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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."
The Pirate Bay is about theft, plain and simple. It may be true that the monetary losses are not nearly what the record companies claim, and it may be true that the media conglomerates are really out for money for themselves rather than to support the starving artists, but the propaganda is propaganda on both sides.
No it is not, it's about copyright infringement. Calling it theft is part of the propaganda of one of the sides in the debate, and it's rather ironic that you argue against it in the same sentence.
Also, I think you are wrong in your assumption of why people pirate movies, it's not because it's free, it's because it's convenient.
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?
The truth is you're replacable. In most cases in the area you have described a dude can be dropped and another dude instantly dropped in his place. That's why.
Let me put it another way: I am an artist. I work on movies. I don't get the gravy train, either. Why? Despite being in a creative position, I'm in a replacable creative position. Somebody else can take my place and get the job done. I cannot do what the actors do. Replace the principal actor with me and the movie won't make as many millions of dollars. Replace the script-writer with me and bam, exact same problem.
It has nothing to do with the importance of mathematics. It's all about supply and demand, not about importance or what's fair.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
With a price of ~10 cents people could afford to buy a LOT of music. Many people wouldn't hesitate to buy a thousand songs.
I don't think I agree with that. There are people who would only want to get songs from a few artists, and decreasing the price is not something that will automatically revert equal or more revenue into the same service. If anything, it just means that the need a person has for a service is met for less, and surplus revenue may just as well go to other services not even related to music/movies/games/etc in any way.
There is a finite amount of money a person has to spend. Even after taking into account lines of credit, they can only spend so much. If any given artist is to lower their prices, then that doesn't automatically mean they would get more money from sales. We have people that look at sales trends and other factors with actual math to derive maximum profit with a product or service for this reason.
You are both wrong actually. It's not even about copyright infringement, it's about contributory infringement which in this case basically it means they are being accused of giving out the address of a location where copyright material may or may not be located.
Reference: http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/02/pirate.html
Quote: The men behind of the notorious BitTorrent tracking service known for pointing the way to pirated software, games, music and movies are accused of contributory copyright infringement
Lesson to be learned: don't give out IP address+port pair information!
When A thefts from B, B loses the content. When A copies from B, both keep their copies. The only thing that can be claimed is that, if B didn't offered A a copy, A "MIGHT" have bought it. Being the keyword MIGHT.
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Patents are very different for a lot of reasons.
First of all, math cannot be patented. Second of all, it's pretty much impossible to collect on a patent unless you're one of those companies who buys up IP for the sole purpose of litigation.
Bear in mind that we live in a world where the web 'shopping cart' is patented. It is pretty much impossible to create anything in the tech industry without infringing on _some_ patent or another, and so what companies tend to do is develop patent portfolios that they can use to counter-sue anybody who tries to sue them.
In our current system, refinement, optimization, or miniaturization of an existing concept is probably not novel enough to be granted a patent, and definitely not novel enough to successfully litigate with that patent. On the other hand, however, I could draw a cartoon mouse with dicks growing growing out of its forehead instead of round ears and if I was able to get it hung in my friend's coffee shop that would be enough to enforce copyright if it was ever ripped off by anybody else.
---- I'll take you in a Hunt deathmatch any day.
This is the ONLY example of a major media outlet actually taking advantage of new technologies to expand their offerings.
You must not have heard of Hulu
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
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
Nope. Free software people don't give a rats ass about copyright law. The GPL is actually a hack to circumvent copyright law. Think about it.
The GNU/Free Software people most certainly care about copyright law, because without it their pet license is unenforcable.
No Copyright turns every OSS license into something that makes the BSDL look restrictive.
Tour. There are many many musicians who make a pretty good living just by doing the live circuit.
It's only in the last few decades that there's been a huge disconnect, and you get bands that expect to live by a few days in a recording studio..
Even with a bootleg, you just can't beat a live gig.
http://xkcd.com/488/