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Why Web Pirates Can't Be Touched
gwoodrow writes "Forbes has a brief article about, essentially, the ultimate futility of fighting online pirates. From the article: 'As the world's largest repository of BitTorrent files, ThePirateBay.org helps millions of users around the world share copyrighted movies, music and other files — without paying for them ... That's illegal, of course — at least it is in the U.S. But when Time Warner's (nyse: TWX — news — people ) Warner Bros. studio accused them of breaking U.S. copyright law in 2005, the pirates gleefully reminded the movie company that they didn't live in America, but rather in the land of vikings, reindeer, Aurora Borealis and cute blond girls.' The article also touches on the many YouTube clones and AllofMP3.com."
...there aren't enough experienced online ninjas.
u-bend
It assumes that copyright law around the world will not eventually be in line with U.S. copyright law as per the wishes of the *AA
...it's because they all listen to MC Hammer. Without DRM, of course.
the land of vikings, reindeer, Aurora Borealis and cute blond girls.'
North Korea?
There should be a moderation category "Dumbest Comment EVER"
at least remove the stock ticker info when copying?
At some point the US will get pressured by the RMIA which will in turn force there home country to Hand them over to the US, It happened with the blogger from AU.
"the record labels have launched a lawsuit, asking for $150,000 for each stolen file, totaling $1.65 trillion [against allofmp3.com]"
How on earth can these people justify that figure? It's just insane, I hope the shit goes hard in the bastards
....
Should I point out thepiratebay doesn't really host any copyrighted material or did that argument get old already?
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
BYTE ME
"Printer friendly" version.
It's also much more eyeball-friendly.
Suppose I decide not to buy a CD, but a DVD instead. My decision has deprived the CD manufacturer of money. Have I stolen anything? No.
Suppose I decide to produce a CD of my own. Many people choose to buy my CD instead of somebody else's. I have deprived that other CD manufacturer of money. Have I stolen anything? Again, no.
There are many ways to deprive people of money. Not all of them are stealing. Not all of them are even illegal.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
That sort of touching! I was thinking either the pirates were very ticklish or there were sanitary issues involved.
Please note for future reference
FTA:
From June to October 2006 alone, the Recording Industry Association of America says that 11 million songs were downloaded from the site. AllofMP3 claims those sales adhered strictly to Russian law, but that doesn't satisfy the RIAA; the record labels have launched a lawsuit, asking for $150,000 for each stolen file, totaling $1.65 trillion.
I'm sorry, did they say $1.65 trillion? The RIAA is off their rocker for sure. That much money is going to have to involve a war.
If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.
At least grow some spine, and log in when you post such drivel.
But could you please justify and explain the statement you made: "You did deprive them - of money."
Please cite your references and explain any statistics quoted in your explanation. Please also quantify how much money the **AA have been deprived of by TPB. Please do this so that we can forevermore trust that the **AA member companies declining revenues and train-wreck-about-to-happen business model is doomed because of TPB and others like them.
If you can prove that this is driving the **AA member companies out of business beyond any doubt, I will start downloading music and movies illegally to help ensure a quick end to the **AAs of the world.
Thank you
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
What irony if they had just said... "we live in the Land of the Free, not the U.S."
(note to those who refer to the USA as America. America is not a country)
Honestly, who is really loosing out on pirating? Some would argue the musicians are. Last I checked Metallica (oops just violated the DRM, thought about them without having a license) STILL makes more money than any pirate. If the group is small all they should care about is that their music is getting more exposure. Some would argue the movie industry. I wont even go into the elevenity billion dollars the studios are still making despite pirating. If they would make more of a effort to get the movie to DVD quicker there would be less pirating imho. Who wants to take the chance of blowing 50$ (without snacks) for your family to see a movie that sucks, which quite a few now days do. Really though, when did the entertainment industry stop being about entertainment, and more about milking every cent out of it they can.
The **AA could try paying danegeld.
[Insert pithy quote here]
""Forbes has a brief article about, essentially, the ultimate futility of fighting online pirates."
So basically pirates will never suffer the "effects" (as in cause and...) of their actions. How about the "effects" as it relates to the innocents caught in the cross-fire?
"the pirates gleefully reminded the movie company that they didn't live in America, but rather in the land of vikings, reindeer, Aurora Borealis and cute blond girls."
I'm moving. Vikings, blonde girls, AND pirates? Irresistible!
Just admit that when you accept payment for your work, you're stealing from your employer.
so has anyone said how much money is lost by this. i know i would be pissed if i was a multimillionaire and i could not afford another ferrari or mansion for my collection. now they are going to have to rough it.
If I didn't have any intent to buy it if I couldn't aquire it otherwise (no good torrents, perhapse), then I didn't deprive them of anything at all. Now, there are legal (and moral?) issues with copywrite infringement - I'm not defending it - but in all honesty the copyright holders are not losing anything in a good majority of the cases. My only real defense to things like the Pirate Bay - in countries like the US - is that I am not willing to give up my legal abilities to share non-copyrighted information just to defend some pricks who have plenty of other options to defend their dying business model. Sorry, I get kind of infuriated when people post nonsense backed by stupid logic.
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
Just admit you're murdering. I would have so much less a problem with it if you didn't go down the "being an jerk is not murder since I didn't deprive anyone of life". You did deprive them - of years of happy life. If at least you'd admit it, I wouldn't care so much. It's just the stupid logic you guys use that is so infuriating.
It wasn't AUH though, so it'd make a lousy story submission as is.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
Surely two countries have gone to war for less than $1.65 trillion. On a side note, let's not forget that Russia has oil. [and don't call me Shirley]
Yea there were days when nations would go to war over just a few billion. But now it has to be at least a trillion.
Understood as the cost of war itself in in the hundreds of billions a year, so you do risk losing your investment if the war goes on too long.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
How much of that cost would be paid even during peace time, many of the solders would still be solders, and most of the equipment would still be owned, so I'm not sure that you can attribute all of the costs of war to the war (I think the key question is, "is having a military a sunk cost for a country?").
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
Thank you Forbes! I didn't know about "sites like Alluc.org, VideoHybrid.com, Peekvid.com, TVlinks.co.uk and YouTVPC.com"!
If it's real, it's only a matter of time before it's shut down, regardless of where it's based.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
Okay, TPB doesn't host any pirated content, it merely points to pirated content. The *AA contends that's still bad. Whatever.... But what about Forbes? They just told me about all these other sites I didn't know about. Forbes just provided me a directory to illegal content. Doesn't that open them up to lawsuits? Journalistic freedoms don't apply when aiding a "crime?"
"You're not balancing your internal energy with the environment." -Gary Busey
Didnt Dubya go to war for 30 pieces of silver?
but that doesn't satisfy the RIAA; the record labels have launched a lawsuit, asking for $150,000 for each stolen file, totaling $1.65 trillion.
:(
Wait, someone's giving free trillions? I want one, where do I get it? Are there any left? One trillion, come on!
Damn it
Because "stealing" is illegal in the US, the US govt could make laws to prevent credit card companies from processing transactions involving the purchase of these illegitimate MP3's (allofmp3.com). Didn't the US just pass laws to prevent such transactions for the offshore gambling websites?
However it's not actually stealing. It's copyright infringement. And unlike gambling, copyright infringement is not illegal.
That's why it's illegal for me to use my Mastercard to gamble online, but I'm free to use it to buy from AllOfMP3.com. There really is nothing the govt can do short of forcing ISPs to block the IP range of these "pirate" websites. Do we have a politician stupid enough to even attempt that legislation? Something tells me that in California, we do, and it's just a matter of time.
Interestingly, the estimated GDP of the entire Russian Federation in 2006 was $1.727 trillion using the purchasing parity power scale; nominal GDP is even less at $979 billion in 2006 [1]. Somehow, even if they win, I don't think the RIAA is going to be collecting on that bill anytime soon.
A fair part of it would be, no doubt about it, but one of the big costs of a war is getting all that stuff that soldiers need to the war zone. A modern army has a long tail and almost all of that stuff is both heavy and consumable. Add to that the fact that you have to replace equipment at a faster rate (especially in desert environments with fine dust-like sand like Iraq and Saudi Arabia), you're going through a lot more ammo than you would in a peacetime training environment and the fact that you're having to pay your soldiers hazardous duty pay and a lot of little costs really start to add up. Especially if you're granting no-bid contracts to your buddies.
That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.
I really meant that in the sense of, "If you want to collect that kind of cash (i.e., 12.5% of our 2006 GDP), you'll have to come over here and take it yourself."
If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.
It's not stealing based on one assumption, that every single person that downloaded would not have purchased at the rate set by the copyright holder.
In the heyday of Napster my father downloaded every piece of music he could find. He is your Joe Blow six pack user, and in todays market he purchases legally via itunes. Given the choice he would always choose to download the free copy, but when that avenue is removed from him he purchases.
That is lost revenue in any sense of the word. Sure there will be comments made that it's not theft, which is a grey area of interpretation. If you could confidently say 100% of the people download would not have purchased anyways, you are correct. But if even 1 person would have purchased except for the option of download for free, they have lost revenue and it could be construed as theft.
WTF? What idiots modded this insightful? what do you not understand. Nobody cares if you buy a DVD instead, or if you make your own CD, its when you take the CD AND USE it and do NOT pay for it, that we have a problem. It's really not complex. If something is priced at X dollars by the person who made it, and you want that thing, you PAY for it or you don't have it. Anything else is just a load of pseudo-intellectual waffle to justify taking other peoples hard work for free.
Why is this concept so beyond otherwise intelligent people? because they will rationalise any bullshit if it lets them take stuff for free.
Be honest. Your taking stuff and not paying for it, because you think you wont get caught. Any other debate on the issue is just window dressing.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
And you consider the act of creating your own CD (learning to play music, recording, distributing) morally equivalent to copying the bits from somebody else's CD?
The problem is Forbes is a business magazine (shill ?). To them everything not being bought at full price is stealing.
Allofmp3 operates under Russian laws and operates by the letter of the law. We should not be trying to influence the worlds by having them follow our laws.
The RIAA is pissed because it can't collect from the agency over there. It is not Allofmp3's problem it is the RIAA's problem. Deal with it like a normal company would , don't buy try and buy the people to fight your battle with my tax money ! Use your own damn money.
With today's global economy, we outsource all these tech jobs, why can't we outsource other things over the internet as well ? Or is this global economy only so business can make more money off the little guys.
Bunch of BS spewing lawyers will lead to the downfall of the USA. All hail King BUSH !!!
This package Does Not Contain a Winner
Wow.
It's not inevitable; it's already old news.
Time and again it's been proven that one can never "erase" anything or "ban" anything from the Internet. There's no way around that. When will the media and big companies start dealing with that? Another 20 years down the road maybe?
*pinky finger to mouth*
WTF is a bloody stock symbol doing in a /. summary?
But when Time Warner's (nyse: TWX -- news -- people ) Warner Bros. studio accused them...
It's annoying enough to trip over them when reading mainstream US news sites. Can we please keep them away from Slashdot? If I need the stock symbol for a company I either already know it because I'm an investor and it's my job to be elbow-deep in such arcana, or I can Google for it. If you really want to add it, use a bloody hyperlink instead of making the text unreadable with parenthesised shit.
Given that you can get a CD on iTunes for -- what -- $10? Seems like they are asking for 15 THOUSAND times more money than they're owed, assuming they're owed anything at all.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
as valid.
not only every country's representatives are presold suck-ups to big buck. surprise, surprise, RIAA member crooks, you might have bought laws in united states for harassing "the people", who are the reason united states was founded for, but, look, your walled does not leverage any weight in many other countries. oh you poor riaa crooks you.
Read radical news here
Fine sand in Iraq and Saudi Arabia ! No way , the army recruitment center told me it was like Miami Beach there. And he even said I could play FPS games all day and night !
This package Does Not Contain a Winner
RMS is a bit rabid for my tastes, but he does make a point to be precise about language, and refuses to talk to people who won't be similarly precise.
So: It is NOT theft, or stealing. It is copyright infringement.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
It would be hilarious if they did try to collect that 1.65 trillion. I can just imagine it:
AllOfMp3/PirateBay/et al: "We don't charge anything near that for our service, we just make enough on ad banners to justify paying for most of our server accounts and bandwidth"
RIAA: "Then we will force you all into servitude for the rest of your lives, and your children's lives!"
AllOfMp3/PirateBay/et al: "But we're geeks! There's a very high likelihood that we won't ever have kids!"
RIAA: (thinking) "Hmm...this may be true, and if it is, we'll probably only be able to collect on several million, and that's nowhere near 1.65 trillion...guess we'll have to go back to backdooring college kids and grannies computers again, and up the ante to 150k per file"
The scariest, yet most hilarious, thing about that is that from all indications, that could actually happen. (I say hilarious, because it shows exactly how insane and out of touch with reality the RIAA really is)
But if even 1 person would have purchased except for the option of download for free, they have lost revenue and it could be construed as theft.
Using that logic, anytime I purchase something for a price cheaper than the absolute maximum price I'd be willing to pay, that's theft b/c the seller has "lost revenue". I hope you don't use coupons or buy one get one free b/c by your definition that's theft.
I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
Minnesota defies it's stereotype. It's not that bad of a stereotype, though, so I won't argue. And like many stereotypes, it's based on some truth.
www.cgstock.com
It's because they be got web scurvy!
Arrr! I told ye to eat your fruit!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
you typed this:
you probably meant to type this:
it's a pretty common mistake, those keys are so close together. i accidentally type that all the time.
sarcasm:
-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
I have no issues paying the musicians, and do so in a heartbeat whenever possible. But I always think twice before paying a record label anything.
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
The RIAA is waging a war, yes?
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
This is insightful? Its not theft it they weren't using it anyway? There might be an argument made for why stealing IP isn't wrong, but this isn't it.
Unless of course, you don't mind if I stop at your house while your out and grab all the stuff you weren't using anyway?
so you only listen to music from indie bands? or do you 'overrule' those bands that you like who chose to sign a record deal? Or do you pirate the music but send cash in the mail to the bands?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Artists are really caught in the middle at this point. The organizations that claim to represent their interests have violated the public trust and the public interest, by extending copyright into perpetuity. They have thus destroyed the basis on which copyright is granted in the first place. The social contract is broken, and thus, natural rights take over. The natural right of free speech. This is not a case of not liking their distribution license, they have cast off the right to even bargain such points. Artists must (and many are) divorce themselves from the organization that have created this situation if they wish to regain legitimate right to copyrights. For it is now broken.
However it's not actually stealing. It's copyright infringement.
No. It's not. In Russia, the law allows allofmp3.com to operate by making use of a compulsory licensing scheme, not unlike what the copyright board wants to foist upon internet radio (though, in that case, the costs are absolutely outrageous, and intended to shut operators down). So, allofmp3.com pays some fee to the Russian copyright whozits, and thus they are allowed to operate legally. Calling this "stealing" or "copyright infringement" is plain and simply wrong, and author of the article is clearly showing their bias by reporting it as such.
It's not pseudo intellectual. Theft requires you to actually take something from someone, and deprive them of the use of that thing. "Piracy", as it is today online (and perhaps incorrectly termed), is making an exact copy (or, frequently, an inferior copy; if it was superior I think that's called "competition") of something.
Now, let's use the slashdot car analogy. If you made a car, and then I came along with a technology that can exactly (or almost exactly) produce a copy of that car by pointing a little device at it, result would be that you have a car and I have a car that looks almost, if not exactly, like your car. I haven't deprived you of anything, so it isn't theft.
This is of course why the legal fiction of "intellectual property" has become such a hot topic in the last 10 years or so. The feeling is that if I made something, under the "old" commercial system, in order for someone else to get that thing (during the tenure of my patent or copyright), someone must pay me for it since I am the only one who knows how to do it, has the equipment to do it, employ the people who have the knowledge to make it, etc. But now with digital things, anyone with the proper tools can make a copy and not have to pay me for it. Now, while that must suck, I've yet to understand why people feel entitled to make money from "stuff" they have. Enter DRM, which attempts to make people unable to make their own from "my" original. The result of this is the folks that put images on public webpages and then get mad when people copy them straight from the webpage (now, the cases where someone takes a piece and represents it as their own original work fall under copyright, which I tend to be more sympathic to, but wish the Sonny Bono Act never happened; plus that's just lame), leading to all those silly Javascript tricks on images to try and prevent right-clicking.
Sure, in an ideal world we'd all make little things and buy them from each other, and all would be well. However, that's not how it works in the world of digital stuffs. The artificial scarcity that makes physical goods producers able to (to an extent) manipulate their asking prices is, by the nature of the medium severely limited. Yet, online content producers find ways to make respectable livings without silly DRM schemes. The key is, of course, to offer something people want at a price they are comfortable paying. There's lots of ways to do this. However, pricing Photoshop at $700 for a single license (and wondering why everyone and their brother copies it instead of buying it) probably isn't the best way to do it (for one example).
In short, no, it isn't theft unless you change the meaning of the word. Like the pony express, if a company can't adapt their business practices in the face of new technology, they're gonna go out of business. No one is entitled to a profit.
and the way you supprot and encourage this is to BUY the music from the bands who have gone independent and sell direct. make them such success stories, that they tell their fellow artists that they do not needs a record deal at all, but can do the same thing themselves.
I wish people would do this. heck, i wish people bought my games direct rather than through yahoo, which takes half my money. But I suspect that 99% of people using sites like those described do so because they can take stuff for free, and reckon they wont get caught. Until people who want copyright and music industry reform actually start lobbying the hardcore pirates not to distribute copies of independent bands music, this will never change, and musicians will rightfully feel that the pirates dont give a shit.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
I agree. There's a difference between the legal definition of "theft" and the general use of the term. We might say someone "stole my seat", "stole my girlfriend", "stole my joke", "stole my job", or "stole my song". None of these imply the criminal definition of theft, that someone broke into your house and ran off with your joke or your girlfriend.
It's kind of inflamatory, and it's certainly rhetoric to call unauthorized use "theft". But it's meaningless to point out it's not really "theft" under the law (which is a state law and can vary from state to state anyway).
Judge Mark Wernick of Minnesota District Court ruled as such in a lawsuit filed against me for calling a corporation's use of my photo in their phone book ad "intellectutal property theft". They claimed defamation because they didn't break into my house and steal the photo (they just swiped it from my website). They did not prevail on that point, although the case isn't resolved yet (Vilana Financial's copyright infringement).
www.cgstock.com
How is that possibly equivelant? In both cases no one is being unwillingly deprived of anything. And they are still being compensated. In the OP's case, they are stating that depriving someone of revenue - against their will - is theft. Neither of your examples fit.
The retailer is willingly accepting a per sale loss during a sale (manufacturer compensated in full) or the manufacturer is willingly accepting a per sale loss with a coupon (retailer is compensated in full).
Perhaps you meant to say this?
Using that logic, anytime I take something without permission, for a price cheaper than the seller is distributing it for, that's theft b/c the seller has "lost revenue". I hope you don't shoplift, or switch price tags at stores to get better prices, b/c by your definition that's theft.
oh please... you are missing out the description of your brave new world business model. Where nobody gets paid for creating ANYTHING that can be easily copied. Do you have ANY idea how much work is involved in making something like Photoshop, or The lord Of The rings? or Halo? Why the fuck is anyone going to spend any money on making entertainmnt if it can be freely copied without compensation?
let me guess, you dont care, because like most copyright infringers, you dont make creative content for a living, and are just loving the excuse to take other peoples work for free arent you?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
I think it is rather that you don't understand. Companies do care if their revenue drops for any reason because their business is there to generate revenue. It's usually at that point that those who can blame copyright-infringement do, rather than face the real issues (poor product/high price/punishing your customers) that plague their revenue stream.
And nobody is -taking- the cd you refer to. By your logic I should have to pay to listen to a friend's music in their home...
Also, throwing insults at those who disagree with you doesn't magically transform your viewpoints into facts.
Downloading isn't stealing. If I pirate media, I didn't have any intention on buying it in the first place. And let me point out that "potential profit" is not the same as "actual profit". You can accuse me of stealing if I hack into the *AA's bank accounts and make a real, tangible withdrawl. Otherwise, they lose nothing.
Claiming that downloading is stealing because it deprives the owner of profit is like McDonald's claiming that you're stealing from them every time you choose to patronize Jack in the Box instead.
How do you identify a troll on Slashdot? They're modded +5, Insightful.
do you do this? personally? Most bands have websites with contact details. You send them the cash after you torrent the album right?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
The previous Swedish justice minister proved that The Piratebay could very much be touched, even without any law against it.
So I don't agree with this assumption that TPB can't be touched - it obviously can and has been, even if it probably was an illegal action of the prosecutor and the police.
There's porn of that!
I have no tag line
I'd say it's pretty spot on, actually. I'm an artist. If my music gets put up on iTunes, Napster, MusicNow, etc, I eventually will recieve a portion of the revenue. AllofMP3.com doesn't give me jack shit for my music. If you truly believe in supporting artists, don't use AllofMP3.com. Use a legal service, buy the CD, and support the band when they come rolling through town.
If you want to argue semantics, go talk to a wall, but you're still just being a dick.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
The problem is that there is absolutely no proof that file-sharing decreases revenue at all. Rolling Stone published an article that showed those who file share are more likely to spend the most money on music (not CDs in particular, but concerts, band t-shirts, etc.). I, for one, would not be such a huge Dream Theater fan if my friend hadn't of burned me a copy of Train of Thought to introduce me to the band. I downloaded a few songs off their CDs and now I am a proud owner of every single album and anxiously awaiting Systematic Chaos. There are tons of bands that people have introduced to me this way and I have spent tons of money on music and I'm sure I will continue to do so. And yes, I encourage people to buy music or attend concerts if they like the band.
My UID is a prime number. Yeah, I planned that.
He may not make creative content for a living, but that doesn't make his point any less valid.
I personally make a lot of creative content, preform publicly and even market my works all without requesting any monetary contribution.
I realize that others may be profit motivated, but a lot of musicians simply play for fun.
There wouldn't be any lack of music or a lack of films if the MAFIAA closed tomorrow and the studios closed their doors.
If that were to happen you may indeed see a cultural revolution of sorts where Britteny Spears and Spiderman 4 are replaced with actually creative works.
You're right. It is, of course, in the best interest of the RIAA to go and start a land war in Asia. That can only be good, right?
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
but not lord of the rings. I dont think those movies or the matrix could have been made by part timers with day jobs in wal mart. But who cares right?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Acording to wikipedia russias GDP was $979 billion in 2006. So yes, that IS a bit over the edge...
We can at least agree that Dream Theater are fucking excellent, and its well worth owning every album they have made. The thing is, there is a world of difference between friends copying albums for friends when they highly recommend them, and people leaving emule or utorrent running 24/7 copying their entire music collection to strangers they never met.
I dont get agitated if someone copies one of my games that they purchased for their brother or best mate, I *do* feel differently if I see a full copy shared for everyone on the internet. its a totally different scale, with vastly different effects. what we need is a fairer definition of fair use, less silly lawsuits on marginal cases, and better enforcement of the law against those who willfully try to destroy the whole concept of copyright and IP.
Plus those who genuinely believe in reasonable copyright as a concept should stop throwing in their flag with people like thepirate bay and warez sites who just want to take everything they can get and make a buck advertising on the side.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Firstly, let's not pretend that these are some sort of freedom fighters striking at an evil empire. They're crooks
I'd say it's a little from column A and a little from column B.
they wouldn't crack down on Pirate Bay like a swat team
They have; with an actual SWAT team - doesn't seem to have accomplished much.
sic transit gloria mundi
Copyright infringement is not theft. Theft is a violation of criminal law. Copyright infringement is a violation of civil law. Thieves can be arrested; copyright infringers can only be sued. The Forbes article calls it theft and stealing in imitation of the *AA propaganda, but endless repetition of this erroneous use doesn't make it correct.
Theft requires you to actually take something from someone
No it doesn't. Theft can (and is) defined in various ways - it basically gets down to depriving a rightful owner of something that is due. Ever heard of theft of service? This can happen when you dump your truckload of garbage into someone else's dumpster, tap into a cable feed without paying for it, or any of several other means of gaining undue benefit.
I am not a fan the MAFIAA (by even the furthest stretch of the imagination) - but I do think people need to realize that as long as this process continues, they *will* have a case for seeking all kinds of remedy through new and increasingly restrictive laws.
There's also the muddying of the waters that most people who pirate expensive software wouldn't buy it so the makers of the expensive software have not lost a sale. However without the pirating of their software they would lose market share which can have value if it leads to ubiquity of the software pirated to the detriment of their competition.
Gotta love frothing rants in response to well-reasoned arguments, but I'll respond in spite of it.
oh please... you are missing out the description of your brave new world business model. Where nobody gets paid for creating ANYTHING that can be easily copied.I suspect that you've deliberately misunderstood and are intentionally misrepresenting my statements, since I didn't write that. However, if you make paper airplanes and try to sell them, should no one else be able to make copies of your paper airplane?
Do you have ANY idea how much work is involved in making something like Photoshop, or The lord Of The rings? or Halo? Why the fuck is anyone going to spend any money on making entertainmnt if it can be freely copied without compensation?Because by and large consumers like to pay for the Real Thing. This is the idea behind the Windows Genuine Advantage bit, though obviously it was clumsily implemented. If you have a shitty product, no one is going to buy it. Should we be also legally guarantee that if someone makes something, they will get revenue from it, even if it sucks?
Lord of the Rings cost a ton to make, but also made a hojillion dollars in merchandising, home video releases, etc. Why? Quality product and merchandising that consumers wanted, and it was all sold at a price they wanted to pay. Photoshop may indeed cost a lot to make, but it's obviously not sold at a price consumers want to pay. Adobe's answer to this, it seems, was to make Photoshop Elements. PSE is up to version 4.0 I think, so it at least hit some sort of pricing sweet point.
let me guess, you dont care, because like most copyright infringers, you dont make creative content for a living, and are just loving the excuse to take other peoples work for free arent you?Ahh, strawmen. I make plenty of creative content. Don't make much money from it, but I do make it. But let's apply this to a well-known set of intarwebs content creators: Gabe and Tycho of Penny-Arcade. They're on record (as a matter of fact in writing at the back of their first hardcopy collection, of which there are 3 so far, and I've bought all 3 because of the added value in buying them at a decent price) as saying that hiding your content from your users because you're afraid they'll take it is kinda silly (which I tend to agree with, and why I think the subscription based Modern Tales group goes about the whole thing the wrong way - and why I think PVP's add-on animated subscription featurettes are a great idea; you get the meat for free, and if you want the dessert you shell out a little cash for it). PA was once in dire straits due to the ad network collapses and the loss of revenue thereof. They didn't have the financial resources to go down the failing route of the RIAA and MPAA, instead they adapted and are thriving to this day. None of their strips require you to pay for them, and there's no silly DRM preventing you from doing Save-As on a strip. Even so, people pay cold hard cash to get their books and their merchandise. Why? Cuz they know how to make what their target audience wants and what price their audience will shell out for extra stuffs.
I seriously doubt we will be needing much from the US in 20 years from now. The US is rapidly making itself irrelevant, not to mention the laughing stock of the world. Here in Europe, we snicker at your stupid patent laws, your incredibly corrupt political system which borders on a theocracy, your gas guzzling cars and RIAA's jihad on their own citizens. I could go on about the lack of gun control, your disrespect for the environment, your unprovoked actions in Irak and general disrespect for other forms of government and human rights. Pretty soon all the US will have left to export is natural resources (food stuffs), entertainment (which we'll just copy), lots of posturing (which we'll just ignore) and law school graduates (which we won't be needing).
Fucking idiot. One word: LIBRARY.
Or else we wouldn't need a separate set of laws to define copyright violation.
No matter how much shills wish to define copyright violation as theft, the body of law on the topic states absolutely otherwise.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The Russian copyright whozits even tried to pass the money they'd collected on to the artists via the RIAA, but the RIAA refuses to deal with them. More examples of how the RIAA isn't there for the benefit of the artists it purports to represent.
As for the GP paying by MasterCard - you obviously haven't tried to buy credit on allofmp3.com for a while. Last time I tried, they only accepted JCB.
While your point is well taken, I'd argue that in the garbage case you're depriving someone of their ability to dump their own garbage, so not a really direct comparison.
And I'd argue that "theft of service" is BS unless your action deprived someone from getting something they should. No one really deserves revenue, though they certainly can strive to gain some.
Note that I never said above that in the current legal environment that "piracy" isn't illegal, just that I find the entire thought process behind it highly suspect, since people are perfectly capable of profiting without making things up like IP.
It takes time and money to create the "stuff" in question.
While some people do it purely for the fun/love of doing it, even many of these also have to invest significantly to produce a quality, desirable result.
There are very, very VERY few "free" movies worth anything. There are a few Star Trek fan mini-movies that are almost watchable, usually about on par with the original (cheesy, campy) original ST series. Otherwise, that's it.
But, introduce money into the equation, and suddenly you get watchable, interesting content. So if we don't provide some mechanism to fund the creation of these valuable works, what do you suggest we do to encourage their creation?
Oh, that's right - you figure it all should be free, and you should have an unlimited right to take it, under the misguided notion that whether or not copyright infringement is stealing involves the other consumer?
Idiot. "Copyright infringement" is theft (directly or indirectly) from the producer of the copyrighted work! Even the beloved "super free" GPL only works in the presence of strong copyright law! I say that we let the producer decide how he/she/they want(s) to get compensated, and let the marketplace decide the best formula.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
They're crooks, stealing from people, and crooks don't get much sympathy.
If you tried actually talking to people you would see that most people have much more sympathy with the pirates than with the industry.
I have found exceptions: people who believe market economy and copyright laws are there for companies, not for humanity.
Last I ckecked, payment, or lack therefore was irrelivant in copyright infringement, and permission or lack therefore to share a copyrighted work was the big stickler in what is/isn't coopyright infringement. Either things have changed stupidly, or people are being bulshitted.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Sure, you're going to have outliers that sit on torrents 24/7, but I would say that such activity is not the norm. Most cases are people downloading the latest Shakira (or whatever bull is popular these days) and seeing that of the 15 songs on the album, 13 are filler and 2 are overplayed on the radio and proceeding to not buy the album. There is a good reason why this list of best-selling albums doesn't resemble what's played on the radio.
There should always be a reason to purchase a CD or go see a live show - the artist has to make it. For example, Georgia Tech hosted a T.I. (rapper) concert. I did not attend, but I was told that it sucked. He went on stage after some opening band, played about four songs and then left. Dream Theater is the perfect example of the opposite side of this: their album art is interesting and their live shows are nothing short of epic.
Should file-sharing be illegal? In my opinion, no. There will always be people pulling strings to get away with things they shouldn't - file-sharing just happens to be done by a lot of little people. If it is okay for Exxon to not pay for cleanup of the Exxon-Valdez oil spill, it is okay for average Joe to sample a CD. Furthermore, if the music industry had latched on the opportunity right after Napster (you know, when they saw that people demanded music online) or not fought iTunes Music Store tooth-and-nail (you know, when they saw selling music online would work), maybe they would be in an entirely different situation. The law cannot (easily) make distinction between a sampler and a "bad" file-sharer and therefore, should let artists get more exposure through allowing file-sharing.
My UID is a prime number. Yeah, I planned that.
"Should we be also legally guarantee that if someone makes something, they will get revenue from it, even if it sucks?"
what twaddle. if nobody wants something, why are they sat in a queue to torrent it? you dont get the basic point do you? if you want something enough to take the full version of it, it must be worth having, if its worth having, its worth compensating the maker for. At what point has anyone suggested that unpopular music and software should earn money? Never, yet you trot out that nonsensical statement to try and bolster your 'point'.
*sigh*
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Let's be absolutely, one hundred percent, crystal clear about one thing: Unauthorized copying is not piracy.
What is piracy? Piracy is when someone takes goods, that are legally protected by property rights, and that are being transported from one place to another, without authorization from the owner of the goods, depriving the owner of those goods from their use and economic value.
What is unauthorized copying? Unauthorized copying is taking a pattern of information that is legally protected by copyright and is fixed on a physical substrate, and creating a similar or identical pattern of information on another physical substrate, without permission of the copyright holder, in a manner that does not have a statutory exemption from copyright protection. (Whew!)
As you can see, these things are quite distinct from one another. I don't believe that they are even comparable. The use of the term "Piracy" to describe "Copying a protected work without permission of the copyright owner" is misleading, pejorative and dishonest.
Whether or not you support actual physical piracy (yarrrr, matey) and whether or not you support unauthorized copying, if you want to have an honest debate you should use correct terminology.
I ((mostly)) listen to indie bands. But I also enjoy older stuff from the major labels. So I either pirate the music I want that comes through the labels (no, I don't feel bad about it, the musicians would have seen maybe all of 2% of the money I might have spent on one of their albums), or, if and only if I like a good number of the songs on a cd, I buy the cd and feel guilty of providing the recording industry more money to use in their war against the consumer. No, it's not a perfectly idealistic way to combat the labels, but it's a helluva lot better than 90% of blind sheeple that don't even realize that it might be an issue. And I'm ok with that.
The creator of this post (Jacob Smith) hereby releases it, and all of his other posts, into the public domain.
I'm not depriving them of any money. You're assuming that everyone who pirates a cd/movie/book/software/game would head out and buy that if they weren't able to copyright it, however this is definitely not the case. Generally, the people who would buy it are the people who will buy it anyway if it's any good. I have a friend who has over ten thousand dollars worth of material on his hard drive. When he really likes something, be it an album, movie, book or game, he buys it, but he trys everything first to see what's worth his money. He would certainly not be able to afford all of that otherwise, so the only thing that would result in him being unable to find it online would be a whole lot of stores getting a whole lot of returns. He wouldn't pay for anything more than he already does.
Of course it decreases revenue, for the big media giants and artists like Britney Spears.
I, for one, would not be such a huge Dream Theater fan if my friend hadn't of burned me a copy of Train of Thought to introduce me to the band. I downloaded a few songs off their CDs and now I am a proud owner of every single album and anxiously awaiting Systematic Chaos. There are tons of bands that people have introduced to me this way and I have spent tons of money on music and I'm sure I will continue to do so. And yes, I encourage people to buy music or attend concerts if they like the band.See, I told you. By being introduced to independent bands, you are stealing from the big record companies and the Britneys of this world, since you don't buy their CDs. They have a right to your money, and by buying from indies you deprive them of their rightful income.
(The above contains significant amounts of sarcasm, if that isn't obvious)
Just a quick question. Is there a law to prevent US businesses advertising on illegal sites. If you remove the fiscal ability to run these sites would they not be forced to close.
In the name of FSM, if these guys were real pirates, we wouldn't have global warming issues.....
Praise His Noodliness. RAmen.
Can I demand $150,000 from the RIAA for each song they made me listen to in the 80's that sucked?
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
People still fall for this troll? Nice work AC.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Even better: Pirates should just confess to attempted murder. They're trying to kill off the entire commercial music industry.
Oh, wait, that would be really fucking stupid.
Theft and copyright infringement are different offenses and should be handled differently just as property rights and copyrights are handled differently.
Calling copyright infringement stealing is simply a means for copyright holders to frame the debate in such a way that they can more easily claim more power for themselves. If you assume the two are equivalent, then many of the arguments against increased intellectual property protections start to sound absurd. Should my neighbors have fair use rights to my bicycle? Should my car enter the public domain and be free for anyone to use after a certain amount of time? Of course not.
But if we call it stealing, then we the people are put in a position where we have to justify what we do with the copyright holders' "property", when instead it's the copyright holders who should have to explain why the government should send people with guns and badges to arrest people for copying a computer file.
No, I don't think you are getting it. Even if a product is worth having, if it is priced beyond what the market will bear people will not buy it and will continue to find a way to obtain it otherwise. Digital items cost what to produce? Next to nothing yet producers try to garner hundreds and thousands of dollars for a digital copy of something that costs nothing to manufacture. Yes, development does cost money, but if the end result is crap it is still worth nothing. The market will pay what the market will pay and there is no way you can convince me that a piece of plastic that they can reproduce at will for pennies is worth what they want you to pay for it.
Yes people queue up in torrents for SPECIFIC titles and I am willing to bet those real title sales aren't hurting much either. You and the *IAA just assume because someone downloads a mp3 that there is a lost sale. What if I own that CD or movie or game and I just want a copy, but don't want the hassle of ripping it myself? Has anyone lost a sale because I downloaded a copy of something I already own?
I won't even go into how many former pirates routinely purchase things today now that they are older and more financially capable of making those purchases. The ability to download digital content exposes a product to a larger audience than any advertising ever will. I can guarantee you that will foster more future purchasers than you will encourage more pirates. If something is popular enough to pirate it is popular enough to purchase and it will get purchased, they just need to stop dwelling on supposed lost sales and provide better value in the hard copy of whatever at a price the market will bear and they will not have to worry about the little mp3s and screeners on torrents.
I have downloaded the Matrix and others in that series. I also own the collectors box set specifically because of the extras that come with it. I had at one point a PS2 fully modded and easily 50-60gb of games on my harddrive. I now own an unmodded PS2 and xBox360 and over 50 retail games now, some used, some new. Microsoft knew back in the day the value of letting customers copy away their product. I don't think you or anyone else can argue the intelligence of that move, yet here we are trying to argue that pirating is hurting anyone's business when it has been proven in the past it actually has the opposite effect when the quality of the product is high.
Gotta love the personal attacks that come out in these discussions.
It takes time and money to create the "stuff" in question. Of course it does, I didn't say it doesn't. There are very, very VERY few "free" movies worth anything. There are a few Star Trek fan mini-movies that are almost watchable, usually about on par with the original (cheesy, campy) original ST series. Otherwise, that's it.But, introduce money into the equation, and suddenly you get watchable, interesting content. So if we don't provide some mechanism to fund the creation of these valuable works, what do you suggest we do to encourage their creation? Are you seriously suggesting that what separates a good movie from a lackluster movie is money? Is that really what you want to argue? What about movies that take a lot of money to make, but do poorly due to the fact that they suck? Can you name an example of a movie that was "good" but wasn't profitable due to "pirating"? Oh, that's right - you figure it all should be free, and you should have an unlimited right to take it, under the misguided notion that whether or not copyright infringement is stealing involves the other consumer? Ah, strawmen. I do love them. I didn't say all content should be free. It's easy to win an argument when you make up the opposing side from whole cloth. idiot. "Copyright infringement" is theft (directly or indirectly) from the producer of the copyrighted work! Even the beloved "super free" GPL only works in the presence of strong copyright law! I say that we let the producer decide how he/she/they want(s) to get compensated, and let the marketplace decide the best formula.
Indirect theft? Is that when I steal from someone who has stolen? Maybe I get someone else to steal it for me? Or maybe I use one of those little plastic grabber things to take something off a shelf...
Why do we want to let the creator decide how they get compensated? Anyone can make anything, but they are not and should not be entitled to make money from it. The most successful creators/businesses/etc figure out what their target audience wants and then figure out how to profit by getting it to them. The entire "zomg pirates" rationale hinges on the idea that a huge percentage of consumers don't buy anything that is in any possible manner freely obtainable. If that were the case, no one would buy just about anything. This is, of course, the rationale behind DRM, where the attempt is to raise the level technological expertise necessary to make a digital copy above that of the general consumer population. And to some extent it works, except that it also violates things like fair use in the process, and makes it difficult for consumers to do things they are used to being able to do, like play music on other people's devices without jumping through hoops. That's pretty much the definiton of "not giving the consumer what they want."
I'd rather you didn't take it. That would be stealing.
However, if you come by and wave a magic wand and create yourself exact duplicates, it wouldn't bother me.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
You are completely correct in that information is the new currency. But the United States is wrong in how it deals with that currency.
Manufacturing has always been plagued by scarcity. For instance, in the US and Canada and Europe, there's a scarcity of cheap labour. So stuff that can be sent overseas is sent overseas. But overseas, there's a scarcity of knowledge in areas of research, development, automation, and quality control. So anything that is heavy on those things either have a heavy knowledge and personnel export, or they are kept at home.
My background is manufacturing in Canada, and I can tell you this: typical tool and die, mould-makers and other rather simple (comparatively) stuff is going to China and India, and complicated, highly technical, highly automated products like aerospace are staying here. In fact, traditional trades are slowing right down, but aerospace is absolutely booming in Ontario.
The problem is that information has no such scarcity and flows easily away. Whether this information is media or trade knowledge. While we may have the cultural upper hand right now, and while we may have the automation and quality control upper hand right now, information like that won't take long to get to China and other low-wage regions.
So in all their wisdom, our lawmakers have collectively decided to stop that flow as best they can. Whether they can stop it is yet to be seen, but from what I can see, it's doomed to fail. Or, put another way, artificial scarcity is just that: artificial and easily overcome.
What is is all that is. Isn't that obvious?
oh dear, it looks like the concept of 'fixed costs' is beyond you.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
This guy pretty much hits it dead on. Just because a company makes something and it takes money, doesn't mean that its smart for them to sell it at price point that makes consumers look elsewhere for it. Under the gp post's ideas, Waterworld is entitled to make money because it cost money, just so long as people are somewhere torrenting it (which, while making me ask "WHY?", I'm sure is happening as we speak).
It seems an odd bit of cognitive dissonance to say on one hand, "let the market decide" and on the other "the market isn't letting me make money, so we should change the rules so that I'm guaranteed profits". The market changed, content creators are in the process of learning how to change with it. Some will figure it out faster than others, and the behemoths like the RIAA and MPAA are gonna take a long while before they can overcome their corporate inertia and adjust (if ever).
At the risk of posing a truism, fixed costs are only fixed until they're not. Consider the fixed business costs of the past that are no longer fixed today in a whole variety of industries.
Plenty of people go see movies in theaters. It's pretty hard to replicate that experience in the average home. Your implication that there's no way to make money off movies but selling individual copies is flawed.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
The result would be that I would beat you up and steal your car laser.
Support the 30 Hour Work Week!!!
Yeah but then I'd get (my) Big Brother to beat you up and take it back.
AllofMP3.com is legal, in Russia. That the RIAA tries to paint them as "illegal" just because it does not conform to US copyright laws is just silly. US law is only valid in the US, not in the entire world which many americans seem to think.
Shirley, is that you??
Well, no, I don't, because they don't own the music. They might appreciate it, but it's they're own damn fault for selling it to the label. I won't pay the label.
Pretending that there is no question about their right to operate internationally is just as bad.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Are you seriously suggesting that what separates a good movie from a lackluster movie is money? Is that really what you want to argue? What about movies that take a lot of money to make, but do poorly due to the fact that they suck?
Of course I am! Spending money doesn't guarantee success (see Mission Earth for a good example) But name a blockbuster movie that DIDN'T involve a billion-dollar budget.
Can you name an example of a movie that was "good" but wasn't profitable due to "pirating"?
Sure can. China has over a BILLION people. China also has crap for Intellectual Property law. Are you going to tell me that despite having 5 TIMES the population of the United States, that a decent movie idea hasn't come out of there? And, perhaps you could tell me where the epicenter of the large, booming Chinese movie industry is?
Where's the Chinese version of the Matrix? Their movie industry is weak and pathetic.
I didn't say all content should be free. It's easy to win an argument when you make up the opposing side from whole cloth.
No, but later in this post you imply that very strongly when you write: Anyone can make anything, but they are not and should not be entitled to make money from it. What part of my "straw man" argument is not well supported by a statement like this?
Indirect theft? Is that when I steal from someone who has stolen?
Pay close attention: Copying copyrighted materials in an infringing way reduces the likelyhood of a purchase of that material. In an indirect way, such activities take away the profit potential of said created material. I know it's a very difficult concept for you to understand, and that's why words like "idiot" come to mind. Sorry you're taking it personally. Feel free to call me a "shill" or something if it makes you feel better.
Why do we want to let the creator decide how they get compensated?
Because they created it. It's theirs. We want to encourage more to be created so we all have something to enjoy. I like good quality software, (like Linux, OpenOffice, KDE) good quality books (Arthur C. Clarke, Larry Niven, etc) and good quality music (my tastes vary from Coldplay to Michael Buble to Depeche Mode) and movies that are worth watching. (the Matrix, or Amadeus)
None of these would be possible without strong Intellectual Property laws that specifically guarantee rights to content creators, restrict the rights of content consumers and prohibit what we'd today call piracy.
The most successful creators/businesses/etc figure out what their target audience wants and then figure out how to profit by getting it to them.
Here we might agree, just a tad. If DRM, etc are really not what consumers want, they won't buy. If producers don't make money, they'll be forced to shift their tactics.
But where we disagree is that it's ethically not up to you, the consumer, to unilaterally decide these terms, much as it's ethically not up to the consumer to decide whether or not to pay for an apple being taken in either case. If you take the apple, even a "copy" of an apple I created without my permission as the creator of the apple, then you have taken something from me, if only the potential for profit on the created apple.
That's a form of theft, and that's wrong.
The entire "zomg pirates" rationale hinges on the idea that a huge percentage of consumers don't buy anything that is in any possible manner freely obtainable. If that were the case, no one would buy just about anything.
Really? How do you come to that conclusion? Please provide some kind of supporting information?
That's pretty much the definiton of "not giving the consumer what they want."
And if that's the case, consumers won't buy. But it's not up to YOU, the consumer, to unilaterally change the terms of the deal. Don't like it? Don't buy it. But you ARE being an idiot if you honestly believe that committing acts of piracy because you don't like some aspect of doing it legitimately (EG: the price) is morally defensible.
It isn't, and you're just being stupid.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
They are 'online enablers' at the most. We can debate all day long if its right to 'copy', but all these people are doing are offering LINKS... nothing more, nothing less.
Thats like holding Ford liable beacuse they sell cars, that could be used in a hold up, or to run someone over.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
you did deprive them - of money.
I do that if I don't buy it. I do that to a shop if I buy from their competitor.
Copyright infringement may be wrong but it isn't stealing.
Any administration that want to add harsher copyright laws would have to deal with public opinion. That may not be the simplest thing to do in a country with a quite lax popular view on copyright infringement, with maybe as much as 10% of the entire population regularly committing copyright infringement through filesharing. In addition, we have comparably short sentences even for serious violent crimes, and no tradition of exorbitant damages awarded through lawsuits. Good luck adding four-year prison sentences for copyright infringements when that is about what you get for rape or robbery.
Second, don't think for a second that if their country needed something from the US, Europe, etc that they wouldn't crack down on Pirate Bay like a swat team.They tried, and raided the web hosting company that hosted The Pirate bay (and other unrelated companies) almost exactly one year ago, seizing all servers (including those of unrelated parties) and even network equipment such as routers. The Pirate Bay was up in three days, while many of the legitimate businesses had their equipment in lockup for several months after the raid. The MPAA claimed that it was big victory on the day of the raid, only to have The Pirate Bay up again in less than 72 hours. And now it may be more resilient, as TPB claim to have it mirrored in several countries. In addition, the raid was very good advertising for The Pirate Bay, as anyone who hadn't heard of the site before certainly knew about it afterwards.
I don't pirate stuff myself, but I appreciate their position as a thorn in the side of the big media companies. Their legal page is also fun to read (Warning: Somewhat offensive language there), where they mock any cease and desist letters they receive.
But if even 1 person would have purchased except for the option of download for free, they have lost revenue and it could be construed as theft. Likewise, if one person bought an album they would not have otherwise known about, the labels have gained revenue by free advertising. I have never bought an album or attended a concert from a little known artist without extensively stealing mp3s or borrowing/copying a CD first.
These loss numbers are always bogus. When prices go down, sales go up. When I was young video games and MS products were rampantly pirated, obviously those markets collapsed ;)
Were those lost video game sales? No. Our allowances were limited and already spent on video games (or computer upgrades needed to run video games which was easier to justify to parents). More enforcement only meant we would spend more time out riding bikes, reading, etc. Lower prices, probably would have resulted in a greater diversity of games bought (at a high price you don't tend to risk buying things that might suck).
A modern army has a long tail and almost all of that stuff is both heavy and consumable.
You arn't kidding... Humvees at 5 miles per gallon require equally high-mobility fuel tankers.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Ah, but it is not AllofMP3.com depriving you of your royalties. Those royalties are sitting in an escrow account in Moscow collecting dust because the RIAA doesn't want to accept the cash. Accepting the cash would mean they would need to dispurse them to you with a very small cut for themselves. They want more of the money to go to them and not to you.
Just because your record label doesn't want to pay you the royalties AllofMP3 has collected on your behalf that doesn't mean they don't give you 'jack shit' for your music, it just means you are either too dumb to collect the check or more likely you hired a RIAA member to act as your agent and they are not collecting the money for their own reasons. It is also quite likely that you aren't talking about your music at all, but a recording whose copyright you sold to an RIAA member, in which case you have a contract dispute with them, not a dispute with AllofMP3.com
But all this aside, AllofMP3 is a good lesson in why we can't continue selling copies of music. What they are doing is selling music at prices that make sense in their economy, actually they are a bit pricey for Russia. What they are doing is practicing arbitrage. Arbitrage is the what drives the global economy and trying to stop it is a fools errand (see DVD region codes and various other failed schemes attempted in the last 500 years).
So what to do? Well we can differentiate the product line, sell cheap and expensive versions of the same thing, Tide comes in bags in third world countries and bottles in first world countries. It's the same stuff, but if our local Stop-n-shop started selling Tide in bags you would expect to pay less. This can only account for a 25-30% markup in the rich countries, and the income differential is more like 1000%, so to maximize your income you price for the rich countries and sales in the rest of the world go to a very tiny market segment. BTW This is basically how textbooks work today, they are printed only in paperback in some countries and only in hardback in other countries. But with things as easily and cheaply copied as music we won't be able to keep it out of poor childrens hands like we do textbooks (Try to convince someone living on a $2 a day that they are an evil pirate and should pay $25 for each CD, the $0.25 they do pay is a major outlay.) At my local deli all the detergent bottles have Spanish directions and the batteries are from Israel (Duracells, shipped from here to the Middle East and back).
We can try to attach a social stigma to buying things cheap, "Oh, you have the J.C. Penny Madonna? I have the Gucci Madonna!" This only goes so far.
We can sell everything close to 3rd world price, say $0.50. I don't imagine this would be popular with most copyright holders.
We can move to a donation model. I've considered this myself and from what I can gather from the stats you can expect to get about 10% buy in if you can hold their attention. Your market expands maybe 4x, and you can't increase the donation amount much above current sale price, so your take falls to about 50% of current take. Plus there is the business risk of trying this out, what if everyone just listens to your particular album a couple times and then toss it, they may not give you a donation. And there is a fairness issue, I don't mind people paying less because they have less, but I do mind the millionare moocher.
We can move to a survey based royalty system. You could keep payments to artists about the same as they are now and increasing each year as the music "buying" world gets bigger. In this system each government would pay the artist on a local scale based on the number of people listening to the artists music in that country. This would have to be paid out of taxes, perhaps CD-ROM and internet connection taxes, perhaps just the general fund. This would be the fairest system to artists and consumers alike, but would be opposed because of the 'taxes are evil' growd and because in this scheme the artist gets the royalty and pays it to the label
Of course I am! Spending money doesn't guarantee success (see Mission Earth for a good example) But name a blockbuster movie that DIDN'T involve a billion-dollar budget.
Give me a definition of a blockbuster. Is Clerks a Blockbuster? It's made well over 1000% of its production cost (~20K to make, financed on credit cards, grossed boxoffice of around $2 million and that doesn't even come close to its total profit to date from home video and merchandising). I can't even name a movie that had a billion dollar budget in adjusted dollars.
Sure can. China has over a BILLION people. China also has crap for Intellectual Property law. Are you going to tell me that despite having 5 TIMES the population of the United States, that a decent movie idea hasn't come out of there? And, perhaps you could tell me where the epicenter of the large, booming Chinese movie industry is?
Wow, talk about missing the mark with your example. First off, the Chinese movie industry is pretty extensive considering that a huge percentage of their population is essentially living in third world conditions. Secondly, the means of distribution are severely limited in terms of venues due to little things like censorship review boards. Third off, China has been through several social upheavals in the last 100 years that have turned their society upside down, not to mention having had many art forms (at the least) suppressed. Piracy is waaayyyy down on the lists of factors that keep China from making "Armageddon".
Where's the Chinese version of the Matrix? Their movie industry is weak and pathetic.
Aside from the fact that a ton of the conventions used in the Matrix came from chinese and japanese cinema, it seems that you equate "expensive and pretty" with "good". China has lots of good movies, they're just not massively expensive to make. Furthermore, the Matrix really didn't break new ground in terms of movie making aside from Bullet Time. In terms of plot and cinematic ideas, the basis goes back to 19th century philosophy, if not further (i.e. Plato's Cave). Not to mention that the Wachowski brothers deliberately based the visual look on Ghost in the Shell (making the conceptual designer watch the GitS movie and say 'we want it to look like that' - literally).
No, but later in this post you imply that very strongly when you write: Anyone can make anything, but they are not and should not be entitled to make money from it. What part of my "straw man" argument is not well supported by a statement like this?
I said they are not entitled to make it. Entitlement means that simply by making something, they *entitled* to make money off it. If I make a little doodle and put it on a website, no one is obligated to pay me anything for it. I can *try* to make money off it, but I probably won't. That is the difference. I didn't say everything should be free, I said no one should be entitled to profit.
Pay close attention: Copying copyrighted materials in an infringing way reduces the likelyhood of a purchase of that material. In an indirect way, such activities take away the profit potential of said created material. I know it's a very difficult concept for you to understand, and that's why words like "idiot" come to mind. Sorry you're taking it personally. Feel free to call me a "shill" or something if it makes you feel better.
You seem to be a person who has a hard time controlling their temper. Unfortunate.
Your reasoning is questionable. By that same thought process, I can argue that competition is theft, since they take away the potential profits of a creator. I'm pretty sure that Microsoft would like this to be true in, say, the realm of IIS vs Apache.
Because they created it. It's theirs. We want to encourage more to be created so we all have something to enjoy. I like good quality software, (like Linux, OpenOffice, KDE) good quality books (Arthur C. Clarke, Larry Niven, et
Actually since Norway found oil and is the world's third largest exporter, Sweden has IKEA and the Danes enjoy their Carlsberg beer we have given up raiding Britain and Ireland :)
According to the UN list of best countries to live in (2006) Norway is 1st, Sweden 5th and Denmark 15th.
The simple fact is that it's not stealing. Nothing was lost or denied to someone or taken from anyone physically.
What copying a program or music file or movie does is... absolutely nothing, because the person in question certainly wouldn't have paid anyways for the item in question.
It's not stealing, it's actually just a failure to properly pay for the item. This is more similar to say, not paying your dues or membership at CostCo or SamsClub. Two entirely different things.
Of course, if the industries in question spammed the airwaves and net with "failure to properly pay for services rendered" it would hardly get anyone's attention like "stealing" does.
Seinfeld:"But I don't WANT to be a pirate"
I can't remember the last time I forgot anything........ ever.
Let's cut to the chase.
Listen, I want to make a living off of creating content as much as any other artist, but unless I create something that people feel they want, and offer it at a price they think is fair, I won't. I'm not entitled to make $2 per piece of artwork unless the consumer agrees my work is worth $2. Simple as that.
I agree 100%.
That's how a "free market" works. This sort of reasoning is also why the RIAA wants to make selling used CDs illegal, or enough of a hassle that stores won't want to do it. They want to be the sole arbiter of price. But in an actual free market, you don't sell anything if the consumer doesn't like what you're offering and at what price you're offering it.
That's shady practice, and perhaps the RIAA should be prosecuted under Sherman Act or RICO laws.
And the consumer isn't changing any deal when "pirating" something. Aside from the untested EULA/clickwrap ideas, they haven't agreed to anything at all.
And this is where you go south. They absolutely ARE changing a deal. They are acting to deny the producer legal rights to control the distribution of content they legitimately created.
Put another way, if I think that a scribble of mine is worth $1,000,000 and market it as such, and someone copies it, have they stolen $1,000,000 worth of potential revenue from me?
Yes and no. Accounting 101: profit is made when the product is sold. If the act of unapproved copying reduces the likelyhood of a sale (and it does) then the potential for profit is reduced. You can never know what the actual profit would be, because by pirating the material, the profit potential is reduced or eliminated. Asking for an example where piracy clearly cost the profits of a movie is like asking for a single example of a valuable scientist who never benefited society because of abortion.
Piracy == economic abortion. It kills the possibility of a sale, and with it motivation to produce quality works that society can benefit from. And, if you pirate enough, the bogeymen will come after you and you will be prosecuted, and rightly so.
That's not to say that I think the RIAA are angels - their stupidity is only outclassed by their lack of intelligence - but even the power of the GPL comes at the strength of Intellectual Property laws that allow the producer to determine the terms of distribution of their works.
If you don't like the terms of distribution offered by the producer, then you have no rights to the material. The ethical thing to do is find a producer who provides material under terms you find suitable. That is a free market. What you propose is called the Black Market.
I can argue that competition is theft, since they take away the potential profits of a creator.
Competitors in an intellectual property domain create their own content to compete with you with. A consumer might ask "Am I going to buy the Britney Spears album or the Celine Dion album?" That's perfectly ok, and is what happens in a free, open marketplace.
But rampant piracy/copyright infringement makes artists compete with themselves: Am I going to buy the Britney Spears album, or am I going to steal it?
If it's very easy/cheap to download/pirate/copyright-infringe the album, then the likelyhood of the sale goes down. That's a form of theft, and everybody loses, not just the artist.
Why is that so hard for you to understand?
I'm not saying that the RIAA are angels. They're idiots too, and most of their idiocy simply comes from fear of the unknown. All I'm saying is that if you don't like what they're doing, don't buy, and the marketplace will sort itself out. But copyright infringement only gives them more social/political ammunition to come after you, and leaves you on a very compromised social/ethical footing.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Actually, that's not it at all. The key word in your argument is willing. You are willing to compensate someone for a product. IN the case of music or movie downloads there's two groups. Those willing to give something equal to what they consider the value, if the value is offered by someone other than the owner for free they will take that offer, but if that value is taken away they have no choice but to compensate the owner for that item. The other group is those that are unwilling to compensate if the price of the item is more than free.
The first group is contributing to theft, as in the absense of the ability to obtain it for free the owner would have gained something of value. The second group is not, they would not have contributed either way.
Which wasn't my point, my point is that geographical names, and the names people use to describe themselves by, are not accurate.
For example, England is named after the Angles, people who came from the North of Germany 1500 years ago or so. A very small amount of the people living in England today are even descended from the Angles, since there is also the descendants of the British (meaning Celtic), other Germanic tribes, Normans, Norsemen, and many later waves of immigration living in England. Yet we still call these people the English. This is just the first example I can think of, but my point is, names aren't always "accurate".
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
Oh yes, they do live in America. We also live in Europe and Asia, Africa and possibly even Antarctica. Why not even friggin Atlåntis... And yes we've got reindeer, and cute blond girls in Scandinavia, but that's not why we're pirates. Beeing a Pirate is an honor. You stand up for what is right. Ideas are good. Everyone should have one. And share them, please. Sorry. Me drunk. Saw a cute blond though...
no it's not window dressing. the point is that unauthorized copying is not a violation of the US criminal code, it's a violation of civil law and is therefore not a crime. it is not theft because theft is very well defined and violating copyrights does NOT FIT THIS DEFINITION. there is no more to this argument than this point calling it theft is inflammatory and is slander (libel if in print). it is not a crime and it is not something that deserves to be a crime. it is an offense reserved only for civil court.
if i make an unauthorized copy of someones cd then i have not taken anything from them by not purchasing it because they did not have the revenue from that cd to begin with and i am only depriving them of that revenue if and only if it is guaranteed that i would have spent money on it otherwise.
your saying that it's theft all the same is analogous to claiming that stealing someones life savings is on par with murdering them because now you've taken the money that would have provided for them for the rest of their years when in fact it is in no way reasonable to say murder and theft are on an equal moral level.
copyright infringement is not on the same moral level as actual theft. after a theft one has less than they had before the theft, after a copyright infringement, the infringed upon has the same as they had before, they just do not have more.
also: nobody has a right to make money off of copyrighted works. it's perfectly reasonable for some artists to go bankrupt after releasing works that nobody buys. the argument is that, if nobody meets the artists requirements for obtaining a copy of the work (i.e. buying it, tho some only care that you like it and tell others about it) then that exact same number of people (nobody) should be in possession of a copy.
quite frankly i find it fucking infuriating that morons like you can't seem to grasp these concepts. it can be (and has been) fairly easily shown that you don't have a firm grasp on the details of the issue. music pirates aren't depriving artists of anything. go and read a contract that new bands are required to sign to get a deal with a major label.
it's these companies that are stealing from the artists (not infringing upon them but actual goddamn fucking theft). these bands are asked to have their first album written and recorded before signing often and when they do sign they lose all of their copyrights to the label due to the contracts and since record companies have lobbied to have such works classified as 'works for hire', even though they were not hired to produce said works, they were hired because they had *already* produced them.
the RIAA is *not* an association of artists, it is a consortium of large companies that will do anything to get as much money as possible. what the members of this group does to the actual artists is as reprehensible as theft even if it is legal. (note the careful wording, have someone explain it to you if necessary).
damn i hate ignorant people.
yes i am defending pirates, and no i personally do not download anything.
one last point. IT'S NOT ACTUAL PIRACY FOR PETE'S SAKE (i've used the f word enough for on week) it's infringement or unauthorized copying, use of words like 'piracy' and 'theft' confuse the issue and fools like you fall for it. i've yet to hear a band that cares if people copy their music without paying for it that has any decent music at all. any artist of any actual talent can make a living regardless of whether or not people copy their works.
If the RIAA had an army, they probably would go to war. If they increased their lobbying enough, perhaps they would have their army.
Flappinbooger isn't my real name
Why do you think people who are intelligent and knowlgable enough to realise that copyright violation isn't theft are in favour of copyright violation? There are plenty of people who think copyright violation is wrong, but don't consider it theft. I'm one. I make the distinction because it's an important distinction. Blurring the lines between property and copyright is dangerous. The logical conclusion of calling copyright violation theft and use of terms like "intellectual property" is the equivalence of copyright and property - that means pertetual copyright with no provisions for fair use. I am all for copyright and respecting copyright, but I am also strongly for fair use rights and against perpetual copyright. That is why I object to characterisation of copyright violation as theft.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
The reason is that only six of those albums were released in the past five years. Those albums are by Avril Lavigne, Evanessence, Usher, Norah Jones, Green Day and Eminem. I do hear a lot of Avril Lavigne, Evanessence, Usher, Norah Jones, Green Day and Eminem on the radio. I don't hear much of Vanilla Ice, The Eagles and the Spice Girls any more, but they got played in their day.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
What kind of website clickthru black spiral do you have to dance down to find that kind of perversion?
;-D
No, seriously, and can you provide links? Closest I found was a DVD Rip (on-topic, haha!) of Lovely Leprosy Lesbian Lickdown.
I ALMOST posted this non-AC, but fuck, I freak even myself out sometimes, can't be doin that to the masses. Well, not under my ACTUAL handle.
You've probably never given me any money. Does that mean you're depriving me of money? Not in my opinion.
If you really think not giving money is the same as depriving of money, then please stop depriving me of $10,000 immediately.
The English?
They are from England, and they are the place the English language eminated from. That seems a good enough reason for me. USers only habitate a SMALL part of the continent, pretending that being an AMERICAN means being a US citizen is insulting to every other nation in the Americas.
Oh I forgot... Only the US counts. Could this be why we are now hated world wide???
Yes, many people don't sit down and carefully think about legal issues. Fortunately, some people do, and for much the same reason that people are willing to work with specialists in other fields (99% of the people on Earth don't know how to fly a plane, so when I need to fly somewhere, I look for an airline with a trained and experienced pilot), specialists have developed in the legal field.
For example, I'm a copyright lawyer, and having studied copyright law extensively, having practiced copyright law, and having thought about copyright law a lot, I can assure you that if that's what 99% of people think, then 99% of people are wrong. Of course, I don't think that your 99% statement was all that accurate. I think that people are more nuanced; Alice might regard it as wrong to hotwire Bob's car and drive away with it, but apparently, given how prevalent it is, she doesn't think it's wrong to copy Bob's CD of 'Carol Sings the Hits.'
By paying musicians you incentivise them to keep at it,
What if I am both not interested in incentivizing them, and also not concerned about the results of the lack of this artificial incentive?
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Then the answer for Time Warner (and other big American media companies) is to start republishing everything from places that refuse to honor international copyright treaties. Movies, TV shows, music, books, et cetera.
...except that this usage has been common for at least a quarter of a century, and was popularized by the pirates themselves in the first place.
And not pay a dime for it.
The use of the term "Piracy" to describe "Copying a protected work without permission of the copyright owner" is misleading, pejorative and dishonest.
Note, for example, "Pirate Bay."
But it's meaningless to point out it's not really "theft" under the law (which is a state law and can vary from state to state anyway).
Who gives a rat's ass what the states have to say? 17 USC 301. Personally, I'd be shocked to find a single law regarding larceny that was actually applicable (aside from the preemption issue) to copyright issues. There can be copyright at common law, but even that is still copyright, and not, say, trespass to chattels. None of this prevents a judge from using an inaccurate colloquialism, though.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
As the owner of a small software development company, one that is currently having its products illegally copied and shared, piracy affects my bottom line.
It's not like these guys are just fighting some good fight against the evil behemoths with billions in market capital. They're stealing from little shops like ours that sell a good simple product for a low cost. When we loose a sale... that's $20 that would have gone towards me paying a bill or eating out one night. They're strengthening the companies that can afford the lawyers and the losses by weakening small businesses.
These people are just criminals... too cozy in their mom's basement to break into my house and slap the food out of my mouth.
Tom the Sigless
"Surely two countries have gone to war for less than $1.65 trillion. On a side note, let's not forget that Russia has oil."
Oh no! don't say that.
" The war with Russia is not about the oil, it's about the artists"
"Our intelligence tells us that Russia has Weapons of Mass Distribution and are not afraid to use them"
Funny that you use two of the highest grossing movie series of all time for your argument. Those movies really suffered from piracy.. yes..
But your statement at least implies that the studios would have made MORE money if their hadn't been piracy, so they did lose something.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
Indeed, if it is worth queuing up in bittorrent it must be worth the effort. Since the effort is equivalent to about a penny, then that's what it is worth to the guy who queued it up. Offer the product for that same price and 'piracy' will disappear.
You are missing the point. You don't have a right to something at the price that you want to pay. You either decide to pay the price that the seller is offering, or you do without. Everything else is just an excuse.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
No, I don't think you are getting it. Even if a product is worth having, if it is priced beyond what the market will bear people will not buy it and will continue to find a way to obtain it otherwise. Digital items cost what to produce? Next to nothing yet producers try to garner hundreds and thousands of dollars for a digital copy of something that costs nothing to manufacture. Yes, development does cost money, but if the end result is crap it is still worth nothing. The market will pay what the market will pay and there is no way you can convince me that a piece of plastic that they can reproduce at will for pennies is worth what they want you to pay for it.
As noted elsewhere, this is besides the point. The cost to produce is irrelevant. You do not have a right to dictate to the seller what price he or she can ask for his or her goods. The seller sets the price, you either take it or leave it. It doesn't matter what the cost of production is, or fixed costs, or sunk costs, none of that matters. The seller can choose to sell their goods at any price they want, and the buyer is free to buy, or not buy, or negotiate.
But the buyer is not free to dictate to the seller the price.
Now, costs and all that are relevant if the seller wants to maximize sales, etc. -- and they may factor in to what the buyer thinks is a fair price for the product. But none of that has any impact on the actual sales price. That's set by the seller. If the sales price is set too high, then there will be few buyers. Or no buyers.
But the price being too high in no way implies a right on the part of the seller to obtain the goods through illegal means. If the price is too high, the choice is for the buyer to go without. If the seller wants to sell, the seller can lower the price until people want to buy -- that's the way the market works -- but the seller is in no way obligated reduce the price. The seller could choose to simply not sell.
This isn't about guaranteeing a specific profit (or any profit) for the seller -- it is, however, giving the seller the right to sell his property for what he feels is the right price to him. Whether anyone buys or not is a different story entirely.
Yes people queue up in torrents for SPECIFIC titles and I am willing to bet those real title sales aren't hurting much either.
But they ARE hurting, at least to some extent. Who gave the people queueing on a torrent the right to decide how much money the copyright holder is entitled to make?
I won't even go into how many former pirates routinely purchase things today now that they are older and more financially capable of making those purchases. The ability to download digital content exposes a product to a larger audience than any advertising ever will. I can guarantee you that will foster more future purchasers than you will encourage more pirates. If something is popular enough to pirate it is popular enough to purchase and it will get purchased, they just need to stop dwelling on supposed lost sales and provide better value in the hard copy of whatever at a price the market will bear and they will not have to worry about the little mp3s and screeners on torrents.
Again, the seller can do whatever he wants. If a seller doesn't want to sell MP3's, well, you as the buyer do not have the right to demand that the seller give you MP3's. All you can do is not buy the sellers goods, and if the seller wants to make money, at some point he will have to either price things accordingly, or sell them in a format people or buying, or whatever -- but a seller could choose to only make music available on 8-track tapes, if he wanted to. He probably wouldn't sell many, but the seller is under no obligation to sell in a format others want.
To put it another way -- the buyer does not have the right to buy the seller's wares for a price the buyer sets and in a format demanded by the buyer.
I hav
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
If you have a shitty product, no one is going to buy it. Should we be also legally guarantee that if someone makes something, they will get revenue from it, even if it sucks?
Of course not. But shouldn't the creator of the product be free to sell their product for any price they want? If I create a CD, should I be required to sell it at a price that people can afford, or can I price it at $10,000,000 per copy? Nobody is required to buy a CD, or a movie, or a piece of software, so why shouldn't someone be able to charge whatever they want for it?
But let's apply this to a well-known set of intarwebs content creators: Gabe and Tycho of Penny-Arcade. They're on record (as a matter of fact in writing at the back of their first hardcopy collection, of which there are 3 so far, and I've bought all 3 because of the added value in buying them at a decent price) as saying that hiding your content from your users because you're afraid they'll take it is kinda silly (which I tend to agree with, and why I think the subscription based Modern Tales group goes about the whole thing the wrong way - and why I think PVP's add-on animated subscription featurettes are a great idea; you get the meat for free, and if you want the dessert you shell out a little cash for it). PA was once in dire straits due to the ad network collapses and the loss of revenue thereof. They didn't have the financial resources to go down the failing route of the RIAA and MPAA, instead they adapted and are thriving to this day. None of their strips require you to pay for them, and there's no silly DRM preventing you from doing Save-As on a strip. Even so, people pay cold hard cash to get their books and their merchandise. Why? Cuz they know how to make what their target audience wants and what price their audience will shell out for extra stuffs.
Great -- but that's their decision to let the stuff go free.
Besides, it's a pretty big stretch to go from Penny Arcade to LOTR. Not every business model is completely scalable.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
The problem is overpriced bullshit.
So what? If it's too expensive, don't buy it. You DO NOT have a right to the music. If you think its overpriced, don't buy it.
Meanwhile the label gets millions of dollars, and for what? Pressing some CDs? A little advertising? They're making BOATLOADS of cash for doing practically nothing.
So what? They've got a business model that works. Bands are doing everything they can to sign with the record labels. The bands are forced into this at gunpoint -- they voluntarily sign (admittedly one-sided) contracts. If you are going to blame anyone, blame the bands. Or the people who buy the CD's.
Every day they make it more and more clear that they consider it their right to have everyone paying them, even people who don't and never will listen to their music.
Just because they won't sell CD's or MP3's at a price YOU want to pay does NOT mean that the RIAA thinks it is entitled to make a profit.
But it's becoming pretty clear that the current business model for selling things that can be easily copied is not working.
Why isn't it working? Are the record labels going under?
Oh, you mean it isn't working for you.
Calling everything "theft" and "piracy" is not going to solve anything.
Well, taking stuff without paying for it isn't going to solve anything either.
People need to start thinking about new ways to deliver content that is acceptable to both the creator and the consumer.
Why? Seems like a lot of people are making a lot of money the way things are today.
Maybe people need to start looking at ways to do the same things with a lower budget. Maybe actors don't really need anywhere from one to fifteen million dollars to star in one movie that takes about a year to film.
What gives you, or anyone, the right to determine how much an actor should get paid, or what budget someone should spend on a CD or movie?
There's a lot of people in the US that work a lot harder than any actor or anybody at the RIAA and for a hell of a lot less money.
There's a lot of people that work a lot harder than any athlete. Or any singer. Or any CEO. Or any doctor or lawyer or software engineer. Do you think the Google founders work any harder, than say, someone laying asphalt in Phoenix in the summer? Or someone picking crops?
We don't pay people based on their labor -- if we did, laborers would be the most highly paid people in the U.S., actors and atheletes would be at the bottom. We pay people based on the value they bring to a particular enterprise. The reason Brad Pitt makes $15 million or whatever per movie is because 100 million people will pay $10 or whatever to see Brad Pitt. I doubt there are 100 million people willing to pay $10 to see anonymous coward act -- but that's why Pitt makes $15 million and you, presumably, don't.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
You have a number of well thought-out and articulate points. I don't agree with them, but that's a different issue.
But this:
If not, people will find another way to get it if the consumer deems effort required less burdensome than the price asked.
Is just flat wrong. It may reflect the current reality, but it's not right, not ethically nor legally. As others have noted, if the price is too high, you just don't buy it. That's the choice -- pay the price, or don't get the work. If the creator is charging too much, well, that's his or her right -- you are not obligated to buy. You, as the buyer, are not obligated to ensure that the creator makes money from his or her creation.
But using "the price is too high" as an excuse to pirate, or steal, the work is just that -- an excuse to try and make yourself feel better about taking something from somebody. You don't have a right to the creator's work -- you either buy it at the price the creator sets, or you go without.
I don't know where this whole entitlement mindset comes from.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
Okay, let me explain this very carefully
1. America is a name of a continent. Everyone who lives on that continent is an American.
2. America is also a name given to a country on that continent, for historical reasons. People who live in this country call themselves Americans.
3. "America" refers to both a continent, and a country.
Which of these statements do you object to?
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
I object to number two and three.
No other country has the arrogance to call themselves the United States of Europe or the United States of Asia. If China or Germany did that, do you think the other Europeans or Asians would take kindly to them refering to themselves as Europeans or Asians exclusivly?
If we have a citizen of Mexico up here calling himself an American, he is right, but we do not take that too well. How do you think they feel every time we address the American people? It is clearly NOT for them, but what makes the less American than us? (heck, some of them have bloodlines that have been here much longer) Just another example of us being out of touch with the feelings of anyone outside the USA. We are myopic, and most don't even know it.
Fellow countrymen, feel free to mod me down on this one too, I am getting used to it.
Lets be straight here. Just because none of us have went into armed revolt doesn't mean we haven't stood up to our government, or at least tried to stand up to our government. It only means we haven't went into armed revolt. Nor will we probably anytime in the forseeable future. As for actually fixing anything, what would you have us do? Vote someone else in? I mean really, think about this a moment. With the current way things are set up, if you can get into the house; or the senate; for a single term, just one single term, you'll make more in retirement and retirement benifits than most US citizens make per year. Then add in all the special interest funds you get while in office. Exactly what reasons do our elected officials on the national level have for doing anything we ask them to anymore? Even if we vote someone else in, there is simply no accountability for the new person. That person has already pretty much won the war by being elected in the first place. They have all the perks and benifits and they have them for life. There is no reason I can concievably think of for them do what we say after they have been elected. And we can't exactly force them to do it either, they have all the bombs and rockets. Lets say, hypotheticly, that a group of people actually did stand up in armed revolt in the US over all of this. In what light do you think the media in the rest of the world would show them? As freedom fighters standing up to the US, or crack-potted terrorist reactionaries? The game in the US is currently so rigged we CANNOT WIN. We simply can't. Yet we continue to send letters, make phone calls, and all the rest to our representatives saying we are upset; then get the nice form letters back in response. If, for some reason you ever find yourself in the situation alot of the US citizens are in now, I'd like to hear your views on this whole matter.
But since you aren't here, and its simply a nice mental exercise to you. Please STFU, and spare us your Armchair General strategies on how we should make things all better.
They also have real weapons of mass destruction.
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.
"the pirates gleefully reminded the movie company that they didn't live in America" something more people should think about.
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"The small guys in the business of music and movies? They're the ones who are glad when their stuff gets downloaded and shared"
as a small guy who works in software, I can tell you that is total and utter bullshit. Sorry to rain on your parade there, but it is absolutely heart-rending to give up your job and invest everything including a years hard work in something, charge a reasonable price, andsee people just take it for free, and sinult you while they do it. If that happened to you, you might change your perspective a bit. This nonsense about "actually they love it when i pirate their content" is purely to make YOU feel better, it has sod all basis in reality.
"People need to start thinking about new ways to deliver content that is acceptable to both the creator and the consumer"
that would be DRM, or centralised servers for single player games. Can you imagine how popular this will be with people like you?
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
ah right, so you just take it for free, and pretend it's a moral decision. Nice, why dont you email the bands whose music you love and tell them its all their fault they dont earn anything. they will appreciate hearing from you.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
Everybody is required to listen and see force fed ads everywhere they go. I'd be perfectly happy not knowing all the great songs and movies I miss. How could I pirate something I don't know about?
Another thing, maybe how layman would think of all this nonsense: they played it on TV or radio and so I've seen or heard it for free. Why should I now pay for it? Because they say so? I could've recorded it then, would they still insist that I can't use the record without paying? For some reason that I don't care about, recording is too complicated these days and I rather use internet to get it if I want to see it again.
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.
Copyright infringement is a violation of civil law.
May be true or not... depending on the country and legislation you're in. The real question is how long until the content mafia is able to buy new laws that make copyright infringement a criminal offense?. Isn't it in the pipelines already? E.g. in the US?
But no matter of criminal vs. civil law: illegal copying is still not theft, because it's not depriving the owner of its own original work. Copying is an entirely different beast that can be declared illegal under some circumstances. But it's not (repeat: not) theft; it's duplication.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
What about profit from lost sales? If you copy my CD, you deprive me of my legal profit.
Not really. Consumers buy the real thing because they can't find the pirated thing or they don't know the pirated thing exists.
It's not the same: competition requires effort, whereas copying does not.
No one forced you to try and sell something that was worth next to nothing. If I tried to sell dirt and then blame people for making me starve when they say 'dirt isn't exactly a scarce item', how much sympathy do you think my complaints would garner?
If I sell a painting, the money people pay me is based on scarcity - if anyone could do the same thing in the same manner, my work wouldn't be worth anything. If my painting was perfectly copyable, well... I'd be Thomas Kinkade. And look at the worth of his paintings.
You can put a ton of labor into making something, but that is no guarantee of it being worth anything. And if your product can be perfectly duplicated for close to no cost at all? It's worth exactly the same.
Work smarter, not harder.
Bwahahahaha!!! I very nearly spent a "funny" mod point on your post for that sentence alone :) Instead you win this week's award for "Most Strained Metaphor Used in Anger During a Tedious and Recurring Flamewar".
Congratulations, it'll look great stuck to your fridge! Keep smiling.
"If you create user accounts, by default, they will have an account type of Administrator with no password." KB Q293834
and personally I find fucking morons like you beneath contempt.
Its people like you that wiped out the PC game industry, now all we have are console ports because fucking idiots like you think tis ok to take peoples work for free.
im sick of arguing with idiots and thieves.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
You're right. It is, of course, in the best interest of the RIAA to go and start a land war in Asia. That can only be good, right?
Unless the RIAA has somehow aquired a decent army it might be in the interests of the rest of the planet for them to start a war. Just so long as whoever they attacked kept them after the war was over...
It's tricky, isn't it? After all, they're operating entirely out of Russia, with no American subsidiaries, so how is it they can be violating US law? What if, say, a Mexican radio station broadcasts to US citizens? How is that any different?
Regardless, that doesn't change the fact that they aren't simply "stealing"... they are operating within the bounds of Russian copyright law. Whether or not they should be allowed to sell to non-Russian customers is a separate question.
However, if you come by and wave a magic wand and create yourself exact duplicates, it wouldn't bother me.
Which is the key to why copyright will fail as long as information is easily digitally copyable. You don't mind anyone making a copy because you haven't got the copyright to begin with. If I got one movie, my buddy has another movie and we copy each other's movies it's superior to everyone involved. In fact, we can extend that to the 7+ billion that don't own any copyrights of significance. If we pool everything and everyone has everything, we're all much better off.
The only question is who'd create it. Actually, I think we could reverse it - what business models would fail if copyright was majorly cut back to say 20 years? I don't see much at all, most sales happens within a few years of release. The only question is why they should "let go" that early. Maybe because then it would feel like a deal? Of course it seems most of the IP holders don't see this as a deal, but something they should have as naturally as property rights. Or maybe they just like the steady trickle of income instead of going out to actually create something new.
Nothing else than IP companies can just sit there and sell "nothing" (the trivial costs of reproducing a work) over and over again for many decades. If I go out and buy a car, they must actually deliver to me a physical good. If I go to get my hair cut, that service has to be delivered. Same goes with all the use restrictions. Create the work, sell it, get compensated, go out and create something new. Copyright is not supposed to be some sort of infection tainting everything it touches and everywhere it goes. DRM is ten times as "viral" and disruptive as the GPL ever was.
Personally, I look forward to DRM-free 256k AACs on the local iTunes, going to support that in the hope the rest of the studios will follow. That would at least win a battle, if not the war...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The Chinese refer to themselves as "Zhongguo", the Central Kingdom.
Would you suggest that the Chinese should refer to themselves as something less arrogant?
(Although, of course, the historical reason for the name is not that the Chinese thought that they were in the middle of the world. Just like the historical reason for the name "America" is not that the United States of America were suggesting they were the entire American continent.)
I will keep on with this discussion until this post can't be commented on anymore.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
http://www.google.com/search?q=us+mexico+radio+tre aties
Copyright has many similar agreements. If Russia doesn't see any good reason to enforce copyright, there is indeed fuck all that they United States can do about it, but I sort of doubt that Russia is going to make that choice(at least officially, they have lots of good reasons for lax enforcement).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
You should focus on your reading comprehension.
Our product has great value and it doesn't have competition in its niche. In fact it's quite the opposite as we make a full time living selling it. Still we have is a percentage of people that would rather steal it instead of paying us for something that they obviously think is useful to them.
Loosing a percentage of sales to piracy impacts our small business, where the overall sales in dollars are lower, much greater than your average movie studio.
Tom the Sigless
If Russia doesn't see any good reason to enforce copyright
Pardon? Russia is enforcing copyright. They have a compulsory licensing scheme set up, just like many other nations (the US included). How is that not "[enforcing] copyright"? You may not like it, but it's up to the citizens of Russia to decide how copyrights will be managed, and that's the scheme that was chosen.
Now, if they are in violation of a Russia-US treaty, that's another matter entirely. However, it's still not the case that US law is being imposed in Russia. Nor is it the case that allofmp3.com is "stealing" or "infringing copyright". They would simply be in violation of a treaty by selling to US consumers.
Revisonist history would allow us to think the USA did not try to take over the entire continent. The original colonies held very litte land. Our country was VERY aggesive at expanding our borders. I am sure this is something most "USers" like to forget, but Mexicans and Canadians don't.
(and as some slashdotters like to remind us, the US tried to invade Canada not once, but twice)
Then you have sites like http://www.invadecanada.us/ helping them feel even more secure.
Add to that the fact the Bush government has now armed the coast guard ships in the great lakes (the only enemy there is Canada) and our military does practice INVASIONS of Canada*, and you can see why they don't believe our "We never tried to take over the whole continent". You do realize the reason we have problems with Cuba is that we held them by force, even making them write it into the Cuban constitution.
By the way, I am actually a conservitive, but that does not mean I have to agree with the Neo Faciests (sorry they prefer Neo Conservative) or some of the US imperialist moves of the past. We need to hold onto what made our country great, and ditch the rubbish.
*(The last practice invasion that I know of was a couple of years ago in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the military brought up a bunch of portable floating bridges and moved the equipment to Sugar Island. The excersize was some morons attempt to send a message, and yes, they heard it loud and clear)
You should focus on your philosophical understanding of the concepts of 'value' and 'scarcity'.
Maybe if you had some level of education, you could understand why it is problematic to put value on something based on scarcity when such does not exist in the world of software.
As soon as you sold the first "copy", you started digging your grave, metaphorically speaking. I'm not saying your product is bad (or good, I could hardly know). Nor am I challenging the notion that your put long hard hours of labor into it.
However, what if I toiled away hours on end trying to sell something that had no value based on its level of scarcity? Would you say I was foolish?
"However, what if I toiled away hours on end trying to sell something that had no value based on its level of scarcity? Would you say I was foolish?"
And with that the entire market for people trying to sell their work goes down the drain. The value of software is not defined by its scarcity (as it has none). Its value is determined by a) how much it will help you and b) and cost of development, support, infrastructure, salaries, etc.
If you want his product then it has value to you. If something has value to you then you are willing to barter for it or will take it. Your morals will dictate which path you choose.
"And with that the entire market for people trying to sell dirt goes down the drain. The value of dirt is not defined by its scarcity (as it has none). Its value is determined by a) how much it will help you and b) and cost of digging, moving, infrastructure, salaries, etc.
If you want dirt then it has value to you. If something has value to you then you are willing to barter for it or will take (misspelled 'duplicate'?) it. Your morals will dictate which path you choose."
There. Fixed that for ya.
Now do you see how much sense your argument makes? My favorite bit is where you try to make an appeal to morals at the end, and the kindergarten-level error in confusing duplication with theft is a pretty amusing one too. Got anything better than that? That, maybe holds water?
I was just being sloppy. What you said is more or less what I meant, but I also meant that it will be a long time before the US does much to encourage Russia to enforce any such treaty, simply because of political circumstance.
And really, it isn't that sloppy to call violations of the treaty infringement, because the violations are instances of the combination of international legal framework and copyright not being respected, which is basically the whole idea behind the treaties and copyright in the first place.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Everybody is required to listen and see force fed ads everywhere they go. I'd be perfectly happy not knowing all the great songs and movies I miss. How could I pirate something I don't know about?
I see Ferraris sometimes on my commute to work. Doesn't mean I can afford one, doesn't mean I am entitled to one, doesn't mean I should go steal one if I can't afford it.
Just because you hear a song or see a movie doesn't mean you are entitled to it. You may really want it, but you are in no way entitled to it.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
"Based in Stockholm, The Pirate Bay serves as a massive worldwide hub for copyright infringement but is shielded by its home country's lax copyright laws. The site lives in a comfortable legal loophole, one of many available to Web sites that offer users copyrighted content. Some exploit vagaries in U.S. law, while others depend on their international immunity."
as long as they do not understand that the piratebay is not protected by copyright-laws (because they only aid users that want to exchange material) and does not host any copyrighted content there is no reason to take them serious.
Maybe not. But "stealing" does have a different connotation. When people say "You stole my stuff!" it's possible for John Q. Public to have a knee-jerk reaction. If people say "You infringed my copyright!" then you actually have to think about it.
True enough, but that isn't the quality of RMS that I'm encouraging here. In fact, I don't agree at all with his demand that we call it "GNU/Linux". But the "free vs freedom vs open source" distinction is important, and not something you want people to be confused about. And certainly, the BSD people wouldn't want you to confuse BSD'd stuff with GPL'd stuff.
Put very, very simply: Copyright infringement is still wrong, but it's not as bad as theft. Free software is generally still "free as in beer", but it's generally better quality than freeware.
Most of them are. Try not to take it so personally, especially if you're going to post as Anonymous Coward.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
::: blinks :::
And how does this relate to the issue of whether countries are sometimes called by names that are not totally accurate?
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
lol
It was a response to your comment "Just like the historical reason for the name "America" is not that the United States of America were suggesting they were the entire American continent."
The US tried to take over the whole continent, and still has designs on it. So ya, we kind of do think we are the entire continent. (and certainly wanted to be in the past)
i did not say it was ok. i should have stated that it is not ok explicitly. but it is not theft, this is not an arguable point, there is no room for interpretation: it-is-not-theft. it's still not ok, it's not right and it is not legal, but it is not theft and it is not criminal, it is a civil issue and that is what it deserves to be.
people like you who buy into and reinforce this propaganda that copyright violation is equal to and is by definition theft are a detriment to this society and it's legal system. people like you would argue that if my nephew comes over and installs an unauthorized copy of software on my computer because i let him play on it and later i find it and remove it in the normal fashion, and even later than that the deleted bits that are this program are recovered from my hard drive that i now can be imprisoned. this is where your argument leads. after all, how can i prove that i was not the one who installed it myself?
people should have more rights than companies. people NEED to have more rights than companies, society can't survive otherwise. without this relationship we become a corporate police state and this is the argument being used to take rights away from the people and this is the argument being used now by people to hand give up our rights willingly.
now, i personally go *buy* things from artists and producers that i want and like. i support the people i want to keep around making new things, i don't think its right for people to just take what they can for free and not show financial support for the things they think are valuable, but still, it is not theft. still wrong but not theft.
it is bad that industries are hurting because of this problem, i agree. well it is bad that the pc game industry is hurting. but it is more important that individuals keep their rights, yes even if it does enable some to make unauthorized copies of works that are produced. the rights of the company are less important than the rights of an individual who *might,* maybe, someday, perhaps make an unauthorized copy.
i want to see an america again where the culture and art is produced by people who love producing it, musicians who love music, and actors and directors who make $3,000 movies for the love of making them, and when it becomes an issue of copyrights of individuals vs. the rights of other individuals to have the ability to make copies. when it becomes an issue of and individual having control over the work that he put his soul into and not an issue of a multi thousand employee organization having control over the works made by a myriad of other people for the soul purpose of turning a profit, and we still have problems with unauthorized copying, yes when the problem is that unauthorized copying is deterring individuals from making things they love to make, only then is it a real problem.
no movie company has the right to earn hundreds of millions of dollars on a single movie, no band has the right to become millionaires off of their first album (while the producers will amass billions over several bands). these were short lived privileges that are fading fast and with good reason. and no company deserves to purchase legislation to protect these privileges.
by allowing the current copyright debacle we now have unfolding with the RIAA, MPAA, DRM and the rest of the cast, we are proclaiming proudly to the world that we are measuring ourselves as a country solely by our economy, and a nation of people thusly measured is a nation that measures up short. ask a european about their opinion about americas stance on copyrights and you will have my vindication. copyrights were a privilege granted to individuals who took time out of their busy schedules to produce works that benefit others and allow them at least a shot at making a living off of these works, and this privilege is being abused by large corporations and our society is suffering dearly for it.
i feel for the gaming industry but their troubles are but a trifle. simply put, there are bigger issues at hand.
i'm done with this thread.
__
"i love to bang my head against the wall, it feels so good when i stop"
Taking something someone else made whilst not paying for it (when they are asking for payment) is theft. Most clear ideas can be expressed this simply. when it takes pages of waffle to excuse your actions, you know your in the wrong.
I love the way you draw a line between companies and people. companies are 'teh evil' and people are innocent blameless victims. I am a one man company, sorry to blow apart your world view. Has it occured to you that 'teh evil RIAA' actually represents thousands of working people? I don't think it has. Companies arent staffed by aliens, but by working people. Some of them earn more money that you, deal with it, or go live in N korea.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games