If you have to get five other suckers to sign up in order to get your iPod, it's a pyramid. At least with MLM outfits like Herbalife, you can theoretically make money selling the pills and without building a downline.
I may have been off-base with DeCSS. I agree with everything you've said. The MPAA are going after the BitTorrent tracker sites that specialize in pirated material, but they're ignoring the sites that provide only legal torrents. Thus the attacks on the pirate torrent sites aren't "an attack on BitTorrent" but "an attack on piracy," as you've put it. Those who lament the shutting down of pirate torrent sites as "an attack on P2P" should spend more time exploring the many legal torrent sites, and they'll see that permission-based P2P can still thrive.
Of course, those pirate torrent sites get way more traffic than, say, legaltorrents.com, but BitTorrent strikes me as much more of a generic medium than, as you've pointed out, Kazaa with its Vanuatu incorporation and its business model (in the form of millions of dollars in advertising money) based on the facilitation of piracy.
"By 'belief in incentive systems', he actually means (or perhaps even sincerely believes) that there exists no incentive for writing software for public/GPL/Copyleft (or whatever) usage. With his 'logic', you have to be paid (and, in some cases, well paid) to want to write software. Perhaps he's a closet Creationist too?"
I had a different take on it. I think he's specifically referring to capitalist-style incentive systems where you are paid for your work. In a socialized system of producing art (whether it's music or software), it's the non-traditional incentives (the public good) that drive production. I think he has enough of an understanding of communism and its equivalent set of incentives that replace the capitalist-style incentives -- communism is built on the validity of the common good being an incentive toward production.
As an aside, if you disregard the derogatory implications of the word "communist," I do think the free software movement does embody a lot of the good things of a communist/socialist system, by showing that people will want to produce even if there's no financial gain. However, I disagree with the rationale of "If I had the talent to produce music or software that was in high demand, I would release it for free, so I'm going to help myself to somebody else's copyrighted work without their permission." Far too many of the "music and software wants to be free" crowd are using this as a convenient way to rationalize piracy without contributing their own free music or free software.
"Maybe you should try actually talking to your esteemed clients, and suggesting to them that if, quoting the music industry as an example, they didn't want to make $8 of PURE PROFIT on a CD"
I'm not sure I understand you. Are you talking Australian dollars? In the US, CDs are sold into the channel for around $8 and are sold to the consumer for about $12.95. That $5 delta is used to pay for employees, keeping the lights on, etc. shrinkage and so on and is not "pure profit." More importantly, it's money the record company never sees.
Of the $8 that the record company gets for the CD, about two bucks goes to cost of manufacturing, a buck goes to royalties, and some goes to marketing, accural for returns (the record company eats the cost when the retailer returns it) and various other realities of selling something on the retail market. Even if sales, marketing and shipping were free, and no CDs ever got returned or damaged, you're still looking at a gross of about four or five bucks, which is, percentage-wise, about what Logitech makes on mice.
I'm guessing you're confusing gross profit with net profit, but as people who work in retail know, all that matters is the actual money you have left after paying for all the expenses. The term "pure profit" would more typically be applied to the net, and not the gross. Overall, the record industry gets by with pretty shitty net margins compared to most of the stuff that you buy. It's good to argue against unfair IP laws, but claiming that "record companies make too much selling CDs" is the wrong approach.
Perhaps they should use words like "estimated to be" or "believed to be"?"
Most textbooks do. If you have a textbook that tries to assign a particular year to a geological or evolutionary event in the remote past for which we can only speculate with low granularity, that's simply a bad textbook.
" I've heard many evolutionists declare evolution as only theory and not fact as well..."
You have made the mistake -- as have many, many people -- of misunderstanding the definition of "theory" as it is used in the phrase "theory of evolution."
These are the definitios of theory (from dictionary.com) that you're probably thinking of:
An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.
Abstract reasoning; speculation
When in fact, this is the definition of theory that is used in the phrase "theory of evolution":
"A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena."
No worries. Wander into any/. discussion about P2P and you'll find that many Slashdotters are similarly confused about the multiple definitions of the word "piracy."
"A more fitting analogy would be to say knife manufactuers say their products are intended for cooking and eating, not stabbing people in the chest.... which in the cases of kaaza and knife makers are both valid points."
I guess my point wasn't clear. The immense popularity of Napster, et al for piracy was abundantly clear when Kazaa was born. Nobody behind Kazaa thought for a minute that it wouldn't be used primarily for unauthorized sharing. That's why they launched it, and they're reaping the benefits -- the folks behind Sharman Networks are millionaires. There's big money in facilitating piracy.
I understand why Kazaa, et al must put up a front of pretending that their intent is not to facilitate piracy -- naturally, I'd do the same thing if I were in their shoes -- but frankly, anybody outside of Kazaa who repeats the company line is either being disingenuous or is simply naive.
You, me, everybody reading this knows the "Kazaa is just like a knife" rationale is just bogus. Why not work toward fighting unfair laws in a way that doesn't make us look like stooges?
"Lets face it, DeCSS was written for lawful uses but the potential for unlawful uses makes it a "piracy tool" in some peoples' minds."
It's expected when the folks (or the lawyers representing these folks) who bring us Kazaa, DeCSS and the like recite their amusing "we only intend for it to be used for legal purposes" chants. It's sort of like watching tobacco executives claim that they don't believe their products cause cancer, but funnier, because Kazaa hasn't killed anybody yet.
But that does not mean that we have to be their stooges. The folks behind Kazaa and DeCSS spew that nonsense to avoid prosecution. We don't have that same need to lie.
"Don't call it a "Piracy Arrest" -- some of my best friends board aquatic vessels and kill everyone aboard to steal the posessions for perfectly legitimate reasons... It's really an arrest for violating one-sided copyright laws."
Conveniently forgetting how the English language works is not the way to fight unfair laws. You don't get dogs and trees confused when you hear the word "bark," so surely you can cope with other words with multiple meanings, particularly when they've had those meanings for more than a hundred years.
Thanks. You're correct about the recent redefinition, although it wasn't redefined to cover P2P per se. The change, as part of the NET Act, is from the Clinton era and was added to deal with the warez BBSes and FTP sites that were trading massive amounts of software without money being changed hands.
Lest anybody think that the law being changed to make something illegal is a horrible calamity, I should point out that this sort of thing -- new technology requiring new laws -- happens all the time. In 1890, there were no laws regarding automobiles, and perhaps for the twenty years thereafter, a few auto drivers got away with things on the highways because the laws weren't written specifically to address automobiles. But the laws were eventually changed to deal with cars, and now my state's vehicle code is an inch thick! The reason for the NET act is, of course, that before the 1980's, there didn't need to be penalties for distributing thousands of copies of protected works without getting paid in return, because it simply wasn't a feasible scenario. Computer networks changed all that, and as has been the case countless times, the law was changed to accomodate the new technology.
We'll have to agree to disagree on the reading of 506. I see the argument you're making but that's now how I interpret it; at best I think it's unclearly worded. Either way, as you know, until somebody is actually brought to trial for taking five bucks for one pirated copy of PhotoShop under your interpretation of the section, it's one of those tree-falls-in-the-forest scenarios.
"
"If they would act specifically against mass-counterfeiting for commercial purposes then, certainly when health issues are at stake, it might have some validity, but everyone knows such laws will be used against all others as well, before you can blink your eye."
I heartily disagree. Our country's problem with China regarding intellectual property is that they've been tolerating the mass production and sale of pirated goods (everything from music and films to birth control pills and brake pads, as the article put it). We are requesting that China does something about this. To state that the same law will be applied to "all others" is a classic slippery slope, and "everyone knows" is just incorrect.
If I can summarize your position, it's that China shouldn't enforce laws against the most egregious offenders, because those same laws might be used against people who commit minor versions of the same crimes. Is that correct? If so, would you apply that to other countries as well, and would you say that it applies to all areas of law? For example, in Afganistan, if they were to start chasing down the guys who are exporting heroin by the ton, does "everybody know" that they'll start busting people caught with a gram?
"They have made good progress on this front, but there's more work to be done," Evans said. "That means criminalizing the laws as opposed to (having) just civil laws that slap some simple little fine on companies and they go on down the road. You've got to start putting people in jail."
In all the other discussions on piracy I've read on Slashdot, a common sentiment has been uttered. It goes something like this:
"They shouldn't be going after [whomever's the target today]. They should be going after the real pirates, the illegal operations that crank out pirated DVDs and CDs by the thousands on the streets."
And, this is exactly what we are asking China to do. Not outlaw P2P. Not eliminate fair use. Not throw kids in jail for having 1,000 songs in their share directory. But to go after the companies that engage in mass piracy, rather than the current process of slapping them with a civil fine so that they can just set up shop down the road.
But according to many people in this thread, even this is unacceptable.
The Slashdot groupthink flowchart now seems to look like this:
When the government goes after P2P software vendors: "They're just providing a tool! They should be going after the actual pirates! Oh, and plus the real pirates, the ones who mass produce the CDs and sell them on the streets."
When the government goes after the actual P2P users: "They should go after the P2P companies that facilitate this. They obviously know what they're doing, and grandma who saw an ad for Kazaa can't be expected to know that what she's doing is illegal. Oh, and plus the real pirates, the ones who mass produce the CDs and sell them on the streets."
When the government goes after the real pirates, the ones who mass produce the CDs and sell them on the streets: well, you're seeing it here in this discussion! The consensus appears to be that asking China to finally go after the real pirates is a bad thing.
How about if the geek is running a company that's producing pirated CDs and DVDs by the thousands and selling them on the streets? That's what the article's about -- punishing these people.
Interesting. Did you read the article? It was about the US wanting China to increase the penalties for the biggest offenders. A key quote:
"They have made good progress on this front, but there's more work to be done," Evans said. "That means criminalizing the laws as opposed to (having) just civil laws that slap some simple little fine on companies and they go on down the road. You've got to start putting people in jail."
The companies are, of course, the factories in China that crank out the pirated DVDs and CDs by the thousands.
I commonly see this sentiment expressed on Slashdot: "they should stop going after the little guys and go after the real pirates, the outfits that mass-produce the CDs and sell them on the streets."
And now that this is happening, people are defendending them. Unbelievable.
"I think that people who break IP laws to a great degree probably should be punished to an extent with criminal law. However, there should be a clause that the person did it intentionally and with intent to defraud, because you don't want to be hauling Granny off to jail after the MPAA sues her because her grandkid installed Kazaa or something."
No worries. The article indicated that China is unveiling new laws that raise the possible jail time to seven years for the worst offenders -- the guys who are running the factories that crank out thousands of pirated CDs and DVDs. There was a direct reference to the Chinese companies that are presently getting off with minor civil charges.
"Another thing that seriously needs reform is the maximum civil liability for these acts and that jail time be reasonable for the crime (not 15 yrs in federal prison)."
It's being raised to seven years. Not sure where it was before. I'm not sure of the current civil liabilities in China.
"Pop stars and movie stars, as well as the executives of the companies that promote and use them, live lives of luxury that would make the wealthiest, most powerful emperors in the history of human civilization green with envy. They are flown from one 5-star hotel to another in private jets, and are drivin in limosines to the finest restaurants in town, treated like royalty by hordes of fawning, obsequious servitors."
That's the problem, I think -- when somebody says "somebody who makes their living off their art," many Slashdotters picture five-star hotels and limousines. Fact is, most artists do not enjoy that lifestyle; I'd even guess that you make more money than the average artist. It's also a fact that nearly every industry (including yours) has a top 1% of wage-earners who enjoy the lifestyle you've described, but this is not moral imperative to violate the rights of those who work in that industry.
"I doubt that the lifestyles of the rich and famous are in any danger of bumping down a notch because a few street vendors in Beijing are hawking copies of their movies and albums."
So do I. 99% of people who make their living creating intellectual property are not rich or famous. It's these people you should empathize with, not the ones who have more money than God.
"Yep, if you use a P2P program and upload a single file and download a single file, you are now deemed to qualify as a commercial enterprize engaging in industrial scale copyright infringment for financial gain. Criminal Infringement."
Your statement is technically correct but omits some facts. As a result, some people may be misled by your statement.
In order for the scenario you describe to occur, that file would have to be copied enough times as a result of your sharing it so that the value of the infringement reached $1,000. If the rightsholder convinced the government that the value of the song was a buck, that'd be a thousand downloads.
I think the implicit point you were trying to make is that it's quite easy to put just one song in your share directory with the result being that it gets onto the hard drives of a thousand other people. This is why P2P is so popular, and why so many rightsholders are against it -- it's very efficient at what it does. On the other hand, I think that most people who use P2P are aware of this fundamental nature of the technology. If somebody knows that ripping a CD and putting it into their share directory might cause a thousand copies of that CD to be available within 24 hours, and they do not want to be subject to criminal charges for distributing $1,000 worth of pirated material, then the safest thing they can do is practice some personal responsibility and not make the deliberate choice to rip the CD and put it into their share directory.
"Mankind got by for countless milennia before this whole concept of "paying for music" started. Need I remind you that all over the world, there are these people called "musicians" who generally like to play on these things called "instruments" and produce noise called "music.""
Ditto food safety laws, anti-slavery laws, and other relatively recent inventions that have made things nicer than they've been in the past. If you truly believe that things were better in the 1700's when the life expectancy was 40 but the music was free, I won't try to dissuade you, but the fact that a law has come into existence relatively recently does not make it a bad law simply because people did without it in the past.
Software development's the same way: there are individuals, small companies, and giant corporations that sell software. Yet there are still many developers who write code for the fun of it, and give it away for free. Yet Slashdotters are not calling for making it illegal for programmers to ask that they be paid for their work.
Likewise, many people are paid to work in IT while at the same time, lots of folks tinker with and maintain computer equipment because it's fun. But this does not logically support the notion of outlawing IT professionals.
"Music isn't the issue. What is at issue is the insane idea that you can own music, and that your grandchildren can live off of performances that were recorded before they were even born, long after you are dead."
The vast majority of music being recorded today will not be generating meaningful revenue twenty years from now, let alone enough for the composers' grandchildren to live off of. Similarly, I think it's pretty wild that if one guy gets lucky, he can write a program that generates a million bucks in sales, but that's also pretty unlikely. Those brave souls who try to write music for a living largely eke out meager existences. Let's not further marginalize them by taking away their right to earn a living doing what they love.
My philosophy is, as you've probably guessed, different than yours: I think that if somebody can make a living by providing something to society and without hurting anybody, then they have every right to. If somebody figures out how to make a million bucks a year walking dogs, my reaction isn't shock or horror, but to give them a hearty congratulations and possibly look into how I can get into the dog-walking business. Likewise, if somebody's able, through luck, talent, endurance, or some combination of each, to write a song that a million people want to buy, then they've made those million people happy, and if that gets them a mansion, then they deserve it.
One way to judge a society is the professions upon which it places value. It's always disheartening when I see people clamoring to take away the rights of artists.
"It's clear you suffer from social dysfunction so calling you "psychotic" because of your blatant underlying psychosis would have been more accurate. Your perceived break with reality comes in the form of failing to understand the social underpinnings of sharing works of all kinds - as they are shared at the public library for example."
I have a friend with a couple of teenagers who also has a "no piracy" rule in his household. He doesn't condone the copying of somebody's work without their permission, and he doesn't want to give his children the message that just because technology allows you to do something, that it's morally acceptable to do so. He wants them to have respect and compassion for others. The so-called Golden Rule ("do to others as you'd have them do to you") can still be a valuable one to teach our children. If you would not want somebody to ignore your rights, you should not ignore the rights of others. The fact that his kids don't also have intellectual property that's in high demand is not an ethical opt-out of the golden rule.
"I pity your son."
I pity the children of parents who don't make an effort for them to understand the value of respecting others' rights. Actively condoning the use of P2P to pirate music can send the message that it's okay to ignore somebody's property rights or otherwise break the law if you can get away with it.
I think the concept of the GPL is great and the people who spend their time developing great stuff and releasing it under the GPL are heroes. So, when I use GPLed software, I respect the wishes of the creator. I don't take code portions and integrate it into non-GPL stuff, or otherwise redistribute it in non-GPL form. That's the Golden Rule in action.
Many people do use the existence of the GPL or shareware/freeware software as a moral remedy to the file sharing issue. The rationalization is this: "programs A and B are GPLed/freeware/shareware, but program C isn't. So, I'll share program C anyway, becuase the developer should have released it under the GPL." Another rationalization is "If I had intellectual property that was in high demand, I'd allow it to be shared, so others should, too." This is intellectually dishonest and displays a misunderstanding of the concept of copyright: the exclusive right to determine how your work is copied.
In your case, if I've understood your post correctly, you've released some of your older software into the public domain, or at least made it freeware. That's very cool of you and you are exercising your rights under copyright law to determine how your work is distributed. Other people who create work might feel differently about how their own work is distributed, and -- getting back to the theme here -- the Golden Rule suggests that one respect their rights as well.
Slashdot Mirror
If you have to get five other suckers to sign up in order to get your iPod, it's a pyramid. At least with MLM outfits like Herbalife, you can theoretically make money selling the pills and without building a downline.
Turns out that only 4% of the FreeiPods.com suckers have gotten their units and they're being spammed, too. It most certainly is a pyramid scheme.
"ethical business practices." Funny.
Get a free iPod Shuffle! [efinke.com]
Now this is just getting silly. Trying to get people to sign up for a pyramid scheme for a product that you can buy for less than a hundred bucks?
I may have been off-base with DeCSS. I agree with everything you've said. The MPAA are going after the BitTorrent tracker sites that specialize in pirated material, but they're ignoring the sites that provide only legal torrents. Thus the attacks on the pirate torrent sites aren't "an attack on BitTorrent" but "an attack on piracy," as you've put it. Those who lament the shutting down of pirate torrent sites as "an attack on P2P" should spend more time exploring the many legal torrent sites, and they'll see that permission-based P2P can still thrive.
Of course, those pirate torrent sites get way more traffic than, say, legaltorrents.com, but BitTorrent strikes me as much more of a generic medium than, as you've pointed out, Kazaa with its Vanuatu incorporation and its business model (in the form of millions of dollars in advertising money) based on the facilitation of piracy.
"So you mean Kaaza is more like a fully automatic m16 with side mounted rocket launcher sold for "hunting"?"
Yes, you've put that quite well!
"By 'belief in incentive systems', he actually means (or perhaps even sincerely believes) that there exists no incentive for writing software for public/GPL/Copyleft (or whatever) usage. With his 'logic', you have to be paid (and, in some cases, well paid) to want to write software. Perhaps he's a closet Creationist too?"
I had a different take on it. I think he's specifically referring to capitalist-style incentive systems where you are paid for your work. In a socialized system of producing art (whether it's music or software), it's the non-traditional incentives (the public good) that drive production. I think he has enough of an understanding of communism and its equivalent set of incentives that replace the capitalist-style incentives -- communism is built on the validity of the common good being an incentive toward production.
As an aside, if you disregard the derogatory implications of the word "communist," I do think the free software movement does embody a lot of the good things of a communist/socialist system, by showing that people will want to produce even if there's no financial gain. However, I disagree with the rationale of "If I had the talent to produce music or software that was in high demand, I would release it for free, so I'm going to help myself to somebody else's copyrighted work without their permission." Far too many of the "music and software wants to be free" crowd are using this as a convenient way to rationalize piracy without contributing their own free music or free software.
"Maybe you should try actually talking to your esteemed clients, and suggesting to them that if, quoting the music industry as an example, they didn't want to make $8 of PURE PROFIT on a CD"
I'm not sure I understand you. Are you talking Australian dollars? In the US, CDs are sold into the channel for around $8 and are sold to the consumer for about $12.95. That $5 delta is used to pay for employees, keeping the lights on, etc. shrinkage and so on and is not "pure profit." More importantly, it's money the record company never sees.
Of the $8 that the record company gets for the CD, about two bucks goes to cost of manufacturing, a buck goes to royalties, and some goes to marketing, accural for returns (the record company eats the cost when the retailer returns it) and various other realities of selling something on the retail market. Even if sales, marketing and shipping were free, and no CDs ever got returned or damaged, you're still looking at a gross of about four or five bucks, which is, percentage-wise, about what Logitech makes on mice.
I'm guessing you're confusing gross profit with net profit, but as people who work in retail know, all that matters is the actual money you have left after paying for all the expenses. The term "pure profit" would more typically be applied to the net, and not the gross. Overall, the record industry gets by with pretty shitty net margins compared to most of the stuff that you buy. It's good to argue against unfair IP laws, but claiming that "record companies make too much selling CDs" is the wrong approach.
Perhaps they should use words like "estimated to be" or "believed to be"?"
Most textbooks do. If you have a textbook that tries to assign a particular year to a geological or evolutionary event in the remote past for which we can only speculate with low granularity, that's simply a bad textbook.
" I've heard many evolutionists declare evolution as only theory and not fact as well..."
You have made the mistake -- as have many, many people -- of misunderstanding the definition of "theory" as it is used in the phrase "theory of evolution."
These are the definitios of theory (from dictionary.com) that you're probably thinking of:
An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.
Abstract reasoning; speculation
When in fact, this is the definition of theory that is used in the phrase "theory of evolution" :
"A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena."
No worries. Wander into any /. discussion about P2P and you'll find that many Slashdotters are similarly confused about the multiple definitions of the word "piracy."
"A more fitting analogy would be to say knife manufactuers say their products are intended for cooking and eating, not stabbing people in the chest.... which in the cases of kaaza and knife makers are both valid points."
I guess my point wasn't clear. The immense popularity of Napster, et al for piracy was abundantly clear when Kazaa was born. Nobody behind Kazaa thought for a minute that it wouldn't be used primarily for unauthorized sharing. That's why they launched it, and they're reaping the benefits -- the folks behind Sharman Networks are millionaires. There's big money in facilitating piracy.
I understand why Kazaa, et al must put up a front of pretending that their intent is not to facilitate piracy -- naturally, I'd do the same thing if I were in their shoes -- but frankly, anybody outside of Kazaa who repeats the company line is either being disingenuous or is simply naive.
You, me, everybody reading this knows the "Kazaa is just like a knife" rationale is just bogus. Why not work toward fighting unfair laws in a way that doesn't make us look like stooges?
" I only get annoyed at people who violate the GPL yet expect their own copyrights to be respected."
Good point. I get annoyed at people who violate others' copyrights yet expect the GPL to be respected.
"Lets face it, DeCSS was written for lawful uses but the potential for unlawful uses makes it a "piracy tool" in some peoples' minds."
It's expected when the folks (or the lawyers representing these folks) who bring us Kazaa, DeCSS and the like recite their amusing "we only intend for it to be used for legal purposes" chants. It's sort of like watching tobacco executives claim that they don't believe their products cause cancer, but funnier, because Kazaa hasn't killed anybody yet.
But that does not mean that we have to be their stooges. The folks behind Kazaa and DeCSS spew that nonsense to avoid prosecution. We don't have that same need to lie.
"Don't call it a "Piracy Arrest" -- some of my best friends board aquatic vessels and kill everyone aboard to steal the posessions for perfectly legitimate reasons... It's really an arrest for violating one-sided copyright laws."
Conveniently forgetting how the English language works is not the way to fight unfair laws. You don't get dogs and trees confused when you hear the word "bark," so surely you can cope with other words with multiple meanings, particularly when they've had those meanings for more than a hundred years.
Thanks. You're correct about the recent redefinition, although it wasn't redefined to cover P2P per se. The change, as part of the NET Act, is from the Clinton era and was added to deal with the warez BBSes and FTP sites that were trading massive amounts of software without money being changed hands.
Lest anybody think that the law being changed to make something illegal is a horrible calamity, I should point out that this sort of thing -- new technology requiring new laws -- happens all the time. In 1890, there were no laws regarding automobiles, and perhaps for the twenty years thereafter, a few auto drivers got away with things on the highways because the laws weren't written specifically to address automobiles. But the laws were eventually changed to deal with cars, and now my state's vehicle code is an inch thick! The reason for the NET act is, of course, that before the 1980's, there didn't need to be penalties for distributing thousands of copies of protected works without getting paid in return, because it simply wasn't a feasible scenario. Computer networks changed all that, and as has been the case countless times, the law was changed to accomodate the new technology.
We'll have to agree to disagree on the reading of 506. I see the argument you're making but that's now how I interpret it; at best I think it's unclearly worded. Either way, as you know, until somebody is actually brought to trial for taking five bucks for one pirated copy of PhotoShop under your interpretation of the section, it's one of those tree-falls-in-the-forest scenarios.
" Does anyone else think it was inspired by Logitech's product?"
You're correct. It's a licensing/branding exercise, not a new product.
" "If they would act specifically against mass-counterfeiting for commercial purposes then, certainly when health issues are at stake, it might have some validity, but everyone knows such laws will be used against all others as well, before you can blink your eye."
I heartily disagree. Our country's problem with China regarding intellectual property is that they've been tolerating the mass production and sale of pirated goods (everything from music and films to birth control pills and brake pads, as the article put it). We are requesting that China does something about this. To state that the same law will be applied to "all others" is a classic slippery slope, and "everyone knows" is just incorrect.
If I can summarize your position, it's that China shouldn't enforce laws against the most egregious offenders, because those same laws might be used against people who commit minor versions of the same crimes. Is that correct? If so, would you apply that to other countries as well, and would you say that it applies to all areas of law? For example, in Afganistan, if they were to start chasing down the guys who are exporting heroin by the ton, does "everybody know" that they'll start busting people caught with a gram?
From the article:
"They have made good progress on this front, but there's more work to be done," Evans said. "That means criminalizing the laws as opposed to (having) just civil laws that slap some simple little fine on companies and they go on down the road. You've got to start putting people in jail."
In all the other discussions on piracy I've read on Slashdot, a common sentiment has been uttered. It goes something like this:
"They shouldn't be going after [whomever's the target today]. They should be going after the real pirates, the illegal operations that crank out pirated DVDs and CDs by the thousands on the streets."
And, this is exactly what we are asking China to do. Not outlaw P2P. Not eliminate fair use. Not throw kids in jail for having 1,000 songs in their share directory. But to go after the companies that engage in mass piracy, rather than the current process of slapping them with a civil fine so that they can just set up shop down the road.
But according to many people in this thread, even this is unacceptable.
The Slashdot groupthink flowchart now seems to look like this:
How about if the geek is running a company that's producing pirated CDs and DVDs by the thousands and selling them on the streets? That's what the article's about -- punishing these people.
Interesting. Did you read the article? It was about the US wanting China to increase the penalties for the biggest offenders. A key quote:
"They have made good progress on this front, but there's more work to be done," Evans said. "That means criminalizing the laws as opposed to (having) just civil laws that slap some simple little fine on companies and they go on down the road. You've got to start putting people in jail."
The companies are, of course, the factories in China that crank out the pirated DVDs and CDs by the thousands.
I commonly see this sentiment expressed on Slashdot: "they should stop going after the little guys and go after the real pirates, the outfits that mass-produce the CDs and sell them on the streets."
And now that this is happening, people are defendending them. Unbelievable.
"I think that people who break IP laws to a great degree probably should be punished to an extent with criminal law. However, there should be a clause that the person did it intentionally and with intent to defraud, because you don't want to be hauling Granny off to jail after the MPAA sues her because her grandkid installed Kazaa or something."
No worries. The article indicated that China is unveiling new laws that raise the possible jail time to seven years for the worst offenders -- the guys who are running the factories that crank out thousands of pirated CDs and DVDs. There was a direct reference to the Chinese companies that are presently getting off with minor civil charges.
"Another thing that seriously needs reform is the maximum civil liability for these acts and that jail time be reasonable for the crime (not 15 yrs in federal prison)."
It's being raised to seven years. Not sure where it was before. I'm not sure of the current civil liabilities in China.
"Pop stars and movie stars, as well as the executives of the companies that promote and use them, live lives of luxury that would make the wealthiest, most powerful emperors in the history of human civilization green with envy. They are flown from one 5-star hotel to another in private jets, and are drivin in limosines to the finest restaurants in town, treated like royalty by hordes of fawning, obsequious servitors."
That's the problem, I think -- when somebody says "somebody who makes their living off their art," many Slashdotters picture five-star hotels and limousines. Fact is, most artists do not enjoy that lifestyle; I'd even guess that you make more money than the average artist. It's also a fact that nearly every industry (including yours) has a top 1% of wage-earners who enjoy the lifestyle you've described, but this is not moral imperative to violate the rights of those who work in that industry.
"I doubt that the lifestyles of the rich and famous are in any danger of bumping down a notch because a few street vendors in Beijing are hawking copies of their movies and albums."
So do I. 99% of people who make their living creating intellectual property are not rich or famous. It's these people you should empathize with, not the ones who have more money than God.
"Yep, if you use a P2P program and upload a single file and download a single file, you are now deemed to qualify as a commercial enterprize engaging in industrial scale copyright infringment for financial gain. Criminal Infringement."
Your statement is technically correct but omits some facts. As a result, some people may be misled by your statement.
In order for the scenario you describe to occur, that file would have to be copied enough times as a result of your sharing it so that the value of the infringement reached $1,000. If the rightsholder convinced the government that the value of the song was a buck, that'd be a thousand downloads.
I think the implicit point you were trying to make is that it's quite easy to put just one song in your share directory with the result being that it gets onto the hard drives of a thousand other people. This is why P2P is so popular, and why so many rightsholders are against it -- it's very efficient at what it does. On the other hand, I think that most people who use P2P are aware of this fundamental nature of the technology. If somebody knows that ripping a CD and putting it into their share directory might cause a thousand copies of that CD to be available within 24 hours, and they do not want to be subject to criminal charges for distributing $1,000 worth of pirated material, then the safest thing they can do is practice some personal responsibility and not make the deliberate choice to rip the CD and put it into their share directory.
"Mankind got by for countless milennia before this whole concept of "paying for music" started. Need I remind you that all over the world, there are these people called "musicians" who generally like to play on these things called "instruments" and produce noise called "music.""
Ditto food safety laws, anti-slavery laws, and other relatively recent inventions that have made things nicer than they've been in the past. If you truly believe that things were better in the 1700's when the life expectancy was 40 but the music was free, I won't try to dissuade you, but the fact that a law has come into existence relatively recently does not make it a bad law simply because people did without it in the past.
Software development's the same way: there are individuals, small companies, and giant corporations that sell software. Yet there are still many developers who write code for the fun of it, and give it away for free. Yet Slashdotters are not calling for making it illegal for programmers to ask that they be paid for their work.
Likewise, many people are paid to work in IT while at the same time, lots of folks tinker with and maintain computer equipment because it's fun. But this does not logically support the notion of outlawing IT professionals.
"Music isn't the issue. What is at issue is the insane idea that you can own music, and that your grandchildren can live off of performances that were recorded before they were even born, long after you are dead."
The vast majority of music being recorded today will not be generating meaningful revenue twenty years from now, let alone enough for the composers' grandchildren to live off of. Similarly, I think it's pretty wild that if one guy gets lucky, he can write a program that generates a million bucks in sales, but that's also pretty unlikely. Those brave souls who try to write music for a living largely eke out meager existences. Let's not further marginalize them by taking away their right to earn a living doing what they love.
My philosophy is, as you've probably guessed, different than yours: I think that if somebody can make a living by providing something to society and without hurting anybody, then they have every right to. If somebody figures out how to make a million bucks a year walking dogs, my reaction isn't shock or horror, but to give them a hearty congratulations and possibly look into how I can get into the dog-walking business. Likewise, if somebody's able, through luck, talent, endurance, or some combination of each, to write a song that a million people want to buy, then they've made those million people happy, and if that gets them a mansion, then they deserve it.
One way to judge a society is the professions upon which it places value. It's always disheartening when I see people clamoring to take away the rights of artists.
"It's clear you suffer from social dysfunction so calling you "psychotic" because of your blatant underlying psychosis would have been more accurate. Your perceived break with reality comes in the form of failing to understand the social underpinnings of sharing works of all kinds - as they are shared at the public library for example."
I have a friend with a couple of teenagers who also has a "no piracy" rule in his household. He doesn't condone the copying of somebody's work without their permission, and he doesn't want to give his children the message that just because technology allows you to do something, that it's morally acceptable to do so. He wants them to have respect and compassion for others. The so-called Golden Rule ("do to others as you'd have them do to you") can still be a valuable one to teach our children. If you would not want somebody to ignore your rights, you should not ignore the rights of others. The fact that his kids don't also have intellectual property that's in high demand is not an ethical opt-out of the golden rule.
"I pity your son."
I pity the children of parents who don't make an effort for them to understand the value of respecting others' rights. Actively condoning the use of P2P to pirate music can send the message that it's okay to ignore somebody's property rights or otherwise break the law if you can get away with it.
"Yes but what if you are pro-GPL?"
I think the concept of the GPL is great and the people who spend their time developing great stuff and releasing it under the GPL are heroes. So, when I use GPLed software, I respect the wishes of the creator. I don't take code portions and integrate it into non-GPL stuff, or otherwise redistribute it in non-GPL form. That's the Golden Rule in action.
Many people do use the existence of the GPL or shareware/freeware software as a moral remedy to the file sharing issue. The rationalization is this: "programs A and B are GPLed/freeware/shareware, but program C isn't. So, I'll share program C anyway, becuase the developer should have released it under the GPL." Another rationalization is "If I had intellectual property that was in high demand, I'd allow it to be shared, so others should, too." This is intellectually dishonest and displays a misunderstanding of the concept of copyright: the exclusive right to determine how your work is copied.
In your case, if I've understood your post correctly, you've released some of your older software into the public domain, or at least made it freeware. That's very cool of you and you are exercising your rights under copyright law to determine how your work is distributed. Other people who create work might feel differently about how their own work is distributed, and -- getting back to the theme here -- the Golden Rule suggests that one respect their rights as well.
That is: "do unto others as you'd have them do unto you." I would like others to respect my property rights, so I respect those of others.