Reply #130: You have completely missed the point

[Occulus]

In each and every case you cited- "designer clothes, accessories, and products"- there is one single physical object associated with the product. One cannot reproduce, without difference, a blouse, or purse, or pair of shoes. They are physical objects which require disparate materials to produce. We don't have replicators, like Star Trek. One shoelace is ONE shoelace, not potentially two, or three, or a dozen, or a hundred.

Moreover, I am not able to personally create such a copy; this takes many different pieces of machinery and skills in order to produce. By contrast, digital media is different; any form of digital media can be flawlessly copied- in any amount- and the only requirements are time and electricity. This is the fundamental difference between digital media and other products. Literally, theft is not possible; only unauthorized copying is possible, unless you actually delete the original content. That doesn't happen with filesharing; the content producer still has his full inventory, and full capability to sell to those who would pay.

It is the lack of willingness to authorize copying for noncommercial, private use that filesharing attempts to address. If a product reaches those who otherwise would not have been exposed to it, how does that harm the producer of the product? It does not; it in effect expands his market at no cost of advertising to him.

I would never have become interested in computer animation, for example, if a friend had not had in his posession an unauthorized copy of Maya. Since then, Alias|Wavefront has released the FREE Maya Personal Learning Edition, which is what I now use exclusively.

They learned, BECAUSE they got burned early on. However, they recognized the potential market the unauthorized distribution of their product represented, and now there is a vast learning market available to EVERYONE, because of the interest in their product exposed by the unauthorized duplication and distribution of that same product. The public domain won, and it won because of software pircay.

Good on the public domain. Better still that the presence of an unauthorized version of their software resulted in an authorized, free version. Everybody won.

(You can't tell me they didn't make Maya PLE in response to the piracy of Maya itself. It's a POPULAR $7K piece of software. While still illicitly available on the filesharing networks, many, including myself, use the free version instead of the pirated full version. <The illicit version of Maya Unlimited contains far, far more capability than any person trying to get the illicit version would need or have the hardware to take advantage of- so much so, it's an impediment to its use.> The irony is, I can thank software pirates for the very existence of the free version. I firmly believe it would not exist without the initial piracy of Maya Unlimited and other similar products in the first place.)

Think of the man walking down the street who pauses for a bus. While waiting, he hears three songs on the local radio station. He is NOT a resident of the market that station serves, does NOT patronize any of that market's advertisers, and in fact wishes to leave that station's broadcast area, for whatever reason.

The royalties paid were never intended for him to enjoy the fruits of. Does he owe a royalty to those content producers because he has no contact with the financial system supporting the music played on that station?

Why not?

Do, then, persons who ARE within the broadcast are have the right to record and play back for friends that broadcast? Why? Royalties paid were never intended for that broadcast to be recorded and then replayed for persons who missed the broadcast, yet nowhere are we seeing a push against that. Why, if royalties are so vastly important?

I buy a piece of software. It is a game, with an internal soundtrack. I wish to disable the internal soundtrack and play my ligitimately purchased CDs while playing the game instead, but in order to do so, I must get hold of a "cracked" executable that allows me to play the game without the original CD. Under the DMCA, this is illegal, even though I'm doing it for my own personal pleasure.

There is a movie I have the TV broadcast of. It contains commercials, since I recorded it with a VCR back in 1983 (!). I download the DVD rip of the content. Am I illegal, even though the content is demonstrably identical to the broadcast I already have?

The point here is, there can be seen to exist a legitimate use for even illegitimate content on the filesharing networks. Our system of copyright is FAR too intrusive and constrictive, and the filesharing networks are one response to this.

The dEA will not even agree to debate marijuana legalization. It simply refuses to address the subject. Are those who are in charge of the ability to alter copyright legislation equally nonreceptive? If they are, we MUST tolerate the existence of filesharing networks, for without the existence of legislators who are willing to consider change in copyright law, there can be no other recourse for those who believe the law is wrong.

If our legislators refuse to acknowledge that a law may be wrong, we owe it to ourselves as a public, as a people, to defy them until we can unelect them. In such an unreceptive climate, we can do nothing else unless the market responds- as it did, in that one case, with Maya.

(There are other examples. ALL of the 'big four' major 3D rendering packages- 3D Studio, Maya, Lightwave, and Softimage XSI- have free versions. This is a direct response, and a good one, to the fact that their software is pirated on a regular basis.

Those free packages are directed toward those who would not otherwise be exposed to the software, and their market has only increased as a result.)

Where, exactly, do we draw the line? Why is it okay to invade my home and tell me I 'cannot do' with X media because I don't have a license to do so (even when any license at all was hidden from me at the time of the purchase)? Who in bloody hell do content producers think they are, to think they can tell me what I may or may not do with my posessions in my own home, for which I have legitimately paid?

The claiming of ANY "rights" after the purchase by a content distributor, quite frankly, makes my blood boil. They should have NO right- no, none whatever- to prohibit ANY use of the product after the purchase has been made- INCLUDING so-called "unauthorized" copying. It shouldn't even be their choice- that should be the risk they themselves assume, AND agree to, by marketing their product.

NO CORPORATION OR INDIVIDUAL SHOULD BE ABLE TO TELL ME WHAT I MAY OR MAY NOT DO WITH PROPERTY I HAVE PURCHASED. MOREOVER, THE ACTUAL MUSIC OR SOFTWARE OR MOVIE ON THE MEDIA SHOULD BECOME MY PROPERTY, TO DO WITH AS I PLEASE, AT THE TIME OF THE PURCHASE.

Why? Because the license forbidding exactly those things was only given to me AFTER the purchase was made. Sorry, pal. You took my money, and didn't expose conditions of use until AFTER you took my money. No content producer should EVER have the right to dictate legal or illegal use after the purchase has been made without FIRST exposing what they consider to be legal and illegal use.