UKNova TV Torrent Tracker Shut Down After FACT Issues C&D

New submitter Volfied writes with bad news for fans of UK shows that aren't available for purchase anywhere. From the article: "The UKNova website has stopped letting users share links to copies of UK TV shows, apparently after legal threats from the copyright "enforcement body FACT. 'UKNova is being forced to change. We have been issued with a "cease and desist" order by FACT,' the message began. 'Despite our efforts to cooperate with the UK media companies, FACT have stated: "ALL links or access to content provided by UKNova are infringing, unless it can be proven that explicit permission from the copyright holder for that content has been obtained."'"

Comments

Another example...

[ToiletBomber]

...of letting someone know that they are guilty until proven innocent.

Re:Another example...

[Anonymous Coward]

I too wonder how this is even legal? Why is the british police not raiding FACT now to find out who sends out frivolous legal letters? Oh well, the normal "Media is high profile, high prestige and can get the police to do anything because otherwise we speak bad of them to the public"...

Re:Another example...

[egnx]

I spoke to the police about FAST when their sales pitch was essentially join us or we will raid you - the police couldn't care less.

Right now in a genteel country home

[paiute]

FACT manager: Son, how did you do on your exams?
Son of FACT manager: Great, pops! I got six A+s and one A-.
FACT manager: Not perfect. (Pulls out gun, shoots son dead.)

Re:Right now in a genteel country home

[Anonymous Coward]

FACT manager: Son, how did you do on your exams?
Son of FACT manager: Terrible, pops! I got six D+s and one D-.
FACT manager: [Picks up phone] Hi is this the examination board? Grades need reassessed or I'll send in the lawyers

not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Un pobre guey]

bad news for fans of UK shows that aren't available for purchase anywhere

So evidently many of you folks believe this is reason enough to pirate the content. If a patent isn't available for licensing by its owner, and thus not "available for purchase anywhere," is that also reason enough to pirate the patent? What about violating GPL, since it isn't "available for purchase anywhere," either? I'm talking about the enforcement of prevailing law, not anyone's philosophical issues with intellectual property.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Nerdfest]

What's the purpose of copyright again?

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[currently_awake]

There are two basic problems with copyrights. 1- eternal duration (they last until the material is worthless), 2-they are under no obligation to offer it for sale.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

If a patent isn't available for licensing by its owner, and thus not "available for purchase anywhere," is that also reason enough to pirate the patent?

Yep

What about violating GPL, since it isn't "available for purchase anywhere," either?

GPL stuff is available for purchase at a price of $0 all over the internet.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they last beyond the time the material is worthless. Some companies who are not offering their intellectual property for sales, and have no intention of doing so, will still take legal action to prevent others acquiring it.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

Black markets are created by unsatisfied demand, where legitimate supply does not increase to meet demand or is artificially constrained.

The copyright cartels do not want to meet this demand (it is completely realistic for them to do so) at a price people will pay, however they are often quoted as "not wanting to 'devalue' their content". Bascically they have done the maths and realised they can maximise their profit by creating artificial scarcity and keeping the unit price high while selling less and/or tying content up into lucritive exclusive distribution contracts.
Even worse is that they often do not want people to access older content as it's value is percieved as lower and because there are only so many hours of media that a person can consume they would prefer that you payed for the more expensive new content.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. The purpose of patents are "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." If you don't build it, and you don't license it, then yes, the patent should be invalidated. That phrase you might recognize from somewhere. Any use of patents other than to promote the progress of science and the useful arts is unconstitutional in the U.S.

US Constitution, Section 8. "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

"...reason enough to.."

"...prevailing law..."

"Reason" is closer to "philosophy" than "law". Your questions should have read "...enough to break the law...". But I think you were purposely mixing legality and morality.

Anyway, your question is to the masses and they have answered well before you asked... YES. Now, stop asking stupid questions. Fact is, copyright no longer respects the public. Why should the public respect copyright?

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[fredprado]

Laws that are unenforceable are moot. Copyright laws are unenforceable in the current world. So lets stop wasting our efforts trying to preserve outdated business models that can't be possibly preserved.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[alexgieg]

So evidently many of you folks believe this is reason enough to pirate the content. If a patent isn't available for licensing by its owner, and thus not "available for purchase anywhere," is that also reason enough to pirate the patent? What about violating GPL, since it isn't "available for purchase anywhere," either? I'm talking about the enforcement of prevailing law, not anyone's philosophical issues with intellectual property.

Yes, it is reason enough. I give an example of the silliness copyright causes. Here in Brazil there was a relatively famous writer a few years ago who died. His widow, heir to his copyrights, happened to become member of a religion for which his works were considered offensive. Being the rightful copyright owner, she thus decided to block any new edition of his works. The situation persists, and might continue for about 50 years, unless a Disney happens again and it goes on for longer still.

Copyright without copyduty is morally abhorrent. If a rights holder doesn't provide the copies only he can presumably make, why, yes, by all means, we, the people, will do it for him! Because the moment he fails on his duty, it becomes ours.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of saying "pirate", let's say "eminent domain".

Both do the same thing.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[fustakrakich]

My garbage can keeps filling up. What the point of emptying it? Horrible analogy, but I feel like walking the wild side with a zany rationalization for copyright today...

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Lumpy]

For the same reason that drug dealers dont want legalized drugs. Most drug cartels are against Medical marijuana because it dilutes the price if it becomes legal and wide spread.

The RIAA and MPAA are no different than Drug Cartels. Instead of cutting off heads, they ruin entire families for generations with billion dollar law suits that are presided over by corrupt judges.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Samantha Wright]

To destroy civilization by protecting it.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[VortexCortex]

So evidently many of you folks believe this is reason enough to pirate the content.

Indeed.

If a patent isn't available for licensing by its owner, and thus not "available for purchase anywhere," is that also reason enough to pirate the patent?

Yes, exactly. Why the hell should the advancement of science or sharing of culture be subject to restriction of any kind?

What about violating GPL, since it isn't "available for purchase anywhere," either? I'm talking about the enforcement of prevailing law, not anyone's philosophical issues with intellectual property.

Translation: Let me coach my question in such a way that no sane answers apply. You began with asking a questions of reason, yet no reason is allowed in the answering? Sir: Fuck you as immensely as can be conceived.

The English Monarchy could do as it damn well pleased under prevailing law until the Magna Carta came to be. Slavery used to be a prevailing law in the United States, and Segregation was on the law books after that. Women used to not be allowed to vote as well.

The point is, Fuck the unjust Prevailing Law. Laws CAN BE WRONG. Disobeying a law via action that can not lead to physical harm is equivalent to sitting at the front of a bus regardless of the colour of your skin. Obeying unjust laws for the sake of obeying the law is folly. Sometimes we must participate in civil disobedience in order to improve the law, other times we must take more drastic measures. I can think of no more a peaceful demonstration than to ignore a law preventing the sharing of information.

It is typically not the end user that can even violate the GPL, only a publisher or distributor of information; That said, I'm all for allowing companies to ignore copyright and "violate the GPL" as long as the common man is free to ignore copyright laws as well.

This is the Age of Information. Laws promoting and enforcing Artificial Scarcity of Information are Ridiculous, Tyrannical, and should be completely ignored since they infringe upon everyone's right to communicate freely any information they wish. Copyright and Patent law are hindrances to true innovation that do not benefit the society as a whole. Removing or ignoring these laws does not reduce the demand for new and better information and technology, nor would abolishing these prevent one from producing technology or media. What's scarce is the ability to research, not the discovery. What's scarce is the ability to create new content, not copies of said content. Artificial Scarcity of information is abhorrent, both ethically and economically.

The only logical thing to do is to abolish patent and copyright laws. Only then can we test the hypothesis by which the laws were made. Things have changed so drastically since the laws were conceived that such an experiment must be done. Until then, we're operating under unproven conjecture and NO logical argument can be made for them!

Prove to me such laws are beneficial. So long as you're unwilling or unable to do so, the law should be ignored.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[bane2571]

Actually, yes. The entire purpose of copyright is to allow a creator a reasonable period of time to make profit on their work to promote the creation and distribution of that work. If a work is not actively being distributed anywhere, then logically it is past the reasonable period of making profit on it and should not be covered by copyright.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[fredprado]

If your garbage can kept filling faster each day it would be smart on your part to stop emptying it and trying to figure other ways to get rid of your garbage, because even if you do not at some point your efforts will make very little difference.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[jamstar7]

Instead of saying "pirate", let's say "eminent domain". Both do the same thing.

Eminent domain is practiced by governments. In this case, the governments are in support of the media companies. BAD pirate, NO torrents!!

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[pla]

So evidently many of you folks believe this is reason enough to pirate the content.

Um... Yes? Let us have it, for a decent price, and in a format we want... Or we'll just take it and the "content barons" can go pound sand. Simple as that.


If a patent isn't available for licensing by its owner, and thus not "available for purchase anywhere," is that also reason enough to pirate the patent?

Absolutely! I don't give the least damn about your "profit motive" when you want to let kids die because you won't license that great new antimalarial drug to companies willing to make it cheap enough for the 4th world to afford. I also don't care about rounded corners or XOR, but, different battles.


What about violating GPL, since it isn't "available for purchase anywhere," either?

Nice try, but now cross out the "purchase" part of that. Again - I don't care about whether or not some dead-from-the-hair-down exec can make a buck on it. I care about available, full-stop.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[fredprado]

Well said! And I do believe IP laws will be ignored more and more until copyright is finally broken. Regardless of any amount of money you put at it there is no way to force millions of people to obey unjust laws unless you have a gun pointed to each of their heads.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[CanEHdian]

Laws that are unenforceable are moot. Copyright laws are unenforceable in the current world. So lets stop wasting our efforts trying to preserve outdated business models that can't be possibly preserved.

It's not just that they are unenforceable. They have lost popular support, the only reason that they are still there is that these laws still do no really affect the older folk. Plus at election time there are somehow always "more important issues" that need to be talked about.

In the mean time, behind closed door, Hollywood is pushing it's agenda in TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement) and CETA. Would anyone believe that Hollywood is trying to extend Canada's copyright term by another 2 decades? Today that's longer than most kids take to grow from a baby into someone that's out the door and in college. And that's just the term *extension*!

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Charliemopps]

Fuck prevailing law. Seriously. You think that just because it's always been it always has to be? The parties over. Content owners had their run and got incredibly rich while they could. Back in the 1800s people in Canada made a fortune chopping up ice from their frozen lakes late into the spring and summer, packing it in straw and shipping it south. They made a fortune from rich people living in the south and the Caribbean. Then someone invented the freezer. Oh snap.

And before you get all high and mighty and tell us, well this is different, there are artists involved... no there are not. The people making money off the content in question here are doing EVEN LESS work than the people that shipped ice south. At least that was hard and had technical challenges. I'm a musician, I've worked with hundreds, if not thousands of other musicians. The vast vast majority of us make very little if any money playing music. We do it because it's a blast. The record companies use us to open for their acts, charge us ridiculous prices for copyrighted sheet music, to use studio time, it's all a sham. The only people making money are the record companies and ticket master and a very very very small minority of musicians. I bet if you talked to some of your favorite bands you'd find out they make far less than you thought. Record companies buy them clothes, rent them cars, all to make them "appear" wealthy. And if you think playing a large show makes you money? Fuck no. I've played shows where part of the contract was that WE THE BAND had to buy 100 tickets and sell them on our own. We had to pay to play the damned show. But that's the only way ticket master will let you in. In return you get exposure and maybe, just maybe, get to meet the headlining act and pick their brains if they're worth a shit.

They don't have control anymore. I can distribute my music any way I fucking want. If people want to download it for free, fine... it's costing me a hell of a lot less than back when I had to pay $20k in studio time and then another $5k to get CDs pressed. Now I can pop MP3s onto a website... or advertise a show just about anywhere for free... Ticket master still has a cast iron grip on all the large venues but that'll change. And as far as robbing the recording industry? Do it. They more than deserve it.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[OFnow]

AC writes: "Actually, they last beyond the time the material is worthless".

Actually even if the author wants a work released there is no practical way to release it that is accepted in US law. Plenty of authors have no illusions and plenty of works have very short useful lives. But existing law provides no way to deal with that.

The book "How To Fix Copyright" by William Patry has details on this and much more. I have no financial or other interest, I just like the book.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. This should be made a requirement by law: if you do not provide a reasonable way for people to obtain your content you do not deserve the privilege of copyright. Let's remember that copyright is something that we (the people) grant to others, not something they are naturally entitled to.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Dan667]

Hollywood accounting is stealing. Interesting you have said nothing about that.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, yes, I do believe that. And this is a discussion of copyright, not patents.

The basic purpose behind copyright is that so the creator of works, nowadays that could also be the rights-holder, is for a time, the only person with the right to profit from that work. UKNova was not a for-profit enterprise, and they went to great lengths to not infringe on rights-holders ability to profit. Typically this was by not allowing torrents of television programs that were going to be released within 30 days. Basically, they just operated as a DVR for fans of British television.

I'm not arguing about legality though, just the morality side.

A case for me, I still want to know why UK rights-holders care in the slightest if people in the USA watch their music videos on YouTube, if they have no intention to sell that music in the USA? (refers to YouTube blocking the viewing of many videos based on your IP address)

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

> What's scarce is the ability to research, not the discovery. What's scarce is the ability to create new content, not copies of said content.

Since the ability to research is scarce, mgaybe we could incentivize researchers by giving them a monopoly on their research for 17 years or so.

Since the ability to create new content is scarce too, we should probobly incentivize creators by giving them the only rights to copy their creation. Life plus 75 years should probably be enough to encourage the creation of new content.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

It was called the Stone Age.

No, it's called a brain. Use it. The legality of something has nothing to do with morality.

If the laws are wrong, change them.

And they are. They're also ignoring them.

Carry on breaking them willfully, and I will continue to fight like hell to see you in prison where you belong.

You'll fight like hell to see people who copy data in prison? I see you've got your priorities straight.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[psiclops]

So if it became law that laws could not be changed ever and that every morning all people must sing the national anthem upon waking; you would just continue to do that for the rest of your life?

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[NewtonsLaw]

It is worth noting that law only prescribes the *maximum* term of copyright protection that applies.

There is no reason why the creator of intellectual property can't define a shorter term if they choose.

The book I'll be releasing shortly will have a clearly stated copyright term of just five years.

I'm hoping that by being *sensible* about the term of protection, those who might otherwise have opted to simply download a copy (it won't be DRMed) without paying the paltry sum being asked, will think again about doing so.

We're not talking a literary work on the scale of Dickens -- but I do expect that it is something which the public domain will benefit from in a few years time (whether it sells in quantity or not) so I'm not going to be stupid about my use of copyright protection.

Copyright is measure of protection - not a weapon!

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[aekafan]

So you are saying that Rosa Parks and Gandhi were both wrong? I mean, they were anarchistic lawbreakers, right? That the Jews Germany and political dissidents in Russia should have shut up with their whinging and worked within the system? Sometimes some selective anarchy is a great tool for change, when there are no other avenues. There are times when a government will not change no matter what, because the people support it, even when it is wrong. Hell, Plato recognized this in The Republic. Sometimes, to do what is right you simply have to break the law.

You are quite right, the world is not a black and white place. Not all laws are right, and few leaders are good. Often, our leaders don't care if the laws are right, they simply want to use the laws for their own advantage. And changing leaders generally doesn't affect this

I will fight against people like you who believe in their government and their laws, right or wrong

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course there will always be strife when many people are forced to live by the same set of laws. There are bound to be laws you can accept that I would naturally reject and vice versa. Living in a peaceful, productive society requires a little give and take, and sometimes following laws that you think are bad laws because you understand that your opinion may not be common and correct.

However, when laws go to far, the civil disobedience described by GP is, in my opinion, just. With as much effort as you would expend putting people like that in prison, I would spend defending them, not necessarily because I agree that the law is worth fighting, but because of his motivations for fighting it.

Of course nothing is black and white, GP is merely calling for the immediate abolishment of copyright law which may be appropriate given the very dark shade of grey of copyright itself. What I can't stand here is resistance from people like yourself that see copyright in its current form as close to medium grey, not because you've spent years reading about it and thinking hard about it, but just because it's been the law for such a long time. I agree requirement of "proof" is a little strong for not ignoring a law but I myself would want something a little better than "people fear change".

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[chrismcb]

Actually even if the author wants a work released there is no practical way to release it that is accepted in US law.

Citation needed.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Grishnakh]

We had to destroy the village to save it.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[chrismcb]

So if I paint a painting, and sell ONE copy... It is your duty to copy the painting and sell it?
If I decide to make a limited edition set, it is your duty to make the set unlimited?

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that you are distributing their content without permission, you are not the creator of their content.

Distribute YOUR OWN content, that you made, however you see fit. You need permission of the copyright holder to reproduce beyond exclusive personal use, and any distribution is subject to copyright laws.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[LordLimecat]

Clearly, the solution is to say "ah, whatever, we're not going to follow the law in any case" and post about how copyright is a construct of a corporate industrial complex every time it comes up on slashdot, right?

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[LordLimecat]

Black markets are created by unsatisfied demand,

Right, and sometimes the demand is unreasonable.

The copyright cartels do not want to meet this demand (it is completely realistic for them to do so) at a price people will pay,

Songs are available right now on amazon.com for $0.99 per mp3, and music piracy continues. How can THAT be justified?

Lets be honest here. We have a big problem with onerous and unreasonable copyright terms, as well as litigation abuses; but we also have a large problem with people who are either ignorant or flat out dont care what the law has to say about copyright / licensing. I think both are pretty big problems, in their own way.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Kalriath]

I'm hoping that by being *sensible* about the term of protection, those who might otherwise have opted to simply download a copy (it won't be DRMed) without paying the paltry sum being asked, will think again about doing so.

We're not talking a literary work on the scale of Dickens -- but I do expect that it is something which the public domain will benefit from in a few years time (whether it sells in quantity or not) so I'm not going to be stupid about my use of copyright protection.

Sadly, I believe you will be disappointed.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[LordLimecat]

The RIAA and MPAA are no different than Drug Cartels. Instead of cutting off heads, they ruin entire families for generations with billion dollar law suits that are presided over by corrupt judges.

Im sure having some perspective will get me modded down here, but Im gonna go out on a limb and say thats a pretty significant difference.

If some lawyer came to me and said, "Look, we have two options here: We can either file a lawsuit against you, or we can try some good old execution-by-decapitation", I think Im gonna opt for the lawsuit-- but thats just me.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[1u3hr]

So if I paint a painting, and sell ONE copy... It is your duty to copy the painting and sell it? If I decide to make a limited edition set, it is your duty to make the set unlimited?

You're not obliged to create more copies. It's about threatening anyone else who does -- even if they are willing and offer to pay for the privilege.

Anyway, your painting is unique and no one, not even you, can duplicate it exactly. If someone else does make a copy, including your signature or claiming that it was an original would of course be fraud.

If no one was allowed to reproduce a work of art, even imperfectly, without explicit permission, the only people who would even know what the Mona Lisa looked like would be those who had gone to Paris and seen it at the Louvre.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Wolfling1]

Laws are intended to maintain a consistent environment within which people can carry out their lives. Laws define their rights and obligations as members of their society. The whole idea is that if people abide by the laws, the life experiences of those people will be better than if they did not (abide by the laws). Some societies have police forces to uphold and maintain the laws. People who refuse to abide by the laws are incarcerated in jails - to either be reformed so that they may re-enter society - or to protect society from them.

Your frustration with the laws is understandable. There are plenty of laws out there that I dislike (eg I am not allowed to go and beat up my partner's ex husband when he abuses their children). However, society as a whole have decided that if we act outside the law, society will put us in jail.

You mentioned Rosa Parks and Gandhi. They were people who were willing to go to jail to support their desire to change the laws. They were contesting substantive human rights violations.

By contrast, this thread is about 'not being able to download some old episode of The Kenny Everett Video Show'.

Now, I liked that show. I liked it heaps. I'm not prepared to go to jail over it. Are you?

Are you encouraging others to destroy the fabric of society over such an insignificant thing?

Do you genuinely believe that you can use Gandhi to validate video show piracy?

Get some perspective.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

If that painting is historically, socially and/or culturally significant, yes.

Humanity should not artificially inhibit itself just to satisfy the greed of a few.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Wolfling1]

Do you not even understand the difference between oppression and 'video piracy'? I suppose that you would apply 'stand your ground' laws if someone tried to take your parking spot too?

So if it became law that laws could not be changed...[snip]

What world do you live in?

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[lister king of smeg]

if they take a digital picture of it there should be no moral issue, you see you are making a error of confessing physical objects and digitally replicateable media.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

What about violating GPL, since it isn't "available for purchase anywhere," either?

Are you willfully stupid? If you can get at the source - presumably with the licensing details attached - then you are able to "purchase" it. You do that by releasing any derivative works under the same license. Not a monetary cost, nut that is the price.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Jiro]

I don't know. Which is more inconvenient, not being able to sit in the front of the bus for a 30 minute bus ride, or not being able to watch a 30 minute episode of a TV show?

They both last the same length of time and you can do perfectly well living your life without either one. The bus discrimination can be repeated, but of course so can not being able to watch a TV show. The only substantial difference is that it's equal opportunity oppression that screws over everyone, instead of just screwing over blacks.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[brantondaveperson]

The book "How To Fix Copyright" by William Patry has details on this and much more.

Doesn't that constitute at least a semi-citation?

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[God Of Atheism]

$0.99 per mp3 is ridiculously high. If an album has say 10 songs that would mean $9.90 for an album in the low quality mp3 format. You can often find hard copies of albums for that price. For a soft copy (which has no production costs per unit, only production costs for the initial unit), the price should be much lower. I'm thinking along the line of at most $2.00 per album in lossless format (possibly including access to relatively high quality lossy), and low quality lossy (say 128k mp3) available as free preview.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[LordLimecat]

A product's price being higher than what you think it should be is not justification for circumventing that price and just taking it. If it were, you would be justified in figuring out what a gallon of milk costs to stock in-store, and simply leaving that amount instead of paying the store's price.

But we call that shoplifting of course, and tend to recognize it as destructive to society.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[grahammm]

Sadly, this mentality is too prevalent in the Science/IT community. It goes like this:
If 'person X' can't prove to me that 'law Y' is 'beneficial/valid/just/whatever-polarised-measure-of-truth-I-like-at-the-time', then we should all just ignore it.

I disagree. The way I think it goes is "This law/procedure was introduced because of X and Y. Now X & Y no longer apply/exist but we have situation A which means that the reason/justification for these laws no longer exists so the laws should be revoked or amended to take into account the current circumstances.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't that constitute at least a semi-citation?

I don't know. Can you fart out a semi-colon?

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[fustakrakich]

And that's just the term *extension*!

*extortion*, right?

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Hazel Bergeron]

If you know a way of replicating cartons of milk, I'm all udders.

Meanwhile, in the real legal and moral world which recognises the difference between theft and copyright infringement, it is still unreasonable for the middle man to take a huge cut when selling a physical product. This doesn't mean you just steal the milk, but you most certainly raise awareness and campaign for a greater share of the profits to go to those involved in doing the real work - this must involve work by the content producers too.

Let us never forget that the marketplace and the law are merely tools to help society work efficiently - the former merely a framework. The price of humanity is eternal vigilance.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[sjames]

Unlike music, milk exists within a somewhat healthy market, so its price is already much closer to the cost of production. Were that not the case, it absolutely would be reasonable to replicate that gallon of milk, leaving the original right where it was on the shelf.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[xenobyte]

bad news for fans of UK shows that aren't available for purchase anywhere

So evidently many of you folks believe this is reason enough to pirate the content.

I do for one.

Oh, and there's actually indirect legal precedent for this one - in several trademark, copyright and patent infringement cases a right holder has been denied compensation because they previously didn't actively pursue parties that infringed, thus effectively losing the rights. One of these is somewhat personal by the way; a close friend and her husband has both the trademark and the patent of several metal 'spinners' (metal artwork what spins in the wind, sometimes making bell-like noises when they do) but didn't have the money to go after several early infringers and when they finally did have the means, it was more or less thrown out of court because the failed to pursue the early infringers thus making the market appear unrestricted.

So you can argue that by not providing the protected content for sale, you're effectively losing the right to maintain your monopoly control over sales. In other words, if you fail to prove a legal alternative you have no right to pursue pirates just filling the void.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

Great - If you can afford the lawsuit...

You DO realize they can drag, appeal and appeal until you are completely out of money.
And then let you and all your offspring pay for generations complete insane fines - like several millions of dollars for 4 or 5 mp3 files?

Yep - you are brave.. or stupid..
Take your pick..

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

So if I paint a painting, and sell ONE copy

Does that leave you with the original? I'll assume that exactly one instance of the artwork is for sale, whether a master or a copy.

You win and I agree. If Sony/Paramount/Columbia/Universal spend $400 million on a movie and release exactly one print, they are entitled to charge $4,000 (or more) per cinema patron: Good luck with that.

I demand the government serve my society: When the government provides water, roads, education to the corporations and individuals it receives soldiers and taxes. So when the government provides artificial scarcity to a distribution corporation, I demand the government receive something back. A limitation on the artificial scarcity is one option, but doesn't seem to exist. Another choice is dutiful distribution of artworks. The corporations can even do this at a profit. But saying Nth America can buy something and Sth America can't, is neither increasing profits nor distributing works of art. And saying people can't buy 30 year-old movies may be profitable but it is not distribution of artworks.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

If you had perspective you would realize that both options have no place in a modern civilized society.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[grahamm]

The same argument applies to eBooks. On Amazon (at least in the UK), the price of the Kindle edition is often more than that of the paperback edition.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep.

I have absolutely no problem with pirating content that's not available for purchase. None whatsoever.

You do? That's somewhat absurd. And so's your 'reasoning'.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

And if for no reason other than greed all of the milk producers were to band together and raise the price of milk to 15 dollars per gallon it would be called price gouging which we tend to recognize as destructive to society.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[burne]

> milk exists within a somewhat healthy market

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-18898830

In short: big supermarkets reduce the price they pay for milk, causing farmers and milk processing plants to operate at a loss. Big supermarkets claim the price cuts are for the good of everybody because of the state of the economy and bla and bla.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[grahamm]

But amend that to add 'once the content has been made available to the public'. There are a multitude of works that are subject to copyright that are never released to the 'public'. Every time you write a letter or email to someone, you own the copyright to that letter but you would not want the public to be able to obtain the content. I agree with you in the case of things like books, musical works, movies etc., copyright should be sacrificed once they go 'out of print'.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[jamstar7]

Laws that are unenforceable make more criminals when they're selectively enforced. See 'The War On Drugs' for further information.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[hawkinspeter]

There's no such thing as a full bin; you can always fit in one more bit of rubbish.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[sjames]

Civil disobedience is a well respected non-violent means to effect change when the government proves reluctant to hear the voice of the people or the public is not sufficiently aware of the need for change.

There are many silly laws still on the books that have not been obeyed by a single person in decades. In some cases it would actually be illegal to obey those laws today (just imagine stopping at an intersection in a large city and firing a shotgun into the air before driving through as is required by law). Meanwhile, a great many scofflaws fail to provide a filled watering trough in front of their business.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[sjames]

Let's not get carried away here, disobeying copyright is not going to unravel the whole of civilization at all. The big media companies like to portray themselves as cornerstones of our society, but economically speaking they are just a spit in the ocean. They do contribute a disproportionately large amount of corruption.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[sjames]

The farmers should sell directly to the public and cut the supermarkets out entirely. Or, as they threaten, just not sell to the supermarkets at all. Perhaps rather than pouring it down the drain, they should make cheese (originally we made cheese as a way to preserve the food value of milk in a compact form long after it would otherwise spoil).

In general though, this is the elephant in the room for economists. When they crunch their numbers and spin their theories of markets and corrective actions, they imagine it to be a painless and bloodless process. It isn't.

The whole thing is reminiscent of the arguments that we would all be better off just making a copy and sending the artist a few bux.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[radio4fan]

The world is a complex place, and only children have the luxury of viewing it in black and white terms.

Lordy. Talk about the pot calling the kettle beige.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

Part of this in the UK is that ebooks are subject to VAT, printed books aren't.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[ciderbrew]

The price of a file should be so much lower that the VAT on top wouldn't matter. Webpages* have more data passed about than a book so costs are near to zero for all the books ever. P2P them.
Not all Webpage; but I've been in those meets and some of those pages once done are embarrassing. Why is it so slow? errm you didn't listen when we said you shouldn't do that as it will make it slow........

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Xest]

In the UK we pay a TV license which is what covers the TV that UK Nova hosted, and it's not clear that UK Nova was actually doing anything illegal by allowing people to share recorded TV we've all already paid for like this as it was deemed akin to simply recording a show on VHS and sharing it with your friends.

They've shut down because they can't afford to fight this sort of organisation, not because they were necessarily doing anything illegal.

Your argument may have made sense in other countries, but here in the UK it does not. FACT is effectively denying us access to content we've already paid for if we happen to miss it's live broadcast or fail to record it ourselves.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Xest]

I can cite an anecdote over this too.

I have a friend who is a botanist and who was researching the history of a specific taxonomic classification to find the reasons for the classicification as he was trying to determine with modern knowledge, whether the classification was still valid.

I can't remember the exact details, but the book in which the classification was defined was published in something like 1916, but for some reason was allowed to be re-published (as an updated version perhaps) in about 1937. The only place he could find a copy was on Google Books, scanned it, but due to retrospective increases in copyright (95 years?) this book wont be available until 2032 to be read fully. By the time that has happened the book will be irrelevant as it's classification will be confirmed or changed regardless of the book's original reasons through DNA sampling. So yes, you're absolutely spot on, IP laws do indeed last well beyond the time the material is worthless.

This is stupid. It prevents the progress of science, no one was going to buy the book because it's not been in print for about 75 years, the author is long, long dead. This to me was an astounding example of how broken copyright law is and a demonstration that terms of such length benefit absolutely no one and are massively detrimental to society. There is simply no net-positive to the implementation of said law.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you idiot. I'm sure if they went to you and say "We're either going to decapitate you or gangrape your wife or mother or daughter, you choose," you'd say "Hey thanks for the choice, please use condoms if that's alright with you."

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

If a patent isn't available for licensing by its owner, and thus not "available for purchase anywhere," is that also reason enough to pirate the patent?

Ask China.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Lumpy]

The problem is that you have no perspective. It's not a choice, it's a different but just as deadly punishment.

Drug cartels murder you. Media cartels Financially Murder you, your children, your wife, your mother, etc... You will not be able to work in a professional career ever again, because they made it a felony. You will never have any credit, and any income you get will have 90% of it garnished for the rest of the days your family name will exist on this planet.

At least with decapitation there is an end to it all.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[pantaril]

There are two basic problems with copyrights. 1- eternal duration (they last until the material is worthless), 2-they are under no obligation to offer it for sale.

The main problem of copyright is, that it creates artificial scarity where none is needed. Without copyright, the whole knowledge of humankind could be available to anyone on the planet instantly. With copyright, only the knowledge you can personaly financialy afford and the creator is willing to sell you is available. This is imo totaly wrong and there is absolutely no reason for such cripling restriction to exist.

Money is not the problem. We already pay for intelectual property. We just don't want to share it with everyone because we fear, that if IP is widely available, none would purchuase new stuff, everyone would just wait for someone else to make the purchuase and share the it. The solution is IMO to force people to spend some money on intelectual property in the form of tax, tax-deductible coupons etc. and then find some fair way to distribute such funds between creators.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Wolfling1]

Only the Sith deal in absolutes... lol

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[pantaril]

Nice post, too bad i have no mod points for you.

I fully agree that copyright and patent laws should be abolished. The technology has changed significantly since their introduction, maybe there is no need to provide further legal support to IP creators. If we find out, thet such support is still desirable, it should definitely take some form which doesn't prevent copying/sharing of information.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the village was full of idiots.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[AmiMoJo]

The problem with your argument is that a documentary could be off air for a decade or more before being repeated, at which point the copyright owner is in line for thousands of pounds of income.

We just have to say "after 10 years that's it, you get nothing more and have to do some new work". That would encourage new work and be fair to everyone. There will always be a few cases of things only becoming popular decades after their initial release, but even then there is plenty of money to be made by the author just from doing interviews and appearances, if not new work.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[psiclops]

I believed you were arguing that we should blindly follow piracy laws regardless of their effect on society simply because they were law.

If that is not the case then why should we stop downloading movies despite their being no negative effects*

So which is it? Should we blindly follow all laws, or use some judgement?

*assuming no negative effects for the sake of this post as you were not obviously contending this in your post

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Stormthirst]

Having seen first hand quite a few master pieces in many museums in Europe, I can assure you that a digital replica is in no way a replacement for the original. They are a pale shadow by comparison.

PS I assume you mean confusing, not confessing.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Stormthirst]

The trouble with this argument is three fold:

1) People outside the UK had access to the content. They did not pay a TV license and haven't contributed to that cost
2) You're assuming that everyone in the UK downloading have paid for the licence
3) The licence only pays for content produced by the BBC. Other TV companies have to make their money with adverts, but I would bet the UK Nova "producers" didn't leave the ads in.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[psiclops]

My garbage can keeps filling up. What the point of emptying it?

because if you didn't empty it you would have to either:
A: throw your rubbish on your floor or
B: take your rubbish all the way to the tip yourself bypassing the garbage man

are you saying if we were to abolish copyright laws the outcome would be either
A: an excess of music and movies for me to easily access or
B: artists would sell their music directly to me - bypassing the 'distributor'

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[chrysrobyn]

Disobeying a law via action that can not lead to physical harm is equivalent to sitting at the front of a bus regardless of the colour of your skin.

If I torrent The Big Bang Theory, I am not the moral equivalent of Rosa Parks. Someone who sat at the front of the bus, despite the color of her skin was in fact risking that skin. There was a very large social structure invested in keeping the races segregated and people were beaten and/or killed for violating that.

Deciding that The Big Bang Theory is worth $0.25, not $1, per episode without commercials when the distributor doesn't need to pay distribution costs may be morally right. Stating that using copyright law (according to the U.S. Constitution, for the furthering of art and science) should not apply in the case of sharing King of Thrones because a lot of people would love to throw money at the copyright owners, but are unwilling or unable to pay for cable + HBO may be morally acceptable, but they are not the modern equivalent of Rosa Parks. Although the guy who tirelessly encodes the material and provides it to the group to seed is risking his freedom and financial well-being, he is not risking his life.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[chilvence]

This might come as a surprise, but I think you will find most people just live how they feel, and the laws just happen to vaguely correspond to that some of the time. Laws don't prevent crime, they just give the government a tool to stop people causing trouble. So, if you feel that watching the Kenny Everett show is causing trouble and that you should go to prison for it... well..

Anyway, my point is, you can't just legislate something and expect society to fall in line with military obedience. Society has its own way of differentiating right from wrong that has nothing to do with law. It has to, because reading the law of the land is not a common activity for young children who are developing their moral sense. That is the root of this conflict, neither side is going to give any ground because they just assume each other to be 100% wrong. Welcome to the grey world.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[chilvence]

I should probably add that the morality of the current system feels very suspect to most people, who are working a shitty job, while the artists who are getting the same song played every 2 and a half minutes on the radio are wearing clothing made of steak and driving road adapted military 4x4's to take their pampered, show groomed actor children back and forth to private schools.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[chilvence]

Well, they are reserving their rights that we have given them. If you gave people a lawful right to urinate on puppies, then by damn they will defend it to the death until such time as it no longer amuses them.

It isnt just UK anyway, You can't watch hulu outside the us, you can't watch anything at all in germany thanks to GEMA... etc

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Xest]

I did use the site some years ago (I think when Spooks was on about season 4, before iPlayer provided it) and they always were very blunt about having to be a valid license holder to use the site, and were quite open that you would be banned if you were not, and that they in fact did even ban people quite often for exactly that, so with regards to points 1 and 2 it's merely a question of whether that was legitimate enough enforcement. I'd say it probably was which is precisely why it's taken so long (best part of a decade) for FACT to even dare try and go near them when others have fallen much more quickly. Perhaps they changed since I went there and stopped enforcing the rules so strictly and that's why they're now under fire, but either way they were safe with their rules for the best part of a decade and had even been in touch with various organisations such as the BBC and ITV to check what they could and couldn't do too. It wasn't just some run of the mill rogue piracy site like The Pirate Bay.

Point 3 is largely irrelevant, for a couple of reasons:

1) We're not talking about the internet, which is pay per click, TV advert contracts are decided before broadcast. Removal of adverts would hence be of little relevance, because if it's deemed they'd be ignored/removed by post-broadcast audiences then they wouldn't factor into the contract anyway. The money paid by the advertisers doesn't keep increasing each time some omnipresent entity detects someone has watched the ads - there's simply no way to judge this, so it's based on predicted viewing figures, something like UK Nova isn't going to change that.

and more importantly:

2) It's not illegal to skip/strip adverts on recorded content anyway in the UK. The other TV companies are subsidised by the TV license in that they get to use the broadcast infrastructure that it funds - i.e. that the public pay for, hence why it is deemed enough that they be guaranteed profit from live broadcast adverts, product placement (which the BBC is not allowed to use) etc.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Stormthirst]

The ad contracts are decided before broadcast, but the rates are based on the projected number of people watching a given program. If the projected number of people watching is significantly lower than expected, because everyone's gone off to watch it on the internet, when it comes to renewing those contracts, the TV producers won't make as much money.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[dywolf]

That's why I support copyright (and patents), but only in a reasonable (ie, not eternal) form. Depending on material (or format I should say), 5-25 years is more than sufficient. If you can't make money off your creation in that time frame, too fing bad, it's time to let someone else try by creating a derivitive work.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

In the UK we pay a TV license which is what covers the TV that UK Nova hosted, and it's not clear that UK Nova was actually doing anything illegal by allowing people to share recorded TV we've all already paid for like this as it was deemed akin to simply recording a show on VHS and sharing it with your friends.

And that's not legal. http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy/c-other/c-exception/c-exception-timeshift.htm
The time-shifting exception is solely for your own personal use.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

most i say Most of the programs on uknova were made by the bbc as the commercial tv stations don't really make anything of any note with a few exceptions and these programs were paid for when they were made ie the actors writers etc were commissioned at a set price to do the work they rarely get repeat fees or money from selling DVDs.
they are all payed well above the average income and agree a price before the work commences or a production company will foot the bill in the hope the show get bought.

if a painter painted your sitting room for £250 would you pay him/her a fee every time a visitor looked at his work?

if a specific work has a contract that stipulates a set fee from every viewer no tv company would by that work and it would never see the light of day

this is just money making by fact who have no interest in protecting copyright laws just in making money like the adds have you tripped or fallen at work they don't

care if your legs come off just so long as they get their cut

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

so how does the founding of the USA sit with you?
  they didn't like the laws so they started a war should they all be in prison?

have you ever whistled or sung a tune which you did not write? should you be in prison ?

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Shadow99_1]

This is not about just the 'Kenny Everett Video Show' (Whoever he is). This is about a manipulative group of corporations working in concert to tell us what our culture is and then making us pay dearly to be part of that culture and then proceed to lord that over us for perpetuity.

This is a fight for the ownership and ability to produce cultural works that outlast ourselves. Every previous generation has built on those that came before it and we are no exception, but it is getting progressively harder to do that due to who owns those works. In the not so distant past a work joined the public domain after a decade or two, now few things ever return to public domain and can be used as the ground work for yet more works. That is a crime to society that the media cartels are not being held accountable for, while every 'transgression' by the public is. This imbalance must be corrected.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[LordLimecat]

You miss the point. What I described could be defended as "not stealing", because technically the amount you paid covered all of the store's costs and they did not take a loss; yet certainly your actions robbed them of value-- not only with lost profits but in that the remaining milk now has less value to everyone who knows what you did. The fact that your actions are now a "legitimate" course for your peers means that more may be likely to do the same.

It is a very good parallel, and in each situation the argument "but Its not technically stealing" ignores how economics actually work, and the rules necessary for any capitalist society to function. If you dont like the seller's price, your options are to either change your expectations, find a new seller, or do without.

Circumventing the entire supply/demand curve by setting your own price and taking without permission just damages the entire system and removes the incentive for others to produce.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Xest]

The number of people viewing online has been static for the best part of a decade now and basically stems from the same pool of people who would used to have borrow a VHS from a friend, any adjustments for that have long been known. As a result contracts have long been based on that such that any financial calculation as to whether a show is viable based on ad revenue will be done purely on forecasted live viewing figures for this very reason.

Unlike people who sell software, music, and DVDs as a product, the TV industry has long been smart enough to only count on live figures when negotiating such contracts because they know anything else is just wishful thinking. Just as the TV industry can't count on classing any post-broadcast viewers as ad targets.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[LordLimecat]

Music is now cheaper than ever, especially when you consider inflation. You can now get sub-99cent DRM free MP3s, which is what everyone was crying over a few years ago.

If people are honest with themselves, they will never be satisfied with any sustainable price; the argument will always be that the MP3s could be cheaper, and hey isnt limewire just so much easier.

Sorry, when I stopped doing P2P downloads a few years ago it was partly because I saw the utter hypocrisy of it all and that even my own actions were completely unjustifiable. At the root if it all is "I want what I want and to heck with everything else".

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[LordLimecat]

And you consider "being out of money" in a first world country to be on par with decapitation by mexican drug cartels?

Wow, speaking of lack of perspective...

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[LordLimecat]

a different but just as deadly

Im not sure you understand the meaning of that word. Im sure noone has ever died because the RIAA sued them, regardless of whether their tactics were legal or not.

Financially Murder

You keep using that word, I dont think it means what you think it means.

At least with decapitation there is an end to it all.

Yes, and I think most sane people would prefer bankruptcy to that kind of end.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

IIRC Rosa Parks and Gandhi weren't trying to download the Only Fools and Horses Christmas Special in HD.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Richy_T]

OK, so let's say I go to the store and buy a carton of live yoghurt. I get home, pull a gallon of milk from my closet and dump the yoghurt in the milk and stick it in the airing cupboard. Have I stolen from the store now?

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[LordLimecat]

No, not at all. Theyre completely different situations, and the analogy breaks down because yoghurt is not a creative work-- or at least, the particular culture in the yoghurt is not. The value in yoghurt is its one-time consumptive value, which you paid for and received; the creator of the yoghurt had no stipulations on how you could use it beyond that.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Hazel Bergeron]

Your handwaving won't allow you to evade either logic or the law. Stealing is permanent deprivation, and "the rules necessary" are that you don't permanently deprive someone of something that's theirs except on their terms.

Copyright was supposedly a convenient restriction of freedom to promote the progress of science and the useful arts. It's all gone a bit Pete Tong.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[LordLimecat]

When they crunch their numbers and spin their theories of markets and corrective actions, they imagine it to be a painless and bloodless process. It isn't.

It doesnt have to be. Im not crafting some theory of how I think it should be; Im saying that in order for this to remotely work people need to recognize supply and demand. If farmers are operating at a loss, theyre trying to get around supply and demand, which simply does not work.

Its like saying that Im trying to posit gravity as some bloodless theory of how the earth should work. You dont have to like gravity to recognize that you cant win a fight against it by wishing it away.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[sjames]

Actually, considering that 100% of the costs of reproduction are gone, $0.99 represents a significant increase.

In the case of some older bands, it is MORE expensive to download the tracks than it is to buy a physical CD from the bargain bin and rip it even though they had to press, package, ship, and stock it.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Un pobre guey]

I admire your impulse to jump in with this, but as you can easily see it is pointless. Most of these folks can't see beyond the end of their noses. They can't generalize the consequences of ignoring the law, nor do they even appear to understand the original purpose of patents, copyrights, and trademarks. They don't understand that the laws have been frequently altered to allow abuse, and can at least in principle be altered to roll back the abuse potential. They are faux libertarians enamored with their own brain farts.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[davester666]

Sorry, this idea has already been taken.

Prior art: Licide, Czech Republic

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[LordLimecat]

and "the rules necessary" are that you don't permanently deprive someone of something that's theirs except on their terms.

Excepting that the constitution and current legislation utterly disagree with you. Most countries have some degree of IP law dealing with trademarks, copyright, and patent, recognizing that "the rules necessary" also deal with creative acts if you want to allow any kind of market for them.

It has ALWAYS been possible to reproduce-without-taking creative works, which is why so many countries restrict that.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Richy_T]

Until Monsanto gets their fingers in the mix, of course.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Richy_T]

The value in yoghurt is its one-time consumptive value

Nonsense. In the example I gave, the value to me would be from its ability to act as a seed to produce more yoghurt. The value to the purveyor was as a way to turn some amount of money into a larger amount of money and the value to the producer to increase the monetary value of milk they had purchased or collected.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd link to the Ben Elton piece about that, but that would be infringing on the copyright.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[rastoboy29]

A couple things.  The ethical way to protest a law by breaking it is publicly--that's civil disobedience.

It would be great if we could get everybody in America to pirate openly.  We're on the way there.  I think that would take care of the problem.  It's why I teach people to pirate all the time.

Second, I think some copyright is good, we just need to narrow the scope to what is really offensive--people breaking the GPL comes to mind.  Commercial use of art without permission is also offensive to most people.  For example, if someone had used the Beatles "Let It Be" in a used car commercial the week it came out without permission, most people would find that inherently immoral.

But by narrowing the problems to people who commercially benefit from free copying they wouldn't need or want to sue absolutely everybody.

For what it's worth, I go on and on about this in the blog in my sig.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[brantondaveperson]

physical objects and digitally replicateable media.

The distinction is due only to limitations of current technology. In the future, everything will be media.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Charliemopps]

So what? Fuck them. They STOLE the content from the very people that recorded it in most cases. Have you ever read about what happened to John Fogerty and Creedence Clearwater Revival? Read that shit and then come back here and tell me there's anything wrong with pirating a CCR song. One of the greatest musicians of the 60's and 70's didn't record a song for over 20 years for fear of legal reprisals from his former label. They sued him for sounding like himself! Let the fuckers burn. It's the least they deserve.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[sjames]

Connecting that back, the RIAA has failed to recognize supply and demand. There is an infinite supply of a 'digital asset'. The only thing limited there is the artistry that creates the first copy. That is the only thing that has any value above epsilon.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[Mister_Stoopid]

Even though there are already a million people posting this, I'm posting too just so you are aware of how tiny a minority you are with your viewpoint.

I believe that if the rightsholder refuses to make a copyrighted work or patent available, anyone and everyone has the unquestionable moral right to pirate that work, and FUCK prevailing law.

Re:not "available for purchase anywhere"

[BalthCat]

It certainly is reason enough to me. IP which is not being used as has absolutely zero value to society and should not be protected. I would absolutely support law forcing the licensing of any IP if the IP holder refuses to put it to work. I would indeed put a burden (perhaps not heavy, but certainly not absent) on IP holders to justify withholding or delaying access to their properties.

I speed. I jaywalk (carefully). I throw organic garbage out in public sometimes (apple cores through my car window in wooded areas). All against the law. Do you do anything like this? Think hard. Where do YOU disregard the law because you think it's safe or reasonable?

Subject

[Anonymous Coward]

Comment and comment.

Links are not infringement

[freman]

If Links to content are infringement then I can sue them for linking to me, you can sue me for linking to slanderous content about you, everyone can sue the pants off Google.

Not saying anyone in their right mind wants to do this, that would break a big part of the internet (yes, web site's aren't the internet but they're a big part of it)

Am saying, how come FACT get to call a link to content infringing but the rest of us can't.

Re:Links are not infringement

[Anonymous Coward]

Intent, intent, intent...

Re:Links are not infringement

[Anonymous Coward]

Intent to link to illegal content shouldn't be a problem either. The problem is the illegal content.

Re:Links are not infringement

[kamapuaa]

Right, and handing a guy a gun isn't anything either, after all he has to take it himself.

Also, exactly how many angels can balance on the head of a pin? I'm sure Slashdot's self-appointed lawyers can get to the bottom.

Re:Links are not infringement

[currently_awake]

My name is a link to me. Does that mean I can issue a takedown notice to advertisers?

Re:Links are not infringement

[Anonymous Coward]

The content is not illegal. Offering or downloading the content without a license is illegal.

Re:Links are not infringement

[DarwinSurvivor]

That's a stupid analogy. Instead of comparing links (one of the most mundane things out there) to a CONTROLLED FIREARM, why not compare it to say a stick. Sticks can be used to build things, hold things up and once in a while stab someone in the eye. Should it be illegal to leave a pile a sticks in front of your property because someone may go on an eye-stabbing spree?!?

Re:Links are not infringement

[91degrees]

If you intentionally give people the facilities to commit a crime, with the knowledge that they intend to do so, you're liable.

"Well, I'm going to swing my arms like this, and if you get hit then it's your fault" only works in courts run by 5-year-olds.

Re:Links are not infringement

[Anonymous Coward]

No but if your standing next to a person and he says "I want to kill that guy over their, give me something to do it" and you hand him a stick to beat him to death with then yes you are potentially in deep poo too.

Re:Links are not infringement

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks to the privately funded FACT prosecution of Surf The Channel (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120820/01553920095/horrifying-surfthechannel-criminal-conviction-driven-hollywood-money-not-government.shtml) they have a conviction, not for linking, but for conspiracy to defraud.

It makes my blood boil to think about the way they manipulated the British judicial system.

They are now (as predicted) using it to go after other linking sites for a full on chilling effect.

Re:Links are not infringement

[Grumbleduke]

If Links to content are infringement then I can sue them for linking to me, you can sue me for linking to slanderous content about you, everyone can sue the pants off Google.

Basically, yes.

However, as with most legal things, it is considerably more complex.

I know of no English law case where a link was held to be an infringement of copyright in itself. There are textbooks suggesting it could be, and there's an obscure 90s Scottish, first-instance case using an older version of the law (about as non-binding a case as you can get) that says it might be, but otherwise we have a vague law (mostly written pre-web), and no application. So no one really knows. This creates enough uncertainty that those with the scariest lawyers can pretend the law says what they want it to say - hence FACT Ltd.

Of course, copyright infringement doesn't just cover the act of copying (or communicating to the public etc.), under English law (where FACT tends to operate) it also covers anyone "authorising" that act, or through the normal common law principles of joint tortfeasance (i.e. you are somehow involved in another's tort so we'll blame you for it as well). This is how the English courts ruled against the operators of The Pirate Bay (although no one was there to argue the other side) - they were not actually doing any infringing acts, but were authorising them (by setting up the site the way it is) and were working to a common purpose with the users. So in that sense, linking may be enough if there is that extra bit of authorising or a common purpose.

In terms of Google and so on, a few years ago people in power realised how stupid this could be so introduced various limitations on this sort of liability; in the EU, they come from the E-Commerce Directive (which has limitations for "mere conduits", "hosts" and "caches"), in the US iirc it comes via the DMCA (the very small good part of that Act). Some of these are absolute defences (i.e. if you are just providing an intermediary service, you are untouchable, in theory), others can be defeated by knowledge (i.e. if you know content is infringing, you can't keep hosting it while relying on that limitations).

But FACT don't really care about the law; in their last case they didn't even try to use copyright law, but twisted an old conspiracy law to work. And still needed to twist some of the facts in order to distinguish earlier cases that went the other way. By my reading of the facts in the UKNova case, UKNova may well be legal (FACT doesn't care; they are on a crusade against websites which don't pay their masters). But then again, it might not be.

As with all common law, no one knows what the law says until it is tested in a high enough court. So far in England, there have been a few low-level criminal cases on linking (current score 2-2 for it being legal), a few higher level (but questionable) civil cases (2-1 for it being illegal), but nothing higher. That should change in the next couple of years with various appeals going through (including a big Supreme Court case at some point in the next few months which could really clear up this area of law... if the judges are on top of things and don't dodge the questions).

Re:Links are not infringement

[rastoboy29]

Anybody can complain to anybody about anything.  That's all that's really happened here so far.

The site owner needs to let them take it to court if they have any balls.

Availability is the point of copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole point of copyright is to ensure the works are created for the public good and made available to the public. If the works are not being made readily available at a reasonable price poin then the copyright should expire and the ditributors (torrent site) is legal. Anything short of this is unethical.

Re:Availability is the point of copyright

[jamstar7]

The whole point of copyright is to ensure the works are created for the good of the media companies and made available to the public over their dead bodies. If the works are not being made readily available at a reasonable price point then the media companies are doing the job they made for themselves. Copyright should never expire and the distributors (torrent site) is illegal. Anything short of this is unethical since it violates the media company's government-mandated profits, imaginary or not.

FTFY. Seriously, dude, anything other than eternal copyright is un-American, and we will shove this down your throats and up your ass until the only words you can ever say OR think again is "America!! FUCK YEAH!!"

Re:Availability is the point of copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

The story is about a UK site offering last week's TV shows, but yet here you are, shrieking like a high-pitched fattie about excessive US copyright length.

Re:Availability is the point of copyright

[chrismcb]

Actually, at least in America, the whole point of copyright is to help the creators create content. "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts..." It doesn't say anything about making it available to the public. Or are you suggesting that if a performer wants to do a stage show, once, he MUST record it and distribute the recording?

Re:Availability is the point of copyright

[jamstar7]

The story is about a UK site offering last week's TV shows, but yet here you are, shrieking like a high-pitched fattie about excessive US copyright length.

You do realise that the UK is bringing the last bits and bobs of its copyright laws into line with US copyright laws, don't you?

And the actions of FACT in this matter are a direct correllation to actions done by RIAA/MPAA/etc in their attempts to silence The Pirate Bay.

And besides, every redblooded American KNOWS all copyrights belong to the *AAs. It practically says so right in the legislation they paid cold hard cash for.

I'm slightly confused

[TubeSteak]

âoeWe immediately removed the alleged offending links to content that could be [connected to] the two companies and replied to FACT assuring them of our cooperation in the matter, but asking them to point out examples of potentially offending links,â a UKNova admin told us.

âoeALL links or access to content provided by UKNova are infringing, unless you can prove that you have obtained explicit permission from the copyright holder for that content,â was FACTâ(TM)s response.

If copyrighted content from only two Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) members was being shared, where does FACT get off telling UKNova that everything is assumed to be infringing?
I mean, that's a lovely assumption, but unless FACT can show it represents the interests of those copyright holders, they have no standing to do anything against UKNova.
Or is that not how the law works in the UK?

Re:I'm slightly confused

[fustakrakich]

If nobody pushes back, they'll just run over you. We* have become superconductors of fascism. No resistance at all.

* collective.. ok?

Re:I'm slightly confused

[1u3hr]

I mean, that's a lovely assumption, but unless FACT can show it represents the interests of those copyright holders, they have no standing to do anything against UKNova. Or is that not how the law works in the UK?

A C&D isn't issued by a court, it's just a letter from a lawyer.

If UKNova had a QC to defend them in a court they might indeed win on that basis, five years and a million pounds later.

Re:I'm slightly confused

[hawkingradiation]

Fuckers Against Common Thought.

So much for playing nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Just goes to show that you can't play nice with the copyright mafia(a). Might as well play nasty - Same thing in the end.

AC

Re:So much for playing nice

[Anaerin]

Mod parent up! UKNova was a very fine example of a site playing nice. Anything that was available to purchase on DVD, Blu-Ray or Pay Per View was explicitly banned from the site. Items that were uploaded were set to expire after 14 days, unless there was a DVD/Blu-Ray release imminent, in which case the torrent expired the night before release. There was nothing on that site that was purchasable anywhere else, and nothing that hadn't been broadcast over terrestrial airwaves for free (technically, funded by the License fee).

Re:So much for playing nice

[shentino]

You can play nice.

The problems is that they are greedy fucks that won't play nice with you.

Re:So much for playing nice

[Anonymous Coward]

...so says the ear buzzing parasite.

Re:So much for playing nice

[psiclops]

Trolling - you're not very good at it.
simply repeating profanities and shouting offence at someone will not piss them off, they will likely just roll their eyes and ignore you.
you need to make them believe that you are being serious or your words lose all meaning.
if if they don't think that these are your genuine opinions then it will appear to them that they are in a genuine argument, which they will then feel the need to win. then every reply that doesnt agree with them will bring up just a little more rage.

Re:So much for playing nice

[Dodgy G33za]

Oh well, I should just be thankful that http://thebox.bz/ is based in Belize.

Re:So much for playing nice

[Mithent]

Yeah, I had an account on UKNova several years ago, and I was always impressed with their principles - okay, not exactly abiding by the letter of the law, but doing it in a way that always seemed like nobody was losing out. It did nothing that you couldn't personally have done with a TV card/VCR/appropriate set-top box, if only you'd had it set up at the right time. It's a pity.

Re:So much for playing nice

[Ambient Sheep]

Slight correction: torrents were normally up for 42 days, and were removed 14 days before any VHS/DVD/Blu-ray release if one occurred.

FACT have really shot themselves in the foot on this one, I think. Why?

Firstly, a lot of the people who used UKNova will now go off to other torrent sites (their arch-rival registered in Belize, for example) which are totally unfussed about whether they hold commercial material or not. Rather than UKNova's stated policy of "Nothing that can be bought on DVD or video is allowed on this site...If it's available to buy, then buy it", they'll end up visiting places that host complete DVD-Rips etc.

Secondly, the site actually acted as an advert for British TV outside the UK. Many people from other countries have written in to say that they have dozens, sometimes hundreds, of DVDs of UK TV shows that they never would have bought had they not first been alerted to the programmes' existence on UKN before they became ineligible to be on the tracker. Whether they bought the DVDs for the bonus features, or for different seasons that were now prohibited on UKN, or just to have a nice permanent copy that wasn't on their computer, I don't know, but buy them they apparently did.

So if anything, FACT's action against UKNova will just have decreased future DVD sales, rather than increased them, for not just one reason, but two!!

Pirate Party UK links

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't these sites put up links to the Pirate Party UK? That's the only thing that's going to break FACT's back. Vote PP UK. Kill FACT.

It should work both ways.

[jtownatpunk.net]

Holders of trademarks and such are required to go after every infringer they're aware of or they lose the right to protect their IP. Flip it around and make it necessary for content owners to provide their content for sale in order to make an infringement claim. If they're not currently selling or licensing their content, they should lose the right to protect it from unauthorized distribution.

Re:It should work both ways.

[Anonymous Coward]

Try applying that logic to physical goods: if you don't sell me your desk, you lose the right to keep it. It doesn't make any sense. It's their content, they should be able to sell it or keep it (but obviously have no control over copies previously sold).

Re:It should work both ways.

[Anonymous Coward]

Holders of trademarks and such are required to go after every infringer they're aware of or they lose the right to protect their IP.

What do you mean by "and such"? It's trademarks only. Copyright & patents have different rules.

And trademark owners are NOT required to go after every infringer or they lose their trademark. It does increase the risk of losing a trademark though.

Re:It should work both ways.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Try applying that logic to physical goods: if you don't sell me your desk, you lose the right to keep it."

Some of the 'logic' you fuckwits come up with, would require a whole new definition of the word stupid.

If you don't sell me your desk, no problem. I can make a copy of it. You had a chance to make money, chose not to. So by all means keep your desk - be buried with it for all I care.

Re:It should work both ways.

[Anonymous Coward]

Try applying that logic to physical goods

The problem with your logic is right there in that very sentence. Let's see if you can find it.

Re:It should work both ways.

[Anonymous Coward]

Holders of trademarks and such are required to go after every infringer they're aware of or they lose the right to protect their IP. Flip it around and make it necessary for content owners to provide their content for sale in order to make an infringement claim. If they're not currently selling or licensing their content, they should lose the right to protect it from unauthorized distribution.

I see only one issue with this: copyright holders making their content cost $5,000 for the super duper limited edition directors cut edition on Betamax just to say it's technically for sale, instead of having it available for a modest cost for download in a universal format.

Re:It should work both ways.

[jtownatpunk.net]

I see only one issue with this: copyright holders making their content cost $5,000 for the super duper limited edition directors cut edition on Betamax just to say it's technically for sale, instead of having it available for a modest cost for download in a universal format.

I wouldn't really have a problem with that as long as they're actually producing it and have it available for purchase. I suppose a clause could be added requiring a minimum number of units be produced and sold (to consumers) each quarter. Miss the target for 8 consecutive quarters and forfeit the right to control distribution. Numbers drop for 6 quarters, dump ten thousand units in $0.99 bins at Walmart and reset the clock. Even if the usual price is $5,000 quite a few copies would get into the hands of the public every couple years.

The limited availability model works for Disney. People lose their shit when Disney movies hit the shelves for a few months at a time.

Re:It should work both ways.

[Anonymous Coward]

And in this case, just like "copying" a desk, making a "copy" involves writing a screenplay, hiring actors, shooting, editing, mixing. Really, that's all there is to it. Good luck!

Re:It should work both ways.

[jamstar7]

Except we're not talking about physical goods here. Fact is, we're talkin about unobtainable easily distributed 'goods' here.

Re:It should work both ways.

[asdf7890]

Flip it around and make it necessary for content owners to provide their content for sale in order to make an infringement claim.

What about specially commissioned private works? If I have a poster design, video, or what-ever, made for myself or a company, would you have the right to copy it? What about my photos from a family holiday that are on my website? Can GreedyShister Ltd. copy them for use in their promotional materials simply because I'm not offering them for sale?

Works in progress would have similar problems: if I hand out a part finished work for people to look at and give feedback (or just because they are interested even if they won't have feedback they feel worth giving), can they copy that work in progress as I don't offer it for sale? The same for content that otherwise "leaks" out early. I suppose an "I intend to sell the finished work" clause might help here, but you would have to specify that every time you talk about the item as otherwise you open up to "well you didn't say..." arguments.

And of course it could easily be worked around the other way: all content producers have to do is say "I'll sell you this for {exorbitant value}" - no sales due to the price but it is offered for sale. You could add a "reasonableness" clause to your rule, but any such clause has no choice but to be vague and wide open to interpretation/argument.

Private prosecution

[Graham J - XVI]

UK "justice" is pretty messed up - a private entity can prosecute individuals.

Ars has a great article about how FACT put the owner of SurfTheChannel behind bars for four years. Maybe this is why UKNova are complying with these idiots.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/private-justice-how-hollywood-money-put-a-brit-behind-bars

Re:Private prosecution

[__aaltlg1547]

It's always been that way in the UK. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debtors'_prison

Thanks UKN

[Anonymous Coward]

BBC iPlayer, 4OD etc. official streaming services was a direct response to UKNova.
DVD releases of many, many UK shows immediately after the season ended (during in the case of Dr. Who) can be attributed to UKNovas no torrenting stuff available for purchase.

Thanks to file sharing pioneers like UKNova, we can stream almost all the content (providing you use a UK proxy)

It can also be credited for preserving many, many old shows that would no doubt be lost forever, by inviting users to raid their attics for VHS gems and convert/upload them. I once asked for an obscure one off BBC show about the music careers of the actors of the various Star Trek series 'Funk me up Scotty' - presented by the legendary John Peel. within a couple of hours someone posted it like it was nothing...

now it's on YT... set your eyes to stun...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3k64LZNLD8

 

There is a silver lining to this all....

[Anonymous Coward]

I always makes me laugh to see you copyleft retards get a swift kick to the crotch.

Let me pay the licence fee.

[JRR006]

Because I'd love to. Let me pay the licence fee and have access to BBC iPlayer, legally, and that would cover most of what I want to see.

It wouldn't help for other channels, but what does Channel 4 really have? Jimmy Carr? Meh. Though I would like ITV for shows that only make their way to PBS years later...

Fire all the lawyers everywhere and hire some more techs and make it happen.

Re:Let me pay the licence fee.

[Anonymous Coward]

Asbofuckinglutely. I pay the BBC licence fee for my mother (she is still in England, but I'm resident in the USA), so technically I am allowed to view content over iPlayer... except for course for silly GeoIP restrictions which are busted as soon as I launch my VPN client anyway. Pitiful that I cannot somehow register selected IPs (or log in with my license number, or some other way). I also feel the same way about restricted US content when I am overseas... there are any number of ways I can prove my residency status without resorted to a VPN. Heaven help us all when use of such tech becomes itself somehow considered infringing.

And on UKNova-- a lot of that content was indeed broadcast "free" to licence holders back-in-the-day, but now is not available for purchase because the BBC has deemed it not economically worth their while to press and market the DVD's.

Re:Let me pay the licence fee.

[advocate_one]

the problem with the BBC iPlayer is that you can only watch whatever's been shown in the past week. After than, it is dissappeared to keep the copyright holders happy so they can then bundle things up in DVDs to sell to us again and to other markets.

Re:Let me pay the licence fee.

[Anonymous Coward]

you can always immigrate to the civilised world, you know :p

Re:Let me pay the licence fee.

[Biotech_is_Godzilla]

You're thinking of the iPlayer streaming service on the website. If you have the iPlayer program on your computer it'll download programmes you're interested in to your PC and keep them for a month. It's not perfect, but it gives you a lot more of a chance to actually watch them.

Re:Let me pay the licence fee.

[Anonymous Coward]

channel 4 is funded by the license fee at least partly

Re:Let me pay the licence fee.

[Anonymous Coward]

cite

Re:Let me pay the licence fee.

[Caetel]

I pay the BBC licence fee for my mother (she is still in England, but I'm resident in the USA), so technically I am allowed to view content over iPlayer

Accept you're not. The licence is per household, so you're paying for your mother's licence for her house, if you live seperately from her then you'd still need your own licence.

Re:Let me pay the licence fee.

[Caetel]

Ugh... except.

Re:Let me pay the licence fee.

[Anonymous Coward]

And if you have the get_iplayer program then you can download programs sans DRM and keep them for however long you want.

End of an era

[Latinhypercube]

UK Nova was amazing. I fail to see how it effected anyone's commercial interests. None of its content was viewable or purchasable anywhere else.
FACT can go FUCK themselves.
It's obvious from their wikipedia page they are a bunch of jokers tying up the legal system with warrantless cases.
There are plenty more fish in the sea.

Obviously

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can find a way to:

1. Copy my desk
2. Leave me the original
3. Pay me the value of a new desk for every copy you make

and I still refuse to let you give me no-work-involved money, then the answer is yes. I should lose the right to keep my desk because clearly I am insane and am a danger to myself or others.

you dont need violate gpl stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

linux is a free download turkey...and its cause of the restrictions of copyright that it exists and the gpl is made to protect OUR USER rights and the code so we can have something we can do as we please with.....

unstaisfied demand and unreasonable price

[Anonymous Coward]

stomped copy 5 cents
printing and labels 10 cents
cost to you
29.95

cdr burn ( canada ) 50 cents
daily 5 megabit internet cost 2$
if i burn ONLY one thing a day thats 2.5 plus case so 3$
ten times cheaper on my own......im poor and nvm you get only half the issue....

notice distribution isnt mentioned cause with bittorrent I PAY that with my bandwidth and thus eradicate the need for the label entirely.

The solution is simple enough...

[__aaltlg1547]

... stop watching their content entirely. Stop writing about them and stop discussing what they do. Being ignored is the ultimate punishment for a media company gone bad.

Too many retards

[Anonymous Coward]

What these CEO retards don't get is that once they've closed down every site that offers individuality that two things will follow; 1) all the interesting people will disconnect and go and do something more interesting, and 2) the result will be a fall in revenue coupled with the death of the internet as they turn it into a giant cyber shopping mall, because they are not capable of conceiving of anything else except a world covered in one endless, giant, soulless, shopping mall.

Compulsory license

[Kristian T.]

The answer to your rethorical question, would surprisingly to you be mostly yes. In patent law, "lack of working over an extended period in the territory of the patent" is grounds for applying for a "compulsory license" - which is the legal equivalent of use it or loose it regarding patent protection.

The other comparison also completely misses the point. The GPL'd software can clearly be licensed on fair and equal terms by everyone willing to abide by it's terms. The fact that the pricing on the software is 0 does not make it any less fair. Also, you must understand that the GPL is merely a license to distribute the software, which is still otherwise covered by copyright. So anyone willing to make contact with the rights holder(s) on that particular piece of software, is free to negotiate a different license with different terms and pricing than those offered by the GPL. The only legal similarity, is that both would have a hard time claiming any damages in a court case, as neither have any direct income from selling their product.