Aussie Government Brings Back Piracy Talks 114
joshgnosis writes "The Australian Attorney-General's department is set to hold a closed-door meeting with internet service providers, film lobby groups and consumer groups over proposals to reduce piracy on Thursday. The meetings were at a stalemate after sources said that neither the ISPs or the film groups could see eye to eye on the best proposal but the department confirmed that the meetings will go ahead and will this time include consumer advocate groups, who were previously excluded from the meetings."
What about the price of piracy enforcement (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't even need to calculate the benefits of a society with free access to all the works of man, where poor people have just as much access to culture as wealthy individuals. For if you start calculating the benefits for a society to have free educational books, and as much culture as it wants, a more educated populace far outweighs a kings ransom. You start getting into the realm of,"While we'd need to rework compensation, we can't discount that a better educated populace would have the ability to create superior works."
So yeah, there's untold wealth to be gained for limited copyrights, but lets just focus on the cost of piracy vs cost of enforcing piracy. The cost of enforcing piracy according to PIPA and SOPA is freedom of speech. Wait, you're saying we'll give away everything that matters to us just so a couple people could hold onto an antiquated profit model of limited distribution channels? Well I guess it isn't really calculating societal costs at all, but just making sure the select few continue to be catered to.
So let me guess... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Dear Australian Government, (Score:4, Insightful)
"then I have to break the law to do so."
I don't pirate because the people who created media have expressed their wishes quite clearly;
If I value it, then I'll pay the price they ask.
However, suggesting that you are forced to break the law is absurd. There is no real threat to your well-being by having the latest music/TV/movies/software. Even if you argued that your quality of life would suffer without your favourite show or game (a BIG stretch), there's plenty of other crap to choose from.
Do I think the typical media owner is driving people away with DRM measures? Absolutely.
Do I think there's a happy medium where everyone could be happy? Yep.
Do I feel entitled to anything? No.
This argument gets very heated, and from my armchair it makes both sides look like spoiled brats! You can continue for my [free] entertainment as long as you like. :)
Matt out.
Oh good. I can't wait go. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm an Australian author with two novels, seven short stories and a couple of other things under my belt (sequel's out, woot woot http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0080XLF2Q/ [amazon.com]). As a natural born citizen and rights holder, I'm sure that the people at this conference would love to hear my voice as a representative of local grown IP, especially one distributed digitally and therefore quite prone to copyright infringement. I look forward to being able to give my piece -- that, in summary, the best way to combat copyright infringement is to:
- Produce a better product than pirated copies (so DRM/FBI warning/copyright warning free)
- Which is easy to obtain (Amazon's 1-click buy process)
- With sufficient safety nets (7 day no questions asked return policy)
- Cheaply (my novels are $5, shorts $0.99)
- In a timely fashion all over the world (Australians are used to waiting 3-6 months for TV shows they can bittorrent the day they're broadcasted in the US)
- And with sufficient protection for derivatives and fan-works (a Creative Commons, CC-BY-SA-NC licenced universe bible is due out as soon as I apply the last of the polish and hit submit).
- Without alienating people who do pirate it anyway (some people, even if it's cheap, readily available, DRM free, timely, safe and reasonably free-as-in-freedom, will not pay and attempting to coerce those people into being customers is not only pointless but detrimental since it makes you look like an arse and writers trade based on their reputation)
I eagerly await my invitation to this discussion which I'm confident will not be dominated by direct representatives of Hollywood insisting we DRM the universe and filter all aspects of the Internet, all in the name of protecting foreign interests to the detriment of domestically produced IP.
Re:What about the price of piracy enforcement (Score:5, Insightful)
3. Someone who invests in the creation of a product has some right to expect to be able to sell their works for a profit.
Not true at all. (Well, what you've said is techinically true, they have a right to expect profit, not to make a profit.)
If I go around making balls of dust from the vacuum cleaner bag, I don't have some entitlement to make money from that. Even if I worked really hard to make them, and even if I hired staff to help me make them. It's something no-one wants and it's something people can make themselves, so I'm not going to make money.
If I paint my fence outside my house, I can't expect people to have to pay to view it. Even though mucheffort went into it.
In short, there's no inherent reason why anyone should be paid for writing a song. There's some rules that governments have made to get these guys money - but now they've forgotten that, and they expect to earn millions for doing nothing.
Re:Dear Australian Government, (Score:5, Insightful)
"then I have to break the law to do so."
I don't pirate because the people who created media have expressed their wishes quite clearly;
If I value it, then I'll pay the price they ask.
However, suggesting that you are forced to break the law is absurd. There is no real threat to your well-being by having the latest music/TV/movies/software. Even if you argued that your quality of life would suffer without your favourite show or game (a BIG stretch), there's plenty of other crap to choose from.
Excuse me, but... bullshit!
Why should I have to wait/live without while John Doe can get everything, just because he lives in a different place than me?
I have money in hand - I want to pay! But they don't want to sell.
I find it perfectly reasonable that if they refuse my money I'll just steal the stuff instead. After all, it's their choice that it is so.
That's the new kind of democracy (Score:2, Insightful)
You know, in the good ol' days, we used to have law propositions that were introduced and sponsored by some parties, and depending on whether it got a majority or not, it was brought into law, or it simply wasn't.
Not so today. Today, what will become law has been decided long ago. This will become law. If it gets shouted down (again), it will just resurface in a few months, waters will be tested and if it gets shot down again, we'll see it again. And again. And again. Until finally enough people got tired of fighting it and have more pressing problems (like, say, a law that's even a worse burden on liberties and democratic principles). And then it's in and we'll have to endure it because as usual the "law abiding citizen" will jump up as soon as you protest it and complain that it's the law and that you have to heed it.
This is how dictatorships have started in the past. Are we really doomed to repeat history eternally because the collective history memory is that of a goldfish?