Oh puhleeez. Seriously? You think the weapons that civilians have on hand can take on the best-funded military the world has ever seen?
Hopefully we'll never have a chance to see it, but I doubt the army, police, or even politicians would function very well if they were part of a tyrannical regime. Don't forget, there's a helluva lot of people to coordinate to commit evil acts, and each has some degree of a moral compass. Some less than others, but it's still there.
I would think that a tyrant would have to convince everyone that what they're doing is right, not just a small party of co-conspirators. Then, no matter how armed the population is, they would get what they want.
I hear that Sweden is nice this time of year, unless you consider not being able to post any torrent files you wish against freedom.
Just a minor correction: it was never legal to post any torrent files you wish, even in Sweden. The whole TPB thing was about hosting torrent trackers that may or may not hold copyrighted content (then advertising them, hosting them, and then subsequently profiting from them). In most of the free world, it's still not people's right to have access to copyrighted files.
It's because schools, much like society as a whole, is simply in place to turn people into sheep.
I was thinking about this particular troubling opinion the other day, specifically in relation to another opinion I heard a while ago, relating to the illegality of marijuana. It was some anonymous coward's opinion that marijuana was illegal because it promoted free thought, which I thought was absurd for a variety of reasons. The reason I thought of the other day is simply this: marijuana doesn't exactly keep people functional. If society wished to sweep their dissidents under the rug, or strengthen their power over the people, they would promote marijuana. Sure, some people would be thinking wacky, anti-authoritarian things, but at least many of them wouldn't be able to do much about it.
The same thing applies here. Why on earth would society, if its primary function is to rob people of their free will, would they even bother giving kids an education? Sure, the education isn't great, but surely no education at all would be better. I mean, what the fuck is with maths? How on earth does maths help further the transformation of children into mindless drones?
Of course, there are plenty of other inconsistencies to be found with this theory should anyone apply a little critical thought to it.
I agree with one exception. I think copyright should be a fixed term, not relative to a person's death. I think we should just promise them a fixed period of protection, and if it goes past their death, and ends up paying into their kids pockets, then that's their business.
Cynical fatalism also makes it easier to dismiss your viewpoint when making decisions, since you're completely resigned to the fate of being dismissed.
It's like any business, it takes hard work and time before you see any revenues. I have a blog at http://blog.magicode.org/ (http://mirror.magicode.org/ if it goes down, as it's hosted on my server in my home office) and I can tell you this, I'm not making a living on the ad revenues.;)
Well, you can always pick up your revenue stream by inserting subtle endorsements for your blog in popular tech forums...
Creepy what paranoia can do to a person's sense of reason.
Real evidence as in true scotsmen?
(Wow, that analogy required some shoehorning.) As in not here-say, and old wives' tales.
You get rid of them by smearing them publicly and then locking them away for pedophilia or terrorism.
Yeah, but pedophilia and terrorism are actually a measurable crime, so if you're a dissident and want to be heard, I suggest you don't break the law in such an overt way.
Notice that the implication that pedophilia and terrorism charges are used to silence dissidents is completely unfounded by evidence, and is based on nothing but a collective paranoia about people in power.
So we're to take your word that all of these people are paranoid? How do you know? Because they see something wrong with things you don't? Isn't that like saying "I don't think it's true. As evidence I offer the fact that only people with whom I disagree think it's true!"?
Certainly not. The fact that they're paranoid is purely incidental. I don't take here-say from anyone, sane or not, to be evidence enough to say for certainty that there's something wrong with the government. Perhaps if I know them and trust them personally, it would be a different matter.
It isn't, except if by "function" you mean "re-applying the laws of gravitational attraction to money and power".
No, I mean functioning, as in accepting votes from all citizens, term limits, freedom of speech and the press (although we can't take them for granted for the purposes of this discussion), etc. Why don't you try reading the words for once? I do choose them carefully.
I doubt it
Good! Now start doubting the other side, too, and try to educate yourself.
I'd like to point and laugh at you for being so dumb as to fall into the obvious trap. You think that because I support the government, I must not have doubted them? Ha, ha, ha! I have always doubted them, and I consistently find that these baseless accusations flinged at them have more reasonable alternative explanations, and that the accusations are... well... baseless.
proper safeguards
They aren't.
"They aren't"? WTF does that even mean? Are you saying there aren't any safeguards to democracy?
term limits
Meaningless in a system where parties determine the cabinet and two thirds of the representatives.
Do you have any fucking idea how hard it is to set up a conspiracy against people? Aside from the constant press coverage when you make the smallest mistake, you also have to convince people you work with to put their morals aside and to overthrow the people, without any of them cracking at all. With term limits, at least there are new people with new potential for moral objections every so often.
I mean, do you even know how ridiculous this sounds? It sounds like a conspiracy theorist. You might as well be arguing that aliens control the government to make us do their unspeakable bidding.
This is exactly what the law will circumvent: The BKA will be judicial and executive in one, with no oversight.
Evidence?
Divide et impera.
Thank you for proving my point. The government is a seriously large, divide, and still easily divisible, group designed to rule. It works OK only if all its parts march in the same direction, and it has a reasonable amount of support from the people.
But, of course, being paranoid, you instantly jump to the conclusion that it's the government dividing people (because of course, the government is made up of alien cyborgs), and, like a good little para
OK, I'm getting a few replies pointing out examples of government policies to block certain dissidents. I think you'll find, however, that these policies to block dissidents have another side to them, where the expression of such dissidence is, itself, considered offensive (especially the hate speech). So, while I admit what I said was incorrect, I'd like to make a new argument, one that's closer to what I meant.
I meant that censoring dissidents is rarely, in a functioning democracy (yes Hognoxious, that includes the UK), a policy of a government exclusively. If they do censor dissidents, it is, more often than not, a product of the people the government represents. If they are so offended by Holocaust deniers, and the distress they cause, that they wish to censor them, then the government will likely comply. I have yet to see a democratic government actually manage to usurp their own people in these matters, especially post WWII.
I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying you should be more worried about your fellow man, rather than the mother of all scapegoats, the government.
This step was pretty controversial, if that petition is anything to go by. With each step, you lose increasingly more support from people. I don't think there is a "next", since I doubt we'll ever get to the bottom of that list.
This is real life. Slippery slopes don't work so well.
Does anyone really think that blacklisting opposing political viewpoints is merely an "unfortunate side effect" of schemes like this?
Yep. Right here.
I've yet to see any real evidence (rather than here-say, built on speculation, based on some observation made by some paranoid person) that democratic governments actively practice censorship to get rid of dissidents. I have no doubt that overzealous individuals part of, or representing the government, when looking for something that fits the word "offensive", will include some radical and political content, but then again, they're representing primarily the "Think of the children!" crowd, and there'd be quite a few who of them would do the same thing.
But a functioning democratic government, with an overall policy to block dissidents? I doubt it. With proper safeguards, like term limits, and separation of powers, and always a whole bunch of people disagreeing with each other, you might as well ask a peep of headless chickens to conspire to overthrow society.
Legal or not, if this isn't AS GOOD AS what us pirates can get, then just why would we even think about paying for it?
Why indeed? In fact, a paid for service will, by definition be more expensive than what you pirates can get, so why would you even think about paying with any service?
Well, I'm sure you're aware of the legality (or lack thereof) of your actions, so I'll say that artists enjoy working while not ever being paid as much as you would.
Look, mods, I know that the parent post is offensive to pirates, I know that slashdot is full of them, and I know he might get some impassioned responses, but modding people with valid opinions down, even if you find them that offensive, is considered "moderation abuse". If you were part of the government, it would be called "censorship".
Their customers. If mistakes/abuses are common enough, they'll have a class action lawsuit on their hands.
They're a business, as you said. If they have a system for weeding out pirates that they think will work, they can use it in their service. If it doesn't work, well, then it won't be very successful.
I wonder how much this subscription will be, and whether it will be mandatory or optional.
I don't. I'm pretty damn sure it will be optional.
It won't get money to the non-label bands though, will it, just Universal.
No, but then again, they were never selling the music of non-label bands, were they? All you'll be getting for the subscription price will be RIAA signed music. If you want non-label bands, and you don't want to rip them off, you'll have to actually pay for the music.
Wouldn't most people sign up for 1 month, download everything they want, and then cancel? Or are they really going to make it cheap enough, and adding new (good) content frequently enough, to make the whole thing worth it? I have my doubts.
Good question. I would guess that they would do a contract term with the service. I'd guess 12 or even 24 months, and the requisite early termination fee.
Look, I am not trying to push a bill through congress, I am only providing information to people hoping some will pull their heads out of the sand.
For example, if I see you under your car pulling your oil filter out, but notice you haven't drained the pan first, I will warn you that you are approaching the task incorrectly. If you demand it, I will not however trot home and grab a copy of "changing oil for dummy's" for you, I will consider my warning good enough and walk away to let you enjoy your face full of oil.
Well, if you insist on holding your advocacy for radical change without evidence, you'll have to excuse us when we don't take your opinions too seriously.
For example, if I'm pulling my oil filter out, and you tell me I'd be better off first lying on the road, face down, chanting a prayer to the flying spaghetti monster, I would listen to you, but then I would conclude that there is no evidence to support the claim that it will be anything other than obscenely dangerous, even if it lead me to getting oil all over my face.
Copyright is simply unenforceable. It is not even imperfectly enforceable. I can share a piece of media I have in my possession with absolute strangers if need be by emailing them an encrypted copy of the data. P2P isn't any easier to enforce than email, but that is more complex to illustrate here. The point is that the progression of hardship we face to continue to pirate is in inverse geometric progression to the hardship producers face to try and stop us.
This is the mindset I was referring to (again). I would call it defeatist one more time, but it isn't technically defeatist, because it automatically assumes that inevitable == good.
Yes, copyright is difficult to enforce. Yes, we can't intrude on people's private communications. Yes, we can't assume that enforcement bodies will be able to crack encryption. No, this does not mean it is unenforceable. No, this does not mean we should give up and stick our heads in the sand, chanting, "This is good. This is what we want. I am happy." It means that we should be first deciding whether this is good or not, and evidence tends to support that it isn't, and then we should be looking to redouble our efforts in order to enforce the damn thing.
We actually don't need, like I mentioned before, to stop friends sharing with each other. The sharing capabilities of friend groups are severely limited. Compared with public sharing networks, often which share files automatically, the effort of sharing with one person is vastly greater than sharing with thousands. Both you and the friend must communicate first, and if the friend has moral doubts about the practice, they have the opportunity to share them with you. Even if you devote your entire time to sharing everything you have with friends, the damage will spread much more slowly than through P2P networks.
Thus, I submit that P2P networks are, by far, the most important targets. These are very large and obvious targets, and police or the **AA can easily infiltrate them without privacy concerns, since they are completely public. In fact, I would go so far as to say that they make up a vast majority of piracy, in both current practice and potential, and hence, we only really need to concentrate on taking them down, rather than snooping on people's private communications.
But, I know, they can encrypt these networks, right? Well, first I'd like to point out that you're holding copyright enforcement to a ridiculous standard. In any crime, smart criminals don't get caught. If I murder someone, and I put gloves on, and I'm not seen, then I won't be caught. Period. These are simple measures I could take, and it means I get away with murder. Does this mean the murder is unenforceable? Does it mean that we should just abolish murder as a crime? Does that mean that murder is automatically good? No! Of course not. It means we catch, primarily, stupid murderers, and we hope the smart ones
How do you propose leaving that decision to the market?
Oh, that's easy. Just like any market solution, it starts with demand. You need to get into contact with artists and say that you would much prefer free media to copyrighted media. If artists can indeed survive while producing free media, and they are motivated to do so (which is an integral part of most reasonable arguments against copyright), then they will produce their media and relinquish their copyrights. Consumers then have a choice between free media and copyrighted media. The better system will produce more demand, and will take its fair share of the market, and people who like and don't like copyrighted media can both be satisfied. In fact, uncopyrighted media has a huge advantage, being free in both senses.
However, what's possible is not the only facet of market solutions. It also very neatly weeds out what's impossible or infeasible without cost or long-term damage. For example, if creating quality works for free in acceptable volume is an unwieldy and unfair burden on the artist, then only a handful of artists will volunteer and even fewer will keep creating in the long term. Whatever few that do would be pretty much exactly the people who would carry all culture if copyright was abolished.
That's why the market solution is so elegant here. There's no need for hit-and-miss, hope-for-the-best legislation; we can just let people decide what they want, and artists decide whether or not they can provide it. And, best of all, the system is naturally flexible enough to accommodate a variety of tastes.
Oh, and just as a postscript, I'd like to point out the obvious: that (almost) free media already exists. There is FOSS, with a varying amount of copyright rights relinquished. There are creative commons music stores. There are people who write books, make music, make movies, and create visual art, and release it for free. They exist alongside commercial art with varying degrees of success. By far and away, the most successful would have to be FOSS, but even then, even the most popular free software packages are often edged out by proprietary software (e.g. Photoshop, MS Office), presumably because they offer something worth the price difference that their FOSS counterparts don't. But, for those who don't need the expensive option, or those who have an objection to restrictions on sharing, the free alternatives are always there.
I think it'd be much better if the people elected someone to decide, considering the wishes of the people ONLY, which freedoms should be given away (for how long) and which freedoms should be kept, so as to enrich the people with culture as much as possible (both by not having restrictions and by giving artists an incentive).
You have to think this line of reasoning through before you start applying it. It's pretty safe to say that people want culture and entertainment. To achieve that, we need artists on board. It's no good abolishing copyright, or limiting severely in the name of the people, because then artists wouldn't create, and then nobody gets what they want. So, in that way, stricter copyrights can, to a certain extent, lead to a better position purely from the perspective of the common man.
In fact, I would say that if you truly followed your credo, you'd arrive at something remarkably similar to what we have today, with changes only made to small details.
I think you'll find that most patents are actually ridiculously specific. If you tried to claim prior art with that car analogy, you'd be laughed out of court.
You mean only save the lives of iPhone users... Everyone who chooses a different phone will be punished to death for their arrogance...
Ah, but we can't assume that such measures would exist without apple. If not having this does so much damage, perhaps we should be thankful that it exists at all, that we even have an option of using it.
I am against copyright though. I am amused when pro-copyright posters say everyone is in my camp, I think it feels lonely here!:D
It's not quite so amusing when you consider the fact that I was considering only the people in your camp.
I honestly don't understand the moderate viewpoint of copyright reform given that it's a paper tiger no matter how you dull the claws. What on God's Green Earth is the purpose in reforming a law which you have no hope of enforcing?
See, now you've set yourself up to do something really, really difficult. You have just made the claim that, given all the possible and feasible methods of approaching enforcement, including ones no-one have thought of, that copyright cannot be enforced. You've also made this claim in the face of all the lawsuits started by the **AA in order to enforce copyright. You have quite a bit of evidence to present here.
A common mistake made by people in your camp (yes, they do exist beside you) is to think that because something can't be enforced perfectly, it can't be enforced at all. After all these years, after so many billions and billions of dollars sunk into police, we still have crimes being committed that haven't been solved and prosecuted, but we don't ponder the pointlessness of making laws.
Why does everyone claim that media cannot be created in gift culture when we are already in gift culture today? I still see plenty of media being created.
Gift culture? I must admit, I've never heard that term. I can't say that I know exactly what you're referring to, but if I had to guess, I would say you were referring to the ubiquity of free entertainment right?
Well, first let's not confuse free commercial entertainment with "paid for through advertising" commercial entertainment. There's a big difference to the artist between money from advertising and money from charity. That knocks out most TV and radio.
Even the truly free commercial media is often simply an advertisement for other non-free commercial media. Advertising is useless without buying power behind it. There's no point in making your products known if anyone can get them for free.
Naturally, there are people, and there probably will always be people, who will create without intention to profit. However, you're going to have a difficult time convincing people that they make a significant portion of people creating today, or that they'll have the collective man-power, dedication, and free time between jobs to fulfil any significant part of demand for culture. And yes, in order to institute change from something that is essentially working, you do have to provide at least some evidence that such a change won't backfire on us.
Actually, this is a very good example of the "everything will be fine" mentality I was referring to. The fact that you can't see copyright's involvement in culture today, from a cursory analysis, in no way implies that culture will be fine without it. A slightly deeper analysis typically reveals a wealth of issues that haven't even be considered, let alone solved.
There are no valid boundaries preventing anyone, anywhere in the world from getting any media they want for free (save some media you can't even pay to get). Whatever social stigma exists is rapidly eroding as more people realize they can tighten their belt and do not have to give up their cultural participation in the process.
People are realising that there are no "real" boundaries to piracy? OK, I get it. Enforcement is not working too well on average. But does it therefore make it OK? Are illegal actions only immoral if you get caught, huh?
In fact, I would certainly agree that social stigmas are eroding, and people are realising that there is another option apart from paying for their entertainment. If copyright ceases to exist, I can't see this getting anything but worse. T
Slashdot Mirror
Hopefully we'll never have a chance to see it, but I doubt the army, police, or even politicians would function very well if they were part of a tyrannical regime. Don't forget, there's a helluva lot of people to coordinate to commit evil acts, and each has some degree of a moral compass. Some less than others, but it's still there.
I would think that a tyrant would have to convince everyone that what they're doing is right, not just a small party of co-conspirators. Then, no matter how armed the population is, they would get what they want.
Just a minor correction: it was never legal to post any torrent files you wish, even in Sweden. The whole TPB thing was about hosting torrent trackers that may or may not hold copyrighted content (then advertising them, hosting them, and then subsequently profiting from them). In most of the free world, it's still not people's right to have access to copyrighted files.
I was thinking about this particular troubling opinion the other day, specifically in relation to another opinion I heard a while ago, relating to the illegality of marijuana. It was some anonymous coward's opinion that marijuana was illegal because it promoted free thought, which I thought was absurd for a variety of reasons. The reason I thought of the other day is simply this: marijuana doesn't exactly keep people functional. If society wished to sweep their dissidents under the rug, or strengthen their power over the people, they would promote marijuana. Sure, some people would be thinking wacky, anti-authoritarian things, but at least many of them wouldn't be able to do much about it.
The same thing applies here. Why on earth would society, if its primary function is to rob people of their free will, would they even bother giving kids an education? Sure, the education isn't great, but surely no education at all would be better. I mean, what the fuck is with maths? How on earth does maths help further the transformation of children into mindless drones?
Of course, there are plenty of other inconsistencies to be found with this theory should anyone apply a little critical thought to it.
I just read that law is precedence-based, science is evidence-based, and your post is not logic-based.
I agree with one exception. I think copyright should be a fixed term, not relative to a person's death. I think we should just promise them a fixed period of protection, and if it goes past their death, and ends up paying into their kids pockets, then that's their business.
Cynical fatalism also makes it easier to dismiss your viewpoint when making decisions, since you're completely resigned to the fate of being dismissed.
That's our solution to the global recession right there!
Well, you can always pick up your revenue stream by inserting subtle endorsements for your blog in popular tech forums...
... wake you up when the market starts preferring the internet to newspapers or TV?
But not what you know, or can prove.
Creepy what paranoia can do to a person's sense of reason.
(Wow, that analogy required some shoehorning.) As in not here-say, and old wives' tales.
Yeah, but pedophilia and terrorism are actually a measurable crime, so if you're a dissident and want to be heard, I suggest you don't break the law in such an overt way.
Notice that the implication that pedophilia and terrorism charges are used to silence dissidents is completely unfounded by evidence, and is based on nothing but a collective paranoia about people in power.
Certainly not. The fact that they're paranoid is purely incidental. I don't take here-say from anyone, sane or not, to be evidence enough to say for certainty that there's something wrong with the government. Perhaps if I know them and trust them personally, it would be a different matter.
No, I mean functioning, as in accepting votes from all citizens, term limits, freedom of speech and the press (although we can't take them for granted for the purposes of this discussion), etc. Why don't you try reading the words for once? I do choose them carefully.
I'd like to point and laugh at you for being so dumb as to fall into the obvious trap. You think that because I support the government, I must not have doubted them? Ha, ha, ha! I have always doubted them, and I consistently find that these baseless accusations flinged at them have more reasonable alternative explanations, and that the accusations are... well... baseless.
"They aren't"? WTF does that even mean? Are you saying there aren't any safeguards to democracy?
Do you have any fucking idea how hard it is to set up a conspiracy against people? Aside from the constant press coverage when you make the smallest mistake, you also have to convince people you work with to put their morals aside and to overthrow the people, without any of them cracking at all. With term limits, at least there are new people with new potential for moral objections every so often.
I mean, do you even know how ridiculous this sounds? It sounds like a conspiracy theorist. You might as well be arguing that aliens control the government to make us do their unspeakable bidding.
Evidence?
Thank you for proving my point. The government is a seriously large, divide, and still easily divisible, group designed to rule. It works OK only if all its parts march in the same direction, and it has a reasonable amount of support from the people.
But, of course, being paranoid, you instantly jump to the conclusion that it's the government dividing people (because of course, the government is made up of alien cyborgs), and, like a good little para
OK, I'm getting a few replies pointing out examples of government policies to block certain dissidents. I think you'll find, however, that these policies to block dissidents have another side to them, where the expression of such dissidence is, itself, considered offensive (especially the hate speech). So, while I admit what I said was incorrect, I'd like to make a new argument, one that's closer to what I meant.
I meant that censoring dissidents is rarely, in a functioning democracy (yes Hognoxious, that includes the UK), a policy of a government exclusively. If they do censor dissidents, it is, more often than not, a product of the people the government represents. If they are so offended by Holocaust deniers, and the distress they cause, that they wish to censor them, then the government will likely comply. I have yet to see a democratic government actually manage to usurp their own people in these matters, especially post WWII.
I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying you should be more worried about your fellow man, rather than the mother of all scapegoats, the government.
The kind of data loss that can be rectified with a live CD?
This step was pretty controversial, if that petition is anything to go by. With each step, you lose increasingly more support from people. I don't think there is a "next", since I doubt we'll ever get to the bottom of that list.
This is real life. Slippery slopes don't work so well.
Yep. Right here.
I've yet to see any real evidence (rather than here-say, built on speculation, based on some observation made by some paranoid person) that democratic governments actively practice censorship to get rid of dissidents. I have no doubt that overzealous individuals part of, or representing the government, when looking for something that fits the word "offensive", will include some radical and political content, but then again, they're representing primarily the "Think of the children!" crowd, and there'd be quite a few who of them would do the same thing.
But a functioning democratic government, with an overall policy to block dissidents? I doubt it. With proper safeguards, like term limits, and separation of powers, and always a whole bunch of people disagreeing with each other, you might as well ask a peep of headless chickens to conspire to overthrow society.
Why indeed? In fact, a paid for service will, by definition be more expensive than what you pirates can get, so why would you even think about paying with any service?
Well, I'm sure you're aware of the legality (or lack thereof) of your actions, so I'll say that artists enjoy working while not ever being paid as much as you would.
Look, mods, I know that the parent post is offensive to pirates, I know that slashdot is full of them, and I know he might get some impassioned responses, but modding people with valid opinions down, even if you find them that offensive, is considered "moderation abuse". If you were part of the government, it would be called "censorship".
Their customers. If mistakes/abuses are common enough, they'll have a class action lawsuit on their hands.
They're a business, as you said. If they have a system for weeding out pirates that they think will work, they can use it in their service. If it doesn't work, well, then it won't be very successful.
I don't. I'm pretty damn sure it will be optional.
No, but then again, they were never selling the music of non-label bands, were they? All you'll be getting for the subscription price will be RIAA signed music. If you want non-label bands, and you don't want to rip them off, you'll have to actually pay for the music.
Good question. I would guess that they would do a contract term with the service. I'd guess 12 or even 24 months, and the requisite early termination fee.
Well, if you insist on holding your advocacy for radical change without evidence, you'll have to excuse us when we don't take your opinions too seriously.
For example, if I'm pulling my oil filter out, and you tell me I'd be better off first lying on the road, face down, chanting a prayer to the flying spaghetti monster, I would listen to you, but then I would conclude that there is no evidence to support the claim that it will be anything other than obscenely dangerous, even if it lead me to getting oil all over my face.
This is the mindset I was referring to (again). I would call it defeatist one more time, but it isn't technically defeatist, because it automatically assumes that inevitable == good.
Yes, copyright is difficult to enforce. Yes, we can't intrude on people's private communications. Yes, we can't assume that enforcement bodies will be able to crack encryption. No, this does not mean it is unenforceable. No, this does not mean we should give up and stick our heads in the sand, chanting, "This is good. This is what we want. I am happy." It means that we should be first deciding whether this is good or not, and evidence tends to support that it isn't, and then we should be looking to redouble our efforts in order to enforce the damn thing.
We actually don't need, like I mentioned before, to stop friends sharing with each other. The sharing capabilities of friend groups are severely limited. Compared with public sharing networks, often which share files automatically, the effort of sharing with one person is vastly greater than sharing with thousands. Both you and the friend must communicate first, and if the friend has moral doubts about the practice, they have the opportunity to share them with you. Even if you devote your entire time to sharing everything you have with friends, the damage will spread much more slowly than through P2P networks.
Thus, I submit that P2P networks are, by far, the most important targets. These are very large and obvious targets, and police or the **AA can easily infiltrate them without privacy concerns, since they are completely public. In fact, I would go so far as to say that they make up a vast majority of piracy, in both current practice and potential, and hence, we only really need to concentrate on taking them down, rather than snooping on people's private communications.
But, I know, they can encrypt these networks, right? Well, first I'd like to point out that you're holding copyright enforcement to a ridiculous standard. In any crime, smart criminals don't get caught. If I murder someone, and I put gloves on, and I'm not seen, then I won't be caught. Period. These are simple measures I could take, and it means I get away with murder. Does this mean the murder is unenforceable? Does it mean that we should just abolish murder as a crime? Does that mean that murder is automatically good? No! Of course not. It means we catch, primarily, stupid murderers, and we hope the smart ones
Oh, that's easy. Just like any market solution, it starts with demand. You need to get into contact with artists and say that you would much prefer free media to copyrighted media. If artists can indeed survive while producing free media, and they are motivated to do so (which is an integral part of most reasonable arguments against copyright), then they will produce their media and relinquish their copyrights. Consumers then have a choice between free media and copyrighted media. The better system will produce more demand, and will take its fair share of the market, and people who like and don't like copyrighted media can both be satisfied. In fact, uncopyrighted media has a huge advantage, being free in both senses.
However, what's possible is not the only facet of market solutions. It also very neatly weeds out what's impossible or infeasible without cost or long-term damage. For example, if creating quality works for free in acceptable volume is an unwieldy and unfair burden on the artist, then only a handful of artists will volunteer and even fewer will keep creating in the long term. Whatever few that do would be pretty much exactly the people who would carry all culture if copyright was abolished.
That's why the market solution is so elegant here. There's no need for hit-and-miss, hope-for-the-best legislation; we can just let people decide what they want, and artists decide whether or not they can provide it. And, best of all, the system is naturally flexible enough to accommodate a variety of tastes.
Oh, and just as a postscript, I'd like to point out the obvious: that (almost) free media already exists. There is FOSS, with a varying amount of copyright rights relinquished. There are creative commons music stores. There are people who write books, make music, make movies, and create visual art, and release it for free. They exist alongside commercial art with varying degrees of success. By far and away, the most successful would have to be FOSS, but even then, even the most popular free software packages are often edged out by proprietary software (e.g. Photoshop, MS Office), presumably because they offer something worth the price difference that their FOSS counterparts don't. But, for those who don't need the expensive option, or those who have an objection to restrictions on sharing, the free alternatives are always there.
You have to think this line of reasoning through before you start applying it. It's pretty safe to say that people want culture and entertainment. To achieve that, we need artists on board. It's no good abolishing copyright, or limiting severely in the name of the people, because then artists wouldn't create, and then nobody gets what they want. So, in that way, stricter copyrights can, to a certain extent, lead to a better position purely from the perspective of the common man.
In fact, I would say that if you truly followed your credo, you'd arrive at something remarkably similar to what we have today, with changes only made to small details.
I think you'll find that most patents are actually ridiculously specific. If you tried to claim prior art with that car analogy, you'd be laughed out of court.
Ah, but we can't assume that such measures would exist without apple. If not having this does so much damage, perhaps we should be thankful that it exists at all, that we even have an option of using it.
Anyone who mods up an opinion they don't agree with instantly gains kudos and respect in my book. Thank you.
It's not quite so amusing when you consider the fact that I was considering only the people in your camp.
See, now you've set yourself up to do something really, really difficult. You have just made the claim that, given all the possible and feasible methods of approaching enforcement, including ones no-one have thought of, that copyright cannot be enforced. You've also made this claim in the face of all the lawsuits started by the **AA in order to enforce copyright. You have quite a bit of evidence to present here.
A common mistake made by people in your camp (yes, they do exist beside you) is to think that because something can't be enforced perfectly, it can't be enforced at all. After all these years, after so many billions and billions of dollars sunk into police, we still have crimes being committed that haven't been solved and prosecuted, but we don't ponder the pointlessness of making laws.
Gift culture? I must admit, I've never heard that term. I can't say that I know exactly what you're referring to, but if I had to guess, I would say you were referring to the ubiquity of free entertainment right?
Well, first let's not confuse free commercial entertainment with "paid for through advertising" commercial entertainment. There's a big difference to the artist between money from advertising and money from charity. That knocks out most TV and radio.
Even the truly free commercial media is often simply an advertisement for other non-free commercial media. Advertising is useless without buying power behind it. There's no point in making your products known if anyone can get them for free.
Naturally, there are people, and there probably will always be people, who will create without intention to profit. However, you're going to have a difficult time convincing people that they make a significant portion of people creating today, or that they'll have the collective man-power, dedication, and free time between jobs to fulfil any significant part of demand for culture. And yes, in order to institute change from something that is essentially working, you do have to provide at least some evidence that such a change won't backfire on us.
Actually, this is a very good example of the "everything will be fine" mentality I was referring to. The fact that you can't see copyright's involvement in culture today, from a cursory analysis, in no way implies that culture will be fine without it. A slightly deeper analysis typically reveals a wealth of issues that haven't even be considered, let alone solved.
People are realising that there are no "real" boundaries to piracy? OK, I get it. Enforcement is not working too well on average. But does it therefore make it OK? Are illegal actions only immoral if you get caught, huh?
In fact, I would certainly agree that social stigmas are eroding, and people are realising that there is another option apart from paying for their entertainment. If copyright ceases to exist, I can't see this getting anything but worse. T