No, I read to the end - there's still no "bargain" here, none of these companies are violating the rules by "protecting" their IP. If you're not happy with copyright duration, talk to your representative - conscientious objection is not really a justification when it comes to pirating movies and music.
... it's 4.3 Million DVD subscribers... just the 4.1 million of them using Android since Apple users were probably the most likely to jump ship to streaming only.
I dropped the disc service a while ago, but there's a lot of stuff they don't offer streaming that you can get on disc. Maybe that was their plan all along - make the streaming options so crappy that people will go back to the DVD subscriptions.
Because there's no "bargain," there's no "deal" between us and them that they can break - they are offering something, and you are free to take it or leave it. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean you get to violate the law (and their rights) - you can champion to have the law changed all you want, though, and I'll be right there with you. The sticking point here might be DRM - I do not consider it illegal copying if you break the DRM on your legally purchased copy of something, or if you download a copy of something you got legally, but let's not be disingenuous and pretend that's what we're talking about here.
Well, I know the industry might disagree with me, but I don't consider having a copy of something you legally own to be "pirating." I've cracked legally purchased games in the past to get around stupid copy-prevention schemes (like reading codes from a book or code wheel). How can they say you're a pirate when you've paid for it? And I'm not disagreeing that companies are bad guys, here; I'm suggesting that copyright infringement is not justified for your entertainment needs simply because they don't offer it in a format that suits you - you still don't get to decide what they "must" do. You simply get to decide NOT to buy it.
Do without. You're not "entitled" to have the publisher give you something in your preferred format. This isn't bread to feed a starving family, it's a book (or a movie, or a song, or a game).
So you're not allowed to be upset about something because something else is worse? It's an unnecessary annoyance. Yes, I get it (#firstworldproblems), but that doesn't mean it's not annoying (and in my experience it's typically not even one email, it's many - even after I've reviewed products).
I actually agree with you completely - but you cannot tell me there aren't plenty of people who would have bought something they ended up pirating for free. I have essentially said the same thing you just did in other posts in this thread - the industry would be better off accepting piracy and allowing the people who legally purchased the content have more freedom with it. Otherwise they encourage piracy because the content is usually unencumbered when pirated. It's the legal purchasers who suffer lack of flexibility and options. Such a move likely wouldn't affect piracy - but it would save the industry a ton on DRM licensing fees and lawyers.
I actually jumped on the e-book bandwagon at first, but that the prices are often higher than paperback, and with the loss of freedom, I haven't turned on my reader in years... I just buy paperback. Then I can give them away (if they were good, we trade amongst family and friends) or sell them to a second hand book store for credit. With e-books, I get nothing... so I buy the paperback, I don't arbitrarily decide I'm entitled to pirate the e-book.
I argue that, despite my dislike for piracy and the lame justifications people tell themselves to make them feel better about doing it, that the industry would have even more money if they stopped paying for encryption and DRM and, probably to a larger financial extent, lawyers. They should sit back and accept that pirates are going to pirate, no matter what, but there's enough people who respect the rights of others to more than make up the difference - so we should stop being punished with DRM while the pirates get the content unencumbered.
That's ridiculous - it's not "being dictated" to when you can decide to just f#@king wait for the disc or for it to be legally available streaming. You don't get to arbitrarily decide to violate someone else's IP because you can't wait for a f#@king movie to be available in a way you want. Entitlement f#@king mentality bullshit.
Sure - but nothing in what you say justifies pirating a movie.
If you absolutely just can't wait, then you need to see it in the theater and you don't get to arbitrarily decide you're entitled to get the content "your way." There's a market for making movies available to stream on their theatrical release dates. I've seen some services doing that, but not enough, it's not ubiquitous. The industry should realize people want it "their way" and make a legal way to do it. But either way, there's no justification for pirating a movie.
I hear you - I rarely go to the movies anymore, maybe three or four times a year; but your reasons are not justifications for pirating (as there's really nothing that justifies pirating movies). Wait for the disc or the (legal) streaming and watch it at your leisure on your system... no harm, no foul.
It's true, and it's part and parcel to what I've been saying for years on the subject... I'm totally against piracy, especially when we're talking about entertainment content - I hate the entitlement mentality and the hoops people jump through to justify their violation of the rights of others. People work hard to create even the crappy stuff, and it's not just the artists and directors, but hundreds of other people along the line who put a lot of work into it, and it's morally not YOUR decision to just arbitrarily decide you are somehow entitled to the work of others with no compensation, even if you're not causing the loss of a sale.
However, I've been pointing out for years that the industry grows despite itself. I can mention music, but even just keeping to movies and television, the industry whined that VHS would cause their downfall, but while there was piracy, VHS opened up new revenue streams that gave them access to more money than they ever thought they'd be making - now people can buy their movies in perpetuity (kind of) instead of just a limited run in theaters.... the revenue just keeps coming in from purchases and rentals. They made the same complaint about DVDs and digital, and managed to exploit those mediums as well.
All the while, as the medium made it easier, there was more piracy, and yet the revenues kept growing. My opinion is they should just let it happen, relax, and sit back and collect their money. How much money have they wasted on lawyers and encryption technologies that only hurt the law abiding consumers? Think about it - you buy a bluray or DVD player, and part of the cost (so you are the one paying for it) is the encryption technology and region coding. That's right - the consumer pays for those things when they buy the player, the things that restrict access to content they've legally purchased.
On top of that, every encrypted disc or stream costs royalty money to the companies that created and licensed the technology - so when you buy the content, you're paying a second time. And while we may be using fewer discs these days, every blank disc carries a penalty tax to help cover piracy.
That last one is interesting... because you're being punished for a crime whether you committed one or not. I would suggest double-jeopardy laws should apply - if you bought the blank disc, and are caught with pirated content, then too bad - you've already paid the penalty that accompanies the purchase of each disc. They shouldn't be allowed to have it both ways.
Bullshit. That may be true of a lot of pirating, but you cannot state it's the blanket case for all - some people want something, and if they don't have the choice of stealing or illegally copying it, they would certainly grudgingly pay for it. Hollywood is losing a LOT of money on piracy, just not anywhere near the outrageous numbers they claim. As usual, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.... the pirates claim it's a molehill, the industry claims it's a mountain, the truth is somewhere in between.
But there's a reason that "warnings" don't have any effect. There are three types of people out there - law abiding and respectful of the rights and work of others; people who don't care about the rights of others and pirate because they think they won't get caught; and people who don't care about the rights of others but are worried they might get caught, so don't.
A warning doesn't change any of those people - the ones who think they won't get caught think they won't get caught, so warning about what a punishment might be to someone who is unconcerned about getting caught is moronic and just aggravating for everyone else who has to sit through it.
That's similar to what I experienced.... I live near Atlanta. If I wanted to live in Atlanta, in a decent area in a decent home, it'd cost too much.... simple fact. I live near Atlanta, and the cost of my home was similar to yours. And I have no HOA fees. You don't HAVE to move into a neighborhood with an HOA.
I get the point you're making, I really do - but there's something incredibly wrong with your story about "Bob." He took a job that was very dangerous (not knowing when you'd get deployed, even in times of peace you never know what will happen), possibly for a sense of duty to his country (not his government); got underpaid for four years in return for educational benefits - i.e., he worked in a life and death job for his college money. Got a job, was forced to pay social security taxes (I hate SS - I'd rather have put all that in my own IRA instead, I'd ultimately have a lot more - and lot more to leave to my kids, but you force me to pay into and of course I will collect it).
There's this false dichotomy out there that you either love the government and think what it does is great, or you hate it. Most people claiming one or the other don't actually mean it - they mean there are parts that they love or hate, they rarely actually think the local government is all that bad (and there's a reason for it, but let's not digress). Hardcore libertarians will complain about things like roads and paying for schools, but most people (even a lot of small-l libertarians) are not like that - but they can still "hate" much of what government has done outside of the realm of basic infrastructure.
I can "hate' social security, but I will collect it after paying my whole working life into it. I could even hate publicly funded schools (I don't), but if you're forcing me to pay for it with my taxes, then yes, I will put my kids there. It's not hypocritical, it's dealing with the system you have no choice about.
How do you figure? Everything requires money in this world; it's the way it's set up. So how would a state or local government provide those services without "robbing Peter to pay Paul"? I really don't get this Libertarian viewpoint that a person should be able to be an island, completely independent and paying only for what they are immediately using. We are all interconnected and cannot live independently of all others. Fire departments used to operate on a subscription basis. They don't anymore. There's a reason for that.
Because, again, that's not what the poster implied - he never received "a dollar," not he never received "any kind of benefit whatsoever."
Mock libertarians all you want - I get it, it's not practical for everything to be privatized, it's NOT practical for most roads, it's not practical for defense, it's not practical for legal protection of your rights. That makes government (and the expense therein) a necessary "evil." Those things are not what most people complain about.
There's two problems here. One is that the figure is not for "citizens" but "households." The second is that all those people you mentioned - most of them have incomes and file tax returns. Retired people still pay income taxes on their pensions and retirement plans (with some exceptions, but those are usually in conjunction with sources of income they do pay taxes on, like a combination of 401k and Roth IRA). They still need to file. So if you read up in the thread a little, it's households filing tax returns - 40% of them aren't paying taxes. Add another 5% for people not filing tax returns at all... that's the percentage you're ranting about.
The problem with your argument is that the wealthiest people do pay more in taxes - way more, just less as a percentage of their incomes. It's true that sometimes people pay themselves like a dollar a year from their corporations because we tax income and not wealth. But even people making high six figures or seven figures are paying huge amounts of the taxes, and you don't save anything by donating because you just don't pay tax on the amount you donated - you never come out ahead. People don't understand what a "deduction" is or does.
But it's true - most people don't understand the difference between their tax burden and the amount they need to pay or receive as a refund.
... and yet those people also receive EITC, which is an income tax "refund" on money they never paid in taxes - IOW, a direct transfer of wealth. It was supposedly meant to cover SS taxes.
Remarkably, slightly more than one-third of students – or 1,147 children – are defined as homeless here, mostly sharing homes with other families because their parents cannot afford one of their own, and also living in RVs and shelters.
which implies a legal definition rather than an literal one.
It seems to imply a "liberal" definition (in modern nomenclature) that was codified into law, the same kind of definitions used to make a "crisis" out of just about anything.
Slashdot Mirror
No, I read to the end - there's still no "bargain" here, none of these companies are violating the rules by "protecting" their IP. If you're not happy with copyright duration, talk to your representative - conscientious objection is not really a justification when it comes to pirating movies and music.
... it's 4.3 Million DVD subscribers... just the 4.1 million of them using Android since Apple users were probably the most likely to jump ship to streaming only.
I dropped the disc service a while ago, but there's a lot of stuff they don't offer streaming that you can get on disc. Maybe that was their plan all along - make the streaming options so crappy that people will go back to the DVD subscriptions.
Because there's no "bargain," there's no "deal" between us and them that they can break - they are offering something, and you are free to take it or leave it. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean you get to violate the law (and their rights) - you can champion to have the law changed all you want, though, and I'll be right there with you. The sticking point here might be DRM - I do not consider it illegal copying if you break the DRM on your legally purchased copy of something, or if you download a copy of something you got legally, but let's not be disingenuous and pretend that's what we're talking about here.
Well, I know the industry might disagree with me, but I don't consider having a copy of something you legally own to be "pirating." I've cracked legally purchased games in the past to get around stupid copy-prevention schemes (like reading codes from a book or code wheel). How can they say you're a pirate when you've paid for it? And I'm not disagreeing that companies are bad guys, here; I'm suggesting that copyright infringement is not justified for your entertainment needs simply because they don't offer it in a format that suits you - you still don't get to decide what they "must" do. You simply get to decide NOT to buy it.
Do without. You're not "entitled" to have the publisher give you something in your preferred format. This isn't bread to feed a starving family, it's a book (or a movie, or a song, or a game).
How was it NOT extortion before the law?
So you're not allowed to be upset about something because something else is worse? It's an unnecessary annoyance. Yes, I get it (#firstworldproblems), but that doesn't mean it's not annoying (and in my experience it's typically not even one email, it's many - even after I've reviewed products).
50% during the holiday season, double overall for 2016... the "maths" are not that hard.
I actually agree with you completely - but you cannot tell me there aren't plenty of people who would have bought something they ended up pirating for free. I have essentially said the same thing you just did in other posts in this thread - the industry would be better off accepting piracy and allowing the people who legally purchased the content have more freedom with it. Otherwise they encourage piracy because the content is usually unencumbered when pirated. It's the legal purchasers who suffer lack of flexibility and options. Such a move likely wouldn't affect piracy - but it would save the industry a ton on DRM licensing fees and lawyers.
I actually jumped on the e-book bandwagon at first, but that the prices are often higher than paperback, and with the loss of freedom, I haven't turned on my reader in years... I just buy paperback. Then I can give them away (if they were good, we trade amongst family and friends) or sell them to a second hand book store for credit. With e-books, I get nothing... so I buy the paperback, I don't arbitrarily decide I'm entitled to pirate the e-book.
I argue that, despite my dislike for piracy and the lame justifications people tell themselves to make them feel better about doing it, that the industry would have even more money if they stopped paying for encryption and DRM and, probably to a larger financial extent, lawyers. They should sit back and accept that pirates are going to pirate, no matter what, but there's enough people who respect the rights of others to more than make up the difference - so we should stop being punished with DRM while the pirates get the content unencumbered.
That's ridiculous - it's not "being dictated" to when you can decide to just f#@king wait for the disc or for it to be legally available streaming. You don't get to arbitrarily decide to violate someone else's IP because you can't wait for a f#@king movie to be available in a way you want. Entitlement f#@king mentality bullshit.
Sure - but nothing in what you say justifies pirating a movie.
If you absolutely just can't wait, then you need to see it in the theater and you don't get to arbitrarily decide you're entitled to get the content "your way." There's a market for making movies available to stream on their theatrical release dates. I've seen some services doing that, but not enough, it's not ubiquitous. The industry should realize people want it "their way" and make a legal way to do it. But either way, there's no justification for pirating a movie.
I hear you - I rarely go to the movies anymore, maybe three or four times a year; but your reasons are not justifications for pirating (as there's really nothing that justifies pirating movies). Wait for the disc or the (legal) streaming and watch it at your leisure on your system... no harm, no foul.
It's true, and it's part and parcel to what I've been saying for years on the subject... I'm totally against piracy, especially when we're talking about entertainment content - I hate the entitlement mentality and the hoops people jump through to justify their violation of the rights of others. People work hard to create even the crappy stuff, and it's not just the artists and directors, but hundreds of other people along the line who put a lot of work into it, and it's morally not YOUR decision to just arbitrarily decide you are somehow entitled to the work of others with no compensation, even if you're not causing the loss of a sale.
However, I've been pointing out for years that the industry grows despite itself. I can mention music, but even just keeping to movies and television, the industry whined that VHS would cause their downfall, but while there was piracy, VHS opened up new revenue streams that gave them access to more money than they ever thought they'd be making - now people can buy their movies in perpetuity (kind of) instead of just a limited run in theaters.... the revenue just keeps coming in from purchases and rentals. They made the same complaint about DVDs and digital, and managed to exploit those mediums as well.
All the while, as the medium made it easier, there was more piracy, and yet the revenues kept growing. My opinion is they should just let it happen, relax, and sit back and collect their money. How much money have they wasted on lawyers and encryption technologies that only hurt the law abiding consumers? Think about it - you buy a bluray or DVD player, and part of the cost (so you are the one paying for it) is the encryption technology and region coding. That's right - the consumer pays for those things when they buy the player, the things that restrict access to content they've legally purchased.
On top of that, every encrypted disc or stream costs royalty money to the companies that created and licensed the technology - so when you buy the content, you're paying a second time. And while we may be using fewer discs these days, every blank disc carries a penalty tax to help cover piracy.
That last one is interesting... because you're being punished for a crime whether you committed one or not. I would suggest double-jeopardy laws should apply - if you bought the blank disc, and are caught with pirated content, then too bad - you've already paid the penalty that accompanies the purchase of each disc. They shouldn't be allowed to have it both ways.
Someday...
Bullshit. That may be true of a lot of pirating, but you cannot state it's the blanket case for all - some people want something, and if they don't have the choice of stealing or illegally copying it, they would certainly grudgingly pay for it. Hollywood is losing a LOT of money on piracy, just not anywhere near the outrageous numbers they claim. As usual, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.... the pirates claim it's a molehill, the industry claims it's a mountain, the truth is somewhere in between.
But there's a reason that "warnings" don't have any effect. There are three types of people out there - law abiding and respectful of the rights and work of others; people who don't care about the rights of others and pirate because they think they won't get caught; and people who don't care about the rights of others but are worried they might get caught, so don't.
A warning doesn't change any of those people - the ones who think they won't get caught think they won't get caught, so warning about what a punishment might be to someone who is unconcerned about getting caught is moronic and just aggravating for everyone else who has to sit through it.
That's similar to what I experienced.... I live near Atlanta. If I wanted to live in Atlanta, in a decent area in a decent home, it'd cost too much.... simple fact. I live near Atlanta, and the cost of my home was similar to yours. And I have no HOA fees. You don't HAVE to move into a neighborhood with an HOA.
I get the point you're making, I really do - but there's something incredibly wrong with your story about "Bob." He took a job that was very dangerous (not knowing when you'd get deployed, even in times of peace you never know what will happen), possibly for a sense of duty to his country (not his government); got underpaid for four years in return for educational benefits - i.e., he worked in a life and death job for his college money. Got a job, was forced to pay social security taxes (I hate SS - I'd rather have put all that in my own IRA instead, I'd ultimately have a lot more - and lot more to leave to my kids, but you force me to pay into and of course I will collect it).
There's this false dichotomy out there that you either love the government and think what it does is great, or you hate it. Most people claiming one or the other don't actually mean it - they mean there are parts that they love or hate, they rarely actually think the local government is all that bad (and there's a reason for it, but let's not digress). Hardcore libertarians will complain about things like roads and paying for schools, but most people (even a lot of small-l libertarians) are not like that - but they can still "hate" much of what government has done outside of the realm of basic infrastructure.
I can "hate' social security, but I will collect it after paying my whole working life into it. I could even hate publicly funded schools (I don't), but if you're forcing me to pay for it with my taxes, then yes, I will put my kids there. It's not hypocritical, it's dealing with the system you have no choice about.
Since that's not what he said, I guess it's all good.
How do you figure? Everything requires money in this world; it's the way it's set up. So how would a state or local government provide those services without "robbing Peter to pay Paul"? I really don't get this Libertarian viewpoint that a person should be able to be an island, completely independent and paying only for what they are immediately using. We are all interconnected and cannot live independently of all others. Fire departments used to operate on a subscription basis. They don't anymore. There's a reason for that.
Because, again, that's not what the poster implied - he never received "a dollar," not he never received "any kind of benefit whatsoever."
Mock libertarians all you want - I get it, it's not practical for everything to be privatized, it's NOT practical for most roads, it's not practical for defense, it's not practical for legal protection of your rights. That makes government (and the expense therein) a necessary "evil." Those things are not what most people complain about.
There's two problems here. One is that the figure is not for "citizens" but "households." The second is that all those people you mentioned - most of them have incomes and file tax returns. Retired people still pay income taxes on their pensions and retirement plans (with some exceptions, but those are usually in conjunction with sources of income they do pay taxes on, like a combination of 401k and Roth IRA). They still need to file. So if you read up in the thread a little, it's households filing tax returns - 40% of them aren't paying taxes. Add another 5% for people not filing tax returns at all... that's the percentage you're ranting about.
Why can't it be both?
The problem with your argument is that the wealthiest people do pay more in taxes - way more, just less as a percentage of their incomes. It's true that sometimes people pay themselves like a dollar a year from their corporations because we tax income and not wealth. But even people making high six figures or seven figures are paying huge amounts of the taxes, and you don't save anything by donating because you just don't pay tax on the amount you donated - you never come out ahead. People don't understand what a "deduction" is or does.
But it's true - most people don't understand the difference between their tax burden and the amount they need to pay or receive as a refund.
... and yet those people also receive EITC, which is an income tax "refund" on money they never paid in taxes - IOW, a direct transfer of wealth. It was supposedly meant to cover SS taxes.
In fairness the article did say,
which implies a legal definition rather than an literal one.
It seems to imply a "liberal" definition (in modern nomenclature) that was codified into law, the same kind of definitions used to make a "crisis" out of just about anything.