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Software Piracy Seen as Normal
Spad writes "The BBC is reporting that people don't see downloading copyrighted material as theft, despite concerted efforts by the games, music and movie industries to convince them otherwise. The report, titled Fake Nation, claims that '[People] just don't see it as theft. They just see it as inevitable, particularly as new technologies become available...The purchase of counterfeit goods or illegal downloading are seen as normal leisure practices,' However, they also found that while people are generally not buying counterfeit software from dodgy dealers on street corners, they are still happy to purchase them from people they know at the office/pub/school in addition to downloading them.
Nobody can really be that suprised by the 'popularity' of downloading pirated software, but I was a little thrown by the apparent willingness of people to pay for pirated copies of it."
Piracy isn't theft. Theft is the action in wich one denies others acces to the stolen goods. Piracy doesn't deny anoyne acces to the pirated goods. So piracy is per definition not theft.
People don't mind paying for software\music etc. They just don't like being ripped off with overly inflated prices.
There has been a popular meme throughout history, back to the days of the Old Testament that said that beggars were entitled to the excess of any farmer's crop. If the vagrant were to walk past a farm, they could take as much as they needed from the outer ring of crops, but they were not to venture inside.
This is because it is thought that the person doing the work of farming had more than enough to feed himself and his family, after all, he's got huge tracts of land and will sell the amount he doesn't keep for himself at the market. What little scraps are taken by the passing beggar will hardly be missed.
The same attitude exists with regards to copyrighted materials. "I, one lone person, can't possibly make a dent in the amount of revenue that the copyright owner will make." (It's the same reason many people don't vote.) And they are correct. Individually, they make no impact on the final numbers. They aren't even a rounding error in many cases. But in large numbers, all these individuals refusing to pay for the material (to the copyright owners) make a huge impact.
When every vagrant takes their "fair share" from the outer ring of a crop field, the crop gets smaller and smaller until the farmer and his family starve.
... despite concerted efforts by the games, music and movie industries to convince them otherwise ...
Here (germany) these TV-commercials are as bad as the mainstream (streamlined) popmusic. They are without heart. In cinemas they often get booed at. They are even less convincing than the products these guys want to sell.
It's copyright infringement and the punishments for that are much much higher. You're better off shoplifting a CD or Software than actually copying it. At least if you consider the possible punishments.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Fast forward that to the present: IT'S STILL EASY! Games, movies music are so readily available(for free) i'd be embarassed if i produced any of it. For the less techno-savvy people under us, it's still relatively easy, maybe a magnitude or 2 less, plus they now have a little disposable income to throw around for the sake of convenience, so they might buy the latest movie released from some dodgy bloke out of his trunk. Is this right? NO. Is this illegal? YES! Is it easy? You bet! They're basically doing it because it's convenient, easy, cheap and they've been doing it for years.
Having said that, personally i'm now working and have a lot more money to spend, so i'm buying stuff all the damn time. The solution to all of this: I have no clue, but DRM-short-of-a-gloved-hand-up-the-ass isn't the way to do it.
Will wank off Linus Torvalds for fame.
What's sadder is that the BBC is going along with this campaign of misinformation. They imply that there are only two viewpoints: It's theft, or it isn't a crime at all. Way to inform your readers... not.
I always mod up spelling trolls.
Piracy isnt theft at all.
If I download a piece of software made by NoWares Corp. on eMule, does the NoWares Corp. immediatly feel that they are missing one copy of their software product?
No matter how you put it - Software piracy is not theft. Even if there are pirated 100.000.000 copies of any give software, the "offended" company can still sell a billion copies to anyone.
Software Piracy is just what it is. When will people get that apples != oranges, and that piracy != theft?
Piracy == piracy != theft
Also, who'd think that the only people who pirate stuff, are people who wouldnt/couldnt/etc pay for the software at all?
Look at the open-source world. Piracy isnt a problem there, and they make heaps of money even though they give away freely their products.
> [People] just don't see it as theft. They just see it as inevitable, particularly as new technologies become available...
Userfriendly has hit the nail on the head with this explanation of the economics of software piracy. The costs of piracy had hit companies way back in late nineties, these days the piracy factor is calculated into the initial pricing. Where I was working before, they had estimated ~19% piracy rate for a mobile phone app. It is slowly starting to become a market force for the software industry - and the companies hate that. (price it too high, we'll pirate !)
The american corporate's blood sucking is slowly starting to show on the economy. what price for - America Inc (specializing in mergers with oil rich countries with dictators) ?.Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
Downloading software or music is one thing - making money off of "pirated" copies is another. I don't even think about using Gnutella or downloading MST3K DAP releases from eDonkey (using eMule) because no one is making a profit from those actions(ok, my ISP). I would never use Kazaa, because piracy is their business model (and if you think Kazaa is just a tool, I think you are).
In fact, one torrent supplier of rare Star Wars stuff always points out to *NOT* buy stuff from the "Dark Side Dealers" and make copies available so those trying to cash in on piracy can't.
I'd copy Windows, Office or even UnixWare for you no problem - but if I saw you selling copies of any of these I might just kick you in the nuts.
Get your Unix fortune now!
I, too, can't understand why people would pay for copied software. I suppose people just don't have the time to technical knowledge to get it for free. Perhaps they also kid themselves that they are helping a poor self employed buisness man. Who knows?
While I don't condone wide spread piracy there are some types of pircay that I don't have that much of a problem with. For example, go back a few years, you were interested in ray tracing and 3d modelling. You had a choice of pov-ray and coding all the scene files by hand or paying megabucks for 3d studio (I know this is a little simplified). If it is something that you are only semi-interested (you would never consider doing it commercially) that I don't see a big problem with you grabbing a cracked copy of 3ds. After all you would never buy it, and in reality what has discreet lost? They didn't even have to pay for the bandwidth used in the download. I pick 3ds because it was widely cracked (and still is I believe). It used to be protected with a dongle (not sure if it still is) and there was no "entry level" version. They seem to have finally figured it out though as you can now get a feature restricted free version which is supprisingly good.
As for music piracy well I say eat as much as you can. Reproduction costs of music now must be tiny yet the price of music in real terms is still sky high. I can't help feeling that we, as a consumers, are being ripped off left right and center. If we aren't beign riped off then the music industry needs to be prompted to look at ways of cutting back on costs. Perhaps the problem is that there are to few music producers.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
There is no self justification in my post. My post stands on its own merits. People don't mind paying for music or movies at overly inflated prices. They don't seem to mind paying what they consider to be a fair price.
I know I shouldn't feed the trolls, but this is one of those moral/philosophical things that's been pissing me off for some time.
You, AC, a prude. You think the morals and customs by which you live are natural laws, and that there is something defective with anyone who does not follow them. While you and I do agree that certain behaviours are despicable (or, if not despicable -- who are we to judge?), that they are atleast not behaviour we ourselves would engage in, I am willing to accept that fact that what I and the culture I was brought up in consider 'right' are not universals.
For example, I break the law all the time, many times a day. When I'm not breaking the law, it's not because I 'fear the law,' or 'agree with the law.' It's because I wouldn't act in an 'illegal' manner to begin with, because it's against my personal morals.
And similiarly, if I find a law inconvenient or wrong, I have no qualms breaking it.
And anyone who would swear to me, on their own stack of bibles, that something being illegal was the only reason they didn't commit such an act (as opposed to fear of punishment), why, I'm quite positive they're insane, so delusional that they truely believe it.
In closing, you're a prude.
And I have no idea what I originally intended to say.
Oh, wait. Here it is.
Pedophiles may, in fact, be "victims" of Humanity's own preference towards young women. Let's face it: Men who picked Young Women had a better chance of having more offspring, and if that preference for Young Women was genetic, then pretty soon everyone would be a decendant of men who liked young women.
And any woman who could look younger than she was would have a better chance of getting a better mate.
So, in short, you get a runaway Fisher effect -- women keep on retaining their young longer and longer, or stay immature older and older, and men constantly prefer younger and younger women. So it's no wonder there are some males who find children sexually attractive.
Goto any pre-civlization hunter-gatherer group and ask the men there what age they prefer in a mate. They'll say "Between Puberty and First Child." That's rather young, you know.
And considering the fact that those people live pretty much the same way all of humanity did for a damn long time, well. Nevermind.
I should probably point it out, at this point, that I think Pedophilia is a rather disgusting condition.
Also, the only NAMBLA is the National Association of Marlin Brando Look Alikes.
Edward@Tomato - /home/Edward/ man woman
man: no entry for woman in the manual.
"Qua!?"
Every time I go to the cinema there is some advert or other by FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft, a UK org) telling us how naughty copying is and how much trouble we'll be in if we try to record the film.
And every time there is a ripple of giggles. The more serious and ominous the warnings, the harder people laugh.
For better or worse, most people just don't think that copyright infringement is a serious crime. Most people acknowledge that it is "wrong", but probably regard it as no more serious than eating a penny sweet from the pick-and-mix. I am of the generation that grew up home taping (LPs, CD, Spectrum/C64 games), most of my friends don't see a little low level piracy as being a bad thing, in fact most would say they discovered new bands from friends tapes and ended up buying more (some would be lying, but not all).
The media world has got an uphill struggle before it convinces people that casual copyright infringement is anything like the serious crime they think it is.
Paul
Paul Leader
From TFA:
"The government has spent millions of pounds to change public awareness of drink-driving and smoking.
"As a society, we need to go through a similar process for creativity and intellectual property."
This isn't the change that needs to happen, and it won't happen. People don't see downloading material as wrong because it isn't wrong: nobody gets hurt by it.
I think big change is required, and the new system should consider these points as axioms:
1. The transfer of digital information deprives nobody of anything, and should be lawful.
2. People who create digital works that society considers desirable should be compensated.
This suggests to me a system whereby the creators are paid once, up front, for their creation, and then it must be freely distributable.
Of course, that's the thinnest shell of a new system, and it would raise many questions and problems. But people aren't going to drop their belief in points 1 and 2, and I see this sort of system as the only way of resolving them.
In order for something to be theft, there has to be an "intention to permanently deprive". You have to take something away from someone. That's the legal definition.
If you copy something, the original is still perfectly usable. Nobody is deprived of the original for a moment.
The copyright "industry's" attempts to equate breach of copyright with theft has fallen upon deaf ears because people aren't that stupid; they know the analogy is stupid from the start.
Bodies which name themselves using the phrase "copyright theft" are open to public ridicule, because everyone knows that breach of copyright absolutely not the same nor even similar to theft.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
There's another problem with piracy, besides the theory that the producers are out of pocket as a result.
In Ireland at least, the warning that piracy (of films in particular) supports terrorism, is quite true. While those actually pirating the stuff themselves aren't, those who buy pirated movies at the market, etc., are most likely buying from the equivalent of an IRA high street store. One of the IRA's rackets is pirated goods (the others being smuggled cigarettes, diesel, etc.)
Not sure how true the ad at the start of the movie is in the States, but just to let you know, it's not as crazy as it sounds.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
a/ Do law must follow general ethics (street guy's ethics) or
b/ does it must promote ethics even though it goes against general ethics ?
Either answer is problematic.
if a/ then why some law are not still removed ? For instance most people dont care about homosexuality or abortion and they are still forbidden in many places.
if b/ then why some ethics are still against the law ? Looking at the % of "illegal" downloading it should be put as "legal". And what to say about prohibition (whether alcohool, drugs or guns) ?
Who does law must serve ?
The biggest number ? They migth get spinned or just loose their ethics.
Some guardians of ethics ? Now people refuse to follow religion or philosophy ethics and prefer their very own personnal ethics.
Some commercial or political influence ? They tend to only server their own interests, but this has imppacts on wide scale.
The world belongs to those who get up early. - I'm far from being the king of Earth then
No, and the device I'm typing this on is not a person employed to perform calculations. I still call it a computer.
Actually from my own research, it's much more likely that the participants knew that it was wrong but have developed fairly compex ways of justifying their activity. It's called "neutralization", whereby deviants 'neutralize' the social controls that normally inhibit illegal behaviour. This theory was originally put forward in 1957 by Sykes and Matza, and you can read about it here and here.
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
How can people take copyright law seriously when it's completely obvious that the laws in these areas are formed by negotiation among white collar crooks? This notion is deeply embedded in popular culture.
Spoiler Alert
Raising the question of what Tony does for a living, Meadow asks bluntly, "Are you in the Mafia?" Tony replies that some of his money comes from illegal gambling, and probes, "How does that make you feel?" Meadow replies, "Sometimes I wish you were like other dads. Like Mr. Scangarelo, for example. An advertising executive for big tobacco."
If you can handle the sex, violence, copulatory interjections, and (most difficult) the moral ambivalence, rent the episodes and pay attention. It might haved saved the poster of this topic from his career in gormhood.
I ranted about this sort of thing on my blog recently. What's happening here is simply that companies are failing to supply what consumers want.
For example (and to wander ever so slightly off-topic), consider the recent debacle over the leak of Star Wars Episode III onto the newsgroups.
The only legitimate way to see that film was in a cinema/movie theatre, where one must endure people chattering away, texting their friends, munching on their popcorn. Not to mention that cinema projection technology is really showing its age now and you have to watch the whole thing in 24 frames-per-second stutter-vision! I HATE AND DREAD going to the cinema with a passion for these reason.
Many people now have huge widescreen TVs at home with Dolby Digital 5.1/DTS sound systems that can display a picture at an effective 100 frames per second (well, I have anyway). Suddenly all of the disadvantages of the movie theate have gone, but now you can sit and enjoy a beer or two while you watch your movie (and pause it when you need to pee)!
The current market model is old fashioned and needs to change to fill the gap between what people want and what companies will provide. Here's an idea. What doesn't the Lucasfilm website allow people to download all their movies, but in a format that is a little less than DVD quality?
As a side note, I wasn't originally going to see Episode III at the cinema at all, given the dreadful prequels that preceeded it. After downloading and watching the first 20 minutes of the famous timecode version, I changed my mind and ventured to the cinema. I still had to endure children in my row rustling sweet wrappers and constantly getting up to go to the loo. And the opening sequences gave me headaches, as I am used to the 100Hz display off my home TV. And the sound was rather weak too, despite being in a THX certified theatre. Since then, I have downloaded far better quality versions of this film and will continue to watch them at home in peace!
It's quite appropriate that, where a piece of work is still being sold, there should be protections over it. I'm even easy about Disney getting an extension over Mickey Mouse... MM is still being commercialised, so I'm not entirely comfortable with a Mickey free-for-all by any Johnny-come-lately.
But there is no place for 90-year copyrights for works that are not being commercialised. Copyright should operate on a 'use it or lose it' basis where, say, after five years of non-exploitation, the work is decopyrighted and opened to anyone who wants it.
Then perhaps we can get our DVD box set of "It's like, you know". [and "Nightingales" too, please]
Visit Snowflake Showers
The basic fact is that we can copy material whether we have authorization or not. Those who would profit from our purchasing it wish us to purchase it, and they appeal to our altruism -- they want us to purchase their copies because we want them to have our money, as if they were a charity. This is not far-fetched, in general. There's nothing wrong or silly about asking for charity. Charity and altruism are things I am willing to offer, and many others are too.
But are the people asking for charity here people who would ever give the same to us? They claim to be in need, and us to be able to help; but if we are in need, will they help? Will Microsoft ever lower its prices just because it can afford to and it would save us money? Or do they price their software wherever it makes them the most money?
If corporations base all their decisions entirely on their own personal profit, how can they ever expect us to sacrifice our personal profit for their good? Is that fair?
I believe in sharing, but when I share with others, and they don't share back, I stop sharing. I only pay for free software.
Copyright infringement is neither theft nor robberty. True enough. But it's *still* a crime. You are not physically depriving the creator of the orginal. No, what you are actually doing is stealing the creator his right to do with the original as he choses.
To be more exact: you are violating his *exlusive* right to reproduce and sell copies. Buying an album, DVD or a game doesn't give you the right to make copies of the content (unless for home use that is) and distributing them!
This is the very basic meaning of copyright and it seams in all the FUD spread by either big firms or the pirates, that meaning is getting lost and deformed. Copyright is not something tangible. It's a basic right which shouldn't be violated.
Seriously. Don't do it.
I thought I was getting a bargain when I bought a bunch of stuff off this pirate I met in a pub, but I later found out that the parrot was in fact dead, and not just pining for the fjords as he claimed, the eyepatch was for the wrong eye, and the cutlass was made of plastic.
Still, at least I didn't feel quite as ripped off as the time I bought a DVD from this bloke I know - he works in a place called "HMV". Paid £20 for the DVD, I did.. what what do I find when I get home and pop it in my player? I'm forced to sit through a bloody two minute intro lambasting me for my evil criminal pirate ways, and how I, personally, am causing the entire film industry's collective children to die a horrible death from starvation. And it was all encrypted so I couldn't (legally) make a backup of it for my own personal use.
Bloody inferior quality goods. I've learnt my lesson. I'm sticking to Bittorrent in the future.
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
I'm lucky. I know lots of really fast FTP servers with lots of high quality software on them. And best of all? It's completely free, and legal.
Get your own free personal location tracker
When justifying war, the argument is often made that the death of a few is justified by the saving of many more.
We often say the moral action is the one that brings the greatest benefit to the largest number of people.
Therefore copying software, many gain something for free, at the cost of depriving a few of income.
By the above argument you have a moral obligation to copy as much software as possible... Or the justification for 'moral-war' is invalid. Both cannot be true as that would be a self contradiction.
You could argue that by copying, people will stop writing software - but that is obviously rubbish as we can see from the free-software movement.
Besides, if people stop writing generic software because of piracy, people will have to pay programmers directly to adapt free software to their needs. If the ammount of money available to invest in new software is constant - more money will now be spent on new features and entirely new software products... In other words copying software stops companies writing one product and then sitting back and collecting money for effectively doing nothing.
The core concept of copyright law is that "We the People" defend certain rights to your intellectual property in exchange for "Fair Use" and ultimate release of your IP into Public Domain.
"Fair Use" is non-commercial personal or educational use, which describes the majority of the "Piracy" that occurs.
Nothing has been legally mandated into the public domain since the 40's. "Fair Use" has all but been eliminated. So, why are we spending taxpayers $$$ to defend these "Rights" without the reciprocal benefits to society?
If I download a copy of a $700 program like Adobe Photoshop, with the mere goal of learning how to use it, or learning what it's capabilities are, I am downloading it under the very definition of "Fair Use". When I use this program to produce graphics that people pay me money for, that's when I am in excess of "Fair Use".
I used "Pirated" copies of Photoshop to learn how to use it. When I had a client come to me and offer me $7500 to make a few graphics for them, I promptly went out and laid down $700 for Photoshop.
This is the spirit of Copyright law.
Ignoring all of this the lesson that IP owners can learn from this study is that you can charge money for IP, even if it could be copied under "Fair Use", as long as what you charge is reasonable.
I am very careful about what I buy on the iTunes music store, as I may not have heard it in it's entirety, and if I download 20 songs just to hear them once I spend $20. If they put them at, say, a 10 price point, it wouldn't hurt me badly enough financially after downloading 100 songs that I would feel any regret. As it sits I spend maybe $10 at the iTunes music store a month. If songs were 10 a piece, I would likely spend $100 a month at the iTunes music store.
If people are willing to pay for copyrighted works, even if they are using it in a "Fair Use" manner, doesn't it stand to reason that they would pay a similar amount to acquire this IP "legally?"
-=(Lord Crosis)=-
While not technically a theft, copyright infringement is a crime. And you know who hurts? It doesn't hurt Microsoft/Adobe/Macromedia whose software are the most pirated, no sir. It hurts any little producer of software. I've seen lot of photo retouching programs die because people preferred to pirate Photoshop. Those programs were like 30$, 40$ and well worth the money. For many home users they were actually better/easier than PS, but still people wanted what the Pro used. This is just an example of how what you may think a little damage for a big company becomes and HUGE damage for little software producers.
On the subject at hand: I agree that illegal downloading is copyright infringment and denies the copyright holder of revenue.
But I was wondering about the bigger picture here. If the public at large condones such behavior and doesn't see it as a crime, should it NOT be a crime in the legal sense?
If laws and guverment are put in place to represent 'the people' shouldn't they reflect the people's view?
Here I'm thinking of: illegal downloading, speed limits, ID cards, airport security checks and other laws that differ from the general public's view.
Richard
Perhaps I didn't put it simply enough. I wasn't making a judgement, I merely meant that if you act in a certain way towards other people, then you have no right to complain when they act that way back to you.
There's Chinese proverb that states: many laws make many criminals. It isn't just that reasonable activities are criminalized; it's that acts that ought to be criminal become more respectable by association.
Unauthorized use of software somebody has created with the idea of supporting himself through selling it most certainly is theft. It is not theft of the work, it is theft of the revenue that the author could expect. Granted, the author can't name any arbitrary price the way SPAA does in press releases; it's ecnomically naive. But pirates don't have a moral leg to stand on: they can't say this thing has no value so I shouldn't pay for it; if it had no value they would not pirate it.
The problem is that the entire system of intellectual property has become imbalanced, incomprehensible harmful to the public good. In part this has to do with bad laws like DMCA, in part with legal practices like blending licensing and copyright in mass market sales. But nonetheless, the public can't work productively with the current IP situation. One great overlooked advantage of F/OSS is that it is comprehendable. The most complicated F/OSS license is GPL, which (a) is not complicated by commercial license standards (b) standardized and widely used and (c) completely safe for anybody who isn't in the business of selling software.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
> People think it's ok, because they don't physically
> take it from some place. That is the classic
> definition of stealing.
People can reproduce the feeling of having their property stolen, and therefore most of them do not steal others property to avoid hurting them the way they wouldnt like to be hurt.
On the other side, very few people can reproduce the feeling how it is to have your "Intellectual property" stolen, because they dont posess any. This leads to the opinion that a new form of property, the intellectual property, is unjust towards all the ones that do not posess any, while a few can live of it by simply selling fictional letters of indulgence (licences), so this form of property is simply ignored.
Most people have long forgot the purpose of copyright.
And no, folks, it is not meant to reward authors.
Copyright has for a long time stood without legal basis (Violating the "Limited Times" clause), but for the last 20 years, its also violating its original purposes.
Lets restore the original copyright:
1. Limit all copyright times to the minimum required to pay back for creation costs (along the lines of 5 years).
2. Cancel copyright on functional information (such as software). The power it grants the copyright holder over its user, even in a limited time, is too great. Software creation, in most cases, requires little to no financial incentive, and in niche cases where it does, payment to programmers is still possible.
3. Allow copyright, but only apply it to inter-legal-entities copying. This would mean that EULA's have no effect (You really shouldn't need extra permission from the copyright owner to run the copy you bought!).
4. Disallow copyright of the binary-form of software and creations. Only allow copyrighting Software in source form (And yes, music in its "source" forms). This is because copyright is all about making the derivative works possible in the future, in order to grow society's information base. You can make derivative works from public-domain software source, but you cannot make derivative works from binary blobs, even if they go into the public domain. How does it promote Science and Useful Arts to create dead-end pieces of information?
Oh, but isn't "piracy" such a lovely broad term? you can prove almost anything with it.
Let's look at your argument.
- Terrorist organisations often support themselves through links to organised crime
- Organised crime often sells pirate DVDs
- Selling priate DVDs is often referred to as "piracy"
- Copying your mate's DVD is often referred to as "piracy"
- Therefore copying your mates DVD buys guns for the paramilitaries.
- Case proven, your honour, take 'em away!
This is one of the reasons that the term "piracy" is less than helpful in this sort of debate..Don't let THEM immanentize the Eschaton!
It's revenge for not having flying cars and a 3 day work week by now.
You describe two different crimes: breaking/entering and theft. If a copyright infringer broke into Adobe's campus to copy some software, most people would agree that that is a more serious offence that downloading a copy from the Internet. If someone can drive by my house and make a copy of my television, without entering my home, then I have no problem with that.
I support copyright laws as long as they remain within the Constitutional objective "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". I do not support perpetual copyright, nor the use of incorrect terms (piracy, theft) for copyright infringement.
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
Of course Piracy sounds nefarious, but we really know it is sharing and that is what we should call it.
Before the net we used to make mixed tapes for our friends. Loan them books or VHS tapes etc... Now I share TV episodes often sharing the Download effort to get multiple episodes.
I am old enough that I had pretty much bought all the CD's that I was going to own when Napster Hit the scene. I might have bought 1CD in the previous 2 years. Napster rekindled my interest in music. I bought 10 new CD's in my first year of Napstering. But after the lawsuits and my growing awareness of the way the industry operated, I have sworn to never by another RIAA supported CD.
Yes, I'm sure this shrill overreaction will work in changing people's minds... 'cause getting that copy of Batman Begins is definitely the same as driving a car while drunk, endangering and possibly killing innocent bystanders.
The problem faced by the Content Cartel and their lackeys is this: Copyright infringement is in fact not as serious as these "sexier" crimes. People won't take it seriously because the harm is of an entirely different type.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
It's a pity he's not around today when some of his targets are getting to be so big again.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
That even though they are both illegal, they're not the same thing. Murder is illegal too, but you don't go around calling people who make unauthorised copies of copyrighted material murderers, do you? Why not? They're bot illegal, aren't they?
Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_ELSEIF in
NO, GODDAMNIT, IT IS NOT THEFT.
A good has to be taken from the legitimate owner for the act to be theft.
I don't take the software away from anyone. It's a copy.
I don't take revenue from anyone when I make a copy of something. He still has all the revenue he had before I made the copy. If a is the same as b, then the difference a-b (which is what is removed) is 0, zero, nothing.
Everything else is just wishful thinking. Like, if 10% of the people who pirate Photoshop would buy it, Adobe could buy Microsoft. Yeah, except there is just no way to arrive at that number with a clear conscience. Chances are, NOBODY would buy it if they couldn't pirate it. Chances are, even fewer than today would buy it because the masses could not afford Photoshop and would buy something else (or use the GIMP, raising motivation and participation resulting in a much better product than Photoshop ever was). Like I said, wishful thinking. So not even the prospect of revenue is taken away. In fact, the what-if dream of riches is GIVEN to the one whose products are pirated.
The people who make our laws, despite all the corruption and shortsightedness in their circles, at least understood the simple and obvious difference between making a copy and taking something away. That's why only one of them is "theft" and the other one is "copyright infringement". SO STOP CALLING IT WHAT IT SO CLEARLY IS NOT!
BitTorrent is a high-tech weapon in the war against Terrorism! By downloading movies and music from the Internet, we can deprive Terrorists of their ability to fund operations. We're at threat-level yellow: rev up your downloaders!
BTW, al Qaeda is also supposed to support their operations by selling bootlegs.
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. --Mark Twain
I completely agree with your well thought out post. However, I'd like to point out that most intellectual property in the hands of the consumer is, in fact, worthless. I say it's worthless because that consumer can't sell it, hence it's value could be argued to be $0. Historically, this hasn't been the case. Consumers have always been able to resell their books, records, tapes, CDs, etc. But most software is not resalable. Music bought through ITMS cannot be resold (so I've heard, Apple still refuses to let me buy from them, but that's a different rant). If the item you're buying cannot be resold for any price, then it could be considered worthless (though it usually does have some other value to the buyer, otherwise why buy it).
:(
Also, in some cases, the publisher refuses to sell licenses for the item (such as abondonware). If the publisher won't sell the item, there's no active market for that item, and again, it could be argued that the value of the item is $0.
Now, I don't particularaly like these arguments since that property does have value, but the publishers are making it seem to consumers that it does not. Or at least they're leaving the door open for the arguments to be made. And people are great at using arguments like these when they want to rationalize behavior they think (or know) is wrong.
Personally, I think that dropping the copyright length to something more reasonable (on the order or 10-20 years) would really help curtain infringement. People who want the item now will pay for it. People who can wait will wait. People who can't afford the latest and greatest can now use something older rather than priate the lastest stuff.
But I'm way to cynical to believe this will ever happen
"Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
I miss the days when the only people who were afraid of piracy were those on the water.
The Chronic *WHAT* les of Narnia!
Maybe true, maybe not. I'd still worry more about the support to terrorism the tank of gas to get me to the black market is providing.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
In some sense, I think copyright infringement of things like Photoshop is even more destructive than theft, insofar as there is little risk involved and there is this perception of it not being a serious thing.
When you download Photoshop, you are forcing Adobe to compete with a free, easy to get version of their own product. This is incredibly destructive to the free market as it applies to software. Instead of paying Adobe for the goods they provide, you pay them for those goods in light of the fact that you can also get them for free. Note, this is not an attack on Free Software, I'm talking about the situation where a company is forced to compete with a low risk free version of their own product once it hits the market.
So, my bet is that if they were to offer a $50 version of Photoshop and piracy were impossible, maybe half the Photoshop pirates out there would buy it. If, however, piracy were possible, they may have to make their price, say, $20 to get half the pirates to buy a copy.
So that's that. Piracy devalues the product. It doesn't matter if you wouldn't have bought a copy anyway, or that it's overpriced or anything. By pirating, you are taking away the expected revenue of a product by making the company that releases it compete with a free product. You may not see it as stealing, but that company had to put a certain amount of money into development and they are losing some portion (not all) of their revenue due to the fact that piracy has devalued their software.
By your argument does that company have to lose enough revenue that they lose money in the venture before you call it stealing?
The press rightly continues to use the word 'piracy' for illicit copying and distribution of original materials. Some think it's a new phenomenon, and hard to square with the traditional image of the Jolly Roger and swashbuckling robbers-at-sea. The use of the word 'piracy' as signifying an unauthorized copy of a manuscript is hundreds of years old, long before modern Copyright doctrine was developed. From http://www.ninch.org/forum/price.report.html: There was very little trust in the print medium when it was first developed--it was seen as unstable and subject to piracy and fraudulent copying. Authenticity was hard to guarantee: indeed, the term "piracy" was first used by John Fell, Bishop of Oxford, to describe certain pernicious practices of early printers and booksellers. A "pirate" was someone who participated in the "unauthorized reprinting of a title recognized to belong to someone else." "Stationers" eventually emerged as the trusted practitioners who were placed in charge of various aspects of publishing--practices we would now recognize as printing, publishing, editing, and bookselling. Stationers worked out the conventional practices of making books, and thus made printing a viable economic enterprise with the elaborate complexity of producing a book eventually invisible to all but the practitioners in the trade. That's Dr. John Fell (1625-86), who was given the title of Bishop of Oxford in 1675.
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Wrong. Mens Rea is the intent to deprive him of the IP, which is impossible, he still has his copy. That's why copyright infringement requires its own criminal laws. But don't worry, big business bought those laws.
Wouldn't care to argue Actus Reus though, that's certainly debatable.
No. Piracy of PhotoShop is one of the prime reasons it is unchallenged as an image editor. If every aspiring graphic artist had to cough up hundreds of dollars for a legal copy, many of them would think seriously about the much cheaper alternatives (PaintShop Pro, [until recently], Gimp, Ulead, PhotoPaint, etc). There would be many more if there was a market, but there isn't. If you're poor you use pirated PhotoShop, when you get a job in the field you insist on using it and the company buys it. Pretty much the same way that MSWord became the de facto standard. Consider that though MS and Adobe make a lot of noise about piracy in the Third World, the only time they do anything serious is when countries decide to get honest, and start looking at Linux instead of Windows, for instance. Then MS brings out the hugely discounted version. Until then, they were happy for the pirates to build their market share, knowing that if the economies grew to the point of being able to afford to buy software, they would be already locked in. Adobe has brought out several cut-down versions of PhotoShop for similar reasons, like PhotoDeluxe, which was bundled with scanners and such, to fend off other cheaper image apps that would have been bundled otherwise and obtained a foothold in the market.
Here downloading isn't illegal (although uploading is).
I'm not quite sure where you got this information from, but I don't believe it to be true. Downloading of copyright data without the copyright owner's consent almost certainly is "making an unauthorized copy" under the meaning of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act. It is typically a civil offense, for which you can be sued by the copyright owner. Also, there are many additional circumstances that can turn it into a criminal offence. I recommend you read the act; it is available somewhere on the hmso.gov.uk web site -- google for it.
That's why we pay a levy on blank media.
There is no levy on blank media in the UK. The only country I'm aware of that has this system is Canada, although I'm sure there are others.
Of course it is completely upside down. Photoshop (and some other programs) is popular thanks due to piracy.
Why?
Almost everyone, whom make living from creation of graphics (pictures, painters, adv, art, etc) and whom use Photoshop, almost everyone used in past (most likely on beginning) pirated version of Photoshop.
And later come times when you must pay for photoshop. Why? In-home pirated Photoshop no longer apply. In bussiness possesing pirated sofware is too risky and your boss must buy Photoshop. Why? Because your get hooked in past with pirated version of same program. If were no piracy, you never will get hooked, because Photoshop costs insane amount of cash for typical student.
Yes, for some companies (BIG companies, of course) piracy is under certain circumstances very profitable. Microsoft is of course another example of this phenomenon.
What modern Obelix would say today? Of course, "Those crazy Americans!".
I don't understand how this comment gets modded +5 Insightful with no dissenting opinions on a forum for computer technology professionals. When did the average Slashdot moderator become a warez kid?
How else could I explain such support for cancelling copyright on software? Software patents yes, copyrights no. I know this is an open source community but you can't seriously believe that you should ban closed source software development.
Open source is great, forcing open source on companies isn't. If someone should decide not to disclose source for his program, that should be up to him, it shouldn't be up to the warez kids to scoop it up and claim "oh, but I am entitled to violate the contract because of my interpretation of the historical meaning of copyright."
All software isn't fun to develop, and even if it is, you can't waste time trying to assemble a team of dedicated and qualified volunteers to work on your huge project. That's why finanical incentives sometimes are necessary. And don't forget that developers are being paid as we speak to develop open source software.
As is often repeated, most software development is done in-house. If a company develops a tool for itself, do you really believe a competing company should be allowed to use that tool without the creator's permission just because it is in binary form? Even the GPL enforces terms on binaries.
Finally, don't forget that the distinction between binary and source is only in your head. Assembly language may very well be the only source for some programs.
Pedophiles may, in fact, be "victims" of Humanity's own preference towards young women.
Actually, I would make it even more general and say that "of Humanity's sex drive". Its biological purpose is to create reproduction, but it is wildly inaccurate. Just look at the numbers of people attracted to the same sex, or for that matter to a blowjob, which is absurd from a biological point of view. It has been more beneficial to create an extremely strong sex drive which makes "everything" attractive (including stimulating yourself) than it was to evolve a finely refined attraction to male-female intercourse. A shotgun approach, if you will.
Of course, being biologicly advantagous has nothing to do with morality, just numbers. There's been some long and flameful discussions over things such as rape. If mankind was only driven by instincts and emotions, there would be no free will, no morality. Morality is a question of choice, a wolf is neither moral or immoral as we know it when attacking a sheep.
So, to sum it up, despite the attractions a person has, that person also have choices, and those choices have consequences. It may be a reason, but it is not a justification. To take advantage of a very drunk (adult) woman because you are horny is a reason, not a justification. That goes the same for most any human emotion.
The victimization is really a big trend I see everywhere. Victim of his genes. Victim of his childhood. Victim of his education. Victim of his religion. Victim of society. Victim of propaganda. Victim of violent video games. Nothing is your responsibility, nothing is your fault. If we were talking about thought crime, I could see the defense that someone is pedophile by nature. But to commit a crime, he made a choice and must suffer the consequences. Just like the rest of us when we give in to temptation.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Piracy is also used to describe unlicensed radio transmission on licensed bands, FWIW. If I set up a radio station in the FM broadcast radio band (about 80MHz to about 170MHz, I forget the exact boundaries) without the permission of the relevent authority of the country I'm operating in, I'm engaging in "piracy". No ships involved, unless I'm Radio Caroline, of course ;-)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I think you have something backwards.
I won't use the word respectable, but acts that ought to be minor offenses, or even non-offenses, are turned into major criminal acts. Robbing the muisic store at gunpoint and taking some CD's will get you less time than what the RIAA wants you to get for ripping a track to your mp3 player.
You have it backwards. It is not that major criminal acts (copyright infringement) are becomming respectable. It is that minor criminal acts (that maybe should even be fair use) are turned into major criminal acts. Labels warning you that you dare not copy this vinyl phonograph record onto cassette tape.
The problem is that the entire system of intellectual property has become imbalanced, incomprehensible harmful to the public good. In part this has to do with bad laws like DMCA...
Let's not forget infinite term copyrights.
I think I saw it on Groklaw recently, what the constitution should be ammended to say about copyrights and patents... The copyright cartels have no respect for the law, the constitution, and they have no misgivings about bribing congress against public interest; yet they expect us to abide by laws that they write and then purchase. (DMCA was written by Jack Valenti former MPAA spokesdroid, and then congress was paid to pass it.)
Plese use your time more wisely preaching to the copyright cartels.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Using a VCR or PVR to record video and archive it is certainly easier and of better quality than downloads (in general) but it does not solve the problem of accessibility. Most television shows, movies, music, books, etc. are not available for sale in stores and are not played on television. Many of these are available for download on the internet. It's not just price but availability that drives piracy.
The victimization is really a big trend I see everywhere. Victim of society. Victim of propaganda. Victim of violent video games. Nothing is your responsibility, nothing is your fault.
You are not talking about victimization. You are taking about blame. The lack of distinction is a problem found among people who see everything in moral terms.
Any time harm is done, there is victim. The reason you try to deny their identity as victims is that you want to feel justified in punishing them. Those of us who believe in rehabilitation instead of the Good vs Evil crap have no such difficulties.
Here's the analogy I've always used to compare piracy with conventional theft.
Let's say a teenager goes into a supermarket and steals a Mars Bar. After the teenager took it, that then meant that there was one less Mars Bar *physically on the shelf.* The Mars Bar is a physical object. So the supermarket has to suffer a loss on the money they were expecting to make from that physical object.
Now let's say that same teenager goes home and later that night, uses his T1 cable to download a warez copy of Windows XP. The teenager has downloaded a copy of XP...but in doing so, there has actually been an *additional* copy of XP created...one which didn't exist before...as a result of the downloading process. Nothing is missing from the shelves of any shrink-wrap boxed software shop, either.
So that's the difference. Shoplifting *removes* an item which the store then has to cover the loss of. Piracy on the other hand does not physically remove merchandise...what it really does is to create alternate sources of said merchandise...sources which are not necessarily under the software author's control. The software author might not make the amount of money he/she/they were expecting, but given that software doesn't exist as a physical object, it's a lot harder to quantify with any real accuracy the amount of money you could expect to make from it anyway.
And no, folks, it is not meant to reward authors.
Progressing art & science in a market system usually implies innovation, and innovation usually implies profit. Profit isn't necessarily a reward, though it could be used as such. Profit's function in an economic system is covering the costs & risks of future development.
Limit all copyright times to the minimum required to pay back for creation costs (along the lines of 5 years).
Limiting terms is fine, and the current trend for unlimited extensions is dangerous, but I disagree that it's about covering creation costs. It's about creating a market for content, thus ensuring revenue flow for the creation of future works.
Cancel copyright on functional information (such as software). The power it grants the copyright holder over its user, even in a limited time, is too great.
I'm curious why you would think this. Copyright is what allows things like the GPL to exist. Without it, you don't have a community of open source with forced contributions, you have public domain artifacts.
Software creation, in most cases, requires little to no financial incentive
In most cases? In general, this could be applicable to any profession in which one gains pride and/or fellowship from their work -- Habitat for Humanity building houses, or Amish barn raisings at one end of the spectrum, pro-bono legal work as another example.
Just because financial needs aren't the ONLY incentive, this does not eliminate the fact that people need money.
and in niche cases where it does, payment to programmers is still possible.
Niche cases? Those niche cases would be where someone spends 8 hours a day developing software, and thus don't have time to make money in exchange for another form of labour? That's a strange definition of niche.
Let's break out this scenario....
Software creation, as with all forms of human activity, requires incentives. Financial incentives certainly aren't the only incentive. However, if one is to spend the majority of their time creating software, they require financial incentive. That means a wage, or a salary.
Wages and salaries must be paid by people or groups of people that undertake some kind of activity that provides economic value. Thus, they too must have incentive.
In a world where software licenses are no longer valued (i.e. public domain artifiacts), then the value is in:
a) the time you spend (e.g. customization or support time); or
b) the complementary products you associate with the software (e.g. retail websites, advertisments on the web, or selling hardware or business consulting)
c) the usage of the software (e.g. software-as-a-service, metered usage, etc.)
So software-for-hire is developed by a consortium of volunteers in their spare time for certain classes of software plus full-time developers that are remunerated by manufacturers or software-service firms, or consulting / support firms.
Is this the model you seek? Is that really superior to today's model? I wonder.
Most popular open source software today is subsidised by hardware sales, business consulting, support contracts, and advertising (IBM, HP, RedHat, OSDN, Google, etc.).... Is this sustainable if the hardware business starts to falter, or if the business consultants lose large deals?
I do agree something needs to be done about the perpetual tax placed on desktop software upgrades, but I think that's slowly fixing itself -- people are upgrading less as the software becomes more commoditized and clones/alternatives appear. It's a long process, but probably in the next 10 years, Office won't be the cash cow it is today for Microsoft.
Allow copyright, but only apply it to inter-legal-entities copying. This would mean that EULA's have no effect (You really shouldn't need extra permission from the copyright owner to run the copy you bought!).
Hm
-Stu
Well, a very decent argument, if you're living in a Jeffersonian democracy in the 18th century.
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However, we are living in the 21st century, and the world is different. Jeffersonian democracy hasn't existed since the U.S. Civil War. I'd like to think our 21st century world is more enlightened.
My part time job is working at the Electrical and Computer Engineering department at a university, and I can assure you, lots of research is going on - and if you honestly think that copyright law is going to hinder that research, you are very badly mistaken.
For that matter, copyright never did hinder it. You see, copyright deals with a specific implementation, if you want to put it that way. And holding the copyright means that you control how your work, be it sculpture, a novel, some programming code, will be distributed. If you want to release it to the public domain, that is your choice. If you want to give first publication rights to a publisher and try to make some money off it, that's your choice too. That's what copyright assures. It is, in the here and now, meant to keep artists and creative minds from having their work co-opted against their will.
You cannot copyright a name, any more than you can copyright an idea. All you can copyright is your implementation of it. So please don't talk about how copyrights restrict creativity - that's bullsh*t. It restricts plagerism
There is nothing wrong with attacking the abuse of copyright law - certainly it exists. But don't attack copyright law because some people are abusing it. Go after the people abusing it.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
One of the things that can end your chances at reproduction is contracting a major STD. The urge to get ones face close to the genitals of one's prospective partner comes from that. If you aren't exclusive, you can at least look and see if they have sores. If you think you are, you can potentially smell any other sex partners they have on their crotch.
Homosexuality is evolutionary, too. In the same way that drone ants or bees who don't themselves breed are evolutionary, homosexuals can help their relatives procreate. They can give same sex realtives early experience that helps them get a mate (I know, sounds gross. Evolution often is.) They can also form same sex pair bonds that reduce violence and increase goodwill. If my two brothers and my cousin, between them, carry all of my genes (statistically likely) then helping them procreate will pass on my genes to the next generation. Genes don't care how they get passed on. Whatever works.
As far as victimization, choice, and consequences go, try reading Mark Twain's essay, "What is a Man?" for an interesting take on things.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Definitely. How would you like it if some company used your GPLed code in their proprietary application? Now that's software piracy!
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
People don't view copying as theft, because it is not theft. It's copyright violation. Copyrights are an artificial means of protecting ideas.
If I liked a shirt you're wearing, and made an exact copy of it for myself, you wouldn't accuse me of stealing your shirt. You still have it.
The reason why this is such a problem in the digital realm is that the costs of copying (manufacturing) bits is practically free.
What will happen when the cost of copying physically stuff is just as easy? Will companies be be crying for piracy laws to prevent me from making a backup of my favorite coffee mug, in case I break it?
Did the author's sales really go down? Can you prove it? If that's true, why are some authors offering up their books for free on the Internet in the hopes of increasing sales?
The author of the software had the software before, and had it afterwards. He/she was deprived of nothing except an opportunity, and even that is debatable. It could easily result in increased sales and increased publicity.
Mens Rei actually means "guilty mind", and it really measures the degree to which you intended to hurt someone. If you hurt someone "negligently", i.e. you didn't mean to hurt anybody, but someone was hurt by your actions, then that's the weakest form of "Mens Rei" recognized under the law. If you did something in order to hurt a particular person/entity, then that's the strongest form recognized.
If you copy an MP3 and thereby infringe on the IP rights to the songs owned by Britney Spears' record company with the intention of hurting their bottom line, that would be purposeful infringement. If you copy the MP3 because you want to listen to the song, but are absolutely convinced that it will do nothing to hurt their bottom line, then that's either reckless or negligent. The whole "Mens Rei" thing is a distraction though. The real issue should be whether a given level of copyright infringment hurts or helps the copyright holder, and whether or not that IP should exist in the first place.
How is the "Progress of Science and Useful Arts" promoted by Britney Spears songs? Should a sound recording even be protected? It's neither a writing nor a discovery.
Songs would exist without copyright. Look at how much stuff is available under "Creative Commons" licenses! Look how much music (and other creative work) was made before these things were copyrighted. Maybe it's true that a certain level of IP protection is useful to the general public, but what is that level?
As for the author being harmed by unauthorized copies of their work being shared without their permission, that isn't the issue. What if there was a law that said "All black people must work for white people without pay". Black people refusing to do that would cost white people... but does that mean that the black people are wrong to refuse, or that the law was wrong?
I'm replying here because it's a good spot on the first page. :)
0 05057966
If you have any doubts about the definition of theft and piracy, just look to recent court actions.
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040205
I like the judge's rebuke:
"Let me say what I think your problem is. You can use these harsh terms, but you are dealing with something new, and the question is, does the statutory monopoly that Congress has given you reach out to that something new. And that's a very debatable question. You don't solve it by calling it 'theft.' You have to show why this court should extend a statutory monopoly to cover the new thing. That's your problem. Address that if you would. And curtail the use of abusive language."
The judges here clearly viewed the use of 'theft' or 'piracy' to be an abuse of the terms, and I do as well. To equate making an unauthorized copy of a 3 minute song with actual theft or piracy is a slap in the face of everyone who's ever been robbed or an actual victim of piracy.