"Our anti-pot drug policies eliminate any possibility of salutary tax revenue from an industry that's worth billions even as a black market. In addition to that, we have to catch, try and incarcerate pot growers, sellers, and users at staggering expense (also billions, when all is said and done)."
People always lump in users with sellers that are "thrown in jail" and I just don't believe it. I haven't heard of a person in the US going to Jail for just having a small amount of pot or smoking a joint. Unless you are a dealer, the cops and the feds don't even bother.
"Pot is basically as harmless as alcohol, but since we force our educators and police to demonize it even while half of them use it themselves, we undercut the entire credibility of our anti-drug programs (which are important for helping kids avoid drugs that are actually dangerous). So not only do we get no tax on billions, but we spend billions, and we contribute to actual drug problems (at what additional cost I hesitate to guess)."
As Harmless as alcohol? Alcohol destroys your liver. This is a scientific fact. I honestly don't think we've done enough scientific studies on the long-term effects of pot.
Just from my own personal experience, from the vast amount of friends that have used pot, it destroys your motivation and makes you lazy. I suppose if this is what you want to do with your life, it's fine, it just means less competition for me in the workplace.
People are also still suing the cigarette companies for getting cancer, even though warning labels have been on the packages for > 20 years. Why would the government want to open the door for more lawsuits?
and what about health care? I hope that people that do smoke it end up having to pay more in premiums (government or private).
"There's more than one definition of "better control over it". When was the last time you bought alcohol from the store which turned out to be antifreeze? How common is it for one liquor store owner to shoot the owner of the new liquor store which opened down the street because it encroached on his territory? These are both the sorts of things which used to happen during prohibition, and don't now for alcohol, but do for drugs."
Legal drugs are still sold by dealers (vicodion and oxycotin). Unless they legalize all drugs (which I don't think will happen), Dealers will still kill each other and people will still get bad drugs.
There will always be a black market. Legalizing drugs will not stop the problems you mentioned in your post.
"Do you sell software? Or do you sell your ability to write software? In the later case free software doesn't really interfere, and sometimes helps (low-cost development tools, pre-made code if the client doesn't care about the license as long as they can use it). As for everything else, you still don't have a right to make money doing whatever you prefer, otherwise we'd see some odd professions along with many anachronistic ones."
I do have a right to attempt to make money, however. I may not necessarily make it..but that's the risk I am taking.
My problem is that many people in the tech community want to just take the software for free, even though the original creator is charging for it. They feel entitled to download it for free without paying.
"This is presently being tried in another case, Jacobsen v. Katzer. It looks as if there will be significant damages that the Open Source developer can collect. The judge seems to think so in that he granted a motion for summary judgement (after at first rejecting it)."
I always find these discussions a little ironic for the slashdot crowd. Clearly, there is bias going on here.
Take a look at any discussion about music, movie, or software piracy and you will see many people talking about how their "business model needs to change" and that "It doesn't hurt the original copyright holder because you are only making copies"
It's pretty easy to see the parallels between copyright infringent (the sharing of proprietary apps against the wishes of the original IP holder) and violating the GNU (the sharing of source code against the original wishes of the IP holder).
I could also easily make the same argument: It doesn't hurt the original owner. Even if the source has been copied, changed, and re-packaged, the original source is there for everyone to enjoy.
It's not theft (which has been used to describe GNU infringement). Theft would imply a physical item has been taken, and it hasn't.
This is why I can't take these discussions seriously. It's because it has nothing to do with freedom, because everyone's rights aren't supported, and everything to do with the GNU political movement.
"Do you really think the demand for music hasn't increased? I don't have any stats to back this up, but I would guess that people listen to ten times as much music as they used to -- and that's great! Access to music improves humanity, and if you accept that, it's really difficult to make "moral" arguments which result in people having access to less music. How can that be the right thing to do if it degrades the human experience?"
There is a GPLd app that I want to use in my proprietary application. I know that If I make my app and people start using it, it will help the human experience. I don't know how you can call it immoral if it's helping people.
"t's ironic that you say that, because Slashdot runs on free software and the scenario you're describing would be perfectly legal and ethical. Feel free to get all the Slashdot source code, fork the site to "Slashdot 2" and use Slashdot's RSS feed to populate it with stories.
Despite anyone's ability to freely copy its content Slashdot still manages to make money. Maybe you could learn something."
I need to learn something? You are talking about the source code, I am talking about the content. I guarantee you that if I copied all content, source, and comments, and kept importing it into my own site daily and called it my own (and started making money on adsense), I would get a call from the parent company that owns slashdot.
There are plenty of sites that use the slashdot source code, but not any that copy all viewable content and call it their own.
"As a former EA Developer, please do steal from us. We don't get any bonus, raise, or anything if our games sell well. They work us long hours in every office and pay us slave wages. I switched to business development and earned 5x the salary. I love making games, but I'm sticking to indie titles with former colleagues for now until we get paid more than call center employees and don't get worked 90+ hours / week on titles that are rushed because we need to raise quarter profits so this guy can collect a bonus."
In this crowd, your pleas will fall on dead ears. Most people here don't even see copyright infringement as stealing or wrong.
I find it a little ironic. When GPL infringement comes up, many open source zealots and slashdotters see this as stealing. When in reality, it's just as wrong or right as piracy.
The original author of the GPLd app loses nothing (the rights to the original code are there
"Piracy is ship to ship armed robbery. Calling copyright infringement piracy makes light of murderous thugs, and makes infringement sound worse than it is. It doesn't even work as a metaphor. When we use their misnomer, they win. Then one of two things will happen. Either infringers will be demonized people sharing 1s and 0s or the word piracy will lose its gravity."
you can kick and scream about a word changing over time, but it probably won't work. Words evolve over time and right now, the work pirate has to do with copyright infringement.
"You know what else affects them indirectly? Working for a douchebag company that treats their customer base like criminals"
With all of the download sites on the Internet, is it any wonder that companies "treat customers like criminals"? If they just allowed it to happen, with no protection, I can almost guarantee they would lose a large percentage of the profits, even on a good game.
The more people on the Internet share pirated software, the more protection companies will build into their product.
"which makes the customers "pirates," which leads to their game not being bought, which leads to the studio closing (heresay), which leads to them losing their jobs."
Right. The reason people pirate is because the licensing scheme on software is too difficult. Can you show me an example of a great application with no copyright protection that hasn't been pirated all over the Internet?
"That was fun. I like this game. It's certainly more fun than a lot of the crap EA has been putting out."
EA has trials/demos of most of their games. If it really was "crap" as you say, they wouldn't have a problem with piracy.
"However, making a perfect duplicate of something without diminishing the original is not the same as taking it."
Tell that to the lawyers at the FSF going after people for violating the GNU. Under this same argument, the original author loses nothing when a company decides to use GPLd code in their proprietary app.
"If you don't want to comply with the GPL, write the f*cking code yourself and quit whining. The world doesn't owe you free source code."
It's a little ironic to see post after post like this here when it comes to GPL violations. Whenever the subject of piracy comes up, the majority of posts talk about how the industry is changing and they need to find a new business plan.
Couldn't the same thing be happening to GNU software? Developers need to find a new way of distributing their software because companies are just going to use it for free without re-destributing their changes.
"In other words, you would like the freedom to choose the Free Software license of your choice, but you don't think that the folks writing GPLed software should have the same freedom."
It's the same argument for software, music, and movie piracy.
"Give it up. You're argument is circular. Just rewrite the functionality yourself then others can use your BSD licensed version. Respect the choices of others and the license "they" chose to support just as you want others to support "your" choice of license in the software you write."
Wow, I sure wish the majority of slashdotters would come to this conclusion when software, movie, and music piracy is discussed.
This is why I don't feel sorry when the GPL is violated.
"I'm saying the cost of a BluRay disc is not that much more expensive than the cost of a DVD. If they can sell DVDs for around $10, then a BluRay shouldn't cost $35."
I can agree with you there. If you aren't getting any more content, and the media is the same price, there isn't a reason to charge over double the price (besides pure profit).
However, the reason they may be expensive now is because the industry probably won't sell as many copies. Most people don't have a blue ray player yet (but this is changing).
When you purchase media copying in bulk, it generally costs less money for more copies. So it makes sense that (if they are actually selling less blue ray discs as compared to dvds) that you have to pay more.
"Most movies that haven't turned a profit before DVD/BluRay release are considered failures.
These sales increase profits, which off-set the losses from failed blockbusters and such, but at this point, anything over the cost of the media itself (and DVD authoring) is profit."
You are still paying for the content, and it should be valued as such.
Since you are valuing a blue-ray disc at its blank price. Would it be okay to sell you one? (you are buying terminator salvation..yet you only receive a blank blue-ray disc in the box).
"You probably shouldn't be talking about "business models". You haven't got one anymore. You really need to come up with a new one"
If I copied a site like slashdot called slashdot2, copied all of the articles from slashdot, and got users and people to read it and added some advertisements, would you tell slashdot to get another "business model"? After all, noting of value was taken..only copied. This should be fine in the digital age..right?
"The sound recording IS NOT exactly the same as a Gibson guitar, because each guitar requires resources to make. Copies of sound recordings NO LONGER DO."
The first one costs money to create. So, instead of charging $100,000 for the first copy, artists charge a small amount for copies to hopefully make a profit (at a risk that they may not make enough in sales). When anyone can make music as good as Metallica, I will agree with you. But, everybody can't. The supply and demand isn't with the copy. It's the original content that is unique.
You are deliberately leaving this out because you want music for free.
"They did once, of course, and while they did, it made sense for the people making the original works to tie their business models to the industry of making copies of their work. But it is a very inconvienient reality that you're doing "
An inconvenient reality? The demand hasn't decreased for popular music. If nobody listened to music anymore, then yes, I would believe your arguments, but that's just not the case.
If you give anyone two choices: you can either pay for something or get it for free at no risk of jail, they will choose to get it for free.
It's more of a lesson in human nature and the fact that the only thing keeping people from stealing everything in sight is our laws. The looting after Katrina is another good example of this.
"Your whole "business model" is still chained to an industry that, quite literally, no longer produces anything of value; when anyone can do it at home at effectively no cost. Your work is, itself, rendered unjustly valueless by this bond, which you refuse to break. Because it's "inconvenient"."
Okay, produce metallica's fade to black for me at home (not a copy, an original production).
"The world has changed. You need to figure out how to change with it, not scream and cry and bitch about how everyone's acting differently now. Of course they are! They can see the truth in front of their faces. No amount of you lying to them will change that now."
Right, but when businesses add DRM, which is the only logical way to fight people with your mentality, you whine about how terrible it is.
Why should the industry do what you want when they have changed to meet your needs for the past 10 years (when napster first came out), you can get cheap music, yet you still bitch about how you want it for free.
"And yes, I produce music. I don't do it for a living, because in order to produce bounty works you need to have a fanbase first. You have one."
Probably because it's not good enough to sell and you don't have the balls to risk it all and go full time.
"So, peeking at somebody's newspaper over their shoulder is the same as grabbing their paper and running away? It's all "theft", right?"
If you can copy all the words from their paper and give it out to everyone in line waiting to purchase a newspaper (and as a result, they don't by it), yes it is theft (from the company that printed the newspaper). Your analogy is weak.
"In fact, writing this post has taken me minutes of work to produce; if you read it and fail to send me money then you're just a common THIEF."
Now you really look foolish. You posted this willingly, and for free, on a public forum. Any company that does this with their music would not consider it theft. When adobe and Microsoft get their apps shared, it's not by choice. This is the difference. You are taking the freedom and the rights away from owner of the original work.
"THEFT is permanently taking something that belongs to someone else. If the original owner still has it, it ain't theft, no matter what fuzzy platitudes about 'hard work' or 'art' you throw at it."
words change over time. Theft needs to be re-defined. The worst part about this isn't that you don't thin that copyright infringement is theft (which by the very definition is not), it's that you somehow think it's your right to take and distribute someone else's work.
If I copied slashdot, made my own site called slashdot2, and started advertising it as my own, would you consider it theft? The original site isn't losing anything by me making a copy. Only reputation and possibly revenue, which is the same thing that is lost when software is illegally copied.
How about if I told everyone I was you (I decided to use your address, social security number, and all of your personal details) and started opening up credit cards in your name. Would you not consider it theft? After all, I never took anything from you. You are free to use your personal information.
When GNU software is used in proprietary applications, slashdotters consider it "theft". Even though anyone can still access the original source.
"Do you play an instrument? I bet you don't pay a fee to the instrument maker for every note you play. I bet part of that fee doesn't get paid backwards to the supplier of the materials the instrument is made from. A singer? How much do you pay the production line guy who made your microphone every time you sing into it?"
Bad analogy. Only one person can use an instrument at a time because it is a physical object.
"Sculptors? You know the plastic mouldings that nearly everything is made from? Someone has to sculpt the moulds. Do they get a percentage? No, and they have to work to very tight tolerances not 'that looks finished now'."
Actually, mould designs are patentable. The company I work for has many patents on our designs.
"One of the reasons your 'art' gets 'ripped off' so much is that the people doing so will never be in the position of doing a job once, then getting royalties forever and they don't see why they owe you anything for doing the duplication themselves."
Currency can be copied using a printer. It's just ink and paper that we give a value (do you think the ink and paper that makes up $100 is really worth $100?). If I can just make a copy at home, why should I get any other way?
Digital items are very much like currency.
I also find your arguments funny. Back in 2000, it was the big bad companies people were against (you were only trying to help te artists..right?). Now, artists are telling you that you are hurting their sales and you spit in their face.
I even remember people complaining that music was too expensive. Now, you can get music at 99 cents per song and it STILL isn't cheap enough for you. This is why businesses shouldn't negociate with terrorists (and anyone for that matter. When you negociate with someone that is holding you hostage, and give them what they want, they will just ask for more).
Thanks for assuring me that I was right all along: people that justify piracy are just thieves.
I was with you until this part. You aren't buying a blank blue-ray disc. The method of content delivery is a minimal cost (it always is with art. Look at very expensive pictures. You aren't paying for the paper and paint).
The cost of the production of the movie is what you are paying for, which is almost always a million (there are some exceptions). Making movies is always a risk. You put millions of dollars into a project hoping that you will get a ROI and sometimes you do..and sometimes you don't.
Yes. Just because you don't agree with the notion that piracy is a form of theft, doesn't mean that we won't go over it again.
"Obviously, nobody wants to spend thousands of hours creating something then letting someone else (a corporation) sell it without royalties. Or letting people download it for free off the internet."
You listed applications that were given out for free willingly. It's a different story when a company does not want you to give out their apps for free and you decide to do it anyway.
Do we have to go over this again?
My problem is that many people (and it seems like you too) feel it is their "right" to download and freely distribute intellectual property. Yet, in the same breath feel that people using GNU software in proprietary apps and violating the license is wrong when it's really the same thing: license violation.
Businesses aren't just going to sit and allow you to take away their revenue stream (and it will not lead to all software, music, and movies being given away for free). It will just lead to more DRM like protections for music and movies and all software being hosted remotely as service.
Don't blame the companies on these things, because you gave them no choice.
"hat's fine, as long as the company providing those services advertises truthfully what the sysadmins are actually doing to your packets."
We have laws against deceit in advertising.
"And, of course, as long as the two internet providers in your zip code (only one of whom offers service to your house) don't collude and offer a deliberately neutered product (i.e. no bittorent, no streaming video, no voip, no [etc.]) when they could just as easily offer the better version just because the non-neutered version competes with their own video delivery service, telephony service, or other service."
Has this happened yet? If not, it's just a straw man argument. A couple of months ago, 4chan was somehow blocked from at&t. Enough people got pissed off about it, and it was un-blocked. This is because at&t was afraid of bad press (and as a result, losing customers).
Now let's say the government was controlling our Internet lines and they decided to block certain sites for our "safety". Do you think this would have the same effect?
If you notice, almost all countries that have government regulated Internet are also heavily censored. The Democrats and the Left love to use censorship and political correctness as a way to silence the opposition.
"But the free market does keep some abuses in check. I think it would be wise to keep abuses in check in the highly non-free internet service market as well."
The only reason we are able to get high speed internet at affordable rates is because of the free market. Before this, it was only in Universities. Some people forget this.
"See? It's very easy to take what you say and turn it on its head."
Not really. You, like many other people that argue with pure emotion and no logic, are obviously against corporations and business. I might be more inclined to believe you if you actually provided a good argument for government regulated ISPs.
"The bad thing isn't government power vs. corporate power, but the existence of concentrated power itself. Completely unregulated markets tend to concentrate power. Network effects help that along. It seems that we need even bigger power (in government) to break up concentrated power in the market. I don't think there is an easy solution. But blindly trusting concentrated power on one hand vs. another is a Bad Idea (TM)."
The question isn't corporate regulation. All corporations are heavily regulated already. The question is further regulation of corporations.
"The key difference between government and corporate power: governments are ultimately answerable to their citizens, whereas corporations are ultimately answerable to their shareholders. That means among other things that corporations can and will ruin the lives of their employees or residents of the surrounding area (via pollution mostly) if it increases their profits, can and will bilk their customers if they can get away with it, and don't really mind a large population of unemployed, broke, desperate people."
Sure, corporations need to increase profits, but that gives customers power. If a corporation is doing something you don't agree with, you can go to another one. This is the great thing about the free market.
It seems people are against monopolies, but have no problems when the government, a large monopoly that can play by different rules and has virtually no regulation does the exact same thing.
When a government controls something, they have the ultimate power because if you don't do what they say, you are subject to fines or possibly jail time. No corporation has this power. In addition to this, governments have no incentive to innovate. They are going to get your tax dollars either way.
They don't mind unemployed, broke, and desperate people? Now I know you are nuts. Corporations aren't drug dealers. They want people with money to be able to buy their products.
Some corporations "bilk their customers". However, if this happens enough, they get a bad reputation and people stop buying from them.
Government regulation caused our mortgage meltdown., not the lack of. Take a look at the community reinvestment act, the predictions made in 1995, and what happened to our economy.
""Rightful" regulation? "Its" traffic!? It's MY traffic they're "regulating" dammit. If I need to vote for a law to make businesses stop pulling that crap, I will."
Christ. I wish more people thought this way about taxes.
"I'd rather it not come to that, but they started this. They were going to start double-dipping and charging people who weren't even their customers."..and how are they going to do this exactly?
"It's only you crazy libertarians (unlike the sensible ones) who get bent out of shape over this, and there aren't very many of you, given how terribly Ron Paul did in the polls. That, or you're too afraid of the government to vote."..and it's the sheep liberals who won't question the government. Even when people bring up very valid points, they are demonized for loving corporations.
Look at linux (many distros), chromeOS, firefox, open office, star office, mac OSX (I can keep going on about all of Microsoft's competition to show you that they aren't a monopoly, but I don't think I need to.
"Without regulation centralized corporate power squeezes millions of disorganized and powerless individuals for all they will bear in money AND consumer rights."
So, we are giving this power to the government? I don't see how they are any less corrupt.
Slashdot Mirror
"Our anti-pot drug policies eliminate any possibility of salutary tax revenue from an industry that's worth billions even as a black market. In addition to that, we have to catch, try and incarcerate pot growers, sellers, and users at staggering expense (also billions, when all is said and done)."
People always lump in users with sellers that are "thrown in jail" and I just don't believe it. I haven't heard of a person in the US going to Jail for just having a small amount of pot or smoking a joint. Unless you are a dealer, the cops and the feds don't even bother.
"Pot is basically as harmless as alcohol, but since we force our educators and police to demonize it even while half of them use it themselves, we undercut the entire credibility of our anti-drug programs (which are important for helping kids avoid drugs that are actually dangerous). So not only do we get no tax on billions, but we spend billions, and we contribute to actual drug problems (at what additional cost I hesitate to guess)."
As Harmless as alcohol? Alcohol destroys your liver. This is a scientific fact. I honestly don't think we've done enough scientific studies on the long-term effects of pot.
Just from my own personal experience, from the vast amount of friends that have used pot, it destroys your motivation and makes you lazy. I suppose if this is what you want to do with your life, it's fine, it just means less competition for me in the workplace.
People are also still suing the cigarette companies for getting cancer, even though warning labels have been on the packages for > 20 years. Why would the government want to open the door for more lawsuits?
and what about health care? I hope that people that do smoke it end up having to pay more in premiums (government or private).
"There's more than one definition of "better control over it". When was the last time you bought alcohol from the store which turned out to be antifreeze? How common is it for one liquor store owner to shoot the owner of the new liquor store which opened down the street because it encroached on his territory? These are both the sorts of things which used to happen during prohibition, and don't now for alcohol, but do for drugs."
Legal drugs are still sold by dealers (vicodion and oxycotin). Unless they legalize all drugs (which I don't think will happen), Dealers will still kill each other and people will still get bad drugs.
There will always be a black market. Legalizing drugs will not stop the problems you mentioned in your post.
"Do you sell software? Or do you sell your ability to write software? In the later case free software doesn't really interfere, and sometimes helps (low-cost development tools, pre-made code if the client doesn't care about the license as long as they can use it). As for everything else, you still don't have a right to make money doing whatever you prefer, otherwise we'd see some odd professions along with many anachronistic ones."
I do have a right to attempt to make money, however. I may not necessarily make it..but that's the risk I am taking.
My problem is that many people in the tech community want to just take the software for free, even though the original creator is charging for it. They feel entitled to download it for free without paying.
"This is presently being tried in another case, Jacobsen v. Katzer. It looks as if there will be significant damages that the Open Source developer can collect. The judge seems to think so in that he granted a motion for summary judgement (after at first rejecting it)."
I always find these discussions a little ironic for the slashdot crowd. Clearly, there is bias going on here.
Take a look at any discussion about music, movie, or software piracy and you will see many people talking about how their "business model needs to change" and that "It doesn't hurt the original copyright holder because you are only making copies"
It's pretty easy to see the parallels between copyright infringent (the sharing of proprietary apps against the wishes of the original IP holder) and violating the GNU (the sharing of source code against the original wishes of the IP holder).
I could also easily make the same argument: It doesn't hurt the original owner. Even if the source has been copied, changed, and re-packaged, the original source is there for everyone to enjoy.
It's not theft (which has been used to describe GNU infringement). Theft would imply a physical item has been taken, and it hasn't.
This is why I can't take these discussions seriously. It's because it has nothing to do with freedom, because everyone's rights aren't supported, and everything to do with the GNU political movement.
"Do you really think the demand for music hasn't increased? I don't have any stats to back this up, but I would guess that people listen to ten times as much music as they used to -- and that's great! Access to music improves humanity, and if you accept that, it's really difficult to make "moral" arguments which result in people having access to less music. How can that be the right thing to do if it degrades the human experience?"
There is a GPLd app that I want to use in my proprietary application. I know that If I make my app and people start using it, it will help the human experience. I don't know how you can call it immoral if it's helping people.
"t's ironic that you say that, because Slashdot runs on free software and the scenario you're describing would be perfectly legal and ethical. Feel free to get all the Slashdot source code, fork the site to "Slashdot 2" and use Slashdot's RSS feed to populate it with stories.
Despite anyone's ability to freely copy its content Slashdot still manages to make money. Maybe you could learn something."
I need to learn something? You are talking about the source code, I am talking about the content. I guarantee you that if I copied all content, source, and comments, and kept importing it into my own site daily and called it my own (and started making money on adsense), I would get a call from the parent company that owns slashdot.
There are plenty of sites that use the slashdot source code, but not any that copy all viewable content and call it their own.
"The obvious difference is that GPL violations lead to less sharing, while piracy leads to more sharing."
This shouldn't make a difference. It is still about the rights of the original copright owner, not the effects of violation their license.
"As a former EA Developer, please do steal from us. We don't get any bonus, raise, or anything if our games sell well. They work us long hours in every office and pay us slave wages. I switched to business development and earned 5x the salary. I love making games, but I'm sticking to indie titles with former colleagues for now until we get paid more than call center employees and don't get worked 90+ hours / week on titles that are rushed because we need to raise quarter profits so this guy can collect a bonus."
In this crowd, your pleas will fall on dead ears. Most people here don't even see copyright infringement as stealing or wrong.
I find it a little ironic. When GPL infringement comes up, many open source zealots and slashdotters see this as stealing. When in reality, it's just as wrong or right as piracy.
The original author of the GPLd app loses nothing (the rights to the original code are there
"Piracy is ship to ship armed robbery. Calling copyright infringement piracy makes light of murderous thugs, and makes infringement sound worse than it is. It doesn't even work as a metaphor. When we use their misnomer, they win. Then one of two things will happen. Either infringers will be demonized people sharing 1s and 0s or the word piracy will lose its gravity."
you can kick and scream about a word changing over time, but it probably won't work. Words evolve over time and right now, the work pirate has to do with copyright infringement.
"You know what else affects them indirectly? Working for a douchebag company that treats their customer base like criminals"
With all of the download sites on the Internet, is it any wonder that companies "treat customers like criminals"? If they just allowed it to happen, with no protection, I can almost guarantee they would lose a large percentage of the profits, even on a good game.
The more people on the Internet share pirated software, the more protection companies will build into their product.
"which makes the customers "pirates," which leads to their game not being bought, which leads to the studio closing (heresay), which leads to them losing their jobs."
Right. The reason people pirate is because the licensing scheme on software is too difficult. Can you show me an example of a great application with no copyright protection that hasn't been pirated all over the Internet?
"That was fun. I like this game. It's certainly more fun than a lot of the crap EA has been putting out."
EA has trials/demos of most of their games. If it really was "crap" as you say, they wouldn't have a problem with piracy.
"However, making a perfect duplicate of something without diminishing the original is not the same as taking it."
Tell that to the lawyers at the FSF going after people for violating the GNU. Under this same argument, the original author loses nothing when a company decides to use GPLd code in their proprietary app.
"If you don't want to comply with the GPL, write the f*cking code yourself and quit whining. The world doesn't owe you free source code."
It's a little ironic to see post after post like this here when it comes to GPL violations. Whenever the subject of piracy comes up, the majority of posts talk about how the industry is changing and they need to find a new business plan.
Couldn't the same thing be happening to GNU software? Developers need to find a new way of distributing their software because companies are just going to use it for free without re-destributing their changes.
"In other words, you would like the freedom to choose the Free Software license of your choice, but you don't think that the folks writing GPLed software should have the same freedom."
It's the same argument for software, music, and movie piracy.
"Give it up. You're argument is circular. Just rewrite the functionality yourself then others can use your BSD licensed version. Respect the choices of others and the license "they" chose to support just as you want others to support "your" choice of license in the software you write."
Wow, I sure wish the majority of slashdotters would come to this conclusion when software, movie, and music piracy is discussed.
This is why I don't feel sorry when the GPL is violated.
"I'm saying the cost of a BluRay disc is not that much more expensive than the cost of a DVD. If they can sell DVDs for around $10, then a BluRay shouldn't cost $35."
I can agree with you there. If you aren't getting any more content, and the media is the same price, there isn't a reason to charge over double the price (besides pure profit).
However, the reason they may be expensive now is because the industry probably won't sell as many copies. Most people don't have a blue ray player yet (but this is changing).
When you purchase media copying in bulk, it generally costs less money for more copies. So it makes sense that (if they are actually selling less blue ray discs as compared to dvds) that you have to pay more.
"Most movies that haven't turned a profit before DVD/BluRay release are considered failures.
These sales increase profits, which off-set the losses from failed blockbusters and such, but at this point, anything over the cost of the media itself (and DVD authoring) is profit."
You are still paying for the content, and it should be valued as such.
Since you are valuing a blue-ray disc at its blank price. Would it be okay to sell you one? (you are buying terminator salvation..yet you only receive a blank blue-ray disc in the box).
"You probably shouldn't be talking about "business models". You haven't got one anymore. You really need to come up with a new one"
If I copied a site like slashdot called slashdot2, copied all of the articles from slashdot, and got users and people to read it and added some advertisements, would you tell slashdot to get another "business model"? After all, noting of value was taken..only copied. This should be fine in the digital age..right?
"The sound recording IS NOT exactly the same as a Gibson guitar, because each guitar requires resources to make. Copies of sound recordings NO LONGER DO."
The first one costs money to create. So, instead of charging $100,000 for the first copy, artists charge a small amount for copies to hopefully make a profit (at a risk that they may not make enough in sales). When anyone can make music as good as Metallica, I will agree with you. But, everybody can't. The supply and demand isn't with the copy. It's the original content that is unique.
You are deliberately leaving this out because you want music for free.
"They did once, of course, and while they did, it made sense for the people making the original works to tie their business models to the industry of making copies of their work. But it is a very inconvienient reality that you're doing
"
An inconvenient reality? The demand hasn't decreased for popular music. If nobody listened to music anymore, then yes, I would believe your arguments, but that's just not the case.
If you give anyone two choices: you can either pay for something or get it for free at no risk of jail, they will choose to get it for free.
It's more of a lesson in human nature and the fact that the only thing keeping people from stealing everything in sight is our laws. The looting after Katrina is another good example of this.
"Your whole "business model" is still chained to an industry that, quite literally, no longer produces anything of value; when anyone can do it at home at effectively no cost. Your work is, itself, rendered unjustly valueless by this bond, which you refuse to break. Because it's "inconvenient"."
Okay, produce metallica's fade to black for me at home (not a copy, an original production).
"The world has changed. You need to figure out how to change with it, not scream and cry and bitch about how everyone's acting differently now. Of course they are! They can see the truth in front of their faces. No amount of you lying to them will change that now."
Right, but when businesses add DRM, which is the only logical way to fight people with your mentality, you whine about how terrible it is.
Why should the industry do what you want when they have changed to meet your needs for the past 10 years (when napster first came out), you can get cheap music, yet you still bitch about how you want it for free.
"And yes, I produce music. I don't do it for a living, because in order to produce bounty works you need to have a fanbase first. You have one."
Probably because it's not good enough to sell and you don't have the balls to risk it all and go full time.
"So, peeking at somebody's newspaper over their shoulder is the same as grabbing their paper and running away? It's all "theft", right?"
If you can copy all the words from their paper and give it out to everyone in line waiting to purchase a newspaper (and as a result, they don't by it), yes it is theft (from the company that printed the newspaper). Your analogy is weak.
"In fact, writing this post has taken me minutes of work to produce; if you read it and fail to send me money then you're just a common THIEF."
Now you really look foolish. You posted this willingly, and for free, on a public forum. Any company that does this with their music would not consider it theft. When adobe and Microsoft get their apps shared, it's not by choice. This is the difference. You are taking the freedom and the rights away from owner of the original work.
"THEFT is permanently taking something that belongs to someone else. If the original owner still has it, it ain't theft, no matter what fuzzy platitudes about 'hard work' or 'art' you throw at it."
words change over time. Theft needs to be re-defined. The worst part about this isn't that you don't thin that copyright infringement is theft (which by the very definition is not), it's that you somehow think it's your right to take and distribute someone else's work.
If I copied slashdot, made my own site called slashdot2, and started advertising it as my own, would you consider it theft? The original site isn't losing anything by me making a copy. Only reputation and possibly revenue, which is the same thing that is lost when software is illegally copied.
How about if I told everyone I was you (I decided to use your address, social security number, and all of your personal details) and started opening up credit cards in your name. Would you not consider it theft? After all, I never took anything from you. You are free to use your personal information.
When GNU software is used in proprietary applications, slashdotters consider it "theft". Even though anyone can still access the original source.
"Do you play an instrument? I bet you don't pay a fee to the instrument maker for every note you play. I bet part of that fee doesn't get paid backwards to the supplier of the materials the instrument is made from. A singer? How much do you pay the production line guy who made your microphone every time you sing into it?"
Bad analogy. Only one person can use an instrument at a time because it is a physical object.
"Sculptors? You know the plastic mouldings that nearly everything is made from? Someone has to sculpt the moulds. Do they get a percentage? No, and they have to work to very tight tolerances not 'that looks finished now'."
Actually, mould designs are patentable. The company I work for has many patents on our designs.
"One of the reasons your 'art' gets 'ripped off' so much is that the people doing so will never be in the position of doing a job once, then getting royalties forever and they don't see why they owe you anything for doing the duplication themselves."
Currency can be copied using a printer. It's just ink and paper that we give a value (do you think the ink and paper that makes up $100 is really worth $100?). If I can just make a copy at home, why should I get any other way?
Digital items are very much like currency.
I also find your arguments funny. Back in 2000, it was the big bad companies people were against (you were only trying to help te artists..right?). Now, artists are telling you that you are hurting their sales and you spit in their face.
I even remember people complaining that music was too expensive. Now, you can get music at 99 cents per song and it STILL isn't cheap enough for you. This is why businesses shouldn't negociate with terrorists (and anyone for that matter. When you negociate with someone that is holding you hostage, and give them what they want, they will just ask for more).
Thanks for assuring me that I was right all along: people that justify piracy are just thieves.
"We all know the cost of the disc is minimal."
I was with you until this part. You aren't buying a blank blue-ray disc. The method of content delivery is a minimal cost (it always is with art. Look at very expensive pictures. You aren't paying for the paper and paint).
The cost of the production of the movie is what you are paying for, which is almost always a million (there are some exceptions). Making movies is always a risk. You put millions of dollars into a project hoping that you will get a ROI and sometimes you do..and sometimes you don't.
"Do we HAVE to go over this again?"
Yes. Just because you don't agree with the notion that piracy is a form of theft, doesn't mean that we won't go over it again.
"Obviously, nobody wants to spend thousands of hours creating something then letting someone else (a corporation) sell it without royalties. Or letting people download it for free off the internet."
You listed applications that were given out for free willingly. It's a different story when a company does not want you to give out their apps for free and you decide to do it anyway.
Do we have to go over this again?
My problem is that many people (and it seems like you too) feel it is their "right" to download and freely distribute intellectual property. Yet, in the same breath feel that people using GNU software in proprietary apps and violating the license is wrong when it's really the same thing: license violation.
Businesses aren't just going to sit and allow you to take away their revenue stream (and it will not lead to all software, music, and movies being given away for free). It will just lead to more DRM like protections for music and movies and all software being hosted remotely as service.
Don't blame the companies on these things, because you gave them no choice.
"hat's fine, as long as the company providing those services advertises truthfully what the sysadmins are actually doing to your packets."
We have laws against deceit in advertising.
"And, of course, as long as the two internet providers in your zip code (only one of whom offers service to your house) don't collude and offer a deliberately neutered product (i.e. no bittorent, no streaming video, no voip, no [etc.]) when they could just as easily offer the better version just because the non-neutered version competes with their own video delivery service, telephony service, or other service."
Has this happened yet? If not, it's just a straw man argument. A couple of months ago, 4chan was somehow blocked from at&t. Enough people got pissed off about it, and it was un-blocked. This is because at&t was afraid of bad press (and as a result, losing customers).
Now let's say the government was controlling our Internet lines and they decided to block certain sites for our "safety". Do you think this would have the same effect?
If you notice, almost all countries that have government regulated Internet are also heavily censored. The Democrats and the Left love to use censorship and political correctness as a way to silence the opposition.
"But the free market does keep some abuses in check. I think it would be wise to keep abuses in check in the highly non-free internet service market as well."
The only reason we are able to get high speed internet at affordable rates is because of the free market. Before this, it was only in Universities. Some people forget this.
"See? It's very easy to take what you say and turn it on its head."
Not really. You, like many other people that argue with pure emotion and no logic, are obviously against corporations and business. I might be more inclined to believe you if you actually provided a good argument for government regulated ISPs.
"The bad thing isn't government power vs. corporate power, but the existence of concentrated power itself. Completely unregulated markets tend to concentrate power. Network effects help that along. It seems that we need even bigger power (in government) to break up concentrated power in the market. I don't think there is an easy solution. But blindly trusting concentrated power on one hand vs. another is a Bad Idea (TM)."
The question isn't corporate regulation. All corporations are heavily regulated already. The question is further regulation of corporations.
"The key difference between government and corporate power: governments are ultimately answerable to their citizens, whereas corporations are ultimately answerable to their shareholders. That means among other things that corporations can and will ruin the lives of their employees or residents of the surrounding area (via pollution mostly) if it increases their profits, can and will bilk their customers if they can get away with it, and don't really mind a large population of unemployed, broke, desperate people."
Sure, corporations need to increase profits, but that gives customers power. If a corporation is doing something you don't agree with, you can go to another one. This is the great thing about the free market.
It seems people are against monopolies, but have no problems when the government, a large monopoly that can play by different rules and has virtually no regulation does the exact same thing.
When a government controls something, they have the ultimate power because if you don't do what they say, you are subject to fines or possibly jail time. No corporation has this power. In addition to this, governments have no incentive to innovate. They are going to get your tax dollars either way.
They don't mind unemployed, broke, and desperate people? Now I know you are nuts. Corporations aren't drug dealers. They want people with money to be able to buy their products.
Some corporations "bilk their customers". However, if this happens enough, they get a bad reputation and people stop buying from them.
Government regulation caused our mortgage meltdown., not the lack of. Take a look at the community reinvestment act, the predictions made in 1995, and what happened to our economy.
""Rightful" regulation? "Its" traffic!? It's MY traffic they're "regulating" dammit. If I need to vote for a law to make businesses stop pulling that crap, I will."
Christ. I wish more people thought this way about taxes.
"I'd rather it not come to that, but they started this. They were going to start double-dipping and charging people who weren't even their customers." ..and how are they going to do this exactly?
"It's only you crazy libertarians (unlike the sensible ones) who get bent out of shape over this, and there aren't very many of you, given how terribly Ron Paul did in the polls. That, or you're too afraid of the government to vote." ..and it's the sheep liberals who won't question the government. Even when people bring up very valid points, they are demonized for loving corporations.
"this is disproven in one word: Microsoft."
You still think Microsoft is a monopoly?
Look at linux (many distros), chromeOS, firefox, open office, star office, mac OSX (I can keep going on about all of Microsoft's competition to show you that they aren't a monopoly, but I don't think I need to.
"Without regulation centralized corporate power squeezes millions of disorganized and powerless individuals for all they will bear in money AND consumer rights."
So, we are giving this power to the government? I don't see how they are any less corrupt.