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Campaign Urges People To Send MPAA and RIAA Copied Currency
An anonymous reader writes "In response to the still-raging MPAA & RIAA, a kind of reverse piracy campaign has arisen. The "Send Them Your Money" campaign urges pirates and landlubbers alike to send scanned images of American currency to these agencies. According to the campaign's webpage, 'They've made it very clear that they consider digital copies to be just as valuable as the original.' The operation gained fame via sites like Reddit and Tumblr, inspiring citizens of other countries to send their legal tender to the MPAA and RIAA."
I think I might do the same.
Yes, it's genius. Clearly this is the same thing, because copies of money are identical to the original and can be used the same. Oh, wait... I just realized that this analogy is complete bullshit invented by a moron.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
That's kinda the point.
That you missed.
Now who's the moron?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
A digital copy of a music file still has inherent value to the recipient, while a copy of a bank note does not - all you are doing is showing them you are as petulant as you consider them to be.
The value of a music file is in the content, not the form of the file while the value of a bank note is in the ability to exchange it for other things, not the art work on the note - copies work fine in one case, and not at all in the other.
I don't think he did miss the point. A digital bit-for-bit copy of a movie has almost the same value as the original dvd/bluray/stream. On the other hand a photocopied/scanned/printed copy of a dollar bill has zero value. Not even the people who are pushing this idea believe the equivalency proposed. If they did they would be perfectly happy with receiving photocopied cash as pay for their day jobs. Or they would be willing to receive 4 gigabyte streams of random bits in lieu of actual copies of movies, as long as the titles of the files were correct. Neither of these are true, so this whole thing is bunk.
That's kinda the point.
That you missed.
Now who's the moron?
I'm still missing the point, then. Is this not an attempt to make a statement that copied money is equivalent to copied files? Please explain what I've missed, since I'm so stupid and you're so smart.
It's making a statement that by the way MPAA & RIAA considers virtual copies of a film/game/song to be worth as much as the original, you might as well put the same logic to currency. Which doesn't make sense the same way that virtual copies of a film/game/song being worth as much as the original.
In Capitalist US, the commerce controls the Government.
I think there's another point here. Maybe it wasn't made clear in TFA (I dunno; I'm a Slashdotter, why would I read TFA?), but maybe the object lesson is "HERE is the real meaning of counterfeiting!"
Which is also the real element of risk. If you copy currency well enough, you've run afoul of laws which make copyright violation look like a picnic at the beach. And if don't copy the currency well enough, you're failing to make any point other than "RAAAWR ME MAD AT YOU". You might as well just TP their headquarters.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
So, would you accept digital copies of movies as payment for your day job? Maybe 5000 copies of a movie on iTunes a year?
Oh, wait, you can't sell those. Seems they're worth exactly as much as a photocopy of a dollar bill...
We only ever ran into this issue twice.... at a police station which needed to make copies of counterfeit bills for use as evidence in a trial.
that's hilarious.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
The two things are similar in that neither one deprives the original owner of their copy, but the point is not that media content and money are really the same. The point is that copying something and physically taking it are NOT the same. The MPAA and RIAA push the idea that the two are equivalent, but if that were true, then they would be very happy to have copies of our money. Very few people argue that copied media content has no value or that content producers should not be fairly compensated. The problem is that the media industry's insistence on equating "digital copying" to "physically taking" is a false premise that makes reasonable discourse on the topic nearly impossible. This campaign does a pretty good job of highlighting its absurdity.
A digital bit-for-bit copy of a movie has almost the same value as the original dvd/bluray/stream
Or more. After all, it's probably going to be easier to transcode and use if it isn't on a medium where the reader enforced DRM. Playing back a ripped DVD has several advantages over playing back the original. For example, if I pause the movie for a few minutes and the disk spins down, I get a stutter when I resume with the DVD. I don't with the ripped version, even if it's a bitwise copy. If the machine goes into power-saving mode, the player needs to reauthenticate with the drive, and often fails so the movie skips back to the start with a DVD. It doesn't with the ripped version, even with the CSS intact, because the encryption is handled entirely in software. So, from the perspective of a user, the copy is more valuable...
Bingo, a DRM free version of movie has more value than the corresponding DVD/Blu-ray version.
I mean when you have people spending on recordable blu-rays that cost more than a pressed blu-ray you know that what the MPAA is legally offering is so crippled as to be less valuable than a pirate copy.
A ripped blu-ray film I can watch on any HD screen or computer monitor. There is no HDCP not contend with. I can transcode to whatever format I wish and use on any media player. And I can think of many more uses.
The time when the MPAA shouted jump and stupid masses of people gladly threw out perfectly functioning equipment to replace it with time limited revokable hardware is at an end. The pirates are effectively offering a superior product.
Ethics aside, why should one be stupid enough to be ass fucked by the MPAA ? Your nice blu-ray player that you spend 300 $ on ? After 2-3 years no more firmware updates so new movies won't play because of updated revocation lists. This is not a good business model for consumers. Piracy is a good thing for the consumer at least until those holywood dickheads start smelling the coffee. Drm free files with watermark of personal information. The way mp3 files are sold on itunes. Anything less and it is a non starter at least for me.
A digital bit-for-bit copy of a movie has almost the same value as the original dvd/bluray/stream.
It has the same recreational/educational value (depending on the DVD) but your original DVD can be resold. It has monetary value. A digital copy, whether iTunes or Pirate Bay, has no monetary value at all, just like a photocopy of a five dollar bill.
Free Martian Whores!
But it's not an apples to apples comparison.
When you copy money, you gain nothing.
When you copy a movie or song, you gain access to something just as valuable as the original, without paying. Some people may not have paid regardless, but a great many would have paid if they didn't have the option to get it for free. Not every pirated copy is a lost sale, but many are.
If copying money worked the same as copying a movie, which is to say that the copy was just as useful as the original, it would be devastating to the world economy. It seems that if anything, this childish campaign is a poignant reminder that copying can cause problems.
What most people fail to realize about this is that the analogy is backwards. You're starting with the assumption that a dollar has value, but it's just a fancy serialized copy on a piece of paper. It has no actual value. Way back when the dollar was backed by metal it had the value of that metal, but no longer. Paying with dollars is like paying with multiple copies of the same song.
I don't think he did miss the point. A digital bit-for-bit copy of a movie has almost the same value as the original dvd/bluray/stream.
Yeah, "zero".
If you make a million copies of a movie you bought for a dollar, are you now a millionaire?
Of course you aren't. One copy is worth the same as a million copies.
There's only one number in mathematics that retains the same value no matter what you multiply it by.
That's the fundamental issue, now: creation of the work is still valuable, and access to the work is still valuable, but copies are no longer valuable at all. Guess which of those three things copyright gives exclusive privelege to?
Remember, they're not selling creation (except on Kickstarter), or access (except at the movie theater). Most of what they're selling is COPIES. Absolutely worthless copies. Which people only actually buy for three reasons:
1) They want to fund creation and understand that buying copies is the only way to do that under the current stupid business model.
or
2) They're worried about getting caught doing something illegal
or
3) They're not very bright.
The point of this campaign is to point out the total lack of value that digial copies have. People who don't get this won't get it, but it's still irrevocably true. Digital copies cost nothing to make and you lose nothing when you destroy them. Xeroxed money is actually worth MORE, since it costs something to make and you lose something when you destroy it.
Dollars actually have a value -- just as every state controlled currency has a value -- they are required for you to pay your taxes. You cannot send a bushel of corn to the IRS on tax day. This means that the corn producer needs dollar bills. So people who need corn need to have dollar bills. And so on.
I know that trick wouldn't work with the new 100s and 50s in Canada (and soon the rest of the "paper" money). They are plastic now, like Australian money. And the Canadian bills have windows in them and holograms as well as monopoly money colours. :) Mind you, thanks to the low tech watermark it didn't work that time either. I find it aggravating sometimes in the 'States when I go to pay and pull out a wad of green and can't tell the ones, fives, tens, twenties, and fifties apart right away if they happen to have become bunched up. Colours and coins for smaller values help a lot there.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
I think the point is more along the lines of copies of an already purchased game should be worth as much as the copied currency.
I disagree. There is no technical way to make a digital copy worth anything, and the laws required to make people behave as if it were worth something are utterly destructive to freedom. Case in point, every single law we have passed or tried to pass to make digital copies worth something.
A movie DVD is nothing but a digital copy of the original film. Does a blank DVD has the same value as a movie DVD? Of course not, the movie DVD is more valuable because of the digital copy of the movie contained on it. The value of that movie to you is constant whether you get it on DVD, iTunes or TPB. Only the delivery mechanism has changed. Either they're all worth something, or they're all worth nothing; you can't have it both ways.
DRM is a different issue, and it sucks.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Are you actually trying to say that no-one ever pirated a single song that they would have purchased had the pirated copy not been available? That position is equally as absurd as claiming that every download is a lost sale (a position I don't think they've ever taken legally). The truth is somewhere in between there, but it is impossible to tell exactly where.
Yes, people should be able to make their own copies for their own personal use. And yes, DRM sucks. But let's be honest here, DRM came LONG (many decades) after people demonstrated their willingness to make and distribute copies.
For the discussion to move anywhere, both sides need to adjust their thinking. The media companies should make clear that making copies for your own personal use is OK. But, at the same time, sites the TPB and file sharers should be denounced just as harshly as the media companies for forcing the media companies to act in their own best interest so harshly.
Much as the pirates hate to admit it, the media companies have changed. The arguments used to be 'if we could just download instead of buying physical CDs, we wouldn't pirate'. Then it was 'if we could buy a single song for $1 instead of a whole CD, we wouldn't pirate'. For more than a decade that has been possible. Then it was 'well, if we could hear the song first we wouldn't pirate'. Most sites selling songs let you sample them before purchase. Then it was 'well, there is DRM on the songs, so I can't play it on all my devices'. Most sites now sell DRM-free songs. On the other hand, even with those changes, piracy still continues, just as rampant as ever. Until people are willing to admit that piracy IS a problem, you can expect the media companies to just continue digging their heels in.
And THIS is why I have NO problem with pirates or piracy, because its a classic case of the free market routing around damage. The same thing happens with tangible goods when you have a black market. in this case people are willing to pay X amount for a thing that does Y, they won't provide it, so somebody else does, just that simple. My dad has an Nbox media tank, that thing is perfect for him, but legally there isn't a single thing it can play, nothing. it is allowed to exist ONLY because of piracy, because the MPAA refuse to simply sell an .avi and according to DMCA you can't even rip a DVD into a format that it'll read.
So yet again we have media cartels holding up innovation, or did everyone forget how they fought tooth and nail against VCRs, going so far as to call them "The Boston Strangler" and delayed them in court? or how they blocked DAT and kept it from becoming anything but studio recording equipment? How about slowing down MP3 players for 2 years with the Rio case? And now we have the cartels blocking what should be the most obvious next step, the media tank. There should be NO reason why people like my dad couldn't just go to amazon, whip out a CC, download an .avi onto a flashstick, and plug it in to have a movie. So instead of giving them the money all we can do is route around the damage yet again, just as we did when they tried to push DRM crapped WMAs over MP3, and now instead of embracing this new tech they are offering these DRM infected files with movies now that are nothing but a series of flaming hoops to jump...or you can just go to TPB, which do you think folks will choose?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.