The "Pirate" movement has distanced itself from the "I want free stuff" mentality. Their platform involves freedom, privacy and individual rights, and many "pirates" that have actually thought about the issues do support their artists.
Yes, they say they support the artists, but they advocate legalising non-commercial file sharing. That is, it's OK for people to share works for non-commercial purposes as much as they like, but when a company does it, or someone sells copies, or uses the copies to sell something else, then it's not OK. That sounds fine on the surface, but it starts to look rotten if you actually explore the reasons behind the banning of sharing of copyrighted works. Most of their sales, and hence, most of their income, comes from people using their work for non-commercial purposes. They can only sell these copies in any reasonable volume if these copies are scarce. By allowing non-commercial sharing, you take a huge chunk of their market, and hence a huge chunk of their livelihood.
Compare this to commercial sharing. Where is the harm in commercial sharing? Well, it eliminates demand, just like non-commercial sharing. And... er... that's about it. It doesn't matter whether or not the receiver is a company, since the company only has to buy a single copy, just like any individual. It doesn't matter whether an individual receives a copy in exchange for love, money, or nothing at all, since the end result is that they have a copy of the artist's work, and the artist gets nothing. Besides, who actually pays for pirated materials, when you can get equally legal free copies off the internet? I doubt that commercial infringement is even an issue for the average artist. Much of their grief is coming from, and always will come from, non-commercial sharing.
So, forgive me if I'm sceptical when the pirate movement says they want to protect artists' rights.
Both cases are of where something that's undesirable by some and desirable by others is (or was) illegal.
Yeah, I got that. I'm just trying to see the parallels between our statements beyond that. Any one would be great, 'cause frankly I see none.
There's nothing inherently immoral about it, as laws against both weren't put in place until the past few hundred years.
Wait, so, because of your prohibition analogy, it's ludicrous to assume that just because something is illegal that it's immoral, right? But, the fact that something is not illegal (or at least was illegal) means that it's not immoral? I'm not sure you can have it both ways.
Besides, you fail to take into account changing times and circumstances. Copyright didn't reflect a change in values, it represented a change in reality. It's a patch for commercialism to be compatible with the latest version of Real Life. As popular it is these days to say that the internet has obsoleted copyright, it is technologies like the the internet (technology that makes publishing easier, but doesn't increase the influx of new works) that were the purpose of introducing copyright in the first place.
No, the behaviour of piracy has been firmly in the evil category since the advent of capitalism (not unlike theft). It's just that we haven't previously had the technology to experience any problems with it.
But yet you pretend there are absolutely no parallels between them. Is that because you are being deliberately obtuse because you want to defend your pet ideology? It certainly isn't because logic drove you to that conclusion, or you'd have at least addressed any of the issues mentioned.
Oh christ you are pathetic. I didn't respond to your "questions" because, well, there is no response to them. Imagine if I had said "It's a lovely sunny day today", and you had responded "So, since many days had been sunny during prohibition time, you think prohibition was a lovely time?" It sounds, on a very superficial level, like it's on topic, but it really doesn't make sense if you scratch the surface.
What's worse is, to respond to it any other manner than the dismissive manner it deserves, you need to dissect the thought process involved. How else can you respond to it? All that ends up happening is that you get roped into arguing for the other guy, just because he didn't put enough care into his comments to make them sensible.
But, I can see you're the kind of guy who's going to stick to his guerrilla arguing style, so I will, just this once, try and reverse engineer your questions. Don't blame me if I make some errors with my mind-reading.
So Prohibition was a good thing because most of the people against it broke the law in taking drinks while hating Prohibition?
The (somewhat tenuous) link between prohibition and piracy was clear, and now after your comment, has been thoroughly established. The question is, what on god's green earth made you think that I thought something like this? My post made clear that this debate was about intention more than practical effects, which explains the "while hating Prohibition" part of the question, but honestly, I just don't see how it all fits in. Perhaps, and this is a complete stab in the dark, you think that the only reason why I oppose piracy is that only pirates support it? I mean, the basis behind that question is not even true! It seems absurd for you to believe that, but that's the best I can divine from your rhetorical sniping.
And the strongest proponents of Prohibition were the mobsters making a mint off it, any parallels there as well?
This one seems a little bit easier. Because someone called the **AA "MAFIAA", we have a connection there as well, right? Wrong. The **AA is a legitimate business, and are currently operating within the law (even if the law has to stretch a littl
You're right; I don't have any figures. However, these are the people that the pirate party panders to, and the people that the pirate party serve. For the purpose of determining the purity of motives, I think it's an accurate enough indicator.
Oh, and for every person you know who does not download "illegal" stuff, I'm sure I know someone who would sign up for this service for exactly that.
More or less anything can be a "facility" for breaking the law.
Oh great, not this argument again.
Yes, just about anything can be a facility for breaking the law, but not everything actively facilitates breaking the law. That is, not everything is made with the main purpose of allowing people to break the law.
All that argument does is try to cloud meaning.
They are providing a service for people not wanting to be constantly monitored. The reason why people don't want to be constantly moitored can be a lot of things;
Free speech sometimes needs to be able to happen "anonymously" to be able to be truely free. Just look at Iran (where the pirateparty has also helped with anonymous proxies and such)
Someone might just thinks it's none of other peoples concern who they speak with.
Sometimes you might want to close the toilet door even if "everybody knows" what's going on in there.
I'm not saying it's not a valuable service provided, it's just that the pirate party isn't doing this just to protect privacy. And like it or not, a major factor in majority of people who'll sign up for this service will be that they can download as much as they like without fear of justice.
FYI, on the video, they say that you can install it on as many PCs as you want. I don't know what other DRM provisions there are though. It may be just as simple as a CD check.
Please. This is isn't some group protesting the law, this is some group providing a facility to break the law. Piracy is their name, banner, and political platform. They can't advertise their service for piracy (that's gotten certain P2P services in legal trouble IIRC), so they advertise for privacy. It is extremely clear what they are intending this service to be used for.
Look, they can shout in favour of evil acts as much as they like, but when they start actively facilitating evil acts, then they are "illegitimate in their goals".
From what I can tell from your statements, you hate DRM, and you have this theory that all DRM is evil. Now, a fairly unobtrusive DRM has come along that actually balances the needs of the consumers and the needs of the producers, one that people are aware of its shortcomings but still flock to it in numbers. So what do you do? Does it prove your theory wrong? No. Do you admit that it's the lesser of several evils? Hell no! You call it the most evil, because it actually appears not to be evil! Truly, cognitive dissonance at it's finest.
I mean, let's just examine your claims as to why it's evil. How is it "boiling the frog"? Can you point to any changes in the Steam DRM? Any at all? I mean, maybe I'm being thoroughly boiled, but for the 2-3 years I've been using steam, I haven't logged any changes, certainly none that seem to affect me, even in small ways. Perhaps this "boiling the frog" is more like "putting the frog in a comfortably warm bath, and not adjusting the temperature".
Re:United States Government Accountability Office?
on
Top Secret America
·
· Score: 1
The whole medical profession? As in, give up training all doctors, give up researching all medicines, because no matter how much we spend, there will still be disease from other sources?
Re:No successful terrorist attacks since 9/11?
on
Top Secret America
·
· Score: 1
Every time I see this insinuation (I wouldn't call it anything as substantial as an argument), a little shred of respect for my fellow man's intellect dies quietly.
Hmm. Which is it more likely to be? The rock that allegedly prevents terrorism? Or the terrorism-targeted deterrents put in place? Such a difficult call to make...
That's why I don't like the "correlation does not imply causation" mantra. A lot like the thought processes it tries to prevent, it can easily be used to gloss over a wealth of information.
Re:United States Government Accountability Office?
on
Top Secret America
·
· Score: 1
Terror attacks will come again from other sources. It doesn't matter how much money you spend.
I'm sorry, but that's simply not enough. You could say the same about diseases, yet nobody is accusing the medical profession of being an unjustifiable drain on our economy.
I'm not sure my brain could resolve the unsettling, deep-seeded internal conflict that's bound to arise from seeing a Doctor that looks identical to House. Even imagining such an occurrence is giving me a headache.
Slashdot's moderation system has a lot of cool features, but it fails at the basics. I don't want a system that (by default) buries posts and (via the karma system) posters on one side of an argument, I want a system that highlights and displays popular comments, but clearly marks unpopular comments as well. It doesn't have to display the unpopular comment, just make its presence known. The discussion2 system really fucked that up.
With that said, I think I prefer YouTube's moderation system to Slashdot's, but it's close, since Slashdot really does have a lot of cool features.
But if your claims are factual, the overall tone of the post polite, and you back your points with references, you are much more likely to be upmodded even when advocating opinions that are unpopular here.
Speaking from loads of experience, that is true (provided someone doesn't attack your source, in which case, anything goes). However, it is a little insidious that presenting viewpoints other than a short list of acceptable viewpoints are restricted only to a report of verifiable facts with a polite tone, when the acceptable viewpoints can be utter emotive tripe, with nothing approaching a factual basis. If every opposition can consist of this dry variety of rhetoric, then it leaves the impression that the other guy feels more strongly on the viewpoint, and tends to leave your position looking weak. It's a hollow kind of symmetry, when one side is crippled right from the start.
This levy wouldn't actually make ISPs pay for this stuff; they'd either pass the cost onto the consumer indiscriminately, or work harder at filtering out pirate traffic. Choosing the former option when the latter would be possible would result in consumers deciding to choose other providers where possible, so there is significant incentive to filter pirate traffic.
If a store catches some twit stealing a $75 MP3 player, should they hold off on pressing charges if it will cost the store $100, or $1,000 in their own legal costs? Perhaps they have an interest in reminding a wider audience that they're not willing to be perpetually ripped off?
That's an excellent analogy, but I think we make one that's even more confronting.
What if an artist spends $30,000 to recover $2,000 in royalties from the RIAA? I'm sure she would be called greedy, scorned for wasting the court's time and her fans' money (even though the fans handed it over to her fair and square), and accused of "buying the law". How did she get that $30,000 in the first place? She must care about finances, and thus she must be a talentless money-grubbing hack, since all the good artists, and only the good artists, would work for free. Slashdot would never, in any way, put her on a pedestal and praise her grit and determination to bring justice to an evil empire, and setting a much-needed precedent for all the artists who follow her. I mean, sure, the RIAA is a little less popular than miss battler, but we would never condemn a behaviour as bad simply because someone we don't like did it once, right? Right?
(Please say no. I hear my enemies urinate from time to time, and I don't think I could hold it in!)
Where's the problem? If oil really is that cheap, then it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to go with "green energy".
The problem is, assuming you don't believe in global warming or the negative effects of pollution, that now is the time to wean ourselves off of oil. Taking a half-hearted stance towards renewable energies, and alternative materials other than oil-based plastics, essentially sets us up for a pretty hard fall in both our economy and general way of life when oil reserves truly become scarce. Ideally, we should be changing infrastructure now, and committing to research into green alternatives, or at least something that will sustain us for the next 200 years.
Easy. Just make a video playing a song, with the artist and song title in plain text showing constantly on the video track. That's not fair use by any sane definition.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, they say they support the artists, but they advocate legalising non-commercial file sharing. That is, it's OK for people to share works for non-commercial purposes as much as they like, but when a company does it, or someone sells copies, or uses the copies to sell something else, then it's not OK. That sounds fine on the surface, but it starts to look rotten if you actually explore the reasons behind the banning of sharing of copyrighted works. Most of their sales, and hence, most of their income, comes from people using their work for non-commercial purposes. They can only sell these copies in any reasonable volume if these copies are scarce. By allowing non-commercial sharing, you take a huge chunk of their market, and hence a huge chunk of their livelihood.
Compare this to commercial sharing. Where is the harm in commercial sharing? Well, it eliminates demand, just like non-commercial sharing. And... er... that's about it. It doesn't matter whether or not the receiver is a company, since the company only has to buy a single copy, just like any individual. It doesn't matter whether an individual receives a copy in exchange for love, money, or nothing at all, since the end result is that they have a copy of the artist's work, and the artist gets nothing. Besides, who actually pays for pirated materials, when you can get equally legal free copies off the internet? I doubt that commercial infringement is even an issue for the average artist. Much of their grief is coming from, and always will come from, non-commercial sharing.
So, forgive me if I'm sceptical when the pirate movement says they want to protect artists' rights.
Naturally, since breaking the laws without a political statement is generally frowned upon.
Yeah, I got that. I'm just trying to see the parallels between our statements beyond that. Any one would be great, 'cause frankly I see none.
Wait, so, because of your prohibition analogy, it's ludicrous to assume that just because something is illegal that it's immoral, right? But, the fact that something is not illegal (or at least was illegal) means that it's not immoral? I'm not sure you can have it both ways.
Besides, you fail to take into account changing times and circumstances. Copyright didn't reflect a change in values, it represented a change in reality. It's a patch for commercialism to be compatible with the latest version of Real Life. As popular it is these days to say that the internet has obsoleted copyright, it is technologies like the the internet (technology that makes publishing easier, but doesn't increase the influx of new works) that were the purpose of introducing copyright in the first place.
No, the behaviour of piracy has been firmly in the evil category since the advent of capitalism (not unlike theft). It's just that we haven't previously had the technology to experience any problems with it.
Oh christ you are pathetic. I didn't respond to your "questions" because, well, there is no response to them. Imagine if I had said "It's a lovely sunny day today", and you had responded "So, since many days had been sunny during prohibition time, you think prohibition was a lovely time?" It sounds, on a very superficial level, like it's on topic, but it really doesn't make sense if you scratch the surface.
What's worse is, to respond to it any other manner than the dismissive manner it deserves, you need to dissect the thought process involved. How else can you respond to it? All that ends up happening is that you get roped into arguing for the other guy, just because he didn't put enough care into his comments to make them sensible.
But, I can see you're the kind of guy who's going to stick to his guerrilla arguing style, so I will, just this once, try and reverse engineer your questions. Don't blame me if I make some errors with my mind-reading.
The (somewhat tenuous) link between prohibition and piracy was clear, and now after your comment, has been thoroughly established. The question is, what on god's green earth made you think that I thought something like this? My post made clear that this debate was about intention more than practical effects, which explains the "while hating Prohibition" part of the question, but honestly, I just don't see how it all fits in. Perhaps, and this is a complete stab in the dark, you think that the only reason why I oppose piracy is that only pirates support it? I mean, the basis behind that question is not even true! It seems absurd for you to believe that, but that's the best I can divine from your rhetorical sniping.
This one seems a little bit easier. Because someone called the **AA "MAFIAA", we have a connection there as well, right? Wrong. The **AA is a legitimate business, and are currently operating within the law (even if the law has to stretch a littl
You're right; I don't have any figures. However, these are the people that the pirate party panders to, and the people that the pirate party serve. For the purpose of determining the purity of motives, I think it's an accurate enough indicator.
Oh, and for every person you know who does not download "illegal" stuff, I'm sure I know someone who would sign up for this service for exactly that.
Uh, no and no.
Oh great, not this argument again.
Yes, just about anything can be a facility for breaking the law, but not everything actively facilitates breaking the law. That is, not everything is made with the main purpose of allowing people to break the law.
All that argument does is try to cloud meaning.
I'm not saying it's not a valuable service provided, it's just that the pirate party isn't doing this just to protect privacy. And like it or not, a major factor in majority of people who'll sign up for this service will be that they can download as much as they like without fear of justice.
FYI, on the video, they say that you can install it on as many PCs as you want. I don't know what other DRM provisions there are though. It may be just as simple as a CD check.
Please. This is isn't some group protesting the law, this is some group providing a facility to break the law. Piracy is their name, banner, and political platform. They can't advertise their service for piracy (that's gotten certain P2P services in legal trouble IIRC), so they advertise for privacy. It is extremely clear what they are intending this service to be used for.
Look, they can shout in favour of evil acts as much as they like, but when they start actively facilitating evil acts, then they are "illegitimate in their goals".
Riiiiiiight. So I guess the only reason we pay for... well... anything is abject greed on behalf of the producers?
Yeah, you just go ahead and let me know when you've discovered a away to meet the consumers needs without staying in business.
From what I can tell from your statements, you hate DRM, and you have this theory that all DRM is evil. Now, a fairly unobtrusive DRM has come along that actually balances the needs of the consumers and the needs of the producers, one that people are aware of its shortcomings but still flock to it in numbers. So what do you do? Does it prove your theory wrong? No. Do you admit that it's the lesser of several evils? Hell no! You call it the most evil, because it actually appears not to be evil! Truly, cognitive dissonance at it's finest.
I mean, let's just examine your claims as to why it's evil. How is it "boiling the frog"? Can you point to any changes in the Steam DRM? Any at all? I mean, maybe I'm being thoroughly boiled, but for the 2-3 years I've been using steam, I haven't logged any changes, certainly none that seem to affect me, even in small ways. Perhaps this "boiling the frog" is more like "putting the frog in a comfortably warm bath, and not adjusting the temperature".
The whole medical profession? As in, give up training all doctors, give up researching all medicines, because no matter how much we spend, there will still be disease from other sources?
Every time I see this insinuation (I wouldn't call it anything as substantial as an argument), a little shred of respect for my fellow man's intellect dies quietly.
Hmm. Which is it more likely to be? The rock that allegedly prevents terrorism? Or the terrorism-targeted deterrents put in place? Such a difficult call to make...
That's why I don't like the "correlation does not imply causation" mantra. A lot like the thought processes it tries to prevent, it can easily be used to gloss over a wealth of information.
I'm sorry, but that's simply not enough. You could say the same about diseases, yet nobody is accusing the medical profession of being an unjustifiable drain on our economy.
I'm not sure my brain could resolve the unsettling, deep-seeded internal conflict that's bound to arise from seeing a Doctor that looks identical to House. Even imagining such an occurrence is giving me a headache.
A lack of exposure to criticisms breeds preciousness and a thin skin. Mods should also keep that in mind before sending a comment to -1 hell.
Whoa! I completely missed that!
HOLY SHIT DUDE! Most people use one or two methods of emphasis, but you use *three*! You, sir, are a legend!
Slashdot's moderation system has a lot of cool features, but it fails at the basics. I don't want a system that (by default) buries posts and (via the karma system) posters on one side of an argument, I want a system that highlights and displays popular comments, but clearly marks unpopular comments as well. It doesn't have to display the unpopular comment, just make its presence known. The discussion2 system really fucked that up.
With that said, I think I prefer YouTube's moderation system to Slashdot's, but it's close, since Slashdot really does have a lot of cool features.
Speaking from loads of experience, that is true (provided someone doesn't attack your source, in which case, anything goes). However, it is a little insidious that presenting viewpoints other than a short list of acceptable viewpoints are restricted only to a report of verifiable facts with a polite tone, when the acceptable viewpoints can be utter emotive tripe, with nothing approaching a factual basis. If every opposition can consist of this dry variety of rhetoric, then it leaves the impression that the other guy feels more strongly on the viewpoint, and tends to leave your position looking weak. It's a hollow kind of symmetry, when one side is crippled right from the start.
This levy wouldn't actually make ISPs pay for this stuff; they'd either pass the cost onto the consumer indiscriminately, or work harder at filtering out pirate traffic. Choosing the former option when the latter would be possible would result in consumers deciding to choose other providers where possible, so there is significant incentive to filter pirate traffic.
That's an excellent analogy, but I think we make one that's even more confronting.
What if an artist spends $30,000 to recover $2,000 in royalties from the RIAA? I'm sure she would be called greedy, scorned for wasting the court's time and her fans' money (even though the fans handed it over to her fair and square), and accused of "buying the law". How did she get that $30,000 in the first place? She must care about finances, and thus she must be a talentless money-grubbing hack, since all the good artists, and only the good artists, would work for free. Slashdot would never, in any way, put her on a pedestal and praise her grit and determination to bring justice to an evil empire, and setting a much-needed precedent for all the artists who follow her. I mean, sure, the RIAA is a little less popular than miss battler, but we would never condemn a behaviour as bad simply because someone we don't like did it once, right? Right?
(Please say no. I hear my enemies urinate from time to time, and I don't think I could hold it in!)
The problem is, assuming you don't believe in global warming or the negative effects of pollution, that now is the time to wean ourselves off of oil. Taking a half-hearted stance towards renewable energies, and alternative materials other than oil-based plastics, essentially sets us up for a pretty hard fall in both our economy and general way of life when oil reserves truly become scarce. Ideally, we should be changing infrastructure now, and committing to research into green alternatives, or at least something that will sustain us for the next 200 years.
Easy. Just make a video playing a song, with the artist and song title in plain text showing constantly on the video track. That's not fair use by any sane definition.
It's fun for the first few months, then you start wishing some of those desires would return, just to alleviate the boredom.