Is copyright a limit on the things I can say, even if what I'm saying is just repeating what someone else has said? If yes, then copyright is censorship. It's really that simple.
Then you agree with my original statement that laws against for-profit piracy is censorship. So, let's say that Amazon and Walmart declared that they will continue selling books, movies, music, and software, but they were going to print all their own copies and pay no money to anyone, and then the government stepped in and dragged them into court and fined them, and then Amazon and Walmart used the defense that "this is censorship", you would completely agree with that? That's the point you have to argue. If Amazon or Walmart did that, I'd laugh at their claim that they are being "censored", because it's obvious they're just being jerks.
In fact, copyright started as a method of censorship in medieval Europe before being codified into law and turned into what it is today.
No, it started with an author who went to the authorities in Venice and asked for a ten-year period to have exclusive rights to publish his own book so that he could be sufficiently compensated for his work. (Most anti-copyright activists will tell you a distorted version of history. One thing I've noticed listening to anti-copyright activists like Rick Falkvinge versus copyright academics is that they tell different histories about copyright.)
The question is not whether copyright is censorship, because it is.
Yes, it is "censorship" in the most ridiculous and indefensible interpretation of the word.
The question is, how much of this censorship is adequate and reasonable to support and enhance creativity, and at what point does the censorship become harmful to the public. 70 years after death is stupidly long, and defeats the purpose of enriching the public domain for the benefit of the public. Too much censorship, so that needs to be reformed.
Okay, but I'm going to start by calling you out on CHANGING THE SUBJECT.
With that said, I think we can both agree that piracy websites have very little interest in stuff that's 10 years old. They're most interested in stuff that's 1 year old. Just lookup the download counts for pirated material - the top 100 list is dominated by stuff released within the last twelve months. Under any reasonable length of copyright, piracy websites are breaking the law.
Perhaps changing the status quo is inconvenient for you, because you make lots of money from the current system and don't want it to change. That does not, in any way, justify the status quo.
No, it just irks me that pirates throw around self-serving excuses for their own greed. I also think it's piracy is detrimental and unfair to creators - even if I can agree that copyright is too long. On that note, even if I thought the death penalty was unfair to criminals, it doesn't somehow legitimize murder.
One thing I often say to pirates is this: what's a reasonable copyright length? If it's ten years or more, then I say "okay, act like copyright is only ten years long and I won't judge you." They never want to take me up on the offer because they know they're better off complaining about copyright and then getting free stuff that was released last week or last month - because that's the stuff they really want.
If you're going to argue that copyright is censorship, then you have to also argue that laws against illegally selling copyrighted material is also censorship. Afterall, if "You can't give away free copies of other people's work without their permission" is censorship, then I don't see how "You can't sell other people's work without their permission" isn't also censorship. In other words, you're going to have to take the position that Walmart and Amazon.com should be able to print up all the copies of books, movies, software, and music that they want, and pay no money to anyone.
Honestly, all the "censorship" talk about copyright makes me imagine a spamlord complaining that he's being censored because he can't get his mass mailings out to everybody.
> But I lived overseas where I could walk the streets at 3am without a care in the world... But the fact is the United States is suffering from serious cultural issues that perpetuates things like crime.
I think it depends on where you are. As a tourist, you're probably travelling in safe places - in part because dangerous places aren't the places that get a lot of tourist traffic. (I know, for example, that the tourist areas of Mexico are generally safe, but Mexico has a lot more problems with crime, drug cartels, and 3-4x the homicide rate than the US.) Also, you might be perceiving the US as very dangerous thanks to news reports, while you're judging other countries based on personal experience.
Assaults (per capita) http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_ass_percap-crime-assaults-per-capita
# 1 South Africa: 12.0752 per 1,000 people
# 6 United States: 7.56923 per 1,000 people
# 7 New Zealand: 7.47881 per 1,000 people
# 8 United Kingdom: 7.45959 per 1,000 people
# 9 Canada: 7.11834 per 1,000 people
# 10 Australia: 7.02459 per 1,000 people
So, you're only 1%-8% more likely to be assaulted in the US than you are in New Zealand, the UK, Canada, and Australia.
Burglaries (per capita) http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_bur_percap-crime-burglaries-per-capita
# 1 Australia: 21.7454 per 1,000 people
# 3 Denmark: 18.3299 per 1,000 people
# 4 Estonia: 17.4576 per 1,000 people
# 5 Finland: 16.7697 per 1,000 people
# 6 New Zealand: 16.2763 per 1,000 people
# 7 United Kingdom: 13.8321 per 1,000 people
# 8 Poland: 9.46071 per 1,000 people
# 9 Canada: 8.94425 per 1,000 people
# 17 United States: 7.09996 per 1,000 people
You're quite a bit less likely to have a burglary in the US than you are in Australia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, New Zealand, the UK, Poland, or Canada.
Total crimes (per capita) http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_percap-crime-total-crimes-per-capita
# 2 New Zealand: 105.881 per 1,000 people
# 3 Finland: 101.526 per 1,000 people
# 4 Denmark: 92.8277 per 1,000 people
# 6 United Kingdom: 85.5517 per 1,000 people
# 8 United States: 80.0645 per 1,000 people
# 9 Netherlands: 79.5779 per 1,000 people
# 11 Germany: 75.9996 per 1,000 people
# 12 Canada: 75.4921 per 1,000 people
# 13 Norway: 71.8639 per 1,000 people
The US ranks in the same ballpark as these other countries when it comes to total crimes per capita.
Car thefts (per capita) http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_car_the_percap-crime-car-thefts-per-capita
# 1 Australia: 6.92354 per 1,000 people
# 2 Denmark: 5.92839 per 1,000 people
# 3 United Kingdom: 5.6054 per 1,000 people
# 4 New Zealand: 5.45031 per 1,000 people
# 5 Norway: 5.08143 per 1,000 people
# 6 France: 4.9713 per 1,000 people
# 7 Canada: 4.88547 per 1,000 people
# 8 Italy: 4.19755 per 1,000 people
# 9 United States: 3.8795 per 1,000 people
Car theft is quite a bit less common in the US than these other developed countries.
> "I doubt game companies were involved in the copyright term extension act."
> No but they are now on the same side...
Let's put your statement in more plain terms: the copyright extension act has NOTHING to do with the games industry.
> No but they are now on the same side with the rise of online DRM and all sorts of bullshit like DLC.
DRM is a consequence of piracy. When PC titles routinely show piracy rates in the range of 85%-95%, it's not hard at all to understand why companies are looking to make sure only paying customers are getting their work.
> You want to have no rights then you're one of the ignorant.
"No Rights" is just pro-piracy hyperbole.
Out of curiousity, since you've indicted the whole games industry, do you feel the least bit guilty about pirating indie games with no DRM, pirating indie games with no DRM and "pay what you want" (as with the humble bundle), or pirating Id Software's games, even though they're giving away the source code and suggesting that other companies do the same (http://linux.slashdot.org/story/11/08/04/2129223/Doom-3-Source-Code-To-Be-Released-This-Year)? You actually sound like a racist who wants to condemn an entire race of people because you pick out examples of people of that race behaving badly, while ignoring people of that race behaving well.
I doubt game companies were involved in the copyright term extension act. By in large, game companies don't give a crap about extending copyright because games and software in general have a bad shelf-life. After about ten years, old games are often given away for free or sold for $5 or less. I'm certain that game companies aren't making any money on ten-year old games, much less twenty year old games. So, why would game companies spend money lobbying to increase copyright to 100+ years?
Assuming that the US' original 28-year copyright was still in effect, that project would still be inside the copyright term because Chrono Trigger was published in 1995. Heck, the project was shut down in 2004, which means it was 9 years after release (which is also inside the 14-year copyright term). I also can't figure out why you think "Chrono Trigger" is "public domain", or why the "Chrono Trigger" situation is evidence to indict the whole industry. "Gang Garrison" didn't run into any problems with Valve (who made Team Fortress), does that count as enough evidence to justify the whole industry?
What we need to do is use all of our resources to go after people who potentially cause a loss of potential profit. This is clearly a good use of our resources and money, so we should get as many FBI agents and policeman involved as possible (as well as politicians who rush through new laws because of how important these potential losses are).
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Failing to give me all of your money and property deprives me of potential future gain, and therefore makes you a thief!
This isn't at all a surprising argument strategy for a pirate to use. Afterall, when the facts are so much against them, there's really no other strategy than trying to exaggerate reality and play mind games so that they can justify their self-serving actions.
> "Given the whole theft of the public domain we can say piracy is a counterbalance to this overwhelming corporate theft of the public domain."
Funny, I thought the pirate mantra was that "theft" involved physically depriving someone of something. All of a sudden, the pirate thinks the "public domain" can be stolen. How does that work again? I can't think of any game company that has deprived someone else of using the public domain. It's not like World Of Warcraft has a patent on MMOs, roleplaying, or fantasy-medieval themed-games and prevents any other game company from making games in that niche.
My theory is that pirates manufacture a sense of victimization to justify their actions.
2. Cheaper. Real soldiers tend to cost more - because we pay for their training, long term support, etc.
I doubt that. In the book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army", they point out that the mercenaries are quite a bit more expensive than traditional troops. The reason nations pay for them is because they can quickly get troops without the long training period, and because it can be difficult to get enough traditional troops into the field without a draft. As a result of higher costs, nations tended to only pay for mercs when their regular army was overstretched. One of the problems with the use of Blackwater is that regular troops were leaving the US military to get a job with Blackwater, which would pay them a lot more money - because Blackwater was negotiating higher rates with the US military. It created resentment among regular troops towards the mercs because they knew that the mercs were getting paid a lot more money than they were.
(Another thing that Blackwater was increasingly doing was hiring foreigners from places like Chile because they were cheaper than Americans. It was basically outsourcing to the low-income countries, like what happens in manufacturing. You can bet those mercs have no loyalty to the US - and the US was indirectly paying for their training and equipment.)
Just so you know: the statement that the US supported Islamic militants and the statement that the US supported the Taliban are different claims. Yes, they're related (especially since the Taliban was drawn from the groups of Islamic militants), but they are different things. We might also take a minute to point out that the US (and the other Allies) supported evil communist USSR during World War 2. Was that a good or bad decision? I just like to throw that out there for everyone who likes to complain about the US supporting Islamic Militants against the USSR, because almost no one is willing to take the step of condemning the Western Allies for their support of the USSR, even though it was clear that the USSR was an enemy of the West.
Imagine you believe that DDT *might* be dangerous... Now watch as over 40 years, malaria ravages Africa and kills tens of millions of babies, and keeps most of the continent in abject poverty.
Mosquitos were already showing DDT resistance (DDT-resistant mosquitoes were first detected in India in 1959), and it wasn't banned in Africa, it was banned from production in the US -- and not until 1972. In short: DDT had basically become useless against mosquitoes by the time it was banned. It doesn't take much math at all to show that once genetic resistance appears in a fast-multiplying organism that it can quickly spread to nearly 100% of the population, rendering DDT useless. (See http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/ridley/tutorials/The_theory_of_natural_selection__part_1_13.asp)
I've also seen books that claimed that small amounts of cancer-causing agents actually prime the immune system and improve health. That seemed like an industry's wet dream. Whether it's true or not, it adds enough doubt to the system which (under a libertarian system) requires absolute certainty on the part of the government before doing anything. It sounds to me like a libertarian system automatically results in a world where governments can't do anything because the businesses will be so powerful that they can *always* add enough doubt and uncertainty to prevent any action. (Which reminds me of the decades of denial by tobacco companies about a smoking-cancer link. I remember one claim put out by tobacco companies that people who were nervous were more likely to get cancer, and more likely to smoke - because smoking calms them. That was their way of throwing a wrench into the evidence that smoking causes cancer.)
Humans, in general, are terrible at weighing risk
I agree, but I'd add that individuals are the worst at judging risk because it's often based on anecdotal evidence (e.g. my aunt smoked for 50 years and never got cancer). Studies and research and double-blind tests are far superior to individual judgment. This is why I think the libertarian system of "everyone decides for themselves" ends up being worse-off for society: because it ends up elevating ignorant individual judgment.
Indeed. I prefer the religion of Roy Spencer (co-author of the study and research scientist), who signed a document stating:
"We believe Earth and its ecosystems — created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence — are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth's climate system is no exception." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Spencer_(scientist)
There's nothing the least bit scary about the religious view that we don't need to take care of anything because God will take care of it for us. Sometimes, I feel like a passenger in a car being driven by a religious nut who's speeding towards a cliff while telling me that "everything is going to be okay" because God will save us.
Frankly, the libertarian position of "leave me alone" works either way - the government intervention position has to be *completely correct* in order for it to be beneficial (and let's take a wild guess about how often that happens).
Wait - why does the libertarian position work either way? Also: one complaint I've had about libertarians in the past is their unwillingness to allow for government regulation of anything ("the market will sort it all out"). When I mention things like pollution, libertarians say that air is a common resource, therefore, the government has to be allowed to regulate it. Then, other times, libertarians want to play the "government never knows best" card and deny government regulation (in this case, of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere). So, if your argument is correct (" the government intervention position has to be *completely correct* in order for it to be beneficial (and let's take a wild guess about how often that happens)"), then how would the government regulate *anything* under a libertarian system? I'm thinking specifically of the regulation of pollution (both air pollusion, sulfur emissions in the air, heavy metals into water, regulation of fishing and hunting to prevent over-fishing and over-hunting, regulation of cancer-causing agents like asbestos, etc)?
Should I read the libertarian position as "the government should be allowed to regulate our common resources, but when you're not looking, we're going to complain that the government never does anything right, so they shouldn't be allowed to regulate anything, have fun playing in our industrial pollution!"?
That's a silly example because you have to evaluate people based on the times in which they lived and the knowledge that was available to them. If an ancient scientist thought that the world is flat, that's totally different than calling out someone in the 21st century who thinks the earth is flat.
My guess would be that light passes through the atmosphere, and (thanks to quantum physics) certain atoms and molecules absorb light at specific wavelengths. Carbon dioxide is absorbs infrared light ("The carbon dioxide strongly absorbs infrared and does not allow as much of it to escape into space." http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/grnhse.html). Since light is passing through miles of atmosphere (both light coming into the earth and light being reflected from the earth), it's also passing through lots and lots of air. Normally, the light just keeps going, but when infrared light hits carbon dioxide, specifically, it gets absorbed and turned into heat. This is why even a small increase in carbon dioxide has an effect: because the light is passing through lots and lots of atoms/molecules in the atmosphere. (To put it another way: if light is "harmlessly" passing through 1,000 atoms in the atmophere, then a small change of CO2 from 280 ppm to 380 ppm will increase the light's chances of hitting a carbon dioxide molecule from 28% to 38%.)
The idea that carbon dioxide is evil is published and promoted only by those who stand to gain from such lies.
It seems to me that Fossil-Fuel based companies have a lot more to gain from the global-warming debate outcome than anyone. I'm also confident that they have *much* deeper pockets than the US government when it comes to funding research. For example, there's over 1 trillion barrels of known oil reserves. Oil is currently around $100/barrel. That works out to $100 trillion dollars. Obviously, that's not profit. But, it as little as 10% of that is profit, that still works out to $10 trillion. (Which might be a low estimate considering that, for example, it costs $2/barrel to extract oil from under Saudi Arabia.*)
Which leads me to the next point: why aren't climatologists jumping on the big-oil bandwagon with their trillions of dollars if it's just about money? Further, why aren't we saying: "The idea that [anthropogenic global warming is false] is published and promoted only by those who stand to gain from such lies."
In 1987, 42% of the software developers in America were women... the percentages of women who earned Computer Science degrees rose steadily, peaking at 37% in 1984
If women with computer science degrees peaked in 1984 at 37%, then it also means women working as software developers were less likely to have a degree.
From the Article: "In the past year, the number of women majoring in Computer Science has nearly doubled at Harvard, rising from 13% to 25%"
If there was that much change in a single year, I'm betting it has more to do with the admissions process or other factors than any society-wide phenomena.
I have a question re some of the bids (from a purely interested-in-the-experiment viewpoint). Did @notch really pay over four grand to get this bundle? That seems rather generous, or reeks of someone trying to skew the results:-)
Yeah, I'm pretty sure he gave $4000+. It is generous, from the perspective of an absolute dollar amount. Of course, Minecraft earned him over $30 Million dollars, so it's all chump change to him.
What I've seen is that "most adults" have been indoctrinated with the idea that morals are an outdated tool used by society to control the weak-minded.
Indoctrinated? By who? I will admit that this sounds an awful lot like the way religious people view atheists - i.e. religious people believe atheists believe that morality is an outdated tool used by society to control the weak-minded.
To be honest, I'm note sure why so many indie developers even target Xbox/PS3. Fear of piracy, maybe?
I'd guess because it's another market. In fact, the console market is far larger than the PC market. I think the PC market is something like $1 Billion/year (about half of what it was ten years ago), while the entire game market is something like $30 Billion/year - which is mostly consoles and mobiles.
"Independent games on steam seem to have some sort of quality control,"
You have to be accepted by Steam in order to have your game on the service. I don't know what the system is on the XBox.
"In early 1933, in order to fight severe deflation Congress and President Roosevelt implemented a series of Acts of Congress and Executive Orders which suspended the gold standard except for foreign exchange, revoked gold as universal legal tender for debts, and banned private ownership of significant amounts of gold coin." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_dollar
I vote for (3) The labels don't believe that piracy helps sales.
Look at it this way. Let's say 10% of the general population is interested in something (music or a movie). Let's say half of them pirate. All this study shows is that the 5% of the population who are interested and pirate purchase more than the average person who falls into category B: the 5% who are interested but don't pirate plus the 90% who aren't interested. This study isn't a vindication of piracy, but many people will interpret it as such. I think the RIAA/MPAA interpret the findings this way. Also, considering the declining sales of music and movies over the past 10 years, they have some data on their side.
"...offering free downloads of some of the books they publish, they saw a marked increase in sales of books by those authors."
I remember seeing that article. The article actually said that sales of some books increased, while other authors saw no change whatsoever. I remember John Scalzi saying that it makes sense to give away the first book in a series, but he argued that it makes no sense to give away the entire catalogue. Giving limited access to one or two books is different than giving free access to all books (which is what internet piracy does). Also, people still like to read books in print form and you're not pirating print copies (unless you're going to print them out on your printer, which most people won't want to do).
Slashdot Mirror
Is copyright a limit on the things I can say, even if what I'm saying is just repeating what someone else has said? If yes, then copyright is censorship. It's really that simple.
Then you agree with my original statement that laws against for-profit piracy is censorship. So, let's say that Amazon and Walmart declared that they will continue selling books, movies, music, and software, but they were going to print all their own copies and pay no money to anyone, and then the government stepped in and dragged them into court and fined them, and then Amazon and Walmart used the defense that "this is censorship", you would completely agree with that? That's the point you have to argue. If Amazon or Walmart did that, I'd laugh at their claim that they are being "censored", because it's obvious they're just being jerks.
In fact, copyright started as a method of censorship in medieval Europe before being codified into law and turned into what it is today.
No, it started with an author who went to the authorities in Venice and asked for a ten-year period to have exclusive rights to publish his own book so that he could be sufficiently compensated for his work. (Most anti-copyright activists will tell you a distorted version of history. One thing I've noticed listening to anti-copyright activists like Rick Falkvinge versus copyright academics is that they tell different histories about copyright.)
The question is not whether copyright is censorship, because it is.
Yes, it is "censorship" in the most ridiculous and indefensible interpretation of the word.
The question is, how much of this censorship is adequate and reasonable to support and enhance creativity, and at what point does the censorship become harmful to the public. 70 years after death is stupidly long, and defeats the purpose of enriching the public domain for the benefit of the public. Too much censorship, so that needs to be reformed.
Okay, but I'm going to start by calling you out on CHANGING THE SUBJECT.
With that said, I think we can both agree that piracy websites have very little interest in stuff that's 10 years old. They're most interested in stuff that's 1 year old. Just lookup the download counts for pirated material - the top 100 list is dominated by stuff released within the last twelve months. Under any reasonable length of copyright, piracy websites are breaking the law.
Perhaps changing the status quo is inconvenient for you, because you make lots of money from the current system and don't want it to change. That does not, in any way, justify the status quo.
No, it just irks me that pirates throw around self-serving excuses for their own greed. I also think it's piracy is detrimental and unfair to creators - even if I can agree that copyright is too long. On that note, even if I thought the death penalty was unfair to criminals, it doesn't somehow legitimize murder.
One thing I often say to pirates is this: what's a reasonable copyright length? If it's ten years or more, then I say "okay, act like copyright is only ten years long and I won't judge you." They never want to take me up on the offer because they know they're better off complaining about copyright and then getting free stuff that was released last week or last month - because that's the stuff they really want.
If you're going to argue that copyright is censorship, then you have to also argue that laws against illegally selling copyrighted material is also censorship. Afterall, if "You can't give away free copies of other people's work without their permission" is censorship, then I don't see how "You can't sell other people's work without their permission" isn't also censorship. In other words, you're going to have to take the position that Walmart and Amazon.com should be able to print up all the copies of books, movies, software, and music that they want, and pay no money to anyone.
Honestly, all the "censorship" talk about copyright makes me imagine a spamlord complaining that he's being censored because he can't get his mass mailings out to everybody.
> But I lived overseas where I could walk the streets at 3am without a care in the world... But the fact is the United States is suffering from serious cultural issues that perpetuates things like crime.
I think it depends on where you are. As a tourist, you're probably travelling in safe places - in part because dangerous places aren't the places that get a lot of tourist traffic. (I know, for example, that the tourist areas of Mexico are generally safe, but Mexico has a lot more problems with crime, drug cartels, and 3-4x the homicide rate than the US.) Also, you might be perceiving the US as very dangerous thanks to news reports, while you're judging other countries based on personal experience.
Assaults (per capita) http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_ass_percap-crime-assaults-per-capita
# 1 South Africa: 12.0752 per 1,000 people
# 6 United States: 7.56923 per 1,000 people
# 7 New Zealand: 7.47881 per 1,000 people
# 8 United Kingdom: 7.45959 per 1,000 people
# 9 Canada: 7.11834 per 1,000 people
# 10 Australia: 7.02459 per 1,000 people
So, you're only 1%-8% more likely to be assaulted in the US than you are in New Zealand, the UK, Canada, and Australia.
Burglaries (per capita) http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_bur_percap-crime-burglaries-per-capita
# 1 Australia: 21.7454 per 1,000 people
# 3 Denmark: 18.3299 per 1,000 people
# 4 Estonia: 17.4576 per 1,000 people
# 5 Finland: 16.7697 per 1,000 people
# 6 New Zealand: 16.2763 per 1,000 people
# 7 United Kingdom: 13.8321 per 1,000 people
# 8 Poland: 9.46071 per 1,000 people
# 9 Canada: 8.94425 per 1,000 people
# 17 United States: 7.09996 per 1,000 people
You're quite a bit less likely to have a burglary in the US than you are in Australia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, New Zealand, the UK, Poland, or Canada.
Total crimes (per capita) http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_percap-crime-total-crimes-per-capita
# 2 New Zealand: 105.881 per 1,000 people
# 3 Finland: 101.526 per 1,000 people
# 4 Denmark: 92.8277 per 1,000 people
# 6 United Kingdom: 85.5517 per 1,000 people
# 8 United States: 80.0645 per 1,000 people
# 9 Netherlands: 79.5779 per 1,000 people
# 11 Germany: 75.9996 per 1,000 people
# 12 Canada: 75.4921 per 1,000 people
# 13 Norway: 71.8639 per 1,000 people
The US ranks in the same ballpark as these other countries when it comes to total crimes per capita.
Car thefts (per capita) http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_car_the_percap-crime-car-thefts-per-capita
# 1 Australia: 6.92354 per 1,000 people
# 2 Denmark: 5.92839 per 1,000 people
# 3 United Kingdom: 5.6054 per 1,000 people
# 4 New Zealand: 5.45031 per 1,000 people
# 5 Norway: 5.08143 per 1,000 people
# 6 France: 4.9713 per 1,000 people
# 7 Canada: 4.88547 per 1,000 people
# 8 Italy: 4.19755 per 1,000 people
# 9 United States: 3.8795 per 1,000 people
Car theft is quite a bit less common in the US than these other developed countries.
Rapes (per capita) http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap_percap-crime-rapes-per-capita
# 3 Australia: 0.777999 per 1,000 people
# 5 Canada: 0.733089 per 1,000 people
# 9 United States: 0.301318 per 1,000 people
# 10 Iceland: 0.246009 per 1,000 people
# 12 New
> "I doubt game companies were involved in the copyright term extension act."
> No but they are now on the same side...
Let's put your statement in more plain terms: the copyright extension act has NOTHING to do with the games industry.
> No but they are now on the same side with the rise of online DRM and all sorts of bullshit like DLC.
DRM is a consequence of piracy. When PC titles routinely show piracy rates in the range of 85%-95%, it's not hard at all to understand why companies are looking to make sure only paying customers are getting their work.
> You want to have no rights then you're one of the ignorant.
"No Rights" is just pro-piracy hyperbole.
Out of curiousity, since you've indicted the whole games industry, do you feel the least bit guilty about pirating indie games with no DRM, pirating indie games with no DRM and "pay what you want" (as with the humble bundle), or pirating Id Software's games, even though they're giving away the source code and suggesting that other companies do the same (http://linux.slashdot.org/story/11/08/04/2129223/Doom-3-Source-Code-To-Be-Released-This-Year)? You actually sound like a racist who wants to condemn an entire race of people because you pick out examples of people of that race behaving badly, while ignoring people of that race behaving well.
I doubt game companies were involved in the copyright term extension act. By in large, game companies don't give a crap about extending copyright because games and software in general have a bad shelf-life. After about ten years, old games are often given away for free or sold for $5 or less. I'm certain that game companies aren't making any money on ten-year old games, much less twenty year old games. So, why would game companies spend money lobbying to increase copyright to 100+ years?
http://www.opcoder.com/projects/chrono/ [opcoder.com]
There is more then enough evidence to indict the whole industry.
Assuming that the US' original 28-year copyright was still in effect, that project would still be inside the copyright term because Chrono Trigger was published in 1995. Heck, the project was shut down in 2004, which means it was 9 years after release (which is also inside the 14-year copyright term). I also can't figure out why you think "Chrono Trigger" is "public domain", or why the "Chrono Trigger" situation is evidence to indict the whole industry. "Gang Garrison" didn't run into any problems with Valve (who made Team Fortress), does that count as enough evidence to justify the whole industry?
What we need to do is use all of our resources to go after people who potentially cause a loss of potential profit. This is clearly a good use of our resources and money, so we should get as many FBI agents and policeman involved as possible (as well as politicians who rush through new laws because of how important these potential losses are).
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Failing to give me all of your money and property deprives me of potential future gain, and therefore makes you a thief!
This isn't at all a surprising argument strategy for a pirate to use. Afterall, when the facts are so much against them, there's really no other strategy than trying to exaggerate reality and play mind games so that they can justify their self-serving actions.
> "Given the whole theft of the public domain we can say piracy is a counterbalance to this overwhelming corporate theft of the public domain."
Funny, I thought the pirate mantra was that "theft" involved physically depriving someone of something. All of a sudden, the pirate thinks the "public domain" can be stolen. How does that work again? I can't think of any game company that has deprived someone else of using the public domain. It's not like World Of Warcraft has a patent on MMOs, roleplaying, or fantasy-medieval themed-games and prevents any other game company from making games in that niche.
My theory is that pirates manufacture a sense of victimization to justify their actions.
2. Cheaper. Real soldiers tend to cost more - because we pay for their training, long term support, etc.
I doubt that. In the book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army", they point out that the mercenaries are quite a bit more expensive than traditional troops. The reason nations pay for them is because they can quickly get troops without the long training period, and because it can be difficult to get enough traditional troops into the field without a draft. As a result of higher costs, nations tended to only pay for mercs when their regular army was overstretched. One of the problems with the use of Blackwater is that regular troops were leaving the US military to get a job with Blackwater, which would pay them a lot more money - because Blackwater was negotiating higher rates with the US military. It created resentment among regular troops towards the mercs because they knew that the mercs were getting paid a lot more money than they were.
(Another thing that Blackwater was increasingly doing was hiring foreigners from places like Chile because they were cheaper than Americans. It was basically outsourcing to the low-income countries, like what happens in manufacturing. You can bet those mercs have no loyalty to the US - and the US was indirectly paying for their training and equipment.)
Just so you know: the statement that the US supported Islamic militants and the statement that the US supported the Taliban are different claims. Yes, they're related (especially since the Taliban was drawn from the groups of Islamic militants), but they are different things. We might also take a minute to point out that the US (and the other Allies) supported evil communist USSR during World War 2. Was that a good or bad decision? I just like to throw that out there for everyone who likes to complain about the US supporting Islamic Militants against the USSR, because almost no one is willing to take the step of condemning the Western Allies for their support of the USSR, even though it was clear that the USSR was an enemy of the West.
..or else 100,000 people will bog down your bandwidth.
Seriously, though, the range must be somewhere around 62 miles ( since (Radius^2)*Pi = 12,000 square miles, then Radius = 61.8 miles ).
Imagine you believe that DDT *might* be dangerous ... Now watch as over 40 years, malaria ravages Africa and kills tens of millions of babies, and keeps most of the continent in abject poverty.
Mosquitos were already showing DDT resistance (DDT-resistant mosquitoes were first detected in India in 1959), and it wasn't banned in Africa, it was banned from production in the US -- and not until 1972. In short: DDT had basically become useless against mosquitoes by the time it was banned. It doesn't take much math at all to show that once genetic resistance appears in a fast-multiplying organism that it can quickly spread to nearly 100% of the population, rendering DDT useless. (See http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/ridley/tutorials/The_theory_of_natural_selection__part_1_13.asp)
I've also seen books that claimed that small amounts of cancer-causing agents actually prime the immune system and improve health. That seemed like an industry's wet dream. Whether it's true or not, it adds enough doubt to the system which (under a libertarian system) requires absolute certainty on the part of the government before doing anything. It sounds to me like a libertarian system automatically results in a world where governments can't do anything because the businesses will be so powerful that they can *always* add enough doubt and uncertainty to prevent any action. (Which reminds me of the decades of denial by tobacco companies about a smoking-cancer link. I remember one claim put out by tobacco companies that people who were nervous were more likely to get cancer, and more likely to smoke - because smoking calms them. That was their way of throwing a wrench into the evidence that smoking causes cancer.)
Humans, in general, are terrible at weighing risk
I agree, but I'd add that individuals are the worst at judging risk because it's often based on anecdotal evidence (e.g. my aunt smoked for 50 years and never got cancer). Studies and research and double-blind tests are far superior to individual judgment. This is why I think the libertarian system of "everyone decides for themselves" ends up being worse-off for society: because it ends up elevating ignorant individual judgment.
Indeed. I prefer the religion of Roy Spencer (co-author of the study and research scientist), who signed a document stating:
"We believe Earth and its ecosystems — created by God’s intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence — are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earth's climate system is no exception."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Spencer_(scientist)
There's nothing the least bit scary about the religious view that we don't need to take care of anything because God will take care of it for us. Sometimes, I feel like a passenger in a car being driven by a religious nut who's speeding towards a cliff while telling me that "everything is going to be okay" because God will save us.
Frankly, the libertarian position of "leave me alone" works either way - the government intervention position has to be *completely correct* in order for it to be beneficial (and let's take a wild guess about how often that happens).
Wait - why does the libertarian position work either way? Also: one complaint I've had about libertarians in the past is their unwillingness to allow for government regulation of anything ("the market will sort it all out"). When I mention things like pollution, libertarians say that air is a common resource, therefore, the government has to be allowed to regulate it. Then, other times, libertarians want to play the "government never knows best" card and deny government regulation (in this case, of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere). So, if your argument is correct (" the government intervention position has to be *completely correct* in order for it to be beneficial (and let's take a wild guess about how often that happens)"), then how would the government regulate *anything* under a libertarian system? I'm thinking specifically of the regulation of pollution (both air pollusion, sulfur emissions in the air, heavy metals into water, regulation of fishing and hunting to prevent over-fishing and over-hunting, regulation of cancer-causing agents like asbestos, etc)?
Should I read the libertarian position as "the government should be allowed to regulate our common resources, but when you're not looking, we're going to complain that the government never does anything right, so they shouldn't be allowed to regulate anything, have fun playing in our industrial pollution!"?
That's a silly example because you have to evaluate people based on the times in which they lived and the knowledge that was available to them. If an ancient scientist thought that the world is flat, that's totally different than calling out someone in the 21st century who thinks the earth is flat.
My guess would be that light passes through the atmosphere, and (thanks to quantum physics) certain atoms and molecules absorb light at specific wavelengths. Carbon dioxide is absorbs infrared light ("The carbon dioxide strongly absorbs infrared and does not allow as much of it to escape into space." http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/grnhse.html). Since light is passing through miles of atmosphere (both light coming into the earth and light being reflected from the earth), it's also passing through lots and lots of air. Normally, the light just keeps going, but when infrared light hits carbon dioxide, specifically, it gets absorbed and turned into heat. This is why even a small increase in carbon dioxide has an effect: because the light is passing through lots and lots of atoms/molecules in the atmosphere. (To put it another way: if light is "harmlessly" passing through 1,000 atoms in the atmophere, then a small change of CO2 from 280 ppm to 380 ppm will increase the light's chances of hitting a carbon dioxide molecule from 28% to 38%.)
The idea that carbon dioxide is evil is published and promoted only by those who stand to gain from such lies.
It seems to me that Fossil-Fuel based companies have a lot more to gain from the global-warming debate outcome than anyone. I'm also confident that they have *much* deeper pockets than the US government when it comes to funding research. For example, there's over 1 trillion barrels of known oil reserves. Oil is currently around $100/barrel. That works out to $100 trillion dollars. Obviously, that's not profit. But, it as little as 10% of that is profit, that still works out to $10 trillion. (Which might be a low estimate considering that, for example, it costs $2/barrel to extract oil from under Saudi Arabia.*)
Which leads me to the next point: why aren't climatologists jumping on the big-oil bandwagon with their trillions of dollars if it's just about money? Further, why aren't we saying: "The idea that [anthropogenic global warming is false] is published and promoted only by those who stand to gain from such lies."
* "The world's cheapest oil to extract comes from Saudi Arabia and costs $2 a barrel." http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/05/news/companies/exxon_oil/index.htm
In 1987, 42% of the software developers in America were women... the percentages of women who earned Computer Science degrees rose steadily, peaking at 37% in 1984
If women with computer science degrees peaked in 1984 at 37%, then it also means women working as software developers were less likely to have a degree.
From the Article: "In the past year, the number of women majoring in Computer Science has nearly doubled at Harvard, rising from 13% to 25%"
If there was that much change in a single year, I'm betting it has more to do with the admissions process or other factors than any society-wide phenomena.
I have a question re some of the bids (from a purely interested-in-the-experiment viewpoint). Did @notch really pay over four grand to get this bundle? That seems rather generous, or reeks of someone trying to skew the results :-)
Yeah, I'm pretty sure he gave $4000+. It is generous, from the perspective of an absolute dollar amount. Of course, Minecraft earned him over $30 Million dollars, so it's all chump change to him.
I am amazed that 20% of the people who had no risk of being caught did NOT steal... Perhaps humanity is not as corrupt as I thought.
I don't know about you, but any benefit I'd get from stealing the money would be outweighed by the guilt I felt over stealing the money.
What I've seen is that "most adults" have been indoctrinated with the idea that morals are an outdated tool used by society to control the weak-minded.
Indoctrinated? By who? I will admit that this sounds an awful lot like the way religious people view atheists - i.e. religious people believe atheists believe that morality is an outdated tool used by society to control the weak-minded.
To be honest, I'm note sure why so many indie developers even target Xbox/PS3. Fear of piracy, maybe?
I'd guess because it's another market. In fact, the console market is far larger than the PC market. I think the PC market is something like $1 Billion/year (about half of what it was ten years ago), while the entire game market is something like $30 Billion/year - which is mostly consoles and mobiles.
"Independent games on steam seem to have some sort of quality control,"
You have to be accepted by Steam in order to have your game on the service. I don't know what the system is on the XBox.
"In early 1933, in order to fight severe deflation Congress and President Roosevelt implemented a series of Acts of Congress and Executive Orders which suspended the gold standard except for foreign exchange, revoked gold as universal legal tender for debts, and banned private ownership of significant amounts of gold coin."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_United_States_dollar
I vote for (3) The labels don't believe that piracy helps sales.
Look at it this way. Let's say 10% of the general population is interested in something (music or a movie). Let's say half of them pirate. All this study shows is that the 5% of the population who are interested and pirate purchase more than the average person who falls into category B: the 5% who are interested but don't pirate plus the 90% who aren't interested. This study isn't a vindication of piracy, but many people will interpret it as such. I think the RIAA/MPAA interpret the findings this way. Also, considering the declining sales of music and movies over the past 10 years, they have some data on their side.
"...offering free downloads of some of the books they publish, they saw a marked increase in sales of books by those authors."
I remember seeing that article. The article actually said that sales of some books increased, while other authors saw no change whatsoever. I remember John Scalzi saying that it makes sense to give away the first book in a series, but he argued that it makes no sense to give away the entire catalogue. Giving limited access to one or two books is different than giving free access to all books (which is what internet piracy does). Also, people still like to read books in print form and you're not pirating print copies (unless you're going to print them out on your printer, which most people won't want to do).