View Full Version : Megaupload down
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16642369
Megaupload, Megavideo and Megaporn shut down. (Though I only used the first :sweatdrop:)
The founders are charged with racketeering and money laundering. (according the article in spanish, http://www.eleconomista.es/empresas-finanzas/noticias/3683171/01/12/Cierran-Megauploadcom-Megavideo-uno-de-los-portales-mas-grandes-de-contenido-compartido-del-mundo-.html)
It's complete chaos. Hordes of people on the streets protesting. Molotov grenades are being thrown. Cars set on fire.
Also, I didn't know FBI agents had any jurisdiction on NZ, or any country outside the US, for that matter.
~Jirisys ()
Montmorency
01-19-2012, 22:37
The charges included copyright infringement, conspiracies to commit racketeering, copyright infringement and money laundering.
Heh, was that intentional?
Hooahguy
01-19-2012, 22:45
This truly sucks. Though I didnt even know the third existed.
:book2:
This truly sucks. Though I didnt even know the third existed.
:book2:
Me neither. Sucks that I won't be able to "experience" it's existence.
Heh, was that intentional?
It seems.
~Jirisys.
I saw this earlier, the first thing that ran through my head was: "Don't some people put TW mods/tools on Megaupload?"
I've never used any of those sites, so I've got only the foggiest notion of what the heck they are. I am surmising, based on my incredible brain powers (which border on spookiness), that they involve uploading and video and porn. No, this is not magic, this is just the infinite powers of my mind.
This is the owner. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Schmitz)
So uhm, while this probably hurts some of you a bit, it may be a good thing because it was owned by a huge fraudster who just wants to get rich no matter what it takes to get there.
I'm sure most people knew this and neither did I, but he owned a lot/all of these "Megaxxxx" sites and probably didn't mind whether their content was legal at all.
This is the owner. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Schmitz)
So uhm, while this probably hurts some of you a bit, it may be a good thing because it was owned by a huge fraudster who just wants to get rich no matter what it takes to get there.
He basically made a whole lot of useful (yet, annoying until you pay) sites to get rich, like any other internet businessman. I didn't really like the site to download/upload, but I can't say it wasn't useful at all. It's similar to any webhost that charges payment for a decent service. Except he was loose with the piracy thing.
And yes, many TW modders will have an extreme headache with this. And not just them. But regular users who share their (legal, for moralist) stuff.
I'm sure most people knew this and neither did I, but he owned a lot/all of these "Megaxxxx" sites and probably didn't mind whether their content was legal at all.
I don't really mind if it was pirated content, I'm more concerned with the alleged racketeering and money laundering. Hell, you can find non-Vevo songs that are copyrighted on youtube.
Also, it seems anonymous is attacking whole US entertainment/government websites in either, a response to this, or SOPA/PIPA (websites down: MPAA.org, copyright.gov, justice.gov, riaa.com)
~Jirisys ()
Twitter accounts associated with Anon clearly state the Fed's taking down Megavideo and associated sites was the cause. Justice.gov was targeted as the department of justice released a press explanation on the taking down of the afore mentioned sites for one.
Wasn't the least bit surprised. I was actually surprised there hadn't been attacks yesterday.
fbi.gov down. Prepare your internet guns.
~Jirisys ()
Crazed Rabbit
01-20-2012, 03:36
Also, I didn't know FBI agents had any jurisdiction on NZ, or any country outside the US, for that matter.
~Jirisys ()
We're the USA. We have jurisdiction wherever the corporations paying to politician's campaign funds demand we have jurisdiction.
This site was taken down without due process and people arrested on the other side of the globe without SOPA at that.
CR
The Stranger
01-20-2012, 03:40
damn... where should i get my pr0n now??? anyone suggestions? :O i might have to climb into my gf's bed again now... how embarrasing..
He basically made a whole lot of useful (yet, annoying until you pay) sites to get rich, like any other internet businessman. I didn't really like the site to download/upload, but I can't say it wasn't useful at all. It's similar to any webhost that charges payment for a decent service. Except he was loose with the piracy thing.
Selling your soul to the devil is also useful!!!! :furious3:
The more money he gets, the more power he gets over us.
And people obviously made themselves dependant on him.
Plus he's not the type of man I'd want to have any sort of power.
The making themselves dependant on a criminal bites people in the butt now as well, but as I said I had no idea who owned the service(and didn't really use it either), may not hurt to check that sort of thing in the future.
I also suppose you don't take a paycheck for your work as you seem to believe that the fruits of anyone's labour should be enjoyed by everyone for free? ~;)
And CR, that's the responsibility you bear for being the world police.
We're the USA. We have jurisdiction wherever the corporations paying to politician's campaign funds demand we have jurisdiction.
This site was taken down without due process and people arrested on the other side of the globe without SOPA at that.
CR
Without due process is the scary part.
It's also back up at a new IP.
This is what the Mayans were talking about.
The world will end due to a war fought for Internet rights.
POPA and SIPA are just the beginning. :skull:
Philippus Flavius Homovallumus
01-20-2012, 12:03
Selling your soul to the devil is also useful!!!! :furious3:
The more money he gets, the more power he gets over us.
And people obviously made themselves dependant on him.
Plus he's not the type of man I'd want to have any sort of power.
The making themselves dependant on a criminal bites people in the butt now as well, but as I said I had no idea who owned the service(and didn't really use it either), may not hurt to check that sort of thing in the future.
I also suppose you don't take a paycheck for your work as you seem to believe that the fruits of anyone's labour should be enjoyed by everyone for free? ~;)
And CR, that's the responsibility you bear for being the world police.
I don't believe that uploading of TV actually harms the industry, it's mostly US shows uploaded so everyone else can watch them 24 hours later, people will still then watch the show when it comes to their country. How do you think GLEE went viral straight after the pilot and became a sensation? Because online pirate sites said, "w think this is awsome".
Films, on the other hand, I do think pirated copies of those probably do hurt the industry, but stupid ticket prices hurt it more.
Looking at this case, my first response was, "racketeering, why?" but after reading your link maybe it is true. Even so, the charge seems suspect, because both Megavideo and "pirate tv" sites, which are now pretty mainstream, use advertising as their primary revenue suplemented by memberships, so I don't see the benefit in Megavideo paying sites to upload there when those sites will anyway unless Kim has patsies who upload illegal material and then link it to the "third party" sites, so he's basically laundering illegal content. That seems like a lot of effort for what has become a fairly organic process though.
The key will be to see if pirated tv episodes dry up on other hosting sites as well.
I don't believe that uploading of TV actually harms the industry, it's mostly US shows uploaded so everyone else can watch them 24 hours later, people will still then watch the show when it comes to their country. How do you think GLEE went viral straight after the pilot and became a sensation? Because online pirate sites said, "w think this is awsome".
Films, on the other hand, I do think pirated copies of those probably do hurt the industry, but stupid ticket prices hurt it more.
I don't think it's a bad idea for companies to make some content available for free to draw in new customers, I hesitate to buy games I never played a demo of myself.
And making things more international in business instead of constantly shutting other countries out is not helping either, I even found a song that I simply wasn't allowed to buy as a german, no link to german shops and amazon.co.uk's digital download store told me I can't buy it because of my location... That's silly, they don't even want my money. :shrug:
What I don't think however, is that people should use other peoples' work for free all the time just so they can spend more money on booze and other things that are harder to copy/steal.
And concerning the machinations and effort that go into some illegal sites, you might be surprised, they took down a site called kino.to here. Basically the site just linked to some video sites that offered illegally uploaded movies, but in the end it turned out that the owner of kino.to owned most of the sites he linked to and had staff to upload the movies to different sites according to schedules to avoid takedowns and whatnot. And the owners earned a lot of money with it. All they did was open some websites and then use other peoples' work to attract customers and get rich. Of course they put in some work themselves, but that was not why the people came to their site, that was other peoples' work who didn't get paid a cent for it.
It's interesting because wikipedia's model is similar, letting other people work to draw "customers" in, the difference is that people volunteer here so a closer "equivalent" would be a site that offers space for people to upload movies they made themselves, like youtube.
Greyblades
01-20-2012, 12:52
Personally I don't care very much that people download and/or view digital media without paying, I do it every day just from youtube, and I allways thought that attempts to stop it has been wasting more money than all the sales/reparations could ever be gained from it. But actively making money of other people's work without consent is just being a [expletive relating to a vital part of male anatomy].
Also, the 50 minute viewing for one hour waiting thing on megavideo was annoying, good riddence.
gaelic cowboy
01-20-2012, 13:32
there is quite literally only two ways out of this whole paying/pirating content arguement, they will either have to charge for data over the internet or reduce the price of content to such a low level that people dont bother to pirate it.
If films were very cheap and I'm thinking no more than 2 or 3 quid then who would bother spending an evening downloading a fuzzy copy of the next holywood blockbuster with annoying subtitles.
Basically costs will have to come down so that money can be made back on 5 euro cinema ticket or 2-3 euro download.
Greyblades
01-20-2012, 14:08
I was under the impression that the only movies that anyone bother downloading are either crystal clear HD-DVD footage or camera-hidden-in-the-cinema copies of new releases.
Also there's generaly a reason they dont release movies for internet viewing, anyone with a little technical savvy can easily record whats going on on thier screen. It would be the compaines giving pirates free HD DVD's while forcing the honest public to wait months for overpriced copies.
Edit: Whoops, I misread the last post, and the last two sentances are pointless. Still, by the time the companies are selling the DVD's the pirates would already be circulating HD versions of the movies, so unless the filmmakers were giving away movies for free most pirates would not even bother paying that 2-3 quid.
Feh. The most effective way to combat piracy, based on actual data and usage, is Netflix (http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2011/07/how_netflix_is_killing_piracy.html), not heavy-handed policing. Naturally, since Netflix is a tangible, provable tonic to the curse of piracy, the studios are doing everything in their power to kill it.
Vladimir
01-20-2012, 14:16
Yea, I wondered what was up with that. I love this quote:
In response, the hackers group Anonymous has targeted the FBI and US Department of Justice websites.
Brilliant gentlemen. :rolleyes:
We're the USA. We have jurisdiction wherever the corporations paying to politician's campaign funds demand we have jurisdiction.
This site was taken down without due process and people arrested on the other side of the globe without SOPA at that.
CR
Really people. Did you even read the article? See the above comment.
Greyblades
01-20-2012, 14:27
Feh. The most effective way to combat piracy, based on actual data and usage, is Netflix (http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2011/07/how_netflix_is_killing_piracy.html), not heavy-handed policing. Naturally, since Netflix is a tangible, provable tonic to the curse of piracy, the studios are doing everything in their power to kill it.
Heh, 10 years ago the best way to fight piracy was not to call attention to it and keep the public ignorant that there was a free, easy and painless alternative to DVD's. Naturally they went balls to the wall, batsmack crazy and yelled "pirate! pirate!" at anyone who watched thier films, bought thier videos or even watched adverts on TV.
Personally I don't care very much that people download and/or view digital media without paying, I do it every day just from youtube, and I allways thought that attempts to stop it has been wasting more money than all the sales/reparations could ever be gained from it.
It's easy on Youtube, and it got me interested in some things as well, only to find out that getting them here is either impossible or horribly expensive in some cases.
I would often listen to a song on youtube and then go and look where I can buy it online. As I said a free demo is always a good thing. Similar to how a business wants to know what they get before hiring me, I want to know what I get before buying their products.
What I find problematic are people who have to have a library of music and movies and whatnot scattered over many HDDs without paying for any of that, they don't just test stuff, they want to have all of it and pay for none of it. Not all people go to such extremes but quite a few people have a large amount of songs on their mp3 players that they listen to often and never paid for etc.
gaelic cowboy
01-20-2012, 15:11
I was under the impression that the only movies that anyone bother downloading are either crystal clear HD-DVD footage or camera-hidden-in-the-cinema copies of new releases.
and the camera in the cinema one hurts cinema ticket sales as there gernerally new realease and not on dvd yet.
Also there's generaly a reason they dont release movies for internet viewing, anyone with a little technical savvy can easily record whats going on on thier screen. It would be the compaines giving pirates free HD DVD's while forcing the honest public to wait months for overpriced copies.
naturally but as Tommy Tiernan pointed out we have heard all that before with the taping of the radio crisis. It was rubbish then and it's still rubbish now.
The solution is as Lemur has pointed out is some kind of Netflix thingy, then we can dispense with DVD/Bluray and with paymovie channels like sky movies.
Your still paying for a service but you get to watch what you want and crucially when you want, the revenue now pays for what you recieve over the internet and not for flim flam boxsets or exclusive deals with sky.
People are inherently lazy if it's cheap enough they wont bother filling dvd discs and hard drives with films recorded of there PC/TV
Greyblades
01-20-2012, 15:20
naturally but as Tommy Tiernan pointed out we have heard all that before with the taping of the radio crisis. It was rubbish then and it's still rubbish now.
Tell that to the Studios.
gaelic cowboy
01-20-2012, 15:34
Tell that to the Studios.
Half the time it is there own fault reinventing massively exspensive 3d in the hopes it would generate cinema sales (it wont) or remaking stuff that is hardly old in order to have a know brand.
Plus overpaying various actors to such an extent they dont make there money back etc etc is another one, again purely to have a know brand on board even when it makes no sense economically.
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/1205/focus-overpaid-actors-entertainment-pomerantz.html
Half the time it is there own fault reinventing massively exspensive 3d in the hopes it would generate cinema sales (it wont) or remaking stuff that is hardly old in order to have a know brand.
Plus overpaying various actors to such an extent they dont make there money back etc etc is another one, again purely to have a know brand on board even when it makes no sense economically.
http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2011/1205/focus-overpaid-actors-entertainment-pomerantz.html
That does not justify stealing their intellectual property though.
Yah, the issue is not how the studios create their products. Rather, the problem is their refusal to adapt to new delivery technologies. They can market 3D and smell-o-vision all they like. They can overpay Tom Cruise 'till the cows come home. But since their entire business was created at the turn of the last century by new technology, it's deeply ironic that they refuse, flatly refuse to modify their delivery methods to accept the new technical reality.
What's more maddening is that Netflix showed them how to do it, and all they can think to do is destroy Netflix. They should just buy Netflix, for crike's sake, not strangle it in the crib.
We've been here before. When MP3s first became a technical reality, the music industry was presented with dozens of new business models. They rejected every single one, crushed the start-ups, and generally growled to keep the other dogs away from their food bowl. It was only after years of this behavior that Napster happened. (I was a music industry journo at the time, so I had a box seat for the circus. I interviewed music execs and tech start-ups, and I watched the labels carefully, methodically dig their own graves. I asked them about it, on-record, several times. It's not as though they did not understand what was going on. They just couldn't bring themselves to make any alteration in their business model. They got what they deserved.)
Gah. I could write a 20,000 word essay on this subject, but I will spare the Org the ordeal. Let's just say that smart people do astonishingly stupid things when all of their incentives point toward stasis.
gaelic cowboy
01-20-2012, 16:13
That does not justify stealing their intellectual property though.
I didnt say it was but the reality is they need to change there idea on how much the content is worth.
I didnt say it was but the reality is they need to change there idea on how much the content is worth.
That's not how capitalism works though. They set their price and if I don't like it I don't buy it. Even if their price is unreasonable.
That's not how capitalism works though. They set their price and if I don't like it I don't buy it. Even if their price is unreasonable.
In fairness, that is how capitalism should work. The situation is a little more complicated than that.
gaelic cowboy
01-20-2012, 16:36
That's not how capitalism works though. They set their price and if I don't like it I don't buy it. Even if their price is unreasonable.
except capitalism would tell us that the most efficient way to spread content would be over the internet with cheaper actors blah blah etc etc.
Since there not doing that we can only assume they are attempting to protect a monopoly.
except capitalism would tell us that the most efficient way to spread content would be over the internet with cheaper actors blah blah etc etc.
Since there not doing that we can only assume they are attempting to protect a monopoly.
Capitalism is about people having the chance to run their business whichever way they see fit. If they want to run it into the ground with unreasonable prices they should be free to do so. It's their loss.
gaelic cowboy
01-20-2012, 17:08
Capitalism is about people having the chance to run their business whichever way they see fit. If they want to run it into the ground with unreasonable prices they should be free to do so. It's their loss.
Capitalism is about PROFIT not business, it just happens to be that business is a way to make profit.
Running your buisness into the ground is more to do with your freedom of action not your freedom to trade or do business.
Since changing to an internet model will decrease overall revenue they naturally resist it(like all monopolys)
The profit per transaction will be small initially but given enough transactions the pie would be eventually greater, plus it's more stable unlike the current hit and miss model.
In effect we will end up paying some kind of broadcast charge for all content and not a single charge for specific content.
Greyblades
01-20-2012, 17:22
That does not justify stealing their intellectual property though.
Arguable, when the victim is a groutesquely rich company, that makes hideously stupid and irrational decisions, and your actions only deprive them of a microscopic percentage of theoretical profits. Well, it's kinda easy to justify "stealing".
Arguable, when the victim is a groutesquely rich company, that makes hideously stupid and irrational decisions, and your actions only deprive them of a microscopic percentage of theoretical profits. Well, it's kinda easy to justify "stealing".
A theft is a theft.
Greyblades
01-20-2012, 17:34
No, when the victim is not actually losing anything, tangable or not, it's not legally theft.
No, when the victim is not actually losing anything, tangable or not, it's not legally theft.
A theft is acquiring something that does not initially belong to you without paying for it. It is legally theft.
Greyblades
01-20-2012, 17:50
Theft: the act of stealing; the wrongful taking and carrying away of the personal goods or property of another; larceny. (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/theft)
In common usage, theft is the illegal taking of another person's property without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theft)
Note that pirates do not actually take, they copy is make a copy of the property and leave the original.
Here's a handy diagram:
http://images.vg247.com/current//2011/03/piracytheft.jpg
Note that pirates do not actually take, they copy is make a copy of the property and leave the original.
Would you mind it terribly if I copied your credit card number? I won't take the card, I'll just copy the number. That's okay, right?
Greyblades
01-20-2012, 17:59
Sure, if you have the ability to make a copy of all my money and leave the original in its place then be my guest. Your analogy is flawed.
Also I dont have a credit card.
Sure, if you can also copy all my money and take that money to the bank. Your analogy is flawed. Also I dont have a credit card.
No, my analogy is spot on. Somebody who copies your credit card number will be a thief in the eyes of the law, even though he didn't physically take anything from you. Piracy is exactly the same thing.
Would you mind it terribly if I copied your credit card number? I won't take the card, I'll just copy the number. That's okay, right?
your example falls apart because you would use the copied credit card number to take money from his account.
even if it is a bad example I generally agree with you, piracy is theft, because you are accessing to a paid "product" without paying for it.
whoever....I think we need to take into account that the fact that a person pirates a movie, or a song, does not necessarily mean that that person would be willing or interested enough to pay for it if piracy was not an option.
so there is not a 100% conversion between piracy and loss of revenue by the producer.
some sort of compromise solution is obviously necessary, but god damn it if I know what it is.
bad for bad I think it's better to have the 'wild west' instead of shutting everything down....even for music/movie producers.
your example falls apart because you would use the copied credit card number to take money from his account.
I didn't say ANYTHING about taking his money. The very act of copying his personal info is a theft. Identity theft.
Greyblades
01-20-2012, 18:05
Piracy is exactly the same thing.
Not really, unless they have a way to make money by pirating games then it wouldn't be piracy, it would be plagerism... I think, I'm not a lawyer.
Piracy is generally defines personal use, if your analogy was truly the same thing you would be taking my creditcard number just to admire the clever choice of numbers.
I didn't say ANYTHING about taking his money. The very act of copying his personal info is a theft. Identity theft.
without taking his money it has no practical impact, and therefore no purpose...it's a logical follow-through.
without taking his money it has no practical impact, and therefore no purpose...it's a logical follow-through.
Nah. Stealing money is just one way to use stolen identity. One amongst many. For example, I steal your identity and sign you up for a bunch of gay porn.
Greyblades
01-20-2012, 18:14
What's funny is that by that logic a company like paypal could be considered committing theft by taking your credit card details so you can pay for stuff without having to go to a bank.
Nah. Stealing money is just one way to use stolen identity. One amongst many. For example, I steal your identity and sign you up for a bunch of gay porn. In which case I would be suing you for using the card number to do something annoying, not for having the info in the first place.
Nah. Stealing money is just one way to use stolen identity. One amongst many. For example, I steal your identity and sign you up for a bunch of gay porn.
that would take money out of his account.
that would take money out of his account.
Most porn comes with free trial offers.
Greyblades
01-20-2012, 18:24
Er... are we really discussing the mechanics of ordering gay porn?
Ok lets put it this way if you get my credit card number and don't do anything with it the worst thing that can happen is that I'm considered an idiot for being dumb enough to let someone find it out. If you buy something with it I can sue you for using my info to pay for stuff.
Er... are we really discussing the mechanics of ordering gay porn?
Ok lets put it this way if you get my credit card number and don't do anything with it the worst thing that can happen is that I'm considered an idiot for being dumb enough to let someone find it out. If you do something with it though I can sue you for using my info to pay for stuff.
You're missing the point: I commit the crime the moment I steal your credit card number. Even if I do nothing with it, I've committed Identity theft. Furthermore, I can *sell* that number for somebody who *will* take your money. While I technically didn't breach your bank account, I'll still be a criminal.
Greyblades
01-20-2012, 18:43
Except you can't be arrested for just knowing the number. You have to actually do something with it,typically in order to access resources or obtain credit and other benefits in that person's name. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_theft)
Heck credit card fraud is wide-ranging term for theft and fraud committed using a credit card or any similar payment mechanism as a fraudulent source of funds in a transaction. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_card_fraud)
Look at both articals, there is nothing saying that just having the card's or person's details is a crime, you have to do something with it. Its not like drugs where you can be arrested just for posession.
Incidentally it is also not like piracy in which you can be procecuted just for having the video, game, book, whatever.
Most porn comes with free trial offers.
Nope. These days it's trailers and sample pictures. Trial offers cost $3 bucks a pop. :wiseguy::whip:
Except you can't be arrested for just knowing [someone else's credit card] number
Wow, do you practice law on the whole internets or just part?
Obtaining another person's financial information in a manner that would allow you to either commit fraud or ID theft would fall under conspiracy and/or attempted theft. And yes, you could be arrested for it. Not only am I not lawyer, I don't play one on TV!
Greyblades
01-20-2012, 18:59
Wow, do you practice law on the whole internets or just part?
Obtaining another person's financial information in a manner that would allow you to either commit fraud or ID theft would fall under conspiracy and/or attempted theft. And yes, you could be arrested for it. Not only am I not lawyer, I don't play one on TV!
Yeah right, where's your wikipedia sources corroberating the point? Your not not a lawyer!
Wait...
Greyblades
01-20-2012, 19:10
Ok I posed the questions on Ask.Yahoo and the random people on teh interwebs are on my side. (http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120120100558AAdS7c5)
Ah, Yahoo answers, that font of wisdom (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/how-is-babby-formed). How is babby formed, indeed!
I like this answer: "No of course not, they will actually give you a medal. Didn't you hear about the Championship of Stealing Credit Card Numbers in 2012? You should definitely join."
Greyblades
01-20-2012, 19:19
Got a better source, genius?
Ah, Yahoo answers, that font of wisdom (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/how-is-babby-formed). How is babby formed, indeed!
:laugh4:
Ugh. I hate internet lawyering. Look, any activity that is clearly in preparation for a crime can get you arrested. If you show up at 2 a.m. at the back door of a jewelry store with a blowtorch, crowbar, a blacked-out van and two guys wearing ski masks, police do not have to wait for you to begin breaking in to cuff you.
There is a difference, however, between being arrested and being convicted, which is much more capricious. For a conviction to stick it's much better if you have actually committed a recorded act of crime or fraud. So from that perspective, sure, just possessing another person's CC number without their knowledge would probably not be enough to get you convicted. If, on the other hand, you had a hard drive full of stolen CC numbers and the cops had picked you up for something else, you can bet your white hiney that conspiracy and intent to commit would be added to your case.
All of which is kinda beside the point. Filesharing/piracy is not theft, because it does not deprive anyone of their work. (In other words, if I use a sci-fi device to clone your Toyota Camry, I am not stealing your Camry because you still have the possession and use of your car.) It does, however, devalue that work, and deprive the creator/licensor of the value they should expect for having created and brought it to market. (In other words, Toyota is not renumerated for the value of one Camry, and other Camry owners begin to ask why they paid for a Camry in the first place.) So not theft, not exactly, but still wrong.
Theft is theft. Piracy is piracy. Both are crimes, but they are different crimes.
Greyblades
01-20-2012, 19:45
Huh, check the Yahoo link again, I think an actual lawyer just answered.
In order to secure a conviction for credit card theft, the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that: (1) the defendant took a credit card or credit card number from another person, (2) the taking was without the consent of the cardholder, and (3) the taking was with intent to either use or sell it.
Mere possession of a stolen credit card is not an offense. The government must also prove that the card or card number was wrongfully taken from its rightful owner or that it was received with the knowledge that it had been taken and with the intent to either use, sell, or transfer it. However, possession of multiple credit cards or credit card numbers of another person without the consent of the cardholder serves as prima facie evidence of a violation of this statute.
A person found guilty of this crime is subject to one to 20 years of imprisonment in a state correctional institution, confinement in jail for up to 12 months, and/or a maximum fine of $2,500. Virginia Criminal Code § 18.2-192.
But Iin California:
Reeves, 34, of Oakland, was indicted by a federal grand jury on Dec. 16, 2010. He was charged with possession of fifteen or more counterfeit or unauthorized access devices (credit cards)
Depends, like most parts of our law, on where the crime takes place.
I name myself winner of that inconsequential and utterly pointless argument... woo...
So not theft, not exactly, but still wrong.
I believe that whether it is wrong is more a matter of opinion and circumstance, I dont consider a penniless art student downloading adobe photoshop wrong because I have little sympathy for adobe(or any company that complains about piracy taking away thier profits while still making 9 figues a year) and I dont see a way for the student to gain a rather helpful program legaly. Whereas the CEO of adobe would think it wrong as it is his product being used without his consent or receiving reparations.
Of course, right or wrong it is still illegal.
a completely inoffensive name
01-20-2012, 19:57
Piracy is great for consumers, who are the only people I care about. I would rather see the industry burn and die than have the power of the consumer stripped from them.
Pirates can't offer an experience or anything tangible with the product, companies can. Adapt or die.
Huh, check the Yahoo link again, I think an actual lawyer just answered.
Sounds reasonable. Note that the lawyerish person specifies three elements for a conviction, none of which is using the credit card.
I dont consider a penniless art student downloading adobe photoshop wrong because I have little sympathy for adobe(or any company that complains about piracy taking away thier profits while still making 9 figues a year) and I dont see a way for the student to gain a rather helpful program legaly.
Wrong on several levels. First of all, the penniless art student has alternatives (http://www.gimp.org/), and is not forced to pirate Photoshop to do his work. Second, the art student does not have an inalienable right to a state-of-the-art image manipulation program. (In other words, it's not like stealing a loaf of bread because you are starving, which most courts would consider a mitigating factor.)
Just because you find Adobe abhorrent does not give you or anyone else a license to copy their intellectual property. And in fact, by pirating their wares and promulgating their file formats and standards, you strengthen them. Want to strike a blow against Adobe? Go open source. The more people who do that, the more Adobe has to face the fact that their wares are overpriced.
Millions of people pirating Microsoft Office turned Office into the global standard. If all of those pirates had instead gone over to something like OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org/) we'd be in a much better place.
-edit-
And don't get me started on games. I love computer games. They're my second-favorite art form after the novel. So I pay for every game I touch, because I want to support those artists and coders and writers and level designers. I want them to profit from their genius and work. Sixty bucks for Skyrim? Sign me up!
And don't get me started on games. I love computer games. They're my second-favorite art form after the novel. So I pay for every game I touch, because I want to support those artists and coders and writers and level designers. I want them to profit from their genius and work. Sixty bucks for Skyrim? Sign me up!
Except you know, there are people that cannot afford such a commodity, so they go to their friend, and ask if they can borrow their Skyrim DVDs. He gets the DVDs, installs the game. Plays.
He didn't spend 60 bucks on the (awesome) game did he? He couldn't afford such a thing, but he got it anyways, why? Because some socialist terrorist lend him the original DVDs.
~Jirisys ()
Greyblades
01-20-2012, 20:39
Ah, yes, its been a while where I've found my arguments stripped bare and proved wrong. I've missed how sobering it is.
Wrong on several levels. First of all, the penniless art student has alternatives (http://www.gimp.org/), and is not forced to pirate Photoshop to do his work. Second, the art student does not have an inalienable right to a state-of-the-art image manipulation program. (In other words, it's not like stealing a loaf of bread because you are starving, which most courts would consider a mitigating factor.) And yet I still don't care, the imagninary Kid's wrong for downloading but in a small way that doesn't hurt anyone beyond affecting the economy slightly (and only because so many others do as well) so I'd let it pass as long as he doesnt try to make money by selling the downloaded stuff. So I think it's fine.
On the other hand the imaginary corporation is wrong for wanting to give him a punishment that I see as grossly out of proportion. It's hurting the kid, it could even destroy his life, all over a his use of freaking computer programme that helps draw pictures, so I think it wrong.
Like I said, what's percieved as right and wrong varies from person to person but law is law.
Just because you find Adobe abhorrent does not give you or anyone else a license to copy their intellectual property. And in fact, by pirating their wares and promulgating their file formats and standards, you strengthen them. Want to strike a blow against Adobe? Go open source. The more people who do that, the more Adobe has to face the fact that their wares are overpriced.
You seem to be misunderstanding me, I dont hate adobe because its over priced, though it is annoying and I do have a mild dislike for them as a company, I was using it as an example.
I kinda think that they make great stuff and I'm really lucky that my college is letting me use thier versions but there's no way I or anyone in my position could afford it for myself.
Millions of people pirating Microsoft Office turned Office into the global standard. If all of those pirates had instead gone over to something like OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org/) we'd be in a much better place.
Oh? How so? I got a free version of microsoft office with my computer, its not exactly the latest version but it's really useful and easy to use.
What is "intellectual property" anyway? How do you own a thought? The idea that you can own something intangible is an absurd concept if you step back and look at it objectively. Alas, it's the law of the land. :shrug:
Greyblades
01-20-2012, 21:22
I belive it is a catch all term for intangable property, like a story.
a completely inoffensive name
01-20-2012, 21:29
What is "intellectual property" anyway? How do you own a thought? The idea that you can own something intangible is an absurd concept if you step back and look at it objectively. Alas, it's the law of the land. :shrug:Awww man, if I wasn't on my phone I would look up a relevant Thomas Jefferson quote that popped in my head after reading what you just said. Basically he says the same thing.
On the other hand the imaginary corporation is wrong for wanting to give him a punishment that I see as grossly out of proportion. It's hurting the kid, it could even destroy his life, all over a his use of freaking computer programme that helps draw pictures, so I think it wrong.
Whoa, whoa, that's a whole different point. Is the punishment for filesharing insane, cruel, and out of proportion to the crime? Heck yeah. You won't find me arguing with you about that.
I got a free version of microsoft office with my computer, its not exactly the latest version but it's really useful and easy to use.
Right, but everybody who uses a free or included version of MS Word to send their stuff expects their recipients to be able to read Microsoft's locked, black-box Word format. Which means everybody has to have Word. Which makes word a de facto standard, owned by a single company. This is why piracy both helps and hurts a company like Microsoft; they lose some sales, yes, but becoming a standard means they lock up a whole realm of data that nobody wants to lose. Yeah, sure, it's a little more complicated than that, but that's the basic outline of the problem. Open data formats cure that by publishing their specs, so you never have to own a particular piece of software to read your own letters.
-edit-
The correct name for this is proprietary file format lock-in (http://www.libervis.com/article/proprietary_file_format_lock_in), or PFFL to its friends.
What is "intellectual property" anyway? How do you own a thought?
Obviously you do not "own" a thought or an expression; the government grants you (what it supposed to be) a limited monopoly on an idea you came up with. The founders of our country intended that monopoly to be quite short. Then this mouse showed up (http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20020305_sprigman.html) and started lobbying like mad and suing everybody in sight ...
Ugh. I hate internet lawyering. Look, any activity that is clearly in preparation for a crime can get you arrested. If you show up at 2 a.m. at the back door of a jewelry store with a blowtorch, crowbar, a backed-out van and two guys wearing ski masks, police do not have to wait for you to begin breaking in to cuff you.
There is a difference, however, between being arrested and being convicted, which is much more capricious. For a conviction to stick it's much better if you have actually committed a recorded act of crime or fraud. So from that perspective, sure, just possessing another person's CC number without their knowledge would probably not be enough to get you convicted. If, on the other hand, you had a hard drive full of stolen CC numbers and the cops had picked you up for something else, you can bet your white hiney that conspiracy and intent to commit would be added to your case.
All of which is kinda beside the point. Filesharing/piracy is not theft, because it does not deprive anyone of their work. (In other words, if I use a sci-fi device to clone your Toyota Camry, I am not stealing your Camry because you still have the possession and use of your car.) It does, however, devalue that work, and deprive the creator/licensor of the value they should expect for having created and brought it to market. (In other words, Toyota is not renumerated for the value of one Camry, and other Camry owners begin to ask why they paid for a Camry in the first place.) So not theft, not exactly, but still wrong.
Theft is theft. Piracy is piracy. Both are crimes, but they are different crimes.
You are a funny man, Lemur.
First of all because you are.
And secondly because you start by "proving" that copying information is not theft because the first owner of the information does not lose the information.
This is correct, but then you say it's piracy, I hope you would agree that if we go by the standard 17th century definition of piracy, copying information is absolutely not piracy at all because there is no hijacking of ships involved.
While that is a relatively minor point regarding the double standard you apply there IMO, I actually disagree with your assertion that the original possessor or creator of the information does not lose anything.
As you say yourself, the information loses some value for him because more people possess it now and he cannot make money by selling it to a person that wants it anymore.
This is absolutely correct and it shows that there is a theft, a theft of value. Value of information is a very complex subject because the value of information depends on the recipient, the time and several other factors, information can be useful to a certain person at one moment in time and completely useless a week later etc.
However we're talking about complex software here for example, information that cannot be reproduced by others easily, that took months or years to create with a lot of resource investment because the persons involved think there is a demand for it that makes it valuable.
Let's say there is a potential demand by 30 people willing to pay 10$ each if they are unable to copy it. That makes 300$ value.
Now 10 of them have a friend who says he can just copy that information for them for free, an option they take, because for them it is preferable.
So there are 100$ of value that just vanished for the creators of the information. IMO they were stolen by the person who copied it.
The limitation does not just lie in whether something can be reproduced without much effort but also in how big the potential market for a product is, to make a comparison consider this:
You produce chairs, there are 30 people willing to pay 10$ per chair.
Now 10 of them get a free chair from your competitor and won't buy a chair from you anymore.
You also just lost 100$ of value and have 10 chairs that have no value for you.
But it isn't theft, and that's because your competitor put in the resources required to produce the ten chairs for him, and they probably have a different design because yours is patented.
He didn't just take ten of your chairs and gave them away for free. Which he could have of course because the ten chairs are worthless for you if he does put in the work to build his own as well.
As such the value of the product is not always inherent in the product or how easy it is to reproduce, ten chairs that noone needs, not even as firewood, simply have no value to anyone either, yet they aren't easy to reproduce.
I hope I'm making some sense here because I don't have the time to explain this in more detail.
In general I think stealing value is theft as well.
In fact if you had 10 useless chairs and someone took one you may not mind at all, he just saved you some storage space, you would however care a lot more if these chairs had any value to you.
On the other hand the imaginary corporation is wrong for wanting to give him a punishment that I see as grossly out of proportion. It's hurting the kid, it could even destroy his life, all over a his use of freaking computer programme that helps draw pictures, so I think it wrong.
"Just" a program that took someone many months or years to get done, months or years in which he had to feed his family etc.
If you need a program, it has a value to you, then you should pay what it's worth it for you, if you can find someone who takes more value in the programming and less so in the result, aka an open source programmer, you can often get the same or a similar program for free as Lemur pointed out. No need to get the valuable commercial product then because that implies you actually appreciate the value of the commercial product but take it without reimbursing the creator for the value you just took from him.
What is "intellectual property" anyway? How do you own a thought? The idea that you can own something intangible is an absurd concept if you step back and look at it objectively. Alas, it's the law of the land. :shrug:
It creates incentive. Why would someone spend two years being a programmer making awesome software that someone can then copy and give away for free if the first guy could make more money being a lumberjack and selling wood, which would prevent the other guy from undercutting him without either some effort of his own or theft?
I know there are some people making open sauce software for free, but if they were the only driving force behind software development, I don't think we'd have had the progress that we actually saw in the last decades in terms of IT and it's potentials.
It creates incentive. Why would someone spend two years being a programmer making awesome software that someone can then copy and give away for free if the first guy could make more money being a lumberjack and selling wood, which would prevent the other guy from undercutting him without either some effort of his own or theft?
I know there are some people making open sauce software for free, but if they were the only driving force behind software development, I don't think we'd have had the progress that we actually saw in the last decades in terms of IT and it's potentials.Why did Shakespeare spend all that time writing plays?
Obviously you do not "own" a thought or an expression; the government grants you (what it supposed to be) a limited monopoly on an idea you came up with. The founders of our country intended that monopoly to be quite short. Then this mouse showed up and started lobbying like mad and suing everybody in sight ... That's about the size of it. :yes:
Why did Shakespeare spend all that time writing plays?
I suppose they had a value to him that noone could easily steal, like personal prestige that was turned into monetary value by acquiring rich people as sponsors.
And probably a passion.
Or are you saying that he lived in a gutter and wrote plays nonetheless which he then gave to others for free so they could perform them?
Greyblades
01-20-2012, 23:19
Ok most of what Husar said I cant really answer as I'm not really sure I understand it. Allthough it seems that it comes off less "we should pay for goods because we find value in them" and more "the people selling these goods have no idea on how to make thier goods attractive to the consumer when faced with compettion that gives away versions for free". Incidentally the best way to sell in that situation, in my opinion, are to provide it with feelies, stuff you cant download, like that big daddy statuette with bioshock. Maybe Photoshop should be packaged with a free cheap small tablet like the ones wacom makes.
"Just" a program that took someone many months or years to get done, months or years in which he had to feed his family etc.Was that an attempt at a "the creators will starve" argument? Because I'm pretty sure Programmers paychecks dont relate much to the quantity of sales, they get paid regardless. Though I guess they could find finding work harder.
Ok most of what Husar said I cant really answer as I'm not really sure I understand it. Allthough it seems that it comes off less "we should pay for goods because we find value in them" and more "the people selling these goods have no idea on how to make thier goods attractive to the consumer when faced with compettion that gives away versions for free". Incidentally the best way to sell in that situation, in my opinion, are to provide it with feelies, stuff you cant download, like that big daddy statuette with bioshock. Maybe Photoshop should be packaged with a free cheap small tablet like the ones wacom makes.
Ah, yes, and how would Wacom like giving away their tablets for free so noone needs to buy them anymore? Do you think selling them more expensive and better ones down the line would make up for giving tons and tons of tablets away for free?
Besides, it doesn't seem to work too well for CDProjekt, they said Witcher 2 was illegally downloaded millions of times despite GoG giving honest buyers a lot of free extra stuff, although none of it non-digital.
A lot of people care only about the software anyway and don't want some statue.
Oh and they are being very creative about creating an incentive for people to buy. SOPA is one of these very creative measures. :laugh4:
Was that an attempt at a "the creators will starve" argument? Because I'm pretty sure Programmers paychecks dont relate much to the quantity of sales, they get paid regardless. Though I guess they could find finding work harder.
That's because we have capitalism. The developers get paid in advance by investors who expect a return on their investment. If that return on investment does not come, the investors won't invest in that company anymore and thus the developers are out of a job. Unless they made enough money with their last software to pay for the next one themselves. But that's unlikely given that the investors made no profit.
Whether this dependance on investors is a good thing or not is a different question though and does not justify illegally copying software in any way.
If you are unhappy with a policy of a company, don't use their software at all, that sends a far more clear message that you're unhappy with them than using their stuff for free anyway, which shows there is a demand for it.
And that in turn can then be used to justify all that DRM and legal mumbojumbo people complain about now.
And funnily enough, many try to fight it with more illegal downloads. :shrug:
Greyblades
01-21-2012, 00:05
Ah, yes, and how would Wacom like giving away their tablets for free so noone needs to buy them anymore? Do you think selling them more expensive and better ones down the line would make up for giving tons and tons of tablets away for free?
Well obviously they would have to be one of the older models that go for 5 bucks these days. It would justify the huge price as well.
Besides, it doesn't seem to work too well for CDProjekt, they said Witcher 2 was illegally downloaded millions of times despite GoG giving honest buyers a lot of free extra stuff, although none of it non-digital.Well there you are, provide the fans with something they cant download and they'll get be more likely to buy so they dont miss out. Heh I remember having the deciding factor for buying battle for middle earth because it came in this cool gold coloured metal box. I was stupid but I have to admit I got alot of fun out of it.
A lot of people care only about the software anyway and don't want some statue.
Sure but the way they make it sound the companies need every extra sale they can get.
Oh and they are being very creative about creating an incentive for people to buy. SOPA is one of these very creative measures. :laugh4:
Preaching to the choir.
That's because we have capitalism. The developers get paid in advance by investors who expect a return on their investment. If that return on investment does not come, the investors won't invest in that company anymore and thus the developers are out of a job. Unless they made enough money with their last software to pay for the next one themselves. But that's unlikely given that the investors made no profit.
Whether this dependance on investors is a good thing or not is a different question though and does not justify illegally copying software in any way.Not to the judge, anyway.
If you are unhappy with a policy of a company, don't use their software at all, that sends a far more clear message that you're unhappy with them than using their stuff for free anyway, which shows there is a demand for it.
Huh, you know I never really saw the point of complete Boycotts, I would think it would be better to send a message saying "I want it but because of your views/actions I dont want it from you."
And that in turn can then be used to justify all that DRM and legal mumbojumbo people complain about now.
And funnily enough, many try to fight it with more illegal downloads. :shrug:
Ah, the vicious cycle of getting free stuff and screwing the companies.
In what universe does piracy (however you want to define it--I'm not going to spend time splitting hairs) not hurt the programmers, and thus the industry, and thus you as a gamer?
Fun fact: the guy who made minecraft told his fans to pirate the game. (http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/01/12/minecraft-creator-notch-tells-players-to-pirate-his-game/)
Tellos Athenaios
01-21-2012, 01:01
About copyright & pirating software, and note I am talking about the armchair pirate in this case not the companies hiring someone to write software case:
First of all copyright does not apply, or at least it does not to software in the usual sense of “paying for a copy of the program you run”. No, you buy a licence to run the copy. The copy is free, and the licence specifically grants you the right to make a number of copies of the copy which came with the licence. That's why you are allowed to actually *install* Windows, for instance, and why you are actually allowed to *re-install* it, for instance. The bytes that you are told to buy are free of charge and essentially worthless, it's the right to use them that costs you.
That might seem trivial, but you are also, --usually-- specifically allowed to make derivative works -- i.e. modifications to the copy. That's needed because without that right you would not be able to actually *use* the software. The mere act of attempting to *use* the software would otherwise cause you to violate the licence.
Copyright is a red herring here: the copyright itself is (mostly) concerned with source code. Courts don't really treat software in terms of copyright anymore, they treat it in terms of licences. Contract law. The copyright provisions for software date to a time when software was commonly bought and sold *along with* its source code. The binaries (programs) being merely a convenient way for the user to actually get down to using the product they'd bought if they didn't need to make any modifications (and often a needed prerequisite in order to be able to make needed modifications -- think a C compiler written in C).
A good example here are the recurring lawsuits over violations of the licence to use Busybox. For those who don't know, Busybox provides a minimal environment on top of the Linux kernel so that the two together can work as OS on a resource constrained environment. Think routers, set top boxes, TVs... Plenty of companies use it. However one of the conditions attached to the use of Busybox is that if you make modifications to it and then redistribute those modifications (i.e. if you actually ship product) you must provide your users (at a minimum) with the source code to your modified Busybox (along with a few other bits) under the same terms as that of the licence under which you obtained a copy of Busybox. Naturally, many companies attempt to get away with not doing any of that, and, from time to time companies get caught and slapped with a court verdict repeating as much.
Note that the last bit is interesting: copyright law doesn't really work with terms & conditions like that. Either you have permission to copy, or you don't. Conditional permission provided that you pass on the same permission, even on the bits that you might write yourself... that is a contract, not a copyright.
Greyblades
01-21-2012, 01:35
Uh, I'm going to need a transaltion because that seems like something noone would ever agree to if they could understand it.
Tellos Athenaios
01-21-2012, 02:05
Uh, I'm going to need a transaltion because that seems like something noone would ever agree to if they could understand it.
That's where software is the exact opposite of books: with books you buy them for the paper, for the quality type setting, for the editing, for the cover illustrations... Etc. Not just for the story. But with software you don't buy any of that. All you buy is a few bytes that nobody cares about, and the much more valuable right to actually use these bytes. (Often enough with additional restrictions... )
Software companies “give away” software for free on a routine basis, think: beta testing, trial versions (often just the full version time locked until you “activate” the product), etc. They don't give a toss about those bytes, they're cheaper than chips to make. All they care about is that you might one day come back and click “Agree” a couple of times and fork over money, to receive much the same worthless bytes but this time for a (different) product where companies do want money for the right to use it.
Greyblades
01-21-2012, 02:15
So... basically we're paying, not for the game but for the ignition switch?
Tellos Athenaios
01-21-2012, 02:21
Pretty much.
More precisely you are paying for the privilege to set the ignition switch to “on”.
Greyblades
01-21-2012, 02:25
...I love terminology, though if it was that simple there would probably be a loophole, I'll take your word for it. So why do they bother with it instead of treating it like any other product?
...Please dont tell me that they do this with every other product
Tellos Athenaios
01-21-2012, 03:12
...I love terminology, though if it was that simple there would probably be a loophole, I'll take your word for it. So why do they bother with it instead of treating it like any other product?
Because they can. Normal commodity products are driven down towards the intrinsic value of that product: few bakers can charge $100,- for a pie which you are only allowed to share with 3 people (MS Windows licence). Software makers can because they don't sell bytes (pies), but they sell the licence to eat (use). And because you click Agree because you can't be bothered to understand a contract (or have little to no choice for other reasons).
Contracts are a funny business where it is not what the market will bear, but, as we say in Dutch, what the fool will give (wat de gek ervoor geeft).
Greyblades
01-21-2012, 04:16
This just does not justify piracy, dude.Never said it did.
All this means is that when you pirate minecraft, you're not really pirating--after all, you have permission from the creators right? Funnily enough, yes.
I can see how this one specific scenario might have some moral ambiguity (do you listen to the person who labored and loved to create the game, or the publishers that stand to make a living from it? You are making assumptions, it would take the majority of minecraft users pirating it before that happens.
but that does not give you a letter of marque on the entire industry. Again never said it did.
This is not a legal issue, this is a moral compass issue. Are you a thief or not?
Ok, we've gone over this, whatever you call it piracy isn't theft. Also, you actually think something this complicated can be narrowed down either/or question?
Sasaki Kojiro
01-21-2012, 04:45
This site was taken down without due process and people arrested on the other side of the globe without SOPA at that.
CR
Without SOPA, even. So the internet must be broken already! Come to think of it I thought my connection seemed slow...
Why did Shakespeare spend all that time writing plays?
He wrote the plays and acted in them to profit by the audiences paying a fee...they were very much intellectual property. The company that owned the play would often forbid anyone who worked for them from having a printing made "upon the penalty and forfeiture of forty pounds sterling, or the loss of his place and a share of all things amongst them". People pirated the plays in those days by sitting in the audience and copying it out in shorthand, and then finding an unscrupulous printer. The company would complain saying things about "stolne, and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by injurious imposters". As protection plays were sometimes entered in the stationers register with special provisions.
The parallels are clear. I wonder how many plays Shakespeare would have written if he hadn't been able to profit...actually if I remember correctly he mainly profited by having a share of the company, and many other playwrights were very poorly paid, perhaps there were some mute inglorious Shakespeare's who didn't make enough for their scripts to keep writing...that criticism could possibly be extended to hollywood's system for all I know though.
a completely inoffensive name
01-21-2012, 04:47
Arguing about the morality of piracy from a utilitarian point is a dead end.
1st graders could tell you that piracy is wrong.
They can also tell you that they saw a giant space banana. Luckily, I don't trust them with my, or anyone else's legal matters.
"Eh, I just don't want to pay for it--but that's okay because I don't like those guys anyway"
I think nobody does that. When people pirate, they simply don't want to pay for it. If they don't like the publishers and want to screw them, piracy is a seriously bad way to do it.
Say if I made a program that runs and gives you a smiley face on the windows console. I sell it for a cent. Someone doesn't want to buy it because it's too high of a price for something so simple, yet something few people could actually do. So he downloads a 'pirated' copy.
I didn't actually LOSE money. I just, didn't GET MORE money. Which would piss me off and I would flip the table over. But hey, that's the risk I take, I should better give it for free and ask for donations (I understant that system is stupidly unsuited for a company that makes applications such as photoshop, I am not making an analogy at this point. I repeat, I am not making an analogy at this point).
Last edited by Gelatinous Cube; Today at 22:07. Reason: err, mistook someone for someone else--too much skooma
There's a reason why Arrille back in Seyda Neen; didn't make business with you when you brought moonsugar in your backpack and yelled "Elooio Missserching Sar!".
And if anyone is asking, I got Morrowind in a RAM memory bundle in ZipZoomFly back in '06, don't you dare shout "Pirate!" at me, unless you want to get crushed by my Silt Strider
Edit:
OT: This is more awesome than any other TES theme:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJD-Ufi1jGk
Wait... THIS IS COPYRIGHTED!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWaLxFIVX1s
~Jirisys ()
Papewaio
01-21-2012, 06:11
Open office is a free competitor to MS Office.
There are equivalent free software for Photoshop which some pros hold in higher regard then the Adobe suite.
Being too lazy to research alternatives is pretty pathetic. It's like falling for branding or peer pressure.
As for pirating games. Sorry no excuses. Entertainment you can do with paper, dice and imagination. Of course that would rely on effort and not being spoon fed. If you can't afford it, then either study and get a decent job or spend more time at kongregate and wait for sales. Most games halve within 6 to 12 months.
Use dice, paper and imagination? Surely you cannot know that unless you invent your own game, you are violating the copyright of the game's creator.
Also, I don't like OO or GIMP, and I get the MSOffice and Adobe software for free thanks to my college. Would you like me to teach you 3ds Max and then tell you to use Blender because you can't afford 3ds Max?
It seems you have never actually ever used advanced proprietary software before. If you did, you wouldn't just simply make that assumption. Because you would understand the enormous headache that is a change of GUI and key assignments, and mouse assignments.
I work in 3dsMax, and when I got a trial on Milkshape 3D, I was actually so confused that I couldn't even understand how to change the view type, let alone how to edit the vertices on the model I was using. You have to understand that you need to "re-learn" to use the new software, except now you have the basic functions of it in your brain.
Can't you understand that if it weren't for piracy, many members that reside in the org would have never come here at all. This place and the people in it changed my life completely and utterly, to the point where I would not recognize myself if I had not come here. Imagine what it could do to other people. And you want to tell them their spiritual journey through this place is wrong because they didn't spend 20 or 30 bucks on a load of bits?
That is no reason to pirate, of course. But I won't let you make such abominable assumptions. I will call internet police if necesary!
The only reason to pirate something, put simply, is because you don't want to (or to an extent, can't) pay for the software. It might not be a good moral or legal reason, but it's the damn only reason.
~Jirisys ()
Fun fact: the guy who made minecraft told his fans to pirate the game. (http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/01/12/minecraft-creator-notch-tells-players-to-pirate-his-game/)
After he became a millionaire by selling it...
Also as GC pointed out, it isn't piracy when it's allowed. It's not even piracy at all, piracy is what some somalian fishermen do as I pointed out before.
Ok, we've gone over this, whatever you call it piracy isn't theft.
No, I've gone over this and explained why it is theft of value. Unless you think software and the use of it have no value, in which case please explain why you want to have it then?
Because they can. Normal commodity products are driven down towards the intrinsic value of that product: few bakers can charge $100,- for a pie which you are only allowed to share with 3 people (MS Windows licence). Software makers can because they don't sell bytes (pies), but they sell the licence to eat (use). And because you click Agree because you can't be bothered to understand a contract (or have little to no choice for other reasons).
Contracts are a funny business where it is not what the market will bear, but, as we say in Dutch, what the fool will give (wat de gek ervoor geeft).
I get the contract and license point and you're right about that.
However you make it sound as thought you think everybody should pay the same price and then be allowed to use it as they wish.
In other words a home user would pay the same price as a company chairman but the chairman would get infinitely more value out of the product compared to the home user.
Don't you think it's fair that someone who profits a lot more from a product also pays more? In that sense buying a license for every workplace is no different from buying an office chair for every workplace.
Not to mention that companies usually get the individual licenses at a discount anyway.
Say if I made a program that runs and gives you a smiley face on the windows console. I sell it for a cent. Someone doesn't want to buy it because it's too high of a price for something so simple, yet something few people could actually do. So he downloads a 'pirated' copy.
I didn't actually LOSE money. I just, didn't GET MORE money.
Several flaws in that one.
1. If it's so simple to make, why are people unable to make it themselves?
2. If it's not simple for them to make and they really have to have it, why is it not worth a dollar?
3. if it's not worth a dollar to them, they probably don't need to have it, or at least not badly enough to justify the price for them
4. they have no right to have it for whatever price they think it's worth, try going to a bakery and giving them half the price of a bun for a bun and then tell them you think it's not worth more than that...
5. if the central bank prints money like crazy then we all get MORE MONEY but we don't get more value because the money will be worth less, that's not really a sound argument to make, as I explained earlier you lost value, see points 1-3 above, if it has enough value for people to want it, then they should also give something that has (equal) value in return, i.e. money.
Also, I don't like OO or GIMP, and I get the MSOffice and Adobe software for free thanks to my college.
Yes, no need to pirate anything then, right?
Also 'I don't like living in a poorer area so I just live in that villa in rich area' isn't a really good argument for anything.
Would you like me to teach you 3ds Max and then tell you to use Blender because you can't afford 3ds Max?
It seems you have never actually ever used advanced proprietary software before. If you did, you wouldn't just simply make that assumption. Because you would understand the enormous headache that is a change of GUI and key assignments, and mouse assignments.
I work in 3dsMax, and when I got a trial on Milkshape 3D, I was actually so confused that I couldn't even understand how to change the view type, let alone how to edit the vertices on the model I was using. You have to understand that you need to "re-learn" to use the new software, except now you have the basic functions of it in your brain.
That's your problem for learning or being taught a software you can't legally get your hands on, maybe think about that before you learn it.
And if you mean they taught you at college, well, apparently they gave you the software to work with legally for free, as will your future employer who should, after a while, pay you enough to buy your own copy for home-use. In that case there isn't really a problem, right?
Can't you understand that if it weren't for piracy, many members that reside in the org would have never come here at all. This place and the people in it changed my life completely and utterly, to the point where I would not recognize myself if I had not come here. Imagine what it could do to other people. And you want to tell them their spiritual journey through this place is wrong because they didn't spend 20 or 30 bucks on a load of bits?
That is no reason to pirate, of course. But I won't let you make such abominable assumptions. I will call internet police if necesary!
Er, what? Noone says any spiritual journeys or whatever are wrong but piracy is still wrong.
The only reason to pirate something, put simply, is because you don't want to (or to an extent, can't) pay for the software. It might not be a good moral or legal reason, but it's the damn only reason.
~Jirisys ()
It's the same reason why some people steal cars. So you think if someone stole your car because he wants one but doesn't want to pay for it that's okay?
After all a car is just a collection of worthless atoms and given how many the industry can put out it's almost like they can be reproduced easily.
It's not like you LOST MONEY because he took your car, a car isn't money you see. You just didn't GET MONEY... :rolleyes: :sweatdrop:
CountArach
01-21-2012, 12:26
This is punishing legitimate users (modders, etc) for the actions of illegimitate users. File-sharing technology is useful for facilitating a free and open exchange of information amongst those who can't afford a more expensive and difficult server system of their own.
This is punishing legitimate users (modders, etc) for the actions of illegimitate users. File-sharing technology is useful for facilitating a free and open exchange of information amongst those who can't afford a more expensive and difficult server system of their own.
So is closing that italian pizza restaurant that belonged to the mafia... :shrug:
Maybe people should check which filehoster they use, there are probably enough that aren't run by known fraudsters.
Of course one may have to pay for that but that comes down to how much it is worth to you that your filehoster is less likely to get busted by the feds?
Tellos Athenaios
01-21-2012, 15:00
However you make it sound as thought you think everybody should pay the same price and then be allowed to use it as they wish.No, not necessarily the same price. But very much use-as-they-wish. That's the essence of a fair bargain: I pay you for something in exchange, and when the transaction is done I have every right to do with what I got as I wish. At this point we're not just talking about software piracy, anymore: we're also talking about what a licence will let you use the software for.
As an aside I think that proprietary software, as in the collection of bytes that make up a program you can run, is often grossly overvalued as it is already. That is not to say that the work that went into it in creating the software is worthless, quite the contrary. But the value of the software lies in its source code, not in the bytes that the machine will treat as executable code.
In other words a home user would pay the same price as a company chairman
No, not at all.
but the chairman would get infinitely more value out of the product compared to the home user.
Don't you think it's fair that someone who profits a lot more from a product also pays more? In that sense buying a license for every workplace is no different from buying an office chair for every workplace.
Which is different from the current situation, how? Microsoft Windows contains a ton of features that are utterly useless to the average home user, but rather more useful to the sysadmin. In fact there is no physical difference in Microsoft Windows Home Premium and Microsoft Windows Ultimate: the only thing that is different is the product key, but it's essentially the same set of bytes on the disc!
You seem fixed on the idea that somehow the fact you buy software means you have bought value. No. Any sysadmin can tell you that in order to get value out of software you have to put in a lot of effort on your part.
It's support contracts where the software company and the other company engage in the real quid pro quo.
Not to mention that companies usually get the individual licenses at a discount anyway.
If they buy in bulk. The reason that software companies can give such discounts is precisely because the cost of making those bytes approaches 0, closer for every copy sold. Really how much do you think your copy of Windows 7 cost to make, exactly?
No, not necessarily the same price. But very much use-as-they-wish. That's the essence of a fair bargain: I pay you for something in exchange, and when the transaction is done I have every right to do with what I got as I wish. At this point we're not just talking about software piracy, anymore: we're also talking about what a licence will let you use the software for.
Yes, I largely agree with that.
As an aside I think that proprietary software, as in the collection of bytes that make up a program you can run, is often grossly overvalued as it is already. That is not to say that the work that went into it in creating the software is worthless, quite the contrary. But the value of the software lies in its source code, not in the bytes that the machine will treat as executable code.
I agree with it being often overpriced, my argument is just that this doesn't excuse piracy, not that you were saying it does.
About the source code vs executable code and their value uhm, I see the value of the executable code in the potential sales, just like a car that you don't need to drive only has a real value to you if there is someone who wants to buy it, being stuck with a useless car that you can't sell seriously reduces or destroys it's value. Similarly having a software that noone buys makes it worthless to you as a software company. The distinction between the executable and the source code is a bit ambiguous for me so far to be honest.
Which is different from the current situation, how? Microsoft Windows contains a ton of features that are utterly useless to the average home user, but rather more useful to the sysadmin. In fact there is no physical difference in Microsoft Windows Home Premium and Microsoft Windows Ultimate: the only thing that is different is the product key, but it's essentially the same set of bytes on the disc!
Yes, I know, because it's cheaper for them to make all the discs the same than divide them into different versions I guess. Mor or less a unique advantage for the software company. I'm not sure what kind of model you would advertise though? That everybody gets Ultimate for the price of Home Premium? Then you could say people pay the price of Ultimate even if they want less features because in that hypothetical scenario noone would know that the price they pay is the one they would now pay to get Home Premium and as such would perceive it as the price of a version with features they don't want to pay for.
You seem fixed on the idea that somehow the fact you buy software means you have bought value. No. Any sysadmin can tell you that in order to get value out of software you have to put in a lot of effort on your part.
No! And yes. What I actually think is that the exact monetary value of buying the software cannot really be measured for the company that buys it. There are way too many variables. The software is useless if not correctly implemented and used, but organizational and procedural changes that give the software value would be useless without the software so to say the software has no value is incorrect as well.
You certainly can't say that the value of the software is the price you paid or anything simplistic like that.
It's support contracts where the software company and the other company engage in the real quid pro quo.
Even with the best support contract you can make a loss with your new software if you don't revisit your business processes and the software doesn't help your business strategy.
You may have heard about the productivity paradox surrounding IT investments.
If they buy in bulk. The reason that software companies can give such discounts is precisely because the cost of making those bytes approaches 0, closer for every copy sold. Really how much do you think your copy of Windows 7 cost to make, exactly?
I'm aware that software companies have mainly fixed costs and the variable per unit costs are near 0, yes.
That's the whole issue and what makes the illegal distribution so tempting and easy.
You get discounts for buying in bulk almost anywhere though.
Tellos Athenaios
01-21-2012, 16:40
About the source code vs executable code and their value uhm, I see the value of the executable code in the potential sales, just like a car that you don't need to drive only has a real value to you if there is someone who wants to buy it, being stuck with a useless car that you can't sell seriously reduces or destroys it's value. Similarly having a software that noone buys makes it worthless to you as a software company. The distinction between the executable and the source code is a bit ambiguous for me so far to be honest.
It's the source code that matters, here, not the particular binary. Why?
Because you can always regenerate the binary from the source code at minimal cost, but not vice versa.
Because you need the source code for your next product. Software is rarely released when it's done, more often when it is of beta or even alpha quality.
Because your employees are paid to deliver the source code. Not the binaries.
The car analogy is flawed because the car costs real money/labour/material to make. With Software it is like the source code represents all your research, from materials to production processes, and all you have to do is wave your magic wand and the cars appear... The point is that the source code represents potential sales because it represents all possible potential production, as well as your basis for future product.
Suppose I am a car company and I have the blue prints for a new car as well as a show room example. This show room car now disappears, so I lose the value of that car -- which is significant. This show room car represents real time and effort, material and manufacturing, not to mention all kinds of IP. The trade show is in a couple of days, I can't have a replacement ready by that time... I am in trouble.
Suppose I am a software company and I have the source code for a new product, as well as a binary. This binary now disappears, so I hit that “make” button in my software editor... and a new show room example (binary) appears. I am going to be annoyed, yes, but still I will have something to show on the next trade show.
Yes, I know, because it's cheaper for them to make all the discs the same than divide them into different versions I guess. Mor or less a unique advantage for the software company. I'm not sure what kind of model you would advertise though? That everybody gets Ultimate for the price of Home Premium? Then you could say people pay the price of Ultimate even if they want less features because in that hypothetical scenario noone would know that the price they pay is the one they would now pay to get Home Premium and as such would perceive it as the price of a version with features they don't want to pay for.
My only real observation is that “value” of software is a very hard to pin down, regardless of licence -- due to the economies of scale making it much cheaper to do things this way. Certainly the value of the bytes is negligible to the value of the right to use said bytes -- which amounts to little more than one activation code differing on a few characters from another.
No! And yes. What I actually think is that the exact monetary value of buying the software cannot really be measured for the company that buys it. There are way too many variables. The software is useless if not correctly implemented and used, but organizational and procedural changes that give the software value would be useless without the software so to say the software has no value is incorrect as well.
You certainly can't say that the value of the software is the price you paid or anything simplistic like that.
Even with the best support contract you can make a loss with your new software if you don't revisit your business processes and the software doesn't help your business strategy.
You may have heard about the productivity paradox surrounding IT investments.
Yes but now we are talking about something else entirely which is people getting distracted by the shiny-shiny instead of buying what they actually need/value for money. The lack of knowledge among those who make the decision, and the marketing speak popular among software marketing. In engineering there's a lot of disdain/contempt reserved for managers and marketing for precisely these reasons...
Greyblades
01-21-2012, 17:12
Well, yes. Are you violating someone's good faith or not? Saying its too complicated is a pretty shallow way out of what should be an easy moral question.
No, for one living in brazil where there are no legal ways to get the product, is it really wrong when there's no legal alternative? My point is there are times when piracy becomes acceptable and that there are people on both sides who arent morally wrong, take the death penalty, the die hard liberals will tell you that murder is murder and anyone who is for the death penalty is in the wrong. The die hard conservatives on the other hand will say that the death penalty is the best way to uphold the law and anyone who is against it is in the wrong.
Right and wrong, moral compasses they all differ from persont to person and can change in some situations. They are not set in stone and the same for everyone.
This is Golden Rule stuff. 1st graders could tell you that piracy is wrong. And if they were told so 1st graders they would tell me that being gay was wrong. The morality of a child i not seriosuly what you are basing yours on?
Its the small-time pirates that think they're not really hurting anyone that really put the screws on the rest of us.
Everybody knows Publishers are generally out of touch and too concerned with the bottom line. Everybody also knows that DRM doesn't do jack squat to stop real pirates. Its purely a case of people being dicks to other people, who respond by being dicks. Its that simple. The real pirates aren't the ones giving these guys justification for DRM, its the people sitting at home thinking "Eh, I just don't want to pay for it--but that's okay because I don't like those guys anyway" that give them the justification.
Yeah that would be a good argument, except that everything, and I mean everything, that happens to inconvienient or screw over the public is perpertrated by the companies and studios.
This is the crux of my argument really; Securom, Star force, Protect IP, SOPA, and everything else the companies try to force on us are all innefectual, they are all invasive and in the case of the latest set completely at odds with not only civil liberties but they seem almost supervillian levels of wrong, only being considered because of corruption.
Companies directly use invasive and destructive programs and try to subvert and manipulate the laws of the lands to get what they want and worst of all they fail utterly making all thier actions poinless.
Pirates directly... make copys of things that are not technically real... and take away profits that dont exist and might have never existed.
And we're supposed to be on the companie's side? It's like siding with a raging schitzophrenic because in his convusions he tried to slap a jaywalker.
Take it from my angle, afew years ago I ended up with securom on my computer, it was a pain to get rid of and it was unwanted yet the only way to play the game it came with legaly was to keep it. The corporations and buisnesses did that to me yet at the time I hadnt even a clue what piracy was beyond the book treasure island. Whereas the Pirates have done nothing to me beyond annoying those companies. Sure they wouldn't have made securom in the first place if not for pirates but it wasnt the pirates that forced it on me.
Now I know not all companies are in the wrong and not all pirates are the harmless kind but variations on our expectations doesn't seem to matter.
After he became a millionaire by selling it...Yep and billionaire companies still complain about people doing it, funny that.
Also as GC pointed out, it isn't piracy when it's allowed. It's not even piracy at all, piracy is what some somalian fishermen do as I pointed out before. Ok, get gelatinous cube to stop calling it theft and I'll stop calling it piracy.
No, I've gone over this and explained why it is theft of value. Well that's the thing; a theft of value is meaningless, people steal value every day, compettitors lower prices and "steals" the value of compettitors products, a bad review "steals" the value of a resteraunt's food.
It's the source code that matters, here, not the particular binary. Why?
Because you can always regenerate the binary from the source code at minimal cost, but not vice versa.
Because you need the source code for your next product. Software is rarely released when it's done, more often when it is of beta or even alpha quality.
Because your employees are paid to deliver the source code. Not the binaries.
Hmm, yes, but yet what you sell is not the source code but the binaries, without the binaries to sell, what is the source code worth?
And even if you have both, what are they worth if there are no customers to buy them?
The car analogy is flawed because the car costs real money/labour/material to make. With Software it is like the source code represents all your research, from materials to production processes, and all you have to do is wave your magic wand and the cars appear... The point is that the source code represents potential sales because it represents all possible potential production, as well as your basis for future product.
Suppose I am a car company and I have the blue prints for a new car as well as a show room example. This show room car now disappears, so I lose the value of that car -- which is significant. This show room car represents real time and effort, material and manufacturing, not to mention all kinds of IP. The trade show is in a couple of days, I can't have a replacement ready by that time... I am in trouble.
Suppose I am a software company and I have the source code for a new product, as well as a binary. This binary now disappears, so I hit that “make” button in my software editor... and a new show room example (binary) appears. I am going to be annoyed, yes, but still I will have something to show on the next trade show.
Yes, but why does the show room car have such a significant value? Because of the materials involved or because it's a showroom car that is supposed to attract interested customers?
Does it have the same significant value if noone looks at it anyway?
As for the stolen bits, what if the guy who stole them shows up at the same trade show and shows off and sells the bits he stole from you because you only have a copyright on the source code?
Does that not diminish the value of your source code because your potential customers may purchase the bits and bytes from him instead of you? Sure, he cannot really deliver updates but he can offer it cheaper as well because he didn't have the huge investment to get those bits and bytes. If the customers are then happy without any upgrades to the software, they won't buy your bits and bytes anymore.
As such the value of your product is diminished.
In fact because he makes your potential customer base smaller, you may have to raise the price to cover your initial costs.
My only real observation is that “value” of software is a very hard to pin down, regardless of licence -- due to the economies of scale making it much cheaper to do things this way. Certainly the value of the bytes is negligible to the value of the right to use said bytes -- which amounts to little more than one activation code differing on a few characters from another.
Yes, but the value of the right to use said bytes is also reduced by illegal copies because they allow people to use the bytes almost for free. I'm not sure what exactly the difference is in the end.
DRM is supposed to impose that only the original author of the bits can give the right to use them.
Yep and billionaire companies still complain about people doing it, funny that.
Kim Dotcom as he is called now is a multimillionaire who was buying himself all sorts of nice things and enjoying life in nice places but still didn't offer MegaUpload for free, didn't see you complain about that yet.
He afforded that lifestyle by encouraging people to spread the hard work of others while he was buying himself some women on a caribbean beach. If you want to talk about unfair I would start there.
Well that's the thing; a theft of value is meaningless, people steal value every day, compettitors lower prices and "steals" the value of compettitors products, a bad review "steals" the value of a resteraunt's food.
Indeed, but they all work hard to do so instead of just pressing a button. That's the difference.
They create value and advantages themselves instead of using value others created for their own advantage.
Which brings us back to that being exactly what the MegaUpload guys like to do.
Greyblades
01-21-2012, 19:38
Kim Dotcom as he is called now is a multimillionaire who was buying himself all sorts of nice things and enjoying life in nice places but still didn't offer MegaUpload for free, didn't see you complain about that yet.
He afforded that lifestyle by encouraging people to spread the hard work of others while he was buying himself some women on a caribbean beach. If you want to talk about unfair I would start there.
Indeed, but they all work hard to do so instead of just pressing a button. That's the difference.
They create value and advantages themselves instead of using value others created for their own advantage.
Which brings us back to that being exactly what the MegaUpload guys like to do.
Oh in that case I can partially agree, I dont mind people who download for their own entertaiment or convieneince, but making money off other peoples work without permission or reparatons? Screw them.
Tellos Athenaios
01-21-2012, 20:15
Hmm, yes, but yet what you sell is not the source code but the binaries, without the binaries to sell, what is the source code worth?
The value of the source code doesn't diminish from not having binaries. Ada Lovelace wrote programs for a machine which existed only on paper, invented by Charles Babbage, making her probably the first ever documented programmer... In fact a unique property of any well managed body of source code is that you can use it, in a pinch, to rebuild the binaries...
And even if you have both, what are they worth if there are no customers to buy them?
Well for starters this is exactly the case for the majority of software packages: business applications. Whether it be the Excel VBA abominations, or a hacked up Wordpress installation that passes for website. Nobody is going to buy that from you, and you are not even interested in selling any of it.
However, try forbidding the use of Excel macros or VBA because of, say, “security reasons”, and watch the uproar from the accountant types... There's apparently real value in them.
Yes, but why does the show room car have such a significant value? Because of the materials involved or because it's a showroom car that is supposed to attract interested customers?
Does it have the same significant value if noone looks at it anyway? Yes. You paid very good money to get one, so at the minimum there is the intrinsic value of its component parts. Whereas if nobody bothers with your bytes then these don't have any value at all, because really: what's the intrinsic value of those?
As for the stolen bits, what if the guy who stole them shows up at the same trade show and shows off and sells the bits he stole from you because you only have a copyright on the source code? Then you go and claim theft? Pretty easy to establish who is the author of the binaries. Either a SHA512 sum will prove it beyond reasonable doubt, or you can add meta data in the code. I should imagine that an “About” box prominently displaying your name & logo would be a fairly obvious give-away? (Note it is possible to do that even if your code doesn't actually have any command line or graphic UI to work with.)
Plus if you have a nice server logs or other evidence to document break-in and entering... Another charge, eh?
Does that not diminish the value of your source code because your potential customers may purchase the bits and bytes from him instead of you? Sure, he cannot really deliver updates but he can offer it cheaper as well because he didn't have the huge investment to get those bits and bytes. If the customers are then happy without any upgrades to the software, they won't buy your bits and bytes anymore. He can't really offer it any cheaper and you can go to the courts and get him locked up/out of business, no problem.
As such the value of your product is diminished.
In fact because he makes your potential customer base smaller, you may have to raise the price to cover your initial costs. No, you claim support & updates as selling point for your software, drop a couple of hints of the questionable legality buying from the other guy and move on. Maybe hit the other guy with a court case, winning easily and sending a nice little chill down the spines of his customer base.
This sort of outright theft is both uncommon and easily dealt with. Precisely because as soon as you start selling pirated or stolen works you are legally defined as carrion.
Yes, but the value of the right to use said bytes is also reduced by illegal copies because they allow people to use the bytes almost for free. I'm not sure what exactly the difference is in the end.
DRM is supposed to impose that only the original author of the bits can give the right to use them. Again it isn't. See, the supply of the bytes is virtually unlimited anyway. The value of the licence is therefore entirely in the repercussions of the law, should you choose to ignore it at your peril.
Well, I guess when you can't appeal to a basic sense of right and wrong there's really nothing left to appeal to.
This. Clearly pirating software is wrong, hurts the wrong folks, helps the wrong folks, strengthens monopolies by increasing proprietary file format lock-in, and is generally inexcusable. But if you hear all of that and say "meh," I don't know where to go.
a completely inoffensive name
01-21-2012, 22:12
This. Clearly pirating software is wrong, hurts the wrong folks, helps the wrong folks, strengthens monopolies by increasing proprietary file format lock-in, and is generally inexcusable. But if you hear all of that and say "meh," I don't know where to go.
Pirating software is right when the market is inherently anti-consumer and forces people to continue paying an oligopoly that does not innovate and does not care about its customers.
Piracy allows consumers to rebel against markets that are otherwise crucial to day to day life. I feel it is completely wrong that if someone doesn't like the MPAA, the RIAA or EA/Activision that they must actively cut themselves off from American culture in order to make a stand "the proper way". it is the same kind of ridiculousness as saying that Martin Luther King Jr. would have hurt the wrong people and helped the wrong people if he did not have a permit to organize on the Lincoln Monument because it prevented legit visitors from enjoying the place and just proved the racists correct by showing the disdain the blacks have for American law.
EDIT: It only strengthens monopolies when those monopolies are allowed to control government. Valve seems to be kicking EA's ass and making huge bucks with Steam, because the video game industry doesn't wield government around as much as other media markets. There's the innovation piracy brings.
Montmorency
01-21-2012, 22:36
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the pirating of books, electronic and scanned. That seems like a much more gratuitous "theft of value" than software piracy. $100 book eight years in the making? Sure, add it to the queue.
Greyblades
01-21-2012, 22:54
Unless its in some sort of special binding or signed, 100 bucks for a book is pretty overpriced. Also, considering that librarys have been giving book away for free for at least a century, pirating a book is more redundant than anything else.
Montmorency
01-21-2012, 22:59
Academic literature and (up-to-date) thousand-page textbooks? Only the largest and best-funded public libraries are well-stocked in those.
a completely inoffensive name
01-21-2012, 23:08
I would agree with Montmorency on the book market. Most books there is no justification to pirate it.
If the book author is dead, or if the book is in the public sphere (obviously this is ok but it still gets sold and publishing company makes all the money) then I would say it is ok to pirate it. Just because a book is in a library doesn't really mean anything. The library has to make a deal with publishing company to get the book in there.
Greyblades
01-22-2012, 00:42
Academic literature and (up-to-date) thousand-page textbooks? Only the largest and best-funded public libraries are well-stocked in those.
I suppose but I do still think $100 for an ebook is ridiculous.
Papewaio
01-22-2012, 02:00
I think telephony systems count as high end complex proprietary systems. I've used Unix, Wintel, Cisco, scripting, GUI complex interfaces over multiple systems. Just so i can help tech support get calls from users who can't adapt, won't read the manual, figure out that no power means no computing or that it wasn't a virus downloading the porn when the other user is a fifteen year old boy. I've had to deal with people who can't adapt to new IT for over a decade. I've used complex geophysics equipment in jungle and desert. Had on call support calls on my birthday and wedding day. So excuses if I think that not being able to learn a new system puts you on the bottom of the IT literate list.
The best adapt the worst shuffle around clinging to antiquated ways. You would hate for your ISP to limit you to 56k modem because their staff refused to learn new systems.
You can't teach an old dog new tricks. So stay young by learning new tricks.
Me I've got a self built PC with windows 7 running at home, OpenOffice, Virtual Box running Ubuntu and Win XP. I'm running XP with a limited set of cores so that I can run Fallout 3 which I only got last year when I could afford it.
Greyblades
01-22-2012, 04:22
Dont care man, whether you think it's ok or not, it's not very wrong and I think it's too trivial to bother with punishing beyond a slap on the wrist, if that, unless they're making money out of it. I certainly dont consider it a crime that should end up with a heavy fine and a year long prison sentance, something that some violent offences dont get, as alot of companies think so.
a completely inoffensive name
01-22-2012, 04:35
but the end-users are still morally liable when they make the educated choice of convenience over 'the right thing to do.'
It's not always the right thing to do though.
a completely inoffensive name
01-22-2012, 04:51
I am open to your examples.
Well, in the case of video games...
-StarForce DRM (I think that was the one that damaged hard drives)
-Limited # of installs
-EULA's that claim that your purchase of the game is a lease and not a transfer of ownership AKA they reserve the right to stripe all capabilities including single player if you don't meet up to their rules (usually constant internet connection)
-Other DRM that installs hidden files on your computer and monitors what you do, invading your privacy.
-Companies that use their money to actively strip away your freedom (SOPA)
-Companies that actively rip out pieces of the game to be sold as DLC on day 1 or within a month.
The tactics that the video game industry is subjecting to customers is more and more degrading. It is mostly anti-consumer and act as an oligopoly between EA or Activision who are in a competition oover who can treat their customers the most like crap.
Piracy is the ability for consumers to finally hurt abusive companies with too much power/market share without having to isolate themselves from an entire medium. When piracy becomes rampant we saw EA and Activision shy away from PC games leading to everyone declaring PC gaming "dead". What happened instead? Valve stepped up and showed that the problem isn't that piracy is free, it's that companies forget to include respect with the package.
I'm tired of markets dominated by 6 or less companies treating people like :daisy:, taking 70+% of profits and giving scraps to the actual artists, developers, whatever and then being told that if I decide to not play by their rules I am "immoral".
If there was a magical machine that could take a barrel of oil and make a duplicate of it during the time of Rockefeller, I am sure it would have been "immoral" to do that as well. People should have just boycotted all lamp and heating oil and froze to death if they didn't want to give their money to Standard Oil.
Greyblades
01-22-2012, 04:59
Well, I agree. Punishing someone who lives in a place where games retailers are rare and who buysfrom the dude at the local corner shop is silly. So is punishing the guy in the corner shop. The only guys at fault are the ones who mass-pirated the games and sold them to the guy at the corner shop. The fact that you have internet access and an opinion means that you're smart enough to make the choice to support those pirates or not. If you buy those games out of convenience, then you of ALL PEOPLE should understand why DRM exists and why it isn't going anywhere.
Moralist rant aside, I agree that any kind of jail time for the end-user in this scenario is still silly. Most people living in a place where normal games retailers don't exist probably don't think too deeply on the politics of the situation--all they see is that there's a game and its cheap. The Shop Keeper too--he simply sees a product that people want to buy. The only people who should be held criminally liable are the actual pirates, but the end-users are still morally liable when they make the educated choice of convenience over 'the right thing to do.'
I'm on the side of the person in thier bedroom who downloads the game from the internet not because I think piracy is right, but because I see piracy as about as heinous as underaged drinking. I dont think its right but it happens and the worst those who just downloads files for his personal enjoyment deserves is a scare and maybe a 10 pound fine, not the one-step-down-from-life-in-prison that alot of companies advocate being done.
Greyblades
01-22-2012, 05:06
That's a pretty bad paralell, but I see where you're coming from. The difference is that if everyone decided to drink underage it would be very good for the alcohol industry.
I know its a bad paralell but I wasnt using it as a paralell, I was using it as an example of how little I find piracy abhorrent and heinous. I see Piracy about as bad as a 15 year old enjoying a secret brewski behind the school equipment shed.
a completely inoffensive name
01-22-2012, 05:19
Okay. So its a matter of fighting the power? How much does piracy help fight the power? It seems to me like all it does is give publishers and developers that are already prone to bad business practices an excuse for being even worse.
Yes, it does give bad practices an excuse for being worse. That is the point. They are ignorant, they don't understand the causes of piracy so companies like Valve that treat customers right can come and take their place in the market.
You're asking for business integrity and yet refusing to take part in responsible consumer practices. The best method is simply not to buy the product, and to encourage other people not to buy the product.
There is no "responsible" consumer practices because without power you have no responsibility, and consumers have no power besides the internet and the ability to pirate. If companies treated customers correctly and did not abuse government for their ends, then yes, piracy would be irresponsible, but this clearly isn't the case currently.
You are not entitled to a fun gaming experience, and if you think the game is still worth playing despite the DRM and the practices of the company, than you've already spoken with your actions if not with your money.
It's not about being entitled to a fun gaming experience, it's about the balance of power between the consumer and the company. Up until the Internet, consumers had no way to challenge oligopolies besides hoping that a government agency wasn't already corrupted to the bone. There was an imbalance in the positioning between the two agents and it is why independent agencies like "Consumer Reports" or Nader's Raiders started in the first place, because companies frequently abuse this imbalance to screw over customers. The balance is finally in favor of the customer now, and companies are becoming more and more intrusive into your life to correct this. **** that.
Piracy is a check on companies strong arming consumers. Without this, we are back to nothing. That is not preferable because "it's bad to play games without paying for them."
Greyblades
01-22-2012, 05:22
And I see your attitude as an example of why it won't go away, and why DRM will likely get worse. Lack of respect for the consumer is a very real problem world-wide, not just in the games industry. As long as people are more willing to say "Eh, screw it, I'll do what I want." instead of saying "Well, I find these practices wrong, so I'm going to be responsible and not do anything to support them" then this problem will not go away. It is one symptom of a larger problem with people in general.
Except that's the thing, the problem is all caused by the companies' actions, not the pirates.
You could say that pirates cause it due to it because of them that the company does those things, except that, as valve proved, the actions of the companies using DRM are useless and the alternatives are not only better for the consumer, they work. If they moved onto valve's methods the problems would be more eficiently solved and the consumer would not be screwed over as much. Its not the pirates downloading causing the companies to screw over thier customers, it's the companies being run by jerks... Oh and not changing thier tactics when they dont work.
a completely inoffensive name
01-22-2012, 05:44
And look what they did, right? Steam has done a lot of really good things for the market--not the least of which is making DRM less of a "Gee, I wonder what crazy crap is on the disc this time" to "Oh, its Steam, I know how this works." The answer should be obvious here: Don't take part in things you don't support. There's nothing more hypocritical than going on a long rant about EA and then buying the next Madden or FIFA game. Its just not consistent.
Steam is much more of a service and less of a DRM now. You can play your games offline now, so there really is no problem. It is the equivalent of verifying a product key. Idk where you are coming from about buying Madden, I never bought any sports game. There are a lot of hypocrites, but that doesn't invalidate the argument that I am making.
For the record I have never pirated anything.
What? No, you're wrong. You've been a responsible consumer your entire life, I should hope. You don't just walk into the store and steal some milk because you blew all your money on cheese, do you? There is no argument for piracy that is morally okay and consistent, unless that argument is "I really hate the entire gaming industry and I am trying to destroy it." In which case you probably shouldn't be letting anyone know that you are enjoying these games, because that would make you insane (why destroy something you enjoy?). This is really simple. If you don't like it, don't buy it. Don't partake in it. You have the right to rant, rave, and educate but you do not have the right to a free game just because you don't like the company. That's silly and childish.
This is completely different though. Grocery stores are not the RIAA. When you buy a product, you get the product, no strings attached. There is healthy competition that has prices at a reasonable market value and there is no grocery store equivalent to SOPA.
You can't just bring up a healthy market and then say, "See you wouldn't treat this good company badly, why would you treat this bad company like that?".
I agree. Fight with your wallet and your mouth. Fight it by being logically consistent and morally correct. Don't stoop the level of the irresponsible by stealing what's not yours. It is really that simple.
Yes, in order to be "moral" and "responsible" you must deny yourself all media. Stop watching TV, stop watching all movies, stop consuming your own culture. Anything less than isolating yourself from everyone else when they go out to live their lives means you are a terrible person. Nah, you are able to operate however you want when the market is so clearly rigged against you.
Capitalism is an efficient way to produce services and products which is meant to ultimately improve everyone's standard of living. American culture now believes that the purpose of capitalism is the pursuit of capital and wealth in itself and not the efficient use of it. If the customers are not enjoying a reasonable standard of living from this set up, then there is no obligation anymore.
As I said before, we take your argument back all the way to the Guilded Age. Back then the company paying you also owned your house and the store you bought your goods from. If someone wanted extra food and stole it from the general store, I see no reason why I should condemn that man when clearly his standard of living is a joke.
a completely inoffensive name
01-22-2012, 05:59
Well, no, you wouldn't blame a starving man for stealing food. Are you starving for video games? Is this a product you need to survive? The answer is no. You just don't need it, and you are not doing your political cause any justice by endorsing piracy.
I am not even saying the man is starving necessarily. What I am saying is that the man wishes to enjoy having some extra food. Or maybe he just wants to buy some of the more expensive food he cant afford but has the "basics" he needs to survive. The company he works for directly limits the amount of food he can get by controlling his paycheck and the price of the food. Is this a perfectly fine set up as long as the man is fed? No, the man is not in control of his life, he is dependent on the company and if we say that as long as the bare basics are met, then everything is fine, progress for the average person is not possible.
Consumers must be greedy, they must be selfish, they must be hypocrites in many ways because this is the only way that the public will get a higher standard of living. Otherwise, fat cats are willing to penny pinch all the way until only the bare basics are met.
If everyone who claimed to be mortally opposed to DRM just stopped buying games with DRM, there'd be no DRM. If everyone who found EA's business practices shady stopped buying EA games, there'd be no EA (or at least, there'd be a reformed EA). I do agree that when a situation is bad enough you need to stand up and fight for your rights. Video Games are not an appropriate avenue for that line of thought. Nobody is opressing you. They just keep offering you crap and bad solutions because they know gamers are god-awful at organizing anything meaninful.
If everyone who claimed to be good politicians stopped passing terrible laws we wouldn't have a broken government. Yes, this is true, but there will always be just downright bad/stupid people in all positions of society. That does not mean that we have restrict everyone.
There are homegrown terrorists in the US, thus the PATRIOT ACT is necessary. If only those bad people stopped being terrorists right?
Sasaki Kojiro
01-22-2012, 06:03
I dislike any attempt to make piracy a moral cause, casting the businesses in the role of evil villain or oppressor...arguing for that kind of narrative is much worse than pirating any game.
It's simple enough, people in college with no/little income pirate a whole bunch instead, and if they start paying for it once they have a job then it's no big deal. If they don't then they are cheap as hell. Attempts to stop or prevent piracy are good in theory.
The real immorality is in things like google's "don't let the government censor the internet" crap, and all the internet bloggers blathering about free speech.
a completely inoffensive name
01-22-2012, 06:09
I dislike any attempt to make piracy a moral cause, casting the businesses in the role of evil villain or oppressor...arguing for that kind of narrative is much worse than pirating any game.
Just to clarify, I am not saying piracy is moral in all cases.
It's simple enough, people in college with no/little income pirate a whole bunch instead, and if they start paying for it once they have a job then it's no big deal. If they don't then they are cheap as hell. Attempts to stop or prevent piracy are good in theory.
I agree with this, but only because you added "in theory" to your last sentence.
Yes, in order to be "moral" and "responsible" you must deny yourself all media. Stop watching TV, stop watching all movies, stop consuming your own culture. Anything less than isolating yourself from everyone else when they go out to live their lives means you are a terrible person. Nah, you are able to operate however you want when the market is so clearly rigged against you.
Except you don't have to stop consuming all media. There's independent games, independent movies, and independent music. And if there's no independent games, movies, or music around, you can always make your own.
Sasaki Kojiro
01-22-2012, 09:03
Well, I guess the last defense of my argument is to say that I think people are capable of being much better than they generally are. Peer pressure is used for a lot of bad things, but it can be used for a lot of good things too. If you make a point of being a good person, and trying to influence other people to be rational and responsible, you can have an actual impact. This is a good value to strive for, and it is directly undermined by taking wishy-washy positions where the easiest way out is also a shady and morally ambiguous one.
Yes. You have to consider that even if you personally pirate in a "more ethical" way, what you say about it can encourage other people who have no such scruples. Right now my impression of American culture is that pirating is frowned upon. On the internet, much much less so. It's important that it not become unstigmatized on a wider level. It's easily conceivable that it might. Which is where the revolting overblown government paranoia and hollywood hate that the criticism of the SOPA bill brings out comes in. That stuff is the real problem. Bills can be amended and often are in the process of becoming law...sometimes they are even put out with provisions that are intended to be taken out so that the opposition can say they forced the other guys to make the bill better.
a completely inoffensive name
01-22-2012, 09:15
Except you don't have to stop consuming all media. There's independent games, independent movies, and independent music. And if there's no independent games, movies, or music around, you can always make your own.
This is true, but I could argue that indy games, movies and music are more or less outside the mainstream culture in today's society, hence "indy".
But I get your point.
Well, I guess the last defense of my argument is to say that I think people are capable of being much better than they generally are. Peer pressure is used for a lot of bad things, but it can be used for a lot of good things too. If you make a point of being a good person, and trying to influence other people to be rational and responsible, you can have an actual impact. This is a good value to strive for, and it is directly undermined by taking wishy-washy positions where the easiest way out is also a shady and morally ambiguous one. I think the Patriot Act is a very obvious example of this as well--people taking the easy way out, enabled by peer pressure (or perhaps more correctly: peer apathy) and ignorance.
Well this is why I personally have never pirated and when people ask why not, I usually say that I have the self restraint not to need any thing but my legally purchased books.
Perhaps I should be less cynical of other people and demand the same standards that I set for myself. Hmmmm.
I will re-read yours and Sasaki's posts and re-examine my position.
Aye, I found a nice article (http://www.pcworld.com/article/248549/megaupload_story_filled_with_drama.html) on the story, here are my favourite bits:
Details of his arrest are now coming out. Apparently, it was a dramatic, high-tech stand-off when dozens of New Zealand police backed by helicopters swarmed Dotcom's barricaded mansion to arrest him on Friday. Dotcom refused them entry and police had to cut their way through electronic locks to a safe room, where they discovered him with a sawed-off shotgun.
With Dotcom in cuffs, officers then began seizing things -- two guns, computers, documents and vehicles, lots of them. Personalized number plates on 20 or so seized vehicles included KIMCOM, HACKER, STONED, GUILTY, MAFIA, GOD and POLICE.
The craziest villains are always german, eh? :sweatdrop:
classical_hero
01-22-2012, 20:11
No, I've gone over this and explained why it is theft of value. Unless you think software and the use of it have no value, in which case please explain why you want to have it then?
Theft is about ownership not value. You have things stolen by someone means you don't have that any more and thus you are no longer the owner of that item. In Piracy you still have ownership of the item, just that someone made a copy of that Item. There is a reason why the owner of Megaupload is not arrested for Theft, but for Piracy. It is similar but not the same as theft, in that you now have ownership of material that wasn't yours to begin with, but they still have ownership of the original. Theft means they have lost ownership to the material, but in Piracy they have not lost ownership. Piracy is wrong, but it is not theft.
@Lemur, it would be good to give your background in the music industry, so we can understand it from their side and why they are wrong.
@Lemur, it would be good to give your background in the music industry, so we can understand it from their side and why they are wrong.
As I said, in the mid-to-late nineties I was a music journalist, writing articles for dead-tree publications. And I was already very much a geek. So I was asking questions and watching from the front row as the music industry strangled every good idea in the crib, destroyed every start-up they could, and generally dug their heels in to avoid change.
Then Napster hit in 2000 and it was over.
I also watched Apple buy a little program called Soundjam MP, turn it into something called "iTunes," and convince the idiots at the labels that iTunes would only ever be for the Mac, which was very similar to saying, "I will only put it in a little way, baby."
Anyway. If you've got any specific questions about that bit of history, I was there.
Papewaio
01-22-2012, 21:44
Rank countries by piracy, GDP per capita & life expectancy
Piracy goes down as GDP & life expectancy goes up.
Or the less corrupt a nation the better off the people. Just compare and contrast Singapore and its neighbours.
Philippus Flavius Homovallumus
01-23-2012, 00:37
Well, no, you wouldn't blame a starving man for stealing food. Are you starving for video games? Is this a product you need to survive? The answer is no. You just don't need it, and you are not doing your political cause any justice by endorsing piracy.
If everyone who claimed to be mortally opposed to DRM just stopped buying games with DRM, there'd be no DRM. If everyone who found EA's business practices shady stopped buying EA games, there'd be no EA (or at least, there'd be a reformed EA). I do agree that when a situation is bad enough you need to stand up and fight for your rights. Video Games are not an appropriate avenue for that line of thought. Nobody is opressing you. They just keep offering you crap and bad solutions because they know gamers are god-awful at organizing anything meaningful.
I don't believe in Steam, which is why I haven't bought Skyrim, and I may not do so. Of course, I could buy Skyrim and then crack it, thereby not participating in piracy, but also not participating in Steam.
On the other hand though, I suspect I will just buy The Witcher, and possibly Dragon Age free if it is Steam-less.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against DRM itself, but Valve's Steam is the original wolf in sheep's clothing, and I can't believe how many people fall for it's sweet, sweet song.
Given that DRM has completely failed, and games that lack serious DRM seem to be less likely to be cracked, it's stupid stuff, wastes my time and CPU cycles I need to play the damn game.
Papewaio
01-23-2012, 03:36
Steam offline mode works well for single player.
There is a reason why the owner of Megaupload is not arrested for Theft, but for Piracy.
Pff, yes, because piracy is actually a worse crime that gets you a higher sentence. Going by wikipedia definitions we get the following:
Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea.
Robbery is the crime of taking or attempting to take something of value by force or threat of force or by putting the victim in fear.
Robbery differs from simple theft in its use of violence and intimidation.
So I'm sorry for trying to make it look better than it is.
What's stolen with illegal copies of software is not so much the software as the customer. To the software company every customer has a value and when he switches to piracy it is indeed value that has been taken away from the company that they cannot get back, that they cannot use anymore. To claim that they have ownership of their customers is a bit far-fetched and you have to consider intent. So I don't think you can put an actual value on the amount that was stolen as you'd have to know peoples' intentions, i.e. whether the person would have bought the software had it not been for the illegal copy. And cases where they would have are cases where the company lost income/value/money or whatever that it won't get back and can't use anymore.
Pff, yes, because piracy is actually a worse crime that gets you a higher sentence. Going by wikipedia definitions we get the following:
You keep hitting that line, about naval piracy. It's funny and all, but it side-steps a core issue: software and content piracy is a different sort of crime than simple theft. It's both worse and better, in strange ways. Talking about it as though it were theft or robbery confuses rather than clarifies. We need a new word for a new crime, and "piracy" fits the bill. We could also call it "filesharing," but that encompasses too many legal and legit activities for my taste.
As for the people whole-heartedly defending piracy in this thread, I'm running out of things to say to ya. Game devs deserve to be compensated for their work, and not via fiat or subsidy, but via the open market. Likewise software companies, investors and engineers. If you believe that everyone has a moral right to pirate anything they like, I don't see how the market can function.
Note how many a-list open-source games have been released. That's the alternative, folks, if we don't believe in the market.
All of the justifications for piracy that have been put forward in this thread are, to be frank, a pile of bunk. For productivity and basic operations there is open source. For games you can either pay for 'em or not play 'em. You are not entitled to Battlefield 3 or Skyrim. You are not entitled to Windows 7 or Photoshop. Just because a software publisher acts like a jerk does not mean you get to pirate their code. Just because a game maker loads up Bioshock with a rootkit and DRM does not mean you have a right to pirate a cleaned-up version. (Unless you paid for the retail version already, in which case the morality is a bit murky; but that's not what you are arguing for anyway.)
Your justifications are excuses that don't pass the smell test.
You keep hitting that line, about naval piracy. It's funny and all, but it side-steps a core issue: software and content piracy is a different sort of crime than simple theft. It's both worse and better, in strange ways. Talking about it as though it were theft or robbery confuses rather than clarifies. We need a new word for a new crime, and "piracy" fits the bill. We could also call it "filesharing," but that encompasses too many legal and legit activities for my taste.
You keep hitting that line, about theft. It's funny and all, but it side-steps a core issue: software and illegal distribution is a different sort of crime than piracy. It's both worse and better, in strange ways. Talking about it as though it were piracy or robbery(piracy is robbery at sea, see the definition I posted) confuses rather than clarifies. We need a new word for a new crime, and "theft" is much closer than "piracy". We could also call it "illegal distribution/copying" or think of a word that actually fits instead of going with a wrong, romanticised word.
~;)
Rest of your post I completely agree with of course.
We need a new word for a new crime, and "theft" is much closer than "piracy". We could also call it "illegal distribution/copying" or think of a word that actually fits instead of going with a wrong, romanticised word.
Meh. Illegal filesharing is a new and interesting type of crime that did not exist before technology made it possible. People taping songs off the radio in the 1970s, for example, were not commonly thought of as "thieves." Likewise, people in the 1980s who would duplicate their VHS tapes were not called "robbers."
I don't think "piracy" is a romanticized word, especially not when most people think of starving Somalis with RPGs in this day and age. And it's not weird to have a single word describe two very different kinds of scenarios; I do not believe anyone is confusing thousands of people sharing a copy of "Two and a Half Men" with events around the Horn of Africa. The terminology only gets flummoxing when two similar activities share a name.
I really do believe illegal filesharing is a new and different animal. That does not mean I believe it is justified, as my arguments in this thread have shown.
-edit-
Okay, it's not completely new, but it's new-ish. And to my prosimian brain, there is a difference between Ben Franklin ripping off British authors (http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/pva/pva75.html) and the wholesale sharing of software and games.
The first American "pirate" was probably Benjamin Franklin (1706-90), who was, among other things, a Philadelphia printer who re-published the works of British authors in the eighteenth century without seeking their permission or offering remuneration. Novelists, of course, were not the only writers affected. The complaints of poet William Wordsworth, for example, which began quietly in 1808, grew louder and more eloquent over the course of the next three and a half decades; by 1837 the matter had begun to absorb large amounts of his time and energy. He went to London to lobby the House of Commons, enlisting the aid of the popular dramatist Thomas Noon Talford as his parliamentary champion. During both his North American reading tours of 1842 and 1867-68 Dickens lobbied the American Congress to recognize the copyright of British authors, but made little headway because American publishing was undercapitalized and needed to be able to plunder British and continental works in order to survive.
So fallout from the Megaupload raid has finally happened. Other file sharing sites in a collective brick :daisy: have locked down their services. Many are deleting everything and shutting down the accounts of paying users (Filesonic and Fileserve). One smaller start-up has folded outright (UploadBox). Another (Uploaded.to) has banned all US IP's from using their service. And many are canceling their affiliate programs. And/Or shutting down 3rd party downloads.
Full story (http://torrentfreak.com/cyberlocker-ecosystem-shocked-as-big-players-take-drastic-action-120123/)
Greyblades
01-23-2012, 20:36
Whoop-dee-dooo industry, you just forced a huge amount of legitamate buisness and downloads to go to filesharing sites if they want thier mods etc on the internet without having to pay fees, I'd hate to be the person who has to sort out what's legal and illegal on the pirate's sites now.
Papewaio
01-23-2012, 22:13
IMDHO the term used for the end users of pirated software, particularly operating systems should be freebooters.
So the general verb should be freebooting.
So the general verb should be freebooting.
I prefer "thieves" and "stealing"
Greyblades
01-23-2012, 22:33
Naahh, really? I would never have guessed.
Shaka_Khan
01-24-2012, 01:19
Just 2 decades ago it would be called 'sharing'.
So fallout from the Megaupload raid has finally happened. Other file sharing sites in a collective brick :daisy: have locked down their services. Many are deleting everything and shutting down the accounts of paying users (Filesonic and Fileserve). One smaller start-up has folded outright (UploadBox). Another (Uploaded.to) has banned all US IP's from using their service. And many are canceling their affiliate programs. And/Or shutting down 3rd party downloads.
Full story (http://torrentfreak.com/cyberlocker-ecosystem-shocked-as-big-players-take-drastic-action-120123/)
I´m betting Fileserve/Filesonic (it's important to notice that these 2 belong to the same people) is right now moving out of any place with US jurisdiction and will be re-opening in a month....call it a hunch.
The biggest change this makes is to give new life to Rapidshare, that has been in the dog house with the sharers for the last 2 or 3 years and is now the default big boy in the block again.
the feedback I´m seeing from the community is that it will adapt to something else....it always does.
http://dribbble.com/system/users/763/screenshots/220656/hailhydra.jpg
Cut off a limb, and two more shall take its place! Hail Hydra! :P
The world of Electronic Commerce, exciting, isn't it? ~D
I'll preface this with the disclaimer: copyright infringement is not right, morally or legally. Those of you making justifications for using software without paying are way off base. Use a free alternative, or go without.
The original intention of IP law (US version, anyway) was to give the inventors (patents) and artists (copyrights) a limited time to reap the rewards of their work, before the IP became part of the public domain. This government-imposed monopoly was meant to encourage inventors and artists financially, but the result was that the public owned the work in the end. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Clause). I'll leave patents out of this, since they are somewhat sane still, although not without their own problems.
Original copyright was for 14 years, with the option for the owner to extend for 14 more years if desired. Copyrights had to be specifically registered for. The 1909 Copyright act extended this to 28 + 28 years, pushing it but not too egregious. The 1976 Act took it too far. Registration was no longer required (but necessary prior to legal action), and the term was life of the creator + 50 years. Works for hire (corporate ownership, think music signed to labels) got 75 years straight up. The Sonny Bono Fiasco of 1998 gave life + 70, or 120 years on works for hire.
These extensions do a few things.
They reduce the incentive for new works by talented artists. Collecting royalty checks for life kills motivation.
They deny the public of it's culture. Music, movies, and books created prior to the 80s should be available to anyone at this point.
They allow for rent-seeking by estates and corporations, giving the rewards of creativity to those that do not deserve it. And this will not end, as Eldred v Ashcroft allows Congress to extend copyright for as long as they want, as long as it is not infinity. When Steamboat Willie comes to the end of it's term in 2023, there will be another extension, guaranteed. Considering how much money Disney made by stealing ideas from the public domain, you would think they would know better.
Copyright terms need to be reverted back to 28 years. Copyright is a pact between the public and the creators, and the public is getting the short end of it at the moment. Apart from the subsidized monopoly on the works themselves, copyright holders are increasingly pushing the costs of their protection onto the people as well, through government enforcement and criminalization. IP infringement was a civil matter, with the holders responsible for the costs of bringing lawsuits, but more and more the taxpayers are footing the bill. And we will never see the benefit, since the works will never be ours in the end.
And remember kids, hug a tree. ~;)
The way software IP is handled in the US is a travesty. Methods and such get patents (even though all software are algorithms, and thus shouldn't be eligible for patents), while source code falls under copyright. The worst of both worlds.
a completely inoffensive name
01-24-2012, 23:37
How long do we have to subject ourselves to obscene laws before we say enough is enough?
Entertainment market is a cartel of 6 companies. "Going without" is going without any medium except indie. Oh wait, indie tv need cable (part of cartel) to watch. And indie movies need theaters (in bed with cartel) to watch.
Software has alternatives, but in regards to standard entertainment, we can claim "it's wrong to hurt the band" all the way until everything we eat, see and hear is copyrighted and charged. They control the laws, and it won't be until people start performing civil disobedience that it will change.
I say we should save the artists by dismantling the MPAA and RIAA.
NIN and Louis CK have proven that the record companies are no longer needed.
EDIT: Whatever, I am morally wrong apparently. And when the record companies win the right to re-copyright materials in the public domain, all you scumbags that downloaded them for free off of Gutenburg will need to clean your moral sins.
Greyblades
01-25-2012, 00:01
This is not in defense of either side I just thought this was interesting:
Warning contains gratuitous swearwords.: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/5268-Piracy-Episode-One-Copyright
Entertainment market is a cartel of 6 companies. "Going without" is going without any medium except indie. Oh wait, indie tv need cable (part of cartel) to watch. And indie movies need theaters (in bed with cartel) to watch.
Actually, indie needs only net access. The TV, radio, and theater cartels are wetting themselves because they can no longer control distribution.
Software has alternatives, but in regards to standard entertainment, we can claim "it's wrong to hurt the band" all the way until everything we eat, see and hear is copyrighted and charged. They control the laws, and it won't be until people start performing civil disobedience that it will change.
Not buying a recording hardly hurts the band, chances are they don't see any of that money. If you want to support a band, see them live. Google for Courtney Love's article on recording contracts, it's not pretty.
I say we should save the artists by dismantling the MPAA and RIAA.
NIN and Louis CK have proven that the record companies are no longer needed.
That would be the first good step. See the first point.
EDIT: Whatever, I am morally wrong apparently. And when the record companies win the right to re-copyright materials in the public domain, all you scumbags that downloaded them for free off of Gutenburg will need to clean your moral sins.
What GC said. Copyright infringement is wrong, but so is stealing culture from the public. What we need is a reasonable copyright term, along with friendlier distribution methods for content under copyright.
But this is what we are up against. (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120120/14472117492/mpaa-directly-publicly-threatens-politicians-who-arent-corrupt-enough-to-stay-bought.shtml)
a completely inoffensive name
01-25-2012, 01:00
Actually, indie needs only net access. The TV, radio, and theater cartels are wetting themselves because they can no longer control distribution.
Links now, please.
Not buying a recording hardly hurts the band, chances are they don't see any of that money. If you want to support a band, see them live. Google for Courtney Love's article on recording contracts, it's not pretty.
So what is the problem with piracy if it doesn't hurt the band? People who pirate still love going to shows.
What GC said. Copyright infringement is wrong, but so is stealing culture from the public. What we need is a reasonable copyright term, along with friendlier distribution methods for content under copyright.
But this is what we are up against. (http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120120/14472117492/mpaa-directly-publicly-threatens-politicians-who-arent-corrupt-enough-to-stay-bought.shtml)
Exactly. They own Congress. We are powerless against their money. We have little options other than not playing their game.
So what is the problem with piracy if it doesn't hurt the band? People who pirate still love going to shows.
Bands aren't leading the charge here, it's the RIAA members (Sony Music, EMI, Universal, and Warner). They own the copyrights to the recordings, not the bands.
Edit-> Here (http://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/singleton/) is the Courtney Love piece on labels.
Here (http://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/singleton/) is the Courtney Love piece on labels.
Seems like a longer, more philosophical take on Steve Albini's earlier piece (http://www.negativland.com/albini.html). Both are worth a read.
Sasaki Kojiro
01-25-2012, 06:41
Seems like a longer, more philosophical take on Steve Albini's earlier piece (http://www.negativland.com/albini.html). Both are worth a read.
How many records flop and how much does the studio lose on those? Silly to leave that out. Hollywood often loses 10's of millions on movies I know.
They reduce the incentive for new works by talented artists. Collecting royalty checks for life kills motivation.
Surely that's up to them though. 28 years or until death of creator seems better.
Thought this (http://torrentfreak.com/swiss-govt-downloading-movies-and-music-will-stay-legal-111202/)may be of interest also.
Quid
That's very interesting Quid, I do however wonder whether "budget for entertainment" includes a lot of things so people may just get music, movies and games for free and spend the money on beer instead. That wouldn't help the movie industry a lot for example. Id entertainment purely relates to the categories that benefit the same industry then it's a very interesting study indeed, may think more about it later.
That's very interesting Quid, I do however wonder whether "budget for entertainment" includes a lot of things so people may just get music, movies and games for free and spend the money on beer instead. That wouldn't help the movie industry a lot for example. Id entertainment purely relates to the categories that benefit the same industry then it's a very interesting study indeed, may think more about it later.
I do believe that the study was conducted by defining 'entertainment' in this case by 'films, misic, games'. I have not had time to sift through the actual data (if available) but that is how I have understood it.
Quid
Actually Quid's link is very good as a majority of people who do download for private use ends up buying the products anyway and my own point of view has been the one in Swizterland and Japan where such actions shouldn't be criminalised.
I watch a lot of things online, from BBC iPlayer, Youtube and Netflix. It is because of these sites I actually get to watch these shows and end up buying them on DVD or Blu-ray because I thoroughly enjoyed them. If it wasn't for the fact I got to see them first, I wouldn't have bought them in the first place anyway, so the "entertainment" industry got money from me that way. I also watched Game of Thrones online and because of this, I now own all of the books and pre-ordered the boxset on blu-ray which comes out in March. As you can see, the free methods aren't exactly "free" as if they are good, you want to buy the products anyway.
Basically, it is not fair on the "entertainment" industry as the BBC, Netflix, itunes, spotify and others all have the initiative and brains to produce things people want and desire and make money from it. It is just the old school fatcats who want to milk people for £20 per film and £12 for a Single.. really expensive and stupid prices which I totally refuse to pay so I simply go without. Ask Secura about my music collection, the response is "What collection?".
How many records flop and how much does the studio lose on those?
Both of those links cover that. The bands are stuck with the debts.
Hollywood often loses 10's of millions on movies I know.
Surely you have heard the term Hollywood accounting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting)? This is why the smart actors take percentages of the gross, not net, or a flat payment.
Surely that's up to them though. 28 years or until death of creator seems better.
The best solution would be a derivative of the trademark method. Require registration for copyright, which gives 14 (or something similar) years for free. Then allow for extensions of X years, but the extensions require a fee/tax, and each subsequent extension costs more until it becomes economically unfeasible to keep the IP out of the public domain.
Sasaki Kojiro
01-25-2012, 20:02
Thought this (http://torrentfreak.com/swiss-govt-downloading-movies-and-music-will-stay-legal-111202/)may be of interest also.
Quid
That's a pretty bad article, not surprising from a torrent site.
It's perfectly obvious that if someone downloads 5 albums and then goes to a $100 dollar concert for one of the bands, the other 4 got shafted.
Not to mention the questionable method of figuring out whether the do spend the money anyway, and the bind extrapolation to the future...
Both of those links cover that. The bands are stuck with the debts.
Don't see where it says that in the albini one. You claim that if the record sells no copies the band would be on the hook for the 550,00 spent on manufacturing?
Surely you have heard the term Hollywood accounting (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting)? This is why the smart actors take percentages of the gross, not net, or a flat payment.
So the rarely claim a profit (according to wikipedia). But it's not like there haven't been flops that bankrupted studios. If avatar had flopped it wouldn't just have been "hollywood accounting". That's why several studios often team up on a big budget movie so they are taking less risk.
I was under the impression that the model for these businesses was to put out a lot of movies, books, cd's that don't make much or even lose money in some cases, and to make all their profits off of the ones that are hits or bestsellers.
And basically the internet is a very biased place to look for information about this sort of thing...for obvious reasons...
The best solution would be a derivative of the trademark method. Require registration for copyright, which gives 14 (or something similar) years for free. Then allow for extensions of X years, but the extensions require a fee/tax, and each subsequent extension costs more until it becomes economically unfeasible to keep the IP out of the public domain.
hmm now that I think about it I guess this works.
Tellos Athenaios
01-25-2012, 20:13
That's a pretty bad article, not surprising from a torrent site.
It's perfectly obvious that if someone downloads 5 albums and then goes to a $100 dollar concert for one of the bands, the other 4 got shafted.
No it isn't, the study isn't concerned with the effects on individual artists but the net effect on the economy as a whole. A $100 concert could well be worth more than those 5 albums combined.
Consider a $50 album + three “bargain bin” ones + a $10 album, that would tend to work out at less than $100 so you get a net profit. We also didn't consider that people tend to spend a lot of money on overpriced stuff while at concerts (think everything from drinks to merchandise).
Don't see where it says that in the albini one. You claim that if the record sells no copies the band would be on the hook for the 550,00 spent on manufacturing?
No, it's the advance loan that they have to repay. -- It appears to be calculated on a projected sales figure, so you might get $1M in advance to fund your tour and so on; but that assumes a sale of 1M copies to break even (say) so it is conditional on meeting that figure. The money is repaid by withholding the first $1M of revenue from the copies sold. So if you sell only 500K copies you are in debt for $500K, if you broke even on your tours. (You spent $1M on the tour but managed to sell enough tickets to recoup that $1M. Now, you only need to repay that $1M loan somehow..., of which $500K is covered by the record sales, so that leaves just $500K to go...)
Sasaki Kojiro
01-25-2012, 20:25
No it isn't, the study isn't concerned with the effects on individual artists but the net effect on the economy as a whole. A $100 concert could well be worth more than those 5 albums combined.
In other words it isn't concerned with justice in the slightest but merely switzerlands short term self interest.
No, it's the advance loan that they have to repay. -- It appears to be calculated on a projected sales figure, so you might get $1M in advance to fund your tour and so on; but that assumes a sale of 1M copies to break even (say) so it is conditional on meeting that figure. The money is repaid by withholding the first $1M of revenue from the copies sold. So if you sell only 500K copies you are in debt for $500K, if you broke even on your tours. (You spent $1M on the tour but managed to sell enough tickets to recoup that $1M. Now, you only need to repay that $1M loan somehow..., of which $500K is covered by the record sales, so that leaves just $500K to go...)
Yes? And the record company will carry that debt over to the next album, if there is one.
I get the impression that what we have is stories from bands who made nothing, and bands who made way less than the record company...no stories from bands who cost the record company hundreds of thousands...
Sasaki Kojiro
01-25-2012, 20:31
It's not like I'm terribly pro-business or something...I just don't believe in the oppressor/victim story. Instances of abuse are just instances.
Tellos Athenaios
01-25-2012, 22:33
In other words it isn't concerned with justice in the slightest but merely switzerlands short term self interest.
There's no justice to be meted out if the act isn't illegal in the first place? Switzerland is its own jurisdiction, and whatever your USA laws might be: they do not apply. So there goes your argument. Secondly, Switzerland was evaluating whether or not it should amend copyright law to --effectively-- give out more freebies to the record labels. They decided that on balance, it is better not to. There's not even any scope for “justice” there, which is not the job of the legislators but of the court system as I recall.
This is clearly not “short term” thinking, and of course it is in Switzerland's own interest. They are to be congratulated and applauded on both counts: for thinking this through and doing the sums rather than going into a fit of (bought and paid for? -- they do that in the USA) legismania at the expense of the taxpayer who has to stump up the cash for more enforcement, and for recognizing that neither Switzerland nor its people will have anything to gain by it and effectively end up losing from it.
Yes? And the record company will carry that debt over to the next album, if there is one.
I get the impression that what we have is stories from bands who made nothing, and bands who made way less than the record company...no stories from bands who cost the record company hundreds of thousands...
Well if I understood the article correctly: no, that is the debt the artist(s) owe the record company. So they're $500K indebted at that point, and they haven't actually been paid a fee or anything like that. So the labels walk away with no loss, because it is you who get to stump up the lost cash. (Hence the modifications to laws governing personal bankruptcy demanded & received by the RIAA...)
The crux of the matter is not that this happens, I mean one essentially goes to the record company for VC type funding of what is essentially a start up (tour/band) -- nobody expects the record labels to actually pay for the tour or anything like it, and nobody complains about the album being collateral in the bargain.
However the objection is that for all practical considerations, the labels operate as a cartel which means that bands have no viable option for the promition of their work but to go through the labels cartels and the labels cartels drive down the royalties per sold record so that even if you are hugely successful you don't actually get meaningful royalties from your work.
Essentially the way the labels operate is extortionate towards the artists.
I would add that it is extortionate towards society as a whole by buying copyright extensions and other subsidies ad infinitum. Did you know, for instance that for every data CD sold a percentage goes towards the members of the MPAA/RIAA? Did you know that if you are a business owner and you have a radio in your business you must pay them royalties for the use of it?
Sasaki Kojiro
01-26-2012, 00:49
There's no justice to be meted out if the act isn't illegal in the first place? Switzerland is its own jurisdiction, and whatever your USA laws might be: they do not apply. So there goes your argument. Secondly, Switzerland was evaluating whether or not it should amend copyright law to --effectively-- give out more freebies to the record labels. They decided that on balance, it is better not to. There's not even any scope for “justice” there, which is not the job of the legislators but of the court system as I recall.
This is clearly not “short term” thinking, and of course it is in Switzerland's own interest. They are to be congratulated and applauded on both counts: for thinking this through and doing the sums rather than going into a fit of (bought and paid for? -- they do that in the USA) legismania at the expense of the taxpayer who has to stump up the cash for more enforcement, and for recognizing that neither Switzerland nor its people will have anything to gain by it and effectively end up losing from it.
Good lord man. Yes, ignoring the fact that individual artists get screwed over just because theoretically the economy as a whole doesn't suffer is unjust. What's all this craziness about justice simply having to do with whatever the laws of the country are, and about the legislature not having anything to do with justice?
Well if I understood the article correctly: no, that is the debt the artist(s) owe the record company. So they're $500K indebted at that point, and they haven't actually been paid a fee or anything like that. So the labels walk away with no loss, because it is you who get to stump up the lost cash. (Hence the modifications to laws governing personal bankruptcy demanded & received by the RIAA...)
The crux of the matter is not that this happens, I mean one essentially goes to the record company for VC type funding of what is essentially a start up (tour/band) -- nobody expects the record labels to actually pay for the tour or anything like it, and nobody complains about the album being collateral in the bargain.
However the objection is that for all practical considerations, the labels operate as a cartel which means that bands have no viable option for the promition of their work but to go through the labels cartels and the labels cartels drive down the royalties per sold record so that even if you are hugely successful you don't actually get meaningful royalties from your work.
Essentially the way the labels operate is extortionate towards the artists.
This is all missing the forest for the trees...
The record company, in albini's example, makes $700,000 while the band makes nothing. What's the root cause of that? Why hasn't it moved towards at least 500,000 to 200,000 or something over time?
I would guess it's because everyone and their mother wants to be in a band and put out a record. We have an extreme glut of wannabe bands and musicians, a excess that can't even keep up with the incredible amount of music people purchase and listen too--this is the historical impression I have, that the age of the ipod and headphones is vastly different to the period when to hear a piece of music you had to have the musician perform it for you right there. Recording technology period is bad for the artist. Why pay a regular musician when you can purchase a recording by a famous one?
It's a bit like complaining that the extras in a movie scene featuring Scarlett Johnansen naked are underpaid.
Albini himself mentions that if the band won't sign a contract, the record company is happy to let them sit. That's because they have a 100 more bands clamoring to sign, all as desperate as this one.
Btw, I googled for the courtney love article but I think this is a different one by her, supports exactly what I was saying:
Record companies have a 5% success rate. That means that 5% of all records released by major labels go gold or platinum. How do record companies get away with a 95% failure rate that would be totally unacceptable in any other business? Record companies keep almost all the profits. Recording artists get paid a tiny fraction of the money earned by their music. That allows record executives to be incredibly sloppy in running their companies and still create enormous amounts of cash for the corporations that own them.
Also shows her ignorance I think...saying that it's the failure of the studios that only 5% of records do that well. The music industry is social. You can't predict what will do well or make a record do well...even given how hard they try. It's not like making light bulbs.
They make their money off of the hits so they can't afford to lose much on the other 95%. They are able to pay the bands little because everyone wants to be in a band.
Taking any problem with the copyright law or the industry and casting it into some business oppressor/consumer victim story is wrong...whatever the serious issues are, they are buried under a pile of this stuff.
Tellos Athenaios
01-26-2012, 01:15
Good lord man. Yes, ignoring the fact that individual artists get screwed over just because theoretically the economy as a whole doesn't suffer is unjust. What's all this craziness about justice simply having to do with whatever the laws of the country are, and about the legislature not having anything to do with justice?. Good lord man... Yes, ignoring the fact that this study was done as research into whether or not more copyright legislation is needed... Et cetera. Why don't you try to read what's posted, for a change?
This is all missing the forest for the trees... Right you are, nobody is suggesting that only 5% of artists succeed is somehow the fault of the record companies. Nobody is even remotely interested in advancing that ridiculous line of reasoning. Forest for the trees, indeed.
The article advances the notion that there is a reason that the labels can survive (and even thrive) on only 5% success, and claims that this is to do with how the contracts & finances work out -- to the detriment of the artists who are left to pay for 95% failure and who themselves are paid rather little for their 5% success. Care to address that instead of figments of the imagination?
Tellos Athenaios
01-26-2012, 01:28
The record company, in albini's example, makes $700,000 while the band makes nothing. What's the root cause of that? Why hasn't it moved towards at least 500,000 to 200,000 or something over time?
I would guess it's because everyone and their mother wants to be in a band and put out a record. We have an extreme glut of wannabe bands and musicians, a excess that can't even keep up with the incredible amount of music people purchase and listen too--this is the historical impression I have, that the age of the ipod and headphones is vastly different to the period when to hear a piece of music you had to have the musician perform it for you right there. Recording technology period is bad for the artist. Why pay a regular musician when you can purchase a recording by a famous one?
Beats me. Why do people go to concerts, which are noisy, have poor audio quality and almost inevitably truly terrible vocals...
It's a bit like complaining that the extras in a movie scene featuring Scarlett Johnansen naked are underpaid.
Albini himself mentions that if the band won't sign a contract, the record company is happy to let them sit. That's because they have a 100 more bands clamoring to sign, all as desperate as this one.
No that is not really the issue. The issue, and this is very much off a tangent for this thread is the cartel/cartel-like nature of the labels, because they also (used to) own the distribution channels. That meant artists who were serious about their work did not have any option but to sign such contracts.
In that sense, technology can actually open up new avenues for promotion and revenue without massive upfront costs for artists, and crucially without the lock-in from the labels.
classical_hero
01-28-2012, 19:11
https://img714.imageshack.us/img714/9224/piracy600x597.jpg
This is a good way of describing Piracy, not that we should become pirates and copy other people's work.
Thank you so much, that wasn't clear to me at all...
I can already see how Captain Blackbeard copied all those ships. :rolleyes:
Makes you wonder why they used to cut their heads off...
That the company doesn't lose their copy is absolutely useless to the company because what the company is interested in is sales, and when someone illegally offers a copy for free then the company loses sales, sales they won't get back in many cases. That they can keep a copy of the data is irrelevant, that they lose a sale is very relevant. So the sales are what's stolen as I tried to explain earlier using value since every sale has a certain value.
I'm not saying that you can nail down a number as that would require knowledge of how many sales the company could get if software couldn't be copied, but to say they don't lose anything is plain wrong, no matter how funny the piggy graphics in which people wrap the message up.
Papewaio
01-30-2012, 03:33
https://img714.imageshack.us/img714/9224/piracy600x597.jpg
This is a good way of describing Piracy, not that we should become pirates and copy other people's work.
Copying, it's in our DNA :drummer:
CountArach
01-30-2012, 09:21
I watch a lot of things online, from BBC iPlayer, Youtube and Netflix. It is because of these sites I actually get to watch these shows and end up buying them on DVD or Blu-ray because I thoroughly enjoyed them. If it wasn't for the fact I got to see them first, I wouldn't have bought them in the first place anyway, so the "entertainment" industry got money from me that way. I also watched Game of Thrones online and because of this, I now own all of the books and pre-ordered the boxset on blu-ray which comes out in March. As you can see, the free methods aren't exactly "free" as if they are good, you want to buy the products anyway.
Spot on. I've watched so many British shows that have never been shown in Australia, such as 15 Storeys High (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/15_Storeys_High). Having seen this absolutely superb show I ordered the DVDs in from the UK. No one can tell me that by having the ability to download this show has somehow damaged the industry, when it is demonstrably assisting it.
Game of Thrones is another excellent example. Australia didn't get that show on television until well after the entire thing had finished in the US. In that time I had downloaded it and watched it through. between myself and my girlfriend we convinced at least a dozen other people to watch it, thus increasing the ratings of the show. In addition, at least 3 of those people now own copies of all the books.
Sarmatian
01-30-2012, 09:24
Thank you so much, that wasn't clear to me at all...
I can already see how Captain Blackbeard copied all those ships. :rolleyes:
Makes you wonder why they used to cut their heads off...
That the company doesn't lose their copy is absolutely useless to the company because what the company is interested in is sales, and when someone illegally offers a copy for free then the company loses sales, sales they won't get back in many cases. That they can keep a copy of the data is irrelevant, that they lose a sale is very relevant. So the sales are what's stolen as I tried to explain earlier using value since every sale has a certain value.
I'm not saying that you can nail down a number as that would require knowledge of how many sales the company could get if software couldn't be copied, but to say they don't lose anything is plain wrong, no matter how funny the piggy graphics in which people wrap the message up.
That is a completely failed logic. The basic premise is that if one wasn't able to download illegally a piece of software, he or she would have bought it.
Funny thing is, the companies who are complaining about that, film and game industry, are the ones who's profits are actually growing at the time where most other businesses are going bust because of the crisis.
That is a completely failed logic. The basic premise is that if one wasn't able to download illegally a piece of software, he or she would have bought it.
No, not what I said.
Greyblades
01-30-2012, 11:58
I believe the phrase "woulda coulda shoulda" is appropriate here. "More people might have bought my games if there were no piracy" is a nice sentiment but in buisness it means nothing, you might as well say "more people might have bought my bottled water if there were no water companies". The main difference between bottled water and entertainment industry is that aquavita realize that complaining they cant compete with the taps instead of compensating deserves ridicule for futility, not government intervention. Anglian Water isnt going anywhere, neither are pirates, stop whining and adapt, Activision I'm looking at you.
Edit: Actually now that I think about it the main difference is the water companies overfunded legal teams, general governent support and pirates general lack of either, doesnt make it any less futile for companies to whine and thrash though.
I believe the phrase "woulda coulda shoulda" is appropriate here. "More people might have bought my games if there were no piracy" is a nice sentiment but in buisness it means nothing, you might as well say "more people might have bought my bottled water if there were no water companies".
That's wrong. It's not might, it's would. I've had people personally tell me I'm dumb because I pay for games when I can get them for free. these people just save the money for something else, without piracy they'd have to pay for their games or decide between games and partying for example. Consumer choice like that is also a vital part of free market regulation.
The main difference between bottled water and entertainment industry is that aquavita realize that complaining they cant compete with the taps instead of compensating deserves ridicule for futility, not government intervention.
No, that's wrong. The difference is that one of them fills tap water into bottles and then writes fancy things onto them to sell it as a seemingly different product for a higher price(and they actually pay the water company). The other industry competes against their own product being offered for free and the customers are aware or believe that it's exactly the same experience. In other words the customers think they get exactly the same thing for free, that's not the case with tap water. that they might sell more if tap water didn't exist is true but it's not comparable because tap water isn't exactly the same product as bottled water. Now you could argue that people don't get a package with an illegal copy etc. and that's valid in the case of many customers, but the fact remains that many care more about saving 50 bucks than getting a package and they're not paying anyone for it, tap water isn't free, it's a different product and people pay for it.
Anglian Water isnt going anywhere, neither are pirates, stop whining and adapt, [...]
Adapt how? Cloud gaming so people never get the bits and bytes in the first place and only receive a video stream of the actual game?
That's certainly a very effective way to adapt, not that you may like it but...
"Cloud gaming is the future and it's not going anywhere, stop whining and adapt." may just be what the companies are going to tell us once they release exclusive titles on these platforms.
Greyblades
01-30-2012, 15:59
*snip*
Not the point husar. Metaphore time: Studios want the pirates to buy thier games/movies/books when there's an almost free alternative(internet connections cost money) that cannot be put out of buisness: piracy. Water bottle companies want people to buy thier water when there's a almost free(one gallon hardly costs a penny) alternative that cannot be put out of buisness: water companies. Both are trying selling water to fish. The bottle companies are dressing thier water up in nice bottles and pretty names. The studios put a bear trap around thiers and are trying to bully and bribe a priest into making god dry up the ocean while taing pot shots at the fish with a shotgun.
Point is the studios are wasting money on failing attempts to do the impossible and are driving away thier customers, any other company would be seen as deserving of going under for being a bunch of silly twits, I dont see why I should be sympathetic.
Adapt how?
In an extention of the metaphor: Put down the gun, disarm the bear trap, apologise to the priest and start making nice little bottles and pretty names. When it comes to pirates they are not selling games/movies/books, they are selling convienience. High prices and bad attitudes wont gain them any favours.
Point is the studios are wasting money on failing attempts to do the impossible and are driving away thier customers, any other company would be seen as deserving of going under for being a bunch of silly twits, I dont see why I should be sympathetic.
I don't see that either, but what I further don't see is how that justifies piracy or even makes it look any better.
In an extention of the metaphor: Put down the gun, disarm the bear trap, apologise to the priest and start making nice little bottles and pretty names. When it comes to pirates they are not selling games/movies/books, they are selling convienience. High prices and bad attitudes wont gain them any favours.
So now we have to pander to criminals and lower all employees' wages to befriend these criminals and beg for their mercy?
I never hear that about actual somalian pirates, I always hear things about shooting them on sight, in the US it's even legal to shoot burglars in the back sometimes.
Why not make TVs cheaper and give a lot of money to Somalians to make the pirates and the burglars go away? Bullets and a bad attitude won't gain us any favours.
Greyblades
01-30-2012, 17:12
I don't see that either, but what I further don't see is how that justifies piracy or even makes it look any better.I'm not justifying piracy. I'm saying that the guys they're up against are a bunch of self destructive idiots who have many better options.
So now we have to pander to criminals and lower all employees' wages to befriend these criminals and beg for their mercy?
Well there's allways just giving up on DRM and copyright and relying on faithful customers, but if they want people to stop pirating, yeah they've gotta pander to them.
I never hear that about actual somalian pirates, I always hear things about shooting them on sight, in the US it's even legal to shoot burglars in the back sometimes.
Why not make TVs cheaper and give a lot of money to Somalians to make the pirates and the burglars go away? Bullets and a bad attitude won't gain us any favours.
Ok the piracy doesnt mean copyright thing and subsiquent comparisons to somalia was funny the first few times but now its getting stupid. Violent crime and digital piracy are on two differend ends of the spectrum, in no way shape or form would anyone treat somalians pirates like digital pirates, making that argument is just pointless.
I'm not justifying piracy. I'm saying that the guys they're up against are a bunch of self destructive idiots who have many better options.
You mentioned something about apologizing to the pirates, making it sound like the pirates were the ones who are morally superior or so.
There's no doubt here that companies are handling quite a few things worse than they could.
Well there's allways just giving up on DRM and copyright and relying on faithful customers, but if they want people to stop pirating, yeah they've gotta pander to them.
But then one company would reintroduce DRM and sell more copies, which means they all keep DRM in the first place. I'm not really an advocate for DRM though, I wish people would just pay their fair share, giving companies less of an excuse to use DRM.
Ok the piracy doesnt mean copyright thing and subsiquent comparisons to somalia was funny the first few times but now its getting stupid. Violent crime and digital piracy are on two differend ends of the spectrum, in no way shape or form would anyone treat somalians pirates like digital pirates, making that argument is just pointless.
Burglars aren't violent usually, why focus on the pirates so much? And digital pirates ARE criminals according to the law. Just because you don't like a law, there's no justification to break it.
On a related note, what about things that you simply cannot buy in your country? Let's say a TV series is US-exclusive and I torrent it, do you think that's justified or criminal?
I personally actually don't think it is because they have no interest in selling it to me anyway, they don't want my money, they don't get my money and they don't lose a thing.
That's quite different from them actually wanting me to pay for it. I have a feeling that the law looks at this differently though. Then again if copyrights are national and they never registered a copyright for that series in my country, it may actually be legal, no?
Sarmatian
01-30-2012, 23:34
Is anyone disputing the idea that better service eliminates piracy? I think that's something we can all agree on, right?
Yeah, pretty much, if we're talking western world. Slashing prices would help elsewhere. In Serbia, retail price of Mass Effect 3 will be 75 euros. In a country where average monthly salary is 400 euros, and living expenses (food, bills, hygiene stuff) take 95% of two adults receiving said average salary, that's way too much. For 90% of the kids the option is a) pirate and b) don't play. There isn't practically a single lost customer here for the EA, even though Serbia is definitely a pirate hot-spot.
And digital pirates ARE criminals according to the law.
I was under the impression that copyright infringement (of the downloading type, not the selling-of-counterfeit-goods-out-the-back-of-a-truck type) was still a civil matter. Big media is trying to change this, but I don't believe they have succeeded just yet.
Greyblades
01-31-2012, 00:36
You mentioned something about apologizing to the pirates, making it sound like the pirates were the ones who are morally superior or so.
Well yeah, they kinda are, pirates dont forward bills that infringe on civil liberties. The are about as moraly dispicable as a litterer in my eyes.
But then one company would reintroduce DRM and sell more copies, which means they all keep DRM in the first place. I'm not really an advocate for DRM though, I wish people would just pay their fair share, giving companies less of an excuse to use DRM.
And I would like a world where monopolies dont exist, corruption was abolished and the entertainment industry actually cares that it's being outdone in customer service by petty criminals. The world's kinda crap, you just make the best of what you get. Also why would one company introducing DRM force the rest to use it?
Burglars aren't violent usually, why focus on the pirates so much? And digital pirates ARE criminals according to the law. Just because you don't like a law, there's no justification to break it.
But as has been repeatedly said; we're not arguing about law (it's illegal in most developed countries, that's pretty much the end of all arguments here), we're debating morality. As far as I'm concerned the companies that use DRM have a habit of treating Digital pirates worse than sex offenders, they seem less moraly sound than a bunch of file sharers in thier bedrooms.
On a related note, what about things that you simply cannot buy in your country? Let's say a TV series is US-exclusive and I torrent it, do you think that's justified or criminal? Justified.
I personally actually don't think it is because they have no interest in selling it to me anyway, they don't want my money, they don't get my money and they don't lose a thing.
That's quite different from them actually wanting me to pay for it. I have a feeling that the law looks at this differently though. Then again if copyrights are national and they never registered a copyright for that series in my country, it may actually be legal, no? I'm not disputing this.
Tellos Athenaios
01-31-2012, 06:58
Well to get back to the topic of Mega Upload... Not as guilty as you might think? (http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/node/6795)
Well to get back to the topic of Mega Upload... Not as guilty as you might think? (http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/node/6795)
A lot of good that will do them though. Assets frozen, servers confiscated, business essentially ruined. Guilty or not, the RIAA/MPAA got what they wanted.
Sarmatian
01-31-2012, 17:36
A lot of good that will do them though. Assets frozen, servers confiscated, business essentially ruined. Guilty or not, the RIAA/MPAA got what they wanted.
Don't they have a right to sue someone else in that case and get compensation?
Is it just me, or is the line between civil and criminal law getting a little blurry in these cases?
Tellos Athenaios
01-31-2012, 22:19
Is it just me, or is the line between civil and criminal law getting a little blurry in these cases?
Well, there's this funny thing which happens when you mix USA and extradition...
Kinda related, the guys of the pirate bay are going to jail and have to pay 6.000.000. If a no doubt corrupt judge screwed me over like that he would wake up without fingers.
Greyblades
02-01-2012, 18:23
...How would you remove the fingers without waking him up? Or how would you get to him from jail?
...How would you remove the fingers without waking him up? Or how would you get to him from jail?
Whack from behind, cut of fingers, duh
Greyblades
02-02-2012, 11:16
For shame, good sir! Dont you know that head trauma can cause brain damage? If you just hit him, he might end up forgetting he had fingers! The civilized man good sir uses the stranglehold, a good grip and a strong bicep and you have an unconcious man with only a 3% of brain damage. For gods sake man have a little civility with your psychopathy! I hope, good sir, that you have the common decency to stuff the severed apendages in the offenders mouth?
That would be missing the point of of using such a precision-instrument, they can be re-attached if you put them in his mouth.
Greyblades
02-02-2012, 12:11
Not if you dip the fingers in sewer water first, the germs will have been absorbed into the flesh by the time he awakes and if he tries to reattach he'll be lucky if it only gives him gangreen.
...holy crap, it's scary how little time it took me to think of that.
Creative, I like all hope at recovery being destroyed BY INFECTION. That's so cruel. We should team up,
Greyblades
02-02-2012, 16:09
Ah, I've allways wanted a willing victim-I mean assistant-I mean partner... I am so going to hell.
:P
Nice to see a major publication stating the obvious truth (http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/02/03/you-will-never-kill-piracy-and-piracy-will-never-kill-you/3/), which content providers and lawmakers avoid so regularly:
[M]ovie companies threaten to put Netflix out of business by charging them huge amounts of money to have access to their content. Netflix is in the forefront of the war on piracy, and the studios don’t even seem to understand it. It’s incredible. [...]
[W]ith a distribution service like this, at least they’d be trying. At least they’d be going in the right direction. Trying to pass laws that stifle the freedom of the internet and piss off the entire population of a country is a terrible, terrible route to go. The millions of dollars they spent lobbying trying to get bills like SOPA and PIPA passed could have gone into R&D for new distribution arms [...]
I believe in paying money for products that earn it. I do not believe in a pricing and distribution model that still thinks it’s 1998. And I really don’t believe in censoring the internet so that studio and label executives can add a few more millions onto their already enormous money pile.
Treat your customers with respect , and they’ll do the same to you. And that is how you fight piracy.And in a follow-up (http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/02/07/lies-damned-lies-and-piracy/):
I’m trying to get the message across that piracy is a service problem. If media companies start embracing easy to use digital methods of distribution, it’s the best way to combat piracy. You might not be able to ever beat “free,” but you sure as hell can compete with “easy.”
Tellos Athenaios
07-12-2012, 17:12
... And after the break we return to the show with the next installment (http://www.courtsofnz.govt.nz/front-page/cases/dotcom-ors-v-attorney-general) of this saga:
Mega-victory: Kim Dotcom search warrants "invalid," mansion raid "illegal" (http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/06/mega-victory-kim-dotcom-search-warrants-invalid-mansion-raid-illegal/)
Oh dear...
Philippus Flavius Homovallumus
07-12-2012, 17:26
Looks like he might walk - no US Judge will accept evidence obtained in an illegal warrent, or evidence obtained because of evidence from an illegal warrent.
I suspect the US may now try to have him tried in New Zealand where the law on this probably a little more lax.
Tellos Athenaios
07-12-2012, 17:38
Ehm, it's the New Zealand courts which chewed up and spat out the warrant. Essentially it's not allowed to have the FBI use New Zealand plod as convenient pawns; and since the warrant is ruled illegal it follows that his stuff should be returned to him forthwith. Which is a bit tricky since it's now in the USA and copies of data will have been made (presumably those would have to be destroyed).
Philippus Flavius Homovallumus
07-12-2012, 19:59
Ehm, it's the New Zealand courts which chewed up and spat out the warrant. Essentially it's not allowed to have the FBI use New Zealand plod as convenient pawns; and since the warrant is ruled illegal it follows that his stuff should be returned to him forthwith. Which is a bit tricky since it's now in the USA and copies of data will have been made (presumably those would have to be destroyed).
Yes, I got that thanks. The point is, even if they could keep the data they can't use it or anything they discover as a result of it to charge him in the US.
In the UK, and I suspect therefore in New Zealand, you might stand a chance of having the evidence ruled admissable if it demonstrates he is really that guilty.
That was my point.
Tellos Athenaios
07-12-2012, 20:54
In the UK, and I suspect therefore in New Zealand, you might stand a chance of having the evidence ruled admissable if it demonstrates he is really that guilty.
That was my point.
Sorry about that, I guess the UK is an even weirder place with even less protection of the sanctity and rights of its citizens than I thought then. :shrug:
Philippus Flavius Homovallumus
07-12-2012, 23:18
Sorry about that, I guess the UK is an even weirder place with even less protection of the sanctity and rights of its citizens than I thought then. :shrug:
Well, in extreme cases. For example, evidence obtained with a malformed warrent might be admissable if the accused was a murderer.
You have to get a judge to sign off on it though.
Papewaio
07-12-2012, 23:20
It's more worrying that a lobby group can shutdown a business prior to guilt being ruled.
Vladimir
07-13-2012, 00:32
What do they call it when a government is in cahoots with the rich and uses its powerful secret investigative agencies to further their agenda? I know there's a word for it... :book2:
Normal.
All governments do this.
Crazed Rabbit
07-13-2012, 02:46
Looks like he might walk - no US Judge will accept evidence obtained in an illegal warrent, or evidence obtained because of evidence from an illegal warrent.
Oh, you.
It's more worrying that a lobby group can shutdown a business prior to guilt being ruled.
It's not just lobby groups. You can be shut down and have assets seized without any charges, even, if the Cops accuse you of having something to do with drugs.
CR
Really? All governments try, but there's a special name for those that pull it off. A special relationship between the richest organizations and the most powerful government agencies to the detriment of the rights and liberties of its citizens (and, in this case, the citizens of other countries!) is called: ______
I believe the phrase you are looking for is "corporate fascism".
So a lawsuit to get money for the projected losses, emotional damage,... is what comes next?
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