Also, many people seem to come to the conclusion that there are only two options: either the government is given all of the power, or the people are. That's just insane. There is plenty of room for middle ground that is better than what we have now.
I mean, would you prefer your phone to be stolen, or would you prefer having your bank account drained to 0?
Well, since the money in my bank account is something that I actually have currently, I'd prefer to have my phone be stolen (depending on how much money is in my bank account, of course). It's not just about something being a "bunch of bits," it's about things that you currently own.
Once you eliminate any physical damage, and the price that retailer bought the physical box, all that's left is a single lost sale. With piracy, the number lost sales are limited only by the "100% of demand" mark. Piracy is, potentially, considerably more financially damaging than physical theft.
On the other hand, stealing a physical object actually causes someone to lose something that they really had (an object of value).
On paper (where laws do most of their work) however, it is not simply a matter of higher danger = higher penalty.
It should be, for the most part. Right now it's just cruel and unusual punishment that people will likely never be able to shake off.
Crimes that are easier to commit (in this case downloading a torrent versus buying a shovel and digging for a few days) now need to have higher deterrents, because it is far less likely to get a conviction.
Because attempting to deter people from committing the act of copyright infringement has worked like a charm, right?
If you were fined 49 cents for every MP3 you were caught torrenting
I don't believe anyone suggested that you should only be charged based on how much damage you do. I believe that they suggested that the current penalties are absolutely ridiculous when you consider the crime.
They do? From the 'study', it looks like it's 'addictive' personalities that are affecting people, not inanimate objects. News flash: constantly doing anything causes you to lose time to do other things. What did this study accomplish again?
Not really, that's why I still read books and magazines.
Ah, so books and magazines are infallible (no, but "professionally edited" ones may be assumed to be more likely to be correct, I guess). I see. Always double check your information. I've seen many articles that contained correct information (admittedly, they are usually the ones that provide citations, but that's why they are there).
but it claims to be more than that so criticism is legitimate I feel.
There's rarely such a thing as illegitimate criticism.
This is a harm, and if you think emotional harm is not as intense as physical harm, I encourage you to say that out loud. You are wrong on that count.
Emotional harm is entirely self-inflicted. You don't have to get angry or sad about anything.
-Oh, and this required the McCain/Aplin campaign to suspend use of email for a short period to reestablish security. How short a time? At the moment, even an hour could have had consequences. How about you giving up your email address and having all of your contacts notified of your new address. Much trouble for you?
Because politicians are the only people (sometimes I doubt this) that matter, correct? If this had happened to a normal person, absolutely nothing would have been done.
- 'Abusive' phone calls to most of the Palin family.
I take it you've never gotten a phone call at 4:00 AM on an "business use only" line saying "you're a worthless sack of shit and I can't wait to see your death on the news". Four days and zero hours of sleep later, there's definitely "physical harm" involved.
I truly did not realize that words could physically harm someone! Here I thought that you are by no means forced to get offended or frightened by mere words, and if you did get offended or frightened, it would be because of the actions that may have followed those words, not the words themselves. Silly me.
How do you know this? Did you double check the information (something you should always do no matter where you get your information from)? My point is that you should always question the source of the information and verify its correctness. Although you can likely assume that information written by an expert is more likely to be correct, it is by no means infallible.
Historically, encyclopaedias relied on experts for their information (yes, I know, they were put together by editors, not the experts themself).
While this is true, that is what citations are for. Really, you shouldn't assume anything to be 100% correct, and no matter where you got your information from, you should double check it. This applies not only to Wikipedia, but to everything (when possible).
Wikipedia may be an important source but it's rarely 100% correct on any given subject.
I've seen plenty of articles that contained correct information. That said, it would be absurdly difficult for you to find a book/website that is 100% correct in every way.
I've seen shocking bias, inconsistancy, and lawyering on wikipedia and would not fully trust it for anything.
Freedom of speech should not be confused with the absolute freedom of speech.
Except that that's what it actually means. When you just say "freedom of speech" instead of something like "slightly limited freedom of speech," you're including everything that is speech. The constitution in the US just mentions free speech and no exceptions.
It has long been limited where it is considered to be harmful to others, as the right to not have undue harm done to you is considered nearer to absolute than your right to freedom of speech or expression.
Ridiculous. How do you harm someone with speech? You can only harm someone with actions. Example: someone screams "fire" in a crowded building and everyone tramples over one another to leave. It was not the speech that hurt them, but their own idiotic actions. People are also by no means forced to get offended by speech. Hearsay is also simple to avoid if you just use your brain and don't take everything other people say as gospel.
In short: stupidity is what harms people, not speech.
What does this mean? In both cases, the developer doesn't receive any money and doesn't lose anything either. They are left completely unaffected. The only difference between the two cases is that the file sharer got a product and the person who merely didn't buy it didn't. But that's sort of irrelevant as the product was merely copied and not stolen (they also never even had the money that the file sharer could have given them, so it's impossible to steal). Unlike instructing someone to complete a job for you and then not paying them, the act of copyright infringement also doesn't waste the developers' time (development time wasn't the fault of the file sharer).
Now imagine that someone writes a legitimate negative review on a product. People who would otherwise have bought this review with 100% certainty decide not to buy it because of this review, thereby making the business 'lose' sales. Should this be illegal?
I have grown up now, but still have enough common sense to recognize that obtaining something (or the COPY of something) for FREE when it is not legally meant to be given for free means I AM stealing something from the creators of that something, and no amount of semantics can change that realization (at least to me).
No, you're committing the act of copyright infringement. In order for something to be stolen, someone must have it in the first place. The developer never owned the money that belonged to the copyright infringer in the first place, so it's impossible to steal it from them. The debate is not on whether copyright infringement is stealing or not, but whether the developers inherently deserve this money to such a degree that it is illegal not to give it to them.
You are resorting to presenting Geohot as some sort of altruistic messiah so that you do not have to face the possibility that such a USER-FRIENDLY hack may endanger Sony's earnings.
What's with the straw man arguments? Praising him isn't the same thing as saying he didn't do anything wrong. Competition, consumer choice, and negative reviews can also damage a businesses earnings since we're on that subject.
Actually, that sentence right there tells me a LOT about your personality.
No, if anything, it shows you that I have my own opinions (like you seem to have).
You would just use the "morality is fluid anyway", "piracy cannot be proved", "it is all guesswork", "Geohot has not directly pirated anything" facile excuses for arguments to "platform" from one subject to the next.
I never did any of those things in the first place. You were stating things that you couldn't possibly know as facts (or implied that they were), so I attempted to correct you. I also attempted to correct small details in your posts. Never once did I say or imply that piracy is okay because of individual morals or anything of the sort. Up until this point, you've been misinterpreting my posts.
I hope someday you will have an experience similar in some way to that of Sony's gaming division.
I don't know what this would prove, exactly. That I would be biased if I suddenly changed my opinion due to greed? I guess so.
I just don't see how 'loss' (if you can even call it that) of potential future gain can possibly be equated to harm. If that was true, merely deciding not to give me all of your money would harm me. Not only that, but it's likely impossible to be harmed by 'losing' something that you never had in the first place.
Furthermore, I feel that it is a flaw in society itself if developers must punish those who copy data, but don't use any of their time, money, or resources, simply to turn a profit. Introducing artificial scarcity and personal monopolies to try to patch such a huge flaw in our capitalistic society will only succeed in delaying the inevitable instead of actually fixing the problem
I think you are using this idea of morals as individual perspective as a sort of get-out-of-jail-free card
Did I ever once say that people should be able to do whatever they want as long as it is okay to them? No. I said that there are no absolute morals. Society has enacted laws to protect itself from actions that it believes will harm it, but its moral beliefs are not absolute.
I do not think you would be as forgiving if it was you that was wronged.
I wasn't forgiving in the first place. I still wouldn't say that my morals were fact, and even if I did, it would be because I was biased.
That is 4 sales with a near-100% probability of being lost
When I exercise my right as a consumer to choose not to buy something, that is a lost sale. If you forced everyone to like a product and buy it, that would increase the chances that they would buy it. By not doing that, it is a lost sale. This should be a law.
We also should get rid of competition. Without competitors to go to, people will likely go to one store with near 100% probability. Right now, competition is depriving many businesses of rightful income. It should be banned immediately.
How many more are out there?
I don't know, and neither do you.
But you just seem to be blaming Sony for the whole thing while apparently absolving Geohot of any wrong-doing.
As far as I can tell, he hacked a console and released information on how others can make use of the hack. Sony is just screaming "piracy" like governments like to scream "terrorism."
However, I am VERY, VERY, VERY confident that were you the wronged party, you would NOT be as defensive of Geohot's actions.
I don't support illogical ideals just to turn a profit. Not only that, but unless you know who I am and what my personality is like, making such assumptions is simply foolish.
It's very easy to preach about turning the other cheek when it's not yours that's been slapped.
Because the trustworthiness of a highly biased individual is extremely high, correct?
I didn't claim that I could. I just noticed that you stated that as a fact.
You are splitting hairs while escaping the question in the example.
Not really. I answered it directly after that.
But as I said, hurting someone/something knowingly is wrong
You claim that you accept that your morals aren't absolute, but then claim that something that goes against them is irrefutably 'wrong'. This is again subjective. There is likely no 'right' or 'wrong'. It's all just opinion.
and THAT is what Geohot did
Only if you believe that copyright infringement damages someone. There's two sides to this argument, and
I know at least 4 unscrupulous ordinary people who would not hesitate to take advantage of this
Alright, that's four.
And "impossible to keep track of anyway" does not magically excuse the series of actions that leads to this dent in sales.
No, but it certainly does bring into question the fact that people are stating that this will irrefutably hurt sales a great deal. Opinions are fine, but don't state such things as facts.
So I would rather blame the individual who goaded Sony into this course of action rather than Sony itself, who imo felt obliged to protect their bottom-line by inconveniencing their customers. From what I see, you want to blame Sony for the whole shebang as if Geohot had no part in this.
If I was a normal person who was against copyright infringement, I'd blame both parties.
Slashdot Mirror
Also, many people seem to come to the conclusion that there are only two options: either the government is given all of the power, or the people are. That's just insane. There is plenty of room for middle ground that is better than what we have now.
Innocent unless/until proven guilty is always a good idea, in my opinion.
I mean, would you prefer your phone to be stolen, or would you prefer having your bank account drained to 0?
Well, since the money in my bank account is something that I actually have currently, I'd prefer to have my phone be stolen (depending on how much money is in my bank account, of course). It's not just about something being a "bunch of bits," it's about things that you currently own.
How about stop voting for either?
Once you eliminate any physical damage, and the price that retailer bought the physical box, all that's left is a single lost sale. With piracy, the number lost sales are limited only by the "100% of demand" mark. Piracy is, potentially, considerably more financially damaging than physical theft.
On the other hand, stealing a physical object actually causes someone to lose something that they really had (an object of value).
On paper (where laws do most of their work) however, it is not simply a matter of higher danger = higher penalty.
It should be, for the most part. Right now it's just cruel and unusual punishment that people will likely never be able to shake off.
Crimes that are easier to commit (in this case downloading a torrent versus buying a shovel and digging for a few days) now need to have higher deterrents, because it is far less likely to get a conviction.
Because attempting to deter people from committing the act of copyright infringement has worked like a charm, right?
If you were fined 49 cents for every MP3 you were caught torrenting
I don't believe anyone suggested that you should only be charged based on how much damage you do. I believe that they suggested that the current penalties are absolutely ridiculous when you consider the crime.
You're never realistically going to get caught buying dodgy DVDs.
Yeah, but if you aren't an idiot, you realistically won't get caught downloading copyrighted material, either.
Video games do affect people.
They do? From the 'study', it looks like it's 'addictive' personalities that are affecting people, not inanimate objects. News flash: constantly doing anything causes you to lose time to do other things. What did this study accomplish again?
Not really, that's why I still read books and magazines.
Ah, so books and magazines are infallible (no, but "professionally edited" ones may be assumed to be more likely to be correct, I guess). I see. Always double check your information. I've seen many articles that contained correct information (admittedly, they are usually the ones that provide citations, but that's why they are there).
but it claims to be more than that so criticism is legitimate I feel.
There's rarely such a thing as illegitimate criticism.
It seems so. It is ridiculous enough to be a sarcastic post, but I have actually seen people say similar things in a serious manner.
What? That's ridiculous. Police officers should have to follow the law like everyone else.
This is a harm, and if you think emotional harm is not as intense as physical harm, I encourage you to say that out loud. You are wrong on that count.
Emotional harm is entirely self-inflicted. You don't have to get angry or sad about anything.
-Oh, and this required the McCain/Aplin campaign to suspend use of email for a short period to reestablish security. How short a time? At the moment, even an hour could have had consequences. How about you giving up your email address and having all of your contacts notified of your new address. Much trouble for you?
Because politicians are the only people (sometimes I doubt this) that matter, correct? If this had happened to a normal person, absolutely nothing would have been done.
- 'Abusive' phone calls to most of the Palin family.
Wow, yes. Words. How harmful.
Will you be forgiving based soley on their age?
Did he ever mention his age?
I take it you've never gotten a phone call at 4:00 AM on an "business use only" line saying "you're a worthless sack of shit and I can't wait to see your death on the news". Four days and zero hours of sleep later, there's definitely "physical harm" involved.
I truly did not realize that words could physically harm someone! Here I thought that you are by no means forced to get offended or frightened by mere words, and if you did get offended or frightened, it would be because of the actions that may have followed those words, not the words themselves. Silly me.
He committed a crime, one that I personally feel has far-reaching effects as one's e-mail inbox should be considered fairly private.
I just wonder what would have happened if he'd been a normal person. Politician or not, this is insanely biased.
How do you know this? Did you double check the information (something you should always do no matter where you get your information from)? My point is that you should always question the source of the information and verify its correctness. Although you can likely assume that information written by an expert is more likely to be correct, it is by no means infallible.
Historically, encyclopaedias relied on experts for their information (yes, I know, they were put together by editors, not the experts themself).
While this is true, that is what citations are for. Really, you shouldn't assume anything to be 100% correct, and no matter where you got your information from, you should double check it. This applies not only to Wikipedia, but to everything (when possible).
90% correct would do fine but you can't be sure if any article really is 10% or 100% correct without doing a whole load of research.
It's the same for everything else.
If I'm doing that kind of research anyway what use is wikipedia?
A place where other people can benefit from your research.
As for the rest of your post, I admit that I'm not sure how often such things happen, so I can't really comment on that.
the lack of so called citations required
There's actually a very good reason for this.
Wikipedia may be an important source but it's rarely 100% correct on any given subject.
I've seen plenty of articles that contained correct information. That said, it would be absurdly difficult for you to find a book/website that is 100% correct in every way.
I've seen shocking bias, inconsistancy, and lawyering on wikipedia and would not fully trust it for anything.
What's stopping you from fixing it?
Freedom of speech should not be confused with the absolute freedom of speech.
Except that that's what it actually means. When you just say "freedom of speech" instead of something like "slightly limited freedom of speech," you're including everything that is speech. The constitution in the US just mentions free speech and no exceptions.
It has long been limited where it is considered to be harmful to others, as the right to not have undue harm done to you is considered nearer to absolute than your right to freedom of speech or expression.
Ridiculous. How do you harm someone with speech? You can only harm someone with actions. Example: someone screams "fire" in a crowded building and everyone tramples over one another to leave. It was not the speech that hurt them, but their own idiotic actions. People are also by no means forced to get offended by speech. Hearsay is also simple to avoid if you just use your brain and don't take everything other people say as gospel.
In short: stupidity is what harms people, not speech.
More like, "Way to go, Sony, for screwing over your legitimate customers because you're so afraid of the 'evil' piracy boogeyman."
Well, none of that is exactly good news.
Words classified as hate crime, holocaust denial, incitement, disturbing the peace, etc. are criminalized too.
Many of these places also claim to support free speech. What an absolute joke.
Financially, it is not.
What does this mean? In both cases, the developer doesn't receive any money and doesn't lose anything either. They are left completely unaffected. The only difference between the two cases is that the file sharer got a product and the person who merely didn't buy it didn't. But that's sort of irrelevant as the product was merely copied and not stolen (they also never even had the money that the file sharer could have given them, so it's impossible to steal). Unlike instructing someone to complete a job for you and then not paying them, the act of copyright infringement also doesn't waste the developers' time (development time wasn't the fault of the file sharer).
Now imagine that someone writes a legitimate negative review on a product. People who would otherwise have bought this review with 100% certainty decide not to buy it because of this review, thereby making the business 'lose' sales. Should this be illegal?
I have grown up now, but still have enough common sense to recognize that obtaining something (or the COPY of something) for FREE when it is not legally meant to be given for free means I AM stealing something from the creators of that something, and no amount of semantics can change that realization (at least to me).
No, you're committing the act of copyright infringement. In order for something to be stolen, someone must have it in the first place. The developer never owned the money that belonged to the copyright infringer in the first place, so it's impossible to steal it from them. The debate is not on whether copyright infringement is stealing or not, but whether the developers inherently deserve this money to such a degree that it is illegal not to give it to them.
You are resorting to presenting Geohot as some sort of altruistic messiah so that you do not have to face the possibility that such a USER-FRIENDLY hack may endanger Sony's earnings.
What's with the straw man arguments? Praising him isn't the same thing as saying he didn't do anything wrong. Competition, consumer choice, and negative reviews can also damage a businesses earnings since we're on that subject.
Actually, that sentence right there tells me a LOT about your personality.
No, if anything, it shows you that I have my own opinions (like you seem to have).
You would just use the "morality is fluid anyway", "piracy cannot be proved", "it is all guesswork", "Geohot has not directly pirated anything" facile excuses for arguments to "platform" from one subject to the next.
I never did any of those things in the first place. You were stating things that you couldn't possibly know as facts (or implied that they were), so I attempted to correct you. I also attempted to correct small details in your posts. Never once did I say or imply that piracy is okay because of individual morals or anything of the sort. Up until this point, you've been misinterpreting my posts.
I hope someday you will have an experience similar in some way to that of Sony's gaming division.
I don't know what this would prove, exactly. That I would be biased if I suddenly changed my opinion due to greed? I guess so.
I just don't see how 'loss' (if you can even call it that) of potential future gain can possibly be equated to harm. If that was true, merely deciding not to give me all of your money would harm me. Not only that, but it's likely impossible to be harmed by 'losing' something that you never had in the first place.
Furthermore, I feel that it is a flaw in society itself if developers must punish those who copy data, but don't use any of their time, money, or resources, simply to turn a profit. Introducing artificial scarcity and personal monopolies to try to patch such a huge flaw in our capitalistic society will only succeed in delaying the inevitable instead of actually fixing the problem
I think you are using this idea of morals as individual perspective as a sort of get-out-of-jail-free card
Did I ever once say that people should be able to do whatever they want as long as it is okay to them? No. I said that there are no absolute morals. Society has enacted laws to protect itself from actions that it believes will harm it, but its moral beliefs are not absolute.
I do not think you would be as forgiving if it was you that was wronged.
I wasn't forgiving in the first place. I still wouldn't say that my morals were fact, and even if I did, it would be because I was biased.
That is 4 sales with a near-100% probability of being lost
When I exercise my right as a consumer to choose not to buy something, that is a lost sale. If you forced everyone to like a product and buy it, that would increase the chances that they would buy it. By not doing that, it is a lost sale. This should be a law.
We also should get rid of competition. Without competitors to go to, people will likely go to one store with near 100% probability. Right now, competition is depriving many businesses of rightful income. It should be banned immediately.
How many more are out there?
I don't know, and neither do you.
But you just seem to be blaming Sony for the whole thing while apparently absolving Geohot of any wrong-doing.
As far as I can tell, he hacked a console and released information on how others can make use of the hack. Sony is just screaming "piracy" like governments like to scream "terrorism."
However, I am VERY, VERY, VERY confident that were you the wronged party, you would NOT be as defensive of Geohot's actions.
I don't support illogical ideals just to turn a profit. Not only that, but unless you know who I am and what my personality is like, making such assumptions is simply foolish.
It's very easy to preach about turning the other cheek when it's not yours that's been slapped.
Because the trustworthiness of a highly biased individual is extremely high, correct?
Can you prove this will NOT lead to piracy?
I didn't claim that I could. I just noticed that you stated that as a fact.
You are splitting hairs while escaping the question in the example.
Not really. I answered it directly after that.
But as I said, hurting someone/something knowingly is wrong
You claim that you accept that your morals aren't absolute, but then claim that something that goes against them is irrefutably 'wrong'. This is again subjective. There is likely no 'right' or 'wrong'. It's all just opinion.
and THAT is what Geohot did
Only if you believe that copyright infringement damages someone. There's two sides to this argument, and
I know at least 4 unscrupulous ordinary people who would not hesitate to take advantage of this
Alright, that's four.
And "impossible to keep track of anyway" does not magically excuse the series of actions that leads to this dent in sales.
No, but it certainly does bring into question the fact that people are stating that this will irrefutably hurt sales a great deal. Opinions are fine, but don't state such things as facts.
So I would rather blame the individual who goaded Sony into this course of action rather than Sony itself, who imo felt obliged to protect their bottom-line by inconveniencing their customers. From what I see, you want to blame Sony for the whole shebang as if Geohot had no part in this.
If I was a normal person who was against copyright infringement, I'd blame both parties.