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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."
Just make sure your money is slightly bigger than real money or you might end up in Guantanamo bay.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Could I send them a drawing of a spider instead?
You might want to think about it first. http://www.secretservice.gov/money_law.shtml
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
Actually, they tend to have the firmware, yes...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EURion_constellation
Apparently it's ok as long as:
The copy has to be one-sided
The copy has to be the wrong size. It has to be at least 75% smaller or 150% larger than an actual bill
You have to destroy the negatives, graphic files, or “digitized storage mediums” after their final use
INAAL so if you go to jail after following this advice, I'll just laugh at you. But i read it on the internet.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
I actually worked for a copier company once upon a time.
When users tried to make copies of money the copiers would display an error code and lock the machine until a technician was called at which time we were "required" to inform the manufacturer and the authorities.
We only ever ran into this issue twice. Once at an office which though it would be funny to make copies of dollar bills with the employees photos on them and another time at a police station which needed to make copies of counterfeit bills for use as evidence in a trial.
It shouldn't matter, as long as you're sending them only scans and not printouts. A scan or photograph could not be reasonably considered a counterfeit bill as long as it's not printed. The title and article misleadingly say "copied" bills, but the actual campaign says to send scans and photographs.
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.
You can read all the rules about copying money here: Rules For Use
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
I just copied this text from another comment:
Whoosh!
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
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.
I just copied this text from another comment:
Whoosh!
--
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
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.
If you MP3 encode them it will reduce them to a legal size.
JoeR
No, this is very real in color photocopiers and color laser printers. They tend to place a copy of their serial number at regular intervals on color printouts, in such a faint yellow that it's impossible for the human eye to see. This makes any color printout traceable to the machine that printed it. Commonly in use by law enforcement for tracking things like death threats, ransom notes, etc.
Google for "hidden yellow serial number" and find lots of information from reputable sources. First hit I glanced at just now is from PC World. Good quote from there, Peter Crean, a senior research fellow at Xerox, says his company's laser printers, copiers and multifunction workstations, such as its WorkCentre Pro series, put the "serial number of each machine coded in little yellow dots" in every printout. The millimeter-sized dots appear about every inch on a page, nestled within the printed words and margins. "It's a trail back to you, like a license plate," Crean says.
No tinfoil hat necessary, this one's for real. Last time I looked this up I ran across a technician that works at one of those in R&D telling how every one of their color copiers has a dedicated board inline in the image processing chain whose only job is to "insert" the serial number into the image stream before it goes to the imager.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Ages ago I was teaching a bunch of people how to work scanners in a training session. We scanned a whole bunch of stuff and most people were clearly able to see that commercially printed content doesn't look appreciably different when scanned at 600dpi or 1200dpi. Eventually I had the bright idea to try to scan a $20 bill since they're actually fine fabric and not paper. It scanned fine at 600dpi and previewed OK at higher settings, but every time I tried to scan it at a higher setting, the area of the bill would be replaced by black pixels in the finished image. My students and I decided it was probably an anti-counterfeiting measure and after about 40 minutes of experimentation with things like discoloring the bills, tearing them so they no longer resembled whole bills (we used a couple $1s for that), zooming in on small areas etc. we determined that whatever was going on was actually pretty tough to fool.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K
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...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
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.
I can get the same entertainment value from a copy of a movie or song as I can from the original. It can even be argued that a copy is even more valuable than the original, because it's easier to use on whatever device I prefer due to lack of DRM. I didn't enjoy the movie or song any less because it was a copy since the quality of the experience was the same or better.
I can only use a photocopy of money to wipe my ass with since I cannot even buy toilet paper with it. I do not enjoy the copy at all because I couldn't use it as currency and all it did is hurt my ass.
How are those two things at all similar?
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
MPAA and RIAA often argue that piracy is theft. The whole point of this campaign is to illustrate the difference between piracy and theft by providing an example of object which copy is worthless while theft isn't.
I live in Zimbabwe, you insensitive clod!!!!!!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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.
I don't think so. If everyone went to the bank and asked to withdraw all accounts, banks would not have the physical assets to do so.
Banks are required to keep at least a specific percentage of their deposits on hand to deal with withdrawals. For the rest, they'll tell you to come back tomorrow or the day after and they'll be ordering what they need from either another branch or the Federal Reserve. In either case, there is a physical object that you can get for that digital ledger entry, you just might not be able to get it the moment you demand it. If you look carefully, you'll note that your bank probably has a clause in their terms of service that tell you a time and quantity limit on taking your money out as cash.
See here, or here. It is called "fractional reserve".
I made a more or less faithful digital representation of a different comment and then changed the specific wording so as to make it not an exact duplicate of the original one in order to avoid any sort of copyright infringement lawsuit, and I feel as though it was time well spent.
I think you missed the point. If you make a copy of a dollar bill, you can't use the copy. It is by definition not as valuable as the original. If you make a copy of a CD, you can use the copy. It is just as valuable as the original. Only a moron wouldn't see the difference.
If I make a perfect, bit for bit copy of a dollar bill, it is worth almost exactly as much as the original. Because by saying I made it perfectly, I have said that it is undetectable and I can pass it without fear of getting caught. It is worth ever so imperceptibly less than the original, because I have increased the money supply, leading to some inflation. And note that I didn't just devalue my new shiny dollar bill, I devalued all the money in circulation.
Put in those terms, the government's anti-counterfeiting laws and the MPAA/RIAA anti-copying campaigns seem very much equivalent - both are designed to preserve the scarcity of something that has little intrinsic value, but instead has value in part because of its scarcity. Allowing unrestrained production of either leads to devaluation.
So I think that this publicity stunt of sending images of currency to the RIAA is just proving their point - copying is bad, m'kay?
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.
Ok, I'll try to make it simple.
The idea behind the campaign is that the MPAA thinks that the copies that float about the internet is money lost to them. Because the value of that copy is the same as the one they would have sold to you. Value, by definition, is determined by the one who WANTS a commodity, not the person who wants to get rid of it. Because the value of a commodity is by definition only what a prospective interested party is able and willing to pay for it.
Allow me an example. I want a bigger TV. But not enough to pay the price a bigger TV would cost. Hence I am not willing to pay the price for it and thus no sale happens. As you can see, my willingness to pay the price, not the seller's willingness to sell it for a certain price, determines whether a sale happens.
People copy content. I hope I'm not spilling breaking news here, I guess it's pretty much common knowledge by now that this happens. The question now is whether this constitutes a lost sale. That in turn is determined by the question whether people would be willing to pay the price they would alternatively have to pay if they could not copy.
The content industry now claims that they do. It is very likely, though, that the number of people able and willing to pay the price would be much lower than the 100% they claim. Will nobody buy? Certainly not, there's of course people who would buy if they cannot copy, but I would guess we're a far cry from the windfall they claim.
And the price for that, the loss of the internet as we know it, is far too steep for such a petty gain.
The idea behind the protest is now exactly that claim. That the copy someone made is a lost sale, and hence lost money to them. So it's only logical to send them a copy of money for the copy of their content. Sounds reasonable if you ask me.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Does a blank DVD has the same value as a movie DVD? Of course not, the movie DVD is more valuable
Depends on the movie.. at least you can put your own content on a blank :)
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.