What country are YOU living in? Here in America (by which I mean the USA and Canada), punishment rarely fits the crime. If you steal a billion dollars from investors, you'll be asked to retire and pay a fine. Steal a hundred dollars from a liquour store, and you'll get twenty years in jail.
Pirating films isn't white-collar enough to warrant a light sentence. The only crimes that have stiff sentences are the ones that wealthy people don't commit.
We're a bit behind the times down here. I can't think of any recent examples of a local company using it's financial power to put draconian laws into affect. Give us another six months or so to catch up on that one.
Hopefully we'll tear up and burn that Fraud Trade Agreement Bush "offered" us, and we won't have to worry about it any time soon either.
We're a bit behind the times down here. I can't think of any recent examples of a local company using it's financial power to put draconian laws into affect. Give us another six months or so to catch up on that one.
Move to the Free State [freestateproject.org]. about 200,000 libertarian Slashdotters should be able to make a big impact there.
Their goal is to create a Free State out of New Hampshire, that will combine the personal freedom of Holland with the economic freedom of Hong Kong. They are already attempting to change gun laws to allow concealed weapon carrying without a license. Raw milk sales are not regulated. Congresspeople are part-timers and get paid $100 a year. The state government is small and the crime rate is low. If the F
I thought Federal laws (like this one) would overrule State laws. That makes it rather difficult to found a state like that within the borders of the US.
Have you ever been to Hong Kong? My visit was from before the handover, but it seemed that their economic success was based on:
Good Education
A very high population density
Low wages
Not a model I'd want to follow. That was a subjective view - maybe someone else knows more about the place.
Have you ever been to Hong Kong? My visit was from before the handover, but it seemed that their economic success was based on:
Good Education
A very high population density
Low wages
I live in Hong Kong.
Education: most people finish high school, which is better than China, but behind Singapore.
Pop density: The land shortage means extremely high real estate prices, good for the billionaire developers but bad for everyone who has to pay rent or live in a tiny flat. On the other hand, public transpo
That sounds great. Maybe once I'm done my degree I'll look into CS jobs in New Hampshire. Sounds like my kind of place. I'm not too into guns, but I guess you have to take the second amendment along with the first. Them amendments is just about the most promising thing about that country you have there.
Move to the Free State.... Their goal is to create a Free State out of New Hampshire,...
That does look very interesting, and the people do seem to be sincere about everything. Before reading their information, I just assumed that New Hampshire was just as bad as any other New England state. It was surprising to see that they appear to be a tiny oasis in the middle of a liberal swampland.
For me, the main concern with their choice of New Hampshire is not with how things are today, but some years down t
Here in America (by which I mean the USA and Canada)
Nice jibe. I'm Canadian and I'd have to say that if you can't force us to join you in Iraq, you don't own us. Vietnam, Cuba... etc. We're our own country, and thinking otherwise is stupid.
This law isn't about punishing American malefactors. I would bet the problem of pirating films with vidcams isn't even serious in the USA. This law was passed so that we can show our international trading partners (East Asia, among others) that we're serious about intellectual property and hence so should they be. The USA has to create and impose some way of protecting intellectual property, because nowadays, it's among our major exports.
The fact that it's easy enough for anyone with a CD-R to "produce" th
Well actually it's they tend to only get caught in one (or one related set of) crime(s) then wise up and become a professional crook by running for office.
Fighting? what fight... oh you mean the dog and pony show they distract us with.
Trust me, the minute it even begins to look like a three party system they close ranks so fast it'll make your head spin.
Just look at the 'presidential debates' in 1992.
They let in one guy to rich to ignore, while refusing to let in a candidate that repeatedly met thier ever moving 'requirements' to join untill they simply refused point blank to even say what the new 'requirements' were.
Some crimes are more effective than others. White collar crimes are generally much more profitable, so you don't need to be a repeat offender if you get it right the first time. Sigh.
Exactly. So punishing white collar criminals isn't going to be a lot of good is it, except as a deterrent. And quite frankly, I'd say a couple of years in jail is enough of a risk to deter most people who may otherwise consider committing such a crime.
You don't necessarily loose all the money if you took precautions
to ship it abroad or spread it through innumerable channels.
And if you were able to save enough money from the prosecuting
agencies, you'll still have enough "friends" who would be more
than happy to be in your vicinity.
Ah yes, but most people who steal from liquor stores have committed many other crimes, and are likely to commit a lot more, whereas white collar criminals tend to only commit one crime.
Huh, that's funny. I'd have sworn Dennis Koslowski [nydailynews.com] is accused not only of looting his own company, but tax evasion in the millions as well -- and various conspiracies to cover up his alleged crimes.
Not to mention the allegations against Ken Lay and the other alleged Enron conspirators : not only are they alleged to have conned their own investors, they are also alleged to have manufactured fake power shortages in order to over-charge California, according to seized tapes: [cbsnews.com]
"They're fucking taking all the money back from you guys?" complains an Enron employee on the tapes. "All the money you guys stole from those poor grandmothers in California?"
"Yeah, grandma Millie, man"
"Yeah, now she wants her fucking money back for all the power you've charged right up, jammed right up her asshole for fucking $250 a megawatt hour."
And the tapes appear to link top Enron officials Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling to schemes that fueled the crisis.
"Government Affairs has to prove how valuable it is to Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling," says one trader.
But even if you were correct in claiming that "white collar criminals tend to only commit one crime", if that single crime nets the criminal millions of dollars, well, those ill-gotten gains will last a lifetime longer than the take from knocking over a liqueur store.
I'm sure that if by robbing a liqueur store you could make millions, the hold up men would be happy to retire afterward -- or be driven out of thievery by competition from greedy MBAs.
But tell me one thing: why are you so willing to be sympathetic to those who steal the investments of pensioners and pension plans in order to live it up yachting on the Riviera, and so unsympathetic to the poor junkie from the projects who just wants to steal enough to get by for one more miserable day?
Why do we allow the wealthy to bend us over and rob us, and then fawn all over them at their parole parties? Why do we beleive that a CEO really "earns" a salary plus benefits in the tens of millions of dollars, while the average worker gets his jib outsourced?
Is it because we respect wealth -- earned or stolen -- so much, or just because we respect ourselves so little?
Is this still the country that Jefferson and the Adamses risked their "lives, fortunes, and scared honors" for, or some European-style feudalism with the thieving rich taking the place of an idle aristocracy?
Is this still the country that Jefferson and the Adamses risked their "lives, fortunes, and scared honors" for, or some European-style feudalism with the thieving rich taking the place of an idle aristocracy?
Seriously, how do you think the European aristocracy came into being? It was rich and wealthy merchants using their money and power to buy themselves rights and more power. America is not a classless society, it just defines its classes differently. Your powerful families are growing just as they did in Europe hundreds of years ago - basically same system, different part of the curve.
Seriously, how do you think the European aristocracy came into being? It was rich and wealthy merchants using their money and power to buy themselves rights and more power.
Hmm. I'm not an expert on European history, but that isn't how the English aristocracy came into being -- it was from conquerors running around. I would venture to guess that most European aristocracy actually came up from conquest.
Seriously, how do you think the European aristocracy came into being? It was rich and wealthy merchants using their money and power to buy themselves rights and more power.
This isn't entirely correct. A nobility title came with land (a feud), not with wealth. You could be piss poor and still be an aristocrate, and then again, in the Middle Ages, you could be the richest merchant in the world and still not hold any title. This was, at least in part, because of religion: trading was considered to be usury (for obvioud reasons -- noone would sell goods for the price they bought them), and usury was considered to be a mortal sin.
Point of fact: Trading was never considered usury. Usury is (in the Judeo-Christian-Muslim tradition) charging interest on loans, at least to your co-religionists.
The fact that the aristocrats considered it beneath them to engage in manufacturing or trade is one of the factors that led to their eventual demise as the ruling class in Europe.
You, my friend, need to sit down and catch up on your Neal Stephenson reading. In particular, you need to cozy up with one or both of the books in the Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver or The Confusion), and educate yourself about what the European aristocracy actually consisted of, and how they interacted with the wealthy merchants. You could of course just go and pick up a few history books, but Stephenson has been nice enough to condense a lot of information into a couple of volumes, and to wrap it in an engro
Actually, if you research the American Revolution and the civil unrest among the poor during it's time, you will realize that laws in this country have always favored the rich. Shortly after the Declaration of Independence, laws were passed to restrict all but the wealthiest ten percent of the population from holding office (restricted by stipulations of vast land ownership). Also, the rich could buy their way out of military service, while the poor could not. This, in addition to the fact that the poor saw
Why do we allow the wealthy to bend us over and rob us, and then fawn all over them at their parole parties? Why do we beleive that a CEO really "earns" a salary plus benefits in the tens of millions of dollars, while the average worker gets his jib outsourced?
These questions are not related. Not that it should be considered good, but corporate theft is slower and less obviously painful than a knifing. Celebrating crooks at their parole is something that people of bad character have done for centuries.
most people who steal from liquor stores have commited many other crimes, and are likely to commit a lot more
I thought you could only be punished for crimes you have been charged for and found guilty of having commit. Not for crimes you may have done or are likely to do.
Preemptive punishment? See recent US activities in... shit... what's that large country in the Middle East... it's on the tip of my brain... Iraq???;-)
I thought you could only be punished for crimes you have been charged for and found guilty of having commit. Not for crimes you may have done or are likely to do.
Wow. You probably believe the "record will be expunged" thing for minors too eh? Perhaps once upon a time in America; but that time is, unfortunately, long, long gone.
Police regularly create sting operations targeting drug users, johns, and pedophiles. There are no actual victims in these cases, unless you count undercover officers posing as decoys. Hence we are already punishing people for imaginary crimes. The only reason police don't use such tactics against other classes criminals (say, murderers) is that it's just not feasible. (Not that I see how any of this relates to video piracy.)
Name two people who are actually doing REAL prison time for defrauding investors.
Why? Typically people who ask for things like that will simply dismiss any names given as not being REAL enough.
Here's a list of names - you can decide for yourself if the penalties they faced or face are REAL enough to suit you: Andrew Fastow, Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, Dennis Levine, Martin Seigel, Ben Glisan, Michael Kopper. And many, many more.
Here's a list of names - you can decide for yourself if the penalties they faced or face are REAL enough to suit you:
There is a huge difference between Club Fed and a real prison. Plus the people you refer to kept a shitload of the money they stole making it well worth their while. So, no, that is nowhere near real enough when people who sell flowers from certain plants do hard time in real prisons.
There is a huge difference between Club Fed and a real prison.
LOL. Man, can I call it or what? So you're "dismissing it as not being REAL enough", then?
Plus the people you refer to kept a shitload of the money they stole making it well worth their while.
I don't even know you at all, and yet I'll confidently predict that you just pulled that little factoid straight out of your dark and smelly place. Why don't you post some numbers to back that contention up, if you can.
Name two people who are actually doing REAL prison time for defrauding investors. Go on -- name 'em.
Easy...
Ben Glisan played a key role in designing Enron's web of infamous off-balance-sheet partnerships. On Septeber 12, 2003 he was sentenced to five years in federal prison. He was not assisting prosecuters in their investigation.
Frank Bergonzi, formerly Rite Aid's cfo, was sentenced to 28 months in prison on May 27 of this year. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit accounting fr
I'll bet a Slashdot gift subscription that none of these people are in anything more harsh than what is commonly described as a "Club Fed" for "non-violent" (i.e. rich) offenders. If one of them's doing time in a prison where being forced to make sweet lovin' to a cellmate named Hammer is a possibility, post proof in the form of a link to the mainstream press, and I'll give you a Slashdot gift subscription. Seriously.
Oops--posted this reply to myself, rather than to you:
Although I would have preferred to see a cite showing an Enron executive was in danger of being shanked in Oz, you at least answered the question instead of posting a "you people" flame like the other guy did. Enjoy your subscription!
Although I would have preferred to see a cite showing an Enron executive was in danger of being shanked in Oz, you at least answered the question instead of posting a "you people" flame like the other guy did. Enjoy your subscription!
So Mr. Glisan, which helped defraud investors and pensioners of billions of dollars gets the same prison sentence as someone who sells a taped movie on the street? How the hell is that fair?
Providing a copy of a first run film to a release group for mass distribution over the web? not exactly talking about small losses there...
Yes you are. Have you ever seen one of these camcorder videos? Sometimes the image is almost acceptable, if oyu watch it on a 14" monitor. But the sound is alwys terrible, with a nice background of coughing and crinkling cellophane. Basically anyone who'd be satisfied with that is not at all likely to have bought a ticket, or even the legal DVD. In fact the only way
>Yes you are. Have you ever seen one of these camcorder videos?
No, we aren't talking about camcorder rips. The typical source for first run films is screener copies and people inside the studio.
May I remind you that the topic is "Senate Unanimously Passes Anti-Camcorder Bill". And that will have no effect on screener copies, unless it's attached to that bill (it well may be, I haven't the stomach to wade through the legalese).
May I remind you that the topic is "Senate Unanimously Passes Anti-Camcorder Bill". And that will have no effect on screener copies, unless it's attached to that bill (it well may be, I haven't the stomach to wade through the legalese).
So, basically, the only effect will be that somebody will be charged with a felony for possessing a camcorder in his backpack while on vacation. The impact on piracy will be nil.
The discussion took a slight turn when we started talking about wide distribution. Camcorder rips are roundly reviled as the substandard pieces of crap they are. By making them the subject of criminal law, we will hopefully achieve a higher grade of bootleg movies.
I'm not standing up for the crime, but isn't the punishment supposed to match it?
Let me guess--you're one of those people who thinks that corporate executives should get many years in prison rather than fines because of the economic damage their misdeeds cause.
Well, movie pirates likewise cause millions in economic damage.
"Let me guess--you're one of those people who thinks that corporate executives should get many years in prison rather than fines because of the economic damage their misdeeds cause." There is real, measurable damage when some clown in a business suit robs someone of their retirement fund. They destroy lives. I'm yet to see a poor starving industry executive begging me for money when I buy my groceries because some kid downloaded a copy of "Crossroads".
"Well, movie pirates likewise cause millions in economic damage."
If I hadn't been able to download a few episodes of The Sopranos, I never would have bought the entire DVD collection. Viewing times just don't suit my work habits unfortunately, and I'm not abou to shell out $100 on something that might just be garbage.
But wait, you're talking about those poor unfortunate people like set builders and painters, the hard workers who make their living supporting the movie industry, and I'm hurting them, right?
If that's the case, they'd have a big complaint to lodge with those behind Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow. The whole movie filmed without a single set being built, everything CG apart from the main actors.
The movie industry is playing catch-up to consumer demands. They either adapt, of their business model dies.
Is it really that hard to grasp?
There is real, measurable damage when some clown in a business suit robs someone of their retirement fund
Sigh. Would it be too much to ask you to think for one minute before posting? What the hell do you think 'retirement funds' invest in? That's right - for profit businesses! So when you hurt for-profit companies, you hurt the poor old people with the retirement funds AND ultimately the set painters and whatever other lovable tramp characters you want to put in your menagerie.
So you're saying that somebody distributing film has the same adverse affect on a retirement fund as misreporting of figures and stealing from the shareholders?
Can you come over and do my taxes? You appear to be better with magical numbers than my accountant.
The existence of bricks don't obsolete car windows or cause us to scream about how the car window manufacturers need to come up with new brick-resistant windows or go out of business. Rather, we say "find the idiots who are throwing bricks through windows."
That's a wonderful analogy. The recording industry wants to outlaw the bricks themselves (i.e. P2P). Then we couldn't use them to build houses and pave driveways (share noninfringing files).
On the other hand, the suit who robs the pension fund has caused harm, no question about it. These are the type of greedy bastards behind this kind of law, and when they get caught robbing the pension fund, they typically pay a fine equivelent to around 10% of what they stole -- and no jail time in most cases. Can you imagine their outrage if people convicted of piracy were routinely fined 10% of the value of what they were caught with?
It's rather easier to work out what 10% of the money someone stole fro
You know you, can...oh, what's it called...oh yeah, *rent* seasons of the Sopranos along with other movies. This is legal and lets you try before you buy your own copy. You'll also be supporting video rental stores that let you try before you buy for a very reasonable price. Console games too! And some even sell popcorn and drinks. <HOMER>Mmmmm...popcorn.</HOMER> They've been renting videos (and games) for quite a few years now; I'm surprised you haven't heard of it.
Well, movie pirates likewise cause millions in economic damage
They do. But this law would give you up to three years in prison even if you don't do it for profit. While many people stealing movies for personal use may collectively cause millions in economic damage, individually you have only cost a few bucks. So the punishment should fit the crime, that is, it should only be worth a few bucks, not millions.
If somebody pirates a movie for profit and makes millions themselves, I can see this argument holding and requiring a stiff sentence. But for individual pirates stealing for personal use, it's just insane.
While many people stealing movies for personal use may collectively cause millions in economic damage, individually you have only cost a few bucks
If somebody pirates a movie for profit and makes millions themselves, I can see this argument holding and requiring a stiff sentence. But for individual pirates stealing for personal use, it's just insane.
Copying isn't stealing. How many times that has to be told. Don't fall into the rhetoric of big media companies twisting the terms to make breaking the
It involves taking something that someone else has a property right in. That's stealing. It is irrelevant that the property right is an abstract one created by law.
It involves taking something that someone else has a property right in.
Taking? If there are n copies of a certain copyrighted work and I make one illegal copy there are now n+1 works, not n. Nobody has taken anything. Only a copyright infringement has been done. Analogies from the physical world fit badly to copyrights.
It involves taking something that someone else has a property right in. That's stealing.
Except that theft deprives the original owner of their property.
It is irrelevant that the property right is an abstract one created by law.
It's highly relevent, because "intellectual property" differs from real property in that it can be trivially duplicated. Pretending that the concepts are equivalent is a fiction.
Taking is removing. By copying something, you aren't removing a damn thing. No, I'm not arguing semantics or splitting hairs to make it sound less serious. I'm calling it exactly what it is, copyright infringment. The content industries have called copying something its not (stealing) to make it sound *worse* than it really is, and unfortunatly a lot of poeple (like you) have bought their propoganda. Well, they are wrong and you are wrong, which is why we need to correct you
Read the law, or at least read a few websites [indymedia.org.uk]. Legally, copyright is theft.
I agree it's not the kind of theft that leaves the original owner without use of it. But if you take money from someone, it's theft. When you copy a song illegally, you've taken money from someone. Argue all you want that you wouldn't have purchased it anyway, but the end result is you have a copy of it. Having that copy without paying the artist/label/writer/whatever, according to the law, means you stole it.
If that would be true there wouldn't be any copyright legislation. It would be just plain stealing. But the thing is that we have a copyright legislation. And it doesn't say that copying is stealing.
It is a crime (often punishable by death) to speak against the state in some countries. Does it make the law moral? Was what China made at Tiananmen Square moral?
It is not stealing, it is copying. If I like your house, and I build one like it, am I stealing your house? The problem here is that many people have lost their way and no longer know what is moral and what is not.
Well, actually, they do have one moral: the one with the biggest stick wins.
You're forgetting the all important third option: Record/Pirate movie for non-personal non-profit distribution. For instance, putting it up on the internet for free download. That can cost a film maker (producers and directors), distributors, actors, and studios much dinero in lost theater, PayPerView, rental, and dvd/VHS sales. And this cost is only likely to increase as the use of high bandwidth internet connections increases. You may not agree with the degree of proposed punishment or the all-things-
You're forgetting the all important third option: Record/Pirate movie for non-personal non-profit distribution.
Quite so. However, the act of distributing it (for profit or not) is a separate act from the act of recording it. If they want to make that a separate crime with its own punishment, that might make sense. Three years in prison for the act of recording it alone, regardless of the purpose, doesn't make sense.
First, the bill states that sentencing will be not more than 3 years, fines, or both for a first conviction under this law. At worst, that means one would probably get out on parole much sooner than the full three years. However 3 years is a max sentence and a judge would have leeway under to be determined sentencing guidelines to sentence for less time. Factors would most certainly include: intent to distribute, on what scale, for profit or not, and estimated financial loss based on those findings. Not
Problem I see is that it requires the sentence to be based on a speculation of what your intentions might be.
This is just one of those areas - much like *cough* "music sharing" - that is almost universally an act of theft, that a strong deterrent is required.
It would be invasive to search (actively or passively) audiences for recording equipment. Solutions such as watermarking help identify the most agressive thieves, and prevention measures such as IR blasters or even low-light surveillance cameras provo
Let me guess--you're one of those people who thinks that corporate executives should get many years in prison rather than fines because of the economic damage their misdeeds cause.
The simple fact is that "white coller criminals" do cause far more economic damage than any other kind of criminal.
Well, movie pirates likewise cause millions in economic damage.
There dosn't appear to be much evidence for this at all.
... if you beat up a video store clerk and steal some real, actual copies of a film on DVD or VHS.
I'm not standing up for the crime, but isn't the punishment supposed to match it?
Great analogy, except that you're comparing the ACTUAL time you would probably get for a crime to the MAXIMUM time you could get for another crime. The MAXIMUM punishment for felony aggravated assault and felony robbery would probably be about 30+ years, depending on the state. Why do people on slashdot have such trouble comprehending maximum punishment? Go look at some laws. Most crimes have suprisingly high maximum punishents. Most people don't get the maximum. That's why it's called a maximum punishment, not a standard punishemnt.
30+ years? Excellent. I'm glad punks that beat up on store clerks can potentially get that kind of punishment, but tell me how often that happens in practice.
Someone steals $500 from a convenience store, they're not going to go down for 30 years. They'll get a few months and then maybe 12 months of probation.
Sitting in a cinema with a camcorder should not be punishable by any prison time. It is not a violent act, it makes nobody rich, it isn't going to fund any drug cartel. It is a simple civil violat
It depends on which state. A lot of states now have on the 2nd or 3rd felony conviction you get life. That's one of the reasons they have built so many prisons the past decade or so, and why we have such a high inmate population as a percentage of the entire population
Laws and crimes and what gets emphasized are entirely random now. for instance, we have multi millions of illegal immigrants. People who jump the border have committed a felony, yet it is almost universally ignored, they are allowed to live freely almost anyplace inside the US. At best if they find a huge group of them near the border they'll just be shipped back over, they rarely serve any jail time. We also have laws that make hiring an illegal immigrant a federal crime, with a 10,000$ fine per incident, but you never hear much of any arrests in those cases, even though the practice is blatant.
There's more, that's just a blatant example. Law enforcement is political, it's not any sort of even or fair, it's whatever the elite class wants that season. They give the orders, their enforcers click heels and jump to it. If they are ordered to ignore certain crimes, they will do so, even if they are aware of them.
I am not pro criminal, I just think the laws are terribly skewed and not enforced fairly across the board, and we have a variety of laws on the books now that are just ridiculous and shouldn't even be there. The US has a growth industry of gradually adding to laws that make more of the lower and middle classes "criminals". I think it's planned that way, to make a two class society eventually, technofeudalism. They are also apparently destroying as much of the middle class job structure as they can. Any job they can find that is exportable they will, any job that they can't exported they will import millions of illegals or too many legals to take those jobs. It's so completely obvious I won't even debate it with any debunkers now, the stats and realities are all over. It's been slow but verifiably steady, and the numbers increase yearly. Part of the plan, command and control, the same old dodge the old aristocrats have always pulled down through the ages.
As to recording in the cinema? I could care less, I've been boycotting movies for awhile now, and paid for music, I just quit. If a movie is free to copy, I might buy it. I have two here I got that the producer lets people make copies of. Music, again, if it's free over the radio by putting up with ads I occassionaly listen, but besides that, don't buy any-new. Used I will buy, it's just recycled, and the producers don't make another penny on it, but some guy at a yard sale will so I don't care, but even then not too much, a few examples of each a year. I even quit buying from the new but marked down bins, stopped that last year.
I think if enough people will stop placing so much importance on "entertainmnerts" of that sort, we'll see more sane pricing and reduce any demand for copying for profit. it's all I can do, tell people to boycott movies and music and professional sports and television fiction. it's gotten so ridiculous expensive it's stupid, and the time wasting aspects of it are lost to the wasters, I think in a lot of cases they don't realise how absuerdly addicted they get to it to the detriment of other more important things our society ignores too much. When you can get several million people in one weekend to go drop tens of millions of dollars all over the country to watch some new movie, with thousands in any random city you pick, and the same city can't get two dozen people to a community meeting to discuss local judicial corruption or the next multi million dollar school budget, etc, well, there's something wrong there in *general terms*. IMO anyway.
Rome when it was collapsing had it's bread and circuses to keep the people amused and occupied so they wouldn't pay attention to the rot that was collapsing their society around them.. We have the same thing now but people don't like to think they are droned out barbarians addicted to bre
...Law enforcement is political, it's not any sort of even or fair, it's whatever the elite class wants that season. They give the orders, their enforcers click heels and jump to it. If they are ordered to ignore certain crimes, they will do so, even if they are aware of them...
I used to work in (environmental) law enforcement for the state of Maryland, there was one case I remember where this one company was violating the state laws. However, the owner was a big contributor to the governor's campaign f
Videotaping a movie in the theater isn't an important crime. The real crime is in thinking that any random movie is worth copying at all in the first place, and the victims get self judged and self sentenced, even though most of them don't think of themselves as victims.
So what would you have us do to enjoy ourselves otherwise? Count how many ways there are to twiddle our thumbs?
I agree that Hollywood's (possibly unintentional, possibly not) purpose in modern society is to provide the unwashed masses
Forcing teachers to teach of a maximum of 10 years would severely reduce the quality of education (at least at better schools like the one I went to, where most of my teachers had 20+ years of experience).
Even more true and the first real idea for changing the democratic system to the better I had read in a long time. (makes note on this to self...)
But it may be of no improvement, if the bureaucrats are accepting bribes etc. then just for being "adopted" by this or that corporation after their last office term is over. Seems we can't run a fair state without fair people and huge bribes make 98% of all people weak if the sum is high enough...
The real question is: revolution or reformation, what is better
Understand you quite a bit, especially the "why did it broke"-part;) - although it's on home electronics, computers & software for me even if I had some success on car and bike repair. And I confess, I've been sharing music over digital media long before cd-burners were under 1500$ or mp3 and napster was thought of on 3.5" floppy discs and plain vanilla harddiscs;)
Thanks and keep postin', we will need alternatives for the current political system and advancements for democracy in general soon enough
But you wouldn't beat up a video clerk and steal some million copies of dvds. On the other hand, that camcorder version of the film could get distributed to a million people because the intent is certainly not to have it for a personal library. I don't think the punishment is too harsh for the crime.
But from that one DVD copy of the film you steal, you can rip it to divx or whatever and still distribute it to millions of people, and at higher quality than a shakey-cam copy.
Yes, you are correct. Except that you would obviously have to wait until the DVD is released. The whole point of the cam is to capture the film at the opening day or earlier.
Yeah, I was waiting for that one;)
Still, I won't sit and watch a dodgy handycam version of anything at my desk. I'd much rather seek out those leaked screeners. Haven't heard of any big 'cracking down' on those lately...
Criminal masterminds with access to a duplication unit capable of running off millions of DVDs do not sit in cinemas with camcorders. They hand that job off to an underling.
Criminal masterminds with access to a duplication unit capable of running off millions of DVDs do not sit in cinemas with camcorders. They hand that job off to an underling.
The easiest way would be to bribe a factory to produce extra disks.
That's exactly what I've said with respect to filesharing for music. The penalties will soon be higher for swapping mp3s than just going into a record store and shoplifting. Which is easier to get away with is an exercise left to the perpetrator.
The issue is even more complex. The punishment for a crime should not encourage the suspect to use a greater level of violence to avoid capture than already in use in the crime. The punishment should also not put innocent bystanders at increased risk.
For example at sporting events certain behaviors are prohibited. The emphasized punishment for the behavior is ejection from the venue. If the action is a crime, the event may press charges. Most events that I have attended do not say that all prohibited action will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The reason, I believe, is because such statement might encourage suspects to be more resistant to the punishment, an in the process put innocent people at risk. For example, one can imagine some object accidently getting thrown onto the court. This obviously put player health at risk, and arguable could be the basis for a criminal prosecution. If the suspects thought that jail time was a real possibility, then they might choose to use violence to defend themselves, as the jail time might not be significantly increased. As it is, they have an incentive to leave quietly to avoid further punishment.
And this is what the theaters are missing. By attaching a five year penalty to a nonviolent action, they are endangering my health, the health of staff, and the well being of any police called to enforce the action. I mean is someone who is risking five years for recording a movie going to worry about 10 years for injuring the people around him in his attempt to avoid capture? Is such a person going to worry about the riot he or she causes as they pull a gun to try to escape? I know that this is the extreme possibility, but one must make a full analysis before passing these laws.
People will do really stupid stuff out of fear. In the US we try hard to have a fair and open process of law to minimize that fear. The problem is that process is becoming less fair, for instance by the reduced access to proper representation for those who cannot afford it, and as a consequence these parties tend to feel they have less to lose, which makes them more a threat to society.
On that note, if you were a movie theater employee making minimum wage, how would you enfore this law? Would you find someone with a camcorder and say "Excuse me sir, I'm going to need you to wait over here for the cops to arrive"? Maybe if you have a death wish. Of course the cops could be called without the camcorder user being aware of it, but what if he isn't noticed until the movie is almost over? If the theaters can't employ a security force capable of detaining someone, and they won't because it woul
You'd get less time... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not standing up for the crime, but isn't the punishment supposed to match it?
Sickening...
What Country are YOU living in? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pirating films isn't white-collar enough to warrant a light sentence. The only crimes that have stiff sentences are the ones that wealthy people don't commit.
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:5, Insightful)
We're a bit behind the times down here. I can't think of any recent examples of a local company using it's financial power to put draconian laws into affect. Give us another six months or so to catch up on that one.
Hopefully we'll tear up and burn that Fraud Trade Agreement Bush "offered" us, and we won't have to worry about it any time soon either.
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2)
Too busy outlawing swords right now?
The only way to change things. (Score:3, Interesting)
Move to the Free State [freestateproject.org]. about 200,000 libertarian Slashdotters should be able to make a big impact there.
Their goal is to create a Free State out of New Hampshire, that will combine the personal freedom of Holland with the economic freedom of Hong Kong. They are already attempting to change gun laws to allow concealed weapon carrying without a license. Raw milk sales are not regulated. Congresspeople are part-timers and get paid $100 a year. The state government is small and the crime rate is low. If the F
Re:The only way to change things. (Score:2)
Have you ever been to Hong Kong? My visit was from before the handover, but it seemed that their economic success was based on:
- Good Education
- A very high population density
- Low wages
Not a model I'd want to follow. That was a subjective view - maybe someone else knows more about the place.Re:The only way to change things. (Score:2)
Good Education
A very high population density
Low wages
I live in Hong Kong.
Education: most people finish high school, which is better than China, but behind Singapore.
Pop density: The land shortage means extremely high real estate prices, good for the billionaire developers but bad for everyone who has to pay rent or live in a tiny flat. On the other hand, public transpo
That's Great (Score:2)
Re:The only way to change things. (Score:3, Interesting)
That does look very interesting, and the people do seem to be sincere about everything. Before reading their information, I just assumed that New Hampshire was just as bad as any other New England state. It was surprising to see that they appear to be a tiny oasis in the middle of a liberal swampland.
For me, the main concern with their choice of New Hampshire is not with how things are today, but some years down t
Re:The only way to change things. (Score:2)
Re:The only way to change things. (Score:2)
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2)
Nice jibe. I'm Canadian and I'd have to say that if you can't force us to join you in Iraq, you don't own us. Vietnam, Cuba... etc. We're our own country, and thinking otherwise is stupid.
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:3, Interesting)
This law isn't about punishing American malefactors. I would bet the problem of pirating films with vidcams isn't even serious in the USA. This law was passed so that we can show our international trading partners (East Asia, among others) that we're serious about intellectual property and hence so should they be. The USA has to create and impose some way of protecting intellectual property, because nowadays, it's among our major exports.
The fact that it's easy enough for anyone with a CD-R to "produce" th
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:5, Funny)
Mycroft
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2)
Trust me, the minute it even begins to look like a three party system they close ranks so fast it'll make your head spin.
Just look at the 'presidential debates' in 1992.
They let in one guy to rich to ignore, while refusing to let in a candidate that repeatedly met thier ever moving 'requirements' to join untill they simply refused point blank to even say what the new 'requirements' were.
Mycroft
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:1)
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2)
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:1)
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2)
Some crimes are more effective than others. White collar crimes are generally much more profitable, so you don't need to be a repeat offender if you get it right the first time. Sigh.
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:1)
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2)
You don't necessarily loose all the money if you took precautions to ship it abroad or spread it through innumerable channels.
And if you were able to save enough money from the prosecuting agencies, you'll still have enough "friends" who would be more than happy to be in your vicinity.
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh, that's funny. I'd have sworn Dennis Koslowski [nydailynews.com] is accused not only of looting his own company, but tax evasion in the millions as well -- and various conspiracies to cover up his alleged crimes.
Not to mention the allegations against Ken Lay and the other alleged Enron conspirators : not only are they alleged to have conned their own investors, they are also alleged to have manufactured fake power shortages in order to over-charge California, according to seized tapes: [cbsnews.com]
But even if you were correct in claiming that "white collar criminals tend to only commit one crime", if that single crime nets the criminal millions of dollars, well, those ill-gotten gains will last a lifetime longer than the take from knocking over a liqueur store.
I'm sure that if by robbing a liqueur store you could make millions, the hold up men would be happy to retire afterward -- or be driven out of thievery by competition from greedy MBAs.
But tell me one thing: why are you so willing to be sympathetic to those who steal the investments of pensioners and pension plans in order to live it up yachting on the Riviera, and so unsympathetic to the poor junkie from the projects who just wants to steal enough to get by for one more miserable day?
Why do we allow the wealthy to bend us over and rob us, and then fawn all over them at their parole parties? Why do we beleive that a CEO really "earns" a salary plus benefits in the tens of millions of dollars, while the average worker gets his jib outsourced?
Is it because we respect wealth -- earned or stolen -- so much, or just because we respect ourselves so little?
Is this still the country that Jefferson and the Adamses risked their "lives, fortunes, and scared honors" for, or some European-style feudalism with the thieving rich taking the place of an idle aristocracy?
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this still the country that Jefferson and the Adamses risked their "lives, fortunes, and scared honors" for, or some European-style feudalism with the thieving rich taking the place of an idle aristocracy?
Seriously, how do you think the European aristocracy came into being? It was rich and wealthy merchants using their money and power to buy themselves rights and more power. America is not a classless society, it just defines its classes differently. Your powerful families are growing just as they did in Europe hundreds of years ago - basically same system, different part of the curve.
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2)
Hmm. I'm not an expert on European history, but that isn't how the English aristocracy came into being -- it was from conquerors running around. I would venture to guess that most European aristocracy actually came up from conquest.
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2)
If it wasn't for the fact that genocide and ethnic cleansing wasn't a war crime a century ago, we'd have had a lot of ancient aristocrats in jail.
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:5, Interesting)
This isn't entirely correct. A nobility title came with land (a feud), not with wealth. You could be piss poor and still be an aristocrate, and then again, in the Middle Ages, you could be the richest merchant in the world and still not hold any title. This was, at least in part, because of religion: trading was considered to be usury (for obvioud reasons -- noone would sell goods for the price they bought them), and usury was considered to be a mortal sin.
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2)
The fact that the aristocrats considered it beneath them to engage in manufacturing or trade is one of the factors that led to their eventual demise as the ruling class in Europe.
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2)
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2)
Hey, there's big money in anisette.
rj
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2)
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2)
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:3)
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2)
These questions are not related. Not that it should be considered good, but corporate theft is slower and less obviously painful than a knifing. Celebrating crooks at their parole is something that people of bad character have done for centuries.
So
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought you could only be punished for crimes you have been charged for and found guilty of having commit. Not for crimes you may have done or are likely to do.
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:1)
The reason we put them away for so long is that they are a danger to others. They have offended, and will do so again.
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:3, Insightful)
See recent US activities in
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2)
Wow. You probably believe the "record will be expunged" thing for minors too eh? Perhaps once upon a time in America; but that time is, unfortunately, long, long gone.
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2)
Jeff Skilling bankrupts a large company while netting several million dollars for himself, and several thousand people have lost their life savings.
Yeah, I'm sure the guy that affected six store owners for a few bucks is more of a criminal than Skilling.
Name one person. (Score:2)
Re:Name one person. (Score:5, Informative)
Why? Typically people who ask for things like that will simply dismiss any names given as not being REAL enough.
Here's a list of names - you can decide for yourself if the penalties they faced or face are REAL enough to suit you: Andrew Fastow, Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, Dennis Levine, Martin Seigel, Ben Glisan, Michael Kopper. And many, many more.
Re:Name one person. (Score:2)
There is a huge difference between Club Fed and a real prison.
Plus the people you refer to kept a shitload of the money they stole making it well worth their while. So, no, that is nowhere near real enough when people who sell flowers from certain plants do hard time in real prisons.
Re:Name one person. (Score:2)
LOL. Man, can I call it or what? So you're "dismissing it as not being REAL enough", then?
Plus the people you refer to kept a shitload of the money they stole making it well worth their while.
I don't even know you at all, and yet I'll confidently predict that you just pulled that little factoid straight out of your dark and smelly place. Why don't you post some numbers to back that contention up, if you can.
The Liberal Media [airameric
Re:Name one person. (Score:2)
Re:Name one person. (Score:2)
Lea Fastow - 1 year (And that's just doing the cover up stuff).
And that's just two from Enron. The other people in from there have either killed themselves, or have trials pending.
If you want more, just google 'em.
Re:Name one person. (Score:2, Interesting)
Easy...
Ben Glisan played a key role in designing Enron's web of infamous off-balance-sheet partnerships. On Septeber 12, 2003 he was sentenced to five years in federal prison. He was not assisting prosecuters in their investigation.
Frank Bergonzi, formerly Rite Aid's cfo, was sentenced to 28 months in prison on May 27 of this year. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit accounting fr
Re:Name one person. (Score:2)
Re:Name one person. (Score:3, Insightful)
While I won't usually cite USA Today as a source, the myth of the "Club Fed" prisons is just that: a myth.
They're certainly not as dank or dangerous as a maximum security state prison, but they're not country clubs, either.
USA Today article, RE: Martha Stewart and what she faces in prison [usatoday.com]
Similar article from Globe and Mail [theglobeandmail.com]
Article from Australia's The Age regarding white collar criminals in the US [theage.com.au]
-l
Re:Name one person. (Score:2)
Although I would have preferred to see a cite showing an Enron executive was in danger of being shanked in Oz, you at least answered the question instead of posting a "you people" flame like the other guy did. Enjoy your subscription!
Re:Name one person. (Score:2)
Re:Name one person. (Score:2)
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2)
Yes you are. Have you ever seen one of these camcorder videos? Sometimes the image is almost acceptable, if oyu watch it on a 14" monitor. But the sound is alwys terrible, with a nice background of coughing and crinkling cellophane. Basically anyone who'd be satisfied with that is not at all likely to have bought a ticket, or even the legal DVD. In fact the only way
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2)
Yes you are. Have you ever seen one of these camcorder videos?
No, we aren't talking about camcorder rips. The typical source for first run films is screener copies and people inside the studio.
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2)
May I remind you that the topic is "Senate Unanimously Passes Anti-Camcorder Bill". And that will have no effect on screener copies, unless it's attached to that bill (it well may be, I haven't the stomach to wade through the legalese).
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2)
May I remind you that the topic is "Senate Unanimously Passes Anti-Camcorder Bill". And that will have no effect on screener copies, unless it's attached to that bill (it well may be, I haven't the stomach to wade through the legalese).
So, basically, the only effect will be that somebody will be charged with a felony for possessing a camcorder in his backpack while on vacation. The impact on piracy will be nil.
Re:What Country are YOU living in? (Score:2)
The discussion took a slight turn when we started talking about wide distribution. Camcorder rips are roundly reviled as the substandard pieces of crap they are. By making them the subject of criminal law, we will hopefully achieve a higher grade of bootleg movies.
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:1)
Let me guess--you're one of those people who thinks that corporate executives should get many years in prison rather than fines because of the economic damage their misdeeds cause.
Well, movie pirates likewise cause millions in economic damage.
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is real, measurable damage when some clown in a business suit robs someone of their retirement fund. They destroy lives. I'm yet to see a poor starving industry executive begging me for money when I buy my groceries because some kid downloaded a copy of "Crossroads".
"Well, movie pirates likewise cause millions in economic damage."
If I hadn't been able to download a few episodes of The Sopranos, I never would have bought the entire DVD collection. Viewing times just don't suit my work habits unfortunately, and I'm not abou to shell out $100 on something that might just be garbage.
But wait, you're talking about those poor unfortunate people like set builders and painters, the hard workers who make their living supporting the movie industry, and I'm hurting them, right?
If that's the case, they'd have a big complaint to lodge with those behind Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow. The whole movie filmed without a single set being built, everything CG apart from the main actors.
The movie industry is playing catch-up to consumer demands. They either adapt, of their business model dies.
Is it really that hard to grasp?
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sigh. Would it be too much to ask you to think for one minute before posting? What the hell do you think 'retirement funds' invest in? That's right - for profit businesses! So when you hurt for-profit companies, you hurt the poor old people with the retirement funds AND ultimately the set painters and whatever other lovable tramp characters you want to put in your menagerie.
The "Adapt or your bus
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:3, Interesting)
Can you come over and do my taxes? You appear to be better with magical numbers than my accountant.
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a wonderful analogy. The recording industry wants to outlaw the bricks themselves (i.e. P2P). Then we couldn't use them to build houses and pave driveways (share noninfringing files).
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2)
It's rather easier to work out what 10% of the money someone stole fro
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2)
In all seriousness, yo
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:5, Insightful)
They do. But this law would give you up to three years in prison even if you don't do it for profit. While many people stealing movies for personal use may collectively cause millions in economic damage, individually you have only cost a few bucks. So the punishment should fit the crime, that is, it should only be worth a few bucks, not millions.
If somebody pirates a movie for profit and makes millions themselves, I can see this argument holding and requiring a stiff sentence. But for individual pirates stealing for personal use, it's just insane.
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:3, Insightful)
If somebody pirates a movie for profit and makes millions themselves, I can see this argument holding and requiring a stiff sentence. But for individual pirates stealing for personal use, it's just insane.
Copying isn't stealing. How many times that has to be told. Don't fall into the rhetoric of big media companies twisting the terms to make breaking the
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2, Insightful)
It involves taking something that someone else has a property right in. That's stealing. It is irrelevant that the property right is an abstract one created by law.
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2)
Taking? If there are n copies of a certain copyrighted work and I make one illegal copy there are now n+1 works, not n. Nobody has taken anything. Only a copyright infringement has been done. Analogies from the physical world fit badly to copyrights.
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2)
You've taken the copyright owner's control.
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2)
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2)
Except that theft deprives the original owner of their property.
It is irrelevant that the property right is an abstract one created by law.
It's highly relevent, because "intellectual property" differs from real property in that it can be trivially duplicated. Pretending that the concepts are equivalent is a fiction.
Re:Bzzt (Score:2)
You are the one engaging in pro
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2)
I agree it's not the kind of theft that leaves the original owner without use of it. But if you take money from someone, it's theft. When you copy a song illegally, you've taken money from someone. Argue all you want that you wouldn't have purchased it anyway, but the end result is you have a copy of it. Having that copy without paying the artist/label/writer/whatever, according to the law, means you stole it.
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2)
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2)
It is not stealing, it is copying. If I like your house, and I build one like it, am I stealing your house? The problem here is that many people have lost their way and no longer know what is moral and what is not.
Well, actually, they do have one moral: the one with the biggest stick wins.
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2)
Quite so. However, the act of distributing it (for profit or not) is a separate act from the act of recording it. If they want to make that a separate crime with its own punishment, that might make sense. Three years in prison for the act of recording it alone, regardless of the purpose, doesn't make sense.
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2)
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2)
This is just one of those areas - much like *cough* "music sharing" - that is almost universally an act of theft, that a strong deterrent is required.
It would be invasive to search (actively or passively) audiences for recording equipment. Solutions such as watermarking help identify the most agressive thieves, and prevention measures such as IR blasters or even low-light surveillance cameras provo
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2)
The simple fact is that "white coller criminals" do cause far more economic damage than any other kind of criminal.
Well, movie pirates likewise cause millions in economic damage.
There dosn't appear to be much evidence for this at all.
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2)
Individual movie "pirates" (at least in the US) don't.
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not standing up for the crime, but isn't the punishment supposed to match it?
Great analogy, except that you're comparing the ACTUAL time you would probably get for a crime to the MAXIMUM time you could get for another crime. The MAXIMUM punishment for felony aggravated assault and felony robbery would probably be about 30+ years, depending on the state. Why do people on slashdot have such trouble comprehending maximum punishment? Go look at some laws. Most crimes have suprisingly high maximum punishents. Most people don't get the maximum. That's why it's called a maximum punishment, not a standard punishemnt.
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:3, Insightful)
Someone steals $500 from a convenience store, they're not going to go down for 30 years. They'll get a few months and then maybe 12 months of probation.
Sitting in a cinema with a camcorder should not be punishable by any prison time. It is not a violent act, it makes nobody rich, it isn't going to fund any drug cartel. It is a simple civil violat
Rome (Score:5, Insightful)
Laws and crimes and what gets emphasized are entirely random now. for instance, we have multi millions of illegal immigrants. People who jump the border have committed a felony, yet it is almost universally ignored, they are allowed to live freely almost anyplace inside the US. At best if they find a huge group of them near the border they'll just be shipped back over, they rarely serve any jail time. We also have laws that make hiring an illegal immigrant a federal crime, with a 10,000$ fine per incident, but you never hear much of any arrests in those cases, even though the practice is blatant.
There's more, that's just a blatant example. Law enforcement is political, it's not any sort of even or fair, it's whatever the elite class wants that season. They give the orders, their enforcers click heels and jump to it. If they are ordered to ignore certain crimes, they will do so, even if they are aware of them.
I am not pro criminal, I just think the laws are terribly skewed and not enforced fairly across the board, and we have a variety of laws on the books now that are just ridiculous and shouldn't even be there. The US has a growth industry of gradually adding to laws that make more of the lower and middle classes "criminals". I think it's planned that way, to make a two class society eventually, technofeudalism. They are also apparently destroying as much of the middle class job structure as they can. Any job they can find that is exportable they will, any job that they can't exported they will import millions of illegals or too many legals to take those jobs. It's so completely obvious I won't even debate it with any debunkers now, the stats and realities are all over. It's been slow but verifiably steady, and the numbers increase yearly. Part of the plan, command and control, the same old dodge the old aristocrats have always pulled down through the ages.
As to recording in the cinema? I could care less, I've been boycotting movies for awhile now, and paid for music, I just quit. If a movie is free to copy, I might buy it. I have two here I got that the producer lets people make copies of. Music, again, if it's free over the radio by putting up with ads I occassionaly listen, but besides that, don't buy any-new. Used I will buy, it's just recycled, and the producers don't make another penny on it, but some guy at a yard sale will so I don't care, but even then not too much, a few examples of each a year. I even quit buying from the new but marked down bins, stopped that last year.
I think if enough people will stop placing so much importance on "entertainmnerts" of that sort, we'll see more sane pricing and reduce any demand for copying for profit. it's all I can do, tell people to boycott movies and music and professional sports and television fiction. it's gotten so ridiculous expensive it's stupid, and the time wasting aspects of it are lost to the wasters, I think in a lot of cases they don't realise how absuerdly addicted they get to it to the detriment of other more important things our society ignores too much. When you can get several million people in one weekend to go drop tens of millions of dollars all over the country to watch some new movie, with thousands in any random city you pick, and the same city can't get two dozen people to a community meeting to discuss local judicial corruption or the next multi million dollar school budget, etc, well, there's something wrong there in *general terms*. IMO anyway.
Rome when it was collapsing had it's bread and circuses to keep the people amused and occupied so they wouldn't pay attention to the rot that was collapsing their society around them.. We have the same thing now but people don't like to think they are droned out barbarians addicted to bre
Re:Rome (Score:2)
I used to work in (environmental) law enforcement for the state of Maryland, there was one case I remember where this one company was violating the state laws. However, the owner was a big contributor to the governor's campaign f
Wow, we're feeling bitter, aren't we? (Score:2)
Videotaping a movie in the theater isn't an important crime. The real crime is in thinking that any random movie is worth copying at all in the first place, and the victims get self judged and self sentenced, even though most of them don't think of themselves as victims.
So what would you have us do to enjoy ourselves otherwise? Count how many ways there are to twiddle our thumbs?
I agree that Hollywood's (possibly unintentional, possibly not) purpose in modern society is to provide the unwashed masses
What about public school teachers? (Score:2)
Re:no exceptions (Score:2)
But it may be of no improvement, if the bureaucrats are accepting bribes etc. then just for being "adopted" by this or that corporation after their last office term is over. Seems we can't run a fair state without fair people and huge bribes make 98% of all people weak if the sum is high enough...
The real question is: revolution or reformation, what is better
Re:you reform yourself and that is the revolution (Score:2)
Thanks and keep postin', we will need alternatives for the current political system and advancements for democracy in general soon enough
Re:Nope, not a surprise (Score:2)
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:1)
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2)
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:1)
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2)
Still, I won't sit and watch a dodgy handycam version of anything at my desk. I'd much rather seek out those leaked screeners. Haven't heard of any big 'cracking down' on those lately...
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2)
The easiest way would be to bribe a factory to produce extra disks.
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2)
That's exactly what I've said with respect to filesharing for music. The penalties will soon be higher for swapping mp3s than just going into a record store and shoplifting. Which is easier to get away with is an exercise left to the perpetrator.
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:4, Insightful)
For example at sporting events certain behaviors are prohibited. The emphasized punishment for the behavior is ejection from the venue. If the action is a crime, the event may press charges. Most events that I have attended do not say that all prohibited action will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. The reason, I believe, is because such statement might encourage suspects to be more resistant to the punishment, an in the process put innocent people at risk. For example, one can imagine some object accidently getting thrown onto the court. This obviously put player health at risk, and arguable could be the basis for a criminal prosecution. If the suspects thought that jail time was a real possibility, then they might choose to use violence to defend themselves, as the jail time might not be significantly increased. As it is, they have an incentive to leave quietly to avoid further punishment.
And this is what the theaters are missing. By attaching a five year penalty to a nonviolent action, they are endangering my health, the health of staff, and the well being of any police called to enforce the action. I mean is someone who is risking five years for recording a movie going to worry about 10 years for injuring the people around him in his attempt to avoid capture? Is such a person going to worry about the riot he or she causes as they pull a gun to try to escape? I know that this is the extreme possibility, but one must make a full analysis before passing these laws.
People will do really stupid stuff out of fear. In the US we try hard to have a fair and open process of law to minimize that fear. The problem is that process is becoming less fair, for instance by the reduced access to proper representation for those who cannot afford it, and as a consequence these parties tend to feel they have less to lose, which makes them more a threat to society.
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2)
I'm not standing up for the crime, but isn't the punishment supposed to match it?
Movies available for theft in video stores have already been released for home video. Movies in theaters have not.
Re:You'd get less time... (Score:2)
You'd get less time for beating up a projectionist and stealing the reels.