I have lots of licenses for expensive programs, because I use them in my business. I would not have half of them if I did not learn them on pirated versions. You acknowledge as much, but claim we overestimate the effect. I disagree, I think the effect of this is huge, and more than offset the losses from piracy. Of course this it hard to quantitize, so I cant prove it, just state my opinion.
This could be the case for software. There's a world of difference between the software and music markets.
Am I going to shell out $1200 for a software suite necessary for my business without sampling it first? No. And frankly, pirating suites like this just usually isn't necessary because companies with such business models usually have a demo version or "student" version.
If I want to actually publish or produce something for sale using that software, I know I have to buy a copy or land myself in trouble.
That's much, much, MUCH different from a 15 year old downloading a CD. My point is that we (as in, those of us who are out of school and in the real world) may have a tendancy to sample-and-buy or sample-and-discard. But we are not a good representative slice of the pirating population.
The software business may have significant losses offset by try-and-buy people but I really don't think the music industry does. And again, this all boils down to a Slashdot user giving an anecdotal example of himself or his friends and then extrapolating it to the entire industry.
That's like somebody saying, "Well I voted for Bush in 2000 and so did all my friends, so why is this Florida thing such a big deal? Everybody I know voted for the guy." You just can't take your own behavior or even the behavior of a community like Slashdot and apply it to a larger population. We simply are not a fair cross-section of American society, and even if 99% of Slashdot posters try-and-buy or try-and-discard, that can't even begin to suggest that 99% of consumers in America or worldwide do this.
Ballmer said: 'The hottest company right now -- the one nobody thinks can do any wrong -- may just be a one-hit wonder.
Google's Greatest Hits CD, 2000-2005, would contain:
Google
Gmail
Google Maps
Google Ads
Froogle
Google News
The Google Appliance
Google Groups
Google Image Search
Google Code
Google Desktop Search
Google Translator
Google Catalog Browser
Google Ride Finder
Google Video Search
Google Distributed Computing
Google Acadmic/Scholarly Research Search
Google Sets
Google Local
And I'm leaving a few out. Since I used list tags I don't know what the count will be on this, but these things have all been successfully implemented and mostly found a purpose by
I'm more than a little tired of hearing how much the recording and software industries THINK they're losing. They don't know.
It's critical for them (and us) to understand the difference between these two concepts:
1. What is the total value of pirated material?
2. How much revenue are the copyright holders losing because of piracy?
I think we all understand why the first number is much larger than the second. I pirate stuff that I never intended to buy. If I couldn't get it free, I wouldn't have it, period. This means that my stolen software is tallied in Figure #1, but not Figure #2. My pirated copy didn't cost them anything, they were never getting my dollar.
The question of how much money they're losing is impossible to answer. The question of the total value of all illegally pirated materials isn't that difficult to estimate, and probably estimate accurately.
The fallacy of the BSA and other IP rights lobbyists/enforcers is in assuming that Figure #1 == Figure #2. When they say, "Internet piracy cost us $30 million last year", they're lying and they know it. What they mean is that the total value of pirated materials that belonged to them was $30 million. This number is unquestionably much more significant than the net affect of piracy on their sales. Don't get me wrong, I have no doubt that, when all the dust clears, they're losing more money off illegal pirating than they're generating from people who only bought the stuff because they sampled it first.
Really, there's two major sins of ignorance being committed on both sides of this issue. One is being done out of a deliberate attempt to deceive and the other is just wishful thinking.
The first sin I just explained - reporting value of pirated material as being the same as net loss in sales. This is an utter lie for two reasons. First, not all piraters were necessarily going to be purchasers under other circumstances, and there's a small but measurable crowd of people who were not purchasers, but because purchasers because they were piraters.
The second fallacy is committed en masse on Slashdot, and is repeated ad nauseum whenever this comes up. And it is this: "I've bought (insert dollar amount here) worth of CDs this year specifically because I could sample it first. And all my friends are the same way. And all of their friends. Since everybody I know is like this, I assume everybody else in the world is like this, and thus, these companies are profiting by the peer to peer networks." At best this is wishful utopian thinking, and at worst it smacks of downright stupidity. The largest pirating demographics are kids and college students. We who buy after pirating are the exception, not the rule, and yes, there are plenty of studies conducted by independent surveyors that demonstrate this.
says that they're expecting it to be worth about $300 billion in just five years. Are they really suggesting that the worldwide market is going to triple that quickly?
I agree, it's a pretty optimistic claim but not without merit. It seems to us, in industrialized nations, that software markets wouldn't grow so quickly. But do you think the software market in the United States tripled between, say, 1983 and 1988? What about between 1994 and 1999?
In 1980 there were 724,000 personal computers in service. By 1980 there were 7 million. That's tenfold growth in 5 years. By 1990 there were 20 million. Threefold growth. By 1995 there were 50 million. 250% growth. By 2000 there were 138 million. Again, about 250% growth. And in 2005, we're pushing 200 million.
That's hardware. The demand for software probably is increasing more rapidly because your typical computer contains more and more software. How many applications were running on those 750,000 machines in 1980? How many do you run on a current machine?
The numbers seem outrageous but if you look at the trend, it's not impossible or even unlikely.
Who cares if it costs 50,000 yen? Who cares if that's the same as $450? That doesn't mean anything compared to what it'll cost in the United States, because our economics are not their economics.
The average price of an 1100 square foot home in Japan is over $350,000.
The average price of an 1100 square foot home in the United States is a shade over $210,000.
That suggests that prices in Japan are about 166% higher than those in America. What happens if you take the $300 price tag of the PS2 and add 160% to it? WHOA! You get $480! That's almost exactly 50,000 yen!
Mark my words, the thing will debut at $299.99 in the United States.
Let me preface this comment with: "I support the open source effort and think it's a Good Thing. I also support free software and think it's a Good Thing."
With free software I am a user, the software a tool. My data and programs are my own to do with as I please.
This just isn't true. Your data may be your own, but you still do not own the program or its source code. There's no difference here between proprietary software and free software. The author of the software is the copyright holder on the source code as an incident of authorship, and this has been the law since 1978. Unless that person specifically, in writing, transfers the copyright to the group of people defined as users of their code, it legally belongs to them, not you. It is not your program any more than Windows is.
This might suck, it might not be fair, it might not be right, but it is how copyright works. The contents of this post are copyrighted to me as an incident of authorship the instant that it's saved in Slashdot's database (unless of course Slashdot's Terms of Use include ownership of user-supplied content, etc).
As for your data, you don't own it only because you're using free software. You own it because your typical free software author does not claim ownership of it as part of the terms of use. There is nothing about the nature of free software that makes the data more yours than proprietary software does, it's the spirit of the userbase that brings this about. Quicken is proprietary software and they don't own my banking records.
What free software typically does give you is more control over where your data goes and how it's used. If you want to define that as ownership, then I am strongly inclined to agree with you on that point. I guess I'm arguing nitpicky linguistic semantics here, so biff me in the head and move on.
With proprietary software I must prove myself to not be a criminal before I can use the program
Bullshit. How so? Because you had to agree to a EULA before you could use it? And free software isn't like that? Then what in the hell is this? A warm hug and a milkshake? It's the content of the license that limits you, not the distribution model of the program. Nothing stops free software from having draconian EULA's, and nothing stops proprietary software from having generous and forgiving EULA's.
EULAs generally restrict my ability to use my system in any way I choose, even if I am paying for each and every program on the machine.
Yes! And any EULA can do that, regardless of whether it's penned by a billionaire in Seattle or a freelance programmer spitting out open source code in caffeine-induced dilerium in his mother's basement.
Should one of my employees get pissed at me, he or she can call the BSA and they'll send some nice armed marshals to my door to audit every nook and cranny of my system.
I heartily agree with you here, and it's incredibly difficult to control your users' systems sufficiently to mitigate this risk without locking them down to the point of being unusable.
With free software, if program X doesn't have a functionality I need then I can have it modified.
By who? The community of authors? You can only do this if either you have the time and technical skill to do it, or you can convince a member of the community of the need.
If proprietary program Y doesn't have a functionality that I need, then the only thing I can do is beg and plead for them to add it.
What's the difference? Other than, "I can code it myself if I want", I don't see any. Every business I've worked for has gotten features added to proprietary software that they wanted/needed. I won't pretend it's as cheap, or as easy, but it's possible. My quarrel here is with the way you paint free software as being a m
The directors guild kicked out Robert Rodriguez for giving Frank Miller a directing credit on Sin City. The Screen Actors Guild threatened to kick out Gary Oldman just for doing voice work in Episode III. The guilds are serious. If you don't follow their rules (using only guild talent, putting your credits on the movie in the right way, etc) they kick you out. And then you're forced to do what Lucas does and work completly with non union people.
Ironic that labor unions are supposed to protect the best interests of their members from the unscrupulous actions of management. People can't even pick which jobs they want to do without getting blacklisted.
Actually, no, I knew this was how it worked in civil court, and I wish you would stop railing on and on about it.
If you guys know how this stuff works then why do you keep deliberately posting stuff that has no relevence and ignores these legal facets of the issue? And, if you wish I (and/or people like me) would hush up, why do you keep egging me on with posts like that?
Nobody has to. A preponderance of the evidence is all that is required in civil litigation, and on the unlikely chance that you were brought up on copyright infringement charges for downloading Episode III off a peer-to-peer network, you'd be tried in a civil court.
There's no "beyond the shadow of a doubt" clause in civil court. The requirements for a guilty verdict are a preponderance of the evidence and I think the kind of lawyer that Mr. Lucas could afford could fairly easily meet this criteria as far as demonostrating that you knew that copy wasn't being distributed with the consent of the copyright holder.
What does preponderance of the evidence mean? That given the weight of the evidence, what's more likely: that you downloaded that file knowing it wasn't being handed out with the blessings of the copyright holder, or that you clicked with blissful ignorance of what you were getting and the legality of getting it.
Nobody has to prove anything, merely suggest more strongly that you aren't innocent than you suggest that you are.
I rail and rail and rail on this but it never sinks it. You guys talk ad nauseum about the legal aspects of copyright infringement without a clue about how the legal system works. This is why we never get anywhere on this stuff - not because we're wrong about it, but because we're a bunch of talking heads that are almost willfully ignorant. And the sad part is that most of the people who understand the legal aspects of this issue don't understand the technical aspects.
I'll bet that in 5 years, the most valuable skill combination out there will be J.D. + Computer Science degree.
So is that why MTV doesn't play music anymore?:-)
I know you're kidding, but the reason MTV doesn't play music videos any more is that they're getting better ratings with these other shows, and attracting advertisers who'll pay more. Follow the money. MTV will put whatever crap on that makes the most money and, coincidentally, that usually means showing whatever the majority of their audience wants to watch.
Making a backup is also making a copy. Are you meaning to say that I don't have the right to use my backup if my original gets destroyed? Next you'll be saying that I can't make a backup of that backup, even after the original is destroyed.
No, I'm not saying that at all and I'm utterly perplexed as to how you got that from my argument unless you literally saw this line and responded to it alone.
I can't take credit for that particular joke, though. A buddy of mine was at Starbucks or some other coffee shop and some dude was reading Ulysses and making it really obvious to everybody what he was reading. Holding the book up so we could all see the cover, studiously and thoughtfully scratching his chin as he pondered the hidden meaning of the novel buried in the etymology and nuance of Joyce's grammar and word choice.
My friend got sick of this little display of intellectual elitism and, on his way out, said, "what's next on your reading list, Curious George Goes to the Mall?"
You have no way to know when downloading something that it is has a copyright. Releasing it into the public is the offending act, not picking it up and listening to it.
You often do. You know damn well when you download "Star Wars Episode III.wmv" that it's a copyrighted work. Or at least, if it is what you think it is, it's a copyrighted work.
But if you go download something that you think is not copyrighted, like your W2 statement, and instead they send you an illegal pirated copy of Pulp Fiction, you're not liable for copyright infringement.
Just like if you unknowingly buy stolen property.
But dont sit there and pretend that you had no idea what the contents of your 200 GB of MP were when you downloaded them. You knew.
Read that sentence again... I said "downloading," not uploading. I understand what you're saying, but uploading once is the same as downloading once in the eyes of copyright law.
Ah yes, you're right. I didn't read you very carefully. I made an incorrect assumption, which was that you were referring to felony copyright fringement because, of course, misdemeanor copyright infringement (i.e., the downloading of one and only one album) will not result in the punishments you have described.
In fact, it's most likely that for such an offense, there'd be no case brought against you at all. Just like if you got caught stealing one CD from the store. Mall security would probably throw you out and they might tell you never to come back, but unless you're a real pain in the neck about it, they're unlikely to call the police.
You'd probably need to wrack up about a grand worth of damages before anybody will pursue legal action (the cost a lawsuit is too high, and small claims court is designed to be enough of a burden on the plaintiff as to not make it worth the effort in most cases). You're talking probably $1,000 worth of theft before you're brought up on misdemeanor charges and probably at least 4-5 times for felony charges.
Naturally, this passivity can be mitigated. If you've been caught stealing CDs and escorted out of the mall six times already, they may decide you're enough you're enough of a hassle to pursue legal action.
Anyway, my point is that the punishments are probably not identical but they're not as disparate as you seem to think.
No, that is *exactly* the reason why they're piled on.
The reason that punitive damages are added to the case is to additionally punish egregious and wanton violators of the law.
The effect of this may be that it's a deterrant. It used to be that punitive were not appled with the argument, "Let's get this bastard good because we want to discourage other people." They were applied with the argument, "Let's get this bastard good because his behavior is especially disagreable."
Admittedly, this does seem to be changing, and people are often made examples of, especially the very rich and powerful who have traditionally been able to basically do anything they want without consequence (Martha Stewart comes to mind). So yeah, you do have a point there.
The more egregious the crime, the more harsh the punishment.
Yes, this is right and this is my point. The reason that a harsher punishment is applied is because the violator's transgression was more serious.
This is done under the theory that legal punishment is intended as a deterent against future acts of disobediance of the law.
Ok, now I see what you're doing. Very good, I'll concede the point. We're dithering over semantics but I think we actually hold the same opinion about this.
Riiiigghhht. Try a book or two instead.
I have a Bachelor of Arts in English, I've read plenty. Curious George Goes to the Mall was my favorite.
Your missing the point. Uploading you can say the RIAA is out thousands of dollars because concievably you caused them a lack of sales. But downloading only denies them one, the downloader. Now the press and some juries may be dumb enough to award damages. But any good laywer could reduce the damages to sale price and a penalty fine.
No, I'm spot-on and you actually agree with me, which means you missed my point.:)
What you stated here is exactly correct, and is exactly why they target uploaders over downloaders. The issue is not the questionable legality of downloaded.
I think it's a little bit of both of you being right. I agree with you that you can take an independent path; the parent is technically incorrect since the RIAA or whatever doesn't have a monopoly.. But that's like saying MS didn't have a monopoly in the late 90's.. Yes there was DR DOS and Linux and SCO UNIX, and OS/2. But they were like 1% of the market.
I'm not arguing for or against a monopoly by the RIAA. I am arguing that this group of businesses does not automatically own all music created, and so "any artist" that wants to distribute his music in his own manner is free to do so.
Likewise, I'm sure the indi venue is an insignificant portion of the audience market but I have no numbers to back me up.
I have no idea either, but the indy market share isn't relevent to my point.
The music radio is mostly clear-channel. I'm sure Satalite radio is clear-channel controlled. MTV is certainly biased towards the establishment.
They have to be, they can only play the establishment's music by buying a license from a broadcast rights manage group like ASCAP, and if they're dickheads about the RIAA's behavior, they'll find their license expense crawling up. MTV is as much a slave to the content cartels as FM radio.
The only large distribution you have left are sound-tracks of big-end movies. With the possible exception of indi-films that at least get a lot of spot-light, if not popularity.
If you want large-scale distribution then your choices are limited. If you want millions and millions of people to hear your music then you are at the mercy of distribution channels that can potentially reach millions and millions of people. The internet is my personal favorite.
The industry has calculated methods of maximizing profit;
Any prudent business should, yes.
tuning various demographics to particular sounds and focusing on particular artists of the month to build sensationalism which causes people to flock to the fad-of-the-month and thus increase revenue. To facilitate this brainwashing, they need LOTS of airtime for their target projects, and this leaves no room for anything else.. With the consolidation of media outlets, the drive to "advertise" a particular label means even less airtime for variety.
In other words, they saturate the masses with cookie-cooker schlock and the masses eat it up. This has been happening for as long as there has been art and isn't a phenomenon unique to big business. Note: I am not exonerating big business for any wrong-doing. I hate big corporations as much as the next day.
So there IS an establishment that is trying to squash unsigned material, albeit indirectly through the reduction of avenues of distribution.
I don't think they're actively trying to squash unsigned material, because they could buy out almost anybody they wanted. If your material was so good that they were potentially losing millions in sales off your stuff, they'd have come up (in most cases) with enough money to turn the pupils of even the most principled artist into dollar signs. Everybody has high standards about how money should trade hands when they aren't the ones earning it.
I don't think the attempt to destroy the P2P networks is based on squelching unsigned talent either. They really do believe that they're losing money off of it. They're idiots, of course, because assuming P2P is the root of the problem, will banning it solve the problem? No. Will copy protection and DRM solve it? No.
As a disclaimer, I have no association with the musical profession.
Nor do I. I think you missed part of my point. I was countering this idea that if I want to hand out my music to anybod who wants to hear it, I can't because of the RIAA. This just isn't true. They don't own all music in the world.
I don't agree with them, their tactics, their close relationship to our congressional representatives, their at
Ahem. And what is the purpose of the extra punishment?
Ahem! To pile on damages to people who are especially egregious violators of the law. They may serve as deterrants, but that is not the grounds on which they are piled on, nor the purpose of them. The purpose is specifically to punish one individual, not specifically to deter anybody else.
Let me know if you'd like to exchange more monosyllabic expressions of contempt. I watch Family Guy, I learned from the best.
They might SAY downloading is illegal, but they'd be hard pressed to win.
I don't think so. When you download it, you're making a copy, and thus in violation of US Code Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 106(1). A download creates a copy. It's not a TRANSFER of the original file. You aren't GETTING the original file and then nobody else can have it. You're copying it, just like you do when you upload. Even if you DELETE the original file after you upload, you still copied it. It's like burning a copy a CD, destroying, the original, and saying, "This one isn't a copy, I don't have the original any more."
...and monopolizing all avenues of distribution, making sure that any artist who wants to have their music heard must go through one of the record labels.
This doesn't happen. If I want to use the distribution channels controlled by the RIAA then I have to sign a contract with them and agree to the terms of it.
But if I am a music producer and wish to distribute my music however I want, I can do that. It's mine. I created it. I am the copyright holder in this case and I have the exclusive rights to reproduction and distribution of the material.
It's called "punative" damages. That money is intended to deter people from the act of theft. (Similar to the fines charged to speeders.) If punative fines didn't exist, then someone might figure that they would only have to pay for stuff that they were caught stealing.
No, that is not what punitive damages are for. They are not a deterrant, they are specifically intended as an additional punishment for notably egregious, willful, or wanton violation of the law.
It cracks me up that you can get a small fine or few days in jail for shoplifting a CD, but downloading that same album online (with inferior quality!) can net you years of prison time and hundreds of thousands in fines!
That's because they are two different violations. Stealing a CD is misdemeanor theft. Uploading a CD to thousands of people is felony copyright infringement.
A pilot was lost on a high atmospheric flight that, by American standards for where space "begins" and the atmosphere "ends", is often citied in NASA's casualty list. By international standards, this flight wouldn't count. I was being generous to my dissenter's benefit.
Incidentally, NASA has lost a total of 18 people in spacecraft accidents, 14 while in flight. That's out of 581 individuals launched into space (that figure doesn't include people who have gone and returned safely multiple times). NASA's survival rate is about 97%.
The Soviets (officially) lost 4, but supposedly there were at least 12-15 more deaths that haven't been declassified yet.
Pretty convenient and deceptive of you to quote the number of flights rather than the number of spacefarers that have been launched and returned. If the Soviets had launched 90 shuttle missions, do you think they'd have only lost two? I really doubt it.
Slashdot Mirror
This could be the case for software. There's a world of difference between the software and music markets.
Am I going to shell out $1200 for a software suite necessary for my business without sampling it first? No. And frankly, pirating suites like this just usually isn't necessary because companies with such business models usually have a demo version or "student" version.
If I want to actually publish or produce something for sale using that software, I know I have to buy a copy or land myself in trouble.
That's much, much, MUCH different from a 15 year old downloading a CD. My point is that we (as in, those of us who are out of school and in the real world) may have a tendancy to sample-and-buy or sample-and-discard. But we are not a good representative slice of the pirating population.
The software business may have significant losses offset by try-and-buy people but I really don't think the music industry does. And again, this all boils down to a Slashdot user giving an anecdotal example of himself or his friends and then extrapolating it to the entire industry.
That's like somebody saying, "Well I voted for Bush in 2000 and so did all my friends, so why is this Florida thing such a big deal? Everybody I know voted for the guy." You just can't take your own behavior or even the behavior of a community like Slashdot and apply it to a larger population. We simply are not a fair cross-section of American society, and even if 99% of Slashdot posters try-and-buy or try-and-discard, that can't even begin to suggest that 99% of consumers in America or worldwide do this.
Google's Greatest Hits CD, 2000-2005, would contain:
It's critical for them (and us) to understand the difference between these two concepts:
1. What is the total value of pirated material?
2. How much revenue are the copyright holders losing because of piracy?
I think we all understand why the first number is much larger than the second. I pirate stuff that I never intended to buy. If I couldn't get it free, I wouldn't have it, period. This means that my stolen software is tallied in Figure #1, but not Figure #2. My pirated copy didn't cost them anything, they were never getting my dollar.
The question of how much money they're losing is impossible to answer. The question of the total value of all illegally pirated materials isn't that difficult to estimate, and probably estimate accurately.
The fallacy of the BSA and other IP rights lobbyists/enforcers is in assuming that Figure #1 == Figure #2. When they say, "Internet piracy cost us $30 million last year", they're lying and they know it. What they mean is that the total value of pirated materials that belonged to them was $30 million. This number is unquestionably much more significant than the net affect of piracy on their sales. Don't get me wrong, I have no doubt that, when all the dust clears, they're losing more money off illegal pirating than they're generating from people who only bought the stuff because they sampled it first.
Really, there's two major sins of ignorance being committed on both sides of this issue. One is being done out of a deliberate attempt to deceive and the other is just wishful thinking.
The first sin I just explained - reporting value of pirated material as being the same as net loss in sales. This is an utter lie for two reasons. First, not all piraters were necessarily going to be purchasers under other circumstances, and there's a small but measurable crowd of people who were not purchasers, but because purchasers because they were piraters.
The second fallacy is committed en masse on Slashdot, and is repeated ad nauseum whenever this comes up. And it is this: "I've bought (insert dollar amount here) worth of CDs this year specifically because I could sample it first. And all my friends are the same way. And all of their friends. Since everybody I know is like this, I assume everybody else in the world is like this, and thus, these companies are profiting by the peer to peer networks." At best this is wishful utopian thinking, and at worst it smacks of downright stupidity. The largest pirating demographics are kids and college students. We who buy after pirating are the exception, not the rule, and yes, there are plenty of studies conducted by independent surveyors that demonstrate this.
I agree, it's a pretty optimistic claim but not without merit. It seems to us, in industrialized nations, that software markets wouldn't grow so quickly. But do you think the software market in the United States tripled between, say, 1983 and 1988? What about between 1994 and 1999?
In 1980 there were 724,000 personal computers in service. By 1980 there were 7 million. That's tenfold growth in 5 years. By 1990 there were 20 million. Threefold growth. By 1995 there were 50 million. 250% growth. By 2000 there were 138 million. Again, about 250% growth. And in 2005, we're pushing 200 million.
That's hardware. The demand for software probably is increasing more rapidly because your typical computer contains more and more software. How many applications were running on those 750,000 machines in 1980? How many do you run on a current machine?
The numbers seem outrageous but if you look at the trend, it's not impossible or even unlikely.
The average price of an 1100 square foot home in Japan is over $350,000.
The average price of an 1100 square foot home in the United States is a shade over $210,000.
That suggests that prices in Japan are about 166% higher than those in America. What happens if you take the $300 price tag of the PS2 and add 160% to it? WHOA! You get $480! That's almost exactly 50,000 yen!
Mark my words, the thing will debut at $299.99 in the United States.
With free software I am a user, the software a tool. My data and programs are my own to do with as I please.
This just isn't true. Your data may be your own, but you still do not own the program or its source code. There's no difference here between proprietary software and free software. The author of the software is the copyright holder on the source code as an incident of authorship, and this has been the law since 1978. Unless that person specifically, in writing, transfers the copyright to the group of people defined as users of their code, it legally belongs to them, not you. It is not your program any more than Windows is.
This might suck, it might not be fair, it might not be right, but it is how copyright works. The contents of this post are copyrighted to me as an incident of authorship the instant that it's saved in Slashdot's database (unless of course Slashdot's Terms of Use include ownership of user-supplied content, etc).
As for your data, you don't own it only because you're using free software. You own it because your typical free software author does not claim ownership of it as part of the terms of use. There is nothing about the nature of free software that makes the data more yours than proprietary software does, it's the spirit of the userbase that brings this about. Quicken is proprietary software and they don't own my banking records.
What free software typically does give you is more control over where your data goes and how it's used. If you want to define that as ownership, then I am strongly inclined to agree with you on that point. I guess I'm arguing nitpicky linguistic semantics here, so biff me in the head and move on.
With proprietary software I must prove myself to not be a criminal before I can use the program
Bullshit. How so? Because you had to agree to a EULA before you could use it? And free software isn't like that? Then what in the hell is this? A warm hug and a milkshake? It's the content of the license that limits you, not the distribution model of the program. Nothing stops free software from having draconian EULA's, and nothing stops proprietary software from having generous and forgiving EULA's.
EULAs generally restrict my ability to use my system in any way I choose, even if I am paying for each and every program on the machine.
Yes! And any EULA can do that, regardless of whether it's penned by a billionaire in Seattle or a freelance programmer spitting out open source code in caffeine-induced dilerium in his mother's basement.
Should one of my employees get pissed at me, he or she can call the BSA and they'll send some nice armed marshals to my door to audit every nook and cranny of my system.
I heartily agree with you here, and it's incredibly difficult to control your users' systems sufficiently to mitigate this risk without locking them down to the point of being unusable.
With free software, if program X doesn't have a functionality I need then I can have it modified.
By who? The community of authors? You can only do this if either you have the time and technical skill to do it, or you can convince a member of the community of the need.
If proprietary program Y doesn't have a functionality that I need, then the only thing I can do is beg and plead for them to add it.
What's the difference? Other than, "I can code it myself if I want", I don't see any. Every business I've worked for has gotten features added to proprietary software that they wanted/needed. I won't pretend it's as cheap, or as easy, but it's possible. My quarrel here is with the way you paint free software as being a m
Ironic that labor unions are supposed to protect the best interests of their members from the unscrupulous actions of management. People can't even pick which jobs they want to do without getting blacklisted.
If you guys know how this stuff works then why do you keep deliberately posting stuff that has no relevence and ignores these legal facets of the issue? And, if you wish I (and/or people like me) would hush up, why do you keep egging me on with posts like that?
Nobody has to. A preponderance of the evidence is all that is required in civil litigation, and on the unlikely chance that you were brought up on copyright infringement charges for downloading Episode III off a peer-to-peer network, you'd be tried in a civil court.
There's no "beyond the shadow of a doubt" clause in civil court. The requirements for a guilty verdict are a preponderance of the evidence and I think the kind of lawyer that Mr. Lucas could afford could fairly easily meet this criteria as far as demonostrating that you knew that copy wasn't being distributed with the consent of the copyright holder.
What does preponderance of the evidence mean? That given the weight of the evidence, what's more likely: that you downloaded that file knowing it wasn't being handed out with the blessings of the copyright holder, or that you clicked with blissful ignorance of what you were getting and the legality of getting it.
Nobody has to prove anything, merely suggest more strongly that you aren't innocent than you suggest that you are.
I rail and rail and rail on this but it never sinks it. You guys talk ad nauseum about the legal aspects of copyright infringement without a clue about how the legal system works. This is why we never get anywhere on this stuff - not because we're wrong about it, but because we're a bunch of talking heads that are almost willfully ignorant. And the sad part is that most of the people who understand the legal aspects of this issue don't understand the technical aspects.
I'll bet that in 5 years, the most valuable skill combination out there will be J.D. + Computer Science degree.
So is that why MTV doesn't play music anymore? :-)
I know you're kidding, but the reason MTV doesn't play music videos any more is that they're getting better ratings with these other shows, and attracting advertisers who'll pay more. Follow the money. MTV will put whatever crap on that makes the most money and, coincidentally, that usually means showing whatever the majority of their audience wants to watch.
No, I'm not saying that at all and I'm utterly perplexed as to how you got that from my argument unless you literally saw this line and responded to it alone.
My friend got sick of this little display of intellectual elitism and, on his way out, said, "what's next on your reading list, Curious George Goes to the Mall?"
Heh.
You often do. You know damn well when you download "Star Wars Episode III.wmv" that it's a copyrighted work. Or at least, if it is what you think it is, it's a copyrighted work.
But if you go download something that you think is not copyrighted, like your W2 statement, and instead they send you an illegal pirated copy of Pulp Fiction, you're not liable for copyright infringement.
Just like if you unknowingly buy stolen property.
But dont sit there and pretend that you had no idea what the contents of your 200 GB of MP were when you downloaded them. You knew.
In fact, it's most likely that for such an offense, there'd be no case brought against you at all. Just like if you got caught stealing one CD from the store. Mall security would probably throw you out and they might tell you never to come back, but unless you're a real pain in the neck about it, they're unlikely to call the police.
You'd probably need to wrack up about a grand worth of damages before anybody will pursue legal action (the cost a lawsuit is too high, and small claims court is designed to be enough of a burden on the plaintiff as to not make it worth the effort in most cases). You're talking probably $1,000 worth of theft before you're brought up on misdemeanor charges and probably at least 4-5 times for felony charges.
Naturally, this passivity can be mitigated. If you've been caught stealing CDs and escorted out of the mall six times already, they may decide you're enough you're enough of a hassle to pursue legal action.
Anyway, my point is that the punishments are probably not identical but they're not as disparate as you seem to think.
The reason that punitive damages are added to the case is to additionally punish egregious and wanton violators of the law.
The effect of this may be that it's a deterrant. It used to be that punitive were not appled with the argument, "Let's get this bastard good because we want to discourage other people." They were applied with the argument, "Let's get this bastard good because his behavior is especially disagreable."
Admittedly, this does seem to be changing, and people are often made examples of, especially the very rich and powerful who have traditionally been able to basically do anything they want without consequence (Martha Stewart comes to mind). So yeah, you do have a point there.
The more egregious the crime, the more harsh the punishment.
Yes, this is right and this is my point. The reason that a harsher punishment is applied is because the violator's transgression was more serious.
This is done under the theory that legal punishment is intended as a deterent against future acts of disobediance of the law.
Ok, now I see what you're doing. Very good, I'll concede the point. We're dithering over semantics but I think we actually hold the same opinion about this.
Riiiigghhht. Try a book or two instead.
I have a Bachelor of Arts in English, I've read plenty. Curious George Goes to the Mall was my favorite.
No, I'm spot-on and you actually agree with me, which means you missed my point. :)
What you stated here is exactly correct, and is exactly why they target uploaders over downloaders. The issue is not the questionable legality of downloaded.
I'm not arguing for or against a monopoly by the RIAA. I am arguing that this group of businesses does not automatically own all music created, and so "any artist" that wants to distribute his music in his own manner is free to do so.
Likewise, I'm sure the indi venue is an insignificant portion of the audience market but I have no numbers to back me up.
I have no idea either, but the indy market share isn't relevent to my point.
The music radio is mostly clear-channel. I'm sure Satalite radio is clear-channel controlled. MTV is certainly biased towards the establishment.
They have to be, they can only play the establishment's music by buying a license from a broadcast rights manage group like ASCAP, and if they're dickheads about the RIAA's behavior, they'll find their license expense crawling up. MTV is as much a slave to the content cartels as FM radio.
The only large distribution you have left are sound-tracks of big-end movies. With the possible exception of indi-films that at least get a lot of spot-light, if not popularity.
If you want large-scale distribution then your choices are limited. If you want millions and millions of people to hear your music then you are at the mercy of distribution channels that can potentially reach millions and millions of people. The internet is my personal favorite.
The industry has calculated methods of maximizing profit;
Any prudent business should, yes.
tuning various demographics to particular sounds and focusing on particular artists of the month to build sensationalism which causes people to flock to the fad-of-the-month and thus increase revenue. To facilitate this brainwashing, they need LOTS of airtime for their target projects, and this leaves no room for anything else.. With the consolidation of media outlets, the drive to "advertise" a particular label means even less airtime for variety.
In other words, they saturate the masses with cookie-cooker schlock and the masses eat it up. This has been happening for as long as there has been art and isn't a phenomenon unique to big business. Note: I am not exonerating big business for any wrong-doing. I hate big corporations as much as the next day.
So there IS an establishment that is trying to squash unsigned material, albeit indirectly through the reduction of avenues of distribution.
I don't think they're actively trying to squash unsigned material, because they could buy out almost anybody they wanted. If your material was so good that they were potentially losing millions in sales off your stuff, they'd have come up (in most cases) with enough money to turn the pupils of even the most principled artist into dollar signs. Everybody has high standards about how money should trade hands when they aren't the ones earning it.
I don't think the attempt to destroy the P2P networks is based on squelching unsigned talent either. They really do believe that they're losing money off of it. They're idiots, of course, because assuming P2P is the root of the problem, will banning it solve the problem? No. Will copy protection and DRM solve it? No.
As a disclaimer, I have no association with the musical profession.
Nor do I. I think you missed part of my point. I was countering this idea that if I want to hand out my music to anybod who wants to hear it, I can't because of the RIAA. This just isn't true. They don't own all music in the world.
I don't agree with them, their tactics, their close relationship to our congressional representatives, their at
Ahem! To pile on damages to people who are especially egregious violators of the law. They may serve as deterrants, but that is not the grounds on which they are piled on, nor the purpose of them. The purpose is specifically to punish one individual, not specifically to deter anybody else.
Let me know if you'd like to exchange more monosyllabic expressions of contempt. I watch Family Guy, I learned from the best.
I don't think so. When you download it, you're making a copy, and thus in violation of US Code Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 106(1). A download creates a copy. It's not a TRANSFER of the original file. You aren't GETTING the original file and then nobody else can have it. You're copying it, just like you do when you upload. Even if you DELETE the original file after you upload, you still copied it. It's like burning a copy a CD, destroying, the original, and saying, "This one isn't a copy, I don't have the original any more."
This doesn't happen. If I want to use the distribution channels controlled by the RIAA then I have to sign a contract with them and agree to the terms of it.
But if I am a music producer and wish to distribute my music however I want, I can do that. It's mine. I created it. I am the copyright holder in this case and I have the exclusive rights to reproduction and distribution of the material.
No, that is not what punitive damages are for. They are not a deterrant, they are specifically intended as an additional punishment for notably egregious, willful, or wanton violation of the law.
That's because they are two different violations. Stealing a CD is misdemeanor theft. Uploading a CD to thousands of people is felony copyright infringement.
A pilot was lost on a high atmospheric flight that, by American standards for where space "begins" and the atmosphere "ends", is often citied in NASA's casualty list. By international standards, this flight wouldn't count. I was being generous to my dissenter's benefit.
The Soviets (officially) lost 4, but supposedly there were at least 12-15 more deaths that haven't been declassified yet.
Pretty convenient and deceptive of you to quote the number of flights rather than the number of spacefarers that have been launched and returned. If the Soviets had launched 90 shuttle missions, do you think they'd have only lost two? I really doubt it.
Yes, I hate it almost as much as when people take comments seriously that are clearly not meant to be taken seriously.