U.S. High Level Anti-Piracy Post Created

Vicissidude wrote to mention a CNN/Money article, announcing that President Bush has created a new senior-level position to fight global intellectual-property piracy From the article: "Bush has tapped Chris Israel, currently deputy chief of staff for Gutierrez, to head up the administration's anti-piracy efforts. China -- where 90 percent of music and movies are pirate copies -- will be a chief priority, Gutierrez said."

Comments

War of Foo!

[garcia]

Drug trafficking is a major problem around the world. We believe that it is costing U.S. businesses and citizens about $250 billion in tax dollars and wages," some random talking head told Reuters in an interview with reporters and editors.

The party currently running the country, tapped the resources of a random individual that is currently an up-in-coming member of the political party, to head up the administration's anti-drug efforts. A random South American Country, along with Afghanistan -- where 90 percent of cocaine and heroine originate-- will be a chief priority, this random government official said.

"Frankly, our goal is to reduce (South America and Afghanistan's drug trade) to zero," he said. This government official declined to specify a timetable, but acknowledged it could be a lengthy effort which will waste just as much tax money and resources as the users did before it while actually not eliminating anything.

He got a personal glimpse of rampant drug harvesting during visits earlier this month, when he was offered the chance to buy drugs and sell them to his own citizens, an aide said.

The United States will closely monitor a long list of anti-drug pledges these two countries made after the US government offered them huge aid packages at this month's high-level Joint Commission on Drug Trade meeting, including a promise to increase criminal prosecutions, he said.

Sounds awfully familiar doesn't it? Why do the rest of the American public sit there and refuse to acknowledge that this Anti-Piracy bullshit is nothing but a rehashed attempt to increase protections for Big Business under the guise of protecting *our* interests?

BTW - When are we going to start standing up against "lengthy wars" that have no real returns? Does no one remember that hundreds of billions of dollars have been wasted on this unending war?

Sad.

Re:War of Foo!

[Sensible Clod]

Why do the rest of the American public sit there

You haven't seen much of the American public, have you?

Re:War of Foo!

[Anonymous Coward]

Attention Moderators:

This is quite on-topic. It's a direct parody of the content from the link (but you wouldn't know that would you because you never actually read the linked article). It shows the direct and worthless relationship that the US Government has with its little "wars" on whatever topic they think benefits the party and those that fund their party.

Re:War of Foo!

[shark72]

"Why do the rest of the American public sit there and refuse to acknowledge that this Anti-Piracy bullshit is nothing but a rehashed attempt to increase protections for Big Business under the guise of protecting *our* interests?"

You are not necessarily speaking for all Slashdotters when you use "our".

I have very little interest in buying a pirated DVD for China, or utilizing a P2P service to download music without permission of the copyright holder. However, I am interested in adequate healthcare, roads kept in good condition, and other quality of life issues for which our state and federal governments are primarily responsible. The government wants those additional tax dollars from the Microsofts and EAs and 20th Century Foxes and Capitol records of the world.

Whether you and I like it or not, the fact is that intellectual property is one of the US's largest exports and the income that it brings into this this country plays a major role in the quality of life we enjoy. Our government taking this steps might ultimately hinder my ability to get a copy of the latest DVD for free rather than paying the $5 rental fee or the $20 Netflix subscription or just buying the damn DVD for $20, but I don't lose any sleep over this.

Re:War of Foo!

[garcia]

The government wants those additional tax dollars from the Microsofts and EAs and 20th Century Foxes and Capitol records of the world.

It seems to even out in the end to me. Wasting billions of dollars in the short term to get back billions later (at a possible loss) via taxes doesn't make sense.

To give billions in cash, weapons, and training to people that might later use those same weapons and training back on us just doesn't make sense.

Does it?

Re:War of Foo!

[CheshireCatCO]

The one thing you need to do to cinch that argument is show that the tax revenue that is lost to piracy is more than the cost of fighting that piracy. If not, the money is being wasted and could go to fund health care, roads, etc.

I have no idea which way the balance comes out, but it is something I want to see before accepting your case completely. So I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I need more data.

Re:War of Foo!

[shark72]

"Wasting billions of dollars in the short term to get back billions later (at a possible loss) via taxes doesn't make sense."

You're correct that spending $X to make back $X-$N is counterproductive. I don't have enough data to predict whether the government will be able to avoid this pitfall, but I think that comparing it to the war on drugs and predicting its ultimate failure is over-reaching. China is not Colombia. Those who predict failure on the basis that we can never 100% stomp out piracy are missing the point. It's all bout the ROI, not zero tolerance.

"To give billions in cash, weapons, and training to people that might later use those same weapons and training back on us just doesn't make sense."

Agreed. Then again, I'm a big fan of the Monroe Doctrine. If the expense of creating the post of anti-piracy czar does indeed ultimately pay for itself, let us hope that the government uses the money wisely, not stupidly. The power to make this happen is ultimately in our hands, or at least so we're led to believe.

Re:War of Foo!

[Neil Watson]

Will all the money spend on fighting piracy result in a return in tax revenue greater than the cost of the war? The same could be said for the 'War on Drugs'. Like that war this is a war against supply. This will ulitmately fail as long as there is a demand.

Re:War of Foo!

[LnxAddct]

Granted I agree with your post, but in all honsety, a minor part of me always disagrees. On the one hand its like "Oh wow! I can get free stuff, that is kick ass", on the other hand its like "Well they probably should enforce copyrights, afterall these companies do pay alot of skilled people alot of money to make these movies, songs, games, etc... They aren't a necessity in my life so if I feel they are charging too much I just won't buy it. Who am I to think I have a right to see or hear what they've done just because they've done it." The older I get the more resonable that second oppinion seems to be. Let them enforce anything they want with copyright, no one says you must watch some movie, and if you think they are charging too much oh well, don't pay to see it. You see, they are enforcing it, but the choice is still entirley yours as you whether or not you want to view it. The only reason people are fighting this is because people want free stuff, well stop being so damn selfish, you aren't entitled to any of it.
Regards,
Steve

Re:War of Foo!

[shark72]

Agreed. I don't have the wisdom to predict the success or the failure of this endeavor, but as with all government programs, if they're going to do it, let's at least hope it's successful, so we get at least some benefit out of it.

In my case, taking care of just one pothole on my route to work, or reducing pollution by just a few PPM trumps my ability to go to the seedy part of my local big city to procure a $1 DVD.

Re:War of Foo!

[FriedTurkey]

There is 6.4 billion people in China with a 90% piracy rate. It doesn't take a leap of faith to say that's a lot of money America is losing.

Since we have no more manufacturing jobs in the US borders, thanks to outsourcing, the only thing America "manufactures" is intellectual property. It is our best interest to protect what is supporting our economy before we are have nothing left.

Re:War of Foo!

[stlhawkeye]

Argumentative nitpick:

I am interested in adequate healthcare ... and other quality of life issues for which our state and federal governments are primarily responsible.

The government is not primarily responsible for providing you with health care. Not yet, anyway.

Re:War of Foo!

[Frymaster]

China is not Colombia

correct. and software piracy isn't the drug trade either. witness:

• columbian coca is grown in large fields visible from airplanes. dvds are pirated indoors away from prying eyes.
• coca is grown in columbia and then must imported to the purchasing country (ie, the states). dvds can be copied at or near the point of consumption.
• it's easy to detect and difficult to disguise coca and cocaine. aerial foliage colour analysis, drug sniffing dogs &c. make concealing drugs difficult. a pirated dvd can be packaged to be indistinguishable form a legit one to an untrained observer.
• drugs ruin lives. pirated dvd's waste afternoons.

if anything, the war on piracy will be more difficult and reap less benefit than the war on drugs.

Re:War of Foo!

[demigod]

The government wants those additional tax dollars from the Microsofts and EAs and 20th Century Foxes and Capitol records of the world.

I think corporation pay a lot less tax than you think. Take a look at this old report.

Re:War of Foo!

[rock_climbing_guy]

BTW - When are we going to start standing up against "lengthy wars" that have no real returns? Does no one remember that hundreds of billions of dollars have been wasted on this unending war?

We always stand up to unending war, because just like Adolf Hitler, Osama Bin Laden et al pose absolutely no threat to our safety. As a matter of fact, he's just a humanitarian seeking justice for his Wahabist frea^h^h^h^hpeople. Do you honestly expect to know when the war is going to end? Do you think people were told when the Vietnam War was going to end? WW2? The American Civil War?

Sure, you can call into question the motives of the politicians who got us into the war, but I think it's a bit ludicrous for you to say that it isn't fair that we don't know when it will end.

Re:War of Foo!

[Shalda]

This is very different from the "war" on drugs. One of the biggest things the US exports is intellectual property. Preventing the spread of pirated American works abroad and forcing foriegn user to buy legit copies puts money into the hands of US companies, and by extension their employees and stock holders.

By contrast, the War on Drugs is about control of the people. IE, the governement doesn't trust you to make good decisions for yourself. Chris Rock very accurately summed up the problem in one short sentance: "People want to get high." By restricting the supply of drugs, the government artificially raises the price of drugs making them a very lucrative business.

China has been a member of the Berne convention since 1992, but has done a poor job of living up to their obligations under the treaty. By allowing mass piracy (and we're not talking about a little bit of file sharing, we're talking about wholesale counterfitting) China is taking money away from US companies and handing it to counterfitters within their borders.

Now, there are a number of flaws with the Berne convention (like a life + 50 copyright minimum for starters), but the US would be remiss if it didn't protect its intrests under the treaty.

Re:War of Foo!

[angst_ridden_hipster]

Check your figures.

The latest census reports indicate that there are 13.7 trillion software pirates in China, as compared to 1.2 thousand in the US.

Furthermore, 1.7 million Americans are employed in ammunition factories, 2.5 million Americans are employed stuffing little uranium pellets into our nuclear warheads, and the rest of the Americans work at McDonald's or The Gap.

Re:War of Foo!

[symbolic]

Whether you and I like it or not, the fact is that intellectual property is one of the US's largest exports and the income that it brings into this this country plays a major role in the quality of life we enjoy.

Really? Is that before or after all of the tax breaks, subsidies, and other corporate welfare? Did you happen to catch the article over at the register about the handouts that Dell will be receiving from North Carolina?

Re:War of Foo!

[AviLazar]

While I agree with you on anti-piracy, I cannot agree with you on these "lengthy wars" that have no real returns

While drugs are still out there in full swing, and while we have spent TONS of money trying to remove those...I am glad we have removed a significant amount. So things like the Drug War is needed...unfortunately, the media hype on the Drug War has died down a lot so it is less of a priority in our eyes....Actually, the only way to get rid of these massive drug cartels is to tell these weenie countries who ALLOW them to operate to go fuck off, and then invade. Kill the drug lords, dealers, etc (and i mean kill them RUTHLESSLY) - destroy their entire infrastructure and then leave....If our president (now or in the future) said they would delcare such a strategy- I would be behind them 100%

Re:War of Foo!

[0x0000]

The government wants those additional tax dollars from the Microsofts and EAs and 20th Century Foxes and Capitol records of the world.

You have got to be kidding! Corporations don't pay taxes. Nor do the very rich.

Furthermore, the US Federal Govt isn't spending anything on providing any sort of healthcare for the people who do pay taxes, and highways are paid for out of petro and vehicle taxes.

Your postulated interest in the financial health of Sony Corp (DVD patents - and they're not a US company, btw) and Capital Records (Canadian, I think, owned by Seagrams, but you can check me on that) is completely spurious - not to say misguided.

I personally could give a shit about the output of the so-called US entertainment industry until and unless they start paying me to consumer their lame crapola. I don't download off P2P because they don't have anything I want and I damned well have no interest in paying some beer-oh-crat a 6 figure salary to watch out for some multinational corp that produces crap, pays no US taxes, and has few US employees (Microsoft, for instance, is doing a lot more for employment in India than they are in the US).

Our government taking this steps might ultimately hinder my ability to get a copy of the latest DVD for free rather than paying the $5 rental fee or the $20 Netflix subscription or just buying the damn DVD for $20, but I don't lose any sleep over this.

Your government (I don't claim it - the current US regime is an occupying force and is not American in any way shape or form - loud, psuedo-patriotic whining to the contrary notwithstanding) taking this step will lead only to higher taxes for you, more people in the prisons you pay for, and increased prices for those DVDs full of cut-rate bullshite. I mean, you don't actually believe they're doing this to lower prices, do you?

Besides, all that "piracy" they keep going on about isn't even taking place in the US - it's mostly in e.g. China already - if something really needs to be done about it, it should be Condi's job - hardly a task for a whole new cabinet position.

I agree with the previous poster - we're already invovled in enough wars whose sole purpose is to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Enough already. Peace in our time, god-dammit.

In short, they're pissing in your ear - it's up to you whether you believe them when they tell you it's raining...

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

Yesterday, the federal government wasn't primarily responsible for policing piracy. Today it is.

Funny how the government chose to prioritize piracy over adequate healthcare.

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

These corporations may not pay directly to the government. However, those corporations employ millions of Americans who pay income tax, FICA, property tax, sales tax, etc. Every DVD, CD, or piece of software that is illegally copied means less money that flows into these corporations, into those employees' pockets, and into the government.

We are screwing ourselves over by not attempting to collect the money that is rightfully ours.

Re:War of Foo!

[Anonymous Coward]

Since when do we collect sales taxes on what is sold in asia or South America? Since when do we collection cooperate income tax from off-shore subsidiaries? Enron not only used off-shore subsidiaries to avoid paying any taxes for 5 years, They even received money from the government in the form of tax credits. The whole reason for NAFTA and CAFTA is to provide a more fluid method of not paying taxes. Why make it here and have to pay taxes when you can make it south of the border, import it for free and avoid paying taxes? Also, the majority of "illegal" copies of IP are help by people who could not have bought it at full price otherwise so it's not a loss of sale. I'm fine with going after the true pirates, the conterfits, the fakes. Those affect customer as well as manufacturer. But when I hear "war on" or "X czar", I know the American people are getting screwed again for coorperate benefit.

Re:War of Foo!

[Kingrames]

"Why do the rest of the American public sit there and refuse to acknowledge that this Anti-Piracy bullshit is nothing but a rehashed attempt to increase protections for Big Business under the guise of protecting *our* interests?"

Perhaps for the same reason you don't do it.

now where's a link to that penny arcade comic about gamers rising up in protest?

Re:War of Foo!

[BewireNomali]

wow, dude. really well fucking said. I'll cosign on this.

I also submit that the anti-piracy argument goes both ways. No one admits to downloading free content, but no one wants for measures to be taken against those who do. Those sentiments seem diametrically opposed at times.

Re:War of Foo!

[Anonymous Coward]

"However, I am interested in adequate healthcare, roads kept in good condition, and other quality of life issues for which our state and federal governments are primarily responsible."

The only person responsible for your quality of life is YOU.

Welcome to the free world.

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

The only reason companies like Dell get away with this is because they'll put thousands to millions of local people to work. (There is a multiplier effect involved where every job created also creates other jobs to service the first employees.) Then, all those workers will pay income tax, FICA, property tax, sales tax, etc.

After that's said and done, the token amount paid to Dell will be peanuts compared to the benefits for the entire community.

Re:War of Foo!

[Arhat]

Come on, surely the War on Drugs and the War on Terror have shown to be success stories.

Seriously people, you can't win a war waged against a common noun.

Re:War of Foo!

[Rickler]

Wow didn't know there are more people working in ammunition factories then the entire manpower of the US military.

Re:War of Foo!

[g2devi]

> The latest census reports indicate that there are
> 13.7 trillion software pirates in China
> as compared to 1.2 thousand in the US.

That's quite an accomplishment, seeing that China has a population of 1.3 *billion*.

Obviously, China has made the piracy so automated that each Chinese is as productive as 10,000 pirates.

On the other hand the U.S. has a population of 282,000,000, it means that each yank is only as productive as .000005 pirates.

The U.S. needs to shape up! No wonder a new high level post was created to increase yankee piracy levels.

Re:War of Foo!

[mankey wanker]

"By restricting the supply of drugs, the government artificially raises the price of drugs making them a very lucrative business."

That's it? full stop, next paragraph?

Makes you wonder who's racket they are protecting, doesn't it?

Re:War of Foo!

[Anonymous Coward]

So things like the Drug War is needed.

Out of curiosity, why? Why is it in the best interest of our country to outlaw something that a vast majority of people either want to do, or don't particularly care if others do? The only argument I have ever heard against legalizing pot, cocaine, herion, etc. is that if it is legal, it will encourage people to use. Which is, to some extent, true. I have known people who abstained from smoking pot solely b/c it was illegal. But, why is detrimental to society to have a small fraction of the population do drugs? I know why I personally don't smoke pot (very often), do coke, herion, etc., but if other people do, what negative effect will that have on society? Especially if it is legal, monitored, and especially taxed. Will this negative impact outweigh the enormous savings in money and lives that will come about when a major criminal enterprise is suddenly gone? Nobody killed anyone over liquor until it was outlawed, now that it is legal, nobody kills anybody over it. I expect the same would happen for drugs.

Re:War of Foo!

[Valacosa]

"Actually, the only way to get rid of these imperialistic Western countries is to tell these people who ELECT them to operate to go fuck off, and then terrorize. Kill the women, children, etc (and i mean kill them RUTHLESSLY)"

Huh. It doesn't make so much sense anymore, does it?

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

You have got to be kidding! Corporations don't pay taxes. Nor do the very rich.

Those corporations employ millions of Americans who do pay income tax, FICA, property tax, sales tax, etc. Every DVD, CD, or piece of software that is illegally copied overseas means less money that flows into these corporations, into those American's pockets, and into the US, state, and local governments. We could possibly employ all of our unemployed were we not losing this money. We are screwing ourselves over by not attempting to collect the money that is rightfully ours.

Furthermore, the US Federal Govt isn't spending anything on providing any sort of healthcare for the people who do pay taxes, and highways are paid for out of petro and vehicle taxes.

I would like to see the government takes some steps to address health care. However, I can also see the sort of changes required would cost a good deal of money, which we are hemorrhaging, in part, due to piracy.

I personally could give a shit about the output of the so-called US entertainment industry until and unless they start paying me to consumer their lame crapola. I don't download off P2P because they don't have anything I want and I damned well have no interest in paying some beer-oh-crat a 6 figure salary to watch out for some multinational corp that produces crap, pays no US taxes, and has few US employees (Microsoft, for instance, is doing a lot more for employment in India than they are in the US).

I don't know about the other corporations listed, but up until recently, I worked for Microsoft. They have 58,000 employees worldwide with about 30,000 in the Seattle area alone. Most of their jobs pay above the national wage average, some far above. It's estimated that each employee at Microsoft provides another 2 jobs to the local economy. All those employees pay income tax, FICA, local property taxes, and state sales tax.

Bill Gates lives right near Seattle on Mercer Island. That's the world's richest man living here, paying income tax, property tax, and sales tax. He gives to local charities since he's actually from Washington. And he's done a lot to aid the local university.

Many Microsoft millionaires, people who formerly worked for Microsoft, have stayed in this area and contribute further to Seattle. The founder of Valve Software, creater of Half-Life, is one prime example.

Microsoft is intimately tied into the Seattle economy. I'm no fan of Microsoft, but if Microsoft gets screwed, then Seattle gets screwed. That idea alone scares me since I love my home.

Re:War of Foo!

[caluml]

if anything, the war on piracy will be more difficult and reap less benefit than the war on drugs.

"If you can't catch criminals, criminalise those that you can catch."

Re:War of Foo!

[axlr8or]

While the rest of your post seems ilrelavant (I understand you were trying to illustrate a point) You can talk all you like about standing up to tyranny, but its all blow until you do something. Join http//www.eff.org/

Re:War of Foo!

[randallpowell]

True. India's economy is doing real well.

Re:War of Foo!

[Mozk]

I hope you realize the grandparent post is a joke, joking about its parent.

Re:War of Foo!

[Anonymous Coward]

You are not necessarily speaking for all Slashdotters when you use "our".

"our" is used to mean the american people as a whole, not just /. .

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

Please follow the thread. I'm not going to waste my time catching you up.

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

Right... like I'm going to go out a build a road. Give me a break.

Re:War of Foo!

[ShaniaTwain]

The average American simply lacks awareness of the issues - they don't know how vital it is that the Government enact important things like The Biscuit Protection Act of 2005

Re:War of Foo!

[InvalidError]

If they fight piracy by putting everyone in prison, how is that supposed to rake money? Putting someone in prison costs over $30k-$100k/year to the state, this quickly costs more in REAL money than the piracy's real (or even hypothetical) cost in lost sales.

And old-school piracy where people swapped disks or downloaded stuff from HTTP/FTP servers is somewhat far on the way out with all the well established P2P technologies that are replacing them today.

Next step, governments start requiring registration and annual audit of all computer equipment owned by a person to be sent along with the tax forms so additional taxes can be collected as necessary.

Re:War of Foo!

[g2devi]

And mine was a joke joking about a parent's joke about a parent.;-)

Re:War of Foo!

[That's Unpossible!]

The government wants those additional tax dollars from the Microsofts and EAs and 20th Century Foxes and Capitol records of the world.

Corporations do not pay taxes. Taxes on businesses are simply indirect taxes on people, that's why liberals (and even fiscally liberal conservatives) love them. It's a way of raising taxes without most citizens realizing it.

When you tax a business, they pay it by (a) decreasing payouts to shareholders, (b) hiring fewer employees, (c) paying existing employees less or reducing benefits, and/or (d) raising the prices of the services.

As you can see, all of these effect you and me adversely, because it means we have fewer jobs, less pay, more costs, and earn less on our investments or retirement accounts.

Business taxes are a total crock of shit.

Re:War of Foo!

[vsprintf]

There is 6.4 billion people in China with a 90% piracy rate. It doesn't take a leap of faith to say that's a lot of money America is losing.

And how many of those people do you think would be able to buy a copy of Windows XP at $200? There is no real market there.

Since we have no more manufacturing jobs in the US borders, thanks to outsourcing, the only thing America "manufactures" is intellectual property. It is our best interest to protect what is supporting our economy before we are have nothing left.

It would be in our best interests to put up trade barriers as the Chinese have, declare foreign IP fair game, and repatriate a lot of those jobs before we find ourselves totally dependent on the whims of those who don't like us. If the government wants to help American business, they need to stop exporting American businesses and return to exporting American products. The whole IP czar thing is a distraction.

Re:War of Foo!

[0x0000]

So you apparently really believe that, if all those Chinese who are getting pirated copies of Windows weren't able to get the pirated copies, they would be paying full price for the software (or DVD or whatever)? That's the kind of flawed logic that has allowed the RIAA to dig themselves into the hole they're in now...

money, which we are hemorrhaging, in part, due to piracy.

We are not "hemorrhaging" cash - we just aren't producing anything these "pirates" consider worth paying for. Not making a sale is not the same as having some one take away from you monies that have you already made. The corps don't own the money, and their constant whining about me (or anyone) not giving it to them is just sour grapes. I don't owe them anything. They should have to work for a living like the rest of us...

As you point out, Microsoft has done okay for itself, regardless of rampant piracy overseas for many years, I might add. Of course, they have managed to enforce certain predatory business practices of questionable legality, themselves, but they have gotten away with it, so we can let that lie, for the time being. Really, though, Mirosoft should think twice before casting any stones on the basis of allegations of criminal behavior.

Furthermore, Microsoft has been one of the few companies to successful prosecute pirates - and without creating a cabinet post (well, if you don't count their ownership of Dubya) to do it.

Capitalism in action, dude - people in China won't pay $20 for the DVD, but they'll pay $1. A sale you didn't make is not lost capital, it's a failure of marketing and design.

I guess you could argue that e.g. P2P "costs sales" because it lets people find out what crap the music or video is *before* they pay good money for it, and hence they don't buy it - freeing the consumer from the (rigged) tyranny of so-called "critics", basically - but creating a government position with the idea of enforcing sales quotas for failed products - which is how I view these so-called "anti-piracy" efforts - is a bit over-the-top.

...Microsoft. They have 58,000 employees worldwide with about 30,000 in the Seattle area alone.

As I understand it, Microsoft has been careful to define their overseas sweatshop employees as "not Microsoft employees" - this keeps the heat off them for outsourcing and makes them appear to be less hostile to the working stiff consumer. It's an image thing.

Most of your points here I take, but I think they are going to side issues. I maintain that this article is about a shenangian - about enabling corporate hacks (in the old sense - workers lacking real skillz) to continue to charge more than the market will realistically bear for 2nd and 3rd rate products - while giving their activities sanction under guise of law enforcement. "It's a poor workman blames the tool," so-to-speak.

It is a continuation of the marginalization and ultimate criminalization of non-consumption or consumption of alternative products. The companies' profits will fall if they are not propped up by government, regardless of piracy, because they cannot produce goods that can command an honest dollar.

The only real losses in the realm of intellectual property occur when real innovation is suppressed or stolen by a corporatation - that's a loss to an individual and neither this ploy nor any other by the Dubya regime does squat to address those sorts of abuses.

And that's before we start talking about the millions of lives that could be saved just by re-directing the corporate fat-cat turned politician's salary alone...

Re:War of Foo!

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you trying to imply the figures are made up? The 6.4 billion people in China or the 90% piracy rate?

Go to China and even try to find legal music or software. It is actually hard to find legal copies in stores.

Pirates should move to China where there is no such thing as intellectual property.

Re:War of Foo!

[FriedTurkey]

And how many of those people do you think would be able to buy a copy of Windows XP at $200? There is no real market there.

All the Chinese people aren't living in huts. The Chinese economy is actually quite strong and American companies have been doing a lot to get into China and tap into the growing middle and upper class. There is no real market for software and music because a copy can be found for ten cents anywhere in China.

If the government wants to help American business, they need to stop exporting American businesses and return to exporting American products.

Sounds great. How do we do that? How do we change the American economy so you don't feel bad about downloading movies and music off of bittorrent?

Re:War of Foo!

[kurzweilfreak]

Get out of your mom's basement for a while. "No man is an island" ring a bell?

Re:War of Foo!

[Anonymous Coward]

"The government wants those additional tax dollars from the Microsofts and EAs and 20th Century Foxes and Capitol records of the world."

Bzzt! The government doesn't make much money from corporations. In 2003, about 7% of government revenues came from corporate taxes:

http://www.faireconomy.org/images/2004TaxDayReport 2_files/image030.gif

93% came from individual income tax filings and other revenue sources. The cost of funding the U.S. government is squarely on the backs of individuals.

Re:War of Foo!

[vsprintf]

Those corporations employ millions of Americans who do pay income tax, FICA, property tax, sales tax, etc. Every DVD, CD, or piece of software that is illegally copied overseas means less money that flows into these corporations, into those American's pockets, and into the US, state, and local governments.

Yet the very same companies you speak of are moving jobs overseas and removing those sources of tax revenue. Why should they get special treatment and protection for abandoning this country?

We could possibly employ all of our unemployed were we not losing this money. We are screwing ourselves over by not attempting to collect the money that is rightfully ours.

That's the same old RIAA nonsense argument that every song downloaded is a lost sale. People without money (as in China) don't buy expensive, unnecessary items.

I don't know about the other corporations listed, but up until recently, I worked for Microsoft.

That would explain a lot. We need to have an intervention and get you detoxed from the company propaganda.

It's estimated that each employee at Microsoft provides another 2 jobs to the local economy.

It's a lot greater than that world-wide if you take into account all the anti-virus and anti-spyware companies, the computer repair people, and all the people writing adware and spyware.

Bill Gates lives right near Seattle on Mercer Island. That's the world's richest man living here, paying income tax, property tax, and sales tax. He gives to local charities since he's actually from Washington. And he's done a lot to aid the local university.

Wonderful. He's also building a campus in Bangalore and moving Microsoft jobs there. There goes the tax base.

Many Microsoft millionaires, people who formerly worked for Microsoft, have stayed in this area and contribute further to Seattle. The founder of Valve Software, creater of Half-Life, is one prime example.

So is Half-Life in danger of being stolen by the Chinese? Do they get free access?

I'm no fan of Microsoft, but if Microsoft gets screwed, then Seattle gets screwed. That idea alone scares me since I love my home.

Then you might want to ask Microsoft management why they are moving jobs offshore. Instead of freaking out over possible IP theft that has no effect on the bottom line, perhaps you might want to do what you can to pressure the government to stop exporting American jobs and cease helping the companies that do so.

Re:War of Foo!

[phreakhead]

If piracy in China means that some poor kid will be able to eat for a month off the $1 he made selling a pirated copy of Star Wars, then I'm all for it. That one dollar is not being taken from our treasury or adding to our deficit; it's from George Lucas' pocket and I'd be much happier if he paid for all the meals in China with his losses to piracy!

Re:War of Foo!

[symbolic]

The only reason companies like Dell get away with this is because they'll put thousands to millions of local people to work.

So? What you're saying is that Dell gets a huge kickback if it can create a tax revenue stream funded by the employees. Maybe it's time corporations be subject to a welfare-to-work program of their own, that reintroduces a company to the notion of self-sufficiency.

Re:War of Foo!

[vsprintf]

All the Chinese people aren't living in huts. The Chinese economy is actually quite strong and American companies have been doing a lot to get into China and tap into the growing middle and upper class. There is no real market for software and music because a copy can be found for ten cents anywhere in China.

The percentage of "middle class" in China and India in comparison to the US is tiny. Most exist at a subsistence level. Even then, their "middle class" has nothing comparable to our middle class when it comes to disposable income, which is what we're talking about - it's not about groceries. The reason software can be found for ten cents in Asia is because that's what the market will bear. I'm sure if Microsoft sold Windows for ten cents (more than it's worth), they would have far more sales.

Sounds great. How do we do that?

Somehow convince the government that giving tax incentives to American businesses for moving jobs offshore is a bad idea. But since it's the businesses that are paying Congress to provide favorable legislation, that's a tough sell. My tack is to tell my Congresscritters that I know what is going on, and if they don't support America-first legislation, my vote will go to their next opponent. It's not a big threat, but I also get a lot of letters published in the paper. The lates polls showed more people are becoming concerned about job loss, so it may become more of an issue for Congress.

How do we change the American economy so you don't feel bad about downloading movies and music off of bittorrent?

I don't feel bad about that at all because I don't do it, and I figure most people who can afford to buy digital products do so. The only thing I get using bittorrent is the latest Linux distro, and that's the way operating systems should be distributed, IMHO.

Re:War of Foo!

[Travelsonic]

That one dollar is not being taken from our treasury or adding to our deficit; it's from George Lucas' pocket and I'd be much happier if he paid

Funny, seems the "money is theirs even though they might not deserve it" argument is the hottest trend in bullshit arguments!

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

So you apparently really believe that, if all those Chinese who are getting pirated copies of Windows weren't able to get the pirated copies, they would be paying full price for the software (or DVD or whatever)?

Windows is a flawed example due to the fact that Linux is free and most people would switch to that. Even so, some legitimate copies of Windows would be sold in China, if only to the government, businesses, and few people who could afford it.

Let's look at the pirating of the new Star Wars DVD, which is a better example. If people could not purchase a pirated copy of the new Star Wars DVD, they would find a way to view a legal copy by renting it. The rental store in this case would have enough money to spend for a full-price copy.

That's the kind of flawed logic that has allowed the RIAA to dig themselves into the hole they're in now...

You made the previous flawed claim, not me.

We are not "hemorrhaging" cash - we just aren't producing anything these "pirates" consider worth paying for.

Nonsense. The fact is that the Chinese are paying for these goods. But, they're paying the pirates $1-$2 per copy. That may not seem like a great deal of money to you, but a dollar in China goes a lot farther than a dollar in the US. That difference is why they refuse to pay $10 for a DVD. It has nothing to do with the perceived quality of the DVD.

(Note that I don't use quotes on the term pirate. Traditionally in the computer industry, a pirate is someone who copies software and then sells it for profit. These people are pirates, even though the term has been overused in recent years for people who just merely copy software or music.)

As for the hemorrhaging cash... yes, that's occurring too. All the software companies, music companies, and movie companies would be making a great deal more money if piracy was not an issue. It takes money to make those goods and pay workers. That amount of money is not little.

I might add that if piracy were not an issue, then companies would not have to charge as much for software, CDs, and DVDs. Because of this problem, all of us who actually follow the law then pay for this problem.

Not making a sale is not the same as having some one take away from you monies that have you already made. The corps don't own the money, and their constant whining about me (or anyone) not giving it to them is just sour grapes. I don't owe them anything. They should have to work for a living like the rest of us...

The problem is not about making a sale. The problem is people copying goods, and then selling the copy.

If you copy software, a CD, or a DVD illegally, then you do owe someone some money. It cost money to make that program, music, or movie. In fact, it cost a lot of money to make that. If I don't get a bonus or raise because you and all your friends decided not to spend $10 for the software that I helped write, then that is stealing from me. And I do have a problem with that.

As for working for a living, I don't know where you get that comment. I am working for a living. And I want to get paid for it. How about you actually pay for the goods you use, just like everyone else in the civilized world.

Capitalism in action, dude - people in China won't pay $20 for the DVD, but they'll pay $1. A sale you didn't make is not lost capital, it's a failure of marketing and design.

BS. Capitalism can not operate without the notion of property. If I can not sell what I create and is rightfully mine, then we are not dealing with capitalism.

These people are selling what they stole, which is plain and simply theft.

I guess you could argue that e.g. P2P "costs sales" because it lets people find out what crap the music or video is *before* they pay good money for it, and hence they don't buy it

I

Re:War of Foo!

[Anonymous Coward]

You are forgetting that these companies are paying less and less in taxes that go for your roads, schools etc.

As far as paying for stuff, why don't you look around. There is plenty of people that are putting out legally free software(LINUX!!) and music.

--Jay

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

Who said they weren't self sufficient? Microsoft, for example, makes money hand over fist. They've made money hand over fist for the last 20 years. But, they still get subsidies from the state of Washington.

If I could get free money just by asking for it, I sure as hell would ask. That's exactly what these companies are doing.

Re:War of Foo!

[Brandybuck]

Half of American voters voted for Bush. The other half voted for Kerry. Non-voters can't even get their butts off the couch. Who is left to care?

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

Why should they get special treatment and protection for abandoning this country?

Creating a level playing field where people and companies can control and sell what they create is not "special treatment". Capitalism does not work without some concept of property. If I create something that you want and you can just take it from me, then we're not dealing in capitalism.

That's the same old RIAA nonsense argument that every song downloaded is a lost sale.

BS. You are attributing someone else's argument to me. I did not make that argument because not every pirated disk would otherwise result in a sale.

However, the argument that I did make, is that someone would have bought a legitimate copy otherwise. In the case of a CD or DVD, that someone would be a relatively wealthy individual or rental business. In the case of software, that someone would be a business or government. As of now, with piracy in China as rampant as it is, US companies get nothing for those sales.

Instead of freaking out over possible IP theft that has no effect on the bottom line, perhaps you might want to do what you can to pressure the government to stop exporting American jobs and cease helping the companies that do so.

You might want to stick on topic rather than going off on tangents that I didn't bring up. Again, you are attributing someone else's arguments to me.

Obviously, someone in China wants our CDs, DVDs, and software since they are buying them, if not from us. And since someone would buy those CDs, DVDs, and software from US were they not being pirated, then it does affect the bottom line. Considering that we're talking about a country with over a billion people, it would affect the bottom line dramatically.

Re:War of Foo!

[Anonymous Coward]

There is 6.4 billion people in China with a 90% piracy rate. It doesn't take a leap of faith to say that's a lot of money America is losing.

Sounds like RIAA math to me.

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

And how many of those people do you think would be able to buy a copy of Windows XP at $200? There is no real market there.

BS. The market is there, just not at the price that Microsoft wants to sell at.

Even so, your argument does not support the wholesale theft of software.

CDs and DVDs are much cheaper. However, even those are being pirated. There certainly is a market in China for the price that companies are selling for. If you could buy a $1 CD on the street corner that Wal-Mart sells for $10, that doesn't mean there is no market at Wal-Mart. However, with the rampant piracy, no one wants to pay the legal price.

It would be in our best interests to put up trade barriers as the Chinese have, declare foreign IP fair game, and repatriate a lot of those jobs before we find ourselves totally dependent on the whims of those who don't like us.

Closing off ourselves from the rest of the world is not the answer. The answer is to get the Chinese to enforce the IP laws they already have on their books. Then that money will be flowing to the US, rather than into the pockets of the pirates.

If the government wants to help American business, they need to stop exporting American businesses and return to exporting American products.

The government is not the group responsible. Take it up with American businesses.

Re:War of Foo!

[symbolic]

I guess we have different ideas about what "self-sufficient" means. In my book, it means that there is no welfare involved. There are no kickbacks, payoffs, grants, or other "incentives".

Re:War of Foo!

[Anonymous Coward]

And since someone would buy those CDs, DVDs, and software from US were they not being pirated, then it does affect the bottom line. Considering that we're talking about a country with over a billion people, it would affect the bottom line dramatically.

Just because they'll buy the stuff for $5 a pop doesn't mean they would pay regular prices for them, or even anything near regular prices.

Re:War of Foo!

[Omega Blue]

The government wants those additional tax dollars from the Microsofts and EAs and 20th Century Foxes and Capitol records of the world.

Then I am afraid you will be rudely disappointed. Was there a year in the not so distant past that MS did not need to pay any taxes at all? For what you think they hire divisions of accountants? Besides, didn't Mr GWB cut back on taxes?

While the expenditures come out of the taxpayers pockets, the increase in sales - if there is any - goes into the coffers of these companies, then proceed to go to the "top executives" and then the shareholders. $1 going in will not be $1 coming out, it will be much, much, less. Even somebody who hasn't taken Economics 101 can tell you this is a totally stupid way to go about it, if increasing tax dollars is your goal.

Whether you and I like it or not, the fact is that intellectual property is one of the US's largest exports and the income that it brings into this this country plays a major role in the quality of life we enjoy.

First of all do not confuse patents, copyrights, and trademarks. Anybody who uses the term "intellectual property" is either confused or intentionally deceiving. I will give you benefits of doubt here.

At any rate, even if there is some form of increase in sales, how does it increase your quality of life? Unless you are one of them execs, the money never makes it into your pocket, or the overall economy as a whole. As I pointed out, any such effort will drain more resources than it puts in, resulting in a net loss.

Of course, that "90%" bit is serious bogus crap. I don't think they went around asking people how much of their stuff is copied, instead, they just pull some crap from their collective rectum. It's the same shit when RIAA was claiming they lost billions of $$$ to illegal copying and filesharing.

Re:War of Foo!

[vsprintf]

BS. The market is there, just not at the price that Microsoft wants to sell at.

So you agree that that the market isn't there.

Even so, your argument does not support the wholesale theft of software.

I am not trying to support the theft of software. Thanks for noticing.

If you could buy a $1 CD on the street corner that Wal-Mart sells for $10, that doesn't mean there is no market at Wal-Mart. However, with the rampant piracy, no one wants to pay the legal price.

There is already such an underground market in the US, but most people somehow prefer WalMart. It's about disposable income and market value.

Closing off ourselves from the rest of the world is not the answer. The answer is to get the Chinese to enforce the IP laws they already have on their books. Then that money will be flowing to the US, rather than into the pockets of the pirates.

The last I heard, there were no Chinese laws regarding foreign IP. That is why Cisco had such a problem when their firmware was stolen and sold by their Chinese coders. The answer is to remain here in first place and keep our industry here rather than wasting resources chasing phantom losses claimed by businesses that are busy leaving the country while claiming they need protection. Have you ever heard of the term corporate welfare?

The government is not the group responsible. Take it up with American businesses.

Business does not operate in a vacuum. This country does not allow pure capitalism (thank God). There are laws regulating business, and those laws are written by our government. When government gives preferential tax breaks to companies that move jobs offshore, there is a problem with both government and businesses.

Re:War of Foo!

[Anonymous Coward]

along with Afghanistan -- where 90 percent of cocaine and heroine originate

I thought Xena was from Macedonia...

Re:War of Foo!

[vsprintf]

Creating a level playing field where people and companies can control and sell what they create is not "special treatment".

So it's only about a level playing field for companies that create IP and not for companies that make textiles or garments or electronics? Where is your angst for them and the people they employed?

If I create something that you want and you can just take it from me, then we're not dealing in capitalism.

Tell that to the government and the SCOTUS after the recent eminent domain decision. BTW, we don't have capitalism.

BS. You are attributing someone else's argument to me. I did not make that argument because not every pirated disk would otherwise result in a sale.

However, the argument that I did make, is that someone would have bought a legitimate copy otherwise.

Okay . . . I give up. You're saying that one person would have bought a legal copy if the Chinese weren't selling cracked copies on the street? Doesn't sound like much of a gain for American business to me.

And since someone would buy those CDs, DVDs, and software from US were they not being pirated, then it does affect the bottom line. Considering that we're talking about a country with over a billion people, it would affect the bottom line dramatically.

There are millions of Chinese who would love to own a Ford Explorer. They are very difficult to copy and sell on the street corner. I suggest you open a Ford dealership in China and make boatloads of money. Let me know how it works out.

Re:War of Foo!

[0x0000]

Apologies for getting this response out of sequence...

You made the previous flawed claim, not me.

I couched it as an interrogative - you proceded to support the assertion, and now you claim you don't... huh?

You do in fact claim that sales are revenue that belongs to the seller - regardless of whether or not the buyer has agreed to pay the terms. That is precisely what you are saying when you claim that the pirated copies are equal in dollar value to the same number of sales in the unit price demanded by the manufacturer.

I give you that the piracy may even be illegal (although it is my understanding that in China it is not, since they do not subscribe to US copyright law), but that doesn't justify your math, here. It's just wrong. You have no reasonable estimate of how many copies of any particular item may be sold in China at $20 - only estimates of how many copies are selling at $1 or $2.

That information should be useful to the morons runing the entertainment industry, and it should transparent to the morons running the regime, but no one wants to talk about it. They're gaining far more trying to force the Chinese to pay their asking price and scrambling for moral high ground using words like "theft" and "piracy" - I find it laughable, myself, but if I were one of the mafiosos whose business it was to make sure that copies of work sold in China paid my company instead of some pirate, one of the first things I'd be looking at would be "how cheaply can I sell this and still turn a profit?" Of course, that is a pragmatic, capitalist POV which discounts any desire to take something that I can't legitimately earn. This is how we can know that the principles involved are simply grifters - gouging the market to line their own pockets, and screw the consumer - why do they have to consider the buyer if they can dictate the price by law? Who will care that the content of the CD isn't worth $10, let alone $20?

I might add that if piracy were not an issue, then companies would not have to charge as much for software, CDs, and DVDs. Because of this problem, all of us who actually follow the law then pay for this problem.

This is a purely specious and fallacious argument. It sounds good, but if you examine the math (as above) and think about it for a moment, it is obvious bunk. The entertainment conglomerates would cut their own throats to get legislation giving them a stronger lock on the market - they've been at this for decades - they know damned well that appearing to take a loss from these "theives" is critically important to their arguments. Hence, they have manufactured one. It does not exist - it's an artifact of the innaccurate assertion that Not Sales == Capital Loss. That is simply not the case, as anyone who has spent much time selling anything can tell you. You didn't make the sale - change your pitch, adjust your price - whatever - but move on, it's not a loss, but it could be a learning experience if you're smart enough.

As for working for a living, I don't know where you get that comment. I am working for a living. And I want to get paid for it. How about you actually pay for the goods you use, just like everyone else in the civilized world.

I wasn't refering to you, personally. I was refering to the corporate machine which expects some fixed price for their product, and when they can't get it they want to use legal means to assure that they get what they want, rather than what the market will bear.

For my own part - I have no use for pirated goods - as I believe I mentioned. In fact, I typically pay a premium to get things from actual producers of products instead of from lawyers who claim to own someone elses work - as in the entertainment industry. You seem to imagine that "copyright holder" == "artist" or something equally fantastical...

Your arguments do not excuse

Re:War of Foo!

[the_womble]

If the Chinese had to pay full US prices they would reduce their imports. The vast majority of them will buy this stuff cheap but they will not pay anything like full retail.

Why do you think Windows has the highest share in countries where piracy is common?

Furthermore the leverage the US has over China is limited.

Finally, if the US pushes other countries too far for these income streams, they are likely to end up regarding them as a tax and simply weaken "IP" laws.

Finally remember that the US can not pressure other countries to have significantly stronger IP than the US has itself, and therefore the income this generates has to be set against the costs imposed on US consumers by stronger IP in the US AND the general global inflation this causes.

Re:War of Foo!

[Zaphod-AVA]

If so, then the government should probably be a bit sharper about actually getting tax revenue from them eh?

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/4526.html

The natural state for IP is public. Corporations have abused the corrupt system to make IP rights last multiple lifetimes, so forgive me if I fail to lose sleep over copyright infringement.

Re:War of Foo!

[antic]

There are not 6.4 billion people in China. How the hell did you get modded "Insightful"!?

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

You do in fact claim that sales are revenue that belongs to the seller - regardless of whether or not the buyer has agreed to pay the terms. That is precisely what you are saying when you claim that the pirated copies are equal in dollar value to the same number of sales in the unit price demanded by the manufacturer.

Again, you are putting words into my mouth. Go back and read my actual statements.

I give you that the piracy may even be illegal (although it is my understanding that in China it is not, since they do not subscribe to US copyright law

To enter the WTO, China had and did adopt similar copyright laws. The problem is that China is not enforcing their own laws.

...but that doesn't justify your math, here. It's just wrong. You have no reasonable estimate of how many copies of any particular item may be sold in China at $20 - only estimates of how many copies are selling at $1 or $2.

Frankly, it is not unreasonable to assume that someone out of the billion+ people living in China would buy a $10 CD if piracy was stamped out. Further, it is not unreasonable to assume that even a low percentage of those billion+ people living in China would buy a $10 CD if piracy was stamped out. Even if only 1% of the population bought a CD every month, that would mean 10,000,000+ copies sold a month, based on their enormous population. That is hardly chump change and definitely better than selling nothing.

...if I were one of the mafiosos whose business it was to make sure that copies of work sold in China paid my company instead of some pirate, one of the first things I'd be looking at would be "how cheaply can I sell this and still turn a profit?" Of course, that is a pragmatic, capitalist POV which discounts any desire to take something that I can't legitimately earn. This is how we can know that the principles involved are simply grifters - gouging the market to line their own pockets, and screw the consumer - why do they have to consider the buyer if they can dictate the price by law? Who will care that the content of the CD isn't worth $10, let alone $20?

First off, you can't sell goods to one market at one price while selling it to a rich market at a higher price. That is called dumping, and it is illegal, not to mention repugnant and plain stupid. Why does China get to pay less for a CD than I do here in the US. We frickin made the CD in the first place.

Let's say record companies actually did what you propose. Then, nothing stops other companies like Wal-Mart from buying those CDs in China and selling them in America. So much for your little plan.

You still haven't explained how the earnings of these companies aren't "legitimate". For example, Oracle creates software. That is their software. They have the right to sell it at any price they want, whether you "need" it or not. They legitimately created it and legitimately own it. If you want a copy, then you pay. If you don't want a copy, then don't pay. It is that frickin easy.

If you think the content of a music CD isn't worth $10, then don't frickin buy it. You have plenty of chance to hear it on the radio or listen to it in the store before buying.

Me: I might add that if piracy were not an issue, then companies would not have to charge as much for software, CDs, and DVDs. Because of this problem, all of us who actually follow the law then pay for this problem.
You: This is a purely specious and fallacious argument. It sounds good, but if you examine the math (as above) and think about it for a moment, it is obvious bunk. The entertainment conglomerates would cut their own throats to get legislation giving them a stronger lock on the market - they've been at this for decades - they know damned well that appearing to take a loss from these "theives" is critically important to their arguments.

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

So it's only about a level playing field for companies that create IP and not for companies that make textiles or garments or electronics? Where is your angst for them and the people they employed?

I fought that battle previously. If you actually subscribe to Slashdot, you can look up all my previous comments. Even so, you are again going off topic.

Tell that to the government and the SCOTUS after the recent eminent domain decision.

No where in the constitution does it set up capitalism as our economic system. Capitalism is a result of the choices that our federal and state legislatures made. SCOTUS turned over eminent domain decisions to local governments, which are now adjusting to the decision by enacting new laws to protect owners.

And again, you are going off topic.

You're saying that one person would have bought a legal copy if the Chinese weren't selling cracked copies on the street? Doesn't sound like much of a gain for American business to me.

The actual number is somewhere between one and the number of pirated copies. Given that we're talking about a billion+ people, it's likely more than a few would buy a legitimate copy. Even if the number is as low as 1% per month, that's 10,000,000 copies sold each month. That's hardly chump change and certainly more than the nothing we're selling now.

Me: And since someone would buy those CDs, DVDs, and software from US were they not being pirated, then it does affect the bottom line. Considering that we're talking about a country with over a billion people, it would affect the bottom line dramatically.
You: There are millions of Chinese who would love to own a Ford Explorer. They are very difficult to copy and sell on the street corner. I suggest you open a Ford dealership in China and make boatloads of money. Let me know how it works out.

Stick to the topic. We're talking CDs, DVDs, and software. A frickin car is a whole different ball game.

Even so, foreign companies are selling cars in China. Mercedes is just as much as status symbol there as it is here.

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

I would call myself self-sufficient. I make my own money and pay my own bills. At the end of the month, I definitely have extra left over. But if someone wants to give me a present, I accept it.

I guess then according to you, I wouldn't be self-sufficient.

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

I doubt you can speak for everyone in a country with a population over 1 billion people.

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

So you agree that that the market isn't there.

That's not what I said at all. If you don't know the difference, then I suggest you take an economics class. You are obviously too dense to pick this up from a few readings on Slashdot.

The last I heard, there were no Chinese laws regarding foreign IP.

You need to look again. China joined the WTO in 2001. Before and since that time, they had to have these laws on the books. The problem is that China isn't enforcing their own laws.

The answer is to remain here in first place and keep our industry here rather than wasting resources chasing phantom losses claimed by businesses that are busy leaving the country while claiming they need protection.

Again, can you stick to the frickin topic. We're talking about the Chinese and the wholesale theft of software, CDs, and DVDs. We're not talking about how mean and big American corporations are.

Re:War of Foo!

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally remember that the US can not pressure other countries to have significantly stronger IP than the US has itself, and therefore the income this generates has to be set against the costs imposed on US consumers by stronger IP in the US AND the general global inflation this causes.

This sentance is hilarious.

Re:War of Foo!

[ultranova]

Even so, your argument does not support the wholesale theft of software.

Software cannot be stolen, on the grounds that it is not physical property and therefore cannot be removed from the possession of its maker.

Perhaps you meant wholesale copyright infringement of software ?

Closing off ourselves from the rest of the world is not the answer. The answer is to get the Chinese to enforce the IP laws they already have on their books. Then that money will be flowing to the US, rather than into the pockets of the pirates.

Why would China enforce a law that would cause money to flow from China to US ? That would be a pretty stupid move from their part.

Re:War of Foo!

[ultranova]

Funny how the government chose to prioritize piracy over adequate healthcare.

Not really, the government is just looking after its citizens. Disney and Microsoft are wealthier than you are, so they are more important citizens than you are, so the government considers their wellbeing more important than yours. A bit like nobility was more important than common people in the middle ages.

Nothing funny here, just America being America. Move along.

Re:War of Foo!

[Anonymous Coward]

First off, you can't sell goods to one market at one price while selling it to a rich market at a higher price. That is called dumping, and it is illegal, not to mention repugnant and plain stupid. Why does China get to pay less for a CD than I do here in the US. We frickin made the CD in the first place.

Let's say record companies actually did what you propose. Then, nothing stops other companies like Wal-Mart from buying those CDs in China and selling them in America. So much for your little plan.

That's why newer media like DVDs have regions.

Re:War of Foo!

[will_die]

If you look at the information from the travel industry the number of Chineses traveling to Europe and US for recreation is increase by large percents; however the really interesting thing on this is that Chineses recreation travelers have taken over the spot as the people with the most amount of spending money.
So there are large amounts of Chinese that could purchase software at the legal price.

Re:War of Foo!

[botik32]

They legitimately created it and legitimately own it. If you want a copy, then you pay. If you don't want a copy, then don't pay. It is that frickin easy.

Man, you live in a fantasy world. Let me put it this way: If you are not willing to sell 0s and 1s for a fair price, people will copy it for free. And if you try to criminalize it, you will have to put half the people in jail.

I think the price you ask is just too high on the balance of things. To be willing to ruin the lives of so many people, just to be able to dictate your price.


Frankly, it is not unreasonable to assume that someone out of the billion+ people living in China would buy a $10 CD if piracy was stamped out. Further, it is not unreasonable to assume that even a low percentage of those billion+ people living in China would buy a $10 CD if piracy was stamped out.

That is the problem. You want the world to suit your will. It just won't work. Even if you think what you want is 'moral'. It is not. It is greedy and control-freak-like.

It is people like you who want to control people and the world around them, for whatever reason, that disgust me most. No wonder you worked for Microsoft.

Re:War of Foo!

[botik32]

They legitimately created it and legitimately own it. If you want a copy, then you pay. If you don't want a copy, then don't pay. It is that frickin easy.

Ok let's turn the tables.

You get out of a pub and want to pee. Very badly. There are plenty of toilets in the street but every one asks for $5,000 for you to take a pee. Now, that is half your month's salary. You revolt, because it is hard earned money. You pee onto a bush nearby, to be seen by noone. You go home.

That is quite similar to the situation with the price of prepackaged culture in China. And I would say the need to pee is as important as the need to produce and consume cultural works. It is basic to human nature.

What you are asking that on every street there be police men to support the profits of the toliet lords of your city. That is not right, you know, from where I stand.


Even if only 1% of the population bought a CD every month, that would mean 10,000,000+ copies sold a month

That is denying the other 99% of your work. If everybody insisted on the same $10 price, it would lock out 99% of the population out of cultural works. Guess what those people would do next. Pirate!

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

Why would China enforce a law that would cause money to flow from China to US ? That would be a pretty stupid move from their part.

To join the WTO, China had to create IP laws in the first place. Were the US to bring a complaint to the WTO, then the Chinese would have to comply to remain a member and not receive sanctions. China will comply, if only to keep the rest of their economy running.

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

DVDs are the only media that wouldn't work in this example. Software and CDs both work perfectly.

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

Me: They legitimately created it and legitimately own it. If you want a copy, then you pay. If you don't want a copy, then don't pay. It is that frickin easy.
You: Man, you live in a fantasy world. Let me put it this way: If you are not willing to sell 0s and 1s for a fair price, people will copy it for free. And if you try to criminalize it, you will have to put half the people in jail.

If you want the code that I created, then you should pay the price that I set. If you don't like that price, then go away. Go off and use my competitor. Or, even better, go out and create your own program. Then, when you try to sell your work, maybe you will appreciate this problem. Let's see how you like giving away your work for free.

If you want to steal my work, then you should be put in jail. You're nothing but a common thief.

I think the price you ask is just too high on the balance of things. To be willing to ruin the lives of so many people, just to be able to dictate your price.

That does not justify stealing my work and ruining my life and the lives of my fellow workers. If you don't want my software, my CD, or my DVD at the price that I set, then you can easily move on to my competition. If I charge too much, then that gives great incentive to my competitors to charge less, undercut me, and steal my customers.

The price of those goods pays my paycheck which feeds me, clothes me, and pays for my shelter. The price of those goods pays the paycheck for many, many of my coworkers in my community as well. I am not going to sacrifice myself nor my community to a thief like you.

You and people like you are ruining IT in America from attitudes like this.

Me: Frankly, it is not unreasonable to assume that someone out of the billion+ people living in China would buy a $10 CD if piracy was stamped out. Further, it is not unreasonable to assume that even a low percentage of those billion+ people living in China would buy a $10 CD if piracy was stamped out.
You: That is the problem. You want the world to suit your will. It just won't work. Even if you think what you want is 'moral'. It is not. It is greedy and control-freak-like.

Excuse me? Asking payment for my work is not "greedy" and "control-freak-like". That is the way the world operates and you are delusional to think otherwise.

You can not go into a grocery store, put food into your cart, and leave the store without paying. Complaining that the grocery store charges too much won't help you. Screaming about the "greedy" and "control-freak-like" cashiers won't help you. The cops will come, arrest you, and you will have to stand in front of a judge. At that point, I'd like to see how any of your agruments stand up.

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

Me: They legitimately created it and legitimately own it. If you want a copy, then you pay. If you don't want a copy, then don't pay. It is that frickin easy.
You: You get out of a pub and want to pee. Very badly. There are plenty of toilets in the street but every one asks for $5,000 for you to take a pee. Now, that is half your month's salary. You revolt, because it is hard earned money. You pee onto a bush nearby, to be seen by noone. You go home. That is quite similar to the situation with the price of prepackaged culture in China.

Your analogy is flawed. If I write a piece of software and sell it for a price that is too high for you, then you can always go out and use a competitor's program. Or, you can go out and create your own program (similar to your peeing in the bush example).

Stealing software in this example would be akin to breaking into one of those $5000 toilets.

Your analogy is further flawed because it doesn't take into account locally produced software, CDs, and DVDs that are all available for reduced price due to the reduced cost of production. To use your example, all the foreign toilets in town are $5000, but you can always go to a local toilet for $1000.

Me: Even if only 1% of the population bought a CD every month, that would mean 10,000,000+ copies sold a month
You: That is denying the other 99% of your work. If everybody insisted on the same $10 price, it would lock out 99% of the population out of cultural works. Guess what those people would do next. Pirate!

The US is not the only creator of software, CDs, and DVDs. China has plenty of software developers, musicians, and movie makers. They can easily create all the culture they want without having to steal ours. And they can sell theirs for less since the cost of living in China is far cheaper than the cost of living in the US.

Re:War of Foo!

[ultranova]

To join the WTO, China had to create IP laws in the first place. Were the US to bring a complaint to the WTO, then the Chinese would have to comply to remain a member and not receive sanctions. China will comply, if only to keep the rest of their economy running.

I admit I know nothing of WTO (expect it means "World Trade Organization"), so I might be skating in thin ice here, but... Would the WTO really care ? China is a fast-growing market area, and the other members of WTO are also paying IP tax to the US, and frankly, US isn't very well liked in the world at the moment, so would the other members of WTO really side with US against China ?

After all, if they side with China, they can then afterwards quietly start dropping their own IP tax levels ("China got away with it, so I'll get away with it too"), possibly gain positive reaction from China, and the individual politicians will likely gain politically in their home countries from siding against US - like I said, US isn't very well liked right now.

On the other hand, siding with US will gain more or less enmity from China, will ensure that the other countries will have to keep paying the US their IP tax too, and gain negative publicity from siding with the US. The only thing they gain is some positive reaction from the US, and the value of that is somewhat questionable right now - it doesn't gain anything tangible, while being seen as a friend of the US seems to be an invitation for various mass murderers to bomb your infrastructure because they think, for some odd reason, that killing enough people will get them a place in heaven instead of hell.

So, basically, siding with the US will gain words of gratitude and terrorist attacks, while siding with China will help gain a market of over billion chinese and possibly even freedom from IP taxes, not to mention that the nutjobs won't see you as an ally of US and will leave you alone - well, some of them might start considering you a secondary target instead of primary one.

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

I admit I know nothing of WTO (expect it means "World Trade Organization"), so I might be skating in thin ice here...

Yes, you are. The WTO does care about trade and subjects like intellectual property. These topics are the entire reason that the WTO was created. To quote from the WTO website:
Copyright

The TRIPS agreement ensures that computer programs will be protected as literary works under the Berne Convention and outlines how databases should be protected.

It also expands international copyright rules to cover rental rights. Authors of computer programs and producers of sound recordings must have the right to prohibit the commercial rental of their works to the public. A similar exclusive right applies to films where commercial rental has led to widespread copying, affecting copyright-owners' potential earnings from their films.

The agreement says performers must also have the right to prevent unauthorized recording, reproduction and broadcast of live performances (bootlegging) for no less than 50 years. Producers of sound recordings must have the right to prevent the unauthorized reproduction of recordings for a period of 50 years. In short, these are international agreements that have already been made. China agreed to follow them and, in fact, has placed these laws in its own books. However, China has done almost nothing in enforcing their own laws regarding IP. As such, the US has a strong case against them if they were to bring it to the WTO.

Re:War of Foo!

[vsprintf]

So there are large amounts of Chinese that could purchase software at the legal price.

The term "large amounts of Chinese" is meaningless considering their population of over a billion people. A tiny fraction of that population is a large amount of people but has nothing to do with what the majority can afford.

Re:War of Foo!

[vsprintf]

That's not what I said at all. If you don't know the difference, then I suggest you take an economics class. You are obviously too dense to pick this up from a few readings on Slashdot.

What you said was pointless. I've taken classes in economics from a real university, which is why I find your comments so amusing. You evidently took economics from the RIAA School of Business.

The problem is that China isn't enforcing their own laws.

Unenforced laws = no laws, much like our H1-B program restrictions. If there really are any laws, perhaps you should apply for a job as counsel for Cisco - they sure didn't have any luck trying to prosecute the thieves.

Again, can you stick to the frickin topic. We're talking about the Chinese and the wholesale theft of software, CDs, and DVDs. We're not talking about how mean and big American corporations are.

I believe the topic is about using taxpayer money to create a new bureaucracy to *protect* American corporations from the evil, pirating Chinese who couldn't afford to buy their products in the first place. It's the same corporations that are moving jobs and their IP to India and China. It's a boondoggle, and if the topic is now encompassing more than you can process, that's too bad.

Re:War of Foo!

[vsprintf]

I fought that battle previously. If you actually subscribe to Slashdot, you can look up all my previous comments. Even so, you are again going off topic.

All 169 comments? ;) Obviously, neither you nor I subscribe - you can tell by looking at the header on the comments.

No where in the constitution does it set up capitalism as our economic system.

You were the one going on about capitalism. I noted that we don't have that. Period. Pay attention.

And again, you are going off topic.

No, you're afraid to address the topic.

The actual number is somewhere between one and the number of pirated copies. Given that we're talking about a billion+ people, it's likely more than a few would buy a legitimate copy. Even if the number is as low as 1% per month, that's 10,000,000 copies sold each month. That's hardly chump change and certainly more than the nothing we're selling now.

Now we're getting somewhere. You are assuming that there are ten million Chinese who are in the middle class and need to upgrade or install Windows every month. Given the normal usage patterns in the US and the rest of the world, that would indicate an installed base of, carry the 1, over a billion Chinese customers. I'm pretty sure that XP sold less that 20 million copies world-wide during the first two months. Again, there are very few Chinese who can afford retail copies of Windows. The whole piracy thing is a diversion.

Stick to the topic. We're talking CDs, DVDs, and software. A frickin car is a whole different ball game.

No, you're just unable or unwilling to make the logical connection. It's about the market. You wouldn't be able to sell many Ford Explorers in China because there is a very limited customer base. It's the same with MS Windows. The pirated copies of Windows do not equal lost sales for Microsoft any more than Ford Explorers not sold in China equal lost sales for Ford.

Re:War of Foo!

[vsprintf]

Even so, foreign companies are selling cars in China. Mercedes is just as much as status symbol there as it is here.

Oh, yeah, I forgot. For 2004, sales for Mercedes in the US were 194,700. In the whole Asian/Pacifc area sales were 83,300. Run that through your 1 or 2 billion customer economic model (per capita), and project similar sales for American CDs. Are you sure you took economics?

Re:War of Foo!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Let's see how you like giving away your work for free. "

Many people do just this: there's a large and growing movement based around the concept that you may have heard of.

"Asking payment for my work is not "greedy" and "control-freak-like"."

But _expecting_ people to pay whatever you demand using threats of force (and putting people in prison is a threat of force) definitely is greedy and control-freak like -- it is also completely at odds with the way a capitalistic system is supposed to work (in capitalism, market forces set prices, not cartels protected by governments).

"That is the way the world operates and you are delusional to think otherwise."

Actually, it isn't the way the world operates -- it's the way that a small, wealthy subset of the world's population wants it to work, but wanting something and having it are not the same thing.

Fact: most people living on this planet don't give two hoots about making foreign corporations richer, and the US and Europe's failure to intimidate minor players like Iran and North Korea into doing what they want with nukes doesn't exactly bode well for their chances of convincing a large power like China to spend time, effort, and money on a problem that obviously has no importance to them. After all, what leverage do they have? Countless American and European companies now depend on cheap chinese imports for clothing, electronics, engineering components, and a huge range of other goods, so any effective trade embargoes would damage their own economies at least as badly as China's.

The concept of IP has only existed in a limited set of geographical locations for (in historic terms) a very short time, yet it is already showing the signs of imminent collapse because successive lobby groups have managed to convince law makers to shift the balance too far towards the IP owners. Copyright periods are continually extended to ensure that corporate property never enters the public domain; patents, which were intended to protect inventors, have now become so vague and all-encompassing that they are now a device which large corporations use to lock those very inventors out of their markets; and common words are trademarked in droves by big companies to prevent anyone else from using them. With a situation like this, the puzzling thing is not why so much of the world has chosen to simply ignore this madness, but rather why we still put up with it.

Re:War of Foo!

[Anonymous Coward]

When the US actually shows a willingness to obey WTO rulings that go against them, they can use the WTO IP rules against China without being seen by most of the world as a bunch of total hypocrits.

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

Me: "Let's see how you like giving away your work for free. "
You: Many people do just this: there's a large and growing movement based around the concept that you may have heard of.

That's fine if you want to do that. However, it is not greedy of me to ask for compensation for my work.

But _expecting_ people to pay whatever you demand using threats of force (and putting people in prison is a threat of force) definitely is greedy and control-freak like -- it is also completely at odds with the way a capitalistic system is supposed to work (in capitalism, market forces set prices, not cartels protected by governments).

If you want to use my software, then you pay the price that I set. Otherwise, use someone else's software or create your own. If I set my price too high, then no one will buy my goods. That is how market forces work.

Asking someone to pay is not "greedy" and "control-freak-like" if they've used my product or service. That's the basis of capitalism.

... doesn't exactly bode well for their chances of convincing a large power like China to spend time, effort, and money on a problem that obviously has no importance to them. After all, what leverage do they have?

China has a definite want to for trade with other countries. In fact, it's economy hinges on foreign trade. That's why they were desperate to join the WTO in the first place and enacted the required IP laws.

Other countries have a definite lever to pull, and that is the WTO. By not enforcing their own IP laws, China has left the door open for possible sanctions and other remedies through the WTO. China is not interested in damaging their own economy, so they will make those changes once the issue is officially presented. The WTO does not take these problems lightly.

Countless American and European companies now depend on cheap chinese imports for clothing, electronics, engineering components, and a huge range of other goods, so any effective trade embargoes would damage their own economies at least as badly as China's.

China is not the only country that makes cheap products. India is just as large and just as cheap. Southeast Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe are equally as cheap. It would take some time for adjustment, but there would be little damage.

The concept of IP has only existed in a limited set of geographical locations for (in historic terms) a very short time, yet it is already showing the signs of imminent collapse because successive lobby groups have managed to convince law makers to shift the balance too far towards the IP owners.

I don't know where you get this idea that IP is on the verge of "collapse". No one is talking of musicians giving up the rights to their music. No one is talking of film makers giving up the rights to their movies.

IP is addressed by the WTO. Any country interested in joining the WTO must create IP laws within their country. With countries joining the WTO on a yearly basis, I see IP laws spreading, not "collapsing" as you say.

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

I wasn't aware we were talking about the US...

So, I guess it's not hypocritical of China to create IP laws to join the WTO and then not enforce those laws when it comes to foreign made software, CDs, and DVDs. Oh wait... yes it is!

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

Unenforced laws = no laws, much like our H1-B program restrictions.

Bzzt... wrong! The difference is that the laws are on the books. And these people are breaking their own law. While enforcement is slack right now, these people could face penalties in the future for their current actions.

I believe the topic is about using taxpayer money to create a new bureaucracy to *protect* American corporations from the evil, pirating Chinese who couldn't afford to buy their products in the first place. It's the same corporations that are moving jobs and their IP to India and China. It's a boondoggle, and if the topic is now encompassing more than you can process, that's too bad.

See the user that started this topic... Oh! That just happens to by my username! Nice of you to point out the topic that I started.

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

Now we're getting somewhere. You are assuming that there are ten million Chinese who are in the middle class and need to upgrade or install Windows every month. Given the normal usage patterns in the US and the rest of the world, that would indicate an installed base of, carry the 1, over a billion Chinese customers. I'm pretty sure that XP sold less that 20 million copies world-wide during the first two months. Again, there are very few Chinese who can afford retail copies of Windows. The whole piracy thing is a diversion.

I was specifically talking about CDs, which are dramatically cheaper than copies of Windows. But I guess I can't expect you to actually follow the conversation.

You wouldn't be able to sell many Ford Explorers in China because there is a very limited customer base. It's the same with MS Windows. The pirated copies of Windows do not equal lost sales for Microsoft any more than Ford Explorers not sold in China equal lost sales for Ford.

The price of a car does not come close to the price of Windows. The analogy is bad if only in the scale of the price of the two products.

The Chinese government has enough cash to pay for legitimate copies of Windows. Large businesses in China also have enough money. But, neither the Chinese government or large Chinese businesses will pay for Windows if piracy is rampant.

Re:War of Foo!

[ultranova]

In short, these are international agreements that have already been made. China agreed to follow them and, in fact, has placed these laws in its own books. However, China has done almost nothing in enforcing their own laws regarding IP. As such, the US has a strong case against them if they were to bring it to the WTO.

The questions still remains, if the US gets China sanctioned, are the members of the WTO going to stick to those sanctions, or are they going to pretend to enforce them and in reality watch elsewhere while trade continues as before.

Or perhaps I'm getting too cynical, assuming that politicians and countries are only looking out for themselves with no concern whatsoever for others or honor... Nah, that sounds abour right ;(.

Re:War of Foo!

[vsprintf]

The difference is that the laws are on the books. And these people are breaking their own law. While enforcement is slack right now, these people could face penalties in the future for their current actions.

Oh, my. The danger of future possible prosecution is certainly something to worry about. It didn't help Cisco. We have laws on the books here about H1-B usage which American companies disregard because they're unenforced. There is no difference.

See the user that started this topic... Oh! That just happens to by my username! Nice of you to point out the topic that I started.

Vicissidude wrote to mention a CNN/Money article, announcing that President Bush has created a new senior-level position to fight global intellectual-property piracy

So shouldn't you have left out the parts about President Bush and the new senior-level position if you didn't want to discuss it? It looks like fair game to me. If there are aspects of the subject you'd rather not discuss, you always have the option of not clicking the "Reply to This" link.

Re:War of Foo!

[vsprintf]

I was specifically talking about CDs, which are dramatically cheaper than copies of Windows. But I guess I can't expect you to actually follow the conversation.

Gee, and here I thought it was about the (yo, ho, ho) piracy of American IP. Excuuuuse me. A quick google shows Chinese per capita income for 2004 at $1,290. That makes average monthly income about $108. The typical pop CD is going for around $17, so that makes the purchase of one CD equivalent to 16% of the average Chinese worker's monthly income. That's more than I pay for the mortgage on my house.

The price of a car does not come close to the price of Windows. The analogy is bad if only in the scale of the price of the two products.

It scales perfectly. I gave you the figures for all those Mercedes' you claimed were sold in Asia. The vehicles sold in China are usually from Cherry, since they run about 50% of the cost of a cheap GM product. It's about the worth of a product and its value to the consumer. In China, like the US, Windows is really worthless, but Americans have the disposable income to pay for things with an imaginary value based on nothing more than marketing. It's basic economics, but you knew that already.

The Chinese government has enough cash to pay for legitimate copies of Windows. Large businesses in China also have enough money. But, neither the Chinese government or large Chinese businesses will pay for Windows if piracy is rampant.

The Chinese government is using Linux the last I heard. I wouldn't know about Chinese businesses, but that would be a tiny fraction of the (yo, ho, matey) piracy you're going on about. I find your tunnel vision fascinating. The Chinese are screwing us big time via currency exchange rates and trade barriers to the tune of $60 billion a year, and you're worried about lost sales of "IP" that would never happen anyway in the real world.

Re:War of Foo!

[botik32]

OK, analogy flawed. But your choice of terms is more so.


They can easily create all the culture they want without having to steal ours.

It is not stealing. It is using a copy without permission. Since you agreed that they would not pay for it anyway, then the issue is not about lost profit, is it? It is about control. You want to dictate others how to use copies of your creation.

Well you have the notion that it is your right to control what other people do with your creation. Other cultures might have a different view on that, especially since the idea of Intellectual Property is not yet 20 years old. So to them it is not "theft". It may be even morally just. They certainly did not do anything damaging to you.

Now, you propose that a nation-power spend taxpayer money on imposing foreign policies, alien to its constituents. To incarcerate people for years, for doing something they find morally ok, just to satisfy your need of control. If I were the Chinese govt, I'd send you packing.

Re:War of Foo!

[AviLazar]

When you strip away the context sure, but unfortunately this common butchering of the language does not work quite as cleanly as you would like to think it does.

For example:

"Hey honey! That piece of prime pork rib you made for dinner last night was great! Can we have that wonderful pig meat again?"

Now lets butcher this message

"Hey skank! That piece of shitty human rib you made for dinner last night was crap! Can we not have that shitty human meat?"

See how easy it was. I turned a nice compliment, about an average persons meal into a comment by a sadistic, canibalistic family, all by playing with the words. Sorry the words still makes sense.

Re:War of Foo!

[demigod]

Every DVD, CD, or piece of software that is illegally copied means less money that flows into these corporations, into those employees' pockets, and into the government.

No. Only those DVDs, CDs, or pieces of software that would have been purchased if it were not illegally copied mean less money flows into these corporations.

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

Since you agreed that they would not pay for it anyway, then the issue is not about lost profit, is it?

No, that is not what I agreed. I said not all would pay for CDs, DVDs, and software were piracy stamped out. So, we are talking about lost profit considering that some would pay for it otherwise. That level is certainly higher than the 10% of people paying now.

It is not stealing. It is using a copy without permission... It is about control. You want to dictate others how to use copies of your creation.

Using my property without permission... Hmm... And now I'm the "control freak"... How about I come to your home, invite all my friends, and throw a party, all without your permission. I'm sure you'd love that. I wonder who'll have sex in your bed first... Hey, don't be a "control freak" about this, they just want to have dirty butt-sex and leave the used condom on your pillow.

Property rights mean nothing without some level of control. And you can't have a capitalist society without property rights. Unless you want to dramatically change the structure of our society away from capitalism, your argument makes no sense.

Well you have the notion that it is your right to control what other people do with your creation. Other cultures might have a different view on that, especially since the idea of Intellectual Property is not yet 20 years old.

BS. Copyright was written in the US Constitution 200+ years ago. And that idea wasn't new even then.

So to them it is not "theft". It may be even morally just. They certainly did not do anything damaging to you.

You take my work, copy it everyone so that few people want a legitimate copy, then my company makes less money, and lays me off with a bunch of other co-workers in my community. Right... that wasn't damaging to me. It certainly wasn't damaging to my coworkers and therefore my community. BS.

You want people to stop getting laid off? Then stop making these nonsense arguments. Actually getting paid for our work helps our nation more than getting ripped off.

If I were the Chinese govt, I'd send you packing.

China all but begged to join the WTO. Considering that group will actually do this enforcement, I doubt China will send them packing.

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

The more prevalent those copies are, the more a society tolerates those copies, then the less likely that people will purchase legal copies.

Re:War of Foo!

[stlhawkeye]

Funny how the government chose to prioritize piracy over adequate healthcare.

Piracy is illegal and unquestionably in violation of somebody else's intellectual property rights.

You having shitty health care isn't illegal.

You/me/I/we may not think this is smart prioritization, but the government's job isn't go fix all the problems in our lives that it has no legal obligation to deal with. Until and unless the government passes some kind of law (or SCOTUS determines it to be the case somehow), your government is under no obligation to deal with your health care costs. It is, however, obligated to deal with widespread and wanton violation of well-established legal statutes.

Re:War of Foo!

[0x0000]

Asking payment for my work is not "greedy" and "control-freak-like".

Depends on the work and the amount you ask. Furthermore, we're not discussing asking for payment, we're talking about a situation where the purported "owner" of the work is demanding to be paid, regardless of the relative merit of their work.

That is the way the world operates and you are delusional to think otherwise.

You are clearly someone who believes that The Way It Has Always Been is the Way That It Is, and The Way That It Will Always Be. This is a fundamental difference between us - from my perspective, you are the one who is delusional. You seem to believe that e.g. the products produced by Microsoft have some intrinsic, objective value. I, on the other hand, consider them a liability for any of a number of reasons.

I have come to the conclusion that you are not a reasonable individual, and are simply arguing the points you are arguing in order to have an opporutnity to Be Right, regardless of the broader issues you are glossing over. You're not even really trying to pursuade, choosing instead prosyletize for a stagnant position that you already know to be enforced by Law.

Bottom line is: If everything you are whining for were to suddenly come to be, graven in Law, and fully enforced, the relative quality of Life on Planet Earth would not be improved one iota - the IP realm will continue to decay into recycling of the same old same old, and you will sit back fat and happy sipping your psuedo-beer, watching the tube, and pretending to create software that people want - talking up yourself and your pals. Nothing changed, nothing risked, nothing gained.

So what's your point?

And in case you missed it (for the last couple centuries), even the Law makes a distinction between intellectual property - which can be copied and remain more or less intact - and property. Your grocery store analogy just shows that you don't have any real understanding of your own argument - you're just parrotting.

Re:War of Foo!

[0x0000]

Again, you are putting words into my mouth. Go back and read my actual statements.

I can only conclude that your own grasp of the arguments you are using is limited - probably due to limited linguistic and/or logical skills. Read it yourself. I understood it the first 3 times. Clearly you still don't.

You're severely weakening your own position simply by not agreeing that what you said is what you said - clearly you don't recognize the the concepts you're reciting when you see them written out using different words and phrasing.

You still haven't explained how the earnings of these companies aren't "legitimate".

It's pretty obvious to anyone who has been vicitmized by these corps - you clearly don't count yourself in that group - in fact, you apparently don't consider that such a group exists. You futher can't handle your own arguments without mindlessly repeating the same hackneyed PR copy - I don't choose to get into any depth of argument with you when you're already so obviously foundering on the basic precepts. You probably don't even realize that I'm not disagreeing with you in any meaningful way - you're just spoiling for a reason to retype whatever page of talking points you're copying...

If you want to use my work, then pay for it. Otherwise, leave it alone.

This is getting comical... Simmer down, big boy - is someone stealing your software? Hey welcome to LIFE. Some one is always stealing something, and someone is always chasing them for it. Try Open Source - it'll lower your stress levels...

You screw over my group and it does affect me.

If I want to "screw over your group" I can come up with far more effective and efficient ways to go about it than "pirating" your lame-ass proprietary software, believe me. Just be glad I'm such a nice guy...

The fact that you could download it in the first place means that the person you downloaded from liked it.

Simply and obviously fallacious.

you can't sell goods to one market at one price while selling it to a rich market at a higher price. That is called dumping, and it is illegal,

Really? So you're saying that Microsoft selling WinXP in Thailand for ~$49US is illegal? I didn't realize... Of course, I figure M$ is taking a dump every time the do a release - dumping on the consumers, that is...

not to mention repugnant and plain stupid.

Interesting - are you saying this in consideration of the fact that the same companies you purport to be defending engage in these practices ("dumping")? They do, you know...

Why does China get to pay less for a CD than I do here in the US. We frickin made the CD in the first place.

LoL. Yeah. Right. We can't even make the widget to play the CD - I defy you to find one manufactured in the US. And the execs making the decisions in the entertainment industry (what CD's get made)? You want to claim they are American?

You're still wet behind the ears, sonny. Come back when you get a clue.

And here's one for you: The entertainment industry and the software industry are not really as interchangeable as you seem to want to believe. To claim they are is just disingenuous, and detracts hugely from anything you might actually have to say.

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

Me: Asking payment for my work is not "greedy" and "control-freak-like".
You: Depends on the work and the amount you ask. Furthermore, we're not discussing asking for payment, we're talking about a situation where the purported "owner" of the work is demanding to be paid, regardless of the relative merit of their work.

No, what we're discussing is China selling copies of software, CDs, and DVDs without paying the creators. I do not accept your adjustment of the argument.

If the Chinese do not think that US software, CDs, and DVDs "merit" use, then they do not need to use them in the first place. There are plenty of substitutions they could use which do have "merit". The fact that China does use US software, CDs, and DVDs means that China does consider them to have "relative merit". (As if that matters anyway...)

They know the price of our software, CDs, and DVDs. They don't have to use them, but the fact is they do use them. As such, they should pay for that use or stop using them.

You are clearly someone who believes that The Way It Has Always Been is the Way That It Is, and The Way That It Will Always Be. This is a fundamental difference between us...

I certainly do use history, facts, and rationality to anchor my arguments. You clearly prefer a bleeding-heart emotional approach where morality is relative. I myself am not an absolutist, or as rigid as you would believe. However, I am a nationalist who would prefer to see the US strengthen and prosper. And I don't believe that is possible when the world is copying what we work so hard on, without giving us the corresponding money or credit. Over the last 5 years the US suffered huge layoffs, partially due to financial losses at our companies. I would like to see those companies reduce their layoffs, and one way is to increase profits which would also decrease the need to cut costs.

I have come to the conclusion that you are not a reasonable individual, and are simply arguing the points you are arguing in order to have an opporutnity to Be Right, regardless of the broader issues you are glossing over.

I find people say stuff like this when they can't find any holes in my argument, but don't "feel" that I'm right. If you know any hole in my argument, then write it. Otherwise, this doesn't mean much.

And in case you missed it (for the last couple centuries), even the Law makes a distinction between intellectual property - which can be copied and remain more or less intact - and property. Your grocery store analogy just shows that you don't have any real understanding of your own argument...

Replace "grocery store" with "record store" along with "food" with "CD" and the story would be exactly the same.

That misses the point though. I wasn't trying to make an analogy between food and CDs. I was demonstrating how asking payment for work is not "greedy" and "control-freak-like".

Bottom line is: If everything you are whining for were to suddenly come to be, graven in Law, and fully enforced, the relative quality of Life on Planet Earth would not be improved one iota - the IP realm will continue to decay into recycling of the same old same old, and you will sit back fat and happy sipping your psuedo-beer, watching the tube, and pretending to create software that people want - talking up yourself and your pals. Nothing changed, nothing risked, nothing gained.

And nothing lost.

As it stands, I don't agree that quality of life would decrease. Those media and software companies would have more money to create the media and software that the world obviously wants. (Obviously since they go out of their way to steal it now by setting up whole industies to perpetuate that theft.) Those companies could then afford to take risks and truely innovate those products.

And since they had more money per released product, it's more likely that we would see prices of media and softwa

Re:War of Foo!

[Vicissidude]

You: ...you claim that the pirated copies are equal in dollar value to the same number of sales in the unit price demanded by the manufacturer.
Me: Again, you are putting words into my mouth. Go back and read my actual statements.
You: I can only conclude that your own grasp of the arguments you are using is limited - probably due to limited linguistic and/or logical skills. Read it yourself. I understood it the first 3 times. Clearly you still don't. You're severely weakening your own position simply by not agreeing that what you said is what you said - clearly you don't recognize the the concepts you're reciting when you see them written out using different words and phrasing.

Nonsense. I never said that the lost sales due to piracy were equal to what the manufacturers charge for the goods.

What I did say is "Even so, some legitimate copies of Windows would be sold in China, if only to the government, businesses, and few people who could afford it." I also said, "All the software companies, music companies, and movie companies would be making a great deal more money if piracy was not an issue."

I never said anything that could be translated to what you said I claimed above.

Me: You still haven't explained how the earnings of these companies aren't "legitimate".
You: It's pretty obvious to anyone who has been vicitmized by these corps - you clearly don't count yourself in that group - in fact, you apparently don't consider that such a group exists. You futher can't handle your own arguments without mindlessly repeating the same hackneyed PR copy - I don't choose to get into any depth of argument with you when you're already so obviously foundering on the basic precepts. You probably don't even realize that I'm not disagreeing with you in any meaningful way - you're just spoiling for a reason to retype whatever page of talking points you're copying.

I don't know of a single instance when a software company, record company, or movie company "victimized" me.

Even so, your response is a bunch of emotional masturbation that doesn't even address my point.

Some one is always stealing something, and someone is always chasing them for it.

Right... that circular logic is no justification for theft. If you want to use moral relativism, then at least pick an argument that isn't completely illogical or repugnant.

Me: The fact that you could download it in the first place means that the person you downloaded from liked it.
You: Simply and obviously fallacious.

The fact that you could find the download meant someone thought that the download was worthy of keeping and putting up for copying.

Again, you make no argument that addresses my point.

So you're saying that Microsoft selling WinXP in Thailand for ~$49US is illegal?

If what you're saying is true, which I doubt, then I'm sure you can get a legal Thai copy of WinXP for ~$49 US in the US.

Me: Why does China get to pay less for a CD than I do here in the US. We frickin made the CD in the first place.
You: LoL. Yeah. Right. We can't even make the widget to play the CD - I defy you to find one manufactured in the US. And the execs making the decisions in the entertainment industry (what CD's get made)? You want to claim they are American?

I was talking about the CD itself, not the player. But, if you want to go there, fine. The US fucking invented the CD player. I don't give a shit who makes it now. If some sweatshop in China can make one for $10, then fine. There's no profit in it for us to compete with them. That'll also help them claw their way out of poverty due to the failure of the communist economic system they used to live under. Then maybe they'll be able to legitimately pay for the things they want from us.

However, I was talking about the CD. I was talking abou

Re:War of Foo!

[0x0000]

No, what we're discussing is China selling copies of software, CDs, and DVDs without paying the creators. I do not accept your adjustment of the argument.

You're making clear here that you don't understand my original comments. I started out talking about the actions of the Bush regime in appointing a cabinet position at the behest of certain very large corporations who are manufacturing losses in their balance sheets in order that they reap certain benefits that accrue to corporations who are able to successfully portray themselves as victims.

You chose to respond with a related but ultimately meaningless assertion concerning the morality of theft. This is a classical tactic for those of your ilk, but I subit that it is you who is depending upon the touchy-feely, emotional argument, not I. That should be fairly clear if you read back thru the discussion. You are making appeals to emotion ("theft", "piracy") and nationalism.

I'm simply pointing out that your high-sounding morality is in fact hollow and morally bankrupt. I don't expect you to agree, since if you did you wouldn't be harping on the same old mindless party line, as you have been doing. Get over yourself.

I don't agree that quality of life would decrease.

This is a clear example of you engaging in precisely the tactic you are whining that I am using on you. I never said the quality of life would decrease. I was just pointing out that your argument is a wast of bits, and extrapolating that product probably is, as well.

Re:War of Foo!

[0x0000]

What I did say is "Even so, some legitimate copies of Windows would be sold in China, if only to the government, businesses, and few people who could afford it." I also said, "All the software companies, music companies, and movie companies would be making a great deal more money if piracy was not an issue."

Yes, that was the modification you made to your position when I challenged your initial, ridiculous assertion. You're figuring you're doing okay by thinking a move ahead - I figure you're probably a 'bot, since no person could possibly still be interested in this incessant meowing about the alleged theft of your imagined software.

Again, you have not addressed my point through-out. And as best I've been able to make out, you don't have a point. You're just jumping up and down hollering ME TOO, ME TOO thinking that somehow validates some stupidity by the government. I would tell you to re-read the earliest posts in this thread, but it's clear at this point that you are incapable of understanding what you're talking about - let alone what anyone else is talking about...

I don't know of a single instance when a software company, record company, or movie company "victimized" me.

Somehow I'm not surprised.

Even so, your response is a bunch of emotional masturbation that doesn't even address my point.

Heh. A "bunch of", eh? Interesting - if flowery [pun intended - get it?] - mixture of metaphors... Well, I'd say you're the one getting emotional, here. I'd also say that mastrubation should be emotional - it's a lot more fun that way ... but I digress ...

Still, if you examine the content of what I'm saying [my splurge blossoms? RoTFL], you will find (assuming you are actually capable of these arguably more sophisticated constructs possible with English) that I'm not being particularly emotional, although I do make pretty liberal us of some strongly perjorative language. This is by intent, and not indicative any particularly strong feelings on the topic - so again, your assumptions are holing your own argument.

Point out exactly where I said they were interchangable.

Sorry. Not worth my time to page back thru your lame meanderings. Especially since you clearly don't believe strongly enough in the position you're espousing to even remember your own basic points. Look it up yourself. It was somewhere along about your second post in this thread.

The US fucking invented the CD player. I don't give a shit who makes it now. If some sweatshop in China can make one for $10, then fine. There's no profit in it for us to compete with them. That'll also help them claw their way out of poverty due to the failure of the communist economic system they used to live under.

Heh heh. Yeah - here your actual position is getting close to the surface. That's okay - I guessed it early on.

Then maybe they'll be able to legitimately pay for the things they want from us.

Or maybe they'll just continue to choose not to. After all, theft, copyright violation, and patent theft are all integral parts of Capitalism as practiced by the US. Always have been. Check your history. This phenomenon has gone global. And you're just whining because the basic principles of US economic growth have been copped by other people. That's the real IP "theft" you're talking about, and that particulat IP was neither copyrighted nor patented.

People like you have to believe that in order to advance you must keep everyone else down. There is another school of thought that believes - as I do - that living is a cooperative effort - that the way to advance yourself is to advance yourself and all those who help to advance the agenda you believ

Re:War of Foo!

[jessejesse]

Your a smart guy for thinking there as a secret reason why America is truely fighting this war. Becareful when you make such acccusations against the American government with patriot act in affect they could snatch you up label you a terrorist and take you to a tiral where you most likely will be senteneced to death by a military tribunal.Or better yet just audit you every year talk to all your friends workers etc and seerch your house etc etc get the point. I am all for free speech and speaking ones mind but becareful

Another Czar?

[joshdick]

Let's just hope this one is as unsuccessful as the Drug Czar.

Re:Another Czar?

[Nigel_Powers]

I never get it....the past two presidents have both tried Marijuana and/or cocaine -- you'd think they'd both know that neither is worth the billions of dollars spent annually to stop the inflow. Actually, like the PATRIOT act, US drug law is aimed at getting around personal property and privacy rights of US citizens. Think I'm kidding? Take a drive through south Georgia with $20,000 cash in your car -- and get pulled over for somthing innocuous like speeding. Chances are if you are some fat, white bumpkin, the deputy will ask to search your car. If you say no, they will become suspicious and get a warrant. If you agree, they will find the money and automatically assume it is profits from illegal drug activity, unless you can prove otherwise. Once confiscated, you have to prove the source of the money before what's left (yes, what's left) will be returned. Also, these laws are passed at a time when we have more folks incarcerated for consensual crimes than in any other point in the history of the republic. Let freedom ring. Yeah, whatever.

Re:Another Czar?

[trailerparkcassanova]

Yeah, why didn't they just contract it out to Sony...

Re:Another Czar?

[Anonymous Coward]

Chances are if you are some fat, white bumpkin

OOPS...I meant if you AREN'T some fat, white bumpkin.

If you are black or Hispanic, you'll be searched for sure.

Re:Another Czar?

[Anonymous Coward]

"the past two presidents have both tried Marijuana and/or cocaine -- you'd think they'd both know that neither is worth the billions of dollars spent annually to stop the inflow" ... Out of curiousity, what knowledge is implied by the mere usage of a control substance? Because some politician has used some drug, that means he should or shouldn't pursue the "war on drugs"? I'm not disagreeing with your general point, but I'm not sure I understand the relevancy of that particular statement at all.

Re:Another Czar?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, why else would anyone have $20,000 in cash in their car?

Re:Another Czar?

[Anonymous Coward]

The knowledge that a chemical isn't the root of all evil. Read this.

Re:Another Czar?

[SoCalChris]

I've known several people who carry that kind of cash around with them on a daily basis.

For example, a family friend of ours typically carries around $50,000 cash with him, or within a few minutes of where he is at. He will often buy cars from people, and pulling out a huge wad of cash will generally get someone excited, and more likely to think about the cash than the deal they are making when selling something. He would also sometimes hang around the municipal airport, and watch for frustrated pilots who were having basic problems with their planes. He'd start talking to them, and get them to the point where they'd say something like "I should just sell this POS.". Then, he'd whip out his wad of cash, and make an offer, which the pilot would often times accept without really thinking about it. He'd take the plane, make the minor repairs, then turn around and resell it for a nice profit.

Besides, if someone wants to carry that amount of cash around on them, it isn't anyone's business except their own. You don't need a reason.

Re:Another Czar?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for the funny story, but mine is better. I know a family friend who typically carries around $100,000 cash with him. Yeah it gets people really excited too.

Re:Another Czar?

[thorndt]

It would be political suicide to do otherwise.

Re:Another Czar?

[Anonymous Coward]

The poster was correct though. If you have more than $9,990 on your person or in your car and you are pulled over and searched the money is confiscated unless you can prove that it is yours and legal (bank withdrawl slip or similar and how you got it). It sucks but it is true.

Re:Another Czar?

[Anonymous Coward]

No those laws are simply a modern day version of prohibition, someone thought it'd be a good thing and it went out of control. Unfortunatly, unlike prohibition not enough people really care and its an out of control truck. As for why no sane politician would go againt it? Have you tried stopping a truck with your body? No conspiracy simply another case of politics.

Re:Another Czar?

[Linus Torvaalds]

the past two presidents have both tried Marijuana and/or cocaine -- you'd think they'd both know that neither is worth the billions of dollars spent annually to stop the inflow.

Isn't worth it to who? It's not their billions of dollars they are spending, it's the taxpayers'.

On the other hand, making any sort of movement towards legalisation of drugs will piss off two important groups of people - Christians and drug dealers.

Typical Christians of the sort Bush relies on won't vote for him if he says anything other than "drugs are evil".

Drug dealers collectively stand to lose billions should things like marijuana become legalised. They'll assassinate anybody who attempts to take their business away from them.

So the reason Bush and Clinton continue with the "drugs are bad, mmkay?" rhetoric is because a) they want votes and b) they want to live. The decision making process never involves doing the right thing for the country, because the democratic process and the black market don't allow for that.

Re:Another Czar?

[srleffler]

Besides, if someone wants to carry that amount of cash around on them, it isn't anyone's business except their own.

That used to be true, but isn't the case any longer. If someone wants to carry $9000 around with them, that's their own business. If they want to carry $10,000 or more, the federal government is (by law), involved.

Re:Another Czar?

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a family friend who drives around in a brown truck carrying unencrpyted credit card info on 3.9 millions consumers. He doesn't draw any attention.

Re:Another Czar?

[runderwo]

Because if they had happened to be caught in their partying days, their career would be over and they'd be rotting in jail instead of living up to their potential - while at the same time, they insist to us that the 'intervention' of putting people in jail for using drugs is necessary to encourage them to live up to their potential.

The fact that so many powerful people have previously used drugs, whether or not they'd like to forget about it, is an obvious contradiction to the attractive law-and-order fallacies that either 1) anyone who uses drugs is a worthless waste by nature or 2) citizens' interests are best served by giving them a criminal record and/or jail for simple use or possession of drugs.

Furthermore, with respect particularly to the war on marijuana and marijuana users, you will find that most prohibitionist arguments begin with "Mr X., have you ever gotten high?" Presumably, if the answer is yes, the rest of the witness's statement is discredited by many people because of the reefer madness mythology that continues to pervade politics. On the other hand, the knowledge that important and powerful people have in fact gotten high, and yet we trust their judgement anyway, contradicts this line of thought nicely.

I've always found it amusing that every time a new scare comes out about the horrible health dangers and brain damage a marijuana smoker is susceptible to, the only people that are shocked and driven to action are non-smokers (and usually this action involves creating more problems for the smokers than marijuana ever caused them). Is it because marijuana smokers are too high to realize what grave danger they are in, or is it because 75 years of manufactured boogeymen and suppressed facts have guaranteed that the users themselves are the only people who know the truth about marijuana?

Re:Another Czar?

[runderwo]

What about cash equivalents, like money orders and cashiers' checks?

Re:Another Czar?

[runderwo]

Ever since the glory days of High Times and NORML, it is well documented that big commercial marijuana growers want legitimacy. Part of this is because prohibition only serves to annoy them; it does not drive up marijuana prices (and thus profits) because of two things: supply still far exceeds demand; and every grower who is busted is promptly replaced by a new entry since the barrier to entry is very low (no particular skill and no special precursor chemicals are necessary). The best law enforcement can do is create a local minimum or maximum; they have had no effect on the equilibrium point of the marijuana market and are unlikely to ever succeed in having such an effect.

A more likely source of political pressure is the pharmaceutical lobby that prefers everything to be in a pill and patented, and law enforcement whose jobs depend on the status quo. Don't forget the alcohol lobby; they have even published anti-marijuana material in the past. And then there are the various international agreements that mandate a certain level of drug prohibition (as well as intellectual property protections). I don't particularly like the idea of an unaccountable, unelected international treaty body wielding power over local affairs, but there it stands.

It may sound like a conspiracy theory, but the fact is that we will never see it legalized at the federal level until enormous pressure is exerted by the states to stop arresting citizens for something that is legal in the state (were it legal in the states) and cannot be objectively demonstrated to cause harm. States won't do it though. They're too dependent on federal funds to rock the boat, so they will only make a move in cases where the feds are seen by a vast majority of the population to be obvious liars, such as the medical marijuana policy.

It's kind of funny to watch - the feds overstep the Commerce Clause and General Welfare to steal money from citizens for government programs that would not exist if the Constitution was not read so liberally. The states become impoverished because of the tax burden, so the feds create programs to give them back some of the money they stole, but only if they play by the fed rules. In effect, the federal government gets to control local affairs through this scam, something that underlies almost every injustice in American politics today.

Re:Another Czar?

[drsquare]

I'm a mugger, who is this man, where does he live and what does he look like?

And anyone caught with that sort of money will instantly be suspected of dealing drugs. There's a reason drug dealers use cash and law-abiding people don't.

Re:Another Czar?

[typical]

There's a reason drug dealers use cash and law-abiding people don't.

George Orwell is spinning in his grave.

Re:Another Czar?

[drsquare]

George Orwell was just a fearmonger. No-one has any business carrying around 20 grand in cash. Even if you're not a drug or arms dealer (i.e. the one in ten thousand), you can afford to lose it anyway. Redistribution of wealth is the whole idea of socialism. Think of it as a paranoia tax.

Re:Another Czar?

[SparklingClearWit]

"No-one has any business carrying around 20 grand in cash."

So ... I'd rather pay cash for a car, and not pay to get a money order for my own money? Or don't want to take out a loan? Or perhaps I don't like to use checking/debit cards?

WTF business is it of YOURS how anybody conducts their personal business?

Your comment about Orwell being 'just a fearmonger' is why the government has such unfettered power today. You and your ilk refuse to see the real corruption and problems inherent in today's government.

Re:Another Czar?

[drsquare]

I used to sell cars, and there's no way any car dealership would ever take cash. For a start it would probably be fake, secondly it's just too risky to lose or have stolen (imagine being mugged whilst carrying a briefcase full of cash to the bank). Thirdly it makes you look like a criminal. Who on earth withdraws tens of thousands in cash and takes it to the dealer rather than just writing a cheque? I mean, other than launderers.

What the hell does getting a loan have to do with anything?

The goverment doesn't have unfettered power today, its powers are entirely reasonable. Unless you're a terrorist of course. Though I can only speak for my own government and not the American one.

Re:Another Czar?

[NidStyles]

Well, maybe you should just STFU up then.

Re:Another Czar?

[Politburo]

I thought that was only if you're banking with the money, not simply possessing it.. i.e., to withdraw, transfer or deposit $10,000, the gov't gets involved.

Re:Another Czar?

[srleffler]

I believe car dealers have to report anyone who uses more than $10,000 cash in purchasing a car. I suspect the limitation applies to all commercial transactions, but it's possible the government only placed this burden on financial institutions and car dealerships. I don't know.

Plans for China

[Anonymous Coward]

They will send China this email:

Dear China,

Please stop your copyright infringement, or we'll send another email. It's just not nice.

Thanks,
United States

Re:Plans for China

[Dr. Droolius Drool]

China is surprisingly flexible and responsive to actual U.S. pressure, reference the status that Taiwan has maintained, reference the recent re-evaluation of the Yuan. If the U.S. seriously demands this China will stealthily cave. Eventually.

Re:Plans for China

[varmittang]

And the is how the "Spam Wars" began.

Re:Plans for China

[bobcat7677]

Spam wars... Wow, first there was the Browser Wars, now we have Spam Wars. I wonder if Sarge will fight in the Spam Wars too. He was a LT in the Browser Wars...maybe he can get a promotion...

Re:Plans for China

[Anonymous Coward]

They will send China this email:

They'll also budget it as costing billions of dollars a year and argue that anyone who questions it is un-American.

Re:Plans for China

[ImaLamer]

Seriously, I think this will be used to go after those who steal technology and run back to China to put it on warships and so forth...

I'm betting this has nothing to do with movies or music, but with defense interests.

Re:Plans for China

[Rei]

Episode I: The Phantom Menace

Turmoil has engulfed the world. The regulation of IP trade with outlying countries is in dispute. Hoping to resolve the matter with a blockade of deadly lawyers, the greedy Corporate Interests has stopped all shipping to the nation of China. While the WTO endlessly debates this alarming chain of events, the President has secretly dispatched two Elite Programmers, the guardians of peace and justice in the world, to settle the conflict....

Episode II: Attack of the Regulations

There is unrest in the WTO. Several dozen nations have declared their intentions to defeat planned regulations. This separatist movement,
under the leadership of the mysterious Count Johansen, has made it difficult for the limited
number of Elite Programmers to maintain IP control in the world. Representative Wen Jiabao, the former primier of China, is returning to the WTO to vote on the critical issue of creating an ARMY OF LAWYERS to assist the overwhelmed Programmers...

Episode III: Revenge of the Corporations

Trade War! The WTO is crumbling under attacks by the ruthless Pirate, Count Johansen. There are heroes on both sides. Evil is everywhere. In a stunning move, the fiendish pirate leader, General Brocious, has swept into the American capital and copied the entire MPAA archives. As the Pirate Army attempts to flee the country with their valuable contents, two Elite Programmers lead a desperate mission to protect the intellectual property....

Episode IV: A New Hope

It is a period of trade war. Chinese pirates, striking from a hidden internet connection, have won their first victory against the evil American Empire. During the battle, Chinese spies managed to steal secret plans to America's ultimate weapon, DRM, an encrypted media link with enough legislative power behind it to destroy an entire fair use system. Pursued by America's sinister agents, Princess Hua Ching races to /home on her computer, custodian of the stolen plans that can save her data and restore fair use to the world.

Episode V: America Strikes Back

It is a dark time for the Pirates. Although the DRM has been cracked, American troops have driven the Pirate forces from their hidden
internet cafes and pursued them across the world. Evading the dreaded American Lawsuits, a group of freedom fighters led by Crazney
has established a new secret base on the remote ice country of Norway. The evil lord George Bush, obsessed with finding young Crazney, has dispatched thousands of remote packet sniffers into the far reaches of IPV4 space...

Episode VI: Return of Fair Use

Crazney has returned to his home country of Australia in an attempt to rescue his friend Professor Felten from the clutches of the vile gangster Mitch Bainwol. Little does Crazney know that the AMERICAN EMPIRE has secretly begun development on a DRM method even more powerful than the first dreaded DRM. When completed, this ultimate weapon will spell certain doom for the small band of pirates struggling to restore fair use to the world....

Re:Plans for China

[Anonymous Coward]

Taiwan has three or four years, tops. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised to see that whole situation going downhill in late 2007 or early 2008, and I think the US will back down rather than risk a war against a country which could actually fight back.

China's piracy levels to zero?

[robyannetta]

"Frankly, our goal is to reduce (China's piracy levels) to zero," Gutierrez said. He declined to specify a timetable, but acknowledged it could be a lengthy effort.

Hell is still warm.

Re:China's piracy levels to zero?

[ciroknight]

Are you smoking? Hell's still trying to restart the fires from all of the news we had a couple weeks back with Apple and the like.

I've heard reports that it may take until Bush is out of office for the hell-fires to restart.

War on piracy?

[Tibor the Hun]

Can't we just declare a war on piracy and get it over with?

Re:War on piracy?

[superpulpsicle]

Not until Weapons of Mass Piracy is found first. Which should be on CSPAN any minute now...

Re:War on piracy?

[to_kallon]

actually....
of note: Music Industry Piracy Investigations general manager Michael Kerin said "This is a very significant blow in the war against piracy."
which i guess means it's already begun...

Re:War on piracy?

[tmilam]

We should invade China and look for WOMP's.

Re:War on piracy?

[sp3tt]

http://thepiratebay.org/ - Over two million peers seems like mass piracy to me :)

Re:War on piracy?

[Anonymous Coward]

British authorities have intercepted certificates for the sale of the Beatles' Yellow Submarine Album from Nigeria.

Re:War on piracy?

[gstoddart]

Not until Weapons of Mass Piracy is found first. Which should be on CSPAN any minute now...

You don't need to find the WMPs, you just need to have good intelligence thete are WMPs waiting there. And then after there are no WMPs, you change the story to saying the world is safer anyway.

Re:War on piracy?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

2006 - Apparently US troops operating in China have uncovered evidence of Weapons of Mass Piracy.

They have captured two CD jewel cases which had once contained copies of a Brittany Spears record, considered a potent nerve toxin. Whether fired out of an artillery piece, or blared on loudspeakers in Tiananmen Square, Fox News assures that these two CD cases, had they contained ACTUAL CD's, could have killed millions, and completely justify our military presence in China.

Re:War on piracy?

[d34thm0nk3y]

Not until Weapons of Mass Piracy is found first. Which should be on CSPAN any minute now...

I don't get CSPAN, got a torrent?

Re:War on piracy?

[synace]

What ever you do, don't let it in your brain! storage of any kind is piracy!

Just think of the minions that will fight the war:
http://images.google.com/images?q=See%20no%20evil% 2C%20hear%20no%20evil%2C%20speak%20no%20evil&hl=en &lr=&safe=off&sa=N&tab=wi
(See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil)

Seriously though, I'm sick of declaring wars. Aren't we wasting enough money on wars?

I can think of 2 that havn't been very successful...

DRUGS: http://www.drugsense.org/wodclock.htm
TERRORISM: http://www.ips-dc.org/iraq/failedtransition/

Re:War on piracy?

[mattyrobinson69]

hopefully the us government will ban WMP

Re:War on piracy?

[g2devi]

> Not until Weapons of Mass Piracy is found first.
> Which should be on CSPAN any minute now...

The weapons have been find, but you won't find it on CSPAN (which doesn't have any software of use).

Check out CPAN
P2P::pDonkey (eDonkey)
Net::FCP (Freenet)

Re:War on piracy?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol, that is too wrong. Now the administration will come after me.

Re:War on piracy?

[pete6677]

Then you'll have Orrin Hatch proposing the death penalty for anyone caught with a bulk CD copier.

Re:War on piracy?

[PMuse]

Can't we just declare a war on piracy and get it over with?

Not really, no. It appears that declaring war on something just makes it go on and on and on.

Piracy, terror, drugs, Viet Nam, Palestine, Israel . . .

Re:War on piracy?

[Anonymous Coward]

You misspelled privacy

Did anyone else

[Taevin]

... first read that as U.S. High Level Anti-Privacy Post Created?

But seriously, is this really going to help anyone (besides big business)? Besides, it's not like the Chinese government is just going to let the US dictate laws in China. All I see is more of my tax dollars being wasted.

Re:Did anyone else

[eln]

.. first read that as U.S. High Level Anti-Privacy Post Created

Six of one, half dozen of the other.

Re:Did anyone else

[JonN]

Hey, if the US pushes hard enough, anything seems possible. Take America's recent push on China to fix their currency, and *tada!* China finally gave in

Re:Did anyone else

[Anonymous Coward]

except that hundreds of billions of dollars of sales equals more tax revenue for government, instead of the current black market system in which billions of dollars are never collected. of course a lot of people would never buy the software in question if they had to, but there is still the potential.

The best post money can buy.

[plasmacutter]

I wish I had an obscene enough amount of money to subcontract the US government as my private police force... oh wait.. i do.. theyre called taxes.

Finally something sensible against piracy

[BlackCobra43]

Going against the main source - chinese counterfeit - will do a world of good when you think of the current efforts (read: *IAA lawsuits). Too bad we had to wait for the Gov'ment to get involved since it will now become a masive sluash fund for politicians to draw cash from the people as it inneficiently tries to "do something about piracy".

Re:Finally something sensible against piracy

[TheOtherAgentM]

I don't know how software works, but with other products in China, they are the real thing, not just copies. Instead of shutting down the factory for clothes and purses, they keep it running and sell the products real cheap. It covers their costs and then some. Where do big software vendors have their software made and packaged?

More on the story

[Anonymous Coward]

The torrent of the podcast of this IP protected story can be found here!

Uh, sovereignty?

[Andrew Tanenbaum]

The only thing the US should be doing to reduce piracy abroad is -possibly- sanctioning them - but since the US would be dead in the water in several ways (DEBT!) without China, they can't even do that.

Re:Uh, sovereignty?

[arkanes]

If China is full of pirates, then obviously what we need is a fleet of US-sanction privateers, who will... crap. I dunno, sell copies of Chinese art & literature for outrageous prices?

Re:Uh, sovereignty?

[sTalking_Goat]

This is a huge joke. The US isn't going to threaten China so China has no incentive to crack down on its vast piracy rings. What this is really going to come down to is busting a bunch of small timers selling DVDs in Chinatwon and giving them lenghty prision terms.

In the 80's the prison population skyrocketed because of the "Drug War", now it'll skyrocket again because of the "IP War". Joe Public will pay more taxes to built prisons to hold these dangerous copyright infringers and the only one who wins is Big Business.

Re:Uh, sovereignty?

[greg_barton]

Sovereignty? What's that?

Re:Uh, sovereignty?

[I_Human]

Seems like the Irish government disagrees with that article: The Examiner

Re:Uh, sovereignty?

[The Woodworker]

but since the US would be dead in the water in several ways (DEBT!) without China, they can't even do that.

Do you realize the US trade deficit with China is larger than that of any other nation? And that the health of the US economy is VERY directly proportional to the health of Chinas economy. The US could sanction China, and survive, but it would be pretty for neither, in the short term. In the short term, the entity that would suffer the most is Wal-Mart with 70% of their products originating from China. In the long term, both countries would survive and most likely be more powerful then before.

the end is near....

[jjmartin540]

And the copyright witch of the wicked west said:

And your little dog too!

Anti-piracy indeed...

[Soulfarmer]

They have this new post for fighting piracy, that's all great and stuff, but howcome the biggest antipiracy news concerns torrentsites and so forth? Those sites are not earning with the piracy, and because of that, are not the biggest pirating people anyhow.

People who sell pirated products (movies games and all other stuff that can be pirated) have MUCH more motivation to do their "job" and in my mind, de facto are MUCH more to blame about this whole piracy problem.

Of course, without the releasing groups there wouldn't be pirated goods for the sites or the sellers either... But still, the sellers are the biggest culprits in here...

Or then I am totally wrong, again. Would be the first time tho. To be wrong again.

Re:Anti-piracy indeed...

[Ernesto5]

The following is entirely anecdotal evidence, but may shed some light about what's really go down:

I was in Shanghai a few years ago and a colege student from Jiaotong University took me along to visit a family's humble home tucked away in an alley off one of the main streets. There, I saw two parents making some side money selling software copies. Their cute, 10 year old (about that age?) daughter was helping out too, she was really adept with computers. The money from selling the bootlegs helped with paying for school stuff, books, stationary, misc. After my college student buddy picked up some bootleg CDs on the cheap, we bounced.

When I hear about the US condemning China about software piracy, I can't help but remember that there's a young Shanghai girl that's benefiting and helping to pay for basic things we take for granted. Not all software pirates are monsters (by this counterexample).

How much US corporate greed is enough? Can't there be acknowledgement of some piracy that can't be wiped out - i.e. manageable levels of IP piracy, just as much as the LAPD (Los Angeles Police Department) now has given up on eradicating So. Cal. gangs (to my chagrin) but rather thinks in terms of containment, "manageable levels" of gangs?

Re:Anti-piracy indeed...

[pixelpusher220]

to play devil's advocate...

Which method gets more copies of a movie into more hands....the physical distribution and selling on the street? or the transferring over the internet to 100s 1000s of people in a matter of hours?

I'd probably go with the latter...

On the other hand, there's nothing to pirate if the studios simply plug their own leaks...but then what incentive do they have to for that? ;-)

Re:Anti-piracy indeed...

[Red Flayer]

The important aspect of this position being created is not who benefits from, but who is harmed by, the piracy.

The Department of Commerce is concerned with stopping the flood of bootlegs, to increase revenues for American commerce.

And from the article, it seems that they created the post to lean on other governments to prosecute piracy, not to prosecute piracy itself.

Prosecution of piracy here will still be handled by the relevant FBI department, although I expect coordination with the new office. The FBI gathers the intelligence, the Piracy Czar liasons with the State Department and the public, the State Department leans on foreign governments.

Mostly, though, it's a PR position. Hey look, we're doing something about the New Red Menace! And the trade deficit!

Re:Anti-piracy indeed...

[icemann476]

Personally I don't see the harm in what they call piracy and become very upset thinking about all my tax dollars spent on securing/recovering a rich corporation's bank account. However, if we were to agree for just a minute that a special "war on piracy" task force were required, it would be silly to not go after the source. The D.E.A. doesn't only go after the dealers after all, leaving the growers alone.

US = Double standards

[Anonymous Coward]

When will the US give foreign patent holders right to their intellectual property?

US courts have at several occations ruled in favor of American corporations that illegaly used US patents owned by foreigners.

The Swede Håkan Lans is an example.

Hey, just checking

[Anonymous Coward]

What percentage of rapes and murders in the U.S. each year go unsolved?

And how much money is going to dealing with that problem?

And how much money are we spending on ensuring that the profits of IP-holding corporations are not hampered by piracy-related "lost sales"?

Just curious.

Re:Hey, just checking

[Anonymous Coward]

Just to make your point more emotionally, since they love doing the same: How many Osama bin Laden's have they caught lately?

Re:Hey, just checking

[Nacon74]

How many Osama bin Laden's have they caught lately?

Hey, but that would end the war on terror, and politicians would actually have to have a vision and solve some problems. We can`t have that now can we? ;)

Re:Hey, just checking

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

Well, everyone knows murder victims are known to be VERY stingy when it comes to contributing to political campaigns. On top of that, I heard murder victim voter turn out was near 0% in the last election (just a few patriotic *souls* in places like Florida and Chicago even bothered to turn out). That doesn't even count *dead* the crowd is when a politician goes to campaign in front of a group of murder victims.

I mean there was talk awhile ago of adding 100,000 police to the steets, but hey if the murder victims cannot even bother to make an effort why should that money go toward them when others are so much more willing the make the effort (bribe)!

Wow!

[Progman3K]

You can really buy a lot of government with your money these days!

Re:Wow!

[goldspider]

I'm guessing you don't create commercial software for a living.

Re:Wow!

[Progman3K]

You couldn't be more wrong!
In fact, I've been developing software since 1982.
Most of the projects were proprietary, yes, but the one I've been working on for the past 4 years IS commercial.

And with all this time, I've learned one thing; people who won't pay for software simply can't be made to pay.

The other bunch (those that do pay for it) pay without a fuss.

This new government office is only another attempt to strip away more of your rights by piling more and more restrictions on you, watching you.

It's VERY handy when everyone is a criminal. It makes ruling with an iron fist much easier.

So every way they can find to fault you makes it easier and easier to lead you to slaughter.

Protect IP this, take away freedom of the press that, and soon you've made EVERYONE a criminal.

Dark, dark thoughts on such a nice day. Sorry.

Re:Wow!

[plasmacutter]

suit yourself =).. it's overcast and dreary here.

Let me guess...

[chriswaclawik]

... they staffed the post with a pirate's mortal enemy: a ninja.

Re:Let me guess...

[bersl2]

Bush has tapped Chris...

Chris the Ninja-Pirate?

Re:Let me guess...

[Enigma_Man]

How can you be a ninja and a pirate, pirates and ninjas hate eachother.

-Jesse

Re:Let me guess...

[oldwolf13]

>> Bush has tapped Chris...

Does this mean Bush supports gay marriages now?

Re:Let me guess...

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.popealien.com/comiclink.php?number=102

thats because pirates are filthy.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Hans Bwix?!

[Kurt Gray]

Hans Bwix you're busting my baws here! I told you we don't have any piwated pwogwams!

Re:Hans Bwix?!

[op12]

Wrong country, but he's still ronery :)

Chinese Nukes

[spaztech]

I believe the threat of Chinese nukes should take priority over whether or not Xi Chuan has an illegal copy of Windows Vista. Let the software companies handle the software and let the President worry over oil.. I mean world peace.

Please don't mod funny, it's not.

Re:Chinese Nukes

[richdun]

I'd be even more concerned about this temporal agent Xi Chuan, who was somehow able to travel 10 years into the future and grab a copy of Windows Vista.

Re:Chinese Nukes

[jim_v2000]

travel 10 years into the future and grab a copy of Windows Vista.

You mean 10 years in the future when MS releases Longhorn.

Civil Liberties Czar?

[spookymonster]

So corporations get a 'czar' to protect their civil interests. Great! When do we get a Civil Liberties/Privacy czar to protect ours?

Bueller?.....Bueller?....Bueller?....

Re:Civil Liberties Czar?

[twifosp]

Well, call me crazy, but I was under the impression that office belonged to the President of the United States. After all, each one cites and swears to the following:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Now I could be wrong, but I think the constitution is that document that has all those liberties and privacy garuntees defined and outlined in it. Go figure!

Re:Civil Liberties Czar?

[Peyna]

Just about ever person holding public office in the United States, all laywers, and members of the military take a similar oath regarding the Constitution of the United States (and their particular state as well).

Re:Civil Liberties Czar?

[ndansmith]

Also, during the Civil Rights movement in the U.S. during the 60s, the Attourney General (namely RFK) had the primary responsibility of actually enforcing civil rights of Americans. Now AG Alberto Gonzales' job is to trample human rights of foreigners.

Re:Civil Liberties Czar?

[Nurf]

Now I could be wrong, but I think the constitution is that document that has all those liberties and privacy garuntees defined and outlined in it. Go figure!

Yes, actually, you are wrong. It is sad but true that there is no protection of privacy mandated in the US Constitution. Back in the day, there was no need, and nobody predicted it either.

Of course, you can get said protection by adding an amendment. That is the mechanism provided for you. I use "you" because I am not American, BTW.

On the whole, I like the US Constitution. I just wish people would amend it rather than attempting to get the judiciary to pretend it says things it doesn't. Oh, and it would be nice if some Americans were to read it too. ;-)

Re:Civil Liberties Czar?

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

It's all the Evil (TM) George W. Bush!

(Slashdot cheers!)

I mean, he passed the DMCA!

(Boos!)

Oh wait a second!

That was Bill Clinton.

(Complete and utter silence)

Re:Civil Liberties Czar?

[mabhatter654]

first, You hit the nail on the head.. nowhere in that oath is the president to protect safety, security or profits!!! His job is to protect the rights of the people. Period.

Many things don't need to be written in.. they are legal fictions that are perpetuated by the whole "literal" reading of the Constitution.. At one point the supreme court tried to say slaves weren't people [and could NEVER BE] because the Constitution only counted 2/5 as "citizens". It's crazy literal readings like that that got us in the mess we're in!!! Things like segregation are directly against the constution, but because of "literal" reading we can't fix them with common sense. Segregation directly violated the state's prohibition of "royalty" but we can't extend that to title of "ignobility" [aka scarlet letters] when that's obviously the meaning.

The worst part about the situation is that the legal system is geared around punishment or not-punishment rather than deciding if the laws are "right" or not in the first place. We've reached the point where there's so many illegal laws that you can't possibly get them all to the courts... so the courts are stuck ignoring all but the worst ones. The other problem is that laws and legal prececents never go "off the books" Things like Dread Scot and Rosa Parks still haunt the legal system... we had to use extreme measures to get past the masses wanting to maintain the status quo... but the ends are now worse than the means.

Re:Civil Liberties Czar?

[typical]

That was Bill Clinton.

(Complete and utter silence)

Except for the noise from all the libertarians on Slashdot, who to a man fervently believe that if we just eliminate all government oversight, the market will magically make everything better.

Re:Civil Liberties Czar?

[typical]

Many things don't need to be written in.. they are legal fictions that are perpetuated by the whole "literal" reading of the Constitution..At one point the supreme court tried to say slaves weren't people [and could NEVER BE] because the Constitution only counted 2/5 as "citizens". It's crazy literal readings like that that got us in the mess we're in!!! Things like segregation are directly against the constution, but because of "literal" reading we can't fix them with common sense. Segregation directly violated the state's prohibition of "royalty" but we can't extend that to title of "ignobility" [aka scarlet letters] when that's obviously the meaning.

I think you may be doing what you are condemning others for.

Slavery was most certainly not unconstitutional in the intent of the Founding Fathers. George Washington kept slaves, Thomas Jefferson kept slaves, James Madison kept slaves.

Re:Civil Liberties Czar?

[FidelCatsro]

Bill Clinton being an Arse does not make G.W.Bush any less of an arse.

Re:Civil Liberties Czar?

[Guuge]

On the whole, I like the US Constitution. I just wish people would amend it rather than attempting to get the judiciary to pretend it says things it doesn't.

We're trying to amend it! This will fix the two most obvious flaws in the Constitution; namely:

1) Homosexuals have too many rights

2) People who disagree with the government have too many rights

Now won't that be nice?

Re:Civil Liberties Czar?

[Nurf]

Not really, but if the country were at the state where you could get that added in as an amendment, then the amendment would be irrelevant anyway. Amendments are hard to add for a reason.

The reality is that it's much easier to corrupt the judiciary, which is why people try it. The results are no less awful, but they happen in more insidious a manner.

You don't fix things by breaking the system, because the only thing you have that makes things work is the system. You change the system, and you do it by finding common ground with those around you, and changing the rules accordingly. To do otherwise is just another form of intolerance, in a form which sadly seems to be sanctioned by most of the American media at the moment.

The US system of government is fairly well designed in that it tries to balance many factors against each other, tries to stop mob rule, and tries to give people a way to change things if they have to. It annoys me that Americans don't realise just how rare and wonderful that is. I guess they don't travel enough to realise just how lucky they are.

The US Constitution is mainly a limit on the government's power. Should you add an amendment that limits the government less than another part of the constitution, it should be meaningless, because the government is limited by any part of the constitution. It is at that point that you hope your judges are willing to balance their judgements in favour of the government being more limited.

Convincing a judge to play god on your behalf is very short-sighted, because tomorrow he will be playing god, and not on your behalf. And, his successors might decide this god thing looks like fun.

One amendment that I wish hadn't been passed was the 17th. It was a great way to suborn Senators, who were supposed to be independent of the influences on Congressmen. Unfortunately they are no longer as effective a check on Congress, because they are voted for by the same people and influenced by the campaign contributions as a result.

Invasion of pirate-harboring soverign nations

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just the first step towards the inevitable future military invasion of pirate-harboring soverign nations who refuse to hand over all individuals associated with WMPs (Weapons of Mass Piracy) to the appropriate **AA authorities.

What's Next?

[Anonymous Coward]

What this country really needs is an obsesity czar?. How's fighting the war against fat? or tooth decay?

Re:What's Next?

[richdun]

What this country really needs is an obsesity czar?

The ESRB.

How's fighting the war against fat?

Morgan Spurloch.

or tooth decay?

Listerine, champion over the gum disease [booming voice] GINGIVITIS! [/booming voice]

Re:What's Next?

[oldwolf13]

>> How's fighting the war against fat? or tooth decay?

Thanks... you've caused the image of the Crest "Cavity Creeps" to pop into my head.

You Bastard.

Re:What's Next?

[Pantero Blanco]

You make me want a Grammar Fuhrer.

My first thought

[shish]

Bush came to slashdot and made a post declaring a war on pirates?

Re:My first thought

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here. I was going to do a "First US High level Anti Piracy Post", but I was too late for that.

But what about human rights?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hollywood money in action again. Indifferent to human rights but ever greedy for money, they got Clinton to pressure China about piracy and now they're getting Bush to do the same. Never mind the persecution of religious and political disidents. We want our $$$.

Greed, greed, greed. It's all so tiresome. It's not as if the Hollywood elite were going hungry, eating out of dumpsters and sleeping in alleys. They live in Malibu and fly in private jets, so they don't have to mix with ordinary folk.

Perhaps that's why I avoid movie theatres and check the movies I do watch out of my local public library. It's all quite legal and they don't get a penny.

--Mike Perry, Seattle Untangling Tolkien

Where do I sign up?

[DigitalReverend]

I've always wanted to sail the seven seas and fight those scurvy pirates, ARGH!!!.... d'oh, we're talking about a different kind if piracy aren't we? Darn. Anyone want to buy a slightly used parrot?

Re:Where do I sign up?

[Anonymous Coward]

An ex-parrot?

He's not pinin' 'es passed on!

Fascinating

[Anonymous Coward]

The guy tapped to take up the post is a public policy executive at, where else, Time Warner. I will refrain from sarcasm, because it'll just make me look snotty, but this guy is being set up for a conflict of interests. He won't be doing independent analysis of piracy problems; he'll be a high-level executive mouthpiece for the media conglomerates.

End of the World

[Anonymous Coward]

Those Chinese sons of bitches are goin' down!

http://www.endofworld.net/

What happens when...

[linzeal]

When Chinese currency raises in value does that help or hurt our debt relations with them? I am obviously not a business major but am interested.

Re:What happens when...

[Andrew Tanenbaum]

Chinese currency does not rise or fall in value - it is fixed against the US dollar.

Re:What happens when...

[jandrese]

Welcome to two days ago.
BR. Anyway, it's still fixed, but now it's against a basket of currencies instead of just the dollar.

Re:What happens when...

[linzeal]

I don't think it is anymore it is now being floated or some such in a narrow range against other currencies but will be allowed to go free or some such soon.

Re:What happens when...

[temojen]

Not anymore

From the "nice troll, Zonk" department

[Gothmolly]

I love the tagline, the "keeping-the-bread-buttered" department.

Now pay attention, all of you who never had a civics class:
The President is the Chief of the Executive Branch of the government.
The Executive Branch of the government is there to enforce the laws created by the Legislative Branch (aka Congress) provided that they are consistent with the Constitution, as dictated by the Judicial Branch (Supreme Court).

This is like your local Police department appointing a "Drug Czar" or a "Gang Violence Prevention Czar" or "Soccer Moms must die" Czar. All of these (except the last) are valid positions - the department, faced with particular challenges which require specific expertise, creates a subdepartment to deal with them specifically.

19 year olds living in their basement running warez sites might disagree, but that doesn't make it untrue or shady, or worthy of the old tinfoil hat.

Re:From the "nice troll, Zonk" department

[poopdeville]

The appointment of a Piracy Czar during a time of war betrays monied interests. Especially considering the current administration's propaganda regarding terrorism. It is like appointing a Jaywalking Czar during a bout of gang violence.

Re:From the "nice troll, Zonk" department

[Gothmolly]

Remember, the vested interest argument is a logical fallacy.

Re:From the "nice troll, Zonk" department

[Anonymous Coward]

"19 year olds living in their basement running warez sites might disagree...

Just keep on believing this is about people you don't like instead of the corrosion of civil liberties on an unprecented scale, a shift in balance from civic to corporate. Then explain what happened to to your children and grandchildren. "You see, your loss of freedom was really all about 19 year olds in basements threatening entertainment cartels...."

Re:From the "nice troll, Zonk" department

[kfg]

. . .but that doesn't make it untrue or shady, or worthy of the old tinfoil hat.

But it doesn't make it any less stupid.

KFG

Re:From the "nice troll, Zonk" department

[I8TheWorm]

Does this appointment nullify the Department of Defense? No. Strangely enough, more than one thing at a time can occur in Washington, D.C.

Re:From the "nice troll, Zonk" department

[shark72]

" The appointment of a Piracy Czar during a time of war betrays monied interests. Especially considering the current administration's propaganda regarding terrorism. It is like appointing a Jaywalking Czar during a bout of gang violence."

The important thing here is that the goal of our country's fight against piracy is to make money. Let's face it -- our government is greedy, and wants to get more tax dollars from the companies that produce intellectual property. This "time of war" is costing our government billions, and they've got to get that money from somewhere. Collecting more taxes from the software, movie and music industries seems like a good way to start.

To apply this to your humorous example, if the Jaywalking Czar set a $100 fine for jaywalking and used that money to fund the fight against gang violence, then it might be a good idea -- as long as I wasn't the one caught jaywalking.

Re:From the "nice troll, Zonk" department

[poopdeville]

This is an interesting point I had not considered. Thank you.

Re:From the "nice troll, Zonk" department

[poopdeville]

A conflict of interest is clearly betrayed. There are ways to mitigate such conflicts such as recusal, disclosure, and the like, but the current administration has not done so. If a lawyer were to act as unethically, he would have been disbarred long ago. Merely pointing out that there is a conflict of interests is not fallacious.

Re:From the "nice troll, Zonk" department

[poopdeville]

Does this appointment pull resources away from the Department of Defense and other, more important uses? Yes. Strangely enough, American resources are finite.

Re:From the "nice troll, Zonk" department

[I8TheWorm]

Where in the article does it say funding will be diverted from the DoD for this cabinet, and not some now defunct agency that either no longer exists or doesn't need the budget it once had?

Seriosly, with this President, do you really think the DoD would be the group to suffer?

Re:From the "nice troll, Zonk" department

[Red Flayer]

No, this is like the local Chamber of Commerce agreeing to support the mayor's cronies to have him appoint a special PR guy.

This PR guy will make a lot of noise, and ask the Police Departments of other towns to stop their residents from shoplifting from local stores.

War on Piracy

[hosecoat]

I support this new war on piracy, it sounds like a serious issue. According to Wikipedia

"Seaborne piracy against transport vessels remains a significant problem (with estimated worldwide losses of $13 to $16 billion USD per year), particularly in the waters between the Pacific and Indian oceans, and specifically in the straits of Malacca and Singapore, used by over 50,000 commercial ships a year." link

Works for me

[overshoot]

Slap a tarriff on all Chinese imports until Microsoft, the MPAA, and the RIAA have been paid back for all of the pirated works that they estimate have been scattered around China.

Of course, the recipients will only get a percentage after the usual administrative expenses are deducted.

Nyahh -- it'll never sell. Hell, I don't even like it.

This is good news

[NotoriousQ]

For Linux that is.

I, for one, welcome our new anti-piracy overlords.

"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[Colin Smith]

Remember, you only have to get a touch over half the population to vote for you (Only a third in the UK). With half the population having an IQ of less than 100 you don't need to promise all that much to get their vote.

Stating the obvious and then grossly oversimplifying the action to take is a pretty good way to get elected.

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[BewireNomali]

well said colin.

I live in new york and I have friends who were outraged when Bush basically ignored the state during the past election.

he knows his bullshit won't fly here, so he doesn't even try. he knows his constituency.

on the other hand, i was thinking about starting some kind of dynamic voter constituency. Starting now, we'd get democrats to register for dual citizenship in swing states; there would be host homes in the swing state to accomodate the "swinger". During elections, places with a superabundance of democratic votes would have mini-migrations of excess voters to their secondary "homes" where they would vote in force to potentially upset the state. Just bus trips the night before election day with voters returning the day of.

I confess that i haven't looked into the particulars, but we either need to get rid of the electoral college or be faced with horrid presidential choices as I fear the country getting redder with each passing day.

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[networkBoy]

Too bad but I don't think that's legal.

Also as an aside, too much of anything is bad, and frankly while I may not be thrilled with Bush, I still vote red because the blue side of the aisle frustrates me even more.
-nB

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[Anonymous Coward]

And Kerry didn't bother with states he knew his bullshit wouldn't fly. Big deal.

Your proposed mass election fraud is great though. I love how you complain about Republicans and then propose that Democrats should break the law en masse to get their way. And you wonder why the DNC is perceived as a group of spolied crybabies. Lie, cheat and steal as long as you win, right?

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

Also as an aside, too much of anything is bad, and frankly while I may not be thrilled with Bush, I still vote red because the blue side of the aisle frustrates me even more.

Completely agree! Sure I like the balanced budgets and robut economy from the blue side, but you cannot really put a price on the entertainment value of all the bombing/shooting/killing you get to see live on CNN with the red side. Priceless! ;-)

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[BewireNomali]

Lie, Cheat, and Steal?

are you serious?????

dude, can we get a recount on those Florida and Ohio votes?

dude, can we let independent coders analyze algorithms in the new voting machines?

dude, what's really good with those WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION??????

are you fucking serious?

And isn't being an anonymous coward akin to wearing a hood with eyeholes cut out? can you even stand behind your statements? Loser.

Lol... and its interesting that you associate my "proposed mass election fraud" with democrats, since I don't have any party affiliation. lol.

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol... and its interesting that you associate my "proposed mass election fraud" with democrats, since I don't have any party affiliation. lol.

Don't know, you sound an awfully lot like a democrat.

I live in new york and I have friends who were outraged

Yep, still sound like a democrat..

Starting now, we'd get democrats to register for dual citizenship in swing states; there would be host homes in the swing state to accomodate the "swinger". During elections, places with a superabundance of democratic votes would have mini-migrations of excess voters to their secondary "homes" where they would vote in force to potentially upset the state. Just bus trips the night before election day with voters returning the day of.

Bill Clinton, is that you?

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[SpaceLifeForm]

Horrid presidential choices?

The way things are going, you may not get a choice.

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[geekee]

"Completely agree! Sure I like the balanced budgets and robut economy from the blue side, but you cannot really put a price on the entertainment value of all the bombing/shooting/killing you get to see live on CNN with the red side. Priceless! ;-)"

If the blue side is so good at balancing budgets, why does CA have near junk bond status?

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[That's Unpossible!]

Lie, Cheat, and Steal?

are you serious?????

I don't know if he was, but I am, as both the democrats and the republicans and every other politician in Washington is corrupt. They each just vary in degree and direction.

Lol... and its interesting that you associate my "proposed mass election fraud" with democrats, since I don't have any party affiliation

Uhh, maybe it was because you said this when describing it:

"Starting now, we'd get democrats to register for dual citizenship in swing states; there would be host homes in the swing state to accomodate the "swinger". During elections, places with a superabundance of democratic votes would have mini-migrations of excess voters to their secondary "homes" where they would vote in force to potentially upset the state.

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[BewireNomali]

dude, where did I imply that that wasn't the case? Please point out the time when I implied that democrats had better ethics than republicans or vice versa?

If you read the AC post I'm replying to, he made a disparaging remark towards democrats, which I replied to with the same argument that you are putting forth, namely, no politican has claim to moral high ground.

Re: Democrats moving around to adjust electoral votes: Why would republicans have to move around? They won those swing states as well as the last two elections. *shrugs* That doesn't imply that I'm a democrat, it implies that the losers have to make adjustments if they want to win.

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[Anonymous Coward]

Lie, Cheat, and Steal?

are you serious?????

Yes, I am. You proposed committing massive fraud so promote a candidate of your choice. That requires lying and cheating to ultimately steal something. The shoe fits, so enjoy wearing it. As for your other witty little barbs...guess what dipshit, I'm not a Republican either.

And isn't being an anonymous coward akin to wearing a hood with eyeholes cut out?

Anonymous political speech is one of the foundations of our society. I guess you went to public school though.

Loser.

No, that would be the Democrats in 2000 and 2004, even though they can't dry their teary little eyes long enough to see it.

Lol... and its interesting that you associate my "proposed mass election fraud" with democrats, since I don't have any party affiliation. lol.

Well, at least you admit to it. But I guess if you're not a Democrat (which I find impossible to belive) you're just one of those "anybody but Bush" children. Maybe when you graduate high school you can actually form an opinion of your own that you didn't read on a blog somewhere. Here's a hint: Anyone can tear things down, but adults have constructive opinions about alternatives. When you just bash and bash without a credible alternative (in your case, you at least suggested election fraud, kudos!) you look like a typical teenager who's really really good at telling you how much everything sucks and is wrong.

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[Anonymous Coward]

Because of the price gouging Republican energy companies. That's where they were fucked over and the current Republican governer isn't doing much to help, probably even less than that evil Democrat Davis.

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[BewireNomali]

lol... more personal attacks from behind the AC pointy hood: let's count them off.

a. dipshit(self explanatory term typically used by emasculated middle management types. I can dig it)

b. I guess you went to public school though. (mature)

c. No, that would be the Democrats in 2000 and 2004, even though they can't dry their teary little eyes long enough to see it. (more immature, unimaginative banter from someone accusing me of immaturity! lol).

d. But I guess if you're not a Democrat (which I find impossible to belive) (more pedestrian spiteful dickery from our masked marvel of a poster)

e. you're just one of those "anybody but Bush" children. Maybe when you graduate high school you can actually form an opinion of your own that you didn't read on a blog somewhere. (alarming number of teenage references lends to notion of AC's fixation with adolescents. creepy. Good thing you're posting anonymously.)

f. Here's a hint: Anyone can tear things down, but adults have constructive opinions about alternatives. When you just bash and bash without a credible alternative (in your case, you at least suggested election fraud, kudos!) (more references to me being a child. You like browbeating youngsters, AC?)

g. you look like a typical teenager who's really really good at telling you how much everything sucks and is wrong. (dammit, that does it. This AC is a pedophile. lol)

It's so cool that we can't go back and change our posts. This will exist for the forseeable future of Slashdot, and the editors will forever know you as a pedophile and a dreadful bore of a writer.

Dude, we can do this all day. At least take the hood off and make it interesting. lol.

It's ok. Don't be afraid. lol.

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

Fair question. Let me educate you ;-)

One of the quick easy charts to give you the idea.

A much more detailed break down of the numbers.

Your welcome ;-)

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[Anonymous Coward]

lol... more personal attacks from behind the AC pointy hood:

Of course they're personal attacks. I think you're a scummy, worthless excuse for a person. I already discredited your one "idea" for mass election fraud. The rest is just for funsies now.

It's interesting that you took my references to your immaturity as pedophilia though, and that that's your one "defense" to everything. Insecure much? Kinda like homophobes who're secretly gay and terrified of it so they lash out at "faggots" as loudly and violently as they can.

Hmm, it's funny (in the perverted sort of way) that your little blog post that you link to under your user info has a first person story about a pedophile in it though. Very, very telling about that particular obsession. I'd be careful, you're projecting. That explains the immaturity, you're just hunting for fresh young meat and want to come off as just like them. That's pretty fucking sick.

Dude, we can do this all day.

Maybe you can. I know school's out for the summer and your dick probably does get chapped from maturbating the whole time. Maybe you could write some more stories about pedophiles in your blog, but I guess that would just make you want to masturbate more.

It's so cool that we can't go back and change our posts.

Yeah....it's so traumatic that this dynamic IP address will forever be linked trolling your sorry pedophile ass.

This will exist for the forseeable future of Slashdot, and the editors will forever know you as a pedophile and a dreadful bore of a writer.

Oh cruel irony! I'm being accused of being a boring pedophile by someone who publically links to some of the worst fiction I've ever read that happens to have a main character who is a pedophile. Could you do something stupider than that?

By the way, you have been trolled. Big time, because that pedophilia shit is pretty fucking sick. Get some help.

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[BewireNomali]

lol. I've been trolled, AC?

The worst fiction you've ever read? Cool, I guess I have a lot of time to work on it, since I'm still in school, right?

I guess that means in twenty years or so, it'll be great fiction, and you'll be dead.

good luck with that. lol.

and for somebody who doesn't have any time, you sure did a lot of research!!!! lol.

Still anonymous, eh? Lol.

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[EvilSS]

Your grasp on mathematics sure seems to indicate where you fall.

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[Anonymous Coward]

The worst fiction you've ever read? Cool, I guess I have a lot of time to work on it, since I'm still in school, right?

No, actually we established that you were actually a pedophile pretending to be young and immature to troll for children.

I guess that means in twenty years or so, it'll be great fiction, and you'll be dead.

Keep dreaming. About both. Even if you read the very early works of great authors you can see the seeds of what they'll become. You're merely derivative. You read some trendy books with a heavy emphasis on cyberpunk because it's cool, maybe a little goth-edged fiction, and a lot of comic books and anime and now you're trying to emulate it. You have no style or originality of your own All I see in your work is echoes of others. I kept expecting to see a Gibson or Sterling quote, but at least you managed to avoid outright plagiarism. You could probably find a home amongst fanfic though.

and for somebody who doesn't have any time, you sure did a lot of research!!!! lol.

I suppose if you read at the level you write at it would seem like a lot of research. Perhaps surprisingly to you, educated people can read quite quickly, and without their lips moving!

But I've got a little time for you, you amuse me as you flail about. Besides, I won't tell you when I go away, I'll just let it eat away at you wondering if I'm going to reply.

Still anonymous, eh? Lol.

Yep. Still writing about pedophiles while accusing others of it? I notice you didn't address that. Hoping it would go away?

Oh and by the way, writing "Lol" after everything you say is pretty fucking stupid. You're like a laugh track to your own bad sitcom. If you're that amusing to yourself, perhaps you should just keep those thoughts to yourself. See you around.

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[MacDork]

I still vote red because the blue side of the aisle frustrates me even more.

If you aren't happy with blue or red, why vote for either?

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[networkBoy]

because the greens are enviromentalist wackos and the Libertarians never seem to make the ballot.
so I cast my vote to steer the country in the less objectional direction (according to me at least).
-nB

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[Anonymous Coward]

Your proposed mass election fraud is great though. I love how you complain about Republicans and then propose that Democrats should break the law en masse to get their way.

Yeah, haven't you learned anything from the Republicans? You don't have to do all that. Just own the companies making paperless accountability-free voting machines. You can always say the exit polls are skewed later. I have a better idea. If everyone who doesn't like either guy would just boycott the election next time...

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[Anonymous Coward]

You aren't supposed to vote for the one that sucks least. Voting is about choosing someone who will do a good job. Don't vote for someone because they are the least objectionable. If no one qualifies, then don't vote at all. I'm not a blue or red. I voted third party last time with the simple hope of getting the Libs enough votes to receive federal funding. After watching the debacle with the paperless machines swinging the election though, I've decided there's simply no point to voting any longer. It's a fix. I've decided to boycott the next election and will encourage others to do the same. Sure, the die-hard blues and reds will belittle me, but I hope enough swing voters will see the light and demand election reform through inaction.

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[Aeiri]

lol I lol lol wow lol lol I can't lol lol lol.

Enough with the "lol"s already.

Re:"Bad things are bad", said the politician

[ultranova]

One of the quick easy charts to give you the idea.

Fascinating. According to this chart, your national debt has been increasing at an average of over 100 billion dollars per year since 1974. Where do you get all that money - one would imagine that any possible creditor would have long since decided that you're heading for bankcrupty and stopped granting funds ?

Instead of an HTML link...

[Anonymous Coward]

...could you please provide an nfo?

Excellent. Just what is needed.

[mrRay720]

Terrorism still on the rise, poverty, famine and disease running rampant through large parts of the world, growing unrest in an ever increasingly militant Middle East.... what does the US govt. come up with in these troubled times?

That's right, they bend over and take large cash injections up the rear from the corrupt media industry and spend YOUR OWN money launching lawsuits against you. Ho ho ho ho ho.

And I just adore the extreme arrogance of a US political post being created to fight *global* IP infringement. So will they be enforcing other countries laws in other countries, or will it be US law? Either way is just.... wow... too arrogant for words.

Seriously you guys, get off your damn asses and find a government that will work for the voters instead of working for the people who bribe them the most.

Re:Excellent. Just what is needed.

[shark72]

I think you have put your finger on it. The government is doing this because they are greedy and they want more money -- money in the form of tax dollars from the entertainment industry. Intellectual property is one of the USA's biggest exports and brings in billions and billions of dollars into our economy.

You mentioned terrorism, poverty, famine, disease, etc. Unfortunately, our government needs money -- and a good dose of wisdom -- to address these issues. Protecting our country's economic interests may be a good way to start.

Re:Excellent. Just what is needed.

[mrRay720]

You make a good point. Further weighing down the poor malnourished wallets of the Hollywood fatcats is EXACTLY the way to fight evils in the world. How could we all have missed that?

Anyway you must excuse me, I'm off to support a better, freeer, healthier world by being bumraped by price-fixed tripe. I'll slip the poor guys at Univsal Studios half my yearly wages too - just in case they haven't enough caviar-filled swimming pools this month. I'also saving so many starving infants from death that I'll sleep soundly at night. We all win!

Re:Excellent. Just what is needed.

[shark72]

Thanks, but let's turn this into a more positive discussion. If you have a better way of funding our fight against terrorism, disease, et al. than by protecting our biggest economic interests, please discuss. Whether you or I like it or not, our government needs money to operate, and the sale of intellectual property is one of our country's biggest industries. That's the reality, and simple bromides like "Hollywood fatcats" will not solve this problem.

I don't know many people who in the movie industry, but I make more money than all of them. You're absolutely correct that the top-paid executives in the movie industry make obscene amounts of money, but this is the case for virtually all industries. This fact alone is not sufficient to condemn our government's efforts to extract more tax dollars out of them.

Re:Excellent. Just what is needed.

[Hershmire]

Seriously you guys, get off your damn asses and find a government that will work for the voters instead of working for the people who bribe them the most.

At the risk of sounding trollish, can you please explain exactly how we should do this? Doing so would require first educating a vast majority of Americans on what the specific issues are. Second, these people would need to be convinced that _our_ side is right. Third would be targeting specific politicians who are promoting this kind of action. These three things appear insurmountable to those who actually see the problem, especially in a nation where a gigantic majority just don't give a damn.

As much as I'd like to see corporate whores get ousted, the chances of it happening are nil. Remember, these people make a career out of getting re-elected and are very good at it.

Re:Excellent. Just what is needed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post...wow...too ignorant for words.

Re:Excellent. Just what is needed.

[Red Flayer]

"That's right, they [US Govt] bend over and take large cash injections up the rear from the corrupt media industry"

Not to nitpick, but the media industry is not corrupt. They are using legal channels to maximize their profits, which is totally justifiable.

It is the politicians (and their organizations) that are corrupt: they accept bribes in exchange for choosing corporate interests over the public good.

The purpose of creating this office is to bring it to the attention of the public and the international community that
(1) Piracy is costing US Corporations a lot of money
(2) China promised to fight harder against piracy
(3) We're going to hold them to their promise; we are serious, darn it
(4) Doing this is good for the economy

There's a bit of spin related to (4). To the less-discerning reader, TFA implies that almost half of the trade deficit arises from IP piracy in China. Lets see:

$618 bn deficit
$250 bn lost sales
90% of music and movies in China are pirated
(oh-so-close to "90% of music and movies are pirated in China")
Goal is to eliminate Chinese piracy of IP

Holy cow, we can cut the deficit almost in half if we eliminate Chinese piracy!!!

Also implied is "The deficit wouldn't be this bad if it weren't for those meddling Chinese Pirates!!!"

Re:Excellent. Just what is needed.

[TrappedByMyself]

Ummm, get a real argument. And people, please stop modding these factless emotional arguments up. It really hurts the credibility of the Slashdot.

The US has one of the largest military budgets in the world. People like you seem to critcize that all the time, except now, when you complain they don't spend enough?

OK, US also gives billions in aid to other countries, and has countless programs and scientists working to solve all these world hunger problems. Look at all the world disasters, who is always right there helping to save the day? Could the US government do more, of course, but they always seem to be doing more than anyone else.

So, what else? Oh you're complaining that the US is enforcing its own laws? OK, again, you're the type to complain when it doesn't. And I don't see anyone launching lawsuits against myself? Maybe it's because I don't violate copyright laws.
The country has an obligation to enforce all of its laws. And being that capitalism is vital to the survival of the country, it has an interest in protecting the profits of companies.

I know you want to steal music and movies, and don't think you should be held accountable for it, but seriously, stop crafting these age old "Big business, evil government, corruption" crap defensive arguments. They're old, busted, and cliche. Is there corruption? Of course, but there always will be when money and power are involved. But individuals need to act rational and make an attempt to understand the system, not just sit back and scream foul at all the people who are in power. You're the type of person used as a pawn by the powerful to get their way. Get a clue, it may serve you well some day.

Re:Excellent. Just what is needed.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is part of the problem. 'Sides' is not a good way of thinking about it - politics is more about a spectrum than two opposing sides. By creating divisions where none should be, it's easier to stop progress. Divide and conquer, wot?

Now, if only more people understood that...

Re:Excellent. Just what is needed.

[Alex P Keaton in da]

What is funny though, is that the more hollywood makes, the more the likes of Susan Sarandon and Streisand make, and the more they give to moveon etc.... and other anti (insert word here depending on your politics) organizations....
Is that Irony? Or is it a 10,000 spoons, when all you need is a fork

Re:Excellent. Just what is needed.

[grumpygrodyguy]

Seriously you guys, get off your damn asses and find a government that will work for the voters instead of working for the people who bribe them the most.

We tried, but there were just too many angry rednecks voting against us. Most slashdot readers fall into one of two categories:

1) Moved to Canada or wish he/she did.
2) Makes enough money working for these greedy corporations to justify their actions in order to preserve his/her lifestyle.

Re:Excellent. Just what is needed.

[aej17]

" The government is doing this because they are greedy and they want more money -- money in the form of tax dollars from the entertainment industry."

You mean like the two (possibly three, now) years recently when Time Warner paid no tax at all?

The government, this government, has done nothing but lower the tax burden on corporations to the tune of 28 of the 275 largest corporations having paid NO taxes AT ALL from 2001-2003 http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/10/04/corporate.taxes/. Some of them actually got money back, even though their profits were astronomical.

Look at that and then tell me that the government's interest lies in taking more and more money from corporate America. This IP Piracy Czar thing has nothing to do with taxes.

Re:Excellent. Just what is needed.

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

We'll have more wisdom if IP laws get so strict and prices get so high people can't afford brain rotting Hollywood movies and Brittney Spears CDs. :)

Re:Excellent. Just what is needed.

[typical]

It really hurts the credibility of the Slashdot.

Heh.

The US has one of the largest military budgets in the world. People like you seem to critcize that all the time, except now, when you complain they don't spend enough?

The US has *the* largest military budget in the world. (Wikipedia: "The United States military budget is larger than the military budgets of the next twenty biggest spenders combined, and six times larger than China's, which places second.")

I also can't help but notice that the person you're responding to didn't say anything about spending more on defense.

OK, US also gives billions in aid to other countries, and has countless programs and scientists working to solve all these world hunger problems.

You *do* realize that "foreign aid" is not selfless giving to fund orphans, but essentially bribery of various governments to support US interests? Nothing inherently wrong with that -- it's a lot less damaging than attacking a country to make it do what you want -- but if you think that the USG is a bunch of angels running around handing out money to people because they need money, you're nuts.

The country has an obligation to enforce all of its laws. And being that capitalism is vital to the survival of the country, it has an interest in protecting the profits of companies.

The question is whether it has an obligation to enforce *other* countries' laws. US laws absolutely do not cover what a Chinese citizen does in China.

I know you want to steal music and movies, and don't think you should be held accountable for it

Nice use of "steal" instead of "infringe on copyright" to take advantage of emotional attachment. Very neutral.

Frankly, I don't think that music copyright should last longer than fifteen years or so, and software copyright even less. And I have no problem with people infringing on the copyrights of older music. Publishers don't think about profits fifteen years in the future when deciding whether to fund someone or not. Thus, profits do jack-all to encourage funding of music production. Thus, publishers shouldn't have had copyright extension at all in the first place, except for the fact that they can afford a powerful lobby. The only people who are out arguing that copyright should last ninety years or whatever are those who have been simply brainwashed by the industry into believing in some kind of moral imperative to keep throwing money at someone who once funded some music production.

You're the type of person used as a pawn by the powerful to get their way.

That's funny, because that is exactly what I was thinking about you.

Re:Excellent. Just what is needed.

[typical]

Whether you or I like it or not, our government needs money to operate, and the sale of intellectual property is one of our country's biggest industries.

That doesn't translate to the sale of entertainment IP, though.

As Frank Zappa once said

[melted]

"Politics is the entertainment branch of industry". This was true back then. This is true now. Now bend over and hand that guy the vaseline.

Re:As Frank Zappa once said

[zippthorne]

I like "Politics is Hollywood for the Ugly" but I forget where it comes from.

The United States of the World

[tmilam]

Wonderful! As soon as I take a few deep breaths maybe I'll RTFA, but right now my blood pressure is too high. It's amazing how arrogant Bush has been. What's next? Maybe it's time to pack up and move to Canada....

Re:The United States of the World

[Anonymous Coward]

bu..bu..bu...bye

Re:The United States of the World

[I8TheWorm]

Tell Alec Baldwin hello for me :)

Re:The United States of the World

[Anonymous Coward]

It's amazing how arrogant Bush has been. What's next? Maybe it's time to pack up and move to Canada....

Hell no! He is your damned problem and you can damn well keep him!

~With kind regards the normally polite (but don't push us or we'll get mad), Canada~

Re:The United States of the World

[Bajanman]

Come on Up! You won't have to worry about Uncle Sam locking you up for enjoying some good old herb. Come on up to Toronto, and sit back in the patio of one of our fine Cannabis shops, and enjoy the herb that gets passed around.. Just to let you know, you have to smoke it outside, because we have a law: no smoking inside. We're good Samaritans up here...

Re:The United States of the World

[mabhatter654]

Gotta love it!! It's a smoke shop but you can't smoke inside!!!

Re:The United States of the World

[Chemicalscum]

Alien from another country
Welcome to our hole
Just strap on a guitar
And we'll play some rock and roll

(apologies to Hugh Cornwall)

Welcome to Canada - eh!

Good faith movement, or Actual organization.

[kinglink]

Can't really tell which way this will go. For now it will start with China, but if this organization starts working on American Piracy it will get bogged down. I think there's a definate difference in China where as they say 90 percent (close to the real number) of movies and music sold are illegally gotten. But I'm sure there will be some (RIAA/MPAA) who will say they don't do enough against american pirates..

Anyone notice a problem here?

The RIAA/MPAA machine has complained about foreign groups for years, but couldn't do anything, but they'll want this group to focus just as much on American Piracy as others, an act that will nullify the good this group can do. American Piracy has enough life in it to take on a goverment agency for at least 5 years.

There's then only two options to continue the global campaign, ignore the RIAA/MPAA advice (and hear them bitch and scream), or bloat the agency to the point it's ineffectual.

It'll be interesting to see what this group does.

Insanity

[djpenguin808]

There's one thing that really bugs me about all the China-bashing that seems to be so popular in the capital these days...

China holds close to $700 billion of US govt. debt in T-bills

Originally, the purpose of this buying behaviour was to manipulate the fluctuation of the yuan, which until yesterday was pegged to the dollar. The unintended effect was that the US government started to spend like drunken sailors, financing all sorts of things with deficit spending. With the yuan now floating in relation to a basket of currencies instead of pegged to the dollar, the impetus to continue buying dollars to manipulate the yuan is greatly weakened.

Generally, when you owe a bank a lot of money, you don't run into the bank screaming about how evil they are, piss on the rug, and then set some trash cans on fire. It tends to make the bankers rather unwilling to keep underwriting your debt.

Re:Insanity

[twifosp]

Good points, but considering that the US is China's #1 buyer of export goods, they aren't going to be calling us out on our debt any time soon.

Futhermore, it's not like the Chinese government are the ones responsible for the piracy, it's their citizens. It'd be in their (the Chinese gov.) best interests to cooperate or act like they are cooperating.

They aren't going to suddenly say: "You accuse our citizens of piracy?!?!? That may be true, but how dare you! Time to pay your debt!"

Assuming they did, how are they even going to enforce it? Go to war with America? No. Force us to pay some other way and cripple our economy? No. Then where would China export all it's crap to? Crippling the US economy hurts China just as much as it does us. More so, probably.

Re:Insanity

[jonfr]

U.S won't do anything to China. If they do, China pulls the plug and U.S go bankrupt.

Re:Insanity

[Anonymous Coward]

Then where would China export all it's crap to?

India has one of the fastest growing middle classs on the planet.. after China. When you have a country of several hundred million consumers, and another one a few truck stops South West {and India is growing free trade with China} why would you care about the USA long term?

Then there's a lot of consumers in Europe, also a few truck stops away...

The US's only hope is intensive immigration. That's how they got to be #1 in the first place. That and 200 years of slave labour. But I'm not sure how the current US ideology would respond to pumping up immigration?

Re:Insanity

[Pantero Blanco]

And if the US goes bankrupt, so does China and the rest of the world that isn't still locked in tribal warfare with itself. All the crap between China and the US is posturing, at the moment.

Also, I think that all the US debt to China wouldn't really matter if the two ended up going to war or even cancelling relations with each other...You don't normally return money to someone when you're trying to kill each other.

Re:Insanity

[Anonymous Coward]

Generally, when you owe a bank a lot of money, you don't run into the bank screaming about how evil they are, piss on the rug, and then set some trash cans on fire. It tends to make the bankers rather unwilling to keep underwriting your debt.

When you owe the bank a million dollars, you have a problem.
When you own the bank 100 million dollars, the bank has a problem.

(old banking proverb)

Re:Insanity

[Coryoth]

With the yuan now floating in relation to a basket of currencies instead of pegged to the dollar, the impetus to continue buying dollars to manipulate the yuan is greatly weakened.

Actually it is the reverse - the impetus is strengthened: A lower yuan against the dollar continues to be to China's benefit, and buying up US T-bills is a way to keep the currency low relative to the dollar. With the yuan pegged buying T-bills was just to make the whole picture not look distorted. Wit the yuan floating buying T-bills is an active strategy to keep the yuan low.

Look at Japan - they also benefit from a low yen to dollar ratio. They are also the largest foreign holder of US debt. Despite the fact that the yen floats they have been buying T-bills like mad.

You are corrct though: this can only go on so long. The US current account deficit is huge, and growing - that simply isn't sustainable. Eventually it will have to reverse direction. That means a lower US dollar. If the US dollar drops significantly then all those T-bills are worth a whole lot less. The Japanese appetite for US debt has been slowing significantly of late because of this. China is beginning to look to go the same way. That could cause some interesting repurcussions.

Jedidiah.

Re:Insanity

[Anonymous Coward]

Generally, when you owe a bank a lot of money, you don't run into the bank screaming about how evil they are, piss on the rug, and then set some trash cans on fire. ...

Actually, a lot of people do.

Re:Insanity

[mr.mighty]

But it's already gone on longer than China wants. Last year, the Chinese central bank announced they would no longer be buying dollars for their holdings. They were pressured to make one more buy in order to help finance the deficit.

Remember, they could also be buying Euros. Also, holding T-bills is no benefit. It's better to buy goods with that money. Money is of no use if you're not going to use it.

Re:Insanity

[Anonymous Coward]

Immigration policy of current administration is pretty obvious, and dictated by pro-business goals. Basically, you want foreigners to work in America, because they'll work for cheap! However, you do not want them to become citizens, because then you have to pay them an American wage. Haven't you noticed this?

Re:Insanity

[dodobh]

Unless you are the guy that actually prints the money in the first place.

Re:Insanity

[Chemicalscum]

Or better still buy US companies.

Isn't this the point of capitalism?

[HockeyPuck]

Ok, so one of the points of conservatism is that they are for 'Big Business', and against 'big government' and that 'big business' should govern itself. This includes the companies creating their own anti-piracy software.

So where is the justification that government needs to step in and help MSFT (who just posted record profits) fight against piracy? What is the government going to do? Put in sanctions against China? That would cause further damage to other industries (e.g. Steel).

Maybe the Fed's should call up Balmer and say "Steve, with $36B in revenues... surely you can solve your own problems without involving our tax dollars.

Re:Isn't this the point of capitalism?

[Alien Being]

This is not your father's GOP.

Re:Isn't this the point of capitalism?

[Reducer2001]

I, for one, DON'T welcome our new neo-conservative overlords.

Re:Isn't this the point of capitalism?

[mpapet]

Conservatives learned some lessons from the democrats some time ago. They stopped fighting for small government and fiscal responsibility because neither gets you so many votes.

Instead, they make it safe for businesses to make a profit and spend money and behave in ways that keep the voters happy.

It's the equivalent of pork-barrel legislation circa 2005.

China 2005 = U.S. 1855

[homer_ca]

Back in the 19th Century, the U.S. was the pirate harboring nation. The U.S. didn't recognize foreign copyrights until 1891.

Re:China 2005 = U.S. 1855

[jdbeast00]

Those were different types of pirates.

A Government Post to Change Another Government?

[yellowbkpk]

I thought the United States government dealt mainly with ... the United States. Yea, the US is the world super power, but does that mean it should appoint someone whose main purpose is to tell another country what to do?

I can see how the US needs a foreign relations department (just like Dell needs a customer relations department...), but a piracy czar?!

House of Cards

[PingXao]

After this there will be a Patent Policy Czar for Europe to make "suggestions" to the EU. Soon there will be a cabinet-level agency, the Department of Intellectual Property. When energy prices really start to take off and the economy starts to tank, the pols in DC will claim that "intellectual property" makes up a large chunk of what the country exports, and deserves the greatest "protections" available.

"Intellectual property" is not real property.

Re:House of Cards

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, our president has created a position to protect something that doesn't legally exist, "Intellectual property", from a crime that isn't actually legally happening, "piracy". Of course the FA didn't actually quote Bush... but I don't doubt he wouldn't get it right anyways.

Re:House of Cards

[iamcf13]

PinxXao: "Intellectual property" is not real property.

Yes it is.

Why would Hollywood invest $100 million plus for a reel of exposed motion picture film. For example, the film negative to T2 is intrinsically worth about $115,000,000.00 as that is the total production cost that went into creating the final product: a motion picture film negative. That negative was turn into motion picture prints that were exhibited back in 1991 to the tune of over $200,000,000.00 in box office receipts.

On the software front there is Microsoft--a very real corporate empire built on intangible, magnetically and optically encoded ones and zeroes since the late 1970s.

Sorry PinxXao, there is *BIG* money in "Intellectual property" which is truly a license to print money for wildly successful (usually 'branded') IP....

Good news for pirates!

[crism]

The War on Piracy will be as successful as the War on Terrorism and the War on Drugs (not to mention the War on Poverty and previously, the War on Rum). This means that we can start to see big money for the pirates, as well as turf wars and violence. Yay! Thanks, Mr. Bush!

Re:Good news for pirates!

[Peyna]

The War on Piracy will be as successful as the War on Terrorism and the War on Drugs (not to mention the War on Poverty and previously, the War on Rum).

It seems like we have come full-circle then. The War on Rum and The War on Piracy sound like the same thing to me. Everyone knows pirates like rum.

7%-counterfeit-can be ignored

[Anonymous Coward]

"The Commerce Department estimates nearly 7 percent of the goods in the global market are counterfeit."

I would get get worried if it was 30%++. 7% is a reasonable loss, companies should live with it.

If only the industry sold it that cheap,

[shredluc]

we wouldn't have to buy pirated copies. Heck, i could pay $1 to watch Star Wars, but i sure as hell don't want to pay $10. Piracy is so rampart because people don't see the value in spending so much for so little. It's as if you had to pay $10 for a pack of gum, when we all know that such a price is ridiculous.

I would even pay $2 for it, if i knew that the money went to the artist, producer, etc. - in other words the people actually responsible for the content of the media, instead of the distributor.

Thinking about that a little, what right does *AA have to sue anybody? Is the media actually THEIR property, or is it the property of the artist? You know what, that is not even the point. The point is that we shouldn't have to deal with these artificially inflated prices. Every time i hear about the industry suing somebody i picture a playground bully. Knocks everybody around until everybody turns around and one by one puch the bully in the nose.

Yep we as taxpayers and citizens of this country should decide how everything should be ran and not let a MEGA CORP CEO decide for us...

Re:If only the industry sold it that cheap,

[shark72]

" we wouldn't have to buy pirated copies. Heck, i could pay $1 to watch Star Wars, but i sure as hell don't want to pay $10. Piracy is so rampart because people don't see the value in spending so much for so little. It's as if you had to pay $10 for a pack of gum, when we all know that such a price is ridiculous."

Very astute. Likewise, if grocery and department stores lowered their prices, rather than following the Econ 1A "what the market will bear" principle, fewer people would have an impetus to shoplift.

"Thinking about that a little, what right does *AA have to sue anybody? Is the media actually THEIR property, or is it the property of the artist?"

The words and music, as well as the publishing rights, belong to the composers and songwriters. The copyright on the recording is typically held by the record company.

"You know what, that is not even the point. The point is that we shouldn't have to deal with these artificially inflated prices."

If the margin that the record companies make on selling music troubles you, you'd be in for some sad times indeed if you were to learn where record industry margins fall in relation to margins for the food, clothing and computer accessories and pretty much everything else that you buy. The record industry is, by necessity, a low-margin one. The cry of "artificially inflated prices" makes us feel better about resorting to piracy, but doesn't make much sense to those who understand the realities of speculative markets and the retail industry in general.

Re:If only the industry sold it that cheap,

[Ender_Stonebender]

If the margin that the record companies make on selling music troubles you, you'd be in for some sad times indeed if you were to learn where record industry margins fall in relation to margins for the food, clothing and computer accessories and pretty much everything else that you buy.

You're positively fucking crazy. Grocery stores survive on very small margin. (Restaurants are often the same, except on soft drinks, on which they make huge profits.) When you first look at it, the markup on computers looks better, but then you have to factor in tech support, which is a huge cost. You're right about clothing...if you're talking about brands that are currently fashionable - but if you go shop at Wal-Mart or Target for generic brand clothes, they're pretty cheap.

(I've been looking for a breakdown of where all the money a consumer pays for a CD ends up - anyone got a link for that?)

I think the grandparent post is correct - if Photoshop CS was $15.99 at Wal-Mart, you'd buy it because you had a couple of extra bucks that week. But it's not, it's $559.99 at amazon.com. I'd say that's prohibitively high for a lot of people who would use at a hobby-level rather than professionally, or would like to have it on hand in case something came up where they needed it. Sure, you'd still got a lot of piracy in places like China, but that's always going to happen. If you drop your price from $560 to $16 and eliminate the dead-tree version of the fat book, you've reduced your costs and gone from having a distribution of 2% of your potential market actually buying your product, 90% of the potential market pirating it, and 8% moving on to free work-alikes (The GIMP) or cheaper work-alikes or just not bothering; and moved to a situation where 90% of your product actually buys your product. (Yes, I made those numbers. Has anyone done a study on this?)

--Ender

Re:If only the industry sold it that cheap,

[shredluc]

If the margin that the record companies make on selling music troubles you, you'd be in for some sad times indeed if you were to learn where record industry margins fall in relation to margins for the food, clothing and computer accessories and pretty much everything else that you buy. The record industry is, by necessity, a low-margin one. The cry of "artificially inflated prices" makes us feel better about resorting to piracy, but doesn't make much sense to those who understand the realities of speculative markets and the retail industry in general.

I see your point. Now i am not sure what the actual costs are of producing music, movies, etc. is, but i can throw some refrences out there. I used to work both at a hardware store and a car dealership in my younger years, and so i had oportunities to view some of their costs and profit.
Hardware store:
box of screws: cost: 1.50 retail: 2.99
can of paint (1gal) cost:15.99 retail: 19.99
key blank: cost: .99 retail: 1.99
25' garden hose: cost:8.99 retail:11.99
trash bags: cost:2.99 retail: 3.99
elmers glue: cost1.29 retail: 1.99
lightbulbs: cost .79 (4pack) retail: 1.39 (4pack)
Dealership:
windsheild wipers:cost:8.99 retail: 21.99
air filter: cost:3.99 retail 12.99

Now as you can see, the markup in a dealership is greater than a hardware store. Getting to the point - most of the things are being sold at twice the price of cost. Now this is not all profit, we have to deduct wages, bills, building costs, permits, etc. and the actual profit drops down.

I got side tracked there, let me get back to the point: Those screws cost x amount to manufacture. The manufacturer has to make a profit, then the shipping company, then the distributor, then the retailer. Now i am assuming that on each transaction the price is doubled to cover costs, and produce SOME profit. The box of screws cost the retailer a $1.50. Now the hardware store buys from the fanchise HQ, which does it's own manufacturing(in this case). The retailer also pays shipping. So lets suppose that those screwes cost only .75 in material to make, .75 markup for manufacturer, distributer (one business) and retailer pays shipping. Retailer then doubles price to cover all costs.

If you notice most of what you pay here has to cover costs of the material, manufacturing, shipping, storage, labor and everything else i missed. This leaves a small profit margin in the end.

Now i'm not pretending that i know how much it costs to manufacture a song, or a movie because i do not have knowledge of that. All i'm saying is that since you can get the songs online, there is no more shipping cost, no storage, no labor, none of the costs associated before.

Now i can see how that can be a little short sighted, because they still have costs associated with buildings, servers, hard disks for storage, internet pipe, etc.

I'm figuring that those costs must be less than the real world costs of moving thousands of cd's cross country, cost of storage for those cd's, cost of the plastic, etc.

The industry is moving from an expensive form of physical product distribution, to a method that costs virtually nothing. How can the cost of music stay the same?

Re:If only the industry sold it that cheap,

[shredluc]

Unfortunately greed is the prime factor in any and every single decision that any human being makes.

All i see is dollar signs instead of retinas when i talk to some people i know.

Cutting the price of photoshop to 15.99 would benefit the populace, but looking at it from another perspective - Adobe is there to make money. A reasonable and balanced approach would both maximize profits and keep the customers happy. If for example, it cost a reasonable 69.99, a ton of people would still buy it, while adobe could still recover the costs of production, and make a heaping profit on the side.

Re:If only the industry sold it that cheap,

[Dunbal]

fewer people would have an impetus to shoplift.

Making a copy of something is not the same as stealing something. If I make a copy you still have your original, which you paid money for. If I steal it you are out your original and lost your investment. What's it to you if I'm smart enough to get something for free which you have to pay for? It's like taping a song off the radio - oh wait, what happened to all those tape recorders? Gone now. You can't do that anymore. The new equivalent is downloading a song on the net. Big friken deal. The day you prove to me that I WAS GOING TO PAY FOR SOMETHING I COPIED I will accept your argument that piracy "costs" money.

First order of business...

[FellowConspirator]

The initial stage of the anti-piracy campaign will be broken down into several simple goals:

1. Ban all imports of Jolly Roger flags
2. Prohibit over-the-counter sales of eye-patches; they will now be prescription-only
3. Shore up the Endangered Species act to stem the parrot trade
4. Increase the cannon and powder tax three-fold
5. Remove the letter 'R' from the alphabet

If that doesn't stop piracy, nothing will. Er, I guess nothing will... nevermind.

Re:First order of business...

[whitehatlurker]

Arrr matey, shiver me timbers if ye didn't miss the entire point of scurvy lists like yours.

6. ????
7. Profit

or in this paarrticulaaarr list

6. ????
7. Pillage!!

Now avast w' ye or I'll keelhaul yer maggot infested caaarrrcass from stem ta stern and back again.

Salty Bob

Re:First order of business...

[Darlantan]

Aaaaaaaaaaa matey. Now we just be Pirate Dentists.

how about we stop trading?

[VolciMaster]

Ok, I know that's not gonna happen. But if we quit trading with the countries that were involved in the majority of piracy, it might not disappear, but we wouldn't notice it. Of course, that could lead to the problem of having other countries do the same thing, and pretty soon we've deglobalized, and we're all in a world-wide free for all again.

Just a thought.

Re:how about we stop trading?

[kinglink]

So if we stop trading with China, then there's no reason they should stop selling pirated movies because otherwise there's no other choice.

And The country isn't involved in a majority of piracy, just a majority of commerce in China has links to piracy, something that's been constant for the last X years (large number, Video Game companies are only now starting to try to make Chinese versions because there was so much piracy there)

There's a large amount of piracy in america too, I think the world's going to realize soon that piracy is going to be like drugs, it'll remain because it's accepted as an eventuality.

Re:how about we stop trading?

[mabhatter654]

Of course if we didn't make the stuff there to begin with it would be a little harder for them to make stuff en masse. They exported all our JOBS making CDs and DVDs because the chinese were a little cheaper.. now the chineese own their own stamping houses and print whatever they want.

Bright move guys!!! Why should we spend our money again [after we already lost our wages] protecting their bad business decisions??

Piracy!

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh my God- The Pirates are back! We need to resurrect Lord Nelson to kick their ass!!!!

weapons of mass distraction...

[dsands1]

Just watch... We'll invade China, over-throw their corrupt government, only to find that they don't have any pirated material.

Re:weapons of mass distraction...

[Luke-Jr]

You do realise that China has two nuclear bombs targetting every US state, right? I don't see any attempt to overthrow them as being very successful...

Re:weapons of mass distraction...

[mabhatter654]

somehow I don't thing our current prez is capable of understanding Mutually Assured Destruction. He's a typical executive that doesn't understand it CAN happen to him!!! He seems of the "let them eat cake" variety... remember, that wasn't a slam.. Marie really didn't understand that bread and cake are the same thing!!!

Chris Isreal Bio

[krbvroc1]

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy
Office of Technology Policy

Chris Israel joined the Commerce Department as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy, on November 1, 2001, joining Assistant Secretary Bruce Mehlman at the Office of Technology Policy.

From January 2001 until moving to Commerce, Israel was Deputy Director of International Public Policy for AOL Time Warner, and previously worked as a Senior Public Policy Analyst for Time Warner Inc. beginning in 1997. His experience includes working on high profile policy issues such as the protection of personal data collected on-line, safety of children online and international e-commerce.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Israel served as a legislative aide to U.S. Representative Jan Meyers (R-KS) and later with U.S. Representative Todd Tiahrt (R-KS). Chris Israel received his B.A. from the University of Kansas and his M.B.A. from The George Washington University.

So how does this changes things exactly?

[B11]

Are they going after guys selling DVDs in swap meets and street corners? How many can they catch? If they do start, it is only going to make bootlegs more expensive, and this leads to more competition, and since illicit money is at stake, illicit means are going to be used to protect market share. I wonder where we've seen this happen before, hmmm?

They can't shut down the servers in China, and they can't stop the Chinese from infringing (hell, they can't even stop Americans really).

So, other than posturing, what is this going to accomplish?

I guess they slap each other on the ass for coming up with a "solution."

Fair Use

[Dachannien]

It'd be great if we could also convince this new IP piracy czar to uphold the principles of fair use and to protect time- and space-shifting of legally-acquired content from oppressive technological and legislative regimes, while at the same time combating content piracy.

Will it happen?

Probably not.

To be fair to China

[wsanders]

They just floated the Yuan, and I think this is an attempt by China to clean up their act over time. *All* the markets went up, I think as a result of the removal of some intangible market risk that China would continue to weasel its way out of generally cooperating in world affairs.

I don't expect them to come clean right away. They are conservative and even paranoid about making big changes.

But count on it 10 years from now all the 3rd world taxi drivers are going to be asking for crisp new "Chairman Maos" instead of "Franklins".

Don't forget...

[op12]

6. Chop down all peg legs...timberrrrr!

Re:Don't forget...

[Joe123456]

Don't forget about the sea captain arr

War of WMD

[bazonkers]

Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) are a major problem around the world. We believe that it is costing U.S. businesses and citizens about $250 billion in tax dollars and wages," some random talking head told Reuters in an interview with reporters and editors.

The party currently running the country, tapped the resources of a random individual that is currently an up-in-coming member of the political party, to head up the administration's anti-WMD efforts. A random Middle Eastern Country, along with Iraq -- where 90 percent of WMD originate-- will be a chief priority, this random government official said.

"Frankly, our goal is to reduce (Middle East and Iraq's WMD trade) to zero," he said. This government official declined to specify a timetable, but acknowledged it could be a lengthy effort which will waste just as much tax money and resources as the users did before it while actually not eliminating anything.

He got a personal glimpse of rampant WMD trafficing during visits earlier this month, when he was offered the chance to buy WMD and sell them to his own citizens, an aide said.

The United States will closely monitor a long list of anti-WMD pledges these two countries made after the US government offered them huge aid packages at this month's high-level Joint Commission on WMD Trade meeting, including a promise to increase criminal prosecutions, he said.

Conversation with the Chinese anti-piracy czar

[markov_chain]

US czar: What do you do about treatment?
China czar: The pirates... they treat themselves. They exceed the bandwidth limit and there is one less to worry about!

Anti-Piracy Post infringes on the Copyright Act...

[Neticulous]

The Copyright Act gives the right to any person to copy, redistribute, or otherwise mass produce the intellectual and material property of others. This has been condoned in large part by many popular bands, the motion picture industry, and Santa Claus. This Act is also heavily enforced by Clinjas. Do not incur their wrath. [edit] Keep in Mind * When making copies of anything, make more than one. * You can be sued for not making more than one copy. * Your friends will love you for copying. * Every time you don't copy something God kills a kitten.

Is he going to sell weapons to China as well,..

[Anonymous Coward]

.. like the other Israel?

Re: you're right but

[BitterAndDrunk]

You're right about that silly Constitution thing, but as we all know, any document written less than 1800 years ago should not be considered a text worth following. This "Constitution" you speak of isn't even 250 years old!

Welcome to China and India...

[bayankaran]

China -- where 90 percent of music and movies are pirate copies....

I was in China last month attending one of the biggest audio-visual trade shows.

90 percent of music and movies sold in China and India are way overpriced for the public. For example a DVD costs between $9-$11.

As long as the price remains high piracy will happen...doesnt matter if it is Guiterez or his mother-in-law is the US Anti-Piracy Police Chief.

A few weeks back I was dealing with a top Indian VCD/DVD distributor in Bombay. Later I saw films from his label at the nearest roadside shack selling for Rs.50-100 ($1-$2) with the same label/cover/inlay card/logo/details as the ones available in regular stores. Later I realised it is the same guy who distributes to both the regular stores and the 'pirate'.

This business practice makes sense for the distributor...he makes a profit whether he is selling to a regular store or 'pirate' (a slimmer margin when he sells to the 'pirate'). And we all know the material cost for producing a DVD.

I also heard both original DVDs and duplicates are made in the same factory...which is real socialism.

Re:Welcome to China and India...

[kz45]

This business practice makes sense for the distributor...he makes a profit whether he is selling to a regular store or 'pirate' (a slimmer margin when he sells to the 'pirate'). And we all know the material cost for producing a DVD.

for a blank one, it's the price of a DVD. For one that actually has content on it (like a movie), the price is a lot higher.

Average Chinese Income

[iamwahoo2]

Isn't the mean annual income in China under $2000? Where do they plan to find this huge untapped market? Given an income of this amount, I think $1 is a pretty fair price for copyright protections. Perhaps the cartels should lower their prices.

Yeah it's warm NOW.

[zippthorne]

Hell freezes over pretty much every winter ...An entire town devoted to selling jokes about its name. amazing.

But there is one thing different...

[Anonymous Coward]

China _has_ WMD.

Re:War of Fools

[Simonetta]

Full Tilt Boogie Shitstorm on the pirates, but nothing against the companies that stole the public domain by bribing politicians to extend the copyright period indefinitely!

Typical corrupt Republican nonsense. And please don't tell me that Clinton signed the DMCA. He's just one more corrupt Republican too.

This whole piracy thing is all nothing but a pricing issue. The global entertainment corps insist that the old model of having every piece of product having the same price forever is finally breaking down into two basic price levels: expensive and free. ... And free is a very good price (to quote the local mattress TV huckster).

The entertainment industry can't face reality so they deal with it by demanding that 1/4 of the world's population be put in prison for listening to music that they have deluded themselves into believing that they own.

They're all quite pathetic actually.

But the corrupt politicians will continue to accept money from them and go through the facade that passing moronic laws will make a difference.

Besides, they can always put a tap on some dorm's internet connection, find some poor schmuck 19-year-old breaking the 'law', and offering him a choice of either 10 years in an American rape-torture prison or 5 years enlistment in the permanent endless insane All-American war. Current playing this year in Iraq but always on the road like a psychotic circus from hell. That'll pump up the sagging enlistment numbers!

Typical American 21st-century politics: the endless lunatic cluster-fuck. Do try to make an effort not to get caught. And keep practicing your Spanish so that you can just leave when the ship sinks.

One thing is different...

[Kamiza Ikioi]

At least this time, they can't use it to attack the lower/poverty classes. Maybe there is a way, but I don't see it. If it's an international thing, and doesn't create "D.A.R.E. 2: Dare to purchase Windows!", then I'll be happy.

Otherwise, they'll end up locking up a lot of middle/upper class kids, and this country really won't stand up for that. That's a low, down, dirty way of putting it. Unfortunately, it's also the truth. If it did mostly affected lower/poverty levels, nobody would seem to care. It almost makes you want to see the "other side of the tracks" experience a war without end on them, so they could empathize with each other. Maybe then everyone would see the issues for what they really are.

"What are you in for?"

"5lb of weed in the trunk. You?"

"5 copies of Windows Vista under the passenger seat."

Re:One thing is different...

[karnal]

"5 copies of Windows Vista under the passenger seat."

Just don't "package to sell" and you'll get a misdemeanor charge if you have only 1 copy.

Bush has tapped Chris Israel

[Anonymous Coward]

Taking full advantage of legalized sodomy, I see.

MOD PARENT FUNNY + more

[Anonymous Coward]

As funny as that comment is, it's also a bit sobering. Just because shipping companies don't have as much sway, we're not paying attention to them. Check this: http://www.mpaa.org/anti-piracy/content.htm The movie industry loses less than a quarter of the money a year to web-pirates as the country does to sea-pirates

Does this mean

[Rac3r5]

The US is going to attack China because they have Weapons of Mass Piracy?

What about Iraq?

[(H)olyGeekboy]

My brother in the army went over to Iraq for a second tour in January.

Last month he came home with more than 800 bootlegged DVDs, some of them containing 3 or 4 movies. He says the Iraqi street vendors sell them for 1-3 US dollars. And since that's been pretty much the only thing he can buy (aside from cigarettes), he's buying a lot of them.

Kind of ironic, don't you think? :)

Har, ye bilgerat!

[macdaddy357]

Avast ye scurvy dogs! Bush can do his worst, and we will still be committing rape, robbery and murder on the high seas. Yo ho ho, and a bottle of rum!

What say ye? They want to fight unauthorized copying of vapor, an' they be callin' that "piracy"? Shiver me timbers, that's stupid!

Obligatory

[robotoverflow]

First U.S. High Level Anti-Piracy Post!

My suggestion to help

[zenray]

"Bush has tapped Chris Israel, currently deputy chief of staff for Gutierrez, to head up the administration's anti-piracy efforts."
This Chris Israel should fight ant-piracy by advocating the use of GPL software and push for the end of all proprietary software. No proprietary software to pirate sure sounds like a good solution to me.

PIRACY or PRIVACY?

[MobyDisk]

Did anyone else misread that as U.S. High Level Anti- Priv acy Post Created?

Re:PIRACY or PRIVACY?

[Anonymous Coward]

MISread?!?!

From TFA...

[sexybomber]

"Gutierrez got a personal glimpse of rampant piracy in China during a visit earlier this month, when he was offered the chance to buy a pirated copy of the newest Star Wars movie for $1 dollar, an aide said."

For fsck's sake, it's EITHER "$1" OR "1 dollar", you TROGLODYTES!

[/rant]

Sorry, that's one of my pet peeves. You'd think that as seemingly educated people, CNN wouldn't make that mis... wait a minute, this is mainstream media we're talking about here. Never mind.

My, that's ironic.

[Shag]

So, people who are basically in the last three groups on Earth any of us would honestly expect to have an interest in protecting our civil liberties - politicians, lawyers, and the military - are required to claim that they're going to do just that.

Nope, nope, I can't imagine why we're cynical. ;)

Not pointless at all

[tnk1]

The creation of an office to combat piracy is hardly going to be pointless or ineffective, necessarily. It just depends on what they are going after and how they go about it.

There are some important differences between a Drug War and a Piracy War. The one thing that the Drug War has done is drive up the street price of drugs. Now, for a drug interdiction effort, that's not necessarily going to be anything special, and may even increase violence because addicts are going to get increasingly desperate to get their fix no matter what the cost. Therefore you have to attack the demand problem, not supply.

Piracy, on the other hand, relies on keeping its prices cheap to function because there is a legal alternative method to obtain their goods. No one is going to buy a pirated copy of media which may lack features and is definitely illegal unless the price savings is compelling. Right now, the price IS compelling and that's why it is a problem. However, every percent that you narrow the price gap by making it more expensive to produce, and every obstacle you raise is going to cause more and more customers to the legal channels as they reach their tolerance for dealing with unlicensed vendors. Attacking supply and transport of pirated goods, therefore, can be very effective.

A US office in charge of this effort can have a significant effect on piracy if they gain the power to provide certain targetted incentives and cooperation to their counterpart bureaucracies in target countries like China. No invasions, secret agents, or dramatic moves are required. You simply need people who know the chokepoints for the piracy and then what screws to turn to squeeze those points. The way to get this knowledge is to employ knowledgable specialists, and to do that you will need a specialist organization.

Now they have the organization, it remains to be seen if the government can actually do the rest.

I'm no fan of the *AA's, but I think that running a full-on commercial business based on other people's work is shitty. While it's true that greed in a Media company's upper management will siphon some of any extra money from removing piracy, it won't siphon all of it. That remaining extra money can be used to take risks on movies or artists that are less formulaic, but potentially much more rewarding. Some filesharing can help new artists, but taken to an industrial extreme, can ultimately limit how far they can go if the money that could be risked on them is instead being collected by pirates. As sucky as the system is today, the recording industry reinvests a lot of money to bring out new music. The piracy business contributes nothing back to either artists or studios.

copyright infringement (NOT piracy) is good!

[Anonymous Coward]

Please don't call copyright infringement "piracy".

I am an American living in a third world country and I am amazed at how copyright infringement is a great cultural equalizer. While I enjoy downloading the latest television shows and movies without worrying about the RIAA/MPAA, there is something more subtle going on.

The p2p network makes freely available scientific literature and textbooks to places they wouldn't otherwise reach. As a teacher, I am able to recommend my students texts that they would not otherwise be able to read.

This is tremendously important and provides an educational infrastructure to poor countries where students and scholars just can't afford even $20 for a text that sells for $100 in the US. I am hopeful that the world outside the USA will never give up the cultural freedom of filesharing. And for the USA, if I ever move back I am going to try to get a VPN connection to run eMule in some third world country.

Re:copyright infringement (NOT piracy) is good!

[Luke-Jr]

What '3rd-world' country is this? I'm interesting in finding such countries w/o unjust laws to possibly move to...

Re: you're right but

[Red Flayer]

And any document written over 6,000 years ago was obviously planted by God to test our faith.

Re:And at that rate...

[sillybilly]

Is there a way to reward creativity AND the consumption of information, at the same time, instead of pitting one against the other? Such as being rewarded both for coming up with a good novel AND reading such a novel? Imagine if Euclid's Geometry was patented, and kids whose parents can't afford it, "can't touch this." Isn't it a loss to the world if someone isn't properly educated, or exposed to as much information as his interests can keep up with, and allowed to fully develop? A mind is a terrible thing to waste. In academia they used to let you freely read something, then write an essay to prove that you did, but these days you no longer get the stories on handouts, but you have to pay the extortionist class manual fees. If not yet, soon. Can't even resell your books to the next class coming after you, because it's mandatory to buy new ones. Soon it will be illegal to resell books. Soon it will be illegal to cite anything without making a micropayment, because everything will be owned. Not by the creators, but by a single entity, that buys up everything, and whatever you produce, you will have to sign over too, and disclaim even authorship, so that you can get a bit of food in return. And because a single entity will own and control everything, they will be the only ones making the profit too, hence perpetuating this state. When there is a single owner of everything, what's really different from dictators, royalty, and their divine right to be the rulers? Information democracy? No such thing.
A lot of the information economy is pitted on drug-like products - games, music, videos, porn - so you could make an argument that such consumption doesn't need be rewarded, but instead you should pay for it. What if the non-information economy centered around a drug economy too, or as some other countries had it, opium economy? The pure free market without constraints and interference and regulation doesn't necessarily regulate itself into some idillic state.
Then there are the music critics, and sports-writers like Ray Barone, where you couldn't say just cuz you enjoy your job, and it's like consuming drugs, it doesn't constitute education/work.

Question: Do they read /.?

[Spy der Mann]

That way they could yell
"First anti-piracy post!" and get +1 insightful! :D

How much?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just curious how much it costs a private group to have a high-level government position created to protect their groups interests?

oooh...

[Cryptnotic]

oooh... I like your sig.

Re:oooh...

[Sensible Clod]

You do know it's self-deprecating?

Re:oooh...

[Anonymous Coward]

did you read his sig before making that post?

MOD PARENT UP!

[Spy der Mann]

+1, Funny, thank you :)

Pissing on the rug

[gizmo_mathboy]

...but that rug really pulled the room together.

is it that hard?

[EmperorKagato]

Why is it so hard to lower prices, reduce production and reduce marketing to compete with piracy?

Consumers can only consume so much.

IP isn't just movies and music.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't understand how people on slashdot can be so short-sighted as to be angry that the US government is doing something to protect US companies. I know the Bush administration is hated (and rightly so for many things) but to simply dismiss this measure as government protecting their corporate patrons is shallow slashdot thinking at its worst. I understand that IP protection has become too restrictive in some areas (music and movies) and abused in others (patents) but China's abuse is just as bad in the other direction. Americans are employed by those corporations. Americans own shares in those corporations. Americans who aren't employees or shareholders still benefit from the taxes paid by those corporations.

China already has advantages in pricing because of their low labor and land costs (and the fact that they apparently don't have to follow labor or environmental laws), it is ridiculous for the US and other countries to just let China steal designs, patents, and other intellectual property. Letting a foreign competitor steal your designs and undercut you is economic suicide (we're already on that route, there's no need to hit the gas). It's another form of corporate welfare. China shouldn't get anymore help from us to slash our throats. Some slashdot folks have bandied the term China-bashing as a ready catch-all for any criticism of China but much of that criticims is very well deserved.

The Chinese stole and copied the entire design of cars and undercuts their foreign competitors. Consider http://www.autoblog.com/entry/1234000503040395/ The Chinese company even had the audacity to use a similar name as the car they ripped-off wholesale. Another Chinese car company did the same to GM. It's not only American companies they've stolen from, Hitachi and Samsung have launched high profile suits against their OEM suppliers for stealing designs.

Unfortunately, this move is too little too late. The US has to adapt even more to compete in this era of globalization.

Re:IP isn't just movies and music.

[Travelsonic]

The Chinese stole and copied the entire design of cars and undercuts

Well? Make up youtr mind man! Which is it? Stole, or copied?

Wishful Thinking

[seven5]

godddddd i hope he has an eye patch

Re:War of Foo! Man, that must be all that you do.

[axlr8or]

Copyright protection is dangerous. You are ignorant if you can't recognize the potential for abuse. There is a link at the bottom that will help you tremendously, and probably change your mind. While I do agree with you about pirated videos or music (because I don't really care that much about them anyways, and 20 dollars doesn't hurt) I don't agree with Hollywood or the government being able to put hardware restrictions and regulations in my computer which is what WILL happen. Just as much as you have no right to be in my computer, neither does the government. What you will find is this new 'anti piracy' czar will simply find that stripping computers of their usefullness will be the best resort. That will leave YOU wondering what that dialogue box means when it says, "Looking up authorization." when you want to play your own home movies. Software makers will then also be able to patent not just code (which is fine) but ideas and use. What does that mean? Suppose a big company makes a nifty widget on your computer, but some kid finds a better way of doing it and has written his own code. If he tries to market it, BAM, copyright infringement. This is BIG BUSINESS all the way. http://www.eff.org/

That's ok. We'll sell them all our IP

[Anonymous Coward]

to keep financing our consumer binge. By that point all our anti-piracy regulations will be so air tight, we won't be able to do to China what they're presently doing to us. I suspect that China is exceedingly pleased with our efforts to protect their future assets.

Intellectual property is an oxymoron.

[Jizzbug]

I've been saying it for years, and I used to think I coined the phrase. But a Google search reveals that there are others as brilliant as me that have come to the same conclusion:

Intellectualy property IS an oxymoron.

Re:Another Czar? Check this out

[axlr8or]

I like the information that Alex Jones digs up. I'm not in on the conspiracy theory (him and his collegues are nuts about it) but its a great place to research the way that the American bureacracy is changing and how there is an extremely high level of potential for abuse of our future. Well, besides whats already going on :D

GPL violations?

[lawpoop]

Will this office also go after violations of GPL and other open-source licenses?

Re:War of Foo! Well..

[Maxo-Texas]

More than 40% of our population has no health care. There is no national health care ( imagine if -everyone- had a basic $5,000 a year policy from the government for things like broken bones and so on- they wouldn't be slaves to big business then tho). Basic point- you get no benefit healthwise from those tax dollars. Oh yea, and many large corporations pay no taxes- their shareholders do pay some.

roads kept in good condition

Many of the new roads in my area are toll roads. So rich people get to use them but not the rest. Even better- they are now selling access to the HOV lanes for $6 a day (something only the rich can afford really).

and other quality of life issues...

But I agree with your basic point. The government has to collect SOME taxes to provide basic services. The problem is- it is mostly coming from the middle class these days while those making over $200k and under $30k are getting a lot of free services compared to their incomes.

What I don't get is.........

[axlr8or]

How these guys complain about piracy. Man, are you kidding? They have enough money to take care of their business, write lawsuites against piracy, and still pay actors/actress/musicians millions of dollars to be wierd. I think they are doing just fine. Do you think if they can fight piracy and win, they will reduce prices? Hehehe. For a lot of education, try this http://www.eff.org/

The US just can't help it...

[NeedleSurfer]

China -- where 90 percent of music and movies are pirate copies -- will be a chief priority

They have to declare enemy with someone, to identify some country, some people somewhere as the "evil", they just can't mind their own business, cause that's all it is, taxpayers money going toward helping business, monopolies and friend of the party in the US, disguised as a just cause.

OK, so let me get this straight.

[Evil Butters]

According to TFA, President Bush is very interested in stopping software, music, and movie piracy in China -- and is creating a new senior position to target global piracy and counterfeiting, which costs US companies billions.

At least for me, I am very interested in affordable health care, less pollution, better school systems, adequate road and highway infrastructure, and the ability to find a decent job that pays a decent wage. Too bad I don't have enough money to buy me some gov'ment! I guess the rest of these things will just have to take care of themselves somehow.

What's that up there?

[mconeone]

Above your head? You missed it... his point. Most statistics are garbage.

Whatever....

[SeaFox]

What's the point of creating a government department to fight international piracy that only has jurisdiction in the United States?

The only pirates they can go after are American citizens.

Re:Whatever....

[DragonTHC]

that is the point. in case everyone forgot, the DMCA made copyright infringement and "piracy" a crime. copyright infringement is no longer a civil matter in the USA.

Re:War on piracy? ?spelling?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you mean "war on PRIVACY" (and individual civil LIBERTY)?

Don't be silly

[commodoresloat]

The Czars will be successful. Czars are always successful. Just look how well they did in Russia.

Mod up

[geekee]

" Conservatives learned some lessons from the democrats some time ago. They stopped fighting for small government and fiscal responsibility because neither gets you so many votes."

Yhis is the only insightful post I've read, buried in hundreds of moronic posts by people who only believe in copyright enforcement when the GPL is under assault.

It really is not

[ScrewMaster]

the Federal Government's job to be pursuing intellectual property issues. If a company or individual believes that another organization or individual is violating their copyright ... well, they have the right to sue and recover damages. That's what copyright is all about. This idea that the private sector can conscript the power of the Federal Government to enforce private interests at taxpayer expense is just wrong.

Offshoring will DESTROY all anti-IP Piracy efforts

[Travoltus]

When the IP theft czar gets done, the pirates will only be able to steal IP from the offshored factories.

The thing is, that is where all the pirates are probably getting stolen IP from now.

Ever read up on the Chevrolet Spark and the Cherry QQ? Those two cars look alike. They are both sold in China and the latter was made from plans stolen right out of the plant that makes the former.

If Bush wants to stop intellectual property piracy then he needs to stop allowing that stuff to be offshored.

Otherwise it is all a simple matter of paying off the plant management staff, what with their pennies-on-the-US-dollar salary, to cough up an email of the blueprints.

And if you think anyone will be able to do anything about it, ask Cisco what they were able to do when their routers were pirated by Huawei Corp. Cisco abandoned the lawsuit because
a) Huawai is funded by China's government;
and b) Cisco's factories are in China, which could be shut down at any time.

Read more at http://in.tech.yahoo.com/031001/137/2858q.html

You may not think offshoring is a problem but as long as it persists, IP piracy will dip for a while as the US clamps down, and then IP piracy will centralize itself in China, with the help of the Chinese government, and IP piracy will go back to its usual blazing pace.

And the US will not sanction China because corporations depend on them to produce those cheap routers and DVD players.

Re:War of Fools

[vsprintf]

Typical American 21st-century politics: the endless lunatic cluster-fuck. Do try to make an effort not to get caught. And keep practicing your Spanish so that you can just leave when the ship sinks.

They speak Spanish in Canada? Maybe you're thinking of La Canada - that's in California, and still in the country (technically, anyway).

Big assumption

[EvilStein]

We'll be lucky if it's out by then at the rate things are going. ;)

Their Reply

[Frogbert]

Dear America

I would think that because you have such large American penises you would allow us a small amount of piracy, small like our Chinese penises. So please don't waste your energy fighting piracy when it could better be spent carrying around your huge giant penises?

Thanks
China

If they really want to do something...

[crazyphilman]

They should give Michael Caine a Coast Guard Cutter and a 50-cal. No more pirates!

MOD THIS UP

[EvilStein]

Pretty much says it all. CEOs gloat about "offshoring" and "global economy" but what's really happening is that the rest of us are just getting screwed so a few can make more money.
Look at all of these companies that have offshored US jobs to save money. Have the savings been passed along to the consumers? I dunno, my cell phone bill isn't cheaper and buying a copy of Quark sure isn't cheaper.

Thank goodness for that!

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

I was getting fed up of all those long-haired guys with tattoos in my neighborhood wearring gold earrings and bandanas.

Legal Saction against China

[layer3switch]

Why hasn't this ever considered as viable resolution to stop many problems we face today with China? Economical sanction against China may be difficult, but legal sanction against China would be feasible. Toughening up the export policy can do more damage than increasing tariff against China. Let it be crumbled like once Russia did. So many are blinded by the profit, policy makers are not presuring China as much as they should, in my opinion.

what about serious issues!

[mabhatter654]

What about serious issues like prison labor, totatarian regimes, or child slavery/sex abuse/labor crimes!!! Seriously, this only proves the administration has "jumpped the shark" as far a bending over to corporations.

These aren't our "do the right thing" republicans from the "regan" era. These are selfish WASP businessmen at their finest. Look what they're doing in Iraq.. they aren't giving them US-style constitution, but a "fixed" version that heavily favors "order" and businesses above individual freedom. This whole administration is a shame to the very ideals they "promise" to protect.

The second thing is that this is ENTIRELY un-rebublican... we have no business telling other nations how to run their countries. That was true when it was land mines, slavery, child labor, environment... so why is it so interesting now that it's "intelectual property"? [or going overseas for kiddy sex, or enemy combatant tourture!!!] That stance from this administration doesn't jive. They're more interested in "Piracy" overseas than americans tourturing foreigners on US owned property!!!

Overstated... considerably.

[Whyte]

"Funny how the government chose to prioritize piracy over adequate healthcare."

All the creation of a new cabinet post means is this. The other members on the cabinet were getting sufficiently distracted by the dull drone of single-issue, intellectual-property proponents, and asked the President to name someone to take the load off them. In a political sense, without some statement saying that this new post has some "special priority", it says nothing about a some kind of reprioritization.

And as a side note, no matter which healthcare system you live under - only the rich have adequate healthcare.

Both not true

[argoff]

The war on drugs has nothing to do with drugs. All those wonderfull laws about money laundering, and privacy, and search and seizure are very effective at keeping people from evading unjust taxes. But do very little to hamper drug use at all.

Also, the fact that the US exports intellectual property is not good. IP is not a just free market property right, and is more about controll over information than incentive. It is profitable for a few, but doesn't help the rest of us at all.

China

[TapeCutter]

"There is 6.4 billion people in China..."

Coincidently, there are ~6 billion people on the planet.... No wonder I am here in my study all alone. Why is everyone is in China? Are you guys planning a suprise party for me?

Re:China

[FriedTurkey]

Copied the wrong number from wikipedia. There are 1.3 billion people in China.

AYBABTU

[dormant25]

Motto of the Anti-Piracy Post?
Need I mention?
All your base are belong to us
-----

1.4 billion people in China

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ ch.html#People
but hey whats 5 billion between friends, they could still kick your ass even if it was a fist fight

Mod parent up

[Neva]

Valid and calmly presented points which could wake some people up. Please give the poster more visibility.

War on spammers should come first

[Neva]

US law is enforceable in US, that's why they should go after spammers first. Yes, some use infected machines or rogue ISPs on offshore servers but the spammers are effectively living in the US. With cash and hardware the government could confiscate.

It's just that there isn't a lobbyist driving that war (the answer to everything? right..), instead *IAA folks are very keen to preserve their flawed business model of charging for the same acquired item multiple times during it's lifetime and extending copyright to non-realistic lenghts, while developing protection that cripples legitimate use so that it actually encourages piracy.

Like a previous poster said, this will be just more corporate mongering on people's rights and tax dollars that could have been spent better.

well!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bush is the anti-christ. /. "To confirm you're not a script,
please type the word in this image"
Q: sweaty
A: Yes I am.

Re:Wow! communists?

[lymph]

Maybe it has something more to do with communism, and not just people unwilling to pay. Your talking about a people raised with no concept of intellectual property. It's all shareware (state owned, for our benefit) anyway, right? Maybe they don't realize that stealing 1's and 0's is bad.

did you see that duck? he had no pants on! and that mouse...are those nipples i see!

Your example makes no sense

[Vicissidude]

When most people in the civilized world see something they can't afford, they merely walk by and don't buy it. Those people then don't go running around, breaking the law to try to get it.

If you can't outright buy a DVD, then how about renting it like the rest of us. Certainly, the video rental stores have the money to purchase the newer DVDs. Even so, I myself certainly don't go out buying every DVD that I watch. Why should they have that right and I don't. Your justification is ridiculous.

Re:Your example makes no sense

[bayankaran]

So now we have to get into an argument on what is a 'civilized world'!

Most people in the 'civilized world' might use something called a 'credit card' to buy stuff they are unable to afford. I dont think 'they merely walk by' is what happens.

If you are an American just look at the credit card debt carried by US households and you will get an answer if your 'civilized world' merely walks pasts or actually swipes the card.

There are other social/economic factors for piracy of VCDs/DVDs I could've explained...I dont want to do that since your view of 'civilized world' is quite narrow.

Re:Your example makes no sense

[Vicissidude]

You seem fixated on this "civilized world" comment. When people in China break their own IP laws in order to steal software, CD, and DVD content, then that is definition of uncivilized behavior. These actions are worsened by the corrupt authorities who look the other way, although they know that these pirates are breaking the law. Their whole society condones the breaking of their own laws. That certainly does not sound civilized to me.

Most people in the 'civilized world' might use something called a 'credit card' to buy stuff they are unable to afford. I dont think 'they merely walk by' is what happens.

Let me tell you a secret about credit cards... You have to pay them back. That's right! It's not free money. Companies do expect you to pay them back at some point.

And since those people can pay back those credit cards, then those same people can also afford those goods.

Your points are meaningless.

Re:Your example makes no sense

[bayankaran]

I recently heard a BBC anchor lamenting 'how can these guys be terrorists, they were living in a civilized world' - which was till a few decades back (even now in some places) supporting or actively taking part in most of the horrible atrocities known to mankind. This was the stupidest and the most arrogant comment I ever heard in mainstream media. And your attitude towards the rest of the world is the same - we are civlized, you are not because you do this and this. Please remember I can give you a list of 500 items that show your world as uncivilized.

You seem to generalise the whole of Chinese as uncivilized as they break software or IP laws. Let me ask you one question - are you implying this does not happen in the west? Are all the subscribers to the earlier form of Napster or Kazaa or Limewire or Bittorrent Chinese or Indians?

And how can you say the whole Chinese society or Indian society condones the breaking of the laws? Where have you got first hand information - have you lived in China or India? Are you quoting main stream media?

Agreed there is piracy of DVDs happening from China. And I gave you a reason for that...which does not mean the society condones such a practice.

And law enforcement agencies in Bombay and Shanghai are not as well funded and with resources as the ones in New York or London. So the main priorities will not include cracking DVD pirates. And I have seen pirated DVD or software in 'your cities' too.

Your attitude reminds me of Mary Antoniette - if they cant have bread, why dont they eat cake. If they cannot afford the DVDs on sale, why dont they plainly walk away.

Everyone knows you have to pay back credit cards. But that easy availability of credit sometimes help people in buying stuff beyond their reach. Whether you get into financial trouble or not is different and we will see in the next few years how America copes with its household debt.

Re:Your example makes no sense

[Vicissidude]

You seem to generalise the whole of Chinese as uncivilized as they break software or IP laws. Let me ask you one question - are you implying this does not happen in the west?

No. Reread my statement. The problems were that they break their own laws and that the authorities look the other way. Their whole society condones the breaking of their own laws.

And no, this level of corruption does not occur in the west.

Are all the subscribers to the earlier form of Napster or Kazaa or Limewire or Bittorrent Chinese or Indians?

First off, not everything traded on these networks are stolen IP.

Second, these networks came around before the law was clear regarding the sharing of songs and movies on them. There was a significant legal question regarding fair use when these networks first started that has since been answered. In other words, it was not specifically illegal to share songs and movies on these networks when they first arrived. Therefore, the first users of these networks were not breaking their own law when they first used them.

And how can you say the whole Chinese society or Indian society condones the breaking of the laws? Where have you got first hand information - have you lived in China or India? Are you quoting main stream media?

You're the only one talking about India. I haven't said anything about them. My specific comments are targeted at China. Let me guess, are you Indian? Why are you getting defensive about India when I haven't said anything about them?

CDs and DVDs in China are sold on street corners for $1-$2 dollars a piece. A business can't survive without customers that purchase their goods. Factories are set up for the mass production of pirated goods. That makes for an entire industry based on pirated goods. Considering law enforcement ignores these pirates, that means that Chinese society does condone this behavior.

Agreed there is piracy of DVDs happening from China. And I gave you a reason for that...which does not mean the society condones such a practice.

Oh really? Someone is buying those CDs and DVDs. Someone is buying so many of them that they have street vendors sitting on the street corner selling them in broad view of the everyone, including the local police. Sounds like a large part of the population condones this behavior.

And I have seen pirated DVD or software in 'your cities' too.

Wow. I haven't. You've actually seen people selling this stuff on the street corner in the US? In front of the police? That's new. Where can I see this for myself? Can you take a picture?

Your attitude reminds me of Mary Antoniette - if they cant have bread, why dont they eat cake. If they cannot afford the DVDs on sale, why dont they plainly walk away.

There is a big difference here. People don't starve to death when they don't get a foreign CD. There is no penalty for walking away from the foreign CD or DVD.

People don't even have to give up music or movies since there are plenty of local CDs or DVDs. The problem only comes when someone wants a foreign CD. Your analogy is a poor one.

Re:Your example makes no sense

[bayankaran]

The problems were that they break their own laws and that the authorities look the other way. Their whole society condones the breaking of their own laws.

Your analogy is similar to the one about speeding...if there is a rule/law that states you should not do more than 60MPH and if you do more than that it is breaking the law.

Ask yourself does your whole society and the law enforcement condone the breaking of the speeding law? If yes to what extent it is uncivilized? How many are caught if they speed?

Those who are not sinners should throw the stones.

CDs and DVDs in China are sold on street corners for $1-$2 dollars a piece.

I think you are plainly wrong. I was in Shanghai for two weeks last month and my friends and guides were Chinese. I am yet to see a street corner that brazenly sells CDs and DVDs. I do agree they are available and touts approach you discreetly.

A business can't survive without customers that purchase their goods. Factories are set up for the mass production of pirated goods. That makes for an entire industry based on pirated goods. Considering law enforcement ignores these pirates, that means that Chinese society does condone this behavior.

Chinese society are passive bystanders to the so-called piracy that is happening...the same way your society is passive to what your government or your law enforcement agencies are doing on many occassions and instances far more dangerous and threatening to the world community that DVD/CD piracy.

Wow. I haven't. You've actually seen people selling this stuff on the street corner in the US?

Openly peddling on streets should not be the only criteria. Please remember DVDs/CDs are way overpriced in China or India. Let me know what happens in your street corners when a copy of Windows XP is priced at $1000 or a DVD of a latest film is priced at $190. Then I can give you policemen buying the stuff from streetcorners, webcams and photographs as proof.

People don't starve to death when they don't get a foreign CD.

You are offering an incentive for 'piracy' by severely overpricing a product which can be easily copied. Microsoft never bothers about piracy of its software in India except for the token raids or press releases by the Indian office. The reason - they want Indians to use their software and get comfortable in that so that they have a workforce in future. So even the organizations who lament about piracy are selective in what they want to enforce which is nothing but double standards. This is infact hurting the acceptance of the many flavors of open source software in India. Ditto with China.

Re:Here's my reality...

[DarkDragonVKQ]

One problem with that. All your companies are investing in China. That's why things are cheaper now. Bring them back to America and prices rise. People complain. etc..etc.

Not to mention your banking it based off of the assumption that China still needs the US. With India on the rise. Japan's interest in America lessening, etc..etc.. there may be a point where the US cutting off China won't do anything but hurt themselves as the world continues to trade with China.

Hey guys, you forget how the world keeps turning

[don_oles]

You must be thankful to pirates in russia, china, india, because of that piracy they finally have skill to produce the things for you (outsourcing). And the american goverment now wants them to pay full price for the work they did receiving for it 5-10 times less than they should. You want to tell that movies and music they do not produce? Hehe, guys, americans do it on chinese equipment. Purchase an IBM risc computer and only wrench will come produced in USA. It's a great influence of piracy on that that you finally have a cheap labour to outsource. That's how things in the world get interdepended.

In God you rust

[don_oles]

Yes, US is a very nice goverment. But with all the foreing aid for some reason they are not liked by people in other countries. Why? Great enigma. I am curious when you will realize that your "kindness" is not a real kindness. Hint: Europe did not accept software patents. Hint: you have the biggest military budget combined with the biggest debt. Hint: In God (all of you) you trust.

I really do not blame american party. That's the nature of humans to want more money at all cost, even by making copying of information "illegal".