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BitTorrent Usage Increases In Europe, Following the Pirate Bay Blockade
MrSeb writes "In a twist that will surprise no one except the RIAA, MPAA, BREIN, and other anti-piracy lobbies, the amount of BitTorrent traffic has stayed the same or increased in Europe following the blockade of The Pirate Bay in the UK, Netherlands, and other countries. This news comes from XS4All, one of the largest European ISPs, which has published a graph of the network traffic associated with the BitTorrent protocol — and sure enough, since the Dutch Pirate Bay blockade began in February 2012, traffic has stayed the same or increased slightly. There are probably a few reasons for this: a) The European blockades created a lot of publicity (and no publicity is bad publicity); b) TPB isn't the only torrent site out there, and many of its torrents are available elsewhere; and c) Internet denizens are a lot more savvy (proxies, VPNs, etc.) than the MPAA and co give them credit for."
An equal hypothesis could be, everyone has stopped downloading files from the pirate bay and with all the free time they have now they are unable to watch movies, the are now committed WoW or D3 players, or whatever other games use Bittorrent as a patch delivery mechanism.
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
Piracy will never go away. It's literally part of the market itself. No matter what kind of laws or restrictions they impose, people always find a way to share information. So it's not a force that's hurting the market, it's simply part of it. And if the copyright holders can just learn to use it to their advantage, it can be one of the most powerful forms of advertising online. It doesn't cost them any customers or money, it only provides new opportunities.
There I fixed it for you.
From TFA:
If it was easy to create an official, legal version of The Pirate Bay, then the entertainment industry would’ve done it already - they’re not that stupid.
What was it again that Einstein said?
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Ever since they blocked The Pirate Bay I started using it. XS4ALL is my ISP and they will fight for my freedom to use it or not use it. So I stick with them. And lo and behold setting up a proxy is easy enough(Block google is probably much more effective) and yep of we go downloading stuff. Just to give a big fuck you to BREIN and Tim Kuik(leader of that bunch of nitwits).
The irony is is that I never downloaded anything that wasnt free(as in beer) over bittorent.
I am not stealing, I am downloading. I have ZERO intention of purchasing most of the products I download but I do purchase some of the good ones.
IF they ever come up with the perfect DRM then I will stop downloading BUT I will not start purchasing their shit. I'll simply look for other forms of entertainment.
So have I have not stolen anything.
Let's ponder for a moment what happened most likely. Take Joe Randomcopier. He doesn't know jack about getting around DRM or how to "crack" software, all he actually does know is how to use a torrent program. And that he knows 'cause it's point-and-click, and no harder to use than any other user space program out there.
His access to torrents gets blocked in some way. Be it that the tracker becomes unreachable, be it that his ISP filters, be it whatever it may. What will Joe do? He doesn't have the tech knowledge to figure out a way around. What Joe does have, though, is the internet and access to its knowledge. Joe might not know much, but he does know that someone knows more than he does and that someone will publish the information he needs. And he knows how to use Google, Bing or whatever other search engine there might be out there. Even if Google, Bing or most other engines start blocking "such" information, Joe will by then have found a new engine that doesn't. How? By using the same venue of information gathering he uses now. No matter what information you try to block, it's a bit like fighting malware: You can only start fighting it once it is out there somewhere. And playing whack-a-mole has never really been a very efficient way to curb information distribution.
So Joe gets pointed to some board, some blog, some podcast, some youtube video that shows him in terms even Joe can reproduce how to get around this blockage. If everything fails, someone clever enough will come up with a new kind of torrent client that ignores said blocks, be it by redirecting the blocked accesses to trackers through proxies or by disguising the blocked protocols as HTTPS traffic. Joe doesn't and needn't know how it works. Joe just needs a pointer to the place where he can download that program or configuration. And those pointers he will get, no matter what you try to do.
So yes, the "average copyright infringer" doesn't know how to work around those blocks. But he doesn't have to. Just like the average game copier doesn't need to know how to crack copy protection. All it takes is one person smart enough to do it, the others can just copy his work.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
In the Netherlands, if one googles the pirate bay (which is what many users do instead of typing in the URL, especially those that aren't particularly computer-savvy) the second and third hits both provide a list of proxies. It is just a matter of clicking a different link. Circumvention is very easy even for the most clueless.
If the anti-pircay organizations want to achieve something, they should probably sue Google to have them censor searches for the Pirate Bay. Given that ISPs can be forced to block it, there is a fair chance judges will require Google to censor such searches.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18722054
so what?
i download everything i want (which is not much, but is just what i happen to want).
i will never, ever, buy another book, game, dvd, whatever. it's years already since i haven't, and i will not do it again until this retarded, obnoxious swindle and mass idiocy about IP is out of the picture. not a single dime.
got it? :-)
now you may keep calling it stealing if you so wish. you can also suck my dick. enjoy
Since when does all BitTorrent traffic = piracy? I download 10's of gigabytes/year using BT and none of it is pirated content. All of my BT traffic is legitimate and legal.
In my opinion, this association of "all" BT traffic with illegal downloading is preventing BT from being more widely utilized for legitimate uses. It is nothing more than a distributed file-transfer protocol; the fact that some amount of BT traffic is used for illegal activities is really irrelevant. We should be driving more legitimate usage of BT to tilt the traffic patterns more towards legal use of the protocol and drown out the "noise" of illegal usage. This is the only way to ensure widespread use of the protocol in a way that survives any legal attempts to block it. The more BT is used for illegal activity the more likely it will be blocked or filtered at some point.
Just imagine if someone "discovers" that TCP/IP is being used to transfer these illegal BT packets all over the internets...
"If it was easy to create an official, legal version of The Pirate Bay, then the entertainment industry wouldâ(TM)ve done it already - theyâ(TM)re not that stupid."
It took almost 20 years of hard work at RCA to develop the CED video disc format. You know, the discs where a needle in a groove picks up the video. Hit the market a few years after the laser disc.
What, you mean you've never heard of it? Not too surprising, actually.
But yeah, they're SMART, they are.
This space available.
Not sure if you're trolling or indeed buy that "piracy=theft" argument. Let me explain it to you again: for theft to happen, the original owner would need to be deprived of the object stolen.
It's like in that "would you download a loaf of bread" argument. Of course I would, and if replicating bread would be cheaper than baking it (and kept the quality, like copying does), the society as a whole wins big time. Arguing that "but the bakers lose" is precisely glasser's fallacy.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Your analogy is really poor. If you take a Ferrari then the person who owns the Ferrari doesn't have it anymore. If you on the other hand take a digital copy of software then the original creator still has it, too. With that in mind: if a person downloads a copy of something and never has any intention for paying for it, even if it was unavailable via piracy, then how has anything been lost?
TPB has been banned in my country for a few years already. I did use it sometimes, but I never thought much of it. I found other torrent sites to be so much better... Its ban has never bothered me too much. I keep wandering what these people who banned it have been thinking. Did greed really rot their brains so bad?
Not if you cut off their hands. Works for the Taliban. What'll they jerk off with then?
Copying copyrighted data is not theft but counterfeiting.
So your metaphor would be exact if you build a car in your garage, using the same design and colors than a ferrari.
You should apply the rating to yourself - copyright infringement and theft are fundamentally different. A theft deprives the original owner of the item being stolen. Copyright infringement duplicates it.
The RIAA, MPAA et al. have been trying to redefine copyright infringement as theft (and even respelling it as copyright theft, which is something else entirely again) for years - those pre-show bits on DVDs covered in "You wouldn't steal a bag/car/phone" messages - but the plain fact of the matter is, it's not stealing and never will be. By definition, copyright infringement is a far less serious crime than theft. End of argument.
I am not surprised that activity is the same or has increased.
its absurd to assume / assert / suggest / claim that on every street of every block, of every neighborhood, of every community, of every city, of every county of every state, of every country there is even ONE much less more torrent users. That's crazy talk.
I doubt I have one neighbor who has used a torrent.
The idea of compressing data to save bandwidth seems like something providers would promote...unless they are trying to force you to use more bandwidth (by spreading FUD to deter torrent usage), exceed your caps and thus be able to charge you more money.
My bandwidth is throttled to less than BROADBAND speeds (768Kbps) both upstream and downstream, yet I do not use torrents...guess I will have to start using them. Why are Cable providers allowed to fraudulently say their service is broadband when they throttle bandwidth to less than 768Kbps, especially upstream, 24 X 7. The only time I see 768Kbps or greater upstream is during the Speed Test.
The DRM / DCMA pro industry wants us to believe that torrents are widely used. This is NOT true. They want us to believe that ONLY thieves use torrents, which based on comments (not that I need them) to this post we KNOW NOT TO BE TRUE.
So what is their game? Pathetic.
Something has been lost because the value of the original has been reduced. Much of the value of real world items is based on the perception that they have value. My first boss used to say "If you give something away for free, people will esteem it as worthless". Most people who say "I do not pay because it is not worth it", merely say that because they are used to getting it for free.
How can they identify BitTorrent traffic, since virtually all such traffic is encrypted and all the ISP can see is that it is SSL?
Are some people still silly enough not to encrypt their transfers?
Something has been lost because the value of the original has been reduced.
If the person wouldn't be paying for it anyways then that person views its monetary value already at zero, therefore its value cannot be reduced any further anyways.
There is lots of Proxy sites avilable in the internet..which can download torrent files easily... i'm using http://publicproxy.in/ ..in my country lots of sites blocked...
also if you want you can download movies directly from
http://sceneunited.com/
I also found a Proxy network..where lots of proxy sites working fine
http://proxybite.org/
In europe we hear a lot about like video and books in services like Google Play, ITunes, Amazon, Netflix. But the reality is that these services has done a very poor job in supporting the european market. I don't know who is to blame, the EU for not creating a single european content market, rights holders for making it too cumbersome to add their content to these services. Or maybe Google, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and others are just too lazy or too inept. Who do you think is to blame?
a friend of mine always says: every fance has a hole...
If something you own now has less value because somebody else now has the same item, I would suggest that your initial calculation of value is flawed and of no use to society.
Only on Slashdot can such a comment be modded Insightful.
We get that the current system is not perfect. But publicly declaring that you're not going to pay for anything anymore while obviously still expecting to get all the latest new stuff... how is that fair to anyone, especially the creators of the stuff you're consuming?
I for my part am simply more selective about who I'm giving my money. And if I decide I do not want to fork over money for something, I may simply not consume it. If you want something to change, vote with your attention. Otherwise it's no wonder this is turning into a war.
Bitten Apples are still better than dirty Windows...
There's nothing illegal about DOWNLOADING a copyrighted file, if there was then the intenet itself would be illegal since every html, video, audio, etc, file ever created is automatically copyrighted at the time of creation. How it wound up being avaiable for download on the internet is not the downloader's problem, legally or morally.
OTOH: From your id and the use of a combination car / broken window analogy, I suspect you already know this and are just another unimaginative troll.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"This news comes from XS4All, one of the largest European ISPs..."
XS4All is a big provider in the Netherlands, but not the largest. They are definitely not one of the largest in Europe.
They do however have a long history of standing up for the rights and privacy of their customers.
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
Most people who say "I do not pay because it is not worth it", merely say that because they are used to getting it for free.
No.... I do not pay for modern recordings, because they really aren't worth it. Modern recordings sound like shit. If I can't get 'em for free, I'll stick with radio. Until the recording industry pulls their heads out of their collective asses, however, I'm not going to spend money on a recording that was engineered at the behest of a moron. As they're "remastering" old recordings and rereleasing them with this crap, it means that I have probably already bought my last CD ever from mainstream producers. (there are still indy producers who know what music is supposed to sound like, and I do still buy discs from them).
No, it's right that we see what happens, rather then closing our eye and screaming hopping that the problem* will go away. The whole IP scene must evolve, the money is there if the service provide more to the user. *I don't think this is a problem at all, it's just a problem for distribution companies, and I hope they all die in pain.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Not quite. There's nothing illegal about downloading a copyrighted file that is being distributed according to whatever terms the author has set. In the vast majority of cases the author is allowing distribution for consumption through a web browser. The author is not, however, giving up all rights to the copyrighted work. The most common case where this is fought is when images are illegally used. Furthermore, in US law, at least, it /is/ the downloader's problem if he downloads copyrighted works outside of legitimate distribution.
I am not endorsing the current state of affairs, just reporting them.
Meh - I'm happy to fork out $80 for Attenbourough's "Planet Earth" box set, it's much more effective to use your dollar to change the market rather than pretend it doesn't exist.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
One could go and really define copyright priviledges as property. But then all the property rules arise. If the sale of a copy does not move the property rights to the buyer, then it's a rent with the payment upfront. It means that the owner of said copy, the copyright holder, has the full responsibility to make and keep the rented out property intact, including repair, replacement and administration, such as a landlord has. The renter then could even go and reduce the rent because of a reduced usability, if the copyright landlord doesn't fix the rented property. Imagine a world with no software maintenance contracts and an explicit right of software users to program fixes and updates!
I doubt many copyright holders would agree to those conditions.
I think we'll just call you an asshole.
Most people don't want free. Research has already been done on this topic. People want "fair". When given the choice between free and fair, most people choose fair.
Counterfeiting only applies if you try to sell said item or use it as part of a transaction. It's not counterfeiting if it's for personal use.
This one of the main reasons I have mostly stopped both buying and pirating music.
Noone argues that. Point is that THEFT Has a fixed definition. Talk of Fraud, betraying someone for his gain. Point is - he still has the original, and THEFT is defined as removing property from someone.
so what?
i download everything i want (which is not much, but is just what i happen to want).
i will never, ever, buy another book, game, dvd, whatever. it's years already since i haven't, and i will not do it again until this retarded, obnoxious swindle and mass idiocy about IP is out of the picture. not a single dime.
got it? :-)
now you may keep calling it stealing if you so wish. you can also suck my dick. enjoy
What a loser.
The problem is this:
The *IAA and their friends have set up a thicket of rules that result in a legal, purchased copy being *less* valuable to me as a customer than a "stolen" copy. Further, they have made complying with the rules almost impossible. If I play my radio where others can hear it, that's a "public performance" and I need a license. If I play music in my class, I need a different license for that. If I want to complie a playlist (ie copy tracks off a cd and make my own cd) I need a license for that too. Ech of these licenses is sold by a different entity, and the process for getting one takes weeks.
So "stealing" is much, much easier, and *everyone* does it. I mean *everyone*. Even Grandma Moses.
So if the *IAA were to simplify their rules, and actaully ask their customers what adds value, they might survive.
But the result of their stupidity is that there is now an entire generation that has grown up pirating music, and sees nothing wrong with it, in fact, there is value added to a pirated product. It can be freely shared, it doesn't have DRM, it doens't have those FBI warngins, it can be played anywhere in the world. That's makes it more valuable than a restricted product.
But why wouldn't they pay for it? Is it possible that they would indeed pay for x product if they couldn't get it for free? Perhaps not in all cases, but I doubt all freeloaders would entirely abandon movies/music/games if unable to grab free copies. In a world where copying is prohibitively difficult, people would go back to how we used to be before the rise of file sharing: some people picking up bootlegs, and the bulk of people having to consume according to their spending power. Atari 2600 titles were relatively difficult to pirate, so at the time I either saved up allowance to buy titles, or more commonly visited my local game renting shop.
JC
for theft to happen, the original owner would need to be deprived of the object stolen
So you cannot steal ideas?
You cannot steal GPL'd code either?
No, and nope.
Ideas can be copied, as can code. Neither can be stolen.
Of course ideas can't be stolen - if they could, then you wouldn't even be able to use this argument, as someone else came up with it first, and you would be stealing his 'idea' that 'stealing ideas' are wrong. It's just a fucking stupid idea.
But why wouldn't they pay for it?
Maybe they couldn't afford it, maybe they have some ideological reason, I really don't know as I'm not them.
Is it possible that they would indeed pay for x product if they couldn't get it for free? Perhaps not in all cases, but I doubt all freeloaders would entirely abandon movies/music/games if unable to grab free copies.
No one is saying all "freeloaders" would do that, you know. There are people who would, and there are people who wouldn't.
So you cannot steal ideas?
Exactly. Idea cannot be stolen. 'He stole my idea!' is only a figure of speech.
You cannot steal GPL'd code either?
Also correct. Although you could fail to comply with the license term and be forced to, at your preference, either 1. comply or 2. stop using the code. If you choose to ignore the copyright claim you could be taken to court and, if proven proven guilty without reasonable doubt, you may have to pay compensation. Notice here the too often ignored 'due process' and the absence of greedy fucks screaming non-sense like 'Thief! Thief! These bits are mine!'.
You are making a lot of progress in your comprehension of the world. Soon you may be capable of getting out of under your bridge.
But then they shouldn't be downloading it anyway if it's so worthless.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
It's not counterfeiting if it's for personal use.
It's not copyright infringement if it's for personal use.
Actually, it's more like "I had no intention of ever paying for that Ferrari, therefore I didn't steal it when I *cloned one* and parked it in my garage".
I percieve the value of a film to be pretty low, I mean I watch them for free on TV when they are shown. I percieve the cost of a DVD to be low, I can buy a stack of blank ones for a relatively small amount of money. Why is a digital download almost as much as a physical copy?
If I add the "value" of the film, to the "value" of the DVD (or download), I don't get anywhere near the price I'm expected to pay for them. The only DVD's I tend to buy are the £3 ones from supermarkets and DVD stores, I don't buy digital downloads, they are just too expensive, if I'm shelling out cold hard cash, I want something physical they can't take away from me, if I'm paying pennies then I'll accept a digital copy I can play wherever I like (not just where I'm allowed to). I'm not paying £10+ for a DVD, as I don't think that is good value for money.
The other argument is they need to charge £10+ for a DVD because so many people are copying it? That's nonsense, if they were actually losing money they wouldn't be making more films, the music and film industries are certainly not (as a whole) making a loss.
The "I do not pay because it is not worth it" argument is very true, it *really* isn't worth it, the cost of a DVD is over an hours minimum wage, pushing an hour ar average wage I would guess. When I can get entertainment from the BBC for ~£130 a year, and I listen to and watch a lot of BBC content, I read the website, *that* is value for money, I also don't have to go out of my way to access it.
Because some corporation has brainwashed a lot of people into thinking it is hard done by, and sticks rigidly to an ancient (in terms of media delivery) business strategy, shafts over the little guys, people agree with (and defend) them... It's rather sad.
"If most copies of the disc are warezed, I believe the actual value of that piece of art suffers of some kind of inflation and, ultimately it's something not worth investing in anymore by the producers.."
So applying technologies that drop the price of the product hurts the producers. Similarly, if new techniques result in a vast drop in the price of wheat, this too would be bad for the world economy?
Perfect DRM exists, used in the games on GoG.com and Amazon/iTunes MP3s.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
But just to take that argument a little further, next you have to remember that each copy still has some kind of value.
That doesn't matter. You're still simply making a copy. No one else lost anything except perhaps the potential to gain money that they never had to begin with.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Give 'em hell mateys, don't stop yer swashbucklin' 'till all the DRM-lubbers rest in Davy Jones' locker!
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Sure, I agree with that.
The entertainment industry depends on that potential to gain money.
I don't understand why content providers are so hostile towards the idea of free crowd-sourced backups of their data? Beware, Do-Gooders, no good deed goes unpunished!
The Admin and the Engineer
Just because it's not theft doesn't excuse your actions, you're still getting negative karma for copying someones work without paying them for it. I'll accept the argument that the *IAA's are horrible orginsations than somewhat justify your actions, but for the most part you're all just greedy motherfucker who shouldn't be doing what they're doing.
Something has been lost because the value of the original has been reduced.
Even if something was lost (at most, potential profit, money that they never had, would be lost), nothing was stolen. The 'pirate' has not taken anything from someone else and gained their copy. I don't know what "value" you're speaking of, but I certainly don't think the price drops each time something gets downloaded. And since you can make infinite copies even without the original artist knowing, there is no reason that it would.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
They said "monetary value." If they wanted to pay for it, they'd do just that (assuming they had money). I think it's quite clear that many don't.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Sorry; nice try, but copying material which is copyright or patented is not counterfeiting either. To be counterfeiting, there has to be a sale with intent to defraud. If you copy a dollar bill and frame it on your own wall, that is not counterfeiting. If you copy a song or movie or painting and then play it or enjoy it on your own wall for yourself, that is not counterfeiting. And it is glaringly obvious that if you copy a Ferrari in your own garage for yourself, not trying to sell it as a Ferrari, it is not counterfeiting.
So you cannot steal ideas?
Let's put it this way: an idea can be owned as much as a person can.
For both, there are/were laws that declared them property, allowed to buy and sell them, and so on. And both kinds of laws worked by draconian restrictions on personal freedoms.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Everyone here needs to tell one person they know that isnt very computer savvy about using peerblock and utorrent to download torrents. Or hell using peerblock and frostwire (since now can search torrents in its UI) for those more inclined to having a easier interface.
And while you're "killing" the distribution companies, the artists die with them because they depend on the same money you're not paying them.
Give money to the artists who deserve it and be picky about it. That is empowering the ones who deserve it, while starving the ones who don't.
Grabbing the content from the establishment without paying for it is actually empowering the establishment, because the law is on their side; whether that is right or wrong in your opinion. Because you are "stealing" from the big ones they are able to move whole governments and push new legislation through, because they can point at actual wrongdoing going on from the POV of the law. If simply nobody was interested in their products, they'd have no club to swing.
Bitten Apples are still better than dirty Windows...
From TFA:
If it was easy to create an official, legal version of The Pirate Bay, then the entertainment industry would’ve done it already — they’re not that stupid.
Actually they are that stupid... Countless surveys and similar has made it obvious that the primary reason for piracy is unavailability and to a lesser degree price. So how has the industry responded to these fully-in-their-control-easy-fixes? By doing absolutely nothing. Yes, they are THAT stupid.
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Take the Ferrari for example. I am no expert, but I hear that one will easily set you back $200,000. Most people who drive them do so on public roads, so the fact that you may be able to go over 200 mph is not really relevant, since in most areas you would never get the opportunity to do so. A cheaper car would perform the same task just as well for most people (Even better if you count fuel economy as a factor). So why do people buy Ferraris? The answer is exclusivity. People buy them because not everybody can own a Ferrari. Were there some way to magically replicate a Ferrari, nobody would spent $200,000 on one. I am not expressing an opinion on the morality of File Sharing - merely observing that availability and the perception of availability has a real effect on market value.
That does not make sense ... even though I often engage in this piracy business. I can dilute the value of an item by flooding the market with counterfeit. Society does not appreciated that even though I did not deprive anybody of any product. Society protects a business in return for the services rendered to society. Piracy undoes one of those things. Is it morally wrong ? ... a tricky question. Is it legally wrong ? ... not quite as tricky, but still not absolutely clear. In my books, the world is changing and things are being re-evaluated. It takes some a little longer than others to adjust.
And it all boils down to this simple thing:
Sure, copying is not theft. Still, having enjoyed the entertainment and not paid the asked price, I guess you just paint yourself as a little bit of an asshole.
I could agree with you but then we'd both be wrong.
I don't know if they realized this but popular torrent files can be uploaded and shared anywhere else on the internet too lol. They're like 20kb on average. In fact, I think there's some new thing where you can just click a highly encoded link and it tells your bittorrent client which file it refers to so you don't even need to download a .torrent file at all. So some little text post on some dumpy little forum could start a torrent download just as easily as the pirate bay.
and yet I find bottled water at the store, same water as in the tap.
Boycotts has time and time again shown to have no effected beyond bringing attention to a problem. How big effected did the DRM boycott of Starcraft 2 or Diablo 3 have on sales? In the same style, how big change did the attention brought around DRM on Spores had compared to the affect from lost sales? Lets take a look at boycotts on paypall, visa and mastercard after the wikileaks events? Did they have any statistical proven effect what so ever? If a company was found to eat human babies, if all that happen was that some people started boycott the company, nothing would change. The attention around the boycott might (media, politics and so on), but the act of "I will not buy because X" just do not have any affect on the market to cause change.
Life's not fair.
Which doesn't have much to do with the subject of theft. It does not really matter what they depend on.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
you have to remember that each copy still has some kind of value.
No it doesn't. That's the exact problem. Content creators believe that the content itself has value - it does not. Value comes in convincing some idiot to pay for it, not from the thing itself. Therefore if I make a movie and I can convince cinemas and later cable companies to fork over money for broadcasting that movie, then the value comes from having made those arrangements. If the movie sucks and no one wants to play/air it, it doesn't matter if the movie cost $400M to make, it has no value. No one wants it.
Now explain to me what a movie studio loses from me watching "The Matrix" on my computer after having downloaded it, compared to watching "The Matrix" a day earlier on cable after it has played for the millionth time? And tell me, how many distributors refuse to distribute content because a torrent is available? Does that even enter into contract negotiations at all? "Yeah normally we'd be willing to pay you $2M for the distribution rights but I saw a torrent on the internet so we're only going to offer you $10k". Doesn't happen. The only possible case where a studio would lose it is if people managed to download said content before it was released, and not bother paying for it in a traditional way once it is released. The rest is just bullshit and a shameless money grab.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Not only that but it is possible for two comepltely unrelated people in different parts of the world to have exactly the same idea. In fact it's quite common. Ever wonder why so many theories and discoveries in science end up getting their name changed, or getting another name tacked on? Why is Nylon called Nylon?
In fact you have to be pretty egotistical to believe that you have had an idea that absolutely no one has ever come up with. But there is a great deal of difference between simply having an idea, and being the person to invest in it, go with it, explore it, research it, market it and bring your idea to market or apply it in a practical sense. It is the latter that is rewarded with money, not the former. "I had an idea, pay me" is a stupid business model. "I had an idea and invested millions in it and successfully gave the world "x" based on said idea", now that's something different.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
If you "cloned one" then where is the other one, and how did the original owner even know that you "stole" it?
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
So giving a negative review of a piece of content is theft ?
it reduces the value of the original, doesnt it ?
If you did not buy or use any of the products you listed, then it did very well have an effect. Of course that's pretty worthless in the big picture if a hundred bazillion other people were still using or buying those products. OTOH, did "pirating" Starcraft, Diablo or Visa help in any way? Did that change anything beyond more DRM or more severe punishment?
If a boycott at least generates media attention, it sends a signal. The only way the big companies can respond to that signal is by offering a better product (or at least do nothing). Pirating sends a signal as well, but the way the big companies are going to respond to that signal is by adding more DRM or more legislation, because it is something they can fight (or at least they think so). A simple boycott cannot be fought with DRM or legislation.
In other words: you're the effing source of the problem! There'd be no countries blocking piracy websites or trying to enact ACTA or any similar such actions on a governmental level if there was no piracy to begin with, yet you could still influence the market by simply not buying what you don't like.
Bitten Apples are still better than dirty Windows...
I repent from my evil ways and accept you as my savior.
BitTorrent should be marketed as "Cloud Backup Device". You need to backup a file? Seed it, and it will be mirrored across the globe. Do you have a movie that you don't want to lose because of damaged media? Mirror it accross the globe.
Your argument is non-sequitur.
And for the record, if I could press a button on my computer and magically create a Ferrari copy at no cost without taking one from the showroom floor, you bet your sweet ass I would!
No, you can't. You can steal the credit for an idea, smething called "plagialism".
Rethinking email
Really? The GP simply showed the fastest route to make change happen. You may not think it is right, but it is the one most effective way to get the change he wants.
I also don't agree with him. I just not give money to the companies that support the status quo, those without lobbying branches, I'm ok with. But that's irrelevant, everybody is already aligned with the GP. That'll create a few problems, but overall is a good thing.
Rethinking email
Not giving money is fine, in fact it's what I'm advocating as well!
What's wrong is to expect to still get all the stuff you want anyway:
Bitten Apples are still better than dirty Windows...
We get that the current system is not perfect. But publicly declaring that you're not going to pay for anything anymore while obviously still expecting to get all the latest new stuff... how is that fair to anyone, especially the creators of the stuff you're consuming?
Fairness? How about the big FUCK YOU consumers get when they buy a DRM-laden product that isn't a whole lot cheaper (relatively speaking) than the hard copy, only to have to repurchase it again when:
1. They've exceeded their maximum free retrievals of content they've purchased but had to re-download due to reloading their machine, or ...
2. Can't read that fancy new book they bought on the lastest DRM Marketplace on their PC at work because it's not licensed to do so, or
3. Can't listen to that AAC bullshit on their non-Apple media player because it's proprietary bullshit, or
4. Can't watch the latest released movies because of antiquated DVD rental agreements, or
5. Can't fastforward through the stupid ads that they've seen a thousand times on a DVD that they've PURCHASED, or
6. Can only watch a specific show on Hulu web-only because someone is a tard, or
7. Can't find it on Hulu Plus at all, or
8. Rootkit, or
I agree with the OP. I stopped buying media years ago. I only stream now (which I pay for), and if it's not available on there (which most of it is not), I pirate it. I won't spend a single dime unless they give it to me the way I want. I want to be able to pull up Netflix and watch a movie that was released sometimes AFTER World War 2. I don't want to have to wait weeks for the latest episode of my favorite show to appear on Hulu. If want to be able to buy a book on Google Play today, and when my new Nexus 7 arrives, I want to be able to read it on there as well (actually, I was just about to hit the Buy button on Amazon recently for a couple of books when this problem occurred to me, so I went to TPB to get the exact same books DRM-free so I can read them where *I* want to).
If you or they have a problem with this, then fuck you. I'm still going to do what I want. Adapt or die.
Before mass manufacturing, cars were actually produced by artisans. Look it up. Isn't it tragic that the days of individually crafted automobiles are behind us? Ruined travel, made it impossible to get a quality ride, and of course custom vehicals are unheard of these days...
Nylon is called NYlon because it was debuted at the N.Y. World's Fair.
People with computer will always get their porn. regardless of RIAA or MPAA or wateva agency shutting down sites.
Noone argues that.
I do. Each copy has exactly the value that the purchaser (or pirate) ascribes to it. The actual value lost to the producer of digital content per copied item is best shown in a bulleted list:
*Loss of a potential sale to a potential customer.
*Oh, wait... that'll pretty much wrap this list up.
The claim of "the studios need to pay their business costs!!" accomplishes precisely nothing when arguing against piracy. Of course they do. So does the Ferrari factory mentioned earlier. If nobody's buying Ferraris, they're gonna have a tough time paying them, aren't they? So, Ferrari would look to why people aren't buying, and adjust their business practices accordingly. The ONLY difference is that digital goods can be replicated extremely easily, making the artificial scarcity that Ferrari relies on (or DeBeers, or Starbucks, or any store that offers specialty goods) a non-factor.
If you accept the claim that a digital downloader would not otherwise purchase the copy of the software he downloaded, then nothing of value was "lost". In fact, one could just as validly surmise that the download provided a gain for the producer in the form of advertising. Of course, you don't have to take this claim at face value, but then you're arguing that the pirate's dishonesty has cost the producer, not file-sharing, and that's a totally different argument (guns don't kill people, people kill people).
The point of all this is there are a great many assumptions being made when people try to determine the actual damages of piracy. You can argue that people who pirate are being disingenuous when they state "I wouldn't have bought it anyway!" or "I buy the ones I like!" but the truth is it doesn't matter, from a business standpoint. Some facts of life: 1) People are pirating software successfully. 2) It has been proven that the distribution costs of a piece of software can be next to nil; set up a webserver and let people do their thing. 3) As a commodity, software is valued arbitrarily, and it's been heavily, heavily skewed by points 1) and 2). These facts conspire against the old model of software distribution.
The harsh truth is the studios have 4 options, all of which are happening in various markets. 1) Create a way to bring in revenue after the original purchase of the software, which requires after-market purchases (pay-to-play, DLC, expansion packs, font packs, etc). 2) Campaign against piracy as an immoral act. I imagine this approach will continue to have the same effect as a campaign against oral sex. 3) Lower the price and increase the convenience of software acquisition to the point where it is easier and cheaper (in terms of time) to purchase software instead of pirate it. 4) Increase DRM protections more, and more, and more. Perhaps going as far as copy protecting all software via encrypted hardware keys. This is currently done for high-end or industrial software, and while it doesn't prevent piracy, it makes it orders of magnitude harder to crack the DRM. This has historically had the unintended side effect of pissing real consumers off, leading to even MORE piracy, once the inevitable software crack is released into the wild. Maybe it's worth it to insure initial sales before piracy begins, but that would be a case by case determination.
We can argue the morality of it all we want, and we can argue the "intrinsic value" of a copy, but a copy's true worth (or that of any purchased product, going all the way back to the first time a fellow traded an old spear for a tasty rabbit) is what the purchaser ascribes to it. Value is NOT set by a creator; that is price. When the price of software is higher than the consumer's value, you will get piracy (for non-digital goods, you don't even get piracy; you just get fewer and fewer sales as the disparity increases). That is simply the way it works.
I would probably agree with statements such as "The quality of digital goods is likel
Nope. Go ask Larry Ellison...he'll explain it all to you...
"Let's go find some Turian and beat the shit out of him
When you need to blame someone or a group, unfortunately, you blame the biggest target. obviously here, seems like they thought it was TPB. They also thought people were fucking idiots that don't know how to bypass this block. With google, forums, blogs and youtube, and some knowledge, patience and some logic doesn't hurt either, anyone can find the info you need to bypass it. Also, TPB is not the only out there but /. knows that so this article is not a surprise here.
Fairness? How about the big FUCK YOU consumers get when they buy a DRM-laden product...
Exactly, if you don't like it, DON'T BUY IT!
You are not entitled by nature to receive all the stuff you want under the conditions you want. If you don't like the conditions, then DON'T BUY THE PRODUCT. You are not making the problem of DRM any better with illegal downloading. Yes, life's not fair enough to let you have your cake and eat it too.
Bitten Apples are still better than dirty Windows...
True. And I depend on my lovely fiance for sex. Knowing that she can easily say "no", which is the better practice?
Treat her with disdain, attempting to convince her she should be lucky to get the little "D" when I offer it, and ensure that I get what I want prior to giving her any sort of satisfaction? Maybe even going so far as calling her immoral for figuring out how to sex herself, for free (hot) when HELLO!? I'm right here with the wienermobile, and any time she thinks about the sexin she should be coming to me, as the only lawful provider in town?
Or, improve my offering by a) making sure she'll get something out of it, b) treating her with respect and caring instead of disdain and distrust, c) having the exchange become personal and welcoming instead of sterile and cold, and d) providing a service she truly enjoys, keeping her coming back for more?
Now, I'm no scientist or corporate executive, but I can tell you pretty clearly which approach has NOT worked out so well for me in the past, putting my little production facility right the hell into bankruptcy.
So why do people buy Ferraris? The answer is exclusivity. People buy them because not everybody can own a Ferrari. Were there some way to magically replicate a Ferrari, nobody would spent $200,000 on one.
I would just like to point out some things: it's exactly because it is a physical product that manufacturing/replicating it is so difficult which leads to high price which leads to this exclusivity which again leads to higher monetary value. Software on the other hand cannot rely on the feeling of exclusivity, there is no cost whatsoever to replicating it once it has been manufactured and thus it quite isn't comparable. The value of a software product does not decrease with the number of people who own it, thereby its scarcity does not increase its monetary value.
Other forms of entertainment you would have paid for weren't paid for because you used products you wouldn't have paid for.
Not sure if you're trolling or indeed buy that "piracy=theft" argument. Let me explain it to you again: for theft to happen, the original owner would need to be deprived of the object stolen.
Wrong. Period.
For theft to have happened, the owner would have to be deprived of the value of the object stolen.
You are wrong I'm afraid, the definition of theft refers only to depriving someone of their property not any value that property might have. If I plant Leylandii in my garden I might deprive you of thousands of pounds of value from your house in lost value because of my hedge but I am not guilty of theft.
This is the definition of theft in the UK, the US definition I believe is pretty much identical..
A person is guilty of theft if he dishonestly appropriates property belonging to another with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it
How I wish I had mod points...
You hit the nail on the head. Treating your customers like criminals will never, ever, get the results you want.
Sure you might get some negative karma. But just smiling at someone is probably enough to offset a few billion copies.
What if I enjoy the content, decides it's good, and then pay for it?
Alternative, what if I pay for the content and find out I hate it?
From my standpoint, I'm not going to pay for anything if I'm going to be treated like a criminal when I do. I'm also not going to drop 10$ for an ebook that cost all of 2$ to produce, nor am I going to drop 50 or 60$ for a videogame I don't get to try out first.
My other issue is this: The RIAA/MPAA (and their counterparts in other countries) have REPEATEDLY gone after Indies, legally free programs, and the like. They attempt to hunt down and destroy anyone who provides a better deal then them.
No it doesn't. That's the exact problem. Content creators believe that the content itself has value - it does not. Value comes in convincing some idiot to pay for it, not from the thing itself. Therefore if I make a movie and I can convince cinemas and later cable companies to fork over money for broadcasting that movie, then the value comes from having made those arrangements.
And what if you have made a movie that everyone thinks is awesome, and by such have "convinced some idiots for pay it"... but they simply won't as they can get it for free as a torrent? How much would you invest in the production of your next movie? The situation is even more striking if we are talking about music, as you can't get income from cinema tickets.
Now explain to me what a movie studio loses from me watching "The Matrix" on my computer after having downloaded it, compared to watching "The Matrix" a day earlier on cable after it has played for the millionth time?
My explanation would be, that the cable has either monthly fee or advertisements, through which the movie is financed. (Although with a big hit like The Matrix, I really don't mind if it's pirated, as it's brought home truckloads of money already)
"So why do people buy Ferraris? "
To have an expensive business expense, that they can deduct from their taxes, thereby robbing the community of that money that could have been used for important things, instead of a penis-enlargement gadget for a rich moron.
OTOH Ferraris look awful with a dog strapped to the roof, too much dragging.
Value is (traditionally) based on scarcity. Digital goods (even with absolutely no piracy) have absolutely no scarcity unless it's entirely artificial. So, now, value is based on convenience and service. I don't go to a nice restaurant because I think the food is good (I can cook just as well at home and get a much nicer meal), but rather, I eat at a nice restaurant because I want to be waited on and I want someone to cook for me and bring me fancy drinks.
Digital goods must be approached the same way. When they are approached this way, then piracy has absolutely NO effect on their value. Digital goods have no scarcity, and therefore, wider distribution can not affect the value.
Something has been lost because the value of the original has been reduced.
You're very, very close, but not quite. The original commands a far lower price for the same utility, yes, but what has really been lost is the artificial scarcity that drove the price up in the first place. You nailed it straight on the head with your boss' quote, which is about maintaining scarcity. If a product is free (as in beer), it's not less valuable (in terms of utility to the owner), but it is less valuable (in terms of what people are willing to pay for it). Piercing through the ambiguity of the word "value", the situation is facepalmingly obvious: nobody's going to pay for something they can get for free unless there's enough utility added to warrant the price.
When we look at something like the loss of easily managed scarcity, I can't help but think consumers have shrugged off shackles at the expense of the production studios. Any good that becomes freely available *should* see a much lower price point. If every person in the world discovered a diamond mine in their back yard tomorrow, diamonds would be next to worthless. Bad for them, but good for us, so long as there is a producer that can subsist on creating a product that actually has more utility than the old freebie option. I think the biggies may not survive, but I don't think it's impossible to set up a business that takes advantage of the brave new digital world. Even if it IS impossible to make a profit creating digital goods, digital copies are flying directly out of Pandora's box, my friend. We could be seeing the end of digital goods as we know them, but I highly doubt it; my bet is someone much smarter than me is gonna create a new empire based around consumer satisfaction.
...say "I do not pay because it is not worth it", merely say that because they are used to getting it for free.
These two statements lead to the same end result, and are quite possibly 2 ways state the exact same idea.
The point is moot now anyway. We no longer live in a world where copying is prohibitively difficult.
Indeed. Scarcity increases demand, which increases price, which increases the motivation for less supply (more scarcity). It's a rock solid house in the realm of physical products, but tumbles like a house of cards when the good is digital.
The problem with your analogy is that it's the **AAs who think they're the "lovely fiance", and the pirates and customers are the smelly nerds.
It's obviously another case of the Streisand Effect: the media coverage about TPB being blocked generates interest and people will go see what it is all about. Then there was news coverage about the proxies to bypass the block. Popular blogs like "geen stijl" point towards proxies, in particular one that has "fuck" and "tim kuik" (.nl copyright industry rights enforcement figurehead) in it.
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
Aye. Even copying actual physical objects is becoming ever easier with 3D-printing. Though I doubt 3D-printing a full-size Ferrari will be quite so easy for a while.
This comment by cptdondo is actually quite good. But the weird reference to "Grandma Moses" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandma_Moses) is just plain weird, I notice. I suspect that s/he heard the name somewhere without knowing who it was, and took it as a generic rhetorical figure rather than the name of a specific American artist... unless I'm missing something subtle about Anna Mary Robertson Moses' views on copyright. :-).
Buy Text Processing in Python
A high class hooker still knows she's a hooker, and performs accordingly.
bittorrent != 'piracy' [sic] ...but that's difficult to explain to some people.
Substitute "mp3" for "bittorrent" and it's Deja Vu all over again.
But, the MAFIAA says that this time it's different - this time their world will end tomorrow for sure, not like the last thousand times they said it would
Maybe the ancient MAFIAA leeches will finally do the world a favor and drop dead - there is no room for 20th Century anti-technology leeching scumbags today (over a decade into in the 21st Century).
How is a downloader supposed to the know the copyright status and whether or not the source is an authorized distributor before clicking on every link on the internet? If the law makes them responsible for the act, but there is no practical way an honest user can tell whether or not something is legal to download, then the law is just making everyone into criminals. Every person using the internet would likely be guilty, and not even know it.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
And while you're "killing" the distribution companies, the artists die with them because they depend on the same money you're not paying them.
The distribution companies don't pay the artists either.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
And what if you have made a movie that everyone thinks is awesome, and by such have "convinced some idiots for pay it"... but they simply won't as they can get it for free as a torrent?
This has never happened. Has it happened? No. It's up to you to prove that it happens because as far as I know, you can't find a single example.
that the cable has either monthly fee or advertisements, through which the movie is financed.
Irrelevant. The cable company will not charge less for ads when I watched "The Matrix".. They base their rates on numbers that companies like Nielsen (quite a monopoly by the way, and I don't mean that in a good way) generally pull out of their asses. These are not based on "copies downloaded" but rather the amount of "viewers". In fact if the company was charging less because of downloads, then they should be charging as little as possible today. That is not the case however. The advertising business is as healthy as ever. My sister in law is vice-CEO for a global ad company and she's always being jetted off to exotic locations for "business trips" on the dime of companies like Discovery, Turner, etc. No shortage of money there.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
What does the "Lon" stand for then? The answer is "London", because it was "discovered" there as well.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
I live in the UK and I have Virgin, and I can and do access and use the pirate bay, not to mention demonoid and all the others which aren't blocked.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
Uhm. 99.999999999% or more of it matches with common sense.
1. Don't assume you have more rights than the ability to view -- this would stop almost all repurposing. (Which I think is more insidious.)
2. Does it look like the official site or official distributor for band X? No, Pirate Bay does not look like the official site or official distributor for band X.
If you want to ask then ask the copyright holder. If you can't figure out who the copyright holder is ask the distributor.
Uhm. 99.999999999% or more of it matches with common sense.
This has far ranging effects way beyond the obvious cases of downloading things from TPB, etc.
Don't assume you have more rights than the ability to view
Viewing = downloading. Just clicking on a web page and viewing it downloads copyrighted material to your computer.
Does it look like the official site or official distributor for band X?
This is about a lot more than music/movies/etc. Every website you go to on the internet most likely contains copyrighted information. From any graphics/etc down to the text. Every time you click on a link in your browser you are probably downloading copyrighted material.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
Yes, I understand that everything is copyrighted. That doesn't mean common sense goes out the window.
Correct, downloading copyrighted material is not illegal. Downloading it against the rights provided by the rights holder is.
Things formatted for web viewing you can usually safely assume that the rights holder is giving you the right to download for the purpose of viewing at the time of download. There's a long-standing implicit assumption that the right to view is being granted when the rights holder is putting it up on the web. There is no implicit assumption when someone who is not the rights holder is the one who uploaded it. Therefore, you should be wary of sites that look like the material uploaded was not uploaded by the rights holder or with the permission of the rights holder.
Now, this is also an area where mens rea comes into play. I'll wait while you google that. Okay, now that you read that, it's hard to say that when you google "stream (new movie title)" or "torrent (new movie title)" you're doing that with the full belief that it's legal. We've been bombarded with the message to the contrary. If you just google "(new movie title)" and the first link is a streaming link rather than the official website, sure it may be decided that mens rea was not present, but you know what? That's a defense to be used in court, not an excuse to say, "Whatever, whatever, I download what I want."
When you're actively looking to download media or art for free it's hard to argue you don't know exactly what you're doing.
Countering a logical train of thought with an opinion piece can be a non sequitur, especially when you completely misinterpret the conclusion.
Depends.
:-)
IANAE, but I think value can only be determined when there is a person willing to sell and a person willing to buy.
For example:
A tin of Piero Manzoni's "Merde d'Artiste" has a value of approx. EUR 30 000, because that is what such tins have been sold for at auction in the past.
If you'd erhm.. extrude one of your own and tin it, its sale value might be different, because the potential buyers might ignore your beautiful product, and either copy your production process by making their own (that would bring us to patents, or trademark infringement if you claim Manzoni filled your tin, but he's dead anyway), but in any case refrain from buying a tin of it from you because to them, it has insufficient value.
I think this disproves your statement, but even if it didn't, it reminded us of the thought processes of the 60's conceptual artists so I hope I've enriched your life and fertilized your imagination a bit with this posting
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
Unfortunately, that's not true. Nylon has nothing to do with New York, or London.
Anyway, it is futile to expect most people to not get the stuff they want. There are two options here, either people will pay for it, or they'll get without paying.
You are quit right when thinking it is wrong. But getting without paying is the lesser of those two evils.
Rethinking email
Correct, downloading copyrighted material is not illegal. Downloading it against the rights provided by the rights holder is.
Most of the time, there's no way to tell the difference. For the vast majority of copyrighted content that you come across in everyday usage of the internet, you probably have no idea who the rights holder is.
Things formatted for web viewing you can usually safely assume that the rights holder is giving you the right to download for the purpose of viewing at the time of download. There's a long-standing implicit assumption that the right to view is being granted when the rights holder is putting it up on the web.
How do you even know that the rights holder is the one putting it up on the web?
There have been cases of well known sites (Amazon) offering eBooks for sale that they did not have the rights to. Does that mean every customer that downloaded that eBook from Amazon is guilty of copyright infringement? They just downloaded it without the rights provided by the rights holder, didn't they? The rights holder did not authorize the distribution of that content, but most people would assume that anything on Amazon is authorized.
it's hard to say that when you google "stream (new movie title)" or "torrent (new movie title)" you're doing that with the full belief that it's legal.
Of course not, but again you're focusing on the obvious cases. Saying that downloading copyrighted material against the rights provided by the rights holder goes WAY beyond torrenting music/movies.
Type a random word into Google and click on any link that pops up (nothing to do with torrents or RIAA/MPAA content). You probably just download copyrighted content. Was it's distribution authorized? Who even owns the copyright on the random content that you just downloaded?
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
Piratebay is blocked? Since when?
Okay, let's try this a different way.
Look up mens rea. Now read it again.
If you're downloading something and you think it might be distributed against the wishes of the copyright owner, double-check or delete it. If you don't have any belief that it's not legit then continue. Congratulations, you have passed the mens rea test and are not a criminal.
Random word in Google -- yes, it was almost certainly copyrighted (most things are). Yes, the distribution was almost certainly authorized. The owner is probably attributed on the site you downloaded it from or is the same as the owner of the site.
For example, not four inches below this text box it says, "Comments owned by the poster. (c) 2012 All Rights Reserved." -- Look at that, Slashdot claims copyright on its web pages and attributes its posters. Surprise, surprise. You'll find that a lot of web sites have things like this on them to help clarify for you.
But getting without paying is the lesser of those two evils.
That's debatable I suppose. I'd suggest that we wouldn't have the mess of DRM, ACTA and whatnot that we have now if there was no piracy.
Whether it's realistic to have no piracy at all is another topic of course...
Bitten Apples are still better than dirty Windows...
If those things were aimed at stopping piracy, one'd expect them to be detrimental to piracy in any way. They aren't.
DRM and all the DRM laws around are about control, not piracy. The big media companies want them because they'll arguably make things harder for people that don't give them the rights to their work. Software companies want them because they are the ultimate lock-in. Governments want them because they'll make it harder to spot and punish corruption.
Notice that the word "piracy" doesn't appear anywhere.
Rethinking email
You can justify it however you want, but the end result is your demanding product from someone else's time and refusing to compensate them for putting the time into creating the product.
You're a thief. And so is anyone else on slashdot who makes the same argument. You may not have deprived the original creator of their work, you may have been doing it all your life and think there's nothing wrong with it, you may think copyright terms or laws or unfair, or whatever other specious argument you can come up, but in the end, you're still a thief.
You invent a machine and start selling it. People find it useful, and you begin making good money. Then I invent a machine that does the same thing yours does, but ten times better, and it only costs a tenth of what yours does. Suddenly nobody is buying your machine anymore. Your machines now have almost zero value, whereas they previously had significant value.
Have I "stolen" from you?
If not, then your assertion is wrong.
If so, then literally all technological innovation is theft.
IF they ever come up with the perfect DRM then I will stop downloading BUT I will not start purchasing their shit. I'll simply look for other forms of entertainment.
If the entertainment is so shitty it's not worth paying for, why are you wasting your time on it?
If it's worth spending your time to download and watch, is it not worth ensuring that the people who actually created the content (or sponsored its creation, most likely) get the benefit for having done so?
I'm confused.
Could you make this into a car analogy instead?
I'm pretty sure it's got something to do with dipping the gas pump nozzle in the tank and using Premium vs Cheap?
That's actually just your opinion.
Why would the original be anywhere other than with the owner? If you could copy a car perfectly without taking the original from the owner, is that theft?
Ask and ye shall receive. Edits follow:
True. And I depend on my lovely fiance for sex in the back seat of my car. Knowing that she can easily say "no", which is the better practice?
Treat her with disdain, attempting to convince her she should be lucky to get the little "D" when I offer it, and ensure that I get what I want prior to giving her any sort of satisfaction? Maybe even going so far as calling her immoral for figuring out how to sex herself, for free (hot) when HELLO!? I'm right here with the wienermobile, and any time she thinks about the sexin she should be coming to me, as the only lawful provider in town?
Or, improve my offering by a) making sure she'll get something out of it, b) treating her with respect and caring instead of disdain and distrust, c) having the exchange become personal and welcoming instead of sterile and cold, and d) providing a service she truly enjoys, keeping her coming back for more?
Now, I'm no scientist or corporate executive racecar driver, but I can tell you pretty clearly which approach has NOT worked out so well for me in the past, putting my little production facility right the hell into bankruptcy.
Thanks! That cleared iit right up!
Not sure if you're trolling or indeed buy that "piracy=theft" argument. Let me explain it to you again: for theft to happen, the original owner would need to be deprived of the object stolen.
It's like in that "would you download a loaf of bread" argument. Of course I would, and if replicating bread would be cheaper than baking it (and kept the quality, like copying does), the society as a whole wins big time. Arguing that "but the bakers lose" is precisely glasser's fallacy.
I find that my collection of music and videos from open source satisfy my hoarding habits. I do use BT to download iso images of Linux distributions. I just think that most downloaders of pirated music are hoarders. Do they play or watch what they downloaded, or do they create traders. Shades of baseball card collecting come to mind.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
It's an interesting metaphore, not only because both sex and data don't rely on exchange of physical goods,
but also because in the sex situation, too, there's an alarming big number of persons trying to go for the first solution and invoking shame, morality, religion, requiring abstinence/virginity, punishing adultery with stoning, marriage as a way to secure a partner forever, children as a way to force a mariage, etc.
Whereas simply not being a jerk works in many different aspects of life as your to example suggest.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Downloading is considered stealing as it is theft of service. Just because you had no intention of purchasing it doesn't make it any less stolen.
To use a car analogy, it is not like stealing a car (as some people like to pretend - and then say it isn't stealing as the original car is still there for the person to use). it's more like parking your car in a parking station and then driving off without paying. You physically didn't take anything, but you still used the service. The parking spot is still there for others to use, but you still owe them money for using the parking spot they provided for use.
If you're downloading something and you think it might be distributed against the wishes of the copyright owner, double-check or delete it. If you don't have any belief that it's not legit then continue. Congratulations, you have passed the mens rea test and are not a criminal.
In copyright law, direct infringement has occurred regardless of intent. The only place that "innocent infringement" comes into play is penalties, not guilt.
Or are you saying that downloading is related to secondary infringement?
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.
Look up mens rea. Now read it again.
Mens rea does not apply to copyright law.
Unix is user friendly, it's just selective about who its friends are.