Venting Anger

[brashquido]

Hi All,

Don't usually get angry, but I always check in on doom9 to follow what is going on in the world of capitalism violating the rights of individuals. RIAA and associated parties in the music/file sharing war are high on my list at the moment. The news today that the author of a P2P program with encryption capabilities was arrested because his program COULD be used for illegal activites popped my bubble. This to me proves two things, (1) RIAA are a pack of aholes that would sell their mother for a dime (if they have a mother that is), and (2) how f@#ked up must the laws on this planet becoming when someone can be arrested for such a thing.

[Mug Funky]

hmmm.. if they can't find a mother to sell, i'm sure they could try selling off one of their fathers :):p

[edit]

btw, where in melbourne are you at? (not _exactly where, obviously :))
i'm in Langwarrin, just near Frankston

[geffroman]

I know this won't be a popular post... but I have to laugh my ass off about people that get pissed about P2P crack downs... People use the argument that P2P programs CAN BE used for legal file sharing... but any HONEST person knows 99% of what goes on is illegal sharing... It's just a crack up to watch people get mad cause software companies wanna protect their products... If those same people ever created their own INVENTION they would do EVERYTHING in their power to stop others from illegally copying it...

[Mug Funky]

is that why people on the avisynth forum posts their scripts if they find them useful enough? hmmm. digging here i think.

true, if i invented something totally awesome i'd keep it to myself until i got a patent on it.

but we're talking artistic creations here, and really the decision of what to do with these creations should be down to the artist. not the record company.

i'm a painter (when i feel like it), and i'm happy to put high-res images of my paintings online. people can print them if they want, but i feel reasonably sure nobody's going to go to the effort of re-painting from that print and claiming the work as their own. maybe i'll feel differently if i become famous (HAHAAHAAAAAA!), but either way i feel it's my decision what happens to my work.

there's an example around here that extends this analogy - a certain local gallery often gets rather famous artists (well, locally famous. enough to make a living off anyway) to exhibit there for long periods. a while ago i found out that this gallery had been sending some of these works to art shows without the artist's permission (and even worse, pocketing an unfair amount of the sale price). this constitutes piracy in a big way.

this is also what record companies do - if a band is to get signed, they have to agree to a horrible contract that basically lets the record company exploit them - the costs of things like music videos often come out of the band's profits, leaving them with an annual earning that could be made at McDonalds (this is an extreme case, but not unknown).

the record company decides how to distribute/market the artist's works, they decide if they want to destroy the sound in mastering (these records are everywhere - an insane push to get the highest continuous RMS possible on a CD), and they reap the lion's share of the profits.

to be honest, if i were a band i wouldn't be worried about p2p networks. i'd be trying to get out of my contract and sign with somebody who doesn't treat me like a commodity (it's a damn shame Factory records didn't last).

[Neo Neko]

Venting anger is fine if you can do it tastefully. But it helps to put it in a relevant thread (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=75963) rather than start a new one for it. ;)

[brashquido]

Originally posted by Mug Funky
hmmm.. if they can't find a mother to sell, i'm sure they could try selling off one of their fathers :):p

[edit]

btw, where in melbourne are you at? (not _exactly where, obviously :))
i'm in Langwarrin, just near Frankston

Live in Box Hill, a bit north of you :)

[Si]

@geffroman
I'd be interested in what you think the 1% legal traffic might contain ;)

Apart from bitorrent streams distributing GPL stuff that is :)

regards
Simon

[brashquido]

Originally posted by geffroman
I know this won't be a popular post... but I have to laugh my ass off about people that get pissed about P2P crack downs... People use the argument that P2P programs CAN BE used for legal file sharing... but any HONEST person knows 99% of what goes on is illegal sharing... It's just a crack up to watch people get mad cause software companies wanna protect their products... If those same people ever created their own INVENTION they would do EVERYTHING in their power to stop others from illegally copying it...

I should have quantified that a bit, I'm all for for the protection of copyright, but whenn the record industry crying poor and being very aggressive at the moment (DRM thing), I find it a bit hypocritical when it is found that they have not been passing on millions of $$ in royalties to artists. I suppose it is really the combination of this and the arrest of the winny author that got me revved up. You are right, P2P software is predominately used to do naughty stuff, I don't argue that. It is the way they arrested him that got my back up. His program CAN be used for ill, just in the same way just about anything can be used for ill put in the wrong hands.