I keep reading your post, but I can't figure out what you're point is.
- You can't conflate free software users with pirates, or say they operate the same. When people download free software, they don't feel guilty about doing it. Some pirates might feel guilty, realize that the company only makes money through sales, and then pays. There's plenty of software that I've bought in the past that I wouldn't have paid a dime for if it was free and asking for donations. All those companies that operate under copyright would lose me as a customer if their software was "free, but please donate".
- You claim that "they're happy to have no or minimal DRM because pirates could be customers and customers are customers and should be treated as such". Actually, that's not their view nor have I heard them claim that's their justification for not using DRM. Their reason for not using DRM is that they don't want to inconvenience their actual customers. (I've seen Wardell go off on pirates, and call them "thieves".)
Could someone please point out where in the original document any of this is substantiated? I've gotten used to fact checking Doctorow and Geist. (It's shocking how often they misrepresent the actual facts.) Geist links to two articles: one is a non-searchable pdf with a lot of amendments (it's difficult to decipher without the original document to see what it's amending), and the second document is a news article from "livemint". The livemint article says the copyright amendment gives more rights to creators, extends the length of copyright ("enhance the term of copyright for photographers to 'life plus 60 years' instead of only 60 years at present"), "The amendment seeks to bring the copyright Act, 1957 in line with the World Intellectual Property Organization's Internet treaties", and "The amendment also addresses the complaints of the music industry that has been complaining about 'version recordings' of original songs depriving music companies of royalties."
In short, I can't find anything at all that substantiates Doctorow's and Geist's claim that this is a more liberal copyright system.
I also meant to point out that the words "tech-friendly" in the phrase "Bully countries that have tech-friendly policies" is really a euphemism for "piracy friendly". Obviously, they aren't going after "tech-friendly" countries - which includes basically the entire Western world, if not the entire world. This also shows the bias that the EFF is bringing to the table. No doubt, if the EFF agreed with international trade in chemical weapons, they'd describe it as "trade-friendly nations". Or, if they agreed with the drug-trade, they'd describe nations involved in the creation/trafficing of drugs as "freedom-friendly".
While this suggestions shouldn't see the light of day, one of the problems I have with the EFF is that they never propose a way to deal with piracy. This is because they are piracy-friendly. Here's an example from their own article:
EFF's words: Bully countries that have tech-friendly policies
From the RIAA proposal: Targeting such companies and websites in the Special 301 report would put the countries involved on notice that dealing with such hotbeds of copyright theft will be an important topic of bilateral engagement with the U.S. in the year to come.
It's obvious from their language that they want to prevent anyone from putting pressure on Sweden or the PirateBay to stop piracy. Personally, I don't see what the problem is here. The EFF clearly wants piracy to continue, and they want to shut-down any attempts to put pressure on anyone involved in piracy -- even if it's a globally famous website like the PirateBay. By using language like "bullying" they're using intentionally inflammatory language. In other contexts (like, say, trade in chemical weapons, slavery, etc), I have no doubt that the EFF wouldn't have a problem with the US "bullying" other nations into doing the right thing - of course, they wouldn't use the word "bullying" because they actually agree with enforcement in those cases. So, by labeling any enforcement as "bullying" they're attempting to steer the discussion.
The EFF should really do itself a favor and stop siding with the pirates. If they hate the suggestions that the RIAA makes for dealing with piracy, then they should make some decent suggestions of their own. Instead, the EFF constantly drags its feet on any enforcement of any kind of copyright issue. Based on their pattern of behavior, it's clear that the EFF won't be happy until piracy is 100% legal.
Isn't Impulse made by the same company (Stardock) who's putting together "Goo" - which is a DRM system? http://www.joystiq.com/2009/03/26/stardock-introduces-flexible-drm-solution-goo/ While Stardock has generally gone without DRM for their past games, I don't think Impulse is necessarily a DRM-free system. It's probably more of a "here's a DRM system called 'goo' that's available for everyone who wants to use Impulse" kind of a system. My guess is that "Goo" is a low-level DRM system, not a "you must be connected to the internet" or rootkit-based system.
As an independent software developer who lives off of my copyrighted work, I'm perfectly fine with shorter copyrights - even 14 years. I really don't think long copyrights (beyond, say, 40-50 years) help anyone other than corporations, who have an insatiable appetite to maximize profits, and grandkids who want a trust fund. A 50 year copyright is going to extend copyright beyond the life of the author in most cases, and even if the author is still alive, he should've saved some money for old age - that's what everyone else does.
I think a much stronger argument is that when a huge segment of the population performs some act routinely without any sense of guilt, that's evidence that society as a whole doesn't consider it wrong. In a secular society, what can define right and wrong, except the consensus of the people? If the consensus is that something is not wrong, why is there a law against it?
Not sure that I care for that system, either. I can think of lots of things in history that were wrong, but enjoyed majority support. Everything from slavery and segregation to the Holocaust to genocide to witch burnings to killing "infidels". Sometimes laws should be created and enforced because it's for the benefit of society as a whole* and because it protects minorities from the tyranny of the majority.
* Society might not realize what is for it's own benefit, and society might also be in a situation where they think "everyone does it, therefore, so can I - therefore I shouldn't feel guilty", even though the best situation is that nobody does it. In other words, they might realize that "it's better if everyone followed law X", but still don't follow it themselves because it's in their own interest not to.
Example: Someone decides that they don't feel guilty about cheating on their taxes because lots of people do it. Problem: society as a whole would be better of if everyone paid their taxes. If it were easy to cheat on your taxes or not pay your taxes, and a lot of people started doing it, then, by your argument, the government should eliminate laws that people are required to pay taxes. At this point, even fewer people would pay, and there would be no way for the government to enact laws to pay taxes because a majority of people don't feel guilty about not paying.
Instead of a weekly paycheck, RMS should work for free and accept donations....
While I agree with you, the fact of the matter is that Stallman is so famous and he's at the top of the movement, which puts him in a far better position to get paid than other people. For example:
"Software pioneer and MIT research affiliate Richard M. Stallman has been named as a co-winner of the 2001 Takeda Award for Techno-Entrepreneurial Achievement for Social/Economic Well-Being. Stallman shares this award with Linux inventor Linus Torvalds and TRON open architecture developer Ken Sakamura. Each of the winners will be awarded 100 million yen, currently about $830,000, at a ceremony in Tokyo on December 4."
Stallman said he plans to keep the prize money and “invest it one way or another.” He said his primary goal is to live off the prize money so that he can devote his time to continue his not-for-profit work...
His work with free software has made him rich - far richer than the average Joe doing the same thing. I wonder if Stallman is a millionaire at this point. I wouldn't be surprised. I'm sure it's that much easier for him to believe in his own ideas when they make him rich.
In one video, I saw Stallman saying that copyrighted software might make you rich, but it was morally wrong. Given that most copyrighted software won't make you rich (it will only give developers sufficient money to survive) plus Stallman's claim that copyrighted software earns a lot more than open-source, the message that I took away from his little speech was that open-source was a really bad way to earn a living. Funny, how Stallman confirmed my thoughts about open-source.
Fast forward to 3:38 and watch until 4:00. The two guys just to the upper left of the crosshairs (3:38) both appear to have weapons. At 3:45-4:00, it looks like one of them has an RPG. They aren't the two guys identified earlier as cameramen (who were misidentified as having weapons). At 4:05-4:20 it appears like one man is peeking around the building and aiming at the helicopter at 4:20 - whether that's an RPG (as the helicopter pilot claims) or whether it's just a man with a camera is hard to tell, but the sneaking behavior looks suspicious for a cameraman.
Fast forward to 3:38 and watch until 4:00. The two guys just to the upper left of the crosshairs (at 3:38) both appear to have weapons. At 3:45-4:00, it looks like one of them has an RPG. They aren't the two guys identified earlier as cameramen (who were misidentified as having weapons). At 4:05-4:20 it appears like one man is peeking around the building and aiming at the helicopter at 4:20 - whether that's an RPG (as the helicopter pilot claims) or whether it's just a man with a camera is hard to tell, but the sneaking behavior looks suspicious for a cameraman.
anything created by the government is public domain. Good thing, too...that's why we have such rich geodata, b/c the government agencies that collect it all using our tax dollars are compelled to share it back with us. (After all, we paid for it.)
In the general case, I agree with you, but something seems very wrong with that idea if I think about other cases. For example, anything to do with national security - spy photos, weapon designs, lists of operatives, etc. I really don't think photographs of dead people (whether killed in traffic accidents, or killed in combat) really need to be in the public domain, either. In fact, it might be sadistic of the government to be releasing those kinds of photographs the same way that they release mug-shots.
I'd be careful about using Cory Doctorow's image (craphound.com) as a way to support your point. Cory Doctorow is a big proponent of piracy - in the past, he's promoted books that teach people how to pirate, and has sold "I pirate music" t-shirts on his website. Piracy advocates do nothing to reduce creators' desire to use DRM - quite the opposite, they make companies want to use DRM because they're so eager to pirate rather than pay. Doctorow is the enemy of creators; the only way to successfully get rid of DRM is to get more people to pay for their software, not less.
You can't say that any significant number of people will pay for software if they can't pirate it. Some will, some won't.
Yes, I'm fine with the statement that majority of pirates wouldn't have bought the game. However, when piracy numbers are as high as they are (Stardock / Demigod claimed 85% of the people trying to connect to their servers were pirates; 2dBoy said 90% of the people playing their game pirated it), you don't need a large percentage to get a big boost in sales numbers. If we said 90% of those pirates wouldn't have bought, that sounds like a strong argument. But, if 10% of the Demigod pirates or 10% of the World of Goo players bought instead of pirating, Demigod sales numbers would have increased by 56% and World of Goo sales would've increased by 90%. (Would you like to get paid 56% or 90% more money for whatever job you currently work at?) Sales increases of 56% or 90% are hard to ignore -- and that's based on the idea that only 1 out of 10 pirates equals a lost sale.
If customers just stop buying their games, the determination will not be that they need to stop implementing harsh DRM. It will be that there are not enough people willing to buy PC games legitimately.
I think his assumption is that people would buy DRM-free games instead (e.g. from Stardock, 2dBoy, etc).
Their sales were too low before because of the pirates, and now they're too low because those pirates won't pay for the games even if they make them uncrackable.
I've seen pirates pay for stuff that they couldn't pirate. Conversely, I've seen people who used to buy software switch to "pirate only" once they discovered how to pirate stuff. I see no reason why, if piracy was unavailable to them, that they wouldn't switch back to buying - since that's what they were doing before they discovered piracy.
I also think part of the solution is not condoning piracy with excuses (e.g. piracy is just sharing / making a copy; I'm not hurting anyone because it piracy doesn't deprive anyone of anything, like stealing does). People are way too eager to use excuses in order to legitimize their piracy. It's important not to let pirates delude themselves into thinking that they have the moral high-ground or believe that what they are doing is entirely legitimate.
To be fair, music was impossible to secure with DRM because of the analog hole. Plus, there's the fact that CDs are DRM-free. Once either of those are exploited, then copies are available on the internet. DRM on software is more secure. I'm not saying it is secure, just that it's harder to crack and it isn't always cracked (e.g. Assassin's Creed 2 is still not cracked, Settlers 7 is still not cracked, it took 3 years for someone to crack the PS3, etc). I'm not so sure that iTunes removed DRM because of consumer outcry so much as the fact that music companies realized that their product was fundamentally impossible to secure under any circumstances.
Wow. It's like psychohistory - uh, wait - isn't this really just doing a poll? Hasn't this already been done for decades? Just poll a small number of people in the general population, and you can "predict" all kinds of things - like elections before they happen? Sigh. The only difference between this and regular polls is that this is less scientific (since they make no effort to find a random selection of people from the population). It's probably a little better than online polls (probably less manipulation) and a little worse than scientifically-designed polls.
I've been writing software for 25 years, and I'm still confused by the claim that all software is math. In what sense is all software math? And, with that statement, I realize that I'm opening myself up to looking dumb, which is exactly why I think so few people stand up and disagree with "software is math" - because they're afraid of looking dumb, not because they actually agree with it.
You can say that is operates because of mathematical principles (e.g. sending around electrons, which obey mathematics), but that's not a very good argument. Afterall, all biology operates on math (since all biology is chemistry which is physics which is math). If I write a "Hello World" application, how is that math? It's not a "formula" in the sense that "Hello World" or "H3110 Wor7d" are somehow derivable from the world. I have a hard time seeing "World of Warcraft" or "Starcraft 2" as "just mathematics". Admittedly, I'm not really a fan of software patents, but I also disagree with this idea that software is all mathematics and contains no art. From my perspective, you can still disagree with software patents in the same way that you could disagree with artistic patents.
And that's why their position is wrong. Under their rules, any copyrighted material be entirely legal for filesharing. Once everything is legal and free on the internet, good luck selling anything.
We don't believe that prosecuting non-commercial file sharers for copying a song from the 1940s is reasonable, however.
Let's be honest here. The Pirate Party believes non-commercial filesharing for a song that came out 5 minutes ago should be 100% legal. This "from the 1940s" stuff is just an attempt to make themselves sound more reasonable.
No. Our position is that companies should pay for the use of copyrighted works and patented designs.
And then those companies that use that copyrighted material immediately have their work on the internet for free. For example, if a movie wants to use someone's song in the soundtrack, they have to pay for it. Unfortunately, the movie itself is available for free on the internet (by the Pirate Party's rules). So, the movie-creators don't make any money. So, they can't afford to pay the musician for his music. The Pirate Party's filesharing stance makes sure that even the "companies have to pay for copyrighted material" stance becomes a lame duck. The only case where creators could get paid is by selling their copyrighted work is in advertisements - e.g. a musician could make money when his money is used in a Car ad, because the Pirate Party hasn't undermined the car-sales market.
So, yes, I stand by my original claim: the Pirate Party wants to gut copyright law - making it almost worthless.
The Pirate Party is not against copyrights, they are against excessive copyrights.
Sorry, Rick Falkvinge has stated that everything should be available for free on the internet. Copyright, for them, only regulates the sale of copyrighted material. Of course, once everything is available for free on the internet, there's not much point in regulating the sale of copyrighted material. Afterall, how many sales are you going to get when everything is already available for free? The Pirate Party might as well get rid of copyright entirely, because it's effectively the same thing that they are advocating now.
The Pirate Party isn't fighting for responsible copyright laws, they want to gut the whole thing. It's an extreme overreaction that gives us a system that's *worse* than the current system. I'd support an organization that was more moderate on these issues. The Pirate Party is anything but moderate. Count me as one vote against the the Pirate Party's ridiculous "system".
The Pirate Party is bad because they want to make everything public domain - a pretty extreme overreaction, don't you think? Additionally, while I agree with shorter copyright limits, one could make the argument that infinitely-long copyrights are better for society than no copyrights. How is that possible? Because the fact that the public has to pay for something doesn't render it valueless (it's not like copyrighted-material is only valuable when it reaches the public domain), and without copyrights, there is no good economic model for the production of a lot of new work. (Just think of all the copyrighted software that you've bought, and got value from. The fact that you didn't get it for free doesn't mean it was worthless.) Now, I'm not arguing for long copyrights, I disagree with them. I'm just arguing that the whole Pirate Party idea of eliminating copyright is worse than what we've got.
"If it turns out that there is some reason that we have to take it down, then we will, but if this happens, it will only validate the document's authenticity."
How about if the Pirate Party's version of the ACTA document is completely fabricated? I think lying would be a good reason to take it down, and it wouldn't imply that the document is authentic.
I don't want to sound negative, but I was always worried about Oracle buying Sun, for how it would impact negatively on Sun's business.
Sun's business was already in the negative. At this point, I can't blame them for trying something new to turn-around Sun's profit/loss statement:
For the quarter that ended March 29 [2009], Sun posted a net loss of $201 million, or 27 cents a share. That’s a sharp downturn from the loss of $34 million, or 4 cents a share, it reported the same period last year. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/technology/companies/29sun.html
.. except, of course, when pirating is available and their opinion of 'reasonable price' is subject to whim, then the calculations go right out the window. For example: I pay hundreds of dollars to fly on an airplane. If I discovered a completely foolproof way to fly anywhere I want for free, then my opinion of "reasonable price" for air-fare suddenly shifts. I suddenly decide that $300 is far too much for air-fare (even though I've paid more than that in the past, when my options were "pay $300 and fly" or "don't fly"). At this point, my opinions about "reasonable price" are suddenly unhinged from anything. I can decide that flights need to be $20, or else "it's not reasonable".
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I keep reading your post, but I can't figure out what you're point is.
- You can't conflate free software users with pirates, or say they operate the same. When people download free software, they don't feel guilty about doing it. Some pirates might feel guilty, realize that the company only makes money through sales, and then pays. There's plenty of software that I've bought in the past that I wouldn't have paid a dime for if it was free and asking for donations. All those companies that operate under copyright would lose me as a customer if their software was "free, but please donate".
- You claim that "they're happy to have no or minimal DRM because pirates could be customers and customers are customers and should be treated as such". Actually, that's not their view nor have I heard them claim that's their justification for not using DRM. Their reason for not using DRM is that they don't want to inconvenience their actual customers. (I've seen Wardell go off on pirates, and call them "thieves".)
Could someone please point out where in the original document any of this is substantiated? I've gotten used to fact checking Doctorow and Geist. (It's shocking how often they misrepresent the actual facts.) Geist links to two articles: one is a non-searchable pdf with a lot of amendments (it's difficult to decipher without the original document to see what it's amending), and the second document is a news article from "livemint". The livemint article says the copyright amendment gives more rights to creators, extends the length of copyright ("enhance the term of copyright for photographers to 'life plus 60 years' instead of only 60 years at present"), "The amendment seeks to bring the copyright Act, 1957 in line with the World Intellectual Property Organization's Internet treaties", and "The amendment also addresses the complaints of the music industry that has been complaining about 'version recordings' of original songs depriving music companies of royalties."
In short, I can't find anything at all that substantiates Doctorow's and Geist's claim that this is a more liberal copyright system.
I also meant to point out that the words "tech-friendly" in the phrase "Bully countries that have tech-friendly policies" is really a euphemism for "piracy friendly". Obviously, they aren't going after "tech-friendly" countries - which includes basically the entire Western world, if not the entire world. This also shows the bias that the EFF is bringing to the table. No doubt, if the EFF agreed with international trade in chemical weapons, they'd describe it as "trade-friendly nations". Or, if they agreed with the drug-trade, they'd describe nations involved in the creation/trafficing of drugs as "freedom-friendly".
While this suggestions shouldn't see the light of day, one of the problems I have with the EFF is that they never propose a way to deal with piracy. This is because they are piracy-friendly. Here's an example from their own article:
EFF's words: Bully countries that have tech-friendly policies
From the RIAA proposal: Targeting such companies and websites in the Special 301 report would put the countries involved on notice that dealing with such hotbeds of copyright theft will be an important topic of bilateral engagement with the U.S. in the year to come.
It's obvious from their language that they want to prevent anyone from putting pressure on Sweden or the PirateBay to stop piracy. Personally, I don't see what the problem is here. The EFF clearly wants piracy to continue, and they want to shut-down any attempts to put pressure on anyone involved in piracy -- even if it's a globally famous website like the PirateBay. By using language like "bullying" they're using intentionally inflammatory language. In other contexts (like, say, trade in chemical weapons, slavery, etc), I have no doubt that the EFF wouldn't have a problem with the US "bullying" other nations into doing the right thing - of course, they wouldn't use the word "bullying" because they actually agree with enforcement in those cases. So, by labeling any enforcement as "bullying" they're attempting to steer the discussion.
The EFF should really do itself a favor and stop siding with the pirates. If they hate the suggestions that the RIAA makes for dealing with piracy, then they should make some decent suggestions of their own. Instead, the EFF constantly drags its feet on any enforcement of any kind of copyright issue. Based on their pattern of behavior, it's clear that the EFF won't be happy until piracy is 100% legal.
Isn't Impulse made by the same company (Stardock) who's putting together "Goo" - which is a DRM system? http://www.joystiq.com/2009/03/26/stardock-introduces-flexible-drm-solution-goo/ While Stardock has generally gone without DRM for their past games, I don't think Impulse is necessarily a DRM-free system. It's probably more of a "here's a DRM system called 'goo' that's available for everyone who wants to use Impulse" kind of a system. My guess is that "Goo" is a low-level DRM system, not a "you must be connected to the internet" or rootkit-based system.
As an independent software developer who lives off of my copyrighted work, I'm perfectly fine with shorter copyrights - even 14 years. I really don't think long copyrights (beyond, say, 40-50 years) help anyone other than corporations, who have an insatiable appetite to maximize profits, and grandkids who want a trust fund. A 50 year copyright is going to extend copyright beyond the life of the author in most cases, and even if the author is still alive, he should've saved some money for old age - that's what everyone else does.
I think a much stronger argument is that when a huge segment of the population performs some act routinely without any sense of guilt, that's evidence that society as a whole doesn't consider it wrong. In a secular society, what can define right and wrong, except the consensus of the people? If the consensus is that something is not wrong, why is there a law against it?
Not sure that I care for that system, either. I can think of lots of things in history that were wrong, but enjoyed majority support. Everything from slavery and segregation to the Holocaust to genocide to witch burnings to killing "infidels". Sometimes laws should be created and enforced because it's for the benefit of society as a whole* and because it protects minorities from the tyranny of the majority.
* Society might not realize what is for it's own benefit, and society might also be in a situation where they think "everyone does it, therefore, so can I - therefore I shouldn't feel guilty", even though the best situation is that nobody does it. In other words, they might realize that "it's better if everyone followed law X", but still don't follow it themselves because it's in their own interest not to.
Example: Someone decides that they don't feel guilty about cheating on their taxes because lots of people do it. Problem: society as a whole would be better of if everyone paid their taxes. If it were easy to cheat on your taxes or not pay your taxes, and a lot of people started doing it, then, by your argument, the government should eliminate laws that people are required to pay taxes. At this point, even fewer people would pay, and there would be no way for the government to enact laws to pay taxes because a majority of people don't feel guilty about not paying.
Instead of a weekly paycheck, RMS should work for free and accept donations....
While I agree with you, the fact of the matter is that Stallman is so famous and he's at the top of the movement, which puts him in a far better position to get paid than other people. For example:
"Software pioneer and MIT research affiliate Richard M. Stallman has been named as a co-winner of the 2001 Takeda Award for Techno-Entrepreneurial Achievement for Social/Economic Well-Being. Stallman shares this award with Linux inventor Linus Torvalds and TRON open architecture developer Ken Sakamura. Each of the winners will be awarded 100 million yen, currently about $830,000, at a ceremony in Tokyo on December 4."
Stallman said he plans to keep the prize money and “invest it one way or another.” He said his primary goal is to live off the prize money so that he can devote his time to continue his not-for-profit work...
In 1990, Stallman was awarded a $240,000 fellowship by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, often known as a “genius grant.”
http://tech.mit.edu/V121/N59/59stallman.59n.html
His work with free software has made him rich - far richer than the average Joe doing the same thing. I wonder if Stallman is a millionaire at this point. I wouldn't be surprised. I'm sure it's that much easier for him to believe in his own ideas when they make him rich.
In one video, I saw Stallman saying that copyrighted software might make you rich, but it was morally wrong. Given that most copyrighted software won't make you rich (it will only give developers sufficient money to survive) plus Stallman's claim that copyrighted software earns a lot more than open-source, the message that I took away from his little speech was that open-source was a really bad way to earn a living. Funny, how Stallman confirmed my thoughts about open-source.
Fast forward to 3:38 and watch until 4:00. The two guys just to the upper left of the crosshairs (3:38) both appear to have weapons. At 3:45-4:00, it looks like one of them has an RPG. They aren't the two guys identified earlier as cameramen (who were misidentified as having weapons). At 4:05-4:20 it appears like one man is peeking around the building and aiming at the helicopter at 4:20 - whether that's an RPG (as the helicopter pilot claims) or whether it's just a man with a camera is hard to tell, but the sneaking behavior looks suspicious for a cameraman.
Fast forward to 3:38 and watch until 4:00. The two guys just to the upper left of the crosshairs (at 3:38) both appear to have weapons. At 3:45-4:00, it looks like one of them has an RPG. They aren't the two guys identified earlier as cameramen (who were misidentified as having weapons). At 4:05-4:20 it appears like one man is peeking around the building and aiming at the helicopter at 4:20 - whether that's an RPG (as the helicopter pilot claims) or whether it's just a man with a camera is hard to tell, but the sneaking behavior looks suspicious for a cameraman.
anything created by the government is public domain. Good thing, too...that's why we have such rich geodata, b/c the government agencies that collect it all using our tax dollars are compelled to share it back with us. (After all, we paid for it.)
In the general case, I agree with you, but something seems very wrong with that idea if I think about other cases. For example, anything to do with national security - spy photos, weapon designs, lists of operatives, etc. I really don't think photographs of dead people (whether killed in traffic accidents, or killed in combat) really need to be in the public domain, either. In fact, it might be sadistic of the government to be releasing those kinds of photographs the same way that they release mug-shots.
I'd be careful about using Cory Doctorow's image (craphound.com) as a way to support your point. Cory Doctorow is a big proponent of piracy - in the past, he's promoted books that teach people how to pirate, and has sold "I pirate music" t-shirts on his website. Piracy advocates do nothing to reduce creators' desire to use DRM - quite the opposite, they make companies want to use DRM because they're so eager to pirate rather than pay. Doctorow is the enemy of creators; the only way to successfully get rid of DRM is to get more people to pay for their software, not less.
You can't say that any significant number of people will pay for software if they can't pirate it. Some will, some won't.
Yes, I'm fine with the statement that majority of pirates wouldn't have bought the game. However, when piracy numbers are as high as they are (Stardock / Demigod claimed 85% of the people trying to connect to their servers were pirates; 2dBoy said 90% of the people playing their game pirated it), you don't need a large percentage to get a big boost in sales numbers. If we said 90% of those pirates wouldn't have bought, that sounds like a strong argument. But, if 10% of the Demigod pirates or 10% of the World of Goo players bought instead of pirating, Demigod sales numbers would have increased by 56% and World of Goo sales would've increased by 90%. (Would you like to get paid 56% or 90% more money for whatever job you currently work at?) Sales increases of 56% or 90% are hard to ignore -- and that's based on the idea that only 1 out of 10 pirates equals a lost sale.
If customers just stop buying their games, the determination will not be that they need to stop implementing harsh DRM. It will be that there are not enough people willing to buy PC games legitimately.
I think his assumption is that people would buy DRM-free games instead (e.g. from Stardock, 2dBoy, etc).
Their sales were too low before because of the pirates, and now they're too low because those pirates won't pay for the games even if they make them uncrackable.
I've seen pirates pay for stuff that they couldn't pirate. Conversely, I've seen people who used to buy software switch to "pirate only" once they discovered how to pirate stuff. I see no reason why, if piracy was unavailable to them, that they wouldn't switch back to buying - since that's what they were doing before they discovered piracy.
I also think part of the solution is not condoning piracy with excuses (e.g. piracy is just sharing / making a copy; I'm not hurting anyone because it piracy doesn't deprive anyone of anything, like stealing does). People are way too eager to use excuses in order to legitimize their piracy. It's important not to let pirates delude themselves into thinking that they have the moral high-ground or believe that what they are doing is entirely legitimate.
I've seen pirates pay for stuff when they couldn't get it online for free.
To be fair, music was impossible to secure with DRM because of the analog hole. Plus, there's the fact that CDs are DRM-free. Once either of those are exploited, then copies are available on the internet. DRM on software is more secure. I'm not saying it is secure, just that it's harder to crack and it isn't always cracked (e.g. Assassin's Creed 2 is still not cracked, Settlers 7 is still not cracked, it took 3 years for someone to crack the PS3, etc). I'm not so sure that iTunes removed DRM because of consumer outcry so much as the fact that music companies realized that their product was fundamentally impossible to secure under any circumstances.
Wow. It's like psychohistory - uh, wait - isn't this really just doing a poll? Hasn't this already been done for decades? Just poll a small number of people in the general population, and you can "predict" all kinds of things - like elections before they happen? Sigh. The only difference between this and regular polls is that this is less scientific (since they make no effort to find a random selection of people from the population). It's probably a little better than online polls (probably less manipulation) and a little worse than scientifically-designed polls.
I've been writing software for 25 years, and I'm still confused by the claim that all software is math. In what sense is all software math? And, with that statement, I realize that I'm opening myself up to looking dumb, which is exactly why I think so few people stand up and disagree with "software is math" - because they're afraid of looking dumb, not because they actually agree with it.
You can say that is operates because of mathematical principles (e.g. sending around electrons, which obey mathematics), but that's not a very good argument. Afterall, all biology operates on math (since all biology is chemistry which is physics which is math). If I write a "Hello World" application, how is that math? It's not a "formula" in the sense that "Hello World" or "H3110 Wor7d" are somehow derivable from the world. I have a hard time seeing "World of Warcraft" or "Starcraft 2" as "just mathematics". Admittedly, I'm not really a fan of software patents, but I also disagree with this idea that software is all mathematics and contains no art. From my perspective, you can still disagree with software patents in the same way that you could disagree with artistic patents.
And that's why their position is wrong. Under their rules, any copyrighted material be entirely legal for filesharing. Once everything is legal and free on the internet, good luck selling anything.
We don't believe that prosecuting non-commercial file sharers for copying a song from the 1940s is reasonable, however.
Let's be honest here. The Pirate Party believes non-commercial filesharing for a song that came out 5 minutes ago should be 100% legal. This "from the 1940s" stuff is just an attempt to make themselves sound more reasonable.
No. Our position is that companies should pay for the use of copyrighted works and patented designs.
And then those companies that use that copyrighted material immediately have their work on the internet for free. For example, if a movie wants to use someone's song in the soundtrack, they have to pay for it. Unfortunately, the movie itself is available for free on the internet (by the Pirate Party's rules). So, the movie-creators don't make any money. So, they can't afford to pay the musician for his music. The Pirate Party's filesharing stance makes sure that even the "companies have to pay for copyrighted material" stance becomes a lame duck. The only case where creators could get paid is by selling their copyrighted work is in advertisements - e.g. a musician could make money when his money is used in a Car ad, because the Pirate Party hasn't undermined the car-sales market.
So, yes, I stand by my original claim: the Pirate Party wants to gut copyright law - making it almost worthless.
The Pirate Party is not against copyrights, they are against excessive copyrights.
Sorry, Rick Falkvinge has stated that everything should be available for free on the internet. Copyright, for them, only regulates the sale of copyrighted material. Of course, once everything is available for free on the internet, there's not much point in regulating the sale of copyrighted material. Afterall, how many sales are you going to get when everything is already available for free? The Pirate Party might as well get rid of copyright entirely, because it's effectively the same thing that they are advocating now.
The Pirate Party isn't fighting for responsible copyright laws, they want to gut the whole thing. It's an extreme overreaction that gives us a system that's *worse* than the current system. I'd support an organization that was more moderate on these issues. The Pirate Party is anything but moderate. Count me as one vote against the the Pirate Party's ridiculous "system".
The Pirate Party is bad because they want to make everything public domain - a pretty extreme overreaction, don't you think? Additionally, while I agree with shorter copyright limits, one could make the argument that infinitely-long copyrights are better for society than no copyrights. How is that possible? Because the fact that the public has to pay for something doesn't render it valueless (it's not like copyrighted-material is only valuable when it reaches the public domain), and without copyrights, there is no good economic model for the production of a lot of new work. (Just think of all the copyrighted software that you've bought, and got value from. The fact that you didn't get it for free doesn't mean it was worthless.) Now, I'm not arguing for long copyrights, I disagree with them. I'm just arguing that the whole Pirate Party idea of eliminating copyright is worse than what we've got.
"If it turns out that there is some reason that we have to take it down, then we will, but if this happens, it will only validate the document's authenticity."
How about if the Pirate Party's version of the ACTA document is completely fabricated? I think lying would be a good reason to take it down, and it wouldn't imply that the document is authentic.
I don't want to sound negative, but I was always worried about Oracle buying Sun, for how it would impact negatively on Sun's business.
Sun's business was already in the negative. At this point, I can't blame them for trying something new to turn-around Sun's profit/loss statement:
For the quarter that ended March 29 [2009], Sun posted a net loss of $201 million, or 27 cents a share. That’s a sharp downturn from the loss of $34 million, or 4 cents a share, it reported the same period last year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/29/technology/companies/29sun.html
.. except, of course, when pirating is available and their opinion of 'reasonable price' is subject to whim, then the calculations go right out the window. For example: I pay hundreds of dollars to fly on an airplane. If I discovered a completely foolproof way to fly anywhere I want for free, then my opinion of "reasonable price" for air-fare suddenly shifts. I suddenly decide that $300 is far too much for air-fare (even though I've paid more than that in the past, when my options were "pay $300 and fly" or "don't fly"). At this point, my opinions about "reasonable price" are suddenly unhinged from anything. I can decide that flights need to be $20, or else "it's not reasonable".