Actually, if you believe piracy has no effect on their respective industries, I would contend you are very much wrong. I can't even begin to count the number of PC game development houses that either folded, or switched to console development solely and most cited piracy for the reason.
And lets not pardon either all the PC game development houses which copied other PC game development houses, which copied the ideas of others. Oh, PC game development houses were the first to make games about pirates, games about wizards and dragons, games about the mafia? Nope, PC game development houses COPIED those ideas just because they felt like copying those ideas.
When the means to pirate material is easy, people do it more.
Of course, as they *should*. Everybody copies everybody, because by copying the ideas of others you transform your material property into an increased wealth material property. There's nobody who does not do this, from wearing clothing, to living in houses with doors and wheels, to using wheels and fire, to telling stories about dragons. And neither did those PC game houses invent the code by which they programmed games. Neither did they invent the disc media storage by which they sold those games. They copied other people who made PC games and put game content onto media.
When it is not worth the hassle, people do it less. People have always been able to swap software and such, or copy CDs, but the advent of P2P technology made it vastly easier to pirate, and it has become more widespread.
And this has by definition increased net societal material wealth in absolutely every instance of copying. I could have typed the precise meaning of that last sentence in some IP protected gibberish language: aoilrehewaohewrio3w4huiewhcs9810910uhhdfsefiwhj000 11001010. But expressing ideas in a commonly shared language medium increases material benefit for those who use that language for coordination and cooperation. And the internet has made it vastly easier and cheaper to talk, and it has become more widespread, by definition increasing net societal subjective material wealth.
However, in the specific instances when a movie has been leaked on opening weekend, there is a direct connection to the opening grosses that weekend. And in most cases, the first weekend is the highest a film will ever gross. It only goes down from there.
Anyone want to bet that movie producers too increase their gross sales by COPYING? Hmmm. They copy language in their dialogues. They copy ideas of culture they didn't create. They make movies about stories they didn't write and copied. (See Snow White, see 300, etc. etc.) They make references to other movies (See the Simpsons, etc. etc.). Movie producers COPY COPY COPY to increase opening weekend gross sales. In fact, Hollywood was started in Hollywood precisely to get away from restricting IP claims and enforcement, such as Thomas Edison's motion picture machine patents. If it wasn't for Hollywood "pirating"/COPYING the ideas of others, Hollywood wouldn't exist and neither would the movie industry exist!!! Same goes for the gaming industry. What they decry as piracy as the raison d'etre they exist in the first place!
It defies all logic to say that piracy has NO EFFECT on the economics of each industry. The question is how big or small of an effect there is.
And there are fundamental errors galore on all sides of the analysis of the effects. Of course, by definition, copying has an effect. And that effect is irrefutably a net societal wealth increase in absolutely every case of copying. Scarcity is by definition turned to abundance at mere will for all who wish. It's also always outrageously hypocritical for those who freely copy to claim others can't or shouldn't copy them. And there isn't a movie producer, musician, writer, or game developer alive who has *not* copied.
Therefore, IP laws, copyright and patent, conclusively without except
I seriously wonder how many more lawyers than doctors graduate these days, and how much more the average salary between the professions has changed. How else are all those lawyers supposed to get their big 6 figure plus salaries except by lawsuits, lawsuits, lawsuits? So many people have law school as a back up career plan, as if it was their "safety" college choice. When people see people making easy big money, competition ensues, and intellectual ideas of business methods and processes are copied, such as the "class action law suit".
Oh, so you *concede* video game developers copy each other. Of course they do! That's why there are "formulaic" video game genres, such as rpg and fps. Guess what buddy, you are no longer arguing against copying, but arguing for some arbitrary b.s. version of what's ok to copy and what's not ok to copy. If people didn't copy there would be no where near the amount of competitive rpg games, leaving both consumers and the video game industry worse off.
And of course, absolutely every instance of copyright and patent hinders artistic and technological advancement by instituting monopoly protection through violence. Imagine if only 1 company could create games with "increasing stats" because of a copyright or patent. Apply that to how poorer consumers and the OS industry is due to examples of "increasing stats" actually being patented and copyrighted.
Yeah, Hollywood, musicians, and game developers put a little effort of minor differentiation of their products to perpetuate the mythical facade of their copyright meal tickets, as they are already inside or hope to be inside the industry clubhouse. But it's clear, and one could go into explicit never ending detail, of how ideas are freely borrowed, and blatantly copied, all the time. It might not be wholesale exact replication but it's indeed piecemeal freedom of speech expression. And that's the point, copying is routine competitive wealth generating economic behavior which is constantly bettering the absolute best bargain offers for mass exchange. Inhibiting the free information flow process through artificial violently enforced copyrights and patents makes what's offered in exchange poorer quality at a higher price, because nobody is allowed to offer the same or an improved product for a lower price. There's no exception whatsoever, as there are no new ideas whatsoever that have not in some aspect copied and built upon previous ideas.
Back to D&D. If D&D couldn't have been copied there would be no rpg industry. Likewise D&D copied previously existing culture as well. You are blinded, you fail to see all the game genres and competition which would have evolved that has been prohibited. Harry Potter likewise freely rips off the culture and dares claim copyright. The idea of wizards, the idea of people flying on brooms, is not *original* material. It's copied! It's outrageously hypocritical for someone who freely copies to claim others can't or shouldn't copy them! And there is no example whatsoever of a person who has not copied, nor will there ever be an example of a person who has not copied another person.
IP monopoly protectionism creates scarcity, just like communist rule caused shortages. If not hindered, free copying would increase abundance, as anyone and everyone would be free to piecemeal change whatever they wanted to change whenever they wanted to change it. The whole idea of "fair use" too shows how bogus IP is. And people always will create and build and tell stories just as they get up every morning and talk. Threads like these on/. show every single day voluntary contributions of communicative exchange, which filters into better comprehension at an increased rate through time. That'w why people don't talk in an IP protected gibberish language understood by nobody but themself.
Thus, copying is always in every case without excpetion, *good*, causing a net societal wealth increase. Prohibiting copying is always in every case without exception, *bad*, causing a net societal wealth decrease. This is wholesale contradictory to the claims put forth by IP proponents, and wholesale contradictory to the original constiutional justification of copyright and patents. But alas, it is irrefutably economically proved. To argue otherwise, would be to argue against the principal of free trade, which occurs only because both parties increase their material wealth by trading away that which is valued less for that which is valued more. To argue otherwise would be to argue that people are wealthier by having violence perpetuated against them, would be to argue that a person is better off having been raped than voluntarily engaging in consensual sex. Read my lips. Ir-fucking-refutable.
Why would you also do something that's destructive to American businesses and American citizens from whom you're stealing? And why would Hollywood make movies glorifying armed robbery, why would rappers release songs praising pimping, why would the gaming industry release content which encourages destructive social behavior and immorality? And then they cry like little girls when someone copies their stuff. (Ain't stolen, since thier original property is fully intact). Boo-hoo for the game developers. Boo-hoo!
Not to mention game developers rip off ideas from each other left and right. How many rpg and mmmorpg games are out there that have ripped off Dungeons and Dragons? How many fps rip each other off. It's just like Hollywood, with recycled "formulas", which by definition have copied ideas they didn't create. Ohh the irony. Ohhh the hypocricy. And boo-hoo. It's ok for game developers to copy, but don't you the consumer dare do it too!
What libertarians fail to realize is that economic power and political power are fundamentally equivalent. We need limits on both. That's exactly like saying consensual sex and rape are fundamentally equivalent. Political power to use violent force is not equivalent to economic power which arises through free voluntary consensual exchange. But there's at least a generation or two exactly like you who have been wholesale stupefied by public education. How else do explain how so many "liberals" can spout such utter nonsense? Not only that, but they quite often conflate the two as well (no doubt as muddying such grade school common sense comprehension distinction serves to advance the socialist agenda), decrying economic power when it's established by political power. Politics is using force to violently take, or violently restrict. Economics is consensual exchange.
What are you talking about? The Democratic Party has been using children as human shields for human rights violations for decades to pass their socialist agendas. To violently force universal health care, they first attempt to get children covered. Using children is nothing new. It's old hat.
Divide the population along lines of race and class, and collect their cut while stealing from group A to give to group B. Manufacture and cause problems so they have something to justify ruling. This of course causes massive net social poverty, makes society as a whole far less materially wealthy than it otherwise would be without interference with free trade, which in every instance creates wealth, because things are only exchanged when both parties benefit from an exchange.
Of course the religious right and Republicans do the same thing to impose their moralistic agenda on society as well. But the road has been paved by "the progessive" example of stacking the supreme court, big brother tracking of personal private information whenever you start a job so they can rob your paycheck (isn't it hypocritically hilarious how leftists can complain about an invasion of privacy on the internet while having no problem with the government knowing how much money you make), and forcing non-violent people to do as they say.
How about the government instituting the business model of MAFIAA theft? Taxation. Taking over the numbers racket. Taking from person A to give to person B, whilst helping themself to a generous bureaucratic cut of the action. And guess what? People like you have no problem voting for and supporting exactly that real theft. But nobody advocates rape without representation. Why is that? Because violence is violence, no matter if a "majority" votes for it. Yup, libertarian philosophy is exposing facts left and right.
It's too bad if more and more people will no longer cede their right, or allow you to steal their right, to copy whatever the hell they feel like copying. And isn't a person alive who does not generously copy others all day long every day in innumerable ways.
Blame it on games like Grand Theft Auto for philosophically and morally glorifying theft. Though copying is *not* theft. Yes preach on preacher. You're so morally qualified to do so. What's that those games you make advocate again? Violence. Theft. Piracy. Degradation. Cheating. Same goes for the musicians who just make music helping themselves to musical tools and ideas. Same for writers. Same for programmers. Same for everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Needs somone to copy. Like doors and windows and going from point A to point B weren't invented before computer code. But "people like you" feel than copy these ideas at whim. That's called a hypocritical syntax error, buddy. Have some.
And those musicians ripped off each other and the creators of the musical language and instruments they own. Guess the music industry is finally getting what they deserve then, according to your logic, since you say they are "thieves". Not to mention the hypocricy of releasing content which advocates immoral thievary, immoral treatment of women, and general disrespect for law and order. Oh sure it's fine to make movies about robbery and release rap songs about pimping but then they cry like little girls if someone copies their stuff.
The bulk of the PC gaming market is playing WoW, 9,000,000 million people paying ~$12/month equals $108 million a month equals equals 1.3 billion a year! Get a clue and track gaming industry revenue over time and correlate that with movie industry revenue over time. There's a lot more stuff to do than "go to the movies" on a weekend night. There's a lot of people competing for your entertainment dollar.
Free exchange of copyrighted material will eventually dry up the well. It may seem cool to download the latest blockbuster free but revenues are falling and eventually if the trend doesn't reverse they will disappear. This is economically and philosophically false. Just take a look at the explosion of content available on the internet on message boards and blogs. People will still be motivated by profit, by fame, to create, even if the reward rendered by the free market value assignations of voluntary exchange are a small percentage of what they used to be. Are actors who used to earn 20 million for a film going to start digging ditches for a living rather than accept 500k per film? Technology makes movie production cheaper than ever before. Revenues will decline because Holloywood doesn't have a monopoly and there is an ever increasing mountain of content competing against an ever increasing mountain of content just to be seen. Massively increased supply, demand restricted by 24/7 Time, equals prices approaching zero.
But people sure haven't stopped talking because of message boards and blogs even though newspaper revenues continue to collapse. So would society be richer if people communicated less? Of course not. Copyright just *artificially* restricts supply, creates scarcity. You think Hollywood can create a better film than people adapting previous works, creating new works, and whoever editing those works editing those works? Hollywood never had the budget to compete with that well of wealth, even at it's nadar.
Copying is not pirating. Copying is transforming your physical material property in an identical way to someone else's physical material property. End of story. Your self righteous hypocricy applies to your ears, eyes, and mind functioning on any content created by others. So stop listening, stop looking, stop thinking, and stop taking others "content work" for free. And that goes for writer, musicians, and programmers too who rip off languages they didn't invent. You hypocrites need to STFU already. You are in violation of the rights you declare. Wez all grownz up now.
How many billions of dollars have been "lost" by people giving away their words for "free" on message boards? If you want to make money as a musician get off your butt and sell tickets to performances of your music. And lets not be naive and pretend those musicians aren't "stealing" the ideas of others who invented the notes and instruments they use in their songs. If music thieves "infuriate" you, then why aren't you advocating the banning of all music, moron? That's the logical progression of "intellectual property" prohibiting copying. You are a hypocrite and shortsighted. Oh but musicians can not "earn" the notes and instruments, but just "steal it because they feel entitled to it [making music]." Nobody does not copy someone else some way. Consider yourself intellectually upbraided.
Music and ideas can't be "stolen" dummy, because they are not physical material property capable of being stolen. Only material physical property can be stolen. But nice try to perpetuate a myth to steal peoples' freedom to shape the real property they own however they want to shape it. If you don't want to be copied, don't produce anything which can be copied. That's your *only* option. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do or produce which does not in some aspect copy someone else. So it would be silly to prevent copying, as nothing then could ever be produced or done. But people of your 4th tier educational ability are too dense to realize this simple truth.
Copying is not piracy, moron. If it was, why are you copying the english language, copying posting, copying wearing clothing, copying writing, copying breathing, copying typing? All you do is copy copy copy, all day long. But you're just too stupid to realize your hypocricy. If you don't want to be a "pirate" copyCRIT, then your only logical choice is to STFU. The only piracy is violent force preventing anyone from copying anyone or anything they want to copy with their own property. So why do *you* support piracy of peoples' freedom to shape their own property however they want to shape their own property.
It would be a violation of free speach to prevent anyone from mimicing exactly everything you said. Thus, its completely natural and without any "piracy" for others to copying the expressions of others either with their own bodies or with their own material property. The days of the bogus non-existent "intellectual property" FRAUD are numbered, by a de facto majority currently at least.
When the state is not acting as an outside control we can quickly encounter the "tragedy of the commons". Price wars tend to serve the interests of the consumer only in the short term. in the long run, frequent or long duration price wars lead to monopolies.
in other words, it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Nope, wrong. All trade only occurs because that which is received is valued more than that which is given away in exchange. As long as this is true, and it will never not be true, trade will by definition profit both the "seller" and the "buyer" in absolutely every instance. That's the only reason trade occurs in the first place. We are not about to enter the Robinson Carusoe era eliminating the division of labor and trade. Thus, people will always produce "this" to trade for "that", whether it's labor traded to a corporation for a check, whether it's money traded for food, whether it's you trading away whatever else you could have been doing at the time you are reading this post, whether it's anything whatsoever which is traded.
Every individual person is a monopoly which chooses how they will act, whether they will trade X for Y, how everything is subjectively valued and changes in subjective value from second to second, day to day, year to year.
Could you imagine if economists talked about programming the way people spout off with little or no knowledge of economics!
But even with contract law, we can get screwed, and as history has shown us, the private sector has no problem ganging together to ensure we can't negotiate our way out of restrictive contract laws. E.g., software EULA. The only reason they don't seriously harm us is the State did protect us from some of the aspects of the EULA (but not all!)
In an ideal world, we wouldn't need the State to protect us from the marketplace, but since it is not ideal, maybe government regulation should limit itself to preventing bad contract conditions and nothing else? States enforce contracts. Contracts are not actual trade. Someone can promise you sex, you can pay someone for the promises of sex, but that person can change their mind at any time, owing only a refund of any goods which may have exchanged. To enforce the contract would be nothing less than rape. EULA's are similarly government enforced contractual theft which eminates from a dilution of defined property, primarily through copyright and patent, which infringe the actual real existing property of others and those other's property rights to transform and shape their property however they would non-violently so choose, including copying others. Copying is legitimiate rightful competition. What good would a EULA be if you could wholesale copy someone's source code and sell that same source code modified merely without any hampering EULA?
There's a mountain of socialist mumbo jumbo smoke to clear away, but the libertarians are doing a good job so far. TFG for the inter tubes. But you are very correct that the State does indeed aid and abet corrupt corporations. The solution is to remove from the State that power to aid and abet corruption. A big step is the aboltion of copyright and patent. After that, repeal the federal income tax, and let 50 different states compete with various levels of social services and people will vote with their feet, rather than there being an all or nothing competition to tilt things like the supreme court to ramrod a one size fits all agenda down everyone's throats.
This just confirms something to me that certain classes of laissez-faire types keep missing: the private sector can just be as bad as the government for the market. The only thing keeping them in check is ironically government regulation of the market. That's flat out wrong and should not be mod rated 5. Competition keeps them in check. Not buying keeps them in check. If you think anyone is offering something which is not the absolute best deal that consumers can receive, open your own competing business and PROFIT!!!
Seriously stop crying like little babies and using violent government interference to strip away peoples' freedom. People like MagikSlinger are the problem. You're a petty violent criminal who like all national socialists cloaks their evil in innocuous sounding words like "government regulation of the market".
These rules are designed to protect retailers who have good sales people (who surprisingly have better opportunities than a big box store) from missing out on sales from people who take advantage of the knowledge of the boutique and then purchase from the big box store. The big box is welcome to compete with a different line of products sold by idiots if they choose. The big box is welcome to compete with any physical property it owns whatsoever. And big box stores don't "act", only people act; you are against the rule of law by telling people that own or work in a big box store that they can't do something others can. What's next, different drinking fountains for black and white people you kindhearted leftist nimbwit? It's called basic freedom. Let's also not forget that patents are phohibiting the spread of knowledge and inducing scarcity and higher prices for those patented beauty products.
If consumers don't buy the product in the stores, then why should the stores carry it. If stores don't carry it, how is the company to find new customers? Online, you can't sample a smell or see its true color. Cheap stuff is great but sometimes its affect on the bigger picture isn't. Well then clearly it's profitable for the manufacturer to open their own sample stores, or for the manufacturer to pay independent sample stores to stock their goods. It's no different then selling at different prices to different people. But dumb leftists throw a "discrimination" hissy fit even though no instance of free willing voluntary trade has ever occurred nor ever will occur without it by definition increasing the real economic profit of both parties to the exchange at the moment of exchange. That which is received is valued more than that which is given away in exchange. This is why trade increases wealth, generates "economy-wide" profit in absolutely every instance.
Nobody is forcing manufacturer of beauty products to sell to anyone, let alone forcing them to sell at "too low" a price.
Why should makeup, clothing, or beauty products be any different than the grocery store? Not to mention why would any beauty products manufacturer make commercials for things you can't sample on the television?
This is the same argument as pharmaceutical companies selling drugs to persons in poor countries at a lower price then they charge to persons in rich countries. They have nobody to blame but themselves for creating an arbitrage market for reimportation. That's why discrimination by definition fails to accomplish it's goal. If you sold houses to white people for 10% less than you sold houses to black people, all you would do is open a 10% arbitrage market. But regulatory prohibitions against racism (sure succeeding in the marriage market/sarcasm) only increases the costs and means society is net poorer for every marginal instance of government regulation. Translated, more sicker, more dead people, compounded upon inhibited innovation and efficiency (and all lost instances of potential free trade ruined by violent taxation). Conclusion, leftists commit crimes against humanity on a massive scale untouched by any of the worst mass murdering bastards ever to inhabit the earth when you add up the marginal effects of their actions, completely contrary to the ignorant feel good claims of credit they heap upon themselves from everything to the FDA to the CDC to you name it.
Re:Has already existed and thrived for a long time
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Not to mention music is a luxury hobby. The wealthier society is, the more leisure time can be chosen rather than work time. Just as people might like to pre-game relax by listening to some music others might like to pre-game relax by making some music. There will always be the pop incentive of fame and girls to motivate plenty of people to produce music. It's pbs nature mating documentary behavior. When studio time drops from $50k an hour to $1 an hour a lot more people can produce competitive music.
Ad-laced music will have to compete with non-ad-laced music. Do you see people typing advertisements after every sentence on blog posts ("impress her with your 5.0 mod rate")? If they did they would be ignored, filtered out. Same will hold for music. And others can constantly remix originals and remix remixes with different lyrics, different instruments, different different ad infinitum. That will be part of the ginormous creative artistic explosion brought about by the de facto if not yet "legal" abolition of copyright.
That's right, and that's why advertising is dying too. And that's why not only will software and music be free, but you will be paid for using and listening to it (by definition, at the minimum). Advertisers are more obnoxious, more desperate, and more ignored. Do you see any content sites you could pay for competing with the mass of input on comment sites like/.? Rather then homeless people at every intersection traffic light begging for spare change, there will be people offering you spare change.
It's 100% free trade of posting and reading posts. You are by definition better off reading those posts by the action of reading those posts over the opportunity cost of you could have been doing absolutely anything else at the time you were reading those posts. No restrictive monopolists or antagonizing advertising spammers can compete with that generated freely exchanged content wealth, and rating systems (theoretically) highlight better content.
And in the digital world it's exceedingly easy for nearly infinite competition to replace other sites if they screw up, ad infest, etc. You benefit from allowing good things in, and blocking crap out. That's the demand the supply will be forced to meet, just to be heard. Free college education is already on the way as sites like the MIT open course ware only get better too. Why pay $100k in attorney's fees when you can take a quick free 100 hour tutorial (or less) covering all the bases and procedures you would need to defend yourself in court against an RIAA lawsuit? Unless you're already making $1k an hour. That competition will force down hourly rates of doctors, lawyers, and of course IT people. Why pay realestate agents 6% or 3% commissions when you can find prices for all houses simply and as easily as find airline ticket prices? Yeah, stock brokers used to make big bucks back in the day too, now stock prices are often quoted in penny wide spreads.
And Microsoft is only a Monopolist precisely because of violent government interference in the free market, and no other reason whatsoever. All that copyright and patent protectionism prevents competition and hampers innovation. People are prevented from free trade, prohibited from non-violently transforming and shaping their own material property in any manner they would so choose.
If people stopped "copying" music there would be no music. All these artists alive today didn't invent the notes and chords and progressions and instruments they are using. Not to mention a whole host of other techniques and actions you and they do which "copy" others 24/7. I have not noticed a rash of "stolen" music reported to any law enforcement.
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Actually, if you believe piracy has no effect on their respective industries, I would contend you are very much wrong. I can't even begin to count the number of PC game development houses that either folded, or switched to console development solely and most cited piracy for the reason.
And lets not pardon either all the PC game development houses which copied other PC game development houses, which copied the ideas of others. Oh, PC game development houses were the first to make games about pirates, games about wizards and dragons, games about the mafia? Nope, PC game development houses COPIED those ideas just because they felt like copying those ideas.
When the means to pirate material is easy, people do it more.
Of course, as they *should*. Everybody copies everybody, because by copying the ideas of others you transform your material property into an increased wealth material property. There's nobody who does not do this, from wearing clothing, to living in houses with doors and wheels, to using wheels and fire, to telling stories about dragons. And neither did those PC game houses invent the code by which they programmed games. Neither did they invent the disc media storage by which they sold those games. They copied other people who made PC games and put game content onto media.
When it is not worth the hassle, people do it less. People have always been able to swap software and such, or copy CDs, but the advent of P2P technology made it vastly easier to pirate, and it has become more widespread.
And this has by definition increased net societal material wealth in absolutely every instance of copying. I could have typed the precise meaning of that last sentence in some IP protected gibberish language: aoilrehewaohewrio3w4huiewhcs9810910uhhdfsefiwhj000 11001010. But expressing ideas in a commonly shared language medium increases material benefit for those who use that language for coordination and cooperation. And the internet has made it vastly easier and cheaper to talk, and it has become more widespread, by definition increasing net societal subjective material wealth.
However, in the specific instances when a movie has been leaked on opening weekend, there is a direct connection to the opening grosses that weekend. And in most cases, the first weekend is the highest a film will ever gross. It only goes down from there.
Anyone want to bet that movie producers too increase their gross sales by COPYING? Hmmm. They copy language in their dialogues. They copy ideas of culture they didn't create. They make movies about stories they didn't write and copied. (See Snow White, see 300, etc. etc.) They make references to other movies (See the Simpsons, etc. etc.). Movie producers COPY COPY COPY to increase opening weekend gross sales. In fact, Hollywood was started in Hollywood precisely to get away from restricting IP claims and enforcement, such as Thomas Edison's motion picture machine patents. If it wasn't for Hollywood "pirating"/COPYING the ideas of others, Hollywood wouldn't exist and neither would the movie industry exist!!! Same goes for the gaming industry. What they decry as piracy as the raison d'etre they exist in the first place!
It defies all logic to say that piracy has NO EFFECT on the economics of each industry. The question is how big or small of an effect there is.
And there are fundamental errors galore on all sides of the analysis of the effects. Of course, by definition, copying has an effect. And that effect is irrefutably a net societal wealth increase in absolutely every case of copying. Scarcity is by definition turned to abundance at mere will for all who wish. It's also always outrageously hypocritical for those who freely copy to claim others can't or shouldn't copy them. And there isn't a movie producer, musician, writer, or game developer alive who has *not* copied.
Therefore, IP laws, copyright and patent, conclusively without except
I seriously wonder how many more lawyers than doctors graduate these days, and how much more the average salary between the professions has changed. How else are all those lawyers supposed to get their big 6 figure plus salaries except by lawsuits, lawsuits, lawsuits? So many people have law school as a back up career plan, as if it was their "safety" college choice. When people see people making easy big money, competition ensues, and intellectual ideas of business methods and processes are copied, such as the "class action law suit".
Oh, so you *concede* video game developers copy each other. Of course they do! That's why there are "formulaic" video game genres, such as rpg and fps. Guess what buddy, you are no longer arguing against copying, but arguing for some arbitrary b.s. version of what's ok to copy and what's not ok to copy. If people didn't copy there would be no where near the amount of competitive rpg games, leaving both consumers and the video game industry worse off.
/. show every single day voluntary contributions of communicative exchange, which filters into better comprehension at an increased rate through time. That'w why people don't talk in an IP protected gibberish language understood by nobody but themself.
And of course, absolutely every instance of copyright and patent hinders artistic and technological advancement by instituting monopoly protection through violence. Imagine if only 1 company could create games with "increasing stats" because of a copyright or patent. Apply that to how poorer consumers and the OS industry is due to examples of "increasing stats" actually being patented and copyrighted.
Yeah, Hollywood, musicians, and game developers put a little effort of minor differentiation of their products to perpetuate the mythical facade of their copyright meal tickets, as they are already inside or hope to be inside the industry clubhouse. But it's clear, and one could go into explicit never ending detail, of how ideas are freely borrowed, and blatantly copied, all the time. It might not be wholesale exact replication but it's indeed piecemeal freedom of speech expression. And that's the point, copying is routine competitive wealth generating economic behavior which is constantly bettering the absolute best bargain offers for mass exchange. Inhibiting the free information flow process through artificial violently enforced copyrights and patents makes what's offered in exchange poorer quality at a higher price, because nobody is allowed to offer the same or an improved product for a lower price. There's no exception whatsoever, as there are no new ideas whatsoever that have not in some aspect copied and built upon previous ideas.
Back to D&D. If D&D couldn't have been copied there would be no rpg industry. Likewise D&D copied previously existing culture as well. You are blinded, you fail to see all the game genres and competition which would have evolved that has been prohibited. Harry Potter likewise freely rips off the culture and dares claim copyright. The idea of wizards, the idea of people flying on brooms, is not *original* material. It's copied! It's outrageously hypocritical for someone who freely copies to claim others can't or shouldn't copy them! And there is no example whatsoever of a person who has not copied, nor will there ever be an example of a person who has not copied another person.
IP monopoly protectionism creates scarcity, just like communist rule caused shortages. If not hindered, free copying would increase abundance, as anyone and everyone would be free to piecemeal change whatever they wanted to change whenever they wanted to change it. The whole idea of "fair use" too shows how bogus IP is. And people always will create and build and tell stories just as they get up every morning and talk. Threads like these on
Thus, copying is always in every case without excpetion, *good*, causing a net societal wealth increase. Prohibiting copying is always in every case without exception, *bad*, causing a net societal wealth decrease. This is wholesale contradictory to the claims put forth by IP proponents, and wholesale contradictory to the original constiutional justification of copyright and patents. But alas, it is irrefutably economically proved. To argue otherwise, would be to argue against the principal of free trade, which occurs only because both parties increase their material wealth by trading away that which is valued less for that which is valued more. To argue otherwise would be to argue that people are wealthier by having violence perpetuated against them, would be to argue that a person is better off having been raped than voluntarily engaging in consensual sex. Read my lips. Ir-fucking-refutable.
We are all copycats now. Go go copycat power!
Not to mention game developers rip off ideas from each other left and right. How many rpg and mmmorpg games are out there that have ripped off Dungeons and Dragons? How many fps rip each other off. It's just like Hollywood, with recycled "formulas", which by definition have copied ideas they didn't create. Ohh the irony. Ohhh the hypocricy. And boo-hoo. It's ok for game developers to copy, but don't you the consumer dare do it too!
What are you talking about? The Democratic Party has been using children as human shields for human rights violations for decades to pass their socialist agendas. To violently force universal health care, they first attempt to get children covered. Using children is nothing new. It's old hat.
Divide the population along lines of race and class, and collect their cut while stealing from group A to give to group B. Manufacture and cause problems so they have something to justify ruling. This of course causes massive net social poverty, makes society as a whole far less materially wealthy than it otherwise would be without interference with free trade, which in every instance creates wealth, because things are only exchanged when both parties benefit from an exchange.
Of course the religious right and Republicans do the same thing to impose their moralistic agenda on society as well. But the road has been paved by "the progessive" example of stacking the supreme court, big brother tracking of personal private information whenever you start a job so they can rob your paycheck (isn't it hypocritically hilarious how leftists can complain about an invasion of privacy on the internet while having no problem with the government knowing how much money you make), and forcing non-violent people to do as they say.
How about the government instituting the business model of MAFIAA theft? Taxation. Taking over the numbers racket. Taking from person A to give to person B, whilst helping themself to a generous bureaucratic cut of the action. And guess what? People like you have no problem voting for and supporting exactly that real theft. But nobody advocates rape without representation. Why is that? Because violence is violence, no matter if a "majority" votes for it. Yup, libertarian philosophy is exposing facts left and right.
It's too bad if more and more people will no longer cede their right, or allow you to steal their right, to copy whatever the hell they feel like copying. And isn't a person alive who does not generously copy others all day long every day in innumerable ways.
Blame it on games like Grand Theft Auto for philosophically and morally glorifying theft. Though copying is *not* theft. Yes preach on preacher. You're so morally qualified to do so. What's that those games you make advocate again? Violence. Theft. Piracy. Degradation. Cheating. Same goes for the musicians who just make music helping themselves to musical tools and ideas. Same for writers. Same for programmers. Same for everybody. Everybody. Everybody. Needs somone to copy. Like doors and windows and going from point A to point B weren't invented before computer code. But "people like you" feel than copy these ideas at whim. That's called a hypocritical syntax error, buddy. Have some.
And those musicians ripped off each other and the creators of the musical language and instruments they own. Guess the music industry is finally getting what they deserve then, according to your logic, since you say they are "thieves". Not to mention the hypocricy of releasing content which advocates immoral thievary, immoral treatment of women, and general disrespect for law and order. Oh sure it's fine to make movies about robbery and release rap songs about pimping but then they cry like little girls if someone copies their stuff.
The bulk of the PC gaming market is playing WoW, 9,000,000 million people paying ~$12/month equals $108 million a month equals equals 1.3 billion a year! Get a clue and track gaming industry revenue over time and correlate that with movie industry revenue over time. There's a lot more stuff to do than "go to the movies" on a weekend night. There's a lot of people competing for your entertainment dollar.
But people sure haven't stopped talking because of message boards and blogs even though newspaper revenues continue to collapse. So would society be richer if people communicated less? Of course not. Copyright just *artificially* restricts supply, creates scarcity. You think Hollywood can create a better film than people adapting previous works, creating new works, and whoever editing those works editing those works? Hollywood never had the budget to compete with that well of wealth, even at it's nadar.
Copying is not pirating. Copying is transforming your physical material property in an identical way to someone else's physical material property. End of story. Your self righteous hypocricy applies to your ears, eyes, and mind functioning on any content created by others. So stop listening, stop looking, stop thinking, and stop taking others "content work" for free. And that goes for writer, musicians, and programmers too who rip off languages they didn't invent. You hypocrites need to STFU already. You are in violation of the rights you declare. Wez all grownz up now.
How many billions of dollars have been "lost" by people giving away their words for "free" on message boards? If you want to make money as a musician get off your butt and sell tickets to performances of your music. And lets not be naive and pretend those musicians aren't "stealing" the ideas of others who invented the notes and instruments they use in their songs. If music thieves "infuriate" you, then why aren't you advocating the banning of all music, moron? That's the logical progression of "intellectual property" prohibiting copying. You are a hypocrite and shortsighted. Oh but musicians can not "earn" the notes and instruments, but just "steal it because they feel entitled to it [making music]." Nobody does not copy someone else some way. Consider yourself intellectually upbraided.
Music and ideas can't be "stolen" dummy, because they are not physical material property capable of being stolen. Only material physical property can be stolen. But nice try to perpetuate a myth to steal peoples' freedom to shape the real property they own however they want to shape it. If you don't want to be copied, don't produce anything which can be copied. That's your *only* option. Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do or produce which does not in some aspect copy someone else. So it would be silly to prevent copying, as nothing then could ever be produced or done. But people of your 4th tier educational ability are too dense to realize this simple truth.
Copying is not piracy, moron. If it was, why are you copying the english language, copying posting, copying wearing clothing, copying writing, copying breathing, copying typing? All you do is copy copy copy, all day long. But you're just too stupid to realize your hypocricy. If you don't want to be a "pirate" copyCRIT, then your only logical choice is to STFU. The only piracy is violent force preventing anyone from copying anyone or anything they want to copy with their own property. So why do *you* support piracy of peoples' freedom to shape their own property however they want to shape their own property.
It would be a violation of free speach to prevent anyone from mimicing exactly everything you said. Thus, its completely natural and without any "piracy" for others to copying the expressions of others either with their own bodies or with their own material property. The days of the bogus non-existent "intellectual property" FRAUD are numbered, by a de facto majority currently at least.
in other words, it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Nope, wrong. All trade only occurs because that which is received is valued more than that which is given away in exchange. As long as this is true, and it will never not be true, trade will by definition profit both the "seller" and the "buyer" in absolutely every instance. That's the only reason trade occurs in the first place. We are not about to enter the Robinson Carusoe era eliminating the division of labor and trade. Thus, people will always produce "this" to trade for "that", whether it's labor traded to a corporation for a check, whether it's money traded for food, whether it's you trading away whatever else you could have been doing at the time you are reading this post, whether it's anything whatsoever which is traded.
Every individual person is a monopoly which chooses how they will act, whether they will trade X for Y, how everything is subjectively valued and changes in subjective value from second to second, day to day, year to year.
Could you imagine if economists talked about programming the way people spout off with little or no knowledge of economics!
In an ideal world, we wouldn't need the State to protect us from the marketplace, but since it is not ideal, maybe government regulation should limit itself to preventing bad contract conditions and nothing else? States enforce contracts. Contracts are not actual trade. Someone can promise you sex, you can pay someone for the promises of sex, but that person can change their mind at any time, owing only a refund of any goods which may have exchanged. To enforce the contract would be nothing less than rape. EULA's are similarly government enforced contractual theft which eminates from a dilution of defined property, primarily through copyright and patent, which infringe the actual real existing property of others and those other's property rights to transform and shape their property however they would non-violently so choose, including copying others. Copying is legitimiate rightful competition. What good would a EULA be if you could wholesale copy someone's source code and sell that same source code modified merely without any hampering EULA?
There's a mountain of socialist mumbo jumbo smoke to clear away, but the libertarians are doing a good job so far. TFG for the inter tubes. But you are very correct that the State does indeed aid and abet corrupt corporations. The solution is to remove from the State that power to aid and abet corruption. A big step is the aboltion of copyright and patent. After that, repeal the federal income tax, and let 50 different states compete with various levels of social services and people will vote with their feet, rather than there being an all or nothing competition to tilt things like the supreme court to ramrod a one size fits all agenda down everyone's throats.
Seriously stop crying like little babies and using violent government interference to strip away peoples' freedom. People like MagikSlinger are the problem. You're a petty violent criminal who like all national socialists cloaks their evil in innocuous sounding words like "government regulation of the market".
Nobody is forcing manufacturer of beauty products to sell to anyone, let alone forcing them to sell at "too low" a price.
Why should makeup, clothing, or beauty products be any different than the grocery store? Not to mention why would any beauty products manufacturer make commercials for things you can't sample on the television?
This is the same argument as pharmaceutical companies selling drugs to persons in poor countries at a lower price then they charge to persons in rich countries. They have nobody to blame but themselves for creating an arbitrage market for reimportation. That's why discrimination by definition fails to accomplish it's goal. If you sold houses to white people for 10% less than you sold houses to black people, all you would do is open a 10% arbitrage market. But regulatory prohibitions against racism (sure succeeding in the marriage market
Not to mention music is a luxury hobby. The wealthier society is, the more leisure time can be chosen rather than work time. Just as people might like to pre-game relax by listening to some music others might like to pre-game relax by making some music. There will always be the pop incentive of fame and girls to motivate plenty of people to produce music. It's pbs nature mating documentary behavior. When studio time drops from $50k an hour to $1 an hour a lot more people can produce competitive music.
Ad-laced music will have to compete with non-ad-laced music. Do you see people typing advertisements after every sentence on blog posts ("impress her with your 5.0 mod rate")? If they did they would be ignored, filtered out. Same will hold for music. And others can constantly remix originals and remix remixes with different lyrics, different instruments, different different ad infinitum. That will be part of the ginormous creative artistic explosion brought about by the de facto if not yet "legal" abolition of copyright.
That's right, and that's why advertising is dying too. And that's why not only will software and music be free, but you will be paid for using and listening to it (by definition, at the minimum). Advertisers are more obnoxious, more desperate, and more ignored. Do you see any content sites you could pay for competing with the mass of input on comment sites like /.? Rather then homeless people at every intersection traffic light begging for spare change, there will be people offering you spare change.
It's 100% free trade of posting and reading posts. You are by definition better off reading those posts by the action of reading those posts over the opportunity cost of you could have been doing absolutely anything else at the time you were reading those posts. No restrictive monopolists or antagonizing advertising spammers can compete with that generated freely exchanged content wealth, and rating systems (theoretically) highlight better content.
And in the digital world it's exceedingly easy for nearly infinite competition to replace other sites if they screw up, ad infest, etc. You benefit from allowing good things in, and blocking crap out. That's the demand the supply will be forced to meet, just to be heard. Free college education is already on the way as sites like the MIT open course ware only get better too. Why pay $100k in attorney's fees when you can take a quick free 100 hour tutorial (or less) covering all the bases and procedures you would need to defend yourself in court against an RIAA lawsuit? Unless you're already making $1k an hour. That competition will force down hourly rates of doctors, lawyers, and of course IT people. Why pay realestate agents 6% or 3% commissions when you can find prices for all houses simply and as easily as find airline ticket prices? Yeah, stock brokers used to make big bucks back in the day too, now stock prices are often quoted in penny wide spreads.
And Microsoft is only a Monopolist precisely because of violent government interference in the free market, and no other reason whatsoever. All that copyright and patent protectionism prevents competition and hampers innovation. People are prevented from free trade, prohibited from non-violently transforming and shaping their own material property in any manner they would so choose.
If people stopped "copying" music there would be no music. All these artists alive today didn't invent the notes and chords and progressions and instruments they are using. Not to mention a whole host of other techniques and actions you and they do which "copy" others 24/7. I have not noticed a rash of "stolen" music reported to any law enforcement.