Pirate Bay Trial: Official Verdit is Guilty

[Goronmon]

http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-trial-the-verdict-090417/

We can look forward to a long appeal process, but for now the four defendants are facing a year in jail each and fines totaling $3,620,000.

While the court did not agree with the plaintiff’s exaggerated estimates of losses, it still set the damages at 30 million SEK ($3,620,000). This a hugely significant amount and the court has ordered that the four should pay this amount between them.

The judge also stated that the usage of BitTorrent at The Pirate Bay is illegal. Rest assured, other torrent sites hosted in Sweden will be keeping a close eye on developments.

[Ancalagon]

Personally, I think this trial was a farce of justice. The record indusry's lawyers were woefully underprepared, and as a result had to drop I think 4 of the 5 charges on the first day. Even then, they failed to conclusively prove that Google was really in any way different to the Pirate Bay.

Now, dont get me wrong, I dont think piracy is justified. But I do sympathize with these guys, because I think the record companies are behind the times and need to update their business models. Its not for nothing that these guys are so universally disliked - many companies are greedy and get away with it because they dont so blatantly screw their customers over, the record industry wants you to know they reamed you when they ream you.

Anyway... as far as I understand, the Pirate Bay is a strictly content agnostic site. Yes, they provide torrents, but torrents are not in themselves illegal.

In fact, I would argue that this whole trial will do more harm than good to the record companies. They were embarrassed badly in court, they made the guys into martyrs, they gave them a show, and the court disagreed with their exaggerated damages even though they were found guilty. And it will absolutely nothing to deter piracy, since there are already lots of other torrent hosting sites.

[Narradisall]

Wheres Mininova hosted again? I hate waiting for Supernatural to make it here!

[Goronmon]

ThePirateBay isn't going anywhere for the time being, from what I can tell.

[DangerousDaze]

They set out their stall starting with their name. They deserve everything they get.

[Narradisall]

They set out their stall starting with their name. They deserve everything they get.

Honestly since the Somalia thing everyones just all on the Pirates case aren't they?

I bet if Johnny Depp showed up at your door your kick him in the balls.

[Goronmon]

They set out their stall starting with their name. They deserve everything they get.I don't see how that's a productive stance to take...

[DangerousDaze]

I bet if Johnny Depp showed up at your door your kick him in the balls.
Yes I would, once my wife had stopped sucking them.

[Primus]

I feel no sympathy. The site is a giant advertisement for promoting piracy, even if there are also innocent links for files. This doesn't change the focus of the service.

I don't really buy the Google defense, as it isn't specifically designed to help you steal from people.

[Telefrog]

Technically, I'm with the folks that feel the process was subverted or at least fiddled with to "get" these guys no matter the cost.

At the same time, I can't work up the energy to feel to sorry for them. They promoted and encouraged piracy.

[DangerousDaze]

I don't see how that's a productive stance to take...

There's absolutely nothing remotely "productive" about this entire situation. What is a productive stance anyway?

[Nura]

Aw man, i hope Trent finds another place to host his torrents then!

[Hotcod]

What's funny is that it should have been a lot easier to get the judgement. They help distribute stolen goods. How hard can it be to stick them in jail for it? but noooooooo the lawyers where suck idoits they had rings run around them to the point the guys should have been let off. So while it think its the "right" judgement i also feel that they where going to lose no matter what which is a little scary.

[Ten19]

Aw man, i hope Trent finds another place to host his torrents then!

He initially used Pirate Bay but now nin.com has its own torrent tracker for putting stuff out there.

[Raen]

Considering what I've heard about the case it amazes me that the music industry couldn't employ some competent lawyers. I'm half surprised the judge didn't dismiss the case.

[Nura]

He initially used Pirate Bay but now nin.com has its own torrent tracker for putting stuff out there.

In that case i don't care what happens to the bay.

[Goronmon]

My stance is that the music/movie/etc industries don't really win even with a verdict like this.

Even if they are successful in making torrent technology illegal, all they've accomplished is shrinking their market. I wouldn't be a fan of anime if it wasn't for torrents. I wouldn't be a fan of House or Lost if it wasn't for torrents. If torrents go away, all that means for me is I'll find a different way to spend my time other than watching those shows.

[Panthera]

They set out their stall starting with their name. They deserve everything they get.

I bet you'd like to have a word with Captain Morgan and his big ol' barrel o' rum.

[jpublic]

Am I the only one who remembers this is in Sweden? One of the most liberal let-them-do-whatever-the-fuck-they-want countries on the planet?

I will be shocked, shocked I tell you, if this isn't overturned on appeal.

[Shadowstorm]

I can't believe this actually happened in Sweden. I can't believe that the prosecution won, too - they were totally unprepared at best.

I hope they win in appeals court.

[Lance Uppercut]

What's all this about? I thought they already shot and killed the pirates, and got the captain back alive.

[BlackPete]

What's scary about this case is that they were basically found guilty of running a site of links. They didn't host any actual content -- that was left to others.

I don't care about what happens to the TPB guys on a personal level, but this sets a very troubling legal precedence that crappy lawyers can now reference when going after legit sites (like, say, YouTube or Google).

[quidmonkey]

Google "filetype:torrent Wolverine"

Might as well shutdown the entire goddamn intarwebz.

[Johan]

The USPS better watch out. I hear they host mail bombs and anthrax letters at times, as well as hate speech, child porn and all kinds of illegal stuff! Buggers! They even bring it right to your door or mailbox themselves! Seriously...how is it fundamentally different? The USPS is an accessory to the delivery of illegal material. Prosecute them.

Oh, and also stuff that's "liquid, fragile, or perishable." Gah! Shut up with that spiel already!

Edit: I'm as anti-piracy as they come, but this isn't going to do a bit to dent piracy. However, it will be a precedent, if it stands on appeal, that will be used harmfully against others. Like, say, the USPS for delivery of illegal materials. :rolling eyes of this is dumb:

[Mike Kelehan]

...this sets a very troubling legal precedence that crappy lawyers can now reference when going after legit sites (like, say, YouTube or Google).

YouTube is one thing; it actually hosts the content. The Pirate Bay just links to the content... just like Google.

I remember when Google got in trouble for linking to xenu.net. Rather than deal with the legal costs, they just put a great big message on any Scientology-related search that said, "We'd link you to xenu.net, but Scientology lawyers don't want you to go to xenu.net, so we can't provide links to http://www.xenu.net/." That shut them up good.

[Morangie]

So piracy has been defeated for ever now, just like it was with the complete shutdown of Suprnova and Isohunt?

Also:

It appears that the court chose to not take any of the technical details into account and only judged based on intent.

It seems a good sign for the appeal that in this case based on the use of technology, technical details weren't taken into account.

[BlackPete]

The USPS better watch out. I hear they host mail bombs and anthrax letters at times, as well as hate speech, child porn and all kinds of illegal stuff! Buggers! They even bring it right to your door or mailbox themselves! Seriously...how is it fundamentally different? The USPS is an accessory to the delivery of illegal material. Prosecute them.

The USPS is different. They actually carried the content (even if they didn't know what was inside the parcels).

A better metaphor would be... oh I don't know... going after dispatchers who simply told people where to go to pick up a parcel.

Therefore the USPS are a bunch of fucking pirates. They must be shut down immediately, they are MORE guilty and are worse than Hitler.

[Johan]

The USPS is different. They actually carried the content

True enough. The USPS is even worse than Pirate Bay! In fact, I'm quite certain that copyrighted material is illegally disseminated through the USPS, along with many other illicit/illegal 'things.'

I'm contacting the DOJ as soon as possible. By mail. :D

[LongStepMantis]

Yes I would, once my wife had stopped sucking them.

It makes me feel better that I'm not the only one whose wife is a whore for Depp. She told me if he showed up at our door and wanted to take her away, she'd leave me. Ahhh, true love.

I think a large part of why they got screwed was their attitude. They seemed way too smug considering the position they were in. I hardly expect this to be the end of it. Besides, if they got shut down...someone else will take their place. The industry can't win, plain and simple.

[DangerousDaze]

The USPS better watch out. I hear they host mail bombs and anthrax letters at times, as well as hate speech, child porn and all kinds of illegal stuff!

If USPS opens up a subsidiary called "Child Porn 2 Go" and knowingly solicits business with paedophiles (and only with paedophiles) then, yes, throw the book at them.

[Morangie]

If USPS opens up a subsidiary called "Child Porn 2 Go" and knowingly solicits business with paedophiles (and only with paedophiles) then, yes, throw the book at them.

He has a point, linking to copyrighted material that causes a loss of zero to the copyright owner is the same as fucking children.

[Telefrog]

If USPS opens up a subsidiary called "Child Porn 2 Go" and knowingly solicits business with paedophiles (and only with paedophiles) then, yes, throw the book at them.

I had this same discussion a few minutes ago with someone at work. My example was if the USPS called themselves Drugrunners Inc, encouraged folks to run drugs through their systems to dodge legalities, but then told everyone, "Hey, we're content agnostic!"

[Johan]

If USPS opens up a subsidiary called "Child Porn 2 Go" and knowingly solicits business with paedophiles (and only with paedophiles) then, yes, throw the book at them.

They know illegal stuff is in there, and continue to deliver it! They should do what Pirate Bay should do; open up, and inspect, the contents of all tangible/digital goods, to check for approved materials.

Otherwise, they're complicit in a criminal act. I don't deliver a package to my neighbor from a stranger if I don't know the contents. The USPS does it all the time.

In other words? This case is ridiculous, and I'm anti-piracy myself.

[total]

If USPS opens up a subsidiary called "Child Porn 2 Go" and knowingly solicits business with paedophiles (and only with pedophiles) then, yes, throw the book at them.

Bolding and fixing your spelling for you...

Oh that's right, you can't get anything but copyrighted material off Pirate Bay...

or that could be completely wrong actually.

[Telefrog]

They know illegal stuff is in there, and continue to deliver it! They should do what Pirate Bay should do; open up, and inspect, the contents of all tangible/digital goods, to check for approved materials.

Otherwise, they're complicit in a criminal act. I don't deliver a package to my neighbor from a stranger if I don't know the contents. The USPS does it all the time.

In other words? This case is ridiculous, and I'm anti-piracy myself.

USPS mail does actually get checked routinely via x-ray, drug dogs (http://www.ndsn.org/dec96/postal.html), and scanned with electron beam scanning equipment (http://www.whnpa.org/events/xray.pdf) to sterilize possible pathogens.

[DangerousDaze]

Actually my spelling is correct. I can't help it if you're too lazy to use all the letters in a word, and in the right order.

This case is all about intent. It is the sole purpose of The Pirate Bay to help people infringe copyright. That is not the case with sites like Google who will actively seek to remove any such links once discovered.

In UK law (and now in Swedish law, it seems) what they are doing is a criminal act. They say it's just theatre (note the correct spelling of "theatre", incidentally) but the curtain will fall on that notion for them as soon as the cell door slams shut.

He has a point, linking to copyrighted material that causes a loss of zero to the copyright owner is the same as fucking children.
I didn't introduce paedophilia to this discussion, or drugs or anything else.

[BlackPete]

USPS mail does actually get checked routinely via x-ray, drug dogs, and scanned with electron beam scanning equipment to sterilize possible pathogens.

Ah, but do they check if any copyrighted material is being sent through their system?

[Narradisall]

I do agree with DangerousDaze (well not the Johnny Depp part), but I do dislike how they won this no matter what.

[Johan]

USPS mail does actually get checked routinely

Not all of it, and not well enough to stop what they know is occurring. They offer a service that is routinely used for delivery of illegal content. :D

This case is all about intent. It is the sole purpose of The Pirate Bay to help people infringe copyright.

Crystal balls are fun. So is telepathy.

[Telefrog]

Ah, but do they check if any copyrighted material is being sent through their system?

Nope. Was the Pirate Bay enabling drug transactions? :p

It was a damn analogy. A simplistic example of the way the Pirate Bay did business.

Let's go one to one. Is there another legit business that encourages and enables folks to violate copyright? Encourages and enables. Not possibly allows.

[Johan]

Let's go one to one. Is there another legit business that encourages and enables folks to violate copyright? Encourages and enables. Not possibly allows.

Xerox. Those motherfuckers. They WANT you to copy copyrighted materials, because they sell their product to libraries worldwide.

[DangerousDaze]

Crystal balls are fun. So is telepathy.

It's called The Pirate Bay for fuck's sake! Don't pretend that it's not their for any other reason than to enable copyright infringement on a massive scale!

Xerox. Those motherfuckers. They WANT you to copy copyrighted materials, because they sell their product to libraries worldwide.
Xerox encourages copyright infringement? Really? No, it doesn't .:/

[Johan]

It's called The Pirate Bay for fuck's sake! Don't pretend that it's not their for any other reason than to enable copyright infringement on a massive scale!

Hasbro. He had a brother.
Microsoft. Because it's small, but cuddly.
Need I go on?

Xerox encourages copyright infringement? Really? No, it doesn't .:/

They sell copiers to libraries. What purpose could a copier have in a library? Copying!

[Telefrog]

Funny. Every Xerox I've ever seen or sold came with a large instruction manual. Within which was a prominent warning that the machine was not to be used to violate copyright.

Copying a page or two is covered under fair use I thought? Also a backup copy of a book is entirely permissable. It's giving it away or selling it that isn't.

[BlackPete]

It was a damn analogy. A simplistic example of the way the Pirate Bay did business.

I can't help but notice it's an analogy that had to be blown up to include drug smuggling, terrorism, and baby killing in order to inspire any real emotions.

Got any feelings for how this establishes a precedence and can be used as a weapon against legit sites? Remember, this is the law we're talking about here.

It's called The Pirate Bay for fuck's sake! Don't pretend that it's not their for any other reason than to enable copyright infringement on a massive scale!

Xerox encourages copyright infringement? Really? No, it doesn't .:/

If you don't like the name "The Pirate's Bay", then try Napster.

Xerox is an interesting example... hell, the very name is now used as a verb to describe copying something. See: Hillary Clinton.

[Telefrog]

I can't help but notice it's an analogy that had to be blown up to include drug smuggling, terrorism, and baby killing in order to inspire any real emotions.

Got any feelings for how this establishes a precedence and can be used as a weapon against legit sites? Remember, this is the law we're talking about here.

I said it was a joke analogy. Specifically, I said it was used in a conversation at my work. Ignore it. The people here are running with it.

Yeah, the precedence is bad. I think I said I felt the law was subverted to kangaroo these guys.

I still don't feel sorry for them. There's a world of difference in how Google makes it's living.

Edit: And Napster? Really? How did that turn out again?

[BlackPete]

I said it was a joke analogy. Specifically, I said it was used in a conversation at my work. Ignore it. The people here are running with it.

Sadly enough it's an analogy I see used so many times by so many people that it's sometimes hard to tell whether it's a joke analogy or not. :(

I remember when similar flamewars were going on over at EvAv, and emotions were running like crazy, as if we were dealing with murderers here.

[quidmonkey]

I still don't feel sorry for them.

You're not suppose to feel sorry for them. You're suppose to feel sorry for yourself, should the convenience of TPB be snatched away from you.

[Hemalin]

Edit: And Napster? Really? How did that turn out again?
They seem to be doing pretty good for themselves these days. (http://www.napster.com/index.html?darwin_ttl=1239990873&darwin=0209A)

[Telefrog]

You're not suppose to feel sorry for them. You're suppose to feel sorry for yourself, should the convenience of TPB be snatched away from you.

Convenience? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Man, that's funny. As if I've ever used their services or ever planned to.

[Telefrog]

They seem to be doing pretty good for themselves these days. (http://www.napster.com/index.html?darwin_ttl=1239990873&darwin=0209A)

What do they do again? Sell music, or allow users to trade music freely? Which is it now? I seem to remember a complete transistion in business models at one point...

[BlackPete]

What do they do again? Sell music, or allow users to trade music freely? Which is it now? I seem to remember a complete transistion in business models at one point...

The RIAA fought them to a standstill in the courts until they eventually just bought them.

Now I wonder why they had such a hard time winning a suit against Napster in the courts in the first place...? ;)

EDIT: Also, you're not supposed to feel sorry for the TPB guys. You're supposed to feel sorry for whomever gets hit by this new precedence DMCA style.

[Hemalin]

This case is all about intent. It is the sole purpose of The Pirate Bay to help people infringe copyright. That is not the case with sites like Google who will actively seek to remove any such links once discovered.
This is where the prosecutors messed up. Since they focused on intent, all the torrent sites have to do in the future is feign compliance. As opposed to the mocking that The Pirate Bay guys did, they might have to actually take down some torrents every once in a while just to have them re-uploaded the next day. But, hey, at least they're complying.

[Mike Kelehan]

USPS mail does actually get checked routinely via x-ray, drug dogs (http://www.ndsn.org/dec96/postal.html), and scanned with electron beam scanning equipment (http://www.whnpa.org/events/xray.pdf) to sterilize possible pathogens.

Yes, but is that going to check for a copied DVD?

[Whunpo]

Xerox encourages copyright infringement? Really? No, it doesn't .:/

Xerox was actually quite controversial in terms of copy right infringement when it was first produced.

[Hemalin]

EDIT: Also, you're not supposed to feel sorry for the TPB guys. You're supposed to feel sorry for whomever gets hit by this new precedence DMCA style.
Legit sites shouldn't get hit by this. Google already shows intent by removing objectionable items.

They just went from The Pirate Bay holding someone's coat as they watch him beat someone to The Pirate Bay holding someone's coat and politely asking them to stop as they watch him beat someone.

[Telefrog]

Yes, but is that going to check for a copied DVD?

You're late to the discussion. I covered that.

[quidmonkey]

This is where the prosecutors messed up. Since they focused on intent, all the torrent sites have to do in the future is feign compliance. As opposed to the mocking that The Pirate Bay guys did, they might have to actually take down some torrents every once in a while just to have them re-uploaded the next day. But, hey, at least they're complying.

They can't censor torrents, because if they do, they can be labeled as editor and held responsible for all the torrents on the site.

[BlackPete]

Legit sites shouldn't get hit by this. Google already shows intent by removing objectionable items.

Legit people shouldn't get hit by bullshit laws and/or precedence, but they do. That's why I specifically brought up the DMCA. People will abuse laws and the court system to try to gain every advantage they can get over competitors.

[Johan]

Legit people shouldn't get hit by bullshit laws and/or precedence, but they do. That's why I specifically brought up the DMCA. People will abuse laws and the court system to try to gain every advantage they can get over competitors.

This deserves mentioning again. (http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2009/03/obama-sides-wit.html)

That's not a slam on any political party, either...it's just a statement that there's little-to-no protection for consumers under the DMCA and either Republican or Democratic parties in the U.S.

Sad, but true. You're a digital criminal, unless proven innocent.

[Ancalagon]

They know illegal stuff is in there, and continue to deliver it! They should do what Pirate Bay should do; open up, and inspect, the contents of all tangible/digital goods, to check for approved materials.

Otherwise, they're complicit in a criminal act. I don't deliver a package to my neighbor from a stranger if I don't know the contents. The USPS does it all the time.

In other words? This case is ridiculous, and I'm anti-piracy myself.

There's a better example - your average gun store. Guns kill people, m'kay, so selling guns should be a crime. Cos you dont own a gun for any other reason than wanting to shoot people.

And the traffic department should start criminal suits against any carmaker that makes a car that can do over 75mph, since that speed would definitely be illegal. Some car manufacturers even sell sports cars, cars that are designed to go fast, and thus cars that are designed to break the law. Anything over 75mph is illegal, so lets go after those fucks who sell cars that do 200mph. How many deaths are they responsible for every year?

[Hemalin]

They can't censor torrents, because if they do, they can be labeled as editor and held responsible for all the torrents on the site.
Because not being labeled editor and not held responsible for all the torrents on the site means they're legally in the clear, right?

[Shadowstorm]

Here is just one example (http://improveverywhere.com/2009/04/14/cw-11-files-copyright-claim/) of the DMCA abuse, being used as a tool of censorship.

[Ox]

Legit people shouldn't get hit by bullshit laws and/or precedence, but they do.
Who, in your mind, has been a completely innocent victim of current copyright laws? I tend to find this argument is highly legalistic even by my standards, and that all of the supposed "innocents" really had been pirates.

[BlackPete]

Who, in your mind, has been a completely innocent victim of current copyright laws? I tend to find this argument is highly legalistic even by my standards, and that all of the supposed "innocents" really had been pirates.

http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=riaa+victims

EDIT: Or corporate abuse of the DMCA: http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2005/02/4636.ars

OR SCO's absurd claims against IBM. Sure they haven't won, but they also managed to drag it out for years and drained millions in legal fees.

[total]

Let's go one to one. Is there another legit business that encourages and enables folks to violate copyright? Encourages and enables. Not possibly allows.

You mean like VCRs, DVD burners, CD burners, various copying software, video conversion tools, audio conversion tools, phones, cameras, printers, radios with tape decks, computers as a whole, back-up hardware (R4 for NDS, mod-chips, so on and so forth)...really I could go on all day here.

With the introduction of the DMCA basically everything you touch is illegal in some sense. With the insane power grab copyright holders have made in my lifetime, hardly anything will come to the public domain.

The whole fucking point of copyright is to encourage art and entertainment for our culture as a whole. Make something amazing and you can be the only one to profit off that for a certain amount of time. It was never intended to be an infinite money machine. Copyright is and has been abused. Now you have this ridiculous push to "ban" the tools (yes, websites are tools, so are protocols and programs) that could be used for copyright infringement. I have a hard time seeing how this is beneficial to society as a whole.

[Shadowstorm]

Also, of relevance:


Regarding Friday

On friday we will get the verdict in the ongoing trial. It will not be the final decision, only the first before the losing party will appeal. It will have no real effect on anything besides setting the tone for the debate, so we hope we win of course.

Since a lot of people and press are really interested in the outcome of this part of the spectrial, we've decided to hold a small press conference on friday at 13.00 swedish time (GMT+1 / CET). It will be held on Bambuser, no-one is invited physically to participate, only digitally.

The URL for the Bambuser-stream will be posted on the front page of the site on friday some minutes before 13. If you're from the press or just interested in hearing our thoughts about the outcome, you are welcome to join the stream and chat.

Posted 04-15 10:25 by tpbFtw

Source (http://thepiratebay.org/blog/150).

[total]

I tend to find this argument is highly legalistic even by my standards, and that all of the supposed "innocents" really had been pirates.

I was going to say something before pete beat me to it. You can't be serious here. Have you been paying attention at all?

[Telefrog]

You mean like VCRs, DVD burners, CD burners, various copying software, video conversion tools, audio conversion tools, phones, cameras, printers, radios with tape decks, computers as a whole, back-up hardware (R4 for NDS, mod-chips, so on and so forth)...really I could go on all day here.

Oh, for God's sake! I already posted about fair use and backup copies. All legal and above the board.

It's the transfer of the copy to people that don't own the original that is the problem. Stop acting like there's no difference.

[J Arcane]

That is not the case with sites like Google who will actively seek to remove any such links once discovered.


Google already shows intent by removing objectionable items.

People keep saying this, but I keep finding myself wondering what wierdass version of Google they've been using, because mine is chock full of all kinds of links to copyrighted material. Fuck they don't even actually remove links to known malware sites, just add a warning page.

[BlackPete]

The whole fucking point of copyright is to encourage art and entertainment for our culture as a whole. Make something amazing and you can be the only one to profit off that for a certain amount of time. It was never intended to be an infinite money machine. Copyright is and has been abused.

Needed to be repeated. It was supposed to encourage new works. Nowadays it actively discourages new works. We live in a world where even parodies and satirical pieces of work aren't allowed to exist without getting sued, and (thanks to the DMCA) it's illegal to practice fair use when dealing with DVDs and Blu-rays.

[Hemalin]

People keep saying this, but I keep finding myself wondering what wierdass version of Google they've been using, because mine is chock full of all kinds of links to copyrighted material. Fuck they don't even actually remove links to known malware sites, just add a warning page.
When Google receives a notice, they remove the offending link. That is the important issue according to the media companies. It is not until Google is given a notice that they need to act on the copyrighted material. What happens is that not all companies send Google a notice so not all material is removed. In addition material that was already removed just gets put back up at different links.

[total]

We live in a world where even parodies and satirical pieces of work aren't allowed to exist without getting sued, and (thanks to the DMCA) it's illegal to practice fair use when dealing with DVDs and Blu-rays.

Fucking thank you. It is damn hard to practice fair use when you are breaking the law to do it. The DMCA basically made fair use worthless. If you are circumventing any sort of protection, you are breaking the law. Copy the DVD you purchased, breaking the law. Record a show with the broadcast flag enabled (regardless of your hardware ignoring it) and you are breaking the law. If your CD has any copy protection on it (again regardless of it working or not) and make a copy and you are breaking the law.

[Inspector Fowler]

A contributor to the problem (the main contributor, IMO) is the ease of distribution.

When piracy is mentioned, somebody always goes, "Yeah, so all those mix tapes you made were illegal then!" Sure, but see, I actually had to pay for the tape at least (I'm talking the mix tape, not the source material). I don't have an unlimited number of tapes or unlimited time to record them.

Since it costs $0.00 to own one illegal song or 20,000 illegal songs, there is every incentive to pirate and little incentive other than morality to purchase.

The government and recording artists need to re-think the entire structure of this. I don't have any great ideas. Enforcing copyright in an era when infinite distribution at zero cost is possible is something I don't even care to think about. Shudder.

[Panthera]

Oh, for God's sake! I already posted about fair use and backup copies. All legal and above the board.

It's the transfer of the copy to people that don't own the original that is the problem. Stop acting like there's no difference.

So, what, that makes it the library's responsibility for providing the ability to make copies of books you don't own?

[Telefrog]

So, what, that makes it the library's responsibility for providing the ability to make copies of books you don't own?

I assume you're talking about the "Xerox in a library" example used before? Nice try, but unless you tell some librarian, "Hey, I'm making this complete copy of The DaVinci Code to keep" they have to assume you're making a backup copy of your own book or making a few copies of relevant pages for some project. Fair use and all that.

The difference here is that the torrents were from one person to others. It was explicitly to transfer full files. Most copyrighted. When notified of breaches, Pirate Bay did nothing, unlike the how the theoretical library with a Xerox would be compelled to respond if notified that you were copying and selling/giving away whole books.

Edit: Let's not even get into the real world situation in which most libraries either charge per page of copy, or limit the amount of time or pages per person thereby making copying full books impractical.

[muddi900]

While you guys are arguing the legality of Pirate Bay, the site was never facing any charges. Also, this judgment also gives all "copyright holders" the chance to sue every ISP under the sun, because just like TPB, copyrighted material was distributed using their servers. If allowed to continue, they can, in fact, any protocol that allows the use of Piracy.

Also, this case was a farce. How can a person get away by saying this:

Rasmus Fleischer, one of the founders of Piratbyrån commented, “The sentence has no formal consequence and no juridical value. We chose to treat the trial as a theater play and as such it’s been far better than we ever could have believed.”

Isn't that "contempt of court"?

[total]

If allowed to continue, they can, in fact, any protocol that allows the use of Piracy.

I'm assuming you meant to put disallow in there. So like HTTP. Yeah that will work well.

[muddi900]

I'm assuming you meant to put disallow in there. So like HTTP. Yeah that will work well.

OK. I meant to say that is extensively used for piracy. Like Bittorrent and usenet.

[violent]

It should be no surprise what the primary use of such a site is and all copyright laws aside, the theft of other peoples work is uncivilized. The loss of the convenience to some is unfortunate but the truth is it was a convenience they should not have been given to begin with.

I do condone the theft of anything Metallica though.

[total]

OK. I meant to say that is extensively used for piracy. Like Bittorrent and usenet.

Both have very legitimate uses and torrent is commercially used by quite a bit of software. I'm still going to stick with HTTP being pretty extensively used for pirating though. You can find pretty much everything sitting right there on the web.

[total]

It should be no surprise what the primary use of such a site is and all copyright laws aside, the theft of other peoples work is uncivilized. The loss of the convenience to some is unfortunate but the truth is it was a convenience they should not have been given to begin with.

I do condone the theft of anything Metallica though.

Oh fun, the gun guys are going to love this.

It should be no surprise what the primary use of such a weapon is and all gun laws aside, the killing of other people is uncivilized. The loss of the convenience to some is unfortunate but the truth is it was a convenience they should not have been given to begin with.

Lets do it again, with feeling.

[violent]

Oh fun, the gun guys are going to love this.

It should be no surprise what the primary use of such a weapon is and all gun laws aside, the killing of other people is uncivilized. The loss of the convenience to some is unfortunate but the truth is it was a convenience they should not have been given to begin with.

Lets do it again, with feeling.

One is stealing and the other is murder. I don't think they are remotely similar enough to warrant such a connection.

[BlackPete]

OK. I meant to say that is extensively used for piracy. Like Bittorrent and usenet.

You do realize that torrent was one of Blizzard's distribution methods to send out patches and betas, right?

[TheFlyingOrc]

Oh fun, the gun guys are going to love this.

It should be no surprise what the primary use of such a weapon is and all gun laws aside, the killing of other people is uncivilized. The loss of the convenience to some is unfortunate but the truth is it was a convenience they should not have been given to begin with.

Lets do it again, with feeling.

Holy crap, that would be a very effective argument.

[BlackPete]

One is [a criminal act] and the other is [a criminal act]. I don't think they are remotely similar enough to warrant such a connection.

Perspective plays no part in whether you're committing a crime or not. The only time it has a role is deciding how long your sentence should be.

[violent]

Perspective plays no part in whether you're committing a crime or not. The only time it has a role is deciding how long your sentence should be.

Agreed but one should not analyze crime when one is committed, they should analyze the specific crime committed. Not all crimes are created equal and it's not merely severity that differentiates them.

[Telefrog]

Did we just agree to dismiss the joke USPS = drug courier example and instead decide to take up the guns = filesharing example?

[total]

One is stealing and the other is murder. I don't think they are remotely similar enough to warrant such a connection.

You seem to be missing my point. Restricting the tool(s) is ineffective. It has been shown time and time again that it is a pointless effort. Destroying the Pirate Bay is going to do absolutely jack shit to stop piracy. Nada, nothing, zilch, zippo, 0. Which is the point they are trying to make when they are speaking of it being "theatre." This will have no impact on the actual battle the media companies are trying fight, but will make great headlines.

Surviving the digital age is not going to happen if most companies continue doing business as usual. They need to restructure pricing, restructure copyright and stop treating all of their customers as if they are thieves.

And for the record copyright infringement is just that, copyright infringement. It is not stealing, thievery or piracy (yar) as most media companies would have you believe.

[cp#]

What a fucking joke.

[BlackPete]

Agreed but one should not analyze crime when one is committed, they should analyze the specific crime committed. Not all crimes are created equal and it's not merely severity that differentiates them.

Sorry but I don't quite get what you mean.

The DMCA has made it very clear that intent plays no part in deciding whether you're breaking the law or not. Circumventing the encryption system is illegal no matter what.

Analyzing the specifics of a crime would only make sense for certain crimes where you can show that you clearly had no choice but to do it (i.e. self defense) when there's no legal option available.

Here's a thought experiment:

Hastings & Main. Whoops, I just told you where you can go buy drugs here in Vancouver. And I knowingly did so. Does that mean I committed a crime? Does my intent matter here (whether I really want you to buy drugs, or I was simply using an example).

Another thought experiment: If it's illegal to knowingly link to an illegal content, does that mean newspapers can no longer cite references when discussing illegal acts? Sometimes the "where" is very important for contextual purposes.

Does the law really make room for nuances like that?

[violent]

You seem to be missing my point. Restricting the tool(s) is ineffective. It has been shown time and time again that it is a pointless effort. Destroying the Pirate Bay is going to do absolutely jack shit to stop piracy. Nada, nothing, zilch, zippo, 0. Which is the point they are trying to make when they are speaking of it being "theatre." This will have no impact on the actual battle the media companies are trying fight, but will make great headlines.

Surviving the digital age is not going to happen if most companies continue doing business as usual. They need to restructure pricing, restructure copyright and stop treating all of their customers as if they are thieves.

And for the record copyright infringement is just that, copyright infringement. It is not stealing, thievery or piracy (yar) as most media companies would have you believe.

Putting one guy in jail for murder is not going to stop murders. Putting one drug dealer in jail won't stop drug dealers. It's the natural behavior of crime yet we don't stop even though progress is not made.

I'm not familiar with copyright laws or anything like that. Just so we're clear, my opinions are derived from nothing more than personal observation. What I have seen is things that would regularly require money to be obtained being obtained without the use of money or consent. Maybe it's not the Websters definition but for me, I consider that stealing and there is a lot of it going on at TPB. There is a lot of legitimate uses for sure but as the old saying goes, one rotten apple spoils the whole barrel.

Does a government have the right to stop the proprietors? Is what they do harmful to a society, enough to have their freedoms revoked? I don't know.

[violent]

Here's a thought experiment:

Hastings & Main. Whoops, I just told you where you can go buy drugs here in Vancouver. And I knowingly did so. Does that mean I committed a crime? Does my intent matter here (whether I really want you to buy drugs, or I was simply using an example).

Another thought experiment: If it's illegal to knowingly link to an illegal content, does that mean newspapers can no longer cite references when discussing illegal acts? Sometimes the "where" is very important for contextual purposes.

Does the law really make room for nuances like that?

I'm just piecing things together here so bear with me: I'm guessing the difference is that in informing someone where to locate drugs is the equivalent of telling someone what website has illegal content where owning such a website would be like owning a building where you allow drug transactions to occur. Two separate roles with two different involvements in the eventual illegality.

In regards to the newspaper example, I can only guess that there are a lot of double standards when comparing paper and digital media seeing as newspapers are much more established and have a long line of rules and regulations under it's belt whereas the internet is still being experimented in regards to said management. I expect there to be plenty of inconsistencies at this juncture but I don't expect many people to be sympathetic to the plight.

[Hemalin]

It should be no surprise what the primary use of such a site is and all copyright laws aside, the theft of other peoples work is uncivilized. The loss of the convenience to some is unfortunate but the truth is it was a convenience they should not have been given to begin with.

I do condone the theft of anything Metallica though.
It's ok, I'm sure having to change their bookmarks from The Pirate Bay to Mininova isn't that inconvenient. That is, if the site was getting taken down which it doesn't appear to be as yet.

[violent]

It's ok, I'm sure having to change their bookmarks from The Pirate Bay to Mininova isn't that inconvenient. That is, if the site was getting taken down which it doesn't appear to be as yet.

Oh, most definitely. There is an abundance of torrent sites out there and the amount of them to be deterred by the actions against TPB are sure to be minimal at best. The piracy scene is real and won't be going away for a while. My suggestion to companies complaining about suffering due to it's existence is to respect it's place (not the action itself) and start designing their models around it.

[Johan]

Did we just agree to dismiss the joke USPS = drug courier example and instead decide to take up the guns = filesharing example?

It's perfectly appropriate to discuss ridiculous analogies when dealing with a ridiculous court decision.

Also, as has been said ad nauseum, this case will do nothing to stem piracy. Nothing. They're trying to use a hammer to smash it away into oblivion, just like the RIAA in its $150,000 per song lawsuits, and they are doomed to failure, just like the war on drugs is doomed to fail. The hammer will not work. They need a new business model. The current one is a failure.

[Telefrog]

Also, as has been said ad nauseum, this case will do nothing to stem piracy. Nothing. They're trying to use a hammer to smash it away into oblivion, just like the RIAA in its $150,000 per song lawsuits, and they are doomed to failure, just like the war on drugs is doomed to fail. The hammer will not work. They need a new business model. The current one is a failure.

On that we can agree. Technology outpaced business and law in the arena of filesharing. The only viable solution is to adapt.

[BlackPete]

Who, in your mind, has been a completely innocent victim of current copyright laws? I tend to find this argument is highly legalistic even by my standards, and that all of the supposed "innocents" really had been pirates.

Actually, I forgot that there's a group of guys who specialize in this very thing: The EFF (http://www.eff.org/issues/intellectual-property).

If you'd like to have a list of victims, the EFF would be more than happy to oblige.

[total]

On that we can agree. Technology outpaced business and law in the arena of filesharing. The only viable solution is to adapt.

I agree completely. And I am in no way advocating copyright infringement. I am saying the the infrastructure in place right now is a joke and weighed heavily in the copyright holders favor. The whole idea of copyright has been so severely distorted that it no longer promotes what it was originally intended to promote. When you can be fined upwards of a million dollars for "stealing" a cd digitally, as opposed to the relatively harmless charge of shoplifting the physical media; something is surely wrong.

[Johan]

When you can be fined upwards of a million dollars for "stealing" a cd digitally, as opposed to the relatively harmless charge of shoplifting the physical media; something is surely wrong.

Something is wrong; it's so obvious! Naturally, fines for actually stealing the physical media must be increased, to $150,000 per song on the disk! ;)

That's what the RIAA would probably say, anyways.

[J Arcane]

Apparently, President Obama and the Queen of England (http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=103489) might be pirates . . .

[Shadowstorm]

In what world exactly is $150,000 fee per song illegally downloaded a reasonable amount?

[Johan]

In what world exactly is $150,000 fee per song illegally downloaded a reasonable amount?

Ours! ;)

Sheesh! Silly you!

[Shadowstorm]

The money ($3.5 million, nothing to scoff at) is rewarded to Warner Bros, Sony Music, EMI, and Columbia Pictures. Said money will be spent towards more lawsuits, and of course, not a dime will ever see the artists.

[Telefrog]

The money ($3.5 million, nothing to scoff at) is rewarded to Warner Bros, Sony Music, EMI, and Columbia Pictures. Said money will be spent towards more lawsuits, and of course, not a dime will ever see the artists.

Was there anything legally preventing the artists from filing their own lawsuits?

[Telefrog]

They don't own the music. That's what.

Ah, so the guys that actually own the stuff filed suit, and the people that no longer own the stuff didn't? That doesn't actually sound outrageous to me. :p

[Xerxes]

Wheres Mininova hosted again? I hate waiting for Supernatural to make it here!

So true. I was driving in my car the other day thinking, if only all the TV shows embraced the web a little bit more. Put out their own high quality torrents, have a better website presence, and I'd even front load it with ads still. TV numbers look like shit cause people can get it elsewhere. They think shows are doing bad because people can't sit in front of a tube and watch it. It's not the 90s anymore. If they all released torrents, they could keep track of even more numbers. Most shows also have a shitty online watching system. I think south park has it right. Hell you can watch all 12 seasons in full and a new episode of the new season the very next day. I wonder how good hulu is for nbc and fox.

Apparently, President Obama and the Queen of England (http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=103489) might be pirates . . .

The tea baggers probably think he should be arrested for such crimes.

[J Arcane]

I watch me a metric fuckton of Hulu.

I don't watch most any of the network specific sites though, because most of them are cumbersome and awful.

[johnperkins21]

Something is wrong; it's so obvious! Naturally, fines for actually stealing the physical media must be increased, to $150,000 per song on the disk! ;)

That's what the RIAA would probably say, anyways.

I hate the RIAA as much as the next guy, but that's unfair. Stealing a physical disc only causes the loss for that one disc. If you put that disc on your PC and share it with everyone in the world, they could potentially be losing the sale for everyone who gets it for free from you. As far as I know, it's the distribution that carries the hefty fine, not the downloading.

Still, horrible, horrible judgment here. A mistrial should be claimed due to the judge's incompetence.

[Carnifex]

It should be no surprise what the primary use of such a site is and all copyright laws aside, the theft of other peoples work is uncivilized. The loss of the convenience to some is unfortunate but the truth is it was a convenience they should not have been given to begin with.
I keep hearing the word "theft" used when discussing this subject. It's not theft, it's breach of copyright which is a very different thing. When you make a copy of something nothing has been stolen, but you might be in violation of someone's copyright. Of course it depends on what is done with the copy. There are allowances for fair use after all, as it should be.

/nitpick

[violent]

I keep hearing the word "theft" used when discussing this subject. It's not theft, it's breach of copyright which is a very different thing. When you make a copy of something nothing has been stolen, but you might be in violation of someone's copyright. Of course it depends on what is done with the copy. There are allowances for fair use after all, as it should be.

/nitpick

I was actually referring to the downloading of games, videos, music and whatnot but what you say is true about the other side of these sites. The duplicators infringe on copyrights while some users are technically stealing materials. The theft thing may be a bit confusing since the materials in question are digital but I think the end result is the same.

[Xerxes]

I watch me a metric fuckton of Hulu.

I don't watch most any of the network specific sites though, because most of them are cumbersome and awful.

Exactly. But even Hulu limits the backlog of watching. Now I can understand them wanting to sell DVDs as well and not wanting to give shit away, but if I'm not buying DVDs, I'm not buying them. At least if the shows was online, you'd be able to track that I watched it and get some ad-revenue in the process.

[johnperkins21]

Exactly. But even Hulu limits the backlog of watching. Now I can understand them wanting to sell DVDs as well and not wanting to give shit away, but if I'm not buying DVDs, I'm not buying them. At least if the shows was online, you'd be able to track that I watched it and get some ad-revenue in the process.

I had never seen Firefly before. Noticed it was on Hulu and watched the full series on there. Loved it so much I bought the full season on DVD. Thought my dad would like it so I bought him a full season set as well. Then I bought us both a copy of Serenity.

If not for Firefly being on Hulu, I don't think I would have ever bought those DVDs. It appears to me that the people in charge aren't realizing the potential of treating your customers well and giving them some stuff for free. I was willing to buy the DVDs for the extra content because they made me a huge fan with a quality product. I did the same thing with Cory Doctorow's Little Brother.

The companies that learn to embrace new technology will thrive, while the others will spend all their time in the courts, alienating their customers.

[Xerxes]

I had never seen Firefly before. Noticed it was on Hulu and watched the full series on there. Loved it so much I bought the full season on DVD. Thought my dad would like it so I bought him a full season set as well. Then I bought us both a copy of Serenity.

If not for Firefly being on Hulu, I don't think I would have ever bought those DVDs. It appears to me that the people in charge aren't realizing the potential of treating your customers well and giving them some stuff for free. I was willing to buy the DVDs for the extra content because they made me a huge fan with a quality product. I did the same thing with Cory Doctorow's Little Brother.

The companies that learn to embrace new technology will thrive, while the others will spend all their time in the courts, alienating their customers.

See but most companies are ran by people like Steve Ballmer...

"I don't really understand their strategy. Maybe somebody else does. If I went to my shareholder meeting, my analyst meeting, and said: 'Hey, we've just launched a new product that has no revenue model!'… I'm not sure that my investors would take that very well. But that's kind of what Google's telling their investors about Android,"

The phone is just a catalyst(usage?) for all of Google's other services. Just like how you saw it and were driven to by 2 copies of the show and the movie even though you are able watch it for free whenever you want.

Do Nielson numbers include internet viewers yet? I'm miffed at the possible cancellation talks at a few shows; Not to take away from the piracy talks or anything.

[Generation ABXY]

I watch me a metric fuckton of Hulu.

Same here. Really makes me miss my newer, more broken laptop - it has a nice, HD screen. On this old one, I can't even watch Hulu videos fullscreen thanks to the slowdown. :(

Fortunately, I can still watch a lot of it on my PS3 (and fullscreen, to boot), though there are some shows (like Arrested Development) were only the audio will play for some reason.

I don't watch most any of the network specific sites though, because most of them are cumbersome and awful.

Indeed they are. Still, I make an exception for shows like Castle.

[Farsight]

To go further down the tangent road... older episodes that aren't on Hulu can always be Netflix'd...

[Shadowstorm]

Do Nielson numbers include internet viewers yet?

They do not.

To go further down the tangent road... older episodes that aren't on Hulu can always be Netflix'd...

Or via Bit Torrent...

[ShivaX]

Hulu has been a bitch on and off lately for me. No idea why.
I'll get it up and get one frame in 5 on 360p one day, then the next I can stream in 480p with absolutely zero issues. Its a pain in the ass since it seems to like to happen when I'm bored as piss and want to catch up on shows.

[muddi900]

So true. I was driving in my car the other day thinking, if only all the TV shows embraced the web a little bit more. Put out their own high quality torrents, have a better website presence, and I'd even front load it with ads still. TV numbers look like shit cause people can get it elsewhere. They think shows are doing bad because people can't sit in front of a tube and watch it. It's not the 90s anymore. If they all released torrents, they could keep track of even more numbers. Most shows also have a shitty online watching system. I think south park has it right. Hell you can watch all 12 seasons in full and a new episode of the new season the very next day. I wonder how good hulu is for nbc and fox.


Most people who download TV torrents are mostly international viewers. Like me. They've a delivery system in place, yet they still bog themselves down in stuff like licensing. Of course, then you think that shows like Heroes wouldn't even be on air if it wasn't for international licensing.

[johnperkins21]

Do Nielson numbers include internet viewers yet? I'm miffed at the possible cancellation talks at a few shows; Not to take away from the piracy talks or anything.

There's no reason for them to. It's a different advertising model. The only reason television exists is to give you a reason to sit in front of the TV and watch ads. Internet ads don't pay nearly as much for two main reasons. The first being that many of the companies are still trapped into an antiquated way of thinking, and the second is that people who watch shows on the Internet will often switch to a different tab during the commercial break.

It's incredibly difficult to sit back and watch the content distributors fighting on the wrong side of this manufactured "war." As Johan pointed out, it's incredibly similar to the war on drugs. Only one side thinks it's a war, the other side knows that it was never a war, and it's already over. The content distributors see that it's profitable to keep fighting, but they don't realize that even more profits could be had if they'd just stop and listen for a minute.

I really hope that this decision backfires when it's severely trounced in appeal.

[Xerxes]

Most people who download TV torrents are mostly international viewers. Like me. They've a delivery system in place, yet they still bog themselves down in stuff like licensing. Of course, then you think that shows like Heroes wouldn't even be on air if it wasn't for international licensing.
And if they were relying solely on the numbers, you international eyes would count as much as mines.

There's no reason for them to. It's a different advertising model. The only reason television exists is to give you a reason to sit in front of the TV and watch ads. Internet ads don't pay nearly as much for two main reasons. The first being that many of the companies are still trapped into an antiquated way of thinking, and the second is that people who watch shows on the Internet will often switch to a different tab during the commercial break.

It's incredibly difficult to sit back and watch the content distributors fighting on the wrong side of this manufactured "war." As Johan pointed out, it's incredibly similar to the war on drugs. Only one side thinks it's a war, the other side knows that it was never a war, and it's already over. The content distributors see that it's profitable to keep fighting, but they don't realize that even more profits could be had if they'd just stop and listen for a minute.

I really hope that this decision backfires when it's severely trounced in appeal.
I flip the channels when a commercial comes on TV; same difference. At least on the internet the commercial has to play before I can move to the next part. I wonder why internet ads don't pay as much. Sometime they are the same exact commercial and most seem cheaper to produce.

[Deadend]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piratbyr%C3%A5n

Welcome to the new way of thinking. So if the Pirate Party can get into parliament in the next election, interesting things will happen.

All the hate of piracy is based around preserving of income models based around scarcity of content. Content that is now digital and thus all the scarcity (DRM) schemes are artificial.

Also, explain why if I can check out a movie/CD/game from a library, why pirating the same thing is wrong? If downloading a copy is wrong and evil, then libraries are obviously wrong and evil. The torrents act as a modern library of what people are interested in, except everyone can check out the same book at the same time.

[DangerousDaze]

Also, explain why if I can check out a movie/CD/game from a library, why pirating the same thing is wrong?
Er, because it's a physical copy, and you have to give it back? What happens when you borrow something from a library and then decide never to return it so you can keep it in your collection (or possibly pass it on to someone else)?

[menage]

My stance is that the music/movie/etc industries don't really win even with a verdict like this.

Even if they are successful in making torrent technology illegal, all they've accomplished is shrinking their market. I wouldn't be a fan of anime if it wasn't for torrents. I wouldn't be a fan of House or Lost if it wasn't for torrents. If torrents go away, all that means for me is I'll find a different way to spend my time other than watching those shows.

Same here. I only use torrents for tv shows that are broadcasted free in another country. But I'm not going to wait and sit around till Bleach will eventually pop in 5 years here somewhere. That would also mean buying like 50 DVD's and a probably a horrible English sub when it hits tv at all. If torrents weren't there (or other means like newsgroups), I would just ditch the whole thing. Now at least they'll have my money when a 360/PS3 game hits (please?)

[boratika]

Most people who download TV torrents are mostly international viewers. Like me. They've a delivery system in place, yet they still bog themselves down in stuff like licensing. Of course, then you think that shows like Heroes wouldn't even be on air if it wasn't for international licensing.

Nail->Head->Hit

I know exactly when I started downloading TV shows. It was the first episode of the second season of Lost. I was fuckered if I was going to wait an additional 3 months to see what was down the hatch when I could find out then and there. Actually that's kind of the point also. They've got this internet now and considering where I've kept my time online, I'm pretty sure spoilers would abound.

And even better it was a real boot up the arse for networks here when they suddenly lost a massive demographic on account of they'd already watched the shows months ago. Lost is two weeks behind currently, so, you know, not good enough.

Evidence perhaps (http://www.mininova.org/com/2492393). I'm referring to the flags.

Same here. I only use torrents for tv shows that are broadcasted free in another country. But I'm not going to wait and sit around till Bleach will eventually pop in 5 years here somewhere. That would also mean buying like 50 DVD's and a probably a horrible English sub when it hits tv at all. If torrents weren't there (or other means like newsgroups), I would just ditch the whole thing. Now at least they'll have my money when a 360/PS3 game hits (please?)

Ew. Dubbed anime. as long as that's how they are doing it, they don't have a viewer in me.

[DangerousDaze]

I was fuckered if I was going to wait an additional 3 months to see what was down the hatch when I could find out then and there.
The sad thing is that you don't see that you don't have that right. It's the right of the content owner to decide how and when their content is disseminated, not yours. You have to wait? Tough!

[Raen]

The sad thing is that you don't see that you don't have that right. It's the right of the content owner to decide how and when their content is disseminated, not yours. You have to wait? Tough!

No we don't have the right. I think more the point that's being made is that it is already being done. If there was a legal alternative we'd happily take it. At the very least I know I would. For example there are a variety of DCU shows that, while available in the US, aren't available in my region. If they don't want me to buy DVDs from another region and they don't want me to steal it then how am I supposed to get it? In fact why are they not making an attempt to take my money? Isn't that sort of the point of a business?

[Ancalagon]

I hate the RIAA as much as the next guy, but that's unfair. Stealing a physical disc only causes the loss for that one disc. If you put that disc on your PC and share it with everyone in the world, they could potentially be losing the sale for everyone who gets it for free from you. As far as I know, it's the distribution that carries the hefty fine, not the downloading.

Still, horrible, horrible judgment here. A mistrial should be claimed due to the judge's incompetence.

But they still cant prove that anyway. They can only prove that the song is available to download, not how many times it has been downloaded. And proving that is available requires them to download it themselves, which, I would think, is illegal.

So, on the one hand, we have someone who steals a CD and deprives someone of a physical item and the copyrighted material on it.

On the other hand, someone makes copyrighted material available on the net, doesnt deprive anyone of anything and doesnt force people to download his stuff. The people who download it could already own the CD for all he knows.

One is a much more serious crime than the other, and its only that way because the justice system favours those who spend money on it.

[Carnifex]

I was actually referring to the downloading of games, videos, music and whatnot but what you say is true about the other side of these sites. The duplicators infringe on copyrights while some users are technically stealing materials. The theft thing may be a bit confusing since the materials in question are digital but I think the end result is the same.
I'm not sure what you mean here. How can you technically steal something when nothing is taken from anyones posession?

This whole thing is a copyright issue, it has nothing to do with theft. That's just FUD from the copyright holders to create more drama. They are scared silly of the notion that their role as distributor isn't required anymore.

My personal experience is that people buy stuff if it's priced right and convenient enough. How hard can it be to offer high-quality encodings (with several options) at a lower price than physical media? The answer is, from a technical view, not hard at all, which means this whole debate is about politics, licensing and refusal to change.

[DangerousDaze]

I'm not sure what you mean here. How can you technically steal something when nothing is taken from anyones posession?

A typical AAA game costs millions of dollars to develop and that money has to be recouped (plus more, or else what is the incentive to develop in the first place?). By playing that game without paying you are depriving the investor of his return and you're damaging the industry in the process.

Every time someone plays a pirated game, watches a pirated film, or plays a pirated music track they are depriving the content owner of their return on investment. Eventually it just won't be worth investing any more.

My personal experience is that people buy stuff if it's priced right and convenient enough.
For many people it's not priced right until it's priced free, and convenient means they can have it right now. TPB exists to serve those people. It's not their right to decide how much something is worth or when they should receive it - it's only their right to decide whether they should buy something at the price it's offered and when it's offered. Market forces will take care of the rest.

[menage]

The sad thing is that you don't see that you don't have that right. It's the right of the content owner to decide how and when their content is disseminated, not yours. You have to wait? Tough!

True, but in some cases it's the ONLY way you'll ever see stuff at all. Mainly in the anime cases. That stuff might be on networks or readily available in shops in the US. here it's total zero next to Pokemon and an obscure copy of Escaflowne in the cartoon dvd racks.

It's not only a question of the rights holder selling their stuff to you, but mainly stations and distributors over here lacking in buying them or releasing them at all. I'm not missing out on stuff I really want because some twit in NY is deciding I can't watch shit in Holland, remove region encoding then, still get the sale. There's obviously not a market big enough here. So they won't lose money anyway. It's the same FF3 never getting released here in EU at all in the SNES days. You're forcing me to import,? Fine, add another 50 bucks to that I don't mind. But now there's region encoding. Fuck you, what's the point in blocking access if you're never going to release it anyway. I would happily give money for a licensed internet fansub of Bleach, say 2$ an ep x 210 already that would have made them 420 bucks already. But instead we get draconian measures, lawsuits and crackdowns. Their media is as advanced as can be, their systems of getting it to potential customers suck ass. The internet has changed to many things to abide by old standards.

With a series as lost, I don't see it as pirating (it is of course). It get's aired in a few weeks anyway, only thing I'm doing is sure I don't forget to record it or making sure the station doesn't fuck up scheduling once again. Like we did with vhs in the old days. If I ain't got time to see it now, I do want in the future. I can't schedule my life around a networks airtime schedule. Sure it's not my right. But I wouldn't have watched it anyway, it's not humanly possible to follow 5 seasons of a series without missing out because I have other stuff to do. You could argue I should buy the DVD's, but buying something because I can't sit in front of the tv every friday at 6.30 is taking it to far imo, only persons with no life are able to.

New movies, games, music different story though.

[Doogie2K]

The sad thing is that you don't see that you don't have that right. It's the right of the content owner to decide how and when their content is disseminated, not yours. You have to wait? Tough!

And Valve (and Blizzard?) would counter that the content owners are being retards and if they want their precious money, they should serve their damned customers.

Regardless of legalities, these things exist, and I agree with others in the thread who have stated that content owners would be better served finding ways to encourage people to consume their content on their own terms (e.g. their own free, legal, ad-revenue-driven channel) instead of by torrent, etc. They might also be better served by better compensating content creators: I've read numerous articles over the last few years where artists themselves have said that they don't need/want this fight, because they don't make much money off CD sales anyway, they really make their money from tours and merchandising, and more exposure = more ticket and T-shirt sales = more $. Heck, Trent Reznor and Jonathan Coulton bypass the labels altogether and sell their music directly to the customers. Or to bring it back to games, on 1UP FM, Tim Schaefer came right out and said that the best way to get Psychonauts and support Double Fine would be to pirate the game and buy a couple of T-shirts from Double Fine's website. If your primary interest is in compensating the content creators over the content "owners," there are are much better options out there than the traditional business model, something the RIAA and their ilk have failed to figure out thus far.

[DangerousDaze]

And Valve (and Blizzard?) would counter that the content owners are being retards and if they want their precious money, they should serve their damned customers.
They do serve their customers. On their own terms and at their own pace, a pace that generates predictable, long-term cash flow to appease its shareholders, rather than a short-term lump sum.

If Valve ever goes public and is forced to please shareholders on a quarterly basis it will discover this for itself.

[Hemalin]

By playing that game without paying you are depriving the investor of his return and you're damaging the industry in the process.

Hey now, I go over to a friend's house and play games without paying for them all the time. Some games even encourage that sort of behavior. ;)

[Doogie2K]

They do serve their customers. On their own terms and at their own pace, a pace that generates predictable, long-term cash flow to appease its shareholders, rather than a short-term lump sum.

If Valve ever goes public and is forced to please shareholders on a quarterly basis it will discover this for itself.

I'm not sure that appeasing shareholders on a quarterly basis is a long-term strategy; it seems to me like it keeps encouraging short-sighted moves to make the shareholders happy now as opposed to showing a long-term vision, but maybe current events have coloured my judgment in this regard.

Those companies might also find that the money lost to impatient people who have access to things sooner for free might outweigh any benefit of deferring service to Regions X and Y for the sake of making the numbers look good. I'm not really sure how true that could be, but it's worth considering.

[Deadend]

Er, because it's a physical copy, and you have to give it back? What happens when you borrow something from a library and then decide never to return it so you can keep it in your collection (or possibly pass it on to someone else)?

That is a weak fucking argument in a world where most content is digital. You do realize it's not 1972 anymore?

Well, enjoy fighting reality with laws. Computers and the internet exist, it's going to be impossible to try and legislate it away.

What is probably the next evolution is a tracker site that also has a computer virus by hosting itself on various computers around the world without knowledge of the owners and keeps up a front website, all automatic so it could be created anonymous authors who would be unable to be arrested. The more that old media types fight against piracy, the stronger it becomes, and the kids? One day piracy will be legal. I give it about 5 years to legalize in Sweden.

[Goronmon]

If Valve ever goes public and is forced to please shareholders on a quarterly basis it will discover this for itself.Which is why I hope they don't and I'd be surprised if they ever did.

The problem the media industries face is that torrents can be superior to all other content delivery systems available. Take a popular show like Lost and a decent broadband connection and you can have an entire episode ready to watch in 10-15 minutes. You don't have to watch commercials, you don't have to deal with streaming annoyances when rewinding or fast forwarding. I can watch it on my normal TV through my 360 as opposed to watching it sitting at a computer. The quality is usually pretty solid and to top it all off, it's free.

That's a tough situation to compete against.

[DangerousDaze]

That is a weak fucking argument in a world where most content is digital. You do realize it's not 1972 anymore?There's nothing weak about it. You asked why it's different to a library and told you. Perhaps you should have chosen a better analogy.

The problem the media industries face is that torrents can be superior to all other content delivery systems available. Take a popular show like Lost and a decent broadband connection and you can have an entire episode ready to watch in 10-15 minutes. You don't have to watch commercials, you don't have to deal with streaming annoyances when rewinding or fast forwarding. I can watch it on my normal TV through my 360 as opposed to watching it sitting at a computer. The quality is usually pretty solid and to top it all off, it's free.

But Lost is financed by corporations who can't use any of that as an excuse at the end of the quarter when they've not met their numbers. Shareholders couldn't care less about torrents when they read the 10-Q's and find out they came in below guidance. Stocks get sold. Stock prices go down. Once proud corporations get bought by Sony (well, not any more). ;)

I predict that there's a programming revolution coming, and it will be driven by the content producers, not the freeloading consumers. TV is going to change radically. It won't be for the better, and it'll be your own fault.

[Inspector Fowler]

I guess my real question is this:

Pretend you are a musician. You and your band have just invested thousands doing a recording session. You don't want to be tied down to a record label, which is cool. But it meant spending your own money (whether it was from gigs or whether you all got an unsecured loan, etc). One of the people in your band is tech savvy and you are distributing the album both as a CD that people can have shipped to them and digitally.

Once your new album hits the public, what would you do? You need people to actually buy the album to recover your costs. Would you be upset that people are torrenting your album while you're still in the hole? Would you make an impassioned plea to the internet to help a fella out and actually buy the album?

Something that always bothers me about those who support piracy is that they rarely suggest a feasible alternative revenue stream. They just rail about how artists don't own the music, and how it's just these big corporations getting screwed so who cares.

I'm wondering, as we move forward and many artists are avoiding these record companies and contracts, how do you suggest artists make money? And don't say concerts. Concerts are not conducive to every type of musician as a revenue stream. I'm talking about, how do you make recordings profitable and therefore feasible for musicians?

[Ox]

I'm not sure what you mean here. How can you technically steal something when nothing is taken from anyones posession?
Can you steal an idea? Can you violate a patent? Can you steal a kiss? Larceny requires deprivation; other forms of theft do not. This isn't something copyright lawyers made up out of whole cloth. One of the oldest concepts of nonscarcity theft comes from animal husbandry: it's illegal to bring your cow into a pasture with another farmer's bull and use the bull to cover the cow. There's no scarcity there -- surely the bull would be delighted to get laid more often -- but it's still a form of theft.

[violent]

I'm not sure what you mean here. How can you technically steal something when nothing is taken from anyones posession?

This whole thing is a copyright issue, it has nothing to do with theft. That's just FUD from the copyright holders to create more drama. They are scared silly of the notion that their role as distributor isn't required anymore.

My personal experience is that people buy stuff if it's priced right and convenient enough. How hard can it be to offer high-quality encodings (with several options) at a lower price than physical media? The answer is, from a technical view, not hard at all, which means this whole debate is about politics, licensing and refusal to change.

Movies cost money to make. They charge certain amounts to cover expenses + profit. The idea that we can obtain said works for free isn't the brainchild of cleverness, it's theft. If you created a movie that you feel you should be paid for, would you not consider it theft when no one decides to pay you for your work yet they still obtain it?

[muddi900]

The sad thing is that you don't see that you don't have that right. It's the right of the content owner to decide how and when their content is disseminated, not yours. You have to wait? Tough!

I may not have the right, but I have the means. This is 2009. They can do something similar to the pirates and still generate revenue. As long as the local governments allow it, they can do it.

Sticking to tried and true business models is good, because there's no risk factor. But they can try to experiment. I am a legitimate customer waiting in line.

[Deadend]

I guess my real question is this:

Pretend you are a musician. You and your band have just invested thousands doing a recording session. You don't want to be tied down to a record label, which is cool. But it meant spending your own money (whether it was from gigs or whether you all got an unsecured loan, etc). One of the people in your band is tech savvy and you are distributing the album both as a CD that people can have shipped to them and digitally.

Once your new album hits the public, what would you do? You need people to actually buy the album to recover your costs. Would you be upset that people are torrenting your album while you're still in the hole? Would you make an impassioned plea to the internet to help a fella out and actually buy the album?

Something that always bothers me about those who support piracy is that they rarely suggest a feasible alternative revenue stream. They just rail about how artists don't own the music, and how it's just these big corporations getting screwed so who cares.

I'm wondering, as we move forward and many artists are avoiding these record companies and contracts, how do you suggest artists make money? And don't say concerts. Concerts are not conducive to every type of musician as a revenue stream. I'm talking about, how do you make recordings profitable and therefore feasible for musicians?
Concerts, merchandise and buying a digital copy anyway. Just because piracy is possible, and it's easy to do, some people will still pay if it's good. Making money off music when the media is free will require tours.

I also think that I haven't seen a good argument against download copies versus a library. It's just a perfect library, infinite copies of infinite content. It is the very idea of a library made better. Also, odds are good every piece of content you can get off Pirate Bay was once purchased, then whoever uploaded it is just letting me and everyone else in the world borrow a copy of it, at once, for as long as we want. Again, just stretching the idea of borrowing to the next level.

[Inspector Fowler]

Okay, Deadend, let's use that example and use mine at the same time.

You're in the hole $5,000 for a recording session. I buy ONE copy of your album and upload it to multiple torrent sessions.

Feel good about all the people with free copies? Infinite copies? Let's say your band is popular with the college scene, and you get a lot of play on student radio. Your entire demographic is not going to pay one fucking cent for your album because they all know where to get it for free. But hey, I paid for that ONE copy that they can all "borrow"...forever...at the same time.

Your library analogy is stupid. No offense. But at a library, for every copy that somebody is borrowing, the book was purchased. In other words, if 5 people have it checked out, there are 5 paid copies in existence. In your magic world, for every 1-infinity copies checked out, there was one purchase.

I'm a violinist. Tell me I'm going to make a lot of money off merchandising. I don't see a lot of you wearing Itzhak Perlman shirts or Joshua Bell jackets.

With music piracy, I just don't see how somebody can put something on the market, and say, "Please pay for this, it's mine and I need money for it." You end up with a free copy and think it's okay.

I mean, Christ, just because you can doesn't mean it's legal or even morally right! I could abuse my power as a cop and get away with it for a long time and it doesn't make it right. You could travel to a different city and murder a hobo and get away with it, that doesn't make it right. Lots of husbands hit their wives and never get in trouble, is that okay?

Seriously. Just talking about it frustrates me. It's stealing. You have come into possession of something for which payment was required, only you made no payment.

[DangerousDaze]

Your library analogy is stupid. No offense. But at a library, for every copy that somebody is borrowing, the book was purchased. In other words, if 5 people have it checked out, there are 5 paid copies in existence. In your magic world, for every 1-infinity copies checked out, there was one purchase.
Extremely well put. Thanks.

[muddi900]

Your library analogy is stupid. No offense. But at a library, for every copy that somebody is borrowing, the book was purchased. In other words, if 5 people have it checked out, there are 5 paid copies in existence. In your magic world, for every 1-infinity copies checked out, there was one purchase.


But those 5 copies are lent out hundred, if not thousands of times. So know, your rationale is wrong.

I agree, though, the Library example isn't applicable. Library media is paid for by either the libraries themselves or the benefactors, ie. state and private donors. Libraries provide a public service. There aren't any good libraries here :(

[Deadend]

Your library analogy is stupid. No offense. But at a library, for every copy that somebody is borrowing, the book was purchased. In other words, if 5 people have it checked out, there are 5 paid copies in existence. In your magic world, for every 1-infinity copies checked out, there was one purchase.
Yeah, except MY analogy is called THE REAL WORLD. Right now, that is how it works. I don't give a shit about someone's business model not being compatible with reality. If that concert violinist wants to make money, he better put on some fucking concerts.

Also, money can still be made and optionally charged. Girl Talk's 2008 album 'feed the animals' can be purchased off it's site for 0.00 or whatever amount you wish to pay.

[Raen]

I guess my real question is this:

Pretend you are a musician. You and your band have just invested thousands doing a recording session. You don't want to be tied down to a record label, which is cool. But it meant spending your own money (whether it was from gigs or whether you all got an unsecured loan, etc). One of the people in your band is tech savvy and you are distributing the album both as a CD that people can have shipped to them and digitally.

Once your new album hits the public, what would you do? You need people to actually buy the album to recover your costs. Would you be upset that people are torrenting your album while you're still in the hole? Would you make an impassioned plea to the internet to help a fella out and actually buy the album?

Something that always bothers me about those who support piracy is that they rarely suggest a feasible alternative revenue stream. They just rail about how artists don't own the music, and how it's just these big corporations getting screwed so who cares.

I'm wondering, as we move forward and many artists are avoiding these record companies and contracts, how do you suggest artists make money? And don't say concerts. Concerts are not conducive to every type of musician as a revenue stream. I'm talking about, how do you make recordings profitable and therefore feasible for musicians?

I interviewed the head of a very independent label (http://www.labrecords.co.uk) recently. By that I mean he's running a small, relatively successful label before he's finished University. He was telling me about how seeing stuff on Torrents is great, but he knows it hurts his bottom line like hell. When the money you make off of one CD is literally paying for the next one, you need all the money you get or you go under.

And yes musicians can make money off concerts and merch. I know a guy who's writing a dissertation on this. You can just about afford to pay for food and petrol to get to the next gig out of the last gig's money. That's if you're lucky. With that how are you supposed to pay for your next CD? Yes you can have part time jobs etc... (like most bands do). However the point where you're popular enough that you tour a lot, but not popular enough too live off the money yet is a tough one and where a lot of bands fail I think. If people aren't buying your CDs then that's another cost gone.

Yes it is possible to live off of merch and touring alone. It's just that getting to the point where you can survive off of it with low sales is very, very difficult. If you look at most bands that put out stuff for free or the Radiohead way, they all made their money years ago.

[total]

Can you steal an idea? Can you violate a patent? Can you steal a kiss? Larceny requires deprivation; other forms of theft do not. This isn't something copyright lawyers made up out of whole cloth. One of the oldest concepts of nonscarcity theft comes from animal husbandry: it's illegal to bring your cow into a pasture with another farmer's bull and use the bull to cover the cow. There's no scarcity there -- surely the bull would be delighted to get laid more often -- but it's still a form of theft.

Hey that's great but...

Copyright infringement, as it stands now, is not theft. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#Comparison_to_theft) As a lawyer (possibly not a copyright lawyer but still) I'd think you'd know this.

[Narradisall]

Well I don't see this thread going far or people changing their opinions either.

Regardless of where you sit on this one, this ruling won't stop pirarcy. Doubt it'll even slow it down. Until the big companies pushing these lawsuits realise this there will be no conclusion to it.

If they actually bothered to develop a great digital delivery system and got good artists in on it from the ground up, and stopped screwing over their cattle for the good cash cows they are, then you might see pirarcy dealt a blow.

Never happen though. They'll just continue to screw and sue.

[DangerousDaze]

If they actually bothered to develop a great digital delivery system and got good artists in on it from the ground up, and stopped screwing over their cattle for the good cash cows they are, then you might see pirarcy dealt a blow.

As long as people can get something for nothing they'll continue to do so, regardless of how the corporations adapt. Unfortunately that's human nature. The worrying thing is that according to some on this thread it's also perfectly acceptable.

[Narradisall]

As long as people can get something for nothing they'll continue to do so, regardless of how the corporations adapt. Unfortunately that's human nature. The worrying thing is that according to some on this thread it's also perfectly acceptable.

Very true, some will.

If I could watch shows at the same time as the rest of the world, then would I spend an hour downloading them? No.

I still pay for my TV and get those shows, but I just dislike having to wait months to see them for little good reason. I am aware some people don't pay for TV either, but they're just cheap bastards.

I'm not saying they'll stamp out pirarcy (I phrased it to suggest they never will), its just a matter of damage limitation, and personally I think they're going about it the entirely wrong way.

[Deadend]

As long as people can get something for nothing they'll continue to do so, regardless of how the corporations adapt. Unfortunately that's human nature. The worrying thing is that according to some on this thread it's also perfectly acceptable.

Human nature is not acceptable? Well, that is no good then.

[Inspector Fowler]

Let me restate this:

You have come into possession of something for which payment was required, only you made no payment.

How do you explain that? Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should. I agree 100% that the record companies need to start changing. Many artists have already started to realize that they can use the net to their advantage by winning a lot of fans there.

But if they want you to have their stuff for free, they can do so. Again, how do you reconcile that you have in your possession something that you were supposed to pay for, but did not pay at all?

[Goronmon]

Again, how do you reconcile that you have in your possession something that you were supposed to pay for, but did not pay at all?The same way you reconcile borrowing something from a friend that you normally would have to pay for.

[kyrieee]

Tingsrätten, the lowest instance of the swedish court, employs civilians whom are appointed by politicians to do the rulings. In higher instances of the court jurists are the ones doing the rulings and this lowest instance tends to be of little significance in bigger cases like these. (I'm not entirely sure of the terminology, but the 'nämndemän', as they're called, actually have a say in both the sentence and in deciding if someone's guilty or not. The judge is involved too ofc.)


The thing that I don't like about the whole piracy hunt, the trials, the coming legislations etc. is that it's driven by film and record label lobbyists. Just this month a law came into action (forced by the EU) that forces ISPs to give out names of filesharers (associated to certain IP addresses) to copyright holders.

There are two big problems with this. First of all, even the police do not have this right, because filesharing on a small scale is not a crime severe enough to justify the violation of privacy which this type of action involves. It's absurd that record labels get more authority than the police in something like this.

Secondly, these laws exist only to preserve the film and record industry but those industries have no right to exist. People have stopped buying CDs for the most part and they aren't going to start doing it again. It's done. The power of the lobby organizations in this case is really frightening.

I buy the vast majority of my entertainment, I really do, and I dislike the fact that I'm essentially paying to support other people's free downloads of this stuff, but something like copyright isn't an obvious thing. The cost of copying digitally stored information is nonexistent, which means that there's an endless supply of that information which leads to the value (price) of that information being zero.

[BlackPete]

Hey that's great but...

Copyright infringement, as it stands now, is not theft. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#Comparison_to_theft) As a lawyer (possibly not a copyright lawyer but still) I'd think you'd know this.

It's a lawyer's job to muddy and obfuscate the law. If the laws were simple and straightforward, then they'd be out of business. ;)

[DangerousDaze]

The same way you reconcile borrowing something from a friend that you normally would have to pay for.

So why is your friend trying to take you to court? Obviously because your friend didn't want you to borrow it in the first place. There's a word for that and it's not "borrow".

[Goronmon]

So why is your friend trying to take you to court? Obviously because your friend didn't want you to borrow it in the first place. There's a word for that and it's not "borrow".I'm not sure what this post has to do with the discussion...unless you were just trying to be cute.

[DangerousDaze]

I'm not sure what this post has to do with the discussion...unless you were just trying to be cute.

And still you have no idea why you're in the wrong.

[Inspector Fowler]

I will say this as simply as I can. It will not be pretty.

Stop justifying. You are thieves. If you would admit that you are stealing, I would not have a problem with it. You are stealing. You have music that you did not pay for.

I can't make it any more clear. I won't post in this thread again, because you guys are clearly not about to grow a set of morals.

There is right and there is wrong. Pirating music is wrong. If you can truly rationalize it in your head, then you have a warped moral compass. To you right and wrong aren't fixed, they change depending on your circumstances.

You're also the person who thinks it's okay to cheat on taxes, sleep around if your wife doesn't know, and drive away if you bump somebody's car in a parking lot. You might not think you're "that guy" but if you can't admit it's wrong and that you do it anyway, then you are.

[kyrieee]

Wow, you're not willing to discuss it because you know the truth if someone doesn't agree with you they're wrong? All because you say so?

[Goronmon]

I can't make it any more clear. I won't post in this thread again, because you guys are clearly not about to grow a set of morals.I'm a bit perplexed by this response. Was no one supposed to answer your question? You asked how one might reconcile having possession of something without paying for it, and I gave a response to how one might reconcile the situation.

Was my response supposed to be one where I decry any and all forms of piracy, and express how I think anyone who engages in any form of piracy is immoral and should be thrown in jail?

[Generation ABXY]

My rationale would be, it is not the music that is the scarcity, but rather the creator. Sure, now they are basically infinite copies of their music, but if someone doesn't pay for them, he is going to stop making it.

Even putting that aside concerts (which I tend to think raise awareness for albums), how do you reconcile the difference when it comes to, say, book authors or programs? Say the next Bill Gates creates the next Windows and, rather than buy it, you download it for free – what exactly does he get for his effort?

[Johan]

The whole discussion is over a distinction without any substantive difference. Whether you call it copyright infringement or stealing or [insert moniker of choice], you don't have the right to take the product of others' labor without payment or their permission, period. Arguing over what to call it is not an argument over whether it is right or wrong, because whatever you call it, it is wrong, it is illegal, and even a child knows you don't take shit that you don't pay for or ask to take.

The true argument should be over how long content creators rights to control their content should extend, and what limits should be placed upon the fair use rights of legitimate content consumers. Those are both real issues with real problems right now.

Stop the fucking madness. It's Saturday, and I have a damned headache.

[Shadowstorm]

I guess my real question is this:

Pretend you are a musician. You and your band have just invested thousands doing a recording session. You don't want to be tied down to a record label, which is cool. But it meant spending your own money (whether it was from gigs or whether you all got an unsecured loan, etc). One of the people in your band is tech savvy and you are distributing the album both as a CD that people can have shipped to them and digitally.

Once your new album hits the public, what would you do? You need people to actually buy the album to recover your costs. Would you be upset that people are torrenting your album while you're still in the hole? Would you make an impassioned plea to the internet to help a fella out and actually buy the album?

Something that always bothers me about those who support piracy is that they rarely suggest a feasible alternative revenue stream. They just rail about how artists don't own the music, and how it's just these big corporations getting screwed so who cares.

I'm wondering, as we move forward and many artists are avoiding these record companies and contracts, how do you suggest artists make money? And don't say concerts. Concerts are not conducive to every type of musician as a revenue stream. I'm talking about, how do you make recordings profitable and therefore feasible for musicians?

I wouldn't make any fight against people who upload my content to file sharing sites. It's futile. The content is or will be there whether you like it or not - so I would embrace this. File sharing is one hell of a marketing tool for artists to leverage and as an artist, the goal is to play live, is it not? Artists make much, much more money on shows and merch than CDs ever will be able to provide. I would not rely on CDs as a primary source of income, I would rely on playing live. To me, an album in either physical/digital format is merely a promotional tool for my brand as a band, similar to merchandise or music videos. All in the name of promotion.

Secondly, I would make it as easy as possible for someone to buy said album. I'd sell my album for $7-14 dollars with artwork, and .pdf file containing information and details on how the album came to be and other things my fans would be interested in. On top of that, I would be flexible with that price, with sales on some day of the month, etc, where if you buy the album, you also get a shirt if you pay X amount more.

All these file sharing sites has opened me up to many, many new artists, and as a peer, I am now a fan, and I may have not bought their CD, but you can be assured that I would definitely go out of my way to go to a concert of theirs when they pass through my area. Without file sharing, again, I may not have bought their CD, but otherwise I wouldn't be a fan because I would not have heard their music in the first place!

I advocate people sharing my content, because it's that many more people who know about me and my musical endeavors. And the people who actually do visit my website and pay for the album? That's just the topping on the cake - the primary way of making money is by touring, not by CD sales!

[Whunpo]

Here's the way I see piracy.
Yes. It is wrong. I am getting something for free which I did not pay for. I am stealing money from someone who worked hard to earn it.
However, I don't feel very sorry for them. Why? It's because of the way they're trying to deal with it. When piracy becomes a problem for their profits, they don't decide to find some sort of solution that benefits the consumer. They decide to try to scare the consumer away from piracy by creating some huge fine that nobody could ever pay.
However, there are people who are trying their damnedest to find a middle ground for the consumer and the producer. Trent Reznor, Radiohead and countless indie artists have had a HUGE amount of success by giving away their music for free. Hulu is another service trying to find a middle ground that benefits everyone. I use Hulu whenever I can, but for everything else, I must find a way to get it illegally. By not putting their content on Hulu, they are losing my purchase.
So yeah, I'm a pirate. I'm a thief, and in your eyes I'm destroying the recording industry. But in my eyes I'm fixing it.

[Sl1pstream]

So yeah, I'm a pirate. I'm a thief, and in your eyes I'm destroying the recording industry. But in my eyes I'm fixing it.

I could understand the idea of not harming the industry because you wouldn't have bought it anyway, but fixing the industry? Really? How?

I don't know if you've noticed but piracy doesn't exactly make them change their minds and fix things.

[Mr. Murphy]

I download TV shows so I can watch them when I want to, but I have cable, so I don't consider it stealing. I download music I want to hear, and if I like it, I add the CD to my collection - so to me it's no different than listening to a track on amazon, it just gives me a little more control. I download movies, but I delete them after I watch them, and since I pay for Netflix every month, I don't see the difference between downloading something and waiting for it to show up on my door - I've paid to watch it, but this way I don't have to wait. So I've never felt bad about a thing I've pirated, because nobody has ever lost a cent on me downloading shit.

But that's just me.

[Carnifex]

A typical AAA game costs millions of dollars to develop and that money has to be recouped (plus more, or else what is the incentive to develop in the first place?). By playing that game without paying you are depriving the investor of his return and you're damaging the industry in the process.
What about borrowing or trading a game from a friend? Or buying it used? Those actions are just as damaging, but we don't send people to jail for them or charge fines.

I predict that there's a programming revolution coming, and it will be driven by the content producers, not the freeloading consumers. TV is going to change radically. It won't be for the better, and it'll be your own fault.
I predict that TV as we know it will disappear, and that will be for the better.

I'm wondering, as we move forward and many artists are avoiding these record companies and contracts, how do you suggest artists make money? And don't say concerts. Concerts are not conducive to every type of musician as a revenue stream. I'm talking about, how do you make recordings profitable and therefore feasible for musicians?
Some bands have adapted and embraced the new digital age and done pretty well for themselves (like Killola). There is also the possibility that recordings in the traditional sense (albums) is becoming obsolete. Artists too need to adapt when the world changes. There are always ways to generate revenue, but how to do that might not be obvious when there's a paradigm shift.

Can you steal an idea? Can you violate a patent? Can you steal a kiss? Larceny requires deprivation; other forms of theft do not. This isn't something copyright lawyers made up out of whole cloth. One of the oldest concepts of nonscarcity theft comes from animal husbandry: it's illegal to bring your cow into a pasture with another farmer's bull and use the bull to cover the cow. There's no scarcity there -- surely the bull would be delighted to get laid more often -- but it's still a form of theft.
I have no knowledge of US law, but in my eyes that's not theft. You are probably in breach of a lot of things; social contracts, laws, agreements. But unless that bull is a weird mutant that can only shoot his load once that's not theft.

(Also, can you really own (in the possess an item sense) living things? It's an interesting question.)

Movies cost money to make. They charge certain amounts to cover expenses + profit. The idea that we can obtain said works for free isn't the brainchild of cleverness, it's theft. If you created a movie that you feel you should be paid for, would you not consider it theft when no one decides to pay you for your work yet they still obtain it?
If no one wants to support my work I have done a very poor job of marketing and of supplying it in a form and at a price they want. It could also be a sign that they don't want my work. Most forms of entertainment are after all not strictly necessary, and very little of what is out there can be said to be contributing to society.

I'm sure many of you will get bent out of shape by that last statement, but consider this: If you removed 90% of the (mostly passive and mindless) entertainment you get bombarded with every day from your life, what would the effect be? After the withdrawal phase, that is. :p

Hey that's great but...

Copyright infringement, as it stands now, is not theft. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#Comparison_to_theft) As a lawyer (possibly not a copyright lawyer but still) I'd think you'd know this.
This needs repeating.

[Shadowstorm]

I guess what I am trying to say is that artists should not be relying strictly on CD sales as the primary source of income. There is no excuse for an artist to sign to a major label these days. The majors are not interested in you as an artist output, they are interested in you in the strictest sense as a product and nothing more. They are looking to extract from you the most amount of income as they possibly can. To me, this is very cold and calculating at best. I've discussed this with many people and it always boils down to an issue of promotion for unsigned artists. I mean, didn't My Bloody Valentine's label almost go out of business trying to finish up with Loveless? And that record is still hailed today as one of the essential records in shoegaze. To me, this is a testament to these independent labels. They really do care about you as a musical output, and not in some cold, twisted way like how the majors look at you.

All these file sharing sites just act as distributors of content and there's no cost associated with this for the artist.

Embrace file sharing.

[kyrieee]

Johan, while I agree that if someone wishes to not share something with the world they should have that right, but if they do want to share it things get a bit more complicated

If I have bought a CD it would seem absurd if I can only play it so that no one else hears. In front of how many people can I play it? At a large party? On the street? Only for non-commercial purposes? In essence, filesharing isn't different from playing a song to your friend. In a lot of cases that's exactly what it is (someone just sending you a tune). The supposed wrongdoing only emerges from the sum of small actions which aren't really wrong on their own.

Why does someone have the right to charge for information? I mean really, question it. The answer is probably that they spent effort creating it, but that might not even be the case. Even if they created something in a fraction of a second with no effort people would still argue for their right to charge for it (I imagine).

The whole concept of intellectual property is really vague. Patent and copyright laws exist to help the financial viability of creating information and intellectual property, but laws aren't morals. Rights are given to people by other people. Someone only has the right to charge for something if other people give that person that right.

You can't own information, you can't contain it. Copyright is just an artificial construct. If I see an image someone has taken, can I take a picture of it? Can I draw a picture of it? How many people can I show that too? Copyright doesn't have a tangible basis in reality, it's just something in place to allow people to make money off of something and modern technology has revealed the absurdity in that.

If you have bits on a computer they're just bits, you can't distinguish between them. To say that you can copy certain bits and not others makes no sense.

I respect that creators should have the exclusive right to make money off of their creations, but they don't have the right to make money off of them (I mean nobody else should make money off of them). I buy the vast majority of my games because I like to show my support to the developers so they can keep doing what they do and I feel good about paying them but I don't really think they have the right to say that someone can't make a copy of their stuff. It's just not realistic to maintain that approach

I mean, it doesn't work. Filesharing is everywhere. Even if you believe in copyright you really gotta start thinking new thoughts. You can't contain information

[Mr. Murphy]

On the other hand, if you made every movie, book, CD, game and TV show available to people for free and told them they only had to pay if they wanted to... people would make a lot less money. That's why I pride myself on paying for things I enjoy, even if I already have them for free, but I will freely admit there are a lot of people who would never feel that need to pay if they didn't have to.

[Gwinny]

Just consider for a moment objective reality, outside of any questions about illegality and immorality: the genie is out of the bottle. Like atomic fission, like aerodynamics, like fire. What's going on now is the equivalent of trying to bully and legislate away the use of fire. The days when there was a cushy monopoly over distribution channels is over, and try as they might the genie will never get stuffed back into its lamp.

What does an artist do, now that this artificial monopoly is over? Now I'll just indulge in my own opinions. If they're smart, they go Jonathan Coulton's route or follow the example of Radiohead; cut out the middleman and set up a way to collect money directly from the fanbase to the artist. Also, lower their stupidly inflated expectations, which have been fed by the corporate mechanics of the current distribution system.

A bunch of suits who have never generated a note of music in their lives will stop being made millionaires off of artists. Boo hoo. What of the artists?

If you make a good product, you deserve to be rewarded for it. This is why I pay - whether through digital music services, watching ads, whatever - for every bit of content that I ingest. However, we can't all pretend that the world doesn't change sometimes in fundamental ways that leave certain segments of people out in the cold. I imagine candle makers were pissed when Swan invented the light bulb. I imagine professional scribes were pissed when literacy started spreading. It happens. For monopolized distribution of music, its time has come. There will still be artists doing what they do for the love of it, but just as there is no way someone can now make a lavish living hand-illustrating and transcribing manuscripts, there will be few super-rich rock stars.

[Carnifex]

There is right and there is wrong. Pirating music is wrong. If you can truly rationalize it in your head, then you have a warped moral compass. To you right and wrong aren't fixed, they change depending on your circumstances.
History teaches us that morals and the notion of right and wrong aren't fixed, but changes with time, culture and context. There is nothing absolute about neither morals or laws. They are both created by mankind and can be changed by mankind depending on our needs and wants.

You're also the person who thinks it's okay to cheat on taxes, sleep around if your wife doesn't know, and drive away if you bump somebody's car in a parking lot. You might not think you're "that guy" but if you can't admit it's wrong and that you do it anyway, then you are.
I don't cheat on my taxes, would never cheat on my wife, and take responsibility when bumping into a car. I also download music and TV series. I guess the world isn't so black and white after all.

The true argument should be over how long content creators rights to control their content should extend, and what limits should be placed upon the fair use rights of legitimate content consumers. Those are both real issues with real problems right now.
True. If I remember correctly some lobbyists in the US are trying to change the laws such that copyright owners can legally renew their copyright after it expires, which means they effectively have perpetual copyright. I believe that will only harm cultural development.

Patents were originally created to share knowledge and give the patent holder a head start to make a business of it. I see copyright on creative works in much the same way. Give the artist the opportunity to do business, and then release the work to the public. What length of time it should be is open for discussion. Maybe some sort of dynamic system is possible?

Luckily it seems that DRM for music is slowly going away. It took a while, but when people realized they weren't in control of how they could play their legally purchased files they began to understand why fair use rights are important.

Stop the fucking madness. It's Saturday, and I have a damned headache.
You do realize you can close the browser window and step away from the computer? :p

[Carnifex]

kyrieee and JRR006, excellent posts! Great food for thought, even for those who don't agree.

[Sl1pstream]

There is no excuse for an artist to sign to a major label these days.

Except for the fact that they can't sell albums like they used to because everyone's okay with stealing their music, as long as they can call it something else.

Yeah, there's Radiohead and NiN who are distributing their stuff online for free. Then again, they already made a ton of money throughout their careers and can afford that.

Creative Commons works, but not everyone can create a hype like Coulton or Paul & Storm have.

[Shadowstorm]

Except for the fact that they can't sell albums like they used to because everyone's okay with stealing their music, as long as they can call it something else.

Yeah, there's Radiohead and NiN who are distributing their stuff online for free. Then again, they already made a ton of money throughout their careers and can afford that.

Creative Commons works, but not everyone can create a hype like Coulton or Paul & Storm have.

Didn't you block me? Don't posts by people on one's ignored list not show up? :P

Except for the fact that they can't sell albums like they used toTrue.

Except for the fact that they can't sell albums like they used to because everyone's okay with stealing their music,

You can't honestly say that the only factor that determines whether an album sells like "they used to" is piracy.
People illegally download stuff that is signed to major labels? :P

there's Radiohead and NiN who are distributing their stuff online for free.I see no reason why Radiohead would want or have to release another album just like In Rainbows. The Radiohead thing was just an experiment. Radiohead simply allowed you, the fan, to enter the amount that you wanted to pay for that album. Trent Reznor actually had a pricing structure with Ghosts. The Slip? That was just a thank you to the fans. Somehow, I doubt Radiohead would ever release an album purely for free as a thank you.

The issue for unsigned artists here is simply a matter of promotion. It's entirely feasible and possible to attain mainstream popularity without major label support with the advent of the Internet and social networking.

[Raen]

There is no excuse for an artist to sign to a major label these days.

Really? A band from my home town was rumoured to receive £1 million as a signing bonus (I'd imagine it was actually 10% of that, but still). That's an awful lot of money. Seems like a great reason to me.

Or how a bit getting some of the worlds best producers to come and work on your albums? Recording time is getting cheaper now, but producers still cost a lot of money. And being signed to a label gets you the contacts to be able to get the best producers, regardless of the money factor.

Those are two pretty good reasons off the top of my head.

[Shadowstorm]

Really? A band from my home town was rumoured to receive £1 million as a signing bonus (I'd imagine it was actually 10% of that, but still). That's an awful lot of money. Seems like a great reason to me.

Or how a bit getting some of the worlds best producers to come and work on your albums? Recording time is getting cheaper now, but producers still cost a lot of money. And being signed to a label gets you the contacts to be able to get the best producers, regardless of the money factor.

Those are two pretty good reasons off the top of my head.

The military also gives you a bonus for signing up. Do you still sign up?

Secondly, I said major labels. Not independent labels. Thirdly, if your album is shit, no amount of mastering/mixing or what have you by the "world's best producers" will change that. Fourthly, it's entirely possible to have a great sounding record without the help of the "world's best producers". Fifthly, what are the chances of you, one band in a sea of bands on the major label, will ever get said producers?

Major labels treat your output strictly as a product. They don't give a damn about you as an artistic output. They don't give a damn about you growing as an artist. It's about money. Money talks. Like I said before, this to me is very cold and calculating. Allow me to quote myself:

The majors are not interested in you as an artist output, they are interested in you in the strictest sense as a product and nothing more. They are looking to extract from you the most amount of income as they possibly can. To me, this is very cold and calculating at best.

I've discussed this with many people and it always boils down to an issue of promotion for unsigned artists. I mean, didn't My Bloody Valentine's label almost go out of business trying to finish up with Loveless? And that record is still hailed today as one of the essential records in shoegaze. To me, this is a testament to these independent labels. They really do care about you as a musical output, and not in some cold, twisted way like how the majors look at you.

[BlackPete]

I will say this as simply as I can. It will not be pretty.

Stop justifying. You are thieves. If you would admit that you are stealing, I would not have a problem with it. You are stealing. You have music that you did not pay for.

I have no idea who you were talking to, and I guess I don't really care but this is my whole stance on this issue:

When you're shaking your dick after taking a piss, don't shake it so hard from righteous indignation that you cover me with your urine.

A bad precedent is a bad precedent, and it WILL hurt innocent people eventually.

[Raen]

The military also gives you a bonus for signing up. Do you still sign up?

Secondly, I said major labels. Not independent labels. Thirdly, if your album is shit, no amount of mastering/mixing or what have you by the "world's best producers" will change that. Fourthly, it's entirely possible to have a great sounding record without the help of the "world's best producers". Fifthly, what are the chances of you, one band in a sea of bands on the major label, will ever get said producers?

Major labels treat your output strictly as a product. They don't give a damn about you as an artistic output. They don't give a damn about you growing as an artist. It's about money. Money talks. Like I said before, this to me is very cold and calculating. Allow me to quote myself:

You said good reasons. A large signing bonus is a good reason. I didn't say it meant you had to do it, but it's a good reason.

Did I mention independent labels specifically in my post? And yes I know it is possible to sound good without the worlds best producers. I know that I, personally, can make a band sound okish. Nowhere near studio quality, but not bad for a bedroom recording. If your album is shit it is actually possible for a producer to make it sound better. For example in pre-production. Additionally if a label wants to make money from the band, which as you correctly point out is what they want, then they are likely to try and get you a decent producer. Maybe not for your first album, but once you've proven yourself as an investment. And I know there are small bands out there who sound great who want to work with top producers.

Of course just because there are, what I consider valid, reasons to sign to a major it doesn't mean it is necessary. I will go with you there. For example Enter Shikari are on a Ambush Reality, a label they founded. Their first album reached number 4 in the UK chart. That's a pretty significant level of success.

[Shadowstorm]

Yes. I can guarantee that Enter Shikari is not the only band to attain mainstream popularity without major label support. Arctic Monkeys did it. Ok Go! did it. Several other bands have done it.

In the case of Ok Go!, it only took one video hosted on YouTube with the band members performing dance-like motions as they move through, around, and on treadmills. That video traveled like wild fire throughout the intarwebs shortly after being posted: 45 million+ views and counting ... that's nothing to sneeze at.

Again, the issue for unsigned artists is a matter of promotion. I can write out a most likely long winded and lengthy post detailing how bands can attain a reasonable amount of popularity, but I'll see where this thread goes before doing that.

[Raen]

Yes. I can guarantee that Enter Shikari is not the only band to attain mainstream popularity without major label support. Arctic Monkeys did it. Ok Go! did it. Several other bands have done it.

In the case of Ok Go!, it only took one video hosted on YouTube with the band members performing dance-like motions as they move through, around, and on treadmills. That video traveled like wild fire throughout the intarwebs shortly after being posted: 45 million+ views and counting ... that's nothing to sneeze at.

Again, the issue for unsigned artists is a matter of promotion. I can write out a most likely long winded and lengthy post detailing how bands can attain a reasonable amount of popularity, but I'll see where this thread goes before doing that.

I just picked an example that I was familiar with.

[Generation ABXY]

The military also gives you a bonus for signing up. Do you still sign up?

Are you going to go fight in a war anyway?

[Xerxes]

I guess what I am trying to say is that artists should not be relying strictly on CD sales as the primary source of income. There is no excuse for an artist to sign to a major label these days. The majors are not interested in you as an artist output, they are interested in you in the strictest sense as a product and nothing more. They are looking to extract from you the most amount of income as they possibly can. To me, this is very cold and calculating at best. I've discussed this with many people and it always boils down to an issue of promotion for unsigned artists. I mean, didn't My Bloody Valentine's label almost go out of business trying to finish up with Loveless? And that record is still hailed today as one of the essential records in shoegaze. To me, this is a testament to these independent labels. They really do care about you as a musical output, and not in some cold, twisted way like how the majors look at you.

All these file sharing sites just act as distributors of content and there's no cost associated with this for the artist.

Embrace file sharing.


Sounds like some folks think everyone should be afraid of piracy rather than embracing your options if you are a artist.

From one of Fowler's example, if you know it's students downloading your music, you know where the money is. Go on fucking tour to campuses and homecomings and stop whining about the CD. It's basically crying over spelt milk that was destined to spill. It's going to happen, so you have to embrace it and make that shit work for you. You can't sue everyone.

Still leave the option out there for purchases, but you can't rely on that. There are tons of people out there who have tried free delivery systems. Some of those already have huge fan bases but they still do it. Hell, put it on your own website, and try to folks to donate or buy merchandise. I wouldn't shut out Itunes or other methods people who just want to buy and it be done with me.

It's still piracy and still theft of sorts, but music artist have options.

[Whunpo]

I could understand the idea of not harming the industry because you wouldn't have bought it anyway, but fixing the industry? Really? How?

I don't know if you've noticed but piracy doesn't exactly make them change their minds and fix things.

Well, I suppose saying that I'm fixing it is exaggerating. However, I don't believe in supporting a broken system. If you don't think that a change in the way albums are sold you're kidding yourself. Piracy isn't going to stop. There is nothing the law can do about it, and there's nothing the music industry can do to stop it besides finding a reason for people to WANT to buy their music. Threating to sue people isn't the way to do it.
I'm sure they'll figure something out eventually.

[Deadend]

Some people will pay, some people won't. Artists are still much better off as a whole thanks to free music downloading than before. As up until Napster, it was HARD to find new music and you had to either know someone with the disc, hear it on the radio or spend money to try new shit. Now, thanks to piracy, there is no risk and people are giving music they would have never tried before a listen, because the only thing they have to lose is time. A small portion of that number goes on to give money to the band.

Music piracy hurt Metallica, but it MADE Dragonforce.

All they really need to do now is make Ticketmaster/LiveNation die, as that could bring mid tier and up ($10+) concerts attended by a hundred people up to a good amount of money, by giving the artists a better cut of the ticket money. Fans also love merchandise.

I don't see myself buying a physical CD again (they take up space) but an autographed CD? Possibly, or maybe access to a forum that only people who bought the CD can post on? Who knows exactly, everything should be tried.

It's not like piracy can be sued away, and it should be instead thought of as a competing product. An artist needs to make make a list of pluses and minuses for a fan to pirate or purchase, then start putting some things to give pluses to purchasing. Throw in a coupon for saving a couple bucks on a t-shirt, or for lower prices at a concert, maybe get a guitar pick used by the guitarist, or a voicemail message thanking your for buying the CD.

People are greedy fucks, if they can get the same exact product for free, they will take it, so you have to give them something they will WANT to buy. Which means things that can't be digital or CD-Key features, you could have CD buyers get access to listen to bits from studio sessions each week that the band is recording a new album.

Other media can do similar things. Game publishers should be leveraging their MMOs. EA had a great idea with Warhammer Online and the Red Alert 2 hat. It was a pre-order bonus for buying Red Alert 2 that gave players a code to receive a Cossack Hat that let them turn into a bear, it existed just for kicks but it was such a great idea. So why not do that for every game? WoW even has a system in place for it with the codes from Blizcon and trading cards. Why not get a unique code for a lv80 (but not epic) gun that looks like a M-16 when you buy Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2? Or if you buy Brutal Legend you get a Axe that has a few guitar strings for Warhammer?

People just need a little push into paying for a product. Most of them will be perfectly content to just get it for free, and nothing to be done about the new reality. But if no effort is really made to woo them away from Something For Nothing then there is no one to blame except for themselves.

[DangerousDaze]

This is a pretty futile argument because many of you believe it's your god-given right get everything for free and that's never going to change. Someone even suggested that the content producers shouldn't even have to right to own their own content for fuck's sake.

One thing that a lot of you have brought up is Radiohead's "In Rainbows" album which they offered on their website for whatever people decided to pay for it. You seem to be hailing this as a success and the future of the record industry. Is it?
Radiohead have never said how much money they received during that experiment. Why not? If it was such a success and the way of the future they should be shouting it from the rooftops.
ComScore (an internet research group) stated (http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9814155-7.html) that 62% of people who downloaded "In Rainbows" did so for free. Of course Radiohead disagreed and said ComScore were wrong, but see the first point. And the last.
Radiohead's management stated (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/arts/music/09pare.html?_r=1&pagewanted=3) "This was a solution to a series of issues ... I doubt it would work the same way ever again." So does that mean that they won't be offering future albums the same way? If so, why not?

/edit - Who knows, maybe they will. We'll just have to wait and see.

[Hotcod]

Daze your forgetting a few important issues. Mainly that artists, more so new ones, see very little money from the album sales. With advances and a crap load of other stuff that you have to "pay back" the label for an awful lot of bands in fact end up still in debt to the label after the first album. Even when they get in to profit it's really a small % of the overall album price that the band will see. Most small and new bands make most of the money they see from merch and touring.

A band like radiohead is clearly going to be making MORE money from an album than a smaller band. Not only will they have new or resigned contracts that do not exploit them nearly as much due to the fact they are a big band they have a huge fan base who know they like the band and will likely buy an album at retail for free. So even if radio head made a loss it's not a clear indicator of how these things go for the vast majority of bands.

My advice to bands these days is to record and digitally realise a EP or small album for free. With enough self promotion touring and pushing of merch while you may not make all that much money you should, if your good, put your self in a strong bargaining stand point when you have to make the choice about doing your own priced album or going to a label. These days an unsigned "unknown" band can go to a label with a large fan base and proof that people come see them and sales of merch and maybe if you've charged for EPs a history of making money from selling tracks. Which used to almost never happen.

Unlike a lot of people i do think that labels are still important and needed but the "power" has shifted hugely and the ways they make money need to change or they will die. The days of the huge label making or braking bands and bands getting utterly utterly screwed just for the chance to make an album are over and the industry is yet to catch up to what that means.

[Shadowstorm]

Okay, bear with me here.

http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/9678/contentconsumption.png

Series 1 represents people who consume content by illegally downloading it; they do not pay. Series 2 represents people who pay for content. Series 3 represents people who have no desire to consume content so they do not pay either way. The goal of the corporation is to get as many people buying their product as possible, correct? This affects Series 3 directly and Series 2 indirectly: in this case, the goal of the corporation is to get Series 3's representation in this image lower, because they want more people buying said product. Is everyone with me so far?

Series 1, again, represents people who do not pay for the content that they consume. We can further break this down as illustrated here:

http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/7434/image2vng.png

In this image, both Series 1 and 2 represent all people who consume content through illegal means without paying for said content. Series 1 represents people who will never, ever pay for content. These are the hardcore pirates, the cheapskates, and I speculate, also the most tech-savvy. This represents 1-10% of all people who do not pay for the content (a very, very small amount), so in effect, it is 1% of 10% of 100%. 1% representing people who will never pay no matter what and still consume, 10% of people that will pay (they just need a little bump, read below), and 100%, the total amount of consumers. The corporation cannot reach this 1% (hardcore pirates) of 10% (casual pirates) of people.

Series 2 represents people that the corporation can reach; these group of people just need a gentle bump into paying for the content that they consume, whether it be music, movies, games, or any other media that can be acquired either on the Internet or in real life.

Now, in the case of music, my suggestion to these corporations, Warner, EMI, Universal, and Sony BMG (often called The Big Four) is to alter your business in such a way where you can adapt to the changing needs and wants of consumers of content that you sell. Sounds reasonable. Do we still use horse and buggies when we have cars? See, the issue here is simply that we have a huge split in ideas and ways of how we as consumers consume the content that these media companies sell. The corporations are comfortable with doing things one way and the rest of the world is not. The split occurs when said corporations resist the change and refuse to come up with a new business model. Sure, maybe you won't be making as much money because:



In 80's and 90's, these corporations were the only gateway for you as an artist to attain mainstream popularity, and therefore,
Said corporations built their business model like a casino: a maze for artists to weave through so ultimately it becomes a machine where the major label will make more money than you, as an artist, ever will.
There are several different ways that people can consume these media corps' content with the advent of the Internet; ways that prior to the Internet, simply did not exist.

I am sure there are more factors in determining why exactly these music corporations in general will not make as much money as they used to. I can't really speak to the games (think digital distribution), movie (downloadable movies w/o DRM), book (e-book, e-reading) industries as fluently because I don't have the knowledge that I do with the music industry.

Ultimately, it comes down to an issue of how to sell products when people can get them for free. My suggestion is to offer freebies, coupons, gimmicks, and so forth to entice and pull in the "casual pirates", otherwise known as Series 2 in the graph above. With enough determination, effort, common sense, and critical thinking on the part of the corporations, I am confident that said corporation can also make some people in Series 1 drift to Series 2, and then to actual paying customers.

The issue here for the corporation now, is to treat their consumers like adults (not criminals). This is especially evident with all this DRM bullshit, that only serves to hurt legitimate paying customers and doesn't perform a damn effect to the pirates. That's why DRM sucks. The solution here then is to provide a better product than the pirates, something that is entirely feasible and possible. With DRM, the picture is:

http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/8339/image3qcm.png

Series 1 = legitimate consumers.

The Series 2, in this case, the pirates, don't even make the graph! That's just how ridiculous the notion of DRM is.

[Sl1pstream]

You might want to mention a source or something. Everyone can come up with graphs without data supporting them.

[Shadowstorm]

You might want to mention a source or something. Everyone can come up with graphs without data supporting them.

I was merely illustrating what many people have been saying all along in this thread except in graph-form.

[Shrinn]

How come people keep bringing up what the companies should do as if it's a defense to piracy? Ways to make more people buy their shit doesn't make piracy any less taking shit without paying for it.

I pirate, sometimes. But I don't consider downloading an episode that just aired piracy. It's just recording it via the internet to watch at a later time.

[Sl1pstream]

I was merely illustrating what many people have been saying all along in this thread except in graph-form.

So you basically read the thread, pulled some numbers from your ass and decided to combine both of those in a graph?

[Shadowstorm]

So you basically read the thread, pulled some numbers from your ass and decided to combine both of those in a graph?

Nope! You can even ignore the vertical/horizontal axises (the %'s), and those graphs still make sense. The lines in each graph are meant to be as straight as possible. No numbers are involved, just generalizations.

Perhaps I should have clarified that beforehand.

[Doogie2K]

Music piracy hurt Metallica, but it MADE Dragonforce.

Did it? I thought GH3 made them, to be perfectly honest. It's how I heard of them.

This is a pretty futile argument because many of you believe it's your god-given right get everything for free and that's never going to change. Someone even suggested that the content producers shouldn't even have to right to own their own content for fuck's sake.

Actually, I think most people are saying, "you can't stop piracy, so you might as well try new ways to entice people away from it instead of wasting millions on lawsuits." That's not a defence of piracy, that's an acceptance of facts beyond the reasonable legal control of anyone -- person, corporation, or government -- and a suggestion that content creators adapt to the new reality rather than try to restore the old one, because if we've learned anything in the last ten years (yes, it's been that long since Napster started up), it's that it ain't happening.

[kyrieee]

Did it? I thought GH3 made them, to be perfectly honest. It's how I heard of them.

I think the reason they got into GH3 was because it became a really popular song to play in GH2 through the various means people played custom songs in that game

[Deadend]

I think the reason they got into GH3 was because it became a really popular song to play in GH2 through the various means people played custom songs in that game

A song that was only known outside of a small number of people due to piracy.

But Doogie did give us a nice short version of it. That piracy can't and won't go away, trying to legislate it away is stupid and a waste of time.

[DangerousDaze]

That piracy can't and won't go away, trying to legislate it away is stupid and a waste of time.

Why stop there? Crime in general won't ever go away so why bother with making law?

[Deadend]

Why stop there? Crime in general won't ever go away so why bother with making law?

Huh there is no dramatic eyeroll emoticon.

[Raen]

Huh there is no dramatic eyeroll emoticon.

No I wouldn't say that's over dramatic in any way. There are crimes far lower down than copyright infringement that are never going to leave us alone. Should we not legislate them either?

[Generation ABXY]

What I don't understand is why people can't respect the decision that the artists make. Nobody is forcing musicians to sign to a major label and, as people have said in this very thread, there may be better ways to go about it today. However, they are still signing – they've made a conscious decision to form an alliance with these people. If you don't like that, that's fine – don't listen to their music. It is as simple as that. I'm sure there are plenty of other artist out there who make their work available to the public for free, or at least not through a major label; limit your pool of music to them

As we've seen, you're not going to affect change this way...or at least, not the kind of change you want to see. Instead, you've caused the companies to get vicious and you've perhaps even given them the impression that the artists they are signing are not worth the money, meaning they'll either drop them or take less chances on future talent. While the artists could pursue other avenues, I imagine there are a fair number of otherwise talented people who may just give up. Everyone loses.

[Shadowstorm]

Well, I would think that many artists sign to these major labels because of their monolithic presence in society. These labels are huge so people just naturally gravitate towards them. Secondly, we do not know how many of those artists sign knowing the things that many people have been discussing about in this thread.

[ShivaX]

Well, I would think that many artists sign to these major labels because of their monolithic presence in society. These labels are huge so people just naturally gravitate towards them. Secondly, we do not know how many of those artists sign knowing the things that many people have been discussing about in this thread.

Yeah I bet most artists would rather work for free.

Oh wait, they can. If they don't want to sign with a label they can put their music on youtube and everyone can have it for free. If they want to say make a living with music they probably sign with a label so they can get paid for it. Or they can start a small website someplace and add a "Donations" button and hope for the best.

"My music is not yours to give away" -Maynard James Keenan

[Narradisall]

I find it oddly amusing that I'm willing to bet 100% of the UK anti-piracy brigade have probably broken copywrite laws.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not supporting piracy, but some people are taking this a little too much to heart.

[DangerousDaze]

I find it oddly amusing that I'm willing to bet 100% of the UK anti-piracy brigade have probably broken copywrite laws.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not supporting piracy, but some people are taking this a little too much to heart.

If you're referring to me there then I'd like to say that if I have it was without conscious action.

All of my music is purchased. All of my software is purchased (including the expensive stuff). I watch movies on Sky (which I pay a monthly fee for) or I buy them on Blu-Ray.

I buy this stuff safe in the knowledge that I can get support if I need it and that I'm helping fund future development/production. I also buy this stuff because it's supposed to be paid for.

[Narradisall]

Ah but Daze, I thought they'd already established ignorance is no defence? :)

It wasn't directed at you, I pay my sky all the same? Although I freely admit I download series I do get eventually purely based on the silly long wait times between done shows.

I also note some people are less than honest with their intentions.

I still maintain that as it stands now copywrite law is horridly outdated in the un at least and in need of an update, and as the way the music industry runs their business model and reacts to pirarcy they will only hurt themselves in the long run.

Especially with the way they dealt with the pirate bay.

[DangerousDaze]

Maybe it's because I'm an old bastard! I still remember having to wait months to find out who shot J.R. ("Who?" I hear most of you cry) so I don't mind waiting. I generally tend to buy whole seasons on DVD in any case and watch them in bulk.

I agree that something's going to have to change. Damned if I know what it is though or I'd make a killing.

[Narradisall]

JR, he was that president that was shot in the Ford theatre, right? :p

[Hemalin]

And the future of torrent searches is here, or rather has been around for quite some time.
http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=003849996876419856805:erhhdbygrma

[Shadowstorm]

And the future of torrent searches is here, or rather has been around for quite some time.
http://www.google.com/coop/cse?cx=003849996876419856805:erhhdbygrma

Or alternatively, google.com, type:torrent, enter search terms. At least for public sites.

[Deadend]

http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2002/12/11/piracy.html

Tim O'reily, years ago on p2p. That it's good for a vast majority of artists, many people will CHOOSE to pay, and the only ones that get hurt at all are megastars and the middlemen, which in this case are the publishers.

[Carnifex]

http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2002/12/11/piracy.html

Tim O'reily, years ago on p2p. That it's good for a vast majority of artists, many people will CHOOSE to pay, and the only ones that get hurt at all are megastars and the middlemen, which in this case are the publishers.
That was very well written, and just as valid today.

His thoughts on exploratory music listening through file sharing resulting in more music being bought is exactly what I have observed in myself and people I know. It affects the "megastars", yes, but only because focus is shifted to the smaller and more obscure artists. Just because we're not buying mainstream music (and from mainstream channels) doesn't mean we're not buying music at all.

[Ancalagon]

That was very well written, and just as valid today.

His thoughts on exploratory music listening through file sharing resulting in more music being bought is exactly what I have observed in myself and people I know. It affects the "megastars", yes, but only because focus is shifted to the smaller and more obscure artists. Just because we're not buying mainstream music (and from mainstream channels) doesn't mean we're not buying music at all.

Which is confirmed by this (http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/04/study-pirates-buy-tons-more-music-than-average-folks.ars) study.

[Deadend]

In defense of my own music piracy, I use Zune. It's music as service, not a product. Netflix is trying to get there with video, Gametap and OnLive are trying to do with games.

But Pirate Bay has almost everything on it. Well, of what is popular. It's the obscure shit that I want. Weird D-list movies from the early 1990s that never made it to DVD from studios that are now gone. The other 90,000 books a year. I want to be able to find the music of 'that guy I went to high school with's' band.

My honest fringe view is that EVERYTHING should be on the net, free to download, with a little "Buy It and Get a sticker in the mail" button.

[Widgetcraft]

Am I the only one who remembers this is in Sweden? One of the most liberal let-them-do-whatever-the-fuck-they-want countries on the planet?

I will be shocked, shocked I tell you, if this isn't overturned on appeal.

That depends on if the appeals court is just as easy to buy as the trial court.

Anyhow, I really have a hard time understanding why people around here rally to the defense of corporations who go out of their way to screw the general public. They go through life thinking only of themselves, and when other people do the same, they are vilified. I don't get it.

[DangerousDaze]

I really have a hard time understanding why people around here rally to the defense of corporations who go out of their way to screw the general public.
I'm not defending the big corporations. I just don't believe that their actions are a valid excuse for people to take something they're not entitled to.

This isn't a grey area. There's no fuzzy morality involved. You're supposed to pay for that stuff and you're not, and that's wrong. Don't blame the corporations.

[Jeffool]

My honest fringe view is that EVERYTHING should be on the net, free to download, with a little "Buy It and Get a sticker in the mail" button.Digital socialist, for lack of a better term. I'm all for it. If it CAN be copied/shared, it SHOULD be copied/shared.*

Also, for what it's worth, (US) copyright originally lasted fourteen years and could be renewed only once. After that time it fell into public domain to encourage people to continue to create. As the world quickens and the avenues for exploitation of a copyright have opened and eased drastically, it would make sense in my mind for that window of time to shorten, to encourage those same people to continue to make new things. The exact opposite has happened. Copyright lasts for _at least_ a lifetime now? To me, that's wrong. There is not JUST a 'fuzzy morality' here, there are far differing subjective viewpoints.

And yes, I know this isn't how things work, it's just how I want them to work. It's not complicated, it's just subjective.

/edit:
*My old comparison is the 'magic ray gun' analogy. It has two settings: copy, paste. If you hit 'copy', it retains memory of the exact thing it was aimed at. If you turn it to 'paste', then, when shot, it makes an exact replicate of what was last stored. It works just like copy/paste in a word processor, with physical objects. Why, with this, would we let anyone starve? Because they can't afford it? No, we'd feed them.

Why let anyone go without media when it's so easily duplicatable?

[Ox]

That depends on if the appeals court is just as easy to buy as the trial court.
I think it's kind of obnoxious to suggest that corruption was the motive here. Is it not possible that Swedish law simply made these folks clearly guilty?

Anyhow, I really have a hard time understanding why people around here rally to the defense of corporations who go out of their way to screw the general public. They go through life thinking only of themselves, and when other people do the same, they are vilified. I don't get it.
I guess if your only moral question is, "Are you self-interested?" then it would be difficult to understand. Possibly you might reflect that other people don't necessarily see all issues through such a simplistic prism. Or possibly we've all been bought.

[Goronmon]

This isn't a grey area. There's no fuzzy morality involved. You're supposed to pay for that stuff and you're not, and that's wrong. Don't blame the corporations.In your opinion. I don't like to repeat comments I've made but I'll do it anyways. I pirate anime. Due to my pirating of anime, I have spent hundreds of dollars on DVDs over the last couple years. Except by your definition I'm an immoral person. If I was a moral person, I'd have spent $0 on anime. Which is better for the content creators? Me pirating and spending hundreds of dollars, or me not pirating and spending nothing?

[Ox]

Which is better for the content creators?
That's only a relevant question if you're a utilitarian. Let me use an example to illustrate why utilitarianism isn't universally esteemed. Imagine we imprison someone for a crime, but in truth he's innocent. He spends decades in prison, receiving free room, board, and medical care. After many years of unjust imprisonment, DNA testing proves he's innocent and we release him. We also give him a multimillion-dollar settlement to compensate him for his lost liberty and youth.

It's not unimaginable that the fellow is better-off as a result of this, especially if he was poor and sick when he entered prison. Does that mean we never did anything wrong?

[DangerousDaze]

Which is better for the content creators? Me pirating and spending hundreds of dollars, or me not pirating and spending nothing?

Why do you have steal with one hand in order to pay with the other? How about option c) Spend hundreds of dollars without ripping anyone off.

[Telefrog]

In your opinion. I don't like to repeat comments I've made but I'll do it anyways. I pirate anime. Due to my pirating of anime, I have spent hundreds of dollars on DVDs over the last couple years. Except by your definition I'm an immoral person. If I was a moral person, I'd have spent $0 on anime. Which is better for the content creators? Me pirating and spending hundreds of dollars, or me not pirating and spending nothing?

Sure, it's easy to say that's a win for the anime industry, but let me ask a question in return.

Do you buy a legit copy of each item you pirate?

[Hotcod]

Why do you have steal with one hand in order to pay with the other? How about option c) Spend hundreds of dollars without ripping anyone off.

Well ya, except your self when you are buying content you don't know you want until you've spent a stupid amount of money on it?

The music industry is at last being forced to face up to the fact that they can't sell crappy albums on a few good singles any more. If i can listen to an album before i buy it i will, if that means an legal stream of it from somewhere, borrowing it of or listening to it with a friend or downloading it and listening to it that way. I've found lots of bands i like doing it this way and saved my self a lot of money to boot by avoiding bad albums.

No matter what i should have a way to know if i want to own the content of an album or a DVD before i buy it. People still buy films on dvd and blue ray after seeing them somewhere else, tv show box sets still sell to people who have seen the show. Why is it so awful for him to watch the anime in a way that dose not actively hurt the makers to see if he wants to own it? how are the makers been ripped off? with out seeing it he would never buy it and after seeing it and finding out if it's worth buying he will.

If you are trying to sell me something i have no idea if i want the majority of the content of your product there is no way i'm putting money down for it given how tight money can be for me. No matter how likely i am to like it, or how many people tell me it's good the only way i know if i want it is to have it. Which leaves me with a catch 22 i don't know if i want it unless i buy it and if i don't know if i want it i will never do so. "Stealing" the product in a way that dose not in fact hurt you because you refuse to let me have a legal way to look in the box before i buy it is the only way out that ends with me buying anything at all.

But nope, stealing is bad and its YOUR stuff so you don't want me to see it or touch it before i've given you money. It's all about you, your rights, you wants and your power... odd that.

[Ancalagon]

Why do you have steal with one hand in order to pay with the other? How about option c) Spend hundreds of dollars without ripping anyone off.

How about d), its a classic case of the industry lacking effective try-before-you-buy schemes. I mean, they cracked down on internet radio and raised the royalty fees significantly, and terrestrial radio is dominated by whatever music they want to market (the latest pop and hip hop or whatever). If you have alternate or broader tastes, how do you think you would be exposed to a greater sphere of music? No, 20 second samples dont count.

And that in a sense is what is happening here, people are using file sharing to try before they buy, because of a lack of alternatives. Why else would they pirate a lot and then buy the music afterwards? Excessive guilt? No, its because they like the music.

So, in that sense, is file sharing really bad? Seems to encourage sales to me, like a good demo for a game will.

edit:

Do you buy a legit copy of each item you pirate?

Since it can be seen that file sharing can encourage sales by allowing people to listen to music before they buy it, perhaps you should be asking if one buys everything one hears on the radio? No, you buy what you like.

I'm not saying its "right" to pirate, I'm saying, in recognition of the fact that file sharing can sometimes lead to increased sales, perhaps the recording industry should use that fact in an attempt to boost sales by basically embedding marketing in the MP3s.

[Hotcod]

there's a few problems with legal try before you buy. Mainly that it can also lose you sales to people who might have other wise brought your product. Given that and that there are always going to people who won't pay for anything they can just take then any industry is going to have to be backed in the a corner before they agree to set up legal ways of doing this kind of thing. The music industry is the first that this is happening to because it's file sizes are much smaller and broadband has only in the last few years really made pirateing videos as big as doing the same for music.

So in other words the industries are invested in screwing you over by making you pay for content you may not want. It's only when there ability to fully control the content is taken away that they have to accept that they can't do that any more. It's a huge c change in thinking that is only just sinking in... mainly "if we can't screw them out of there money this way why not give them a legal way to try before they buy and find a way to make money out of that with ads and the like".

So excuse me for finding the idea that the only immoral side of this debate rests with the people who steal things to try to see if they want to buy them.

edit:

The problem exists with tv shows too if in a slightly different way. They know that you try the content before you buy so they know only people who like the content will buy the box sets and this is why some of them are so stupidly over priced. If they can't screw you by making you buy something you don't know if you want they'll screw you by making you pay through the nose to get something you do.

edit 2
it's even worse for anime given that most of it is not aired as part of TV in the west... so not only do you end up not having a way to know if you want to own it the box set prices are pushed up by the fact that there major market DOSE know if it wants it. but nope, we are the bad people, we should just pay up and be doubly screw because the industries are clearly the victims in all of this if we download things in a way that dose not hurt them to see if we want to buy things.

[Goronmon]

It's not unimaginable that the fellow is better-off as a result of this, especially if he was poor and sick when he entered prison. Does that mean we never did anything wrong?I'm not sure how to compare the two situations. One has an obvious victim. The situation in my example occurs mainly because while anime in Japan is shown as part of normal TV scheduling, it's definitely not the case over here. So there is a sever lack of ability to watch a show without a extremely significant investment of money.

Why do you have steal with one hand in order to pay with the other? How about option c) Spend hundreds of dollars without ripping anyone off.Mainly because I can't afford to spend that kind of money on shows I might not end up enjoying. Take Eureka Seven. 50 episode series. Cost me $140 for the DVDs, and that was at a significantly marked down price. I could have easily spent $250+. How well would television shows in the US work out if people had to spend $50-$100 on a season of DVDs as the main method to watch them?

Anyways, that isn't meant to be a justification, just the reasons I do it.

Do you buy a legit copy of each item you pirate?Definitely not.

[Ox]

No matter what i should have a way to know if i want to own the content of an album or a DVD before i buy it.
By sampling the wares? Shall we have this policy for all products? When you go to a restaurant, they don't let you eat your first meal free. No doctor performs your first surgery free, and no lawyer will handle your first case free. No amusement park lets you ride on the rollercoaster for free the first time to see if it's really exciting or kind of lame. Are these all terribly immoral industries for that reason?

EDIT: Incidentally, it's pretty crazy to suggest there's no way of knowing the quality of a film before buying it. Aren't there thousands of film reviewers in the world? Don't the studios release trailers which are specifically designed to try to give you a sense of the sort of film it is? Can't you talk to friends who have seen it and get their opinion? C'mon, don't pretend you buy films without the slightest clue if you're getting Metropolis or Weekend at Bernie's.

Why is it so awful for him to watch the anime in a way that dose not actively hurt the makers to see if he wants to own it? how are the makers been ripped off?
For one thing, not everybody buys a copy of everything he tries. Not everybody even buys a copy of everything he tries and likes. You might intend to buy a copy if you like the product, but you've made no promises to do so. The content owner has to rely upon your generosity and sense of decency if he wants to see any money. The content owner might not want to subsist entirely on your generosity, even if you are generous.

Second, if I own a product, I'm entitled to set the policies for who gets to see it. Nobody gets to read my diary. Only close friends and family get to read personal letters. I might be willing to permit you to view some of my writings under certain circumstances, but it's a Hobson's choice: you either comply with my demands or you go without reading what I've written. You don't get to read my diary and then say, "Oh well, you haven't been hurt by this anyway."

If you are trying to sell me something i have no idea if i want the majority of the content of your product there is no way i'm putting money down for it given how tight money can be for me. No matter how likely i am to like it, or how many people tell me it's good the only way i know if i want it is to have it. Which leaves me with a catch 22
No, that's not a Catch-22. It means you are faced with a risk. You seem to be risk-averse with regards to entertainment spending, which is fine. Find other ways of entertaining yourself.

i don't know if i want it unless i buy it and if i don't know if i want it i will never do so. "Stealing" the product in a way that dose not in fact hurt you because you refuse to let me have a legal way to look in the box before i buy it is the only way out that ends with me buying anything at all.

But nope, stealing is bad and its YOUR stuff so you don't want me to see it or touch it before i've given you money. It's all about you, your rights, you wants and your power... odd that.
It's not odd at all. I have something, you want it. Your desires confer no rights upon you. My creation confers rights upon me. When you've done something worthwhile besides simply craving my products like a mewling infant, maybe then you too will have rights. Until then, I guess there's a bit of an imbalance... but it's not my fault.

I'm not saying its "right" to pirate, I'm saying, in recognition of the fact that file sharing can sometimes lead to increased sales, perhaps the recording industry should use that fact in an attempt to boost sales by basically embedding marketing in the MP3s.
Sure, that's a practical way of attempting to ameliorate the problem. But it strikes me a little bit like talking to a guy whose stereo store keeps getting burglarized and saying, "You know what you should do? Since all your stereos are getting stolen, you should label each one with a sticker that says, 'You can find more great deals at my store!'"

[Goronmon]

By sampling the wares? Shall we have this policy for all products? When you go to a restaurant, they don't let you eat your first meal free. No doctor performs your first surgery free, and no lawyer will handle your first case free. No amusement park lets you ride on the rollercoaster for free the first time to see if it's really exciting or kind of lame. Are these all terribly immoral industries for that reason?I find it interesting that all are your examples are essentially services. There are plenty of actual products you can try first before purchasing. Am I 'stealing' if I borrow lawnmowers from my neighbors before buying the model that I like the best (with their permission of course)?

[Telefrog]

How about d), its a classic case of the industry lacking effective try-before-you-buy schemes. I mean, they cracked down on internet radio and raised the royalty fees significantly, and terrestrial radio is dominated by whatever music they want to market (the latest pop and hip hop or whatever). If you have alternate or broader tastes, how do you think you would be exposed to a greater sphere of music? No, 20 second samples dont count.

And that in a sense is what is happening here, people are using file sharing to try before they buy, because of a lack of alternatives. Why else would they pirate a lot and then buy the music afterwards? Excessive guilt? No, its because they like the music.

So, in that sense, is file sharing really bad? Seems to encourage sales to me, like a good demo for a game will.

I'm not sure what kind of try before you buy option is practical with a song. The average song length is about 3-4 minutes which translates into just a few MBs of data. That's no barrier for most people regardless of their internet connection.

The usual suggestion is to say that the artist should release songs for free to encourage folks to buy the full album, but that completely discounts the all too common cases of the "one hit wonder" scenario. It would suck to see that your one and only popular song is never going to pay off.

The other suggestion is to offer very low quality versions of the file for free, with an option to upgrade to a higher quality version. This is a fine, except we know that many people don't really care about hi-fi at all. As long as the song is recognizable, most people will happily listen to crackly static-filled crap. (Look at the sales of iPod transmitter to car radio accessories for evidence.)

[Telefrog]

I find it interesting that all are your examples are essentially services. There are plenty of actual products you can try first before purchasing. Am I 'stealing' if I borrow lawnmowers from my neighbors before buying the model that I like the best (with their permission of course)?

Did the neighbor give you the option of keeping that lawnmower for free if you like it? That's essentially what you're asking the content providers to do.

Let me try it for free. If I like it I MAY pay you for it. Or I may not. It's my choice.

This strikes me as grossly unfair.

[Goronmon]

Did the neighbor give you the option of keeping that lawnmower for free if you like it? That's essentially what you're asking the content providers to do.If the neighbor is accommodating enough, you could potentially borrow one every time you needed it indefinitely.

Again, perhaps it is unfair, and I'm only speaking to my own motivations, not to pirates in general.

[Ox]

I find it interesting that all are your examples are essentially services. There are plenty of actual products you can try first before purchasing. Am I 'stealing' if I borrow lawnmowers from my neighbors before buying the model that I like the best (with their permission of course)?
What's the antepenultimate word in your post? Sure, there are a lot of products you can try before purchasing. That's because the owners decided it was a good idea to permit it. Other owners don't let you try stuff before buying. Maybe those owners are stupid. But stupid people have rights, too.

I chose services as my example because I didn't want to get into a bitch-fest about scarcity.

As for your neighbor's lawnmower: it depends. If your neighbor owns his lawnmower, then of course he can loan it to you. But let's consider, say, my car. Although I call it "my car," it's actually leased. The terms of my lease put strict limits on to whom I may loan my car and for how long. If you and I conspire to violate the terms of this lease, we breach the terms of my legal possession of the car and now invade the aspects of the car's existence that are legally owned by the car leasing company. So yeah, then it becomes a form of stealing.

What I always find interesting about this debate is how simplistically legalistic it gets. 'Well, I own this DVD, so I can do whatever I want with it!' Ownership is a more complicated concept than on/off. If you examine your EULA, you'll discover that your "ownership" of software is much more similar to, say, a car lease than it is to owning a car.

[Telefrog]

If the neighbor is accommodating enough, you could potentially borrow one every time you needed it indefinitely.

Again, perhaps it is unfair, and I'm only speaking to my own motivations, not to pirates in general.

I'd say the neighbor has a motive for letting you borrow it. It could be to keep the peace, because he's a milquetoast, he's really a super-nice guy, etc. I doubt many people would let you borrow that mower if they didn't know you at all, ("Hey, stranger! That's a nice mower. How about letting me borrow it for the day?") or they had a lawn care rental service and made their living by getting people to pay to check out that mower.

[Hotcod]

By sampling the wares? Shall we have this policy for all products? When you go to a restaurant, they don't let you eat your first meal free. No doctor performs your first surgery free, and no lawyer will handle your first case free. No amusement park lets you ride on the rollercoaster for free the first time to see if it's really exciting or kind of lame. Are these all terribly immoral industries for that reason?


Oh would you look at that all services that can't be duplicated with no lose to some one. Odd that.


For one thing, not everybody buys a copy of everything he tries. Not everybody even buys a copy of everything he tries and likes. You might intend to buy a copy if you like the product, but you've made no promises to do so. The content owner has to rely upon your generosity and sense of decency if he wants to see any money. The content owner might not want to subsist entirely on your generosity, even if you are generous.


So instead of relying on my generosity as you put it he has to rely on my stupidity? i can see why that is more attractive but the simple fact is that your idea relies on the idea that i would have brought the product anyway. If i am (and this is true in my case) not potential consumer until i've tried the product how dose my trying the product deprive the content crater of anything? I was never going to buy the product with out trying, the way i try and product doesn't hurt him and where before there was no chance i would buy the product at all there is now a chance that i will.


Second, if I own a product, I'm entitled to set the policies for who gets to see it. Nobody gets to read my diary. Only close friends and family get to read personal letters. I might be willing to permit you to view some of my writings under certain circumstances, but it's a Hobson's choice: you either comply with my demands or you go without reading what I've written. You don't get to read my diary and then say, "Oh well, you haven't been hurt by this anyway."

If you want me to pay for the right to read your work then i should expect to be given some reason to do so other than your word that it's worth it. If you don't give me that reason to do so then i won't pay. Same as above. Until i know if i want the content or not i'm never going to pay for that content. So yes hobson choice is apt but not in the way you intended it. If you want me to give you money you either comply with my demands or you go with out it.


No, that's not a Catch-22. It means you are faced with a risk. You seem to be risk-averse with regards to entertainment spending, which is fine. Find other ways of entertaining yourself

Faced with a risk that i don't have to take. It's idiotic not to try the content in a way that hurts no one if you can. I want to spend money on entertainment but i don't want to waste my money. If i can reduce the risk of wasting of me wasting my money in a way that dose not harm any one why shouldn't i do it? If i take your view that if i don't want to risk it then don't spend the money i'm in fact hurting the content craters more than i would other wise be doing. If i refuse to spend any money at all the content makers will never see any money at all. If try thing to see if i want to buy them then the content makers might see my money and often do. If they offered me a legal way to try there content before i brought it and found a way to make money out of that with ads and the like then every one "wins". The only reason not to do it that way is if your afraid that you'll lose sales to people who might have gotten screwed by buying something they don't want.


It's not odd at all. I have something, you want it. Your desires confer no rights upon you. My creation confers rights upon me. When you've done something worthwhile besides simply craving my products like a mewling infant, maybe then you too will have rights. Until then, I guess there's a bit of an imbalance... but it's not my fault.


And i have something you want, money. Your desire for my money confers no right unpon you. My money confers rights upon me. When you've done something worthwhile like creating a product i want rather than simply asking me to give you money like a mewling infant then maybe you too will have rights to my money. Untill then i guess there's a big of an imbalance... but it's not my fault.

That, while clearly joking dose have a point. You have a product i don't know if i want, i have money that you do know that you want. Yet i'm the one expected to take all the risks? that money is as real to me as your product is to you, if your trying to sell it to me then you clearly want my money... where as if i want what you want to give me for my money is very unclear.


Sure, that's a practical way of attempting to ameliorate the problem. But it strikes me a little bit like talking to a guy whose stereo store keeps getting burglarized and saying, "You know what you should do? Since all your stereos are getting stolen, you should label each one with a sticker that says, 'You can find more great deals at my store!'"

The stereo is a physical object that is stolen not copied. The people taking the stereos are not braking copyright but stealing a product. There is a difference since the owner and the makers are incurring loss of a product and materials and of a sale (to some one who might have taken the stero that was taken) rather than the loss of a potential sale to some one who wouldn't have brought a stero with out being able to try it first.

edit:
The point is that you can not extend this ideas to physical products or services and i would never try. You are trying to use that to show that my ideas are wrong and immoral but you are clearly missing the point. People who are taking to court over this stuff are NOT charged with theft but with braking the copyright. That means there is a marked, legal and real difference to what is going on. If i try before i buy with digital downloads i have taken nothing away for the owners of that content other than there right to control who copies that file.... that is simply such a different thing to physical theft that lining the 2 up as being equal is stupidly unhelpful to the debate and exactly why "theft" rather than copyright infringement is the word thrown around by the big guys outside of court

[Ox]

Telefrog, I think you're missing the best objection to Goronman's lawnmower example. The best rejoinder is, "Sure, but what happens if your neighbor refuses to loan you his lawnmower? Are you still allowed to take it?"

[Goronmon]

What I always find interesting about this debate is how simplistically legalistic it gets. 'Well, I own this DVD, so I can do whatever I want with it!' Ownership is a more complicated concept than on/off. If you examine your EULA, you'll discover that your "ownership" of software is much more similar to, say, a car lease than it is to owning a car.Again, I' not trying to justify anything from a legal standpoint. I'm just explaining my own reasoning. I'm not even trying to claim that my reasoning is superior or negates the stance of people against piracy.

Telefrog, I think you're missing the best objection to Goronman's lawnmower example. The best rejoinder is, "Sure, but what happens if your neighbor refuses to loan you his lawnmower? Are you still allowed to take it?"Of course not.

[Ox]

Oh would you look at that all services that can't be duplicated with no lose to some one. Odd that.
My services as a lawyer might be a simple as giving you a copy of a memo I wrote. It could easily be duplicated with no physical loss to anyone.

So instead of relying on my generosity as you put it he has to rely on my stupidity?
I carefully evaluate available information about media before purchasing. I rarely feel I wasted my money, because I knew exactly what I was buying. If you routinely waste your money, that might be stupid, but I think the problem is located somewhere other than copyright law.
i can see why that is more attractive but the simple fact is that your idea relies on the idea that i would have brought the product anyway.
Only if you don't know how to read. I specifically pointed out it's a Hobson's choice, and I told you to find other entertainment options. There's a lot of free stuff to do: go to a park, for example. Talk to friends. Make your own music. If you simply must consume media, use uncopyrighted works.
If i am (and this is true in my case) not potential consumer until i've tried the product how dose my trying the product deprive the content crater of anything?
You deprive him of the right to tell you to go fuck yourself. A more precious and beautiful right was never devised by the mind of God or man.

So yes hobson choice is apt but not in the way you intended it. If you want me to give you money you either comply with my demands or you go with out it.
Entirely fair. Go to the park. The evil content owners will go out of business, and you'll get some fresh air and exercise. All will be well with the world.

Ah, but you don't want to go to the park, do you? You would like to watch movies without paying. Sorry, you've got to pick one or the other. Even the content owners don't expect you to pay for films you don't see.

Faced with a risk that i don't have to take. It's idiotic not to try the content in a way that hurts no one if you can.
No, but it is wrong.

EDIT: Goronman, I apologize for not grasping what your point was. I understand your reasoning, and it's not illogical. It is, however, self-serving: I'm sure you'll agree it's a lot more personally convenient to live according to your doctrine than mine. It's easy to succumb to self-serving logic.

People who are taking to court over this stuff are NOT charged with theft but with braking the copyright. That means there is a marked, legal and real difference to what is going on.
Sure, the criminal copyright statute is located in a different Title of the federal code. That doesn't necessarily mean much: selling drugs is in a different Title from selling illegal guns or selling child pornography, but they are all contraband and the legal doctrines are identical for them all. And you're talking about a peculiarity of federal law. While copyright is a federal issue, there are non-scarce resources that are subject to state law and yet are called "theft." For example, in my state of Pennsylvania, the illegal copying of trade secrets is called "theft of trade secrets" and matches up closely with the federal equivalent, although the federal equivalent doesn't use the word "theft." Unauthorized use of a motor vehicle while the owner is at work and in a manner that you reasonably believe the owner would have consented to if he had known is a crime in the "theft and related offenses" chapter, although it doesn't use the word "theft." I actually haven't used the word "theft" during this conversation, but rather "right." But you are incorrect to suggest there is a marked difference between "theft" and "copyright infringement" under the law. Theft often, but does not always, involve deprivation.

[Telefrog]

That, while clearly joking dose have a point. You have a product i don't know if i want, i have money that you do know that you want. Yet i'm the one expected to take all the risks? that money is as real to me as your product is to you, if your trying to sell it to me then you clearly want my money... where as if i want what you want to give me for my money is very unclear.

I don't understand this thinking. How do you get through life without buying things that have no sample? Plane tickets, hotel rooms, taxi rides, bus fare, apartment/house rent, meals, in fact most things have no legitimate "try before you buy" option. What do you do in those cases?

I know the argument is that thanks to piracy, you now have this option for media and software, but that completely discounts the reality that these "samples" exist beyond the creators' control or permission.

[Ox]

I don't understand this thinking. How do you get through life without buying things that have no sample? Plane tickets, hotel rooms, taxi rides, bus fare, apartment/house rent, meals, in fact most things have no legitimate "try before you buy" option. What do you do in those cases?
Admittedly, dating would be better this way. "I'd love to take you out to dinner sometime. But before I spend all that money, you want to show me a good time so I know it's worth it?"

[Goronmon]

EDIT: Goronman, I apologize for not grasping what your point was. I understand your reasoning, and it's not illogical. It is, however, self-serving: I'm sure you'll agree it's a lot more personally convenient to live according to your doctrine than mine. It's easy to succumb to self-serving logic.Oh it's definitely self-serving, and you're probably right that I'm taking a utilitarian approach to the topic.

[Goronmon]

Admittedly, dating would be better this way. "I'd love to take you out to dinner sometime. But before I spend all that money, you want to show me a good time so I know it's worth it?"Isn't that pretty much how it works from the point of view of the person not paying?

[Hotcod]

My services as a lawyer might be a simple as giving you a copy of a memo I wrote. It could easily be duplicated with no physical loss to anyone.


I don't even know where to start with what is wrong with this example. Firstly a duplicated copy of a physical object needs that object to first be taken and then copied. If i do it on the lawyers copyer then i have taken ink and paper too. The only reason i'd want a memo from a laywer is because he is in fact a laywer and that memo must in some way be relevant to me. Which means that even if the service is small and easy it is in no way the same thing. It's yet another strawman argument which is right in it's way but irrelevant to what i'm arguing.


I carefully evaluate available information about media before purchasing. I rarely feel I wasted my money, because I knew exactly what I was buying. If you routinely waste your money, that might be stupid, but I think the problem is located somewhere other than copyright law.

I never feel i have wasted my money if i buy something after i've tried it. You have given money to some one for something that you didn't want because they said


Only if you don't know how to read. I specifically pointed out it's a Hobson's choice, and I told you to find other entertainment options. There's a lot of free stuff to do: go to a park, for example. Talk to friends. Make your own music. If you simply must consume media, use uncopyrighted works.

And i do do lots of free stuff. And oddly enough i do make my own music and i would never expect any one to buy an album or EP from me with out hearing it first. Which is why in my last band any song we recorded went up on my space and while we didn't get around to selling an EP we would have had the EP up for steaming too. We'd never expect any one to come to a gig and pay to see us with out knowing if they like the music and we'd never expect them to buy that music with out hearing it.



You deprive him of the right to tell you to go fuck yourself. A more precious and beautiful right was never devised by the mind of God or man.

So his allowed to tell me to go fuck my self while still asking for my money? fun that.


Entirely fair. Go to the park. The evil content owners will go out of business, and you'll get some fresh air and exercise. All will be well with the world.

Ah, but you don't want to go to the park, do you? You would like to watch movies without paying. Sorry, you've got to pick one or the other. Even the content owners don't expect you to pay for films you don't see.

I don't often download films thank you. There's enough ways to see them legally for "free" or at a cost where spending that amount of money stops being a risk. I went and saw crank 2 the other night, that was a risk, but one i took because it was social activity with friends. The risk of wasting my money on the film being something i don't want to see was countered by the fact the money was spent to spend time with my friends.

My world is, in other words, all kinds of shades of grey.


No, but it is wrong.

legally? yes. From a moral stand point? it's up for debate. In my view in this kind of context and with the outcome being me spending money on things i know i want with no else one losing anything... well... it's not that bad

[Hotcod]

I don't understand this thinking. How do you get through life without buying things that have no sample? Plane tickets, hotel rooms, taxi rides, bus fare, apartment/house rent, meals, in fact most things have no legitimate "try before you buy" option. What do you do in those cases?

I know the argument is that thanks to piracy, you now have this option for media and software, but that completely discounts the reality that these "samples" exist beyond the creators' control or permission.

You don't. In those cases you have no other option and "trying" them before you buy becomes theft and not copyright infringement. As i've stated i can not, would not and should not expand the arguments i'm using past anything other than the downloading of a digital copy of content braking the copyright holders legal right to control who can do that.

You have to understand that this is not an overall view i have of life and everything in it. But something that has a very strict context. If i had more money it's also something i'd do less but i can make sure i spend my money on things i want with out actively harming other people in THIS context. To me that is a world away from the examples you and Ox are trying to draw.

Both of you are setting up strawmen you can knock down and the only thing i can say is that i'm not arguing with them just how relevant they are to what i'm really talking about.

[Ox]

Firstly a duplicated copy of a physical object needs that object to first be taken and then copied. If i do it on the lawyers copyer then i have taken ink and paper too. The only reason i'd want a memo from a laywer is because he is in fact a laywer and that memo must in some way be relevant to me.
It will undoubtedly shock you to discover that lawyers sometimes use computers too. The lawyer could email you his memo. You've only taken some electrons.
And i do do lots of free stuff. And oddly enough i do make my own music and i would never expect any one to buy an album or EP from me with out hearing it first. Which is why in my last band any song we recorded went up on my space and while we didn't get around to selling an EP we would have had the EP up for steaming too. We'd never expect any one to come to a gig and pay to see us with out knowing if they like the music and we'd never expect them to buy that music with out hearing it.
No offense, but this may have something to do with the relative lack of reputation of your band. If people all over the world were saying, "Have you heard Hotcod's band? They're amazing!", you might decide people could be expected to pay for it based on that information alone.

Or maybe not. But you'd have the right to make that decision yourself.

So his allowed to tell me to go fuck my self while still asking for my money? fun that.
No, but if you refuse to compensate him, he's allowed to tell you to go away. I don't know why this is a complicated concept.

My world is, in other words, all kinds of shades of grey.
No, it's not. Your world is, "Whatever I feel like doing is great." That's not grey, that's just self-excusing.

[Hotcod]

It will undoubtedly shock you to discover that lawyers sometimes use computers too. The lawyer could email you his memo. You've only taken some electrons.


Yes but that still dose not change the fact the only reason the memo would be of any use to me if it was relevant to me. If i just took a copy of all the memos he sends by e-mail what the hell would be the point? In other words the only reason to need something like that off a laywer needs the laywer to have done something unique. That makes it a It's a strawman argument and you know it.


No offense, but this may have something to do with the relative lack of reputation of your band. If people all over the world were saying, "Have you heard Hotcod's band? They're amazing!", you might decide people could be expected to pay for it based on that information alone.

Or maybe not. But you'd have the right to make that decision yourself.


Nope, if the band had made it big the only reason i wouldn't have put up a free steam of an album would have been how difficult it still is to do well with out label backing and the fact most labels wouldn't have let me do so.

I would never had asked some one to come to by show i was playing and pay to see my band with out having heard the music. it's that simple. There is no moral or critical argument that i have ever come across that could change that.


No, but if you refuse to compensate him, he's allowed to tell you to go away. I don't know why this is a complicated concept.

It's not, but it's not a useful one to the arguments i've been making. I have as much right to expect compensation in the value of the product for my money. If i can't find a legal way to make sure i will get that compensation then there is a problem with the system and i feel that to some extent it's ok to step around it.


No, it's not. Your world is, "Whatever I feel like doing is great." That's not grey, that's just self-excusing.

No, it's not. If you can't see even a tiny hint of why that's wrong then there's no much point carrying on. I can see where your argument is coming from and i understand it. You see me as simply being selfish. You see what i'm doing as the same as stealing physical products. You demand rights for the content owners but don't demand the same rights for the people who have the money. You set up strwaman arguments that only look relative but have very little to do with what i'm arguing.

In other words there's not much point carrying on at this point. We'll both just carry on repeating our self's at this point. It's a shame i couldn't change your mind... but then again you no doubt feel the same way heh

[Telefrog]

You have to understand that this is not an overall view i have of life and everything in it. But something that has a very strict context. If i had more money it's also something i'd do less but i can make sure i spend my money on things i want with out actively harming other people in THIS context. To me that is a world away from the examples you and Ox are trying to draw.

It sounds like your reasoning has more to do with personal convenience and serving your interests than it has to do with what's right.

I can see where your coming from to a point. Money was tight in college. I did dishonest things to get by all the time. I used the cafeteria to stock up on cereal, fruit, and other meals by pocketing items in disregard of the "no food can leave the grounds" policy. I "shared" rent with a guy in blatant disregard of his rental agreement that specified that roommates were not allowed.

During all this, I never once tried to justify my dishonesty with convoluted logic. I knew what I was doing was wrong. I did it anyway.

Now, I could argue that my need to eat and have a roof over my head was more important than your need for entertainment, but that would be disingenuous. I can only say that my conscience troubled me thoughout the lean times because I didn't try to justify it with semantics.

[Ox]

Yes but that still dose not change the fact the only reason the memo would be of any use to me if it was relevant to me. If i just took a copy of all the memos he sends by e-mail what the hell would be the point? In other words the only reason to need something like that off a laywer needs the laywer to have done something unique. It's a strawman argument and you know it.
No, but I don't think you understand the practice of law. A memo on a specific legal issue could very well be all you need from the lawyer. Lawyers often provide specific advice about specific factual scenarios, of course, but it's quite common for lawyers to sell more general memos and guides. Indeed, I'm required to purchase several hundred dollars' worth of these memos every year in order to stay accredited. It would be awesome just to distribute this stuff for free, but surprisingly the fellows who make their living from this work don't do that.

I would never had asked some one to come to by show i was playing and pay to see my band with out having heard the music. it's that simple.
That's an admirable moral principle. Since when is everyone required to live by that standard?

It's not, but it's not a useful one to the arguments i've been making. I have as much right to expect compensation in the value of the product for my money. If i can't find a legal way to make sure i will get that compensation then there is a problem with the system and i feel that to some extent it's ok to step around it.
So, if you feel it's okay to take another's property without permission, then you do so. Fair enough. I'm sure Jack the Ripper justified himself with similar reasoning.

No, it's not. If you can't see even a tiny hint of why that's wrong then there's no much point carrying on. I can see where your argument is coming from and i understand it. You see me as simply being selfish. You see what i'm doing as the same as stealing physical products. You demand rights for the content owners but don't demand the same rights for the people who have the money.
What rights would the people with money like? The right to keep their money? I agree with that. The right to refuse to give up their money without knowing what they're getting in return? I agree with that. I agree with all the rights requested by consumers, except the right to take whatever they like without paying.
You set up strwaman arguments that only look relative but have very little to do with what i'm arguing.
I understand you refuse to see things my way. But that doesn't make my arguments "strawmen." I am directly responding to your arguments. You, on the other hand, claim things like, "You see what i'm doing as the same as stealing physical products" and "You demand rights for the content owners but don't demand the same rights for the people who have the money", both of which are untrue. I don't think copyright infringement is the same as stealing physical products, although I do think there are similarities there. And I endorse precisely the same rights for consumers and content owners: the right to refuse to strike a deal and retain the status quo. For content owners, the status quo is lots of content and no money; for consumers, the status quo is lots of money and no content. If the two parties cannot strike a mutually satisfactory deal, then the status quo must reign.

You repeatedly mischaracterized my statements, in such a way that led me to believe you did not understand me. Yet you've repeatedly assured me you did understand me. Consequently, I must conclude that the one deploying strawmen has been you.

[DangerousDaze]

But nope, stealing is bad and its YOUR stuff so you don't want me to see it or touch it before i've given you money. It's all about you, your rights, you wants and your power... odd that.

The sheer arrogance of this astounds me.

Yes it's about "me" (the content producer) because I made it. The only right you have is to decide whether or not you want to pay me in advance to experience it. If you don't want to take that chance because you don't think it will be worth your money, fine, take your business elsewhere.

And yes, stealing is bad. Couch it in whatever terms best salves your conscience, but that's what you're doing.