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China Concerned About Internal Copyright Infringers
sfled writes "Audience members at a recent movie preview had ID card numbers stamped on their theater tickets, were videotaped entering the lobby, and had to part with cellphones, watches, lighters, etc. as they passed through a metal detector. Why the big fuss? Because China's movie makers, artists and other creators of intellectual property are finally realizing that China's content-piracy industry doesn't just target imported movies, music, etc. Story at The New York Times, "free" registration, etc..."
Since when does revenue and piracy have anything to do with an "art" scene?
Art, with arguably no firm definition, has always been at least an exchange of ideas, and piracy, in fact, helps to further this exchange.
There is a very very thick line between "artists" and "businessmen". Copyright laws serve businessmen, and frequently enable businessmen to screw over artists.
Why should China care about protecting art in teh first place, anyway? "All your thoughts are belong to us."
I'm not sure why the above is insightful -- what is the link between pirating American movies and stifling Chinese creativity? I'm not sure whether them cracking down on piracy of American movies would have any effect whatsoever on their own "fledgling media."
Money which you don't have in the first place canot be lost or stolen.
The most that happened is that a few CEOs and executives didn't take home a bonus because the revenue for that year was slightly lower.
I'm not serious. I view this as a good step--piracy in Asia is a terrible problem, software, movies, and more. I know that personally a number of movies I've seen downloaded from the net have Chinese subscripts. Enforcing intellectual property rights for the artists (be they producers, directors, actors, programmers, etc) can only be a good thing.
If they only enforce the laws for domestic films, then what is going to stop the average Chinaman from going to pirate an American movie instead?
Dude, Chinaman isn't the proper nomenclature; Asian-American, please.
Nothing would stop the "average Chinaman" from pirating an American movie. However, many artistic Chinamen would then have free access to examples of creative works from which to draw their own inspiration, thereby spurring their own creative industry. Once the industry developed sufficiently to become popular internationally, China would then have an incentive to honour other countries' intellectual property rights in exchange for having its own honoured overseas.
The canonical example of this is of course the United States itself, as original copyright was given specifically to only domestic works. The law changed only when prominent American authors, such as Mark Twain and Noah Webster, complained that their works were being pirated in Britain. This movement didn't rise until after years of American pirating of British works. The penny versions of Dickens didn't draw Americans away from domestic literature, but rather inspired it.
You tell me how "whilst" differs from "while," and I'll stop calling you a pretentious jackass.
Yeah I'm sure we'd all be much better off economically if Hollywood billionaires were a few billion dollars richer. In any case, the idea that piracy in China represents "theft of billions" from American companies is pretty ridiculous since it assumes the people who buy pirated videos there would pay much higher prices for the "real thing." Probably a few of them would but I doubt you'd see billions if piracy in China suddenly stopped.
You are not asian-american if you live in china.
Copying a 20$ DVD is the same as stealing 20$ from the company that made it.
Would you lend someone $100 as easily as you would 5 DVD's? You might, but I know many who wouldn't.
You tell me how "whilst" differs from "while," and I'll stop calling you a pretentious jackass.
uhhh yeah... Asian-Americans. From China. That's the ticket.
Dude, Chinaman isn't the proper nomenclature; Asian-American, please.
Insightful?? Must have been moderated by an American.
This is been covered many, many times before, but:
1. If I pirate a movie I gain a movie (surprise!). Net change in company's revenue: 0.
2. I don't buy or pirate movie. I gain no movie, and company gets nothing.
3. I steal a physical copy (DVD) from company. Net gain for me: 1 movie. Net loss to company: cost of producing said DVD.
4. I buy the movie. I get a movie. They get my money.
Pirating (not that I endorse it) only causes a real loss if you would buy it if you couldn't get it illegally.
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I swear, it takes all of 60 seconds effort - why can't submitters/editors include the Google partner link as well as the reg-required one!
Janie took my gun...
Now the average, urban, Chinese person (who has a yearly income of about $800) can stop buying cheap pirated movies and can, instead, spend a week's wages to buy a commercial video. That is, provided he/she was not planning to squander that money on food, clothing, or shelter.
Those living in rural areas, where the per-capita income is about 1/3 that will just have to sell a family member into slavery if they really want that video.
Maybe before whining about the evil Chinese pirating videos and software, you should consider what their incomes are compared to ours.
November 1, 2002
The Pinch of Piracy Wakes China Up on Copyright Issue
By JOSEPH KAHN
SHENZHEN, China, Oct. 30 -- When the members of the preview audience showed up at China's fanciest new movie theater here this week, they were treated to much more than just the first look at Zhang Yimou's big-budget martial-arts film, "Hero."
Viewers had identity card numbers inscribed on their tickets. They were videotaped as they entered the theater's foyer. They handed over all cellphones, watches, lighters, car keys, necklaces and pens and put them in storage. Before taking their seats, they passed through a metal detector. Then they got a welcoming address.
"We are showing this preview for your enjoyment tonight," announced Jiang Wei, an executive with the film's Chinese distribution company. "I plead with you to support our industry. Please do not make illegal copies of this film."
Anyone in China who makes movies, writes books, develops software or sings songs for a living knows that popularity is barely half the challenge; such people must also fight intellectual piracy.
In a country where more than 90 percent of the movies, music and software are illegal copies sold for a fraction of the original price, Chinese artists have begun to join big foreign interests like Microsoft and AOL Time Warner to protest China's seemingly limitless capacity to make cheap knockoffs.
The local effort is not going to solve the problem right away. The United States trade representative's office grouped China with Paraguay and Ukraine this spring as among the worst copyright violators in the world.
Still, the tone has changed. Throughout the 1990's, intellectual property was mainly seen as a trade dispute pitting the wealthy West against the developing East. It's now also a domestic struggle, with local stars complaining that they get little fortune from their own fame.
"After the release, we often have only three days before the pirate copies hit the market," said Mr. Jiang of New Pictures distributors, which handles Mr. Zhang's movie releases in China. "The industry can't survive that."
The belt-and-suspenders security procedures during the limited release of "Hero" at New South Country Cinema here, just across the border from Hong Kong, were aimed at protecting what China's film industry hopes will be the biggest martial arts sensation since "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon." The movie, with an all-star cast led by Jet Li, cost $30 million, making it China's most expensive film production to date. Beijing will submit it to the Oscars as a candidate for best foreign-language film. Miramax, a division of Disney, has bought the international rights.
Security guards heightened the drama at the theater. They ordered people to leave behind jewelry and pens to protect against "needlepoint" digital camcorders, though varying descriptions of how such devices worked sounded more like something Q made for 007 in a James Bond movie than a common pirate's tool. Uniformed policemen roamed the aisles during the film. A few sat in front of the screen and watched the audience with what appeared to be night-vision binoculars.
The intense scrutiny prompted a few complaints, but also some sympathy.
"Zhang Yimou is not about to go hungry," said Zhu Dazhong, a 48-year-old Shenzhen retailer who saw the preview. "But if he makes a good movie, people should pay a little money to see it. The quality of the pirate copies stinks anyway."
China's creative industry has been hit hard by the failure to enforce copyright laws. Artists and their lawyers say piracy has worsened since China joined the World Trade Organization late last year and pledged to meet international standards for protecting intellectual property.
"The Touch," an action-adventure film, was a recent casualty. At the release of the film in Shanghai in August, Michelle Yeoh, who produced and starred in it, boasted about how bodyguards protected the original film reels. When the show moved from theater to theater, Ms. Yeoh said at the premiere, the reels were to travel separately so pirates who got their hands on one reel could not copy the whole film.
Nonetheless, DVD copies were available on the black market four days after the nationwide release that month, and ticket sales slid fast.
A popular folk music group, Yi Ren Zhi Zao, or Made by Yi, had an even shorter run with its latest CD. A pirated disc made from a tape released early hit the market before the authentic version was in stores.
There are now 41 pirated versions of the album, said Zhou Yaping, who runs the group's production company, based in Beijing. He said many were sold openly in top department stores. The legal CD has a 1.2 percent market share, he said.
"Our hard work and money were stolen and sold cheap," Mr. Zhou said.
Foreigners have hardly been spared. Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows XP, was selling for 32 yuan, less than $4, in the back alleys of Beijing's technology district before Microsoft formally released the $180 legal version for the China market earlier this year.
What is presented as the fifth installment of the Harry Potter series, "Harry Potter and the Leopard Walk Up to Dragon," has already reached Chinese bookstores. Though the cover attributes the book to J. K. Rowling, the British author, her publisher says the official version -- its title and subject matter will be different -- will not be available until next year. The Chinese edition is an inventive fake.
Altogether, the International Intellectual Property Alliance estimates that Chinese piracy costs foreign companies about $2 billion a year, or roughly a quarter of the total global losses attributed to copyright violations.
But while Chinese copyright holders probably do not lose as much money, local outrage generates more publicity than foreign pressure. A flurry of domestic lawsuits has attracted regular attention.
The country's two leading Internet portals, Sohu.com and Sina.com, sued each other, each accusing the other of stealing content. Mr. Zhou, of Yi Ren Zhi Zao, sued Chinese factories for manufacturing the illegal CD's. He won damages of 300,000 yuan, about $36,300, in a Beijing court.
Even the Buddhist monks of the famed Shaolin Temple have joined the fight. The temple pioneered Shaolin boxing, which evolved into kung fu. It has sought to trademark its name and has flung lawsuits against companies that use Shaolin as a brand, including one maker of canned pork.
Whether the lawsuits and publicity will slow the piracy remains to be seen.
The government has sought to demonstrate that it is finally taking the matter seriously. In August, the state-run China Daily tallied the exact number of pirated video and audio discs, 43.45 million, that had been destroyed in a crackdown so far this year.
But at a huge electronics bazaar in Shenzhen, not far from the movie theater that showed Zhang Yimou's premiere, vendors offered a cornucopia of China's latest releases for about a dollar each. "Together," the latest Chen Kaige film, which hit local movie houses in late September, was for sale in the top-quality DVD-9 format.
Legitimate DVD movies cost at least five times that much, and few were on sale at the bazaar. First-run movie tickets in China go for 30 to 50 yuan, about $4 to $6, depending on the show and the quality of the cinema.
"Hero" was not available on the black market -- yet. But Mr. Jiang, of the distribution company, said that despite the extensive security, he was still nervous.
"I won't be at ease until Nov. 4 or 5," he said. "If they managed to pirate it, it will be out by then for sure."
I was waiting for the inevitable Chinese people don't care about piracy, everything from fake watches to Windows are available in the streets of Hong Kong.
Does it not seem weird that most people here defend KaZaA et al as an opportunity to distribute material, but point an angry finger when Chinese people make copies of US films?
Just because they steal with a camera, and you steal with software doesn't make you any less of a pirate.
So lets get off the anti-Asian rants and show a bit of consistency. Either both are bad, or both are a chance for artists to reach an audience they otherwise would not.
Of course, IMHO they are both pretty insidious.
Has the intellectual moral high-ground stopped me downloading? Umm....I best not answer that.
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
Yeah... every time I go into any Oriental grocery store, there is always the ubiquitous rack of video tapes with hand-drawn titles in Mandarin or Cantonese, sometimes even Hangul-Ma (but that's Korean, so never mind that). So, if I want to, I can buy pirated copies of mainland Chinese movies for like 3-5 bucks down at the corner grocery where I by my red bean buns and udong. And, I've been able to do this for at least the last three years. And China JUST noticed?
Voodoo Girl is the bomb!
3rd - depriving of profit is not "stealing"- it's depriving of profit.
Points 1 and 2 are right on, but I have to disagree with the above.
Our society gives authors and creators a sort of 'implied contract'; they create, and we grant them copyright. Sure, no one signs anything, but none of us signed the constitution (which grants copyright authority to Congress) either. There are certain social obligations that everyone is bound to, whether or no they agree. In effect, you (through your legal institutions) have promised copyright, and in return the author has created something. Once the goods have been delivered, you are at least somewhat obligated to fulfill your side of the deal. Breaking this social contract is slightly different than merely depriving a corporation of profit. You can't give the author back their lost effort. On the other hand, I deprive McDonalds of profit every time I drive by their shitty restaurant and thank god that I'm not stopping.
Personally, I think it'd be good if China cracked down on its piracy, domestic and foreign. Of course, when it comes to piracy concerning foreign movies (especially American) of course many people'll pull that "Oh what does Hollywood need more money for" shit. Well, it's not really your place to decide that Hollywood shouldn't get money for something it paid to make-- and it doesn't change the fact that it's PIRACY, plain and simple. It's the same piracy that hurts smaller, independant filmmakers who need the money-- the people who really do need the money --and that is the same piracy that needs to be stopped.
To tell the truth. Most american movies are pathetic, propagandistic, patriotic "shit".
Sure chinese movies are somehow propagandistic too. But they don't force their shit on the rest opf the world like americans do. So, to get straight to the point: I was always happy to realize that a us product sucked when i checked the pirated version. Realizing that after spending 10$ at the box office is on of the worst things i can think of..
Sounds like the average Regal Cinema in five years to me...
...there will be a day when the NYTimes webmasters figure out what an HTTP referrer is, and start using that to check exactly where the so-called "Google partner links" are originating.
/. account, so you're not averse to the whole signing-up-for-an-account business.
Besides, it "takes all of 60 seconds effort" for you to sign up for a NYTimes account. You already signed up for a
Just for the record, I signed up for the NYTimes account (because after all, they are providing quality writing to me for free), and I have yet to receive a single piece of unsolicited email from them.
I wish people would quit trying to circumvent the signup, and just do it. Free, quality content is becoming a rarity on the web, and I prefer signing up to the alternative -- losing that free content for good.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
This is a movie PREVIEW, and normally security is indeed stricter at such events, just like here in the US.
Yet, once the movie hits the theaters as a actual release to the masses, forget about "security". Heck, we don't even have such "security" here in the US. And most pirate jobs are inside ones (the guy in the projection booth himself is the one doing the camcorder recording). With the corruption in China, one can only expect such things to be even more prevalent. And once a single copy gets out, that's all it takes.
George W. Bush
President, United States of America
It seems that despite almost no support on slashdot of any other intellectual property protection scheme, when it's the Chinese pirating American stuff it's a horrible crime. But when it's Americans pirating anyone else's works, including those by other Americans, it's something that should be protected. Make up your goddamn minds people! I personally think that the United States government has it's collective head up it's ass, but the premise for copyright is very well intentioned: give the producer of a work a temporary monopoly for their contribution to society. Back on topic... when you can honestly say that you support the MPAA, RIAA, and every other four letter organisation ending in AA it'll be fair for you to say that the Chinese pirates are wrong, but for the moment I suspect that most of the people posting about the evils of China are guilty of the same crime they are condemning.
E pluribus unum
I attended this screening in Shenzhen and did not notice any of the security measures reported in the article.
I had to hand over my mobile phone but that was it.
I didn't see anyone openly vidcaming the movie, but pirate DVD copies of Hero are readily available in Shenzhen, Shanghai and Beijing for about 7 Chinese yuan (US$0.80).
A dream is good. A plan is better.
I think that they think there is a difference between Chinese culture (including their films) and the hollywood pap. When using internal flights in China I have to watch Chinese films (the only time I watch them) and I am often surprised at how good they are. If I were Chinese I would be proud of the Chinese film industry. I would also want to protect it.
I do not think it is really posible to protect a film as it has to go public at some point or it serves no purpose. At some point the film will get into the hands of the ripper, he will get the first release and have it on sale as quick as the original reaches general release. He normally has Hollywood films before they are released but that is because there are more crooks in Hollywood.
The Chinese do more to combat the rippers than the Americans do, but there is less respect for IP and more of an attitude of product in China. If Hollywood would sell a good product at a fair price the rippers would be out of business.
As for the valuable creative works, they are already doing it and they know that soon Hollywood will rip their ideas off just as they have always done in the past. Like with Yojimbo = A Fistfull of Dollars and Seven Samurai = The Magnificent Seven (I know Akira Kurosawa was Japanese but the point is still true). I think the most insulting thing is that Hollywood does not even make good copies of other peoples work.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Hey, you've posted this before.
5 14 674
4 44 9517
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=43066&cid=4
And, apparently you think exactly the same of India:
'http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=42305&cid=
I personally think that it's 100% off topic, and you've shared your experiances more than people care.
There are more than a billion people in China. On what basis do you consider the Chinese movie industry "fledgeling"? Is it the fact that you never see any?
I guess you probably consider the Indian movie industry as fledgeling too, for the same reasons.
I lived in and worked in Malaysia for a year. I can tell you that 80%+ of the dvds/vcds/software out there in the field are illegal copies. no question about it.
No kidding, theft has to be the most abused concept of the latter half of the twentieth century.
I'ts not just IP either. Think about what we've gone through with welfare. It took forever to get to the point that welfare moved from these welfare stores of the thirties with their dehumanizing proselytizing to food stamps to simple cash payments. Once the stigma was finally being stripped away the rhetoric immediately turned to THIEVERY! Those fucking thieving nigger bitchez is stealing frum our fragile economy. Dear Lordy, them thieving snakes are gonna kill us all!
Now nevermind that the money that disappeared from a bankruptcy like Enron could have supported hundreds of thousands of crack dependent welfare moms who could have at least been there for at home watching the kids instead of taking some menial position outside the home to gratify the expiatory fantasy of the revenge seeking TV audiance.
And nevermind the fact that the scandanvian nations are total welfare states. That's not thieving because everything is "fair" there.
Now we've gone from mothers caring for children as thievery to accessing information as thievery.
I don't believe the Chinese are sincere about this crackdown on intellectual property because the Chinese intellectual tradition is a tradition based on a surprising degree of anonymity in authorship. One can argue that this is a product of political expediency, but over so many centuries that seems to be a bit of a stretch. Moreover, many truly proud Chinese authors have historically denied their authorship because they felt it was the honorable thing to take a humble position with regards to their authorship even when there was abundant evidence attributing their work to them.
And then there's this thing about the adoption of open hardware cores and the Dragon CPU. That doesn't go well with a new hardline attitude towards intellectual property.
Both China and the US should find copyright and fair use rules that benefit the people as a whole. Both countries, however, seem to choose copyright rules and laws that mostly benefit a few powerful minorities.
>Metal detectors in airports I can understand. It's going too far in cinemas.
But... but... we have to treat you like criminals to protect our property! You can't just *not* buy it! How are we suppose to make any money?!?!
*grumble*
If this keeps up we'll have to come up with something that people are actually willing to pay money for.
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
This is really about the movie, Hero. Producers are taking special advantage of all these special precautions cause this is supposed to be the biggest export since "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"
You will see it here in the US, and it'll make a lot of money here. This isn't for the average HK flick yet, or bad Chinese cinema...this is like a sneak preview of "The Two Towers. the US cinema showing special previews months early would probably take the same precautions...
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ah honey, we're all resplendent - Bill Mallonee
They haven't been communist for a long time now. Their economy is a mix between capitalism and communism. There are both private corporations and government communist corporations.
I've been telling this for quite a while now, yet nobody believes and instead post excuses like "that one is so old". Well, there's *yet another proof* that what I've been telling is true.
IMHO what I hear from the original poster is this:
"*Sigh* Poor Chinese, their Gov't has been holding down them for so long, and stealing all the resources and time to develop from the people for their big socialism goals, it totally justifies that they steal from someone else. *Sigh* Steal away China, we're behind you! We understand!"
IF you lived in depression era US quality wages, and someone in the 1930s showed up with a DVD player, what would you do? Well, you sure couldn't buy it. Tough stuff. Open up your economy, and pretty soon you can.
This is a chicken and egg problem. Because the Chinese Gov't decides to control the economy with a tight fist, well, that means that the Chinese populace gets screwed. Getting screwed also means NO CHEAP DVDs.
You should take that shit up with China and their fucked up economy, and not blame the rest of the world for letting their people make their own choices. Certainly blaming the free market system and saying that Chinese people are justified in stealing is saying that a)Capitalism sucks, and b)that Socialism is good, and c) stealing is an "unfortunate immoral yet justified" (LOL) act to help 'ol Socialism along. Kinda like taking it back for the people from the oppressive movie makers. What a crock. China is probably the safest country in the world to visit, and yet they have these heinous double standards when it gets in the way of the big Socialism Macarena.
Now before some Socialist nutty from Northern Europe or wherever starts ranting about the "USians" (which is their way of trying to make US Citizens an ethnic slur), let me say this. YES, the USA has double standards too. I don't support them either, so you don't really need to call me an a-hole, and assume that I am a cowboy with an assault rifle. I am an American that would like the see the Chinese people live better... and that is that.
I assume the therory is that if American movies are easy to pirate they will be far more available. If you can buy American blockbuster x for 1 unit of currency. And Chinese fledgeling art movie for 2 or 3 units of currency, since the people seling it nead to recapture the cost of filming (film is not cheap) the American movies will have an advantage. Selling at a loss to crush competition is a prectice that was widly used to allow one company an advantage over another, by only enforcing Chinese copyright they are damaging their distribution penatration relative to US films.
When the playing ground is fair the US films dominate in the US, and are starting to in Europe (warning: that is personal observation from two trips to Vienna). Eventually they will need to offer the same protections to American movies, but that costs the government more money, and offers no immediate benifit. While protecting the Chinese films helps the locals make more money, which directly benifits the economy.
P.S. To those who say artists are not business men, I agree. But they are human. With no business side art cannot be more then a hobby. And film would be a hobby for the rich. Even a very very cheap film is 10000 of dollors (think El Mariachi). How you expect the artists to be able to spend that much money for everyone else to make mony selling ten dollor DVD's on ebay, and 2 dollor ones in China is beyond me. But maybe I live in some fantasy world where film is expensive, and artists need to eat, and you guys are grounded in reality.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Try that in my store. If somebody steals something saying, "You wouldn't have sold this anyway. So, really, I'm not stealing from you", I'll break their fucking legs.
Yeah I'm sure we'd all be much better off economically if Hollywood billionaires were a few billion dollars richer.
That's what's so great about the US. IT's not up to jackasses like you to decide who owns or earns what. If somebody wants to make billions, and do nothing with it other than buy billions of jellybeans, they can. It's none of your goddamned business. I could very easily say that "anyone that's making more than $50K is making more than they need to live on, so they don't deserve it. Let's have the gov't make a law to take it away from them."
And since you know next to nothing about economics, what do you think that those movie companies do with their money? Hide it under mattresses? It gets spent somehow, so yes that does benefit the economy.
Back when the US's publishing industry was getting started they "seeded" the market by blatantly taking copyrighted works from England and selling them without paying any royalties. Charles Dickens used to complain about it bitterly.
The US industry used the revenue from this to jump start their own literature industry. As that grew and the US had more literature to export then they became more concerned about fully enforcing copyright laws.
Seems kind of strange that we can't seem to allow other countries to grow the same way we did.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Agreeing to a contract, having the product delivered, and then not paying might be classified as stealing.
But for the other reasons you mention, I would generally agree with you that it is not stealing. (And in fact, if there is no expectation that you would have paid in the first place--because, say, you are poor--then you can't really say you made the author work under false pretenses either.)
In the end, there is simply no deprivation taking place, as there is, say, when you steal a car from its rightful owner.
The legal system should not be applying laws created for the protection of physical goods, therefore, to the protection of intellectual property.
Unfortunately the English langugage is not so precise, and I'm afraid we'll have to live with the words in common usage. Argh, Matey, I'm off to burn me some CD's.
is it really so horrible to fill in some details - you can even put dummy info into the ones you don't want to provide for real.
The NYT Terms of Service document is a contract. Misrepresenting your information is fraud, a felony in all fifty U.S. states.
Besides, what do you think they are going to do? Analyse your reading habits
In theory, a publisher could exploit a loophole in its privacy policy and, when you read an article about a medical issue, notify the insurance companies. Now, when you research information about say AIDS, your insurance rates go up.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Why can't you understand that just because you can convert the arithmetic value of a year's wages in China to US Dollars, it doesn't actually mean that it has the same *monetary* value? There's this thing called "cost of living", you see. It turns out that for the most part, barring extremes of wealth and poverty, everything consts *proportionally* the same wherever you are in the world.
I have never lived in China, but as an American living in Canada I am quite familar with buying imported American goods. Logically, if this mythical adjustment for "cost of living" really exists, when I buy a book, movie, or CD from America, it should cost just the same in Canadian dollars as it does in American dollars. But it doesn't! It costs 1.5x as much because Canadian dollars are worth less than American dollars. This is of course one of the reasons why there are many more Canadians in American than Americans in Canada.
But the reason why you'd break his legs, is because he tried to turn the argument on its head, making the supplier into the consumer. Not because of anything wrong with the argument, but because the argument was inappropriately applied.
Suddenly? No. The change came quite some time ago, under Deng Xiaoping, who was pragmatic enough to declare that "It is glorious to be rich" and that "It doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice". In other words, prosperity was the objective moreso than maintaining a clearly nonfunctional ideology.
So, since then, they've basically been a vaguely capitalist single-party dictatorship; there are some socialist traces left like state-owned companies, but they've been edging away from them as well as the guaranteed-employment model.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
They haven't been communist for a long time now. Their economy is a mix between capitalism and communism. There are both private corporations and government communist corporations
Depends on what you mean. There are two common meanings for "communism"; a system of government, and an economic arrangement. They are of course intertwined. Communist apologists benefit from the confusion.
China is a brutal dictatorship. It is not a democracy. Government owns many companies, and can crush the rest at a whim. It can and does "nationalize" companies that it didn't own before, when it wants to.
That's nice that they allow more private ownership and enterprise now. It would be nicer if there was a political structure and a culture that would prevent that from being swept away at a whim (or selectively crushed if one person or company "gets out of line").
Believe it or not, rarity does matter for perception of value. For a trivial example, got a girlfriend? Would she be happy if she went to a party and found out that two other people wore the same exact dress as she did? Would she treasure a diamond as much, if the De Beers cartel's stranglehold on supply were shattered and the world was flooded in diamonds?
More seriously... Would you pay the same for a print of Van Gogh's "Sunflowers #Foo" as you would for the original? Most people would not, I'd wager.
Would the original go for immense amounts of money, if Van Gogh had instead worked with silk-screen, and cranked out thousands, Franklin-Mint style?
Would you pay ANYTHING for a print, if you could get it for free online? Quite a few people would not -- at least that's what we learn from Napster, et al.
Face it. Quantity and availability affect effective price. The more copies there are, and the easier it is to get them, the less perceived value something has.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
It causes other losses, as well.
(1) There's a substitution effect. A pirated product still costs time, and may sate an appetite; if you could download a somewhat crappy game and spend hours playing it, would you still be likely to buy a different game, or would you be sufficiently content already?
(2) There are those who claim a "try before you buy" approach, and who end up rarely if ever buying. It's interesting how that happens... while the rest of us conserve money by watching closely for reviews and feedback.
(3) Widespread infringement contributes to an "economy" in which the overall tendency to buy anything may decrease, because availability shoots up. Witness, for instance, China... most software there is illegal, and because of that it's socially acceptable to be a massive infringer -- your boss is doing it, your friends are doing it, probably the government is doing it. Therefore it's nothing special to rip off the latest product and send it to the CD replicators, and the cycle continues.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
When another person can control what I do with my own equipment, with my own computers, can control what I write on the paper I *buy*. When they can say that a particular labor I may wish to do is illegal, then I am a slave.
Copyright is an infringment on my human rights. Copyright is a monopoly. Copyright is censorship. Copyright makes me into a slave.
How could anyone who likes Atlas Shrugged not see this stark fact?
Such a horrible evil could only be accepted if the benefits were worth the horror. Once, I would have said 'yes'. Now, my answer is slowly changing. The current copyright censorship&control regime is detestable.
Let Rearden make his metal, but the moment he discloses its recipe publically, by what right shall he gain the ability to say to me 'thou shaln't use this recipee'?
Let Ayn write her book, but the moment she distributes it publically.. How can she claim that she has lost any rights to control what I do with it. Unless the default state of humanity is control and slave, she never had any ability to control me in the first place.
The original, and low number prints, and initial print runs, are often valued for lots more, even if thousands of prints are made. And I can go to the Getty and buy a postcard-sized VanGogh Sunflowers for 75 cents and for some reason that does not make the original worth less. I can even color-xerox that card for almost nothing, and I'm sure I can download an nice Sunflowers image from the net, yet somehow the original is worth a lot.
The difference with movies and music is that money is made from viewing the copies. I'm sure the original negative of that Chinese movie is worth a lot, but the pirate copies greately cut into the method used to generate income from the ownership of that original copy.
Perhaps a solution is to somehow make music and movies work like prints of art. Artists don't seem to be too worried that people can color-xerox or scan their work, and don't seem to be trying to make these devices illegal. Art pirates are only attacked when they try to make money by selling copies, they don't try to prosecute people using the office color xerox to make garage sale flyers.
With the destruction of traditional culture, movies and other media more or less required if you want to participate culturally these days.
I don't think it's a good thing at all, but that's the way things have shaken out.
DNA just wants to be free...
But it's that taking away part that I fail to see when it comes to movies or software. If I, purely for the sake of discussion, download a movie from the internet, how is that stealing if, at the end, the owner still has the original?
Very simple. By doing so you are depriving the owner of income. That income is often required for the inventor to recover the investment he made in the production of the original of what you have copied. A movie these days can cost up to $100 million to produce. A new drug can cost $1 billion to bring to market. Who is going to invest that if they cannot recover their costs? By obtaining that illegal copy you are not only stealing that income from the author of the original, but you are also depriving us of future works by reducing the economic incentive to produce new inventions.
It is time that we start waking up and realizing that we as a civilization would not be where we are now had we not copied other people's invention.
And what if nobody had produced that invention in the first place? Would you have anything to copy?
The purpose of intellectual property law is to give added incentive to inventors and authors to produce new works. In the case of patent law there is the additional covenant which requires the inventor to fully disclose his invention in exchange for the patent grant.
In the grand scheme of technological progress a 20 year bar on copying an invention is insignifiact. The invention isn't going away; it will be available for copying.
In the late 1600's England realized the benefits of the social contrat of the Patent and Copyright, and made it law. The results were fabulous - man had not materially changed the way he lived since the development of agriculture. At that time the number of books that were available numbered in the thousands. Now the number is in the 100's of millions. The availability of this knowledge is due both to the copyright (encouragement of authors) and to the inventors who devised the hot metal Linotype machine, the web fed printing press and the Fourdriner paper making machine (all patented), advancing the old technology of papermaking that was essentially unchanged in the 5000 year period between the invention of paper by the Chinese and the invention of the patent in England.
Patents are by their very nature monopolistic. They go against everything that is considered "holy" in a capitalist economy.
And exactly how is that? Monopolies are a very natural outcome of a capitalistic society. This country has had a long tradition of monopolies including Standard Oil, Microsoft, etc.
The fact is that patents have a net effect of DECREASING monopolies because they put a specific time on the exclusive right of the inventor. The alternative to not having a patent system is to go back to the pre patent ways of doing things, that is protecting the technology with trade secret and licensing agreements. Trade secrets have NO period of duration. This is why some companies choose not to patent some inventions; for example the formula for Coca-Cola was never patented.
EULA's in and by themselves can't and shouldn't be able restrict my behavior after the act of purchase.
You are REALLY showing your ignorance here. EULAs are a CONTRACT between you and the software vendor. If we as a society decide that we are going to abandon contract law, pretty much all commerce becomes impossible.
Imagine somebody had patented paper hundreds of years ago and charged horrendous license fees to produce paper. It is highly arguable that such a copyright could never have been in the public interest.
FYI, A patent and a copyright are very different things, the first process of paper making was developed thousands, not hundreds of years ago, and the fact is that processes for making paper have been patented many times over the past 400 years with no apperent ill-effects.
HTF did this tripe get modded +2, Insightful? I understand that people's tastes differ, but did someone hold a gun to your head and force you to blow the local equivalent of $8 on Crossroads? Didn't think so...so quit yer bitchin'. How is it our fault that your own film industry can't compete? Produce films that people want to watch and they'll watch. Produce tripe and they'll get them from elsewhere.
(AFAIK, Crossroads tanked at the box office...and it deserved to do so.)
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
Except they aren't stealing anything. If they came into your store showing you something they got somewhere else cheaper, saying "I never would have bought this at your prices", do you break their legs?
The enemies of Democracy are
I do not assert that. Hell, I don't even imply it. In fact, the U.S. didn't respect foreign copyright for years.
Copyright infringment is entirely different from property theft. Don't compare the two.
Nowhere in copyright law does it refer to content as property.
People's desire to believe they are right is much stronger than their desire to be right.