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Pirate Bay Closure Sparked P2P Explosion
Barence writes to share that the closure of The Pirate Bay seems to have done nothing to stem the flow of potentially copyrighted materials. In fact, there has been an estimated 300% increase in the number of sites providing access to copyright files, according to McAfee. "In August, Swedish courts ordered that all traffic be blocked from Pirate Bay, but any hope of scotching the piracy of music, software and films over the web vanished as copycat sites sprung up and the content took on a life of its own. 'This was a true "cloud computing" effort,' the company said in its Threats Report for the third quarter. 'The masses stepped up to make this database of torrents available to others.'"
"The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers."
It's kind of pathetic to watch the industry and the courts try to stomp this out. Perhaps if more judges, politicians and corporate leaders were familiar with history, they'd know that once the genie is out of the bottle, you can't put it back in. Smashing printing presses didn't exactly stomp out the increasing speed and distribution that information often unfriendly to Our Betters (kings, politicians, merchants, Church leaders, whoever) received with that technology. Everyone had to bloody well learn to live with a completely altered information landscape.
The whole battle against P2P is looking increasingly like tilting at windmills. Perhaps, at the end of the day, that's an awfully good description for this whole cabal; they are indeed qixotic.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Could this be the Streisand effect? Lots of new people suddenly learned about free movies when the news media talked about it for a few days.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
a handful of selfish greedy people are no match for millions of selfish, greedy people
The article makes it seem like a covert/mystical action, but really, anyone who has been reading TorrentFreak in the days since the TPB offer of sale and events surrounding the trial will know that people have been thinking about ways to mirror TPB for a while now, under the assumption that it will sink: http://torrentfreak.com/its-time-to-sink-the-pirate-bay-and-replace-it-090913/ , http://torrentfreak.com/torrented-pirate-bay-copy-comes-to-life-090820/ , etc...
This is cloud computing like buying another pair of pants is cloud clothing.
I have feverishly been engaged in whacking moles, and cannot for the life of me comprehend why they continue to pop up.
Certainly does not look dead yet.
It seems to be that media outlets are solving the wrong problem. If pirated movies, software, etc pop up everywhere then that indicates a high demand for a particular service or product. Especially when their illegitimate services are probably being operated at bare minimum cost to provide terabytes of content and bandwidth. They should probably try offering a pay service (either subscription or per-view) to access content online even when it comes out. Naturally there will be people who don't want to pay anything, but there might be a marginal market for this kind of thing. Either way, the research would be interesting. And, if pay+hd content or commercial+normal quality can't compete with free+crappy telesync, then maybe the media industry isn't losing enough money to whine about?
...I need to download Curb Your Enthusiasm. And why do Channel 4 force me to watch the Daily Show 3 days after the news happens? Grrr.
Keep trying, suits.
For every Web site you shut down; for every IRC server you pay to have DDoSed; for every eMule node you raid; five more will spring up in their place.
You can pollute the edonkey net with malware; we'll move to IRC. You can kill public websites; we'll make private, invite-only underground darknets, that you can't see, find, or regulate.
The society that you are trying to prevent the formation of is, in good part, already here. We will continue working to establish it, for the ultimate benefit and enrichment of all; ironically even you yourselves in the end.
The end of scarcity is inevitable. You can attempt to stand in the way, you can slow it down, marginally...but you will not stop it.
Didn't the same thing happen when napster was closed down? Everyone was using napster and when it shut down multiple sites filled in the gaps. Close down one of those sites, and more get created.
Similar to the mythical hydra. Chop off a head, and more are replaced.
This is similarly ineffective as going after drug dealers. This addresses the symptoms, but not the underlying causes.
Anyone see the 60 Minutes piece last night trying to link Bit Torrent to Mexican DVD piracy to gangs to child prostitution? (think of the CHILDREN!)
It was quite ill informed, seeming to only gather information from the MPAA and other similar sources.
The link between people using camcorders to record movies and make bad quality DVD's for sale on street-corners I get, but their assumption that these are the SAME people uploading to BT, was casual at best.
Seriously, if you go through all the trouble to cam-cord the movie and burn DVD's in mass, aren't you just as threatened by BT as the studios?
Perhaps use it as a source, yes, but upload your own movies for free? I don't see it.
Something like ordering the shutdown of Pirate Bay makes it look to the non-tech world like “something is being done to stop those evil hackers.” When in actuality, most of the stuff you find on Pirate Bay is widely available at just about any company that has a resident Nitendo DS playing, I-Pod listening, Warez junkie working there. Most of the companies I've worked at already had at least two “darknets” up and running at all times, and that was before I worked there. (I don't condone that sort of activity, but resistance is futile.) I know of 10-year-olds that spend more time on torrents than they do texting... and that's hard to believe. They would have to kill the whole internet to make it stop, then it would start on cell phones.
So what you're saying is that international regulation of the Internet and restriction of encryption (license to operate) are the solutions? With deep packet inspection and criminal charges for offenders?
I think the media companies thought that when they brought the Pirate Bay to trial and won a conviction that it would scare everyone away from file sharing (legal or otherwise) and that people would go back to buying DVDs, etc. What really happened is that they generated a lot of news which basically informed countless masses unaware that torrent was even a word that they could use these things to get free movies, music, etc. off of the internet.
It's almost a little bit like the Streisand Effect in that they're really only making the problem worse. If they really wanted to do something about piracy, stop talking about P2P and go after the people who are burning physical copies that they're selling. These people are actually distributing thousands of full copies of product for which they have no license to reproduce. That's a battle that the record companies, movie studios, et al. might actually be able to win.
i bet our grandchildren will be astounded the Ministry of Truth let shenanigans like this occur, at least Pornosec will still be hard at work...
I am going to use "itoldyouso" as well.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
When making money from movies becomes difficult if not impossible, they'll just stop making them.
Right! And the timeframe for that happening is: never
Movies will always be made. If you can round up 50 ppl in your neighborhood to view your crappy version of Blair Witch Project III, then there is a good chance you can do that and make a profit. The cost of producing video now is almost nil. Putting it together into something compelling is an entirely different story, though.
Either way, we'll still have movies. Only the quality will differ.
I think growing need for anonymous P2P systems will lead to development of easier solutions. And if one day there are enough users to get bearable transfer-rates, then the media industry is done for...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
While greed is a great motivator, I still like to think there's a little bit of Gutenberg in us. Distributing copyrighted works is not purely a selfish act.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEvEthIZ4lg
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
I get this mental image of a decent sized pile of sticks on fire. The RIAA tries to put out the fire by stomping on it, jumping up and down on it and kicking it. They successfully put out the main fire, but in the process sticks get scattered all about and ignite other brush. So the RIAA repeats their "put out the fire" procedure on those, continually winding up with burnt feet and more fires than they started out with.
(This isn't to say that I agree with the copyright infringement websites either. However, the RIAA's approach to defending copyright leaves little room for sympathy and turns many who would support sensible copyrights into pirates.)
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Personally I like the concept of anoNet more and it's a bit more interesting too, as it allows all the usual software (browser, p2p software, http/irc server etc) to work.
anoNet is a decentralized friend-to-friend network built using VPNs and software BGP routers. anoNet works by making it difficult to learn the identities of others on the network allowing them to anonymously host content and IPv4 services.
It is impossible on the Internet to communicate with another host without knowing its IP address. Thus, the anoNet realizes that you will be known to your peer, along with the /30 subnet used for communicating with them. A routing protocol, BGP, allows any node to advertise any routes they like, and this seemingly chaotic method is what provides users with anonymity. Once a node advertises a new route, it is hard for anyone else to determine if it is a route to another machine in another country via VPN, or just a dummy interface on that users machine.
It's a fun thing to try out, since you can normally use mirc and browse on the anoNet sites that end in .ano tld. There's web search engine, irc server, bittorrent tracker, private WoW server and probably other "real internet" stuff too.
Activities
Please note that any resource listed in this section can only be reached when your connection to the VPN is active. If it is not, you will get unexpected results.
Once you have connected to the VPN itself, you may do any number of things:
To get the full anoNet experience, use one of our cache DNS servers (1.0.9.53 or 1.10.11.1) so that you can resolve anoNet domains! Getting your own domain such as example.ano is no problem, just ask!
- Visit our Wiki, wiki.ano (http://1.0.9.3).
- Visit our IRC network using 1.0.9.1 or 1.0.1.1 port 6667 (6697 for SSL) with your favourite IRC client. Join #anonet and we can help you get started with anoNet.
- If you would like a more secure form of communication, you can use our SILC server at silc.ano:706
- Visit our message forum talk.ano (http://1.0.9.4), where you can discuss anything under the sun! Literally. That is what this network is about -- free speech.
- Use the anoNet jabber network (jabber.ano port 5222 or 5223 ssl for v1 clients), where you can chat with others using your favourite Jabber client! Jabber directory at users.jabber.ano
- Grab yourself a webmail account mail.ano (http://1.0.9.6) if you don't want to run your own mail server. anoNet has no spam.
- Search anoNet using our spidering search engine search.ano (http://1.0.9.8).
- Use our Bittorrent tracker anotorrent.ano (http://1.0.9.200)
- There is an open Icecast streaming server at stream.icecast.ano (1.0.9.16) port 8000, password anonet. It supports 20 streams and 200 listeners. The directory server is at icecast.ano (http://1.0.9.16)
- Once again to promote free speech we have a multi-user blog at anojournal.ano (http://1.0.9.13)
- If file sharing is your thing we have ed2k and dc++ servers.
- If gaming is for you, there is a bnetd server. (Starcraft, Starcraft: Brood Wars, Warcraft II, Warcraft III, Diablo, Diablo II)
- We also have World of Warcraft server setup (Running MaNGOS and a combination of SDB and Modb)
Remember, you can be a server too! Do you want to play a multi-player game? Go ahead! Install a game server, advertise it around (if you like), and get people to play with you!
Not only can you be a game server, but you can offer files, stream media, host your own web page, or anything else you want!
There is far too much to the network to list here, if it sounds like something you would be interested in, then connect up.
(main site seems to be down atm, but this one works)
No one wants to go to the theater anymore.
I once had to sit next to a fat, nicotine-smelling mouth breather. He was so fat, his breaking actually made noise. I was no more impressed when I saw him im the lobby after the movie. His sweatshirt said "My Dick Tastes Like Chapstick"
Couple that with talkers, out-of-focus, low-frame rate, cold theaters, you don't have the best venue for people to go see, Yeah, ita a big screen, but we have HD TVs with surround sound, and people you can beat or fart on if they get out of line. Not to mention you can actually pause the damn thing.
If the Movie industry just gave up on theaters and went straight to PPV, thereby increasing access, they'd find they have a much bigger audience. But for some insane reason they insist on making us trot out to these smelly, dark, hell holes.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
PirateBay isn't a web site, it's a culture. You can't stop culture with laws.
Unless you live in an environment where "everyone uses anonymity tools," using them singles you out as someone with something to hide.
If you aren't supporting a dissident movement in a dictatorship or some other noble cause, or doing only work-related computing over a VPM people will assume you are either trading warez or doing something that's in most people's List Of Evil Things, like terrorism, organized crime, or child pornography.
In some situations, the fact you use anonymity tools can turn suspicion of illegal activity into something strong enough to get a search warrant or a key-logger warrant, where, without this, the judge would tell the prosecutor the case wasn't strong enough.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Wow. That has to be the lowest UID of any troll I've ever seen. Congratulations on being the oldest troll on Slashdot!
We aren't celebrating piracy. We are celebrating new technology crushing attempts to suppress it by the ignorant and arrogant cartels clinging to a dead business model.
i found out that the printing press made thousands of monk scribes impoverished, no longer able to support their abbeys with book copying by hand
furthermore, without the monks around to copy books, books themselves disappeared from the historical record, and likewise the written word
new technology, the printing press, destroyed all of human written culture. without the archaic scribbling monk, i mean er, god-ordained media distribution technology that was around for centuries and was never intended to change or go away, books as you know them ceased to to exist
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Pirates buy more movies and music than non-pirates. That means pirates are the MPAA and RIAA's best customers. That's reason enough to be against piracy. Fuck the MPAA/RIAA.
Before the PBay Case, I guess people were afraid that the police would go after the users. Now it seem to us that they will focus on taking the sites spreading torrent files. Thus the users feel safer.
Why do they need the author's permission to copy it in the first place?
United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8. The Congress shall have power ...
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
The theory being that if authors did not have some control over their creative works, there would be fewer works created. Would the major studios fund movies if they knew 99% of sales would not generate revenue for them?
Sure, we would still have print/web-page/other-low-cost works, but not many people will spend tens of millions of dollars producing a movie without a decent chance of a big payoff at the end.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It's an idea, and ideas are bulletproof
is when the kids who've grown up using p2p start writing the rules. We're not that far off from politicians being able to get elected on a p2p stance. Once that happens, the era of Michael Rodent *finally* dies, and we might see something resembling sane copyright law. But that's what it's going to take: there's *no* $$ in supporting this change, and huge amounts of it in the 'AAs.
The Western-alphabet movable-type printing press was invented half a millennium ago, likely independently of similar inventions in the Far East a few centuries earlier.
The typewriter as it was known in the early 20th century was invented in 1870.
The low-cost photocopier was popularized in the 1960s and 1970s.
Prior to the invention of the typewriter, it wasn't uncommon for legal documents to be written by hand, so you needed someone to put the words down on paper formally.
Prior to computers entering executive offices and executives and managers learning to type at a reasonable speed, secretaries or administrative assistants took dictation.
Granted, these modern-day scribes didn't have the prestige or job descriptions of scribes of old - scribes of old had more "exclusive skills" that came with being the literate in a mostly-illiterate society.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
It's the eternal capitalist struggle: who can disadvantage whom more, or first. In this specific instance, it's a struggle between legalized methods of disadvantaging people versus illegal methods. Guess who wrote the laws that determine what's illegal, though?
From your signature line:
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Lucky you. I'm a citizen of the state that taxes.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
But with each step, it's becoming more and more convenient. Usenet > FTPs > Napster > Torrent... The next step will be even simpler to use.
Twinstiq, game news
60 Minutes, in one of the most slanted pieces I have ever seen, said that these pirates are organized criminals.
We've gotta stop them. Hollywood says so!
"Piracy" essentially means armed robbery and murder on the high seas. The recent abuse of the term to refer to unauthorized duplication is idiotic. But of course, the more the media conglomerates and their toadies bellow "piracy" at the top of their lungs, the more a vapid and mostly uncritical public will eat it up, and eventually repeat it. I'm not justifying unauthorized duplication or redistribution; I'm just sick of the MP/RIAA's bullshit. They are organizations that have engaged in highly questionable practices for years, and still cling to their outdated gangster ways. They have monopolized the public airwaves for years through payola schemes, to the detriment of artists and listeners. I find it hard to shed a tear for them.
Worse yet, their attacks have laid waste not just to independent artists and labels, but to promising technologies as well, which is probably what pisses off slashdotters more than anything else.* File torrents are a legitimate source of lots of perfectly legal content, and enable small entities to put out content without paying for tons of bandwidth to do it. Shutting down TPB is a slap in the face of lots of people who never "pirated" a song in their life.
What really gets me is the hypocrisy, though. The RIAA knows better than anyone that delivering free music to waiting ears is the best guarantee of album sales. After all, that's why they've been caught in payola schemes over and over - they buy off the radio stations because they know that if their songs are played for free, we will buy the album. They also know that if their songs aren't heard, sales will never take off. I don't think that underneath it all they are concerned that "piracy" will hurt their sales; they are concerned that they are losing control of the "free" distribution, and they are afraid of technology they don't fully understand.
*Although, I've also found a large number of technically proficient people are also very musically inclined (myself excepted; I suck at playing music). It may well be that many here are pissed off because the recording industry has turned out music that is the equivalent of a typical American beer; bland and mass-produced, succeeding on marketing instead of merit.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
I just use google now to search for whatever media I'm looking for,(with a .TOR on the end)
Maybe the studio ass-hats will shut down google. har har.
Look at Slashdot cheering at the piracy. It's really sickening how much Slashdot LOVES piracy now and encourages it at every opportunity.
Slashot loves technology. It's the users that love and encourage piracy, and enjoy something for nothing. While I am at it, I would like to take the time to encourage you to go to PublicDomainTorrents and download some movies for free. Or maybe you can grab a torrent to "pirate" Linux and other GPL s0ftwarez. To the ISPs that throttle, all torrent traffic looks the same, so hopefully you don't have one of those ISPs.
Remember kids:
Drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes and downloading music and movies makes you look cool, and girls really dig it!
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
by giving him free advertising for his ancillary revenue streams (concerts, the cinema house, movie script sales, public speaking, endorsement, toy product line tie-ins, personalized content, etc)
the day of author's great grandchildren given a revenue stream because great grand daddy wrote a song are over, regardless of any law anyone rights. the technology routes around the legal environment, rendering the law moot and pointless. it is our moral duty to kill the obscene arrangement of cureent copyright law. do you think current copyright laws are not obscene and do not deserve to be ignored and actively fought on moral grounds?
current copyright law benefits authors obscenely, but it benefits distributors even more. they wish to put a tollgate on our culture
so we shall destroy distributors. its amazing how the internet has made media empires smaller and weaker than some teenager's hard drive and a broadband connection. now multiply by millions teenagers. go ahead, add a couple thousand corporate lawyers. i don't see a difference
game over
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's the second funniest. The funniest is Lost Engineer's reply to the post
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1123995&cid=26815281
be sure to read the replies
Copyright law was originally seen as a way of encouraging writers to write, by giving them a portion of the profits gained from their work. It was always understood, however that the work of the author was in the end property of THE PUBLIC, and that the author's rights on their own work were temporary. We have migrated to a system where the author/corporation has near absolute ownership of their work. This shift of the meaning of copyright has the potential to cripple the public cultural discourse. The "piracy" movement is in large part a rebellion against the increasingly strong assertion of ownership by corporations over what in the end is OUR culture.
After years of peace and serenity, I now have Jesus Christ Superstar reverberating in my head again, you insensitive clod.
There is no right to feel safe thru security vaudeville at the expense of everyone's freedom, privacy and tax money.
"Piracy" essentially means armed robbery and murder on the high seas. The recent abuse of the term to refer to unauthorized duplication is idiotic.
This is not "recent'. The term goes back to 1603:
Even prior to the 1709 enactment of the Statute of Anne, generally recognized as the first copyright law, the Stationers' Company of London in 1557 received a Royal Charter giving the company a monopoly on publication and tasking it with enforcing the charter. Those who violated the charter were labeled pirates as early as 1603.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement
It may be desirable to change it around for other reasons, but misuse of the term certainly isn't one of them. A text from 1603 contains:
Banish these Word-pirates, (you sacred mistresses of learning) into the gulfe of Barbarisme: doome them euerlastingly to liue among dunces: let them not once lick their lips at the Thespian bowle, but onely be glad (and thanke Apollo for it too) if hereafter (as hitherto they haue alwayes) they may quench their poeticall thirst with small beere.
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.uoregon.edu/~rbear/yeare.html
Piracy and copyright are not comparable to monks and the printing press. The primary question you should ask when figuring out whether a comparison to piracy is accurate or not is this: "Does society end up with the same or comparible product in both cases?" That is *the question*. The printing press put monks out of work, but society still got the books -- and they got the books at a lower price. If the printing press put authors out of work, then maybe you'd have a gripe about the printing press. Piracy, on the other hand, puts the authors and creators out of work. The final stage of piracy is that no one can earn a living from their work that is benefiting society.
Piracy, on the other hand, puts the authors and creators out of work.
no, you've drunk the koolaid, the distributors' propaganda. piracy puts ONLY the distributor out of work
The final stage of piracy is that no one can earn a living from their work that is benefiting society.
you've somehow made the fanciful leap that the distributor is an integral part of the economics of the music creating process. the final stage of piracy is that distributors go out of business, and only the distributors. first, you are assuming that the pre-internet distribution model gave artists a living. plenty toiled in poverty, and plenty will always toil in poverty, regardless of piracy or not. that's simply the nature of being an artist: for every success, there are thousands of anonymous failures, always was and always will be. nothing about the pre-internet distribution model protects the artist from this truth, and nothing can ever protect the artist from this truth (and nothing ever should: if you suck, oh well)
plenty of one hit wonders became broke as well, as the distributors wrote their agreements so the artists got pennies while the distributors reaped all the real benefit. only the stellar hits: the beatles, jay z, were able to muscle their way into the sphere of distributor-level profits
meanwhile, on the internet, artists have free advertising to everyone in the world, rather than a gateway controlled by distributors. artists can connect directly to fans for free, and distribute their works for free. then they make a living via concerts, promotions, endorsements, advertising, and other ancillary revenues. this is superior to the distributor model as the artist is completely in control, not beholden to some asshole who signs contracts for willynilly reasons and willynilly projections. via a direct link between artist and consumer, an artist rises and falls simply on quality as perceived by the consumer, without an artificial filter in between of a distributor. this is a more efficient model of who deserves cash flows. rather than a distributor giving millions of dollars in advance to an artist who makes absolute crap, while utterly ignoring a musical genius, for random pointless reasons of the distributors sole discretion
study up on the history of artist-distributor contracts, and what millions of artists, successful or not have said about the randomness and arbitrarienss and frustration of their contracts, having nothing whatsoever to do with quality or the fans
Printing press = fewer jobs for scribes, more books for society, lower costs for books, and supports authors.
Piracy = creators and authors go bankrupt, society has fewer new creations and becomes culturally poor, feeding on the remnants of old creations, when creating them was still financially possible.
Piracy = distributors go bankrupt, society has diurect access to millions of artist rather than working through a bullshit filter and becomes culturally rich
why do you believe large financial outlays are required for the creation of art? why do you believe we need distributors to tell us what to listen to and that this artificial filter is somehow a definition of cultural richness? why do believe their decisions are more valid or more economically efficient than you yourself and millions of consumers deciding directly who deserves to reap economic benefits from all of the ancillary revenue streams available to an artist?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yes. And? 80% of the world's population cheers the pirates. So, you point is, what? You think that when something is right, when that something is overwhelmingly approved around the world, Slashdot should kowtow to the corporate weenies? Are nerds and geeks supposed to be stupid, or what?
Let me help you to understand: the movie moguls and the music studios are STILL MAKING MONEY!! They are making so much money that they can afford to support the ineffectual RIAA and MPAA. What more evidence do you need to convince you that piracy is good for Hollywood and good for the studios? Just how many millions have they dumped down the gullets of the RIAA vultures, and the MPAA hyenas? What has been the return on those millions? Maybe - just maybe .00000001%?
Aye, matey, it's the pirate life for me!! Do you need me to rip something for you?
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
As a software developer attempting to earn a living by selling software to consumers, it pains me to see so many of these responses. Sometimes, when I visit slashdot and digg, I wonder why I try at all. So many of the commenters here believe that they have a right to get copies of my work for free, even though it takes years to construct it. Financially, I see no way to continue my work unless I can earn money by selling copies. The comments here scare me. It's like someone wrapping their hands around my throat and gleefully choking me, while discussing how happy they will be to dance on my grave. I write software that people like. I work hard at it, and I love what I do. But, the responses of so many people here are just scary. I am blamed for all kinds of imagined harms committed against them. I'm just a guy working and trying to earn a living from it, but somehow that gets turned into "they are 'robin hood' and I am the evil governor inflicting taxes on them".
I'm not entirely surprised. Slashdot regularly posts stories who's purpose is to inflame people. In that sense, I see Slashdot as another biased media outlet that tries to control and manipulate people, turning them against those of us who survive on copyright. Many times, I have wondered to what extent groups like the Pirate Party have infiltrated technology websites like Slashdot in order to control and manipulate what people read and hear, to "guide" them to some predefined conclusion.
But, economically, the situation cannot sustain itself. When I read so many of these comments, it makes me want to leave the software industry because too many pirates are working too hard to undercut our ability to earn a living from our hard work. So many people here seem to want to bloodbath, and I'm the intended victim. My crime is that I won't give away years of work for free, but, somehow, people have constructed all kinds of imaginary crimes to legitimize their actions. I don't know what to think of people anymore. I'm doubting that it's even worth trying anymore.
The industry execs don't treat their customers like scum.
They treat them as mindless, defenseless cattle, good only for milking and slaughter.
The recent abuse of the term to refer to unauthorized duplication is idiotic.
It's idiotic, but not a recent term. Unauthorized distribution of content was called "piracy" as far back as 1603.
When making money from movies becomes difficult if not impossible, they'll just stop making them. That's what will stop it.
When making money from movies becomes difficult if not impossible, then only people who make movies out of the love for it will make movies.
There's this website called www.youtube.com you may want to check. And, vimeo.com. Content is still pretty crappy but there are absolute gems crafted with loving attention and released to the public with the intention to share.
Money may be the only driving force in *your* world, but money art makes not, my friend.
Also, everyone likes pirates. Yaargh!
"Piracy" essentially means armed robbery and murder on the high seas. The recent abuse of the term to refer to unauthorized duplication is idiotic. But of course, the more the media conglomerates and their toadies bellow "piracy" at the top of their lungs, the more a vapid and mostly uncritical public will eat it up, and eventually repeat it. I'm not justifying unauthorized duplication or redistribution; I'm just sick of the MP/RIAA's bullshit. They are organizations that have engaged in highly questionable practices for years, and still cling to their outdated gangster ways. They have monopolized the public airwaves for years through payola schemes, to the detriment of artists and listeners. I find it hard to shed a tear for them.
Worse yet, their attacks have laid waste not just to independent artists and labels, but to promising technologies as well, which is probably what pisses off slashdotters more than anything else.* File torrents are a legitimate source of lots of perfectly legal content, and enable small entities to put out content without paying for tons of bandwidth to do it. Shutting down TPB is a slap in the face of lots of people who never "pirated" a song in their life.
What really gets me is the hypocrisy, though. The RIAA knows better than anyone that delivering free music to waiting ears is the best guarantee of album sales. After all, that's why they've been caught in payola schemes over and over - they buy off the radio stations because they know that if their songs are played for free, we will buy the album. They also know that if their songs aren't heard, sales will never take off. I don't think that underneath it all they are concerned that "piracy" will hurt their sales; they are concerned that they are losing control of the "free" distribution, and they are afraid of technology they don't fully understand.
*Although, I've also found a large number of technically proficient people are also very musically inclined (myself excepted; I suck at playing music). It may well be that many here are pissed off because the recording industry has turned out music that is the equivalent of a typical American beer; bland and mass-produced, succeeding on marketing instead of merit.
Well... The current "hot issue" is The *Pirate* Bay so it's understandable why the term is so widespread at the moment.
Thanks for balancing the argument, however, until better economic equilibrium exists in the world - the have nots (which outnumber the haves) will find ways crack protections and either save themselves some money or even capitalize for themselves. This environment breeds "haves" that want to do it just for the glory as well. Under these circumstances ... the outlook is gloomy.
Example: Before I made as much money as I do, I would change my own oil, attempt to replace my own belts, and always change my own brakes. Now that I have disposable income - I rarely raise the hood (and, yes, I even buy music / software online rather than "explore" or "try before I buy" software).
Thanks for the nicely written piece - I wish you the best - but I'm afraid that you will either have to adapt and overcome or customize your software in such a way that it is not so usable by mass audiences?
L'esperienza de questa dolce vita (The experience of this sweet life) - Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
A few folks have corrected my historically inaccurate definition of "piracy" - mea culpa, point taken. Yes, TPB incorporated it into their name. Still, the nerds and geeks (terms used with the most respect possible, of course) running the most persecuted torrent site on the planet seem about as pirate-y to me as that pirate dude from Dodgeball.
That being said, I stand by the rest of it ... any comments there?
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Water is still wet.
You have a point going on here but you stopped your analogy too SOON. The music industry is indeed like the beer industry, and the beer industry has seen the resurgence of microbrewery's and why is this? Microbreweries having been churning out better and more unique beer more and more over the past ten years. and the major beer corporations are being chipped down from being mountains to nice sized hills and the rest of the valley filled in by the little guys. Love it or hate it, Myspace, Facebook, Youtube, these services have functioned as independent record labels, the internet has given a large portion of people the ability to produce, record, market, and SELL there music with very little overhead.
Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days."
I think it might also be interesting to consider that instead of the act of copyright infringement being likened to the original meaning of the word piracy, all that is happened is that the word piracy has now been stripped of its terrible meaning and now simply evokes the idea of copying a few CD's... (citation needed of course).
Rather backfired then eh?
Invaders must die
Anyone up for writing a distributed tracker that can cope with Anycast traffic?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anycast
I don't see how piracy is an idiotic term, especially from the standpoint of the people whose products are being stolen.
Pirates sailed the high seas, yes, they murdered and stole, yes. However, of note to the people who 1)produced the goods and 2)bought them, the goods were being stolen, not merely destroyed. Entire markets sprung up where people could acquire LARGE amounts of stolen goods, no questions asked. The people selling were mum about their sources. The people who did the act were difficult to pin down. Often somewhat honest tradesmen were the only people the enforcers could find who had any connection to the theft. People who wanted legitimate goods or who placed a special order would pay higher prices to make up for the drop in sales and the efforts to find the culprits. Granted, there were other expenses not happening here, such as loss of ships, etc.
What we have now are markets where large amounts of stolen goods being acquired, no questions asked. The people distributing them are mum about their sources. The people who did the act are difficult to pin down, lost in the vast ocean--a metaphoric one, but it's a good metaphor. People who want legitimate goods are paying high prices (whether this would not be true if there were no pirates is another question) and forced to deal with DRM. Honest tradesmen, and now unfortunately honest consumers, are being forced to deal with the wrath of the producers. Granted the distribution of a single image is of no cost because the MARGINAL production cost is almost nil, but that fact doesn't mean that the people producing software didn't have large amounts invested in the project.
If you're going to argue that the whole of the argument is how much software should cost, don't. When coders are sponsored by the state and producing software is free, then it will be reasonable to expect to get software for free. Until then you either will or won't get it for free by the whim of whomever made it.
I've always been calling this the Sand-trout effect, as described by Frank Herbert. Many sand-trout form one giant collective aka the Worm (TPB, suprnova, mininova, etc etc), but as soon as you try to kill it, the collective scatters and form new Worms using the former as a template.
It's the same as when you tried to strike down terrorism by smacking down Iraq.
The Worm is immortal and cannot be destroyed. Once the genie is out ...
F off, we were calling ourselves pirates before the media even knew it was going on.
>If what you produce is infinitely redistributable, then you can expect to get paid only for the first copy.
This means that you would have to charge an exorbitant amount for that first copy. This is like going back to the old days when great works of art were only made by artists with wealthy patrons.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
there seems to be a subplot at play here. world goverments are fanning the flames of this issue to reign in the net. the goal is total control of all information. terrorism, piracy, child porn, etc.. are just the means to an end. dpi and the eventual outlawing of unapproved (ie unlicensed) encrypted communications are the obvious answers to these 21st century boogeymen. this is why the judical system hasn't bitch slapped the 'AAs and never will. piracy is just a convient problem that demands the strictest network monitoring. i bet in ten years the net will be nothing like it is today. kiss it bye bye.
M$ and RIAA can stop right now with their bullshit about Linux == Piracy. For that matter they can stop with that Solaris == Linux, OS X == Linux, HaikuOS == Linux, BSD == Linux, Java == Linux, Perl == Linux, Ruby == Linux, !MS == Linux and so on.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
What we have now are markets where large amounts of stolen goods being acquired, no questions asked.
Actually, while I don't doubt there are a lot of people still selling 'pirated' content out of trenchcoats out on the street in NYC, the phenomenon being discussed here is essentially people giving content away freely to other people. It's not a 'market' in the sense you imply. Nobody is making big bucks through the 'piracy' distribution channels.
There's actually some truth to that. I have maybe 150 GiB of video on my external HD and ~260 DVDs in my ever-growing collection. At least half of those DVDs I would never have bought, if I hadn't had a chance to check them out beforehand and maybe download/watch related movies. I downloaded and watched 36th Chamber of Shaolin, which in turn caused me to buy it along with Drunken Master, Come Drink With Me and King Boxer - how can that NOT be good for business?
"Live free or don't."
To put it bluntly, if someone can't make a living writing or singing without the help of an artificial monopoly, then that's too bad. No, seriously, it is. It's not the end of the world. It's not even the end of that person, since he can get a day job, nor even necessarily his creative efforts, since people working a day job get free time. He doesn't want to write or record if he's not paid? Well, if no one likes his writing or voice well enough to pay him up front, then I guess he won't be doing it anymore.
Seriously people. I don't know why anyone else doesn't see this. Are what these musicians doing really worth making many millions of dollars worth for one album. If they stop making fortunes off of music, will culture stagnate? Mainstream musicians will still make fortunes off of touring. Even if no money is to be made in music people will still record. This is just a balancing effect of the market to determine what the monetary worth of the music is. People who want to support the artist will still pay them.
If what you are doing isn't profitable, then do something else.
Sewage Treatment Facilities - "Our duty is clear."
Well that's no surprise since the web keeps growing, and every goddamned website on the internet provides access to copyrighted files.
Of course the article means access to files without permission of the copyright holder. Call it pedantic if you will, but these turns of phrase affect public opinion. Remember Animal Farm? "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." That's right *their* copyright is worth more.
Anybody want a peanut?
300% increase in the number of sites providing access to copyright files
Sites?? That's a huge step backward, when you need websites to share files. And it's the fault of the architecture of BitTorrent.
We were/are way further than this. Hell, Napster already had a built-in search function. Then came serverless systems like Gnutella. (No single point of failure.) And then we even went to whole darknets with anonymity and encryption, that are nearly indestructible by the content industry.
But BitTorrent has it all: No built-in search and a single point of failure (the tracker) per file. Let alone anonymity and encryption. It's basically just a fancy load-sharing FTP server.
Yes that was what it was developed for. And that is what it should be used for.
BitTorrent for file-sharing is just wrong. And with that stomping-out of bad P2P protocols, BitTorrent will soon be lost even for what it was meant for. Which is bad, because it was good for that. And which is good, because it pushes people to use more recent P2P networks again.
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
You want free videos:
http://www.tioti.com/
http://quicksilverscreen.com/
http://www.veoh.com/
http://www.hulu.com/
http://www.alluc.org/
http://www.sidereel.com/_home
http://alloftv.net/
http://www.4kidstv.com/
I haven't checked them all but most of them I checked were legal, and Quicksilverscreen and TIOTI are people that share their videos via the web site that may be grayware and not 100% legal but it is like them taping a VHS tape and sharing it with you.
here is a link to tens of thousands of free music links mostly by third party artists who don't have a distributor and share their music via the Internet.
If you are going to use BitTorrent why not find free and legal torrents to use with it and avoid the piracy.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
I know the arguments for why copyright infringement isn't Piracy of the high seas variety, but in a metaphorical way it sort of make sense. We are talking about people who are taking things and distributing wealth that should belong to the content creator. Words can be carried from one domain to another and change meaning. We all the know the difference between a Somali pirate and a swedish pirate. It is also much easier to say than distributer of illegally infringing copyrighted material.
However, I would like to suggest that we from now on, to stick to the theme, call RIAA, MPAA and the media companies privateers. They are afterall just state sanctioned pirates.
"Piracy" essentially means armed robbery and murder on the high seas. The recent abuse of the term to refer to unauthorized duplication is idiotic.
Actually, this modern usage of the term "piracy" in relation to media probably stems from the 1970s pirate radio stations which broadcast alternative songs by radio from ships offshore in international waters just outside the legal limits of the country concerned. This allowed them to (a) broadcast what they liked and not what the media machines wanted and (b) to avoid certain "costs"... Needless to say, the media machines got their way. Here is one of several sites that describe those halcyon days. http://www.offshoreradio.co.uk/
Banish these Word-pirates, (you sacred mistresses of learning) into the gulfe of Barbarisme: doome them euerlastingly to liue among dunces: let them not once lick their lips at the Thespian bowle, but onely be glad (and thanke Apollo for it too) if hereafter (as hitherto they haue alwayes) they may quench their poeticall thirst with small beere
That sentence just sent the self-proclaimed Grammar Nazi looking over my shoulder into an apoplectic fit, and I think it blew up my spell checker too!
You would think old-time writers could spell... ;-)
Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
Trying to remove something from the internet is like fishing piss out of a swimming pool.
Hercules: hydra. Hydra: Hercules.
i forgot to put quotes on the guy's words. you are actually responding to the guy i am responding to. so we agree 100% ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
>MMOs, games hosted on servers, software as a service, selling support for software or expertise,
>etc. are all examples of how to deal with this. And yeah, custom software has always been expensive.
Which probably explains why I've never paid for any of the examples you cited.
>Its probably better to just accept reality & deal with it.
I suspect the reality will be less people publishing infinitely distributable goods.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I've always seeded generously
Methinks RIAA has not played Whac-A-Mole...
the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals. We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals. Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like. My crime is that of outsmarting you, something that you will never forgive me for. I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto. You may stop this individual, but you can't stop us all... after all, we're all alike. http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=7&id=3&page=2
I don't see how piracy is an idiotic term, especially from the standpoint of the people whose products are being stolen.
Their content isn't the product, DVDs are. They don't call shoplifters, who ARE stealin their product, pirates. The "pirates" are those who infringe copyright. Copyright infringement is not theift. It may be wrong, but it isn't theift.
Free Martian Whores!
Actually, as a homebrewer I would have loved to take the beer analogy further, but I figured the post was too long already, brevity being the soul of wit and all.
Currently available in my beer cellar: Dry Irish stout. ... probably a nice, strong porter, but the garage is getting close to lager fermenting temperatures ... maybe time for a Vienna style lager. Suggestions?)
In the fermenter: Amber ale.
Next to brew: (Not sure
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
What really gets me is the hypocrisy, though. The RIAA knows better than anyone that delivering free music to waiting ears is the best guarantee of album sales.
Which is wh they are at war with p2p and internet radio. The RIAA has terrestrial radio and SIRIUS, the indies don't. Their war isn't really with music downloaders, it's with indie labels.
Free Martian Whores!
The industry wants to sell you a movie on DVD and then sell you again the same movie on BlueRay and then sell you a digital copy... The same thing for music, they want to sell you a copy of a song that will only play on one player and you buy it again to play on another or in a higher quality format. This is bull. I bought the movie, or the song, or the game, not the format it is in. If I already purchased a movie on DVD I should be able to get it again on BlueRay for a small fee related to the cost of materials, and I should be able to legally download a digital copy from anywhere I choose. If I bought a song on Itunes, I should get it legally free to play on any other player. I should even be able to get it in Guitar Hero for a small fee related to the cost of conversion into that format. I'd even say that if I bought a game for 360 I should be able to get a PS3 copy for cost of burning the BlueRay. There should be a database that knows what I purchased and lets me conveniently get whatever I bought in whatever format I want.
What good would this do? It would get the people that are willing to pay back in the game. They don't have to worry about their computer crashing and losing all of their music. Broken discs easily replaced. No problems if they suddenly come out with a new and better format. So your going to say the downside is that nothing is stopping someone from getting extra copies and giving them to friends or selling them. Well, nothing is stopping them now. Those friends would not have been paying customers anyway. And I believe it would promote a culture where people pay for digital media again, since it would be so convenient for the consumer.
they buy off the radio stations
Wrong direction for the flow of money. The radio stations aren't getting money to play specific songs, they're paying money for the privilege of playing those songs.
Or are we talking about two different things?
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
I know; I chose my words carefully. The goods are being "acquired" but not "sold"; the "market" I refer to is the internet as a whole (from their point of view, anyway) or more specifically, the Pirate Bay et al.
The fact that "pirates" are not getting paid for their end of the bargain, like the lack of violence, doesn't mean the analogy doesn't stand in other ways.
Shoplifter's aren't pirates by sheer force of scale. A person who stowed away on a merchant ship and stole and ate apples wasn't a pirate, either.
Again, one of the big pieces of piracy is that the same goods that are being lost are showing up again on the marketplace, but without the people who produced them being given their (presumably) due rewards. And you're right; copyright infringement is NOT stealing, unless they can decompile the code and put out a "brand new" product that's nothing but the same product and new labels. It is, however, piracy, as the company's goods are being "sold" without their permission (even if it's for free).
This is without challenging the (IMO ludicrous) assumption that "their content isn't the product, DVDs are". If it was produced, it is a product. If you want to argue that the people stamping it on DVDs per se aren't the ones producing the movie--yes, correct, but they are contractually bound to try to sell someone else's product, and counteracting piracy is quickly becoming part of that job.
Record labels have used payola for a long time to get airplay for the songs they want people to hear -> like -> buy.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Look at Slashdot cheering at the piracy. It's really sickening how much Slashdot LOVES piracy now and encourages it at every opportunity.
Apparently a 5-digit uid these days brings with it a somewhat higher risk of having already gone senile, instead of the more traditional expectation of being able to produce intelligent thinking.
You have my sympathy, bonch. Truly.
One could argue the bandwidth providers are making money from it, but not the filesharers. One would think the ISPs would be sued, since they're the ones making money.
Oopps, forgot. The telecoms, who sell the time on the fiber, are bigtime campaign contributors. My bad...
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
It troubles me that the developers of a supposedly anonymous network applaud freedom of expression but then stake out areas that are off limits. Anonet is not a pirate network, CP network, etc.
If the majority of anonet users decide that they want to trade copyrighted movies (or OMG child pornography), would the developers pull the plug on the whole project?
For the record, I really really do like piracy. It means I get the content in a format I want, whenever I want it, with the freedom to watch it on whatever device I want to watch it on.
Frankly, if the studios would give me the option of buying an unencumbered copy of their product in a standard format (H.264 encoded AVI would be fine) at a decent price via an easy-to-use online outlet where I could max out my bandwidth, damn right I'd use it (particularly for lesser-known content that's tough to find via bittorrent). But it doesn't exist. So, until then, I pirate. If that makes me a bad person, well fuck it, I really don't give a crap.
Crazy isn't it? Their attempts to charge internet radio ridiculous fees are going to backfire as badly as their attempts to sue their own customers. I swear, it's like the guy writing their business plan has been eating lead paint chips or something.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Actually, we're both right ... radio stations dopay royalties.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
I don't see how piracy is an idiotic term, especially from the standpoint of the people whose products are being stolen.
Piracy is a term used to refer to copyright infringement, not theft.
It's idiotic because the use of violence to rob ships at sea, is rather different act than copying data without the author's permission.
Whoooosh.
It's idiotic because the use of violence to rob ships at sea, is rather different act than copying data without the author's permission.
And yet in both cases, your company's products--whether the actual article or identical duplicates--are appearing in unregulated markets in large quantities.
It would be an idiotic analogy if there was no merit to it. I think I've made a decent case that there's merit to it. If you can actually counter that argument, please do. If instead you're going to repeat things I 1)obviously knew and 2)took into consideration when crafting my argument, just keep it to yourself, hm?
Whoooosh.
Was your previous post meant to be sarcastic? If so, the humour was too subtle for me.
And yet in both cases, your company's products--whether the actual article or identical duplicates--are appearing in unregulated markets in large quantities.
So your argument is that if you can find something in common between two words, even if in every other respect they are completely different, it is acceptable to substitute one word for the other.
Do you really not get how languages work?
So your argument is that if you can find something in common between two words, even if in every other respect they are completely different, it is acceptable to substitute one word for the other.
The argument goes like this.
SIDE A: There is no merit to this word choice at all! ... Yeah. However, that being PART of it doesn't mean that there is NOT another part that means what I suggested. Unless you can explain why that invalidates my argument, I don't have anything in particular to reply to you about.
ME: No, I'm pretty sure that several important parts of the term apply. They may not be what you're meaning when you say "pirate", but they're valid points and may explain why the word is used.
YOU: But this word is clearly used to mean {subset of the original meaning}
ME:
Or if you prefer, to restate my ORIGINAL argument, both copying the product and stealing large quantities of it undercut the market FOR your product, in a way that individual theft does not. The bloody nature of piracy was actually only actually apropos to a fairly small subset of the population--ever. A ship at sea may have had what, twenty to a hundred sailors? If a hundred ships fell to piracy in a year, that's at most ten thousand men lost at sea, and it didn't happen that fast, I'd wager. The only other actual losses of life would be from starvation, etc, or from raids on small coastal settlements.
Barbaric? Yes, but compare it to war, or the Black Death, or whatever. You could argue that they are responsible for more deaths per capita than most--I wouldn't argue that. But that comes from their disregard for consequences and cavalier attitude towards lawbreaking--which modern pirates also have.
I think I'm drifting off my point here but whatever.
The word "piracy" wasn't chosen because it accurately described copyright infringement. It was coined by the Stationer's Company in the 17th century, which at the time had a government monopoly on producing printed works. They chose the word as a way of casting aspersions on their opponents, who were publishing without the government's permission. At that time, the connotations of the word "piracy" were far worse than the are today.
In more modern times, the same principle was used to compare VHS tapes to the Boston Strangler, and suggest that copyright infringement funds terrorism. It's pure hyperbole. A form of argumentum ad hominem. A way of appealing to people's emotions rather than rational thought. In other words, it's idiotic because it attempts to sway the beliefs of idiots.
Nowadays, real pirates are rather less numerous than they once were, so the term has lost much of its bite. When the content industries want to make an emotional argument, they tend to use words like "thief" instead. The word "pirate" has become almost purely descriptive.
The reason I still dislike this word is not so much that its original meaning has been twisted (that happens to words all the time), but because its indicative of distasteful tactics that are employed as much today as they were four centuries ago. It's name-calling by companies too stupid to adapt to marketplace changes.
Two things--
[citation needed]
and
The reason I still dislike this word is not so much that its original meaning has been twisted (that happens to words all the time), but because its indicative of distasteful tactics that are employed as much today as they were four centuries ago. It's name-calling by companies too stupid to adapt to marketplace changes.
If you had actually made that argument in the first place I would have agreed with you. Irrespective, I argued as I did to bring up something that people may not have thought of which might frame the entire conversation in a different light. Knowing this, while you have a point, you have not shown any reason why my argument is incorrect.
People choose their words--for better or worse--and more importantly spread them amongst themselves because of everything else they know about the subject. The use of "Pirate" in this context probably would not have caught on if people didn't agree that it had merit. For instance, if pirates had always and forever been known for simply sinking the ships and taking nothing for themselves, it wouldn't apply here; if they had all returned the goods to a neutral party, say the church, who profited off of all of it, it would again have a different meaning, and they wouldn't use it here.
The fact that the word actually DOES have merit doesn't harm anyone's case but continues to be brought up as an oddity--or that's what I assumed, and was addressing.
[citation needed]
Wikipedia
Knowing this, while you have a point, you have not shown any reason why my argument is incorrect.
It's true that there are some tentative similarities between seafaring theft and teenagers downloading files without permission. So your argument is not really incorrect.
But loose connections can be drawn between any two words. For instance, fast food restaurants often sell unhealthy food. Unhealthy food can reduce your life expectancy. So can suicide. So if I wanted to make an emotional argument I might call fast food restaurants "suicide bars".
But just because you can make such connections, doesn't mean you should do so. It's just a form of name-calling, and therefore childish and idiotic.
From the article:
Even prior to the 1709 enactment of the Statute of Anne, generally recognized as the first copyright law, the Stationers' Company of London in 1557 received a Royal Charter giving the company a monopoly on publication and tasking it with enforcing the charter. Those who violated the charter were labeled pirates as early as 1603.
In other words, a pirate was someone who 1)violated the law, 2)did so in spite of someone being there to protect business interests, and 3)having violated the law produced goods that reduced the market for a legitimate (if monopolized) company. I fail to see any evidence that this was chosen to be childish name-calling at all.
Further,
It's just a form of name-calling, and therefore childish and idiotic.
I disagree. Labeling an action in an attempt to convince others IS childish, when you are doing it one-on-one rather than engaging the other person in meaningful debate; however, when you refer to a global scale, it no longer is reasonable to assume that people can convince others on a one-on-one basis to follow the guidelines that you are told to enforce.
In other words, chasing after one particular person and yelling "Pirate! Pirate! You're gonna get in trouble!" is childish. Putting out an official notice that those who violate the law will be viewed in the eyes of the law as not only criminals, but serious criminals, isn't childish. In particular, when the term is used so that other people will be more likely to report the activity, then it is a tactical maneuver, even if it is a sleazy one.
To call something "childish" means that you could expect, say, a 10-year-old to have the same train of thought. I can't imagine a child, on his own accord, thinking of official edicts, or people enforcing charters, or choosing a term that's just related enough to be plausible and invective enough to stir people's emotions, or even setting policies in general. They would more likely stand on a step and throw a temper tantrum. And while people probably did that in those days, and still do today, I can't imagine that they're the ones behind any of the actually threatening things, because they're far less likely to be taken seriously.
This is without addressing the "suicide bars" argument which frankly is more of a slippery slope fallacy than actual logic.
In other words, chasing after one particular person and yelling "Pirate! Pirate! You're gonna get in trouble!" is childish.
But when the content industry does that to many people, suddenly it's not childish?
Putting out an official notice that those who violate the law will be viewed in the eyes of the law as not only criminals, but serious criminals, isn't childish.
The term "piracy" did not arise from a legal document or an official government notice.
In particular, when the term is used so that other people will be more likely to report the activity, then it is a tactical maneuver, even if it is a sleazy one.
Just because something is a tactical maneuver, does not mean that it is not childish. A child may call another names in order to elevate their own social status. They may not be able to articulate their reasons for doing so, but merely because they are obeying evolutionary instinct rather than rational thought, does not mean that their actions are not tactical.
I can't imagine a child, on his own accord, thinking of official edicts, or people enforcing charters, or choosing a term that's just related enough to be plausible and invective enough to stir people's emotions, or even setting policies in general.
I think you're underestimating children, and overestimating the content industry :)
Piracy might have once been a good phrase to use, evoking emotion and fear. But since then the content industries have gone through several cycles of rebirth, and the word "pirate" could now be taken to mean "the people who will succeed us". This perhaps isn't the message the current content industry would like to put out.
In other words, chasing after one particular person and yelling "Pirate! Pirate! You're gonna get in trouble!" is childish.
But when the content industry does that to many people, suddenly it's not childish?
You would prefer "Please stop that, children, we need to sell those products to other people so that we can make more money"?
I really don't understand what you think the "mature" response to people undermining your ability to sell your own product are.
The term "piracy" did not arise from a legal document or an official government notice.
[citation needed]
The wikipedia article's example that I mentioned before clearly stated that by order of a Royal Charter infringement would be treated as piracy. I fail to see how this isn't considered a legal document.
Just because something is a tactical maneuver, does not mean that it is not childish. A child may call another names in order to elevate their own social status. They may not be able to articulate their reasons for doing so, but merely because they are obeying evolutionary instinct rather than rational thought, does not mean that their actions are not tactical.
I'm just going to politely disagree with you on this. My reason stems from my personal definition of "ethical behavior;" in that definition, if you are not being ethical because you tried to be, but rather because "things turned out alright" then your behavior was not ethical even if it is repeatable. To bring that into this conversation, children may MIMIC tactical behavior, but they are not thinking tactically.
I think you're underestimating children, and overestimating the content industry :)
I'm certainly not the former and I think I've equivocated enough, and deliberately, to be able to fairly say I'm not the latter either.
Piracy might have once been a good phrase to use, evoking emotion and fear. But since then the content industries have gone through several cycles of rebirth, and the word "pirate" could now be taken to mean "the people who will succeed us". This perhaps isn't the message the current content industry would like to put out.
You may recall actually that a lot of industry, content or otherwise, is actually based off of stealing from other countries, and otherwise sneaking around the precepts of copyright enforcement--by being outside its jurisdiction. The American textiles industry for example, I believe was originally founded off of memorized plans leaked from Britain.
This doesn't actually help my argument--they have been two-faced scumbags for a while, is all I'm saying--but it's relevant.
In any event I'm tired of this conversation, so I probably won't reply again. I wish I could say I enjoyed it, but frankly, most of your arguments are more emotionally charged and abusive than well reasoned, even when the reason that you did have would have made a decent argument. Thanks for the conversation anyway.
You would prefer "Please stop that, children, we need to sell those products to other people so that we can make more money"?
I really don't understand what you think the "mature" response to people undermining your ability to sell your own product are.
The problem is that it is technology and economics that is affecting their ability to sell their products.
The content industry make their money by selling copies. This worked in an era when making copies was expensive, or required expensive equipment. But now, the cost of copying is approaching zero. Economically, it's hard to make much of a profit off something that can be had for nothing.
The only way they can continue with their current business model is to attempt to hold back technology with legislation. But this is only a temporary solution; eventually there will be enough bandwidth to stream movies anonymously, and someone will create a P2P client with a nice easy interface. Whether this is right or wrong, technology tends to be rather amoral.
The content industry needs to find a way of making money off content that doesn't involve selling copies. This is by no means an insurmountable problem. However, it will require a large shift in the industry, and I'd be surprised if many of the current big players survive.
In any event I'm tired of this conversation, so I probably won't reply again. I wish I could say I enjoyed it, but frankly, most of your arguments are more emotionally charged and abusive than well reasoned, even when the reason that you did have would have made a decent argument.
Abusive? I believe the worst I've done is to phrase questions with a certain rhetorical edge, and then only in response to the occasional less-than-polite tone that crept into your posts.
First, this is Slashdot; I am not exactly the most impolite poster you'll meet. Second, if you want a more polite tone from me, then be more polite yourself. For instance, instead of saying "Whoooosh", you might say "Sorry, I don't think we're quite on the same track". Then I might be a little less sarcastic in my response.