Slashdot Mirror
You Will Never Kill Piracy
scottbomb writes "This is perhaps the best op-ed I've read about the whole SOPA/PIPA controversy. The author challenges Hollywood to re-think their entire business model. It will undoubtedly fall on deaf ears, for now. But sooner or later, they will have no choice but to adapt. From the article: 'Now that the SOPA and PIPA fights have died down, and Hollywood prepares their next salvo against internet freedom with ACTA and PCIP, it's worth pausing to consider how the war on piracy could actually be won. It can't, is the short answer, and one these companies do not want to hear as they put their fingers in their ears and start yelling.'"
Just like modding me down won't kill goatse, you'll never stop piracy. You may sink their ships but we will just equip better cannons on our new ones.
http://takedownpiracy.com/2012/01/another-one-bites-the-dust/
The guy has made it his job to DOS sites with DMCA takedown notices till they shut down
If more people like this start infiltrating private torrent sites, it could cause a major issue
The world has changed but they hasn't and they ain't gonna change because they are still raking in shitloads of $$$ doing what they had been doing for the past century
I'd wager that it'd be like a repeat of what is happening to Kodak - by the time Hollywood decides to change, it'd be way too late
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
But that's never stopped us before!
And nothing happens. While I commend the writer for articulating what is wrong with the current movie industry model, the reality is that Hollywood is hell bent on preserving their business model. For good reason too, most of Hollywood are distributors. The distributors are the ones that pay for the movie, the marketing, and shoving it down the throats of consumers. They're middle men protecting their business. Change the distribution model and you'll hear the sucking sound of Hollywood companies drying up. Studios aren't strapped with tons of cash to pay for hit movies on their own, so you'll have fewer movies being made. No one in Hollywood has any incentive to change the current model, and unlike the music industry that got dragged into the 21st century, or the game industry that has adapted to every new platform to survive, the movie industry consumers lack any desire to force a business model change or adaption. Tthe closest thing to adaption is Netflix and recent price hikes are an indicator that the distributors will kill it before giving the consumers what they want.
...it is that tremendous progress has been made in the field of anonymous file sharing technology. If the folks from the music/movie industry hadn't pushed so hard to prevent piracy, we would still be on Napster. But instead we now have very advanced things like the BitTorrent protocol, equipped with encryption, magnet links, DHT and PEX. And it's not just the geeks who are using these advanced file sharing technologies either, it's ordinary people. All in all quite an achievement.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Sure, they will never make it so that it is completely impossible for a few people to do.
But they have more then enough lobbying power to make the consequences of being caught so severe and the internet so monitored that piracy is so underground that 99% cannot find it and would not take the risk if they did.
It might not help their profit margin to do this as much as they think, but they are mega corporations and they at least have a chance at doing whatever they want.
While they might not be able to do so in any reasonably free and fair society or under current US law, but that will not necessarily stop them.
Hell, I would not bet against them if they launched a coup to physically take over the government and impose a tyranny in the US and put the current administrations heads on spikes outside of the whitehouse.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Studios live on a strong distribution model where they control the vast majority of the content and the distribution channels. Any tool that is viable for "piracy" is also viable by independent distributors as well. While I don't condone copyright infringement I think studios are more interested in their long term viability than to protect their content from "piracy". I expect similar behavior from the major publishing houses in the next couple of years as ebooks break their hold on the distribution channels.
>His solution seems to be "Give everything away for free, then it won't get stolen".
Do you know how I know you didn't read the article all the way through?
--
BMO
We have been saying this from within the industry for 5 years. Why are we paying truck drivers to haul blu-rays to store shelves when we could be using the internet to deliver the movies for 1/100th the cost? Not only is putting a blu-ray on a store shelf inherently risky (essentially a master copy of the movie) but it costs MONEY to produce, deliver, and manage, Make the movies cheap, remove DRM, use the technology to help figure out where the movies are going so that you can optimally sell merchandise... seems like a winner to me and to many others but apparently not to the people in charge.
The op ed is missing one quite critical point. The movie industries aren't sitting here fighting piracy because they don't know the way forward. They don't sit there because they are dinosaurs and luddites who have no idea how technology works.
They sit in their 1990s era thinking because despite everything which is changed, and everything which is conspiring against them from the modern age piracy front they are making money. No actually I take that back. They are making a SHITLOAD of money. When you have a magic machine that spits out $100 bills why tinker with it at all? Until the bills stop coming out why mess with it? Someone opposes the machine, don't adapt your machine to them, attempt to crush them.
It's all good an fine to sit here and claim they are dinosaurs for not getting with the times, but lets face it, the vast majority of us would do anything to maintain our status quo, if that status quo involved having a butter polish your shoes using the face of Benjamin Franklin.
The fact the war can't be won has never stopped them before: See the "War on Drugs", "War on Terror", "War on Poverty", etc.
They became DMCA-compliant and didn't see this coming? The sites practically killed themselves.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
If it's possible to make a movie and sell it cheaply online, with no DRM, and still make a profit as the article suggests why hasn't anyone done that successfully?
It's the distribution channel, my friend
Tell me, currently what are the distribution channel for movies, and how do they distribute them?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Grant copyright protection for max say 10 years instead of (de-facto) 100/forever, provide your content via the internet, without region locks or DRM for reasonable prices. People will buy, humanity will profit.
Spot on on pretty much all counts, and this from someone who doesn't download anything illegally :)
Xerox machines are equipped with a mechanism to stop bank-notes from being copied.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation
So, unless the masses are going to build their own audio and video decoder chips, the content industry could use various types of watermarks to prevent piracy.
Sad, but I guess that's what we're ultimately up against.
More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coded_Anti-Piracy
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
I'd bet he didn't RTFA at all.
But the "cheap and DRM-free" AKA "compete with piracy" argument has been around for about a decade, I wonder if none of the execs have seen it or if they're all just rock-fuck stupid?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
You Will Never Kill Piracy
These copyright laws are not about protecting artists from piracy, they are about expanding the for-profit prison industry.
Let's not full ourselves, the "piracy" issue is just as stupid as believing that the War on Drugs stops people from smoking marijuana.
These copyright agendas use the same principals as Microsoft's "embrace, extend and extinguish" corporate mantra. It's all about one class of people dominating another class of people.
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corrections_Corporation_of_America
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=867
http://mediafilter.org/MFF/Prison.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend_and_extinguish
Most piracy is based on poorly implemented encryption due to slow processors. Next Gen hardware will be able to run encryption algorithms that don't have a gazillion assembly optimization in them. The XBox, PS3, current gen TVs & Blu Ray players couldn't. Once that happens, pop. No more piracy.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I reported him to the IC3 and FBI. He's going to have fun. Moron, DOS and DDOSing is against the law. Taking any type of vigilante action is also against the law.
And no one rational says it is. But even though you can't stop rape and murder you only punish the culprits, not the taxi driver that gave them a ride. Not the guy that rents them an apartment. Not the store that sold them a butcher knife. You don't make everyone wear a RFID tag and track them 24/7. You don't put cameras in every room of every house. No, what you do is you catch the culprits and punish them. The problem with the anti-piracy people is that they seem to think it's okay to take away everyone's freedom on the internet instead of doing actual investigation and punishment of those who actually commit piracy.
I missed out on one other important factor ...
It's the government
From
* Copyright laws (change from bad to worse)
to
* Tax rebates (for producers, distributors, et al)
to
* Revolving door (former politicians becoming lobbyists)
to
* Politicians lining their pockets (with PAC contribution from Hollywood)
Why should Hollywood allow any other people to make money from alternative mean of movie production / distribution ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
He also rationalizes that downloading is okay because it's not like you actually stole a physical object - so it's not really stealing, right?
One of these things is not like the other:
Which is why we charge people with theft, rather than copyright infringement. Calling it "theft" is meant to shut down an argument against the copyright system, by equating a copyright with a form of property ownership. Copyright has never been a type of property, it exists only to benefit the public, and at this point it is not clear that copyright is the best way to ensure the public's access to art and science.
People are not going to stop using their computers to copy things; we need to accept that and move on. If we really want to save copyright as a system, then we need to punish violations the same way we punish parking violations: a small but annoying fine for each violation. Gone are the days when only people with specialized industrial equipment could possibly commit copyright infringement; the law was not designed to deal with mass numbers of people having copying equipment in their homes. If we are not talking about updating the law, then we are having the wrong conversation.
Personally, I think the whole copyright system should be scrapped, and the industries that were built on copyrights should either adapt to the new world and its new technology or die like other out of date industries. We should be using the Internet to ensure that creative work is never lost, that it never goes out of print, that it is never buried as part of an effort to maintain a corporate image, etc. A lot of people have proposed alternative systems for compensating artists; why are we not giving any of them any consideration?
Palm trees and 8
1) From the article "Right now, from the browser window in which I’m writing this article, it is possible to download and start watching a movie for free in a few swift clicks."
The argument that it is faster and easier than paying for it is false. Between Amazon, apple store, and best buy, etc. I can easily download the movie or buy it as easily as I can pirating it. Why is that an excuse for piracy? OK, you don't want DRM? That's not an excuse for piracy either. Nothing stops you from buying the actual DVD and ripping it into an avi.
2) From the article "It’s not a physical product that’s being taken. There’s nothing going missing, which is generally the hallmark of any good theft. The movie and music industries’ claim that each download is a lost sale is absurd"
Again, not true... If you didn't have the ability to download it illegally in the first place and you wanted the movie you would go buy it. Lost sale. I'm not a lawyer, but here is a potential legal argument that it is theft. The act of copying a copyright movie from one person's computer to another computer is against the copyright laws which for some reason equates to stealing (not sure how that happens though).
Who am I?
I used to pirate a lot. I was one of the first to get kicked off Napster in 2000 after Metallica got all pissy about piracy (I didn't even know I had any of their music). After a while I realized that musicians really do need to make a living too and felt that if I like their songs they deserve to be paid. While I hate that only a bit of the money goes to the musician and most goes to the company representing them I also understand that the company that gets the money is also promoting the musician (getting the songs on the radio so that I can hear them), helping them tour, getting their music to the people. Its a crappy system. If the musicians don't like it they can always not work with the record labels and go out on their own to form new labels that take a smaller cut of the money.
We are making the mistake that many losers in many conflicts have made: We think our enemy is stupid and not seing the obvious.
What if they are?
Imagine that Hollywood is as smart as us and knows everything we know. And still they are doing what they are doing. Why would it make sense?
One, it gives them time. They may know they need to change business models, but like all humans, they are risk-averse and they need time to adapt, to test out various strategies, to find the most profitable approach. At the same time, they want their revenue to continue coming in. Delaying the inevitable is sometimes a smart move, if you can use the time inbetween.
Two, making everything else illegal guarantees that they can take down the competition before it emerges. Many of the illegal online services like Napster or Megaupload were toying with the idea of going legit, because they realized that you can only get so big and so much exposure before the guys with the guns come knocking. A legal service that competes with the studios (instead of working with them, like iTunes) could emerge out of those. Can't have that, better to shut it down while it's still clearly on the illegal side.
There are probably more good reasons. Don't assume they are stupid without proof.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I think it is important to remember in all this that, much as they have gone about it the wrong way, the IP holders really do have a legitimate beef. Piracy is a crime and *can* damage their business models. They have a right to protect that. They don't have a right to violate our rights in the process, which is where I protest horrendous crap like SOPA and PIPA. You will never get rid of murderers, either. Or thieves or rapists. That doesn't mean we shouldn't prosecute them, but we have to respect their rights in the process. Same standard should go to fighting piracy.
The penguin made me do it.
What piracy has to do with SOPA and PIPA?
I'd say both. They have a reality distortion field
oh how I wish I had mod points.
(again, it will fall on deaf ears):
charge money for real world venues, cinema houses
cinema houses are dying?
consider a movie they made for a quarter billion dollars and grossed $2.8 billion dollars. "Avatar". In 2010
dead business model huh?
isn't that an amazing concept: make money in the CINEMA HOUSE
i know there is a contingent of slashdotters who say the cinema house is dead (prices, cell phone noise, crying babies, etc.). but watching a movie alone at home by yourself, no matter how palatial your AV set up (and forget your friends, nobody has friends who show up exactly when you want to watch exactly what you want) just does not compare with the pseudosocial experience of watching a movie in the dark with a crowd. we're social animals. shared reaction = heightened reaction = more pleasurable experience
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Make the movies cheap, remove DRM, use the technology to help figure out where the movies are going so that you can optimally sell merchandise... seems like a winner to me and to many others but apparently not to the people in charge.
That's a nice idea. Now go ahead and try to implement it while giving investors their returns.
It's real easy to ponitificate on how things should be done and other grand ideas but unless someone actually goes out proves that an adequate return can be made that way, it won't happen.
And the reason no one has tried is because nobody beleives that it can be done - including myself.
That's not the problem they face.
Right now Hollywood has a monopoly (through guilds and various trade unions, distribution mechanisms, etc.) on blockbuster type films. I.e., those CGI films that the Slashdot crowd (and I) enjoy. But this is changing. Foreign companies are every day getting better at making a "Hollywood" movie and it will be only a matter of time before they start distributing wholesale to the US. I'm not at artsy fartsy type, but even I can appreciate the better stories and plotlines from the typical indie film.
will never completely go away. BUT here is how to drastically reduce it. The RIAA/MPAA/Publishers need to:
STOP going after the folks that download a few mp3s, movies, or ebooks. Go after the pirates who sell hundreds of thousands or millions of illegal copies!
STOP buying draconian legislation that only hurts legitimate customers and threatens the internet!
STOP treating your paying customers like criminals with DRM. DRM doesn't stop or even slightly slow down the big piracy operations, it only hurts legitimsate paying customers!
STOP all the regional restrictions BS!
STOP screwing and ripping off the Artists/Authors/content creaters!
START producing high quality, DRM-FREE content that people want. Price it reasonably, and make it easy to get over the internet.
START adapting to changing technology and thr real world!
Piracy cannot be legislated away, it cannot be sued out of existance. The only real solution is to give the customers what they want, when they want it, at a price they consider reasionable, with as little hastle as possible. I know that the above mentioned entities (and their clones around the world) don't want to hear this. If they don't start listening, eventually they will go away. They are already starting to be seen as the un-necessary parasites that they are.
If people can see it or hear it. It will be copied.
Most piracy is based on poorly implemented encryption due to slow processors. Next Gen hardware will be able to run encryption algorithms that don't have a gazillion assembly optimization in them. The XBox, PS3, current gen TVs & Blu Ray players couldn't. Once that happens, pop. No more piracy.
NOPE.
Suppose I want to watch a movie in the privacy of my own home, and movie distributor 'protects' that movie using strong encryption. In order to display it on my equipment, @ some point it will have to be decrypted. At worst, inside tamper-proofed IC's directly embedded in a TV/monitor. But still, encrypted data will have to go there, and decryption key will have to go there.
So one way or the other end-user will have both data and decryption key inside the walls of his/her house. Read: millions of copies of that data + millions of decryption keys scattered all around the world. And among those end-users, a small percentage (but potentially still large number) of 'hackers', some of who will have extensive technical means & knowledge to intercept that key and/or decrypted data. And if only one of those does it, that's enough. Think 'analog hole', but extended to digital media.
If you think stronger encryption will change that game, you don't understand the mechanism. If you think that will stop piracy some day, you're naive / silly / stupid.
Just like you won't ever kill robbery!
Come on, be serious!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
Because the alternative is copyright tax, and it is by it's nature a closed budget system, so there's no growth potential for the industry.
The other advantage of this model suggested in the article is that it opens up the demographic again.
Currently, there's generally pretty much only two types of movies being made: 1. big studio movies that get general release and are deliberately targeted at the average under 25's (big, loud, dumb, and 3d where possible) -- this being the only significant viable cinema-going audience, and 2. niche art house movies that are only designed to appeal to movie students, critics, film buffs, and the clinically depressed.
These are the only two viable production models under the current distribution system. If you are over 25 and don't really want to watch some angst-ridden, slow, dreary, politically-correct, mirror on society, nobody is making movies you want to see right now.
Say, for example, a movie like the Sand Pebbles. That movie would be impossible to make in the current market. Unless you either, slashed the budget so it took place in a few rooms, or if you cast Shia LeDouche, Mila Kunis and had lots of car chases in 3d in it. There's no way a movie will make any money at all unless it's either mass appeal, or funded by some European government socialist film fund. We will never see another Sand Pebbles, nor 2001 A Space Oddysey, nor anything by Robert Altman, nor any similar movie, under the current system.
However, if you broadened the distribution system away from cinemas and DVDs, it is possible to target adults again, and release an whole range of genres. It would be like the late 60's and 70's where big-name directors and big stars could experiment, and produce art that was also extremely entertaining (rather than dreary and narcissistic, like the current art house crap).
I just read that linked article and some of the comments following.
Person in question apparently does this as a paid job, and claims to be agent of various copyright holders to take down material on their behalf. The first: well no doubt, why else would anyone want to do this? The second - well there it's getting tricky. There are so many studios, especially in the porn industry (the article was about how he helped taking down cheggit.net, after going after porn torrent sites empornium and puretna), hard to imagine that he's agent of them all. But it's possible of course.
Wonder how this will work out in the long run. How the torrent sites will react to it. Easiest option is probably to simply leave the US and set up shop overseas where the DMCA doesn't reach. And I hope for his own sake that he manages to keep anonymous, as the pro-piracy activists play really dirty, possibly worse than the anti-piracy lobby which at least mostly sticks to the legal channels.
Goddamn, why can't somebody garrote that guy and videotape it for our enjoyment?
Disclaimer: IANAL. This post is, however, legal advice, and creates an attorney-client relationship.
it seems like he could be gamed pretty fucking easily to serve dmca requests for content he doesn't own.
anyone live in his state/nearby, to make it easier? besides he doesn't seem to have any effect on tpb / rarbg / bunch of others. and fuck private torrent sites - as soon as you're keeping a log on upload ratios you're asking for trouble.
Copyright the color white and sue polar bears.
More or less, it’s Steam (the online PC game distribution client) for movies. It allows you to rent or download your favorite films with ease, build a library and watch cross devices and share with your friends.
Actually I did read the entire article; "free" was a slight exaggeration (next time change the batteries in your sarcasm detector). But his basic argument as I read it is that content producers should reduce their price to the point that it isn't worth the trouble to get it for free by download from a pirate site. I don't see how this would eliminate piracy though. If I missed something there, please correct me.
You can't stop people from taking illegal drugs by making laws against it.
You can't stop people from prostitution by making laws against it.
You can't stop people from drinking alcohol by making laws against it.
You can't stop people from making copies of music, movies, etc... by making laws against it.
For some reason, the alcohol one is the only one we figured out, so far.
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
One of these things is not like the other: I steal your car. Now you do not have a car. I copy your music. Now we both have music.
Suppose you decide to sell tickets to a concert. But I tell perspective ticket buyers that I can open the basement door and let them in for free. In the end you only sell 1/4 the number of tickets you would have if I hadn't let most of the fans in for free. I didn't harm you? You lost your shirt because you weren't paid for the work and costs you incurred, but the concert still went on, right?
If only Hollywood would learn to move with the times and adapt instead of stubbornly trying to cling to the past. Back in the day, the MPAA fought tooth and nail against consumer video decks considering them the death knell of the industry. When they finally accepted that video decks were here to stay, they adapted and home video became a major source of profit for them.
Now the industry is fighting once again against the internet. Another pointless battle. They need to learn to adapt and incorporate the internet into their business model rather than continuing this losing battle.
Given the choice, most consumers will go the easiest, most convenient route to the content in the format they would like. Netflix streaming has taken off like gangbusters because it's relatively inexpensive and very convenient. Make it easy and inexpensive and most people will not pirate your content! It's far, far easier for the regular consumer to just go to a Netflix type site than to find and download a torrent client, navigate through Pirate Bay, wait for the torrent to download, and hope they don't get plagued with viruses.
People like the convenience of watching movies via the internet. That ain't gonna change. Hollywood needs to embrace the internet and make their libraries available via Netflix like services. Until then, people will continue to follow the easiest path to get the movies they want to watch in the format they want to watch them.
Web hosting that doesn't suck!Dreamhost
One must be aware that stopping piracy is not the only object here. This is the objective of the MPAA and RIAA but the government's other agenda is control, total and absolute control of your data. Surely people can see how we are moving in this direction already with Apple's walled garden (Microsoft is ramping up for this also) approach of controlling what apps you can install to your mobile devices (and within a few years your notebook/desktop) and the general push to storing your data "in the cloud". They want to own the system and data so they essentially take away what our computing experience has been from the beginning of the Internet. It is all about control.
Not it wont. everyone has moved to trackerless torrents. the guy is simply a idiot that is so far behind the ball he looks like an idiot to anyone in the know.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Neither, actually. The truth is that for all the noise, piracy hasn't hurt the movie industry in any demonstrable way (best three box office years in history? 2009, 2010, and 2011, despite record piracy and a bad economy.) However, they can use it as a pretense to maintain/raise prices in the face of falling costs, and as a scare tactic to push through advantageous legislation. There is no reason for them to actually want to win this war - they are making far more money "fighting" it than they would gain if it stopped.
They are not stupid; they are businessmen.
It is more like I try to sell tickets to concert, and you have clones of the band who put on the same show at no cost in a nearby park that anyone can enter. Does it harm my sales? Sure. Does it mean you did something immoral, like stealing? No.
Sales can be harmed for any number of reasons, like new technologies coming out that render old businesses obsolete. Did you cry foul when film developing sales began to whither, or did you enjoy your new digital camera?
Palm trees and 8
It is more like I try to sell tickets to concert, and you have clones of the band who put on the same show at no cost in a nearby park that anyone can enter.
No, that would be competing with you, which is entirely different and perfectly fine. If I have a clone of the band I (and they) have a significant investment in time and materials to be able to write and perform the music. Sneaking people into your concert is not the same as producing my own concert.
Other thing's you'll "never" stop. Rape. Murder. Child abuse. Alcoholism. The list goes on and on. Shall we stop enforcing the laws against them as well?
If I have a clone of the band I (and they) have a significant investment in time and materials to be able to write and perform the music
Sorry, I was using the commonly understood definition of the word "clone," which is "exact copy," I guess that was not clear to you.
In any case, recording companies do not write music, they record it and sell copies of those recordings. That is a business model that has been rendered obsolete by technology, because anyone can make copies of recorded music using tools that are commonly available in their homes. If the recording industry does not adapt, then they should die; why should the law be used to protect their business? We did not pass laws banning digital cameras, nor did we call people thieves for abandoning film.
Palm trees and 8
I really don't think that's the goal... It's a convenient excuse but piracy isn't what's being stopped. Controlling the free flow of information among people is the objective here. The media industry has a vested interest and certainly pays the big bucks for it but that's just to grease the squeaky wheels.
Mind the frickin' laser...
That's because no one has a business that (they think) depends on stopping rape (nor is it a very big problem). If you legalized prostitution and it became run by mega corps, and rape became a larger issue, you would definitely see a push for the things you mentioned.
This is exactly why I think our culture is doomed (in some figurative way): the more money you have, the more ability you have to change the laws, and corporations inevitably have the most money. Therefore, corporations inevitably make all the laws. Doom.
It doesn't take a lot of money to make a good film, unless you're trying to do tons of special effects.
There are a lot of stories that can't be told without "tons of special effects".
All you need are people willing to work together.
Which requires a way of paying these people. Good luck demonstrating a way to fund a feature film outside the copyright system. You might point to the Blender shorts, but they haven't made anything feature-length yet. I enjoyed Big Buck Bunny; now where's something longer like Ice Age? I've seen Sintel; now where's the next How to Train Your Dragon?
Piracy is getting worse the harder copyright holders try to restrict movement of their stuff. Probably borne out of a "perceived necessity" to do something they'd like to do, such as giving a copy of an E-book to a friend, install a restricted game on another computer, etc. Someone needs to tell the industry to just knock it off and stop making pirates out of everyone...
But I'm not telling the Slashdot crowd anything they didn't already know.
...in bed
Does he officially represent the copyright holder? If not, isn't it an illegal DMCA takedown?
Let's stop protecting all our crops from pests and thieves and see how that turns out.
Protecting good, going overboard on protection bad. Makers of recombinant herbicide-resistant crop seeds have gone overboard; Roundup Ready soy just leads to Roundup Ready weeds. Everyone outside the entertainment industry realizes that copyright has gone overboard, and some people posting here claim that the concept of copyright itself is overboard.
Let's just accept that people are going to die in road accidents and ignore all traffic laws.
Taking away road signs has been shown to improve safety in some (I admit anecdotal) cases. See for example unsafe is safe.
Eliminate? No probably not. That's the entire point of this though isn't it? You can't eliminate it.
What you can do is make it a much smaller problem. iTunes, Spotify and various other competing services do this for Music. Music piracy seems to be less and less common as a result.
Make something like that for movies and tv shows, where people can download good quality, DRM-free stuff for a few bucks, regardless of which country they're in, and watch piracy shrink massively.
Magnet link sites still have to act on OCILLA notices to keep their safe harbor, just as Yahoo! or any other directory has to.
In any case, recording companies do not write music
What makes you say that? As I understand it, the big music publishers share a corporate parent with the big record labels.
[Selling recordings] is a business model that has been rendered obsolete by technology, because anyone can make copies of recorded music using tools that are commonly available in their homes.
Even if so, what business model do you propose for songwriters? People can make cover versions in tools commonly available in homes, from GarageBand all the way down to Modplug Tracker+Audacity.
the admission charged by theaters, athletic events, and museums should be voluntary whenever the venue is not filled to capacity.
Then auction the tickets.
There are substantial capital expenditures, operating expenses, labor costs, financing and marketing costs, all of which are conveniently ignored by the young Slashdot crowd.
I agree that there are fixed costs. But even in the case of fixed-price ticket sales, what happens if the ticket sales don't cover these fixed costs?
His solution seems to be "Give everything away for free, then it won't get stolen". Nothing wrong with that business model.
Who's solution? Yours? Well no one else mentioned any of those things, so yea it must be your idea...
Well you have a really stupid idea there then!
That would never work, how do you expect to make money when you give it away for free?? By definition you are making nothing then.
That's really the dumbest idea for making money I've ever heard. You should be ashamed.
He also rationalizes that downloading is okay because it's not like you actually stole a physical object - so it's not really stealing, right?
You claimed I said something I didn't, which makes you a child molester.
(No, I don't care that the law says it is "slander")
Why do you keep shrugging of that being a child molester isn't a bad thing? You deserve the full punishment of law for child molesting from what you have done, which is to remove your post about me and pay a small fine.
You should really stop molesting children in the future, you might get taken to small claims court in another state or something annoying!
Fucking child molester, always trying to argue I should call it "slander" in stead, as if the two had nothing to do with each other or something!
The Walt Disney Company is entitled to be recompensed for Tangled, I'll grant for a moment. But why should it be entitled to be recompensed for decades-old short films like Plane Crazy, The Gallopin' Gaucho, and Steamboat Willie, the original Mickey Mouse trilogy? And why should it be entitled to be recompensed for movies that it chooses not to make available at all, such as Song of the South? And why shouldn't the Shakespeare estate (or the estate of some earl according to some looney) be entitled to be recompensed for performances of Romeo and Juliet?
Using your arguments (which have been repeated ad nauseum here and similarly minded sites like TechDirt), the admission charged by theaters, athletic events, and museums should be voluntary whenever the venue is not filled to capacity. Same with trains and buses. In fact, since the venues might not have gotten the memo, people shouldn't have to ask permission; they should just barge in and claim it is their right as a free citizen to see the Broadway show or science exhibit for free, because their presence isn't costing anybody anything.
Wrong. Their presence is taking up space. Space that means someone else can't use it. That means physical space is worth something so those places get to charge admission. If they charge too much, they don't get very many customers. If they charge too little, they may get too many customers for their space available. So, again, you have made the wrong connections in your mind. With copying, no one is deprived of anything physical.
The fact is that people need to be paid to offer these things, and that holds true for digital products like music as well as theater events. There are substantial capital expenditures, operating expenses, labor costs, financing and marketing costs, all of which are conveniently ignored by the young Slashdot crowd.
I agree that people need to be paid, but only what other people feel they are worth. For instance, I hate the Survivor type reality shows and never watch them. I would not ever pay them a single cent for anything. Therefore, they are worth absolutely no money to me. To someone else that loves the show, they might be worth $20 per episode. Now if they charge $10 per episode, some people will buy, but most wont. If they charge $1 per episode, many people will buy even if it's to see what all the fuss is about. Many different people have suggested new business methods to make money in todays world. There are even people making a decent living with some of these methods. So basically, it seems to me that you are saying that I have to pay some artist or group of artists that make a complete pile of sh!t because they worked hard on it. Sorry, but that will never happen. I only spend my money on things that I like. If you wish to throw away your money, go right ahead but don't expect very many people to emulate you.
If you feel so strongly about your argument, why don't you organize a flash mob to storm into your local science museum without paying? And please remember to record the event and post it on youtube, that will be highly entertaining. Thank you.
And here you are just telling someone else that they need to break the law and maybe even injure others doing it. And you say that you have the moral high ground. If your ground were any higher, I would say that you are warming your heels in the fires of hell. Oh, and just in case you think I'm a pirate, think again. I don't download movies, music or video games. I buy my entertainment even though I have been out of work for five years. I am so low on cash now and no longer have any money for retirement that I am looking for a miserable minimum wage job. Yet I still don't pirate. Which of us has the higher moral ground? The person that advocates someone else to break the law and even more importantly cause possible harm to others or the person that still doesn't steal even when they have no money left? I would say that you are worse than the pirates because you are advocating someone to do something illegal that would likely cause harm in the attempt. No wonder you posted anonymously, you don't have any courage of your convictions.
Yeah but back in the day the media companies weren't too concerned about cassette tape piracy. Today they are more threatened and they might be able to achieve more. If you could get the penalty for possessing a media filled hard drive up around that for possessing a kilo of cocaine the dynamic might change. Add to that roadside searches of laptops and flash drives and random locker/device checks at schools and you could probably scare enough people to slow piracy down a lot.
Plus it would help to build respect for the law and fill our underpopulated prison system.
Pirate's gonna pirate, and there's not a damn thing you can do to stop it.
Instead of buying it you could pay to rent it at a much lower cost
In a growing number of cases, the making-of documentary, back-story information, deleted scenes, anamorphic transfer, and the like are available only in the purchased DVD, not the cut-down DVD marked "RENTAL" that Netflix and Redbox get.
Unless your going to watch everything five or more times this makes much more sense.
And guess how often single-digit-year-old children will watch a given animated movie published by Disney.
I understand what the word "clone" means. But you couldn't (legally) clone the band unless you also invest in the rights to their music. I also know copyright isn't property; it gives you the "right" to control use of the property. So in this case you couldn't legally clone the band without incurring some expense (unless we're both playing public domain music). Since the success of my concert depends on my band having the exclusive right to perform the music, you would have to pay a lot to clone my band. Don't like those terms? Compete with me, but don't steal from me.
Why can't I walk into a movie store, pick any movie ever made, and walk out with a shiny new blu-ray five minutes later?
Mandatory AACS is one reason. BD-Video players won't play non-AACS discs, and burners available to the public can't burn AACS discs. Disney's steadfast refusal to release Song of the South is another.
The music industry has an even worse problem. Historically, musicians were nobodies - servants and worse. Only during the period when the economics of one to many record manufacturing turned some musicians into "brands" was it a big-money business. Today anybody can make a recording, and the only edge the remaining record companies have is marketing and a back catalog. Billboard points out that the top-grossing band of 2011, Bon Jovi, made 90% of their money touring. Those are the economics of a top performer in the era of Edison wax cylinder recording.
I was moved by your plea, and in a position to effect your desires.
(So I effected your desires.)
Would you like a slice of toast?
Of course they will. They can die. And they will.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
In the case of songwriters/performers/etc., I think that concerts and other live performances are the most obvious source of income in the future. I have heard that right now, that is the biggest source of income for musicians, so it is not too much of a stretch. Live shows are an experience that really cannot be downloaded, and so there is a legitimate economic justification for shows being profitable.
For an up-and-coming band, downloading can actually help bring people to live shows, since it is basically a no-cost way to spread some good songs and entice people to come to the concert. We could even develop technologies to help this effort -- perhaps a system where music players can fetch information on a band's upcoming shows, with location search so that people only see shows that are within some distance of their homes. It might also be interesting to embed an identifier for the band as a robust watermark, so that if a bar or restaurant plays a downloaded song people could look up information on the band using their cell phones (and perhaps the band could use watermarking equipment during the show, so that bootleg recordings serve a similar purpose). Perhaps we could enable location-based search in the downloading system itself, so that people can hear local or regional bands that are not yet ready to play for a national or global audience. Maybe the watermark could contain a digital signature, so that original songs could be distinguished from cover songs automatically (and this could be integrated with the download system, so that people could search only for originals if they wanted to).
Now, I am not going to claim to know all the answers. Maybe some bands cannot make money doing live shows, and I am just not aware of that fact (I am assuming here that such bands are producing quality music, and so society would be missing out if the band stopped playing). I may be overly optimistic about the number of people who would pay to see a live show, or the willingness of bands to travel to faraway places to play a show. Maybe it is asking too much for a band to spend more time playing live shows than they spend in a recording studio. Maybe live shows would take up too much time, and musicians would not be able to write as many new songs as they do now.
Either we need to pursue some new ideas, or we need to stop selling general purpose computers to people / kill the Internet. We cannot have both the current system of monetizing entertainment and the Internet as we know it; one of the two is going to have to change or be killed. That is what SOPA/PIPA/ACTA/etc. are about: killing the Internet so that we can continue to have the current system of entertainment distribution.
Palm trees and 8
But even though you can't stop rape and murder you only punish the culprits...
Don't forget the social services and interventions and public outreach to help people before they descend to committing heinous crimes. It doesn't matter how many people you punish if half the population is still destitute and emotionally disturbed enough that they are on the edge of murder. Drug lords may think twice before killing if prosecution is good enough, but psychopaths will not. You have to take away the circumstances and incentive to actually reduce non-commercial crime.
Consumer piracy of the kind that can be converted to sales is not driven by cost-benefit-risk analysis but by convenience and budget and emotional impulses. Make it easier and cheaper to make impulse purchases online, and you will convert the most significant portion of downloaders. That's why so many people advocate opening more convenient legal download channels, not more prosecution. Take it from me, I used to download a lot of stuff, but now I can get almost everything from three subscription streaming sites for less than the price of cable and I love it. A bigger selection and more unified interface will draw more customers, guaranteed.
By shutting down all these sites, they have only forced pirates to go back to p2p via mIRC .. nice job authorities... you wasted millions if not billions to accomplish nothing
Hmm. Pro-piracy activists, worst case: Illegally access your computers and make you look like a fool on the Internet. Anti-piracy lobby: Put you in prison for 5 years, bankrupt you, and leave you unable to make a living once you get out (thanks to that felony conviction -- good luck getting the AIDS drugs for the case you picked up in prison). All legal. Still think the pro-piracy activists are worse?
copyright isn't property; it gives you the "right" to control use of the property
No, copyright gives you the right to control how other people use their property, by bringing them to court and having a judge rule on whether or not their use of their property violates your copyright. There is no way that system is going to work when everyone and their mother has a machine that can pump out copies of creative work sitting on their desk.
So in this case you couldn't legally clone the band
Nor can you legally cross a street when the light says "don't walk," but there is no technical or moral reason that people cannot do so, and people do in fact cross streets illegally. Our system for enforcing that law is to ticket people, sometimes, if they are caught; most people are never caught. That is pretty much the best compromise on copyrights in the 21st century: ticket people who get caught violating copyrights (and use those tickets to pay for the public education / library system).
I replied to someone else with some ideas on how musicians can use the Internet, with its copying and downloading systems, to their advantage. I am not going to claim to know all the answers, or to know the right answer; I am just saying that the current approaches are dead wrong and are based on misguided notions of what problem we are trying to solve.
Palm trees and 8
I can see why you posted anonymously, because what you wrote is pure and simple troll bait.
Anyone who posts on the anti-piracy side on Slashdot is considered a troll and is not modded up. *This* post won't be modded up. Only pro-piracy posts are given mod points, even though it becomes a rather one-sided discussion. Ever log into a forum completely dominated by conservatives (if you're a liberal) or liberals (if you're conservative)? That's what this feels like to me. Only it's worse because Slashdot gives its mods the power to hide opposing viewpoints.
Wrong. Their presence is taking up space. Space that means someone else can't use it. That means physical space is worth something so those places get to charge admission. If they charge too much, they don't get very many customers. If they charge too little, they may get too many customers for their space available. So, again, you have made the wrong connections in your mind. With copying, no one is deprived of anything physical
Only if the venue is filled to capacity. When the venue is half full, we have the same situation that OP was describing (his presence or acquisition does not deprive anyone else of anything significant).
I agree that people need to be paid, but only what other people feel they are worth. For instance, I hate the Survivor type reality shows and never watch them. I would not ever pay them a single cent for anything. Therefore, they are worth absolutely no money to me. To someone else that loves the show, they might be worth $20 per episode. Now if they charge $10 per episode, some people will buy, but most wont. If they charge $1 per episode, many people will buy even if it's to see what all the fuss is about.
That's the whole point of pricing! If you don't think the DVD, CD or digital download is worth the price the publisher is asking (or is worth zero dollars in some cases, as with Reality TV shows), then just walk away. Don't buy it, and don't pirate it either. Almost every business has a pricing model that recognizes that they could sell more units if they lowered their price, but then they'd be losing per-unit revenue.
Many different people have suggested new business methods to make money in todays world. There are even people making a decent living with some of these methods. So basically, it seems to me that you are saying that I have to pay some artist or group of artists that make a complete pile of sh!t because they worked hard on it. Sorry, but that will never happen. I only spend my money on things that I like. If you wish to throw away your money, go right ahead but don't expect very many people to emulate you.
If you have zero interest in a work for sale, then ignore it. This shouldn't even enter the discussion. I'm amazed at how frequently posters on Slashdot justify piracy on the basis that "a Britney Spears CD is not worth $15.99". Then don't buy the Britney Spears CD! Those types of examples, where the would-be purchaser has zero interest in the article, are completely, totally, utterly irrelevant to the subject of piracy.
And here you are just telling someone else that they need to break the law and maybe even injure others doing it. And you say that you have the moral high ground. If your ground were any higher, I would say that you are warming your heels in the fires of hell.
Most people would have recognized that as a rhetorical gambit, not an incitement to crime. If I had been arguing on your side I'll bet you'd have no trouble making this distinction.
Oh, and just in case you think I'm a pirate, think again. I don't download movies, music or video games. I buy my entertainment even though I have been out of work for five years. I am so low on cash now and no longer have any money for retirement that I am looking for a miserable minimum wage job. Yet I still don't pirate.
"You'll never stop piracy."
"You'll never win the drug war."
Fucking idiots.
"You'll never stop rapes."
"You'll never eliminate speeding."
"You'll never stop tax cheats."
Ok let's abolish taxes, remove traffic signs, and stop prosecuting rapes. Because they can't eliminate 100% of it, let's all just stop trying.
http://takedownpiracy.com/2012/01/another-one-bites-the-dust/
The guy has made it his job to DOS sites with DMCA takedown notices till they shut down
If more people like this start infiltrating private torrent sites, it could cause a major issue
Huh?
Unless he's the copyright owner, or has authorization from copyright owner, he can't submit DMCA notices.
In other words, unless he is authorized to do that, and unless notice is in specific format, site can ignore him completely. Such DMCA notice submissions can get him into the trouble.
And he will get sued, when he steps on someone with bit of cash.
You kill pirates. Just like in the real world. Shoot them and dump them in the ocean. If it takes 10 million so be it.
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6287/125/
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Actually I did read the entire article; "free" was a slight exaggeration
No, no it wasn't. It was trolling and a complete misstatement of the facts. In other words, it was a lie.
(next time change the batteries in your sarcasm detector)
No. Get stuffed.
--
BMO
Just because the war on drugs cannot be won doesn't mean it isn't going to be fought. Just because the war on terror cannot be won doesn't mean it won't be fought. Very few wars, when you actually look at what the issues are, have a chance of actually being won. But that doesn't mean that they aren't, in the best case, worth fighting for, or in the worst case, that both sides won't just keep fighting the fight anyway. We have now entered our first major war of the digital age, and while it doesn't seem likely either side has a chance of winning, it seems equally as likely that either side will just give up in the face of this fact. It's an ideological fight. While people can be killed, ideas cannot.
All you need is to accidentally the whole copyright system.
On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.
I tried commenting on the forbes site but never got the registration email. I have downloaded a movie or two and I always wanted to repay the industry for the convenience of watching it at home. If they open a donation account on paypal or someplace similar, whether based on the number of downloads or whatever, I'm sure people would readily pay them back with donations. Or offer a download site themselves..with downloads for a buck or two. More features (like 3D/5.1/1080p) for a buck more maybe. McDonalds saw this business model of pricing for the masses long back, why can't others ? Heck, Kim Dot com became a billionaire just by offering a download site, and people wanting to download more paid him more, the same money could have gone to the entertainment industry if they could open their eyes and see the viability of streaming/downloading vs DVD (who watches them anymore) or going to the movies...exorbitant prices, of course people will want them at a cheaper price. They behave same as the Drug industry, exorbitantly priced here, cheaper everywhere else in the world. Even the newspaper/magazine/cable- even with all their ads they still want to charge us a ransom, especially at the airport...if they price themselves for a tenth, or made it free, imagine the boost in their audience ! Go Figure.
Using your arguments (which have been repeated ad nauseum here and similarly minded sites like TechDirt), the admission charged by theaters, athletic events, and museums should be voluntary whenever the venue is not filled to capacity. Same with trains and buses. In fact, since the venues might not have gotten the memo, people shouldn't have to ask permission; they should just barge in and claim it is their right as a free citizen to see the Broadway show or science exhibit for free, because their presence isn't costing anybody anything. Then we have the First Amendment that allows these wonderful guests to post the obligatory "it was a crappy show anyway, I would NEVER have paid a cent for that and they should pay me for spending my time".
The fact is that people need to be paid to offer these things, and that holds true for digital products like music as well as theater events. There are substantial capital expenditures, operating expenses, labor costs, financing and marketing costs, all of which are conveniently ignored by the young Slashdot crowd.
If you feel so strongly about your argument, why don't you organize a flash mob to storm into your local science museum without paying? And please remember to record the event and post it on youtube, that will be highly entertaining. Thank you.
In the UK, many museums (including the Science Museum in London) are free to enter. I've been to free theatre performances, free movie showings, even free music festivals. In some cases the costs were covered by corporate sponsors, more often the cost was covered by the state. If these things are valued by society, then why shouldn't society make these things happen?
Public funding of creative works which are then distributed free of charge is entirely possible. It works in science, where funding bodies are requiring open access publishing of work they fund.
FTFA:
This is a negotiation where at any time, your customer could just go download the damn movie for free, and they’re doing [the movie industry] a favor by even considering picking it up legally. And [the movie industry] has the nerve to think it’s on THEIR terms? That’s not how negotiation works. It may not be right, but it’s reality, and they have to face it.
Can I just say "yes"?
If I missed something there, please correct me.
Yes, you missed the part where the article discussed the inconvenience of getting legal content vs. pirating it, which was the entire other half of the article's main point. Indeed, it spent more time on that argument than any other.
Indeed, you completely ignore the point of the "steam for movies" example that you just quoted and go on about price and price only in this discussion.
So you claim you read the article in its entirety. Treating that as truth, I guess reading comprehension is not your strong suit.
--
BMO
It takes much less processing power to encrypt than to decrypt. That's sorta the point. Also, my point wasn't that processing power increases allow for more complex or higher bit-rate encryption. My point is that they allow the programmers to focus on making functionally correct code instead of on code that's fast enough to run real time on a 1333mhz single core Arm or some such. If you look into it, you'll find all the DRM cracks boil down to mistakes made during the implementation phase, usually due to processor specific optimizations.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
They're plenty happy to maintain an army of lawyers and sue everyone/anything they can on their way into oblivion. A crazed, rabid dog, biting everything it can on its way to being put down.
Not a dissimilar strategy to patent trolling; abuse the American legal system to make money.. the trick is, they still have enough power to actually buy laws, so they are quite dangerous.
At least game companies are marginally more intelligent; they realize for the most part that outright suing their customers would just backfire bigtime.
I'm not in any way an Apple fan, but having worked in digital music when they were coming on, I gotta say it's been entertaining watching ipod/itunes bend the industry over. Though in some ways Apple is no better.
1.) To end piracy requires that there is humanitarian laws, National Health Care, end poverty, etc. If we all made $80,000 per year then we would have enough disposable income to purchase the products. The laws that hurts the industries and doesn't stop piracy is DMCA, MPIAA, RIAA, SOPA, etc. Making monies is basic economics (Demand and Supply). If the Supply is too expenive then the Demand for purchased products is reduced. If the Demand for products is reduced due to expensive pricing then Corporation doesn't make monies any ways.
2.) Also, Piracy can end with different types of business models.
3.) Corporation and their lobbyist is creating laws that is hurting their own industries due to EXPENSIVE pricing.
There is a grand strategy at work: kill the Internet, rebuild it as a fancy cable TV system.
Considering most get their internet via what essentially is a modified cable TV network (even comes over a 'channel') we may be closer than we think.
Oh I dunno - how about selling the song for a sum of money rather than expecting to get paid for the rest of your life for something you wrote in half an hour.
Just saying. No one is forcing them to make movies so once the profits go away then movies will disappear. Yeah I know fandom will take over by making a thousand Star Wars knock offs a year. Kind of makes you homesick for rancid reality TV.
Wholly shit here come the troll mods! Duck!!!!!
arrrrrrgh!
The Low Point â" a View from the Valley â" Column 11
The Land of "Nothing for free"
On the map, Laguna Niguel looks like a beautiful Pacific coastal area south of Los Angeles, a little like one of my favorite spots Monterey, south of San Francisco. But I forgot; this is Los Angeles, where the brown haze of the air lies like a thick blanket over the insane sprawl of "Generica". It's an endless landscape of McDonalds, strip-malls and gas stations familiar to anyone who has seen the movie "Ghost World". Nothing is free here. You pay for parking (nothing but valet available), driving on toll roads, access to much of the beach (private). If they could figure out how to charge for the air I'm sure there'd be meters every block or so. It's a fitting home for the entertainment industry.
I was down there to give a talk on "Open Source Business Models" for a conference. Also represented were entertainment industry lawyers, "Big Telecom" management, and a smattering of software people. Microsoft was there of course. You can't hold a church fete with "Open Source" on the banner these days without Microsoft turning up and requesting representation. At least we also had Bruce Perens on our side to help make up the balance. The venue was an unbelievably expensive hotel. Even though I was on expenses I balked at asking the company to pay for a room there and found something cheaper (not by much) a few miles down the road.
Along with the collection of apologists for the "ultimate evils" (tm) of Hollywood and Telephone companies there were some very interesting presentations. A Japanese telecoms researcher made all the software people jealous by describing the idyllic state of broadband in Japan, where providers vie to sell gigabit fiber-optic pipes to the home. Yes, you read that right, Gigabit. The obvious question was asked; "what do people use all that bandwidth for" and the less than obvious answer was that they use it for all the same things people in less bandwidth-friendly countries do, they just do more of it. I could see a collective shudder pass through the entertainment industry people. They knew what that meant.
A keynote by Lawrence Lessig made the point even further. He showed a series of "mash-ups" of copyrighted material which were incredibly creative and funny. All completely illegal and currently being hunted off the Internet by entertainment industry lawyers. One of the most amusing asides was from a Walt Disney legal reply to a parent requesting "fair use" rights to use some clips from a Disney movie to put in his home video. He pleadingly promised them it was meant only for family viewing. "We currently deny all requests to use our material....". Even if you are impudent enough to ask, the answer is always no. At least one of the other studios replied that the current commercial rate was $700 to use a 30 second clip. I can see that being popular amongst parents making home movies. He also covered the current patent quagmire. A very interesting fact from his talk was that the total unit cost for a Chinese manufacturer to build a DVD player was around $26. However the total royalty fees they have to pay to western companies for the patent rights to build a player is $21 per unit, thus completely eliminating any profit they might make. No wonder the Chinese are currently creating their own digital video standard, completely incompatible with Western ones. It's the only thing that makes economic sense for them. This is almost certainly behind the Chinese refusal to use the new WiFi standards for wireless devices also.
I ended up making myself unpopular by publicly attacking the Washington-based economist who'd advised the Clinton Administration on "Intellectual Property" issues. It's a very personal issue for me as it affects my everyday life and work, so when he made the statement that "strengthening the patent system leads to more innovation for everyone" I saw red. He doesn't write software of course. I tried to explain later in private that it would be like people being a
The media companies simply see it as a source of power and a new revenue stream, on top of everything else.
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
This guy must not know very much about IT ... or economics ... but that just makes him like most guys around here...
1) piracy can be stopped by DRM ... .. when anybody wants it .. they will buy it ... and send the K2 key .. the manufacturer will encrypt the software and send it to the user ... the user's computer can ONLY use software encrypted with that key... so only one computer can use that software .. copying it is useless .. nothing else can use it.. this could be done for music and movies ... bye piracy... I believe such a system will be implemented after ACTA passes .. like ACTA 2.0 ...
How? Easy
Each motherboard will have a TCM chip embedded (TCM = trusted computing module , actually a variant of that) This chip will decrypt data based on an asymmetric key (K1) this key K1 will be hard-coded onto the chip at manufacture and it's pair K2 will be stored on a key repository site . Now, everything is in place. A software manufacturer will create a program and keep the original version
2) This is not a business model ... .. it's a market organization type ... More specific : it's monopoly competition ... what this does is secure the monopoly part...
If any of you studied economics you would know this is now a "business model"
...unless someone develops a reliable way to read people's minds, sure.
http://www.popmatters.com/images/news_art/t/the-day-recorded-music-revenue-per-capita-feb-2011.jpg
I'd much more blame the "indestructible" CD then piracy. A LOT of the industry's revenue, especially the boom that came with CDs, was people re-buying music they already owned on yet-another-format.
Vinyl wasn't useful in cars (boom of 8 track), 8 track wasn't that useful walking around and self-destructed over time (boom of cassette tape and Sony's Walkman), all of them wore out over time and/or broke easily from being dropped.
Enter the CD... Never wares out, much more durable, as portable as most anyone would ever need, and for 99% of people sounds better then anything that came before. BOOM, there's a HUGE spike in CD sales as everyone is re-buying everything they ever wanted to keep on CD (along with new music sales, of course).
Enter digital...
It's everything the CD was and then some. But there's a problem... Unlike every other format change in the history of recorded music, no one is going to re-buy music they already have on CD as digital. They're just going to rip their own CDs. As a result the industry is left with only new music sales...
It isn't about piracy - It's about the Music Industry losing the ability to re-sell you the same music over, and over, and over. It's about the Music Industry's ever expanding back catalog no longer translating to automatic ever-expanding re-sales. The Music Industry spent a hell of a lot of money to make copyright effectively never-ending, explicitly to protect that re-selling revenue stream...and now the carpet has been yanked out from under them.
---
That huge drop in sales? That's called market saturation. Most everyone that wanted a Beatles or Stones recording already owns it...on a format they will effectively never replace again.
It's about the Music Industry thinking, wrongly, that they were in the business of selling toothpaste. Then waking up one day to realize they really are selling cast iron frying pans. You'll always need to buy more toothpaste...but you'll never need to buy another cast iron frying pan.
My
Pirates EVENTUALLY buy the pirated stuff when the price goes down. For example, I.....somehow obtained a copy of Oblivion when it first came out BUT I (now) own the GOTY with all DLC in Steam. Just because there are adventurers does not mean you have to put an arrow in their knee.....(Skyrim pun intended)
The issue isn't really piracy, it's shit movies.
The industry churns out so much dross that it has to fall back on something as to why they're not making the money they used to .For every James Christoper Cameron Nolan movie, there's 10 Friedberg and Seltzer movies that people won't pay for.
People will still pay to go to a movie. People still want their imagination to be captured. People still want to see it on a screen 5000 times as large as theirs and 10 times as loud.
The King's Speech is perhaps an anomalous example but it still proves the point that if you can get inside peoples minds, they will pay to see it and sometimes pay to see it more than once.
The industry needs to look at the movies it makes, not what's being downloaded.
You will never get rid of all the criminals. Some will kill people. Some will embezzle money, some will rob banks, and some will steal software and music. There will always be criminals. You can stem the tide. You can educate people that it is wrong. but you won't stop everyone. Of course you can always change your business model. But people are greedy. Whether those people run the entertainment industry, or they consume the entertainment. People are greedy.
Everyone is talking about labels and government and such, but as i see it, there is no label if there is no musicians. Maybe the change needs to start with them. Its not difficult, maybe start earning with live shows instead of media distribution. Black-eyed peas made a videoclip were a samsung cellphone appeared in it, an obvious ad as the clip had nothing to do with cellphones and the cams focused in it to better show the brand. And still, i see the album of this song, 1 or 2 years old, being sold for $10 on amazon. They probably made a millionaire agreement with samsung, but aren't satisfied enough.
But who would buy the rights to a song outright? In order to be willing to buy the rights to the song, the buyer would have to have some plan to recoup that expense. And in a model other than copyright, where would that money come from?
You've just jacked up the price of a movie ticket by the price of a round-trip plane ticket and hotel room. Not everybody has that kind of money.
A few months ago, I was mugged. The muggers got a smartphone, my messenger bag, my wallet, a book, and some other odds and ends. It cost me about $150 to replace the phone, $50 for the bag and the wallet, and perhaps $50 for everything else: about $250. The muggers could have sold my phone, get a few dollars from my wallet, and possibly could have sold the book. I would be surprised if they got as much as $50 out of it, and a fair amount of stuff stolen would have simply been thrown away.
In short, with what we generally understand to be theft, victims lose more than thieves gain. Theft means wealth is destroyed, to the detriment of society overall.
By contrast, if someone downloads a video, they gain full access to the video. The publisher loses some small fraction of a potential sale (since, as is often argued, not every pirated copy is a lost sale, but at least some are). The digital pirates gain more than the publishers lose. In fact, the more digital piracy there is, the more the overall wealth of society is increased -- until the publishers can no longer stay in business.
However, as the article points out, and as should be obvious, given the quality of production of the big media companies, it may not be much of a loss for them to fail. The challenge is to rework the system to support smaller media companies and independent artists.
Humans have been entertaining each other for as long as humans have been around. If piracy actually was the death blow to the music and movie (and book?) industries as corporate heads would have you believe, would people really stop creating content? Are all artists only in it for the money? The more I hear about the plague of digital piracy the less relevant it seems.
Just ask yourself, if Hollywood disappeared tomorrow, would you care?
Sigs are for suckers.
Selective enforcement for the win. Unless you also contributed millions to their political masters' warchest, the FBI's not going to enforce the law on your behalf.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Because if I barge into a theater I take up limited space. Your analogy is flawed. Try again.
of course you will never kill piracy. not even idiots believe that. the goal is to limit it...to reduce it to manageable proportions. we never killed thievery either, did we? yet we still put locks on our homes, cars, etc. even locks can be picked. locks don't stop thieves, they deter them. as the old saying goes... just keeps an honest man honest.
Not a bad analogy at all. The commercial challenge is that the free customer is approaching the concert in a different way to the paid customer (through a different door). They may be free customers but they are customers all the same, and their unique motivations need to be taken into account commercially.
This article is about putting a bouncer at the free door and saying "I understand you want to approach my product in this way, so you will - but not for free." Some will turn away and find another free concert, sure, but a bunch of people at the line will say "sure, that's reasonable." In this way new customers will be found. The challenge shouldn't be to stamp out piracy - it should be to turn pirates into paying customers - not with the stick, but the carrot.
when the activities regarded as piracy are recognized as normal in a technologically enabled world.
The ISPs advertise on TV about how blazingly fast their speed is- you can download movies in 8 minutes, CDs in 30 seconds, etc. AFAIK there is nowhere that you can legally download a movie in 8 minutes or even 3 hours. CD and DVD burners are in every computer- they aren't there for backing up your data. Blank CD and DVD media (and now Bluray) are sold in 100 packs. No one has that much data to back up, and again AFAIK, it's a violation of the DMCA to "back-up" your DVDs either to your HDD or to a burnable disc. Media server software like Playon and even Windows Media Server will stream video off your HDD to your TV. How did all that video get onto your HDD?
Technology keeps making it easier and cheaper to copy and transmit digital data of any sort which is completely at odds with the media companies' attempts to stuff the genie back into the bottle and prevent you from doing what the technology companies are making it easier for you to do. The media company executives are just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
If you're looking at The Pirate Bay as the evil thieves' site, then yes, you want to crush it. If you look at as the promotional site, then what you need to do is create a value added system so people will go to the theater or to the concert to see the real thing. Do that and TPB ceases to be an evil, but simply becomes a promotional channel.
This !!
Often than not it's the outsiders looking in that can see the clear picture. Those who are inside the well, they can only see that little round sky above them.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
It sounds like you want Hollywood to change as if you like them, and you want them to continue existing. I hope they don't change at all and die like Kodak. What I don't like is their continual attempts to fuck me right in the asshole with the evil laws that they try to get passed.
If I inevitably convey the message that I wanted Hollywood - the current form of Hollywood anyway, to continue to exist, you have my sincere apology
I am but one observer - and I truly believe, one out of millions and millions of observers around the world - who can't help but notice the ironic similarities between what happened to Kodak and what is happening to Hollywood
Whether or not Hollywood survives does not matter to me, not even one bit
I just do not waste my time in front of the idiot tube, nor going to theater watching movies
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Look, this whole business of piracy is a ruse. I know it, and you know it. Let's stop the lying and the code Hollywood code speak for a minute and just admit that what we're talking about has nothing to do with intellectual property, and it certainly has nothing to do with people "stealing" movies and music. If the whole SOPA and PIPA thing has taught us nothing, it's that Hollywood is upset because a) it doesn't drive popular culture anymore, and b) it wants to kill the internet so you have no choice but to buy movies again. So when they talk about piracy, what they're actually saying is that you're a pirate for choosing other forms of entertainment. You're a pirate for ignoring them. Until such time as you buy from them as regularly and through the same channels that you used to, you'll be a pirate, and they'll put every American in prison for it if they have to. There's nothing morally wrong with choosing not to buy Hollywood movies, or pre-packaged auto tuned music. There's nothing reprehensible about choosing the consume other things like indy films, and books from smaller publishers over Hollywood blockbusters or Harry Potter. The problem will not be solved by making better services for movies that nobody wants to see anymore, or by prosecuting every internet user in existence. The problem that their experiencing won't be stopped by fucking up the internet, and making free speech a liability. The cat's out of the bag now, and the only way for Hollywood to survive is by adapting and changing their business model. But until such time as I'm a high powered Hollywood lobbyist... how people consume their media, and whom they acquire it from is not my problem. I just wish they would stop being disingenuous, and say what they mean, honestly, and in a transparent, open way. But they won't, because even the idiots in Washington wouldn't take it seriously.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
Stop trying to get $20, $30 or more for a DVD or Bluray movies and maybe I will buy original movies again. IMO a movie in physical media can't be sold for more than $5. Studios made too much money from us by selling us several times the same shit.
You will never kill the assault on your personal liberties and freedoms by corporate interests. They will endlessly force legislation to protect their profits, regardless of whether or not it impinges on your rights and freedoms.
This was actually clear 10 years ago. I even had a paper accepted at conference predicting this.
The author is an absolute pirate with a massive sense of entitlement and no self decipline. He wants everything, now, and for free, regardless of quality. Consumer zombie much?
Lets assume for 1 second that brilliant content is distributed almost freely, simply and without restriction. Piracy will still be rampant since pirates consume at an unprecedented rate, they would simply not be able to afford their habbit.
Lets face it, piracy has nothing to do with morals, copyright or Hollywood. It is purely an exercise in unchecked consumption, brought on by years of marketing and a rampant consumer culture.
I'm not sure that "no DRM" is 100% necessary, although it is getting better with time.
Netflix uses DRM. The downside is it doesn't work on all devices, but that may very well be more to do with them not wanting to take time to build the client than a DRM incompatibility (especially since it *does* work on Android etc).
The industry seems to *hate* Netflix because it doesn't offer enough profit, but it seems that - for consumers - it's still a great step in the right direction. One can pay a reasonable price (very reasonable, if you consider that unlimited shows is cheaper than a single ticket to the movies) and watch whatever you want (so long you have the bandwidth) from an ever-increasing catalog. The DRM is unobtrusive and transparent. It may prevent you from capturing the video stream and recording it easily, but it doesn't hinder watching shows or movies.
The reason things aren't "successful" seems to be that those in the industry want two things: money and control. Certainly there have been many systems that *could* have been successful, but they seem to be killed off because they don't give the industry enough of both to sate their demands.
the anonymous nets are still small. because there is still not enough pressure to force the people to be anonymous, normal filesharing is still safe enough for most of them. When everyone will be caught and prosecuted, then everyone will use anonymous tools.
That huge drop in sales? That's called market saturation. Most everyone that wanted a Beatles or Stones recording already owns it...on a format they will effectively never replace again.
It's about the Music Industry thinking, wrongly, that they were in the business of selling toothpaste. Then waking up one day to realize they really are selling cast iron frying pans. You'll always need to buy more toothpaste...but you'll never need to buy another cast iron frying pan.
The thing is... They were selling toothpaste. Now people realize how they can make better toothpaste themselves ("better" as in "more flexible" in the case of music piracy). While the music industry in many cases still needs to provide the raw ingredients, it's vastly different from having to provide the manufacturing and the distribution to everyone.
There are two outcomes. Either people will go back to the music industry because they feel that pirating is too cumbersome in the long run, or the music industry adapts to a more slimmed model, making new talents known and encourage music to evolve.
I wish somebody would mod your message up. It's right on.
Now - the real question is - would Human race be able to continue to move on the technological progress path, or would corporate (of any kind) interests result in thousands of years of stagnation, before the next Big Disaster (like 20 km asteroid) will happen and will terminate Homo Sapience species on this Planet, before it will develop to it's full potential i.e. develop not only one tiny planet, but the whole Universe?
Yes, stakes are THAT high in this fight of Freedom against Copyright.
Vassili Leonov
I totally agree. And also I guess people is less inclined to buy the same thing again because they release it under a new media, when they can get it "cheaper" some place else. The hole equation does not make sense.
Say I have a DVD, paid some 20 bucks. The "industry" is saying that is loosing lots of money because others copy the DVD without paying. Conclusion, so DVD Movie product cost= Movie rights cost + DVD media costs. Movie rights should be a lot you say, as other people are offering even similar packaging for much less, if they don't pay "Movie rights" portion of the equation.
But then it comes BluRay. Now I want my movie library in glorious HiDef. You'll think a BluRay Movie = Movie Rights + BluRay media costs. As you already own the Movie Rights for home use, you'll think you can get a better price. Well, you don't! Movie Rights now seems like a cheap thing that costs 0, as the "Industry" wants me to pay full fare again.
So, guess they shouldn't have it both ways.
Performing the song and selling tickets and/or merchandise to people.
I do agree with the conclusions of TFA, although I think there are some holes and misunderstandings in it.. but, over the course of the last decade or so, any will whatsoever to offer guidance and help to "the entertainment industry" has vanished completely for me.
Reason? I've realized that this industry is not in the business of making content, but about _controlling_ content. They pay the creative people who make the content for the rights to control it, and through that ownership extract earnings. They are, effectively, a middle man who contribute nothing to the audience side of the equation, and their contribution to the creator side is merely as financiers and facilitators, a role I consider purely administrative.
I don't see why I should offer my experience and advice to them, unless they pay me to do so. I say let this industry rot if they can no longer operate successfully. And actively fight them, if they try to undermine the average citizen's freedoms in the process. Focus your funds and energy on supporting the creative people who actually make the art, encourage them to sell it to you directly, write to them and ask them as a fan to make it available to you in the form you want, so you an actually pay them without you or them being swindled by their pimps^Wdistributors.
-- Buzh
Did you note the shutdown of the GOP's unauthorized use of music in campaigns?
These are the point-men for the move to kill Network freedom "to prevent theft of music and video." I suppose they'll move to exempt themselves, as they have exempted themselves from drug testing, taxes, etc..
pembajakan ada dua sisi yang bertolak belakang, ada yang di untung kan dari hasil membajak. sisi baliknya di rugikan atas karya yang dibajak. siapa yang suka barang bajakan ayo acungkan tangan... pasti pada diri anda hampir semua pasti mengacungkan... ?
I can afford to buy movies and TV shows, but I don't... And the reason I don't is not because of greed, it's because piracy is an easier, more fleshed-out source of media than the "legitimate" ways. I can buy an overpriced blu ray with legal red tape around "ripping" it (even though I paid for it), or I can go download an MKV in full HD with surround sound, have XBMC scrape it and download beautiful artwork, movie plot info, actor info, etc. Why would I ever choose the former?
I'm happy to see that the opinion that Hollywood (and other media sources) are just fighting a losing battle is finally getting mainstream. The issue isn't that the majority of pirates are dickheads that don't care about artists, the issue is that the publisher "middle man" is no longer relevant and is making it harder to be honest than not. Adapt, or die. Artists would do themselves well to start working towards cutting the big publishers out of their workflow, unless those publishers start offering viable reasons why they shouldn't be. The publisher used to be good for distribution and shelf space, now they are good for what? Suing people? If they put half the effort into innovating in the digital space as they have on legal bullying, maybe they'd find that there is money to be made in embracing this thing called the internet.
But it's like a lifetime politician... they'll never make real change because to do so will hurt somebody, somewhere and they have to get reelected. Embracing the digital age means completely rethinking the publishing model and how media makes it to your household. But that's pretty hard to do when media is tied up in contracts with dying industries like cable and big recording houses.
As I understand it, the purpose of copyright is twofold: To ensure that intellectual property is properly attributed/credited, and to allow the creator the right to control how money is made with it for a limited period of time. On the first point, piracy doesn't really deny or hide who made the game. If I made something, I'd want it to be known that I made it, and not have someone else waltz in and claim credit for it. In this regard, piracy really doesn't concern me. On the second point, making money is a concern only insofar as it can support me (as a hypothetical artist) and my work. If someone else is making money off my work, it is of no particualr concern to me as long as I'm not making substantially less money because of it and thus rendered unable to support myself or my work. It seems to me that as the industries are now, the business aspect of them (distribution, recording, &c.) are doing more harm to these purposes of copyright than piracy is. They generally usurp the copyright rights of artists (ownership, distribution, making money) because artists previously had to depend on them for distribution.
There has been more effective means to stop piracy (speaking generally). EA did it with 'bioshock', before the game was playable it had tocontact their servers and download the exe and was limited to 3 activations before you needed to contact them. Of course this was removed due to public 'irritation'. MS has done it with serial keys, while not 100% effective it has been a deterrent. But one thing has and always has been a fact, while piracy is cutting revenue it has and always will be the greatest form of advertising ANY medium has had. A majority of pirated software and video does in fact result in purchase (no I cant give specific statistics) however I know of quite a few who have viewed a cam or what have you and later chose to purchase blueray medium due to the drastic and enhanced quality and 'special features' or even software in order to get the updates. So I will give them points for trying to use a bottleneck. But the claims that the industry wants to stamp out piracy all together is pure suicide. To effectively capitalize the industry needs to make more use of online and DRM streaming at the same time they are using the theater for movies. Then they would more than make up for their 'losses'.
Just my 2 cvents
I steal your car. Now you do not have a car. I copy your music. Now we both have music.
I steal your car. Now you do not have a car.
I copy your music. Now you don't have the $20 I would have paid you if I didn't steal your music.
I copy your music. Now you don't have the $20 I would have paid you if I didn't steal your music.
Theft all around, right? No, not right, because that is how life works. Selling recordings of music is a risk business; there is no scarcity, so the supply curve should put the price somewhere around $0. While copyright was once a way to encourage the creation of a distribution infrastructure, arguments like yours are now being pushed as a justification for using copyright to create artificial scarcity, so that an old business model can survive new technology. Industries desperately trying to ban or regulate technology so that they can maintain their revenue stream is something society has seen before:
Palm trees and 8
to the little FB "share" buttons per article?
alive to the universe, dead to the world
Further political careers, harass and persecute otherwise innocent and/or inconsequential individuals, erode "freedom", and turn an amazing exploitative profit...
Deja vu X10
Crowd sourced funding promises a lot of things: the idea that people will reward good work with more money, or that new work that is "suppressed" by the old system will emerge. In practice, however, these things haven't materialized and I don't think they ever will, I just don't think entertainment works that way. People want a casual experience they can take or leave, they don't want their entertainment experience turned into an advocacy enterprise where they have to band together with people and raise money and attract friend networks and go through all this bullshit just to see 20 minutes of mumblecore.
That is an excellent insight. I hope you realise that everything done currently and in recent years in attempts to thwart piracy also interferes with the way entertainment works and except that you don't even get an advocate's instant gratification from supporting The Cause. Me, personally I find it very hard to be entertained when I see myself as supporting emerging Big Brother with money spent on entertainment. It just stops being fun, it's an instant killjoy. I don't even pirate, I abstain completely. Don't touch the stuff. Just say No. If you are suffocating me, I'll have to starve you.
Whoever wants to support your work will pay you, and the rest probably won't, or even hell, won't! Trying to squeeze more water from already dry cloth will only destroy the cloth.
With all due respect, I believe crowdfunding is all you can realistically get, so deal with it. I am sure really epic works could be made with e.g. DoD or even with NASA sized funds, but fact is you just don't have these. Even worse, you don't even have what you used to have once before. However, given the opportunity and media coverage, I am certain even the crowdfunding could eventually reach "normal" Hollywood levels, provided contributions can be sent from around the world.
It all boils down to: there is no more money, so spend less.
Ditto for people who want casual experience they can take or leave - if they pin so hard for something new to see or hear, they'll have to participate and fund it, or else suck it up and keep regurgitating the same old content in circulation, or try to roll their own. That's the reality of life.
For them, it all boils down to: You get what you pay for. However, you (content producer) must accept the fact that they may be too modest in their demands for your taste. It is such a shame, but still, it's yet another fact of life (see the Subject above).
I like the article here http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/02/03/you-will-never-kill-piracy-and-piracy-will-never-kill-you/3/ great ideas. Be careful however, these are the same moronic people that would create a ULA that allows them to peer into your machine at the very worst. Back when windows 95 came out you as a user had lots of control and over the years I've seen it dwindle away a little bit at a time. That's how it starts, things you were able to do are simply chipped away a little at a time. By the time you realize what you have lost it's too late. Imagine your entire house now connected for convenience, but your XBOX with facial recognition, voice recognition etc, is connected to the internet. Did you review the code on that thing? Did it come with remote support? Of course I'm taking things to a very bad degree, however if history is any indication as to the potential, here are some examples, recent American greed (think housing market, bank collapse, car company bailouts) 15 dollar movie tickets, software licenses (hey, it's the same software, but you have to pay for every copy? that's greed and yes I understand the concept of why it was done, but when you boil it down.) So let's break this down...Movie industry greedy and inflexible the later being very bad in the long term (my way only i.e. dictatorship.) and then we have those that DL the movies, whether for whatever reason and both of these avenues come down to morality and being reasonable. Both of which are lost on these two groups and also points to behavior, human behavior. So when you install that software think about the behavior of the ones providing it. (Inflexible with dictatorship qualities, both of which lead to very bad things.)
Essentially the RIAA and MPAA are trying to put out a big, massive forest fire using nothing but a water gun. Not a Super Soaker mind you. One of those old school ones you can get for a dollar.
When that fails, which it will, they are going to try to urinate on the massive fire to put it out...
Its not about protecting ip, its about denying and blocking independent access to competition within "commercial space". The EPA laws deny and block independent competition in the chemistry, manufacturing and mineral extraction commercial spaces. The FDA laws deny and block independent competition in the pharmaceutical discovery, production, and market development commercial spaces. The FCC laws deny and block independent competition in the airway communication spaces. The SEC laws deny and block independent competition in the banking and finance commercial spaces. The HS laws deny and block independent competition in the security commercial space. The insurance authorities deny and block independent competition in the insurance commercial space. The Lawyer authorities deny and block independent competition in the legal commercial space. The Physicians and other medical professions and authorities deny and block independent competition in their respective commercial spaces. Its the same world wide, the power of the state is used to monopolize the commercial space. The monopoly of commercial space accounts for the difference between freedom in America in the 1950s and cohesive containment in 2012 and it also explains why the college degree has become so important, because it too is a constraint on competition in the commercial space. So these IP laws and international treaties are not to protect privacy, but to deny access to commercial space and to monopolize portions of said space.
I called my representative by telephone the day Wikipedia went down. I hate SOPA and PIPA, but it has nothing to do with a desire to get free music or movies. I care about file sharing but that doesnt mean I support piracy. So it would be best if the two goals were separated completely as far as I am concerned. It seems to be in the interest of those who support these laws to tie them together.
It would be very nice if there was a way to stop piracy. The practice of piracy does not effect me because I dont do it. I am not trying to take a moral issue over how others use the Internet. In general, I just dont care if piracy exists or not. My gut feeling is that it should not be done, because it is theft. Even if they are charging too much or limiting content or mucking it up with DRM... they own it. The problem is that the act of piracy and the attempt to curtail it is probably going to effect me regardless. I see how the corporations are making the fight against piracy into a fight against sharing. Sharing is not piracy... and the laws of ur country are not the same laws of all countries. In some countries it is perfectly legal to share music and other content u own with people u know. For now... I can still do this. But I see a time where we will all have to obey the limited laws of fair use as written in America. So now I fight for the side of the pirates. Not because I think it is right, but because... to allow governments and corporations to control the Internet at large in the name of just one issue is wrong. I wish piracy would go away... so corporations wouldnt have a leg to stand on when requesting such drastic measures of control. Its so obvious to me that they just want to see all traffic going through them. I realize megaupload had some issues. But it was also a massive sharing site for many artists with legal content.
Whether piracy lives or dies doesnt matter to me. I expect there will always be theft in all areas of business regardless of the controls. I just dont want laws to come in that effect everyone and retard the future of open sharing online.
Hollywood is being Foolish. You can't kill off pirates with broken laws.
There is only one thing that combats Pirates:
Ninjas.
Nobody is complaining when someone takes trash out of a trashcan for free. Isn't that right?