The holographic universe idea is one of my current favourites. But one thing that occurred to me a while back was that if you were creating a simulation, you wouldn't necessarily want to track every part of it, and indeed, maybe couldn't. Instead, you would resolve things as needed, much like a POV swinging around in a computer game: you only render what is appearing on the monitor. Or to put it another way, you only collapse the probabilities when they are observed. Sound familiar from anywhere?
Are you in charge of definitions now? Because for the last few years of stories about The Pirate Bay and all that, I've heard piracy used to describe illegal downloading, even by those themselves? Is there some sudden move to try and disassociate from the term now that it's starting to be considered a bad thing by more people?
So you like the fact that you are supporting the record label in their absolute screwing of the musician? If you want to support the musician, go out to a concert.
Which musician? How do you know they are being 'absolutely screwed' by their label? For whatever relevance it has, the last two albums that I bought were Robbie William's "Swing When Your Winning" and the Doctor Who Season 5 soundtrack by Murray Gold. I have no idea what private arrangements they have between them and their labels, but I imagine they're both making a good living from it. At any rate, I have to assume that they aren't children and that they can take responsibility for their business arrangements. Besides, there are more people involved in the production of an album than just the musician themselves. There are sound engineers for example. Should they not get their cut? In the case of the Doctor Who album, a lot of the music is orchestral and the people I would see in concert (were there a concert) would not necessarily be those that performed on the album. So should they be penalised by my pirating the album?
I doubt you know what the contracts between these artists and their labels say. It seems to be a popular rationalisation of piracy on Slashdot, that by pirating a song, the pirate is somehow helping the artist, rather than simply reducing their income further. Without knowing the individual contracts in each case, the "absolute screwing of the artist" is just an article of faith for piracy proponents. Oddly enough, the other one I hear is that artists shouldn't be able to make so much money for so little work. One time, I even heard both in the same post.
Sure, I will pay the company and artist that bring me the media that I want. I don't think it is ethical to say "I don't like you so I'm going to take this without paying." Especially when "I don't like you" depends on some assumed proposition that hasn't been looked into.
Instead of inventing 1984esque names for stuff you dont like, acknowledge that the main problem of your business model is that people simply prefer sharing stuff amongst eachother instead of buying it over and over and over again from somebody (in this case: you) who permanently keeps threatening them with life-ruining penalties.
Okay, let's start at the end. Nowhere have I threatened or advocated threatening anyone with "life-ruining penalties." So drop that one right off. And as you have a problem with the term pirate (despite it being universally understood what is meant), I'll use the alternate term "freeloader", meaning one who lives for free of what others work / pay for. That's accurate to what a pirate does seeing as they download for free what the rest of us have funded the creation of by paying for it. As to the rest of your post:
You are not able to "speak" your belief today if somebody has already spoken that belief. Thanks Cpt. Copyright.
There's a big difference between someone having the right to speak their beliefs and downloading Iron Man 2. I also don't believe you are unable to see there is a difference between these two things.
Pirates are not actually "taking" or "refusing" anything. They are exchanging information amongst their peers. People have been sharing information for ages, they used to call it "learning from eachother". It was Cpt. Copyright who started with "lets errect toll booths between people" and then started chasing around people who tried to circumwent this kind of for-profit censorship.
Yes, copyright has to do with the abilty to profit from your work. Unlike you however, I don't stop my argument at the point that I have shown their is a profit motive as if a profit motive is intrinsically a bad thing. I continue on to ask whether a profit motive might actually be a good thing. And lo and behold, I think it is indeed good that those that produce a work can profit from it.
So they should invent a business model where their customers want to pay them
A business model where people want to give away their money when they don't have to? So obvious in retrospect - let's go do that now. And of course it will be successful enough to support big budget projects and it will scale down to private individuals who just want to sell their one-man computer game, song or novel.
They are clinging to an old business model (of manufacturing and selling copies) which worked in the 50s but doesnt today, because people dont want to pay for copies.
Actually the "old business model" is still being kept afloat by all of us who pay for our goods. If we didn't, the freeloaders would have a great deal less media to enjoy.
They can do copying themselves today, thanks. Technology eradicated the business model of "selling copies" but people refuse to adapt to reality and instead legislate a permanent "like back in the 50s"-situation.
There seems to be a recurrent strawman through out your post that people are paying for the process of copying and because copying is now cheaper than it was, they should not pay. Were people paying for the process of copying, then it would be equivalent to sell copies of static noise as to sell copies of Iron Man 2. This is not the case. The selling of copies is a means by which both the purchaser can receive the media and the media producer can receive payment in return. Clearly illegal downloading is not functionally equivalent as the media producer is not getting paid. It is not correct to say "people can do the copying themselves, thanks" and imply that an equivalent to the previous process has been found.
Well fuck you, go and starve
I'm certainly growing more and more optimistic about that business model where people want to give away their money. Thanks.
Oh I'm sceptical of Anthropogenic Global Warming, but I agree with pretty much all your aims. I want to see much, much greater use of nuclear power and to see the US stop using all that coal. I want to see less dependence on the Middle East and Russia for oil. I want to see renewable energy sources used and electric cars on the streets both for reasons of pollution and because it free us to change the source of that electricity as new options become available. I'm very much in favour of many of the measures that AGW proponents are, but I'm unconvinced of the global warming panic and have less of an obsession with CO2. Pollution and political dependencies are enough reasons for me to want to change how things are done. They ought to be for most people, I would think. I was just highlighting an omission in the GP's reasoning because I like tidy logic.
Free Speech was about people being able to safely speak their beliefs, not about distributing Dragon Age II or Iron Man for free.
Free Speech is about speech (i.e. communication) in itself not being a crime, regardless of the content. It is a specific instance of the more general principle that the only actions deserving of punishment are those which cause harm to others. Copyright infringement is nothing but a specific case of communication, and does not harm anyone—a copyright holder is no worse off if people 'pirate' his or her work than he or she would be if they simply did without it, and may even benefit as a side-effect of the public exposure. To punish someone for such an act is a clear case of aggression.
I'm still unconvinced the GP wasn't a parody. But are you telling me that you see no difference between someone's right to state their beliefs and someone downloading Iron Man 2? Seriously?
As regards your argument about copyright infringement doing no harm, I note that you slipped in a caveat about people downloading as compared to not buying. What about where people download something instead of buying? I just spent £25 on a programming book for my Kindle. Most of that money will go straight to the author because it's an ebook without any shipping, printing costs, etc. But because it's an ebook, I'm a lot more likely to be able to get a pirated copy that would be the same. So if I'd pirated the book instead, would the author not be worse off? Of course they would. They have been harmed by piracy.
If I start a game design company and employ some programmers and writers and artists to work on a project and create a game and they are paid for their work, then I own an intellectual property, but I am not freeloading.
Are we talking about the legal definition or moral definition?
The accurate definition: Freeloader is one that gets their benefit from the work of others without recompensing those others. There is no "legal" or "moral" definition in there, it simply describes behaviour. You agreed that it fitted the behaviour of pirates, but said it also fitted anyone who owned intellectual property that they didn't directly create. I showed with examples that it doesn't as within those examples, there was recompense made to the creator of the works. So yes, "Freeloader" is an accurate term for pirates, but not for those that pay others for intellectual property. That society generally regards freeloading negatively is a separate issue following on from that. Your objection is not based on inaccuracy in the definition, but because the term highlights that pirates are putting the financial burden of producing the media on others, and merely living off those other people. Rightly, that is seen as negative.
The term "freeloader" is a moral term, not a descriptive term and certainly not a legal term of art.
Terms are always descriptive. That is what a term is - a description. I've given you a definition of "freeloader" above which no-one would think inaccurate unless they had a reason not to want the term to be applied. Do you honestly think the definition above is fundamentally wrong?
I believe that anyone owning intellectual "property" besides the innovator himself is immoral.
Thus you regard anyone hired to write a computer game as being a party to immoral behaviour. You regard the idea of any writer hired to produce a piece of fiction as doing something wrong. Etecetera and etcetera. Unsurprisingly, I disagree. If two parties consent to something without coercion or deceit, then I find little basis for an act to be immoral unless they are harming an outside party. And as you said that intellectual property was okay when it was owned by the creator, then I see no difference externally whether how it is used is handled by one person or two in agreement, I also see no reason why that person can't exchange ownership for something else.
It is not what the copyright or patent systems were designed for. It does not "spur innovation" to have anyone but the people who did the work own the IP.
Yes it does. How many big budget movies do you think there would be if the backers couldn't own the rights to the movie in return for the massive amounts of money they give? Do you think a game like Dragon Age would exist if the ultimate product couldn't be owned by the people who paid a lot of money to writers, artists and programmers to create it? What do you think would be the effect on TV shows if every episode were owned not by the studio, but by the people who worked on the script for that particular episode. And don't forget the actors and the lighting people, the make-up people, the catering staff, the owner of the studios and the ones who leased the equipment. At a stroke, you've pulled the rug out from under most collaborative projects. What are people supposed to do, set up some elaborate on-going profit share scheme? But Bob the fourth camera man just wants to be paid a flat sum and go home. Sorry Bob - some guy on Slashdot says it would be immoral for you to cede all future rights to payment (aka sell your rights) in exchange for a fixed fee for your work on the project.
More people and entities own IP who did NOT do the work than the other way around
So? It's you who has an issue with that. I don't so long as the people who did the work were paid what they agreed in return f
Do not neglect the factor of what risks and costs taking action might entail. You phrase your scenario as "wait and see if you're wrong, or take action in case you're not." But in reality that last part might be "take action at great costs and potentially unexpected side-effects, in case you're wrong". Living your life as if everything that might go wrong will go wrong, will rapidly begin to negatively impact your life. Just commenting on the logic of your statement.
However, there is no competition in the price of blu-rays.
Competition is not the relevant price control for luxury goods (i.e. things you don't actually need, such as movies). if a majority of people feel that paying $15 for a Blu-ray is acceptable, then there is no incentive for the manufacturer to sell if for less. If most people thought it was too much, then the manufacturer (assuming there is a margin that can be cut and still be profitable) will reduce the cost.
I mention this just because your post seems to suggest that competition in Blu-rays would reduce the price. It wouldn't - it's not the relevant cost. Sure, if Blu-Ray were an open format you might see a small reduction as manufacturers of the physical disc competed with less licencing overhead, but the physical disc isn't the primary cost when you buy a movie. Basically, Blu-Rays are the price they are because that's what most people think they're worth. If you know better, then go and work for a movie studio because they'll pay you very handsomely for helping them increase their profit margins by pointing out where their market research is in error.
I would accept that. As long as the same term applies to anyone who owns intellectual property and did not directly create the work got called by the same name.
That would be inaccurate. If I start a game design company and employ some programmers and writers and artists to work on a project and create a game and they are paid for their work, then I own an intellectual property, but I am not freeloading. I have invested money in it. Similarly with any artist who created a work but then sold the rights to it to another party. The buying party did not directly create the work, but they are not freeloading because they have given the artists an agreed sum in return for those (or more often some of those) rights.
Are you serious or is that parody? Free Speech was about people being able to safely speak their beliefs, not about distributing Dragon Age II or Iron Man for free. Boycott has historically meant stopping buying something and doing without, not taking something and refusing to pay. I reject entirely that people writing computer games, novels, recording songs, making movies, are "archaic powers". These are people contributing to our culture and they deserve to get paid at whatever price they and their customers can meet and agree on. The Internet offers artists a chance to sell and market directly to the public and the biggest thing in the way of that is piracy.
Right now there are Somalian gangsters taking over peoples' boats and kidnapping and killing people.
To use the same term for those people and someone who downloads The.Mechanic.2011.R5.LiNE.AC3-T0XiC-iNK is just fucking ignorant.
Is it possible to have a little perspective, please?
By the way, several of the board members of the MPAA are child molesters. I don't mean that they molest children, but that's the term I use to refer to the members of the MPAA and RIAA. I would like to see "child molester" become the common term to describe any studio head, member of RIAA or MPAA or any of their lawyers.
Seeing as you appear to care passionately about the use of the term "pirate", here is one that I can think of that can be used as an alternative: "Freeloader". It means one that takes for free what others pay for, getting a free ride off other people. I think you'll find that is in no way incompatible with software piracy and there's nothing inaccurate in using that term.
Unfortunately I don't have the link to hand, but I did read that the notices actually met with some success. A lot of people who pirate just do so because (a) they've never thought of it as wrong and (b) they consider themselves anonymous. In many cases, a letter arriving saying: "look, stop nicking our stuff" has made them think about one or both of these. Basically, as you say, a letter is a much better first step than a legal charge.
Well done, "genius", you've just created a scenario where an ISP can still get revenue whilst not having the costs of providing a service. Noooo, that's not an incentive for ISPs to cut someone off at all now, is it?
You want the victim to pay compensation to the person that loses revenue when the culprit doesn't need their tools, anymore? I can see that principle breaking down rather quickly. "Your honour, the serial killer used to rent a lock-up from me to store the bodies. Now that the victims' families have brought charges, I stand to lose that income." "Good point - I hereby declare that in return for sentencing the killer, those families must reimburse you for lost income. Next!"
Regardless of the accuracy or otherwise of the charge (and that accuracy should be determined by a court, not some busy tech operator at the ISP), disconnection is not an appropriate response. So much of our work, social connections, purchasing and learning is done online these days, that severing someone from that is akin to making them a medieval pariah. If someone is guilty of piracy, let them be sued and make reparations. Judges who back this disconnection idea are out of touch types who probably consider the Internet that thing their grandkids use to play games on.
Whenever piracy comes up on Slashdot, you'll likely find detailed rebuttals of the justifications for it by me. I don't like a group of people living freely off the backs of those who pay, and we have to put up with things like DRM as a response to their piracy. But disconnection counts as a "cruel and unusual" punishment. No to disconnection - whether guilty or not.
The Mission" is better understood as "take that hill," not "take that hill with three men and a spork." It's dangerous to make requesting additional resources an act of insubordination.
But requesting additional resources is not the same as lying about the facts in order to manipulate the decision makers. How would you like it if a colleague lied to your employers about how much harder / more extensive their work was than yours so that they got given more support / bonus / pay increase than you did? Now substitute that with the military distorting the facts of a matter in order to trick society into providing them with more resources? Isn't that like any number of dubious historical events where a military has bigged up an outside threat in order to get society to grant them more and more power / funds?
Getting the mission done with as few deaths as possible is the morally right thing for a commander to do.
"The mission" did not spring into being as a pure goal with its raison d'etre being its own existence in some bizarre circular logic. Tasks are assigned by higher ups to achieve the ends those higher-ups designate. If the people charged with carrying it out then turn on the people who give them their directives and try to manipulate them into changing parameters, then they're no longer fulfilling the implicit directive of carrying out their superiors' decisions, they're trying to alter their superiors' decisions and change the parameters of "the mission," setting their own goals first. We have a term for that already: it's called 'the tail wagging the dog'.
Holy cow are you people starting to sound like broken records. Is this the answer to all questions? The Federal Reserve Act?! What is wrong with our schools?
The US school system used to be one of the best. But it was never the same after the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
Slashdot Mirror
I always put a Fez on and smoke a shisha whilst I crack a big corporation's mail server. It just puts me in the right mood somehow.
I'm Anonymous. And so's my wife.
The holographic universe idea is one of my current favourites. But one thing that occurred to me a while back was that if you were creating a simulation, you wouldn't necessarily want to track every part of it, and indeed, maybe couldn't. Instead, you would resolve things as needed, much like a POV swinging around in a computer game: you only render what is appearing on the monitor. Or to put it another way, you only collapse the probabilities when they are observed. Sound familiar from anywhere?
If the virtualization is perfect AND hidden by design, you can't test it
Ah, but you presuppose the the possibility of perfect virtualisation, which may not be so.
Are you in charge of definitions now? Because for the last few years of stories about The Pirate Bay and all that, I've heard piracy used to describe illegal downloading, even by those themselves? Is there some sudden move to try and disassociate from the term now that it's starting to be considered a bad thing by more people?
So you like the fact that you are supporting the record label in their absolute screwing of the musician? If you want to support the musician, go out to a concert.
Which musician? How do you know they are being 'absolutely screwed' by their label? For whatever relevance it has, the last two albums that I bought were Robbie William's "Swing When Your Winning" and the Doctor Who Season 5 soundtrack by Murray Gold. I have no idea what private arrangements they have between them and their labels, but I imagine they're both making a good living from it. At any rate, I have to assume that they aren't children and that they can take responsibility for their business arrangements. Besides, there are more people involved in the production of an album than just the musician themselves. There are sound engineers for example. Should they not get their cut? In the case of the Doctor Who album, a lot of the music is orchestral and the people I would see in concert (were there a concert) would not necessarily be those that performed on the album. So should they be penalised by my pirating the album?
I doubt you know what the contracts between these artists and their labels say. It seems to be a popular rationalisation of piracy on Slashdot, that by pirating a song, the pirate is somehow helping the artist, rather than simply reducing their income further. Without knowing the individual contracts in each case, the "absolute screwing of the artist" is just an article of faith for piracy proponents. Oddly enough, the other one I hear is that artists shouldn't be able to make so much money for so little work. One time, I even heard both in the same post.
Sure, I will pay the company and artist that bring me the media that I want. I don't think it is ethical to say "I don't like you so I'm going to take this without paying." Especially when "I don't like you" depends on some assumed proposition that hasn't been looked into.
Instead of inventing 1984esque names for stuff you dont like, acknowledge that the main problem of your business model is that people simply prefer sharing stuff amongst eachother instead of buying it over and over and over again from somebody (in this case: you) who permanently keeps threatening them with life-ruining penalties.
Okay, let's start at the end. Nowhere have I threatened or advocated threatening anyone with "life-ruining penalties." So drop that one right off. And as you have a problem with the term pirate (despite it being universally understood what is meant), I'll use the alternate term "freeloader", meaning one who lives for free of what others work / pay for. That's accurate to what a pirate does seeing as they download for free what the rest of us have funded the creation of by paying for it. As to the rest of your post:
You are not able to "speak" your belief today if somebody has already spoken that belief. Thanks Cpt. Copyright.
There's a big difference between someone having the right to speak their beliefs and downloading Iron Man 2. I also don't believe you are unable to see there is a difference between these two things.
Pirates are not actually "taking" or "refusing" anything. They are exchanging information amongst their peers. People have been sharing information for ages, they used to call it "learning from eachother". It was Cpt. Copyright who started with "lets errect toll booths between people" and then started chasing around people who tried to circumwent this kind of for-profit censorship.
Yes, copyright has to do with the abilty to profit from your work. Unlike you however, I don't stop my argument at the point that I have shown their is a profit motive as if a profit motive is intrinsically a bad thing. I continue on to ask whether a profit motive might actually be a good thing. And lo and behold, I think it is indeed good that those that produce a work can profit from it.
So they should invent a business model where their customers want to pay them
A business model where people want to give away their money when they don't have to? So obvious in retrospect - let's go do that now. And of course it will be successful enough to support big budget projects and it will scale down to private individuals who just want to sell their one-man computer game, song or novel.
They are clinging to an old business model (of manufacturing and selling copies) which worked in the 50s but doesnt today, because people dont want to pay for copies.
Actually the "old business model" is still being kept afloat by all of us who pay for our goods. If we didn't, the freeloaders would have a great deal less media to enjoy.
They can do copying themselves today, thanks. Technology eradicated the business model of "selling copies" but people refuse to adapt to reality and instead legislate a permanent "like back in the 50s"-situation.
There seems to be a recurrent strawman through out your post that people are paying for the process of copying and because copying is now cheaper than it was, they should not pay. Were people paying for the process of copying, then it would be equivalent to sell copies of static noise as to sell copies of Iron Man 2. This is not the case. The selling of copies is a means by which both the purchaser can receive the media and the media producer can receive payment in return. Clearly illegal downloading is not functionally equivalent as the media producer is not getting paid. It is not correct to say "people can do the copying themselves, thanks" and imply that an equivalent to the previous process has been found.
Well fuck you, go and starve
I'm certainly growing more and more optimistic about that business model where people want to give away their money. Thanks.
Its impossible to argu
What do you think is better?
Oh I'm sceptical of Anthropogenic Global Warming, but I agree with pretty much all your aims. I want to see much, much greater use of nuclear power and to see the US stop using all that coal. I want to see less dependence on the Middle East and Russia for oil. I want to see renewable energy sources used and electric cars on the streets both for reasons of pollution and because it free us to change the source of that electricity as new options become available. I'm very much in favour of many of the measures that AGW proponents are, but I'm unconvinced of the global warming panic and have less of an obsession with CO2. Pollution and political dependencies are enough reasons for me to want to change how things are done. They ought to be for most people, I would think. I was just highlighting an omission in the GP's reasoning because I like tidy logic.
You mean, like people who watch FREE over-the-air TV? Like those who take out books, CDs, and DVDs from the library for FREE? Those people?
In all the instances you list, the producers of the media have been recompensed according to what they agreed.
Free Speech was about people being able to safely speak their beliefs, not about distributing Dragon Age II or Iron Man for free.
Free Speech is about speech (i.e. communication) in itself not being a crime, regardless of the content. It is a specific instance of the more general principle that the only actions deserving of punishment are those which cause harm to others. Copyright infringement is nothing but a specific case of communication, and does not harm anyone—a copyright holder is no worse off if people 'pirate' his or her work than he or she would be if they simply did without it, and may even benefit as a side-effect of the public exposure. To punish someone for such an act is a clear case of aggression.
I'm still unconvinced the GP wasn't a parody. But are you telling me that you see no difference between someone's right to state their beliefs and someone downloading Iron Man 2? Seriously?
As regards your argument about copyright infringement doing no harm, I note that you slipped in a caveat about people downloading as compared to not buying. What about where people download something instead of buying? I just spent £25 on a programming book for my Kindle. Most of that money will go straight to the author because it's an ebook without any shipping, printing costs, etc. But because it's an ebook, I'm a lot more likely to be able to get a pirated copy that would be the same. So if I'd pirated the book instead, would the author not be worse off? Of course they would. They have been harmed by piracy.
Are we talking about the legal definition or moral definition?
The accurate definition: Freeloader is one that gets their benefit from the work of others without recompensing those others. There is no "legal" or "moral" definition in there, it simply describes behaviour. You agreed that it fitted the behaviour of pirates, but said it also fitted anyone who owned intellectual property that they didn't directly create. I showed with examples that it doesn't as within those examples, there was recompense made to the creator of the works. So yes, "Freeloader" is an accurate term for pirates, but not for those that pay others for intellectual property. That society generally regards freeloading negatively is a separate issue following on from that. Your objection is not based on inaccuracy in the definition, but because the term highlights that pirates are putting the financial burden of producing the media on others, and merely living off those other people. Rightly, that is seen as negative.
The term "freeloader" is a moral term, not a descriptive term and certainly not a legal term of art.
Terms are always descriptive. That is what a term is - a description. I've given you a definition of "freeloader" above which no-one would think inaccurate unless they had a reason not to want the term to be applied. Do you honestly think the definition above is fundamentally wrong?
I believe that anyone owning intellectual "property" besides the innovator himself is immoral.
Thus you regard anyone hired to write a computer game as being a party to immoral behaviour. You regard the idea of any writer hired to produce a piece of fiction as doing something wrong. Etecetera and etcetera. Unsurprisingly, I disagree. If two parties consent to something without coercion or deceit, then I find little basis for an act to be immoral unless they are harming an outside party. And as you said that intellectual property was okay when it was owned by the creator, then I see no difference externally whether how it is used is handled by one person or two in agreement, I also see no reason why that person can't exchange ownership for something else.
It is not what the copyright or patent systems were designed for. It does not "spur innovation" to have anyone but the people who did the work own the IP.
Yes it does. How many big budget movies do you think there would be if the backers couldn't own the rights to the movie in return for the massive amounts of money they give? Do you think a game like Dragon Age would exist if the ultimate product couldn't be owned by the people who paid a lot of money to writers, artists and programmers to create it? What do you think would be the effect on TV shows if every episode were owned not by the studio, but by the people who worked on the script for that particular episode. And don't forget the actors and the lighting people, the make-up people, the catering staff, the owner of the studios and the ones who leased the equipment. At a stroke, you've pulled the rug out from under most collaborative projects. What are people supposed to do, set up some elaborate on-going profit share scheme? But Bob the fourth camera man just wants to be paid a flat sum and go home. Sorry Bob - some guy on Slashdot says it would be immoral for you to cede all future rights to payment (aka sell your rights) in exchange for a fixed fee for your work on the project.
More people and entities own IP who did NOT do the work than the other way around
So? It's you who has an issue with that. I don't so long as the people who did the work were paid what they agreed in return f
Do not neglect the factor of what risks and costs taking action might entail. You phrase your scenario as "wait and see if you're wrong, or take action in case you're not." But in reality that last part might be "take action at great costs and potentially unexpected side-effects, in case you're wrong". Living your life as if everything that might go wrong will go wrong, will rapidly begin to negatively impact your life. Just commenting on the logic of your statement.
However, there is no competition in the price of blu-rays.
Competition is not the relevant price control for luxury goods (i.e. things you don't actually need, such as movies). if a majority of people feel that paying $15 for a Blu-ray is acceptable, then there is no incentive for the manufacturer to sell if for less. If most people thought it was too much, then the manufacturer (assuming there is a margin that can be cut and still be profitable) will reduce the cost.
I mention this just because your post seems to suggest that competition in Blu-rays would reduce the price. It wouldn't - it's not the relevant cost. Sure, if Blu-Ray were an open format you might see a small reduction as manufacturers of the physical disc competed with less licencing overhead, but the physical disc isn't the primary cost when you buy a movie. Basically, Blu-Rays are the price they are because that's what most people think they're worth. If you know better, then go and work for a movie studio because they'll pay you very handsomely for helping them increase their profit margins by pointing out where their market research is in error.
I would accept that. As long as the same term applies to anyone who owns intellectual property and did not directly create the work got called by the same name.
That would be inaccurate. If I start a game design company and employ some programmers and writers and artists to work on a project and create a game and they are paid for their work, then I own an intellectual property, but I am not freeloading. I have invested money in it. Similarly with any artist who created a work but then sold the rights to it to another party. The buying party did not directly create the work, but they are not freeloading because they have given the artists an agreed sum in return for those (or more often some of those) rights.
If I download copyrighted content but then upload it don't the two cancel out?
Are you suggesting that you are uploading the files back to the same place you just downloaded them from?
Are you serious or is that parody? Free Speech was about people being able to safely speak their beliefs, not about distributing Dragon Age II or Iron Man for free. Boycott has historically meant stopping buying something and doing without, not taking something and refusing to pay. I reject entirely that people writing computer games, novels, recording songs, making movies, are "archaic powers". These are people contributing to our culture and they deserve to get paid at whatever price they and their customers can meet and agree on. The Internet offers artists a chance to sell and market directly to the public and the biggest thing in the way of that is piracy.
Right now there are Somalian gangsters taking over peoples' boats and kidnapping and killing people.
To use the same term for those people and someone who downloads The.Mechanic.2011.R5.LiNE.AC3-T0XiC-iNK is just fucking ignorant.
Is it possible to have a little perspective, please?
By the way, several of the board members of the MPAA are child molesters. I don't mean that they molest children, but that's the term I use to refer to the members of the MPAA and RIAA. I would like to see "child molester" become the common term to describe any studio head, member of RIAA or MPAA or any of their lawyers.
Seeing as you appear to care passionately about the use of the term "pirate", here is one that I can think of that can be used as an alternative: "Freeloader". It means one that takes for free what others pay for, getting a free ride off other people. I think you'll find that is in no way incompatible with software piracy and there's nothing inaccurate in using that term.
I agree that pirate is a bad term. I prefer calling them "freeloaders". It's an entirely accurate word for what they do.
Unfortunately I don't have the link to hand, but I did read that the notices actually met with some success. A lot of people who pirate just do so because (a) they've never thought of it as wrong and (b) they consider themselves anonymous. In many cases, a letter arriving saying: "look, stop nicking our stuff" has made them think about one or both of these. Basically, as you say, a letter is a much better first step than a legal charge.
Well done, "genius", you've just created a scenario where an ISP can still get revenue whilst not having the costs of providing a service. Noooo, that's not an incentive for ISPs to cut someone off at all now, is it?
You want the victim to pay compensation to the person that loses revenue when the culprit doesn't need their tools, anymore? I can see that principle breaking down rather quickly. "Your honour, the serial killer used to rent a lock-up from me to store the bodies. Now that the victims' families have brought charges, I stand to lose that income." "Good point - I hereby declare that in return for sentencing the killer, those families must reimburse you for lost income. Next!"
Nice.
Regardless of the accuracy or otherwise of the charge (and that accuracy should be determined by a court, not some busy tech operator at the ISP), disconnection is not an appropriate response. So much of our work, social connections, purchasing and learning is done online these days, that severing someone from that is akin to making them a medieval pariah. If someone is guilty of piracy, let them be sued and make reparations. Judges who back this disconnection idea are out of touch types who probably consider the Internet that thing their grandkids use to play games on.
Whenever piracy comes up on Slashdot, you'll likely find detailed rebuttals of the justifications for it by me. I don't like a group of people living freely off the backs of those who pay, and we have to put up with things like DRM as a response to their piracy. But disconnection counts as a "cruel and unusual" punishment. No to disconnection - whether guilty or not.
The Mission" is better understood as "take that hill," not "take that hill with three men and a spork." It's dangerous to make requesting additional resources an act of insubordination.
But requesting additional resources is not the same as lying about the facts in order to manipulate the decision makers. How would you like it if a colleague lied to your employers about how much harder / more extensive their work was than yours so that they got given more support / bonus / pay increase than you did? Now substitute that with the military distorting the facts of a matter in order to trick society into providing them with more resources? Isn't that like any number of dubious historical events where a military has bigged up an outside threat in order to get society to grant them more and more power / funds?
Getting the mission done with as few deaths as possible is the morally right thing for a commander to do.
"The mission" did not spring into being as a pure goal with its raison d'etre being its own existence in some bizarre circular logic. Tasks are assigned by higher ups to achieve the ends those higher-ups designate. If the people charged with carrying it out then turn on the people who give them their directives and try to manipulate them into changing parameters, then they're no longer fulfilling the implicit directive of carrying out their superiors' decisions, they're trying to alter their superiors' decisions and change the parameters of "the mission," setting their own goals first. We have a term for that already: it's called 'the tail wagging the dog'.
Holy cow are you people starting to sound like broken records. Is this the answer to all questions? The Federal Reserve Act?! What is wrong with our schools?
The US school system used to be one of the best. But it was never the same after the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.