Ultimately the exposure of diplomatic networks will increase instability and make the United States more inclined to be fascist, not the reverse.
They deserve it. Also, perhaps it will serve as an awakening to the indoctrinated public so that they will finally do something and help the people who have been speaking against corruption for years.
your contention is that every single person who watches pirated movies and listens to pirated music is someone who would not otherwise have purchased it
I'm sure that if you actually tried to understand what I was saying you wouldn't have arrived at this conclusion. Whether file sharers would or would not have bought the product is irrelevant to my entire point. My entire point is that even if they would have, the artist never even had their money in the first place. It is logically impossible to say that the artist lost this money because they never even had it! Not to mention that competition 'hurts' (at least by the "'loss' of potential future gain equates to harm" logic) businesses and people in the same way. If their competitors had not existed, people might have went to them instead. I even explained this in my post, but so many people ignore my points anyway.
What you're talking about here is essentially your personal philosophy. It's a religious position you are taking concerning what you feel is right or wrong.
So is the way that society currently works.
It's a practical compact to encourage creative constructions which benefit society.
This is precisely what I'm saying is illogical. The system is fundamentally flawed if someone has to introduce artificial scarcity to turn a profit. The system is flawed if we have to criminalize many, many people for committing an act which logically hurts no one. This is what should be fixed, not file sharers.
I'm saying the problem lies somewhere else than where most people believe it lies.
They seek personal gain at others' loss
There is no loss. If you understood what copying is, you'd know that. 'Loss' of potential future gain also cannot equate to actual loss or harm because they never had said gain in the first place.
Elevating yourself to the position of god doesn't validate your beliefs.
Stating my opinion along with reasons that I believe what I do is elevating myself to the position of an entity that is often depicted to be a tyrant?
Perhaps you might explain better why you believe an artist should not have the right to distribute their own works.
Didn't I already explain this in my posts? Oh, well.
I believe that file sharing should be legal simply because the file sharers aren't doing any harm whatsoever. In order for harm to be done, the artist must lose something that they already had. File sharers aren't taking money away from the artist because the artist never had the file sharer's money in the first place. File sharers also aren't taking the product itself because they're merely copying it and everyone still has it. They also aren't wasting the artist's time because they never even interacted with them (time may have been used to make the product, but you must remember that that wasn't the file sharer's doing or their choice). 'Loss' of potential future gain can't equate to harm because again, they've lost nothing that they already had. If it could equate to harm, then everyone would be 'guilty' of inflicting this 'harm' upon others since you could do that merely by not giving another person all of their possessions (if you don't, they've 'lost' potential future gain).
I believe that instead of criminalizing the entire population for deeds which logically don't hurt anyone, we should instead fix (or try to) our broken capitalistic society which almost forces artists of digital media and other people to introduce artificial scarcity in order to turn a greater profit. The real question is: how? We certainly won't get there by continuing to believe the false assumption that file sharers are hurting others, that much I know for certain.
The difference is that not buying something is a simple choice--you choose not to give me something you value more (the money it would have cost) in exchange for something you value less (the music/film/software/whatever).
But using the logic of "loss of future gain equates to harm," they're still 'harming' them.
When you violate copyright, however, you are taking value (the product) without exchanging anything for it.
I don't think you understand. You're not taking anything. You're copying it.
Unless you are willing to argue that something must be tangible for ownership rules to apply (and think all the ramifications through before you claim you want this--it cuts both ways), then it's not fair to take something without providing a reasonable compensation for it.
This just makes it more clear. As I said, nothing was taken.
Instead, let's have a reasonable discussion where we accept that file sharing does cause actual monetary harm to a copyright holder, while still recognizing that the actual monetary harm is far less than the number of downloads x the cost of the commercial product.
I don't find that to be a reasonable discussion because I don't think that it's true. In order for monetary harm to be inflicted, they must lose something that they already had. You're looking at the wrong places for the source of the problem.
Think about it. Do you not think that the system is broken (or poorly thought out) if artists of digital media must introduce artificial scarcity in order to (presumably) turn a profit? Don't you think that the system is poorly thought out when people who logically aren't taking anything are criminalized merely because of the shortcomings of said system?
We don't need to 'fix' file sharers, we need to fix this illogical capitalistic society. Whether or not there is another solution is irrelevant. My point is that the current system needs drastic improvement, and criminalizing people who aren't hurting anyone isn't going to help the situation.
Oh wait, this is Slashdot. Reasonable discussion was never part of the picture...
As a human, you will likely insist you are correct even if you are not (not that I'm say that you're not, but your attitude of "I'm correct and you're not" is highly unsurprising).
The costs of writing and recording the music are paid before hand.
That's nice, but that wasn't his point. When you copy something, no one has lost anything due to that copying. In order for them to lose something, they must already have it in the first place. See my other post for more details.
You can't blame the file sharer because the company spent money to produce it. The file sharer had absolutely nothing to do with those costs. It was the company's own decision. That's like saying everyone should have to buy the music because the musician spent money to make it, even if they had nothing to do with that cost (that's essentially what the file sharer is doing: not paying them money to make up for losses that the file sharer didn't even inflict upon them in the first place).
What profit? In order to be deprived of something, logically, you must have it in the first place. They never had the profit that the file sharers would have given them if they didn't share the software, so they weren't deprived of anything. See this post.
If I was paid a minimal amount per-copy of my software sold, I might be a little more upset when I find one of my applications on a torrent site.
That's not surprising considering that many people tend to hold onto illogical beliefs if it benefits them personally. File sharers aren't actually taking anything. In order for them to be taking something ('loss' of 'right' to distribute their own works does not mean something was taken from them, because that's exactly the 'right' that I think shouldn't exist), when they copy, someone else must lose something that they already had. They didn't have the file sharer's money, so that wasn't stolen. The product was merely copied, so that wasn't stolen. The authors didn't even lose any time because of the pirate (it did take time to make the media, but that isn't the pirates' fault). Saying that 'loss' of future potential gain equates to harm is like saying that someone harmed me because they didn't give me all of their money, or that competition harms businesses because someone might choose to shop at a competitor's store. It would only be harm if they lost something that they already had. This simply isn't the case.
Who are you to tell me what I should consider a deterrent or not?
I'm a person, have free speech, and I'm giving you my opinion.
This is not trading a right to privacy for a false sense of security. This is trading a right to privacy for the privilege of fast travel to distant places.
I guess it is human nature to wait until things get far worse before acting. I think this is irresponsible and foolish, but...
I have met many people from that generation that are pretty much the same. They don't care about politics, they don't care about what corporations are doing to the Earth, they don't care about world issues. They just want to stick to their corporate people that want them to be "friends".
Let me introduce you to a majority of the human race: procrastination, stupidity, and sheep mentality galore!
Any violation of your rights should be a deterrent for you. How is a false sense of security worth the loss of privacy? Choice or no, this is the government that's doing this (for very poor reasons), and while you don't have to use an airplane, oftentimes, I'm willing to bet that it's not really a choice for people tight on time.
And because most video game sales level off after the initial few weeks anyway, if it fools the 0-day groups
I don't know about this. Usually people who intend to pirate something wait until they have the ability to do so. There's certainly not very many pirates who would look at a game on its first release day and buy it simply because they can't pirate it quite yet.
Who's going to stop it now? The point is to at least try to minimize corruption. If anything, the people should, in theory, stop it.
And if it's not powerful enough to keep order
It never has been. They couldn't do anything at all if the majority wanted them gone now. They'd be completely and utterly outnumbered, even with their little pawns.
That's why neither the government nor the people should have absolute power, but the people should have more than they do now. For instance, the people couldn't vote to strip away rights from the minority even if the majority wanted it. Checks and balances don't need to vanish, and the government could still keep power over certain areas. That would probably eliminate at least some of the corruption if done correctly, and completely unjust laws that violated the rights of the minority couldn't be passed.
You've got a point. Potential government corruption isn't important at all, especially for that government's citizens. Television shows and shopping are far more important!
How about parents just stop their kids from playing age-unsuitable games in the first place?
Why? They just said that they couldn't find any link between violent video games and violence. What's the point of limiting the amount of games they can play for no reason? This is the idiocy I'm talking about. This "protect the children" mentality makes me absolutely sick because more than half the time there's nothing to protect them from.
How about instead of that, they just let them view these works of fiction and treat them as they treat every other 'suitable' work of fiction? 99% of children know that fictional works are fiction, and if they somehow don't, their parents can just, you know, be parents and explain to them that it's fiction. That would make more logical sense than keeping them in a bubble.
I mean, that's what a rating is for.
For people who believe everyone is just a movie away from becoming a killer? Probably.
It's not a small minority, it's practically unheard of.
It is? I didn't know it was such an impossible task, sorry!
It's not just reading up on the material, it's making connections to other materials and properly predicting what the rest of the material that you haven't yet seen is likely to say.
Okay. An intelligent person couldn't do that why exactly?
Even amongst individuals that are brilliant or have advanced degrees it's pretty rare for a person to legitimately be able to do that without help.
Even if you believe that, such people still exist, yes?
Because otherwise you'd understand why certain materials are hard to come by.
You must've missed my point about there having to be a sizable amount of quality information on a subject before self teaching can commence.
Other than that it's also not particularly worth putting the information online as by the time you're dealing with PhD level research there's maybe a dozen people in the world that really understand the topic of the study.
Spreading information is always worthwhile, even if it's only for a few people. I also really doubt that in a world with more than six billion people, there's only a dozen that can use such information. Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean these people don't exist or they're extremely rare (or that they exist).
Anybody that's capable of teaching oneself already does that.
Probably. When did I say otherwise?
Having a vast amount of information available means that it's less likely that you'll actually learn anything as a result of information overload and an inability to filter out the crap from the stuff that's actually correct.
Yes, because when I mentioned a vast amount of information I was referring to a mix of correct and incorrect information.
There is indeed an assurance involved, that's why employers take applicants with a degree from an accredited institution of higher learning over those that don't have a degree or have one from an institution which isn't accredited.
There is? That's odd. I didn't know it was 100% certain that someone with a degree knew what they were talking about! Here I thought it only increased the likelihood of that! Silly me.
It doesn't matter how much quality information is out there when mixed in with bunk and unfortunately the bunk often times looks as real as the stuff which is real. Just look at all the crap which passes for medical research if you want to know what I mean.
It does matter how much quality information is out there. Seriously, do you think I was talking about subjects that have a mix of correct and incorrect information? No. I obviously meant a situation where quality information was supplied and maintained.
Double checking doesn't work you have the problem of the chicken and the egg, you have to know what's right before you can double check it.
Maybe it doesn't filter out all incorrect information, but if an expert on the subject verifies its correctness, then I'd say there's a very good chance that it's correct. I didn't mean search google and then pull up the first website you see, it has to be credible.
At what point did I argue that any information should be unavailable to people who are interested in it?
You didn't... and I never said you did. I was merely stating that it should be available. There's at least some people capable of doing so, and if self teaching is what is best for them, then I think it's great that they have that option.
The problem in the USA today isn't a lack of quality teaching and quality schools or even a lack of quality curriculum.
This, too. I feel that schools need to focus more on what you actually need (in high school), and not on things that they merely think you'll need in the future. Instead of making you attend a bunch of classes that you won't need for your desired profession, they should (again, in high school) let you choose the classes that matter to you. Early on you can be taught the absolute basics. Forcing them to attend classes of every subject isn't helping them because you forget things that you don't need surprisingly quickly, and you'd have to relearn it anyway. Not only that, but people would likely be able to put more effort into subjects that actually matter to them.
Feel-good programs where everyone gets a prize and self-directed learning isn't going to make the kind of change that is needed.
Maybe not, but it will allow people who are capable of teaching themselves to do just that. More options are always nice, even if those options don't suit everyone.
Slashdot Mirror
Odd how you never mention the copyright owner's exclusive right of distribution in either of your posts.
It's irrelevant to my point. I don't think they should have personal monopolies over digital media for reasons that I've stated in both of my posts.
Ultimately the exposure of diplomatic networks will increase instability and make the United States more inclined to be fascist, not the reverse.
They deserve it. Also, perhaps it will serve as an awakening to the indoctrinated public so that they will finally do something and help the people who have been speaking against corruption for years.
your contention is that every single person who watches pirated movies and listens to pirated music is someone who would not otherwise have purchased it
I'm sure that if you actually tried to understand what I was saying you wouldn't have arrived at this conclusion. Whether file sharers would or would not have bought the product is irrelevant to my entire point. My entire point is that even if they would have, the artist never even had their money in the first place. It is logically impossible to say that the artist lost this money because they never even had it! Not to mention that competition 'hurts' (at least by the "'loss' of potential future gain equates to harm" logic) businesses and people in the same way. If their competitors had not existed, people might have went to them instead. I even explained this in my post, but so many people ignore my points anyway.
Read this.
What you're talking about here is essentially your personal philosophy. It's a religious position you are taking concerning what you feel is right or wrong.
So is the way that society currently works.
It's a practical compact to encourage creative constructions which benefit society.
This is precisely what I'm saying is illogical. The system is fundamentally flawed if someone has to introduce artificial scarcity to turn a profit. The system is flawed if we have to criminalize many, many people for committing an act which logically hurts no one. This is what should be fixed, not file sharers.
I'm saying the problem lies somewhere else than where most people believe it lies.
They seek personal gain at others' loss
There is no loss. If you understood what copying is, you'd know that. 'Loss' of potential future gain also cannot equate to actual loss or harm because they never had said gain in the first place.
Elevating yourself to the position of god doesn't validate your beliefs.
Stating my opinion along with reasons that I believe what I do is elevating myself to the position of an entity that is often depicted to be a tyrant?
Perhaps you might explain better why you believe an artist should not have the right to distribute their own works.
Didn't I already explain this in my posts? Oh, well.
I believe that file sharing should be legal simply because the file sharers aren't doing any harm whatsoever. In order for harm to be done, the artist must lose something that they already had. File sharers aren't taking money away from the artist because the artist never had the file sharer's money in the first place. File sharers also aren't taking the product itself because they're merely copying it and everyone still has it. They also aren't wasting the artist's time because they never even interacted with them (time may have been used to make the product, but you must remember that that wasn't the file sharer's doing or their choice). 'Loss' of potential future gain can't equate to harm because again, they've lost nothing that they already had. If it could equate to harm, then everyone would be 'guilty' of inflicting this 'harm' upon others since you could do that merely by not giving another person all of their possessions (if you don't, they've 'lost' potential future gain).
I believe that instead of criminalizing the entire population for deeds which logically don't hurt anyone, we should instead fix (or try to) our broken capitalistic society which almost forces artists of digital media and other people to introduce artificial scarcity in order to turn a greater profit. The real question is: how? We certainly won't get there by continuing to believe the false assumption that file sharers are hurting others, that much I know for certain.
The difference is that not buying something is a simple choice--you choose not to give me something you value more (the money it would have cost) in exchange for something you value less (the music/film/software/whatever).
But using the logic of "loss of future gain equates to harm," they're still 'harming' them.
When you violate copyright, however, you are taking value (the product) without exchanging anything for it.
I don't think you understand. You're not taking anything. You're copying it.
Unless you are willing to argue that something must be tangible for ownership rules to apply (and think all the ramifications through before you claim you want this--it cuts both ways), then it's not fair to take something without providing a reasonable compensation for it.
This just makes it more clear. As I said, nothing was taken.
Instead, let's have a reasonable discussion where we accept that file sharing does cause actual monetary harm to a copyright holder, while still recognizing that the actual monetary harm is far less than the number of downloads x the cost of the commercial product.
I don't find that to be a reasonable discussion because I don't think that it's true. In order for monetary harm to be inflicted, they must lose something that they already had. You're looking at the wrong places for the source of the problem.
Think about it. Do you not think that the system is broken (or poorly thought out) if artists of digital media must introduce artificial scarcity in order to (presumably) turn a profit? Don't you think that the system is poorly thought out when people who logically aren't taking anything are criminalized merely because of the shortcomings of said system?
We don't need to 'fix' file sharers, we need to fix this illogical capitalistic society. Whether or not there is another solution is irrelevant. My point is that the current system needs drastic improvement, and criminalizing people who aren't hurting anyone isn't going to help the situation.
Oh wait, this is Slashdot. Reasonable discussion was never part of the picture...
As a human, you will likely insist you are correct even if you are not (not that I'm say that you're not, but your attitude of "I'm correct and you're not" is highly unsurprising).
The costs of writing and recording the music are paid before hand.
That's nice, but that wasn't his point. When you copy something, no one has lost anything due to that copying. In order for them to lose something, they must already have it in the first place. See my other post for more details.
You can't blame the file sharer because the company spent money to produce it. The file sharer had absolutely nothing to do with those costs. It was the company's own decision. That's like saying everyone should have to buy the music because the musician spent money to make it, even if they had nothing to do with that cost (that's essentially what the file sharer is doing: not paying them money to make up for losses that the file sharer didn't even inflict upon them in the first place).
Yes, companies are deprived of some profit.
What profit? In order to be deprived of something, logically, you must have it in the first place. They never had the profit that the file sharers would have given them if they didn't share the software, so they weren't deprived of anything. See this post.
If I was paid a minimal amount per-copy of my software sold, I might be a little more upset when I find one of my applications on a torrent site.
That's not surprising considering that many people tend to hold onto illogical beliefs if it benefits them personally. File sharers aren't actually taking anything. In order for them to be taking something ('loss' of 'right' to distribute their own works does not mean something was taken from them, because that's exactly the 'right' that I think shouldn't exist), when they copy, someone else must lose something that they already had. They didn't have the file sharer's money, so that wasn't stolen. The product was merely copied, so that wasn't stolen. The authors didn't even lose any time because of the pirate (it did take time to make the media, but that isn't the pirates' fault). Saying that 'loss' of future potential gain equates to harm is like saying that someone harmed me because they didn't give me all of their money, or that competition harms businesses because someone might choose to shop at a competitor's store. It would only be harm if they lost something that they already had. This simply isn't the case.
Who are you to tell me what I should consider a deterrent or not?
I'm a person, have free speech, and I'm giving you my opinion.
This is not trading a right to privacy for a false sense of security. This is trading a right to privacy for the privilege of fast travel to distant places.
I guess it is human nature to wait until things get far worse before acting. I think this is irresponsible and foolish, but...
I have met many people from that generation that are pretty much the same. They don't care about politics, they don't care about what corporations are doing to the Earth, they don't care about world issues. They just want to stick to their corporate people that want them to be "friends".
Let me introduce you to a majority of the human race: procrastination, stupidity, and sheep mentality galore!
Not enough of a deterrent for me
Any violation of your rights should be a deterrent for you. How is a false sense of security worth the loss of privacy? Choice or no, this is the government that's doing this (for very poor reasons), and while you don't have to use an airplane, oftentimes, I'm willing to bet that it's not really a choice for people tight on time.
And because most video game sales level off after the initial few weeks anyway, if it fools the 0-day groups
I don't know about this. Usually people who intend to pirate something wait until they have the ability to do so. There's certainly not very many pirates who would look at a game on its first release day and buy it simply because they can't pirate it quite yet.
and who gets my money
Well, considering the crackers probably aren't paid by you (or anyone), that one is quite obvious.
This was really the best move
The best move would be just to let people, regardless of age, buy games. Oh... you meant for them. Right. Probably.
Who's going to stop it?
Who's going to stop it now? The point is to at least try to minimize corruption. If anything, the people should, in theory, stop it.
And if it's not powerful enough to keep order
It never has been. They couldn't do anything at all if the majority wanted them gone now. They'd be completely and utterly outnumbered, even with their little pawns.
That's why neither the government nor the people should have absolute power, but the people should have more than they do now. For instance, the people couldn't vote to strip away rights from the minority even if the majority wanted it. Checks and balances don't need to vanish, and the government could still keep power over certain areas. That would probably eliminate at least some of the corruption if done correctly, and completely unjust laws that violated the rights of the minority couldn't be passed.
You've got a point. Potential government corruption isn't important at all, especially for that government's citizens. Television shows and shopping are far more important!
How about parents just stop their kids from playing age-unsuitable games in the first place?
Why? They just said that they couldn't find any link between violent video games and violence. What's the point of limiting the amount of games they can play for no reason? This is the idiocy I'm talking about. This "protect the children" mentality makes me absolutely sick because more than half the time there's nothing to protect them from.
How about instead of that, they just let them view these works of fiction and treat them as they treat every other 'suitable' work of fiction? 99% of children know that fictional works are fiction, and if they somehow don't, their parents can just, you know, be parents and explain to them that it's fiction. That would make more logical sense than keeping them in a bubble.
I mean, that's what a rating is for.
For people who believe everyone is just a movie away from becoming a killer? Probably.
Did you look at the game's page?
Yes.
It's all copied, not just "imitated".
Well, when I made that comment I was thinking of copy as in actually directly copying another games' resources.
I can definitely see where the problems arise, though (even though I disagree with them). It's heavily uninspired and pretty pointless.
From the looks of it, that's exactly what he did. Imitated but not copied. All of the work is his, even though it is similar.
It's not a small minority, it's practically unheard of.
It is? I didn't know it was such an impossible task, sorry!
It's not just reading up on the material, it's making connections to other materials and properly predicting what the rest of the material that you haven't yet seen is likely to say.
Okay. An intelligent person couldn't do that why exactly?
Even amongst individuals that are brilliant or have advanced degrees it's pretty rare for a person to legitimately be able to do that without help.
Even if you believe that, such people still exist, yes?
Because otherwise you'd understand why certain materials are hard to come by.
You must've missed my point about there having to be a sizable amount of quality information on a subject before self teaching can commence.
Other than that it's also not particularly worth putting the information online as by the time you're dealing with PhD level research there's maybe a dozen people in the world that really understand the topic of the study.
Spreading information is always worthwhile, even if it's only for a few people. I also really doubt that in a world with more than six billion people, there's only a dozen that can use such information. Just because you haven't heard of it doesn't mean these people don't exist or they're extremely rare (or that they exist).
Anybody that's capable of teaching oneself already does that.
Probably. When did I say otherwise?
Having a vast amount of information available means that it's less likely that you'll actually learn anything as a result of information overload and an inability to filter out the crap from the stuff that's actually correct.
Yes, because when I mentioned a vast amount of information I was referring to a mix of correct and incorrect information.
There is indeed an assurance involved, that's why employers take applicants with a degree from an accredited institution of higher learning over those that don't have a degree or have one from an institution which isn't accredited.
There is? That's odd. I didn't know it was 100% certain that someone with a degree knew what they were talking about! Here I thought it only increased the likelihood of that! Silly me.
It doesn't matter how much quality information is out there when mixed in with bunk and unfortunately the bunk often times looks as real as the stuff which is real. Just look at all the crap which passes for medical research if you want to know what I mean.
It does matter how much quality information is out there. Seriously, do you think I was talking about subjects that have a mix of correct and incorrect information? No. I obviously meant a situation where quality information was supplied and maintained.
Double checking doesn't work you have the problem of the chicken and the egg, you have to know what's right before you can double check it.
Maybe it doesn't filter out all incorrect information, but if an expert on the subject verifies its correctness, then I'd say there's a very good chance that it's correct. I didn't mean search google and then pull up the first website you see, it has to be credible.
At what point did I argue that any information should be unavailable to people who are interested in it?
You didn't... and I never said you did. I was merely stating that it should be available. There's at least some people capable of doing so, and if self teaching is what is best for them, then I think it's great that they have that option.
The problem in the USA today isn't a lack of quality teaching and quality schools or even a lack of quality curriculum.
This, too. I feel that schools need to focus more on what you actually need (in high school), and not on things that they merely think you'll need in the future. Instead of making you attend a bunch of classes that you won't need for your desired profession, they should (again, in high school) let you choose the classes that matter to you. Early on you can be taught the absolute basics. Forcing them to attend classes of every subject isn't helping them because you forget things that you don't need surprisingly quickly, and you'd have to relearn it anyway. Not only that, but people would likely be able to put more effort into subjects that actually matter to them.
Feel-good programs where everyone gets a prize and self-directed learning isn't going to make the kind of change that is needed.
Maybe not, but it will allow people who are capable of teaching themselves to do just that. More options are always nice, even if those options don't suit everyone.