Commerce Department Pushing For New "Copyright Czar"

TechDirt is reporting that those all-too-familiar "stats" surrounding the cost of piracy are being trotted out in an attempt to push through a new "Copyright Czar" position. "In urging President Bush to sign into law the ProIP bill, which would give him a copyright czar (something the Justice Department had said it doesn't want), the US Chamber of Commerce is claiming that 750,000 American jobs have been lost to piracy. Yet, it doesn't cite where that number comes from."

Comments

Easy

[Eponymous Crowbar]

If we just hire 750,000 copyright czars, well there ya go. That would be mavericky, you betcha.

Re:Easy

[Jimmyisikura]

Yes but then we have created a problem by removing 10,000,000,000 pirates from the market. Pirates need to eat too. Studies also show that 12/15 of those 750,000 are part-time ax-murderers. I think the statistics show the real victims here.

Re:Easy

[mcgrew]

Yet, it doesn't cite where that number comes from

Cue the goatse trolls in 3...2...

Re:Easy

[ShieldW0lf]

Average Americans used to be restricted to a very small subset of the information and culture that exists. The average person just couldn't afford any more than that.

Now, thanks to piracy, they have access to most of it.

In addition to having access to more, percentage-wise, it is a fact that despite current conditions, there are more creative works being made than ever before in recorded history. And they get access to most of that too.

Therefore, rampant piracy has improved the average persons quality of life.

If it came to pass that there was an end to piracy, and an extra 250 billion a year was divided amongst all Americans, that amount of money wouldn't be anywhere close to enough to pay for what the average person currently has access to because of piracy.

Therefore, the average Americans quality of life would be significantly diminished should effective copyright enforcement become available and common.

In conclusion, the victims of the American War on Piracy are... the American people.

Re:Easy

[Ortega-Starfire]

It is odd. Whenever goatse would actually be on topic, the goatse guy is never around. Psychological reverse trolling, perhaps?

Re:Easy

[OVDoobie]

Oddly enough, the same goes for the American War on Drugs. 80% of arrests are for simple possession. Before you mod me off topic think about this: if they pass this, and are equally efficient with enforcement how may millions, if not billions, will this cost average Americans (assuming there is no jail time, just fines).

Re:Easy

[calmofthestorm]

Yeah these wars make the war on terra look positively intelligent, if you examine them closely.

Re:Easy

[The Wooden Badger]

Just hire 750000 kids to sell CDs on street corners. If they average about zero sales they will be somewhere around the revenue lost due to piracy.

Re:Easy

[gnick]

That's an interesting way to phrase that - And you're not actually wrong. Piracy spreads culture to a much wider audience than could appreciate it otherwise.

However, there are a number of activities that people can undertake that improve their quality of life without any cost to other individuals or society as a whole. But some of these we've decided to outlaw because of various problems. For example:
* Jumping over subway turnstiles rather than walking to your destination or buying a ticket.
* Sneaking into private museums/movie theaters/plays to observe the goings-on rather than buying a ticket.
* Peeking into your sexy neighbor's window while she's changing for a cheap thrill rather than going to a strip club.
* Breaking into a house that's are nicer than your own and living there when the normal tenants are known to be away on vacation before cleaning up after yourself and leaving the house as you found it.

I could go on, but hopefully you see my point. All of those activities improve one person's quality of life without any noticeable cost to any other person or society overall (assuming that nobody gets noticed - then society suffers due to law-enforcement.) The first couple of examples are outlawed because, if everyone did them, the business model would fall apart and we (society) would lose things that we value - The same logic used for copyright enforcement. The latter couple of examples are outlawed because they offend our popularly accepted morals, although they are still examples of one person benefiting with no cost to others (assuming again that nobody gets caught or causes damage).

So do you jump subway turnstiles and sneak into museums/movies/plays/concerts? If not, why not? I see very little difference assuming that you would not have ridden or attended if you would have had to pay.

As a side note, I really need to learn to post A/C when countering somebody here who advocates rampant piracy. For some reason I just can't bring myself to do it... I must mention this to my analyst.

Re:Easy

[plague3106]

Who am I to tell someone they can't destroy their own body? Seriously though, if you look at this history of drug laws, they are based in racism. You know.. blacks had a hard enough time not raping poor defenseless white women, and when they were on cocain, well watch out!

Re:Easy

[nine-times]

If it came to pass that there was an end to piracy, and an extra 250 billion a year was divided amongst all Americans, that amount of money wouldn't be anywhere close to enough to pay for what the average person currently has access to because of piracy.

What if we added in an extra $700 billion? Because I've heard that if you throw in an additional $150 in pork projects, Congress will pass anything.

Re:Easy

[OVDoobie]

Did you even read your own articles? How many people do you know who smoke 5 joints a day (the average for the folks your studies were based on)? That is in line with the folks who drink a bottle of Jack daily (which a guarantee you has worse effects on your body). Of course there are negative side effects when done en masse, but no one is arguing there aren't. I am simply arguing that the regulations do more harm than the drug would if not regulated.

A few more issues with your post: Hash is stronger than marijuana, it is a concentrate, know your drugs. When did I advocate, in my post, anyone consuming copious amounts of marijuana? I didnâ(TM)t! Next, wtf is âoeemphatizeâ, sounds like a term you made up on the fly to me. Maybe you should put in a little more thought before calling people retarded just because you disagree. Lastly, this research you brought to the table is all brand spanking new, which means it hasn't been around long enough to be refuted yet, I have no doubt there are some side effects of smoking pot, I do doubt it is anywhere nearly as dangerous as you want people to believe.

Re:Easy

[Duradin]

And it has been scientifically proven that living damages the brain.

Then there's alcohol...

Re:Easy

[ShieldW0lf]

Clearly, the business model is flawed and needs to be replaced with one that meets the social goal of providing for those who are valued creators without requiring artificial scarcity to implement it.

History is full of such models. The BBC and the CBC are both good examples. And if you compare the quality of such with Fox News and CNN, you find that they also produce superior programming.

Re:Easy

[Ngarrang]

Yes but then we have created a problem by removing 10,000,000,000 pirates from the market. Pirates need to eat too. Studies also show that 12/15 of those 750,000 are part-time ax-murderers. I think the statistics show the real victims here.

If we remove 10 billion pirates from the planet, won't our global temperature shoot through the roof?

Re:Easy

[PotatoFarmer]

Yeah, thank god we've never tried to legislate against booze. Imagine how bad that would have turned out...

As an aside, the 18th amendment was repealed during a period of unrest involving a major economic downturn. Would be interesting to see if history repeats itself this time around with regard to the war on drugs. I wouldn't expect heroin to be available at your local grocery store, but I could certainly imagine less restriction on "soft" drugs like marijuana.

Re:Easy

[discord5]

Average Americans used to be restricted to a very small subset of the information and culture that exists.

Pardon my ignorance, but I fail to see how the last season of Battlestar Galactica was deprived from the American people when they simply had to turn on their TVs to watch it, should it not have been available at the nearest convenient torrent tracker near you. The same goes for the latest CD of Metalica (sigh) which is probably being broadcast to death on radio, should it not have been posted to usenet with degoratory subject lines.

I don't see how "pirating" (violating copyright, yarrrr, stealing, stickin' it to the man, or whatever is the "politically correct" term on slashdot these days) has enlarged your access to information, other than perhaps made a few applications or videogames available to you for free.

Heavens forbid we should actually walk to the library to borrow a book or CD, a videorental store for a DVD, or something like that. Yes, we actually never had any opportunity before internet piracy to expand our cultural interests.

Therefore, rampant piracy has improved the average persons quality of life.

Yes, it's definatly improved my quality of life. I can sit in this here chair reading the latest Hairy Potter book (heavens forbid) in eyestrain-o-vision on a computer screen, watch the latest episode of whatever show I want without having to change the channel on my wide-screen tv which I was just using to play a videogame I didn't have to surf to amazon for and pre-order. Did I mention I just forked over an enormous amount of cash for my wide-screen TV with digital surround system and blue-ray player, which I could've spent buying a book or DVD?

Let's not kid ourselves, we've all pirated something at some point, probably more than once, and I'm guessing half of the people here have over a TB of movies/music/whatever on their machine or on DVD-Rs. And while I don't really care if someone pirates their goodies or buys them, I think that saying that piracy is contributing to your quality of life and enforcing copyright would culturally impoverish you is just a tad far fetched.

the victims of the American War on Piracy are... the American people.

Cool slogan, but try something more catchy like "If piracy is outlawed, only outlaws will have piracy" or something like that.

What you spend your money on is between you and your wallet (or if you're married between your wife and your wallet), but access to modern culture is relatively cheap (and increasingly convenient). It might not be on your terms (in which case you're probably going to download it anyway), but it's still there.

I'm sorry if this entire post sounds only a bit cynical, it was intended as bitter cynicism from a person who actually culturally enriched himself for what used to be 0.50€ a year at the library at some point in time.

Re:Easy

[discord5]

Whenever goatse would actually be on topic, the goatse guy is never around. Psychological reverse trolling, perhaps?

Great, now I've got the expression "Pulling those facts out of his ass" associated with that image. Thanks... Really... Thanks

Another one to scratch off of the "frequently used expressions" list.

Re:Easy

[Lostlander]

For starters you used words that don't exist. emphatize (possibly you meant emphasize) and amotivated (which basically sounds like an attempt at politically correct bullshit proper use would be unmotivated).

While the common everyday use of any depressant can be severely damaging see: Alcoholism The constrained and controlled use of what is generally considered contraband can be somewhat beneficial under the right circumstances. See MS. Proper control over such drugs would be a much more effective solution instead of outright bans. Most people will follow a law of inconvenience but will break a law if it forbids something they desire to do. See prohibition.

Re:Easy

[rcamans]

Actually, piracy affects only a very small percentage of Americans. Most are too old to be interested in the internet, where they would download this pirated stuff. And are uninterested in pirated software. Only the terminally obsessed with online games and movies get this stuff. And that is actually a small percentage of the whole.
And watching the movies available improves no one's quality of life. They are all crud. What improves the quality of life is mainly face-to-face relationships with others, education, and to some extent, distance relationships with others. News aggregaters like boingboing only help a little.
online is not life. life is in the real world. and very few use pirated software.
So I call BS on this whole line of "reasoning".
You guys are trolling, not informing.

Re:Easy

[n dot l]

The first couple of examples are outlawed because, if everyone did them, the business model would fall apart and we (society) would lose things that we value - The same logic used for copyright enforcement.

One small nitpick here. Subways, museums and theaters are selling the use of a finite resource (a spot on the train/the space in their building). A person that sneaks in without paying is actually robbing the company in that they cause wear on the train/building for which the operator is not compensated, and they take up space, physically preventing paying customers from using it. At the very least they force the company to pay more for security to throw out the thieves at peak hours so that the actual paying customers can ride the train/view some art. A copied song, on the other hand, is made at the infringer's expense and maybe costs the artist a potential sale.

Re:Easy

[AmberBlackCat]

Well, maybe the federal government should have a czar for people living in other people's homes, and a czar for people sneaking on subways and in movie theaters, and a czar for peeping toms. Maybe we should take the price for pirating one song and make the kid on the subway pay that too. Maybe I should leave my window open while I change clothes and see if I can spot somebody looking at me. Then I can personally make an estimate of how many times I that person has potentially done this in the past, and get a few thousand dollars for each time.

Or, maybe we should stop pretending bittorrent piracy is the same as violating a person's privacy, and stop pretending sneaking onto a subway is really hurting somebody.

Re:Easy

[OVDoobie]

I bet your relationships are based on scientific method, so you are certainly qualified to make this assertion. /sarcasm

As I said, I was not equating (or equaling for those lesser skilled in engrish) drug consumption to piracy. I was equating the enforcement of the US drug policy to the potential enforcement of this piracy policy.

The problem with "NEW" science, is that it is often quickly refuted. There is also the fact of funding, frequently science can come to the conclusions desired by the folks who fund the research. While I don't know for certain that is the case here, it certainly could be.

Lets not even get started on the War on Terror, the enforcement in that area could certainly be applicable here. Then there is the almighty "think of the children" congratulations on being a meme king btw.

Re:Easy

[gnick]

maybe we should stop pretending bittorrent piracy is the same as violating a person's privacy

Who's pretending that? I just pointed out an example of an unethical situation where one person benefits (a cheap thrill) while nobody suffers (assuming that the peeping tom isn't caught). If you inferred that I was saying that the two situations were identical, I must have been unclear - Sorry.

stop pretending sneaking onto a subway is really hurting somebody

Actually, I pointed out specifically that I considered sneaking onto a subway victimless. I must have been doubly unclear - Sorry again. (Although another responder pointed out that you do take up space that might have been otherwise sold, so it's potentially not entirely victimless.)

The rest of your post was funny.

Re:Easy

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever stop to think that they actually had smoked pot to deal with the paranoia and mental deficiencies they had to begin with? There is much research (go find the articles yourself, I don't have enough time to waste on you at the moment) that shows that many people who consume copious amounts of said substances do so in an effort to self-medicate and deal with these internal problems that they have. Think about it for a sec, unless you have research documenting extensively their mental states before they started engaging is such activities, the research is just blowing smoke up everyone who reads it collective asses.

Re:Easy

[RobBebop]

Part of the problem is that most anti-IP ideals (consumers gain SO MUCH from piracy!) ignore the fact that their are artists who gain so much from the financial gain of their art. By simply supporting the abolition of IP, you are throwing mud into the faces of artists everywhere and culture will suffer in the long term.

Not to long ago I submitted a letter to Senator Leahy urging him to consider an alternative approach to the PRO IP legislation. See the full text here, but this is the jist of the alternative that I think would (a) empower consumers, (b) empower artists, and (c) bitchslap business execs who hoard IP:

But if you'll allow me to go off on a tangentially related rant.... it's my belief to strive for an economy where artists do it for the love of creation, the desire for fame/notoriety, and not the greed of monetary gain. In that spirit, I am going to suggest a financial encumberance that will downplay greed and cut "Big Business" out from the position of funding the creation of most types of art (arguably, BB would still maintain control over mediums of art that require large-scale co-ordination and efforts to orchestrate (such as big budget movies and video games)).

My proposal would be to offer tax incentives (via a "deduction" applied to decrease the "gross income" of creators during the year so that their overall tax burden is lessened). This would have the effect (in my opinion) of enticing businessmen and laborers to create and support art in their free time. Meanwhile, "starving artists" would benefit from this by earning the right to claim a high "artistic deduction" which would position them to be supported by minimium wage occupations. This would work so that an individual who has significant artistic talent could work at McDonald's to earn $25k and create art that qualifies him for a $50k tax deduction. As such, his "taxes" would be calculated based on $0 income. The additional $25k (because his previous gross was in the poverty range) would be refunded based on some TBD percentage. Meanwhile, a person who works as a bank manager might make $75k per year and dabble in performing arts during the holiday season. Let's say for the sake of argument that these performances (made to the public) would qualify him for a $10k tax deduction so that his annual tax burden is decreased to $65k. This presents a good incentive for him to continue to do this year to year.

Now the trouble becomes determining how to calculate how much the "tax deduction" should be, and that comes down to picking values. For example, if you did a painting that was accepted to be displayed in a public place you'd get a $2,000 tax deduction. You took photographs of a natural phenomenon and published them on the internet in a noteworthy archive? A $500 tax deduction. You metaphrasted Shakespeare's Sonnets? A $1,000 tax deduction. You donated $40 to charity at a public concert? Write it off as a tax deduction. Additionally, some types of art require multiple years to create (books, animations, statues), so there would be additional consideration to let people claim a certain amount of time and evaluate that using a predetermined rate (say, $10/hr).

Again, this is letting people work on their own projects in their free time in a manner that will allow them to lower their tax burden for the express purpose of producing a work of art that will be free of copyright to be enjoyed by the general public.

Now, politicians would argue that all these "tax deductions" would be lowering the government's income. Meanwhile, others would clamor that the corruption of big businesses would see the lucrative value of the deductions and take advantage of them for greedy purposes. But these arguments wouldn't understand the goals of the proposal in the first place. The whole point of the exercise is to expand the culture of creation. There are gains when Joe Smith has an incentive to get toge

Re:Easy

[gnick]

Secondly: In your post you are equaling piracy with drug consumption, that is not only offtopic as you say but also is pleasing to the media industry wich used more than once this association to make it look bad. ...
In conclusion: Then next time try to equate piracy with pedofilia and terrorism, just to close the loop and make RIAA happy.

To be fair, OVDoobie never equated piracy with drug consumption. He made an analogy between a potential "War on Piracy" with the "War on Drugs". Both are unwinnable, but compensate by being expensive.

When you start putting words in people's mouths or blatantly misinterpreting what they say, it's hard to take seriously any valid points you may or may not have. It's even worse than assuming that TYPING LIKE THIS will win some points because, presumably, otherwise WE CAN'T HEAR WHAT WE'RE READING.

Re:Easy

[TubeSteak]

Who am I to tell someone they can't destroy their own body?

You are a taxpayer and you have to cover the social costs of drug use.
Yes, there are social costs for [drug] that you think isn't all that harmful.

Legalize and require that drug users to be bonded & insured, then let them go wild, because they'll be directly responsible for the costs of their actions. Can't afford to be bonded and insured, then don't take [drug].

Re:Easy

[Endymion]

As I have talked about before, why do you support violence in our streets by pushing for drugs to be illegal?

There are three options on how society can handle the drug market: private industry, public (government) programs, or illegal black markets. By saying you want to remove the options of the legitimate public or private industries that can be regulated. controlled, and taxed, you want to hand that entire profitable market to organized crime.

Note: I didn't say anything about the effects of any particular drug (which are largely exaggerated), nor did I say people should run out and start using such chemicals. I am simply commenting on pure Capitalism. Supply rises to meet demand, and the demand has said that being the supplier for drugs is going to be very profitable.

Help remove the violence in our streets by moving that market into legitimate business! ...

And to stay on topic here about the copyright stuff, it's obvious that the powers that be want another method of social control now that the War On (some) Drugs is losing a bit of momentum. Controlling other forms of culture such as music/etc is the next obvious step.

$oldmsg = "It's not a War On Drugs, it's a War On Personal Freedom - keep that in mind at all times!"
$oldmsg =~ s/Drugs/Music and Other Culture/

Re:Easy

[ScreamingCactus]

I call bullshit. I bet you just linked the results from a Google search without even reading them, because they are weak and will easily be torn apart by real scientists. I could do it right here and now simply by highlighting how their methodologies are shit, but I don't need to. Anyone who reads them will see. The only point I need to make is that marijuana use is completely harmless; it causes no violent behavior (and government PSAs have even wised up and no longer try to make such associations) and is less destructive to the brain than alcohol. Therefore everyone who is in jail for possession is costing us money that the government could be spending on more important things, like cleaning up the daily destruction caused by alcohol (and how much are the lives that alcohol takes every day worth?). Similarly, digital piracy is also a victimless crime, despite what lobbyists would have you believe. It is obvious that actors, musicians, and the fat fucks who capitalize off of artists' work are not out of jobs, and are in fact as rich as ever. So who then are the victims? Well perhaps they can convince you that regular people just like you (3/4 of a million of them, in fact) are the victims. This is bullshit. If anything, this war on piracy has created jobs. And it certainly hasn't cost anyone important anything. Musicians and actors are paid by contract, so if a record company loses sales, the only people who lose out are the executives who have been stealing from the artists for years anyway. But that doesn't matter because it's been shown time and again that the large majority of pirated contented wouldn't have been bought anyway - in fact, for the most part, sales are actually up. What pirating does that the RIAA, MPAA, and apparently the Chamber of Commerce are so upset about, is take the power away from the **AA, Clear Channel, Comcast, FOX, and other monopolistic media corporations, to decide what entertainment we will consume. They are more upset about the fact that their monopolies are losing market share and that they may actually have to start charging what their material is worth for people to continue buying it than anything else. They don't want to do away with piracy - they want to do away with the entire system that puts them on the same level with all their small-time competition. They want it to go back to the good ol' days when people had only one choice of what entertainment to consume: what they were given, and had to pay whatever the corporate overlords felt like charging. Like all abstract wars, the War on Piracy is failing miserably. The War on Drugs is a failure because people obviously want to do drugs and think it should be their right to do them, the War on Terror is a failure because it's giving the terrorists exactly what they want, and the War on Piracy is a failure because digital piracy is nothing more than a natural and expected consequence of the progression into the information age, where money loses power and intelligence rules, and all persons are truly equal.

Re:Easy

[aztektum]

Actually some of the earlier drug laws were aimed at wiping out the Asian opium trade. It was a bit of racism and simply being pissed the powers that be weren't getting a cut of the action.

Re:Easy

[ScentCone]

I would believe Petraeus and the leader of al Qaeda

Which, of course, was in the context of discussing whether or not Iraq was or is a key front in the war with jihaddism/terrorism. Which, of course, it has been, and continues to be. Al Queda's own internal communications, as the insurgency there was on earlier on the rise, made a big point of talking about how important Iraq was to them as a movement. And of course, Petraeus said the same thing... because, it's true.

So, your point is that it's... not true? Or that even though it is true, the fact that an enemy talks among themselves about how important it is to destablize a Iraq, and the military leader in charge of putting that destabilization effort down says the same thing... these are things that you're going to elect to treat as false because it makes it easier for you to try to ridicule the person who mentions those facts out loud?

How about this, instead: Obama's buddy Harry Reid, who runs the Senate majority, proclaimed the conflict in Iraq as "lost." Obama, who assured us all that the surge strategy pushed by McCain would never work and wanted nothing to do with it, now says that it "succeeded beyond our wildest dreams," (the "we" part is really funny - he had no dreams of its success, he was positive about its failure). So... someone who "says stuff like" an accurate description of the importance of stabilizing Iraq against the jihaddi insurgency gets your scorn, but the guys who said the fight was lost when it wasn't, and who said that the strategy that worked really well never would... that's the level of understanding you prefer?

Re:Easy

[Tubal-Cain]

Not if humans cause global warming. ***

Re:Easy

[Dun Malg]

Who am I to tell someone they can't destroy their own body?

You are a taxpayer and you have to cover the social costs of drug use.

This is a bullshit argument. If "society" thinks it's unfair that it has to pay the price of helping those who fuck themselves up with drugs, then it bloody well ought to stop paying. It's completely asinine to ban a substance because of the irresponsibility of a small subset of the population. The substance isn't what fucks people up. Fucked up people turn to substance abuse. It's idiots like you parroting discredited religious nutjob temperance bullshit from the turn of the previous century that are the problem. The foolish notion that the only difference between a drunkard and a pious churchgoing citizen is the bottle of whiskey is what keeps reasonable programs to address the root of the problem from being created. Do you treat suicidal tendencies by banning razor blades, ropes, guns, etc.? Of course not. You treat the person so they don't feel like they need to kill themselves! Why, then, does it make sense to you that the way to treat drug problems is more aggressive prohibition of drugs?

Re:Easy

[Dun Malg]

Well, maybe the federal government should have ... a czar for peeping toms.

Man, I'd totally volunteer for that job

Re:Easy

[Dun Malg]

Part of the problem is that most anti-IP ideals (consumers gain SO MUCH from piracy!) ignore the fact that their are artists who gain so much from the financial gain of their art. By simply supporting the abolition of IP, you are throwing mud into the faces of artists everywhere and culture will suffer in the long term.

This assertion has no supporting evidence. Copyright law is less than 350 years old, and recognizable modern copyright is less than 250 years old. Please cite where and how, exactly, "culture" suffered from lack of artistry prior to this.

Re:Easy

[strength_of_10_men]

Brilliant. That would also reverse this trend nicely.

GO McCain/Palin!

Re:Easy

[Reziac]

Exactly the same war is being waged against dog breeders and livestock producers by various "animal rights" interests (CA Prop 2 is one such example).

Extending civil asset forfeiture to extremes like taking the cars from people who merely WATCH a street race is another example.

We seem to be returning to a Puritan culture, where "anything *I* don't like, YOU can't do either!" whether there's a logical reason for that or not. And if you can't jail someone for some such offense, taking his property for that offense is ... well, not the next-best thing; it's probably "even better" because it's profitable!

We've also entered an era of finding ways to ALWAYS ensure that any person of interest can be convicted of a felony. CA Prop 6 does this by requiring gang members to register with the police (in blatant disregard of our Constitutional Right of Assembly). Arrest some kid without enough evidence of a crime? no problem... chances are he never registered as a gang member; GOT HIM!

The RIAA's desired incarnation of copyright is similiar: Did you even THINK of perusing that material? then PAY UP! and if you don't, we'll send Vinny and Guido to confiscate your computer (that way we can be sure what IP address to tie your "crime" to). The moment we have a "Copyright Czar" you can expect the "war on piracy" to escalate to levels very similar to the "war on drugs" -- with equally negative effects. Imagine raids on average citizens for the crime of copying a disk they got from the library...

Personally, I believe the "war on drugs" is encouraged and even partly funded by the drug lords, to keep prices artificially high. One could draw similar parallels to the RIAA cartel.... as to drugs, I'm all for legalize/regulate/tax. It's relatively easy with hard goods like drugs. How could we do that with content -- to legalize, regulate, and tax, so everyone gets their cut yet no one (short of "smugglers") can be hauled in for a "crime"??

Re:Easy

[AmberBlackCat]

If bittorrent piracy is not the same as violating a person's privacy then they shouldn't necessarily be handled the same way.

Maybe in your city, people sneaking on the subway actually causes other people to be stuck without transportation. The situation is different in my city.

I can see how [the scenario of a woman exposing herself to trap people as peeping toms] could be considered funny, but it is relevant because the type of organizations we speak of are not above putting fake files out there for download to trap people, or downloading files from people to trap them. So if you are to compare a peeping tom to a file sharer then it is relevant to compare the tactics of the RIAA/MPAA to the tactics of the woman being viewed.

If you want something really funny, consider the fact that my letter P is not working so well on my keyboard, and during the course of typing this post and the last, I have typed "peeing tom" over and over.

Re:Easy

[The Yuckinator]

Sounds kind of uncomfortable, but I wonder if you get any higher that way? It's gotta be better for the lungs.

Re:Easy

[Endymion]

As to other things like the animal issues and Civil Forfeiture, don't think limit what I said to just copyright/drugs. There are a lot of other grabs for power going on as well, such as the ones you mention. They won't all get traction, but some will, and those that profit from the situation will keep trying.

Personally, I believe the "war on drugs" is encouraged and even partly funded by the drug lords, to keep prices artificially high.

"Follow the money!"

I have no doubt at all that those that are profiting the most from the war on drugs also have an interest in keeping the status quo.

I'm all for legalize/regulate/tax. It's relatively easy with hard goods like drugs.

No only is it easy, there are a lot of options available. If it was handed to the states, we could even have several different methods of legalization experimented with. Perhaps some states would try government ownership of the distribution process, like some already do with government-run liquor stores. Perhaps some could try a pure private-industry approach. All of these are far less expensive to society than the current situation.

How could we do that with content -- to legalize, regulate, and tax, so everyone gets their cut yet no one (short of "smugglers") can be hauled in for a "crime"??

That is a problem, as the entire premise of "content" is about controlling ideas. Before digital distribution, there was a significant overhead on the per-copy cost of distributing an idea. Digital distribution is has forced that cost to basically zero. This makes digital distribution inevitable. Note, I have not made a moral judgment on this distribution - just that it will happen. As an industry, the contend distributors and producers can adapt to this new situation or succumb to the basic forces of capitalism. This just means they have to get creative, and change their business to offer things that cannot be copied for zero cost. Creative packaging, or fancy (and expensive) pre-release concerts, to name a few examples.

The idea of "everyone gets their cut" is based on there being a gradient of cost between the producers and consumers. If that gradient has slope zero, your business is doomed from the start. All businesses need some form of arbitrage to function, and that doesn't exist with digital ideas.

Re:Easy

[jellybear]

You're basically making the "what if everyone else did that too?"

In the case of jumping the subway stiles, if everyone did that, the subway system would indeed suffer. You'd have massive over-crowding alongside the under-funding.

In the case of piracy, everyone already DOES have access to pirated material. Piracy already IS rampant. You don't need to imagine a counterfactual in which everyone can easily pirate material. We are living in such a world. And, as the parent post points out, despite nearly a decade of easy piracy (that is, piracy easily within reach of a large percentage of ordinary users) culture continues to be produced, without any decrease in quality or quantity.

Maybe what you are saying is, "what if everyone ONLY consumed pirated material and didn't pay for any content?" That could indeed be a problem. We don't know what would happen in that scenario, and you are welcome to argue your pessimistic opinions.

However, the real relevant question, in this case, is: would music, art, and culture die unless we have a copyright czar or, in some other way, sacrifice our freedoms? That, you have not proved.

Re:Easy

[cayenne8]

"You are a taxpayer and you have to cover the social costs of drug use.

Yes, there are social costs for [drug] that you think isn't all that harmful."

yeah...but, I don't think that 'cost' would be any more than it is now.

I mean, the majority of people that use drugs do it recreationally, and don't just destroy their lives and themselves, if that were the case, the country would have shut down long ago.

And besides...by not having to pay billions for the 'war on drugs'...a small percentage of those funds could be used towards the 'social costs' that you mention.

I mean, look...alcohol abused is just like any other drug abuse. But, used socially, responsibly and recreationally, and it is harmless.

Re:Easy

[Endymion]

This entire problem seems to be based on two really idiotic 'theories':

1) That banning something with laws actually changes the rate of occurrence of something, in any significant society-changing scale.

2) That if someone cannot do something stupid with a particular thing, they will magically turn into an upstanding member of society.

These are such obvious bullshit that I put anyone who seriously believe in this idiocy into the "(mildly?) mentally handicapped" group. It's what psychs call "Magical Thinking" - that wishing something would happen makes it happen, and is a pretty significant delusion.

The example of suicide you bring up is a good one. If someone wants to kill themself and they can't get a gun, they'll use a rope. If they can't get a rope, they'll use pills. If they can't find pills, they will find a tall bridge. You cannot stop a determined person* simply by stopping one of the methods they might use. With drugs, it's the same. If they want to get messed up on drug "A", and they simply cannot get it, they'll use drug "B' instead. You actually see this behavior all the time: people that cannot use relatively safe drugs like marijuana end up moving to other, more dangerous things.

As a society, are we better off by spending money on a drug test that pushes a heavy user from marijuana to, say, cocaine? That one is a pretty obvious "no"...

* - Speaking of "determined persons", it's worth noting that the same reason banning razors to prevent suicide is a stupid idea makes "banning XYZ on an airplane to prevent terrorism" a really stupid idea. The big thing that 9/11 showed us is that terrorists can be innovative if they need to. Nobody had thought of box cutters in that manner before, and we aren't thinking of the weapon for the next terrorist attack for the same reason.

Re:Easy

[gnick]

if you are to compare a peeping tom to a file sharer then it is relevant to compare the tactics of the RIAA/MPAA to the tactics of the woman being viewed.

Agreed - I thought it was an excellent (but amusing) analogy. As for the subway thing, like I said in my original post, I consider it victimless (assuming that you wouldn't have ridden if you couldn't get around paying). But the other poster had a valid point if somebody's being deprived.

And I know the pain of the 'P' thing. I had a keyboard for a while that refused to type 'B's. There was one in my password, so I learned the ASCII code just so that I could use the Alt-key to 'type' it. Then, once logged in, I'd open a Notepad window and 'type' a 'B' that I could copy/paste. (Pathetic, huh?)

Re:Easy

[Endymion]

Legalize and require that drug users to be bonded & insured, then let them go wild, because they'll be directly responsible for the costs of their actions. Can't afford to be bonded and insured, then don't take [drug].

Wow, that a stupid idea. If someone isn't following drug laws right now, why would they follow some "bonding and insuring" law? There's no incentive for anybody to move from the current (violent) black market.

The only way to remove the violence is to remove the financial incentive to the drug lords. The only way to do that is to make it easier for users to go to legitimate sources instead of the local gang.

There are several ways things could be accomplished, ranging from "everything at the corner 7/11" to "have some sort of 'drug-distribution clinic' where real doctors distribute everything". The latter has the advantage of at least having doctors involved, so those that do want help in stopping their habit can get it easily. It's dangerously close, though, to scaring people back to the black market, so something between those two extremes is probably better.

Re:Easy

[marnues]

Although the GP was a fool for dropping that line out of context, that line really bugs me. We don't want to be fighting where al qaeda claims the front of this culture clash resides. We want to be fighting behind the lines (ie Afghanistan and Pakistan). By continuing to fight in Iraq we not only legitimize al qaeda's claims (always bad to let the enemy be right) but that also means we're fighting to keep the status quo. That's not the way to fight this or to win this. Petraeus is smoking something (wish he'd share too) if he truly thinks Iraq is the place to win whatever it is we're doing at the moment. I'm pretty certain he's in the business of justifying his job or making his superiors happy, otherwise I'd just assume he's completely incompetent.

Re:Easy

[Reziac]

Remember the estimated $6M worth of sales from NIN's digital experiment? Give away the lowest-common denominator (average-grade MP3s), sell various upgrades, from better-grade downloads to 3-figure boxed sets. And not a dime in advertising or distribution costs for the digital versions, other than the bill for a bit of bandwidth. Word of mouth and slashdot ensured a banner turnout. (And presumably the hardcopies were priced well over the overhead to manufacture them.)

Most artists would be delerious with joy if they managed 1% of that level of success -- especially if they got to keep all of it, instead of having to hand 98% of it to the label!

And then there's Jonathan Coulson, whose amateur music sold well enough, starting from freebies and optional purchases, that he could quit his day job.

It's clear the market is there to be exploited, which goes to prove the contention that the RIAA isn't about stopping piracy, it's about retaining control.

As to controlling ideas and profiting from them.. copyright in its original form did that adequately, and could still continue to do so: If someone plagiarizes your content, you have redress same as always. And if you're using the well-proven "Free samples" method of advertising and initial distribution, there ceases to be such a crime as "digital piracy".

On following THAT stream of money, one finds in part a very unhappy advertising and promotions industry that's being shut out by digital free samples. But why be unhappy? they can advertise paid upgrades to someone's free content as well as the content owner can, and maybe better -- especially should the content owner feel a need to reach a new market (which new artists always do). I see money here for sales on commission, no different from ordinary meatspace commissions.

Re:Easy

[Shark]

If I could *buy* all that added cultural value, I probably would, and I do when it's available. I much much prefer owning a DVD and I do when they find it in their heart to release it. That is... If it's not a foreing movie the US idiots who bought the rights decided to completely butcher to make it more 'US friendly'.

You want my money? *LET ME BUY* What I want, when I want and at the same price as everybody else. Don't pollute my computer with DRM rootkit whatevers, don't treat me like a criminal, let me buy.

Give me a great big site with decent-quality downloads with a big shiny button that says "Like this movie/game/album? send us 10$ and we'll ship you a legal DVD and give half of that *to the artists*" Make me click through an ad of some related content for the download, I don't mind... You even get free targeted advertising out of the deal. Make me contribute some of my CPU cycles to that studio's render farm while it downloads. Be, you know.... Creative.

You know what would happen if The Pirate Bay or some equivalent could do something like that? *good* artists would make millions, and mediocre ones would stop peddling their crap.

Then again, I can only speak for myself. Maybe I'm the only person on earth with a tad of integrity left and nobody else would bother with the shiny button.

Re:Easy

[arotenbe]

I've heard that if you throw in an additional $150 in pork projects, Congress will pass anything.

Here's my 150 bucks. Now will you give me my space shuttle already?

Re:Easy

[ScentCone]

if he truly thinks Iraq is the place to win whatever it is we're doing at the moment

The point is that it was like that. Since Obama's crew keeps swearing that the fight was lost or unwinnable, etc., it's been important for his opponents to point out that something important was accomplished in diminishing the influence of AQ in Iraq. Security in Iraq is being handed over, town by town and province by province, to Iraq's own maturing law enforcement and military. Coalition forces are now doing exactly what you suggest they should. The crazies have failed to gain a Taliban-in-Afghanistan-type foothold in Iraq, and won't. So, it's all about Pakistan, now, and them coming to terms with the fact that their borderlands - if they won't deal with who has set up shop there - are going to be the new hot zone.

Arguments over whether or not AQ thought Iraq was an important place to set up shop aren't about what's going on now - it's about whether people who said it wasn't real having their judgement rightfully questioned.

Re:Easy

[marnues]

What do you mean was? We're still fighting there. We might have less violence on our hands, but that's still more violence than in 2002. And more Americans died than had to thanks to the surge. I'm not suggesting we should have pulled out in early 2007. Frankly I don't know what would have been the best route at the time. However, if Petraeus had said "let's build up in Afghanistan" a couple of years ago, would that surge have worked? And if so, would that surge have "worked better" than the surge in Iraq? I still don't see a workable government sprouting in Iraq nor do I expect Iraq to be a better place than Saddam-led Iraq. So did this surge really work? Many Iraqis are grateful but when politicians say the surge worked they seem to be implying that American lives are better off. That I just don't see and will agree with Obama's judgment entirely.

Re:Easy

[jellybear]

Ah, well, that I agree with. I understood the debate to be about appointing a copyright czar, rather than legalising piracy.

Re:Easy

[rtb61]

In light of jobs being the issue, then a change is required to copyright laws. Obviously the sorter the duration of copyright, the more that must be created to create income. Long term copyright duration must stifle the creation of additional content, you are speeding huge amounts of tax payer dollars in order to maintain anti-free speech monopolies on content and preventing it from reaching the public domain, when you should be doing the exact opposite. Spend less money on protection, much shorter duration for copyright and many more people will be employed creating new content.

If people had more money to spend they would not be in debt and there would not be a credit crisis, hence bullshit copyright laws will not generate additional revenue as there is no additional money to spend, rising fuel costs, food prices and stagnant wages have put an end to that. Unless in the typical idiocy of right wing politicians they seriously expect people to starve their children so that their children can buy the latest crap music CD that saturation advertising tells the children they must have in order not to be a worthless loser.

Re:Easy

[bzipitidoo]

The way you worded things may lend itself to confusion about copyright and plagiarism. Some people think copyright protects authors from plagiarism. It does not. Copyright has nothing to do with plagiarism, only with making copies. Pirates are copying music; they aren't trying to claim authorship of the music.

Protecting authors from plagiarism would be as easy without copyright law as with copyright law.

Re:Easy

[bzipitidoo]

Your analogies aren't valid. They all involve physical limitations. The core argument in the debate on intellectual property vs real property is that unlike real property, intellectual property is not a scarce resource. Ideas and info should not be treated as if they were scarce. Try these analogies:

• Rendering yourself ghostlike, walking through physical objects at will, then using this ability to walk through a turnstile and board a train even if it has no room.
• Viewing pictures or video taken by someone else who did pay to visit museums/movie theaters/plays.
• Copying a house that is nicer than your own and living there for as long as you like.

The Peeping Tom example is right out. That is a violation of privacy, which has nothing whatever to do with copyright. The sexy neighbor lady certainly is a victim. What if you talked about the mole on her butt, and word got back to her husband, what do you think could happen? He might think she cheated on him, and divorce her.

Re:Easy

[Reziac]

You are correct (I wasn't entirely clear), and the same legal remedies apply as ever -- tho if you squint, plagiarism might be regarded as a special form of copyright infringement, where the material is re-used (distribution of a sort) without permission, AND the attribution is stripped.

And by now I've forgotten where I was going with that :)

Re:Easy

[musicalwoods]

Wait, aren't we already paying the social costs of drug use? The prison system isn't cheap.
Neither are the ER overdose visits, the police enforcement, the lack of a tax on illicit drugs, etc. etc.

Re:Easy

[rugatero]

Chekov? Is that you?

Re:Easy

[Kokuyo]

I agree with some of the other replies to your post but I would like to state that I belief the amount of money a country could save if the police force didn't have to waste so much time on possession and if the prisons weren't three fourths full with drug related inmates, you could finance many a drug addict before you'd lose any gains.

Re:Easy

[electrictroy]

>>>You are a taxpayer and you have to cover the social costs of drug use.

(1) Why is alcohol still legal then? Maybe we should ban that too. Along with McDonalds fries, burgers, Kentucky fried chicken, .....

(2) I don't think society should pay for healthcare. Let the durg abuser pay his own bills, rather than swipe money from his neighbors' wallets. If the drug abuser can't afford the bill, then let them pass-on to heaven. He/she will be far happier there than here.

Re:Easy

[HungryHobo]

Look to the money.
During prohibition the 2 groups who wished it would never end were the mob and forgien alcohol producers. I've been told that during that time both these groups quietly invested money in lobbying to keep prohibition.[citation needed]

The war on drugs is just prohibition.
From a wiki but unless anyone wants to dispute this then the source doesn't matter too much.

"Many social problems have been attributed to the Prohibition era. A profitable, often violent, black market for alcohol flourished. Racketeering happened when powerful gangs corrupted law enforcement agencies. Stronger liquor surged in popularity because its potency made it more profitable to smuggle. The cost of enforcing Prohibition was high, and the lack of tax revenues on alcohol (some $500 million annually nationwide) affected government coffers. When repeal of Prohibition occurred in 1933, organized crime lost nearly all of its black market alcohol profits in most states (states still had the right to enforce their own laws concerning alcohol consumption), because of competition with low-priced alcohol sales at legal liquor stores."

"drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before."

Now lets try it for drugs.

"Many social problems could be attributed to the War On Drugs. A profitable, often violent, black market for Drugs is flourishing. Racketeering happens when powerful gangs corrupt law enforcement agencies. Stronger Drugs surg in popularity because their potency make them more profitable to smuggle. The cost of enforcing the War On Drugs is high, and the lack of tax revenues on drugs (Probably billions) affected government coffers. When the war on drugs is abandoned for the fuckup it is, organized crime will lose nearly all of its black market drug profits because of competition with low-priced drug sales at legal drug stores."

"Drug use has generally increased; the crack house has replaced the opium den; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored drug laws; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before.(apart from during prohibition)"

Re:Easy

[RobBebop]

I'm not sure if you are trolling, but I am guessing that you aren't an artist who has ever considered making some creative work for financial gain. If you ever accomplish this, you win the right to comment. But until that point, realize that you are arguing against somebody who shares your opinion that intellectual property is a flawed concept and you are a goddamned moron for flaming without understanding that.

Re:Easy

[visible.frylock]

* Peeking into your sexy neighbor's window while she's changing for a cheap thrill rather than going to a strip club.
* Breaking into a house that's are nicer than your own and living there when the normal tenants are known to be away on vacation before cleaning up after yourself and leaving the house as you found it.

-------------------

visible.frylock
Recording Industry Association of America
532 Lobbyist Way
Suite #39BS
Washington, DC 12666

Mr gnick:

We are intrigued by your ability to find privacy angles in seemingly unrelated phenomena. While traditionally we have made a focus of accusing private individuals of betraying society at large, this individual-on-individual view of the problem both interests and intrigues us.

We believe you could be a valuable addition to our team synergising our goals to become masters of not only social policy, but regulations of every action taken by any individual at any time. Please contact us. We would love to speak with you.

Sincerely,
Masters of the human species (The pricks formerly known as the RIAA).

Re:Easy

[ShieldW0lf]

You're missing out on a few factors:

Can it be created by individuals, or does it require centralized infrastructure.
Can it be created domestically, or does it require foreign materials.
Is it addictive.
Is there risk of overdose.

If a population is using non-addictive drugs that they can manufacture safely and cannot easily overdose on, that is significantly different from having the population use drugs that are addictive and depend on foreign materials and centralized infrastructure.

If I've got an alcohol habit and a marijuana habit, and I make my own moonshine and grow my own dope, I might be a bit unreliable, but I'm not beholden to anyone. I'm not likely to rob you at gunpoint, although I might break into your house and raid your fridge.

If I've got a cocaine habit and a heroin habit, and I buy my cocaine from Columbia and my heroin from Afghanistan, I'm a slave to foreign interests. I'll do anything they tell me to do. I'll sell my body, I'll kill my neighbour, I'll give you the deed to my house.

If I've got a prescription drug habit, and I rely on centralized infrastructure to manufacture those drugs, I'm a slave to economic interests. Again, I'll do anything they tell me to do.

What you see going on around you is, they don't want anything from column A, and they don't want anything from column B. They want you on column C. Which is why they outlaw anything that falls into those categorizations. In the case of alcohol, they transform it into the third type through legislation. When people are hooked on drugs in column C, they do what they're told by their domestic rulers.

They also don't want addicted but otherwise functional citizens to suddenly get cut off from their supply and become non-functional. They can keep you supplied with pills, but they can't supply you with domestic heroin.

This is what these laws are about.

Re:Easy

[plague3106]

No, there aren't any costs, provided we simply let drug uses that OD, die from ODing.

Even if we don't do that, it's significatly cheaper and will reduce violence to simply legialize drugs. Alcohol already went through this. Prohibition didn't get rid of alcohol, it made it more dangerous for people to use and gave rise to organized crime and shooting sprees all across cities and neighborhoods.

We don't bond anyone to drink, nor should we bond them to use drugs. Goverment doesn't belong in the private lives of citizens. If someone is drugged out and harms someone else, physically or financially you deal with it then, on a case by case basis. Not with some stupid brain-dead licensing scheme.

Re:Easy

[plague3106]

Right, but the drug ban we have in place now is based on fear of blacks using drugs. Not that there was any valid concern anyway..

Piracy

[arizwebfoot]

We know where those lost jobs went, India and Pakistan all pirated our IT jobs.

--
Oh Well, Bad Karma and all . . .

Re:Piracy

[TinFoilMan]

I think you have a valid point, maybe the new czar can pirate them all back.

Re:Piracy

[david.emery]

So we can thank Microsoft for creating the -need- for 750k IT jobs that are now outsourced?!?

dave

Commerce Department?????

[lecithin]

The Commerce Department is not the US Chamber of Commerce.

Chamber of Commerce = non-for-profit business federation.

Commerce Department = Federal Government Entity.

As a matter of fact, the Commerce Department OBJECTS to a "Copyright Czar"

Henry Paulson

[whisper_jeff]

They got that number from Henry Paulson - he's so good at pulling out random large numbers that sound plausible while being founded on nothing of substance, after all.

Re:Henry Paulson

[n0dna]

Dammit.

I was going to say exactly the same thing, only I would have probably guessed where I think he pulled them out of.

Good show.

Re:Henry Paulson

[mcgrew]

Thanks for not linking his wikipedia entry. Unfortunately for me, I looked him up. Do not click that link! Jesus Christ but that's one freaky looking fuckweed! In order to save you the horror of seeing that man's face (makes goatse look like it came from a children's book) I'll quote wikipedia's entry on who he is:

Henry Merritt "Hank" Paulson Jr. (born March 28, 1946) is the United States Treasury Secretary and member of the International Monetary Fund Board of Governors. He previously served as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs.

Born in Palm Beach, Florida, to Marianna Gallaeur and Henry Merritt Paulson, a wholesale jeweler,[1] he was raised in Barrington Hills, Illinois. He was raised as a Christian Scientist.[2] Paulson attained the rank of Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America.[3][4]

A star athlete at Barrington High School, Paulson was a champion wrestler and stand out football player, graduating in 1964. Paulson received his Bachelor of Arts in English from Dartmouth College in 1968;[5] at Dartmouth he was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and was an All Ivy, All East, and honorable mention All American as an offensive lineman.

He met his wife Wendy during his senior year. The couple have two adult children, Henry Merritt III and Amanda Clark, and became grandparents in June 2007. They maintain homes in Washington, DC and Barrington Hills, Illinois.

In 1970 Paulson received a Master of Business Administration degree from Harvard Business School.[6]

He is, in short, an anti-nerd. He is the complete and polar opposite of you and me.

I think it's obvious now why the banking industry crashed and the stock market is crashing. It's because of people like Henry Merritt "Hank" Paulson Jr. who will not lose their jobs and homes and who will NOT go hungry as a direct result of their actions, as you and I may. Not as a result of our actions, but as a result of HIS and the actions of people (and I use that term loosely) just like him.

If you fear people like Osama Bin Laden more than you fear people like Henry Merritt "Hank" Paulson Jr., IMO you're brain dead stupid.

Re:Henry Paulson

[maxume]

This is ridiculously reactionary. Up until this point, the vast majority of people who have lost their homes in this crisis have lost their homes because they took on loans that they could not afford (there are people in Detroit who lost their homes because Michigan is imploding, and so forth). Sure, they were offered teaser rates and things probably weren't always made real clear, but it seems pretty reasonable to hold each and every buyer of a home somewhere around 50% responsible for the loan that they agreed to.

Irresponsible behavior on Wall Street has exacerbated the mess, but to Paulson's credit, Goldman Sachs is having among the least of the troubles (I guess this could be taken as a sign that they are the true bastards, but they weren't the ones originating hilarious securities, they were the ones selling the hilarious securities short).

Re:Henry Paulson

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Nah, they got it from his brother bob

Re:Henry Paulson

[mcgrew]

I'm not talking about those who have lost their homes, I'm talking about those who WILL lose their homes. Prepare for a really really bad recession; perhaps even a depression. I'm not the first to say "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it" but nobody listens to them, either.

If you want the crap scared out of you, I have three uncaracteristally SFW mcgrew journals to chew on:
Hoover for President
More Hoover (DAMN!) and
I hate it when I'm right

I already lost one house. It was back in '04 after my marriage went south. I'd bought my ex-wife a brand new PT Cruiser two months before she and her income left. She'd not paid the bills in order to save up for an apartment. She left me with months worth of bills, a broken van that I was still paying for, a mortgage, and two teenaged daughters to feed.

After declaring bankrupcy I gradually got my credit good enough to buy another house (after throwing my money away in a basement apartment for three years).

My house payments tripled this month. Yeah, it's MY fault.

I'll be able to make my payments, barely, but I won't have much if any left over to buy anything with. My lack of money caused by the mortgage company's greed will hurt all the people I normally do business with, who will all have a hell of a lot less of my money, because I have a hell of a lot less of my money.

You'd better hope you're not one of the millions that will lose their jobs in the next year. Can you afford your mortgage payments on unemployment insurance?

Re:Henry Paulson

[stephanruby]

If you fear people like Osama Bin Laden more than you fear people like Henry Merritt "Hank" Paulson Jr., IMO you're brain dead stupid.

In other words, you're either with us, or one of them, type of thinking. Thankfully, you can count on me, I fear every stereotype. Muslims, terrorists, jocks, bankers, or you, you guys are all pretty much the same to me.

Re:Henry Paulson

[CodeBuster]

Irresponsible behavior on Wall Street has exacerbated the mess

Wall Street took advantage of the way that the government altered the rules of the mortgage game in the only sensible way that they could in an attempt to protect their investments and savings from inflation. They invested in the best thing going (erroneously as it turns out) which was the super hot housing market. The whole thing began in the last decade of the twentieth century (1990s) with the Community Reinvestment Act, which essentially required Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to extend credit to borrowers who would NEVER have gotten loans according to any strict financial analysis of their credit worthiness (i.e. their ability and willingness to repay the debt) for POLITICAL reasons. This was exacerbated by community organizers such as ACORN who successfully agitated for even more expansion of loans to marginal borrowers (i.e. they threatened banks with discrimination litigation under the Community Reinvestment Act and other laws if they didn't start lending to these marginal people). The banks finally relented when Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, when ordered to by the government, began buying these loans which the banks were then happy to make as long as they didn't have to hold them privately because they knew that these new borrowers were a terrible credit risk (i.e. the banks were happy to pass the buck). The investment banks on Wall Street were irresponsible for not seeing through this ruse (i.e. they assumed that Fannie and Freddie backed loans rated AAA by the rating agencies were gold and didn't dig any deeper before they invested their capital). The situation is complex and it will take time to work through the details, but the essential truth is this:

The irrational expansion of credit, which is at the root of our current economic crisis, would NEVER have happened if the government hadn't FORCED the banks to loan to marginal borrowers which the banks KNEW were TERRIBLE credit risks and would probably default on their loans. How did the government force them you ask? They made it illegal to deny credit to marginal borrowers by making it easier to sue for loan discrimination and then the banks, fearing these government mandated bad borrowers, forced the government to buy up the loans (i.e. the banks said: Fine, we will loan to these people, but only if YOU the government agree to buy up the loans). There are additional layers and details in the process of course (which amplified the effects), but that is essentially what happened.

The only way that this will eventually be resolved in a way that all parties can grudgingly accept will be policies that inflate the currency enough to make the bad debts go away in the long run (i.e. they will solve this through the back door tax of inflation). Then every side can claim a victory without making it obvious that everyone lost because of the resulting inflationary policies that were used to fix the problem.

Re:Henry Paulson

[discord5]

Do not click that link! Jesus Christ but that's one freaky looking fuckweed!

I did, and JESUS CHRIST!!! The man has muscles in his receding hairline!!!

If you fear people like Osama Bin Laden more than you fear people like Henry Merritt "Hank" Paulson Jr., IMO you're brain dead stupid.

Yes, his receding hairline may be a danger to the entire nation. There should be a law against that.

Re:Henry Paulson

[maxume]

You are overestimating the consequences. If you have a loan that you can't afford, then you are suffering from some combination of not paying attention and being mislead by whoever sold you the mortgage. Where you are overestimating things is that the housing market was not overheated in much of the country, and even in the overheated areas, not everybody cashed in (so they are left with a nice house to live in, with a reasonable mortgage, instead of a ridiculous house and mortgage, or an obscene home equity loan).

Re:Henry Paulson

[houghi]

My house payments tripled this month. Yeah, it's MY fault.

Not sure how things are in the USofA, but here in Europe, Belgium many people have a fixed martage plan, meaning that you will pay back the same anmount for whatever period.

because of inflation, this means that even though the amount stays the same, you actually pay less, no matter what. The disadvantage might be that you pay a little more in the beginning. The advatage is that you are sure what you will pay.

If such a thing is/was possible in the USofA and would be something affordable (e.g. not twice as expensive) then yes, it was your fault as it was implied that it could rise and fall.

Re:Henry Paulson

[sesshomaru]

Uh-huh

Re:Henry Paulson

[mcgrew]

Christ, boy, don't you trolls even TRY any more?

Re:Henry Paulson

[coyote_oww]

This is hyperbole. We're perhaps seeing one reason why his wife left - wild exageration can get old in an intimate partnership.

1) ARM (adjustable rate mortgages) can and usually do have annual increases in interest rate, resulting in an increase in the monthly payment. Usually, ARMs are limited to 1% per annum, and have a cap interest rate around 5% higher than the starting rate. I was in an ARM when I first bought my house, so I have a little experience to draw from.

(aside - ARMs typically offer a lower interest/payment for the first 2y, making them attractive for entry-level buyers)

2) Adding 1% to your interest rate on a 30y mortgage will not cause your payment to triple. That's just really bad math.

3) Buying a house 3 years after declaring bankrupcy puts you, by definition, into the high-risk pool.

4) Anyone posting on Slashdot ought to have the savvy to read a mortgage, look through the payment schedule, calculate the worst case scenario, and not be suprised by anything that happens. Some people can claim stupidity, but that won't fly here.

5) Further, the OP is on his second mortgage - he's been through this before. So he really has no grounds for complaint. He made a financial bet - that housing prices would continue to rise, even though they were at all-time highs. The bet failed, in that housing prices are now declining. Smart money would have stayed in the apartment for 1 more year, he'd be $100K ahead or something like that (based on my area's housing prices). If only we could see into the future....

6) It is his fault his mortgage is increasing - he decided to buy, he picked the mortgage, he signed on the dotted line. I certainly didn't - so I don't want it blamed on me. "The Government", George Bush, Henry Paulson, et. al. did not sign on the dotted line. Part of life is trying to pick and choose what to do and when. In a free country, you can make your own choices, but you have to live with the consequences. Buying was his choice. He certainly could have chosen NOT to buy - home-ownership is not legally required of anyone. Renting is sometimes the better financial choice. Given housing prices at historic highs (relative to wages), not buying would have been a sound decision, and time has proven it would have been the prudent course.

Re:Henry Paulson

[mcgrew]

Bush stole that line from Jesus.

Re:Henry Paulson

[deraj123]

If I had mod points, you'd get them. This whole "it's not my fault" thing is getting old.

Many people can claim ignorance as to the specifics of their mortgage, and claim that they didn't know how it worked. However, the old "too good to be true" maxim is incredibly applicable in this housing case. Bad credit, Low interest, no money down ?? How does this representation (sadly enough, common in many areas these days) sound like a good idea? Does it make sense that if you have bad credit, and no money to put down, that you should be able to afford an expensive house? Are there not red flags going off in your head when you enter into one of these deals? "What's the catch?" "Am I going to be able to afford this for the next 30 years?" Seriously...take a little bit of personal responsibility for your own greed and mismanagement of your money.

Re:Henry Paulson

[CodeBuster]

From TFLA: Rhetoric aside, the argument turns on a simple question: In the current mortgage meltdown, did lenders approve bad loans to comply with CRA, or to make money?

IMHO, the article is wrong to assume that the CRA had little nothing to do with it (it was at the start of the whole process even though it wasn't wholly responsible...it was the second step on the road to where we are now if you will with the Great Depression and the New Deal creation of Fannie Mae being the first) and the correct answer is really both. The banks made the loans both to comply with the provisions of the CRA and also with subsequent laws and pressure from community organizers (lawsuits and political pressure cost money too you know, just like bad loans) AND they also wanted to make money of course (since if you are not earning interest then you are losing money because of inflation).

Ask yourself this question: Would the deposit banks in the United States (and elsewhere), which have a long history of mortgage lending and experience in that business, have loaned to the subprime borrowers if THEY had to hold the loan paper and suffer the loss if the marginal borrower defaulted? Perhaps more personally, would you loan $1000 to your coke-head do-nothing uncle (or other irresponsible family relation) given what you know about his lifestyle, financial history, and credit worthiness (or lack thereof)? Of course not and it is the same situation with these banks. Now, what if the government said that they would take that loan to your uncle off your hands for face value (i.e. they assume the risk and pay you your profits up front) or let you resell the loan as AAA debt without having to disclose the details? Well then it is a whole different ballgame.

If lending standards had not been lowered by the government (they very arguably encouraged bad loans with CRA by signaling that the Fed would not deny the banks access to overnight loans for making irresponsible loans to subprime borrowers who met CRA requirements) AND the government had not made things even worse by having Fannie and Freddie buy up and guarantee a large part of the bad loans themselves, then the subprime mess would never have become large because banks and investors would not have loaned to people, at least not on a large scale, that they KNEW were not going to repay and THEY (the banks) were going to be left holding the bag.

Remember that it is the government (and to a lesser extent those banks which can borrow from the Federal Reserve) that creates money in the fiat money system here in the United States so if the government tells the banks that it is OK to lend to marginal borrowers AND then agrees to take the loans off the bank's hands OR allows them to sell them into the securities market as AAA packages then of course they are going to do it (As long as the banks aren't forced to hold the bad loans themselves). They cannot afford NOT to participate in what is essentially an expansion of the money supply with lots of NEW credit (if they did sit it out then their competitors would increase their share of the money supply while their own pre-expansion holdings would decline in value because of all the new money being created).

If the government had not interfered in the housing market, beginning in the 1930s and continuing until today, for essentially political reasons then we would NOT now be having the financial crises that we are having today because private investors don't generally lend money at low rates to bad risk borrowers. The present situation is the inescapable result of decades of poor government financial policies made for political reasons. Does this mean that we should have zero regulation? Of course not, but there is a big difference between having the government regulate and mandate full disclosure of relevant information and directly supplying the capital and altering the lending s

Re:Henry Paulson

[ScrewMaster]

Dammit.

I was going to say exactly the same thing, only I would have probably guessed where I think he pulled them out of.

His hat?

Re:Henry Paulson

[Dun Malg]

My house payments tripled this month. Yeah, it's MY fault.

Wait, you're saying it's someone else's fault you signed for a variable rate mortgage instead of a fixed-rate one? Were you one of those people who planned on the market appreciating such that you could refinance to a fixed rate later and now are stuck holding the bag on a house worth less than you paid? Where I come from we call that gambling.

Re:Henry Paulson

[Eskarel]

The main reason that Goldman Sachs isn't doing as badly is because at Goldman Sachs the employees are playing with their own money as well as ours.

Needless to say that when their own cash is at stake investment bankers are interested in something more than just making a quick buck on transaction fees.

They still did a lot of the same stuipd things because well a quick buck is a quick buck, but there were some consequences for them doing the wrong thing, which really there ought to be for everyone.

Re:Henry Paulson

[mcgrew]

OK, I'm paying rent - an expense. My choices were to take out an adjustable rate mortgage (investment) or continue renting. But somehow the economy's collapse is my fault?

Re:Henry Paulson

[pedestrian crossing]

You talk about renting like it is the worst possible thing in the world, even worse than taking on an ARM that you clearly don't understand and can't afford.

Here's the thing, the interest you are paying on the loan, that's an expense. The maintenance you are putting into the property, that's an expense. The property tax that you have to pay on the house's (inflated) value, that's an expense. Buying a house isn't all investment, it also comes with a bunch of great big expenses.

I'll join the chorus and say that I sure as hell don't want to bail your stupid ass out. I didn't take the risk, you did.

Re:Henry Paulson

[mcgrew]

I don't need bailing out, the local bars and restaraunts and other local businesses are taking the hit, not me. I'm just eating and drinking less.

I rented for twenty five years. What do I have to show for it? Nada, zip, zilch. Had I taken out a mortgage (and interest was sky high back then) I'd own a property right now.

Renting is for suckers.

750,000??

[jgtg32a]

Are there even that many people working in the music and movies/tv industry in this country?

Re:750,000??

[Eponymous Crowbar]

Including porn, or not?

Re:750,000??

[theM_xl]

Well, not anymore, obviously ;)

Re:750,000??

[marcosdumay]

That is the problem, piracy has reduced the industry to a small fraction of its potential<\sarcasm>

Re:750,000??

[sesshomaru]

I think most of that number was clerks at Blockbuster video.

Re:750,000??

[mcgrew]

After the stock market finishes crashing there may not be than meny people with jobs, period.

Reliable source for numbers of all kinds

[ivandavidoff]

The numbers came from The U.S. Department of the Posterior.

Re:Reliable source for numbers of all kinds

[ari_j]

Only after extensive prodding by the U.S. Department of the Anterior.

Re:Reliable source for numbers of all kinds

[Shark]

I think the DHS is now in charge of all prodding.

Uh huh

[Xeth]

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 383,000 people employed in the Motion picture and sound recording industries in September 2008.

My money is on the idea that they took the amount the industries estimate they lose from piracy and then divided that by some moderate wage.

Re:Uh huh

[halcyon1234]

Heck, think about it this way:

There are about 300 million (thousand thousand) people in the States

According to All Knowledge Ever, 24.6% are minors, and 12.7% are of retired age. That means there are only 188 million "employable" citizens.

The same BLS says the unemployment rate is 6%. That means there are 11.3 million unemployed citizens

If every single one of those lost jobs resulted in a currently unemployed person, then 6.65% of all unemployed persons were from the entertainment industry.

Now, assuming that their number isn't complete and utter bullshatistics-- nah, I think I'll just call BS and be done with this one.

Re:Uh huh

[LordNimon]

The same BLS says the unemployment rate is 6%. That means there are 11.3 million unemployed citizens

Bzzz.... wrong. Thanks for playing.

The 6% unemployment rate refers to people who are actively seeking work but haven't found it. That is a small percentage of the total number of adults.

Re:Uh huh

[ari_j]

Actually, your properly-cited statistic shows that the most likely math isn't dividing estimated losses by any wage figures, but rather as follows:

1. Give a survey to the motion picture and sound recording industry employees, or a sufficient sample thereof
2. Ask one question: How many people do you know who lost their job within your industry?
3. The average response is "two"
4. Multiply 2 x 383,000 = 766,000
5. Publicly claim the rounded-to-media-friendly-terms figure of 750,000 jobs lost

Re:Uh huh

[ByOhTek]

> The 6% unemployment rate refers to people who are actively seeking work but haven't found it. That is a small percentage of the total number of adults.

I thought it was the number of people who lost their jobs within the last [timeframe]? I think [timeframe] is two or six months?

Regardless, in which case, they could be looking for a job and still not be counted (or not looking for a job, and be counted).

Re:Uh huh

[Znork]

... and then they forget to deduct the jobs that wouldn't exist in other industries because money is spent on MAFIAA monopoly rights.

Re:Uh huh

[Ares]

6. Profit!

Re:Uh huh

[spicate]

The 6% unemployment rate refers to people who are actively seeking work but haven't found it. That is a small percentage of the total number of adults.

To be pedantic (since you were): it's a large percentage of the total number of adults (people over the age of 16) - about 66%. That includes retirees, students, housewives, house husbands, the independently wealthy, etc. So although the 6% figure underestimates actual unemployment, it's not completely inaccurate.

Of course, the GP did get it wrong.

Re:Uh huh

[Eskarel]

Technically it's the number of people who are registered for unemployment.

Of course since the only reason to bother registering for unemployment is if you're money from them and not everyone who is unemployed qualifies for unemployment and those that do qualify, qualify for only a limited period of time, this number can, depending on the economy, be anything from fairly accurate, to wildly inaccurate.

In particular it is bad at reflecting the employment rates of new entrants to the work force(who haven't worked full time at a permament job and therefor don't qualify) or people without kids who have been unemployed for a prolonged period of time.

Generally it's a very clever number because the higher the number of unemployed in the country the greater the inaccuracy, so it reduces the unemployment figures at their worst without being obviously out of wack at lower numbers.

Generally you can probably presume that that 6% is at least 8% not including folks in prison.

Too bad

[Corpuscavernosa]

It's too bad that one of the jobs lost wasn't Uwe Boll's. I'm just sayin'.

Quickly!

[tgd]

We need a content producer bailout!!!

Progress

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, don't manufacture anything, litigate instead. Sure, that will get you out of a recession!

"...it doesn't cite where that number comes from."

[Snarfangel]

Easy. It comes from the set of real numbers.

Oh I know!

[mfh]

750,000 jobs lost is the next logical step from 700,000 bailout required.

Re:The real costs

[n0dna]

YOU could turn on a radio or stream a station.

YOU also have a choice, but please, continue to justify it for us.

Steal it if you want to, don't steal it if you don't want to, but please don't expect us to believe that you're being forced to download music at gunpoint.

Source of the number

[192939495969798999]

That 750,000 jobs number comes a very reliable source, the bird. Haven't you heard, about the bird?

Re:Source of the number

[Anonymous Coward]

... Haven't you heard, about the bird?

Well, the bird is the word.

Re:Source of the number

[93 Escort Wagon]

... Haven't you heard, about the bird?

Well, the bird is the word.

Everybody's talkin' about the bird.

Re:Source of the number

[Kethinov]

The actual number of jobs lost is zero. An opportunity cost only exists when an opportunity exists in the first place. Nobody is crying foul that horse and buggy makers are out thousands of jobs due to the advent of cars.

To content industry: the advent of the internet results in consumer p2p. It cannot be stopped. Deal with it. Do so by competing against it, not legislating against it.

Re:Source of the number

[cdrguru]

If in 1890 there was a group of dedicated people that made buggy whips and passed them out on streetcorners you would be roughly correct.

Today, most people that take advantage of downloadable materials do so for no personal gain and really are quite neutral on the subject. The people providing those materials do have goals and objectives - the elimination of the possibility of deriving revenue from digital goods. There is no possibility of "competing against it".

If someone comes to your place of work tomorrow and says to your boss they will do your job for half your pay, are they competing with you? If someone in Romania offers to do your job for nothing, are they competing with you? It is difficult, if not impossible to compete with "free".

Re:Source of the number

[Kethinov]

If in 1890 there was a group of dedicated people that made buggy whips and passed them out on streetcorners you would be roughly correct.

No, my analogy is sound. The internet has rendered applying a consumer cost to digital information just as obsolete as cars rendered the horse and buggy obsolete for commuters.

Today, most people that take advantage of downloadable materials do so for no personal gain and really are quite neutral on the subject.

Wrong again. Most people that take advantage of p2p do so for the personal gain of getting to experience the content without paying an arbitrary consumer cost for something that can be reproduced ad infinitum and transmitted at negligible cost to anyone, anywhere, instantly, in perfect digital quality.

It is difficult ... to compete with "free."

I'll agree with you there. Economic transitions are very difficult.

There is no possibility of "competing against it."

This is argument by lack of imagination. Of course it can be competed against. Your statement implies that it is impossible to derive profit from the distribution of information for free, but it's already been done successfully for decades with broadcast television, radio, and more recently on the internet with ad-supported web services. The content industry merely needs to compete against sites like piratebay and mininova by offering their own content for free on their own sites with a slicker, richer interface. And no DRM. Yes, it can be done.

If someone comes to your place of work tomorrow and says to your boss they will do your job for half your pay, are they competing with you? If someone in Romania offers to do your job for nothing, are they competing with you?

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: your analogy is absurd. Services are a scarce resource. Digital information is not. Once the initial development occurs, it can be reproduced ad infinitum at negligible cost, rendering it economically abundant. The same cannot be said of skilled labor.

I have a question:

[TinFoilMan]

Is it Czar or Tzar?

Re:I have a question:

[Hawke666]

Or Tsar or csar.

Re:I have a question:

[wcrowe]

Not sure if you're being serious or not, but the Russian "Tsar" has historically been tranliterated into English as Czar or Tsar. For a long time one might have found it spelled either way, but since "Czar" started being used to describe a high government official, e.g., "Drug Czar" the CZ spelling has tended to be applied to that use, while the TS spelling has now nearly always come to be applied to the rulers of the Russian Empire. The OED comments thusly: The spelling with cz- is against the usage of all Slavonic languages; the word was so spelt by Herberstein, Rerum Moscovit. Commentarii 1549, the chief early source of knowledge as to Russia in Western Europe, whence it passed into the Western Languages generally; in some of these it is now old-fashioned; the usual Ger. form is now zar; French adopted tsar during the 19th c. This also became frequent in English towards the end of that century, having been adopted by the Times newspaper as the most suitable English spelling.

Re:I have a question:

[TinFoilMan]

Thanks I really didn't know that there was a difference.

Re:I have a question:

[ari_j]

Or Kaiser or Caesar. But Czar is the commonly accepted spelling in the context of American government officials who have supreme oversight over things that do not necessarily need or in fact should not have supreme oversight vested in one man with no other job.

Re:I have a question:

[PolygamousRanchKid]

He can call himself anything he likes.

Most folks will call him "asshole."

Re:I have a question:

[Vagnaard]

For a long time one might have found it spelled either way, but since "Czar" started being used to describe a high government official, e.g., "Drug Czar" the CZ spelling has tended to be applied to that use, while the TS spelling has now nearly always come to be applied to the rulers of the Russian Empire.

I love that quote!

High ranking government officials = Drug lords!

Re:The real costs

[YrWrstNtmr]

I have to have a phone thats 40$ a month

No you don't. My cell costs less than 1/2 that.

I get internet cause im stuck in the house ...thats another 40$

Instead of being 'stuck in the house', a second job, or school to get a better job, might be in order. And NetZero is only $9.95/month..:)
Don't use your apparent insolvency to justify why you think you are entitled to music for free.

YOU at least have a choice.

So do you.

Inefficency

[Wildclaw]

claiming that 750,000 American jobs have been lost to piracy

Overexaggerated number for sure, but jobs may very well have been lost because of piracy. But, so what? Let me formulate the matters in another light.

750,000 American jobs would have been wasted if piracy hadn't existed to combat the inherent inefficencies in the copyright and IP systems.

Jobs are good if they actually produce something useful to society. Otherwise they are just a big waste, and do little more than shuffle resources around because the current system don't have a better way to allocate it.

Even if more actual intellectual property were produced with stronger IP laws, it still isn't sure that it would be a better idea. The real value of IP isn't how much is produced, but how much is produced times how well spread it is among the population. Also, that total value has to be balanced against the cost of producing it.

Say that 700,000 more jobs would be created. That is a multi billion cost. And what would be the gain. More tv? More music? More movies? It isn't like there is a lack of choice right now.

Re:Inefficency

[cliffski]

if the content those people produced was not useful to society, why was demand for it so high amongst pirates that they risked breaking the law to get it?

This is the same old complaint that you pirate because mainstream content sucks. If it sucks, why pirate it?

Re:Inefficency

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not the same old complaint. He is just making a case that piracy may be good for the economy, by allowing consumers to spend their money on more beneficial markets.

It makes perfect sense, and the only argument against it is the sense of entitlement for your own creative works. Make no mistake, that sense of entitlement is unnatural, and is only tenuously supported by copyright as granted by the constitution.

It certainly isn't outlined as an unalienable right. And more to the point, the right for profit isn't either.

Re:Inefficency

[compro01]

You presume that the jobs "lost" actually create content, which the GP disputes.

Re:Inefficency

[mcgrew]

More like 75000 jobs GAINED. I would like to Quote Cory Doctorow from the forward to Little Brother (emphasis mine):

I recently saw Neil Gaiman give a talk at which someone asked him how he felt about piracy of his books. He said, "Hands up in the audience if you discovered your favorite writer for free -- because someone loaned you a copy, or because someone gave it to you? Now, hands up if you found your favorite writer by walking into a store and plunking down cash." Overwhelmingly, the audience said that they'd discovered their favorite writers for free, on a loan or as a gift. When it comes to my favorite writers, there's no boundaries: I'll buy every book they publish, just to own it (sometimes I buy two or three, to give away to friends who must read those books). I pay to see them live. I buy t-shirts with their book-covers on them. I'm a customer for life.

Neil went on to say that he was part of the tribe of readers, the tiny minority of people in the world who read for pleasure, buying books because they love them. One thing he knows about everyone who downloads his books on the Internet without permission is that they're readers, they're people who love books.

People who study the habits of music-buyers have discovered something curious: the biggest pirates are also the biggest spenders. If you pirate music all night long, chances are you're one of the few people left who also goes to the record store (remember those?) during the day. You probably go to concerts on the weekend, and you probably check music out of the library too. If you're a member of the red-hot music-fan tribe, you do lots of everything that has to do with music, from singing in the shower to paying for black-market vinyl bootlegs of rare Eastern European covers of your favorite death-metal band.

No artist ever starved because of copyright infringement. Many artists have starved because of obscurity.

Re:Inefficency

[Wildclaw]

That, and I am questing the statement that possible extra content created would be worth the cost to society.

Because lets face it, the cost of copyright and IP in general to scoeity in general is huge. These are artifical monopolies we are talking about, that work to do everything from preventing poor people to watch something that can be copied at no cost, to annoy customers (copy protections), to make it more difficult to reuse of intellectual material (an often ignored fact), to create wasteful lawsuits (especially when it comes to patents), and at worst to prevent vital medicine from being distributed to people who need it. All of this because capitalism uses a way of distributing resources that doesn't work well with high up front cost but inifintly duplicable items.

I am not saying that copyright and IP should be completly abolished, nor am I saying that capitalism is wrong. My point is just that you have to be very careful with such laws and at the moment it is very obvious that many countries are on the side of too much laws directed at the wrong people. This is increasingly leading to decreasing respect for the system and will end up costing a lot.

Re:Inefficency

[infoslack]

Perhaps the 750,000 jobs lost were those of the people sued by the RIAA... pulled into court for "illegal activities" and subsequently fired because nobody wants to be associated with pirate scum... maybe.

Re:Inefficency

[cliffski]

we have a way of working out what benefit products provide to society. its called money. A free market values beneficial things higher than non beneficial things, all things being equal.
Despite lots of ranting and the best efforts of karl marx, nobody has come up with a better, more efficient system to ensure the maximum overall utility is provided to the maximum number of people than capitalism.

If the creators of stuff are not rewarded for it to the exact tune that their works create utility, then there is an artificial distortion in the market that reduces overall utility. This is just simple maths.
This is also why it's no good whining that there isn't another series of firefly if everyone pirates it (for example).

Re:Inefficency

[ScrewMaster]

No artist ever starved because of copyright infringement. Many artists have starved because of obscurity.

There's a simple truth that is getting lost in all this discussion about copyrights and artists being properly compensated for their efforts. Nobody is really arguing that artists should work for free (at least, I'm not.) I will, however, categorically state that more artists have starved because of their relationship with a traditional record label than have ever starved due to "piracy". Not because of obscurity, per se, but because of dishonesty, bad faith and outright criminal behavior on the part of those very corporations who now claim to be "defending the rights of the artists." With people like that defending you, you're better off with us pirates. If nothing else, if we like you there's a good chance we'll give you money.

The level of public hypocrisy in the content industry is truly flabbergasting. Furthermore, the captive artists we are talking about don't even hold the rights to their own works (they sign those away right off the bat) and are very fortunate if they ever make a profit. Don't believe me? Read what Janis Ian has to say about it. Consequently, any of the major record labels (or the RIAA) which states that file sharing takes food from the mouths of the artists is full of pure, unadulterated horsehockey. They cheat their own suppliers, and have the unmitigated gall to complain when they get the same treatment. Hypocrites, all of them.

All the Internet and file sharing have done is take these bloodsucking leeches down a notch. Furthermore, it has given real artists a chance to achieve notoriety based upon their own merits, without some clueless record executive sitting between them and well-deserved financial success. Good for the customer, good for the artist ... maybe not so good for the labels.

Tough bananas.

Re:Inefficency

[Reziac]

My first thought about that number was that it's probably just about the total of wannabe-signed, halfbaked garage bands, has-beens, and other not-so-good artists who are presently either unmarketable or not worth marketing. BUT... if ALL of them had record contracts, that would be ... oh, about 750,000 more artists who'd be employed, right??

Re:Inefficency

[cliffski]

"No artist ever starved because of copyright infringement. Many artists have starved because of obscurity."

they don't starve, they just get other jobs.
take away copyright and a huge chunk of the next generation of writers, musicians, artists, software developers and songwriters will end up as plumbers, builders and accountants.
Personally I'm glad pink floyd didn't spend their lives mixing cement and that Jimi hendrix wasn't an insurance salesman.

Re:Inefficency

[mcgrew]

I wouldn't argue against copyright itself (although I know others here do). Copyright serves a very good purpose.

However, I think copyright is in bad need of reform, as it has been badly deformed over the last century. Copyright should be the temporary monopoly the US Constitution says it should be, rather than a form of property. The terms are way too long.

I mean, good luck getting Richard Wright and Jimi Hendrix to make any more music. Their work should be in the public domain.

And DRM should automatically strip a work of copyright IMO. If it has technological protections (which don't actually work but we'll go with the fantasy here) why does it need legal protection?

If copyright laws were more sane, you would have fewer people calling for copyright's abolition.

Re:Inefficency

[Kashgarinn]

Now this is a study that I'd like to see be made as a comprehensive insight into how the public go from being unaware of an artist into being consumers of that artists' work.

We all kinda know that no one buys anything without knowing beforehand that he'll be satisfied by the product, a study into this would be a refreshing proof that all this "you're a pirate and we will sue you" - is inherently stopping the public in discovering, enjoying and eventually buying an artists' work.

The **AA might tell themselves they're only hurting themselves a little bit, and the independents, who are competing against them for ears, alot (as the **AA control the current main sources of performance letouts), but I'm pretty sure that they're hurting themselves so much that they won't recuperate. Wish there was some way to let them know.

Re:"...it doesn't cite where that number comes fro

[Qzukk]

It comes from the set of real numbers.

Funny, I could have sworn it looked imaginary.

Yes, great

[Nimey]

because America needs another powerful, unaccountable functionary in the government.

Suppose, instead, that Congress does its job and shits out a decent copyright law.

Re:Yes, great

[oldhack]

Hey, our economy is hollowing out, and Hollywood is one of the few things left now that still "produce" things others would buy. But then, our copyright laws can't do squat to piracy in other countries. Genius.

Incitement Czar

[Doc Ruby]

Has any of these "czars" the US government has been fond of appointing the past decade or so actually accomplished anything except creating more serfs?

Why does the US government have people modeled on the most hated monarchs, who drove Russians so nuts that they went "Communist" on us for 3/4 of a century, and nearly helped us blast the world back to microscopic life?

How about Congress just returns copyright to its Constitutional basis: at most 17 years (a human "generation") of private monopoly on any content, but only when that monopoly will "promote progress in science and the useful arts". That regime doesn't need a czar, it needs a searchable content registry archive and an antitrust watchdog.

Re:Incitement Czar

[Belial6]

I'm with you.

I still can't figure out why people are not pissed off about the very idea of declaring royalty in the US government.

Re:Incitement Czar

[Doc Ruby]

I wasn't grammatically clear. The Czarist regime drove the Russians nuts, so nuts that the Russians went Communist, which nearly got us all mutually killed. That had everything to do with the Cold War, which the bloody demise of the Czars, replaced by "Communist" bureaucratic monarchs, inexorably produced.

Re:Incitement Czar

[Slak]

Whoa whoa whoa.....

What self-respecting person would create content that any Schmoe could build off after only 17 years?!?!?!

I'm sure Metallica would have decided to become plumbers without the ever expanding 95-year copyright term.

Re:Incitement Czar

[Erikderzweite]

Czar isn't a family, it is a monarch title like King. The word "Czar" has its origin in "Caesar" which was part of the title of roman emperors after Gayus Julius Caesar (100 BC--44 BC). German emperor had a "Kaiser" title which is basically the same as "Czar".
So it is not correct to claim that Czar is a Russian royal family - several east European countries did have their own Czars too.

Re:Incitement Czar

[Erikderzweite]

If you look in history books, you will see that the Bolshevik party was generously funded by German Kaiser who was hoping for a peace treaty on the eastern front (which he has actually got after the revolution, but it was too late for Germany anyway).
So it is not entirely correct that it was the royal family that "drove the Russians nuts".
Foreign-funded political party (and terrorist group) plus war make a coup which is now called October Revolution. IMO the monarchy was too soft on Bolsheviks.

As for Cold War -- it has started with "Operation Dropshot" plan to attack USSR with nuclear weapons on 1. of January 1950 (the plan was turned down after USSR's own successful nuclear test in August 1949).

Just my 0.02$

Re:Incitement Czar

[Doc Ruby]

The Kaiser also drove his Germans crazy enough that they went Nazi on us, and got going the other big problem that almost killed everybody.

Maybe the Czar was too "soft" on the Bolsheviks. But it was those kings going so hard on their people for so long that let them think that Communism, or Nazism, with their own new overlords, were the way "out".

Re:Incitement Czar

[Reziac]

The problem with that theory is that it assumes that different people were in charge before and after the Revolution, but the truth is that it was largely the same people doing the same jobs but in different uniforms and with new job titles. The same thing happened after the USSR fell apart -- same people, same job, different uniform.

Suggested Reading:
Why They Behave Like Russians
now free from the Open Library project
http://www.openlibrary.org/details/whytheybehavelik00fiscmiss

I like it!

[Valdrax]

I support this plan. After all, seeing how well "czars" have done on other problems like terrorism and drugs, I imagine that 750,000 copyright czars would be the single swiftest path to restoring pro-consumer balance to copyright.

"I'm helping!"

Re:"...it doesn't cite where that number comes fro

[sohp]

More like the set of imaginary numbers. The square root of the value of DRM to ordinary people who listen to music and watch movies.

Japanese Anime Translation

[Khisanth Magus]

Although it is more in the thousands, possibly as high as ten thousand, it is true that there has been a significant amount of job loss due to piracy in the companies that bring japanese anime over to the US. I've talked with voice actors as well as people who run those companies, and piracy really has hurt them. Some companies are closing up shop, others are just having to severely cut back to make ends meet. This was never a large profit business in the first place, and with people downloading it so much as opposed to buying the DVDs they can't manage to squeak by.

The irony of this is that the "copyright czar" would probably just ignore this as the MPAA and RIAA aren't involved. Not that I'm advocating law suits against people who do pirate it, as I think that is way over the top, just pointing out that people HAVE lost their jobs due to piracy.

Re:Japanese Anime Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

The anime industry in the US might not exist at all were it not for people who were violating copyright and giving away fan subtitled work -- when I first saw anime ('93) it was all fansubs.

More recently -- I've purchased anime and manga which I wouldn't have know about were it not for people violating copyright laws: specifically because the friends who introduced me showed me fansubs. I'll grant that absent pirating, some of them might have purchased the shows ... but most wouldn't, the initial price tag is too high. (Once you know you like a series, it's easier to justify spending $15-30/disk.)

Ah well. Time to write my congresscritters.

Re:Japanese Anime Translation

[Wildclaw]

Well, when you have people who are willing to translate (a.k.a. fansub) for free, and most people (atleast those who watch lots of anime) seems to prefer original japanese voice, then it isn't that strange that it is a tough market.

Of course, at the same time you have people selling bottled water that basically is no different than the water you can get directly from the tap. So it isn't that easy to predict where there is a market.

Re:Japanese Anime Translation

[SaXisT4LiF]

I think that parent AC makes a valid point. While fansubs may technically be a violation of copyright law, those viewers that become fans of the series will probably end up purchasing the DVDs, T-Shirts, Video Games, and other merchandise related to the franchise.

In respect to the Anime market in the US, there are a number of other factors that could be contributing to low sales:

• Bad voice acting. There are exceptions to this (i.e. Mononoke Hime), but many of the English dubs are terrible. The English actors don't seem to convey the same tone and mood of the original voice-overs. Most anime fans prefer Japanese voice-overs with English sub-titles. The only real reason to include an English dub is if the target audience is very young and can't be expected to read.
• Price tag. The average cost per disk is about $25-$30 and it contains 3 episodes on average, 4 if you're lucky. It probably works out to about $8 per episode. Considering that many of the series contain upwards of 200 episodes, this becomes a hefty chunk of change. I think the problem here is the cost of producing the English dubs. You can often import the same series without English VOs in a box set for closer to $1 an episode. Why pay 8 times the price for English VOs that you're not going to listen to anyway?
• Release delays. The DVDs don't hit the US stores until almost 3 years after the original air date. Presumably this is due to the time it takes to record the English VOs. By the time the DVD hits the US market, the buyer has lost interest in the series and moved on to something else.

In short, Anime publishers should ditch the English VOs and get the product to market sooner and for a lower price.

Re:Japanese Anime Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree here. If the industry is losing out to piracy it is because they aren't adding anything of value. In fact, they often take away value.

The dubs often follow a bastardized script made to lip-sync well to the original video but not keeping with the original script. There are also a variety of changes to eliminate any cultural nuance of interest.

Sometimes there is only one subtitle track and it follows the VO script. If you actually listen to and understand the Japanese you see that the translation is just wrong. I recall they did this to The Cat Returns (Neko no Ongaeshi).

If you want to make money, you will need to offer licensed subs for cheap download, using something like iTunes. You would want to ditch the DRM of course. The selling point is that the translation is "official" and that the creator gets a cut.

Re:Japanese Anime Translation

[Creepy Crawler]

Pioneer did this to Aa! Megami-Sama in which the fansub (Nekomi) was translated better than the bought and paid for.

Good thing I ripped the video as a raw and applied the good scripts and remastered the DVD. Too bad I dont have silk-screen stuff at home, else I would have made a true copy.

Re:Japanese Anime Translation

[ScrewMaster]

Ultimately, if a content producer is invoking copyright law (however twisted) in order to maintain their (ahem) "limited" monopoly, that is currently within their right. I'm as anti-RIAA, anti-DMCA as any Slashdotter, but if a company or artist doesn't want their work treated in that fashion, they should probably have the right to say "no". Whether or not we believe they're better off allowing widespread copyright infringement, it's not our place to determine another entity's business plan.

Not that I disagree with you in principle. However, the market will determine if those who are less stingy with their copyrights prove more successful. I rather suspect they will ... it's rarely a good idea to mistreat or otherwise piss off people that like what you have to offer.

Re:The real costs

[Anonymous Coward]

OP is a grotesque shut-in

why does a free market economy need commie czars?

[Russ Nelson]

Why does a free market economy need czars? Aren't they an invention of the same country that adopted communist central planning to such poor effect?

Actually...

[SerfsUp]

Great idea. I nominate Lawrence Lessig!

Re:Actually...

[TehZorroness]

+1 insightful, not +1 funny.

in related news

[circletimessquare]

there's 750,000 jobs in my ass

and if you ask me where i got that number, i'll tell you honestly i just pulled it out of my ass

Re:in related news

[jeremiahstanley]

You slut...

Re:"...it doesn't cite where that number comes fro

[Wildclaw]

Well, all real numbers are imaginary. I leave it up to you to figure out what that says about reality.

Re:The real costs

[zippthorne]

He might be stuck in the house because of some disability y'know.

Note: "Too fat to walk" although it appears to be enough to get yourself a "free" scooter at the expense of the SSA, is not a particularly sympathy inducing 'disability'.

Re:"...it doesn't cite where that number comes fro

[zippthorne]

Good point. Now, the question is, is it rational?

Re:The real costs

[cliffski]

if you take what you want anyway, where is your incentive to get a better job, earn more money and grow the economy?

Signed, someone who works hard, pays for everything he buys, and is sick of subsidizing leeches who expect the world to pay for their lifestyle.

one decision I might trust Bush more with?

[cashman73]

Don't get me wrong; I'm still all for replacing Bush & Co. with Obama/Biden,... but this copyright czar thing is one area I might not want Biden's advice on, with his anti-consumer track record in this area,... Then again, McSame/Pain might screw things up even worse,...

Re:The real costs

[mcgrew]

YOU could turn on a radio

And sample it. Three or four hours of top-40 radio will have all the hits on your hard drive. Piracy? It's label-sanctioned piracy!

Steal it if you want to, don't steal it if you don't want to

Stealing: You walk into Best Buy or Walmart, stick a CD under your coat, and walk out.

Copyright infringement: Uploading your CD collection as MP3s on Kazaa. Or downloading with Morpheus and letting the downloads go into your "share" folder.

Stealing: misdemeanor retail theift, small fine.

Copyright infringement: Civil suit with a huge payment.

Downloading without sharing; sampling the radio, downloading or buying indie music: PRICELESS as it helps drive the copyright cartel out of business. I, for one, wish to see Sony and the other three evil mainstream labels GO UNDER. They are hindering the creation of art, hampering the independant artists who aren't in it for the dough.

They are, in my opinion, EVIL and should die horribly.

YMMV. HAND.

Simple

[supermanwashere]

We all know where the number came from the 750,000 terrorists that are taking jobs away for those honest, god-fearing, and hard working individuals in Hollywood that are losing there jobs as a result of piracy.

Maybe if would stop making movies and music for pure money (who green-lite Doom, the Arachnotron?) we would actually buy some their stuff. The only stuff I buy is stuff that has long term entertainment value, go Iron-Man but no Indiana Jones (seems to have an odd number curse)

"I'm not dumb. I just have a command of throughly useless information."

- Calvin, of Calvin and Hobbes

Re:"...it doesn't cite where that number comes fro

[mcgrew]

No, its real, just like my 2.3 children and my 1.2 pets.

Re:"...it doesn't cite where that number comes fro

[compro01]

All real numbers are complex, not imaginary.

Reduce Copyright terms

[Jason Levine]

We should reduce copyright terms instead as long copyright terms have resulted in 7 trillion jobs lost, fifty million babies being carried off by wolves, and terrorists dancing in the streets*. If you love America, hate terrorists, and care about poor, defenseless children, you *must* support shorter copyright terms!

* All statistics have been obtained from the Institute of Extraction of Random Numbers from Collective Posteriors. Coincidentally, this is the same place that the Commerce Department got their figures.

Candidate suggestion?

[merc]

I hear Jack Thompson is looking for a new job...

Re:"...it doesn't cite where that number comes fro

[Wildclaw]

Thanks for correcting me. My mistake.

how about a Frivolous Lobbying Czar

[Dan667]

He can start by suing Sony, EMI, Warner Brothers, and Universal (the RIAA) for the unnecessary burden to the tax payers of them trying to make their businesses a government problem.

Techdirt fixed their erroneous headline

[Skapare]

Can't Slashdot do the same?

true in some sense

[Trepidity]

Sure, you could say that the lender and lendee are each about half responsible. But the difference is that the lender is supposed to have known better: their job is finance. By contrast, the average homeowner has no financial expertise.

Thus two sides mutually entered a stupid contract, but one of the sides was actually staffed by full-time professionals whose supposed expertise lay precisely in evaluating contracts for non-stupidity.

Re:true in some sense

[maxume]

Sure. I'm all for low quality loans requiring a statement from the loan granter that they reviewed the payments (the whole schedule) on the loan with the customer, over various scenarios, with legal consequences (revoke their license, fines, etc.) if they mislead the customer.

The lack of transparency and diligence certainly went well beyond the mortgage brokers, on to the ratings agencies, insurers, securities originators and securities purchasers. This goes to my point about Goldman Sachs; I'm not sure if they originated a bunch of garbage filled MBSs (this would make them bastards), but I'm pretty sure that they weren't holding a bunch of them (this makes them diligent).

Re:true in some sense

[cdrguru]

The problem was that the lender was given a ticket that said if they make bad loans they could sell them to the government-backed mortgage guarantee houses. So no matter what they did, they got extra money for making as many loans as possible with the government-backed players picking up all the risk.

All in the name of increasing home ownership by unqualified people.

It was a stupid game to get into but nobody - except the government-backed mortgage guarantee houses - had any risk in the game. Oh, maybe the home buyer had some risk because they were going to get booted out on the street in the end, but for a while it looked really, really nice.

As for the lenders, well, if someone says to you they will give you $100 a day for the rest of the year are you going to say no? Some really high-minded person might have looked at this and said the end result of this will be people getting thrown out of their house so maybe I better not do this. But I don't think I know anybody that would turn down their $100 a day because it might come to an end.

Why not just a Minister of Silly Copyrights?

[WillAffleckUW]

After all, with the incompetents they have now, it would make just as much sense.

Copyrights should revert to the period specified in the US Constitution and the original Berne Conventions, not the farces in use today.

(reminds me of my trademark for All Of The Above (tm))

made up statistics

[weiserfireman]

For there to have been 750,000 lost jobs, wouldn't you have to prove that these people have been employed in the industry first?

Can they show that businesses decided to leave Copyright protected industries because of piracy?

Or are they trying to show a decrease in production of Copyrighted materials because of production?

Maybe they are trying to say that Piracy accounted for $XX lost sales and the money from those sales could have employed as many as 750,000 other people.

It is probably the latter, but it is made up statistics anyway. To prove the lost sales, you have to prove that people who acquired the material through piracy would have paid the higher price to acquire the material if piracy didn't exist. My hypothesis is that a significant number of them would never have bought the item, they would have done without, or acquired a competitive at a lower cost.

Stupid statisticians

Re:The real costs

[vux984]

No you don't. My cell costs less than 1/2 that.

Mine costs triple that. I couldn't bring it down to save my life. If I had your deal at ~$20/mo I'd end up paying hundreds a month in airtime. If he says he HAS to have a phone at $40/month, why not take him at his word. Maybe if he shaves $20 bucks of his plan, it will cost him hundreds. Sure he could talk less, but that might mean not talking to clients, again costing him hundreds...

Instead of being 'stuck in the house', a second job, or school to get a better job, might be in order. And NetZero is only $9.95/month..:)

1) Going to school costs money, and likely conflicts with work.
2) Getting a 2nd job likely conflicts with his first job, and usually results in massive stress. Lots of people CAN'T just get a 2nd job. If you work a mc-job or mall-job for example, where they seemingly schedule staff blindfolded with a dart board, you can't possible hope to find a compatible 2nd job, and if you limit your availability at one job to give your self some gaurantee for the other one, they more often than not retaliate by dropping you down to 1 shift every two weeks... meaning you now have no job.

Getting a 2nd job for a lot of people usually means finding a 1st job that has static reliable hours first, before they can even think about getting a 2nd job. And who knows, maybe he's looking for a new, better, first job, that's as good as his current job but with better hours. It doesn't happen overnight.

And Netzero? Please.

Don't use your apparent insolvency to justify why you think you are entitled to music for free.

He's not saying he's entitled. He's saying he's not costing the industry anything, because if he couldn't download the songs for free its not like he would buy them. He's saying, rightly, that "losses" due to copyright infringement are inherently false because the majority of the billions of dollars of "lost revenue" don't exist. For a lot of people, including him: if they couldn't consume for free they wouldn't consume at all.

I think what he was saying

[Trepidity]

Is that the Czars' rule was so unpopular that they basically brought the Bolsheviks to power by antagonizing the population to the point where they supported a revolution.

MOD PARENT UP

[mcgrew]

That was from the very oldest punk rock song in existance! It's the Trashmen's Surfin' Bird, IINM it was released in 1962. AFAIK every single punk rock band that ever existed, from the Hardons to the Ramones have performed that song.

It is a great song. It is ART!

Mod parent up, mod me down.

Re:The real costs

[riceboy50]

Stealing: misdemeanor retail theift, small fine.

For something as small as a CD, it would probably only be an infraction—not even a misdemeanor.

Re:The real costs

[YrWrstNtmr]

The dude says has has $20/week for food/transport/clothes, etc. Whatever he's doing, he's doing it wrong.

Oh, and that $20 (actually ~$18) cellphone rate? Thats total. monthly + airtime. What's the trick? PAYG, and don't live on the damn phone.

"it's not MY fault, it's the fault of people with good jobs". Please...waa waa waa.

McCain and Obama both voted for Senator Leahy's "P

[JCWDenton]

http://www.stallman.org/archives/2008-jul-oct.html#01%20October%202008%20(McCain%20and%20Obama%20vote%20PRO-IP)

McCain and Obama both voted for Senator Leahy's "PRO-IP" bill, which calls for seizing people's computers for sharing.
Don't vote for them!

http://www.defectivebydesign.org/stop-revised-riaa-ip-enforcement-bill-s3325

It still has new and extremely broad provisions for seizing property like computers and servers. Such powers are notoriously abused to go on fishing expeditions, and since servers are often shared, people who are not even the targets of investigation will be hurt in the process.

Re:fp

[Anonymous Coward]

Like recession? Then you'll love Obama!

While that was an ad-hominem, and was modded as such, it should be noted that Obama would be more likely to support a Copyright Czar than McCain. Dems are owned by big media, who're the ones pushing for this. Also note that Bush turned down the idea of "Copyright Cops."

I know everybody loves Obama, and loves to hate McCain. But on some issues, Obama isn't the best choice, harsh but true.

Re:"...it doesn't cite where that number comes fro

[IchNiSan]

Just be thankful that all numbers aren't irrational. Then we would really be in a fix.

Re:Free software depends on strong copyright law

[Duradin]

The enemy of your enemy is your enemy's enemy. No more, no less.

When does the door to door searches start?

[nurb432]

If you have an internet connection, you MUST be a pirate, so its grounds for searching your home without a warrant..

Oh, and get caught on the street with earbuds.. expect to be tackled and your MP3 player taken away as evidence.

750k Jobs Lost

[nurb432]

Sure, its a lie, but since when did the facts ever get in the way of congress trying to pass laws?

Ask instead

[Z00L00K]

How many jobs has been lost due to alleged copyright and patent infringements that may not even have been true?

Re:why does a free market economy need commie czar

[Hatta]

Who said anything about a free market economy?

Re:The real costs

[vux984]

The dude says has has $20/week for food/transport/clothes, etc. Whatever he's doing, he's doing it wrong.

If he's looking to sustain himself for life then yeah, if he's in one of those many transitional parts of life then no. I had lots of friends coming out of school, or going to university, or comeing out of university, or after being laid off from a good job, or going through a divorce etc, picking up what they could get and living life like that for a while. They all eventually improved their station, but it takes time.

Oh, and that $20 (actually ~$18) cellphone rate? Thats total. monthly + airtime. What's the trick? PAYG, and don't live on the damn phone.

18$/mo @ say 25c minute = 72 minutes a month. ~2.4 minutes a day. Hell, you can't even look for a job on that kind of ration, never mind conduct business.

I use over 1500 minutes a month, and pay around 56$. That works out to under an hour a day, and doesn't remotely qualify as 'living on the phone'. Someone with a $40 phone is living pretty frugally in my books. A $20 phone is someone who doesn't use it.

"it's not MY fault, it's the fault of people with good jobs". Please...waa waa waa.

But the reality is that any "lost revenue" is not his "fault". He's not whining that he should be entitled to free music, he's pointing out, rightly, that his infringement doesn't make any difference to the industries bottom line.

If he couldn't consume for free, he wouldn't consume at all. Perhaps he shouldn't consume, but that's separate question.

Isn't McCain...

[purpleraison]

Isn't McCain 'fundamentally' a 'de-regulator'. Surely, if the Republicans spent as much time 'worried' over the corrupt American banking system as they do about record execs and 'piracy', we would not be in an economic 'downfall'.

Re:Isn't McCain...

[purpleraison]

umm.... you DO know that the Republicans were in control of the house and senate for 6 or the last 7 years, right?

You do also know that our 'president' is a Republican? ...and look, I didn't even need to post a link to bogus crap.

8%...?

[maharvey]

By my estimate, 750,000 is 8% of the unemployment total. So one out in twelve people at the unemployment office lost their jobs to piracy?

And which year are we talking about? Presumably this didn't just start this year. In 2007 750,000 would be 12.5%, or one person in 8.

I don't CARE how hard you work

[Anonymous Coward]

I care if you produce something that is worth the asking price.

You don't.

Neither do the CD recording companies.

So stop leeching off MY taxes to get YOUR fat arse paid for by suing anyone and everyone for a years' work sixty years ago.

WORK YOU FAT FUCK.

Commerce department

[internerdj]

Shouldn't they be busy with you know keeping commerce from collapsing right now instead of hunting down copyright infringers...Oh right where are my priorities...

Digital Comic Preservation.

[Ostracus]

Ah the usual copyright-slash-flame war.

Anyway here's something to read and think about from a former pirate.

Nice Rebuttal

[tobiah]

The "cultural enrichment" argument is attractive but flawed, as you point out. However, your argument that the business model would fall apart ignores the flaws with the current copyright system. I'm pretty sure Janis Joplin and Walt Disney would still have created what they did even knowing that their works would not be collecting revenue 75 years after their death. If I were to record and post "Happy Birthday to You" I could be sued for copyright infringement http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.07/posts.html?pg=7

Copyright has always had a concept of "cultural enrichment" built in, with the idea that IP can and should eventually go to the public domain. The problem with a Copyright Czar and expanded war on copyright infringement is that it will be costly and discourage the very creativity and innovation copyright was supposed to foster. ShieldW0lf's argument doesn't work as written, but the arguments made by the RIAA are pretty flawed too. One very important thing that is missing from the government-level dialogue on copyright law is the needs of the people.

Re:fp

[Goaway]

While that was an ad-hominem

It was not.

Re:The real costs

[kocsonya]

When you talk about the subsidizing of leeches, I take you mean the **AA?

I mean, they are not operating on a free market, are they? They have a government granted monopoly to charge money for 100-150 years for the same thing over and over again. Do *you* have the right to charge for your singular production output for an infinite number of times?

What's more, the **AA do not create anything. They are the middlemen, or rather, middle-organisations for they are not natural persons. Yet, they keep enjoying the government granted benefits long after the actual human being creators of the things they control are dead.

Note, I do *not* download books, movies or music. I can afford to buy what I want and I have a really large collection of books, CDs and DVDs. Yet, I have no problem with pirated material at all when for example the publisher decides that they do not offer the material any more or in the format I want it (film X is only available on VHS for $60 - a pirated, reasonably good quality copy on DVD+R from eBay at $12 is the way to go, although I would have paid $30 for the real DVD, had it been available).

Piracy is, to a large extent, an indications that the market has been distorted significantly. Often the pay-per-view proponents come up with the analogy of a concert or a theatre, you have to pay every time you want to see the performance. True. However, the artist *has to perform* every time as well. What the entertainment industry wants is to perform once and be paid for eternity. Preferably without paying the artist at all...

Why should a kid, who was born decades after Walt Disney went fertiliser, pay royalty to a corporation when he buys a keyring with a mouse on it? In what way does it advance the arts and culture of humanity?

Yeah, right...

[Locke2005]

US Chamber of Commerce is claiming that 750,000 American jobs have been lost to piracy. Yet, it doesn't cite where that number comes from.

I'm not exactly sure whose it was, but I'm pretty sure what type of orifice that number was pulled out of...

California knows this and is acting

[Krishnoid]

This measure is is up for vote on the 2008 California ballot.

Mod parent up

[ScreamingCactus]

I wish I had mod points right now, because this is a very insightful post. However, I, as many others do and you evidently don't, believe in the cultural diffusion that p2p makes possible, but I also find it somewhat depressing that despite this possibility, most people don't use it to actually expand their horizons. I think it's sad that people will use the "cultural expansion" and "give the little guy a shot" arguments to advocate the ability to avoid having to pay for the same crap that Big Media sells, while themselves mostly ignoring the wealth of undiscovered content that is made available to them. And I would even go so far as to say that ideally, the existence of digital piracy would actually do some good in keeping the content distributors (**AA, etc) in check, but realistically, they will fight every step of the way by charging more to "make up for the loss", sueing people, lobbying Congress, etc. Honestly, I wouldn't mind seeing the RIAA, MPAA, and Big Media's monopolies completely dissolved; many starving artists would be much less starving, and although there are plenty of very talented celebrities who would have to deal with losing much of their fame, I believe the celebrity idolatry present in today's society is worthless anyway and does little more than rot the quality of life in this country.

that's not really true, though

[Trepidity]

The ability to sell on the loans to government-backed guaranteers certainly exacerbated the problem, but for whatever reason, a number of banks didn't do so. When the loans started defaulting and dropping precipitously in value, a number of banks had large quantities of these loans, or derivatives backed by them, on their balance sheets. That's the entire reason the feds just voted through a $700b fund to buy up toxic mortgage-backed securities. If the mortgage risk was all already owned by Fannie Mae & co., then the problem would've ended when the feds took over the mortgage guaranteers a few weeks ago, but clearly lots of the mortgage risk is still festering on banks' balance sheets.

Am I wrong?

[solune]

Seems to me those countries doing better, financially, have less onerous IP laws and regulators. Isn't that part of a free market?

Re:"...it doesn't cite where that number comes fro

[mortonda]

No, imaginary numbers cannot be rational.

Isn't this getting rather complex?

Re:ST5

[ScrewMaster]

Why does a free market economy need czars?

"What does 'god' need with a starship?"

PS: apoligies to all - but I like the god-starship meme

You know, a lot of Jaffa should have asked that same question a long time ago.

Another Bailout?

[m509272]

I think we the taxpayers should bailout the poorly run entertainment industry. They have no clue how to run their businesses so it's pretty much just like the Wall Street of California. Let's give more money to the record industry execs, the multi-million dollar per picture actors and producers and studios. Sadly, of course, there will be no benefit to the song writers, the low-income actors, production staff, etc but what else is new.

Anedoctial evidence : me

[aepervius]

Before being showed what fansub was I never downloaded Anime, but NEITHER did I buy DVD / Manga. By now i have roughly 300 Manga, and about 100 DVD paid for (as well as 5 games). Suppress fansub and those material would never have been sold. Now take into account that the young people "infriging" today are the adult which will buy later, if they don#t come into contact with the material they will never think of buying it.

Re:why does a free market economy need commie czar

[aadvancedGIR]

Czars were not a product of of the communism, it was a remanent of european middle age feudalism system. The initial goal of the soviet revolution was to throw out that system and and give back the power to the people. Of course, like any utopian bottom-up political system (such as, ironically, free market), it was already corrupted by the greed of few before it had a chance to be implemented.

It could work

[PhongD]

Though there hasn't been a HUGE change from what the drug czar was able to do, there are signs that a czar such as the drug czar, and in this case a copyright czar can help. Our copyright and IP legal needs to be reorganized and focus on the right direction and this is one way that can really focus to fight against piracy and enforce intellectual property. However, I don't think the damages provision in this bill does anything but give money to those who have little and give it to those who already have billions. Check this: http://jolt.unc.edu/blog/2008/10/01/prioritizing-resources-and-organization-intellectual-property-act-2008