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Korean Brothers Arrested For File-Sharing Site
HarlanC writes: "This story discusses the arrest of two Korean brothers who run a website [warning, page requires Korean language support] that allows peer-to-peer file sharing. Note that the Recording Industry Association of Korea reports local companies lost $154 million in sales in 2000 due to use of the program, even though sales increased to $31.5 million in total sales in 2000 from $29.2 million in 1999."
The purpose of an economy is to distribute a limited good fairly and equitably as possible.
Wrong, fucker. This is capitalism.
Is this because of the pirates?
:)
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
Is RJ Reynolds guilty because I decided to kill myself using a product manufactured by them? Apparently so, if all these billions being paid out in the US are true.
Yeah, a bit trollish, so sue me :) Just never forget, legal systems don't have to make sense, they just have to garner headlines.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Good points on both of you. I'd just like to add that you've hit the nail on the head. Humanity needs an upgrade. People will have to realize their power and take responsibility. I don't think your conclusion about who to pay and not is impractical at all. After all, it works for you doesn't it? Likewise, people will have to reach their own conclusions. This is already happening. As evidence I point to all the ethical discussion that are taking place in society on a more frequent basis nowadays. I don't believe the top-to-bottom power hierarchy is going to survive the future. That is, people will have to start policing themselves, and they will want to. After all, we are our own best judge and jury, as long as we're made aware of what we are and what we're doing. But it also requires willingess to help those that are repressed and ignorant. Make them realize how to break out of it etc. It's a very big and complex issue, but it seems to be happening. Old patterns break every day. It's going to be harder and harder for those who resist the changes.
Many people view these times as the end of the world. However, I believe all the events happening are just to make people more free. That is ironic, but necessary. Just like a depressed person, society needs to reach its low in order to find strength and courage to break completely free. It doesn't have to be that way though.
Some may argue that some people can't be helped, they're just plain evil/stupid/lazy. However, if you really get to know them, you'll change those prejudiced opinions real fast. There'll always be differences, that is part of the charm. To learn to appreciate helping others though, we'll need to learn to differentiate comfortableness and happiness.
I don't expect anyone to take these ideas at face value. They're just ideas to make you think wider (hopefully).
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
So if you had an infinite number of Ferraris you would complain if some were stolen?
Theft is depriving me of the thing YOU stole, not the *potential* loss of value of something I already own.
Right. That's where I think the difference is between theft and copyright infringement.
People have already pointed out that "losses" due to *potential* sales not happening are completely bogus. You know this, I know this.
Also correct. In fact, I made that same argment here.
Just because somebody got something for less than *you* sell it for does not mean they would have paid for it had they not had the opportunity to get if for less. And it doesn't mean they "STOLE" the price difference from your pocket.
Agreed. If I, for some reason, download the new Backstreet Boys CD, I wouldn't classify that as stealing in a strict definition of the word because, without a gun to my head, I wouldn't have paid for it. But it's still morally wrong in my book. For whatever reason, I apparently want that CD. But I'm not willing to pay $15 for it. Am I willing to pay less? Maybe, but that's not an option at this point in time unless I want to take to XYZ file-sharing protocol and download it.
In summary, I agree that there are differences between physically stealing something (depriving someone of that object) and infringing on somebody's copyright. My question is, how do you propose we handle this intellectual property? How do we deal with the repercussions of lifting these copyrights? Who is going to produce music and movies and books if they aren't compensated in some way?
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
Guess what. That last attitude isn't ideological. It's cheap. When enough people believe in the cause of free music enough to actually do the former, then maybe somebody will pay attention.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Okay, suppose it IS illegal to distribute mp3s, that DOES NOT mean it is "rightfully theirs" or that "we would be doing the same ourselves" or that the RIAA or RIAK lost money. /. reader's mindset, you'll also see we wouldn't do so ourselves. It's the difference between a lawyer and a programmer, a record exec and a musician, a leech and a creator. Plus, we probably would have major grammatical and spelling errors in any press release.
First problem, you assume that the law is the arbiter of morality. If you've ever heard of some of the stupid laws on the books that aren't enforced, you know that plenty of things people do all the time is 'illegal'. Nor does the illegality of something determine what is "rightfully" someone's due, laws are not the sole arbiter of morality. For example, sodomy laws are on the books in tons of states, but that does not mean that oral and anal sex are immoral, nor does it mean homophobia (the real reason behind sodomy laws) is moral.
Next, you claim we would do the same ourselves. This, of course, is a load of BS. The fact that this is a Linux-biased site ought to tell you something. Then, if you look at the difference between the RIAA type mindset and the
Of course, the question of losing money has been debated by many, and for a long time, so I'm going to ignore it except to say that I at least have bought more CDs thanks to Napster and filesharing services. I also have bought CDs from people on mp3.com who have all their songs available for download. So don't claim that I have been hurting music (although buying an indie artist from mp3.com's CD didn't help the RIAA, and my Pillows CD might help the RIAJ if it exists, but not the RIAA or RIAK).
Erik
"You," Bite me.
"Each and every one of you." Bite me.
hi troll, you win
i apologize for my lowly existence, you have shown me the way to greater enlightenment, thank you
i will no more reply to you, but only because i fear to question you, now that you have enlightened me to my idiocy and you have revealed your supremacy
troll, i thank you for this moment, i will cherish it forever
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
When I buy music, I'm buying media. Rights to hear music on a CD or rights to view content on a DVD are an artificial construct. There is no property involved. Intellectual property is a THEORY, and not something tanglible that can be bought or sold or broken or stolen...
What is the difference if I sit in my house doing nothing, or if I download a hundred mp3s a night? Is the recording industry hurt if I download music? Does the artist lose money for each track I download? Is there damage done either way? No.
Don't make up straw-men slippery-slope arguments about what might be illegal. People who excuse this or Napster because someone, somewhere may occasionaly have a non-infringing use are out of touch with reality. Lots of things are banned even though they have legitimate uses. Lock picks are illegal in most states, yet that doesn't stop you from going to the hardware store and buying things that have mostly legitimate uses.
>>I "steal" music to evaluate it. If you don't let me "steal" the music first, I will not buy it. Ah, yes - the excuse all of you who DON'T play, write, or perform music for a living love to sling around. As if there are no legit sites where music can be legally downloaded - I'm a professional musician/songwriter, & the fact of the matter is, it would be almost a full-time job to keep up w/ all the new sites where I can upload music for folks to "evaluate" - music that is MY property. It should rightfully be MY choice as to how and where it's distributed - don't like that? Fine - don't buy it. If music isn't worth paying for to you, that's your business - but please don't try to justify your theft of copyrighted songs w/ this lame as hell excuse because it's bullshit. Personally, I think the authorities should start busting the individuals who are doing the illegal downloads, & musicians w/ the tech savvy to do so should start "sharing" files w/ a virus that deletes all MP3 files on the hard-drive the file is downloaded to. >>Don't like it? Tough. I can live without your music WAY longer than you can live without my money. Fine - that's your choice. All I can say is, if folks keep stealing music (no quotes, bud - it's stealing, period - screw the whole bunch of you who call it "sharing"), then musicians & songwriters with enough talent to produce music WORTH paying for will quit recording. Of course, those of you who are satisfied w/ the crappy sound afforded by MP3 files probably wouldn't know good recording if you heard it, but that's another thread. Like nearly ALL "unsigned" musicians, I sell the VAST majority of my cd's at live shows. Despite what the "geeks" may think, the reality is that the Internet has been a near TOTAL failure as far as marketing music goes - the oft predicted Internet "revolution" of the music industry has come & gone, folks; like so much in the music biz, it was a lot of hype, very little substance. As for the TINY per centage of folks who get their music primarily from the web - most of us who play & write music for a living can do w/o "your" money just fine if the price for trying to do business on the web is giving away 2 or 3 copies for every one sold. College radio & live performances pay the bills for most "unsigned" bands, NOT the Internet. Looking for good music from unsigned artists that's available for LEGAL download? Check out http://www.evor.com - just one of the many DOZENS of sites where free, legal downloads by "unknown" bands are available. If you like alt/country, I've got a couple of songs there - http://www.evor.com/mp.html - along w/ links to about a half-dozen other sites where I've got music posted on the web - I could add 2-3 a week if it was worth my time, but since I've found, like most artists, that posting songs on the web results in almost NO sales, what's the point?
You are still breaking the rules and going against the will of a lot of people, without whom that music wouldn't exist.
:)
Correct, but as has been noted, we don't always get what we want in life.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
"even though sales increased to $31.5 million in total sales in 2000 from $29.2 million in 1999"
Maybe you should try reading the artice yourself.
Peoples' hearing is not worse today. Their equipment is better.
:-)
Would you suggest yesterday's cassette tape technology was a result of peoples' poor hearing? Not likely (I hope!). But the frequency response of a standard casette deck tops out at about 13 kHz. The signal to noise ratio isn't much better at just above 50 dB.
A new, record player has a signal to noise ratio so low I'm going to point it out to every future vynilphile I meet: 45 dB. Ugh!
CDs are much better than both of these, but is it really so hard to believe that people are willing to put up with lower quality sound when they've had it for the past few decades anyways?
And besides, a 256 kbits MP3 is 99.9% of the quality of the original CD. I'd have to do some searching, but I think I can find the website that did the comparative testing.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
What are you talking about? What copyrights exactly has Napster violated? Exactly none. Napster users were the ones violating copyright, but you don't see the RIAA going after them.
It's the same situation here: these two brothers haven't violated any copyrights, so why on earth are they in prison? For allowing other people to communicate through their software.
yeah your right they are. but the there is also the case that people are using this program to do illegal activities and i would bet you that over 80% of the people have downloaded illegal materials off of the program. I think some where they even stated that they wanted to be the "napster" of south korea. Now that implies that they are making this software for illegal activities and I don't think that this program would fall under fair use laws(of the U.S. so it doesn't apply here I suppose.).
Now look at what your saying. Your giving people a reason to take other copyrighted materials. You're also saying that its only a problem because only some are using the program for illegal use... thats kinda far fetched, most people are using it for illegal usage. If the developers wern't looking for attention they would have filterd copyrighted music from there servers. End Story.
I don't think you need to arrest the two brothers for this though. I don't think violation of copyright is the right way to go, they wern't putting the material on there servers to begin with but they did handle it. Maybe a fine or a warning that they should filter songs. Napster wasn't even arrested for it. But thats the states.
>Is the mp3 format illegal? no.Is the inherent ability to search for and transfer files from one computer to another illegal? no.
No its not I'm not saying that it is, but on the same note to take drugs and traffic them is illegal and if you were involved you would be arrested. Along with stolen goods. Along with slaves. Along with anything that isn't legal. And the anything that isn't legal could have copyrighted songs full into that list. I know you will say that is a tad bit exteem. I think so too. But the fact is that when you log on and let people download those mp3s that are copyrighted you are trafficing stolen goods in a sense.
prove me wrong I just wanna see what you think.
>Are you unaware that our founding fathers >debated this topic as well? But the founding fathers have been discredited, since they were slavers and druggies with no respect for legal authority.
You make a good point there. And I think your right. the only thing that I can come up with is the fact that the guy said that he wanted it to be the next napster. Thats almos a confesion that he wanted people to use it to trade illegal music. But on the same note that doesn't mean that it should be illegal(the music I mean).
>The 2 koreans aren't the ones trafficing, they are the ones renting the "trucks", so to speak. The truck renters have no control over how the truck is used. If someone decided to transport illegal goods, then the person driving the truck is responsible, not the truck renters. Once again, personal responsibility is the main idea here.
lemme think about that one... Okay I got it. They built the truck wich is fine and dandy and gave them away. But they put in a small compartment that could only be used to ship the drugs out so they are giving the means to ship specificly drugs. They could have built the trucks to not have the compartments in them and warn people that if they change the trucks to hold drugs that its illegal.
So basicily what I'm saying is that the company that the 2 Koreans made is not even trying to stop the trade of copyright mp3s.
I dunno though you make a good point.. and its not the same as drugs I mean were talking about music not something that could corrupt our cities and towns. Its not like the record industry isn't making money off of the whole thing, and I guess we shouldn't hold the Koreans resposible for it. But its still not a good thing.
If you come to possess a copy of some music (copyrighted, of course) that you haven't obtained from your own purchase, you have stolen.
It doesn't matter whether you would or would not have purchased the music, and you don't have to consider whether an MP3 transfer actually deprived the industry of a sale.
Do you think that a person shouldn't be held liable for murdering someone when it was the bullet, not the actual person that killed the target? Of course not! The person enabled and encouraged the bullet to hit its target. This software (along with Napster) directly encourages the piracy of music files. The program was specifically designed to circumvent copyright and is therefore liable in the aiding and abetting of music pirates.
Well, at least it's good that Free Korea is trying to learn something from the US right?
Twitter.com/TrentonHyatt
It's clear that RIAA & al. spreads FUD and false information to quench sharing and so is our statements so we could keep on sharing music&stuff freely. Nobody can say for sure how much sales could have been without internet sharing or conventional mass-production piracy. Also we can see how RIAA sees the future if everyone and their dogs can share everything digital without limitations. That'd be unfair, no?
I can see we are proposing this no-limits-scenario where every individual would be responsible for doing the right thing and paying if they like what they hear. And that's with no supervising or authorities whatsoever. HOW on earth that could ever happen?
I'm having issues with that they (the distributors, the labels, the f*cking middlehands) got too much money, they have fixed prices and no competition, they own distribution channels and deny access to markets for small companies.
Right now the only way to battle and show my anger and frustration against them is to hurt'em financially. Sorry, but for obvious reasons I post as AC.
It's cheap if you are used to the USA standard of living, indeed.
I knew someone who did this with graduate-level textbooks.
He had all the good stuff at such a nominal fraction of what the
rest of us paid to the university bookstore extortion ring.
Good luck trying to lock up an infinite number of Ferrari's. You'd have to pruchase and infinite number of locks.
If you had an infinite number of Ferrari's, do you think people will pay you $x for it, where x == 0?
Yes. We're assuming that people can only get Ferraris from me. I think it's a fair assumption in this analogy. They're free to buy other sports cars from other people or to not buy from me at all. Why does the fact that I have an infinite supply matter when I have a monopoly on the product?
Good luck trying to lock up an infinite number of Ferrari's. You'd have to pruchase and infinite number of locks
Does not keeping them locked give people the right to take them without paying?
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
I was just basing this off of what I was taught in my econ course (stupid prof. Gotthiel, he shall rue the day). Also, the theory seemed consistant to what I saw in some of the poorer European countries such as Czech Rep., Spain, etc...
Oh yea, I'm not wearing underware.
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
FTP -- no, FTP has a large number of legitimate, legal uses.
Gun -- Yes, because guns are a tool for murder and should be outlawed.
look troll:
the use of "cognitivedissonance = on" in this particular post...
not to your liking huh?
ok, ok, thanks fo sharing
everbody clap for the troll, you've really added so much to our world xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
In the case of the movie theater, I would say that it is easier to think of it as morally wrong because you are physically watching the movie. When you go to a theater, you aren't just paying for the intellectual property in the movie; you're paying for use of the theater.
:)
The second example, taking meat from a grocery store, is a clear moral wrong. The fact that it would have gone to waste is irrelevant. It was still theirs, and you did not have a right to take it from them.
My point is that you have a right to "copy" something, because you do not take anything from anyone.
In the case of the mp3, you do not physically do anything.
In the case of the movie theater, it's a gray area; you're physically using their theater, regardless of the movie that's playing.
In the case of the steak, you have physically taken their steak. They no longer have it. Clearly wrong.
Having said that, I think that screwing over your favorite bands by not buying their albums is wrong. If you listen to the music a lot, you could certainly help out the band.
Note that this does not apply for "pop sensations" like Britney Spears, but really only applies for true artists. The ones who are not doing it for the money, but can still appreciate it. The ones to whom ten bucks now and then will actually make a difference.
Piracy occurs in the small percentages of the haves that could readily buy the stuff but choose not to.
A household making $10,000 a year don't feel the need to download all the top ten songs from the Internet nor do they have tools to do so, since they don't feel they need to pirate a copy of windows to put on their knock-off pc's.
Just because sales went up does not mean that sales would not have gone up *more* without this "interference." Of course not a popular thing to say here.
/. posters who justify their theft with "Well I wouldn't have bought it anyway."
You're absolutely right, but just because 300 CDs worth of songs were downloaded doesn't mean that sales would have gone up by the total sales price of that 300 CDs.
The record industry's absurd claims about how much money is being lost to piracy is just as ridiculous as
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
If Mike Tyson makes 1 dollar how much does Don King make?
3 dollars.
Aaaaaaargh. the nerve of the music biz to say that it interferes!!! these vampires are probably seeing pop chart stuff going down and album sales up but that would be admitting that sales are going up at all in total value!!! at last people can find and discover music they knew existed but couldn't find and these SOBs think they can take control back from us?!? How many times do I have to buy a copy of something until it's paid for ? How many theme parks do we have to pay for until I can trade an MP3 with someone who shares my taste in music without the threat of being sent a bill by the RIAA? Artists should be paid but maybe owning 797's with swimming pool and tennis court will have to go. All the tools to make it work all already there but the pampered snakes want to keep the drum thumping away to the beat of racketeering !
Anyway, I thought the Zionist mafia got you. What happened? You move to Argentina or something?
it is stealing I do it and I know that alot of other people do to. its wrong and I am against it but I still do it. It depresses me really.
But anyways lets talk. I still buy cd's from a record store if I think its worth buying I have bought alot of cds since I got my cd burner 2 years ago the latest being the beatles 1. So now I want to download those songs off of the net to listen to on my computer and that adds the the 300 or so CD's that they say are being downloaded off of the internet from this software. I look at any number that they give out to the public about how many illegal cds that have been downloaded to be false. This is because I have probably download about 10 cd's out of say 30 or so that are leagal. Now I know that other people do the same thing so that would be a big chunk of the 300 illegal cd's that are legal.
So groups like the South Korea recording industry and the RIAA are loosing money but I don't think that is as much as they are saying. They may actually beleive it and I'm pretty sure that they are still loosing money wich makes the download of music wrong.(I still do it maybe some day I'll smarten up and buy all my cds, maybe some day I'll leave the house and go to the mall...) But its my thought that the ammount of downloaded music that they say is illegal is not accurate to that number by a long shot. but thats just me.
If you post I will reply I wanna hear what you think..
How can you lose something that you don't have?
Wait a minute. You preface your comments with "I can't speak for everyone else", and then go on to assume that everyone else is exactly the same as you. I can't speak for everyone else, but I think that's a bullshit way to prove a point. QED...
You must consider a wide variety of users (everyone from teens to stereotypical cash-starved college students to working adults to...), a wide variety of listening habits (some people listen to music while at the computer, some listen in the car, some listen to the radio instead), and a wide variety of "accessories" (modem vs. DSL, in-car mp3 player vs. CD player, whether the person owns a CD burner).
Furthermore, at the end of the article, they even have a quote from one of the users talking about how he finds it stupid to buy the CD when you can download the tracks for free. I don't know how typical it is, but there's obviously at least one person who feels differently from you, making your absolute decree about lost revenue dubious.
That is assuming that the prices are the same there as it is over here...which it won't be. Its simple economics. Countries that have a higher GDP will "pay more" for goods than a country with a lower GDP (converting funds to the same currency that is). However in most cases you'll find that the price of the good is adjusted so that realistically two people (in different countries) actually pay "the same" for the good. By the same I mean the cost appears the same to each of them. ie) the person in the country with a high GDP pays a higher price than the other person. But looking at the big picture both people pay the same amount proportionally to their wage.
Wow. This is harder to explain than I thought. Show of hands...how many did i lose?
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
Problem is I think a lot of us download songs we'd never purchase - or can't purchase (I used to collect goofy star trek songs - which I only have on record).
What suprises me is that no-one in the media has called them on it yet. Just assuming that between 99 and 00 they should have got 150 million dollars extra for some reason - can they name ANY year where they earned 150 million extra dollars in any fiscal year?
I "steal" music to evaluate it. If you don't let me "steal" the music first, I will not buy it.
Don't like it? Tough. I can live without your music WAY longer than you can live without my money.
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
I will gladly exchange some of the lame songs I'm forced to buy on the CD's they offer for more of the cool songs I bought the CD for in the first place. The lack of a system for delivering their music electronically is the primary source of the problem.
Would you buy a cheesburger if all you really wanted was the pickle on top? If that's your only option, you might, but all the time you would resent having to pay for a burger just to get a pickle and you'd wonder why they couldn't just offer the pickle separately.
I do see and agree with the painstakingly broken down points here. But I still remain kinna fuzzy on the whole concept of "intellectual property". But thats a whole 'nother discussion. Its obvious that people see "theft" and "copyright violation" as 2 totally different beasts. I think most people see that once a good or service is paid for, they can do with it as they please, since they "own" it, why can't they give it away or "share",as they still "own" their copy of it. No one has "stolen" from them. There is NO PERSONAL loss to the file holder, how can they hview it as "theft". I think thats the mindset many people have about file sharing though. Laws won't make a difference till you can change how most people view file sharing. And I am guilty of the same mindset myself...What will happen is a never ending war between sercured standards and the cracks to get around them, this has been ongoing. I really can't forsee an amicable solution to this problem in the near future.
Calvin:"It takes an uncommon mind to think of these things Hobbes" Hobbes: "I'm afraid I'd have to agree with that."
... and I bet Horse and Buggy sales dropped quite a bit when the automobile was introduced.
It's called PROGRESS.
It worked in Blazing Saddles.
Well, if there were any credibility of these companies in reporting that they are taking losses, they would report what their projections were for the previous two, three, or four years (prior to the year in question). Next, adjust the year in question's projected sales by how historically close (above or below) they've been and see where the numbers fall out. Since no one has actually done this type of thing which is very easy to do, I suspect that there is merit to the claims that sales have actually been improved, or worse case, there has been no actual losses.
If you think about it, they have only biased reasons to lie about these types of things and not a single reason to say anything counter to their position. Thusly, anyone that's breathing should take EVERYTHING they say with a very large grain of salt.
Among the nude pictures of Anna and Natalie (both are always a big draw), I share Unix_Horror_Stories.txt. People actually take it! I'm happier to see them take the txt rather than take Natalie. In the long run, they'll get more from reading than they will from whatever they do with her pictures.. but alas I can't deny them Natalie either, it just feels good to share.
Good lord. How did your comment get modded as -2 Troll. That is terribly pathetic.
Moderators -- fuck your souls.
This is excellent. I love this comment. This seems like exactly what I've been trying to put into words lately.
I only have one thing to add... there is one thing I see that demonstrates very clearly how copyright law has become twisted and corrupt, and that is how hard it is for smaller record labels to survive. Usually they only can if they are associated with a major artist, like Luaka Bop.
Seems to me that a system that benefits big corporations and screws over smaller ones cannot be the best system for the consumer and the public. ESPECIALLY considering that this is no ordinary "product" we're talking about here, but what is still considered by some to be a real art form.
See the Luaka Bop page if you disagree that music is art.
Who is going to produce music and movies and books if they aren't compensated in some way?
How about artists?
------
Where are the slash-groupies? I distinctly remember being promised slash-groupies!
Something tells me that with many people, it simply is not an issue of right or wrong.
Many people do not consider morals at all when "stealing intellectual property" simply because the idea of intellectual property is counterintuitive.
When you steal something physical, there is an obvious moral wrong associated with it. You are taking something away from someone else - they no longer have it.
When you copy a song, many people (especially those who do not follow the issues such as DMCA but do use Napster and other P2P apps) do not realize that they are "stealing" something. Normally when one steals something, they have taken it away from something else.
The reason there is no moral wrong associated with copying intellectual property is because you never take something away from someone else. They have not lost anything - so how could you have "stolen" something from them?
Aside from the point made about imprisoning someone for making software, that remark was made in general and not just as a comment on this particular "injustice". Without going into a whole diatribe, comparing the events that lead to the American Revolution (what other revolution would I be referring to in english, and how often is the term 'Revolutionary War' used to describe anything else) to current abuses perpetrated by the private sector, would need to include deaths caused by HMOs, deaths caused by drug companies (cures aren't as profitable as expensive, long-term treatment), corporate slave-labor, crimes against the environment, bribery, money laundering, I could go on and on. So yes, the revolutionary war started over less.
I have my favorite artists, and I support them. I support them by buying cds. I hate doing this because it puts most of the money in the record companies hands(except for some who have their own labels. Also there are some really good companies out there, that don't screw the artists at every chance, don't forget that), but that's the set up for now.
It's time for a change. I think that the internet is going to provide a chance at that. Getting your name and sound out is easier now, because of the internet. Home studios are becoming more prevalent as recording technology gets cheaper. It's not going to be business as usual, and the record compnaies are fighting to the end, just like the dieing whales that they are. We need to be Ahab to their Moby Dick. Just don't forget--screw the companies, not the artists.
Damnit, Jim, I'm an anarchist, not a F@#$!^& doctor!
As a somewhat odd occurance, I saw the video for Glory Box not more than 1 week ago on MTV. Granted it was MTV Europe, and it was at 3:00am. :)
Now if you want 'steal' some stuff you'll never hear on the radio or MTV, 'steal' some Quasimoto, some Delarosa and Asora, or some DJ Statik.
Who? Exactly.
Abe! How are you! My friends, may I reveal Ralph here is none other than Rabbi Abe Goldstien, Jewish priest! Come here Abe, please, dont be shy. Drop your pants and show them all your circumcised manhood!
Really? Wow... Thanks... By the way, which company were you referring to?
Bowie J. Poag
You are so full of shit. Not paying for music, software, movies etc ARE hurting the artists.
"These guys didn't mean to harm anyone. "
No, but they did.
I believe this is what napster tried to "label themselves as" when they first started - a chat program that could share mp3's.
Very quickly, the mp3 sharing portion of the program became hugely popular, and the chat portion was forgotten about entirely.
I think the focus of the program changed over time to suit the rapidly-expanding userbase, who wanted to trade mp3's. This is what got Napster into trouble.
Aside from the fact that they did have mp3 trading in their program from the beginning, anyway...
Nah, there's no way to get them to deliver to anywhere but the registered address (unless you can snag the password, too), anyway.
But if you just feel like being a malicious little bastard, you can order all sorts of interesting things for *them*. This, for instance, was obviously a couple. They might have liked "Jay Wiseman's Erotic Bondage Handbook" or something similar. Or I could have headed over to the Tools&Hardware section and sent a $2900 table saw their way...
Well, technically, I think it would go something like this:
Let's say they sell 2 million CDs, at $15 a piece.
Now let's say there's 10 million copies of the CDs floating around in Korean cyberspace.
Ergo, to the marketdroids, those 10 million copies at $15 each equal $150 million in CDs they should've sold.
Not that they would ever sell that quantity of CDs in the first place, but then marketing and logic don't always go hand in hand these days.
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I
Learning to fly, Pink Floyd.
Some bands (Dave Matthews Band and Metallica come to mind immediately) do not discourage the taping of concerts (that said, some venues, most of which are owned in one way or another by some form of government discourage it.)
I think there are two factors underlying the ripping-off that one gets at a concert. The artist/entertainers are forced into overcharging at the concerts because they get screwed over by the record industry. The other reason is pure economics. When you go to a concert, you're not really obtaining the use of IP. Each concert is different than others, especially if you're going to a concert by a great live-entertainer (changes to songs, jam sessions, etc.), but even if you're not, then there is the atmosphere, the collective experience of being with n other people who have an interest in the same music. There is a scarcity of tickets to such events (with the exception of fire code issues, this is not granted by law). There is a scarcity of parking spaces around a given location.
What possible connection could there be between the Mahatma and a bunch of kids downloading free music?
One was willing to fight, suffer, starve, and die for his beliefs. The others are just opportunists.
Find a better metaphor, eh?
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
Note that the Recording Industry Association of Korea reports local companies lost $154 million in sales..
Why don't they just pay them, say, $1 million to sabotage the program, to make it useless, much easier and simpler than to take it to the court. Sounds like a good investment to me...
INCONCEIVABLE!
I don't have faith that the government is going to save us from ourselves. In fact, I'm against that. However, it is the governments job to make sure that companies aren't lying aboot their products, and the only way to do that is to test the products themselves. And while "EVERYTHING" (I should have reworded that) doesn't need to be known aboot a product, a fairly large amount does. And you are wrong to say that "it's never been done and it never will". The government has been doing this and will continue to do this. That is why their are surgeon general warnings on cigarettes, that is why their are regulations on cars emissions, that is why cars also have safety standards, and that is why many chemicals are not allowed to be sold (or even allowed in a persons possession).
Furthermore, even if their figures were remotely accurate, the willingness of people to ignore the middleman should tell the IAA's something about the flaw in their business model. High prices, total unwillingness to provide decent online service, legal wars raged against those who do, etc...
Dyolf Knip
And he may well beat himself up (so to speak) about his impure desires.
College age guys managing to not look at porn, despite the strength of any religous conviction, would be an impressive thing.
Quick! Someone go d a study on the level of pr0n traffic fromr religious schools compared to non-affiliated schools. There's a thesis in there somewhere...
...j
When you go to a theater, you aren't just paying for the intellectual property in the movie; you're paying for use of the theater.
:)
Point taken. If we assume that my use of the theater doesn't cost the owner anything in depreciation and that nobody would have bought a ticket for that seat anyway, does that change anything? You're (not) paying for the use of the theater to watch the movie, and with MP3 copyright infringement you're (not) paying to listen to the music.
The second example, taking meat from a grocery store, is a clear moral wrong. The fact that it would have gone to waste is irrelevant. It was still theirs, and you did not have a right to take it from them.
Obviously I agree that it's wrong, but I don't see how it differs from not paying for a CD while you still get to listento the music. I don't think the fact that you're physically taking the steak is relevant since it would be thrown away anyway. You're still getting the benefit of the product without paying for it.
Note that this does not apply for "pop sensations" like Britney Spears, but really only applies for true artists. The ones who are not doing it for the money, but can still appreciate it. The ones to whom ten bucks now and then will actually make a difference.
The band of whom I speak certainly doesn't need my money. If I stopped going to concerts and buying their products nobody would notice. Likewise if I pirated all of their music and snuck into all of their concerts nobody would notice. But I flat-out think that such behavior would make me a bad person, which is why I don't behave like that.
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
hmmm ... that's a damn stellar improvement, 500% increase was expected, and they only got 8% increase in sales ... curse these pilfering napsterites.
The way i see it, if there is nothing illegal about the inherent abilities of the program, then the people who created it are not responsible for it in any way for any "illegal activities" that occur. Do we charge gunmakers with murder every time someone commits a murder with a gun(I suppose if you were a liberal you'd agree with that statement, but maybe you'll see my point)? By your logic, we should also go after the people who made CD-Rs, FTP software, and the Copy command. That is how i'm interpeting what you said, so correct me if i'm wrong. Anyway, the main idea here is personal responsibilty. Those who are the ones actually committing the copyright infringement, not the people who made the program. Until you can prove to me that the process of sharing one file to another computer is illegal, you still have no case, and neither those the recording industry of korea. As for filter, it is not possible on a decentralized network. The max you can go is a text based filter, which is very easily defeated by pig-latin. And unlike napster, there is no way to police it.
But the fact is that when you log on and let people download those mp3s that are copyrighted you are trafficing stolen goods in a sense.
The 2 koreans aren't the ones trafficing, they are the ones renting the "trucks", so to speak. The truck renters have no control over how the truck is used. If someone decided to transport illegal goods, then the person driving the truck is responsible, not the truck renters. Once again, personal responsibility is the main idea here.
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
The MORALITY of the situation is therefore that some law gets broken. Which law? The law that says content producers get to profit from works for a limiet time.
So - has any of these works passed into the public domain? Does anyone producing content have a fair shot at the market? Once you remove the immorality equating the crime to theft, the immorality of the entire situation surfaces.
So, while this is not a defense of the copyright infringement, you can see what exactly the inequities the system preserves. That should give anyone perspective, I think.
What you fail to realize that the copyright laws, in their present form, are stealing off of you and me and everyone else. Copyright is supposed to encourage the useful arts and sciences for the benefit of the public . It is clear that the copyright laws of today are written not to benefit the public, but to preserve the excessive profits of a few major corporations. Disobedience of unjust laws is not only justified, it is our duty as citizens.
Current copyright law doesn't even benefit the artists. There is much less live music in this country than there was 30 years ago, before the wave of corporate mega-mergers hit in the music industry. The etree model of music distribution is preferable to the copyright-heavy oligopolic distribution model we have today. It works like this: Musicians derive their income chiefly from live performances. In turn, they allow their fans to record the live performances for free, and trade the recordings for non-commercial use only. The recordings serve to generate a larger following, so demand for live musical performances rises, and the venues are always filled. The Grateful Dead outearned Micheal Jackson in his heydey using this approach. Today, the model is being increasingly used, and there are hundreds of taper-friendly bands . The benefits to the public are both immediate and far-reaching: Not only are most of the live recordings free, but this also has the effect of increasing the total number of musicians by encouraging live musical performances, as opposed to spinning discs in nightclubs. Just as importantly, it has the effect of cutting out the middleman, the huge corporations that impose their "corporate tax" on everyone else to benefit no one except themselves.
No, the gun enabled and encouraged the bullet to hit the target, the user just pulled the trigger.
Napster et al. was written specifically with the purpose of allowing people to share music files, just like a gun was specifically designed to launch bullets. At least, that is the extent of what the tools allow, so what the original inventors thought when designing them is irrelevant. You can't simply ignore the legitimate uses for such tools and write them off as criminal because one potential use is criminal. If you did that, then as other people have said over and over again, you will have to outlaw things such as guns, nuclear reactors, steel anvils, screwdrivers and hammers, coat hangers, as well as metal birdseed and electromagnets.
<Insert P2P service of choice> gives the user access to steal, just like owning a gun gives its owner access to kill, however it still takes somebody with a brain behind the tool (or as is probable in most cases, half a brain) to commit a crime.
P.S. And no, I don't equate gun control with peer to peer networking control, since there is at least an order of magnitude of difference between killing somebody and stealing something.
Much like they use modern drug hysteria to trample on the ability of individuals to make informed opinions about what they choose to introduce into their own bodies?
-Nano.
Enough with the gun control debate! Can we all just agree that 1) Americans believe that high gunshot wound rates are an acceptable price for the right of private gun ownership and 2) the rest of the world doesn't?
It's a matter of the value you put on different aspects of liberty (right to life vs. right to carry) and there is NO objective way to determine which is more important. All right?
Personally I'm a Brit and the idea of letting my fellow citizens buy any sort of gun over the counter scares me badly. Also, I don't believe armed societies are polite societies. I'm thinking here about Kurdistan, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Albania, as well as US (and some British) inner cities. But that's my opinion.
Stop this already! File sharing should not be illegal! At least not the technology allowing it! File sharing is SO MUCH MORE than just porn and copyrighted mp3s!
agreed file sharing is also about porn & mp3!Do Unto Others As You Would Have Others Do Unto You - ONLY HARDER!
How many napster users? Between 10E7 and 10E8, from the reported estimates, and the mass disobedience is still occurring, only shifted to gnutella and offshore napsters. How many users of these file sharing services will ever be guiled by the corporate IP propaganda? Also, how much longer before politicians begin to feel the grassroots heat from these constituents? All that is required is some staying power, and a quick put-down of the bleeding-heart neoconservatives whining about the so-called "rights" of the wealthy corporations.
As to what constitutes a "mass" movement, think in terms of critical mass. In the short term, critical mass has already been reached - witness the self-destructive frenzied overreaction of the RIAA. In the medium term, the number needs to be sufficient to cause elected representatives to fear losing their jobs. In the long term, the number needs to be sufficient to win the hearts and sympathies of a majority of those who will be taking the reins of power in the future. In the meantime, I wouldn't be surprised to see the current system collapse of its own weight: the natural sense of human justice and the economic forces are ultimately on our side
I have not seen many concessions to the local market. VCDs are fairly cheap but that's about it.
You'd think that the whole pesky "burden of proof" thing would stymie the IAA's in court, but they seem to think statistics to be as good as a smoking gun. If the odds of my winning a lottery are a million to one and I buy a million tickets (over a period of several drawings) without ever winning, do I get to sue since statistically I should have won by now?
Dyolf Knip
Since infinity divided by any finite number (x, for example) is so close to zero as makes no difference, then the value of each Ferrari is also zero, and you have lost nothing from the theft. QED.
Ok, lets ignore for one moment the fact that no-one would run out and buy the tens of albums a week that some people take from servers just because they are there.
Since most people copying mp3s don't care that much about the sound quality, they wouldn't be buying the $15 CD. $9 cassette tapes for them! Or can they play a game where just because REM's Reveal album comes in a hyper-expensive limited edition book version mp3ing it counts as $40 business lost, not $15?
Come to think of it, if I were to post some of my vinyl rarities up could my local collectors shop claim $100 per track in lost business?
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
Maybe you should leave the thinking to the horse; they got much bigger heads than you do. Instead of 'I really don't think', why don't you enlighten me and try to explain why they did write those copyright by-laws.
No matter what rationalization you come up with, it's still STEALING! I don't care how rich the record companies are or how bad their business practices are, nothing justifies piracy.
Fine, but you don't have to steal anything to accomplish that. Just do what I do and don't buy music from any label that is part of the RIAA.
80% of all statistics are made up. 90% of all statistics involving $ are made up. 584% of all statistics involving a media company and Internet piracy are made up, In fact this is the multiplier used for distortion.
well, drug hysteria was the original context of the quote... see "drugstore cowboy".
--
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
Even so, the Recording Industry Association of Korea has no right to publish patently false damage claims. I don't think any person in their right mind can possibly believe that national record sales would have been 535% higher without this web site.
Media and software companies have been publishing ridiculously implausible damage figures for years, and it's time they put a stop to it. The reality of copyright infringement is bad enough; there is no need to falsely inflate the damage.
Two wrongs don't make a right.
Only according to your arbitrary definition that the legal system & the majority of people do not accept as valid.
That is a very insightful and useful distinction, contrasting artists and entertainers, thank you. I think there is one quality that real artists have that entertainers lack: honesty, pure raw honesty that manifests itself as integrity in their art. Entertainers usually lack this quality to varying degrees, as they are more worried about what they think might please their fans, and thereby fill their coffers.
imagine jail being locked in a tiny cold dark room, little furniture, a small window leaving rarely; sounds like my life - do u get high spped net access in jail? fi not hope Im locked up near here A Motley Crew Beams No-Cost Broadband In New York
Do Unto Others As You Would Have Others Do Unto You - ONLY HARDER!
I found it interesting that this article talks about piggybacking mp3's on instant-messaging services. I must confess, I've shared a lot of files this way. You don't see the record companies going after MSN or AOL, do you? I think it'd be interesting if a new version of Napster came out that was a "chat" program that "happened" to allow file sharing. I think they could make a strong case.
I think the difference is almost negligable. I believe the fact to which you refer is that stealing is (loosely) defined as taking something from someone thereby depriving them of that something. Copyright infringement, if you ask me, is taking something from someone illegally, depriving them of payment (or whatever).
So basically the difference that I see between the two is that stealing deprives the victim of the object while copyright infringement deprives the victim of the object's monetary value. I think you're splitting hairs a bit too thin here.
While a difference exists, I don't see how you can argue that one is less morally offensive than the other.
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
And you, quite simply, are a troll. Thanks for playing, though. Now watch your karma go down, down, down...
Possibly, arguably, online music trading affects the sales a handful of fatcat "stars", like Madonna and Don Henley and Britney Spears and those Metallica guys. I think it actually helps these people, by exposing their music to a wider audience. I also think that the demise of the major music distributors would help these stars, by returning a larger proportion of profits to them, but let's say for the sake of argument that online music trading "hurts" these people. Balance that harm against the harm done to everyone else, the consumers, and yes, the harm done to thousands of struggling artists who can't get a big recording contract, not because they're not good enough, but because they can't break past the corporate gatekeepers. Face it, there is a near monopoly on music distribution in this country, and it is hurting the public, the state of the arts, and most of the real artists. Britney Spears doesn't want to compete with a truly vibrant music scene, with bands playing around every corner; who would listen to her, then?
Part of the problem is that live music is being unnecessarily restricted in this country. When is the last time you attended a major concert, and you weren't threatened with a body cavity search, charged outrageous prices for parking, prevented from bringing any kind of refreshments, and smacked in the face with extremely predatory ticket prices and concession prices. Smaller, competing music venues are continually threatened and shut down, either by monopolistic action by mega-corporations such as Clear Channel, or under the guise of draconian drug laws. Free hint: that is how monopolies operate. Another free hint: the artists get only a tiny fraction of this money. Final hint: with the advent of the internet, the services of these big music distributors are no longer required.
Sorry, this is a cultural war, and somebody is going to get hurt either way. You seem to be into self-flagellation, by mouthing the politically correct line. You should learn to stand up for your own rights, instead of trading your own real rights in favor of the legally fictitious rights of Madonna and the like. Get a sense of proportion.
Remember back during the Cold War, when Soviet Russia was the Great Enemy of Democracy and Freedom? Its government closely monitored all copying equipment, and you could go to prison (or worse) for owning an unlicensed photocopier - let alone actually using the thing.
I'm dumbfounded by the number of people posting to slashdot about how "they pirated/stole music so they should go to jai" - bloody hell, read the damn article, they're NOT being arrested for stealing books, they're being arrested for the equivalent of building a photocopier and letting anyone use it!
*That* is what you tell Joe American Sixpack. That the US government arrested a guy for making photocopier software, just like the Soviet Union used to do during the Cold War, because the corporations don't want anyone using anything without paying a corporation for the privilege.
(yeah, so not all corporations are like that - but the corporate profit mentality is one of the biggest field demonstrations of abuse-of-power::power that I've ever seen)
And now South Korea is following suit. Oh, and by the way - Happy Korean Liberation Day! *choke*
I really don't think the people who wrote the original copyright by-laws would refer to widespread, global, profitless redistribution of their product to millions of people "fair use".
Except using these original copyright laws the vast majority of these songs would be public domain in the first place.
You are implying that writing a file-sharing program is against the law. Since when? We have been through this so many times... If the one providing the tool for a crime can be made liable, why aren't gun/crowbar/ manufacturers or phone companies charged when someone uses their tools to commit a crime?
My provider, http://www.giganews.com, already has a "Click here to submit DMCA removal requests" button.
(Besides, I hate the thought of using Usenet to distribute large binary files. Physically copying huge blocks of data all over the planet is just not the right way to do it. Sure, it works, but it's still a ridiculous waste of bandwidth and storage.)
Dahlmann tightly grips the knife, which he may have no idea how to use, and steps out into the plain.
So if you had an infinite number of Ferraris you would complain if some were stolen?
If I had an infinite number of Ferraris for which I was asking a sales price of $x and some were stolen, yes, I would complain.
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
ask any sound engineer, or for that matter someone who knows classical music. mp3s or oggs or any similar compressed formats are LOSSY by design. The discarded components( frequency, formant effect) certainly play a role in the musical experience. Mp3's merely serve as a bait to buy the real cd. I dont understand this RIAA crap-- people who see jurassic park on tv are certainly going to go out and watch it in a big movie theatre hall. make good music, real music, instead of cynically applying "marketing". watch the napsters gnutella fade away.
You can send illegal copies of cds, books etc. through the mail. I only hope the government can see this in time and arrest the people behind this whole 'Post' thing. And don't even get me started on the 'internet', they should get rid of that thing quicksmart, and arrest all the people involved.
Only according to your arbitrary definition that the legal system & the majority of people do not accept as valid.
Wrong. The legal system accepts theft as appropriating the property of another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it. Copyright infringement is illegal but is not theft.
If you are being tried for copyright infringement you are not charged with theft. The actus reas is not the same as theft. The mens rea is not the same as theft. The available defences are not the same as for theft. The penalties are not the same as for theft. Your statement that the legal system regards copyright infringement as theft is utterly wrong.
None of that, of course, has anything to do with the morality of copyright infringement. None of it denies that copright infringement is illegal. It is not however theft, any more than parking on a yellow line is theft or than murder is theft. All these things are illegal but they are all different offences.
i'd "rm -rf" my machine if Slashdot was not US centric, computer centric and linux centric. WHEN ARE YOU GUYS GOING TO REALISE THERE'S MORE TO THE WORLD THAN JUST THESE????
Don't quote me on this.
We could be speaking a different language, but in spite of means the same thing as despite. I think you might mean "In spite of the piracy, or because of".
-Ryan
How can comment #3 be moderated as redundant?
95% of all the music on my CDs is legally free for download over the internet, and the rest is stuff that you couldn't find on a commercial CD if you tried, because it is released by the original artist/remixer over Napster, WinMX, etc. While I have in my posession some pirated music, a lot of the stuff I got off of Napster was 100% legal in one way or another (example: my mp3 of Weird Al's Amish Paradise is legal because I had the tape and not the CD at the time, thus I couldn't [easily and with comparable quality] rip my own MP3 to put on my comp. example2: The Tetris Techno Remix that starts with a synth-voice saying "Let's play some Tetris motherfucker" is, last I checked, not a commercial song. Example3: pulse120's red planet is free for download at his mp3.com artist page) In other words, my use of Napster has largely not detracted from CD sales, and yet the RIAA doesn't let me use it to get free music that I couldn't find anywhere else. Leave it to the people in power to screw everyone else over.
Y2K Compliant since the late 1890s
they deserve it koreans are arrogant, rude bastards. they are show offs and have the worst sounding lauguage ever. their music are really copies from US. now they are turning in their own brothers. what a fucking shame
Ok this has to be a dam low blow from the corporate world. We got Dmitri Sklyarov in jail for basically giving a presentation. Napster basically shut down from RIAA who believe that napster is lowering sails when all I can see is napster increasing sales. I bought more cd's when I was on napster then ever before. So this all goes to show that the corporate world will go as low as they need to go to make 10$.
My 2 cents plus 2 more
Why don't people use gnutella instead?
You know... I get music (off the web) all the time now. But you know what is wierd? Last year I bought 2 cd's. this year I bought 17 (so far)and it is only August. It is like advertizing. They want to shut this down. Whatever you Giants want. I can always go back to video games. Big buisness run by executives who think they know the world. That is why the economy and internet/stockmarket has taken a dive. BTW BB you guys sxxk!
"file sharing has been systematically scapegoated and demonized. the idea that anyone can sample a few tracks for free and avoid buying a horrible cd is anathema to these idiots. i predict in the near future right wingers will use copyright hysteria as a pretext to set up an international police apparatus..."
--
"Remember, there never were pineapple-almond cookies here."
Dude, you need a chill-pill :)
people's ears/hearing/frequency response seem to be very crude, if popularity of mp3s are any indication. or maybe the music is so bad nowadays theres no difference.
Unfortunately I dont know if there exists a quantitative yardstick for measuring this...but it must be succesively several orders of magnitude between live performance, then hi quality recording and playback, then poor quality rec/playback, and finally the various lossy compression schemes like frauenhofer, (ogg, mp3, ) real etc.
Or am I missing something.
I think the mass disobedience thing was tried - how many million Napster users were there at it's height?
A related question: what constitutes 'mass' disobedience in a global situation?
Feel the fear and do it anyway.
We are on that long, scary road of analogies and straw-men arguing... ;-)
If Smith and Wesson sold weapons that were intentionally engineered to be convertable to full-autos, then yes they should up against in the wall. If Smith and Wesson set up shop on the corner of Gangsta & Hoodville and started selling guns called "The Killaz Choice" and "The Smoke 'em 10000" to drug dealers, and they marketed them to hold-up crews, and they knew that >98% of them were used in murders, then yes they should be held against the wall.
It is offensive when corporations hide behind laws and rights, and it is equally offensive when people hide behind rights to allow them to pursue anti-social activites: Saying "Gosh darnit, I'm just letting people share files!" doesn't wash when the overwhelming majority of users are using your site to trade copyright infringed material. See Napster as a great case in point.
God damn it. Yet another Korea-centric article. When are the Slashdot editors going to realize there's more to the world than just Korea?
So you're saying outlaws are afraid of being shot back at? I doubt that very much, logically they'll just simply shoot before being shot at. We have regulated gun control in Australia and have no where near the number of killings as the USA and other countries per capita.
If you have ever been to korea, you would know that you can go to e-ta-won and purchase almost any music cd from any artist, complete with poorly coppied cd cover for less than a dollar. Funny they never arrested those guys, ah well guess its just the web sites that are costing the RIAA millions.
try that on your income tax. hehe. tell them you are going to make 500 million dollars. LOL. they'll tax the heck out of you now, and make a killing on the interest.
If we assume that my use of the theater doesn't cost the owner anything in depreciation and that nobody would have bought a ticket for that seat anyway, does that change anything?
Maybe if you wear a sealed suit (so you don't drop hair and dead skin anywhere) and have "anti-grav" boots (so your feet don't touch the floor) and you don't sit in the seats. Then maybe the condition would be satisfied...
But by the assumptions in your argument, "the neighbor" couldn't buy it anyway! So if he doesn't copy it, you're not out $20. So why if he does copy it, you are out $20. Either way, he can't afford to pay for it.
The one thing that bothers me about the damn "losses" that the recording industry reports, what happens to the "profits" that they collect from the surcharge that we consumers pay when we buy CD-Rs, blank audio tapes, or blank VHS tapes?
I don't even use Napster, Gnutella, etc, but what is the difference between a file sharing service and making a mixed tape and giving it to your friend? I've made mixed CDs in the past and gave copies of them to my friends.
Off-topic zone coming up
Of course it's copyright infringement but in my little mind I justify it by
The only different with the filesharing is the magnitude of the mixed-tape scenario. Lots of friends all over the globe. Similar to me standing on a corner in downtown Toronto and giving mixed tapes out to strangers.
Of course artists/labels will lose a sale or two, so did I when I wrote a computer game and sold it as shareware. People registered and ended up giving copies to their friends. I think I would have lost a lot of sales if I started going after people and preaching them that not paying for my work is bad. Those people most likely would not have bought my game anyways.
POKE 53281,1 POKE 53280,0
You ever see how many porn sites pop up unasked when you search for "mp3"?
Your reality is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. - Baron Munchausen
I'm not sure if you're well-read in history, but you may recall a similar case in USA past: African-americans were not given fair treatment in the buses, so they decided to strike the use of buses by using car-pooling. The police were then instructed to arrest any blacks who drove more than 2 per car because they were crippling the transportation revenue. Now, if you were to apply your logic, you'll see how backwards and discriminatory it is, and we should be above such thinking today. If revenue drops due to the public's refusal to pay for services, either due to exorbitant prices or discrimination, we should not persecute the change in behaviour. Otherwise, we stage ourselves on a dangerous path that may lead to 'consumer-slavery', which is already true now in the case of requiring car-insurance and possibly proprietary OS (some school assignments are given in '.exe'), but may expand to even more of our consumer participation. One of Gandhi's fameous marches he led was to a beach to "illegally" collect the mounds of salt naturally produced there, freely, instead of obeying the british and buying salt and other comodities only through them. Aggreably, the faked limited-supply may be appropriate with grain subsidies (we burn some 60% of US crops), but note that the US pays the farmers for their destruction of crops. Perhaps we should be federally subsidized for abstinance from use of file-xfer ? At least it's thought-provoking.
Newsgroup alt.binaries.sounds.mp3. Almost everything will get posted there sooner or later. Sooner if you request it (but in your case, you're not going to know to request it, so you'll just have to wait and watch).
RANT ON:
Where I come from (the UK) people are regularly busted at car boot sales and hedgemonkey markets for selling pirated CD's of music and software.
If I were running a p-2-p file sharing server, I'd bloody well make sure it had warning messages all over it telling people not to put commercial stuff on it and I'd check it regularly (every day) to make sure such warez weren't making their way on to it, and ban the people who put them there.
That's called responsibility. I doubt I'd get arrested. That's the way public FTP sites are run after all, isn't it?
If you condone (even inadvertantly) the infringement of copyright (ie theft) don't be surprised when the law comes down on you like a ton of bricks.
RANT OFF.
Is the mp3 format illegal? no.
What does this program these koreans made do? Let's you search for and transfer files from one machine to another.
Is the inherent ability to search for and transfer files from one computer to another illegal? no.
So what we have here is the riaa in korea persecuting 2 people because some people use their program for illegal purposes, and on the side they're making up figures to justify their case.
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
When is someone going to argue that mp3 is not the same quality as CD. I do not consider copying a mp3 piracy. Copying a whole fucking audio cd or warez might be blatent piracy. But copying a cd of mp3's isn't. I really believe this in my heart, and the day I get busted and thrown in jail for 5 years, will be the day I plan on getting out and taking out the person that threw me in jail, why it's only 7 more years for murder right? That ought to be some nice reverse FUD for those jackals at the RIA. Would they dare continue to threaten freedom at the cost of their lives?
A cd full of mp3's compared to an audio CD, is like comparing commercial fm broadcast to a cb when the skip is running. Anyone who plays music knows this. Try turning up the volume on your mp3 and see how good it sounds when the floor is shaking and your chest is pounding. Try piping it into a 300 watt amp. Plug it into the the stereo mixer and give it 800 watts. Now tell me that sounds as good as an Audio CD. If you say it does then you are not only full of shit, but this is exactly the legal argument that needs to be made.
Another thing that pisses me off is, all that wasted space on the CD. I mean crap, your burning a CD use up the fucking space on the CD. It's like putting 20% AIR (or ICE even) into your softdrinks to make them fill up to the top. It's a rip off. Half the lame posts on this issue are FUD from RIAA and the other bastards that desire to control your mind and lives. They do not believe in the freedom and liberty that your ancestors fought for.
Why do you think there is a DMZ in Korea? It's a continuing battle for freedom, freedom for the south koreans to not be eaten by the canibal north koreans. (they are pretty hungry)
Most of the idiots that run windows are so stupid and lazy that they just don't give a shit about their rights. They don't know who is running their own country and they don't care.
I am all for buying a tape or CD when I like it. If this crap keeps up removing our rights in the US I will permanently vote against the RIAA with my wallet.
Another angle some may want to consider is why is it that we constantly have to fight these bad pieces of legislation. When the beaurocrats just keep pumping the crap out of the bill mills. How about some kind of a sanity check in all this. Like those that threaten our constitution with a poorly submitted bill, be prosecuted as a domestic terrorist. After all that IS what they are, every GI who has ever sworn an oath know this. The problem is accountability. We are a nation with people in it who are not accountable for their actions, are either corrupt, or so stupid they do not know what is happening anymore, they're not creative, they are taught not to think for themselves, along with an over powerful police system, which has it's own corruption. Everything comes from an thought, the USA was created because of an idea and my idea is no more dangerous than those who decided this nation should be indepedent from england. You want to shut the RIAA down? stop buying all CD's and Tapes and Music, and such, start electing people that really represent you, lobby for an anti-domestic-terrorism-accoutability law (can't think of a better description) after all they write the laws, they ought to know them too, including the Constitution, start talking about what is going to happen to those that threaten freedom. start talking anti-fud. Cut that fucking tv power cord and put your tv on a shelf for 10 years. Don't look at me that way. TRY IT.
They actuall succeed in outlawing all p2p stuff? Well then they turn on Server/host stuff witha vengence. How long wil it be untill u have to license your web/ftp/smb/email server, make sure it cant serve "unwanted" information, make sure it has a backdoor into it, just because maybe someone wants to send a illegal file over it. This will never stop because they know that they can limit it, because of the victory they had over napster. The downfall of every current p2p system is that it needs a central point from which u gain access to the p2p network, once a way is figured out to make this part anonymous then p2p will become unstoppable. but untill then................ Ah well, u can flame now.
"If price competition is "theft", why bother with a capitalist economy at all? " No, it isn't a capitalist nor a command nor anything anyone tries to make you believe... It is an pyramidal Oligarchy of the more fortunate, it has been and will allways be so 5% Rich like hell. 15% Rich enough. 80% Piss poor and powerless to change anything. Shareholder Democracy gives the power by the wealthy to the wealthy. The State is in deficit, it is broke and on its knees before the interest of the wealthy. When Louis the 16 didn't please the wealthy of France, they aranged a revolt... They have the keys to all the gates and they sell you the guns to overthrow the system, so they can put a new and better serving one! There is no escape from their clutches, Freedom is a lie, Justice is a lie, the Economy is a lie! We are nothing but slaves !
I tend to make a distinction between "real property" and "intellectual property" whereas you do not, from what I can tell.
I do not believe "intellectual property" is property at all. There is nothing physically there. A song can be converted into a series of mathematical equations and back again. It has no substance.
A movie theater has substance. (Still grey though, because you're watching a movie).
Meat has substance. Period. You take it... then it's GONE. It isn't there anymore.
When you "take" an mp3 from a record company, they still have the song. You haven't taken anything from them.
Also, my point about giving artists to money who need it is not the actual point. It's not what I meant to say. What I should've said was:
Give money to artists who deserve it, whether they're already rich or not. Manufactured money-machine pop music is only there for the purpose of taking your money, and I have no problem ethically with not paying for that.
Bands that do not need my money, but still deserve it are:
The Who
The (surviving) Grateful Dead
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and/or Neil Young
"Artists" who do not deserve my money are:
Britney Spears
The Backstreet Boys
Sean "Puffy" Combs
Will Smith (although I like his acting)
and these are people I have no ethical problem trading mp3's of occasionally.
Hong Kong is another country about a thousand miles from Korea. Why don't you just compare Canada and Mexico if you're so culturally-cluessly inclined.
for you:
troll = on
smooches! xoxoxoxoxoxox
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
right then Im gonna play guitar cos I once practiced with a tennis racket. I need a bass, drums, etc. long hair not required
we record some songs, then ftp the mps onto every file server going and then sue the lot, Im not a greedy man, 150 million is too much, say 10 million each?
in court...why didn't we sell a single copy? not because we have no talented (doesn't stop the backstreet boys) but because of the internet pirates, retire to hot conutry and life workng on apache 2.00000001 on a laptop on the beech.
any takers?
Do Unto Others As You Would Have Others Do Unto You - ONLY HARDER!
Don't exagerate buddy :-) Finding the integral version of all the scientology "secrets" that some really dumb rich people pay US$1,000,000+ to read is also quite an experience (what a laugh !)
That's a funny statement. You imply, probably without meaning to, that the people who wrote the laws are in the industry. But it's true. Copyright is not a natural property right. It has to be artificially created and enforced.
Tape-trading went on for years without people being arrested and thrown in prison for manufacturing cassette tapes. Almost certainly because first of all the cassete tape was a "product," and there was a way for the industry to extract their supposedly "lost" profits from blank media. And almost certainly because there was no way to track how many times a .60c cassette tape was used to copy the latest Duran Duran hit (or whatever).
So now we have a publicly visible excrescence of this phenomenon, and now people are seeing how much their product is worth. How many people are willing to actually pay for what they can easily copy from a friend.
The fact that everybody does it doesn't magically make it legal, proper, or morally justifyable in any context.
The value of what you put in the market is what people are willing to pay for it. If that's $0, you don't have a business model. Clearly people are willing to pay for a physical copy of a CD to put in their car, for the lyrics sheet to read and bip along to, for the pictures of the artists (if any). But the actual music is easily obtained, and it's worth $0. It only looks like theft because laws have been written to ensure this business model. But a law which is trivially violated and impossible to trace or enforce makes no sense.
The record industry is suing the Yang brothers because they're available to sue. They provide a tangible target for their so-called "loss." Why doesn't the record industry try to sue the millions of "pirates" out in the marketplace? They're the ones who actually violated the law, by taking that which they did not "own." Right?
Of course, then the recording industry would probably end up facing a massive consumer revolt, a class action lawsuit from their millions of defendants, and of course the impossibility of getting all those people in the courtroom at one time to hear the charges against them.
It may be that there is simply no market value for a stream of bits, whether that stream is music, video, text, or the recorded sounds of me farting in the shower. It may be that after all this, the record companies are still making money, and ought to be happy that they can. I still buy CD's. Plenty of other people do.
You don't see big acts going out of business because they can't sell enough CD's. N'Sync played in my town just a few weeks ago. I don't recall seeing them out on the corner panhandling before the gig. You don't see record company executives selling their children for scientific experiments. Obviously, they are still selling their product. They just think they're supposed to be selling more.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
Yes, but that 8.99 to a south korean is probably exactly the equivalent of 16.99 (or whatever it is nowadays) to you and I.
Aww, you lost all that karma you didn't earn in the first place. Poor you.
No, that 'troll' has a point; you couldn't use the word 'cognitive dissonance' in the right context even if your life depended on it. But you can't possibly let yourself admit this fact; now *that* is what I call...
So. This one example of casual abuse is clearly indicative that everyone is pirating CD's at an astonishing rate. It's amazing that the record companies aren't spilling employees into the street, looting their corporate assets for the last dime, and closing up shop.
One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
The record industry's absurd claims about how much money is being lost to piracy is just as ridiculous as /. posters who justify their theft with "Well I wouldn't have bought it anyway."
So if you're on /., you are automatically disqualified from being someone who "wouldn't have bought it anyway"? Because unless some percentage of those 300 people who download a song "wouldn't have bought it anyway", the record industry's claims ARE valid.
"A *person* is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it."
- 'K' in Men in Black.
One time while portscanning for port 80 (out of boredom, not for any malicious purpose) on my former dorm's subnet I came across a directory that the individual probably didn't want to have shared: the one containing the history file for his browser.
His webpage portrayed him as a nice, churchgoing young man. But some of those URLs would suggest otherwise...
"But I was sure www.girlongirl was a scripture quote site!"
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
Let's do a little editing and see what happens...
Justifying imprisonment on trumped up charges by saying "Well, the RIAA is still making $500 million dollars less than they could have because of peer to peer file sharing!" is more absolute bullshit.
I can't speak for everyone else but In the last year I have purchased exactly the same number of CD's that I would have had P2P filesharing not been available. The RIAA or RIAK or whoever claiming that they've lost revenue because of filesharing is bullshit. I'll say it again: Based of my spending habits, there is no more revenue for them...no more! Do I have to whack them (and all the other "sharing is stealing" whiners) in the head with a stick to make them understand that? The best that they could possibly hope for is that their potential for increased revenue is unquantifiable! Quit trying to sell me this BS line that "we lost x millions because of Napster etc..."! That can't possibly be known. I say the number should be zero (the same as their IQ's).
You're using her as bait, Master!
It's funny that the government invest more efforts into catching college students who created a P2P Program than into catching virus writers and crackers.
So capitalism and communism failed miserably, what next?
Tobacco companies have been held liable for those who die as a result of smoking, because they sell a "dangerous" product. Wouldn't surprise me if some government sues a gun manufacturer because their product was used in a crime. =P
No, that's not what they're claiming. The 1999 $29.2 million figure obviously reflects the same supposed 80% loss of sales to piracy. In other words they calculate, pro rata, that total sales in 1999 would have been $143 million if it weren't for piracy.
I agree that the figures are bullshit, but swinging at straw men doesn't do anything for our credibility. It's obvious that the elimination of file-trading wouldn't translate into a 400% jump in sales, but the intellectual property situation in Korea is very different from that in the U.S. When I was there not long ago, pirated software could be purchased over-the-counter, and it's not at all difficult to believe that there are four ripped copies of a song extant for every copy sold legally.
Is it stealing for a public library to make books, cds, and videos available for public use at no charge? Is it stealing for me to buy a magazine and put it in my waiting room so hundreds of people read it without paying for it? Is it stealing for me to play a CD in my backyard so people who didn't pay for it can hear it? Is it stealing to record a song off the radio?
There are many things that can be interpreted as "copyright infringement," many of which nobody thinks twice about. And there is a major difference between possibly depriving someone of potential revenue based on copyright, and stealing something from them.
AC's cheerfully ignored
Lets pick that one apart for fun....
The record industry is going after these people that open up new channels of information.
Incorrect. The RIAA is going after people who are violating their copyrights, and their actions are governed under the same set of laws that govern our copyrights. Speaking as someone who, yes, has asserted copyright on a number of things, this is a very important sticking point.
The problem with this is that there is plenty of legal material being transferred as well.
Doesn't matter. A crime is being comitted. Community A is being ripped off knowingly and willfully by Community B, and that's illegal There really isn't any way of dancing around it.
One of my good friends writes and plays music in his own band, and if it weren't for mp3s there would be little chance of their work being distributed.
Also false. There are plenty of ways of getting the word out about your band that have absolutely nothing to do with the internet, let alone MP3 trading. Careers have been made with a handful of flyers and a staple gun, or selling casettes out of the back of your car, both of which are free and legal. Your friend's band chose a pretty poor method of "getting the word out" if they chose Napster, IMHO.
Bowie J. Poag
You keep saying this word... I do not think it means what you think it means.
Hammer of Truth
And people HAVE been arguing that one is less morally offensive than the other for as long as copyright laws have existed in this country. You clearly read
Information has the unique property that you *can* copy it without "destroying" the original. Why not harness this property, rather than make it look like a limited good?
The purpose of an economy is to distribute a limited good fairly and equitably as possible. Information is NOT a limited material resource. At worst, it is a common good (in the economic infrastructure sense), and at best it is a completely unlimited resource. In both cases, it has zero mariginal cost.
In short, the following is a valid *opinion*: "Copying information is not as morally offensive than stealing my physical property, or depriving me of my freedoms."
You may argue that this opinion is false, but you certainly can't tell me it is NOT a topic for debate.
Are you unaware that our founding fathers debated this topic as well?
Actually, they were also held liable for lying aboot the effects of nicotine, but the government should be held equally responsible for not ensuring that EVERYTHING was known aboot the product before it went to sale on a mass market. Even considering the governments blunder, tobacco companies still lied (and continue to lie) aboot their product.
I still have a problem when people try to cite facts like these as being evidence that pirated music improves sales. Now, throw out of your mmind all of teh number fudging and erroneously reported numerical values. The fact is that their sales increased from 1999-2000. But did this happen despite the piracy, or in spite of? In other words, who here can say how much their sals should have changed without the piracy? Would the lack of piracy have meant more sales jthus increasing their improvement? Or would the lack of piracy have meant less exposure so people would buy less new music thus having a neagtive impact on their potential sales growth.
You can't simply look at one tiny piece of data and say "uh yup, folks, lookie thar... that thar proves I should steal music."
Don't get me wrong, I'm in favor of sharing music (especially from the standpoint that current copyright terms are unconstitutional and harming the public domain). But if you're going to complain about it, don't use fuzzy math. Leave that to the politicians.
let's pray these guys don't get busted by the courts. if they do, then the riaa over here will have an excuse to go after the people who created all the gnutella clones. Yes, yes, you say no big deal now, since you still have your software, but what about when software we use will be declared illegal? It will be a sad, sad day when software creators can be held accountable for other people using their programs illegally.
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
Really, "fair use" is the operative word here. Just because the share-with-a-friend pendulem has swung in favor of the public does not mean that the public is ripping off over-stuffed industry coffers. I share with my gnutella friends. I share with my e-mail friends. I share by passing a disc.
I Share! And, always will.
Well, it's really because they can't, not because they didn't.
Accounting tracks what happened, what is happening, and what probably will happen (reserves for future events). Anyone that tries to put sales lost due to event X in their statements will get laughed out by any auditor. Why - because it doesn't matter to a snapshot of the financial health of the company.
These statements are made to make the execs feel better and to establish a starting point for damages in a lawsuit. Making such statements to investors is usually a bad idea - smart investors look at that as whining. They don't want complaints or excuses, just results.
"But we decide which is right, and which is an illusion"
I think you're right on about people not considering the morals of their actions when dealing with IP issues. There certainly is a difference. If I download some random MP3, listen to it once and then delete it, I don't lose any sleep over it. It doesn't make me feel like a bad person. If I download an MP3 of a song that I like and keep it on my computer to listen to, I still don't feel like I should be repenting for my sins. But if I was downloading CDs of my favorite artists because I'd rather use that money for something else, I'd find that wrong. Seems to me that it's a bit of a slap in the face to an artist that I like not to pay them for their work. Makes you wonder what kind of "fans" these people really are.
The reason there is no moral wrong associated with copying intellectual property is because you never take something away from someone else. They have not lost anything - so how could you have "stolen" something from them?
I'd argue that you have taken something from somebody else (the artist, in the case of MP3 piracy): rightful compensation. How many people consider sneaking into a (not sold-out) movie to not be morally wrong? What about the grocery store that doesn't sell all of its meat before the expiration date. Is taking that steak without paying OK because they would have just thrown it out anyway?
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
And sometimes people's cookies.txt. (I found one with Amazon one-click shopping once! ;)
:-)
Yeah, that might be useful if you could convince UPS to deliver a package to underneath a park bench or something... otherwise, you will be leaving a rather obvious trail.
No, but it is arguably illegal to have a photocopy machine in the same building since it is a 'copyright circumvention' device.
This is another case of the DMCA going global. These guys didn't mean to harm anyone.
The Korean RIAA? What?
Stealing music is bad, but the RIAA has the wrong revenue model. We all know most of the Artists don't get what they deserve.
WTO + WIPO = DMCA?
http://www.anti-dmca.org
FBI arresting programmers?
http://www.freesklyarov.org
I buy CD's, but fewer and fewer new ones all the time. Lots of good music a couple years ago, now so much of it is just manufactured pop groups that suck.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I sometimes wonder why moderators like comments like this one.
This is not a matter of opinion; it is a simple fact that the injustices the parent comment is referring to is not
"making copied cd's illegal"
it's "arresting people for writing software".
The fact is that these guys were not arrested for copying cd's illegally. They were arrested for writing a program that people CAN use to pirate music. I can use FTP, IRC, or even Apache and a web browser to do this.
The exploding point for the issue is when people who write web servers and ftp servers are legally responsible for what people use them for - and the authors of Apache are arrested for "sharing illegal content".
your files are belong to Korea
"You'd be a fool to buy CDs when you can get songs on the Internet for free," said 17-year-old Lee Yong-suk...
What bothers me is that people like Mr. Yong-suk don't seem to understand that what they are doing is wrong. Often it's justified by talking about the evils of Big Business. The record companies suck, if you ask me. They screw over the little guy in an attempt to make a buck (times 10^6) off of consumers. It's exploitative. But so are other corporations (and individuals, for that matter). But that doesn't give us free reign to break the law.
Piracy is going to happen. If you want to take what's not yours, go for it. Use whatever excuse you want. But don't call someone a fool for doing the right thing.
Note: this is addressed more at the individual quoted in the article than at the poster
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
In my experience the downloading of MP3's have served to promote artists, not to deprive them. This can also hold true when it comes to software. I am a professional designer who uses photoshop and the like at work, yet as a student I used warez versions simply because I could not afford the price of the software. Later, I land myself a job and ask the boss to buy those same packages for me to use professionally. Theft or promotion? If it wasn't for warez not a single designer would have enough experience to land their first job!
Now I don't mean to get off on a rant, but...
Someone remind me how the RIAA can charge $15 per CD, get $14 of that, and say that they aren't getting enough money? What about the artists, man?! I'd hope that they deserve something. I mean, god forbid that the RIAA would ever have to lose any of their precious, precious money. What are they even managing to spend it on that they need it so badly? That'd be an interesting story: Where The Money Goes: A VH1 Exclusive Look At The Lives Of Record Company Executives.
The most pathetic thing is they don't realize that by trying to squeeze every last dime out of the market they're pissing more and more people off and, in effect, endorsing the P2P transferring.
While I think the RIAA should crash'n'burn, at the same time, some things I agree with them on. Downloading entire albums should not happen (support artists!), but unfortunately human instincts are to Cheat, to Lie, and to Steal (and the artists don't get much, anyway). I mean, can anyone honestly say that they haven't ever been tempted to cheat on a test, or that they haven't ever lied to get out of something, or ever wanted to steal something so they wouldn't have to pay outrageous prices (see: Adobe, heh). No, I didn't think so.
I seem to have gotten a bit off track. I think that someone (or some people) should start a new music union. Fuck if I know how it'd manage to grow, but I think that if there was something like that that would give more money to the artists, charge less for CDs, and, most importantly, not combat P2P sharing but support it, the world would be a better place.
"Don't you hate pants?
I hope he tells us to burn our pants."
[insert witty comment here]
Try http://www.soribada.com if you want to see the site mentioned int he article.
I'm not disagreeing that there's a chance this program hurt record sales to some degree. However, I see no reason to believe that sales would have been quintupled without the presence of this program. At the very least, this would likely have been accompanied with a corresponding increase in CD player sales, for instance...
It's like asking everyone who's not here to raise their hands (sure, some original jokers will raise their hands, or people with an attention span of the last three words...) If you could put a meter on file sharing and count the number of MP3's whizzing through the wires, would it ever have translated into actual sales? Perhaps some, but very hard to prove. As far as I've ever gone with MP3's is to listen to a couple and go back to making tapes of my own CD's to listen to later. (Yeah, I'll get a CD rom burner and a player for the truck, but that's still a ways down the road, as if I'll ever have time to do stuff like that!) Worst case is to charge someone in court with stealing and then not being able to back it up with actual figures.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
It's not your vocabulary. It's your 'cognitive' abilities we're making fun of. That you can't tell the difference is telling, in and of itself.
So, a Netscape user. Try that in IE, if you don't believe me. Actually, I see this as a bug, not a feature.
Do they actuually report this kind of loss on their finincial statements? I'm not sure what it's like in Korea, but I remember being really pissed off here (the US) when companies were claiming losses in the hundereds of millions over what Kevin Mitnick did, and then turning around and telling their shareholders that things were never better.
Does anyone know the laws behind this kind of thing? (either US or Korea)
Slashdot, the best source of legal information on the net!
As opposed to bluediculous or greendiculous.
It's ridiculous, besides, if the elected officials weren't all bought and paid for already we wouldn't have the DMCA, would we?
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Including or excluding the "Democratic People's Republic" of Korea?
..Although one might argue that a law that cannot be enforced consistantly (i.e, you're only punished if you somehow "stand out" from all the other violators) needs to be refined or clarified somewhat.
What I really don't understand about all this is that the persons arrested were running a peer-to-peer filesharing service. Now, the peer-to-peer paradigm of filesharing really shouldn't be considered intrinsically illegal (the sorry case of napster comes to mind, but then so does that of gnutella). Should the maintainer of the service be punished, or the individuals using the service for illegal activity?
If someone runs someone down in a car, do we sue the person who built the road in the first place?
Who would be left to build new roads? Who would be foolish enough to build one? More importantly, who would walk down the street at all, knowing that there are no repercussions for vehicular manslaughter?
Peer to peer filesharing -can- be legal and -can- coincide with fair use provisions. When it dosent, the lazy governments just attack the target that's easiest to find, even if it's the -wrong one-, just so the recording industry can feel like all their bribe money is being put to good use.
What's next? Is someone going to be monitoring my AIM file transfers to make sure i'm not sending copyrighted material to my friends? After all, to be consistant, you would have to sue AOL for making such copyright infringement possible, right? Of course, not all companies (napster) have enough money to alter legal reality (AOL/TW)
And if someone tried to buy content from you, would ever forget to ship the CD? Or would that be theft?
Not that that would ever happen, Bowie... No, I suspect it's just slipped your mind (despite the fact that I dropped by IRC to bug you about it... twice).
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
Get your facts straight.
:)
You've been living in a hole or something.
Russia has not been communist in over 10 years.
They've been a "democracy" since then, just like us. I'll go on my "we are not a democracy, but a fucked-up republic" rant another time.
There is no way this figure would hold up under close scrutiny. Many stable businesses consider annual sales growth of 10% to be solid. This sort of thing is found in the annual reports for companies. I would really, really like to get my hands on the sales forecasts in the annual reports for companies in the Recording Industry Association of Korea (translated into English of course). It is highly unlikely that they actually predicted this sort of phenomenal growth in their sales forecasts. More likely, they have made up this figure out of thin air based on the number of files transferred.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Theft is something that after committed succesfully, leaves the original owner of the subject without it. Copying is not theft. It may be fraud (as in using false money or selling fake paintings) but unless you're giving them onward for others to use as they would use the original, it's not even fraud.
Copy as you will but don't pass it if you want to stay lawful, k?
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
That brings me right to my realization that most of my opinions only work in theory and not in practice.
:)
I think you're completely right - given the opportunity to police themselves, consumers will probably do what is easiest. That is, never pay for anything.
And that is the sad state that humanity, but especially focusing on the American consumer, is in today.
It's been nice talking to you... very insightful. Somebody should mod up our entire discussion.
everything is sooo cheap in S. Korea anyways... 8.99 for a cd *sheesh*!
2. Placing music on media that cannot played (like on a CD-ROM drive) without warning the purchasers is bad.
3. Point-to-point transfer of commercial music to combat otherwise inability to play above media currently owned is good and well within the moral rights of the f**ked consumer (even better in lossless format).
4. Regardless of imaginary losses to piracy (not necessarily to real ones, which are not always avoidable), the ability to sample music in lossy formats to enable the consumer to effectively direct their dollars towards satisfactory music is good, often even to the evil beings trying to destroy the sharing networks.
5. The warped notion that purchasers should be forced to pay full price for polluted (watermarked) audio is bad.
6. The next time I see (insert overexposed crap-'musician'), I want to see (said musician) on one of those flaming crosses in the background of a Madonna video.
Someone set us up the bomb, so shine we are!
In a word, hypocrisy. While I can't cite specific examples from memory, his homepage suggested an image of a wholesome nature that's consistent with what the Baptist denomination believes to be good. In short, he made an effort (by going to church, having religious items on his webpage, etc.) to appear one way while behaving in another. I could care less what webpages he goes to, but I'll lambast someone who makes an effort to maintain an image (and hold others to that standard) while behaving differently.
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
But since owning handguns has been made illegal in the UK the number of gun related (violent) crimes has increased. Banning guns didn't work...
Damn they have x-rays in SF? I just came back through chicago and no x-rays. I saved my self several hundred dollars though by getting the DC games in HK
I tend to make a distinction between "real property" and "intellectual property" whereas you do not, from what I can tell.
I think we've reached our fundamental difference. While I do make a distinction between physical property and intellectual property, I do not think that distinction justifies taking something without compensating the owner.
I do not believe "intellectual property" is property at all. There is nothing physically there. A song can be converted into a series of mathematical equations and back again. It has no substance.
Am I correct in assuming that you feel the same about movies, books, etc.?
A movie theater has substance. (Still grey though, because you're watching a movie).
But in my admittedly oversimplified example, you're just (not) paying for the right to use that good/service. This is of course assuming that you aren't costing the owner anything by watching the movie (be it theater depreciation or a seat that he would have sold to somebody else had you not been there). Just like with the MP3 you're getting a good/service without paying, and although you aren't costing the owner anything, you're depriving them of what you would have paid. Ok, so there's the point about what if you wouldn't have paid. That's a very grey area to me. Do you still have the right to receive the good/service even if you wouldn't have paid? I don't think so. From our discussions I think that you might feel differently.
Meat has substance. Period. You take it... then it's GONE. It isn't there anymore.
I still think you're adding complications to my simplified examples, like with the movie theater above. You aren't costing the grocery store anything because the food would be wasted. What you're doing is depriving them of potential income. You're getting the benefit without paying a dime.
Manufactured money-machine pop music is only there for the purpose of taking your money, and I have no problem ethically with not paying for that.
In practice neither do I. In theory I do have a problem with it. It's borderline hypocrisy (maybe not so borderline), but stealing from the devil is still stealing. Although that doesn't mean I'll never do it.
Bands that do not need my money, but still deserve it are: (snip)
We have more in common in musical taste than we do in IP opinion.
...and these are people I have no ethical problem trading mp3's of occasionally.
So where does one draw the line? If we expect consumers to police themselves, I fear the market for music, movies, books, and other types of IP would collapse. Reminds of of when Lisa drags Homer to the museum with the whole "suggested donation" fiasco. "Good luck lady, you're gonna need it!"
-- "Complacency is a far more dangerous attitude than outrage." -Naomi Littlebear
When asked to comment on their arrest, and their chances for eventual acquital, the koreans responded:
"Huk! ^_^"
Gleim Publications. I sent you an email a while ago. Sorry for never replying -- the product was released (sans tiles) a few days later, so it became a moot point, and things have been pretty hectic with new projects since.
No, it's that you either A)Have an invalid point or B)Have the communications skills of a gnat. Care to explain *who* is experiencing cognitive dissonance, and what role a national holiday plays in all of this? No? Then bend over, biatch, and prepare to receive.
Valid point, but what other metric would you suggest to measure their loss (and I think you would agree, there has been *some* loss along the way.
30% would have bought if they didn't have pirate copies?
45%?
It's not easy to say (I'd venture impossible), and since it's in their interest to hype up their claims, the RIAK & co haven't bothered to establish a rational sounding amount.
His webpage portrayed him as a nice, churchgoing young man.
Sorry to troll, but why can't such a person visit www.girlongirl? Just cause I am nice and go to church doesn't mean anything about my porn viewing habits. And viewing porn has nothing to do with whether or not I go to church. Some of you people are so repressed.
~Mike
A big enough hammer fixes *anything*
This seems to be a popular saying on internet weblogs. Under almost every type of government there is a supposed way were the ruled can influence the ruling classes, that does not mean it is effective. Under a monarchist system you could ask for a hearing with a king but that does not mean he has to follow your advice or even see. Under democracy we could write to a congressman or other politician but that does not mean he will follow your advice.
If guns are outlawed, only the outlaws will have guns. Where does that leave us? You can't just outlaw them from existance. Better to let everyone (not literally - children/people who can't be responsible for themselves and known murderers probably shouldn't be legally allowed to have them, for example) have em - that way the outlaws can be afraid of being shot back at, instead of having no fear at all.
Well, most suits like that are called frivilous, hence the nature, make outrageous statements, that will mark the 'offending' side as automatically guilty - in eyes of the public that is. Read Mitnick case, he was thrown into jail, for corporate losses, by public companies. I sure as hell would like to see the losses show up in the end of the term reports to investors. I bet these losses will not show on the credibility of the company or industry as a whole. :wq
Before recent changes in copyright law, copyright infringement was not a criminal offense, it was a civil matter. You could be sued for copyright infringement, but you could not be arrested, tried and put in prison.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
haha! this is fun! hey trolls! come make fun of my vocabulary! two posts so far, don't let me down...
here i'll use another big word: whogivesashit
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Its even worse when a company says it lost X amount of dollars due to piracy this last year, but do they tell their stockholders that they lost X amount of dollars that year.. No they dont, because they didn't..
It is a growing trend to equate any form of creativity or invention with art. Most of the musicians/bands we're talking about here are ENTERTAINERS, not ARTISTS. Allow me to draw a meaningful distinction.
Artists do their work solely out of love of what they do, without the intention of financial or other forms of personal gain. I consider anyone who freely shares their creativity, be it a painting, a song, or a computer application, an artist.
Entertainers, on the other hand, also enjoy what they do, but do so for personal gain. Unfortunately, the music industry is packed with mediocre entertainers, and sorely lacks true artists, and this has become somewhat of a status quo.
The advent of music-sharing applications threatens that status quo, benefitting artists by providing them with a new means of distributing thier work, and hurting entertainers (and consequently thier record p1mps) by cutting into their cash flows.
The recording industry sees this shift in power as a threat, because there is no money to be made from true artists.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
Heck, without file sharing, sales of CDs might have gone up even more, because of all the people buying albums and listening to them only once because they hated them. A dissatisfied customer is still a customer who paid them money. ;-)
Well, I wouldn't mind the Apache lead developers being jailed, so long as they snag the developers of IIS too..
We'll have Microsoft's high paid lawyers defending Apache, in a way..
.sig: Now legally binding!
The GDP for South Korea is $13,300 (according to the CIA World Factbook) compared to $33,900 in the US.
So is it any wonder then that such countries have more piracy? Relative to their wages, Koreans are paying 2 or 3 times as much for their music, videos and software. How many people in the US would pay $50 for a music CD or $100 for a DVD?
And South Korea is a relatively rich country. The GDP in places like Thailand, Indonesia or Vietnam is less than a tenth of the US. Imagine paying $400 for a computer game or $2500 for Windows XP.
No one in the right mind would, which is why piracy is so rife. If the music, video and software companies had any brains they would lower the cost of their products so that people could actually afford them.
I made more than I did last year too, and if you tried to steal from me, i'd kick your ass..
I'm glad I stopped the company I work for from simply stealing a few Propaganda tiles as backgrounds in our software just because "it's only wallpaper files".
Looking through your User info, you seem to have a history of nit-picking stupid fights about nothing. This will continue as long as you make thoughtless statements that you admittedly wish to retract, redefine language after the fact and going out of your way to tell people they're wrong based on your new made-up language. Grow up.
Some bands (Dave Matthews Band and Metallica come to mind immediately) do not discourage the taping of concerts (that said, some venues, most of which are owned in one way or another by some form of government discourage it.)
I knew that DMB is taper-friendly, but I didn't know that Metallica is taper-friendly. If that is true, then it sheds a different light on their anti-Napster outburst. My own personal ethic requires that I either buy the official releases of a taper-friendly band, or forgo listening to the music.
I am curious about the last part of your statement. Are you suggesting that governments somehow discourage taping of live music, even if the musicans allow it? Do you have some evidence of this, or could you provide examples? Interesting.
When you go to a concert, you're not really obtaining the use of IP. Each concert is different than others, especially if you're going to a concert by a great live-entertainer (changes to songs, jam sessions, etc.), but even if you're not, then there is the atmosphere, the collective experience of being with n other people who have an interest in the same music.
Good point on the "great live-entertainer". What I am calling the etree model works best for this type of musician, and probably encourages certain musical genres over others. Jam-rock, jazz, bluegrass, and free-rhyming rap music are all highly improvisational: each concert is unique, so there is greater incentive for the fan to attend live performances whenever possible, and a greater motivation to collect and trade recordings of each performance that cannot be attended. Even classical music is said to have been very improvisational in its original form, and has only ossified through repetition over a long period of time.
I agree that the collective experience is definitely part of the attraction. When engaged in an evolution vs. creationism "barroom debate" years ago, the creationist posed the question, "Oh yeah, so then explain why we humans like music?". I was taken aback, and I am afraid I let Sir Charles down that night. I pondered this question for quite a while, and (without devolving into a really long off-topic essay) realized the answer probably lies in the survival advantage obtained in encouraging bonding between members of the tribe, and the resultant selection pressure placed on the development of a superior "musical organ", similar to Chomsky's postulated language organ. That is why I believe we still find the collective musical experience so compelling.
Which brings me back to my point: the "superstar and nothing else" model, pushed on us by the recording industry and the rapidly conglomerating broadcast radio industry, has the effect of severely restricting our opportunity to partake in this compelling experience of enjoying live music. Small club venues have been under pressure for years, slowly dying off under pressure of police forces determined to close "drug dens" and "rave clubs", and zoned out of existence by the well-organized groups of religious zealots. The current model of music distribution greatly accelerates this destruction. When I was younger, I remember many concerts being held in local parks, on the county fairgrounds, in the city square, out on the beach, and in other public places. We had a great local band that would perform across the street from my childhood home, playing in their garage for large street parties. These types of events are far less frequent now, in my observation. Ask any local musician how easy it is to make a living playing music.
Using the file-sharing capabilities of the internet, we can bring the whole rotten system down, and replace it with one that will encourage more live performances, will support more musicians with a reasonable standard of living, and, in general, benefit everyone except the currently powerful recording and broadcast industries (and perhaps a handful of mostly undeserving "superstars"). Change may be slow, but I think it is inevitable, and it can't happen soon enough for me.
Well, on slashdot, where moderation points bear an inverse exponential relationship to posting order, and where text blurbs are the equivalent of TV sound bites, I am sure I must be the last one viewing this topic, but if you happen to read this, thank you for your thought-provoking reply.
Under your system, nothing will ever become a product. We cannot ensure that 'EVERYTHING' was known 'aboot' products before they go on sale. It sounds like a nice concept, to protect the population, but in practice, it's never been done and it never will. It's unreasonable. Governments lie (and continue to lie), and your faith in them to save us from ourselves is disturbing. Of course they need to be there and provide some regulation, but just try and find one product that even could be tested to ensure everything was known about it. We'd go broke funnelling all our money into reasearch for that one product.
Ah, so you *couldn't* answer my questions. Just as I suspected.
OK, so let me get this straight, total sales are 31 million. But they are claiming that they lost 150 million in sales due to this program? I've got to be missing something...
Note that the Recording Industry Association of Korea reports local companies lost $154 million in sales in 2000 due to use of the program, even though sales increased to $31.5 million in total sales in 2000 from $29.2 million in 1999.
So they're claiming that they were expecting $185.5 million in sales in 2000? A 535% increase over the previous year? And I thought the RIAA was stupid...
Stop this already! File sharing should not be illegal! At least not the technology allowing it! File sharing is SO MUCH MORE than just porn and copyrighted mp3s!
Find nice cocktail recipes @ www.spitzy.net
Woohoo! did I get first post??
-- I Am Not A Terrorist.
While being tossed in jail is a little excessive for this kind of crime, should it surprise anyone that law breakers are liable to be punished?
Even Gandhi accepted being thrown into jail for his crimes.
"Soribada is probably affecting our business, but there is no concrete evidence," said Cho Jin-bae, who handles online marketing at the Seoul office of the EMI record label. How well does this hold up in court? They're "probably" affecting our business???
paul
I'm sure south... If this was north, I'm sure the regime there would've executed them... Either that or commend them, and download all their warez ;)
"Soribada is probably affecting our business, but there is no concrete evidence," said Cho Jin-bae, who handles online marketing at the Seoul office of the EMI record label. For an industry that claims to be losing to piracy 5 times more money than it takes in, all from one source, the lack of concrete evidence suprises me. Or maybe the South Korean RIAA wannabees are even more mathematically challenged than their American counterparts. Frankly, I'm suprised they can crank in $30 million or so a year, what with 2 college kids in their way.
South Korea. Read the article, numbnuts.
The world will never know.... Its like saying if Slashdot did not exist our IQ would be higher. But we won't know will we? In the case of the RIAA, if I were to "download" MP3s, the RIAA thinks that I would've bought the CD otherwise... Well, SHYEAH right... If not for the MP3, I would just not bother with the damn CD, cause we all know only one song is any good. I won't buy the CD Single, cause god knows I have too many CD's floating around everywhere. I probably would just borrow the stupid thing from a friend, or just copy it down from the radio, MTV, VH-1, or some other means. Most of the MP3s that get collected, I'm sure get collected because they were there, and probably convenien... Hell, I've actually boughten a few CD's becuase I like the MP3 so much. If it wasn't for the MP3 I probably wouldn't even know about the song.... So much for their logic...
Quoted from the article:
:)
"We wanted South Korea to have its own Napster."
Sorry buddy, You need a sexy logo like Napster's first
Join the TWIT army now!
The fact that sales increased does not mean that sales weren't hurt by the file swapping program.
However, the idea that industry lost $145 M in profit, when their total revenue last year was only $29 M last year... Well, I really hope that someone meant "billion" instead of "million" there.
Otherwise, that is one of the most obviously bogus claims I've seen all year.
Quoting from reply:
i had 183 confirmed kills in korea and i'm proud of every one of themOh, you're running the script which shuts down Code Red / IIS-infected machines, huh? Sounds like fun. Judging from my log files, the Koreans don't seem to be really keen on patching their servers.
Quoting from article:
Note that the Recording Industry Association of Korea reports local companies lost $154 million in sales in 2000 due to use of the program, even though sales increased to $31.5 million in total sales in 2000 from $29.2 million in 1999.To paraphrase the ever-illustrious American National Drinkin' Buddy, George Dubya Bush, that sounds like some fuzzy math.
Ever have someone give you a CD that you'd have never bought, and you threw out or gave away because you didn't want it occupying the real estate on your CD rack?
Then, there's music that you keep for the sole purpose of mockery. Emimem. Madonna singing American Pie. Name your boy-band or rap "artist" du jour.
Why can't the RIAA, etc. understand that the MP3 simply liberates music that they'd have *never* sold anyway? Of course, they'll count every file transferred as another dollar/yen/peso/lira/mark/franc/whatever lost, even when it probably falls into either one of the above categories or is a duplicate download to find a specific version of a song.
I've boycotted all forms of purchased music until the recording industries start to recognize that this isn't the end, it's the beginning. And that Napster was only the first.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
"Soribada is probably affecting our business, but there is no concrete evidence," said Cho Jin-bae, who handles online marketing at the Seoul office of the EMI record label.
You bet your ass there's no concrete evidence. But I bet those poor bastards will end up paying fines (if not going directly to jail) anyway. I mean, surely a determined and *ahem* well-greased justice system won't be deterred by a measly detail like, you know, absolute lack of concrete evidence... Sad.
"nearly half of South Korea's 46 million people access the Internet"
Thats impressive I say, a lot more impressive then two guys making a file sharing service that just "probably" affects CD sales.
paul
that people continue to be amazed at the stupidity of big business. I'd have thought that countless hours of reading /. would have drilled that home already.
You're forgetting the movies.
;)
And the occasional app or game.
And sometimes people's cookies.txt. (I found one with Amazon one-click shopping once!
Hey, I think we might be able to make a case for the legality of downloading someone else's cookies.txt! Score one for p2p!
Fascism knows no borders and no political affiliation. Communism and capitalism, it makes no difference. We are all a bunch of slaves wherever we go.
Who's going to protect the people when their liberties are being trampled by the very governments that are entrusted to protect them? Governments have turned into police states that continually spy on their own people. They are armed to the teeth and they won't give up their power easily. First they lie to you and tell you that you are living in the land of the free, then they disarm you, and then they enslave you without you even noticing that you're a slave. Anybody who thought that the internet would stay free and anonymous for long was just dreaming.
Who are we gonna call? Ghostbusters? I am afraid we're all shit out of luck.
Happy Liberation Day, every one!!
:-))
(Well, it's August 15th in my time zone anyways...
War? Is that what capitalists that behave this way want? I mean, goddamnit. I'm a pacifist, but I'm also a realist. How many people can you harrass, deceive, and imprison before someone blows their fucking lid and torches a corporate office? In some countries, there are already riots inspired by this sort of abuse. I remember reading about a McDonald's being vandalized, and the golden arches becoming a hood ornament on someone's car. THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR WAS STARTED OVER LESS. Jesus Christ. This bulllshit is never going to end. The only solution is to make money obsolete.
I don't know about Korea, but there was some serious piracy going on in Hong Kong when I went there just last week. Supposedly it's all moved to Mainland China, but at Mong Kok there are whole buildings full of pirated software, games, and movies. I got over 80 anime vcd's of tv shows and they almost busted me at SF customs. Their customs x-ray could detect the cd's in my bag.
Enough is enough.
You cannot justify theft in this country, or any country, by saying "Well, the owner who I stole from is still making millions of dollars!!". Trading MP3s constitutes copyright infringement, plain and simple. It is illegal. If you don't like it, call your elected officials and ask them to CHANGE THE LAWS. Even though we all engage in it knowingly, and the fact that we do doesn't somehow magically make it legal. It is STILL illegal, and to paint up these guys, or anyone, as some sort of Robin Hood character is rediculous.
Justifying theft by saying "Well, the RIAA is still making $500 million dollars more than they did last year!" is absolute bullshit. I made more than I did last year too, and if you tried to steal from me, i'd kick your ass..So why is it wrong when the RIAA does the same to protect its property?
Look, I dont like the RIAA either.. But trying to villify them for protecting what is rightfully theirs is the pinnacle of stupidity especially in light of the fact that we would be doing the same ourselves.
Mod me down or mod me up, I don't care. Thats just how I feel about it.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
It is fair use, man.
Oh, and if anyone cares, their homepage is here: http://www.riak.or.kr/
(Don't worry, that is not a link to a particularly disgusting webpage which is found here: http://goatse.cx
Yeah, people make that argument alot... That MP3 trading is "fair use"... I really don't think the people who wrote the original copyright by-laws would refer to widespread, global, profitless redistribution of their product to millions of people "fair use". I mean, making a dub for a couple friends at school, or maybe even lending out copies to a friend who's interested in a particular band, thats fair use. I'll agree.
But warehousing thousands (in some cases, tens of thousands) of songs and making them available to millions of people 24 hours a day exceeds the boundaries of the definition of "fair use". Thats unfair use in my book.
I like trading MP3s as much as the next guy. Buy call a friggin spade a spade, already. The fact that everybody does it doesn't magically make it legal, proper, or morally justifyable in any context.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
today is korean liberation day
cognitivedissonance = on
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Can you imagine if the DMCA was around or the RIAA was around a decade ago?
News FLASH
AP Wire
Today, the RIAA and MPAA sued the Defense Department for violating the DMCA, charging that this new "Internet" constitutes an illegal circumvention device. Said a head lawyer for the RIAA "This internet will be a haven for criminals and piracy, causing the US economy to plumit. It must be stopped now."
How many future possibilities do we kill with every shutdown of a new information sharing system?
I suggest reading the article located here which contains the more believable numbers
the industry says album sales in South Korea totaled $315 million in 2000, up from $292 million the previous year. .
This comment was generated by a Squadron of Ultra Ninjas
You said it : trading thnigs at school. Everybody, maybe including yourself, did it, do it, and will do it. Doing the same on the internet changes nothing to the result, fair use is fair use. BTW you said "thousands, tens of thousands" stored on one's drive. Well, then, if it's on that grounds that RIAA claims "millions of dollars of loss", this proves to be utterly bogus, as none (except, maybe, RIAA directors) has the money to buy such a number of discs.
does anyone even look at the fact that (yea maybe I have some software that I didn't buy) but I don't use everyday to make money, I personally would only use it to learn it and if I did want to use it for business I would buy it why would I buy something that I can't return for 500 dollars without knowing how to use it and if I like it enough to buy it and use it for business in the first place
YOU CAN'T FIX STOOOPID
As pointed out by another poster, the actual figures in the article are an order of magnitude larger (and yes, I did read the article, I just misread the figures). Even so, claiming $469 million in total sales is an increase of 61% over the previous year, which still seems pretty unlikely--though it would be nice to have figures from earlier years to compare.
First off I am all for just throwing the damn book at anyone selling and or trading warez and MP3 files.
;)
No one can in any way justify theft. I would also like for everyone to turn in any fool using a pirated copy of anything, especially Windoze. If you wish to run big brother software then YOU HAVE TO PAY!!!
If you lay with the devil, YOU MUST PAY!!
Or Just Run Linux and Be Happy
Got Code?
... that in Korea the major losses would be from back-street tape and CD sales.
OK this is ten years back, maybe they have a handle on it now, but when I was in Seoul pretty much every backstreet tourist-trade type shop had shelves upon shelves of duped cassettes with hand-written labels (and they sold well too, so it's a trade that seemed to support itself). With the march of modern technology being what it is I'd expect to see hundreds of home-burned CDs taking up the same space.
Although, now I think about it, perhaps those CDs may be sourced via other non-paid-for methods.
Incidentally, I still listen to one of those tapes, it's lasted well.
get Drunk In Sydney
Screw you all! I'm off to the pub