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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."
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.
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!
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 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.
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.