Slashdot Mirror
Google Accused of Violating Copyright In China
angry tapir writes "The Chinese Authors Society has demanded that Google present a resolution plan by the end of the year and quickly handle compensation for Chinese authors whose books the US company has scanned without permission as part of its Book Search program. A local copyright protection group, co-founded by the authors group, has said it found at least 17,000 Chinese works included in Google's scanning plan."
C'mon they copy everything...
Yes because "they do it too" is a valid excuse.
Does that also mean I can violate copyrights owned by US citizens & companies because Google does?
under the acta google will be down in less then 1 hour
Judging by their protection of U.S. Property I'd say pay the nine cents already and move on already. It's only fair to pay them their fair share.
In other news, Baidu implement a website to download MP3s
http://mp3.baidu.com/
I think google should address this with as much tenacity as the chinese government has in enforcing copyright of non-chinese works/programs/music.
One also has to wonder what China is trying to prove. First microsoft and now google
For all the rampant piracy the chinese government ignores, google can't just ignore their IP rights - china will end up blocking them and they'll all start using yahoo or bing. Would be nice if they could stick it to them and say that the copyright doesn't apply in the US or something but really, you just can't with these people.
Is this really about copyright? Or is it an excuse for the Chinese Government to have greater control over books written in Chinese (some of which may be potentially critical of the government)?
Unity in Diversity
I'll tell you what I think and it is in the public domain for anyone to use. If your nation is too backwards to allow a public domain then I grant you an unlimited license to use in any manner you see fit with or without attribution.
I'm a privateer. I decided to become one recently. What sparked this decision is the fact that content industries are stealing from me. When copyright was first introduced it was for a period of fourteen years which allowed the creator time to make a profit off of their work even with primitive dissemination systems of the time. After that period it expired and entered the public domain where it would join other works in a rich mosaic for future works to draw from. This is dead. Over the years copyright terms have been extended to the point where there effectively is no public domain anymore. The content industry plays lip-service to the issue, they insist that there is a public domain but when every work is at least life of author plus seventy-five years or so there is in reality no public domain from my life's point of view. I will never see Alien (1979) enter the public domain. I will never see a new original movie based off that setting and characters. I will never see the iron grip of control loosened and in fact I'm sure content is planning more extensions to the terms. Government is complicit in this, politicians have accepted bribes, er.. campaign donations, in exchange for listening to these idiotic and greedy lobbies and passing the appropriate legislation right on cue like their training taught them. Even if magically there are no more extensions to copyright by the time current terms expire the works in question will be irrelevant. No one will be interested in them any more as their times have passed. This gutting of the copyright agreement between publishers and citizens has resulted in copyright not being copyright anymore: it is now a form of property and you will pay for every single last use. In response to this wholesale theft from me I have decided to liberate what I see fit. Go to hell content. I will take whatever I like as you are raping and pillaging through my cultural tapestry. The day I stop will be the day there is an actual agreement restored. I would be willing to settle for twenty years for a copyright term which is even more generous than the original fourteen. With a twenty year period I would also like to see as a punishment for twisting our heritage that only copyrights younger than ten years would be protected from the start. In another ten you'd be up to your twenty. Bite me content you're a parasite and you are stealing from me directly. Anything 1989 and older is a moral right to me and until you stop reneging on the social contract everything newer is as well.
Shh.
Every man is being judged according to his own laws.
"In the absence of the ability to establish the attribute of truth they tried to establish the noble attributes."
/trollish mode on
Slashdot americanism knee-jerk on anything about China is just amazing.
/trollish mode off
This is not news. It was on local TV news several days ago. Basically, the Author's Society (a "guild"-like organization) said to Google something like this: "We know the benefits of scanned-and-indexed books and we want digital libraries, but why you're not paying for the copyrighted content?" So far the parties are negotiating a plan that is supposed to achieve mutual benefit.
BTW, I think Google was doing a right thing simply putting those books on-line and negotiate later. In the words of Admiral Grace Hopper, "it's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission." The books acquired without negotiating copyright serves as a good corpus of OCR calibration or "training" material. While the legal dept are doing the talking, the techies can take the time sharpen the tech.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
Since we in the US seem to now be also controlled by every governments' copyright laws the only answer is to insure that all of us at every single moment are under perpetual surveillance to be absolutely certain that we comply with the laws of every brutal, jerk water, banana republic on the face of the Earth. After all copyright is just sooooooo important!
I guess 1 bln readers is enough for these guys. And, with such an ancient history - who needs all these authors whos works still copyrightprotected.
Google isn't the US government.
Must suck to be stupid.
"Freedom is better than a tyrannical government."
Are you talking about China, or the 95-120 year copyright monopoly enforcement (with a potential 5 year jail time for copying silent films from the 1920's)?
I don't see how they can prevent someone from scanning the works, which seems to be what this group wants. Copying or displaying it on the book website surely falls under parts of copyright law, but the mere act of scanning itself? It's a copyright, not "readright" -- unless of course the IP rights laws are very out of whack in China.
I say block all of china and china sites from google access or listing. Screw em. Honestly China's e-commerce will crumble overnight if Google shut them off. with a " Google will not give results to sites that are in untrustable and hostile countries like china.
China's Economy RELIES on the United states, a large company that is used by 60% of all internet users to find information can cripple an entire countries economy instantly by blocking them.
Show china who is boss. Delist them all.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I tip my hat to you sir, a fine wit. Now give me back the milk i just snorted on the keyboard.
Google isn't the US government.
Who said they were?
Must suck to be stupid.
Let us know when you figure it out.
How about we just cut off Chinese IP space, that will mean all the MMORPG's will suddenly be free of spam and bots, win-win.
I just love the way Americans stick up for their companies ... when a foreign country lays a legit claim against them. And then of course, the next day when the same company is caught in dodgy dealings they are complete flame bait. What do you call this again? Oh yes ... Fickle!
I can't help but wonder if this is retaliation for all the crap they get for infringing on non-China copyrights. You know, in a you-too, "Fine if you care about copyright so much pay up!" sort of way.
I can see them going after MS, since they like to pull BSA stunts in China. But, I don't know why Google, unless they just want to stick it to foreigners in general.
Any sufficiently advanced influence is indistinguishable from control.
"Hello, my name is China and I wish to liquidate all my US Treasury Bonds."
First, I would look carefully at this. Google is sticking with western companies, specifically those that are based on English law (UK, Australia, Canada, and USA). They recently quit doing French and German. Now, the Chinese are claiming that their copyrights are infringed. Can Google simply drop the books? Seems to be fair, if none have been sold yet. In addition, if it has sold some, AND if they are to pay, then they should pay each book based on what one Chinese company would pay another (which is next to nothing if anything), and in Renminbi. China's fixing of their money, as well as their ignoring the IP theft of western goods, can and should work against them.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The person you're replying to, numbnuts.
China's government treats copyright infringement of non-Chinese things pretty carelessly. Completely anecdotal and anonymous, but many people claim to have seen only pirated copies of Windows in Chinese Government offices.
Original poster claimed this. First responder swapped the roles, and made Google be China in the Original Poster's example. OP says "China steals stuff", implying the country, the people, and the government, so them whining about Google doing so is silly. First responder asks "Google steals stuff, so now we can ripoff everything Americans do?" That's just .. idiotic.
Wait a second, THIS CHINESE AUTHORS SOCIETY NOTICED THAT SOMEBODY SCANNED THEIR BOOK AND COMPLAIN?!?! CHINA HAS COURTS?!? ISN"T GOOGLE UNDER DISCRETION FROM THE GOVERNMENT ANYWAY!?!?? WHAT IS THIS COMMUNISM!?!? if they can sue Google, meaning they have rights, meaning that the government issued them, meaning that the government is not controlling, meaning that the government is not communist, then what is China?
China is works closely with MS and Yahoo. Google does not.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Sounds good -- let's offer 'em ten cents on the dollar (or eight cents on the Yuan)
Exactly. Someone who finally gets it.
China has something like $1 trillion of our debt. If they dumped it - and they're not against this tactic - we'd all long for last year's economic downturn.
They fucking own us. Literally and figuratively.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
"Them" being the hard-working authors who are having their works ripped off, along with authors all over the world? Or "them" who only write bureaucratic documents? Those Chinese in Taiwan or the mainland? What about the ones who have emigrated? I believe they're generally different groups, and trying to collate the groups in that manner is not helpful.
To their shame. They took a lot of heat for it.
"Do no evil"? Oh, please.
So does that make us whores?
Or perhaps slaves or indentured servants might be more apt comparisons?
Oh, Canada,
You're looking better each day...
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
*Whoosh!* There goes the point right over your head. Big content is stealing from you.
They're taking your history and your heritage. Imagine a ludicrous extreme, such as the hospital you were born in saying that you can no longer use the name that you were given at birth unless you pay for it because it happened on their premises, therefore they own the rights to it. Or if you are in immigrant, imagine someone telling you that you can no longer describe where you're from, because that information is "owned" by the country from which you came. (God forbid you draw a map!)
Similarly, the music that was on the radio when I was a child? I'm prohibited by law from sharing that with my friends. Movies that have become so deeply ingrained in our culture that we constantly refer to them... "May the force be with you." "I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more." "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn." "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!" Yeah, in spite of them being part of the very fabric of our culture, you're legally prohibited from sharing them with your kids without paying your pound of flesh to people who did something great decades ago (or in some cases, to estates of long dead people).
Look, I'm all for compensating artists justly for what they do. In 1962, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr released a clever little song called Love Me Do. It was a bona fide hit, and they made a lot of money off of it. So be it, they deserve it. But now it's 47 years later. Do you really contend that the song was so unbelievably great, so untouchably amazing, that Paul, Ringo, and the estates of George and John should STILL be making money when a radio plays it?
Or let's look at it another way. Don't you think that's being way too overgenerous to artists? I mean, these past few years, I've been doing some of the greatest work in my professional life in a computer datacenter. I've gotten consistently great reviews, and I feel like I've made a real positive difference for the company where I'm employed. They've paid me well, I'm not complaining. But if I walked out tomorrow, wouldn't you agree that it's kind of silly to expect them to STILL keep paying me because they're enjoying the fruits of my labor while I worked there? 50 years after I'm dead, should they STILL be paying my estate because my contributions in the first decade of the 2000's contributed to the history of the company being great?
When I retire, I'm going to be living off of money I've saved up during my lifetime specifically because I don't expect my former employers to still be paying for my work 70 years after I die. Why is it that an artist who writes a hit song, a writer who writes a best-seller, an actor who turns in an Oscar-winning performance, gets that luxury? My opinion is that if you want to continue making money off of your work, get out there and work like the rest of us do. No one should get a lifetime + 70 years of resting on their laurels because they did something great. Like the rest of us, if they want to retire in comfort, they should set aside some of the money they make during the height of their popularity so they'll have it after the limited time that copyright is supposed to be valid.
Not quite... They own $1 trillion of our virtual currency
In exchange we got a lot of their material goods
If they abruptly ended the relationship one day and called in our debt, we would just default and they'd be left with nothing.
What option would they be left with? Go to war? Fat chance -- wars nowadays are fought with technology, not numbers of soldiers... and we spend almost as much as the rest of the world *combined* on defense (we spend $600 billion a year on military, whereas China is the 2nd highest with under $90 billion a year)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures#Stockholm_International_Peace_Research_Institute_figures
In the meantime, we would still have their manufactured items, and we'd just take our IP (read: engineering designs) to Malaysia or some other place (e.g. Mexico) for our manufacturing needs.
They don't "own us" -- it's a mutually beneficial relationship that requires both parties to take part.
Every country that plays the "globalization" game gets the benefits from and the dependency on every other player. As it stands now, they depend on us just like we depend on them. That could change, but it'd likely be a gradual change, or else a painful change for *both* sides.
You might have been able to claim a moral high ground had you chosen to observe the 1989 limit you suggest as reasonable, but by ignoring what you state is reasonable you show your true colors and they look suspiciously like a skull and crossbones. You are a pirate; you are simply trying to justify your illegal activities.
They fucking own us. Literally and figuratively.
If you owe the bank $100,000 they own you, but if you owe the bank $1,000,000,000,000 you own them.
China's fate is just as wrapped up in the value of that debt as our own is.
I respectfully disagree. Content industries have stolen from me countless derivative works and from who would have been the creators of them innumerable dollars. It is more of vigilante justice: they have harmed the potential of so many things that could have contributed to my culture that I don't mind harming them back in the only thing that gets through their thick skulls: money.
Shh.
The person you're replying to, numbnuts.
The point being nobody else has mentioned government. Its just something the person pulled out their ass.
China's government treats copyright infringement of non-Chinese things pretty carelessly.
Completely anecdotal and anonymous, but many people claim to have seen only pirated copies of Windows in Chinese Government offices.
Oh.. anecdotal and anonymous evidence? It must be true then. I could quite easily make up some anonymous and anecdotal evidence
that the US government pirates 71% of its software. Google disagrees with you though. The only mention of government offices and pirated
copies of Windows in China was claims by the BSA of a 70% piracy rate.
Original poster claimed this. First responder swapped the roles, and made Google be China in the Original Poster's example. OP says "China steals stuff", implying the country, the people, and the government, so them whining about Google doing so is silly.
How does it imply that unless the OP is claiming everyone in China steals stuff? To me it implies that some people in China steal stuff.
First responder asks "Google steals stuff, so now we can ripoff everything Americans do?" That's just .. idiotic.
Just as idiotic as saying Google can steal stuff because some people in China do.
You forget that they could give every able-bodied Chinese citizen a pointy stick and dump them on our shores. We'd be so hopelessly overrun our tech wouldn't matter.
Women are like electronics: you don't know how damaged they are until you try to turn them on.
We would "just default"?
What America have you been watching for the last 50+ years. There's no way we'd politically do that.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Has google started selling these? If not, then they CAN put these under ownership of a non-profit group and state that it is there for the preservation purposes. According to Chinese Law, that is LEGAL under section 4.
Copyright is portrayed as a contract. Thats just to get peoples hopes up. With the spirit of copyright he should just be able to go to his favorite torrent site and download it for free. Fuck the corporate perpetual welfare tax. The people who threw off the yoke of British oppression were some pretty smart dudes and they weighed the balance of what is good for the individual and what is good for culture: you know winning the rest of the world over with your ideals so they'll be more like you and less likely to lob a nuclear weapon at you... Politicians and lobby groups are in collusion. Sonny Bono, a musician with a large base of created works was responsible for pushing one of the extensions through. Conflict of interest? Happens all the time, just look away and ignore the man behind the curtain. I believe that you've swallowed the propaganda that authority has coddled you with since you were a child. The real world is full of crooks and liars, usually they wear suits.
Shh.
How exactly do they get them to the US shores?
Wait! Whats a sig?
"Hi, China, I'm the U.S.
Sorry but I don't want you to do that and I make the rules.
P.S. Our airforce is bored and if we don't use our nukes soon they're going to hit their use-by date. Just sayin'"
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
If they abruptly ended the relationship one day and called in our debt, we would just default and they'd be left with nothing.
There's probably a reason why the US owes so much money to other countries. Who do you think will lend money to them the next time, if they've proven they don't intend to pay it back?
And then what? Go to war against the rest of the world? Yeah ...
"and we'd just take our IP"
You really think they'd give a damn about IP after the US defaulted on that amount of money? They'd just flood the market with copies or even new developments and say "Screw you!" to everybody's patent laws :)
China has something like $1 trillion of our debt. If they dumped it - and they're not against this tactic - we'd all long for last year's economic downturn.
Eh, they'd be killing themselves too, it would ruin their economy (and the world's).
Yeah, that's your brilliant response to everything. Owe money? Shoot the people you owe money to. Need oil? Occupy and destroy the countries that have. And you wonder why we think you're all batshit insane over there.
-- Linux user #369862
Except for the fact without the US, China would make hardly any money
If you can't pay, you can't pay. America does not have the cash on hand to repay the debt to China. Therefore, America would default.
Spelling and Grammar errors have been added to this post for your enjoyment
...what on earth makes you think I'm from the U.S.? I believe we're making the same comment on their foreign policy in different ways. Although I must be fair and say that we haven't seen much of that kind of action since Gee Dubya stepped down.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
You forget that they could give every able-bodied Chinese citizen a pointy stick and dump them on our shores. We'd be so hopelessly overrun our tech wouldn't matter.
it would be sort of like a Protoss vs Zerg battle, you guys just gotta survive the 1st rush, and victory is assured in the long run.
Just to be safe, I'd build those additional pylons now.
-I only code in BASIC.-
IP in the engineering sense refers to designs for technology, not to copyright.
That's why the OP said "IP (read: engineering designs)"
try to keep up...
This flurry of like activity is a dig at the Obama(the US) administration's recent visit.
.
If the US wishes to preach the consequences of being on the world stage, China has a habit of coming right back at you.
A good example was a visit to New Zealand by the Chinese president a couple years back. NZ joined the chorus of mentioning Human Rights. Just before the visit China asked the question, so how were our immigrants coming to NZ treated?
For chinese coming to NZ:
- Thumb prints for chinese, yet no other nationality.
- Chinese people were deprived of the old age pension
- A poll tax of $100...just for chinese.
- Formal oraganisations, while not governmental, such as the Anti-Asiatic League
The governemt of New Zealand then felt compeled to issue a formal apology. Those that cast stones in glass houses....
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
Aside from the typical /. China bashing, why is anyone here surprised by this at all?
I mean, if you keep pressuring a country to "enforce IP rights" and keep spreading propaganda, uh, educational message about how many billions was "lost" due to IP rights violations. Is it that a surprise that the group of people who stands to gain the most would be responding, who those who stand to lose money will drag their feet?
Are so many /.ers here so blinded by their anti-China prejudice that you cannot even realize that with over 1 billion people, there will be different groups of people with different agenda? What's the point of lumping this authors' guild with software pirates in this discussion?
What's more, isn't this exactly the case for American companies to demonstrated how IP rights should be respected? Or will this be another demonstration of pure greed? Do you think anyone in China is going to take "IP rights" seriously (there are few enough who does so, but supposedly we want that to change, right?) if Google demonstrates that US companies are just going violate others right when it suits them?
Oliver.
Pray tell how they would be able to transport that many people to our shores, especially unmolested along the way. Assuming they made it that far, keep in mind that the Second Amendment makes the citizens of the United States the most armed citizenry in the world. If anyone wanted to go to war with the United States they'd be best off bombing every square inch of the country back to the stone age. Even without our army, we'd be a complete pain in the ass for anyone to invade and occupy.
For better or worse sometimes you have to pick your line and take a stand. Why else do we even live?
Shh.
It's not overgenerous to artists at all. The artists get very little of that money.
If the artists DID get the money, then I'd agree that it was not only overgenerous, but ridiculously absurdly overgenerous. There are only a small finite number of musical measures. (In this context, musical further constrains the set of sounds to those that people can learn to enjoy reasonably easily.) I can't put an exact number on it, and it probably varies through the population anyway. I don't know what the number is, but a random number generator and a computer could probably plow through them in less than five years. So just generate every possible musical measure and publish them all on the web. Register the ones that people download more than once.
You now own the copyright to every possible measure. (Some of them will be invalid, as someone else has previously registered them.) The Supreme Court has held (in a case, I believe, against the Beatles) that as little as one measure in a song is enough to determine a copyright violation.
THIS IS ABSURD!!!
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Good luck going bankrupt there..
Unfortunately your country seems to think it's perfectly clever to avoid financial issues by pouring money into military spending,
and invading any country that seems profitable at that specific moment.
I'd love to see you people grow up and own up to what you are doing - spending on debt can't go on for ever, and
the crap you are giving everyone else has already come around a few times. But then again, it's just easier to imagine
you shouldn't be responsible for anything, and that everyone else is "out to get you". That sentence gets even more pathetic
when you add the bushian "because they hate our freedom".
Defaulting on debt doesn't just get rid of the debt. It also gets rid of any and all credit. Good luck taking your "IP" to Malaysia. If they see how you handled your obligations to China, they'll certainly be happy to give you their material goods in exchange for the promise of more worthless green paper.
In fact the recent moves by China clearly demonstrate that they do not rely on the rest of the world. You (and many other countries) have exported the know-how and now China is building on top of that, making your intellectual property the basis for their own know-how. The rest of the world will soon learn how it feels to be on the pointy side of the intellectual property sword. If you think that this is a good time to play hardball with China, you're at least a decade late, but of course you were busy driving your country neck-deep into debt in return for cheap trinkets. Don't fret, you're not the first civilization to succumb to shiny things.
If you owe someone $10,000, they own you.
If you owe someone $1,000,000 you own them.
If you owe someone $1,000,000,000,000... there is not much they can do.
China's economy is a fraction of the size of the U.S.
Hurt us? sure. slit their own throat doing it-- damn straight.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Really it is just recognizing reality.
Law and society grows out of the barrel of a gun.
At any time, a person is willing to use violence and is stronger than you, then your legal agreements may become null and void.
When the rich get all the food and property (as they do every few centuries), then the poor rise up and kill them and restart the cycle.
Violence is the exit clause when the other side has set the rules up so you are screwed and have no other way out except to starve or become slaves.
Legal rights only exist if someone somewhere is willing to get violent over them.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
When the dollar tanks, China will still have a billion people (who got by without modern technology two decades ago) and all the factories. All you will still have is a printing press and a country full of spoiled people who live in suburbs that will be very inhospitable without oil to power your wasteful cars.
It's becoming pretty obvious that this is an orchestrated effort by the leaders of the PRC in response to the US and EU complaints about intellectual property. I guess China got sick of the US putting clauses in trade agreements to address intellectual property and figured out how to give us a taste of our own medicine.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
It's in fashion to sue for Copyright in China. Recently MS also had to pay up to some chinese firm for using their fonts in Windows. The story goes that they licensed the font for Win 95 and used it for subsequent versions of Windows automatically. Quite a big impact on MS's share in the Chinese market.
A Chinese IT news website, cnBeta, has posted an article on this earlier. Here, the highest ranking comments:
http://www.cnbeta.com/articles/98117.htm (Chinese)
"Please, don't scan the works done in the last 60~70 years - don't poison our descendants anymore!"
"The world's biggest fraud organisation started working again."
"The Authors Society is dogs' shit."
"Wow, when did this useless society become a law-enforcement organ? What the [please be polite]!"
"Just leave these books in the libraries and let them get rotten."
"Oh my god, they're going to block our access to Google again."
And it is not just China and the US - the whole world is in this together, not just when it comes to the economy. They have been talking about globalisation for years, but it has been happening all around while people have been staring blindly at the many failed efforts at cooperation on government-level.
If they abruptly ended the relationship one day and called in our debt, we would just default and they'd be left with nothing.
No, they'd be left with a large manufacturing base and lots of large markets like the EU and India willing to buy their products. You, on the other hand, would be left with a worthless currency and be unable to import any foreign goods. Next time you go shopping, see how much you buy is made in the USA and decide whether you think that's a good idea.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I lol'd hard.
It's much easier to replicate manufacturing base than it is to replicate the bleeding edge research and development for microprocessors, new materials, etc...
There are many countries with cheap labor and resources that would love the ability to get a huge influx in technology -- because obviously any technology that is manufactured there is essentially transferred there (at very least, there's easy access for local reverse engineers; at very most, they directly gain the formula for implementing a particular technology). Additionally, easy access to local high-tech manufacturing would definitely catalyze local R&D efforts.
I doubt too many countries would be put off by the US defaulting on debt if China called it all in at once. The answer is to not call in the debt, but rather to continue to benefit from each other for as long as possible -- that's where the real gain is. In fact, China's electronics and manufacturing sector has exploded in large part due to the excessive demand from the US, and they are definitely better off because of it even if they don't get any of their US$ loans back. Many other countries would like the same situation for themselves.
Say what you want about the US... though we don't manufacture many products anymore, we certainly still manufacture a whole lot of technology design, code, etc... all of which falls under the category of IP. It's just that it's a lot harder to quantify those exports, since they're much more subjective than "X quantity of materials valued at $Y each." I'm not so stupid as to think the US is special -- any country could do the same given the resources and conditions we have. The US just happened to do the "right" things at the right time, and that is still the case when it comes to technology R&D (though this could change if our education system continues to deteriorate).
That's not to say that the rest of the world can't do the same, but the US certainly is still a leader in technology research and development.
Anyways, I never said I'm in favor of The Way Things Are(tm)... but that doesn't change the facts.
Even in a highly-globalized environment, I think you'll find that most citizens of any given country still focus on their local lives, their profession, their hobbies, etc, and have very little say in their country's economic strategies. I don't think any of the letters I've ever written to my government representatives have ever made a significant impact. All we can really do is observe, focus on our interests, try to alter our behavior to reflect how we think the world should be, and not get that involved unless things start to go really, really wrong.
China's economy is a fraction of the size of the U.S.
And yet they export more goods than we do. A LOT has changed since 2000, mostly China ramping up production capacity as rapidly as possible. They've been building out manufacturing and power plants at an unprecedented rate. Let's not forget our massive trade imbalance, either.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The way I look at it is this. I don't care how old the song, is, is it well, worth a dollar? Is Sgt Peppers worth $20? I'd say, geez, I'm going to play the CD until it breaks, and listen to it an easy 100 times, so yeah, its worth a buck. In fact, its pretty hard to find a better deal for entertainment than a song. You can take it with you. You can have it on while you are doing something else. It makes whatever you are doing better, and its only $20. Don't get tripped up that John is dead now, or whatever. It's what is the song worth. That millions of people agree with that assessment means somebody is going to get rich, but what does it matter. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds made me happy. It's worth a buck, and I'll pay it.
This is my sig.
So why not just boycott them? It does all the damage of piracy without giving them any of the moral and legal high ground.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Because as another stated the boycott is only legal because it is ineffective. Content industries are laughing all the way to the bank. They have their swimming pools full of money that they burn after they take a dip. Of course this is just the corporations - the actual artists are still starving. If you want change you put the thumbscrews to them. You say, go to hell. If they try to persecute you for it you point out that they have no clothes. The inertia and corruption of our legal system may still punish you but if you are like me: you don't care, you know you are right. Strike me down and I will become more powerful than you can ever imagine and all that. Force is what is needed right now, our social fabric is sick and the bastards are trying to play smoke and mirrors to keep us from treating the disease as long as possible.
Shh.
Hello, my name is America and I say no. What are you going to do about it?
They fucking own us
Then why are all the convinience stores run by Arabs and Indians? I don't see any Asians running these places. I'd say India and the Saudies own us.
Free Martian Whores!
AFAIK, book piracy is rampant in China. I wonder where the 'compensation' money will goes to. Do the authors actually profit? I think not.
If you owe the bank $100,000 they own you, but if you owe the bank $1,000,000,000,000 you own them.
In Walt Disney's biography there's a story about him giving a head of state of state of some country a tour of the brand new Disneyland when it first opened in the fifties. The man looked at the giant, clean, futuristic theme park and said "you must be a very rich man."
Disney replied "Yes, I must be, I'm in debt for millions of dollars!"
Free Martian Whores!
Fill the ocean with them and create a corpse bridge to L.A.
Reminds me of that Apocalypse Now quote...
Ride the skies
where you going to get the bits for all your high tech - you outsourced them where do your contractors get their cheap materials?
High tech will only take you so far - yes you can bomb a nation back into the stone age but rubble makes good cover.
materials are available anywhere. high-tech designs are not
It turns out that America did NOT give copyright protection to foreigners (but I thought that they had).
However, what is not mentioned by others is that NONE of the other countries gave copyright protection to ANY foreigners. It appears that the Berne treaty of 1886 was the first to give foreigners protection in terms of IP, though countries like England did not enact it until 1980's. OTH, in 1891, America passed its international copyright act. But it appears that it was used as a tool (similar to how we wield MFN today).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
What? Boycott is legal because it's your right to choose what you spend your money on. It's ineffective because most people don't give a crap; they're happy to just buy, or at least pirate.
In fact, piracy does more or less exactly the damage of piracy, as I said. Piracy hurts artists because it diminishes legitimate demand, but then again, boycotting does exactly the same thing! So, if boycotting is ineffective, then so is piracy.
So, the question is, why not just boycott instead of pirate? Piracy just makes it look like you're more interested in the free entertainment than any morality issues, and it makes the copyright holders look like victims. After all, here they are risking their savings in creating entertainment, and the people in return are just taking it for free.
In fact, I would (and often do) go so far as to say that pirates are responsible, in part, for these copyright extensions and the political muscle that the entertainment industry has gathered over the years. They have knowingly and willingly flouted the law, damaging the industry's revenues (while still benefiting from their contributions), and in doing so, have provided a strong platform for pushing legislation like the DMCA and even copyright extensions. Not that the industry is by any means blameless, but the significant role of the pirates is so often ignored.
So, yeah, you may not care anymore, but just know that what you are doing is actually hurting your cause far more than it's helping it.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Fixed that for me.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
You do realize that is we used all our military and they used only catapults flinging bodies, their own army... they would win..
1 tank will lose a combat between it and 3,000 unarmed troops. they have enough to do that to us. and our leaders are too much of pussies to let the military actually do their job so we sit there and get killed.
AFGHANISTAN NEEDS TO BE CARPET BOMBED.
Yes I hurt an artist by liberating content. But you know what hurts them even more? The fat white guy in the suit that steals every penny that is supposed to go to that artist occasionally throwing them a bone so they don't die and dry the revenue stream. RIAA/MPAA mouthpieces claiming we are "hurting" the artists are hypocrites, they themselves have stolen more money from the artists than any loss of sales could ever have amounted to. And liberating you are drawing attention to the cause. When you go to court you maximize the pomp and circumstance and be sure to provide all the people on the web who share an interest in this topic the blow-by-blow details. Let them come for me so I can shame them before a judge. They may get me but the path for the next person will be a little more defined.
Shh.
*facepalm*
You know what? I've come across this viewpoint before, and it's always struck me as patronising, to the extent that it makes me feel sick. Why do so many pirates seem to know what's best for artists, businesses, and everyone else, considerably more than the people themselves?
Artists choose to sign with publishers. There's no duress involved. They have a choice between organising everything themselves, with great effort and expense, or signing with a label for a significant share of the profits. And yeah, sometimes artists make choices that you don't like, but it's none of your fucking business! If you don't like their choice, then don't buy from them. It's certainly not up to you to choose for them.
Some artists need to sign with a publisher. Many artists have no startup money, and so without publishers, they'd be forced to never distribute their works. What's your plan for liberating those works, huh?
And besides, labels are sometimes the smart choice financially, even if you have ample funds. You may only receive only a tiny fraction per sale of what you could have gotten independently, but the publishers know how to maximise sales. Artists often don't know the first thing about publishing themselves, and so they end up with something unpolished, unsuccessfully marketed to a comparatively tiny group of people. This means the artist ends up with less money, and most people never hear of their work. What's your plan for liberating works that neither you, nor anyone else you know, have ever heard of?
To judge the publisher arrangement only by per-sale profits is one-eyed and narrow-minded. To judge call it hurting or stealing is idiotic. To justify selfish and destructive behaviour like piracy with such a flimsy pretext, well, that's just greedy.
Sorry, but from now on, we're foes. I don't friend people who support nanny states, especially if its to arrogantly support their own selfish habits.
Sure, it draws attention to your cause. It also draws attention to their cause, and also the fact that you are an idiot. The **AA will simply draw up a reasonable argument, possibly along the lines of the ones that I gave.
Didn't you read my previous post? Piracy damages your position. All the **AA would have to do is ask that one, simple, very reasonable question: "why didn't you just boycott?" You haven't managed to satisfactorally answer that. You could have easily gotten exactly what you wanted, without breaking the law, yet you chose, for some reason, to do it illegally for no additional benefits. What judge, jury, or even general public audience, would sympathise with that?
The fact that you can't answer that leaves one plausible conclusion in the minds of judge, jury, and me: that you chose to pirate simply because you enjoy it. It's not to say that your complaints are not genuine, just that you're such a sell-out that you can't even partially deprive yourself of entertainment. It shows that, despite your emotive language, you actually can't seem to live without these people that you're ripping off. This just contributes to the overall impression of the piracy movement; that they're a bunch of entitled whingers who loudly complain about the system while being totally dependent on it.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Physical is so passé. Here's how to organize: Although this thread will be locked in a few weeks, I want people to come here and digest the issues, support the strengths, and be critical of the weakness'. The reason I want you to do this is I have an agenda. I have identified the fleecing of the public domain as a moral weakness in my chosen enemy. I want this branch to be fully fleshed out and validated by many more minds than mine could match. Once it is locked (and before too!) I will continue to press my agenda. Whenever a slashdot story comes up that is tagged copyright, mpaa, or riaa I will go into it contribute something new and be a proponent of the public domain. Then in each of those posts I will provide a link to this branch with the title: "I Want My Public Domain." The issue will not sink and the arguments made properly fit here will have a weight of their own. This is how to go about change, harness us all and simply attack from a myriad of viewpoints.
Link everywhere on the web you find to be appropriate here.
Shh.
I am hurting an artist right now by liberating content. This is to create pressure to imbalance the stranglehold current de-facto cartels have on the market. Once the parasitic conditions of the current copyright imbalance are corrected and a reasonable term is set before a work becomes public domain it will free up a well of creativity for a whole new generation. They will actually be able to draw from the rich mosaic to express themselves with glory. Once fair terms are recognized in copyright an actual deal that is not my take all that you can eat approach can be established. You can look someone straight in the eye and say this old and nothing newer. And they will look you straight back and say yes I agree, thats fair. A few will infringe but it will be much easier to educate the majority when they can feel it intuitively in their gut that they are being treated as partners instead of consumers.
Shh.
Now, I will give you this: I very well could be wrong in how I'm advocating going about setting the pressure aspect but I firmly believe that besides that the rest of that comment holds truth.
It's not just me there are literally millions of file-sharers and thats probably under-counting by an order of magnitude. The majority of these people probably don't examine too closely what they are doing so I'm playing proxy to generate wisdom to guide them. I'm taking an adversarial approach to the issue. Convince me completely and I will bend. If I have an inkling of doubt I will tow my line because I believe that passion produces better results.
Shh.
Case in point: I just asked a relative if they knew they were stealing by downloading that song through limewire. I got a confused look and a what? Ignorance is no defense before the law but when you get that it is a symptom that something is broken somewhere. Help me find it.
Shh.
Sorry, missed a line. For all the logistical support labels provide as a general group they collude to keep prices high while lobbying incrementally to continually tip the scales a bit more in their favor. This is contrary to Mr. Smith's invisible hand. Overall it creates inefficiencies and this hidden cost is ultimately passed on to the purchaser. It is not free market, it does not promote innovation, they are self-serving, and when they are dismantled whatever rises to replace them will be better at least because it will be young and lean. Just because they are established does not mean they deserve status quo.
Shh.
Well if this doesn't pan out then its off to the next shiny. But I won't abandon - as tidy as the messy process can be resolving sub-branches and bubbling back up will provide closure. That is if you can figure out which way it up.
<No Carrier>
Shh.
I have made some arbitrary criteria, if you agree we will apply it: Each party can permit themselves bias, but prejudice is forbidden. If you can rule for yourself then you will but you may not rule for yourself in the face of a credible argument. If both parties are able to stay behind valid bias then other avenues must be pursued to break the deadlock. A party is considered right as defined by the other being unable to refute the logic and values of the statement. If you invalidate a base then other ideas that are built upon top of it must be built back up. Sorry I didn't have that figured out from the start. Now, when you break through the line you will have created not only in your own mind exactly why it is right but unless someone can twist the bias you will have proven a Truth to our mutual limits of fallibility as well. This gracefully sweeps away the old and allows virtue to triumph against adversity. Now if I wasn't such a prick about it I could be smug.
In some Government styles one of the popular systems that codifies rules is called: Robert's Rules of Order.
Shh.
Education is an obvious topic to explore. If there was a truly functioning public domain then my objections to teaching copyright obligations in civics classes to primary school students would be greatly negated.
Shh.
The trade balance is strongly related to the fact that they are artificially keeping their prices low by buying U.S. bonds.
If they keep this up, at some point, the trillion+ dollars they have spent to artificially sell goods will come home worth nothing.
The U.S. still manufactures more (http://investing.curiouscatblog.net/2008/09/23/top-manufacturing-countries-in-2007/) with a fraction of the population.
The U.S. is on a bad path in part. A larger issue is that with the world flattening- it's only natural that india and china are going to catch up. However, they can't export to smaller countries and keep all their own people employed. With 10's of millions of extra males, they need social stability. They need to get the internal markets going before this hat trick turns ugly due to internal civil unrest.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
OK, I get it. You're not going to tell me the advantages of piracy over boycotting, simply because you know, deep down, that they're all selfish. Whatever, you know now, you won't stop, probably because, like so many other pirates, you're addicted to the free entertainment. You still, however, have a point about the copyright system that I'm not averse to discussing, and ending the discussion on this note would be a cop-out.
You're conflating several concepts here. First we have publishers, next we have public domain, and lastly, we have respect from artists. You seem to be under this weird delusion that blindly changing one thing will result in an improvement in all categories.
In fact, you still haven't actually convinced me that publishers are inherent problems. I still can't fathom why you consider them thieves, bloodsuckers, or whatever else you decide to call them, when the arrangement is mutually arranged, and often, mutually beneficial. I mean, do you call your greengrocer a thief just because he accepts your money in exchange for food? Would I be allowed to "liberate" your food, admittedly hurting you, but drawing attention to the cause of evil greengrocers? It's completely ridiculous!
As for the public domain, while I agree that healthy public domain is conducive to a healthy culture, and right now, we definitely do not have a healthy public domain, we must be very careful about extending too much. I mean, right now, we can still access copyrighted works, for pay if necessary, from which to draw inspiration. It's not like artists aren't prepared to spend a little for inspiration and enjoyment. There isn't a group of artists twiddling their thumbs, waiting for inspiration to drop into public domain. There's still a huge well of inspiration out there.
Plus, every extension of the public domain has an inevitable sting in the tail. Every extension requires a weakening of copyright, and every weakening of copyright drops the artists in the bottom percentiles. Of course, this can be completely worthwhile, and I do think that we should shorten copyright term lengths. However, I make no illusion about the fact that there will be a price to pay in terms of variety.
As for the issue of respect, you have to remember that you can't force artists to be your friend using legal methods. If you want your artists to treat you as partners, then just buy from artists who treat you as partners.
I think you're missing some grammar. I'm having some trouble parsing this statement. However, I don't think it matters:
Ha! This is the entitlement generation! The generation that will pirate iPhone apps, the generation that will pirate a game simply because it doesn't come with a dedicated server service, the generation that will pirate simply because it makes a convenient soapbox to preach from. This is a generation raised on the morality of
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I will completely level with you. You don't know what I believe. I have surface thoughts and I present them to be interpreted and play with the dynamics of conversation gaining the advantage where I can and rebuilding where I am weak. I have my agenda. I want to see people organize to improve our lot at humans. The public domain is a singular issue that could reinforce this goal. It must be liberated by any means necessary. How we go about this in tangential. PLEASE continue this discussion, I respect and am fully engaged with you because you have demonstrated completely to me that you are not a sheep. Thank you.
See: Here for some background material to show some mutual terms for us both to understand as we continue this conversation.
This following wiki quote relates to what is missing:
"The public domain is most often discussed in contrast to works whose use is restricted by copyright. Under modern law, most original works of art, literature, music, etc. are covered by copyright from the time of their creation for a limited period of time (which varies by country). When the copyright expires, the work enters the public domain. It is estimated that currently, of all the books found in the world's libraries, only about 15% are in the public domain, even though only 10% of all books are still in print; the remaining 75% are books which remain unavailable because they are still under copyright protection."
Shh.
I hope I didn't turn you off by exposing my Machiavellian methods. Manipulation is a tool, it can be used for both Good and Evil purposes. In this case I am going with Good because this issue is one that would provide an positive influence in our society. That link sucks by the way, it was the wrong one and the real one doesn't have much bearing on our conversation anyway so I've discarded it.
Shh.
To set the stage to further promote the interest of the public domain I am attempting to create a platform where Citizens through virtue can force change.
Here is the latest revision:
I place this in the public domain. If your nation does not permit a public domain then I grant you an unlimited license to use this in any manner you see fit with or without attribution.
I am outlining a method here for harnessing our collective plurality, creativity, values, and intelligence to manage the issues of the day that relate to public importance.
Social networks have risen in popularity in the last few years and while they are excellent methods to maintain contact with your friends and acquaintances they could be dramatically improved by adding an agenda driven, truth seeking through adversity, and hierarchical organization of discussion, where you drill down and bubble back up - closing deeper levels of conversation with truth. You may also support your position by linking around to more comprehensive arguments.
It is organized as a forum with a root or starting point, and linking further into branches so when taken together they compose a "tree". At the root there are general categories and as you go into the branches you may encounter topics, issues, or agendas which are categories, or comments which are opinions. Both these groups are also referred to as branches. Categories are tagged with keywords. Both categories and opinions can be mixed and matched at all levels in the tree.
Anyone may start a topic/issue/agenda or comment anywhere within the tree to be managed. You have your "watch" branches, when they change you are notified and you have the opportunity to go there and be either a proponent, opponent, or authority.
When you contribute something new you have the option to link back to any other branch to support it.
Some mechanics could include: At the root of the tree, general topics exist. Root moderators manage here but they are not permitted to be proponents or opponents, only authorities. Root moderators may also change the moderator of any sub-branch. Moderators get to manage branches within their domain. Creating a branch makes you its moderator and gives you the ability to add or remove others with this status and also all branches leaving your branch are included in your domain. As truth is established it moves back up the hierarchy to support or detract from those parent branches. Your record of truth contributes to your rating of authority in their respective tags. Various information at each branch is collected to be used for different purposes - from a vote up/down in reputation for a branch, categorizing a branch (funny, off topic, insightful, interesting, etc.), declaring yourself an proponent/opponent/authority, voting to move a branch and its sub-branches to another branch, or voting for truth - to suggest some.
Everyone may attach their own opinion of reputation to any branch and these may be collated and shown. Reputation may also apply to individuals, if someone abuses, lies, vandalizes, and is pointless they can be filtered out. Being linked to your account this would sort out the majority of abuse only leaving new users and people who decide to go occasionally rogue to contend with.
Comments may be subversive, inflammatory, misrepresentations, and outright lies. Most of this could be minimized using keyword filtering, approval required to post if below a reputation threshold, and general moderation systems if desired.
The steps people take in interacting with this forum are: understanding the issue, adding their own ideas, contributing to the strengths, and criticizing the weakness'. While seeking truth, bias is permitted to cover areas of opinion but prejudice is not as this covers areas of fact.
You can find the submission in Facebooks feedback forum: Here.
Please go there and comment to enable change.
Shh.
No, it's actually quite the opposite. With law passed in their favour, the risk to create each work is reduced, and it gives copyright holders the confidence to lower their prices. That's bad, however, is that it means we have to wait longer than our lifetimes to see content become freely available. So, yeah, it's pretty bad for a number of reasons, but financial efficiency isn't one of them.
Hold on here. It's a perfectly free market, even accounting for their lobbying. Each law that passes puts each copyright holder in more or less the same boat. A boon for them is a boon for their competition. The one exception to this is the blank media tax, but, realistically, it's not making much of a negative impact on the competition's chances at a sale.
Ha! The same goes for piracy and pirates!
No but, seriously, we are agreed: Big Media lobbying government is bad. Actually, we can extend this a bit: Big Business lobbying government is bad. Perhaps there's a problem here beyond discussions of the **AA and copyright?
First, fix our legal system. Then, fix copyright.
Yeah, I'm not sure if that necessarily equates to "better". Young could mean "young and aggressive". Basically, I don't share the optimism that arbitrarily tearing down companies we don't like produces change for the better.
Companies are a product of us. They only grow as bad as we let them (because without us, they can't grow). There's clearly a complacency in people about how their companies behave, and I think that that's what needs to be addressed first.
Otherwise, we can tear down companies until our arms get sore, and other almost identical companies will spring up in its place. The companies just follow the optimal money-making strategy, and tearing down companies doesn't really change this strategy. It's the strategy that's problem; the companies are just arbitrary.
Sure, but I would like you to notice that nowhere have I made an argument based on what they deserve. Well, at least I haven't made an argument based on anything positive they deserve.
Formal rules. I like it. (Only, it took me a while to realise exactly what they were being applied to.)
Well, this one may be a problem for me. You may have noticed that many of my earlier arguments had certain statements about pirates as a group (such as, they're greedy and entitled). In fairness, they probably are prejudices, but also in fairness, they're not without their bases in fact.
But, I suppose that I can give up the prejudicial arguments if you can. But that is a real problem: can you? Some of the policy that you're proposing is definite prejudice against Big Media, which isn't just a single corporation, but in fact, a large group of corporations. When you say they should be destroyed, are you considering each company individually, or are you just making a prejudiced over-generalisation (like me on pirates)?
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I'd just like to do a quick summary of my position, to avoid wasting time contesting points that we both agree on.
I think your intentions are admirable, but your methods aren't sound. Big Media needs to pay, but we need to make them pay by the book. Boycotting has the same effect as piracy (sorry to harp on about it), plus it shows dedication to the cause, the kind of dedication that wins sympathy from other people, including the courts. Piracy just generates disdain.
Also, copyright needs to be fixed, but a few things need to happen first. Firstly, people need to start respecting copyrights more (otherwise, courts will inevitably side with copyright holders). Secondly, we need to fix our legal system, from which much of the corruption of copyright spread. As an analogy, it's no use lopping off the infected arm, when the disease is spreading from the chest.
Thirdly, copyright is broken, but not that broken. Artists can still create, and people still have reasonable access to their culture. When I say "fix copyright", I mean we should tune it so it runs optimally, and make sure it's not forced even further out of alignment by corporate interests.
That's pretty much it.
Since you've proven that the issues are systemic I'd like to focus mainly on your summary but I may draw from the rest of our comments when scoring a point.
To promote a mutual understanding I'd like to link to this: book. It outlines the issues in an entertaining, engaging, and understandable manner. It's a legal and free download from that page. Please promote it when appropriate. I'm still reading it so I may not be able to argue from a balanced position of facts on the topic yet. From what I've read so far I do believe this singular book carries the right tune.
Boycotting is a social phenomenon. With the Internet we have the ability to press our issues more than ever before. What is needed to enable this is a common glue to connect people into a cohesive whole. I believe that the only thing that can connect people is truth. To arrive at that you need virtue, you need to be noble to the point that you cannot be questioned. Debating is the method to arrive at truth. All parties need to be honest and tear down their prejudice where it is proved to exist. You are right. Boycotting is the way to do it, pirating is not. However, boycotting needs to be whipped into shape as an effective tool otherwise it is also not the way to do it.
Read this whole thread. When it comes to fixing the legal system I am promoting harnessing social networks as vehicles of debate. This debate would provide much needed and refined opinion to our policy makers to consider when they are making decisions. We have a golden opportunity here but it will be what we make it. By the way I'd still editing that: post. Right now I'm working on how truth moves through the tree-structure and I hope to make a reply at the Facebook feedback forum soon with it.
Thank you. Please continue with anything I've missed or press any points that are relevant as well. You've made my morning and I now look forward to coming back to this thread again.
Shh.
What irritates the hell out of me is that these pirates hurt me, the consumer. You mentioned pirating games because of the lack of dedicated servers. I have refused to buy a certain game I was looking forward to buying because of the lack of dedicated servers. I have not bought it, but neither have I pirated it. My individual boycott has been drowned out because people who have no real morality or intelligence when it comes to trying to change something for the better. Because people like headkase(who I have a feeling is probably still in his teens) choose to pirate things that aren't exactly how they want it, people who actually have a backbone and simply refuse to buy it are instead ignored by those who would have the ability to actually make changes. To the publishers and developers, people aren't buying new products because they just don't want to pay for them, rather than the fact that many of us actually don't like developers and publishers stripping features out of games that have long been a mainstay in the industry.
So, I must say, thanks headkase. Get off of your soapbox and actually do something, if you care so much about it. Don't just talk about it. And don't say you are liberating artists when you are only stealing. You don't actually care about copyright. You only care about being a mouthpiece for pirates who want to make it seem like they are the good guys. If all the pirates in the world simply stopped pirating, and simply didn't buy the products they despise so much, the various **IAs would have much of their argument simply stripped away, and real change could happen. But no, you are greedy. So, thank you, for contributing to the death of culture.
I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.
Yes, manipulation is a tool. However, reading The Prince does not automatically make you a good manipulator, debator, or leader. To become powerful in these skills, one must practice, debating anything and everything from all points of view. You must be able to debate your point of view as well as your strongest enemy's point of view with equal passion and knowledge. You must read constantly, gaining knowledge of all sides of a debate. You must talk with people on the opposite side of the debate, to find out why they feel the way they do, and figure out (internally), how to come out over them. However, while you are talking to them, you do not try to win them over. You listen. They talk. You must engage in discussion after discussion, debate after debate, read book after book, listen to person after person.
After spending years honing your skills, you can try to lead some sort of small movement. But until you gain that necessary experience, you simply come off like a high school student who doesn't have the logical experience necessary to enact any real change on something as big as copyright. Sorry, but it is true.
I don't like Linux. This doesn't make me a troll.
No, that's pretty much it. There was only one thing I wanted to elaborate on:
Boycotting isn't the problem, so much as the motivation behind it. In order for boycotting to become effective, people need to be discontent. Right now, the many people who would be discontent if the law were enforced properly are turning to piracy. If they turned to the less comfortable option of boycotting instead, we might see some real change.
Otherwise, I think we're pretty much on the same page.
Sorry I was such a jerk. You really do do the adversarial bit well!
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.