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YouTube Hands Over User Info To Fox
An anonymous reader writes "Tech Crunch has an article about YouTube identifying and handing over a user's information after a request from Fox. 'Three weeks after receiving a subpoena from the U.S. District Court in Northern California, YouTube has reportedly identified a user accused by 20th Century Fox Television of uploading episodes of the show 24 a week prior to their running on television. That user, named ECOTtotal, is also alleged to have uploaded 12 episodes of The Simpsons, some quite old. Apparently Google and YouTube were willing and able to identify the owner of the username ECOTtotal, according to a report on InternetNews.com.'"
Don't be evil
- There's no place like 127.0.0.1
"Apparently Google and YouTube were willing" ... to comply with a subpoena from a US District Court. I think most companies would do the same thing.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
I began to wonder why this hasn't already happened.
"They said I probly shouldn't fly with just one eye," "I am Bender. Please insert girder."
If they were subpoenaed, they didn't have much choice. I hate the MPAA/RIAA/Studios as much as the next guy, but neither Fox or YouTube seem unrealistic here.
...unless a lawyer subpoenas you.
Really, when is this Slashdot love for Google going to die? This is a company whose founders contribute very little back of their wealth to charitable causes and instead choose to spend it on 747's with waterbeds and other such items.
OK, I post a youtube video of the goatse guy in action.
I guess this dissapears? Haven't tried.
OK, I post simpsons video, and the copyright owner says, stop it, and the video stays up (or down??) and then the user who submitted gets turned over to be turned into the goatse guy?
My point, is why can come content just dissapear w/o a problem, but the other is then escalated into a problem?
I see nothing bad about this. Obviously the Youtuber in question must have secret access to something! It very well could be someone in the company that did this...
"No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson
...trying to prove who the hell "ECOTtotal" is. Maybe it's changed, but I'm pretty sure an IP still doesn't equal a person.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
Fox shows aren't important enough to be uploaded. The funny ones will air on other channels.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Perhaps the rest will stop linking their personal information to accounts used in illicit activities. Privacy experts report that it's the simple things that get most people burned.
Darwin at work. Anyone stupid enough to put their real info and post copyrited stuff deserves to get caught. Anyone expecting any amount of true privacy on the net is just kidding themselves (except for the rare few who really go through the lengths required to do so).
Stupidity sometimes gets what it deserves...
Providing information in response to a court subpeona is very different than doing so "after a request from Fox."
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
People like to say all the time that downloading movies is not theft; it's copyright infringement. And that is true.
However in this case it is truly theft, because the 24 video was never in the public to "copy". This was outright theft of what is basically confidential data.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This is an obvious case of thieft and they have every right to plug the leak at their end. Posting episodes before they air has to be coming from their end so they have the right to locate and fire/prosecute the source. It has nothing to do with fair use it has to do with protecting their work. Advertisers can potentially cut funding and kill the series if they don't defend it. Youtube really has no choice since they'd be protecting the thief. Supporting the people involved harms those supporting fair use since it appears they are supporting outright thieft. A line has to be drawn and they crossed it in this case.
How/why would Google/YouTube have personally identifying information about a user anyway? (Or was the user stupid enough to not anonymize himself before trying this?)
I'll bet this turns out to be the cousin/friend/lover of a TV critic; they have access to advance copies that aren't supposed to get spread around. (Yes, it's happened before.) Something tells me the average Fox employee isn't bright enough to fire up his/her own browser.
Just because your username can be different from your real name doesn't mean that your actions are completely without consequences. Not that I have a lot of sympathies for either Fox, ECOTtotal, Fox viewers, viewers of the TV-show 24, people who upload copyrighted stuff to youtube, people who watch copyrighted stuff from youtube, or even people in general. But I do enjoy myself when corporate greed wins over stupid people.
> This is a company whose founders contribute very little back of their wealth to charitable causes
> and instead choose to spend it on 747's with waterbeds and other such items.
Sounds like they gave something back then, bet they made friends at Boeing at any rate and kept a few ordinary workers gainfully employed.
Getting involved in charities is something rich industrialists should NOT do until they retire from day to day operations, until then they are performing a far greater service to society by PRODUCING WEALTH. After they tire of working eighty hour weeks creating wealth and start feeling their mortality is the time to use their share of the wealth they created to leave monuments to themselves. And I'm good with that too, after all ya can't take it with you and leaving craploads of cash to your offspring is an almost sure fire way to destroy em.
Democrat delenda est
...when the name "ljrllkjlfjdals lkjaldsji3oj" at email address uolikjalj@lkjdfljks.com shows up on their use logs... (or some other random confluence of characters at account creation)
Why in the world would you have this video? I doubt 99% of those familiar with goatse are aware it exists, if it in fact does, and here you are talking about it in open conversation in an unrelated topic.
Just... odd.
It is not OK to take some licensed media and just upload if to Youtube. You fucking (/. editors) hypocrits will cry loud when GPL is violated but when somebody evidently pirates a copy of copyright protected Simpsons episode it is OK?
...on the Internet can lead to very bad or unexpected things for you or those around you. Just this week someone "anonymously" posting on a local newspaper online forum caused a mistrial in a multiple first degree murder and aggravated arson case where I live.
And unlike your experience on slashdot, talking like a big-shot always works!
Were you the torturer, or the torturee?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The problem lies in the fact that it had not been given away for free _yet_ . There are people that pay fox to give away the content so that people watching the content will see the commercials of those paying. Now, if half of the people who would have watched the show decide not to because they already saw it 12 days before it aired, then those people paying probably wouldnt. FOX stands to lose enough from this scenario that they will be coming after this person hard. The fact that it will be an inside source makes this more important for them to stop it as it will continue indefinitely, and all those advertisers will be chased off.
Now, after it has aired for "free", i strangely have no interest in these things being protected, as I watch it on VCR, or tivo, or one of many other devices (youtube) that can allow me to skip. There is the case of several ads that still get played while I am distracted with other tasks, or need a break.
unlike my actual experience in real counter-terrorism ops
Sorry, neihter reading Tom Clancy nor playing his games qualify as real, counter-terrorism ops.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Besides the fact that they like to sell DVDs, this is a case where the episodes hadn't actually aired yet. This is something that wasn't already given away for free. The really sad part is that you don't even have to RTFA to find this out, the summary tells you. Therefore I have concluded that you are a big idiot. But then I see you have foe'd me, so I will now return the favor so I don't even see your stupidity next time. HTH, HAND. Next time read the summary, bozo.
Let the retributive moderation from your homies commence!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Fox shows aren't important enough to be uploaded. The funny ones will air on other channels.
What's that got to do with 24, which is funny only unintentionally?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
However in this case it is truly theft, because the 24 video was never in the public to "copy". This was outright theft of what is basically confidential data.
That may depend on whether or not you consider an unencrypted satellite uplink transmission "in the public". First-run syndicated programming is often like this. Hell, I saw the first episode of Viper on my cable, without commercials, well before its premiere and well before I'd even heard of the show. I've even seen rough storyboarded commercials before they were finalized, in 10, 15, 20, and 30 second versions. (That may have been before our local CableVision become Time Warner Cable. I'd have to research the dates.)
I wouldn't expect network programming to be in the clear on satellite like that however. But then I don't have the hardware to pick up those signals.
However, reading the article (and the article linked to by the article), it appears to only be the first four episodes of 24 that were made available in advance, again pointing to someone getting ahold of the DVDs of the first four episodes prior to their street date (the day after the two-day premiere).
And this "ECOTtotal" probably wasn't even the ripper nor could identify who was. As reported, the episodes were available elsewhere before they were available on YouTube. So if they do succeed in tracking him down, he's screwed.
As others have pointed out, rental stores also got them early and some Blockbuster employees were permitted to rent them before they were made available to customers. So how public is public? A privileged group had access early, but who had the privilege was not under control of Fox. It just wasn't broadcast-televised.
(Huh, my Firefox installation's dictionary didn't include the word "ahold".)
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
The Uploader must be in a different time-zone to Washington DC so that 24 happens an hour earlier...
This is an obvious case of copyright infringment.
I'm not sure what you're getting at...
What he's getting at is the definition of "theft".
Theft has two elements:
- The bad guy gains the McGuffin.
- The owner loses the McGuffin. He doesn't have it any more.
There are other crimes where the bad guy improperly obtains something without the owner losing it. They are not "theft", because depriving the owner of his property has not occurred.
(Depriving the owner of much or all of the VALUE of his property may have occurred - which is typically why these non-theft crimes are similar enough to be confused with actual theft.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Clue for you all: 127.0.0.1 != "home". Stop embarrassing yourselves. Try "There's no place like ~", for example.
/home/FunkyELF/....I think what you're looking for is...
Actually, ~ != home either. ~ in my case is
There's no place like ~/..
or copyrighted ones, either.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Ah, I see, 24 was indeed un-aired, however;
I'm not sure why I foe'd you, but i'm sure it was appropriate.
:wq!
I spent seven years in the Army, and was a Sergeant. Now go back to your video games.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Why is it only thieft if they stole a physical disk or tape? The information is the same. It's more symantics than law. If he brought his own disk it isn't thieft but if stole one of theirs it's thieft? Well here's a brain bender, what if he did steal one of their disks? How the information was removed isn't known. People don't have the rights to everything, that isn't the law. If I make a video you don't have the rights to it the moment it's shot. In the case of 24 no one is asking you to buy anything. Put yourself out and actually flip on the TV. If it doesn't match your precious schedule buy a TiVo. There are options other than midnight raids on TV networks.
So why is it a problem to provide a copy of something that was already given away for free?
Two reasons:
- Shows like The Simpsons are payment to people like you for renting your eyeball time, to be sold to the sponsors. This is what pays for their creation and distribution. Showing it to you without the content owner's consent deprives the content owner of part of the value of his content.
- The first run of an ongoing cliffhanger-serial derives additional value from being a scarce resource - making it a bigger eyeball-draw. People actually go out of their way to avoid missing an episode, raising the ratings significantly. The commercials can be priced accordingly. Posting the episode in advance of the first showing reduces the legitimate showing to a rerun. (Some watch the posting and skip the air show. Others are aware it's available and skip the air show, confident that they can pick up what they missed from the net.) That kills the additional draw, reducing the audience, the ratings, and thus the money paid by the sponsors.
For something like "24" that's potentially a LOT of lost bucks.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I'm sorry, but you're not cleared to know that.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
(Some watch the posting and skip the air show. Others are aware it's available and skip the air show, confident that they can pick up what they missed from the net.)
Still others watch the feed AND the air show - but watch the air show with less attention since they've already seen it before. Less commercials get watched (as they take less care to be back in front of the screen before the show restarts after a break), and those that are watched are watched with less excitement/attention (since the show raises less adrenaline when the surprises and plot twists are already known). This also reduces the value of the commercial slots to the sponsors, which may again map back to less money for the network and studio.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The episodes were probably rips of the season premiere DVD that leaked before it aired (and were probably already on bit torrent and the newsgroups long before they were uploaded to YouTube). Why isn't FOX trying to go after the original hole on their end with this much effort?
If that's so:
- They still have to go after the actual posters. Publishing it widely is far more of an issue than merely getting hold of a copy and watching it or showing it to a few friends.
- Going after the poster may be part of chasing down the leak.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Everyone seems to ignore the fact that he was releasing the episodes weeks before broadcast. Meaning he wasn't just breaking copyright, but trade secret and probably contract requirements as well.
Yes. Nobody likes a snitch.
All these responses and we're still just arguing English semantics. The legalese is apparently quite clear. Pre-air distribution (besides being a breach of the Right to Distribute) is also a breach of the Right to Perform. Details at Bitlaw. Since the infraction is copyright infringement, it is not theft.
From an ethical standpoint and specific to the copyrighted material being discussed, the infringement on the Right to Perform is damaging to the copyright holder (FOX). It translates directly to a very real loss in advertising revenue. I don't see any issue with FOX going after this infringement, and I don't see how YouTube's refusal to cooperate would have been a good PR move. I fully support this guy being busted for pre-air distribution and I don't see that the law did anything unethical to bust him.
That being said, I hope we don't see FOX going after people for distributing the same episode after it has been aired, since I can't see such an infringement translating into real revenue loss for FOX.
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
offtopic mod is fair, but it is hilarious in an odd way.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
"~" is the User's "home"dir. Saying "~/.." is home is wrong because that would only work for users whose homedir is in /home/, and even then it would be more like a neighborhood, not a "home". FYI: Not all user accounts are in /home/WHATEVER! You must be new to Linux/Unix...
The other side of the theory is that everyone gets mugged, in some form or another, all the time. The important battle lines are drawn when people decide which types of mugging, perpetrated by whom, committed against whom, and done how often are worth chasing after.
Today's American society does away with those considerations and simplifies its choice to one criteria: convenience. Everyday muggers (P2P networks and common citizens) are much easier to shake down than billion dollar corporate marauders who have social and legal connections to make their prosecution significantly more difficult.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
Except there is no evidince to support that.
In fact, many items released before there scheduled release time to BETTER at the release time.
I know it's counter intuative, but there you go.
Example:
EmmnEmms biggest release weekend was the same album that had been downloadable from the new for a month before the sceduled release date.
There are many examples like that.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If the people at the pub agree with you when you talk politics.
Head for the hills!
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
It'd be pretty amusing if the original upload IP (even assuming it can be tracked) turned out to belong to an unsecured hotspot that covered the entire FOX headquarters.
Either the guy lives in a place with a negative timezone offset, has been affected by the DST bug, or was uploaded by a timelord.
The video was clearly labeled "-24". What does Fox want?
Go ahead ... tell him. You'll just have to kill him anyway.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
TO the best of my knowledge they have never gone after people who just downloaded, but people who upload. Distribution is where the crime is.
If the company who made your TV did so illegally, they don't go after you.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
in and confiscating all of their hardware
I'd love to see the looks on the Feds' faces when they show up to seize all of Google's servers.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
This comment was up to +5. It's come down to +3. That means there's at least two troll votes.
Troll does not mean "I don't agree with you" and using it as such is an abuse of moderation - not that the people "running" slashdot (into the ground) care any more, if ever they did.
Trolling is when you say something that you don't believe in order to elicit a desired response. I believe everything I said (the thing about the {RI,MP}AA lawyers was tongue-in-cheek but it contained a serious message) and not only that but it is also true. We're talking about a legal case here, thus we are talking about legal terminology.
The only question is, am I being downvoted by one of my serial downvoters, who is just following me around harassing me, or by an astroturfer, who saw my crack about the RIAA and MPAA and is trying to make my post less visible, or just by a random asshole who hates accuracy?
We may never know.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Someone leaked the episodes on usenet prior to this incident. The youtube guy wasn't an insider.
No, copyrighted and being distributed WITHOUT PERMISSION is correct. People make stuff that is copyrighted yet legally free/sharable.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
This was over the Fox show "24." The problem is not that Google complied with the court order, but that Jack Bauer is now going to kidnap the user for interrogation. Google is now complicit in torture!!
Ok so we already know the MPAA and big studios want their piece of the pie when it comes to people downloading, uploading and viewing pirated material. Obviously they've hit up people who have uploaded such content, but how long until they start in on YT, Google, etc for people who viewed the material? We all know there's someone up in their corporate office thinking "Man, millions of people saw this commercial free, illegally, they should pay some sort of cost to see it." Is it just a matter of time till we see these studios do something like this?
Aw Frell this
That's a shame. So the guy posted some episodes of a TV show on YouTube--mind you from a TV station that doesn't require Cable to watch. C'mon News Corp-- it's not like you don't give away FOX for free anyway. If I didn't have Cable, I could watch FOX all I want without paying you a penny--so when this guy promotes your free-to-watch shows... meh. I could understand it if someone posted an episode from a station like HBO that requires Cable to watch. But it's not. That's horrible. As for Google... why in the world did you give them this guy's info? You took the videos down. You did what they wanted. I thought you weren't evil. Honestly, what ECOTotal did was not anything out of the ordinary. Just hope the guy doesn't get in any legal trouble.
Hey there travelsonic, you missed it big time.
Is it "copywrited" or "copyrighted"? I really don't think we're talking about writing advertisements here, but you be sure and jump in here and correct me if I'm wrong--just like you did last time without understanding the point.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Another comment addresses why this is even being discussed. You're right that 127.0.0.1 is localhost. You're wrong about it being called the "http callback interface." Its the "loopback interface" and has little to do with http, other than the fact that you can reach locally run http services over it.
Awww shit, it was a long day... sorry. :P
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Re:you're wrong about it being called the "http callback interface." Its the "loopback interface" D'oh! typo on my part. I lie forever disgraced in the eyes of /. ;-)
Good catch. Too little sleep, not enough caffeine.
It's definitely != home unless the person using it has somehow found a way to reside in the various daemons that listen to the loopback.
Duane
(reeling from jetlag)
"Question everything, including this!" - http://technoracle.blogspot.com/
Especially when you would be shielding someone who had unlawfully obtained and then posted materials protected by copyright.
That would probably make you guilty of aiding and abetting or some such....
Bands have started to have this shit happen too -rough, often incomplete or crappy mixes are surfacing on the net. I believe something like this caused one of Beck's album to have a rush release to try to keep the inferior versions from gaining ascendancy and so as not to lose the inertia of the buzz of the initial product release.
Not that it's more defensible morally, but at least with final releases you are presenting the artist's fully realized vision instead of some rough sketch. Studio cuts vs Director's cuts of films would be the exception to this case.
I'm just sayin'
So, 24 and the Simpsons are on FOX. I have an antenna on my roof to get local channels. I've paid nothing to watch these shows.
So why is it a problem to provide a copy of something that was already given away for free?
It's not given away exactly. It is aired prime time when commercial ad time is at it's highest. That's what pays for the show you can watch for free off the air. Here we are, the cost paid for by your friendly sponcers for a 30 second spot. The show is 42min, leaving room for 36 spots which were sold for close to $300,000 each in 2003. That works out to be about 10 million. I don't know what the present value is, or how much the network affiliates charge for their local commercials, but it's big money.
Given it's a fact that the value of showing an episode for the first time results millions of dollars revenue, those who take the show and release it early, that seriously affects viewership, and affects the value of the ad-time.
"after" it's aired, the value of ad-time does go down, and one can argue that copies floting around encourage people to watch a show during prime time, which would increase the value of these spots. But taking it before it's aired, without a doubt, does do the networks, producers, and advertisers harm.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Conspiracy no, business yes
Because 99% of their users don't give a shit if they can post anonymously or not. They just want to be able to share the video of them teasing their cat.
You beat me to it.
This is not the signature you're looking for.
Ha, just think... I've been trying to click on the little house all this time. Stupid GUI... ::rambles off::
Stealing is 'wrong' regardless of its purpose. However, it may be a 'wrongness' that Heinz is willing to live with considering the consequence of not stealing.
Should Heinz have stolen the drug? sure.
Should Heinz be required to make restitution for his crime? absolutely.
Was the druggist's action morally right? not enough information: What did it cost him to develop the drug? Has he paid for that yet? If he gives in to Heinz's request, he probably won't starve, but if he gives in to every one whose wife is dying and can't pay, he will. How should he choose?
It seems odd that he wouldn't accept the man's debt in return for the drug, but the nature of the drug has also not been fully revealed: Is it a one-time course of treatment, after which Heinz would be able to pay him back? Or is it a lifetime thing, such that Heinz would never be able to pay him back no matter how earnest?
This situation is tragedy precisely because of the clash of moral values and righteousness: there is no way out for Heinz or the druggist. There are no actions for either of them that are 100% morally good.
Does this analogy even relate to the discussion of copyright violation? Probably not. No one will ever come to bodily harm from not watching a particular episode of a particular show.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
No, you see, you're talking about what some group of people lobbied some other group of people to write on a piece of paper, leading to its enforcement by threat of violence. Whereas I'm talking about a concept which has existed for as long as property has existed.
And that is why you are wrong - I am talking about a more fundmental use of "theft". The person taking this from Fox has in fact taken away from fox:
The right to first air
The right to decide to make public at all
The right to refine and alter before presenting
These are the fundamnetal rights of a creator, well outside law. Your attempt to figure out what "theft" means "to you" is meaningless, because something is really being stolen here regardless of how you want to label the act.
It is far different than copyright violations that we see mislabled as theft, and you seem to lack eitehr the moral compass to understand the degree of loss or the deeper understanding of just where the line is for true ownership of intellectual property.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But what we call it is just a name.
What we call it is just a name. The effect is has however is not just a name, but a real effect. What I am saying is that there is a fundamental and huge difference (especally morally) between the guy at home downloading 24 episodes after they air, and the person who obtains episodes of 24 before they go public and releases them.
I don't care what you call it either; but I want to see this person punished whereas I do not think harm should come to those downloading TV or movies already aired.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How do the bits that make up an episode of 24 having been "confidential" make this any more or less of a copyright violation? If anything, I am in the school of thought that says prior to publication a work's author does not enjoy a cause of action for copyright infringement because prior to publication the bargain of publication in return for a government-enforced "right" (monopoly) on copying has not occurred.
That is exactly my thinking behind not lableing it a copyright violation. Until publishing the author has not entering into the public contract we consider copyright and is instead just private data.
Worse, currently copyright law (you know, the stuff bought and paid for by corporations like Fox) makes unpublished works enjoy a longer copyright term than published works.
Why is that part worse? That part is excellent, if you want anything to do with privacy laws. Why should people be forced to turn over private journals or sketces to the public after a short period of time?
I also think "ral" copyright extension have gone way to far. But as far as I'm concerned if I paint or write something and choose not to make it public, it should be able to go to my grave with me unless there is some compelling public need to see what I have created.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Never, ever give out your real details to anyone who doesn't need to know them.
Always use made-up names, addresses and other personal details when registering for an account with any on-line service -- and don't use the same details twice. If you're looking for an address, there's at least one Catholic church in almost every city in the world.
Remember: Nobody needs to know where you live unless they want to visit you. Nobody needs to know your e-mail address unless they want to send you e-mail. Nobody needs to know when you were born unless they want to send you a birthday card. Nobody needs to know how much you earn unless they are going to lend you money and want to know how soon you can pay it back. Nobody needs to know what is between your legs unless they want to shag you. Nobody needs to know if you are a vegetarian unless they are going to invite you for dinner. In fact, to give you service down a wire, the only thing anyone needs to know is your IP address; and if they managed to send you the form requesting your valuable data, they already know that.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I'm gonna petition for an extra option in my profile: Alongside "Hide signatures" I want "Hide discussions involving seemingly witty signatures but then generate more offtopic posts than Custard recipies on an article about the Pope."
People with more balls than to post as an anonymous coward.
Oh noes! My supermarket is stealing from me! And here I thought that a voluntary exchange of goods and services for money was capitalism! Help, help, I'm being repressed!
/. but I don't think consider my employer or the supermarket as stealing from me- I'm entering into a mutually beneficial arangement with both of them. Just because they benefit too doesn't make it stealing. I don't even consider the government as stealing that much from me- certainly some of the government is wasteful and provides me no benefit, but I'd still rather live in America than most of the rest of the world, and paying taxes is just a condition of living here.
I don't know about most people on
Furthermore, just because Bob steals from you, that doesn't give you the right to steal from Frank.
While you are correct that copyright isn't a Natural Right (like life or liberty) free music isn't a Natural Right either. You don't have a 'right' to freely copy music any more than the record companies have a 'right' to stop you from doing so. And stop equating capitalism with theft- that's even more stupid than calling copyright infringement theft.
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
As if we needed any more proof that the staff of slashdot does not care about the moderation system... why do we even have the fucker?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There's a chasm of difference between a Snake Eater and a REMF
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Battlestar Galactica has already done this. They made sure that both in Canada and the US, it airs exactly at 10pm EST, *only*, and no other timezones get it earlier or later. That means 7pm PST. They moved it to Sunday 10pm, so that most people that want to watch it before the weekend is done, on tv. It used to be that you could torrent the BG episode sometime during Friday midnight, because in the US is was aired on Friday I guess, and in Canada on Saturday. Anyway - one way of circumventing early downloads and torrents, is to move popular weekly episodes to Sunday night.
Death penalty for speeders while we're at it?
Now I don't support the death penalty, but why is it a man who drives dangerously (drunk, over the speed-limit, in an unsafe car etc) receives a lesser sentence if he doesn't hit someone than if he hits and kills someone? There is definitely no difference in his intent. Surely the difference between killing someone and not killing someone while driving dangerously is purely random -- whether there's someone to kill or not. As such, there isn't even any difference in action on the part of the driver. How can we convict someone for something so clearly random?
But back to the topic:
But you don't really think that copyright infringement and mugging share a common moral space, do you?
I don't think anyone would really equate the two, but what would be a suitable comparison? To be entirely fair, it'd have to be something that is as argued over as intellectual property so there'd be no point in the comparison as it wouldn't progress the debate at all.
Now, most (sane) people prefer non-violent crime to violent crime. Is that to say that violent crime is "more wrong" than non-violent, or simply "more undesirable"?
NT.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
uh huh. So, I'll just ignore my actual experience in Infantry and Engineering units while you whine.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Thanks for posting an obvious comment in support of my argument. Since you seem to be agreeing with me now, does that mean that:
A. The post I replied to first was sarcasm/exagerration, or
B. You're being sarcastic now?
You are reading a copy of my copyrighted post.
Comparing both is starting from the wrong premise.
If they were the same, we would not have completely different bodies of law to deal with to deal with theft and copying stuff whose rights are assigned to somebody else.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
There's no place like localhost? I don't get it.
"If your parents never had children, chances are you wonât either." -Dick Cavett