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Feds Question Big Media's Piracy Claims
WrongSizeGlass writes "CNET is reporting that the GAO's study of big media's piracy claims has raised some questions. (Here are the study's summary, highlights [PDF], and full report [PDF].) 'After spending a year studying how piracy and illegal counterfeiting affects the United States, the Government Accountability Office says it still doesn't know for sure.... The GAO said that most of the published information, anecdotal evidence, and records show that piracy is a drag on the US economy, tax revenue, and in some cases potentially threatens national security and public health. But the problem is, according to the GAO, the data used to quantify piracy isn't reliable.'"
Frist Psot!
So... It was stolen data?
Just ask the RIAA for their data on piracy. They should have accurate information.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
Of course they're going to use whatever statistics, presented in whatever fashion, to make you think that if you don't legislate everything to maximize their old businesses model without change, that everyone will suffer for it.
It's common sense not to take the RIAA/MPAA at their word. Not just because of their previous questionable tactics (suing individuals, scare campaigns,etc.), and how wrong they have been(like the MPAA saying that the VHS would be "the Boston Strangler" of the film industry when it expanded their market tremendously)... they're going to hate anything that, in their view, has a negative impact on their revenue.
Big media piracy question Feds.
Get used to it. Capitalism is dead. Corporate socialism is alive and well.
You know, despite the seemingly ultranerdy reputation of Dungeons and Dragons, there are actually quite a few un-nerdy people who play it. Skipping past a slew of big names, I think one super-cool, hyper-athletic example is enough. Vin Diesel. This guy, who plays total badasses in his movies, is actually a laid back D&D player in his spare time.
How can you effectively attack a position without a comprehensive understanding of it? If you want to say piracy is not leading to a decline in sales, then you need real numbers to back it up. For all the vitriol we throw around here on /., there is a whole lot of anecdotal posturing, but not a whole lot of solid numbers. The same goes both ways, of course, and I'm ecstatic to see the GAO investigating these claims.
Let's lay myths to rest. The truth is where we must start from, not from our foundation of biases. As long as you think that D&D is just for loser nerds, you'll never be able to understand the game and its enthusiastic audience.
No more going to china town to get great dim sum and a new movie for a buck. .... Xie xie Mr. Wong
Of all the things I've lost; I miss my mind the most. - Mark Twain
Should piracy claims include finding copies of "Star Trek" on hard drives you bought as Best Buys?
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
n/t
apparently they werent able to fill that agency full to the brim with lobby endorsed appointees yet.
Read radical news here
Let's say that I leave my 1995 Toyota Corolla running outside the Best Buy one day. I come back with my $4 copy of "The Frighteners" to find that my car has been STOLEN! I then file a police report that says my car was worth $6 million... would I be busted for filing a false police report?
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
I'd bet that the RIAA's settlement devouring extortion machine is doing more damage to the economy than the piracy is...
So much for not biting the hand that feeds you.... Hmm, maybe they're just trying to get them to up their bribes, sorry I mean campaign contributions to match that of the pharmaceutical industry, then they'll release an update stating that it's even worse then they thought.
Any self-serving statistic which sounds too big for the group that it's associated with is false. 40% losses from piracy? Unrealistic. 25% of all American women have been raped? Not even close (there'd be more rape victims than all other crimes in most jurisdictions then).
Translation: threatens secret "negotiations" and smoke filled rooms.
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
Correct if I'm wrong, but doesn't the report mostly concern forged counterweight products and forged products that are sold as genuine? Sure, this also includes the good old pirate dvds that are sold, but it doesn't seem to give much attention to p2p pirating and such. It's mostly about pharmaceutical products.
...the data used to quantify piracy isn't reliable.
Um, I'm not sure how to say "DUH!" without sounding like a smartass so, well, let's just call me a smartass.
DUH!
Seriously, of course the data is unreliable - it was paid for by the media corporations in an obscure and twisted mass circle of references that would make any academia's head spin. I hope and pray that this investigation is treated seriously and delves deep enough to find the truth that the numbers that the media corporations have been bandying about for years now are all bogus.
I think everyone would be fine discussing piracy and it's impact on the industries involved just so long as _REAL AND ACCURATE_ numbers were used rather than the trumped up bullshit that we've seen so far.
I think you may be assuming something about D&D players. I never played myself, but I remember seeing people turn it into a full-contact sport.
(Just a matter of fact that I never played it. If I had, I wouldn't be ashamed to say so. Just never really got the chance.)
Oh, and that's a really bad analogy, guy.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
So basically, The Man is now arguing against The Other Man. Sweet.
In addition to the fact that most "piracy" numbers are little more than self-serving bullshit, still warm from the asses of entertainment lobbyists from which they were pulled, is the fact that they all too frequently aggregate multiple flavors of "piracy", each with its own distinct properties.
For instance, the only way that "piracy" in the sense of "bittorrent kiddies" can threaten public health is by lowering the cost of sedentary entertainment that helps make us lardasses. On the other hand, "piracy" in the sense of "misrepresenting your sugar pills as some copyrighted/trademarked drug" can and does kill people. Similarly, the idea that bittorrent kiddies are of the slightest use to organized crime is silly. If anything, they are the lower-cost competition. On the other hand, buying poorly-copied DVDs from the shady looking street vendor probably does funnel money in dubiously savory directions.
I assume that this aggregation is largely intentional, allowing a sort of "rhetorical shuffle", where the scariest aspects of each flavor can be pulled out in turn, to create a composite that sounds far worse than it is. Talking about prevalence? Use numbers drawn from casual internet piracy and schoolyard swapping of burned CDs. Talking about risks to life and health? Answer as though all "piracy" involved fake medicine. Playing the "gangs and terrorists" angle? describe all piracy as though it were being conducted commercially by cartels. If you slip from one to the next, without ever clearly distinguishing them, you can fairly easily create an impression that "piracy" has all the worst attributes of its sub-elements.
The GAO needs to say, in very explicit terms, just what they are referring to as piracy. For instance, are they talking about the folk that knock off DVDs, repackage them in semi-legitimate looking boxes by the thousands, and pawn them off on the streets and on Ebay? Or are they talking about the folk that torrent [Insert Latest Blockbuster Title Here]. The summary and highlights both talk about risks and issues such as pirated, knock-off pharmaceuticals being a safety problem (although the scope of the issue, they admit, is hard to determine). That's all fine and dandy and more data and investigation certainly does need to be conducted.
However, the GAO needs to be very strict in saying that, "These harmful effects are caused, particularly, by these harmful activities." Using the blanket term piracy just screams for some bastards at the RIAA/MPAA to hold up investigations like this in some PR forum and say, "See, it really is a problem, we're not just pissing into the wind! Neener, neener, neener," when, in fact, the investigation may be looking into an entirely different market, like the above cited case of pharmaceuticals. I don't have the time to read the full report, yet, but I hope the GAO will be responsible enough to be very clear about which activities, precisely, seem to be correlated with which results. The less they use the term, "piracy," which is a term that has been completely bloated, raped, and thrashed over the past decade or so, the better.
Of course, this is just my opinion.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
Its no secret that the RIAA/MPAA have been putting up fake torrents to catch pirates for years. When you take that into account, you can easily inflate the number of "pirates" to near unrealistic numbers.
Company A sets up a torrent hosting a fake copy of Avatar with 1000 seeds, 10000 leechers and 1,000,000 completed downloads.
Company B does a basic search for "Avatar torrent", sees Company A's torrent and records it.
Company C, which owns Company A and Company B, then goes to the U.S. government and claims "We lost over a MILLION Avatar sales from piracy! We demand a government bailout!"
the data used to quantify piracy isn't reliable
Ya think, DiNozzo?
Mods, are you sure about that?
Unconventional, maybe. But certainly not off-topic.
I don't begin to understand why this report was put out, specifically while the ACTA talks are currently ongoing. A part of me wants to believe that this is another bright flash of hope in the otherwise murky sea that is US politics, but i find myself considering how this could possibly benefit the "citizens^2" that are corporate entities. It's a sad day when a single act of (seemingly) intelligence on behalf of my government is automatically met with suspicion and doubt.
While i'm sure this isn't the case, but it would be nice if this was a sign of the **AA's, either not having the money to buy out (enough) government officials, or not having enough money to ask, what i can assume to be intelligent people (there are some in politics), to blind themselves to reality.
With that said i have a small garden of apathy i need to tend to.
"There's no doubt that the music industry has declined significantly over the last 10 years," Lamy said. "Countless studies have blamed this on the fact that millions of people have been getting their music for free online. That has translated to thousands of lost jobs in the industry and that's undeniable."
I get music for free online!
I get free samples from iTunes every week.
I get free music from magnatune.com every day.
I get free samples distributed directly by the artists and advertised on 3hive.com.
I don't buy as many CDs because there's so much legally distributed good music online. I buy music online as well, but not as much as I used to buy CDs, and I usually only buy a couple of tracks instead of the whole album. So I don't need to pirate music for my demand for the traditional music distributor's high-overhead services to go down.
I don't buy a newspaper any more, because I get better and more timely news online, some through reprinted wire services, some through independent journalists. I'm not "pirating news" any more than I'm "pirating music". I can see how this is a problem, but it's not a problem that's going to be solved by writing stricter laws or putting people into jail... or by charging newspaper prices for digital news. The internet makes distributing information more efficient. Businesses based on a percentage of older more expensive distribution mechanisms are going to have to change or adapt... but trying to use the law to attack a decreasingly important part of the problem isn't going to solve it. It's not going to magically become more expensive to distribute bits... it's going to get cheaper. There's going to be less and less overhead to get your margin from as the industry gets more efficient.
Piracy affects distribution sales somewhat, yes. But the other half of what recording companies do is promotion, which involves controlling how new artists appear on the scene and building up their audience by airing stuff on the radio, movies, and elsewhere. Cultural art like music and movies don't really follow the classic supply/demand rules... the more people are exposed to a song (that doesn't suck too much) the more it enters their consciousness and they want to hear it again. So really they can make or break an artist merely by planning their promotion schedule and exposure, a measure of control they probably don't want to give up.
A pretty good way to save on entertainment expenses is simply to not listen to the radio or watch TV. I've barely had any impulse to buy any album or movie for the past few years, and also no budget for entertainment.
Some time ago I did start listening to some internet radio, and ended up hunting down and purchasing stuff from some artists I found I liked. But without exposure to the promotion, either through piracy or through encountering the music on the radio or ads or wherever, the product had no demand from or apparent value to me. So I believe it's more the cultural control that the RIAA is intent on protecting, rather than the distribution revenue. Piracy erodes more at their control of cultural contributions through authorized channels than at their sales revenue (which mostly goes to people without the money budgeted to buy the retail version anyway, and which only serves to increase their interest in the product).
They're approaching this all wrong.... IP law needs to be rewritten to protect the future rather than the past; attitudes need to change so that people choose retail over piracy or counterfeit because they want to somehow support the artist's future work, and some approach should still allow the freeloaders to freeload, since not much is going to change them and the present-day battle for their mindshare is probably worth more than their walletshare.
I think you misread the summary. The GAO is saying that while there are lots of reports that show piracy is this big problem, those reports are based on studies that are total BS. The RIAA/MPAA most certainly does not want anyone pointing to this.
Also, the article in the first link says that the GAO investigation is looking into *all* forms of piracy, other than the Somalian kind of course.
So copyright infringement of entertainment content is now possibly a threat to National Security?
What fucking world did I just wake up to?
If you can't trust gigantic corporations that make their money off of producing artificial scarcity from imaginary property, who can you trust?
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
But can we trust the ones that are potentially discounting the 'unreliable' data? Truly everyone knows that one in 7.2 government employees is a Sasquatch. And if they're hiding that from us, what else are they less than truthsome about?
it would be interesting if they did a study on how much more people buy when they are able to try it first. Anecdotal evidence of big media's best Customers are also the ones they are labeling pirates. I bet even if there was no internet they would not get many more sales from these Customers.
once upon a time, there was this communist terrorist unpatriotic business model called "radio"
they would play songs, get this, FOR FREE. anyone could hear it without having to pay money and signing away their rights! can you imagine something so socialist and unamerican?!
then this would create DEMAND for more of the artist's product
of course, in the era of radio, the demand was for vinyl and cassette tapes
but here's the funny thing:
in the age of the internet, the "radio" is the browser and the listening area is the entire world
and the publisher IS THE ARTIST HIM/HERSELF. no distributor needed
and the demand created is for paid concert gigs, advertising endorsements, personalized content, etc.
what is this wacky unamerican world?
i would think it best be called a free and unfettered marketplace: unfettered by an OLIGOPOLY or a MONOPOLY
see the big lie, RIAA, is you are not preserving american financial interests. you are preserving an entrenched oligopoly that simply isn't needed anymore in the age of the internet, and your death means more free and unfettered capitalism, without any oversight and intrusion. i think some people call this "american"
imagine that
corporate interests != free market. and as any student of economic history knows, the true enemy of capitalism is not communism or socialism, it is monopolies and oligopolies strangling the market to dominate it
in short RIAA: the interests you defend represent a distribution economy which has been rendered technologically obsolete, AND you hamper the free market place, AND now you wish to intrude on individual rights enshrined in our constitution in order to preserve your technologically obsolete business model. how about this instead: FUCK OFF AND DIE ALREADY
you've been rendered obsolete. deal with it and die. that is your only fate, whether you accept it or not. it does not reflect well on you to be so thoroughly and inevitably defeated and not know it yet
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
into that equation? I am sure some statistics can be made up about pirated media converting into incremental sales that otherwise would not have happened. What about media that got advertised because it was pirated, what was the ROI on that vs the insane rates legitimate advertisers charge? Quantify!
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own.
to protect the future rather than the past"
most insightful 14 words i've heard so far this year
i would like to coopt, exploit, and otherwise steal your brilliant campaign slogan, with attribution of course ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Read the actual report. The big "piracy" problem is fake copies of shoes and handbags. That isn't even a copyright issue; that's a trademark issue.
You can legally copy garments; the only legal protection is for logos. So it's not even about the design.
I'm glad the GAO is treating piracy as what it is. Downloading of content from the Internet for personal consumption is not piracy.
creating physical media copies of infringed content IS one form of piracy.
I'm glad the GAO actually takes seriously the real threats posed by counterfeiting of goods like pharmaceuticals and luxury items.
They're using their grammar skills there.
I'm very very confused. Your link is to a Lady Gaga video - "Telephone". Not that I'm against seeing hot chicks dancing and Gaga's music is pretty damn good (she's actually a very gifted classical musician), but what's your point?
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
The GAO needs to say, in very explicit terms, just what they are referring to as piracy.
Let's see... from page 6 of the report:
“Pirated copyright goods” refer to any goods that are copies made without the consent of the right holder or person duly authorized by the right holder. “Counterfeit goods” refer to any goods, including packaging or bearing without authorization, a trademark that is identical to a trademark validly registered for those goods, or that cannot be distinguished in its essential aspects from such a trademark, and that, thereby, infringes the rights of the owner of the trademark in question.
That wasn't too hard, was it?
What always bothers me is how the industry (take your pick) claims it as a "lost sale" every time something is pirated.
Admittedly, sales are lost, to some degree. But let me ask you this. Would you really pay $600 for Adobe Photoshop if you couldn't pirate it elsewhere? If the answer is "YES", then it's a lost sale. If the answer is "Hell no, I don't use it enough for it to be worth $600 to me", then it isn't. Now, as the price of legitimate purchases goes down, maybe the numbers are (a little) more realistic, but I doubt it.
So the GAO is setting its sights on big media's piracy FUD machine? Hurrah! I can see it now: The GAO or some other trustworthy government organization that's outside of the music/film industries' influence will oversee a comprehensive study done on the matter. After gladly washing down this hardy serving of humble pie with a cold glass of milk, big media will offer up their entire content library for free over streaming HTML5 video in OGG 1080p with a bit of help from axxo and the gang. As for this ACTA? It'll have a public funeral at last (despite already having the support of more powerful government agencies and branches) at which US, Chinese, AU, EU, the Pope, Muslim leaders and other world and religious leaders will get together and announce an end to nuculear proliferation, a way to kill global warming faster than Orkin kills roaches, and a cure for world hunger that involves magical gum-drops of some sort...
falsehoods, half truths, and fallacies: no
tell me exactly where my depiction is logically incorrect, and i will correct myself, or, in the spirit of my glorious immaturity, fuck off
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Also, the article in the first link says that the GAO investigation is looking into *all* forms of piracy, other than the Somalian kind of course.
Awesome! I'm going to start up a Somalia-based DVD copying operation, and I'll totally fly under their radar!
The enemies of Democracy are
No, I got that in the summary and in the linked to PDFs. My point was that I don't think either the RIAA or the MPAA are ethical enough to keep themselves from citing the first part of this study of evidence of a big problem. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to quote the first half of the summary that acknowledges that current data shows piracy is a problem. Then, by conveniently not mentioning the latter part of the study that acknowledges such data is inaccurate, any agency can pretty easily say, "See, we have this government sponsored investigation that quite clearly states...."
Context is everything, and if there is one thing that PR firms have demonstrated time and again its that they can spin up negative publicity by removing whatever context they want. We see news shows and corporations and other entities do this all the time. These tactics, I would wager, are far from being below the RIAA/MPAA.
That said, I am hoping the GAO reiterates their second point, that current studies are total BS, enough times throughout the report that such clever presentation tactics would be moot.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
I'd seriously like to know. If they honestly believe piracy is hurting their business and that their data is sound, they should put it on their taxes as a business loss. The IRS will sort it out.
I don't have the time to read the full report, yet...
Thanks for your patience...
;)
Now, that said, no matter how important you think you are, nothing in your post was worthy enough to require an anonymous coward posting. Take off the mask.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
in regards to the part of radio i am actually talking about
you are talking about another part of real radio, that has nothing to do with the analogy, nor the subject matter at hand
even then, your description is wrong: look up payola
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola
i mean sure, you also use broadcast towers in radio, but there are no broadcast towers on the internet, therefore my analogy is invalid
right?!
welcome to logic fail
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
News at 11!
You mean, the data supplied by the **AAs, BSA, IIPA and the like is "not reliable"?
Come on! You're kidding me! That has to be a joke!
If I download and watch last nights / last weeks episode of the must see HBO miniseries of the moment, should it be piracy if I am an HBO subscriber?
How about watching the new Dr. Who before it is shown in the US, even though I do get BBC America?
Or that one scene from the opening of some 1980's sitcom?
Now here is another one, how is it different to watch the streaming version of hit show of the moment on Hulu brought to you with no commercial interruptions vs. downloading the torrent of the same show and watching it when I don't have a broadband connection?
As I see it this is all about control, you will watch the show how and when the media companies want you to, and while some are making attempts to change, this world is so alien to them that don't understand the problems with their "on demand" options. For example what good does it do to post the old episodes of your show online with a 2 week delay, people can never get caught up if they miss an episode. Alternatively posting a streaming version of last weeks episode only will only allow for current followers of the show to see what they missed, worse yet much of the time rerun episodes count as "last weeks" episode.
It is time for a change in the way programming is made and paid for, for network shows, realize commercial breaks as we know them will not work, let everyone share the content, but produce it in a way so that the "pirates" will want to include the advertisements. Perhaps product placement has its place here, have the actor drink a "coke" instead of generic "drink", maybe have sneak peak, behind the scenes trivia scrollers below the commercials. Just do something other than trying to hold back the flood as your head is going under water.
You also have to be careful of how the terms are defined. Most of the scenarios used for that rape stat back in the less PC 80s aren't legally rape **TODAY**! I've often wondered how many "lost sales" are actually things like someone buy a single copy of a CD and sharing it with their immediate family.
The Department of No! Really?
With Support from
The Department of Apparently the Govt is not *entirely* full of retarded monkeys.
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
...and find them totally justified, installation telescreens approved.
But... the future refused to change.
They can use whatever numbers they like because the only numbers the politicians are interested in is how much they get paid by the media corporations.
Considering there is likely a direct correlation between how much money the media corporations make, and how much money they are willing to use to bribe politicians, I am pretty sure you are stuck forever in a positive feedback loop.
Have fun with that. Also stop trying to drag those of us north of the border down with you!
When DVDs became more popular and fell in price, I found that I could get a full 2 hour movie on DVD for $20, while a 45 minute music only CD cost $17. I began to buy more movies than music, and my personal CD consumption fell. I don't know how many others out there were like me, but I doubt I'm alone. I frequently wondered how many folks like me were fueling record companies claims that CD sales slumps had to be caused by piracy.
Now, for the last several years I've been witnessing format wars between Blu-Ray and HDVD, both of which are poising to replace DVDs and convince me to buy my collection of movies a second time. Blu-Ray has "won" the format war, only to be threatened by streaming video and digital distribution. For the last several years I've been reluctant to invest in DVDs that may soon become obsolete, or to invest in new technology such as BluRay (for which I'm also not comfortable with certain consumer-unfriendly aspects). I don't like the modern DRM models either, so I find myself not buying movies anymore and instead rent and stream through services like NetFlix.
Again, I wonder how many people are like me, and how many "lost sales" that are blamed on piracy have absolutely nothing to do with piracy.
And that's even before considering inflated numbers, people who download digital copies of media they already own physical copies to, people who are only downloading because it's "free" and would not buy anyway, and fake torrents planted by copyright holders themselves to trap pirates.
Piracy is an easy scapegoat.
Don't go to the feds whining if you are lying about your data, and don't pay them enough to ignore the facts.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
and the demand created is for paid concert gigs
Not unless you've been out of high school for a few years. Self-publishing bands are more likely to play in "bars", or venues that make much of their money from sales of beverages adulterated with ethyl alcohol. If your music is popular among high school students or college underclassmen, what kind of "etc." are you talking about?
The RIAA/MPAA are manipulating you into using valuable federal resources and tax-dollars to prop up their business model (kinda like wall street bail-outs). In effect, they are hi-jacking the Federal Government and using it to their own ends, kinda like a Pirate would hi-jack a ship and use it to make money.
Please investigate.
Sincerely,
Peasant-gleaning-the-field
Let A be the profit our product is supposed to be making. A = USD 1.213*10^9, a number arrived through careful examination and economic theory, as well as the realization that I really like money.
Let B be the profit our product is actually making. This is obviously unrealistically low; we deserve to earn far more money than that. Also, I like money (see A).
The losses due to piracy are calculated by subtracting B from A.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2008/10/dodgy-digits-behind-the-war-on-piracy.ars/1
very interesting!
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
and the answer is "very little, if any $"
and then i ask you: so what? how has anything changed?
this is the way it has always been, and always will be: a few artists make millions, the other 99% struggle in obscurity. the internet doesn't change this
except... it does
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Tail
with the internet and the new economic phenomenon the long tail that the internet makes possible, all those little acts that in previous eras would be cut out of the action, now they get action. they're not all going to become millionaires, but they'll make 5 figures rather 4 figures, or 6 figures rather than 5 figures, or even 4 figures rather 3 figures is nice even
with no riaa ownership trolling of our culture, the fringe just got more lucrative, in aggregate, than a world where you only got ANY exposure if you signed a distribution deal (and even then, you were usually screwed: only the HUGEST hits had any bargaining power with the distributors)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
you are making an observation about a completely separate issue
if someone hands out free gum they made as product sample, and a store hands out free gum as product sample, but reimburses the gum manufacturer, there is NO DIFFERENCE as far as the relationship with the CONSUMER goes
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Once many years ago, someone I know left two brand-new Windows Millennium Edition boxes in his car while he went to get groceries. When he got back, his car had been broken into, almost all his music CDs were gone*, but there were four more copies of Windows ME on the seat along with a thank you note.
*For some strange reason, his Celine Dion collection was untouched...
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
In the report, they do distinguish between what they term "counterfitting" and "piracy." Unfortunately, their definition of piracy is still overbroad, referring to making any unauthorized copy (which, as we should know, is not always illegal).
The report is good in pointing out that none of the Internet-based piracy "research" is reliable, specifically looking at numbers the Government claims, the BSA, and the MPAA studies.
The report still says that despite these weaknesses, piracy is a problem.
In this recession, even the Feds can't afford to buy Photoshop.
why does money have to change hands anywhere? this is an assumption you are making and then arguing from that assumption
i make a song, i put it on the intartubes, and it gets popular, then i announce a gig, and people show up: THAT'S when money first has to enter the picture
in other words, with the internet, artist=distributor. the distributor has simply been made technologically obsolete, further rushing into obsolescence by insisting everyone play by rules and laws that ONLY WORK IN THE WORLD BEFORE THE INTERNET
now of course empty op acts will still exist, and promoters will amp up pop acts to drum up demand. and they will fill arenas and make gobs of money for doing that. but what they CAN'T do anymore is insist on paywalls for that act's recorded music. simply because its unenforceable, and simply because it makes less business sense in the internet world: like radio, free songs are how the act gets attention. think of recorded music as advertising for pop acts for gigs, advertising, personalized content, etc., in the internet age
the cassette/ vinyl model of FORCING people to pay for what they can get for free is simply dead. the internet killed that business model
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
the greatest enemy, throughout economic history, of capitalism, is not communism and socialism, it is oligopolies and monopolies. IN THE NAME OF capitalism, you must fight large corporations buying off your government
entrenched corporate interests warp the marketplace by buying off legislators to consolidate their power. entrenched corporate interests have an impulse to strangle the marketplace to reduce their risk, by warping the rules in their favor, big players. but all they do is DESTROY THE MARKETPLACE
if you are a true capitalist, a true believer in the free marketplace, know this: your greatest enemy is large corporations, and SECONDARILY, the government, only in so far that large corporations use and buy off the government to further their interests
you keep the market free by keeping the players honest. when the largest players use their heft to crush the little guys, the free market is warped and destroyed
the greatest free market capitalist is a monopoly and oligopoly buster
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
i know what a fallacy is
now explain the fallacy i have committed. your failure to substantiate your accusation means you are smearing me without an ability to back up or even understand what you are accusing me of. simply saying "this is a fallacy" without explaining WHY it is a fallacy has no meaning
make a coherent logical argument against my words or shut the fuck up. drop the name calling and smears. i believe there is a word for this sort of failure in logic in rhetorical argument where one makes a claim without backing the judgment up. i leave it to your vast genius to find the link for me on nizkor.org for what that exotic logical concept is. pfffffffft
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What is really happening is that our language and standards of reference are being "dumbed-down" so to speak.
Lawyers are the only voices you hear that are trying to tell you that "artistic property" (substitute music and movies)
is actually "Intellectual Property". Excuse me, but your clients include Snoop Dog and Barbra Streisand. Therefore,
you CANNOT call it "Intellectual Property". It might be considered "artistic property" to some social groups that are
less encumbered by the "intelligent" thought process.... Maybe...(Honestly, music and movies are ENTERTAINMENT!
THAT'S ALL)
The real point is that patents expire, but copyrights can be inherited. And lawyers love them!
Look up ACTA, the same legal tactic that failed badly in a recent Euro-Parliament vote of 633 to 13.
Most Americans don't realize how much of our GDP goes to the care-and-feeding of lawyers, usually extracted from
the cost of doing business in the U.S. Legal cost for business in the U.S. is 2 to 3 times the rate of all the G8
countries. Remember, lawyers don't "produce" anything, and in a lot of ways the are quite parasitic. The real
problem comes when our politician-lawyers (current President included) disgorge huge amounts of fodder to
powerful and wealthy civilian-lawyers, that will force all ISPs to monitor everyone for any copyrighted media.
I think it's time to bring "copyrights" into perspective and limit them, just like patents, and stop feeding the lawyers.
This study will never reach a reasonable conclusion because it is trying to summarize the effects of two distinct not necessarily related issues.
If I download a copy of [insert song] from the interwebs and it is as performed by the original artist, to me that is not counterfeit. Now if I went into Big Box Buy, grabbed the latest Green Day CD, payed for it and when I play it in my car in the parking lot I find the CD contains Rick Astley covering Green Day songs instead, that would be counterfeit but not pirated.
Additionally FTA they say that the effects are negative for the consumer and that is really only correct for counterfeiting. If I buy a good and it's a fake that causes health problems etc. then yes I lost. If however I don't pay for it and still obtain the product through digital piracy then I've experienced no loss regardless of whether it is genuine or not.
The GAO needs to break it up and separately study counterfeiting and piracy because Counterfeit != Pirated