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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? ;)
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.
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.
Of course they did. They are, after all, on the right side of Swedish law. All that remains to be seen is whether we can say the same about the Swedish courts.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
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.
... "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.
Give me one good moral reason why one shouldn't respond in that way to a cease and desist letter.
May the Maths Be with you!
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.
"they brought this on themselves with their childish responses to legal letters."
It was a totally valid response to utter bullshit... they are breaking no Swedish laws, period.
Apparently you're too rigid in your "I know better than them", thinking to see otherwise.
Hoser
Give me one good moral reason why one shouldn't respond in that way to a cease and desist letter.
If you know you're in the moral wrong, or should otherwise know.
Cease and desist letters aren't exclusively evil. They're merely tools. Just like with the Pirate Bay, it is not exclusively a pirating tool, but it can be (and in many cases is) used as such.
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
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)
Of course they did. They are, after all, on the right side of Swedish law. All that remains to be seen is whether we can say the same about the Swedish courts.
I dare say that very few of us here are qualified to make that statement, probably including you, my good sir. In fact, I believe that this trial is happening because a large number of lawmakers, layers, and judges in the Sweden can't even answer that question yet. We will soon see if they are breaking the law in Sweden or not, though.
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
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.
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 :(
You just posted a link to a website that links to pirated content.
You are under arrest.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
"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.
The Pirate Bay makes crazy money on ads. However, running such a major site costs crazy money, and they say they now barely break even.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
TBH, they brought this on themselves with their childish responses to legal letters.
Most of those letters where refering to US laws and Sweden is not the 51:st state.
Technology is considered neutral in Sweden so providing access to a service does not constitute a crime in itself.
Also... you make it sound like the did not want their day in court. You do realize that they are closely affiliated with the Pirate Bureau who knowingly pick fights against proponents of the current copyright legislation?
She made the willows dance
morality is like an ass, everybody has his own.
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.
Maybe, once upon a time. Every time we let modern trailblazers like these get convicted for "crimes", or let our countries enact new laws to satisify greedy corporations, another free country disappears off the map. Sweden actually has a pirate party, and they're still being hunted. How many free countries do you think we have left? It's really time people started using encrypted, anonymous p2p. Otherwise, it'll be the familiar old, "They came for the jews, and I was not a jew, so I did nothing... then they came for me."
I don't think any matter of Swedish law will really be decided one way or another. What will be decided though is if Sweden is one of those lucky countries with a "special" relationship with the USA. You know one who gets to implement US law on the promise that the USA will use lube.
They tried that already, by trying to buy a small island (tried twice actually), and starting their own country. Neither attempts succeeded.
I'm by no means up-to-date on the laws of all ~260 countries or whatever, but I don't think there is anywhere that is entirely "safe", there may be a few where it is legal, or at least not illegal to do what they do, but that same country probably wouldn't be the best place to do their business for other reasons (mobs, poor internet, low food, weather, etc), or is easily influenced by anyone with money, status, popularity negating any "safeness" there may be.
I'm Canadian, and we have some of the laxest laws regarding P2P:
File sharing legal in Canada
Canadian Police Tolerates Piracy For Personal Use
And Torrent sites such as IsoHunt, moving to Canada... however, on the contrary:
Court in Canada Shuts Down Torrent Site
And it seems to be leaning more and more in that (downward) direction, so what may be "safe" now, may not be in 6 months.
Personally, I have zero problem with TPB, MiniNova, Demonoid, or any of the rest... they are by far the wrong targets to be going after, you may as well go after Google, Yahoo, or even Microsoft (Windows XP Torrent) as they all contain links to torrents to copyright/illegal torrents as well, and much like Torrent servers, they do not contain the actual files, but just the torrent, which is basically a glorified network file shortcut, and although I hate to say it, targetting Axxo, FXG, etc would make more sense, but still far from proper sense.
Fix the pricing, and "artistic/personal use" limitations, and everyone would pretty much get along fine, even though there will always be "illegal" torrents/files on the interent, no matter how many ways you try and stop them.
... 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.
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
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?
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
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.
Oh WAIT. You said PHONOGRAPHIC.
Sorry, never mind.
It's a relatively simple skill and anyone (okay not quite, I wouldn't scout on /.) can learn it.
Not really. It's a very difficult line of work to make a career out of.
But in principle someone else could do their job.
Bearing in mind that I was talking about the actors that actually draw a percentage of the film's in-take, no, this statement isn't true. Big names are hired just for the sake of having their big names in there. They are the face of the movie and people like familiarity. Why do you think Dreamworks pays millions of dollars to get people like Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy to be voices? They just want their names on the posters.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
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."
using TPB I now own your ass.
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.
http://xkcd.com/488/
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.
We had a discussion program on TV about his subject recently.
Most striking were the words of a teeneager. His perspective was he was happy to pay for the work of up and coming artists, but was not going to pay for more bling for some multi millionaire rapper-he got a round of applause.
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.).
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?
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 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.
using TPB I now own a copy your ass.
Fixed that for you.
Me lost me cookie at the disco.
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.
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 ~
Oh, I don't know. According to
http://thepiratebay.org/top/201 (top 100 movies)
69 appear to be dvd rips, and a total of 85 are dvd rips OR screener rips.
24 appear to be from 2009, while 61 are from 2008 -- at least 1 half months old.
So, no most of the top 100 films are not "fresh out of the theater".
Maybe you shouldn't just make up facts that can be *easily* checked ?
Fairy-land perhaps?
I'm sure you can find some country that wouldn't substantially care, but then, all the other countries would, and they'd cut off that country from the internet.
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
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 ..
Give me one good moral reason why one shouldn't respond in that way to a cease and desist letter.
"We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram "
Athy, athier, athiest.
Not really. It's a very difficult line of work to make a career out of.
Perhaps that is because supply of new actors is much greater than the demand for actors.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
Well I can't argue in favour of 100 year copyrights. So we're all being f'd in the A
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Well, getting the source code vs disassembled code is a major difference imho.
But since you're AC it doesn't help much telling you there is a difference.
"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.
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
...
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.
That's certainly a factor. However, there are several classes of actor. You can see it any show. Patrick Stewart, for example, is far more nuanced than any other actor in STNG. (Picture replacing him with Frakes and you get the idea.) That's the reason the stories typically orbited around him.
Actors play a huge part in attracting an audience. Frankly, this site in particular knows this, I'm not sure why this discussion's even happening. Between Mos Def as Ford Prefect and demands that Optimus Prime should get his original voice... oh brother. Yeah, actors are super inter-changable.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
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.)
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