Slashdot Mirror
43 Million Americans Use P2P Software
robl writes "If the NYTimes article is correct then somewhere around 1 in 6 Americans apparently are unindicted felons. In the eyes of the public file swapping is as morally wrong as speeding on the NJ Turnpike. The rest of the article talks about the RIAA's carrot/stick/education approach and how they may find themselves entering into negotiations for some forms of file sharing. Also the EFF will be running ads in Rolling Stone next month asking if enthusiasts are tired of being treated like criminals."
According to NORML's website, 80 million Americans have smoked pot, that horrible life-ruining plant. Additionally, Marijuana laws are enforeced much more than those that pertain to P2P programs.
Under US copyright law, it is only a crime to download copyrighted works if you reproduce more than $1,000 in goods within 180 days. Or if you infringe copyright for financial gain.
It would appear that it is only a felony if you reproduce or distribute 10 or more copies with a total value of at least $2,500.
I think that the NYT gets more than a few page views from /. - page views that affect how much they can charge for ads.
If slashdot stopped accepting submissions that included a NYT link would the NYT stop requiring registration? Or maybe allow slashdot to link directly to the article?
just wondering if a slashdotting is actually a measurable benefit to a big site like that.
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
First off, I have nothing against the RIAA really. They are a business. A corrupt and monopolistic business to be sure, but they are out to make money and survive. I can't blame them any more than I can blame ebola for trying to do the same... except about the money part.
I have a shiney new dvd writer. It has a nice button on the front. A tray that goes in and out. Oh, and it writes dvd's. Aside from archiving the family footage, and making great backups I like to do some authoring with dvd's.
Although I believe my flash animation skills are beyond question, others don't seem to think 2 hours of my artistic creations are worth the dvd they are burned to.
What I love to do is snag music videos off various newsgroups and p2p programs, and put them together on my own mtvdvd. I make custom menues, do different transitions, cut the crappy intro screenes for #lamevideos on pir8net, put the whole thing together, and everyone I know loves them! Every single person I've showed them to has begged me for a copy.
You know what else is interesting.. there is NO legal way for me to obtain the videos. Heck, the ??AA would make a killing selling these things. I know that I have seriously considered getting one of those in-dash dvd players just for this purpose (don't worry, I'm not a stupid driver).
There is obviously consumer demand for this stuff. So much demand in fact that consumers have resorted to less than legal means to obtain them. Its a shame that so much revenue is wasted.
I work at the local EB, and we've been having more and more customers come in with problems related to copy protection schemes in the last year or so. We've got folks who can't play their games or DVDs on their Xbox or PS2 because they happen to be running it through a VCR. We've got folks who can't install or play various games because their CD drive isn't supported by the latest incarnation of SafeDisk or its ilk. We've got people with a tiny scratch in some vital part of the disc, which suddenly makes the entire thing unplayable. We've got folks with misprinted CD keys. We've got people with strange hardware configurations that aren't allowed by SafeDisk and its friends. All these things in an attempt to prevent piracy....and all they do is make things difficult for the paying customers. The actual pirates don't have to put up with any of these problems.
yrs,
Ephemeriis
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Just yesterday there was an article on /. lambasting for allegedly (though this word seemed to have been dropped from teh accusations) violating the GPL and people were calling for the death of Linksys. How dare a company steal the work of the OSS community. Oh, wait, you mean it's morally OK to violate copyrights now? Is this one of those days of the week things? Sunday it's bad to violate copyright, Monday it's OK?
I wish people would start calling this what it really is and stop all the bullshit. You are basically too fucking cheap to purchase movies and music and instead of simply doing without you resort to violating copyrights. I say this, what goes around comes around. The next time Linksys or some other company uses GPL'ed code remember your stance here.
I am not surprised by this figure, I was discussing filesharing in the pub on the weekend with some of my friends who are not at all geeky and have never heard of /.
The five of them have widley varying careers and none of them would consider themselves criminals. 2 of them were annoyed about the DeCss saga, 1 was buying a CD Burner to download stuff and burn CD's, another was getting Broadband to download stuff faster and another was already downloading stuff. The other 2 don't have computers.
All these people and most other people I have spoken to do realise that they are probably committing a crime but quite frankly they don't care because (a) they are getting music for free and (b) who cares if the record companies are losing money over it.
Some justifications for those reasons:
People have been getting music for free off their friends for years, there are some favourite albums which have at various times been passed around 10+ people in our extended group over 10 or more years.
In the UK the record companies seem only interested in setting up the next Pop Stars / Pop Idol / Shit manufactured act they can squeeze money from. Very rarely are they promoting any band which people like me are actually interested in - last night I saw on TV that Morrisey is unable to get a new record contract when bozo bands like One True Voice just have to turn up at an audition looking nice and sign away any artistic control over their 'career' from that point on.
The record companies really are bringing this on themselves and no amount of whining and threats from them are going to stop this kind of behaviour.