Shoplifting vs. Downloading [Archive]

Doom9

14th November 2003, 13:31

from a mere physical standpoint the two acts cannot be compared. In the case of shoplifting you are effectively creating a void in the shop's inventory, so they have a very real, quantifiable loss of money, which we don't have in case of copyright infringement.
Be it software, music or film industry, they'd like you to believe that everyone who makes an illegitimate copy (let's forget about the fact that they consider every copy to be illegal) would actually be willing and capable to pay the rightful price. Tell that to someone living in a 2nd or 3rd world country. They might have enough money to pay for Internet, or buy a pirate copy in a local market, but not enough for the real deal. And even if the money is around, you'd probably not get software X or get CD Y if you had to pay for it (maybe because the program/CD isn't worth the money they charge).
But that doesn't make it right, so we have a moral dilemma on our hands.

Now, copyright law was created to encourage people who create something of cultural value (there was no software when copyright law was created), so write a book for instance. With your work protected against unauthorized distribution, the author should get a fair recompensation for his/her efforts. The same idea also goes for copyright for modern things like software. However, in no way did the creators of that law want to create a vehicle to preserve an industry structure, or create a pay per use society. Thus, there were always some limits to the exclusive rights granted to an author of a copyrighted work. Those exclusions pertain to copying parts of a work for your own use, academic use, etc. So let's sum up: to further cultural creation.
However, nowadays those laws are extended with stuff like the DMCA which do not serve that goal anymore. In fact, now we're gearing up towards a creator-exclusive legislation, where all excemptions to the exclusive author rights are abolished (for instance, with CSS an academic institution is no longer allowed to use a part of a video for whatever purpose, which is clearly against the spirit in which copyright law was created), and which serves uniquely to preserve indistries as they are. Music and Movie industry have a distribution monopoly which they want to preserve at all cost. Even more, movie studios were actually forced out from a certain part of the distribution chain (they used to own studios until that practice was declared illegal a long while back) and they've never quite grown over this and still try to control the distribution chain as much as possible. A good example for this drive to control is the DIVX format. With that pay-per-use format they got the holy grail of control. Finally, they were able to know what products were consumed, where, how many times, where and when. Unless the DIVX masterserver okayed it, home movies could not be watched anymore. We know that any recordable medium has always been a problem for the content providers. The music industry was opposed to tapes, recordable CDs, MiniDisc and MP3. It turned out that tapes and CDs were not such bad business for them after all. The movie industry and TV stations were opposed to video cassette recorders and tried to ban them from the market (without success as we know). However, years later they were making more money from VHS sales than from theater tickets. And DVD was not uniquely welcomed, in fact several studios (let's point fingers: Disney (studio now indoctrinating children against P2P tools), Fox and Paramount) were pushing towards the full control (or big brother) DIVX scheme and their DVD offerings were either lackluster or inexistend (Fox was DIVX exclusive for a while, and the last to commit to any digital format). DIVX went belly up in 1999. 4 years later, DVD is definitely the hottest a/v format ever and studios are selling DVDs like crazy.
However, the DIVX scheme might have been scrapped, but the plan for total control remained. Now look at the digital music offering. The music industry was completely opposed to any online distribution and only recently have there been serious online music offerings. However, those, with the help of RIAA and MPAA paid off parlament members, are once again pushing for the total control scheme. What good is downloadable music if you can only play it on your PC. What if it crashes (my primary PC has been broken for 4 weeks now and the replacement hardware is slow to arrive), or you replace a part, or want to listen to the music somewhere else? With CDs and tapes you could simply make a copy for your car, your portable MD player or walkman, your cabin in the mountains, your secondary stereo and whatnot. But no, DRM chains music to your hardware. You can consider yourself lucky if you're even allowed to put music on a portable digital player (of course this only works with a limited number of brands, and while you may be able to connect those players to a PC or another device forget about transferring music), let alone burn something on a CD.

Anyway, I'm getting off topic (I wanted to write a long article about how copyright law is being twisted and no longer serves the goals towards which they were created for a long time, guess I just couldn't hold it in).

I'm wondering though, are there any limits to fines for shoplifting? Fines for copyright infringement have been outrageous ever since I can remember, but maybe that's why the industry is now trying to push the envelope. But if they want to equal shoplifting with downloading, then they should indeed push for similar fines as well or they come off as unreasonable (I guess we all agree they are unreasonable). In terms of damages, sharing can potentially cause more damage, but the flat fee damanges the industry wants is outrageous and blown out of proportions. According to the law, the plaintiff actually has to proove the damages to claim recompensation. Since this isn't exactly easy, the industry is even trying to push for legislation where the burden of proof is no longer up to the plaintiff, but to the accused, which completely goes against the bases of our legal system.

Now, this might be OT a bit again but I do have some examples of models that do work. For software, we know that the software industry is doing rather well despite piracy (but in that area the loss numbers are just as overblown.. not everybody can afford thousands of dollars of software). I know from my school, that collaborators could get licenses for popular software for a price where piracy simply didn't pay anymore. The once those people enter professional life, they will be more inclined to buy because they've a) done it before, and b) can afford it now. Some software manufacturers also have different products, some of which are free for personal and academic use. I think that mode is great. You don't force the poor schmuck to pay money he might not have, but as soon as you start making money with the product you are required to pay (nothing wrong with that, is there?). I believe this to be a very fair model that actually encourages people to buy software in the end. As a student I'm not likely to buy a $1000 software development package for a semester project, but if I use the same tool in professional life, I'll ask my superiors for it and unless I'm being unreasonable I'll get a paid license.
As for the music industry, the SCMS system is a reasonable copy protection imho, that serves both the industry and the user. SCMS allows you to make digital copies from a CD, but you cannot make copies of a copy. As long as you keep your original safely stored away you will not have any problems, and since only one generation of copies is possible, music cannot be simply spread around the globe. Since the system was rather reasonable, there was no big opposition to it, even though I think SCMS busters (yes, circumvention was possible even then) were considered illegal and could not be sold.
Imho, the idea of SCMS should serve as a base for future copy protection systems. I'm not sure if it can be done in the same way, but it's worth some consideration, is it not? But the industry rather dreams up more big brotherish DRM schemes to establish the pay per use society (there were concerns voiced that the DMCA would create a pay per use society and of course the industry assured that this was never going to happen.. look where we are now).

r6d2

14th November 2003, 13:52

Originally posted by Doom9
from a mere physical standpoint the two acts cannot be compared. In the case of shoplifting you are effectively creating a void in the shop's inventory, so they have a very real, quantifiable loss of money, which we don't have in case of copyright infringement.
@Doom9,

I've read your enlightening (as usual) article and even though you have strong arguments to show that the record/movie industry is not following the right actions to solve the problem, I cannot agree with your statement above.

When someone buys pirated software, pirated movies, pirated books and the like, he is effectively giving money to somebody who, in turn, will not pay back to the creator of the piece.

The pirate is stealing the creator's income.

The buyer knows that, and that makes him an accomplice in a felony.

IMHO, It is not different from shoplifting or plain street robbery.

int 21h

14th November 2003, 16:33

The real problem is not in the P2P users. Its just that industry likes to publicize their litigation of P2P users. The criminal litigation is stuff you usually dont read about on the front page of the Times (but its certainly going on).

The real problem and cause of the concern is a very large chunk of the material that is pirated in other countries on large scales (i.e. games, pressed dvds, etc.) are pressed directly from a piracy group's release. Walk down a back alley in HK and you can pick up a Dreamcast game from Kalisto, a PC game from Deviance, a PS2 game from Echelon, and a pressed DVD from CTP or Replica. Now these groups are certainly not intending to supply the piracy industry in these countries (in most cases, however there are exceptions), but it is a side effect of the globalization the internet has brought us. The second collateral effect is P2P. You can ask anyone that is in the 'scene'. Supplying P2P users is the last thing they want to do, its an unintended side effect. So what do you do the curb the problem?

Its a two pronged attack really. You lobby the government to go after the big fish, the US citizens that are suppliers of hardware, software, and cash that keep the piracy groups running. And then the little fish, the ones the government can't or won't persue, you drag through civil litigation.

In my opinion, this will never end in the US because government is run by big business.

Doom9

14th November 2003, 16:48

I've read your enlightening (as usual) article and even though you have strong arguments to show that the record/movie industry is not following the right actions to solve the problem, I cannot agree with your statement above.

When someone buys pirated software, pirated movies, pirated books and the like, he is effectively giving money to somebody who, in turn, will not pay back to the creator of the piece.
The laws we're talking about say nothing about the pirate who sells stuff. I'm all for taking down those people who enrich themselves at the cost of others. But, the guy offering an mp3 on Kazaa isn't getting anything in return, which makes it somewhat different. And, if you go to a country like Malaysia, there's a simply reason why most CDs and DVDs are pirated. The legit product is just too expensive for the average citizen. So you can go after the pirate organizations all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that the consumers would need lower prices to be able to afford a legit copy (and keep in mind that we're not talking about rich first world countries here.. in my country you cannot use this argument as an excuse, because we are generally able to afford CDs and DVDs).

BTW, I found this thereg article that says that merely fiddling with your camcorder (you don't have to record anything) in a movie theater can get you locked away for up to 5 years. The bill concerns the "use or attempt to use" and regardless of whether you had the intention or did in fact publish what you recorded. So this is definitely "guilty till proven innocent" at work. Camcorder in the theater = dirty pirate and you're going away. So make sure you drop off your new camera before you go see the latest movie. Here's the link: http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/33988.html

r6d2

14th November 2003, 20:08

Originally posted by Doom9
The laws we're talking about say nothing about the pirate who sells stuff. I'm all for taking down those people who enrich themselves at the cost of others. But, the guy offering an mp3 on Kazaa isn't getting anything in return, which makes it somewhat different.
Most P2Ps reward you for uploading, giving you more priority and such so you can download more. Certainly, this guy offering an mp3 on Kazaa, I agree, is somewhat different. But how much different, really?

Does fair use allow you to make an unlimited number of copies for "your friends"? By doing that, aren't you also taking away money from the creator's pocket?

It's not a kid's interchange of baseball cards. You are not actually losing that file who somebody downloaded from you, are you? You’re just doing copies (or let others do them, more precisely) of copyrighted material.

If you don’t want to break the law, you should not share your legit copies of songs/movies from your personal library but what then? You can’t get sh*t.

There is only one way to get good download priority with P2P without breaking the law on this respect: download and share fully available material, AKA porn. You let your disk fill with crap and then you can download what you really need easy as a walk in the park.

But then you become a downloader of things you’ve not paid for, again putting your hand in the creator’s pocket.
And, if you go to a country like Malaysia, there's a simply reason why most CDs and DVDs are pirated. The legit product is just too expensive for the average citizen.
The same happens with generic versions of high-tech pharmacy products. If you apply the same logic to armed robbery you might as well justify stealing because you’re hungry, and paid murder because of an insurance policy, or anything imaginable.

I know the reality of third world countries. In my country, for instance, software, book and movie piracy is an emergent industry, and the government does not show strength and decision against that because there is high unemployment and most street sellers “would be stealing should they not have a way of make an honest living”.

You know I’m a writer. My income comes from the books I sell. To a new writer, the best thing that can happen to him is get pirated, so his work gets widespread at low cost, then get famous and charge for TV shows, lectures and that kind of stuff, which pays a lot better than book selling. You can even get a position in the government as an “intellectual” if you are on the right side of the fence.

But that does not change the fact that the editors, the designers and the presses to produce a book need the money to live also. The double standard that some governments apply is very interesting indeed, particularly provided that it does not resist any analysis whatsoever.
So you can go after the pirate organizations all you want, but that doesn't change the fact that the consumers would need lower prices to be able to afford a legit copy.
I don’t get this point. Are DVDs produced in some countries more expensive than others? The actual costs are barely the same, so somebody must be applying a huge unreasonable mark up. As “the market works”, you can always buy your legit movie on the net, cheaper if it exists.

If it’s a customs problem, I mean if the local government is too greedy and has high import taxes, then the problem those citizens must resolve first if to fix the government, not thinking of buying pirated material because legit is too expensive. Actually, the copyright defense institutions might better give the battle to greedy governments. ;)

But interesting things happen when you make the economy grounds “relative”:

I had this neighbor who runs a supermarket at a gas station. He always complained about his staff stealing chocolates, cigarettes, and even money from the store. His employees where literally shoplifting from him.

However, he used to have the latest releases of movies even before they were on the market. Very poor quality VCD encodes obtained by P2P. I asked him once if he did not think he was doing the same.

He told me a story about a poor old man who came to his business monthly. The guy only had one arm, and he was touched by that. He said he used to buy the movies from him “in order to help”.

I asked: If you want to help him, why don’t you just give him some money? Why do you only do it if he gives you a stolen piece in return? Why do you like to do charity with other people’s money?

He had difficulty at first noticing that he was doing exactly as his employees who stole from him. But after a while he got it.

Then his answer was even more curious indeed. He said “You know, everybody does it. I’ve learned to assume that employee theft is part of the business.”

What he does, because of this “fact of business”, is to charge more to customers who buy the stuff, so he can “compensate” the losses and remain even. At last, what he is doing is to let his employees rob from his customers. I wonder if that business strategy works in the long term.

You see, shoplifting, P2P and piracy end up related in ways you might not imagine.

Doobie

15th November 2003, 03:37

Doom9 said it. If thoplift a CD from Best Buy, Best Buy is out what they paid for the CD. They are not out what their sticker price is. If you download something, no one is out anything.

The only constitutional purpose of copyright law is to enrich the public by encouraging content creation. Copyright law absolutly is not based on the idea of ownership.

If you make music, you have no natural right to have anyone pay to listen to it. If you don't like that, then don't make music. However, if you want to rent a concert hall, you have every right to charge people to come in and listen to you.

N_F

15th November 2003, 04:08

Originally posted by r6d2
You know I’m a writer. My income comes from the books I sell.
Just curious, what do you write?

r6d2

15th November 2003, 04:55

Originally posted by Doobie
If you download something, no one is out anything.
No harm is done, eh?
The only constitutional purpose of copyright law is to enrich the public by encouraging content creation.
I wonder if not being able to get paid for what you do encourages content creation.
If you make music, you have no natural right to have anyone pay to listen to it. If you don't like that, then don't make music.
If I understand you correctly, your logic applies to every profession or occupation, or you have something personal against musicians? ;)

Susbtitute "music" with "houses" and "listen to it" with "live on them", and tell me if your statement makes any sense.

Actually, it is a very funny statement. Look what happens when you substitute "music" with "love" and "listen to it" with "screw you". You have hereby abolished the oldest profession in history of mankind. :)
However, if you want to rent a concert hall, you have every right to charge people to come in and listen to you.
According to your interesting logic, if I rent a concert hall for 2 cents, or even get it for free, do I still have the right to charge for people coming in to listen?

Does it have to do with costs, as in the Ford era? Or does it have to do with the value a good represents to the people who want it?

If the song you're illegally downloading represents no value to you, why do you download it? Rationale of economics say that it's because the cost of doing it is lower than the value you get.

If the song sucks, you'll probably delete it because the cost of keeping it is higher than the valuable disk space it uses.

But if you keep it, you are at least willing to pay 1-MB of disk space per minute. Wouldn't you feel better if you had paid something to the creator, instead of the hard disk manufacturer? Wouldn't you like the creator feel encouraged to create more?

Or you'd rather say to him "if you don't like that I get your songs without paying you, don't make music"?

Would you keep the money for yourself because you managed to get it for "free"? Or as you said before "no one is out anything"?
Originally posted by N_F
Just curious, what do you write?
I write guides for the Doom9 Forums ;)

Literature in general. I also wrote a book about consumer rights.

syzygytec

15th November 2003, 05:50

One point comes to mind for me, I one read an article, that as a copy for backup purpose is legal, it has to be a exact copy, this pertained to copy protected PC games, although far as I know, most of the games have such stiff copyprotection nowadays that it is not hardly possible to do a 1:1 copy that will work with external support via software, I may be off base, I'm certainly not "in the loop" on such matters, but the point being it was not within the bounds of a legit backup if the backup did not reproduce the original exactly. I wonders if that applies to re-authored DVD backups?
Anyway, yeah it's all about control. I don't think people are losing as much money as they say they are, hell the economy sucks anyway. I would always buy a CD over a downloaded mp3 album if it's something I want. As mentioned, people buy what they want and can afford, being possible to get such things free from P2P, from my persective isn't going to change what I would buy in any way, if anything, it might provide a preview that might make a sale of a CD I would have never even gave a listen to and that's the damn truth! fact actually!
AS far as DRM , Paladin ect. that crap is just overkill communism, I wish they would take total control of us, then publish some real figures and put thier foot in thier mouths when they are forced to show that their control made little differnece on their bottom line. At least this would be my guess.

I think every record company should make thier entire catalog available online at one dollar a song, provided they ripped them the right way using EAC and Lame I would even buy, I think they would make a killing. Well enough rant from this newbie moron

15th November 2003, 11:59

Originally posted by r6d2
If I understand you correctly, your logic applies to every profession or occupation, or you have something personal against musicians? ;)

Susbtitute "music" with "houses" and "listen to it" with "live on them", and tell me if your statement makes any sense.
What is it with your kind of people that you cannot differentiate between material things (houses, candy in a store), and "ethereal" (i'll just call it that cause I can't find a better word to suit the meaning) things (music, knowledge, digital content)? Material things cannot be copied. If you take one, someone loses one. ethereal things can be copied, recorded, multiplied into the millions, without anyone ever losing anything. The "loss in the creator's pocket" is simply in your head. You THINK you lose money, while in reality you would never have gotten money. There are a lot of people (more rather than less) who are only freeloading because they can. They would never actually buy anything like price-overblown software. In a world where they are not able to freeload ethereal things, they will simply live without all those things. These people (from my experience) are more likely to be a majority than a minority.
About creativity: if an individual pirates a copy of 3D Studio MAX, he is able to create wonderful things. The price tag ($1,095.00) is too high for him to ever have bought it. Well, tough luck; if he couldn't pirate it, he couldn't get it. Creative content wouldn't have been made. Even more so for products like Adobe Photoshop, where most of the web's tutorials, beginner guides, etc, come from pirated copies. The people that have image editing as their profession and actually own a legal copy through their company are a minority here. Let's not even consider the "try and buy" approach to pirating, where somebody might be interested in something, but there is no trial version (only limited or none at all), and doesn't want to spend a fortune just to know if he likes to do that which the software package allows (think image editing or something). The same goes for mp3 and DVD-rip downloading, but in that case the CD/DVD is actually higher quality (-> more reason to buy).
You CAN NOT compare ethereal pirating to shoplifting. Never. It requires a totally different way of thinking, and even challenges justice as it is defined in our laws. Think about it.

Doom9

15th November 2003, 13:31

Most P2Ps reward you for uploading, giving you more priority and such so you can download more. Certainly, this guy offering an mp3 on Kazaa, I agree, is somewhat different. But how much different, really?
Such mechanisms are based on one of the oldest human traits: trade. You get something so you give something in return. It is also about fairness and tries to prevent freeloading (many studies on P2P show that freeloading is a problem, so P2P tool creaters came up with ways to counteract the problem). You give something to get something.. that is entirely different from stealing where you only take.

Does fair use allow you to make an unlimited number of copies for "your friends"? By doing that, aren't you also taking away money from the creator's pocket?
Fair use doesn't cover uploading to P2P. Fair use clearly only refers to a closed friend circle. Some judges see that as your blood only, where others see it more relaxed, yet if anybody can access it, it's clearly not within your friend circle anymore. But, you are still not taking anything. I have yet to see a hand of a P2P user reach into a musicians pocket and take out his wallet (well, it is possible that this has happened but then it wasn't about an mp3 but about a wallet and the law has a punishment for that).

again putting your hand in the creator’s pocket.
mf put it more eloquently than I could (there is still a language barrier after all). There is a difference between material things and etherial things. Don't ever tell an engineer (I am one) something that goes against the laws of physics or he'll eat you alive. I haven't used a single P2P tool since Napster but you can be damned sure that you'll never see my hand into a musicians pocket taking out money.

The same happens with generic versions of high-tech pharmacy products. If you apply the same logic to armed robbery you might as well justify stealing because you’re hungry, and paid murder because of an insurance policy, or anything imaginable.
Did I say it was okay to sell pirated goods? I sure as hell didn't. I just gave a reason why it happens. The content industry is too blind to see anything but the effect. They see their product copied. They cry out, pay people off to get tougher laws (against the principles of democracy.. we should have togher laws against lobbyists, putting anybody in for 5 years for taking money from the RIAA/MPAA then passing a law that serves them.. that imho is just as criminal as selling pirated goods). But they are painfully oblivious to the cause. You cannot solve the problem with tougher laws and enforcement. Drugs is probably the best example.. look how painfully the no tolerance policy of certain countries is failing. You have to take a look at the global picture and try to do something about the cause, not only the effect. As the French guy in Matrix 2 said: Cause and Effect. Cause will still lead to effect even if you try to combat the effect.

I don’t get this point. Are DVDs produced in some countries more expensive than others? The actual costs are barely the same, so somebody must be applying a huge unreasonable mark up. As “the market works”, you can always buy your legit movie on the net, cheaper if it exists.
Actually, you are mistaken here. Region codes and laws pushed by the people you're trying to defend make it impossible for many to buy a product elsewhere. It's funny, we have the big corporations pushing for access to a global market without barriers, but because we don't have the same wages everyhwere they sell their product at different prices, then cry bloody murder if the consumer is smart enough to buy it somewhere where it's cheaper. Industries and countries are actively hampering customer rights in that area, while when it comes to them having access to the markets, it can't get liberal enough. Take region codes for example: totally against the idea of a global market, and with the help of paid off politicians they have managed to pass laws in many countries that make it illegal to sell DVDs from other regions.. in many cases even DVDs produced in neighboring countries. Movie and Music industry is dividing the global market into slices that they either keep for themselves or sell to other companies and keep those slices separated by technological measures and laws.

Last but not least, have you ever read a copyright law? Nowhere does it mention any financial recompensation for your work. Copyright law was created to encourage content creation and nothing else. It grants the creator certain exclusive rights so that his work is not ripped off. Those rights establish the groundwork that can be used for financial recompensation, but this is not a god or law given right. You won't get paid for content creation! You can get paid if you desire so, but that is up to every content creator. I don't get paid for my website content, do I? Yet you cannot simply copy my content because copyright law says I get so say who can use it and in what ways. Now imagine, someone rips off my guides and puts them on a page with which he makes money thanks to ads (or maybe it's a closed site with an entry fee). You say he's stealing from me. I say that's not the case. He is enriching himself through my creations, but he is not stealing from me. At the end of the month my account balance is the same regardless of this ripoff. But if he came over to my house and took some DVDs, then he would be stealing from me. Now this very real case actually happened, but was resolved without any lawyer involvement. Yet, should such a thing come to trial, I could claim damages because he made money off my creations. Copyright law says that I have to grand the use of my content (and that's usually done in a form of a license contract), and since I didn't, I'm eligible to parts or all of his gains plus other recompensation. Yet, this isn't a case of stealing, it's a case of making money of my work and that is both physically and legally different. The guy won't be sentenced for stealing. Now imagine the same case but without the guy making any money (this has also happened). According to the content industry the guy is once again stealing but I don't see my account balance changing and my DVD collection is still intact. And while I could still sue, I couldn't claim the same amount of damages and it would be up to me to proove damages to the court (in both cases actually.. only that with making money it's a lot easier to make my case) to get a recompensation (and if you follow US law proposals you'll see that the content industry wants to shift the burden of proof to the accused). In both cases, something isn't right but nobody has a hand in my pocket.

15th November 2003, 15:47

Originally posted by Doom9
mf put it more eloquently than I could (there is still a language barrier after all). There is a difference between material things and etherial things.
English is still my second language (Dutch is my first), but even through that barrier you manage to use a word (eloquent) that I have to look up in the dictionary :D. That also caused me to look up etherial (as I was looking up words anyway, so I might as well look that one up too, to be sure), and found out it's actually ethereal (which I should and could've known, I've actually always said "ethereal" before so I don't know where that spelling error even came from). ;)

Kedirekin

15th November 2003, 16:30

You know, this conversation of material versus non-material (concrete versus ethereal) shines some light on this subject for me.

If I could put my refrigerator up on P2P, how would people react to others obtaining a copy of my refrigerator?

I'm sure the refrigerator manufaturers and resalers would react much the same way the music and movie industry is right now; people are copying refrigerators, so they aren't buying them and it's destroying our profits - it isn't fair. More, they'd want to have control of the new refrigerator copying technology to cut down on their production and distribution cost - probably without any decrease in prices (sound familiar).

But how would 3rd parties (you and I and everyone else) react to the industry's stance? I feel sure that the general reaction to the industry would be 'tough'. A new technology exists to make copies of refrigerators. I'm sure most people would agree there's no reason we shouldn't be allowed to use it. I'm also sure most people wouldn't want the industry to have sole legal control of the new technology (DRM = Digital Refrigerator Management ;) ).

On the other hand, most people would agree that we don't want refrigerator manufacturers (or at least the designers) to cease to exist. That would eliminate innovation (I can remember a time when refrigerators didn't have ice cube dispensers in the door).

What do you think? Comments welcome.

fccHandler

15th November 2003, 19:03

Digital music still needs a storage medium for its bits, so I wouldn't really agree that it's "ethereal" (though certainly more so than a refrigerator). :D

15th November 2003, 19:38

Originally posted by fccHandler
Digital music still needs a storage medium for its bits, so I wouldn't really agree that it's "ethereal" (though certainly more so than a refrigerator). :D
If I write ones and zeroes on a piece of paper, I materially have paper with ink on top, but if I actually put some kind of message in these ones and zeroes I have created ethereal content, while materially it would be equal to me writing the same amount of ones and zeroes on paper, but sorting them by putting the zeroes at the top and the ones at the bottom (which would cause the message to be lost). Of course that still leaves the possibility to call myself an artist and sell it as a piece of art, which is when I've rebranded it as something of ethereal value again.

fccHandler

15th November 2003, 19:51

By that reasoning, the refrigerator is also ethereal. In theory I can purchase the materials to build my own copy of Kedirekin's refrigerator, and maybe even build a machine to help automate the process of creating my replica. The question then becomes, does the refrigerator manufacturer suffer because I chose to copy Kedirekin's refrigerator, instead of buying the same model in a store?

15th November 2003, 20:01

Originally posted by fccHandler
By that reasoning, the refrigerator is also ethereal. In theory I can purchase the materials to build my own copy of Kedirekin's refrigerator, and maybe even build a machine to help automate the process of creating my replica. The question then becomes, does the refrigerator manufacturer suffer because I chose to copy Kedirekin's refrigerator, instead of buying the same model in a store?
Here you are talking about refrigerator designs, for which we have laws. Those of patents and consumer confusion. If a product looks very alike the original creator can sue because the imitation confuses the buyer into thinking it is buying a brand. For the technical part of the refrigerator (new high-tech fast icecube maker?) there are patents. Of course, for personal use, you are exempt, because of fair use rights!

Atamido

15th November 2003, 20:09

Originally posted by mf
Of course, for personal use, you are exempt, because of fair use rights! Unless of course the refrigeration system used in the fridge you copied is DRM'd to prevent copies. If so, then you broke the law according to the DMCA.

I think its also a question of where you copied the fridge from. Was it your own and you just wanted a second one? Or was it your friends and you decided you wanted one just like it without paying money for it.

/me goes off to DRM a wooden pencil.

Kedirekin

15th November 2003, 20:12

Good point. A refrigerator is just steel (iron, carbon) and plastic (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc.). It's the pattern of assembly of these elements that makes it a refrigerator, so in a way a refrigerator is ethereal.

Part of the question becomes, when nanotechnology makes it possible to copy a refrigerator from elements (commodities) obtained from any wholesaler, will we be expected to compensate the refrigerator manufacturer for the privledge of copying his refrigerator?

If we are expected to compensate the manufacturer (or designer, or whatever you want to call them), will we be expected to compensate them as much as we compensate them for the full construction as we do today? Will it cost the same, even though the manufacturer isn't actually performing any incremental (per item) work.

I suspect you can see the parallels here, so I won't belabor them.

15th November 2003, 20:18

Originally posted by Kedirekin
Good point. A refrigerator is just steel (iron, carbon) and plastic (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, etc.). It's the pattern of assembly of these elements that makes it a refrigerator, so in a way a refrigerator is ethereal.

Part of the question becomes, when nanotechnology makes it possible to copy a refrigerator from elements (commodities) obtained from any wholesaler, will we be expected to compensate the refrigerator manufacturer for the privledge of copying his refrigerator?

If we are expected to compensate the manufacturer (or designer, or whatever you want to call them), will we be expected to compensate them as much as we compensate them for the full construction as we do today? Will it cost the same, even though the manufacturer isn't actually performing any incremental (per item) work.

I suspect you can see the parallels here, so I won't belabor them.
Of course, here is where it gets interesting. The major companies will first try to combat it all (of course :rolleyes:), after failure take over the nanotechnology market, selling construction kits for refrigerators with inflated prices. The programs for these nanobots, in all their ethereal nature, will of course be copied and pirated, and the rest I will leave to your own imagination to fill in what will happen. :D

cypher_soundz

16th November 2003, 01:27

Downloading Vs shoplifting, can't really be compared as doom9 has said , saying "shoplifting Vs reading/writing down content from a magazine in a shop" would may of been slightly better :D but my title is a little longer :p. I think this issue is so controversial because allot is based on "what ifs..." what if he hadn't of downloaded that album? would he of brought it? or would he of gone to the shop and listened to it? then not brought it? the later traditional method is seen to be ok, yet the same outcome happens (kinda). of course this guy could go back every day and listen to the album in the same shop :p. The view from the RIAA , is that of the evil pirate! who's 1st thought and main objective is for profit and to evade paying for something that SHOULD be paid for. But this is by no means near what your regular joe wants to do. Maybe if the RIAA gave some of their wealth to the artist and were not so greedy they could lower costs of cd's , and no one would mind paying a realistic price for a cd, as some times the goods songs are scarce then everyone would be happy! Of course i like the way of the album, you may not like all the songs, but as a whole it puts you in the mood / emotions of the artist, they wanted you to hear these song is this order to create feeling. Lastly I would like to see artist sharing their own work! just to see what would happen :D, lol I think this would waste allot of the RIAA's time and couldn't sue anyone :D hehehe.
Regards
Cyph

badbert

16th November 2003, 01:31

Why Download? I have Digital Cable with awesome music channels. Audio out to line in on my 'puter. Record in wave, convert to MP3...waa laa!! Perfect mp3s!! So is this shoplifting or filesharing... which punishment should I receive??

cypher_soundz

16th November 2003, 01:40

I record TV to VHS sometimes, and radio to tape (not often ) so in my view you are just creating something to watch/listen to later, of course this might not be the legal view :p.
Regards
Cyph

Prettz

16th November 2003, 03:19

Let's get one thing straight. Offering music, video, or commercial software of any kind on any kind of filesharing network IS, in fact, against the law. There's just no way you can argue around that basic fact.

Whether or not the creators would actually be losing money when someone downloads it off of you is the question. It's really a question that cannot be 100% answered, as the answer depends on who is downloading it and what their current (and future as well) situation is. There are those who are downloading free music just because it's there, who would not have purchased it to begin with (regardless of its price or availability). Then there are those who either would have purchased the material to begin with, or, after downloading the material, liked it enough that they would have then purchased it but didn't because they already had it. For the second group of people, the creators of the material are, in fact, losing money that they would have earned, and there's no way you can argue with that fact.

The music industry's push for ridiculous penalties is fairly easy to explain. They see this as a battle for their survival (or at least the survival of their corporate profits, which they really don't want to see disappear), they see that they're now in the middle of a situation which they have lost control of (when the entirety of the new generation of kids sees nothing wrong with filesharing, it's safe to say the industry has lost control of the situation), and they're implementing these new laws in order to shock everyone into coming to the conclusion that downloading doesn't pay. However, the fact that they would readily leave these new laws in place indefinitely means that they are going to be very bad for everyone, no matter how much you can sympathize with the industry in the current situation.

r6d2

16th November 2003, 05:34

Originally posted by mf
What is it with your kind of people that you cannot differentiate between material things (houses, candy in a store), and "etherial" (i'll just call it that cause I can't find a better word to suit the meaning) things (music, knowledge, digital content)?
Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that there is indeed “an intrinsic difference in nature” amongst material and ethereal things, as you say. (Which you assume “people like me” cannot differentiate).

According to that logic, which I presume is similar to Dobbie’s, the point then gets: if it’s ethereal, the creator of the good or service has no natural right to charge for it. Right?

Look at the prostitution example above. Sex is pretty ethereal, right? The woman stays the same after having sex, she even had some fun doing it. So why does she dare to charge? Why the customer is willing to pay?

Now you can say: That’s a completely different story, it is actually material, not ethereal! They have a very “material” physical contact!

However... no harm has been done.

If you don't like the example think of a strip show then. No touching. Only ethereally dancing on a stage taking out out her clothes. Can she charge? Can in fact she get paid a commission from the owner depending on how many customers there were watching her performance?

Isn’t it just like the theater hall? Can the musician charge for a presentation on a theater hall? (Still unanswered by Dobbie when the artist got the theater for free.)
About creativity: if an individual pirates a copy of 3D Studio MAX, he is able to create wonderful things. [...]. Well, tough luck; if he couldn't pirate it, he couldn't get it.
Assuming the musician has indeed the right to charge for the show, and with your logic of stimulating creativity, should any potential musician who wants to see the show but cannot afford the ticket be able to get in? We are pretty sure that listening to this other musician will have an impact on his creativity potential, so we should encourage it!

Or slipping into the theater is not considered ethereal like downloading? It surely should: No harm has been done! The artist’s pocket has not been ripped! It was just this poor musician wannabe, watching silently without paying, because he couldn’t afford it.

You creativity thesis is not new, it’s just Robin Hood’s spirit in the XXI Century.
Material things cannot be copied. If you take one, someone loses one. Etherial things can be copied, recorded, multiplied into the millions, without anyone ever losing anything.
But let’s get back to this material-ethereal thing.

Before technology allowed it, if you wanted to have your favorite artist’s record to listen it whenever you wanted you had to buy it. Right? It was a pretty material thing. Now, technology allows you to have an 99.9% quality copy of it, with paying a nickel to that artist.

What has changed? The nature of the good, which used to be material and is now ethereal? But wait... Wasn't that in the very intrinsic nature of the good? How did that possibly change? Had a DNA trasplant, as if it was a living thing? Had a molecular transformation?

What if at some point in the future, with new technology, a houseocopier is invented, and you can reproduce “without harm” any house you like? (or a refrigerator, like Kedirekin pointed out?)

Those guys will not be able to get paid for their jobs anymore? Technology may convert a house in something ethereal, so if you have kids, then don’t let them be musicians or architects or house-builders, or you’ll have to maintain them for life.

Doesn’t the creator of an art piece have the right to decide how to make his money, or not to make money at all? If he sells his distribution rights to a record company instead of providing download for free services, doesn’t that mean he is after some money?
There are a lot of people (more rather than less) who are only freeloading because they can. They would never actually buy anything like price-overblown software. In a world where they are not able to freeload etherial things, they will simply live without all those things.
As syzygytec put it quite interestingly, it seems that there are two classes of people: those who download but wouldn’t buy anyway (they just do it because they can, and cannot afford to buy), and those who download to try and afterwards they go and buy if they liked it, or plainly buy it at first.

What if the author decides to put his pieces on the net in try and buy mode, no record company needed, and he turns out to be good and people love him? Then, in this “two-class of people” world, freeloaders would download just because they can, and “payloaders” will go and pay, self motivated because the quality of the “material”.

Well, welcome to real world, guys. Things don’t work like that. Doom9 knows it. DVD2SVCD know it. People who can get something for free usually don’t like to pay for it afterwards. And I don’t think anybody questions the quality of the contents provided on this site, or the good quality DVD2SVCD software has.

Radio stations are actually paying to the author of every music piece for the right to put it on the air. That exists all over the world, and composers collect worldwide income for that (small, but it adds up at the end). By sharing a legit mp3 rip, you are “airing” something without paying the author.

No harm is done by freeloaders? “Anyone ever losing anything”?
You CAN NOT compare etherial pirating to shoplifting.
Well, excuse my insolence, but I actually could, and I provided you with several examples of why the material-ethereal distinction is superfluous, temporary, and not on the intrinsic nature of things we are discussing.

BTW, one of Einstein's theories stablishes the equivalence of mass and energy, quite material and ethereal stuff, respectively.
Think about it.
Well, I have. Now it’s your turn.

r6d2

16th November 2003, 05:49

Originally posted by Doom9
Such mechanisms are based on one of the oldest human traits: trade. [...] You give something to get something.. that is entirely different from stealing where you only take.
(From Webster’s online dictionary):
Trade: an exchange of property usually without use of money.
What exchange of property is taking place when you P2P? As I said on my previous post, P2P is not like exchanging baseball cards. Are you losing your property when you P2P?

Furthermore, do you actually have the “property” over the good in question?

Sharing, which is what you do in P2P, is quite different from trading. Sharing is distributing. And the author, who is the owner of the distribution rights of his creation, has sold them to a record company, which in turn has provided you a “good” with the created piece. You own that good. And you, by fair use, can copy it for your own personal use. But you have not acquired the right to distribute the piece, or air it on the net, or sharing it beyond fair use.

You can sell your good in the second hand market, if you want. But you are not entitled to sell copies of it, even legit copies. You are not entitled to trade copies either. And much less entitled to share them.

By doing so you are effectively doing something for which you have no right. The owner of the distribution rights, author or record company, has that right.
But, you are still not taking anything.
If you share the legit copy to get somebody else’s legit copy in return, both are trespassing the copyright holder’s right. To me, bypassing someone else’s rights is in a way stealing his potential income. I understand I’ll be not imprisoned for stealing, but I am indeed using something illegitimately obtained, for which I should have paid. That’s quite the definition of stealing:
(From Webster’s online dictionary):
Steal: to take or appropriate without right or leave and with intent to keep or make use of wrongfully.
There is a difference between material things and etherial things. Don't ever tell an engineer (I am one) something that goes against the laws of physics or he'll eat you alive.
Which physics law did I break, to risk being eaten alive by an engineer? I happen to be an engineer too, but not so good I guess since I did not learn all physics laws. :)
I haven't used a single P2P tool since Napster.
If you endorse it as “trade” and seem to legitimize it, then why don’t you do it anymore?
Did I say it was okay to sell pirated goods? I sure as hell didn't.
Did I say you were in favor of that? Sorry if I made myself misunderstood.
I just gave a reason why it happens.
And I just said that reason is what average citizens use as a way to justify their actions.
(From Webster’s online dictionary):
Justify: to show to have had a sufficient legal reason.
If they don’t justify themselves, they would consider themselves criminals. Just like my neighbor, who justified piracy because “to help the poor single handed old man”, because “everybody does it” and because “employee theft is part of the business”.

Average citizens like to have a “clear conscience”.
But they are painfully oblivious to the cause. You cannot solve the problem with tougher laws and enforcement.
They cannot beat technology. They don’t want to lose their margins. Those are facts. What they are doing, educate users and apply strong laws, is the only thing they can do to accomplish the target.

I don’t like it either. They might be more creative. Like James Bond said: “The world is not enough”. They want more. And they want to keep control, as syzygytec pointed out.

The same thing happened with the advent of the Gutenberg’s press. The Church would no longer control what was written. The same thing then again, when public libraries were formed since the'd "sell less books". The editors complained and lobbied just like the Church did before. And they lost. Then the net came. And they are repeating the agenda. They will lose again against technology.

But that does not change the fact that the copyright holder has the exclusive right to distribute the creations.
Region codes and laws pushed by the people you're trying to defend make it impossible for many to buy a product elsewhere.
I’m not trying to defend the actions they are taking. I find them absurd indeed. But I uphold the right they legitimately have, for which they have paid for, or the author's right, whichever the case.

I'm an author ;)

Sorry for the rant, but as you can see, I also have a passion on the subject.

fccHandler

16th November 2003, 05:50

Back to the refrigerator... mf points out that refrigerator designs are patented, and that I may be sued for building a replica of Kedirekin's fridge, even if it's solely for my own personal use. (And certainly if it's protected by DRM!) My understanding is that music isn't patented, yet people have been sued successfully (George Harrison, for instance) for creating original music which sounds too much like someone else's music. I'm not a lawyer, so I'm confused. What is the difference between patent and copyright?

Prettz

16th November 2003, 05:57

Originally posted by fccHandler
Back to the refrigerator... mf points out that refrigerator designs are patented, and that I may be sued for building a replica of Kedirekin's fridge, even if it's solely for my own personal use. (And certainly if it's protected by DRM!) My understanding is that music isn't patented, yet people have been sued successfully (George Harrison, for instance) for creating original music which sounds too much like someone else's music. I'm not a lawyer, so I'm confused. What is the difference between patent and copyright?
music isn't an idea or design, it's art.

fccHandler

16th November 2003, 06:06

Art it may be (whatever that is), but as mf suggests, the representation of music is also a design, whether it's notes written on a staff, or one's and zero's organized in a memory chip. Anyhow, don't you think the refrigerator was a work of art to it's creator?

Atamido

16th November 2003, 06:49

I think that this thread is suffering from a lack proper word use. Most of the time when you say 'ethereal', you mean 'intellectual property'. When comparing the music to the refrigerator you are comparing two different types of intellectual property. Patents and copyrights.

However, in the context that they are being used, they are almost the same. Patents are there to protect the income of scientists and copyrights are there to protect the income of artists. I wouldn't say that one is more important than the other and they both serve important purposes.

Neither I, nor probably anyone on this board would argue that the systems in place for these protections aren't being abused. Thats not the point of any part of this thread and so I would really hope that people don't get sidetracked into this issue again. There are already threads to discuss that if you use the secret search button.

I would say that the big question in this thread that has not been asked directly is, "What is the difference between using someone's intellectual property illegaly, and stealing someone's physical property?" Then the subtext of this question is, "How should the punishment of these two types of theft differ, if at all?"

fccHandler

16th November 2003, 07:55

Originally posted by Pamel
I would say that the big question in this thread that has not been asked directly is, "What is the difference between using someone's intellectual property illegaly, and stealing someone's physical property?" Then the subtext of this question is, "How should the punishment of these two types of theft differ, if at all?"
Well, obviously if I break into Kedirekin's house and take his refrigerator, he is directly affected (being minus one fridge), but if I make a copy of his refrigerator he doesn't suffer from that.

With the first crime, I have plainly injured Kedirekin by depriving him of his fridge, but there is absolutely no injury to him in the second crime. However, in both crimes there may be some injury to the manufacturer, who might have lost a sale to me because I got my refrigerator for free. But it's way more difficult to prove (unlike poor Kedirekin's fridge-less state), therefore I think the punishment for material theft should be far greater.

EDIT: I just realized that in the second case, I didn't get the refrigerator for free, because I had to invest some money in the materials to build it. Therefore I have already paid a price to have this thing, and perhaps my punishment should be even less because of that?

ChristianHJW

16th November 2003, 08:35

Interesting discussion. When asking myself why i have spent so many hours learning video compression, there is a simple answer :

Its the exorbitant price of DVDs that made me do it. If DVDs were cheaper, and i am totally convinced about that, only a very small number of digital freaks would bother to learn those technologies.

One might argue that in these exorbitant prices, like > 25,- US$/€ for a DVD, the industry receives payment already for at least 30 'pirated' copies of the very same DVD. And the music industry is simply killing itself with charging only a little less for their stuff.

I havent bought a single CD since at least 4 years ... can you believe that ? I am just not willing to pay anymore, after buying more than 600 music CDs legally and for a full price during my youth and twen time, when having the latest in music was the coolest thing for me, spending all of my available money as a student for that ( about 8000,- € if you take an average of 12,- € for a CD at that time, the price of a nice used car !! ).

Today's young people, thats what i learned from another thread here, cant spend the money on music CDs any longer, because they pay most of it to the mobile phone companies, phoning and sending SMS ;) ....

Doom9

16th November 2003, 11:54

I think Pamel made a really good point.. a lot of this discussion is somewhat beside the real question at hand. There's no need to argue whether or not P2P tools (and what you can do with them) are okay or not as copyright law is quite clear insofar as sharing music is not allowed. As for downloading music, that is a debatable point but its legality depends on your countries legislation (in most downloading is somewhere in the gray area, tending towards the illegal area).

What exchange of property is taking place when you P2P? As I said on my previous post, P2P is not like exchanging baseball cards. Are you losing your property when you P2P?
Maybe Webster needs to be adapted to the net. If you upload something, you offer part of your bandwidth (for which you paid, you can even quantify it to a dollar value, by dividing the monthly charge to charge per minute and multiply with the bandwidth use factor). Thus, in a way you are giving away a little part of your monthly fee. So there you have your property.

If you endorse it as “trade” and seem to legitimize it, then why don’t you do it anymore?
You are again misrepresenting my words. I don't endorse the use of P2P tools, I know that uploading is illegal and downloading is borderline illegal (and you know our forum policy regarding downloaded files.. do you think it could exist if I didn't agree with it?), but I'm not going to take out the BFG9000 and start shooting those people (that is the Doom version of taking a cannon to shoot on birds, or completely inappropriate sentences).
Why don't I use such tools anymore? Too slow, too much crap, and too time consuming. The time it takes to find an entire album in good quality that isn't in the top 20, to properly catalogue and tag it was just too much for me. So if I really wanted the album I went back to the store to pick it up.. at least there I didn't have to go through all the pain I had to go when getting it online. Yet, with all the audio copy protection around, if I can't break it (I have a portable MP3 player and a MiniDisc player.. MD was touted as CD compagnion for the road but now that they are blocking the digital output with the SCMS flag I was effectively cheated out of my money by the industry, was I not?) I'm not quite sure what to do with it. If I try to make use of my tools they sold me to have a CD with me on the road (discmans are bulky and not an option), according to them I am breaking the law. If I try to get it legally via the net, I'm restricted with DRM crap and cannot take the music with me either unless I buy another device that supports DRM. What do you suggest I do? How can I stay on the right side of the law yet make proper use of what I'm trying to buy? The RIAA and MPAA say that by going around any copy protection I should be locked away for 3-5 years and be fined a quarter million because I'm shoplifting. But we're once again back to where my hand goes into their pocket and takes out something from their shop.

Which physics law did I break, to risk being eaten alive by an engineer?You say if I download an MP3 from Kazaa I'm putting my hand into the artist's pocket. Since my hand stays right here on keyboard and mouse that is breaking the laws of physics. My hands cannot be at two places at the same time.

But that does not change the fact that the copyright holder has the exclusive right to distribute the creations.
No, that is not correct. There are exceptions, thus by my definition of exclusive, the distribution rights are actually not exclusive. I know the law says exclusive, but there are exceptions in it as well. Plus, when you sell a creation, you effectively loose control over it and the legit buyer can now decide what to do with it (within limits set by the law). For instance, there is the right for re-sale and you as creator will get neither a percentage from that sale, nor do you get to say anything in that sale.

But I uphold the right they legitimately have, for which they have paid for, or the author's right, whichever the case.
Do they have the right to techologies like region codes? As far as I know the WTO regulations, they are in voilation, it's just that since consumers don't have a lobby, they have a hard time fighting such injustice.

@r6d2: I think out of respect to our female members we should not make examples like prostitution and stripping.

Oh and another thing: The industry has also been pushing for flat fee compensation (taxes on CDs and DVDs). Effective since a few months, if you buy a DVD±R/W in my country, a considerable part of the price is that tag. If you buy 15 DVDs, you have effectively given the content industry about 1 movie DVD worth of money. So if you haven't used those blanks to copy any of their content, should you not a) get your money back or b) be allowed to do something for the money you paid (e.g. copy one movie without paying to equalize the score). While I don't like the idea of flat fees, I prefer it over DRM schemes. But then, since you do pay for a certain amount of copies, should you not be allowed to make them (starting with making a copy of a movie you own so the industry is not loosing a sale (but they want us to believe they are as the equalize private copying with what is being done on the black market)).

16th November 2003, 13:04

Originally posted by r6d2
Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that there is indeed “an intrinsic difference in nature” amongst material and ethereal things, as you say. (Which you assume “people like me” cannot differentiate).

According to that logic, which I presume is similar to Dobbie’s, the point then gets: if it’s ethereal, the creator of the good or service has no natural right to charge for it. Right?
No. Not right. Read it over, you didn't get the point.
Originally posted by Pamel
However, in the context that they are being used, they are almost the same. Patents are there to protect the income of scientists and copyrights are there to protect the income of artists.
Nope, not the income. As Doom9 said earlier:
Originally posted by doom9
Last but not least, have you ever read a copyright law? Nowhere does it mention any financial recompensation for your work. Copyright law was created to encourage content creation and nothing else. It grants the creator certain exclusive rights so that his work is not ripped off. Those rights establish the groundwork that can be used for financial recompensation, but this is not a god or law given right. You won't get paid for content creation! You can get paid if you desire so, but that is up to every content creator.

Doom9

16th November 2003, 13:32

BTW, one of Einstein's theories stablishes the equivalence of mass and energy, quite material and ethereal stuff, respectively.
You are talking about Einstein's special relativity theory and its most important formula: E=mc^2. But energy is material as well. If not, how can you explain the bruise you get when I throw a tennis ball at your face? By throwing the ball, I increase its kinetic energy, which is transferred to your face upon impact. The pain you feel from that energy transfer is quite material, with electrons shooting through your nerve system to stimulate the feeling of pain (for more details you have to ask somebody who studies medicine.. it's not my field of expertise). And while the ball is flying, you can see the energy as well, because you see the ball moving from point A to B (which takes energy).

r6d2

16th November 2003, 17:19

Originally posted by mf
No. Not right. Read it over, you didn't get the point.
No, you did not make any point whatsoever, you just based your first post in Dobbie’s and then in Doom9’s, and failed to provide any arguments to support you ethereal-material theory. You also favored the use of piracy for humanitarian reasons using Robin Hood's ideas.

I guess I just hoped you might use some ideas of your own, and support them afterwards too.
Nope, not the income. As Doom9 said earlier:
Well, I cannot read German so I cannot read the copyright law that applies there, but all copyright laws are similar. For instance, the U.S. law states that the owner of the copyright has the exclusive right “to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending”. (See here (http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/106.html).)

(I hope Doom9 won’t say that the Cornell University site needs "adaption to the net" too) :)

The law in my country says something quite in the same line of that one.

As you can see, the copyright law indeed grants the author a way to get money in exchange of his creation. He can sell, rent or lease. He can also, of course, use “other transfer of ownership”: he can donate it, he can leave it to his inheritors, or he can even decide not to distribute them at all, like the great Franz Kafka intended to. But it’s the author/owner who decides, not you.

And this is not god given or natural right (I never said it was). It is just the law.
Originally posted by Doom9
copyright law is quite clear insofar as sharing music is not allowed.
Great to hear you agree with that!
Maybe Webster needs to be adapted to the net. If you upload something, you offer part of your bandwidth (for which you paid).
And if you are on a hot spot and are not paying for the bandwidth? :). Come on, Doom9. It’s the song’s property we are talking about here. Not the bandwidth, CPU time or the electricity bill. That’s not what you are “trading”.
You are again misrepresenting my words.
Did I? Did I do it before, since I’m doing it again?
I don't endorse the use of P2P tools, I know that uploading is illegal and downloading is borderline illegal (and you know our forum policy regarding downloaded files.. do you think it could exist if I didn't agree with it?)
Sometimes well-intentioned citizens forget the law. As far as I can tell, I'm pretty sure you are a well-intentioned citizen, so you are not an exception. And what you said before can easily be considered like that:
In the case of shoplifting you are effectively creating a void in the shop's inventory, so they have a very real, quantifiable loss of money, which we don't have in case of copyright infringement.”
You seem to minimize the economic impact of downloading, which was the question LNielsen76 made and I presume you were answering in your post.

I’m glad you clarified your position, since, you know, what leaders like you say publicly is usually taken as facts by people who follow them, sometimes with no analysis whatsoever.
but I'm not going to take out the BFG9000 and start shooting those people
Me neither. They probably don’t even know the damage they are making.
Why don't I use such tools anymore? Too slow, too much crap, and too time consuming.
So, if I understand you correctly, if there was a tool that could locate “best quality shared copies”, auto tag them, and download them for you in one click... (kinda "GetAlbumFast4U" ;)) Would you use it?

Is it just the hindrance what refrains you? Or you just don’t because you know you’d be breaking the copyright law?
What do you suggest I do? How can I stay on the right side of the law yet make proper use of what I'm trying to buy?
You can always justify yourself to go against the law, as my neighbor. (Whether the law is stupid or not). When the critical mass of people understands the law is stupid, it won't be applicable.
You say if I download an MP3 from Kazaa I'm putting my hand into the artist's pocket. Since my hand stays right here on keyboard and mouse that is breaking the laws of physics. My hands cannot be at two places at the same time.
Ok, I get it. I should be eaten alive then. :)

However, Doom9, I’m pretty sure you understand that I was using a metaphor. We all do it. You, for instance, do it a lot. If you force me to take you literally, I ought to conclude that some German engineers are anthropophagus, which I think is not the case. ;)

Metaphor and analogies are good to communicating a point so it gets understood by other people.
No, that is not correct. There are exceptions, thus by my definition of exclusive, the distribution rights are actually not exclusive. I know the law says exclusive, but there are exceptions in it as well.
The law does not have to do with “my definition of exclusive”. The law says exclusive, you know that and just said it. “Exclusive” means it that belongs to the author and not to anyone else. And there are not limitations I know of which may grant anyone the right to upload their legitimately made copies.
Do they have the right to techologies like region codes?
No, I never said that. They have the right for which they paid for: exclusive distribution. They are the copyright holders. You insist on making me look as if I’m defending their actions. Again, I’m not. But the fact that they act stupidly, does not mean they don’t have the rights they have bought.
@r6d2: I think out of respect to our female members we should not make examples like prostitution and stripping.
I actually preferred the one of the houses, but then mf came out with the ethereal-material thing. I won’t use it anymore, but I don’t think it is disrespect to females more than to males. Gigolos also exist, male strippers also, and everything I said can be gender-inverted.
Originally posted by Doom9
You are talking about Einstein's special relativity theory and its most important formula: E=mc^2. But energy is material as well.
Well, that’s the whole point of Einstein’s theory, isn’t it? Matter and energy are equivalent. But before that, people thought that there were “intrinsic differences in nature” amongst the two. Energy was quite an ethereal thing.

Remember “The Universal Aether”, the Quintessence? They had this dilemma: The greek had “aer”, which humans breath, and “aether”, which gods breathe. Aether was pure. It filled the whole sky above Earth.
Then it came “the luminiferous ether” which was required in order to have light as a wave to propagate in space. The problem was whether ether had a mass or not. It required a mass and high density to support the high speed of light. However, this high density was incompatible with the movement of planets.

The existence of ether was ultimately discarded, as it was shown that electromagnetic waves, full-energy made, did not need a medium of transport.

Einstein showed how energy, having no mass at all, is indeed potentially transformable into matter. And vice-versa.
If not, how can you explain the bruise you get when I throw a tennis ball at your face? By throwing the ball, I increase its kinetic energy, which is transferred to your face upon impact.
Hmmm... Just to make a precision, the tennis ball hurts because it has mass and energy. We are being bombarded by thousands of photons every day, which have the highest kinetic energy known in nature, but have no mass whatsoever, and they don’t produce pain when bumping into your body.

Mass alone without energy can hurt too. Just put your hand under one of the refrigerator’s support points for a while and you’ll notice it. Energy alone can hurt too. Heat, for instance.

After all, mass and energy are equivalent.

Atamido

16th November 2003, 17:38

Originally posted by mf
Nope, not the income. As Doom9 said earlier: Errrr..... whatever. Its a government action to try and help the economy. The 'purpose' of intellectual property laws is to stimulate creativity and invention. The reasoning behind it is that artists and inventors had a hard time making money because anyone could just copy and sell whatever they made. If you can't make any money with it, you are far less likely to do it. So, if you protect someones 'works' and ensure that they can make money from a useful 'work', then they are far more likely to make that work.

So no, the goal is not to protect the income, but that was the method being tried to obtain the goal.

16th November 2003, 18:18

Originally posted by r6d2
No, you did not make any point whatsoever, you just based your first post in Dobbie’s and then in Doom9’s, and failed to provide any arguments to support you ethereal-material theory. You also favored the use of piracy for humanitarian reasons using Robin Hood's ideas.

I guess I just hoped you might use some ideas of your own, and support them afterwards too.
Oh, so because I read and replied to this thread later than doom9 what I say is not my own anymore? I was actually just glad to see someone saw it the same way as me. I always annoy my nails off when I read comparisons with shoplifting by official spokespeople. It's just so ignorant imho. What I meant with that you didn't get my post, is that I never mentioned anything about what is justiceful, or about how I "favor" any use of piracy. I just mentioned things that happen, and how they are in my eyes. When I mention creativity based on piracy, you immediately conclude that I think people should not make money out of etherial things, while I never said that. I will mention "your type of people" again (you seem to like it ;)): your type of people always seem to find unspoken (and 90% of the time unmeant) meanings out of people's words. You are doing the same with doom9. It seems I have to mention everything twice with an extra explanation until you see how I really think about it. Now this time I will actually even mention what I find justiceful. I find it okay that people pirate products which are not meant for individuals (serversoftware, corporate software like Maya/3DSMax/Photoshop), and have an according pricetag, as the creators of these products get enough money from the companies buying these products, and it is highly unlikely that these individuals would ever be prepared or even be able to bring out the needed cash to actually buy these products. Let me repeat again, this is the first time I bring my opinion on justice into this, and what I say here only applies to THIS statement, and it does not imply any other things I might find justiceful. Please do not speculate further on this. I hope I have made myself clear enough.

Doom9

16th November 2003, 18:24

The law in my country says something quite in the same line of that one.

As you can see, the copyright law indeed grants the author a way to get money in exchange of his creation. He can sell, rent or lease. He can also, of course, use “other transfer of ownership”: he can donate it, he can leave it to his inheritors, or he can even decide not to distribute them at all, like the great Franz Kafka intended to. But it’s the author/owner who decides, not you.
Here's a rough translation of the applicable law that applies to me:
use of the work
The author has the exclusive right to decide, if, when and how the work is used.
The authors specifically has the right to
a) to create copies in form of print, audio audiovisual or data containers
b) to offer copies, to sell or otherwise distribute
c) etc.
So you are right, it says sell. But that's one of the options and not the main reason why the law was created (see pamel's point). The idea of copyright law is still to further creation, not enrich people (you'll argue the two go togehter and I can't object to that, but it's the spirit in which the law was created that should ultimately decide how it should be adapted to modern times, now how the people who make financial advantages thanks to that law want to see it adapted).
But now as for exclusive, I said there were exceptions and there are
Limits of copyright
Personal use
Published works may only be used for personal use. Personal use includes:
a) the use of the work in a personal circle and in a circle of friends who are closely connected together like friends and relatives
b) the use of the work for academic purposes by a teacher
c) copying of works in companies, public institutions, commisions and similar institutions for internal information or documentation.
2) Those who are eligible for personal use as defined in 1) may use a 3rd party to create a copy. This includes libraries who offer their users a copying machine
So there you have your exclusivity. And to those who like you to believe there is no fair use right in copyright law. Personal use is in my countries copyright act so I can make as many copies as I want as long as I don't give them away to non friends (per definition upload to a P2P network is not included in the friends circle).

And since you were so nice to link me to the proper page, I found several sections of the US copyright act, all starting with the title "Limitations on exclusive rights: ". We have Sections 106 - 112 all covering limitations on exclusivity. So while it is arguing over semantics, if there's a an exception it is no longer exclusive. Heck, Sectoin 107 even mentions Fair use.. it is so written in the law.

And if you are on a hot spot and are not paying for the bandwidth? . Come on, Doom9. It’s the song’s property we are talking about here. Not the bandwidth, CPU time or the electricity bill. That’s not what you are “trading”.
Maybe you live somewhere where upload bandwith is unlimited, but where I'm from, it would take me days to upload a movie, and during that time my internet connection would be largely useless (for some wicked reason my incoming DSL bandwith goes down to almost zero if I use the outgoing bandwith). Thus, allowing somebody to download a movie for me has a very real adverse affect on my internet connectivity and so I'd only let people slow me down if I get something in return for that slowing down.

You seem to minimize the economic impact of downloading, which was the question LNielsen76 made and I presume you were answering in your post.
I still believe that. If the downloader has no intention of buying your product, if he didn't have the possibility to download for free, he'd not get your product, period. He might buy some product but definitely get less than if he can get things for free. thus, I cannot stand the hypocrites who cry about losses that are 90% made up. If you count every MP3 downloaded as a $1 loss for the music industry, you are getting to loss numbers that are simply not realistic.

Oh, and you haven't responed to my real example yet. As a copyright owner I have experienced what you call "hand in my pocket", so maybe you'd care to elaborate how much money they took out of my pocket, and if all those people should rot in jail for the next 5 years.

So, if I understand you correctly, if there was a tool that could locate “best quality shared copies”, auto tag them, and download them for you in one click... (kinda "GetAlbumFast4U" ) Would you use it?

Is it just the hindrance what refrains you? Or you just don’t because you know you’d be breaking the copyright law?
Oh I'd probably use it, but I'd still buy the product if I consider it worth buying. You know, I'm one of the people who've actually downloaded an MP3, liked the artist, went to the store the next day to buy the entire album. But according to the RIAA I should not rot in prison for the next 3-5 years despite having bought the entire album, not just for the song I downloaded. That just doesn't make any sense to me and I cannot imagine how it can make sense to anyone.
But say I downloaded a song that I didn't like and ended up deleting again after listening to it once. Now I'm a dirty pirate, am I not? Yet, have I stolen from the artist? I say no, because there's no way the author would've gotten money from me for that work. I could've gone to the music store, listened to the album and decided that I didn't like it and return empty handed. Where is the difference? The music industry wants you put away for 3-5 years for doing that, yet in the end they most certainly didn't loose a sale. Should anyone who goes to a store, listening to an album and deciding not to buy it go to prison as well? Doesn't the act of downloading something just turn wrong if the downloader decides to keep the song, yet refuses to pay for it? That is essentially why I'm so much against equalizing shoplifting and downloading. The moment I have downloaded a song, the loss counter at the RIAA HQ doesn't go up by $X. It only goes up if I keep their product without paying. Yet, at a store, the store is out one CD the moment I walk out of there (and even then.. imagine you getting away with the CD, the store owner not even noticing until he makes the next inventory. Then the next day you have a bad conscience and you go back to apologize and you pay the CD, plus maybe a little extra. A reasonable shop owner would not call the cops but let you get a way with a "make sure it doesn't happen again". That is what I call reasonable. But the industry doesn't even know how to spell that word, let alone pronounce it.

But if you want, lets assume for a sec both things are the same. Then I expect any filesharers to get the same punishment as for shoplifting. No more 3-5 years and a quarter million in damages.. now we're talking a hundred bucks and a slap on the wrist in most of the cases. And obviously it is entirely up to the shop owner to proove his damages in case the case actually goes to trial. The RIAA tries to bypass that with law proposals, subpoenas to bypass due process of law, and scaring tactics. I'd love to see them proove the exact a mount of each file of a 1000 file song collection was downloaded where, when and to whom.

r6d2

16th November 2003, 19:31

Originally posted by mf
Oh, so because I read and replied to this thread later than doom9 what I say is not my own anymore?
You replied to my answer to Doobie, and came out with the ethereal thing. Yet you failed to support that idea. And still do.
I was actually just glad to see someone saw it the same way as me. I always annoy my nails off when I read comparisons with shoplifting by official spokespeople.
Well, I’m not any official spokespeople. Just an author who believes he has the right to do whatever he wants with his creations, as well as any other author. Including making money from them.
It's just so ignorant imho.
Excuse my ignorance. I have a motto in my signature: "There is not much you can do about being an idiot, but about being an ignorant you have an option". That’s why I always try to learn from educated people like you, who declare themselves non ignorant.
When I mention creativity based on piracy, you immediately conclude that I think people should not make money out of etherial things, while I never said that.
Trying to be careful now, so you don’t accuse me of putting words in your mouth, which I certainly did not attempt to do:

Do you think people could make money from ethereal things then?

If you think no, then my guess was right, since you replied to my post to Doobie with the distinction of material and ethereal, which I cannot understand until I see some logical reasoning behind.

If you think yes, then I don’t see any point on doing a distinction. Can you explain that to an ignorant person?
I will mention "your type of people" again (you seem to like it ;))
Well, I don’t think it is educated to call anybody “your kind of people”. It sounds quite discriminatory. You did not even bother to use a smiley or a wink. But I’m nobody to teach you manners. I’m just an ignorant.

But actually, I found it quite funny, since I don’t think all people are so ignorant as I am and they should get the difference at once indeed. It makes me happy to know I’m not the only one unable to spot that. And I would really like to hear arguments towards it. I’m trying to be less ignorant.
It seems I have to mention everything twice with an extra explanation until you see how I really think about it.
Communication is a two way road. If I fail to get your point, it may be because I’m unable to. Also it may be because you failed to communicate it. Of course you have all rights not to put things in a way I can understand, but since you are trying to communicate, I guess you are interested in making your point clear.
Now this time I will actually even mention what I find justiceful. I find it okay that people pirate products which are not meant for individuals […] as the creators of these products get enough money from the companies buying these products, and it is highly unlikely that these individuals would ever be prepared or even be able to bring out the needed cash to actually buy these products.
This time you don’t just “mentioned things that happen”, you even find it “just”. It is pretty easy to find fair something like that when it is about somebody else’s money.

So it seems my guess of you favoring piracy was not a wild guess after all. You have fully shown everybody that “my kind of people” was able to find unspoken meanings (but truly meant) in your post, even before you recognized it.

16th November 2003, 20:44

Originally posted by r6d2
You replied to my answer to Doobie, and came out with the ethereal thing. Yet you failed to support that idea. And still do.

Could you tell me exactly what I should be supporting? Cause I think I am.

Well, I’m not any official spokespeople. Just an author who believes he has the right to do whatever he wants with his creations, as well as any other author. Including making money from them.

I never said you were.

Excuse my ignorance. I have a motto in my signature: "There is not much you can do about being an idiot, but about being an ignorant you have an option". That’s why I always try to learn from educated people like you, who declare themselves non ignorant.

Well first off, I find [comparing pirating ethereal content to shoplifting] ignorant, not the entire person who is doing it. Not to be nitpicking, I'd like to note (I'm not using this against you, purely informative) that "ignorant" is an adjective, not a noun. So you can be an ignorant person, you can be ignorant, but not an ignorant. Allow me to note also that I have never called you ignorant, just the comparison you make.

Trying to be careful now, so you don’t accuse me of putting words in your mouth, which I certainly did not attempt to do:

Do you think people could make money from ethereal things then?

Yes, and they have. It is just unrealistic (not unjusticeful) to expect everyone to do so. And it is just insane to punish it with such high fines.

If you think no, then my guess was right, since you replied to my post to Doobie with the distinction of material and ethereal, which I cannot understand until I see some logical reasoning behind.

If you think yes, then I don’t see any point on doing a distinction. Can you explain that to an ignorant person?

Nope, not to an ignorant person, but I think I'll be able to explain it to you. The answer is to be found throughout this thread. The distinction serves the purpose of weighing punishments in proportion to actual (meaning non-made up, as doom9 said: not $1 per pirated song) losses, if any.

Well, I don’t think it is educated to call anybody “your kind of people”. It sounds quite discriminatory. You did not even bother to use a smiley or a wink. But I’m nobody to teach you manners. I’m just an ignorant.

I did bother to use a smiley. You even quoted it. Anyway, am I discriminating for having a negative (yet non-aggressive or humiliating) opinion on people that have a certain view? I don't think many people will call me discriminating for not liking the views neo-nazis have, as I will not hunt them down or call them foul names. As long as they do not commit crimes because of their views, they have just as much right to have and share their views as people that support world peace, or democracy.

But actually, I found it quite funny, since I don’t think all people are so ignorant as I am and they should get the difference at once indeed. It makes me happy to know I’m not the only one unable to spot that. And I would really like to hear arguments towards it. I’m trying to be less ignorant.

Well, let's just say generalising can be good and bad. Comparing shoplifting to downloading is a form of generalisation, and it is bad in the fact that it is simply an incorrect comparison, but it can be good if it would cause downloading to have an equally low punishment as shoplifting. Usually it is better to just find the correct precise judgement instead. In my opinion that is the one that doesn't involve the big media industry to get what it wants, and rather places the artists on a higher shelf in the priority-rack. I think you, as a writer, would appreciate that too.

Communication is a two way road. If I fail to get your point, it may be because I’m unable to. Also it may be because you failed to communicate it. Of course you have all rights not to put things in a way I can understand, but since you are trying to communicate, I guess you are interested in making your point clear.

I am indeed trying to be as clear and elaborate as possible. Sorry if that is not so effective to you.

This time you don’t just “mentioned things that happen”, you even find it “just”. It is pretty easy to find fair something like that when it is about somebody else’s money.

It is easy to find fair something like that when the money distribution is more biased to the big rich companies that don't really need it instead of the actual artists. With this I of course mean the commercial music industry.

So it seems my guess of you favoring piracy was not a wild guess after all. You have fully shown everybody that “my kind of people” was able to find unspoken meanings (but truly meant) in your post, even before you recognized it.
I did not at any point before my previous reply give any identifiable indication of my favoring, so I'd still say it was a pretty wild guess. And I still have not revealed any of my opinions regarding the remainder of the types of piracy, as I have only mentioned one. After all, you still have a 50/50 chance of being right. So you might as well ask a blindfolded monkey to point at a paper with "FOR PIRACY" or one with "AGAINST PIRACY" on it, and you'd have just as much chance to be right. Feel very proud.

r6d2

16th November 2003, 21:08

Originally posted by Doom9
So you are right, it says sell. But that's one of the options and not the main reason why the law was created (see pamel's point).
You mean this point?
Originally posted by Pamel
The 'purpose' of intellectual property laws is to stimulate creativity and invention. The reasoning behind it is that artists and inventors had a hard time making money because anyone could just copy and sell whatever they made. If you can't make any money with it, you are far less likely to do it. […] So no, the goal is not to protect the income, but that was the method being tried to obtain the goal.
You’re probably right; it’s not about enriching people. I actually don’t know the exact and ultimate idea behind the copyright law. But I know, for sure, that it’s the author to decide how to distribute, not any user with uploading capabilities.
And since you were so nice to link me to the proper page, I found several sections of the US copyright act, all starting with the title "Limitations on exclusive rights: ". […] Heck, Sectoin 107 even mentions Fair use.. it is so written in the law.
I’m sure you noticed already, but just to make sure, I’m pretty aware of fair use (I’ve mentioned it in my previous posts), as well as the other limitations. Still, I’ve not found any limitation of exclusive rights who allows uploading legit copies. Have you?
I still believe that. If the downloader has no intention of buying your product, if he didn't have the possibility to download for free, he'd not get your product, period.
I know that. The RIAA knows that too. Maybe that’s why they don’t encourage and make war to P2P. But the point remains. Do you have the right to do that because technology allows it? I think we have already agreed that you don’t. Unless you back up mf’s theory of charity with someone else’s goods.
Oh, and you haven't responed to my real example yet. As a copyright owner I have experienced what you call "hand in my pocket", so maybe you'd care to elaborate how much money they took out of my pocket, and if all those people should rot in jail for the next 5 years.
How could I possibly? I have already made my position clear in other threads. You should charge a membership after the first 30 days of registering. You decided not to do so, and you have your reasons.

If you have not initiated legal actions against those using your contents as theirs, it is your decision too. But you should be able to make a case if you want to. Unlike us engineers, lawyers always manage to set up cases and get lucrative settlements. Stories of guys getting good cash for receiving spam are not unique anymore. It has actually worked.

And yet spam is increasing. Maybe anti-spam lawsuits are a new emerging industry of the century.

In a case like yours, I’d not send the guys to jail. I’d better have their money.
Oh I'd probably use it, but I'd still buy the product if I consider it worth buying. You know, I'm one of the people who've actually downloaded an MP3, liked the artist, went to the store the next day to buy the entire album.
Well, my guess was right. You are a well-intentioned citizen from the second class of people, the “payloaders”. It is an interesting model. It’s like if the artist at the theater hall charged on exit and not on entrance. You only pay the ticket if you stay till the end and you enjoyed the show.
That just doesn't make any sense to me and I cannot imagine how it can make sense to anyone.
It does not make sense to me either. But you didn’t think it did, did you?
I could've gone to the music store, listened to the album and decided that I didn't like it and return empty handed. Where is the difference?
The difference is the copyright holder decides how to distribute, not you. In fact, in your store example, he decided to let you hear the music in a controlled environment, where he made reasonably sure you did not took the song with you if you don’t pay for it.

What you’re saying makes a lot of sense, but that’s not the way it works now. If you got it through P2P the guy airing that had not rights to do so. And the owner of the rights cannot make sure you deleted the song afterwards if not willing to pay for it. That’s not a controlled environment, and as we haven seen, it’s all about control.
Doesn't the act of downloading something just turn wrong if the downloader decides to keep the song, yet refuses to pay for it? […] That is what I call reasonable. But the industry doesn't even know how to spell that word, let alone pronounce it.
It’s indeed an interesting idea. I wonder why the RIAA has not seen the possibilities of that. Even control-oriented industries should know better about what is good for their future.

But if you want, lets assume for a sec both things are the same. Then I expect any filesharers to get the same punishment as for shoplifting. […] Now we're talking a hundred bucks and a slap on the wrist in most of the cases.
Looks reasonable to me. However, collecting those bucks is likely to be more expensive than the bucks themselves, so they may have thought of “set an example” and scare hell out of people. The point is that if people are going to let that happen, or if a boycott will prove them it makes no sense. Only time will tell them if their tactics work or not. As in the past, they may very well not.

16th November 2003, 21:28

Originally posted by r6d2
Well, my guess was right. You are a well-intentioned citizen from the second class of people, the “payloaders”. It is an interesting model. It’s like if the artist at the theater hall charged on exit and not on entrance. You only pay the ticket if you stay till the end and you enjoyed the show.

Wrong comparison. If you insist on comparing to a concert, it would be more correct to say that you'd be able to listen to the starting song of the concert, and if you didn't like it, walk away without paying. My point is, there is alot more to a concert than just the first song, and there is alot more to an album than listening to it once.
Looks reasonable to me. However, collecting those bucks is likely to be more expensive than the bucks themselves, so they may have thought of “set an example” and scare hell out of people.
Only to cause the whole business to go underground, with the usernames of p2p users constantly changing in a random fashion, making tracking much harder and putting proof on the ISP's side for identifying offenders by their IP address alone, and making going court a lot harder, and even blocking "lawcrawler" IP-addresses completely (this is already happening).

Beastie Boy

16th November 2003, 22:12

When we hand cash over to the music store owner in axchange for a music CD, what is it we are actually paying for? It is one copy of the music and, more importantly, the right to listen to it whenever we wish. If I download that same music via P2P I haven't paid for the right to hear it and so if I play it, I have done so against the wishes of the content creator (or rights holder). This part is I think, is fairly straight foreward.

What is yet to be proven is whether or not P2P has actually caused financial loss to any party. Sure, profits are down but todays youth has so many more things to spend his money on, eg.games, mobile phones, Ecstacy tablets.
20 Years ago, buying music was the in thing. Every Sunday evening, kids everywhere would slip a blank cassete into their stereo ready to record the Top 40 hits. Now the music industry had little or no objection to this Why? Because they knew that this only fuelled peoples interest in the music scene, and that they would go and buy the singles that they liked the following week, even though they already had a copy on cassette.

As I see it, todays youth are doing the same thing, but instead of a radio and a cassette recorder, they have P2P and hard drives. But they still serve the same purpose, they fuel interest in music. Would half of these people be listening to 500 songs per month if they weren't able to download them? Granted, they don't always go and buy the songs, but as I said, there are so many other competing products. And it only takes a fraction of P2P users to go and buy an album after playing a few tracks for the Companies to make money.

So why are the RIAA jumping up and down over P2P? It's because they can easily sell the argument to the shareholders when they complain about profits. Then they throw money at it, make bold threats and sue people so that they can show they are taking action.
When a new song is released, its all aver the net in no time. No amount of advertising can buy that kind of exposure. If the artist releases enough good songs, it follows that people will buy the album.

Cheers, Beastie.

Just one last point. Can we all please respect each others opinion, even if we don't agree. Some arguments are in danger of getting a bit too personal.

Doom9

16th November 2003, 22:15

You mean this point?

Exactly.
Still, I’ve not found any limitation of exclusive rights who allows uploading legit copies.There is none, neither in US copyright law nor in any other I'm aware of. The exceptions to the exclusive distribution right have never gone as far and never will.

In a case like yours, I’d not send the guys to jail. I’d better have their money.
It's funny that you should mention that, because my copyright law teacher actually told us not to sue under penal law, but go claim damages in a civil law process, because the latter is more likely to succeed (and you do actually get something, whereas if you send a guy away to prison .. and it will take ages because judges don't care about copyright law penal cases and rather go for murderers, rapists, etc.). Yet, I don't see the sense in going after the guy who didn't try to make any money of my work. If we can come to an agreement, I'll leave it with a slap on the wrist and a "make sure it doesn't happen again", like the imaginary store owner I mentioned. In case of somebody making money off my work, it depends on the likelyhood of success in case of a ligitation, and the amount of money I could expect. It doesn't pay to get $2000 if you have to pay 10 grand in lawyers fees.

The difference is the copyright holder decides how to distribute, not you. In fact, in your store example, he decided to let you hear the music in a controlled environment, where he made reasonably sure you did not took the song with you if you don’t pay for it.
On the other hand, if you try to shop online, you cannot even listen to the entire song, or every song of the album. What is wrong with that? Basically the industry won't let you do anything with content that comes without physical support. I know this ain't gonna work. I much rather buy a CD, circumvent whichever copy protection there may be and then use the content the way I like. Note that the industry would probably still call me a shoplifter for that.

It does not make sense to me either. But you didn’t think it did, did you?
Well, for a moment there I was a bit concerned it might.

However, collecting those bucks is likely to be more expensive than the bucks themselves, so they may have thought of “set an example” and scare hell out of people.Talking about setting an example, it should go both ways (so the RIAA and studio honchos would have to go to prison for 10 years (at least.. damages are a shitload higher than for uploading a couple of MP3s) for pricefixing.

r6d2

16th November 2003, 22:21

Originally posted by mf
Could you tell me exactly what I should be supporting? Cause I think I am.
Just one thing: The reasoning for making a difference amongst ethereal and material stuff, which as you pointed out before, I don’t understand easily. And in fact I’ve given you some info on why it’s not easy to grasp.
I never said you were.
I never said you said I were. ;) mf, please, don’t get into that. We are not playing traps in semantics here.
"ignorant" is an adjective, not a noun. So you can be an ignorant person, you can be ignorant, but not an ignorant.
Didn’t I tell you? I’m a very ignorant person! Thanks to you, a little less now. English is not my native language, but in Spanish it’s not unusual to use adjectives as nouns in common conversation.
Allow me to note also that I have never called you ignorant.
You don’t need to. I’m pretty much aware. And I still think you are not.
I did bother to use a smiley. You even quoted it.
No, you did not. I was referring to the first time you used it (unless you are editing your first post as of now ;)).

On the second post, you showed a little more respect since you included a wink, but you still used it somewhat sarcastically “you seem to like it”). Even though I already explained to you that I found it funny, so I did not interpret that as sarcasm.
Anyway, am I discriminating for having a negative (yet non-aggressive or humiliating) opinion on people that have a certain view?
I don’t feel discriminated. I just think it was not educated from your part. You’re not an ignorant person. As such, you may choose your words from a wider variety, and since you chose those words, it may be concluded that you did not want to choose others. That reveals an attitude. But you know better. Don't take my word for it.

I don’t know if you read my posts thoroughly (I know you did not thoroughly read yours ;)), but I already understood why you want to make a distinction. Now I’m really interested in understanding why ethereal and material are so different in nature. To me, they are not.
Well, let's just say generalising can be good and bad. […] I think you, as a writer, would appreciate that too.
As a writer, I only care people to like my work and get paid for doing it according to my success. I can decide to write a “industry standard” best seller wannabe, or I can stick to what I like to write, people’s life intricacies, the use and abuse of power in modern society and what is our generation leaving to the newcomers.

In my country you cannot live from writing, unless you are politically connected, which I am not. As a consequence, I have a second job as an engineer.

I’d never be after imprisoning people by downloading a creation of mine. But I’d like them to pay for it if they like it. Provided such an ideal world does not exist, I have to resort to normal distribution channels, like editorial houses, who have heavy structures, are inefficient and whose purpose is to make money, not to spread the culture.
It is easy to find fair something like that when the money distribution is more biased to the big rich companies that don't really need it instead of the actual artists. With this I of course mean the commercial music industry.
Well, there are big fish in all industries you may think of. With the course of life you end up discovering that governments and legislators are actually driven by corporate or personal interests, and the ones who vote don’t get the expected promises delivered. By the time you get to know this, you are too worried about how to make a life and raise your kids, and don’t have time to battle or to go for revolutionary ideas like in university days.

When you get to finish you homework and your kids don’t need you as a provider anymore, you don’t have the strength to fight. You deserve to live the handful of life left hopefully enjoying it. You leave the task to the young.

And it ends up being a vicious circle. Well, too off topic now, so that’s it.
So you might as well ask a blindfolded monkey to point at a paper with "FOR PIRACY" or one with "AGAINST PIRACY" on it, and you'd have just as much chance to be right. Feel very proud.
Well, I don’t have a monkey at hand but my dog is pretty smart. I showed him your posts and waited to see if he growled or moved the tail.

Guess what he did. You have a 50/50 chance :)

16th November 2003, 23:26

Originally posted by r6d2
Just one thing: The reasoning for making a difference amongst ethereal and material stuff, which as you pointed out before, I don’t understand easily. And in fact I’ve given you some info on why it’s not easy to grasp.

I never said you said I were. ;) mf, please, don’t get into that. We are not playing traps in semantics here.

Just making sure. We all have a language barrier here, and assumption is the mother of all screwups.

Didn’t I tell you? I’m a very ignorant person! Thanks to you, a little less now. English is not my native language, but in Spanish it’s not unusual to use adjectives as nouns in common conversation.

You don’t need to. I’m pretty much aware. And I still think you are not.

No, you did not. I was referring to the first time you used it (unless you are editing your first post as of now ;)).

On the second post, you showed a little more respect since you included a wink, but you still used it somewhat sarcastically “you seem to like it”). Even though I already explained to you that I found it funny, so I did not interpret that as sarcasm.

Ah. Well, I was more hostile when I entered this thread. Through the replies we have interchanged I have gained more understanding and respect for you. So, that's why you didn't get the smiley the first time and did get it the second time :p.

I don’t feel discriminated. I just think it was not educated from your part. You’re not an ignorant person. As such, you may choose your words from a wider variety, and since you chose those words, it may be concluded that you did not want to choose others. That reveals an attitude. But you know better. Don't take my word for it.

Actually, I have some very extreme attitudes, to people as well as to life. I'm usually also very reckless. I try not to show that here now, though (because whenever I don't hide my attitude in an argument, people call me childish).

I don’t know if you read my posts thoroughly (I know you did not thoroughly read yours ;)), but I already understood why you want to make a distinction. Now I’m really interested in understanding why ethereal and material are so different in nature. To me, they are not.

I at least re-read my replies always once. But I guess as I also have other things to do (I've been very interested in this thread though, I really like it), it doesn't really qualify as thoroughly. I also read the posts I reply to twice, once to read it, and once to answer to it.

As a writer, I only care people to like my work and get paid for doing it according to my success. I can decide to write a “industry standard” best seller wannabe, or I can stick to what I like to write, people’s life intricacies, the use and abuse of power in modern society and what is our generation leaving to the newcomers.

In my country you cannot live from writing, unless you are politically connected, which I am not. As a consequence, I have a second job as an engineer.

I’d never be after imprisoning people by downloading a creation of mine. But I’d like them to pay for it if they like it. Provided such an ideal world does not exist, I have to resort to normal distribution channels, like editorial houses, who have heavy structures, are inefficient and whose purpose is to make money, not to spread the culture.

Actually, I've once considered downloading an album and then compensate for it by sending money through the mail. At least you can be sure the artist gets the money :rolleyes:, but it's too inconvenient when living overseas.

Well, there are big fish in all industries you may think of. With the course of life you end up discovering that governments and legislators are actually driven by corporate or personal interests, and the ones who vote don’t get the expected promises delivered. By the time you get to know this, you are too worried about how to make a life and raise your kids, and don’t have time to battle or to go for revolutionary ideas like in university days.

When you get to finish you homework and your kids don’t need you as a provider anymore, you don’t have the strength to fight. You deserve to live the handful of life left hopefully enjoying it. You leave the task to the young.

And it ends up being a vicious circle. Well, too off topic now, so that’s it.

Well, I don’t have a monkey at hand but my dog is pretty smart. I showed him your posts and waited to see if he growled or moved the tail.

Guess what he did. You have a 50/50 chance :)
I'll guess for wagging. :D