PirateBay leaders sentenced to prison, heavy fines [Archive]

Safe-Keeper

17th April 2009, 08:46 AM

Finally. A year in prison, millions of dollars in fines:D! I know it may not make much of a difference, and that they will appeal and possibly even win, but I couldn't care less. Unlike the leeches who download products illegally, I pay for the films and games people spend millions of dollars and untold hours of sweat, blood and tears developing. I shell out $60 for Mirror's Edge so DICE can make the game in the first place, so that these pricks, in turn, can spit on their hard work by downloading it for free.

I'm a modder (http://www.fsmod.com). I know how much hard work, passion and ultimately love goes into a game. I don't need to get paid, as I do it as a hobby, but if I had game development as my job, however, I'd feel every bit as entitled to my money as a guy working as a museum guide or anyone else doing work.

You don't see large numbers of people advocating a right to sneak into museums without paying, because "they wouldn't buy a ticket anyhow" or "no physical item is being stolen". You don't see people shoplifting or vandalizing property because "the big corporations treat their workers bad and don't deserve my money".

I also have to take pity on the people going "oh, all they did was set up a site, not their fault it was being used as a pirate site". Reminds me of a gang leader saying that oh, yes, your honour, it's true that I called this shack NarcoBay, and it's true that I let people trade and store large amounts of drugs there for years without telling the cops or driving them off, but c'mon, you're jailing me? All I did was provide a building, not my fault they used it to...". Ugh. I know pirates are irrational, but please, folks, let's take things a tiny bit seriously here.

Guess what, folks, something can be widespread and easy and still be a fecking crime.

(I'm proud of being Scandinavian today:))

HarryKeogh

17th April 2009, 08:52 AM

Part of me is glad. Then the other part of me that downloaded the entire Beatles catalog with two clicks is devastated.

Segnosaur

17th April 2009, 09:20 AM

Finally. A year in prison, millions of dollars in fines:D! I know it may not make much of a difference, and that they will appeal and possibly even win, but I couldn't care less. Unlike the leeches who download products illegally, I pay for the films and games people spend millions of dollars and untold hours of sweat, blood and tears developing.

You don't see large numbers of people advocating a right to sneak into museums without paying, because "they wouldn't buy a ticket anyhow" or "no physical item is being stolen". You don't see people shoplifting or vandalizing property because "the big corporations treat their workers bad and don't deserve my money".

Hey, I tend to pay for stuff myself (DVD collection over 200 and counting...)

And, I agree that people should have control over how their work is distributed.

However, there is a difference between pirating movies/tv shows/music and shoplifting/sneaking into museums... in many cases, video/music can serve as a sort of loss leader. In other words, the artist may loose a single CD sale, but they may gain a new fan who may, in the future, decide to attend a concert. Or someone may download previous episodes of a TV program and decide future episodes are worth watching when broadcast live.

As I said before, people should have the right to control how their intellectual work is distributed; I just think the artists/producers are shooting themselves in the foot.

Safe-Keeper

17th April 2009, 09:27 AM

However, there is a difference between pirating movies/tv shows/music and shoplifting/sneaking into museums... in many cases, video/music can serve as a sort of loss leader. In other words, the artist may loose a single CD sale, but they may gain a new fan who may, in the future, decide to attend a concert. Or someone may download previous episodes of a TV program and decide future episodes are worth watching when broadcast live.No, there isn't a difference, as every product works that way. If you sneak into a museum, you may perfectly well like the exhibits so much that the museum gains a new fan.

Every product out there works this way.

fuelair

17th April 2009, 09:34 AM

I have no disagreement with you UNLESS the article (DVD,Book,CD, Magazine, etc.) is not available through any legal channel. Then, all bets are off.

HarryKeogh

17th April 2009, 09:51 AM

I have no disagreement with you UNLESS the article (DVD,Book,CD, Magazine, etc.) is not available through any legal channel. Then, all bets are off.

Playing devil's advocate: But how do you know if that DVD or CD won't be released (or re-released) in your market in the future?

geni

17th April 2009, 09:55 AM

I have no disagreement with you UNLESS the article (DVD,Book,CD, Magazine, etc.) is not available through any legal channel. Then, all bets are off.

You live in a country without a dencent deposit library?

Dan O.

17th April 2009, 09:57 AM

Segnosaur

17th April 2009, 09:58 AM

No, there isn't a difference, as every product works that way. If you sneak into a museum, you may perfectly well like the exhibits so much that the museum gains a new fan.

Well, there is certainly the possibility that there may be people who act that way, but I'm assuming that most people, after seeing a museum once, would be less likely to go back in the future, not more likely. After all, its a repeat of the exact same thing.

On the other hand, listening to a music CD and watching a concert are 2 totally different experiences. I'm not likely to go to a concert for a group I've never heard. I am likely to go to a concert for a group that I've head at least a few of their songs that I liked. And hearing a band live gives me a different feel than listening to a CD (or illegally downloaded MP3) would.

geni

17th April 2009, 10:37 AM

When is the other side going to pay hugh fines and spend time in jail? I'm talking about the ones that entered a social contract where in exchange for protection of their exclusive intellectual property rights for a limited time, they agreed to give up those rights after that time and other "fair use" concessions.

Fair use doesn't exist under Swedish law. In adition the social contract most democries operate under is that it is legitimate to loby goverments to change the law.

But when it came time for them to pay their side of the bargain they went on crying about how it wasn't fair that they should have to give up "their" property.

The length would be due to the EU decideing to follow german practices in terms of length

dudalb

17th April 2009, 10:37 AM

The punishment seems to be right in line with the crime.
It will be fun to see the all the intellectual property theifs make these guys into matyrs.though.

dudalb

17th April 2009, 10:39 AM

Part of me is glad. Then the other part of me that downloaded the entire Beatles catalog with two clicks is devastated.

You know, the whole point of ethics is that they keep you from doing things that you WANT to do because they are wrong. You don't need ethics to keep you from doing things you would not do anyway.

tkingdoll

17th April 2009, 10:40 AM

Well, there is certainly the possibility that there may be people who act that way, but I'm assuming that most people, after seeing a museum once, would be less likely to go back in the future, not more likely. After all, its a repeat of the exact same thing.

On the other hand, listening to a music CD and watching a concert are 2 totally different experiences. I'm not likely to go to a concert for a group I've never heard. I am likely to go to a concert for a group that I've head at least a few of their songs that I liked. And hearing a band live gives me a different feel than listening to a CD (or illegally downloaded MP3) would.

Have you been to any museums? Sorry to sound snarky but they spend a huge amount of money buying, changing and hiring exhibits so there's new content. Maybe a dusty old Windmill museum in some village somewhere may never change, but the big players most certainly invest heavily in acquiring new exhibits or bringing in touring ones.

Drudgewire

17th April 2009, 10:44 AM

They haven't busted the empornium guys, have they? http://www.lethalwrestling.com/upload/sweatdrop.gif

geni

17th April 2009, 10:46 AM

The punishment seems to be right in line with the crime.
It will be fun to see the all the intellectual property theifs make these guys into matyrs.though.

Bad move. Carl Lundström's political history makes him unatractive as a figurehead.

AWPrime

17th April 2009, 10:48 AM

However, there is a difference between pirating movies/tv shows/music and shoplifting/sneaking into museums... in many cases, video/music can serve as a sort of loss leader. In other words, the artist may loose a single CD sale, but they may gain a new fan who may, in the future, decide to attend a concert. Or someone may download previous episodes of a TV program and decide future episodes are worth watching when broadcast live.
I find myself to be an example of this. Without the occasional download for scouting I would have bought even fewer CDs then I do now.

HarryKeogh

17th April 2009, 10:52 AM

You know, the whole point of ethics is that they keep you from doing things that you WANT to do because they are wrong. You don't need ethics to keep you from doing things you would not do anyway.

It's okay. I bought Sgt. Pepper's on 8-track in '77. It entitled me to that download.

Segnosaur

17th April 2009, 11:00 AM

Have you been to any museums?

Actually, yes.. quite a few... both the large 'national' museums in the captial, and many smaller 'village' museums.

Sorry to sound snarky but they spend a huge amount of money buying, changing and hiring exhibits so there's new content. Maybe a dusty old Windmill museum in some village somewhere may never change, but the big players most certainly invest heavily in acquiring new exhibits or bringing in touring ones.
Yes, they do sometimes change their exhibits around. And yes, the do sometimes bring in touring exhibits. But changes happen very slowly (for example, the Canadian museum of Nature hadn't had any significant changes for over a decade before they did their recent renovations) and touring exhibits usually make up a tiny fraction of total museum space that I think my original opinion stands: a person sneaking in to a museum is less likely to return as a paying customer since so little would likely have changed in his subsequent visit.

Chaos

17th April 2009, 11:28 AM

Cavemonster

17th April 2009, 11:49 AM

Morrigan

17th April 2009, 11:55 AM

I hope they win.

/buys tons of CDs and DVDs, but still downloads a lot - at least mininova's still around :)

dudalb

17th April 2009, 11:57 AM

However, they have every right to shoot themselves in the foot, and it is not for you or a bunch of pirates to decide what is the best method of marketing these products.

I agree that the Music industry in particular has adapted to the challenge of the high speed internet with all the grace of a pregent hippopotamus trying to tap dance, but that does not excuse stealing their property.
In the end, the only way to justify piracy that holds water is to say that the whole concept of Copyright is wrong. And I have a few pirates attempt to do just that.

dudalb

17th April 2009, 11:59 AM

I hope they win.

/buys tons of CDs and DVDs, but still downloads a lot - at least mininova's still around :)

I just do not get this total disrespect for other's people property that is becoming common.

Morrigan

17th April 2009, 12:04 PM

It's not property theft, it's copyright infringement. And I buy plenty of music, probably far more than the average citizen, so I laugh at your moralizing.

geni

17th April 2009, 12:07 PM

It's not property theft

You mean property rights infringement?

Segnosaur

17th April 2009, 12:08 PM

I just think the artists/producers are shooting themselves in the foot.
However, they have every right to shoot themselves in the foot, and it is not for you or a bunch of pirates to decide what is the best method of marketing these products.

Ummm... I already agreed with that sentiment.

The complete quote from my post was: As I said before, people should have the right to control how their intellectual work is distributed; I just think the artists/producers are shooting themselves in the foot.

You seem to have ignored the first sentence.

geni

17th April 2009, 12:09 PM

I hope they win.

/buys tons of CDs and DVDs, but still downloads a lot - at least mininova's still around :)

Buying CDs from artist A doesn't give you the right to violate the rights of artist B or A for that mater.

Drudgewire

17th April 2009, 12:13 PM

Aaaarrr!! http://www.lethalwrestling.com/upload/pirate.gif

Morrigan

17th April 2009, 12:15 PM

Buying CDs from artist A doesn't give you the right to violate the rights of artist B or A for that mater.

I didn't say it gave me any rights, now did I?

TX50

17th April 2009, 12:17 PM

Aaaarrr!! http://www.lethalwrestling.com/upload/pirate.gif

It's been a bit of a bad week for pirates of all sorts.

Segnosaur

17th April 2009, 12:33 PM

On the other hand, listening to a music CD and watching a concert are 2 totally different experiences. I'm not likely to go to a concert for a group I've never heard. I am likely to go to a concert for a group that I've head at least a few of their songs that I liked. And hearing a band live gives me a different feel than listening to a CD (or illegally downloaded MP3) would.
I hear this line of argument a lot. And while it makes sense in the abstract, it really doesn't mean anything without hard numbers.

Unfortunatley I don't think anyone will ever be able to ever give 'hard' numbers for something like this, since there are so many variables involved. For example, if CD sales are down, is it because of downloading? A bad economy? Or do the majority of singers out there simply suck?

Some studies I have seen:
Downloads have an effect on sales which is statistically
indistinguishable from zero, despite rather precise estimates. Moreover, these estimates
are of moderate economic significance and are inconsistent with claims that file sharing
is the primary reason for the recent decline in music sales.
(From: http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March2004.pdf)

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/4206.html

Here's a private site (take it what you will) who points out some of the claims by the RIAA about lost sales may be faulty:
http://www.azoz.com/music/features/0008.html

We also have:
Three out of four P2P users admitted to purchasing music after downloading it online, with 21 percent of P2P users saying that they have bought tracks they have also downloaded on more than 10 occasions. 25 percent admitted to purchasing previously-downloaded tracks only once or twice, while an additional 27 percent claimed to have done it less than 10 times, but more than twice. The end result is clear: people are buying music after downloading it on P2P, meaning that the industry has failed to recognize the marketing-like effects of P2P.
(From: http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2006/03/6418.ars)

Andrewsarchus

17th April 2009, 12:44 PM

Intellectual property is a joke. A bad joke. For those of you who think downloading music is exactly like stealing a product you're wrong and you know it. It's not the same and the fact that we award "rights" to ideas/music/art is a demonstration about how whiney and childish our culture has become. My question is this, isn't there something more useful the courts in Sweden could spending time and money on?

Gate2501

17th April 2009, 12:45 PM

It's not property theft, it's copyright infringement. And I buy plenty of music, probably far more than the average citizen, so I laugh at your moralizing.

Exactly. It is a rights violation, not theft.

Equate it with theft if you like, but then I will equate you with a murderer for disagreeing with me. :p

tkingdoll

17th April 2009, 12:53 PM

In the end, the only way to justify piracy that holds water is to say that the whole concept of Copyright is wrong.

Indeed that was the ethos upon which Pirate Bay was founded in the first place. It was set up by an anti-copyright group.

Andrewsarchus

17th April 2009, 01:01 PM

I just do not get this total disrespect for other's people property that is becoming common.

= silly. Oh Noes they copied my song, my life has been so disrespected how will I go on.

Blackadder

17th April 2009, 01:02 PM

Part of me is glad. Then the other part of me that downloaded the entire Beatles catalog with two clicks is devastated.

Don't worry, there won't be day in the foreseeable future without the possibility to do exact that if you want. If you have the money, it might be better to download AND pay for it, even if it will take 4 clicks instead of 2 plus some extra typing when paying online.

P2P cannot be stopped in any way, there are too many heads on this hydra. Even if one head like pirate bay would be chopped off (which I doubt will happen) zillions new heads will grow. Technology will move on to a torrent system that doesn't even need a central tracker website. In fact that already exists.. It's just that piratebay is nice because users can leave nice comments and it is easy to see what torrent is popular with lots of seeders.

Cavemonster

17th April 2009, 01:05 PM

It's not the same and the fact that we award "rights" to ideas/music/art is a demonstration about how whiney and childish our culture has become.

If we've become that way, it happened a long time ago. The power of the US congress to award "rights" to ideas/music/art was explicitly stated in the constitution, article 1 section 8.

Andrewsarchus

17th April 2009, 01:06 PM

I'm not American

Blackadder

17th April 2009, 01:07 PM

I hope they win.

/buys tons of CDs and DVDs, but still downloads a lot - at least mininova's still around :)

Pirate Bay is still around... I haven't stopped using it since this trial came up a few months ago. Using it right now.

Andrewsarchus

17th April 2009, 01:08 PM

well I am, I'm North American. Also just because something is in the constitution does not mean it's not silly.

tkingdoll

17th April 2009, 01:16 PM

Copyright came about as a way to stimulate creativity. Without the incentive of protection, there is little reason to create new work. Equally, without the threat of punishment, there's little incentive to create new work (you can just rip off other stuff).

Today, investors invest their money in companies or projects in order to see a return. Artists invest their time and skill often for art's sake but also, often, to see a return (given that it's usually a full-time job). Not sure how we draw an arbitrary line under what 'too much' profit is, or how we decide who the people are who have to pay for the content in order to fund the next project, and who gets it for free, and what happens if everyone is legally allowed to have it for free. Well, we do know what happens (see Radiohead, who have declared that they'll never give away another album). Hostel II was so pirated, it didn't get a cinema release in some countries because it wouldn't have been worth it. Projected profits were massively affected, but the film still made a profit. As long as it made a profit, is it ok? If it had broken even, would that still have been ok? If it had made a loss, would it then still be ok? What if it made a loss which meant Hostel III wouldn't be greenlit (yes I know they're lousy movies but the public love them enough to pirate them en masse and this isn't a debate about what a good movie is). Would that still be ok?

If a shopkeeper gives you too much change, you can say nothing. For a massive supermarket, you probably won't care. For a small independent shop, you might care but if you're the sort to download music that is intended for sale, I suspect you'll take the extra money and say nothing. It's all the same dishonesty.

Blackadder

17th April 2009, 01:18 PM

Drudgewire

17th April 2009, 01:21 PM

And the "know how" is little more than searching title of choice and "torrent."

Ummm... so I hear.

:whistling

mumblethrax

17th April 2009, 01:21 PM

Hostel II was so pirated, it didn't get a cinema release in some countries because it wouldn't have been worth it.
I've never seen a stronger argument in favor of piracy.

tkingdoll

17th April 2009, 01:22 PM

People do you know that with a bit of knowhow you can use Google as tracker search engine JUST AS EFFECTIVE as a site like pirate bay?

When does the music industry file charges against the CEO of Google?

When it changes its name to "Downloadpiratedcontenthere.com", thereby actively inviting and encouraging file sharing, indeed endorsing it. Also, when the majority of content is illegal, not the minority. And when Google decides that its entire business model and ethos should be founded on illegal file-sharing.

Then it'll get charged.

tkingdoll

17th April 2009, 01:24 PM

I've never seen a stronger argument in favor of piracy.

I know, I know :D

I did have to cover that in the paragraph, in case anyone thought I had seen or indeed enjoyed Hostel II. But people loved the first one enough to pirate the second one in vast numbers, proving that there is no accounting for taste.

Andrewsarchus

17th April 2009, 01:26 PM

People do you know that with a bit of knowhow you can use Google as tracker search engine JUST AS EFFECTIVE as a site like pirate bay?

When does the music industry file charges against the CEO of Google?

But Google doesn't have the awesome pirate-ship logo. In fact Google's logo is ugly and not at all hip. It's just a gross serif font with a rasterized "bevel and emboss" treatment and a goofy drop shadow. Most of time I use google to find my torrents. It's much better and I am able to cross reference the torrents for quality based on the comments given on various site.

If they could just rebrand that disgusting logo I would pledge my allegiance to captain google herself.

Nogbad

17th April 2009, 01:28 PM

Blackadder

17th April 2009, 01:32 PM

Copyright came about as a way to stimulate creativity. Without the incentive of protection, there is little reason to create new work. Equally, without the threat of punishment, there's little incentive to create new work (you can just rip off other stuff).

I agree a bit, but Ze times Ze are a- changin' Let me explain.

In the past (early film, printing, music recording) production and distribution was a Expensive and Slow process. ) Investments were huge to get quality. It was rightful to prevent 2nd parties to copy and run away with all your hard work.

These days you can produce quality work from your basement. All you need is a computer, software and some recording equipment. $1000 is possible.. $10,000 is better, but you could (talent and creativity needed) produce better quality work with $10,000 worth of gear than you could with gear costing $100,000 or more in the 1980s.

Then we go to distribution, where the cost is progressing towards 0% compared to the past.

The result is that YES there is MASSIVE incentive to produce new work, even in this p2p era. In fact more people world wide then EVER before are making art in any form. Due to these huge numbers of increasing productivity the amount of quality work is also increasing. I am not saying Joe Smith from Scrubville Oklahoma is making Shrek 4 in his basement, but talent will show up and find is way to bigger productions somehow.

This basically sums up in short why A pirating is not bad and B. Old copyright rules are indeed old, we need something new for the 21st century.

nay sayers, you live in the 20st century. You can skip and jump and scream, but you will get dragged into this century, Nothing and I repreat NOTHING will stop it.... Accept it and if you still feel bad about it help develop new economic methods to reward the artists... (The new artists are very busy doing that themselves by the way, maybe they don't even need you.... after all they are creative people.. that's why you want to pay them for their work!)

I would love to hear some comments on what I wrote here...

Gate2501

17th April 2009, 01:37 PM

I would love to hear some comments on what I wrote here...

I think that the movie "Primer" was made on a budget of 7,000$. That movie was pretty darn cool.

Edit: And yes, I did pirate it.

Andrewsarchus

17th April 2009, 01:42 PM

I was in Turkey a couple of years ago. They appear to have no copyright laws whatsoever. The shops openly advertise their fake wares. My daughter bought a pair of fake Gucci jeans. They were beautiful right down to the certificate of authenticity. The shop owner proudly boasted that his fakes were the finest in Turkey. The seamstress that adjusted the leg length was superb. 10 minutes and the hem on each leg was absolutely perfect - all included in the price.

Why are you so disrespectful to Mr Gucci. Not only have you ruined his life and the lives of his 23 children but you've also violated his rights, violated them until they were raw and covered in welts. Now he won't be able to find inspiration to create new jeans or make any money because of what you've done. Essentially you've just committed him to the life of a street urchin, forced to carry out the rest of his days in an empty Maytag box.I hope you serve 45 years in a Mexican prison and pay billions on fines to Mr Gucci. You're the most vile and evil creature on the planet. A dishonest cretin whose sole purpose is to rape the creative juices from the worlds most brilliant artisans. His right's, won't someone think of his ample and child-like rights. Beaming with innocence and creativity his rights will now be subject to a painful ravaging the likes of which have never been seen before.

Should I keep going or is there enough?:)

Shrinker

17th April 2009, 01:42 PM

I agree a bit, but Ze times Ze are a- changin' Let me explain.

In the past (early film, printing, music recording) production and distribution was a Expensive and Slow process. ) Investments were huge to get quality. It was rightful to prevent 2nd parties to copy and run away with all your hard work.

These days you can produce quality work from your basement. All you need is a computer, software and some recording equipment. $1000 is possible.. $10,000 is better, but you could (talent and creativity needed) produce better quality work with $10,000 worth of gear than you could with gear costing $100,000 or more in the 1980s.

Then we go to distribution, where the cost is progressing towards 0% compared to the past.

The result is that YES there is MASSIVE incentive to produce new work, even in this p2p era. In fact more people world wide then EVER before are making art in any form. Due to these huge numbers of increasing productivity the amount of quality work is also increasing. I am not saying Joe Smith from Scrubville Oklahoma is making Shrek 4 in his basement, but talent will show up and find is way to bigger productions somehow.

This basically sums up in short why A pirating is not bad and B. Old copyright rules are indeed old, we need something new for the 21st century.

nay sayers, you live in the 20st century. You can skip and jump and scream, but you will get dragged into this century, Nothing and I repreat NOTHING will stop it.... Accept it and if you still feel bad about it help develop new economic methods to reward the artists... (The new artists are very busy doing that themselves by the way, maybe they don't even need you.... after all they are creative people.. that's why you want to pay them for their work!)

I would love to hear some comments on what I wrote here...

Are any of you apologists ever going to say what this new wonderful business model is?

People who illegally download do it because, they don't want to pay for the media, they don't want to see ads part way through, they don't want to buy popcorn. In other words, they don't want to pay anything and every possible revenue raising technique availble is somehow so repulsive that it justifies stealing it.

Please enlighten me. As someone in the content creation industry, how should my wages be funded?

Blackadder

17th April 2009, 01:45 PM

funny fact about this case:

With an expected appeal by the defendants, the case may eventually be heard by Sweden’s Supreme Court, with a detour through the European Court of Justice also a possibility, according to many experts.

Either way, it will likely be several years before a final ruling in the case is reached, by which time today’s bitTorrent technology may very well have been replaced by a new method for sharing files on the internet.

fullflavormenthol

17th April 2009, 01:45 PM

I didn't like Piratebay one bit. It comes down to a disturbing trend in which some people believe that all these artists should just produce this work for free, while at the same time demanding high quality.

I remember the people who originally put Star Wars Ep. III: Revenge of the Sith went to prison. Worst advice that gets thrown around in the pirate community is that it isn't theft, its infringement. While it is generally true that most cases are dealt with in civil court, once you go over the $5,000 mark in damages it becomes a criminal matter. (In the United States) Hence taking a movie that cost in the millions to produce and releasing it before opening got the people involved investigated by the F.B.I. and thrown into prison. Though at least they get to be martyrs in the community, as was seen on the comments in digg about the article.

Still not as bad as the pirate who compared himself to Rosa Parks, and talked about Copyright Infringement as a form of civil disobedience. :rolleyes: I have always had more respect for those people who just admit that they don't want to pay for something as opposed to those who make excuses.

In a world without copyright protection everything would either be funded by NEA like government bodies or produced by individuals at youtube quality. And we know how great youtube is at providing entertainment.

As a sign of what is to come I leave you with one of the top youtube channels...taste the rainbow of fruit pain.

ymXOLL3rVts

Nogbad

17th April 2009, 01:50 PM

Why are you so disrespectful to Mr Gucci. Not only have you ruined his life and the lives of his 23 children but you've also violated his rights, violated them until they were raw and covered in welts. Now he won't be able to find inspiration to create new jeans or make any money because of what you've done. Essentially you've just committed him to the life of a street urchin, forced to carry out the rest of his days in an empty Maytag box.I hope you serve 45 years in a Mexican prison and pay billions on fines to Mr Gucci. You're the most vile and evil creature on the planet. A dishonest cretin whose sole purpose is to rape the creative juices from the worlds most brilliant artisans. His right's, won't someone think of his ample and child-like rights. Beaming with innocence and creativity his rights will now be subject to a painful ravaging the likes of which have never been seen before.

Should I keep going or is there enough?:)

Wow! I very nearly felt guilty ;)

Andrewsarchus

17th April 2009, 01:51 PM

Are any of you apologists ever going to say what this new wonderful business model is?

Please enlighten me. As someone in the content creation industry, how should my wages be funded?

The answer to question 1 is I don't care. I don't care about the business model because I don't care if the industries that currently make money through intellectual property and copyright ever make money.

The Answer to question 2 is I don't care. I don't care about the business model because I don't care if the industries that currently make money through intellectual property and copyright ever make money. Maybe I'll start to care when you can show me that you're intellectual property is 100% unique to you without any trace of influence or previous work.

Andrewsarchus

17th April 2009, 01:56 PM

some people believe that all these artists should just produce this work for free, while at the same time demanding high quality.

Who is demanding this? I'd like to see just one quote where someone is saying "I demand free work from artists and it also must be high quality!"
I think you just made that up.

What's the word again when someone creates an opposing argument that doesn't actually reflect what the opposing side thinks in order to easily knock it down? A haystack? A Barnboard? Oh it's a pitchfork. hmmm...

Shrinker

17th April 2009, 02:00 PM

The answer to question 1 is I don't care. I don't care about the business model because I don't care if the industries that currently make money through intellectual property and copyright ever make money.

The Answer to question 2 is I don't care. I don't care about the business model because I don't care if the industries that currently make money through intellectual property and copyright ever make money. Maybe I'll start to care when you can show me that you're intellectual property is 100% unique to you without any trace of influence or previous work.

Well, you obviously can't be reasoned with, anybody else?

Andrewsarchus

17th April 2009, 02:03 PM

Well, you obviously can't be reasoned with, anybody else?

Oh I can be reasoned with. My lack of sympathy toward the record and movie industry doesn't mean I can't be convinced that piracy is somehow this awful crime worthy of jail time and personal financial loss. I just need to see an argument that actually makes sense and isn't riddled with strawmen and misrepresentation.

dudalb

17th April 2009, 02:06 PM

Uh, just about every country in the world has laws protecting copyright.

Shrinker

17th April 2009, 02:06 PM

Who is demanding this? I'd like to see just one quote where someone is saying "I demand free work from artists and it also must be high quality!"
I think you just made that up.

What's the word again when someone creates an opposing argument that doesn't actually reflect what the opposing side thinks in order to easily knock it down? A haystack? A Barnboard? Oh it's a pitchfork. hmmm...

From the downloaders there is a constant chorus of 'make legititmate downloads more attractive than pirate copies'. What could possibly be more attractive than a free HDTV rip without ads?

dudalb

17th April 2009, 02:08 PM

dudalb

17th April 2009, 02:11 PM

From the downloaders there is a constant chorus of 'make legititmate downloads more attractive than pirate copies'. What could possibly be more attractive than a free HDTV rip without ads?

That is pure BS. They would download for free if every song ever written was available for legitimate download at a reasonable price.
For these people, there is one reasonable price: $00.0O
The ones who crack me up...and make me sad at the same time..are the ones who think they are commiting some kind of revolutionary act by downloading pirate versions of films or music. "We are socking it to the man, baby"!

Blackadder

17th April 2009, 02:12 PM

Are any of you apologists ever going to say what this new wonderful business model is?

People who illegally download do it because, they don't want to pay for the media, they don't want to see ads part way through, they don't want to buy popcorn. In other words, they don't want to pay anything and every possible revenue raising technique availble is somehow so repulsive that it justifies stealing it.

Please enlighten me. As someone in the content creation industry, how should my wages be funded?

Some are just existing business models that just get more important. Cinema over here is booming, with growth every year in the past 10 years.... So every year since the beginning of broadband cinemas grew. They just had to increase the quality of the theatre experience, and they did. instead of sloppy dirty movie theatres we have nice, clean large entertainment halls including more choices in food, drinks, games, and other entertainment. It;s booming.

Video rentals on the other way are down and out. that model is gone.

For musicians: Live performances will be everything. Mega stars that haven't done anything in 20 years like Michael Jackson, but also almost every popular star group from the past.. People beg them to tour again. and pay huge amounts of money.

But this also works for local starting groups. Youtube is full of shabby recordings of live performances of some small artists with not more than 100 in the audience... Howevere comment how much FUN IT WAS. And how MUCH they look Forward to June when this group is coming again to a town near them. Through myspace, twitter, youtube this news also spreads 100 times faster and further than in the old days with a flyer at the local disco club. So you get steady fan bases who actually follow the artist and like to see them perform live. The same people usually first download the work without paying anything.. some might buy it afterwards, some might not, but almost all people I know have a few favourites of which they buy stuff. Because they are fans. Just like the old days. The difference is that besides that they also download 10 times as much from other artists, which they still like, but are not huge fans... In the eighties, when I grew up, this meant I would buy the new album from the band I was a huge fan of.. And I would tape recorder copy an album of my school buddies sometimes, because I liked the music, but was not such a huge fan (of course I had not enough money as a kid to buy everything.) The copying has been made easier. But teenagers (and many older people) will still be fans and fans want to OWN originals..

ok now movies... As I explained before the cinema model is sound. In fact even if I know I can see ANY movie I want for free, I still go to the cinema every week. With friends. It is fun. We eat dinner, drink a beer, drive to the theatre, play a game on the Wii or X-box there, check out the sexy girls, meet friends and collegues. Buy popcorn. And have a nice 2 hours of entertainment.

I have no reason to stop doing that. Do I download movies? Yes. Mostly classics, old or new that I want to see again for some reason. Most likely the reason is that I noticed the movie is on tv. But maybe I missed the first 15 minutes. Or maybe I decided that I had no time to view it. 10 years ago you needed to program your video recorder to tape it. Nightmares... stand up comedy material..

These days. . Click click... and 15 minutes later I have my movie (1-2 hours if it is in HD quality)

Then it is watch... delete... (there is no reason to store them, only young boys and weird people store 1000 movies on their computers, never realizing that they never watch any, and just have a collecting disorder)

Basically in this model torrents are a replacement for the video recorder.

Do I still buy DVD's ? Yes because it is just annoying to have to track down the right torrent version, or missing subtitles... downloading is for the time you would have been watching any random movie on tv otherwise.. Buying is for stuff you would like to own. with scene selection. the making of.. and 13 languages all conveniently organized on one shiny disc. Oh and they cost next to nothing anyway these days.. Seems like the movie industry DOES realize that $5 is good, $10 might be good, but $24,95 certainly is NOT good. Just don't buy on release day, wait a few months.

dudalb

17th April 2009, 02:16 PM

Almo

17th April 2009, 02:16 PM

Well, there is certainly the possibility that there may be people who act that way, but I'm assuming that most people, after seeing a museum once, would be less likely to go back in the future, not more likely. After all, its a repeat of the exact same thing.

On the other hand, listening to a music CD and watching a concert are 2 totally different experiences. I'm not likely to go to a concert for a group I've never heard. I am likely to go to a concert for a group that I've head at least a few of their songs that I liked. And hearing a band live gives me a different feel than listening to a CD (or illegally downloaded MP3) would.

But if you listen to the pirated CD and go to the concert, you still owe them the money for the CD.

I personally DL music as well. But if I like it, I buy it. If I don't, I delete it. Also, I only give copies of music to people who I know behave the same way. I know when I lend Loonie some music, he'll buy it if he likes it.

This loss-leader argument is silly, in my opinion. Someone I know uses it. When asked how many concerts they actually attend, it's a very, very small number.

Andrewsarchus

17th April 2009, 02:16 PM

From the downloaders there is a constant chorus of 'make legititmate downloads more attractive than pirate copies'. What could possibly be more attractive than a free HDTV rip without ads?

Ok cool but that's not what was said. What was suggested was that people demand that artists should give their work away for free and at a higher quality. Just one quote would be nice.

Blackadder

17th April 2009, 02:17 PM

From the downloaders there is a constant chorus of 'make legititmate downloads more attractive than pirate copies'. What could possibly be more attractive than a free HDTV rip without ads?

A legal High Def disc with nice case, the right subtitles (most of the world still doesn't speak english) for a fair price (that is close to $10 max) is more attractive. I am very fond of my row of Clint Eastwood westerns and many other dvds

Andrewsarchus

17th April 2009, 02:22 PM

If they can't protect their rights, please explain how a composer/filmmaker/artist is gonna be able to make a freaking living doing their art.

Easy, by doing something that people will pay for. If you can no longer make money by playing in a band it's time to look into plumbing maybe? Besides, how does one define a specific piece of art or music as there own?

Shrinker

17th April 2009, 02:25 PM

Oh I can be reasoned with. My lack of sympathy toward the record and movie industry doesn't mean I can't be convinced that piracy is somehow this awful crime worthy of jail time and personal financial loss. I just need to see an argument that actually makes sense and isn't riddled with strawmen and misrepresentation.

Okay, let me try this, possibly naive attempt. There are hundreds of thousands, most likely millions of people worldwide, whose trained profession is in the content creation industries, ie computer programmer, make-up artist, sound-technician etc. Only a tiny fraction of those will ever have IP ownership of the products on which they work, and rarely will have any lofty artistic claims. They depend on revenue from their employers which in turn trickles down from publishers, distributors, record companies, film studios, TV broadcaster's etc. That in turn comes from, sales of the product to individuals and ad sposored entities. This is deemed to be a morally acceptable trade.

Without copyright enforcement the final stage cannot work, the entire industry cannot get funding. Millions of people, have their livelihoods at stake. You may say, pah! capitalism sucks, but generally we accept that taking money away from innocent people is a bad thing. If it's through violence or fraud it's a crime and carries a sentence. If it's through willfully depriving of someone of an honest living that is also considered a crime in my country and carries a sentence. If it's through selfishly and deliberately crippling an innocent industry then it should also be considered a crime and carry a sentence proportional to the losses incurred.

Andrewsarchus

17th April 2009, 02:27 PM

Blackadder

17th April 2009, 02:29 PM

I love the whole "The distribution model is changing" as a excuse for downloading pirated material.
You can dance all you want to, use all the fancy terminlogy, but in the end you just want your professional quality entertainment but don's want to pay for it. And all the intellectual BS in the world will not change that fact.

it's not intellectual BS, but standing on two feet in reality in 2009 (but it has been going on since the late nineties) You just cannot go back in time. As I explained above the production AND distribution technology has been changed in many ways. We cannot use laws from 1930 or earlier for technology in 2010.
I also explained that the "professional quality entertainment" like main stream cinema and world pop tours still are very alive.
But yes, the local record store and video rentals are dying or already dead. In fact in Holland this process has been finished already a few years ago with the leading record chain converting into games and most rentals completely gone. That is what the new distribution model is doing.. it's going online and out of the shopping mall.

KoihimeNakamura

17th April 2009, 02:30 PM

dudalb

17th April 2009, 02:30 PM

Easy, by doing something that people will pay for. If you can no longer make money by playing in a band it's time to look into plumbing maybe? Besides, how does one define a specific piece of art or music as there own?

Sorry, but you pirates will not pay for ANYTHING if you can get it for free.

KoihimeNakamura

17th April 2009, 02:31 PM

it's not intellectual BS, but standing on two feet in reality in 2009 (but it has been going on since the late nineties) You just cannot go back in time. As I explained above the production AND distribution technology has been changed in many ways. We cannot use laws from 1930 or earlier for technology in 2010.
I also explained that the "professional quality entertainment" like main stream cinema and world pop tours still are very alive.
But yes, the local record store and video rentals are dying or already dead. In fact in Holland this process has been finished already a few years ago with the leading record chain converting into games and most rentals completely gone. That is what the new distribution model is doing.. it's going online and out of the shopping mall.

Here it's Netflix. I <3 Netflix.

dudalb

17th April 2009, 02:33 PM

besides, how does one define a specific piece of art or music as there own?

BY FREAKING CREATING IT.......

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_1884048ca062020e8b.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=13773)

I have seen dumb on this website, but you are up there with the best.

Blackadder

17th April 2009, 02:34 PM

dudalb

17th April 2009, 02:35 PM

dudalb

17th April 2009, 02:36 PM

Shrinker

17th April 2009, 02:37 PM

A legal High Def disc with nice case, the right subtitles (most of the world still doesn't speak english) for a fair price (that is close to $10 max) is more attractive. I am very fond of my row of Clint Eastwood westerns and many other dvds

How do you choose a fair price? What's fair about it? You don't have any right to own the material, so even if the price was $4000 you have no right to claim its unfair.

Also, why is it that the fair price is always about 30% of the real price, no matter what the product and no matter what the price? I use software that used to cost $150,000. Now it costs $1,500 and people are still complaining that its ridiculously overpriced and is it any wonder people pirate it. Albums are cheaper than they've ever been, DVDs too, yet the downloaders still bleat on about unfair pricing. Go on the iPhone app store, people complain about perfectly good software costing 1 dollar! 1 dollar!

Blackadder

17th April 2009, 02:38 PM

The New Distriubtion Method as an excuse for downloading pirated material in like saying that you have a right, if somebody is foolish enough to leave a window open, to go into the house and steal everything they got because the window was open.

nice, I was waiting for this one, now I can ignore everything you say about this subject in the future. oh and 1993 called, they want you back.

geni

17th April 2009, 02:41 PM

Segnosaur

17th April 2009, 02:43 PM

On the other hand, listening to a music CD and watching a concert are 2 totally different experiences. I'm not likely to go to a concert for a group I've never heard. I am likely to go to a concert for a group that I've head at least a few of their songs that I liked. And hearing a band live gives me a different feel than listening to a CD (or illegally downloaded MP3) would.
But if you listen to the pirated CD and go to the concert, you still owe them the money for the CD.

I never claimed that pirating music was legal, nor that performers or producers didn't have the right to control their content. So yes, legally, in that case, you'd still ow money for that CD.

I was referring to the folly of the artists to actually bother enforcing such restrictions.

I personally DL music as well. But if I like it, I buy it. If I don't, I delete it.

But technically, what you're doing is illegal. According to copyright laws, you only have the right to 'preview' songs through certain channels (such as broadcast radio). And if you buy a CD and most of the music sucks, well, HA HA! on you.

This loss-leader argument is silly, in my opinion. Someone I know uses it. When asked how many concerts they actually attend, it's a very, very small number.
Even if it is a very small number (lets say 1% of your audience), that still means that you have 1% more revenue than you would have had compared to a situation where a person doesn't download your music for free, doesn't become a fan of your music, and doesn't decide to attend your concerts.

applecorped

17th April 2009, 02:44 PM

It's okay. I bought Sgt. Pepper's on 8-track in '77. It entitled me to that download.

Do you still have it?

Blackadder

17th April 2009, 02:45 PM

How do you choose a fair price? What's fair about it? You don't have any right to own the material, so even if the price was $4000 you have no right to claim its unfair.

Also, why is it that the fair price is always about 30% of the real price, no matter what the product and no matter what the price? I use software that used to cost $150,000. Now it costs $1,500 and people are still complaining that its ridiculously overpriced and is it any wonder people pirate it. Albums are cheaper than they've ever been, DVDs too, yet the downloaders still bleat on about unfair pricing. Go on the iPhone app store, people complain about perfectly good software costing 1 dollar! 1 dollar!

A fair price is not math, it depends. It is some kind of feeling for most people. It is not always rational. For music CD and movie DVDs people 'feel' that 20 bucks is too much. But a tenner sounds good and a fiver from the bargain bin sounds great. Not to mention that these days you have loads of great stuff in the ANY 3 TITLES for just 10 category.

It has nothing to do with the COST of the material. It might cost a fortune.. Well in that case the right thing is not to increase the retail price, but to decide Not to produce it because there won't be a market for it.

HarryKeogh

17th April 2009, 02:49 PM

Do you still have it?

No. I lied. I never had it on 8-track but that's only because the Columbia House 8-Track Tape Club sent me the selection of the month instead (stupid Star is Born soundtrack :mad:)

Andrewsarchus

17th April 2009, 02:52 PM

Okay, let me try this, possibly naive attempt. There are hundreds of thousands, most likely millions of people worldwide, whose trained profession is in the content creation industries, ie computer programmer, make-up artist, sound-technician etc. Only a tiny fraction of those will ever have IP ownership of the products on which they work, and rarely will have any lofty artistic claims. They depend on revenue from their employers which in turn trickles down from publishers, distributors, record companies, film studios, TV broadcaster's etc. That in turn comes from, sales of the product to individuals and ad sposored entities. This is deemed to be a morally acceptable trade.

Without copyright enforcement the final stage cannot work, the entire industry cannot get funding. Millions of people, have their livelihoods at stake. You may say, pah! capitalism sucks, but generally we accept that taking money away from innocent people is a bad thing. If it's through violence or fraud it's a crime and carries a sentence. If it's through willfully depriving of someone of an honest living that is also considered a crime in my country and carries a sentence. If it's through selfishly and deliberately crippling an innocent industry then it should also be considered a crime and carry a sentence proportional to the losses incurred.

I was a graphic designer for a number of years before I made the switch to the woodworking trade. My specific job in the design world was a logo designer. Everyday I would create logos that I thought were unique to me and my talents stamp them with a IP tag and sell them to clients. But they weren't unique to me, they were re-hatched ideas and design elements that had been done to death over and over through out the years. Essentially I was demanding payment for creating stuff that I'd seen before and just repackaged. That's IP is, it's and interpretation of ideas that it's creator has seen before. Demanding rights for those ideas is absurd. The industry will suffer sure, but that's capitalism. When a trend is on the decline, people will lose their jobs. All the whining about stealing and just wanting to get free stuff isn't going to slow it down nor should it.

As a cabinet maker I can't stop people from copying designs or ideas from me because I don't come up with them. No one did. They were developed over time by thousands of people trying to perfect their craft. The need for fine craftsmanship has dwindled with the advancement of cnc routers and other robotic operations but does that mean I should demand "rights" to protect my job.

The reason people pirate is because they don't want to pay for it. That part is fact. It's easy and free. What makes piracy so widespread is the fact that most people don't really give a rat's ass how much sweat and blood went into Hostel II. If you choose to work in a field where the product of your hard work can be instantly copied and redistributed for free you should be aware of that going in.

What really bugs me is that there are people how think that their creations are so amazing that sharing of that work should be punishable by jail or fine. It makes me throw up a little in my mouth.

KoihimeNakamura

17th April 2009, 02:52 PM

I dunno. If I saw, say, The Dark Knight for 20ish dollars, that seems fair. If I saw something like Hostel II for anything over 5 dollars I think I'd fall over in laughter. The 'fair price' depends really on what you think the quality of it is.

Shrinker

17th April 2009, 02:55 PM

Music : life performances and online sales
Games: Consoles Online, monthly fee, Blizzard model
Movies: Cinema experience strong enough to keep bums on seats + still a significant amount of dvd sales

here you go. people can keep their jobs.. all the graphic artists, backstage crews, make up ladies, script kids are still needed. More than ever

Nice try, but the only change in there is the switch to monthly subscription for games. I'm afraid that won't work for a very long time because gamers don't want it yet. Not all games are online rambling epics and neither should they be.

As for movies, you make the common demand for some magical improvement to the cinema exerience. It cannot be achieved. If you make every movie from now on twice as good as it would normally have been, within 2 years, expectations will have been raised, and the pirates would be again making the excuse that movies aren't good enough to pay for. Most movies will always be 'meh' because of the 2% that blow you away and raise the bar.

geni

17th April 2009, 02:56 PM

mumblethrax

17th April 2009, 02:57 PM

From the downloaders there is a constant chorus of 'make legititmate downloads more attractive than pirate copies'. What could possibly be more attractive than a free HDTV rip without ads?
Well, I used to download TV shows illegally.

Now I use Netflix's streaming service, or Hulu, or one of the various other legal providers.

It wasn't an ideological change on my part. It's just better. Greater ease of use, better quality of service, and lower risk.

geni

17th April 2009, 03:01 PM

I agree a bit, but Ze times Ze are a- changin' Let me explain.

In the past (early film, printing, music recording) production and distribution was a Expensive and Slow process. ) Investments were huge to get quality. It was rightful to prevent 2nd parties to copy and run away with all your hard work.

These days you can produce quality work from your basement. All you need is a computer, software and some recording equipment. $1000 is possible.. $10,000 is better, but you could (talent and creativity needed) produce better quality work with $10,000 worth of gear than you could with gear costing $100,000 or more in the 1980s.

And what have you created?

Then we go to distribution, where the cost is progressing towards 0% compared to the past.

The result is that YES there is MASSIVE incentive to produce new work, even in this p2p era. In fact more people world wide then EVER before are making art in any form. Due to these huge numbers of increasing productivity the amount of quality work is also increasing. I am not saying Joe Smith from Scrubville Oklahoma is making Shrek 4 in his basement, but talent will show up and find is way to bigger productions somehow.

No since bigger productions cease to exist.

This basically sums up in short why A pirating is not bad and B. Old copyright rules are indeed old, we need something new for the 21st century.

Not really. Copyright works just fine.

nay sayers, you live in the 20st century. You can skip and jump and scream, but you will get dragged into this century, Nothing and I repreat NOTHING will stop it....

There are in fact half a dozen ways to stop it. From resdisigning the web (and after that DNS security issue came up a lot of people in a position to do so would like to do that) to implementing an effective trusted client on a PC architecture.

Other tricks are increaseing the number of stakeholders.

applecorped

17th April 2009, 03:01 PM

Serves them right! I use isohunt.

KoihimeNakamura

17th April 2009, 03:03 PM

I should start paying for Hulu. I've never used it before. (as I said, I use Netflix and am currently watching looney toons.)

geni

17th April 2009, 03:03 PM

Uh, just about every country in the world has laws protecting copyright.

Pretty much. Only real exception is afganistan.

geni

17th April 2009, 03:05 PM

Some are just existing business models that just get more important. Cinema over here is booming, with growth every year in the past 10 years.... So every year since the beginning of broadband cinemas grew. They just had to increase the quality of the theatre experience, and they did. instead of sloppy dirty movie theatres we have nice, clean large entertainment halls including more choices in food, drinks, games, and other entertainment. It;s booming.

So what? Remeber in your brave new word there is no reason for the cinema to pay any money to the people makeing the films so that doesn't actualy produce a funding model for films.

For musicians: Live performances will be everything. Mega stars that haven't done anything in 20 years like Michael Jackson, but also almost every popular star group from the past.. People beg them to tour again. and pay huge amounts of money.

Not all music formats are conductive to the concert approach.

But this also works for local starting groups. Youtube is full of shabby recordings of live performances of some small artists with not more than 100 in the audience... Howevere comment how much FUN IT WAS. And how MUCH they look Forward to June when this group is coming again to a town near them. Through myspace, twitter, youtube this news also spreads 100 times faster and further than in the old days with a flyer at the local disco club. So you get steady fan bases who actually follow the artist and like to see them perform live.

How did the myspace bands thing work out at glastonbury? It didn't.

geni

17th April 2009, 03:08 PM

Strawman, that's the one. Pitchfork, what was I thinking. I knew it was some kind of farm reference though. Anyway... if every band stopped playing, every movie company stopped producing and every artist stopped painting I still wouldn't care.

How about if every new drug stopped being produced?
Or if you are not prepared to look at wider IP what if every new book stoped being produced. No more selling books to fund your archological digs.

Blackadder

17th April 2009, 03:08 PM

Nice try, but the only change in there is the switch to monthly subscription for games. I'm afraid that won't work for a very long time because gamers don't want it yet. Not all games are online rambling epics and neither should they be.

As for movies, you make the common demand for some magical improvement to the cinema exerience. It cannot be achieved. If you make every movie from now on twice as good as it would normally have been, within 2 years, expectations will have been raised, and the pirates would be again making the excuse that movies aren't good enough to pay for. Most movies will always be 'meh' because of the 2% that blow you away and raise the bar.

You don't seem to understand anything about a movie theater experience. It is about the

Location
Food and Drink
Laughter
Boys and Girls
Gossip
Large Screen
Nostalgia
Sound
Light
Sex or
Romance

pick a few of these reasons, (they differ from person to person) That's why why the seats are still full.

The actual MOVIE is for most people irrelevant.. They don't care if it is Batman returns or Superman the umptienth if they like that kind of movie, they will go......together

Sure, sometimes a flick is IMDB top 250 worthy and that will attract some extra folks that don't usually go , but the majority are young people age 15-30 that go often.

ARubberChickenWithAPulley

17th April 2009, 03:09 PM

The reason people pirate is because they don't want to pay for it. That part is fact. It's easy and free. What makes piracy so widespread is the fact that most people don't really give a rat's ass how much sweat and blood went into Hostel II. If you choose to work in a field where the product of your hard work can be instantly copied and redistributed for free you should be aware of that going in.

It's still easy and free for me to pump gas and drive off without paying for it in a lot of places.

Presumably, it should be perfectly legal, then?

Shrinker

17th April 2009, 03:09 PM

What really bugs me is that there are people how think that their creations are so amazing that sharing of that work should be punishable by jail or fine. It makes me throw up a little in my mouth.

Here's were I turn the tables an ask you to present an example of that. Those companies prosecuting the Pirate Bay people seemed quite clear that they were protecting their business.

The law exists to protect an industry that society as a whole accepts as beneficial. People like having both art and trashy entertainment available, and governments like have nice glossy industries churning away. In an ideal world the law would exists to make our society the best it can be and I think an ideal world would have robust copyright protection to support these industries.

The alternative protection would have to be government susbisdy. To a small extend we have that in the UK, and surprise surprise people hate paying for that too. The excuses being, I don't like it, it's not good enough, we can get it for free online etc.

Several people also talk about fairness. The most glaring fairness issue is that some people are funding content production by actually paying for it, while some are enjoying the benefits at everyone else's expense. Perhaps the fairness advocates could explain whether everyone who watches a movie should pay the same price or not?

geni

17th April 2009, 03:16 PM

Exactly. It is a rights violation, not theft.

Theft is a rights violation. The soundbyte you used is tempting but misses the point.

Blackadder

17th April 2009, 03:22 PM

So what? Remeber in your brave new word there is no reason for the cinema to pay any money to the people makeing the films so that doesn't actualy produce a funding model for films.

Let's see. To get 150 people in the theatre, 150 times 10 rooms , you need to show 10 movies every night. People want to go to the movies with their girlfriends and buddies as I explained. We want something to watch. It doesn;t have to be Empire Strikes Back or La Vitta e Bella every time but some standard higher than Jackass would be nice. In my brave new word that something is still not produces in somebodies basement, so we still need Hollywood to make something, and we pay the cinema. So the cinema can pay the studios.

Not all music formats are conductive to the concert approach.

true. If you make music that is not suitable for live performances you have to decide between a. see it more as a hobby b. sell through Itunes and various other legal e-shops, most tracks are sold as low as $0.15 and up and this business model is growing or c. quit.

Good artist will be able to go with b, some will opt for a (you can still combine a and b) and some will realize they can't do music for a living and go for c.

How did the myspace bands thing work out at glastonbury? It didn't.

I have no clue what you mean with glastonbury

Shrinker

17th April 2009, 03:22 PM

You don't seem to understand anything about a movie theater experience. It is about the

Location
Food and Drink
Laughter
Boys and Girls
Gossip
Large Screen
Nostalgia
Sound
Light
Sex or
Romance

pick a few of these reasons, (they differ from person to person) That's why why the seats are still full.

The actual MOVIE is for most people irrelevant.. They don't care if it is Batman returns or Superman the umptienth if they like that kind of movie, they will go......together

Sure, sometimes a flick is IMDB top 250 worthy and that will attract some extra folks that don't usually go , but the majority are young people age 15-30 that go often.

Sorry, I have misunderstood your point. I was expecting a new business model that would allow the industry to flourish despite unstoppable piracy. This seems to be just a fallback to the one safe (for now) revenue stream and the abandonment of the others to the pirates. A recession in other words.

Shrinker

17th April 2009, 03:25 PM

In my brave new word that something is still not produces in somebodies basement, so we still need Hollywood to make something, and we pay the cinema. So the cinema can pay the studios.

Why would the cinema pay the studio? They could download an HD rip and assume some other cinema would fund the studio.

Morrigan

17th April 2009, 03:25 PM

Copyright came about as a way to stimulate creativity. Without the incentive of protection, there is little reason to create new work. Equally, without the threat of punishment, there's little incentive to create new work (you can just rip off other stuff).
How did those minstrels and musicians ever do before recorded media? Well, it's true that ancient folk songs rarely have an attributed author and indeed they were plagiarized constantly. Yet they kept going.

Still, I support protections against plagiarism. In this modern age, properly attributing credit is important, whether it's for text or music or anything else. Distribution is secondary, and in my opinion it only matters if the artist loses control over the distribution in a way that will directly harm him (such as the girl whose blog post was reprinted in a newspaper as a letter to the editor without her knowledge or consent and ended up facing death threats and her family were forced to abandon their livelihood and move). Someone downloading the content for their private enjoyment doesn't quite reach that level.

Please enlighten me. As someone in the content creation industry, how should my wages be funded?
Get a job? ;) Or find someone willing to spend money for your labour or its fruits. It's how capitalism works, I think.

Uh, just about every country in the world has laws protecting copyright.
Ever heard of a continent called Asia? Yeah, maybe they have laws... they sure as hell don't enforce them.

If they can't protect their rights, please explain how a composer/filmmaker/artist is gonna be able to make a freaking living doing their art.
By getting a job in an industry that pays. ;)
Hey, art should be made for its own sake first. The money should be a bonus, really.

Sorry, but you pirates will not pay for ANYTHING if you can get it for free.

Oh, come off it. You just don't want to pay for your entertainment. Period, end of discussion.

Well, thank you for telling me exactly what I do. Even though you're wrong since I pirate stuff and also pay for stuff. "Period, end of discussion". You sure know how to handle yourself in a conversation. :newlol

Pretty much. Only real exception is afganistan.
And Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and Russia...

shawmutt

17th April 2009, 03:29 PM

I know stealing is wrong. I knew it when I downloaded the full Beatles, Megadeth, Pearl Jam, Primus, Dream Theater, and Weezer catalogue these last couple of months.

It'll be just as wrong when I fill my goal of 250GB of music by the end of this year.

I just don't care. Would I be a good pirate if I did?

It's simply arbitrary b.s. If I couldn't download them, I wouldn't buy them at all. When I was a kid, I would tape the radio and edit the songs I liked. Then I started borrowing friend's tapes and made copies of them. When CDs came out, I'd first tape them, and then burn them when CD burners came out. When internet radio came out, I'd record from there. When the mp3 format was released, I'd get files from friends. When the p2p networks came out, my friend network expanded. I was a "pirate" before it was even called that.

I still buy the occasional download, but by and large my music is a congregation of friends and memories.

Segnosaur

17th April 2009, 03:31 PM

Sorry, I have misunderstood your point. I was expecting a new business model that would allow the industry to flourish despite unstoppable piracy. This seems to be just a fallback to the one safe (for now) revenue stream and the abandonment of the others to the pirates. A recession in other words.

You're assuming that enough people will choose to download movies rather than attend the theater, to the point that movies will suffer. (I believe the previous poster was simply arguing that there were enough reasons to attend theaters in person such that such pirating movies won't cause a significant revenue reduction.)

If you want to talk about other revenue streams, consider how many companies are now paying for product placement in movies. (I, Robot anyone?)

If there are a significant number of people pirating movies, they won't get quite the same experience as those who attend the theater in person, BUT in theory the movie producers could charge more to companies for product placement, even if at least part of the growth in viewership was due to illegal downloads.

So, the vast majority of people will still attend movies, and those who are cheap will still contribute through product placement revenue.

Shrinker

17th April 2009, 03:33 PM

Get a job? ;) Or find someone willing to spend money for your labour or its fruits. It's how capitalism works, I think.

Capitalism doesn't work at all without anti-theft laws. Maybe you hadn't really thought about that.

AWPrime

17th April 2009, 03:34 PM

Nice try, but the only change in there is the switch to monthly subscription for games. I'm afraid that won't work for a very long time because gamers don't want it yet. Not all games are online rambling epics and neither should they be.Well I am a gamer and I play eve-online, which uses that model. And you know what I like it.

As for movies, you make the common demand for some magical improvement to the cinema exerience. It cannot be achieved. If you make every movie from now on twice as good as it would normally have been, within 2 years, expectations will have been raised, and the pirates would be again making the excuse that movies aren't good enough to pay for. Most movies will always be 'meh' because of the 2% that blow you away and raise the bar.And I guess my cd-maps with legal HQ films doesn't exist then?

geni

17th April 2009, 03:34 PM

H
And Hong Kong, and Taiwan, and Russia...

All have copyright laws. Russia made some changes a few years back and has an anoyingly limited Freedom of panorama.

shawmutt

17th April 2009, 03:34 PM

The economy and advances in home theater is far more detrimental to movie theaters than piracy. That and the fact that there's about three or four decent movies among the sea of **** that is Hollywood a year.

Oliver

17th April 2009, 03:36 PM

BY FREAKING CREATING IT.......

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_1884048ca062020e8b.jpg

I have seen dumb on this website, but you are up there with the best.

Given the fact that any melodious combination of tones in any newly created melodie was initially created by someone else before, your reply appears to be ...

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_1884048ca062020e8b.jpg

, too. ;)

shawmutt

17th April 2009, 03:37 PM

Uzzy

17th April 2009, 03:40 PM

China's music industry has adapted to the rampant piracy in that country in various ways. There's an interesting mix of live gigs and commercial sponsorship, as royalties are practically non existent. Interesting article on that from the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7251211.stm), which I always think about when I see conversations of this nature.

Plenty of companies in the west have adapted too. Putting their workers out into the public, so that people can see and interact with the people making their games, music and films would make fewer people pirate, as they'd see actual people losing out, rather then faceless companies. In gaming, there's a wonderful little company called Stardock, that doesn't put any protection on it's games, but sets up a system that denies people support and updates to the games unless the game is a legitimately bought one (and actually makes those updates meaningful). There's the patronage model, where the creator of the product holds it 'hostage' until enough people put money forward to release the product. Affordable products also help. Yes, CD prices have dropped immensely in recent years (a good step), but games are still rediculously priced, especially as many only give eight hours worth of playtime.

Most of those ideas work best for smaller companies. As for the bigger ones, they seem to be doing well! UK cinema attendances went up 2.5% last year (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/3918999/UK-cinema-attendances-soar-thanks-to-James-Bonds-Quantum-of-Solace.html), for instance.

Yeah, I pirate things. Mainly Official Soundtracks for various games I own, Battlestar Galactica and other sci-fi shows and occasionally films. I also pick up the DVD's if it's a good show/film, and go to the cinema. Watchmen was brilliant, and I think I'll end up seeing the Wolverine film and Star Trek.

Shrinker

17th April 2009, 03:41 PM

You're assuming that enough people will choose to download movies rather than attend the theater, to the point that movies will suffer. (I believe the previous poster was simply arguing that there were enough reasons to attend theaters in person such that such pirating movies won't cause a significant revenue reduction.)

If you want to talk about other revenue streams, consider how many companies are now paying for product placement in movies. (I, Robot anyone?)

If there are a significant number of people pirating movies, they won't get quite the same experience as those who attend the theater in person, BUT in theory the movie producers could charge more to companies for product placement, even if at least part of the growth in viewership was due to illegal downloads.

So, the vast majority of people will still attend movies, and those who are cheap will still contribute through product placement revenue.

Yep, cinema seats and product placement. Existing revenue streams, already very keenly exploited.

Blackadder

17th April 2009, 03:43 PM

Why would the cinema pay the studio? They could download an HD rip and assume some other cinema would fund the studio.

I am not against laws banning that practice. I am against the current copyright laws banning me from filesahring because those laws are totally worthless and not enforceable. I download anyway because I can, no law can prevent that. As I hope you understand from my previous postings that doesn't mean I pirate 100% of my entertainment needs. I just have no ethical objections to it. For example I am not trying to make money out of the things I DL.

A movie theatre is making money. So it is fair that they pay the supply. Also we can make laws against the any long term practice of showing copies to large audiences that are actually practical and enforceable. So I have no objections against a modern copyright law that covers things like that.

Morrigan

17th April 2009, 03:46 PM

Capitalism doesn't work at all without anti-theft laws. Maybe you hadn't really thought about that.
Except that we're not talking about theft in the case of downloading here. If I download your song for my personal use, you still have it. If I take credit for your writing/performing song and sell it as my own, then you could indeed argue that I stole from you, since those revenues you didn't earn because of me are real and provable.
That's why I am morally opposed to plagiarism, but find it hard to care about downloading.

All have copyright laws. Russia made some changes a few years back and has an anoyingly limited Freedom of panorama.
Sure they have laws. Did you miss the part where I mentioned enforcement? You will be very hard-pressed to find a legit Anime DVD from Hong Kong or Taiwan, because the bootlegged versions are everywhere, including on a website operated by an American company like eBay.
In Algeria, my friend tells me, legit DVDs are once again rare and very expensive, but you can find cheap bootlegged copies everywhere. I'm sure Algeria has copyright laws, though...

...

Because xbox live and its downloadable content and MMOs are a failed business model?
I certainly hope no one has suggested this, because they would be living on some other bizarre planet.

fullflavormenthol

17th April 2009, 03:48 PM

U2Mel — then perhaps instead of relying on music to make them money aritsts need to get a real job and leave music for a hobby.
most people have to work for a living they can’t just sit around and collect royalties for 99 years. link (http://www.zeropaid.com/news/6406/music_belongs_to_musicians_not_you/)

why? Why MUST musicians make money off distribution? They didn’t before music could be recorded, why should they now. People seem to think it’s a law of the universe that musicians should be able to record a few songs, sit back and watch the cash roll in. “oh, but musicians can’t sell music any more because of downloading”. Well, too bad. The technological innovation of records allowed musicians to distribute their music on a physical medium and charge money for it. Now, the technological innovation of the internet cuts out the physical part of the distribution, hence there is nothing to charge for… They’re just pissed because the lost their cash cow. The party’s over people, get used to it. link (gold mine in comments) (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/22/these-crazy-musicians-still-think-they-should-get-paid-for-recorded-music/)

Quality arguement...it is answered by what is illegally downloaded.

Top Illegal Downloads of 2007 (http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/news/2007/12/YE_best_of_p2p)

As for where I read most of the crap about how artists don't deserve money of their creations? It is called Digg, knock yourself out looking through the comment archives.

Personally I believe you already know many pirates think this way, and you are ignoring it so you can pitchfork yourself a strawman.

Shrinker

17th April 2009, 03:49 PM

...

Because xbox live and its downloadable content and MMOs are a failed business model?

Of course not, they work extremely well, but you cannot immediately switch the whole industry over to a monthly subscription model. Consumers are still wary of it as a wholesale change since the benefits vary game by game. Downloadable content for example is often regarded as a scam to get you to pay for levels that should have been in the game anyway.

Regardless, some kind of subscription is the best defence, and right now gaming seems the least vulnerable.

Segnosaur

17th April 2009, 03:49 PM

If there are a significant number of people pirating movies, they won't get quite the same experience as those who attend the theater in person, BUT in theory the movie producers could charge more to companies for product placement, even if at least part of the growth in viewership was due to illegal downloads.
Yep, cinema seats and product placement. Existing revenue streams, already very keenly exploited.
Except I doubt the number of people viewing pirated movies is currently a big factor when companies are setting rates for product placement. If they assume more people are viewing a movie due to piracy, movie producers can chare more for product placement.

So yes, both revenue streams are currently exploited, but the revenue impact of each stream can and will change over time. That's where the business model changes.

Shrinker

17th April 2009, 03:55 PM

Except that we're not talking about theft in the case of downloading here. If I download your song for my personal use, you still have it. If I take credit for your writing/performing song and sell it as my own, then you could indeed argue that I stole from you, since those revenues you didn't earn because of me are real and provable.
That's why I am morally opposed to plagiarism, but find it hard to care about downloading.

How do you feel about counterfeiting money?

Blackadder

17th April 2009, 03:56 PM

Uzzy, thanks for backing up the filesharing reality with those examples of how things change. I agree with all you said.

Shrinker

17th April 2009, 03:59 PM

fullflavormenthol

17th April 2009, 04:05 PM

How do you feel about counterfeiting money?
Well...um...but...it isn't stealing if you can replicate...oh..um...the RIAA sucks! ;)

D'rok

17th April 2009, 04:07 PM

Some content producers are trying to find innovative ways to monetize peer-to-peer. For example:

http://www.songwriters.ca/studio/proposal.php

I like this approach.

ClassyElf

17th April 2009, 04:07 PM

BY FREAKING CREATING IT.......

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_1884048ca062020e8b.jpg (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=13773)

I have seen dumb on this website, but you are up there with the best.

How does one distinguish who created a digital file?

Let's say I create a program on my computer using the python interpreter program. I manipulate the bits and the data on my hard drive using python's interpreter. I obviously own this program that I have created.

Now, let's say that I manipulate the bits on my hard drive using a p2p program by downloading a song. The data on my hard drive happens to match the same long stream of 0s and 1s that a mp3 song by The Beatles has.

I did the same fundamental thing that I did with the python program(edited bits using free tools), yet for some reason I don't own the file.

Now what if I convert the mp3 to a .wav file? Now the stream is COMPLETELY different. Have I created this yet?

What if I add a .5 second beep near the end of the song using a digital editing program and rename the song to "My amazing remix!.wav"? I remixed this song myself! Have I created this yet?

What if I now change the tempo of the song and cover it with my own singing? Have I created this yet? Do I own it yet?

Shrinker

17th April 2009, 04:11 PM

I am not against laws banning that practice. I am against the current copyright laws banning me from filesahring because those laws are totally worthless and not enforceable. I download anyway because I can, no law can prevent that. As I hope you understand from my previous postings that doesn't mean I pirate 100% of my entertainment needs. I just have no ethical objections to it. For example I am not trying to make money out of the things I DL.

A movie theatre is making money. So it is fair that they pay the supply. Also we can make laws against the any long term practice of showing copies to large audiences that are actually practical and enforceable. So I have no objections against a modern copyright law that covers things like that.

Worthless unenforceable laws should be straightened out of course. Personally, I'd clean up the law so that you could duplicate your purchased content however you liked within your own household. On the other hand I'd make filesharing and torrenting of copyrighted content a specific offence carrying a fine. It is easily enforceable should any official body wish to enforce it, a bit like a speeding or parking fine.

D'rok

17th April 2009, 04:12 PM

BY FREAKING CREATING IT.......

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/thum_1884048ca062020e8b.jpg

Are you sure about that? Creation is a different ballgame these days too. For example:

http://thru-you.com/

E9. The Mother of all funk chords, baby!

dudalb

17th April 2009, 04:18 PM

Are you sure about that? Creation is a different ballgame these days too. For example:

http://thru-you.com/

E9. The Mother of all funk chords, baby!

BS. That is like saying Beethoven did not create his music becuase the Musical notes existed before he started composing, or that Shakespere did not create his works because the alphabet existed before he started writing.
Half of this is just plain I don't wanna pay for my entertainment, the rest is a bunch of wannbes who want to convince themselves they are great artists by downgrading truly great artists.

dirtywick

17th April 2009, 04:19 PM

Not really. Copyright works just fine.

And yet, here we are.

I usually just pirate music. But the artists aren't really losing anything, because if I didn't pirate it I simply wouldn't buy it. But I don't have to go without new music because everything I want is free on the Internet. And that's simply the issue, and artists will simply have to find a way to make money some other way now.

Yeah it's illegal, yeah it's wrong, but it's also free and really easy and you're not going to get in any trouble, so that sucks for them but that's the way it is. There's probably over a billion people sharing files on the internet, it's unstoppable. It's over, adapt.

geni

17th April 2009, 04:20 PM

I am not against laws banning that practice.

Why?

I am against the current copyright laws banning me from filesahring because those laws are totally worthless and not enforceable. I download anyway because I can, no law can prevent that.

The law can prevent you from breathing. Stopping you from dowloading stuff is quite posible.

A movie theatre is making money. So it is fair that they pay the supply. Also we can make laws against the any long term practice of showing copies to large audiences that are actually practical and enforceable. So I have no objections against a modern copyright law that covers things like that.

Copyright law is enforceable on an individual level. Createing a locked down version of the internet (the excuse would be to control spam prevent damage to infrastructure and allow greater safety online for the kids you know) would not present a major technical challange.

Harpyja

17th April 2009, 04:25 PM

You don't seem to understand anything about a movie theater experience. It is about the

Location
Food and Drink
Laughter
Boys and Girls
Gossip
Large Screen
Nostalgia
Sound
Light
Sex or
Romance

pick a few of these reasons, (they differ from person to person) That's why why the seats are still full.

The actual MOVIE is for most people irrelevant.. They don't care if it is Batman returns or Superman the umptienth if they like that kind of movie, they will go......together

Sure, sometimes a flick is IMDB top 250 worthy and that will attract some extra folks that don't usually go , but the majority are young people age 15-30 that go often.

A wonderfully stated argument.

In addition to the social atmosphere of a movie theatre, you'd also have to consider the sheer quality of the film itself. Very few people have a setup like that in their own homes, I'd imagine.

geni

17th April 2009, 04:25 PM

And yet, here we are.

I usually just pirate music. But the artists aren't really losing anything, because if I didn't pirate it I simply wouldn't buy it.

They are loseing their right to control their work.

Yeah it's illegal, yeah it's wrong, but it's also free and really easy and you're not going to get in any trouble, so that sucks for them but that's the way it is.

Err that argument is really really bad. Apart from anything else it would cover most japanese actions against chinese civilians pre ww2

There's probably over a billion people sharing files on the internet, it's unstoppable.

Amuseing. The US goverment could effectively shut down the web tomorrow. I suspect china could knock out most of it. If you know what to hit a few tonnes of explosives would cripple it. Do not use the term unstoppable so lightly.

It's over, adapt.

Have you?

ClassyElf

17th April 2009, 04:26 PM

geni

17th April 2009, 04:29 PM

A wonderfully stated argument.

Except it doesn't fit with observed behaviour. If the film was that unimportant cinimas would never bother showing new films and would stick to reruns of classics.

In addition to the social atmosphere of a movie theatre, you'd also have to consider the sheer quality of the film itself. Very few people have a setup like that in their own homes, I'd imagine.

Problem is that without copyright law there is no reason for the cinema to actualy pay for the film.

dirtywick

17th April 2009, 04:32 PM

They are loseing their right to control their work.

It's all about the money. If those hurt by this were getting the same potential income I doubt anyone would care.

Err that argument is really really bad. Apart from anything else it would cover most japanese actions against chinese civilians pre ww2

It's not an argument, it's a statement of fact.

Amuseing. The US goverment could effectively shut down the web tomorrow. I suspect china could knock out most of it. If you know what to hit a few tonnes of explosives would cripple it. Do not use the term unstoppable so lightly.

Well I guess that's true. They could enforce copyright laws by literally destroying the internet.

On an unrelated note, why are you calling my argument really, really bad?

Have you?

Why would I? I benefit from keeping things the way they are.

geni

17th April 2009, 04:32 PM

Exactly. That is why intellectual property rights is BS.

Why include the word intellectual? It's basicaly imposible these days to hold property in absolute so clearly property rights are also BS.

dudalb

17th April 2009, 04:32 PM

Originally Posted by dudalb
BS. That is like saying Beethoven did not create his music becuase the Musical notes existed before he started composing, or that Shakespere did not create his works because the alphabet existed before he started writing.
Exactly. That is why intellectual property rights is BS.
Removed personal attack

D'rok

17th April 2009, 04:35 PM

BS. That is like saying Beethoven did not create his music becuase the Musical notes existed before he started composing, or that Shakespere did not create his works because the alphabet existed before he started writing.
Half of this is just plain I don't wanna pay for my entertainment, the rest is a bunch of wannbes who want to convince themselves they are great artists by downgrading truly great artists.

Did you actually check out my link? That site is an example of what what can be created by violating copyright. Imagine if that dude had to clear the rights for every single video he used.

geni

17th April 2009, 04:39 PM

It's all about the money. If those hurt by this were getting the same potential income I doubt anyone would care.

False. You missed Robert Jacobsen V. KAM Industries for example.

It's not an argument, it's a statement of fact.

In the english language useing the phrase "the way it is" is generaly taken to mean that the effort it would take to change something is not worthwhile. That is an argument.

Well I guess that's true. They could enforce copyright laws by literally destroying the internet.

Nothing so drastic is actualy needed. Knocking out P2P traffic is posible (tends to be fairly obvious since it tends to be rather agressive).

On an unrelated note, why are you calling my argument really, really bad?

Because it can be used to justify genocide.

Why would I? I benefit from keeping things the way they are.

If you expect others to adapt it is unreasonable to refuse to do so yourself.

dudalb

17th April 2009, 04:39 PM

Did you actually check out my link? That site is an example of what what can be created by violating copyright. Imagine if that dude had to clear the rights for every single video he used.

What part of "HE HAS NO RIGHT TO USE OTHER PEOPLE"S WORK WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION" don't you understand?
So now someone's right to benefit from the work of his mind is a thing of the past.
When that happens, I really think we will see a total collapse of society.

geni

17th April 2009, 04:42 PM

D'rok

17th April 2009, 04:42 PM

What part of "HE HAS NO RIGHT TO USE OTHER PEOPLE"S WORK WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION" don't you understand?
So now someone's right to benefit from the work of his mind is a thing of the past.
When that happens, I really think we will see a total collapse of society.
In that case, you should support Kutiman's (remixer dude) right to benefit from the work of his mind.

Or do you deny that he has created new and original works?

ClassyElf

17th April 2009, 04:43 PM

God, you are a moron.
And I don't care if that is a TOS violation I just have to say that.

Probably, I'm just a kid.

Though if you would kindly, distinguish when something becomes someone's intellectual property and how that works with remixes or covers of songs.

D'rok

17th April 2009, 04:43 PM

There are agancies that specialise in doing this. Or you can create your own vidoes from scratch.Or we could have copyright laws that facilitate this kind of creative exchange.

dudalb

17th April 2009, 04:44 PM

In that case, you should support Kutiman's (remixer dude) right to benefit from the work of his mind.

Or do you deny that he has created new and original works?

You would not know a new and orignal work if it hit you in the head.

Your whole "Elimianting Copyright would lead to a new world of artistic greatness" is just about the worst bunch of BS I have heard.
And all to justify the fact you want to enjoy the works on an artist without paying him.

D'rok

17th April 2009, 04:48 PM

You would not know a new and orignal work if it hit you in the head.

I'll take that as a no then.

Your whole "Elimianting Copyright would lead to a new world of artistic greatness" is just about the worst bunch of BS I have heard.
And all to justify the fact you want to enjoy the works on an artist without paying him.I'll take that as a preposterous straw man that you have invented based on a two-post interaction with me. And I will bid you adieu

Edited for civility
Keep it civil please.

geni

17th April 2009, 04:48 PM

Or we could have copyright laws that facilitate this kind of creative exchange.

Err they do. Since they are civil law based copyright laws are all about exchange. Of course people are free to put conditions of the exchange rangeing from money to attribution and release under simular terms (CC-BY-SA FAL etc).

dudalb

17th April 2009, 04:48 PM

Or we could have copyright laws that facilitate this kind of creative exchange.

What you want is a copyright law which protects no copyright. Sweet.

geni

17th April 2009, 04:49 PM

Probably, I'm just a kid.

Though if you would kindly, distinguish when something becomes someone's intellectual property and how that works with remixes or covers of songs.

Both are derivative works both need permission (exception under US law is parody).

D'rok

17th April 2009, 04:52 PM

Err they do. Since they are civil law based copyright laws are all about exchange. Of course people are free to put conditions of the exchange rangeing from money to attribution and release under simular terms (CC-BY-SA FAL etc).

Creative Commons licenses certainly facilitate these kinds of creative exchanges. But those licensing agreements are predicated on giving up copyrights. Copyright laws are not based on exchange; at best they have exceptions like fair use/dealing for that. I think copyright laws can be improved to deal with new technological realities without tossing them out wholesale.

Quinn

17th April 2009, 04:54 PM

dirtywick

17th April 2009, 04:54 PM

False. You missed Robert Jacobsen V. KAM Industries for example.

Alright, how about "I doubt very few people would care" instead.

In the english language useing the phrase "the way it is" is generaly taken to mean that the effort it would take to change something is not worthwhile. That is an argument.

Why are you telling me what I meant? It's very easy to get files off the internet illegally for free and astronomically low that anyone is going to do anything in retribution for doing so. By saying the way it is, I meant exactly what I said.

Nothing so drastic is actualy needed. Knocking out P2P traffic is posible (tends to be fairly obvious since it tends to be rather agressive).

The video game industry spends millions of dollars and thousands of hours making new DRM schemes and copy protection software. Invariably, it's cracked, sometimes within hours. I think you'd be surprised how difficult it would be ban this type of sharing.

Because it can be used to justify genocide.

Are you deliberately trying to not understand what I'm writing or am I being unclear?

If you expect others to adapt it is unreasonable to refuse to do so yourself.

This doesn't make any sense to say to me.

Uzzy

17th April 2009, 04:56 PM

Amuseing. The US goverment could effectively shut down the web tomorrow. I suspect china could knock out most of it. If you know what to hit a few tonnes of explosives would cripple it. Do not use the term unstoppable so lightly.

Oh please. Something like that would require a massive DDoS attack on the 13 root nameservers of the internet. Which has been tried, actually. And failed. A physical attack would be difficult too, given that several of those root nameservers exist in multiple physical locations, thanks to Anycast. (And by the way, shutting down the internet, if it were possible, would probably cause a massive economic collapse. So doing it to stop piracy would be rather counterproductive)

Filtering would be a better route. Which, oddly enough, has been tried. The response is to encrypt the bittorrent traffic. It's happened time and time again. They went after Napster, and it moved onto Gnuttella based software, such as Limewire. When that proved too big a target, Bittorrents came onto the scene.

Look, piracy is a social issue. Attacking it with technology is doomed to fail. Many companies, however, have faced reality and accepted that piracy will happen (the same way Shrinkage happens) and taken measures to reduce that.

geni

17th April 2009, 05:02 PM

Creative Commons licenses certainly facilitate these kinds of creative exchanges. But those licensing agreements are predicated on giving up copyrights.

No they are not. They work by haveing people hold onto their copyrights.

Copyright laws are not based on exchange; at best they have exceptions like fair use/dealing for that. I think copyright laws can be improved to deal with new technological realities without tossing them out wholesale.

Copyright within a common law legal systel is by defintion based on exchange. Civil law. Thats all about contracts. The fundimental exchange of I give you X in exchange for you giveing me Y.

D'rok

17th April 2009, 05:02 PM

Here's my appeal to authority on Kutiman's remixes:

"If you come to the Net armed with the idea that the old system of copyright is going to work just fine here, this more than anything is going to get you to recognize: you need some new ideas."

Lawrence Lessig

http://www.lessig.org/blog/2009/03/remix_buy_the_remix.html

fuelair

17th April 2009, 05:04 PM

You live in a country without a dencent deposit library?
Find legal copies of the Dave Allen Show or the BBC film about Elizabeth David
in the US - or, heck, find the Dave Allen's in England/UK.

D'rok

17th April 2009, 05:07 PM

No they are not. They work by haveing people hold onto their copyrights.

No. They really don't. They work by having people give up rights. That's why the catchphrase is "some rights reserved" as opposed to "all rights reserved". This is the basic premise of Creative Commons licenses.

Copyright within a common law legal systel is by defintion based on exchange. Civil law. Thats all about contracts. The fundimental exchange of I give you X in exchange for you giveing me Y.
Copyright is based on protecting an author's time-limited exclusive rights to a work.

The_Animus

17th April 2009, 05:08 PM

However, they have every right to shoot themselves in the foot, and it is not for you or a bunch of pirates to decide what is the best method of marketing these products.

They sure do. And the consumer response is to download movies/music/tv shows for free. As long as they want to continue shooting themselves in the foot the consumer will continue to steal.

geni

17th April 2009, 05:09 PM

Oh please. Something like that would require a massive DDoS attack on the 13 root nameservers of the internet.

Most are subject to US law and china probably has the ability to carry out a large enough DDOS attack.

Which has been tried, actually. And failed. A physical attack would be difficult too, given that several of those root nameservers exist in multiple physical locations, thanks to Anycast.

You don't go after the namesevers if you are useing the physical attack method. You hit the intercontinental lines.

Filtering would be a better route. Which, oddly enough, has been tried. The response is to encrypt the bittorrent traffic. It's happened time and time again. They went after Napster, and it moved onto Gnuttella based software, such as Limewire. When that proved too big a target, Bittorrents came onto the scene.

Thing is the traffic may be encrypted but it doesn't look like regular web transfers (tends to be more agreessive apart from anything else).

Look, piracy is a social issue. Attacking it with technology is doomed to fail. Many companies, however, have faced reality and accepted that piracy will happen (the same way Shrinkage happens) and taken measures to reduce that.

Socialy I prefer the make everyone a stakeholder approach but there are non social options.

gumboot

17th April 2009, 05:13 PM

Fair use doesn't exist under Swedish law.

Yes it does. Fair use is part of the Berne Copyright Convention which Sweden has ratified. If fair use didn't exist in Sweden there would be no reviews, no academia, no satire, no parody, and no news reporting.

fuelair

17th April 2009, 05:15 PM

Playing devil's advocate: But how do you know if that DVD or CD won't be released (or re-released) in your market in the future?
I don't - but I don't play waiting games either - like, to switch areas, I don't play xtian for 80 years only to find out the atheists really did have the evidence completely on their side and I had wasted my life playing one- besides which, I owned and sold copies of Rocky Horror and Heavy Metal for years before the VHS versions came out (and made no functional money on the sales) legitimately. As soon as the legitimate tapes came out, I halted and bought the real thing. Same with Anime. Same with banned stuff.
I think it comes from growing up in the Wertham era and being denied horror comics (my parents believed what was said about them). Did not take it well at all.

gumboot

17th April 2009, 05:16 PM

I hear this line of argument a lot. And while it makes sense in the abstract, it really doesn't mean anything without hard numbers.

The evidence is pretty solid that, on average, those who download a lot of music also legally purchase a far greater amount of music than the average person. I am not sure about movies - probably less so as most people only watch most films once.

Uzzy

17th April 2009, 05:29 PM

Geni. Firstly, this is a map of all the Root Nameservers in the world.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Root-current.svg

Many are not in the US. Many are not even in the same continent. Neither the US nor China would have the ability to go after all of them. (Even if they could, it wouldn't stop the internet, given that most DNS requests are dealt with at a much lower level) Even going after intercontinental lines wouldn't have the necessary effect, given that the Internet was designed to route around damage.

As for filtering traffic, it can be made to look like plenty of other things. Or better yet, it can be used to download BBC iPlayer videos, or WoW patches. Plenty of perfectly legal uses. Sure, they can shut down all those. But then people wouldn't exactly be getting the services they paid for, would they?

FFed

17th April 2009, 05:33 PM

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Pirate Bay and others were considering buying an island and forming their own country. I wonder if that might become closer to reality after this ruling.

Axiom_Blade

17th April 2009, 05:36 PM

Y'all are posting in a troll thread.

geni

17th April 2009, 05:38 PM

Many are not in the US. Many are not even in the same continent.

The companies that own them tend to be US based.

Neither the US nor China would have the ability to go after all of them.

You don't have to hit all of them. Just enough to overload whats left.

(Even if they could, it wouldn't stop the internet, given that most DNS requests are dealt with at a much lower level) Even going after intercontinental lines wouldn't have the necessary effect, given that the Internet was designed to route around damage.

ARPnet was. The modern net? No. Look at the major line brakes. Europe/US not so bad these days but you wouldn't have to hit to much of it to cause serious problems.

As for filtering traffic, it can be made to look like plenty of other things.

No one's managed it yet.

Or better yet, it can be used to download BBC iPlayer videos, or WoW patches. Plenty of perfectly legal uses. Sure, they can shut down all those. But then people wouldn't exactly be getting the services they paid for, would they?

We are talking about a world where rather a lot of people pay for unlimited transfer. Not getting what you paid for is normal. Requireing anything that wants to pretend to be legal go through a clearing service gets around that.

gumboot

17th April 2009, 05:39 PM

Hostel II was so pirated, it didn't get a cinema release in some countries because it wouldn't have been worth it.

While the director claims this, it's probably nonsense. The film's international releases were restricted for two reasons:

1) In many countries it was banned outright, while in other countries it was banned because the filmmakers refused to edit the film to remove certain particularly graphic/offensive shots.

2) The film performed abysmally in the US, and in keeping with tradition, films that bomb domestically are often pulled from international theatrical runs (releasing a film in cinemas costs a fortune).

The director claims the poor US theatrical performance was due to pirating, but frankly I don't buy it - in 2007 Transformers was the most pirated film of the year, and yet it was also one of the highest grossing films of the year. In fact, virtually all of the most pirated TV shows and films of 2007 were hugely successful commercially.

The reason Hostel II tanked was because it was crap.

Countless people had reiterated time and time again that downloading is not really about price - it's about convenience. The issue is not that people want stuff for free it's that they want better access. The music and motion picture industries have been way, way too slow in embracing the internet as a new distribution method, and pirating is the effect of their failure in that regard.

I download a lot of TV shows, which I also buy once they come out on DVD. A lot of shows never come to this country, and when they do it's often months and months late, and I am far too busy to sit down at a set time on a set night to watch a TV show (ironically the TV broadcasts are free anyway). I sure as hell don't want to wait the year or more until it FINALLY comes out on DVD .

If I could log on to a Fox or ABC or HBO website or whatever and pay money to access a high speed server where I could download high quality video files of my favourite tv shows I would do it in a heart beat.

If you consider I pay usually about $40 to $60 for a season of a TV show on DVD, which works out at about $3.00 an episode, I would absolutely be willing to pay that sort of money for shows like Heroes, Battlestar Galactica, etc.

Funny thing is, I really like having the actual DVD case so even if I paid $3.00 an episode for the show, when it came out on DVD 6 months later chances are I'd probably end up buying it anyway, so they'd actually get paid TWICE.

If the film and music industries want to survive they need to wake up and move into the 21st Century. Their customers are demanding something, and they're not even trying to provide it. I do not condone copyright violation at all, but frankly I struggle to have sympathy for arrogant businessmen who blindly cling to an obsolete business model when their own customers have already told them what they should be using instead.

geni

17th April 2009, 05:40 PM

I seem to remember reading somewhere that Pirate Bay and others were considering buying an island and forming their own country. I wonder if that might become closer to reality after this ruling.

They can't afford it.

The idea was in any case to buy sealand. The Sealand issue has been looked into by more serious companies. The general conclusion is that if anyone tried actualy doing anything significant with sealand the UK goverment would settle the sovereignty issue quickly and descisively.

Uzzy

17th April 2009, 05:41 PM

The evidence is pretty solid that, on average, those who download a lot of music also legally purchase a far greater amount of music than the average person. I am not sure about movies - probably less so as most people only watch most films once.

Speaking purely from my own experience, there have been plenty of good bands that I've been introduced to through either piracy or by seeing their videos uploaded illegally onto YouTube. If I liked the records, I've often gone out and bought the CD. (That's why a Placebo album is in my collection.)

ARubberChickenWithAPulley

17th April 2009, 05:51 PM

If the film and music industries want to survive they need to wake up and move into the 21st Century. Their customers are demanding something, and they're not even trying to provide it. I do not condone copyright violation at all, but frankly I struggle to have sympathy for arrogant businessmen who blindly cling to an obsolete business model when their own customers have already told them what they should be using instead.

Well put. I fall squarely on the side of not violating copyright: as I see it, no matter how you cut it, is a form of stealing.

However, the music and film industries' response to this new technology was abysmal, and still is. They had an opportunity to jump on a new market and even expand their audience; instead, they dragged their feet, filed lawsuits against old ladies and teenagers, and put out products so loaded with restrictions that they pretty well destroyed the reason that digital music was so heavily in demand.

Even today, as popular as iTunes is, some of the restrictions are absurd. I had to bend over backwards just to transfer my wife's music library to her new computer.

To me, as a consumer, it's pretty simple: music should be like any other property: If I purchase it, I own it and can use it as I want for my personal use. I should be able to do anything I want with it aside from distributing it to others.

Uzzy

17th April 2009, 06:08 PM

The companies that own them tend to be US based.

A moments research would have shown this to not be the whole story. Out of the 13 rootservers, 10 are operated by US based operations. One of which is ICANN. Two of the others are distributed through Anycast, meaning that most of the actual servers are not physically on US soil. Two others are based in Universities. Good luck getting those shut down!

Even then, most DNS queries are resolved well before reaching the Root Nameservers.

You don't have to hit all of them. Just enough to overload whats left.

That would involve hitting most of the DNS servers on the planet. Good luck!

ARPnet was. The modern net? No. Look at the major line brakes. Europe/US not so bad these days but you wouldn't have to hit to much of it to cause serious problems.

This is solved by putting more cabling down. Expansion in the system builds redudancy, and the internet is designed to route through that. Cable cuts are actually quite common. It's just that in areas with fewer cables, such as the middle east, cuts can be nasty.

We are talking about a world where rather a lot of people pay for unlimited transfer. Not getting what you paid for is normal. Requireing anything that wants to pretend to be legal go through a clearing service gets around that.

You want anything to go through a clearing service before being allowed in? Who would run such a clearing service? Under what rules would they operate? Doesn't sound like an internet service provider I'd like to do business with.

Cobalt

17th April 2009, 06:35 PM

Nice try, but the only change in there is the switch to monthly subscription for games. I'm afraid that won't work for a very long time because gamers don't want it yet. Not all games are online rambling epics and neither should they be.

$14.99 x 7,000,000 = $104,930,000 monthly, give or take. Yeah, Blizzard is going to go bankrupt. Even after you remove the cost of server upkeep, they aren't hurting.

Xbox Live is surviving, dare I say thriving, as well. People actually like the service, especially when they let you have a try for a month or so with damn near every new game you get. 50 bucks a year for well maintained online infrastructure and the ability to play any game you have, be it a rental or owned copy, online is a nice thing. It's also nice that if someone's cheating it'll be taken care of.

Games are largely pirated for several reasons. 1, can't afford. Not a lack of willingness to pay, just can't afford it. 2, want to try it first. $50 bucks is a lot to shell out for a turd of a game. 3, and you'll probably shrug it off, but a lot of gamers are sick of being treated like they're going to pirate it in the first place. Copy protection software has been under a lot of scrutiny and is generally disliked not by pirates, because they bypass it in no time, but by the consumer who willingly purchases it legally because it can be a risk to their system. A lot of people don't like how EULAs say they have the right to make a backup copy, then put software on the disc that prevents exactly that. It's infuriating that pirates get off scott free and the legit consumer gets ********** over.

Here's a story of my piracy. I downloaded a copy of a Coheed and Cambria album. Afterword, I went out and bought their entire studio selections, including the disc I'd pirated, and their live offerings. Had I the funds, I'd have seen them in concert when they came here, and I'd have died to go to their four-day concert events in NY or LA.

Not every person pirating is evil.

quixotecoyote

17th April 2009, 06:37 PM

Games are largely pirated for several reasons. 1, can't afford. Not a lack of willingness to pay, just can't afford it. 2, want to try it first. $50 bucks is a lot to shell out for a turd of a game. 3, and you'll probably shrug it off, but a lot of gamers are sick of being treated like they're going to pirate it in the first place. Copy protection software has been under a lot of scrutiny and is generally disliked not by pirates, because they bypass it in no time, but by the consumer who willingly purchases it legally because it can be a risk to their system. A lot of people don't like how EULAs say they have the right to make a backup copy, then put software on the disc that prevents exactly that. It's infuriating that pirates get off scott free and the legit consumer gets ********** over.

I think there's an item missing from your list of motives.

Segnosaur

17th April 2009, 06:43 PM

Except I doubt the number of people viewing pirated movies is currently a big factor when companies are setting rates for product placement. If they assume more people are viewing a movie due to piracy, movie producers can chare more for product placement.

So yes, both revenue streams are currently exploited, but the revenue impact of each stream can and will change over time. That's where the business model changes.
Excuse the flippance, it's getting late, but how much do advertisers want to pay to advertise to cheapskates? Should we expect James Bond villains to drop all their nice Sony TV's for Bush and Aiwa?

Well, obviously if companies are paying for product placement (as well as traditional advertising) they must think that its worth it.

Lets see, James Bond: Die Another Day earned approximately $70 million from product placements. The movie earned $160 million in the U.S. At an average ticket price of $5.81 in 2002, that makes approximately 28 million people viewing the movie. About 1/3 of its box office came from north america.

So, the product placement cost works out to about $1 per viewer.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2488151.stm
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=dieanotherday.htm
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/about/adjuster.htm

Something else to keep in mind... while a company may not earn as much if someone just pirates a movie, they also end up SPENDING less (creating movie prints, distribution costs, shipping costs of DVDs, etc.)

Of course, we still need to see proof from you indicating that piracy is going to lead to any sort of melt down in the movie industry.

Cobalt

17th April 2009, 06:46 PM

I think there's an item missing from your list of motives.

Aside from the people who just won't buy anything. Should have put that, my bad.

Damien Evans

17th April 2009, 07:01 PM

God, you are a moron.
And I don't care if that is a TOS violation I just have to say that.

I don't think anyone's going to report you for calling yourself a moron...

It was quite strange though, perhaps a misquote?

quixotecoyote

17th April 2009, 07:07 PM

Aside from the people who just won't buy anything. Should have put that, my bad.

Or who might buy things, buy would rather have them for free.

Dan O.

17th April 2009, 09:51 PM

If a shopkeeper gives you too much change, you can say nothing. For a massive supermarket, you probably won't care. For a small independent shop, you might care but if you're the sort to download music that is intended for sale, I suspect you'll take the extra money and say nothing. It's all the same dishonesty.

You may have never corrected a checkout clerk for giving you too much change but I always do.

The worst case I encountered was when wall-mart was trying out automated checkout counters. I saw the lady in front of me was upset and left when she couldn't find a human clerk. When I checked out, I found out the reason she was upset was that a dollar of her change had gotten stuck in the machine and came out with my change. I went to the trouble of finding a clerk to report the error to. It was a waste of time though because the dumbass just fed the bill back into the machine without filing any report that the machine was malfunctioning. I don't know if they still use those stupid machines because I've never bothered going back to that particular store.

I've often returned as little as a penny and once returned a $100 bill found in front of the cashier counter.

Now that I've established my moral high ground, I still maintain that copyright is a social contract that limits the duration and extent of the holders rights in exchange for legal protection of those rights.

dudalb

17th April 2009, 10:02 PM

EeneyMinnieMoe

17th April 2009, 10:07 PM

You may have never corrected a checkout clerk for giving you too much change but I always do.

Me too. I didn't even feel particularly good or honest after doing it, either. It's something you are kinda supposed to do.

There was one time I permitted myself some dishonesty. I ordered two drinks at Starbucks once and the guy at the register took my order and forgot to charge me. It was really busy that day but that's still a big mistake to make. I stood standing there, waiting for him to say something and then decided to not say anything. I took my drinks and walked out.

I gave the frappuccino to the guy I was with and as he reached into his wallet to pay me back, I blushingly told him what happened. Me: "Gee, maybe I should have said something...". Him : "Nah!"

Well, maybe I've failed to correct a mistake like that in the past and have long since forgotten all about it. It's not something you really remember if it was a matter of cents. Or not even noticed it in the first place.

NewtonTrino

17th April 2009, 10:32 PM

When I began the thread I was on the fence. After seeing the attitudes of the pirate though I'm not firmly on the side of the content creators. Then again I make games for a living so I do feel the pinch on this. PC gaming that isn't subscription based or a port or a casual game is basically on it's way to death at this point. Luckily game consoles are reasonably well locked down so piracy isn't nearly as much of an issue. With secure digial distribution to consoles I'm confident that the business model can be made to work out ok. If software could be completely pirated on all platforms easily we would probably move to 100% server based games.

Of course I could just give this up and try to apply my talents to something easier like flipping burgers. But I really want a Ferrari so I think I'll keep doing what I'm doing.

Blackadder

17th April 2009, 10:56 PM

Worthless unenforceable laws should be straightened out of course. Check
Personally, I'd clean up the law so that you could duplicate your purchased content however you liked within your own household. check, this already happened in europe. On the other hand I'd make filesharing and torrenting of copyrighted content a specific offence carrying a fine. It is easily enforceable should any official body wish to enforce it, a bit like a speeding or parking fine.

Are you serious? the italic bit is utter nonsense. you are very ignorant about the scale and design of the internet if you believe that.

Blackadder

17th April 2009, 11:01 PM

Copyright law is enforceable on an individual level. Createing a locked down version of the internet (the excuse would be to control spam prevent damage to infrastructure and allow greater safety online for the kids you know) would not present a major technical challange.

A. No, it is not. and B. You really really scare me. War = Peace, Freedom = Slavery, Ignorance = Strength

Kids just need good parents and they will be fine.

Blackadder

17th April 2009, 11:24 PM

While it's not my "real" job, on the side I've had some modest success as an independent content creator in a small, specialized field. While I've known for a while that piracy was a problem in this field, I wasn't aware of just how rampant it was until I saw what happened to my most recent product. That was the first time I really became aware of sites like PirateBay and the mentality of their users. I had numerous online conversations with people espousing Blackadder-like justifications for their behavior; people who were blatantly, shamelessly, and utterly remorselessly stealing from me, and considered it my own problem that I didn't like it. Needless to say it was an eye-opening experience.

So Blackadder and his ilk will be happy to know that rather than whining about it, I have, in fact, developed a new business model for this new paradigm. Actually, "new" is probably a poor description, because in reality it's very 90s... by which I mean, 1890s. For my future products, my distribution model is this: if you want my goods, you get in touch with me personally and convince me that you're worthy of them. And by "worthy," I basically mean "nothing at all like Blackadder." If you can convince me that you will respect my intellectual property, I'll sell you my stuff. If not, you can suck it.

So does that mean I'm essentially taking my ball and going home? In a manner of speaking, yes. The thing is, I'm far from alone; a growing number of the best and brightest in this particular field (and, I would suspect, others) are shifting to this way of doing things -- selling only to people they know personally, or people who can be vouched for by someone trusted. Of course, that means a lot fewer sales. Thing is, since this is far from my bread and butter, I don't really care. I'd rather sell a dozen of something to people who will respect it, than sell a few hundred to people who will spread it among thousands of self-entitled twats.

This seems a good option, if it works for you, and if you produce something with enough value that people want is so bad that they will go to the steps of contacting you to gain your trust. Of course this means it cannot a be a product that can be digitalized, because if it can AND is in demand one of your trustees (or his 15 year old son) will somehow spoil it to the p2p network and you worse off than before: few sales due to your own chosen sales model AND your stuff still available for free."

The new generations, who have been growing up on the internet will face the reality: It will never be how it was 20 years ago. They won't even know how that world was. They never worked in a world where one could use this old copyright model effectively. But they will keep making things, finding new ways to generate income.

In these transition years, some people will suffer. They have damage because of reasons they cannot control. It's reality. In a way you can compare it with farming in an area that is slowly becoming a desert. you can't beat nature. I am not saying that pirating is nature (although in a certain way it is) but it is a slow process that can never be stopped.

It would be a good thing for humankind to find ways to help those people that are financially suffering and in fact we do, there are already organizations that charge a little extra on blank media and ipods, and divide the profits among intellectual right owners.

OMGturt1es

17th April 2009, 11:33 PM

I haven't read the entire thread, so my post is probably useless.

Nonetheless, I think it's important to note the difference between piracy for the sake of profit, and piracy for the sake of sharing. These are two different beasts. I don't think either are "right", but there's certainly a large difference between those selling physical copies of pirated media, and those trading digital copies of physical media. And yes, PirateBay's name doesn't help its cause any.

That media are now being shared digitally may impact the markets negatively, but it doesn't have to. This is also free advertisement. As consumers, many of us aren't satisfied with simple digital files. We want the shiny jewel case. We like the pictures. We want the product. Others don't.

In my case, my "pirating" has actually lead to an increase of general media spending. A significant increase. Prior to downloading digital media, my CD collection had stagnated at around 25. Since then, it's exploded to... I don't even know. CDs, DVDs, demo tapes, etc. All because I "pirated" some digital media.

I don't think it's "right", but I don't think it would impact the markets so dramatically if the markets were more concerned with QUALITY. I think that much of the consumer base is simply sampling media prior to purchase, concluding that the media suck, and seeking better media from non-mainstreamed sources.

I could be wrong. I really don't know. But, yeah, digital media ought be a wonderful branding opportunity.

Wildy

18th April 2009, 12:53 AM

It's simply arbitrary b.s. If I couldn't download them, I wouldn't buy them at all. When I was a kid, I would tape the radio and edit the songs I liked. Then I started borrowing friend's tapes and made copies of them. When CDs came out, I'd first tape them, and then burn them when CD burners came out. When internet radio came out, I'd record from there. When the mp3 format was released, I'd get files from friends. When the p2p networks came out, my friend network expanded. I was a "pirate" before it was even called that.

I still buy the occasional download, but by and large my music is a congregation of friends and memories.

I need to find the article, but I read somewhere (ars technica?) that most of the sales lost by the major music labels in the US wasn't due to people downloading the stuff but was actually because people were sharing music with friends.

My music collection is like that as well, some downloaded stuff (of varying legality), quite a bit of music bought legally, and most of it came from friends.

Of course not, they work extremely well, but you cannot immediately switch the whole industry over to a monthly subscription model. Consumers are still wary of it as a wholesale change since the benefits vary game by game. Downloadable content for example is often regarded as a scam to get you to pay for levels that should have been in the game anyway.

Reminds me of some of the arguments for the "Special Forces" edition of Empire: Total War. Some people weren't happy that the game was about 10 (currencies) more expensive for six extra units in the campaign.

Personally I don't like having to pay a subscription for a game when I'm most likely only going to play single player.

What if I add a .5 second beep near the end of the song using a digital editing program and rename the song to "My amazing remix!.wav"? I remixed this song myself! Have I created this yet?

I don't know if you've created it. But I will say that it would be the worst remix ever.

Games are largely pirated for several reasons. 1, can't afford. Not a lack of willingness to pay, just can't afford it. 2, want to try it first. $50 bucks is a lot to shell out for a turd of a game. 3, and you'll probably shrug it off, but a lot of gamers are sick of being treated like they're going to pirate it in the first place. Copy protection software has been under a lot of scrutiny and is generally disliked not by pirates, because they bypass it in no time, but by the consumer who willingly purchases it legally because it can be a risk to their system. A lot of people don't like how EULAs say they have the right to make a backup copy, then put software on the disc that prevents exactly that. It's infuriating that pirates get off scott free and the legit consumer gets ********** over.

I know that there were people who downloaded Spore. That was when the game still came with SecuROM.

People didn't like how it was a rootkit so they downloaded the game to avoid the rootkit, but still went out and bought a copy anyway.

tkingdoll

18th April 2009, 03:45 AM

You may have never corrected a checkout clerk for giving you too much change but I always do.

I thought it was clear from my post and my use of the word 'dishonesty', plus my position in previous posts, that I was talking about the mentality of people who think businesses have "enough" money (although I've never seen a good definition of what too much or enough money actually is, and it seems to apply to everyone but the pirates, otherwise they'd let homeless people live in their houses) - the same screw-you mentality applies to not admitting about the extra change and to downloading.

I would have thought it was pretty clear, given my anti-piracy stance, that I am likely to be the sort of person to correct a checkout clerk.

I wonder if, should a supermarket find, say, every third transaction resulting in incorrect change, the pirates of the world would get upset when the supermarket then decided to take steps to stop it happening.

egslim

18th April 2009, 03:57 AM

Then again I make games for a living so I do feel the pinch on this. PC gaming that isn't subscription based or a port or a casual game is basically on it's way to death at this point.
That's not what I see. Paradox Entertainment makes indepth games for the PC market. Their only form of copyright protection is a serial, which you don't need to play the game, but only to be able to visit their technical support forum, and to get a nice little icon under your forumname for each game you register.
Yet their sales seem to gradually improve over the past several years.

They deliver originality, convenience (through their GamersGate service), and a gaming experience that lasts, at a usually very fair price. Their forum also provides an important community service.

As opposed to EA's annual FIFA edition, or their nth C&C clone. EA mostly delivers mass-produced clones, and that's something P2P networks are much better at.

If software could be completely pirated on all platforms easily we would probably move to 100% server based games.
Like I said, Paradox games carry practically no copyright protection. Yet Paradox' official channels provide things that P2P does not, and that's why people buy them.

Cavemonster

18th April 2009, 04:18 AM

The evidence is pretty solid that, on average, those who download a lot of music also legally purchase a far greater amount of music than the average person. I am not sure about movies - probably less so as most people only watch most films once.

1) The only things I've seen on this topic are based on self reporting, do you have more solid evidence.

2) That doesn't establish a causal link. The more likely answer is that those who pirate enjoy media on average more than the average non-downloader and will get it through several channels.

egslim

18th April 2009, 04:21 AM

The idea behind granting copyrights is as an incentive to innovate. Which obviously benefits everyone.

But copyright law is now such that if you innovate once, the innovation can be milked for the rest of your life and even beyond. That doesn't stimulate innovation, it stiffles it. These laws benefit only the copyright holders, to the detriment of everyone else.

In a democracy, laws are social conventions that benefit society as a whole. Copyright law in its current form doesn't. People naturally tend to disrespect laws that serve only a small minority, at the expense of everyone else.
Which is why they should be thoroughly rewritten, in such a way that the majority of people have a stake in their benefits.

Eddie Dane

18th April 2009, 05:13 AM

OK,

I've been turned on this issue.
I guess I'd just avoided the ethical side of things.

Having reflected on the matter I conclude that I think pirating copyrighted materials is wrong.

shawmutt

18th April 2009, 05:25 AM

Not every person pirating is evil.

Don't be afraid to embrace your evilness. Yaaaaaaaaar! :pidelighted:

And folks, don't forget the pirates code--keep a 1:1 ratio!

eta:1) The only things I've seen on this topic are based on self reporting, do you have more solid evidence.

Music sales are up 10% (http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/01/music-sales-up-10-in-2008-thanks-to-downloads-and-vinyl.ars), while piracy robs the music industry! (http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201801704)...wait...hu h?

I think there's an intense lobbying effort on the part of the recording industry, much like there was when cassette recorders, CD burners, mp3 players, etc. came out, and there are folks falling for it hook, line, and sinker.

geni

18th April 2009, 05:53 AM

That media are now being shared digitally may impact the markets negatively, but it doesn't have to. This is also free advertisement.

Advertisements don't knock out your severs:

http://forums.demigodthegame.com/346815

Cavemonster

18th April 2009, 06:02 AM

Music sales are up 10% (http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/01/music-sales-up-10-in-2008-thanks-to-downloads-and-vinyl.ars), while piracy robs the music industry! (http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=201801704)...wait...hu h?

I think there's an intense lobbying effort on the part of the recording industry, much like there was when cassette recorders, CD burners, mp3 players, etc. came out, and there are folks falling for it hook, line, and sinker.

The figure of music sales being up 10% includes the very new format of single track downloads for 99c as equivalent to an album of 12+ songs. So yes, when you break up your units into 1/12 or smaller pieces, you can very easily sell more units while selling less product.

Imagine if Mcdonalds intruduced a 1 piece McNugget's and their sales soared up 10% by units. They could still be down in revenue if, like the music industry, most of the boost in unit sales came from these new, much smaller units. Get it?

geni

18th April 2009, 06:03 AM

A. No, it is not.

Of course it is. Try moveing stuff around inside a company without IT knowing about it.

and B. You really really scare me. War = Peace, Freedom = Slavery, Ignorance = Strength

But enough of Carl Lundström's politics.

Kids just need good parents and they will be fine.

What has that got to do with anything?

geni

18th April 2009, 06:07 AM

Check
check, this already happened in europe.

Nope. You might want to try reading the relivant EU dirrective sometime.

Are you serious? the italic bit is utter nonsense. you are very ignorant about the scale and design of the internet if you believe that.

You underestimate how good software agents are these days. Would require a small amount of extra infrastructure but compared to what is needed for the next significant increase in bandwidth not really.

geni

18th April 2009, 06:10 AM

The idea behind granting copyrights is as an incentive to innovate. Which obviously benefits everyone.

But copyright law is now such that if you innovate once, the innovation can be milked for the rest of your life and even beyond. That doesn't stimulate innovation, it stiffles it.

Not exactly. Remeber if you can't use someone else's work that gives you an insentive to produce your own.

These laws benefit only the copyright holders, to the detriment of everyone else.

You are free to prose changes to a shorter term.

geni

18th April 2009, 06:17 AM

Lets see, James Bond: Die Another Day

The James Bond cash cow is highly non typical

geni

18th April 2009, 06:19 AM

A moments research would have shown this to not be the whole story. Out of the 13 rootservers, 10 are operated by US based operations. One of which is ICANN. Two of the others are distributed through Anycast, meaning that most of the actual servers are not physically on US soil. Two others are based in Universities. Good luck getting those shut down!

I'm aware there are a few non US owened ones. Not enough to support the web.

Even then, most DNS queries are resolved well before reaching the Root Nameservers.

Not even short term stable.

That would involve hitting most of the DNS servers on the planet. Good luck!

Not even close. The internet doesn't have the kind of spare capacity you seem to think it does.

This is solved by putting more cabling down. Expansion in the system builds redudancy, and the internet is designed to route through that. Cable cuts are actually quite common. It's just that in areas with fewer cables, such as the middle east, cuts can be nasty.

Partly it's more than the middle east cables go through some rather busy areas. There is no financial insentive to put down the amount of cable that would be needed to resist a determinded physical attack across multiple locations.

You want anything to go through a clearing service before being allowed in? Who would run such a clearing service? Under what rules would they operate? Doesn't sound like an internet service provider I'd like to do business with.

You belive you would have a choice?

geni

18th April 2009, 06:21 AM

Now that I've established my moral high ground, I still maintain that copyright is a social contract that limits the duration and extent of the holders rights in exchange for legal protection of those rights.

Limited to life+70 in most cases.

shawmutt

18th April 2009, 08:04 AM

The figure of music sales being up 10% includes the very new format of single track downloads for 99c as equivalent to an album of 12+ songs. So yes, when you break up your units into 1/12 or smaller pieces, you can very easily sell more units while selling less product.

Imagine if Mcdonalds intruduced a 1 piece McNugget's and their sales soared up 10% by units. They could still be down in revenue if, like the music industry, most of the boost in unit sales came from these new, much smaller units. Get it?

I do get it. The music industry sales increase in spite of "rampant piracy". I can only speak for myself, but the likelyhood of my buying most of the music I listen to is nil. I do buy one or two albums a month, because they are worth the cost, along with my wife buying a bunch of songs monthly, because the rest of most albums is ****.

eta:Music Industry Seeing Significant Revenue Gains From Digital Downloads (http://news.softpedia.com/news/Music-Industry-Seeing-Significant-Revenue-Gains-From-Digital-Downloads-22021.shtml)

To be fair, most of the music I download I have owned in the past. I've had a bad history with my music--I've had my whole collection stolen on two occasions. Once because I was stupid and left my 500+ CD wallet (probably about 1/4 "legally" purchased) on my car in the city for a moment too long, once because I helped out a recovering drug addict who turned out to need money for drugs more than he needed my help.

Let's switch tracks a bit. How do you feel about buying music at a yard/tag/garage/etc. sale? How about buying used CDs at a pawn shop?

Monketey Ghost

18th April 2009, 08:19 AM

I've bought most of the albums I own not once but several times. As tech has advanced, I have switched formats, and paid for it. Blank Tapes! (love the tax) DATs! CDs!

It's immoral to steal, yes. But when I have paid for X a few times already, any further payment seems like they are stealing from me.

shawmutt

18th April 2009, 08:30 AM

It's also worth mentioning that a lot of articles proclaiming the woes of piracy are fudging the numbers a bit. Music stores and the CD are dying, as they should. However, the media likes to correlate the dying music store to the pirates, when in fact there is no correlation. The people releasing the albums are still increasing their revenue.

For those angels who don't steal music, I would like to plug a music service that I try to use when I do buy music. Jamendo (http://www.jamendo.com/en/) and Magnatune (http://www.magnatune.com/) are two good services. The latter gives artists 50% of the price of songs.

eta: I've been focusing on music mostly, because that's all I really pirate when I do. I focus on opensource, free software for my computing needs, always buy xBox games, and only rent movies from Netflix (and use instant watch on my xBox). We do buy kids movies, I just don't want to use the bandwidth or keep the 1:1 ratio with downloaded DVDs. It's easier to just buy them.

Shrinker

18th April 2009, 08:40 AM

Lets see, James Bond: Die Another Day earned approximately $70 million from product placements.

Wow, that's great. I can really see this giving a boost to the film industry, and spurring continued innovation and artistic merit. What did Schindler's List earn?

Anyway, thanks all for the alternative POV and the opportunity to rant. Too busy today to continue the debate....

Uzzy

18th April 2009, 08:41 AM

Advertisements don't knock out your severs:

http://forums.demigodthegame.com/346815

And Stardock worked for a couple of days to fix that issue, deny pirated copies of the game access to the servers, and tada. All fixed.

Tis a good game, you should try it.

ixolite

18th April 2009, 08:42 AM

Countless people had reiterated time and time again that downloading is not really about price - it's about convenience. The issue is not that people want stuff for free it's that they want better access. The music and motion picture industries have been way, way too slow in embracing the internet as a new distribution method, and pirating is the effect of their failure in that regard.

I download a lot of TV shows, which I also buy once they come out on DVD. A lot of shows never come to this country, and when they do it's often months and months late, and I am far too busy to sit down at a set time on a set night to watch a TV show (ironically the TV broadcasts are free anyway). I sure as hell don't want to wait the year or more until it FINALLY comes out on DVD .

If I could log on to a Fox or ABC or HBO website or whatever and pay money to access a high speed server where I could download high quality video files of my favourite tv shows I would do it in a heart beat.

If you consider I pay usually about $40 to $60 for a season of a TV show on DVD, which works out at about $3.00 an episode, I would absolutely be willing to pay that sort of money for shows like Heroes, Battlestar Galactica, etc.

Funny thing is, I really like having the actual DVD case so even if I paid $3.00 an episode for the show, when it came out on DVD 6 months later chances are I'd probably end up buying it anyway, so they'd actually get paid TWICE.

If the film and music industries want to survive they need to wake up and move into the 21st Century. Their customers are demanding something, and they're not even trying to provide it. I do not condone copyright violation at all, but frankly I struggle to have sympathy for arrogant businessmen who blindly cling to an obsolete business model when their own customers have already told them what they should be using instead.
Well said.

Re: bolded part:

One example here from Germany: Dexter. In the USA it will be the fourth season this year. Here they have shown the first season last year on free tv so far. Now you would think that they would get their asses up and get the DVD out, right? But no, no DVD for me to buy. http://www.cosgan.de/images/smilie/boese/a040.gif

shawmutt

18th April 2009, 08:42 AM

Anyway, thanks all for the alternative POV and the opportunity to rant. Too busy today to continue the debate....

Amateur. I, on the other hand, am an expert procrastinator. I have a crap-ton of work to do, yet here I am. :blush:

Uzzy

18th April 2009, 08:57 AM

I'm aware there are a few non US owened ones. Not enough to support the web.

Maybe not the whole web. But certainly the web outside the US. You should check that map I gave you, there are loads of Root Name Servers outside the US. More then enough to support a large chunk of the web.

Not even short term stable.

Sure it is. Stable enough for more root servers to come online, something which would quickly happen if either the US or China made any move to try and control them.

Not even close. The internet doesn't have the kind of spare capacity you seem to think it does.

And it has far more resilience then you think.

Partly it's more than the middle east cables go through some rather busy areas. There is no financial insentive to put down the amount of cable that would be needed to resist a determinded physical attack across multiple locations.

For the moment. But as demand for services go up, the financial incentive for new cabling goes up. There are many cuts between the US and European cables, but as there are so many cables, it has no effect on the overall signal.

You belive you would have a choice?

Yes, the free market is great like that.

Uzzy

18th April 2009, 09:13 AM

Oh, by the way Geni, regarding Demigod.

Demigod: Weekend Update (http://forums.demigodthegame.com/347467)

Ars Technica (http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/04/demigod-hit-by-massive-piracy-review-scores-take-beating.ars) had a good article that describes what happened. But still, a lot of people seem to think warez users are able to play multiplayer games. No, they can’t. Even the retail box has a serial # in it that users have to use and be validated to play online. What brought down servers was a lot more benign than that. It was the HTTPS requests to inform users if there was a new version along with checking the community features for info (friends lists, chat channels, etc.) and things like that. Things like that are pretty piddly. It’s only when you get a ton of users doing that at the same time that it becomes a problem as we saw.

But here’s the thing: While piracy is annoying, you can’t blame piracy for this problem. Let’s face it, there’s plenty of data out there about how many pirated games are being played. We should have looked at that. We assumed since Sins of a Solar Empire and Galactic Civilizations, both of which sold extremely well and got great reviews, that the # of pirated copies of Demigod in use would probably be in the same ballpark, maybe twice as much. But had we looked at what other publishers have said, we would have known that it’s not unusual for there to be hundreds of thousands of warez copies in use. And if we had, we could have simply had the retail version not have any HTTP calls in it and instead just had an update button on the main menu to check for updates and voila, problem solved.

Stardock are one of those companies adapting to the fact that piracy exists. They are a good little company. And the game is pretty good too.

egslim

18th April 2009, 09:27 AM

Not exactly. Remeber if you can't use someone else's work that gives you an insentive to produce your own.
Hardly, because then you have to compete against companies who are still milking their age old ideas, but with massive marketing and other resources to support them.

Even if your idea is better than theirs originally was, you're unlikely to succeed. Hence innovation is stiffled.

You are free to prose changes to a shorter term.
Sure, and take on a unified army of well-funded lobbyists in a battle for the attention of lawmakers.

But as long as copyright-holders continue to screw the rest of society, I have no issue with pirates screwing them over in return. Eventually copyrightlaw as it is now will be dead because of it, and then we can finally have some legislation on the subject that is beneficial to everyone, instead of only to a small minority.

Cavemonster

18th April 2009, 10:45 AM

I do get it. The music industry sales increase in spite of "rampant piracy".

No, you apparently don't get it. There isn't a real sales increase. There is an increase in the number of units sold because a newer unit is gaining popularity that is much smaller than the traditional one.

If Mcdonalds went from selling 1million 10pc chicken nuggets for $3 to selling 1.1million single piece chicken nuggets for 30c, that's a sales "increase" of 10% but a revenue loss of almost 90%.

Units Sold | Revenue
1million 10pc $3,000,000
1.1million 1pc $330,000

See how 10% more smaller units sold actually means significantly less money? Do you see how using a metric based on units is a very bad way to measure how well the music industry is doing at this moment of a surge in popularity of a smaller unit?

When the music industry sells more units, based largely on this new, fractionally smaller unit, they are actually selling less stuff, and making less money. Unit sales would need to be up about 7 times whatever the market share increase of single downloads was, just to stay even in actual sales and revenue.

Selling more totals units, of a much smaller unit =/= selling more.

shawmutt

18th April 2009, 11:06 AM

No, you apparently don't get it. There isn't a real sales increase. There is an increase in the number of units sold because a newer unit is gaining popularity that is much smaller than the traditional one.

If Mcdonalds went from selling 1million 10pc chicken nuggets for $3 to selling 1.1million single piece chicken nuggets for 30c, that's a sales "increase" of 10% but a revenue loss of almost 90%.

Units Sold | Revenue
1million 10pc $3,000,000
1.1million 1pc $330,000

See how 10% more smaller units sold actually means significantly less money? Do you see how using a metric based on units is a very bad way to measure how well the music industry is doing at this moment of a surge in popularity of a smaller unit?

When the music industry sells more units, based largely on this new, fractionally smaller unit, they are actually selling less stuff, and making less money. Unit sales would need to be up about 7 times whatever the market share increase of single downloads was, just to stay even in actual sales and revenue.

Selling more totals units, of a much smaller unit =/= selling more.

What the hell does number of units have to do with increased revenue? The music industry is making more money.

Cavemonster

18th April 2009, 11:21 AM

What the hell does number of units have to do with increased revenue? The music industry is making more money.

Then show me the link that says there was increased revenue. Your link showed that sales were up in terms of units sold, not dollars.

Overall unit purchases of music in the US increased by 10.5 percent year-over-year since

Did you read the article or just the headline?

Many article say that the music industy is making less money, but you dismiss them as part of the conspiracy because you misread this article.

Brainster

18th April 2009, 12:44 PM

I'm sort of a plague on both their houses guy. I appreciate the need for artists to be rewarded for the risk and effort in producing their work, but I also feel that copyright in the US has gotten out of hand due to Disney's insistence that Mickey Mouse (a character they barely use other than as a doorman) remain under their control.

It is interesting that the music biz is getting hit so hard. I wonder if the declines are across the board, or if styles of music like gansta rap are much more likely to be downloaded illegally than, say, religious music, or classical. Are pirate downloaders more likely to have, say, porno flicks or The Passion of the Christ? And having said that, I did a quick search for the latter at the Pirate Bay and found that it is not exactly unknown; 45 seeds for the Blu-Ray and 141 for the regular DVD version.

And while I am sure that a vast majority of the stuff downloaded at their site is copyrighted material, there is a valid use for the site involving non-copyrighted material.

Bikewer

18th April 2009, 01:09 PM

NewtonTrino

18th April 2009, 01:20 PM

Oh, by the way Geni, regarding Demigod.

Demigod: Weekend Update (http://forums.demigodthegame.com/347467)

Stardock are one of those companies adapting to the fact that piracy exists. They are a good little company. And the game is pretty good too.

So I happen to personally know people involved with this game. Stardock is trying to be extremely friendly to the gamer and I'm all for it but as you can see there are 4x as many people pirating this game as there are paying for it. This isn't the case for console games. It has always been a problem on the PC but with torrents it's gotten completely out of control to the point where it's killing PC gaming. Yes there are ways around it and niches you can go to but the controlled console markets are so much more profitable that most of the best stuff goes to console (and a PC port if lucky).

A game like Demigod is barely financially viable as it is. If it doesn't sell well (at least 300k units minimum) then it will have lost money. This just means more games like it won't get made. So for those of your pirating enjoy it while you can. Expect to see more draconion forms of DRM in the next generation of consoles where you can't even do things like loan a game to a friend (let alone sell it back to a store). All of this will be unforced under the DMCA (a piece of crap legislation that strips many rights).

I've actually had serious discussions with other people in the industry (note I know a lot of the players as I own a company and have been around a long time). This discussion has revolved around whether or not a pirated PC version can eat into sales of the console version. As this becomes more of an issue the PC ports may cease (along with original development for the PC tanking).

BTW I personally think the current copyright setup is ridiculous. 5 years seems like a reasonable amount of time on a copyright, I don't know where we got lifetime of the author + 70 years (disney lobbying is what I've heard).

Anyway this is pretty much just train of thought stuff. I'm not worried about the game industry in general because we've gotten good at locking down the console games (good enough anyway). I still think there are enough honest people out there to make the thing work anyway, even for music. Music is pretty cheap to produce these days anyway (unlike games BTW which cost millions).

geni

18th April 2009, 02:06 PM

BTW I personally think the current copyright setup is ridiculous. 5 years seems like a reasonable amount of time on a copyright, I don't know where we got lifetime of the author + 70 years (disney lobbying is what I've heard).

German law. Back when the EU started to unify it's copyright law (bad idea since common and napolonic law fundimentaly dissagree on how copyright is meant to work) the longest term around was german law at life +70 (UK was life +50) and rather than shortening it standardised everyone's law on life +70. Non-EU states started to copy it and it has effectively been replaceing the old life+50 standard as states update their laws.

Cobalt

18th April 2009, 02:26 PM

Don't be afraid to embrace your evilness. Yaaaaaaaaar! :pidelighted:

Oh I do. Arrrrrrrrrrrr!

EeneyMinnieMoe

18th April 2009, 03:12 PM

Remember the legal threats The Pirate Bay got and their responses to them?

http://thepiratebay.org/legal.php

They are good for a cheap laugh but if I were one of the attorneys or copyright holders that have gotten it from the Pirate Bay crew, I'd choose right now to have a little fun with them.

They should collectively send them something like this:

Dear sirs,

Remember when you said you couldn't get into trouble for file sharing? That you were doing nothing wrong? That your government tolerated torrent hosting and had lax copyright laws? That people weren't subject to legal action and lawsuits in your country for pirating? That European and Swedish law wouldn't hold you responsible?

Our counsels and ourselves would like to wish you and enjoyable stay in prison and good luck paying millions of dollars you don't have in fines. We'd further like to add HAHAHAHAHAHA! and advise you to go- well, where you are going, that's not going to be a problem. It is our sincere wish that your prison library has a good DVD/CD collection and the warden allows you to have an Ipod in your cell and a few hours of computer time a week but it seems that movies and software are going to be your last worry over the course of the next year. No, you aren't going to see Wolverine for a long, long time.

gumboot

18th April 2009, 04:01 PM

BTW I personally think the current copyright setup is ridiculous. 5 years seems like a reasonable amount of time on a copyright, I don't know where we got lifetime of the author + 70 years (disney lobbying is what I've heard).

I've never understood this. If someone builds a house no one would bat an eyelid at that person retaining ownership of that house for the rest of their life, and then passing it on to their kids. The notion that the house would eventually become property of the government (i.e. public) doesn't even bear thinking about. It would never happen.

What is it, about creative works, that makes us suddenly have this attitude of entitlement?

A creative work is private property created by a private citizen. How can anyone else claim to have a right to that property?

I think current copyright laws are ridiculously generous to the society. My issue with copyright law is not the laws themselves, but how they are enforced.

In New Zealand the maximum penalty is destruction of the copy and fine to the total commercial value of the copy. So if I am caught with a pirated copy of "Pirates of the Caribbean" on DVD it's a $9.99 fine and I'd have to delete the file. That's it. (Plus court costs, of course).

These enormous fines and prison sentences that are being dished out in the USA are beyond ludicrous.

NewtonTrino

18th April 2009, 04:28 PM

Copyright is a legal fiction though. The government and the people created copyright to encourage people like myself to create interesting content. The deal is that we get a certain exclusivity period as incentive to create and that society in turn eventually benefits when it becomes public domain. Keep in mind making a digital copy of my work doesn't actually cost me anything directly. E.g. Copyright is a created right, not one that is naturally enforceable.

Anyway all I'm saying is that the current length of time gets the balance wrong. Society pays the cost of having to create and enforce copyright AND they have to pay for the stuff because the length of time before things go public keeps getting longer.

Hence my idea that 5 years sounds like a better length of time. I'm not attached to any particular number though just shorter than what we have now.

Cavemonster

18th April 2009, 05:14 PM

I've never understood this. If someone builds a house no one would bat an eyelid at that person retaining ownership of that house for the rest of their life, and then passing it on to their kids. The notion that the house would eventually become property of the government (i.e. public) doesn't even bear thinking about. It would never happen.

What is it, about creative works, that makes us suddenly have this attitude of entitlement?

IP is a very different kind of property though. If you build a house, and I move in, that effects you directly and immediately. The same with apples, candy bars, whatever.

If I steal your IP, you don't have one less anything except potential customer.
But it is money out of your pocket, so it does deserve protection.

Look at the early creation of IP, a wandering minstrel tells a story and gets a bowl of rice. Someone who hears it thinks it's great and goes off and tells the story to others for profit. For most of human history, everything was in the public domain. The work of art was in the delivery, so each storyteller, or painter, or jeweler created the value with the expression, not the idea.

If copyright or patent never died, then we'd only be able to use fire if it was from the company that the discoverer of fire left the patent to.

Awarding ownership of ideas is a useful, artificial construct that for the most part helps create a class of artists who can pay their bills. Communist Russia achieved the same effect through pure state sponsorship.

I think copyright works better (though both have benefits and bugs)

Policenaut

18th April 2009, 05:44 PM

I wonder what actual effect this case will have on piracy overall? I have a bit-torrent searchbar that shows results from 29 different torrent sites. This is but a tiny fraction of the sites that are out there.

eMule is alive and well, and is a prime source for "naughty" material; it's rather slow for full-length movies and such.

Then we have usenet, which is rather arcane to operate, but is apparently monitored by no one, to hear tell.

Many of the torrent sites have their servers in countries which apparently simply do not care...
The targeting of Pirate Bay may have a chilling effect, but I wonder how much? I notice that the site has not been taken down at this time.

As you I think suspect it will have no bearing whatsoever on the future of piracy. Usenet/newsbin is still the gold standard for true pirates because it's probably the fastest way to dl anything. eMule is ok but very slow plus if you don't share at least a bit you'll probably never get anything dled. There are many other tracker sites out there besides TPB plus any search engine can be used for locating torrents. I haven't used IRC in a long time but I'm sure dling there is still fairly secure. Rapidshare/Megaupload/etc. for direct downloads is another way. Piracy isn't going to stop because of this ruling and as technology improves more and more ways will open up as old ways become less popular. Unless arcane rules are imposed on all entertainment material it will never stop. Even then look at how DRM on computer games has worked out. Either everything will be on something like Steam or have a monthly fee.

gumboot

18th April 2009, 07:20 PM

The work of art was in the delivery, so each storyteller, or painter, or jeweler created the value with the expression, not the idea.

Yes and under Copyright Law only the expression of the idea can be protected, not the idea itself.

gumboot

18th April 2009, 07:26 PM

If copyright or patent never died, then we'd only be able to use fire if it was from the company that the discoverer of fire left the patent to.

Patents and copyright are not, at all, the same thing. And you can't copyright fire.

gumboot

18th April 2009, 07:32 PM

Copyright is a legal fiction though. The government and the people created copyright to encourage people like myself to create interesting content.

Ironically copyright law was introduced to break a publishers monopoly and protect the rights of creators of works and those that purchased works (previously publishers could control what you did with your copy once you purchased it).

Now, copyright law is being used by publishers to oppress the rights of creators of works and those that purchase them.

gumboot

18th April 2009, 07:39 PM

Anyway all I'm saying is that the current length of time gets the balance wrong. Society pays the cost of having to create and enforce copyright AND they have to pay for the stuff because the length of time before things go public keeps getting longer.

I agree, and the role of publishing entities is, I think, the driving force behind the increases. I can appreciate an artist wanting the copyright to last their entire life time, and I personally think that's very fair.

I can, further, partially appreciate an artist wanting their direct descendant to be able to take advantage of that work. But when you get to 70 or more years after the death of the artist, that's no longer in the interests of the artist or their children.

It's in the interests of large corporations that last forever.

Personally, I would like to retain copyright of all of my works for all of my life, and would, in my will, pass all of them into the public domain.

ARubberChickenWithAPulley

18th April 2009, 08:04 PM

A creative work is private property created by a private citizen. How can anyone else claim to have a right to that property?

This hits on another point -- there's plenty of talk about money, but artistic, or personal, control of one's work is equally important.

If I write a story and share it with a few people, does that automatically mean that the entire planet has a right to it? If I share my diary with a friend, does my friend now have the right to publish and sell it?

I'm speaking hypothetically, but there are real examples: one of the issues with "file sharing" has been the unauthorized release of unfinished/non-final versions of songs, movies, etc. In most cases, the artists had no intention of publishing those sessions. Copyright is what is supposed to let them decide how and if to publish their work.

Cavemonster

18th April 2009, 08:11 PM

Yes and under Copyright Law only the expression of the idea can be protected, not the idea itself.

That's the language, but it protects a wide swath of expressions. If I were a storyteller and told stories about Winnie the Pooh, in my own words, I could still be sued for using the characters and storylines, no matter how original my delivery was.

This wasn't always the attitude towards IP. When Shakespeare was writing, borrowing characters wholesale for commercial work was no problem.

I'm not saying artists don't deserve ownership, just that it isn't a natural and timeless outflowing of the act of creation. Historically it's new, and it exists to serve a purpose, one which other cultures have addressed in other ways.

Cavemonster

18th April 2009, 08:16 PM

Patents and copyright are not, at all, the same thing. And you can't copyright fire.

That's why I said patent.
Both arise from the same line in the constitution, they are not the same thing, but are two efforts to reward and promote the creation of ideas by giving exclusive rights.

The copyright equivalent of patenting fire is the fact that the Happy Birthday song, the one you grew up with every time you blew out the candles, is still under copyright and is VERY VERY expensive. If I wanted to create a film, or play that showcased what I consider to be a timeless part of childhood, I would need to pay thousands of dollars.

Kevin_Lowe

18th April 2009, 08:42 PM

I've never understood this. If someone builds a house no one would bat an eyelid at that person retaining ownership of that house for the rest of their life, and then passing it on to their kids. The notion that the house would eventually become property of the government (i.e. public) doesn't even bear thinking about. It would never happen.

What is it, about creative works, that makes us suddenly have this attitude of entitlement?

I think the burden of proof is on the person claiming that there is a moral onus on us not to copy good ideas and use them ourselves. It's the basis of all technological and cultural progress after all.

The only remotely sane justification is that by allocating creators a monopoly we get more creative works overall, but the evidence that this actually works out to be true for copyrights in their modern form is nonexistent. People were creative long before governments made up and enforced copyrights.

If you happen to think, as I do, that the cost to society of the modern copyright institution far outweighs the benefits then you see copyright laws as a racket, not a legal reification of a moral principle.

The additional onus of proof on pro-copyright folks is to show that the costs of piracy to society are significant enough to justify spending public money enforcing copyright laws against outfits like The Pirate Bay.

A creative work is private property created by a private citizen. How can anyone else claim to have a right to that property?

You're begging the question. Prove that ideas should be "private property", before you start arguing from that premise.

In New Zealand the maximum penalty is destruction of the copy and fine to the total commercial value of the copy. So if I am caught with a pirated copy of "Pirates of the Caribbean" on DVD it's a $9.99 fine and I'd have to delete the file. That's it. (Plus court costs, of course).

These enormous fines and prison sentences that are being dished out in the USA are beyond ludicrous.

Agreed.

shawmutt

18th April 2009, 09:40 PM

Then show me the link that says there was increased revenue. Your link showed that sales were up in terms of units sold, not dollars.

Did you read the article or just the headline?

Did you? You are distorting the article to fit your own agenda.

Many article say that the music industy is making less money, but you dismiss them as part of the conspiracy because you misread this article.

Part of the...what the **** are you talking about? What conspiracy? Aw, how cute...are you trying to fit me in a teeny wittle box?

You still haven't answered my previous question. What is your opinion on buying used music from a record store or pawn shop?

Cavemonster

18th April 2009, 09:48 PM

Did you? You are distorting the article to fit your own agenda.

Here is the claim, verbatim from the article about increased sales, phrased as units, their entire measurment of growth is about units.

Overall unit purchases of music in the US increased by 10.5 percent year-over-year since

How am I distorting the article by posting their exact words? Can you see the word "unit"? Can you find a passage in the article that clearly refers to increased sales by revenue?

ARubberChickenWithAPulley

18th April 2009, 09:52 PM

I think the burden of proof is on the person claiming that there is a moral onus on us not to copy good ideas and use them ourselves. It's the basis of all technological and cultural progress after all.

Define "idea."

If I say, "How about a movie about a guy who has superhuman powers and can shoot spider webs from his hands," that is an idea.

The entire film of Spiderman, however, isn't an idea. At it's most basic form (the script) it is thousands of words strung together in a unique order, or (the film) unique moments in time captured on film and arranged in a specific order.

Kevin_Lowe

18th April 2009, 10:25 PM

Define "idea."

If I say, "How about a movie about a guy who has superhuman powers and can shoot spider webs from his hands," that is an idea.

The entire film of Spiderman, however, isn't an idea. At it's most basic form (the script) it is thousands of words strung together in a unique order, or (the film) unique moments in time captured on film and arranged in a specific order.

That's a question for the people who have the burden of proof.

However if their definition doesn't overlap very closely with the set of things that can be reproduced as often as you like for a few cents to a dollar using tools in most modern homes, then it's not much use.

gumboot

18th April 2009, 10:36 PM

That's why I said patent.
Both arise from the same line in the constitution, they are not the same thing, but are two efforts to reward and promote the creation of ideas by giving exclusive rights.

You should try to remember that no everyone on this forum is an American.

The copyright equivalent of patenting fire is the fact that the Happy Birthday song, the one you grew up with every time you blew out the candles, is still under copyright and is VERY VERY expensive. If I wanted to create a film, or play that showcased what I consider to be a timeless part of childhood, I would need to pay thousands of dollars.

Well frankly that's a terrible analogy and a terrible example to choose. Firstly, fire is not something anyone has created - it's a naturally occurring chemical reaction.

Secondly, the copyright status of the Happy Birthday song is very much in dispute and frankly if you ask me Time Warner's argument is built on exceedingly shaky ground. The fact is it has never been seriously challenged.

I know of many, many films and plays that have used the song, and none of them paid royalties.

gumboot

18th April 2009, 10:41 PM

I think the burden of proof is on the person claiming that there is a moral onus on us not to copy good ideas and use them ourselves. It's the basis of all technological and cultural progress after all.

Copyright does not protect ideas.

You're begging the question. Prove that ideas should be "private property", before you start arguing from that premise.

I don't think ideas should be private property. They're not, and neither should they be. The physical expression of an idea is protected, and should be. That's quite an important distinction, and one that a great deal of people don't grasp.

Simply put; you cannot copyright an idea. One of the essential aspects of determining copyright infringement is in determining if the two products are sufficiently similar to argue that they're fundamentally the same expression of an idea.

Taking someone else's idea, completely reworking it, and putting it into an entirely new expression is wholly legitimate and legal. Taking someone else's expression of an idea, changing a few cosmetic things, and then re releasing it as your own is not legitimate, and is illegal.

Cavemonster

18th April 2009, 10:43 PM

Secondly, the copyright status of the Happy Birthday song is very much in dispute and frankly if you ask me Time Warner's argument is built on exceedingly shaky ground. The fact is it has never been seriously challenged.

I know of many, many films and plays that have used the song, and none of them paid royalties.

How do you know for a fact that they didn't pay royalties? because I know of several films that tried to use the song but were unable to without paying

ARubberChickenWithAPulley

18th April 2009, 10:44 PM

That's a question for the people who have the burden of proof.

Then it's a strawman. I don't know that anyone here has claimed that they own "ideas." People have claimed that you can own the right to the physical reproductions of your work. That's the basis of copyright.

However if their definition doesn't overlap very closely with the set of things that can be reproduced as often as you like for a few cents to a dollar using tools in most modern homes, then it's not much use.

See above. That's exactly what you own. If I make a film, I own the right to decide when and how it is physically reproduced. If you physically reproduce it without my permission, I own that reproduction in whatever form it is in.

Gangularis

18th April 2009, 10:48 PM

Cavemonster

18th April 2009, 10:49 PM

You should try to remember that no everyone on this forum is an American.

*smacks forehead* you're right.

And fire isn't a great analogy for patents, true but how about the wheel?

But what's wrong with happy birthday as an example of copyright as property becoming ridiculous? You say it's on shaky ground, but the copyright is held up regularly. Use of the song brings in about 2million dollars annually. That doesn't sound shaky to me.

gumboot

18th April 2009, 10:49 PM

How do you know for a fact that they didn't pay royalties? because I know of several films that tried to use the song but were unable to without paying

Because I either worked on them myself or know the people that made them. I have no doubt that many attempts to use the song have been prevented by Time Warner's scare tactics and threats. That's what I mean about the status never having been challenged. No one with the resources to actually challenge Time Warner has done so yet.

I suspect, were anyone to seriously challenge it, they would easily defeat Time Warner. If anything the 1935 copyrighted version of the song is itself in breach of copyright.

gumboot

18th April 2009, 10:53 PM

I don't have a problem with downloading copyrighted material for two reasons.

1. being that 99% of the time, I wouldn't pay for it otherwise.

2. throughout all of history, artists have not been able to exploit their art for monetary gains to such extremes simply because it can be copied and copied and copied on a cheap medium like a CD and sold at 15 bucks a pop to millions of people.. It could easily be argued "so what? they still created the initial game/music/movie".. I just say.. yeah.. and they charge ridiculous amounts and keep making profits off of it for years after they did their work.. Seriously, an artist can write one hit song, and make millions off of it.. One song.. and they feel cheated if some of us download the song and listen to it for free? Give me a freaking break..

The problem is artists very rarely make millions of one song, or even one album. Same goes for books or films or anything else. While you might be paying a lot of money for a CD or a book or whatever, very little of that actually makes it way back to the guy that created it. This also doesn't take into account the ones that never make anything from their work. Given how low the success rate is for these sorts of things, without the potential for huge reward, far less people would do it. And then we'd all lose out.

Cavemonster

18th April 2009, 10:54 PM

See above. That's exactly what you own. If I make a film, I own the right to decide when and how it is physically reproduced. If you physically reproduce it without my permission, I own that reproduction in whatever form it is in.

Copyright actually covers a broader area than that. If your film had an original script, you can sue me for producing a play with the same dialogue, that's a bit further than just physical reproduction, but it's covered by copyright.

If you write a song, I can't perform it without your permission. That's not quite the same as creating a copy either, especially if my performance is unique.

Copyright doesn't protect Ideas, but it protects a region that lies between products and ideas, and one that in many ways comes very close to ideas.

Kevin_Lowe

18th April 2009, 10:54 PM

Copyright does not protect ideas.

It depends on how you define idea, as another poster just stated. I mostly use the term to distinguish intangibles like Spiderman, or Smells Like Teen Spirit, or putting a tungsten filament in a light bulb, which can be reproduced indefinitely for almost zero cost on one hand, from physical objects like your car or your house on the other.

That said, exactly the same burden of proof applies to the "expression of an idea" that you talk about. What's the evidence that society as a whole should think it's a good idea to have police and courts enforce state-granted monopolies on "the expression of an idea", especially in the modern context of likely-infinite copyright duration?

The problem is artists very rarely make millions of one song, or even one album. Same goes for books or films or anything else. While you might be paying a lot of money for a CD or a book or whatever, very little of that actually makes it way back to the guy that created it. This also doesn't take into account the ones that never make anything from their work. Given how low the success rate is for these sorts of things, without the potential for huge reward, far less people would do it. And then we'd all lose out.

I think you failed to grasp his point. Artists got by just fine for a very long time with zero revenue from sale of recordings.

As for the "potential for huge reward" idea, it's utter bollocks. People create all sorts of wonderful music all the time which has absolutely no chance of ever being a Top Ten hit and making millions. The idea that the potential for a Top Ten hit is the driving force behind the production of music (other than formulaic girlband/boyband pap) is asinine.

Cavemonster

18th April 2009, 11:03 PM

Because I either worked on them myself or know the people that made them. I have no doubt that many attempts to use the song have been prevented by Time Warner's scare tactics and threats. That's what I mean about the status never having been challenged. No one with the resources to actually challenge Time Warner has done so yet.

I suspect, were anyone to seriously challenge it, they would easily defeat Time Warner. If anything the 1935 copyrighted version of the song is itself in breach of copyright.

The 1935 version was published by the surviving Hill sister who held the previous copyright.

I can only take your word that you've worked on films that used the song without paying. I've worked in film and television and have friends in the industry too, and my experience is that every poster in the background that is shown on national tv or a major film release needs to be cleared for rights. It seems odd that a song held by a major company well known to enforce their copyright would be the exception.

But on what basis do you say the copyright would not hold up? The courts held it up when it was originally copyrighted, it changed hands legally at every step, the term has not yet expired. On what legal grounds would their claim fail?

gumboot

18th April 2009, 11:04 PM

*smacks forehead* you're right.

And fire isn't a great analogy for patents, true but how about the wheel?

Like I said, patents and copyright are not the same thing, and I don't think it's useful to try fold them together.

I think it's pretty reasonable that which ever cave man invented the wheel should have been allowed exclusive right to use that invention for 20 years. In the big scheme of things, does it really matter?

I don't think anyone here thinks patents should be protected forever are they?

But what's wrong with happy birthday as an example of copyright as property becoming ridiculous? You say it's on shaky ground, but the copyright is held up regularly. Use of the song brings in about 2million dollars annually. That doesn't sound shaky to me.

The copyright isn't held up, people pay Time Warner to use it because they can afford to pay, but can't afford to challenge Time Warner. Others can't afford to pay or challenge Time Warner and either use it and don't get caught or decide not to use it.

The fact is the melody predates the 1935 copyright by at least 40 years, if not longer. The creation date of the lyrics is less clear, but originates from about the same time (the kindergarten kids who first sung the original song themselves improvised the "Happy Birthday" lyrics to use at each other's birthday parties). The 1935 version is itself a copyright violation, making Time Warner's ownership invalid.

Secondly, in most of the sane world, copyright exists only for the duration of the creator's life, plus an additional period, typically of 50 - 70 years. The original song is now in the public domain, and the lyrics will not be far behind.

gumboot

18th April 2009, 11:10 PM

It depends on how you define idea, as another poster just stated.

No it doesn't. Ideas are irrelevant to the issue of copyright.

That said, exactly the same burden of proof applies to the "expression of an idea" that you talk about. What's the evidence that society as a whole should think it's a good idea to have police and courts enforce state-granted monopolies on "the expression of an idea", especially in the modern context of likely-infinite copyright duration?

The evidence is copyright law. Obviously.

I think you failed to grasp his point. Artists got by just fine for a very long time with zero revenue from sale of recordings.

Um... that was in a time when recordings didn't exist, so the only expression of an idea was the actual act of the artist themselves - something they could easily control.

As soon as mass production of artistic works became a possibility, so did copyright law.

As for the "potential for huge reward" idea, it's utter bollocks. People create all sorts of wonderful music all the time which has absolutely no chance of ever being a Top Ten hit and making millions. The idea that the potential for a Top Ten hit is the driving force behind the production of music (other than formulaic girlband/boyband pap) is asinine.

Most artists would like to be sufficiently successful to be able to just be artists.

Kevin_Lowe

18th April 2009, 11:11 PM

Like I said, patents and copyright are not the same thing, and I don't think it's useful to try fold them together.

I think it's pretty reasonable that which ever cave man invented the wheel should have been allowed exclusive right to use that invention for 20 years. In the big scheme of things, does it really matter?

I don't think anyone here thinks patents should be protected forever are they?

"I think it reasonable" and "does it really matter?" are not arguments that establish the truth of a proposition.

I think that's reasonable. Does it really matter if it's not?

The copyright isn't held up, people pay Time Warner to use it because they can afford to pay, but can't afford to challenge Time Warner. Others can't afford to pay or challenge Time Warner and either use it and don't get caught or decide not to use it.

So de facto it's protected by copyright laws unless you are rich?