Is online piracy a really serious problem? My opinion: nope.

[limpyhobbler]

The movie industry is making record profit year after year.

The music industry is finding new ways to make money. On top of online sales, music artists make money touring and selling merchandise. I understand it's hard to make money by selling CD's now. That's because nobody listens to CDs anymore, and they never will again, except maybe out of nostalgia, the way people collect records.

Software publishers are doing fine as far as I can tell. Free and open source is some of the best software out there.
How much does Adobe think they should reasonably charge for Photoshop anyways? Isn't it like $400? And people still buy it.

Politicians all seem to think online piracy is a serious problem. Instead of wasting taxpayers money trying to police what people are downloading, why don't they focus on real problems facing people instead. Unemployment and crap wages. Health care. Industries dumping toxic waste under our water supplies. Homelessness. Etc.

Don't let them start a "War on Online Piracy". It will make criminals of most of us and it will be just about as cost effective as the War on Drugs has been. We don't need a new rat hole to throw our money into.

Piracy may be a little problem, but don't let politicians blow it out of proportion. We have much bigger issues facing our country.

Any politician who tells us copyright infringement is a serious problem needing serious government action, I don't think they have their priorities quite straight.

[joshcryer]

2. Copyright infringement is not theft.

[joshcryer]

6. I take a loaf of bread, I deprive the store owner of a loaf of bread to sell.

I copy a file, indeed, I'm copying the dynamic update of this page as I press "Post my reply!" you, or the admins, lose nothing. If anything the total information exchange here is going up, because we're sharing information, in this case, our opinion on a specific thing.

Is sharing other files any different?

I don't know. I personally don't think any human being should be deprived a loaf of bread. Or digital content if they can't afford it.

[joshcryer]

12. "Intellectual property" is immoral.

You shouldn't be able to own my genes.

The "opportunity to sell the file" doesn't exist to someone who cannot afford the file in the first place. Most pirates do it because 1) the cost of a file is too much or 2) because the method to acquire the file is draconian (see: DRM, which prevents them from using the file how they see fit).

We see that whenever the cost of digitally distributed files is lower, that people adopt it overwhelmingly.

[joshcryer]

24. Intellectual property is the ownership of information.

It cannot be "narrowly defined."

[joshcryer]

29. Uh, no, it can't.

You ban patenting of genomes.

Someone comes around and patents a piece of software that replicates the genome.

You ban the patenting of software.

Someone comes around and patents a chemical formula for the gnome.

You ban the patenting of chemical formula's... and so on.

It can't be done. The loopholes will always exist because "intellectual property" is itself theft. This is fully self-consistent.

[joshcryer]

37. I wouldn't care.

I wouldn't care one iota.

Money isn't life.

As far as plagiarism, I probably wouldn't sue you for money, but I might go after you to reveal your identity, and then make it known to the world that you're a plagiarist (because that in itself is hilarious and embarrassing). And I'd have standing to do that because of these "laws" that you put in such high regard.

Otherwise I wouldn't care, not one iota.

[joshcryer]

50. But, the laws exist, you champion them.

Why wouldn't I want to oust a plagiarist if I had the means?

Otherwise if I didn't have those means, I wouldn't care in the least.

[joeglow3]

63. hahahahaha BULLSHIT BULLSHIT BULLSHIT BULLSHIT

Your obsession with wanting shit for free shows how much emphasis you put on YOUR financial well being (to the point you will steal from others a deprive them compensation for THEIR ideas and hard work).

[joshcryer]

150. Copyright infringement is not theft.

[joeglow3]

156. Yes, we have established you want free shit.

So, what have YOU produced that millions are clamoring to download?

[joshcryer]

162. Nothing is free.

[PETRUS]

158. Our conception of intellectual property

...is a centuries old relic. Glad to see you questioning it. There are better - more "efficient," to use the favored term - ways to promote creativity and innovation.

[joeglow3]

166. Fuck yeah. Give it all to me for free

That should motivate the world to write great books, create great songs, etc. I can't wait to see what everyone will produce now that their motivation level has shot up.

[PETRUS]

174. That's cute.

Since your concern is art, here's one alternative system of funding and incentives:

http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/ip_2003_11.pdf

That's only one of many ideas.

[joeglow3]

176. 2 key questions

1. Who pays for these refundable credits?

2. What is to stop family and friends from registering themselves and having their family and friends all send their $100 to their associates?

[PETRUS]

179. You should probably direct those questions to the authors of the paper.

I shouldn't speak for them. That said, the paper addresses cost/benefit questions, and the organization that produced it has published quite a bit of additional writing on the topic. So if you're truly interested, you should read the report closely and consult the authors' related material - along with comparing it to different alternatives to the patent/copyright system forwarded by other economists.

[limpyhobbler]

198. Good read

I just read this paper:
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/ip_2003_11.pdf

Seems to me it would be worth trying out and experimenting with.
I wonder if if would work on a smaller scale experiment if a single state wanted to try it out. Like say if New Mexico or Vermont wanted to try this out, that state could become a haven for up-and-coming artists.

It's also a much more democratic way of allowing people to choose the best art, rather than or in addition to being chosen in a corporate boardroom.

[Edweird]

188. You have a twisted (and fundamentally flawed) view of the motivation behind artistic creation.

I would venture that any 'artist' that stops creating because they aren't getting paid for it isn't worth a damn in the first place. It's a labor of love. The goal of art - to me anyway - is to come as close as possible to recreating the concept in your mind. Your 'concern' is duly noted and appropriately dismissed as completely off-base.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

175. I'd want to see more details than that before I paid it any heed.

In particular, are these "better ways" alternatives to IP rights, or things that could run in parallel with it?

I rather doubt that there are any of the former.

[PETRUS]

177. Fair questions

The link I posted above has to do with copyright and is suggested as a parallel system, i.e. creators could opt in or out.

And, to be honest, I stumbled into it while researching health care. I know that might seem unrelated, but prescription medications account for significant costs and that involved intellectual property. The patent system creates a fair amount of inefficiency, along with what we call "deadweight." I don't know if you're interested, but I can go into that if you want.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

89. You do know without intellectual property we'd still be a pre-industrial civilisation, right?

People create and invent things so that they can profit from them.

Take away that possibility, and you lose basically the whole of civilisation.

[joshcryer]

164. Bull. Intellectual property has been an inherent clog to technological development.

You look at the Android Phone industry, and how the various companies around the world are suing the heck out of each other over trivialities, slowing the move of progress through pointless injunctions.

[daleanime]

16. Because it is kind of a hard question....

when you make a idea into a object.



Yes, people need to be pay for their work, no one I know believes any thing different. But before you worry too much about that problem look around, many of the business complainting the most about this are making good/record profits-but who wouldn't want more. And by the way what does your CEO take home every year?

[JackRiddler]

22. The plaintiff doesn't get to fantasize unchallenged what that "compensation" should have been.

Not every copy of The Works of Justin Bieber represents money that would have otherwise gone to whichever head of the Six-Headed Beast owns him (Disney?). In fact, it's certain that most of these copies would never have sold for money and that Bieber is being adequately compensated as the artist and the Beast as his distributor.

[JackRiddler]

38. Sorry, it's not a thief (ugh!) and the monetary effects of the copying...

copying, not "theft"...

are not only often zero, but possibly a net-plus for artists who become better known as a result.

[JackRiddler]

53. Strain as you might, your argument falters on the attempt

to equate the civil matter of copyright infringement with the criminal act of theft. However, copying unauthorized by the owner is not theft and any damages must be shown, not assumed. That's what SOPA and similar barbarisms are about: shifting copyright from civil to criminal purview, or effectively criminalizing acts that are civil violations at most. (Because this country needs more categories of crime to prosecute!) The exchange you present doesn't happen in civil court, where it's on the plaintiff to show damages incurred. The way you're phrasing it already assumes "stealing." Dragging this fundamentally civil matter into criminal court gives much more power to what should have been a plaintiff to just devise fantasy damages and claim "theft" has been committed.

[JackRiddler]

99. Excellent that you can cite legal paragraphs that support what I said.

"Criminal copyright penalties have always been the exception rather than the rule."

Yes, exactly. And it's essential that it stay that way, lest we end up criminalizing tens of millions of people for copying offenses as alleged by the guilds who wish to monopolize the movie and music business. Until now, copyright has been almost entirely a civil matter - plaintiffs sue to claim infringement, and must show that infringement occurred. SOPA-PIPA would have criminalized this predominantly civil process.

[wandy]

88. +1 Some bands will put a 'free' sampler on their web page. And a link to buy more!

[joshcryer]

31. Don't forget, Bieber himself got popular for doing uncompensated covers of others' songs.

So he's a perfect case example.

[joshcryer]

52. At first, they most certainly were unlicensed.

You can't cover something for a public performance without licensing first.

He may have later compensated the various artists, but that's beside the point, there are thousands, if not millions of people out there doing unlicensed public performances of songs without compensating. Are they all bad?

[Occulus]

77. Let's de-abstract this.

Last edited Sat Jan 21, 2012, 11:58 AM - Edit history (1)

Go to YouTube and type "dragonborn". Now type "Let's Play Skyrim".

Are these, either or both, unlicensed public performances of a copyrighted work?

Do not hem and haw. Yes, or no.

Nothing, Tesha? Nothing at all?

[joshcryer]

151. Singing in a bar does count, look at karaoke licensing.

Bieber most certainly did covers of works without proper licensing.

http://freebieber.org/

[wandy]

90. Tesha. Are you fimilar with Tom Petty.

Because of greed an the part of his 'people' Tom was not allowed to record for a number of years. If you are not fimilar, his stuff is simple but dam good.
It's unfortnate how much may not have happened because of a disput over copyrights.

[Egalitariat]

82. I agree. I'm starting a fizzy beverage company that sells soft drinks

I'll call it "Coca-Cola", and I'm hoping to grab a lot of market share quickly by undercutting the other cola makers by 20% on price.

[JackRiddler]

101. You should go into law instead, and learn the difference between copyright and trademark.

Your example is laughably constructed and irrelevant.

[JackRiddler]

21. No. It's not.

That assertion doesn't hold water generally and can't be allowed as if it were self-evident. Show the specifics and make the argument.

[hunter]

129. "Creativity" doesn't pay, never has.

The money is in marketing, and most of the time the artist is left broken in the gutter by those who profited most from their work.

That doesn't justify copying copyrighted works against the owner's consent, but I don't believe this battle is about artists, it's about the owners of the art, and in most cases the owner of the art is not the creator of the art.

I don't fuck with the owners of art, most of them are sharks. I buy or rent movie DVDs, I like to buy books, (our family contributed greatly to J. K. Rowling's wealth), sometimes I'll buy commercial music, but mostly I buy art from artists directly and I share and improve upon those arts that have been graciously shared by other creative people.

There's an awesome, unlimited world of creativity outside the control of big media companies and software houses.

If one limits themselves to big media and big software (Apple, Adobe, Microsoft, etc.) the world becomes less creative, very small and easily controlled by "the powers that be."

[hunter]

133. Yep, every kid playing basketball on an inner city blacktop is gonna grow up to be Michael Jordan...

Bill Gates, George Lucas, J.K. Rowling, all recognized it was a game of sharks, and they played the game very well.

For each of them there have been thousands of artists bloodied, beaten, and left for dead.

A long time ago I sold a piece of software for rent money. The software made a whole lot of money for the shark who sold it to an industry I despise. By contract I'm not even supposed to say that much. She's got a house in La Jolla, well, because she is a shark and I am not.

It still burns a little, but the experience didn't inspire me to become a shark myself. And besides, I never wanted to live in a freakish world of affluent white people anyways... heh... as the clumsy little kid in me kicks a cow chip and grumbles, who wants to play your stoopid game anyways...



It's possible to live "comfortably" on Open Source or Creative Commons licensed art. Red Hat and similar industries actually employ people even though anyone can copy their software. It's also possible to keep and control your own copyrighted creations even when you are working for sharks. I believe all artists should take an aggressive stance against the sharks.

This battle over copyrights has very little to do with artists, it's mostly about the sharks.

[randome]

134. Interesting perspective.

Thanks for sharing it.

[joshcryer]

3. Not only that, but independent publishing (digitally) continues to go up.

Removing the thieving middlemen who want to take an artists rewards. Eventually even movies and actor jobs are going to be replaced by digital tools (Machinima), it's basically the only outcome. Paying an actor $10 million to be in a movie, pay for their food, their little trailer, then having to deal with them sleeping 8-10 hours a day, paying for camera people, paying for lighting people, the entire economics of making movies (and TV shows and any moving image media) is going to end.

[joshcryer]

11. We are no where near there, yet, 10-15 years, though.

http://www.sintel.org/

http://www.bigbuckbunny.org/

http://orange.blender.org/

When we're there, you'll know, I won't have to tell you. The mind share is going to absolutely explode.

[Occulus]

78. Thank you.

I love Blender.

[Warren DeMontague]

13. Interesting that you can't come up with an example from the last 20 years.

That's because the shitwits in the boardroom are making all the decisions, entirely based on bottom line, plugging asinine formulas together to calculate gross ticket sales.

(Fill in the blanks: Tom Cruise, Giant Robots, Comic Book Superheroes, SEQUELS!!!!, 1970s Cartoon/TV Show/Board Game, 2 Car Chases, 12 big explosions, and 3 Farrelly Brothers Shit/Vomit Scenes=56.7 Million Dollars! Guaranteed!)

The creative people like the guy who once upon a time made Star Wars (and NOT the guy who later foisted Jar Jar Binks on us. Please) aren't in Hollywood making big budget films. The smarter ones are working for cable channels like AMC.

[JackRiddler]

23. A travesty that defiled the books. No question

the world wouldn't have missed a thing without it.

More relevantly, what's your complaint? Didn't LOTR make its targeted BILLIONS?

[joshcryer]

32. This is not "situational." This is classic socialist property critique.

Non-possessed property, from that perspective, is theft.

[JackRiddler]

45. Yes exactly: Anything that ISN'T producing revenue privately is costing something to someone.

Any notional profit fantasy not extracted is stealing from someone - someone who will then lack the capital to give us more precious jobs!

National parks are theft! International waters are theft! Public schools are theft! Unfought wars are theft!

[Warren DeMontague]

141. I'm a creative person and I am strongly supportive of intellectual property rights

but I do think the music and film industries have been behaving like dinosaurs; responding badly, if at all, to new technology. Music has adapted somewhat, movies I suspect will too.

Different world, we need different approaches to content and compensation.

And this does not have to adversely affect the artists- I'm a Deadhead, the Dead are a classic example of an artist which developed a different relationship to their fans and their intellectual property (re: taping of shows) and net, it paid off for them. I think.

[limpyhobbler]

186. This makes sense to me too

Hollywood should bend a little. They should adapt to modern technologies to make money.

[joshcryer]

152. Yeah, but I mean, look at the Bieber example:

Bieber, does unlicensed performances of music, gets really popular, even makes a few bucks through advertising and going around to talk shows before making a music deal. Gets really rich, very likely pays back the performers whose work he covered. He can afford it, no one cares, doesn't make a blip.

Hypothetical: Sally from down south does some wonderful covers of music, gets a bunch of hits but she doesn't turn on revenue sharing because she just wants to share the music, she loves singing, playing music, and she does revenue sharing with songs that she wrote herself. The original performer then sues Sally for an unlicensed performance of a copyrighted work. It's theft, basic extortion.

In real life, we can go around singing songs to one another, even in public, and we aren't usually stopped by the copyright police and told to stop performing or pay up. Yet that is precisely the type of society "intellectual property" asks of us. And that's why "intellectual property" itself is theft, full stop, do not pass go, do not collect $100. To force someone to pay you for something that they themselves did not do, either labor that you did that they get more benefit from (wage slavery), or a house that they're not living in (rent), is theft. And it's 100% consistent, it's in no way "situational."

[JackRiddler]

199. Geez, why did Tesha make such an effort...

to delete all posts from this thread, leaving it basically as half of an argument against Tesha's persistent pro-MPAA/SOPA-PIPA position?

[JackRiddler]

42. "Is your morality so situational?"

Last edited Sat Jan 21, 2012, 12:56 PM - Edit history (1)

Please tell me how the entirely theoretical idea that one of the highest grossing franchises of all time may have lost a proportion of its revenues (as estimated in the fantasy of its owners) is any kind of moral priority.

I'm not saying it's okay if "a few billion in potential sales" were lost to copyright infringement, because that would accept your extremely dubious claim that anything was lost. I'm saying it's an uprovable and absurd assertion and almost certainly exists only in the fantasy of the property owners.

Since the idea that the owners have suffered from making only some billions rather than all billions they would have liked is laughable, there are higher moral priorities and anyone who wants to push this fantasy has their priorities seriously out of order.

[Warren DeMontague]

140. Yeah, I would have been disappointed in you if you hadn't come up with that. Occurred to me, too.

The exception that proves the rule, also probably the premier cinematic achievement of the past 12 years. Bar none.

(I also thought Avatar was damn cool. So, sue me)

Still, you had a confluence of clearly contra-industry forces going into that thing, plus New Zealand.

But, still, I agree with you. Those 3 movies were exceedingly well executed.

[Warren DeMontague]

144. The way to see Avatar is in an IMAX 3D setting, IMHO. So the piracy issue is moot, there.

I don't support 'rampant piracy' but I do support industry adapting to technology and reality. Trying to stuff the genie back in the bottle isn't going to work. And like I said, I'm a creative person too and strongly supportive of intellectual property rights.

[Occulus]

79. Speaking of those exact films,

how do you feel about it when a high school marching band uses music from them for their halftime show?

Now imagine them doing that show in competition. I can personally guarantee you that high school music departments are most definitely not paying the licensing fees associated with the public performances of, say, John Williams' music.

Is that "theft"?

[Occulus]

84. No, music directors have and are known to send to the publisher for a "review copy" of the score

which is then arranged without permission for the performance. This is because the canned arrangements for this or that piece are not necessarily balanced to the instrumentation of the group performing the licensed and copyrighted works. They might be written in an undesirable key, be too long or too short, have a bad transition from Part I of the show to Part II, and so on. Much of the time, the original holders of the copyright for the music have no idea that it is being publicly performed at all.

In particular, the drumline and sideline percussion scores are usually re-written in whole, because the publishers know jack about actual drumline parts. High school and college groups do this last all the time. Without permission, by the way, and in direct defiance of the "this music may not be altered or re-arranged without prior permission from the publisher" statement at the bottom of every last page. I have seen this done many times myself.

This was going on well before the internet became a matter of public knowledge, and continues to this day. Often, the performers themselves are fully cognizant of the fact that the parts have been completely rewritten.

"High School Bands don't generally march to some notes joted down by somebody on staff paper."

On the contrary- that is exactly what many of them do- the good ones, anyway. The music is rearranged to a fare-thee-well. Without permission.

[Occulus]

110. "Re-arranging, by the way, is acceptable."

Actually, many a score forbids exactly that in writing.

The entire practice is very common. My point is that if we were to hold schools to the same standards you yourself advocate, we wouldn't have halftime shows and competitions that are nearly as interesting (and educational, for the performers) as they are today. The "this music may not be altered" is very routinely ignored for these purposes, and nobody bats an eye, ever.

[randome]

113. But the copyright holders CAN 'bat an eye' if they want.

I think that's the point. It would be exceedingly poor PR to object to a high school band's rendition of some copyrighted song.

Hey, I download stuff all the time but I don't make excuses for it. It's free.

[Fearless]

192. Not if it's used for an educational purpose...

That falls under "fair use".

[Fearless]

194. I said educational purposes. Like in a classroom teaching students.

[Dash Riprock]

147. What about libraries?

If I donate a book to the library and they lend it out the writer and the publisher doesn't receive compensation. If I barrow a book from the library, the same thing applies, no one gets compensated. Lets close down all libraries.

[joeglow3]

149. Your library hands out every book made for free to everyone in the world?

Awesome. Where is it?

[reorg]

165. Yes, libraries hand out every book for free

Publishers are required by law to provide a "legal deposit" of every single publication including newspapers, electronic publications and reprints to their respective national libraries which will hand them out to everyone for free who bothers to get a library card. They even provide reading rooms.

http://www.bl.uk/
http://www.loc.gov/index.html
http://www.d-nb.de/
http://www.bnf.fr/fr/acc/x.accueil.html

[joeglow3]

169. Kick ass. I have about 500 books I want for free

I can send you a check for shipping. Please send them to me so I can keep them forever.

Thanks for the heads up.

[joshcryer]

170. Quite a civilized system they have over there. We need to adopt it.

[wandy]

91. Yes but theirs something more to this than just copy protection.

Someone with a camera phone can produce 'Pepper Spray Cop'. The current perposed laws could also protect that type of intelectural property. Censorship is censorship, pure and simple.

[wandy]

114. Then something has changed. Back when I was a young fool, rather than old fool, I was somewhat of a

truibadore/song writer. You had to package up notes and lerics with a check for 25 bucks and send it off to the copyright office.
Shortly there after you you got a nifty 'proof of copyright'. My employer did own any IP I created white papers and all, but hell they were paying me.
My problem with the current perposed laws is that if the 'logo' on 'pepper spray cop's' uniform holds either a copyright or trade mark the video could be taken down. Censorship in the name of copy protection is still centureship. Don't think for a minute that SOPA or IP wouldn't be used that way.

[randome]

115. Of course SOPA would be used for illegitimate purposes.

Give too much power to corporations and they will abuse it.

But I see the point that they want to protect their revenue streams in some way. SOPA was a bad way to go about it and it got shot down.

[wandy]

132. Proof. Yes, yes, in case of dispute.

Think 'my sweat loard' and 'hes so fine'. Theirs a lot going on in this thread. Good it came up. Now think for a minute about SOPA. What if someone were to add to their append all rights reserved? No I don't have a clue what might happen. Then and agan that's the problem when laws are not clear.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

124. In one thread, you maintain that copyright infringement is not theft and that providing services is?

I'm afraid I find that hard to take seriously.

[joshcryer]

153. Where is that stated?

[Donald Ian Rankin]

168. Posts #2 and #3.

"Copyright infringement is not theft."

"Removing the thieving middlemen who want to take an artists rewards."

[joshcryer]

173. Ahh, you think that in a modern world with digital distribution middlemen are necessary?

Why don't you look at Louie CK's actions where the middlemen didn't get a big chunk of the distribution proceeds.

[joshcryer]

4. BTW, companies like Adobe, Microsoft, etc, *profit more* from piracy.

If it wasn't for young students or just amateurs learning on their software, which they didn't pay for, the software would have to be pushed in other ways. In that vein they maintain their monopoly, because the learners, the students, the people who later go on to use their software in a professional capacity, will be forced to use their software in a commercial, professional environment.

[JackRiddler]

46. Bad behavior! Bad, bad, badbadbadbadbad!

[joshcryer]

55. These companies used sitewide licenses for a reason, made the software very easy to copy...

...and basically everyone got a hold of it. Photoshop would not be where it was were it not for 1) them pushing teachers to use the software in their classes 2) students pirating the software 3) student discounts for the software (which is itself hilarious when students can by thousand dollar software, somehow, magically, without hurting the companies bottom line, for a tenth what is charged to a civilian or a company).

[joshcryer]

154. I'm quite familiar with it, and it shows that the bottom line is not harmed by student discounts.

Or piracy.

[wandy]

93. This is called 'Quack'. The software you learned how to use first will likley be you're favorite.

As when a duckling haches the first thing that quackes at it becomes it's mother. Why do you think Windoz will sometimes come with a limited version of Office? Microsoft goes so far as to provide free viewers for most office file types.
Office is just one example. I used Office at work. Now retired with my own business 'open office' just didn't cut it (personal prefrence,, quack). I realy didn't want to give Microsoft the bucks, but at least the spell checker works.

[Warren DeMontague]

10. The movie industry has done a bang up job of fighting piracy by refusing to make movies good enough

that anyone would go to the fucking trouble of downloading them from a bittorrent website in sweden, or whatever.

Seriously. The real interesting narrative stuff has been happening on cable tv, for years, tv being (while still subject to copyright laws, etc) subject to an entirely different delivery medium with certainly a more accesible and advertising as opposed to premium payment (with the exception of channels like HBO, which also seems to be doing just fine regarding having many people- like myself- consider it worth paying for).

Movies just suck ass these days. These "war on piracy" moves are coming from the same people who expect to shovel boardroom-produced crap out to the masses who they believe will happilly shell out big bucks to gobble up the worst, cheesiest, lamest forms of dumbed-down "entertainment" until the end of time.

That applies to the film industry and it applies to the music industry as well. The interesting shit has always come from the rule-breakers and people on the edge, not the bean counters trying to protect the bottom line.

[joshcryer]

14. I think what's going to be amazing is when books start beind readapted into movies...

...or TV shows by the commons. It's going to result in a lot of lawsuits, but I think by the time it's possible the elites in Hollywood will start to do it themselves, and they'll adapt to an absurdly low charge to get there. Like a buck per show or something like that.

I'm reminded here of "Everything Is A Remix":

[sendero]

15. The thing they like to do is..

... claim that 100,000 people downloaded their (song/movie/software/whatever) and that the retail price of the whatever was $20 so therefore they lost $2,000,000.

Of course that is patently ridiculous. Someone might grab something for free that they wouldn't even pay $1 for. They number of sales they actually lost might be somewhere between 2% and 10% of the number downloaded.

I don't have a problem with companies taking reasonable measures to protect their intellectual property or copy rights. I just don't want legislation that gives absurdly unconstitutional powers to them.

[JackRiddler]

20. Nope! Also, let's start with the name: Piracy, my ass.

This just shows the importance of labeling, already well understood by all those who know to call themselves freedom fighters when their enemies want to call themselves terrorists.

Piracy? Really? On a level with commandeering ships and kidnapping human beings on the high seas and holding them for ransom?

It's unauthorized copying, nothing more. The worst thing it was called before MPAA and RIAA decided to unmake the digital age was bootlegging. And long before then, these culturally regressive private self-appointed institutions of the nanny-state were also trying to criminalize tens of millions of people for using magnetic tape!

The summary shutdown of megaupload shows there are already enough laws on the books written to protect these rapacious corporate goons' sense of "property." SOPA goes beyond allowing multiple governments to seize the assets of the company and its principals by surprise, exactly as they did, by creating the additional capacity to persecute EVERYONE for mentioning the existence of megaupload or having it come up in a search!

Meanwhile artists and soapboxers who would have never seen corporate distribution speak to the world and find audiences thanks to Internet, digitalization and social media. We're supposed to worry about Disney and Newscorp and the pre-fab pap they push at us from every platform and channel and their ludicrous fantasy that if you inadvertantly have Justin Bieber or Kim Kardashian appear on your screen you should be forced to pay. Begone, beasts!

.

[MichaelMcGuire]

28. My view

On the topic in general is summed up nicely from this video posted

Gaiman on Copyright Piracy and the Web

It also applies to music, very few artists that I liked. I didn't first listen to on Youtube or from a friends CD before buying and or their other works.

[joshcryer]

34. "It's people lending books."

Pretty much. Sharing things is never a bad thing. There is no net loss to society by sharing. Period.

[joshcryer]

54. Did you watch the video?

It is precisely like lending out a book. If I lend a book that I read to you I've already got the contents of that book stored in my head. I'm giving you a copy, albeit an irretrievable and lossy copy, but that's the same with analog mix tapes (which degrade over time).

[joeglow3]

64. But, how do I justify getting free shit, then?

[joshcryer]

157. You might have a remote point if I didn't already say I would willingly give my shit away for free.

[joeglow3]

161. Ahhh. The argument of "give me yours cause I would give you mine (if I had some)"

Sorry, that shit may have worked in 2nd grade, but not as adults. As I asked above, what have you produced that others are lining up for?

I would bet my life savings not a damn thing. But, since you would (if you managed to create said hypothetical object), your should get everyone else's shit for free.

[joshcryer]

167. Tell ya what, I'll let you know when I do, and you can apologize profusely for making it personal...

...rather than having a coherent debate.

[joeglow3]

171. You made it personal when you said what YOU would do.

Then, a coherent debate requires me to point out the reasoning for your view. It is easy for someone who has never created anything that millions want to say they would give it away for free, so everyone who has created something should give it to you.

Will you gladly pay be Tuesday for a free song today?

[joshcryer]

172. Post #63 is where you started making it personal.

The discussion has never been about property rights between you and I, you've been derisive and mocking the entire time.

I have submitted code patches to software, sometimes it wasn't accepted, I spent months on software that actually went under when the team blew up.

The key is that I've yet to be digitally successful, but I'm writing a book and I'll put it on TPB and you'll see just how wonderful the whole process is because people will willingly pay for the book because I'm open to alternate distribution methods. And if it's not successful? No harm no foul.

[joshcryer]

155. You didn't watch the video.

[wandy]

94. Ahh but back in the day their were tape deks that used 1/2 inch tape and moved 30 ips.

In a readio station the 'copy' would have better quality than the orignal vinel after the vinel was played a few times. And their were no phisical restrictions on the number of casetts that could be maid from that tape. In short. Same as it allways was.

[wandy]

118. As good as digital is. I still miss that old monster tascam.

And in a studio it was. What they are so worred about protecting now a day is 'cookey cutter', porley recorded, distributed in mp3 format so compressed that it almost makes you miss casettes. Streets of gold, feet of clay. And to think Dark Side of the Moon was recorded on 16 tracks using half inch tape.
As a side note, you probably know about DVD duplacators, have you ever seen a casette duplacator. Of course it required an operator.

[wandy]

128. I er... ah..... fold? Haveing never met one of thes things up close and personal, as in

it's broke can you fix it? I don't know if I'm gifted or robbed. The machanical adjustments must have been a zoo. Tempture, heck, not hot enough it wouldn't transfer; too hot it would melt the backing. Sure as heck the backing couldn't be acitata. Then it hade to slice and dice the tape at the right place and load it onto the casette. Little clips and all! Robbed. Defitnely robbed.
Somehow I don't think you're advrage bootleger could afford one of these, but then again where theirs a greed theirs a way.

[MichaelMcGuire]

92. Sure, who doesn't.

The best way in my view to combat online piracy is to offer services that are better, rather than making criminals out of kids for uploading/downloading bits of cartoons e.g Spotify is a good example, its even offers a free service.

SOPA and PIPA I believe has little to do with piracy and more about endangering free and independent promotion of products, increasing the dominance of large companies and the censorship of the channels of promotion. Youtube for example is the 2nd largest means of searching, and uploading products and a way for small independent music or game companies to level the playing field, its also a means of reviewing products and further promotion.

[bitchkitty]

33. Photoshop = $699 n/t

[JackRiddler]

48. "Do you think that argument would fly?"

In court, it wouldn't.

Do you think everyone in the world should view everything at all times from the perspective of a diamond company, or a South African judge?

More to the point, do you think the state should get unlimited access to everyone's IP records to allow it to fish for "crimes" as defined by the MPAA-RIAA? If the price of stopping copying (your "piracy&quot is an expanded surveillance and police state, do you think that's worth it?

[joshcryer]

56. I use gimp.

And it's cost is non-zero, the cost to pay for my bandwidth, that is, the monthly fee / time to download is measurable.

[Occulus]

100. Actually, if you want to take it that far,

there are in fact several ISPs that are initiating data caps due to services like Netflix. Under such plans, free software is demonstrably no longer free; the download quota for your internet connection can easily be reached through daily use of Netflix combined with online gaming and YouTube (particularly if one does not have cable television), and every download, be it open source or paid digital product, counts against that limit. Commonly, once a monthly download quota has been reached (and it is very easy to do, even with a 20GB/mo limit), you pay extra... even for free software.

Download caps are very bad for another reason. As a Steam user, I can create copies of any Steam game for installation in case of a connection outage, travel, etc. I don't, because I happen to be lucky enough to have an ISP that has no download caps; I can grab both Rage and Skyrim (dozens of gigabytes) in a single day and my ISP doesn't bat an eye. However, Steam users who do have those download caps have to consider how badly they want the product they have paid for, lest they pay their ISP extra for the privilege of accessing content to which they have a right.

Speaking of content to which one has a right, there's a another serious problem on the software side: DRM. When the game "Bioshock" was released, a user could only install the game three times, ever, on the same PC. That's lifetime installs, by the way- it was an anti-piracy measure. The outrage, fully justified, ran thick and fast on online forums, the game's own discussion boards, and even in editorial reviews from top magazines. The limit was initially raised to five before being done away with altogether, but even so, some users had trouble activating their game and the DRM interfered so much with others' PCs that they were unable to play the game at all. "Pirates". on the other hand, had none of these issues; they were able to play the game with no issues from the day of release. In that case, the only people that were harmed or stopped from playing "Bioshock" were legitimate, paying customers. The only way to be guaranteed you had a working copy was to "pirate" it.

Last fall, I found myself in a similar situation when I tried to install my digital copy of EA's "Mirror's Edge". I had to actually call the publisher and ask them nicely to allow me to play the game I had paid for because none of their install-count resets and deauthorization tools were working. Thankfully, they complied without question, but what if they had not? I would be left out $60 because I was a good customer who actually paid for the content, but which the publisher would not allow me to access. What happens when EA folds? Do I suddenly no longer have access to what I've paid for? Do I "trust" that they'll release some tool that allows me to circumvent their own anti-piracy measures? Or do I "pirate" the game, even though I have a perfectly legitimate copy, knowing that I may one day need that "pirate" copy?

Situations like the ones I describe above are real-world cases, cases that demonstrate perfectly the absolute need to reassess current copyright and IP law. They demonstrate that, far from being the evil bane so many see it as, software "piracy" can at times be the only way to access material that has in fact been bought and paid for.

[bitchkitty]

67. I didn't say steal it, I merely told the OP

that the price is $699, not $400. Too much coffee this morning?

And for the record, Gimp SUCKS in comparison to Photoshop.

[joshcryer]

159. Not with a dual monitor setup. GIMP was doing stuff that Photoshop...

...didn't get until the latest releases.

[bitchkitty]

197. Whatever.

If I had only had Gimp before I retired, I would have starved.

[wandy]

98. Good point on two scores. Their is plenty of good freeware/shareware out their.

In some cases better than the actual product offering. An additional benifet is you're imput may be taken seriousely. You may pay some small price. Sometimes that price may be being the first person to test you're request.
Sometimes deBeers isn't the best place to get errings.
Check these folk out.......
http://sourceforge.net/

[joshcryer]

160. Now, go to Top Downloads and note the most downloaded software (see: all piracy releated in top 5):

http://sourceforge.net/top

Fun huh?

Piracy and free / open software go hand in hand. They just won't admit it because the basic concept is sharing which is good for society, not bad.

[wandy]

195. Hay now, I wasn't making any moral judjments here.......

Some people get down right nervous about 'bandana' wrap software. Just pointing out alternitives.
Now where did I put that eye patch.

[Edweird]

44. FYI - musicians have always made their money through touring and merchandising.

[JackRiddler]

47. Except for a minority during a limited period who made it by selling recordings.

And now that this temporary state of affairs is turning at least a touch obsolete, a police state must be justified to assure continued revenues for Disney & Metallica!

[limpyhobbler]

180. yeah that's true

You're right of course.

I just meant that now that companies don't sell as many record albums anymore, an even greater part of music artist income has to come from touring and merchandise.

[Edweird]

185. If you are signed to a major label the odds of you ever seeing a dime from unit sales

Last edited Sun Jan 22, 2012, 03:27 AM - Edit history (1)

are extremely low. It has always been that way. The label 'fronts' you the money for everything and you have to repay it all out of royalties before you get anything. The performers making money on unit sales are the ones that consistently fill sports arenas and have done so for a while - but they already have more money than god (because they can fill sports arenas and *THAT* is where you make your money) The artists don't even own the recordings - the label does. Sharing music files does not hurt artists - it actually helps them. Especially less well known musicians. They need exposure and the internet is not under the control of record labels like corporate radio is. The only entities hurt by file sharing are the predatory record labels. I feel no sympathy for them.

[baldguy]

51. Acquiring "intellectual property" by copying it is almost older than dirt.

I'm reminded of the Ptolemies & the Great Library of Alexandria:

In addition to buying books, the Ptolemies acquired books through plunder. It is widely reported that upon entering the Alexandrian harbor, ships were inspected, and any books they were carrying were seized.[92] A copy was made and given to the original owner, but the original was kept for the Great Library.[93] It was though such means that the Great Library amassed its large collection.

http://unllib.unl.edu/LPP/phillips.htm

[baldguy]

75. But nobody argued that the original owners were being deprived of their rightful property, either.

The copies they got back were often better than the original.

[spanone]

59. it's a reality. not a matter of opinion. it's a little problem if they're not stealing your stuff.

[joeglow3]

60. Translation: I can justify stealing so I can have free shit.

Bill Maher summed it up perfectly yesterday.

[tammywammy]

85. +1 n/t

[Logical]

96. +1000 I am amazed how many people on DU justify stealing music and videos.

[limpyhobbler]

181. That's an inaccurate translation. The post did not justify stealing.

I said:
"Piracy may be a little problem, but don't let politicians blow it out of proportion. We have much bigger issues facing our country."

How you get from that to "I like to steal so I can get free shit", is beyond me.

To me what you did there it seems like a cheap shot that was not addressing the original post, but turning it into something else that you would rather argue against by making fun of it.

My post was questioning how much public resources we should spend fighting the war on copyright infringement. Which I made quite clear by comparing it to the war on drugs. That is greatly different than justifying stealing.

[Edweird]

189. Music sharing doesn't hurt the artists. I realize that doesn't fit your 'wagging finger' narrative

but....... well, I don't care.

[Hippo_Tron]

191. More people justify stealing so they can have free shit, than you think, though...

Ever taken a pen from work and not returned it? Same concept.

[redqueen]

65. I think probably yes.

I don't remember the figures, but apparently the top selling artists used to sell a lot more albums before the wholesale stealing started. The albums that were at the top of the charts, I mean.

[fascisthunter]

76. Piracy? You mean like the corporations who overcharge for services and products...

...or the banks sucking this World dry?

Piracy is a symptom of a great rip-off.

[fascisthunter]

83. no, you haven't... and until you do, this crap will continue

you tried, but it isn't going to be enough. The industry created this issue and now we are having to possibly give up more of our rights so these fuckers can bleed us dry. And I'm not talking about the REAL CREATIVE folks who make these products possible, I'm talking about the middlemen and women who live off of others ideas and work. You can smugly respond to a post of mine all you want, but I'm not the problem, nor is my argument.

Now that this is becoming more of a political partisan issue, I expect people to defend draconian actions of our government to once again serve the 1%.

[Zax2me]

86. Artists and free expressionists are being hurt. Not just mega corporations.

It's like the little guy is being viewed as simple sideline fodder.
As always.

[frazzled]

97. I completely agree with you

But try getting anyone here to see that point of it. A Facebook friend who is a fairly well known artist nationally, posted to this effect yesterday ("Do you, or someone you know hope to make a living as a creator of music, art, movies, whatever? If so, please take a breath and consider that the fuss about SOPA may not be as black and white as it seems. ...), and cited David Pogue's article in the NYT yesterday: http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/put-down-the-pitchforks-on-sopa/

Didn't get a good response.

I was shocked the other day (the blackout day!) to see posted on a prominent national blog, a link to a you tube video of a full-length feature by a well-known documentary filmmaker (I'm not giving names here). It was a horribly degraded (awful sound and picture), clearly unauthorized version of a film that has been out of circulation for years, because its maker was unhappy with the color correction, though plans to re-release it on DVD in the future. I was gobsmacked that the blog host saw no problems with linking to this obviously pirated film, without seeing whether the artist sanctioned it. It's not even about money or sales: it's about artists' rights to control the use of their own images.

We have an entire generation that dismisses artists rights. Some really care about their work being copied badly or used in inappropriate ways. Or that they are getting no fees. Some don't care, and think it's a way to generate more interest. But it's the copyright owners who should decide.

[randome]

102. We're in a period of glacial change.

You make a very good point BUT the nature of digital information means it will always be possible to circumvent copyright laws. Always.

It doesn't matter how much someone might point out that it's unethical or 'wrong' to copy others' works, it is just the reality we have today that pirated copies of stuff are too easy to disseminate.

I don't know, maybe some other kind of artistic expression needs to be undertaken, something that can't be so easily copied and distributed. Maybe film and recorded music will die. If they do, I know this: something else will take their place.

It's human nature.

[wandy]

121. Theirs allways makeing a copy for the joy of makeing a copy.

As you said it's human nature. If I run across something I can't copy it's all out war! Crank up the trace utility, get out the hex editors and disk inspectors. I may never watch the movie or listen to the CD but; damit I copied it. I get the same way around Malware. So you want to play rough? Make my day.
Hay even us old farts have to keep our skills sharp!

[randome]

123. You're only old if you think you are!

[ronnie624]

87. They sure picked a good label for it.

'Piracy'.

Ooh, scary. It almost makes me want to pass a law or something.

[Logical]

95. One of the worst uninformed posts I have ever read. Not even worth countering.

[JackRiddler]

103. One of the most powerful rebuttals ever made. It needs no elaboration!

[Occulus]

105. Bioshock.

"Pirates" were the only ones guaranteed to be able to even install the game immediately after release because of the DRM chosen to eliminate "piracy". Paying customers? They got three installs, ever, for life.

[gulliver]

116. It's a serious problem if you are the one whose IP is being stolen.

I think we want people to be able to make a good living producing the music, movies, and software we like. Stealing from them is wrong. But I don't think a draconian solution like SOPA/PIPA is the answer. It's a really bad idea. I think one answer is to persuade the people on the ethical merits.

For example, Obama could try to make the case in a speech...very, very delicately while ruling out SOPA/PIPA overreactions. I think if our leaders (government and otherwise) just appealed to people's natural ethics and pride, a big drop in IP theft would result.

The other side of the coin is to make examples of people who engage in this form of petty theft. You're probably not going to get caught, but if you do, major nightmare.

Those two together would help bring the problem under control, imo. I think if you try to be purely adversarial, then people take pleasure in stealing from you.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

117. Only to the 1%ers. I think its a fair trade off vs. guilotines. n/t

[alphafemale]

119. I'm dumbfounded by the people who will actually BUY bootleg video of a movie shot with a cellphone.

Crappiest quality EVER.

Dude, wait two months spend a little more and you can have it high quality on DVD or Blu-Ray.

[wandy]

122. +1 Right with you on this one.

[TheKentuckian]

136. A lot of that is people who saw the movie at the theatre

Sometimes more than once (at like $11 a pop now) and also go on to buy the DVD when it later becomes available.

In any event, there are almost zero people that actually would ever buy the DVD (and certainly not the Blueray) that get the copy you describe that do not go on to buy the real McCoy.

Some of us are big time repeat viewers of what we really like and simply can't do what we did twenty and thirty years ago and see something over and over again in the theatre.

Low quality bullshit should be seen as promotional and the greatest concern being dilution of the vision rather than a loss. No one desiring a refrerence copy of a movie accepts such stuff as a solution.

The logic of creating law to capture some theoretical trickle of a loss of potential revenue is dubious interpretation of the concept of a limited government. Hell, it can be argued that in spots the status quo is too restrictive or at times nonsensensical like when the artist ends up for various odd reasons restricted from performing their own work.

Until there is common sense applied and the bizzaro pitchforks and torches mob mentality in Congress, ACORN style stops, the only way to have anything resembling a decent outcome is to just flat out oppose all new legislation.
By common sense I mean applying two tests and having to at least get one to be considered "piracy", loss of actual not potential property/profit or the person doing the taking making a tangible profit without due compensation.

As is any such potential effort seems destined to actually damage the rights of more of us than it protects.

It is also silly and disconnected from reality in the present context of our national problems and no they can't walk and chew gum because they can't even walk. The response to such fucked up priorities from people it seems know less than the average six year old on the subjects being discussed should be donations to primary candidates, a PAC to fund one, or the opposition as appropriate. The stakes are to high for such ring in nose dumbassery, there is no way this gang of know nothings calling for "nerds" to come in and explain the whole thing ground up actually give a fuck about any of this enough to write any legislation or have any actual concerns and as such are suspect both in motivation and in the actual legislative content they push.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

120. Aaaarrrgh! Swing 'em from the nearest yaaardarm!

"Because I do it with one small ship, I am called a terrorist. You do it with a whole fleet and are called an emperor."
A pirate, from St. Augustine's "City of God"

[Raffi Ella]

135. right.

well, I think we're in the hey day of the net. In 20 years we'll all be reminiscing about when you could just right click and take whatever you wanted. I agree that there are much bigger issues we should be discussing and we did have quite the effect with our push back blackouts but the way it is now? it really is too good to be true.

[Prophet 451]

137. I'm with you

This is all about studio execs not making quite the mind-boggling level of profits they want to. If the artist puts up a website, I'll buy their music directly from them (and do, frequently) and be happy doing so but I'll be damned if I'm going to pay the inflated prices the studios want me to pay. I only have a few downloaded movies/tv shows. I downloaded those because I'd happily be pre-ordering them if they ever got a release in this country (England). Me downloading those shows is not costing the studio a penny when they won't release the damn thing anyway.

I'm a big comic book fan for comic books were, for years, even worse than TV for not releasing stuff. For many years, the only way to read Miracleman/Marvelman (one of the earliest works by two of the most important writers in the game, Alan Moore and Neil Gaiman) was by downloading it because no-one was sure who owned the copyright. Thankfully, that's been sorted out now but it's still the case for most comics that, while enjoyable, weren't as important. Most of the Avengers books printed in the Eighties can only be gotten by downloading. Again, love to have the trades but Marvel won't release them. Same goes for most pre-Dark Knight Batman books and don't even ask about minor characters or the quirky little oneshots that both companies used to put out. If I want to read those, I have no choice but to download them. DC and Marvel are starting to catch on. They've gone day-and-date digital (digital release on the same day as hard copy) and they're very slowly digitising making their back catalogue but indie comics, forget it. I either have to order the trade from the States if it ever got a trade release or I have to download them.

I appreciate that comic books is probably not what people think of when they say "piracy" but it's a situation where the industry's refusal to move pretty much forced us to pirate the work for years. When Marvel gets around to releasing trade paperbacks for the whole of Avengers: West Coast, I'll happily delete my downloaded copies but right now, comics are at the same level music was a few years back: Very limited and patchy digital distribution and only for the biggest names.

[ZombieHorde]

138. Many people don't like to think of themselves as thieves, but many of them are theives.

If you illegally download anything, you are thief. I am not saying don't be a thief, but I am saying you should be honest with yourself.

By "you," I don't mean limpyhobbler, I mean people who illegally download stuff. You're a thief.

[randome]

139. Does downloading something make you a thief?

Or does the sharing -and therefore dissemination- of copyrighted material make you a copyright violator?

I think the law provides for a distinction between downloading ahd sharing. Otherwise, you could go to jail for inadvertently buying counterfeit jeans in China, for instance.

That being said, I realize how torrents work. You are nearly always automatically sharing something while you download it. Just wanted to make the distinction between downloading and sharing.

[taught_me_patience]

145. Tell that to hundreds of my collegues laid off

in part, due to piracy. Piracy is a huge problem and is destroying good jobs right here in the United States.

[limpyhobbler]

146. what industry is that?

[taught_me_patience]

182. I work in the home video department of a major studio. n/t

[wandy]

148. My dear captian limpyhobbler; thank you for opening this lovley can of worms...

You have done a man's job. It doesn't matter what side of the 'moral' equasion you are on, we need talk of internet fredom. Nothing less than our freedom of speach is at stake here. Well done.

[Mosaic]

163. RFS 9: Kill Hollywood

Hollywood appears to have peaked. If it were an ordinary industry (film cameras, say, or typewriters), it could look forward to a couple decades of peaceful decline. But this is not an ordinary industry. The people who run it are so mean and so politically connected that they could do a lot of damage to civil liberties and the world economy on the way down. It would therefore be a good thing if competitors hastened their demise.

That's one reason we want to fund startups that will compete with movies and TV, but not the main reason. The main reason we want to fund such startups is not to protect the world from more SOPAs, but because SOPA brought it to our attention that Hollywood is dying. They must be dying if they're resorting to such tactics. If movies and TV were growing rapidly, that growth would take up all their attention. When a striker is fouled in the penalty area, he doesn't stop as long as he still has control of the ball; it's only when he's beaten that he turns to appeal to the ref. SOPA shows Hollywood is beaten. And yet the audiences to be captured from movies and TV are still huge. There is a lot of potential energy to be liberated there.

http://ycombinator.com/rfs9.html

[Neoma]

178. I didn't know piracy was illegal until much later.

My question is this: why aren't they going after the people who gave out the pirating software in the first place? The people who started the whole mess. Why go sue obviously random poor people?

Everyone who breaks this law that I know, are people who can barely pay rent, food, college loans, car loans, or daycare costs. I've seen them fail to pay for basic needs, and it isn't a pretty sight. You know it's bad if they can't afford toilet paper.

In my experience, if I saw a song on YouTube that I liked, I buy it. Same with movies. I don't buy music CDs... It'd take up way too much space. (Already has!) But for the poor? They're lucky if they even have Internet access.

They lose money? How goddamn greedy can you be? I'd gladly put everything I create outside of the copyright law. Make fun of it, be creative yourself, who cares? I create to create, not to get money. And anyone who creates only for money, has their priorities wrong.

Notice though, it's not usually the artists who care, it's usually the corporations that produce it (and exploit the artists) that usually sue. How wrong is that picture?

Tell yourself, "It sure is better for these people to be off the streets." and see if it sounds right. Goodness, I was 13-14 when kids my age were talking about Kazaa. And you bet your ass that they didn't know copyright laws.

[joshcryer]

183. They used to, see Kazaa, Napster. It's just that there are free speech implications to...

...going after open source software. In that vein the vast majority of file sharing software has been open source, and no one wants to touch it.

Look at the cases: http://torrentfreak.com/judge-decimates-bittorrent-lawsuit-with-common-sense-ruling-110907/

They're just not able to be prosecuted.

In other news France's "three strike law" against file sharers has resulted in France tax payers giving Apple millions of dollars: http://torrentfreak.com/165-french-file-sharers-now-on-3rd-strike-itunes-up-22-5-120119/

With no significant hit to the overall sharing of files (file sharers adapt).

[Neoma]

184. I kind of meant the people...

Who made software like Napster and Kazza readily available. Download.com, Yahoo.com, Disney, Microsoft, etc, etc. There are some big industries that were making the open source software available, and they were "ironically" sueing the people who got it off their own websites.

[Aerows]

187. No, it isn't

If people are going to buy your product, they will buy it. If they aren't going to buy your product but can get it for free they may utilize it and then decide to buy it. In many cases, they had no intention of buying it in the first place, and if they hadn't have gotten it via pirating, they certainly wouldn't have paid for it. It actually works to the BENEFIT of many companies, because they get the opportunity to see how popular their product really is if there is interest in downloading it, and it can generate sales.

It has been proven time and again that the companies themselves often release pirated versions of their product, despite giving lip service to whining about piracy.

I've downloaded things that I've actually bought in the past, too. EA lost all of my licenses for my games when they went to that stupid Origins service. I don't feel badly in the slightest downloading Mass Effect again when I already paid for it once, and Mass Effect 2 that I got for free as a bonus for pre-ordering Dragon Age 2. I buy games that I like, and with the draconian DRM that some companies use, sometimes it feels nearly impossible to actually "own" a game, even if you actually paid for it.

[slay]

190. Agreed

as someone stated above - people will either buy your shit or they won't. This is about - power - and control and the mpaa and those fuckers are so used to having it - they are freaking out that they can't control the internet - to the point where they will basically destroy free speech on the internet to stop some kids from downloading a couple movies? fucking stupid. i'm glad people are putting a stop to SOPA. i'll side with the so called "pirates" over the SOPA advocates any and every time!

[hunter]

196. If I could make diamonds at home in my kitchen, De Beers would be shitting bricks...

... to get the process outlawed. The police would be kicking down your door for making diamonds.

If I could grow marijuana... Oh wait...

The profits are all in CREATING scarcity rather than abundance.

There are thousands of artists for every artist who is selected by commercial interests for commercial success, and those artists selected for commercial success are rarely among the best.

So much bullshit in this thread.

I release these thoughts and these words to the public domain. Go get'm tigers.

-- Hunter