I'm not sure what you mean by that; obviously someone did, as you're moderated insightful. Maybe I didn't get enough coffee this morning, or sleep last night.
What anti-commercial bias? It seems this society worships commerce; people will posit that free = useless, and sharing is a bad thing (contrary what our mothers in my old generation taught us), and that "*there's no such thing as a free lunch". If there's a pervasive bias, it seems to me to be a pro-commercial bias.
There is both, I'm afraid. It's interesting the contradiction here, but I suppose it's not entirely unexpected, since the anti-commercial bias to which I am referring is based on envy. Envy is itself a contradiction. You hate those who live the way you yourself want to live. As a consequence you hate, by association, the way of life itself, but at the same time, yearn for it.
This is what I'm talking about. The "pervasive anti-commercial bias" is more or less envy for rich people. I mean, you may not feel it, but there are plenty who do. You often don't have to dig very deeply to find prejudice and resentment towards rich people, or towards the idea of someone else making a lot of money. Sometimes it's fairly pronounced, for example, when people call someone like Paris Hilton a spoilt rich kid (which is empirically true, but is meant as a derogatory term). Other times it's subtle, like calling the guy who owns the mansion and the speedboat down the street "lucky", even though he probably had to work his butt off to earn that kind of money.
So yeah, we have a pro-commercial bias, and an anti-commericial bias. It's self--contradictory, which is why I think, at least in our legal system, we should pick a position, and stick to it.
No, it doesn't -- commercial "sharing" isn't sharing, it's selling.
It's a semantic distinction. It's still sharing. The seller still has his copy of the work, and now, for a fee, so do you. How is that not sharing?
If you buy a bootleg CD, that IS a lost sale to the CD's distribution chain; whoever you give the money to gets money that rightfully belongs to the CD's creator, while if you're not paying for it they've lost nothing. If you were going to buy it, you'ld buy it. If you think it has value, you'll pay for it.
This distinction is very fragile. What if the CDs are sold close to cost, for example, for $3? Then, you have a choice of either buying legitimately for $20 or paying $3. If you're not going to pay $20, it's not a lost sale. What if it was, say, $10? Still, it's within your rights to decide to decide not to buy such a CD for more than $10, thus it is still possible for you to buy the illegitimate CD without it being a lost sale for the legitimate CD.
What if the goods were not delivered physically? What if they were delivered digitally, in much the same way as people download them now for free? Then the action is identical, with the exception of money changing hands. Consider allofmp3.com. They sold their mp3s for peanuts. Can you honestly tell me that buying an album for a couple of dollars from allofmp3.com implies that you would have bought the full priced album, for as much as $30 in stores?
I'm wondering if I'm reading it backwards, or if you wrote it backwards, because it's backwards. Noncommercial sharing helps the artist by getting him noticed, while the commercial sale of counterfeits is in fact a type of theft -- if you gain money that's rightfully mine, you've stolen from me. If you copy something of mine I've lost nothing.
There's a final step in your reasoning here that you haven't quite made. I don't know whether you can't see it, or whether you're just avoiding it, but it's there. Yes, sales are a type of theft. You gain money that rightfully belongs with the artist. Why? Because it destroys demand, and potentially could replace sales. Now, as I demonstrated earlier, just because you pay mor
For much the same reason that I can drop a hamburger patty on the ground in my own kitchen, pick it up, wipe it off, and cook it anyway while a McDonald's would be closed for the same reason.
Because it's a health risk to other people if McDonalds does it?
For the same reason I can make my tween kids mow my own lawn while I'd get in serious trouble for employing a child.
Because 12-year-olds don't have social power to negotiate fair working terms?
For the same reason I can put an Apple sticker on my HP netbook, but I'd be sued 8 ways from Sunday if I tried to sell them as Apples.
Because doing so would be fraudulent, plus a weakening of Apple's brand and infringement of their trademark? Please note that I am assuming no fraud here; that the seller makes it crystal clear that their copies are illegitimate.
More interesting (to me) is why you think personal, non-profit activities should be regulated just like their commercial counterparts.
I will answer this question, but first I'd like to point out something interesting. You use the word "personal", as in, "is nobody's business but my own". But clearly, this also applies to for-profit transactions. I mean, just like how the private transactions of media, with no money changing hands, is private and personal, so too is exchanging media for money. The same reasoning applies, yet for some reason, most people don't apply it. Well, IMHO, the reasoning is wrong, so I more ask the question from the other end, i.e., why do people use such reasoning in the first place?
So, to answer your question. Your question is moot. The activities are not personal. There is always a third party in any copyright infringement: the artist. Willing or not, they are party to the transaction, since it is their work and commercial investment which is being stolen from.
So now, the question becomes, "Why do I think non-profit activities should be regulated like their commercial counterparts?" Well, I think they should be regulated in the same way when there is no difference in effect between money exchanging hands, and money not exchanging hands. If a non-profit activity generates the same damage as its for-profit activity, then I see punishing both activities equally not just as desirable, but necessary in order to maintain an equitable, just, and integral legal system. Does that answer your question.
OK, so there's still a market for illegitimate, priced copies of TV seasons that is (sort of) diminishing as internet technology improves.
For many, many people, it's just as easy to download an almost DVD quality movie with less than 1GB of bandwidth, and requires less dough. For TV series, it's even easier, since you can download the next episode while watching the previous one!
Frankly, I don't see it as much of a compromise. It feels more like the middle/upper class getting everything they want, the artists suffering, and the poor people without fast internet connections just being screwed (but then again, they could never really afford luxuries like big movie/music collections). How many more sales do you think there are thanks to the unavailability of commercial copyright-infringing media? If a person prefers to buy a dirt cheap copy when going to the store (but can't), then either they go home and download it, or they can't afford fast internet or full-priced copies of media. This is, of course, an over-generalisation, but the rule outweighs the exceptions.
And this is ignoring another important issue. We are making a distinction of convenience, without taking into consideration the justice of such a distinction. The reason we want to punish commercial copyright infringement is the harm to the artist caused by practising such infringement, but the same harm is caused by non-commercial is no different. Why are we punishing one, but not the other? It is a significant injustice to the artist and, in fact, the commercial infringer that we punish one harshly, and leave the other scot-free. If there were some difference in effect between commercial and non-commercial infringements, then it would be understandable, but there isn't. Right now, it makes about as much sense as exempting people with internet connections from copyright, or even people with cats from copyright.
We cannot have a just legal system that decides who to apply the law to, based on arbitrary distinctions. It is just not right.
It is common in many businesses. If a person feels that they are better than you, or even if they just feel they have the upper hand, many will chose to be an ass to you.
Just look at how many Dr. offices have no cell phone signs and have no problem being 20 minutes late to an appointment, but will throw a hissy if you are 5 minutes late, even though they were not going to see you anyway. They expect you to sit quitely and non-productively in their lobby until they decide it is time to honor you with their presence.
Look, I have rock. I don't see any tigers around. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.
But, would anyone with internet actually pay for illegitimate copies of movies, if given the chance? It doesn't sound like much of a compromise otherwise.
It's not about the damages. It's to discourage trying out illegal commercial sharing as a business model.
So, by the same reasoning, we should go extra hard on non-commercial sharers, so that sharing doesn't become their primary source of entertainment? I guess that makes sense.
This decision highlights the pervasive anti-commercial bias in society. It often has no practical basis. Often, the making of the money adds no extra damages to the crime itself. The bias against commercial sharing is no exception.
Commercial sharing involves sharing the same works to the same people. It has the same demand-killing effects that non-commercial sharing does. It affects the artists in the same way. The only real difference I can see is that the artist, unlike with non-commercial sharing, might actually be able to compete with the non-vanishing price point of commercial sharers. If anything, commercial sharing is better for artists than non-commercial sharing.
Why do we make such a distinction? Why is it so much worse for a person to receive an ill-gotten stream of money than, say, an ill-gotten stream of free entertainment? It makes no sense to me. I cannot support a decision not grounded in (not so) common sense.
How does a P2P network "save" you from spending money on music that you don't need or that you don't listen to a second time? There are literally thousands of albums/songs that I don't need and don't listen to, and I've never needed a P2P network.
Last time I looked at one of this type of piracy study, it stated explicitly that it did not consider such cases. Basically, if you download a copy, then you are considered in debt to the copyright holder.
I would check this particular study, but the report is in Japanese (and I draw the line at learning a new language in my efforts to RTFA).
How many terrorists have been caught by Israeli airport security since the 70s? More importantly, since I believe the answer is a handful in the 70s and 80s, how many have been caught since 2001?
I think you might be neglecting the deterrent effect.
that's the first thing that popped into my head. slashdot's been littered lately with stories about Australia's attempts to crush online privacy and freedom.
Makes perfect sense. Except that the data is not private, and completely and utterly useless for forming coups on democracy.
it definitely makes people dumber... There is no sense of scale and no memory of past events any more... It seems that the collective memory of the world lasts only a few days, and then past events are forgotten
Careful here. How sure are you that things were better before the internet? What evidence do we have that these dumb people didn't exist before the internet, let alone that the internet caused their existence?
Wait. Can TV actually make you dumber? I can accept without hard evidence that TV can displace beneficial avenues for learning, thus making you more ignorant (among other things), but actually dumber? Does it have some kind of profound effect on our synapses of which I'm not aware?
I mean, maybe it's true. Maybe watching television makes you less intelligent, but I was hoping someone could source a study on the issue.
OK, I'll pay that. But my point was that the ads are an integral part of the free internet. If you want to use it, you're going to need to pay twice.
Just like when I paid twice for the CD I bought; once to the store, and once to the petrol station that delivered the energy to propel me there and back.
Personally, I just tally it up to the total cost, and use that for comparison with other ways of buying CDs.
Slashdot Mirror
Similar to the way that human beings like a house to shelter them from the cold, but don't actually depend on it.
There is both, I'm afraid. It's interesting the contradiction here, but I suppose it's not entirely unexpected, since the anti-commercial bias to which I am referring is based on envy. Envy is itself a contradiction. You hate those who live the way you yourself want to live. As a consequence you hate, by association, the way of life itself, but at the same time, yearn for it.
This is what I'm talking about. The "pervasive anti-commercial bias" is more or less envy for rich people. I mean, you may not feel it, but there are plenty who do. You often don't have to dig very deeply to find prejudice and resentment towards rich people, or towards the idea of someone else making a lot of money. Sometimes it's fairly pronounced, for example, when people call someone like Paris Hilton a spoilt rich kid (which is empirically true, but is meant as a derogatory term). Other times it's subtle, like calling the guy who owns the mansion and the speedboat down the street "lucky", even though he probably had to work his butt off to earn that kind of money.
So yeah, we have a pro-commercial bias, and an anti-commericial bias. It's self--contradictory, which is why I think, at least in our legal system, we should pick a position, and stick to it.
It's a semantic distinction. It's still sharing. The seller still has his copy of the work, and now, for a fee, so do you. How is that not sharing?
This distinction is very fragile. What if the CDs are sold close to cost, for example, for $3? Then, you have a choice of either buying legitimately for $20 or paying $3. If you're not going to pay $20, it's not a lost sale. What if it was, say, $10? Still, it's within your rights to decide to decide not to buy such a CD for more than $10, thus it is still possible for you to buy the illegitimate CD without it being a lost sale for the legitimate CD.
What if the goods were not delivered physically? What if they were delivered digitally, in much the same way as people download them now for free? Then the action is identical, with the exception of money changing hands. Consider allofmp3.com. They sold their mp3s for peanuts. Can you honestly tell me that buying an album for a couple of dollars from allofmp3.com implies that you would have bought the full priced album, for as much as $30 in stores?
There's a final step in your reasoning here that you haven't quite made. I don't know whether you can't see it, or whether you're just avoiding it, but it's there. Yes, sales are a type of theft. You gain money that rightfully belongs with the artist. Why? Because it destroys demand, and potentially could replace sales. Now, as I demonstrated earlier, just because you pay mor
Because it's a health risk to other people if McDonalds does it?
Because 12-year-olds don't have social power to negotiate fair working terms?
Because doing so would be fraudulent, plus a weakening of Apple's brand and infringement of their trademark? Please note that I am assuming no fraud here; that the seller makes it crystal clear that their copies are illegitimate.
I will answer this question, but first I'd like to point out something interesting. You use the word "personal", as in, "is nobody's business but my own". But clearly, this also applies to for-profit transactions. I mean, just like how the private transactions of media, with no money changing hands, is private and personal, so too is exchanging media for money. The same reasoning applies, yet for some reason, most people don't apply it. Well, IMHO, the reasoning is wrong, so I more ask the question from the other end, i.e., why do people use such reasoning in the first place?
So, to answer your question. Your question is moot. The activities are not personal. There is always a third party in any copyright infringement: the artist. Willing or not, they are party to the transaction, since it is their work and commercial investment which is being stolen from.
So now, the question becomes, "Why do I think non-profit activities should be regulated like their commercial counterparts?" Well, I think they should be regulated in the same way when there is no difference in effect between money exchanging hands, and money not exchanging hands. If a non-profit activity generates the same damage as its for-profit activity, then I see punishing both activities equally not just as desirable, but necessary in order to maintain an equitable, just, and integral legal system. Does that answer your question.
OK, so there's still a market for illegitimate, priced copies of TV seasons that is (sort of) diminishing as internet technology improves.
For many, many people, it's just as easy to download an almost DVD quality movie with less than 1GB of bandwidth, and requires less dough. For TV series, it's even easier, since you can download the next episode while watching the previous one!
Frankly, I don't see it as much of a compromise. It feels more like the middle/upper class getting everything they want, the artists suffering, and the poor people without fast internet connections just being screwed (but then again, they could never really afford luxuries like big movie/music collections). How many more sales do you think there are thanks to the unavailability of commercial copyright-infringing media? If a person prefers to buy a dirt cheap copy when going to the store (but can't), then either they go home and download it, or they can't afford fast internet or full-priced copies of media. This is, of course, an over-generalisation, but the rule outweighs the exceptions.
And this is ignoring another important issue. We are making a distinction of convenience, without taking into consideration the justice of such a distinction. The reason we want to punish commercial copyright infringement is the harm to the artist caused by practising such infringement, but the same harm is caused by non-commercial is no different. Why are we punishing one, but not the other? It is a significant injustice to the artist and, in fact, the commercial infringer that we punish one harshly, and leave the other scot-free. If there were some difference in effect between commercial and non-commercial infringements, then it would be understandable, but there isn't. Right now, it makes about as much sense as exempting people with internet connections from copyright, or even people with cats from copyright.
We cannot have a just legal system that decides who to apply the law to, based on arbitrary distinctions. It is just not right.
Look, I have rock. I don't see any tigers around. I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.
But, would anyone with internet actually pay for illegitimate copies of movies, if given the chance? It doesn't sound like much of a compromise otherwise.
So, by the same reasoning, we should go extra hard on non-commercial sharers, so that sharing doesn't become their primary source of entertainment? I guess that makes sense.
This decision highlights the pervasive anti-commercial bias in society. It often has no practical basis. Often, the making of the money adds no extra damages to the crime itself. The bias against commercial sharing is no exception.
Commercial sharing involves sharing the same works to the same people. It has the same demand-killing effects that non-commercial sharing does. It affects the artists in the same way. The only real difference I can see is that the artist, unlike with non-commercial sharing, might actually be able to compete with the non-vanishing price point of commercial sharers. If anything, commercial sharing is better for artists than non-commercial sharing.
Why do we make such a distinction? Why is it so much worse for a person to receive an ill-gotten stream of money than, say, an ill-gotten stream of free entertainment? It makes no sense to me. I cannot support a decision not grounded in (not so) common sense.
How does a P2P network "save" you from spending money on music that you don't need or that you don't listen to a second time? There are literally thousands of albums/songs that I don't need and don't listen to, and I've never needed a P2P network.
Go google googol googol times.
So charge them more. Punitive damages for pirates is just as fair as for BP, but that doesn't mean we have to charge the same amount for both cases.
Last time I looked at one of this type of piracy study, it stated explicitly that it did not consider such cases. Basically, if you download a copy, then you are considered in debt to the copyright holder.
I would check this particular study, but the report is in Japanese (and I draw the line at learning a new language in my efforts to RTFA).
Look up the word "deterrent". I think you will be surprised. ;-)
I think you might be neglecting the deterrent effect.
Makes perfect sense. Except that the data is not private, and completely and utterly useless for forming coups on democracy.
As opposed to a 3-digit telephone number?
Apparently, the entire internet makes you redundant. ;-)
(Come on internet! You know I love you!)
... and more informed, of course.
Careful here. How sure are you that things were better before the internet? What evidence do we have that these dumb people didn't exist before the internet, let alone that the internet caused their existence?
Wait. Can TV actually make you dumber? I can accept without hard evidence that TV can displace beneficial avenues for learning, thus making you more ignorant (among other things), but actually dumber? Does it have some kind of profound effect on our synapses of which I'm not aware?
I mean, maybe it's true. Maybe watching television makes you less intelligent, but I was hoping someone could source a study on the issue.
OK, I'll pay that. But my point was that the ads are an integral part of the free internet. If you want to use it, you're going to need to pay twice.
Just like when I paid twice for the CD I bought; once to the store, and once to the petrol station that delivered the energy to propel me there and back.
Personally, I just tally it up to the total cost, and use that for comparison with other ways of buying CDs.
FTFY
No. I disable sigs, so I never get to see them.
Yes, similar to the way homeless bums looked smart when rich people were losing money during the GFC.
What exactly would the government want with WiFi data?
It's probably the final stage in their plan to destroy democracy.