If I own the VHS video of a film I download, am I still a thief ?
No
If I own the dvd of a film I download, but the dvd got damaged and won't play, am I still a thief?
No
If the film I am downloading is not available to buy in my country, then am I still a thief ?
Yes.
Very simple system: you paid, you not thief; You not pay, you thief.
The last case you gave is certainly borderline since no one is harmed. From a legal point there is no issue, it's theft, but from an ethical point of view the issue is what do you do once the film is available?
Are you on such a slow net connection that you hit "Submit" in 1997 ?
Are you from a future where most people are on super-broadband? I'm broadband and I still wouldn't bother waiting for a movie to download; if it was 10 times faster I might.
The odd thing is that I agree with Gordon as regards making money on GPL'ed software but, on the other hand, I think a world without the Kompany's products would be a better one. Perhaps the answer is to make good software and to hell with the license.
Using copyrighted material in a way that the author does not like or approve of IS NOT piracy
If the way you are using it is by not paying for it, when asked to, then it is piracy. There is no fair use, and there should not be, on stolen software. There's lots, and there should be, of fair use for software that is not stolen. If I require you to pay me for a copy of my software and you don't like it then fuck you; write your own.
In 1986 people were saying "Shareware is in trouble. If people don't start paying for shareware, it will disappear. 16 years later, there's more shareware than ever
From the same authors? I believe that as more and more people learn to program that more people will release shareware in the delusion that "people will support me in doing something useful for them at a fair price". Of course the reality is that people like you simply want to hang around until someone with some ability does something and then freeload on them. Eventually most shareware writers realise what a mug they're being and stop donating to the "I have the right to use any software" brigade.
Hmmmm..... let's see now.... Lotus is being destroyed by "piracy" but they made so much money that they can afford to pay their CEO $27 million. Something doesn't add up.
Indeed. What does not add up is that big companies like Lotus (was) spend huge amounts on marketing and other non-software items to try to sell into other big companies. This money has to be recouped and with profits to spare for the shareholders. They naturally are very vocal about losing millions of dollars worth of sales, just as shareware authors are vocal about losing hundreds of dollars worth of sales. But, so what? Are you just saying that it's okay to steal from people that can afford to take the loss? What loss can you afford to have stolen?
Before we get the "nothing's been stolen; Lotus still have their software" crap I think you should understand that when software is stolen by shitheads like yourself what is actually stolen is time. I spend my time writing software. I charge for that time; in a very real sense I never charge for software; my job includes testing, bug fixing and even some user support and I don't get an itemised pay cheque at the end of the month. I get paid for my time.
Now, think about that..... millions of people downloading millions of songs for free and yet there was no significant decrease in music sales.
Yes, that's because Napster were forcing the shareware model on the musinc industry. "Try a band." could have been their motto. Due to the poor level of service they gave the users actually bought more music because they couldn't be bothered with the long, tedious, buggy process of downloading whole albums most of the time. So they tried the shareware version and went to the store for the full version. They would not have bothered their asses if Napster had worked well.
The movie industry is lying about their "problems" at the moment but one day it will be possible to easily download full movies without paying for them and then there will be a problem.
The casual copying of material is irrelevant and has zero impact on the profits of the people who create the material.
This is a bare-faced lie.
When software costs less than 20 dollars there is no reason for casual copying - there is no way that each and every copy made was not affordable by the thief. I accept that many people who use Office simply would not have forked out 500 quid for it anyway and so MS is no worse off (better off since they've got free training and advertising), but at shareware prices even this lame excuse simply does not apply.
My current form of charity-ware is open source but it's not possible to make a living from that. I don't mind donating my time for it as I use the time donated by other people to help me but I'm under no illusions as to how hard parasites like you would make it for me to pay my mortgage if I tried to work like that all the time,
You seem to be saying that VNC is allowed and then you quote the EULA which says that you can't export the UI. The second paragraph also makes it quite clear that VNC is not allowed and that even using NetMeeting etc to use another person's program will require that the license for that product specifically allows such actions.
So, are you agreeing or disagreeing with the story?
Macromedia has managed to get to the point where many ads are Flash. These are REALLY shit and annoying while trying to read a page. The result is that I've removed Flash from my browser and, you know what? I don't miss it. This is the reason I think they want the Web to be "all Flash" - if the only people that use it are the page-spammers then everyone else can switch it off and actually have a better experience of the Web.
So, I wonder if Flash might implode on the basis of their success in the ad market coupled with all the problems of using Flash to generate your pages, plus the simple fact that almost no Flash site actually delivers anything that's still interesting after the first visit so who'd miss it?
When a Linux company goes out of business (Loki, for example), the Linux bigots remain completely silent.
Other than posting the news on/. where several million people can read and discuss it, you mean? Or are the/. editorial crew not "Linux bigots" in your view?
Just curious...what exactly did you find so appealing about Bakshi's version.
Mainly the fact that he was trying to do it right. The result is a failure and I doubt anyone from Bakshi down would argue with that but the first hour, which covers the Fellowship of the Ring, actually works quite well and does a much better job of telling the story than Jackson's attempt. After that it's a disaster with occasional good moments (mainly Gollum who's voiced very well).
Bakshi failed through lack of time and money, Jackson had both and failed through laziness, which is a lot more contemptible.
the beginning of FOTR is just a CGI remake of the live-action- behind-gause intro to the earlier film.
The best bit is the Nazgul stabbing the beds in Bree which was almost identical to the same scene in the cartoon, and which isn't described in the book!.
Why did you even bother writing all that when you could have summed up your opinion simply by:
"Tolkien's word is the word of God. Not a single scene, character or word in the dialogue should have been changed in any way. Jackson should be shot for this blasphemy".
Because that's not what I think. But if you're going to make changes, and you have to when making a film, don't make changes for the sake of it, or at least if you do try to make them work. In what way did any of Jackson's changes make the film better than sticking to the source? In what way did any of the changes for the screen cope with difficulties inherent in the adaption process?
One scene that Jackson managed to improve on, the only one, was the bit with Khamul sniffing at the edge of the road near the start. That bit worked really well with the earthworms and things. By the time we got to Rivendell and the silly bit of "Bug-Eyed Bilbo" it was obvious that it had been a fluke.
The issue is not the changes, it's the quality of the changes. As I've said before, the animated version did Fellowship in an hour and did a better job of it.
Especially showing the less serious side of Gandalf was excellently done.
Apart from jumping out on poor Frodo in the dark and trying to scare him to death, yes.
In fact, my only gripe is with Cate Blanchet's Galadriel who had been made to sound like a doped up hippie girl.
The whole of Loth Lorien was a waste of time, the film rushed through it not even bothering with continuity. Galadriel's spooky mind powers are an example of a change that I could have lived with, but even that wasn't used consistantly.
The irritating thing about LoTR was the changes he made were defended by "it would fit into Tolkien's universe if it happened this way".
My personal top-irritant about the justifications used were the slightly snide comments about the animated version and how this one would be the definitive adaptation. In fact, although there are many problems with the animated version, it actually covers Fellowship better that Jackson's, and does it in an hour. After that the film unravels, though. Yet another small change that shows how poor Jackson's direction is was the bit where the watcher in the lake blocks them into Moria. In the book and in Bakshi's version the watcher actually slams the doors behind them and barricades them in a sinister display of intelligence. Jackson makes it look like it did it by accident just so he can have a big cave-in.
Bakshi failed but it was an honest failure caused by aiming too high with too few resources. Jackson failed (as an adaptor), but through laziness and lack of understanding of the source material. I know who I'd rather got the Oscar.
You try fitting in 400 (I forget the exact count and it depends on the version anyways) pages, 9+ fully developed charcters, numerous subplots and a heap of other stuff in a 3 hr movie.
Well, I would at least have tried! Given that Jackson didn't even want to cover the Old Forest and the Barrowdowns (too complex and no fight scenes I guess) he had over 1 min per page, which is a luxurious amount of time for an adaptation - don't forget how much paper is required to describe a scene which can be shown in a movie in 2 seconds flat.
When it comes to FoTR and Peter Jackson I personally think he did an admirable job, and made quite a good movie
It was an okay movie and a terrible adaptation.
Where would you of fitted all the extra depth that you claim is so lacking?
Most of it could have been done quickly and easily, for example the total mess Jackson made of the Ford scene simply should have been done as it was in the book with Frodo defying the Nazgul and showing why he was choosen by Gandalf, this would replace the bit where he's simply rescued by the token woman. Again, simply sticking to the book at the end and letting Frodo leave on his own initiative without having to consult Aragon would have been better and taken the same time. The fight with the CGI-Troll could have been cut to the length it was in the book and the idiotic scene on the steps ("Lean, lean!") after the Balrog rescues them from the orcs should never have been filmed. The fight on Weathertop should have depicted the Nazgul as described in the book which would have been more frightning and established that they are not just a bunch of idiots in highly-flamable coats. Radagast could have been used in a short scene to establish that the "order of wizards" is not just two old break-dancers (another scene that should never have been filmed!), and Saurman should have mentioned the bit about being "many colours" which is an important piece of symbolism which actually refers back to a bit of Gandalf's dialogue which did make it into the film.
The list goes on and on. Jackson should be shot for this travesty.
Can you imagine all 3 of them together in uncut form, 18 straight hr of LOTR!!!
If Baksi did it with the budget Jackson had it would be great. The idea of watching any more of Jackson's version does not appeal and I'll not be bothering to waste my time on the sequals or the DVD.
Oh, sorry, was there some subtle characterisation or plot that I missed amongst all the stupid fight scenes, moronic direction, and general inability to make a decent adaptation of a book even when you have a minute per page?
The idea that FotR had any depth at all to it, let alone carried some message about the British class system is laughable. I STILL maintain that Jackson never read the book at all and based his film on the animated version, from which he stole scenes and dialogue, and the BBC radio-play.
Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings did great justice to J.R. Tolkien's war and class-conscious trilogy
Should, I assume, read " Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings did great injustice to J.R. Tolkien's war and class-conscious trilogy by removing any and all characterisation and depicting the story as a dull plod through some nice scenery"
Simple mistake; probably had CAPS-LOCK on.
TWW
Server /.'ed but I'll comment anyway
on
Penguin2Apple
·
· Score: 1
I don't know what the guy's argument is since I haven't read it but there is one big reason I've never bought a Mac that's applied from the day I first saw the Lisa: I can't afford it!
I've planned to buy a Mac several times and every time, after making a list of what I need it to do I've bought a Beige Box and spent the change on a pile of RAM or HD space.
So, the OS is irrelevent to me and many others; until the price comes down or I need to do professional DTP I ain't switching.
Slashdot Mirror
No
If I own the dvd of a film I download, but the dvd got damaged and won't play, am I still a thief?
No
If the film I am downloading is not available to buy in my country, then am I still a thief ?
Yes.
Very simple system: you paid, you not thief; You not pay, you thief.
The last case you gave is certainly borderline since no one is harmed. From a legal point there is no issue, it's theft, but from an ethical point of view the issue is what do you do once the film is available?
TWW
Ah, a patient thief.
TWW
TWW
MS broke the rules and never got punished. But I suppose the rules of some trade show much more important to you than the laws of your country.
"manopoly" - interesting word isnt it?
It is the way you spell it.
TWW
Are you from a future where most people are on super-broadband? I'm broadband and I still wouldn't bother waiting for a movie to download; if it was 10 times faster I might.
TWW
TWW
What's your definition?
TWW
If the way you are using it is by not paying for it, when asked to, then it is piracy. There is no fair use, and there should not be, on stolen software. There's lots, and there should be, of fair use for software that is not stolen. If I require you to pay me for a copy of my software and you don't like it then fuck you; write your own.
In 1986 people were saying "Shareware is in trouble. If people don't start paying for shareware, it will disappear. 16 years later, there's more shareware than ever
From the same authors? I believe that as more and more people learn to program that more people will release shareware in the delusion that "people will support me in doing something useful for them at a fair price". Of course the reality is that people like you simply want to hang around until someone with some ability does something and then freeload on them. Eventually most shareware writers realise what a mug they're being and stop donating to the "I have the right to use any software" brigade.
Hmmmm..... let's see now .... Lotus is being destroyed by "piracy" but they made so much money that they can afford to pay their CEO $27 million. Something doesn't add up.
Indeed. What does not add up is that big companies like Lotus (was) spend huge amounts on marketing and other non-software items to try to sell into other big companies. This money has to be recouped and with profits to spare for the shareholders. They naturally are very vocal about losing millions of dollars worth of sales, just as shareware authors are vocal about losing hundreds of dollars worth of sales. But, so what? Are you just saying that it's okay to steal from people that can afford to take the loss? What loss can you afford to have stolen?
Before we get the "nothing's been stolen; Lotus still have their software" crap I think you should understand that when software is stolen by shitheads like yourself what is actually stolen is time. I spend my time writing software. I charge for that time; in a very real sense I never charge for software; my job includes testing, bug fixing and even some user support and I don't get an itemised pay cheque at the end of the month. I get paid for my time.
Now, think about that ..... millions of people downloading millions of songs for free and yet there was no significant decrease in music sales.
Yes, that's because Napster were forcing the shareware model on the musinc industry. "Try a band." could have been their motto. Due to the poor level of service they gave the users actually bought more music because they couldn't be bothered with the long, tedious, buggy process of downloading whole albums most of the time. So they tried the shareware version and went to the store for the full version. They would not have bothered their asses if Napster had worked well.
The movie industry is lying about their "problems" at the moment but one day it will be possible to easily download full movies without paying for them and then there will be a problem.
The casual copying of material is irrelevant and has zero impact on the profits of the people who create the material.
This is a bare-faced lie.
When software costs less than 20 dollars there is no reason for casual copying - there is no way that each and every copy made was not affordable by the thief. I accept that many people who use Office simply would not have forked out 500 quid for it anyway and so MS is no worse off (better off since they've got free training and advertising), but at shareware prices even this lame excuse simply does not apply.
My current form of charity-ware is open source but it's not possible to make a living from that. I don't mind donating my time for it as I use the time donated by other people to help me but I'm under no illusions as to how hard parasites like you would make it for me to pay my mortgage if I tried to work like that all the time,
TWW
What MS has to say about it is printed in the EULA.
TWW
Have you never heard of MS license audits? There is lots of evidence that this is the sort of thing MS does enforce.
TWW
So, are you agreeing or disagreeing with the story?
TWW
So, I wonder if Flash might implode on the basis of their success in the ad market coupled with all the problems of using Flash to generate your pages, plus the simple fact that almost no Flash site actually delivers anything that's still interesting after the first visit so who'd miss it?
TWW
Other than posting the news on /. where several million people can read and discuss it, you mean? Or are the /. editorial crew not "Linux bigots" in your view?
TWW
I'm not saying he didn't; I'm saying that it worked better in the film than in the book, although it was a good scene in the book.
BTW I'm assuming you mean the bit by the side of the road.
TWW
Mainly the fact that he was trying to do it right. The result is a failure and I doubt anyone from Bakshi down would argue with that but the first hour, which covers the Fellowship of the Ring, actually works quite well and does a much better job of telling the story than Jackson's attempt. After that it's a disaster with occasional good moments (mainly Gollum who's voiced very well).
Bakshi failed through lack of time and money, Jackson had both and failed through laziness, which is a lot more contemptible.
TWW
TWW
Actually I doubt I could stay away from a film with that title.
TWW
The best bit is the Nazgul stabbing the beds in Bree which was almost identical to the same scene in the cartoon, and which isn't described in the book!.
TWW
Come on.
Why did you even bother writing all that when you could have summed up your opinion simply by:
"Tolkien's word is the word of God. Not a single scene, character or word in the dialogue should have been changed in any way. Jackson should be shot for this blasphemy".
Because that's not what I think. But if you're going to make changes, and you have to when making a film, don't make changes for the sake of it, or at least if you do try to make them work. In what way did any of Jackson's changes make the film better than sticking to the source? In what way did any of the changes for the screen cope with difficulties inherent in the adaption process?
One scene that Jackson managed to improve on, the only one, was the bit with Khamul sniffing at the edge of the road near the start. That bit worked really well with the earthworms and things. By the time we got to Rivendell and the silly bit of "Bug-Eyed Bilbo" it was obvious that it had been a fluke.
The issue is not the changes, it's the quality of the changes. As I've said before, the animated version did Fellowship in an hour and did a better job of it.
Especially showing the less serious side of Gandalf was excellently done.
Apart from jumping out on poor Frodo in the dark and trying to scare him to death, yes.
In fact, my only gripe is with Cate Blanchet's Galadriel who had been made to sound like a doped up hippie girl.
The whole of Loth Lorien was a waste of time, the film rushed through it not even bothering with continuity. Galadriel's spooky mind powers are an example of a change that I could have lived with, but even that wasn't used consistantly.
TWW
My personal top-irritant about the justifications used were the slightly snide comments about the animated version and how this one would be the definitive adaptation. In fact, although there are many problems with the animated version, it actually covers Fellowship better that Jackson's, and does it in an hour. After that the film unravels, though. Yet another small change that shows how poor Jackson's direction is was the bit where the watcher in the lake blocks them into Moria. In the book and in Bakshi's version the watcher actually slams the doors behind them and barricades them in a sinister display of intelligence. Jackson makes it look like it did it by accident just so he can have a big cave-in.
Bakshi failed but it was an honest failure caused by aiming too high with too few resources. Jackson failed (as an adaptor), but through laziness and lack of understanding of the source material. I know who I'd rather got the Oscar.
TWW
Well, I would at least have tried! Given that Jackson didn't even want to cover the Old Forest and the Barrowdowns (too complex and no fight scenes I guess) he had over 1 min per page, which is a luxurious amount of time for an adaptation - don't forget how much paper is required to describe a scene which can be shown in a movie in 2 seconds flat.
When it comes to FoTR and Peter Jackson I personally think he did an admirable job, and made quite a good movie
It was an okay movie and a terrible adaptation.
Where would you of fitted all the extra depth that you claim is so lacking?
Most of it could have been done quickly and easily, for example the total mess Jackson made of the Ford scene simply should have been done as it was in the book with Frodo defying the Nazgul and showing why he was choosen by Gandalf, this would replace the bit where he's simply rescued by the token woman. Again, simply sticking to the book at the end and letting Frodo leave on his own initiative without having to consult Aragon would have been better and taken the same time. The fight with the CGI-Troll could have been cut to the length it was in the book and the idiotic scene on the steps ("Lean, lean!") after the Balrog rescues them from the orcs should never have been filmed. The fight on Weathertop should have depicted the Nazgul as described in the book which would have been more frightning and established that they are not just a bunch of idiots in highly-flamable coats. Radagast could have been used in a short scene to establish that the "order of wizards" is not just two old break-dancers (another scene that should never have been filmed!), and Saurman should have mentioned the bit about being "many colours" which is an important piece of symbolism which actually refers back to a bit of Gandalf's dialogue which did make it into the film.
The list goes on and on. Jackson should be shot for this travesty.
Can you imagine all 3 of them together in uncut form, 18 straight hr of LOTR!!!
If Baksi did it with the budget Jackson had it would be great. The idea of watching any more of Jackson's version does not appeal and I'll not be bothering to waste my time on the sequals or the DVD.
TWW
The idea that FotR had any depth at all to it, let alone carried some message about the British class system is laughable. I STILL maintain that Jackson never read the book at all and based his film on the animated version, from which he stole scenes and dialogue, and the BBC radio-play.
TWW
Should, I assume, read " Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings did great injustice to J.R. Tolkien's war and class-conscious trilogy by removing any and all characterisation and depicting the story as a dull plod through some nice scenery"
Simple mistake; probably had CAPS-LOCK on.
TWW
I've planned to buy a Mac several times and every time, after making a list of what I need it to do I've bought a Beige Box and spent the change on a pile of RAM or HD space.
So, the OS is irrelevent to me and many others; until the price comes down or I need to do professional DTP I ain't switching.
TWW
What made you trust AOL in the first place?!
TWW