Well put. It's a shame people tend towards the established arguments for which they already know the words like an oft-recited song, rather than debating the issue at hand. I know I'm guilty of it. Regardless, I don't think her guilt is all that much of an issue for people like me who are at odds with the law she is being found guilty under.
The damages and lack of evidence are points that I would hope have more consensus. The Pirate Bay trial was frightening in the respect of not only did the prosecution submit screen shots that didn't prove anything (aside from the questionable admissibility of screen shots that is), but they failed to get support from artists they used in the trial beforehand. There is an ironic conflict between the picture the recording industry paint of file sharers being good for nothing lowlifes who have no concern for the damage they cause and the image they portray of themselves in their own conduct at trials against said lowlifes. The demands for damages are another example of the same, they suppose the motivation of file sharers to be greed based on scant evidence then push for punitive damages while denying the file sharers a choice in comparable services.
You must have missed the whole Pirate Bay trial in Sweden where the record industry guys completely failed to do basic homework on the relevant technology by submitting flawed screen shots as evidence. Yes, they won the trial but seemingly on the say so of an allegedly biased judge rather than on the merits of the case they put before the court.
So, if the plaintiffs can't manage to submit evidence of an actual infringement to a trial which was covered by media across the world, what makes you think their counterparts in this case would do better? If anyone is in danger of pissing off a judge due to frivolous bullshit my money would be on the RIAA.
Sorry for my belated reply. Busy week and all that.
Doesn't work. Violence is morally neutral[1], being in and of itself neither good nor evil. Rape is always evil as there is no such thing as defensive rape. You can fight a war of liberation, never heard of raping for liberty. And note my objection isn't to a game with rape as a plot element, even a central plot device. My objection is more to rape being a victory condition.
Well I did qualify the choice of words with 'lack of an explained distinction'. Now I know that you are focused on rape for the intent connotations I could substitute the word for Murder or Genocide and my point would still stand.
A better analogy would be GTA. And yes I'd also consider it a morally dubious work with little redeeming virtues. I have only seen it played once and that was enough. Saw a teen playing it, saw him carjack a little old lady. WTF? We have descended a long way in our entertainment.
I consider Eastenders (TV show set in London's east end) to be a morally dubious work with little redeeming value.. I'm unsure how your reference to a kid playing GTA backs up anything you said unless you believe that kid was going out to carjack old ladies though. If that is the case then I should probably be on the most wanted list because I just played Prototype and that game is not kind to civilians.
I have played games where the player can choose which side to play. You can't really understand some games without playing a few rounds as the bad guys. This game can't even claim that defense, there is just the one side and the player is the bad guy. Should it be outlawed? Honourable people can differ and as a libertarian I'd have to take the not position. I have said here before that the right to be wrong is Freedom 0. Should it be condemned by all right thinking people to discourage it and similar releases in the future by social sanction instead of legal ones? I'm still waiting to hear anyone make a cogent case for the con position on that one.
Really, my position can be summed up thus: You have the right to release it, you have the right to buy it. I have the right to say "You guys are some sick fucks and I hope you don't mind if I keep an eye on ya" and the police should be able to say, "when a young lady goes missing in your neighborhood you guys buying sacks of that stuff are on the suspect list right after her boyfriend and the area's registered sex offenders."
So, you're a libertarian but in favour of state interference in the lives of those who have not committed a crime? This must be some new form of libertarian I have not yet read about, you should write a book. It should have a whole chapter titled 'Thought Crime'.
[1] Unless you are a pacifist. But who cares what they think, they live only at the sufferance of those who are willing to defend them against the barbarians. And at any rate RAH had their number years ago. "Most self-described "pacifists" are not pacific; they simply assume false colors. When the wind changes, they hoist the Jolly Roger."
I'm certainly no pacifist, I do respect them however. My chosen physical past time is martial arts which helps ensure that while I am able to defend myself and those around me I could do so with the minimal force required. I play violent games, I don't practice martial arts to be violent though but the opposite. I practice martial arts so that if I have to be violent the other guy will have a better chance of surviving.
Nit pic the word if you want. Maybe Selfish was a poor word to use. But lets not focus on semantics, lets focus on meaning, ok?
I would sincerely like to hear what you think selfish means if it doesn't mean putting yourself before others. Regardless, selfishness describes intention not action and copyright infringement is an action, the intent can be anything.
If you don't want to pay for music/movies/etc. for reasons X, Y, or Z, then don't use them. Companies/Artists/etc. produced them, and within our society they own the rights to them. If you feel that it should not be this way, then work towards changing the laws. And no, your downloading the files is not akin to the protestign done for Civil Rights.
Why? Because it's the 'right thing (tm)' to do? This may come as a shock to you but I'm quite capable of thinking for myself and don't see the point in adhering to a law that was written many years before I was born when I don't even agree with it. I don't download stuff as a protest, I download stuff because I want to. It'd only be a protest if I was risking punishment.
Pro-Artist is buying their stuff if you want it, or gettign it for free if they make it available for free. If they did not make it available to you for free, then one can only assume that they do not want you to have it for free. Of course, this is complicated by the fact that Artist sell their rights to the music. But then, they don't won it any more and there is a social responisbility to respect the owner.
I support artists who I like, and I use file sharing to make sure that I support those artists to the best of my ability rather than wasting money on less deserving artists. If doing the right thing happens to violate copyright.. so what?
So the Pro-Artist mantra is, if you want it buy it. Else, listen to it in the free format they provide (radio, etc.). But don't infringe on their copyrights.
I guess my pro-artist mantra would be, if an artist is worth supporting, throw money at them at every opportunity. If a law gets in the way of doing that for no good reason, fuck it.
Why would downloading stuff for free be selfish? If you were not planning on buying it anyway then worst case scenario.. exactly the same thing happens as if you'd boycotted it. Best case scenario, you realise how much better the material is than you expected and start supporting that artist.
This anti-sharing mantra that abstaining from copying while not buying stuff is somehow pro-artist is really bizarre. To me it seems more selfish to refuse to listen to an artists work just because you don't like their record label, in fact it seems downright spiteful.
Maybe I live in a different reality and in yours a kitten dies every time you listen to something you didn't pay for.
I'm libertarian. So no I don't have to think a lot about whether rape is right or wrong. No initiation of force or fraud is simple and pretty much covers that whole situation without having to dwell on any nuances that apparently keep you awake at night.
First of all, what did you do? pick up a book on 'ten steps to becoming a libertarian' and model your life after it? Also, in your previous post you did not quantify thinking about rape. In my post I used this as an example of why your argument was poorly put together by placing 'at all' on the end of a statement to make it fit in with your original post while sounding silly. I apologise if that was too dry for you to appreciate. Oh, uh, by the way.. where on earth and heavens combined did you manage to get the impression that I believe rape is right? Moving on..
Example please?
It was a rhetorical challenge, the idea was for you to apply your reasoning (whether I understand it or not) to everything equally in order to evaluate whether you were being hypocritical or unrealistic. If I were to apply your reasoning as I understand it equally to everything then.. well let me give you an example after all. From your previous post:
Seems pretty self evident that people who obsess over games that feature rape are probably more likely to be thinking about rape.
Now, lacking an explained distinction.. lets exchange the word rape for violence. So, playing violent games means people are more likely to be thinking about violence? No problem so far, I actually agreed with the original statement and I agree with it after the words are substituted. It is self evident that people thinking about rape are going to be thinking about rape. Now we take the same approach to things as you do for rape.. uh, well I guess I can still play Frozen Bobble. I can't play FreeCiv, I can't play Demigod, I can't play Supreme Commander, I can't play Teeworlds. Do you see where I'm going with this?
Giving you the benefit of the doubt and presuming you just can't put together an argument that could withstand a butterfly landing on it.. I could presume that you are not judging people on what they are thinking about but on their intentions. Big problem: You can't read minds. Bigger problem: People like me will give up freedom to do that which harms no one when you give up the freedom to tell us what to do (which has a lot more evidence against it).
It is sufficient, for now and the foreseeable future, if he not murder me because society considers it taboo.
I disagree. To put it into a context, I would rather someone attacked me and take my chances defending myself than not attack me because they have been beaten with a stick. While this may seem over-altruistic, consider the harm I may be putting others into with this approach. I may be considered a bleeding heart liberal but I'm a bleeding heart liberal who spends a lot of their time making sure they are best capable of defending a person's right to live through force as well as defending a persons right to liberty through not using force.
You may take my life, in ignorance, as I give your life, in penance.
Nobody's going to do that. It would mean the end of their political career, if word ever got out that they were associating with self-admitted pedophiles.
Why would a politician be doing that sort of research? He said policy advisers not politicians.. there are good reasons why politicians commission scientists and the like to do reports rather than relying on their own knowledge.
Not to mention finding such interviewees who would be willing to come out of the closet won't be easy either.
Considering you just replied to a post by a self confessed paedophile who runs his own website about the subject I am unsure just how blind you think the policy advisers are.
Oh what twaddle. Seems pretty self evident that people who obsess over games that feature rape are probably more likely to be thinking about rape. Playing one a time or two probably isn't going to cause you to run out to the nearest mall and abduct the first hot teen you see. But if you find some dolt with a shelf of that sort of stuff, ya know it just might be a good idea to see what's in his basement.
Wah? You seem to be confusing thinking about rape with believing it is ok to rape someone. If you managed to come to the conclusion that rape is bad without thinking about it at all then you really need to start thinking for yourself.
At best you have an statistical argument (as with your profiling example) but without the statistics. What the statistical argument fails to address however is that profiling someone for security checks is not the same as denying them access to information freely offered by another party.
If you equate freedom of expression (or, it seems, freedom to think) with the time it takes to get through an airport then I can come up with some seriously unpopular suggestions based exactly on your arguments. Unless of course you are imagining a world where a person like you chooses what is and isn't acceptable based on their own tastes rather than any reasoning someone who doesn't have the same tastes can identify with.
If you really, truely believe in your arguments (whether I have understood them or not) then I would challenge you to apply the reasonings to everyday life and see how many holywood blockbusters or historic classics fall foul of the same logic. The result of you finding mainstream stuff maybe causing harm isn't in itself anything you don't already know, what you should think about is firstly how hypocritical you sound to spew bile over one persons freedom of expression but not another's and secondly just how much support your reasoning would get if people were unable to access something that interested them.
Do you really believe that people creating software are just sitting on their asses?
I am really interested to know the method with which you write software that doesn't involve sitting on your arse.
Besides that, if you are already getting your income through a salary then how would the sales effect you? If the need for developers decreases then that implies copyright was making you do work which was redundant anyway. In a copyright free world it is quite possible that people will lose jobs if they rely on copyright.
I have personally never understood peoples need to do work when there isn't work to do. If there is less of a type of work to do then you either find something else to do or relax. Make-work just ensures everyone is required to work full time no matter how well the economy is doing, which generally leads to mass job cuts as the employer is unable to adapt to change quickly enough.
Porting an OS shouldn't be a problem and isn't what people are talking about. They are talking about the software you run on the OS. Windows primary advantage (apart from being shipped with computers even when you don't want it) is the software developed for it. Microsoft would need to get every developer to port their own software over to the new OS. With Linux, the vast majority of software is open source and shipped with the distribution, meaning the distro makers can port the programs over which ensures consistancy in the quality of the ports.
If you take a look at the progress the Moblin distribution has made for the atom processor then you can see what is possible with a full blown OS. Near instantanious bootup (faster than a lot of phones) as well as an innovative yet full featured small screen interface. I am sure that linux can adapt to slower processors faster than Windows CE can adapt to bigger screens considering linux is already feature complete for computers a lot slower than the new arm processor.
One point you make which seems really fuzzy is about the tasks you do on a netbook being the same as the tasks you would do on a phone. I would be surprised if 99.9% of what you wanted to do on a current Windows CE device would include using a webcam, watching a high definition movie, running a complete development environment, playing strategy games, troubleshooting a network, writing a novel, running project management software, file sharing with a windows network.. etc. Basically, there is a lot you can do with a slow computer as long as the screen is big enough.
Sometimes I wonder if all the worlds ills are due to semantics.
Seriously though, the more and more I read the opinions of actual artists and developers the more I think the deserving ones would really be better off if things were to change and I am always gladdened when people voice similar views. With any luck the change will merely be a matter of generations.. which is why the record industry is trying to get inside schools to start warping the minds of the next generation as well as changing laws while the law makers are still ignorant, to protect their interests going into retirement.
indeed. its money for old rope. Absolutely everyone who produces entertianment content is a millioanire and lives in a gold plated house.
While I can't say I know much about movies, I certainly agree with the sentiment that not all entertainers are millionaires. I would argue however that artists who don't want to be millionaires suffer more from the commercially driven industry than they do from commercial piracy, let alone file sharing (which while accepted as piracy is distinctly non commercial). A lack of cost for distribution evens the playing field between those who market themselves to make millions (and thus afford to spend millions more on marketing) and those who make great music but aren't doing it for the money.
When all is said and done you have an musician and you have a fan. If the fan does not support the musician financially in some way then they would be foolish to expect them to continue producing. People will pay for music if they want to support the musicians.. if they can and don't then they aren't a fan and as such why would the musician care if they got any money from them? If a musician does not have enough fans to support them then why would they feel the need to make a career out of it?
The big issue at the moment is not whether people want to pay for music but the roadblocks big labels are putting in place to stop them supporting their artists directly. They just cannot compete on a level playing field as they are greedy and want to know which should be the next band to invest in where they can be sure of a 500% return on the investment. If actually all artists that people want to listen to get what they deserve then there will be no money left for the middlemen to skim off the top even if they can con the artists into signing a bad contract.
I am willing to pay for a music service that gives me at least as good a service as I can get for free while supporting the artists. There isn't one. I bought the new NOFX album (coaster) off iTunes the other day because I know they get a comparitavely good return on the money I spend. I already had the album in FLAC format for free and to support the artist I had to buy an inferior product because I don't want a CD. Now, if I have to jump through those hoops to support a band who run their own damn label and sing about the death of the music industry.. is it any wonder that people resort to torrents? I'd have rather used a donate button on their website than install iTunes.
Yes, also, curse all those efficient IT personnel who do themselves out of a job by making sure you don't need to call them back. After all, they lower the demand and the market shrinks. Never mind the fact that while they will likely go on to work for someone else based on the recommendation of the first customer, those jobsworths in the market who they displace will be forced to re-evaluate their business practices and might actually end up doing more good than harm in the long run.
Personally, I am working in the advice sector atm and all our work is free to those who we advise. I am envious of people who only have to do their work once and can replicate the result without cost. Right now we pretty much make do with leaflets.
While your cynicism leaves me feeling sick, that is only because it is likely true and the alternatives aren't a lot better anyway. First actually funny joke I haven't been able to laugh at in a while.
Well I have to admit to buying Demigod and would say that satisfied with it than other games I bought on the same service which have been a lot cheaper due to being released a while ago. Interestingly, the other games I am more satisfied with are the Supreme Commander titles which are by Gas Powered games who provided the engine (at least) for Demigod. I am unsure how satisfied I would have been had I bought the Supreme Commander titles when they were launched at full price.
I haven't actually come across many technical glitches because I haven't really given it a good go online.. my main beef is the lack of content. Perhaps that is the issue with these companies.. they are spending too much time making their game look awesome that when you come to actually play it although the concept might be sound you are getting little value for money. Using Supreme Commander as another example.. however awesome the game is you begin to hate the fact that the development was pretty much abandoned when it released apart from token bug fixes and drips of content. You have a community telling the developers 'this is what we need to make this game perfect' and they just can't satisfy them however much they try because they only have probably one person working on things in his spare time. Another example of this is Neverwinter Nights which was absolutely awesome but fell so far short of its potential that you end up wishing they released the source.
I must stress that I use those two games as examples not because the developers were bad but because they were a lot better than most. I don't think their work ethic was at fault quite as much as their business model which rewards release early release often rather than more common alternatives. One alternative would be release early but offer a level of ongoing support comparable with other types of software or release a product with strictly defined goals and don't release it until it is perfect. The first alternative would likely be impossible to sustain unless you use open source methods, the second is one that is often used by other studios.. but limits the scope of games significantly. For example, the last option is great for games such as Braid or World Of Goo whereby a testing process should eliminate practically all bugs and those that are left can be addressed with minimal effort. For large scope games such as heavily multiplayer orientated games I believe that the open source model is the best one to satisfy the consumer while still maintaining a viable business. The option I haven't covered is the one used by WoW whereby you make continued payments to fund the development.. eg a subscription. Unfortunately, Blizzard etc. seem to use this option to bleed people dry, rather than offering ongoing support worth as much as the original investment in the game. I think perhaps Guild Wars has a similar model that certainly works better.
I quite like some stuff that the BBC produces, less and less every year mind. I still am completely against their public funding regardless of how great I think their shows are though. I think you will find that there is a big mix of people in the UK when it comes to opinions on the BBC.. most can find something about the BBC they would miss and this tends to bias things in favour of keeping the license fee, in other words their opinion is based on uncertainty. Those that are against the license fee need to address this by offering an alternative community driven model that those who want to pay the license fee can subscribe to which in all logic would prove better than the BBC due to the laws of supply and demand.
To use the proms as an example (I have no hard factual data but will speculate for the purposes of making a point), the proms are likely quite high budget. They are well enjoyed by a good portion of the country. The musicians probably love the proms as it increases awareness of their work and generates revenue for shows the rest of the year. If we were to take away the BBC funding, what would happen? Well according to Wikimaybe:
With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the BBC withdrew its support. The Proms continued though, under private sponsorship, until the Queen's Hall was gutted by an air raid in 1941 (its site is now the St George's Hotel and BBC Henry Wood House). The following year, the Proms moved to their current home, the Royal Albert Hall, and the BBC took over once more.
History tells us that private sponsorship is an option. I do not believe that is a better option than public funds but I think that it demonstrates how the demand is sufficient to be met by other means. Community driven funding gives the audience the power of choice over these events as those producing the proms in being answerable to the funders are directly obliged to the audience.
A bigger advantage is those who do not participate in the proms potentially will have the resources to maintain similar achievements in other arts. The proms may well get smaller but it is not a certainty. The same advantage goes towards getting rid of shows that don't have a significant audience where people are forced to subsidise shows that seemed like a good idea to the producers at the time but meet little actual demand.
As you point out, there are other examples of community driven funding already working. Hell, if we use community driven software as an example then the less open competitors have actually been a major reason why it hasn't been more successful and entertainment has less of those obsticles unless you are a fan of big budget productions.
I think he probably considers such factors already but tries to limit the scope of his articles to strengthen the impact they have. 10 well written articles about different points on the same subject is far easier to deal with than one monsterous report which might never make it into mainstream media. Consider that TFA was actually an edited version of the one on his blog.. if he'd done a more indepth analysis they may not have even have published it.
Now that there is no reason for people to buy CDs, some other means has to be found to keep artists alive while they create, or just accept that the era of the professional musician is over.
I would argue that on the contrary, the era of the professional musician will rebirth and replace the era we have suffered of the professional publishers and marketeers.
I would hope that for example, Amy Winehouse, would be too busy actually being a musician to become successful and destroy her health at the same time. Professionalism is about the effort put into your work in pursuit of making a living.. not the amount of money you are making. If the rewards are too low to meet a minimum standard of living then the demand for professional work is not high enough to warrant the number of people trying to make a living through it. I currently work for a charity, if I have your view of professionalism right then charity work would be considered amatuer. I believe the reality is quite the opposite, you will struggle to find more professionals anywhere than in the charity sector as the work motivates people more than the rewards.
By the way, I am a fan of Amy Winehouse but would be much more likely to buy her music if her success wasn't being propped up by the professionalism of her marketing team when she seems talented enough to succeed on her merits as a musician alone. To me, professional musicians are people like Eva Cassidy (who sang other peoples songs and saw little reward in her lifetime), Issa (Jane Siberry, after mixed commercial success and failure sold nearly all her posessions and now gives her music away over the web), Derek Sherinian (really really takes music seriously) and countless other unknown musicians who haven't hit the big time because they aren't doing it for the money. The sooner the record industry is dead the sooner professional musicians will be on an equal footing with those whose primary motivation is money.
Slashdot Mirror
Any chance we can blame Slashdot for VHS too?
Well put. It's a shame people tend towards the established arguments for which they already know the words like an oft-recited song, rather than debating the issue at hand. I know I'm guilty of it. Regardless, I don't think her guilt is all that much of an issue for people like me who are at odds with the law she is being found guilty under.
The damages and lack of evidence are points that I would hope have more consensus. The Pirate Bay trial was frightening in the respect of not only did the prosecution submit screen shots that didn't prove anything (aside from the questionable admissibility of screen shots that is), but they failed to get support from artists they used in the trial beforehand. There is an ironic conflict between the picture the recording industry paint of file sharers being good for nothing lowlifes who have no concern for the damage they cause and the image they portray of themselves in their own conduct at trials against said lowlifes. The demands for damages are another example of the same, they suppose the motivation of file sharers to be greed based on scant evidence then push for punitive damages while denying the file sharers a choice in comparable services.
You must have missed the whole Pirate Bay trial in Sweden where the record industry guys completely failed to do basic homework on the relevant technology by submitting flawed screen shots as evidence. Yes, they won the trial but seemingly on the say so of an allegedly biased judge rather than on the merits of the case they put before the court.
So, if the plaintiffs can't manage to submit evidence of an actual infringement to a trial which was covered by media across the world, what makes you think their counterparts in this case would do better? If anyone is in danger of pissing off a judge due to frivolous bullshit my money would be on the RIAA.
trying whore some +Funny karma.
Irony or ignorance, it's a tough call.
Sorry for my belated reply. Busy week and all that.
Doesn't work. Violence is morally neutral[1], being in and of itself neither good nor evil. Rape is always evil as there is no such thing as defensive rape. You can fight a war of liberation, never heard of raping for liberty. And note my objection isn't to a game with rape as a plot element, even a central plot device. My objection is more to rape being a victory condition.
Well I did qualify the choice of words with 'lack of an explained distinction'. Now I know that you are focused on rape for the intent connotations I could substitute the word for Murder or Genocide and my point would still stand.
A better analogy would be GTA. And yes I'd also consider it a morally dubious work with little redeeming virtues. I have only seen it played once and that was enough. Saw a teen playing it, saw him carjack a little old lady. WTF? We have descended a long way in our entertainment.
I consider Eastenders (TV show set in London's east end) to be a morally dubious work with little redeeming value.. I'm unsure how your reference to a kid playing GTA backs up anything you said unless you believe that kid was going out to carjack old ladies though. If that is the case then I should probably be on the most wanted list because I just played Prototype and that game is not kind to civilians.
I have played games where the player can choose which side to play. You can't really understand some games without playing a few rounds as the bad guys. This game can't even claim that defense, there is just the one side and the player is the bad guy. Should it be outlawed? Honourable people can differ and as a libertarian I'd have to take the not position. I have said here before that the right to be wrong is Freedom 0. Should it be condemned by all right thinking people to discourage it and similar releases in the future by social sanction instead of legal ones? I'm still waiting to hear anyone make a cogent case for the con position on that one.
Really, my position can be summed up thus: You have the right to release it, you have the right to buy it. I have the right to say "You guys are some sick fucks and I hope you don't mind if I keep an eye on ya" and the police should be able to say, "when a young lady goes missing in your neighborhood you guys buying sacks of that stuff are on the suspect list right after her boyfriend and the area's registered sex offenders."
So, you're a libertarian but in favour of state interference in the lives of those who have not committed a crime? This must be some new form of libertarian I have not yet read about, you should write a book. It should have a whole chapter titled 'Thought Crime'.
[1] Unless you are a pacifist. But who cares what they think, they live only at the sufferance of those who are willing to defend them against the barbarians. And at any rate RAH had their number years ago. "Most self-described "pacifists" are not pacific; they simply assume false colors. When the wind changes, they hoist the Jolly Roger."
I'm certainly no pacifist, I do respect them however. My chosen physical past time is martial arts which helps ensure that while I am able to defend myself and those around me I could do so with the minimal force required. I play violent games, I don't practice martial arts to be violent though but the opposite. I practice martial arts so that if I have to be violent the other guy will have a better chance of surviving.
Nit pic the word if you want. Maybe Selfish was a poor word to use. But lets not focus on semantics, lets focus on meaning, ok?
I would sincerely like to hear what you think selfish means if it doesn't mean putting yourself before others. Regardless, selfishness describes intention not action and copyright infringement is an action, the intent can be anything.
If you don't want to pay for music/movies/etc. for reasons X, Y, or Z, then don't use them. Companies/Artists/etc. produced them, and within our society they own the rights to them. If you feel that it should not be this way, then work towards changing the laws. And no, your downloading the files is not akin to the protestign done for Civil Rights.
Why? Because it's the 'right thing (tm)' to do? This may come as a shock to you but I'm quite capable of thinking for myself and don't see the point in adhering to a law that was written many years before I was born when I don't even agree with it. I don't download stuff as a protest, I download stuff because I want to. It'd only be a protest if I was risking punishment.
Pro-Artist is buying their stuff if you want it, or gettign it for free if they make it available for free. If they did not make it available to you for free, then one can only assume that they do not want you to have it for free. Of course, this is complicated by the fact that Artist sell their rights to the music. But then, they don't won it any more and there is a social responisbility to respect the owner.
I support artists who I like, and I use file sharing to make sure that I support those artists to the best of my ability rather than wasting money on less deserving artists. If doing the right thing happens to violate copyright.. so what?
So the Pro-Artist mantra is, if you want it buy it. Else, listen to it in the free format they provide (radio, etc.). But don't infringe on their copyrights.
I guess my pro-artist mantra would be, if an artist is worth supporting, throw money at them at every opportunity. If a law gets in the way of doing that for no good reason, fuck it.
I worry for you, I really do. I can imagine you in a flower shop shouting at people for smelling the merchandise.
Why would downloading stuff for free be selfish? If you were not planning on buying it anyway then worst case scenario.. exactly the same thing happens as if you'd boycotted it. Best case scenario, you realise how much better the material is than you expected and start supporting that artist.
This anti-sharing mantra that abstaining from copying while not buying stuff is somehow pro-artist is really bizarre. To me it seems more selfish to refuse to listen to an artists work just because you don't like their record label, in fact it seems downright spiteful.
Maybe I live in a different reality and in yours a kitten dies every time you listen to something you didn't pay for.
Maybe you'd prefer the release notes or the tour instead?
I'm libertarian. So no I don't have to think a lot about whether rape is right or wrong. No initiation of force or fraud is simple and pretty much covers that whole situation without having to dwell on any nuances that apparently keep you awake at night.
First of all, what did you do? pick up a book on 'ten steps to becoming a libertarian' and model your life after it? Also, in your previous post you did not quantify thinking about rape. In my post I used this as an example of why your argument was poorly put together by placing 'at all' on the end of a statement to make it fit in with your original post while sounding silly. I apologise if that was too dry for you to appreciate. Oh, uh, by the way.. where on earth and heavens combined did you manage to get the impression that I believe rape is right? Moving on..
Example please?
It was a rhetorical challenge, the idea was for you to apply your reasoning (whether I understand it or not) to everything equally in order to evaluate whether you were being hypocritical or unrealistic. If I were to apply your reasoning as I understand it equally to everything then.. well let me give you an example after all. From your previous post:
Seems pretty self evident that people who obsess over games that feature rape are probably more likely to be thinking about rape.
Now, lacking an explained distinction.. lets exchange the word rape for violence. So, playing violent games means people are more likely to be thinking about violence? No problem so far, I actually agreed with the original statement and I agree with it after the words are substituted. It is self evident that people thinking about rape are going to be thinking about rape. Now we take the same approach to things as you do for rape.. uh, well I guess I can still play Frozen Bobble. I can't play FreeCiv, I can't play Demigod, I can't play Supreme Commander, I can't play Teeworlds. Do you see where I'm going with this?
Giving you the benefit of the doubt and presuming you just can't put together an argument that could withstand a butterfly landing on it.. I could presume that you are not judging people on what they are thinking about but on their intentions. Big problem: You can't read minds. Bigger problem: People like me will give up freedom to do that which harms no one when you give up the freedom to tell us what to do (which has a lot more evidence against it).
It is sufficient, for now and the foreseeable future, if he not murder me because society considers it taboo.
I disagree. To put it into a context, I would rather someone attacked me and take my chances defending myself than not attack me because they have been beaten with a stick. While this may seem over-altruistic, consider the harm I may be putting others into with this approach. I may be considered a bleeding heart liberal but I'm a bleeding heart liberal who spends a lot of their time making sure they are best capable of defending a person's right to live through force as well as defending a persons right to liberty through not using force.
You may take my life, in ignorance, as I give your life, in penance.
Kudos, I hope you get modded up (although I suggest you look into the spelling of paedophile as it made me instantly suspect you were trolling).
Nobody's going to do that. It would mean the end of their political career, if word ever got out that they were associating with self-admitted pedophiles.
Why would a politician be doing that sort of research? He said policy advisers not politicians.. there are good reasons why politicians commission scientists and the like to do reports rather than relying on their own knowledge.
Not to mention finding such interviewees who would be willing to come out of the closet won't be easy either.
Considering you just replied to a post by a self confessed paedophile who runs his own website about the subject I am unsure just how blind you think the policy advisers are.
Oh what twaddle. Seems pretty self evident that people who obsess over games that feature rape are probably more likely to be thinking about rape. Playing one a time or two probably isn't going to cause you to run out to the nearest mall and abduct the first hot teen you see. But if you find some dolt with a shelf of that sort of stuff, ya know it just might be a good idea to see what's in his basement.
Wah? You seem to be confusing thinking about rape with believing it is ok to rape someone. If you managed to come to the conclusion that rape is bad without thinking about it at all then you really need to start thinking for yourself.
At best you have an statistical argument (as with your profiling example) but without the statistics. What the statistical argument fails to address however is that profiling someone for security checks is not the same as denying them access to information freely offered by another party.
If you equate freedom of expression (or, it seems, freedom to think) with the time it takes to get through an airport then I can come up with some seriously unpopular suggestions based exactly on your arguments. Unless of course you are imagining a world where a person like you chooses what is and isn't acceptable based on their own tastes rather than any reasoning someone who doesn't have the same tastes can identify with.
If you really, truely believe in your arguments (whether I have understood them or not) then I would challenge you to apply the reasonings to everyday life and see how many holywood blockbusters or historic classics fall foul of the same logic. The result of you finding mainstream stuff maybe causing harm isn't in itself anything you don't already know, what you should think about is firstly how hypocritical you sound to spew bile over one persons freedom of expression but not another's and secondly just how much support your reasoning would get if people were unable to access something that interested them.
Do you really believe that people creating software are just sitting on their asses?
I am really interested to know the method with which you write software that doesn't involve sitting on your arse.
Besides that, if you are already getting your income through a salary then how would the sales effect you? If the need for developers decreases then that implies copyright was making you do work which was redundant anyway. In a copyright free world it is quite possible that people will lose jobs if they rely on copyright.
I have personally never understood peoples need to do work when there isn't work to do. If there is less of a type of work to do then you either find something else to do or relax. Make-work just ensures everyone is required to work full time no matter how well the economy is doing, which generally leads to mass job cuts as the employer is unable to adapt to change quickly enough.
Porting an OS shouldn't be a problem and isn't what people are talking about. They are talking about the software you run on the OS. Windows primary advantage (apart from being shipped with computers even when you don't want it) is the software developed for it. Microsoft would need to get every developer to port their own software over to the new OS. With Linux, the vast majority of software is open source and shipped with the distribution, meaning the distro makers can port the programs over which ensures consistancy in the quality of the ports.
If you take a look at the progress the Moblin distribution has made for the atom processor then you can see what is possible with a full blown OS. Near instantanious bootup (faster than a lot of phones) as well as an innovative yet full featured small screen interface. I am sure that linux can adapt to slower processors faster than Windows CE can adapt to bigger screens considering linux is already feature complete for computers a lot slower than the new arm processor.
One point you make which seems really fuzzy is about the tasks you do on a netbook being the same as the tasks you would do on a phone. I would be surprised if 99.9% of what you wanted to do on a current Windows CE device would include using a webcam, watching a high definition movie, running a complete development environment, playing strategy games, troubleshooting a network, writing a novel, running project management software, file sharing with a windows network.. etc. Basically, there is a lot you can do with a slow computer as long as the screen is big enough.
Sometimes I wonder if all the worlds ills are due to semantics.
Seriously though, the more and more I read the opinions of actual artists and developers the more I think the deserving ones would really be better off if things were to change and I am always gladdened when people voice similar views. With any luck the change will merely be a matter of generations.. which is why the record industry is trying to get inside schools to start warping the minds of the next generation as well as changing laws while the law makers are still ignorant, to protect their interests going into retirement.
indeed. its money for old rope. Absolutely everyone who produces entertianment content is a millioanire and lives in a gold plated house.
While I can't say I know much about movies, I certainly agree with the sentiment that not all entertainers are millionaires. I would argue however that artists who don't want to be millionaires suffer more from the commercially driven industry than they do from commercial piracy, let alone file sharing (which while accepted as piracy is distinctly non commercial). A lack of cost for distribution evens the playing field between those who market themselves to make millions (and thus afford to spend millions more on marketing) and those who make great music but aren't doing it for the money.
When all is said and done you have an musician and you have a fan. If the fan does not support the musician financially in some way then they would be foolish to expect them to continue producing. People will pay for music if they want to support the musicians.. if they can and don't then they aren't a fan and as such why would the musician care if they got any money from them? If a musician does not have enough fans to support them then why would they feel the need to make a career out of it?
The big issue at the moment is not whether people want to pay for music but the roadblocks big labels are putting in place to stop them supporting their artists directly. They just cannot compete on a level playing field as they are greedy and want to know which should be the next band to invest in where they can be sure of a 500% return on the investment. If actually all artists that people want to listen to get what they deserve then there will be no money left for the middlemen to skim off the top even if they can con the artists into signing a bad contract.
I am willing to pay for a music service that gives me at least as good a service as I can get for free while supporting the artists. There isn't one. I bought the new NOFX album (coaster) off iTunes the other day because I know they get a comparitavely good return on the money I spend. I already had the album in FLAC format for free and to support the artist I had to buy an inferior product because I don't want a CD. Now, if I have to jump through those hoops to support a band who run their own damn label and sing about the death of the music industry.. is it any wonder that people resort to torrents? I'd have rather used a donate button on their website than install iTunes.
Yes, also, curse all those efficient IT personnel who do themselves out of a job by making sure you don't need to call them back. After all, they lower the demand and the market shrinks. Never mind the fact that while they will likely go on to work for someone else based on the recommendation of the first customer, those jobsworths in the market who they displace will be forced to re-evaluate their business practices and might actually end up doing more good than harm in the long run.
Personally, I am working in the advice sector atm and all our work is free to those who we advise. I am envious of people who only have to do their work once and can replicate the result without cost. Right now we pretty much make do with leaflets.
While your cynicism leaves me feeling sick, that is only because it is likely true and the alternatives aren't a lot better anyway. First actually funny joke I haven't been able to laugh at in a while.
Well I have to admit to buying Demigod and would say that satisfied with it than other games I bought on the same service which have been a lot cheaper due to being released a while ago. Interestingly, the other games I am more satisfied with are the Supreme Commander titles which are by Gas Powered games who provided the engine (at least) for Demigod. I am unsure how satisfied I would have been had I bought the Supreme Commander titles when they were launched at full price.
I haven't actually come across many technical glitches because I haven't really given it a good go online.. my main beef is the lack of content. Perhaps that is the issue with these companies.. they are spending too much time making their game look awesome that when you come to actually play it although the concept might be sound you are getting little value for money. Using Supreme Commander as another example.. however awesome the game is you begin to hate the fact that the development was pretty much abandoned when it released apart from token bug fixes and drips of content. You have a community telling the developers 'this is what we need to make this game perfect' and they just can't satisfy them however much they try because they only have probably one person working on things in his spare time. Another example of this is Neverwinter Nights which was absolutely awesome but fell so far short of its potential that you end up wishing they released the source.
I must stress that I use those two games as examples not because the developers were bad but because they were a lot better than most. I don't think their work ethic was at fault quite as much as their business model which rewards release early release often rather than more common alternatives. One alternative would be release early but offer a level of ongoing support comparable with other types of software or release a product with strictly defined goals and don't release it until it is perfect. The first alternative would likely be impossible to sustain unless you use open source methods, the second is one that is often used by other studios.. but limits the scope of games significantly. For example, the last option is great for games such as Braid or World Of Goo whereby a testing process should eliminate practically all bugs and those that are left can be addressed with minimal effort. For large scope games such as heavily multiplayer orientated games I believe that the open source model is the best one to satisfy the consumer while still maintaining a viable business. The option I haven't covered is the one used by WoW whereby you make continued payments to fund the development.. eg a subscription. Unfortunately, Blizzard etc. seem to use this option to bleed people dry, rather than offering ongoing support worth as much as the original investment in the game. I think perhaps Guild Wars has a similar model that certainly works better.
I quite like some stuff that the BBC produces, less and less every year mind. I still am completely against their public funding regardless of how great I think their shows are though. I think you will find that there is a big mix of people in the UK when it comes to opinions on the BBC.. most can find something about the BBC they would miss and this tends to bias things in favour of keeping the license fee, in other words their opinion is based on uncertainty. Those that are against the license fee need to address this by offering an alternative community driven model that those who want to pay the license fee can subscribe to which in all logic would prove better than the BBC due to the laws of supply and demand.
To use the proms as an example (I have no hard factual data but will speculate for the purposes of making a point), the proms are likely quite high budget. They are well enjoyed by a good portion of the country. The musicians probably love the proms as it increases awareness of their work and generates revenue for shows the rest of the year. If we were to take away the BBC funding, what would happen? Well according to Wikimaybe:
With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, the BBC withdrew its support. The Proms continued though, under private sponsorship, until the Queen's Hall was gutted by an air raid in 1941 (its site is now the St George's Hotel and BBC Henry Wood House). The following year, the Proms moved to their current home, the Royal Albert Hall, and the BBC took over once more.
History tells us that private sponsorship is an option. I do not believe that is a better option than public funds but I think that it demonstrates how the demand is sufficient to be met by other means. Community driven funding gives the audience the power of choice over these events as those producing the proms in being answerable to the funders are directly obliged to the audience.
A bigger advantage is those who do not participate in the proms potentially will have the resources to maintain similar achievements in other arts. The proms may well get smaller but it is not a certainty. The same advantage goes towards getting rid of shows that don't have a significant audience where people are forced to subsidise shows that seemed like a good idea to the producers at the time but meet little actual demand.
As you point out, there are other examples of community driven funding already working. Hell, if we use community driven software as an example then the less open competitors have actually been a major reason why it hasn't been more successful and entertainment has less of those obsticles unless you are a fan of big budget productions.
I think he probably considers such factors already but tries to limit the scope of his articles to strengthen the impact they have. 10 well written articles about different points on the same subject is far easier to deal with than one monsterous report which might never make it into mainstream media. Consider that TFA was actually an edited version of the one on his blog.. if he'd done a more indepth analysis they may not have even have published it.
Now that there is no reason for people to buy CDs, some other means has to be found to keep artists alive while they create, or just accept that the era of the professional musician is over.
I would argue that on the contrary, the era of the professional musician will rebirth and replace the era we have suffered of the professional publishers and marketeers.
I would hope that for example, Amy Winehouse, would be too busy actually being a musician to become successful and destroy her health at the same time. Professionalism is about the effort put into your work in pursuit of making a living.. not the amount of money you are making. If the rewards are too low to meet a minimum standard of living then the demand for professional work is not high enough to warrant the number of people trying to make a living through it. I currently work for a charity, if I have your view of professionalism right then charity work would be considered amatuer. I believe the reality is quite the opposite, you will struggle to find more professionals anywhere than in the charity sector as the work motivates people more than the rewards.
By the way, I am a fan of Amy Winehouse but would be much more likely to buy her music if her success wasn't being propped up by the professionalism of her marketing team when she seems talented enough to succeed on her merits as a musician alone. To me, professional musicians are people like Eva Cassidy (who sang other peoples songs and saw little reward in her lifetime), Issa (Jane Siberry, after mixed commercial success and failure sold nearly all her posessions and now gives her music away over the web), Derek Sherinian (really really takes music seriously) and countless other unknown musicians who haven't hit the big time because they aren't doing it for the money. The sooner the record industry is dead the sooner professional musicians will be on an equal footing with those whose primary motivation is money.