No worries, David... I wasn't meaning to include you in the pro-piracy crowd (in fact, we haven't met until now). Thanks for speaking up for the anti-anti-piracy crowd. Does anybody want to chime in to represent the anti-anti-anti-piracy crowd?
No matter what crowd you're in: the mods, the rockers, the mockers, the greasers, the bloods, the crips, the AARP, the "time cube" guy, people who are still coding in Simula 67, the sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, waistoids, dweebies, dickheads -- you're probably against DRM, too, and you probably agree that Ferris Bueller is a righteous dude. But my point remains that the pro-piracy crowd is one of its biggest opponents.
...if you've ever found yourself saying (or typing) something like:
"The record companies don't get it. I pirate because music costs too much."
"The secret to reducing piracy is charging a fair and reasonable price. $0.99 a track isn't."
"I'll stop pirating when tracks are $0.25 each. Anything more is robbery, plain and simple."
"When will the record companies listen? Reduce prices... don't try to sue pirates."
"Why should I pay money to support some millionaire musician's lifestyle? They have enough money."
Even if you've never written the above, you've probably read it here on/., on a daily basis.
Well, there you have it. Maybe the pirates are right, and music does have to be $0.25 a track. And (statistics aside), perhaps artists do make too much. Either way, right or wrong... the pirates have spoken: music costs too much. Artists are overpaid. So sayeth the pirates, and they're a mighty force.
The pro-piracy crowd has been one of the biggest opponents of DRM. And the record labels are listening... DRM is becoming less restrictive and going away. The pro-piracy crowd has bemoaned the lack of selection on the legal stores vs. what's available on P2P. Apple listened... their catalog is now in the tens of millions.
Perhaps retailers like Apple, and the record labels are listening to the pirates yet again. Along with feeling the heat from Amazon, they're capitulating to demands that music prices be lowered. I don't think we'll see $0.25 in our lifetimes (so, many people will opt to continue to pirate), but cutting costs will make it easier to sustain $0.79.
And if you're one of the folks who pirate because your perception of artists is that they are overpaid millionaires... then this may be good news to you even if it doesn't result in lower prices.
"Sure, they're blocking traffic to that specific tracker, but that doesn't really fix the "issue". Torrent trackers are like hydras, cut off one, and two will grow back in its place. Focusing on TPB will not end piracy via torrents, just as shutting down the original nova didn't over a year ago, and all the other trackers that have been closed down in between."
This sounds pretty close to a straw man argument -- deliberately misrepresenting your opponent's position so you can tear it down.
Which is more likely:
the IFPI is really that stupid, and they really do think that shutting down TPB will end piracy.
they know that piracy will never go away, but they're making their best effort to make it a pain in the ass to pirate stuff.
I agree that it's fun to make fun of the enemy, but I think it's also important to understand your enemy.
The corollary to your argument is that the IFPI member companies should just lower prices, make more content easily available, and abolish overly-restrive DRM -- or better yet, get rid of it completely.
Trouble is, their member companies have been doing just this. It's an uphill battle, but it's pretty clear that they're listening to the market forces -- and more importantly, listening to the pirates. Slowly but surely, it's happening. Unfortunately, doing exactly what we've told them to do hasn't helped them much; piracy is bigger than ever.
So, I can see why they believe it's in their best interest to use both the carrot and the stick: offer more cheap, DRM-free stuff for the folks who were serious when they said that it's what would convince them to give up piracy... but at the same time, try to give a little grief to those who'll continue to proudly fly the jolly roger no matter how many concessions the entertainment industry makes.
"Here's the issue. How can you say that a tracker that isn't data itself, facilitates anything? "
"to facilitate" means roughly "to make easy." TPB makes it easy to find pirated stuff. It's their mission, their purpose, and their primary use. This is the sort of prima facie stuff that will be covered in the first day of proceedings.
"That type of evidence would first have to be accepted by court before it can even be argued before it can even be accepted as evidence before it can even be debated."
Correct. The evidence of the "well, duh" stuff (TPB encourages and facilitates piracy; TPB makes money, etc.) will be collected in the discovery process. Don't expect the court to get hung up on this for too long.
"It doesn't tie you to anything. You still don't explain how they are tied as well to having made money off piracy as opposed to what they did, which is made money off advertising. Whether there is piracy or not if people come to their site and they get paid for the ads, there's nothing illegal about that."
I think I see your point, but you're going off-track. The prosecution's point is that TPB is being run as a for-profit business. Their actual business model doesn't matter; whether they make their money on ads, or from membership fees, or from donations isn't the issue.
My inference here is that the question of a profit motive is an issue in Swedish law. It used to be a bigger issue in US copyright code until about 15 years ago. Even if it's not, my guess is that the profit motive (and perhaps more importantly, the amount of money TPB has earned) will come into play when it's time to pick the amount of the fine.
"So let me get this straight - if I tell you where you can find illegal drugs, that is the same in your eyes as if I personally sold them to you? I think your logic leaves a little something to be desired... All Pirate Bay did was provide links, or provide information. Providing information isn't illegal. If I told you all you need to rob a bank is a gun and a mask, am I guilty of robbing said bank?"
Per the summary, the charge is being an accessory to copyright infringement. There's a similar concept in US law called "contributory copyright infringement," which is what Grokster et al were nailed on.
Providing information can be illegal -- sorry! Typically, the provider needs to know that the information will be used for a crime or misdemeanor. To use your example, you tell me a good place to get a gun with the serial number scratched off. If the court can show that you knew that I was going to rob a bank, or that there was a reasonable assumption that I was going to commit robbery, then you might be named as an accessory to robbery -- which is illegal. If you didn't know me very well, had no clue that I was contemplating a robbery, and all I asked you was "where's the nearest gun store?" then you'd likely be safe. See the difference?
This is what the prosecution is likely going to try in the case against TPB: they're providing the means for you to download copyrighted work without the permission of the owner, and there's the reasonable assumption that this is what'll happen. This is where they differ from Google: TPB has shown that they encourage piracy, and that their site specializes in pirated material. Thus, when they facilitate your piracy, they're an accessory.
"Should we close them down? Should I be fined for publishing that link? Where do you draw the line?"
Actually, that's what courts are required to do a lot: find where to draw that line.
Courts also work on common sense a lot more than lay people think. If it makes perfect sense to you on a basic level that Google and TPB have vastly different operating principals, then it probably will to the courts, too. That can go a long way in the decision.
Movies and TV shows are filled with courtroom dramas in which somebody gets off on a technicality that defies common sense (such as your point that Google could be used to find torrents). Thankfully, that's not very often the case in the real world.
There's a phrase that's well known by defense lawyers and tax professionals: "the laugh test." If something wouldn't pass this test, then it's not a good defense. No good defense lawyer would try the "just like Google" defense unless they were really grasping at straws.
"So the RIAA has to prove their case to the satisfaction of a unanimous vote by 12 jurors, instead of just a preponderance of the evidence? Or are they trying to have their cake and eat it too, by using civil standards of innocence/guilt, but imposing criminal penalties?"
For what it's worth, criminal copyright infringement cases typically don't have jury trials in the US. The defendants in criminal cases are typically the guys caught with a warehouse of counterfeit music CDs or Windows. A jury trial really isn't necessary. There've been a few filesharing-related criminal cases (usually when they prosecute the first guy to seed a screener), but I don't think those got jury trials.
Yup... you're thinking of Rescue Raiders. Similar idea (fly a helicopter in a side-scrolling environment) but, as you mentioned, you had tanks, artillery, and other goodies on command.
"ISPs are just as guilty as Pirate Bay in enabling people to download copywrited material with that logic. What about search engines like Google?"
Sorry to hear that you feel that way, but the legal system doesn't work that way. Intent plays a huge part of it, as does a phrase that was part of the Betamax decision: "substantial non-infringing uses."
It doesn't matter that one could use TPB to get one's Linux distros or other legitimate content; a quick glance shows that it's not the intended nor the primary purpose.
So, if you've really been wondering why all the file-sharing services have been taken down while ISPs and Google remain in business, that's why.
"I don't really think so. Hosting and upkeep of their hardware may not be cheap, but if the $4m figure has any ties to reality, they're probably making an OK living off tpb."
I believe the original poster was being sarcastic, but your point stands.
It's hugely beneficial for the TPB operators paint a picture of break-even financials and motivation by an altruistic desire to stick it to the man. This helps them get sympathy when they get into legal scrapes like this; but more importantly, it helps with their efforts at collecting donations. Plenty of apologists will swear up and down that TPB doesn't make any money because somebody at TPB told them so, but the numbers regarding their bandwidth and ad views just don't add up.
So how much do they make? I read an article which put the wealth of one of the founders at $10MM, but I don't think it's nearly that much. Either way, between their daily revenue stream from ad impressions, the huge pile of cash they collected for their "let's buy an island" campaign, and the donations they've received since (many P2P fans use the donate 10% of the retail price of the media formula), they should have no trouble paying for their legal fees or fines.
For what it's worth, I have no trouble with TBP making a healthy profit. Neither should many P2P fans. After all, the record companies want you to pay for music, while TPB helps you get it for free, so perhaps they deserve compensation for providing this service. If I were a P2P fan I wouldn't have an issue with this, but nonetheless many people bristle at the notion of TBP actually having a profit motive, just like the vast majority of other enterprises.
I'd love to be proven wrong. I'd love TPB to organize as a non-profit (where their income and expenses, including compensation, would be public knowledge). If they really did support the artists, they could even announce that they were donating their excess operating income to the most-pirated artists on the site. That would truly show that they don't have a profit motive. But, I really don't think this will happen.
Incorrect. Several operators of smaller public trackers (TBP wannabes, I suppose) have stated that net income is in the four figures per year. Heck, I have a site with traffic that's far, far less than that of TBP by an order of magnitude, and I clear a profit on advertising after paying for the servers and bandwidth. And, like TPB, I do it without the obnoxious (but apparently high revenue generating) pop-up ads and the like. I do it all with Adsense.
Countless high-traffic sites have figured out how to make a profit using ads. If TPB somehow can't do it, there's something wrong and they're missing a huge opportunity. Either they have the world's worst ad partner, or they're giving away ad space for free.
It's okay to acknowledge that the TPB kids are doing decently financially -- other tracker operators have managed to; in fact, that's why many people start trackers. Composers, musicians, authors, film directors, IT workers and programmers want to make money at what they do, so it's perfectly fine to acknowledge that it's okay for tracker operators to want to make a profit. Many people justify piracy because they believe content creators are, as a general rule, too greedy; this doesn't mean that we can't exhibit a little greed of our own.
I can understand their motivation for attempting to give an impression that they don't make a profit. It certainly makes for good PR among a certain segment of the fans. But, it's naive to blindly believe them. A bit of common sense is all it takes.
"But talking about children and teens again, I don't get it. Why do game and media companies focus so much on selling to people who have NO MONEY?!? For the typical teen, who only has a computer because his dad gave him one on Christmas, paying $50 on a game is most of the time impossible, period. I'm 30-years old and only now I'm starting to be in a position where spending $50 now and then on useless entertainment is becoming something I can do without a second thought."
Just a cursory glance at advertising media, in particular the amount of it aimed at children and teenagers, will probably give you the impression that it must be a huge market. And, you're right -- it's enormous.
I think the tail may be wagging the dog here. "I'm justified in pirating, because I can't afford this music" is very often a rationale, not an accurate statement. If you take statements like this at face value, it becomes a bit of a rabbit hole, and then you get caught up wondering why on earth there's a whole aisle of children's cereal, yet you don't see 8-year-olds queued up to buy it. But think about how that cereal manages to get sold despite this fact, and you'll understand how music and media aimed at children and teens is sold, despite the fact that -- as you correctly pointed out -- many children and teens don't have money of their own.
I think the common Slashdot perception is that you, and others like you, are expected to release your stuff for free, and then simply go on tour to recoup your costs and pay for your investment of time. Musicians who can't or won't play live apparently have no place in the new musical utopia.
I'm all for a future market in which there's less reliance on record companies that provide A to Z services -- in fact, I'm helping create it. But for far many people, information just wants to be freeeeeeeee, and in order to make that vision a reality, a lot of musicians will have to change their motivations. The odds of this happening are about as likely as all the coders and IT professionals in the world suddenly being comfortable with no longer being paid for their work.
At any rate, I listened to your demos on your web site -- they're pretty good. Sort of Gordon Lightfoot meets Alan Parsons. And I mean that in a good way.
"You've not made your complaint clear. One business sues another - where's the problem?"
Well, SeeqPod is a search engine that specializes in letting you download music for free. The big meanies at Warner Brothers would really rather that we all buy the music than get it for free courtesy of SeeqPod. Now, if you were John Q. Slashdotter, on whose side would you be on?
"well, your made up numbers are wrong, dead wrong."
He's right -- but you might be, too. Read on:
"Have you ever wondered why there are $1 DVD-videos at wal-mart, target, or your favorite dollar store? because the material on the disc fell into the public domain. so cost of authoring/distribution is Less than.50 cents per pressed DVD."
I've bought some of those discs. They're in super-slim, super-cheap cases. The cost of materials can be far lower than a typical DVD package of the sort that Rhino puts out. As you've correctly pointed out, 50K is a good volume for getting a low per-unit cost, but we can't assume that Rhino is pressing 50K at a time.
Since you sound like you're in manufacturing, you probably know that the cost of materials is often the cheapest part of the final cost of sale. Think about the costs of sale that Rhino takes on, vs. the Chinese factory that pumps out those $1 public-domain DVDs, and you'll see why he's correct, as well.
"I hate people who can't even use common sense to get an idea of the 'overhead' in producing a dvd."
Your post is about cost of materials. Overhead is a different thing -- and you're right. Most people around here will swear up and down that music CDs cost only $0.25 to produce, and thus could be sold at a huge profit for a buck (watch: somebody will reply to this post with "b-b-b-but they CAN!"). We're largely coders, and not logistics or supply chain managers.
"Curious: What did Joel say that is "so stupid it will taint my enjoyment of their material." Or are you talking about these interviews in general?"
I'm guessing that when he stood the line on illegal copying of the shows, and pointed out that the CinematicTitanic DVDs are for sale, he rubbed a lot of the/. audience the wrong way.
Many people around here envision a future where content creators will distribute all of their stuff for free via BitTorrent, and resort to making enough money from donations, or failing that, just being happy with the exposure. Joel's comments are a reality check that the traditional business model is still preferred by many people.
It's actually moot in the short-term, as I'm sure the CT DVDs will be showing up on BitTorrent anyway.
""Bands" creating "albums" (or 3-minute, 32-bar "singles"), and retiring off the royalties, is not a natural process."
It's certainly a very rare process. The vast, vast majority of people who try to make money playing music make little or no money. It's fun to point at people who've been successful as a rationale for shutting down the industry, but it's a bit like presenting Larry Ellison as a typical example of an IT worker.
The great thing about the methods you've mentioned (self producing, self distributing, self promoting) is that they're already readily available. I don' think I've ever bought a track from somebody who produced, distributed, and promoted their own work, but perhaps one day that will change.
"If you're a songwriter then you don't have a business model. That's the way it should be. It's not the job of governments to run around handing business models to you just because you feel that you're entitled to it, which is all that copyright amounts to."
Straw man. The constitution states that it's for the purpose of promoting the arts, not because somebody feels that they're entitled to it.
Being an early adopter is a pain, isn't it? I have plenty of six-year-old gear of my own that was cutting edge in its time, but is worthless now. As for your Nomad, MP3 players have come really far in the past six years and I think you'll be impressed with the latest models.
From a practical standpoint, you don't need to worry about the legal implications of stripping the DRM from the audio files you've purchased, if you're doing it purely for personal use. So many people try to reinterpret "putting the files in my share directory" as personal use, so this gets muddy, but if it's just so you can load them onto your ancient and creaky MP3 player, then you need not worry -- no matter how much sabre-rattling the RIAA might try.
I can understand that you do not have sympathy for the RIAA's web site being hacked because you have to take some extra steps to make the music you buy work on your first-gen MP3 player. But, keep in mind that this battle is already won -- a few of the labels have started selling music in DRM-free MP3 format, and the rest will likely follow shortly. If this is one of the rationales behind the hacking, it's a bit misguided.
"If everyone on slashdot accessed RIAA.org at the same time every morning, we could just permajam their website. DOS, but kinda legal, since you can't sue an individual for loading your website once a day."
Some people had that idea about six or eight years ago, IIRC. I think the first few DDOSes worked, but then the RIAA put the necessary stuff in place to help prevent it. If the RIAA site could be DDOSed, the script kiddies would be doing it 24/7.
I won't argue with you whether DDOSing the RIAA is a good use of your time. But, jumping on your "if everybody..." idea, why not work to be the pirate that you would like the media to see, and not the pirate that the RIAA is painting you as? Here are some ideas:
You probably agree that artists aren't paid enough. Start a label and pay the artists 50% or more of the sale price. Surely some smart Slashdotters can figure out how to do this.
If, on the other hand, you're in the crowd that decries the "millionaire artists," start a record label with a model that pays the artists little or nothing (so they will be in it for the art, not the money), and donate all of your profits to a worthy cause like the EFF.
It's common knowledge among Slashdotters that artists don't need record labels any more because it's trivial to record, mix, produce and promote music. Since many artists don't have the time and skill to do all of these things, why not donate your time? Build a studio in your home and offer it for free to any non-RIAA artist or band. Offer your mixing or producing skills. Donate some of your time to set up and run a website for an artist. If we leave these tasks in the hands of the record labels -- who insist on a profit motive -- they will keep charging money for music. If all of these tasks are taken up by Slashdotters who aren't in it for the money, music can be truly free.
Write a letter or send an email to your favorite band urging them to get out of their label's contract. Tell them you can help them find free resources for recording their music and help them set up a PayPal donation page if they like, then help them distribute their music via BitTorrent. Tell them about labels like Magnatune, and services like CDBaby.
There's a lot of talk about how the money-centric music business is based on greed, and not quality product. We can solve the problem by DDOSing the RIAA web site (as you have suggested), or we can step up and do things differently. The choice is up to us, and it starts with you.
"So what you're saying is that bullying is OK - that the larger party deserves concessions, and can do whatever the hell they want just because they're larger, and that this is perfectly acceptable."
This is hardly something that Wal-Mart invented -- all distributors and major retailers assess charges to rework product that doesn't arrive in the expected form. RFID tags are just the latest technological item (which is why this warrants discussion on Slashdot), but if you tell a distributor or major retailer that you're going to ship your product in ten-packs, then ship it in five-packs, you'll be charged to have it reworked. While I grant that this might be surprising news to many Slashdotters, people in the retail industry will react to this story with a collective yawn.
Things like this happen in every industry, in lots of scales. No doubt you've been involved in a contract (such as a rental agreement for an apartment) which states that a late fee is charged if an invoice is not paid by the expected date. Call it "bullying," but it's rather pedestrian.
Overhead costs for warehousing the non-nettable inventory: zero
Lost sales due to inability to ship: zero
I think more Slashdotters should go into the retail business. God knows we have the music business already figured out. Too bad we're all too busy playing WoW to change the world.
"So you think it's fair to charge $2 to slap a $.20 RFID tag on a pallet? As far as I can tell, this is not 1 RFID per item, it's 1 per pallet. It is -only- used to track shipments, not individual products."
I suppose we can add channel management, supply chain management and logistics to the areas of knowledge that Slashdotters know everything about.
Distribution centers have rules about receiving products. These rules are necessary to keep the inventory flowing and to keep costs down. Retail DCs (owned by Best Buy, Target and the like) have them, as do distributors, like Ingram and D&H.
The missing RFID tag is a McGuffin -- it could be anything. Missing RFID? Low pallet count? High pallet count? Pallet packed with unexpected dimensions? Unannounced change in the case pack quantity or outer box pack quantity? The product doesn't conform, so it needs to be segregated to another part of the warehouse, and people need to be assigned to rework the product. In the meantime, it's dead inventory that can't be sold.
As has already been mentioned, your estimate of the rework cost is low, but that's not the point -- Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Ingram et al aren't trying to build a profit center out of RFID tag reworks or any sort of rework! They pass the cost of the rework along to the supplier, and the goal is to have it not happen again. Product that's delayed in the warehouse or the DC means missed sales, and if it's a load-in for a holiday weekend or a scheduled promotion, lots of money is lost.
"Instead we would like to officially license our games to you for a small fee so that everybody can be happy.""
...and then the Slashdot spin would be "Corporiate giant Hasbro says to tiny game company: we demand payment, or we'll shut you down!"
As a thought experiment, what would happen if the developers had instead come up with their own original idea for game, and then Hasbro released a copycat version without permission? Exact same scenario, except the copycat is the big company, not the small one. Where would the Slashdot sympathy lie?
"Can you copyright a square grid and some coloured boxes?"
Yes. Lots of designs are trademarked. A famous example is Coke's "dynamic ribbon device." You can't put it on your own brand of cola.
"Thay don't use the word "Scrabble" or the logo, so trademark doesn't apply. I'd be surprised if this was patentable. So just what and how does this infringe?"
The copycat game looks, walks, and quacks like Scrabble. It allows people to play Scrabble without buying the game. This is the essence of what Hasbro takes issue with.
There's plenty of precedent here. Folks have tried creating their own unlicensed versions of Monopoly, where the names are changed but the gameplay is fundamentally the same (to be extra clear, I am referring to unlicensed Monopoly renames). Parker Brothers has taken them to court and prevailed.
Slashdot Mirror
No worries, David... I wasn't meaning to include you in the pro-piracy crowd (in fact, we haven't met until now). Thanks for speaking up for the anti-anti-piracy crowd. Does anybody want to chime in to represent the anti-anti-anti-piracy crowd?
No matter what crowd you're in: the mods, the rockers, the mockers, the greasers, the bloods, the crips, the AARP, the "time cube" guy, people who are still coding in Simula 67, the sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, waistoids, dweebies, dickheads -- you're probably against DRM, too, and you probably agree that Ferris Bueller is a righteous dude. But my point remains that the pro-piracy crowd is one of its biggest opponents.
...if you've ever found yourself saying (or typing) something like:
Even if you've never written the above, you've probably read it here on /., on a daily basis.
Well, there you have it. Maybe the pirates are right, and music does have to be $0.25 a track. And (statistics aside), perhaps artists do make too much. Either way, right or wrong... the pirates have spoken: music costs too much. Artists are overpaid. So sayeth the pirates, and they're a mighty force.
The pro-piracy crowd has been one of the biggest opponents of DRM. And the record labels are listening... DRM is becoming less restrictive and going away. The pro-piracy crowd has bemoaned the lack of selection on the legal stores vs. what's available on P2P. Apple listened... their catalog is now in the tens of millions.
Perhaps retailers like Apple, and the record labels are listening to the pirates yet again. Along with feeling the heat from Amazon, they're capitulating to demands that music prices be lowered. I don't think we'll see $0.25 in our lifetimes (so, many people will opt to continue to pirate), but cutting costs will make it easier to sustain $0.79.
And if you're one of the folks who pirate because your perception of artists is that they are overpaid millionaires... then this may be good news to you even if it doesn't result in lower prices.
"Sure, they're blocking traffic to that specific tracker, but that doesn't really fix the "issue". Torrent trackers are like hydras, cut off one, and two will grow back in its place. Focusing on TPB will not end piracy via torrents, just as shutting down the original nova didn't over a year ago, and all the other trackers that have been closed down in between."
This sounds pretty close to a straw man argument -- deliberately misrepresenting your opponent's position so you can tear it down.
Which is more likely:
I agree that it's fun to make fun of the enemy, but I think it's also important to understand your enemy.
The corollary to your argument is that the IFPI member companies should just lower prices, make more content easily available, and abolish overly-restrive DRM -- or better yet, get rid of it completely.
Trouble is, their member companies have been doing just this. It's an uphill battle, but it's pretty clear that they're listening to the market forces -- and more importantly, listening to the pirates. Slowly but surely, it's happening. Unfortunately, doing exactly what we've told them to do hasn't helped them much; piracy is bigger than ever.
So, I can see why they believe it's in their best interest to use both the carrot and the stick: offer more cheap, DRM-free stuff for the folks who were serious when they said that it's what would convince them to give up piracy... but at the same time, try to give a little grief to those who'll continue to proudly fly the jolly roger no matter how many concessions the entertainment industry makes.
"Here's the issue. How can you say that a tracker that isn't data itself, facilitates anything? "
"to facilitate" means roughly "to make easy." TPB makes it easy to find pirated stuff. It's their mission, their purpose, and their primary use. This is the sort of prima facie stuff that will be covered in the first day of proceedings.
"That type of evidence would first have to be accepted by court before it can even be argued before it can even be accepted as evidence before it can even be debated."
Correct. The evidence of the "well, duh" stuff (TPB encourages and facilitates piracy; TPB makes money, etc.) will be collected in the discovery process. Don't expect the court to get hung up on this for too long.
"It doesn't tie you to anything. You still don't explain how they are tied as well to having made money off piracy as opposed to what they did, which is made money off advertising. Whether there is piracy or not if people come to their site and they get paid for the ads, there's nothing illegal about that."
I think I see your point, but you're going off-track. The prosecution's point is that TPB is being run as a for-profit business. Their actual business model doesn't matter; whether they make their money on ads, or from membership fees, or from donations isn't the issue.
My inference here is that the question of a profit motive is an issue in Swedish law. It used to be a bigger issue in US copyright code until about 15 years ago. Even if it's not, my guess is that the profit motive (and perhaps more importantly, the amount of money TPB has earned) will come into play when it's time to pick the amount of the fine.
"So let me get this straight - if I tell you where you can find illegal drugs, that is the same in your eyes as if I personally sold them to you? I think your logic leaves a little something to be desired... All Pirate Bay did was provide links, or provide information. Providing information isn't illegal. If I told you all you need to rob a bank is a gun and a mask, am I guilty of robbing said bank?"
Per the summary, the charge is being an accessory to copyright infringement. There's a similar concept in US law called "contributory copyright infringement," which is what Grokster et al were nailed on.
Providing information can be illegal -- sorry! Typically, the provider needs to know that the information will be used for a crime or misdemeanor. To use your example, you tell me a good place to get a gun with the serial number scratched off. If the court can show that you knew that I was going to rob a bank, or that there was a reasonable assumption that I was going to commit robbery, then you might be named as an accessory to robbery -- which is illegal. If you didn't know me very well, had no clue that I was contemplating a robbery, and all I asked you was "where's the nearest gun store?" then you'd likely be safe. See the difference?
This is what the prosecution is likely going to try in the case against TPB: they're providing the means for you to download copyrighted work without the permission of the owner, and there's the reasonable assumption that this is what'll happen. This is where they differ from Google: TPB has shown that they encourage piracy, and that their site specializes in pirated material. Thus, when they facilitate your piracy, they're an accessory.
I hope this helps.
"Should we close them down? Should I be fined for publishing that link? Where do you draw the line?"
Actually, that's what courts are required to do a lot: find where to draw that line.
Courts also work on common sense a lot more than lay people think. If it makes perfect sense to you on a basic level that Google and TPB have vastly different operating principals, then it probably will to the courts, too. That can go a long way in the decision.
Movies and TV shows are filled with courtroom dramas in which somebody gets off on a technicality that defies common sense (such as your point that Google could be used to find torrents). Thankfully, that's not very often the case in the real world.
There's a phrase that's well known by defense lawyers and tax professionals: "the laugh test." If something wouldn't pass this test, then it's not a good defense. No good defense lawyer would try the "just like Google" defense unless they were really grasping at straws.
"So the RIAA has to prove their case to the satisfaction of a unanimous vote by 12 jurors, instead of just a preponderance of the evidence? Or are they trying to have their cake and eat it too, by using civil standards of innocence/guilt, but imposing criminal penalties?"
For what it's worth, criminal copyright infringement cases typically don't have jury trials in the US. The defendants in criminal cases are typically the guys caught with a warehouse of counterfeit music CDs or Windows. A jury trial really isn't necessary. There've been a few filesharing-related criminal cases (usually when they prosecute the first guy to seed a screener), but I don't think those got jury trials.
Yup... you're thinking of Rescue Raiders. Similar idea (fly a helicopter in a side-scrolling environment) but, as you mentioned, you had tanks, artillery, and other goodies on command.
"ISPs are just as guilty as Pirate Bay in enabling people to download copywrited material with that logic. What about search engines like Google?"
Sorry to hear that you feel that way, but the legal system doesn't work that way. Intent plays a huge part of it, as does a phrase that was part of the Betamax decision: "substantial non-infringing uses."
It doesn't matter that one could use TPB to get one's Linux distros or other legitimate content; a quick glance shows that it's not the intended nor the primary purpose.
So, if you've really been wondering why all the file-sharing services have been taken down while ISPs and Google remain in business, that's why.
"I don't really think so. Hosting and upkeep of their hardware may not be cheap, but if the $4m figure has any ties to reality, they're probably making an OK living off tpb."
I believe the original poster was being sarcastic, but your point stands.
It's hugely beneficial for the TPB operators paint a picture of break-even financials and motivation by an altruistic desire to stick it to the man. This helps them get sympathy when they get into legal scrapes like this; but more importantly, it helps with their efforts at collecting donations. Plenty of apologists will swear up and down that TPB doesn't make any money because somebody at TPB told them so, but the numbers regarding their bandwidth and ad views just don't add up.
So how much do they make? I read an article which put the wealth of one of the founders at $10MM, but I don't think it's nearly that much. Either way, between their daily revenue stream from ad impressions, the huge pile of cash they collected for their "let's buy an island" campaign, and the donations they've received since (many P2P fans use the donate 10% of the retail price of the media formula), they should have no trouble paying for their legal fees or fines.
For what it's worth, I have no trouble with TBP making a healthy profit. Neither should many P2P fans. After all, the record companies want you to pay for music, while TPB helps you get it for free, so perhaps they deserve compensation for providing this service. If I were a P2P fan I wouldn't have an issue with this, but nonetheless many people bristle at the notion of TBP actually having a profit motive, just like the vast majority of other enterprises.
I'd love to be proven wrong. I'd love TPB to organize as a non-profit (where their income and expenses, including compensation, would be public knowledge). If they really did support the artists, they could even announce that they were donating their excess operating income to the most-pirated artists on the site. That would truly show that they don't have a profit motive. But, I really don't think this will happen.
"They don't make any money at all."
Incorrect. Several operators of smaller public trackers (TBP wannabes, I suppose) have stated that net income is in the four figures per year. Heck, I have a site with traffic that's far, far less than that of TBP by an order of magnitude, and I clear a profit on advertising after paying for the servers and bandwidth. And, like TPB, I do it without the obnoxious (but apparently high revenue generating) pop-up ads and the like. I do it all with Adsense.
Countless high-traffic sites have figured out how to make a profit using ads. If TPB somehow can't do it, there's something wrong and they're missing a huge opportunity. Either they have the world's worst ad partner, or they're giving away ad space for free.
It's okay to acknowledge that the TPB kids are doing decently financially -- other tracker operators have managed to; in fact, that's why many people start trackers. Composers, musicians, authors, film directors, IT workers and programmers want to make money at what they do, so it's perfectly fine to acknowledge that it's okay for tracker operators to want to make a profit. Many people justify piracy because they believe content creators are, as a general rule, too greedy; this doesn't mean that we can't exhibit a little greed of our own.
I can understand their motivation for attempting to give an impression that they don't make a profit. It certainly makes for good PR among a certain segment of the fans. But, it's naive to blindly believe them. A bit of common sense is all it takes.
"But talking about children and teens again, I don't get it. Why do game and media companies focus so much on selling to people who have NO MONEY?!? For the typical teen, who only has a computer because his dad gave him one on Christmas, paying $50 on a game is most of the time impossible, period. I'm 30-years old and only now I'm starting to be in a position where spending $50 now and then on useless entertainment is becoming something I can do without a second thought."
Just a cursory glance at advertising media, in particular the amount of it aimed at children and teenagers, will probably give you the impression that it must be a huge market. And, you're right -- it's enormous.
I think the tail may be wagging the dog here. "I'm justified in pirating, because I can't afford this music" is very often a rationale, not an accurate statement. If you take statements like this at face value, it becomes a bit of a rabbit hole, and then you get caught up wondering why on earth there's a whole aisle of children's cereal, yet you don't see 8-year-olds queued up to buy it. But think about how that cereal manages to get sold despite this fact, and you'll understand how music and media aimed at children and teens is sold, despite the fact that -- as you correctly pointed out -- many children and teens don't have money of their own.
I think the common Slashdot perception is that you, and others like you, are expected to release your stuff for free, and then simply go on tour to recoup your costs and pay for your investment of time. Musicians who can't or won't play live apparently have no place in the new musical utopia.
I'm all for a future market in which there's less reliance on record companies that provide A to Z services -- in fact, I'm helping create it. But for far many people, information just wants to be freeeeeeeee, and in order to make that vision a reality, a lot of musicians will have to change their motivations. The odds of this happening are about as likely as all the coders and IT professionals in the world suddenly being comfortable with no longer being paid for their work.
At any rate, I listened to your demos on your web site -- they're pretty good. Sort of Gordon Lightfoot meets Alan Parsons. And I mean that in a good way.
"You've not made your complaint clear. One business sues another - where's the problem?"
Well, SeeqPod is a search engine that specializes in letting you download music for free. The big meanies at Warner Brothers would really rather that we all buy the music than get it for free courtesy of SeeqPod. Now, if you were John Q. Slashdotter, on whose side would you be on?
"well, your made up numbers are wrong, dead wrong."
He's right -- but you might be, too. Read on:
"Have you ever wondered why there are $1 DVD-videos at wal-mart, target, or your favorite dollar store? because the material on the disc fell into the public domain. so cost of authoring/distribution is Less than .50 cents per pressed DVD."
I've bought some of those discs. They're in super-slim, super-cheap cases. The cost of materials can be far lower than a typical DVD package of the sort that Rhino puts out. As you've correctly pointed out, 50K is a good volume for getting a low per-unit cost, but we can't assume that Rhino is pressing 50K at a time.
Since you sound like you're in manufacturing, you probably know that the cost of materials is often the cheapest part of the final cost of sale. Think about the costs of sale that Rhino takes on, vs. the Chinese factory that pumps out those $1 public-domain DVDs, and you'll see why he's correct, as well.
"I hate people who can't even use common sense to get an idea of the 'overhead' in producing a dvd."
Your post is about cost of materials. Overhead is a different thing -- and you're right. Most people around here will swear up and down that music CDs cost only $0.25 to produce, and thus could be sold at a huge profit for a buck (watch: somebody will reply to this post with "b-b-b-but they CAN!"). We're largely coders, and not logistics or supply chain managers.
"Curious: What did Joel say that is "so stupid it will taint my enjoyment of their material." Or are you talking about these interviews in general?"
I'm guessing that when he stood the line on illegal copying of the shows, and pointed out that the CinematicTitanic DVDs are for sale, he rubbed a lot of the /. audience the wrong way.
Many people around here envision a future where content creators will distribute all of their stuff for free via BitTorrent, and resort to making enough money from donations, or failing that, just being happy with the exposure. Joel's comments are a reality check that the traditional business model is still preferred by many people.
It's actually moot in the short-term, as I'm sure the CT DVDs will be showing up on BitTorrent anyway.
""Bands" creating "albums" (or 3-minute, 32-bar "singles"), and retiring off the royalties, is not a natural process."
It's certainly a very rare process. The vast, vast majority of people who try to make money playing music make little or no money. It's fun to point at people who've been successful as a rationale for shutting down the industry, but it's a bit like presenting Larry Ellison as a typical example of an IT worker.
The great thing about the methods you've mentioned (self producing, self distributing, self promoting) is that they're already readily available. I don' think I've ever bought a track from somebody who produced, distributed, and promoted their own work, but perhaps one day that will change.
"If you're a songwriter then you don't have a business model. That's the way it should be. It's not the job of governments to run around handing business models to you just because you feel that you're entitled to it, which is all that copyright amounts to."
Straw man. The constitution states that it's for the purpose of promoting the arts, not because somebody feels that they're entitled to it.
Being an early adopter is a pain, isn't it? I have plenty of six-year-old gear of my own that was cutting edge in its time, but is worthless now. As for your Nomad, MP3 players have come really far in the past six years and I think you'll be impressed with the latest models.
From a practical standpoint, you don't need to worry about the legal implications of stripping the DRM from the audio files you've purchased, if you're doing it purely for personal use. So many people try to reinterpret "putting the files in my share directory" as personal use, so this gets muddy, but if it's just so you can load them onto your ancient and creaky MP3 player, then you need not worry -- no matter how much sabre-rattling the RIAA might try.
I can understand that you do not have sympathy for the RIAA's web site being hacked because you have to take some extra steps to make the music you buy work on your first-gen MP3 player. But, keep in mind that this battle is already won -- a few of the labels have started selling music in DRM-free MP3 format, and the rest will likely follow shortly. If this is one of the rationales behind the hacking, it's a bit misguided.
"If everyone on slashdot accessed RIAA.org at the same time every morning, we could just permajam their website. DOS, but kinda legal, since you can't sue an individual for loading your website once a day."
Some people had that idea about six or eight years ago, IIRC. I think the first few DDOSes worked, but then the RIAA put the necessary stuff in place to help prevent it. If the RIAA site could be DDOSed, the script kiddies would be doing it 24/7.
I won't argue with you whether DDOSing the RIAA is a good use of your time. But, jumping on your "if everybody..." idea, why not work to be the pirate that you would like the media to see, and not the pirate that the RIAA is painting you as? Here are some ideas:
There's a lot of talk about how the money-centric music business is based on greed, and not quality product. We can solve the problem by DDOSing the RIAA web site (as you have suggested), or we can step up and do things differently. The choice is up to us, and it starts with you.
"So what you're saying is that bullying is OK - that the larger party deserves concessions, and can do whatever the hell they want just because they're larger, and that this is perfectly acceptable."
This is hardly something that Wal-Mart invented -- all distributors and major retailers assess charges to rework product that doesn't arrive in the expected form. RFID tags are just the latest technological item (which is why this warrants discussion on Slashdot), but if you tell a distributor or major retailer that you're going to ship your product in ten-packs, then ship it in five-packs, you'll be charged to have it reworked. While I grant that this might be surprising news to many Slashdotters, people in the retail industry will react to this story with a collective yawn.
Things like this happen in every industry, in lots of scales. No doubt you've been involved in a contract (such as a rental agreement for an apartment) which states that a late fee is charged if an invoice is not paid by the expected date. Call it "bullying," but it's rather pedestrian.
Good points. I can add:
I think more Slashdotters should go into the retail business. God knows we have the music business already figured out. Too bad we're all too busy playing WoW to change the world.
"So you think it's fair to charge $2 to slap a $.20 RFID tag on a pallet? As far as I can tell, this is not 1 RFID per item, it's 1 per pallet. It is -only- used to track shipments, not individual products."
I suppose we can add channel management, supply chain management and logistics to the areas of knowledge that Slashdotters know everything about.
Distribution centers have rules about receiving products. These rules are necessary to keep the inventory flowing and to keep costs down. Retail DCs (owned by Best Buy, Target and the like) have them, as do distributors, like Ingram and D&H.
The missing RFID tag is a McGuffin -- it could be anything. Missing RFID? Low pallet count? High pallet count? Pallet packed with unexpected dimensions? Unannounced change in the case pack quantity or outer box pack quantity? The product doesn't conform, so it needs to be segregated to another part of the warehouse, and people need to be assigned to rework the product. In the meantime, it's dead inventory that can't be sold.
As has already been mentioned, your estimate of the rework cost is low, but that's not the point -- Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Ingram et al aren't trying to build a profit center out of RFID tag reworks or any sort of rework! They pass the cost of the rework along to the supplier, and the goal is to have it not happen again. Product that's delayed in the warehouse or the DC means missed sales, and if it's a load-in for a holiday weekend or a scheduled promotion, lots of money is lost.
"Instead we would like to officially license our games to you for a small fee so that everybody can be happy.""
...and then the Slashdot spin would be "Corporiate giant Hasbro says to tiny game company: we demand payment, or we'll shut you down!"
As a thought experiment, what would happen if the developers had instead come up with their own original idea for game, and then Hasbro released a copycat version without permission? Exact same scenario, except the copycat is the big company, not the small one. Where would the Slashdot sympathy lie?
"Can you copyright a square grid and some coloured boxes?"
Yes. Lots of designs are trademarked. A famous example is Coke's "dynamic ribbon device." You can't put it on your own brand of cola.
"Thay don't use the word "Scrabble" or the logo, so trademark doesn't apply. I'd be surprised if this was patentable. So just what and how does this infringe?"
The copycat game looks, walks, and quacks like Scrabble. It allows people to play Scrabble without buying the game. This is the essence of what Hasbro takes issue with.
There's plenty of precedent here. Folks have tried creating their own unlicensed versions of Monopoly, where the names are changed but the gameplay is fundamentally the same (to be extra clear, I am referring to unlicensed Monopoly renames). Parker Brothers has taken them to court and prevailed.