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Pirate Bay P2P Trial Begins In Sweden
Many readers are writing to tell us that The Pirate Bay trial is now in full swing in Sweden. Looking at a possible two years in prison and $150,000 in fines (plus another $14.3 million if the record companies get their way), the battle of infringement is sure to be one of the most watched p2p trials. "The International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI) which is representing the case of music and film producers, made a statement about the case on Friday. Stating, For people who make a living out of creativity or in a creative business, there is scarcely anything more important than to have your rights protected by the law. Copyright exists to ensure that everyone in the creative world from the artist to the record label, from the independent film producer to the TV program maker - can choose how their creations are distributed and get fairly rewarded for their work. The operators of The Pirate Bay have violated those rights and, as the evidence in Court will show, they did so to make substantial revenues for themselves. That kind of abuse of the rights of others cannot be allowed to continue, and that is why these criminal proceedings are so important for the health of the creative community."
I'm saddened by this not because I think the Pirate Bay operators are innocent but because I feel they're an easy target to set precedence on.
Meanwhile, the real issues at hand continue to get worse and go unaddressed. Like the fact that the EU just extended music copyright to 95 years (maybe in an effort to catch up with the United States?). Or the fact that people who collect digital music en masse couldn't possibly have bought it all in the first place. Or the important differences between illegal digital distribution and traditional theft of goods or money.
No, unfortunately, the IFPI/RIAA isn't going to figure out a way to cope with new awe-inducing technologies. The court system isn't going to earn any respect from its citizens. Musicians aren't going to be rewarded anymore than they already are. The free market will suffer from DRM. And people who depended on seeds and traffic for legal reasons from these sites are going to be left shit outta luck.
I feel like we're stuck with a bunch of dinosaurs concerned only with their self preservation when the fact is that they leach so much money from the system that they simply can no longer be a part of it. Songs cost $1 to download when they should cost 11 cents with ten cents going to the artist and one cent going to the host/distributor.
This trial isn't a solution and we all know how it's going to end. Work out solutions that really plague the system and piracy will go away.
My work here is dung.
Any link to the torrent? ;)
There's got to be some country that can run a tracker that people can't touch.
The timing is priceless!I can only see this as a heads I win, tails I win for the Pirate Bay....
1) If they win, they win.
2) If they lose and have to pay $150,000 in 2 years or god forbid $14.3 Million USD, it's ok, in 2 years the USD will be as worthless as Zimbabwae dollars, so really $14.3 Million USD will be less than pocket change.
GO PIRATE BAY!
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
It's sad that big business is harassing these fine young men.
TBH, they brought this on themselves with their childish responses to legal letters. They'll bleat on and on about search engines like Google and media services like Youtube but they're perceived as responding to IP holders requests, not telling them to fuck off as TPB did.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Absolutely! I mean it's either that or, horror of horrors, finding salaried employment.
I'm a mathematician. Many Slashdotters are programmers, engineers, etc. Isn't our work creative? How come we don;t get a lifetime +90 years gravy train? Is what we do simply not worth as much to society as movies about comic book superheroes and books about high school for witches and wizards? We don't seem to need protection, so why should artists?
May the Maths Be with you!
As I understand it, TPB has long held that the website does not contain any copyrighted material, and that they don't distribute any copyrighted material. I guess what I'm getting is that the prosecution is trying to prove that pointing out the location of copyrighted material is a crime.
Given that corporate greed is a constant, (as evidenced by the US banks, who hoarde bailout money and spend it on sports stadium naming rights in the face of imminent economic collapse) I see this snowballing to the point where companies that manufacture software, like BitTorrent and Azureus will soon come under fire. They tried this with the gun industry, and have had mixed results for years. I think it's rediculous that you should be held accountable for someone potentially doing something illegal with the software you designed in good faith, and under the allowance of current law. It's an erosion of rights thorugh corporate lobbying that leads to this sort of behavior. As others have stated, artists won't see any extra income if bittorrent traffic in its entirety (not at stake in this trial, I know) comes to a halt. In fact,there is a good chance, I think, that the media companies pushing this witch hunt will find that even if they were somehow successful in completely ceasing all P2P trading of their content, they would not see any increase in revenue. To the contrary, the large population of people that hear about an artist via the medium will no longer have access to this method, and the proliferation of new music will slow down considerably, fueled only by expensive promoting methods. If the media companies want their 1970's revenues back, so be it. But I think they're also looking at 1970's revenue minus the adjustment for inflation.
Raging in an online forum won't do anything for the world around you. To see change, you must take action.
It doesn't exactly read correctly, but this being Slashdot, I know I wasn't the only one who read that as "The International Federation of Pornographic Industry (IFPI)."
The confidence of ignorance will always overcome the indecision of knowledge.
this is going to set a terrible precedent if they lose.
This is like saying bob linked to jim's site and jim put up illegal material and bob is guilty for providing access. its just absurd.
... "Stating, For people who make a living out of creativity or in a creative business, there is scarcely anything more important than to have your rights protected by the law. Copyright exists to ensure that everyone in the creative world from the artist to the record label, from the independent film producer to the TV program maker - can choose how their creations are distributed and get fairly rewarded for their work." Hmmm... if the producers are "fairly" rewarded, why do the headquarters of records labels and TV broadcasters drive limos and swim in a pool of dollars, while the content makers -the real artists- usually live a miserable life (I'm not talking about those very well rewarded people who make porno-pop-music for the big guys of course). I hate the way greedy people try to disguise their cruel intentions through giving false credit to the poor.
This is about protecting the distributors, not the creators.
I didn't see any one go to jail when the Sonny Bono Copyright Act was passed. That was one of the largests thefts of "IP" of all time.
those from the International Federation of Pornographic Industry. I know I am guilty!
Yeah, what he said.
Free Mickey!
M
had his portable in court and twittered http://twitter.com/Falkvinge
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Piracy is not synonymous with theft. Here's a visual aid showing the key distinction.
frog blast the vent core
Amusingly they posted the strapline for "Gottfrid Svartholm" with ThePirateBay.org underneath.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
It has been particularly harmful in distributing copyrighted works prior to their official release. This damages sales of music at the most important time of their life cycle.
Okay, let's see the proof of this. Produce numbers, please.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Many Slashdotters are programmers, engineers, etc. Isn't our work creative? How come we don;t get a lifetime +90 years gravy train?
They're called patents.
Bad analogy. The patent term is five times shorter than the copyright term, and unlike with copyrights, there is no history of repeated legislative extension of the terms of subsisting patents.
If it's anything I can't stand, it's those goddamn infringers !! I see them every FUCKING day !! Let's all find these infringers and send them off to the porky park gulash !!
All I have to say on topics such as this is that the amount of money, time, and effort spent fighting piracy could be put toward more productive means. (i.e. feeding the hungry and all that stuff that people actually need.) Tell me that super-star, big-name artists need my $20 for a CD that cost the producers $.02 to cut... I understand on the smaller scale - the band that plays at the local bar, the up-and-coming features, that sort of thing, sure I'll support If they're good.
Once people finally allow themselves to realize that piracy is here to stay, regardless of legality and moral issues, then they'll come up with more creative ways to distribute and entertain. Anything electronic is accessible, despite the great lengths that are taken to safeguard it. Come to my area - or anywhere within a 3-hour radius and I'll gladly support you by coming to a concert, buying a $6 beer and a t-shirt/cd/poster whatever I can.
Piratebay.org and sister-sites aren't going anywhere...
sorry all
The Pirate Bay does nothing more than a phone book does. That is, it provides a reference or index entry to an actual object.
If what the Pirate Bay does is illegal, then phone book publishers should be prosecuted for listing felons and scams. After all, by this flawed thinking, the listing of the contact information facilitates the felonies and scams of the individuals represented by the entry.
This is obviously nonsensical. Why do people lose their critical reasoning ability so easily?
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
The Pirate Bay hurts creators of many different kinds of works, from music to film, from books to TV.
Actually, I *am* a musician in a band, and I've put our original recordings up on TPB. Recordings have become a promotional tool, not a main means of income. It doesn't matter what anyone's opinion regarding it is, it's the reality that computers, digital technology, and the internet has brought into existence. Unless governments all over the world decide simultaneously to unplug all the networks, confiscate all the PCs, and remove all rights and all privacy for normal citizens, this will continue to be the case.
Attempting to use legal means to change this is akin to passing laws against gravity, and both will enjoy equal success.
Cheers!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
IFPI says:
"Copyright exists to ensure that everyone in the creative world from the artist to the record label, from the independent film producer to the TV program maker - can choose how their creations are distributed and get fairly rewarded for their work."
This is false.
Copyright exists (from a US Constitution perspective) "to promote the progress of science and useful arts".
Individual financial compensation is not the purpose. Promoting science and art for the good of the public was the purpose.
Of course, we are now closer to the medieval Stationers publishing monopoly than we are the intent of copyright.
A 95 year publishing retirement package was not the intent of the Constitution.
Start.
They're stealing valuable ip, non-random ones and zeros, and all sorts of other stuff. Stop it, please. We only have infinity of them left :(
Since when does has The Pirate Bay ever mad any money? The only thing TPB actually sells is t-shirts. Like what has been said before, TPB is simply like a phone book. If you want to punish one website like this they should be suing all sites, including Google. Google allows you to search for torrents and also to search for servers that have music files.
"It is important that the swedish state has taken this step to make sure that its not OK to profit from others peoples creativity" (My translation)
The quote is from a spokesman for the swedish anti-piracy bureau, a privately funded entity ( read record labels, microsoft and the movie companies) that is a major player in the Pirate bay trial. The funny bit is that his own benefactors are doing exactly what he wants the trial to stop....
Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see by infra-red, How I hate the night.
Seriously. We can start talking about helping these organizations when copyright terms get back to something reasonable--I'd like 14 years like it was originally (in the US, at least), but I'd take the 28 it was extended to.
Until then, fark 'em. They're the criminals. Modern popular art and media is vastly poorer than it should be thanks to the efforts of these organizations.
The operators of The Pirate Bay have violated those rights and, as the evidence in Court will show, they did so to make substantial revenues for themselves.
I know I've mentioned this before but isn't advertisers equally culpable? If they put ads on a page that is known to be dealing in copyrighted content, they do support the owners of that page. They make money from guys who commit crimes. Would it be OK for Hertz to rent a car to robberers if they knew that the car was going to be used in a heist? Can I loan money to someone who'll use this to buy a gun and go out and rob people to pay me back with interest?
I'm quite sure TPB couldn't continue their operation if they had to pay for it from their own pockets so the advertisers are the ones that allow them to operate. Financing a criminal activity is also a crime, or isn't it?
Just in case someone should mention that TPB isn't doing anything illegal I'd just like point to any of the warez/crack/serial pages out there that does have a lot of traffic and a lot of advertisers. Why not go after them? Follow the money.
You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. -- Harlan Ellison
Read the GP - "stealing the compensation of the...artists." His/her point isn't that goods are being taken; your reply therefore did not address the GP's statement.
For conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it
Yep. This is a major part of it.
Yes, there's some people who wouldn't pay but they won't pay no matter what you do. The media giants should just forget about them and stop tarring the potential customers with the same brush.
There's tons of people who get TV programs off the 'net because it's more convenient and/or better quality (no adverts or DRM). In short, The Pirate Bay provides BETTER SERVICE.
No sig today...
Okay, I gotta ask - exactly why do artists think they're owed a living? If you choose to make acting/singing/performing your way of life, more power to you. It's up to you to make that happen, however. Personally, I'd love to be a professional beach-bum. "Pursuit of Happiness" in the Constitution isn't "Guarantee of Happiness." I have a day job that pays the bills, and I spend whatever "extra" time I have on things I *want* to do. If I want to be a musician, why would I deserve a public subsidy? (that's basically what Copyright has turned into.) May I become a professional snowboarder by copyrighting my Amazing Shredz? May I sue other boarders for copying my Custom Faceplant Ollie? Why not?
I do hope not too many movie studio executives and the like will starve, but we are now capable of enriching our lives with varied and abundant culture and knowledge. We have the power to make everyone in the world (with access to the net) a little happier and wiser! Humanity would be crazy not to copy it's collective ass off, IMO.
Ok, so some people who are just into the arts for the money would stop doing what they used to do. Good riddance.
If there was no other way to get an epic movie about frogs, or whatever, I'm sure people who want it would come together and finance it up front. Today it's all ready the consumers who pay for all the movies and music being made. We just pay after the fact, and we line the pockets of the now obsolete middlemen too.
Some of my favourite people are from th US; Vonnegut, Chomsky, Bill Hicks.
Piratebay is not a FILE STORAGE SITE. They do not store files in there servers. "It's a website that indexes and tracks BitTorrent (.torrent) files.". See?? Where does it say storage? I do not see it. The ones who need to appear in court against all the companies are those who downloaded (clients) the software and stuff. You can't just say piratebay does store files on there servers and have them appear court, it doesn't make quite sense. Bit torrent is NOT like all clients are accessing to one computer to download files. Its when each client connects to a client and keeps on going until that client has the file. So, why would one just make piratebay the victim? There is a huge difference between storing files on a server and indexing files on your server. Those companies can stick a jolly roger flag up there ass apologize for raiding the PB's servers
Media outlets:
(1) Create a site where your content has some sort of flash "demo" youtube-esque ad-supported site. I would totally surf to an album page and play it like internet radio with commercials.
(2) Hulu has an excellent model for watching movies on line.
(3) Let me buy MP3s with no DRM crap for $0.25 a piece.
(4) let me download movies in DRM-free MP4 format for $1.99 each. Maybe $2.99 for HD.
(5) Let me download movies special features in DRM-free MP4 for $0.99 each.
(6) MAKE IT EASY TO ENJOY MY PURCHASE! Don't piss me off with DRM. Let ME choose the app to use. Different applications work better with different systems. It should be my choice.
(7) Use public open source codecs, don't make me have to a sucky program. See #6
(8) Make it easy for me so I feel I'm doing business with someone I can appreciate. I'll be less pissed off at you and more protective of your content.
I am willing to pay for what I use, but I'm not going to pay good money for crap. If I can say, "dude! get your own, its like 2 bucks!" Then you'll have no piracy.
... please mod the parent post down. What I meant to say was:
s/theft/copyright infringement/;
It seems pedantic, but it's true. Yes, media "pirates" want something-for-nothing, and yes they're cheating. But it's not theft. Many acquire or sample music which they would not normally pay money for -- and thus it's not even fair to claim it's a lost sale. I am not at all saying it's morally acceptible, just that it's not theft. If I download an album or a movie, that doesn't prevent anyone else from making a purchase.
I see your point, but do you really think that this rationalization can remotely apply to the top 100 torrents on TPB?
Aren't those movies still in or fresh out of the theater?
I also understand the pricing and convenience thing.
I guess each pirate rationalizes their piracy differently, or just jumps on someone else's "rationalized bandwagon that sounds like it makes sense".
It won't go away. Piracy is snowballing now where it will only increase, since this dressed-up 20th century business model must be protected and refuses to modernize itself (or its prices). That's how I see it.
Two more cents in the ocean.
Everyone interested in computer-age digital rights should see the Swedish Pirate Party's founder Rick Falkvinge's presentation "Copyright regime vs. civil liberties". Good stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08gfh_6sbQI
Okay, I gotta ask - exactly why do artists think they're owed a living?
As a society, I think we can mostly agree that we should compensate people for entertaining us, especially if they are proficient in their craft. Allowing entertainers to make a living isn't a right, but I'd prefer for those who want to make a living out of it to be able to do so if they're good enough. If their ability to survive off of their trade alone is reduced to only being possible as a side hobby, it lessens the amount of great works that can be achieved, as less time can be put into it and still live.
Copyrighted or patented works are not property, as they behave very differently from real property. We do not prosecute copyright infringement for the same reasons we prosecute theft. Put another way, we do not protect intellectual works for the same reason we protect property. Theft and vandalism are similar, they are harm to property. Copyright or patent infringement are not harm to property.
Why do we protect intellectual works? Is it because the creator has some moral right to the work? No. The creator of an intellectual work has NO innate rights to a monopoly on that work. In fact, in order for them to have such a monopoly which isn't an innate right, each of us must give up an innate right, that is the right or ability we all naturally have to sense our environment and reproduce what we sense.
We protect intellectual works in order to encourage their creators to share them. That is the only reason outlined in the Constitution. Intellectual works are not property, therefore they can not be stolen.
It is far easier to conflate vandalism with theft than it is to conflate piracy with theft. With vandalism, the person actually suffers a tangible loss. Yet we do not think to call vandalism theft. Why should we call piracy theft?
You can argue whether it is wrong or right without even bringing theft into the picture, so why do so? Why the campaign to relabel intellectual works as intellectual property? Propaganda, pure and simple. The *IAA and other players in the IP game don't want us to discuss the right and wrong of the actual situation. They want us to consider intellectual works as property, and infringement as theft because we are all familiar with those terms and believe theft to be wrong.
I'm not saying infringement is morally right, I'm just saying that the interested parties are trying to bend language in order to curtail any discussion of whether it is or not. You could have backed up your assertions that infringement is wrong without even using the words 'theft' or 'stealing.' Instead, your self righteous and angry blather discredits your own cause.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
is that the corporations running their fancy little money making machine got complacent and lazy after decades of profits from recorded sounds which they nearly had monopolized. I may be modded or flamebait, but honestly think - the radio stations were paid off, they purchase hundreds of thousands of copies of their own albums just to skyrocket it on the charts, the tv hosts were paid off... quite a complex machine just to convince people to buy music - sounds monopol-esque
but, as stated before my friends, they simply did not *recognize their opportunity* (ask any businessman how to be successul in what you do) and failed to adapt/correctly identify/implement any sort of plan to reach out to people via this new form of media (which was their business after all)
the riaa/mpaa have a right to be upset, at themselves. they missed the boat - the demand was there, so the internet communities generated a supply.
FURTHERMORE, I take issue with people who argue that "music is a team of people working in conjunction from the artist to promoters to managers" and blah blah blah. anyone can download a cheap and free wave editing/multitrack software editor and within one year of experimenting make music that rivals these alleged "best sellers" on the radio. People need to get over the hollow celebrity allure of these absolutely meaningless dance/club songs and realize that THEY AREN'T WORTH THAT MUCH IN THE FIRST PLACE. the industry is full of overpaid producers and overpaid promoters, all because 13 year olds go crazy over it... so can we all please just lift the veil of idiocy.
she was the daughter of a wealthy florentine pogen read em and weep was her adjustable slogan
On http://trial.thepiratebay.org/2009/02/16/publish-as-us-in-your-country/ the pirate bay crew asks for our (the peoples) help. So get to work! I'm just gonna copy+paste the whole thing since the server is under heavy load:
The trial against The Pirate Bay that [starts today] in Stockholm, Sweden are one of the most important issues of our time. Our adversaries basically wants to close down internets and remodel it into something similar of a sodamachine serving entertainment. During the trial, the prosecutor together with a coterie of representatives for a disabled business model will put up a tacky theater by telling stories designed to convince the court that The Pirate Bay infact is a menace to society.
What differs this trial from most earlier trials is that everything in and surrounding it will whirl round and round in diverse channels of communication; to be discussed, reinterpreted, copied and critizised. Every crack in their appeal will be penetrated by the gaze of thousands upon thousands of eyes on the internets, in all the channels covering the trial. Old cliches from the antipiracy lobby wont stick. You won't be able to say stuff like, "you can't compete with free" or "filesharing is theft" without a thousand voices making fun of you.
We will create numerous scenes where quite different plays will take place. In local channels like spectrial.bloggy.se where the immediate physical surroundings of the court are being discussed. "Which cafés nearby will give us connection?" "How can we get electricity to the bus?" But also in international channels like Twitter, where right now the torrent of information is being translated into fifteen different languages. Translations and coverage being made by ordinary users of internets. Volunteers sign up to make trial-tourist guides to the surroundings, drive the bus or hook up audio. People fly in from far away countries to cover the trial and tell the world their video story of the Sweden they see.
Here all participants are potential actors in the Spectrial. Our channels form a meltingpot of reporting and engagement.
Our communication around the spectacle aims in no way towards an objective report on an external chain of events. Rather, the trial is a hub around which a whole new network of actors is instigated. Neither is the spectacle a question of old media against digital, social medias. Our social medias include a paper fanzine and a 32 year old bus, connecting us and others physically.
It's not about the protocols nor the technology. It's about using these to create new congregations, where anyone is invited and anyone can find their role, build new scenes and make their own performances.
The future is built by us. Us who participate in conversations. The future is built by us who explore how information and performativity is coming together. To refuse a debate and still expect to be able to charge consumers is since long a closed door. To also try and outlaw certain types of conversations is downright disgraceful.
The coverage of the trial is not un
Prosp long and liver.
http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?q=the+pirate+bay
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
TPB made money, so what? It's their website, if they want ads on it, they can do so. They don't host any files except .torrent files.
It's like an author suing a library for having one of their books on the shelves or something...
If it was called fluffy kitty torrent tracker instead of pirate bay who would sue them?
- yep, the music and the games.
Raise a stink, make a campaign and upload videos of messages booing the two companies.
That'll teach them not to sue.
And instead spend any money you were going to spend for purchases to donate to the pirate bay spectrial fund.
Well said.
Judging from how TPB usually responds to these kinds of accusations I'm reminded of The Three Stooges and Disorder In The Court. Moe: "Your Honor, these gentlemen are sue-perstitious."
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
Having been involved in the music industry for many years, and watching first hand from the inside as major retailers like Tower Records have fallen almost directly as a result of pirates. I will say one thing that has happened as a side affect that is a good thing. It's forced musicians to actually write good music.
Five years ago I had all but given up on new music, every single band that came out seemed to be just another corporate generated cookie cutter band. But now that the major source of income for new bands has switched from selling CD's to actually playing shows and selling merchandise, they have been forced to actually write good music, and be better musicians. (in my opinion at least)
Does anyone else notice this?
Listen people when tossing around these basic examples then apply telephone logic. In a simplistic view the internet and the phone are the same, communication devices. For example, if I plan a robbery using an at&t phone does that make at&t an accomplice? NO! If a child molester talks to a child on the phone do they drag the phone companies into court.... hmmmm NO!
So the pirate bay provides a site to distribute content, they are not personally placing content on the site. Granted most of the listing are not legal in various countries, they themselves have not placed the content there. The original poster is the "theif" and they should be perused. At worst they should have there site taken down and forced to had over logs of uploaders(if they even have that).
Let me switch that around:
Free expression is an inalienable human right. Some governments have compromised that right with the privilege of restricting free expression (which, with liberty, includes copying someone else's expression as a new expression in the copy) in order to charge money for exceptions to the restriction. That is how free expression is governed as "copyright", the exception to free expression. Even the government apologies offered for copyright infringing free expression rights are typically claimed (as in the US constitution) as necessary to "promote science and the useful arts", and maintained "for limited times". Because they're infringing our rights, copyrights are permitted only because they're necessary and brief. But they're not. They might have been necessary once, but our Information Age finds them not only unnecessary for promoting science and the useful arts, but in fact more a burden than a help. They might have been necessary to make a profit, which itself was only important because it was necessary to promote science and the useful arts, but they are no longer necessary to make a profit, nor is making a profit itelf even necessary to promoting science and the useful arts. Since it's clear that copyright's entire basis is now false, the copyright business doesn't even pretend it's not corrupt, except when pressed hard. That's why copyright brevity, that used to give the author/artist a full 14 years to recoup costs before leaving the content to become folk art, public property, without restriction, now lasts a lifetime, or longer. In every way, copyright is now merely an abuse of our free expression rights, not at all justified by promoting science or the useful arts, or limited in duration.
The record corps are keeping the copyright without the justification. In the US, they're basically defying the Constitution (and it's the US record corps, and their RIAA association, that's running these shows). They are the great criminals here. Not only are they violating our rights, the most important crime, but they don't pay the artists/authors from whose copyrights they get the money. Their whole show is a sham and a fraud. If only a case like this one against Pirate Bay could be turned around, and stop these criminal enterprises once and for all.
--
make install -not war
Acting requires a certain amount of skill, true, but don't exaggerate please. It's a relatively simple skill and anyone (okay not quite, I wouldn't scout on /.) can learn it. Most actors aren't even that good at it. Some actors of course have unique valuable skills (martial arts perhaps) but most could be easily replaced by someone else. So why this actor adoration culture? I don't know. Maybe because they're the most visible part of a film production, and people are supposed to be empathizing with the main characters. But in principle someone else could do their job. Compared to that the scriptwriter, director, and concept artists are a lot harder to replace.
As another example, lets say everyone decides that your band sucks monkey balls and they decide to buy albums of Slim Whitman, which sounds better. That is loss of revenue to you. Does that make it theft?
Calling infringement theft is making it MORE than it is. It is all part of the 'intellectual property' propaganda campaign which is designed to get people to think of intellectual works as property instead of what they are: a government enforced monopoly primarily granted to benefit we, the people, not you, the creator. You would have NO POWER to compel us not to copy your work without government enforcement.
With real property, you do not absolutely need the government to protect it, you could do it yourself. Not so with intellectual works. The moment you sell or share them, everyone can see and copy them. The only way that you, as an individual, can keep that from happening is for you not to share them at all, which obviously keeps you from deriving any value whatsoever from your creations. THAT is the only reason that we Americans have copyright and patents.
Other countries may take a different attitude and assert that creators have a 'natural right' to control their creations. Not only does this fly in the face of any sane definition of natural right, it is completely irrelevant to discussions of American copyright and patent law.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
"...then it is justifiable to use sites like Pirate Bay and other BitTorrent sites."
No, it's not. We were rather poor growing up, and yet I got a job and managed to see the movies and buy the music that was important to me. I didn't have everything my little heart desired, but that's life. You're not entitled to everything you want simply because you want it.
Besides, there's broadcast TV (now digital), there's radio, there are libraries, there's NetFlix (with a very reasonable subscription fee), there's open-source software, there's cheap shareware and $5 bins at the supermarket and... I could go on about all of the LEGITIMATE ways to see and read and hear what you want, but you're not interested. You're only interested in justifiying, no, in rationalizing why it's okay for you to do the things that you do.
People steal shit online (use your own term, I'll use mine) because they can, because they can get (they think) something for nothing, because there's little risk (today) of being caught, and yes, because it's convenient.
Well enjoy it while you can, because the free ride isn't going to last forever...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
Music can be produced by the artist and a few people. Movies typically cannot.
He who makes the content must get the most profit, the messenger just his fees, his just fees.
There's another factor - user feedback - that the music labels are killing - and this is important for the future of content distribution on the web - if you, the consumer interact directly with the artist, you can tell him to sing you a special song or add a reference to you or make a change to suit you - why should the record labels be in the loop at all?
The same is true for documentaries and any audio-visual performances by a few people / a band.
Movies is another ball game.
Someone else might be able to suggest a similar alternative which would be great but which is waiting to be destroyed by spectrial.
Small groups and solo artists lose if tpb lose.
This is modded troll?? yeah.. think different..
Oh WAIT. You said PHONOGRAPHIC.
Sorry, never mind.
The problem as I see it is that a lot of artists and the companies who promote them and have financial interests in their work think that they should be able to live comfortably for the rest of their lives because of one single thing they've done that is popular.
My take on it is that copyright should expire in a reasonable amount of time (and no, far past my own lifetime for people who died years ago is not "reasonable"). I don't begrudge them earning money—even large sums of it—during that reasonable time. But having an artist earn thousands or even millions of dollars off music written decades ago is just plain silly.
I have a good job, and I'm pretty good at it, if I do say so myself. Certainly good enough to make a living at it and then some. But it's not like I do one project and expect the company to keep paying me and my estate for the fine job I did for 95 years after my death. If an artist wants to keep making vast sums of money performing their art, they should have to keep working for it. Want to reap more rewards? Produce more art that people like.
If you choose instead to sit idle while your popular stuff fades into the public domain, you should starve just like anyone else. It's called "having a job."
The business is hurting because they charge too much money for products that are simply less important to consumers than they used to be. If .mp3's and digital downloads had never been invented, and home CD burning was a myth, the industry would still be in the same spot it is today or worse.
The bottom line, is that things change. Kids used to buy baseball cards, thats dead. Will music itself die? No, but the commercial music industry will probably not be viable before the end of the century and piracy has little to nothing to do with it.
A record quite simply is just not worth as much today as it was 15-20 years ago. And that's got nothing to do with piracy and everything to do with the evolution of culture and technology. We have the Internet, 500+ TV channels, portable video games, cell phones etc., and with all that available (not to mention the competing cost of it all), the value of an old fashioned album goes down. It's that simple.
The bottom line: The product and business model is old, has a lot more competition and just isn't worth as much as it used to be.
I have been reading a lot about this trial, and found a quote that will haunt the speaker for long time to come, if the quote is acurate.
In one of the major IT-related new sites in swedish, they interview a number of people about this trial, among others Henrik Ponten who is a lawyer for the Swedish anti-piracy group.
In this interview he states "It is important that the Swedish state has brought forward these charges in order to establish that it is not OK to run commercial enterprises on other peoples' creativity."!
Now, I may be a bit misinformed about what record companies actually do, but it sounds very much like this guy is trying to get record companies outlawed.
For those with a knowledge of Swedish, the relevant page is http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.211605/branschen-och-piraterna--sa-slutar-rattegangen . It is the first sentence in Henrik Pontens first answer.
Also, I don't think that most artists could live off of 10 cents a song for downloads (or the $1-1.5 an album) unless they have a very good PR plan/comity to not get lost in the giant sea that is the iTunes store.
How much of the $1 do they get now? I am guessing close to 10 cents?!
I have NetFlix. I pay something like $17 (automatic deduction from my checking account monthly)
Ok, so I have access to just about every DVD out there, at least ones I'd want to watch. Yet sometimes I still download a movie rather than wait for it in the mail.
Is this illegal?? I mean I sort of 'already paid' for it right as I have 100% complete access to it. No one loses money do they?
What about keeping copies of movies? If I have access to all the movies on NetFlix then as long as I have my subcription what is wrong with keeping a copy of every movie I get? Other then the very slight environmental benefit it the mail man not have to stop at my house how does this hurt anyone?
If you sample than you can make money off someone else's work too, so who cares that TPB made money doing what they do? Every mainstream rap artist that currently has an album has made money off of other artist's songs. Any sinlge main stream rap artist has made more money than TPB... period. so do i care if TPB made some cash to keep their servers up and running, plus some other expenses, aka living expenses.
What if their servers are out in space or international waters? well it shouldn't matter. Each country is their own, and they have their own laws. To the IRAA; stop trying to make everyone else that is different conform to your scam. PS I breathed out the air you just breathed in... you owe me money!
http://xkcd.com/488/
The only legitimate argument for downloading ip that you don't have the right to, is that ip should not be protected as property.
The main sentiment here seems to be "The record /movie industries overcharge their customers and rips off its suppliers so it's ok to rip them off." That sounds like a convenient justification for someone that knows they're wronging someone. Corporate giant or not, your ethical recourse to unfair pricing or business practices is boycott, not appropriation of something that you don't have the right to (even if it is intangible).
Another argument I hear is that the business model of record labels is outmoded so they get what they deserve. Let's take that logic in a different direction. A tool was developed that allows others to get an entity's product without that entity being compensated. If that happened and it was affecting you, would you feel the same way? Without the police protecting you, you are at the mercy of your own ability to secure yourself, so applying that to the record industry is a pretty selective application of indifference to others needing the protection of the state.
Another line of reasoning here says that file-sharing doesn't negatively affect sales and that the massive drop in sales the industry is experiencing is due to the poor quality of current music compared to that made a few years ago. Hopefully the idiocy if this idea is evident to most here. There's been good and bad music as long as it has existed, often both labels are applied to the same music depending on who's applying it.
Finally there are the ridiculous claims that go along the lines of "something like 3% of the price of a CD goes to the artist." I am an artist and have released music on an independent label and know many who have released music on both independent labels and major labels. The average amount a band is paid for a cd sold is about $2.00 with another $.70 to $1.00 going to the songwriter or publisher. The thing artists usually have complaints about is the amount they are charged for marketing and other so-called recoupable expenses, but most of the time (these days at least), the label and artists share the majority of those. If you are an activist that feels justified in ripping off businesses that overcharge or make obscene profits, why don't you rob a gas station? Afraid of the consequences. So, then it's not ideology but circumstance that motivates the actions of a supposedly justified file sharer.
I'm not saying that there's any way to go back, but for a group of supposedly intelligent people, it's shocking how blindly one sided most people here are on this issue.
I think what we are seeing is that it has always been the delivery vehicle that was scarce and expensive not the creative content. As the cost of distribution comes down it is revealing the true value of the creative content.
Some artists have figured this out. They distribute their music to promote other things that generate income like live performances which have genuine scarcity.
What they purposely omit telling the rest of the world is the reaction to that seizure - a political crisis in Sweden, resulting in major embarrasment and public outcry for the illegal manner in which it was prompted by a government minister at foreign urging, and contrary to Swedish law.
Nice statement, but somewhat disengenuous (sp). As a former musician, I can tell you that copyright is fine, though it needs adjustment to fit the current electronic form. We are protected by law. What we are not protected from are the criminals who have stolen the creative industry.
We are more interested in distribution and promotion, and those 2 areas are locked up by the criminal organizations behind this legal scam.
The concept of fairly rewarded means the distributor gets the gold, and the artist gets the least amount possible. In the entertainment 'family', the creators are simply meat, to be used and disposed of, while milking every possible dollar out of them.
And at every turn, it is the consumer that loses, wether it be DMCA takedowns of parody on youtube, DRM hacks on your consumables riping the functionality out of your electronics, or simply not being able to hear or see the evolution of art and culture due to the propensity of the industry to ensure only what 'they' consider worthy or profitable is marketed.
It has been said that talented people such as Buddy Holly, Frank Zappa or Graham Nash would not make it today, as they do not fit the industry mold. I believe this to be true.
The only place to truly evolve art and culture is within the bounds (and at the edges) of human experience, and not corporate or industrial dominance. Long live the indies.
The reason I ask is I wonder if one can make a "library" of all music ever produced for future prosperity...
Karem
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
Attempting to use legal means to change this is akin to passing laws against gravity, and both will enjoy equal success.
I believe the preferred analogy is trying to make water not wet.
So what if I was born with the unique capability to record everything I ever saw and replay it to myself in my mind? Would that be copyright infringement?
Are you saying live.com doesn't?
A recent announcement by the Intergalctic Recording Industry Association has agreed to represent the American Recording Industry of America in it's case against Gruntar Jjimzyclx for receiving radio signals from Earth that contained copyrighted material which he subsequently saved to a recording device and did not pay the licensing fees for. They are seeking 468 trillion quatloos in restitution.
-Kinsey
Without P2P sharing a lot of businesses wouldn't exist. As a small company at the beginning you don't afford to buy in a lot of countries around the world not even a Windows license. You use it, because your employees are used with windows platform from their home computer, you use a lot of software related to this platform, and finally you buy it. And you buy software that your employees can handle. And they handle because they use infringed copyrighted software.
"For people who make a living out of creativity or in a creative business, there is scarcely anything more important than to have your rights protected by the law."
Actually there is something far, far, far more important. Having my ideas and my works actually consumed and enjoyed by people. Knowing that my work and ideas are actually good (for whatever arbitrary value of good we're using) enough to compete for and win peoples attention and appreciation. I'd happily write my monthly Magazine Column for free, getting paid is just a bonus (and I also appreciate that they post the columns online for free, I want lots of people to read my stuff).
Throughout the ages artists, craftsmen, performers, entertainers, writers, painters, etc. have all figured out business models that allow them to continue creating. Expressing creativity (be it art, science, music, etc.) seems to me to be a pretty fundamental human need and it's been done since well before we even had the idea of economies (e.g. cave paintings) let alone industry groups, and this will go on forever as best I can guess (with or without the industry groups).
My take on this whole process is that the industry groups are largely obsolete, and that companies/business models will either change or go extinct as the environment changes, whether they like it or not. The people who embrace the new environment and learn to work within it and take advantage of it will prosper (not necessarily financially, I mean more in the sense of gaining acceptance/market share/etc.).
"had invested a huge amount of money..."
Invested, that's the key word here, and given recent events most of us are more aware of the *risks* involved in investing. If you choose to risk your money doing that, fine, but you're not guaranteed anything.
On the other hand I'd like to know how it is copyright apologists believe they have rights against me in enforcing restrictions on the expression of 'ideas'. For me, my liberty takes precedence over your right to make a buck trumping up false scarcity.
"People pirate movies because they want to watch movies without paying for them. [...] The majority are thieves."
Well... if that is the case, then sue me... Find the evidence, get a Warrant and File the Charges... oh and don't forget the rest of the P2P community. You'll use up Billions not to mention all the man power.
And even then, you won't solve the problem.
The RIAA are just attacking the symptoms... not the Cause.
Others will spring up...
what makes you think that they think they're -owed- a living?
Maybe they just think that if they sell their damn works for $1 or $2, that people who -want- that content will either buy it or forego on it.
MAYBE they just think that if somebody says "$1 is too much", that the next thing they will say is "I think $0.25 is a much more reasonable price - I'd get it for that price", while instead the next thing they see is "I think I'll just grab it for ZIP ZILCH NOTHING, fuck you and your $1, I'll use that to buy half a sloppy burger instead!"
Maybe, just maybe, they realize that they can make the damn works $0.01 and people will -still- pirate them because THEN all of a sudden the whole 'hassle' of going through a payment system just to pay $0.01 for the song is not worth the effort of clicking through screens. So they price them at $X (be that $1, $1.49, whatever) so that those who -do- buy it, will at least be paying an amount that, once all is said and done, at least the production costs are covered and maybe there's a little extra.
Heck, maybe there's a -lot- extra, maybe the artist becomes a millionaire, so what? Who are we to say they're not allowed?
Why do -we- think we're owed all artists' works for $0.00?
People have forgotten how the Torrent and P2P networks work. The Pirate Bay distributes not movies, not cds, not anything ILLEGAL only Torrents. What are torrents, they are files that specify the way another file should be broken into pieces. The "peers" in the network the people right next door to you are the people that are actively giving you the data and if anything are adding and a bedding in a crime.
The RIAA and DRM advocates just want more money and can't prosecute everyone who is participating in piracy, ie me, you, anyone with an internet connection.
If you invested your life savings as stock in a company, and the CEO did stupids that resulted in a rapid shrinkage of your life savings, you'd want to lynch him, wouldn't you?
Perhaps, but it's not theft.
If you wrote software that you intended to sell to a client, and somebody else stole the source by cracking your computer and selling it to your client at a greatly reduced cost, you'd want blood, wouldn't you?
That's illegal, although not theft.
If you bought a shiny new car, and six months later, a dirty congress-critter conspired with the evil car company CEOs to make gasoline illegal in favor of diesel, you'd be damned pissed, wouldn't you?
I might be annoyed, but that's legal, and certainly not theft.
But that doesn't mean that "copyright infringement" is ok, it's not. ... Copyright infringement is still theft.
You're creating a straw man. Saying that copyright infringement is theft doesn't mean that they're saying it's okay. Nowhere did the OP claim this! Just as saying that dropping litter isn't the same as vandalism doesn't mean that littering is okay. It's just a statement of fact. Copyright infringement isn't theft, by definition. I agree that neither should be legal. I also agree with the law that states the former is a civil issue, whilst the latter is a criminal offence. I don't agree that they are on the same level, but if you do, that's up to you. But that they are not the same thing is simply a fact.
Are you seriously suggesting that the examples you list above are examples of theft? I'm not sure what you're saying - "If two things are not okay, they are the same"? That doesn't follow.
The marketplace works on supply/demand, and bootlegging music destroys the demand side of the marketplace
Whether something like the pirate bay "destroys" demand is up to the courts to determine. Whether a single instance of downloading affects demand depends on whether the person stops buying as a result of that (it might be that they wouldn't have otherwise bought it; it may be that they buy something else with the money).
I agree with you about the stupid copyright laws. But according to you, if we're annoyed by stupid copyright laws, doesn't that mean they're guilty of theft?
Any time we spend trying to justify piracy/theft/copyright-infringement is time we spend digging a deeper hole for ourselves
Again, you are arguing a straw man. Pointing out that copyright infringement isn't theft is stating a fact, and is important as part of rebutting the propaganda put out by the RIAA etc.
Actually, I *am* a musician in a band, and I've put our original recordings up on TPB.
You are stealing from the RIAA by not allowing them to profit off of you.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Copyright exists to ensure that everyone in the creative world from the artist to the record label, from the independent film producer to the TV program maker - can choose how their creations are distributed and get fairly rewarded for their work.
the shittiest lie, shittiest save-face, filthiest attempt to cover real intentions since julius caesar said he was running for consul 'for the people'.
creative artists do not get SHIT from copyrights. independent film producers dont have the funds to pursue millions of worth litigations. the only groups that are benefiting from copyright on the face of earth at this time and age are a few major music labels, movie studios and some publishing houses. which give the original creators CENTS over dozens of dollars of sales.
go shove your half assed justice tirade up your ass. there is nothing just in it.
Read radical news here
I actually choose Hulu with commercials over torrents without commercials because its so easy.
It's a good example of competing with free.
I agree with parent poster. They ned to adapt their business, shutting down these guys here and 20 more will pop up in their place. The legal system just doesn't work fast enough (to stop the stream/torrent/flow of piracy, control sure, but REAL stopping the damn? Yeah right!) My point here is that they need to have downloadable content WITH ads in them. As already posted, people are lazy. All these poor international people having to "legally wait" or be a criminal (b/c of outdated laws protecting citizens from corps and their 'sue everyone' model" So instead just put the shows/movies /w ads. It's akin to people cracking games to make the games BETTER (Google: "spore torrent" or PB: "spore torrent" to see these index servers' results. People cracked this one just to play it without breaking their computers! No one WANTED DRM (who would ever EVER want digital restriction management is beyond me)
So if a tv show uses bit torrent to download and I'm even using my upload to help the fox network push their weekly simpsons, they still win as it'll have the ad in the 1st live version. Ya the next day w/o ads is released but who cares? Live content and thus, viewers, are BACK BABY! :D
Also, They should, as good business, provide the ad free version the next day to everyone. Even a month later in official ad free version digitally. Better to make friends then enemies who might hunt you down and...well...public forum...lmfao
j/k...I love media. Was never a buyer and never will be tho. If they EVER lock up the genie back into that bottle (100% control over everyone, customers and artists alike) then I'll just still never buy anything again.
Still support online games as it gives real value to their product. That exclusivity is the real bread a butter here. Control has always been worth more then cash. Blizzard SUPER HIT games like Starcraft, Diablo 2 LOD, Warcraft 3, and ESPICIALLY World of Warcrack all are valuable because of the online /w others aspect. Also not (hard to) crack for normal non leet haxorz /w unique cd keys.
Now if the music companies want 50/month from everyone they'll just have to hire programmers like everyone else to build a virtual environment where people pay to hang out and listen to music in a virtual world. They have nothing anyone wants (to pay for) as it's just as easy to copy a friend's iPod as it is to go on the Pirate Bay and search for song collection torrents (and Google can do the same and should be in this lawsuit also for providing .torrent searches!) ...and the market will forget about google when they are forced to pull .torrent support/hand over ip's/info of their searchers to these thugs...
my .02
I've noticed an extreme spike in my torrent bandwidth. Is everyone putting in a last ditch effort to get what they want before they can't anymore?
How does any of that square up with putting $150k into making a film and having it zero day on TPB?
All many artists are looking for is a fair exchange of goods. P2P rips are blatantly unfair.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Actually, I *am* a musician in a band, and I've put our original recordings up on TPB.
You are stealing from the RIAA by not allowing them to profit off of you.
Yes, and I feel so, so badly that my attempts to keep my amps supplied with tubes and my guitars in fresh strings so I may keep playing and writing songs may deprive some needy recording label executive one more lapdance or line of blow.
[in Val Kilmers' 'Doc Holliday' voice from the movie 'Tombstone'] Why, Ah cahn hahdly bear the strain.
(IMO Val Kilmers' best-acted role.)
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
I mean if I want to search for a David Hasselhoff torrent I go to Google and do a search.
First, there are like a thousand sites for Hoff's music... I'll list a few other than TPB... www.torrentreactor.net, www.torrentz.com, www.btmon.com, isohunt.com, extratorrent.com, torrents.ru and those are just on the FIRST page!! So what if they take down the TPB?? There aren't more places "waiting" to fill they're space... the places are already there.
Second, so should they go after Google for helping me find pirated music??? If I want to look for torrents, guess where I'd start?? Google!!
Third, has anyone HEARD David Hasselhoff's "Jump In My Car" ??? There is a reason why people don't want to pay money for crap like this.
I think MC chris has it right http://mcchris.com/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mc_chris
And on top of that, it has been known that record companies release music to the p2p community for promotional and/or marketing purposes.
Very very few Muscians get anything from copyright. For almost all bands any money made from record sales is reclaimed to cover various costs by the record company. Even the Rolling stones make their money by touring.
Record companys invest their money to distort the development of talent, they dont find and encourage new talent they, manufacture fake acts, control airplay (denying the entry into the mass market of anyone who isnt controlled and paying most of the profits to them) and turn out pap.
The vast majority of piracy makes copies of works that have earned vast amounts compared to what went into making it, if the creator has not been generously rewarded for their work it is a fault of the money distrobution system after the custmer purchases the product, if the artist is getting 0% of multi million sales, increasing it isnt going to benefit them.
The bottom line is the copyright system is prinicpaly for the benefit of middle men who have skilfully manipulated the system to earn vast profits for themselves, maintained artifically high prices (and dumb, nonsensial useage restrictions) and generally screwed what artists talent they dealy with and gone to great lengths to supress the rest.
Most Local Bands would be thrilled that people are downloading and experincing their music. So U2 will make a little less, well how much is enough?
doesn't mean that "copyright infringement" is ok, it's not. The marketplace works on supply/demand, and bootlegging music destroys the demand side of the marketplace
What about copyright abuse?
My old cassette was eaten up by a player. I went to the big music store downtown to buy a replacement CD. Out of print. No plans to bring it back in print.
The only option is "piracy".
I'm a content creator, I have issues about someone profiting from my work and taking that revenue without giving me anything, but what the RIAAetc. have been doing is to stifle technology and pervert the law in order to maintain an artificial stranglehold on the market.
They say that the sharing sites are making money from your content? Sue for a share of the profits, they should have offered them from the start.
But no, the RIAAetc. only aims to shut them down. Apple had to fight them at every step to make a system that people want to use, they only wanted to have the horrible DRM-filled, pay forever but lose everything at our whim subscription services.
The Pirate Bay has to win, because the alternative is far worse.
You can't take the sky from me...
and I'm onlly posting to object to the fact that a bunch of space aliens popped in from a parallel dimension *where the GPL does not depend entirely on copyright law for its existence* and rated this, of all things, "Insightful".
Forget the word freedom, okay? Red herring. The GPL is about ensuring that those who distribute binaries also distribute unfettered source. That's a limitation on what you can do, compared to what public domain or a BSD license offers you. But in the long term it benefits everyone.
Ironically, this is more or less how copyright was supposed to work. You get yours, but I get mine. So the GPL is more of an extension of the idea of copyright than a repudiation of it. Hence the name copyleft rather than anti-copyright or something else.
I know it's a little out of the ordinary, but really, it's about the same level of difficulty as understanding that "stage left" is to the right of the audience. (For the most part you were valiant in trying to correct a flagrant troll. But I still think you were inaccurate.)
..and I can sum it up in one short little youtube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbq_1Wy70rE&feature=channel_page ...'nuff said.
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
Let's examine your analogies.
(1) CEO Did Stupid Stuff: While the CEO is protected by the Business Judgment Rule, if what he did was stupid enough, he will be liable to the company and the shareholders for negligence. Personally liable.
(2) Source Stolen by Cracking Computer: Corporate Espionage. Tortious Interference of Business Relations. Lots of other very applicable legal theories.
(3) Gas Made Illegal in Favor of Diesel.
I've got two words: Carpe Diem.
And if it really is a matter of corporate & governmental intertwining and greed, your solution is to charge the bastards with any number of laws to prevent such things. Recall the politicians from office. Boycott the products. Get involved in the damn political process.
What does this mean? COPYRIGHT IS UNIQUE.
You can always argue that the law isn't producing just results, but copyright is a piss-poor fit for any of the above in light of the other remedies. Copyright is market protectionism, plain and simple and (as we know it) is obsolete in the digital age, where the cost of distribution is basically zero. And the "investment in infrastructure" argument is moot too. The infrastructure is there already.
While I agree with you that the original terms of copyright were far better, I think it just isn't worthwhile to quibble about it. Everyone will have their own idea of what term is reasonable: 5 years, 20 year, 60 year, 500 years... The whole system has to change in favor of something new.
I'd much rather push for an abolishment of copyright altogether, but the introduction of a strong attribution right. E.g., "John Doe wrote this book" let's you know it isn't Bob's book, and that John Doe is a really smart guy who deserves his fame, and by damn, I'm going to read more of this guy's work.
Linux Torvalds isn't considered a nerd deity by some because he sues people over his proprietary code. What does he get out of the free operating system he gave birth to? The respect of his peers, job offers (he makes a good living, I'd wager), etc.
But that's just my opinion.
I make small software utils, nothing super fancy really. On my website I have commercial apps I sell for Windows, some freebies for *nix and Windows and trial versions of the software. The commercial products range from $20 to $80 USD. This is a part time job for me and has made me enough over the past few years for a holiday (yay!). I have no illusions about my software - I made it look and act the way I wanted to, for myself and then extended it outwards for other businesses/people. It's not *THE* best software in the world but it does quite well in its price point. BUT.. I've found copies of work I produced on TPB, with several dozen to a few hundred seeders over the past year. How am I suppose to feel to bittorrent at that point?!
YAAAR!!
Sure lets go ahead and attack the Distributing Sites... while we are at it, why not go after the Hundred of Millions of users.
The Record Industry is clearly focused on treating the Symptoms... the after math of the Problem. Why not go after the Cause!?! Just like NetFlix, Hulu and Miro are doing. Providing the requested, expected and needed content with the Costumer in mind.
I see P2P as a Cry for HELP which is being discarded as an obnoxious noise.
Just my Two Cents
~Cruxado ~
http://www.nationmaster.com/red/graph/cri_sof_pir_rat-crime-software-piracy-rate&b_map=1
and here is the document where the above data comes from:
http://global.bsa.org/idcglobalstudy2007/studies/summaryfindings_globalstudy07.pdf
I make art. I make very little money making art. I wish to make a living making art. I want to spend as little time as possible worrying about the making money part. I would rather spend my time making art than making money from art.
This may or may not apply to anyone else.
I don't care.
If you like my art, you can have it, but I want compensation which I deem agreeable. If you cannot compensate me in a way that I think is fair, then don't partake in my art. I currently accept friendship as means of reciprocation, I also accept food, and sometimes even a small amount of money. I only have so much time for socialization, as I said... I would rather make art, and I am fairly pleased to have the friends that I do. Also, I can only eat so much food.
Now here's where it gets funny:
I work as a means to support myself. Not all of this work is related to my making art. C'est la vie, at least for now. See, sometimes that little inspiration will come when I am not really in a position to do anything about it because I must do work which provides for me. A person can write down bits of an idea. I have plenty of quick notes... but for me, personally, I cannot capture that inspiration and save it for later. I either use it or I lose it.
Maybe you wouldn't even like my art.
I don't care. Making my art is pretty much the only thing that keeps me even remotely happy. It's an escape.
However, maybe you would like my art.
I would love that, some people might even compromise their art to help ensure this. Good for them if they lack that little voice telling them not to. I wish I didn't have that voice.
That aside, if you like what I do, and want to partake in it, compensate me.
I cannot spend time to arrange a way of having enough compensation to keep me doing this, and may consider assigning this task to someone else, so long as the terms of the arrangement are agreeable to me. I am not opposed to doing work. I just don't want to have to do that sort of work, thankfully no-one is going to force me.
Under such an agreement I may have to give up some aspects, or perhaps rights, of/to what I do. Fine by me, so long as I get something which I value at least equally in return.
Now, you, even if you like what I do, might not like the terms being offered by the entity which I have granted the rights of contract to, and so your option, as regards what I do, is this: don't buy it. However, if you are not willing to make such compensation, you should not partake in the art (yes, exceptions... parties, radio [where there is compensation], hell, I'd even be willing to overlook mix tapes so long as they were not being sold, and only where it is a direct laying of hands sort of deal... etc...)
Simply, if you do not like the terms being offered, I am not ok with you deciding that you are going to make your own terms. EVEN if I disagree with some aspects of the terms being offered on my behalf.
If ever there were a point in time where I was recognizable enough, and again free of such an agreement, I might decide to open things up with people who still want to partake in what I do... maybe something like NIN or that one off Radiohead thing (I'm at a loss for examples in any other art form/medium, sorry)... but at that point there may possibly be a different set of constraints.
P.S. I love The Pirate Bay. I use it. I just bought the Toadies album Rubberneck, having recently rediscovered it's greatness through a torrent over yonder. I had a copy from a friend years ago, it had some glitches and such, but it was free, and good enough for me. If I had not obtained the illegal copy then I wouldn't have spent $8 purchasing it. Not everyone does this. Some do.
What irks me are people who download something in violation of the terms being offered by the parties offering the (goods), enjoying said (goods), but still not buying them. I mean, really, if you like it, buy it. If you can't afford it, do with out. Yeah, that's right, buy less if you have to, it's ok, b
"It's the Law of the Universe, and I'm the sheriff." Slash-cott 2/10-2/17
"Copyright exists to ensure that everyone in the creative world from the artist to the record label, from the independent film producer to the TV program maker - can choose how their creations are distributed and get fairly rewarded for their work."
Sorry, I call bullshit. Copyright exists to ensure that advancement in the arts are promoted by granting a limited monopoly to the creator. In exchange for the limited monopoly, the creator agrees to give up the Work to the Public Domain in perpetuity.
Copyright was supposed to be short - this meant that the Creators had to get off their asses, make as much money as they could, and then create MORE if they wanted more money. Otherwise their stuff got put into the Public Domain for WE, The People to use as we desired.
But things being what they are, Politicians got involved with middlemen who financed starving artists via loans with crappy interest rates and terms, and then wanted to make their money back en masse - so they pressured the Politicos to extend the terms of Copyright so they could 'make their money back' - of course, the fact that some political campaigns got funded didn't hurt either...
The whole thing's a farce. 95 years is absolute and utter BULL SHIT. It's effectively a lifetime for any of these creators, and since Corps never die - if a corp owns it, then the damn thing never expires.
So I say FUCK YOU to all the creators who created stuff that should have become property of the Public Domain long ago. We, The People, have the capability to take back what's been stolen from us. If the RIAA, or MPAA, or IFPI or whatever the fuck they are doesn't like it - then that's just TOUGH SHIT. You stole it, we're taking it back.
Go create something else people want if you want to make money. And keep creating stuff people want if you want to make money you dumb fucks. Otherwise, get out of my face, and out of my wallet.
I'm done paying for Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, or anything else I've already purchased on 8-track, cassette, or CD... You got my money at least 3 times, maybe more if you count the compilations I've bought... I'm done.
And I'm done paying for crapola - I get to listen to it first. If I don't like it, I'm not paying for it. That's the way things started out, that's the way it should be, and that's the way we're making it become again. (look up "Patrons of The Arts" for some historical perspective).
WE, The People, absolutely DO NOT owe one fucking thing to any Creator. If they don't have enough money to survive because they haven't mastered their Craft, then go get a different job to support you until you do get better at it... and if you don't - then maybe music or movies isn't for you...
I download music/movies regularly if i really enjoy then I buy them. If these clowns take away our beloved pirate bay i will never buy any music or movie ever again.
In fact i will dedicate the next ten years of my life to learning the art of hacking (maybe twenty, I'm not that smart just angry) and destroy the bastards. If the hacking thing fails and i still have a grudge in twenty years time (believe me i will because I'm a very bitter person) i will resort to stabbing record company executives in the face.
Who's with me?
I want to play a game, and that game is only available in Japan or the US, I live in Europe. I'd buy it but there is no release for Europe, I will pirate this game and do whatever it takes to play it! ARRRRRRRRRR
I would like to be able to watch (and pay) for tv progs or the latest movies on a legitimate P2P site, but am unable, as people like the RIAA and the IFPI seem obsessive about keeping us in the nineteen sixties ..
The first hint at copy-protection made me stop buying CDs. At the same time I stopped downloading all of their stuff. It's just not worth my time any more. And those "legal" download shops? How stupid can you be? Signing away your personal privacy of your home computer just to listen to music? Come on!
To be fair, I bought one CD because it explicitly stated "No copy protection what-so-ever! (and proud of it)". :-)
5c downloads up to 10c downloads.
People bought it.
Enough to make a company international money and to get the RIAA to notice them and move heaven and earth to get them closed down.
Not anecdote.
Here is a bit of nasty rumor from aviation forums:
The USA is threatening to stop sales of its high-tech AMRAAM fighter jet guided missile to Sweden if Pirate Bay escapes unhurt. They just can't stand their music industry losing billions a year due to torrenting.
Explanation: This threat is not an obscure tech detail! This will expose Sweden to the russians, because their current defence plan rests entirely on a fleet of 100 tiny JAS-39 Gripen fighter jets, which take off from remote two-lane roads and decimate red-star aerial attackers with their AMRAAMs. (Russian air interceptor missiles are much less capable, so Putin has no answer to the AMRAAM currently. The Gripen is inferior in close air combat against the Sukhoi-27 family of planes, but the AMRAAM capability allows it to win from the distance.)
If AMRAAM supplies quit, the russian fleet can cross the baltic any day, safe under their aerial superiority umbrella. Sweden has decomissioned a lot of its modern Leopard 2 tank fleet last year, so they have no way of stopping the russians as soon as troop ships hit the shore.
Torrenters love anarchy, but when the russians arrive, they will learn anarchy does not exist, it was only a stepping stone towards dictatorian communism.
5-10 years monopoly, transformative works required (so a decrypted version of DRM'd entertainment, source code for binaries) and THEN it becomes fair.
Neither side is acting fair. So I can't get all bent that P2P is unfair. Copyright changed first.
without copyright, your supplier cannot stop you exercising the free rights GPL grants. It may be MUCH easier to reverse engineer the source if you HAVE the source, but you CAN decompile and get something at least readable.
So the responsibilities aren't enforcable without copyright law, but then again, the responsibilities aren't needed without copyright law closing the code.
Gigli nearly had phones banned because people were txting friends saying "Do Not Want" and people left the lines.
So how do you know the movie is crud without someone watching it?
I've been waiting for the supply side of Hollywood to suffer because of illicit copying, but so far I see no sign of shit out of Hollywood waning down! When are you going to make good on your promise that less crap will come out of Hollywood???
Fact is DVD sales make up a fraction of the income for studios. The bulk is box office sales. As long as people go see the shit in cinemas, more shit will be made, because that's where Hollywood actually makes the most of its money.
Okay, I gotta ask - exactly why do artists think they're owed a living?
Maybe I'm missing something here but when did access to music become a right? Last time I checked The United States still practiced some form of capitalism. If you don't like the price of something you have the ability to NOT BUY IT. I'm tired of hearing people talk about how bad a company is and continue to buy or steal (talking about all products not just copyrighted work)things prduced by said company. We as Americans (I'm looking at you too Canadia)seem to have lost the most powerful tool our society has given us. That is the power to vote. If you don't like the price DON'T BUY IT. If you don't like the quality DON'T BUY IT. If you don't like how the company operates DON'T BUY IT. I could go on and on but I think you get my point.
And attempting to remove or restict these means of information transfer should result in a large number of government and business types deceasing from high velocity, cuprolead percussive trauma.
and this is a bad thing, why?
"Okay, I gotta ask - exactly why do artists think they're owed a living?"
Classic Slashdot strawman.
In all my days, I've not met one artist (in any medium) who thought they were owed a living.
However, it is the common claim among pirates that artists believe that they are owed a living.
But, the statements "artists believe they are owed a living" and "pirates like to claim that artists believe they are owed a living" are not equivalent.
"If I want to be a musician, why would I deserve a public subsidy? (that's basically what Copyright has turned into.)"
Oh, please.
Sitting in my day care, the art is decopainted.
Well im in similar situation as the musician. But i can see the dark side of this. I mean im constantly being slowly forced out of creative business because they are blocking all my avenues.
And this is why SOME engineers, programmers and such joined the bandwagon to oppose copyright law. They see the insanity in somebody OWNING critical pieces of stuff that even kids could come up with.
I think its a generation question too... I think the generation before us THINKS they own this. Well slow but sure the younger ones will win. You can count on it.
For example I am perfectly okay to PD stuff thats not my core revenue source, or business in exchange for better tools better stuff etc (when you make something pD its possible that the aforementioned calculator comes back as BETTER calculator). Whereas giving even a speck of copyright away is HORROR for the generation before me.
Because they spend the majority of their lives entertaining us. Perhaps the upper tier don't deserve a life of luxury for writing a few hit singles, but the bands with say 100000 fans certainly should be able to survive on their music.
if you noticed, i also mentioned publishers. the word publisher covers all kind of fuktards ranging from controlling publication of scientific papers to books.
Read radical news here
deatils here
...
without paying a dime, without driving anywhere, without unpackaging and thereby wasting a shimmery cardboard/plastic container (itself worth more than the physical medium on which the media i am thief-ing is stored - and arguably worth more than the media itself), without worrying about drm/hdcp/etc, without concern for whether mister movie star will have to get a day job like the rest of us, without hesitation or obligation or remorse, i will help myself to all i can. to do so is to embrace and cherish the spirit of music and art and literature and the like. or perhaps it is not.
At least, until five minutes before MS starts pushing the point!
That's a juicy post, so much flame infested responses that I just overload.. :-) There are of course sane responses to all of them, you can still earn money from music, I know lots of muscians who make a living, in the same way as developers aren't
If this was a simple market-driven decision, the music industry would have been out of business years ago. Unfortunately, they're usurping the legal system. They are taking away your civil rights. The Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act is probably the most egregious example of the erosion of the US legal system in favor of something far more Fascist.
I don't by the music. I don't bootleg the music. I'm paying for my part of the copyright bargain, but the entertainment industry keeps changing the rules. US Copyright is seriously broken.
You did read the first line in my post, quoting the statement about artists being unable to live off 10 cents per song, right?
As for being a straw man argument, could you please explain why the RIAA is so opposed to media-shifting the recordings I purchased 20 years ago? Why does the blank media tax keep popping up? (hint: because they think they're owed something.)
Since you are licensing music in order to be able to listen to it.
Currently the hottest form of licensing is through plastic (CD) and electronic formats.
As soon as you copied this, without such license of original purchase, you are copying illegally.
radiohead tried, and they made a killing.
next tries wouldnt be that good maybe. but, in the end what would it boil down to would be that the artists would make money as much as their fans see them worth.
Read radical news here
"Yet, even with the shitty movies, people feel the urge to download it for free and watch it anyway. If it really was shit, people wouldn't watch it. "
This is nonsense. People can't know its shit before having see it.
"If you know such and such movie is shit,"
I can't know.
" then don't download it and just don't watch it. Don't try to justify your piracy by the quality of what you pirate."
Stop saying that *I* download anything. You may only be able to see things from what you do, that doesn't mean the rest of us are that way. I don't download movies, exactly because I expect them to be crap (but of course I can't know, since I haven't seen them)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating