Comments on: Tipster: MPAA astroturf group is buying signatures to beef up its numbers

By: Jonathan Roberts

Jonathan Roberts — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 04:54:00 +0000

I’d say at this point publishing that list will be pretty counterproductive for their interests.

By: NNelson

NNelson — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:52:00 +0000

Another way that money should be taken out of politics. It should not be legal to pay for the canvassing of signatures.

“B-but how would petitions ever get circulated?”

By people caring enough about an issue to take it upon themselves to go canvassing.

By: A. .

A. . — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:27:00 +0000

hang ‘em high. for a few dollars more.

By: zyodei

zyodei — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:21:00 +0000

If they were really on the ball, they would pay people to ‘like’ their YouTube videos. Every single video they have is like 158 dislikes, 2 likes. There are even a couple with zero likes. Even CreativeAmerica doesn’t like it’s own bullshit propaganda.

By: Shinkuhadoken

Shinkuhadoken — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:28:00 +0000

Geez, they should at least do it like in the old days and offer alcohol to sway public opinion in their favor. Sure, it’s currently illegal to offer alcohol without a license, but they’re good at shoving rewritten laws down our throats. Get on it!

By: disillusion

disillusion — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:46:00 +0000

True, but you never know what kind of loopholes people will find in the contracts, not to mention people might not sign their real names on the petitions in the first place, which can cause all sorts of other loopholes, but I digress.

That said, even though it would be counterproductive in some ways, they would probably just spin the signature numbers around and say, in my example, 9900 people signed the petition, rather than 100 people signed multiple petitions. While it wouldn’t hold up under scrutiny, most of the stuff the MPAA/RIAA publishes already doesn’t, so it wouldn’t shock me at all if that ended up happening.

By: avery

avery — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:40:00 +0000

This.

Paying per-signature seems to be a common way to determine wages for organizations that employ professional canvassers.

I’m no fan of the MPAA, but sensationalizing issues like this hurts BB’s credibility & damages the cause.

By: avery

avery — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:35:00 +0000

The email that’s excerpted in the article seems more like a recruitment letter than a contract – presumably it doesn’t constitute the full list of procedures for employees to follow.

A scenario like the one you describe would be pretty counterproductive for the MPAA’s interests.

By: James Stoneburner

James Stoneburner — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:26:00 +0000

A friend of mine was a the Sundance Film Festival, and was approached by someone asking for signatures to “extend copyrights and prevent piracy”. Pretty sure it was the same group. He and the people he was with all declined.

By: disillusion

disillusion — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:09:00 +0000

Except they never stated that the signatures couldn’t be of people you knew, so you could, in effect, get a group of people together and each sign all of each other’s petitions. They’d end up with what is effectively a relatively small list of signatories, but would have to pay a dollar for each member in the group minus one (not signing your own petition) for each person within that group. So if, say, 100 people got together, they’d each get $99, costing the organization $9900 for 100 signatures.

By: Sydnie

Sydnie — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:58:00 +0000

I just realized, this would be a great way to get to go to ACL and SXSW for free. I might sign up.

By: Sydnie

Sydnie — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:56:00 +0000

Foreign rogue websites, stop beating up the American Middle Class! Don’t you know you are taking away jobs from semi-rich white people and those are the most disenfranchised group of Americans alive?!

By: steve white

steve white — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:52:00 +0000

they are paying people to collect signatures not paying the signees, theres a difference, your headline suggests they are buying signatures :/

By: Rider

Rider — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:49:00 +0000

Wow paying piece work to help protect the American economy. Yep there is no hypocrisy there.

It seems like the declining number of people willing to actually pay wages anymore is the bigger problem.

By: Ianto_Jones

Ianto_Jones — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:44:00 +0000

Yeah I’m sure that will go over real well at SXSW and other indie festivals.