This is why I hate conservatives. I can't get them to understand that a legal document written 200 years ago might, just might, not be 100% relevant any more.
It's not enough to simply show that a law might not be relevant; you have to show that it is not relevant. The law prevents expedient copying from devaluing new artworks, which are both in demand and (unlike the copies thereof) scarce. The faster and cheaper the copying technology, the less likely a person is to support the artist, the less likely the artist will create a new work.
Copying has only become faster and cheaper. Now, more than ever, copyright is relevant.
Now here comes the difficult bit: convincing you that a legal document written 200 years ago might still be relevant. It wouldn't be the first, and I believe certain other documents (e.g. magna carta) break this record.
I haven't suggested shoveling anything down anyone's throat. I have merely suggested letting the Chinese people decide for themselves, rather than Chinese Communist Party deciding for everyone and hiding alternatives to prevent any of their subjects from disagreeing.
I think they can make up their minds without you "letting" them. They may like the Chinese Community Party. If they don't, they have their own problems, and they will ask for help if they want it.
I'm not sure you realise how patronising you're being in your attempt to let them decide for themselves.
Actually, wouldn't that be incentive for me to not wait, but try to convert China to my way of thinking?
No, it's an incentive to strengthen your own culture and economy. It's quicker, cheaper, and easier than homogenising the world's culture.
I'm not an American. Perhaps it's you who should widen your mental image of the world a bit?
And I'm not Chinese. As it turns out, American's are not the only ones who are stupid and narrow-minded, and the Chinese are not the only ones who dare question the libertarian philosophy being pushed into every corner of the globe.
The axiom I started with is that "nobody likes someone else forcing their will on them".
What if the censurer is in line with the population's collective will? Then this, by and large, is not a matter of forcing wills. Naturally, there will be a portion of the population who don't agree with the censorship on certain points, but then it's a matter of weighing up whether the rest should suffer because of the few.
Basically, it's not possible from this humble axiom alone to derive a dislike for censorship.
Also, all your arguments seem to take that axiom as a given, so you clearly do share it.
Sort of. Right now, I'm using the distinct, but similar axiom of "not everyone else likes someone forcing their will on them." Actually, it's not even an axiom; it's a theorem. I am a counterexample for the alternative.
Nice rant.
Thank you.
Dislike for censorship can be derived from the fact that censorship makes it impossible for you to decide for yourself, since you have no reliable way of getting information about your choices.
It depends on the censorship. And even under the heavier censorship schemes, perhaps what you need to make a decision is to look at the communication pathways available to you, and decide whether you would prefer them the way they are, or cluttered with potentially offensive information. I take your point that you can't know what's being censored, but then again, you can't know what's being censored without being exposed to it. So, by receiving the full information on the subject, the decision is already made for you.
Indeed, the case of many decision makers requires negotiation of a fair and acceptable compromise between them and their goals. A censor attempts to sort-circuit that, by hiding information from other decision makers, and thus wielding power over them.
It depends on the censor. I think that would fall under the category of "abuse".
Perhaps. Of course, I never said anything the like, so the lack of cognitive ability seems to better characterize the other party to this exchange. All I have said is that freedom is better than lack of it.
Also, if all cultures are not equal, then it follows that "cultural imperialism" is actually a good thing, as it spreads the superior culture and lets more people enjoy its fruits. You seem to fail to understand what you're saying, and it's logical consequences.
Ha! That's the mistake that everyone makes: "Because not all cultures are equal, then some cultures are better than others". There is no absolute
I too can sit around "Independently" and state how I'd like the world to work, or realize the world has changed and move on.
It seems that every pirate (not necessarily you) I come across is very eager to declare victory and declare that everyone has "moved on" to better things, but at the same time, can never quite explain how the media they hoard so regularly can exist if everyone just did as they do, nor can they explain why sales are still being made of copyrighted works. Sure, they come up with something, but with just a little scrutiny applied in the right place, their argument falls down quite easily.
The fact is, in the long term, a system in which a consumer, in every possible metric, is rewarded for not paying for the product, doesn't work. Not at all. Eventually, any temporary morality qualms will evaporate, as people realise that funding new works is everybody else's problem
Besides, artists will only be abused for so long. The average artist doesn't make that much money, and can't afford a paycut. There's no doubt about it: they will quit for the sunnier shores of a steady and adequate income flipping burgers.
Why do we need an engine (copyright) to protect this line of work anyway?
To give artists a reason to spend so much of their time, in which they could be earning a steady, predictable income, making our culture and entertainment. Without them, there would be nothing to pirate.
Where were the mechanisms to protect manual typesetter jobs or calculator salesmen? (before technology replaced them)
There were none, and we didn't create them, because they were no longer necessary. There was no longer any demand for their services, so there was no will to subsidise them.
Some cultural values are better than others, and should dominate over them.
Yeah, like the way that respect for other people's cultures should completely dominate cultural imperialism. When I say respect, of course, I don't mean you have to agree with them, but at the same time, you don't have to shove alternatives down their throats.
You wait. If China becomes big enough, you're going to get a huge taste of your own medicine. You're going to see exactly what it's like when a bunch of powerful idiots come in and start telling you how to run the show. Hey, they may even come up with some bullshit "proof" about how everyone should think that freedom is holding the US back!
For example, free access to information is better than censorship, and should dominate over it. This can be easily demonstrated by thinking whether you would want some entity preventing you from accessing information that entity has deemed contrary to its goals.
Stupid, narrow-minded little American. Thinking that his opinions are shared throughout the world, or that these opinions can be logically derived for everyone, when we don't even share the same axioms.
You say that a dislike for censorship can be derived from considering being censored by someone not in line with your goals. What about, for example, working? I don't like working under a boss who's goals are contrary to my own. Does that mean I should have a dislike of work? Does it mean I should shove a dislike of work down everybody else's throats?
Of course censorship sucks for you if the censurer's goals aren't in line with your own. The same applies to anything situation with more than one decision-maker. By considering only the absolute worse case, you haven't at all proven that censorship is evil.
But hey, keep on lying to yourself that all cultures are equal
No, you're right. Doing so would be far too charitable to you guys.
Are you an idiot? I never said all cultures were equal, and I never thought that. However, if it makes it comforts you that much that everyone that doesn't love the good ol' US of A is lying to themselves, then, well, you are an idiot!
And certainly I never claimed that your culture wasn't superior to some other cultures. Hell, I never claimed, before my sarcastic claim above, that your culture isn't superior to my culture. However, it is up to us, not you, to decide whether we prefer your culture or ours.
ours gives you that right. Plenty of others wouldn't.
Plenty of others would. Including ours. Does that mean you'll stop harassing us?
I read that before I posted my comment. Then I posted my comment. Do you know why?
Because just as it's juvenile to suddenly hate things because someone else orders you to like it, it's equally juvenile to start modifying your behaviour because someone points out a resemblance to juvenile behaviour. You assume here that I didn't have similar opinions before the US government decided to poke its nose into our business, which is simply not true.
The fact is, I'm no cheerleader for censorship myself, but not a censorship discussion goes by when I don't feel like the opinions expressed are paranoid, unrealistic, and completely overblown.
Like this for example. Why get into mud-slinging over this? It's not the end of the world if I don't think censorship is such a big deal.
As for the artists, I've come across several indie musicians/movie-makers/software developers with anti-pirate sentiments. Certainly considerably more than I've come across who support piracy, or explicitly allow their work to be pirated.
Anyway, I did a quick google search for "indie piracy" and turned up this guy:
if we go back to the first time copyright was a issue, we find the printing press. Basically it was a big, expensive machine that was labor intensive to operate. At that time, the issue of copyright was between the author and the owner of said press, the printer. Basically, printers where snatching up texts left and right, and creating copies using their press, that they then sold for profits. The issue was that printers where not paying authors a part of said profits.
now however the act of "printing" is so simple that the last book in the harry potter series was scanned, turned into a text file by OCR and translated from english to german within 48 hours of the initial book release. And none of the people involved where payed to do so, or even expected to earn something from it.
Rewind even further. Books were copied by monks, taking much time and labour (if not money). Copying was extremely slow and extremely difficult. Copying was such a painful process, and distribution channels were so slow, that the idea of protecting a work against copying was laughably superfluous.
Copyright was introduced when copying became easier and distribution became cheaper, in the prediction that eventually it would become even more-so. The problem for artists wasn't that the technology was slow and expensive (compared to today), the problem was that it was quick and cheap compared to earlier times, and that technology was only making the process quicker and cheaper.
It is indeed the simplicity of the distribution system today which is the threat to artists. Anybody can create as many copies as they like. Now, it's not just a handful of printers eating into your royalties, it's any person who feels like it, with little investment of time or money. The natural protections of the inherent infeasibility of copying have been removed, and now the artist is completely at the mercy of the public and regardless of popularity guaranteed only a single sale (from which others may or may not copy).
Essentially, you have it backwards. It was the simplicity, not the complexity, of copying that caused the need for copyright. And today, we have it in spades.
the people fighting over copyright today are not the authors of old, tho they claim to represent them, its the descendants of the printers of old, fighting for the privilege of monopoly on cultural distribution.
Don't kid yourself. It's more than Big Media fighting for copyright. There are many indie artists similarly disposed towards piracy, as well as ordinary people.
If you're not going to buy, the MPAA wants you to pirate. It's the next best thing for them. Every download brings them closer with the courts. Every download increases the chance of a more restrictive copyright law being passed, or another media tax straight into their pocket. Every download increases their selection of potential easy lawsuits. They will milk their victimhood for as much money as they can.
The worst thing you can do to them is refuse both to buy and to download their wares. If both sales and downloads were to dry up simultaneously, the conclusion would become inescapable: they are finished. They are no longer wanted or needed. Their laws and secret treaties are neither wanted nor, from any perspective, at all necessary. They are the victim not of piracy, but of fickle demand and their own obsolescence.
They don't want to face this. They would rather an easy ride on your tax dollars.
That makes sense if someone is willing to pay $100 million for the first copy of the movie.
That's totally what they should do! They should charge $100 million for the first copy of the movie, and the customer has complete freedom over what they do next! They could either share it freely with the world, as so many practical-minded people here have suggested, they could try and make a buck or two selling copies, or they could sell the next copy for 99.99998 million dollars!
Hey, it's not that much more impractical than some of the suggestions we've had in the past...
Mind you, anti-piracy was spawned due to pirates infringing on their legal rights, so it would still trace back to piracy in the end.
Well, that is, assuming that you believe that anti-piracy methods are more of a problem than the pirates themselves. However, that wouldn't explain why the companies engage in the behaviour in the first place.
No copyright law has fair use provision. It's a defence based on precedence in the courts. As far as the books are concerned, fair use doesn't, and never has, existed.
This doesn't stop the courts from applying it though...
Uhuh.... that sounds like exactly the legal theory the **AA would want to be true... That doesn't mean it's true though.
Nor does it make it false.
What makes it true is that copyright law dictates that a copyright holder shall have control over the distribution of their works (this is true, no matter what the **AA says). It doesn't even make a provision for fair use (fair use is provided by the courts, not the law). If you wish to buy the work from a copyright holder, you have exactly two choices:
1) Work out mutually a price/delivery method/version of the product that you can both agree upon (usually meaning just paying what they ask for), or 2) Not buying and not receiving any version, via any delivery method.
Piracy, these days, is defined to be copyright infringement. Obtaining a copy via a different delivery method, without reaching an agreement with the copyright holder, is in breach of copyright law, and is thus considered piracy. Even if the copy is bit-for-bit identical to the one you own, it's still within a copyright holder's rights to prevent you from downloading via the alternative source.
Is it morally wrong? Within certain bounds, I would say no. You might also get a way with a fair use argument, if the two versions were interchangeable (e.g. you couldn't download a DRM-free version if you had a DRMed version).
... since it would provide them the most opportunities to resell you more copies of something you already purchased.
We're working under the assumption here that if you buy a DRMed work, you know what you're in for. You have paid for something reliant on the company, which significantly decreases the value, depending on who's buying it. Presumably, if you thought you might want a DRM-free version in the future, you would refrain from buying it until such a DRM-free version was made available.
Basically, nobody is forcing you to pay multiple times for the same thing. You get what you paid for, and it's up to you if you wish to pay more for more.
I say you are neither pirate, nor non-paying customer.
Sorry, but no. It's still piracy. You paid for a DRM-laden file, and a DRM-laden file is all you're entitled to. That's not to say that I would find the practice particularly objectionable, but just know, it's not supported by law.
The copyright-holder has the right to close off any distribution avenue they like for their work (to within fair use). You can reason this in terms of finance. Basically it undercuts their ability to sell a cheaper, inferior, DRMed version, and a more expensive DRM-free version.
To be honest, I'm guessing here. I'm assuming that, when the convention was formed, it was based on some now outdated reason, something that made sense at the time. Of course, the metric system makes a lot more sense now that those reasons have faded into obscurity.
Naturally, the reasons for the base 2 system haven't faded into obscurity, and they may never do so while we use bits to store information, but I felt it was worth pointing out that the base 10 system is the system more "in tune" with the metric system.
Actually, it's more like changing from the imperial system to the metric system. Sure, the imperial system's conversions made sense in the context that they were created, but for a sense of consistency and predictability, you can't beat base 10 metric.
Slashdot Mirror
Would it kill you to admit that a marketing major might know a little more about this than you?
It's not enough to simply show that a law might not be relevant; you have to show that it is not relevant. The law prevents expedient copying from devaluing new artworks, which are both in demand and (unlike the copies thereof) scarce. The faster and cheaper the copying technology, the less likely a person is to support the artist, the less likely the artist will create a new work.
Copying has only become faster and cheaper. Now, more than ever, copyright is relevant.
Now here comes the difficult bit: convincing you that a legal document written 200 years ago might still be relevant. It wouldn't be the first, and I believe certain other documents (e.g. magna carta) break this record.
Here's a better link to this discussion, one that better reflects its content:
http://idle.slashdot.org/story/10/04/02/1236232/Stalker-Jailed-For-Planting-Child-Porn-On-a-PC
Why?
Dude, that's not the gearstick, and I think you know it's not the gearstick.
I think they can make up their minds without you "letting" them. They may like the Chinese Community Party. If they don't, they have their own problems, and they will ask for help if they want it.
I'm not sure you realise how patronising you're being in your attempt to let them decide for themselves.
No, it's an incentive to strengthen your own culture and economy. It's quicker, cheaper, and easier than homogenising the world's culture.
And I'm not Chinese. As it turns out, American's are not the only ones who are stupid and narrow-minded, and the Chinese are not the only ones who dare question the libertarian philosophy being pushed into every corner of the globe.
What if the censurer is in line with the population's collective will? Then this, by and large, is not a matter of forcing wills. Naturally, there will be a portion of the population who don't agree with the censorship on certain points, but then it's a matter of weighing up whether the rest should suffer because of the few.
Basically, it's not possible from this humble axiom alone to derive a dislike for censorship.
Sort of. Right now, I'm using the distinct, but similar axiom of "not everyone else likes someone forcing their will on them." Actually, it's not even an axiom; it's a theorem. I am a counterexample for the alternative.
Thank you.
It depends on the censorship. And even under the heavier censorship schemes, perhaps what you need to make a decision is to look at the communication pathways available to you, and decide whether you would prefer them the way they are, or cluttered with potentially offensive information. I take your point that you can't know what's being censored, but then again, you can't know what's being censored without being exposed to it. So, by receiving the full information on the subject, the decision is already made for you.
It depends on the censor. I think that would fall under the category of "abuse".
Ha! That's the mistake that everyone makes: "Because not all cultures are equal, then some cultures are better than others". There is no absolute
By definition. ;-)
It seems that every pirate (not necessarily you) I come across is very eager to declare victory and declare that everyone has "moved on" to better things, but at the same time, can never quite explain how the media they hoard so regularly can exist if everyone just did as they do, nor can they explain why sales are still being made of copyrighted works. Sure, they come up with something, but with just a little scrutiny applied in the right place, their argument falls down quite easily.
The fact is, in the long term, a system in which a consumer, in every possible metric, is rewarded for not paying for the product, doesn't work. Not at all. Eventually, any temporary morality qualms will evaporate, as people realise that funding new works is everybody else's problem
Besides, artists will only be abused for so long. The average artist doesn't make that much money, and can't afford a paycut. There's no doubt about it: they will quit for the sunnier shores of a steady and adequate income flipping burgers.
To give artists a reason to spend so much of their time, in which they could be earning a steady, predictable income, making our culture and entertainment. Without them, there would be nothing to pirate.
There were none, and we didn't create them, because they were no longer necessary. There was no longer any demand for their services, so there was no will to subsidise them.
Yeah, like the way that respect for other people's cultures should completely dominate cultural imperialism. When I say respect, of course, I don't mean you have to agree with them, but at the same time, you don't have to shove alternatives down their throats.
You wait. If China becomes big enough, you're going to get a huge taste of your own medicine. You're going to see exactly what it's like when a bunch of powerful idiots come in and start telling you how to run the show. Hey, they may even come up with some bullshit "proof" about how everyone should think that freedom is holding the US back!
Stupid, narrow-minded little American. Thinking that his opinions are shared throughout the world, or that these opinions can be logically derived for everyone, when we don't even share the same axioms.
You say that a dislike for censorship can be derived from considering being censored by someone not in line with your goals. What about, for example, working? I don't like working under a boss who's goals are contrary to my own. Does that mean I should have a dislike of work? Does it mean I should shove a dislike of work down everybody else's throats?
Of course censorship sucks for you if the censurer's goals aren't in line with your own. The same applies to anything situation with more than one decision-maker. By considering only the absolute worse case, you haven't at all proven that censorship is evil.
No, you're right. Doing so would be far too charitable to you guys.
Are you an idiot? I never said all cultures were equal, and I never thought that. However, if it makes it comforts you that much that everyone that doesn't love the good ol' US of A is lying to themselves, then, well, you are an idiot!
And certainly I never claimed that your culture wasn't superior to some other cultures. Hell, I never claimed, before my sarcastic claim above, that your culture isn't superior to my culture. However, it is up to us, not you, to decide whether we prefer your culture or ours.
Plenty of others would. Including ours. Does that mean you'll stop harassing us?
I read that before I posted my comment. Then I posted my comment. Do you know why?
Because just as it's juvenile to suddenly hate things because someone else orders you to like it, it's equally juvenile to start modifying your behaviour because someone points out a resemblance to juvenile behaviour. You assume here that I didn't have similar opinions before the US government decided to poke its nose into our business, which is simply not true.
The fact is, I'm no cheerleader for censorship myself, but not a censorship discussion goes by when I don't feel like the opinions expressed are paranoid, unrealistic, and completely overblown.
Like this for example. Why get into mud-slinging over this? It's not the end of the world if I don't think censorship is such a big deal.
It will, and it did. Already.
As for the artists, I've come across several indie musicians/movie-makers/software developers with anti-pirate sentiments. Certainly considerably more than I've come across who support piracy, or explicitly allow their work to be pirated.
Anyway, I did a quick google search for "indie piracy" and turned up this guy:
http://yetanotherstrugglingwriter.blogspot.com/2010/03/piracy-its-wrong-dont-do-it-pt-1.html
So yeah, these artists are fighting obscurity, but they also know that fame is useless if it doesn't put food on the table.
I was thinking the message was more along the lines of:
"We hate censorship, and you should too. Ask me how."
Never mind hypocrisy, this is cultural imperialism.
Rewind even further. Books were copied by monks, taking much time and labour (if not money). Copying was extremely slow and extremely difficult. Copying was such a painful process, and distribution channels were so slow, that the idea of protecting a work against copying was laughably superfluous.
Copyright was introduced when copying became easier and distribution became cheaper, in the prediction that eventually it would become even more-so. The problem for artists wasn't that the technology was slow and expensive (compared to today), the problem was that it was quick and cheap compared to earlier times, and that technology was only making the process quicker and cheaper.
It is indeed the simplicity of the distribution system today which is the threat to artists. Anybody can create as many copies as they like. Now, it's not just a handful of printers eating into your royalties, it's any person who feels like it, with little investment of time or money. The natural protections of the inherent infeasibility of copying have been removed, and now the artist is completely at the mercy of the public and regardless of popularity guaranteed only a single sale (from which others may or may not copy).
Essentially, you have it backwards. It was the simplicity, not the complexity, of copying that caused the need for copyright. And today, we have it in spades.
Don't kid yourself. It's more than Big Media fighting for copyright. There are many indie artists similarly disposed towards piracy, as well as ordinary people.
Why is this modded a troll? He's right, and what's more, he's not even saying anything remotely inflammatory.
Or did I just miss a subtle Yo Mamma joke (contradictory terms as they may be)?
"Hey Gary, the new kid doesn't know his grammer. What kind of dork doesn't learn grammer?"
If you're not going to buy, the MPAA wants you to pirate. It's the next best thing for them. Every download brings them closer with the courts. Every download increases the chance of a more restrictive copyright law being passed, or another media tax straight into their pocket. Every download increases their selection of potential easy lawsuits. They will milk their victimhood for as much money as they can.
The worst thing you can do to them is refuse both to buy and to download their wares. If both sales and downloads were to dry up simultaneously, the conclusion would become inescapable: they are finished. They are no longer wanted or needed. Their laws and secret treaties are neither wanted nor, from any perspective, at all necessary. They are the victim not of piracy, but of fickle demand and their own obsolescence.
They don't want to face this. They would rather an easy ride on your tax dollars.
That's totally what they should do! They should charge $100 million for the first copy of the movie, and the customer has complete freedom over what they do next! They could either share it freely with the world, as so many practical-minded people here have suggested, they could try and make a buck or two selling copies, or they could sell the next copy for 99.99998 million dollars!
Hey, it's not that much more impractical than some of the suggestions we've had in the past...
Mind you, anti-piracy was spawned due to pirates infringing on their legal rights, so it would still trace back to piracy in the end.
Well, that is, assuming that you believe that anti-piracy methods are more of a problem than the pirates themselves. However, that wouldn't explain why the companies engage in the behaviour in the first place.
Good point.
Hey, I guess by the same token, your employers can always find someone else to do your job, so they should fire you before giving you your paycheque!
No copyright law has fair use provision. It's a defence based on precedence in the courts. As far as the books are concerned, fair use doesn't, and never has, existed.
This doesn't stop the courts from applying it though...
Nor does it make it false.
What makes it true is that copyright law dictates that a copyright holder shall have control over the distribution of their works (this is true, no matter what the **AA says). It doesn't even make a provision for fair use (fair use is provided by the courts, not the law). If you wish to buy the work from a copyright holder, you have exactly two choices:
1) Work out mutually a price/delivery method/version of the product that you can both agree upon (usually meaning just paying what they ask for), or
2) Not buying and not receiving any version, via any delivery method.
Piracy, these days, is defined to be copyright infringement. Obtaining a copy via a different delivery method, without reaching an agreement with the copyright holder, is in breach of copyright law, and is thus considered piracy. Even if the copy is bit-for-bit identical to the one you own, it's still within a copyright holder's rights to prevent you from downloading via the alternative source.
Is it morally wrong? Within certain bounds, I would say no. You might also get a way with a fair use argument, if the two versions were interchangeable (e.g. you couldn't download a DRM-free version if you had a DRMed version).
We're working under the assumption here that if you buy a DRMed work, you know what you're in for. You have paid for something reliant on the company, which significantly decreases the value, depending on who's buying it. Presumably, if you thought you might want a DRM-free version in the future, you would refrain from buying it until such a DRM-free version was made available.
Basically, nobody is forcing you to pay multiple times for the same thing. You get what you paid for, and it's up to you if you wish to pay more for more.
Out of interest, what made you quit?
Sorry, but no. It's still piracy. You paid for a DRM-laden file, and a DRM-laden file is all you're entitled to. That's not to say that I would find the practice particularly objectionable, but just know, it's not supported by law.
The copyright-holder has the right to close off any distribution avenue they like for their work (to within fair use). You can reason this in terms of finance. Basically it undercuts their ability to sell a cheaper, inferior, DRMed version, and a more expensive DRM-free version.
I was going to post exactly the same thing!
... but Yelp decided it would "cooperate" with me, so I won't say anything. For now.
To be honest, I'm guessing here. I'm assuming that, when the convention was formed, it was based on some now outdated reason, something that made sense at the time. Of course, the metric system makes a lot more sense now that those reasons have faded into obscurity.
Naturally, the reasons for the base 2 system haven't faded into obscurity, and they may never do so while we use bits to store information, but I felt it was worth pointing out that the base 10 system is the system more "in tune" with the metric system.
Actually, it's more like changing from the imperial system to the metric system. Sure, the imperial system's conversions made sense in the context that they were created, but for a sense of consistency and predictability, you can't beat base 10 metric.