Interview With Suren Ter From 'You Have Downloaded' 366
An anonymous reader writes "Suren Ter discusses privacy, piracy, and the future of filesharing. Suren produced the virally popular YouHaveDownloaded.com, which displays all downloads on the public BitTorrent network associated with an IP address."
When asked about his views on piracy: "Just like I told a French journalist and to the lady at the Washington Post, pirates are thieves and they do steal. Yeah yeah, 'when I steal your DVD, you have no DVD, but when I copy a file, you still have a file' — I get that BS. We all know that it’s BS too. However, SOPAs and PIPAs create tyranny. If given the choice between thieves and tyranny, I’d rather stay with the thieves."
Right, because BS is a thorough refutation (Score:5, Funny)
Oh well I used to believe there was a difference between theft and copyright infringement; but now that someone's called the distinction BS I'm changing my views. Heh, my captcha is "proofs"
Re:Right, because BS is a thorough refutation (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah yeah, 'when I steal your DVD, you have no DVD, but when I copy a file, you still have a file' — I get that BS. We all know that it’s BS too.
Who says it's BS? You point out the primary function between theft and copyright infringement is completely different, and then say it's not?
I live by this philosophy. Copyright infringement, and copying of protected works, is in no way theft. Nor is it equal to a lost sale. Nor is it lost revenue.
I don't care WHAT website this guy made, his take on copyright is flat-out wrong. And going by how well it works for my IP and the amount of shit I download, I would say he's not very good at building web apps either.
Re:Right, because BS is a thorough refutation (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm curious what will happen when our society invents the replicator, and starts cloning things like bread and corn.
Will the bakers and farmers claim they have a copyright to food, and you "stole" their bread and corn? I'd have to say no; theft is only theft when the original owner loses his bread or corn. Making a duplicate is merely copying (and possible infringement on a government-granted monopoly) but not theft.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
As a more realistic example, and one that currently exists, would be the object model files for 3D printers (see Thingiverse). Here, the creator of the object model file owns the copyright to that file and can license it under whatever license they choose. The object printer would own whatever object was actually printed as they own the printer and the plastic media that was used to perform the printing.
In your example, I would guess that the replicator owner owns the corn that was replicated, but the cor
Re:Right, because BS is a thorough refutation (Score:4, Insightful)
Some people (like you) will argue until the day is done that copyright infringement is not theft. You will not be convinced otherwise.
Some people (like me) will argue until the day is done that copyright infringement is theft. They (I) will not be convinced otherwise.
Now that's out of the way, how about we accept this incompatibility and read the article and comment on some of the interesting points he raises? Like his view on BitCoin and predictions for the future of downloading. Agree or disagree? Discuss.
I like this one:
...the majority is too dumb to learn anything. For example, we get the same question about dynamic IP at least ten times a day. The answer is right on the first page. Itâ(TM)s on every page, actually. Ignorance is bliss but most people abuse it. They never really learn, they just get used to something.
Or this hypothetical. Is abusing the GPL wrong? If so, why is that wrong and piracy is okay? At a high level, it's the exact same issue - someone says "I've produced this intellectual property, I want other people to do this or not do that with it", and someone else says "too bad, I'm going to do what I want. Deal with it".
Re:Right, because BS is a thorough refutation (Score:5, Informative)
The GPL grants rights to everyone. Copyright takes rights away from everyone. That's the difference. The GPL currently relies on copyright as a legal hack to ensure those rights, but really those rights should be part of consumer protection laws, and copyright should be done away with entirely.
Re:Right, because BS is a thorough refutation (Score:4, Informative)
The only ability (definitely not rights) that are restricted by the GPL is the ability to remove the rights of your end users. That's like saying laws against assault remove your right to punch people in the face. Technically true, but most people value the right to be free from face punching more.
Re: (Score:3)
Words have meaning. These meanings include differences that are significant both in legal and moral terms. If you choose to ignore these differences then you are ignoring both the law and morality.
You are in effect trying to create your own private law and your own private morals.
You are trying to claim the moral high ground when in truth you are liar and completely lawless.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
and those some people (like you) are factually incorrect. The frustrating thing for the correct people is that this isn't an argument and there is no room for interpretation or for having differentiable opinions on the matter, you are 100% completely wrong and either too dumb or too stubborn to admit.
Re: (Score:3)
Or this hypothetical. Is abusing the GPL wrong? If so, why is that wrong and piracy is okay? At a high level, it's the exact same issue - someone says "I've produced this intellectual property, I want other people to do this or not do that with it", and someone else says "too bad, I'm going to do what I want. Deal with it".
Illegally appropriating GPL code ISN'T THEFT EITHER.
Theft is a very specific thing. Copyright infringement is another, but different, very specific thing.
Whether or not you believe them morally identical isn't relevant. Your assumption that people complaining that copyright infringement isn't theft are thereby excusing copyright infringement is flawed. That discussion is completely orthogonal.
Re:Right, because BS is a thorough refutation (Score:4, Insightful)
> Some people (like me) will argue until the day is done that copyright infringement is theft. They (I) will not be convinced otherwise.
So copying a _number_ is theft ?? First, some natural plants are illegal, and now imaginary property, aka numbers, are illegal too. What's next? Thinking the same thoughts??
You _do_ realize that the basis of all civilizations are built on the concept of sharing, right? Or would you like to pay a license for the privilege of adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing ??
I understand that there are two diametrically opposed paradigms:
- customers want to pay as little as possible (even nothing) and share content with everyone
- content creators want as much money as possible -- for each usage if possible
Copyright, while it was created by _publishers_ to stop other _publishers_ is a middle ground between the 2 extremes of sharing and profit.
But to confuse copyright infringement with theft shows a total lack of critical thinking.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think it an incompatibility, it's a munging of definitions. You mention whether something wrong or ok, which has nothing to do with what you first asserted was the incompatibility, which is whether it is theft. There may be differences of opinion on whether copyright infringement is right morally, but whether or not it is theft really oughtn't be debated, it isn't theft.
Re:Right, because BS is a thorough refutation (Score:4, Insightful)
Some people (like you) will argue until the day is done that copyright infringement is not theft. You will not be convinced otherwise.
Some people (like me) will argue until the day is done that copyright infringement is theft. They (I) will not be convinced otherwise.
One of those people has logic, fact, legal precident, and thousands of years of history on their side. The other has appeal to emotion and stubborn denial.
I'm just sayin'.
At a high level, it's the exact same issue - someone says "I've produced this intellectual property..."
See, there's the problem. At a high level, nonsense jargon like "intellectual property" has no place in the discussion.
Copyright doesn't produce property; it grants exclusive right to profit from copies of a work. This runs into a giant fucking obstacle when suddenly any given copy isn't worth anything on its own anymore. Suddenly, you have the exclusive right to sell ice to Inuit, and no amount of twisting language around is going to change that.
THAT is the "high level" problem that needs to be addressed first. You have to understand this basic mechanical fact before even beginning to discuss the topic of copyright.
All copyright is supposed to do is to help prevent fraud (i.e. claiming someone else's work as your own), and to encourage people to create new works. We need to find a new way to do that second thing, because the "sell copies" model is irrevocably broken.
"...I want other people to do this or not do that with it", and someone else says "too bad, I'm going to do what I want. Deal with it".
Wanting to control what other people do with ideas you publish is a common desire but also goes entirely against the fundamental laws of memetics.
It's also not what copyright was ever intended for, nor can ever succeed at without absolute totalitarianism.
If you don't want people to replicate and mutate your ideas, DON'T EXPOSE THEM TO A GIGANTIC MUTATING REPLICATION ENGINE. Keep them private.
Re: (Score:3)
Let say someone downloads a copy of a popular movie, burns a 1000 copies with official looking prints and seals them in original looking wrappers, and takes them and gives them out for free in front of a store where the movie has just been released for initial sale. Does that still not cause harm to the author, distributor, performers, etc.? After all the copies don't cost them anything, they haven't lost anything.
This is called counterfeiting and for that you have precise laws and the customs.
If ther
Re:Right, because BS is a thorough refutation (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the biggest thing people don't understand about copyright is that, for the most part, the corporations that hold the copyrights on most major works (film, books, music, etc.) STOLE those rights from the creators either through unfair business practices or straight theft. My experience is limited to the movie studios and record industry, but these companies claim copyrights they do not hold all the time. A lot of DMCA takedown notices are invalid on their face because the company making the infringement claim doesn't actually hold the rights.
This beyond the fact that every single modern work is completely derivative of older, non-copyrighted works. Ex. Disney claims they own "Snow White", a story that is hundreds of years old. It is literally impossible to create a new song. There are only so many combinations of notes and they've all been used before, there hasn't been a "new" song for hundreds of years.
One could also talk about the enormous damage copyright does to history and culture. Since nothing goes into the "public domain" anymore, that means that modern works (tv shows, etc.) will simply cease to exist after a few decades since nobody can legally archive them (except the corporate owners WHO NEVER ARCHIVE ANYTHING) and even illegal archiving is technically blocked (DRM, etc.). Most films from the 1930s through 1970s are completely gone for this reason, they only exist in a few private collections (if they exist at all) and they can't legally be shared or distributed to anyone.
Re: (Score:3)
Nobody "took" anything. The content was bought and then shared.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You jumped ahead of the question. You are already defining bought, shared, ownership, content and implicitly effort. The point is the base definitions do not work any more, the technology and methods of distribution have moved beyond the scope of our general legal understanding. Copyright has been used to try and combat that, but it is flawed in many ways. Start from the beginning, define everything with your logic and see what you get.
As it currently stand the purchase once and give away free to everyone i
Re:I can't wait to start moderating (Score:5, Insightful)
Sharing and buying are not incompatible:
As it currently stand the purchase once and give away free to everyone is not sustainable.
You're falling for the mental trap they've set up. That situation simply won't happen. People who share also pay: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/apr/21/study-finds-pirates-buy-more-music [guardian.co.uk]
Hell, they buy it even before it's made: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/66710809/double-fine-adventure/ [kickstarter.com]
The "copyright or bankruptcy" dichotomy is simply false. Maybe there will be less money to go around, but that's all.
You know who will really suffer? People who sell shit and don't take refunds, because pirates try before they pay. But should we really give a crap about them?
Re:I can't wait to start moderating (Score:5, Insightful)
"A criminal is a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation."
-- Howard Scott
Re:I can't wait to start moderating (Score:5, Insightful)
Why should I give a damn thing about the industries? Do the industries care about me? Do they care about the workers they fire when they move manufacturing to overseas sweatshops? Do they care about how they make their own country poorer when they move their capitals into tax havens? Did we care when cars destroyed the economy of the horse? A failed business model must be failed for a reason, and therefore it's best to let it die.
If people love the industry so much, then those who do can pay for it by themselves. It's absurd that the Government must pass laws, spend money to uphold them, and limit the freedom of all its citizens, to create an imaginary property for those industries to sell.
All property, tangible or not, exists only because the Government defines and protects it. Tangible property needs to be protected because it can't be duplicated. Intellectual property hasn't that problem.
Re:Intellectual property has OTHER problems (Score:5, Insightful)
The value of a good idea is directly related to how widely it is used.
This system prevents the value of an idea from being maximized. The food, shelter, power and material goods that the creator of intellectual works receives is not created by restricting it's dissemination. Those materials exist, regardless of how far the idea spreads. The purpose of the system is to determine who gets support and who does not. Anyone with a brain could think of a half a dozen different ways to make that determination without requiring the good idea to be restricted in its use.
This system is STUPID. It is WASTEFUL. It DESTROYS VALUE. And, with the onward march of technology, the percentage of the population with idle time to create goes up, and the amount of idle time goes up. So, the rarity of the producers of IP continuously decreases, and that rarity would decrease even faster if good ideas were spread wider and faster.
This system is indefensible. Period. It has to go.
I'm a creator of intellectual works. My creations have dramatically improved the quality of life for all mankind. And I've sat in many round table discussions where I was forced to come up with ways to artificially destroy the value of my own creations. It makes me FUCKING ANGRY that I'm forced to do that for such stupid and unnecessary reasons.
So, take your BS about protecting the rights of creators and SHOVE IT UP YOUR FUCKING ASS. Find a way to determine that I deserve to be fed and clothed and sheltered and I'll weave magic that makes everyones life better till the day I die. Because THAT'S JUST WHAT I DO.
Fucking scumbag.
Re:Intellectual property has OTHER problems (Score:4, Interesting)
Among other things, my code co-ordinates distributed translations teams that make medicine and medical equipment accessible to the world. The largest drug company on earth uses them exclusively. I wrote the code that handles every step of the process, and integrated everything into their internal infrastructure, and when it needs maintenance, they call me. So, chances are pretty fucking good that someone you know enjoys good health because of work I did sitting in my living room.
What you owe me is to show some respect for the gift I've given you and give some regard for the fact that it's people like me these laws are designed to support.
Re:Intellectual property has OTHER problems (Score:5, Insightful)
Intellectual property has value
Actually, much IP is worth nothing or less than nothing. For instance this post is IP, are you going to pay me for writing it?
Therefore, we want people to produce it
Not really. We want people to produce quality scientific advancements and entertainment. Most IP is neither and much only becomes valuable when a government granted monopoly restricts other people from using similar material or methods.
Compared to the population at large, producers of IP are rare
Nope. Pretty much anyone who can write, talk, or operate a camera is an IP producer.
Also, IP can be expensive and/or time-consuming to produce
Some IP can be expensive, most is created automatically via copyright and costs nothing. Creating the work the IP is derived from may be expensive or time-consuming but the work is not the IP.
If the producers are not repaid in a manner that sufficiently encourages them they will be less inclined to produce
And if the producers are paid too much they will also be less inclined to produce. Why continue working when your one hit can guarantee that your great-grandchildren never have to?
So we should make sure that said production is rewarded, not shared without recompense
Says who? Most media companies will give away free copies to garner interest in their product. It seems like they know the value of sharing when they want to.
Hence, society rightfully sees "sharing" as criminal behavior
Actually, society does not see "sharing" as criminal behaviour. Certain people with a commercial interest in preventing sharing have been running a propaganda campaign to convince the easily swayed that it is so. Most of the people who believe sharing should be criminal belong in one of two categories: fools or profiteers.
Information may want to be free, but IP producers want to pay the mortgage.
"I did it to pay my mortgage" is likely to be the 21st century's "I was only following orders". It's not a justification for sending people to prison for the crime of "sharing". The current copyright regime is unsustainable.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, perhaps that is so. In which case, legislation will have to change. You can write congress (pretty much useless) or lobby them (better, odds of success are strictly a matter of how much funding you can apply, and how widely) for change, or, you can engage in civil disobedience -- lawbreaking on principle -- at which point you need to be prepared for fines, or jail, or both, while not being assured in any way of success.
You're not quite there yet. If I want to share data with someone over the internet (say, a friend, family, etc..) I can. I just send an email, a SMS, I set up an FTP server at home, etc.
From there, using encryption to hide myself is trivial. And then, nobody will ever be able to say what I sent to my friend.
So: In the internet days, sharing data is secure and easy. The IP you're talking about is also just a bunch of bits. Therefore, I can "pirate" with my friends all I want.
That's one to one sharing. The pr
Re: (Score:3)
Hence, society rightfully sees "sharing" as criminal behavior
Law sees "sharing" as criminal behavior. Society is much more divided: 34% are opposed to any kind of punishment, and even in the 52% who think punishment is due, 75% only support relatively small fines (less than $100) and most don't support disconnections or throttling.
And that's now: in younger people (18-29), 70% have committed copyright infringement, so we'll see in a few years how large is that support.
http://piracy.ssrc.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/AA-Research-Note-Infringement-and-Enforcement-Nov [ssrc.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Not just law. Also, the constitution. Also, the senate. Also, the house. Also, the executive. Also, the judiciary.
All of each represent a very small part of the society.
Also, pretty much anyone who is well educated, formally or otherwise.
Oh, I couldn't find data that showed the acceptance of copyright by level of education, is it online?
Also, pretty much anyone who has created significant IP.
Well, that's called "biased people". I'm sure horse breeders disliked the car as well.
Yes, we will. And if they manage to defeat the ideas of copyright and patent without a suitable replacement, we'll see how many great new movies and songs they get to enjoy as well. Because the relationship there is very solid.
But is it really? It's kinda hard to believe when e.g. film piracy has been rising and at the same time the MPAA was having record profits, year after year, when studies like this appear [guardian.co.uk] or when people pay millions for a product that doesn't even exist yet [kickstarter.com].
I don't doubt
Re:I can't wait to start moderating (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the difference between me downloading a movie or going over to a friend's house to watch his copy? Either way, I wasn't going to pay $14.95 for it. I've never bought a movie. And the few times I go to the movie theater it's the dollar theater, or $1.20 redbox. If I could watch any VCD quality movie I wanted for $1, I would pay it, because that's what it's worth to me. And I do, when possible. I pay for netflix.
Point is, watching a movie is not a crime. Neither lending a book, nor humming a tune. Civil disobedience I say! You can pry my eyes and ears from my cold dead hands.
Re:I can't wait to start moderating (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
It breaks the notion of the market as a level playing field. All investors should have access to the same information. Therefore, all investors except those with the inside information, are disadvantaged and thus opened to potential financial harm.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes if it was willingly offered. No if it was taken from his server, secure accounts or other forum where he had the reasonable expectation of privacy.
If you display your work for free or for hire...you don't own it anymore. You're free to make as much money as you can from it, but morally I don't feel concerned if people are using your material for other purposes. What the law says is another matter, but these laws aren't for my people.
civilisation (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe, just maybe, there is virtue in copyrighting medication, but that industry tends to be mostly focused on erection pills and symptom suppression, not on curing important diseases.
Re:I can't wait to start moderating (Score:5, Informative)
> You can argue semantics all you want, but the base argument
> is very simple and straight forward: Should you be allowed to
> take another person's efforts and do whatever you want with
> them?
Sure. The progress of all of human history would not exist otherwise. Even much celebrated "innovators" and "inventors" stood on the shoulders of others.
Copyright exists to serve the public good. It was never meant to be a form of property.
Re: (Score:2)
You can argue semantics all you want, but the base argument is very simple and straight forward: Should you be allowed to take another person's efforts and do whatever you want with them?
If you answer Yes, nothing else needs to be discussed, people "own" nothing.
If you say No, then you need to start breaking down things to qualify what belongs to a person and what is effort. Since this simple question is overlooked to quibble about false analogies and traditional word meanings, very little useful dialogue tends to pop up in these conversations.
Except that information != physical property. You can't compare the two because they behave in totally different methods. For instance I can't simply copy a chair by right clicking o it, the same is not true for information. All there person's effort went into making the first copy. Once it's made there is no additional effort expended in the copying of said idea.
This is the problem though, people want to treat information as physical property with defined rights of ownership. Well unfortunately you physically can't. The best you can do is lock down every information channel and force everything into a DRM mandated system. The damage to the free flow of general ideas (i.e. ones that people may not even be trying to own) is obvious and catastrophic.
We need to find a way to reward the initial creation of an idea, not it's distribution.
Why not pay them to create ideas?
Re: (Score:2)
Who will pay them, who will decide how much, who will decide which ideas are worthy of payment at all, who will decide what kind of ideas are wanted...?
Re: (Score:3)
People that want it. I want a some songs to party to. I call up DJ Bob and say, "Hey man, I'm having a party. Here's $N1. Can you provide me with N2 hours of entertainment for that?"
Kickstarter is another method. A developer says, "I'd like to make this game. Do you want it?" "Yeah, I want it. Here's what I'll pay." If it's funded, it happens. They cover the costs of development. Any lost sales to sharing don't matter. They got paid what it cost to make the product. Maybe a little more.
Re: (Score:2)
Not only that, but after a decade or so of seeing this war out in the open, all DRM and similar systems do is to create
RIAA Acquisition (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm just surprised this service hasn't been acquired by the MAFIAA. It could easily lead to the largest John / Jane Doe lawsuit ever filed; just make a little script to generate a legal document for every IP address matching one that downloaded something they think they own.
Re: (Score:2)
Or rather, one with each IP address. Obviously they're not going to file multiple cases with multiple filing fees; they're not made of money! (Yet.)
Re: (Score:2)
If everyone hides behind each other then what? (Score:2)
What good is tracking IP addresses when every computer on the internet can become a proxy so that it's impossible to know who downloaded what?
The proxy service could be built into file sharing apps themselves or created as a chrome plugin which uses onion routing to hide file sharers behind other file sharers and then download the file in bits and pieces and reconstruct it. This could even be done in a way so it looks like ordinary port 80 traffic.
You know what's BS? (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea that you can sell your product and retain control over what people do with it. That's BS.
Re:You know what's BS? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you dont like the license something is released under, just dont use it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
That would be relevant if the guy was saying that EULAs are fine and dandy, but the issue at hand is basic copyright ("copying is stealing"). GPL is most certainly a copyright-based license - you can't violate GPL per se, you can only infringe on someone's copyright when GPL doesn't give you permission to do something that copyright forbids you from doing.
Re: (Score:2)
I really don't understand the wish to conflate copyright infringement with theft. It's like everyone thinks that by not equating them that somehow copyright infringement is legal. Copyright infringement is illegal, and it is not theft. Even ICE and DOJ are saying that copyright = theft. Is this because there are stricter punishments for theft, and DOJ and ICE are the enforcement arms of the RIAA/MPAA?
Re: (Score:2)
There's a difference between a user license and a distribution license.
No, there isn't. Even the GPL itself acknowledges this:
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I thought the reason GPL existed was because if it was not copyrighted, somebody like Microsoft or Google might copyright and claim the Linux Kernal and other OSS programs belonged to them? In other words a defensive measure.
Re: (Score:2)
When/if the world rids itself of copyright (good luck on that though), there would be no reason for GPL to stay either.
Richard Stallman disagrees [computerworlduk.com] with you on that.
Re: (Score:2)
The point is the same one he makes. GPL offers way more than a freedom to copy, which is the only thing that you get by abolishing copyright. So GPL does not "exist only because copyright exists", it exists to promote sharing and openness. A world with no copyright would still see binary-only releases and other ways of preventing end users from reverse-engineering or modifying the product. If you care about those things, you'd still need something to replace GPL in such a world.
The license that would be mad
Re: (Score:3)
Hypocrisy my ass. If we're stuck with copyright anyway, why shouldn't we use it?
Re: (Score:2)
Or use it anyway, as you want.
When there is an equitable distribution of reward for every contribution everyone has made throughout history, weighted to take account of opportunities varying with time, location, health, innate intelligence and any remaining factors other than the productive man's effort, then I'll start worrying about the morality of ignoring the artificial constructs of copy rights and patents.
Until then, I'll not take stuff from people because that deprives them of their enjoyment. But I shall most definitely copy stuff.
Please elaborate. Do you believe it's ethical to defy Copyright?
Re: (Score:2)
That's too simple. It is an agreement.
They don't "sell you the movie", they offer you a DVD disc with very clear conditions (even if those are just the applicable copyright laws). You are 100% free to say no and not watch the movie. If you accept the offer you are not free to do whatever you want in terms of copyright.
So what you are doing is agreeing to all that, to all the terms they state, take the disc, and then ignore the agreement.
Same as hiring an employee, you 'buy the employee' for a certain number
Re: (Score:2)
Except that you aren't. Ever try to return a DVD because you didn't agree to the copyright warning at the beginning of the disc?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
You've summed up the industry argument. however fair use and the first sale doctrine do exist, though the media industry is somewhat successfully eliminating them. When I used to buy LPs, the first thing I would do would be to make a copy on tape which I would then listen to, keeping the LP safely stored away. When the tape wore out or got eaten in the car, I would simply make a new copy from the still like new LP. All of that was and is legal . . . I can and did do the same with CDs (now they are all i
Is it stealing? And even if it is, is it unethical (Score:2)
The idea that you can sell your product and retain control over what people do with it. That's BS.
I would like for anyone on Slashdot to logically and mathematically answer this from a consequence based risk analysis perspective.
Why is it wrong to download music if no one is hurt by your consumption of it? Is artificial scarcity worth it and why do we have to maintain artificial scarcity? Is it a religion or tradition to maintain artificial scarcity in certain industries?
I don't see how it's unethical. I do the math and I don't see the fans of music/movies/art losing, I don't see the artists/actors/ los
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong at all counts... Two things: (Score:5, Interesting)
a) NAT
b) dynamic IP ranges
But authors are so full of themselves it hurts :). Good luck for them and maybe-buyers, once they try to litigate with mostly false data.
Fingerprinting for download rights? (Score:2)
Should fingerprint scanners be used to allow someone to download and listen to a particular song or watch a particular movie or unlock a particular game?
If nothing is free, is it right to steal? (Score:2)
For anyone who knows math, logic, or who is rational, can you please answer this question as to whether stealing becomes right if everything is owned?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Too broad a question to answer in a simple comment. Even just the plain concept of right and wrong depends so much on a person's background, their upbringing, what they've gone through in life, intelligence, gullibility and social and monetary status. Then you have to define what it actually means to own something, which in and of itself is enough to write a full thesis on. Just as defining stealing is terribly subjective, and then there's also the motive; are you "stealing" for your own uses, are you "stealing" for someone else, are you "stealing" for a cause and so on.
If everything is owned and you cannot afford something you need, at what point does it become right to steal?
Or is it always wrong even if you can starve to death if you don't steal?
The people who say information sharing is stealing aren't understanding that for a person who doesn't have the money to afford to buy something their options aren't the same as the person who has the money to buy something.
Re: (Score:2)
But why would you steal, when you can just download it? ;)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Nobody has a right to a monopoly (Score:5, Insightful)
Not even the author of the work. It is a government-created *privilege* not a right, and it is revocable and limited in scope.
Someone who copies your work has not stolen anything..... they've merely infringed upon your government-granted monopoly. That's life and part of the cost of doing business (like when 80s-era Microsoft, Commodore, and others copied Apple OS's look-and-feel).
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
it is a right. Copy -right-.
I disagree with the premise that copying is stealing but it really is a, "It's not a tragedy of the commons, it's a tragedy of you're a dick. [slashdot.org]" situation.
I think it's important to keep the distinction between piracy and theft clear, because theft is just an absurdly loaded word when in this context, but, let's not get crazy here. It's a goddamned dick move.
Re: (Score:3)
Thomas Jefferson argued very eloquently that so-called "copyright" is not in fact a natural right:
"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the
Re: (Score:3)
Sure, but that's not law.
Thomas Jefferson wasn't our only founding father. Thomas Jefferson was quite wrong about a few things. A wise, and able man, sure. A God? Not by a long shot.
The site is a joke - the authors say it themselves (Score:5, Informative)
"Don't take it seriously The privacy policy, the contact us page — it’s all a joke. We came up with the idea of building a crawler like this and keeping the maintenance price under $300 a month. There was only one way to prove our theory worked — to implement it in practice. So we did. Now, we find ourselves with a big crawler. We knew what it did but we didn’t know how to use it. So we decided to make a joke out of it. That’s the beauty of jokes — you can make them out of anything."
Hah (Score:2)
Stop considering the wrong issus please (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah yeah, 'when I steal your DVD, you have no DVD, but when I copy a file, you still have a file'
The real issue here is not that copying is stealing or otherwise a lost sale, the real deal is that the world has changed and the business model for media creation and distribution is DEAD. FULL STOP. No ammount of lobbying, no matter how many laws Hollywood can get of their payed puppets will change that. It's like the railroad owners of 19th century were sen't on destroying that new "invention" called automoviles and trucks that let anybody achieve transportation without giving them their share. Let's face it, I can go to the west coast without needing you, train company. Let's face it, I can get content without needing you, big media company. BUT!!!!! Big media produces the media I want, and the actors, directors producers etc. etc. needs their food too, so... What is needed is a new way to monetize content CREATION, note the word creation, not DISTRIBUTION. Nowadays distribution is FREE, as the roads are "FREE"... you owned the railroads, but you don't own the roads anymore, so for everybody's sake, stop trying to charge me for using the road and go invent some new way to get my money (Sell gas, sell insurance for my car, and so on). Because, like it or not, being fair or not, being legal or not, charging for distributing media is NO LONGER POSIBLE, and trying to "regulate" this is like trying to pass a law that abolishes gravity... it will not work.
Rape is just basically theft (Score:3)
Except, of course, it isn't, the implications are completely different, and even the law thinks they're completely separate issues. Just like with copyright infringement. The only difference is that people take "rape" already seriously as is, so it doesn't have to try to _co-opt_ the term for another, separate crime. 'cause that's what the whole business with conflating copyright infringement with theft is _all about_. Nobody gives a shit about copyright infringement, so they try to leech off the badwill for the word "theft". Hell, maybe they should just say that copyright infringement is raping the artist. It's just as true, and there's even more badwill to be gathered.
Only reason they don't is that it'd take an even bigger moron to buy it.
So fuck this douche with his support for the copyright newspeak.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Mine says I'm in "London, City of" and have downloaded Supernatural, Sanctuary, Twilight Saga, and Jasmine Webb Experience. All completely incorrect. Right country, wrong everything else. This web site is worse than useless.
Re: (Score:2)
Dynamic IP, new Internet connection, open WiFi, other, or is the site _really_ making a mistake?
Re: (Score:2)
No, the site is just unreliable. Which is fine for their purposes, I guess.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't suppose your ISP does DHCP assignment?
This is the whole point in people being pissed off at the RIAA/MPAA associating IPs with people with no other links to tie it down.
Re: (Score:2)
"Of course, we are sure that you didn't violate any laws of Netherlands and downloaded only legal stuff, right?"
Yeah, I'm sure. Obviously they're not aware of the fact downloading is still legal here in The Netherlands (uploading is illegal though.)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When I checked my IP (untraceably of course) when news of the site hit Slashdot, it showed just a few torrents, about half of which I had actually downloaded. Mind you the box that was on the IP at the time was seeding over 600 torrents. It uses a variety of blocklists including many of the bluetack lists.
Re: (Score:2)
Hahaha, just checked again and they say the current IP for the same box "is in the clear!" XD
Re: (Score:2)
Same here. But they did alert me to the existence of "Big Tits In Uniform, Two Boob Salute.rar" so the site isn't all bad.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you trying to convince us you're BadAnalogyGuy?
I don't want my DNA sequence being shared, therefore I won't sell it. People who don't want their content being distributed can do the same.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, why not. It's not like my DNA is full of proprietary code or is some kind of artistic expression.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Technically true but you could call it a network in the same sense as the "tor network" or "i2p network."
So they could download a bunch of .torrent files off of popular sites that are using popular trackers and snoop into those, but there's no way they can see everything.
Yep that's what they do. Not hard to write a scraper to download all torrents from a tracker index site.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, there is a "bittorrent network": Mainline DHT. uTorrent, BitComet, Transmission, etc all use the same network (although apparently Vuze has its own).
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the key is that if you spend all your time debating whether or not copyright infringement is theft, you never actually have to discuss whether copyright infringement is wrong. Arguing definitions lets you avoid addressing the real issues!
Re: (Score:2)
That's the problem. If you can't agree on a common definition for things, you can't move forward in the discussion. Problem is, both sides know this, so the situation never gets resolved. "It's stealing!" "No, it's infringement!" "Same thing!" "No it isn't!" ad nauseum.
Re: (Score:3)
Except it's really not a problem, because there IS a common definition.
Fact: copyright is entirely a legal construct
Fact: the legal term for illegally copying something that is copyrighted is "infringement". It is not and never has been "theft".
If you're going to accept the legal construct of copyright, you must also accept how that law defines it.
There is no argument. There is only what is correct, and what is not.
Re: (Score:3)
Li'l whitey get accused of downloading shitty crap
Says he neva listen to no muthafuckin' rap
Buys his CDs like a good li'l homey
Realized what evil suits doin' with his precious money
English perhaps, but not UK (Score:2)
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2011-05/31/scotland-gets-first-file-sharing-conviction [wired.co.uk]
and the article also alludes to "This is the fifth conviction in the UK for filesharing. Four of the five man team behind the BitTorrent tracker OiNK pleaded guilty to filesharing in early 2010. "
Re: (Score:2)
LPR [wikipedia.org]. Mine's 192.168.1.200 ... and yes, I could make my printer available to the Internet with a NAT rule on my router (65.something) if I so chose.
Now you know.
And knowing is half the battle.
Go, Joe!
Re: (Score:3)
You can engage in copyright infringement as an act of civil disobedience because you disagree with the specifics of copyright law while still believing copyright infringement is wrong.