Slashdot Mirror
Head Of ATF To Direct RIAA Anti-Piracy
plasmastate writes "Via Fox News: Bradley A. Buckles, the director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, is moving over to the RIAA to hunt down music pirates. And visions of David Koresh danced in their heads..."
And our scene unfolds with Bradley A. Buckles, with a stormtrooper hitsquad of RIAA goons...
... and the war on freedom rages on.
Buckles (over blowhorn): "YOU MUSIC WHORING PIRATES, SEND THE MP3s AND OGGs OUT FIRST OR WE'LL BURN YOUR COMMUNIST MUSIC SHARING COMPOUNDS TO THE GROUND, WOMEN AND CHILDREN BE DAMNED!!!!"
Think about this... you have to nab the head of a religious cult who is known to leave his compound on occasion. Remember that this megalomaniac (like many others) has preached that the government will try to bring your beloved, heavily armed, community to an apocolyptic end. So you make the decision to attack on the Sabbath, at the heavily armed compound when you know there are children there sending several of your agents to their death because you thought it was going to be a cakewalk.
Exactly the kind of incompetance that you can now expect from the RIAA. Not that they were competant before.
Seems somewhat appropriate.
.. look at the bright side, while his jackboots are busy stomping out piracy, the world will again be safe for boozers, smokers and gun collectors.
Trolling is a art,
Buckles' retirement is effective Jan. 3. No replacement was immediately named.
I heard they have Himmler on ice. I think he'd feel right at home.
Oh man, this is quite a bad turn of events! ... for gun owners.
Now gun owners get the bad publicity and rep of the RIAA via remote association.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
...is this something to worry about? Or should I be sadly shaking my head at the RIAA's ever-more-pathetic attempts to crack down on a technology they don't understand?
If there has ever been one government department that I haven't cared for (excl. IRS), it would be the ATF. I think that the ATF is probably one of the more corrupt government agencies that we have, and it absolutely frightens me that the director of the ATF is now headed on over to the RIAA.
I guess only the future will tell of what is going to happen with the RIAA, and their relentless battle against pirates.
YOU'RE WINNER !
Another lame blog
That is exactly the reaction that they want.
I had but a simple dream, to destroy all humans.
I for one have always equated the RIAA with alcohol, tobacco, and guns.
Esoteric reference.
Brad 'Knuckles' Buckles, lead a crack team of anti-piracy investigators, in a dawn swoop of the Maternal and Infant Care Clinic at the University of Washington Medical Center, after no pirated material was found the mothers were allowed to leave with a warning for poor lactation, after agreeing never to allow their children to use a computer..
Boss Stealing Software?
Bust your boss! Report illegal software use online today.
www.bsa.org/usa
Coincidence? I think not
Will we laugh at ourselves 50 years from now as we Americans do when we had the communist witch trials? Is it possible we shouldn't say that it is downloaders that is killing CD sales as it might be people have finished replacing their collections, artists are getting in general worse and more shrink-wrapped, and finally true piracy done by organized crime(ie Mafia style business)?
As long as they bring the alcohol and tobacco, I got the firearms.
Now instead of getting a threatening letter in the mail, 14 years downloading music gets to be roasted alive as ATF agents try to put the computer into sleep mode but it bursts in to flames instead.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
Instead of notice letters given to the wrong people, you now could get a SWAT team knocking down the door of the wrong house. That will go down well with the public!
So if we killed the kith and kin of file sharers to the 7th generation, as was taught to us by our forebears, we would be justified? I completely agree. Wipe the surface of the earth clean of these filesharers and their filthy spawn!
Based on the government's wildly successful War on Drugs, I expect that with a former ATF head in charge of the War on Piracy, by this time next year, we'll all be back to signing our paychecks over to the RIAA just like the good old days.
Alcohol, tobacco, firearms, and now the RIAA.
This guy is a fucking scumbucket.
What's next, head of the CIA?
Is going to add "Bullies" to the list.
Sheesh, if they had added "Babes" instead, I'd have been there in an instant.
Put down the mouse and put your hands on the monitor. Do it now!
Let's add another reason to the list of why I'm glad that US laws have no effect in Canada...
These guys are going to make Bill Gates look good. At least he tries to play the good cop and convince you he is selling a service. The RIAA is just a bully.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
I'm not a troll, but the main advertisement on this story page is a picture of G.W. and the tag line 'top gun' and then something about buying a G.W. action figure. I'll raise you your 'fair and balanced' and throw in a 'but the children!.'
Anyhoo, everyone else will make (bad) comments about lame RIAA/GUNS jokes, just wanted to throw in something a little different.
These are the same sets of people (Bush's Staff) that are incapable of finding real life people on the ground (Sadaam, OBL, Al Qaeda Terrorists, etc). Now they are going to search through the internet looking for people all over that are simply downloading music.
Oh yeah, I have a lot of faith in this group.
It's funny that you compare the RIAA with Government departments. I think the RIAA has been a fully qualified Governmental insititution for a long time now. Think about it: they can lobby laws into existance, they have political and juridical influence, and above all they have had growing enforcement powers.
But of course, being an association of sane, properly-american capitalist corporations, it ain't restricted the same way as official Government depts. *Cough* What do you call a government-endorsed monopoly already ?
Maybe we deserve this world ?
So is this guy one of those paid consultants who work in govt and defect to private industry? I know a better analogy would be for him to work for the drug cartel or Budweiser, but it still seems wrong for him to use his crime-fighting training to persecute the downloaders. Does he not have anything better to do? Like say finding those pesky terrorists instead of scary downloaders?
Considering that the RIAA is not a law enforcement agency or even a government entity, wouldn't they be doing a little bit better finding someone with some experience in civil suits. What can a former ATF director offer to this private organization?
What, next, will they get the nazi's after us? the SS? I got an idea, how about concentration camps for file users!
Next, we'll all get to wear gold stars...
Who is this Anonymous Coward character, how does he post so much, and why is he always such a whore?
ATF - Wonderful - weren't the first shots fired at the Koresh compound fired by an ATF agent shooting himself in the thigh?
Judging by the reports that I have read, we can expect the following healines soon.
ATF RAIDS HOME
(ATF press release) In an effort to stamp out musical piracy, which leads to terrorism - the ATF today raided the home of Amanda Johnson (age 12) and her brother brad (age 9). Both pirates were taken down. One of the pirates was shot in the raid when he attacked the ATF agents with a fluid projectile weapon. The ATF agent is expected to make a full recovery, while the pirate is listed in stable but critical condition.
"We're just trying to protect our American way of life", said Butch Howitzer. "These pirates are destroying the ability of the RIAA to run a good monopoly, besides, if this piracy thing gets out of hand we might actually have to pay artists. Ticketmaster and the record label executives can't afford this. Lets be honest, the money these pirates steal prevents a record executive from getting the thereapy they need every day."
AngryPeopleRule
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Do you think Randy Weaver had Kazaa installed?s up Add/Remove Programs......very slowly...*
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*gulp*
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*Pull
no, the riaa is just enforcing their contracts.
They aren't stealing from the artists -- the
artists all entered their agreements willingly.
why do you think the RIAA are so evil?
why do you think they want to steal your money?
why do you think they don't really care about the
future of the music distribution business?
why do you think they would rather arrest a 12
year old girl than consider alternative distribution?
Are people stealing when they listen to the radio?
If they extend ATF protection to music, then they should extend protection to email inboxes and software piracy. Now, while money is wasted kicking down college dorm doors, inboxes are flooded, software is stolen, all without the slightest bit of federal worry...
SOBs.
Wait a sec... Is there a way to perhaps require music to be attached to email? Like, you allow people to download your music off your website with the proviso they attach it to any emails they send, (doesn't have to be much, a midi file doing "dah dee de dum") and that the license to use the music is revoked if you send spam, so if you send spam with the music file attached, bam, license revoked, and you officially have no license for the music on your hd....
a director... a big ass manager. he cant actually do anything, next please.
Some of those "gullible fucks" were small children. In the unlikely event that you ever find a woman gullible enough and ugly enough to accept you, and if you actually succeed in breeding, I wonder if you will regard your own children as "gullible fucks."
It turns out that Bradley A. Buckles wasn't their first choice, but Hannibal Lectur wasn't available.
Kind thoughts do not change the world
We all know how good the ATF <waco> is <waco> at <waco> doing <waco> things <waco> .
Thank you for your order. Your asteroid will be delivered shortly.
Faithly yours,
God.
Woopdeedoo. Another goon jumps ship from their "respective" positions onto the SS RIAA (You can decide for yourself is that is to signify a boat or "Schutzstaffel"). The end result?
No significance whatsoever.
The reality is Jesus Christ himself could be reborn, float above the skyscrapers of NYC and proclaim to the world "Oh, my children, those who doth pirate thine audio workings of thy peers shall suffer eternal damnation" and people would STILL download music.
The solution? Stop being so goddamn complacent and try something new, because obviously the old isn't working too well.
sweetheart, why is there a fucking M1 Abrams on the front lawn?
PC moderators can suck my White pierced, tattooed dick. If you think pride == hate, s/dick/Aryan meat mallet/g.
We really need to quash the precedent being set here...It seems that each and every day there is another movement to make copyright violation (a long-beat-to-death civil matter) a criminal offense. Granted, the move of Buckles from ATF to RIAA has little to do with actual congressional matters, but you'd better bet that he'll have Senator Orrin Hatch's (of nuke-your-PC fame) backing. Donate to the EFF, support the ACLU, do whatever.
The last thing we need is another one of these. Soon enough, the INS will be deporting pirates...I can't wait!
-Scott
Buckles, according to the article, was appointed as head of the ATF in 1999, long after the Waco incident, under President Clinton.
The sort of problems that people are joking about us facing because of Buckles should be attributed to his predecessors, not him.
Course, he did receive from Ashcroft, he can't be too clean.
Why should I argue rationally with someone being irrational? I'll just mock them instead.
n/t
But it's not theft.
See, your problem is that you aren't willing to accept reality, instead focusing on keeping your grasp on falsehood. Come back when you know what "copyright infrigement" means AS WELL AS what "theft" means.
Or just don't come back, really.
Woo hoo.
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
"Give away the stone, let the oceans take and transmutate this cold and faded anchor." - Maynard James Keenan
YOU LOVE ASSSEX!
Woo hoo! Now it'll be just as easy to get free music as it is to get weed.
ATF lead: This must be the place. They've got all kinds of crazy stuff going on in there.
ATF agent: [talks into a communicator] Code 7. We believe we have found the compound. Request immediate backup. [the ATF lead looks at the house again]
Barbrady: [immediate indeed, appears in the lead's sights] Okay, so just what is going on here, people?
ATF lead: Get down! [pulls him into position along with the others]
Barbrady: What?
ATF lead: It's just like we told you, officer! There's a religious cult in there that plans to commit mass suicide when the meteor shower starts. [resumes viewing, but is interrupted]
Barbrady: Are you sure?
ATF lead: Of course we're sure! [points out the initials on his cap] We're the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms! It's our job to know what these fanatics do!
Barbrady: So what does the ATF do when religious fanatics are gonna commit mass suicide?
ATF lead: Oh, don't worry! We won't let that happen! Even if it means we have to kill each and every one of them.
~UltraSkuzzi
This comment is liscensed by SCO.
...filesharers ARE terrorists. The war on terrorism will not be short, nor will it be easy.
Er, no.
The "gullible fuck" in that instance would be his wife, by definition.
I always thought it was strange to have a federal agency dedicated to alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. Other than being a part of any good camping trip, what do these three items have in common?
Is it just a coincidence that the son of Senator Orrin Hatch, a rabid supporter of the RIAA, is part of the SCO legal team that is attacking the open software movement. The ATF, the RIAA, SCO, members of congress - it's all very interesting.
There's no 'theft' going on, no matter which way you're looking at it.
;)
example:
Alice rips a CD (she bought) and sends it to Bob.
Who got robbed of something now?
Actually, in my case (and in the case of most people I know) filesharing (and getting music from friends) has greatly increased the number of CD's I buy by allowing me to easily discover more music.
Of course, most of the music I buy is from non-RIAA labels so they have a reason to sue me anyway.
The path I walk alone is endlessly long.
30 minutes by bike, 15 by bus.
Why should it scare the piss out of you?
The man isn't quite ready to retire, but he's probably tired of being at the ATF. So these people hire him.
I'm pretty sure he's not going to be able to form squads of gun-toting "enforcers" to go around and search for pirated music.
While I don't necessarily agree with their tactics (%99 of their lawsuits have been pretty bunk), they do make a valid point: copying this stuff willy-nilly without regard to the copyright is illegal. Just because you bought one CD doesn't mean that you can give copies away to everyone you know, nor does it automagically grant you the right to copy all the CDs of your friends.
Now, if you're only downloading music by indie bands or that has been specifically put up for legal download (itunes comes to mind), what do you have to worry about?
If you're going to turn around and tell me that it's your right to download all the music you want and that the copyrights placed on the music is null and void, then I'd have to respectfully disagree with you.
I'm really not trying to troll here. I'm just failing to see why this should be a cause for alarm.
I told you THIS was coming a long time ago!
As unpalatable the actions of the RIAA seem to be (suing low-income families etc), is this not what technologically-savvy people (read: slashdot posters) have asked for? The RIAA seems to be going after file sharers...and at this point, I don't think that the whole "I did not know it was illegal" argument flies anymore thanks to the large publicity.
While the RIAA is making pirates into veritable Robin Hoods who look pitiful when the lawsuit comes in the mail, one is hard pressed to critisize them for protecting their copyrights.
Now, driving while chewing tabacco, sipping on a pint jack, listening to pirated Billy Ray Cyprus and shooting at the occasional road sign will all be covered under the same agency.
Doesn't scare me in the least. I'm not sharing anything from the RIAA. Hell, I'm not even downloading anything that has to do with the RIAA.
Cripes. I'm not BUYING anything that has to do with the RIAA.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
So, are they planning to maintain their "shoot on sight" rules a la Ruby Ridge?
Nothing to see here; Move along.
1: You clearly didn't read the article. 2: You obviously do not run an E-Mail server. 3: You're pretty fucking stupid anyway. gg
Dance... party... takes... away... Waco!
1) The argument 'just think like me and it will all make sense' if worthless, yet most people use it often. Also, they tend to try to add insults.
:) Cheers.
2) I _know_ what copyright infringement is. See, I WORK for a living (writing software) and I understand economics. The fact that what I create isn't a physical artifact doesn't change my lost business when it is stolen. I feel (and this isn't any kind of personal attack) that a LOT of the slashdot folks have this whole 'money is bad' philosophy, whilst in school or living with mom and dad. Well, the real (competitive) world is different, and I refuse to listen to the economic advice of a 15 year old who's never worked a day.
Now, that said... I think the whole OSS movement is an excellent one, and produces superior code. It also hinges on the right of the developers to give away their code IF THEY WANT TO. Anyone who really believes in the OSS model needs to respect an author's right to NOT have his/her work stolen, if they choose not to share.
Off to see if I've been marked a troll for not following the 'theft is easy and therefore good' line
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Sadly the level of incompetence will move from the legal arena to something a bit more personal. The gentleman will be expected to provide a more forceful and possibly more provocative level of activity.
I wouldn't be greatly surprised if he's the beginning of a push toward an "active" defense. The battle may be moving onto hard drives that are far to personal to some here.
*chuckle* Should be rather entertaining...
Ward
. Silence! Be thankful thy species is unpalatable! .
Translation: if the majority don't vote, dictators/extremists get into power and freedom is dead.
Which one is your mother? Is it gullible? Or is it fucks?
...its a great way for artists that does not have a major record company in the back to pay for tv ads etc. I for one am buying a lot more records since i started downloading files on soulseek, mostly because Im able to discover a lot more good artists. instead of futile resistance the market must adopt to new technology. the days of record company behemoths are numbered. interesting article on non-piracy reasons for declining sales
That's just what the RIAA needs... booze and guns...
You may know what copyright infringement is (not hard, it's a law), but you only THINK you know economics.
Try studying the Austrian school of economics. Google for some of the Austrian economists who think intellectual property is an oxymoron (like Thomas Jefferson did).
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Many years ago there was a common (as in well known) saying "Money talks, bullshit walks".
These days, it's the money running the government.
Did you read the legal arguments given by the Microsoft Defence when discussing penalties?
For the love of PROFIT, NO! That would cost us money.
In the end, that's all the government cared/s about.
If the company you're running makes enough money (enough meaning "enough that you can afford to contribute significantly to campaign funds") then you can effectively ignore the laws and screw the people and other businesses.
We saw it with Microsoft and their rampant abuse of the software industry, and now we're seeing it with the RIAA and MPAA.
Talk to your Grandparents, they remember prohibition. Once was a time, the US fought hard against organized crime, now it's embraced with open arms.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
So your argument is that people go buy the CD's that they burn from their friends? Do you actually believe that? Once they "discover" music, won't they just copy the rest of their friends CD's?
>Alice rips a CD (she bought) and sends it to Bob.
>Who got robbed of something now?
ummm, could it be the artist, the producer, the publisher or maybe the distrubitor? I am sure there are many among you out there who several gigs of p2p d/l's and have no intention of ever buying the cd.
I guess that makes me a troll as well.
Where exactly did it say they were going to take our rights away? And which rights? The right to trade copyrighted material?
Come on. So a new suit is going to run the axis of evil that is the RIAA, remind me how that makes PHB's turn away from open source products?
And to think - without the Elian Gonzalez incident you'd have to believe that Al Gore would have gotten a few thousand more Cuban votes in Florida...
*) democracy - music downloads ok'd by populace ?
_) corporateAmerica - some downloads
_) corporateAmerica - no downloads at all
_) WTF does the populace have to do with democracy
Since you're one of the few folks who responds intelligently to this issue (and used your nick... what a coincidence), I'll respond...
The artist was deprived of the money Bob would have otherwise spent. It does matter how you look at it.
Now, if you think the whole concept of licensing is wrong, well... I can see your point (I disagree with it, but such is the world). If you are just taking it because it is free, all other arguments are kinda weak.
My problem has always been this: In the heyday of file sharing (2000 or so), I worked in a lab and saw the students downloading thousands of mp3s a day, and the whole "well, if I like it I'll buy it" argument was never voiced. A friend is a DJ (mp3J?) that uses all stolen songs on his laptop instead of CDs. He certainly didn't buy any.
When I see that pattern repeated enough times, I have no sympathy for what I (as a 'non-tangible' content creator) see as thieves.
I can handle that folks have differing ways of looking at things. It just gets REALLY old when people (not you) get all self righteous when they are violating strong social mores.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Please remove your eye patch and hook, and place your hands on your head...
The ATF was not involved with the Elian fiasco, since it didn't involve alcohol, tobacco, or firearms.
Except for the MP5 submachine gun pointed at little Elian by a federal officer in that famous picture.
Perhaps off topic, but of interest none the less.
I suspect we should be more concerned with who the fellows replacement will be. Although the RIAA might like to conduct personal raids they don't yet have the legal right to do so.
The ATF on the other hand not only does but has a nice long history of being a bit heavy handed.
Regardless of which side of the various debates you weigh in on most reasonable people will admit that those we entrust with enforcing the laws SHOULD be held to a higher standard of conduct and a higher level of public oversight.
O.K. Calling the attendants to turn up my thorazine drip now...
Ward
. Silence! Be thankful thy species is unpalatable! .
Ah hell, even economists can't agree on how economics works...
Seriously though: If I work for a month on a piece of code, why shouldn't I have exclusive rights to it if I want?
(this does NOT include something like extending GPL'd code. It only seems fair that I give something back if I'm working on top of someone else's code)
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
YHBT. HAND
C|N>K
It seems that each and every day there is another movement to make copyright violation (a long-beat-to-death civil matter) a criminal offense.
I see you're upholding the long Slashdot tradition of presuming to lecture about something you don't understand yourself.
Google first! Or just watch the first 20 seconds of any DVD...
In both the US and EU, copyright infringement is criminal!
I guess the RIAA will be storming kazaa headquarters and burning it down soon...
my finger slipped...
No, I don't pirate music, I simply use free software. Yet, I know that's the real target. They will be fine and dandy with the Next Generation M$ lock in even if a few people do figure out how to share with it. Free software, however, is like a printing press in the 15th century - dangerous to own. Hell, printing presses can still get you killed but free software is much more frightening to the world's petty tyrants.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
RIAA has no power(other than dishing out laughable lawsuits against lil kids), and now he wont either.He can dang-long-my-dang-long-ling-long for all I care...
Head of Automatic Transmission Fluid to what?!??!? Did I miss something?
He's got alot of political influence.
We'll likely see 're-education (sorta done right if you just look at short term results)' targeting grade schools under 9 years old. Probably something like getting the kids to make something and then manipulating a theft of property (including grading) so that the kids can learn the valuable lesson. Working in valuable lessons when ever, where ever they can.
Essentially giving the youth of america a psychological blind spot.
But let's not forget that there are people out there who would never have bought the CDs. Sure, they downloaded the CDs for free, but this doesn't mean that they'd be willing to pay money for the CD even if shelling out money was the only way to obtain the music on the CD--especially when a person downloads a CD and discovers that the CD sucks because most of the songs are completely different from the few by that artist that are played on the radio.
Yes, your point is valid, but only to a certain extent. I would guess that only a small percentage of people who download CDs would actually buy them if their p2p/Usenet/IRC sources were taken away. No, I don't have comprehensive statistics on this percentage, but of the four people near me at the moment, 0% of them would purchase CDs if they couldn't get them for free.
Additionally, I would venture a guess that artists gain much more mindshare through free music distribution than through CD sales. This may directly turn into money if people who discover an artist's music decide to go see a live show. Free music seems to work with mixtapes rather well...
True story.
The artist was deprived of the money Bob would have otherwise spent. It does matter how you look at it.
And that is where you are wrong.
Because we don't know if Bob would have actually spent the money on the CD.
He might not like the music enough to buy it on CD for example, or might not even have the money for it.
I can understand your reaction though, and I agree that filesharing is not really 'correct/legal' and that some people are too defensive about it.
But I still don't agree with this relentless 'war on filesharing'
I'm not going to voice my reasons why (it's 04:00 here, I'm going to bed) cause there are plenty of other insightful comments in topics like this one.
The path I walk alone is endlessly long.
30 minutes by bike, 15 by bus.
Yes, just the other day I was joking about the RIAA becoming like the ATF! I can see it now, a lan party will be the next Waco!
That's just what the RIAA needs... booze and guns...
What are you some kinda liberal?
What better way to fight piracy than to get liquored up and shoot people at random?
Not to mention forcing people to listen to the same Nancy Sinatra over and over and over and over again. But then doing this with Britney Spears would be even more effective. This is the technique that BAFT brings to the RIAA, and the horror that awaits music pirates. Especially the ones that don eye patches and go Arrrrr!
Nobody died when Nixon lied.
I'm meeting you half way you stupid hippies!
True, Bob might not have bought it. But if he can have it for free, he is almost (again, just my anecdotal evidence) sure NOT to buy it. The artists are being robbed (yeah, I know they get a shitty cut. Such are contracts...)
You're right though... this weird 'shoot first, get facts later' approach is pretty shitty. I don't have a problem nailing pirates. I do have a problem with 'give us money and sign this affadavit' bullshit. Smacks of extortion, y'know?
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
welcome our new alcoholic, chain smoking, gun toting overlords.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Probably even more via radio (for pop artists, anyway), but yeah, any exposure is good. This isn't really a good justification for theft/infringement/etc though (I don't see a lot of difference).
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
This RIAA/ATF movie will scare the piss out of you.
the new "War on Piracy(TM)" in general.
Well, the RIAA has already described "music pirates" as terrorists. Maybe The War on Piracy is going to be rolled over into The War Against Terrorism?
Because only hippie communist liberals would be against TWAT right?
Just go back to watching television, shut up and be happy.
We will tell you how to think.
Nobody died when Nixon lied.
I'm meeting you half way you stupid hippies!
What part of "the right of the people to keep and copy music, shall not be infringed" do you not understand?
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
If the car industry was run the same way the record industry is run in the US, there'd be a Car Industry Association of America monopolizing all the sales of cars. Used cars and foreign cars sales would be illegal, and GM and Ford would enforce speed limits - by shooting in your tires.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Let's try that again.
First of all, most people agree that downloading music is illegal...and even if the majority did believe it to be OK, it doesn't it make it right...I think this is called mob rule.
Democracy does not equate to mob rule...we elect a leader who is capable doing what is right, rather than aquiesce to a popularity contest.
Anyway, it is a scary that the government spends tax dollars on protecting the RIAA, instead of what they should do, protect us from international and domestic threats.
Seriously, how are they going to spin the media attention when someone actually gets shot for a filesharing offence (and no they were not armed)? Its gotta happen some time or another, and on that day, that tiny bit of respect for the USA that i have somewhere (its very very tiny at the moment sorry) will just vanish totally and i will just give up and hope the rest of the world steps in. We are about to reach a stage in society where we see kids on "The Worlds Wildest Police Videos" getting beaten to the floor by cops for using kazaa and George Bush talking about how evil and un-american the "Al Gore" filesharing internet is and how China must be invaded to stop piracy and save the economy. Every day we get one step closer to wacky futuristic sci-fi films where big brother makes you vanish if you say the wrong thing, and its a pitty because we got so far in the last century going in the totally opposite more free direction.
Have you praised your great leader George II today? sorry, didnt mean to make America sound like a medieval British inbred monarchy.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
And in other news, CmdrTaco has been detained under the PATRIOT act for terrorist acts against a website.
Don't worry, they're only coming for the terrorists.
Don't worry, they're only coming for the agitators.
Don't worry, they're only coming for the pirates.
Don't worry, they're only coming for the radicals.
Don't worry, they're only coming for the liberals.
Don't worry, they're only coming for the young.
Don't worry, they're not coming for you yet.
Apparently you don't, since you keep confusing it with theft. It's not.
First, copying is not stealing, it's copyright violation. Second, technology is changing the way business models need to work - a pay-per-copy scheme simply isn't viable any more. When conditions change, you can't depend on the government to prop up outdated business models - that's basic economics.
And BTW, I also work for a living creating software. I also create music, poetry, and stories, though I've yet to be paid a significant amount - and like most musicians and authors, probably never will - for those things.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
You noticed that too, eh?
:)
I think that it has something to do with a less-developed set of interpersonal skills, (common amongst tech folks) for combined with a bit of intellectual arrogance (also common).
Put down those flamethrowers, I'm a card carrying geek for many years. Taking offense won't change whether I'm right or wrong.
Unless 'here' means the US, in which case I agree, but don't have an explanation
(yup, I'm an american)
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
NEWS: MAE-West, one of the nation's key switching facilities for Internet connectivity, was completely destroyed by 500 pounds of Energel explosive after confirmation of a rumor that one of the routers in there was being used to send MP3 files to the dreaded user@KaZaA
"I believe that we have stopped to illegal tranfer of copyrighted materials in the most effective and timely manner possible", stated Bradley A. Buckles, head of the Anti-Piracy Unit of the Recording Industry Association of America and former director of the ATF.
"It is truly unfortunate that half of the US now has to go on without internet access just because of the actions of a few unscrupulous file traders" Buckles continues, "File swapping really does hurt everyone."
MAE-West was one of two major network traffic exchange points in the United States. The other, MAE-East, is in Vienna, Virginia.
When asked about MAE-East, Buckles said, "We'll blow that up too, if it turns out that kazaaliteuser@KaZaA is using that for illegal file sharing."
The RIAA now is pleased to announce in partnership with AT&T and PG&E the formal unveiling of "MediaNet". MediaNet is a network that connects your electrical system with the sewer system to form a massive computer network that can be billed per election transferred. Additionally, packet headers are decoded to determine to origin of traffic and impose any and all necessary foreign and domestic tarrifs and taxes.
We will be installing new meters alongside the ones you already have and you will be billed automatically for the webpages you access. MP3 ID3 tags are automatically read and you will be charged "fair market value" for any files transferred. When copyrighted images or sound clips load, users will also be charged "fair market value" for a single use right to view and hear them.
We believe that MediaNet will be a great success and will provide millions of homes and businesses with a valuable metered internet lifeline.
MediaNet service is a mandatory addition to your current utilities. Basic use fees will start at $50/month*
* Basic use fees do not include state data tax, universal MediaNet tax, interstate data transfer surcharge, or billing meter rental fees.
As far as I can tell Director Buckles wasn't a)director when the Waco fiasco took place b) was not the looney on-site who directed the attack. Atty Gen Janet Reno authorized the attack, not the head of the ATF c) I don't think it will get as bad as Japan where they actually arrested two people today for violating copyright. d) How much worse can RIAA get? They can't break down your doors like the ATF can. And I don't see the ATF enforcing the RIAA position, nor do I see RIAA "goon squads". IMNSHO, Buckles was hired for his ability to lead an organization and as well as his knowledge of the politics in Washington and his contacts in the DOJ. Hell, who knows he actually may be a reasonable man. He is retiring from DOJ and I guess he needed a job!
If the RIAA went away and music was sold by smaller laels, or by the musicians themselves (we have the technology), would music theft decrease?
The prices would probably come down, but I'm sure the new music distributers wold have to fight the same battle, and might join together in some sort of industry association. Thus under whatever name, there would be an RIAA.
JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
No, it couldn't, because the artist, producer, publisher, and distrubitor do not lose anything when a CD is copied.
Copying is not theft. It may (or may not) be a copyright violation, but copyright violation is not theft. (Since, under the U.S. constitution, Congress is authorized to issue copyrights only "for limited times to authors and inventors", many claims are inherently bogus.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Exactly, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.
A lot of those pinkos in Europe don't understand this.
Iraqi children are terrorists, just like their parents, and need to be exterminated in the name of FREEDOM.
Read Martin Luther's tract on JEWS AND THEIR LIES, about how to burn them out -- Luther meant Arabs too, he just didn't come out and say it.
In the name of God, Luther, and Country, burn them all !
Brought to you by the society for FREEDOM at all costs, and in all blood, and with all dead.
Um, something like that.
Look at what your government has come to and fear.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Can you explain why you should be paid over and over again - for up to 50 years after your death - for once piece of work ?
Can you also explain how someone can "steal" something from you, yet you still have it ?
I don't think money is bad. I do, however, think the entire copyright system is fundamentally flawed.
Cause we've got to take care of those P2P users: RIAA_PSA.
but they'll be replaced by virtual singers
(read that slashdot article from last week or so.)
Okay, so we'll all agree that copyright infringement is neither theft nor piracy. It is however still illegal.
But just because it has now become childs play to participate in copyright violations does not mean we have to change copyright laws. Like the grandparent stated, the OSS community holds dear the rights outlined in the OS licenses like the GPL, but seem to ignore and blatantly disregard other peoples choice of more restrictive licenses.
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
He was not director of the BATF for the Clinton ordered, Janet Reno authorized raid on the peaceful people at Mt. Caramel. The director at the time was Steven Higgins.
I wasn't there, and I generally despise monday morning quarterbacking... but Waco should never have happened. (I say that with tactical-team experience, along with a military background).
Retrospectively, of course, it looks like a real goat-rope. This is one of those arrest warrants where the ATF would have been light-years ahead of the game to simply grab Koresh in town. Instead, they played right into the fears of the Branch Davidians, and instead chose to assault a heavily armed and fortified compound. I sure as hell wouldn't have been thrilled to be on that entry team, knowing what they knew about the Davidians.
One of the first things you learn in tactics is WHEN to raid a location, preferably when you have maximum tactical advantage, with minimal risk to bystanders and civilians. Of course, raid time varies depending on lots of factors (ie. raiding a meth lab while they are cooking is generally considered a bad idea... Flashbangs will ignite Diethyl-ether fumes, and you want to arrest the dealers, not barbeque them). As far as raiding a forwarned, forearmed, fortified compound in broad daylight? I can't decide whether that's mettle or madness.
It's important to remember that the Davidians were tipped off that the ATF was coming, and the ATF knew it (that alone should have scrubbed the raid, since surprise and disorientation are among the primary reasons for choosing a dynamic entry) After the initial exchange, the Davidians didn't seem that interested in fighting... I find it most interesting that the Davidians didn't press their tactical advantage when the ATF/FBI tac-team members ran out of ammo from the prolonged firefight. Instead, they held their fire and allowed the federal tac-team to collect their wounded and retreat. Amidst all the discussion of the Davidians after the fact, that apparent act of mercy went almost unnoticed.
What a mess, and it all could have been avoided with adherence to simple, basic tactics.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Why should you?
The clause in the U.S. constitution that gives congress the power to revoke my right to distribute copies of your work gives this justification: to promote useful arts and sciences. Your exclusive rights to it are a means to an end, not the end in itself.
You have to weigh the benefits vs. costs of the exclusive rights granted to authors to determine if you should have those rights. Most would argue that you should have some exclusive rights. Many would argue that over the past century, you've been given far too many exclusive rights.
You would think with all of the bad press about suing children and grandparents no matter if it's true or not that the RIAA would be going the other way in terms of making things right.
Instead of hiring a good pr firm, coming up with a new, more tech-centric business model, and working all of their pricing angles for optimum profit they hire a big wig from a major govement organization relating to alcohol, tobaco, and firearms.
WTF?
I guess the RIAA is positioning itself as a late to the party ATF wanna be. To be renamed at some point to the ATFRIAA.
Seriously the RIAA has been buying laws, lawmakers, and shaping the unknowing, non-technolgy-knowing, public opinion to mirror their b.s. argument in hope of gaining more power and more allies. They are becoming a power to reckon with and will only gain more power in the years to come unless the masses are educated into what's at stake.
We're talking personal freedoms and the like. It's not about music it's about choice and being innocent until proven guilty.
Under the RIAA's system you need not consult a judge before they violate your rights and you are guilty no matter what you say or haven't done.
Only when the masses send the message with their wallets will these power mongers get the message.
I really hop we are headed in the right direction but when Britney Spears sells 600,000+ cd's a week of her new release something isn't right or someone isn't in the loop as to what's happening because of a few bits as sent through their cat5 of whatever else they use to receive and tranfer information.
I enlighten as many people as I can to what's happening and even have the anti riaa stickers on my vehicle that I bought from thinkgeek.com. I'll probably get the t-shirt there as well as the better one on jinxhackwear.com and yet another good one on tshirthell.com.
Eff is yet another organization we should support because they fight for issues directly related to technology and especially RIAA related issues.
Get involved or get F*****!!! That's the way I see it! I keep it clean when I can:D
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
WHOOOOP WHOOOOP WHOOOP!
Warning, Darwin's law triggered! Music cheapskates ("cheapskates", since "thieves" is technically incorrect) just lost the argument on MP3 trading!
The Free desktop that Just Works
Despite what you've said here, which makes a lot of sense, there is still a fundamental difference between 'copyright infringement' and 'theft'. They are governed by different laws, and have different scales of punishment. No amount of music industry rhetoric will make them the same thing, but at the same time no amount of penniless hippie rhetoric will make them justified, ethical or correct either.
so i can have the atf after me now too? i want to copy all my music files @ http://www.soundclick.com/brianhull to all the file names on the list. i encourage everyone to do the same
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Seriously though: If I work for a month on a piece of code, why shouldn't I have exclusive rights to it if I want?
Have it then. I'll settle for exclusive rights to this exact copy of it, which took me one second of hard work to produce. Nyer!
This is a good thread, and I've enjoyed your posts, but I'll just put out some anecdotal evidence the other way that I do frequently purchase CDs/Music DVDs that I have been sent tracks from by friends to try out. I suspect, however, that I'm in a tiny minority there.
I wish there was some way to give money directly to the artist in addition to what was paid for the media you heard them on. There are times when I've enjoyed an album so much, I've felt a desire to provide some kind of incentive to continue entertaining me, but buying multiple copies of the compact disk is useless because a) the artist won't realise what's been done b) the money mostly goes to the wrong people anyway. I want to buy Billy Corgan and Jimmy Chamberlain a pizza. I want to send a six pack of steinlager to The Muffs. I'd like to buy a box of Prozac for E. As the distribution model currently stands, the closest I'd be able to possibly get to this kind of fan/artist interaction would be throwing them on stage during a concert.
Music used to be great fun. I think we had a good relationship with the content providers at one point. And I also have a sneaking suspicion that somehow we brought this whole mess on ourselves... oh well.
</ramble>One god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
Not all slopes are slippery. Variations on this little ditty have to constitute the most overused cliche on the internet today.
One god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
But seemingly, a lot of people here have an entitlement complex, where they think they can take whatever the fuck they want for no other reason than that they want it.
The same could be said for both sides . . .
RIAA: Believes it's entitled to racking in all the money it wants solely because it can.
Swappers: Believe they're entitled to racking in all the music they want solely because they can.
Blaming only the side that's obviously breaking the law is not incorrect, but is not likely to lead to a working solution (defined as a solution that both sides agree is reasonable) either.
It's the fact that so much resources are devoted to policing that particular law and the harshness of the penalties that are at issue. Yes it's wrong, if the law says it's wrong it generally is the case. Just like jay walking, displaying an areola in public, driving a vehicle with only one working headlight etc etc. Downloading a pirate copy of Britney Spears latest effort (or more accurately her record companies) is hardly cause for the greater society to be worried - who exactly is being deprived of what? In most cases probably no one is deprived of anything as in most cases the downloader probably would never have bought the song anyway. In the rest of cases the likely crime is that a rich talentless artist is deprived of a few cents and the record company who is simply a leeching middle man in the whole process is deprived of a lot more. The politically approved legislation and the willingness of the courts to side with the RIAA in their extragavant claims of loss is indictive of the corruption that has allowed the corporate world to infect the state infrastructure which is designed to maintain piece and harmony in our society - not to line pockets of fat cats. For this you should be concerned.
When the copyright claim is valid, yes. (Copyright law often reaches far beyond Congress's legitimate power under Article I Section 8.) So what? So many things are illegal that few Americans get through a week without some violation, at least of a traffic or a tax law.
If you want copyright law to fulfill the goal of promoting "the progress of science and useful arts", yes, you do.
You paint with a mighty broad brush there, bucko. Members of the Open Source and Free Software communities hold a range of opinions on copyright.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Horray!
Time to go download some music and smoke some pot. :-)
Life is grand.
If you want to bring economics into the game, whose fault is it if the masses steal? If the opportunity cost (an economic idea) is so high that people don't want to pay, then it affects the supply and demand. Since RIAA sets the price high, then there is a deficit -- what people are willing to pay and the supply do not meet equilibrium, and therefore there are a lot of CD's on the shelf. The RIAA assumes that this is the result of piracy. What has happened is that there is crappy music and so people's oppertunity cost has dropped, i.e. they don't want to pay for crappy CD's for one song, and the market has not adjusted, i.e prices should have dropped, and people look to get their music cheaper. The piracy begins when people's value of the music is so low and the price so high that people implicitly associate a lower value on the CD's (go to Best Buy and watch, invetiably some person will pick up a CD and say, "I don't want to pay $22.95 for one song.") They like the one song, but have no venue to purchase it at a reasonable cost, and there is no market structure to figure out what that cost should be -- RIAA won't cooperate, it is an all or none package, you buy the entire CD or not at all. So the person goes home and downloads the CD, because free is even cheaper than the oppertunity cost.
Well, there's my two cents.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
RIAA Public Service Announcement
"Home searches begin 12/24/03"
http://overstated.net/media/RIAA_PSA.mpg
Great, download mp3's and people with guns will come down to your farm and shoot your family (including your dog) and label you a subversive whacko now. I wonder if their balance sheet on money spent on the war against piracy is ever going to show a profit. Somehow with settlements againts 15 year olds netting them a cool 2-3k I doubt it ever will.
Frankly, this is good news. Look at what happened to alcohol. They might outlaw filesharing for a while, but it the end we'll win.
Private FTP servers = the new speakeasies?
Cheers, mate!
there's no place like ~
...terribly funny in its level of idiocy if it wasn't for the fact that that same idiocy is fucking terrifying. but to tell you the truth, this kind of appoitee is almost Strangelovian in its perfect fir for such a draconian group.
The solution was not to allow the old industry of broadcast television to sue the cable TV companies out of existence under an old copyright law which was written without the participation of cable TV interests. Complete control over all uses of works is not a right that has ever or should ever be granted to owners of copyrights. Such a right would end the development of new technologies and tremendously reduce innovation in any country foolish enough to grant it. However, compensation can be given without control, and that's what's been done in the past as in the case of cable TV. The cable TV had to pay a license fee, but the old broadcasters could not restrict the cable TV companies from licensing any TV program they wanted. That's the solution that should've been applied to Napster. It grants both parties a reasonable settlement and allows people to continue to innovate.
Put down the computer and let the music go!
Alice rips a Microsoft CD (she bought) and sends it to Bob.
Right, no problem!
Microsoft rips a Linux kernel (it downloaded for free), modifies it, and distributes it as a closed source product for a fee, without providing source.
OH MY FUCKING GOD!
They're re-ordering their priorities, and we have to call then the Bureau of Recording, Tobacco, Fireams and Alcohol - or RTFA.
Don't go to a brothel if you want to buy broth
I agree with your last sentence 100%. OSS can viably be a commercial success as well. Why not release a product source openly, but charge for its content? Then, let's pretend we have a imaginary game, release the source for it but not the accompanying graphics, sounds, etc. that make it run properly. Sure, it would be easy to steal, but information is easy to steal anyhow, and then you have a better system.
Dear Knee-jerk Post-without-thinking morons: Please don't come up with stupid "But what if..." or "You're an idiot because your way means..." responses. You're all retarded, face it. I've had enough of people nit picking at my posts just because I didn't write out the answers to every little scenario possible that could arise. If you have a valid response, say it. Otherwise, shut up. Thank you.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
Oh, and all the frickin 9-11 paranoia didn't help much either.
Not to be a smartass (seriously) but you can't be forced to steal, except maybe food.
A Lexus is not cheap, but that doesn't mean it is ok for me to steal it if I want it.
The winners are the folks who think of a better way (like iTunes and the many clones), and they succeed without breaking the laws or socially acceptable behavior.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
The artist was deprived of the money Bob would have otherwise spent. It does matter how you look at it.
Unless Bob wasn't going to buy it in the first place, but listening to the copy he decides he likes the artist, and buys their other CDs. This happens all the time, and used to happen even more before smart people started boycotting the RIAA.
http://www.balorn.net/
?
Their agents (CIA) seem to be excellent, professional, and for good or bad they know their place.
There's been an internal struggle between FBI and CIA, unfortuately the FBI has been winning (usually choosing to fight over stuff the CIA can't talk about so it loss by default). Why the FBI wants (and got) their international speil is a bit of a mystery (other then enlighten the world with contemporary american moral). Liberal propaganda for the most part and there's been few dems who haven't attacked the CIA in some way or another.
FBI brings a cycle of violence to the stage seemingly intentional because of their psychological background. They creates something that is their counter and equal that they can't control. Ego's reign amoung agents and their easily manipulated by playing with their payed PR.
Okay, it is a shame the children died. But give me a fucking break. The SOLE PERSON RESPONSIBLE was David Koresh. The authorities were just trying to make an arrest.
> Since you're one of the few folks who responds intelligently to this issue (and used your nick... what a coincidence), I'll respond...
FYI - I have not posted on this story at all, but I thought I'd comment on this statement.
Please don't degrade or dismiss AC's... I never troll, yet if the posting is something I don't want to appear on a background check, then I'll post as AC. For example, in a public, non-AC post I wouldn't even criticize *Enron*.
If you tell the people a lie, no mater how outragious, loud enough and often enough the people will belive it and accept it unquestioningly as the truth.
copyright infringment is not theft, is not similar to actual theft, and has nothing to do with theft.
Because I made it. Me. Alone. No one else. I am not asking about elements of law, I am asking for a reason why my work should be any more stealable (?) than someone else's.
I would argue that waaaaay too many people are eager to give away other people's rights.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Assuming you refer to my sig... it is a reference to a lot of BS I see in the OSS community. The joyous blend of intelligence and little discretion :)
Incidently, force preserves more freedoms than politics (although war is just extreme politics... hmm...)
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Taxes. The lifeblood of the U.S. Government. Or any government, for that matter.
....to everyone now. Surely we must do something, find someone to be a counterweight to the corporate takeover of govt and media. We need someone with a serious grudge against the Establishment, someone who LIKES to fight the Powers That Be...NOT someone who likes to "go along to get along"
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Fair enough. I don't dismiss ACs as such... they may have a good reason. What I DO dismiss is someone who, because they are anonymous, becomes a total asshole (doesn't apply to you, sir/ma'am).
I must have an old PC, cuz my balls don't grow 10x in size when I get on the internet...
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
with a splintery broomstick handle. Asshole.
There are plenty of us who work and live in "the real world" as you put it. How can you say that someone who copies a thing is stealing it from you? No matter how much you want to will it to be theft the simple fact is that it isn't theft. There is no natural right to "intellectual property". Just because you choose to make your living based upon a flawed way of thinking is not my or anybody else's problem.
Again, you can go fuck yourself sideways.
I remember those bumper stickers...now I can see in the near future bumper stickers that say:
Is your music RIAA approved?
Scary stuff, kids.
ttyl
Farrell
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
Once you put something out in the public eye, it becomes de facto public domain (which is completely different from de jure, in case you're thinking I'm making that argument). The only way to control it is to not publish it in the first place.
You are just as bad as those whom you criticize, since you seem to feel just as much as sense of entitlement as they do (according to you).
The difference being... writing software is not form of art (I suppose that can be argued by some).
I think people are irked in general not because they don't wanna pay, but because music, an art form, has been bastardized by corporate america. When people go out and use technology to listen to music, they get punished for it.
Musicians aren't obligated to make millions.. it's the studios who choose to give it to them and expect to make it back in CD sales. Artists make nil from CD sales. It's all from touring.
Technically, they should be in it for the music, not for the money and it's this fact along that angers people.
While I completely understand your post about losing profit if someone were to download your software, it is in no way, shape, or form a crime to listen to music without paying for it.
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!
But I forgot that you're a fucking genius who exists in a vacuum. A genius with a sense of entitlement.
One other thing, just because you invested your time in creating a copyrightable work does not mean that you're entitled to get money for it. And yes, I do make my living writing software. Asshole.
Considering the alternative, it might be. Recall Prohibition. Laws that are broken by a large proportion, or even a majority, of the population lead to corruption of the justice system and society itself. More recently the "war on drugs" with similar or worse effects -- locally and globally (recall the Afghan Taleban and the Burmese junta both used opium/heroin profits to buy arms).
Note that "change copyright laws" does not mean "repeal all copyright". There are many ways besides the RIAA's to pay artists.
What is the ATF's responsibilities? Alchohol, Tobbaco and Firearms are all legal.
BTW, nice strawman argument there.
And just because I speed and get away with it does it mean I never committed the crime at all?
/. a fair amount of anti-copyright posts get modded up and posts like mine often dwell in the land of the trolls.
Yes, copyright laws aren't perfect for this day and age but changing them so that you can legally download the latest 'music' from Metallica may not fulfill the goal of promoting "the progress of science and useful arts" either.
The ease of violating musical copyrights is still not a valid reason to change copyright laws. This is an argument that people continue to push. If the major argument was that copyright laws are simply making rich people filthy rich years after their initial contribution to the arts then yes, I would agree with that.
And I admit I should use a smaller brush, but you do have to admit that at least here on
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
i think you've got slashdot pegged wrong.
>>a LOT of the slashdot folks have this whole 'money is bad' philosophy
i suppose it's easy to classify everyone..."you're a communist, i'm a hardworking american, she's a mp3 theif, he's a socialist"
i don't think you have clue one about who we are. i read these very same pages, yet i don't think that a lot of us "think money is bad". maybe a small minority...but whatever...i'm sure you'll beleive whatever you believe.
-a 35 year old self employed architect (a real one, as in BUILDINGS)
One day you just knew how to program? The full knowledge of programming fundamentals and the particular language syntax just sprang into your brain? You did this entirely without years of support from a society that, in addition to simply providing a safe environment, produced decades of practical and theoretical computer knowledge that teaches us how both how to solve particular known problems and approach unknown ones?
Just like a lot of people here seem to have a control freak complex, where they think they can control whatever the fuck other people do with their machines for no other reason other than "it's mine, Mine, MINE!!!!"
Go fuck yourself asshole.
Ego's reign supreme. so R we back 2 goatse [or] greased yoda.
Yup. Amazing isn't it?
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
This will look good on Mr. Bradley A. Buckles' curriculum vitae .. Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, Boy bands .. all things that are not really good for you!
But is it immoral? There are many good arguments that point out that copyrights can be immoral. But then again, I suppose you're saying that everything that is legal is also moral?
You suppose a lot of things don't you Mr. Anonymous Coward. I've seen you round quite a bit actually, supposing things here and there.
If you want to argue the moral grounds of copyright by all means start a new thread and go for it but don't guessing my views on a subject I've never voiced them on.
My point still stands. It is illegal and if you think it is morally wrong then talk to your congressman.
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
So yes, copyright infringement is a crime, but is it immoral? Because if you're making that argument, I'd say you don't have a leg to stand on.
HTH
The artist was deprived of the money Bob would have otherwise spent. It does matter how you look at it.
What a crock. No matter how you look at it, you have no inherent right to restrict what other people copy. But that argument is for someone who us thinking honestly, so let me rephrase: you have no inherent right to money you could have had if noone else was in the way. Tough luck.
Then you will get what comming to you, because the simple fact is that copyrights were morally worthless to begin with, but now are unenforceable and that fact will crush you like a semi running over a cockroach.
...is second only to William Shatner's, but neither are available in iTunes Music Store. Think about it...
You never answered the question. Are you saying that all laws are moral? If you are, then you really are an idiot.
If your point is that copyright infringement is illegal, then that's a pretty stupid and pointless point that few, if any, will disagree with. As a matter of fact, I haven't seen anyone here argue that copyright infringement is legal! As a matter of fact, you and your ilk seem to make a huge point that copyright infringement is wrong, which brings us back into the moral dimension, which you deny having anything to do with.
But then again, I don't expect idiots like you to grok something as simple as that.
http://www.energel.pentel.pl/
Wow. I humbly bow in the magnificance of your awesome intellect. Can I kiss your feet?
Considering the alternative, it might be. Recall Prohibition. Laws that are broken by a large proportion, or even a majority, of the population lead to corruption of the justice system and society itself.
True, Prohibition did more harm than good. However, consider the laws governing driving. Who can say that they always keep to the speed limit? These laws are broken repeatedly by an overwhelming majority of motorists. Do they have to be changed since the majority do not comply with them anyway? I don't think the justice system or society has been corrupted by motorists who habitually go 10% over the speed limit.
So one example backs the need for change and one doesn't. But like I've said elsewhere, I would agree that copyright laws need to be changed because they are out dated, but not because they are now too easy to break.
More recently the "war on drugs" with similar or worse effects -- locally and globally (recall the Afghan Taleban and the Burmese junta both used opium/heroin profits to buy arms).
Don't forget that the provideder of the opium seeds to the Taliban also provided the weapons because the 'war on communism' took precedence over the 'war on drugs'.
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
If I break rocks for a month, why shouldn't I have the exclusive right to break rocks? Hmmm, it doesn't sound quite as convincing that way.
I love money, I love business, and I love free enterprise - which is why I hate copyrights. Copyrights are not about money and business, they are about controll.
In fact it is an insult to suggest otherwise. It would be like saying that I don't believe in free enterprise and business because I don't want to own slaves on the plantation. What a crock!!!
Besides I seem to renember that when IBM couldn't hold intellectual property rights over the PC interface, then a economic explosion happened in the PC industry.
And when the internet went commercial, and no business could own the TCP/IP protocool, another economic explosion happened.
Now you see growth rates across the board with linux of 20% plus, and some of the most successfull IPO's in history. What the Hell - I still get grief about being anti free market!
Sheesh!
Okay, I could limit my terms a bit. I was referring to absolute prohibions, as in the cases I mentioned. When you have a "limit" it becomes greyer (how much over before action is taken?) But wasn't the national 55 mph limit repealed because of this?
And actually, in many countries, there are very strict road laws that are ignored except when the police need some pocket money.
So?
If you show it to someone, how does it follow that it would be intrinsically morally wrong if they made a copy of it? It's funny, after the centuries of philosophical debate over right and wrong through history, that this particular concept of having rights over distributing copies didn't pop up until the 17th century. It just must not have been as obvious to the great thinkers of history as it seems to be to you.
It is wrong only because it's wrong to break the law. The law in question was put in place for economic, not moral, reasons. It is not wrong to copy it just because you created it. You seem to have a false sense of entitlement. If you want to keep total control of it, don't show it to anyone.
I am not asking about elements of law, I am asking for a reason why my work should be any more stealable (?) than someone else's.
But elements of law are the only thing you've got. IP protection is not a "natural" right that transcends the law. If it were, it wouldn't have an expiration date.
I would argue that waaaaay too many people are eager to give away other people's rights.
And I'm questioning whether it was wise to expand your rights to the extent they've been expanded over the last few years. They didn't come from nowhere, your expanded rights came at the expense of the rights of others.
Boy, you really are an idiot, aren't you? You're comparing depriving someone of a physical entity (a Lexus) to copying music. In the former case you have a zero sum game: You either have the Lexus or you don't. In the latter case, you still have the music if someone copies it from you.
You're making a stretch to say that it's socially unacceptable to copy music when a majority of people disagree with you. I can't figure out why you're being modded as insightful when you're really just spewing the same redundant and discredited ideas that have kept the world in the stone age for centuries.
You betcha!
Kind of says it all doesn't it?
Take a few minutes and think about how Billy Corgan or Jimmy Chamberlain or The Muffs or, uh, E would like the world to be.
Then take a few hours and spend them making the world more like that.
Then if you feel like it, write your hero a letter and tell them what you did. That part is optional.
Simple to say, hard to do.
Bradley A. Buckles arrives at the RIAA just in time to tackle the problem of finding P2P users located within the 21124 square miles (82^2*Pi) surrounding every WiFi point in America. (New WiFi distance record.)
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I do not deny having anything to do with the moral validity of copyright laws. I simply deny ever having voiced my opinion. You however seem to think that you know what I think without me ever expressing my thoughts to you.
But since you keep pushing I'll make a comment. I do not believe that all laws are moral. How can they be when ones personal opinion of what is moral and what is not differs from person to person and group to group. Where Lars thinks copyright laws are moral you perhaps don't. So is it moral or not? Slavery was once morally okay but would now be frowned on in Western Countries. So yes, law has to change as the moral values of the society change.
So do I think copyright laws are moral? Yes and no. I believe that an artist/creator/inventor should be allowed to control to a certain extent the distribution of what he or she has created. Do I think that copyright laws are out dated? Yes, there does need to be change. Do I think it is morally okay to download music from the internet? In most cases no.
Got any other questions or are you happy to just keep assuming my thoughts.
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
Let's hear your argument as to why it is moral.
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
You have no inherent right to restrict what other people copy.
Sure I do. I have a right to restrict what my doctor does with my medical records. I have the right to restrict what copies you make of the GPL software that I create.
These are legal rights (which you do not dispute), but I believe they have a foundation in moral rights (which obviously we disagree on).
And I'm just an American. I hear that Europeans have even more privacy rights. A privacy right, after all, is simply a restriction on what other people can copy.
Well I would argue that copyright laws are examples of "limited" laws. The copyright only last for so long. Where I see the most room for improving copyright laws is to adjust this "limit".
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
Is it possible we shouldn't say that it is downloaders that is killing CD sales?
Actualy for me it's the pig in a poke bit. If I buy this CD, will not work due to a DRM issue. Do I have to agree to a draconian EULA and incur the wrath of the DMCA for buying and using it? Know how many CD's I put back down on the shelf because I could not find the Compact Disk logo to assure me it was ok to buy, rip, mix & burn? My car, living room DVD, and portable play MP3 CD's. Incompatible stuff is not purchased. Opened stuff is not returnable. Translation; Non-Returnable Expensive Pig in a poke which I don't buy.
Most legal downloads are also incompatible with rip, mix, burn to MP3 CD's. Attempting to do so is usualy in violation of the DMCA and hence are useless.
I mostly use my collection (LP's, Compact Cassettes, and CD's, all ripped for preservation.
I love CDEX!
The truth shall set you free!
I knew you were gonna say that too. I'm on a roll.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
"The artist was deprived of the money Bob would have otherwise spent. It does matter how you look at it."
This assumes that the artist was entitled to Bob's money in the first place. Using this logic, it could well be said that if Bob was going to purchase a CD, but saw a really nice chess set and used the CD money to purchase that instead of the CD, the chess set manufacturer has 'robbed' the artist of a sale. The artist was going to get Bob's money, but someone else's actions (the creation and marketing of the chess set) cancelled an otherwise-guaranteed sale.
If you really want to see how the artist is deprived of money, you should check into how much the record industry takes (as a matter of general practice) out of the artist's cut of album sales to cover the cost of broken records using a model which was created when vinyl records were sold. Nevermind the fact that the percentage of CDs broken during shipping is a mere fraction of the number of vinyl records that were broken; they're taking the same cut. Or perhaps you could look at how the industry manipulates artists' contracts using high-powered lawyers to ensure that artists are locked into a single company for eternity without even the option of going out on their own. When an artist is contracted to produce 5 albums, the recording company will often ignore albums that don't sell well, keeping the artist locked into a perpetual contract that actually hinders their ability to create new content. The record company makes a bunch of money from the first album, but gives the artist next to nothing from it, citing "recording, studio, manufacturing, shipping, marketing, promotional costs, etc", then shelves the next 5 or 6 albums when it becomes clear they're not selling as well as the first, but then tells the artist that they've only created one album. And don't go thinking that this only happens rarely, or to small artists. The Dixie Chicks just recently had to sue their label to get more than $4million that was owed to them. If memory serves, they recorded an album that went platinum, for which their label refused to pay them. Talk about real theft.
"My problem has always been this: In the heyday of file sharing (2000 or so), I worked in a lab and saw the students downloading thousands of mp3s a day, and the whole "well, if I like it I'll buy it" argument was never voiced. A friend is a DJ (mp3J?) that uses all stolen songs on his laptop instead of CDs. He certainly didn't buy any."
The "I'm just demoing it" argument has always been a bit weak, though not entirely inaccurate. While there are some folks who really do buy more music when they download, I'm certain that, at least a majority, do not. That being said, I think the real problem is that when people look at a CD, they're thinking less about an artist making it, and more about a multi-national conglomerate mega-corp that produced it and is trying to sell it to them at extremely inflated prices. My personal argument in this whole thing is that I will not put my money into the hands of corrupt organizations that should have been broken up decades ago, with their top brass jailed on RICO violations. They've now grown so bold as to demand to be exempt from all anti-trust lawsuits. This is like the mafia demanding to be exempt from murder prosecutions. I suppose the logic is, "we've been breaking these laws for so long, why don't you just stop bugging us about it?". I do buy CDs, T-shirts, concert tickets, etc from non-RIAA affiliated bands that I like. That is how I show my support. If Metallica wants another dollar from me (I've bought their stuff in the past), they'd best get away from their RIAA whore of a label and stop treating their fans like garbage. I absolutely support the rights of artists and others to make a profit from their intellectual property. What I do not support in any way are corrupt organizations (as defined under US Federal RICO statutes). I will not pay them money, and I will not support t
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
what if people wernt so greedy and actually thought; hey i want to make something FOR THE BETTERMENT OF MANKIND rather than for my own personal gain. wouldnt that be a better world. it is possible.
you owe society.
unless your a libertarian.
i enjoy writing. if i ever write anything worth publishing, then i would want more people to see it than buy it. i have heard more bands than i would have EVER baught cds of. some are easily in my top 5 bands now. movies too. and i actually did go out and buy donnie darko after downloading the divx. Why? because it was one more way of exhibiting the film to get the content out there! (friends/realitives/business associates)
i guess thats really what it comes down to: fortune fades, fame is immortal. in the long run this also has the side effect of benifiting and improving humanity.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
Correction, a doctor who posts your medical records on the internet is violating your privacy rights, not a right to restrict what other people copy. Once it's out there, and in the papers, and what not it's too late. They are not the same. If someone copys a madonna CD, I'm sure they are not violating her privacy rights either.
Copyrights destroy privacy rights, because they are completely unenforceable unless institutions have the authority to invade your privacy.
I think I speak for all of us when I say:
OH FUCK.
Well, as often stated, copyright in the US is limited theoretically, but practically it's unlimited, as it's extended every few years.
Aside from expiring copyright after a (shorter) set or variable period, (personally, I think 7-14 years after the creator's death) other limits on its scope include "fair use" and "compulsory licensing", both standard concepts that the RIAA seems set to exterminate, which would allow ideas to become part of our common heritage and still reward the creators.
The authorities were just trying to make an arrest.
Which they could EASILY have done when Koresh left the compound, as he did occasionally.
So, why assault a fortified compound instead?
Think about that.
But seemingly, a lot of people here have an entitlement complex, where they think they can take whatever the fuck they want for no other reason than that they want it.
Ah, now I get it! As Internet users, it is our Manifest Destiny to trade in warez and mp3s.
(Tangent: What if stealing from the RIAA (or whatever you want to call it) somehow ends up benefitting our country greatly in a hundred years?)
Just because something is illegal doesn't mean it's wrong. Maybe the law should be changed... if only to acknowledge that about 25% of america is sharing MP3s.
In fact, maybe that's just where we're headed: File-sharing will become something that's illegal but widespread. Paying your out-of-court settlement to the RIAA will be viewed the same way we all view speeding tickets. Oh, and you'll have to pay more for the "insurance" on your Internet connection after you get busted. Repeat offenders will get their connection yanked, maybe even jail time.
Seriously, now that copyright violation is a federal criminal offense, a situation like the above is entirely possible. We could even see sentencing guidelines come out of Congress or the Justice Department.
The very meaning of a privacy right is a restriction on the copying activity of people who have access to that information.
So do you think that a patient is damaged when a doctor gives copies of their medical records to a journalist, or not?
How do you reconcile that with your position that every person can make copies of any information that they possess and share those copies with other people?
That is: how come your position doesn't apply to your doctor?
.....and that was when I stopped watching South Park.
Morons.
I don't recognize the copy right of monopolistic publishers. Copy right was invented to give artists the ability to make a living off of their works. Then monopolies got involved by acquiring copy rights and then lobbying for them to be forever. By doing this, they established a perminant monopoly with which they could pay artists a measly pittance for their work and therefore, bypass the copy right system's original intent and cut off the access to art we had prior to copy right laws, as well as being able to censor that music for whatever goverment or group happened to be involved with the monopoly. This is why p2p systems are wonderful, they bypass copy right and publishers altogether and give people the ability to promote and distribute their work all in one fell swoop. The day the RIAA/MPAA is done away with and I can go down to the music store and find uncensored music made by local and national bands is the day I'll be a very very happy camper because I don't have to deal with these monopolies.
I like law, it makes life simpler and makes sure I can rest in my bed at night even though I don't know who's sleeping a mere 20 feet from me. I just don't like how it's used and when I don't like how it's used, it's my duty to stand up for it and to educate myself and others, hence the reason I'm posting on slashdot.
As for the RIAA hiring someone from the ATF to do their dirty work, this both puts me into roaring fits of laughter at it's rediculousness and rage/fear. If they do put together armed enforcement squads, I'm going to first of all shit my pants, and second of all wait to see if congress says "ya know, this is taking it way to far". If they don't, I'm seriously going to consider my allegance to this country. Sure, I shouldn't have anything to fear from the RIAA if I'm not doing illegal things, but on the other hand, they did prosecute a 12 year old girl and an 80 year old dude who didn't even own a computer. So why wouldn't they make a mistake, break into my house for the heck of it and slaughter my family even though I'm innocent?
Candy-Coated Knowledge
If you're supposed to pay for something and you take it without paying for it you stole. And stealing makes you a theif.
The only reason it matters if it's physical property or not is in court.
The question for pirates isn't whether or not you're a theif. It's a question of what you stole that determines sentencing. Since for piracy you didn't steal physical property the grounds for forming a sum to cover damages is a lot less firm. Who knows how many copies you made of whatever you stole. If you steal physical property, you owe the price of the property you stole times the number you stole which is an easily determinable amount.
Look up "steal" in Webster and you don't find a differentiation between stealing nonphysical and physical objects. It's simply the illegal aquiring of goods.
The only place you find a differentiation between the two is in a law book. Oh yes, and in posts of people who just like to cut and paste the same thing over and over hoping to get moderated highly.
"Can you explain why you should be paid over and over again - for up to 50 years after your death - for once piece of work ?"
So are you going to require that all investments made by people be yanked and disolved upon their death?
Currently author's have a CHOICE to allow their copyrights to go that far. There's nothing stopping you from only putting works in the public domain or demanding that they be put in the public domain upon your death.
If a content creator wishes their family to be able to benefit from their creation that people still enjoy, that should also be a CHOICE they can make.
Or maybe you should just talk to your parents and other relatives about forgetting about giving you any kind of inheritence.
After all, you didn't earn it.
Inheriting trust funds, bank accounts, interest, IP, businesses, it's all the same. It's giving people things they had no inherent right to. Copyright Law gives people the ability to allow their children to benefit from their labor after their passing for non concrete things.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Uh, oh. Very bad news. This asshole has government contacts. One thing I can say is that this new "War" will bankrupt the RIAA or the country.
MP3'S DON'T KILL PEOPLE, PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE.
Maybe someone can get Charlton Heston to hold up a laptop and say, "Out of my cold, dead hands."
If I break rocks for a month, why shouldn't I have the exclusive right to break rocks? Hmmm, it doesn't sound quite as convincing that way.
It doesn't make sense that way either. You did, however, manage to obscure the very point you failed to make! Bravo!
128K MP3s as uploaded to P2P networks are substantially identical to the 128K MP3s which provide the content you hear on analog FM radio. In fact, using a tuner card, you can even record them back to 128K MP3s and store them on your hard drive, just as you can record them to analog cassette tape and trade them to your friends.
The difference between listening via download or FM radio?
There is no proof that 128K MP3s are more effective or less effective in promoting the sale of CDs whether broadcast over the radio or downloaded from the Internet. The same set of ears decides based on them whether or not to buy the CD or not. The latest Eminem album was "pre-released" unofficially over P2P a month before official release at record stores. Because of this, customers who wanted to hear it at better than 128K MP3 quality were ready to buy as soon as the CDs hit retail and it immediately hit #1.
What did Eminem lose from the "theft" of his music? Nobody associated with the RIAA or any record label has explained this to us, and I've heard no complaints from Eminem about this.
In fairness, Madonna's latest got pre-released and it tanked. However, Madonna has yet to explain why she thinks it wouldn't have gone into the dumper in the absence of pre-release via the Net.
One difference? FM radio stations are paid by RIAA labels to carry music promotional content, while via P2P, listeners host the music on servers at their own expense and transfer the music at their own bandwidth expense.
Another difference? Getting digital content via FM radio is legal. Getting the identical content via the Internet isn't.
Why?
The *AA companies bought off a shitload of politicians openly through campaign contributions to make the law that way.
Why would the *AA companies want to cut one promo distribution channel that the listeners pay for instead of them?
Effectively, only the RIAA companies have access to FM as a music promotional channel. The indie musicians and labels are priced out of the market. The indie musicians and labels can afford to distribute promotional tracks via P2P. That's why the RIAA has done its best to destroy P2P and Internet Radio in the hands of individuals and small organizations.
I don't mind protecting the legitimate rights of artists to profit from their work in the least. However, I have no interest in interfering with the ability of indie artists to promote their work via the Internet, and less than no interest in wasting taxpayer money to prop up the obsolete and dying business model of the RIAA and soon, the MPAA member companies.
What about PIRACY!!!?
128K MP3s are promotional giveaways of no intrinsic value. The product is the physical CD, and that's what people pay for.. Counterfeit CDs of anything you can find in a record stores are available in Asia, pressed at Asian CD manufacturing facilities and sold openly all over Asia and in some cases, even in the USA. If the *AA really wanted to stop PIRACY!!!, they'd be pressuring US politicians to stop the manufacture of counterfeit CDs in Asia. There are many kinds of pressure the US government could be putting on Asian governments to stop this. Why isn't this happening? Ask Hilary Rosen yourself.
If you want to call P2P and Internet Radio theft, be my guest, but please smash your FM radio over your head first.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Right. I paid good money to learn how to program, and that knowledge is mine to do as I please. Oh well, I guess your right. We'll just toss the GPL out the window along with RIAA copyrights and embrace anarchy.
Perhaps because the majority of the people _don't_ disagree with me and just because you want the world to change doesn't make the old ideas bad?
Any no, I'm not really an idiot. Sometimes I'm really an asshole. Today I'm just a guy.
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Copyright infringement is theft. Your equivocating to make it sound better doesn't change that fact.
"And BTW, I also work for a living creating software. I also create music, poetry, and stories, though I've yet to be paid a significant amount - and like most musicians and authors, probably never will - for those things."
Just because you suck, don't punish those that have real talent by forcing them to waste their time in menial jobs because you steal their work. Have some respect for other people's right for a change, rather than enslaving them.
"Can you also explain how someone can "steal" something from you, yet you still have it ? "
If somethings value has been reduced to $0, it has effectively been stolen. If you distribute something of mine for free that I was charging more than $0 previously, you have stolen it from me because I can no longer sell it for the price of my choosing, but now must compete with you, who have no right to my creation.
Vote for Pedro
"Can you explain why you should be paid over and over again - for up to 50 years after your death - for once piece of work ? "
Can you explain why I can will a piece of real estate to my children? Same principle.
Vote for Pedro
It's not moral. it's not immoral either. Copyright infringement is what legal folk call a mal prohibita law, meaning that the government prohibits it, but it is not inherently wrong. Laws like theft are what I believe are called mal in se, meaning that every right thinking human being belives the act to be wrong(murder,mayhem,rape,robbery,arson). All societies on earth have had laws against all the things I mentioned. but civilizations differ greatly when it comes to mal prohibita laws. in some cultures I would imagine, it would be illegal to not give away your music for free.
If this person is effective, and some people are make examples of (like 12 year olds), Bush will have a PR backlash that can't be hosed down - along with those no good oldies who smuggle in Canadian pharmaceuticals. Start calling votes thieves, and watch the backlash.
It just doesn't make sense to inflict scarcity on infinitely reproducible goods like software, music, and books. Everyone is so busy trying to get their "compensation" that they don't see the absurdity of it all.
... this all seems to me to be a broken model. Something's got to give.
Okay, so it makes sense in our current economic system, where everyone is out for themselves. (And we've all heard the rediculous claim: `who would make X if they couldn't get paid for it!`) But it seems that these days the product itself is becoming secondary to restricting its use.
The RIAA/MPAA monopolies and lawsuits about listening to music, software companies investing in patent portfolios as weapons for litigation, copy protection schemes for software
"But I forgot that you're a fucking genius who exists in a vacuum. "
Hey, actually you'd have have to be pretty damn clever to exist in a vacuum, there not being any air and all...
graspee
Then that person doesn't have the right to listen to the music.
Hmm, actually my last post was badly phrased. What would have been better was : "That person does not have the right to own a copy of the music for his/her use"
Because it's his work and you don't have his permission to copy it. His time and effort went into creating it and if he chooses to charge for it and you don't pay but copy and use it anyway.... You are stealing from him. No if ands or buts about it.
It is not wrong to copy it just because you created it. You seem to have a false sense of entitlement.
Why do you say that? He created it. He chooses to charge for it. If you don't pay him for the right to use it but use it anyway, you are taking money from him. If you don't want to pay, create your own code. Once you've done that, once you've taken the time and energy to create something and someone takes it without your permission (just because they (you) have a false sense of entitlement) you might change your tune, especially if your livelyhood depends on getting paid for what you create.
It's funny, after the centuries of philosophical debate over right and wrong through history, that this particular concept of having rights over distributing copies didn't pop up until the 17th century.
Probably because before that there wasn't much to copy or any good way to copy it. Really now, how can you compare something as fast and simple as copying software in this day and age, to something as difficult and time consuming as copying books or paintings in the 17th century?
> this particular concept of having rights over
> distributing copies didn't pop up until the 17th
> century.
actually you may want to read about St Columba
(6th century) and the wee scuffle he had over
copying a Book of Psalms without its owner's
consent; over three thousands were slaughtered
over the dispute... those were the days, the
RIAA and all their lawyers are mere amateurs.
Well... steal is such a harsh word, I prefer something different. But I'll get to that later on.
Why P2P music and more?
When I was in my upper teen and college years I had a great interest in music. I had a very wide range of music interests that covered several types of classical music, rock, jazz, country (a little), and a whole variety of music forms that didn't even have a name yet. I think now they're lumped into the New-Age acid jazz something or other...
But I would learn about this music by cruising halls in the dorms listening to what other people where playing and checking out music collections of friends of mine.
And stuff I liked I could buy at the local store for anywhere from $2 to $10 in circa 1985.
Fast forward 18 years.
I don't live in a dorm anymore so it's hard to hear other peoples stereos. But I do listen to the radio. Have you? Do you know what's on the radio? Considering it's all owned by one company, ClearChannel the selection is limited to approximately four groups: Classic Rock, Rock - which is really just Pop, Country - which is a bastardization of Rock, and Rap. Flame on if you want, but make sure you've been listening to music for >30 years first.
Now for every station that is in one of these catagories, there are a list of songs (heard of Top 40?) that are played on a regular basis. This frequency is such that by the time I get home on Tuesday I know the lyrics of all the songs that came out on Monday.
Kind of limited on my selections of music that are available through public means of acquisitiion. Meaning, in order to seek music legally, I am limited to very narrow vectors of music.
So, I go to the music stores to seek my wide range of music. Guess what I find there? The same shit that I heard on the way over and now it's running better than $20 a pop. I actually tried to just buy a CD based on a precious small sample I heard once. It lasted about 3 hours before I threw it out. CD music is too expensive to purchase on the basis of, "Maybe this will be good to listen to". Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a better way of doing it.
So, where does that leave us?
Conclusion: If you want to explore the world of music, publicly available radio stations and music stores will not provide you with anything better than cattle food. If you want to find more variety, the only place you might find it is in P2P music community. To date, there is no better medium through which to experience a variety of music and find what you really like.
For my tastes, P2P is a great place to borrow music to learn what I like. Then I can make a more targeted attempt to get the music via the internet rather than getting it through the likes of Best Buy (which won't ever happen because they have no selection).
Unfortunately, all this RIAA activity is simply causing me to try new things like:
Jackbooted thugs breaking down your door with machine guns drawn... just because your 12-year old daughter just had to have the latest britney spears tune...
Aren't these the same guys that were so successful in Waco, TX; Ruby Ridge, and don't forget their best success in history -- prohibition!!!
So, when are we actually going to get around to boycotting all radio and music sales in America?
There is no way in hell any of this will ever change until there is a concerted effort to make a point to them. Not buying music will not work.
Sure the music industry took a dump almost to the day they shut down napster. But they blamed it on illegal music sharing, not a fact of the music buyers just lost their single best means of identifying what they want to buy. Why? Because no body told them in clear terms.
If you want to get through to RIAA/MPAA then it's going to be a matter of boycott, boycott, boycott. Make it political, make it public, make it noticable, make it known.
Personally, I do not intend on purchasing a HDTV simply because that media will no longer allow me to record television shows.
I have been so overwhelmed with commercials that it's easier for me to learn how to not watch TV and not listen to the Radio than to put up with the constant babble.
I suggest we all give it a try, but do it all at once under a concerted boycotting effort.
Let's start a national push to not purchase any music or movies (tickets, CD, rentals) for the month of July, 2004.
If I work for a month on a piece of code, why shouldn't I have exclusive rights to it if I want?
Generically speaking, you probably work for me. You were hired to produce this code for us as a work for hire. You should be glad to be paid what we're paying you, because if you'd turned down our offer, we'd have hired somebody else who'll work for less money. It'll be his family that eats for the next six months.
Because it was a work for hire, you don't have any rights to the code you produced. I own all rights to it, and I'll lawsuit-bomb your ass into bankruptcy if I ever see anyone else using _my_ code.
Blaming only the side that's obviously breaking the law is not incorrect, [...]
Are you talking about the side that illegally fixes prices & uses payola or about the side that illegally swaps songs?
"can be billed per election transferred"
:)
I'm sure you meant electron, but the typo's funnier anyway.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
No they dont lose anything when a copyrighted work is simply copied, however when the copy is distributed or given away they do lose. My argument had nothing to do with the expiration of copyrights. My fault for not being clear on that point.
This is smelling like a troll, and I'm just giving the reader fair warning that I'm caught ;-)
Property is a creation of human beings, ultimately of the human mind. If you take someone's handiwork, you deprive them of the physical object; but even more fundamentally, you have appropriated from them the results of their productive efforts and hard-won skill. Intellectual property differs from physical property only in that there is no physical limitation -- there is no object to steal. The skill and effort that goes into the act of creation exists still, however; moreover, in most cases a substantial financial investment is made by the creator.
This is what property rights seeks to protect. The right of the creator of that property to receive full benefit from it. When you "help yourself" to the invention of another, at his expense (his skill, effort, and time), it is stealing.
Try George Reisman for your economics, and Ayn Rand for the philosophical underpinnings.
Regards!
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
If I break rocks for a month, why shouldn't I have the exclusive right to break rocks? Hmmm, it doesn't sound quite as convincing that way.
You changed the sentence structure around. It should be: "If I break rocks for a month, why shouldn't I have the exclusive right to those rocks?"
And maybe you should, since they are the product of your labour (as long as you didn't steal the original rocks from someone else).
The following sentence is true. The preceding sentence was false.
I've heard this over and over and in the end it's just a lame excuse.
Ok so what if it's a bad cd you've downloaded? If you hear it's a shitty cd which you'd never buy, you *delete* the mp3s and don't listen to them again. End of story. And if there's ever a problem with the RIAA knocking on your door, they won't find the files on your harddisk anymore.
If you don't like the cd, don't trade it with others, don't store it on your harddisk or listen to it anymore.
Reminds me of what I heard on an Iron Maiden concert a few months ago: Our new cd is coming out and will be good. Please buy it and don't download it. Only if you feel it's real bad then send it to your friends, as they'll appreciate you send them a shitty cd..
Which sums it up pretty good: if it's a bad cd then it isn't worth sharing or keeping, if it's good enough to keep and listen to, then it's worth buying too.
And no, I'm not against piracy but tired of hearing this excuse over and over by people who still have huge mp3 collections.
... and only buy these very few cds you really think are worth buying.
If you like to set up a huge mp3 collection, make a dedicated pc as mp3 player, listen to it a lot, then music *is* worth something to you. Don't say you only listen to shitty songs you'd never buy, turn the radio on then.
And for the people who don't want to buy thousands of cds and like to listen to music (like me): turn on the radio.. and if you really want some specific songs/genres/.. then take a subscription to digital radio,
Learn about pinball machines on www.flippers.be
So competition is theft? If you are sellings widgets for $100 and I outsource my widget production to Thailand and sell them for $1, have I stolen something from you?
It doesn't sound as convincing because it's a pretty ridiculous analaogy.
He writes code for a month and wants exclussive access to the software that is the product of his code. That's probably semi-reasonable.
Just as you desiring exclussive access to the gravel that is the end result of you breaking rocks is also probably semi reasonable, or me desiring exclussive access to the pile of firewood I've created outside my cabin from my month's work at splitting lengths of timber...
Now if he'd been talking about the exclussive right to write code...
-H
"If there's anything more important than my ego, I want it caught and shot now." -- Z. Beeblebrox
Put your collective ears where your mouth is. Cool music from a guy you've never heard of.
Horse puckey. Not only has the artist, et al not lost a sale, but they just got free advertising. Yes, the music machine just SAVED money. What do I base this on? Facts. Fact: At the height of FTP mp3s, Napster and other fledgeling P2P progs, the record companies had the highest sales AND profits in thier history. Only with the economic downturn and the music industry's crackdown have sales slowed. File sharing is the new radio.
How are they to determine whether the CD is worth buying or not if they've "no right" to listen to the music prior to buiyng a CD?
There's the sticky questions of enforcement and punishment too. Shall everyone be forced to equip themselves with earplugs? Shall we fill up the ear canals of those who inadvertently overhear someone listening to the music that other person has purchased a CD of and thereby obtained the right to listen to?
Sorry to go on at length, but I figured a silly comment deserved a silly response.
-H
"If there's anything more important than my ego, I want it caught and shot now." -- Z. Beeblebrox
The funny thing is, if it was your creation being pirated in Asia, you'd be the first person suing.
/sigh
;)
That's it, correct yourself after I decide to wax eloquent.
-H
"If there's anything more important than my ego, I want it caught and shot now." -- Z. Beeblebrox
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms? Together? Is this a great country or what?
I guess we can now add pirated music to that wonderful list.
Some people have a way with words, and some people, um, thingy.
Except for the MP5 submachine gun pointed at little Elian by a federal officer in that famous picture
It is clearly pointed AWAY from Elian. The perspective makes it appear, at first glance, to point in his direction.
> Just because you suck, don't punish those that
> have real talent by forcing them to waste
> their time in menial jobs because you steal
> their work. Have some respect for other
> people's right for a change, rather than
> enslaving them.
Why do you assume that anyone who hasn't been paid for their work, must suck?
Let's take an example. Strong Bad e-mails. Some people think these suck, but *very* many people like them. However, by your logic, since the Brothers Chaps have never been paid for any of them, they must suck.
"Well, you can choose to give stuff away if you want." But it's not actually like that. Giving stuff away is the default way of getting it seen. Selling it is the hard bit, and you can't freely choose to sell stuff, because getting in a position to sell IP requires a whole bunch of skills and resources that aren't relevant to creating that IP.
So, yea, let's give those with "real talent" a shot, rather than demanding that even those with great talent must have business acumen too in order to get any reward for it.
(Oh, and by the way, the existance of "talent" is unproven.)
The one thing I really have against the RIAA and how it's going about this is this.. They're going after the people that are SHARING the music? Why? Should they not be going after the people DOWNLOADING the music? ie: Setting up servers with copywritten music on them which people then download from.
Or do we now have to keep all of our CD's locked up in a TL60x6 rated safe? Is the RIAA going after libraries that have CD's which are copied by people who check them out? Why not?
The difference is medical records are private information, where as music which has been released can in no way be considered private as it is being played on the radio and sold in shops. If something is already readily available it isn't private. If I am broadcasting my medical records on the radio and selling copies then my doctor leaking the same records to the press isn't really an issue is it.
Notice I havn't mentioned copyright in this post as I am purely pointing out the flaws in your example. Another difference of course being that I don't hold copyright on my medical records. Copyright has notbing to do with privacy, one is keeping private things out of the public domain the other is in place in order to allow artists to release works into the public domain without losing the rights to that work.
I think rather more the problem is this.
Normally, markets in a capitalism are producer-led or consumer-led. Producer-led markets appear when a product is popular, and tend to lead to high prices. These are good: there must be some reason why the product is popular, and the producer gets rewarded for producing it. Consumer-led markets appear when a product isn't so popular so producers want to get it out the door, and tend to lead to low prices. These are good too: the consumers can buy their stuff for a lower price.
But IP at the moment is neither of these. IP is an example of a horrible situation: the distribution-led market. The distribution-led market is actually a violation of capitalism; capitalism is based on a free market, but when distribution leading occurs, the market ceases to be free.
In a distribution-led market, producers are forced to accept bad deals from the distributors because they have no other way to get stuff marketed; and consumers are forced to pay high prices (which aren't passed back to the producers) because the distributors, having got their deals from the producers, don't really care that much if the stuff doesn't sell. Everybody loses.
At the moment, copyright - together with other market forces - is acting to maintain that distribution-led situation. And a great point of indignancy is that copyright law was quickly updated to allow for "internet realities", but was never updated to allow for the realities of a distribution-led market. (By means such as barring the transfer of copyright, thus making it impossible for distributors to force artists to give away their entire IP rights.)
Personally, I think the best way would be for the government to simply state: "We're giving you six months. If the market is still distribution-led after that time, copyright law will be abolished. Sort it out amongst yourselves or we'll pull out the rug." (That tactic could have been applied in other cases too. Like "Make it so that key workers can afford houses in all areas. If you haven't done so after six months, mortgage interest will be raised to 500%, thus razing your market to the ground.")
Now we'll see a Waco type event for music downloaders.
This is a test. This is a test of the emergency sig system. This has been only a test.
I am just glad that all of the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms are off the streets, and this boob can concentrate on the REAL dangers to our society - pirating shitty music.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I did it as soon as Slashdot would let me! ;)
Like it or not, the game has changed. You can either adapt to the new rules or get thrown out of the game for too many violations because you are not following the new rules. Copyright laws have gotten way out of hand because the old distribution model gave an unjustifiable amount of power to distributors of music, movies, etc. such that they could artificially move the U.S. Government to extend copyright length beyond what it should be and for reasons that are in conflict with the intent of copyright laws in the first place.
So distribution model is broken and that was also the crux of your business model. Time to get a new business model or become extinct.
The only way to save the old business model is to go to a 1984'ish ( I mean the book/movie 1984, not the year ) totalitarian form of enforcement, which I for one do not want to see happen. The other way, as I already stated, is to adapt to the new environment.
On final point, which is not rebuttal directed at your post, is that I keep seeing people whine about 'lost sales'. Where are these lost sales? And how did you lose them if you never had them?
I can't afford a sig!
True, the people are not forced to steal, but the theft is comming from inflated prices for what people are unwilling to pay for. And the opportunity cost of stealing a Lexus is higher, than the opportunity cost of stealing music. The likely hood of being arrested and spending 3-5 in prision over music is so much smaller (but the penatilies for stealing on piece of music now outwiegh the penalties of stealing a car, so people, take that as a lesson. If your going to steal music and get caught, steal a car instead) Society has dictated that stealing music is not nessasarily a social crime, but stealing a car is a huge crime. Additionally, when you buy a Lexus there is a value, and most people that want a Lexus would probably agree that a Lexus is worth the value. But few would agree that Britney Spears song carries any value. The difference between a Lexus and music is that the market has generally agreed that a Lexus should sell for the $35,000, and that music is not really worth the money RIAA is charging. The argument that I was trying to make is that RIAA is encouraging theft of music by refusing to allow the market to reach equilibrium with the supply of the music and the demand. In other words, Pink's new CD should cell for more than Britney Spear's new CD, and both should sell more than Matchbox 20's CD that came out three years ago -- the price for CD's seems to be so static that whether you want the latest and greatest, you pay the same for the old and lame. RIAA could reduce the amount of piracy by having a vairable market price, which is determined by what people are willing to pay - for example, with Pink's latest, maybe people are willing to pay $12, but not $23, and then when her next CD comes out price it at the same range. How this will prevent piracy is that more people will be willing to pay the money and own the CD instead of downloading. And downloading does have an opportunity cost -- the amount of time and effort that it takes to get a quality song. If the value of the CD to person is higher than the effort to download 15 songs and try to get them in a reasonable time, then they may be willing to buy it. I had a room mate spend a week on broadband try to get a complete album, and if the CD was cheaper than $20, he would have bought them.
Another interesting aspect to look at is what you get for your $20. You get music, and that is it. But for the same $20, you can go to the movies and get popcorn and a soda, or you could buy a movie. Maybe you wanted a book, which for $20 you could buy. The problem is that the value of what you are getting for $20 is so much lower -- you get an audio experience, but with video you get more, and even with a book. With a Lexus you get more value, and you can enjoy it for years to come. With music you may listen to the song occasionally, and then never listen to it again. RIAA is trying to place the value of music on the same level as a movie, or a book. At least for $20 with a movie you get two hours of entertainment. So that is the real issue -- the value is so much lower and people would rather spend there money elsewhere. I know that I have not bought a CD in four years (and I don't download music, I prefer RADIO because it is free, except for commericals) because the value is so low and the price so high. Additionaly, music, except for concerts, is a secondary experience, where movies and books are a primary experience. You listen to music while driving, and you listen to music while studying. You don't watch a movie while driving, or drive your car while listening to music. Generally, something that aguments the primary experience is not worth as much as the primary experience.
So while I agree that you can't be forced to steal, I am arguing that RIAA encourages the theft by placing something that people want, but is generally beyond their reach because of prices. And I also agree that theft of music is morally wrong. (Although stealing music does not carry the same weight as stealing a Lexus).
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
Look again: http://www.hkpro.com/elian.htm
The weapon is on safe, the agent's finger is on the trigger guard, not the safety, and the weapon is pointed off to the side.
No, they don't. If I burn a copy of "Highway 61 Revisited", Bob Dylan's bank balance does not go down, nor does so much as an old used guitar string disappear from his possession. He loses nothing, there is no theft.
Put another way: if I work for my boss, but my boss doesn't write me my paycheck, theft has not been committed - breach of contract has. Similarly, if I burn a copy of a Dylan CD, theft has not been committed - violation of copyright may have.
(A large and significant differences being that I had a agreement with my boss, but none with Dylan.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
> Because it's his work and you don't have his permission to copy it ...
The parent poster's point was that the act of copying the work is minimal - it was the creation that involved the effort. In other words, copying the work does not remove your orginal from your possession. So morally, copying the work does not in itself deprive you of anything. You still have the fruits of your labour.
On the other hand, our society values our creative people, and so a law is in place to allow a creator to sell copies of a work, to provide incentive to create original new works. This is the economic side of the argument that the parent was putting forth.
So, in summary, you DO have a false sense of entitlement. The sole fact that you created something, that is easily copiable at no cost to you, is not IN ITSELF a justification that you must be paid for it. Rather, the social agreement of copyright law allows you to charge for providing copies of your creation, and so illegally copying a work within this framework, THAT is the copyright infringement (a civil offence).
this doesn't equate.
If you sell widgets you designed and paid for the research and production of for less than I do than that is competition. If you steal my widget plans and them make and sell my widgets you are a thief.
If I write a book and sell it for 10 bucks and you copy it exactly and sell it for 5$ you are a thief. If you write an original book in the same genre and sell for less that is competition.
I know there is abuse of copyright laws but there is a big difference between competition of similar products and theft of my product.
stealing and copying are two completely different items all together. There is distintion to be made between these two and it should be made everytime someone uses stealing incorrectly. Also he didn't create anything, there is no physical evidence that anything was created. He might have written a piece of code, but in the end nothing is actually created. Perhaps if anyone that has purchased software was entirely happy with the product and investment in that product it wouldn't be copied. As it stands now i know there'll never be a bug causing me to reboot my mountain dew. I don't have to patch my bag of chips. When i want a new and different flavour of jerky i don't have to pay more for it.
If any software developer ever created software that the average consumer could justify buying, then there wouldn't be a huge demand for piracy, it would be as large as stealing in stores.
And just for your own information morals are a reflection of the beliefs of the majority of people in a given area. Since the majority of pc users in the US think it's ok to pirate, you are im-moral for trying to charge for your product.
btw, it started early, before independence even--it wasn't a crime until the govt realized how much money they could make on it...the funniest story involved a bunch of scotch in pennsylvania who used their homebrew liquor as currency...they couldn't pay the govt $$ because they didn't have any! (here officer, have this gallon jug as payment)
Paying for copyrighted music is a lot like paying for a cab ride. Both are transient events which serve a basic purpose which it is arguable is beneficial to society. Both are now considered woefully overpriced. If I take a ride in a cab, and I don't pay for it: I'm called a thief even though I have not physically stolen anything. I still derived the experience of riding in the cab and beyond that it served me the purpose of getting from point a to point b. Beyond that, it did deprive the "creator" of my cab ride (the driver) from earning a decent living off of the activity of driving his or her cab. If someone figured out a way to duplicate the experience of having a cab ride and gave it away for free it's questionable whether there would be as much public outcry.
If I "steal" music it amounts to exactly the same thing. People equate downloading as being insignificant to the lives of musicians, since they must all be super rich drug-taking cristal-sipping megalomaniacs. In the case of maybe 1% of all musicians that may be true, just as it may be true that 1% of all cab drivers are somehow also living a very decadent and overblown existence (though that could probably be proven otherwise.) The fact is: it costs money to record, it costs money to buy instruments, computers, DJ setups, mixers, microphones, etc. It costs money to learn how to operate all that stuff. It costs money to hire someone who already knows how to operate all that stuff if you don't know how. It would similarly cost me more money to buy a car than it would to pay for a cab ride.
My point: Copyright may be flawed but it is there for a reason. Simply because someone does something creative versus tangible and otherwise contributional to society does not mean it is not worth something, or more importantly that it didn't cost anything in the first place. Even if I make a set of recordings and give them away (which I have done,) it doesn't mean it didn't cost me money or effort. It does. How much that is worth to somebody is a matter of very real debate. I agree that CD's are overpriced but I also agree that copyright in its current form is deeply flawed. One cannot look at any record contract without thinking that immediately. Many clauses remain there to uphold literally hundred-year-old concepts like player pianos and shellac 78's. The record industry definitely had this battle coming. It doesn't mean that anyone is justified in ripping them off.
Whether it's actually a good / reasonable idea having someone formerly in charge of the ATF move over to a racket like the RIAA is definitely a good question.
</babble>
Because I can! [Brainrub.com]
posted via satellite
If so many people are violating the social mores....then the mores are not very strong at all. Just pointing out the missing logic....
if the 'War on Drugs' is any indication, look for 'zero tolerance,' and heavyhanded application of the RICO act...
so, could an 'alleged' pirate have their computer equipment confiscated for having a couple of illegal songs? how about their house? don't think it to be out of the realm of possibility, given that our civil liberties are a skeleton of what they were just a few short years ago, and that RICO has been wielded indiscriminately, to put it kindly...
ps. say 'hi' to the nice FBI man who is 'monitoring' this post...
OK, it's not a documentary, but its a pretty good movie with Robert Mitchum as a bootlegger in the early 50s driving hopped up cars -- A lot of NASCAR guys got their start doing this, it's not a coincidence that they're all from the hill country in the south.
Interestingly, Steve Jobs had the same argument for launching iTunes. He is attempting to make the missing market channel...and it is working.
"ATF has the best cost-to-collection ratio in the federal family." from:
http://www.atf.gov/about/history.htm
Aha! He is a cost effectivenes/efficiency expert in the field of legal extortion.
I thought ATF was Anti-Terrorism Force...
This is the basis of your argument; just like a philosopher starts with "I think, therefore I am". The whole point of my post was to question the validity of that assumption in the first place. You still don't understand what I'm trying to say.
Undoubtedly, the next response in this thread will start with "How can you question my axiom? I worked on it! I should control it!"
That is easy enough to accomplish, just don't release it to the world. Once you publish you can expect others to derive from your works, just like you did when you wrote your program. Or prehaps you never got an idea from a code snipet someone else wrote? We all benefit from each others work, trying to profit without having to share is just unworkable greed. Asking someone to make others go along with your greed by pointing guns at them is disgusting.
The reason we subjugate ourselves to law is to better procure justice. If law does not accomplish this purpose then it m
Several years ago I earned my grey hairs debating this here. I suggest you give it up now, Waffle Iron. Debating the validity of IP with someone of the opinion that "copying is stealing, period!" - now the majority of the population, it seems - is rather like debating the validity of a religion with a parishioner.
As an aside, the majority of club dj's (at least in the uk) work in clubs where a subscription is made to agencies that collect on behalf of the music publishers. by that token, your mp3 collecting dj is acting quite legitmately simply because the artist is (in theory) being compensated for his work...
Just because you bought one CD doesn't mean that you can give copies away to everyone you know, nor does it automagically grant you the right to copy all the CDs of your friends.
:)
In Canada it does
Well actually, I don't even have to buy that one CD. My right to copy CDs is firmly written into law.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
You're backpedaling... you said before that if he reduces the value of something you had to $0, that's stealing. if he sells widgets for $1 and you can't keep up with that competition, the value of your widgets, since you can't sell them effectively, is $0 for you.
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.
I think your earlier post nailed it. A high percentage of the vocal 'no rights' minority have not the experience in settling their own accounts to respect what 'earn a living' means.
Ask the next person who makes this arguement to please connect the dots between creating society with no intellectual property laws and also having a robust marketplace of creative arts. Note that 'robust marketplace' precludes using the National Endowment for the Arts as an example :)
Cheers,
-- RLJ
Well, I hate the RIAA and I think CDs are overpriced, especially when you consider that they're selling individual songs on-line for a $1 and whole CDs with maybe 10 songs for $20. But if your objection is that you don't want to pay for songs you won't listen to, then bear in mind the existence of singles. If you only want one song, but one. They're often available for the songs that you would have heard on the radio anyhow...
This should convince you who the bad guys were: they flock together for protection.
There are a couple of videos out on the Waco raid. Our Fedgoons are murderers, plain and simple.
Lew
Does this mean that they'll burn down your house and PC in order to protect kids from illegal downloading?
The validity is obvious. If you are free to steal peoples work, for the most part, they won't make the work to begin with. Why should I work my butt off writing software so you can steal it? How am I going to feed my family? Not writing software in your utopian society. All those programs, music etc. that you steal are nonexistent in your little socialist utopia. Your just desperately trying to rationalize your antisocial behavior.
No, I am afraid that it is you who are the troll. Just because someone creates a copyrightable work does not mean that they are entitled to get money for it.
I suggest you check Karl Marx for your economics and philosophy.
Anyway, I was right. Your response was: "My axiom is obvious!"
No, but it means that rational people will yawn and say "So what?" when you argue that because X is currently illegal, you shouldn't do X. Law has long lost any moral authority as a guide to what one should or should not do; it's just a guide as to what to not get caught doing.
When a law is both unenforceable and widely broken, an intelligent society will change it. Failure to do so only breeds contempt for the law, and erosion of justice as more extreme attempts at enforcement are brought into play. (Like the "War on (some) Drugs"? Look for the "War on Copying", coming soon. Former ATF stormtroopers coming to the RIAA could be just the first step.)
In the case of copyright, the whole idea of "pay-per-copy" is dying if not dead. It's long past time to start developing alternative ways for authors and musicians to get paid.
Copying a CD is now about as easy as learning to sing a song. I suggest putting copying music under the same sort of structure as performance royalties - copy all you want, but if you sell or otherwise profit from copies (including profiting from downloads), you owe a royalty. Eliminate copyright, create a royaltyright.
As an semi-professional musician (I've actually gotten paid a few times, so I guess I've lost my amateur status) I want people to share my music. I don't have moral or legal authority to demand a nickel if someone hums a song I wrote, and the same should apply if someone makes a copy to give away. (Hell, I should pay them a nickel.) But if anyone's making a buck off it, I think I deserve a cut.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Rather than repeat what's already been said by multiple people, I'll just refer you to this post.
Cheers!
You haven't pointed out any flaws at all.
...
The original poster claimed: "you have no inherent right to restrict what other people copy." I claimed: yes I do, I have a right to restrict what my doctor copies. Now you come in and agree with me that yes, I do have a right to restrict what my doctor copies.
Copyright has nothing to do with privacy
Yes, it does. Both copyright and medical privacy are rights to restrict what other people copy. If you universally deny a right to restrict what other people copy, then you deny both copyrights and medical privacy.
You are saying that you want to restrict what other people copy in some cases ("private information") but not others ("played on the radio and sold in shops"). That's a point of view, but it's a different point of view from the original poster, who believes there should be no restrictions on doctors sharing medical information.
Here's a question for you: under your point of view, did Linksys do anything wrong when they picked up the Linux kernel, ported it to their devices, and sold the devices with binaries and without sources? The Linux kernel is surely readily available.
Try discussing property rights in the RIAA dispute sense with a Hopi, or with a member of any culture that is not endowed with the Euro-American concept of "ownership".
Regardless of the right or wrong, or the legality or illegality of the "issue", Listening to the radio and listening on the internet, just IS. Seems to me the whole thing is a buncha foolishness.
Now as to the ATF, they have yet another reputation in the law enforcement field: That is the agency where FBI, DEA, Customs, or other Fed cops who are totally incompetent and cannot sucessfully tie their own shoes without direct supervision get sent. After all, once you work for the feds you are never fired, just promoted and transferred.
So Remember: their is a whole agency out there of heavely armed people who make Dilbert's boss look brilliant. Abd their former head now works for the RIAA?
--
It's not really just among tech folks. It's just a general state of things. Television reflects the entitlement mentality that people have, and perhaps reenforces it for many people.
I want my free money/healthcare/software/prescription drugs/toaster/car/house/sex/etc.
And if you act now, you can get this wonderful marvel absolutely free.
now that's something to really sigh about.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I remember when you could buy a single song if you wanted to on a 45. You young pups may think I am talking about a gun but this was a piece of vinyl about the side of a CD you played on something called a Turntable As a kid I would gladly pay for a single on a 45 and sometimes I would like the B side enough that I would go out and spend my hard earned money on an LP. There are many records still in my collection that would not be there if the record companies did not market to me this way. I have not purchased a CD for myself in 3 years but neither have I downloaded and burned any. I have recieved some as gift and they were NOT the Clear Channel approved artist that I am forced to hear on the local radio stations. There is just no new music out there I am willing to spend MY money on. Get a clue RIAA, your product is not being purchased because I don't find it to be worth your ridiculous prices.
No, my sentence structure is reasonable - if you look at writing code as a service, not the resultant code as a product.
No, my analogy is fine - if you look at the value of writing code as a service, not the resultant code as a product. I think it's greedy that so many people think they should get paid over and over for something they create once.
Actually, if you count the whole process of demanding client information without a court order, etc... both sides are breaking the law.
Or, they were, but one side seems to be adept at having the law altered by pet politicians,etc to suit their needs. When simply having a device capable of recording around a theatre, etc is a crime, it points to a strong unbalance of power between the two factions.
Not necessarily. You could just be full of hot air (cymbal crash)
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
Many good points here...
To answer your questions:
Do you agree with this?
Yes. Technically you are correct. 'Sharing' still seems to be akin to theft, but they are legally distinct.
I certainly hope that you can agree that my view on the subject is just a bit different than some, as oppose to a self-righteous fit of some sort.
I do. Well thought out differing opinions are always welcome!
"Faith: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel." - A.B.
> If you don't pay him for the right to use it but use it anyway, you are taking money from him
AAAARGH, this is a fucking stupid argument. If you don't pay him for the right to use it, you are taking JACK SHIT. You MAY be preventing the compensation from one sale, but the creator has not lost a damn thing.
Take this further: Say I am a painter. I sell my paintings for not a penny under $40,000. Joe Schtick thinks it's cool, but only works minimum wage. He takes a picture of it (which he could blow up to actual size, although it would be slightly lower quality, a la CD -> MP3). He may well be breaking the law, technically, but I have not lost anything just because he made a copy of my work. I wasn't going to get the money anyway, so I HAVE LOST NOTHING, nothing was taken from me.
I think you do have a legal right if they do it in public. No different than a cover bar/band paying ASCAP royalties...
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
I'm sorry you wasted your time replying to the AC, who obviously doesn't even know what a troll is.
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
> No, my analogy is fine - if you look at the value of writing code as a service
Nope. I'm on your side of this argument, but I still think it's a bad analogy.
The problem with looking at it as a service is that, when compared to the original statement, you are implying that the service (act of writing code) is what is at question. It is not. Your analogy would fit if the original had been saying that he should have exclusive rights to write the code, but that is not what he said. Therefore, the argument isn't about the service at all, but the end result of his work just as the end result of your work is smaller rocks or gravel
The record companies are not selling a product they make (the CD), they are selling someone else's product (the music), for which the someone else doesn't recieve full value either. The record companies are simply another form/layer of distribution.
The record industry (not recording industry) has is a monopoly through the RIAA. At some point, these industry associations which coordinate activities and contracting practices should undergo anti-trust review. It is in fact illegal for the companies to price-fix or coerce artists (a term used loosely here) as a group (such as blacklisting or requiring all members to use the same contract language) if this restrains trade, which it arguably does.
Also, the whole case depends on whether the music is the property of the artist and distribution has been assigned to the label, or the label actually owns all rights to the music.
Read _Reefer Madness_ if you want to understand how distribution led economies are alive and well in the California strawberry industry.
Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a critical component of spiritual devotion. Jon Krakauer
The bar band is making money for the bar in the process. Mere public performance - for example, me playing a Beatles cover at a friends' party - doesn't require royalties. (Not that such could be enforced anyway.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
If you are free to steal peoples work, for the most part, they won't make the work to begin with.
You made the mistake of using "steal" instead of "copy". Let me correct it so I can properly reply:
If you are free to copy peoples work, for the most part, they won't make the work to begin with.
True.
You still have absolutely no inherent right to prevent someone from repeating (copying) an idea you have spoken to them. Or to prevent them from themselves drawing (copying) an image that they have seen, or themselves writing (copying) a text they have seen.
If I may take a US-centric view a moment, the constitution says that congress has the power: "To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries".
Copyright law is not based on any sort of personal right. If you look at that constitutional wording it actually says that authors and inventors do not already possess any such right. Congress MAY secure such rights for them IF THEY CHOOSE TO, and they may only do so for a specific purpose - the purpose of benefiting the public. Any profit and benefit to the creator is irrelevant side effect. It is only relevant as a means to an end.
Copyright law is a matter of public policy. It is good public policy to give people an incentive to create. Copyright protection and profit for creators can be an excellent means to an end. They can be a very good thing, but it is important to remember that it only exists for the benefit of the public and to ultimately get more creations into the public domain. The natural state of information-creations is in the public domain, copyright law exists for the purpose of maximizing the growth of the public domain. It does this by temporarily pulling it out of the public domain.
Copyright infringement is no more "theft" or "stealing" than slander is "theft" or "stealing". That is not mean infringment is a good thing any more than it means slander is a good thing.
The big problem is that out congress has lost sight of the constitutional purpose of copyright law. Congress has been passing bad law - bad public policy. Given the way things are going - perpetual duration and constantly expanding restrictions and extermination of fair use and the absurd DMCA and the Trusted Computing inititave - given a chice between that and no copyright at all, I'd go with no copyright at all.
Of course the BEST way to procede would be to return to the original constitutional purpose of copyright giving an incentive by securing the profits generated from a work for its creator. Unfortunately the Copyright Lobby has absolutely no interest in good and proper copyright law is - they are busy waging a war against the public interest.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
First, copying is not stealing, it's copyright violation
It's not stealing right now, nor is it theft. However, with the way the current RIAA/MPAA-friendly-politician-legal-bill theme is rolling, I wouldn't be in the least surprised to see introduction of laws that classify copyright violation as theft somehow, at least in relation to music or movies.
Of course, the flipside to that is that getting nailed for a bazillion-jillion dollars on copyright violations, plus the added criminal charges being introduce, may make whether it is theft or not a moral point only... as you'd be better off stealing a CD than copying/sharing one illegitimately.
And like most of the analogies in this type of argument, its horribly broken.
The difference between creative works and physical products is that, you can copy a creative work, without removing the ability of the person, from whom you copied it to use it. With a physical object, if a person takes that physical object, the person it was taken from is deprived of its use.
Perhaps, the only way to make an accurate analogy out of this would be to say that I break big rocks into small rocks, then you come along and use a magical device which creates a pile of rocks, next to mine, which is exactly like mine, and you cart that second pile away, leaving me with the pile I made originally. This analogy, of course, is quite silly.
Copyright is a legal construct, nothing more. It was put in place ostesibly, to promote the useful arts. The idea is that, by giving people a limited monopoly over thier creative works, it would drive them to create more works.
Now, this brings up a couple of questions:
1. Does it work?
Well, we do have countless people and companies out profiteering everyday, based on copyrights. So this seems to be a yes.
2. Is there a better way?
This is a bit cloudier of an issue. We have seen recently, in the OSS movement that a large group of people, willing to share freely with one another (mind you the sharing is enforced), can produce software that is higher quality than that produced under the copyright-monoploy culture. Though, it does leave to chance what software will get produced, but even that seems to be following the basic "necessity is the mother of invention" direction. But that would still leave gaps. So far, we have not seen a major game released under the open source model. Yes, we have Tux Racer, and a few other minor titles, but have we seen anything of the scope of Starcraft or Half-Life? (If there is, please point me in that direction, I honestly have never seen anything). So there seems to be some need for profit to drive entertainment media. But to flip back, musicians seem willing to make next to nothing on CD's, on the assumption that good advertising will drive concert ticket sales. As we all know, (and is often used to justify P2P, which is not my intent), the artists tend to receive next to nothing off CD sales, and even off of online song sales they get almost nothing, why not switch to a system where they make nothing off of song sales, but make money on concerts and merchandising? For the artists, this really wouldn't be that big of change. They wouldn't make money off of the songs, but they could do all of their publicicty work for very little cost. Granted, we would have to finally kill raido payola, but that would be a small loss.
For this question, I think we are still in the dark, though the alternative seems to be showing a little promise. It would change how software/music/films/etc get made, but I don't think we can be sure that this change will be bad or good.
3. Is the term of copyrights correct?
Considering that nothing has fallen into the public domain in nearly a century, is the public really getting anything, other than screwed, out of the deal with the people that create? It was supposed to be a give and take deal, but the content producers seem to just want to take.
Personally, I think something is quite broken in the current copyright construct, and a move to a more socialistic approch might work better. Though, there would need to be some method for the creators to recoup some of the costs, possibly from a social program, kinda like the National Endowment for the Arts. And certainly from things, such as live performances, and packaging.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.
Yup... they'll use Gestapo tactics and the fear factor to make you too paranoid to P2P your music. Nevermind that we buy from and give to China BILLIONS of dollars every year and those commie bastards pirate infinitely more music and movies and software than all of the free-world combined. And they do jack squat to stop them, but we'll sick the former Director of the BATF on you if you download a song.
I use the RIAA Radar to determine who is and isn't a member of RIAA. Then, DO NOT BUY music or ANYTHING associated with RIAA. I leech my tunes here and there and P2P isn't even a concern. I get all the latest releases at and sometimes before official release without any worries whatsoever. The BATF (Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms) tortured and then executed women and children in Waco because their religion wasn't BATF approved. Now, the psycho BATF Director is going to be the RIAA's head-hunter... great. To hell with them, all. The BATF, the RIAA, all the power trippin' freaks. DO NOT BUY ANYTHING ASSOCIATED WITH RIAA.
"It is essential that justice be done
Copyright law is not based on any sort of personal right. If you look at that constitutional wording it actually says that authors and inventors do not already possess any such right.
Nowhere that I see.
Congress MAY secure such rights for them IF THEY CHOOSE TO, and they may only do so for a specific purpose - the purpose of benefiting the public. Any profit and benefit to the creator is irrelevant side effect. It is only relevant as a means to an end.
Note, however, that the word used is "secure". Not create, not give, but secure. One can only secure something that already exists.
It seems to me, then, that a proper understanding of the constitution would take that into accout (each word has significance). So, it doesn't appear to even imply that the inventor/author doesn't have that right inherently, only that the government doesn't necessarily have to secure that right for that person. But, the constitution grants the power to do so to the government (permission, rather than obligation).
Looks like one is arguing from a moral basis, and another is arguing from the basis of law. The two do not necessarily intersect (that which is lawful is not always moral, and that which is moral is not always lawful). Personally, I don't care a slight bit for what the laws made by men say as men can be very corrupt. Rather, I side with my understanding of the moral. Regardless, I think you're not on solid ground with your writing on the subject, but then I've said before that I'm not a constitutional scholar (though I'd bet that you're not either).
the theft is comming from inflated prices for what people are unwilling to pay for.
So, let me get this right. They don't need it, they can't afford it, yet they still seem to think that it's ok for them to take it? Looks like stealing to me, and it also looks like it isn't coming from "inflated prices". Rather, it looks quite a bit like selfishness is the cause.
By the way, there is no justification for "dynamic entry". EVER. Anyone who engages in it is a criminal
I'm going to have to disagree with you here. By that standard, you can count me a criminal. But I'm sure you don't really mean that the way it sounds... after all, what would you do without all those friendly neighborhood criminals-in-blue, looking out for the safety and security of your community and family? I'm sure you're not planning on taking on those sociopathic armed subjects yourself...
"Knock and announce" is the usual standard for tactical team raids, but has several notable exceptions, including officer safety and destructions of evidence. Check this link for more details . Both of these exceptions have to be articulated, backed up by testimony/evidence, and justified in court. Challenging the admissability of evidence is criminal defense 101. No tac-team I know would ever half-ass a warrant and risk their neck, just so they can get humiliated and lose the evidence (and probably their conviction) when it comes out in court.
Personally, I'm not thrilled with the evidentiary exception... seems a bit cheap to sell a police officer's life for a bag of dope. On the other hand, to ensure officer safety and maximize your tactical advantage against a violent, armed, homicidal subject? All day long.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Because your employer owns it. And before you dismiss that as a flip, irrelevant comment, realize that it's the common case, and the case you invoked, of an individual owning significant code, is rare. Shouldn't we think more about the common case in determining rules?
The reality is that most creators of intellectual property must work for an employer to support themselves, and must give up the rights to that property. Except where the law prohibits it (California), employers often claim all IP of an employee, whether done at work or not. And since the default is for IP to be restricted, it leads to a lot of duplicated effort and a lot of great creations buried.
IP has a role to play, but in debating its future we should focus on the reality of how it works rather than idealized visions of a creator protecting his creation.
I guess what you are trying to tell me is that stealing music is not actually theft? It is a real property. Intellectual property. If you possess it, and you are not liscenced to possess it, you have it illegaly. This is THEFT! No grey area here. THEFT! Simply denying it is THEFT because no money is missing...
whatever, I am not going to argue with stupidity anymore.
Castro needs a few more good socialists like you.
Just who is entitled, if not the creator?
And keep your anonymous posting foolishness to yourself, or are you reluctant to claim ownership for your comments?
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
Oh that's real good. So someone posts a statement backing up natural law theory and totally disregards positive law theory and you treat it as gospel. Natural law theory is dead. All of the post you referred to is no longer part of modern jurisprudence. Do some thinking of your own next time.
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
Legal folk have not been thinking that at all lately. That is what is known as natural law theory. Positive law theory is the latest view.
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
Interesting point put don't blur the lines of economics and law. It is true that music industry is having its merry way with both producers and consumers but this has very little to do with copyright laws.
Copyright laws are simply for the protection of the producer. As far as I am concerned the consumer has no right to demand changes in copyright laws to benefit themselves. Copyright laws have never really taken the consumer into real consideration and neither should they.
If copyright laws are to continue to aid in the development of new ideas in science and the arts then the producer needs to have protection or else they are not going to put time and effort into their project. Even OSS relies on this. Those who contribute to GPLed software do so knowing that their work is protected in the way they want it to be. My company has put a lot of time and money (over 20 years) into real world models that out perform all of our competitors. If we can't retain the rights to our code we might as well give up on further developing our technology.
We should be going after the distributers not the producers rights.
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
No, but it means that rational people will yawn and say "So what?" when you argue that because X is currently illegal, you shouldn't do X.
... so what I guess.
Oh I murdered a gas station attentend while robbing the store
In the case of copyright, the whole idea of "pay-per-copy" is dying if not dead. It's long past time to start developing alternative ways for authors and musicians to get paid.
We sell our software and the customer pays for one copy. It seems to be working quite fine for both us the producer and them the consumer. The whole problem with the music industry is the middle man, the distributor. But why go after the producer's rights when they have done nothing wrong?
Eliminating copyright would stifle innovation. If all we could enforce were royaltyrights we'd go out of business and stop innovating.
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
out of curiosity, what does the postive law theory state?
"Secure" is not being used as an adjective, it is being used as a verb, so skip down to the second section here on wordsmith:
Inflected Forms secured, securing, secures
Definition 1.to obtain; acquire. Example He secured a good job. Synonyms get (1) , procure (1) , gain (1) , acquire (2) , obtain
Yes, the second definition is:
to make safe or free from harm
But that usage makes absolutely no sense in the context used in the constitution. It would be absurd to say that congress may only make an existing right "safe or free from harm" for a limited time. That section is not a list of existing rights that need to be "made safe free from harm" such as voting, it is a list of extra powers to act that the congress is granted such laying taxes, borrowing money, and establishing post offices.
Specificly, the text says that congress is granted the power "To promote the progress of science and useful arts". THAT is the power to act that congress is granted. It then specifies the means that congress may use: "by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries".
Congress may promote progress by getting / procuring / gaining / acquiring / obtaining these exclusive rights for authors. The only place to aquire them is to taking them away from the public.
The constitution says that congress may temporarily take this freedom away from the public for the purpose of promoting progress. When that limited period ends the information falls back to it's natural state - the public domain.
There is no right to copyright protection anywhere in the constitution. The rights of copyright are granted solely by Title 17 Chapter 1 Sec. 106. - Exclusive rights in copyrighted works. If you were to remove that one section then copyright holders would have no rights whatsoever. The rest is definitions, limitations on those rights, penalties, yada yada yada. Mostly limitations on those rights.
To quote Thomas Jefferson:
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me
There is no inherent right to limit other people's freedom to repeat / write / draw / scuplt thier own copy of something they have seen - someone sitting in the privacy of their own home with their own property. Copyright is a policy with the purpose of promoting progress. That is a very worthwhile goal, but copyright is only valid in proper service of that goal.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Are you talking about music consumers or the RIAA?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
In point of fact, lots of people download(ed) lots of stuff they would never buy. Their "never buy" status is not dependent on the presence or absence of the download.
The straw-man arugment that each download represents a lost sale is unsupportable. There are several classes of adopters. The largest cross section of downloaders would not be "promoted" from "downloader" to "purchaser", they would de DEMOTED from "downloader" to "might own if it were cheap of free" and some more would DEMOTE all the way to "wouldn't keep this if it were forced on me at gun point." Further, there are people who download(ed) things at random, liked what they hear, and promoted themselves to "purchaser" because of the available downloads. Finally there is NO WAY to tell whether downloading availability was a positive or negative sum transaction.
The only known facts:
[Group A] (1) downloading peaked, (2) album sales peaked at the same time as downloading peaked, (3) the econmy peaked with items 1 and 2.
[Group B] (1) downloading got attacked and fell off, (2) album sales fell off at the same time as downloading, (3) the economy generally fell off at the same times as items 1 and 2.
The facts actually support EXACTLY TWO conclusions. (1) the economy has affected album sales and (2) downloading may have helped album sales, but at a minimum did no demonstrable harm to album sales.
The follow on fact that lazy thinkers who cannot correlate "economy" and "sales" tend to be the same people who can neither correlated nor reconcile "no IP style entanglements" and "the renesance".
[ASIDE: Just for the record, I write software and fiction and get paid for one and want to get paid for the other. But I also pay enough attention to the world to know that overly simple models of interraction based on deleberate ignorance will fail to reach accurate conclusions. "The money the artist would have got" is just such a conclusion.]
Consider BitOBear's three question "cultural reletivity" test...
1) "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo..." What is Juliet asking? [HINT: she isn't trying to find out if he is at the bottom of the wall...]
2) "Let them eat cake." What is Marie Antoniette suggesting? [HINT: it is not the common "birthday food"...]
3) Where did the "Confederacy" get its name? [HINT: the civil war was about slavery in the same way that not-driving-drunk is about avoiding points on your driver's license...]
These are three culturally accessible examples of how modern people (Americans spesifically?) walk around with their heads full of garbage about what is going on in life. If you bother to look up and understand the above tidbits (in anything at least as authoratative as a middle-school textbook), and look at how how that understanding is different from "what everybody knows", you will be sadly surprised at just how stupid people are about the simple events that surround them.
The current "music theft" debate is just as wrong headed and "unresearched" on all sides as, say, the average American's understanding of "manifest destiny" as an extension of "might makes right".
If you don't pay attention to the details, you have no right to cry foul when people think you are not worth listening to...
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
ok, you asked...
because it's just math, and anybody can do math given the training and resources. Numbers are not property. Numbers are numbers, and anybody with a pencil, let alone a computer, can copy them.
More importantly and relevantly, anybody who knows how to do math can come up with the same thing. If you and I are working on identical projects, and you finish yours first and patent it, but then I come up with the same thing *on my own*, why can't I make money off it too? I thought of it just as much as you did. Intellectual property is a lie and I'm sorry you believe it. There is just a fundamental difference between math and, say, a whirlpool washing machine. Intellectual property laws lead to Microsoft and SCO. Sharing leads to open source and really good music available to everyone.
Yes, SHARING. Not STEALING. There is a very significant distinction.
Plus, on the metaphysical side, the only thing that can keep a closed system from entropic heat-death is to make the system be not closed. Sharing is a very effective way to keep the system open. As is, incidentally, love.
Dude, you asked.
They will never stop until somebody makes the
Money is great. I require all my customers to pay me in money. What sucks is having to re-invent the wheel each time a program needs to be written.
Software is easily duplicatable and it is horribly wasteful for each company that needs a program to pay separately for it that does the exact same things as a bunch of other programs.
You are making some pretty big assumptions with "whilst in school or living with mom and dad". Some of us work for a living and run our own profitable businesses.
I do agree with you that we must respect the author's right to not share if they decide not to, even if we don't particularly like it.
RIAA is a different story. RIAA is not innocent artists trying to make an honest buck from their recordings. RIAA is a group of businessmen perverting the legal system to squeeze every penny out of the consumers then using the squeezed money to fund political campaigns to make sure they remain favored in the law.
also Merriam-Webster defines theft as "the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it". Based on that definition copying software, music, or movies cannot be theft because no rightful owners are deprived of anything.
Coding Blog
That is in no way what I said. What I said was more like "I created it, therefore I should be compensated for my time and effort if I choose to allow you to use it." You are correct that once it is released to the public I have given up control of it. This is especially true for music and software.
If I create a peice of software that has value when it is used, and I release that software to the public saying "This software will do such and such. The price of this software is such and such." Are you saying that I should not be compensated for my time and effort to create a work that you derive value from?
Is it different because I am not right there in front of you creating it specifically for you? How is this any different from stiffing a cabinet maker for the work he did in your kitchen? He (the cabinet maker) took time and effort to create something that you find useful. Should he not be compensated for it as well?
I think you and I are just simply going to disagree on this one.
The text reads:
"To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries"
When one inserts the first definition that you included, it would read "by obtaining...to authors and inventors the exclusive right", but that doesn't work, obtain is not grant. Nor is "procure", "gain", or "aquire".
I will agree, though, that the 2nd definiton doesn't quite work as well. Hence the thought that we're just going to disagree.
But something else you wrote, "It would be absurd to say that congress may only make an existing right "safe or free from harm" for a limited time.", doesn't appear to be absurd to me at all. There is nothing that precludes a government from making an existing right safe for a limited time. Granted, a government would have to ignore a (natural) right after such time, but there is nothing other than morals to stop this. Governments throughout history have both ignored and supported people rights, because they were institutions that had the physical power to do so. My point is, though, that there isn't a barrier that presents itself to preclude this concept from being true, and, though we may not be able to believe that the US government would be able to do so, we can still be proven wrong.
Your comment "There is no right to copyright protection anywhere in the constitution" is a red-herring. I never suggested that there was a constitutional right, but rather that the wording did not, as you asserted, say that there was no right. I do still believe that there is a natural right in a certain sense.
No, the RIAA is trying to control the terms of the debate. If everybody lets the RIAA get away with the words "theft" and "piracy", people agree that "theft" is wrong, and the discussion will naturally turn to "what should be done about the theives", i.e. the RIAA got to make its points at the expense of everybody else in the country except FM radio stations.
This war has to be won at the public opinion level, and if they try to take the moral high ground, we need the ammo to blow them off it.
If we want to make the point that the RIAA are liars, we must be clear as to exactly what it is they are lying about.
You can't assume that even slashdotters or musicians who have been following the issue know this. We need talking points for op-ed letters to the press and the media, so we have to know what we're talking about.
The real reason is they fear losing control over the distribution of media and control over artists and fans alike. P2P forces them to realize that their partnerships, contracts and lawyers aren't and never were neccessary and that no one -least of all artists - needs any of them.
Right, but Internet Radio and other streaming media make the point better. Content sampling media that at best, sounds like AM is not anything which will displace a CD sale if the listener even likes the content.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Oh and P.S. I am a born and raised citizen of the United States of America. That doesn't stop me from understanding why a Brazillain (etc) hates it when we call U.S. people like ourselves (just) "Americans". It also lets me appreciate in fullness just how lazy my average countryman is when expounding his mentally lax "wisdom" on the rest of the world (typically at gun point.)
I benefited fully from my understanding (at the time) of how deficient my public education was going to trun out to be.
So I may not have been popular during that public education, but at least I am, on the average, now not as dumb as my general population. 8-)
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
I would not be able to give you a good answer to that, one that would to the theory justice anyway. Most of my legal knowledge comes from helping my wife get through law school. Perhaps google will help you out.
"She's a West Texas girl, just like me" - G.W Bush Iraqis
So there are strong ethical reasons to refrain from killing. Or would you go ahead and kill if you had a surefire legal loophole? No? Then it's not the legal status of killing that's guiding your actions, is it? (If law is the only thing keeping you from killing, please seek professional psychiatric help.)
Since software consumers now have to worry about BSA audits (carried out with Federal paramilitary LEOs), to say it "works" for consumers is a stretch.
Maybe you would. Others are smart and flexible enough to adapt to changing times. Both the recorded music and the software business are still in their infancy, only a few decades old. No one involved in either should make assumptions that past conditions will hold in the future.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
So all those automobile manufacturers have stolen from the buggy whip manufacturers ?
Completely different principle. Your piece of land is a physical object.
Fuck you. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, you arrogant pile of shit. Just because this is posted anonymously does not make it any less "important" than your posts, you smug piece of crap.
Apparently you're to stupid to see the point of the parent poster who pointed out to you in very plain language that there is no such thing as an entitlement to make money from a copyrightable work. But apparently you brain is not capable of making that connection.
Cheers!
Why don't you go fuck yourself you arrogant prick? The parent poster was arguing morality, not law, you stupid pile of feces.
Now we get to the heart of the matter. You're in favor of copyright because you benefit (or so you think) from them. I guess we now know why you stand where you stand.
And if you think that your competitors aren't reverse engineering your precious IP then you've got your head in the sand. By your logic, the people who are doing so are thieves as well.
HTH
Argument by non-sequitir. The parent was talking about morals, not law.
Next.
I especially love the "Cheers!" Why not sign your posting "Cordially"?
When someone suggests Marx for philosophy and economics, I am smart enough to realize that they are espousing a philosophy that recognizes no property rights -- that everything is a "product of society" and as such belongs to "society." No idea could be more wrong; and the author of the original post that spoke of Austrian economists would agree whole heartedly.
My comment about this "smelling like a troll" I said with a wink. All I meant that it was a little off topic and sure to generate a lot of responses. I actually think the original poster was quite sincere and well meaning.
So, from a serious debate over copyright and property, we have degenerated to Marx's wrongheaded economics (popular because "eat the rich" is always popular), to your ranting and profanity.
As you say, "cheers!"
quiquid id est, timeo puellas et oscula dantes.
I think you and I are just simply going to disagree on this one.
:)
I'd like to take one more run at it
When one inserts the first definition that you included, it would read "by obtaining...to authors and inventors the exclusive right", but that doesn't work, obtain is not grant. Nor is "procure", "gain", or "aquire".
The only oddity there is that you almost always take things for yourself. "Secure" can be used when obtaining something for another. This is a case of the government obtaining these rights for the authors.
[Jefferson] did much to secure to America the powerful alliance that insured her success.
Jefferson did much to obtain for America alliances. "To secure to" means "to obtain for".
Congress passed the first Copyright Act of 1790: An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, by securing the Copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to the Authors and Proprietors of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned.
It is not "An act to protect the rights of Authors", it is "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning". The first copyright protection was first passed 14 years after independance. The authors of the constitution decided to ignore peoples rights for most of a generation?
Several of the authors of the constitution argued that there should be NO monopolies (meaning copyright) at all. James Madison argued in support of them as follows:
With regard to monopolies (copyright) they are justly classified among the greatest nuisances in Government. But is it clear that as encouragements to literary works and ingenious discoveries, they are not too valuable to be wholly renounced? Would it not suffice to reserve in all cases a right to the Public to abolish the privilege at a price to be specified in the grant of it?
Copyright is not a right, it is a privilege. The government isn't granting copyright out of some right to have it, it is granting it for a valuable purpose. He suggests that any copyright granted should come with a escape clause saying the public can "buy out" and terminate that monopoly at will.
He continues:
Is there not also infinitely less danger of this abuse in our Governments, than in most others? Monopolies are sacrifices of the many to the few.
The copyright monopoly is a not a right of the author, it is a sacrifice willingly made by the public and give to the author. The public is willing to make this sacrifice because it expects to benefit from doing so, but there is no obligation for it to do so. If and when the public feels it no longer benefits from this sacrifice they can simple cease making this voluntary sacrifice. At that point things return to the natural state of no copyright.
Note that I am not saying it is OK for anyone to commit infringment at will. I am saying that the public as a whole decides what it feels like sacrificing, and that it can simply decide to stop granting copyrights at will.
Madison further says:
Where the power is in the few it is natural for them to sacrifice the many to their own partialities and corruptions. Where the power, as with us, is in the many and not in the few, the danger can not be very great that the few will be thus favored.
He thinks there is little danger in copyrights because the few (RIAA/MPAA) will be unable to overpower the many, that they will be unable to commit abuse and take rights from the many (the public). Unfortunately that is exactly what is happening.
There is nothing that precludes a government from making an existing right safe for a limited time.... a government would have to ignore a (natural) right after such time, but there is nothing other than morals to stop this.
No, not just "ignore", the constitution forbids the government from doing so be
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
It's late, and I need to go to bed, but I'll make one last response.You have convenced me that constitutionally, the founders were not aware of, or did not believe in, any sort of Natural right of ownership of one's own works.
:)
However, I still belive that there is a Natural right, the lack of recognition of it by our government notwithstanding! I don't hold that the rights recognized by are government are a definitive list of human rights, only a partial list. For example, take the subject of abortion. Our government does not recognize that
unborn children have basic rights as human beings. I believe they do, and should be recognized. But, I digress... My point is, I believe there are rights that the constitution does not recognize, but that doesn't mean to me that they are non-existant. To me, Natural rights and our constitutional rights do not necessarily intersect.
Finally, your last analogy does not seem to hold. It appears that you're comparing a patent on a process to a copyright...
Cya....
I don't hold that the rights recognized by are government are a definitive list of human rights
:)
Agreed.
I still belive that there is a Natural right [to copyright]
I'm itchy to reply, but if you want to wrap it up on a position that the authors of the constitution were in error then we can agree to dissagree. That's more progress than most copyright debates ever see
your last analogy does not seem to hold
I was addressing the "purely constitutional" aspect of them deriving from one and the same foundation/clause - an irrelevant point if you argue that the constitution is flawed.
It seems you believe that patents are not a "Natural right" while copyrights are. If so then I think I could raise some difficulties with making that distinction if we were to continue.
P.S.
abortion
I'll pretend you didn't mention abortion and you'll pretend I didn't mention Gay marriage, Flag burning, The war in Iraq, Criminal possession of information, Marijiuana Legalization (or even just medical marijiuana), Hate speech, States rights, The Bush/Gore ruling, Software patents, or Vi vs Emacs. [chuckle] One mess at a time please LOL
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Freeze! Step away from the Nomad!
I seem to remember back in the day, the feds booting down the doors of BBS's suspected of warez and porn (ala Rusty and Eddies)
-William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.
You mean just like you?
I was addressing the "purely constitutional" aspect of them deriving from one and the same foundation/clause - an irrelevant point if you argue that the constitution is flawed.
...was correct in my opinion. I read every brief and court ruling and I believe it was done right.
:)
That was a JOKE, by the way. Man, get a sense of humor!
I'll pretend you didn't mention abortion
No need to. Abortion is the termination of an individual human life. One cell, two cells, a billion cells, it doesn't matter to me. I believe it's an individual human life.
you'll pretend I didn't mention Gay marriage
An oxymoron if I ever heard one.
Flag burning
I don't get worked up over the destruction of an inanimate object.
The war in Iraq
Something I think we should have done, for multiple reasons. With almost 10 years in the military, I support this action and the troops that are over there doing it.
States rights
The States retained all rights that were not given to the Federal government to exercise. The Fed. gov. currently oversteps its bounds in this area.
Criminal possession of information
My view on this depends on what that information is.
Marijiuana Legalization
I'm fine with "medical" marijiuana.
Hate speech
"Hate speech"=thought control.
The Bush/Gore ruling
Software patents
Not sure on this one, entirely....
Vi vs Emacs
I couldn't care less. But, I've always used Vi....
> What I said was more like "I created it, therefore I should be compensated for my time and effort if I choose to allow you to use it."
In order to make this more interesting, would you care to explain exactly why do you think you're entitled to compensation?
You are an intelligent person so I assume that you can give an intelligent explanation.
And no, "because I invested time, effort and resources in it" does not count. See examples below.
Example #1:
I invested time, effort and resources in digging a 1000m^3 hole and filling it with used refrigerators. I should be compensated.
Example #2:
I created a work of art - a 15m high statue of GWB made entirely of bat guano. I don't understand why nobody wants to buy it (or pay to see it). I should be compensated.
Example #2b:
Hey, the guys from across the street made their own guano statue and sold it for $1K. It's not fair, I thought of it first! I should be compensated!
> Are you saying that I should not be compensated for my time and effort to create a work that you derive value from?
For the sake of argument, let's assume I say exactly that. Now please prove me wrong.
Oh, just in case it was not clear, calling me names or questioning my morals does not constitute proof, it does not even count as an intelligent reply.
> The funny thing is, if it was your creation being pirated in Asia, you'd be the first person suing.
Arguing that the rules need to be changed is one thing.
Not taking advantage of the rules when everybody else does is quite another.
Try reading Austrian economic theory which is where Ayn Rand got HER economic theory.
There are several Austrian economists arguing that intellectual property is an oxymoron and cannot be justified under proper concepts of property.
And as far as Ayn Rand's moral theories go, they've been severely criticized by a lot of people as being full of holes. And her personal morality has been severely criticized by none other than her former top associate (and boyfriend - while she was married) psychologist Nathaniel Branden.
Property "rights" (I don't like the term "rights" which is essentially meaningless) are negotiated economic and cultural artifacts intended to reduce coercion and non-productive competition for resources. They are logical behavioral principles, not "rights".
They have logical consequences as well. One of those consequences is that it is not reasonable to attempt to control another's use of property which has been transferred to him, except by contract. The attempt to do so is itself a violation of correct principles of property. The attempt to do so is an attempt to extend principles of contract over the principles of property. The attempt to do this is motivated by the desire for monopoly profit (which is a reasonable desire) and the attempt is to create a monopoly (which is not a reasonable action since monopolies are unsustainable according to Austrian theory).
If someone receives a hammer, looks at it, says "I can build this myself", does so and sells it, you have no justification for claiming you own the "concept" of a hammer or that you deserve the fruits of his labor. If someone receives an idea and then gives it to someone else, you have no justification for attempting to either prevent this or control the third person who entered into no contract with you. To attempt to do this is a violation of that third person's freedom.
If I receive an MP3 from someone who received it either the same way or through purchase, I have made no contract with anyone not to reproduce it. The person who made the reproduction first after purchasing it may or not have made a contract with the seller. (Laws passed by Congress are not contracts and are not binding on individuals except through state force. Let us theorize that these examples occur in the absence of state law.)
If I purchase an MP3 from you and do not contract not to reproduce it, I can do so at will. Even if I DO contract not to reproduce it, and then do so, economically that merely establishes me as a competitor in the same sense as the hammer example above. There was no coercion involved in my breach of contract. While there may be coercion involved in breach of contract (i.e., I agree to pay you so much for something, then reneg and keep the property), there is no coercion in the breach of contract not to reproduce something. In fact, one could argue the coercion is the contract itself, as I indicated previously.
Contracts that require behavioral changes that do not involve coercion on the part of the second party are themselves coercive. The only difference from actual coercion is they can be rejected with only the loss of the value of the contract, as opposed to actual physical coercion. They can also be abrogated the same way.
Property applies properly to physical objects, not concepts, ideas, "productive effort" or "fruits of man's mind" - which are loaded prejudged value terms. The only "intellectual property" which exists is if I know something you don't and you are willing to pay me to divulge it. It could be argued you aren't even paying for the information but for the act of divulging it. In any event, the information has no economic value if no one else knows it exists (other than what one might accomplish knowing it personally). Only by the act of releasing it can one request compensation at all. It's value is then limited to those people who do not already know it (either because they don't know of it or because they don't know the other persons to who
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
For the record, I wasn't giving an excuse to own a copy of the music. As another poster said, people who won't pay for a CD don't legally have a right to own (license?) a copy of the music for their own use.
I'm just saying that such a person would not purchase the CD if they couldn't get it for free. Meaning the RIAA would not get anymore money if this pirate was stopped.
True story.