probably won’t contain any region playback controls.”

http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000873062235/

so it seems at least it will not be regions for HD DVD:D

Maybe to prevent similar fiacsos, prehaps a 2/3 majority is needed to pass resolutions, instead of a simple majority.

OOC: Yes, I know, against rules. :)

I think this has been suggested before, and it would never work. 14286 out of 30,826 people voted on this (probably a lot less - cause of the delegate system) - 46%. Honestly whether it is 2/3 of 46% or a simple majority it is still a remarkably small amount :}

Hey - what about a 2/3 majority to defeat it, and if it's less it passes? (smirk)

Let's not get too snarky now. Gloating is bad.

Mikitivity: meh, well, I never really got Gatesville anyway. There's that episode of Friends with Brad Pitt and the 'We hate Rachel Green Club'. Sometimes it seems a bit like that: sitting in their room giggling and saying nasty things about the UN. Still, their voting record hardly seems 'destructive', and they always seem to be lobbied like any other delegacy. I understand the idea of the 'belief of their region'...but it usually seems obvious when the UN regulars are throwing hissy fits. I'm surprised they aren't more efficient in their dastardly conspiracy.

OOC: Who were you before, if you don't mind me asking?

TilEnca.

TilEnca.
Welcome back.