This a far less worse crime than those idiot-borgs who walk around with the $49 blue tooth thing in their ear trying to impress how important they are upon us.
Just for the record, you were being sarcastic, right? I mean, it'd be pretty funny if you subscribed to the very mentality you declared you hated, all in one paragraph...
OK, how would you secure an OS against a user who seems eerily determined to bring down his own system? Or against a bunch of malware writers determined to do the same thing? Or both? Hardware-level DRM?
Our eyeballs are the product, eh? The media companies harvest our eyeballs, and then they sell them to... oh wait, I don't think they do sell them.
The truth is, this is doing business. You're trying in vain to put some negative spin on the whole process (I'm guessing because they're big bad media companies), but essentially they are still selling a product and we are still buying it. They don't own our eyeballs in any sense of the word, they're just trying to satisfy certain markets out there.
In fact, that's all they ever do. They can't force us to do anything, so they just put their offerings out there in the hope that some of us will benevolently toss them a few coins. They're like beggers on the street, with a sign saying "will dance for food". Oh my, how could you say such awful things about beggers? Kick 'em when they're down, why don't you.
I get it now. Take one part truth, five parts bullshit, fifteen parts irrational bias, and you get a cock-and-bull analogy designed to smear whoever you want.
I hate these threads. Y'know why? Because they're futile, and almost always degenerate into a flame war. I agree with the poster. We really need to move beyond "ready for the desktop". The real question is, whether it's ready for you. The trick with deciding whether or not to use Linux is to try it. If your computer has trouble with it (closed or non-standard hardware), or if there is some program you just have to have, then don't use it, and take the live CD out of the drive. This whole discussion was pointless to begin with.
Crime amongst the wealthy is a considerable problem. Corporations (and other obscenely wealthy folk) commit these crimes because they can, and they know that even if they are caught, it becomes more of an inconvenience than a problem. Compare that to a middle-class home, who would be devastated by fines that the rich can simply take in their stride. It's a one size fits all approach, and it doesn't work.
I propose that we scale fines to the income of the guilty party. Give out fines as percentages of yearly income. You could take the income records from last years tax time and fine a certain portion of that amount. If you commit a particularly serious crime, you may be charged as much as 50% of your yearly income, which would be equally devastating for anyone, no matter how much money they have. Fines would become a deterrent for all. Suddenly, breaking the law routinely doesn't seem to be such a financially viable business strategy.
Of course, the deterrent factor becomes less reliable on the very bottom of the scale. If a person has no money, then there would be no punishment, and consequently, they could do what they want. It also wouldn't cover damages to specific parties. We wouldn't want a situation where the fine is less expensive than the damage of the act itself. Whatever the problems, though, I think this idea has potential.
The 2nd amendment is there to provide recourse to such actions by the government and I don't care if those in power think I'm saying treasonous things, I have a constitutionally guaranteed right to say them, think them, and 'believe it or not' act on them.
It's a tricky situation. The second amendment is supposed to help "correct" democracy if it no longer becomes representative, and also help uphold the constitution. Unfortunately, this is no easy task. Are you a speaker for the people, attempting to rally them to bring down an oppressive government? Or are you a lone nut, acting as if your perspective is really that of the people? What if the constitution is being violated, but preventing that would be against the will of the people, and undermine democracy? Is the will of the founding fathers enough to trump the will of the people?
Is violating the constitution enough to warrant a death sentence to all in power, or are there grey areas that warrant only throwing the government out of office next elections? If you do indeed decide to go on a shooting spree, who should die? Should everyone employed by the government be offed? How about everyone in executive positions, right down to transport ministers? Or everyone in the white house?
The second amendment may have been relevant years ago, when the US was small and times were unstable, but now you have a lot more to lose. You have a huge economy, a wealthy lifestyle, sturdy future prospects, large population and infrastructure just to name a few. Violent coups must be thought through because they are devastatingly expensive. A civil war could ruin the US, so you had better to be bloody sure that you are doing the right thing. That's not even counting if you're a pacifist...
One person can only "cost" a recording company the potential music that person would have bought; if the person were counterfeiting money, however, the cost could potentially be much higher. So perhaps copying music can't be compared to counterfeiting money.
That's an interesting point. The potential for damages is admittedly considerably lower than counterfeiting if it stays with one person. It's more a question of scale. If you were to counterfeit as much as possible, each note that you create would be worth less and less, and eventually the amount of value that you could take planes out to slightly below the total value of the economy. With copyright infringement, it planes out to the amount of money you would have spent. I suggest they are comparable, but one is far more severe crime than than the other.
Also, the above doesn't apply IMHO if you distribute over P2P networks. You are helping ruin many other people's potential to buy music, and the severity of the offence should IMHO match its exponential growth. I should also point out that most of the cases I've heard of against copyright infringers were against people such as these, but maybe I'm just ill-informed.
Depends on the definition of "charity", I guess. But even so: would that necessarily be bad?
Yes! It's a lovely dream that artists will work with love of music and charity driving them, but in the end, they've at least got to eat. Trust me, we don't want a music industry riding on the back of snatches of free time between day-jobs.
Yes, and this seems like a more severe outcome than somebody simply not buying music anymore.
Ah, but you must be careful! How much of this perception is due to the victim becoming you (and everyone else), rather than the RIAA? One person failing to contribute to society will cost you personally very, very little, whereas copyright infringers have a slightly larger capacity to cost copyright holders. I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's something to think about.
I agree, though, that the counterfeiting comparison is a better fit than I originally thought.
Thank you:) It took me weeks to fine-tune it, so I'm glad someone appreciates it. It's earned me mixed-bag of mods so far.
I mean copyright doesn't mean you own the thing you created in the same way that you own a pair of shoes you bought in a shop. For one, you copyright only exists for a limited time. Granted, in the U.S, it's a long time, but still, it's limited. Also, there's fair use, as you've pointed out in another post. I don't have fair use rights to your shoes, but I can quote the post you made.
Thank you, but I still don't really know what your point was to begin with. It should also be noted that copyright isn't a "weaker" form of property, just a different form. Note also that if you own your shoes, you can't expect people to not copy them, no matter how unique you wish them to be. Not only that, but property too is also granted by the government (at least, as much as copyright is). It too is an abstract concept (but pertaining to physical things) which the government recognises and enforces. Does that make property "abstract" as well?
Why? It doesn't seem to hurt the music industry over here, quote the contrary, and it means we don't have stuff like the RIAA suing old grannies and homeless people.
Well, if copyright holders aren't attempting to change it, then I guess to each his own.
Money has no actual, inherent value. It only has value because everyone pretends it does.
And from that is derived its value. I'm sensing a little anxiety about the lack of security of paper money, that if everyone stopped accepting it, you'd be up shit creek. As you said before, gold has no inherent value either. We could simultaneously decide that we don't want gold, and go to bartering instead.
"Fair use" only exists in the U.S. (though many countries have similar laws)
As a matter of fact, I'm not a US citizen. I'm actually an Aussie, and we have "Fair Dealing". I'm pretty sure most countries have equivalents. Even if they don't, you can be confident in obeying the laws of your jurisdiction. Even if there were some song copyrighted in under some oppressive copyright laws, that wouldn't stop you from having your fair use rights over it. I think. IANAL, BTW.
Fortunately, even if it does not qualify, I can counter-sue since you also quoted my posts:-)
Ah, but did you include the copyright statement? The all rights reserved? No, I guess I didn't either for any of the posts you quoted from. Fine, no suing.:(
The troll mod is completely unfair, as the parent brings up a good point (in a manner less inflammatory than the average +5 insightful post). The money that someone else makes off copyright infringement is completely beside the point. Economically level-headed artists don't care that you're making money, they just care that you're distributing copies; copies that people use instead of buying from the artist.
Also, can we please stop squeezing the "troll" trigger as soon as someone mentions "theft" in a copyright thread? It doesn't have to be defined as stealing to make it morally wrong.
I'm in favor of copyright (though with shorter terms than today), as it leads to production of more works.
Oh, OK. Me too.:)
First, for popular culture copyright tend to centralize a lot of money.
That's true, but only because it's successful. It is legitimately more difficult for a new player because, frankly, the new players aren't up to scratch. Copyright gains money, therefore it has more money, therefore it can use that money to maintain its success. However, as with any big business, you need to keep your finger near the "antitrust" button.
Second, copyright removes cultural commons. Disney built their empire on Snow white and Cinderella - cultural commons from the previous age. These days, the common culture is copyrighted - so there is less cultural commons to draw from. Everything everybody knows is copyrighted.
Firstly, we have fair use to prevent this. Secondly, even though variations may be copyrighted, anything from the public domain may be used in your works and no copyright holder can do jack shit to you. The fact that all anyone knows is copyright is again evidence of the success of the business model.
Exactly. But most copyright violators are not distributing the MP3s (depending on the application they used to get the songs, they may have uploaded data while downloading the songs, but no meaningful amount), they are simply keeping them and listening to them.
Perhaps I should have been clearer. The restriction of distribution allows for the innate value of the work to be tapped. Without it, the demand for the work is instantly filled without the person responsible for such satisfaction receiving a cent. Once the file is distributed, a copy is nestled in someone's file-system, and it is used, then that person no longer has any desire to pay for the original. If there was no restrictions on distribution, no-one would have any desire to pay for the original, except possibly a few who would pay out of charity. To tie it back to the comparative analogy, if someone can counterfeit their money, they no longer feel the need to work and contribute back to society and the economy (which is generally what is required in order to procure money legally).
And then there's another argument here: Copyright is a privilege granted by the government. It's not absolute.
What do you mean "absolute"? That it's abstract? Intangible? It's a law, just like property law. It's just as "absolute" as property law. It's just as tangible as property law (because property is an intangible concept). It sounds like yet another completely abstract (yet coincidentally self-serving) metric by which to judge laws.
Where I live, downloading MP3s is perfectly legal.
I, personally, would lobby to have that changed.
Money is - or at least used to be - different. Initially, each bill and coin represented a defined amount of gold. So money used to have more than just imaginary worth.
Money doesn't have imaginary worth. It represents your economy and perceptions of where your economy will be in the future. If you think about gold (and currency based on it) for a second, its value is no less abstract. Its value comes (like everything) from supply and demand, just like other currencies.
Music is cheap. I think most people don't pirate music because they want to save money; they pirate music because it's convenient. Which explains why iTunes is such a huge success; it's often more convenient than searching for music using a P2P network.
Apart from your first statement, I agree with you so far...
If the music companies want to fight piracy, they need to make paying for music even more convenient. Get rid of DRM, give all companies access to the whole cataolg of music, add proper meta data so this stuff can be searched, and so on.
Agreed again! However, I think they are moving towards this. Somehow, though, I think the mere fact that you have to pay for the music detracts from the convenience factor enough to fail to wipe out piracy.
Advertising makes products that I do want cost more, simple as that.
No, woefully bad advertising makes products cost more, and if a company's advertising fits that description, they can usually tell by the lethargic sales. If the advertising is effective enough to recoup costs, it will pay for itself through increased profits. Without it, those increased profits those shareholders demand must come from your pockets. You've got it completely backwards.
Without spending money trying to convince people who don't want a product that they need it anyway, companies would have a lower overhead and thus could sell for less. Of course, they would sell less overall, and only companies with legitimately useful products would thrive (with the occasional freak exception, of course), but I don't view either of those as necessarily a "bad" thing.
Wrong again. Companies wouldn't thrive, period. People would be completely in the dark about different options and choices, and would inevitably go to their inefficiently run local shop, which would almost always have a monopoly on whatever you're looking for. Products that can't be made locally would be done by big businesses, but at reduced inefficiency, and consequently everything would become a lot more expensive.
Advertising is one of the most important tools of modern business. If you deny businesses the right to advertise, we'll have far worse problems than those catchy jingles.
Also art does not have to be economically feasible, art should be created for art's sake and the fact that the artist loves what they do.
Noble sentiment, but unfortunately things don't work like that. Art must be economically feasible for it to be made and distributed in any significant amounts. Even if a person puts their precious free time into creation of art, there's no real drive to distribute that art. Art is all well and good, but people need to experience it for it to become culture.
If the counterfeiter just put the copies of money in their bathtub and played Scrooge McDuck with it, that would be the equivalent of enjoying the illegal files.
If and only if you spend it (i.e. you redeem that store of value/time), only then do you devalue the currency. If and only if you use the files, only then do you kill a small amount of demand for the work (for your own personal gratification). The more demand that dies, the less the copyright is worth. Congratulations, you've just stolen small, but measurable value from one of the big labels.
Pirates, at least those of my aquitance, tend to be collectors, getting a bunch of stuff that they're "Going to check out real soon now".
How many pirates do you know that download a bunch of stuff, but don't use any of it, ever?
No, that's not true. You seem to be confusing the analogy with the subject. You're using the fake money. By using that fake money, you are devaluing everyone else's real money. By owning and using your mp3s, you are devaluing the copyright holder's copyright. The copyright's value comes from its ability to control distribution. If it weren't applicable then almost everyone who wanted a copy of the work would be able to get it for free without any compensation going to the copyright holder. The more wild copies out there, the less demand there is for paying for them, and the copyright becomes worthless. Just like if everybody counterfeited their own money, everyone would be trillionaires, but we wouldn't be any richer.
In fact, I would argue that selling mp3s would even be preferable to anonymous online distribution (from the copyright holder's perspective). Which do you think would distribute more copies?
Slashdot Mirror
Read the sequel. You find out that CINDY R N FUGLY SLUTT.
I have never purchased an apple product in my life and I would certainly mod you down. You don't have to be an apple fanboy to recognise a jackass.
OK, how would you secure an OS against a user who seems eerily determined to bring down his own system? Or against a bunch of malware writers determined to do the same thing? Or both? Hardware-level DRM?
Our eyeballs are the product, eh? The media companies harvest our eyeballs, and then they sell them to... oh wait, I don't think they do sell them.
The truth is, this is doing business. You're trying in vain to put some negative spin on the whole process (I'm guessing because they're big bad media companies), but essentially they are still selling a product and we are still buying it. They don't own our eyeballs in any sense of the word, they're just trying to satisfy certain markets out there.
In fact, that's all they ever do. They can't force us to do anything, so they just put their offerings out there in the hope that some of us will benevolently toss them a few coins. They're like beggers on the street, with a sign saying "will dance for food". Oh my, how could you say such awful things about beggers? Kick 'em when they're down, why don't you.
I get it now. Take one part truth, five parts bullshit, fifteen parts irrational bias, and you get a cock-and-bull analogy designed to smear whoever you want.
Yeah. It makes you wonder why they bother with delivering TV shows or the OSes.
What a great idea. Just tell them "we want computers, and we want them for free!" When they say no, just force 'em! What could possibly go wrong?
I hate these threads. Y'know why? Because they're futile, and almost always degenerate into a flame war. I agree with the poster. We really need to move beyond "ready for the desktop". The real question is, whether it's ready for you. The trick with deciding whether or not to use Linux is to try it. If your computer has trouble with it (closed or non-standard hardware), or if there is some program you just have to have, then don't use it, and take the live CD out of the drive. This whole discussion was pointless to begin with.
Pfft. Lucky.
Crime amongst the wealthy is a considerable problem. Corporations (and other obscenely wealthy folk) commit these crimes because they can, and they know that even if they are caught, it becomes more of an inconvenience than a problem. Compare that to a middle-class home, who would be devastated by fines that the rich can simply take in their stride. It's a one size fits all approach, and it doesn't work.
I propose that we scale fines to the income of the guilty party. Give out fines as percentages of yearly income. You could take the income records from last years tax time and fine a certain portion of that amount. If you commit a particularly serious crime, you may be charged as much as 50% of your yearly income, which would be equally devastating for anyone, no matter how much money they have. Fines would become a deterrent for all. Suddenly, breaking the law routinely doesn't seem to be such a financially viable business strategy.
Of course, the deterrent factor becomes less reliable on the very bottom of the scale. If a person has no money, then there would be no punishment, and consequently, they could do what they want. It also wouldn't cover damages to specific parties. We wouldn't want a situation where the fine is less expensive than the damage of the act itself. Whatever the problems, though, I think this idea has potential.
What about the watchmen? Their best friends are the people who fling wild and inane accusations at them until they look like victims.
I'm not saying I believe it, I'm just saying that apathy is the price you pay for living by a catchphrase.
HE'S A WITCH!
Is violating the constitution enough to warrant a death sentence to all in power, or are there grey areas that warrant only throwing the government out of office next elections? If you do indeed decide to go on a shooting spree, who should die? Should everyone employed by the government be offed? How about everyone in executive positions, right down to transport ministers? Or everyone in the white house?
The second amendment may have been relevant years ago, when the US was small and times were unstable, but now you have a lot more to lose. You have a huge economy, a wealthy lifestyle, sturdy future prospects, large population and infrastructure just to name a few. Violent coups must be thought through because they are devastatingly expensive. A civil war could ruin the US, so you had better to be bloody sure that you are doing the right thing. That's not even counting if you're a pacifist...
e.g. Why won't you think of the children?! I'd like to know when such a supreme case of apathy and callousness overwhelmed our culture.
That's an interesting point. The potential for damages is admittedly considerably lower than counterfeiting if it stays with one person. It's more a question of scale. If you were to counterfeit as much as possible, each note that you create would be worth less and less, and eventually the amount of value that you could take planes out to slightly below the total value of the economy. With copyright infringement, it planes out to the amount of money you would have spent. I suggest they are comparable, but one is far more severe crime than than the other.
Also, the above doesn't apply IMHO if you distribute over P2P networks. You are helping ruin many other people's potential to buy music, and the severity of the offence should IMHO match its exponential growth. I should also point out that most of the cases I've heard of against copyright infringers were against people such as these, but maybe I'm just ill-informed.
Yes! It's a lovely dream that artists will work with love of music and charity driving them, but in the end, they've at least got to eat. Trust me, we don't want a music industry riding on the back of snatches of free time between day-jobs.
Ah, but you must be careful! How much of this perception is due to the victim becoming you (and everyone else), rather than the RIAA? One person failing to contribute to society will cost you personally very, very little, whereas copyright infringers have a slightly larger capacity to cost copyright holders. I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's something to think about.
Thank you :) It took me weeks to fine-tune it, so I'm glad someone appreciates it. It's earned me mixed-bag of mods so far.
Thank you, but I still don't really know what your point was to begin with. It should also be noted that copyright isn't a "weaker" form of property, just a different form. Note also that if you own your shoes, you can't expect people to not copy them, no matter how unique you wish them to be. Not only that, but property too is also granted by the government (at least, as much as copyright is). It too is an abstract concept (but pertaining to physical things) which the government recognises and enforces. Does that make property "abstract" as well?
Well, if copyright holders aren't attempting to change it, then I guess to each his own.
And from that is derived its value. I'm sensing a little anxiety about the lack of security of paper money, that if everyone stopped accepting it, you'd be up shit creek. As you said before, gold has no inherent value either. We could simultaneously decide that we don't want gold, and go to bartering instead.
The troll mod is completely unfair, as the parent brings up a good point (in a manner less inflammatory than the average +5 insightful post). The money that someone else makes off copyright infringement is completely beside the point. Economically level-headed artists don't care that you're making money, they just care that you're distributing copies; copies that people use instead of buying from the artist.
Also, can we please stop squeezing the "troll" trigger as soon as someone mentions "theft" in a copyright thread? It doesn't have to be defined as stealing to make it morally wrong.
Half? Are you serious? It's probably only about 20% or so. Prone to exaggeration much?
That's why we have fair use.
;)
That, or you could just post me your details so I can subpoena you
(c) 2008 TheVelvetFlamebait All Rights Reserved
Advertising is one of the most important tools of modern business. If you deny businesses the right to advertise, we'll have far worse problems than those catchy jingles.
No, that's not true. You seem to be confusing the analogy with the subject. You're using the fake money. By using that fake money, you are devaluing everyone else's real money. By owning and using your mp3s, you are devaluing the copyright holder's copyright. The copyright's value comes from its ability to control distribution. If it weren't applicable then almost everyone who wanted a copy of the work would be able to get it for free without any compensation going to the copyright holder. The more wild copies out there, the less demand there is for paying for them, and the copyright becomes worthless. Just like if everybody counterfeited their own money, everyone would be trillionaires, but we wouldn't be any richer.
In fact, I would argue that selling mp3s would even be preferable to anonymous online distribution (from the copyright holder's perspective). Which do you think would distribute more copies?