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Also, George Soros has been buying up grain elevators and is now the third largest holder of America’s grain elevators. I think banning home gardens would probably cause too much of an uproar, but how will you get seeds for your garden?

Yeah, I hate this world where there are one or two mega players with enough clout to define the market. Apparently Universal was part of the Vivendi idiocy and was recently sold to NBC (a Division of GE now called NBC Uni).

Anyway, I decided to look up Universal Studios to see if they had a beefier press release. Here is a slightly longer article on Reuters. It sounds like NBCUni and Microsoft are siting in a back room brewing up some sort of concoction that the rest of the world will regret. This efforts appears to be part of something called BASCAP (Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy).

I wish these people would just realize that the way to beat piracy is simply to establish channels for distributing the movies that are neither too costly nor too burdensome to the public. Instead, we have monopolies working in backrooms with monopolies making something that is both expensive and restrictive to the point that piracy will continue to prevail.

These are pirates you gormless idiot.

You are talking about petty thievery.

If you can't tell the difference, maybe you should just shut up and stop making a fool of yourself in public.

Pirates... that want to help people?

I thought pirates were people like this.

I won't correct you, because you're not wrong. But may I expand and refine?

Actually, there are definitely still pirates (real pirates) in the world. Piracy, by the way, doesn't have to include murder or mayhem, it's just a word for maritime robbery. It isn't necessarily more violent than a hold-up.

What "illegal" copying does not bear any resemblance to is any form of robbery, because making a copy deprives no one of anything. Taking my car is wrong because then I don't have a car, not because you now have one.

Piracy Report:
http://www.iccwbo.org/ccs/imb_piracy/weekly_piracy _report.asp

Indeed:

Pirates, at least on the professional level are still at it.

That being said, I've already faxed and snail-mailed both of my senators wrt: s2237.

This is not a troll, but the truth

Actually its mostly braindead rubbish.

(1) I don't personally believe in copying CDs illegally-- but I think we should avoid using unkind words like "piracy" to describe those that do -- instead, we should describe it as an "infringement", much like a parking infringement.

Its not that its "unkind", its that its semantically wrong, and only someone with a bad education (or immoral intent) would use it to twist the meaning, possibly with the intent to deceive. Piracy is robbery on the high seas, and that is not some 17th century nonsense with Johnny Depp, this is a fact - happening TODAY not only can things be really stolen, but sailors can loose their lives (and have). These widows probably don't take kindly to the term piracy being used for something as irrelevant as downloading of music from the internet. Especially since a study from Harward business school proves that it doesn't really harm sales.

Downloading music from the internet is (if you don't have a license) copyright INFRINGEMENT, it is not stealing. Stealing requires (by law) that someone is deprived of something physical. If someone downloads a track with Madonna, some of her dollars doesn't suddenly go missing - nor do they return if said mp3 is deleted. That is why it is infringement, not theft. If you take someones car they have lost the car and can't use it. Nothing needs be lost by the download of a song (still currently illegal though)

(2) I don't believe in the record companies emotively abusing the word "theft,"...

Well I do. They clearly do that to try and manipulate the politicians and people who are not burdened with intelligence.

(3) I believe that piracy is driven by "overpriced CDs" even though CDs have dropped in price over the years.

Piracy is robbery on the seas, downloading music is called copyright infringement.
They are vastly overpriced, presumably to finance a basically corrupt and immoral business model, and that may motivate some. Though the was majority of people use download like they use the radio, they listen to something which is good enough to pass the time but which really isn't good enough to buy (though as the study shows if something of quality comes along people do go out and buy it)

(4) I believe that piracy is driven by overly long copyright duration, even though most pirated works are recent releases.

Piracy is robbery on the seas, downloading music is called copyright infringement. The copyright duration is of course vastly too long , not only should it only last for a few years, but it shouldn't be transferable and certainly not last beyond someones lifetime, however it is very doubtful this has any influence on the copyright infringement as whole, though some few may do it for political reasons, which is silly since it has no demonstrable effect.

(5) I believe that illegitimately downloading music is giving the author "free advertising".

Well, that's what intelligent people believe, especially after the study from Business Hardward School proved has no effect.

I don't buy any of the music I download, of course --but lots of other people probably do.

I don't download music. However studies show that others do, infact they are making millions from it.

And now I've already spent and hour writing this, time I'll never get back, and i doubt you'll wish to enlighten yourself, especially considering the nonsense in most of the rest of the post, i shall end it here then.

• Weekly Piracy Report
• Modern Day Piracy
• Office of Naval Intelligence World Wide Threat to Shipping

This site has a weekly listing of actual piracy. It's really quite fascinating.

As far as time limit, there needs to be one. Just as the Civ series couldn't go on forever (no new technology changes gameplay fundamentally and for the worse), Pirates has to end too after a certain ammount of time. Or else, your character will be forced to become a video pirate. Arr..?

Not necessarily:
Pirates are alive and committing acts of piracy on the high seas even today.

How the hell can you call "copyright infringement" piracy, when there's a real, big, and evil piracy-problem on the world? Hundreds of people get killed every year by pirates, and the FBI is whining about "copyright infringement" and calling it their number 3 problem? How fucking wrong can you set your priorities???
--

The book being reviewed seems like it has a lot in common with Captain Kidd and the War Against the Pirates . I'll haev to look this book and compare them.

Modern piracy is still going on, and is a big problem, as a quick glance through some of the links at the IMB will show. And I'm not talking about script kiddies stealing the code to Half-life 2. I'm talking the old fashioned "guys with guns threaten to kill everyone on ship, take all valubales, and maybe carry out their threat" type of thing.

The book being reviewed seems like it has a lot in common with Captain Kidd and the War Against the Pirates . I'll haev to look this book and compare them.

Modern piracy is still going on, and is a big problem, as a quick glance through some of the links at the IMB will show. And I'm not talking about script kiddies stealing the code to Half-life 2. I'm talking the old fashioned "guys with guns threaten to kill everyone on ship, take all valubales, and maybe carry out their threat" type of thing.

"Real" piracy is not a thing of the past. It has been on the rise in the last years, actually (370 reported cases in 2002, 335 in 2001).

Back on topic, this makes for even better (worse?) propaganda and makes copyright enfringers who call themselves pirates because it sounds so romantic/cool even more childish.

In fairness, the article does qualify it as 'software piracy' and doesn't use that term often. Why do they continue to refer to the internet protocol (IP) though? They continue to get their terms muddled!

By the way, I do think that 'software murder', 'software rape' and 'software pillaging' are very naughty things to do.

In fact, the Weekly Piracy Report suggests that a ship from Malaysia to New Zealand could have to travel through the most pirate infested part of the world.

I don't recall any Islamic "terrorist" ever attacking Germany.

Hijacking is an interesting indicator. Hijackers prefer American craft, because if they pick on (say) Israeli vehicles, they're dead - guaranteed.

BTW - terrorist attacks - Germany cops one and another, and a German citizen is killed by hijackers, Germany fights hijackers and so on. They get their share, you just don't hear about it because you're not German.

Weekly Piracy Report

Malaysia, and the whole region, is host to REAL BLOODY PIRATES, scary stuff man!!

in our school, we were told to 'get hold of' Borland C++ ... nuff said? They do have a fully licensed win2k computerpark and even a SQL-server.

To do UML modelling we use Rational Rose (which uses a reg server)
now where do we have to get hold of RRose when we want to do our assignments at home?

i'm pretty sure that NOT ONE of my fellow students paid for their Borland or their winXP
C development thrives on linux, but sadly enough our exposure to linux @ school is nothing more than a measly two hours a week in one semester, given by a teacher, with all due respect ms, IMO doesn't know jack shit! well that's my 0.02

http://www.iccwbo.org/incoterms/preambles/pdf/FOB. pdf

Oh, wait, did you mean tracking of possible copyright infringers? I suggest reading Jessica Litman's Digital Copyright book, where she takes on the very hard problem of formulating a new copyright, and suggests that we move from copying being the activity being controlled to commercial gain from copying.

Piracy is still very much active, though. If it were indeed a thing of the past, I'd agree with you. Check for instance the weekly piracy report (first non-software hit on google).