If he's such a horrible person, why was he able to get ~50 top-of-the-charts singers (and musicians and audio engineers) to perform a Megaupload song for him? If he really was hurting these people, they would have refused to do the ad. But instead they helped write, sing, and produce it.
They didn't. First of all, there were only a few famous people in that video (not "50 top-of-the-charts singers"). Secondly, it was pretty clear from the video that they were paid a few bucks to say that they liked MegaUpload. I have a hard time believing they even knew what MegaUpload was. They might as well have said they loved Crest toothpaste or Domino's Pizza. They were just acting as paid celebrity spokespersons. They did not produce a song for him. Rather, a couple of unknown musicians were paid to put together a song where they inserted the famous musicians' spoken words. That song was shady as fuck, and the fact that people actually believe that musicians were supporting Kim Dotcom just shows how shady the guy is.
I, for one, would like to see anything released over 10 years ago go into the public domain. Then, much of the Megaupload activity would've been legal.
Most piracy is done on music and movies and software released withing the last ten years. So, I'd bet 90% of those downloads would still be piracy.
Dotcom has a long list of convictions long before this latest round. He also wasn't "hanging out" with Steve Wozniak. Steve Wozniak didn't turn up until Steve thought Kim was being mistreated. To say they were "hang out buddies" long before this indictment seems like a big stretch.
The fact he'd change his last name to Dotcom, alone, tells you how much he wants to be noticed as a "guru" in his field of interest.
The fact that he changed his name to Dotcom tells me he's all about marketing and hype. He strikes me as one of those guys who wants to be perceived as the go-to guy for all that internetty stuff, but he's as shady as a spamlord.
and charging artists less for the privilege of selling their music via the MegaBox service, the FBI got quite frisky. Seizing servers, requesting arrest and extradition, freezing assets, etc. Now MegaUpload is no longer a threat to iTunes. I wonder what changed?
That's some serious tinfoil hat stuff you're messing with. Lookup "GumRoad" sometime. It allows creators to sell directly to consumers and they payout 95% to the creator (minus an additional 25 cent fee). You can get back to me if gumroad gets shutdown by the feds, but I'm putting money on the fact that they won't. The existence of sites like GumRoad shows that the MegaUpload conspiracy theory is just that -- a conspiracy theory.
First, this doesn't change the fact that was allowing people to pirate creators works - which still makes him shady.
Secondly, if he wants to compete **legally** with legitimate digital media sites, then he needs to knock off the piracy side of his business. It's some serious tinfoil hat area to claim this was just an "attack" by placed like iTunes and Amazon. He knew full well that he needed to clean his own house and knock off the illegal shit.
And, third, there are places getting started where creators can start selling digital media without needing to go through intermediaries like iTunes and Amazon. Lookup GumRoad sometime.
I'm not sure how much has reputation has actually changed. I'm sure a lot of people still reading the Kim Dotcom articles tend to disproportionately be pro-piracy - they dislike the US, hate that the US is actually enforcing copyright, bringing pain to piracy enablers like Kim Dotcom. By in large, they've decided that they'd rather see some nasty guy like Kim Dotcom make millions of dollars in ill-gotten money than have piracy go away.
This I learned: lightning rods are part of a corporate conspiracy fueled by irrational fear of "electricity from the sky!" and designed to make Americans pay money for little pieces of metal.
I generally agree that if the Taliban denied responsibility for poisonings, then I'm inclined to believe them. This is not based on "trust of washington" or "trusting what the Taliban say" - both of which asks us to believe organizations without reference to what we're being asked to believe. In this specific case, I don't know why the Taliban would deny responsibility. Reducing this to a question of "do you believe those neocons in Washington" is asking the *wrong* question.
Since the Taliban are the most politically convenient thing to the US Neocons to appear on the global marketplace of \textit{casus belli}, it's more accurate to say, "Something was said about the Taliban.. and people believed them?"
This is an organization who shut down girls schools in the past, so it fits the pattern. Keep in mind that this is the same organization who are blocking polio vaccinations, so it's not at all surprising that they would pull something like poisoning water at girls schools. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/26/taliban-bans-polio-vaccinations
Update to my previous post: according to the HIV-test manufacturer "More than 1.1 million people in the U.S. are infected with HIV and 232,700 don’t know it." (http://www.orasure.com/products-infectious/products-infectious-oraquick.asp) This would mean that only 21% of the people with HIV don't know they have it. This means that of the US population which [doesn't have HIV + has HIV and doesn't know it] only 0.1% of them actually have HIV (this is the population where the test would be used).
In other words, if the test says you have HIV, there's a 95% chance it's correct.
That's almost correct. If you have an average risk of contracting HIV and you've never tested yourself before, then the numbers would be 95% (well, okay, that's not quite true for reasons below). If you're in a low-risk group (e.g. you don't get laid or are in a long-term monogamous relationship), then you are less likely to have HIV and there's less than a 95% chance it's correct if it says you have HIV. Conversely, if you're in a high-risk group, it could be more than 95%. And, just to be through, even if 1 in 250 people in the US have HIV, the odds that any single person will have HIV and not know it is less than 1 in 250. I'm unsure what percentage of HIV-infected don't know it, but assuming half of all Americans with HIV don't know it, then you're really doing the test on a section of the population which has a 1 in 500 chance of having HIV and not knowing it (which is the whole reason you'd take an HIV test in the first place, since the "I know I have HIV" group isn't going to be taking more tests).
To be fair, it's pretty clear that Assange has a vendetta against the US, as well. He takes the view that the US is a big bully and has made statements about being on a mission to stop "two wars" (i.e. the Iraq war and the war in Afghanistan). It's pretty clear that he was intending to use the documents to drive the US into retreat using the leaked documents as a weapon. (No word on why he thinks the Taliban would make great rulers over Afghanistan.)
> Proof of how the US gave Saddam a green-light to invade Kuwait
First, I didn't realize that the US-Iraq conversations, pre-1991 invasion of Kuwait was part of what Assange or Manning had in their documents. Second, it's highly misleading to say that the US gave Iraq the green light to invade Kuwait. The worst you can say is that the US didn't tell Iraq that they would counterattack if Saddam invaded Kuwait. More specifically, the US said it didn't have an opinion on the Iraq-Kuwait oil disputes (both countries were drawing from some of the same oil reservoirs, and were having a dispute over it). When you say the US "gave Saddam a green-light to invade Kuwait" you make it sound like the US was all "yeah, buddy, go ahead and invade Kuwait" when that's not at all what happened.
> The media industry seems to think that $300+ per month is a reasonable price for a cable/satellite connection that has "all" the channels, is choked with ever increasing commercials and isn't even on-demand. Add to that, the fact that your forced to scroll through hundreds of channels that you don't want, due to horrible packages forced on the cable providers by content producers. Piracy is driven, solely, by the media industry that's complaining about it.
This is the 'ol "It's not my fault I pirate, it's your fault for [insert overblown claims about how the industry mistreats consumers]". There are plenty of ways to pay for content without buying a "$300+" cable subscription. It's retarded to claim this is the only way to get it. Redbox, Netflix, Amazon video on demand, music subscription services, etc. They're all cheaper than $300+ a month. The fact of the matter is that people still pirated the Humble Indie Bundle and it was "pay what you want". Sorry, you can't fool us into believing that the problem is some imaginary $300 / month subscription fee - we know that pirates are the problem.
> Eventually we will rediscover the bandwidth of sneakernet. Not much to be done about that one. And it gets worse.
The "we'll resort to the sneakernet" argument is retarded. The sneakernet is inconvenient and will always lack the variety and quality of a globally accessible repository like PirateBay. If companies can push people to the sneakernet, it will be a huge win for the content industry. Most people won't do it, there will be a several-month delay before you can get cracked copies of software, it will be more vulnerable to viruses (like limewire), and pirates will be forced into the embarrassing position of asking friends for copies of stuff, which makes them look like cheapskates. In the end, the "we'll resort to the sneakernet" is just a hollow threat used by pirates who want to believe nobody can back them into a corner and make them pay for their entertainment.
[stores are] not engaged in capitalism. They have a competitor in the [shiplifting] sector that they cannot beat on merits, so they are trying to legislate it away. Capitalism would demand that they compete rather than go home and cry to mommy.
The ability to take stuff and not be held accountable is a kind of power. I thought this would be self-evident enough.
Copyright is really not a right
If you have a "Copyright" then you have rights to copy.
it is depriving the rest of society of the right to copy.
Yes, like the ability to not let the general public into a concert or amusement park without a ticket. Or preventing the public from being allowed to conterfiet money. It is "depriving them".
I personally think that if the scope and length of this monopoly was lower it might be morally acceptable, but 100 years is surely not.
How in the world do you square that with your earlier statements about copyright depriving the public of the "right" to copy? If copyfight lasts for 2 minutes, it's still stealing away their "rights" - if you're being consistent. (I'm fine with shorter copyrights, but I hate all the twisted logic people use to claim that copyright shouldn't exist, everybody should be allowed to get all their entertainment for free, etc, etc.)
It doesn't help artists (and therefore, creation) better than the alternative, and therefore "Copyright"'s only basis of existence, the 1 line of the constitution "to promote science and the useful arts" is unfulfilled. [Citation needed BADLY]
The comparison between "buggy whips" and automobiles is a silly comparison. Here's the thing: I'm *NOT* about preserving jobs. I'm about preserving productivity and the creation of stuff that people want. Buggy whip manufacturers went out of business because their business was replaced by a new technology. People didn't need or want horses or buggies or buggy whips anymore. This is completely different than the copyright situation. People still want musicians to create music, want movie makers to create movies, want software developers to make software. But, they've found a clever way to avoid paying people while still getting the product. They still want the product to exist, and they want people to continue creating those products. For that reason, this is nothing like buggies and automobiles. It's more like people have figured out a way to steal automobiles and because "there's a way to do it" the economy is supposed to adjust and the thieves are trying to get everyone to stop blaming them. They want to shift the blame off of themselves and get everyone to blame the "silly, outdated" business model of "making automobiles for money".
> "Less than 25% of the public view downloading music as illegal, and to be fair NONE should."
2/3rds of Americans view piracy as theft. I realize, though, that pirates have an interest in twisting numbers around to make it seem like everybody's on their side.
"A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 67% of Likely U.S. Voters agree that someone who downloads a movie online without paying for it is stealing from the company that made the film. Eighteen percent (18%) do not view this free downloading as theft. Fifteen percent (15%) are not sure."
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/january_2012/ 71_see_government_censorship_of_internet_ as_bigger_threat_than_illegal_downloading
> It's another thing to actively copy millions of them, or assist others to do it, and distribute those copies to other people.
I saw part of a documentary with the PirateBay guys in it. Their attitude was very much along the lines of: "If your stuff is getting pirated, too bad for you; find a different way to make money." They were completely unapologetic about piracy. They might as well have said, "You can't stop us and might makes right".
I was getting the Tolkien reference from the wikipedia page: "Discworld is a comic fantasy book series by English author Sir Terry Pratchett,[1] set on the Discworld, a flat world balanced on the backs of four elephants which, in turn, stand on the back of a giant turtle,[2] Great A'Tuin. The books frequently parody, or at least take inspiration from J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert E. Howard, H. P. Lovecraft and William Shakespeare, as well as mythology, folklore and fairy tales, often using them for satirical parallels with current cultural, political and scientific issues." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld )
I guess my main question was whether or not Pratchett depended on the "public domain" nature of these works to parody them. Copyright allows for a certain amount of parody using copyrighted works. If the parody exemption to copyright was used to parody Tolkien, then it might mean that the status of these earlier works as "public domain" versus "copyrighted" becomes a moot point. In other words, even if they were under copyright, Pratchett could still use them.
"A parody is a work created to mock, comment on, or make fun at an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation. Parody is protected as a form of “Fair Use”, a defense to claims of copyright infringement. "
Source: http://firemark.com/2011/01/17/asked-answered-parodysatire-copyright-infringement/
There are two Shakespeare parody books: Wyrd Sisters (combination of Macbeth and Hamlet, the first spoken line in Pratchett's book is verbatim first spoken line from Macbeth)
I'm also doubtful that copying a single line from an earlier (copyrighted) work would be sufficient to be considered copyright infringement.
"For example if Terry Pratchett was not allowed to use public domain works as a basis for his own Discworld series, the Discworld books would either suck or not exist at all."
Could you give more details on this? I haven't read his books, but based on what I've heard of the books, they parody (or take inspiration from) certain aspects of other author's books - including J.R.R. Tolkien. Wikipedia says that the Discworld books were published from 1983 until the present. J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" books were written between 1937 and 1949 and published in 1937, 1954, 1955. Presumably, they were (and still are) under copyright - which means they were not public domain when Terry Pratchett parodied them.
Slashdot Mirror
They didn't. First of all, there were only a few famous people in that video (not "50 top-of-the-charts singers"). Secondly, it was pretty clear from the video that they were paid a few bucks to say that they liked MegaUpload. I have a hard time believing they even knew what MegaUpload was. They might as well have said they loved Crest toothpaste or Domino's Pizza. They were just acting as paid celebrity spokespersons. They did not produce a song for him. Rather, a couple of unknown musicians were paid to put together a song where they inserted the famous musicians' spoken words. That song was shady as fuck, and the fact that people actually believe that musicians were supporting Kim Dotcom just shows how shady the guy is.
Most piracy is done on music and movies and software released withing the last ten years. So, I'd bet 90% of those downloads would still be piracy.
The fact that he changed his name to Dotcom tells me he's all about marketing and hype. He strikes me as one of those guys who wants to be perceived as the go-to guy for all that internetty stuff, but he's as shady as a spamlord.
That's some serious tinfoil hat stuff you're messing with. Lookup "GumRoad" sometime. It allows creators to sell directly to consumers and they payout 95% to the creator (minus an additional 25 cent fee). You can get back to me if gumroad gets shutdown by the feds, but I'm putting money on the fact that they won't. The existence of sites like GumRoad shows that the MegaUpload conspiracy theory is just that -- a conspiracy theory.
First, this doesn't change the fact that was allowing people to pirate creators works - which still makes him shady.
Secondly, if he wants to compete **legally** with legitimate digital media sites, then he needs to knock off the piracy side of his business. It's some serious tinfoil hat area to claim this was just an "attack" by placed like iTunes and Amazon. He knew full well that he needed to clean his own house and knock off the illegal shit.
And, third, there are places getting started where creators can start selling digital media without needing to go through intermediaries like iTunes and Amazon. Lookup GumRoad sometime.
I'm not sure how much has reputation has actually changed. I'm sure a lot of people still reading the Kim Dotcom articles tend to disproportionately be pro-piracy - they dislike the US, hate that the US is actually enforcing copyright, bringing pain to piracy enablers like Kim Dotcom. By in large, they've decided that they'd rather see some nasty guy like Kim Dotcom make millions of dollars in ill-gotten money than have piracy go away.
Where is the war on lightning?
This I learned: lightning rods are part of a corporate conspiracy fueled by irrational fear of "electricity from the sky!" and designed to make Americans pay money for little pieces of metal.
Not in the US! I mean religious in the US would never downplay the contributions of deists ( http://www.dailypaul.com/128828/texas-yanks-thomas-jefferson-from-teaching-standard ) or exaggerate the religiosity of other founding fathers ( http://home.comcast.net/~pobrien48/Lies%20for%20Jesus%20and%20Christiaity.htm http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/06/09/you-know-david-barton-has-a-re/ ), and then used that fictional history to complain about how we're moving away from what the founding fathers wanted for the United States.
This is an organization who shut down girls schools in the past, so it fits the pattern. Keep in mind that this is the same organization who are blocking polio vaccinations, so it's not at all surprising that they would pull something like poisoning water at girls schools. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/26/taliban-bans-polio-vaccinations
"Ron and Rand Paul are set today to shift the central focus of their family's long libertarian crusade to a new cause: Internet Freedom."
Update to my previous post: according to the HIV-test manufacturer "More than 1.1 million people in the U.S. are infected with HIV and 232,700 don’t know it." (http://www.orasure.com/products-infectious/products-infectious-oraquick.asp) This would mean that only 21% of the people with HIV don't know they have it. This means that of the US population which [doesn't have HIV + has HIV and doesn't know it] only 0.1% of them actually have HIV (this is the population where the test would be used).
That's almost correct. If you have an average risk of contracting HIV and you've never tested yourself before, then the numbers would be 95% (well, okay, that's not quite true for reasons below). If you're in a low-risk group (e.g. you don't get laid or are in a long-term monogamous relationship), then you are less likely to have HIV and there's less than a 95% chance it's correct if it says you have HIV. Conversely, if you're in a high-risk group, it could be more than 95%. And, just to be through, even if 1 in 250 people in the US have HIV, the odds that any single person will have HIV and not know it is less than 1 in 250. I'm unsure what percentage of HIV-infected don't know it, but assuming half of all Americans with HIV don't know it, then you're really doing the test on a section of the population which has a 1 in 500 chance of having HIV and not knowing it (which is the whole reason you'd take an HIV test in the first place, since the "I know I have HIV" group isn't going to be taking more tests).
To be fair, it's pretty clear that Assange has a vendetta against the US, as well. He takes the view that the US is a big bully and has made statements about being on a mission to stop "two wars" (i.e. the Iraq war and the war in Afghanistan). It's pretty clear that he was intending to use the documents to drive the US into retreat using the leaked documents as a weapon. (No word on why he thinks the Taliban would make great rulers over Afghanistan.)
> Proof of how the US gave Saddam a green-light to invade Kuwait
First, I didn't realize that the US-Iraq conversations, pre-1991 invasion of Kuwait was part of what Assange or Manning had in their documents. Second, it's highly misleading to say that the US gave Iraq the green light to invade Kuwait. The worst you can say is that the US didn't tell Iraq that they would counterattack if Saddam invaded Kuwait. More specifically, the US said it didn't have an opinion on the Iraq-Kuwait oil disputes (both countries were drawing from some of the same oil reservoirs, and were having a dispute over it). When you say the US "gave Saddam a green-light to invade Kuwait" you make it sound like the US was all "yeah, buddy, go ahead and invade Kuwait" when that's not at all what happened.
> The media industry seems to think that $300+ per month is a reasonable price for a cable/satellite connection that has "all" the channels, is choked with ever increasing commercials and isn't even on-demand. Add to that, the fact that your forced to scroll through hundreds of channels that you don't want, due to horrible packages forced on the cable providers by content producers. Piracy is driven, solely, by the media industry that's complaining about it.
This is the 'ol "It's not my fault I pirate, it's your fault for [insert overblown claims about how the industry mistreats consumers]". There are plenty of ways to pay for content without buying a "$300+" cable subscription. It's retarded to claim this is the only way to get it. Redbox, Netflix, Amazon video on demand, music subscription services, etc. They're all cheaper than $300+ a month. The fact of the matter is that people still pirated the Humble Indie Bundle and it was "pay what you want". Sorry, you can't fool us into believing that the problem is some imaginary $300 / month subscription fee - we know that pirates are the problem.
> Eventually we will rediscover the bandwidth of sneakernet. Not much to be done about that one. And it gets worse.
The "we'll resort to the sneakernet" argument is retarded. The sneakernet is inconvenient and will always lack the variety and quality of a globally accessible repository like PirateBay. If companies can push people to the sneakernet, it will be a huge win for the content industry. Most people won't do it, there will be a several-month delay before you can get cracked copies of software, it will be more vulnerable to viruses (like limewire), and pirates will be forced into the embarrassing position of asking friends for copies of stuff, which makes them look like cheapskates. In the end, the "we'll resort to the sneakernet" is just a hollow threat used by pirates who want to believe nobody can back them into a corner and make them pay for their entertainment.
[stores are] not engaged in capitalism. They have a competitor in the [shiplifting] sector that they cannot beat on merits, so they are trying to legislate it away. Capitalism would demand that they compete rather than go home and cry to mommy.
Your understanding of the situation is dumb.
The ability to take stuff and not be held accountable is a kind of power. I thought this would be self-evident enough.
If you have a "Copyright" then you have rights to copy.
Yes, like the ability to not let the general public into a concert or amusement park without a ticket. Or preventing the public from being allowed to conterfiet money. It is "depriving them".
How in the world do you square that with your earlier statements about copyright depriving the public of the "right" to copy? If copyfight lasts for 2 minutes, it's still stealing away their "rights" - if you're being consistent. (I'm fine with shorter copyrights, but I hate all the twisted logic people use to claim that copyright shouldn't exist, everybody should be allowed to get all their entertainment for free, etc, etc.)
It doesn't help artists (and therefore, creation) better than the alternative, and therefore "Copyright"'s only basis of existence, the 1 line of the constitution "to promote science and the useful arts" is unfulfilled. [Citation needed BADLY]
The comparison between "buggy whips" and automobiles is a silly comparison. Here's the thing: I'm *NOT* about preserving jobs. I'm about preserving productivity and the creation of stuff that people want. Buggy whip manufacturers went out of business because their business was replaced by a new technology. People didn't need or want horses or buggies or buggy whips anymore. This is completely different than the copyright situation. People still want musicians to create music, want movie makers to create movies, want software developers to make software. But, they've found a clever way to avoid paying people while still getting the product. They still want the product to exist, and they want people to continue creating those products. For that reason, this is nothing like buggies and automobiles. It's more like people have figured out a way to steal automobiles and because "there's a way to do it" the economy is supposed to adjust and the thieves are trying to get everyone to stop blaming them. They want to shift the blame off of themselves and get everyone to blame the "silly, outdated" business model of "making automobiles for money".
> "Less than 25% of the public view downloading music as illegal, and to be fair NONE should."
2/3rds of Americans view piracy as theft. I realize, though, that pirates have an interest in twisting numbers around to make it seem like everybody's on their side.
"A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 67% of Likely U.S. Voters agree that someone who downloads a movie online without paying for it is stealing from the company that made the film. Eighteen percent (18%) do not view this free downloading as theft. Fifteen percent (15%) are not sure."
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/january_2012/ 71_see_government_censorship_of_internet_ as_bigger_threat_than_illegal_downloading
> It's another thing to actively copy millions of them, or assist others to do it, and distribute those copies to other people.
I saw part of a documentary with the PirateBay guys in it. Their attitude was very much along the lines of: "If your stuff is getting pirated, too bad for you; find a different way to make money." They were completely unapologetic about piracy. They might as well have said, "You can't stop us and might makes right".
Yup, just like home printers (dot matrix, inkjet) put book and magazine publishers out of business.
I guess my main question was whether or not Pratchett depended on the "public domain" nature of these works to parody them. Copyright allows for a certain amount of parody using copyrighted works. If the parody exemption to copyright was used to parody Tolkien, then it might mean that the status of these earlier works as "public domain" versus "copyrighted" becomes a moot point. In other words, even if they were under copyright, Pratchett could still use them.
I'm also doubtful that copying a single line from an earlier (copyrighted) work would be sufficient to be considered copyright infringement.
Could you give more details on this? I haven't read his books, but based on what I've heard of the books, they parody (or take inspiration from) certain aspects of other author's books - including J.R.R. Tolkien. Wikipedia says that the Discworld books were published from 1983 until the present. J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" books were written between 1937 and 1949 and published in 1937, 1954, 1955. Presumably, they were (and still are) under copyright - which means they were not public domain when Terry Pratchett parodied them.