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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.'"
What makes a work "cultural", and why does that mean that you do not need the author's permission to copy it?
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
You completely neglect the fact that drug companies patent drugs and make back their research costs (through monopoly pricing) over the first couple of decades of sales.
If you don't like the example, substitute a different product -- there are countless other examples. Bottled water, for instance, or pretty much anything else that's edible.
I'm talking about commodities. Ibuprofen is now a commodity, although it wasn't when it was still under patent, and it's still profitable all around even though anyone can manufacture it. If you're in the business of manufacturing stuff and selling it, piracy is not a problem. Piracy is only a problem for drug makers when they combine the two separate businesses of research and manufacturing.
Your suggestion that they come up with an hourly rate for research is nonsensical. Who do they present the bill to? You? The government?
Whoever is interested in having new stuff designed. For example, I don't know about you, but I'm sick of jumping through hoops to buy Sudafed, so I'd gladly throw in a few bucks toward research for a new cold medication that works better than phenylephrine (the ineffective OTC alternative to Sudafed). I have demand for that research, and connecting demand with supply is exactly what the free market excels at: some middleman will spring up to collect money from me and other like-minded individuals and funnel it to researchers.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
Amen, brother. I've been fighting the Slashdot anti-copyright propaganda machine for about a year now (check my comment history), and I'm getting pretty sick of it. It's an interesting point you make about the Pirate Party and other anti-copyright groups infiltrating tech websites. I hadn't considered it before, but the more I think about it, the more it seems likely to be true.
On a related note, I've been looking for a new science/technology/social site to replace Slashdot (one without the anti-copyright bias), but haven't found a good one yet. Have you?
>>>Face it, it is a choice you make. If you don't have a job making enough money for house, kids and family AND the fun things in life, well...life is full of choices, each with its consequences. Choose, and live with the choice and quit bitching.
>>>
Fuck you.
Playing with kids is a hell of a lot more fun that playing with a PS3, Xbox360 or your Wii Wii. It's also nice to have a life partner, rather than live by yourself.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall