Re:It's like a free ride when you've already paid.
on
GTA: San Andreas Leaked
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Thanks for the comments. The reason that the third option exist and is valid is simply "by default". If we start in a tabula rasa society, there is no reason why you can't copy something. The old principle of "whatever I do in my house is my business". For copying to be wrong, there must be a reason, if there aren't, it is right.
And as for the reasons, the best that the copyright advocates can come up with is that "companies have the right to profit", which is obviously baloney (even though in present-day USA some agree with that shit). Most other arguments are fallacies - "copying = theft", "what if nobody paid for software", etc.
1) My bank account is not really secret. I would be glad to send it to you - the only thing you would be able to do without my photo ID (and my face) or my password/key for Internet banking would be to send me money - which would be nice.:) 2) I don't have an SSN since I don't live in the US. 3) You can copy most of what I have on my computer because I share it on P2P. I don't share some really boring stuff (which noone really wants), business files and personal files. Business files are covered under different laws (they are trade secrets) and personal files under privacy laws. These are things very distinct from copyright, so I do mind you copying them. Copying my movies, mp3s, porn, old student essays, etc. would be ok. 4) BTW, breaking into computers is covered by separate laws and is illegal even if you don't copy anything. 5) You see, I don't have an obligation to support those companies. I can use the same logic and say - if you don't pay money to company X, it will go out of business. So please open your wallet and pay them. But this is not logic - this is extortion. First, game developers will be all right without my money. Second, some people don't really care about it that much. If commercial game developers disappear, they would play open source games, or classic games, whatever... Third, in the unlikely case that everyone stopped paying and commercial developers did go out of business, I would reconsider and start buying games (even though I am quite poor by most standards). 6) Additional copies of food cost additional money. If they didn't, it would be just like with software. 7) Making a copy is not the same as taking.
This is a mistake. Making something available for a lower price doesn't necessarily lower its value, especially if it's made available to a small group of people who were not likely to buy "it" at the normal price. When developers of 3D Studio Max make demo versions available to the students they do it because it doesn't really hurt them (they wouldn't do it if it did decreased the value of 3D Max, would they?) - the students were not likely to buy the product anyway. Same when Russian people buy pirated Windows.
Yes, but simply because it was the cheapest solution. When you are dealing with small apartments that you can cross in less than a minute, an infrared marker is the easiest thing to do. It would be silly to slap AI and navigational node networks on that robovac, simply to impress the geeks. The KISS principle guaranteed they can make a popular product - they will improve it as time goes.
Well, at least move to Western Europe. The labour market must be pretty shitty in Estonia, Slovakia, Poland, or wherether you live right now. People in developed countries (and most of the old EU countries are developed) earn about 10 times that.
It is legal. In fact, it would be legal even if you haven't had it paid for. Downloading games (and buying pirated copies) is very often legal. It's uploading them (or selling pirated copies) that is prohibited by copyright laws.
Oh, so he is participating in some profit-sharing scheme? Or is he being paid the salary like all good programmers are. If it's the latter, I don't think it makes any difference whether we pirate the game or not.
P.S. In any case, most of those who pirate do it because they are not rich enough to buy the game. If they can afford 3 games per year, they buy these 3 games and who is harmed if they also pirate 10 more?
Only if it's implemented by the developers. There is nothing that prevents EA, MS or another gaming powerhouse from creating their own DRM content-delivery system. Judging from Valve's relative success (lack of immediate failure), I can say that you don't need more than 5 titles to make it work.
I just love that we have these great news for PC gaming. It turns out that XBox and PlayStation 2 games are not immune to piracy. Hopefully these well-publicised reports will make some publishers wary of this tired "no piracy" argument for console platforms.
I think we need an addition to the lameness filter. It should restrict people from using words "steal", "theft" or "thief/thieves" in discussions where the writeup mentions "piracy" or "copyright".
Re:It's like a free ride when you've already paid.
on
GTA: San Andreas Leaked
·
· Score: -1, Troll
Suppose everyone obtained their copy from a friend instead of buying it...
Yeah, yeah, yeah... Suppose your grandma had a cock - then she would have been a granddad, wouldn't she? We are talking real world here, not some imaginary netherland. And in real world games are made and they are sold. You can't harm Electronic Arts, Adobe or Microsoft by pirating their products, no matter how much you try.
Copyright is a rather artificial construct. It's also rather old, so most people don't remember the reasons for its existence.
Answer: because it still takes money to create the work, and publishers should be able to make a profit on it. Nope. Publishers should not be able to do anything. It's that people should be able to get more public domain games, and copyright might influence publishers into funding more such games (that become public domain after the copyright expires). Developers and publishers have no right to profit, not right at all, except in as much as customers will voluntarily pay them. If I don't want to support Rockstar, this is not your business, this is not govenment's, FBI's or BSA's business - this is strictly between me and Rockstar - I either pay them or I don't.
Only a communist would demand that publishers and artists work for nothing... and that is what you are demanding when you state that it is OK to copy software.
First, there is nothing wrong with communism. There was a thriving community of authors, film directors, musicians, etc. in the Soviet Union. Not surprisingly, everyone in the world could legally copy their work for free, just like USSR was able to freely copy and publish foreign works.
Second, noone "demands" that Rockstar works (BTW, why you keep saying that publishers work - are you "working" for one?) for free. It's free market - they can work if they believe they can sell enough copies. If they can't, they don't have too. But please, don't demand that I pay money to publishers and artists - I don't necessarily give a shit about them.
Of course there are reasons why copying actually helps rather than hurts: people can have a free preview, it's like free advertising for the publisher, etc. etc. But if you copy something and continue to use it, I have no problems calling you a thief of the artist and of those who paid for their legitimate copy.
All reasons you list are irrelevant. People may copy products simply because it helps THEM. Everyone should have free access to knowledge, art and other types of information for free and without artificial limitations. This has nothing to do with being a thief - after all, aren't you stealing the letters from the Latin alphabet, you cleptolingo scum?
I don't play by your rules, thank you very much. If I don't have the means to buy it, but need it, I will copy it. And before you ask, I won't steal a TV from the store, because that would be theft and would deprive someone of that TV.
No, copying software is OK because there is no reason for it not to be OK, except for the law that you may freely disagree with. There is nothing wrong with copying software, because there never was anything. If someone wants to argue otherwise, they need proof. What exactly is bad about copying software? That developers are not getting paid? First, they are, and second, they can get another job. That no new games are made? Well, only that a lot of games are made and games improve every year. That it is wrong to get something for free? Well, whoever says it, please shove that capitalistic crap back into your ass, because I respectfully disagree.
Summary: Copying software is not theft and there is simply nothing wrong with it.
If the lighting conditions stink, you can't make a good picture with flash anyway. Even if we are talking about decent stand-alone cameras. I'd rather make a pic with less exposure (more noise), but decent colors and more natural lighting.
And, adding to this, there have been studies too about comparing medical robots with surgeons. Of course, it was for some very limited applications only, but after surgery done by robots there were less complications and the recovery time was shorter. Sorry, I can't give you a reference, but just trust me.:)
Actually robovacs develop very quickly. It is true that the first versions were basically suck-and-bump, but newer models often have rudimentary navigation based on infrared sensors (they do build a mental map of the room) and most newer robots (including Aibos) can locate the charger (the most important feature for their autonomy). The newest Roomba can "see" dirt underneath and understand in which areas it needs to suck most, so to speak.
Why so pessimistic? How about Wikis (integrated wikis, that is), blogs and anonymous file-sharing like I2P? How about VoIP thrown in for free? All of this on a free Linux desktop? Still worried? How about flat-rate boradband pervasive 3G/WiFi Internet access? Feel better now?
This is just as irrelevant as the number of files in an application. It's lines of code (nucleotid pairs) that is important, not how many groups of them (genes) are there. And of course, there is a lot of DNA code that is reused (same genes or parts of them are used to encode different proteins).
Actually most military simulations suck nowadays in terms of technical sofistication and (alas!) graphics. So there is no useful tech here that an RTS developer would want. If Creative Assembly, EA or Blizzard were making games for Linux-based supercomputers, they would beat these JFCom guys easily. The fact is that a) they design for desktop computers and b) they need a balanced product with graphics and gameplay. There is nothing magical about simulating 100,000 objects. Rome: Total War easily does 2000 on a desktop, with much better graphics and with no horses overlapping an elephant. LOTR: Battle for Middle-Earth will do about the same.
If the United States wanted, it could. If Bush said (yeah, impossible, I know, but bear with me anyway) and Congress approved it (and American people at the referendum) that in 10 years the military budget will be decreased 95% and a detailed plan for this drawn out, this would be a strong enough argument to persuade other global powers (EU, Japan, Russia, China) to do the same. Then, together these countries could manage to persuade "rogue states" such as Iran or North Korea to follow suit, and give what limited power (police more than military) would be left to the (reformed) United Nations.
The problem is that the world "leaders" (or shall we call them "world hindrances") are mostly rather stupid (Bush may not be the total moron he looks like, but he is clearly not intelligent). Powerful and rich don't mean smart. Most leaders simply don't see a world without wars and don't understand why it would be good, so they don't try to achieve it. Hopefully, the technological progress will make them obsolete as we will gradually destroy the need for nation states and even societies.
May be you need to learn basic math? The result predicted by theory was 2.02 meters. Their measurement was 2 meters, but this is just an estimate and the correct result (real) should be between 1.8 and 2.2 meters (with a probability of something, such as 95 or 99% - not mentioned in the article).
According to current results, the theory may be correct (may be even "is likely to be"). But of course, we need more precise measurements.
This is not exactly true. First, in most large cities you can buy licensed music and movies in large chains. If you want boxed games (licensed, as opposed to jewels that are usually pirated), you can buy it in many computer stores. You can also order licensed CDs/DVDs online very easily (payment in cash to the courier).
Broadband penetration is not high, that's true (though this is typed over an ASDL connection), but you don't need anything more than dial-up for music downloads. And there is nothing wrong with pulse-dialing (though a large fraction of phone stations are digital and work with tone-dialing just fine).
This is not stealing - it's refusing to give money to some particular rich bastards. The intellectual property right is a social construct. Speaking of which, even the property right is a social construct and there is nothing inherently wrong with stealing from rich. Speaking of which, don't expect private property to remain for more than a few decades now. In 2050 there won't be any. Those people who buy pirated CDs are just more forward-looking.
No. It's basically "It's okay to steal the leftovers from the trashcan if you are hungry". These people do not deprive anyone of anything, not even potential profits.
Also please note that 240$ is the average salary, but Russian society has very uneven distribution of income today. The decile (sp?) coefficient for Moscow (incomes of top 10% divided by incomes of bottom 10%) is greater than 40 and is more than 15 in Russia overall.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks for the comments. The reason that the third option exist and is valid is simply "by default". If we start in a tabula rasa society, there is no reason why you can't copy something. The old principle of "whatever I do in my house is my business". For copying to be wrong, there must be a reason, if there aren't, it is right.
And as for the reasons, the best that the copyright advocates can come up with is that "companies have the right to profit", which is obviously baloney (even though in present-day USA some agree with that shit). Most other arguments are fallacies - "copying = theft", "what if nobody paid for software", etc.
1) My bank account is not really secret. I would be glad to send it to you - the only thing you would be able to do without my photo ID (and my face) or my password/key for Internet banking would be to send me money - which would be nice. :)
2) I don't have an SSN since I don't live in the US.
3) You can copy most of what I have on my computer because I share it on P2P. I don't share some really boring stuff (which noone really wants), business files and personal files. Business files are covered under different laws (they are trade secrets) and personal files under privacy laws. These are things very distinct from copyright, so I do mind you copying them. Copying my movies, mp3s, porn, old student essays, etc. would be ok.
4) BTW, breaking into computers is covered by separate laws and is illegal even if you don't copy anything.
5) You see, I don't have an obligation to support those companies. I can use the same logic and say - if you don't pay money to company X, it will go out of business. So please open your wallet and pay them. But this is not logic - this is extortion. First, game developers will be all right without my money. Second, some people don't really care about it that much. If commercial game developers disappear, they would play open source games, or classic games, whatever... Third, in the unlikely case that everyone stopped paying and commercial developers did go out of business, I would reconsider and start buying games (even though I am quite poor by most standards).
6) Additional copies of food cost additional money. If they didn't, it would be just like with software.
7) Making a copy is not the same as taking.
This is a mistake. Making something available for a lower price doesn't necessarily lower its value, especially if it's made available to a small group of people who were not likely to buy "it" at the normal price. When developers of 3D Studio Max make demo versions available to the students they do it because it doesn't really hurt them (they wouldn't do it if it did decreased the value of 3D Max, would they?) - the students were not likely to buy the product anyway. Same when Russian people buy pirated Windows.
Yes, but simply because it was the cheapest solution. When you are dealing with small apartments that you can cross in less than a minute, an infrared marker is the easiest thing to do. It would be silly to slap AI and navigational node networks on that robovac, simply to impress the geeks. The KISS principle guaranteed they can make a popular product - they will improve it as time goes.
Well, at least move to Western Europe. The labour market must be pretty shitty in Estonia, Slovakia, Poland, or wherether you live right now. People in developed countries (and most of the old EU countries are developed) earn about 10 times that.
It is legal. In fact, it would be legal even if you haven't had it paid for. Downloading games (and buying pirated copies) is very often legal. It's uploading them (or selling pirated copies) that is prohibited by copyright laws.
Oh, so he is participating in some profit-sharing scheme? Or is he being paid the salary like all good programmers are. If it's the latter, I don't think it makes any difference whether we pirate the game or not.
P.S. In any case, most of those who pirate do it because they are not rich enough to buy the game. If they can afford 3 games per year, they buy these 3 games and who is harmed if they also pirate 10 more?
Only if it's implemented by the developers. There is nothing that prevents EA, MS or another gaming powerhouse from creating their own DRM content-delivery system. Judging from Valve's relative success (lack of immediate failure), I can say that you don't need more than 5 titles to make it work.
I just love that we have these great news for PC gaming. It turns out that XBox and PlayStation 2 games are not immune to piracy. Hopefully these well-publicised reports will make some publishers wary of this tired "no piracy" argument for console platforms.
I think we need an addition to the lameness filter. It should restrict people from using words "steal", "theft" or "thief/thieves" in discussions where the writeup mentions "piracy" or "copyright".
Suppose everyone obtained their copy from a friend instead of buying it...
Yeah, yeah, yeah... Suppose your grandma had a cock - then she would have been a granddad, wouldn't she? We are talking real world here, not some imaginary netherland. And in real world games are made and they are sold. You can't harm Electronic Arts, Adobe or Microsoft by pirating their products, no matter how much you try.
Copyright is a rather artificial construct.
It's also rather old, so most people don't remember the reasons for its existence.
Answer: because it still takes money to create the work, and publishers should be able to make a profit on it.
Nope. Publishers should not be able to do anything. It's that people should be able to get more public domain games, and copyright might influence publishers into funding more such games (that become public domain after the copyright expires). Developers and publishers have no right to profit, not right at all, except in as much as customers will voluntarily pay them. If I don't want to support Rockstar, this is not your business, this is not govenment's, FBI's or BSA's business - this is strictly between me and Rockstar - I either pay them or I don't.
Only a communist would demand that publishers and artists work for nothing... and that is what you are demanding when you state that it is OK to copy software.
First, there is nothing wrong with communism. There was a thriving community of authors, film directors, musicians, etc. in the Soviet Union. Not surprisingly, everyone in the world could legally copy their work for free, just like USSR was able to freely copy and publish foreign works.
Second, noone "demands" that Rockstar works (BTW, why you keep saying that publishers work - are you "working" for one?) for free. It's free market - they can work if they believe they can sell enough copies. If they can't, they don't have too. But please, don't demand that I pay money to publishers and artists - I don't necessarily give a shit about them.
Of course there are reasons why copying actually helps rather than hurts: people can have a free preview, it's like free advertising for the publisher, etc. etc. But if you copy something and continue to use it, I have no problems calling you a thief of the artist and of those who paid for their legitimate copy.
All reasons you list are irrelevant. People may copy products simply because it helps THEM. Everyone should have free access to knowledge, art and other types of information for free and without artificial limitations. This has nothing to do with being a thief - after all, aren't you stealing the letters from the Latin alphabet, you cleptolingo scum?
OK, I'll bite.
Bite me instead.
I don't play by your rules, thank you very much. If I don't have the means to buy it, but need it, I will copy it. And before you ask, I won't steal a TV from the store, because that would be theft and would deprive someone of that TV.
No, copying software is OK because there is no reason for it not to be OK, except for the law that you may freely disagree with. There is nothing wrong with copying software, because there never was anything. If someone wants to argue otherwise, they need proof. What exactly is bad about copying software? That developers are not getting paid? First, they are, and second, they can get another job. That no new games are made? Well, only that a lot of games are made and games improve every year. That it is wrong to get something for free? Well, whoever says it, please shove that capitalistic crap back into your ass, because I respectfully disagree.
Summary: Copying software is not theft and there is simply nothing wrong with it.
If the lighting conditions stink, you can't make a good picture with flash anyway. Even if we are talking about decent stand-alone cameras. I'd rather make a pic with less exposure (more noise), but decent colors and more natural lighting.
And, adding to this, there have been studies too about comparing medical robots with surgeons. Of course, it was for some very limited applications only, but after surgery done by robots there were less complications and the recovery time was shorter. Sorry, I can't give you a reference, but just trust me. :)
Actually robovacs develop very quickly. It is true that the first versions were basically suck-and-bump, but newer models often have rudimentary navigation based on infrared sensors (they do build a mental map of the room) and most newer robots (including Aibos) can locate the charger (the most important feature for their autonomy). The newest Roomba can "see" dirt underneath and understand in which areas it needs to suck most, so to speak.
Why so pessimistic? How about Wikis (integrated wikis, that is), blogs and anonymous file-sharing like I2P? How about VoIP thrown in for free? All of this on a free Linux desktop? Still worried? How about flat-rate boradband pervasive 3G/WiFi Internet access? Feel better now?
This is just as irrelevant as the number of files in an application. It's lines of code (nucleotid pairs) that is important, not how many groups of them (genes) are there. And of course, there is a lot of DNA code that is reused (same genes or parts of them are used to encode different proteins).
Actually most military simulations suck nowadays in terms of technical sofistication and (alas!) graphics. So there is no useful tech here that an RTS developer would want. If Creative Assembly, EA or Blizzard were making games for Linux-based supercomputers, they would beat these JFCom guys easily. The fact is that a) they design for desktop computers and b) they need a balanced product with graphics and gameplay. There is nothing magical about simulating 100,000 objects. Rome: Total War easily does 2000 on a desktop, with much better graphics and with no horses overlapping an elephant. LOTR: Battle for Middle-Earth will do about the same.
Then how do you model bottlenecks in the road system?
If the United States wanted, it could. If Bush said (yeah, impossible, I know, but bear with me anyway) and Congress approved it (and American people at the referendum) that in 10 years the military budget will be decreased 95% and a detailed plan for this drawn out, this would be a strong enough argument to persuade other global powers (EU, Japan, Russia, China) to do the same. Then, together these countries could manage to persuade "rogue states" such as Iran or North Korea to follow suit, and give what limited power (police more than military) would be left to the (reformed) United Nations.
The problem is that the world "leaders" (or shall we call them "world hindrances") are mostly rather stupid (Bush may not be the total moron he looks like, but he is clearly not intelligent). Powerful and rich don't mean smart. Most leaders simply don't see a world without wars and don't understand why it would be good, so they don't try to achieve it. Hopefully, the technological progress will make them obsolete as we will gradually destroy the need for nation states and even societies.
May be you need to learn basic math? The result predicted by theory was 2.02 meters. Their measurement was 2 meters, but this is just an estimate and the correct result (real) should be between 1.8 and 2.2 meters (with a probability of something, such as 95 or 99% - not mentioned in the article).
According to current results, the theory may be correct (may be even "is likely to be"). But of course, we need more precise measurements.
This is not exactly true. First, in most large cities you can buy licensed music and movies in large chains. If you want boxed games (licensed, as opposed to jewels that are usually pirated), you can buy it in many computer stores. You can also order licensed CDs/DVDs online very easily (payment in cash to the courier).
Broadband penetration is not high, that's true (though this is typed over an ASDL connection), but you don't need anything more than dial-up for music downloads. And there is nothing wrong with pulse-dialing (though a large fraction of phone stations are digital and work with tone-dialing just fine).
This is not stealing - it's refusing to give money to some particular rich bastards. The intellectual property right is a social construct. Speaking of which, even the property right is a social construct and there is nothing inherently wrong with stealing from rich. Speaking of which, don't expect private property to remain for more than a few decades now. In 2050 there won't be any. Those people who buy pirated CDs are just more forward-looking.
No. It's basically "It's okay to steal the leftovers from the trashcan if you are hungry". These people do not deprive anyone of anything, not even potential profits.
Also please note that 240$ is the average salary, but Russian society has very uneven distribution of income today. The decile (sp?) coefficient for Moscow (incomes of top 10% divided by incomes of bottom 10%) is greater than 40 and is more than 15 in Russia overall.