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Why Web Pirates Can't Be Touched

Posted by Zonk on Thu May 17, 2007 01:44 PM
from the except-by-elliot-ness dept.
gwoodrow writes "Forbes has a brief article about, essentially, the ultimate futility of fighting online pirates. From the article: 'As the world's largest repository of BitTorrent files, ThePirateBay.org helps millions of users around the world share copyrighted movies, music and other files — without paying for them ... That's illegal, of course — at least it is in the U.S. But when Time Warner's (nyse: TWX — news — people ) Warner Bros. studio accused them of breaking U.S. copyright law in 2005, the pirates gleefully reminded the movie company that they didn't live in America, but rather in the land of vikings, reindeer, Aurora Borealis and cute blond girls.' The article also touches on the many YouTube clones and AllofMP3.com."
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  • That's because... (Score:5, Funny)

    by u-bend (1095729) on Thursday May 17 2007, @01:47PM (#19166581) Homepage Journal
    ...there aren't enough experienced online ninjas.
  • Article is flawed. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Hobbs0 (1055434) on Thursday May 17 2007, @01:47PM (#19166593)
    It assumes that copyright law around the world will not eventually be in line with U.S. copyright law as per the wishes of the *AA
    • Re:Article is flawed. (Score:4, Funny)

      by WED Fan (911325) <akahige.trashmail@net> on Thursday May 17 2007, @01:55PM (#19166765) Homepage Journal

      Put down the bottle, man. What the hell does Alcoh...al..alcho...boozers anoni...anon..an...dammit, what dows AA have to do with copyw...copir...copyrit...that stuff anyhow?

      [ Parent ]
    • No they don't. (Score:5, Informative)

      by pavon (30274) on Thursday May 17 2007, @02:23PM (#19167327)
      Did you RTFA or just the summary? From the article:

      But there are more practical reasons that sites like Alluc.org get away with what they're doing. One is that there are simply too many of them to keep track of. Media companies' lawyers rarely have time to police so many obscure sites, and even when they do, users can always upload the infringing files again. So the flow of copyrighted streaming video continues.
      These particular companies are centered in the US and Forbes stills argues that they will never be able to stomp them out entirely.
      [ Parent ]
    • typo? (Score:5, Insightful)

      you typed this:

      It assumes that copyright law around the world will not eventually be in line with U.S. copyright law as per the wishes of the *AA

      you probably meant to type this:

      It assumes that copyright law around the world will not eventually be in line with U.S. copyright law thanks to all the money paid to american lawmakers by the *AA

      it's a pretty common mistake, those keys are so close together. i accidentally type that all the time.

      [ Parent ]
        • Re:typo? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by iminplaya (723125) on Friday May 18 2007, @02:07AM (#19175597) Journal
          Oh. Do you think these laws were passed on their merits? Is there any evidence of that? What is the possible merit of extending copyright to 75 years after the creator is dead? Or DMCA? Do some research and prove him wrong if that's what you believe. There are some things that are fairly obvious in their own right. You're asking him to prove that the sky is blue or water is wet. And the mods get pretty defensive if anyone dares point out how ugly the truth really is when spelled out in an easy to understand fashion. So the bar is still fairly high.
          [ Parent ]
    • Re:Article is flawed. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by owlnation (858981) on Thursday May 17 2007, @02:59PM (#19168149)

      It assumes that copyright law around the world will not eventually be in line with U.S. copyright law as per the wishes of the *AA
      No, the article is correct - it's your understanding of international law and macroeconomics that is flawed.

      Firstly, the US's version of copyright is more the exception than the rule.

      Secondly, The *IAA is an American organisation but not all its members are in fact American Corporations. Fair use in Germany (where Sony BMG is based) is much more genuinely fair than in the US, BMG has never managed to change that.

      Thirdly, if you want to examine legal parallels for international Internet law then you should look at the development of international Maritime Law. After millennia of shipping technology being available, and the finest legal minds in history having examined the problems, there is no international standard Maritime Legal system.

      Yes, there is broad agreements and treaties between many countries, but there are just as many disagreements and disputes. There are rogue nations, and there is still real piracy.

      The *IAA needs to understand that while the preposterous US copyright laws protect them in that country, they have already lost the War pretty much most other places. And those of you who are American here, need to wake up and realise that your laws are designed to protect you and your interests, not just your country's business interests. You need to take your country back from the Corporations. Your Founding Fathers were wise people with a pretty good understanding of human nature. 14 years is enough copyright for anyone.

      The DMCA, is a law that steals from most American citizens, and penalizes no-one outside your borders. The DMCA hinders your economy, because without it your *IAA industries would need to adapt to survive - and they do have the means and technology to successfully adapt and survive in a manner that allows you value and fair choice.

      [ Parent ]
      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        The DMCA, is a law that steals from most American citizens, and penalizes no-one outside your borders. The DMCA hinders your economy, because without it your *IAA industries would need to adapt to survive - and they do have the means and technology to succ
        • by Mahjub Sa'aden (1100387) <msaaden@gmail.com> on Thursday May 17 2007, @04:53PM (#19170433)
          You are completely correct in that information is the new currency. But the United States is wrong in how it deals with that currency.

          Manufacturing has always been plagued by scarcity. For instance, in the US and Canada and Europe, there's a scarcity of cheap labour. So stuff that can be sent overseas is sent overseas. But overseas, there's a scarcity of knowledge in areas of research, development, automation, and quality control. So anything that is heavy on those things either have a heavy knowledge and personnel export, or they are kept at home.

          My background is manufacturing in Canada, and I can tell you this: typical tool and die, mould-makers and other rather simple (comparatively) stuff is going to China and India, and complicated, highly technical, highly automated products like aerospace are staying here. In fact, traditional trades are slowing right down, but aerospace is absolutely booming in Ontario.

          The problem is that information has no such scarcity and flows easily away. Whether this information is media or trade knowledge. While we may have the cultural upper hand right now, and while we may have the automation and quality control upper hand right now, information like that won't take long to get to China and other low-wage regions.

          So in all their wisdom, our lawmakers have collectively decided to stop that flow as best they can. Whether they can stop it is yet to be seen, but from what I can see, it's doomed to fail. Or, put another way, artificial scarcity is just that: artificial and easily overcome.
          [ Parent ]
          • Re:Article is flawed. (Score:4, Informative)

            by cpt kangarooski (3773) on Thursday May 17 2007, @07:49PM (#19172921) Homepage
            Things which are not physical objects cannot be properties

            No, that's untrue. Intangible properties are common.

            For example, if you own a share of stock in a company, that share is intangible, and represents a fraction of the company (many of the assets of which are also intangible), but it's certainly property. Another kind of intangible property would be a debt. For example, if you deposit $1 with your bank, the bank now owes you a debt of $1. That debt can be transferred to someone else without having to withdraw the dollar.

            The test for whether or not something is property has three parts, and is as follows: 1) The thing must be capable of being used or enjoyed in some manner by the owner; 2) The owner must be able to lend the possession of the thing to another whilst still retaining his ownership of it, and must be able to force it to be returned, and; 3) The owner must be able to dispose of the property by selling it, giving it away, destroying the thing, etc.

            A parcel of land satisfies all three tests. So does a brick. So does a share of stock, or a debt.

            In the copyright debate, there are three distinct things that we often talk about: creative works, copies, and copyrights.

            A creative work is like a story, or music, or a movie. It is the intangible thing that is what the author created. While there might be only one instance of it, it is possible for a single work to simultaneously exist in multiple instances, often millions. For example, there are many books in which 'Macbeth' is printed, but there's only one story involved, and they all just contain an instance of it.

            A copy is a tangible object in which a work is fixed. For a story, it might be a book, e.g. a paperback or a hardcover. For a movie, it might be a reel of film or a DVD. For a song, it might be a page of sheet music, or a CD. A copy of a work isn't the same as the work itself; destroy one copy of Macbeth and that copy itself might be gone, but the story still exists.

            And a copyright is an artificial legal right which pertains to creative works and copies thereof. It is not the same as either a work or a copy; many works and many copies exist without copyrights related to either. When a work passes into the public domain, the copyright dissolves, but the work and its copies are unscathed.

            A creative work isn't property (it fails the second test and usually fails the third). A copy is certainly property. A copyright is arguably property, but could perhaps be construed in a different fashion.
            [ Parent ]
  • obviously... (Score:5, Funny)

    by porkmusket (954006) on Thursday May 17 2007, @01:48PM (#19166615) Homepage
    ...it's because they all listen to MC Hammer. Without DRM, of course.
  • Where? (Score:4, Funny)

    by jimbo3123 (320148) on Thursday May 17 2007, @01:48PM (#19166621) Homepage
    the land of vikings, reindeer, Aurora Borealis and cute blond girls.'
    North Korea?
  • can't the submitter (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 17 2007, @01:50PM (#19166663)
    at least remove the stock ticker info when copying?
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Forget that, what about the *editor*!?

      Also, they left in the unlinked link data. I don't mind that it shows the stock symbol, but then it says "news -- people". These must have been links in the copied text.

      Seriously, guys. Seriously.
    • Re:can't the submitter (Score:5, Funny)

      by LordLucless (582312) on Thursday May 17 2007, @03:52PM (#19169153)
      Dude, it's an article about web piracy. He's just practicing what he preaches.
      [ Parent ]
  • Just wait (Score:3, Interesting)

    by edizzles (1029108) on Thursday May 17 2007, @01:52PM (#19166697) Journal
    At some point the US will get pressured by the RMIA which will in turn force there home country to Hand them over to the US, It happened with the blogger from AU.
  • huh? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Vexorian (959249) on Thursday May 17 2007, @01:56PM (#19166787)

    The pirates were living in the land of vikings
    Shouldn't the vikings do something ?

    ....

    Should I point out thepiratebay doesn't really host any copyrighted material or did that argument get old already?

    • Re:huh? (Score:5, Funny)

      by WED Fan (911325) <akahige.trashmail@net> on Thursday May 17 2007, @02:00PM (#19166883) Homepage Journal

      Shouldn't the vikings do something ?

      Have you ever been to Minnesota? It's not like they have anything going on at the moment. I heard they were planning to invade Wisconsin, but then someone mentioned a problem they had with lactose, so it was called off in favor of a quilting bee and a curling contest.

      Minnesota, more Canadian than Canada.

      [ Parent ]
  • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 17 2007, @01:57PM (#19166815)

    "Printer friendly" version [forbes.com].

    It's also much more eyeball-friendly.

  • Exsqueeze me? Baking Powder? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SpiritusGladius1517 (929800) on Thursday May 17 2007, @02:00PM (#19166881) Homepage Journal
    FTA:
    From June to October 2006 alone, the Recording Industry Association of America says that 11 million songs were downloaded from the site. AllofMP3 claims those sales adhered strictly to Russian law, but that doesn't satisfy the RIAA; the record labels have launched a lawsuit, asking for $150,000 for each stolen file, totaling $1.65 trillion.

    I'm sorry, did they say $1.65 trillion? The RIAA is off their rocker for sure. That much money is going to have to involve a war.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Surely two countries have gone to war for less than $1.65 trillion. On a side note, let's not forget that Russia has oil. [and don't call me Shirley]
    • Re:Exsqueeze me? Baking Powder? (Score:4, Informative)

      by rmckeethen (130580) on Thursday May 17 2007, @02:28PM (#19167451) Homepage

      Interestingly, the estimated GDP of the entire Russian Federation in 2006 was $1.727 trillion using the purchasing parity power scale; nominal GDP is even less at $979 billion in 2006 [1] [wikipedia.org]. Somehow, even if they win, I don't think the RIAA is going to be collecting on that bill anytime soon.

      [ Parent ]
  • I'm moving (Score:5, Funny)

    by aegisalpha (58712) on Thursday May 17 2007, @02:05PM (#19166991)
    "the pirates gleefully reminded the movie company that they didn't live in America, but rather in the land of vikings, reindeer, Aurora Borealis and cute blond girls."

    I'm moving. Vikings, blonde girls, AND pirates? Irresistible!
  • by whoever57 (658626) on Thursday May 17 2007, @02:15PM (#19167203) Journal
    For example:

    The music-selling site AllofMP3.com uses a simpler business model: Base your company in Russia, steal music from American labels and sell it cheaply. AllofMP3 allows users to download full albums for as little as $1
    The whole point of, and the reason the RIAA has not been able to shut it down, is that it is not stealing -- in any sense of the word. Firstly, the owner is not deprived of the work and secondly, AllofMP3 apparently operates within the legal framework of Russia -- in other words, it has a license to run its business model that way. The use of the word stealing is inflammatory.
    • Because "stealing" is illegal in the US, the US govt could make laws to prevent credit card companies from processing transactions involving the purchase of these illegitimate MP3's (allofmp3.com). Didn't the US just pass laws to prevent such transactions
      • by Abcd1234 (188840) on Thursday May 17 2007, @03:06PM (#19168267) Homepage
        However it's not actually stealing. It's copyright infringement.

        No. It's not. In Russia, the law allows allofmp3.com to operate by making use of a compulsory licensing scheme, not unlike what the copyright board wants to foist upon internet radio (though, in that case, the costs are absolutely outrageous, and intended to shut operators down). So, allofmp3.com pays some fee to the Russian copyright whozits, and thus they are allowed to operate legally. Calling this "stealing" or "copyright infringement" is plain and simply wrong, and author of the article is clearly showing their bias by reporting it as such.
        [ Parent ]
      • by Cadallin (863437) on Thursday May 17 2007, @03:03PM (#19168209)
        The Straw Man is that the Artists would actually be paid when people bought the CDs. They aren't. Especially not the ones who aren't already millionaires. The Millionaire artists are the only ones who can negotiate a contract to actually be paid.

        Artists are really caught in the middle at this point. The organizations that claim to represent their interests have violated the public trust and the public interest, by extending copyright into perpetuity. They have thus destroyed the basis on which copyright is granted in the first place. The social contract is broken, and thus, natural rights take over. The natural right of free speech. This is not a case of not liking their distribution license, they have cast off the right to even bargain such points. Artists must (and many are) divorce themselves from the organization that have created this situation if they wish to regain legitimate right to copyrights. For it is now broken.

        [ Parent ]
      • by zenyu (248067) on Thursday May 17 2007, @05:55PM (#19171569)
        Ah, but it is not AllofMP3.com depriving you of your royalties. Those royalties are sitting in an escrow account in Moscow collecting dust because the RIAA doesn't want to accept the cash. Accepting the cash would mean they would need to dispurse them to you with a very small cut for themselves. They want more of the money to go to them and not to you.

        Just because your record label doesn't want to pay you the royalties AllofMP3 has collected on your behalf that doesn't mean they don't give you 'jack shit' for your music, it just means you are either too dumb to collect the check or more likely you hired a RIAA member to act as your agent and they are not collecting the money for their own reasons. It is also quite likely that you aren't talking about your music at all, but a recording whose copyright you sold to an RIAA member, in which case you have a contract dispute with them, not a dispute with AllofMP3.com

        But all this aside, AllofMP3 is a good lesson in why we can't continue selling copies of music. What they are doing is selling music at prices that make sense in their economy, actually they are a bit pricey for Russia. What they are doing is practicing arbitrage. Arbitrage is the what drives the global economy and trying to stop it is a fools errand (see DVD region codes and various other failed schemes attempted in the last 500 years).

        So what to do? Well we can differentiate the product line, sell cheap and expensive versions of the same thing, Tide comes in bags in third world countries and bottles in first world countries. It's the same stuff, but if our local Stop-n-shop started selling Tide in bags you would expect to pay less. This can only account for a 25-30% markup in the rich countries, and the income differential is more like 1000%, so to maximize your income you price for the rich countries and sales in the rest of the world go to a very tiny market segment. BTW This is basically how textbooks work today, they are printed only in paperback in some countries and only in hardback in other countries. But with things as easily and cheaply copied as music we won't be able to keep it out of poor childrens hands like we do textbooks (Try to convince someone living on a $2 a day that they are an evil pirate and should pay $25 for each CD, the $0.25 they do pay is a major outlay.) At my local deli all the detergent bottles have Spanish directions and the batteries are from Israel (Duracells, shipped from here to the Middle East and back).

        We can try to attach a social stigma to buying things cheap, "Oh, you have the J.C. Penny Madonna? I have the Gucci Madonna!" This only goes so far.

        We can sell everything close to 3rd world price, say $0.50. I don't imagine this would be popular with most copyright holders.

        We can move to a donation model. I've considered this myself and from what I can gather from the stats you can expect to get about 10% buy in if you can hold their attention. Your market expands maybe 4x, and you can't increase the donation amount much above current sale price, so your take falls to about 50% of current take. Plus there is the business risk of trying this out, what if everyone just listens to your particular album a couple times and then toss it, they may not give you a donation. And there is a fairness issue, I don't mind people paying less because they have less, but I do mind the millionare moocher.

        We can move to a survey based royalty system. You could keep payments to artists about the same as they are now and increasing each year as the music "buying" world gets bigger. In this system each government would pay the artist on a local scale based on the number of people listening to the artists music in that country. This would have to be paid out of taxes, perhaps CD-ROM and internet connection taxes, perhaps just the general fund. This would be the fairest system to artists and consumers alike, but would be opposed because of the 'taxes are evil' growd and because in this scheme the artist gets the royalty and pays it to the label
        [ Parent ]
  • Thank you! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 17 2007, @02:17PM (#19167237)
    Thank you Forbes! I didn't know about "sites like Alluc.org, VideoHybrid.com, Peekvid.com, TVlinks.co.uk and YouTVPC.com"!
  • How does Forbes get away with it? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by HollowSky (680312) on Thursday May 17 2007, @02:19PM (#19167257)
    Okay, TPB doesn't host any pirated content, it merely points to pirated content. The *AA contends that's still bad. Whatever.... But what about Forbes? They just told me about all these other sites I didn't know about. Forbes just provided me a directory to illegal content. Doesn't that open them up to lawsuits? Journalistic freedoms don't apply when aiding a "crime?"
  • @#$% stock symbols (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hcdejong (561314) <h.c.de.jong@xmsn e t . nl> on Thursday May 17 2007, @02:40PM (#19167729)
    WTF is a bloody stock symbol doing in a /. summary?

    But when Time Warner's (nyse: TWX -- news -- people ) Warner Bros. studio accused them...

    It's annoying enough to trip over them when reading mainstream US news sites. Can we please keep them away from Slashdot? If I need the stock symbol for a company I either already know it because I'm an investor and it's my job to be elbow-deep in such arcana, or I can Google for it. If you really want to add it, use a bloody hyperlink instead of making the text unreadable with parenthesised shit.
  • as valid.

    not only every country's representatives are presold suck-ups to big buck. surprise, surprise, RIAA member crooks, you might have bought laws in united states for harassing "the people", who are the reason united states was founded for, but, look, your walled does not leverage any weight in many other countries. oh you poor riaa crooks you.
  • Unauthorized Copying Is Not Piracy (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ccherlin (190007) on Thursday May 17 2007, @04:14PM (#19169637)
    Let's be absolutely, one hundred percent, crystal clear about one thing: Unauthorized copying is not piracy.

    What is piracy? Piracy is when someone takes goods, that are legally protected by property rights, and that are being transported from one place to another, without authorization from the owner of the goods, depriving the owner of those goods from their use and economic value.

    What is unauthorized copying? Unauthorized copying is taking a pattern of information that is legally protected by copyright and is fixed on a physical substrate, and creating a similar or identical pattern of information on another physical substrate, without permission of the copyright holder, in a manner that does not have a statutory exemption from copyright protection. (Whew!)

    As you can see, these things are quite distinct from one another. I don't believe that they are even comparable. The use of the term "Piracy" to describe "Copying a protected work without permission of the copyright owner" is misleading, pejorative and dishonest.

    Whether or not you support actual physical piracy (yarrrr, matey) and whether or not you support unauthorized copying, if you want to have an honest debate you should use correct terminology.
    • Don't take this the wrong way (Score:5, Insightful)

      by zappepcs (820751) on Thursday May 17 2007, @02:02PM (#19166927) Journal
      But could you please justify and explain the statement you made: "You did deprive them - of money."

      Please cite your references and explain any statistics quoted in your explanation. Please also quantify how much money the **AA have been deprived of by TPB. Please do this so that we can forevermore trust that the **AA member companies declining revenues and train-wreck-about-to-happen business model is doomed because of TPB and others like them.

      If you can prove that this is driving the **AA member companies out of business beyond any doubt, I will start downloading music and movies illegally to help ensure a quick end to the **AAs of the world.

      Thank you
      [ Parent ]
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      Just admit you're murdering. I would have so much less a problem with it if you didn't go down the "being an jerk is not murder since I didn't deprive anyone of life". You did deprive them - of years of happy life. If at least you'd admit it, I wouldn't ca
        • Re:Please everyone: (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Knara (9377) <swalsh76&gmail,com> on Thursday May 17 2007, @03:08PM (#19168305)

          It's not pseudo intellectual. Theft requires you to actually take something from someone, and deprive them of the use of that thing. "Piracy", as it is today online (and perhaps incorrectly termed), is making an exact copy (or, frequently, an inferior copy; if it was superior I think that's called "competition") of something.

          Now, let's use the slashdot car analogy. If you made a car, and then I came along with a technology that can exactly (or almost exactly) produce a copy of that car by pointing a little device at it, result would be that you have a car and I have a car that looks almost, if not exactly, like your car. I haven't deprived you of anything, so it isn't theft.

          This is of course why the legal fiction of "intellectual property" has become such a hot topic in the last 10 years or so. The feeling is that if I made something, under the "old" commercial system, in order for someone else to get that thing (during the tenure of my patent or copyright), someone must pay me for it since I am the only one who knows how to do it, has the equipment to do it, employ the people who have the knowledge to make it, etc. But now with digital things, anyone with the proper tools can make a copy and not have to pay me for it. Now, while that must suck, I've yet to understand why people feel entitled to make money from "stuff" they have. Enter DRM, which attempts to make people unable to make their own from "my" original. The result of this is the folks that put images on public webpages and then get mad when people copy them straight from the webpage (now, the cases where someone takes a piece and represents it as their own original work fall under copyright, which I tend to be more sympathic to, but wish the Sonny Bono Act never happened; plus that's just lame), leading to all those silly Javascript tricks on images to try and prevent right-clicking.

          Sure, in an ideal world we'd all make little things and buy them from each other, and all would be well. However, that's not how it works in the world of digital stuffs. The artificial scarcity that makes physical goods producers able to (to an extent) manipulate their asking prices is, by the nature of the medium severely limited. Yet, online content producers find ways to make respectable livings without silly DRM schemes. The key is, of course, to offer something people want at a price they are comfortable paying. There's lots of ways to do this. However, pricing Photoshop at $700 for a single license (and wondering why everyone and their brother copies it instead of buying it) probably isn't the best way to do it (for one example).

          In short, no, it isn't theft unless you change the meaning of the word. Like the pony express, if a company can't adapt their business practices in the face of new technology, they're gonna go out of business. No one is entitled to a profit.

          [ Parent ]
          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            oh please... you are missing out the description of your brave new world business model. Where nobody gets paid for creating ANYTHING that can be easily copied. Do you have ANY idea how much work is involved in making something like Photoshop, or The lord
            • Re:Please everyone: (Score:4, Interesting)

              by missing000 (602285) on Thursday May 17 2007, @03:30PM (#19168709)
              He may not make creative content for a living, but that doesn't make his point any less valid.

              I personally make a lot of creative content, preform publicly and even market my works all without requesting any monetary contribution.

              I realize that others may be profit motivated, but a lot of musicians simply play for fun.

              There wouldn't be any lack of music or a lack of films if the MAFIAA closed tomorrow and the studios closed their doors.
              If that were to happen you may indeed see a cultural revolution of sorts where Britteny Spears and Spiderman 4 are replaced with actually creative works.
              [ Parent ]
            • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

              There's also the muddying of the waters that most people who pirate expensive software wouldn't buy it so the makers of the expensive software have not lost a sale. However without the pirating of their software they would lose market share which can have
            • Re:Please everyone: (Score:5, Interesting)

              by Knara (9377) <swalsh76&gmail,com> on Thursday May 17 2007, @03:51PM (#19169131)

              Gotta love frothing rants in response to well-reasoned arguments, but I'll respond in spite of it.

              oh please... you are missing out the description of your brave new world business model. Where nobody gets paid for creating ANYTHING that can be easily copied.

              I suspect that you've deliberately misunderstood and are intentionally misrepresenting my statements, since I didn't write that. However, if you make paper airplanes and try to sell them, should no one else be able to make copies of your paper airplane?

              Do you have ANY idea how much work is involved in making something like Photoshop, or The lord Of The rings? or Halo? Why the fuck is anyone going to spend any money on making entertainmnt if it can be freely copied without compensation?

              Because by and large consumers like to pay for the Real Thing. This is the idea behind the Windows Genuine Advantage bit, though obviously it was clumsily implemented. If you have a shitty product, no one is going to buy it. Should we be also legally guarantee that if someone makes something, they will get revenue from it, even if it sucks?

              Lord of the Rings cost a ton to make, but also made a hojillion dollars in merchandising, home video releases, etc. Why? Quality product and merchandising that consumers wanted, and it was all sold at a price they wanted to pay. Photoshop may indeed cost a lot to make, but it's obviously not sold at a price consumers want to pay. Adobe's answer to this, it seems, was to make Photoshop Elements. PSE is up to version 4.0 I think, so it at least hit some sort of pricing sweet point.

              let me guess, you dont care, because like most copyright infringers, you dont make creative content for a living, and are just loving the excuse to take other peoples work for free arent you?

              Ahh, strawmen. I make plenty of creative content. Don't make much money from it, but I do make it. But let's apply this to a well-known set of intarwebs content creators: Gabe and Tycho of Penny-Arcade. They're on record (as a matter of fact in writing at the back of their first hardcopy collection, of which there are 3 so far, and I've bought all 3 because of the added value in buying them at a decent price) as saying that hiding your content from your users because you're afraid they'll take it is kinda silly (which I tend to agree with, and why I think the subscription based Modern Tales group goes about the whole thing the wrong way - and why I think PVP's add-on animated subscription featurettes are a great idea; you get the meat for free, and if you want the dessert you shell out a little cash for it). PA was once in dire straits due to the ad network collapses and the loss of revenue thereof. They didn't have the financial resources to go down the failing route of the RIAA and MPAA, instead they adapted and are thriving to this day. None of their strips require you to pay for them, and there's no silly DRM preventing you from doing Save-As on a strip. Even so, people pay cold hard cash to get their books and their merchandise. Why? Cuz they know how to make what their target audience wants and what price their audience will shell out for extra stuffs.

              [ Parent ]
                • Re:Please everyone: (Score:5, Informative)

                  by Knara (9377) <swalsh76&gmail,com> on Thursday May 17 2007, @05:55PM (#19171571)

                  Of course I am! Spending money doesn't guarantee success (see Mission Earth for a good example) But name a blockbuster movie that DIDN'T involve a billion-dollar budget.
                  Give me a definition of a blockbuster. Is Clerks a Blockbuster? It's made well over 1000% of its production cost (~20K to make, financed on credit cards, grossed boxoffice of around $2 million and that doesn't even come close to its total profit to date from home video and merchandising). I can't even name a movie that had a billion dollar budget in adjusted dollars.

                  Sure can. China has over a BILLION people. China also has crap for Intellectual Property law. Are you going to tell me that despite having 5 TIMES the population of the United States, that a decent movie idea hasn't come out of there? And, perhaps you could tell me where the epicenter of the large, booming Chinese movie industry is?
                  Wow, talk about missing the mark with your example. First off, the Chinese movie industry is pretty extensive considering that a huge percentage of their population is essentially living in third world conditions. Secondly, the means of distribution are severely limited in terms of venues due to little things like censorship review boards. Third off, China has been through several social upheavals in the last 100 years that have turned their society upside down, not to mention having had many art forms (at the least) suppressed. Piracy is waaayyyy down on the lists of factors that keep China from making "Armageddon".

                  Where's the Chinese version of the Matrix? Their movie industry is weak and pathetic.
                  Aside from the fact that a ton of the conventions used in the Matrix came from chinese and japanese cinema, it seems that you equate "expensive and pretty" with "good". China has lots of good movies, they're just not massively expensive to make. Furthermore, the Matrix really didn't break new ground in terms of movie making aside from Bullet Time. In terms of plot and cinematic ideas, the basis goes back to 19th century philosophy, if not further (i.e. Plato's Cave). Not to mention that the Wachowski brothers deliberately based the visual look on Ghost in the Shell (making the conceptual designer watch the GitS movie and say 'we want it to look like that' - literally).

                  No, but later in this post you imply that very strongly when you write: Anyone can make anything, but they are not and should not be entitled to make money from it. What part of my "straw man" argument is not well supported by a statement like this?
                  I said they are not entitled to make it. Entitlement means that simply by making something, they *entitled* to make money off it. If I make a little doodle and put it on a website, no one is obligated to pay me anything for it. I can *try* to make money off it, but I probably won't. That is the difference. I didn't say everything should be free, I said no one should be entitled to profit.

                  Pay close attention: Copying copyrighted materials in an infringing way reduces the likelyhood of a purchase of that material. In an indirect way, such activities take away the profit potential of said created material. I know it's a very difficult concept for you to understand, and that's why words like "idiot" come to mind. Sorry you're taking it personally. Feel free to call me a "shill" or something if it makes you feel better.

                  You seem to be a person who has a hard time controlling their temper. Unfortunate.

                  Your reasoning is questionable. By that same thought process, I can argue that competition is theft, since they take away the potential profits of a creator. I'm pretty sure that Microsoft would like this to be true in, say, the realm of IIS vs Apache.

                  Because they created it. It's theirs. We want to encourage more to be created so we all have something to enjoy. I like good quality software, (like Linux, OpenOffice, KDE) good quality books (Arthur C. Clarke, Larry Niven, et
                  [ Parent ]
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          The problem is that there is absolutely no proof that file-sharing decreases revenue at all. Rolling Stone published an article that showed those who file share are more likely to spend the most money on music (not CDs in particular, but concerts, band t-

        • Re:Please everyone: (Score:5, Insightful)

          by meringuoid (568297) on Thursday May 17 2007, @04:52PM (#19170411)
          Unless of course, you don't mind if I stop at your house while your out and grab all the stuff you weren't using anyway?

          I'd rather you didn't take it. That would be stealing.

          However, if you come by and wave a magic wand and create yourself exact duplicates, it wouldn't bother me.

          [ Parent ]
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      (note to those who refer to the USA as America. America is not a country)
      Quit being a dumbass. Unless you're also wanting to say that China, Sweden, Germany, Zimbabwe, and Brazil aren't countries either.

      America = United States of America
      China = People's Republic of China
      Sweden = Kingdom of Sweden
      Germany = Federal Republi
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        And just in case you were confused, the common usage of "Americans" refers to citizens of the United States of America, not the entire population of North and South America.

        As much as I want to believe this to be true, I've been told that if you're i

        • Re:The land of the free. (Score:4, Informative)

          by fmobus (831767) <fmobusNO@SPAMgmail.com> on Thursday May 17 2007, @04:19PM (#19169729)

          Being Brazilian, I would say this holds for Spanish-speaking countries in Central/South America: they mostly refer to someone from USA as estadunidense (something like "unitedstatesian"), and to the country itself as Estados Unidos (they don't say "America")

          For us, Portuguese-speaking Brazilians, someone from USA is americano (but some communists-wannabes insist on estadunidense) and the country is Estados Unidos.

          For the same reasons posted elsewhere in this thread, I prefer "american" over "unitedstatesian". Usually there will be enough context to tell USA from the American Continent, e.g. "Americans wages war against Iraq": we ALL know we're talking USA govt here. Another similar example is United Arab Emirates. "Unitedarabs"? "Emiratians"? "Emirarabs"? I'd stick with "Arabs", even thou it would conflict with other Arab nations.

          Language's choices of words sometimes depends more on "soundness" than accurate semantics. That's why we say "South-Korean" instead of "Korean-republicans" and "North-Korean" instead of "Korean-democratic-republicans". I'd also guess there's a good bit confusion regarding demonyms for French Guyana and Guyana, but I lack precise information.

          [ Parent ]
        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          However, we have not one but three continents named "America" (North, Central, South)

          That's the point - the continents are "North America" and "South America", or "The Americas"; nothing but the country is every referred to simply as "America".

          Also,