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Pirate Bay Court Loss Won't Stop the Flow of Files
Adrian Lopez writes "According to PC World, 'Hollywood may have won a battle, but the war against piracy is far from over. Unauthorized file sharing will continue (and likely intensify), if not through The Pirate Bay, then through dozens of other near identical swashbuckling Web sites. ... What Hollywood needs to remember is sites like The Pirate Bay are like weeds. When you try to kill one, they grow back even stronger. In this case, The Pirate Bay already moved most of its servers to the Netherlands, a move that could keep the site running even if The Pirate Bay loses its appeal.'"
Lol, they used the same line of reasoning when TV came out. There were scare campaigns that there would never be any more media because TV would allow people to watch things for free.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
All the Pirate Bay is really, is a symbol; I'm not convinced this spectrial was ever about combating P2P, but more about a clash of ideologies.
Development of filesharing solutions is a bit like evolution.
Like new, more advanced life sprung up as a result of each disaster, new, more advanced file sharing solutions pop up each time after the media industry manages to kill one.
As Bittorrent is not a service, but a protocol, it will obviously never die. Darker and decentralized versions of it is evolving already, made strictly for "private" use.
What the industry fails to realize, is that the newer solutions is also *better* for the user than its previous counterparts. Remember Napster? It was only good for people who listened to mainstream chart toppers with crappy sound quality. It was not an option for people really interested in music.
And don't forget piano rolls, radio, cassette tape, video tape, etc.
Every single one of them was a harbinger of doom according to the music industry. None of them ever were.
No sig today...
I'm sure this will be the focus of the appeal.
This trial was a jury trial and juries aren't very good at technical details, mostly it's the lawyer with the best hair/suit that wins and you can be sure the RIAA spent a fortune on theirs.
No sig today...
Think the moderation of flamebait is unjustified here - it's a valid point of view and could even be read as funny (depending on whether or not you like the big budget movies or not).
Whether it's accurate is another matter altogether though... you have to consider that a small broadcasting/production house which caters to a niche market, but only has limited broadcast footprint could actually benefit from the torrents - it would be able to reach far further afield right from the outset, which could, in turn lead to more interest on an international scale.
For example, I wonder how many DVD orders for the new Red Dwarf episodes will be placed as a direct consequence of the torrent availability and subsequent 'try before you buy' which it enabled to a much wider audience? Difficult to determine in the case of an established brand perhaps, but I wonder how long it will be before we see new productions which will benefit directly from this model.
A lot of 'casual' (non tech.) users are likely to be put off by the increasing application of EU directives against sharing/copyright theft. (The ones that the boys from PB were hammered under).
As EU Govs. progressively try and vote these into law, (a recent attempt in France was defeated at the last minute), users are going to find it harder to use file-sharnig services without getting cut off by their ISP, or worse.
I predict a growing interest in TOR and IRC...
Technically it's not possible to stop p2p, and the harder you try, the tougher it becomes. My fear is as that happens, it all gets pushed further and further underground. There are millions and millions of teens and youngsters involved. As it all moves to anonymous p2p and darknets, what these kids are exposed to along side the music/games/films is going to get more and more worrying. There is already a lot of porn along side torrents. Maybe this is what the copyright enforcers want to use to strengthen their moral argument, call it gateway data or something.
There is also the issue of the morality of it all. Should something that such a large section of the population do be illegal? Who is the law serving then?
Is this a road we really want to continue down? Seams pretty dark....
I say bring it all out in the open so it can be regulated and taxed. Money can still be made, if the service is good enough and the price is reasonable enough, people will pay, allofmp3.com demonstrated this, as do many private torrent sites. On top of this, people will always want real world stuff to go with their data (think how much money the Star Wars toys made). On top of that, advertising worked well for existing TV. Good money can be made if free downloading is brought out in the open.
That may be so, but I'd be surprised if they have managed to sell even one additional CD or one additional movie as a result of their actions.
That is how you measure their performance. Not how much menace they have caused to customers and potential customers.
Most urns around here get a stone on the grave as well.
I read the Pirate party has received three thousand new members since the verdict was announced. That's a /lot/ of Spartacus.
I especially remember "home taping is killing the music industry" warnings featuring such down-on-their-lucks as Sir Paul McCartney, one of Britains richest men, complaining that people who tape some tracks off their mates can destroy an entire industry. Perhaps, with hindsight, he was the wrong person to choose to front the campaign. This was around the time the Musician's Union was actively campaigning against synthesisers and keyboards in case it put people's jobs at risk. Some people don't think before they open their mouths.
You can't polish a turd. You can't expect people to pay £12+ for Robbie Williams or Madonna CDs when even their fans think they're shit now, especially when most of the albums are shit and people are buying them for the singles, which they can just tape off the radio/tv if they're that bothered about it.
...and the printing press would make a lot of monks unemployed as well. They wrote all the books by hand.
Maybe 'unemployed' is the wrong word here. It is more that the monks lost control of what the general public was able to read. Suddenly is was no longer possible for the monks to censor religious or political incorrect ideas.
The exact same thing is happening again, but with different players. When music started to be broad-casted on FM radio, the media industry lost control of their products. Same thing with VHS.
The Internet is probably the scariest thing that can happen to the media industry. Because Internet is built without any central point and any node can broadcast. (Compare with a radio or TV station; one central point for broad casting and many passive listeners.) This is a tremendous loss of control for the media industry. The industry can not say this in public and that is why they always bring back the same culture-will-die ghost from the closet.
It is not about culture, it is about control.
What is wrong with that?
We don't owe Hugh Jackman and Tom Clancy a living. Television has an entertainment model that doesn't have to charge at the point of delivery. Musicians can perform and make a very handsome living if they are worth listening to. Shit artists and holywood can suck my free living balls.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
piracy is not a required part of that and the monk analogy does not fit piracy.
Of course, the other reason that the monk analogy does not fit that seems to be oft overlooked is that the monks did not make record profits as printing became increasingly common. My anecdotal evidence, and quite a few studies, show that:
A) Downloading music and movies and games for free actually makes people more likely to buy them, not less - my movie collection was tiny back when I just had to watch whatever was on TV or the cinema. A couple of months ago I had to buy a new set of shelves to keep my new DVDs on.
B) Probably most importantly in this argument my money is now freed up to spend on other stuff, and no, by that I do not mean pizza. I mean that since I can download a discography of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers for free while I actually only own four or five albums of theirs that the $50 or so (?) I just saved can be spent going to see / buy albums from less well known bands that need the money to pay rent and bills, rather than buy another Bugatti Veyron so when their friends come round they can race.
Be smart, help people!
Musicians can perform and make a very handsome living if they are worth listening to.
I always hear this from people who aren't musicians, and who don't know any.
Musicians make nothing. Even the ones you've heard of; even ones you may like and listen to a lot. They are lucky if they make it out of their contract with any profit at all. These are people who have produced a lot and whose stuff has been purchased by many. The fact of the matter is that it is very expensive to get your stuff to the ears of interested listeners, and a million musicians making blogs doesn't make that happen. In fact, it makes it harder.
I'll point to a band I know a little about: DeVotchKa. They are now making decent money. They have been around in Denver for a very, very long time, and they were far from making a "handsome living," despite a lot of local popularity. They toured with Dita Von Teese (burlesque) a lot. Then someone scored his quirky little movie with their work, that quirky little movie did very well (Little Miss Sunshine), and now they are finally living a comfortable life. But it could be over any minute.
Performers cannot make a "handsome living" by performing, okay? Until you are huge, you get screwed by every pissant little venue. Seriously. Hang around with some musicians sometime. Places stiff them all the time, and they can't afford lawyers. No, the way you make a "handsome living" is with a paycheck. You know, the kind of monthly income that happens when you, I dunno, get royalty checks? From people buying your stuff?
I am so sick of this nonsense:
We don't owe Hugh Jackman and Tom Clancy a living.
--You do if you are consuming their products, and no crazy, twisted logic is going to change that. When you pirate media, you are stealing. End of story.
Full disclosure: I live in Japan and steal some US TV. I don't, however, when I can get the stuff legitimately. But I don't pretend like it's my right to see this stuff and suggest that these people don't deserve to make a living because they could be traveling minstrels and gypsies, which is exactly what you are advocating.
Does anybody remember that photography was once said to take away your soul. Even mirrors were a thing of the devil, way back in the old old times.
And the little note at the bottom or this sign should tell you something about electric light to.
I can imagine there being the same "discussion" about wheels, and maybe even the first stone blades.
But I dunno if monkeys fear other monkeys more, who use a stick or stone instead of their fists, to break their bones. ^^
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
I do know musicians. Just because small time bands aren't driving around in gold plated bentleys, doesn't mean they are entitled to. You know nothing about me, asshole.
The rest of us have to struggle for a living. The idea that musicians should be able to live 'comforably' working only a few hours a night is absurd. They essentially work the same hours as barstaff. This means, of course, that if they do require more money they can have a regular job as well as performing.
If making ends meet is a struggle for physicists and sysadmins, why should it be a breeze for guitarists? We don't owe them shit.
You finish off your drooling retard rant with the old chestnut that 'piracy is stealing' - which is true, so long as you are talking about those fellows in Somalia. It isn't true for copying data, and pretend it is makes you look stupid.
Oh, and you file share anyway. So STFU
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
If their intent is to act within the law regardless of their views on copyright then the question is rather irrelevant. Their answer could have been something like, "I hate copyright and I will do everything within the law to subvert it".
If we are making it a crime to hate copyright then that is a very slippery, orwellian slope
Nothing to see here.
That's another reason big media hates the internet...
The try before you buy aspect of piracy works both ways, if you download it and find it to be shit you delete it and don't buy it. Otherwise you might have bought it, then realized it was shit and that you just wasted your money.
Similarly, in the past even a lousy movie would make big money on the opening weekend before people realized it was shit... Now the first people who watch it will go on sites like twitter and tell all their friends how crap it was, and word soon spreads.
The internet makes it harder for big media producers to sell crap.
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If I said I didn't have an incentive to grow oranges unless I could plant a tree in your yard,
or if I said I didn't have an incentive to grow cotton unless I could own slaves on the
plantation, most people would see this is these as the worthless shallow arguments that they are.
But if I said I didn't have an incentive to to make beneficial or creative works without a
copyright monopoly, then all of a sudden people just take it on faith, they don't even question
it, they just assume that society would fall apart without them. In my humble opinion, this is
intellectually dishonest, especially considering that the entire Renaissance happened without
copyrights.
The simple fact is, there is no equivalence relationship between copyrights and property rights -
incentive does not a right make. The moral and historical foundation of property derives from the
fact that property has physical limits, while the foundation of copyrights dervives from kings
who granted publishers monopolies in return for not publishing bad things about the monarchy. The
history of copyrights is not one of rights, but control of sharing and restricting the open use
of knowledge.
That is why people who copy are not criminals, thieves, or akin to pirates who board ships and
murder people. No, infact they are really victims of a cruel deception. A deception that
copyrights somehow financially benefit artists and creators. The simple fact is, that for every
artist that makes it "big" there are literally thousands who copyrights haven't helped a bit,
even hindered, or destroyed.
However, this is not the only failure of copyrights - it is just one in many issues related to
copyrights that are just blown off ignored, or glossed over. Like the failures of Hollywood
culture, the failures of big media to provide quality material, the failures to provide
reasonably priced books to college students while tabloids are dirt cheap, and massive anti-trust
behavior in the software industry to name a few.
While the problems associated with copyrights might have been bearable 20 years ago when the
biggest issue was Xerox machines, today we are in the information age where
information is so easy to copy and manipulate that there can be no middle ground. Our society
will either have to control all of it or none of it. Our communications will either have to be
monitored or free, our privacy to be either continuously probed or protected.
In that sense, copyrights are like a vine that will never stop growing to choke off our freedoms
until we cut it off at the root. The DMCA, infinite extensions, billion dollar lawsuits, are all
just symptoms of a poor belief system - not the cause. So the efforts to find a "middle ground"
on copyrights are a failure because they do not address the core issue. That contrary to
copyrights, the right to copy and distribute creative works and knowledge is a right!
Like freedom of religion, and freedom of the press, the right to copy things is a right that
exists above government. It is a moral right, it is an inherent right, it defines the very nature
of the human condition. It is beyond politics and the petition of leaders.
In fact, the entire foundation of politics rests on the notion that it's better to fight wars
with words than wars with bloodshed. But to copy things does not require coercion or violence at
all, the rules are not the same. We will not change the copyright situation by petitioning our
leaders, or voting to change the system. It can only be changed by defiance.
Defiance by holding the belief that people have rights, even if those rights appear contrary to
the popular mob or to the system. Defiance, by shedding off the guilt and shame that those who
try to impose copyrights on us and understanding that they are the ones who should be
guilty and shameful. Defiance by copying and sharing creative works whenever we have access to
them. Defiance by using technologies
How do you determine that an artist is shit?
By listening to their work...
The big media producers would have you buy it, so that even tho it's shit you've already paid them and they have got one over on you.
Piracy enables you to sample for free, meaning that if something is shit you will find out and never consider purchasing it.
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Indeed. Where's the rage against libraries? Who thinks libraries are a bad thing?
Noone should make millions from doing a small amount of work, payment should be proportional to the level of effort required to do the work and should cease when someone stops working. In most other industries this is already the case.
As a nurse, I have to completely agree with this. Be careful what you wish for, if you really want to set a precedent for this, watch the medical community jump on board. "I saved your life yesterday...still alive today? Pay me bitch....." Hey, my work is still being enjoyed....right?
"I guess the question is: why does people listen to shitty music."
I would hazard a guess that it's because, due to the ever increasingly media-centric world we live in, we're bludgeoned by this shitty music everywhere we turn. In the same way advertising works, familiarity with a product (no matter how irritating and crappy it may be) leads to it being more readily consumable. From TV shows, to the commercials between those shows, movies, ringtones, shopping malls, youtube montages, restaurants, you name it, our heads are being filled with this music, and it leads to demand. This is how radio has always worked, so it is not unreasonable to assume the same demand is created by media other than radio.
I am not immune to this: When that awful Hanson one-hit-wonder title "Mmmmbop" hit the scene in the 90's, I found it so goddamned infectious and catchy, I went out of my way to find a copy online. Not because I liked the song; it was more of a way to exorcise song -- play it until you're forever burnt out on it. Ditto several others of the era: Aqua's "Barbie Girl", Trio's "Da Da Da" (I know -- it was an 80's song, but gained popularity due to that dot-com-era commercial), and "Jump, Jive, an' Wail" (The Brian Setzer Orchestra). I still have those MP3's, but I haven't listened to them in nearly 10 years. I certainly would never have bought the albums -- even the singles -- had free MP3s not been around.
One particular stat that I like to trot out in such discussions is AllMusic.com's Top Searches stats page. Without fail, 90% of the acts listed are from the 90's or much earlier. The two conclusions that I have drawn from that page are: 1) baby-boomers and their offspring (like myself) are over-represented on this particular site; or 2) the younger, more 'net-savvy generations recognize good music. I tend to discount #1 due to the fact that many boomers are still techno-phobic. There may be a simpler explanation, but it seems clear that old music is still very popular, in many cases more so (in the long haul) than new music.
My theory is that the torrent stats reflect what people have an immediate need for: that catchy song by so-and-so that they heard on the radio during the commute to work or on that Gillette commercial. Stats on sites like All Music reflect people trying to track down a *good* artist's back catalog so that they can purchase it (or maybe download/copy it from elsewhere).
Method of processing duck feet
You can't stop the signal, Mal.
Even if they manage to stamp out internet filesharing through draconian means, people will go back to SneakerNet if they have to, like they do in Cuba as we speak. Get with the program, RIAA/MPAA/Television Networks/etc; it's here to stay, nothing you can do with ever stop it completely.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
That's exactly the point. Before the onset of the internet, you had pretty much no choice as a musician than to hand over your work and often your future works to the big players in the content industry if you wanted to be published. Small publishers often only had local distribution and often you also had to bear the cost (and risk) of publishing yourself.
The internet (along with the development of technology) pretty much eliminated this need. It took control away from the big players. Publishing has never been easier, and cost never been lower.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Actually the train was, but thanks for this prime example of early lobbying to save an outdated business.
Do you know why most train stations are outside of towns, or at the outskirts of towns (or where the outskirts were a century ago, respectively)? Because of the carriage driver lobbying. When tracks were built across the countries, the coach industry was heavily lobbying to keep them away from towns. From at least somewhat real concerns (like the fumes that are dangerous... ignoring of course the industries that are nearby being at least as polluting) to outright ludicrous claims (like watching a fast moving train giving people seizures), anything was tried to keep trains as far away from towns as possible, to at least retain the business of moving people from their homes to the train stations.
When cars came into existance, we got another load of bullshit laws, like the ones of people having to walk in front of an automobile with a flag to announce its coming, or that cars are to stop when a horse is passing so it won't spook it, etc.
Did it save or solve anything? Nope. The stage coaches went extinct. Because nobody needed them anymore.
Imagine they had the same lobbying power the media industry has today. Can you imagine cars that must not go faster than 20 mph and train tracks that have to be moved further and further away from towns just to keep the coaches in business? Anyone would say it's silly at best, blocking progress and having a generally negative impact on industrial development.
Why is something like this tolerated in another industry that is simply as outdated as horse coaches?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Piracy is what people do when they take over boats with threat of force of arms and accompanied by danger to lives. Copyright violation is exactly what the words describe. Ascribing a sense of romantic villainy by the use of loaded words pushes the argument into emotion, rather than common sense.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
Lol, they used the same line of reasoning when TV came out. There were scare campaigns that there would never be any more media because TV would allow people to watch things for free.
(1) TV pays for media-creation through advertizing, just like radio - which came before it. No one was saying that TV was going to destroy media-creation. (Nice strawman you've got there.)
(2) Just because someone said "X is going to destroy Y" and they were wrong doesn't mean that the new claim that "Z is going to destroy Y" is also false. Example: For decades, Saddam Hussein was afraid that people would try to kill him. Numerous assassination attempts failed. Therefore, he shouldn't be concerned about attempts on his life.
To bring the problem closer to home for people, how would this mindset affect programmers? If music and movies can be freely copied, then code can be copied just as readily. But companies will still pay for programmers to make software for business use? Are said companies fine with the fact that they would be subsidizing their competitors who can then copy the code without paying for it? Sounds like less software will be made and society will be worse off. Although somewhat more complicated, it is similar to a positive externality (in this case the companies realize the externality and need compensation to make it worthwhile). The solution to a positive externality with a suboptimal market is a subsidy, so why not guarantee exclusive profits as that subsidy?
Free to copy, but not for commercial use? I'd say TPB is making money off of copying. The driver of the getaway car is a criminal, despite the fact that he didn't rob the bank. Yes the engineer that designed the car is innocent, but if TPB is the driver, the programmers creating BitTorrent and HTML are the car engineers. Maybe the ads don't seem like enough money to you, but maybe the income of that now-subsidized startup competitor doesn't make that much either yet. Okay, so make the distribution sites not-for-profit. Now the problem is for-profits still have to compete with not-for-profits while subsidizing this competition. Better, but until you account for that inadvertant subsidization, you won't reach the optimal market outcome.
I'd like to see copyright shortened significantly, but I don't see the market optimizing without it. Sure, I make assumptions or miss options that may reason a lack of copyright as a means for maximizing society benefit, but it seems to me copyright is quite a simple way to do things.
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