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Operation Fastlink Cracks Down on Warez
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Thu Apr 22, 2004 02:24 PM
from the this-can-only-get-messier dept.
from the this-can-only-get-messier dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Beginning yesterday morning, law enforcement from 10 countries and the United States conducted over 120 searches worldwide to dismantle some of the most well-known and prolific online piracy organizations.
Among the groups targeted by Operation Fastlink are well-known organizations such as Fairlight, Kalisto, Echelon, Class and Project X, all of which specialized in pirating computer games, and music release groups such as APC. The enforcement action announced today is expected to dismantle many of these international warez syndicates and significantly impact the illicit operations of others."
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Operation Fastlink Cracks Down on Warez
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Call them "Evil Doers" next... (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.grub.net/blog/index.html | Last Journal: Wednesday June 27, @08:48AM)
The only "impact" will be "we have to start using VPNs, boys!"
I love how Ashcroft and his Copyright Enforcement Militia makes these pirates sound like the Mafia by using terms like "syndicate. Think about it: almost all "nfo" files have pleas for FTP sites for 0-day distribution. If these "sydicates" have to beg for machines and bandwidth in an "nfo" file, how omnipotent can they really be?
The feds are just taking care of their corporate masters, that's all.
Re:Call them "Evil Doers" next... (Score:5, Funny)
Christ most of those warez servers are slow enough as is...
Re:Call them "Evil Doers" next... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.numbski.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday May 26 2005, @10:44PM)
Exactly what's the limit on a FreeS/WAN box acting as an IPSec VPN concentrator? Anything? Other than system resources?
128bit encryption end to end. I'm suprised this isn't being done already. Granted, no HTTP Leeching or anonymous ftp (perhaps pre-shared keys?) until you're on the private network...
Re:Call them "Evil Doers" next... (Score:5, Interesting)
My OpenBSD boxes scream with a cheap (~$89 IIRC) Soekris cryptographic accelerator. The CPU barely gets used while the HiFn chip on the card does all the bullwork.
Near line speed crypto. Ahhhh..
Re:Call them "Evil Doers" next... (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh, what makes you think it isn't?
The law is the law... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://windows.scares.us/ | Last Journal: Thursday August 25 2005, @01:15PM)
The real problem (or the real solution depending on your point of view) is that warez groups are nothing without an audience. They are also nothing without new crackers, suppliers, distribution sites, hangers-on...
Its a problem with a social solution primarily and a technological solution secondarily. As what good is a VPN network of warez creation and distribution if you can still have one weak link, one infiltration, one "Donnie Brasco" to blow your whole house of cards down.
Encryption and authentication and access control are terrific for protecting your assets, only when you have a strong legal system to take over when there is a breach of authority/conduct.
And while I certainly would not put people who pirate software in the same criminal class as those who manufacture and distribute drugs, run prostitution rings, or fraudulently manage mutual funds... what they are doing is against the law in most of the world -- and they are organized.
Re:The law is the law... (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Monday November 28 2005, @09:58PM)
Sometimes just because something is illegal, doesn't mean it's wrong. As a matter of fact, if any of these groups were doing this for profit, I'd say they were worse than drug dealers. But that isn't the case.
Addiction == freedom? (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Wednesday July 07 2004, @02:49PM)
Mind you, I'm from the NL, so I'm used to a pretty liberal (as in free, not as in left-wing) view to drugs, but then again, we divide drugs into 2 categories:
1. Soft drugs, which are not or marginally harmful and not or marginally addiction inducing.
2. Hard drugs, which are harmful and make you addicted fast.
So I don't mind per se about selling 'soft drugs', but I do mind selling any drugs to children and I do care about selling hard drugs. Because you can ask yourself if children are ready to consiously decide whether they want to use drugs and when you use hard drugs, then you lose all your freedom. The only thing that matters then is getting your next shot.
Then again, a lot of people learn to live with their hard drugs addiction. We call them 'smokers'
Re:Call them "Evil Doers" next... (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh it is, don't worry guys. Most of the greatest warez groups aren't publicly known, when in fact they have "fronts" that get fed all the software with expendable people. So in terms i could be considered a mafia of sorts. Thoes let inside are asked to join.
Think about it. How else could some of this shiz get out so fast, then dozens of 'groups' and sites are taken down the following month? the software is out now, and those expendable (ie: stuck in mommy's basement) are gone. Job done.
Re:Call them "Evil Doers" next... (Score:5, Funny)
What do you mean? An African or European box?
(Sorry, could't resist responding to the cadence of your question!)
Re:Song of the piracy apologist (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.zerohex.com/)
How about
(0) The use of the term "piracy" the the alleged entertainment industry to descibe the free distribution the items they sell is spurious bullshit.
Anything can be made a crime if you pay some group to pass a law to make it one [see also: marijuana laws];
Grow up you punk-ass media whore.
"Stamp out crime; change the Law."
With regards to Slashdot... (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously, the only thing that would make warez sites and online piracy organizations morally objectionable and properly subject to sanction would be if they distributed, sold or bartered binaries for derivative works of GPLed software in violation of the GPL.
Re:With regards to Slashdot... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Song of the piracy apologist (Score:5, Interesting)
When they stop infringing my rights, I'll start caring about theirs.
Re:Song of the piracy apologist (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Song of the piracy apologist Repost (Score:5, Insightful)
Theft requires the loss of a physical object (implies a degree of uniqueness and singularity for that object) from its owner, and piracy is essentially armed robbery on the high seas. Both involve physically depriving someone of physical things. Software (and music) is not physical. The media they are on is physical.
Next thing you know, Microsoft will start calling the adoption and existance of open source software "theft" (i.e., installing OpenOffice), because it deprives them otherwise of a sale of Microsoft Office, they'll start trying to harrass and make difficult those who use open-source versions of software products that they make (OpenOffice, Dia, Linux) in many ways (such as only allowing "licensees" to develop converters for their file formats, and any OSS app that can read a Word document must be violating IP restrictions SOMEwhere).
I feel sorry for the artists, but they've been taken for a ride by the radio-music industry for a long time. They just sound like prostitutes defending their pimps most of the time anymore to me.
The only thing being lost immediately is a potential sale (yet, oddly enough, there is not a complete relationship between the copying and loss of sale. There are probably more than a few Delphi developers, for example, who cannot shell out $3000 for Delphi8 Architect, yet they can get the evaluation CD from Borland and find a keygen for it. It may be just enough for them to use it to develop a project or two that they can sell, and then buy the full version. It is hard to learn and develop a program in something like Delphi in only 30 days...)
The funny thing is, that at least in Microsoft's case, they turned a blind eye to it for so long in order to grow their marketshare and develop MS Office addiction that only now are they trying to clamp down on essentially casual copying, because they cannot go after those who do it on an industrial scale (Ukraine, Russia, SE Asia, etc).
Oh well.
Re:Song of the piracy apologist Repost (Score:5, Funny)
"Intellectual Genocide"
P2P IS THE ARTIST HOLOCAUST!
Re:Song of the piracy apologist Repost (Score:5, Interesting)
While I'm mostly in agreement with your points, I'd like to try and hone your argument a bit more.
Number 3: Piracy is driven by overpriced CD's
The RIAA lost a judgement because they colluded to artificially inflate the price of CD's. At one point, CD's were extremely cheap. I remember buying CD's for an average price of 10.49 or 9.99 Canadian, about 6 bucks US at the time. That price in Canada has now climbed up to an average of 18.00 (almost DOUBLE).
Guess what: I buy the same number of CD's now in a year as I used to buy in a month Becuase
1. I'm buying DVD's (over 150 now)
2. I'm buying diapers for my baby (not in my 20's anymore)
3. I've replaced all my vinyl and cassettes.
4. The number of artists creating music that I enjoy has decreased significantly.
I am the RIAA's worst nightmare, because I prove that they distort the facts to suit their purpose. I don't download MP3's but my CD buying habits have decreased by 80% annually. They lose probably 1000 a year because of me...
There are thousands more like me. I just think it's a bit ridiculous that the governments of the world have swallowed the content industries argument so wholly. We are going to lose control of our open systems and hardware becausse of what is basically a lie, that mp3 sharing is the downfall of the record industry.
I see I've gotten offtopic here, so I'll get back into it. As I mentioned before, I think you're pretty much bang on in your post. I just think number 3 might be stricken out of it to make it that much more effective.
Re:Song of the piracy apologist Repost (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://galacticnorth.blogspot.com/)
4. The number of artists creating music that I enjoy has decreased significantly.
These two may be causally linked.
I think when a person is in school or other situations where they're surrounded by similar people there's more pressure to be tapped into cool music, or any kind of music, but once you're in real life around a huge diversity of people all with different tastes in pretty much everything, the pressure just dissolves.
There's plenty of great new music out there [kexp.org], but I think I myself will never buy a music album (I tried out a couple music clubs years back, but came out of it with way too much crap). Music recordings are nice, but not really worth money to me. Other than the twenty minute commute I don't really have places and time to consume it. I'm not going to sit around in my spare time listening to music, it just doesn't engage enough senses. I'd rather be watching a movie or playing video games or reading or working on creative projects of my own and not be distracted by music (if it's good, it's distracting, if it's bad, why the hell listen to it, and why do anything for fun that needs distracting from). That's just me though...
Re:Song of the piracy apologist Repost (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.highprogrammer.com/alan/ | Last Journal: Saturday April 29 2006, @04:33PM)
Okay, that's an amusing list of arguments, many of which are actually made by some of the kids online. I get the feeling that your intention is to suggest that these are the only arguments for widespread distribution (a straw man argument [datanation.com]), but *shrug*, maybe I'm just misinterpreting. However, one of the arguments you're mocking isn't quite as obviously wrong as you suggest.
I've never heard of a parking infringement, but I suppose. I do hear "illegally parked" or "parking violation" (which was what my last parking ticket read). Those are perfectly reasonable terms, after all, one is illegally parked and one has violated parking laws. I'm perfectly fine with copyright violation or illegal copying. Both are accurate descriptions of the crime. Copyright infringment is arguably more accurate (since you're infringing on exclusivity granted to someone else), but violation or illegal is certainly nice and accurate.
Piracy, on the other hand, isn't terribly accurate. Piracy's has multiple definitions [reference.com] and those different definitions are governed by different laws and punishments. Many people (myself included) feel that we need to reconsider our intellectual property laws, that perhaps they've become unbalanced and no longer serve the common good. It's important to have accurate language in such a discussion; colorful terms and phrases like piracy cloud the issue. Those people and businesses interested in maximizing the power of copyright deliberately chose words like piracy and theft because they know they have emotion impact, it's easier to get people to agree with ideas like "theft is wrong" without having them consider the details of what they are agreeing too. If they used words and phrases like illegal copying they know that some people will step back and ask, "why is the illegal? What is the real harm?" This sort of misdirection is unnecessary. I certainly believe that copyright law is a good thing. I would be against abolishing copyright law or eliminating enforcement. However I arrived at those conclusions through reason and the facts, not through emotional arguments and colorful phrases. Shoplifting a CD is a very different action from downloading an illegal copy online, trying to confuse the two is a false analogy [datanation.com]. If copyright really is right why not defend it without descending into logical fallacies [datanation.com]?
Re:Song of the piracy apologist Repost (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://rtfm.insomnia.org/~qg/ | Last Journal: Wednesday November 16 2005, @07:11AM)
Maybe where you live but copyright infringement is not a crime in my country (yet), it's a civil matter. Therefore "illegal" is not accurate, it's flat out wrong and it serves the purpose of making people fear sharing with their neighbour because they think they could go to jail. The correct term is "unlawful". For example, slander can be unlawful but it cannot be illegal. You can be sued for slander but you can't go to jail (how obsurd would that be?) Copyright infringement is the same.
CD's ain't cheaper. Where do you get your facts? (Score:5, Insightful)
(3) I believe that piracy is driven by "overpriced CDs" even though CDs have dropped in price over the years.
They have? That's news to me. When I got my first CD player in 1985, the average price of a new CD in a record store was $12. In 2004, the average price of a new CD in a record store is $18. Now, granted there are bargain-basement $5.99 CDs these days, as well as sale-priced new releases at the $12 or $13 price point, but as a whole, CDs aren't cheaper today than they were nearly 20 years ago.
Does that excuse "piracy," or "theft" or whatever you want to call it? No, it doesn't, but let's ratchet down the level of nonsense in the rhetoric used here. "Stealing" isn't the right word for making an unauthorized copy of something. The original still exists and can be sold to someone, and "piracy" is a loaded word with completely inappropriate connotations. How about we just call it "unauthorized copying" or "copyright dilution"?
I've always had a problem with software and entertainment industry estimates of losses due to unauthorized copying. First, they assume that every copy illegally-made represents a lost sale, which is nonsense. If a 15-year-old kid has 8,000 songs on his hard drive, there's no chance in hell that he would have bought those 8,000 songs if he hadn't had access to them for free. He might have spent anywhere from a few hundred to a couple of thousand bucks on music, but there's no chance he'd have bought 600 CDs worth of music at $15-$18 a crack ($9,000-$11,000).
And here's another thing: Twenty years ago, my friends and I taped songs off of FM radio and played them in our walkmans. Or we'd dupe our LPs onto tape and trade copies with each other. I easily had access to ten times as much music as I could afford to buy, but in spite of record industry whining, I bought *more* music because of that practice, not less.
One study stated that that kids and adults alike who used the original Napster were more likely to buy music than people who didn't. Numerous studies have shown that there's zero correlation between "piracy" and the decline of sales for the music industry. Is it any surprise to people that the last year of sales increases for the music industry was the last year that the original Napster was in operation?
This is not an apologia for listening to music without paying for any of it. It's simply a realistic look at what's really going on. The record industry has its head up its ass and always has. Suing and prosecuting your customers is bad for business [thescogroup.com].
Software "piracy" is different, but not *that* different. Much of the software industry used to accept that "piracy" was just another form of marketing. Microsoft has always given lip service to stamping out "piracy," but until they had established a monopoly, they did virtually nothing to prevent it before the fact because they knew it was easier to convert a "pirate" into a paying customer than it was to get a skeptic to buy from you in the first place. Most people these days will automatically use MS products, so now Microsoft puts copy-protection technology in its products to force people to pay up-front.
Is making an unauthorized copy of music or software theft? According to the law, it is. However, there needs to be a middle ground between the "information wants to be free" left and the Ashcroft search-and-seizure [azcentral.com] right.
Most people would gladly reward artists and programmers for their work. That's how shareware works, and it made Phil Katz [pkware.com] a substantial amount of money before his death. So how about we find new ways to reward creators of content, instead of finding new ways to criminalize what people have done for decades?
Don't misunderstand me. There are true criminals out there who are selling counterfeit or other illegally-copied versions of products (such as music and sof
Re:CD's ain't cheaper. Where do you get your facts (Score:5, Insightful)
I also got my first CD player in 1985, and I remember CDs being $18 or so, but I probably lived in a more expensive part of town than you, figuratively speaking. Let's use your $12 number to save time. $12 in 1985 dollars is about $20 in 2004 dollars; if prices hadn't gone down, we'd be paying $20 per CD today.
I understand the concept of inflation. But please remember the CD player that I got in 1985 sold for $260. It held one CD at a time, wasn't portable, didn't have a remote control and didn't have anti-skip shock protection. Today, CD players with those specs cost $20. Why? Improvements in manufacturing, reduction in the cost to produce CD players and the biggest reason: economies of scale.
For some of the same reasons, the CDs themselves also cost less to produce today than they did in 1985. The difference between 1985 and 2004 retail pricing of CDs is other record industry costs. In 1985, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, et. al. weren't getting huge guaranteed contracts for albums that don't sell. Record companies today are paying Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera big bucks up front for records that are supposed to earn enough money to pay for all the marketing costs that get poured into marginal acts like Creed.
The problem is that record companies only know how to sell you what you bought last time, so innovation has been completely eliminated. They force-fed us more clones of Britney Spears until people stopped buying those CDs. In their rush to find the next Avril Lavigne, they completely missed out on the concept of finding quality artists recording quality music, so Norah Jones sneaked her way to selling 18 million CDs with virtually no promotion by her record company.
CDs cost more today because record companies changed their business models. Instead of finding and developing lots of inexpensive new artists and allowing the market to decide what's a hit, record companies today insist on pushing the same crap they sold us last year until we stop buying it, and they spend a fortune in promotions to try to reverse the inevitable declines. When we stop buying stuff we're tired of, the industry blames "piracy" for their decline in sales. But the real reason we stopped buying music is because they stopped publishing music we wanted to buy. How else do you explain the success of Norah Jones and the soundtrack for O Brother Where Art Thou?
Re:CD's ain't cheaper. Where do you get your facts (Score:5, Insightful)
You make some excellent points and you are absolutely correct that CD players and CDs are marketed in radically different fashions. Specifically, CD players are now commodities. The marketing spend for CDs is perhaps at its highest point ever.
Naturally the record companies say that piracy is 100% to blame for the decline in sales over the past few years. Slashdotters will quickly point out that it's everything but piracy; they also have some good points but I think many of us are "ignoring the elephant" a little too much. Both extreme viewpoints are self-serving; it allows the record companies to proceed with suing pirates with little remorse, and it allows Slashdotters to "share" all the music they can get their hands on without losing any sleep.
In the middle are the various research and analyst firms who specialize in analyzing markets. Several firms which I trust state that piracy is absolutely, definitely, part of the problem, but not the entire problem. The economy and competition from other sources of entertainment (such as the rise of the DVD market) are often cited by analysts as other principle factors.
Re:Song of the piracy apologist Repost (Score:5, Insightful)
3.) Most CD's are quite overpriced and the public now realizes this. Allow me to plug Mangatune.com Reasonable price, actually supports the musicians. (:
4.) Copyright duration is way to long and it is having a dramatic effect upon society
5.) Legitimately free music/whatever as advertising is nevertheless a valid business model to gain popularity.
6.) Artists are, in fact, getting ripped off due to the perceived need to cut a record deal to "get known." They would be much better off thinking like entrepeneurs.
7.) "Giving stuff away on the Internet" is not a business model, but it can be part of one if done correctly. Look at Homestar Runner as example: free cartoons that got so popular that the authors now make a living selling plush dolls, t-shirts, and bumper stickers. It would never have succeeded as a pay-for-content site because it has to compete with Cartoon Network, the Simpsons, and the like..
8.) Not everyone is looking for a free ride. The fact that people are more than willing to pay for concert tickets but many now hesistate to buy CDs says more about the market than morals. People are simply putting far less value in recorded music.
9.) In a purely capitalist, laisez faire economic system, there is no such thing as copyright. It's not an assumption or requirement. That's not to say that it's always bad, but rather that there are plenty of natural ways to make money that do not involve artificial government institutions. Open Source has already succeeded in this field; independent music/film is still on its way.
10.) For the majority of human history, it was a right. Copyright is a modern experiment. It may or may not last long term. My guess is that a fairer balance will be struck.
11.) What signifies greed is the motivation, not that they are exercising their legal rights. Numerous studies have shown that P2P and other bootlegging has a minimal effect on profits, while significantly expanding the spread of content. It is more likely that the 'cracking down' is more out of fear that they are losing control of the traditional distribution channels.
One of the unfortunate things that has happened to the OSS movement is that a lot of the loudmouth advocates for it don't understand what it's really about.
Absolutely. In my definition, Open Source is about meeting software needs in the most efficient way possible. That does not always mean a free ride. Open Source is about turning an artificial "manufacturing" market into a labor market, the latter of which allows full, unrestricted motion of the "invisible hand of the market." Capitalism works best with many buyers, many sellers, and minimal cost of entry. That is what Open Source enables.
They view it primarily as a means to get free stuff, and then they turn their eyes from the free stuff to the non-free stuff and think to themselves "maybe I'm entitled to get that one for free too"
While I agree that many mistakenly see OSS as "free lunch," I don't see your secondary point in any true OSS advocates.
Re:Song of the piracy apologist Repost (Score:4, Informative)
(http://www.sergiocarvalho.com/)
Although most of the piracy apologists follow your reasoning, you fail to concede that there is a middle-ground. The internet has opened new ways to make business. However, for the last ten years, the music industry establishment has done nothing but try and keep the old business model. Why?
I'd wager that current publishers think they hold the middle-man spot because they have a strong grip on product exposition. The internet makes product exposition a lot easier, and has the potential to downgrade the middle-man value, therefore causing the whole industry to 'deflate'. This deflation is overall good, for public and artists, but is obviously bad for the editors.
In the end, give or take a couple of years, alternative music selling models will break through the barriers. Then, middle-men (editors) will have to excel in the role they are really needed for: weeding out bad artists, so people don't have to listen to every band out there. Then, only then, we'll again see great bands. Bands that really innovate the way music is created. The last ones, for me, were Nirvana, the pilar of the grunge movement. From then on, no really great global movement came out from the music scene. (The boy-band, girl-band movement fails on the grounds of musical quality).
I finish the comment with a glimmer of hope: Magnatune [magnatune.com]. Magnatune is clearly a small shop. However, it's a small shop, almost a one-man stunt, with a really innovative business model [magnatune.com]. And you know what? It's currently profitable [linuxjournal.com].
Re:Song of the piracy apologist Repost (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/ | Last Journal: Friday August 27 2004, @06:36AM)
Ripping apart all the freebie-seekers from the podium of OSS self-righteousness still doesn't validate the blatant lopsidedness and anti-competitive behavior of the reigning software giants.
I agree, there are lots of lazy snobs out there that feel that everything should be given to them on a silver platter without requiring any effort on their part. However, it is still a moral fact that the current laws and regulations favor people who already have enormous bank accounts, squash any newcomers with better ideas (or force them to be absorbed), and continue to feed wealth to companies who pattern themselves using the bully tactics of _real_ syndicates like Microsoft.
There is no way that you can possibly argue that the current laws foster progressive competition, positive diversification or a "share the wealth" attitude. It's all a pyramid scheme.
Re:Song of the piracy apologist Repost (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://simon.oconnorlamb.com/)
really?
Let's look at the current most download bittorrents shall we? (Source search.suprnova.org)
Games:
Hitman Contracts - Xbox USA Full DVD...
Knights of the Temple DEViANCE
HITMAN CONTRACS USA DVD(www.bCGp.net...
BREED-DEViANCE
Battlefield Vietnam 3CDs NeW TrAcKeR
UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2004 DVD-DEViANCE
Splinter Cell pandora tomorrow (4CDs...
BREED-DEViANCE_[bt-gm]_[EFnet]
Splinte
Fallout Tactics
GTA - Vice City
Oooh, yeah, look at all those ancient games there... all out of copyright there.
What about movies then?
Kill Bill Vol 2 DivX [New TrackeR]
Kill Bill Volume 2 SVCD TS-TCR CD1
Kill Bill Volume 2 SVCD TS-TCR CD2
Partyalarm-Finger.weg.von.meiner.Toc...
Kil
KiLL BiLL VoLuMe 2 TS TCR JB87
The Punisher(telesync)SWS
Kill Bill Vol 2 PROPER SVCD TELESYNC...
Kill.Bill.Volume.1.UNCUT.2003.DVDRip
Big.Fish.DVDR-DzN
Das.Urteil-Jeder.ist.käufl
Big.Fish.2003.DVDRip.XviD-DCN (AC3 a...
Scary.Movie.3.2003.DVDrip.XViD-ALLiA...
Tw
The Punisher VCD-Cam
The Passion Of The Christ [NeW TrAcK...
Oooh, man, That Kill Bill Vol 2 must be out of copyright surely?
Come on, you can't be serious in doubting that the majority of copied works are BRAND NEW. That's why people copy them, they want to see the LATEST things without paying for them.
I'm all for the old, 'lost games' and such being able to be downloaded... I mean, really, the companies have got their money from them by now surely... but that's such a small portion of what is downloaded, I don't think that it bothers the companies much.(A bit yes, as they wouldn't shut down ROM sites if it didn't)
Re:Song of the piracy apologist Repost (Score:5, Insightful)
(2) See point 1.
(3) Price is only brought forth as an argument by people who did not think things through. The fundamenal cause is the fact that the whole process of "manufacturing" and "distribution" and "ownership" of information is a lie. Information is not an object that can have an "owner" and thus is not subject to a simplistic world-view concocted by one Adam Smith, otherwise known as capitalism.
(4) The whole idea of copyright is sheer lunacy to begin with. Discussing its length is like arguing over the type of brush you would use to paint the Moon green next Tuesday while standing on your porch. The fact that it is accepted as a de-facto "wisdom" is truly sad and depressing.
(5) Yes. And no, the author has no "right" to be selling "his" music. The only "right" he has is to perform the music he (or others) composed. If he can manage to get people to come hear it and they agree to pay at the gate, there is his source of income. If he is not good enough for that, he should get a day job. I will never get tired of saying that "art" is defined as a willingess to express ones thoughts and feelings in a way that others find it inspiring and moving. The very expression is its own justification and reward. It is not a "job", never you mind "industry". Art can be sponsored if it is particularly good and thus freeing the artist to pursue her creative urges. But it is not a business.
(6) Many "artists" (I use the term loosely since you seem to include all sorts of talentless commercial-jingle hacks in this) were mislead into believing that "art" is a career. That one can make a killing on it. Unfortunately its a lie designed by people who were in the business of marketing and distribution of their works. For a time it worked and was technically feasible. Not any more. Digital age has finally exposed the fundamental fallacy of "art as business" ideology.
(7) Neither one is a "business" model. Although one can make money around services based on free things, it is up to that person's business talents and other external conditions. Free stuff on the net is called Information. Information, due to its properties, is fundamentally not capable of being "owned" by anyone.
(8) Live performance and other equivalent labour can be monetarilly rewarded by the attending audience. Having the performance recorded once and then getting paid million times by having someone elses (fully paid for) equipment perform in your place, based on information embedded in a piece of plastic, is a form of fraud. Never you mind claiming that said piece of plastic is yours to control even though the sucker paid for it.
(9) You can easilly control access to live performances and thus ensure payment. You can sell t-shirts and all sorts of other stuff leveraging your name recognition. You can use your name recognition for advertising purposes. Thats capitalism. "selling" information that cannot be "sold" is a just con-artistry.
(10) You better believe it. Dissemination of information is not only my right, it is one of the most fundamental and un-alienable rights that trump most other gibberish that passes for "rights" and "laws" these days. Information = thought. And if you think that I will give up my ability to freely exchange thoughts and ideas so that a bunch if greed monkeys can get rich, you got another thing coming. While I understand that "capitalist" mentality is that "making profit" takes precedence over everything else in the universe, luckilly most of us do not subscribe to this lunacy.
(11) Noone can demand free enterntaiment. The consequence of information being not a "thing" that can be "owned" is that enterntaiment over digital media in exchange for payment is not viable. That is the logical downside of sticking to one's principles. Fortunately, the need for
Re:Call them "Evil Doers" next... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
So who is the United States serving? It can't be the citizens of its country, since the writeup indicates that the US no longer counts as a country: "enforcement from 10 countries and the United States...".
Re:Call them "Evil Doers" next... (Score:4, Informative)
"10 dogs and one cat" vs. "11 dogs including one cat"
Re:Call them "Evil Doers" next... (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Wednesday May 09 2007, @08:30AM)
Re:Call them "Evil Doers" next... (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean, serving the citizens of their countries, who are trying to make money by selling software? You mean, enforcing the law?
How dare they! It would make much more sense for them to start working for the software pirates.
I believe that the parent thinks there are higher priority criminals to hunt than a few losers who pirate mediocre games. Victimless crimes and white collar crimes should never take precidence and resources from the prosecution of violent crimes.
It should be a matter of triage, first make society safe, then worry about maintaing private industry's profit margins against the gangs of computer toting outlaw teenagers.
However, the victims of muggings, spousal abuse, drug related violence and gangsta drive-by shootings do not make the hefty campaign contributions, nor do they have the ability to make press and TV conferences. They are just the average tax-payers - you know - the ones the Law Enforcement Officers swore to serve, protect, and defend.
Re:Call them "Evil Doers" next... (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://davenjudy.org/)
There are thousands of people who lost a significant portion of their life savings to these swindles. As a guess they were the, "...just the average tax-payers - you know - the ones the Law Enforcement Officers swore to serve, protect, and defend" but since none of the perps used a gun it doesn't matter.
Re:Call them "Evil Doers" next... (Score:5, Insightful)
Gee, ya think? They're a for-profit company, not a charity, so they'll charge whatever the market will bear. If this happens to be "afforable" for you, then so be it. If not, tought shit, get a better job.
First of all, if you really need the power of Photoshop, then you sure as hell can afford it. And, you can probably even write the purchase off as a business expense to boot! If this doesn't apply to you, then there is little reason for you to be using Photoshop in the first place. Next, an inexpensive version of Photoshop already exists called Photoshop Elements. And guess what? People _still_ pirate it. Why? Because people like getting shit for free. Look at MP3's.. you can buy a legitimate song online for the change in your couch, but somehow magically mp3 piracy is rampant. Ask yourself, is this because $0.99 a song is somehow "overpriced" or is it because people who have no moral qualms with copyright infringement will always choose free over non-free (as in beer).
OK. Let's say I sell product X for $1000, and at that price I'm only able to sell 1 unit. I've made a cool thousand bucks. Now, let's say that I sell product X for $1 and at this price level, I'm able to sell 1000 units. Guess what? I've made out the same as before. What do I do if I want to make my "sales numbers increase so much?" Well, obviously the answer can't simply be to drop prices as we've just seen. Instead, I need to find the price point that maximizes profit. Lowering the price may or may not be effective in accomplishing this. Next, they are so greedy? OK, maybe they are. Maybe the CEO's make money totally out of proportion to the amount of work they do. However, at least they did _some_ work! Have the people pirating material done _any_? No, they've done nothing to deserve the material they've just pirated. Who's greedier now?
Laugh. They can't afford them? Then they have absolutely no right to use them! You have no God-given right to use any product that you so please. The only thing that grants you this right, is the cash to buy said product. Hell, I drive a 1997 VW with 145,000 miles. I'm kind of sick of it and would _really_ love a shiny new BMW, but I can't afford it. Do I somehow deserve this BMW even though it is "overpriced" and I can't afford it?
That works out because Microsoft also controls the overwhelming majority of the OS market. Since they control such a large portion of this huge market, Microsoft is going to make enough money to be "the world's largest software company" while simultanesouly producing the "most pirated OS ever." Even if 99% of OS X installations were pirated and only 1% of Windows were, it's obvious that Microsoft would make more money, and I'd be willing to bet that the actual numbers would make Windows piracy more widespread than OS X as well.
I'm not even sure what you're trying to prove here? If the store is going to sell pirated versions of XP (which they will take a 100% cut out of), then why the hell would they even be selling the legitimate version (which they will get a very small cut of) _at all_?? Moreover, I'm not sure of the numbers, but I'd put mon