Pirates vs. America

Jaggy Bunnet said:
I guess people must like buying crappy goods - and also stealing them.

I seem to remember a quote about not getting poor underestimating the taste of the general public....
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Nobody ever went broke overestimating the vulgarity of the American public.
-H.L. Mencken

I know I like stealing crap off the internet.
 
OMG!!!! A Oliver Thread that is solid and has a point!!! What happened over the weekend!!! Has the world gone mad!

Seriously, good thread.
 
Come on guys... Look at it this way. If you have invested time (Years possibly) and your own money recording original music or writing software; you are going to want to be compensated. (At least to cover your costs) So would you want people illegally downloading what you made?)
 
Overman said:
OMG!!!! A Oliver Thread that is solid and has a point!!! What happened over the weekend!!! Has the world gone mad!

Seriously, good thread.
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If it helps your sanity, the thread seems to have a substantive discussion going either (a) without, or (b) in spite of Oliver.

Does that help?
 
Morrigan said:
I was saying that copyright infringement is not the same thing as theft and to equate the two is asinine, really. Especially when you consider that a lot of that so-called copyright infringement is done by people who had no intention of buying the product in the first place, making the whole "but it's taking their money!" point moot.
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Presuming you are correct about the numbers, it's still irrelevant. The desire to have luxury items like entertainment movies and music drives this part of the economy. Civilized society has decided that, no, you don't, in fact, get to have them if you don't pay the creator. Hence, "I wasn't gonna buy it anyway, so I should get it for free" is an invalid position to take.

If you want to improve your existence, per your own definition of that concept, as is every free person's natural right, then you should pay for that. If you don't think it's worth it financially, then you have chosen to do without, not chosen to get it for free, at your whim.
 
Beerina said:
If you want to improve your existence, per your own definition of that concept, as is every free person's natural right, then you should pay for that. If you don't think it's worth it financially, then you have chosen to do without, not chosen to get it for free, at your whim.
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Plenty of good free music around in the form of independent bands distributing their own productions. I actually prefer that sort of music, they do what they like and it usually shows in their music. Sure the quality can vary a lot, but there are loads of great bands, especially if you're into some non commercialised styles of music (Ethnic music or such)

As for software, you can always look for a open source alternative.

Anyways it starts getting a bit more complicated once you go to something like songs recorded from internet radio (or just standard radio) or TV-broadcast recordings.
 
ARubberChickenWithAPulley said:
I disagree that it's a stretch, but I am more talking about general usage of theft as opposed to legalities. I agree, from a legal standpoint copyright infringement is not theft, nor should it be. When people equate the two, however, they aren't usually talking in legalities, just in general principles. In principle, I think copyright infringement is theft. Legally, I don't think they are the same, nor do I think the ought to be the same.
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So letting anything into the public domain would constitute legitimizing of theft and that is why nothing will ever enter that anymore?
 
MilwaukeeMike said:
Come on guys... Look at it this way. If you have invested time (Years possibly) and your own money recording original music or writing software; you are going to want to be compensated. (At least to cover your costs) So would you want people illegally downloading what you made?)
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But the thing is that you also get things like patent trolls who patent ideas and do nothing else. See the case with the blackberry recently. Here they did and do all the hard work of actualy developing the technology and get charged with stealing an idea that no one put any more work into than filling out forms.

That is a good thing apparently.

I believe in supporting the creation of new works, but the problem is that what is best for the public is not being discussed at all. It is what is best for those who own the ideas, not even nessacarily put the work into them at all.
 
Under current American copyright laws, isn't this whole thread illegal? I believe that even discussing piracy is illegal.

Does that seem extreme? Have the latest round of copyright laws made it to SCOTUS?
 
ARubberChickenWithAPulley said:
I'm actually quite familiar with the Pirate Bay and its legal battles, having some interest in it myself. You still haven't cited anything that makes this a fight between Swedish and US laws. You just showed that a Swedish Prosecutor intends to prosecute the site, and that perhaps it won't go very well. I'm not seeing "US Law" in there anywhere.

I'm sure the US government has talked to the Swedish government about the Pirate Bay, given that the site provides access to tons of material owned by U.S. companies. It is, after all, kinda sorta the job of the US government to protect US Citizens and interests.
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What about when the US government coerced the Swedish government to take the computers belonging to The Pirate Bay, as well as a number of unrelated sites? Your exclusion of this incident and your inability to tell the difference between distribution of information and the stealing of cable lead me to believe you're viewing this through rose colored glasses.
 
strathmeyer said:
What about when the US government coerced the Swedish government to take the computers belonging to The Pirate Bay, as well as a number of unrelated sites? Your exclusion of this incident and your inability to tell the difference between distribution of information and the stealing of cable lead me to believe you're viewing this through rose colored glasses.
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Here's a link. Though you can probably expand "coerced" into "threatened with trade sanctions."

When I opened the thread to begin with, I thought this might be an update to that, not a discussion about if piracy is moral/ethical/legal/whatever. Ah well.
 
casebro said:
Under current American copyright laws, isn't this whole thread illegal? I believe that even discussing piracy is illegal.

Does that seem extreme? Have the latest round of copyright laws made it to SCOTUS?
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I'm not sure about that. Can you find anywhere in the law where is says that?
 
ponderingturtle said:
But the thing is that you also get things like patent trolls who patent ideas and do nothing else. See the case with the blackberry recently. Here they did and do all the hard work of actualy developing the technology and get charged with stealing an idea that no one put any more work into than filling out forms.

That is a good thing apparently.

I believe in supporting the creation of new works, but the problem is that what is best for the public is not being discussed at all. It is what is best for those who own the ideas, not even nessacarily put the work into them at all.
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I'm not sure at what you are trying to say here. On one hand, you agree that it is important to support the creation of new works. However, on the other hand, you feel patents do work or are unfair?

You know, with the blackberry case, if they were too dumb/lazy/so on to simply fill out some patent papers then they deserve to lose their invention. I suspect there is much more to this case than simply paperwork.
 
MilwaukeeMike said:
I'm not sure at what you are trying to say here. On one hand, you agree that it is important to support the creation of new works. However, on the other hand, you feel patents do work or are unfair?

You know, with the blackberry case, if they were too dumb/lazy/so on to simply fill out some patent papers then they deserve to lose their invention. I suspect there is much more to this case than simply paperwork.
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No you don't understand. The guys who only filled out a patent for a mobile device to receive email patented that idea first. They had no actual product, they did not need one. Then when the people developed the blackberry they where infringing on the patent of the first guys who had no product. See this BBC article on patent trolls.

I simply think that for a patent you should have a substantive object, they let people patent business models, tax shelters and all kinds of things that you would not think of. Cranks also patent things that are impossible and then use the idea that it is patented as some sort of endorsement that it works.

As for books, movies and music, the question of how long is it in the public interest to protect these things with copywrites and so on vs letting into the public domain has shifted. They have managed to get public view to view them as tangible property and not specific writes granted for a limited period to promote new works.

So with it viewed as not special protections to promote the creation of new works, they are now viewed as absolute and permanent property. That is a remarkable sift when one thinks about it. But it is not surprising as so many powerful media forces want this and control what people are exposed to so much. It is also not surprising that the laws get passed to support them because that is where the money is, and that is largely what counts.

So case in point, how much does Micheal Jackson deserve to earn on current reproductions of Beatles songs? He purchased the rights and so owns them. So how does this promote the creation of new works?

What is in soceities interest is rarely discussed and the shifts in what people view intelectual property as is also relevant.
 
Morrigan said:
Neither, really. Piratebay is apparently not violating any Swedish law as of yet, so they can't be accused of copyright infringement.
I was saying that copyright infringement is not the same thing as theft and to equate the two is asinine, really. Especially when you consider that a lot of that so-called copyright infringement is done by people who had no intention of buying the product in the first place, making the whole "but it's taking their money!" point moot.
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I would also point out that people who get the product for free and then try it out may also be inspired to buy a product they would not have otherwise considered. In exactly the same way that radio gets people to buy CD's even though their music is free.
 
I'm self-publishing my first comic book, which comes out this August. I went thousands and thousands of dollars in debt to produce it. It has a cover price of $3.50, and the first print run is just over a thousand. I'll be releasing it, in it's entirety, into the comic torrent community for anyone and everyone to steal, just before it's debut.

In this case, it's nothing but a good thing. I'll get more exposure, which I need WAY more than the extra cash. More people will read the book who never would have otherwise, since the indie comic scene is small, and few people like paying $3.50 for a 32 page b&w book. And some who do read it, if they like it, will end up buying a copy to help support us so we can keep making more (as evidenced by a lot of other wicked small publishing companies).

I'm not saying this strategy works for everyone obviously, but it works for us at the moment. In order for me to continue producing comic books for right now, I have to let people steal the **** outta them. Then again, I'm not trying to maximize my profits, just build a big enough community to get to the point where I can self-publish a few books and graphic novels a year.
 
Jaggy Bunnet said:
I seem to remember a quote about not getting poor underestimating the taste of the general public....
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I had that quote saved somewhere on my hard drive, but I deleted a bunch of stuff so I could illegally download episodes of "Flavor of Love Girls: Charm School", a reality show that was the spinoff of a reality show that was the spinoff of a reality show that was a spinfoff of a reality show that was a ripoff of another reality show that was a ripoff of another reality show. (I wish I were exaggerating for humorous effect, but I'm not. It really is a sixth generation reality show.)
 
ponderingturtle said:
No you don't understand. The guys who only filled out a patent for a mobile device to receive email patented that idea first. They had no actual product, they did not need one. Then when the people developed the blackberry they where infringing on the patent of the first guys who had no product. See this BBC article on patent trolls.
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There was a classic case I studied about someone patenting Frames in websites...a good 4 or 5 years after everyone had been using them.
 
Mycroft said:
I would also point out that people who get the product for free and then try it out may also be inspired to buy a product they would not have otherwise considered. In exactly the same way that radio gets people to buy CD's even though their music is free.
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You're right, people can and do use 'free' sources as ways to evaluate software, music, movies, etc. before purchasing them. It may also serve as free publicity for other products/services, such as how hearing an artist on line for free might entice people to go to their concerts. (Although there may be a problem with your radio anology... doesn't the artist still get royalties for radio play?)

The think is though... it should be up to the copyright holder if they want to engage in the 'giving it away for free in hopes of making a sale' business plan, or the more traditional 'gouge them right at the start'. Some artists COULD make more money by giving away their work for free, but if they choose not to, that is their fault.
 
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