Crookes, RIAA, MPAA, ICE — 'Linking Is Publishing' 369
newtley writes "What do Canada's Wayne Crookes, the Big 4's RIAA, Hollywood's MPAA and brand new ICE agent Andrew Reynolds have in common? They all claim linking is the same as publishing. Crookes is using it to demand Canada's Supreme Court effectively shut down the net in Canada. With the RIAA and MPAA providing the 'initiative,' the Obama government is using Andrews [read ICE — US Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to try to shut down innocent sites for, and on behalf of, Hollywood and Big Music. The sites are 'accused of contributing to online piracy, and it was essential for the domain names to be seized without a trial and without giving the sites a chance to respond. Why? Such sites are 'destroying the US economy.' Forget about legally appointed courts, proof or due process. Hollywood and Big Music rule."
This isn't helping. (Score:5, Insightful)
I know a lot of pirates. Some of them have now moved on from "I want free stuff" to "I want to collapse the media empire before it enslaves mankind."
Also, First!
Linking != publishing (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but linking is not the same is publishing.
Linking is the equivalent to pointing and shouting "Oh look, a deer!" in the real world.
Now, if I were to do that, I am not putting the deer there. I am simply mentioning that I see one and pointing it out to people. Now, if you mis-use the information if you happen to be within earshot and hear me and you poach that deer, it's not my fault nor my responsibility you did so - even if you are holding a shotgun when I point it out.
Publish the internet in a single link (Score:5, Insightful)
This is dangerous thinking. (Score:5, Insightful)
Linking can't be publishing. If linking is publishing, then Google, Bing, and Yahoo are breaking the law, right now. Guess we'll have to to shut them down.
Re:This is dangerous thinking. (Score:5, Insightful)
Damn! I think I just broke the law by mentioning Google, Bing and Yahoo!
For Realz, Player? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This isn't helping. (Score:5, Insightful)
This. I don't begrudge anyone pirating anymore.
The only real argument I have left with piracy is that it distorts the market. This is especially seen in the software market - where the incumbent publishers get undeserved market share through piracy - locking out alternatives. Repeat offenders giving piracy the wink-wink-nudg-nudge would be Microsoft, Adobe, and Autodesk. How else would they build their userbase if they made it impossible for HS and college students to pirate full editions?
I know a lot of pirates too. It's laughable how the studios and publishers come up with the "lost profits" that are pulled out of thin air because they assume that every pirated copy would be a bought copy.
My sympathy is gone.
--
BMO
Re:For Realz, Player? (Score:5, Insightful)
What does it take to get a government of the people, for the people, and by the people in today's world?
A revolution.
Re:This isn't helping. (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft is something of an odd case. Their situation is complicated by the extent to which their licences are via OEM. No student need ever pirate windows, for every computer comes with it - so unless they are on a development course, that only leaves office, which does have a low-cost student edition. Which is still expensive for a student, but not ridiculously so.
Your freedoms, at the whim of a dozen individuals (Score:5, Insightful)
and these use the vast resources of those corporations to place who support them in power, or pressurize those who are already in power.
and you end up with this situation.
had those shareholders died out, as they should have, of old age, and different people came in place of them, everything would change. at the whim of a dozen individuals. best you would expect them would be to die out fast, just like how the people in middle ages hoped for their oppressive kings or lords to die. there is nothing democratic about a corporation. its private aristocracy. aristocracy privatized. however you put it.
this is the eventual result of capitalism. the one with the gold makes the rule. you are politically free. but because exercise of any freedom is tied to money privately, those who have the money have all the freedoms, and even can restrict the freedoms of those who dont have as much money as them.
economy and politics cannot be separate from each other. never. you cant expect to make one democratic and the other undemocratic and expect it to work. one will affect the other, eventually.
there you have it. 10-20 individuals are set on limiting freedoms of people, even at the cost of hampering a MAJOR new technology that is making the civilization to have a great step forward, and there is nothing you can do about it. the appalling part is, all what is happening are acceptable and legal, in terms of capitalism and its illusion storefront of political freedom.
Re:Linking != publishing (Score:5, Insightful)
>Sorry, but linking is not the same is publishing.
The thing is, I think they (the Mafiaa for want of shorthand) know this. That's not, however, the basis for their public statements and actions, legal or otherwise - that's solely based in the 'say and do anything to maintain the self-interested business model we have because we're attached to it and haven't the fucking imagination to adapt and survive (and hopefully prosper).
I think their time is at an end. They are gatekeepers and really they need to become curators - and along with that comes a financial down-shift: a useful and possibly necessary service, that money can be accrued from, but not the all-powerful position that they once had. The smarter ones will jump ship, I think, and adopt this (or a better) strategy, but their time is at an end and the only yhting that can extend it is their wealth (that can buy disproportionate power with politicians to that which any member of a democracy should have) and their rhetoric.
We know their rhetoric is hollow. They know it too. We can only hope the judiciary are also of the same mind and not easily fooled.
Should we blame Obama and Steve? (Score:5, Insightful)
It may be the governments that Barak Obama and Steven Harper lead, but is it fair to say that the "X administration" or the "Y government" is party to this scheme?
The RIAA has been trying to change Canadian law since long before Steven Harper was even in parliament, and has worked with all the intervening governments to try to push their position.
If I were to say the "Harper administration" was part of this policy effort, it would suggest that they dreamed up the policy, and were themselves evil. That's not just an insult, it's unfair.
I'd rather insult Mr Harper fairly, by calling him "Steve" and his party the "Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance" party, or CCRAP*.
--dave
* Yes, that was the party's name at one point. They changed it.
Your local library card index... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This isn't helping. (Score:4, Insightful)
those students will go on to become professional users and pay for a licence
Nail, meet head (wait...that sounded kinda dirty). I was certainly guilty of pirating Adobe and Autodesk software in grad school. Living on $900 per month was difficult and some of us simply didn't have the grant money and/or disposable income to purchase legit software. Fast forward to today and I have a full paid for version of Adobe Master Suite CS5 and Autodesk Maya 2010 at my workstation at work. They essentially looked the other way when I, and others stole our first hit of sweet sweet software and now that we're hooked they have a guaranteed user base.
Re:boycott all large labels? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This isn't helping. (Score:4, Insightful)
Heck, you could put together a simple website for a local business and your costs are recovered.
Except for the fact that the student editions licensing restrictions stating you are not to use it for commercial (aka, freelance) purposes. And I've had friends try to upgrade from a student to a full version to be able to do freelance work, but Adobe's upgrade options from the student edition really don't refund you a high percentage of what you originally paid. And if you don't care about ignoring that licensing restriction, what's going to stop you from just pirating the software in the first place?
Re:This isn't helping. (Score:3, Insightful)
Adobe offers a student license for a very affordable price. Last I looked it was $300 for a specialized suite of CS5 programs.
Anything made with Adobe's student software can not be used for commercial OR public purposes.
It's a $300 demo. It's morally sickening and borderline illegal.