I've been theoretically able to download... pretty much everything actually... that's been out in the cinemas for the last several years.
I've still got a big stack of cinema tickets, and DVDs that I have paid real money for.
There's people who will not go to the cinema because they can't afford the price, and might download it to watch it instead. But... that's more a matter of them not having the money - they wouldn't be going if they _couldn't_ download it either.
*shrug*.
There's circular arguments here - people who pirate something wouldn't necessarily have paid for it. People who paid for something might well have been able to pirate it instead. It's virtually impossible to tell just how much of an impact these factors have on the overall takings of a release.
I really do think the industry needs to rethink it's model - it's necessary to connect money with product, because those 100mil budget films don't make themselves. The problem is linking sale of physical item with it, is no longer as coherent as it could be.
People pay for the cinema, not because they couldn't pirate it, but because they want the experience.
Copyright infringement is illegal. So's theft. So for that matter is rape, assault and arson.
But being illegal, doesn't make them the same thing - and very specifically all the people who insist 'piracy is theft' are entirely incorrect. It's no more theft than it is murder.
We grade our legal system, because we do recognise there's a difference between killing someone, sexually assaulting his children and then burning his house to the ground, and freeloading off his wireless broadband.
It's a question of _how_ illegal - when an item is pirated, then the original owner has LOST NOTHING in someone doing it, apart from some esoteric measure of 'possibly lost sales', which relies on certain assumptions as to how many people would have paid for it if they _couldn't_ have pirated it.
It's tenuous, but a valid grievance to protest this. But proving that piracy harmed your business, is a lot harder than outright lying, and demonising everyone who does it, in the hopes that you'll get a prosecution to stick.
The difference is quite clear - the definition of 'theft' includes the text 'with intent to permanently deprive'. If it's electronic, almost by definition it cannot be 'theft' ever. (even copying something, and deleting the original is closer to copyright infringement + vandalism, than it is to theft)
I'm more curious as to what they think they'll achieve by limiting a civilian provider? I mean, sattelite launches aren't exactly expensive in the context of a nation state, so anyone who's interested in spying will almost certainly already have their own sattelites up.
No we don't. A monopoly is when someone has control over a market. That would imply that other people couldn't launch their own sattelites for taking photos - which they can.
You seem to have confused 'could care less' with 'couldn't care less'.
I feel the need to point out that "n't" is a "not" operator, which negates the logical meaning of your sentence. It literally changes what you mean to the opposite.
I don't pirate stuff any more really. My view has shifted, in that if a game is worth my time playing, it's worth my time paying for. (And in turn, if I don't feel it's worth the purchase price, I ask myself why I'm wasting my time playing).
But to this day I'm offended by the fact that my game collection does annoying things, like REQUIRE me to have a CD in the drive, or to have the SecuRom rootkit messing with my stuff. I can, hand on heart say I've a stack of legitimately bought games on my system. I regularly play several of them still, and I do own the whole lot, fair and square.
But it just rankles somewhat, that I'm the one putting up with 'oh you must have the CD to play Civ4' where if I had actually pirated it, that would be a non issue.
It's not that hard to pretend those words on the screen are just that, and not really people at all.
In fact I'm doing that right now. I know you're all bots, and there's a really complicated rule system for how Karma is gained and lost, based upon keywords and context of a post. But I'll figure it out one day, and ALL my posts will be +5 Troll. Oh yes.
If you are one of the few who's downloading legal distributions, then you are in the vast minority.
However the fact that you mention a lot of movies and TV shows seems to hint strongly at it - I mean, I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, this being slashdot, but as far as I'm aware none of the major distributors have decided to move into the online distribution market yet.
Just so. If I pull the SIM out of my mobile, I can still dial 112 or 999. And get an emergency operator. But even with the SIM in, I can't make calls if there's no coverage;p
Of course they can soak up some outliers. They're almost certainly using a business model where they end up paying per Gb - in some cases directly, and in others indirectly by having to provision infrastructure. That's why there's contention, and why individual usage matters less than average usage.
But therein lies the trick. You squelch the top of the chart outliers. Ideally in such a way as it annoys and frustrates them into moving on, without quite getting as far as 'proper' breach of contract arguments. When they leave, your average drops, effectively increasing your profit for your entire customer base.
Which is a win for the ISP, and strictly speaking a win for most of the rest of their customer base too.
So basically, you 'spend' most of your bandwidth on copyright infringement then? Seems like there is basis to the assertion that 25Gb/month is fine then.
In principle, I don't object to the concept of a constrained, but cheaper service.
In practice, I don't want to have to count the number of bytes coming into my computer, especially when some of those come from sources I didn't anticipate - e.g. spammers sending me large mails, or stupidly large adverts embedded in websites.
My major objection however, is to the fact that ISPs will, generally speaking, sell you '8Mb ADSL', and have contention and bandwidth caps in the small print.
Thing is, most of the 'caps' are 'unofficial' caps. We got quite annoyed by an ISP ninja-editing a fair use policy, telling us we were violating it, and then cranking up our bandwidth contention so our service moved to 'unacceptably bad'.
Slashdot Mirror
We know this already.
Personally I think ... brb checking email
I've still got a big stack of cinema tickets, and DVDs that I have paid real money for.
There's people who will not go to the cinema because they can't afford the price, and might download it to watch it instead. But ... that's more a matter of them not having the money - they wouldn't be going if they _couldn't_ download it either.
*shrug*.
There's circular arguments here - people who pirate something wouldn't necessarily have paid for it. People who paid for something might well have been able to pirate it instead. It's virtually impossible to tell just how much of an impact these factors have on the overall takings of a release.
I really do think the industry needs to rethink it's model - it's necessary to connect money with product, because those 100mil budget films don't make themselves. The problem is linking sale of physical item with it, is no longer as coherent as it could be.
People pay for the cinema, not because they couldn't pirate it, but because they want the experience.
But being illegal, doesn't make them the same thing - and very specifically all the people who insist 'piracy is theft' are entirely incorrect. It's no more theft than it is murder.
We grade our legal system, because we do recognise there's a difference between killing someone, sexually assaulting his children and then burning his house to the ground, and freeloading off his wireless broadband.
It's a question of _how_ illegal - when an item is pirated, then the original owner has LOST NOTHING in someone doing it, apart from some esoteric measure of 'possibly lost sales', which relies on certain assumptions as to how many people would have paid for it if they _couldn't_ have pirated it.
It's tenuous, but a valid grievance to protest this. But proving that piracy harmed your business, is a lot harder than outright lying, and demonising everyone who does it, in the hopes that you'll get a prosecution to stick.
The difference is quite clear - the definition of 'theft' includes the text 'with intent to permanently deprive'. If it's electronic, almost by definition it cannot be 'theft' ever. (even copying something, and deleting the original is closer to copyright infringement + vandalism, than it is to theft)
Stephen Hawking, Rule 34: Go go go.
Local Loop Unbundling is making that better. Companies like 'be' for example, aren't reselling BT bandwidth. There's not many, but ...
Would you vote for a politician who said he'd commit 6bn to make the country a world leader in highspeed data?
Personally, I think this is an excellent use of taxpayer money - we are a tech and services economy, so let's play to our strengths, shall we?
Better use than money on refurbishing iraq as the worlds largest carpark at any rate.
Well, I guess this'll make getting a job at Google interesting...
I'm more curious as to what they think they'll achieve by limiting a civilian provider? I mean, sattelite launches aren't exactly expensive in the context of a nation state, so anyone who's interested in spying will almost certainly already have their own sattelites up.
No. But there is an international reference metre.
Death rays don't need reloads.
No we don't. A monopoly is when someone has control over a market. That would imply that other people couldn't launch their own sattelites for taking photos - which they can.
I feel the need to point out that "n't" is a "not" operator, which negates the logical meaning of your sentence. It literally changes what you mean to the opposite.
http://incompetech.com/gallimaufry/care_less.html for a lovely png of the 'care continuum'.
But to this day I'm offended by the fact that my game collection does annoying things, like REQUIRE me to have a CD in the drive, or to have the SecuRom rootkit messing with my stuff. I can, hand on heart say I've a stack of legitimately bought games on my system. I regularly play several of them still, and I do own the whole lot, fair and square.
But it just rankles somewhat, that I'm the one putting up with 'oh you must have the CD to play Civ4' where if I had actually pirated it, that would be a non issue.
Costing them money, and costing them so much money that they commit suicide is only a difference in effectiveness of the scam, surely?
In fact I'm doing that right now. I know you're all bots, and there's a really complicated rule system for how Karma is gained and lost, based upon keywords and context of a post. But I'll figure it out one day, and ALL my posts will be +5 Troll. Oh yes.
However the fact that you mention a lot of movies and TV shows seems to hint strongly at it - I mean, I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, this being slashdot, but as far as I'm aware none of the major distributors have decided to move into the online distribution market yet.
It's so people don't park on their heads.
Just so. If I pull the SIM out of my mobile, I can still dial 112 or 999. And get an emergency operator. But even with the SIM in, I can't make calls if there's no coverage ;p
You should be ashamed.
There comes a point where subsidising idiocy is counterproductive.
But therein lies the trick. You squelch the top of the chart outliers. Ideally in such a way as it annoys and frustrates them into moving on, without quite getting as far as 'proper' breach of contract arguments. When they leave, your average drops, effectively increasing your profit for your entire customer base.
Which is a win for the ISP, and strictly speaking a win for most of the rest of their customer base too.
So basically, you 'spend' most of your bandwidth on copyright infringement then? Seems like there is basis to the assertion that 25Gb/month is fine then.
In practice, I don't want to have to count the number of bytes coming into my computer, especially when some of those come from sources I didn't anticipate - e.g. spammers sending me large mails, or stupidly large adverts embedded in websites.
My major objection however, is to the fact that ISPs will, generally speaking, sell you '8Mb ADSL', and have contention and bandwidth caps in the small print.
Thing is, most of the 'caps' are 'unofficial' caps. We got quite annoyed by an ISP ninja-editing a fair use policy, telling us we were violating it, and then cranking up our bandwidth contention so our service moved to 'unacceptably bad'.