Piratbyrån - What are their arguements [Archive]

ricardisimo

June 12th, 2009, 10:59 AM

I have no idea what arguments the folks at Pirate Bay use, but I do know that copyright laws are (very nearly) exclusively for the benefit of the corporations who hold the copyrights, and not for the benefit of the artists. Any arguments to the contrary - or that the corporations subsidize risk on behalf of the artists - are not supported by the numbers.

Musicians make their money performing (which is to say working), and not from their recordings. Bruce Springsteen made more in one week of shows at the Meadowlands than he made in his entire career from every single CD, LP, tape, 4-track or DVD sold under his name. And his recording contracts were pretty good compared to other folks. Bowie swears that he was just straight-up robbed by RCA. The odds that little bands are getting better deals from the execs than these two is unlikely.

I would be stunned to find out that much the same was not true of actors, directors and writers. My guess is that live theater is generally more lucrative for most of them, with a few exceptions: the action stars are, of course, not really actors at all, which just points up a fatal flaw in contemporary cinema; and then there is the beer commercial. Advertising (via television, mostly) is where the real $$$ are. But then people don't pirate beer commercials, they mute them... or should.

Hollywood has insisted on inferior digital formats for reasons of cost, and specifically man-hour costs. Processing and transport are cheaper with digital film than with 35mm, and waaaaaayyyyyyyy cheaper than 70mm. The achilles' heel of their plan is piracy, which is rocketing upwards. I don't feel the least bit sorry for them. They (the suits) made this bed, and now they have to lay in it.

Anyhow, that's my two sleep-deprived cents.

linuxguymarshall

June 12th, 2009, 11:43 AM

That is kinda my thought on it and why I am considering shifting to support piracy to a degree

jimv

June 12th, 2009, 03:43 PM

"copyright laws are (very nearly) exclusively for the benefit of the corporations who hold the copyrights, and not for the benefit of the artists"

Correction....copyright laws are used for the benefit of copyright holders. If someone decides to give up the rights to their work to a corporation, that's their problem. But please don't give out the false impression that corporations are the only copyright holders.

"Any arguments to the contrary - or that the corporations subsidize risk on behalf of the artists - are not supported by the numbers."

If that's not true, then why do so many artists sign with labels instead of producing their music on their own? Because, whether they like to admit it or not, it benefits them. David Bowie might have made a bunch of money on shows, but no one would have watched his shows he hadn't become popular through his label.

"Processing and transport are cheaper with digital film than with 35mm, and waaaaaayyyyyyyy cheaper than 70mm."

Once again, why can't the artists just produce their own music then?

"I don't feel the least bit sorry for them. They (the suits) made this bed, and now they have to lay in it."

Piracy is rocketing upwards because the internet has made it exceptionally easy with little chance of getting caught. It has nothing to do with ideals...99% of people who pirate just want stuff for free.

ricardisimo

June 14th, 2009, 09:46 AM

Correction....copyright laws are used for the benefit of copyright holders. If someone decides to give up the rights to their work to a corporation, that's their problem. But please don't give out the false impression that corporations are the only copyright holders.

It's not a false impression. Copyrights belong to those with the pricier copyright lawyers, assuming that the copyrighted material has any value at all. The design for an automated pubic hair straightener might belong to some regular guy in Boise, but there's a reason for that: it's worthless. But ask the farm folk down in Mexico about Monsanto's copyrighted strain of criollo corn; They've been growing that copyrighted strain... for about 2000 years. That's a lot of copyright infringement!

If that's not true, then why do so many artists sign with labels instead of producing their music on their own? Because, whether they like to admit it or not, it benefits them. David Bowie might have made a bunch of money on shows, but no one would have watched his shows he hadn't become popular through his label.

Less and less artists are signing each and every day, in large part because it's becoming easier technologically and culturally; being tech-savvy is expected of you in the music biz more and more these days. As for Bowie, radio airplay had more to do with his popularity than record sales (a fact he laments openly in his song "DJ".) The two are related, to be sure, but airplay is definitively the cause, and sales definitively the effect.

Some of the more successful acts today have figured out that song distribution (whether as CD sales, downloads or P2P) is basically just advertising for their shows, where they make the real money. The Arctic Monkeys are one of the better examples (although any major chamber orchestra could have told you this fifty years ago.) They've been posting their own music freely on the web since they started out, much to their benefit. Other artists are quite happy with their record deals... until they receive their first Cease-and-Desist order on performing their own material, then they get the hint. Until that point it seems like free advertising, as opposed to the DIY route.

Once again, why can't the artists just produce their own music then?

Ummm... 35mm and 70mm are film formats, not music. I imagine you meant to ask "Why don't filmmakers produce their own films?" They do, and always have, even though film production is far more expensive than music recording. Distribution is the even harder part, but as long as they are content with the more limited arthouse circuits, there's not a problem at all.

Piracy is rocketing upwards because the internet has made it exceptionally easy with little chance of getting caught. It has nothing to do with ideals...99% of people who pirate just want stuff for free.

When you and I were making tapes - direct copies as well as mixes - of all of our LPs and CDs back in the 70s-90s, and sharing it with all of our friends, no one called this piracy. It was called "listening to my music". You don't have to be an idealist to think you should be able to listen to whatever the hell you want... or do you?

You must be a Libertarian. Past experience tells me that no one hates individual liberties - and loves oppressive concentrations of money and power - quite like members of the Libertarian Party in the US. It's yet another example of how the world has been turned on its head. You should really start asking some of life's harder questions when you find yourself rushing to the defense of people far too rich and powerful to even need (or notice) your help.

Well, that's another sleep-deprived two cents from me. G'night all.

karellen

June 14th, 2009, 10:28 AM

as far as I'm concerned, the creator is the only one entitled to decide what to do and under which license will release his work. there's an obvious difference between let's say buying a book and then making a few copies of it for friends and relatives, and downloading if "for free" from the Internet. I fail to understand the people who defend piracy in the name of "personal freedom". yes, I agree you should be allowed to make copies of your purchased items, but that's it. how can someone say that it's his right to download books/music/movies from the Internet, for free?! Nobody's forcing anybody to buy their copyrighted works. and I'm pretty sure that a movie or a book it's not a matter of life and death (as may be the case of some pharmaceuticals). and I'm not talking about "patenting ideas", like mathematical formulas or such. it's just somebody else's work, valuable or not, it doesn't matter. as long as you didn't make it, you have no right to impose your wishes upon the author. people download stuff because it's damn easy. from my personal point of view, discussing the "immorality" of copyright is just an exercise in hypocrisy

ricardisimo

June 14th, 2009, 07:02 PM

People should be paid for their work, absolutely. But musical artists make about 3¢ out of every $15 CD, or some such nonsense. It's almost completely top-end profit. It's money that goes directly to the real pirates.

Which reminds me of a quote from ancient Greece:

The story of the 2009 war on piracy was best summarized by another pirate, who lived and died in the fourth century BC. He was captured and brought to Alexander the Great, who demanded to know “what he meant by keeping possession of the sea.” The pirate smiled and responded: “What you mean by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, while you, who do it with a great fleet, are called emperor.”

ricardisimo

June 14th, 2009, 07:15 PM

If you don't mind my getting a little snippy and defensive about this: I not only regularly buy self-published material, but I go to shows as often as my kids will allow. And the only books I download are from dead authors (which touches on a point made by the OP - the obscene lengths of copyrights). I'm a union man who's eager to see people paid for their WORK. My conscience is clean.

I should also mention I've posted quite a bit of material on the Usenet at the request of the original artists, who wanted it distributed for all of the reasons already cited. I work in the film industry, and I've seen and heard every possible angle on this issue. The copyright system is corrupt from the top down. Period.

solitaire

June 14th, 2009, 07:27 PM

Once again, why can't the artists just produce their own music then?

Most artists are now starting to do that. But the contracts they signed with the recording labels usually make sure the Labels handle all the production.

In the past it was a good deal for the artists since the Label could produce physical albums and records cheaper than an individual could. Also they had access to national and international marketing and exposure.

But in today's environment the use of digital media and the Internet has made it possible for a single person to produce an album and market it internationally for a fraction of the cost that the Major labels can..

But The Labels have not changed their contracts or method of business So more and more people are noticing that they are being ripped off and are taking other steps to support their favorite artists and exclude the record industry where ever possible.

doas777

June 14th, 2009, 07:44 PM

ok, long run, using pirate in their name is the cause of the misconception on thier intentions. the other big misconception is that the basis of the argument IS NOT ABOUT MOVIES AND MUSIC. they are only one type of information.

basically, the mis-named pirate party doesn't believe in intellectual property, and wants to strip legal acknowledgment and protection of it away.

the cause is exemplified in the statement "Information wants to be free, so that it can perform its purpose: to inform". information, like speech, is just a transmission of thought, and many philosophies believe in freedom to distribute thought.

Open source is based on much the same underpinning. folks wanted source to their OSs and applications so that they could modify it (primarily to fix problems or customize operations).

We are very lucky that OSS started as early as it did. if it had not been well established prior to the DMCA and countless pro-copyright laws since then, it would be illegal to write your own software, if it performed the same function as a protected work of art.
check out this case, to see what I mean: http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1142943612867 [Supreme Court Tackles Patentability of Scientific Phenomena]

if things keep going this way, we will have to license the writes to teach our children to count (by buying the accepted manual from IBM Kids (TM) featuring Dora The Explora (TM) from Disney(TM); no hand-me-downs).

remember the constitution of the us, Article 1, Section 7, clause 8:
"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

the intent of this passage is clear. we want to make sure that peoples useful ideas do not get locked up and forgotten, so we would like them to register them with us. however in exchange for doing that, we will provide them legal protection for a limited time only. this is about the good to society, not the good to the rights holders wallet. the protection is just the carrot, to get them to cooperate in building said catalog of good ideas.

Trademarks have a simmilar purpose: to protect the consumer from buying cheap or dangerous knockoffs of trusted brands offerings. once again this is not to benifet the rights holder, but the consumer. nowadays, however, it is being used by companies to enforce their branding strategies and policies.

Intellectual property enforcement is now a war against the consumer, not a series of protections for the consumer. the system has been coopted, and needs to be revised now, to return the original consumer-centric purpose and intent of patent, trademark, and copyright.

Thank God for wikileaks

nmccrina

June 14th, 2009, 07:51 PM

You must be a Libertarian. Past experience tells me that no one hates individual liberties - and loves oppressive concentrations of money and power - quite like members of the Libertarian Party in the US. It's yet another example of how the world has been turned on its head. You should really start asking some of life's harder questions when you find yourself rushing to the defense of people far too rich and powerful to even need (or notice) your help.

Well, that's another sleep-deprived two cents from me. G'night all.

*bites tongue to keep from starting flame war* :D

ddrichardson

June 14th, 2009, 08:00 PM

People should be paid for their work, absolutely. But musical artists make about 3¢ out of every $15 CD, or some such nonsense. It's almost completely top-end profit. It's money that goes directly to the real pirates.
3 cents to the artist or absolutely nothing if it's pirated. A lot of current "artists" wouldn't be making any money if they hadn't a record company backing them.

Bad contracts aside, the issue is simply that the distribution model has changed and changed over night. Record companies have spent so long trying to fight online sales legally that they've allowed others to get a huge lead on them.

Unfortunately these discussions confuse several distinct issues:

Controlling your IP
Making a profit from IP
Distribution methods and changing demand
Digital Rights Management

Now, not everyone seems to distinguish the difference but I don't think we all fall into the same camp and hence why everyone argues so much. Personally I despise DRM but have no problem paying for what I download and have no problem if the artist wishes to retain certain rights - as long as they are clearly identified.

Sadly, the Pirate Bay is really an entirely separate issue. Without statistical evidence this is purely conjecture but I seriously doubt that a significant portion of downloaders are going on to buy the material they obtain.

Mehall

June 14th, 2009, 08:31 PM

3 cents to the artist or absolutely nothing if it's pirated. A lot of current "artists" wouldn't be making any money if they hadn't a record company backing them.

Bad contracts aside, the issue is simply that the distribution model has changed and changed over night. Record companies have spent so long trying to fight online sales legally that they've allowed others to get a huge lead on them.

Unfortunately these discussions confuse several distinct issues:

Controlling your IP
Making a profit from IP
Distribution methods and changing demand
Digital Rights Management

Now, not everyone seems to distinguish the difference but I don't think we all fall into the same camp and hence why everyone argues so much. Personally I despise DRM but have no problem paying for what I download and have no problem if the artist wishes to retain certain rights - as long as they are clearly identified.

Sadly, the Pirate Bay is really an entirely separate issue. Without statistical evidence this is purely conjecture but I seriously doubt that a significant portion of downloaders are going on to buy the material they obtain.

There was an article by Courtney Love which went through all the costs and gains made by an artist with a major label.

basically, the label gave them, for even numbers, $1million to make an album. The went and made the album, costs about half the loan to make the album, more to design covers, etc, etc. Pretty much all the money is gone from making the album and getting it to a state where the label can take it and distribute it. The label then covers all their expenses as they tour, but they receive minimal amount for touring, as they get their expenses paid. They also receive little money from the albums, as mentioned previously.

After the tour, they no longer get their expenses paid. That's fine, they have their 3 cents per album. What's that? You forgot about the loan the label gave them to make the record? yeah, they need to pay that back.

Courtney did it in much more detail, but essentially the artist has net gain null.
The label has net gain something in the regions of tens of millions for a popular artist.

Given that most artists don't want to get rich, but just want to let people hear their music, they used to agree to sign with the labels coz they'd get big and popular and heard. Nowadays all they have to do is put a file on a torrent tracker, and hundreds of people they have never met will download it.

pwnst*r

June 14th, 2009, 08:43 PM

how can someone say that it's his right to download books/music/movies from the Internet, for free?! Nobody's forcing anybody to buy their copyrighted works.

exactly. lots of people think that they have a right to download whatever they want. i have a feeling that a lot of the mentality of "freedom" has gotten skewed. in this country, sharing such material is illegal as it should be. not my problem and shouldn't be the artist's problem if you can't afford it or feel you have the "right" to their material.

pwnst*r

June 14th, 2009, 08:44 PM

Nowadays all they have to do is put a file on a torrent tracker, and hundreds of people they have never met will download it.

except i bet that 5% of the users here would actually go SEE an artist live. and that's being generous. you can't make a living on that.

ddrichardson

June 14th, 2009, 09:09 PM

Courtney did it in much more detail, but essentially the artist has net gain null.
The label has net gain something in the regions of tens of millions for a popular artist.
Actually I read that article (it was reffered to by another paper) and she had a valid point but that said, it isn't as simple as putting a track on the Internet - you still need promotion to make the top billing.

If that was true, there'd be more new acts that aren't signed doing well but there aren't - so far its been previously successful artists finding a more effective distribution method.

markharding557

June 14th, 2009, 10:40 PM

if you want to help artists make money see them live this is where their money is these days

ricardisimo

June 14th, 2009, 10:51 PM

Unfortunately these discussions confuse several distinct issues:

Agreed, not several, but innumerable issues are being confused. But make no mistake, there are a few slimy undercurrents weaving through the whole debate, just under the surface: corporate greed, and a desperate desire for total control of media that should not be controlled at all.

Not only is it a little too simplistic to say that people just want to take stuff that is not theirs, there are numerous counterexamples. I can get the Counterpunch newsletter for free from the website (and do so every day), but I also pay for the print edition because I like the format, it feels more real, and it's something I want to support [although Alexander Cockburn is a bit of a kook when it comes to global warming, and he refuses to use spellcheck, which is annoying... that's another story].

Within the music world, I know of no one who paid the minimum 64¢ (or whatever the figure was) for Radiohead's In Rainbows download. Everyone I spoke with was super-excited that they were doing this on their own, and paid $5 to $10 for the album to support a group they loved. I'm sure they also were hoping that this event would be a peek into the future, and they may have felt a tad betrayed when the group went and signed a new contract anyhow. Still, I hope Radiohead got the leverage they needed to get a real deal, with total control of their own work.

I cannot stress this enough: ordinary people have no business ever supporting the corporate view, no matter what it is. If the suits say the Earth revolves around the sun, we should all begin to question reality. And if they say "these people are pirates," then we should all know instinctively that these "pirates" must be doing something right. It's a sad day when you find yourself agreeing with or defending the corporate view on any issue whatsoever.

phrostbyte

June 14th, 2009, 10:57 PM

Richard Stallman talked about why copyright is bad in the digital age

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/copyright-versus-community.html

It's worth a read. :D

nolliecrooked

June 14th, 2009, 10:57 PM

except i bet that 5% of the users here would actually go SEE an artist live. and that's being generous. you can't make a living on that.

5%? maybe a little more dude...

phrostbyte

June 14th, 2009, 11:02 PM

exactly. lots of people think that they have a right to download whatever they want. i have a feeling that a lot of the mentality of "freedom" has gotten skewed. in this country, sharing such material is illegal as it should be. not my problem and shouldn't be the artist's problem if you can't afford it or feel you have the "right" to their material.

Freedom is freedom, you can't screw it's meaning. It's not a good or bad thing, it's just a thing. You don't have the right to kill someone, do you? Well your freedom is limited in that way. But I hope we all agree that is one freedom people shouldn't have.

But not everyone thinks filesharing is a freedom people shouldn't have. Piratbyrån for example, think it's a freedom worth protecting. They think it's more important people have the right to share stuff with one another then some artist to make money. And I agree with them.

KiwiNZ

June 14th, 2009, 11:10 PM

Freedom is freedom, you can't screw it's meaning. It's not a good or bad thing, it's just a thing. You don't have the right to kill someone, do you? Well your freedom is limited in that way. But I hope we all agree that is one freedom people shouldn't have.

But not everyone thinks filesharing is a freedom people shouldn't have. Piratbyrån for example, think it's a freedom worth protecting. They think it's more important people have the right to share stuff with one another then some artist to make money. And I agree with them.

People a free to share that which they have created , they are not free to share that which they have not. By doing so they remove the creators freedom to chose what shall happen to their creations.

pwnst*r

June 14th, 2009, 11:13 PM

5%? maybe a little more dude...

ok, 6%, dude.

nolliecrooked

June 14th, 2009, 11:13 PM

ok, 6%, dude.

lmao :P

phrostbyte

June 14th, 2009, 11:14 PM

People a free to share that which they have created , they are not free to share that which they have not.

I don't agree. I think people have the right to share anything they are in possession of.

By doing so they remove the creators freedom to chose what shall happen to their creations.

That is one freedom I think we should remove.

My rational for this pretty much matches Richard Stallman: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/copyright-versus-community.html

This is really important sentence for me:

Laws that in the past may have been a good idea, now are harmful because they are in a different context.

Please read that article. I think it explains well why copyright is currently harmful.

KiwiNZ

June 14th, 2009, 11:26 PM

I don't agree. I think people have the right to share anything they are in possession of.

That is one freedom I think we should remove.

My rational for this pretty much matches Richard Stallman: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/copyright-versus-community.html

This is really important sentence for me:

Please read that article. I think it explains well why copyright is currently harmful.

My statement stands.

phrostbyte

June 14th, 2009, 11:31 PM

My statement stands.

If you say say so. In reality many people are starting to disagree with your statement, and they are getting more powerful by the day.

The leader of GNU, whom I quoted, a group of people who made an OS like Ubuntu possible, completely disagree with your statement. They promote the concept of a free culture, a culture without legal restrictions on non-industrialized sharing of information.

KiwiNZ

June 14th, 2009, 11:40 PM

If you say say so. In reality many people are starting to disagree with your statement, and they are getting more powerful by the day.

The leader of GNU, whom I quoted, a group of people who made an OS like Ubuntu possible, completely disagree with your statement. They promote the concept of a free culture, a culture without legal restrictions on non-industrialized sharing of information.

It is fine to promote , it is not fine to impose it by default .

It is fine to lobby for law change , it is not fine to break the law.

It is fine to ask developers to release their products as open , it is not fine to circumvent their choice not to.

phrostbyte

June 14th, 2009, 11:45 PM

It is fine to promote , it is not fine to impose it by default .

I agree with you re: copyright. Copyright shouldn't be imposed by default.

It is fine to lobby for law change , it is not fine to break the law.

Agree 100%.

It is fine to ask developers to release their products as open , it is not fine to circumvent their choice not to.

That's exactly that Free Software Foundation wants to do. Copyleft uses copyright to flip it on it's head. The GPL was created explicitly to make it difficult to release closed source software, by prohibiting non-GPL software from interfacing with GPL software in many useful ways as a matter of license. I can explain this further to you if you want. You might not agree with it, but the OS you are using was made with these principals. Please have an open mind about the principals which make Ubuntu possible.

KiwiNZ

June 14th, 2009, 11:52 PM

I agree with you re: copyright. Copyright shouldn't be imposed by default.

.

You misunderstand , copyright is not imposed by default , its applied for and granted if warranted. And when you purchase copyrighted material you are aware that it is copyrighted.
You have the right not to purchase it. You dont have the right to take it via other means.

KiwiNZ

June 14th, 2009, 11:54 PM

but the OS you are using was made with these principals. Please have an open mind about the principals which make Ubuntu possible.

exactly , and I obtain and use Ubuntu knowing that. I also use and purchase Windows and Mac OS knowing that it is required to be purchased.

phrostbyte

June 15th, 2009, 12:02 AM

You misunderstand , copyright is not imposed by default , its applied for and granted if warranted. And when you purchase copyrighted material you are aware that it is copyrighted.
You have the right not to purchase it. You dont have the right to take it via other means.

I understand where you are coming from. Copyright used be a very good thing! It made people lots of money writing books or music and it didn't hurt many people, and few people violated copyright law, and all was good.

This is no longer true, now millions of people violate copyright law, it hurts many people, thousands of generally upstanding and normal families are getting sued for all they are worth by the RIAA, people are getting spied on their ISP to see if they are doing copyright violations, and millions more don't even know they are violating it (hint: if you use youtube you probably violate copyright, many clips use unauthorized content).

Also a lot more people are against copyright law or know about it then there once was. Why this massive change?

The Internet changed everything. We are now in a "information age" so they say. What does that even mean? It means we live in a post-scarcity world of information. Anyone, even yourself, can copy almost anything that can be digitalized, cheaply and easily. You, in theory, have the potential and technology to literaly access all the world's knowledge, it's culture (eg: music/movies), and pretty much everything that was ever written, is all open to even homeless people with no money. This is called "post-scarcity", when everyone can have everything.

This is why the world changed.

You can read a lot more about this from Richard Stallman, the essay I quoted.

karellen

June 15th, 2009, 05:33 AM

I understand where you are coming from. Copyright used be a very good thing! It made people lots of money writing books or music and it didn't hurt many people, and few people violated copyright law, and all was good.

This is no longer true, now millions of people violate copyright law, it hurts many people, thousands of generally upstanding and normal families are getting sued for all they are worth by the RIAA, people are getting spied on their ISP to see if they are doing copyright violations, and millions more don't even know they are violating it (hint: if you use youtube you probably violate copyright, many clips use unauthorized content).

Also a lot more people are against copyright law or know about it then there once was. Why this massive change?

The Internet changed everything. We are now in a "information age" so they say. What does that even mean? It means we live in a post-scarcity world of information. Anyone, even yourself, can copy almost anything that can be digitalized, cheaply and easily. You, in theory, have the potential and technology to literaly access all the world's knowledge, it's culture (eg: music/movies), and pretty much everything that was ever written, is all open to even homeless people with no money. This is called "post-scarcity", when everyone can have everything.

This is why the world changed.

You can read a lot more about this from Richard Stallman, the essay I quoted.

Richard Stallman may argue as much as he wants, I don't understand how this simple elementary truth could be dismissed by a twisted concept of freedom: it's the freedom of creators to release their work(s) in the manner they want (copyrighted or not), not the freedom of masses to take that work for granted. I really don't care that the information medium has changed: it's the principle that matters. there's no difference between a pdf book and a paper one. they both can be multiplied, only the cost is insignificant in former case. and that's the real issue: convenience. as I said, it's not about freedom of having access to information, it's about ease of download.
I created something, I'm in charge, I decided what to do and when to do it. I can ask $1 million for a book or an album, it's my right (even though it's stupid), as much as it's the consumers right not to buy it.

doas777

June 15th, 2009, 01:06 PM

k2t0f12d

June 15th, 2009, 01:47 PM

it's the freedom of creators to release their work(s) in the manner they want (copyrighted or not)There is no such freedom. The author of a work only has the freedom to release the work or withhold it from public scrutiny entirely. Like pouring a glass of water into an ocean, once an expression is released, it is impossible to remove it again fully from the ocean and back into the glass. Once in public hands, the expression is moved in whatever way they choose, not the author. By social defect, the author is merely permitted to make frivolous legal attacks on those believed to have partaken without permission, which does nothing to prevent, and rarely even slows, the circulation of the expression, but instead simply turns the author into an object of scorn. It would be better to disallow the attacking, since it is a waste of time, and thus ensure that the author chooses positive ways to entice the public's support instead of resorting to hostility.

k2t0f12d

June 15th, 2009, 01:55 PM

You misunderstand , copyright is not imposed by default , its applied for and granted if warranted.I don't know about NZ, but in the US copyright applies as soon as expression is affixed to a tangible medium.

karellen

June 15th, 2009, 02:39 PM

um, your failing to prove that the digital media can be defined as a comodity, because it does not exist in a format that allows scarcity. without scarcity, there is not supply/demand equation. it's essentially a cornucopia that never runs dry.

if you want to be pedantic, everything runs dry, including the metal resources to make hard drives, the silicon "sand" of which semiconductor circuits are build, the quantity of energy available to us here on Earth, and so on ;). if you ask me, it's a silly argument to say that it's not the same thing (in principle) to print let's say 10^7 books from all the trees in the world or to make 10^19 digital copies of the same book. in the end, it's over for both of them, in terms of "scarcity"

karellen

June 15th, 2009, 02:46 PM

There is no such freedom. The author of a work only has the freedom to release the work or withhold it from public scrutiny entirely. Like pouring a glass of water into an ocean, once an expression is released, it is impossible to remove it again fully from the ocean and back into the glass. Once in public hands, the expression is moved in whatever way they choose, not the author. By social defect, the author is merely permitted to make frivolous legal attacks on those believed to have partaken without permission, which does nothing to prevent, and rarely even slows, the circulation of the expression, but instead simply turns the author into an object of scorn. It would be better to disallow the attacking, since it is a waste of time, and thus ensure that the author chooses positive ways to entice the public's support instead of resorting to hostility.

well, someone said that convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies; I can't argue with that. I can see your point, if a book is in the bookstore = it's in the stream by the author's will = it's ok to shoplift it. but of course, I forgot, in the virtual world everything goes :roll:. no rules, no boundaries. one click of a mouse that book (merely an example) it's our ;)...
to each his own :)

ddrichardson

June 15th, 2009, 03:15 PM

It's a sad day when you find yourself agreeing with or defending the corporate view on any issue whatsoever.
I certainly don't agree with their point of view and didn't suggest I did but simply because a corporation says something is true doesn't make it a lie, that said I think we mean different things by "corporation".

Its a sad day when a dislike of corporations clouds people's ability to make an informed decision.

When people make up their own minds on a subject then society evolves all by itself - we don't all have to take the same path. As an analogy, consider Ubuntu and Fedora, both are community driven Linux distributions and both are quite different but both are evolving their communities, both are feeding upstream and cross stream and everyone benefits.

bryonak

June 15th, 2009, 04:45 PM

well, someone said that convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies; I can't argue with that. I can see your point, if a book is in the bookstore = it's in the stream by the author's will = it's ok to shoplift it. but of course, I forgot, in the virtual world everything goes :roll:. no rules, no boundaries. one click of a mouse that book (merely an example) it's our ;)...
to each his own :)

You cannot apply property laws to thoughts. Most law systems in the world know that, for example where I live property laws are in the "civil rights book" which handles theft, damage, ... of property. "Thoughts laws" are in the so called "obligation rights book" which handles copyright infringement etc.
The latter has much smaller penalties by the way, since it's regarded as much less grave in most jurisdictions.

You can borrow a car you possess to a friend since it's completely legal to borrow most property. You cannot send a copy of a song you possess to your friends, copyright law forbids that. You can however give a CD (your property) to your friend, which is covered by property law. At the same time copyright law forbids this CD to be duplicated by yourself.
Borrowing an idea is... strange, because it doesn't make sense for the one you borrowed it to to give it back, which is the point of borrowing (temporary change of possesion).

You can steal a car. The tragic thing about this is not that you have one more car, but that the owner has lost his car (property).
You can also steal an idea if you obtain the rationale, then brainwash it's creator and destroy every other summary on that idea available.
The bad thing about stealing property is not the thieves gain, but the owners loss.
"Stealing" music occurs very, very rarely.
There is however unathorised copying of ideas, also called copyright infringement. You cannot commit copyright infringement on property, whose the inherent nature makes this impossible (unless we have atomic replicators of course).

To get back to your example: no, you are not allowed to shoplift the book (property). You are allowed to borrow it (the property) to a friend after you've obtained possession legally.
You are not allowed to recite it's whole contents in front of an audience, because you unauthorisedly duplicate the thoughts therein (copyright infringement). No matter if you've bought the book or not.
The current discussion about whether this is right or wrong can't be explained by analogies to property law, like you did.

Many people who have given this system a thought claim that there is no "intellectual property", a term which has been coined by the current recording industry in order to blur our perception of the difference between thoughts and property and try to increase the penalties for copyright infringement to the level of a property law.
Richard Stallman is one of those people. He acknowledges the existence of copyright law (which he uses extensively for the GPL), trademark law and patent law (which he finds shouldn't apply to software, and practically all high-profile people in FOSS agree).
Take a look into your local lawbook. In mine, there are those three laws, but none that is called "intellectual property law". It simply doesn't exist in my legislature, yet I hear it all the time from the media.

Closed_Port

June 15th, 2009, 05:07 PM

You misunderstand , copyright is not imposed by default , its applied for and granted if warranted.

I think that differs greatly from country to country and afaik here in Germany for example you do have the copyright for your work automatically.

And when you purchase copyrighted material you are aware that it is copyrighted.You have the right not to purchase it. You dont have the right to take it via other means.
I haven't read the whole thread but from what I read, nobody disputed that, and if they did, I'd disagree with them.

However, that does not mean that what the copyright actually entails, how long it should last, etc. can't and shouldn't be debated, does it?

ddrichardson

June 15th, 2009, 05:37 PM

You misunderstand , copyright is not imposed by default , its applied for and granted if warranted. And when you purchase copyrighted material you are aware that it is copyrighted.
You have the right not to purchase it. You dont have the right to take it via other means.
I think you are confusing trademark (applied for to distinguish products and services) and copyright: from the UK IPO (http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/copy.htm):

Copyright is an automatic right, which means you don't have to apply for it.

Although not familiar with NZ law, it is heavily based on English/Scots law so I would expect the terminology to be similar.

That said, I completely agree that people can vote with their feet but that it doesn't give the right to take.

I think part of the problem that hasn't really been covered is that there is some debate as to whether someone is being deprived of something (which is a factor in theft) - a digital reproduction is essentially a perfect copy. If we assume that had the taker not been able to reproduce the goods then they would have bought them. If they hadn't the means to do that then they could never have bought in the first place, so you could argue no one has been deprived of revenue.

This returns to the oft quoted car analogy - if you had a car and someone came along and digitally reproduced it would you be phased (obviously ignoring the road tax/insurance and so on - just the physical value of the car)? Sure you might be bummed you paid and they didn't but you still have your untouched car.

karellen

June 15th, 2009, 06:28 PM

You cannot apply property laws to thoughts. Most law systems in the world know that, for example where I live property laws are in the "civil rights book" which handles theft, damage, ... of property. "Thoughts laws" are in the so called "obligation rights book" which handles copyright infringement etc.
The latter has much smaller penalties by the way, since it's regarded as much less grave in most jurisdictions.

You can borrow a car you possess to a friend since it's completely legal to borrow most property. You cannot send a copy of a song you possess to your friends, copyright law forbids that. You can however give a CD (your property) to your friend, which is covered by property law. At the same time copyright law forbids this CD to be duplicated by yourself.
Borrowing an idea is... strange, because it doesn't make sense for the one you borrowed it to to give it back, which is the point of borrowing (temporary change of possesion).

You can steal a car. The tragic thing about this is not that you have one more car, but that the owner has lost his car (property).
You can also steal an idea if you obtain the rationale, then brainwash it's creator and destroy every other summary on that idea available.
The bad thing about stealing property is not the thieves gain, but the owners loss.
"Stealing" music occurs very, very rarely.
There is however unathorised copying of ideas, also called copyright infringement. You cannot commit copyright infringement on property, whose the inherent nature makes this impossible (unless we have atomic replicators of course).

To get back to your example: no, you are not allowed to shoplift the book (property. You are allowed to borrow it (the property) to a friend after you've obtained possession legally.
You are not allowed to recite it's whole contents in front of an audience, because you unauthorisedly duplicate the thoughts therein (copyright infringement). No matter if you've bought the book or not.
The current discussion about whether this is right or wrong can't be explained by analogies to property law, like you did.

Many people who have given this system a thought claim that there is no "intellectual property", a term which has been coined by the current recording industry in order to blur our perception of the difference between thoughts and property and try to increase the penalties for copyright infringement to the level of a property law.
Richard Stallman is one of those people. He acknowledges the existence of copyright law (which he uses extensively for the GPL), trademark law and patent law (which he finds shouldn't apply to software, and practically all high-profile people in FOSS agree).
Take a look into your local lawbook. In mine, there are those three laws, but none that is called "intellectual property law". It simply doesn't exist in my legislature, yet I hear it all the time from the media.

1. "after you purchased it legally"...no argue in that. the people I've replied to contested the whole idea of copyright. for them, by magic, the moment a creation gets a digital format, it's not longer protected by the aforemetioned laws (because, suddenly, it's an "idea" and nobody can copyright ideas); which I can't agree with
2. thoughts can't be copyrighted. their material implementations - in books or other creation - can. for example - you can't copyright the notion of gravity. but if I write a book about gravity, that's copyright.

phrostbyte

June 15th, 2009, 06:41 PM

Richard Stallman may argue as much as he wants, I don't understand how this simple elementary truth could be dismissed by a twisted concept of freedom: it's the freedom of creators to release their work(s) in the manner they want (copyrighted or not), not the freedom of masses to take that work for granted. I really don't care that the information medium has changed: it's the principle that matters. there's no difference between a pdf book and a paper one. they both can be multiplied, only the cost is insignificant in former case. and that's the real issue: convenience. as I said, it's not about freedom of having access to information, it's about ease of download.
I created something, I'm in charge, I decided what to do and when to do it. I can ask $1 million for a book or an album, it's my right (even though it's stupid), as much as it's the consumers right not to buy it.

There is two freedoms in contest here, both are "freedoms", but so is the "freedom to murder other people". That is a freedom! Freedom has no morality, it's just the opposite of restriction.

"The freedom to share information in a non-industrialized manner"
AND
"It's the freedom of authors to restrict distribution of the work"

Let me say these freedoms are mutually exclusive - you can't have both.

Let's take a look at the freedom you promote. You rational for it and I quote: "I really don't care that the information medium has changed: it's the principle that matters."

The world is flat. Well fine, I don't that our scientific knowledge has changed: It's the principle that matters.

This is a pretty bad rational, don't you think? It's not good ignore the world around you, and to ignore the advancements we made.

karellen

June 15th, 2009, 07:51 PM

There is two freedoms in contest here, both are "freedoms", but so is the "freedom to murder other people". [..]

I stopped reading when I reached the bolded text :)

phrostbyte

June 15th, 2009, 07:57 PM

I stopped reading when I reached the bolded text :). when do the nazis come into the discussion? Hail mr Godwin =;

Did you just invoke Godwin law on yourself? Because nothing I said had anything to do with WWII Germany.

I would prefer you would read what I wrote, so perhaps you could understand the argument I had presented to you.

KiwiNZ

June 15th, 2009, 07:58 PM

Lets not degrade the discussion

karellen

June 15th, 2009, 08:17 PM

Did you just invoke Godwin law on yourself? Because nothing I said had anything to do with WWII Germany.

I would prefer you would read what I wrote, so perhaps you could understand the argument I had presented to you.

that's better. no nazis, no Godwin, no need to further continue the discussion. you brought the freedom of killing people (from thin air, if you ask me, but I'm sure you'll say it was just a logical and reasonable interpretation of my vision of freedom to copyright own creation). fine, as I said, to each his own.
I'm sure we both have better things to do than missinterpret one's other words ;)

KiwiNZ

June 15th, 2009, 08:24 PM

phrostbyte

June 15th, 2009, 08:27 PM

that's better. no nazis, no Godwin, no need to further continue the discussion. you brought the freedom of killing people (from thin air, if you ask me, but I'm sure you'll say it was just a logical and reasonable interpretation of my vision of freedom to copyright own creation). fine, as I said, to each his own.
I'm sure we both have better things to do than missinterpret one's other words ;)

I was trying to show you just because you can classify something as a "freedom", doesn't make automatically just. Freedom can take many forms, just and unjust.

You have to dig deeper into the problem and balance the issues (just like .. judges do), to get a informed opinion of what is just or unjust. I am of the opinion that copyright in our day and age of post-scarcity of information, is an unjust system, and I didn't get this opinion overnight, but over a decade of refinement. I would support copyright if the Internet and computers didn't exist, but I can not support it any longer. Because I see what would be possible if we didn't have copyright today. All the world's information could become accessible to everyone, it's a great equalizer and I think it will lead to a better world. We have the technology to make this world possible today, just not the legal system.

t0p

June 15th, 2009, 08:28 PM

I think part of the problem that hasn't really been covered is that there is some debate as to whether someone is being deprived of something (which is a factor in theft) - a digital reproduction is essentially a perfect copy. If we assume that had the taker not been able to reproduce the goods then they would have bought them. If they hadn't the means to do that then they could never have bought in the first place, so you could argue no one has been deprived of revenue.

This is an extremely important point. "A friend of mine" has a lot of copyrighted material on his computer that he would never have bought if downloading it for free was not possible. I'm talking about music albums, movies, pdfs of books... he would not have any of it. So the rights-holders of the stuff have not been deprived of a penny. So they should not be entitled to a penny of damages or compensation.

Unfortunately, the whole crooked system is gamed to their advantage. Possessing music from an album that sells for $20 somehow entitles the music corporation to $20 out of my friend's pocket. Crazy.

lisati

June 15th, 2009, 08:30 PM

I own the copyright to a handful of clips on Youtube. My agreement with Youtube does not change that at all......neither does the existence of software that allows people to download my clips for "free"

KiwiNZ

June 15th, 2009, 08:36 PM

This is an extremely important point. "A friend of mine" has a lot of copyrighted material on his computer that he would never have bought if downloading it for free was not possible. I'm talking about music albums, movies, pdfs of books... he would not have any of it. So the rights-holders of the stuff have not been deprived of a penny. So they should not be entitled to a penny of damages or compensation.

Unfortunately, the whole crooked system is gamed to their advantage. Possessing music from an album that sells for $20 somehow entitles the music corporation to $20 out of my friend's pocket. Crazy.

That is wrong.If you cannot buy it , listen to it on the radio or read it at the library

I have approx 5gb of music all purchased on Itunes.

karellen

June 15th, 2009, 08:44 PM

I was trying to show you just because you can classify something as a "freedom", doesn't make automatically just. Freedom can take many forms, just and unjust.

You have to dig deeper into the problem and balance the issues (just like .. judges do), to get a informed opinion of what is just or unjust. I am of the opinion that copyright in our day and age of post-scarcity of information, is an unjust system, and I didn't get this opinion overnight, but over a decade of refinement. I would support copyright if the Internet and computers didn't exist, but I can not support it any longer. Because I see what would be possible if we didn't have copyright today. All the world's information could become accessible to everyone, it's a great equalizer and I think it will lead to a better world. We have the technology to make this world possible today, just not the legal system.

:) that's a noble thought, but I admit that I'm more egoistic and skeptical about the human nature and its desire to learn, evolve and, well, become more humanistic :D. sometimes I think I'm too pessimistic and cautious, other times I believe it's just plain realism. I might be wrong, but a small percent of people actually care about knowledge (like read useful informative books, watch documentaries or so). no, I don't have any buletproof statistic data to backup my claim, just my "gut" feeling :D...

t0p

June 15th, 2009, 08:46 PM

That is wrong.If you cannot buy it , listen to it on the radio or read it at the library

It may be "wrong" according to the insane copyright laws, but it certainly is not wrong morally. My friend can sleep at night because he knows he hasn't deprived or injured anyone.

I have approx 5gb of music all purchased on Itunes.

That is your choice. My friend has 50+ music CDs that he paid cash money for. A completely irrelevant fact.

Pogeymanz

June 15th, 2009, 08:50 PM

It is fine to lobby for law change , it is not fine to break the law.

I disagree. I believe that if a law is wrong, it is morally fine to break it. I'm not speaking about copyrights or whatever right now- I'm just speaking in general.

If people only lobbied for law change, then the American and French revolutions would not have happened, and many slaves in America would not have escaped slavery via the Underground Railroad.

There are times in history when breaking the law is fine.

LowSky

June 15th, 2009, 08:56 PM

when goods cost a fair price and are easily available then piracy does not exist.

does piracy hurt the business, yes of course, but when you keep you paying customers from accensing the material easily it becomes worse as people looked to cracked versions.

k2t0f12d

June 15th, 2009, 09:15 PM

I can see your point, if a book is in the bookstore = it's in the stream by the author's will = it's ok to shoplift it.Arguing over the fate of a single copy of an author's expression is perfidious to what I wrote. In the case of the shoplifter, were that person caught, explain how he will be prosecuted for that act under copyright law.

Bigtime_Scrub

June 15th, 2009, 09:39 PM

When you purchase something, that means you own it and should be able to do whatever you like to it. If I buy a car that means I can crash it, blow it up, burn it, or whatever because it is mine. With everything else in the world you can do that except with 1) music and 2) proprietary software. It should be no different with music. You should not have to buy a CD for the car and buy a "special DRM copy" for my iPod. If I pay for it I own it and if I can't own it then screw them I won't buy it. All the music industry does is take old music and rehash it into new formats. They want you to buy a vinal album, CD, DVD, Ipod mp3, etc for every single song of music you listen to. It is ridiculous.

Also when you download an album off a torrent or p2p you are not "stealing" anything, you are breaking copyright laws and nothing more. It is no different than when the music industry wanted to ban tape recorders because you could make "free" copies of music. If they want me to buy CD's then they need to let me play it anywhere and rip to whatever device I like. It wouldn't hurt either for them to offer something better than the mp3 alternative like high audio quality CD's or even high quality music DVD's for real music lovers. I suppose that is hard to do when so much new music now is total garbage but that is more a reflection of the times and culture than anything else.

The Pirate's bay's argument is sound and goes as thus:

"We are nothing more then a search engine. Our servers do not house any copyrighted or illegal content. You can't go after google.com for the same thing even though you can get torrent links from google. You might have an argument if you went after individual torrent seeders...but good luck with that."

bryonak

June 15th, 2009, 09:40 PM

The two posts above by Pogeymanz and LowSky bring up very good points.

1. "after you purchased it legally"...no argue in that. the people I've replied to contested the whole idea of copyright. for them, by magic, the moment a creation gets a digital format, it's not longer protected by the aforemetioned laws (because, suddenly, it's an "idea" and nobody can copyright ideas); which I can't agree with
2. thoughts can't be copyrighted. their material implementations - in books or other creation - can. for example - you can't copyright the notion of gravity. but if I write a book about gravity, that's copyright.

1. It doesn't matter if it's purchased legally or not... in both cases, analogies of thoughts with property are misplaced.
This very discussion (and the pirate party) we are having now is about contesting the whole idea of copyright. All I pointed out was that it doesn't make sense to apply property laws to non-property.

Which means that you put the emphasisis wrong when quoting me... it should have been the next sentence.

2. This depends on the definition of "idea". If you were to produce a movie with Jedi knights, lightsabres and an evil Empire, you'd be very quickly sued. Maybe they would tolerate it as "fan art" if you weren't to make any money of it, but commercial distribution would be illegal.
The argument that they'd sue for the distribution of the DVDs (property) isn't valid because the copyright holders a) would behave the same if it were distributed over the internet "medium" (torrents) and b) couldn't use any property law to sue with, but only copyright laws against the distribution of the content, not the media.

If you own a movie DVD or music CD, the material itself is property, covered by property laws. It's contents are thoughts, ideas, whatever you want to call them and they're covered by copyright and patents. Maybe you have another word for that, but it certainly isn't property... it's not covered as property in any legal system I know.

Before the so called information age, thoughts were more or less tied to the media they were distributed on (you could copy books, but it's a much bigger effort than copying digital files).
With the advent of the internet, we have removed this scarcity model, which in turn doesn't fit well into the business model of most record companies.

ddrichardson

June 15th, 2009, 11:30 PM

So the rights-holders of the stuff have not been deprived of a penny. So they should not be entitled to a penny of damages or compensation.
Ah now wait, that's taking things much further. The point I was making was that if no-one is being deprived of anything then the crime shouldn't be theft.

I didn't suggest that people obtaining cast quantities of music, film and publication should be able to do so without offering anything to the creators in return. Ultimately, if everyone did that there would be no incentive to create anything outside of ones leisure time (as they would need to work to make ends meet).

That's just as bad for the artist as the corporation's stance, surely?

lisati

June 15th, 2009, 11:34 PM

ddrichardson

June 15th, 2009, 11:36 PM

It may be "wrong" according to the insane copyright laws, but it certainly is not wrong morally. My friend can sleep at night because he knows he hasn't deprived or injured anyone.
You might also argue that without financial incentive to continue to produce, that society is being deprived of future material - in which case, by your own rules, you have a moral judgement to make.

Closed_Port

June 15th, 2009, 11:49 PM

You might also argue that without financial incentive to continue to produce, that society is being deprived of future material - in which case, by your own rules, you have a moral judgement to make.
I agree that this is a very real problem you describe. But I think the example you are reacting to is a little more complicated.

If I understood it correctly, the point was that the "friend" wouldn't have bought the stuff in the first place and only got it because it was free. Now if that's really the case, nobody was really deprived of a financial incentive here. The copyright holder wouldn't have gotten any money when he anyway.

Dimitriid

June 16th, 2009, 12:16 AM

Actually I read that article (it was reffered to by another paper) and she had a valid point but that said, it isn't as simple as putting a track on the Internet - you still need promotion to make the top billing.

Thats another problem: should artist aim to express or should they aim at becoming millionaires? There is no need to become a "top billing" artist at all whatsoever, even if an artist wanted to make a living exclusively out of their music ( which is unrealistic and quite frankly insane: 99% of the bands I like have day jobs in between touring ) they could still do so comfortably while having smaller, niche audiences only.

The problem is that corporations have convinced the general public opinion that if you want to improve something you should throw money at it. Coincidentally they are the ones who oh so willingly provide that money at exponential profit for them exclusively.

That is just a paradigm that is as wrong as commercial software models and one would expect Linux users to understand, more so when it comes to artistic expression which should be unhindered of any and all monetary concerns whatsoever: otherwise is just not pure expression and the artistic value invariably suffers.

So if you look at the piracy issue from the perspective of the capitalist powers that be, copyright infringement ( cause there is no piracy if there is no verifiable lost of profit, stop using that term guys) is a big deal.

But if you are willing to consider that movies are not automatically better cause they have top billing actors and cost 300 million dollars to make, that videogames are not automatically more fun cause they have ultra high quality textures on the latest consoles, that good musicians can inspire you without spending billions on over-producing and bombarding with marketing campaigns, maybe you could understand why all information, all art, should be free

k2t0f12d

June 16th, 2009, 12:30 AM

You might also argue that without financial incentive to continue to produce, at society is being deprived of future material - in which case, by your own rules, you have a moral judgement to make.Artisans who professionally composed expressions in their art can be proven to exist prior to the technological ability to fix that expression to tangible, therefore salable, media. On that basis alone, I submit that your speculation can be safely and entirely dismissed.

KiwiNZ

June 16th, 2009, 12:42 AM

Dimitriid

June 16th, 2009, 12:45 AM

NFblaze

June 16th, 2009, 01:28 AM

NOTICE : If this goes against forum rules then please feel free to remove but this is kinda the politics of technology so please be understanding.

I have been following the Pirate Bay trial very closely as I am a huge endorser of The Pirate Bay and BitTorrent technology but very much against piracy. So I have been wondering something about the whole Piratbyrån thing. What are their arguments for endorsing piracy? I mean I understand a few of them like how copyright laws last too long and I do agree with them that they should be dramitically shortened or abolished but how does that make taking other peoples work acceptable.

Please somone enlighten me or even try to convince me that the Piratbyrån is correct, I am just trying to figure out what they are talking about.

Basically, the PirateBay shares data. Some organizations with a long lineage of investments for that data, dont like that everything is more accessible in this digital age. They feel that even though before this age there are many ways to reproduce whatever data and distrubute it, they feel that they should be compensated by the PirateBay which doesnt even infringe on the data, they also neglect to understand that (at least, last time I checked) the world isnt governed by American law. Laws that may exist here, do not exist, or have jurisdiction in another counrty/area. The enemies of the Piratbyrån also assume that they should be compensated in full for each count of alleged infringement. Whereas, there is no where to prove that each alleged infringement counts toward lost revenue. There's more to their arguments, but you just need to visit pro-sharing sites.

I myself use digital technology for sharing of various types of data. I can say that most of the stuff I have now, I would've not purchased anyhow, especially after seeing how deplorable the product is/was. I'm also glad I use the technology as it has allowed discovering information easy.

Closed_Port

June 16th, 2009, 08:07 AM

ricardisimo

June 16th, 2009, 10:20 AM

Bottom line , Copyright exists , patents exist ,
Its illegal to circumvent , take /use with out authority .

No matter what dubious arguments that are postulated until the law changes it will remain illegal.

Thus penalties can and should be imposed to those who chose to breach those laws.

Seconded, and thirded (?) by me. To have a forum administrator weighing in on a lively debate with this sort of statement seems more than a bit overbearing. I would say a retraction is in order.

It also misses a basic truth: sometimes the law is illegal. A simple glance at the front page on any given day will present us with at least a few examples, whether from authoritarian regimes, or right here at home. When you say "penalties can and should be imposed to those who chose to breach those laws," your argument applies as much to dissenters in Myanmar as to pirates in Sweden. You are likewise saying that until sharia law changes, infidelity should indeed be answered with a public stoning. You really have to rein in those sorts of blanket statements.

DMCA, NAFTA, the Patriot Act, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, etc., etc.... these are laws and treaties that all but get down on their hands and knees begging for dissent and insurrection from every corner of the general populace. They are atrocious laws that make only the vaguest attempt at covering up their designers' real purposes: desperate, mad grabs for limitless money and power within ostensibly democratic, egalitarian societies. No one should be ashamed because they broke these laws, and much less be punished for it.

To the contrary, you get bad laws changed by breaking them - over and over again sometimes - and having your day in court. Or maybe not even that. Maybe you're just daring someone to enforce a wholly unpopular law. That's basically what's happening with the Telecomm Act of 1996. It's root purpose was to destroy competition and reconstitute Ma Bell, but it also took time out to do little things like basically make community-run WiFi LANs (like Philadelphia's) illegal. One by one, towns decided to start setting them up anyway, daring Verizon and co. to shut them down, basically. Well, it finally happened in Monticello, Minnesota, and guess what? The law breakers won! The state court ruled that broadband internet is a utility just like gas and electric. Kudos to those Swedes here in the US. The Swedes in Sweden are not fairing quite as well, of course, as this thread testifies.

A new tangent, sort of -
I've been watching and contributing to this discussion with my eye on one particular aspect: the centrality of property rights in any discussion of rights per se. A friend of mine is a member of the Lawyers' Guild, and took the time to explain to me why his group fights against this very pervasive and pernicious corruption of our political culture. I won't insult you guys with another long lecture (I'm a little too prone to them, but aren't we all?) but the basis of it is rather obvious: property rights cannot be fundamental rights, because then those who own property have more rights than those who do not.

It's interesting to go back and look at people's arguments with this filter. Some of us have clearly internalized and accepted property rights as basic and true, immutable. And some of us... not so much. Where do you fall?

Finally, isn't anyone else other than me at least somewhat bothered by the Big Lie of the Music Industry, namely that you can circumvent working for a living by doing something once and getting paid for it the rest of your life? A.) It really is a big lie; touring is how most bands make 99% of their money. B.) Do we really want to run an economy that way? My dad fixed smelting ovens in a steel factory. Should he have been able to do that once and get paid for it the rest of his life?

My sincerest apologies for the length of this post. I check in every few days and feel I have to respond to numerous posts before me. Good arguments all around, by the way.

KiwiNZ

June 16th, 2009, 10:42 AM

nolliecrooked

June 16th, 2009, 10:45 AM

Seconded, and thirded (?) by me. To have a forum administrator weighing in on a lively debate with this sort of statement seems more than a bit overbearing. I would say a retraction is in order.

It also misses a basic truth: sometimes the law is illegal. A simple glance at the front page on any given day will present us with at least a few examples, whether from authoritarian regimes, or right here at home. When you say "penalties can and should be imposed to those who chose to breach those laws," your argument applies as much to dissenters in Myanmar as to pirates in Sweden. You are likewise saying that until sharia law changes, infidelity should indeed be answered with a public stoning. You really have to rein in those sorts of blanket statements.

DMCA, NAFTA, the Patriot Act, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, etc., etc.... these are laws and treaties that all but get down on their hands and knees begging for dissent and insurrection from every corner of the general populace. They are atrocious laws that make only the vaguest attempt at covering up their designers' real purposes: desperate, mad grabs for limitless money and power within ostensibly democratic, egalitarian societies. No one should be ashamed because they broke these laws, and much less be punished for it.

To the contrary, you get bad laws changed by breaking them - over and over again sometimes - and having your day in court. Or maybe not even that. Maybe you're just daring someone to enforce a wholly unpopular law. That's basically what's happening with the Telecomm Act of 1996. It's root purpose was to destroy competition and reconstitute Ma Bell, but it also took time out to do little things like basically make community-run WiFi LANs (like Philadelphia's) illegal. One by one, towns decided to start setting them up anyway, daring Verizon and co. to shut them down, basically. Well, it finally happened in Monticello, Minnesota, and guess what? The law breakers won! The state court ruled that broadband internet is a utility just like gas and electric. Kudos to those Swedes here in the US. The Swedes in Sweden are not fairing quite as well, of course, as this thread testifies.

A new tangent, sort of -
I've been watching and contributing to this discussion with my eye on one particular aspect: the centrality of property rights in any discussion of rights per se. A friend of mine is a member of the Lawyers' Guild, and took the rime to explain to me why his group fights against this very pervasive and pernicious corruption of our political culture. I won't insult you guys with another long lecture (I'm a little too prone to them, but aren't we all?) but the basis of it is rather obvious: property rights cannot be fundamental rights, because then those who own property have more rights than those who do not.

It's interesting to go back and look at people's arguments with this filter. Some of us have clearly internalized and accepted property rights as basic and true, immutable. And some of us... not so much. Where do you fall?

Finally, isn't anyone else other than me at least somewhat bothered by the Big Lie of the Music Industry, namely that you can circumvent working for a living by doing something once and getting paid for it the rest of your life? A.) It really is a big lie; touring is how most bands make 99% of their money. B.) Do we really want to run an economy that way? My dad fixed smelting ovens in a steel factory. Should he have been able to do that once and get paid for it the rest of his life?

My sincerest apologies for the length of this post. I check in every few days and feel I have to respond to numerous posts before me. Good arguments all around, by the way.

you mean rules that are imposed on you since birth, of which you have no choice about?

screw the law. live by your own morals.

Closed_Port

June 16th, 2009, 11:26 AM

Why ?
Is staff not allowed an opinion

Of course you are.
But for me, and I can only speak for me here, your post sounded like: this discussion is over! And that carries of course more weight when coming from an admin than coming from a "normal" user.

Hence why I asked you to clarify your post.

ddrichardson

June 16th, 2009, 06:53 PM

Artisans who professionally composed expressions in their art can be proven to exist prior to the technological ability to fix that expression to tangible, therefore salable, media. On that basis alone, I submit that your speculation can be safely and entirely dismissed.
Referring modern society to pre-recording (including musical script notation) society is questionably relevant and certainly doesn't dismiss the suggestion, especially as I didn't suggest their recompense was based around tangible media, after all live performance is not tangible media yet that is routinely paid for.

ddrichardson

June 16th, 2009, 07:00 PM

you mean rules that are imposed on you since birth, of which you have no choice about?

screw the law. live by your own morals.
Arguing that a law needs to be changed and applying pressure to do so is significantly different to ignoring that society needs law and regulations. To live by one's own morals requires that we have similar morals, which simply isn't the case for everyone.

doas777

June 16th, 2009, 07:25 PM

doas777

June 16th, 2009, 07:26 PM

Why ?
Is staff not allowed an opinion

perhaps you should have a sock puppet for personal posting.

ddrichardson

June 16th, 2009, 07:33 PM

have to agree with the others. obeying an immoral law is immoral.
This is true when the law says that, for example, a person is not allowed to ride on the front seat of a bus because of the colour of their skin. Its not applicable when someone wants to download a stack of MP3s and doesn't want to pay for it.

The problem here is the definition of morality, while it might be correct to break an immoral law, that doesn't mean that we all agree this is one.

aysiu

June 16th, 2009, 07:46 PM

I think it should be up to the creator to decide how she wants to license her work, and people should respect that license.

If the creator says "I believe everyone should be able to freely share my music. Share away!" then people should share away.

If the creator says "I will let you listen to my music if you pay this fee to download it," then people should either pay the fee or say "I don't think your music is worth the fee; I'll go listen to something else instead."

This whole business of feeling entitled to take for free that which is not freely given I find obnoxious and selfish, frankly. If you weren't going to buy that music anyway, then don't listen to it. Why are you taking something you don't want? Do you also espouse plagiarism? Have you ever tried to make a living selling music? Do you realize that not all artists make only pennies on each CD?

More importantly, do you really see in concert every single artist you listen to? I know I don't. I love going to concerts, and I have seen several of my favorite bands in concert. But I haven't seen them all in concert, not nearly all of them, not even a quarter of them. So if I don't buy their music, they aren't getting a penny from me otherwise.

I'm sorry, but I just don't buy the notion that pirating music is moral. Justify it all you like, it is stealing. It's mainly pirates who define stealing as leaving the original owner without the original copy.
1. to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, esp. secretly or by force: A pickpocket stole his watch.
2. to appropriate (ideas, credit, words, etc.) without right or acknowledgment.
3. to take, get, or win insidiously, surreptitiously, subtly, or by chance: He stole my girlfriend.
4. to move, bring, convey, or put secretly or quietly; smuggle (usually fol. by away, from, in, into, etc.): They stole the bicycle into the bedroom to surprise the child.
5. Baseball. (of a base runner) to gain (a base) without the help of a walk or batted ball, as by running to it during the delivery of a pitch.
6. Games. to gain (a point, advantage, etc.) by strategy, chance, or luck.
7. to gain or seize more than one's share of attention in, as by giving a superior performance: The comedian stole the show. The biggest argument against enforcing copyright infringement, though, isn't a moral one but a practical one--you can't enforce it. People will "share" and pirate, and there's no way to stop them.

All these legal battles and prosecutions do nothing in the long-term but delay the inevitable. If corporations want to profit from the new market, this is what they should do: Flood the torrents with corrupted and/or low-quality downloads Scale the price of paid downloads to the amount of downloads there are. So a song that gets 10 million downloads might cost $.25 per download, but a song that gets 1 million downloads might cost $.99 per download. Start up their own official torrent sites and advertise.

karellen

June 16th, 2009, 08:13 PM

I think it should be up to the creator to decide how she wants to license her work, and people should respect that license.

If the creator says "I believe everyone should be able to freely share my music. Share away!" then people should share away.

If the creator says "I will let you listen to my music if you pay this fee to download it," then people should either pay the fee or say "I don't think your music is worth the fee; I'll go listen to something else instead."

This whole business of feeling entitled to take for free that which is not freely given I find obnoxious and selfish, frankly. If you weren't going to buy that music anyway, then don't listen to it. Why are you taking something you don't want? Do you also espouse plagiarism? Have you ever tried to make a living selling music? Do you realize that not all artists make only pennies on each CD?

More importantly, do you really see in concert every single artist you listen to? I know I don't. I love going to concerts, and I have seen several of my favorite bands in concert. But I haven't seen them all in concert, not nearly all of them, not even a quarter of them. So if I don't buy their music, they aren't getting a penny from me otherwise.

I'm sorry, but I just don't buy the notion that pirating music is moral. Justify it all you like, it is stealing. It's mainly pirates who define stealing as leaving the original owner without the original copy. The biggest argument against enforcing copyright infringement, though, isn't a moral one but a practical one--you can't enforce it. People will "share" and pirate, and there's no way to stop them.

All these legal battles and prosecutions do nothing in the long-term but delay the inevitable. If corporations want to profit from the new market, this is what they should do: Flood the torrents with corrupted and/or low-quality downloads Scale the price of paid downloads to the amount of downloads there are. So a song that gets 10 million downloads might cost $.25 per download, but a song that gets 1 million downloads might cost $.99 per download. Start up their own official torrent sites and advertise.

as usual, insightful, thorough and to the point :). I second this

Closed_Port

June 16th, 2009, 08:49 PM

I think it should be up to the creator to decide how she wants to license her work, and people should respect that license.

I think it should be up to the laws to determine what the copyrightholder (who in many cases isn't the creator) can and cannot restrict when it comes to using the work he holds the rights on.

If you weren't going to buy that music anyway, then don't listen to it. Why are you taking something you don't want?

I think its pretty clear that they don't want it enough to pay for it, but if they can get something for free they'll take it anyway. This seems to me to be pretty basic economics. People take things they get for free that they would never pay for.

I'm sorry, but I just don't buy the notion that pirating music is moral. Justify it all you like, it is stealing.

I agree with you that it is wrong, however, it simply is not stealing but making an illegal copy.

It's mainly pirates who define stealing as leaving the original owner without the original copy.

I really take exception to this. Not arguing your point but accusing people you disagree with is pretty low.
And every economist will tell you that making a copy of something is fundamentally different from stealing something. Just read Joseph Stiglitz' great article on knowledge as a global public good for example.
You can get a free copy here:
http://cgt.columbia.edu/papers/knowledge_as_a_global_public_good/

And the law does recognize it too, of course. That's why we have intellectual property rights in the first place: "Intellectual goods" are different from physical goods, they have different economic properties and they are covered by different laws.

I'm sorry if I came of a little cranky. I agree with you on most of the moral judgments you make, but I'm getting oh so tired of people being accused to just want to justify their moral wrongdoings for simply pointing out very basic economic facts: Intellectual goods are different from physical goods, they are governed by different laws, they have different economic properties and an illegal copy is an illegal copy and not stealing.

aysiu

June 16th, 2009, 09:00 PM

I think it should be up to the laws to determine what the copyrightholder (who in many cases isn't the creator) can and cannot restrict when it comes to using the work he holds the rights on. We'll agree to disagree on this, then.

I think its pretty clear that they don't want it enough to pay for it, but if they can get something for free they'll take it anyway. This seems to me to be pretty basic economics. I don't think people who take anything they can take for free are able to accurately self-assess what they would or would not pay money for.
People take things they get for free that they would never pay for. Clearly. But they also take for free what they might have paid for and what they would have paid for. The lines between each of those three things blur if you just refuse to pay for anything at all.

I agree with you that it is wrong, however, it simply is not stealing but making an illegal copy. Another point I'll agree to disagree with you on. You have your reasons for insisting on that semantic distinction, and I have reasons for refraining from it.

I really take exception to this. Not arguing your point but accusing people you disagree with is pretty low.
And every economist will tell you that making a copy of something is fundamentally different from stealing something. Just read Joseph Stiglitz' great article on knowledge as a global public good for example.
You can get a free copy here:
http://cgt.columbia.edu/papers/knowledge_as_a_global_public_good/ I agree that it is fundamentally different from traditional notions of stealing, but I just consider it a different type of stealing. Stealing is a general umbrella term I use for taking a good or using a service that is normally paid for without paying for it and without the owner's permission to have it free. I consider sneaking into a movie theater without paying for a ticket to be a type of stealing as well.

And the law does recognize it too, of course. That's why we have intellectual property rights in the first place: "Intellectual goods" are different from physical goods, they have different economic properties and they are covered by different laws. I fully agree. But I use the umbrella term stealing to cover different types of unsanctioned non-paying for goods and services rendered that require payment. Within that umbrella term, you can qualify different types of stealing.

I'm sorry if I came of a little cranky. I agree with you on most of the moral judgments you make, but I'm getting oh so tired of people being accused to just want to justify their moral wrongdoings for simply pointing out very basic economic facts: Intellectual goods are different from physical goods, they are governed by different laws, they have different economic properties and an illegal copy is an illegal copy and not stealing. And I agree with you that they have different economic properties. I just don't agree with how you've decided to label them.

KiwiNZ

June 16th, 2009, 09:02 PM

I really take exception to this. Not arguing your point but accusing people you disagree with is pretty low.
And every economist will tell you that making a copy of something is fundamentally different from stealing something. Just read Joseph Stiglitz' great article on knowledge as a global public good for example.
You can get a free copy here:
http://cgt.columbia.edu/papers/knowledge_as_a_global_public_good/

And the law does recognize it too, of course. That's why we have intellectual property rights in the first place: "Intellectual goods" are different from physical goods, they have different economic properties and they are covered by different laws.

I'm sorry if I came of a little cranky. I agree with you on most of the moral judgments you make, but I'm getting oh so tired of people being accused to just want to justify their moral wrongdoings for simply pointing out very basic economic facts: Intellectual goods are different from physical goods, they are governed by different laws, they have different economic properties and an illegal copy is an illegal copy and not stealing.

semantics ,its taking something with out paying for it, they are not entitled to do so ,thus depriving the owner of the copyright money they entitled to .Excuses postulated do not mitigate this.

aysiu

June 16th, 2009, 09:10 PM

Even though I seem to be touting a very conservative position on this, I do think there needs to be a bit of a balance.

Lawrence Lessig (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig), in an NPR interview (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98591002) I heard, brings up some good points about how the copyright system is extending beyond its original intent, and the length of copyright (number of years after the death of the work's creator) seems to keep extending indefinitely, which does not really have anything to do with the original intent of copyright, which was to provide financial incentives for artists to make stuff.

The idea that your family will be provided for is a nice one, even that your grandchildren would be provided for is also nice. But to have your copyright ownership extend way beyond 75 years after your death is just ridiculous. I'm all for public domain after that.

ddrichardson

June 16th, 2009, 09:19 PM

I think it should be up to the laws to determine what the copyrightholder (who in many cases isn't the creator) can and cannot restrict when it comes to using the work he holds the rights on.
Again, this isn't so clear cut. Free access to Eminem's newest album is never going to be as important as the chemical formulation and trial results for Atorvastin.

In the case of something which is of enormous benefit to society as a whole, then copyright should be applicable and have terms set by an elected government.

What we're forgetting by focussing on the cost of the medium is the cost of development, production and promotion.

ddrichardson

June 16th, 2009, 09:26 PM

I agree that it is fundamentally different from traditional notions of stealing, but I just consider it a different type of stealing. Stealing is a general umbrella term I use for taking a good or using a service that is normally paid for without paying for it and without the owner's permission to have it free. I consider sneaking into a movie theater without paying for a ticket to be a type of stealing as well.
This would fall under the category of obtaining goods and services by deception.

While I agree with most of what you're saying, the concept of theft is not a semantic difference, it is generally understood to mean depriving someone of their property without their permission.

The fundamental issue is the definition of property because it has further legal ramifications and that is the crux of the issue - I don't think any of us arguing here disputes an artist has a right to charge for their work and to have some control over its usage but rather the debate is where we as society draw the line in defining where this lies within law.

ddrichardson

June 16th, 2009, 09:32 PM

semantics ,its taking something with out paying for it, they are not entitled to do so ,thus depriving the owner of the copyright money they entitled to .Excuses postulated do not mitigate this.
With respect, its not semantic - in the microcosm case of music downloads, then yes you should be paying for it if you download it. After the artists death, I'm not so sure he needs the funds.

The problem is that any decision made in the light of pressure from the music and film industries has ramifications for information that others wish to protect and make money off of for the next century or so - such as pharmaceutical research, educational resources, mathematical algorithms and a subject dear to own hearts - software implementation.

What's being discussed shouldn't be the short term purchase, which I agree should be paid for but the copyright term. Copyright was envisaged as a method for those developing new technologies to hold a short term monopoly in order to recoup their development costs and see a return on their investment. Pharmacom is a prime example, after a while the need to produce generic drugs for mass distribution and lowering cost is of direct public interest.

aysiu

June 16th, 2009, 09:36 PM

I understand where you're coming from, ddrichardson, but I think the term stealing offers a moral component to the subject that illegal copying does not.

There's a reason that people go to such great lengths to define stealing as necessarily deprive people of property, and part of that, at least in the context of piracy and music downloads, is a moral justification for what is essentially... stealing. You are taking something you don't have permission to take.

The "property" isn't physical property, and I understand that shifts the social and economic dynamics of the situation, but it is still taking without permission and morally wrong. Once you start calling it "illegal copying," then you're just facilitating further justification for it.

Closed_Port

June 16th, 2009, 09:41 PM

I don't think people who take anything they can take for free are able to accurately self-assess what they would or would not pay money for. Clearly. But they also take for free what they might have paid for and what they would have paid for. The lines between each of those three things blur if you just refuse to pay for anything at all.

You are of course correct. People will tend to tell themselves that they wouldn't have payed anyway, so there is no problem.

However, I think it is also important to point out that people will behave differently when they get something for free. For example when discussing this issue you will always encounter claims from the music industry, etc. about how much money file sharing is costing them. And they will inevitably be based on the assumption that what has been shared would have been bought otherwise. That's of course totally unrealistic.

Another point I'll agree to disagree with you on. You have your reasons for insisting on that semantic distinction, and I have reasons for refraining from it.

You are of course free to disagree and after reading what you wrote about this point, I agree that for you it really is only a semantic distinction. Let me try to point out however why I do think it is an important distinction to make.

At least in my experience it is nearly impossible to have any kind of substantive debate on complex issues, and intellectual property rights certainly are a complex issue, if you don't try your best to be as precise as possible, especially when it comes to language.

Let me give an example: One of the most debated points when it comes to intellectual property law, especially after the TRIPS-agreement, is patents on drugs. Now I'm sure you'll agree with me that this is an important and complex issue. Among other things the debate centers on whether and when countries should be allowed to produce generic treatments for example for AIDS. Now you can sure come different conclusions about if and under what circumstances they should be allowed to do so, but I'm convinced that labeling what they do as stealing would in no way lead to an informed debate. On the contrary.

Another example:
What about the problems creators themselves face because of copyright. Take documentaries for example that get more difficult to make and often can no longer be distributed because of copyright. For some examples, see:
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/film/story/2008/04/27/creative-commons.html
http://www.wcl.american.edu/pijip/go/internationalfilm
Again, I think to have a meaningful debate about these issues, one has to be as precise as possible in the language one uses.

ddrichardson

June 16th, 2009, 09:45 PM

I understand where you're coming from, ddrichardson, but I think the term stealing offers a moral component to the subject that illegal copying does not.
I think that "illegal" implies a moral connection at the very least but I get your point.

There's a reason that people go to such great lengths to define stealing as necessarily deprive people of property, and part of that, at least in the context of piracy and music downloads, is a moral justification for what is essentially... stealing. You are taking something you don't have permission to take.

The "property" isn't physical property, and I understand that shifts the social and economic dynamics of the situation, but it is still taking without permission and morally wrong. Once you start calling it "illegal copying," then you're just facilitating further justification for it.
Like I said in my other posts, there is a bigger picture with a bigger implication for our future. I'm not disputing the morality and I'm sure I'm clear on this, I am absolutely not facilitating theft further justification and haven't referred to it as illegal copying. If I had to label it then I'd be inclined towards fraud - I'm sure this has a moral component!

The issue is not as clear cut as you imply there is more to this than music, film and games but how mathematics, medicine, software, art and information can be controlled in the very near future. I'm arguing that by calling it theft we facilitate the creation of laws beneficial to the media industry but that are of detriment to other fields which are of direct benefit to society.

ddrichardson

June 16th, 2009, 09:47 PM

For example when discussing this issue you will always encounter claims from the music industry, etc. about how much money file sharing is costing them. And they will inevitably be based on the assumption that what has been shared would have been bought otherwise. That's of course totally unrealistic.
This is a valid issue but not in the justification of an offence rather in the definition of the punitive consequences.

aysiu

June 16th, 2009, 09:48 PM

However, I think it is also important to point out that people will behave differently when they get something for free. For example when discussing this issue you will always encounter claims from the music industry, etc. about how much money file sharing is costing them. And they will inevitably be based on the assumption that what has been shared would have been bought otherwise. That's of course totally unrealistic. I agree fully. Because the pro-piracy element is so vocal on these forums, I feel the need to be a devil's advocate, but I definitely do not take seriously music companies' own estimations of how much money they've lost because of illegal downloads. The "free" downloads not allowing an honest assessment of what one would have paid goes both ways. There are some cases in which the person would have paid and won't admit it to herself, and other cases in which she honestly would not have paid.

Now you can sure come different conclusions about if and under what circumstances they should be allowed to do so, but I'm convinced that labeling what they do as stealing would in no way lead to an informed debate. On the contrary. You're entitled to your opinion, and I do think that under certain circumstances the semantic distinction could be important. In the context of the current discussion, I think it is less important.

Another example:
What about the problems creators themselves face because of copyright. Take documentaries for example that get more difficult to make and often can no longer be distributed because of copyright. For some examples, see:
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/film/story/2008/04/27/creative-commons.html
http://www.wcl.american.edu/pijip/go/internationalfilm
Again, I think to have a meaningful debate about these issues, one has to be as precise as possible in the language one uses. Well, in the case of documentaries, I think the case could be made (and, indeed, should be made) that inclusion of copyrighted materials in small segments and for the purpose of commentary is covered under fair use.

Closed_Port

June 16th, 2009, 09:50 PM

semantics ,its taking something with out paying for it, they are not entitled to do so ,thus depriving the owner of the copyright money they entitled to .Excuses postulated do not mitigate this.
See my answer to aysiu on why I think it is important and it is more than mere semantics.

Also, I'm taking exception to being accused of using this as an excuse. As I have repeatedly stated, intellectual goods are different from physical goods, they are governed by different laws, they have different economic properties and making an illegal copy is distinct from stealing a physical object and the laws pertaining to making an illegal copy and stealing are reflecting this. I think our language does and should reflect these difference. Now, feel free to disagree, but don't accuse me of making this distinction to excuse illegal behavior.

Closed_Port

June 16th, 2009, 10:00 PM

This is a valid issue but not in the justification of an offence rather in the definition of the punitive consequences.

I agree. But I think this issue is also important as the numbers are frequently used to influence policy and for example restrict fair use rights.

Closed_Port

June 16th, 2009, 10:06 PM

You're entitled to your opinion, and I do think that under certain circumstances the semantic distinction could be important. In the context of the current discussion, I think it is less important.

I agree with you that making this distinction when discussion downloading some songs illegally isn't too important.

However, as ddrichardson pointed out, the debates over these rather petty issues also have profound consequences in other, more important areas. Stronger copyrights might also mean that it's getting more difficult and expensive to get hold of scientific papers, it might mean that having access to important cultural artifacts will be more restricted (see the case of the documentaries), etc.

ddrichardson

June 16th, 2009, 10:09 PM

I agree. But I think this issue is also important as the numbers are frequently used to influence policy and for example restrict fair use rights.
I wondered when this would be touched on, fair use is extremely important and deserves much more discussion than it receives. In the context of downloading however, it isn't really relevant as its difficult to argue fair use when fair use would indicate making a copy from the original material distribution media.

It does however play an important part in the discussion of property definition and I'm sure that those in the media industry are keen to promote their product as property in order to restrict its use.

KiwiNZ

June 16th, 2009, 10:34 PM

See my answer to aysiu on why I think it is important and it is more than mere semantics.

Also, I'm taking exception to being accused of using this as an excuse. As I have repeatedly stated, intellectual goods are different from physical goods, they are governed by different laws, they have different economic properties and making an illegal copy is distinct from stealing a physical object and the laws pertaining to making an illegal copy and stealing are reflecting this. I think our language does and should reflect these difference. Now, feel free to disagree, but don't accuse me of making this distinction to excuse illegal behavior.

I mentioned no names , I made no specific accusations against any named persons.

Yes they have differences .... but in the final analysis BOTH are illegal.

ddrichardson

June 16th, 2009, 10:38 PM

I mentioned no names , I made no specific accusations against any named persons.

Yes they have differences .... but in the final analysis BOTH are illegal.
I think we've established that no-one doubts that, the point is whether they should be and if they should be defined under existing laws. Moreover what the implications are with respect to other forms of digital information which are not currently restricted but could be by an unconsidered application of an existing statute or a precedence.

Closed_Port

June 16th, 2009, 10:55 PM

I mentioned no names , I made no specific accusations against any named persons.

As you quoted my post, I assumed you were referring to me. I'm glad to see that wasn't the case, but if I may be so bold, I think we should also refrain from broad accusations again unspecified persons.

Yes they have differences .... but in the final analysis BOTH are illegal.
I don't think anybody disagrees here. On the contrary, many people have gone out of their way to make this point very clear, especially many of those you seem to disagree with. But as ddrichardson noted, the discussion really is about different issues.

ricardisimo

June 16th, 2009, 11:12 PM

Random thoughts and responses here...

Copyright was meant to provide a temporary monopoly for artists and scientists to recoup their costs and turn a profit. It was a dubious construct from the get-go, as monopolies are rarely, if ever desirable.
Add to that that the artists and scientists are almost never the rights holders.
Also consider that the monopoly has not been breached; the issue is not others claiming the work as their own and/or charging for it
Academia does not have to ask permission of the rightsholder, nor should they.
Libraries normally don't normally pay for their collection, but have them granted, or they pay a reduced price, which is neither here nor there. But what if a writer retracts her/his license to a given library (or all of them)? Perhaps the book is too controversial, not controversial enough, or s/he feels it is being misread. I'd like to think that most of us would say "tough". You launched your child out into the world. It's ours now. That's how the world of ideas works. You need not publish any more copies, but the library can and should govern the distribution of their own catalog based on public need and public good, not copyright considerations.
I have thoughts and phrases in my head which I have lifted directly from my first reading of Joseph Heller's Catch-22. I owe that man a debt which can never be repaid, monetarily or otherwise. I've lifted his material for personal gain over and over again, normally just to make myself look smarter, sometimes to get laid back in college. I never paid for the book. It was a friend's. What's to be done about this? Why is it any different from the tapes we made of Bowie albums back in the day, or the fado music mix that I made for my brother direct from CD sources, or the back-up I made of my Thelonious Monk albums, knowing full well that my son before, and now my one-year-old daughter, are determined to destroy all of the beautiful things in our house?
Big Pharma is a horrible place to look if you're trying to make the argument for copyrights. Almost all of their "breakthroughs" were someone else's. Aside from medicines centered on sustaining erections, and designer mood enhancer (where they have spent all of their R&D money) almost everything else was developed by you and I - the public - via the university system around the world, but mainly in the U.S. and Europe. The schools get a pittance in the form of some licensing fee, while Phizer et al. get the glory and hundreds of millions of dollars to spend on more erections and antidepressants. If I were one of these corporate slimeballs, I'd probably need those two things as well, just to convince myself to get out of bed in the morning.
KiwiNZ: Of course you are allowed an opinion, and I will take your subsequent posts as clarifying that this was indeed just your personal opinion. But the post in question called to mind numerous other threads in numerous other forums (normally HowTos regarding backing up DVDs) where a forum administrator steps in to say something like "philosophize all you want, but this discussion is over." No retraction is necessary, but perhaps a little more délicatesse would pay dividends in the future.

ddrichardson

June 16th, 2009, 11:56 PM

k2t0f12d

June 17th, 2009, 12:00 AM

Copyright was meant to provide a temporary monopoly for artists and scientists to recoup their costs and turn a profit. It was a dubious construct from the get-go, as monopolies are rarely, if ever desirable.In the U.S., the constitutional basis for copyright is to promote the progress of science and useful arts. Monetary compensation or control over the work or invention are secondary considerations rather than the basis of it.

k2t0f12d

June 17th, 2009, 12:10 AM

Perhaps but how else are those investing in development expected to recoup those costs?It is not the purpose of copyright law to guarantee a particular outcome for investment.

ddrichardson

June 17th, 2009, 12:23 AM

It is not the purpose of copyright law to guarantee a particular outcome for investment.
I didn't say that it was, I said that a researcher should be able to hold recoup their investment in the case of a successful invention.

I think you're confusing the generalised world accepted view of copyright, which is what we're discussing, with the US constitutions expression of intent:

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors...the exclusive Right to their...Writings".

k2t0f12d

June 17th, 2009, 01:04 AM

I didn't say that it was, I said that a researcher should be able to hold recoup their investment in the case of a successful invention.In which case does copyright effect an inventor?

I think you're confusing the generalised world accepted view of copyright, which is what we're discussing, with the US constitutions expression of intent:Unalloyed by statutory enforcement, ideas such as copyright do not even exist. There is no provable naturally occurring phenomena, force, or omnipotence that drives more appreciation or tribute to the inventor or author then the public is inclined to volunteer. However, it is provable that public appreciation is proportionate to the number of persons having a relationship to the inventor or author through their work. Previously, large organizations were needed to supply the resources needed to network the inventor's or author's work to enough of the public for appreciation to return dividends. In spite of their social connections and deep pockets, those organizations now cannot outperform the networking potential of teenagers with Internet connections. So long as the Internet remains unrestricted, the potential for inventors and authors to peddle their ware and earn through public appreciation is much greater and instantaneous then traditional media offers, requires no punitive statute, and turns the inventor and author back into the servant rather then the master of the public.

ricardisimo

June 17th, 2009, 01:32 AM

Perhaps but how else are those investing in development expected to recoup those costs?
I don't know... how are you expecting to recoup your investment? To go back to the pharmaceuticals example, that's you and I that are doing the investing via taxes and tuition, not the rightsholders. Personally, I expect my investment to be repaid with a healthier world. Having the returns subsidize the universities of origin would be a nice bonus as well.

Almost all computer science, including the internet, is the child of DARPA, NASA, or similar projects. Again, you and I paid for that, ostensibly to help us blow up Russians, if ever it became desirable to do so. Eventually all of that tech was handed over to the private sector, for free so far as I can tell. How were you hoping to recoup that investment? I was hoping for community LANs to be set up wherever needed, and run as utilities, instead of for profiteering. We'll see if that can still happen one day.

Other scientific areas yield much the same results upon close inspection.

They're also most likely not the ones funding the research, providing the equipment and are also highly likely (in the case of research) to be being paid during the research phase regardless of the success of its outcome.
No, that's you and I, once again. We pay the costs and subsidize risk... unless we're talking about ******. Glib or not, I'm holding my ground on this issue, as I have yet to see substantial evidence to the contrary. The amounts they spend on meaningful R&D are dwarfed not only by the public's investment (in taxes, tuition and in actual drug costs) but also, it appears, by Big Pharma's investment in boosting its own image (http://www.naturalnews.com/022698.html).

Again, Big Pharma is not a good example to throw around in this debate. The only worse examples you could use - from a rhetorical standpoint - are Monsanto and Halliburton.

Gotta go... will jump back in later.

karellen

June 17th, 2009, 05:01 AM

Copyright was meant to provide a temporary monopoly for artists and scientists to recoup their costs and turn a profit. It was a dubious construct from the get-go, as monopolies are rarely, if ever desirable.
and I thought copyright as a mean to acknowledge someone's intellectual merit and creation. if I write/create something, I'd surely want to hold the rights of what to do with that work

Add to that that the artists and scientists are almost never the rights holders.
I don't know about the former, but I doubt that anyone else except the author, and/or the family, if he's death owns the copyright of his works

I have thoughts and phrases in my head which I have lifted directly from my first reading of Joseph Heller's Catch-22. I owe that man a debt which can never be repaid, monetarily or otherwise. I've lifted his material for personal gain over and over again, normally just to make myself look smarter, sometimes to get laid back in college. I never paid for the book. It was a friend's. What's to be done about this? Why is it any different from the tapes we made of Bowie albums back in the day, or the fado music mix that I made for my brother direct from CD sources, or the back-up I made of my Thelonious Monk albums, knowing full well that my son before, and now my one-year-old daughter, are determined to destroy all of the beautiful things in our house?.

glad to like the book. but the point is someone had to purchase it legally (in this case, your friend). someone did pay for that book. it didn't get it for free (as in downloading it from torrents sites). after that, the initial purchase, it's all fuzzy: if you ask me, you can make as many copies if you want, for personal use.

Chronon

June 17th, 2009, 05:52 AM

Closed_Port

June 17th, 2009, 08:25 AM

I haven't had the time to read every entry in this topic. But I do want to point out that the legitimacy of every license depends on the sanctity of copyright. Without it, the GPL (or any other license) means nothing.

I agree with the ideals of free media and try to support media that is available via permissive licenses (such as Creative Commons). However, I don't think that subverting copyright serves the goals of the Free Software community. If taking things regardless of the wishes of the creator becomes legitimized then FLOSS will have no way to guarantee the rights of the user.
I think that's a wrong assumption. The GPL does of course depend on copyright, as otherwise it would have no legal standing. However, the authors of the license have made it very clear that they do not endorse the copyright system (at least in its current form), and the GPL has other aims than copyright licenses normally do. Hence the name copyleft.

ricardisimo

June 17th, 2009, 08:52 AM

The main point here is, or should be, what is the function of copyright law? A good way to see this clearly is to look at copyright law enforcement. A good friend of mine brought back some useful anecdotes from Thailand from the early 2000s. Whether he was visiting his girlfriend in her sleepy little town or going to bustling street markets in Bangkok, the police were almost always either invisible or laissez-faire about their business. This included all of the shadier parts of town, filled with hash dealers and pre-teen prostitutes looking to service any farang that might wander by. The police couldn't have cared less about any of it.

Then around 2000-ish you would start to see them cracking skulls at all of these little kiosks offering bootleg CDs and DVDs, etc. It turns out that Hollywood, via Washington, started applying pressure on Thailand - as well as every other country in our sphere of influence - to start cracking down on digital piracy, and the local governments responded obediently.

Mainly this is a peek into Washington's (and Bangkok's) grotesque priorities, but it's also representative of what copyright law has become in the corporate age: a weapon against ordinary people, and a bloody one at that. It has become "corporight", as opposed to copyleft, and the principles entailed there.

ddrichardson

June 17th, 2009, 05:33 PM

In which case does copyright effect an inventor?Again, I didn't say inventor - you cannot expect someone providing finance not to look for a return.

Unalloyed by statutory enforcement, ideas such as copyright do not even exist. There is no provable naturally occurring phenomena, force, or omnipotence that drives more appreciation or tribute to the inventor or author then the public is inclined to volunteer.
With respect, that's a rather impenetrable piece of prose but your statement is also true of any law.

However, it is provable that public appreciation is proportionate to the number of persons having a relationship to the inventor or author through their work. Previously, large organizations were needed to supply the resources needed to network the inventor's or author's work to enough of the public for appreciation to return dividends. In spite of their social connections and deep pockets, those organizations now cannot outperform the networking potential of teenagers with Internet connections. So long as the Internet remains unrestricted, the potential for inventors and authors to peddle their ware and earn through public appreciation is much greater and instantaneous then traditional media offers, requires no punitive statute, and turns the inventor and author back into the servant rather then the master of the public.
I think this is a rather simplistic view of the level of financial input required to develop most anything other than software.

ddrichardson

June 17th, 2009, 05:46 PM

I don't know... how are you expecting to recoup your investment? To go back to the pharmaceuticals example, that's you and I that are doing the investing via taxes and tuition, not the rightsholders. Personally, I expect my investment to be repaid with a healthier world. Having the returns subsidize the universities of origin would be a nice bonus as well.We could spend all day picking examples that don't fit into the basic model but it doesn't detract that the entity that funds the research should in some way expect remuneration for their investment - we live (like it or not) in a capitalist society and we cannot expect the world to revolve around altruism.

I'm not disputing, nor have I that the wrong people are holding the rights - I'm saying that the basic tennants are correct, their application through precedent is what needs to be reformed. That and that there has been a significant change in communication which is not reflected in the status quo.

Almost all computer science, including the internet, is the child of DARPA, NASA, or similar projects. Again, you and I paid for that, ostensibly to help us blow up Russians, if ever it became desirable to do so. Eventually all of that tech was handed over to the private sector, for free so far as I can tell. How were you hoping to recoup that investment? I was hoping for community LANs to be set up wherever needed, and run as utilities, instead of for profiteering. We'll see if that can still happen one day.
I take your point but I think Tim Berners-Lee would have something tho say here, being as its not so much the network but the protocols and the Web that have allowed information to be exchanged and linked. CERN isn't a product of the cold war.

No, that's you and I, once again. We pay the costs and subsidize risk... unless we're talking about ******. Glib or not, I'm holding my ground on this issue, as I have yet to see substantial evidence to the contrary. The amounts they spend on meaningful R&D are dwarfed not only by the public's investment (in taxes, tuition and in actual drug costs) but also, it appears, by Big Pharma's investment in boosting its own image (http://www.naturalnews.com/022698.html).
You keep saying we but as I have no access to the figures of government against corporate investment I couldn't draw a conclusion either way. If you're asserting that their education was paid for in our taxes then that's perhaps true to some degree but it would also be true if they had entered another field.

Again, Big Pharma is not a good example to throw around in this debate. The only worse examples you could use - from a rhetorical standpoint - are Monsanto and Halliburton.

Gotta go... will jump back in later.
Yes I agree its not a good argument and I never intended it to be but the idea was to draw attention away from music downloads and expand the vision of copyright and its impact beyond that which most react to.

ddrichardson

June 17th, 2009, 05:52 PM

Mainly this is a peek into Washington's (and Bangkok's) grotesque priorities, but it's also representative of what copyright law has become in the corporate age: a weapon against ordinary people, and a bloody one at that. It has become "corporight", as opposed to copyleft, and the principles entailed there.
I'd say that's missing the point - copyright isn't the boogyman here, its corporate lobbying pressure on a government with the wrong priorities that are wrong. Of the people, by the people, for the people and all that good stuff.

Bachstelze

June 17th, 2009, 05:54 PM

Those people just want free music, movies and software.

The rest is excuses.

ricardisimo

June 17th, 2009, 07:31 PM

Those people just want free music, movies and software.

The rest is excuses.

Talk about glib. I had no idea the forum staff was so conservative, for lack of a better term. Are you guys vetted ahead of time on these issues?

doas777

June 17th, 2009, 07:33 PM

Talk about glib. I had no idea the forum staff was so conservative, for lack of a better term. Are you guys vetted ahead of time on these issues?

agreed.

ddrichardson

June 17th, 2009, 07:43 PM

Talk about glib. I had no idea the forum staff was so conservative, for lack of a better term. Are you guys vetted ahead of time on these issues?
I must admit I'm quite taken a back by this. This has been one of the most engaging and well argued threads I've read on the forums in a very long time.

karellen

June 17th, 2009, 07:50 PM

Those people just want free music, movies and software.

The rest is excuses.

I second this; but I suppose the gulible ones may prefer to call it "free access to knowledge/ideas" :lolflag:

Closed_Port

June 17th, 2009, 08:02 PM

I must admit I'm quite taken a back by this. This has been one of the most engaging and well argued threads I've read on the forums in a very long time.
I feel the same way. :(

ricardisimo

June 17th, 2009, 08:06 PM

doas777

June 17th, 2009, 08:19 PM

agreed. thats not arguing, its philosophical persecution. you are aware that the pirate party is a legitimate political party with seats in the EU parliment, right? that people actually believe in it's principals?

sounds like those software moguls that think OSS is theft and is hurting their competitive marketplace.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/01/22/open_source_thieves_stealing_my/
http://www.uberpulse.com/us/2008/03/osbc_open_source_is_stealing.php

so to extend HymnToLife's highly offensive post,
"Those people just want free software. all this OSS stuff is just excuses".

try countering our argument, not trolling. that is unacceptable from forum staff. if you want to sock-puppet so you can troll, then that is just fine.

karellen

June 17th, 2009, 08:21 PM

Come now, karellen... you and others have been making some truly well thought out arguments, as I think most of us on the other side of the debate have. HymnToLife's comment is a bit out of place in this discussion.

For starters, I think we are mostly discussing DMCA and DRM versus fair use and open licenses, with tangents spreading outwards into copyright law generally. To reduce all of that to excuses for theft is a bit of an insult.

I spend several thousand dollars a year on my media. I'm either a pretty god-awful media thief, or I have opinions about corporate media that affect where I spend my money, but not how much.

I agree, maybe I was too categoric. what really pisses me off is that (at least in my opinion) software piracy hurts very much the foss software. I mean, for example here in my country everybody uses Windows, but almost nobody purchased in legally (except for the preinstalled versions). same goes for Office, Photoshop, games and all kinds of software you can think of. and this hurts Linux big time. for them, Windows & its software ecosystem are free to. it takes only the effort to download via torrents. that's why I'm a little annoyed by Linux users who advocate a somehow mild stance to piracy

doas777

June 17th, 2009, 08:25 PM

karellen

June 17th, 2009, 08:27 PM

the problem is that you believe that it is piracy. I do not. there is no such thing as imaginary property. supporting the stance that it does exist, just leans on assumptions that capitalism is inevitable. none of the arguments for it's existence stand if capitalism is removed.

well, we agree to disagree on that. as far as I'm concerned, intellectual property is very real for me (and maybe someday I'll make a good use of it, who knows)

Bachstelze

June 17th, 2009, 08:29 PM

you are aware that the pirate party is a legitimate political party with seats in the EU parliment, right? that people actually believe in it's principals?

I am aware it has seats in the EU parliament, and I am aware people believe in its priciples. That doesn't make its ideas legitimate to me. Do you want a list of all parties that have or have had seats in various parliaments, or even have ruled countries, and had people believe in their principles? I'm sure you will find some we can all agree are not "legitimate".

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the Piratbyrån people are nazis or anything like that, just that your argument above is void.

so to extend HymnToLife's highly offensive post,
"Those people just want free software. all this OSS stuff is just excuses".

try countering our argument,

That's an easy one. People who make OSS decide to make it freely available. Artists whose music is downloaded on TPB most often don't.

ddrichardson

June 17th, 2009, 08:33 PM

I agree, maybe I was too categoric. what really pisses me off is that (at least in my opinion) software piracy hurts very much the foss software. I mean, for example here in my country everybody uses Windows, but almost nobody purchased in legally (except for the preinstalled versions). same goes for Office, Photoshop, games and all kinds of software you can think of. and this hurts Linux big time. for them, Windows & its software ecosystem are free to. it takes only the effort to download via torrents. that's why I'm a little annoyed by Linux users who advocate a somehow mild stance to piracy
And yet you castigate a group of people who have not advocated piracy but free discussion of copyright and its effect on other areas of intellectual property as "gullible"?

By enabling DRM you don't help the situation you describe - how many companies have readily ported their DRM solutions to Linux?

What pisses me off? I'll tell you straight - people who claim to be OSS enthusiasts but cannot see the potential problems for our community if we choose to allow government to decide how copyright is applied by bowing to corporate pressure and not considering the ramifications.

Its about much, much more than downloading music in contravention of the IP owners terms, which I've now said so many times I could vomit, that I categorically do not support.

Bachstelze

June 17th, 2009, 08:34 PM

the problem is that you believe that it is piracy. I do not.

Then if it is not piracy, why on Earth is it called the "Pirate Party"?

Closed_Port

June 17th, 2009, 08:40 PM

Then if it is not piracy, why on Earth is it called the "Pirate Party"?
To mock those people calling it piracy?
I think that's pretty obvious and they even constantly state so themselves.

karellen

June 17th, 2009, 08:41 PM

And yet you castigate a group of people who have not advocated piracy but free discussion of copyright and its effect on other areas of intellectual property as "gullible"?

By enabling DRM you don't help the situation you describe - how many companies have readily ported their DRM solutions to Linux?

What pisses me off? I'll tell you straight - people who claim to be OSS enthusiasts but cannot see the potential problems for our community if we choose to allow government to decide how copyright is applied by bowing to corporate pressure and not considering the ramifications.

Its about much, much more than downloading music in contravention of the IP owners terms, which I've now said so many times I could vomit, that I categorically do not support.

I have no idea why do you bring DRM into the discussion. the original talk was about copyright and intellectual property, not about DRM (or software patents). from my point of view, I'm agaist DRM in music or video files, but I do believe the author has the right to decide what do to with his work, under which license to be released and how will be availabe. I think it's better to stick to the point and not divagate

doas777

June 17th, 2009, 08:43 PM

Then if it is not piracy, why on Earth is it called the "Pirate Party"?

the parlance of the times, my friend.

why did the BSA jump on the Somalian piracy train to try to equate hostage taking, attempted murder, and ransom with companies deploying more copies of acrobat than they have seats for?
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090414/0113354494.shtml

ddrichardson

June 17th, 2009, 08:47 PM

I have no idea why do you bring DRM into the discussion. the original talk was about copyright and intellectual property, not about DRM (or software patents). from my point of view, I'm agaist DRM in music or video files, but I do believe the author has the right to decide what do to with his work, under which license to be released and how will be availabe. I think it's better to stick to the point and not divagate
Divigated?

DRM is an integral part of this discussion, in the same way as software patents, lack of definition and corporate pressure is. Discussions move on as new points are raised. In any event, how copyright is enforced is as important as whether it exists.

doas777

June 17th, 2009, 08:49 PM

I am aware it has seats in the EU parliament, and I am aware people believe in its priciples. That doesn't make its ideas legitimate to me. Do you want a list of all parties that have or have had seats in various parliaments, or even have ruled countries, and had people believe in their principles? I'm sure you will find some we can all agree are not "legitimate".

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the Piratbyrån people are nazis or anything like that, just that your argument above is void.

That's an easy one. People who make OSS decide to make it freely available. Artists whose music is downloaded on TPB most often don't.

so you think all the coders on the divix project wanted corecodec to close the project, steal their work, and then accuse them of piracy when they tried to create the unencumbered xvid? why is one fair and the other a hanging offense? oh yeah, becase its fair to a powerful corperation, and a hanging offense for the individual.

you will find my argument on page 2 or this thread. check it out.

Bachstelze

June 17th, 2009, 08:50 PM

To mock those people calling it piracy?
I think that's pretty obvious and they even constantly state so themselves.

All right. So let me see, I go to their website http://www.piratbyran.org/. I see a link to the BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay, that Wikipedia tells me they founded. Since they don't really advocate piracy, I can expect to find only material under public domain or a Free license, right?

So let me see what they have, I click Browse Torrents, and I see a "Games" category. In that "Games" category, there are a few subcategories. The first one is about "PC" games. Fair enough, there's a lot of Free PC games (my favourite, by the way, is Battle for Wesnoth). Then I see "Mac". All right, Mac OS X is UNIX, so most open source games can probably be compiled on it. Then I see "PS2". Now I'm really confused. Those people do'nt advocate piracy, but there is a whole subsection on their tracker to put torrents of PS2 games in.

Anyone knows of any Free PS2 games, which could therefore be downloaded by torrent without comitting piracy?

Closed_Port

June 17th, 2009, 08:51 PM

That's an easy one. People who make OSS decide to make it freely available. Artists whose music is downloaded on TPB most often don't.
If you had quoted doas77's post in its entirety, I think it would have been pretty obvious that he didn't want you to counter the argument he put in quotes (hint: it was an example of something that is not an argument), but asked you to counter the many arguments people have made in this thread so far and not just accuse people of searching an excuse for doing something illegal.

As others already noted, I really felt that this was a pretty good discussion with many interesting points made. Why you felt the need to disrupt this discussion is beyond.

And do you really think what you wrote counters in any way all the arguments made about fair use exceptions, about the length of copyright, about copyright itself making it harder in many cases for creators to make something new, about the extension of copyright making it harder and more expensive to get access to scientific knowledge, about patents for drugs, the problems they cause, the reasons why they may be needed despite the problems, etc.

All I can see is that you derailed this thread and managed to give many people here who engaged in a substantive discussion the feeling that they were personally attacked. :(

karellen

June 17th, 2009, 08:54 PM

Divigated?

DRM is an integral part of this discussion, in the same way as software patents, lack of definition and corporate pressure is. Discussions move on as new points are raised. In any event, how copyright is enforced is as important as whether it exists.

fine, that's your call. move on in any direction you feel like. we all have our values and ideas, diversity is good and so on. I hope my position is clear :)

ricardisimo

June 17th, 2009, 08:54 PM

Software piracy appears to have bumped Bill Gates down to the second wealthiest person in the world, which is truly sad, I admit. Furthermore, the lower profits has definitely have affected Windows' quality, which used to be so good . Seriously, Microsoft is right up there with Monsanto as well... not the best example you can toss around in this discussion, rhetorically speaking. I don't think anyone is crying for Gates.

Honestly, I'm not a big leecher, so a lot of what I'm saying is just bluster. I simply refuse to cry a river about what are essentially corporate profits. Musically, I'm not sure the link is there between piracy and any effects on the quality of music or musicians' livelihood. In Cuba, there is only pirated music, to that much I can attest personally. Every single stall is 100% homemade rips, burns and bootlegs. Now, people live like **** in Cuba, make no mistake, but their musicians don't live worse (quite the contrary) and no one better make the claim that Cuban music is inferior.

Almost everything I download is African music, stuff I can't get here. A lot of LP rips of 80s music from Zimbabwe, Senegal and the Congo, that sort of thing. [B]Best music on the planet - bar none, no question, end of story - and for most of it I have no way of getting even a single penny to the musicians or their labels, assuming they are even still alive. How is it that these guys, without adequate financial compensation, can produce in their sleep better music than the entire Top 100 of the past 20 years of corporate rock?

There are other ways that the world works and can work... I think that's what many of us are talking around, maybe. Refusing to obey can be dismissed as childish, or it can be taken seriously as dissent. What do you do when something like DMCA comes along and forces these clear distinctions? That's also kind of been my point all along, that they made this bed and now they have to lay in it.

Closed_Port

June 17th, 2009, 08:57 PM

doas777

June 17th, 2009, 09:00 PM

All right. So let me see, I go to their website http://www.piratbyran.org/. I see a link to the BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay, that Wikipedia tells me they founded. Since they don't really advocate piracy, I can expect to find only material under public domain or a Free license, right?

So let me see what they have, I click Browse Torrents, and I see a "Games" category. In that "Games" category, there are a few subcategories. The first one is about "PC" games. Fair enough, there's a lot of Free PC games (my favourite, by the way, is Battle for Wesnoth). Then I see "Mac". All right, Mac OS X is UNIX, so most open source games can probably be compiled on it. Then I see "PS2". Now I'm really confused. Those people do'nt advocate piracy, but there is a whole subsection on their tracker to put torrents of PS2 games in.

Anyone knows of any Free PS2 games, which could therefore be downloaded by torrent without comitting piracy?

so wheres the license for that avatar your using? looks like it's from an anime. surely you have written permission from the creator and all the people that actually hold the wrongs, right?

karellen

June 17th, 2009, 09:03 PM

Look, the point is that they don't see it as piracy. They even make an argument as to why and many people in this thread already discussed this point.

Why you would choose to ignore the arguments by piratbyran and the pirate party and most off all, why you seem hell bend on ignoring 12 pages worth of discussion, is beyond me.

taking into consideration is one thing, agreeing is another. this is not an exact science, everyone is entitled to his own opinions ;). where someone sees 'knowledge sharing', another person sees 'piracy' and that's perfectly normal

RiceMonster

June 17th, 2009, 09:05 PM

Bachstelze

June 17th, 2009, 09:06 PM

Look, the point is that they don't see it as piracy. They even make an argument as to why and many people in this thread already discussed this point.

Why you would choose to ignore the arguments by piratbyran and the pirate party and most off all, why you seem hell bend on ignoring 12 pages worth of discussion, is beyond me.

Look, the point is that I don't see them as argument, but as exuses to theft. However, I won't make arguments myself, mainly because I have better things to do.

And to doas777, if you really valued freedom as you claim you do, you would recognize my freedom to express my opinion in any way I want instead of calling it "unacceptable".

Closed_Port

June 17th, 2009, 09:08 PM

Look, the point is that I don't see them as argument, but as exuses to theft. However, I won't make arguments myself, mainly because I have better things to do.

What better things? Derailing threads and insulting forum users? Your behavior really is unbelievable for a moderator.

Bachstelze

June 17th, 2009, 09:09 PM

so wheres the license for that avatar your using? looks like it's from an anime. surely you have written permission from the creator and all the people that actually hold the wrongs, right?

The difference, sir, is that I'm totally willing to admit that having this avatar constitues copyright infringement if the laws says so, and don't make long pseudo-arguments about how I should have the right to use someone else's work without his permission.

ricardisimo

June 17th, 2009, 09:10 PM

doas777

June 17th, 2009, 09:11 PM

Look, the point is that I don't see them as argument, but as exuses to theft. However, I won't make arguments myself, mainly because I have better things to do.

And to doas777, if you really valued freedom as you claim you do, you would recignize my freedom to express my opinion in any way I want instead of calling it "unacceptable".

gotta speak truth to power. with that forum staff tag, you enter the argument with power whether you see it or not. you have to act responsibly as a result. I do consider your comment on par with racism, religious persecution, and general hate-speech.

Bachstelze

June 17th, 2009, 09:11 PM

I don't advocate child pornography, or rape, or murder, or theft or drug usage, or lying, or voting Republican, nor any of a hundred other crimes and misdemeanors. Does that logically oblige me to support an intrusive police state?

No, but it can lead to a little contradiction if you found a website that hosts such material. ;)

RiceMonster

June 17th, 2009, 09:15 PM

gotta speak truth to power. with that forum staff tag, you enter the argument with power whether you see it or not. you have to act responsibly as a result. I do consider your comment on par with racism, religious persecution, and general hate-speech.

It was a valid point and there was proof to back it up. This is not the same as making a baseless attack on someone because of soemthing they didn't choose, such as race. You're over-reacting.

ddrichardson

June 17th, 2009, 09:15 PM

The difference, sir, is that I'm totally willing to admit that having this avatar constitues copyright infringement if the laws says so, and don't make long pseudo-arguments about how I should have the right to use someone else's work without his permission.
Run that past me again.

After berating those who have suggested copyright application is wider than piracy for several pages, insisting on calling them thieves (despite that the majority have said they do not download illegally) you turn around and admit you do break the laws you so vehemently defend and in some way feel it's justified because you admit to it? I must have misunderstood you.

RazVayne

June 17th, 2009, 09:17 PM

Useless post but still,I had to say it:

This has been a great thread!

Great conjecture,strong beliefs and a desire to change something.
Please,do not stray.

ricardisimo

June 17th, 2009, 09:18 PM

No, but it can lead to a little contradiction if you found a website that hosts such material. ;)

I found an entire world that hosts this material. I'll take a free world with risks any day of the week, and work to change the culture for the better.

We're straying more than a bit off the main topic, which may have been your intent, Hymn. Can't believe I fell for it.

Bachstelze

June 17th, 2009, 09:23 PM

After berating those who have suggested copyright application is wider than piracy for several pages, insisting on calling them thieves (despite that the majority have said they do not download illegally) you turn around and admit you do break the laws you so vehemently defend and in some way feel it's justified because you admit to it? I must have misunderstood you.

All right, you might have guessed it, I didn't reat the thread entirely (though a good part of it), so if anyone here thinks I've called him a thief personally, my apologies, this wasn't my intention. I know for a fact, because I know a lot of people who do it, that the Piratbyrån's arguments are widely used by people who do download illegally, a lot, to justify their actions.

No one will ever know if those people are the majority of Piratbyrån's followers. I believe they are, hence my comment. However, if you say you don't download illegally, I'm more than willing to believe you, and of course my comments didn't apply to you.

And finally, I think I have good reasons to believe that using a 96x96 pixel screenshot from an anime series as forum avatar is not really the same thing as downloading thousands of albums on TPB that you could buy at the next music store.

doas777

June 17th, 2009, 09:26 PM

It was a valid point and there was proof to back it up. This is not the same as making a baseless attack on someone because of soemthing they didn't choose, such as race. You're over-reacting.

perhaps, but religion is philosophy, and philosophies can be chosen. you still can't make blanket statements condemning them.

ddrichardson

June 17th, 2009, 09:28 PM

All right, you might have guessed it, I didn't reat the thread entirely. So if anyone here thinks I've called him a thief personally, my apologies, this wasn't my intention. I know for a fact, because I know a lot of people who do it, that the Piratbyrån's arguments are widely used by people who do download illegally, a lot, to justify their actions.

No one will ever know if those people are the majority of Piratbyrån's followers. I believe they are, hence my comment. If you say you don't download illegally, I'm more than willing to believe you, and of course my comments didn't apply to you.

And finally, I think I have good reasons to believe that using a 96x96 pixel screenshot from an anime series as forum avatar is not really the same thing as downloading thousands of albums on TPB that you could buy at the next music store.
Accepted but had you read the thread you would have found that I have been arguing in support of sensible, rational and defined copyright where fair use applies - fair use I would suggest would cover a 96x96 pixel screenshot of a show you watched and liked and (arguably) are now freely advertising.

doas777

June 17th, 2009, 09:29 PM

And finally, I think I have good reasons to believe that using a 96x96 pixel screenshot from an anime series as forum avatar is not really the same thing as downloading thousands of albums on TPB that you could buy at the next music store.

you have just pointed out the epic fail of the copywrong system. you have made a reasonable choice, but it's still illegal. does that make it wrong? no.

but as you said earlier, it;s just excuses, right?

Bachstelze

June 17th, 2009, 09:40 PM

you have just pointed out the epic fail of the copywrong system. you have made a reasonable choice, but it's still illegal. does that make it wrong? no.

This is why we have courts and judges. The law is universal, it is the same for everyone, and in its great bluntness says (basically): "you can't use someone else's work in any way without his permission", period.

However, when someone thinks you infringed his copyright, he can't put you in jail himself. He has to go before a judge. And what kind of judge would put someone in jail for merely using a tiny image as avatar?

I think the copyright system in itself is perfectly valid. The law states the general principle, and then judges and courts adapt it to every circumstance. Copyright nowadays is mostly covered by the Berne convention (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_convention). Since it was made in 1886, some people tend to believe it is not adequate to the world we live in today. I don't believe this is true. This convention was made under the impulse of Victor Hugo, which was a very wise man, and wisdom has no age.

And by the way, when I say "the copyright system", I mean only this. I totally agree that software patents, DRM and all that junk are a plague and must be eliminated. The copyright system of 1886 ought to be enough for everyone for at least 200 more years.

ricardisimo

June 17th, 2009, 09:42 PM

Hymn:

And I think I have good reasons for downloading ripped Zimbabwean LPs from the 80s, namely that I can't find them elsewhere (although several have popped up in Craigslist and Ebay, but how it would be better to pay some guy in Poughkeepsie for his cast-offs is beyond me... the money's certainly not going anywhere near the artist in this case). I'm also certain that under current US and French copyright laws you and I are lawbreakers. I find that bizarre and unnatural, and can't believe that you don't also find it bizarre and unnatural.

doas777

June 17th, 2009, 09:50 PM

However, when someone thinks you infringed his copyright, he can't put you in jail himself.

actually that is exactly what DMCA takedown notices do. you wouldn't go to jail for infringement even if convicted in a court of law, but you would get a fine. having a lawyer draw up a counter-notice to combat the many illegitimate take down notices, is in effect a fine. all done without the intervention of a judge. you would get convicted over the avatar, but no one would see it as monitarily worthwhile to take you to court over it. a big disticintion.

also since you are french, have you been following the HADOPI fallout? the french govt wants to allow non-judicial pro-copyright advocates to sentence online file sharers, for offenses that need not be proven. 3rd strike and you're out, forever, having never seen a judge. in fact the EU is countering that that violates human rights.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadopi

ddrichardson

June 17th, 2009, 09:54 PM

I think the copyright system in itself is perfectly valid. The law states the general principle, and then judges and courts adapt it to every circumstance.
Seeing as this is usually prosecuted as a civil case, then you'll find that its case law (http://is.gd/14HKz) that is applied based on prior precedence - not in fact jurisprudence as you suggest.

Bachstelze

June 17th, 2009, 10:09 PM

And I think I have good reasons for downloading ripped Zimbabwean LPs from the 80s, namely that I can't find them elsewhere

Read the last few words of my post. ;) I also download some Japanese anime because it aired on TV in Japan only recently, and I have no way of knowing when they will be released on DVD here, or even if they will be at all.

The people I was talking about fall under some very strict (but funnily enough, not very restrictive in terms of numbers AFAIK) criteria: they download stuff they could very easily obtain legally, just because they want it free, nothing else.

As I said, I totally believe you when you say you're not one of them, but unless you live in a different world than me, you know a lot of them.

I'm also certain that under current US and French copyright laws you and I are lawbreakers. I find that bizarre and unnatural, and can't believe that you don't also find it bizarre and unnatural.

You seem to give much more importance than I do to "being a lawbreaker". I'm not saying I don't care, but if this was really bothering me, I simply would stop downloading (there are many other good things to do in life besides watching the little amount of anime I watch). I didn't kill anyone, this downloading stuff doesn't keep me awake at night (though other things do), and I make sure that even the small amount of downloading I do goes through encrypted channels from end to end. That's good enough for me. I must admit changing the world is not really my thing, as I have much more urgent issues to deal with in my life. I wish I hadn't, though, maybe I would even join you. ;)

Bachstelze

June 17th, 2009, 10:13 PM

also since you are french, have you been following the HADOPI fallout? the french govt wants to allow non-judicial pro-copyright advocates to sentence online file sharers, for offenses that need not be proven. 3rd strike and you're out, forever, having never seen a judge. in fact the EU is countering that that violates human rights.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadopi

I have, and by the way I can inform you that the "three strikes" measure was (very predictably) censored by our Constitutional Council, and will therefore not be in the final version of the law.

ricardisimo

June 17th, 2009, 10:19 PM

Huh?

... [deep sigh]

May I at least ask what is the story behind this apparent unanimity amongst the forum admins?

Bachstelze

June 17th, 2009, 10:20 PM

Huh?

... [deep sigh]

May I at least ask what is the story behind this apparent unanimity amongst the forum admins?

Pardon?

ricardisimo

June 17th, 2009, 10:23 PM

You seem to give much more importance than I do to "being a lawbreaker". I'm not saying I don't care, but if this was really bothering me, I simply would stop downloading (there are many other good things to do in life besides watching the little amount of anime I watch). I didn't kill anyone, this downloading stuff doesn't keep me awake at night (though other things do), and I make sure that even the small amount of downloading I do goes through encrypted channels from end to end. That's good enough for me. I must admit changing the world is not really my thing, as I have much more urgent issues to deal with in my life. I wish I hadn't, though, maybe I would even join you.
= Huh?

Bachstelze

June 17th, 2009, 10:32 PM

= Huh?

Haha, no. I can swear under treat of parjury that I am allowed to issue DMCA notices on behalf of... er, I mean that our dear admin KiwiNZ and I didn't raise a conspiracy to take over this thread. ;)

Come on, is it so incredible that two people can share the same opinion? By the way, only Kiwi is an admin, I am just a mod.

ricardisimo

June 17th, 2009, 10:39 PM

The sigh was mostly because it appears that you are not arguing in good faith, which is perfectly within your rights. It's always a letdown for the other person (me) who evidently wasted synapses on formulating a response. We're discussing the law, and your summation is basically "Who cares about the law?" That's like calling fans of Barça losers in several posts, then opting out by saying that you really don't care about futbol.

Aysiu is also an admin, unless I am mistaken.

ricardisimo

June 17th, 2009, 10:42 PM

I should also mention that it's not a trivial matter for people who haven't taken your sage pirate precautions, and have been caught, fined and/or imprisoned. Those thirteen-year-olds that Metallica introduced to the justice system might take issue with your flippancy.

KiwiNZ

June 17th, 2009, 10:51 PM

Huh?

... [deep sigh]

May I at least ask what is the story behind this apparent unanimity amongst the forum admins?

Great minds think alike ;):D

ddrichardson

June 17th, 2009, 10:52 PM

Great minds think alike ;):D
Simple minds seldom differ - come on you walked into that!

KiwiNZ

June 17th, 2009, 10:58 PM

Simple minds seldom differ - come on you walked into that!

grrrrrrrrr

dam I didnt think of that

Good return my friend :D

ddrichardson

June 17th, 2009, 11:02 PM

grrrrrrrrr

dam I didnt think of that

Good return my friend :D
I couldn't type it quick enough, I was afraid someone else would get in there before me :D

Joeb454

June 17th, 2009, 11:03 PM

Aysiu is also an admin, unless I am mistaken.

Aysiu is also a moderator - not an admin :)

aysiu

June 18th, 2009, 12:23 AM

Staff - generic term

Admin - specific term

Moderator - specific term

I don't think all of our staff members are conservative. First of all, I am extremely liberal, almost radically liberal when it comes to social behavior and governmental policy. But when it comes to piracy and copyright and all that, I'm a bit more of a moderate. I do believe corporations are abusing the original idea of copyright, but I also agree with HymnToLife that the few idealists who are very vocal in this thread do not represent the vast majority of pirates.

I know these pirates in real life. They do not have lofty ideals about copyright and copyleft and freedom and intellectual property. They just want something free that is fully available in a paid-for form at not such an exhorbitant price. Family members, friends, acquaintances, co-workers... if all of these people I know read this thread, they would fall over laughing. They believe very much that piracy exists, but they just do it anyway, because it's "free" and they're too cheap to pay for the legitimate copy.

If you believe that stance is conservative, I think you may find a slightly higher proportion (than in the general forum population) of staff who are conservative, because the rules of the forum (the rules the staff enforces when necessary) tend to be conservative when it comes to the law. If it's legal in this country but illegal in that country, we go with "that country" just to be safe.

So if you are on staff and enforcing those kinds of rules, you're more likely to take a "conservative" stance on piracy.

That doesn't mean the staff have to take that stance or that we sign some kind of legal document saying we all share the same opinion. It just means that if you believe in the Code of Conduct and the forum rules and want to be a part of making sure those rules are obeyed, you are more likely to be "conservative" when it comes to piracy and copyright infringement.

Dimitriid

June 18th, 2009, 02:29 AM

I will start this post with a disclaimer. For the purpose of advancing discussion on this thread, with the utmost respect for his personal opinion, I suggest that we stop addressing or replying simplistic, out of topic or previously addressed posts, whenever they come from HymnToLife or any other admin or moderator.

I've read the last 10 pages of post and virtually all of them were spent re-stating and retaliating on the same points since I left the thread. We are derailing what can be an interesting and productive discussion to accommodate this and maybe we should reconsider as I do not think is against forum rules to choose not to reply to a user.

I see we have notable exceptions and people willing to discuss, so lets just continue.

Now I've only seen one other user, doas777, address a pivotal point in any copyrights and property discussion: the validity of private property. Just because private property and virtual private property is accepted as nearly universal in the western world doesn't means that this is the case in the rest of the world where different paradigms directly or indirectly related to socialism lead to alternative ways of dealing with the problem of property and inherent human rights.

A fellow Mexican once said that all your rights should end exactly at the point where my rights start. This is generally applied only in one direction: My right to art and entertainment ends with your right to control your creation.

This is paradigm is generally accepted on other terms ( my freedom to inhabit land ends where your freedom to own your own land starts ). The problem is that this ideas were constructed several hundreds of years ago before we could really see the impact of accumulation and limitless amounts of a limited resource allowed to be in control of single individuals.

Marx was among the first to make an in depth analysis of this issues, and one of the firsts to explore the bigger picture of things and try to understand how economical issues are interconnected with social and even psychological issues.

Mind you, this discussion started over 150 years ago. And for a good length of time it was an actual discussion: if we determine that the economy has a direct impact on all aspects of live of an individual, then economy can and should be discussed when trying to determine social justice and human rights.

The problem is that people try to discredit this by pointing out people who completely betrayed this struggle for equality and the improvement of mankind as a whole. When I mention there is a different paradigm, called Socialism, people immediately and violently react to a tiny group of people who basically betrayed the entire social movement for their own personal power.

More over, they always point out that because of this profoundly damaging mistakes that are not in any ways related to socialism and have everything to do instead with the centralization of power ( which is actually quite common in capitalist societies as well ) we should just give in and universally accept the capitalist paradigms as universally true.

What has capitalism achieved that is so universally accepted? Genocide, war, pestilence and worldwide misery. Yet a few vocal people who are a tiny minority that is priviledged enough to be able to express themselves through a computer determinates that all copyright laws are to be universally accepted and that property rights are an intrinsic moral value that we can all benefit from. Meanwhile the vast majority of the rest of the world is barely able or unable to feed themselves gets no voice whatsoever, so vocal opinions that argue against copyright and property rights are shut down immediately.

We already discussed and almost universally agreed that the copyright laws are of direct benefit to an infinitely small portion of the general population and cause direct conflict to everybody else, including the people that created the copyrighted material to begin with. Yet this escapes most everybody's opinion as "you just want free stuff as in free beer".

In my country there is rampant piracy, and I do not mean copyright infringement via internet downloading, I mean actual piracy which means people who actually make a verifiable profit through commercial speculation out of copyrighted material they do not own. In other terms, they sell copies ( physical or digital ) for actual currency.

Yet the fact that you say "all pirates just want free stuff/cheap stuff" would get you nowhere if you new the conditions most people who consume pirate products live in. In this country we have over 60 million people living in extreme poverty, meaning they don't have enough money to feed their families, they do not have enough money for basic services like running water or electricity most of you take for granted. There is a perpetual air of desperation and misery and this extreme conditions obviously create a rather large number of social issues like crime.

The people who consume pirated products are people who basically pick up a boombox literally out of the garbage, have it fixed and use a substantial amount of the little money they have to purchase illegal copies of music cds. Most of the population on my country perceives $114 US dollars per month for a family of 4 or 5. The retail price of one music CD here can run anywhere from $10 US to $25 US.

That is 25% of the money a family has FOR A MONTH. The point of putting things in perspective is that record companies are not only claiming piracy sales this families consume as lost of profits, effectively assuming that a family would spend 25-50% of their monthly income on music. They are also claiming that people who download are a profit lost too, directly correlating Piracy with Internet downloads and never actually disclosing what is the actual "profit lost" from copyrighted material exchanged for actual currency, but inflate those numbers with imaginary profit loss from people who download music and never had the means or the intention to actually buy the product if downloading was not an option.

There is clearly something wrong if we need to call people "criminals" and "thieves" cause they go to a cyber coffee and download an mp3 file because its about the only thing keeping them from killing themselves. There is clearly a lot of things wrong with property rights and what they have achieved for civilization, and I don't care if people like Joseph Stalin betrayed the socialist movement, we need to go back and reconsider everything, all points of view from the radical and far left to the progressive and more compromising social democracy movements.

I finally want to thank anybody who had the patience to read all of this.

sydbat

June 18th, 2009, 02:50 AM

I will start this post<snip>

I finally want to thank anybody who had the patience to read all of this.+ Infinity (because +1 just wouldn't be enough).

k2t0f12d

June 18th, 2009, 04:09 AM

<...> ++

brallan

June 18th, 2009, 05:14 AM

I think the arguments of Piratbyrån are right in line with the GNU philosophy - One of the freedoms a user/reader/listener/viewer should have is the freedom to share. If we trade that freedom away, it should be for a significant social benefit, for a limited time, and not in certain fields - software, law, recipes, scientific journals, etc.

Copying was never considered theft before the printing press and has required the normalization of certain absurdities: That doubling something is somehow taking it away. That we can calculate the value of an unsold item. That people can be sued for GIVING the publisher a copy of what they are supposedly TAKING AWAY from them!

In an individualistic society like the US, I think it's hard to understand that there are social freedoms as well as individual rights, and that sometimes increasing social freedom means reducing individual freedom.

Here's a couple of the relevant arguments and a quote from RMS's wonderful essay Misinterpreting Copyright (http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/misinterpreting-copyright.html):

Copyright is not a natural right of publishers, but an artificial concession of monopoly made to them for what was percieved as the sake of progress. It traded some freedoms away, and that's why the monopoly was removed after a time. In the days when printing presses were in the hands of a few, a monopoly encouraged more printing, getting more people access to the goods. Now that everyone has the equivalent of a printing press, enforcing the monopoly has the exact opposite effect, that of reducing access. A lousy bargain. But publishers have gotten used to the situation and feel they have a right to "intellectual property".

In defending publishers by calling copying "theft", we are forgetting that readers/listeners/etc. are far more numerous and that their needs should come before the publishers'. Why should we all give up freedoms to ensure publishers an income now that we all have access to the means to publish? Should we not be allowed to pass on a book? Should we be prevented from borrowing it from a library? Reading it twice? Buying it without giving our name to a corporate databank? Selling it to a used bookstore? Should we submit to searches and siezures to terrorize us from even making copies that never leave our homes? Because these are all draconian measures being pushed by publishers, defending their individual right to violate all of our social freedoms.

Richard M. Stallman:

The “pirate” rhetoric is typically accepted because it blankets the media so that few people realize that it is radical. It is effective because if copying by the public is fundamentally illegitimate, we can never object to the publishers' demand that we surrender our freedom to do so. In other words, when the public is challenged to show why publishers should not receive some additional power, the most important reason of all — “We want to copy” — is disqualified in advance.

This leaves no way to argue against increasing copyright power except using side issues. Hence opposition to stronger copyright powers today almost exclusively cites side issues, and never dares cite the freedom to distribute copies as a legitimate public value.

Art existed before capitalism, the media corporations and copyright law, and publishers have no more right to make a living or have an individual monopoly at the expense of social freedom than donkey-drivers, slave-lawyers or any other antiquated sector of the workforce. Copyright is certainly not the only way we can ensure that artists don't starve.

Not that it's noble to plagiarize or not pay for things if people ask nicely for a donation for their use. (I am a paying member of the FSF and would encourage all users of GNU/Linux to join or pay what they can to support) But its considerably nobler to share than to threaten.

aysiu

June 18th, 2009, 06:04 AM

Should we not be allowed to pass on a book? Should we be prevented from borrowing it from a library? Reading it twice? Buying it without giving our name to a corporate databank? Selling it to a used bookstore? Should we submit to searches and siezures to terrorize us from even making copies that never leave our homes? Where are these concerns coming from? Has anyone said you shouldn't be allowed to read a book twice?

Closed_Port

June 18th, 2009, 06:53 AM

Where are these concerns coming from? Has anyone said you shouldn't be allowed to read a book twice?

Well, I of course can't answer for brallan and I can't say anything about reading a book twice, but I can give you a good example about libraries.

A few years back, when I was still in University, I very often had trouble finding the relevant journal articles I needed for my studies. This was of course a common problem. Like all university libraries here, my library was running on a tight budget which meant that they simply wouldn't carry many relevant journals.

Now, to help with this situation, university libraries came up with an idea. They made it possible to order copies of the article you needed in other libraries. Now, you of course had to pay for the copy and the library making the copy paid the publisher of the journal. Sounds like a good idea, doesn't it?

The publishers thought otherwise and were actually able to use copyright to shut down this service. A great example of copyright making getting a good education harder and I think, a good example of copyright working against the very goals that it was invented to further in the first place.

Now, to add insult to injury, nearly all of the professors who had written the articles weren't paid by the publishers, but were financed by the public through taxes. Publishers normally pay very little if anything if the publish papers and they rely on professors financed by the public to do peer-review, most of the time without any financial compensation. And yet, they were able to shut down a service that was clearly making education better.

karellen

June 18th, 2009, 07:06 AM

Just because private property and virtual private property is accepted as nearly universal in the western world doesn't means that this is the case in the rest of the world where different paradigms directly or indirectly related to socialism lead to alternative ways of dealing with the problem of property and inherent human rights

socialism...please don't go in there. I've lived under a socialism/communist regime and I can tell you it's far from the marxist utopia some western fellows believe in. I really believe Marx and Engels were good-intended (even if wrong in their socio-economic model), but everywhere in the world when communism made inroads, it brought only suffering, lack of basic civil rights, broken societies and underdevelopment. example: Eastern Europe until 1989, Russia, North Korea, Cuba. the only communist state state succeeded on the economic front (not human rights, though) it's China, and only because it's adopted the capitalist economic model, at least in some coastal areas.

This is generally applied only in one direction: My right to art and entertainment ends with your right to control your creation.
if you ask me, there is no such right, at least not here: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
it seems a little like saying "what a nice Harley you got there, I believe I have the right to ride it (after all, it's a damn pleasurable experience)." you'll say the 2 situations are radically different, because a motorcycle is a physical object, and information/music it's not. it makes little difference from my point of view. but of course everyone has different ideas and moral codes about rights and wrongs and obligations

ricardisimo

June 18th, 2009, 07:36 AM

socialism...please don't go in there. I've lived under a socialism/communist regime and I can tell you it's far from the marxist utopia some western fellows believe in. I really believe Marx and Engels were good-intended (even if wrong in their socio-economic model), but everywhere in the world when communism made inroads, it brought only suffering, lack of basic civil rights, broken societies and underdevelopment. example: Eastern Europe until 1989, Russia, North Korea, Cuba. the only communist state state succeeded on the economic front (not human rights, though) it's China, and only because it's adopted the capitalist economic model, at least in some coastal areas.

Just for the record, I'm an anarchist, the mortal enemy of the Marxist. That said, Russia was barely even a feudal society in 1917. A mere forty years later [!!] they were one of two super-powers, spanking the other one regularly in the Space Race, various industrial benchmarks, classical music and ballet, chess, etc., etc. I hardly think you can simply dismiss their variety of socialism out-of-hand with those sorts of results.

Socialismo sí. Patria no. Muerte tampoco.

ricardisimo

June 18th, 2009, 07:41 AM

I hasten to mention the Cuban Revolution as an unmitigated success. Why? Haiti... that's why. No one is allowed to criticize Cuba who hasn't also visited Haiti.

karellen

June 18th, 2009, 07:43 AM

Just for the record, I'm an anarchist, the mortal enemy of the Marxist. That said, Russia was barely even a feudal society in 1917. A mere forty years later [!!] they were one of two super-powers, spanking the other one regularly in the Space Race, various industrial benchmarks, classical music and ballet, chess, etc., etc. I hardly think you can simply dismiss their variety of socialism out-of-hand with those sorts of results.

Socialismo sí. Patria no. Muerte tampoco.

the word "Gulag" rings a bell? I guess it doesn't matter how many people die as long as we end up having nukes and spacecrafts ;)

karellen

June 18th, 2009, 07:52 AM

I hasten to mention the Cuban Revolution as an unmitigated success. Why? Haiti... that's why. No one is allowed to criticize Cuba who hasn't also visited Haiti.

yea, a great argument. it's so consolatory that there are places worse than Cuba. Like Haiti. or worse than Haiti. Like Somalia. and probably worse than Somalia. Like Rwanda, in 1994
and I suppose the large number of Cubans immigrating to US are just sick of so much welfare and utopia, and want to try something else, more challenging (like a new life)

ricardisimo

June 18th, 2009, 08:07 AM

the word "Gulag" rings a bell? I guess it doesn't matter how many people die as long as we end up having nukes and spacecrafts ;)

So now you've figured out why I'm an anarchist.

karellen

June 18th, 2009, 08:12 AM

So now you've figured out why I'm an anarchist.

well, I rest my case. to each his own

ricardisimo

June 18th, 2009, 08:19 AM

yea, a great argument. it's so consolatory that there are places worse than Cuba. Like Haiti. or worse than Haiti. Like Somalia. and probably worse than Somalia. Like Rwanda, in 1994
and I suppose the large number of Cubans immigrating to US are just sick of so much welfare and utopia, and want to try something else, more challenging (like a new life)

Again, what are we talking about? If we're talking about medicine, education, public arts programs, then there are many, many places that are worse than Cuba - like most of the planet, for example. If we're talking about freedom of speech and assembly, the list gets turned upside-down. There's also the as-yet unsettled debate as to whether or not 50 years of terrorist attacks by the US have more to do with Castro's atrocities than his communist ideology. I'd say they're both wonderfully macabre dance partners.

I'm not convinced this is a wholly appropriate debate to have within this thread, although at least Dimitriid made some effort to link it back to the piracy issue; namely, that "piracy" is a luxurious word for privileged society. I'm more than willing to drop this line and get back to the main point.

karellen

June 18th, 2009, 08:23 AM

Again, what are we talking about? If we're talking about medicine, education, public arts programs, then there are many, many places that are worse than Cuba - like most of the planet, for example. If we're talking about freedom of speech and assembly, the list gets turned upside-down. There's also the as-yet unsettled debate as to whether or not 50 years of terrorist attacks by the US have more to do with Castro's atrocities than his communist ideology. I'd say they're both wonderfully macabre dance partners.

I'm not convinced this is a wholly appropriate debate to have within this thread, although at least Dimitriid made some effort to link it back to the piracy issue; namely, that "piracy" is a luxurious word for privileged society. I'm more than willing to drop this line and get back to the main point.

good idea, at least we can agree on that :D

Odemia

June 18th, 2009, 08:51 AM

the word "Gulag" rings a bell? I guess it doesn't matter how many people die as long as we end up having nukes and spacecrafts ;)

Does slavery ring a bell? How about sitting bull? Can anyone really think of a super-power or regional power that never took, killed and/or marginalized a group of people?

But really what does that have to do with the Piratbyran or copyright? I don't really get the Piratbyran. They seem to be after a complete repeal of copyright, I am not sure that is really their true intention even FOSS needs copyright or it has no way to enforce licenses like GPL. I am of the opinion the the piratbyran is more posturing against the MPAA stance that IP is the same as all property.

IP has not been equivalent to other property (in the Anglo Saxon legal tradition) since 1710 when the English parliament put time limits on book-sellers in an effort to prevent the tyrannical control of culture imposed by Henry IIIV [Free Culture, L. Lessig]. I think statutory licenses have worked pretty well for books, 8tracks, VCRs, CDs, DVDs and would be happy to see updated statutory licenses that allow artists to easily create derivative works and institutionalize libraries of all cultural material made available as public domain when the limited licenses expire.

I know that the the piratebyran is also demanding the institutionalization of a cultural library that can act as the backbone for the public domain. Thought I believe that the piratbyran sees p2p as the institution that can best provide this library. I have to admit it makes a lot of sense. p2p is by nature very redundant and fault tolerant, no one would ever be able to control the cultural materials once they are part of the public domain p2p library.

cariboo

June 18th, 2009, 09:04 AM

This thread is really interesting, but politics is starting to raise it's ugly head. I'm going to close the thread for 24 hours to let things cool of a bit.

aysiu

June 18th, 2009, 02:37 PM

A great example of copyright making getting a good education harder and I think, a good example of copyright working against the very goals that it was invented to further in the first place. I agree fully with you.

I think copyright law has gone far from its original purpose and copyright is being abused, especially by the music industry (but clearly sometimes by print publishers as well).

No one has said anything to do the contrary.

cariboo

June 19th, 2009, 08:48 AM

I'm happy to announce this thread is open again

bryonak

June 19th, 2009, 10:23 AM

Good thread, lots to catch up ...
Much has been said and I know I'm repeating, but maybe I can add a bit again.

I won't quote because there are too many strands of disscussion to answer to, so feel addressed by whatever you like ;)

On copyright as a law by society:

In jurisdiction and philosophy, copyright is generally not regarded as a natural right.
It is understood as neither "god-given" nor self-evident...

Copyright is an artificial construct by human society (like for example taxes) and the reason why a society makes laws like these is to benefit the people it consists of (that is the society).
The original intent of copyright was to benefit society by providing it's members an incentive to be productive. This incentive is of course a (by-product) benefit to the individual.

Coining a phrase doesn't make you the owner of it. Why should other people in the society (or even in other societies) be forbidden to use it? How may I not think what you think and say what you say? There is no natural mechanism that prevents this.
Now extend that to two phrases, or an article, or a book.
Owning something (say a pen), by nature, prevents other people from having it (your very pen, not a similar one), apart from stealing it. We can see this through history and even earlier in the animal kingdom.
Why should a society (who makes the law) agree that the first example (the phrase you coined) should be exclusive to you too? The only reason is because it's beneficial to the society, which is why we do have copyright laws.
But keep in mind that society is able to change and adapt the rules and benefits of the law, and should do so when appropriate.

Now I think we all agree that copyright, especially in the US, has gone quite awry. So we're discussing about how it should be changed.
Be it by requiring a first buy and then unlimited personal copies, be it by reducing the time span, be it by removing the reassignment of copyright... thats the crux of the debate, and what the pirate party is about.
I'm arguing that you can not base these arguments and decisions on comparisons between copyright and theft, because this will lead to false results.

On copyright infringement vs theft:

The distinguishment between copyright infringement and theft is not semantics.
You know that blunt but easy-to-follow analogy with murder?
If someone hits me hard, chances are that quite a lot of my cells have died (in addition to the natural fluctuation)...
so I'm going to call it "partial murder" and demand heavy penalties, disregarding that these two offenses are quite apart in many aspects.
The point is that you shouldn't use a more grave but inappropriate term for something you don't like. Especially since stealing is widely perceived as "bad bad evil", but copyright infringement is more like "not OK" (the moral component).

@aysiu: Some pages ago, you quote the Random House Dictionary... I don't want to sound derogatory here, but I really don't like it how such amateurs have the power to twist the layman's perception of terms (OK, that sounds derogatory.. sorry ;)).
Much thought has gone into lawmaking, and there's a good reason why copyright infringement is very different from stealing in our lawbooks (often more so than from murder).
If you do use the word stealing as an umbrella term, please be aware of the dangers this brings every time a penalty is discussed.

On music band income:

Most bands do get much more from tours than from CDs, with the obvious exception of those who have an own label or sell the media themselves.
If you can't visit the concert, why not buy t-shirts and other merchandise from the band's online shop (if available) in order to support them?
When buying a retail CD, you usually give much more to the label management than to the band... the whole logisticics (transport/storage) and all people involved in the distribution process also get more than the band.
If you're comfortable with that, that's perfectly fine. I'm not.

A while a ago, I've had a discussion with a local band member who said that buying one single t-shirt at their concert (where the band maintains the merchandise) gave them way more income than buying their whole 10+ year discography in a regular shop.

On copyright and the GPL

If copyright were to vanish, in many scenarios the followers of the GPL wouldn't have a "problem"... because then we'd have the situation the GPL tries to uphold artificially.
Of course there are other scenarios without copyright where the opposite would happen. For example if we'd equalise property with thoughts and apply exactly the same laws, removing the need for a "separate" copyright law. Hardly possible, but one may imagine...

Dimitriid

June 19th, 2009, 02:23 PM

At first I felt responsible when this thread got locked up. But after thinking about it I kinda predicted it:

The problem is that people try to discredit this by pointing out people who completely betrayed this struggle for equality and the improvement of mankind as a whole. When I mention there is a different paradigm, called Socialism, people immediately and violently react to a tiny group of people who basically betrayed the entire social movement for their own personal power.

Now please, debating Socialism as a political and economical system is not only in violation of forum rules, it is also an exercise in futiliy exactly as I said it would happen.

So more comments on intellectual property and private property will follow but please, don't pick up an argument you cannot properly defend ( since again, this forum is alergic to politics ).

linuxguymarshall

June 19th, 2009, 03:24 PM

So more comments on intellectual property and private property will follow but please, don't pick up an argument you cannot properly defend ( since again, this forum is alergic to politics ).

Yes, let's please keep this strictly to copyright and the politics pertaining to this particular topic.

Let me say that this is turning into a very long, interesting conversation here.

Chronon

June 19th, 2009, 05:00 PM

Good thread, lots to catch up ...
On copyright and the GPL

If copyright were to vanish, in many scenarios the followers of the GPL wouldn't have a "problem"... because then we'd have the situation the GPL tries to uphold artificially.
Of course there are other scenarios without copyright where the opposite would happen. For example if we'd equalise property with thoughts and apply exactly the same laws, removing the need for a "separate" copyright law. Hardly possible, but one may imagine...

This is the bit I'm curious about. It seems like you would end up with a one way turnstile. People might publish code. This code could be used in any way desired with zero attribution. It wouldn't compel any proprietary code to be released to the public, as far as I can see (admittedly this isn't very far). Currently, companies publish binaries. They rely on copyright to prohibit the proliferation of these binaries (though it's not very effective at times). With this change they would simply have to assume that any binary they published would be taken and used by the public domain in whatever way it sees fit. However, all of their code would still be proprietary because it would be, essentially, an unpublished trade secret. You would end up with binaries from proprietary sources that have increasing amounts of unacknowledged public code in them and whose changes never make it back to the public. The binaries will be shared around, but the code will remain secret.

I am taking the vanishing of copyright to mean that all published works are now in the public domain.

ddrichardson

June 19th, 2009, 05:59 PM

Currently, companies publish binaries. They rely on copyright to prohibit the proliferation of these binaries (though it's not very effective at times).
I'm not sure I completely followed this post but binaries are protected by it being illegal in several countries to reverse engineer them.

Closed_Port

June 19th, 2009, 06:01 PM

aysiu, glad that you agree. About no one having said anything to the contrary, that's at least not my impression of the discussion so far.

bryonak, great post.

While surfing the web I found a very interesting and relevant article on the subject today: Researchers conclude piracy not stifling content creation (http://arstechnica.com/media/news/2009/06/researchers-conclude-piracy-not-stifling-content-creation.ars)

I think it lays out the foundations of copyright very well and presents some surprising conclusions.

There's essentially no indication that the more challenging economics are slowing down creative content production. In the five years prior to 2007, film production is up 30 percent, album releases have doubled, and book releases are up by two-thirds.

... the authors conclude that, while copyright infringement may be hurting the music business, that shouldn't be taken as an indication that it's affecting the theoretical basis of copyright law, the fostering of creative works.

ricardisimo

June 19th, 2009, 11:01 PM

I would be amazed to discover that copyright had any discernible positive effect on creativity. All of the musicians and filmmakers I know do what they do because they love it. Same with the people writing code (at least in FOSS, as this very very attests.)

Here's another attempt at distilling the arguments here:

Thought property entails thought crime;
Thought crime entails thought police;
In the absence of a money trail (this is not that sort of copyright infringement) policing thought crimes like this necessarily entail a substantial loss of privacy rights, probable cause defense, and most likely due process.

Which might just be another iteration of Proudhon's maxim, "Property is theft."

aysiu

June 19th, 2009, 11:11 PM

I would be amazed to discover that copyright had any discernible positive effect on creativity. All of the musicians and filmmakers I know do what they do because they love it. Same with the people writing code (at least in FOSS, as this very very attests.) And wouldn't it be great to be able to quit your day job and spend more time working on the stuff you love (music, coding, whatever)? If you don't have copyright, it's not that you have no inclination to be creative but that you have a lot less time and energy to devote to it.

All the teachers I know teach because they love teaching and children, not because they love money, but if you don't pay them money, how are they going to afford to teach?

ricardisimo

June 19th, 2009, 11:48 PM

And wouldn't it be great to be able to quit your day job and spend more time working on the stuff you love (music, coding, whatever)? If you don't have copyright, it's not that you have no inclination to be creative but that you have a lot less time and energy to devote to it.

All the teachers I know teach because they love teaching and children, not because they love money, but if you don't pay them money, how are they going to afford to teach?
'Round and 'round we go. They're not getting the money as it is.

I live in LA, and work in the movie industry. I know hundreds of actors, and exactly one of them has acting as his primary source of income, and that's from a series of commercials where he's barely acting at all, just wearing foam rubber make-up. And it's not like he sleeps on top of a large pile of money with lots of beautiful ladies.

I know just as many musicians, and again I know exactly one who made a bundle from her music. It was not from royalties, tellingly enough, but rather a direct payment from the movie which used her song in the score. She still has a day job, by the way, as she was not able to parlay her success any further. Most of these friends of mine are music teachers, which is to say they work for a living, which is the way to do it.

I would like to make clear that the point I'm trying to make is that it is not copyright infringement that is preventing these artists from getting paid. It is the copyright system itself. Its domination by the corporations and its use as a punitive tool rather than whatever fantasy for which it was originally intended - these are the real culprits. These are insurmountable obstacles. It's not that I want to play apologist for leechers, but rather that they are not the real criminals, and to describe them as such enables the suits and makes one complicit in their crimes.

Dimitriid

June 19th, 2009, 11:52 PM

All the teachers I know teach because they love teaching and children, not because they love money, but if you don't pay them money, how are they going to afford to teach?

And many of those teacher are government employees. Which should be the case for coders and artists cause of the nature of the work they do.

ricardisimo

June 20th, 2009, 12:47 AM

And many of those teacher are government employees. Which should be the case for coders and artists cause of the nature of the work they do.

And it's worth mentioning that public school teachers make roughly double what private school teachers make (which is the real point to the whole privatization movement: pay people less and less to work.)

aysiu

June 20th, 2009, 12:55 AM

I've taught in both public and private schools, and I can assure you private school teachers are not hurting. They may not get paid as much as public school teachers, but they have relatively cushy assignments (fewer courses per term, a larger percentage of students willing to do the work, smaller class sizes, more vacation time, sometimes even free lunch).

I'm not saying all artists and musicians deserve a lot of money for their work. Copyright can't guarantee you will make money. But it should work for you if you are successful. First of all, if you are a bestselling artist, you are making a lot of money, even if you have a terrible contract with your record company, but not all artists have terrible contracts. (http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/are-you-sure-the-music-youre-downloading-isnt-hurting-the-musicians-2/)

By all means, if people want to share their music freely with a Creative Commons license and find other ways to make money (through concerts, through a day job), God bless 'em. If people want to use the copyright system to make money off their recordings, I think they should be entitled to.

And if they think signing with a big record company is the way to get famous, it's up to them whether they want to sign away certain rights or not in order to get fame.

ricardisimo

June 20th, 2009, 01:33 AM

I'm not saying all artists and musicians deserve a lot of money for their work.
Actually, that IS what I'm saying. They should be able to make a living from their work. I take some issue with the idea that someone can do something once and live off of it the rest of their lives. Evidently, the publishers and record companies feel the same way, since they pay squat to the artists. Irregardless, they should absolutely be getting paid handsomely for working at their craft, enough to compensate them for practice time on their instruments, expenses for materials, sabbaticals for composition, etc., etc.

As to your other points, I don't think anyone has suggested that artists don't have the right to sign whatever contracts they want, good and bad. I want freedom maximized for everyone. Even though I've brought up the Cuban model, I do so merely to show that there are other options. I'm reluctant to press that one as a prime candidate, since they also fail to maximize freedoms in Cuba.

Still, if we can crack the atom and go to the moon, we should able to figure out how artists and scientists can get compensated for their work. I strongly suggest that eliminating the graft, waste, corruption and outright thievery (dare I say "piracy") that goes on up at the top is at the core of any solution.

phrostbyte

June 20th, 2009, 02:29 AM

I said this before but I'm going to say it again since there is some new people in this debate and they probably didn't get to see my arguement.

I think copyright is fundamentally wrong in today's world. Because we live in a world of information post-scarcity. We can, with today's technology, have a world where all human knowledge and art that exists and ever existed is available to everyone, no matter if they are rich or poor, everyone will get access to all the world's knowledge, to enjoy and to learn from. This would do amazing things to society and bring us closer to total post-scarcity and technological singularity.

The technology is there. It's called the Internet. The only thing that is stopping this from happening is copyright.

People who keep bringing up economic reasons for copyright, do not understand that the need for an economy will eventually obsolete if the same technological revolution that brought up the Internet eventually touches the real world. For instance, if we can build replicators, or artificial intelligence. Advancements in computer science will remove the need for all forms of human labor (ie, 100% unemployment and a functioning society where stuff still gets done) and is not within the realm of impossibility in most of our lifetimes. Thus this economic argument becomes pointless in the long term, as is all arguments that exist in the face of possible imminent technological singularity.

phrostbyte

June 20th, 2009, 02:47 AM

I'd like to also credit Richard Stallman for inspiring this idea. My opinions are inspired from his speech "Copyright vs Community", and also the "GNU Manifesto", and I hope this knowledge will inspire more people to question the role of copyright in our modern age.

ricardisimo

June 20th, 2009, 09:53 AM

Your youthful optimism is inspiring. I'm not quite as confident in the inevitability of our Star Trek future. The folks in charge know how to manipulate scarcity when they deem it necessary. It's already beginning with water, a situation that's only going to get worse, both because of population growth and global warming. Where goes water, so goes everything else.

I still say the core of the issue is the centrality of property rights. We have to get that out of our system, which is hard after so many decades... nay, centuries or maybe even millennia of brainwashing and propaganda. We have to move our culture past its perpetual adolescence, into an adulthood that recognizes property rights, but in its proper place, as a secondary or even tertiary consideration. People like having their stuff, which is fine, but it's not the be-all and end-all to existence.

Perhaps more apropos of this discussion, it's not the driving force of creativity as advertised. Here's a little tidbit (http://groups.google.com/group/alt.fan.noam-chomsky/msg/12c9b62ed459d63d?pli=1) for whoever is interested.

ddrichardson

June 20th, 2009, 10:03 AM

'Round and 'round we go. They're not getting the money as it is.
You make the assumption that merely doing something creative has an attached monetary value - if there is no demand then they're not going to get any money.

So your assertation that copyright isn't helping them to make a living is based on a false premise, that what they're doing is actually wanted.

I would like to make clear that the point I'm trying to make is that it is not copyright infringement that is preventing these artists from getting paid. It is the copyright system itself. Its domination by the corporations and its use as a punitive tool rather than whatever fantasy for which it was originally intended - these are the real culprits. These are insurmountable obstacles. It's not that I want to play apologist for leechers, but rather that they are not the real criminals, and to describe them as such enables the suits and makes one complicit in their crimes.
While that may have truth, if it was removed tomorrow would anyone buy it?

Dimitriid

June 20th, 2009, 02:36 PM

You make the assumption that merely doing something creative has an attached monetary value - if there is no demand then they're not going to get any money.

I already appointed a good alternative system: They should be government employees. It avoids having to deal with quantifying the unquantifiable.

Hallvor

June 20th, 2009, 04:22 PM

ddrichardson

June 20th, 2009, 05:04 PM

There is a huge difference between copying for private use and copying for profit. AFAIK there is no reason to believe that copying for private use has disasterous consequences for the creators of culture. In fact, I have seen several studies that suggest that it has little or no impact on sales.
I'd be interested if you have any links, all the studies I've seen suggest that downloading has not affected CD sales - which strikes me as false dichotomy because its comparing apples and oranges.

Copying for private use should be legal, and intellectual property laws should should only apply to copying for commercial use and profit. Society and the economy must serve the people. Therefore, you can`t put the welfare of the economy (read: corporations) before the interest of the people unless the welfare of the economy is in the interest of the people. There is no proof that free sharing of culture for private use is harming the production of culture.
I see what you're saying, that people should be allowed to share music they own with others, which again comes back to the definition of fair use.

abhilashm86

June 20th, 2009, 05:12 PM

ricardisimo

June 20th, 2009, 07:36 PM

While that may have truth, if it was removed tomorrow would anyone buy it?
I don't get it... You say that as though anyone ever in the entire history of the world has purchased anything because it is copyrighted.

ddrichardson

June 20th, 2009, 07:46 PM

I don't get it... You say that as though anyone ever in the entire history of the world has purchased anything because it is copyrighted.
What's not to get? Just because something has a copyright or otherwise doesn't mean that society values it, monetarily or artistically.

ricardisimo

June 20th, 2009, 08:07 PM

OK. I'm not sure, but I think my earlier comment about the automated pubic hair straightener made a similar point. Please... if you want to be understood you have to make sophomoric references to body parts. Hone your rhetorical skills people!

ddrichardson

June 20th, 2009, 08:10 PM

in what all countries piratebay is banned, in india, there is no such rule?? Should we be carefull while downloading, i usually download TV shows like how i met mom, scrubs and more.......please tell what are limits
We're debating the definition of copyright, not handing out tips on not getting caught breaking current laws.

ricardisimo

June 20th, 2009, 08:17 PM

We're debating the definition of copyright, not handing out tips on not getting caught breaking current laws.

HymnToLife would seem to disagree (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=7474410&postcount=160), which is odd, given her/his supposedly anti-piracy stance (hence my long, sad sigh in response).

marshmallow1304

June 21st, 2009, 06:05 AM

if you want to be pedantic, everything runs dry, including the metal resources to make hard drives, the silicon "sand" of which semiconductor circuits are build, the quantity of energy available to us here on Earth, and so on ;).

Hmm. If one ascribed to a theory of an infinite universe, one could argue that as there are an infinite number of planets, there is an infinite quantity of mineral resources (and everything else). And an infinite number of stars provides infinite energy.

Hallvor

June 21st, 2009, 07:35 AM

I'd be interested if you have any links, all the studies I've seen suggest that downloading has not affected CD sales - which strikes me as false dichotomy because its comparing apples and oranges.

I remember reading a study several years ago that suggested it had an impact, but it was also a study paid for by the RIAA. :) Unfortunately I wasn`t able to find it online. But I do agree that it has probably no effect, and AFAIK all independent studies have not done the same finds as the RIAA (by proxy) study.

I`m not sure if I follow you. What is the false dichtomy?

I see what you're saying, that people should be allowed to share music they own with others, which again comes back to the definition of fair use.

No. I think that all non-commercial filesharing in general should be legal. Not just sharing music you own with friends. If someone downloads an album it doesn`t affect CD sales (like several studies say) and it contributes to spreading culture. As long as it doesn`t affect the number of artistic works being produced, it is best for society.

Creap

June 21st, 2009, 11:38 AM

ddrichardson

June 21st, 2009, 11:45 AM

I`m not sure if I follow you. What is the false dichtomy?
Comparing illegal downloads to CD sales rather than illegal downloads to changes in legal downloads.

No. I think that all non-commercial filesharing in general should be legal. Not just sharing music you own with friends. If someone downloads an album it doesn`t affect CD sales (like several studies say) and it contributes to spreading culture. As long as it doesn`t affect the number of artistic works being produced, it is best for society.
As do I and have been saying so for, what about a week now but you're blurring the lines by referencing non-commercial and downloading albums. If its license allows distribution then ofcourse it should be legal to distribute it.

My point is that interested parties such as the RIAA shouldn't be allowed to define law because a badly worded law which is too wide in scope could devestate the exchange of information other than music/film. If that were the case then we as a society are better off without an explicit law and to leave it as a civil matter.

ddrichardson

June 21st, 2009, 11:46 AM

HymnToLife would seem to disagree (http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=7474410&postcount=160), which is odd, given her/his supposedly anti-piracy stance (hence my long, sad sigh in response).
In fairness (kinda) I think they just wandered in without reading the whole thread.

ddrichardson

June 21st, 2009, 11:50 AM

Piratbyrån isn't exactly an organization promoting any stance in particular, but rather promoting a deepened discussion about IP, IP laws, culture, etc. Piratbyrån is not a party, like Piratpartiet, but instead seeks to spawn and inspire projects such as Piratpartiet, The Pirate Bay, Embassy of Piracy, various blogs...
Then they seriously need some marketing help - the use of the word "piracy" has, as shown by this thread alone, led a lot of people to form camps and not read arguments.

bryonak

June 22nd, 2009, 01:15 AM

This is the bit I'm curious about. It seems like you would end up with a one way turnstile. People might publish code. This code could be used in any way desired with zero attribution. It wouldn't compel any proprietary code to be released to the public, as far as I can see (admittedly this isn't very far). Currently, companies publish binaries. They rely on copyright to prohibit the proliferation of these binaries (though it's not very effective at times). With this change they would simply have to assume that any binary they published would be taken and used by the public domain in whatever way it sees fit. However, all of their code would still be proprietary because it would be, essentially, an unpublished trade secret. You would end up with binaries from proprietary sources that have increasing amounts of unacknowledged public code in them and whose changes never make it back to the public. The binaries will be shared around, but the code will remain secret.

I am taking the vanishing of copyright to mean that all published works are now in the public domain.

The vanishing of copyright wouldn't force anyone to release the source code of their programs, so this case isn't exactly like the GPL.
I guess I was thinking too much about non-computerish copyright, which doesn't have that source code <-> distributed product separation (and usually neither the GNU GPL... my bad).

Still it would allow for close inspection of the binaries, something which is forbidden at the moment. The wine project would have significantly better compatibility if they were allowed to use (trace and disassemble) Windows binaries instead of just probing applications that run on Windows and reverse engineer based on their responses and logical deduction.

Also I think that the incentive to release your code openly would be definitely bigger.
In such a scenario, you couldn't really sell programs anymore... the first buyer could give away copies to everyone for free, because no copyright prevents this.
The code itself couldn't be seen as an asset, because it's "product" (binaries) becomes nearly worthless.
Companies would have to live on services (installation & maintenance, on-demand features, user training, ...) only, and FOSS code fits well into this model, as IBM shows.
Releasing the code on the other hand gives you free review and maybe patches/improvements. Plus it's usually very beneficial to the security aspect of your project, be it by getting more eyeballs to look at the issue or just by feeling a higher pressure in the "vulnerability detection race".

Hmm. If one ascribed to a theory of an infinite universe, one could argue that as there are an infinite number of planets, there is an infinite quantity of mineral resources (and everything else). And an infinite number of stars provides infinite energy.

Olbers is one of many who would spin in his grave at such trains of thought ;)