Bill Gates Admitted to viewing illegal content on YouTube

[steven8]

From a 2006 article about a 2006 interview:


Bill Gates' piracy confession
By Robert L. Mitchell on Tue, 06/20/2006 - 12:53pm

If you read way down to the bottom of a Wall Street Journal interview with Bill Gates that ran yesterday, you'll discover that the Microsoft executive admitted to watching pirated movies on the Internet. The confession came as he was talking about content he had viewed on YouTube. Here's part of the exchange:

WSJ: You watch physics lectures and Harlem Globetrotters [on YouTube]?

Gates: This social-networking thing takes you to crazy places.

WSJ: But those were stolen, correct?

Gates: Stolen's a strong word. It's copyrighted content that the owner wasn't paid for. So yes.

The Internet's biggest social failure has been that it has served as enabling technology for rampant cheating and theft - and the rationalization of it. The Internet makes stealing so easy that most people don't even think about it.

Bill Gates' comments would appear to be a case in point. You can hear the wheels turning as Gates thinks through the reality of his actions before finally admitting that he has indeed downloaded and consumed copyrighted content.

I like this quote best: "Stolen's a strong word."

http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/2803?source=quigo2803

[DoctorMO]

He knows it, and we all know it. the system is broken when almost everyone in the world breaks the law.

[JT673]

Stolen's a strong word.

Someone needs to add that the list of most colorful quotes made by MS execs.

[earobinson]

oh come on do you really think MS trys that hard to stop home users pirating windows, they make money when people pirate windows since then companies will use it so they dont have to train there users.

Gates is a smart smart man.

[steven8]

Someone needs to add that the list of most colorful quotes made by MS execs.

:)

This thread, as I intended it, was merely to show that, when people go accusing and pointing fingers, they need to make sure their own back porch is clean!

[dspari1]

If this is true, I almost feel sorry for the poor guy.

[steven8]

If this is true, I almost feel sorry for the poor guy.

??

[dspari1]

??

I said *almost*.

[earobinson]

lol, gates is using a google product, that just clicked for me.

[steven8]

I said *almost*.

:)

I just wondered what you might feel sorry for him about. Do you mean the way everyone looks for a chance to catch him doing or saying the wrong thing? That will happen when you judge other people so harshly all the time that it seems you are holding yourself up as a paragon of virtue.

[steven8]

lol, gates is using a google product, that just clicked for me.

:lolflag:

[Somenoob]

I wish there was evidence for Steve Balmer watching copyrighted material, most hate him more.

[steven8]

I wish there was evidence for Steve Balmer watching copyrighted material, most hate him more.

Because he's the front man. Bill likes having attention diverted to Steve.

[kragen]

Hmm, in an attempt to steer this thread away from the impending "Bill Gates suckzorz!!!" train-wreck :D ...

It's a very valid point - most of us don't even think of it as stealing anymore, there is so much copyrighted material available illegally. Pirated media is so freely available nowadays, and people are just getting more and more used to the idea of not having to pay for CD's and films, meaning that as time goes on it will only become harder and harder to persuade people to part with their money.

DRM protected media only adds to the problem - the legit downloads that people have paid for are less useful than the ones downloaded illegally - even if you make a specific effort to pay for your CD's, many people will still download the media itself from torrent sites anyway.

With fewer and fewer people paying for media, it just means that the cost goes up for those who do pay, attracting more to piracy. Eventually it's all going to go wrong - and It's probably going to go wrong for us (the consumers - both those who pay for media and those who don't). After all - the money to make films and music has to come from somewhere.

So my question really is - what can be done to reverse the situation? My (constructive) ideas are:


I believe that having online music stores that work is vital - they allow cheap distribution of media, cutting on costs for the end user who isn't concerned with album art or cases, and they're the only mechanism capable of competing with the convenience of fast torrent downloads
With this in mind, consider scrapping DRM - although it helps prevent users from casually sharing files with friends, at the same time it's the reason a lot of users don't use online music stores.Torrent downloads all come from 1 or 2 sources, so DRM does nothing to prevent the distribution of media illegally via the Internet.
Reduce the cost of downloads - iTunes sell songs at 80p per track (apparently, not that I use it), which is actually quite a lot. The average album might be 10 tracks long, which is £8 for an album - It's fairly rare that I can't buy the CD itself for that price, which in my eyes is worth far more.
Online stores should be there as a "I've never heard of them before, but they look ok, what the hell, it's only £3-4 to download the album quickly and give them a try". I like owning cd's and I'm more than happy to fork out £10, sometimes more, for a CD which I like and know I will enjoy, but there is no way that every album in my music collection is worth that much to me - At £10 per album, music collections can easily cost thousands of pounds.
Unless I can thoroughly listen to an album first, there is a limit to the amount I'm prepared to fork out - if an album costs more than that limit, then I'm going to download it first instead - at that point the only way I'm likely to pay any money for it at all is if it's exceptional. Making online stores cheaper will encourage people to buy the music they want to try out, instead of buying it.
Provide films and tv shows for fast download at a reasonable price. Recently I've been finding that I simply don't watch the TV - the shows I want to watch aren't on at the times I'm free, or I simply forget. Consequently pretty much the only way of watching those programmes is via torrents. Being able to download the latest episode of scrubs for a small fee (even in low quality) is well worth it in my opinion, as well as the ability to download a film or TV show for some light entertainment.
I suspect that the majority of films that are downloaded are watched once, so downloading a film should cost about the same as renting because although you get to keep it for more than 1 night, it's in poorer quality.


Of course, the above alone won't do much to help the situation - those are the things that would encourage me to pay for media, mainly because they provide the "services" that currently only torrents provide, however even with the above, pirated downloads are still cheaper.

Any thoughts?

[kragen]

Just a follow up post:

Most of my ideas revolve around the idea of reducing the cost to consumers with the goal of making money out of people where usually (even without torrents) people would be unwilling to pay "full price", but I suppose that does mean that everyone who is currently paying will get everything cheaper, resulting in a reduced income from that market.

Perhaps my ideas aren't so great after all :( which is a shame, I'd actually be willing to give up torrents completely and buy all my media if things were just cheaper (and not DRM protected)

[dspari1]

:)

I just wondered what you might feel sorry for him about. Do you mean the way everyone looks for a chance to catch him doing or saying the wrong thing? That will happen when you judge other people so harshly all the time that it seems you are holding yourself up as a paragon of virtue.

I guess you could say that, but I was mostly just being sarcastic(I know that it doesn't always show in text). :popcorn:

[steven8]

I guess you could say that, but I was mostly just being sarcastic(I know that it doesn't always show in text). :popcorn:

I kind of though so. It is hard to show sarcasm in writing.

[DoctorMO]

Of course, the above alone won't do much to help the situation - those are the things that would encourage me to pay for media, mainly because they provide the "services" that currently only torrents provide, however even with the above, pirated downloads are still cheaper.

Do you not think that media will move towards a services industry similar to the direction of the software industry?

Some examples:

Music: The artists make money by playing gigs, current studio's break up into smaller sections each providing services to each other and the artists directly. offering the choice to artists of who should print their CDs or t-shirts or set up their gigs.
Film: Films cost too much to make, the amount of money film makers expect back has to change. instead films will make money from theatre showings (like gigs in a way) merchandise, DVD services (pretty much selling official dvds with little books and extras) while this may not net them as much money as the get at the moment it will certainly make the industry more fair for new entrants.
Books: Authors get most money from selling the books themselves, strict copyright for 10 years, cc there after should be fair.

We are here to make sure artists, authors, actors and anyone creative is provided with enough money to live on and a bit more on top. We don't want millionaires, nor do we want huge consolidated media empires that control both the source and the distribution of content.

In the end I think people forget the time 20,000 year ago when stories, songs and practical know how was passed from one person to a whole village with little more than a bed for the night and some food.

[kragen]

Do you not think that media will move towards a services industry similar to the direction of the software industry?

Media already is a services industry - It would be great if the industry could shift towards making more income from services, but the vast majority of music is played from a CD, not live.

On the one hand I do feel "the media industry makes too much money as it is, if they are serious about stopping piracy, they should be prepared to reduce costs", but at the same time making films and recording music does cost a lot of money - Yes really big stars do make way way too much money, but the average band doesn't.

Perhaps it would be easier to emphasise with this is the whole media industry wasn't so shamelessly and completely unconcerned with the well-being of its customers.

[rolando2424]

I kind of though so. It is hard to show sarcasm in writing.

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[steven8]

that's why we have the tags (available in BBcode, Html and php! Order NOW!)

But wait! That's not all!! :guitar:

[steven8]

Wait! What did Ballmer say in that old Windows 3 add. "How much would you pay now?!! Don't answer yet!" :)